<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 18 December 1998.
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<CHAPTER ID=2>
Order of business
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
I would inform the House that I have received a second motion of censure on the Commission pursuant to Rule 34, tabled by Mr Fabre-Aubrespy and 68 other Members.
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With the agreement of the authors of the motion and the Commission, I propose that this motion should be added to the joint debate on the other motion of censure and the oral questions on today's agenda.
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Mr Striby has the floor.
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<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Striby">
Mr President, once again I must raise the troublesome question I asked two months ago about when we are going to be moving into the IPE IV building.
Rumour and hearsay are not good enough when it comes to Parliament's seat.
We know that the matter has been settled in the Treaties, but in its physical dimension - bricks and mortar - it remains unresolved.
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<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
We are dealing with the order of business, Mr Striby.
The question of IPE IV and its completion has nothing to do with the agenda.
You can table questions under Rule 28, and you no longer have the floor.
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Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, do you agree that we should take your motion of censure together with the one which is already on the agenda?
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<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I think it is a good idea to have a joint debate because I would not want to force a new debate tomorrow morning, to be followed by a vote on Thursday, 48 hours later.
I think it would be appropriate, given the formal nature of the procedure and the fact that the introduction of a motion of censure is exceptional, for the first signatories of the two motions, namely Mrs Green and myself, to speak first in this debate.
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The motion you quote comes from all the political groups in Parliament without exception, namely a total of 69 Members.
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<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
The Commission also has to agree to these two motions of censure being taken in joint debate.
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Could I ask the President of the Commission if he is in agreement with this procedure?
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The President of the Commission agreed to this proposal
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<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Corbett">
Mr President, Rule 34 of Parliament's Rules of Procedure states that the debate on a motion of censure shall not take place until at least 24 hours after its receipt is announced to Members.
I was very curious to know why, given that one censure motion has already been tabled, certain Members saw fit to table another motion of censure which, at least under our Rules, should not and could not take place at the same time.
But now I understand the reason: it is because Mr Fabre-Aubrespy is seeking it as a device to be able to speak earlier in the debate than he otherwise would.
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<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
I put to the vote the proposal that the two motions of censure should be taken in joint debate.
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Parliament approved the proposal
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Tuesday and Wednesday: no changes
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Thursday:
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<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
The Green Group has asked for the vote on the five reports on Agenda 2000 from the Committee on Agriculture, in other words those by Mr Mulder, Mr Garot, Mr Goepel, Mr Fantuzzi and Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, to be taken this Thursday instead of on 28 January, as currently scheduled.
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Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf has the floor to explain this request.
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<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Mr President, our group requests that the debate on Agenda 2000, in other words the reform of agriculture policy, and the vote on the reports discussed should not be held at different times.
We asked for the vote to be held this week, but if this is not possible for reasons of time, we believe it would be better to postpone the entire debate plus the vote until the Brussels part-session.
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Voting is not a technical act, but one of great political importance.
We must not uncouple the debate, which is concerned primarily with amendments and examination of the various issues, from the vote.
I trust the House will be amenable to our proposal.
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<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf.
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Mr Goepel has the floor to speak against the request.
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<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Goepel">
Mr President, whilst I believe a vote of confidence to be extremely important, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf is quite right in saying that Agenda 2000 is a matter of great political importance too.
We should not put aside everything to do with this, but should debate the market sectors on Wednesday as planned, irrespective of other events.
It would be a clear belittling of the most important issue which this House will be debating between now and the year 2006 simply to postpone it and say we will deal with this at the two-day mini-session in Brussels.
I appreciate that there is simply not time to vote on over 400 amendments.
We could certainly hold the vote in Brussels, but we should debate Agenda 2000 on Wednesday.
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<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
I put the request from the Green Group to the vote.
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Parliament rejected the request
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<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I quite understand that the vote on Agenda 2000 and the 400 amendments to it has been postponed.
What I do not understand is that we are dealing with the Hermange report on Thursday evening but not voting on it on Friday morning, as would normally be the case.
I should like to know the reason, and I think this is a procedure which should not be repeated in future.
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<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="President">
The groups will decide in future, Mr Posselt.
This time, the Conference of Presidents decided that it was preferable to vote separately on a different day, namely 28 January, and to hold the debate this week.
Given that no alternative proposal has been made, we cannot change anything at the moment, since no amendment to the agenda was proposed at the appropriate time.
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Friday: no changes
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Brussels
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Wednesday, 27 January and Thursday, 28 January 1999: no changes
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The order of business was adopted thus amended
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<CHAPTER ID=3>
Motion of censure - refusal to grant a discharge for 1996
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on:
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two motions of censure on the Commission pursuant to Rule 34, tabled by Mrs Green and others and Mr Fabre-Aubrespy and others; -the following oral questions to the Commission on the discharge for 1996: -B4-0012/99 by Mrs Green, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on improving European Union financial management; -B4-0011/99 by Mr Martens and Mr Elles, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on 1996 discharge; -B4-0009/99 by Mr Cox, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, on the reaction to Parliament's refusal to grant discharge concerning the 1996 budget of the European Union; -B4-0013/99 by Mr Pasty, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, on the consequences for the Commission of the refusal to give discharge for the 1996 budget; -B4-0014/99 by Mr Puerta, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the consequences for the Commission of the refusal to give discharge for the 1996 budget; -B4-0016/99 by Mrs Aelvoet, Mr Holm and Mrs Müller, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on discharge for 1996; -B4-0015/99 by Mrs Lalumière, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on referral by Parliament back to the Committee on Budgetary Control of the report on discharge for the 1996 budget of the European Union.I shall give the floor initially to the two first signatories of the motions of censure, and then to the groups which have tabled questions concerning the refusal to give discharge.
The President of the Commission will speak after that, and then we shall continue with the debate.
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We shall now begin with Mrs Green as the first signatory of the first motion of censure to be tabled.
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Mrs Berès has a point of order.
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<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berès">
Mr President, the honourable Members who withdrew their signatures, on behalf of my delegation, are Gérard Caudron, Danielle Darras and Marie Noëlle Lienemann plus myself, that is to say all the French Socialists.
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<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="President">
There is still one more than the minimum.
So in any event, the number of signatures is above the minimum required for the vote on the motion of censure.
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<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Green">
Mr President, on 17 December immediately after the vote on the Elles report I tabled a motion of censure on the European Commission on behalf of the Parliamentary Group of the Party of European Socialists.
It had been my public position in this House and in the media for some weeks prior to that vote that the decision on discharge of the 1996 budget was a clear statement about the financial competence or otherwise of the European Commission.
Those in this House who are prepared to declare the Commission financially incompetent must take the only possible institutional step in their power and seek to sack it.
The motion of censure was tabled by me to demand that those who felt the Commission was culpable with respect to the 1996 budget should face up to their responsibility.
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The next three months are critical for the development of the European Union and for the enlargement process.
As we move towards the special summit at the end of March, which is charged with bringing forward a common position on reforming agricultural policy, on new rules for the distribution of funds to the regions, and with making sure that the future financing of the Union is fair to all Member States, it is vital that the European Commission is working at its most effective in close partnership, a partnership of trust and confidence, with both Parliament and the Council.
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This House cannot extend this crisis into those coming weeks.
One of the fundamental reasons for the tabling of the motion of censure was to decide now, immediately, whether or not the European Commission is to be able to do its work.
If it is not, then we should decide so now.
I would say to the drafters of some resolutions which are tabled for joint debate with this motion of censure that their approach is sure to lead to an ongoing crisis for weeks if not months.
That is in nobody's best interest and certainly not of those who are depending on the outcome of European Union policies - the people of the European Union.
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During the vote on discharge of the 1996 budget in December, the great majority of my group voted in favour because we believed that the Commission had satisfied Parliament in three of the six areas in which we had expressed our concerns and had gone some way in three other areas.
We were of the view that in some respects the European Commission was simply not able to comply with all our demands, as for instance where there are shared or joint responsibilities with the Council or national governments.
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We had supported the demands of the Committee on Budgetary Control when it postponed discharge in March and asked for further clarification and action.
We believed that when the discharge vote came before us in December we had already exercised considerable influence for change and with the prospect of an equally difficult discharge for the 1997 budget immediately before us we could continue to make even more changes inevitable.
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This was Parliament acting responsibly and driving the agenda for change.
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With some success to our name, thanks to the work of the Committee on Budgetary Control, and the opportunity to achieve even more in the coming months in the context of the 1997 discharge, the great majority of my Group want the Commission to get on with its work for Agenda 2000.
That was the basis for our position in December.
It must be said that there are colleagues in this House in all groups - mine included - who believe that such is the severity of the problems which was displayed by the European Commission over the 1996 discharge, that they could not grant discharge and they will vote for the motion of censure.
I believe those colleagues are sincere and I respect them, even if I am of a different view.
There are others, however, whose motives are more about the smell of an election in their nostrils or a particular domestic agenda to which they are playing.
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Murmurs of dissent
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So be it!
The fascinating thing about politics is that it is not static: it is a dynamic process and moves on quickly.
A major weakness in our constitutional arrangements which has been revealed by this current crisis is that, unlike executives in almost any other setting, the European Commission has no ability to come to this House and ask for a vote of confidence.
I listened with amusement to the reaction of parliamentarians on the eve of the Elles vote when the Commission made clear in its statement that it considered the vote a matter of confidence.
The view that this was in some way bringing undue pressure to bear is surely overly sensitive.
In any democratic parliamentary process which I know, this sort of thing is part and parcel of normal, robust interaction between the executive and the parliament to which it is democratically accountable.
But in a company boardroom, a voluntary organisation or national governments, if the parliament, shareholders or members declared that the executive was financially incompetent, then that executive would surely be entitled to know whether it had the confidence of that parliament, those shareholders or members, and there would be a procedure by which they could ask for a vote of confidence or otherwise.
My first demand, on behalf of my Group, is that the Treaty and/or Rules of Procedure should be changed to put in place such a procedure.
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In the three weeks since the motion of censure was tabled, things have changed.
In that time there has been a large number of new allegations which require rigorous investigation and rapid action, as well as continuing press speculation about existing accusations.
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As I have already explained, the motion of censure was posited on the failure to grant discharge in December.
However, the recent accusations demonstrate the problems which lie at the heart of the current crisis.
It is not a matter of whether we have political differences with the European Commission.
Of course we have such differences as between one institution and another, and as political families with a clear view of where we want Europe to go in the future.
But political differences of that sort are what democracy is all about and we accept that it is part of the battle of ideas.
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It is not a matter entirely of competence either.
Let us be honest and say that any Commission which has been responsible for seeing through so smoothly the introduction of the single currency, performing the intensely complex and huge task of opening negotiations with six applicant States and keeping another five applications under active consideration - just to mention two unique events of recent days and months - cannot be declared totally incompetent.
It is much more about the ambience, the ethos of secrecy, patronage, nepotism and obstructionism which appears to surround the Commission and its Members.
It is this wider sense of petty corruption which is doing such devastating damage to the Commission and its officials and it is this which simply must be dealt with.
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I should like to say to President Santer that it has been my view for some time - and I have argued this with him before - that the European Commission is at present the accumulation of 15 national administrative cultures.
Increasingly these 15 national cultures are creating tensions in working practices in terms of the cultural expectations, norms and values which accompany them.
Too often they simply do not gel into a coherent whole.
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There is a real opportunity now to grasp the nettle and lay down the parameters of a European administrative culture.
Such a change would give confidence to the Commission officials, from the highest to the lowest, that they have common rules of engagement in their work, well defined, understood and, most importantly, endorsed, enacted and enforced from the top.
In that respect this Parliament too has much to gain and learn from such an approach.
We would have to respect such parameters and bring a maturity to our work of monitoring and controlling Commission spending and policy implementation.
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I accept that in some areas we can be accused of duplicity: moving goalposts once demands have been fulfilled; using different national norms and values as the gauge and, in some instances, acting inappropriately as judge and jury.
All of us here agree completely that fraud and corruption is totally unacceptable, even were it to be minuscule.
All of us here across this House are committed to weeding out abuses, using our powers to expose fraud and bring those responsible to justice in the proper way through the appropriate judicial authorities.
My group has done more than its fair share in this respect and we will support every effort to continue.
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All of us in this House understand just what it means to be the subject of press campaigns and sometimes vilification on the basis of unproven allegations.
If we are to demand the heads of certain individuals on the basis of public campaigns before proper investigation is completed, or sometimes even started, then perhaps we should have resigned en masse when the media was at its most vitriolic in claiming that MEPs were abusing their allowances and expenses regime.
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Of course we all recognise that to act on media speculation would be inappropriate.
But we must also recognise that the lack of a transparent set of rules governing relations between Commissioners, their cabinets and their directorates-general has fuelled claims of nepotism, patronage and financial gain.
This must be dealt with now.
I hope that when the President of the Commission responds to this debate he acknowledges the need for immediate action in this area and tells us what he intends to do.
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My group's second demand is for a set of transparent rules governing relations between Commissioners, their cabinets and their directorates-general before the end of March 1999.
My group will not allow individuals, whether they be Commissioners or junior officials, to be tried by the press.
But I want to make it perfectly clear that if accusations against any individual are proven - no matter how powerful or how lowly, no matter what gender, no matter what political affiliation - we will demand that they be brought to account.
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We do not have the institutional right to cherry-pick amongst the College of Commissioners.
We may wish we had.
We have argued for it in the IGC in the past and will no doubt argue with renewed vigour for it in the future.
But at present we do not have such a right.
It is for this reason that we will not support those resolutions from other political groups which are seeking to apportion blame for all the ills of the Commission on the heads of selected individuals against whom no case has yet been proven.
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Applause
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Anyway, were we to pick individuals or areas of suspected fraud or corruption, why is there no mention of the common agricultural policy where fraud is well-documented and ongoing?
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Applause
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Why no mention of the programmes for PHARE and TACIS where the rumours are as serious and as widespread?
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Applause
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If we are to sustain and increase our integrity as a monitoring and controlling body to which the Commission is accountable, we must not be partial in our criticisms.
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There is another important issue concerning the treatment of whistleblowers.
My group supports the concept of whistleblowing.
Indeed, we were instrumental in this House in helping to introduce it.
Any person dealing with a whistleblower has two major responsibilities.
Firstly, he must protect the whistleblower, and his or her identity, and secondly protect those against whom accusations are being made until they are investigated properly.
This surely is natural justice.
In the cause of Paul Van Buitenen both those responsibilities were breached.
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I regret that his personal integrity is now damaged.
Having spoken to him I have no doubt that he believes he has honest cause.
I have no doubt either that he has been used by some politicians and by some in the media and, in consequence, he has been abused.
I note that the dossier which Mr Van Buitenen gave to a Member of this Parliament included information which was already the subject of investigation in Parliament, in the Commission and in some cases before the courts.
I understand that he has provided other information which contains new allegations which are now to be investigated.
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But had the Commission had procedures and structures which allowed abuses to be identified and followed up speedily and efficiently, then the Van Buitenen case would not have been necessary.
It is in this area where I believe the Commission is vulnerable and must show great determination.
The time is right to acknowledge that such is the depth of concern that only an independent review can restore confidence and trust in the way in which the Commission deals with abuses in its own programmes.
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President Santer, in early December, after two discussions between ourselves, you wrote to me offering the opportunity for Parliament to be involved in your management reforms.
We think that is important and I will come back to it.
But I would ask you to go one step further and agree to an independent review under the joint auspices of our two institutions.
Nothing less will give confidence to Europe's public that everything possible is being done to root out abuses as and when they are identified and brought to attention.
So our third demand is for an independent review to assess and make recommendations on the detection and follow-up of abuses before the end of this year.
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President Santer, given your offer to this Parliament to be involved in your plans for management reform, it is important that Commission and Parliament produce a timetable for detailed discussions on those plans before the end of this week and schedule a full debate in the final May plenary session here in Strasbourg.
The aim would be that prior to your promised report to the Council at the Cologne summit in June, you have the advice, participation and I hope the support of this Parliament in creating a Commission which reflects a modern, transparent and efficient management structure and system.
My group's fourth demand therefore is that a timetable for negotiations between Parliament and the Commission be drawn up by the end of this week to structure the final shape of the Commission management structure of the future.
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Tabling a motion of censure is not a measure I take lightly.
It is the most powerful weapon which Parliament possesses.
But refusing to discharge the 1996 budget is not just the simple technical issue which some in this House are now trying to portray it as.
In the weeks leading up to the discharge vote, this issue became a major issue of confidence - rightly so, in my view.
There is very little as important as the way in which the Commission spends public money at a time when public funds are under desperately tight control for reasons which we all know.
It is simply unacceptable to say we do not trust the Commission with the spending of public money but we are not prepared to do anything further about it.
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The only institutional power which this House has is to remove the entire Commission if we believe the situation is so grave and beyond redemption.
Simply to do nothing, to fail to respond is not acceptable.
This debate - and in particular the Commission's response - is our opportunity to make that judgment.
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Applause
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<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Santer, Members of the Commission, I shall be talking for three minutes on behalf of 69 Members, after hearing Mrs Green talk for seventeen and a half minutes on behalf of 64 or 65 Members!
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I must begin, however, by expressing my warmest thanks to the 60 Members who have had the courage to put their names to another motion of censure, a genuine motion of censure.
These 69 Members represent all the political groups in this House: nine from the GUE Group, one from the Socialist Group, 13 from the Green Group, two from the ARE Group, two from the ELDR Group, four from the UPE Group, 11 from the PPE Group - to be followed, I gather, by many more - plus 16 from the I-EDN Group and 11 from the NI Group.
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These Members represent all the European Union countries with the sole exception of Luxembourg.
In putting down this motion of censure which, unlike the Socialist motion, is an unambiguous motion of censure and not a motion of confidence in disguise, those Members who have signed it are, given the seriousness of the accusations levelled at the Commission, carrying through the logical consequence of the vote held on 17 December.
Because that is what this is all about.
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Over the last four years, the Court of Auditors has not once given a clear endorsement of the legality and regularity of payments made by the Commission.
In its reports, the Court of Auditors has exposed the scandal of loans to tourism and the scandal of the Mediterranean programmes; more recently, the scandal over ECHO and those concerning goods in transit and the Commission's buildings; and, more recently still, the cancellation of a recruitment competition due to cheating.
And we have just now received, for the first time, a document dated 8 January which I would invite you to read because it details all the facts of which the Commission stands accused, together with the legal procedures which have been instituted, albeit sometimes late in the day.
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And I would invite you to ask some very simple questions: how, for example, can it be that Mr Perry had a privileged relationship with the Commission of the European Union for a period of 28 years, to the point where his name featured in the directory of Commission departments?
How can it be that he negotiated contracts to a total value of several hundred million ECU with 17 directorates-general?
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The issue here is not the position of this or that Commissioner, not even the position of the President of the Commission; what is at issue is the credibility of the European Parliament and the confidence of Member State citizens in the European institutions.
This is what we, who have put down the real motion of censure, are seeking to restore: we want to restore our people's confidence in the institutions of the European Union and, contrary to what I have heard said, that will strengthen rather than weaken the building of Europe.
For this reason I would urge you, ladies and gentlemen, whatever happens in the next few days, to vote for the motion of censure, the only genuine motion of censure, which I and 68 of my fellow Members have put down.
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Applause from certain quarters
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<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
Mr President, Mr Santer, Members of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I do not plan to use up the full 20 minutes.
I shall speak again presently after the Commission President has addressed the House.
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We are undoubtedly - I think no one should have any illusions about it - experiencing a crisis of severe proportions in the European Union between Parliament and the Commission.
The first thing I must say is that the indirect or moral support given by the European Commission to the idea of a motion of censure was a major political blunder.
More specifically, we tried, under the direction of the chairman of the Committee on Budgetary Control, Mrs Theato, on the basis of Mr Elles's report and on the basis of Mr Bösch's report, to get a dialogue going between the European Parliament and the Commission.
We asked for compliance with the rules of this House which say that if a discharge is not granted for a given year, the debate must be continued between the Commission and the Committee on Budgetary Control.
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This, Mr Santer, is the first point made in our oral question: we want you to explain this to us.
We think you engaged in a political manoeuvre which has benefited neither the Commission nor Parliament and has now brought us to the brink of a deep political crisis.
I think in all honesty that this has to be said.
The whole matter has been heavily politicised and I think that was very wrong.
I said here on 17 December, on behalf of our group, that we retained our faith in the Commission President that he would carry out the reforms which were manifestly an absolute necessity, and in that way restore real confidence between Parliament and the Commission.
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I also said at the time - and Mrs Green accused me of hypocrisy, but it was not hypocrisy, anything but - that we wanted to base ourselves on paragraphs 26 and 27 of the motion for a resolution in Mr Elles's report.
As I say, we are now on the brink of a political crisis.
We risk a major political crisis.
So this is, in the true sense of the word, a debate on Parliament's confidence in the Commission.
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I agree with those who say - and I shall say it in my conclusion - that confidence between Parliament and the Commission is vitally important to the European Union.
Our two institutions act as a motor, a driving force, in the process of EU integration.
There is still, Mr Santer, a very large majority of more than two thirds in this House in favour of bringing this job of integration, this European Union, to completion under your inspiring guidance and on the basis of your proposal.
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We cannot, you cannot, raise the question of confidence today.
The Treaty does not make provision for that.
We cannot put down a motion of confidence.
The Treaty does not make provision for it.
We have the feeling that the motion of censure is being used, and the term 'disguise' has been mentioned, as a way of protecting certain Commissioners.
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Applause
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Well, I have to make the point most clearly that it would be disastrous for the Commission if a majority of Parliament were to vote against the Commission.
The formal rules of Article 144 of the Treaty will not help you.
Nevertheless - and I shall speak as objectively as possible - it is not the Commission's political activities which are at issue here today.
This Commission can pride itself on having achieved very considerable and important political results.
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Take the euro.
What would the outcome have been there but for the inspiring work done by the Commission?
Take enlargement, the strengthening of the internal market, which now includes new areas such as energy and telecommunications, the European Employment Pact, announced back in January 1996 and now at last confirmed in Vienna by the European Council, and also the work you have done and prepared with a view to enlargement of the European Union, Agenda 2000 and so many other things.
These are not the issue today, but objectivity requires us to say that this European Commission has done important work here.
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This Commission is confronted with a harsh legacy of bad management.
It is something it has inherited from the past.
You, Mr Santer, have repeatedly said that one of your priorities was to strengthen or introduce a new budgetary and administrative culture.
You said that you wanted to combat fraud, and you said too that your departments faced difficulties because of this inherited burden of bad management.
So it is not your political actions which are in question here.
What is in question - and the whole confidence issue relates to this - is management.
This may be unfair, since a good deal of it stems from the past, but you and every member of your College of Commissioners bear the political responsibility for reaching a solution.
You must show commitment if you are to win back the confidence of Parliament.
In the last few weeks, you have already spoken about the Commission of tomorrow.
You will shortly be telling us that you want to make this Commission of tomorrow a reality and see it forged in cooperation with Parliament, with the combating of fraud, transparency and the bringing of legal proceedings where necessary being a matter of course in order to bring about this process of rationalisation and reform.
We believe it is vital to have codes of conduct: codes of conduct for Commissioners, codes of conduct for relations between Commissioners, their private offices and departments, codes of conduct for officials; we want close cooperation with Parliament in considering and debating the reform of the Staff Regulations; we want transparency and good faith in the appointing of officials, more specifically those of grades A1 and A2; we want clear rules and restrictions on outside appointments; we want clear rules for management of the budget, more specifically concerning technical assistance offices; we want reform of the Financial Regulation - here too, we want clear rules for outside personnel.
But above all, fighting fraud is an absolute must.
We are talking now in this House about zero tolerance.
Zero tolerance must be applied.
We want an undertaking from you that you will in the very near future hold an open discussion with Parliament on an independent OLAF and your promise to stand by this vis-à-vis the other institutions.
We want you finally to take the initiative towards reaching an interinstitutional agreement jointly with ourselves.
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Mr Santer, Members of the Commission, you face a twofold challenge.
As the saying goes 'desperate situations call for desperate remedies'.
The softly-softly approach to these problems is no longer an option.
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Secondly, and possibly the biggest problem, is that you have very little time left - very little time, and we insist that you set a clear timetable for all the proposals you announce.
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I shall bring my comments to an end with the following.
Watching all these events unfold, those of us who have pursued the goal of European integration with conviction and dedication, who have been allies in that endeavour - and we have been together so often, with various of your predecessors too - feel let down.
I feel let down, to find ourselves facing all this at the end of this parliamentary term, after we have introduced the euro, after the historic challenge of enlargement and the discussions we have had about our own remuneration.
The deadline allowed to you is very short, Mr Santer, and your pledges have to be very clear.
For me, it is not personal, electoral or party interests that count.
They do not count.
What matters to me is the future of the European Union, and I frequently feel let down.
The future of the European Union is something in which the European Commission must play an essential role, a European Commission which stands united and has the courage to take the measures we now expect of you.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="Cox">
Mr President, this debate is important, is necessary, and is inevitably for many here a painful debate.
It is about public accountability and how and where to draw the line.
It occurs at a critical stage in EU affairs.
For my group I want to say that we all share a consciousness about achieving the strategic agenda: the standing of the euro, the exploitation of the new powers foreseen in the Amsterdam Treaty, Agenda 2000 and enlargement, to name but a few.
In this regard, as institutions with a European vocation, the Commission and Parliament are natural allies.
But in addition to its legislative and strategic agenda the Commission is also responsible for the day-to-day management of EU affairs.
It is the job of this Parliament to ensure that these affairs are subject to democratic control and public accountability.
This House is the bar of public accountability before which the Commission is held accountable for its conduct in office.
In this domain it is natural to expect a certain degree of creative tension between the Commission, as executive, and Parliament.
This is healthy in any democracy.
<P>
We are holding this debate now because twice in the past 12 months the Commission has failed to win discharge for the 1996 budget, and because in advance of our vote on 17 December 1998 the Commission insisted that in the event of a negative outcome Parliament must clarify the situation by proceeding to a vote on a censure motion.
Many colleagues, across all political groups, while respecting the right of the Commission to adopt whatever political strategy it saw fit, deplored something they saw as tantamount to an interference in advance with parliamentary procedure and sovereignty.
<P>
Applause
<P>
While none can ever be certain, it is my strong personal conviction that the Commission turned a possible triumph into a certain defeat by that ill-timed intervention.
It is the European Commission which drew this debate upon itself.
In the opinion of the ELDR Group, a confidence debate opens a wider field of political vision and perspective.
This is not simply a reheating or recycling of the 1996 budget debate.
Procedures through the Committee on Budgetary Control provide the prospect of dealing with this affair in due course and by due process.
In this debate we have crossed a line from the politics of accounting to the politics of accountability.
<P>
The Treaty confers on Parliament the right to censure only the entire college of Commissioners.
This is a crude and indiscriminate instrument.
In popular terms it is often correctly described as the nuclear option, where on hitting the censure button the entire Commission is meant to disappear.
Like nuclear weapons themselves, it is so drastic a measure that it commends caution in its deployment.
<P>
My group believes that the European Commission is a political body.
Some argue that the Commission is merely a body of appointed bureaucrats.
There are certain key characteristics which distinguish bureaucratic from political systems.
The public perception of bureaucracy is one of red tape and endless buck-passing.
Passing the buck, shifting problems from one source to another, and not accepting ultimate personal responsibility, are among the negative features often associated in the public mind with bureaucrats.
In politics the buck must stop somewhere.
That is what the politics of democratic control and public accountability are all about.
<P>
The Treaty confers on the Commission the status of college.
The collegiality of the Commission is founded on the concept of collective responsibility.
In every Member State cabinet government operates on the basis of collective responsibility.
From time to time national cabinets and their credibility are threatened by individual ministerial or policy failure for one reason or another.
In all our democratic systems the undertaking of personal responsibility by ministers for various shortcomings or conflicts of interest, and occasionally their resignation, is seen as a strength, not as a weakness, of the system.
<P>
Applause
<P>
This recognises that, sometimes, making everyone responsible effectively means that no-one is responsible.
Why should that be the case for the European Commission?
Some will answer: 'But that is the law'.
Yet Article 159 of the Treaty anticipates the possibility of Commissioners resigning without reference to specific circumstance.
Article 160 provides for a tougher remedy in respect of individual Commissioners.
While I accept that the Treaty makes no reference to the right of Parliament to censure individual Commissioners, it is silent on the right of Parliament to demand an individual, clear political preference in respect of the conduct of Commissioners' affairs.
<P>
Last month the Commission empowered itself to demand of this House a vote of confidence through the censure route.
The Commission has no legal right, as has been said, to do that.
But politically it made the choice.
This month we can borrow from the Commission's precedent.
Let Parliament empower itself to call on individual Commissioners to consider their positions even if no formal legal base exists.
<P>
For some years now Parliament has demanded the right of individual censure.
This aspiration has not yet been accommodated in law.
It has been expressed today by us only in an abstract form.
Today's debate, in a concrete way, challenges each individual MEP to consider whether politically the circumstances exist to warrant a clear political statement demanding individual responsibility.
<P>
My group was appalled, politically speaking, at the blandness of the terms of the Socialist pseudo-censure motion of December.
It offered political carte blanche to the entire Commission and in the light of the information available to us, it would have been incomprehensible for us to support it simpliciter .
Equally, to sack the entire Commission would appear disproportionate.
Consequently our strategy was to add to the censure debate an oral question.
<P>
In our motion for a resolution we have called on two named Commissioners to consider their positions.
I want it to be understood in the clearest terms that we are not acting in place of a court of law, nor as a public prosecutor; we are making no presumption about guilt or innocence since these belong to the judicial domain.
We are charging no-one with personal fraud or rank corruption.
We are simply calling a political judgment that the rot in terms of mismanagement, irregularity, fraud and petty corruption will never stop if every Commissioner can constantly rely on the legal shield of collegiality and avoid personal responsibility.
<P>
Loud applause
<P>
This is the political issue at stake.
This is the choice that the House must make.
We must cross the bridge; we must move from aspiration and the abstract in a concrete form to demand that individuals be accountable for the mismanagement in their own areas of responsibility.
<P>
Loud applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the motion of censure tabled by Mrs Green and 70 or so Socialist Members, whose number has now dwindled to 65, which in reality is meant to be a motion of confidence in the Commission, represents a real abuse of procedure.
Whilst Parliament's Rules of Procedure appear to have been respected formally, since the text put down bears the words 'motion of censure', the content of the bottle is not as stated on the label, the goods being sold are misrepresented, and this should, in my view, have made this text inadmissible on the grounds of the fundamental contradiction as regards the operative legal part and its explanatory statement.
This prompted some of our fellow Members, at the instigation of Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, to put down a real motion of censure.
<P>
The political objectives behind the Socialist text, to my mind, are still more reprehensible.
The aim is purely and simply to neutralise the political impact of the vote we took in December by a very large majority - 270 for and 225 against - to deny the Commission a discharge in respect of the management of budget appropriations in 1996.
The Socialists are bad losers.
What is more, they appear to have been orchestrated by the Commission which, prior to the December vote, had challenged the European Parliament to table a motion of censure.
This House would make itself a public laughing-stock if, after so unambiguously refusing to give the Commission a discharge for its management in December, it then gave it a vote of confidence without further ado in January.
All that is hypocrisy on a massive scale, and our group will have no part of it.
<P>
Applause from certain quarters
<P>
For this reason we, like the Liberal Group and the PPE Group, want the Commission to give an account of what it intends to do as a consequence of our December vote, and we want it to shoulder its responsibilities in full, something it has not done convincingly so far.
Only from the answers it gives can we decide whether or not we should censure it; that is the purpose of our oral question.
<P>
The multiple shortcomings in the Commission's financial management which have come to light are so serious that they demand a firm and swift response from the Commission.
Its credibility is at stake.
These shortcomings are nothing new, it is true.
Their roots predate the time when the present Commission took office, but that fact does not exonerate the Commission as a whole from its own responsibilities, nor does it exonerate any one Commissioner individually, whether he held office before 1994 or since then.
But I prefer not to name names until the facts have established incontrovertibly who was responsible for what.
<P>
The main accusation currently levelled at the Commission is the veil of secrecy behind which it retreats in the face of the revelations made in various leaks originating from within its own departments.
By adopting ostrich tactics, by improperly pleading the excuse of confidentiality to the official audit and supervisory bodies, it has fostered the gravest suspicions.
If the Commission had voluntarily, and right from the outset, opted for full transparency vis-à-vis the outside audit and supervisory bodies, the Court of Auditors and the European Parliament, it would not be in the pitiful position it finds itself in today.
It would find it easier to refute, with proper supporting evidence, certain allegations which are unfounded or are motivated purely by partisan political considerations of the kind that pop up here and there in the press, rather than merely dismissing them indignantly, as it does at present.
<P>
But if, as a result of ongoing judicial or internal inquiries, serious clusters of presumptions suggest that present or past Commissioners or officials have failed in their duties, the Commission must have the courage to take the full consequences.
If members of the College of Commissioners are involved, it must ask them to resign, on pain of being compulsorily retired under the terms of Article 160 of the Treaty.
In the case of an official, of any grade, it must impose the requisite penalties and not simply punish a few scapegoats in lieu of more senior officials.
<P>
Applause from certain quarters
<P>
Only if it changes its behaviour in this radical way can the Commission recreate a climate of trust between itself and the European Parliament and all the Union's institutions.
It must stop projecting the image of a closed shop of nepotism and favouritism.
It must also conduct a meticulous inquiry into the conditions surrounding its conclusion of service contracts, including those in the information technology sector.
Only by lopping off its diseased branches, by cleaning up its act, can it regain the moral authority it needs to tackle the major challenges which the European Union faces today.
By doing this it will restore confidence in the very big majority - I am tempted to say the overwhelming majority - of the members and officials of the Commission whose moral integrity is not in doubt.
<P>
Mr Santer, it is your duty to spearhead this change in behaviour.
As for the UPE Group, we shall decide, not only on the basis of what you say but of what you do in the next few weeks, whether or not a return to confidence is justified, but there is no question of our giving you on Thursday a 'blanket' vote of confidence of the kind our Socialist Members would like.
<P>
Applause from the UPE Group
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Miranda">
Mr President, Mr Santer, in the last part-session in December the European Parliament considered that the conditions for granting discharge to the Commission for the 1996 budget had not been met. It therefore voted to refuse discharge by a significant majority.
We believe that this was a decision of great significance and indisputable political importance, particularly as it was based on extremely serious accusations involving a combination of a lack of transparency and information, various irregularities, abuses of power and nepotism, as well as several cases of fraud involving enormous sums of money.
<P>
Now that we must again vote on this issue, we should firstly repeat what we said then: last December's decision is valid in itself.
Therefore, regardless of the results of the motions of censure now being discussed, Parliament must continue and extend the questioning which prompted its decision, as the Commission must now, for several reasons, give an adequate, reasoned and appropriate response to the accusations directed against it.
We are emphasising these seemingly obvious aspects simply because the reasons and objectives that led the Socialist Group to table the motion of censure behind this debate seem to us to have dubious grounds and credibility.
<P>
I will not spend long on these procedural questions as I consider the substantive questions to be of greater interest.
However, because these questions have an important political aspect, despite their procedural nature, I must point out that the reasons and terms of this motion of censure have an unmistakeable underlying intention of responding positively and quickly to the inadequate statement by the Commission which preceded the discharge vote. In fact, it seems as if the European Parliament is answerable to the Commission, rather than the other way round as stipulated by the Treaties.
Similarly, these reasons and terms also have a clear underlying intention of finally and fully settling the issues that led to the refusal of discharge.
They also perhaps have a hidden intention of preventing the tabling of a proper motion of censure in due course, once the full inquiry into the Commission's responsibilities has been completed.
<P>
Clearly, we do not agree with the Socialist Group's reasons as they may mean, and in fact do mean, joint responsibility for this whole problem.
<P>
Besides, it must be pointed out in this respect that this initiative by the Socialist Group has had the effect of raising public awareness in all our countries about something that was previously restricted to the institutions and to a few people in a few countries. This is something that was certainly not expected of them and that is definitely not welcome.
But it has obviously given increased relevance to this debate and particularly to the substantive questions.
<P>
However, the need for stability has been mentioned, particularly given the major decisions to be made shortly.
This is a reason, according to some, for giving the Commission a vote of confidence.
We totally and immediately refute this argument because, if the current climate of suspicion continues together with a weakened and discredited Commission, any danger lies in the negative aspects of the current debate being transmitted to and infecting the other debate.
<P>
Besides, in our opinion there are no good or bad moments for rigorously and extensively tackling questions as serious as these on fraud.
In addition to which, and as we stated in the discharge motion, this is not a process that can be analysed based on immediate interests, the proximity of elections or the stage of the Commission's mandate, but rather on the basis of what is fundamentally at issue.
<P>
Having reached this point and faced as we are with what purports to be a vote of confidence in the Commission, we feel that the gravity of the accusations threatening the latter makes these unavoidable. These accusations originate from Parliament itself, in a series of reports adopted by large majorities in many cases, as well as from the Court of Auditors and even senior Commission officials.
They relate to various irregularities, particularly in the Tourism, ECHO, PHARE, TACIS, MED and Leonardo programmes, and are connected with vote-catching - and particularly with the so-called 'whistle-blowers' - and cases of fraud involving extremely large amounts. These are accusations in which at least one inadequate collaboration with the legal authorities of certain countries is highlighted and in which undeniable problems and omissions in the transmission of information to the European Parliament are apparent.
To these can also now be added the unfortunate proceedings against a Commission official, as mentioned previously.
<P>
How is it possible, under these terms and in such a biased manner, to give a vote of confidence to the Commission?
This will obviously not be given by a large majority of my group, just as with the vote in December.
<P>
We would state very clearly that, in our opinion, the Commission, regardless of its individual responsibilities, has a collective political responsibility for these problems which it must now accept.
We are therefore hoping, Mr Santer, for total clarity, a lack of equivocation and, in particular, a wide-ranging sense of responsibility.
<P>
We particularly hope that this affair will result in greater efficiency in the future in the implementation of policies. We want to see this take place basically through extensive analysis and substantial alteration in terms of the causes of such a wide range of offences, which are usually associated with a policy of service privatisation, but which are fundamentally linked to the imbalance between the extensive powers granted to the Commission and the limited democratic control of these powers.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today sees a hard-nosed confrontation between Parliament and the Commission over our refusal to grant a discharge.
The Commission itself brought things to a head and secured the support of Parliament's largest group in equating the refusal of the discharge with a motion of censure.
But it is the Commission which is primarily responsible for this blunder.
Meanwhile, many other items have been added to the list of things which are weakening the Commission's position further.
<P>
This is not the only confrontation we have had.
There have been others during this parliamentary term.
The reason is that Parliament has been given greater powers and knows that it is prepared to use them.
We are the ones who have to be accountable to the peoples of Europe if taxpayers' money is not spent wisely and honestly.
<P>
What makes us keen to confront the Commission is our belief that we need a strong Commission if we are truly to shape Europe, to develop the Union.
But the problem at the moment is not whether we need a Commission to take the Union forward, but whether a discredited and weak Commission is still capable of helping that European Union to survive.
That is the problem.
<P>
The way in which the Commission has proceeded against its official Mr Van Buitenen is quite simply disgusting.
His only crime is to have gone to Parliament after months of waiting in vain for his superiors to act.
This man has been suspended with immediate effect, and it is not the fact that this case came to light, but the fact that this suspension came to light which called forth a storm of protest.
Here too the Commission bears a heavy responsibility, not only for financial mismanagement but also for a number of specific dossiers.
For example the BSE crisis, for example the way in which the Commission approves the sale of genetically modified foods against the wishes of a majority of the population of Europe, the way in which economic issues are negotiated: for all these reasons, my group says yes to the censure motion.
But however that censure motion goes, the Greens want in any event to back a resolution which is as tough as it can be, because this Union must operate with a Commission which is able to keep things in order and take up the challenges which face it, and the ability of the Commission to do that with its current membership is very much open to question.
<P>
Applause from the Green Group
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Lalumière">
Mr President, it is not easy to be fair in a pernicious climate where anything goes.
<P>
Being fair, in our group's view, means first asking the Commission to provide all the explanations we need to understand what has happened and to admit its mistakes, notably its errors of management.
We also need to know exactly whether there has been fraud or malpractice and, if so, who the perpetrators were.
And then we need to see firm undertakings from the Commission that it will reform its management and working methods.
This need for transparency and clarity is a democratic sine qua non .
It is not just Parliament's right, but also its duty, to know the truth and to take the political action which its powers entitle it to take, namely the passing of a motion of censure.
<P>
But in all fairness, we must not launch off into wild accusations.
Yes, we must combat bad management and fraud.
But we can only do that by respecting the rule of law.
And what we are seeing today is a brawl which shows scant regard for anybody.
Unproven accusations are being fired off on the basis of rumour and hearsay.
That is already a serious matter when the responsibility of the Commission as a body is under attack, but it is more serious still when individuals are being named and accused left, right and centre.
If you accuse someone, you have to have proof.
You have to follow legal procedure too, allow people the right to defend themselves, and so on.
Thus there is no way we can approve a motion for a resolution of the kind which is doing the rounds in this House and which targets two Commissioners in particular, unless the judicial rules I mentioned have been respected.
<P>
Applause
<P>
We must not fall between the Scylla of immunity from punishment, which would be intolerable, and the Charybdis of unproven condemnation, which would be even more intolerable if the attackers are targeting individuals, rather than daring to attack the Commission as a whole.
<P>
The current climate within the European institutions is unhealthy and is damaging to the further building of Europe.
Exploiting these matters for political ends does nothing to improve the situation.
I hope, Mr Santer, that in your reply you will give Parliament the assurances it has been wanting to see for too long, so that the calm which we need and which you need can be restored.
<P>
Our group, or at least the majority of our group, will decide how to vote in a desire to do what can be done to preserve the credibility of the European institutions.
But that credibility is sorely undermined at present.
We have always wanted and always wished for a strong Commission.
As far as that goes, we have precisely the opposite.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pinel">
Mr President, in February 1997 when the European Parliament was launching its inquiry into mad cow disease, our colleague Jean-Claude Martinez criticised the Commission for its 'deafening silence'.
He criticised the gross errors, the lies, the maladministration and this silence, the purpose of which was not to imperil the 1993 single market and the single currency envisaged in the Maastricht Treaty.
If the French electorate had known the truth about BSE on 20 September 1992, what chance would there have been of securing the few thousand 'yes' votes needed for victory?
The ideology behind building a federal Europe justified political passivity, according to Mr Martinez.
Mr MacSharry, the European Agriculture Commissioner, justified himself by saying that he wanted to protect the beef and veal market in the face of this terrible disease.
Trade before health, was the European Commission's watchword.
<P>
Looking at the Elles report, it would seem that this harsh lesson has taught the Commission nothing.
Fraud and misappropriation of funds are now widespread throughout the Commission: the Directorate-General for Tourism, the MED programme, the ECHO programme, the security services, Edith Cresson's private office.
Through ECHO, the EEC's humanitarian office, for example, the European Union provides a quarter of world humanitarian aid.
Part of the aid to former Yugoslavia and the Great Lakes region of Africa has been misappropriated, to a total thought to be between ECU 500 000 and 1 500 000.
As for the MED programme of aid to the Mediterranean countries, here too there have been grave irregularities, mainly involving the company ARTM, which did not take part in tendering procedures but was awarded most of the contracts for the MED programme.
And there are many more such examples.
<P>
In his defence, Mr Santer may claim that the frauds did not start with him but under his Socialist predecessor, Jacques Delors, for whom stewardship was of no importance.
It is true that embezzlement and misappropriation of public funds are a Socialist speciality, from the time of Mitterrand and Dumas to the present day, when the two Commissioners implicated in the recent affairs are both Socialists, Mrs Cresson and Mr Marín.
It goes some way towards explaining why Mrs Green, on behalf of the Socialist Group, should be protecting this Commission, which is guilty of serious dereliction of duty and ought to resign en bloc .
There is a danger of a rebound effect, that the European Parliament might be subjected to close scrutiny next, and then who knows ...
In point of fact, the European Commission, in its 'corporate' reflex action to cover up gross misdemeanours of a criminal nature and manifest irregularities, its failure to launch internal disciplinary procedures or its late launching of them and its obstruction of the course of justice, can claim no extenuating circumstances whatsoever.
<P>
It is unacceptable and unjustifiable that an institution of this kind, which is irresponsible in the true sense of the word, should be demanding new powers as envisaged in the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties and, at the same time, should be wasting European taxpayers' money without punishing the black sheep.
What it does do is suspend a Dutch Eurocrat for the crime of blowing the whistle on its Mafia-style practices.
It is the well-known technique of finding a scapegoat.
Messrs Chirac, Seguin, Pasqua, Madelin, Bayrou, Jospin, Cohn-Bendit, Hue, all of you upholders of a federalist Europe and the shameful Treaties of Amsterdam and Maastricht, you are responsible both for the exorbitant powers of the European Commission, a truly totalitarian bureaucracy, and for the culpable weakness you show towards this institution which has so sadly lost its way.
<P>
I mentioned the Socialists just now.
But the Christian Democrats are even more hypocritical.
They will not grant the discharge, but then they say that this rejection does not mean a referral back to the Committee on Budgetary Control.
It is the conditional censure on mad cow disease all over again, a kind of cardboard sword of Damocles, which only fools those who want to be fooled.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, voting to withhold the discharge from the European Commission and voting to censure it are two acts which are legally separate but which politically go together.
One cannot punish an authority and then fail to draw the political consequences without discrediting the institution to which one belongs.
The French National Front, with Jean-Marie Le Pen for whom I speak today, will vote to censure the European Commission and denounce this institution which is dedicated to building a supranationalist and federalist Europe and which, believing itself to be above the law, thinks that it can flout it with impunity.
With the European elections just a few months away, the Europe of nations and peoples which we represent rejects this wicked Europe, this Europe of privilege, of chicanery and abuse, whose absolutist rulers and lackeys will be punished next June by the peoples of Europe who care deeply about their national sovereignty and their identity.
<P>
I am also surprised, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, that my name is not amongst the signatories of your motion, since I did sign it and gave you my signature last week.
I am surprised too that your motion was not sent to some of our fellow Members.
Is this a desire to sideline some Members, including those from the National Front, for fear of playing into the hands of our opponents here?
I prefer to assume it is an oversight, a piece of carelessness which is unlike you, however, and I hope that you will remedy this oversight with Parliament's administrative services.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="Santer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, last December the European Parliament held an in-depth debate on the discharge for implementation of the 1996 budget.
<P>
Today we are embarking on another debate.
On the table there are censure motions and a number of oral questions.
The real issue is that of confidence between our two institutions. That confidence has been shaken of late, and I am prepared to accept my share of responsibility here.
Manifestly, clarification has become necessary.
I say that because I have a deep respect for the constitutional role of the European Parliament.
For more than four years now, I have seen how vital it is to the European Union that a relationship of trust should exist between our two institutions.
The successes we have achieved recently would not have been possible without close cooperation between the European Parliament and the Commission.
I am sure that the Members of this House will judge the Commission on its overall activities and its actual record as a college.
I shall try to show that the confidence of the European Parliament is well founded, and essential to the completion of the Union's ambitious programme in the months to come.
<P>
Mr President, I have always said that I wanted to be judged on what I have done, on my track record.
I invite you to re-read my inaugural address to you in January 1995 and judge for yourselves whether I have kept my word.
<P>
Four years ago, I said that if we wanted a strong economy we would have to have a strong currency, and I added that I was optimistic, that economic and monetary union would come and it would change our peoples' lives.
Eleven days ago we saw the birth of the euro.
It reflects a Europe which is getting there.
One thing is certain: right from the start, the Commission has played a leading part - prior to 1995, of course, thanks to my predecessor Jacques Delors, but since 1995 as well.
Where would we be today if we had not presented our Green Paper on progress towards a single currency in May 1995?
If, together with my colleagues, I had not pushed forward week after week with the technical preparation, contradicted the detractors, called for budgetary discipline, reassured the many people who still expressed doubts?
In this battle, I have always had the confidence of Parliament, and it was vital.
<P>
In my inaugural address, I stressed that the internal market was crucial to our efforts for growth.
As I announced at the time, we have opened up the energy and telecommunications markets.
We have spectacularly improved the speed at which directives are transposed into national law, imposing where necessary the sanctions provided for in Article 171 of the Treaty.
And as promised, we have pursued a rigorous competition policy.
<P>
Four years ago, I named employment as our principal priority.
I am gratified to see that the European Council has now come to share that view.
In January 1996, I put to you the idea of a European Employment Pact.
You received it enthusiastically.
In Florence, however, the response of the European Council was polite but cool.
There was great scepticism.
It was only as a result of our joint action, plus action by some Member States, that a chapter was finally included in the Treaty.
A new and valuable step was secured at the special summit in Luxembourg with the adoption of the guidelines put forward by the Commission.
In Vienna, the Heads of State and Government took yet another step by endorsing the concept of a pact.
And thanks to the resumption of growth, thanks to the strategy put in place, unemployment is falling and in Europe it has now dropped below the 10 % level.
The battle is far from over, but the Union now has the weapons to win it.
<P>
In 1995, the process of institutional deliberation following Maastricht was still in its infancy.
In June 1997, the Treaty of Amsterdam was born.
This was a significant new step along the road towards European integration.
Cooperation between our two institutions was exemplary during the negotiations.
And that is reflected in the end result which, though it does not meet all our aspirations, is a good one.
A chapter on employment, a significant advance towards an area of freedom, security and justice - these are concrete responses to our citizens' concerns, with greater powers for the European Parliament and the President of the Commission.
<P>
The Union, following the strategy devised by the Commission, has launched the most ambitious accession process in its history.
That process, thanks to the pre-accession strategy which has been put in place, already makes the applicant countries part of our common family.
Who would have thought it just a few years ago?
Of course much remains to be done, on the applicants' side, certainly, but on our side too.
Hence the importance of Agenda 2000, the expression of a global approach encompassing enlargement, policy reform and the financial framework.
This is the biggest package of measures which the Commission has ever put forward.
<P>
Mr President, in January 1995 I said that one area of work requiring particular effort was internal management.
I promised to improve the budgetary and administrative culture within the Commission.
I also promised to make the combating of fraud a priority.
<P>
Events surrounding the discharge prove that I was right to give such importance to this aspect of things, one which had been neglected too much in the past.
They prove too that the reforms already carried through are far from adequate and that much remains to be done.
Together with my colleagues, I have undertaken ambitious modernisation programmes whose objective is clear: to restore good management, to improve efficiency and supervision, to decentralise the work of our departments, to make our officials accountable.
<P>
We have made more reforms in four years than in the 40 years before that.
We have battled against irregularities, we have stepped up our efforts against fraud.
<P>
Protests
<P>
In 1994, ladies and gentlemen - bear with me - UCLAF had a staff of 50 compared with 140 now.
In 1994, UCLAF handled 220 inquiries.
Today the figure is 950 and the results are there to see, in UCLAF's annual reports.
In improving the work of UCLAF we have uncovered cases in which Commission officials are implicated, and each of these cases causes me pain.
<P>
Every time it is Europe which is the great loser.
We have been criticised for our handling of these cases.
I assure you that there is no malign intent on our part, there is no intention to cover up anything at all.
<P>
I have been a public servant for 30 years.
I have always regarded it as a privilege and one which demands absolute integrity.
I respect taxpayers' money.
Fraudsters have to be punished, with Parliament's help.
On that I am more determined than ever.
<P>
Let me return to the idea of confidence, Mr President,
<P>
Mixed reactions
<P>
you have nothing to lose by listening to me - the Commission needs that confidence in order to work and to succeed.
There is much to be done.
There are important things for us to complete successfully under a true contract of trust between our two institutions.The Union is gearing up for new challenges.
The birth of the euro is a success.
The whole world admires us for having made a reality of something which, a short time ago, seemed a distant dream.
Let us continue along this road together.
<P>
I think too that we should reflect together in the months to come on the institutional future of the Union.
We must draw the necessary conclusions from the high degree of integration we have reached and prepare for future enlargement.
I shall be putting our ideas and proposals on this matter to you before the elections to the new European Parliament.
<P>
In a few weeks' time, at the end of March, we have an important date with each other!
I refer to the negotiations on Agenda 2000.
Agreement will mean a new and decisive step forward for the Union.
This too is a question of confidence.
Nothing would be gained by a re-run of the experience of the early 1980s, when squabbles over the budget paralysed the life of the Union.
That was a serious matter then.
It would be a catastrophe now.
So we have to reach agreement.
<P>
Another major dossier awaits us in 1999, justice and home affairs.
Over the years, this field has come into sharper focus.
Amsterdam was a valuable advance, on paper at least.
Action has to follow.
That is why I suggested to the Heads of State and Government that we hold a special summit on the area of freedom, security and justice, of the kind we held in Luxembourg on employment.
It will take place in Tampere, Finland.
It will need meticulous preparation, and we shall do that.
<P>
Mr President, the initiative of the 'Commission of tomorrow', which I have launched, is the last great ambition of my term of office.
It may be helpful to remind you of its broad lines.
Thorough reflection is needed on the Commission's future role within a fast-changing Union.
That is our first line of thought.
The second concerns the future structures of the Commission, its internal organisation.
These have to be adapted to changes in the Union and society, the progress of the new treaty and the defining of the Union's priorities for action.
Lastly, in the third line, I plan to continue and deepen the reform of our financial and personnel management.
<P>
The criticisms voiced by the European Parliament in connection with the debate on the discharge will serve as a further spur to us.
They challenge us, they prompt us to look critically at how we operate and how we manage things.
It is the Commission's job to put its house in order.
Of course, the European Parliament as the body responsible for exercising political scrutiny has a legitimate interest to uphold.
And I am suggesting that we hold an in-depth dialogue on these matters over the next few months.
<P>
Today all the groups have asked oral questions on this matter.
I shall refer to paragraphs 26 and 27 of Mr Elles's motion for a resolution on the 1996 discharge.
I am responding to this specifically by presenting an eight-point programme.
Firstly, I shall present the next president-designate with a full and reasoned proposal on the structure of portfolios and the organisation of departments.
At the end of 1997, we began a comprehensive screening of the Commission's activities and departments.
The results of this, currently nearing completion, will form the basis of my proposal.
I shall make it public and will forward it to the European Parliament.
The structures of the Commission do in fact have implications for the other institutions.
<P>
I shall implement this new overall concept before the end of my term, in agreement with the new president-designate.
This will be very helpful for the hearings of future members of the Commission which Parliament will hold towards the end of the year.
<P>
My second point concerns priorities and the resources available to implement them.
For the last four years the Commission, with the support of the budgetary authority, has operated a policy of zero growth in personnel, apart from the requirements of enlargement.
This approach is part of the Member States' efforts at stringency.
It has forced us to use our human resources more rationally and to concentrate more on priority tasks.
This effort has its limits unless it is shared by Parliament and the Council, whose demands largely shape the Commission's programme of work.
I have to say, with the human resources which we have at present, we have reached the limits of what can be achieved.
<P>
If we have had management difficulties, it is partly because the Commission has too often taken on jobs for which it did not have enough staff.
From now on, the question of staff resources will have to be systematically reviewed.
<P>
Thirdly, I plan to introduce an overall set of rules governing the work of Commissioners and their private offices and departments.
It will comprise three codes of conduct.
Preparation of these is well in hand.
They will form the base for a true culture of European administration.
<P>
I will start at the political level with the Commissioners.
This Commission was the first, on 22 November 1995, to lay down rules of conduct in interpretation of Article 157 of the Treaty.
For example, and I quote, 'members of the Commission may not ... engage in any other occupation, whether gainful or not.' They may not accept any payment for speeches, lectures and other services of this kind; they must declare all travel and accommodation expenses paid by the organisers of an event.
<P>
The members of this Commission were the first to make a declaration of their financial interests.
These declarations are available to the public.
I shall combine these various measures in an ambitious code of conduct, modelled on best practice, and this code of conduct will be given to the next president-designate.
<P>
The second code of conduct concerns relations between Commissioners and their private offices and departments.
It will clearly define the respective roles of all of them; it will set transparent rules for the membership of private offices and for appointments made from within these.
I can tell you now that I shall be recommending a reduction in the number of staff in private offices, a greater mix of nationalities in them and a limitation of the number of temporary staff.
I shall pass this code to the new president-designate.
<P>
As regards officials, I gave instructions some months ago for work to begin on a code of conduct setting out clear rules of behaviour.
This code, which will be completed by the end of February, will have three parts: ethical and professional principles applicable to staff of the Commission; rights and obligations of officials and penalties for non-compliance; and rules of conduct in relations with the public.
<P>
Fourthly, regarding the ongoing process of reforming the management of personnel, I shall between now and the end of January 1999 be putting forward a timetable for modernising the administration.
<P>
Many measures have been taken or are currently under way.
I am planning radical reforms of recruitment, mobility, training, career management, incentives and penalties.
Some measures will require amendment of the Staff Regulations, others will not.
For this we have had, since 9 November last, an excellent report compiled by a think-tank headed by former Secretary-General David Williamson.
<P>
This report, which touches too on issues relevant to the other institutions, is the subject of close consultation with these other institutions, and Parliament in particular.
A timetable for reforming the Staff Regulations, with due regard for the social dialogue, will be drawn up by common agreement.
<P>
My fifth point deals more specifically with the question of appointments.
Concerning the delicate matter of appointments in grades A1 and A2, I have always ensured that priority was given to internal promotions.
To clarify matters, however, I shall draw up clear rules of conduct for outside appointments.
In the meantime I shall not authorise any outside appointment made from within private offices.
I also intend, in a general manner, to introduce a probation period for appointments to supervisory posts.
I shall take care to ensure that every applicant for one of these posts possesses professional management experience.
<P>
Point six is budgetary management, which is the central theme of the Elles report.
I shall not go back here over the reforms already carried out in the context of SEM 2000.
I have three additional things to announce: firstly, a formal proposal, before the end of the first half of 1999, on recasting the Financial Regulation; secondly, the swift preparation of clear and transparent rules on the use of outside staff; and thirdly, on the subject of technical assistance offices, the famous TAOs, I welcome Parliament's decision to clarify the situation concerning administrative appropriations chargeable to part B of the budget.
In the spring, we shall be presenting a general vade-mecum on these offices.
<P>
As regards the specific case of the technical assistance office for Leonardo, mentioned in a number of oral questions, a report by our financial controller was sent to the Committee on Budgetary Control before Christmas.
That report reveals a number of problems over the financial management and internal audit of this office, but does not deal with the management of Directorate-General XXII, which in any case refused to sanction some of the spending declared by this TAO.
Whether or not we continue cooperating with the technical assistance office in question will depend on a clear improvement in its management.
<P>
My seventh point: the combating of fraud has been one of the most controversial points in our relationship in recent times.
As I said earlier, we have significantly intensified our efforts against fraud.
Ten times in six years, we have referred cases of alleged fraud involving Commission employees to the judicial authorities.
We have increased the staff of UCLAF threefold.
Having said that, I agree with you: we have to practise zero tolerance here.
Good is not enough, we need to be above reproach.
We have to learn all the lessons which the experience of recent months has taught us, also as regards transparency vis-à-vis the European Parliament.
If there is one area where we have to work hand in hand, this is it.
<P>
On the subject of our proposal to create an independent interinstitutional office, I know that you are wondering about that.
Let us discuss it.
It is important to reach agreement as soon as possible, and I raised the question just this morning with the President of the European Council, Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.
I welcome the Chancellor's suggestion of a high-level group comprising representatives of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission, to examine the Commission's proposal and reach an agreement before the end of March.
I should add that I am willing to consider all possible variants, provided that efficiency is guaranteed and the mechanisms adopted eliminate any suspicion of interference in the independence of inquiries.
<P>
Still on the subject of anti-fraud measures, I should like to reply briefly to the questions on the suspension of a Commission official.
I will start by stressing that it is the right and even the duty of any official, whoever he may be, to inform his superiors or UCLAF of facts of malpractice or fraud which come to his notice.
The disciplinary proceedings against Mr Van Buitenen were not begun because he reported cases of fraud, but because the official in question disclosed documents which were confidential, on his own initiative and contrary to the terms of the Staff Regulations and administrative provisions.
I should add that some of these documents are the subject of criminal proceedings.
In acting as he did, he set himself up as judge, in place of his superiors, the supervisory authorities and the judicial authorities.
<P>
One final remark on this matter: I myself wrote to the President of the European Parliament on 9 December 1998, confirming that the director of UCLAF and the financial controller were more than willing to provide Parliament with any clarification needed on these affairs.
The dossiers were also passed for immediate checking to our internal control bodies, and I will formally reiterate here that we are happy to answer any questions which the Committee on Budgetary Control might wish to ask.
<P>
My eighth and last point concerns the provision of information to Parliament by the Commission.
I am aware of your feeling that there are gaps, that you are not able to exercise your political and budgetary scrutiny to best effect.
Things must be clarified.
I repeat my offer to draw up an interinstitutional agreement on the practicalities of how we can provide information to Parliament.
We might very well include in this the suggestion I have heard made here that programmes of expenditure should be monitored regularly by the appropriate committees of Parliament.
Special attention should also be paid to sensitive dossiers concerning fraud and disciplinary matters.
<P>
That, Mr President, is my eight-point programme.
It is ambitious and seeks to accommodate your suggestions and criticisms.
For each of the points raised, I have set myself the timetable which the Elles report calls for, and which you have just called for in your speeches to the House.
I have also noted your demand for a role in monitoring these reforms.
It seems to me a legitimate one and I would make two very concrete proposals forthwith: one, I will come in person, at regular intervals, to give the Conference of Presidents a progress report on the programme; two, as some of you have suggested, we will set up a committee of wise men to consider the whole issue of managing, monitoring and evaluating Community expenditure.
The independent experts on this select committee should be appointed by common agreement by our respective institutions, including the Council and Court of Auditors.
Lastly, I am altogether in favour of a plenary debate on the reforms, to be held in May.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have sought today to sketch a rapid picture of what we have achieved in the last four years, and to outline the broad objectives which I have set myself for the remainder of my term of office.
It is for you to decide, in all conscience, if you will give us the political confidence we need to complete our work.
The confidence to make Europe triumph, that is what we are asking of you today.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Görlach">
Mr President, Mr Santer, the second part of your speech puts me in mind of a German classical writer, Friedrich Schiller, who wrote in one of his plays 'you are late, but you have come at last'!
But in contrast to Schiller's sentiment, I have to say 'however far you have had to come, there is no excuse for being late'.
I know it is hard to make anything much of that, but I had to get it off my chest.
<P>
Above all, one has to ask the very specific question: why are the things you propose in the second half of your statement not featured in the Commission's programme for 1999?
<P>
Applause
<P>
Will you at least concede, Mr Santer - and I am putting it very politely - that it might have something to do with the pressure which Parliament has brought to bear in recent months?
<P>
Applause
<P>
And I have to wonder if you would have said all this if we had not had this falling-out between Parliament and the Commission?
But I want to show good will, because we all need a strong Commission.
No one in this House - including those who voted against the discharge in December - wants a weak Commission.
We want and we need a strong Commission!
<P>
Applause
<P>
Mr Santer, you said at a press conference this morning - in Bonn, presumably - that the Commission had become the victim of its own transparency.
I am sure you see it that way, but can we not think back to a few real scenarios, you too, please, and all your Commissioners?
We had heated debates on mini-budgets, on BSE, and we have had heated arguments over individual shortcomings in the overall machinery of the Commission - which I think is the least of our problems, however harsh that may sound.
All of this came to light bit by bit in confrontations between the Commission and Parliament and the media.
<P>
Now I am not suggesting that the Commission has not investigated many things of its own accord, but it has always taken a lot of debate and pressure from us too to establish transparency vis-à-vis Parliament.
I just do not want you saying again self-righteously: of course Parliament is entitled to censure us, but unless there is a two-thirds majority to do that we do not need to worry about it.
In terms of the Treaty you are of course right, but is it wise to say something like that when feelings are running so high?
<P>
Applause
<P>
That is an invitation, Mr Santer, to stop you from getting it wrong again.
I see it as an invitation to those who mean nothing good for Europe and the Commission if we say 'if they are not going to worry about it anyway, we can at least get a relative majority'.
Did it not occur to you as you weighed the political implications that your doubtless well-intentioned letter of last December might have a counter-productive effect on a good many Members?
<P>
I was pleased to hear you say you will accept your share of the responsibility.
I would like to hear rather more of that.
Might the Commission as a collegiate body not say yes, a lot of things have gone wrong, but Parliament too - and I would agree - has not always scrutinised things as well as it might have?
<P>
Heckling
<P>
It must be said once and for all that, yes, we admit our responsibility for the things that have gone wrong.
<P>
Applause
<P>
And we need clear proposals for change.
You have put forward proposals now, but why did you not do it a little sooner?
Every crisis brings the chance of a new beginning, that is true.
But the crisis is not always used to make a new beginning.
We have a chance now, but I think we can and must have quite a bit more before Thursday.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="Theato">
Mr President, Mr Santer, first I must thank you for the good words you have come up with, good words for which we have waited a very long time, perhaps - and here I agree with Mr Görlach - rather too long.
Because the confidence of which you spoke so much and on which we all count, that confidence has been put to a very severe test, and a number of questions remain unanswered.
Many people will find it very difficult to give a vote of confidence at this juncture.
But the Committee on Budgetary Control and certainly my own group have never wanted to resort to destructive means, but to use constructive means of reforming things which have been acknowledged as wrong and have to some degree shaken confidence.
I still believe that together we can achieve this.
Thus a vote of censure is not the right way; we must rebuild that confidence together.
It is unfortunate that things reached the point where we postponed the discharge, setting you a deadline for giving us an explanation of how things stand in the Commission rather than just serving up half-truths to us.
We could not help but feel that way, and we did.
<P>
The problems which still remain must be cleared up, because it is equally unpleasant for us to hear and read every day that something else is not right somewhere else.
We are the supervisory body.
Our duties as Parliament have increased.
We have become more self-confident and rightly so, because we were directly elected by the citizens of this European Union to that end.
We accept that responsibility, but we need a strong Commission, because important challenges face us. You listed them just now.
<P>
Mr Santer, you promised us a number of things from the programme which the Committee on Budgetary Control put together and our rapporteur Mr Elles presented, although regrettably it was not voted upon.
To lend emphasis to this programme, I should like to ask you four test questions, which in my view you should be perfectly able to answer.
Can you give us a list of the 27 cases which UCLAF is investigating?
We know of only five, and only a few details of those.
What is the position regarding the others?
Can you tell us if we shall be getting a reply from Mrs Cresson to the letter which the Committee on Budgetary Control sent her in November following a very inconclusive joint meeting?
In any case, there were questions which remained open.
Unfortunately, that letter has not yet been answered.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Other information has also reached us, albeit very late in the day.
Can you tell me if you are going to withdraw the OLAF proposal, as being incompatible with what we prepared and approved?
You said we are to work together.
We understand this as an offer, since we do not think your proposal is feasible as it is, because it weakens our powers to combat fraud rather than strengthening them.
<P>
And finally, what is the position with the dossiers being forwarded to the justice authorities?
Can you say if they have now been referred to the courts in line with the decision taken by Parliament on three occasions? I regard all this as a set of test questions.
I think it is fair to put them to you, Mr Santer. Our response will depend on yours.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="Jackson">
Mr President, on a point of order, I follow up a point made by Mrs Lalumière earlier this evening.
She said that one of the problems with this debate was that people were being accused without the opportunity to defend themselves.
Could you rule whether it would be possible, even within the framework of collegiality, for the two Commissioners who have been named in Mr Cox's resolution, who have been pinpointed as to a great extent to blame for a lot of the problems that we are dealing with, to explain themselves to Parliament tonight?
<P>
Applause
<P>
The eyes of the world are on us.
Now surely, if ever, is the time for Mrs Cresson and Mr Marin to say what went wrong, whether they knew about it, and why they did not do anything about it.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="President">
Mrs Jackson, as you must surely be aware, Commissioners may take the floor whenever they feel it is appropriate, and, of course, whenever they themselves request it.
Parliament cannot force them to speak.
<P>
I should also like to stress that we are not engaged in criminal proceedings of any sort. Rather, we are considering an issue of political responsibility, and it is up to the Commissioners to decide whether or not it is appropriate for them to speak.
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Cox for three minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="Cox">
Mr President, I want to say firstly to the President of the Commission that my group will study the detail of what he has proposed to us here this evening.
I note that with some conviction and with much right on his side, he has recited for us many of the accomplishments of the College which, as President, he has the privilege of leading.
However, I am bound to say in respect of the issues under review to do with fraud, corruption and mismanagement that tonight's contribution fell short of being a tour de force .
<P>
Ironically, Mr President of the Commission, you report - but with no sense of irony - the extra volume of work happening in respect of fraud under UCLAF.
You boast - and this is a positive thing - that we are looking at a matter of 950 cases.
I welcome that we are not leaving things aside as was done before.
But with no trace of embarrassment expressed, this represents an appalling level of suspected systemic fraud, mismanagement and corruption.
<P>
You tell us today how much the European Parliament encourages you and offers your Commission incentive to further your reform programme.
Why did you not tell it last March?
Why did you not tell it between March and December?
Why did you not tell it before the vote in December?
Why do you always have to be dragged here as a College, as a President, before the bar of public accountability?
<P>
Applause
<P>
In the context of this debate, Mr President of the Commission, as I said earlier my group believes this is a wider debate than merely the questions of the 1996 budget.
You chose the ground.
You insisted on the wider focus.
You insisted, as Commission, that we should proceed to a motion of censure.
I am staggered at the absence of a single, solitary word of reference to the ECHO programme.
You cannot be unaware of its significance to some people here tonight.
<P>
In the fight against fraud you proposed a new high-level group to do its work by the end of March.
Again, I ask why do we have to wait for a crisis to provoke action?
You refer to the fact that gaps exist and you wish to address to them but the greatest gap is that in the willingness of your collegiate body to come before this House constantly in an open, transparent and clear way.
<P>
There is one point of detail I would like to finish on.
<P>
I should like to quote what you said about the technical assistance office for Leonardo: 'whether or not we continue cooperating with the technical assistance office in question will depend on a clear improvement in its management'.
<P>
I should like to compare that with the audit report on the same TAO.
Given the overall results of this audit: 'The audit team proposes that DG XXII seriously reconsider the continuation of the TAO.'
How can President Santer be so bland!
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, these last three years the Court of Auditors has withheld its statement of assurance, considering that it could not be given because the Court had been unable to ascertain where part of the funds had finally ended up.
<P>
The refusal to grant a discharge was thus inevitable, and this happened three weeks ago.
<P>
Mr Santer, you have come here accompanied by all your Commissioners, whom I welcome, to demonstrate, it seems to me, that there is cohesion and solidarity within your team. At our group's next meeting, we shall be looking carefully at the proposals you have just outlined and which have been distributed to us.
<P>
Mr Santer, I fear you did not understand the message this House sent you on 17 December.
The truth is that public opinion is no longer willing to accept what is diplomatically referred to as 'arrangements', as the Perilux affair has shown, and that the Commission, like Caesar's wife, must be above reproach.
From the moment it transpired that senior officials had been guilty of malpractice, you should have immediately put in train a strong and powerful inquiry to quash the rumour before it reached credible proportions.
<P>
At the informal meeting between the coordinators of the Committee on Budgetary Control and the Commissioners accused in the press last September, I already said that the Commission had to take prompt and incisive action, and I must add that I find the method of feeding anonymous titbits to the press deplorable.
The presumption of innocence still exists in Europe, and the European Commissioners are entitled to have their professional integrity respected, just like any other citizen of Europe.
<P>
After the mission to Sarajevo on 21 February last headed by Tom Spencer, of which Edith Müller and myself were part, we sent you a severe reprimand in the critical report we drew up, and Commissioner van den Broek, who is present here, made some concessions, even though to our mind they are not enough.
A new system was proposed to us, an attempt was made to reduce the degree of concentration and a middle way was found between the status quo and what Parliament wanted.
<P>
Why did you not follow his example when the storm clouds began to gather, and at once suggest some concrete and forceful measures?
Mr President, having listened to you, I have to say that we are disappointed.
Personally, I think that the censure motion is a premature weapon and out of proportion to the charges which may be levelled at you once everything becomes known, and that Mrs Green has done you no service at all in rushing to your defence.
<P>
Most of us want the Committee on Budgetary Control to continue its work; we want Diemut Theato and James Elles to be truly in a position to exercise their authority in liaison with the Commission.
But given that the situation is exceptional, we expected exceptional measures from you and we have not heard them.
Our group will decide on Wednesday if it is satisfied with your explanations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Miranda">
Madam President, I will be very brief.
Firstly, with regard to the proposals made by Mr Santer, I must say that these seem to virtually represent a new programme, which we regard as being extremely ill-timed and rather unprepared.
Why is this?
We believe this firstly because, as already mentioned, this set of eight measures presented to us by Mr Santer is not part of his programme and therefore, as we know, it will not be this Commission and possibly not even this President who will present the next programme to this House.
This attitude therefore seems to me to be rather offhand.
<P>
Secondly, I would like to record the following.
It is true that eight measures, or rather eight areas of intervention, have been presented.
However, if each of these areas or each of the measures proposed for each of these areas were analysed, we would find very little of substance in them - very little.
There are very broad intentions in eight fields but these consist of measures with very little substance to each one.
<P>
There is also another aspect that I must stress and that is cause for some disillusion on our part.
We would have hoped that, in addition to the basic measures presented by Mr Santer, concrete and objective answers could have been given to the concrete and objective problems facing us at the moment.
These involve very topical situations that have led to the refusal of discharge and that require a response. So we would like to know whether or not the Commission intends to provide answers to these problems other than those it gave previously, which this House considered insufficient, and based on which we decided to refuse discharge.
This is our question, and we naturally want an answer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, I have to say that listening to what Mr Santer has had to say in the midst of this crisis, things seemed almost unreal at times.
Because here we are, in fact, not so much conducting a superficial debate in which understandings have to be reached, agreements reached on how things can be done better - we are actually looking at how the Commission itself analyses the situation in which it finds itself.
Who is in fact responsible for everything that has gone wrong?
How is this to be clarified?
I have not had any conclusive answer to that.
Mrs Theato is right in saying that only pressure, very powerful pressure, persuades the Commission to divulge information.
So we must indeed examine the texts closely.
But the fact remains that you never have the feeling that Parliament is really taken seriously as a partner with a share of the responsibility.
<P>
Secondly, as regards Mr Van Buitenen, I think it beggars belief to say that he is a whistle-blower by going to Parliament after all the avenues he tried.
I think Parliament expects a sign of goodwill towards someone who wants nothing more than a Commission which functions properly.
<P>
Lastly, I think that a committee of wise men, which will not produce its proposals until May, will work for the next Commission but not for this one.
So we are really going away empty-handed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lalumière">
Mr Santer, you put us in a dilemma.
Having listened to you, I recognise your good intentions and that we share the same objective of restoring confidence, confidence in the Commission.
I see too that your statement - the successes in white and the inadequacies in grey, if not black - contains undertakings and promises too.
We shall study them with great care.
But the record of what has already been achieved in the last four years is not precise, and I can see that the members of my group are hesitant.
We shall in fact be choosing the least of a number of evils.
And I repeat what I said just now, we shall choose what we think is the best or the least bad way of restoring confidence and consolidating the position of your Commission, if it can be done.
<P>
It is very tempting to adopt a motion of censure, but that is doubtless not the best course today, given all the circumstances outlined earlier.
But what a pity, Mr Santer, that you waited so long.
We should not be in this position if the Commission had acted quickly, honestly and decisively.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
Mr President, on Thursday we have an historic opportunity to take democracy within EU cooperation seriously.
Parliament has constantly struggled to gain more power, while at the same time it has failed in its supervisory function, which is the only function it should attend to.
It has not stinted on empty threats and sabre rattling.
Parliament has 'cried wolf' so many times that it shares some of the blame for the fact that the Commission believed it could do whatever it liked.
I am not particularly impressed by Mr Santer's concessions; we have heard promises to turn over a new leaf every time there have been problems with the budget. And in what Mr Santer has said there is still no question of accepting responsibility for what has happened in the past.
So, unless there is a much stronger signal from the Commission by Thursday, I still think that we should vote for a motion of censure.
Our electorate must be able to demand that of us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Mr President, after the discharge was refused, I did not think there was any real prospect of a motion of censure.
Many honourable Members simply wanted to send the Commission a warning.
In the meantime, however, the Commission's insensitive attitude plus other cases which have come to light have altered the picture, so that this censure vote has become more likely.
It is significant that the Commission President, in anticipation of the outcome of the vote, has deemed a vote of censure without a qualified majority to be a vote of confidence.
<P>
Significant too is the attitude of the Socialist Group, which by turning the machinery on its head is seeking to transform the vote of censure into a vote of confidence.
The European Parliament has to exercise its supervisory function conscientiously and be guided only by facts and realities, with no heed for party political considerations.
But in our view the facts are there for all to see.
They speak for themselves - even after today's statement by the Commission President - and they require action accordingly.
<P>
If in this situation we do not give priority to the interests of our citizens, then their trust in the institutions of the Union will dwindle further still, and the European Parliament will lose its credibility and become even more remote from the electorate.
<P>
This situation reminds me somewhat of my former profession.
If circumstances allow, a criminal court judge shows conditional leniency.
But he very soon learns that he must be consistent in revoking that leniency if he is to retain his credibility.
The relationship between the European Parliament and the Commission can be compared to this.
Parliament, in a manner of speaking, sent a shot across the Commission's bows, but the Commission did not take it seriously enough.
Parliament must therefore call its bluff!
The much-used argument that this cannot be done because we need a Commission capable of functioning is just so much nonsense.
In the first place, this problem is covered by Article 144(2) of the Treaty, which says that the members of the Commission must continue to deal with current business until such time as their successors are appointed.
<P>
Moreover, if that argument were allowed, it would mean carte blanche for the Commission; it would remove all democratic accountability and would thus upset the institutional balance as well.
For these reasons, we independents will not only support the motion of censure: we shall also inform our citizens - whose money we are talking about, after all - of the way in which those Members to whom the interests of the party and their party cronies are more important than the interests of the electorate cast their votes.
Parliament must not tolerate the growing number of cases of fraud, nepotism, greed and incompetence.
Anyone who is not seriously concerned to clear up each and every one of these irregularities has betrayed the trust put in him.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
Mr President, Mr Santer, ladies and gentlemen, our group will of course consider the wide-ranging proposals and pledges you have made and decide on our position tomorrow.
You spoke about matters of substance, and I think that everyone of good faith must agree that these are important proposals.
So we shall determine in our group where we stand on them.
I have a question, however.
You said, Mr Santer, that you accepted your share of the responsibility.
I would like to ask whether other members of the Commission are also prepared to accept a share of the responsibility?
And if they have reasons and arguments for not doing so, whether they are prepared to stand up here and defend themselves?
That is the very specific question I am asking.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I agree with you, Mr Santer, that the issue here is confidence, trust between our institutions, but in my view, trust presupposes the clear acceptance of responsibilities.
What is the story here?
Two Commissioners are accused of serious dereliction of duty and find themselves in the firing line.
So what does the Commission do, what does the Commission President do?
All of you sitting down there can find nothing better to do than close ranks!
But you forget how easily the mud thrown at a few of you may stick to all of you.
You, ladies and gentlemen of the Commission, are unnecessarily being forced into collective responsibility by one or two of your number who, in one case at least, have now come to symbolise nepotism in the EU.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Instead of closing ranks, you would have done better to pluck up courage and at last accept your political responsibility in this dispute.
Whilst it is right that the Commission should act as a collegiate body, it is wrong to cover up the misdeeds of individual Commissioners and deny their political responsibility.
That destroys the credibility of you all!
Yours too, Mr Santer!
<P>
Do what has to be done.
Persuade Mr Marín to accept the political consequences, whatever they may be.
<P>
Mr Marín, there are many ways of saying sorry - I feel guilty, I made a mistake or I accept responsibility.
Come clean about the irregularities in Commissioner Cresson's area of responsibility.
Things which may be normal in an economy of preference and favouritism cannot go uninvestigated at European level.
Give a sign of good will in Paul Van Buitenen's case.
His loyalty was to fair play and not to the hierarchy.
You have until Thursday.
Prove that you are willing to accept political responsibility at this eleventh hour!
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, I speak on my own account and in some disappointment.
In the few months that I have been a Member of this House and of the Committee on Budgetary Control, I have seen how hard Parliament works to investigate when things go wrong.
As a result of that work, I and any other citizen of Europe can see that there are patterns.
These patterns are always the same.
Twilight zones are created in which practices are possible which would not be possible in any one of your countries.
But you always perform a cover-up.
When it comes out, it is because of an article in the press somewhere.
There is only one direct course of action which you take.
That is when you think you know the source of that article and that information.
You punish the person concerned as harshly as you can.
Let us talk about responsibility.
Today we are talking about yours, your collective responsibility as the Commission, because you have jointly accepted responsibility for everything which has gone wrong and for everything that Parliament has criticised and denounced.
I have the feeling, Mr Santer, that your fresh promises today will not satisfy any of our citizens.
We want more Europe.
We want a strong Europe, but it has to be a democratic Europe with a Commission which is democratically informed and accountable and with a Parliament which has the courage to ensure that it is so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, I too am deeply disappointed by the Commission President's reply.
His speech in the Commission's defence totally ignores the point of our accusations.
We want measures against the Commissioners and senior officials who are primarily responsible for the financial mismanagement which has occurred within the Commission in a number of areas.
The ELDR resolution is quite clear on that.
<P>
I certainly do not deny that the European Commission has worked hard and has achieved results.
But we are not concerned with a political assessment here.
We are concerned to know whether the European Commission is prepared to eliminate the stench of corruption.
The suspicion of criminal acts, nepotism and mismanagement cannot be dismissed with references to political achievements.
The European Court of Auditors and the Committee on Budgetary Control have uncovered enough things now to insist on clean-up measures.
If none are forthcoming, we shall have no option but to support the censure motion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Mr President, the decision not to grant discharge was taken on very good grounds back in December.
I had expected that the Commission would come up with an ambitious and plausible programme.
It is a pity that it took action as drastic as a motion of censure to persuade the Commission to act.
Nevertheless, its proposals are somewhat lacking in substance - there is no mention of the main targets of our criticism, such as ECHO and nuclear safety.
I really would appreciate a reply regarding what action is to be taken.
<P>
Furthermore, I think Mr Santer's explanation of the sacking of the civil servant is rather weak, namely that the Commission document was classified.
Does this mean that there are actually Commission documents which are public?
No, everything is classified!
The root of the problem is that there is not enough openness.
I would have liked to see more concrete measures for achieving greater openness and providing Parliament with more information.
This is also a precondition for me to be able to support the Commission in Thursday's vote of confidence.
I also hope that the Commissioners who have been singled out will give some explanation this evening of their role in what took place.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="Cresson">
Mr President, I should like to reply to Mrs Theato, who asked me a question just now.
Some time ago, indeed, I appeared before the Committee on Budgetary Control to answer a series of questions about the Joint Research Centre and the letter to me from the committee arrived some time afterwards.
It contained numerous questions to which my departments prepared replies, and I signed the reply to Mrs Theato's letter a short while ago.
She will be receiving it very soon.
<P>
Another question was put which I should like to answer, concerning the TAO for Leonardo.
What is a TAO?
It is a technical assistance office, selected on the basis of a call for tenders.
The call for tenders for Leonardo was issued before I took office.
The TAO for Leonardo has worked so well that the Leonardo programme is generally regarded as a success, and the Council of Education Ministers has just substantially increased its budget.
<P>
The TAO for Leonardo has on several occasions been the subject of observations and checks by DG XXII on a number of proposals or payment requests from that office.
Those requests were refused by DG XXII, and we have looked at the very long list of comments made by officials of DG XXII.
I attended the Committee on Social Affairs recently, on 5 January.
I clarified a number of things for it and shall be appearing before it again tomorrow.
<P>
Heckling
<P>
Look, if you are not interested in hearing this, don't ask me questions!
<P>
So I am attending the Committee on Social Affairs again tomorrow to examine in depth the substance of the Van Buitenen report on the TAO for Leonardo.
<P>
Hitherto, I should say that I have always had the support of Parliament, of the committees concerned, which are those on education and research, and that thanks to that support and that confidence, we have achieved good results compared with the Council, which is currently extremely reticent when it comes to expenditure.
We have moved things forward which are new in education, as it is only since Maastricht that the Commission has had responsibility for education.
We have set up second-chance schools and skills accreditation schemes.
We have launched the European Voluntary Service, with Parliament's help, because I would never have got this from the Council without Parliament's assistance, and I think that in all these instances we can take satisfaction from the cooperation which has existed, for me and for my colleagues too, between the Commission and Parliament.
<P>
I hope I have answered some of your questions.
For the rest, I am happy to attend any committee you like.
I attended the Committee on Budgetary Control just the other day.
I am happy to attend wherever you want, whenever you want, so that we can give a very thorough explanation of these dossiers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Böge">
On a point of order, Mr President.
Can we all remain seated in future, when you call us to speak?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="President">
On this occasion, due to the lack of space, Mrs Cresson had to speak whilst seated.
As you must of course be aware, this is not our usual practice.
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Marín, also at his own request.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Marín">
Thank you for giving me the floor, Mr President.
I shall make just a brief statement because it is of course up to Mr Santer, who speaks for the Commission, to reply to the various speakers and comment on the points which have been raised.
Nevertheless, I wish to respond to your invitation and I know that your invitation is honestly meant.
<P>
How, as the longest-serving Commissioner, could I fail to be aware of what is going on at the Commission?
I do, of course, accept my share of responsibility, I say that quite openly.
But there is one thing I would like to point out.
Ladies and gentlemen, if I have, in my 14 years of management activity, done some good things, I have doubtless made some mistakes as well.
That is the way in politics, but I cannot accept Mrs Müller's charge of covering up a case of fraud.
I have not covered up any case of fraud.
I may perhaps have made some wrong decisions, indeed that is quite probable.
<P>
As regards the first point - and Mrs Theato and Mr Fabra Vallés know this very well - when I was told that there was a conflict of interests I, Commissioner Marín, suspended all programme planning.
That is what I did.
And at the time, you said you were convinced that in not renewing the existing contract and freezing the programme until a detailed examination had been completed, the Commission had taken the right decision.
<P>
I have made things absolutely clear about the two technical assistants, Mr Martens; this is the real problem we have at the Commission.
Mr Santer has said that because of our staff shortages and the need to improvise over the last four years, a large part of our programmes has been implemented by outside consultants.
Does that mean that all outside consultants are crooks?
No.
There are outside consultants who are very valuable, very sound and very professional, but within this system there are of course people who have cheated us.
I am sorry, Mrs Müller, obviously, but that is how things are.
<P>
One difference alone separates us, just one.
This was the question of whether or not we should refer the matter to the judicial authorities.
This is what separated us, Mrs Theato, because what I did at the time was considered by the European Parliament to be exactly the right thing.
<P>
I punished the outside consultants, I took them to court.
Tell your fellow Members that, Mrs Theato.
It is a fact.
The problem was deciding whether or not we should take our officials to court.
That is a tricky matter.
Personally, I do not want things to continue like this.
<P>
The President has suggested a formula.
Let us discuss it.
Let us study it.
But part of the work has been done.
Part of it still needs to be done.
But of course, Mr Martens, I assure you that I greatly regret the present situation.
I may be wrong, but I do not regard myself as a dishonest man.
You have known me for a long time.
I may have made a lot of mistakes.
I may have done things which in policy terms were wrong.
But be that as it may, as the longest-serving member and in all my work at the Commission I have to my knowledge never, never, condoned fraud of any kind.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Santer">
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Santer.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Thursday at 11 a.m.
<P>
The sitting was closed at 8 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
German Presidency and the situation in Kosovo
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The next item is the statement by the President-in-Office of the Council on the programme of the German Presidency and the situation in Kosovo.
<P>
I give the floor to the President-in-Office, Mr Fischer, whom I should like to welcome to the House this morning.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="Fischer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on 1 January 1999 with the introduction of the euro, the common currency, by eleven Member States, Europe took a historic, perhaps even a revolutionary step which will lend a new dimension to the process of European integration.
For the first time in the history of the European integration process, that all but miraculous response by the people of Europe to centuries of a precarious balance of power on this continent, of violent attempts to establish hegemony and of terrible wars, an essential component of national sovereignty, monetary sovereignty, has been transferred to a European institution.
This act does indeed create a new political dimension.
Currency, security and constitution, those are the three essential components of the sovereignty of modern nation states, and the introduction of the euro constituted the first move towards their communitarisation in the EU.
The real significance of this step for Europe and international politics will probably only be understood with the passage of time.
<P>
The introduction of a common currency is not primarily an economic act, but above all a sovereign and thus eminently political act.
With the communitarisation of its money, Europe has also opted for an autonomous path into the future and, in close association with our transatlantic partners, for an autonomous role in tomorrow's world.
To date, however, the EU has only partly been a political entity and therefore the introduction of a common currency at a time when there is still a political and democratic deficit in the Community will create a field of tension, the dynamic of which will radically change the current status quo in the not too distant future
<P>
Observers who pointed out at the time of the euro launch that the common currency offered great opportunities but harboured equally great risks for the EU, depending on the Member States' attitude to the process of further political communitarisation, will, I believe, be proved right.
They expected the opportunities to be predominant if the introduction of the euro prompted further, substantial moves towards communitarisation, culminating in full political union.
Its introduction would, however, turn out to be a huge risk if this bold step on the part of the EU was not logically followed by other equally bold steps toward full integration, which must include enlargement of the EU to Central and Eastern Europe as quickly as possible.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Political wisdom, as also the national interests of all Member States, demand that we do not even let this alternative arise but that instead we jointly and vigorously grasp the opportunities afforded by the successful introduction of the euro.
We must therefore strengthen the EU's ability to take political action and gear its internal structures to the new tasks.
Political union, with enlargement to include new Member States, must be our lodestar from now on; it is the logical follow-up to economic and monetary union.
<P>
The main task of the German Presidency is to prepare the Union's structures and procedures so as to turn it from a Union for western Europe into a Union for the whole of Europe and one that is also capable of global action.
We have set ourselves four central aims for the next six months.
Firstly, we want to bring the Agenda 2000 negotiations to a successful conclusion by 24/25 March, the date of the special summit in Brussels.
That is not a random date.
If we do not reach agreement by then, it will seriously call in question the Union's ability to reform, which is crucial to the enlargement process.
There are no two ways about it: the negotiations will be very, very difficult.
A solution will only be found through a comprehensive balance of interests.
The German Presidency will ensure that a balanced solution is found at the European Council at the end of March, not one that is at the expense of the weakest EU partners.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Even if positions still diverge on key questions, since my presidential trip I have become optimistic that we can agree.
During that exploratory trip before Christmas, I felt all partner countries were ready to play a constructive role in the negotiations and strive for agreement by March.
Everyone knows that we will only be successful if we treat Agenda 2000 as a single package and if everyone makes compromises.
There must be no winners or losers.
That means the German Presidency will have to perform a difficult balancing act.
Here we also count on the support and understanding of the European Parliament, with whom we want to work together closely.
<P>
Now we must set about tackling the questions of substance as quickly as possible.
In the field of structural policy, I think we must begin by concentrating on the regions with the weakest structures which are most in need of support.
Aid must become simpler, less centralised, more environmentally friendly and create more jobs.
The future viability and legitimacy of the EU depend on fair burden-sharing.
Let me say quite clearly at this point: as the strongest EU Member State economically speaking, Germany will continue to bear its European responsibility and remain the greatest net contributor.
But injustices have crept into the burden-sharing process, which must be rectified.
This concern, which Germany shares with other Member States, has been recognised as legitimate by the Commission and in the meantime also by many partners.
<P>
Enlargement, as well as the next round of WTO talks, require a root and branch reform of the common agricultural policy and a reduction in agricultural spending.
If we want to admit countries in Central and Eastern Europe which are still mainly agriculture-based, we cannot carry on with European agricultural policy as it stands.
European agriculture must become more competitive and environmentally sustainable.
At the same time our farmers' interests must be protected.
<P>
Secondly, we want to make definite progress towards an effective employment policy.
The fight against unemployment is the most urgent concern of the people of Europe.
They expect, quite rightly, not just national governments to tackle unemployment but efforts to be made at European level too.
Therefore we want to conclude a European employment pact at the Cologne European Council.
The pact is to be the expression of an active labour market policy, which will now focus more than before on prevention, on reducing youth and long-term unemployment and discrimination against women on the job market.
<P>
Thirdly, we want to and have to make progress on the enlargement of the EU as quickly as possible.
<P>
Now that the cold war is over, Europe cannot remain restricted to western Europe, for by its very nature the idea of European integration concerns the whole of Europe.
<P>
Applause
<P>
In any case, the geo-political situation leaves no real alternative.
If this is true, then the events of 1989/90 have already decided the 'if' question of enlargement to the east; only the 'how' and 'when' need to be identified and decided.
<P>
The southern enlargement of the EU was a great economic as well as political and democratic success.
Economic prosperity and democratic stability were the fruits of southern enlargement for the countries that joined at the time and for Europe as a whole, and the EU must repeat this success with its eastern enlargement.
Prosperity, peace and stability can only be guaranteed for the whole of Europe in the long term through the accession of the Central and Eastern European partners.
And only by opening up towards the east can the EU claim to speak as a cultural area and community of values for the whole of Europe.
In Germany we have not forgotten the invaluable contribution of the people of Central and Eastern Europe to ending the division of Germany and Europe.
<P>
It would be irresponsible politically to allow a zone of instability to emerge beyond the current EU borders, given our experience in the Balkans.
In addition, it would be a breach of promise to the new democracies, with fatal consequences for Europe.
Thus any deliberate attempt to delay let alone prevent EU enlargement would amount to a politically and economically dangerous and expensive detour, and at the end of the road enlargement would eventually still prove inevitable in view of these realities and risks.
For all these reasons, ladies and gentlemen, there is in my view no alternative to the enlargement of the EU with the accession of the next applicant states.
<P>
Applause
<P>
We need a strategic vision for the enlargement process, but also a great deal of pragmatism.
We must now bring the enlargement negotiations to a successful and workable conclusion as quickly as possible.
At this moment - and I emphasise at this moment - we ought to spare ourselves purely academic debates about deadlines.
If we concentrate now on making the EU structures ready for enlargement - and the successful conclusion of Agenda 2000 is essential for this - that does not mean postponing enlargement.
Quite the reverse in fact.
<P>
Our ability to enlarge must go hand in hand with other countries' ability to accede.
The sooner the EU tackles the necessary reforms and the more intensively the applicant states pursue their internal reforms, the quicker and smoother the progress of the enlargement process will be.
<P>
For all these reasons Germany remains a strong advocate of early eastern enlargement of the European Union.
We want to push ahead with the accession negotiations during our presidency.
The applicant countries which still have to enter negotiations must be given a fair chance to catch up with the others; the fast lane must stay open.
It is still too early to fix a date for accession.
But if we can see light at the end of the negotiating tunnel, probably towards the end of 1999 or in 2000, following the likely progress of negotiations and the successful conclusion of Agenda 2000 in March, it will certainly become reasonable or even urgent to set a definite date to bring the negotiations to a speedy conclusion.
<P>
Fourthly, we want to enhance the EU's ability to act in the foreign policy domain.
Only a Union with an effective foreign policy can safeguard peace in Europe and bring its increasing weight to bear on the world stage.
Even the large Member States of the EU will be less and less able to assert their interests and protect peace in an ever more globalised world.
<P>
In the multipolar world of the 21st century, the EU must therefore become an independent entity capable of political action.
We must prepare ourselves for this task by creating a Common Foreign and Security Policy worthy of that name in good time.
When the Amsterdam Treaty enters into force, by 1 June at the latest according to the current progress of the ratification process, we want to ensure that it will be applied in all areas immediately.
In regard to the Common Foreign and Security Policy, the Treaty contains a package of new instruments which will enhance the Union's ability to act in foreign policy matters.
<P>
The appointment of the CFSP High Representative will, we hope, bring significant progress.
But this will only be the case if it is a man or woman with political weight who can get things done ...
<P>
Heckling
<P>
... officials do exist who satisfy both those requirements - I deny that categorically.
<P>
During our presidency, the policy planning and early warning unit are to be set up and the new 'common strategy' instrument introduced, and with it majority decisions in the CFSP.
We want to apply this new instrument first to the EU's neighbouring regions and adopt the first common strategy for Russia - and if possible also for Ukraine - at the Cologne European Council.
The creation of a prosperous civil society in Russia in the long term is most important to the stability of the whole of Europe.
<P>
At the present time what we need is as much joint action as possible and the most intensive use of the new instruments in the CFSP.
It is important that we identify fields of common European interest more clearly. This is also necessary in order to heighten public awareness of the common European approach to foreign and security policy issues.
<P>
In the next six months we have to turn political vision into tangible progress. But we must not narrow our view to operational day-to-day affairs.
Europe has always drawn its strength from a constructive mixture of visions and their practical implementation.
Particularly in the next six months, it will be important to keep an eye on the wider horizon, in view of the tasks that need to be resolved in practical terms.
<P>
The next target area after the conclusion of Agenda 2000 - and another reason why it is so important now to bring Agenda 2000 to a positive conclusion - will be the EU's institutional reform.
This reform is urgent with a view to enlargement to avoid institutional collapse.
If the European Union is to maintain its ability to act with 21 or more members, the appropriate reforms must be carried out.
<P>
The key to an enlarged Union's ability to act is the willingness to accept majority decisions in as many areas as possible.
<P>
Applause
<P>
The new Federal Government advocates limiting the unanimity requirement in the EU in the longer term to questions of fundamental importance such as treaty amendments.
At the Vienna European Council, it was agreed that the Cologne European Council should decide on how to deal with the institutional questions not resolved in Amsterdam.
I would imagine that in Cologne we will give the green light to a new intergovernmental conference, which could meet around the year 2001.
<P>
Applause
<P>
In the long term we have to face the question of the aims and methods of further integration.
We have followed the inspired 'Monnet method' in the European Union for more than 40 years: a step-by-step approach towards further integration with no blueprint of the ultimate goal.
This method proved extremely successful.
We have achieved the goals of no more wars, economic reconstruction and prosperity that were formulated in the 1950s.
<P>
War within the European Union has now become impossible from both political and military standpoints.
This is the greatest achievement of the European integration process on our warring continent and we should never forget this.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Economic and monetary integration is largely completed with the introduction of the euro.
Only a few areas are still lacking, such as closer harmonisation of tax policies, which Germany advocates.
So why do we want to carry on with integration?
I see two central reasons for doing so: firstly, because in the age of globalisation no European nation state, not even the larger ones, will be able to act on their own. We Europeans can only meet the challenges of globalisation if we are united; and, secondly, because exporting stability to neighbouring regions is not just a historic and moral responsibility for Europe but also lies in our own best interests.
Crisis prevention is always better, cheaper and above all more humane than acute crisis management.
<P>
Applause
<P>
The greatest deficits within the EU are to be found today in the fields of political integration and European democracy.
How can we make headway in these areas?
After Maastricht and Amsterdam, the call for a European constitution will be much louder than before.
This public debate in the Member States will give new impetus to political integration.
<P>
For me this is initially more a question of substance and aims than of reappraising legal bases.
The idea of a common European future, the 'finality' of Europe, is hazy at present.
A debate on what constitutes Europe could provide both direction and clarity in this area.
Important questions about the future remain unanswered.
What idea can rally people in favour of Europe? This is in my view a central issue because in the final analysis it concerns the soul of the future Europe.
What should the balance of powers be in the triangle of Europe, nations and regions?
Where do we need more or perhaps less Europe?
Where are Europe's external borders?
How can we further the development of a European public and strengthen the democratic legitimacy of the EU and its institutions?
People are right to look for answers to these questions.
We will all have to consider them.
<P>
If we want to turn the European Union into a strong and assertive entity, then we need to strengthen it in four key policy areas.
<P>
Firstly, Europe needs more democracy.
The decision-making processes in the Union need to become more transparent and more comprehensible to the people.
The citizens need to understand at long last who is deciding what in Brussels and with what legitimacy.
<P>
The Amsterdam Treaty has bestowed new and important rights and powers on the European Parliament. This can only be an interim step, however.
The greater the Union's ability to act, the greater the democratic legitimacy of its actions must be.
<P>
Applause
<P>
The rights of the European Parliament must therefore be further extended - and I am saying that as a convinced European rather than fishing for compliments - and that should also be a focus of the next intergovernmental conference.
Broader legitimacy means that the European Parliament enjoys equal co-decision rights and an equal say in all areas where the Council can adopt legislation by majority voting.
<P>
Applause
<P>
The European Parliament could also play a greater role in the election of the Commission than is provided for in the Amsterdam Treaty.
Closer involvement of the national parliaments, as already provided in the Amsterdam Treaty, should also be considered.
In order to strengthen citizens' rights, Germany is proposing the drafting of a European charter of fundamental rights in the long term.
<P>
Applause
<P>
We want to take the initiative here during our presidency.
For us it is a question of consolidating the legitimacy and identity of the EU.
The European Parliament, which has already done the groundwork with its 1994 draft, should be involved in drawing up the charter of fundamental rights, as should the national parliaments and as many social groups as possible.
<P>
Secondly, the Common Foreign and Security Policy must be geared to the European values of peace and human rights and be capable of efficient crisis management.
In the age of globalisation, human rights have a political and economic importance that goes over and above the humanitarian aspect, as demonstrated by the recent Asian crisis.
Security of investment in the emerging markets is possible only if ecological sustainability and human rights are also assured, not if they are suppressed.
<P>
Applause
<P>
The development of free markets is only possible on a lasting basis if it is embedded in a wide culture of freedom based on human rights, the separation of powers, the rule of law, democratic parties, independent unions, a free press and a critical public.
During our presidency we will work towards strengthening the EU's human rights profile.
The new EU human rights report aims to create transparency and at the same time to provide impetus for action in the European Union and the Member States.
<P>
The key to efficient preventive and operational conflict resolution lies in greater use of majority decisions and presenting a united front to the outside world - in the G8, the international financial institutions and the United Nations.
<P>
Amsterdam can only be one step along the way towards an enlarged Union that is capable of taking action in the foreign policy domain.
<P>
Thirdly, we need a European security and defence identity to complete the Common Foreign and Security Policy.
In recent times, a problematic trend towards unilateralism and away from multilateralism has been noticeable in international affairs.
This tendency has already had very adverse effects at United Nations level, which must give cause for concern.
Global peace-keeping also needs to be legitimised by the multilateral organisations.
But this also necessitates political entities that are willing and able to use their influence to shape the international political system as an order of peace through multilateral action based on international law and in conjunction with other partners.
This is another important, central challenge for the Europe of the future.
<P>
Collective defence will remain NATO's remit.
But the EU must also develop its own capabilities for military crisis management in cases where the EU sees a need for action in which its North American partners do not wish to become involved.
This issue has received fresh impetus following Tony Blair's initiative in Pörtschach and the Franco-British meeting in St Malo.
After the single market and economic and monetary union, the creation of a European security and defence identity, ESDI, could be of great importance to the further deepening of the EU.
During our dual presidency of the EU and WEU, we will make every effort to harness the new momentum of Pörtschach.
By the time of the Cologne European Council, we intend to draw up a report on the possible further development of the European security and defence identity.
<P>
Fourthly, in the field of justice and home affairs, the Amsterdam Treaty aims to create an area of freedom, security and justice.
We want to attain this goal step by step.
The special meeting of the European Council in Tampere in October is to take stock of the situation and establish further guidelines.
During our presidency we also want to discuss asylum policy burden-sharing as well as the humane handling of large refugee flows.
Fighting international organised crime effectively is crucial to Europe's ability to act and its acceptance by the people.
To that end, we need to step up cross-border cooperation between police forces and increase Europol's operational capabilities.
<P>
The issues just mentioned point to the urgent need for the entry into force of a European charter of fundamental rights.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, during my presidential trip before Christmas, I met my Spanish colleague at the conference centre in Madrid where the Peace Implementation Conference for Bosnia was also being held.
While we, the Spanish and German foreign ministers and delegations, prepared important EU decisions about the Europe of the 21st century, the Europe of integration, the conference also had to seek solutions to the Europe of the past, the Europe of nationalism and war.
The history of European disunity was described graphically in Madrid on that day, while at the same time the historical challenge which lies before us was made clear.
Both alternatives make up the current reality of Europe, but we, the Europe of integration, must not afford the Europe of the past any chance for the future because that would spell disaster for our continent.
<P>
Only the Europe of integration is viable and only this Europe can peacefully put to rest the discord on our continent and make the EU into a political entity able to help shape the future of a dramatically changing world.
Several generations have now worked on making the European house, the EU, a political success.
Our generation has the challenge of completing this Europe of integration.
<P>
Loud and sustained applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="Santer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President-in-Office, I shall be very brief today because I already had an opportunity to highlight the main points of the German Presidency when I spoke yesterday.
Moreover, I agree entirely with the programme the President-in-Office has just set out for you.
<P>
Yesterday morning I was in Bonn with my whole team for the traditional meeting at the beginning of the presidency.
The work was carried out in a most constructive climate.
I was struck by the German Government's determination to harness all its energy to the service of Europe.
<P>
Determination is certainly needed, because the Vienna strategy provides for a very heavy programme for the German Presidency.
In fact, the first six months of this year will represent a pivotal stage in the development of the Union.
At the same time, of course, Germany will also be presiding over the fortunes of the G7-G8, the Western European Union and Schengen.
This is a very heavy burden, but it is also a unique opportunity to move forward on major issues such as the introduction of the euro, the incorporation of Schengen into the Treaty, and the definition of a genuine defence policy.
<P>
Mr President, Agenda 2000 will, of course, be the major challenge of the next six months.
Everything, or almost everything, has already been said on this subject.
Now we must negotiate, negotiate, negotiate!
Agenda 2000 will undoubtedly be decisive for the future of the Union, because without a serious reform of the common agricultural policy, we would be facing unmanageable surpluses again in a few years' time.
Without a reform of the Structural Funds, the vital efforts made to achieve economic and social cohesion would gradually run out of steam, and without an agreement on the future financial framework, the Union would end up making all the old mistakes with endless quarrels about the budget, and acrimonious disputes that harm the development of the Union.
Of course, failure would seriously endanger the prospects of enlargement, which is undoubtedly the major goal of the beginning of the 21st century.
<P>
I am convinced that, together, the presidency, Parliament and the Commission will succeed in taking up the challenge.
The political will to do so exists in every country, as Mr Fischer has just mentioned.
Everyone knows there will have to be compromises.
That was clearly demonstrated in Vienna and was also confirmed by my own bilateral contacts.
<P>
The second major theme of the presidency, as I see it, is the whole issue of growth and employment.
The euro is here, of course, and now we must make it thrive.
Internally, that means strengthening economic coordination from all angles, including - and I would stress this - taxation.
Externally, be it in the context of the G7-G8 or that of the international financial organisations, the Union must speak with one voice, one single voice, and make its presence felt.
You know how much importance I have attached to the fight for jobs ever since the start of my mandate.
We have come a long way recently and I am delighted with the Vienna decision to move towards a proper pact, which is what I have been calling for since 1996.
The Cologne meeting will be important in that respect.
<P>
During the German Presidency, the Amsterdam Treaty will come into force.
Its success will depend on very close contacts with the European Parliament to ensure that decisions are taken smoothly, especially on issues where procedures will change with the new Treaty. Agenda 2000 is one of these.
<P>
A major innovation in the Treaty involves the creation of a real area of freedom, security and justice.
I know how important this is to the German Presidency, and it is becoming urgent to coordinate our responses on immigration and asylum, for example.
The fight against organised crime is a priority in all the Member States and we must tackle it together; that is what our citizens expect.
<P>
Under the German Presidency, we must make in-depth preparations for the special summit in Tampere, which will be held under the Finnish Presidency.
And as Mr Fischer has just said, the next institutional reform is already taking shape, with the Amsterdam Treaty only just coming into force. Life is like that in the European Union.
<P>
Foreign affairs will occupy a special place during the German Presidency.
I have often said that if there is one area where progress still needs to be made and where Europe must become stronger, then it is certainly in the field of foreign affairs.
The political will to do so has sometimes been lacking in the past.
That is no longer tolerable given the high degree of integration we have achieved, with the launch of the euro and the arrival of a multipolar world.
Obviously I cannot go through the long list of our relations with all the world's regions now, but I will just mention two or three examples.
Our relations with the United States have assumed unparalleled importance and intensity.
It is not unusual for differences to arise in such a relationship and the banana affair is one example. In fact, that issue has implications going well beyond the delicious fruit itself.
This problem must be resolved by following our rules, which in this case are also those of the World Trade Organisation.
<P>
Issues like these must not poison relations that do, after all, have another dimension.
I am thinking, amongst other things, of the area of defence, where we have worked hand-in-hand with our American partners for decades. It is up to Europeans to strengthen those relations in the mutual interest of bringing them closer together.
<P>
My second example is that of our relations with Russia, that great country which, despite its present difficulties, will always remain a great country.
Recently, we have moved to a new level in terms of relations between the Union and Russia, and I am sure the German Presidency will continue along that path.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, I will stop there because I fully agree with the picture Mr Fischer has painted.
<P>
Mr President, I think this very brief statement from me is enough to highlight the importance of the German Presidency for the Union.
I would like to strongly emphasise that over the next six months the Commission will be standing by the Presidency to fulfill its role under the Treaties and in time-honoured tradition.
Personally, I am sure that when we assess the outcome in June, the Union will have progressed to another stage, which will be a decisive stage in the unification of our Europe.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Green">
Mr President, the first speaker from my group today was supposed to have been Mr Görlach.
I understand that he has had an accident on the ice outside this building and has been taken to hospital with a head injury, which I hope is minor.
I ask for the indulgence of the House for the rearrangement of my group's speaking list.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Poettering">
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, the German Presidency began on a historic day, 1 January 1999, the day when European monetary union became a reality.
At first people derided this project as merely a vision, but thanks to resolute action it has become a reality.
Monetary union is the achievement of many people.
But at the beginning of this German Presidency I would like to give thanks on behalf of the PPE Group to a figure who took Germany through three presidencies, in 1983, 1988 and 1994.
I want to thank Helmut Kohl, former Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany and freeman of Europe.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, we wish this German Presidency the same resolve, the same dynamism, the same courage that Helmut Kohl displayed for Germany and in Europe.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, we hope that in your words and your actions you will manage not just to maintain but to further strengthen our European partners' trust in Germany's European policy.
<P>
We regret the fact - and this is not a question of party politics - that the use of the term realism has given the impression that the accession process is to be delayed.
Happily you expressed yourself in such a way today that we can endorse what you said; nevertheless this impression has been created.
President Kwasniewski of Poland sounded the alarm when he spoke here in Parliament on 18 November of sending out a wrong signal that could discourage the people of Central Europe from pursuing their reform process.
Let us encourage the people of Central Europe!
We call on them to speed up the accession process!
<P>
We have a political and moral duty to do our utmost to ensure that the people of Central Europe can join the European Union's community of values as quickly as possible.
That is also a question of trust.
What German policy accomplished over a period of 16 years, and of course before that too, must not come to nought!
But that also means that we must not engage in any foolhardy debate about a changed North Atlantic Alliance strategy.
That too is a question of the trust the people of Central Europe place in us.
<P>
Of course we know it is difficult for our own people to accept the need for rapid accession.
But politics is not about taking one's cue from daily opinion surveys; it is about doing the right thing and winning the people of Europe over to it.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you said you want to submit proposals for institutional reform.
We welcome that and call on you to give the European Parliament an equal say with the Commission in these deliberations.
You want to adopt Agenda 2000 at the March summit.
We welcome that and wish you success in that endeavour!
<P>
You spoke of the German contribution.
Certainly everyone will have to make their contribution so that a fair solution can be reached.
Germany's net contribution is certainly high. This needs rectifying.
But we hope that during the internal German discussion the presidency of the Council and its highest representatives will also point out that in 1997, for instance, Germany had a balance of trade surplus of DEM 81 billion with its other European Union partners.
That too is part of the truth and people must be told it!
<P>
Mixed reactions, heckling
<P>
High unemployment is a pressing problem for us too.
Here the European partners must learn from each other how to create more jobs.
But we would warn anyone against giving the impression that simply by elevating employment policy to European Union level this problem can be overcome, and then holding Europe responsible if unemployment cannot be dealt with at national level.
Europe must not be turned into a scapegoat!
We will not allow any political alibis in this regard.
<P>
Let me make a final remark.
The agreement reached by the Bonn coalition government - which is of European significance - provides that in the next European Commission both posts will be occupied by the government parties.
We want to make it quite clear: we hope that is not the federal government's last word, but if this German example sets a precedent and if the next European Commission is appointed on a one-sided political basis, then the European People's Party will not be able to give that Commission its vote of confidence.
We would ask you to take that into account!
<P>
Heckling
<P>
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, we wish you success during your presidency, for your success is Europe's success.
It is our common success in achieving a strong, democratic European Union which is capable of action, that will make it possible to secure peace and freedom in our old, constantly changing European continent in the 21st century.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Frischenschlager">
Mr President, Mr Fischer, I fully agree with your basic programme statements and they largely address long-standing concerns of Parliament's Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party.
Yet I must draw your attention to a discrepancy between what you have said today and the impression your Chancellor - who is after all a person of some importance to the European Union - is giving in all the debates in Germany and Europe, namely that the net contributor debate is the only real debate and that this is the crucial factor on which everything else depends!
<P>
I regret that because I believe that Europe is more than the sum of national interests and I felt a little nervous yesterday when on top of that your Chancellor emphasised that he would like to see a very open representation of German interests.
We all represent national interests too.
But I do not think that is a very suitable motto to choose for a presidency!
That is why I believe that we must take a very cautious approach to the net contributor debate.
It is quite clear that this debate is important.
But I would ask you not to put it at the beginning of our reform debates but to take it last.
First we must clarify the situation in regard to our aid systems.
Then we have to establish our financial requirements and then, at the end, we must determine how to achieve a fair burden-sharing.
During that concluding debate, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you will find that the liberals will speak very objectively and with all the necessary fairness.
<P>
Regarding the other points you made, I would highlight your statements on the Common Foreign and Security Policy, and especially what you said about human rights and the constitution of the European Union.
I wish you every success there.
But take care that your net contributor debate does not land you in the same boat as those who try to persuade us that the future lies in what would appear to be a Europe of Fatherlands!
Take care that you do not find yourselves landing back there!
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Collins, Gerard">
Mr President, the German Government has assumed the presidency of the European Union at a challenging time.
Many key European policies are being re-evaluated in the context of the Agenda 2000 programme which is to be put into place to take account of the impending enlargement of the European Union itself.
<P>
The successful launch of the euro in recent days must clearly be an indication to the German Government that stability is the key to the success of European Union policies.
The success of the single European currency was brought about by careful, consistent planning which is now going to bring economic benefits to the 290 million people in the eleven participating countries.
<P>
I wish to emphasise that the German Government should approach the issues of the reform of the common agricultural policy and the reform of the Structural Funds as well as the future financing arrangements of the Union in a balanced and even-handed manner.
The partnership approach involving all European governments and all EU institutions in the formulation of key European Union policies must always be preserved.
<P>
Firstly, I would like to draw attention to the debate taking place in relation to the future financing of the European Union's annual budget.
One option which must not be implemented is a possible renationalising of the financing of the common agricultural policy.
This policy is a uniform European-wide programme, and forcing national governments to contribute up to 25 % of the agricultural budget would clearly fragment and distort the workings of the CAP.
The recent BSE crisis, as well as the collapse of the Russian market for EU agricultural produce, has severely affected the workings of many individual agricultural operations, most notably the beef sector, and renationalising part of the CAP would introduce even more uncertainty into an already difficult situation.
<P>
Secondly, there cannot be a reform of the EU Structural Fund programmes unless there is a continued commitment to financially supporting the four Cohesion Fund countries.
The European Structural Funds have played a considerable role in helping less-developed and peripheral nations to prepare the completion of the Single Market, and in the introduction of the European single currency.
From an Irish perspective, while we are satisfied that economic progress has been made in recent years, there is need to underpin this progress.
More work needs to be done in order to improve the Irish transport and environmental protection infrastructure and bring them up to European standards.
It is in this way that the Irish economy can make a positive contribution towards generating growth in the euro zone.
<P>
Finally, the same situation applies in all of the peripheral countries and regions of the Union and it is vitally important for the success of both the euro and the single market that the good work of recent years should be consolidated through the continued availability of structural cohesion resources until these regions have reached European average levels.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Moreau">
Mr President, you raised many issues that our group is committed to, including democracy, fundamental human rights, peace, and a multipolar world.
<P>
But progress with the euro and integration cannot in themselves constitute the means, the only means, of achieving those aims. At the very least, they call for new guidelines that are different from those adopted up to now, which have led to an obvious social and democratic deficit.
There can be no prosperous and peaceful Europe if unemployment and poverty continue to spread.
<P>
By giving priority to employment and growth, the Pörtschach Summit had marked a change in tone that we welcomed.
Unfortunately, this was not reflected in the Vienna documents.
The next summit in Cologne, which the German Presidency must prepare, must not end in further disappointment.
The fight against unemployment is our citizens' primary concern, a concern sharpened by the predicted slowing down of growth, and it calls for substantial measures.
<P>
We say are in favour of the European employment pact, but a formula is not enough on its own.
It is firstly essential to loosen the stranglehold of the stability pact so that internal demand, the foundation of a healthy economy, can be consolidated.
The remit and powers of the European Central Bank must be reviewed because price stability cannot constitute the European Union's main ideal, and because bankers must not have so much power whereby all that the democratically elected governments have left to do is heal the wounds of society.
<P>
Our group submitted 13 proposals to the Vienna Summit, on the basis of proposals from unions and associations, and I hope the German Presidency will take them into account.
<P>
Regarding the future financing of the Union, I think it is absolutely necessary to get away from narrow accounting assessments.
Europe can only be built on solidarity and generosity, not on selfishness and meanness.
Instead of planning a reduction in agricultural expenditure, which would be a blow to France and the southern countries, and which our group has opposed, why not look for new sources of financing, for example by taxing capital transactions?
<P>
Finally, I want to raise two foreign policy issues.
The first is the Council's role in supporting the Middle East peace process, which is running into so many difficulties. And the second is the Council's commitment, at last, to the success of the peace plan for Western Sahara, where it is now putting pressure on the Moroccan Government to accept the proposals from the United Nations until a fair and free referendum on self-determination can be organised.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I am sure you will believe me when I say that for my group this is a big day which will go down in the History with a capital H of the Green movement and will even have a place in the continuing story of Europe.
<P>
Not 'from a jack to a king', but from a street protester to a minister is in itself a development which inspires the imagination.
If this same imagination is now brought to the exercising of your present position, we can consider ourselves fortunate indeed: Welcome, Joschka Fischer!
Your presence here today as a representative of the Council is of great symbolic value.
It is the highest point so far in the history of a generation which in 1968 embarked upon producing a radical upheaval in society, in Europe and in the world.
This generated a number of movements, giving rise, among others, to the existence of Europe's Green parties.
Now here we are in the European institutions, a very different place, of course, exercising our powers to protest, to take decisions and to control.
From your long experience you will naturally know not to expect us to behave as dutiful choristers concerned solely with celebrating the advent of the German Presidency.
There will be water and fire, sun and storm, and they will make for an exciting debate.
<P>
Combating unemployment is a central concern of the presidency.
If we succeed in getting European governments to pursue joint and coordinated action, then mass unemployment can be successfully tackled.
After the Luxembourg summit it is absolutely vital to ensure a convincing follow-up, with no postponing by Vienna until Cologne or Helsinki.
<P>
We welcome the German initiative in an EU manifesto on basic rights as well as the commitment to an international strategy to combat human rights violations and their causes.
As regards asylum policy and Schengen we are much less enthusiastic, but the model of dual nationality included in the German coalition agreement is innovative and could have a certain impact as a new model in and for Europe.
It is significant that colleagues from the CDU find it necessary to lodge a petition in order to undermine this innovative initiative which grants political rights to fellow citizens.
This certainly plays into the hands of the far right.
<P>
Of course we hope that under your presidency steps can be taken towards introducing a European energy tax.
This is desirable in order to eliminate labour taxes which are having such a lethal effect on jobs.
But our greatest concern is for the future of Agenda 2000.
Naturally the outmoded expenditure structure must be looked at and agricultural policy throughly reformed.
There can be no doubt about that.
<P>
It is fair to say that the European Parliament is also finding it difficult to arrive at a coherent solution for these agricultural reforms.
We have seen that this week.
But the main point is: How is the debate on net contributors to be conducted?
You are quite right when you say that we must review the way the burden is shared.
But it would be nothing short of catastrophic if the Council allowed the debate on net contributors to overshadow the financing plans for enlargement.
Europe cannot have everything at once: stability, no migration problems, and enlargement put on the back burner and costing as little as possible.
But despite these critical comments, we wish you a very successful presidency and you can count on our critical but constructive cooperation.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lalumière">
Mr President-in-Office, I want to welcome you and your presidency on behalf of my group.
Your presidency, which is the last of our legislature, raises high hopes for many reasons and your excellent and constructive speech strengthens those hopes.
You raise these hopes firstly because Germany is a big country, with the largest population in Europe, and it is also the most powerful country economically.
This does not mean you should burden yourselves with excessive responsibilities, but this is a fact that is obvious to all.
You also inspire hope and curiosity because your government has come to power after the long reign of Chancellor Kohl.
<P>
Our group is obviously delighted with this new left-wing majority and we hope that social problems, employment, social justice and citizens' rights - I am thinking, in particular, of the rules for acquiring German nationality - will receive more attention than before.
But we also know that the previous Chancellor's record on Europe was quite remarkable and it will not be easy to take up the torch.
We have confidence in you, Mr President-in-Office.
We know you have a very strong personal commitment to Europe.
We have just heard you speak.
<P>
But everyone knows that policies are judged by deeds and not words, and we are anxious to see, particularly at the coming European Councils, if you will be able to break the deadlock on issues that are pending.
I am thinking in particular of the whole financial and budgetary side of Agenda 2000.
I am thinking of the future of the great policies of the Union, for instance, the common agricultural policy.
I am also thinking of the reform of the Union's institutions, which is essential, as you said, if we want to make a success of the coming enlargement. We are all committed to this and it must be achieved, whatever the difficulties that need to be overcome.
<P>
Let me return to the financial aspect of Agenda 2000.
We know what problems this raises in Germany.
German public opinion is increasingly expressing its discontent with a burden it considers excessive. This even led the German press recently to fuel all the criticism of the Commission about wastefulness, poor management, and even fraud and embezzlement.
Little by little, concoctions are created, muddling up valid criticism with false accusations.
What worries me is that all this might result in Germany disengaging and withdrawing from the spirit of solidarity, from solidarity with the less favoured regions of the Union, solidarity with the developing countries, and solidarity with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office, your remarks just now are reassuring, but I want to stress that Germany needs to maintain the image it has had since the Second World War, the image of an efficient, powerful, rich country and, above all, a country that shows solidarity.
<P>
Applause from various quarters
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, Mr Fischer has just outlined the aim of a fully integrated Europe, where the nation states would be reduced to the status of large regions and all essential decisions taken by majority.
We would regard that integrated Europe as a fundamental mistake, because by giving less importance to the nation states, the soul of Europe would be destroyed.
My group will propose a more democratic alternative.
For the time being, the German Presidency's top priority is to establish a new financial framework for the Union by 25 March, which will set the conditions for enlargement, but also encapsulate our vision of Europe for the years ahead.
<P>
As far as revenue is concerned, we think the idea of contributions from the states in proportion to GNP is the only simple, transparent and rational solution.
Above all, it is the only solution that clearly demonstrates the nature of the Union - an association of states receiving annual contributions from its members - and it is also the only one that will allow the states to control expenditure properly.
If we were to accept other forms of contributions that are less well controlled, for example, European taxes, we would be ignoring the possibility of future financial shifts.
<P>
As far as expenditure is concerned, we agree with the idea of a global ceiling on expenditure at current levels, which would lead to a reduction in real terms over time.
Today, some European funds are useless, some are wasted and some are embezzled.
To save what is left, we need more rigorous and honest management, and that can never be obtained unless we start by putting a ceiling on expenditure.
In particular, our group has always expressed doubts about the effectiveness of the Structural Funds at their current levels and severe reductions should start there.
<P>
Finally, in the coming years, Europe's finances will be characterised by a major inconsistency.
The single currency will eliminate the automatic market-based adjustments between the national economies and they will eventually have to be replaced by financial redistributions centralised in Brussels.
So an adjustment mechanism that costs little in terms of taxes is going to be replaced by another that will cost a great deal in terms of taxes.
It is time for the governments to be honest and tell their citizens that this decision is going to lead to a snowballing of the Community budget.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Mr President, Mr Santer, Mr President-in-Office, under your presidency everything is now clear: we have a single currency, which Germany wanted, a central bank in Frankfurt, with senior executives straight from the Bundesbank, a foreign policy in the Balkans inspired by Germany, and an opening-up towards the East, which will benefit Germany in terms of geopolitics.
So it was quite natural for law to converge with fact and for Germany to preside over Europe!
<P>
Your presidency will therefore deal with employment, the CAP, and of course what interests Germany, namely, the financing of the European Union. This financing is, in fact, causing a problem.
It is well-known that there are winners in Europe, the cohesion countries, which receive up to EUR 300, even EUR 600, per head of population per year.
Then there are the losers: the Netherlands and your country, Germany. And as a Frenchman, I understand exactly how you feel, because we have been losing up to EUR 4 billion a year, the equivalent of investing in a high-speed train link, like the Paris-Bordeaux train, in a single year.
Of course, I know Europe must be based on solidarity.
In fact, Mr Cohn-Bendit even shows solidarity with terrorists, being one himself.
<P>
However, the current inequalities are going to get worse and become very obvious.
How do you explain to the 6 million unemployed French people that they must make sacrifices for the Irish whose unemployment rate is proportionately lower?
How do you explain that to the women and men who are victims of the budgetary rationing pact? How do you explain to the poor that they must become even poorer in the name of solidarity, especially when this poverty and solidarity are going to increase with the cost of enlargement towards the East?
<P>
I know that a compromise has to be found.
You are going to apply yourselves to that, by renationalising the CAP, by restricting expenditure, etcetera.
Perhaps your presidency could shed more light on this, given that Goethe's last words were 'more light, more light'.
Telling the truth would shed more light.
We will not keep the ceiling of 1.27 % of GNP.
And Mr Santer told the truth with great sincerity: you are thinking about a Community corporation tax, a Community income tax, and - in the context of your fiscal folly - why not a green tax?
<P>
That is the truth. Europe has a cost and that cost will mean higher taxes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Anastassopoulos">
Mr President, on the eve of the 21st century, a new German Presidency is trying to address the problems inherited from the past, the concerns felt today and the challenges of the future.
<P>
Unfortunately, however, in a world that is changing at the speed of light and in which interdependence is paramount, one factor remains constant.
Europe's citizens are worried about peace, employment, about their security, and about a European Union which they still feel is somewhat remote.
The success of the euro is not enough to allay those concerns.
Political union must really become our lodestar, but perhaps what we need is a federal political euro if we are ever to get there.
<P>
How does the German Presidency's programme propose to deal with these problems?
Today, we heard a really fine speech, fine slogans and a lot said about the four key points and about the initiatives to be undertaken.
But how much substance?
We are not motivated by prejudice, Mr President-in-Office, but we do feel the need to point out that major problems call for major policies and for the wherewithal to put them into effect.
They cannot be solved by words alone.
<P>
It seems a good idea in theory to make a pact on employment, but will that be enough to produce any significant reduction in unemployment, particularly among young people and women, which - though unemployment figures have recently fallen slightly - is still a scourge in Europe?
We have serious doubts about that.
Would that we were proved wrong.
But we should not want the European Union also to become the scapegoat for that massive problem.
<P>
The European Union could really get closer to its citizens if, instead of announcing initiatives and manifestos - I am not referring her to its idea for a Charter of Rights which deserves applause - the German Presidency were to establish an honest and sincere dialogue with everyone, without contradictions and without hypocrisy.
But we cannot in the same breath speak about opening up Europe and on the other hand adopt as our prime aim the restriction of already meagre resources, expenditure and contributions.
<P>
Is that the great problem about whose solution the German and other governments are agonising?
But, we are told, Germany provides 60 % of the contributions.
We do not question that.
It is just that neither Germany nor the Commission has ever explained to us what the benefits are in exchange for those payments.
They could be calculated in macro-economic terms so that we could all see the complete picture, and then we would be able in good faith to examine the problem of distributing the burden fairly.
Of course, renationalising the Common Agricultural Policy is no solution.
That would not be a reform but a step backwards.
<P>
The same applies to enlargement towards the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and Cyprus, which was recently called upon to provide painful proof of its intention to facilitate that course.
How is it possible on the one hand to declare a lively interest in making very rapid progress towards enlargement and on the other hand to restrict the resources that would facilitate it?
The programme we heard today contains many other contradictions too, and there are elements in it which have created much confusion.
<P>
Yet, despite our political disagreements, we are ready to cooperate with the German Presidency to further the common cause of Europe, to prepare the institutional reforms demanded by the times, and to begin to develop a common foreign and defence policy.
As we draw closer to the European elections in June, does the German Presidency not think it ought to accept Parliament's proposals for a common electoral system?
We heard nothing about that in Mr Fischer's speech.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office, we sincerely wish you success in your task.
But we must also give due warning: after your initial vagueness, conflicting statements and contradictions, many people in Europe started to miss Chancellor Kohl.
Take care with your policies, so that by the end of your presidency there will not be far more people who miss Helmut Kohl.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Fischer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I was asked to speak again, although not at this point to respond directly - which, as a member of parliament myself, I am itching to do - to many of the statements I have heard here.
I will do that at the end of the debate.
I was asked as the representative of the presidency to say something about Kosovo, because it is a topical issue.
<P>
Let me to start with the current situation.
We are watching developments with very, very great concern.
In fact, the interim political settlement in Kosovo should not only have been found long ago, it should have already been implemented, as had been agreed between Richard Holbrooke and the Belgrade government.
That agreement is of central, overwhelming significance to the future development of Kosovo, for without that interim agreement it will prove extremely difficult to move away from a process of non-peace and eventually achieve a lasting process of peaceful agreement and peace itself.
<P>
Regrettably the military confrontation is becoming more acute, with abductions, attacks and killings.
I hope that after yesterday's serious degeneration of the situation, a solution will be found today, a solution that can be reached only through negotiation.
Working together with our partners, Germany is fully committed to that.
We are taking part both in the civil monitoring of the conflict under the OSCE and in the military unarmed airspace surveillance, which is a component not only of the general monitoring mission but also of the agreement between Mr Holbrooke and the Belgrade government and of the extraction force.
The role of the extraction force is not to conduct the process of conflict monitoring in the framework of the OSCE; it is a genuine emergency force which will act in the event that the unarmed civilian OSCE personnel face a real emergency.
<P>
It is crucial to achieve an agreement that allows for peaceful development.
The purpose of the NATO threat was to avert a humanitarian disaster among the Albanian civilian population in Kosovo.
That proved successful, but now we have to make political headway, which is an infinitely difficult task.
For instance, the Albanian side finds it is difficult to form a joint negotiating delegation, which is one important aspect.
That is infinitely difficult, given also all the strategic differences between all the parties involved.
The Albanian side wants independence, the alliance of western states does not want it, for carefully considered reasons.
Nor does Belgrade want this independence, but the kind of approach it is taking, the serious violations of the human rights and minority rights of the majority in Kosovo, are unacceptable.
There are also conflicting approaches within the western community of states, which further complicates the situation.
<P>
And yet, the only alternatives I can see to a strategy of stabilisation - a strategy that must be based on the fulfilment of the agreement Mr Holbrooke reached with Belgrade - are quite terrible.
That is why we shall now take a firmer approach within the Contact Group, after William Hill unfortunately failed in his shuttle diplomacy to bring about the three-year interim political settlement before Christmas, as had in fact been provided in the agreement.
Let me add in parenthesis what the important aspect of this interim political settlement is: we need a civil, legitimate authority in Kosovo.
Without a civil, legitimate authority, that is to say a regional parliament, with an executive and a legislature, a police force, a judiciary, without this substantial, political, democratically legitimated authority in the province of Kosovo, there is simply no chance of establishing a sustainable peace process.
That is why it is so paramount to achieve and implement the political agreement.
<P>
I want to take this debate as an opportunity to appeal to all parties concerned, including the Albanians, not to shut themselves off from this process and above all to adhere strictly to the rules of non-violence.
Violence will not resolve the problems in Kosovo but would instead cause terrible harm.
We are now endeavouring to make progress through the Contact Group.
That is anything but easy.
Following the kidnapping of the Serbian soldiers we must prevent a military confrontation and I very much hope we will be able to prevent it by reaching an agreement.
<P>
By and large however, and I will conclude on that note, political agreement plays a central, a crucial role.
We must not forget one thing, and I want to say this quite plainly here in the European Parliament: Kosovo is part of Europe.
The problems there are our problems and the political solution of this conflict - which has considerably wider implications than the conflict in Kosovo alone - will do more to decide the development of a European foreign policy, a security and foreign policy identity, than any number of resolutions, of programmatic declarations and speeches.
That is why we as the presidency, but also as a member of the Contact Group, will do all in our power to ensure that this process advances.
But let me emphasise again: it will be anything but easy!
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hänsch">
Mr President, in the past there have been many differences and even quarrels between the Council and Parliament on the subject of Kosovo.
The same will be true in future!
But you know and can rely on the fact that the European Parliament is on your side on the Kosovo question and in seeking ways to resolve the conflict, as it must be resolved!
<P>
Applause
<P>
To come back to Agenda 2000.
First of all I am glad that rather than telling us about the book-keeping for the next six months you have put the decisions facing the German Presidency of the Council in the longer-term perspective of the development of the European Union.
Agenda 2000 is an overall concept and you called for the timetable to be met.
My group, as also, I am convinced, the majority in the European Parliament, wants the timetable for adopting Agenda 2000 to be met.
<P>
We have prepared for this and are in a position to take the necessary decisions in April-May.
But that also means that the Council must be prepared to discuss them, for a large part of the proposals you put forward at the March summit will also have to be endorsed by the European Parliament.
So it is advisable for the Council to discuss them with the European Parliament beforehand rather than afterwards, since that could lead to confrontations.
<P>
My second point is this. We regard the Agenda as a global package and I believe that the Commission's proposals represent a good compromise that could be amended and perhaps even improved in some areas.
But the global package as such must stand.
That will have to be the basis on which Parliament and the Member States must reach agreement.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, let me say a few words in regard to the discussions in our Member States and to the internal political debate in our own country.
Here I am also addressing those Members who keep calling on Germany to show solidarity.
You cannot call for a reform of agricultural policy while at the same time declaring that in internal political terms everything will remain as it is.
That is simply not on!
<P>
Applause
<P>
You cannot propose to reform the Structural Funds, to concentrate on combating unemployment and at the same time demand that all those who used to profit from the Structural Funds, i.e. 51 % of the population, should continue to profit!
You cannot say we must keep to the financial framework while at the same time calling for more EU expenditure on eastern enlargement.
<P>
You cannot try to rally the Union partners to eastern enlargement and at the same time call not just for fair contributions but for a massive cut in net contributions to the European Union.
Much can be achieved, and much will still have to be achieved in the coming negotiations up to March.
But there is one thing that Brussels cannot do, and that is to suspend the Community's basic accounting methods.
Not even someone familiar with dealing with fundamentalists could manage that.
We are prepared to adopt the global package in April-May.
And, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, that means we are the only parliament that is taking the risk of adopting all the cruel decisions associated with Agenda 2000 before an election.
We would like to be given some credit for showing such courage!
So do give us a little help here.
<P>
We need the Agenda 2000 reforms, with a view also to the financial perspectives, if the European Union is to be able to enlarge to the east.
That is not the only reason for the reform, let us be clear about that!
The European Union would need to be reformed in any case; but we also need this reform so as to make the Union capable of enlargement, which will be the great historical task following the introduction of the euro.
<P>
Agenda 2000 is only a part of the reform package.
I am very glad that you also referred to the institutional reforms that will be needed in addition to Agenda 2000 in order to make the Union capable of enlargement and that you sketched out the broad lines of a general concept.
Let me also say a few words on this institutional reform.
<P>
It is a mistake to believe that less Europe means a Europe closer to the people.
On the contrary!
A Union that is in a position to do the things the citizens expect of it is closer to the people than all the declarations by conferences of foreign ministers and all the declarations on subsidiarity in our Member States.
The more consolidated the Union is, the more flexible its decisions and its institutions can be.
<P>
The stronger the Union institutions are, the more firmly they must be anchored in democracy.
I am saying that also against the backdrop of the debate we will be holding this week.
The more credible the institutions are, the greater their ability also to act at European level.
<P>
What does the European idea mean?
Yes, it is true that over the past 40 years we have built up Europe to prevent a return to the past.
That was right, it was a good thing and it also remains a constant task.
Against the background of a history spanning a thousand years of European wars, 50 years of peace in most of Europe is a very short time and there is no guarantee that it will continue if we do not make fresh efforts every day to seek agreement, to seek common institutions and common decisions in the European Union.
That is a difficult process.
<P>
I would like to see not only members of parliament and the European Parliament but also the Member State governments uphold the European policy they decide in Brussels during the working week - not just on Sundays, but on weekdays too.
In our Member States, the same ministers - I am not referring to you personally, Mr Fischer, but this does need to be said in this kind of debate - who adopt a whole range of regulations and directives in Brussels from Monday to Friday, announce the following Saturday or Sunday that once again Brussels has decided some sort of nonsense.
This has to stop!
<P>
Applause
<P>
You cannot go on like that!
You are leading the people, the citizens of Europe astray.
Do not misunderstand me: this applies to the governments of all the Member States and, incidentally, of every party-political persuasion.
<P>
So what do we mean by saying that we know that we must unite Europe not so much against a return to the past but far more to master the tasks of the future?
It is not just a question of the success of the euro but also of mastering the consequences, the burdens, the risks facing the entire European Union as a result of the fact that we now have a common currency.
That involves a fundamental idea; specifically it involves a charter of fundamental rights.
I would like to see the European Parliament play a very decisive role in future in formulating these fundamental rights.
That would be a real task for the newly elected Parliament!
<P>
Secondly the European idea - it exists, all we have to do is formulate and clarify it - means that Europe represents a balance, one that is constantly under threat and must constantly be renewed, between economic performance, which we need, and social justice, which is the foundation of economic performance and not just a social addendum.
Europe represents a balance that is constantly under threat and needs constant renewal between freedom for the individual, his search for truth and justice and his responsibility towards the whole, towards the community.
That is the meaning of the term European, those are the foundations on which we build and on which we can construct a European Union that is capable of external action, that makes it clear that Europe plays a role in the world, not just for the sake of playing a role but in order to disseminate our principles, our great tradition of human rights and social rights in the world and to help establish them.
It is a Europe that is able to win not just the minds but also the hearts of the people.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, play your part in ensuring that we do so and achieve our aim!
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Galeote Quecedo">
Mr President-in-Office, it most certainly has fallen to the German Presidency to steer us through a particularly demanding period.
I do earnestly hope that we shall be able to respond appropriately to the issue raised by the motion of censure.
I speak in all sincerity, as it is in no-one's interest to complicate matters further, and certainly not, I imagine, in the interests of the current presidency.
<P>
I should begin by saying that I have no difficulty in agreeing with the priorities Mr Fischer set out this morning, namely, creating more jobs in a Europe which is a major competitor on the world market.
The process of coordinating employment policies that began in Luxembourg must be carried through. A proactive policy for employment creation at European level should be launched, and you yourself referred to a European employment pact.
<P>
With regard to strengthening the Union's external relations, we unreservedly support the call for political union that you made this morning. We also support the accession of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and of Cyprus.
<P>
Beyond Europe, I should like to stress the importance of developing cooperation with Mediterranean countries and with Latin America. Important meetings on this issue are scheduled for the next few months.
<P>
As regards Agenda 2000, we share your determination to conclude negotiations during the first half of this year, and trust this will prove possible. Nevertheless, certain guidelines must be borne in mind to ensure success.
First, all Member States must make a financial contribution to enlargement and to the costs involved. Second, the Union must pursue its efforts to provide itself with the necessary resources to develop its common policies.
This means meeting the financial demands agreed in connection with cohesion. Third, a determined effort must be made to put in place a system of contributions that is more in line with the ability of Member States to pay.
Fourth, arbitrary cuts in expenditure cannot be tolerated.
Fifth, it should be borne in mind that there are limits to the negotiations on Agenda 2000, namely the provisions of the Treaty.
Aim at genuine convergence, Mr Fischer, as it represents a good investment for Europe.
I appreciate the spirit of your well-balanced speech and wish you wise judgement and every success.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cars">
Mr President, Europe is in the grip of winter, but nowhere is the cold as unbearable as in the mountains where tens of thousands, possibly even hundreds of thousands, of Kosovans have been forced to flee to escape from the supporters of Slobodan Milosevic.
The refugees who have sought shelter in the mountains have in many cases had their homes burned down and their wells poisoned.
There is also reason to believe that the fighting in Kosovo will intensify with the approach of spring.
Let us not forget the causes of the present situation: 90 % of the inhabitants of Kosovo have had to endure 20 years of Serb domination.
<P>
Europe remained silent while the Kosovans protested peacefully.
Now we are asking them to agree to a peace settlement based on continued Serb rule.
The Liberal Group is of the opinion that future peace talks should be unconditional.
We should like to see an agreement reached on a truce with all possible speed, but we would not wish to dictate what a final settlement of the conflict should entail for the future of Kosovo and its people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, my warm congratulations on your election and on the general lines of your programme, which I agree with to a large extent.
I hope it gets off the ground and progresses well.
<P>
The Europe of yesteryear, of nationalism, division and anachronism has no geographical basis, it is not located just in certain countries, it is in the mind and in political acts all over Europe and the European Union, and that is where we must fight it by political means.
The Europe of the future, of integration, as you very rightly said, must be open and must offer prospects for all its citizens and for all Europe's states and nations.
<P>
And when we speak of Kosovo and the Balkans more generally, let me say that this Europe of the future we are talking about offers no prospect, no proposal, no position to the states and nations of that area for the future.
The enlargement policy excludes that part of Europe, even in the long term.
It is precisely that omission which belongs to the Europe of the past, and I ask you to give it further consideration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Corbett">
Mr President, on a point of order.
Other than yourself there appears to be scarcely a single member of the European People's Party in the Chamber.
Are the Christian Democrats boycotting this debate?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="President">
Mr Corbett, quite a few members of the European People's Party have already participated in the debate.
So how can you draw such a conclusion?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Brok">
Mr President, the Christian-Democratic Group is currently engaged in discussions, because it has not yet sorted out its views on the behaviour patterns of two socialist Commissioners.
<P>
Laughter
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hänsch">
Mr President, do I assume from the fact that Mr Brok is here that he approves the behaviour pattern of the two Socialist Commissioners?
<P>
Laughter
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="President.">
Colleagues, I always welcome this kind of debate, but it should not go on for too long.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Cohn-Bendit">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, let me turn first to our institution.
Whether the Group of the European People's Party is currently represented by two or three people or whether there are ten of us present here when the public sees pictures of this important debate - whatever excuses we make - there will be criticism of the European Parliament.
We are always good at criticising the Commission and others, but we should also question our own behaviour in plenary.
Let me just say that at the outset.
For the rest Mr Poettering, who says such clever things, could take the names Schmidhuber and Bangemann as examples of other Commission appointments.
I find it incredible that at a time like this, when there is so much discussion about the future of Europe, the Group of the European People's Party and other groups are hardly present.
But that is their problem, not mine!
<P>
I would just like to offer the President-in-Office of the Council three small suggestions to help make the German Presidency as successful as he would wish.
First, the debate on finalities is an important one and should also give rise to a social debate.
But the European Union exists today and cannot just wait for the debate on finalities.
That is why we need a decision in Cologne, a resolution, so that when we have another intergovernmental conference, in 2001, an EU charter of fundamental rights is adopted.
There cannot be a new intergovernmental conference without a new charter of fundamental rights, otherwise Europe cannot and will not be seen to be more open.
<P>
Secondly, it is dangerous for the German Presidency - for whatever reasons - to say not one word about Mediterranean policy.
For there are fears in Europe, however unjustified they may be, that Europe and Germany are only looking to the east now and forgetting the issue of relations with the south.
So I think it is important that in our relations with the south, with the Mediterranean, we also focus discussion on the human rights question with partners such as Algeria.
It is not just a question of combating terrorism but also of human rights, of how a state combats terrorism.
That is the future of democracy and it should also be discussed with our Mediterranean partners and particularly with Algeria.
<P>
Thirdly, there is the famous sixty-four thousand dollar question of net contributors and net contributions.
One cannot simply assign more tasks to a political institution, of whatever kind, while at the same time constantly reducing its scope for action by financial cutbacks.
After all, we have seen what that leads to over the last few days in regard to the Commission.
The Commission said it did not have enough personnel to carry out its tasks.
Then we find the kind of problems arise that we have seen.
So we must give careful thought to this.
What reforms are needed in agriculture?
What problems from the past need dealing with?
How much more should the United Kingdom pay?
More equality, more equal rights.
Yes, but we also have to ask how much more the Union as a whole has to pay in order to carry out its tasks.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, I would first like to thank the President-in-Office very sincerely for his speech and his introduction of the German Presidency's programme.
It had been a long time since we had heard a speech inspired by such federalist ambition in the European Parliament.
My group will certainly be making concrete proposals to him in the weeks ahead.
I do not have time to mention them all so I will restrict myself to just one.
<P>
In the international community today, there are over 100 countries which have de facto abolished the death penalty.
That is a majority.
So the conditions are there for the General Assembly of the United Nations to approve a universal moratorium on capital punishment this year.
If possible, I would like the German Presidency to tell us if it intends to take any measures in this respect in the course of the next few weeks to prevent a flop like last year and to ensure that we do not miss this opportunity to create conditions that favour the adoption of a universal moratorium on capital punishment by the United Nations General Assembly in the year 2000.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kronberger">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you are the first President-in-Office of the Council whose political legitimacy is based on the eco-movement.
I would like to point out to you that any form of politics and any political action will fail and be meaningless from the outset if the question of principle, namely how to resolve the environmental issue, is not addressed.
We are nearing the end of the 20th century and standing on the threshold of the 21st century.
Consider for a moment: we cannot afford to repeat the 20th century in terms either of wasting resources or of destroying the environment.
<P>
I wonder whether you are still using your influence in order to create an environmental vision of the future.
I hope you have not thrown out these environmental visions that have taken you where you are today, together with your legendary trainers, and let them rot away together in some cellar room.
If that is the case, please at least bring your environmental visions up into the daylight again!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Velzen, Wim">
Mr President, the Luxembourg summit put an end to the virtually endless series of non-binding statements about employment.
Or at least seemed to put an end to them, because when we look at the results of the Vienna summit we see that, although page after page is devoted to employment - a field of great concern to us all - no concrete decisions were taken and a great many tasks were in fact assigned to the current presidency.
I naturally wish them every success in implementing them, and I hope that they are able to recapture the spirit of what was decided in Luxembourg.
This means setting specific targets, with the aid of benchmarking, and not just at national level but at European level too.
Luxembourg was a start, an important start, but a great deal remains to be done in order to broaden and deepen the process.
<P>
At present I detect a kind of weariness in which a bureaucratic process is being set in train to implement what was decided in Luxembourg, but with little regard for the innovation which was what Luxembourg was principally all about.
Of the many tasks which fall to this presidency I can of course touch on no more than a couple.
I think it is very important for the German Presidency to achieve effective coordination between economic and social policy.
When they took office in their own country they expressed what I consider to be many very refreshing views on this subject.
These were somewhat tempered as the presidency grew closer, but I hope that their policy is not solely for domestic consumption but also for European consumption.
I am convinced that coordination of economic and social policy solely at national level has no meaning if you do not now also succeed in getting this underway at European level.
In other words, I hope that your attempts at Bündnis für Arbeit - work or employment pacts - can also be pursued very energetically, and hopefully successfully, throughout Europe.
<P>
Although employment policy is a subject of deep concern to me, I am gradually getting the feeling that people believe social policy as a whole is covered by employment and by labour market policy.
But there is more to social policy than this.
Our call has always been not for a pact for employment, but a pact for employment, sustainability and solidarity.
This seems a little like searching for the third way, as if solidarity is taboo, but I would be very pleased if the German Government succeeded in putting solidarity firmly on the agenda.
Europe's internal cohesion is one of the most important tasks with which we are faced.
In all the prattle about financial obligations, too little attention has also been paid, to my mind at least, to the subject of cohesion as a Union objective.
I believe this presidency has made an excellent contribution in this respect.
I am pleased that I am to be followed by Mr Brok and I hope that he points out in his speech that the limited presence of his group is not a problem in the way Mr Cohn-Bendit sees it, but a problem for Parliament as a whole.
It is a pity that a presidency is not viewed as representing Parliament as a whole rather than only one group.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Brok">
Dear Daniel Cohn-Bendit, I am glad to have the pleasure of your company in the Chamber today.
<P>
Heckling
<P>
We find ourselves at present in a special situation.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I hope you will appreciate that the situation looks a little confused.
<P>
The opposition in Germany, the CDU/CSU, will urge Germany to show continuity in its European policy here in Parliament too.
I believe the statement you made today reflected that spirit of German continuity in its European policy and forms a basis for constructive cooperation on a number of issues in the coming months.
<P>
Of course we would also like to know whether you are the President of the Council for foreign affairs and the Chancellor is the Wilhelminian President of the Council for home affairs.
The differences that sometimes arise must, of course, be resolved.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you will find it more difficult to achieve the necessary compromises at European level if the mood within Germany is different.
I hope you will manage to sort all this out!
<P>
Let me thank you most particularly for your words on institutional reform.
The Cologne summit must act as a mandate for more majority decisions and more co-decisions, as also for the charter of fundamental rights.
I believe that these matters must be carefully defined, with the participation of the European Parliament, so that in the next two years we can take the necessary steps to make the European Union capable of enlargement.
<P>
During your presidency of the Council you will have to implement a range of policies, such as the Common Foreign and Security Policy.
I would ask you, when you appoint the High Representatives and set up the planning and analysis unit, to perhaps listen more closely to national parliaments and to the European Parliament than to your diplomats, so that this becomes an added value for Europe rather than a board of political directors.
<P>
Let me make a final remark.
Everyone agrees that employment policy is an important issue.
That is why the former German Government approved and participated in the coordination of European employment policy in Amsterdam and in Luxembourg.
But we cannot go any further than coordination, than setting out objectives and benchmarking, because we do not have the instruments to do so.
This employment pact should not be used to give the impression that we can pursue a common wage scale policy from Finland to Portugal or embark on financing a labour market policy.
You spoke of labour market policy in your address.
We sometimes get the impression that a huge employment-policy show is to be put on shortly before the European elections in preparation for then producing an alibi for national elections, because Europe is held responsible for the failure of national employment policies.
Europe is too important to be wrongly blamed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth-Behrendt">
Mr President, the Social Democrats may well clap when Mr Kohl's achievements are being lauded, but nevertheless we are happy to welcome the foreign minister of this government here today.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Mr Fischer, I have listened to you carefully and given the quality and scale of the debate we are holding here today it would be wrong of me to start off by advising you what limit values you should change and which individual environmental legislative acts urgently need renewing, even if I would like to do so and indeed could do so in detail.
<P>
Let me nevertheless make a few comments that are very relevant to the dimension of which you spoke.
When you talk about an enlarging Europe, an enlarging European Union and a more integrated Europe, which is something we all want, then a few things must be quite clear.
It must be clear that there have to be and there are cross-sectional policy areas, which must also be regarded as such and treated differently.
<P>
Mr Wim van Velzen spoke of social policy.
That is certainly one example.
In this Parliament I speak for my group for environmental policy, consumer protection and health policy.
If we are serious about European integration we must also be serious about integrating these cross-sectional policies in other policy areas.
That means that environmental policy must become an integral part of transport policy, of energy policy and of economic policy - indeed it is also a motive force of employment policy.
We keep paying lip service to this - this German Government does the same.
However, I hope that it will become apparent after these six months that the earlier Cardiff summit and the forthcoming Cologne summit have produced more in this respect, that we actually see integral legislation that commits the Commission to integrating environmental policy in other areas too, including structural policy.
<P>
You spoke of transparency, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, and I cheekily interrupted, for which I apologise.
I know that the general public often do not know how legislation is made in the European Union.
In fact they are not quite sure how it is made in their own Member States either.
I do not approve of that, which is why I welcome your call for transparency.
But transparency also means that it must be clear what the Member States do with the EU legislation once they have approved it.
<P>
If it is the case, as was quite usual in Germany - and as can easily be proven - that Germany may well approve legislation, especially in the environmental area, but does not then transpose it into national law or does not check observance of the provisions, then that too is an offence against transparency and I would ask you, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, to do something about that too.
If we want to do something for people all over Europe - and that includes people in the applicant countries - then we must take make sure they can live in an environment worth living in.
<P>
We have talked a lot about foreign policy today and about very major issues.
That always makes me feel very small and humble and I try not to say much; but at the end of the day the issue is always the people who live in this world, this Europe.
These people breathe, these people have to eat and drink and exist in the environment.
If we do not manage to maintain an environment worth living in then we can no longer talk about foreign policy either.
That is why I urge you, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, when you go home and when you go to Bonn, to remember that environmental policy must be a key component of German policy and also a key component of European integration.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fontaine">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, the German Presidency has opened under the best auspices.
In Europe and indeed around the world, opinion is virtually unanimous that the launch of the euro has been a success that will mark a truly historic stage in the long course of the construction of Europe.
Germany had spared no efforts and made every sacrifice to achieve this, and you will understand, Mr President, if I extend this tribute to Chancellor Kohl who held this course with such courage and determination.
<P>
Today, I want to express my warmest wishes for the success of the German Presidency.
It is a heavy responsibility because this presidency will be marked by strategic decisions that will determine the future shape of Europe.
It is a Europe that we naturally want to extend to those countries of Central and Eastern Europe seeking to join us, but it is a Europe that must now affirm its political dimension and therefore overhaul its institutions so that it can respond better to the expectations of our fellow citizens.
<P>
Mr President, after listening to you, my feeling is that the priorities of your presidency broadly meet these objectives.
But I would like to put some ideas to you on two areas of the work.
<P>
First, as regards Agenda 2000, we applaud your determination to try to complete this, if possible, at the summit on 24 and 25 March.
That is a very pressing timetable if we want the European Parliament to be able to fully play its part. The timing will be very tight anyway, bearing in mind that we have elections in June.
<P>
I also agree with the idea that the future financial framework of the European Union, the reform of the structural policy and the reform of the common agricultural policy are inseparable parts of an overall package. To reach the lasting solutions you want, there must be respect for everyone's sensitivities.
You know and we know that some of the Member States are more concerned, and rightly so, about the problem of the financial contribution.
Others, in fact, who provided assurances for all these years, are more concerned about the cohesion of our Community. And finally, others are more concerned about the common policies that formed the initial basis of our Union.
I am sure you know what I mean, Mr President. I personally want to talk about the agricultural policy and tell you simply how I feel.
<P>
The introduction of measures that would effectively lead to a renationalisation, even a partial one, of the common agricultural policy would be a political mistake that would ruin the European Union in the minds of many of our fellow citizens.
My dear Klaus Hänsch, of course no-one has ever said that nothing should change.
But it seems to me that the stakes are higher than anyone's national interest because rural development is truly essential to the very balance of our European area.
Mr President, please be kind enough to give this some thought.
<P>
My second point relates to the institutions.
If we want a Europe that is naturally open but that is also strong and united, we need institutions that allow it to act; otherwise, we risk an institutional collapse, as you have said.
You were very clear about the sensitive points we need to stress.
You stated that the Cologne Summit will launch a new intergovernmental conference, but I have a question.
Do you not feel that the limits of the intergovernmental conference system have been demonstrated?
Mr President, I would be pleased if you could tell us if you think that there might be a more creative means of achieving the desired result.
<P>
Once again, I send my most sincere wishes for your presidency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rehder">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, let me just call out after Mr Brok, who is already fleeing to the group meeting room, that the SPD also differs from the PPE and its German members in that our party does not have a short memory.
That is why I am surprised that after 16 years in government in Germany they now seem to be prophesying that the current German Government will have to answer for the failure of employment policy.
That really is absurd, and basically everyone in Europe understands that.
<P>
What a number of people in Europe do not understand is rural development policy, agricultural policy.
Anyone who speaks of a reform of agricultural policy in connection with the need to change the shape of the European Union must realise two things: firstly, this reform is overdue and necessary in any case.
It has not been put on the agenda because of the imminent advent of the enlargement eastward that we hope to see.
Secondly, they must realise that this is not just a question of agricultural prices, export refunds and compensatory payments, important as they are.
Basically it is a question of the future of our rural areas, which account for 80 % of the European Union, and above all of how we will manage to protect jobs, to create new jobs and to maintain the environment in Europe both within the agricultural sector as such but also, independently of that, in the rural areas.
<P>
European public opinion does not dispute these aims.
What has been increasingly and rightly disputed are the ways and means by which the European Union's financial resources are used for the rural areas.
A short while ago the President of the European Court of Auditors pointed out that the situation is still not tolerable, with 80 % of the European tax-payers' contributions intended for the rural areas, for agriculture, going to only 20 %, i.e. to the most prosperous people.
No man or woman in Europe can understand that, and rightly so.
<P>
So it must be one of the priority aims of Agenda 2000 to make it clear that aid policy must largely be social policy in the agricultural sector too.
It is unacceptable to see a farmer in a rural area who earns millions, who has turned his well-situated farm into virtually a one-man business thanks to massive rationalisation, who has the best contacts with the world market and obtains the best prices on it, still being just as eligible for aid as a farmer in a disadvantaged area, who can often only survive by overworking.
<P>
We Social Democrats are not jealous of the European global player's economic success.
But we do demand that the farmer in a disadvantaged region who can never become a global player, but who protects the rural area through his invaluable environmental services, that this farmer should also be given decent support - a more decent level of support than we have seen in the past - for the services he has performed.
That would close the circle.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you rightly said at the start that we must not show solidarity only with the weakest Member States but must also and always show solidarity with the weakest members of society, and naturally that includes those working in rural areas.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bianco">
Mr President-in-Office, you have made some important points and have certainly set out some ambitious aims: a new intergovernmental conference, a new European constitution, an autonomous and independent common foreign defence policy, strengthening of the WEU, majority decisions in the Council and increased powers for Parliament.
These are without doubt significant statements, Mr President, but they are intentions and, as the old saying has it: 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions'.
<P>
The problem lies elsewhere, namely in grasping how the coherent aims which you have announced tie in with the specific policies which the German Government seems determined to introduce.
Our former President, Mr Hänsch, raised this same question in an interview with Die Zeit .
The first signs are not promising: some of Chancellor Schröder's pronouncements, the coolness of one of your ministers towards the euro, the call for a cut in your country's contributions, and the threat to reduce resources for the southern Mediterranean countries.
<P>
You yourself have certainly allayed some of these doubts - you deserve credit for that - but our doubts are still justified!
I would remind you that this Europe of ours was largely built by leaders who came from a certain background, a Christian Democrat one.
Will the Socialist-led governments manage to complete the edifice?
We hope so.
That is your goal: we only hope that you will carry others along with you.
<P>
The problem of unemployment, among others, can only be tackled in a European context.
But how should it be tackled?
Just now I heard a Socialist colleague speak of putting pressure on the Central Bank and slackening the rigour of our healthy finances, calling for what smacks of modern-day dirigisme.
Is this the right approach?
I think not.
I must confess, Mr President-in-Office, that - as Mr Cohn-Bendit said - I am astonished by your silence on the Mediterranean.
I thank you, incidentally, for what you said concerning Kosovo.
<P>
And now, if I may, I would make one final recommendation.
Given that our President speaks Greek, I shall take the liberty of saying this in Latin and translating it with a German proverb: 'laus nova nisi oritur etiam virtus amittitur '.
The German proverb states: 'Wer nicht vorwärts geht, der kommt zurück '.
I believe that Europe too could fall backwards unless it moves forwards.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="President">
I would just point out in passing that I myself and many other colleagues were obliged to learn Latin in order to study law.
<P>
We therefore had no difficulty in following you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Colom i Naval">
Mr President-in-Office, your speech was undoubtedly political, and in it you placed great emphasis on budgetary matters.
Allow me, therefore, to begin with a reminder. The Union's major financial agreements have been achieved by the smaller countries.
The current financial perspective was not approved in Edinburgh, as some believe, but a year later in Brussels, under the Belgian Presidency.
<P>
The German Government - the new German Government - faces the challenge of bucking this trend and breaking with tradition.
As rapporteur for Agenda 2000, I wish you good fortune and plenty of luck.
Let us hope for success.
<P>
I listened most carefully to the speech, because in your document on priorities you devote 12 lines to the Union's financial and budgetary policy while the remainder deals with countless more policies, although there is a conspicuous absence of funds.
<P>
At the Vienna European Council it was agreed that Agenda 2000 should be approached in a spirit of solidarity and budgetary rigour should be guaranteed.
I made a careful note of your reference to an equitable solution that is not to the detriment of the weaker partners, and you also asked for Parliament's cooperation.
In my opinion, the wrong question is being asked.
You can certainly rely on Parliament's cooperation.
The question should instead be whether or not we can rely on the Council's cooperation.
On 8 December, the Council had to issue a statement confirming that it intended to abide by the agreements it had reached with the Commission and the European Parliament that same morning, and not render them meaningless.
It is the Council that creates difficulties.
Rigour is not synonymous with saving.
What is does mean is strict and efficient management.
The meaning of the terms must be quite clear.
Moreover, without Parliament, no financial perspectives are in fact possible.
I should therefore like to draw your attention briefly to a number of issues Parliament considers to be particularly important, but which the Council does not seem to appreciate at times.
<P>
Parliament took a stand against national contributions and the principle of fair return in its resolution of 4 December 1997.
You have quite rightly stated that the euro represents a step forward in the development of a new kind of sovereignty in Europe.
The Council should have the courage to take a further step forward in the spirit of this new European sovereignty and put forward a proposal for truly European own resources.
It should be recognised that the concept of national contributions is not really European. Rather, it amounts to a backward step in the construction of a political Europe.
<P>
The European Parliament has already come out in favour of the Cohesion Fund, as did the European Commission when it considered the matter. However, Parliament is against cofinancing of the CAP.
A greater degree of flexibility is called for.
Parliament has voiced its doubts concerning the financial consequences of the reforms proposed in Agenda 2000.
The Court of Auditors' opinion on Agenda 2000 from December, No 10/98, is now available and is even more sceptical.
Clauses and instruments to ensure flexibility will be required.
The financial perspectives are at stake here.
<P>
Finally, enlargement is a major issue.
Those of us who were previously excluded from the construction of Europe because our country was under a dictatorship are ardent supporters of enlargement towards the East.
You referred to the consequences of failing to carry out enlargement, and I agree with you on that point.
However, do you really believe that we can prepare for enlargement with the meagre appropriations available in the financial framework, trimming Europe and the current budgets?
An expansion of Europe's territory cannot be achieved through a reduction in its budget.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I would like to start by pointing out once again that nearly the entire PPE Group was present at the time when the President-in-Office of the Council spoke and that he received our full applause, as also the applause of the German Christian Democrats, because we too will support him in what he said - provided he also acts on it.
That is why the comment made from up there was not fair and when I look at the Socialist benches all I can say is there are four more of them here than of us, which is not such a great feat.
<P>
To return to our debate, I just want to go into one point, the question of Kosovo.
After the inglorious outcome of the negotiations between Holbrooke and Milosevic I said that the day is drawing near when the west will reproach the Kosovo Albanians for not finally giving in.
What are the facts of the situation in Kosovo now?
The Serbian troops who were initially withdrawn have long since returned.
The Serbian police in Kosovo are armed to the hilt.
Attacks targeted at Albanian villages and civilians are commonplace.
The reactions to these Serbian acts of terrorism are the desperate and not always acceptable actions of the KLA, but they are above all a sign of the growing impotence of the Albanians and their cries for help.
<P>
Where is that step in a political direction you referred to a moment ago?
Even in October 1998 it became clear that Milosevic did not want a political settlement.
He wants to ethnically cleanse Kosovo and change the balance of forces between Albanians and Serbs in favour of the Serbs.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, my dear Daniel Cohn-Bendit, he is pursuing that line with great success.
There are refugees wherever we look, not just in the forests, not just in Albania, not just in Macedonia.
There are refugees from Kosovo in Bosnia too, and they come to Germany and Italy in any case!
The OSCE observer mission is a joke and cannot be successful.
We should withdraw these observers, otherwise news about the mortal danger these gentlemen are facing will dominate the media, instead of the misery and distress of the Albanians, whose lives have been in danger for nine whole years.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, when you said that the extraction force in Macedonia is there to protect these OSCE observers, I noted that you are not entirely indifferent to the whole business.
For surely it must sound like a mockery to the people down there who have been suffering under the Serbian apartheid system for nine years.
These troops are not there to protect the Albanian civilians but to protect the few OSCE observers who would basically be better advised to go back where they came from, back home. For there is nothing they can do where they are.
<P>
We know that a few Serbian soldiers have now been taken prisoner by the Albanians.
But what has world public opinion been doing for the past nine years?
Did it cry out when Albanians were taken prisoner every day, when Albanians were tortured every day?
I question the relative manner in which these matters are currently being discussed.
In the last few months the Contact Group has made no contact whatsoever.
So I do urge you to withdraw the OSCE observers and let an international force that includes Russian troops see to establishing peace in Kosovo, so as finally to give a chance to an interim political solution that can lead to a real solution in the region.
Otherwise we will have to go on and on hearing these same daily media reports.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I too want to speak on the subject of Kosovo.
Let me say first of all that I and my group can also congratulate you warmly on your statement.
I believe that the subjects you addressed, and especially the foreign policy aspects, were precisely those points and aspects we rightly expect and hope a German Presidency to address.
<P>
You said little in concrete terms about Kosovo.
I would like to prompt you, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, to perhaps make a few more comments to clarify your position, especially after what Mrs Pack, whom I hold in very high esteem, has just said, because in this case I do not agree with the substance of it.
I believe that we must adhere to the position that we can only have a settlement in Kosovo that is a peaceful settlement and that is in the end reached through consensus - however difficult that may be.
We will have to be prepared for it to take years - it was a serious mistake to believe it could be achieved in Bosnia in just a few months. We will have to tell the Serbs that their aggression cannot be tolerated but also tell the KLA that their actions, which are indeed also directed against the Albanians and against Mr Rugova, cannot be accepted.
We have applauded Mr Rugova here in this Chamber but on the other hand - and this is a contradiction - we verbally support the actions of the KLA.
That can neither be tolerated nor accepted and the presidency must make its position clear.
<P>
Secondly, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you have stated quite unequivocally in many interviews that you do not regard organisations such as the OSCE as merely incidental, as something that can be pushed aside.
We are all aware of the weaknesses of the OSCE, but after all what we must do is strengthen this organisation rather than abandon it.
So I do not believe the OSCE mission should be withdrawn.
I do believe, however, that it needs protecting and that we must do our utmost to strengthen the troops who are in the region, especially in Macedonia, in FYROM, which will be a means of protecting the OSCE.
It would be a disaster if the OSCE mission out there fails partly because it is not being given adequate military protection.
Kosovo can serve as an example of cooperation between the EU, NATO and the OSCE with a view to finding a peaceful solution.
<P>
There is a third point where I also definitely support you, Mr President-in-Office of the Council.
You spoke of the dangerous trend away from multilateralism towards unilateralism.
I admit, as I once said about Kosovo too, that there can be exceptional situations where a different decision needs to be taken. But I regard the trend in some quarters in America of turning the exception into the rule and the rule into the exception as very dangerous indeed.
<P>
A final word in connection with what you said about Russia.
One great task for the German Presidency would be to bring Russia back into partnership with the EU, as a partner willing and able to cooperate, and also to involve it more closely in NATO again, even after the current crisis.
We need Russia as a partner, I agree with you there.
But we cannot rely on that and expose ourselves to the vicissitudes of Russian decisions in individual cases.
However, one important aim of the presidency of the Council must be to have Russia as a partner for a new peaceful order in Europe and beyond.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Wogau">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the determining event at the beginning of the German Presidency was certainly the introduction of the European currency.
That opened a new era for Europe.
Let me begin by saying, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, that I personally would have been pleased if the German finance minister had also been present for that important event on 31 December last year, like the other finance ministers.
<P>
What is the most important task now facing us?
It is to formulate a common economic policy for Europe, a common policy to combat unemployment.
The fight against unemployment involves many things that have to be done at national level.
But fighting unemployment also means securing future growth.
Here we find some concern being voiced.
The German Institute for Economics has forecast that growth could possibly fall to 1.4 % this year.
I do not think that is inconceivable. But we do have to discuss the reasons why this is happening.
<P>
On the one hand, the world economic crisis is held responsible, the events in Asia, in America and elsewhere.
But I am convinced that these slowdowns in growth are partly homemade; one of the great tasks for the new German Government is to make the real situation clear to our enterprises.
For I have found from talks with many business people that when they are asked: 'why do you not invest, when interest rates are so low and the framework conditions so favourable?' they increasingly often reply: 'so long as the framework conditions are not clear, so long as we keep reading different things in the papers every week, we will not invest.'
That is one of the main tasks for your government to tackle.
<P>
In conclusion, let me address another important point, where we need some kind of legislation in the next six months.
The introduction of the euro is more or less a fait accompli .
But there remains a question that has not really been resolved, in relation to the year 2002. Will that be the appointed date for the changeover or will the two currencies continue to exist side by side?
After many talks with retailers, with workers, with local authorities, I increasingly tend to think that to have a period during which the national currency is used side by side with the European currency would involve unnecessary costs, which those concerned cannot be expected to bear.
That is why we should jointly - meaning the Commission, the presidency of the Council and the European Parliament - take steps during these six months to ensure that 1 January 2002 is the appointed day for the introduction of euro notes and coins.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I was probably not the only one to greet your statement about the German Presidency's objectives with mixed feelings.
You had many good and strong things to say about your visions - an integrated Europe versus the Europe of the past, human rights, institutional reforms, the need for majority decisions to become the rule in the Council, a strong Parliament.
But why - and there are two whys given the present situation - why did you say nothing about reforming the Commission, why did you say absolutely nothing on the most important question of comitology?
Nor, for that matter, did you say very much about the operational aspects.
<P>
You spoke of a package deal in March on Agenda 2000, of lower contributions, especially by net contributors, of reducing agricultural expenditure.
In my view your statement today gave the same increasingly ambivalent impression as your statements and those of other members of your government in recent months.
I can only hope that the same does not apply to another subject you addressed again today, namely enlargement.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you said there can be no alternative to enlargement.
In the past few months Mr Schröder has sent out very different signals I hope that what you have announced on behalf of the presidency as a whole will be the official programme and will be followed consistently.
<P>
The preceding presidency, the Austrian Presidency, sent out and followed very specific signals in regard to enlargement.
I hope that your presidency will also take very concrete political steps in this regard, for that is the only way we can achieve the objective we are all pursuing, namely to make the 21st century the age of integration and not the age of the past!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Menrad">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you and the German Government rightly declared that fighting unemployment was the central aim of the German Presidency.
Obviously this cannot mean paying out billions on aid programmes.
That is not the way to combat structural unemployment.
The German Chancellor chose his words well when he wrote recently in a trade journal that the most important thing was to coordinate employment policies in the European Union.
I would say to coordinate them better, for we do not have to recreate the world all over again.
<P>
Under the last German Presidency in 1994 it was agreed to coordinate national measures.
At the Luxembourg special summit led by Jean-Claude Juncker the Essen procedure was improved by the establishment of guidelines and national action plans, which, my dear Wim van Velzen, must indeed become more verifiable!
<P>
In 1994 we achieved another success with the directive on European works councils.
This concerned the information and consultation of workers in European companies, which the then presidency declared a priority, and the much disputed question of economic co-determination.
Parliament recommended adopting the recipe for success of the European works councils as the procedural principle for European companies: flexibility, negotiations between the social partners on co-determination rights and, if that failed, European minimum standards.
By following this procedure, the Austrian compromise proposal took us very close to achieving that objective.
Now we finally need political agreement within the Council.
I wish Mr Riester, the Minister for Employment, the same success that his predecessor Mr Blum achieved with the European works councils in 1994.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Fischer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin with the two statements on Kosovo.
I certainly do not agree with Mrs Pack's position, much as I sympathise with her emotional involvement, because we have to think things through to the end and consider the consequences of that position.
And the consequences, which involve withdrawing the OSCE mission, would in my view be nothing other than war.
That is the crucial point; it would be war, once again at the cost of a great many human lives.
<P>
Let me give you the historical background again.
Since 1989/1990 we have been seeing how unresolved conflicts, some of which date back to earlier times - I am thinking of the outcome of the Balkan conflict before the first world war - and borders drawn in earlier times, together with authoritarian regimes or even dictatorships that are responsible for extremely serious human rights violations, now lead to a situation in which, were we still living in the Europe of the past, we would virtually be in a state of war, in which new borders were drawn as a consequence of people being driven out, of the unspeakable sacrifice of innocent lives, of the destruction of intrinsic values.
Sadly we saw all that again in Bosnia.
But the battle would be fought to the bitter end.
That was the European logic of the past, which had fatal consequences.
For as a rule these wars are internationalised by the side that is in danger of losing.
As a rule civil wars logically tend to spread, with the result that the regional powers very quickly become involved and with the result that in the end quite different conflicts enter into play in the region and large and powerful states, which also have their own particular history and conflicts of interest that have not yet been resolved, border conflicts, become directly involved.
What that means is the threat of a major Balkan war.
<P>
Europe cannot allow that to happen.
It would be a reversion to the past and it is not just a question of the destruction of intrinsic values, not just of unspeakable misery, it is also a question of the destruction of the European security system and of integration.
We must not forget that.
That is why there is no alternative to a process of stabilisation.
I do however ask myself whether Europe is in fact strong enough even to settle its own internal affairs.
Quite obviously it is not strong enough yet.
These include conflict prevention, a most important aspect.
To put it in non-technical terms, what will the consequence of these Balkan wars actually be?
In practice it will be that the European Union has to take on responsibility in some form for the entire region.
<P>
After all, that is what we are now seeing in Bosnia.
Without the detailed work done by the High Representative, without the presence of the allied troops, without the civilian activities, without the EU High Representative's assumption of responsibility, we would be back in a situation of confrontation again there or even of bloody conflict.
But for us Europeans that means we must find answers - and that is something we must think through properly, not today but at some point.
A first very full, very open and, in my view, important discussion of precisely these questions was held at the foreign ministers' dinner at the Vienna European Council.
What kind of long-term political strategy can be found to resolve these conflicts that will not lead to war, to expulsions, to mass violence and the trampling of human rights?
We will have to find an answer to this quickly.
<P>
I am firmly in favour of our making greater efforts in relation to Russia in this connection.
I do not find Russia's current attitude in the UN Security Council very constructive because basically it is still founded on the old fixed idea of a confrontation between one superpower and another superpower, America.
Russia would have a great opportunity before it today if it decided to play a constructive role; but unfortunately it is not grasping it.
We are trying to make progress here through a constructive dialogue with Russia and an open discussion of all the issues.
But we consider it extremely important, and the foreign ministers agreed on this, to formulate a central strategy, which cannot, however, be regarded as the conventional kind of assistance, as Russia is too big to allow us to talk in terms of assistance; it is a far too important, central partner in terms of European security, European stability.
But we do give absolute priority to developing a common strategy here.
<P>
That is not inconsistent - and I thank all those who pointed this out - with considering the problems arising in the Mediterranean.
I was recently visited by Foreign Minister Scharon; President Arafat will come next.
The Commission will be visiting the Middle East in February.
That is the second visit and it will encompass not just the question of North Africa but indeed also the Middle East peace process.
This is after all the second neighbouring region, even if the European Union neither can nor wants to take over the role of the United States there.
But the more progress is made with the peace process - and I really cannot see any better alternative to this peace process - the more all the parties concerned in the Middle East will realise that as regions we are neighbours.
What role the European Union will then actually play, in regard to underpinning this process, is another aspect to which we will direct our attention when we continue the Barcelona process in Stuttgart.
Here too it would be damaging to posit any conflict between eastern enlargement and the issues of the south.
We want Europe!
And by its nature Europe will be looking at different interests than, for instance, Germany or Spain, to give examples of geographically different positions.
We have common interests.
The interests of Europe are common interests and as such they must be brought to bear.
<P>
Let me now give a very brief, summary reply to a number of points I find most interesting.
There is no doubt at all that Germany's political approach is a European one.
The same is true of the new German Government's political approach.
We are following a line of continuity with the preceding German governments and in the light of its national interests Germany would lose out a great deal if we changed that approach in any way.
If we still regard the concept of national interests as at all in keeping with the times, all I can say for the German Government is that the European integration process takes first place in our national interests.
So it was in the past, and so it is now, for the change in the political balance in the German Bundestag has not brought any change in our interests.
Under the new government, Germany will continue its commitment to Europe.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Let me make it quite clear: what I have presented here is the approach of the German Government and the German Chancellor.
Anyone who was present at the discussion between the German Chancellor and the Commission will emphatically confirm that.
There are no changes here.
The German Government is united in maintaining the same position.
This whole reform project we are about to embark on is not a question of bookkeeping.
So let me explain the German position to you once again in unequivocal terms.
<P>
We must make the Union capable of enlargement.
The next historic step after the introduction of the euro will be enlargement of the European Union.
Just consider the implications if the European Union remained a Union just for western Europe after the end of the cold war.
That would be a historical failure without parallel and the soul of Europe, the idea of integration, would atrophy.
Quite apart from that, it would be a historical injustice of the first order vis-à-vis the Central and Eastern European applicant states.
So we must now do our utmost to make progress with that step.
<P>
The second great historical challenge facing us is to make the European Union into a political entity.
Personally I do not believe that we can act as an economic and financial 'global player', as it is called in modern parlance, on the world stage if at the same time our political structures operate in a dimension that, compared to what we have now achieved in monetary policy, is - to put it rather bluntly - more reminiscent of a local stage.
<P>
Applause
<P>
That will not do Europe any good, nor for that matter will it do the stability of our currency any good.
That is why I am firmly convinced that our second important historical challenge is to strengthen the European institutions.
In my view democracy always also implies a strengthening of democracy.
That is a key point.
Consider this: much of what is now presented so to speak as German strategy - I will be coming back to that in a moment - is to do with the fact that our national public opinion feels there is a lack of legitimacy; here I am only speaking for our national public opinion. We need to look at that very carefully if we want to develop the European institutions further, which means also to make them more democratic as institutions.
<P>
So we must now meet these two central challenges.
How can we do so?
We can do so through the vision of Europe as a political entity. It can become a larger and stronger political entity if we get on with the homework that now awaits us.
After all, the Cardiff Council set March as the date for the special summit above all because of three added factors.
The Amsterdam Treaty is to enter into force and will intensify the pressure for reform, not just the pressure to enhance the EU's ability to act.
The European elections will be taking place in June.
But the European Parliament must also be able to play its part in implementing the Agenda 2000 reforms.
That also requires budgetary decisions before the end of the year, with the new approach to areas eligible for aid and suchlike.
<P>
In that respect, therefore, this date was set deliberately.
But within the context of this historical challenge, which is enlargement and at the same time the development of a political entity, we must also ensure that subsequent presidencies can tackle the institutional reforms, in order to use the window of time that we have.
<P>
Under what are for us very difficult conditions - we only recently came into office, which has some implications for the business of Europe - the German Government declared itself prepared to make Agenda 2000 the focus of our presidency and to reach agreement at the special summit in March.
I sometimes try to imagine what would happen if this failed.
Early in the morning on 26/27 March the Heads of State or Government would appear before the people and declare failure.
This time that would have immediate repercussions on stock market prices.
It would not simply be a decision, as it would have in the past when a summit happened to fail.
The date of 1 January 1999 has created a new dimension and thereby also a new responsibility.
I think we are all aware of that responsibility.
<P>
It can only succeed - and now I am coming to the age-old question of money - if everyone is prepared to look beyond their national interests, which are quite legitimate - in Germany too - and to set aside the conflicts between national interests in Europe for the sake of the compromise represented by integration.
So it can only succeed if everyone, on an even-handed basis, takes a substantial step away from their national interests.
We want an even-handed solution and, as I said in my earlier statement, we cannot allow the south, for instance, to have to pay for eastern enlargement.
That would be absurd.
Southern enlargement - as also the accession of Ireland - was and is a success story, economically, socially, but also in terms of democracy and security policy; it is one that we will and must now repeat with enlargement to the east.
<P>
I am old enough to remember the military coup in Greece.
I remember the military dictatorships in Spain and Portugal.
I remember very well the discussions about whether or not there was a military coup in Italy in the 1970s.
That is all past history.
European integration is a success story, and we must repeat it, we must commit ourselves to that!
<P>
Applause
<P>
The role that Germany plays also reflects our economic strength, and that should be a cause to rejoice rather than complain.
We know what we owe to Europe, from many points of view, not just in material terms but also in political and cultural terms against the background of our history.
The new German Government knows that too and will therefore adhere to its commitment to Europe.
I have nothing to lose at all by saying that when I was in opposition I supported the major part of the policy pursued in these areas, especially Chancellor Kohl's European policy, even if I criticised one or other aspect of it.
I consider that nothing unusual; in my view, having convictions about something is part of the parliamentary process, especially when historic issues are at stake.
<P>
My group in the German Bundestag was the first in the last legislative term to call for the Europe of 11, for the accession of Italy, at a time when others, like Chancellor Kohl, were far from prepared to do so.
The 3.0 debate and all that lay behind it were things we criticised too.
So I will say quite openly that I have nothing to make up for here nor am I afraid to thank Helmut Kohl; he was rightly appointed a freeman of Europe at the European Council in Vienna.
It is only that since Amsterdam Germany has no longer played the right role.
<P>
In Amsterdam the Federal Republic of Germany put on the brakes for the first time.
<P>
Heckling
<P>
We must not forget that.
And the coalition - here I am not talking about internal politics but about European politics - went into the elections with a position that was no longer entirely consistent, as you know better than I do.
That position was: eastern enlargement as quickly as possible, Germany wants to pay less, and the German farmers should get more.
That does not tally with the laws of logic in this world.
That is why we must now define a clear and consistent German position, and that is what I have done today on behalf of the German Government.
<P>
We certainly do not want to stop being a net contributor.
We have no quarrel with the fact that there are some countries that are ahead and then there are the poorer countries.
But it is obvious that imbalances have crept into the system and that they need correcting.
In terms of domestic politics, it is difficult for a German politician to explain why countries that obtain a higher per capita income thanks to their GNP than we do should pay little or even pay no net contribution at all.
These are of course all things that play a part in domestic politics.
I need not tell that to my German colleagues, but let me point out the following to other Members: because of the special situation in West Germany after the second world war, Germany's European policy was basically unquestioned and was determined solely by the politicians - until Maastricht.
Maastricht changed all that.
In future, every German government will have to rally the people behind it, as in all your countries, in all your own democracies.
That used to be a matter of course and was not considered particularly noteworthy, as my German colleagues know only too well, but all that has changed since Maastricht.
<P>
That is why the net contributor debate does of course also have a domestic dimension, which must not be forgotten and which I regard as entirely legitimate.
But for us the crucial problem is how we can prepare the EU structures for enlargement.
I am less concerned about the actual situation, which clearly needs rectifying, than about the fact that if we leave the existing structures as they stand, we will of course come up against imbalances in the burden-sharing in regard to enlargement, which will quite simply no longer be acceptable or defensible.
Since I am in favour of enlargement, I believe we need this situation to be rectified too.
I think that is politically justified and certainly not a sign of anti-Europeanism or selfish nationalism; quite the reverse.
This is a central aspect of the necessary structural reforms.
<P>
If we are to get through with Agenda 2000, we will have to present it in all its aspects; it encompasses five separate packages.
We will have to reach a compromise on the question of real constancy, budgetary constancy.
There are five different interpretations, but I believe we will find a compromise there.
Yesterday, the German finance minister said the EU budget must not grow faster than the national budgets.
That is a point that will certainly be taken seriously in the discussions.
Naturally we are also very concerned about the question of the budgetary structure.
As was pointed out earlier, although 80 % of the territory of the European Union is rural, we must not forget that it is not 80 % of our population that lives in these rural areas.
<P>
The second point that will arise in this connection is the common agricultural policy.
The Commission has submitted its CAP proposals.
Let me just add another word on the question of the renationalisation of agricultural policy.
Cofinancing does not imply the renationalisation of agricultural policy.
If it did, the German Government would regard that as a mistake.
We do not want to see agricultural policy renationalised or even partly renationalised.
So, cofinancing is a question of the national contribution. The political decision is taken at Brussels.
It is important to remember that.
That precludes any renationalisation.
In any case we only want it in relation to direct income supports.
That is the second important point.
And here we consider it urgently necessary to have national financial contributions, in view also of the future European Union, the enlarged European Union, and the future of the agricultural market.
<P>
Over and above that, let us please have no illusions.
The WTO negotiations in the year 2002 will create an enormous pressure for adjustment, as every agricultural politician knows.
Without this reform, the current disputes about bananas or hormones in meat will seem nothing compared to what we will be faced with, for many of the agricultural subsidies we have now simply do not come within the scope of the WTO.
So there, too, we will face an enormous pressure for reform.
<P>
All three models that the Commission has proposed for the common agricultural policy must remain open to discussion.
We have to discuss them.
National preferences differ.
And then there are the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund.
I know how important and how productive these resources are, but I think that here too a contribution is needed and that special problems, such as those facing Portugal in relation to the Structural Funds, will need to be considered.
I also believe we will have to carefully assess and consider the Spanish situation.
We are looking towards an even-handed solution.
<P>
But there is no doubt that an even-handed solution also covers the rebate, the UK rebate, and, in the final analysis - and this is the fifth aspect involved, and one to which not only Germany but, as the presidency's trip showed, the Netherlands and other net contributors also attach very great importance - this issue will also have to be resolved.
We want to produce a global package, which will be anything but easy.
At the European Council in Vienna, which took place at the historical site of the Vienna Congress in the Hofburg, the Portuguese prime minister pointed out that when Talleyrand was asked how long the Vienna Congress had lasted he replied 'the last fifteen minutes'.
That will be equally true of the European Council, the special Council.
<P>
Unfortunately, the Member who quoted Goethe is no longer in the House.
He quoted Goethe's last words, on his death bed.
I am not sure this is a suitable Goethe quote and whether he knew that.
The words 'Mehr Licht, mehr Licht ' (more light, more light!) can be interpreted in two ways.
Either this greatest of German poets felt that darkness was descending around him, or he was reverting to the dialect of Frankfurt in his final moments.
Some people seriously interpreted what he wanted to say as: 'mer licht so schlecht ', 'I feel so bad'.
But if we want to quote Goethe, we really could do better, for Goethe was a European through and through and he was pro-Europe.
He would have no truck at all with nationalism.
I think that is the real Goethe whom we should quote.
<P>
Mr Hänsch, I warmly thank you for your support in regard to the settlement of the Kosovo conflict and would say to the European Parliament: it is important that we cooperate very closely.
The trilogue debate with Mr Verheugen will be continuing tomorrow.
During that debate a number of questions that you have raised will be considered in more depth.
We want a very close dialogue, in order to strengthen the European Parliament but also to ensure that it plays an active role in tackling the great tasks that face us.
The European Parliament must play a central role here.
<P>
Mr Brok, allow me to point out one thing, which is something I also want to say to certain colleagues. I know how difficult it is to be in opposition; I myself was in that position long enough.
But to be in opposition also means to attack very intelligently and make it difficult for the government to find a reply.
To the accusation that all we have managed to do after 12 days of presidency is to make announcements, I would reply: yes, if I could do more than that after 12 days I would not be in politics, I would be a miracle worker and then I would be in the wrong job, I should be founding a church or something.
<P>
Laughter
<P>
But who indeed can perform miracles?
So with the best will in the world, all one can do in 12 days is to state what one is prepared to do and then to be judged by it later.
And I can see that the opposition has a very high opinion of us and is expecting a great deal of us.
<P>
But for Mr Brok - who openly thanked Mr Kohl, as I too have done several times - to accuse us of trying to divert attention at the Cologne summit from our own national failures in employment market policy a few days before the European elections, means he is obviously unintentionally revealing a strategy of the preceding government, for we were not the ones to set all these deadlines.
It was not the new German Government that did this; we were not able to do so and nor did the opposition hypnotise the previous government into doing so.
With the best will in the world, we were not able to do so.
It was the Luxembourg summit that decided this, it was Vienna, which followed, that was responsible for no progress being made.
These are not accusations that can seriously be levelled at the new German Government, because we have not been in office nearly long enough.
In the interests of close cooperation we should refrain from transparent polemics of this kind, which, for the rest, do little to help solve the problems facing us.
The areas of general consensus are more important.
<P>
In conclusion let me emphasise once again what one Member said about Germany's role.
I repeat that we know we will remain a net contributor.
There will be no German disengagement here.
That would be absurd and wrong given our interests.
It is in our interest to ensure that Europe develops into a stronger political entity.
The fact that the Deutschmark became integrated in the euro is not a matter of course, given its significance as a national currency, a significance that goes far beyond what a national currency normally signifies, and not just for the West Germans but also and in particular for our East German compatriots since unification in 1989/1990.
It is a step that was taken with the broad assent of the German Bundestag , and it is also binding upon the new German Government.
We believe that during the German Presidency we have an obligation to make the European Union more capable of enlargement, to combat unemployment, to take a first step towards making progress with institutional reforms, to help strengthen democracy in Europe and, in general, to turn the European Union into a real political entity, with the ultimate aim of full integration.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="President">
I should like to thank you from the Chair and wish you every success.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office, you have of course spoken for 30 minutes, but I think that the Members, who have heard you speak for two hours, have been listening very carefully.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
Mr President-in-Office, I assume that you missed some of what was said because Mr Cohn-Bendit was talking to you.
I forgive you!
But I would like to say that for you simply to dismiss what I said as emotional is male arrogance, and I am happy to return the insult.
I have been concerning myself with Kosovo for ten years - a little longer, perhaps, than you - and I do not reproach you for that, just as you should not reproach me for being emotional.
I simply believe that after I have been pleading for years for prevention in Kosovo and that has not been achieved, one cannot say after ten years: we must take preventive measures.
<P>
Secondly, I also believe that I did not say the OSCE must get out and nobody else must come in; perhaps you did not hear me properly.
I said that as it stands it is not much use because there is nothing it can do.
Indeed it can achieve even less than the UN troops did in Bosnia.
In my view we need an international force there which incorporates the Russians, so as to prepare the ground for peaceful solutions.
<P>
Allow me to correct a few other words you said.
Mr Westendorp is not the representative of the European Union, he is the representative of the international community including the European Union.
Please do not misunderstand me next time!
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Cohn-Bendit">
Mr President, Mrs Pack, or rather my dear Doris, I think we are both being emotional, which is nothing specifically feminine but a quite legitimate position to take on this issue.
The point is quite simply that during the nine years when there was no preventive policy it was not this German government but another that kept denying the need for a policy of prevention.
You must admit that too!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Fischer">
Mrs Pack, I really think we do not need to quarrel so bitterly.
Let me stress again that in connection with Kosovo, as also with Bosnia, I was not using the term emotional in any gender-specific or even discriminatory fashion, for I too feel very emotionally affected whenever I look at this issue.
I believe nobody who is concerned with it can feel otherwise.
In that regard I can also understand people taking an emotional approach - and in the case of Bosnia emotion was not the worst counsellor, if I may point that out again - but nevertheless, we must think things through to the end.
After all there is no point, Mrs Pack, in saying that an international force has to be deployed against the will of the sovereign government of that state, unlike the sovereign government of Bosnia which created a definite international legal basis for these international troops.
That is an enormous problem.
So it would create a great problem for an international force to intervene for the first time on the territory of a state recognised by all EU Member States and by the international community against the will of that state's government.
<P>
My second point concerns the participation of Russia.
At this moment in time the Russians in fact take the opposite view.
You will not get them to participate now.
<P>
Thirdly, what is the aim?
Secession?
But what does secession mean?
What does it mean, when one third of the population of Macedonia is of Albanian origin?
These are all just questions, in order to make it clear that it will do nothing for our common interests if we seem to be exchanging blows on this issue.
For these are questions which all the responsible parties ask themselves a hundred times a day.
In fact my group and also the German Government's new human rights representative and former deputy, Mr Popper, really have spent years trying to persuade the EU to become more closely involved in Kosovo and to make progress with seeking solutions there.
At a time when the KLA did not yet exist we were calling for more support to be given to Rugova, among many other things.
<P>
Unfortunately things did not go as we wished. Today the situation is different.
But we have tried.
We invited the Albanian interlocutors to Bonn and we are remaining in close contact.
But it is also apparent that the Albanian side is of course thinking it can use the West for its own strategic ends, for goals the West does not endorse.
You must realise that too.
The Western community of states is in favour of an autonomous status, which we consider urgently necessary.
Whether and to what extent there is any historical prospect of achieving that is a legitimate question, raised by freely elected Members of the European Parliament.
In view of the experiences we have had, I consider it only natural that it should be discussed, that these issues should also be aired publicly.
<P>
But when I think of the practical end results, Mrs Pack - and I beg you not to misunderstand my words as any unseemly criticism of your position, for which I have great sympathy - I believe there is no option other than a strategy of stabilisation, however imperfect it may be at present.
And in that context, the achievement followed by the implementation of an interim political settlement for Kosovo, endorsed by the Kosovar and the Yugoslav side, is of central importance.
<P>
In my view there are only worse alternatives to this strategy of stabilisation.
That is why I have explained to you that we must do our utmost to bring about a peaceful solution, working together with our partners in the Contact Group, but also in the European Union and in other institutions.
I am of course thinking just as much of Norway, which holds the presidency of the OSCE, as of all the others who are endeavouring to bring this about.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr President-in-Office.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
At this point I would like to wish a speedy recovery to our friend Willy Görlach, whom I saw after his accident coming in at least for the end of the debate.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Transparency in the European Union
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="President.">
The next item is the report (A4-0476/98) by Mrs Lööw, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on transparency in the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Lööw">
Mr President, the background to this report stems from the fact that the Amsterdam Treaty represents a clear move towards establishing greater openness and transparency.
This has also been an important goal for the European Parliament both before and during its work on the new Treaty.
Since it is an issue which greatly affects the interests of our citizens and involves the democratic legitimacy of the EU, the Committee on Institutional Affairs felt that Parliament should produce an own-initiative report in which it would establish certain principles for promoting openness in the EU institutions before the Commission puts forward its initial proposal for, amongst other things, a code on general principles, as it is expected to do upon ratification of the Treaty.
This will also provide Parliament with another opportunity for raising the issue.
<P>
The committee has held a public hearing and a round table discussion, and the Directorate-General for Research carried out a comparative study on legislation in the Member States relating to public access to information.
It transpired that legislation varied considerably between individual countries.
It would perhaps be in order to point out here that neither my report nor the Amsterdam Treaty attempts to impose changes on individual Member States. The remit is to establish a new code on public access to EU documents, as well as a new culture of openness and transparency in the Commission, Council and Parliament.
However, the report points out that Members of the European Parliament would like such a principle to be applied to all EU institutions, regardless of the fact that it will be easier to achieve in some than in others.
For instance, it is a foregone conclusion that Europol is less likely than a number of other institutions to allow public access to its documents.
<P>
The Treaty of Amsterdam makes explicit reference to the public right of access to EU documents, and my report deals mainly with this principle.
I share the view that our citizens regard access to documents as the linchpin on which the principle of public access to information hinges.
Our citizens have a right to know what underlies decisions, so that they can form their own judgement as to whether they are appropriate.
In this way, openness prevents corruption, abuse of power and fraud.
<P>
Broadly speaking, the proposal means that all incoming and outgoing documents of importance in the EU institutions should be public.
Obviously, there are reasons for certain documents being classified, but these must be precisely defined in law.
They should not be vague and general; and nor should the list of grounds for confidentiality be unduly long and detailed.
<P>
So that the public knows what documents are available, a public register should be set up and, of course, ways of tracing documents in the various institutions introduced.
New technology such as the Internet should make it possible for all European citizens to access the register.
Distance from Brussels need no longer be an obstacle to our citizens fully exercising their right to view documents.
<P>
The committee was overwhelmingly agreed, even though in the course of our work I detected a degree of scepticism about securing broad support for such radical changes, which after all go much further than current practice in many Member States.
I would also dare to hope that there will be broad support in the final vote, which would naturally put strong pressure on the Commission to come up with a proposal that meets Parliament's requirements.
There was also some scepticism as to whether the Commission would really introduce a principle that allowed the public access to EU documents, since this would require a whole new culture.
I think I should warn you that a considerable effort will be required; it will not be handed over on a plate.
It is not as simple as drawing up a new code.
It will require new working practices and probably new equipment, but above all resources for staff training.
I must say that in fact it all fits in very well with the much-needed reforms which the President of the Commission promised yesterday.
<P>
Having directed most of my remarks at the Commission, I should also point out that the same applies to all the EU institutions.
The Council in particular should concentrate on living up to it own proposal in the Treaty. Parliament also has a considerable way to go.
<P>
The report also deals with many other issues related to openness and transparency, such as more open meetings and greater use of the Internet for disseminating information and informing people about the issues under discussion.
However, we need not go any further into this, since it is all in the report.
I shall therefore devote the rest of my speaking time to some comments on the amendments.
<P>
The amendments were studied in committee and rejected by a large majority.
It is the duty of a rapporteur to be sensitive to the views of the committee as a whole, so I am not going to endorse them, even though I am sympathetic towards one or two, especially the two relating to the 'guaranteed freedom of speech for officials', which is a central and very special feature in the principle of public access to information in Sweden.
Under this, civil servants who pass on information to the media are afforded protection.
Such a law does not even exist in the other Scandinavian countries and, in my opinion, it would be futile to try to introduce similar legislation into the EU at the present time.
<P>
One amendment also says that EU legislation should not supersede national legislation.
It would be appropriate for me to end with a comment on this.
My aim with this report is to see that EU legislation on openness and transparency is shaped in a way that is acceptable to all Member States and does not conflict with national legislation, no matter how far reaching the latter may be.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Gebhardt">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we keep being accused of being remote from the citizens and aloof.
We can only defend ourselves against this accusation by ensuring greater transparency and democratic control.
The citizens of Europe have a right to that.
Transparency and democratic control will bring us closer to the people, something we should not just think about every five years just before the elections.
Much remains to be done.
That is apparent not just from Mrs Lööw's report. It is apparent also from the 20 conclusions set out in my opinion, which the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights approved unanimously.
<P>
What I consider most important of all is to make improved access of the citizens to information the focal point of transparency.
In this regard, Finland and Sweden have developed an enviable culture of transparency.
We should take a leaf out of their book throughout the European Union.
In fact, why should we deny the people the widest possible access to our files and documents?
What actually prevents us from widening this right and also giving it to Parliament's rapporteurs and others?
Why can the Council not work just as openly as the European Parliament to a large extent does?
<P>
Why do Council and Commission representatives have their own fixed seat in our committees, while Parliament does not in theirs, nor even its rapporteurs?
But more transparency is not enough in itself if we want to come closer to the citizens.
In addition to making political procedures and decision-making processes transparent, we must give the citizens a say.
The European Union institutions must develop mechanisms to enable the citizens to bring their own ideas and thoughts into the decision-making process.
That is a basic requirement of democracy.
If we are to build the Europe of the future, we need the participation of all concerned, not least for the sake of our credibility.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Voggenhuber">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it was with great pleasure that I listened to the statements by the new President-in-Office during the previous debate about the need for a European constitutional process and the announcement that a charter of fundamental rights would be drawn up.
Perhaps the members and colleagues in the Committee on Institutional Affairs will be able to judge for themselves just how pleased I am, given that I have been badgering them with this demand for four years, to which the reply tended to be that the time is not yet ripe.
Mr Herman, Mr Bourlanges, the time can become ripe very quickly, although perhaps it needed a green President-in-Office of the Council!
<P>
The subject of this report today also relates to this deep process of democratisation that we need. This is a particularly backward area of democratisation that we are considering today, but perhaps that is partly due to a misunderstanding.
We usually refer to transparency, to public relations, to the information services here in Parliament and in the appropriate committees.
But in that way we tend to reveal rather than resolve the democratic crisis in the EU.
<P>
Transparency means clarity.
The corresponding democratic concept here is openness to the public.
It is this openness to the public to which the citizens of Europe have a right: open legislation (not transparent legislation but legislation in public), the public justification by the administration of all its acts, rights of control and information for Parliament, in the second and third pillar too, public decisions and decision-making bases, in the area also of internal security and foreign policy, and the rights of the citizen to information (not the information services), the press services, the public relations work of the European institutions.
<P>
It is not a question of transparency or of concepts that have no part in the democratic tradition but tend rather to be public relations exercises.
It is a question of the people's right to openness as the foundation of democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lenz">
Mr President, it may be a coincidence that we are discussing a report about openness in the Union this week, but it really does make Mrs Lööw's text a very topical one.
Had there been more transparency or more openness, then perhaps the Commission and the European Parliament would not have been in the situation of having to hold the debates we are holding this week.
But here too we need rules of play, for then openness really can provide the citizen with reliable information, which, God knows, we need.
After all, electoral campaigns always reveal the deficits in this area very clearly.
However, what we need is not market criers but precise information.
<P>
The Lööw report on openness within the European Union is a serious attempt to give just that precision to the relevant provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty.
An interinstitutionally agreed code of conduct is to be formulated to that end.
That is a difficult but a truly necessary task.
In any case the proposed provisions are likely to create considerably more openness.
I am sure further discussion will still be needed of some of the proposals, if they are also to apply to institutions such as the Court of Justice, the European Central Bank, the European Court of Auditors and the European Investment Bank.
<P>
It is certainly desirable - and here too we welcome the Lööw report - for Council and Coreper decisions to become more transparent by improved access to their documents, for the EU administration to provide the citizen with information more rapidly and courteously - which should really be a matter of course - and for multilingualism to be maintained precisely for the sake of transparency.
Today it is clear that modern electronic techniques have to be used.
Yet we should not go quite as far as most of the amendments, especially Amendment No 4.
However, my group will endorse the broad lines of the report.
The report demands a great deal and of course the European Parliament must also realise that this would mean creating the appropriate financial and staffing conditions, to avoid being told afterwards by the Commission and all the other institutions that any lack of efficiency was simply due to a lack of the necessary resources.
That, after all, is the reason for the dilemma we now find ourselves in.
I really would wish to avoid that and I hope this report on openness within the Union will create the necessary bases for doing so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, as we said, it is a rather interesting coincidence that the subject of yesterday's debate was the administration, and here we are today discussing openness and how to improve the credibility of the Union.
A fundamental truth has emerged today: we need uniform practices in public administrations. We cannot go on living with 15 different cultures and 15 different concepts.
It only leads to rumours about a lack of transparency.
However, what I found disturbing in yesterday's discussions was that the President of the Commission made absolutely no mention of a timetable for establishing a code on public access to EU documents, as described by the rapporteur.
When are we to see some action, and what principles will be included?
<P>
It would seem to be Parliament's responsibility.
I am afraid the President of the Commission is firmly of the opinion that 'il faut faire une profonde réflexion '.
We should therefore all support the principles laid down by Mrs Lööw in her excellent report.
Mr Gebhardt's intervention also contained some very good points.
We should have a code that includes clear rights for our citizens and obligations for the institutions.
It is vital that we dispel the current distrust in the EU institutions and restore their credibility.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lataillade">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Lööw has presented an excellent report, teaming prudence with boldness in an area where balance and moderation need to be maintained.
Yesterday's debates demonstrated that very clearly.
<P>
The rapporteur points out that greater transparency is vital for the future of the European Union.
The citizens of the Union often perceive it as distant and bureaucratic.
Mrs Lööw also tells us that transparency can help prevent corruption and abuses of power.
<P>
There are thus two main aspects to this report: form and substance.
Form is not just about wording, it also has to do with attitude.
And I think that our rapporteur has defined it very well.
The second aspect is the substance.
Europe will never make progress until the European institutions, ourselves, but also the Commission - and this was debated at length yesterday - provide the necessary elements to facilitate understanding of their work, and this is true for all the information given to the citizens of the Union.
<P>
If we want the judgements made about European action and development to meet our hopes, then our duty as Members of the European Parliament is to improve the information the citizens receive.
Mr President, we think that this report is particularly well-balanced and the Union for Europe Group will be pleased to vote for it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
Mr President, more openness in law-making and administration is crucial for the democratisation of the EU.
Openness is the best remedy for corruption and poor administration, because it enables the public to identify the law-makers and hold them to account.
For that reason, I welcome the Lööw report.
I share most of the rapporteur's views, even though I believe that the report could have gone further and been somewhat clearer on a number of crucial points.
<P>
It is obvious that the President of the Commission has not understood the meaning of real openness, as demonstrated by two actual examples.
First of all, the suspension of its official, Mr Van Buitenen, who revealed the truth about fraud to Parliament, shows the Commission's authoritarian attitude.
There is consequently a need for guaranteed freedom of speech to protect the right of officials to make public statements without fear of retribution, and I have tabled an amendment to this effect.
Secondly, Mr Santer's letter to the Swedish Prime Minster, Göran Persson, was a noteworthy incident.
It is totally unacceptable for the Commission to act like a thought police when an EU head of government criticises its actions.
<P>
The weak point in the Lööw report is the proposal relating to open meetings of the Council.
It is a fact of democratic life that all law-making should be public.
However, this is not what Mrs Lööw is demanding.
But why should European citizens be content with anything less than complete transparency in the decision-making and legislative processes? After all, that is what normal democracy is all about.
<P>
There are two other areas where the report would be improved by the inclusion of the amendments tabled by the GUE/NGL Group.
It is important that the EU should not intrude on national rules relating to openness.
This can and does occur as a result of the excessive secrecy that exists within the EU, as for example when the Council appealed to the Court of Justice over the so-called Journalist Case.
The Council's action directly called into question the rules on openness and constitutional law at national level.
That case, like many others, demonstrates the need for a quick and inexpensive way of appealing against decisions by the EU to withhold certain documents.
<P>
Greater openness is vital for the process of democratisation in the EU.
It is therefore regrettable that concern over this issue, both in committee and in the tabling of amendments, was shown above all by Members from the Nordic countries.
The Lööw report is an important and constructive piece of work, and is worthy of greater attention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, the Amsterdam Treaty explicitly introduces the notion that Europe's administrations must become more transparent; indeed, it makes specific reference to public access to documents of the three institutions.
In our opinion this transparency should be extended to all European bodies and fostered by other means too, such as public access to meetings, open administration, the drafting of clearer and simpler texts, a solution to the problem of multilingualism, and so on.
We are convinced that such transparency must be a real aspiration, not just a verbal one, an expression of political intent, not just a bureaucratic act ultimately leading to confusion and away from the truth, in a deliberate bid to avoid clarity.
<P>
We ask ourselves this: how much can our citizens, today, feel part of an institutional Europe which is increasingly complex and muddled?
How much can we encourage them to understand the workings of our institutions, now that these are more relevant than ever and now that decisions taken by the Community bodies affect our daily lives, if there are no means of involving the citizens themselves in the procedures and enabling them to understand the reasons for the decisions made?
How much can we stress the remoteness of the institutions from the citizens, without running the risk of generating that disgust, that rejection of Europe which is unfortunately all too evident?
How much strain can we place on public disaffection, without running the risk of alienating our citizens once and for all from the centres of decision-making?
<P>
Although it is true that the sad affair of fraud and misappropriation of European taxpayers' money, underlined by the refusal of this House to grant discharge for 1996, is currently casting dark shadows over the Community's whole executive, it must nevertheless be brought to public attention.
We are duty-bound to do so, having been elected by our citizens to represent them in this House.
The risk is, however, that those citizens will become increasingly disaffected.
<P>
Indeed, the numbers not voting at recent elections in various parts of Europe serve to trigger alarm bells, showing that people have lost confidence: instead of going to vote, they opt for a Sunday outing. This attitude is becoming dangerous in that while on the one hand it leaves them at the mercy of decisions taken by others - generally active members of traditional political parties - on the other, it means that in the longer term they fall prey to the latest demagogues and populists.
<P>
A key feature of our contemporary society, based on the supremacy of law, is to involve the citizens in political decision-making, shaped until recently by national governments and now the prerogative of our Community institutions.
Thus the citizens are entitled not only to feel the effects of political decisions, but also to participate in taking them.
If transparency is to encompass all forms of public access to information and decision-making, democratic control implies that our citizens should not only participate but should also be allowed a supervisory role.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, the reports by Mrs Lööw and Mr Brok on the transparency of the European institutions and the way the Commission President is elected could not have been presented at a better time.
As far as transparency is concerned, Monday made it all the more clear that the closed bastion of European bureaucracy must be thrown open.
Parliament has tried to do this through the Amsterdam Treaty by calling for all documents used in preparing European legislation to have to be made open and open meetings of the Council when it is dealing with legislation.
These wishes have only been granted in part.
Yesterday's tough debate once again makes it clear that further steps must be taken.
<P>
I should like to go further on this point.
I believe we need a law, a European directive, on transparency of government at European level so that the public and Parliament do not have to depend on random promises, but on clear European law.
<P>
As regards the Commission President, I should like to make one small comment.
I also support the Brok report, but I believe that the code which the Commission is now proposing should make it clearer that European Commissioners hold office on behalf of the European administration and on behalf of Europe, and not on behalf of their national Member States.
That is one of the points which has led to the degeneration we have seen, and it is something that needs to be laid down as soon as possible in an internal code for the Commission.
This is what I wanted to stress in connection with the Brok report.
This concludes my comments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR).">
Mr President, first of all I should like to thank Mrs Lööw for her fine report.
It is a good start, although it does not go far enough.
The proposals relating to guaranteed freedom of speech for officials, public access to Council meetings of a legislative nature and the right of appeal to the Court of Justice against decisions to withhold documents, without incurring costs, do give the report some muscle.
<P>
We now have evidence of what a lack of openness and public access to information can lead to.
It is very likely that this debate on a vote of confidence would never have taken place if we had had a comprehensive code on openness, guaranteed freedom of speech and so on, which are the subject of today's discussion.
The best and probably the only way of pre-empting similar debates in future is to open up the administration by establishing a register of incoming documents, with clear rules about what should be public and what should be classified, and with freedom of speech and open Council meetings.
Three cheers for the report and the five amendments!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Kaklamanis">
Mr President, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur for two reasons: firstly, because she has raised an issue which reflects no credit on the European Union, and secondly, because she approaches it with very specific proposals.
<P>
I would like to give two examples.
The first is that the world over, all over the earth, only two bodies meet behind closed doors: one is the Council of Ministers of the European Union and the other is the People's National Assembly in China.
And, ladies and gentlemen, I wonder why we pass resolutions about China and accuse it of a lack of democracy and transparency, when the Council of Ministers of the European Union is doing exactly the same thing.
The second example is the dismissal of a certain Commission staff member.
Do you know what message emerges from that dismissal?
The message that the Commission pays its staff, and indeed pays them well, to work, see and hear, but not speak out.
They must not even say anything to the European Parliament, because it is not in our interests to hear what goes on in the Commission.
I therefore congratulate the rapporteurs.
My group will vote for their report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sierra González">
Mr President, a democratic society is one where an ordinary citizen can ascertain the identity of administrators and the nature of their actions, and when, as a result of this knowledge, that citizen can attribute responsibility when appropriate and monitor the ends pursued through political action.
This is the only way of preventing the abuse of power.
<P>
However, the citizens of today's European Union are still denied information on fundamental issues relating to justice and home affairs.
Regulatory documents are drafted in secret.
Decisions are taken without the reasons for them being made public, alleging that public order and internal security are at stake. In the past, therefore, institutions have been able to treat the principle of confidentiality in a cavalier fashion, and they continue to do so today.
<P>
There is much talk of working towards greater transparency and openness to bring the institutions of the European Union closer to the citizen. What is really at issue, however, is making the new Europe and its institutions democratically legitimate.
That is the real aim.
The Treaty of Amsterdam represented a step in this direction, but more is needed.
Administrators can still restrict information at their discretion, and that power must be done away with.
<P>
This report represents an effort to restrict the powers of discretion available to European administrators, and that is why we support it. We believe this is the way forward.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Oreja">
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will follow immediately.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Berthu">
The Commission recommendation for a Council decision concerning exchange rate matters relating to agreements signed between France and certain African countries, for the management of the CFA franc and the Comorian franc, is a technical document that is highly revealing of the Brussels methods.
It shows how the CFA franc has been drawn in under Community authority in spite of the Treaty, how national prerogatives are violated, and how French interests are gradually going to be compromised.
<P>
First of all, these exchange rate agreements do not involve the Bank of France, because they relate to a fixed rate convertibility guarantee granted to the CFA franc by the French Treasury, that is, by our country's national budget.
Under the circumstances, even when the franc is replaced by the euro, one might assume on reading the Treaty that these agreements would continue to be an entirely French responsibility, given that it is our financial guarantee that is involved, and that, a priori , the European Central Bank will have nothing to do with it.
That was certainly the interpretation of the French, at the time of Maastricht, of Article 109(5) of the Treaty, which states that 'without prejudice to Community competence and Community agreements as regards economic and monetary union, Member States may negotiate in international bodies and conclude international agreements'.
<P>
But that was reckoning without the appetite for power of the European institutions, notably the Commission.
Even though the management of the CFA franc will present no risk whatsoever to the stability of the euro, given the tiny sums involved, the Commission decided, against all likelihood and against any legal logic, not to apply Article 109(5), but to apply Article 109(3), which sets out the arrangements for approval of monetary agreements signed by the Community.
Thus, the first paragraph of the recommendation generously grants us the right to maintain the agreements relating to the CFA franc, despite the fact that this is our right anyway.
Added to this, we should inform the Commission and the Economic and Financial Committee of any plan to amend these agreements, and even in certain cases submit them to the Council for approval.
This all constitutes a flagrant violation of French national sovereignty.
<P>
This legal violation comes on top of the violation of French interests that will result from the euro replacing the franc in relations with the CFA franc.
In fact, the financial guarantee that France granted to the CFA franc involved an important commercial advantage for our country, since economic agents could organise their transactions more easily on the basis of fixed exchange rates.
In future, France will still grant its financial guarantee, but this will be of commercial benefit to every country in the euro zone.
<P>
Finally, the exchange rate agreements for the CFA franc used to be reasonably coherent, because the French Treasury's guarantee could be activated by variations in the franc, which was itself managed by the Bank of France.
But in future, the French guarantee could be activated by variations in the euro, over which the French authorities will have virtually no control, except on the margin.
Part of the internal logic of the system has been broken.
<P>
This abandonment of French sovereignty, added to the loss of our commercial advantage, is bound to mean a gradual reduction of French influence in the African countries involved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Porto">
The pegging of the African currencies to the euro will increase the prominence of the euro, thereby justifying an additional promotional effort.
This is of particular interest to me as it will be a way of bringing the Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa closer to the EU.
<P>
Lööw Report (A4-0476/98)
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Berthu">
Mrs Lööw's report on transparency in the European Union is on the right lines, but it is still based overly on individual issues and suffers from a lack of overall perspective.
<P>
First of all, while it is true that the Amsterdam Treaty recognises the citizen's right of access to the documents of the European institutions - this right should, of course, have been granted long ago - there are grounds for concern about the lack of symmetry in the treatment of the Council and the Commission. A specific article - the newArticle 207 - defines the principal obligations of the Council in terms of transparency, but curiously the equivalent does not exist for the Commission.
The Commission should not take advantage of this omission to try to perpetuate the obscurity that surrounds the management of its dossiers. We now see the appalling consequences of that in the endless frauds and scandals that have come to light.
<P>
What is even more serious is that the Lööw report is careful not to broaden its perspective and does not raise the fundamental question, namely, is it not true that the entire policy on European integration that has been implemented in recent years is by its very nature based on non-transparency?
There are two sides to the Monnet method, which was given so much praise by the German Presidency just this morning. There is a policy of integration based on small successive technical steps, but there is also, and we often forget to mention this, a policy whose final objective is never clearly expressed to the citizens, even if the strategic players are themselves completely in the know.
<P>
By its very nature, this method is undemocratic.
Perhaps it was of very little importance when the Community was in its early days, but now it has dramatic consequences in the shape of essential quasi-clandestine transfers of sovereignty and a complete sense of isolation from public opinion.
<P>
Democracy must be restored in Europe, and that means going against the Monnet method.
Of course, that may put the brakes on European federalism.
But today we have to prioritise between integration or democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Blak, Iversen, Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
Today the Danish Social Democrats voted for the report on openness.
We are in favour of the public right of access to documents in the EU.
We also agree with the amendments which emphasise that national rules on openness should be respected and that it should be possible to appeal to the European Court of Justice if public right of access is denied.
However, we do not agree that all Council meetings should be public.
But that is not the same as saying that afterwards the Council can keep its decisions and minutes secret.
Similarly, we believe that civil servants should follow certain rules when speaking about internal matters, such as sensitive personal information, as in the Danish civil service.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Darras">
This report comes at the right time, when scepticism about the European Union, indeed condemnation of it, seems to be the style in certain press circles and in a section of public opinion.
<P>
The anti-Europeans disparage the Amsterdam Treaty and yet it explicitly introduces the concept of transparency into the Treaty on European Union, by guaranteeing the public's right of access to European Union documents and by stating that Community decisions are to be taken 'as openly as possible and as closely as possible to the citizen'.
<P>
I am therefore grateful to the rapporteur for her work in preparing the way for the post-Amsterdam period by attempting to lay down the necessary requirements for improving transparency.
<P>
Her report calls for the new code of conduct to be applied not only to Commission, Council and Parliament documents, but also to those of all the other institutions of the Union. It also asks that the practice of holding Council meetings in public be extended considerably and that the practice of making secret declarations be ended.
<P>
In addition, the report calls for legislative proposals, comitology texts and other important documents to be put on the Internet, thereby making information more readily available to the citizens.
<P>
This is a whole range of measures that, in my view, are essential to improve the running of the European Union and to ensure that the citizens of Europe have a better understanding of what it does.
I will therefore vote in favour of this report and I urge Parliament to do the same.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Delcroix">
A few weeks ago, when crossing Rue Wiertz, I was stopped by a person who asked me point-blank what she had to do to get access to the European Parliament library.
She was a German student researching a dissertation, and she had been able to consult Commission documents without difficulty. However, she found the door of our institution barred.
I naturally signed an authorisation pass and she was able to make contact with our librarians who did everything to help her with her research on Europe.
<P>
But I wondered then about the transparency of the European institutions in general and our own in particular.
Public access to documents is essential for transparency and has been provided for in the Amsterdam Treaty in Article 191(a)(2). So the rapporteur is quite right to question our own system.
Who makes the rules?
The Conference of Presidents takes these decisions without involving any committee.
I admit that the decision of 10 July 1997 on public access to European Parliament documents is certainly a step in the right direction.
<P>
More recently, on 17 April 1998, the Bureau took a decision on the costs involved in forwarding documents.
That is all very well.
But the question of access is so important that it actually concerns all Members, because it is closely linked to the citizens' trust in the European Union and the image they have of it.
Are we trying hard enough to make our work public?
I am struck by the contrast that exists between the mass of documents from the often excellent work of our committees and their impact on the media and on public opinion.
How can we improve that?
<P>
The Dury/Maij-Weggen report ahead of the IGC wanted access to EU documents enshrined in the Treaty.
On that point our two colleagues won the day.
They also wanted the documents to be easy to read, they wanted the Treaties to be summarised, restructured and simplified, and they wanted the special comments and reservations of the Member States in relation to Union legislation to also be made public.
We need to make progress on all these points.
<P>
Finally, we must remember, too, that other reports must also follow on transparency.
It is not limited to access to documents, important though that may be.
When Maastricht was ratified, some states distributed the Treaty to each household.
They forgot that European jargon needs to be simplified and translated so that the citizens can understand what is at stake.
This simplification is just as necessary at the level of decision-making.
The closer Europe is to the democratic model of the states that form it, the more the citizen will relate to it.
The Amsterdam Treaty represents progress in that direction, but there is still a long road ahead of us to achieve transparency and democracy.
<P>
This is a problem linked to the construction of Europe, in transition between nation states and a federation.
But there is no doubt that the principle of transnational lists is likely to develop the sense of European awareness.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Deprez">
The construction of Europe is at a disadvantage due to a lack of public confidence, which is currently aggravated by the dreadful climate that has been poisoning the European atmosphere over the last few months.
<P>
The report we are considering today therefore comes at the right time.
Transparency is more necessary than ever if the construction of Europe is to make good progress.
<P>
I am delighted that our rapporteur does not restrict the idea of greater transparency merely to public access to Community documents, and extends this concept to include ensuring more open meetings of the Council when meeting in its legislative capacity, making fuller use of modern methods of rapid or real-time communication, drafting simpler texts, retaining the use of all languages within the institutions, and improving the quality of information campaigns about the European Union.
<P>
For my part, I would lay particular stress on the fact that current exceptions to transparency need to be better defined with more restrictions laid down. This must be the case although it is obvious to everyone that a certain level of confidentiality - and even absolute confidentiality - is sometimes not only desirable, but also highly essential in the management of difficult or critical issues.
<P>
More generally, I share the view that the drawing up of a new code of conduct and its extension to all the Community institutions will certainly provide necessary clarification and help them regain much-needed credibility.
<P>
Finally, I am glad that our rapporteur calls for agreement on 'improving the quality of the drafting of Community legislation, leading to clearer and simpler ... texts'.
Unfortunately, incomprehensible legal documents and regulations are not the prerogative of the European institutions.
Indeed, many Member States would gain by consolidating and codifying their legislation.
This is another reason for the Union to set an example!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Lindholm">
In the light of the recent accusations of fraud and deception in the Commission, I hope that the Lööw report on transparency in the EU will be approved by a large majority.
<P>
I am convinced that a genuine principle of public access to EU documents would be an effective instrument in combating deception and fraud in the EU institutions, and would help to overcome the justified suspicion and lack of confidence currently felt by EU citizens.
<P>
What is still lacking is the so-called guaranteed freedom of speech for officials, without which, in reality, openness and the principle of public access cannot function properly.
<P>
The recent suspension of the official who informed Parliament of certain notable occurrences in the Commission demonstrates with admirable clarity the need for guaranteed freedom of speech.
I therefore hope that this freedom of speech will be introduced in the EU with all possible speed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="President.">
That concludes the vote.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 1.10 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Approval by Parliament of Commission President
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0488/98) by Mr Brok, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on institutional implications of European Parliament approval of the President of the Commission and the independence of Members of the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Brok">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, with the implementation of the Amsterdam Treaty, the European Parliament has new powers of determining relations between the institutions.
If we summarise the provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty in the usual terms, it must be said that the European Council only has the right to propose the President of the Commission and that the European Parliament has the real right to elect him.
This adds a new dimension to their relations and so we will also have to agree the procedures that need to be introduced in the course of this summer and autumn.
<P>
The political groups must grasp this new opportunity from the outset, which is why both the Committee on Institutional Affairs and I myself consider it right that in the long term we should adopt Jacques Delors's proposal that the major political movements should nominate their candidates for the office of President of the Commission during the European election campaign.
I believe that is extremely important because it personalises European policy and can thus also stimulate greater interest among the people in the European idea.
<P>
But I believe it is also important for the European Council and the governments to accept the results of the European elections as a determining factor in the nominations.
That is why we think it is wrong for the presidency to propose nominating the Council's candidate nine days before the European elections, for the European Council cannot know the outcome of those elections at that point.
So it could make a proposal that was not compatible with the outcome of those elections.
<P>
A special summit must therefore be held after the European elections, so that, in line with the parliamentary majorities that emerge from them, a candidate can be proposed who is likely to win Parliament's confidence.
Here we will probably have to follow a new direction if we are to make the necessary headway.
So we will attach great importance to negotiations with the European Council's nominee, so that we can vote on the basis of the nominated president's undertakings with regard to his political guidelines, the quality of interinstitutional relations, but also of the criteria which he and the governments will follow in the nomination of the other members of the Commission.
Here, too, the nominated President of the Commission elected by the European Parliament has new opportunities, for the Member State governments can only submit a proposal in common accord with him.
<P>
That means this President of the Commission is also responsible for meeting another demand made by the European Parliament, namely to ensure a reasonable balance between the sexes and between the main political tendencies in the European Union within that Commission, so that it can act impartially.
In our view that is also a real criterion for the conduct of the hearings of nominees.
In that respect a number of improvements are still needed after the experiences of 1995.
<P>
It is also extremely important to make it clear that the Commission will become more independent because any conflicts of interest will be prevented by the declaration of external interests, by the obligation to refrain from taking part in certain discussions and other aspects addressed in the report.
I believe that will help us avoid some of those situations that are currently the subject of criticism.
This also offers new opportunities to hold Commissioners more politically accountable - as we tend to do in the case of national ministers - so as to make provision for their compulsory retirement and enable the President of the Commission to withdraw the portfolios of Commissioners who have failed politically, as laid down in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Much of what we are discussing at present would not even have arisen if such instruments existed, because there would be more means of resolving the situation.
<P>
If possible, the President of the Commission should submit his proposals even before the summer break, after the European elections, and they should be voted on as early as possible so that the procedures for appointing the individual Commissioners can be initiated.
I believe that on the basis of the timetable submitted to us we could find a solution that the Council and the future Commission could also come to support, so that in this way we can create the basis for new relations between the institutions, which would bring a new dimension to Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Anastassopoulos">
Mr President, the report that our esteemed German colleague Mr Brok is finally presenting to Parliament today is in essence the follow-up to and completion of a draft report presented earlier by another esteemed colleague, Mr Giampaolo d'Andrea, who has since become a deputy minister in the Italian Government and has therefore left us rather earlier than expected.
<P>
It is a report which I think Parliament could comfortably adopt without any real reservations about its basic principles, because Mr Brok, encouraged of course by the favourable opinion of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, has drafted it in a way that takes into account most of the points about which we in this House feel strongly.
And this is another demonstration that Parliament, at least in some cases - and fortunately there are quite a lot of them - can make timely headway and make even more rapid progress than the Treaties and anything that is likely to be drawn up in the future.
<P>
We are debating the approval of the nomination of the President of the European Commission by the European Parliament, which is a most important change instituted by the Treaty of Amsterdam and which legitimises at least one of the two authorities that make up the European Union, if we accept the definition that the European Union is an association of peoples and states.
<P>
In that case, through the MEPs, the Members of the European Parliament, it confers popular legitimacy upon the proposal by the states, the Heads of State and Government, for the nomination of the President of the Commission.
This is a very important institutional step and if, as we hope, the ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam has been completed by the French Presidency by the end of March, it will come into effect in May and immediately after the election of the Members of the European Parliament this very important new provision will be implemented for the first time.
<P>
I am in complete agreement with Mr Brok's observation that the scheduling of the European Council in Cologne one week before the Euro-elections is unfortunate.
I cannot believe that the result of the Euro-elections will not influence the proposals by the Member States for the President of the Commission.
We must insist and fight for this to change.
After all, it is already January and we must do that.
<P>
I do not have much to add. My view, and that of the Legal Affairs Committee which I represent, is that Parliament must always interpret the Treaties imaginatively while not departing too far from the letter, because that might create more problems than it solves.
The Treaties have loopholes, and these must be made good, but for the moment what is important is to implement the Treaty of Amsterdam correctly in July.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Delcroix">
Mr President, I too congratulate the rapporteur on his report. This report is about the future - which makes a change from the debates we were having earlier - and, in particular, about relations between the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament with a view to greater democratisation of our institutions.
Who is this report aimed at? I think it is aimed first and foremost at us, at the European Parliament.
It is an internal discussion document, and I would also congratulate the Committee on Institutional Affairs on having initiated this process. It is then also aimed at the other institutions with which we need to find a balance.
<P>
The report deals with three groups of issues: the new features of the Amsterdam Treaty; the elements to revitalise the election campaign, namely, the Delors proposals; and finally, a clearer, fairer, and more transparent model of democracy.
<P>
As regards the Amsterdam Treaty, three new features have taken advantage, without admitting it, of universal suffrage, and, among these features - as Mr Brok has already mentioned - is the issue of assent, which is binding on all parties. The first matter of assent relates to the nomination for the President of the Commission, who will then chose the Commissioners jointly with the governments.
A second assent relates to the whole of the College consisting of President and Commissioners, and the fact that this Commission will work to the political guidelines defined by the President.
<P>
This shows the importance of the role to be played by the European Parliament and the need to secure a majority. The outline is emerging of a European Union where an executive - the Commission - will be appointed by two legislative institutions, that is, the European Parliament, representing the citizens, and the Council, representing the Member States.
This is a fragile tripolar structure and many concessions will be needed to achieve this balance.
<P>
But it is clear that the aim of the Amsterdam Treaty is that neither the Council nor the European Parliament should be in a position to alone appoint the executive without taking account of the position of the other institution.
They are thus condemned, or at least invited, to work together and negotiate the composition, political guidelines and working methods of the Commission.
Parliament is now in a position, therefore, to play a distinctly stronger role in the appointment of the College of Commissioners.
That is new and I think we need to get used to it, which may not be so simple.
<P>
The second issue involves adding vitality to the election campaign.
As everyone knows, for a campaign to be successful, it needs to be about people and that was the appeal of the Delors plan.
The problem is that our structures, especially the political parties, are not entirely ready for that yet.
So it is unlikely to come into operation for these elections, but it probably will for the next ones and we must adapt to it.
In any case, I do not think that the process of nominating someone for the presidency can begin until the voters have had their say, if only out of respect for the citizen in his role as a voter and for the European Parliament.
After all, Parliament represents a breeding ground that Member States can draw from when forming their own governments, be it for ministers or for secretaries of state, and it may be surprising that the European structures cannot do more, particularly in terms of the composition of the Commission.
<P>
And finally, I would like to say that I was very pleasantly surprised when the Council representative said in his statement this morning that the Amsterdam Treaty had given the European Parliament important new rights and powers, and when he added that he could see the next IGC granting the European Parliament an even more important role in the appointment of the Commission than is provided for in the Amsterdam Treaty.
We have therefore probably been too modest up until now.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Frischenschlager">
Mr President, this report concerns a most important aspect of the European Union's constitution; if its proposals become reality, the European Union will become far more parliamentary and therefore also democratic in nature.
We must remember that for a very long time EU policy was purely a matter for governments.
Now the European Union is gradually moving closer towards fulfilling certain of the criteria of a parliamentary democracy, a most important and positive move.
<P>
I believe it is very important that this also gives considerably more political weight to the elections to the European Parliament.
If the people's representation within the European Union now acquires the right to have a determining say in the appointments to the highest offices of the executive of the European Union, it will also acquire considerably greater influence on Commission policy.
I believe it is most important to follow on with the next step now and to enshrine in the political order of the EU the accountability of the Commission and its individual members to Parliament.
After all, we have discovered the need for that very clearly in the current debates.
<P>
The basic idea is surely as follows: we want a strong European Union, a Union that can also assert itself vis-à-vis national interests.
But a European Union that has this kind of power and influence needs a twin brother or sister.
Its name is democracy.
This report shows us that we can progress along this road to a democratic European Union in a crucial area, if the proposals it makes are implemented.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cardona">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission is still present in the House and is today taking part in our debate, which I feel is right.
Politics, in its most noble sense, is action, and I, in my own modest way, can contribute to this debate.
In this respect, I must say that I have no desire to repeat here the statements I made in the competent committee regarding my disagreement with some of the solutions contained in Mr Brok's report.
<P>
The emphasis on the Commission's vocation of government is one of these aspects, together with the indication during the European elections of the name of the candidate for Commission President and the obligation to nominate a substantial number of Members of the European Parliament as Members of the Commission.
<P>
However, I must say that I applaud and welcome the rule giving greater political responsibility to the Commission President.
This rule, which results from the Amsterdam Treaty, means that the governments of the Member States must, by common consensus, nominate someone for Commission President. This therefore implies that the Member States must give more thought to the name of the person to nominate.
The European Parliament has a vital role in considering and voting for both the President and the Members of the Commission.
The greater political responsibility and authority of the Commission President is a principle to be applauded and is today, more than ever, a factor we should all welcome.
If only one of my proposals had been adopted in the competent committee, this would have allowed some time between the nomination of the President and the latter's programme and the respective vote for negotiating, settling interests and deciding on a strong personality with political credibility and authority over the Commission.
Europe needs this rule.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Mr President, I broadly agree with this report, apart from one central point with which I do not agree, namely the attempt to link the nomination of the Commission President to the elections to the European Parliament, as Mr Delors had also once proposed.
I do not agree with it because the institutional consequences of this proposal have not been thought through and because it makes the dilemma of our method of integration quite glaringly obvious.
<P>
The President-in-Office of the Council praised the Jean Monnet method today, the pragmatism of integration policy.
That was the method of discreet projects that cleared the way and created momentum.
I believe the situation today is quite different, which is why I am extremely pleased that the President-in-Office has now for the first time announced the need for a constitutional process.
For the pragmatic method will certainly not take us forward any more.
What is the point of this kind of election of a President of the Commission if it is not a real election?
<P>
How can a parliament downgrade its own election into the quasi-election of an executive?
Where does this quasi-election of the Commission President take us?
Towards a presidential democracy?
Towards a federal system?
Or does the President of the Commission have to be a Member of Parliament, and, if so, why?
On the basis of what kind of constitutional vision?
I think the time has passed for trying to turn the accumulation of power that is the EU into a democracy by means of those kinds of pragmatic, individual advances.
The only way to turn this Union into a democracy now is through a constitutional process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this morning the President-in-Office made a splendid, very important speech, which was certainly extremely well received.
However, on Tuesday afternoon, the slot devoted to relations with the Council, while we are discussing a text concerning relations between the European Council and Parliament in such a sensitive area - one where, post-Amsterdam, Parliament now possesses the powers which led to Mr Brok's excellent report - well, the Council is absent.
I do not see a Council representative, and quite frankly, if I may say so, given that Mr Brok, the rapporteur, was the European Parliament's spokesman in the working group which negotiated Amsterdam, this strikes me as conduct unworthy of a new presidency. Surely it could have paid a little more attention to such an important report.
So, Mr Oreja, we shall say to the Commission what is meant for the ears of the Council, and then we shall send the minutes to the German Presidency.
<P>
I wholeheartedly endorse Mr Brok's report which, if adopted as it stands, without the amendments aiming to make it more lightweight, will I believe be an excellent starting-point for the next five years, with a Commission that is equal to the challenges lying ahead of the European Union.
I hope that the House will adopt my amendment on the European Council, drawing the Council's attention to the fact that holding the European Council on 3 and 4 June will jeopardise the whole scenario established at Amsterdam. I call on the German Presidency to acknowledge the need to move either the Council or the date on which the president-designate is selected.
<P>
I hope that my request will be noted in the Minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, there are awful coincidences in parliamentary life.
That is what has happened with the Brok report.
Just as everyone is realising that the European Commission is rotten to the core with corruption, Parliament's Committee on Institutional Affairs comes up with a proposal for us to act like a government of Europe by exploiting in advance the Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
Once again, the old theory of the independence of the Commission is trotted out. The federalists seem to regard it as a central pillar of their doctrine, but personally I see it as a clear cause of the evil that is eating away at the European institutions.
<P>
The resolution you are to vote on actually proposes strengthening the idea of the independence of the Commission, so as, and I quote 'to safeguard the Commission as the motor that promotes the Community interest, the guardian of the Treaties and the exclusive holder of the right of legislative initiative'.
That amounts to virtual deification of the Commission: it is pure and virtuous, it defends the general interest and it is worthy of being granted essential powers.
<P>
Of course, the honourable Member who drafted those lines was no doubt thinking of strengthening the Commission's independence with regard to the Council and the Member States, but not with regard to the European Parliament.
Unfortunately, things are very different in practice and it is revealing that the most serious punishment recently meted out by the Commission against one of its officials was taken against Mr Van Buitenen, who made the mistake of passing compromising documents specifically to this Parliament.
In fact, the doctrine of independence has led to a sense of superiority and impunity on the part of the Commission and this has encouraged lax behaviour to a much worse degree than we can probably even imagine today.
<P>
So we are combating this doctrine in order to get to the root of the evil.
We want the Commission to be subject to thorough control on the part of Parliament and the Member States meeting in the Council. And in this respect, I would remind you, ladies and gentlemen, of how vital it is to vote on Thursday in favour of the motion of censure tabled on the initiative of my group, but now signed by Members from each of Parliament's groups.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Mr President, the rapporteur has taken on a difficult legacy with this report.
But he has successfully got it through committee with very skilful compromise amendments.
He is to be congratulated on that, even if he is not present.
In connection with this report, and besides the qualifications and criticisms Mr Voggenhuber has already made, I would like to raise another subject that is not considered in the report itself and cannot indeed be considered given the Treaties as they stand.
<P>
I have repeatedly pointed out that I regard the nomination of Commissioners by the Member States as an inherent mistake in the EU's institutional system.
It inevitably gives rise to conflicts between what the citizens of the nominating Member State expect of their Commissioner and the latter's obligation to give priority to EU interests.
I think this is at least partly responsible for the current difficulties and believe that this aspect also needs to be considered during the discussions on reforming the institutions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schäfer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, during this unusual week the European Parliament is taking a twofold position on its executive.
Firstly, we are deciding on the destructive vote of censure - as it is called - against the Commission, and secondly we are establishing how our rights of assent can be used constructively in relation to future Commissions.
It is a question of becoming stronger as a parliament.
That is the main message of the Amsterdam Treaty.
But a stronger parliament also implies equal legislative rights, full budgetary rights and the right both to elect and to control the executive.
We have concrete demands to make in that respect.
<P>
The new President of the Commission must be voted in by the European Parliament, so the candidate must not be nominated before the elections.
Furthermore, for the future I hope that the main political parties will fight the campaign for the election of the European Parliament with a supranational top candidate who also aspires to the office of President of the Commission.
A substantial number of MEPs should form part of the college of Commissioners.
Today, as we know, there are seven already.
The proportion of women, currently 25 %, needs to be increased.
<P>
Moreover, the composition of the Commission should reflect the spectrum of political tendencies that make up the European constitutional consensus.
Last but not least, the individual members should also be held politically accountable in person for their sphere of responsibility.
During the 1994 appointment of the Commission, the European Parliament demonstrated that it was exercising its rights in regard both to hearings of individuals and to the vote to approve the college as a whole.
Much has happened since then.
The new relations between the European Parliament and the Commission must also be based on a code of conduct and on interinstitutional agreements.
The Brok report reflects our growing self-confidence and our common responsibility for the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Corbett">
Mr President, the Treaty of Amsterdam contains among its innovations the fact that Parliament would henceforth elect the President of the Commission on a proposal from the national governments, just as Maastricht already provided that the college of Commissioners would be subject to a vote of confidence by the European Parliament.
<P>
This is very important for the democratisation of the European Union.
It emphasises the fact that the Commissioners are not civil servants; they are a political executive accountable to the directly elected Parliament.
In my country in particular, where the press often misportrays that reality, this step forward is important in underlining that democratic accountability.
<P>
The question that now begins to arise in the debate is whether we should go one stage further.
Instead of Parliament electing at least the President of the Commission on a proposal of the national governments, should it not simply elect whoever it likes as President of the Commission?
What would follow from that would inevitably be that the different party groups, and then the different political party structures in Europe generally, would then have to come up with candidates before the European elections.
Different party federations would say: 'So-and-so is our candidate' or 'Somebody else is our candidate'.
That would add something to the European elections.
<P>
If you think about it, the big difference at the moment between European and national elections is that, when we vote in national elections, we go out to vote for or against a government, not for a parliament in isolation.
Suddenly, every five years, the European electorate has to go out and vote not for a government, not to change or keep a government, but for a parliament in isolation.
There is no visible consequence of the vote on the executive.
To go that one stage further would add a new dimension to the European elections, make them more understandable to the public and have a visible effect, at least on the chief executive.
<P>
The proposal would also have disadvantages which I do not have time to go into.
It needs to be examined carefully.
The danger is that a majority in Parliament feels bound to support everything that the Commission it has elected wants to do - just as many of our national parliaments feel bound to support their executive, come what may.
We must find the balance.
But the Brok report is a step in the right direction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Barros Moura">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for the reasons already indicated, I consider that the Amsterdam Treaty implies the need to strengthen the democratic legitimacy and political responsibility of the Commission and also therefore of its President.
I must say that I support Jacques Delors' proposal, which is backed by some very important figures on the political scene, to organise the European election campaign around not just a political programme but also the choice of Commission President, with the European political parties having to publicly present their candidate for this post to the electorate.
<P>
The main positive effect of this would be the personalisation of the campaign, which would lead to increased visibility of the institutions, better understanding of the rationale and greater emotional identification of the citizens with the European Union itself and its objectives and policies.
I believe that the European Union would surely gain in terms of greater prestige, proximity to the people and democratic responsibility.
<P>
I also feel that the Brok report is heading in the right direction towards these objectives. However, the requirements of realpolitik , which aims to preserve the power of the prime ministers to negotiate and choose the person to be proposed to the European Parliament, have dulled the clarity of the report in favour of forms of compromise that allow room for both sides of the argument.
In any case, it was the motion for a resolution that contained the proposal - and I am pleased to have contributed to this - for the European Council to choose the person to be nominated as Commission President bearing in mind the election results.
It is therefore not right for the German Government to claim that it will start the process of nominating the Commission President at the Cologne European Council set for 3 June, before the European elections.
I believe that this would negate the debate we are having and it would negate the innovation introduced by the Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
What is happening with the Santer Commission - due to the way in which it was nominated - and with the motion of censure - due to the way in which this was conducted - demonstrates that it is essential to clearly move in the direction recommended by the Delors proposal, which, despite everything, has been accepted by the Brok report, and it is to be congratulated in this respect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Rojo">
Mr President, one of the main objectives of this report is to establish links between the will of the people, as expressed in the European elections, and the President of the European Commission.
In my opinion, when this is achieved, it will result in a much better situation both for the institution and for the President of the Commission himself. The President will be given a mandate by the citizens of Europe, which will strengthen democracy in Europe, and we shall move closer to political union.
I feel all this represents a definite improvement and, therefore, the quicker it is put in place, the better.
It must come about as soon as possible.
<P>
This excellent report also offers further significant recommendations.
It suggests, for instance, a greater role for ideological political options, sidelining that vision of a merely bureaucratic Europe, which we hope to confine to history.
The report is important for this reason, and also for the way in which it envisages European elections as transcending narrow nationalism and promoting a common idea of Europe.
<P>
Joint and balanced action by the three European institutions - the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament - is also to be commended, Mr Brok.
So too, in my view, is the target of fair representation of the sexes on the Commission. Those photos of European Councils showing 99.99 % males are a serious affront to the democratic representation of the citizens of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Oreja">
Mr President, Mr Brok's report tackles an issue of extreme importance, namely, the relationship of trust between the European Parliament and the Commission. This fundamental concept was only introduced into the Treaties in 1992, through the Maastricht Treaty.
Nevertheless, prior to that date, the European Parliament had regularly been confirming the investiture of the Commission for some time.
For its part, the Commission took great account of Parliament's view on the matter.
<P>
The experience of 1995, that is, the approval of the College of Commissioners by Parliament, made it possible for a full debate to take place between the Commission - the President and each of its members - and Parliament.
I have the experience of having served as a member of the previous Commission, and therefore of being appointed under the old arrangements. I certainly believe that Parliament's amendment of the Rules of Procedure to allow for the approval of the Commission was a step in the right direction.
<P>
I recall those appearances in January 1995 very clearly. They provided an opportunity to exchange ideas, and enabled the members of parliamentary committees to find out about the views and programme of each of the Commissioners who were to be invested in the near future.
<P>
Since then, the Treaty of Amsterdam has led to improvements in the procedure.
There is no question about that.
I believe that one of the major steps forward, though one that has not been given sufficient emphasis, concerns what one might refer to as the legitimacy of the Commission. Mr Brok's report does highlight it, however.
The Treaty of Amsterdam allows Parliament to approve the President of the Commission personally and specifically, rather than Parliament merely being consulted prior to the appointment.
<P>
My own view on this - as the Commission has not set out its position on the matter - is that the arrangements outlined, particularly those referred to by Mr Brok and other speakers, are steps in the right direction. I am referring to the arrangements that allow the political groups to put candidates forward, though the European Council would remain free to make its own decision.
I do not think that this is a matter of modifying the Treaty, but is instead a matter of implementing the Treaty. The Treaty allows for various possible arrangements.
One of these would be for the political groups to put candidates forward to the European Council. The Council would then make the necessary decision quite independently.
<P>
In any case, adhering strictly to the terms of the Treaty, I feel it is a positive move for Parliament to be empowered to put such a proposal to the Council. Indeed, many speakers have drawn attention to Mr Fischer's words this morning, when he said that more powers could be granted to Parliament.
Any further means of enabling Parliament to legitimise the Commission must be helpful. Such an arrangement will allow the President of the Commission to go on to discuss the composition of the College of Commissioners with the various governments.
I believe that this step taken in the Treaty of Amsterdam is of the greatest significance.
<P>
All this results in something that is made quite clear in the Treaty of Amsterdam: the function of political guidance ascribed to the President of the Commission. This too represents an improvement on the present situation.
<P>
It is imperative to guarantee at least the political coherence of the College of Commissioners in an institutional system in which the notion of governmental structure is becoming less and less clear and in which the resulting responsibilities are widely distributed.
<P>
We find ourselves at a crucial stage in the construction of Europe. In my view, it is essential to ensure that the basic pillars of the system of integration enable us to promote European interests more effectively, through the development of the Community method.
I am referring to the pillars representing the Union's interest, common interests rather than national interests. This will also contribute to the development of an effective relationship.
<P>
As might be expected, the Community method will need to be strengthened in view of the forthcoming reforms.
History has shown how this method is much more efficient when compared with the poor results of the intergovernmental method.
A good understanding between the Commission and the European Parliament will help to ensure the smooth running of the institutions.
<P>
I hope I have made it clear that I believe Mr Brok's report is very significant, and must be given serious consideration. All these ideas and initiatives are paving the way for the future modification of the Treaty, but I feel that, prior to any modification of the Treaty, we can now implement a range of measures designed to strengthen the relationship of trust between the Commission and Parliament.
<P>
It would be nice to conclude at this point, but I feel obliged to make one last remark.
I have to say to Mr Berthu that I utterly and absolutely reject his attack on the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
European Capital of Culture (2005 to 2019)
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="President">
The next item is the proposal (A4-0509/98), on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, for a declaration of intended rejection of the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0493/98-97/0290(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Decision establishing a Community action for the 'European Capital of Culture' event for the years 2005 to 2019 (Rapporteur: Mr Monfils).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Monfils">
Why are we tabling this proposal for a declaration of intended rejection?
We are tabling it because we are concerned about safeguarding our parliamentary prerogatives and the interinstitutional balance laid down in the Treaty.
I would remind you that the Commission's original text provided for a procedure to designate cities of culture based essentially on the quality of the projects put forward.
Parliament had amended that text to strengthen the quality requirement even further, particularly by giving the jury greater independence and laying down more precise criteria.
It thereby demonstrated its interest in the designation of European cities of culture.
<P>
Instead of working on this basis at second reading, the Council radically changed the original text, providing for the nomination of the European city, for the period from 2005 to 2019, by each country in turn when it assumes the presidency of the Union.
The entire procedure set out in the original text is replaced by a rigid system, where the choice of towns is no longer based on project quality but on a mere political decision taken by each state in turn.
This system is all the more ridiculous because who knows what Europe will be like in 2015, when Belgium will be able to nominate its European city, or in 2019, when it will be Italy's turn?
<P>
The Council has even forgotten that the enlargement of Europe should presumably take place before 2019 and that, under the system it has decided on, the new members would have no chance of nominating their city unless, pursuing this brilliant line of thought, the Council meets again to organise a rota of the future 11 countries of the European Union from 2020 to 2031.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is becoming totally surreal.
<P>
However, by declaring that a text fundamentally different from the original draft is the common position, the Council is hijacking parliamentary procedure. It is preventing Parliament from holding two readings of the text and it is also forcing Parliament to obtain a majority not of the Members present, but of all the Members of Parliament, in other words, a minimum of 314 votes, to adopt any amendments tabled.
The Council justifies its attitude on the grounds that, in its view, this was the only way it could obtain unanimity.
If that is the case, ladies and gentlemen, it might have realised this much earlier and, if necessary, discussed the problem with the Commission.
<P>
But the main point is that the Council's difficulties in reaching agreement on a text cannot be used as an excuse for hijacking an institutional procedure.
Otherwise, the Council could act in the same way on other issues in the future, allowing a text from first reading that does not correspond to its views to be submitted and then coming up with a totally different common position.
In this way, it could bypass Parliament's second reading and make it impossible for Parliament to properly do its job as co-legislator.
That temptation is obvious. Clearly, we believe it to be unacceptable.
<P>
We are therefore tabling this declaration of intended rejection to make the Council negotiate in the Conciliation Committee, as provided for by Article 189b(2)(c) of the Treaty.
<P>
I would like to end, Mr President, with two important comments.
The first is that the declaration of intended rejection is not aimed at the designation of European cities of culture for the period 2001 to 2004, as those cities were selected through a simple intergovernmental decision.
Anyone who makes out that the declaration would affect those cities has not even read the Council's text.
Under the proposed system we have no power as Parliament to discuss the intergovernmental decision.
The declaration is only aimed at the common position setting the procedure for choosing from 2005 to 2019, which is the only text we are looking at.
<P>
The second comment is that we believe that the European cities are an essential element in the Union's cultural policy.
That is why we believe the cities chosen should receive a sizeable European subsidy.
We would like to see an allocation of EUR 2 million per city.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I hope Parliament will vote for this declaration of intended rejection, thereby demonstrating that it puts the accent on the cultural quality of the projects and that it intends to safeguard the institutional powers it is granted by the Treaty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="De Coene">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, at the end of 1997 the European Commission submitted a proposal to designate European cultural capitals on the basis of an assessment by an independent selection panel, with the Council taking the final decision by qualified majority, after consulting Parliament.
Within the space of six months Parliament had an opinion ready on the Commission's proposal, an opinion that can be summarised as follows: more quality for the cultural programme, greater transparency in the selection of candidate cities and, finally, more money for those cities which are finally designated, with Parliament doing more in its role as co-decision-maker at every stage.
Then, shortly afterwards, the ministers came up with what is described as a proposal for a common position, a proposal, Commissioner, which took no account either of your initial proposal or of the European Parliament amendments, and under which cities were designated for the period 2001 to 2004. After that, as is well described by the rapporteur, Mr Monfils, we have a kind of rota situation in which cities are designated from 2005 to 2019 each in turn.
<P>
It is only to be expected that we should distance ourselves from this today, if only because this common position totally excludes both the Commission and Parliament from what nevertheless remains a co-decision procedure.
But at the same time we also have problems with a proposal which contains absolutely no guarantee of quality, assumes that all countries in Europe are culturally comparable when, let us be honest about this, some countries probably have more candidates for city of culture than others.
As has been said, it also takes no account of Union enlargement or of possible Treaty amendments over the next 20 years, as a result of which Council decisions on cultural matters will no longer have to be unanimous.
<P>
We intend to reject the common position, but on the understanding that we approve the towns selected for the period 2001 to 2004.
Bruges, Salamanca, Oporto, Rotterdam, Graz, Genoa and Lille must not suffer as a result of a protracted debate between the institutions because the Ministers of Culture have acted so unilaterally.
We also want to increase the reference amount to EUR 2 million per designated town, but from 2005 we want to see another system, decided through conciliation.
What we want to see - and that is the objective - is a greater guarantee of quality.
We want a genuine European dimension, we want large sections of the population to be involved in projects and we want more money for the most appealing cultural project.
Let us now work together to reach a genuine compromise which is to everyone's benefit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Pex">
Mr President, as has already been said, the subject of 'Cultural capital' is an important one for cultural policy and is also very important to our citizens.
This is why we must be very careful in the way we deal with it.
The rapporteur, Mr Monfils, has submitted an excellent report as a basis for the discussion of the Commission's proposal and I am also pleased that it has been accepted by Parliament.
But I find it a great pity to see how the Council has dealt with the subject.
<P>
Just now when discussing the previous report by Mr Brok, the Commissioner addressed us on the benefits of the Community approach and the disadvantages of the intergovernmental approach.
We can add to this the benefits of decision by qualified majority, as the Commission proposed for this subject, as opposed to the unanimity procedure currently being applied by the Council.
<P>
I should like to state emphatically that this is a matter of law and of principle, and - as Mr Monfils has just said - a very important one at that.
That is why I wholeheartedly agree with the proposal he just presented.
But I stress that I should also like to limit my remarks on the common position to the period 2005-2019 and, like previous speakers, that I agree with the candidates for cultural capital for the years 2001-2004, although the intergovernmental method applied is of course regrettable.
<P>
I am also pleased that the Committee on Culture unanimously decided to call for a doubling of the budget, which is also a logical consequence of designating two towns in the stated years.
It is important that we enter conciliation with the Council as soon as possible, so that we can use this period in order to try and repair the damage to some extent.
<P>
Following on from what Mr De Coene said, it must be possible to persuade the Council to accept the key points in Mr Monfils's proposal and then arrive at an acceptable common position.
I hope that this can be done quickly in order to avoid confusion among all those, and there are many of them, who are involved in the 'Cultural capital' project.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ryynänen">
<SPEAKER ID=93 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Daskalaki">
Mr President, my group of course supports the report by Mr Monfils, so it also supports the intention to reject the common position on the European Capital of Culture.
It has already been said that the Council, ostentatiously ignoring the procedure under way for the adoption of the relevant decision, reached its common position not only without taking Parliament's views into account but also producing a text which differs markedly from the Commission's amended proposal.
Furthermore - and this is the height of arrogance and hypocrisy; perhaps that is a harsh thing to say, but that is the way it is - the Council has laid down a list of countries which will be hosting the cultural capital as far ahead as 2019.
This grossly undermines the interinstitutional process and shows gross contempt for the European Parliament.
That needs no explanation, it is self-evident, and I think everyone who has spoken so far has said as much in one way or another.
<P>
With today's proposal the European Parliament's aim is to compel the Council to convene the Conciliation Committee and re-establish interinstitutional balance.
We do not wish to quarrel with the list as decided up to 2004, despite the fact that here too the procedures were rather problematic.
But to decide in the same way right up to 2019? That is a period of time as long as the arrogance that led to it is great!
<P>
The European Parliament insists on playing its proper role.
Our group welcomes the fact that these procedures will restore the dialogue rejected unilaterally by the Council on 28 May, so that we can adopt a position either by amending the common position that exists at the moment to redefine the desired criteria of quality and transparency, or indeed by rejecting the common position.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Leperre-Verrier">
Mr President, a great deal has already been said, and I will not go over everything again.
I just want to say this: when European culture is so badly in need of support, how can we possibly allow the Council to sell off, as it were, the institution of the European city of culture?
And this is especially of concern when it is doing so as much out of blindness as out of a desire for hegemony.
<P>
I therefore entirely agree with our rapporteur's view and I want to congratulate him both on the quality of his work and on his determination in defending the method of designating this European city, which is a symbol of our cultural vitality.
<P>
I know his position is not entirely understood by all the cities that have already been designated and that are afraid that their project may be forgotten.
But I would like them to understand - and I am thinking particularly of the cities of Bruges and Avignon - that they are not involved and, above all, that by defending a genuine interinstitutional balance in the codecision procedure, we are fighting for them as well in order to encourage appreciation of a rich and creative culture.
That is also the aim that we are pursuing in the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, and we do not intend to abandon it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sichrovsky">
Mr President, in the discussion about the European capital of culture all the participants seem to have forgotten that in the final analysis it is a question of culture.
It is surely a question of whether the city that is awarded the honorary title of European capital of culture can indeed live up to that title.
The Council is hiding behind formal arguments and provisions that seem to allow for no other options.
The report submitted here is based on substantive arguments that we do not find in the Council's statements.
<P>
In procedural terms the Council may be right, but that does not produce the best solutions.
Since in the final analysis it is a question of culture and therefore of Europe's reputation, all those involved should agree a procedure that guarantees the right choice of capital of culture.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hawlicek">
Mr President, Parliament's rejection is not directed against the cities that have already between designated for 2001-2004 but against the way the Council is proceeding, in taking account neither of Parliament's amendments nor of the sensible proposal made by the Commission to introduce a Community procedure to designate one European capital of culture a year from 2002, selected by a high-level independent selection panel and after consulting Parliament.
<P>
We cannot accept the fact that on the one hand applicants for accession are often forgotten and on the other hand Parliament's codecision right is disregarded.
That would create a dangerous precedent.
Unfortunately the Council of Ministers for Culture could not reach agreement on the funding of the new cultural programmes, although it agreed in a flash on the designation of capitals of culture, in disregard of the European Parliament's rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Oreja">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I shall briefly outline the Commission's position on Parliament's intended rejection of the Council's common position on the European City of Culture.
<P>
The Commission's views on this common position are well known. The common position represents a departure from our original proposal and it has introduced a system of rotation throughout the Member States.
Nevertheless, given the importance of this event, what we are now seeking is the application of the codecision procedure, leading, we hope, to agreement between the institutions, so that this action will be viable as soon as possible and have the backing of the whole Community.
<P>
The Commission did not consider it appropriate to withdraw its initial proposal, even though the basis of the common position certainly does nothing to strengthen the European character of the event. According to our relevant services, the Council's proposal did not meet the criteria for withdrawal from a legal point of view.
<P>
Our initiative aims to establish a major European cultural event and to ensure it becomes well known. We hope to make the people of Europe better aware of the richness and diversity of each other's cultural heritage.
The introduction of a system of rotation by presidency represents a significant modification to the Commission's proposal, as the jury of senior independent personalities called to adjudicate on the cultural content of the candidate cities is done away with. Nor is recognition given to Parliament's role as outlined in the Commission's proposal.
<P>
With all due respect for the positions put forward, the Commission has now come to believe that in view of the restrictions imposed by the unanimity rule which we are bound by, the common position adopted by the Council seems the best way forward. It represents the only chance of reaching an agreement and going ahead, on the basis of Community consensus, with an event whose cultural value and importance are readily appreciated by all the citizens of Europe.
<P>
The important thing at this juncture is for Parliament and the Council to engage in open and constructive dialogue, making a final effort to come closer together and reach an agreement guaranteeing the future of this event.
This is exactly how I put it to the presidency of the Council yesterday.
In the course of yesterday's meeting between the Commission as a whole and the German Government, I met with Mr Naumann, the Culture Minister, and put this view to him.
<P>
I believe it is a matter of extreme urgency for the various parties to find a solution as soon as possible, by means of a three-way dialogue between the Council, Parliament, and, if it would be helpful, the Commission. A way out of the present impasse must be found.
<P>
These are the thoughts I wished to put to you today, though I quite understand your motives for wishing to reject the Council's common position on the European City of Culture. I strongly encourage you to seek a formula for conciliation, leading to a solution acceptable to all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Europe Agreements
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0437/98 by Mr Elchlepp, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council and Commission Decision on the position to be taken by the Community within the Association Council established by the Europe Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States of the one part, and the Republic of Lithuania, of the other part, with regard to the adoption of the rules for the implementation of Article 64(1)(i) & (ii) and (2) of the Europe Agreement (4216/98 - COM(98)0119 - C4-0592/98-98/0075(CNS)); -A4-0443/98 by Mr Seppänen, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council and Commission Decision on the position to be taken by the Community within the Association Council established by the Europe Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States of the one part, and the Republic of Latvia, of the other part, with regard to the adoption of the rules for the implementation of Article 64(1)(i) & (ii) and (2) of the Europe Agreement (4215/98 - COM(98)0068 - C4-0593/98-98/0076(CNS)); -A4-0472/98 by Mr van Dam, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council and Commission Decision on the position to be taken by the Community within the Association Council established by the Europe Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States of the one part, and the Republic of Estonia, of the other part, with regard to the adoption of the rules for the implementation of Article 63(1)(i) & (ii) and (2) of the Europe Agreement (4214/98 - COM(98)0118 - C4-0594/98-98/0077(CNS)); -A4-0419/98 by Mr Schwaiger, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council and Commission Decision on the position to be taken by the Community within the Association Council established by the Europe Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States of the one part, and Romania of the other part, with regard to the adoption of the rules for the implementation of Article 64(1)(i), (1)(ii) and (2) of the Europe Agreement and for the implementation of Article 9(1)(1), (1)(2) and (2) of Protocol 2 on ECSC products to the Europe Agreement (COM(98)0236 - C4-0275/98-98/0139(CNS)).
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Elchlepp">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the subject of my report is the transposition of EU competition law by the Republic of Lithuania under Article 64 of the 1995 Europe Agreement between the EU and Lithuania.
I would recommend that the European Parliament approve the Community's position on this in the EU-Lithuania Association Council.
The subject we are concerned with here may appear rather technical, but in the context of pre-accession relations with Lithuania it is of extreme political importance.
After all, competition policy is an important instrument for ensuring free trade and for turning the Lithuanian economy into a viable social market economy that can hold its own in the single market.
<P>
Of course the introduction of the complex EU competition rules represents an enormous challenge for all applicant countries.
After all, in the transition to a market economy, they must first develop their own national competition law.
I would urge the Commission to take greater account of that when it evaluates the extent to which these countries have adjusted.
So we will still need to show some flexibility in the coming years in regard to the implementation of EU competition rules.
Setting conditions that are too rigid is more likely to prove counter-productive.
In particular, we must always look at the social implications of adjustment if we want to ensure that the citizens of the applicant state give their broad support to democracy and the social market economy.
That is very important to the stability of Europe as a whole.
<P>
Many Lithuanian economic sectors will not be able to do without state aid for some time at least, in the course of adjusting to the EU acquis in competition law.
In view of the aggressive market strategies of western competitors, we should not judge individual defence mechanisms and supports in certain sectors too harshly.
But, all in all, Lithuania has made substantial progress in approximating its laws to EU legislation and is endeavouring to establish the requisite implementing structures.
The Lithuanian Government submitted new draft competition legislation in 1998.
The Lithuanian Parliament passed much of it last December.
<P>
The competition rules for undertakings are generally consistent with Community law and in 1997 the Lithuanian Government also submitted a decision on monitoring state aid.
Meanwhile Lithuania has endeavoured to facilitate free trade with the EU, for instance by ambitious tariff reductions.
That is to be welcomed.
<P>
My conclusions are as follows: we should not pursue too rigorous a policy of approximation to Western competition rules, for it could be damaging to the long-term process of transformation to ask too much.
Secondly, Lithuania evidently needs greater support for the training and further training of the officials of its State Competition and Consumer Protection Office.
Furthermore, a targeted information policy must be pursued to promote acceptance in the private economic sector of the new competition rules and economic liberalisation and restructuring measures.
Account must also be taken of social and environmental aspects during the adjustment process.
<P>
Let me conclude with two points. Since the Lithuanian economy, like for that matter all the Central and Eastern European economies, is undercapitalised, the EU should consider providing direct capital aid for setting up and modernising undertakings, over and above the existing structural aid measures, where appropriate through the European Investment Bank or the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
<P>
Secondly, it is certainly regrettable that Lithuania is not at present among the first wave of applicants.
While appreciating all the obstacles that still remain, I believe that the accession negotiations between the EU and Lithuania should begin before the scheduled date, which is not until the end of 1999, if possible even during the German Presidency of the Council, for that is the only way to sustain the optimism and willingness to adjust that have developed in that country.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, in July 1997 the Commission was in favour of accession negotiations with Latvia beginning as soon as that country had made sufficient headway in fulfilling the pre-conditions laid down by the European Council at Copenhagen.
It was the Commission's opinion that not one applicant country at that time had entirely fulfilled all these pre-conditions.
Despite this, the countries involved were put in a certain order to have their applications dealt with, so that, for example, Latvia had to wait longer than Estonia.
There is no justification for that, at least as far as the enforcement of the regulations governing competition are concerned.
<P>
The EU strives to ensure that there is a high level internal market that renounces the notion of restrictions on competition.
We cannot take for granted that countries that have attained membership will thrive in such a market.
According to an assessment by the Commission, Latvia at present would have difficulty in coping with the pressures of competition in the single market, and EU integration will mean immense economic structural change for it.
Latvia has a new law on competition which is largely in line with EU regulations.
Some amendments to it are still needed, as certain subsidies are tied to exports and it sanctions certain special and sole rights which do not comply with Community regulations.
The EU is shaping the harmonisation of legislation by making demands on Latvian society to its own satisfaction, and Latvia has no alternative but to comply.
<P>
Because of quality problems Latvia's manufactured products find it difficult to enter the EU's western markets.
The country's economic competitiveness is based solely on low wages, and this is where the problem lies. In order for Latvia to be competitive, its levels of pay have to remain low.
If Latvia has low rates of pay it would, as an EU member, be a country of cheap production, and a sort of flag-of-convenience state in the EU.
When the restrictions on goods between the EU countries and Latvia are lifted, a free labour market will come into existence.
Because of differences in pay and living standards, it will be worth Latvians leaving the country to work in the older EU countries, where rates of pay are higher.
For Latvia that would mean a trained workforce leaving the country, and for the EU it would mean a problem of cheap labour.
This will be a widespread problem with a rapid enlargement programme, and it will affect not just Latvia but all the applicant countries.
The countries in front of Latvia in the queue will cause exactly the same problem for the EU.
The economic structure in all the applicant countries is entirely different from that in the EU single market.
<P>
I would still remind everyone of the Commission's assessment that Latvia fulfils the democracy pre-conditions relating to stable institutions, the rule of law, human rights and the protection of minority groups, but measures need to be introduced to speed up the granting of citizenship to people other than those who already have Latvian citizenship.
These are serious problems, and they are serious in Estonia too.
I can see no justification for Latvia having inferior status in comparison with some other applicant countries when it comes to EU membership.
The country is ready to pay a high price for EU membership by preparing its economy for EU market forces and competition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, Estonia occupies a rather special place amongst the three Baltic States.
There is already a direct EU-Estonia free-trade area, which is not the case for Latvia and Lithuania where we are seeing an asymmetric and phased establishment of a free-trade area.
In another respect too, Estonia occupies a rather special place.
It is the only Baltic country to have been included in the first round of accession negotiations.
This certainly does not mean to say that Latvia and Lithuania are performing any worse in economic and political terms.
Indeed recently these countries seem to have embarked on a race to catch up.
But the starting position of Latvia and Lithuania was different to that of Estonia.
<P>
The free-trade area is only of any economic benefit if the legal framework is based on uniform principles.
This also applies to competition policy.
The Europe Agreement with Estonia states that competition legislation must be completed no later than the end of 1997.
This date is now long past.
The Committee on External Economic Relations is therefore hurrying to approve the Commission's proposal.
It is important in the context of Estonia's future accession, on which negotiations began last year, that applicant countries should be able to cope with the market mechanisms as they apply in the Union.
This is why Estonian companies must become more competitive.
The present proposal is to adjust the rules for the implementation of the Community's competition policy for Estonia.
This relates to Articles 85, 86 and 96 of the EC Treaty which concern, respectively, the prohibition of restrictive practices, the prohibition of the abuse of dominant positions and discipline as regards state aid.
<P>
The principal purpose in drawing up the implementing regulations for those articles is to improve trade between the European Union and Estonia.
Yet both parties reserve the right to apply anti-dumping and protection measures on the basis of the association agreement.
The reason these measures still apply is that there are still great differences in the provisions regarding state aid on the two sides.
These measures must also be brought into line by the end of 1999.
In the meantime it is not of course the Commission's intention to refuse entry to the European market for Estonian products under the guise of anti-dumping legislation.
This would not help the competitiveness of Estonian companies and could therefore be an obstacle to the European Union's rapid enlargement.
<P>
In a recent report on Estonian state aid we read that the Estonian competition act, applicable from October 1998, provides better conditions for monitoring state aid and collecting related data.
State aid is essential during the transition to a modern market economy, but it must be organised in a way which makes it possible to assess to what extent Estonian companies have sufficient competitive strength.
<P>
Mr President, as rapporteur I thank the Committee on External Economic Relations for its effective cooperation and I would like to present my conclusions.
I have made it clear that competition legislation in Estonia needs to be implemented properly, especially as Estonia can expect to be among the first to enter negotiations.
This does not mean that I want to create an extra accession criterion.
The direct criteria for accession are clearly stated in the Europe Agreements.
Estonia has made huge efforts over recent years to prepare for accession to the European Union.
I am not just referring here to the economic growth it has achieved and its undertaking, in signing the IMF's economic memorandum, to strive for economic growth without overheating.
In political terms too Estonia has made the necessary effort to satisfy the entry criteria.
Although major steps must still be taken, such as in reforming the judiciary, before we can really talk about a truly democratic political culture, there have been a great many positive political developments.
One such example is the cooperation between the government and opposition and the efforts to promote the integration of Estonia's Russian minority.
<P>
These efforts by the Estonian Government must encourage us to speed up the process leading to Estonia's accession to the European Union.
When we call for reforms, we must also be prepared to provide the correct response to these reforms.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Schwaiger">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the case of Romania too the Committee on External Economic Relations is pleased to note that the necessary approximation of Romanian competition provisions to EU rules and the cooperation between competition authorities can develop satisfactorily.
As you know from the other reports, this relates to the implementation of the basic principles of competition policy, the responsible authorities, the consultation procedure in cross-border cases and administrative cooperation.
<P>
For the rest, the Commission's position on Romania's application for accession shows that, on the whole, Romania's competition rules are compatible with the EU rules.
So from the point of view of the Committee on External Economic Relations I can therefore propose that we approve the Council's common position in the case of Romania too.
One particularly positive aspect is that, as in other areas, the Romanian administration is cooperating very closely with EU authorities in regard to the competition provisions and is taking the corresponding legislative steps.
However, these should include modernisation of the public administration, where there is still some room for improvement.
<P>
The task of the Romanian administration is simplified by the fact that Romanian executive officials have already received intensive training under the PHARE programme.
But I would like also to look today at the efforts made by Romania and the need for Romania to come closer to the European Union economically and to gradually adopt the acquis communautaire .
The majority of economic reforms still remain to be undertaken by the Romanian Government.
It must focus on the further and long-delayed privatisation of large state enterprises and on improving the framework conditions for founding small and medium-sized enterprises.
To date, only some 20 % of firms have gone into private ownership.
<P>
That is the only way the competition rules, which will then become rules common to Romania and to the European Union, have a chance to really apply and to function.
The events of the last few days show that the Romanian Government is making serious efforts to make up the deficit in regard to public enterprises and to close down the least profitable banks and telecommunications companies.
At the same time, it must give greater support than before to the establishment of small and medium-sized enterprises by providing state financing incentives, drawing also on the European Union's programmes.
<P>
Another ray of hope is the fact that Romania and the European Union are cooperating increasingly closely on the joint plans for the use of the Trans-Caucasian mineral resources, especially those in Azerbaijan and the Central Asian Republics, for the benefit of the European market.
Romania can play a key role both in the transport and in the further processing of oil from the Caspian Sea, as I pointed out very specifically in my report early in 1997 on economic cooperation between the EU and Azerbaijan.
If they were properly modernised, the plant in Constanza, the largest Black Sea port, and the refineries in Ploesti on the lower Danube could put Romania in a position to establish a new transport route, process a wide spectrum of oil products and thus become one of the top suppliers to the European market.
<P>
The more active the role Romania plays in the joint projects between the EU and the Trans-Caucasian republics, especially Georgia and Azerbaijan, in relation for instance to transport networks including energy transport networks, the sooner it can realise its potential in a European market that will soon become larger with the accession of Hungary, Poland and Slovakia and thus improve its balance of trade and balance of payments.
The products in question can then be transported via the Danube and the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal to the centre of Europe and then onwards to the Benelux countries and to France.
Romania must gear its geographical, industrial and also technological potential, including the Danube transport infrastructure, much more closely to the European market and fully exploit its Danube waterway and rail service capacities.
<P>
The planned high-speed TGV-ICE train link from Paris via Strasbourg, Karlsruhe, Munich and Vienna to Budapest is to be extended in a few years' time via Timisoara-Arat to Bucharest.
So on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations - and here I agree with Mr Bernard-Reymond's conclusions on Romania's accession prospects - I would like to encourage Romania resolutely to pursue the road to Europe, following the example of other Eastern European countries, to overcome its temporary weaknesses and to make full use of its development potential as a great Eastern European country.
<P>
We certainly urge the Romanian people, its parliament and government, not to give up in spite of the current difficulties and to do their utmost to achieve closer economic cooperation with the EU.
They have our support in that endeavour.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think we have a brief opportunity to discuss what is happening here in more detail.
We could say - and that would be half the story and would also be quite true - that internally the European Union's competition policy is a success story.
It is the motive force of European integration and the completion of the single market.
That is indisputable and it is well and good.
<P>
But in relations with the applicant countries we also have the problem of unequal economic structures.
Under these circumstances we must consider whether we can simply take the same approach to all of them.
We now have the further risk - and I believe there is some indication of this in all three countries - that simply because in a sense these countries are each resolved for political reasons to achieve a perfect market economy they will apply a synthetic system of competition rules that are purer than those the Union itself could apply.
That would create an inequality which, in my view, would not be acceptable.
<P>
Let me also point out that we are already faced with the problem that the introduction of competition rules on market domination and the introduction of those on state aid were driven forward under different timetables.
But that is not the only problem; another is that other aspects that in fact play a part in strengthening or creating markets have not advanced at the same pace.
These include the question of public infrastructures, the question, which was raised earlier, of strengthening the capital resources of enterprises, and the question - which I believe we all consider most important - of strengthening the articulation and assertion of interests other than the enterprises' immediate profits in the economic process.
For to engage in economic activity does not just mean making profits, it also means reproducing the natural basic principles of society.
<P>
Under these circumstances we must keep asking ourselves in all seriousness whether we really are promoting this process in such a way as to ensure that equal rights are not just enshrined in abstract words but really are guaranteed, that for the first time in their history these countries bordering the Baltic Sea are no longer in a colonial position in relation to western Europe; I am speaking here as a citizen of Kiel, which has its own particular historical background.
I believe that is the task we have to undertake.
I know it is anything but easy.
<P>
I believe, firstly, that we must formulate a broader and more political pre-accession strategy, meaning that we must also promote aspects other than competition policy.
So I welcome the fact that some Members have addressed not only the political progress but also the differing problems of individual Baltic states.
They too need to be discussed.
<P>
We also have to consider giving specific signs of solidarity to these countries and consider whether these should not go beyond what has quite rightly been proposed here, namely the flexible application of the rules of competition.
That is the minimum.
What I mean is that it would be quite absurd to apply the rules more rigorously in these cases than we can apply them in Bavaria or Saxony, in other words at home.
<P>
But we also have to ask what more we can do.
I think here we must consider - as has been said by others - what instruments we can use for structural development and how we can ensure that they are used as effectively as possible.
We must also make sure we do not create any new hierarchies between the countries.
Once the decision, which I criticise, had been taken to create a starting line and begin negotiations with all the countries at the same time, under the procedure that was then applied I think it was quite justified for Estonia to be taken first.
Estonia is indeed ahead of the other countries in some respects.
But this situation could become consolidated if only because that is how it was in the past.
We must not allow that to happen.
The other countries must be given a fair chance to catch up. And they must be helped to do so.
Nor must those countries that need least support be given most just because the immediate effect may be greatest there.
<P>
That is why I urge you to take a very careful look at our policy.
I have deliberately not discussed the individual countries, although it would be easy to comment on this or that aspect.
But as a Member of the European Parliament it is not my job to tell the Estonians, Latvians or Lithuanians what they must do first; instead I have concentrated on what we should do.
I believe there is an urgent need for us to address this question in detail, with careful consideration and in that context.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sindal">
Mr President, after having listened to Mr Wolf, I should like to begin by recounting a practical experience which I had at a wood products plant at Tartu in Estonia.
At the time I was chairman of the delegation for relations with Estonia, which was visiting this plant.
The head of the plant said to me: 'Why do I have to label all my furniture for Ikea in Germany with some strange 'E's?
Why does my paint have to be inspected?
Why do my standards have to be inspected?
You can just sell any goods you like to us here in Estonia, but I have to be inspected because I am selling to you.'
You see, that is how it appears in practice.
That is the dialogue we have when we visit our new Member States.
These agreements which we are going to adopt are a signal to the populations of the countries concerned that we have not forgotten them and that we are continuing to work on precisely the problems which I encountered in Tartu.
But sometimes there is a big difference between politics and everyday life.
The trade which is also sought by Mr Wolf does not just come of itself.
The question is whether we need a common set of rules in the area of competition to make some countries suitable to participate in cooperation in the future.
I am thinking in particular of the country for which I am currently responsible, Lithuania, which plays a key role as a transit country for trade with Russia and Belarus.
If the country has its competition policy in order and has harmonised its standards and rules in this area, then it is qualified to increase its trade and take on whatever competitors there may be.
<P>
But we should not look at competition policy in isolation.
We should also look at environmental and social policy and, when we talk of progress for these countries, it is important that we do not simply measure, as the Commission often does, growth in foreign investment and the economy, but that we also look at how far the countries are able to incorporate aspects of the working environment and social policy into their competition policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ilaskivi">
Mr President, Parliament is being urged in four separate reports to approve the Europe agreements with the relevant countries, and this is clearly happening, thus creating a firm basis for the future enlargement of the Union.
The road ahead, however, is still a long one.
Much work and time is required of these countries for economic and political harmonisation.
<P>
According to the Commission's assessments both Lithuania and Latvia have recently caught up with Estonia, which had had a head start.
Latvia's strong economic growth and both Latvia's and Lithuania's active commitment to modernise their laws on citizenship, on which Mr Seppänen's report certainly contains conflicting information, are important steps on the way to realising conditions for EU membership.
For this reason it seems very likely that in the medium term all the Baltic countries will be able to join the European Union simultaneously.
Although all applicant countries must be assessed according to their own merits, it is important to emphasise that for the Baltic countries to accede simultaneously would have positive repercussions for security policy, for example.
<P>
While the applicant countries are preparing themselves for membership, it is vital to stress the importance of cooperation, for example, between police forces and customs in combating international crime.
It is not enough to enact laws and sanction cooperation agreements.
The most important, and perhaps the most difficult, issue for the applicant countries is putting these agreements into practice.
We in Finland had a regrettable example of this last year, when a criminal gang which had entered the country from Estonia emptied bank cash dispensers in Helsinki, and the Estonian police refused to cooperate with the police in Finland.
These small but important issues have yet to be put right.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to congratulate the various rapporteurs on their reports.
At the start of his mandate in 1995, Mr Santer described Union enlargement as one of the two principal objectives of the newly appointed European Commission.
He described enlargement as a historic opportunity.
I should like to support this view.
My group also believes enlargement to be a historic opportunity.
But may I just make one point.
It is a historic opportunity, but it could also prove to be a historic blunder if accession is not properly prepared.
In this respect it is crucially important for the present Union to put its own house in order, as the enlargement the Union is now facing - and today's reports are another small step in this direction - is totally unlike any previous enlargement.
On this occasion the applicant countries are countries with a fairly limited market economy.
Moreover, their competition and legal systems are not yet ready to incorporate the acquis communautaire fully.
<P>
It is not only the applicant countries which need an efficient government apparatus.
Above all the Union itself needs a balanced and effective apparatus in order to cope with the problems of accession.
It is therefore distressing to have to conclude that with such important decisions before us we are still a long way from having achieved this goal.
I hope that the Council, as Mr Fischer announced this morning, will indeed use a new IGC in around the year 2000 in order to put our own house in order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Mr President, all three Baltic countries have striven and at this very moment are striving hard to fulfil the criteria laid down for them for membership of the European Union.
This will require big sacrifices and changes in their societies.
<P>
Over the last few days I have been following, with some concern, the news that among the three Baltic countries, to quote the headlines, a 'pigmeat war' is starting.
This has even led to an exchange of notes among these countries.
This year Latvia intends to restrict pigmeat imports from Estonia and Lithuania for a year.
Certainly no good will come of these reciprocal reproaches and exchanges of notes for any one of the Baltic countries.
We must just hope that this problem is resolved swiftly so that developments towards EU membership for the Baltic countries do not deteriorate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the competition rules certainly are an important component of the acquis communautaire , but to date the competition provisions of the Europe Agreements have not prevented the EU from applying anti-dumping and trade protection measures to the applicant states, with the result that the Central and Eastern European countries face a growing trade deficit. This is exactly the opposite of what the real task of a European Union should be, namely to promote their successful accession and economic stabilisation.
<P>
Then there are also the high export subsidies for EU agricultural products, which severely disturb the domestic markets of the applicant countries.
The real question here is: who has what homework to do?
It is not just the applicant countries; what we need is a qualitative change of direction of EU competition and trade policy towards these countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Antony">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as I have been allocated so little time, I am not going to comment on the technical aspects, however interesting, of the reports before us.
<P>
Perhaps it is the effect of the snow that has fallen, but I just want to recall a situation I found myself in a few years ago.
Actually, I was in a dreadful situation, at Vilnius headquarters with President Landsbergis, guarded, if I can call it that, by the Lithuanian National Guard, and the Red Army had just crushed the Lithuanian resistance under its tank tracks.
What I mean is that I regard the Baltic countries as an integral part of our European civilisation and they have paid a very high price for their freedom.
Lithuania alone saw a quarter of its sons and daughters perish in the gulags.
<P>
What I also mean is that we would be in favour of the enlargement of our European Community to include the Baltic countries, but for the fact that Lithuania is, alas, increasingly a blend of the Soviet Union and the United States, and has nothing to offer beyond an increasingly bureaucratic yoke.
That is why we advise our friends in the Baltic countries, and indeed Poland, to be very careful. Their joining a confederal Europe would certainly be a good thing, but they would do well to hesitate before joining this increasingly bureaucratic Europe, which keeps piling on the weight of its decrees and regulations.
I do not think that this would be good for them.
<P>
We do not want to shut the door of the Community to them but we, for our part, want a different Europe: the one we are fighting for.
I would like to take this opportunity to send that message today to our friends in the Baltic countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Evans">
Mr President, others have spoken about the Baltic so I will restrict my remarks to Romania, to Mr Schwaiger's report.
<P>
This agreement which we are debating between the EU and Romania is now four years old.
In this period of time Romania has made tremendous progress, great strides have been taken to move the country towards a position that more equates with the west.
It can be no coincidence, however, that countries with EU borders have moved faster towards EU membership than others further away.
By comparison with its neighbour Hungary, for example, Romania, which does not have a border with one of the 15 current Member States, is way behind.
<P>
In the past under Ceaucescu Romania was a country ill-at-ease with itself, a nation distorted by unrealistic ideals and legislation.
Any visitor to the country today will notice the progress which has been made towards a market economy.
Further progress is needed, but at a speed that is realistic and allows time for people to adjust and for realignments where necessary.
<P>
Mr Schwaiger has referred to competition development, reforms to state companies, the banks and so on.
In addition, the Romanian Government must recognise the reforms that it needs to make itself: reforms to the police, to the Constitution, for example Article 200.
It must address the reluctance of some of its politicians to accept that tomorrow's politics will be very different from those in Romania prior to the revolution.
<P>
Having said all that, Romania is a very different country today, a very difference place from the Romania of ten years ago.
Some things however remain constant: its geographical position is important, as Mr Schwaiger emphasised, and a major plus for its own future development.
Romania is of course and will remain European by its culture, by its language, by its history and by its people.
<P>
I very much welcome this report and I for one look forward to being here when we welcome to the European Parliament Romanian Members as colleagues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, I too wish to stress that those four reports can have a positive effect.
It is important for there to be commonly accepted rules for cooperation and relations in the business sector between the European Union and these four countries, and for there to be some security in relation to the ability of businesses to move into and cooperate with these countries.
On the other hand, of course, we must bear in mind that they are in a difficult stage of transition which, besides the necessity for certain principles and legal provisions, will certainly require the European Union to show solidarity, support and an understanding of their individual characteristics.
I wish to stress the importance of cooperation and the development of relations with Romania, which is one of the largest Balkan countries, in an important geographical position, which is perhaps a long way behind other eastern European countries, but which offers great potential for participation in the major networks of the European Union and Europe in general, as Mr Schwaiger in any event described very well in his explanatory statement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindholm">
Mr President, the Baltic countries have accomplished a mammoth feat in a short time.
In ten years, they have moved from dictatorship and a Soviet-style planned economy to democracy and a market economy.
On top of that, there are now the EU adjustments - changes which have imposed heavy demands on people and politicians alike which it has been difficult to meet.
There is consequently a need for great flexibility and economic support on the part of the EU to facilitate their continued development.
The EU should also be making reciprocal adjustments.
<P>
The political and economic pressures on these countries are enormous.
It is disturbing that last week one of the Baltic countries introduced a protective duty on pigmeat, thereby opening up a rift between the emerging free-market countries. However, such a move was not totally unexpected.
<P>
From the start, the Green Group has maintained that accession negotiations should be held with all three Baltic countries simultaneously in order to promote harmonious political and economic development in the area and to avoid endangering the fragile cooperation process.
We very much regret that this was not done.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="Van Miert">
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="Schwaiger">
Mr President, may I put another small question to Mr Van Miert?
I pointed out earlier that the Romanian refineries in Ploesti are due to be modernised and that Romania plays a key role as a link between the Trans-Caucasian oil-producing countries such as Kazakhstan, but also and in particular Azerbaijan.
Is the Commission prepared, firstly, to step up this cooperation and, secondly, to point out to Romania that modernisation should take account of environmental requirements?
For if exceptional provisions were allowed in the framework of state aid, then far more emphasis should be placed on environmental aspects in regard to state aid and private investment, which, incidentally, would also be very necessary in the case of the Czech Republic.
Could you perhaps give me a brief answer?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="Van Miert">
Mr President, this is a most important matter and, as you know, in this sort of context problems are of course resolved bilaterally.
We have to proceed through the normal diplomatic channels in regard to environmental questions too.
We do not have any direct responsibility here.
We have to talk to each other, even when it is a question of aid.
If there are any grounds for complaint, the matter is usually settled confidentially, but settled it is.
If you want any further details, we can discuss this either bilaterally or with other colleagues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
EC Trade and Cooperation Agreement with Korea
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0445/98) by Mr Porto, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning the conclusion of the Framework Agreement for Trade and Cooperation between the European Community and its Member States, of the one part, and the Republic of Korea, of the other part (COM(96)0141 - C4-0073/97-96/0098(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="Porto">
The vote in this House on the Framework Agreement for Trade and Cooperation between the European Community and its Member States, of the one part, and the Republic of Korea, of the other part, is to be congratulated.
<P>
Having been devastated by a fratricidal war just over 40 years ago, Korea is now experiencing impressive growth and is one of the main economic powers in the world, having earned the right to be the first Asian country to join the OECD.
<P>
As far as the European Union is concerned, Korea is an important partner which accounts for nearly 2 % of our total trade, thus forming our fourth main partner outside the European continent, after the United States, Japan and China, while we are Korea's third main trading partner after the United States and Japan, but before China. This trade has doubled in 15 years, reaching ECU 27.5 billion in 1997.
The EU was in a position of surplus until 1997. The deficit which has occurred since then was caused by the Asian crisis: Korea's imports fell from ECU 11.7 bn in November 1997 to ECU 7.7 bn in April 1998.
This situation is in contrast to that of Japan and China which have deficits that are not likely to disappear in the near future.
With regard to direct foreign investment, the European Union is the leader, having overtaken the United States and Japan in 1998, and with the accumulated investments of South Korea in the EU being greater than our investment there: ECU 2.3 bn and ECU 1.5 bn respectively.
<P>
Despite the importance of Korea and our economic relations with the country, this House, through the competent committees, started to indicate reservations at the time of the vote on the agreement signed on 29 October 1996.
These reservations were in the areas of protectionism - specifically relating to national preferences under the guise of the 'frugality plan' or to problems in channels of commerce - intellectual property, respect for human rights and, above all, the failure to comply with minimum labour rules.
Following the suggestion of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, the rapporteur and the committee responsible for the basic issue, the Committee on External Economic Relations, accepted the postponement of the agreement's assessment.
<P>
The changes observed in the last two years have been very marked.
They have involved internal and external liberalisation and the restructuring of the economy, with all sectors being forced to accept a rationale which will prevent, for example, overinvestment in shipbuilding. This is now leading to assumptions on our part of having to compete with Korea in a process that started before the Asian crisis became more pressing.
In addition to this, we must welcome the openness in the political and labour fields that have been evident to a large extent since the election of the current Korean President, Kim Dae Jung.
<P>
The support which may be provided by this agreement has become particularly relevant in view of the crisis South Korea is experiencing, the results of which include significant falls in production and large increases in unemployment, from 2.6 % in November 1997 to 6.7 % in April 1998.
However, these consequences are also contributing, in a transitional phase, to the liberalisation and restructuring measures which, with our backing, are being implemented.
Even in the area of trade unions, the main target of our concerns, we must undoubtedly welcome the agreement of the Tripartite Commission, which was reached on 6 February 1998, and the specific liberalisation measures that were implemented, such as the recognition of the KCTU (the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions), the authorisation of multiple trade unions at company level or even the right of sacked workers to belong to a trade union.
It is particularly symbolic that, just a few days ago, on 6 January, trade union freedom for teachers was approved.
But we should realise that some of the measures, while undoubtedly desirable, are likely to cause transitional problems for company managers and politicians.
<P>
We therefore have a special responsibility to support an agreement which, in a very delicate external and internal context, may help to strengthen and revive the South Korean economy and alleviate the problems of its inhabitants.
<P>
I must stress that there are clearly points open to criticism in all these areas, for example, the failure of Korea to sign up to international agreements on respect for intellectual property, as underlined in the opinion by Mr Pompidou.
However, the conclusion of an agreement promoting improved trade and economic cooperation will give us greater moral and political legitimacy in terms of the demands to be made of a country which, at a time of crisis, could not fail to have major problems with regard to social and political transparency and the restructuring of its economy.
<P>
We will all benefit from the commitment of a strong Korea to the support announced at the Millennium Round of the World Trade Organisation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="Viceconte">
Mr President, the Framework Agreementfor Trade and Cooperation with the Republic of Korea was initialled on 29 October 1996, in other words prior to the serious financial crisis which afflicted certain countries in eastern Asia and curbed the extraordinary economic growth of Korea, a country which - before the crisis - was increasingly becoming an economic and commercial heavyweight on the international scene; one need only think that its shipbuilding industry had a 25 % share of the world market and that its automobile industry produced 5 % of world output.
<P>
Article 7 of the agreement on maritime transport establishes the goal of securing unrestricted access to the maritime market and to international maritime traffic on a commercial basis and in accordance with the principles of fair competition.
Article 8 establishes cooperation in the shipbuilding sector in order to create a fair, competitive market, in view of the current structural imbalance between supply and demand within the international shipbuilding industry. The parties also undertake to observe the principles of the OECD Agreement on Shipbuilding.
<P>
While we welcome the conclusion of this agreement, we should not overlook the problems created by Korea's trade practices and the obstacles it has hitherto put in the way of EU products in the shipbuilding and automobile sectors, which are deemed sensitive under the agreement.
Although Europe's shipbuilding industry is currently experiencing a revival, it is affected by considerable overcapacity, due in particular to the Koreans' irresponsible doubling of their plant capacity over the past four or five years, to such an extent that Korea alone can now produce more vessels than all Europe's shipyards put together.
The fact that supply greatly exceeds demand is beyond question, given that prices for new vessels of all types have fallen or at least stagnated.
<P>
This alarming structural imbalance has been compounded by the devaluation of the Korean won, leading to a situation which could have particularly grave consequences for Community shipyards and for employment in Europe.
Indeed, estimates show that the Koreans could reduce the cost of their vessels by as much as 30 % without altering their margins.
Therefore the Korean authorities must not use international financial assistance in support of their shipbuilding industry, and the European Union must take care to ensure that the commitments made by the Korean authorities in this regard are in fact met.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="Malone">
Mr President, I wish to thank the trade union organisations, the Commission and, indeed, the ambassador for their help with my research.
<P>
I found that South Korea had not complied with the undertaking it had given on becoming a member of the OECD in 1996 to bring its labour laws into line with internationally binding labour standards.
I also found that there were certain human rights problems.
The operation of the national security law was certainly a problem and there was a serious problem concerning long-term political prisoners.
There has been some progress to the extent that, as previous speakers have said, even as late as last week there were moves to legalise the teachers' trade union.
There have been other very welcome moves because there were restrictions on trade union pluralism, a total ban on freedom of association and collective bargaining for government employees and teachers and the illegality of one of the two major Korean union confederations - the KCTU.
Furthermore, the leadership of the KCTU's union was made illegal through removing the status of union membership from dismissed workers.
There have been all sorts of problems. They are being worked through but I would like to see the conclusions in my opinion which, I am glad to say, have been carried forward by Mr Porto in his very excellent report, being looked at very carefully and taken up by the Korean Government.
<P>
I wish to draw your attention to some of these conclusions.
One is that the Korean Government should immediately implement the OECD undertaking to amend its labour legislation to incorporate internationally binding standards.
<P>
I also wish you to note a clause in relation to the abolition of the death penalty.
I should like Commissioner Leon Brittan, when he sums up, to tell us whether he will undertake, on our behalf and on behalf of the Commission, to follow up the three points made to the Commission in the conclusions in my opinion and also in Mr Porto's report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valdivielso de Cué">
Mr President, it is worth emphasising the extent to which the framework agreement between the European Union and the Republic of Korea serves to promote freedom. It protects the legal right to political pluralism and recognises the right to form trade unions, together with the right to engage in union activity.
Previously, such activity carried a prison sentence in the Republic of Korea.
Other aspects of the agreement such as those relating to intellectual property, patents and trademarks also deserve a mention.
<P>
I should like to refer too to the recent meeting between European Union and Korean ministers, chaired by Sir Leon Brittan, who is with us here today. At that meeting, a cautious welcome was given to the initial measures on economic reform adopted by the Korean Government.
These measures alone will not be sufficient, but could set the country on the right course for the future.
<P>
It is also worth noting the commitment made by the Korean authorities on the subject of unfair competition with the European Union in sensitive sectors such as shipbuilding and the automobile industry.
This commitment was made after high-level consultations between the European Union and Korea, and we must carefully monitor the situation to ensure that it is adhered to.
<P>
Nonetheless, the present social situation in Korea regrettably leaves much to be desired. Not only is this quite unacceptable as we approach the twenty-first century, but it also results in global dumping affecting countries like ours which do observe the regulations on labour and social standards.
This must be made quite clear in the Committee on External Economic Relations.
<P>
In conclusion, we recognise the progress mentioned earlier, and encourage the Korean Government to redouble its efforts to attain the social standards the citizens of today require. Finally, it is our most earnest hope that human rights will be recognised in Korea.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="Smith">
Mr President, the rapporteur and Mrs Malone quite rightly drew attention to the issue of labour and human rights.
While I believe we should give every encouragement to progress in these areas, I would, nevertheless, submit that we have to be vigilant and have an effective and reliable monitoring system.
Perhaps the Commissioner could tell us how the Commission would assess improvements in these areas.
For example, will it draw on reports from organisations such as Amnesty International and, in particular, I would suggest, the ILO?
<P>
The Commission should be aware that parliamentary support for this framework agreement is contingent on continuing progress on the issue of labour and human rights and that the support of this House could not be sustained if that position was to worsen.
We will not stand silent if our brothers and sisters in Korea continue to be mistreated.
I hope the Commission will pass that message on to the Korean authorities very firmly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I want to come back to shipbuilding again.
Surely it is quite absurd that shipyards that are totally bankrupt by any normal business standards are continuing to operate and still winning shipbuilding contracts at the lowest dumping prices on the world market. And this is happening not just in the normal container sector; South Korean shipyards are also moving into the area of ferries, of passenger ships, the last sector where we Europeans still have a hope of saving jobs.
<P>
Commissioner, how can you assure us that Korea will undertake to observe the provisions of Article 8, namely, in accordance with the OECD agreement which has not yet entered into force, not to take any action to support its shipbuilding industry which would distort competition?
How can we ensure that our taxpayers' money that our Member States send to Korea as aid via the European Funds, via the International Monetary Fund, does not in the end rebound on our own jobs in the European shipyards?
Nobody would be able to understand that.
I hope you can tell us how you intend to ensure that there are no unfair shipbuilding subsidies that harm our own industry.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
Mr President, I am pleased to have the opportunity to commend this important agreement to the European Parliament.
I very much agree with the remarks of Mr Porto the rapporteur and compliment him on a balanced, well-reasoned report.
He is right to point out the importance of our relationship with the Republic of Korea and has given the House the key economic facts.
I would also like to thank Mr Valdivielso de Cué for his kind remarks about my own efforts.
<P>
If the European Union is to raise its profile on the world stage it is vital to strengthen ties not only with world-rank powers but also with key emerging countries.
That is why the Commission adopted a communication on 9 December reviewing the Union's relations with the Republic of Korea and making comprehensive recommendations for the future.
The Republic of Korea is already a key partner for us, and is becoming more important politically both in its own right and also because of the difficult security situation on the peninsula which has potentially global implications.
<P>
For all these reasons it is essential for us to upgrade bilaterally our relationship with the Republic of Korea.
The Framework Agreement does this by comprehensively covering economic issues and political dialogue.
It contains detailed provisions which directly address issues of key importance to the European Union; economic issues such as intellectual property rights, ship-building, maritime transport and so on, but also issues in other fields such as human rights including labour rights, cooperation against drugs and money laundering.
<P>
The Framework Agreement sets up the institutional machinery through which the European Union can pursue its interests vis-à-vis Korea, and the Commission is fully committed to using the agreement to advance European interests.
I would point out that the Framework Agreement is not an act of charity which opens our markets to Korea.
It contains no trade concessions.
It is a wide-ranging non-preferential agreement which creates new bilateral channels for dialogue and cooperation and, I would point out, for the resolution of disputes with this important trading partner.
So it means that, where we have a problem or where we think they have come some distance but not far enough, we have the new opportunity of handling it in a structured way.
<P>
The vote today is timely not only because it is just before the European Parliament sends a delegation to Korea, but also because it is one year after the beginning of a financial crisis and the change of government in Korea.
Under President Kim Dae Jung, Korea has started an economic reform beginning to address some of our long-standing concerns.
More needs to be done and the Commission will remain extremely vigilant but Korea deserves our support and encouragement for the course it has chosen.
Labour rights is clearly an area where improvement is needed as has rightly been pointed out by Mr Porto.
<P>
Mr Smith has asked us how we will monitor the agreement and ensure that there are further improvements in labour rights.The answer is that we will consider all the material he has mentioned and all the material that is at our disposal, and we have a delegation on the spot in Seoul which will be active in assembling information for us.
But I think it is right to point out that a number of positive steps have already been taken under President Kim, who has involved the unions in a national tripartite dialogue on restructuring.
Last week, as was pointed out by Mrs Malone, a landmark law was passed by the National Assembly establishing trade union rights for teachers.
The fact that things are moving in the right direction is all the more remarkable and all the more a positive achievement when you consider that it has taken place at a time of severe economic contraction with growth of minus 6.8 % and unemployment tripling in just over one year.
The substance of the agreement and the need to upgrade Europe's political and economic position in Asia are themselves sufficient reasons to commend the agreement for Parliament's support.
<P>
However, I would add that by supporting it we have the opportunity to give a political signal of support to President Kim and his allies who are deeply committed to economic reform, who are faced with strong entrenched interests opposed to such reform, and who are committed also to the removal of corruption and increased democracy in Korea.
Mr Valdivielso de Cué is right to point out that difficulties still exist, especially in the area of shipbuilding, and Mr Jarzembowski has referred to that.
It is impossible to give guarantees as far as the future is concerned.
I believe that the implementation of the OECD Agreement would give us the best protection.
That is being held up at the moment because the United States is not prepared to ratify the agreement.
<P>
There is a strong case for going ahead without the United States because the USA represents a very small proportion of the world's shipbuilding.
Unfortunately, European industry does not take that view.
I think European industry is wrong, because it has the hope that if this agreement is not ratified it will get more state aid from national governments.
The sooner it is disabused of that and reconciles itself to the fact that there will not be more state aid, the sooner it will support going ahead on a quadripartite basis, even without the United States, to give us the protection against Korea that this OECD Agreement would give.
<P>
For all these reasons, I hope Parliament will support the Framework Agreement on trade and cooperation with Korea.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="Malone">
Mr President, may I take it from what the Commissioner said that he is undertaking to give Parliament an annual report and will take into account the other two points in my conclusions?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
We will certainly take into account all the points in the conclusions and as far as the report is concerned, I am - as perhaps you know - not enthusiastic about formal reports but very enthusiastic about reporting to Parliament.
As far as I am concerned, I am happy to come to Parliament, as many here know, and to give a full report on the situation of Korea or any aspects of it that Parliament is at any time interested in.
<P>
But I am less enthusiastic about formalising it ...
<P>
Interruption by Mrs Malone
<P>
Well, all I can say is that, unless the Member States of the European Union go off their rockers, they will not appoint anybody who will take a different view.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Question Time (Commission)
<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="President">
The next item is questions to the Commission (B4-0004/99).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, if you have no objections, I suggest that Questions Nos 29 and 32 be taken before Questions Nos 30 and 31. This would enable Mr Monti to reply to those two questions and then leave.
I assume there are no objections, as this only entails a very slight delay for the other two questions.
I therefore invite Commissioner Monti to take the floor first to respond to Question No 29. I should also like to take this opportunity to welcome him and wish him well for this year.
<P>
<P>
Question No 29 by Jaime Valdivielso de Cué (H-1188/98) Subject: Electronic commerce
<P>
The Commission is completing a draft directive on promoting the development of electronic commerce.
This type of commerce requires the exchange of confidential data, including personal information relating to the parties, such as credit card numbers; credit cards are habitually used as a means of payment in Internet transactions.
<P>
Can the Commission state what measures are to be taken to ensure the confidentiality of such data and prevent their improper use?
<P>
Mr Monti has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="Monti">
I return your good wishes, Mr President, and I thank you for your kindness in grouping together these two questions.
Beginning with the first, the honourable Member raises the sensitive question of personal data protection in commercial transactions conducted electronically; he refers in particular to credit card numbers, in that credit cards are habitually used as a means of payment over the Internet.
The main instrument used to protect privacy and avoid the risks associated with various forms of IT piracy is encryption, as indicated by the Commission in its communication on digital signatures and encryption.
<P>
In addition to supporting research and development on instruments to guarantee the secure transmission of credit card data, the Commission is promoting the improvement of technologies serving to minimise the use of personal data in electronic transactions.
For example, from a technical point of view, I would recall that the common action programme on research and technological development has funded various instruments designed to guarantee the secure transmission of credit card data, such as the SET standard, an open standard for secure electronic transmission, developed by Visa and MasterCard, which has now become C-SET and allows for the use of smart-cards.
<P>
The Commission has also undertaken research into general aspects of telematic security, for example under the Infosec programme; as regards electronic commerce in particular, the Esprit programme has funded various specific projects in this field.
The Commission is moreover supporting the development of technical instruments for electronic commerce and security under the fifth RTD framework programme, which will focus in particular on the development of technologies to ensure greater protection of privacy.
<P>
Finally, I would stress that the protection of personal data in Internet communications falls within the ad hoc legal framework governing the processing of personal data established by Directives 95/46/EC and 97/66/EC, which entered into force on 25 October 1998.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valdivielso de Cué">
In the context of the previous question, I should like to raise a further two questions which seem to me to be relevant.
<P>
Does the Commission intend to enhance the existing legal instruments, making them speedier and more flexible, in order to afford consumers adequate protection in the courts?
<P>
Does the Commission intend to set up a mechanism to provide effective legal defence in cases where consumers suffer in spite of these measures?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Monti">
I can assure you that these aspects, which have been drawn to our attention, are covered by the two directives on the processing of personal data to which I have referred, namely 95/46 and 97/66.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 32 by Karin Riis-Jørgensen, which has been taken over by Mr Kofoed (H-1182/98) Subject: Weapons directive
<P>
Article 17 of the weapons directive (91/477/EEC) requires the Commission to submit a report to Parliament and the Council on the situation resulting from application of the directive.
Is that report already available and, if not, when does the Commission expect to have completed it?
<P>
In drawing up its report, is the Commission aware of the consequences this directive has for about 10 million Europeans who hunt or shoot as a sporting pursuit, i.e. the additional taxes they have to pay and the extra work they are faced with when transporting firearms within the European Union?
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Monti to answer Mrs Riis-Jørgensen's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="Monti">
During the second half of 1999, the Commission intends to present to the Council and the European Parliament a report on the application of Directive 91/477 on control of the acquisition and possession of weapons.
The report will examine the operation and impact of the directive in various respects.
To this end, the Commission will draw up a questionnaire and issue it to the groups concerned; it will investigate the aspects raised by the honourable Member in her question, relating to the cost-effectiveness of applying the directive.
The problems connected with the use of the European firearms pass for hunting and recreational shooting will likewise be discussed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Kofoed">
Mr President, I am grateful for the friendly reply and for what you said about this report, but I would like to ask whether you know how many countries have implemented the directive.
As far as I am aware, it is the case that if a Dane wishes to go hunting in the UK he has to submit his application a month in advance.
This means the UK has not implemented the directive.
My question is therefore: how many countries have still not implemented the directive?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Monti">
I can inform you that all the Member States have transposed the directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 30 by Gary Titley (H-1177/98) Subject: EEA and enlargement
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Article 128 of the Treaty establishing the European Economic Area states that any European state becoming a member of the Community shall apply to become a member of the EEA.
What are the institutional implications of this?
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Specifically, if EU membership automatically requires new members to join the EEA how are EFTA EEA states to be involved in decisions leading to enlargement of the EU?
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Would there need to be two rounds of ratification, one for enlargement of the EU and one for enlargement of the EEA?
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I should like to welcome Mr van den Broek and ask him to reply to Mr Titley's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="van den Broek">
The question by the honourable Member concerns the relationship between membership of the European Economic Area and the states which will shortly be joining the Union and which at the time of their accession must of course adopt the acquis communautaire, pursuant to the provisions of the accession agreements when negotiated.
A part of the negotiated acquis will be the agreement concerning the European Economic Area and to what extent Union membership automatically implies membership of the European Economic Area.
Article 128 of the EEA Agreement provides for a procedural mechanism for the accession of new states to the EEA.
There are three parts to this article.
Firstly, it stipulates that a new member must submit its application to the EEA Council.
Secondly, it stipulates that the conditions for participation are the subject of an agreement between the contracting parties to the EEA Agreement and the applicant country.
Thirdly, it stipulates that the agreement must be ratified by all contracting parties.
It is up to the applicant countries to decide when to apply for EEA membership, but it must be before accession to the Union.
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The Commission regularly informs the EFTA/EEA countries of progress on enlargement, by way of a joint committee to which it submits briefings.
The Council will have to consider to what extent the comments of the EFTA/EEA countries can be taken into account, since the enlargement negotiations take place in the framework of an intergovernmental conference.
As the EEA agreement is also part of the acquis communautaire, in ratifying the accession treaty the Member States will also be ratifying EEA extension.
The EFTA/EEA partners must also ratify the participation of applicant countries in the EEA.
These decisions must be made in parallel so that the applicant countries also become full partners in the EEA on the date they join the Union.
My apologies for the fact that this is a rather complicated explanation, but I hope that it is now clear to the honourable Member.
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<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="Titley">
I should like to thank the Commissioner for a thorough answer although he has not actually answered the last part of my question, namely, do there need to be two ratifications - one for EU membership and one for EEA membership?
Every country that is part of the EEA had to ratify the EEA agreement, so does the United Kingdom, for example, have to ratify both EU membership for Poland and EEA membership for Poland?
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Secondly, can he confirm that applicant countries have to apply to join the EEA - i.e. that this is compulsory, that they are required to apply.
Also, what happens if a derogation is negotiated within the accession negotiations which the EFTA/EEA countries are not happy with?
Do they have any say if, for example, Poland were to join with specific derogations which, as far as the EFTA countries were concerned, undermined the EEA agreement?
Do they have to simply accept a fait accompli?
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<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="van den Broek">
I should like to start with the last question.
Do I summarise it well if I formulate the question as follows: Could there be different conditions which apply to entry to the EU and to participation in the EEA?
As the EEA acquis will be for the candidate countries identical to the EC acquis it would be unthinkable for the candidates to have transitional periods as members of the EEA which were different from those agreed in the accession negotiations as.
There should be clear parallelism.
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As far as ratification is concerned, I tried to make clear in my first reply that since the EEA agreement is part of the Community acquis, ratification by the Member States of the Accession Treaty implies equally the ratification of the EEA extension.
I hope that clarifies my position.
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As regards Article 128, if you read the text literally they have to apply, but in fact the Council will remind them that this official act has to be carried out anyhow before accession, which also in fact includes participating in the EEA.
This formality has to be completed.
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<SPEAKER ID=142 NAME="President">
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Question No 31 by Brian Crowley (H-1216/98) Subject: The Community school-milk programme
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The Commission undertook a thorough revision of the Community school-milk programme in 1993 and, as it is no doubt aware, the Treaty of Amsterdam now commits the Community to pursue action in the field of public health aimed at improving public health, preventing human illness and diseases and obviating sources of danger to human health.
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Has the Commission any plans to promote the school-milk programme in new ways as part of the expanded scope of Article 152 of the consolidated version of the EC Treaty and, if so, in what ways?
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I should like to welcome Mr Fischler and ask him to reply to Mr Crowley's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in principle the current school-milk programme has two aims. Firstly, we want to achieve the objectives of the organisation of the dairy market and boost sales; secondly, of course, we want this school-milk programme to encourage in particular the younger generation in the European Union to drink milk and make a healthy source of nourishment available to children.
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We see no reason why we should in any way change these objectives at this time.
So there are at present no plans for any revision.
But of course we must also wait and see what the Agenda 2000 negotiations produce.
In the light of that it may of course prove necessary to make certain changes and adjustments.
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Furthermore, an external audit has been commissioned, which is nearly complete, and we will see what these independent external experts recommend and also adjust our future policy to that.
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<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="Crowley">
I should like to thank the Commissioner for his response.
You already have some idea what the external audit is going to say with regard to the future operation of the programme.
Could you give us an indication tonight as to what you feel would be the best way forward to ensure the continuance of the school milk programme and how it might be altered at some stage in the future?
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<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, I am happy to reply to Mr Crowley's supplementary.
From my point of view I can say that I have no information on what the results of this external audit will be, but I am of course prepared to make the findings public as soon as they are available.
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My personal - and I stress personal - view with regard to school milk is that in the light of reform it is worth considering even at this stage how to make this system, which is at present rather entangled in red tape, a little less bureaucratic.
Quite apart from that, on principle it must surely be in the interest of the dairy industry itself to do all it can to draw its products to the attention of the future consumers rather than just leaving it to the public administration to encourage children to consume more dairy products by subsidising them.
Here I could well imagine a combination of private-sector and Community measures, in order to achieve the best results.
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<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Fischler.
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Having thanked Mr Fischler for his answer, we should now be moving on to Question No 33 by Mrs Hautala.
That question lapses, however, as the author is not present.
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<SPEAKER ID=147 NAME="President">
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Question No 34 by Joan Vallvé (H-1191/98) Subject: Catalan national sports teams
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Article 129 of the EC Treaty states that the Community shall contribute to the flowering of cultures while respecting their diversity.
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Today, competitive sports events are among the most widely disseminated of cultural manifestations. In the interests of affirming the plurality of the Union's peoples, does the Commission consider the draft law now under discussion by the Catalan Parliament which would, inter alia, create a framework that would allow Catalan national teams to compete on a similar basis to that already applying to Scottish and Welsh national teams to be in line with the existing criteria for cultural events?
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I should like to welcome Mr Oreja and wish him a happy New Year, and ask him to reply to Mr Vallvé's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=148 NAME="Oreja">
In the Commission's view, the objectives concerning culture outlined in Article 128 of the Treaty cannot be applied to sporting competitions between national teams.
Therefore, it is not for the Commission to rule on this matter.
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Initially, it falls to each Member State and to the appropriate sporting authorities to set up and run national teams.
In the case of Spain, relevant Spanish legislation on the issue should be borne in mind, in particular, the Sports Act of 15 October 1990, and Royal Decree No 2075 of 20 July 1982 concerning representation at international events and other sporting activities.
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<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Vallvé">
Thank you very much for your reply, Commissioner.
It appears there is no conflict with the principles espoused by the European Union. Indeed, the Union promotes the enrichment of the cultures of the Member States through respect for regional and national diversity, as laid down in the Treaties.
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I merely wished to put forward the views of a significant proportion of the citizens of Catalonia who would like to see the creation of sports teams along the lines of those that currently exist in Scotland and Wales, and which could in future be set up in other areas, such as Flanders. Such teams would allow the citizens to make their identity felt in these competitions.
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<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="Ewing">
I rise because I am so sympathetic to the questioner, coming as I do from Scotland and knowing how much the Scottish football team means to the people, and also as one who has a great admiration for Catalonia, because as a little girl I remember seeing off from Glasgow the International Brigade to Catalonia, which included my cousin.
It was a Scotsman who wrote the book Homage to Catalonia, so we have a very strong feeling of solidarity.
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Sport was a fairly late-comer to the scope of the Treaty.
Would the Commissioner agree that perhaps the Commission should look at further enlarging that scope because, of all games, there is no doubt that football seems to arouse the strongest passions?
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<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Oreja">
We have indeed considered this matter, especially in view of certain recent developments, notably a declaration in the Treaty.
Some Member States were of the opinion that the issue of sport should be included in the Treaty.
However, it did not figure amongst the articles or the protocols, but it was included in a declaration.
As the honourable Member is well aware, it is often the case that what is initially a declaration later becomes incorporated into the Treaty.
It could well be that this is a first stage and that sport will be included following future reviews of the Treaty.
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I should also like to say that last December the Vienna European Council dealt with sport from two points of view.
On the one hand, the social function of sport was recognised, and on the other, the need to adopt appropriate measures on doping was emphasised.
As regards doping, we should not be seeking an individual response from each of the Member States, but some sort of coordination amongst them.
In this connection, I should like to say that I encouraged the Austrian Presidency to hold a three-way ministerial meeting involving the German, British and Austrian Sports Ministers, with Austria in the chair and Commission representation.
I myself was present in Salzburg where we exchanged ideas on the possible way forward for sport within the Community.
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The President of the International Olympic Committee has called a meeting in Lausanne on 3 and 4 February to discuss doping. In my view, the European Union should be adequately briefed for the meeting.
I have therefore approached all the sports ministers suggesting we meet before the meeting arranged by the International Olympic Committee in order to establish the European Union's position.
It would not seem to make much sense for us to attend and then for each minister to speak for himself without us having reached any prior agreement.
Consequently, we shall be meeting on 19 January to prepare for the meeting on 3 and 4 February in Lausanne.
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It must now be clear to the honourable Member that sport is starting to make its presence felt.
There is a suggestion that sport should be included in Article 128 of the Treaty.
This would mean that sport would feature in the cultural area envisaged in the Treaty.
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Although the College of Commissioners has not yet given its opinion on the matter, I should make it clear that I myself am in favour of such an approach. Whilst subsidiarity must, of course, be respected, I do believe it is right to start working towards the inclusion of sport in the Treaty.
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<SPEAKER ID=152 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
Please remain with this question. Two Members have asked for the floor and, pursuant to the Rules, only one of them may speak.
I therefore give the floor to Mr Titley to put a supplementary question for a maximum of one minute.
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<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="Titley">
I welcome the Commissioner's remarks and I endorse what he has just said.
The British Sports Minister, in particular, is very keen that we should see higher profile for sport within the European Union.
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Will the Commissioner confirm that if Catalan national teams competed on the same basis as Scottish and Welsh national teams, that would mean that anybody who represented a Catalan national team would be permanently ineligible to represent the Spanish national team?
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<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Oreja">
I should like to reiterate what I said earlier, in reply to Mr Vallvé's question. It falls to each Member State to set up and run national teams.
You may well ask what happens in Wales and in Scotland, but their teams already existed before the Treaty.
After the Treaty, the only criterion is that it is for the legislature in each Member State to make the necessary decisions.
I cannot therefore go beyond the scope of the Treaty, because one of the Commission's many responsibilities is that of guardian of the Treaty.
What I can talk about is what could be envisaged for the future in terms of including the issue of sport, but that is another matter.
I cannot give you any other answer at the moment.
It is for each Member State's legislature, working with the relevant sporting bodies, to rule on the setting up and running of national teams.
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<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="President">
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Question No 35 by Esko Seppänen (H-1204/98) Subject: Euronews
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A special relationship exists between the European Union institutions, especially the European Parliament, and Euronews: the work of the satellite channel is funded using revenue from tax-payers in the EU Member States.
How important does the Commission regard Euronews as being for its information policy, and what kind of financial support is planned for it?
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I give the floor to the Commissioner to answer Mr Seppänen's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="Oreja">
As is widely known, Euronews is an independent television broadcasting company.
It began as a collaborative venture between several public channels. Some of these still have capital invested in it, but Euronews is now controlled by ITN, an independent channel.
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Given the European nature of its programmes, its ability to broadcast in five Community languages and its transnational broadcasting network, the European Commission, with Parliament's support, has been cooperating with this company for a number of years. In particular, it makes an annual contribution towards the financing of the company.
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At Parliament's suggestion, a different arrangement was arrived at last year.
The aim was to ensure greater transparency in the relationship between the European Union and the station, and to link the Community's financial contribution to the production and broadcasting of specific programmes.
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In 1998, therefore, the Commission, with the approval of the budgetary authority, negotiated a three-year memorandum of understanding with this company.
The agreement provides for the joint production and broadcasting of programmes for the general public on a range of contemporary European issues.
A list of activities and the terms of their funding is agreed annually.
Progress is monitored through a monthly meeting between the broadcasting company and the Commission, at which a representative of Parliament's services is also present.
As joint producer of the programmes, the Union benefits from production and broadcasting rights concerning the programmes.
And this means that the Union can broadcast them for free on its own networks, notably through its EBS satellite system, which means the arrangement is particularly favourable.
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Beyond these joint productions, the European Commission has no special involvement with the company regarding, for instance, editorial policy or management.
In this way, the arrangement provides a more transparent basis for cooperation restricted to products the public can easily identify and it also respects the channel's independence.
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The agreement signed in 1998 involved a sum of ECU 3 250 million and the production and broadcasting of 42 five-minute news programmes with on-the-spot reports, 168 two-minute educational cartoons and 222 three and a half-minute news items.
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The 1999 agreement is currently under negotiation.
A decision on the future of our cooperation will be taken in the light of the assessment due prior to the expiry of the three-year period laid down in the memorandum of understanding.
To date, the Commission has been pleased with the arrangement. It has resulted in the production of many programmes and has provided good coverage of events.
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I think it is worth mentioning that Parliament's services recently informed my own services that the presentation of information in programmes produced jointly with Euronews had changed, resulting in more balanced coverage of the work of the various institutions.
This is all I can say to the honourable Member on the subject of Euronews at the moment.
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<SPEAKER ID=157 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to thank you for your detailed reply, but I wish to add a remark and a question.
I understand from your reply that Euronews is no longer a channel owned by national broadcasting corporations, and, although you did not say so, I deduced that it is privately owned.
I would therefore like to ask whether the Commission has arranged for other satellite channel companies to compete for the production of the television programme, and if not, why not?
Then I would respectfully ask the Commissioner to provide me, if possible, with the memorandum that spells out the rules that relate to Euronews.
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<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Oreja">
I should like to tell Mr Seppänen that I personally am a great fan of Euronews and have done all in my power to bolster it.
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Initially, I was confronted with a situation in which the Community was directly involved in Euronews. It was involved in the management of the company and was therefore also affected by the implications of everything put out by Euronews.
I visited Euronews in 1997, and the situation seemed to be far from ideal. It seemed preferable for the Community and Euronews to reach an agreement whereby the Community would not be involved in the management of the company.
The agreement would refer instead to specific programmes.
The Community would specify the programmes it was interested in, aiming at very short programmes to be produced over a long period of time, rather than at television spots. This would ensure maximum coverage of issues related to the work of the institutions for as long as possible and with as much repetition as possible.
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This was therefore the type of arrangement reached. As the honourable Member is probably aware, I have maintained my involvement within the framework of the coordination that exists between Parliament and the Commission.
A meeting is held every six weeks or two months.
Mr Anatassopoulos leads Parliament's delegation, and I lead the Commission's. Four or five Members of Parliament attend together with four or five Commissioners, and we review all issues related to news output, giving particular attention to those concerning Euronews.
This enables us to keep a close check on the way the arrangement with Euronews is developing.
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Regarding the specific issue raised, one of the reasons why I proposed pulling out of the previous direct involvement in Euronews was that Euronews had ceased to be part of the national television networks and was essentially an independent channel.
This does not mean that it no longer has links with national channels, as the latter retain their investment in Euronews. At present, however, ITN - an independent channel - is the main owner.
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You will be aware that Euronews has undergone many changes of ownership throughout its history, but it is a matter of regret for me that public channels do not have a greater involvement in it.
I did approach several public channels.
In fact, I approached the Spanish and Italian public channels, and others who were already involved in some way. I suggested they become more involved and really make their presence felt in Euronews.
Unfortunately, they were very reluctant to do so.
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It is common knowledge that Member States are often only concerned about their national television channels, and they consider Euronews to be somewhat alien.
It appears close to us, but is rather more distant from the Member States.
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We therefore came to the agreement I outlined and I believe that, for now, it is satisfactory.
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<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="Evans">
The Commissioner said in his closing remarks that people are only concerned about their national television channels.
Well, I was concerned about Euronews.
At great personal inconvenience and considerable expense I paid the cable television company which has a monopoly on the service in my area to instal cable television so I could sit and spend happy hours in the evening listening and watching Euronews.
You will be interested to know, Commissioner, with your interest and support for Euronews, that after a period of six months, the cable company wrote to me and told me that Euronews was being withdrawn and that I have no further access to it by any means at all.
It is a sad little story but I knew you would be interested to hear it.
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<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Oreja">
Mr President, I can but make a note of the honourable Member's experience and state that I share his interest in Euronews.
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In my case, whenever I am late home, I always switch on Euronews to receive the latest news.
I can well understand therefore that the honourable Member would wish to find out about the latest news from Euronews.
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<SPEAKER ID=161 NAME="President">
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Question No 36 by María Izquierdo Rojo (H-1225/98) Subject: European City of Culture candidates
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On 30 October 1997, on the request of Parliament and the Council, the Commission submitted a proposal for a decision on the European City of Culture .
Parliament adopted this at first reading on 30 April 1998 , and the Council adopted a common position on 24 July 1998 .
As the Commission is aware, the Council's common position diverges sharply from the Commission proposal; in addition, by proposing a distribution by country for the period 2005-2019, it represents a major departure not only from the spirit of the proposal but from the primary objective of the initiative, namely the 'communitarisation' of the European City of Culture phenomenon.
Can the Community explain why it did not withdraw its proposal following the Council's adoption of its common position?
What line does the Commission intend to take on the common position?
Does the Commission not consider that it is somewhat premature as of now to begin the process of adoption of a Community initiative which will not come into operation until 2005?
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I give the floor to the Commissioner to answer Mrs Izquierdo Rojo's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="Oreja">
I am grateful to Mrs Izquierdo Rojo for the question she has raised.
This issue was debated in Parliament this very afternoon.
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo is aware that it is a matter of great concern to me, and I trust a satisfactory solution can be reached.
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The Commission has made its view on the common position abundantly clear.
At the appropriate time, the Commission put forward a proposal, which we believed to be reasonable.
And we believed it was a reasonable proposal because it provided for the choice of the European City of Culture to be devolved to the Community as a whole.
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I am not sure whether, of all the cultural events that take place and that have a Community-wide impact, the European City of Culture is the most significant, but it certainly receives the most publicity.
I do think, however, that we can do better than we are doing at present.
This very promising scheme was launched by Mrs Mercouri in 1985.
It has run from then until now.
As you will be aware, Weimar is the European City of Culture for 1999. It seemed to us however, and particularly to me, that there was scope for improving the procedure.
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How could the procedure be improved?
It could be improved by firstly ensuring that this was not just an event for the city, the region or the country concerned, and investing it with a truly European nature.
That is why the Commission suggested in its proposal that the Member States should nominate the city or cities they wanted to see as European City of Culture, outlining at the same time the genuinely European action they proposed to undertake during the year in question. The Commission would then consult with Parliament and with a contact group that could define the criteria involved.
In the light of the criteria and Parliament's report, the Commission would come to a decision and put its proposal to the Council.
The Council would then take a majority decision.
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The main problem that tended to arise, particularly in 1997 and 1998, was that the Council found it difficult to reach agreement when a unanimous decision was required.
A single country, under pressure from a single city, could make it impossible for agreement to be reached.
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So, we believed that this consultative approach was a good one. All interested parties would be involved, the Commission would put a proposal to Council and the Council would then take a majority decision.
In the event, this approach did not meet with Council approval.
The Council therefore unanimously adopted a common position. I was unsure as to whether the latter did or did not modify the Commission's proposal.
As a result, I referred the matter to the Legal Service.
The Legal Service stated that strictly speaking no such modification was involved, and that the procedure could therefore go ahead.
This is the situation in which we now find ourselves.
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So what else has happened?
Parliament today gave its declaration of intended rejection of the common position, which was debated along with Mr Monfils' proposal.
I was in Bonn yesterday, at the meeting between the Commission and the German Government, and met with the President-in-Office responsible for culture, the German Minister for Culture. The honourable Member must be aware that this is an event in itself, because never before has there been a minister for culture in Germany.
The Länder had them, but there were none in the government of the Federal Republic. My exchanges with Mr Naumann focused almost entirely on this issue, and I urged him to promote a three-way dialogue between Parliament, the Council and the Commission in an attempt to resolve this situation.
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I well understand Parliament's anger, indeed I share it, particularly as I had proposed a totally different method.
However, I would be sorry to see Community-wide involvement disappear completely, and not just be reduced, if no agreement were reached. There is a great temptation for governments to say: 'Why do we not just carry on as we have been with a purely intergovernmental method?'
This is how things stand at the moment.
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I have urged the Council and now urge Parliament to arrive at a compromise solution that would allow Parliament to table amendments at second reading. I will try to take over as many of those amendments as I can.
Perhaps we will then be able to find a way forward.
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Mrs Izquierdo Rojo can rest assured that I would never have accepted the proposal if it had not been a case of unanimity.
Given that it was, there was no other option, as she must certainly be aware.
In such cases, the Council's position takes precedence over the Commission's.
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<SPEAKER ID=163 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Rojo">
The Commissioner has not in fact told us anything we did not already know in his four and a half, almost five-minute lecture.
I now have only one minute in which to ask him something we do not yet know: does the Commissioner intend, in the days and weeks to come, to carry on washing his hands, taking notes and expressing his regret? Or will he perhaps find it in himself to finally adopt a more responsible attitude?
So far, all we know is that the minister could not have done a worse job with Granada, and that through this lunatic method of theirs of giving everyone a turn, the ministers for culture have turned something that used to be important into a farce.
We already knew all of this, Commissioner, but we expect you to adopt a position more in keeping with your post and with the Commission's responsibilities regarding such an important manifestation of European culture for which it is responsible.
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<SPEAKER ID=164 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Oreja">
I am sorry to hear you are so unhappy, Mrs Izquierdo, but I thought it appropriate to use those four and a half minutes to fill in the background to the situation. Though you were well aware of it, other Members of the House may not have been.
I therefore explained the sequence of events.
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I cannot invent the Treaty.
The Treaty exists and I am bound by it.
I cannot do more than has already been done.
If the Council takes a unanimous decision, I can only act as I have.
What I can do - and this is certainly something new, as it only happened yesterday - is to talk to the President-in-Office, tell him that this is a matter of the greatest importance and ask him to call an urgent meeting to try to reach some sort of compromise whereby we will perhaps be able to move forward and come to an agreement.
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You may ask what other course of action is open to me.
But my powers are limited.
Bear in mind that there is a serious danger here, though you can be quite sure that I shall guard against it.
I shall not take any action that might lead to the demise of the European Cities of Culture. Further, I shall do all in my power to provide the scheme with more of a Community spirit.
There is of course the risk that, at a particular juncture, the Council may not agree, and that it would then take a backward step and act simply through intergovernmental agreement.
This is what it did between 1985 and 1999, and it can continue to do so between 2000 and 2019, or for as long as it wishes.
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Consequently, the only course of action open to me at the moment is to try and persuade Parliament and the Council to reach an agreement.
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<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="President">
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Question No 37 by Bernd Posselt (H-1230/98) Subject: Celebrating the millennium
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What progress has been reached in the preparations for the celebrations for the year 2000?
Does the Commission intend to assign a high priority to Christian-Islamic-Jewish dialogue within these activities?
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I give the floor to the Commissioner to answer Mr Posselt's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="Oreja">
) For some years now, the Commission has been planning events linked to the millennium.
I have in mind the Hanover International Exhibition, the European Cities of Culture for the year 2000, and the 50th anniversary of the Robert Schuman Declaration.
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As regards millennium initiatives we are informed of by operators in the Member States, I have instructed my services to make provision for awarding specific European sponsorship to projects conveying the spirit of the construction of Europe.
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I also intend to propose to Parliament, the Commission, and the Council that the European institutions should send out a joint political message to the citizens on the theme of peace.
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Further, the essential process of collaboration with the Member States was launched on 30 June, when DG X called a meeting in Brussels of those responsible for national millennium celebrations.
It was gratifying to hear that all 15 Member States were represented and to realise that they were eager to collaborate amongst themselves and with the European institutions.
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I should however stress that the principle of subsidiarity will be strictly observed in any actions undertaken by the Commission.
The Commission will not merely hand out subsidies to all and sundry. On the contrary, it will concentrate on the type of projects I mentioned earlier, namely long-term projects that respond to the citizens' wishes.
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With regard to dialogue between Muslims, Jews and Christians, the Commission has no plans for a specific project of this nature.
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<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I would like to ask two brief supplementaries.
What part will music play in these celebrations?
There are organisations, such as 'Europa musicale', that are making very intensive preparations which also involve the applicant countries.
I wanted to ask you whether there are plans only for general festivities or also for genuine cultural events.
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Secondly, I asked specifically about the Christian-Islamic-Jewish dialogue.
After all, the year 2000 refers back specifically to the birth of Christ, which is when our calendar begins, and I therefore think we should include a dialogue with our neighbours, the Muslims and Jews, as this is increasingly becoming a domestic policy issue in our countries.
That is why I ask whether there are any plans to that effect.
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<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Oreja">
Neither of these two matters figures in the Commission's millennium planning for a simple reason: as far as the millennium celebrations are concerned, the Community's involvement in terms of Community policy will be minor. We do have certain programmes we will endeavour to carry out.
A cultural framework programme is scheduled for 2000 to 2005.
We are experiencing a very serious problem with this at the moment as one Member State has reduced its contribution to such an extent that it can hardly be termed a cultural programme any longer. Fourteen Member States have accepted the Commission's proposal, but a single Member State is opposed to it.
In the light of that opposition, and given the need for unanimity, it will not be possible to implement that particular framework programme for the time being.
<P>
This apart, many other programmes are planned to celebrate the millennium.
Large-scale projects are to be undertaken by all the Member States.
Nevertheless, from a Community standpoint, we shall concentrate on the three major events.
<P>
The other ideas put forward were all very interesting, but there are no plans to include in the Commission's programme any activities other than the three I mentioned. However, the Commission would, of course, consider any further proposals that might be made in connection with these activities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, Commissioner, World Expo 2000 will also be taking place that year.
At that world exhibition the first attempt will be made to introduce the electronic payment system across the board on a large scale.
Visitors will be coming from all over the world, some 40 million of them.
Have you any ideas on how we can also take account, during the celebrations, of this unique event, this huge experiment?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Oreja">
The Commission is currently considering what action it might take in connection with the Hanover International Exhibition. As things stand at the moment, we believe that a figure in the region of EUR 7 million - perhaps EUR 6 m, EUR 7 m or EUR 7.5 m - might be allocated to it.
Please do not write this down in black and white, but just take a rough note in pencil, as it is only an estimate.
<P>
Within the first three months of this year, that is, before the end of March, I shall be in a position to issue a communication concerning the action planned in connection with Hanover. A working party has been set up, and I am anxious for the matter to be brought to a conclusion by 30 March.
I shall naturally then report back to Parliament. In particular, it will be my pleasure to let the honourable Member know the details of the action planned for the occasion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
I should remind you that the Minutes are written in ink, so it will be rather difficult to include a pencilled note, as you suggest.
Perhaps you should have a word with the services producing the Minutes.
In any case, thank you for your contributions and for your presence amongst us today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 38 by Robert Evans (H-1178/98) Subject: Behaviour of Passengers on Aeroplanes
<P>
Would the Commission inform me if they have any plans to introduce tougher restrictions on the availability of alcohol and the behaviour of passengers on European flights in the light of recent violence inflicted upon flight staff?
<P>
I should like to welcome Mr Kinnock and ask him to reply to Mr Evans's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
The Commission is naturally aware of the problems caused by unruly passengers aboard aircraft and strongly condemns the violence and abuse which they inflict on crew and fellow passengers.
Because of the increase in the number and intensity of such incidents in several places, inside and outside the European Union, in recent times, the issue is now considered to be a priority for attention within the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the European Civil Aviation Conference(ECAC).
<P>
Both organisations are addressing the problem of unruly passengers as a general matter of aviation security.
They are making an assessment of current legal provisions and, in addition, collecting relevant information on the nature and the number of in-flight incidents involving unruly passengers.
Consideration is being given, amongst other things, to the need to adapt existing legislation so that prompt, effective and consistent action can be taken at a destination airport against passengers whose behaviour during the flight has been offensive.
<P>
The ECAC working group on security will discuss the relevant issues at its next meeting, which is in February, and the organisation is also arranging a workshop on these matters to be held in March.
<P>
Following these events, and taking into account the work of ECAC and ICAO, the Commission will consider what form of action may be appropriate in the Community or, alternatively, as part of wider international initiatives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 NAME="Evans">
I thank the Commissioner for his very comprehensive and most encouraging answer.
He will know well that, with Heathrow Airport in my constituency, this is one of the reasons why I am concerned about this area.
I am encouraged by his remarks and by the action the Commission is taking.
<P>
However, I have concerns as to how his action can be squared with the pressure to drink that is exerted on passengers by cabin crew - the ones who are very often the victims.
They, in turn, are pressured by their employers - the companies - to sell alcohol to make money.
We know that 99 % of bad behaviour is linked to alcohol.
If the suggested changes to the rules on duty-free mean that people will be encouraged to consume the duty free alcohol they have bought on the planes during the flight, this could further exacerbate the problem.
I am concerned to know how the Commission will actually enforce the legislation that I am delighted it is bringing forward.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 NAME="President">
Thank you very much.
Don't forget that this is not the House of Commons.
I give the floor to the Commissioner to answer the supplementary by Mr Evans, and I have two further supplementaries on this same question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 NAME="Kinnock, Neil.">
The honourable Member is right to say that alcoholic drink is involved in a large number of these incidents, but one of the purposes of the investigation being undertaken by the International Civil Aviation Organisation is to get reliable statistics on the causes and nature and, therefore, of course, on the origins and effects of the kind of incidents that concern him, as they concern me.
There is one very preliminary conclusion that can be drawn from the studies that have already partly taken place, and that is the extraordinary fact that, apparently, smoking bans on aircraft have partly the effect of creating an extra appetite for drink.
How reliable that evidence is we are not yet in a position to say.
I do not think that any one would suggest as an answer to it that smoking is reintroduced on airlines.
<P>
I will report to the honourable gentleman when we have more substantial information, and it may be that we will make legislative proposals on the basis of that information.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 NAME="McIntosh">
I welcome the Commissioner's remarks and I would be very interested to know what legal basis there would be under the Treaty for action. Action should be taken.
The volume of traffic and number of passengers travelling through Stansted Airport, which for the most part is very welcome within my constituency of North Essex and South Suffolk, is increasing and obviously passengers want to know that their safety is a paramount consideration.
Would the Commission consider encouraging Member States to liaise to prevent passengers, who are in the severely intoxicated state to which Mr Evans referred, from travelling.
They put other passengers' lives at risk and also the crew.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 NAME="Kinnock, Neil. -">
I would respond to the honourable Member by saying that we will certainly conduct further discussions with Member States.
That is an obvious course we will be glad to take.
It is difficult to say exactly what proposals we would want to make in respect of legislation until we have a complete analysis.
I am sure she would support that point of view.
<P>
If however the analysis pointed towards a productive effect of trying to introduce Community legislation, the basis on which we would seek to do this is the Treaty provision which gives us competence in the area of transport safety and passenger safety.
<P>
The gap in the current legal provision that is set down in the ICAO Convention which governs globally the conduct of passengers and the powers of aircraft commanders is that the aircraft commander has the duty of deciding whether an offence committed on board an aircraft is serious or less serious.
<P>
That is an invidious choice for an aircraft commander to have to make.
When the conclusion is that it is serious all states that are participants in ICAO have the power to arrest and detain those who are accused of unruly or abusive behaviour.
It is not so easy when the aircraft commander cannot conclude that their conduct has been very serious or grave, in which case states may choose not to exercise their powers of custody.
<P>
It is in order to refine these definitions and close that gap which can cause difficulties for everyone involved, with the exception of the culprit, that work is now being done on the current incidence of in-flight unruly behaviour and its consequences for crews and passengers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 NAME="von Habsburg">
May I first give you a short piece of advice.
The airline which I use to go to Brussels has already found a solution to your problem.
It offers such bad wines bought outside the Union that nobody wants to consume them.
<P>
I have a practical question which is of paramount importance for me.
Can you not obtain from the Commission or some other body a ruling that passengers should not take two pieces of luggage on board.
This endangers everyone in the event of a critical situation developing.
This should be enforced by the airlines.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 NAME="Kinnock, Neil.">
I will readily concede that the honourable Member has superior knowledge of wines.
I do, however, have people within my acquaintance who have been known to drink a great deal of bad wine simply because after the fifth or sixth glass they cannot taste it in any case.
So serving bad wines is not really a safeguard against unruly conduct.
<P>
The question of luggage is a slightly different one and I am sure that from time to time all of us have contravened the general rules in order to add to our convenience.
I would say that as long as the second piece of luggage does not consist of several bottles of booze, then it may be possible for the crew of an aircraft to manage to accommodate it.
In general it is not sensible either for personal security or the security of aircraft for people to try to take too many pieces of luggage.
Many airlines effectively enforce that rule.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 39 by Richard Howitt (H-1203/98) Subject: Trans-European transport networks and access for the disabled
<P>
Can the Commission indicate what measures are being proposed in the current revision of the guidelines on the trans-European transport networks to ensure that access for the disabled will be properly recognised in the guidelines and then implemented by the Member States?
<P>
I give the floor to the Commissioner to answer Mr Howitt's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
As the Honourable Member will know, the aim of the existing Trans-European Networks guidelines is to try to ensure sustainable mobility of persons and goods within the area without internal frontiers under the best possible social and safety conditions.
The objective also applies to people with mobility handicaps.
All decisions to build transport infrastructure projects, including the selection of technical standards, are of course primarily the responsibility of Member States.
<P>
The Commission is currently preparing a White Paper, which will be published this summer, setting out the approach to the future development of TENs policy and preparing for a revision of the guidelines.
In that context one possibility under discussion is the development of criteria relating to service levels, which could also include reference to access to the network for people with disabilities.
<P>
In preparing the White Paper the Commission has launched a broad consultation process and naturally we welcome the views of this House and of all interested parties, including disability organisations with which we enjoy very good and frequent contacts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="Howitt">
I certainly congratulate the Commissioner and endorse what he says about relationships with disability organisations as, for example, the work that his officials are involved with on the Bus and Coach Directive.
The progress that is being made there is very good evidence of that.
I support and encourage him to further consider the proposals about service levels and access for disabled people.
<P>
However, I would ask him to go further.
Can he look, when he talks about inter-operability, at linkages.
For example, it is no good having an accessible train if people cannot get into the station.
It is no good having a road network if the parking spaces are not there for disabled people.
Could he look at that issue and at information for disabled people so that blind people through use of braille, deaf people through use of textphone and other visual displays have full access to the information on the trans-European networks?
<P>
And although he said in his answer that it is the responsibility of the Member States to implement, is there anything in the White Paper that can push the Member States a bit further to make sure they do just that?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="Kinnock, Neil.">
I am very grateful to the honourable Member for his question and the way in which he phrases it.
<P>
In the case of connections between modes and within modes, on the issue of the design of vehicles - for instance, low-floor in which, as he says, the Commission research services and other services have played a very significant part - and in respect of the provision of clear and accessible information to travellers with disability handicaps, we can demonstrate that we are active in all those areas.
In the case of many Member States we are pushing at an open door.
The standard of responsiveness was far from perfect but has increased very significantly in recent years.
<P>
He may be interested to know about the work that we are doing in connection with the European high-speed rail system where we have given a mandate to the European Association for the Inter-operability of Railways to assess criteria for inter-operability of rail-related infrastructure, for instance, platforms.
This highlights the very point that he made in his supplementary question.
<P>
In particular, the association has been asked by us to use as an example of law relating to the access of disabled people the public transport legislation, civil rights legislation relating to disabled people, that has recently become law in the United Kingdom.
We hope that it will be possible, more broadly, to build on that model.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 NAME="Banotti">
To keep my record clean I should say that my question has already been asked by Mr Howitt.
<P>
We have quite considerable concern recently expressed in Ireland at the very small number of accessible buses.
Are you aware of this, Commissioner, and can you do anything about it?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="Kinnock, Neil.">
I have never assumed anything other than that the honourable Member had an absolutely spotless, unblemished record in all respects.
<P>
I am not in a position to draw attention to any power that the Commission has to try to ensure greater use of more accessible buses.
There is an irony: that the company which has an absolutely brilliant record of production of kneeling buses and low-floor buses is situated in Northern Ireland.
I hope that cross-border trade will intensify as Irish bus authorities in the Republic of Ireland take advantage of these excellent products.
<P>
I am happy to say that their purchase and use are becoming more widespread in several authorities and amongst several bus operators in the United Kingdom.
I hope that becomes a more general habit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Kinnock.
That was the last question to Commissioner Kinnock, as we have now reached the end of the time set aside for questions to him.
I should like to thank him for coming and wish him all the best for the coming year. I have every confidence that if we both make an effort, our timekeeping will improve in the future.
<P>
Questions Nos 40 to 42 will receive written answers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 43 by Mary Banotti (H-1180/98) Subject: Single supplements-travel costs
<P>
Can the Commission inform me whether the supplements applied to single people's travelling costs are contrary to Community Law?
<P>
I should like to welcome Mrs Bonino and ask her to reply to Mrs Banotti's question.

<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 NAME="Bonino">

The question being asked by Mrs Banotti was raised last year by Mrs McNally and answered by the Commission.
<P>
The Commission is aware that one of Mrs McNally's constituents, for example, has created a pressure group in the UK to campaign against supplements for single travellers.
The Commission would however point out that the only Community provision relating to the question raised by the honourable Member is the directive on package travel, package holidays and package tours. Article 2(4) of this directive, which has been adopted by the Council, defines the consumer as 'the person who takes or agrees to take the package'.
As the honourable Member no doubt knows, the directive also defines as a 'transferee' any person on whose behalf the principal contractor agrees to purchase the package - such persons being defined as 'other beneficiaries' - or any person to whom the principal contractor or any of the other beneficiaries transfers the package.
That is the position, Madam, as I am sure you know.
<P>
The Commission considers that single-person supplements derive from a commercial principle - higher prices for single travellers - a principle generally accepted by the market, in that these travellers generate higher accommodation costs which must obviously be reflected in prices.
Therefore the Commission does not deem single-person supplements to be contrary to Community law.
Without entering into the realms of subsidiarity or other such matters, the fact remains, in the Commission's opinion, that market forces are operating here: there can be no doubt that a single traveller creates higher costs, be it only in terms of room occupancy.
<P>
Moreover, travellers are normally made aware of the increased price, in that all advertising literature generally indicates the basic price and the supplement; so nor can the directive on unfair contract terms be applied.
<P>
Finally, as far as the Commission knows, these single-person supplements are fairly reasonable on the whole.
Above all they are made known, and therefore the directive on unfair contract terms cannot be invoked.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 NAME="Banotti">
I should like to thank the Commissioner.
She gives the bad news in the nicest possible way.
<P>
I would like to know if there is any indication that markets themselves are responding to what is an increasing number of single people perhaps just looking for 'the blessed peace of the single bed', to quote George Bernard Shaw.
I am surprised that they continue to charge supplements to single people who sometimes simply find it difficult to afford this.
I have also come across and been approached by constituents about a situation where special offers are offered, for example in the UK, which are not available to somebody coming, for example, from Ireland to pick up the tour in the UK.
Is this also a situation which is governed by market forces or is there, in fact, a problem with its legality?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bonino">
The honourable Member is quite right: nothing is as sensitive to market trends as the industries which profit from them.
We have certainly noted an upsurge in special offers for which there is no single-person supplement, precisely because agencies have grasped the fact that the number of single travellers is growing constantly.
The market is therefore responding very rapidly with special offers.
<P>
On the second question, relating to special offers intended for a particular target group or nationality, I would prefer to ask the Legal Service whether these might be discriminatory.
Before saying anything which could disrupt the market, I believe that it is only right to seek a legal opinion: the Commission will certainly do so, Madam, and will reply to you in writing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 44 by Daniel Varela Suanzes-Carpegna (H-1189/98) Subject: Outcome of EU-Canada talks on Canadian Fisheries Bill C-27
<P>
At the last EU-Canada summit held in Vienna, following an initiative from Commissioner Brittan, the Canadian Foreign Minister agreed that a joint EU-Canada committee of experts would undertake a detailed study of Canadian Fisheries Bill C-27, in order to determine whether it is compatible with international law.
<P>
A first meeting took place in Ottawa on 7 and 8 December 1998.
<P>
Can the Commission provide information on the outcome of this meeting?
<P>
I give the floor to the Commissioner to answer Mr Varela's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 NAME="Bonino">
I believe that here Mr Varela, who questions me on Canada once every two months on average, is just as determined as the Commission, which for its part misses no opportunity - and I shall mention three very recent dates - of pointing out to its Canadian counterpart that Bill C-27 is unacceptable.
<P>
The matter has been raised on three recent occasions: on 22 October, when Sir Leon Brittan met the Canadian Foreign Minister; on 7 December, at a meeting of senior fisheries officials in Ottawa; and finally on 17 December, at the EU-Canada summit.
<P>
What I think emerged very clearly on the last occasion was that the Canadians have no intention of amending Bill C-27.
They have said so repeatedly.
The new element, however - and the Commission is pursuing this possible solution - is Canada's apparent readiness to contemplate an interpretative statement making clear that Bill C-27 relates only to the application of the United Nations agreement.
This interpretative statement, if it did materialise, would be a worthwhile move on Canada's part.
<P>
In any event, I would add two further considerations.
Firstly, due to unfortunate timing, the discussion between the fisheries officials took place immediately after the International Court of Justice ruling in the proceedings brought by Spain against Canada for its detention in 1995 of the fishing vessel 'Styke'.
Even though the Court merely declared that it had no legal competence over that case, its declaration was taken in Canada as a decision on the substance of the dispute; this therefore made the Canadian authorities somewhat more unforthcoming.
<P>
Secondly, I am utterly convinced that - quite apart from unilateral Canadian statements along the lines of 'yes' or 'no', and we shall have to examine their content - the only way of averting disputes lies in accelerating the ratification of the UN Convention on straddling stocks.
As you know, an entire section of this Convention provides for binding dispute settlement, which would obviously prevent Canada from refusing to recognise the Court's jurisdiction, as it did in 1994/95.
<P>
In any event, above and beyond the negotiations, and as well as keeping events under daily - or monthly - review, the Commission is absolutely convinced that early ratification of the UN Convention is the most effective strategy available to us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Varela Suanzes-Carpegna">
Thank you for your explanation, Madam Commissioner.
As you must be aware, I have as much interest in this issue as the Commission. It is of key importance to fishing operations in international waters and, therefore, for international legislation.
A state that does not accept the jurisdiction of an international court of justice, that passes internal laws contrary to international legislation, that enforces these laws by seizing vessels, and that cannot then be tried by anyone represents a serious threat to fishing on an international level, and is a poor example to others.
<P>
However, I do not agree with you, Madam Commissioner, on what I believe to be a very important issue. I have to emphasise this, as things are not going well for us.
They are not going well for me and they are not going well for the Commission either. We are likely to go on discussing this matter here every two months, probably every month, as Canada is putting forward all the arguments it can think of against our case.
I differ inasmuch as I believe, as does the European Parliament, that ratifying the convention could give rise to long-term disputes if it is interpreted differently from the New York Convention.
The approach currently espoused by NAFO could lead to a solution. The best course of action would therefore be to decide not to ratify the convention, especially as it is in Canada's interest that we do ratify it.
This, therefore, is where we differ.
I urge you to give careful consideration to the matter. We may be called upon to show Canada the extent to which it has become a thorn in the flesh of its relationship with the European Union.
In conclusion, we must persevere, and perhaps not ratify the convention Canada is so anxious to see in place so that it can then apply it to suit itself.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bonino">
I am aware of Parliament's position, but I would ask you to consider that that is the very purpose of institutional dialogue.
It is because we find that differing interpretations of the UN Convention are an undoubted source of contention, and could increasingly become so, that - and I would stress this point - ratification is desirable, above all in respect of the pillar of the Convention relating to a binding dispute settlement mechanism.
Please bear in mind that we have no other means of solving potential disputes, and not only in Canadian waters or NAFO waters.
<P>
If the Convention were not ratified we would have no instruments at all; what if, for example, some other coastal state were to have a different interpretation?
As you said, others might follow the precedent, and we would then find ourselves without any binding instruments for the settlement of disputes.
This, it seems to me, is the part of the Convention which we should surely exploit.
Indeed, as you will remember, Mr Varela, what happened in the last episode, in 1995, is that Canada refused to recognise the competence of the Court of Justice, which has now in fact ruled that it is not competent.
So I fear that, unless a binding dispute settlement mechanism is established, Canada's example will be followed by others.
<P>
It is also up to the Member States to address themselves to this matter.
I am however keen to stress that the absence of a binding dispute settlement mechanism is certainly not to our advantage.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Bonino.
<P>
As the author is not present, Question No 45 lapses.
<P>
As they deal with the same subject, the following questions will be taken together:
<P>
<P>
Question No 46 by Ian White (H-1222/98) Subject: Puerto Morazan-Hurricane Mitch
<P>
Would the Commission please indicate how much money the EU has made available for emergency aid for Nicaragua and Honduras and how much EU aid is channelled through the NGO Community and international relief agencies?
<P>
<P>
Question No 47 by Christine Oddy (H-1232/98) Subject: Puerto Morazan - Hurricane Mitch
<P>
Would the Commission advise how much construction help, in the form of road and bridge repair teams and equipment, it has sent to Nicaragua and Honduras?
<P>
<P>
Question No 48 by Glenys Kinnock (H-1239/98) Subject: Response to natural disasters
<P>
ECHO has had to respond, during this financial year, to a number of tragic and costly emergencies and natural disasters.
Does ECHO have sufficient funding to deal with any new crisis which may occur?
<P>
I would therefore ask you, Commissioner, to reply jointly to these questions by Mr White, Mrs Oddy and Mrs Kinnock in the two minutes which we have left before 7 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 NAME="Bonino">
I shall also say a word in response to Mrs Kinnock's question, since it relates to the same subject.
<P>
First of all, the Commission can make available to the honourable Members, should they so desire, the recently approved overall plan for Central America; the plan contains all the detailed figures, and I can leave it with you now.
Very briefly, however, I can say that the first allocation - ECU 6.8 million - was approved on 4 November, in other words while the hurricane was still raging; a further package of ECU 9.5 m was approved in November, as soon as I returned from my visit; thereafter the Commission diverted or redirected for this disaster ECU 3 m which had previously been earmarked for other projects.
<P>
All these projects are implemented through NGOs, a list of which I have here and can leave with you.
The two plans have been approved by the Humanitarian Committee, to which all the Member States belong.
Directorate General 1B, headed by Mr Marín, recently released ECU 8.2 m in preparation for the overall reconstruction plan which, as the honourable Member knows, is to be presented to the Donors' Conference in Stockholm.
<P>
Concerning the other question, I would point out that one of the problems confronting us is that ECHO's ordinary budget is exhausted by half way through the year, and a whole series of unforeseen disasters compels us to engage in very lengthy and cumbersome procedures to mobilise the reserve.
That is precisely why, from this year onwards, we are seeing some improvement since now, at the start of the year, we have a more substantial allocation; this enables us to plan in a more orderly fashion, especially for crises which persist from one year to the next, drawing on the reserve only in truly unexpected crises which defy planning.
This is a budgetary matter which we are attempting to clarify with Mr Liikanen - some progress has already been made - so as to avoid the considerable difficulties which usually occur each July.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 NAME="Oddy">
I would like to know how much of the emergency aid has got through to Central America, what the difficulties have been getting that aid through and what the most pressing needs are now for the people of Central America and what can we do now to help them?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 NAME="Bonino">
The first projects which were decided on 4 November were immediately operational because we decided to use the NGOs which were already working in the field so that there were no gaps.
With the recent plan of ECU 10m, we have slightly enlarged the list of the NGOs.
One of the problems at the beginning was transport and how to reach a population where the bridges had all collapsed and there were no roads.
Finally, we had some success with helicopters but helicopters cannot carry large quantities of food.
<P>
The second point is that some of the governments were not exactly happy about working through NGOs but during my visit I made it very clear to the governments that, like it or not, the rules are that I cannot give money directly to a government but that we have to work through the Red Cross or the NGOs.
Finally they accepted this, even if some political tensions remain.
<P>
What we are doing now is concentrating mostly on Honduras and the north of Nicaragua.
We want to focus on drinking water in order to prevent epidemics.
There is no major need for food except for vulnerable groups.
The real major need is for drinking water in order to prevent epidemics.
The new plan is mostly concentrated on basic health care, the rehabilitation of pumps, and drinking water.
<P>
If you are interested, I can give you details of what every NGO is doing in the field.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="Kinnock, Glenys (PSE).">
At a time when the effectiveness of the Commission is being called into question I should like to commend the very fast and efficient response which ECHO made to the crisis in Central America.
<P>
In the light of the information you have given us, Commissioner Bonino, I should like to know what finances you have been able to direct to the recurring crisis in Bangladesh, a country with which my own country, the United Kingdom, is very concerned and involved.
Do you consider that ECHO has been able and will continue to be able to prioritise these needs as they occur on an annual basis in Bangladesh?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 NAME="Bonino">
I do not have the final exact figure on Bangladesh but I will obtain it for you.
What we have discovered over the past year is the major impact of recurring natural catastrophes.
Overall, in the action plan for 1999, we want to strengthen our natural disaster preparedness.
We even thought of having a disaster preparedness or natural catastrophe fund.
We are still considering whether it is wise, possible or viable to have a fund which can be more easily used to react to, prevent, or prepare for natural catastrophes.
This thinking requires a change in the Financial Regulation.
I do not know whether the political mood is to have more flexibility in spending.
We are still discussing what is the best way.
<P>
As far as Bangladesh is concerned, I will provide you with the exact figure.
I do not want to give you an inaccurate figure.
I will check it out.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
Since we have now reached the end of the time set aside for questions to the Commission, Questions Nos 49 to 79 will receive written answers.
<P>
That concludes Question Time.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 7.05 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Trading system and internationally recognised standards
<SPEAKER ID=203 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0423/98) by Mr Sainjon, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the communication from the Commission to the Council on the trading system and internationally recognised labour standards (COM(96)0402 - C4-0488/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 NAME="Sainjon">
Mr President, at a time when we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Europe, the world's most important trading power, owes it to itself to continue to further the idea of what I call 'social globalisation'.
I firmly believe that if the European Union wishes to have a high degree of credibility on this issue its own record must be irreproachable.
<P>
How can we be taken seriously by the developing countries when in the United Kingdom, for example, two million children have jobs, and 500 000 of these are under the age of fifteen?
Why do the authorities there refuse to ratify ILO Convention 138 on child labour?
I do not believe it is sufficient to have ratified the European directive on the protection of young people at work or the Social Charter; we must also apply the principles contained in them and take into consideration the fate of these thousands of children who work under extremely difficult conditions in the handling and construction sectors.
I could also mention Austria, which has not yet ratified Convention 138, and Ireland, which has not ratified Convention 111 on non-discrimination.
But even with regard to countries that are likely to join the Union, I believe that we need to take steps that are just as strict.
<P>
Given these circumstances, we must not hesitate to rely on the Declaration of fundamental principles, which was adopted by the ILO last June.
This includes the conventions on forced labour, child labour, non-discrimination and freedom to join a trade union.
Bringing these conventions together within a single unit constitutes a very important step as it means that the countries that have not ratified one or other of these conventions will still get to see reports on the subject.
<P>
The Union must therefore take action with the ultimate objective of requiring WTO members to have ratified this ILO Declaration on fundamental principles.
But attempts made so far with regard to the developing countries have all failed due to the negative approach that has been taken most of the time.
A change occurred in March 1998 when an incentive clause was inserted into the Community GSP for the first time, proposing to introduce a customs bonus for countries that respected these minimum social standards.
This helped to create a more positive approach to the social clause. This step could serve as a model for or indeed a precursor to the European Union's strategy in the World Trade Organisation.
<P>
Another strategy to promote labour rights at international level is represented by the hundreds of codes of good conduct introduced by multinational companies.
However, the right to join a trade union and the right to engage in collective bargaining are often forgotten.
<P>
It is for this reason that we must now go further.
As I see it, a code which is based on the Declaration on fundamental principles must be a minimum core.
In concrete terms, Parliament is calling on the European Commission to organise discussions on drafting a European code within a forum bringing together the European Trade Union Confederation, European employers and certain NGOs.
The European multinationals will be able to ratify it and their names will be published in the Official Journal of the European Communities and on the Commission's Internet sites.
<P>
The code will not contain sanctions but, thanks to the creation of a database, a special unit in the Commission would be able to monitor effectively the companies choosing this path.
However, in the long term, it is the WTO that can do most to promote a code of conduct.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, I would like to take the opportunity here in Parliament today to make a solemn appeal to all the international institutions, to the world's most noteworthy figures in the political, philosophical, religious and cultural spheres, to take a joint decision to finally launch a merciless fight to eliminate forced child labour from the world once and for all in the first decade of the 21st century.
<P>
What seems to be a new phenomenon is in fact age-old.
It is not acceptable to allow millions of children to languish in squalor, atrocity and suffering.
All children should be able to experience a childhood of play, a childhood of joy, hope and happiness.
We who are in a position of political responsibility have a moral duty to show determination in taking the exceptional measures needed to achieve the objective I am proposing; it is an objective inspired by the legacy handed down to us by those who fought, often at the cost of their own lives, to defend human rights throughout the world.
<P>
We must take a practical approach and consider what measures have proved to be successful.
Promoting education is a good thing but it is not enough.
The governments of the countries concerned must grant a substitute allowance of a few dollars a month to the families of children who stop working.
This is the only solution.
It must of course be accompanied by a very strict monitoring policy.
UNICEF has denounced the consequences of, for example, the closure or sudden departure of a multinational company.
The children do not then turn to school as an alternative but instead find themselves on the street once again, looking for a job to continue to provide for their family, and if they do not find work they often end up in the awful situation of becoming involved in prostitution.
<P>
Even though the fight for the social clause will be long and difficult, we really have tremendous scope for taking action today.
It is up to public opinion to take this on board and to politicians to show that they are not simply sitting back and watching the globalisation of the economy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 NAME="Schiedermeier">
Mr President, I am a member of a party that bears the word 'Social' in its name, and so the social market economy is a particular concern of mine.
That is why I very firmly support minimum social standards at the European level.
On the other hand, the globalisation of international trade, which is leading to a liberalisation of trade, investments and capital transfers, compels us to consider social development on a global scale.
In its 1995 World Development Report, the World Bank emphasised the importance of good industrial relations to the creation and maintenance of an efficient labour market.
This, however, presupposes a democratic system in which employees enjoy rights that enable them to thwart any attempts by governments to gain a competitive edge by means of discrimination, exploitation and repression.
<P>
A second conclusion suggests itself.
If international trade is to be potentially beneficial to a country, there must be scope to take decisions and express preferences.
In other words, we must grant people at least the same rights as workers that we accord them as consumers.
<P>
In my opinion on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, therefore, I emphatically endorse the demands for social clauses in international trade agreements.
This means that the Member States of the EU would insist on and promote the fundamental standards of social protection, principally in the framework of the International Labour Organisation.
It is absolutely essential that the work of the non-governmental organisations in pursuit of these goals should be supported by the EU and its Member States.
Moreover, incentives must be created and enhanced so that the developing countries can be induced to observe the basic social standards - in other words, no sanctions and no concealed protectionism.
We should also support trademark campaigns, such as the Rugmark and many others born of consumer initiatives, as well as voluntary undertakings by companies to respect fundamental human rights.
<P>
The committee also supports the inclusion of social clauses in the trade and cooperation agreements concluded by the EU Member States.
My opinion contains a proposal for the wording of such a clause.
I thank Mr Sainjon for repeating and amplifying in his report the call I made in the opinion, although I do feel that he has overstretched his demands.
Excesses are sometimes unhealthy.
What I do not understand, however, is why, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, Mr Howitt is seeking to delete the good example of the United States from Amendment No 10.
I do not really wish to support that deletion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papakyriazis">
Mr President, let me say that I feel particularly honoured today because first of all I am here to speak as the representative of the large Socialist Group after the two rapporteurs, Mr Sainjon and Mr Schiedermeier, and also as a member of both committees, the Committee on External Economic Relations and the Committee on Social Affairs, in both of which I had the opportunity to take part in person throughout the lengthy process of preparing these reports.
I can therefore express sincere congratulations to the rapporteurs and the committees which, by virtue of a thorough and open procedure, were able to enhance the original reports.
<P>
I will not attempt to reiterate or add anything to what the rapporteurs said.
I will declare my support by referring to two points.
<P>
Firstly, I wish to dwell particularly on and to underscore how important it is, today, just a few days after the introduction of the euro, for us in the European Parliament, us in the European Union, to spell out the true dimension of global society.
This is none other than the fact that alongside the global market there is also - I repeat, there is also - another dimension, a global social policy of solidarity.
To this I wish to add that it has been shown by authoritative bodies such as the World Trade Organisation that there is no contradiction, no conflict between this and economic development which is at the same time a prerequisite for social prosperity.
<P>
Secondly, I wish to stress that today, in this phase we are passing through towards enlargement, we in the European Union must insist, by clarifying and refining the Copenhagen criteria, that human rights should be included in this process.
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<SPEAKER ID=207 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Günther">
Mr President, this is not the only time this week that we shall be discussing a code of conduct for international transactions, since tomorrow's agenda, as you know, includes a report on the same subject which was compiled on the initiative of the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
I believe there are a few points about these reports on which we have to come to a basic understanding.
The first is that we do not have the right on the one hand to include extraterritorial provisions in such reports, and then to criticise the United States in connection with the Helms-Burton Act.
<P>
Secondly, the developing countries must also be brought into this discussion if it concerns them, for they do not wish to have standards imposed on them over their heads either, standards they have played no part in formulating.
<P>
Thirdly, child labour is a vital point in this whole issue.
If this is a report about recognised standards, it should surely take more account of social standards and of other forms of work, instead of being confined to one point that virtually swamps the entire report.
International agreements naturally require clarity and precise alignment, so that they can be recognised and observed, especially if we have to insist that this should be a voluntary code of practice.
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<SPEAKER ID=208 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
- (NL) Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, agreements on internationally recognised labour standards most certainly fall within the remit of the International Labour Organisation.
However, the implementation of agreements entered into is another matter, especially when we are talking about banning child labour.
The rapporteur sees a clear role for the European Commission in this field, but unfortunately this role must be limited as the European Union is not a member as such of the International Labour Organisation.
Nevertheless, the rapporteur still feels that the Union has certain responsibilities here.
<P>
This brings me immediately to my second point.
In Article 19 of the resolution the rapporteur requests a European initiative in the fight against child labour.
I should very much like to support this, but he proposes, first of all, introducing compensation for families whose children are forced to work and, secondly, education for children in the countries concerned as well as supporting measures.
<P>
This would be an excellent proposal if the Union had any powers in this field.
I also wonder whether the rapporteur realises what the financial consequences would be for the Union if we granted a guaranteed income to families in developing countries.
I estimate the EU's budget would double.
The Liberal Group is of course solidly behind the banning of child labour.
But income support is not the way to go about it.
What is vital is education, as the rapporteur has indeed recognised, not only for boys but first and foremost for girls.
I therefore call on honourable Members to support the Liberal Group's amendment to Article 19 which calls for the combating of child labour by means of European measures to support children's education.
<P>
The European Union must assume its responsibilities in this field, preferably by cooperating with international organisations such as UNICEF and UNESCO.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herzog">
Mr President, I would like firstly to congratulate Mr Sainjon on his excellent report.
Observance of social rights in international trade is a fundamental issue and one that has been under consideration for more than a century without any significant results.
One of the major causes of this failure is doubtless the protectionist and unilateral approach of the economically dominant countries.
<P>
It must therefore be clear that the affirmation of respect for human rights is not just a matter for the poor and emerging countries but also for the developing countries and in particular for the countries of the European Union. It also requires real solidarity.
<P>
It is with this in mind that a strategy has been undertaken by the European Parliament in recent years - and of course André Sainjon has played a very important part in this - to give the European Union a kind of two-pronged role: as a regional power that can introduce the principles of a social clause into its external relations and, to complement this, that can also act multilaterally, its main concern being, of course, to promotion the multilateral approach.
<P>
With regard to internal strategy, beyond what was undertaken within the system of generalised preferences, the committee and its rapporteur want the European Union to develop other dimensions to its own action, in particular in the case of its trade and cooperation agreements and agreements on aid to investment.
On the issue of codes of conduct, we have a subtle approach; this will later be coupled with a study of how to incentivise countries to apply sanctions, but it is obviously a step in the right direction.
Similarly, it is right that, on the issue of child labour, we should give examples of incentive schemes that go in the direction we wish to take.
<P>
Of course, we must at the same time take multilateral action - this second role reinforces the first, and the first is not possible without the second - and this is done by means of two major ideas. The first involves not only recognising fundamental social rights but also beginning to put in place instruments for enforcing observance, in cooperation with the ILO and the WTO.
The second involves pursuing policies that allow affirmation of the joint imperatives of competitiveness and social progress at multilateral level. This presupposes very strong objectives such as the abolition of child labour or education of children, objectives that must be developed at the same time perhaps as pursuing other possibilities such as setting up or improving upon systems of social protection.
But this is undeniably a very good report.
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<SPEAKER ID=210 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am certainly very pleased that we in Parliament are now recognising the right of employees throughout the world to decent working conditions.
The ILO Conventions are undoubtedly very helpful in that respect.
It is high time we implemented them, but how?
In the debate on the World Trade Organisation and the GATT agreements, there were absolutely no problems involved in deciding on everything, even enforceable sanctions, that would further the cause of deregulation and liberalisation.
But when it is a matter of creating acceptable conditions for people at work, out come conventions that are not binding, and suddenly we are being warned not to rush into things and not to create excessive burdens.
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There is only one thing I can say to you: if we do not finally make up our minds to introduce binding standards, we shall gradually create the same conditions that exist elsewhere.
It is surely unacceptable that people all over the world are now being pitted against each other in a race to achieve the grimmest working conditions, the lowest pay levels and the worst social standards.
And yet that is precisely where this development will lead, which is why I am so delighted that Mr Sainjon has presented such a clear report.
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<SPEAKER ID=211 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Karamanou">
Mr President, in light of what the German Presidency has said today and the emphasis placed on respect for human rights, I think that adoption of the excellent report by Mr Sainjon would constitute direct confirmation both of Europe's predominant value system and of the broader strategic role that the Union is called upon to play at world level.
<P>
The need for balance between the liberalisation of international trade and commerce, on the one hand, and viable economic development with respect for human and social rights on the other hand, is today a sine qua non for the very survival of our planet.
That is why we must achieve agreement about commonly accepted rules and the way they should be implemented, and why a code of basic social obligations should be drawn up.
To this end, the Union should forthwith take priority measures as follows:
<P>
Firstly, it should give active support to the initiatives of the International Labour Organisation and facilitate its cooperation with the WTO, with the aim that all WTO members should ratify at least the ILO's declaration of fundamental principles.-Secondly, it should take action to combat forced child labour and to finance programmes that assist the school education and vocational training of children, with parallel compensation - I agree with that - for loss of family income.
Besides, we have the very good example of the Union's programme for Pakistan.As mentioned in a recent report by the International Labour Office, approximately 250 million children all over the world, aged between 5 and 14 years, are working under harsh conditions for humiliatingly low wages, while 120 million children have to give up their schooling to take up work.
Just recently there have been revelations about child labour in Turkey and about the behaviour of some multinational companies.
<P>
Finally, I should like to say that with its continually increasing profile, authority and political power, the European Union can intervene effectively to establish labour norms which will respect human rights all over the world.
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<SPEAKER ID=212 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Mr President, Commissioner Marín, ladies and gentlemen, the debate on the excellent report by Mr Sainjon allows us to measure once again the distance between the progressives and certain conservatives on social issues and on the importance to be given to employees throughout the world and in all companies.
<P>
The size of this divide may be interesting.
But does it really come as a surprise?
The report by André Sainjon may enable considerable progress to be made in terms of social standards.
It introduces into economic relations values and standards promoting collective bargaining.
It takes up the fight against the exploitation of children, which includes employing them to make toys for our own children.
It is therefore without the slightest hesitation that I support his appeal and his proposals, which demonstrate both pragmatism and a real political will.
<P>
In this regard, I am particularly pleased with the introduction of social clauses for undertakings benefiting from Community measures for investment in third countries.
In line with this proposal, I would like to see this mechanism extended in future to undertakings which respond to invitations to tender in the area of public procurement.
Authorities should be able to set out basic principles and minimum social conditions in their tender specifications.
<P>
As you know, in public procurement accepting the lowest bid all too often means accepting the lowest bid in social terms both within and on the part of the undertaking chosen, and this is not good for anyone, especially not the employees.
<P>
Finally, to conclude, although I support the proposal to list in the Official Journal and on the Commission's Internet sites the companies that do not observe the minimum social rules that have been fixed, I admit that, personally, I would have preferred more tangible or heavier sanctions. However, for all that, I must say once again that I fully support the report and proposals by André Sainjon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, the Commission welcomes this excellent report by Mr Sainjon, which demonstrates once again his sensitivity in these matters. We believe that this is the right time to take stock of the European Union's policy on such a sensitive and ever-changing issue, and I think that Parliament and the Commission have always cooperated actively and successfully in this area.
<P>
From a general point of view, the Commission agrees with the analyses, questions and concerns set out by Mr Sainjon and, in general, by the European Parliament. And it is true to say that as far as this issue is concerned, we are at a crossroads.
Since the first major debate on this matter in Parliament, in 1994, we have taken various measures. One of these - and this was a very important point when we first discussed the matter - was to reject an approach relying on constraints, sanctions or protectionism, an approach that was also clearly rejected at the World Trade Organisation's Ministerial Conference in Singapore in 1996.
Instead, the European Union decided to follow the line recommended by the European Parliament by defining a policy based on the promotion of internationally recognised social standards through incentive schemes, such as those that come under the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP).
We joined our partners throughout the world in a dialogue based on cooperation and encouragement. This is illustrated in what we believe to be the most significant advance made, that is, the negotiations with the Pakistani Government on the IPEC programme, which is a very ambitious programme where we have done all we can to increase our level of cooperation with Pakistan.
<P>
To reply to what other speakers have said, such as Mr Kreissl-Dörfler, this agreement has at least been signed.
We must now look at how we are going to implement it. In any event, this is an example of how the Commission does sometimes get things right.
The negotiations with Pakistan were far from easy, but we now have a very important and clear project that is going to be implemented there on the highly sensitive issue of child labour.
<P>
Therefore, Mr Sainjon, I believe that the approach taken by the European Commission is entirely in line with the report adopted by Parliament in 1994.
We have also acted on negative aspects such as in the specific case of Burma, where we had to adapt the entire procedural system at the request of the European Trade Union Confederation and NGOs, as there were no precedents on how the Commission might exclude Burma from the benefits of the GSP.
<P>
As a result, the assessment of the Union's policy is, in principle, a positive one, taking into account that we need time to develop the programmes.
We have a policy based on incentive schemes and to apply it we have the special mechanism of the GSP at our disposal.
However, this is clearly not enough and we believe that the European Parliament, and particularly Mr Sainjon, are right to emphasis that point.
<P>
There are still many obstacles to overcome to ensure that this policy is suitably implemented on the ground.
The first of these lies in the mechanism itself, the Generalised System of Preferences.
This mechanism is limited by its very definition.
It involves an additional preferential margin of between 15 % and 25 % according to the products involved, yet this is currently very limited since, as the WTO negotiations progress, the preferential nature of the GSP is naturally going to diminish and it will become less attractive as time goes on. This is a reality that we have to face.
As a result of this, the tariff margins will gradually become less and less appealing over the long term.
<P>
Following on from the invitation made to the Commission in the report, it would be extremely interesting to look at how social and environmental aspects could be given full consideration in the trade agreements the European Union negotiates or plans to negotiate, particularly in cases involving free trade or the progressive liberalisation of exchanges.
<P>
I am referring here, first and foremost, to the region that affects me personally, that is, the Mediterranean countries, the ACP countries - if this idea is accepted in the review of the new agreement - and Latin America, with Mercosur and countries such as Chile and Mexico.
<P>
Obviously, this strategy must not put the objectives of the common commercial policy at risk.
There is also a series of interesting precedents, including the fact that such clauses are already included in the Free Trade Agreement for the Latin American region and, as you know, they also exist in the bilateral agreements with Chile and Canada.
As a result, I would say that, although progress is slow, little by little this philosophy is starting to spread.
<P>
The Howitt report, which we are going to debate tomorrow, covers the issue of the code of conduct for European undertakings, and we do indeed need to make progress in this area.
<P>
Another interesting idea is the European initiative on the creation of the financial conditions required for a genuine accompanying policy to help families and provide education for children. The Commission will obviously have to consider this matter.
<P>
Nonetheless, leaving aside these additional provisions, we cannot ignore the reality of the matter.
The real obstacle is not a technical one but is, above all, a political one.
The mechanism - the Generalised System of Preferences - exists and could still be used. However, it is not being used, or at least it is not being used sufficiently.
<P>
Since 25 May 1998, when it was adopted, only one country has requested the benefits involved in the so-called social clause.
That country is Moldova.
That is the only request we have received.
Moldova's request only represents a small step, but it is at least of some significance.
The other countries are reluctant to take the initiative, so we must therefore establish political dialogue to overcome this reluctance on the part of many third countries to look at social standards and trade on the same level.
There is still no international debate that would allow us to convince third countries asking for the GSP benefits to move in the direction we all want. We must admit that many of them still believe that this constitutes interference in their internal affairs.
They look at it from a political point of view and say that that is what the ILO is for and that it is enough to sign the ILO's conventions. In their view, there is therefore no reason why the European Union should seek bilateral agreements in this area, as it means interfering in their internal affairs.
<P>
Moreover, the GSP's social clause does not cover a sufficiently broad geographical area.
As you know, we had proposed to the Council that the social clause be extended.
However, the Council rejected this Commission proposal and, for once, allow us to render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto the Council the things which are the Council's. The Council is not normally present during this type of debate and, as a result, the Commission always has to take responsibility for explaining such things.
I myself do not fully understand why the Council rejected this proposal from the Commission, but that is exactly what happened.
<P>
We believe that we should support the ILO, which, as you know, is currently trying to apply a series of mechanisms.
The problem with the ILO mechanisms is that their scope is limited precisely because all three parties have to agree.
I was talking to Mr Hansen and I proposed to him that, if the ILO agreed, we could hold a large conference involving the member countries, trade unions and third countries with a view to determining which exact elements would provide clear motivation to enable us to implement this policy. This proposal is currently being considered.
<P>
In my view, it is fitting, as you point out in your report, that the WTO has decided to amend Article 29 and to make social standards a criterion for entry to the WTO.
This is an issue that should be discussed within the European Union.
It will be an extremely delicate matter as you will be aware that the Member States are very divided on this issue.
<P>
It was suggested that we make the accession of the applicant countries conditional on a specific criterion relating to the ILO conventions. We already took the main aspects of this into consideration when screening the applicant countries.
In fact, it is only natural that an ILO convention that has been signed by the European Union or by its Member States forms part of the acquis communautaire , and I do not believe that there are any particular problems for the applicant countries or those who eventually want to join in terms of accepting the European Union's general system.
<P>
Finally, I must point out that this debate is far from over.
As I said, the Commission agrees with the criteria set out in the Sainjon report.
I recognise that we are making only slow progress, but we are following the right philosophy.
There can be no alternative.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Transport - infrastructure - satellite navigation
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0372/98 by Mr Danesin, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on public-private partnerships in trans-European transport network projects (COM(97)0453 - C4-0020/98); -A4-0375/98 by Mr Jarzembowski, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the Commission Green Paper on sea ports and maritime infrastructure (COM(97)0678 - C4-0022/98); -A4-0413/98 by Mrs Langenhagen, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the communication from the Commission: Towards a Trans-European Positioning and Navigation Network: A European Strategy for Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) (COM(98)0029 - C4-0188/98).
<SPEAKER ID=216 NAME="Sisó Cruellas">
<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="Jarzembowski">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as the rapporteur, let me begin by thanking my colleagues on the Committee on Transport and Tourism for their constructive cooperation.
The report was adopted unanimously by the committee after detailed discussions among the individual Members and the groups.
So you see that, for all the issues that may be discussed today and tomorrow in this Chamber, there is still a constructive and cooperative working atmosphere in the specialised committees.
My sincere thanks go to my colleagues for that.
<P>
In our report, we have delivered an opinion on the Green Paper of December 1997.
We have been relatively quick and have tried to incorporate all the information we obtained from the port operators and the trade unions.
So we did not attempt to confine our deliberations and our labours on the Green Paper within an ivory tower.
Together with the Commission, we reached the conclusion - and this was not always the view in port circles - that there ought to be an effective European policy on sea ports, albeit limited in scope in deference to the solidarity principle.
That had been disputed for many years.
<P>
As we see it, this European sea ports policy has two primary objectives.
The first is to establish fair competition at long last among the European sea ports.
There is still no escaping the conclusion that competition among sea ports is distorted by regional and national aid, and that is simply in total contradiction to the principles underlying the single European market.
<P>
As for the second objective, we are entirely convinced that the interests of sustainable mobility would be best served if the Community's supply lines did not converge on a small number of major ports but if a thoroughly decentralised system were used with numerous peripheral ports, thereby avoiding a great many overland transport operations and making the transport system easier on the environment.
This would naturally imply the need to promote the development of some of the smaller ports or the creation of new ports, but that too must be governed by the precept of non-interference with fair competition among the sea ports.
<P>
So what are the concrete implications of these two objectives in terms of what we are asking the Commission to do?
First of all, the Commission should at long last present a transparency study on the conditions of competition between and within sea ports.
I have already said that national and regional aid distorts competition.
But it also handicaps those ports and companies which have become more efficient through their own efforts and want to remain effective.
Steps must be taken to ensure that efficiency cannot be undermined by illegal subsidies, but the relevant facts must be on the table.
You have a host of facts, but you have not collated these facts and presented them to us.
That is our first priority.
<P>
Secondly, irrespective of the transparency study, the Commission is already required to impose penalties for the violation of competition law and to investigate suspected infringements.
You should do that more often.
You know a great deal, but it is our view that we need guidelines on aid to sea ports and on verifying compliance with competition law if all ports and port companies are to be treated fairly, and we need those guidelines before 2001, which is the date suggested in a paper from your institution, Commissioner.
In actual fact, we should have had them five years ago.
We need clear guidelines so that, when it comes to certain practices which have become established in one or other of the Member States, it can be made clear that the practice in question has to stop.
The system must be changed.
We need fair competition.
The ports and companies will have to learn to live with that.
<P>
Another essential aspect of these guidelines is that the funding of infrastructure facilities in the realm of port operations and maritime transport must be subdivided into three categories: public ports, where infrastructural measures need not be notified or checked because they do not constitute state aid; company-related measures in the domain of port infrastructure, which constitute state aid unless they are refinanced and therefore do not possess the characteristics of aid, otherwise they are subject to aid legislation; company-related measures in the domain of port superstructure, on the other hand, are always subject to aid legislation in our view, in other words they are essentially inadmissible.
I shall not go into the question of exceptions here.
<P>
In conclusion, let me make this appeal to the Commission: create transparency, take action against offenders, but do not create new legislation, Commissioner.
Our committee takes the view that, at least for the time being, there is no need for either a directive on port-related infrastructure, fees or terminals, or a directive on market access for providers of port services.
I can assure you that Dutch tugs have penetrated the Hamburg market, and tugs from Hamburg are achieving the breakthrough in Antwerp.
It will work without new legislation if the Commission supports the market forces.
That is why we ask the Commission to carry on working with the current legislation.
Spare yourselves the trouble of making new laws, and operate instead with the existing legislation on state aid and competition; protect the ports that are progressing by their own efforts, and let us cooperate in supporting the others, but the paramount aim must be to preserve a level playing field.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="Langenhagen">
Mr President, Commissioner, allow me to begin with a word to my honourable friend: Georg, I was delighted to hear your sentence about the small sea ports.
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The global navigation satellite system, GNSS, enables us to meet the increasingly high demands for up-to-date information on locations and times in our daily work and leisure.
It offers ever greater efficiency within the transport infrastructure, while enhancing safety and reducing environmental pollution.
In short, with a European GNSS we shall be able to create a more efficient and environmentally friendly general transport system in Europe.
If I may cite a few examples, satellite-guided air traffic control will make the work of flight controllers easier, thereby ensuring greater passenger safety.
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In the realm of road transport, the loads and locations of heavy goods vehicles will be accurately identifiable at any time, which will allow more precise planning of distribution operations.
Perhaps the best-known application of satellite-based navigation technology is in the area of shipping and fisheries, where it was initially boycotted but then used as a matter of course.
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As far as leisure activities are concerned, a growing number of amateur sailors have equipped their yachts with satellite-based navigation technology.
The number of potential new applications appears to be infinite.
Imagine the thoroughly conceivable scenario that amateur mountaineers too will become dependent on satellite navigation systems in the future.
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So when we speak of GNSS, we are not talking about a technological breakthrough that will benefit only a few people, but rather of a new mass market.
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At the present time, two satellite navigation systems are available for use - the American GPS and the Russian GLONASS. Both of these systems, however, have distinct disadvantages as far as we Europeans are concerned.
Both are state-controlled and are designed for military purposes.
The Americans make a point of restricting the availability of their system for civilian use, which makes it far from ideal for European users. This manifests itself in a lack of accuracy, combined with an excessively high risk of technical failure and unduly long waiting times in the event of the system breaking down, as has already happened.
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This means there is no guarantee that the system will always be available.
By becoming users of the American GPS, we are therefore making ourselves highly dependent on the Americans and on their willingness to provide us with more or less comprehensive signal transmission.
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In the future, worldwide satellite-based communication networks will be established.
These represent an enormous growth potential for European space research, and they also give Europe the opportunity to prove itself in global competition and to challenge the dominant suppliers.
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We can even establish a leading position here.
So GMSS really does have enormous market potential, and Europe can perhaps provide the world's first civilian supplier in this segment of the market.
The first step in this direction has just been taken with the conclusion of a convention which lays down the ground rules for close cooperation between the three European institutions in this field - the Commission, the European Space Agency - ESA - and the European air safety organisation Eurocontrol.
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The strategy of the EU is based on a two-stage approach. In the first stage, the aforementioned signals will be used as a basis, but their accuracy and integrity will be improved by means of additional ground- and space-based infrastructure that already exists.
The second stage will then see the creation of an independent European system for civilian use or - and this is my own preferred option - a system of international cooperation with the same objective.European industry will secure a broad operational base on which it can develop a variety of applications of this new technology in an innovative and constantly expanding global market.
This will also result in new jobs in research, development, equipment and services. The two-stage model will pave the way towards this new market.
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There is, however, one problem, which is the question of funding.
The public sector will not bear the entire cost of such a system, and so there is a need for some logical and detailed propositions.
We need only think of what Mr Sisó has just been saying about the public-private partnership model, which will surely have to be a feature of the funding formula.
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And so, to address all the players in politics, industry and research establishments, when you develop the satellite navigation system for Europe, you should create equal access to all potential applications of this innovative basic technology, which is here to stay.
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<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="Ettl">
<SPEAKER ID=220 NAME="Scapagnini">
Mr President, Europe's competitiveness in the maritime sector is increasingly dependent on the transport and port system: 90 % of the EU's traffic with third countries and 30 % of intra-Community traffic passes through the ports.
Hence the obvious need to adopt the appropriate policies, designed in particular to preserve the competitiveness of the EU maritime sector, which accounts for 2.5 million jobs, and to safeguard the prospects for cooperation with the applicant countries and the Union's Mediterranean neighbours, which also represent a major challenge for the immediate future.
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An essential precondition is to apply policies to remove the existing imbalance between southern and northern ports; there is no sign of this, however, in the Green Paper's strategy.
The Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, which I have the privilege of chairing, considers that the aim should be to recover the costs incurred in providing port services, while the infrastructures should be financed from the revenue generated by port activities. Self-financing is essential if ports' accounts are to be transparent; this is a precondition for free competition.
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The fifth RTD framework programme deals with the question of ports, maritime infrastructure and marine technologies, devoting particular attention to sustainable mobility, intermodality and research into sustainable marine ecosystems.
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Finally, the Research Committee supports the Council of Europe's proposal for the creation of a European Maritime Agency, which would be responsible for encouraging cooperation between centres of excellence in Europe, the European maritime industry and the relevant political decision-making bodies; the cooperation model employed could be along the lines of Eureka.
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<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="Maes">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Jaak Vandemeulebroucke whom I have succeeded as rapporteur for the Committee on Regional Policy, I should like to stress a number of points made in the committee, including how difficult it is to implement uniform measures in an area where there is so much diversity in terms of organisation and ownership structure.
I should also like to stress the importance of integrated and multimodal transport.
I am pleased that the exclusive interest in road transport is progressively being replaced by other priorities.
I would also mention the importance of ports as a connection for Europe's less developed regions and also emphasise the great geographical diversity.
The report does indeed refer to the difficult position of certain insular locations, but I would also point out that some major sea ports are located inland.
I live close to Antwerp, so you will understand what I mean.
It requires dredging operations costing 8 billion a year to keep the port open and it would be a disaster for this sea port's competitive position if the cost of this dredging had to be passed on to the user.
You will understand that we are looking at the specific measures that will result from the implementation of your policy.
Unlike major southern European and Norwegian and British ports, our ports cannot make use of ERDF aid and the Cohesion Fund.
I hope the Commission will see fit to take account of this geographical position.
I am also very pleased that you intend to implement an integrated town and country planning policy, as our ports are very greedy when it comes to space.
I should like to take this opportunity to express my solidarity, here in the House, with a small village in my neighbourhood, by the name of Doel, which is condemned to disappear due to Antwerp's expansion.
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<SPEAKER ID=222 NAME="Pompidou">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I very much admire Mrs Langenhagen's remarkable report, which defends a European strategy for global navigation systems for civil use.
It is a complex issue because of its very technical nature, but the system is also an eminently political issue in that the independence of Europe in the field of air traffic control is at stake.
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The GNSS is a prime example of complementarity between the European Commission and the European Space Agency involving Eurocontrol, which also applies to the EGNOS programme.
This being the case, I will underscore three points voted for by the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, and which I, as draftsman of its opinion, have tabled as amendments.
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Firstly, we must emphasise the need to promote, by means of the fifth framework programme of research, the basic research and technological demonstrations required to develop high performance satellites that are adapted to the needs of navigation and positioning, and also the need to improve ground installations and in particular on-board equipment on the different vessels, aircraft and land vehicles.
In fact, the GNSS world market is in the order of EUR 40 billion, of which satellites represent 10 million and ground installations and on-board equipment represent 30 million.
The improvement and in particular the safety of air traffic is one of the challenges of the European GNSS but we must also aim to improve the management of sea and land traffic and also of road and rail transport.
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It is also important to extend the use of the GNSS to other applications such as those mentioned by the rapporteur, Mrs Langenhagen, and in particular for sea rescue.
In this context, it is essential to identify correctly the location of the ground installations and, in particular, to ensure that they marry up to airport installations and sea and land transport communications centres.
Europe will thus have not only a satellite navigation and positioning system but also the means to use it to improve air, land and sea traffic, which is the ultimate aim of the European GNSS.
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<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="Malerba">
Mr President, I shall devote part of my four minutes' speaking time to the Green Paper.
Indeed, that is where I should like to begin: the Green Paper on sea ports and maritime infrastructure has aroused great expectations, not least because for the first time ports are recognised as an integral part of the trans-European network system.
Yet it has aroused some concern among port operators concerning the funding of port infrastructure, in that full account does not appear to have been taken of the difference in circumstances between Europe's northern and southern ports.
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After a long period of stagnation, traffic in the Mediterranean has experienced its fastest growth ever over the past ten years, as a result of the increase in international traffic via the Suez route and in local traffic, including that of passengers.
Growth rates in double figures have been recorded, and many ports have at last become more business-oriented, organising themselves in a more up-to-date, competitive fashion.
Nevertheless, in the main the infrastructure is still inadequate to cope with this growth.
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What is more, the nature of institutional and administrative cooperation between port authorities and local administrations still differs considerably from one sea port to another in the various regions of Europe.
For this reason, Mr Jarzembowski quite rightly recommends in his excellent report that the Commission should carry out a fact-finding study on the different types of sea port in Europe.
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I would stress two further points here.
The rules on fair competition among sea ports should not allow for exemptions and should, if anything, favour those which have made the transition to private undertakings rather than those still operating as state enterprises.
My second point relates to maritime passenger transport which, especially in the Mediterranean, is of crucial importance as a factor of economic, social and regional growth.
The expansion of sea port infrastructure in the Mediterranean must be encouraged, including in third countries.
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Moving on now to satellite navigation, as spokesman of the Committee on External Economic Relations I would add a few comments on the excellent report by Mrs Langenhagen.
Europe is clearly embarking here on a strategy with tremendous potential; it is not too complex technologically, nor is it disproportionate to Europe's resources and ambitions.
In short, it is within our means.
Furthermore, this venture would symbolise the use of technology for safety and efficiency purposes, and could make European cooperation more visible to our citizens.
The time has therefore come to press ahead with the decisions and investment needed for a European satellite navigation system.
I believe that the Research Committee has done its work on the fifth framework programme; it is now up to Mr Kinnock to propose a method of funding the infrastructure.
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As far as international negotiations are concerned, clearly the United States still regard the GPS as having dual use, civil and military.
I would therefore say - somewhat paradoxically - that it is in the interest of the US, as well as Europe, for Europe to take its own initiative concerning a new constellation of regional and global satellites.
Of course we wish for interoperability with the American system, that is obvious; let us also foster cooperation with Japan and with the countries where the space sector is taking off, such as China and India.
It would likewise be worthwhile to continue cooperating with Russia, despite the risk that their system may be unreliable.
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Finally, a European entity needs to be established to certify satellite data protocols.
This too should be given due consideration.
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<SPEAKER ID=224 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Castricum">
Mr President, last week I heard a story on the radio about a transport firm which did a trial run by sending a container by train from the south of the Netherlands to Cadiz and was notified five and a half days later that its consignment had arrived in Spain.
I could not help thinking of this when I was looking through the Green Paper on sea ports and maritime infrastructure again and was struck by the second rule.
Europe's competitiveness in the global economy is increasingly dependent on an efficient and profitable transport system.
This is something that we need to bear in mind now more than ever before when dossiers come before our committee.
There is a lot of competition between ports.
The Green Paper - and not a day too soon - calls for a system that is in line with the rules which apply to many other sectors.
This is all the more necessary as port complexes have increasingly developed into areas where many different kinds of transport, industry, commerce and often other valuable services are concentrated.
Unfortunately, I am not able to go into the most important elements of the Green Paper in any depth at this point.
I congratulate the Commission for the thorough job it has endeavoured to do and my colleague Mr Jarzembowski for the results of his diligent work.
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I should also like to point out that the Green Paper was published at the end of 1997.
Since then we have clocked up another two years, which is another way of looking at it, Mr Jarzembowski.
You opted for a somewhat different approach, but we have clocked up another two years since then.
Although I have no doubt that the Commission will accept Mr Jarzembowski's report, soon to be approved by Parliament, we must assume that, given the passage of time, the Commission has progressed with the necessary work.
The first but decisive step is to gather the necessary information.
Reliable and comparable information.
I would appreciate it if the Commission could inform us this evening what progress has been made in this area, as I understand that detailed questionnaires have been sent out.
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Finally, Mr President, various groups have submitted amendments.
The fact that there are not very many further underlines what we have known since we looked at the report in the committee, namely that there is broad support for Mr Jarzembowski's report.
We therefore have no need to support the new amendments.
But I should like to put one question to the Commissioner in connection with Amendment No 8 tabled by Mr Lagendijk.
Could the Commissioner review the scope for promoting genuine cooperation between ports, while respecting the subsidiarity principle, as in my decided opinion this would also benefit the competitiveness of Europe's economy in the world.
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<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="Sisó Cruellas">
Mr President, I would like to begin by congratulating the other two rapporteurs in this joint debate, Mr Jarzembowski and Mrs Langenhagen.
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It is very clear that the development of trans-European transport networks is crucial for economic growth, socio-economic cohesion and the competitiveness of the European economy, and we are all very aware of this fact.
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However, it is also very clear that, in order to build such infrastructures, we need substantial investment. Given the current budgetary constraints, it is impossible for the Member States to finance such projects.
The participation of private capital is therefore essential. That is why the public-private partnerships proposed by the Commission may be a valuable way of ensuring the funding required to implement trans-European transport networks and allow them to become operational.
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This will only be possible when potential investors and construction companies, along with transport service providers and the capital goods sector, are offered a stable framework for their financial transactions.
This stability will naturally also be dependent on governments and partner countries accepting their responsibilities, thereby creating a clear political and legal framework that enables investors to recognise the political and administrative risks involved in the projects. It would mean, too, that the European Union's rules on competition, the environment and public procurement were being respected.
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Until now, and in spite of a general sense of goodwill, it seems as though the various agents involved are not having a great deal of success in initiating the involvement of private capital in the construction of transport infrastructures.
To overcome the present difficulties and bring together the resources needed to create the transport infrastructure network, we need greater efforts on the part of all Europe's financial institutions, both public and private, and on the part of the various economic and social agents concerned.
This network is essential to achieve the objectives the European Union has set itself, which include the construction of a trans-European network of infrastructures that will promote the successful enlargement of the European Union, and the opening-up of the pan-European transport system to the countries of Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean.
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<SPEAKER ID=226 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, let us start by agreeing that the three reports which we are debating this evening have little to do with one another, but that it is nevertheless an interesting debate as it illustrates that we in Europe are developing a somewhat broader vision of the networks and how they operate.
The sea ports are naturally the most important intersections in these networks.
Not only the most important intersections in fact, but also by definition points where intermodal transport takes place.
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We share the Commission's view that short sea shipping- must be encouraged.
I should now like to put a specific question to the Commission.
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Mr Commissioner, would you please reply to this specific question: if subsidies are not allowed for infrastructure because they do not fall within the public domain would there then not be another possibility, because intermodal installations are eligible for subsidies.
So you could always turn around the argument and say no, this is not infrastructure for private use, this is intermodal.
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Mr President, I shall now revert to my mother tongue and must again make it clear that we need to abolish subsidies and increasingly move to normal market mechanisms.
Consequently, the sort of idea proposed by Mr Castricum that ports should work together is utter nonsense.
Ports are general companies and you cannot tell them to have one kind of transport in one port and another kind of transport in another.
Ports compete with one another and we must allow the market to do its work.
Perhaps the cooperation between socialists and liberals which we have had for so long in my country can convince Mr Castricum of this.
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<SPEAKER ID=227 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Donnay">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we can be pleased that the situation of sea ports is finally being debated and examined within the European Union.
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Moreover, the Commission's Green Paper has been eagerly awaited by professionals in the sector, who quite legitimately hoped that it would generate development prospects.
However, the response to these expectations, as described in the Commission document, is a long way from living up to the hopes they had inspired.
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We cannot help but note that this document does not correspond to the objectives set initially.
We must regret in particular the limited view which the Commission has of the role and importance to be given to sea ports.
In fact, to my mind, ports do not merely have a commercial role but are also tools for developing employment and regional planning.
In this capacity, they must be able to continue to receive a certain degree of backing from public authorities.
We thought that the inadequacies and gaps in the Commission's proposals would be noted by the rapporteur and that certain points in the Green Paper could usefully be improved upon when examined in committee.
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We ourselves had made a number of proposals to promote a new dynamism for Europe's ports.
However, none of our proposals was included either in the Commission text or in Mr Jarzembowski's report.
For this reason I am sorry to say - and Mr Jarzembowski must forgive me - that we find the present report no more satisfactory than the Commission text.
Both documents have an excessively restrictive view of sea ports.
Certainly, these have a commercial purpose but I must stress that they also play a fundamental role in terms of regional planning and have a certain impact on employment.
The absence of references to the necessary public service obligations assigned to port authorities is regrettable.
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<SPEAKER ID=228 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Moreau">
Mr President, the Green Paper on sea ports and maritime infrastructure concerns important issues as it involves 90 % of European Union trade with third countries, 30 % of intra-EU trade and 200 million passengers a year.
This sector plays an important role in employment, economic development and regional planning; it cannot therefore be considered solely in commercial terms.
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We approve of the fact that Mr Jarzembowski's report rejects the idea of adopting directives on infrastructure charges and on port fees and for the moment sees no need for Community legislation on organisational structure and market access for port services, given the current diverse situations.
This position is also in line with that of the Council.
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While we also appreciate the progress made in committee, we must note that the report, like the Commission proposals, relies too much on reasoning that is based exclusively on the market. This reasoning leads the Commission to propose, as in other sectors, a process of port liberalisation, and thus aims to restrict financial aid.
The public service tasks performed by these structures are highly underestimated and must be given greater consideration.
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Our group's amendments aim to affirm that port activities serve the general interest and, as a result, refuse to ban the aid needed to achieve these tasks.
Such decisions must remain a matter for the Member States.
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I would add that it would be useful, on the other hand, to draw up a Community framework for professional qualifications and respect for safety requirements in order to fight effectively against distortions of competition and to promote social harmonisation from above.
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Therefore, despite a certain degree of progress, this report in its current form does not in our opinion meet this sector's development needs.
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<SPEAKER ID=229 NAME="Tamino">
Mr President, with reference to the report by Mr Jarzembowski, the Green Group appreciates the inclusion of environmental considerations, particularly in recitals J and K, highlighting the importance of strategic impact assessments and environmental safety standards.
I would add that, as Greens, we maintain that proper use of marine and inland waterways forms an integral part of a sustainable transport system.
For this very reason, however, we consider it important that some aspects which the Commission has to a certain extent endorsed should appear not only in the recitals but also in the body of the text.
We Greens have therefore put forward an amendment asserting more forcefully the need for strategic environmental impact assessments.
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As regards the creation of new sea port infrastructure, we believe that account should be taken of existing capacity and, above all, of cooperation between sea ports.
I know that this will not be music to the ears of Mr Wijsenbeek, who has described this suggestion as nonsense, but I repeat it nonetheless.
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<SPEAKER ID=230 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, European ports are a constant source of disagreement between the various Member States.
They argue over which can call itself the biggest, or whether the financial state of affairs in Europe's fiercely competitive ports is according to the rule book.
The great differences in structure between the ports is to blame here.
I would stress that ports grow up in a particular culture and are characterised by this.
This is why verifiable regulations must take account of this diversity.
It is not a good thing if ports inside Europe are given unequal treatment.
In order to correct this discrepancy, it is first necessary to conduct a thorough inquiry into the financial structure of Europe's ports.
In addition to this there must also be guidelines for identifying any improper aid, which must be clear and unambiguous in every respect.
That is why I have tabled two amendments on this point that should enable the classification of financial flows to be considered on the basis of clear and simple criteria.
Irrespective of whether ports are legally granted state aid, the area of tension between state aid and fair competition needs to be more clearly defined.
Excessive subsidies going to competing ports cannot be allowed to destroy everything a port has built up over many decades with major investment.
We must remain very vigilant about this.
On the other hand it is desirable to take measures to stimulate coastal transport.
On many previous occasions Parliament has expressed the view that more transport should be by means which place the least burden on the environment.
For this reason I should like to see more investment in our ports in order to encourage a shift in the modal split in this direction.
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<SPEAKER ID=231 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Schifone">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am speaking on the Danesin report on trans-European transport networks.
The development of transport TENs is obviously a key element in the process of European unification.
In my opinion, mobility - especially within the single market area - is crucial not only in economic but also in cultural terms, so as to promote trade, competitiveness, communication and overall social development.
As the report makes clear, however, these projects require substantial financial resources and a considerable economic commitment, and the Member States' current difficulties in supporting such ventures through public funding are becoming increasingly apparent.
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This report therefore proposes that use be made of joint public-private partnerships to create the trans-European transport networks.
We share this view; we also share the concern of the rapporteur, Mr Danesin, that, on the one hand, private operators should be assured of profitability - obviously, if there is no profit there will be no private investment - but that, on the other, the infrastructure created shouldt be socially beneficial.
Hence the need to share out the entrepreneurial risk, taking account both of commercial and of social and environmental criteria, as part of an overall strategy for mobility within the Community.
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We therefore endorse the report's concluding proposals.
Finally, I hope that the Commission will not merely offer long-term credit arrangements, but will also take more active steps to attract substantial private investment.
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<SPEAKER ID=232 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldarelli">
Mr President, Commissioner, the creation of a satellite positioning and navigation network is a very important part of the European Union's cohesion strategy.
In some respects we have been rather slow off the mark in this area, but we realise that this development has considerable potential, not only for navigation but also for safety, and that it offers major opportunities in terms of urban and non-urban traffic management.
Every effort must be made to ensure that this network is interoperable, building on the intelligent transport system currently being developed in a systematic manner within the Community, which has already had a significant impact in the EU's most built-up areas: Turin, Hamburg and London have all experimented with intelligent transport systems.
The navigation network represents a step forward, and the cooperation between the European Space Agency, Euratom, the IMO and the ICAO underlines the value of this approach.
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I believe, however, that this approach should be regarded not merely as being dependent on the wishes of the Commission and the EU institutions; a significant input of both public and private resources is also required.
I would point out here, for example, that in Italy the Prime Minister has established an ad hoc group on satellite navigation systems, thus attributing great importance to this sector.
Moreover, with reference to the likely impact of the positioning and navigation system, investment should not be restricted to positioning alone; investment and experimentation should also be furthered by boosting the role of SMEs, providers and all bodies capable of making a valid contribution to disseminating this advanced technological system.
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Let me now make two observations concerning the Green Paper on sea ports.
There is a need for competition in this field; we need to find out all the facts, yet we must not forget that investment required in strategic sectors - the environment, combined transport and so on - is enormous.
Of course we should not confuse investment with subsidies, as Mr van Dam rightly said, but we must bear in mind that Structural Fund resources are vital to economic cohesion in Europe.
In this light, Structural Fund resources cannot be regarded as unfair competition.
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<SPEAKER ID=233 NAME="McIntosh">
Mr President, it gives me great pleasure to welcome all three reports and the high level of support from all political groups within the Committee on Transport and Tourism attained by those reports.
I should like to concentrate on the Danesin report so eloquently moved this evening by my colleague, Mr Sisó Cruellas, and on the Commission communication on public-private partnerships in trans-European transport networks.
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Trans-European networks have a crucial role to play in achieving and operating the single market and assisting European businesses to speedier access to that market for their goods and services.
I would like this evening to unreservedly support and encourage partnership between public and private sectors in this field.
Through you, Mr President, I would like to make a plea to the Commissioner this evening to look closely at the United Kingdom model and in particular to learn from the private finance initiative schemes operating in the United Kingdom.
While I am sure he will accept that this initiative was the creation of the last Conservative government, it has been so successful that it has been wholeheartedly embraced now by the new Labour government.
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In particular I think we could use the opportunity presented to the House this evening to set conditions in which public-private partnerships can flourish.
We must ensure that conditions of legal security or, more properly expressed, legal certainty apply.
The public sector needs to know that the legal framework for public-private partnerships can flourish with private investment in trans-European transport network projects; that these investments will be secure and will not necessitate at some future date that the public sector or the governments must intervene to bail out the private investment financing or operation of the project.
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In particular, the European Union in my view can benefit from the United Kingdom experience I referred to earlier, where we have built up some very real, concrete expertise in both road-building and the construction of new schools.
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Similarly, through the Danesin report and the Commission communication we must seek clarity in the implementation of competition rules to avoid any distortion of competition within and between the Member States.
Equally, there should be greater transparency and clarity in the implementation of the European Union rules on public procurement.
Also, greater access to long-term financing and availability of risk capital will be hugely beneficial.
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I firmly believe that the Danesin report will be a great and positive step along the way, building on the Commission communication to create such public-private sector partnerships.
I am delighted that three major UK schemes will benefit as priority projects: the Ireland-UK-Benelux road scheme, including access to the east coast ports, the Channel Tunnel rail link and the west coast mainline rail improvements.
I would make a plea that the A120 road scheme in north Essex will benefit sooner rather than later.
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<SPEAKER ID=234 NAME="Crowley">
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteurs and address myself to the Danesin report also on public-private partnership financing.
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New trans-European networks, as has already been stated in this House, provide an opportunity for greater mobility and easier access to the market for people with their goods and services.
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There is a further consequence which links in with our debate here some time ago on the coming into operation of the Treaty of Amsterdam, that is the question of employment.
These are such major infrastructural works that they require massive amounts of people to be employed which gives a kick-start to many economies.
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Because of reform of the EU financial systems and reductions in structural funding and cohesion funding to certain countries under the Agenda 2000 reform package, it is essential that we find new ways of financing these very essential projects.
So I wholeheartedly agree with the establishment of the public-private partnership arrangement to ensure that the monies and the extra revenues which are created because of the single market within the European Union are put back into the European Union rather than allowing money which is invested in pension funds and so on to be invested in countries outside the European Union, which means that the Union as a whole loses all that money.
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The Commissioner, Mr Kinnock, whom I congratulated on his initiative on this point, has drafted a report into this question and has seen the positive benefits which could accrue from it.
That is not to say that we do not need safeguards to ensure that there is not exploitation and to maintain the legal certainty which my colleague, Mrs McIntosh, referred to.
It also encourages governments like the Irish Government to be innovative in the way that they look to the future.
They need not be afraid to take on the challenge of a reduction in future funding from Europe, and should grasp the opportunity to encourage Irish business and the Irish financial institutions to get involved.
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Finally, could I say that if we are to guarantee the success of these measures then it must be done on a tripartite basis with national, local and European involvement.
Most importantly, now we can bring in private financing to give the extra impetus and kick-start needed.
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<SPEAKER ID=235 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, in the little time I have, I wish to say something about the trans-European transport networks.
I want a voice of protest to be heard on behalf of working people.
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Six years after the White Paper by Mr Delors, the trans-European networks, which were put forward as a way of increasing employment to compensate for the complete disruption of labour relations and the promotion of flexible forms of employment, are still making very little progress due to lack of the resources to finance them.
Now, the Commission is abandoning any final pretence.
Knowing that against the background of restrictive financial policy for EMU there is no prospect of Community or state funding for the trans-European transport networks, it has adopted its well known policy.
In an ingenious way, it is handing over these important infrastructures to private profit-oriented capital and indeed promoting a whole range of legal guarantees to ensure that the related capital and profits will be completely secured.
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That policy is to the disadvantage of our peoples and their interests, it promotes an accumulation of private profits to the cost of the public service, and it constitutes a complete abandonment of any prospect that trans-European networks could contribute to the development of employment.
Let us understand this at last: the market cannot provide solutions for social problems, nor for the problems of infrastructure and public service development.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sindal">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, simply trying to reach a common position with regard to the ports in Europe is a brave thing.
It takes a brave Commissioner to throw a green paper - not to the lions - but to the harbour masters and port authorities in this way.
They will immediately begin to compare and compete with each other.
However, the real challenge does not come from the neighbouring port, but from the roads.
The message from Parliament this evening will be that by modernising, by giving the ports some opportunities and by being united, we can change transport habits.
Go home to your own ports and tell them that it is not the neighbouring port which is the competition, but the roads, and then let us ensure that we make some progress.
I know that there are very large differences between ports as far as public-private partnership financing and harbour costs are concerned, but let us remember that we cannot change transport habits through market forces alone.
So now and then we should also try to do so through political decisions.
<P>
May I say to Mr Wijsenbeek that I regard him very highly, but his contribution this evening shows that he does not know very much about ports and ships.
So stick to the roads, Mr Wijsenbeek, and the rest of us will take care of the ports.
<P>
May I also express my unreserved support for the project concerning a strategy for global navigation systems.
It is extremely important that we participate in this, and that the Commission, the Council, Parliament and so on all contribute to creating a European profile in this area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 NAME="Camisón Asensio">
Mr President, I should like to comment on the report on satellite communications. The great challenge facing the European Union at the moment is to ensure that its industry establishes the EGNOS service.
In doing so, we will have reached the goal of having a specifically European component in the first generation global satellite system for the year 2003. It would be similar to the Union's great achievement in the area of GSMs, having already succeeded with the second generation of mobile communications, and now trying to succeed with the third.
<P>
I am aware that this first generation of satellite communications still has to rely on the dominant military systems: both the American GPS and the Russian GLONASS. However, there is no doubt that this first step must act as a trampoline for the next stage, that is, GNSS2, which is planned for 2008.
This will be exclusively European and will be independent of the Americans and the Russians. A great deal of patience is required in the race to achieve this objective of the fifth framework programme for research.
<P>
In conclusion, Mr President, I would like to make two recommendations.
Firstly, the group of experts being formed for this purpose, which is naturally going to rely on the European Space Agency, must in no way marginalise Eurocontrol. And secondly, if a decision is finally made to use the Structural Funds for the resources needed, these must be provided in accordance with the regulations, with absolutely no exceptions.
<P>
That is all I have time to say on this excellent report by Mrs Langenhagen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendes Bota">
Mr President, it is quite clear that the construction of the trans-European transport networks, envisaged in the White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment in 1993, has veered off course.
<P>
The straitjacket of the stability and employment pact has led the Member States to restrict their budgets and investment plans for major public transport works.
However, aware of the multiplying effect of this type of investment on economic growth and the creation of jobs, and also on the internal cohesion of the Union, these same Member States still want to take this forward.
<P>
How can we escape from this impasse? Using partnerships between the public and private sectors or national and regional partnerships may be one solution.
However, these cannot solve all the problems because it is never easy to reconcile objectives of financial profitability with those of risk control which govern private investment. This is due to the equilibrium between macroeconomic, social and environmental criteria which must be achieved by public bodies.
<P>
It is true that increased effectiveness may be achieved by transferring the technical, commercial, financial and management experience of the private sector to the PPPs during the initial design stage of the projects.
It is also true that there could be better coordination between the Community instruments for financial assistance, the Cohesion Fund, the Structural Funds, the EIF, the EIB and even potential new instruments such as structurally subordinated loans and the so-called 'mezzanine funds'.
<P>
But we must take care!
Our hope that these partnerships will provide a miracle solution must not be too high as there are many projects, particularly in less-populated or more outlying areas of the EU, which will not raise any interest because they are simply not profitable.
It is not just a question of altering the legal framework of public contracts or competitions in order to encourage these partnerships, as this is not enough.
Without a strong political will on the part of the EU, the 14 priority projects defined at Essen will not be developed.
In 1995, these projects amounted to nearly ECU 99 billion.
Between then and today, the Community budget has allocated the measly sum of ECU 1.8 bn, or less than 2 %, which is absolutely nothing.
Agenda 2000 only provides ECU 5 million, which is also nothing, and nothing plus nothing will continue to produce nothing, until a sensible sum is provided which can achieve something.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Cornelissen">
Mr President, the emphasis in the Green Paper on fair competition between ports and on market mechanisms is very much after my own heart.
I should like to make five points.
One, it is a complex business, and each country has its own subsidies.
To my mind, greater transparency must be an absolute priority.
<P>
Two, not only state aid but also differences in the regulations and their application in the field of the environment, safety and employment can lead to distortions of competition.
<P>
Three, how does the Commission believe it can strike a balance between its objective of regional development and its task of combating distortions of competition?
<P>
Four, I would criticise certain passages in the Green Paper on financial intervention in order to increase the efficiency of ports.
I would warn against new interventionism at European level.
I place my trust in market mechanisms to produce efficient ports.
<P>
Five, good links with the hinterland are important for Europe's competitiveness.
Public-private partnership seems to be a good instrument in mobilising the necessary private capital.
Could the Commission primarily look at the waterways and railways in this connection?
I thank the Commissioner for his positive response to the link between the Scheldt and the Seine.
I should like to ask him, also on behalf of my colleagues Mr Tindemans, if he could consider whether the Commission can play a stimulating role in the renaissance of the 'Ijzeren Rijn ', as we call it.
This link is included in the trans-European networks' list of priorities for combined transport.
It is by far the shortest rail link between Antwerp and the German Ruhr, but the special thing about it is that it runs through three countries when the supposed national interests of the three countries do not correspond.
Hence our question.
<P>
Unlike Mr Wijsenbeek I think it would be a good idea to consider the advantages and disadvantages of cooperation between ports, given world developments.
I would point to the cooperation in the aviation sector here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Stenmarck">
Mr President, first of all let me congratulate Mr Jarzembowski on his excellent report on European sea ports.
Maritime transport is very important, in particular because it has the great advantage of being able to reach most parts of the world in a reasonably convenient way.
The majority of the world's goods are therefore transported by sea.
In terms of figures, this means that the EU's ports handle over 90 % of Community trade with third countries and that 30 % of intra-EU traffic is handled by the port sector.
More than 200 million passengers a year are also transported in this way.
<P>
Maritime transport also has a less damaging impact on the environment than other forms of transport.
During its work, the committee stressed that the various research and development studies being carried out in the infrastructure sector should take account of long-term environmental effects.
But despite its numerous advantages, issues relating to port and maritime infrastructures have often been marginalised in EU discussions.
This is clearly indicated by the fact that this branch of the transport sector was not included in the initial discussions on the trans-European transport networks.
But as a result of increased trade with more countries and the opening-up of new markets, especially in some of the former Eastern bloc countries, the maritime sector has grown considerably and become more globalised.
While all of this is extremely good news, it is essential to encourage the sector and to promote further development.
As a matter of course, therefore, all countries should to a large extent apply the same rules, practices which distort competition should be eliminated, and the efficiency of our ports should be increased.
In this way, we shall be able to strengthen the EU's overall position in the world.
<P>
To achieve this, it would clearly be advantageous for EU ports to be integrated into the trans-European transport networks.
It would enable us for the first time to adopt a truly comprehensive approach to the transport sector as a whole.
We might then be less inclined to deal with transport legislation on a piecemeal basis and more inclined to view the sector as a single entity - a major advantage in many respects.
<P>
In the committee's view, the Commission should make recommendations on the future public financing of port infrastructures at the earliest opportunity.
The report by the Transport Committee contains one item which I regard as crucial, namely that transport networks and the rules relating to them should not just apply to the existing Member States.
They must be extended as quickly as possible to cover the EU's neighbours and, in particular, the applicant countries in the former Eastern bloc states.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Rovsing">
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Langenhagen, on a very successful report which could be of great importance for the establishment of a European strategy in the area of GNSS.
It is a great pleasure for me to see that the Commission and the Council have succeeded in reaching agreement on a strategy.
The strategy follows the approach which Parliament set out in earlier decisions on European space travel, on the basis of the reports which the former Member of the European Parliament, Mr Toksvig, and I myself presented in the last parliamentary term.
<P>
The development of increasingly accurate systems with accompanying communications possibilities will lead to a strengthening and a much better and safer use of European airspace.
The economics and safety of the roads will be improved and there will be substantial savings in the modernisation of railway equipment, for example in connection with reconstruction in Central and Eastern Europe.
I expect the ESA - the European Space Agency - to continue to act as the EU's technological arm in this area.
Even if substantial public financing could prove necessary, there is no doubt in my mind that the savings on new infrastructure projects will easily be able to pay for much of the establishment of GNSS.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
<SPEAKER ID=243 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Kinnock.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Cornelissen">
Mr President, very briefly, I quite understand that the Commissioner cannot answer everything in the short time available.
Can I presume that he will reply in writing to the question regarding the 'IJzeren Rijn '?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 NAME="President">
A written answer would be preferable, since we are running very late.
Mr Wijsenbeek could also be answered in writing without us hearing his question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, the same goes for me.
I put a specific question to the Commissioner concerning the possible exchange between infrastructure subsidies and the subsidies for combined transport.
I assume I will receive an answer in writing soon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 NAME="President">
It would be better if these two colleagues could receive written answers; otherwise our two remaining debates will be excessively delayed.
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<SPEAKER ID=248 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, I should like to receive a written reply to my question on ports with an inland location.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
Mr President, I will happily provide the responses.
As all Members who know me know I always do - fastidiously.
<P>
However, it must be said, in this week of particular delicacy, that if honourable Members rightly want Commissioners to respond to the questions they legitimately raise in debate then some of the Rules of Procedure of the House need to be changed.
I would welcome that.
I, like my colleagues in the Commission, welcome the opportunity to be accountable but sometimes, as I am sure honourable Members recognise, it is the procedures that actually intervene to prevent the transparency and accountability we would like to provide.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 NAME="President">
That is another issue, Mr Kinnock.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Electronic signatures
<SPEAKER ID=251 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0507/98) by Mr Ullmann, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on a common framework for electronic signatures (COM(98)0297 - C4-0376/98-98/0191(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 NAME="Ullmann">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the use of electronics in public and private communication is so far advanced today that the mechanisms used for such communication can even speak and read digitised language.
Not only are they capable of doing these things; they actually do them in the market for goods and services and in the area of official and private communications.
What are the legal consequences of this, and which legal questions need to be answered?
Our task is to translate the present legal standards in these fields to take account of the new communication dimensions without restricting them.
<P>
The draft directive before us does this in a restricted but fundamental area, namely that of signatures and authentications of every type, albeit - and this must always be emphasised - only in open systems.
Only three things have to be regulated in this context: the conditions for guaranteeing the reliable identification of the person communicating by means of an electronic medium, whether digital or binary, the integrity of the transmitted information and the legal status of electronic or digital signatures.
So it is not a matter of the relationship between the power of the state and that of the market in the realm of public and private security, as is sometimes claimed.
It is actually about the relationship between public information and privacy in the digitisation of certificates and their legal validity.
<P>
The directive takes a convincing approach to solving this problem by laying down provisions on the equivalence of electronic and written signatures on the one hand and by restricting the conditions of certification to the minimum standards which are indispensable for European harmonisation, as the two annexes to the directive put it.
<P>
Discussions in the Council at the present time evidently centre on the desire, founded on the current legal position in the Member States, to have a higher standard of public security.
The German Government has told me that there could be a compromise solution to this issue, involving the addition of an Annex III, dealing with the technical specifications for certification equipment.
I am interested to hear, Commissioner Bangemann, what the Commission thinks of this proposal, which has no doubt come to your attention too.
I believe Parliament could live with it.
In my view there is a small problem, but otherwise this Annex III does not affect the basic rationale of the directive: completely free market access for all providers of certification services and guaranteed protection of consumers' privacy within reasonable levels of data protection, including scope for the use of pseudonyms and incorporation of the principal rules governing liability.
<P>
As far as the amendments tabled are concerned, I recommend their adoption, with the exception of Amendments Nos 2, 4, 8, 9, 21, 22 and 26, which either create inconsistencies within the directive, duplicate other clauses or effectively water down the provisions of the directive.
I therefore ask the House to approve the report, but I cannot do so without thanking Directorates-General XIII and XV of the Commission for their extremely willing and active cooperation, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and the draftsman of its opinion, Mr Tappin, as well as all the other honourable Members whose amendments have helped to improve the report.
<P>
Finally, let me make a prophecy to all those who have stayed away from this interesting midnight debate: you will be amazed at the impact this directive will have.
In the Federal Republic of Germany, no fewer than 3 800 laws are affected by it.
This should keep us in suspense.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 NAME="Tappin">
Mr President, this report will establish a stepping stone on the path to the future.
It is estimated that commerce on the Internet will double by July.
<P>
In all Member States there are moves towards introducing technology into so many aspects of daily life - for example, electronic voting, electronic social security systems and electronic banking transactions.
If we are to move into an electronic age we must have safe and controllable procedures in place to ensure that citizens and organisations can carry out transactions swiftly and securely.
We need a clear common framework for electronic signatures to boost confidence in the new technologies.
We need to make sure that we do not sacrifice peace of mind for convenience.
An electronic signature needs to have parity under the law with a manuscript signature.
There should be no distinction, no disadvantage and no privilege.
<P>
For that reason we have focused on the need for those who issue certificates to respect the information carried electronically and the fundamental rights of a signatory to privacy.
A signatory must be able to determine the extent to which their personal data are published in directories.
Pseudonyms must be available for legitimate use but not be allowed to cover illicit transactions.
<P>
We need to ensure that the move to electronic trading is not accompanied by a growth in fraud.
Also, recognising the range of existing proposals and initiatives currently operating within the different Member States, the need to protect the principles of the internal market are paramount.
We have an obligation to ensure that the shift to the use of electronic signatures does not create technological barriers and there is, not just within the European Union, the need to promote the principle of interoperability on a worldwide basis.
For this reason it is vital that the Commission involves experts in the formation and review of policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=254 NAME="Pradier">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I can see the enthusiasm on all your faces and it is clear that many of us welcome the foundation stone that has been laid here.
<P>
As already expressed by Parliament in its resolution of 17 July 1998, it is important to set up a regulatory framework to ensure that electronic signatures and manuscript signatures have the same status in law, so that a document bearing an electronic signature may be used as evidence.
<P>
A great deal is at stake here, and according to Internet forecasts electronic commerce should reach 220 billion dollars this year, or by next year at the latest, of which Europe will account for 26 billion.
The know-how of traders, bankers and computer scientists in converting a network that is ill-adapted to economic needs - we must remember that it was the two principles of freedom and lack of cost that governed the network in the beginning - into an area for commercial transactions must not blind us to the fact that the protection of personal data and compilation of customised listings are often a neglected aspect of the legal problems posed by the development of electronic commerce.
<P>
Obviously, this proposal for a directive carries on this unfortunate custom.
However, I congratulate Mr Ullmann on having included the proposals put forward in my opinion on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
They aim to clarify the status of certification service providers in order to prevent the divergent measures that have already been seen in a number of our Member States.
Take the case of France, where two decree-laws have created intermediaries, known as 'trusted third parties', which carry out their work under the supervision of an administrative super-service, the French central service for security of information systems.
<P>
This super-service actually seems to be more keen to ensure that the information systems do not have any security which they cannot penetrate rather than checking that they are secure.
Another example is the case of Spain, where the 1998 finance law this time authorises the Minister for Home Affairs to act as a certification service provider.
It is doubtful whether such a measure guarantees the confidence of the signatories.
I say this simply to remind you that cyber consumers also have rights and that the pretence of secrecy, anonymity and confidentiality must become a reality once again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=255 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Berger">
Mr President, Commissioner, on behalf of my group, may I convey our sincere congratulations to the rapporteur for his report. In particular, I wish to thank him for guiding this report through the committee stage and now through the plenary stage within a fairly short time of our receiving the draft from the Commission.
I believe we all agree that the entry into force of this directive is a matter of extreme urgency, since it will put an end to the tangled mass of disparate legal provisions that are hampering the single market in the domain of electronic signatures, a crucial aspect of cross-border electronic transactions.
<P>
There are two major concerns of the Commission and the rapporteur that deserve particular support. The first is their desire to strike a balance between the need to ensure that the new areas of business activity opened up by the electronic signature are not shackled and virtually nipped in the bud by excessively detailed and restrictive rules - for which we have had no shortage of proposals in Parliament - and the need to increase demand for these services and promote acceptance of electronic signatures by means of confidence-building measures.
I think we have jointly succeeded in establishing an even better balance than the one created in the Commission proposal, in particular by stipulating that providers of certification services should be independent and that accreditation systems should be voluntary, and by providing for the additional option of these accreditation systems being operated by non-governmental organisations too.
These provisions and the liability legislation, which we have done nothing to alter, may also be regarded as start-up aid for future providers of certification services or as a sign of trust in their ability to deliver.
At the same time, we expect them to make good use of these benefits.
<P>
Our second concern relates to the principle that whatever is legal offline must be legal online, and whatever is illegal offline must be illegal online.
We must help to establish this principle in all its implications. This applies especially to the right of consumers to use a pseudonym for online transactions in order to preserve the anonymity that is customary when small everyday purchases are made in shops.
The consumer's right to conduct small electronic transactions under a pseudonym can also serve to prevent the creation of excessively detailed customer profiles.
<P>
Finally, I should like to appeal to the Commission to accept the amendments adopted by Parliament, to the rapporteur to reconsider his position with regard to Amendment No 26, and above all to the Council to come up quickly with a common position.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=256 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mosiek-Urbahn">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I also wish to begin by sincerely thanking the rapporteur for his swift and very cooperative work.
In the field of electronic commerce, consumers and businesses in Europe must be able to rely on every message being attributable to its actual sender, with no possibility of legal doubt.
<P>
So as not to obstruct the development of our economy, we must therefore give the people of Europe the opportunity to supplement the traditional written signature by electronic means.
In my own country of Germany, a law was passed a year ago which provides for the use of digital signatures at quite a high level of security.
The first electronic identity cards, in other words smart cards with which electronic signatures can be produced, have been on the market since last week.
<P>
It is therefore high time that this material was incorporated into a uniform European framework, otherwise there is a danger that we shall eventually have 15 different laws on digital signatures with a variety of different standards.
This would ultimately result in serious impairment of the free movement of goods and services in our internal market.
That is why the draft directive that the Commission presented to Parliament last year was such a welcome development.
<P>
The directive guarantees providers of certification services free access to the market; provided that electronic signatures fulfil certain conditions, it puts them on a par with conventional signatures and recognises their validity in cross-border transactions and as evidence in court proceedings.
Provisions governing the liability of certification service providers are designed to ensure consumer and business confidence.
<P>
So although I believe that some of the amendments adopted by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights do represent useful improvements, the Commission proposal itself was a very progressive and balanced one.
For example, Article 8(3) of the proposal provides for digital signature certificates to be issued under a pseudonym at the signatory's request.
Not only do we have no reservations about this provision, we expressly welcome it.
<P>
In its efforts to ensure the protection of personal data, however, the Commission goes rather too far.
In its proposal, it seeks to ensure that the identity of any person using a pseudonym cannot be revealed without that person's consent, unless such information is required for the investigation of criminal offences.
It is therefore gratifying to note that an amendment - the rapporteur's Amendment No 27, which was adopted by a clear majority in committee - also permits the transfer of such data if it is necessary for legal claims relating to transactions in which a pseudonym was used.
I do not think this amendment diminishes the protection afforded to personal data, particularly since any such transfer is explicitly required to comply with the provisions of data protection legislation.
On the contrary, this amendment strikes a balance between the rights of the pseudonym user and the interests of the other party to the transaction.
<P>
Moreover, a number of other amendments succeed in formulating provisions more precisely and eliminating contradictions.
One example is the term 'digital signature', which standard usage limits to a particular and currently prevalent form of electronic signature. This term has been replaced in the amendments by 'electronic signature'.
In this way, the directive is given broader scope to cover future technological developments.
<P>
Regrettably, there are also some rather inappropriately worded amendments, such as nos 8, 15 and 23, which my group feels have overshot their target, namely to formulate the text more precisely.
Instead of the intended clarification, they have the opposite effect and should therefore be rejected.
The same applies to the amendment on the electronic submission of petitions, which, in the view of my group, has little to do with digital signatures and is consequently out of place here.
<P>
Other amendments, namely Nos 6 and 7, seek to have data protection clauses inserted in all multilateral conventions to which the Union is a party.
They insist that other parties to such agreements should respect the right of not only the EU but also its Member States to maintain existing rules on data protection.
They are thereby placing unnecessary restrictions on the flexibility of the Union at the bargaining table.
We therefore cannot support such amendments to the recitals either.
<P>
I assume that, when the votes are taken, the House will bear these considerations in mind and will adopt a balanced version of the directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=257 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, Commissioner, a great deal has already been said about the importance of this issue.
We are therefore pleased that the rapporteur has carried out his work so quickly.
However, I still believe that a decision on this proposal should be postponed until the Finnish Presidency.
So I look forward to that.
<P>
I think we have made some worthwhile revisions which complement the preliminary work carried out by the Commission. In principle, Certification Service Providers would not have to be accredited, but we have nevertheless highlighted the private organisations.
<P>
The Commission proposed strict responsibility - in Finnish 'ankara vastuu '.
Now it appears that the Council intends to change this.
I should like to ask the Commissioner to clarify the position as regards responsibility in the future.
In my view, the Commission's proposal represents a reasonable point of departure.
<P>
A central issue in the directive is legal effect.
Is there to be a special technique for this or not?
I think that here too the decision we have made, with the Commission, is a good starting-point.
In principle, we should give the same legal effect as we do to manuscript signatures.
One might say jokingly that if national legislation does not allow marriage by correspondence, then marriage by electronic means is also inadmissible.
That is perfectly reasonable.
<P>
However, I do not share the rapporteur's view that we should be prepared to approve the so-called Annex III put forward by the Council.
I do not regard it as being technologically neutral in the way that most of the committee would have wished it to be.
I also asked the Commissioner what position he would adopt in future discussions with the Council, since in my view this will be a key factor in future negotiations.
<P>
Finally, I should like to ask the language services whether they do not think that in Swedish the term should be 'elektroniska underskrifter ' rather than 'elektroniska signaturer '.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=258 NAME="Oddy">
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Ullmann for his - as ever - conscientious work and extremely good report.
This is an important subject, as all the other speakers have highlighted.
More and more commercial transactions are being conducted by electronic commerce and the Internet particularly facilitates cross-border transactions.
Having a consistent, pragmatic, secure system of recognition of signatures on electronic commerce is important.
<P>
The Commission proposal recognises the need to ensure legal recognition of electronic signatures which have the same validity as handwritten signatures.
The clarification is necessary for the certification services.
Two particular concerns can be highlighted: first, the requirement for privacy; secondly, the requirement for security.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights recommends that the use of pseudonyms should be investigated and monitored.
I recommend this report and the draft directive to the House as an important plank in opening up the single market to electronic commerce.
<P>
As an aside, it is curious that it is mainly women who have stayed for this debate.
In some ways we could compare Mr Bangemann to a thorn amongst roses, although I am quite sure he will take the subject very seriously.
I am particularly intrigued by the thought of getting married on the Internet.
As someone who is not married, perhaps it is something I can look forward to in the next ten years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=259 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, at the end of her speech, Mrs Oddy just addressed a problem which really can arise in this area, where the issue is to what extent electronic signals can satisfy formal requirements laid down by law in the Member States.
It reminds me of my law studies, where one professor used to ask this memorable question: 'If the legally prescribed answer to the question, 'Do you take this woman here present for your lawful wedded wife?' - and this is the very problem which you raised, Mrs Oddy - is 'I do' , is it sufficient for the gentleman to say 'But of course' ?'
That is roughly how a number of the Member States see the problem of electronic signatures too.
<P>
First of all, I should like to thank the rapporteur.
The report has been of great assistance to us.
We have also been able to accept a good number of amendments.
Of the 35 amendments, we can accept 17 in their entirety and eight in part.
We could not endorse the other amendments, because they either do not actually improve the original wording or touch on problems that lie outside the scope of this directive.
That, I have to say, is an old parliamentary failing, which I have often mentioned before.
You have this constant urge to use any given piece of legislation to put the whole world to rights.
That does nothing to further the cause of clarity.
<P>
It was rightly mentioned that Member States as well as international organisations have been working very assiduously in this area, which means that, if we wish to play our part by obtaining a common set of uniform rules, which are naturally needed for the single market, we shall have to make haste.
So far, Parliament has been maintaining a brisk pace.
At the last discussion in the Council, which was not conclusive, as you know, because the opinion of Parliament was not yet on the table, we ultimately came to grief on the question of whether we could issue operating licences to certification services without becoming involved in technical details which would more or less dictate a particular technological solution.
The Commission and Parliament, of course, are against intervention on the technological side.
That is why we have tried to present a proposal which, though naturally not permitting indiscriminate certification, also deliberately avoids laying down any technological conditions.
<P>
In the end, we did not make any progress at that Council meeting.
The new proposal, which develops our ideas somewhat further, Mr Ullmann, still needs to be examined very closely by us, because in its present form, although it may not prescribe any technical solutions, it does seem to imply a kind of type approval.
This needs some thought before we can say whether it is really the ideal answer.
<P>
The Council is more or less divided into two camps. One camp comprises the smaller countries, which take a far bolder approach to this issue, while the other comprises the larger countries, which insist very strictly on such formal requirements and therefore take a less liberal view of this matter.
At any rate, we shall see how far we can progress at the next meeting of the Telecommunications Council.
There should not be too much rigidity either.
It is worth remembering that a handwritten signature can be forged too.
We should not start subjecting electronic signatures to more stringent requirements than are normally applied to handwritten signatures.
<P>
We do have liability rules for providers of certification services.
I am not entirely sure what you meant here, because these liability rules are set out in Article 6.
On the technology question I have already said what I think.
I have told you which amendments we can and cannot accept.
I do not intend to list these in detail at the moment; we can do that at the second reading.
As I said, the report is very constructive on this point too.
We are largely in agreement, and I hope that at the next meeting of the Council we can arrive at a common position, which we can then re-examine in detail.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=260 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Quality of ambient air
<SPEAKER ID=261 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0483/98), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0540/98-97/0266(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Directive relating to limit values for sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and oxides of nitrogen, particulate matter and lead in ambient air (Rapporteur: Mrs Pollack).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=262 NAME="Pollack">
Mr President, as we know, it is only the most important matters that are dealt with at the midnight hour.
We do it particularly so as to keep it a deep, dark secret from the press so that they cannot let anyone know that we really do deal with important matters here that affect people's lives.
<P>
Thousands of people are dying every year across Europe as a result of breathing polluted air and one of the main causes of this is traffic.
This directive for the first time lays down a set of tough, legally-binding limits for emissions of the four major pollutants - sulphur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, particulates and lead - to be met by 2005 and 2010 and based on 1997 guidelines from the World Health Organisation to protect public health.
Of the amendments proposed by Parliament at first reading, 21 out of the 28 were largely accepted by the Council in the common position under the British presidency.
These include more public information and an alert threshold for oxides of nitrogen, as well as the one proposed for sulphur dioxide.
<P>
However, the Council also weakened some of the original Commission proposals.
This is a matter of some concern to us in Parliament and so we have tabled 11 amendments to the common position.
Some of these amendments simply adjust inaccuracies or anomalies, such as Amendments Nos 1, 3 and 8.
Amendment No 4 ensures that action plans for any areas for which a derogation is in operation must also be made available to the public.
Amendment No 5 asks that, since the Council did not agree our proposal for an alert threshold for particulates, the Commission should reconsider this when more research is available after the review in 2003.
Amendment No 7, sadly, I understand the Commission, amongst others, cannot support and, as a result, the problem of dealing with especially sensitive ecosystems is obviously one of those that will have to be dealt with by action at national level.
But we feel in Parliament that it is important to highlight that the World Health Organisation recommended four different levels of limits where the directive only allows for one.
We do not feel that is satisfactory so we have retabled that.
<P>
Where we have greater problems are, firstly, on sulphur dioxide.
Amendment No 6 restores the original proposal for eight exceedances per year on the hourly limit, which the Council weakened to 24.
The Commission acknowledges that this pollutant is directly toxic, especially for asthmatics and those with cardiovascular conditions, even in short peaks of excess pollution, and that is why such a tough limit was proposed in the first place.
<P>
I hope, therefore, that the Commission will stick to its guns on this, and likewise on Amendment No 2.
The insertion by the Council of the words 'where practicable' is a big problem.
I know, for instance, there is a particular difficulty with the French monitoring equipment for producing this ten-minute averaging figure but, nevertheless, this information is essential for the mid-term review.
In any case Member States are able to choose their own selection of monitoring points so they ought to be able to find a way in which they can actually deal with this difficulty.
<P>
Secondly, as far as oxides of nitrogen are concerned, this is obviously hard for Member States to achieve.
It is, of course, one of the key parts of the directive.
It is not acceptable for the Council to increase the number of exceedances for the hourly limit value from the original eight up to 18, and Amendment No 9 seeks to restore this.
At the very least, it is essential that the Commission look very carefully at this again when it has more research at the 2003 review.
<P>
Amendments Nos 10 and 11 cover exactly the same sort of problem but for particulates.
We know more research is needed and that it is under way.
However, the common position text allows ten more permitted exceedances per year on the 24-hour limit and on the hourly limit and, in effect, pushes the review back so that not a great deal is going to result from that until at least 2010.
Although we do not know enough about particulates, we do know that they are a killer and the World Health Organisation is not even able to suggest a safe limit.
Given that for particulates we have one derogation for southern dust and another derogation for Nordic road gritting, it must be said that there has to be more political will to tackle this problem in the Member States.
There is enough slippage there for people to cope with the very serious problems and they will have to take action.
<P>
As rapporteur I urge the Commission to look again at its strategy, particularly on the last two points and to try and accept some of these amendments.
I commend the common position to the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=263 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Hulthén">
Mr President, Commissioner, I do not really know what mysterious force dictates that Environment Committee business should always be the last item on the agenda.
During the last debate, the subject of marriage came up, so we have decided to see ourselves as a sort of 'wedding night climax'.
Unfortunately, however, participants in the 'climax' are rather thin on the ground.
<P>
Otherwise, this directive is a good example of the work that is being done to improve European environmental legislation.
It has a direct and practical effect on people by making the air cleaner, above all for those who live in our cities.
It also provides a means of identifying ways of achieving successful cross-border cooperation.
<P>
I should like to thank Mrs Pollack for her work on this directive, which is a complex document because of its technical nature.
She has dealt with the issues in a pragmatic way and has achieved results.
We realise that the air we breathe has an effect on health - there is nothing new in that.
It is therefore gratifying that we are now drawing up rules which are an improvement on those we have had in the Union up to now.
<P>
At the same time, our aim is to bring about a further improvement in people's health, and this is what we are calling for.
Like a number of others, I too wish this report had gone a little further and imposed stricter controls on the quality of the air we actually breathe.
Nevertheless, we regard it as a baseline from which we can all go forward together, although I am aware that many Member States already have stricter standards for air quality.
<P>
Not only does air quality have health implications - which are very important - it also has a bearing on acidification, particularly in the part of Europe I come from.
We must therefore look at air quality in general, and not just at the situation in specific areas.
<P>
More emphasis needs to be placed on the effect of particulates on health, since we are not sufficiently well informed about it.
I should like to underline the point made by Mrs Pollack that there are a number of important amendments which the Council and Commission need to take on board to ensure that the inhabitants of Europe and of the Union have decent conditions in which to live.
It is not enough to say that it is simply not possible. What is required is a strong political will.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=264 NAME="President">
Before Mrs Flemming adds her opinions to those of Mrs Pollack and Mrs Hulthén as to why we find ourselves discussing Environment Committee business at midnight, I would merely point out that these decisions are taken by the Conference of Presidents.
This situation has been brought about not by ghosts, but by the Conference of Presidents.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=265 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Mr President, I am gradually losing any faith in chance. I also believe that the Conference of Presidents, sadly, does not attach very great importance to environmental issues.
But some day the people of Europe will call them to account.
Parliament is to adopt stricter EU pollution limits in order to ensure better air quality.
Just like the previous speakers, I regret that only 21 of the 28 parliamentary amendments adopted at the first reading have been accepted in letter or in spirit.
The aim of this directive is therefore to establish emission limits on the basis of the World Health Organisation's air quality guidelines.
<P>
The report even provides for a very sharp reduction in the limits for particulates, and compliance with the envisaged limits will require a considerable effort in most of the Member States.
It lays down uniform methods and criteria, applicable throughout Europe, to help prevent any further harmful effects of atmospheric pollution on human health and the environment.
The European Union is thus introducing the strict limits that have long applied in Austria.
In some cases, they have turned out to be even stricter.
I am pleased about that.
<P>
Nevertheless, I am by no means entirely happy with all the details of the report.
Annex I(I) lays down limits and alarm thresholds for sulphur dioxide, and the proposed limit of 350 grams per cubic metre with 24 overshoots is far too high in my opinion.
The reduction envisaged in the maximum number of overshoots from 24 to 8, while not satisfying my wish for a lower concentration limit, is undoubtedly a step in the right direction and will therefore have our support.
<P>
In Annex II(I) on NO2 and NOx limits and the alarm threshold for nitrogen dioxide, I should welcome the complete deletion of any right to exceed these limits.
Here too, the amendment tabled by Mrs Pollack reducing the number of overshoots from 18 to 8 is a step in the right direction and will also have the support of my group.
<P>
I know that Mrs Pollack has taken a great deal of trouble with this report, and even though it has not turned out to be everything an environmentalist could wish for, I should like to offer her my sincere congratulations on her report. And finally, my wish for all of us here is that we shall perhaps be able one day to conduct a debate on environmental affairs in the morning.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=266 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, cleaner air is a necessity of life, especially for asthma and bronchitis sufferers.
Good air quality is also important for the protection of the environment, buildings and vegetation.
<P>
Measures have been taken in Europe to control sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions since the 1970s, with some success.
Despite the increased energy consumption, there has been a dramatic fall in emissions of acidifying substances.
A reduction of more than 50 % since 1980 is fortunately fairly common for most European countries.
It is even likely to be possible to meet the planned SO2 and NO reductions for 2010, thanks to the new standards for vehicle emission gases.
<P>
Particulate matter is a threat to human health.
The European Environment Agency has calculated that a reduction in the average PM10 value from 30 micrograms per cubic metre to 20 micrograms per cubic metre would prevent 10 000 premature deaths from particulate poisoning in the EU.
The reduction in pollutant emissions by traffic should now be followed by such measures as cleaner fuels and better engines.
<P>
Drastic measures are also required for industry: 30 % of NO emissions come from incinerators, cement ovens, electrical power stations and other factories.
New guidelines must therefore take serious account of the need to reduce emissions of particulate matter, NO and SO2 .
I congratulate Mrs Pollack on this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=267 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, I agree of course with the comments which have been made that it would be good if we could also discuss environmental proposals at a time when more Members of Parliament could take part in the debate.
But I also agree with the comments and remarks that have been made concerning the importance of this proposal, and I shall at this time be brief and, of course, thank the Committee on the Environment and especially its rapporteur, Mrs Pollack, for the speed and for the insight with which the committee has once again dealt with this proposal.
<P>
It is the case that a large number of the European Parliament's amendments from the first reading were incorporated into the common position by the Council, either word for word or in substance, and the Commission is of the opinion that several of the additional proposals now being put forward by the committee could also help to make the proposal even clearer and more concise.
This applies, for example, to Amendment No 1, which concerns the definition of natural events.
Seismic activities should continue to be included in the definition, but geothermal events should be added, and the rest of the amendment will clarify the text.
We are also able to support Amendments Nos 3 and 4.
They clarify the public information requirements, which as we all know are a very important aspect of the proposal.
We are also able to support the demand that the question of alert thresholds for particulates should be reviewed in 2003, and so we accept Amendment No 5 and also Amendment No 8, which corrects a mistake concerning the margin of tolerance.
<P>
Then there are some other amendments which Mrs Pollack has already mentioned.
Amendment No 2 would require all Member States to report cases where the WHO's guideline ten-minute concentration for sulphur dioxide has been exceeded.
We in the Commission want to see as much information as possible about this guideline value, but it would be too difficult for a number of Member States to comply with this, and therefore we cannot support this amendment.
<P>
Then there are Amendments Nos 6, 7, 9, 10 and 11.
In one sense, I might be pleased with the amendments, because they propose that we return to some of the limit values originally proposed, or that we tighten them further, and I can only be pleased that Parliament agrees with the Commission's original proposal.
The fact that I nonetheless do not support them has to do with the debate which took place in the Council, because it appears that it would be too demanding for several Member States to comply with the limit values which are set out in the common position, especially those for particulates.
It would require decisions which are too difficult.
The Commission's aim is, of course, to ensure the highest possible standards of protection which can be achieved in the Union.
The situation with regard to this proposal is that Member States which are in a position to go further may do so in connection with this proposal, because it is in keeping with the framework directive on air quality for them to go further if they can.
But as I have said, in view of the conditions in the Union as a whole, I dare not - if I may put it that way - accept these amendments, for fear that we would not then be able to push through the proposal as a whole.
<P>
The proposal is the first concrete implementation of the EU's new programme for the improvement of air quality for its citizens and for the environment.
The Commission believes that the proposal, as it now stands, will still provide a high level of protection, and that it is therefore a strong basis for the programme.
We recently adopted another proposal on carbon monoxide and benzene.
We shall also return to the pollutants dealt with in this proposal in 2003, to see whether even more can be done in the next phase.
I therefore put my trust in the fact that, as time goes on, the impact of the programme will gradually increase. And I also hope that we can all look forward to the cleaner air, better health and improved environment which this proposal will bring about.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=268 NAME="Pollack">
I hardly dare in the present climate with the Commission to ask for a guarantee that the Commission will take on board some of the requests we have made for the review in 2003.
I will just leave that on the table and live in hope for the moment.
<P>
I should simply like to congratulate the Commissioner and thank her for coming tonight, given her recent accident and the lateness of the hour, and also to ask her to extend my thanks as rapporteur to the staff in DG XI who have been particularly helpful on this very technical directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=269 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
The sitting was closed at 0.10 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Puerta">
Madam President, I did not participate in the votes yesterday but I am recorded as having voted in a very odd manner: on my own and against my group.
And I had no intentions of doing that.
Therefore, the fact that I voted, and particularly that I voted in such a way, should be deleted.
That is all I wanted to say.
All that appears is: Mr Puerta of the GUE Group, voting against my group every time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Very well, Mr Puerta, we shall naturally make the corrections as you request.
<P>
Are there any other comments?
There are not.
<P>
The Minutes were approved
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Communication on the 1996 discharge
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Theato">
Madam President, pursuant to Article 6 of Annex V to the Rules of Procedure, following the vote of 17 December on the 1996 discharge, the Committee on Budgetary Control must report back to Parliament at the subsequent part-session.
We had a meeting yesterday and discussed what action should be taken.
We unanimously agreed on the following statement which I - as instructed by the committee - must read out to you.
I shall do this in English, as we agreed to use this language to avoid misunderstandings and translation errors.
The statement reads as follows:
<P>
The Committee on Budgetary Control is taking into account Parliament's vote of 17 December 1998 by which its proposal to give discharge for 1996 was not approved.
Secondly, notes that according to Annex V of its Rules, the discharge procedure is not yet closed.
Third, is dealing with the question of closing the financial accounts for 1996.
Fourth, will present to Parliament a report by 31 March 1999.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Thank you for that statement, Mrs Theato.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Agenda 2000
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="Mulder">
Madam President, may I begin by welcoming Mr Funke to the House.
I think it is a good tradition that the President of the Council of Ministers always takes the trouble to attend when we hold important debates on agriculture.
<P>
Regarding the financing of the agriculture dimension of Agenda 2000, I think it is a good thing to be continuing the trend of recent years.
If agriculture policy changes, the funding of it naturally has to change as well.
The Committee on Agriculture broadly endorses the Commission's proposals.
The EAGGF must remain the principal source of funding for the common agricultural policy.
As with the MacSharry reforms of a few years ago, we think it is a good thing to modify its content.
Just as the MacSharry reforms for the first time introduced a budget line which had little to do with policy on markets and prices as such, this time too all manner of new chapters are being added.
<P>
Firstly there is a chapter on rural development, and the Agriculture Committee finds that this makes sense.
Agriculture policy is no longer just a policy on prices and markets, but an all-embracing policy which includes policy on the countryside.
Secondly, the Commission is also proposing that veterinary and phytosanitary measures should be included.
That seems logical to us.
Thirdly, there is information policy.
The Commission proposes to include that too.
This is likewise welcomed by the Agriculture Committee.
We think that in general the CAP is not sufficiently well regarded in Europe.
We need to highlight its positive aspects - and there are plenty of those.
<P>
What the European Commission's proposals do not include, and the Committee on Agriculture is adding this, is any mention of a policy on agricultural product quality.
If there is one thing Europe needs after the BSE crisis and all the fuss over the quality of foods, it is for Europe to devise a policy for the quality of agricultural products.
That has to be an key part of European farm policy.
<P>
The Agriculture Committee also thinks that in future too, farmers must be able to get their prices from the market as far as possible.
Filling in a pile of forms is not all that helpful.
What they want is a better price.
That can be secured by a policy on quality, but also by developing other markets, namely the market in non-food uses of agricultural products.
As far as the environment is concerned, it will be very useful if we can legislate for the use of certain farm products in certain areas.
That will open up new markets, and prices may pick up as a result.
<P>
Lastly, with regard to European enlargement, we have no quarrel with the fact that some measure of pre-accession assistance is also included in the regulation.
As far as Parliament's powers are concerned, all spending on markets and prices policy must remain compulsory expenditure, we accept that.
Given that Parliament has to have a voice in all other spending, this must be non-compulsory expenditure, because Parliament has full power of codecision on that.
<P>
What, in the view of the Agriculture Committee, should not be in the Guarantee Fund?
All the structural measures under Objective 1 and Community initiatives.
Management of the funds must of course remain under the control of the Commission itself.
Where monies are disbursed by Member States through the payment agencies, they must be scrutinised by the Member States.
In view of this week's events, it will come as no surprise that we want that scrutiny to be greatly improved.
We have to have better scrutiny.
And how do we see that scrutiny?
The Commission's proposal is for a report on the financial accounts three months after the end of the financial year, and for a policy review after two years.
The Agriculture Committee has tabled a number of amendments to improve things here.
We want to be told straight away, not two years later, if something has been rejected or approved.
We want to have our finger firmly on the pulse of any developments in that area.
We want the Commission to report to us on this every three months.
This does not need to be a weighty tome. We have enough reading to do already, but it must be provided as swiftly as possible.
<P>
In conclusion, I have a comment on one contentious point in our proposal, namely the cofinancing of certain agricultural expenditure.
It includes a recital in which the Agriculture Committee is cautiously in favour of that cofinancing, but there was a tied vote on whether or not to include an article on this.
Eighteen members of the Agriculture Committee were in favour of cofinancing for certain types of expenditure, 18 were against and one member abstained.
So this is something which the plenary will have to decide in its ultimate wisdom.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Garot">
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="Goepel">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, the Commission's proposals on the organisation of the market in milk cover three main areas: price support, income support for milk producers, and the provision on guaranteed quantities.
The Commission's proposals on price support provide for a reduction in the price of milk of 17 %, and a reduction in the intervention prices for both butter and skimmed milk powder of 15 %.
These measures are proposed in order to encourage the consumption of milk and milk products in the Community, and to improve the competitiveness of these products on the world market.
<P>
In view of the proposed amount of compensation, the price reduction should, however, be substantially smaller overall than the Commission is seeking.
With a smaller price reduction and with amounts of compensation remaining the same, it will be easier to achieve full compensation for loss of income.
We therefore propose reducing the target price for milk by 12 % instead of 17 %, and the intervention prices for butter and skimmed milk powder by 10 % instead of 15 % in each case.
<P>
Turning now to income compensation, the Commission is proposing four components: a dairy cow premium (Article 15), an additional payment (Article 16), a supplement to the dairy cow premium (Article 12) and an additional payment within the limits of global amounts (Article 13).
These proposals are extremely complicated and will lead to serious implementation and monitoring problems.
In principle, however, I am in favour of the dairy cow premium together with a supplement under the beef and veal regulation, but not on the basis of a virtual European cow yielding 5 800 kg of milk per year; the basis of this cow premium must instead be financial compensation based on the amount of quota, and national or regional animal yields must guarantee full compensation.
A general slaughter premium for dairy cows might also be considered - as a second strand of the organisation of the market in beef and veal - to make up for the price reduction.
In practice, we would thus have two forms of premium with which to provide compensation.
<P>
Now, as regards the provisions on guaranteed quantities, we support the Commission's proposal to extend the quota until 2006 and, rather more reluctantly, the proposed 2 % increase in quotas.
In allocating 1 % to young farmers and 1 % to producers in mountain areas, however, it should also be possible, in the latter case, to take account of less-favoured mountain areas, although only as far as the quantity allocated is concerned.
<P>
When discussing a reform of the organisation of the market in milk, we cannot avoid the problem of the additional levy.
I propose that it should be reduced by more than the reduction already achieved through the drop in the target price for milk, and that it should be structured flexibly, almost as an economic instrument, so that an active milk producer would have the possibility of adjusting the quota for his holding to the economic situation, either through leasing or by going over quota.
That would certainly influence the market price for quota leasing to the disadvantage of the so-called 'armchair milkers', and European milk producers and the dairy industry would, despite the quota arrangements, have the possibility of selling more dairy products on the world market without the payment of export refunds.
<P>
On linking land and quotas, all I have to say is that one reason for the growth in leased quotas is the fact that both EC and national law allow non-producers to possess a quota of these quotas.
Another is the principle of linking quotas to areas of land.
In my view, the question as to whether or not quotas should be tied to land - that is, transfer of milk quota only with a partial transfer of land - should be decided in the individual Member States themselves; there should therefore be an optional arrangement.
Article 7(2) should, then, establish the optional suspension of the link between quotas and land, authorising Member States to introduce regional restrictions on the transfer of reference quantities without land.
<P>
Two days ago, it was reported by DPA that the presidency and the Commission were both convinced that all the Member States had to show a willingness to compromise, and that national interests should be represented impartially and clearly.
That is precisely what I wanted to do here as rapporteur - to be impartial, but clear.
In principle, I agree with the Commission that the competitiveness of European farming on the world market needs to be increased.
However, I would say to Commissioner Fischler and President-in-Office Funke that I cannot cleverly boost competitiveness on the one hand, and at the same time, by clobbering farmers with step-by-step reductions, exclude whole regions of eastern Germany from this competition on the other.
Jobs in agriculture are to be found in particular on mixed farms, producing beef, veal and pigmeat, but above all milk.
You should give these families the same chance as all the others in the European Union.
<P>
Finally, I am grateful to have been given the opportunity as a Member of this House - almost ten years after German unification - to have a hand in the reorganisation of such an important market.
I especially wish to thank those who did the groundwork for me and who have supported me in this complicated, but interesting work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="Fantuzzi">
Madam President, I was not entirely happy with some of the amendments made to my report in the Agriculture Committee, such as the one aiming not to reduce intervention prices for cereals but to increase aid nonetheless.
It makes little sense to me to increase internal support, at an additional cost of some hundreds of millions of euros, in a sector which - although it accounts for 11 % of gross saleable agricultural production in the Community - alone consumes 40 % of the CAP budget, in other words EUR 17 billion out of 40.
I hope the Christmas break has given everyone time to reflect, and that the vote in Brussels on 28 January will lead to a revision of these amendments.
<P>
I am convinced, on the contrary, that a 20 % reduction in the intervention price - I shall be proposing 15 % - is not an irrational display of pessimism on the part of DG VI officials.
The gap between the intervention price and the world price is wider than that at present; thus the reduction proposed through Agenda 2000 should be even greater, strictly speaking, as the President of the Court of Auditors reminded us in this House a few weeks ago.
Indeed, the spectre of surpluses, which we thought had been banished in 1992, is rearing its ugly head again in the Community: all it took was a 2 % better harvest and a set-aside rate of 5 %, and here we are already now with cereals surpluses of some 20 million tonnes.
I fear that, if we continue along this road, the forecasts for 2006 will have to be revised upwards.
<P>
Therefore, if we wish to be serious and responsible, a thorough, far-reaching reform is urgently needed.
It is useless to turn a blind eye; I believe that the phoney reforms which you have outlined, Mr Fischler, would upset no one but would leave us once again with production surpluses.
So there is no point in deferring the problem, because it would then have to be tackled as an emergency in the near future, under much more adverse conditions than now.
For cereals, we can avoid this danger if we deal with the sector in the manner suggested by the Commission. This is in any event my own opinion.
Of course certain rectifications are needed, three at least. The first consists in excluding oilseeds from the single premium.
We have a protein deficit in the Community, and it has become increasingly acute since the BSE crisis; it is absurd to invoke the Blair House constraints to claim that, with this reduction in the basic premium, we shall no longer have to suffer them.
That is rather like rejoicing when we hurt ourselves, because in that way we no longer feel pain inflicted on us by others.
Let us take the bull by the horns, Commissioner, without taking make-believe, dangerous short-cuts. In other words, let us renegotiate Blair House!
<P>
The second rectification needed is a set-aside rate of 10 %.
Its proposed abolition in 2000 is unrealistic.
Even now we could certainly do with a positive set-aside rate, because of the market difficulties already highlighted and in order to ensure that the set-aside system functions effectively.
<P>
The third rectification lies in demonstrating greater solidarity and cohesion in the COM for arable crops than currently exists.
If the Commission itself acknowledges in its introductory statement that the CAP reform of 1992 has not worked to the advantage of less favoured regions and producers in respect of arable crops - the most significant item of expenditure, representing the bulk of direct income support - we cannot remain hidebound by the logic of 1992.
I propose that, in order to start redressing the balance, our frame of reference for productivity should be a weighted average of one third to two thirds of - respectively - average Community production and the traditional yield of a given region.
<P>
I hope that these rectifications will be accepted; looking to the future, they would make aid more justifiable in social terms.
I believe that these aspects should also be included in other reports on Agenda 2000, for example the one on the horizontal regulation.
This is an important opportunity to bring the CAP into line with consumers' and citizens' needs.
Eco-compatibility, ceilings and differentiation are not intellectual flights of fancy, but much-needed elements to ensure that the mother of all Community policies has some sort of a future.
Otherwise it will not survive.
With EUR 40 billion earmarked for 7.5 million individuals, when twice that number are out of work, economic arguments alone are ultimately no longer enough unless they are accompanied by the environmental, social and territorial considerations for which society is pressing hard.
<P>
I am concerned about the outcome of this discussion in the House.
I fear that, by pulling out all the stops to protect producers, we shall ultimately much dilute the Commission's already tentative new proposals and rule out innovation altogether.
It cannot be maintained that because of the crisis in Russia or eastern Asia we should reject or review the reduction in cereals, milk and meat prices.
I have never believed in 'fortress Europe'.
For Europeans to shut the door to the outside world has always been a mistake: it is precisely at times of crisis that Europe must be a little more adventurous and assert its presence on the world stage.
This is not unquestioning confidence in international markets but self-confidence; otherwise there is no point in launching the euro to stand up and be counted in the world.
What is more, such a defensive stance sends a most unfortunate message to the CEECs, to the other Europe.
<P>
It really is paradoxical that Agenda 2000, launched in order to bring the two halves of Europe together, is now dividing them.
Unfortunately, Mr Funke, the Agriculture Council has not impressed us with its far-sightedness over the past few months.
The Agriculture Council itself deserves a motion of censure.
It has been treading water for weeks on the reform of the CAP, rehearsing the same old arguments time and time again: the agricultural model, the two pillars.
This has not amounted to much, and has left the field clear for the ECOFIN Council, whose theories on cofinancing and expenditure freezes have complicated and even seriously jeopardised the reform's future.
Let us avoid wars of words here too: to say 'no' to cofinancing in the name of Community solidarity is to sow discord; to discuss it seriously is another matter, and means assessing all the implications.
The tendency to compare net contributions and a reluctance to stump up for the poor countries of the south will not bring much progress in Europe, in my view. What is more, to turn the CAP as it stands into a monument to the inviolable principle of solidarity is an insult to common sense.
Whatever anyone may say, the CAP is certainly not the best example of Community solidarity; one need only look at the level of support granted to production in Mediterranean areas.
<P>
In conclusion, Minister, we should like you to explain this new enthusiasm for a zero-cost reform.
If we wish to curb expenditure and tackle the structural difficulties of excessive, uneven support leading to distortion, the way to do so in my opinion is to enact more radical reforms, not to preserve the status quo.
It would be galling to discover, after March, that what lies behind the slogan of zero-cost reform is the umpteenth postponement of any reform.
The last thing that farmers need is for everything to be deferred until October.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Madam President, I should first like to provide a formal clarification: I am speaking here as rapporteur of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, as all the other previous speakers have also done so far.
I am not, therefore, giving my own opinion or that of my group, but that of the committee.
We have the unusual situation in the Agriculture Committee that in many areas no decisions were made at all, that is, that there was no position of any kind, except that of rejecting the Commission's position.
I was lucky, however, in my appointment as rapporteur because, Mr Fischler, I can congratulate you: the committee has approved in full the Commission's proposal on direct support schemes and their modulation.
I am, therefore, in a position to report on your proposal here and to explain it.
I shall, however, try to make a better job of doing so than you did in your remarks.
<P>
The basis for this proposal is of course the premiums, which were introduced in 1992 in the so-called MacSharry reform - as yet we have not heard much of the Fischler reform; we still need to introduce that - when prices were lowered and it was said that compensatory payments would be made in the form of premiums.
These compensatory payments were not linked to quality, which, logically speaking, was right, because the amount paid out was, of course, supposed to be the same as that by which prices had fallen.
The fact that this was not quite correct and that, overall, agriculture lost out somewhat, is something we discussed at the time.
<P>
The impact of these changes was, of course, considerable.
Let me quote the European Court of Auditors. The Court writes in its investigation that a point was reached where 40 % of these premiums were going to 4 % of holdings.
And then a point was reached where 80 % of these premiums were going to 20 % of holdings and where, for example - according to the Court of Auditors - one leading holding received DEM 6.61 million from Brussels in one year.
That meant that some holdings were in a position to pay their rent and labour costs out of the premiums and still had money left over.
Of course, for the holdings which were less well provided for, this is an extremely difficult situation, because the former are of course far better able to withstand price reductions than the latter.
The Commission has therefore said - and in the committee we think this is right - that this has to be stopped.
<P>
We must make the payment of premiums more dependent on criteria such as employment and the environment, and take greater account of these factors.
So far, the committee agrees.
Now, contrary to the Court of Auditors, which actually said that direct payments above ECU 100 000 should be stopped completely - that is, capped - you have rightly, like the committee, come out in favour of a sliding scale.
The intention is for 20 % to be deducted between ECU 100 000 and ECU 200 000, and 25 % above ECU 200 000.
That would be the level set by Brussels.
Then you say that it is now up to the Member States to make further deductions of up to 20 % for holdings which have a below-average number of workers, or in other words have reached a much more advanced stage of rationalisation than other holdings.
That would therefore give a reduction of up to 45 %.
<P>
This proposal is based on a reasonable approach, because it makes employment a factor in the payment of the premium, albeit in a standardised form and not in the form of remuneration for the actual work done.
But this would still mean that highly rationalised holdings would see their premiums reduced, and holdings with a large number of employees would receive a higher payout.
The only problem with the whole scheme is that only around 1 % - or perhaps not even that - of holdings are affected and that the vast majority of agricultural holdings do not stand to gain anything from this sliding scale, because obviously the reductions made higher up do not necessarily benefit those lower down.
<P>
Commissioner, with your permission I will outline the proposal we tabled in the Agriculture Committee; it was not voted on, but was reported in the Commission - at least unofficially - to be a better proposal than yours.
I am not allowed to report on it as such, because the Agriculture Committee has of course decided otherwise, but I should nevertheless like to touch upon it. We could in fact say that very high administrative expenditure is required for the holdings to prove that they are not working to full capacity.
This might lead to legal disputes and cause difficulties.
That is why we have proposed giving the holdings an option: we deduct 45 % straightaway, and then holdings with a large number of employees may voluntarily submit evidence of their labour costs, 50 % of which are offset.
Calculations showed that under these arrangements, 97 % of holdings would be wholly unaffected.
We therefore create a mechanism for holdings which have a large number of employees and which use ecologically sound farming methods.
The two usually go hand in hand.
We give holdings of this kind more than we give holdings which have undergone a process of rationalisation. That seems to me to be very sensible.
The other holdings are competitive anyway because they have reached such an advanced stage of rationalisation.
Thank you, Madam President. I will save the rest for when I speak for my group and on my own account.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Goepel">
Madam President, we have to let fairness prevail.
I must insist!
I too would have very much liked to have another two minutes to talk about the milk market.
I would ask you to indicate that speakers must keep to their allotted time.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
It is very hard to interrupt a Member, Mr Goepel, especially a rapporteur, and if you had gone beyond your time you know that I would not have interrupted you either.
<P>
Our rapporteurs do an important job.
As the President of the sitting, I cannot simply cut off a rapporteur.
<P>
You are well aware that I do not do that.
I may be wrong, but I do not do it!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Madam President, the grain reform programme in Agenda 2000 involves undoing much of the regulation relating to letting the land remain fallow.
At the same time the document does not, however, pay sufficient attention to other uses of farm land.
It would be sensible to invest in the increased cultivation of crops for energy, as an alternative use for land.
<P>
In rural areas important work, for both nature and the economy, is to be found in the production of bioenergy.
The benefits of bioenergy are that it is renewable, clean, localised, and it provides employment.
So far indirect regional, national and environmental benefits have tended to provide the incentive, rather than direct economic benefits.
The adoption of developed technology has brought new opportunities for the exploitation of bioenergy, and that will allow us, in the future, to increase our level of self-sufficiency in energy production in Europe.
More investment in bioenergy product development will also bring with it a vital economic benefit in relation to other energy sources.
<P>
As part of the implementation of the Kyoto agreement on climate the Commission has announced its objective to double the use of renewables in the Union area by the year 2010.
Recognition of the non-food option in Agenda 2000 would also prove that the Commission meant business.
The production of bioenergy as a cheap source of power will need support, along with that given to other alternative energy sources in the future, for it to gain the status we intend for it as part of European energy policy.
Finally, I would like to express my thanks to the rapporteur for his hard and time-consuming work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Garriga Polledo">
Madam President, in its Agenda 2000 communication, the European Commission includes proposals that improve and consolidate economic and social cohesion through the reform of structural policies, the common agricultural policy and the policy on rural development.
<P>
Within the proposals for agricultural reform, the top priority is the Union's commitment to maintaining some viable rural communities and to protecting European rural heritage.
In order to do so, it must have a very strong and competitive agricultural sector at global level that operates within a framework of sustainable development.
<P>
In this context, the Commission has set out its proposals on direct support schemes within the common agricultural policy relating to all common organisations of the market that grant direct payments.
<P>
In the proposal for a regulation in question, the Committee on Budgetary Control calls on the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development to incorporate three amendments that have the common objective of ensuring that Parliament is better informed.
<P>
The Commission's proposal is based on the principle of subsidiarity.
Without wishing to question this approach, it is important that the measures adopted to guarantee payments to farmers benefiting from these schemes are accompanied by a certain degree of coordination at Community level.
<P>
The system of penalties applied to farmers who do not meet labour or environmental standards must be applied for the same reasons in all Member States and should be similar throughout the Community.
<P>
Lastly, I should like to draw attention to the fact that the Commission wants this proposal for a regulation to be implemented by the management committees in which the Council and the Commission are involved yet which Parliament is excluded from.
On this same theme, I should like to point out that Parliament approved a resolution in September in which we asked that we be guaranteed real control over the implementing measures.
For this reason, the Committee on Budgetary Control stresses that the Commission must inform Parliament of the measures Member States adopt in applying this regulation. Moreover, before the final decision is adopted, Parliament should have the right to contribute, for a limited period of time, to the debate on the Commission's proposals on the implementing measures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Funke">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, may I first thank you very much for your warm welcome and for giving me the opportunity to be here in the European Parliament for my first, as it were, official appointment as President-in-Office of the Agriculture and Fisheries Council, and to address you.
I should like to outline the German Presidency's priorities on agriculture and fisheries; I hope that Parliament will be a constructive partner in this work and will actively support us in the quite enormous project we have ahead of us.
As you know, we are also under pressure of time because, of course, parliamentary elections are on the horizon.
I am setting great store by your cooperation, ladies and gentlemen.
<P>
Today, you will be debating the agricultural component of Agenda 2000.
I have followed the deliberations hitherto in the European Parliament's committees and plenary closely - and in this respect I am also grateful that I was able to hear what each of the rapporteurs had to say today - and I conclude, although this will certainly come as no surprise to you, that opinions do still diverge widely on the core issues.
I therefore deduce that the German Presidency has its work cut out to reach an appropriate compromise.
<P>
Certainly, if you include the question of financing, Agenda 2000 is the central political theme of the German Presidency as a whole.
The federal government has set itself the goal of adopting Agenda 2000 in its entirety as early as this spring.
This is a truly ambitious task and it will only be achieved if Parliament, the Commission and the presidency work together constructively and in a spirit of mutual trust, and if they really want political success.
<P>
The Commission's proposals for the sector of agriculture and rural development are part of a package, and I welcome the fact that this is also how the European Parliament sees it.
I would, therefore, earnestly request that you bring deliberations in Parliament to a close in good time, so that we can also stay on schedule in this respect.
I believe that it is in both our interests to make a success of the Agenda and to make it clear to the people of Europe that the European institutions are not only capable of action but also of successful action, and that they can design policies for the future.
<P>
On 1 January, Germany took over the presidency for the eleventh time since the foundation of the European Economic Community.
The German Government is very conscious of the great responsibility this brings, especially when the projects on the table are, after all, of such great historical significance, such as paving the way for eastward enlargement and preparing for the WTO negotiations which will begin at the end of the year.
That is also why concluding the negotiations on Agenda 2000 is our top priority.
We can - and for this I am very grateful - build on the solid preparatory work carried out by the Austrian, but also the British and Luxembourg Presidencies.
All the same, I must add that very intensive work will be required to overcome the differences of opinion - which are in part still considerable - and to reach a workable compromise.
<P>
Despite the uncertainty over financing - and further intensive discussions will also be held on this - I will, as chairman of the Agriculture Council, lead the negotiations on the agriculture part of the Agenda on the basis of the Commission proposals.
This is what was envisaged from the outset.
In the meantime, we have set up a high-level group, which started its deliberations this week, beginning in fact with beef and veal, and milk.
It is intended that this group should prepare for negotiations in the Agriculture Council and demonstrate possible ways of reaching compromises, and that it should, therefore, prepare draft decisions to a very large extent.
<P>
At the federal government's meeting with the Commission on Monday of this week in Bonn, Commissioner Fischler and I agreed that, if convincing alternatives are presented, the Commission is prepared to review its proposals and if necessary to table new ones.
I welcome this and am extremely grateful to the Commissioner and his colleagues for giving this undertaking.
For at the present stage of the negotiations, it is certainly still too early to speculate about compromises.
I do not think that would be sensible.
But it should be pointed out - and I fully endorse what Mr Goepel said - that all of us, despite the respective interests we hold at national level, must also be prepared to reach compromises; otherwise at the end of the day we will not have a result.
<P>
I should like to make it clear, however, that I believe it is essential to safeguard the interests of European agriculture, to invest the European model of agriculture with tangible initiatives, and to bolster rural areas by encouraging sustainable development.
In the future, European agriculture will have to be competitive in order to hold its own against international competition.
<P>
With this in mind, European market organisations ought to be reformed and geared more closely to the requirements of the market.
I must add, however, that in so doing it still is, and will continue to be, up to us to maintain and further improve our high standards of environmental and consumer protection, and also - in the interests of fair competition - to ensure that these standards are adequately safeguarded in international trade agreements.
<P>
As chairman of the Agriculture Council, I should like to work with the Commission towards further improving the status of environmental protection in agricultural policy, giving Member States and regions a greater say in policies on agriculture and rural areas, and making animal welfare and precautionary consumer protection integral parts of the common agricultural policy.
Important ideas on these matters - for which I am extremely grateful - have emerged from the European Parliament; I am pleased about this and fully support its greater involvement, including in agricultural policy.
<P>
I would emphasise once again the necessity in European politics of the trio - if I may express it thus - of the Council, the Commission and Parliament. I could of course list the members of the trio in any order: the Council, the Commission and Parliament; Parliament, the Council and the Commission - as you wish, the order should not make any difference.
<P>
Although Agenda 2000 will be the German Presidency's main priority, alongside it are other important dossiers in the field of agriculture and fisheries, which should, if possible, also be completed.
As always in the first half of the year, negotiations on agricultural prices are on the agenda, the importance of which has admittedly - as we all know - diminished.
I would be grateful if Parliament were able to complete its deliberations on the outstanding Commission proposals within this parliamentary term.
<P>
If it is to live up to the expectations of the consumer, Community law should be further developed on the basis of the Commission Green Paper.
The entire food production chain needs to be regulated efficiently and consistently.
We also want to make improvements in the field of organic farming, in terms of both production and marketing.
In addition, we attach great importance to animal welfare and combating epizootic diseases.
I might perhaps mention the most important animal welfare issues here.
They are as follows: decisions on treating laying hens in battery cages in a way appropriate to their species; laying down standards for the carriage of animals by sea; continuing to specify minimum slaughtering standards; and incorporating the Council of Europe recommendation on animals kept for farming purposes into Community law.
<P>
Combating epizootic diseases is becoming increasingly important in the light of the growth of trade in live animals and the economic damage resulting from outbreaks of disease.
In view of this, moves are being made to amend the directives on swine fever, foot and mouth disease and zoonoses.
Those are my comments on the agricultural side.
<P>
I also wish to talk briefly about fisheries, because there too we have an extensive work programme.
Of course the Agenda 2000 negotiations also affect the fisheries sector.
Therefore, for example, a decision has to be made on the core issue of the future financing of fisheries support.
Alongside this, negotiations need to be held on the regulation on structural measures in the fisheries sector, to ensure that this proposal is adopted by June 1999 at the latest.
I am aiming to table the key political elements of this proposal for a decision as early as the March Fisheries Council.
<P>
In addition, the common fisheries policy needs to be further developed to ensure sustainable and balanced management of fish stocks.
Discussions on continuing or renewing fisheries agreements with third countries are a further priority, as is the review of these agreements, which was initiated by the Council.
The Fisheries Council will also be dealing with restructuring the common organisation of the market in fishery products.
<P>
That was a brief presentation of the German Presidency's priorities and the work it will be doing on agricultural and fisheries policy.
Obviously, in the ten minutes available to me I was only able to touch on some points very briefly. I am aware that I have exceeded my speaking time somewhat, but as this is my first speech and presentation in this House, perhaps I might be forgiven.
I should like to assure you that as the President-in-Office of the Agriculture and Fisheries Council, I will continue - including within the so-called informal trilogue - to seek an in-depth exchange of views with the European Parliament.
I believe it is necessary and I am convinced it is important.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
After what was your first speech to the House, I should like to welcome you here very warmly on behalf of Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Fischler">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to warn you straight away that I shall need rather more than ten minutes to comment on all the reports before the House today.
If possible, however, I will try to save some time at the end of the debate.
<P>
Firstly though, I should like to thank all the rapporteurs very warmly for the work they have done in the run-up to today's debate.
The individual market organisations were dealt with in the reports of Mr Fantuzzi, Mr Garot and Mr Goepel, the horizontal regulation by Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf and the EAGGF regulation by Mr Mulder.
<P>
The report on the reform of the market in wine is on the agenda for February, and the reports on rural development and on pre-accession aid were already dealt with in November.
I do not, therefore, need to comment on those reports today, but I should like to make it clear that my thanks also go to the rapporteurs, Mr Görlach and Mr Sonneveld.
<P>
As rapporteurs, all of you have contributed to our being able, so far, to keep to our timetable for dealing with the Agenda 2000 proposals.
Negotiations in the Council have now entered the decision-making phase.
The technical issues have been resolved and the newly created high-level group started work this week.
As soon as a political agreement is reached, the Commission will, in any case, make all the necessary arrangements, so that the legal texts can be adopted definitively before the parliamentary elections.
<P>
Most farmers and farming unions now agree that reform of the common agricultural policy is unavoidable.
The danger of further surpluses - despite growing demand on the international agriculture markets - the forthcoming WTO round and rising production potential, which will also increase considerably with eastward enlargement, are factors which are shaping the discussion on the future structure of market management policies.
In addition, there is an important internal debate on what society demands of agriculture.
The effects of agricultural production on the environment are part of this debate, as is the question of social criteria for agricultural policy and the desire for a better quality of life, be it through higher food safety and quality standards, or through sustainable development of rural areas and considering the purposes they serve for our society.
<P>
We have, as you know, encapsulated this approach in the concept of a 'European model of agriculture'.
If this model is not to be doomed, however, we not only need to gear it more closely to consumers and the markets, we also need to strengthen policies on rural areas.
I am therefore opposed to any attempts to adopt only a slimmed-down reform or to leave important areas out of the reform.
I do not believe in ruining the future prospects of farmers and the processing industry with half-baked, and therefore ineffective measures, and running the risk of our being faced with another debate on reform in the near future.
The question now is what the final reforms should consist of, so that we can equip European farming for the challenges ahead.
The European Parliament has played an active part in finding an answer to this question, and has prepared a number of amendments in this regard.
<P>
I will now, therefore, comment on the most fundamental of the proposed amendments and explain my position on them.
Let me start with financing.
The transition from price support to direct income payments will not lead directly to savings in the agriculture budget.
To start with, expenditure on the agricultural policy will even increase slightly.
Crucial here are, however, the positive effects which the reform will have on the economy.
Independent academic institutes estimate the increased cost to the budget to be between EUR 3 billion and EUR 4 billion, but put savings to the consumer at between EUR 10 billion and EUR 17 billion.
That means a reduction in the consumer price index of between 0.3 % and 0.45 %, and thus an important contribution to stability in Europe.
<P>
The most important objective of our proposal for the new EAGGF regulation is, in the future, to use the Guarantee Section to finance rural development measures outside Objective 1 programmes.
This is an attempt to take account of multifunctionality and would also make it easier to defend the common agricultural policy at international level.
It is intended that the Guarantee Section should also finance a series of accompanying structural measures in the fisheries sector, specific veterinary and plant protection measures, and measures to provide information on the common agricultural policy, and overall that the existing legal provisions should be consolidated and simplified.
I am pleased to see, Mr Mulder, that you support the proposal to extend financing by the EAGGF Guarantee Section in your report.
<P>
Let me now turn to the individual amendments you have proposed.
The legal base for the regulation is Article 43 of the Treaty.
A number of amendments seek to base it on Article 209 as well.
But, Madam President, this proposal only relates to provisions specifically on EAGGF financing; basing this regulation on Article 209 as well is therefore superfluous.
<P>
A number of amendments concern the issue of cofinancing for measures which are at present financed exclusively from the Community budget.
This is a question of principle, which must be settled outside the agricultural regulations.
The same goes for the question of whether agricultural expenditure should be classified as compulsory or non-compulsory.
These matters should be discussed in connection with the interinstitutional agreement.
<P>
We also think that the amendment aimed at changing the budget year would actually simplify matters considerably.
This would mean, however, that the budget year in which the change was made would last twelve and a half months, resulting in a one-off cost to the budget of around EUR 800 million.
The Commission can therefore only accept this amendment if it is clear where the extra money is going to come from.
<P>
As regards the amendments on the quality of agricultural products, there is no question in my mind either that measures to promote quality are becoming increasingly important.
These can, however, already be financed under the Guarantee Section at the moment, and are indeed financed by it to some extent.
<P>
The same applies to promoting the use of renewable raw materials.
If we were now to start specifically naming, as it were, every single measure which we think is important, then we would have to give a whole list, which does not actually make any sense either.
<P>
On the wish you expressed for financing under the Guarantee Section not to disrupt the management and implementation of measures not previously financed by the Guarantee Section, I should like to point out that financing the supporting measures from the 1992 reform out of the Guarantee Section has not caused any particular problems.
It is true that the financial provisions on paying agencies and the clearance of accounts are different in the Guarantee Section, but I maintain that overall this is an advantage and can very easily be combined with structural financing.
In addition, we intend to set up a special advance payment system for rural development programmes.
<P>
Another amendment emphasises that at the end of the year, non-utilised appropriations from the Guarantee Section should be transferred to a special reserve for future years.
This is an interesting idea, but the rules in the Financial Regulation for the Community budget do not allow it.
This would contravene the principle of the annuality of the budget.
<P>
Finally on the Mulder report, I should like to make it clear that I will take your request for regular information on decisions on the clearance of accounts into consideration.
Similarly, I will include precise evaluation measures in the financing from the Guarantee Section.
<P>
That brings me to Mr Garot's report on the beef and veal sector.
I am grateful that you in this House think it is necessary for the package to include reform of this market organisation.
It is well known that without a price adjustment, prospects for beef and veal on the home market are hopeless.
It is also well known that WTO rules will - from the middle of 2000 - limit Community exports of beef and veal which are eligible for refunds to just 820 000 tonnes a year.
If the European beef and veal industry is to be able to maintain beef production at anywhere near current levels, then, according to our analyses, a 30 % reduction in the intervention price is imperative.
I have examined in detail the alternative proposal, which consists of restoring market balance solely by reducing production.
I cannot endorse this proposal, because it cannot guarantee the future of the European beef industry.
Nor can I, therefore, accept any amendments which - contrary to the Commission proposal - are aimed at lesser price reductions.
We have to leave open the possibility of taking advantage of the positive market trends on the horizon.
If we do not, then our competitors certainly will.
As regards the level of direct aid, it is necessary - alongside the beef premium itself - also to take into consideration the other proposed changes to the common agricultural policy, and not least the impact we can expect these to have on the market.
That is why I cannot accept amendments seeking to raise the beef premiums either.
<P>
Another question is how to find a fair solution to the question of the form in which direct payments are made.
In the EU, we have, broadly speaking, just two different systems of beef production: one is based primarily on cereals or silage maize, and the other is primarily grass-based.
I do not see any prospect of a solution, if we do not take sufficient account of both systems.
Furthermore, as early as November 1996, the Agriculture Council committed itself to examining appropriate solutions for the particular situation of regions dependent on intensive stockfarming.
On the other hand, I do also admit that the common agricultural policy needs to be more environmentally friendly.
This is one of the key elements in the future success of the European model of agriculture.
In view of these ground rules, and the diversity and complexity of the production systems used in the European beef and veal industry, the Commission believes that one solution might be to allow subsidiarity through national envelopes.
It does seem, however, that this proposal is meeting with strong resistance here in Parliament - but not only here - and I shall therefore give further consideration to how this fact can be taken into account.
Although I cannot accept the amendments today, for the reasons I have mentioned, I can assure you that the Commission will show an open mind if progress is made in the debates on the form which compensation should take, especially if it becomes apparent that this will also simplify matters.
<P>
Various other amendments seek to further tighten the criteria for granting extensification aid.
Although I cannot formally accept the amendments concerned at this stage of the discussions, I should also like to point out that this issue needs to be examined further, and that I am favourably disposed towards improvements.
<P>
I shall now turn to the reform of the milk sector.
I know that it will be particularly difficult to reach a consensus here, because opinions still differ widely.
Let me start with the regulation on milk quotas.
<P>
I am pleased that Parliament supports the proposal to extend the arrangement for a further six years.
As regards the situation after 2006, I agree that we should turn our attention to this well in advance of that date.
In this context, Amendment No 45 seems to me to be quite acceptable.
However, your proposals also include more extensive quota increases.
You have to be clear on one point: every percentage point increase in quotas requires an 8 % reduction in price and an additional budget of around EUR 1 billion.
On the other hand, I do not see the quota arrangement continuing, unless we accept a certain increase in quotas.
In political terms, this means that if you want the quota arrangement to continue, you also have to accept market reform.
<P>
As far as the allocation of additional quotas is concerned, we have based our proposal on priorities, set according to the support expressed by Parliament on various occasions.
I cannot, therefore, endorse the amendments which upset the delicate balance we wish to achieve with the additional quotas.
The proposal to apply sanctions when the reference quantities are exceeded, as a means of managing the market, may admittedly seem attractive at first sight, but in practice I see it causing us huge difficulties.
<P>
The problems we have, in particular in Germany, with so-called 'armchair milkers' are something we have to overcome, and we should do so without departing too far from the main principles of the quota arrangement.
Nor should we disregard the possible legal consequences of some of the amendments and the demands for compensation which might ensue.
For that reason, I cannot support the amendments along those lines.
<P>
As regards transfers of quotas, what we are trying to do in our proposal is to extend and improve the options Member States have under the law, without restricting their room for manoeuvre in this field.
The wording therefore tries to preserve a balance between the call for subsidiarity, on the one hand, and maintaining the basic principles of the quota arrangement on the other.
In my view, most of the amendments tend to disturb this balance.
The wording is actually being revised in a number of areas at the moment, so that the aim of Amendment No 12 can, in any case, be achieved.
<P>
Allow me to emphasise once again that the current developments on the milk markets and our quota policy make me all the more determined to press on with the reform of this sector.
I conclude, from discussions in various forums, that our proposals present a balanced and reasonable answer to the challenges facing the milk sector.
I cannot, therefore, support the amendments advocating a greater or lesser degree of price reductions for milk as a starting-point for reform.
<P>
On the direct payments to compensate for price reductions, discussions have focused on three problem areas.
Firstly, the level of compensatory payments: here too, you should not look at the compensatory payments in isolation.
The Agenda 2000 package does in fact contain several proposals which will be of benefit to milk producers, either because they result in a fall in costs, or because they result in increased output.
Moreover, it is unlikely that the fall in institutional prices in the milk sector will be fully reflected in producer prices.
That is why I cannot support the amendments which advocate increasing the compensatory payments.
<P>
The second point concerns the methods by which compensatory payments are made. By tying them to the milk quotas, we have tried to make the system both straightforward and fair.
Unfortunately, the various alternatives discussed in the report do not meet these criteria.
I thus find myself unable to comment on them here.
<P>
The third point is related to the system of national envelopes.
Our proposal tries to give the Member States scope to modulate the aid, so that they can take account of producers' different circumstances.
At the same time, however, Member States are obliged to notify the Commission of their national provisions before they are enacted.
This should provide a guarantee against distortions of competition.
That is why I do not share the fears expressed in this regard.
But it will certainly be necessary - once the final shape of the beef and veal production model is clear - to make sure that the compensatory payments in the milk sector fit in with this model.
<P>
One final comment on the basic regulation: I do not believe that it is appropriate to include provisions in the basic regulation which are not directly related to the common organisation of the market in milk.
I therefore propose to accommodate the provisions on animal welfare, and the aspects of milk production which concern structural policy, the environment and quality, where they each belong.
<P>
I should now like to turn to arable crops.
Developments so far have shown that, although the 1992 reform was a major step in the right direction, it did not go far enough. Continuing the present regime would mean either increased surpluses or set-aside far in excess of the 17.5 %.
Against that background, the reform is therefore necessary as a matter of urgency, I welcome all the changes which improve the Commission proposal, but not those which water it down.
<P>
First of all, several amendments seek to lessen the proposed price reductions, or even to dispense with them altogether.
I fear that a price reduction of less than 20 % would not allow us to achieve our objectives.
A limited price reduction would result in increased use of export refunds, and our exports of cereals, pigmeat and poultrymeat would thus be restricted to the maximum quantities set by the WTO, while the volume of international trade increased.
<P>
As regards set-aside, I am not ruling out the possibility that from time to time - because of unfavourable market conditions - certain areas of land will have to be taken out of production for a year.
However, this should be the exception, because the market should be eased primarily by exports and not by compulsory set-aside.
Should it be necessary to fall back on set-aside, then the Commission will make a proposal to the Council and Parliament to depart from the normal rate of 0 %.
All amendments relating to this are therefore unnecessary.
<P>
A further bone of contention is the area direct payments.
The changes you have proposed would simply perpetuate overcompensation, which came in for severe criticism, in particular from the Court of Auditors.
We should not forget that, in the future, although market prices will be subject to greater fluctuations, they will, on average, be above the guaranteed price.
Several amendments provide for additional payments for voluntary set-aside, in order to promote renewable raw materials.
<P>
I can certainly support any efforts to find new markets for agricultural products in industry.
However, I doubt whether modulated set-aside payments are the right answer to the problem.
I must also point out that subsidies introduced on new crops will not be covered by the so-called peace clause, and can easily be contested by the other WTO members.
We should not, therefore, accept changes of this kind.
<P>
It is a different case for the numerous amendments directed towards retaining the existing regime for oilseeds or maize.
This is not supporting new crops, but continuing or extending the existing regime.
In the case of maize, I should, however, like to emphasise two points.
First of all, evidence should be provided that special treatment for maize is still economically justified, when as it is, the Commission is proposing that a distinction should be drawn between irrigated and non-irrigated crops.
Moreover, singling out maize for special treatment would hugely complicate the aid system, and would further enhance the privileged treatment accorded to silage maize.
<P>
For oilseeds, it is true that keeping a specific premium would mean that the Blair House constraints would continue to apply, but in some cases, these are already - because of the massive sanctions - forcing the premiums actually paid out below the future target level.
For all these reasons, I cannot accept changes which shake the foundations of the proposal.
<P>
I can only comment on the main aspects of the changes here.
I must also tell you, however, that the Commission cannot accept changes aimed at radically redistributing aid, or gearing Community instruments - such as, for example, the calculation of yields for the intervention system - to the national specifications of particular Member States, and to the detriment of other Member States.
<P>
I should just like to add a few words on the quality of cereals.
Our produce must conform to the needs of the market and, in particular, to the requirements of importing countries, which means that we have to produce high-quality cereals.
This point is in part addressed in Amendment No 4.
Although I cannot accept the form of wording chosen, I do share Parliament's concerns in this regard.
The Commission will therefore consider ways and means of improving quality as part of the application of Agenda 2000.
<P>
That brings me to the last report, on horizontal rules for direct support schemes.
The reform of the market organisations will mean that in the future most agricultural expenditure will be in the form of direct payments.
It therefore seems reasonable to align these direct payments with the general aims of the common agricultural policy.
That applies just as much to the social as to the environmental criteria. The proposed ceiling on direct payments should help the social balance.
Should Member States wish to go further, they can introduce a system of modulation based on the number of employees.
Making it compulsory to apply this rule Community-wide would, however, cause serious problems, in particular with regard to carrying out checks and the definition of work units, which differs from Member State to Member State.
<P>
I reject the idea of extending capping or modulation to payments other than the direct payments within the market organisations, because payments made, say, under rural development, are pursuing specific goals and should be regarded, for example, as payment for work done to protect the environment, and not simply as income support.
Given the great ecological variety and number of different farming structures in the Community, it would, realistically, be very difficult to lay down environmental conditions for the receipt of direct payments at Community level.
The Member States should, however, be able to make direct payments conditional on compliance with environmental requirements.
<P>
As regards the appropriations saved by capping payments, it was proposed to hand this money over to the Member States.
Clearly, however, this would have corresponding consequences for the budget.
Consideration should be given to whether there are not other options - in addition to the agri-environmental schemes - for utilising the appropriations saved through modulation and cross-compliance in ways which would not affect competition.
Perhaps we could consider earmarking appropriations for the other accompanying measures, or for the compensatory supplement or the forestry measures.
They should not simply be used for income support or structural measures.
<P>
To sum up, let me stress once more that the Commission is not in the business of pushing through the Agenda for its own sake, as it were.
At the heart of the debate between the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council is much more the fact that, for the Commission, the agricultural part of the Agenda will be its position for the WTO negotiations to be reopened at the end of the year, which will result in further liberalisation of the agricultural markets.
Since everyone agrees that this will be the outcome, the Commission does not believe it can justify imposing several reforms on farmers shortly afterwards.
This may indeed be more convenient and perhaps it also wins more approval in certain quarters, but European agriculture - like other sectors of the economy - needs stable basic conditions.
The Agenda provides these, while also allowing European agriculture to have a share in the growth of the agriculture market.
A slimmed-down reform could do neither. That is why it does not make sense.
<P>
Associated with this, I admit, is the fact that, in particular for demographic reasons - half of European farmers are over 55 - we are not seeking to prevent inevitable structural change, but to accept it and to shape it in an appropriate way.
I am therefore extremely grateful for the broad support which our proposals on rural development have found in this House.
I can assure you that I am open to all practical alternative proposals which share our objectives, as I have already suggested here in connection with the beef and veal sector and step-by-step reductions.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Mulder">
Madam President, I should like to ask the Commissioner if the Commission could give Parliament a list of its position on all the amendments which have been tabled to the Agenda 2000 proposals.
I ask this because we have to vote on 28 January.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Fischler">
Madam President, I think that it would be useful to have a list of this kind.
We will see that you have one for the vote on 28 January.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Madam President, I have a question for Commissioner Fischler: we have in fact just dealt with amendments which have not yet been put to the vote.
You have anticipated events somewhat.
The situation is rather difficult, as you yourself described just now.
That might mean, however, that after the vote we have to ask you once again whether you can accept the amendments.
If you do not accept them, there is a possibility that we will refer them back to committee, which is, of course, what we also did in the case of the structural measures under the second pillar.
Will you be present at that time to give us that information, if it proves to be necessary, so that we can decide whether to embark on this procedure?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Fischler">
Yes sir, God willing, I will be there!
<P>
Laughter
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rehder">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, following on from what you just said, Commissioner, may I also wish you a long political life, irrespective of the discussions which will - we hope - be coming to a head again tomorrow!
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, in this parliamentary trilogue - and I should like to start on a positive note - we agree on one point: CAP reform is inevitable and necessary, and it is not only up for discussion because of imminent eastward enlargement.
This is an argument which, when advanced in various Member States, including my own, is always misleading.
<P>
The problems caused by overproduction and the fact that the agricultural policy has hitherto lacked an ecological dimension - and this is something we Social Democrats explicitly recognise, Commissioner - have actually been tackled successfully in the past, and here too, some success can be discerned.
Nevertheless, and we are all agreed on this, reform of the current agricultural policy, in the light of the many years of repeated and serious shortcomings - and this is once again our view - constitutes our primary duty to the people.
The common agricultural policy does work, but recently it has in particular started to lean more towards the social side, meaning that there is a danger that a common agricultural policy and its attendant costs will meet with less and less acceptance from the European public, and the European taxpayer.
<P>
This increasing lack of acceptance on the part of the general public cannot, however, be written off as academic debate, and thus as not having any repercussions.
An increasing number of jobs in rural areas will be at risk as a result of these difficulties, unless, in the interests of those concerned, an unvarnished and - if necessary - blunt analysis of the shortcomings is finally carried out.
We have indeed come a long way together in this respect.
<P>
Commissioner, some of your proposals are along the right lines, but these parts of the proposals are not, in our opinion, sufficiently thorough and remain basically symbolic.
You are somewhat lacking in courage here to lead the way and to show your teeth for once, so as to improve the lot of weaker farmers in Europe.
Some details are, we believe - and this also emerged from the contributions made here by our rapporteurs from the Group of the Party of European Socialists - in need of improvement: you made proposals in the milk sector, for example, which further undermine the position, in particular, of smaller and weaker farmers in less-favoured areas and which - I must also add this - are a hotbed for yet more bureaucracy to rear its ugly head.
<P>
In the Middle Ages, being sentenced to be quartered was one of the most severe punishments there was.
In bringing in the dairy cow premium, please do not reintroduce the quartering of premiums.
We have actually moved on since then, and by the way: why not just go outside and try to explain this to a perfectly normal European - no one will understand a word, not to put too fine a point on it!
<P>
Detailed criticism in this House should not, however, result in total rejection of reform, which would only become necessary with eastward enlargement. We cannot accept that.
We Social Democrats strongly urge all the Members of this Parliament to make an active contribution to this analysis, to help to provide alternatives which fulfil our responsibilities in the field of social and environment policy, and not to make themselves dependent on pressure groups which refuse reform of any kind.
We have, unfortunately, had bad experiences in the various countries in this respect.
I should also like to make the following point clear: anyone acting and arguing in this way - including through the media - robs the weaker, and often enough those who have lost out as a result of this agricultural policy, robs those very people of their hope for a better future.
<P>
For us as Social Democrats, it is intolerable that only one third of the annual agriculture budget reaches active agricultural employers.
This state of affairs becomes nothing short of grotesque when 80 % of this aid is paid out to just 20 % of farmers, who are also the wealthiest ones.
The President of the European Court of Auditors was quite right when he recently once again described this - basically, although he expressed it in diplomatic terms - as a scandal.
<P>
Moreover, the Social Democrats refuse to support a policy in the future which still gives the same entitlement to aid to the country millionaire - who, by massive rationalisation, has almost made his well-situated holding into a one-man business, and by having the best access to world markets secures the best prices - as to a farmer in a less-favoured area, who often enough can only hold his own by going short himself.
Let me just make one point clear: we do not envy this global player in the agriculture industry his economic success.
But in our policy, which must be geared to social criteria, we take account of the fact that this role of global player is something which smaller and weaker farmers in many areas of Europe simply cannot assume.
<P>
European support policy, Mr President-in-Office - and I believe this to be one of the most important headlines to have emerged from recent discussions, including under the new presidency - European support policy in rural areas must, in critical aspects, become social policy.
We must also make this clear to the lobby groups.
Obviously, we also have to come up with an integrated policy for rural areas throughout Europe.
We must not only safeguard existing jobs, we must also create new jobs in rural areas and also, by means of better infrastructure policy, ensure - and this is all part of it - that in a rural area it is possible to travel, on a daily basis, to a job outside agriculture, so that the rural community remains viable.
If we translate this better approach - which is also perceptible in the Commission's proposals on Agenda 2000 - into active policy, then I will have no further concerns about its being acceptable to the public.
<P>
One of the points close to the heart of European Social Democrats is that we make the amount of aid distributed to agricultural holdings dependent on the number of long-term jobs - on which social security contributions are payable - to be maintained and created in that holding, and of course this includes both employees and members of the family.
<P>
Reducing unemployment is one of the main themes of the Council presidency; of course, this also affects rural areas and agriculture, and we want to work together against this severe employment crisis.
<P>
The Social Democrats in the European Parliament call this policy a policy for rural areas.
This is an integrated policy.
We have also had a wide-ranging discussion in our group.
We have had to reach compromises, and we are glad that we are also able to reach compromises of this kind in direct negotiations with the Council and the Commission.
I can, however, tell you a secret - it is no secret really - the secret of the democratic Members of this House: in the future, we do not want these negotiations to lead simply to our making a contribution; as elected representatives of the European people, we also want to have the power of codecision in this final part of the European budget, because that is what we have been elected for, and we ask for your support in this respect too!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="Gillis">
Madam President, I wish to begin by thanking Mr Garot for his report on beef.
As rapporteur he tried to mellow the severity of the proposals in the beef sector.
<P>
The beef regime is the most complicated of all the regimes, mainly because it has the longest lead time.
Beef farmers are still suffering from the aftermath of the BSE crisis in the UK, which has thrown the whole beef industry into a spiralling free fall, with consumption badly damaged.
For example, pig and poultry meat consumption at 23 million tonnes is now more than three times higher than beef consumption at 7.1 million tonnes per year.
This is only partly related to price.
When imports of beef into the EU are added to domestic production, the total is almost one million tonnes higher than the internal market uptake.
A major difficulty arises because of the constraints of the Blair House agreement on export volumes and the level of export refunds payable, together with the collapse of the Russian economy and the strategic downward price pressure which is applied by other third-country markets as they take advantage of the Russian problem.
On the one hand there are added pressures from the West, mainly from the US and the Cairns Group, as we prepare to start negotiations on the next WTO round and, on the other, there are pressures from the East to reduce the cost of enlargement.
<P>
It is essential that beef farmers are shown the maximum consideration.
The 10-month and 22-month premium for steers and the deseasonalisation premium must be kept in place.
The proposed slaughter premium, while it is a contentious issue, is not a good replacement system.
While it might be very simple to operate, it is not linked directly to land area and does not suit the highly desirable objectives of the Commission to promote environmentally friendly grass-based systems of production - which the Commissioner has just mentioned.
<P>
It is also vitally important that the market be stabilised with the continued availability of intervention, whenever that is necessary and until such times as balance is restored to the market, and that imports and production be reduced.
<P>
Finally, I wish to say to the Commission that I understand what it is trying to do but, until the beef market has time to recover from the recent crisis, it is absolutely necessary to ease the very severe proposals so that farmers can stay in business.
The Commission has a responsibility to find out why food prices to consumers are increasing steadily while farmers' product prices continue to fall heavily.
Someone in the middle is profiteering.
We need to stop this so that consumers can benefit from the price reductions to farmers.
I know the Commissioner is aware of this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Mulder">
Madam President, in the first instance I should say that despite all the interesting contributions we have had to this debate, the whole discussion of Agenda 2000 is somewhat unreal, because as Commissioner Fischler has rightly indicated, the changes in policy will mean that the policy costs more.
I keep hearing everywhere that there is less money available.
Is there really much point in talking about changes to agriculture policy when we do not know exactly what the future financial position is going be?
It is high time Parliament was told.
What funding is available for agriculture?
I should like to know how Commissioner Fischler sees his proposals in relation to the availability of funds.
<P>
The position of the Liberal Group in general is that the prospect of accession by the Eastern European countries makes it necessary to modify the agricultural policy.
We are in favour of price cuts for the principal products.
However, and above all because the world situation has changed significantly from two years ago, the general line is a smaller price cut than that envisaged by the Commission, together with full compensation for that reduction.
<P>
We favour equal treatment for the most important products, and in specific terms that means equal treatment for the price of cereal starch and potato starch.
We think that quotas have to remain, so we must have the milk quota, but also and above all a variable system of set-aside.
<P>
Lastly, a word or two on cofinancing, largely for the benefit of the German minister who is here with us.
The Liberal Group favours the cofinancing of income subsidies, not in order to improve the net payment position of certain countries, but primarily because this is unavoidable in the context of the accession of the Eastern European countries.
If we had to pay income supplements as well, that would bankrupt the common agricultural policy and we do not want that.
Yes to cofinancing, provided it can vary according to region, provided payment by the Member States is compulsory, and provided that Member States which do not do this are penalised by Brussels.
But policy must continue to be set in Brussels, and there must be equal opportunities for competition throughout the European Union, with no distortion of policy by national rules.
These, Madam President, are the broad lines of the Liberal Group's position, and many speakers from my group will have points to add.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Rosado Fernandes">
Commissioner, having heard your proposed reductions, I doubt that the famous European model of agriculture can continue because there is not just one model but two: the successful model and the poor model.
<P>
In addition, the famous and much-discussed option of multi-functionality will actually become a reality.
Many farmers will have to work in other sectors in order to earn a living.
It is interesting to see that the five reports were produced by Members who come from the rich areas of Europe and who naturally have shown evident impartiality for which I must congratulate them all.
<P>
I come from a poor area and this is reflected in my views.
I must also congratulate Mr Rehder for having made a left-wing speech in this sitting, which is something I do not normally expect from the social democrats, while the Commission generally talks only of the market, using highly capitalist rhetoric.
This is therefore somewhat of a change, hopefully in the right direction.
<P>
With regard to cofinancing, I must say that this is clearly a problem for the poor countries.
They will have difficulty in maintaining cohesion and in remaining within the concept of cohesion if the compulsory expenditure is not covered in full by the European budget.
<P>
As for milk and milk products, it is clear that a fairer allocation of quotas and the targeting of the more disadvantaged areas and young farmers is of the greatest importance to us. This would correspond to the European model of agriculture.
With regard to cereals, we are clearly in agreement, but not on the amount by which the price of cereals must be lowered.
However, we do agree, for example, that non-food production must be encouraged so that we can continue to be farmers.
We agree that the compulsory set-aside should be maintained and in this I agree with the opinion of Mr Mulder who suggests a figure of between 0 % and 17 %.
With regard to beef and veal, Mr Garot is an expert on the subject.
We agree almost totally with his proposals and we naturally consider that the modulation is important.
I also feel it is important to carefully note this modulation in the report by Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf.
Just one thing needs to be decided: who is going to assess the modulation and who is going to judge the question of the work units on each holding?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Jové Peres">
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Madam President, Commissioner, our group believes that the approach being taken to reform is a step in the right direction.
We think, however, that in many areas the action being taken is too half-hearted.
It is a question of abolishing public intervention, and not just of reforming it.
A price reduction within the intervention regime is wrong; instead, we need to set a deadline for being able to dispense with intervention altogether.
It is also wrong to cling to the instrument of export promotion; instead, we need to indicate when we will finish with this.
<P>
I believe that both the policy of reducing prices and, in particular, the policy in the beef and veal sector, constitute a step towards abandoning intervention.
In 2006, we - or however many of us are still around then - will discuss this, but a deadline should be given.
The same applies to issues connected with the milk sector.
We need to be told what will happen in 2006.
Are we to expect quotas to be discontinued at that time?
Holdings need to prepare for this.
This also affects the question of quota trading, and the value of the quota.
That concerns Germany in particular.
This should be clarified.
Of course, Mr Funke, that is also a request to the presidency.
Holdings need to have security.
<P>
A further criticism is nothing new to you, Mr Fischler.
We do not want old-style alignment with the world market.
We do not want a closed shop.
We want doings and dealings, but please, if so, then we also want farmers to compete on quality.
Anyone who wants to produce for the world market should go ahead and do so, and will then have to see that he adapts his trade to the other trading partners.
The state must stay out of this.
This should not be supported with public money.
<P>
Our next criticism is that you are still not concentrating enough on the internal market.
After eastward enlargement to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, we will - after China - be the largest internal market in the world.
Production should also be targeted at this market, and competition on quality should prevail.
We want the market, and we want to make it possible for producers and farmers to gear themselves to the market.
<P>
I now have to commend you - and our group has consistently supported this - for deciding to create a specific line for structures, appropriations for which will be diverted from the EAGGF Guarantee Section, albeit rather too cautiously.
More should be done here!
But the resistance to going down the road of quality-based policy is huge.
Perhaps your courage has deserted you. But we can of course still appeal to it.
At the next round of reforms in 2006, it is to be hoped that the measures which are at present only accompanying measures will become the focus of agriculture policy.
<P>
Allow me now to comment on the conduct being displayed here in Parliament.
Until the elections in Germany, you had the German Government's blocking tactics to deal with.
Now we have the PPE Group's blocking tactics to deal with.
All the groups' coordinators on agriculture policy here had come to a unanimous agreement. We wanted to reach a compromise.
We wanted to produce a line of argument, and this time we wanted to have a say in the reform; we wanted to use this procedure to postpone the vote, to bring our influence to bear, and also to strengthen your position vis-à-vis the Council in many other areas.
Chaos was the only result.
I hope that in the vote in the plenary it will still be possible to reach a sensible consensus, so that we achieve a majority and are, after all, able to continue to exert this influence.
<P>
I should like to say to you, Mr Funke - as President-in-Office and as the German Agriculture Minister - that if Mr Borchert had still been here, the PPE Group would have gone along with this, so that there was support and a demand from Brussels; Borchert could thus have claimed that Brussels had issued demands.
Now they are going down the opposite path, so that people can say that the new Agriculture Minister is selling off agriculture and reducing prices.
You should bear that in mind too.
It is the opposition which is at work here, and the present opposition still has to learn to adopt a constructive approach.
<P>
I hope that at the Council negotiations a way will be found to move employment and the environment to the centre of agriculture policy, and that in 2006 we shall be able to set this agricultural policy back on its feet once and for all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Barthet-Mayer">
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="Nicholson">
Madam President, I should firstly like to congratulate the rapporteurs for their hard work and diligence in preparing the reports.
Unfortunately the committee did not reward them as it should have done when they brought their reports to committee.
We are now embarking on a further reform of the common agricultural policy under Agenda 2000.
There is no doubt that when we are finished it will cost more and will become more difficult to defend.
We have to strive to find a balance between the producer on one hand and the consumer on the other because the taxpayer is becoming less inclined to support the rural community.
<P>
The whole of agriculture across the European Union is facing a very difficult time financially.
Returns to the farmers are reducing year on year in spite of major support going into the industry.
We are in agreement with that support.
We have to ensure that the industry survives because the family farm is the backbone of the European Union.
We must ensure that young farmers will come into the industry, that their status within that industry will be a good one and that it will be an industry they want to be part of.
<P>
Milk is an important part of the industry.
Many farmers throughout Europe depend on it and we must ensure that we get a policy that is balanced and correct.
Milk quotas in principle should remain but should be changed in line with the suckler cow and sheep quotas.
In my area farmers who do not get out of their beds in the morning to milk cows can lease their quota and make more profit than the farmer who does and who has to pay money to lease the quota through another farmer.
There must be something wrong with a system that produces a situation like that.
It must be reformed and brought in line with other quota systems.
<P>
With regard to beef, in my area the industry has been totally shattered and something needs to be done to restore it.
I do not think private storage would be enough and we need to consider keeping the whole area of intervention.
I am against paying premiums on heifers and bulls and that is something the Commission should look at.
I do not think it will be a help because no extra money is available.
<P>
I cannot agree with the Commissioner when he speaks of the national envelope.
This will thoroughly change the common agricultural policy.
The national envelope will mean inequality between the nation states. It means farmers in one area will have advantages over farmers in other areas.
We should not go down that road.
I would ask the Commissioner to take on board one other point.
If we are going to tie the hands of the producers as to how they produce food, we should not import food from non-EU countries which is not produced to the same high standards.
Do not tie farmers' hands any more.
Give them fair and equal competition with the rest of the world.
Make sure that imports into the Union are of the same standards as the food we produce.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Madam President, Commissioner, the debate on the agricultural facet of Agenda 2000 and its 8 regulations would appear to provide us with a solid legislative structure and a whole range of attractive new elements.
It therefore seems strange for us to be talking about the national envelope, sustainable or global development, cofinancing, multifunctionality, eco-conditionality, subsidiarity, high quality and the challenges to be met when, in fact, everything can be summed up in just one word: continuity.
<P>
What we are dealing with here is a new CAP reform, an overhaul of the 1992 reform.
Nothing has changed: price reductions - 15, 20, 30 % - the Malthusian set-aside, rationing and austerity.
The situation is even worse than in 1992 because not everyone will receive compensation.
<P>
It is true that you have at least achieved something new tactically speaking in that you have succeeded in dividing the Committee on Agriculture.
Proof of this lies in its rejection of the five reports. Northern Europe, Britain, Germany, ultra-liberal Europe and the Europe of accountants have applied pressure which has led to submission, then despoliation and lastly, illusion.
Pressure, submission, despoliation, illusion: this is the downward spiral in which European farmers are trapped.
<P>
The first stage is pressure, which has three sources.
Firstly, there is budgetary pressure from Germany, which is keen to reduce its contribution; I can understand this and, what is more, the French might be working along similar lines; secondly, there is pressure from the cohesion countries, namely Spain, Portugal and Ireland, who all want to retain their share of the Structural Funds; thirdly, there is pressure due to enlargement to the East, which will require additional Structural Funds.
Enlargement is adding pressure precisely because it dictates agricultural price reduction to the extent that once the ten Eastern countries have arrived, EAGGF expenditure and guaranteed prices will not increase.
Lastly, pressure is being exerted by the WTO 2000 negotiations, given that Agenda 2000 is the progeny of WTO 2000.
This will lead to reductions in land aid and export aid and, as a consequence, will result in submission once again to the United States.
<P>
This submission is twofold: in the first place there is submission to Germany.
It is Germany that is pushing for cofinancing to reduce European agricultural credits and evidently to increase the Structural Funds for the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, which are of strategic interest to Germany.
<P>
Then there is submission to the United States, as in 1992, something which appears to be genetic in the case of the European Commission.
Even before negotiations got under way, it began by aligning itself with the United States and not once did it call on them to engage in fair trade which would take into account animal welfare, environmental protection, social protection for farmers and food quality.
No, instead it aligned itself with the United States!
And this occurred despite the fact that the United States, exceptionally, is not hesitating to release 6 billion dollars of aid for farmers when they advised us to stop giving out aid.
<P>
The result is that instead of taking the offensive we give in to them.
A perfect example of this is the symbolic banana dossier.
Section 301 applies, or is threatened to apply, and we, moreover, do not even possess the same legislative arsenal.
A fitting expression to sum this up might be: when the going is good we give in, when the going is bad we still give in!
<P>
The consequence of this is the despoliation of farmers, which is my third point.
By way of example, under the Guarantee section of the EAGGF, ECU 500 million are to be redirected to cover pre-accession funds. In other words, farmers in the West will suffer in order to finance the accession of farmers from the East.
The last to arrive will be the first to receive financial aid.
This is undoubtedly a very Christian way of going about things: the worker who arrives at the eleventh hour earns more than the people who arrived before him.
<P>
Moreover, the financial resources under the Guarantee section of the EAGGF will be used to finance restructuring and the fishing fleets which until now have been financed by the FIFG. This means that in order to help the victims of the fisheries policy, those who have suffered under the agricultural policy are forced to endure further hardship.
This is the unfortunate illusion the reform has created.
<P>
Commissioner, we are told that the aim of the reform is to achieve the European agriculture model as developed by Arlindo Cunha.
Indeed, we all agree with the family-run farms, food safety, environmental protection and sustainable development.
<P>
Nonetheless, in reality you are rigorously ensuring that the opposite of this occurs. If the reduction in agricultural prices is not fully compensated the outcome is a fall in agricultural incomes, which forces the farmer to look for other forms of compensation to keep his head above water.
And where does he find such alternative sources? In the race for overproductivity.
<P>
This in fact means that farming will grow to the detriment of young farmers, family-run farms, country populations and the survival of the European model.
Costs will be reduced through the use of growth activators, cheap inputs and urban sludge, for example by using antibiotics, which results in a drop in quality, safety and environmental protection.
And lastly, it will lead to increased depopulation, desertification and insecurity, and a reduction in quality and food independence.
<P>
I grant you that if this scenario comes true you will have achieved the tour de force of turning the clock back to the 1960s where we counted for next to nothing on the world market.
So in this context, that of an agricultural Euro-Disney, you will not play the part of Mickey as that part is played by Mr Kantor.
Neither will you play Uncle Scrooge as Germany plays that part.
You will not be the director as Walt Disney is American.
All that is left to play is the part of Pluto, the dog that keeps guard over American interests.
But at least the character of Pluto is as nice as Sissi, which will mean that Austria will get out while the going is good.
All the same, it is a shame that you are forgetting and abandoning the great agricultural operas in favour of little operettas.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Colino Salamanca">
Madam President, today we are debating the proposals for reform of the various agricultural sectors without knowing the possible financial impact of such proposals and, above all, whether or not they fit in with the future financial perspective.
This prevents us from being able to realistically address the fundamental question of how to finance such proposals.
<P>
It is true that the Commission has come up with some optimistic hypotheses, according to which there will not be any problems.
However, as the Court of Auditors itself has established, the truth may be somewhat different. In particular, the Court of Auditors draws our attention to the question of whether or not we will be able to manage an agricultural policy where the new Member States, which will join from 2003 onwards, will not receive direct support.
Could we maintain such a course over time without tensions arising?
<P>
The second general comment is that, although the Commission wishes to increase the competitiveness of European agriculture, it is essentially doing so through pricing instruments and by reducing guaranteed prices.
But this new direction lacks the necessary extra element as the Commission has not set up programmes promoting the high level of quality in European production.
<P>
Having established these premises, I should like to say that the path chosen by the Commission would seem to be the right one, in view of international growth forecasts, the increased competitiveness of European agriculture, the opening up to new Members and the future WTO negotiations.
But this should be an opportunity for using these proposals to correct any anomalies which still remain from the past.
For example, in the cereals sector, it would appear to be too optimistic to establish a zero rating for the compulsory set-aside of land.
There are some forecasts which say that we will still possibly need to reintroduce export refunds and will certainly to reintroduce legally binding measures.
Also, the possibility of adjusting the reference periods for regionalisation plans in some Member States should be raised, and even the idea of setting different production levels for maize in comparison to other cereals.
Moreover, it does not seem necessary to use surface area to even out aid for oilseed in relation to aid for other cereals.
<P>
As regards dairy produce, whilst the price guidelines are acceptable, there is no real justification for providing support according to the 'virtual cow' system.
Prices drop in the same way for all livestock farmers and it is ridiculous that the way support is allocated benefits precisely those who are most competitive and, in contrast, penalises those who are working to make their farms become competitive.
<P>
A similar situation applies in the meat sector.
Reform should not further penalise those Member States who have less premium units - whether these be for suckler cows or male bovines - and these reforms are on top of the age limits established for obtaining premiums for sheep.
<P>
The system that allows the Member States to distribute some support according to national guidelines also seems to us to be raising more problems than it solves. And, as the Court of Auditors itself pointed out, the need to respect a minimum Community framework is still a vague provision in the proposals.
The proposed decentralisation could cause problems when it comes to precisely determining which costs can be subsidised with Community funds.
<P>
Finally, in relation to the horizontal regulation, although we are delighted that it tries to correct some imbalances within the CAP, we do however regret the fact that there is a danger that this will be unworkable.
Defining the environmental obligations to be fulfilled must remain in the hands of Community authorities. The same applies to setting the overall ceilings for receiving aid where permanent employment can and must be taken into account.
<P>
Despite their tentative nature, we support the Commission's proposals, not so much for the savings that these proposals could make but more because we believe the indiscriminate granting of subsidies is unjustifiable. And as the Commission's own information shows, we must remember that only 0.2 % of farmers receive aid worth over ECU 100 000.
We believe that the Commission's small effort outlined in these proposals should not be subject to so much criticism from the right.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Funk">
Madam President, Mr Funke, we are almost namesakes!
The Fantuzzi report, on which I should like to say a few words, has indeed received a great deal of attention - at any rate, 93 amendments have been tabled by the groups, all of which are, of course, justified to a greater or lesser extent.
Mr Fantuzzi has done a good job - I have to grant him that - and he also always wears the nicest ties in Parliament, because they are made in Italy.
But he has advocated a 20 % reduction in prices, which I oppose, and I shall tell you why: 20 % is far too much for farmers to withstand.
We can only just, with gritted teeth, withstand a 10 % reduction, above all because only 50 % of this will be compensated.
<P>
In my region in Baden-Württemberg, there are not any of these holdings which Mr Rehder always claims are receiving millions.
Perhaps he should show them to me.
Not in my region in any case, where the situation is quite the opposite; farmers have a hard time of it there, and it would be nothing short of insulting to reproach them constantly for being some of the rich ones.
<P>
If we want to be competitive on the world market, Mr Funke, then we also need to know whether farmers are able to withstand this.
I wonder, however, with whom we are supposed to compete.
With countries where wages are only 10 % of ours? Where the environment is being damaged?
I reject conditions of competition of this kind. That is also why we must reject price reductions of 20 %.
<P>
Price reductions alone are not the right way to help agriculture in the long term; instead, we need more intelligent solutions, if we want to hold on to our farmers.
In practice, therefore, we also need to promote oil plants and protein crops - I fully agree with Mr Fantuzzi there - and we need to promote energy and industrial crops.
There is a shortage of these crops on the markets, and we need better support for them so that industry, and the processing plants we have now set up, can also source these products in the future.
If we promote these crops, they will enrich ecological diversity, while at the same time this would have the advantage of our not concentrating solely on cereals, cereals which we cannot sell as it is.
<P>
By constantly reducing prices, we should not turn our agricultural producers into whipping boys - it only serves to depress farmers.
After all, there is 1.5 pfennigs' worth of wheat in a bread roll, and a bread roll costs 70 pfennigs.
After the reform it will probably cost 80 pfennigs, despite the Commissioner's reducing the price of wheat by 20 %.
I cannot explain that to anyone, Mr Fischler.
Can you?
Please let me have the recipe, and then I can go to the people and say that this is as it should be.
<P>
Two thirds of EU governments are led by Social Democrats, and they are unable to accept Mr Rehder's proposals.
Why then, Mr Funke, are the two thirds not saying: Mr Rehder is right, we will adopt this agricultural policy?
I would take advantage of his claim that 20 % of farmers receive 80 % of the aid, but I am not even sure if he really knows what he is talking about.
In the future I should like information which is a little more specific, because that is a sound bite which is doing the rounds and which disavows agriculture ...
<P>
Heckling
<P>
... perhaps in many other regions too: I have also seen holdings of this kind in Andalusia, Mr Colino.
It does not irritate us when the information is specific, but it should be specific, and not delivered as a sound bite; otherwise we will also have to investigate in Lower Saxony, to see whether all is well there, that is quite clear.
<P>
We reject sound bites, Mr Funke - I agree with you there - and instead we should call a spade a spade.
Help us out of our plight, and afterwards I will shake your hand again, because having the name Funke is not such a bad thing after all, is it?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="President">
Mr Rehder feels that he has been challenged.
I hope that you only want to ask a question, since we are not going to embark on a debate amongst ourselves.
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<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rehder">
Madam President, I should just like to point out that this is not something which Mr Rehder - who may have been underestimated - has made up.
I invite you to go and see the President of the European Court of Auditors; he can show you the figures.
The fact is that you cannot simply denounce things which do not suit you.
That is a remedy which inflicts further damage on small farmers.
Mr Friedmann will explain it to you quite calmly, even if you still do not believe Mr Rehder, whom you have surely underestimated.
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<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Anttila">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, the Luxembourg summit called for agricultural production to be able to continue in all regions of the Union, including wherever there were special problems.
The realisation of this expression of political will is the responsibility of the Council of Ministers, for which Parliament drafts an opinion.
Agricultural conditions vary widely in the Union.
In the south it is too hot and dry, while in the north it is the opposite: too little warmth, which reduces crop yield and raises building and heating costs.
The Union's permanent adverse natural conditions, both in the southern and northern regions, must definitely be taken into consideration when decisions are being made.
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Maize does not grow in all Member States.
Aid for the storage of maize should therefore extend to silage for those producers of milk and beef who cannot farm maize because of the prevailing natural conditions.
Otherwise aid for maize will distort competition in the single market.
Parliament has already approved aid for silage in Mr Cunha's report.
In northern regions crop farming needs increased subsidies owing to local conditions.
Grain too has to be dried.
<P>
The harsh experience of the war has taught the nations of Europe the vital importance of their own food production.
In Finland, the Union's northernmost Member State, food production is possible thanks to the Gulf Stream.
The reductions in producer prices in Agenda 2000 are too great for producers in the EU's most problematic regions, as farmers there will not even be able to recover their production costs at current market prices.
This would lead to virtual farming.
<P>
The crises of the global economy in Asia, Russia and South America have forced world market food prices down.
The USA also had to grant aid to its producers to the tune of USD 8 billion, so that farmers would not go bankrupt.
For that reason the proposed reductions in producer prices in Agenda 2000 should be halved and farmers should be fully compensated for those reductions, so as not to put too great a squeeze on European producers.
The changes in the global economy have to be taken seriously, and we should not be making it difficult for farmers to cope in the face of major challenges.
I have a question for the President-in-Office: how do you intend to make sure that the considerable producer price reductions in Agenda 2000 do not lead to a wave of bankruptcies in Europe?
<P>
Finally, I would like to remind everyone that food is a lot more than just a product with a price on it.
It is European culture at its best and high quality food always has its own price.
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<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="Hyland">
Madam President, the common agricultural policy was to remain central to the medium- and long-term planning of European agriculture.
Despite its limitations it has stood the test of time.
But having said that, we must also provide for the unpredictable.
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The present difficulties experienced by farmers are serious.
They are not the result of the 1992 reform but due to unpredictable circumstances which include BSE, the collapse of the Russian economy and, in some cases, the renationalisation of food markets.
In my view we are not responding to these short-term difficulties.
Many farmers may not survive to benefit from the long-term measures of the proposed reform which is the subject of Agenda 2000 and this debate.
<P>
I urge the Commission to look seriously and urgently at these more immediate problems.
Whatever the cost, it is not in the interests of the European Union that the family farms which are central to the European agricultural model are fast becoming marginalised.
We have a duty to respond to their plight.
In my view they are not crying 'wolf'.
Perhaps their difficulties serve the hidden agenda of some who do not have to courage to say openly that family farms do not have a future in the Europe of a new millennium.
<P>
I propose today that some financial reserve be provided within the agricultural budget to address such emergency eventualities when they occur.
With improving job opportunities outside agriculture I am worried about the continuity of family farming.
I feel young people will not take up farming as a profession.
If we ignore this fact we are burying our heads in the sand.
Down the road this Parliament will find itself having to address the serious problem of the human resources of agriculture necessary for the continuity of the agricultural sector.
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<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Querbes">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, everyone is engaging in an analysis of the exceptional conditions which appear to have reduced today's debate to an impasse.
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In fact, although the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development clearly rejected the Commission's proposals, it has been unable to come up with any coherent alternatives in spite of the quality of the reports presented.
There are at least three reasons for this.
<P>
The first is the lack of precision and the weakness of the Commission's projections.
Today it appears clear that these projections were seriously affected by the financial crisis, the underestimation of the actual cost of the reform and prior acceptance of American demands in renegotiating the WTO agreements.
The second reason for this impasse is the financial constraints imposed by the Stability Pact with the introduction of the euro.
The third and most fundamental reason is the decision to base this reform on the need for capital returns through a reduction in agricultural prices, and not on the needs of producers, consumers or society.
<P>
The Commission can firstly be reproached for having retreated into the triple across-the-board logic of reducing prices, dismantling market management instruments and reducing European financial intervention.
It can also be reproached for wanting to impose all its ideas despite their unpopularity.
In this way, following the Vienna Summit, President Santer labelled the positions adopted by Heads of State and Government as being 'purely tactical' and went on to state that the final agreement would be based on the Commission's proposals.
To think in these terms amounts to a blatant refusal to acknowledge the widening gap between the aspirations of farmers and citizens of the Union for more jobs, higher incomes and a better quality of life, and the Commission's ultra-liberal ambitions.
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If those countries who are experiencing the gradual exodus of agricultural workers, the growing imbalance between producers, produce and land, and the uncertainties surrounding food safety, had the opportunity - as we will tomorrow - to censure such a policy, they would do so.
<P>
In this context, it is incumbent on both Parliament and the Council to develop an alternative policy.
We have the means to do so.
Twice Parliament has called for a new approach to the CAP, an approach based on employment, balanced land use, the Community preference and a rejection of cofinancing.
<P>
I also think that the Committee on Agriculture's vote on the various reports has revealed an overall desire to reject alignment with world prices, to protect agricultural incomes, to pay for all the social benefits agriculture offers in terms of employment, land development and the environment, to limit and modulate public aid by distributing it more fairly and to maintain producers' organisations and market management instruments by improving them.
<P>
This constructive and alternative approach can once again be demonstrated either in preparation for Parliament's vote on 28 January or by referring the reports back to committee, which would give the Commission a strong hint that it needs to formulate other proposals.
<P>
As regards the Council, the presidency yesterday and today reaffirmed its good intentions to develop a more competitive and ecological form of agriculture, protect farmers' interests and advance a more effective employment policy.
However, by enclosing all of these proposals in the straitjacket of budgetary austerity and reduced agricultural expenditure, would the Council be able to resolve current contradictions in European integration? Might it not worsen the economic and social recession that threatens us at present, given that the solution would appear to lie in increasing the Union's financial resources from the profits generated by financial activity?
This would appear all the more essential as agriculture and food production are faced with the human and global challenges of the next millennia.
<P>
Parliament focused its report on the need to respond to the challenges facing humanity in terms of food, energy, the environment, water supply and sustainable development.
The decisions this House will make on 28 January must remain faithful to these aims.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="Hudghton">
Madam President, the Agenda 2000 package of reforms provides a major challenge to Europe's decision-makers and I do not underestimate that in any way.
The need to achieve an early agreement on the package must be balanced with the importance of ensuring that a fair and a reasonable set of proposals is seen to be adopted.
<P>
The common agricultural policy clearly must be examined and adjusted in an attempt to strike a balance between on the one hand providing proper support to our food production industry, and on the other hand ensuring that good value is achieved for the expenditure of public funds.
Adequate and transparent systems must of course be in place to ensure that financial controls meet the high standards that we are entitled to expect.
<P>
The diversity of circumstances across the European Union in the agricultural sectors clearly requires due consideration in the new common agricultural policy, which must be tailored to properly fulfil its purpose.
My home area of Europe - the north-east of Scotland - is sometimes called the larder of Scotland, containing as it does some of the best examples of high-quality agricultural, and indeed fisheries, production in Europe.
Aberdeen Angus beef, cereals, oilseed, sheep, poultry, soft fruit and potatoes, to name but a few, are all produced in an industry which is economically crucial to Scotland, with an output of £2 billion and one in ten of all Scottish jobs being dependent on it, directly or indirectly.
<P>
Our farmers are all aware and accept that common agricultural policy reform is needed, but the nature of the final report proposals should reflect the needs of the industry in Scotland, for example, in the definition of farm unit size.
Scotland, politically, is in a disadvantaged position at this moment, with our national interests being represented from London.
I hope that, as the reform package is finalised, the UK Government will, this time, properly articulate the case of Scotland's agricultural industry and that the Commissioner will take due note of any direct representations received from Scotland.
<P>
Our farmers, as well as our consumers and our taxpayers, are entitled to expect that reforms will bring about a genuine improvement in any new package and that specific changes, once agreed, can be carefully phased in so that our farmers can adjust to further changes in a properly managed way.
The farmers that I know are hardworking people, many in small family businesses who are aware of, and accept fully, their responsibilities to the consumer, to the environment and to the rural economy.
<P>
Madam President, Commissioner, let us work towards a common agricultural policy which will encourage, not further discourage, their efforts to continue to survive.
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<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="des Places">
Madam President, Commissioner, in September 1997 when I drew up the opinions of the Committee on Agriculture on the Agenda 2000 Communication and on the Structural Fund reform, especially concerning Objective 2, I highlighted the financial problems of the CAP as well as the dramatic consequences that the initial proposals put forward by the Commission would have on European farmers' incomes.
For more than a year these problems have been hidden to a certain extent, both by the Commission and by a great many professional agricultural associations who at the time had not fully comprehended the situation.
<P>
Today the problems are building up, from the partial disappearance of the green ECU to the fall in both farmers' incomes and the number of farmers - it must be added, contrary to the objectives of land-use planning - and so on.
So, in order to solve this financial equation we no longer talk only in terms of reduced prices for agricultural products, with of course the promise of full or partial compensation through aid that will inevitably be called into question within the framework of future WTO negotiations.
Given that this will not be enough to help budgetary balance, the needs of enlargement and many other problems, some are advocating CAP cofinancing. This would mean an artificial increase in the European budget which would be entirely inconsistent with the Edinburgh agreements and the Treaties.
<P>
As Mr Fantuzzi mentioned earlier, all of this seems worthy of a motion of censure even if a good financing plan that was clear, precise and took into account the development of expenditure at current or constant prices had been able to clarify our debates and prevent all the rapporteur's proposals from unfortunately receiving such a pounding.
The CAP, I should like to stress, is the only genuine common policy we have and I was surprised to note today that the defenders of a federal Europe are prepared to sacrifice it in favour of other interests.
<P>
No one would deny that the CAP in its present form is in need of reform, Commissioner, which goes to show that the original version was no good or at least was not sufficiently well adjusted to agricultural development and the needs of society.
We have had the problem of BSE to contend with and very shortly the GMO problem will lead to understandable consumer concerns over food safety.
<P>
If there was one reform needed it would evidently be needed in this area, but the Commission's proposals - your proposals, Commissioner - for price reductions force farmers to seek compensation for this steady fall in their income through ever more intensive production methods by enlarging their buildings, finding ways to reduce their input costs and by intensifying production to the detriment of environmental issues.
For some this will mean fertilisation using urban sludge with all the risks associated with it.
For others it will mean using growth activators and using less costly animal feed.
<P>
Finally, Madam President, when these proposals for CAP reform are discussed with other proposals on animal welfare and the responsibilities of farmers who produce agricultural foodstuffs, we note that European farmers are caught up in a downward spiral, the inevitable consequence of which will be to speed up rural depopulation.
Is this really your aim?
Is this really our aim?
I do not think so, but the action we are taking is unfortunately leading us in this direction.
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<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Moretti">
Madam President, as is well known, the CAP is based on three principles: the unified market, Community preference and financial solidarity.
Regrettably, these principles are increasingly being called into question.
In particular, the principle of Community preference is under attack from the large multinational food companies, which see it as standing in the way of their attempts basically to destroy Europe's small farms.
<P>
As far as financial solidarity is concerned, the Member States' main concern seems to be to assess the costs and benefits arising for each of them from the implementation of the CAP.
We are aware that resources must be earmarked under the Community budget to finance employment and infrastructure measures but, in our view, if agriculture is sacrificed to this end, Europe will be taking a step backwards in a sector which is crucial to international competition.
<P>
I should therefore like to know what guarantees are to be given for the future of farmers in Padania and Europe, so as to protect their incomes and their technical and human resources.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Happart">
Madam President, I welcome the work carried out by our rapporteurs.
It remains to be seen what you will make of it, Commissioner, at a time when the Commission is being particularly criticised.
In my opinion, the best proof of our will and ability to work towards improving human society in Europe and throughout the world would involve shrewdly deciding our future and making social choices.
But we need to have the means to be able to do this, and instead of limiting ourselves in budgetary terms and thus restricting our political activities in a way that is unsatisfactory, we need to ensure that we have sufficient financial resources to progress.
<P>
Since the beginning, the common agricultural policy was the motor behind the creation of what was first the common market and then the European Community and now the European Union, pending the advent of the European State.
We are in a state of political penury.
European decision-makers are all too often in the pay of the United States which has forced its ideas, its operation and production methods on us to the detriment particularly of European farmers - 40 million jobs in agriculture have been lost since 1960 - and the cultural dimension of European agriculture.
<P>
The United States, having imposed their antisocial rules on us by means of the GATT, now want to impose their hormones on us until such a time when they can unleash their unfettered genetic engineering in Europe.
These practices, which mean a couple of extra dollars in the pockets of genetic engineers but rarely boost farmers' incomes, undermine consumer confidence in the food products that we place at their disposal.
There is a huge distance between the debate on quality and the measures actually taken to implement this quality.
<P>
Budgetary phobia, added to the bad handling of what has been termed the mad cow crisis, has considerably undermined my confidence in the Commission, in its ability to shrewdly predict the future - and not only the future of European farmers - and its overall approach to what is generically referred to as rural society, its role and its future, without forgetting the Community preference provided for in the Treaty of Rome.
<P>
Commissioner, you are being asked, as we indeed are, to reorganise European agriculture through Agenda 2000 with farmers of whom over 60 % are over 50 years old. And, as you mentioned earlier, as much as possible will be achieved with these people, but there appears no desire to take measures to make the farming profession and that of rural and environmental manager more attractive to young people.
Nothing specific has been proposed, not even a credible 20-year draft outlining what will be done for farmers about to retire or for the young people who might begin their careers.
<P>
I suggest you do a little test, Commissioner, if you have enough time, among the people in your office to see what conditions would be necessary to entice civil servants away from their jobs to take over or start a farm somewhere in either Northern or Southern Europe.
I am sure that if we were to create conditions based on the answers given we would see young people flocking to work in farming.
<P>
Agenda 2000 also requires us to provide for enlargement to include countries of the East.
I should like to say straight away that I am in favour of this enlargement taking place.
But if it is stated that there will be no increase in the budget and that the same envelope will be kept for agriculture and for the Structural Funds, this will essentially boil down to Southern Europe paying for enlargement to the East.
In other words it is the poor in the South who will be paying for their poor Eastern counterparts.
This situation is unacceptable, Commissioner.
<P>
I should like to conclude by reminding you that our common enemy, politically speaking of course, is the Council.
Commissioner, in your position regarding the resolutions adopted by Parliament, you will need to remember this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Böge">
Madam President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office, for us the Agenda is a package.
At the outset, I will say quite deliberately that in the end, it is the results which will count and not only whether we keep to the timetable.
For me, the Commission's proposals on agriculture go too far.
I think that the votes in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development have made it clear that there will be no majority in this House in favour of the Commission proposals, as they currently stand.
<P>
After all, if we look at America, we find that two years after the farm bill came into force, discussions on parts of it have already been reopened.
Let us not make the strategic mistake of already wanting, as it were, to negotiate away some of the negotiating points which we need for the forthcoming WTO round.
I tell you quite clearly, Commissioner Fischler, that anyone who works in this way has never worked with cattle.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office, perhaps we should issue a joint statement to the German and European public, saying: we do not have any problem, in terms of both sides making the necessary adjustments, with fully integrating the agricultural economies of the applicant countries by 2004, provided that the basic freedoms of the internal market - free movement of people, capital, services and goods - are established at the same time. There could then at long last be a fair debate in this House about the other difficulties and stumbling-blocks connected with the agricultural policy.
<P>
On the financial side, I should like to say that obviously the issue of fair contributions and a balanced budget in terms of both income and expenditure forms part of the Agenda debate.
The question of cofinancing also belongs in this negotiating package.
As you know, Parliament will be giving its definitive opinion on this in February.
I must of course also confess, Mr President-in-Office, that the reason why the question of cofinancing is so controversial with German farmers and the subject of such contentious debate is that they might see themselves being faced with considerable problems - in view of the transposition of the accompanying measures and the reluctance of several Länder to cofinance them - if we were to choose this approach.
As you know, even Lower Saxony was not exactly at the top of the list for transposing the accompanying measures in Germany.
<P>
These days, of course, everyone has their experts.
Commissioner Fischler, I should like to say very clearly that the experts recently drafted in by the Commission, whom you specifically referred to as testifying for the Commission proposals, produced reports which are based on very foolhardy theories.
This is because if you are going to say that price reductions will benefit consumers, that unions and employers will take account of these price reductions and that this will affect prices accordingly, then the price of pigmeat in recent months ought to have been substantially lower.
<P>
When, during this presidency, we are debating and arguing about employment policy, we should not forget that these experts are assuming that there will be a substantial decline in the number of those employed in agriculture, if these proposals go through as they stand.
That is another reason why they need to be fundamentally amended.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Kofoed">
Madam President, there is widespread agreement in Parliament that we should have agricultural reform.
The question is whether we can agree on a reform which has the right balance, so that the agricultural sector does not end up carrying the heaviest load, and so that the burden in connection with the reform which will take place because of enlargement and the WTO negotiations is evenly distributed.
<P>
I have a few comments to make.
The first concerns the Fantuzzi report on cereals.
I think the reduction in the price of cereals proposed by the Commission is too great, because inadequate compensation is being provided.
I would like to bring the attention of both the President-in-Office and the Commissioner to the fact that cereals are the most important element in controlling agricultural production.
If the price of cereals is low, this will result in over-production of animal products in the form of beef and veal, pigmeat, eggs and poultry, because the farmers will want to have compensation and everyone will exploit the low price of cereals.
I therefore think the price of cereals is set too low and the Commission is not sufficiently interested in using set-aside.
The set-aside scheme is the best tool for regulating the production of cereals.
The USA has shown this for many years.
If the production of cereals is too high, land is put into storage.
That is cheaper than putting cereals into storage.
<P>
Finally, Commissioner, a comment on the calculation showing that EUR 3-4 billion is being saved on the budget and that consumers are saving EUR 10-15 billion.
This means that agriculture will transfer EUR 15 billion to consumers and agriculture will lose out in the reform, because compensation will not be available through the market, and that is no solution for supplying the market with agricultural produce.
I think there is a long way to go before we can reach agreement on agricultural reform, but I hope we can succeed.
I agree that it should happen before March, and we will do our best.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Poisson">
Madam President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office, 1999 will be a decisive year for the future of European agriculture.
At the Vienna European Council in December a number of disagreements remained and some Member States wanted to reduce their contribution to the Union budget. This seriously called into question the financial solidarity between Member States and overall European unity.
<P>
I should like to remind you and, moreover, stress that agriculture is the only sector to have a common policy on which European integration has hinged for the past four decades.
In Agenda 2000 the Commission proposed a reduction in support prices, an increase in direct aid to producers, cofinancing by Member States, and so on, but it remained frustratingly silent about the increase in the production of agricultural products for non-food purposes, which is something I regret deeply.
<P>
I remain absolutely convinced that the European Union needs to create a development strategy for non-food agricultural products and that the Commission needs to include a specific section on such products in the CAP reform.
In fact, these non-food agricultural products are able to meet a large number of needs in terms of agriculture and rural development. For example they can meet needs relating to food production control, diversification and employment, and they can help maintain a rural bias in industrial spheres in the production of new renewable materials and meet general interest needs regarding the protection of the biosphere.
All of these elements will very positively help define a specific European agriculture model.
<P>
This is why, on behalf of the UPE Group, I have tabled three amendments along these lines, in the context of the Graefe zu Baringdorf report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Novo">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the proposed CAP reforms presented by the Commission are no more than an attempt to continue the 1992 reform.
The effects of this are well-known and included discrimination between farmers, regions and products. In addition, its consequences, particularly for my country have become clear in recent years and include reducing the number of holdings and jobs, abandoning and emptying the countryside and ruining family-based agriculture.
<P>
The proposals must therefore be changed by radically altering their orientation.
The support for large farmers and holdings must be drastically limited and the aid to family-based agriculture and small and medium-sized holdings must be significantly increased through positive and genuine modulation.
Furthermore, sufficient resources must be provided to finance a common policy which aims to include new countries struggling with the fall in prices and the American requirements in terms of the next WTO round of talks.
Finally, it must be reaffirmed here and now that the recent cofinancing proposal, that is, the recent proposed renationalisation of the costs, and only the costs, of the CAP, is not acceptable, neither in the light of solidarity nor on the basis of the Treaties.
The recent rejection of the proposed regulations in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development is a sign which must be fully respected by the Commission and particularly by the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Raschhofer">
Madam President, one of the intentions of CAP reform is to reduce support prices to bring them into line with the world market, in order to comply with international agreements.
The compensatory payments to farmers do not, however, cover the resulting loss of income, and thus endanger the farming community.
The Commission proposals are geared towards the world market. The European farming industry is, however, very diverse and structured in smaller units than is the case in the United States, for example; it is hard to make a direct comparison.
<P>
Even US experts warned that full-blown liberalisation would threaten international agricultural commodities markets with the same fate as that of US farmers - a loss of income of 16 % - and advocated market stabilisation measures.
Quantity management must continue to form part of the market organisations.
We need farmers who maintain the ecological balance and care for the countryside.
<P>
Linking compensatory payments to environmental requirements is desirable and important, but for this to be fair, it has to be done on the basis of uniform European environmental standards.
This reform package would continue to sound the death knell for farmers.
It is not acceptable in its present form.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Raschhofer.
<P>
The debate is now adjourned; it will be resumed this afternoon at 3 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Monfils">
Mr President, the text of the Treaty is perfectly clear.
We have expressed our intention to reject the Council's common position and it must now call a meeting of the Conciliation Committee to see if it can reach some sort of agreement regarding the amendments.
If this is not done, if the Council refuses, it is likely that when discussions have ended, the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media will put forward a motion rejecting the common position.
But we are still hopeful of finally arranging a meeting with the Council so that we can work together on amendments which will enable the Council and Parliament to agree on a solution which both respects Parliament's prerogatives and guarantees the cultural quality of the cities chosen in 2005 and beyond.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="President">
I thank the rapporteur Mr Monfils for his explanation.
We will await the Council's reaction and determine our position accordingly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Ullmann">
Mr President, you took the vote incredibly quickly, which I welcome, but I did not have a chance to speak.
I would like to draw the attention of the House to the fact that there is an error in the German version of Amendment No 18 on Article 5 which needs to be corrected.
In Article 5(1) it says 'sorgen dafür ' and in Article 5(2) it says 'stellen sicher '.
In legal terms there is a considerable difference between the two.
It should say 'stellen sicher'.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="President">
Mr Ullmann, we will look into that without any difficulty.
In linguistic terms it can be corrected.
In any event, the House has approved your report by a large majority, and that is why I congratulated you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Sainjon">
Mr President, I should like to clarify two points in relation to this report.
Firstly, we need to take into consideration in paragraph 2 of the resolution the fact that Portugal - and this is something I welcome - has ratified ILO Convention 138.
The reference to Portugal in paragraph 2 should therefore be withdrawn.
Secondly, I agree with Mr Kittelmann's Amendment No 9 as a replacement for paragraph 19.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="President">
Mr Sainjon, thank you for your explanations.
Of course, there is no question about the first point; it is a technical correction of a factual matter, and I need not therefore seek Parliament's approval.
I have taken note of the second point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Barros Moura">
Mr President, I am pleased to note the statement made by Mr Sainjon about the need to remove the incorrect reference to Portugal in paragraph 2 of this motion for a resolution.
However, I would like to ask the Bureau what procedure we can use to remove this reference.
Is it the rapporteur who makes the correction or do we have a separate vote to remove these two words from paragraph 2?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="President">
Mr Barros Moura, what I said was precisely that we do not need a vote, it is a technical correction of a factual matter and now that the rapporteur has pointed it out, the reference to Portugal can be deleted without further ado.
<P>
On Amendment No 9
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Erika">
Mr President, I would like Mr Sainjon to explain how he intends to proceed with paragraph 21 if he supports Amendment No 9 by the PPE Group.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Sainjon">
As I pointed out, Mrs Mann, I accept Amendment No 9 tabled by Mr Kittelmann as a replacement for paragraph 19, on the understanding that the rest of the resolution, namely paragraphs 20, 21 and 22, remains unchanged.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schwaiger">
Mr President, I can confirm that approval of the Kittelmann amendment means for us the approval of paragraphs 20, 21 and 22.
I must add that for us the voluntary nature of the code de conduite is a crucial point.
Only if this is included in our text can we approve it fully.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Mr President, as regards paragraph 19, I should like to withdraw the Liberal Group's amendment in favour of Amendment No 9 by the PPE Group on condition that a phrase is added, namely 'for boys and girls' after the words 'career opportunities'.
I have discussed this with the PPE Group, and therefore ask for it to be approved.
We are withdrawing Amendment No 4 in favour of Amendment No 9, provided the words 'for boys and girls' are added to Amendment No 9.
<P>
Parliament adopted the resolution
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén and Sandberg-Fries">
We think there is good reason to consider carefully our stance on the committee's proposal to reject the common position adopted by the Council.
We believe that the European Capital of Culture event is of great benefit to the Community.
For the sake of the event's future, it is essential that there should be a fair and effective system for deciding which cities should host the event and when.
<P>
We feel that the compromise proposal of an automatic rota system with a guidance panel with diminished powers, as put forward by the Council, has some definite disadvantages.
On the one hand, the proposal would transfer the emphasis from the cities - which are supposed to be the focus of the event - to countries, and on the other, the Council procedure undermines the position of the European Parliament.
In this respect, the committee's criticism - in line with previous decisions - is correct.
We would nevertheless stress the need to find a solution that is acceptable to all Member States, in order to avoid future arguments over the selection of cities and the designation of years.
<P>
Moreover, the advantage of the Council's proposal is that an element of predictability would be introduced which would make planning and follow-up activities easier for the city concerned.
Our position on this issue depends partly on whether or not we think a compromise will improve the way in which nominations for the European Capital of Culture event are handled, and partly on whether a viable solution to the problem can be found which avoids argument in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Palm, Theorin and Wibe">
We have decided not to support this report.
The European Capital of Culture event is one of the most successful Community projects.
If it is to be as highly regarded by Member States in the future, then we must settle our differences on how cities are chosen, and it is important that this is done fairly.
<P>
It is doubtful whether the Council's compromise proposal to establish a rota system based on the same order as the presidency, with an additional city from a third country being chosen every year, is the best solution. However, it is a proposal for which all the Member States, after a good many ifs and buts, have expressed support.
<P>
Negative criticism of the event has mostly been levelled at the need for long-term planning and the lack of ongoing results.
An automatic rota allows both countries and cities to prepare for the event and to develop it further.
<P>
Pollack recommendation (A4-0483/98)
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, I would like to emphasise the importance of Mrs Pollack's report.
It is part of a general endeavour to improve air quality throughout the European Union.
I consider it extremely important that Parliament continues to demand binding limit values for particle emissions, for example.
The issue is a serious one and one that concerns the health of all our citizens, since the latest studies prove just how dangerous particle emissions really are.
I hope the Council of Ministers will also take Parliament's position seriously.
<P>
Ullmann report (A4-0507/98)
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Rovsing">
Parliament underlined the importance of EU legislation in this area on 17 June 1998, in a resolution in which it argued that it was necessary to create a legal framework at European level to ensure mutual confidence in digital signatures and to promote the development of a number of certification schemes which could be used in various areas such as electronic shopping and electronic communications between government bodies and citizens.
The Commission's proposal for a directive on a common framework for electronic signatures is a positive measure and a major step in the right direction.
However, I hope that the many relevant amendments proposed by the committee, which are aimed at clarifying the text of the directive, will be taken into account during the next stage of the procedure.
<P>
Elchlepp report (A4-0437/98)
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Lindholm">
It is gratifying that negotiations with the applicant countries are progressing and that agreements are being reached on a country by country basis.
Competition policy is a major issue for the countries concerned, but let us hope not unduly so.
<P>
It was assumed that it would take approximately ten years for the applicant countries to complete the transformation from dictatorship and a planned economy to democracy and a market economy.
The process involved adapting to the EU and its established law and practice, but despite what appeared to be almost impossible odds, these countries, in particular the Baltic states, have succeeded beyond all our expectations in a remarkably short period of time.
<P>
However, the political and economic pressures on these countries are enormous.
If they are to succeed, the Union must be flexible and provide generous economic support.
<P>
The Green Group has maintained that accession negotiations should be held with all three Baltic states simultaneously, in order to promote harmonious political and economic development in the area and to avoid endangering the fragile cooperation process.
We very much regret that the Commission has chosen an alternative strategy which makes it more difficult to achieve that objective.
<P>
Seppänen report (A4-0443/98)
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I am of course in favour of the agreement with Latvia and I am also in favour of Latvia's inclusion in and accession to the European Union as soon as possible.
However, I must say that, although I agree with the Seppänen report, I have considerable problems with its explanatory statement as it is an accurate representation of the Russian nationalist point of view in this context.
It describes NATO membership for Latvia as dangerous and points to the problematic issue of Russian minorities.
But it does not mention that this problem is a consequence of the fact that, contrary to the provisions of international law, Latvia was occupied for decades and subjected to a systematic settlement policy, and that the country was therefore settled by occupation in violation of international law.
Attempts are now being made to use this problem, which undoubtedly needs to be solved sensitively, as an excuse for possibly calling Latvia's independence into question.
<P>
Therefore, I believe that Latvian membership of NATO would not aggravate this problem but would alleviate it.
If Latvia knows that its freedom and independence are no longer under threat it will also deal with its minority problems in a more relaxed manner.
<P>
Porto report (A4-0445/98)
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
This agreement has now been on our desks for more than two years, as the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy was right to initially withhold its approval in April 1997.
<P>
Korea has admittedly been a member of the OECD since 1996 but this country has not met the corresponding conditions with regard to its labour legislation.
The main trade unions are still banned, hiring and firing is customary, and the situation in the workplace is unacceptable.-The harmful consequences of dictatorial regimes such as the National Security Law, and the resulting host of political prisoners are contrary to our understanding of the rule of law.
Fundamental democratic rights continue to be flouted.
As Article 1 of the agreement consists of a democracy and human rights clause, the agreement would have to be immediately suspended as soon as it came into force.-The death penalty continues to exist, and so on.Great hopes were pinned on the change of government.
The financial crisis in Asia also changed the situation.
Nothing, or practically nothing, has been done for this people that has been abused for centuries.
Yet industry, businesses and certain sections within the Commission want the green light for bilateral trade.
The reasons they give include the shift in the balance of trade, enormous market opportunities, liberalisation and the whole package of measures that the IMF has made a condition of its financial assistance.
Human rights and labour rights, on the other hand, are no longer mentioned by those in favour.
<P>
From experience, however, we cannot rely on a simple trickle-down effect where human rights are concerned.
There have already been too many dictatorships whose economic performance was excellent while people lived in want and disappeared.
<P>
We in Parliament would be giving up an important instrument for bringing pressure to bear if we were now to give our approval.
We would then no longer have any way of intervening.
Parliament has no say on the democracy and human rights clause.
<P>
Yesterday evening's debate confirmed the view of the Green Group that we should withhold our approval of the agreement.
Sir Leon Brittan has assured us that he will do everything that he deems diplomatically appropriate to ensure that conditions are improved in Korea.
Unfortunately, we know that the euro is much more important to him than social well-being.
And his refusal to give Parliament an annual report on the situation in Korea simply means that we will never have the Commission's position in writing on this.
His offer to present the information orally in Parliament certainly sounds promising, but by doing so he is avoiding any serious possibility of having to do his duty properly.
<P>
A good relationship with Korea and the welfare of its inhabitants are issues that are very important to us.
It is precisely because of this that the time is not yet right for this agreement.
<P>
Brok report (A4-0488/98)
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I abstained from the vote on the Brok report, not because I do not agree with most of his proposals; of course I do!
Indeed, this week I am more strongly than ever in favour of Parliament having a stronger influence over the Commission.
We must ensure that Parliament is no longer the Commission's slave but that instead the Commission - which must of course also be strong, but supported by Parliament - is monitored by a strong Parliament.
This week we have seen the disaster that has occurred as a result of this not being the case hitherto.
I am in favour of the strictest measures in the current crisis, perhaps going as far as a motion of censure.
But there is one thing that I do not agree with: the proposal to have an elected President of the European Commission.
I could perhaps have accepted this in the Social Democrats' more moderate version but not in the form in which it has now been adopted, because in my opinion an election of this kind is not appropriate for a multinational structure such as the EU and could easily lead to national or nationality-related problems.
In my view, the Commission and the Commission President must be determined by Parliament, but I do not believe in this kind of EU-wide presidential election.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw and Sandberg-Fries">
The report is a very relevant one as regards the changes in the appointment of the President of the Commission introduced by the Amsterdam Treaty.
However, we do not entirely agree with the ideas contained in paragraphs I(2), I(3) and I(4). We think the implications of these requirements are too far-reaching and specific.
<P>
Instead, we support the amendments to the above paragraphs tabled by the PSE Group. In our view, they allow the governments of the Member States more room for political manoeuvre, since they make the more modest assertion that it would be interesting if, in future, the political movements were to nominate candidates for the presidency of the Commission.
<P>
Amendment No 2 is also more circumspect, pointing out that it would be wise for Member States' governments to take account of the outcome of the European elections when nominating the candidate for the presidency of the Commission.
The amendment goes on to propose that Parliament should hold a vote as soon as possible on the candidate nominated by the Member States.
<P>
Nor are we able to support paragraph II(1), which we regard as too broad in scope but too specific as regards the number of Commission members to be chosen from among sitting MEPs.
Instead, we support the amendment to this paragraph tabled by the PSE Group, to the effect that we should continue to develop the practice which has been successful up to now of choosing some MEPs as Members of the Commission.
<P>
Furthermore, we cannot give our wholehearted support to paragraph IV(3), since we think it is far too specific as regards the time appointed for the nominee to make a statement of intent.
Instead, we support the amendment tabled by the PSE Group to the effect that the nominee for President of the Commission should make, as extensively as possible, a statement of intent, followed by a debate, at the July 1999 part-session.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Barros Moura">
This debate was needed because the Amsterdam Treaty strengthened Parliament's powers with regard to the investiture of the Commission President since the vote is now binding. It also strength the power of the nominated President with regard to the choice of the Commissioners - in agreement with the national governments - the definition of the Commission's programme and, once appointed, the political coordination and direction of the Members of the Commission.
It is therefore necessary to strengthen the democratic legitimacy and political responsibility of the Commission and consequently of its President.
This is the main thrust of the idea proposed by Jacques Delors, and backed by Mário Soares and Felipe González among others. It aims to organise the European election campaign around not just a political programme but also the choice of Commission President, with the European political parties having to publicly present their candidate for this post to the electorate.
<P>
The main positive effect of this would be the personalisation of the election campaign and therefore increased visibility of the institutions, better understanding of the rationale and greater emotional identification of the citizens with the European Union itself and its objectives and policies.
I believe that the EU would surely gain in terms of greater prestige, proximity to the people and democratic responsibility.
<P>
The Brok report generally includes these objectives, although the requirements of realpolitik , which aims to preserve the power of the prime ministers to negotiate and choose the person to be proposed to the European Parliament, have dulled the clarity of the report in favour of forms of parliamentary compromise that allow room for both sides of the argument.
<P>
In any case, it has been proposed - I am pleased to say that this is due to my amendment - that the European Council should choose the person to be nominated as Commission President bearing in mind the election results.
It is therefore not right for the German Government to claim that it will start the process of nominating the next Commission at the Cologne European Council set for 3 June, before the European elections!
<P>
The method thus proposed allows the necessary involvement of the other relevant and pro-European political forces in the Commission by means of the Commissioners in important posts.
In particular, this does not conflict with the continuing intergovernmental nature of the EU and its institutions, which were originally conceived as having a supranational nature.
However, this method is the only way for the nomination and future appointment of the Commission to correspond to a genuine agreement - as specified in the Amsterdam Treaty - between the Council of Ministers and the Parliament directly elected by the people.
Parliament would surely gain in legitimacy - because the elections would have a higher turnout - and also in responsibility.
<P>
The Commission President would gain in authority in respect of the Commissioners and the governments.
This is essential in order to guarantee that the Commission is the independent body acting as the political driving force of the European Union and defining the Community interest, as is provided for in the Treaties.
It is not the administrative secretariat of a Council, easily dominated by the large Member States.
It is clear that this system would involve a strengthening of the political responsibility of the Commission and its Members who would be considered individually by Parliament, and this would certainly be welcome.
<P>
The experience of the appointment and performance of the Santer Commission and the circumstances which caused this motion of censure demonstrate that realpolitik has not led in this case to satisfactory solutions, be it for the EU and its prestige, be it for the Member States and their citizens, or be it for the European Parliament and its irreplaceable role in the construction of a European democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Bébéar">
Since the beginning of my term of office as an MEP, I have met many European citizens who deplore the lack of democratic dialogue within the Community institutions and particularly within the European Commission.
The most frequent criticism relates to the European Commission's lack of direct democratic base, which is partly due to the more or less secret negotiations it holds and the balances it strikes without most of the electorate knowing.
<P>
The single currency is in place, enlargement continues according to its own criteria, and in six months the European Parliament elections will take place. It would therefore be highly appropriate for European democracy to fully commit itself to a broader process of reforming the Commission.
To satisfy some 370 million Europeans it is time to seriously consider nominating candidates for the presidency of the European Commission in the elections next June to allow them enough time to present a genuine political programme. It would also enable the person nominated to be accompanied by Commissioners who have been selected from among the elected representatives of the European Parliament.
<P>
Article 214 of the Amsterdam Treaty confers new powers on the European Parliament and brings the Commission's term of office into line with that of the European Parliament.
It is therefore perfectly possible for this proposal to be implemented in time for the June 1999 deadline.
The advantage of this would be twofold: it would make the electoral campaign more dynamic by upping the stakes, namely European policy for the next five years, and it would also create a more independent European Commission, one that would better implement Community law and do so with respect for political equilibrium.
<P>
A more tangible Europe, and one which is closer to its citizens, has never seemed as realistic and feasible as it is now, thanks to the Brok report.
I therefore approve of its provisions and as it is the beginning of a new year, I should like to express my wish to see the majority of us commit ourselves to this aim, an aim which the majority of Europeans are hoping will be achieved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Berthu">
Grand federalist moves to definitively transform the European Commission into the government of Europe are once again in full swing.
<P>
Last October, the President of the European Parliament in this House welcomed the new role conferred on the Commission by the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties, which according to him involve the Commission exercising political, legislative and budgetary management.
Today, through the Brok report, the Committee on Institutional Affairs takes over by trying to create new provisions in the Amsterdam Treaty, the 'catalyst for fundamental changes in Community interinstitutional relations'.
<P>
The new provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty are deliberately quite unclear, in line with the tried and tested federalist way.
In any case they have never been clearly explained to the citizens, as the debate currently taking place in France goes to show.
For example, amendments to Articles 158(2) (appointment of the President and Members of the Commission) and 163 (internal organisation of the Commission) help the Committee on Institutional Affairs to twist its interpretation of the Treaty according to the federalist view. This view sees the gradual transformation of the Commission into a sort of government of the Union, invested by Parliament on the basis of a programme of 'political guidelines' which reflects the results of the last European elections.
<P>
The legal basis is exploited for the good of the cause.
In particular, the 'political guidelines' evoked in Article 163 of the Treaty are, in the context of this Article, aimed at constituting the Commission's instrument of internal discipline and not an 'investiture programme'.
Furthermore, such a programme certainly does not exist under Article 158, which deals with the Commission's appointment.
<P>
More generally speaking, the Commission's shift towards government status, as recommended in the Brok report, in our view goes against the nature of the Union and as a consequence, beyond the terms of the Amsterdam Treaty.
In fact, despite its ambiguities, the Treaty leaves the Council the right of initiative in choosing the nominees for the Commissioners' posts and the power to finally appoint the new Commission (Article 158).
These provisions should also be viewed in the light of the Treaty as a whole, which leaves the Member States the most important role, both under Article D, which entrusts the European Council with responsibility for providing the Union with the necessary impetus and defining the general political guidelines thereof, and Article 145, which gives the Council the power to take decisions, coordinate economic policies, and confer implementing powers on the Commission.
<P>
Therefore, notwithstanding federalist eagerness to exploit the new Amsterdam provisions to their own ends (which was only to be expected) we are firmly convinced that the Council should retain its pivotal role in accordance with the general thrust of the Treaty and the Union's status as an association of States.
In fact, we should like to consolidate this role by making the Commission itself accountable to the Council.
<P>
Lastly, the idea of the 'Commission's independence', on which the report lays great emphasis, is, in our view, extremely ambiguous.
Although we agree that the Commission's independence vis-à-vis pressure groups should be enhanced (and, indeed, have tabled amendments seeking to ensure this), we do not believe it to be of the least use vis-à-vis the democratically elected governments meeting within the Council.
<P>
As I emphasised yesterday in the general debate, the theory of the Commission's independence has induced a feeling of superiority which is largely responsible for the lax behaviour noted today.
Fraud is the natural outcome of poor European institutional planning.
We must not increase but reduce the Commission's independence, and we must reduce the excessive privileges this body enjoys: a monopoly on initiative, self-regulation, discretionary powers, and so on.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Blak, Iversen, Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
We abstained on the report by Mr Brok, which emphasises the influence and responsibility of the European Parliament with regard to approving the Commission.
We are supporters of this form of vetting of the Members of the Commission before they take office, but we do not think that people should only be eligible for a post in the Commission if they are current or former Members of the European Parliament.
There are many other ways of gaining parliamentary experience so as to be able to carry out such a job.
Similarly, we are not avid supporters of each group in the European Parliament having its own candidate for the position of President of the Commission as part of the election campaign.
The Commission should retain its independence, and Parliament should retain its own independence as a supervisory body.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Blokland">
The Brok report was originally scheduled for debate at a different part-session, but the departure of Mr d'Andrea means that it has now been put on the agenda in a very timely way, because this week is dominated by the issue of the European Commission's accountability to Parliament.
<P>
I voted against the report, because what the rapporteur is seeking goes much too far.
Apart from anything else, it would not be a good thing for the election of the Commission President during the European elections to mean that we got a kind of 'minister for Europe'.
The European Commission is after all an executive, and in principle it thus has no responsibility for making policy.
<P>
The Amsterdam Treaty gives the European Parliament greater powers in the appointment of the Commission President.
Logically, this should mean that Parliament has more influence when it comes to malfunctioning on the part of the Commission.
But I think Parliament can use its powers primarily to influence the budget. That does not impinge on the work of the Council which, after all, appoints the members of the Commission and therefore bears the main responsibility for taking action.
It seems strange to me that the report makes no mention at all of this responsibility of the Council.
<P>
The President of the European Commission does not have to be elected on the basis of a political programme, since the Commission, as I say, is the executive arm of the Council and Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Delcroix">
If the vote on the discharge for the 1996 budget is now considered to be in the past and if the vote of censure of the Commission is currently making a mockery of this parliamentary session, then the motion for a resolution currently being examined doubtless belongs to the future.
The importance of this resolution lies in the fact that it will not only affect future relations between Parliament and the Commission but also the future democratisation of European institutions.
In this respect, this declaration is indeed aimed at all European institutions but its chief justification is as an internal discussion paper for Parliament. This is because it attempts to chart the most democratic course possible for Parliament to negotiate in 1999.
<P>
When the public first heard of the Amsterdam Treaty it thought that the intergovernmental conference had been a great deal of effort that had led to nothing much.
The Treaty is undeniably complex and those who expected institutional progress to lead to a trouble-free enlargement of Europe have been disappointed.
However, it did introduce a number of new elements which it is our duty to consider so as to fulfil our mandate as representatives elected by universal suffrage.
<P>
Our comments here centre on three of the new elements contained in the Treaty. Firstly, Parliament shall give its assent on the person nominated by governments as President of the Commission.
The nominee shall then act in the capacity of the person jointly responsible for forming the Commission. Secondly, the Members of the Commission and the nominee for President shall be subject as a body to a vote of approval by Parliament.
And thirdly, the Commission shall carry out its duties respecting the political guidelines as set out by its President.
<P>
In this way we are able to see the gradual emergence of a European Union with an executive body, namely the Commission, which will be formed by two legislative institutions. One of these institutions, namely Parliament, will represent the citizens, and one will represent the Member States, namely the Council.
It will be a tripolar structure which a priori may seem somewhat fragile, unstable even.
But we are all aware of the fragility of democracy itself and that the most elaborate structures which aim to respect the rights and duties of everyone are the weakest.
This does not make them any less effective even if they do require the various partners to make huge efforts to listen to each other and compromise.
<P>
With the implementation of the Amsterdam Treaty, it is obvious that neither the Council nor Parliament will be capable of forming their executive body without first taking into account the position of the other.
They are in fact forced to listen to each other and negotiate the composition, political guidelines and operating methods of the Commission.
Today Parliament is therefore clearly capable of playing a bigger part in the formation of the college of Commissioners.
<P>
My second point concerns the opportunities that have arisen because of the points I have just mentioned regarding the European elections and the boost they are likely to receive thanks to a process to create ever greater European integration.
In short, the main thrust behind the proposal put forward by Jacques Delors is, in my view, relevant.
There is a striking contrast between the obvious loss of impetus in European architecture and the concerns of the public. This is because the public feels the impact of European policies on their daily lives but fails to see any evidence in Europe of the democratic practices they are accustomed to in the different Member States.
Giving a fresh impetus to the European debate means making the choice of the future President of the Commission a campaign issue in the next European elections and preventing them from being dominated by exclusively national concerns. Lastly, this would also herald the beginning of a genuinely European political life and one which, at the same time, is highly personalised.
<P>
My third point concerns the desire to better politicise relations between Parliament and the Commission and, in this connection, to reduce the Union's democratic deficit.
The public has been surprised to see that the European Parliament - which is essentially a breeding ground that states dip into when forming their governments - is called on so little when it comes to appointing the Commission and the President of the Commission.
This goes against the democratic practices of our respective countries. What is more, Parliament's democratic credibility will only be truly strengthened when, as our declaration requests, 'a significant number of the members of the Commission (are) chosen from among sitting Members of the European Parliament ...'
This, in my opinion, also implies due respect, here as elsewhere, for the balance between men and women.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Deprez">
In spite of the progress made in terms of reform of the Treaties, many of us have for a long time been absolutely convinced that this House will only be considered as a proper Parliament when it is able, among other things, to make the European Commission fully accountable to it.
<P>
That said, it is absolutely vital that the reform of European institutions takes place within the context of future enlargement to include Central and Eastern Europe.
<P>
An enlarged Europe including some 20-25 members would be totally inefficient if it were to have a European Commission that comprised at least one Commissioner for each Member State.
The vital reform of the structure and composition of the Commission should therefore confer on it a legitimacy other than that conferred on it today through the national appointment of its members.
<P>
In any democratic state the government is formed as a result of ideologies that exist in representative assemblies which reproduce more or less faithfully the divisions existing in the society that elected them.
<P>
In an ever closer union, genuine democratic legitimacy will always be visible in this House which is elected by direct universal suffrage.
It is therefore indeed the European Parliament that should confer new legitimacy on the European Commission.
<P>
Implementing the report's proposals in this regard will constitute a further step forward in both Parliament's emancipation and in the democratic unification of the European continent.
<P>
I should particularly like to highlight once again the vital need for the Commission's independence from Member States and for the inevitable consequence of this, which is that Parliament would have increased control over it. At the same time the Commission must remain protector of the Community's interests and guardian of the Treaties.
It must also once again become the driving force behind European integration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Fayot">
The aim of this report was, among other things, to support the proposal put forward by the Jacques Delors 'Our Europe' foundation, which suggests that the appointment of the future President of the European Commission should be an issue in the next European elections.
<P>
This is a proposal that I endorse, which is why I have signed it.
<P>
Our proposal to make European elections more personal and more political by encouraging electors to participate in appointing the future President of the Commission was watered down in the Brok report to the point of being ridiculous.
This is due to the compromises made between the groups.
<P>
Why is this the case?
<P>
It is because the Heads of State and Government simply do not want it.
Whether they are socialist or conservative they want to go about their business without any democratic debate, preferring a Vatican-style conclave instead.
In short, they are anxious to retain control over the appointment of the President of the Commission without any outside interference, be this from the electorate or from political parties.
<P>
If this continues we may end up with the following outcome regarding the future President of the Commission:
<P>
on 3 and 4 June 1999, at the Cologne Summit, the German Presidency proposes to initiate the process of appointing a new Commission by nominating a President; -on 13 June 1999 the European elections take place.Henceforth electors will only have to record the result of 'in camera' negotiations of Heads of State and Government.
<P>
This topsy-turvy world is yours if you want it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Lindholm">
By interpreting these articles in the as yet unratified Amsterdam Treaty in a somewhat extreme way, the rapporteur and Parliament will end up turning the Commission into a kind of government.
This is further borne out in the explanatory statement.
<P>
I believe that this contravenes the articles in the Treaty which establish that the EU should be a form of international cooperation between independent nations.
It is an attempt to turn the EU into a federation without giving Member States the chance either to discuss it or take a decision on it, and this I cannot accept.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR), Seppänen, Sjöstedt and Svensson (GUE/NGL), Gahrton, Holm and Schörling (V), Lis Jensen (I-EDN)">
The Brok report on the approval of the President of the Commission and the 'independence' of the members of the Commission clearly reflects the ideology which prevails in the Committee on Institutional Affairs and its belief in a federal culture.
We should like to point out that the Commission has never been regarded as independent, but as a joint decision-making body with Parliament and the Council.
<P>
In the conclusions of the explanatory statement, mention is made of going beyond 'the intergovernmental method to the Community method', and of strengthening the process of integration by 'furthering the goal of a united federal Europe'. The purpose is to prepare the way for the Commission to become a kind of government that is chosen directly by the European Parliament and not by the Member States.
<P>
In our view, the report goes too far in its interpretation of some of the provisions contained in the Amsterdam Treaty.
The committee has also taken too much to heart the proposals put forward by the former President of the Commission, Jacques Delors, to make the main purpose of the European elections the nomination of the President of the Commission, rather than the election of MEPs.
<P>
The report is also full of contradictions.
On the one hand, it wants to safeguard the Commission's independence, while on the other it would like Parliament to be involved in negotiations to choose members of the Commission, hence 'a relevant number ... should be chosen from among sitting Members of the European Parliament'.
Since we are opposed to the transformation of the EU into a federal power and advocate an intergovernmental arrangement instead, we have decided to vote against this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Palm">
The report tackles some of the institutional problems that exist in the Union, above all from a democratic perspective.
<P>
According to paragraph III(1) of the report, Parliament would be able to call to account and to dismiss individual Commissioners. As we have seen during the past week, this is an instrument which, in Parliament's hands, carries considerable weight.
Unfortunately, the same paragraph also contains the rather curious statement that it is important to safeguard the Commission's role as 'the only body with the right of legislative initiative', an idea to which I am strongly opposed.
It would be democratically damaging to cooperation, as we have seen today.
I do not think that the right of legislative initiative should be the exclusive prerogative of the Commission.
<P>
In my view, an instrument that allows individual Commissioners to be dismissed is so important that I intend to vote for paragraph III(1); however, I should make it clear that I am opposed to the Commission having the sole right of legislative initiative.
<P>
Despite its good points, the report also has certain weaknesses.
A number of these would be improved by the amendments tabled by the PSE Group, which I shall be voting for.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Theorin and Wibe">
For the most part, the report follows up the modifications to the process of appointing the President of the Commission which are contained in the Amsterdam Treaty.
However, we are not in complete agreement with the report as a whole.
The governments of the Member States should be given more room for political manoeuvre, as provided for in the amendment tabled by the PSE Group.
Furthermore, we think the report goes too far in calling for a number of members of the Commission to be chosen from among sitting Members of the European Parliament.
<P>
We do not share the view that the Commission should have the sole right of legislative initiative.
This would in fact give substantial power to the Commission, which cannot be held accountable since it is not popularly elected.
In this respect, we think it is important for national parliaments to have more say in intergovernmental cooperation than at present.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Valverde López">
Mr Brok's report outlines proposals for fundamentally changing the European Union's institutions, an idea which has been gathering support over recent years.
Nonetheless, we must fiercely oppose such damaging proposals that will lead to the demise of our institutional system, which is revolutionary in the history of constitutional politics.
<P>
By moving closer to the model proposed in the founding Treaties, we will perfect the EU's institutions and they will progress.
Any trend towards developing the Union's institutions so that they resemble the now defunct constitutional systems of the nation state would lead to disaster.
The Community system supersedes the nation state as it governs different relations and realities.
The Commission, Parliament and the Council are institutions which can only work together thanks to the interinstitutional way in which they operate and the internal balance between them.
Although the governments of the Member States nominate the President and Members of the European Commission, the Treaties wisely put a counterweight to power, the motion of censure, in Parliament's hands.
If Parliament and the political groups were to nominate the Commissioners and the President of the Commission, this essential balance would be upset and the College of Commissioners would be politicised. The Treaties stipulate that it must be independent, not only from the governments but also from any political group.
On the other hand, if each political group were to put forward a candidate for the Presidency of the Commission, this candidate would actually become politically dependent on a particular political persuasion and would therefore not have the necessary independence.
What is more, this would lead to a tendency to create some support or opposition groups in Parliament which would in turn upset the free political game where all Members are part of the opposition from the outset and have no reason to support either the President or the Commissioners.
At every stage of the game, majorities are formed according to the issues being discussed and this is a much more free and democratic system.
<P>
Mr Brok's report is marred by some severe contradictions.
It defends the collegiate responsibility of the Commission and yet, at the same time, supports the possibility of calling for Members of the Commission to resign from office.
Also, giving greater powers of leadership to the President goes against true collegiate responsibility.
It seems to have been forgotten that the essence of these Community institutions lies in the principle of giving all the power to the institutions and not to any of their presidents.
The responsibilities belong to the institution and not to the person.
It is for this reason that the Presidency of the Council rotates, is restricted to six months and only plays a coordinating role.
The President of the European Parliament does not have any significant power either and if the President of the Commission were to have too much power, this would harm the 'unity through diversity' of the College of Commissioners.
The presidents of the institutions have the full authority of the bodies they represent but do not have their full power.
And this is a good thing.
<P>
The Commission maintains its independence by strengthening and heavily emphasising the principle of political independence and by avoiding the pressure from governments for increased politicisation of officials by imposing national and party quotas.
Parliament should also be aware that if it has the power to monitor the Commission, it should adapt its staff structure and its working methods accordingly, instead of channelling its energy into commenting on news in the papers one month after the event.
<P>
Sainjon report (A4-0423/98)
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw, Theorin and Wibe">
Globalisation offers more opportunities, but it also brings new dangers.
Codes of conduct for multinational undertakings play a vital role in safeguarding human rights.
Using the ILO Declaration on fundamental principles and rights at work and other international minimum standards as a starting-point, a minimum code of conduct should be drawn up, to be ratified voluntarily by the European multinationals.
It is crucial that the Commission, in initiating and carrying through this proposal, should work closely with representatives of companies, trade unions and non-governmental organisations.
<P>
In particular, we would like to stress that the Commission and those Member States who sit on the WTO's decision-making bodies, when assessing applications, should make it a criterion of acceptance into the WTO that candidate countries comply with minimum social standards.
In order to ensure the constructive development of the multilateral trading system and to bring about reforms in world trade, further work in this area must be guided by the principles of accountability, equity and solidarity.
The profits that accrue from world trade should be utilised to improve living standards in all parts of the world and to bring about an equitable distribution of wealth, with the ultimate objective of eliminating the widening gap between rich and poor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Blak, Iversen, Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats voted in favour of the report concerning the upholding of human rights in international trade.
To begin with, the EU should ensure that the ILO conventions are ratified and respected in the Member States.
Furthermore, the EU should ensure that a social clause based on ILO principles is incorporated into agreements with third countries.
We voted in favour of making a code of conduct for European multinational undertakings based on the ILO conventions as binding as possible.
Experience shows that voluntary codes of conduct are not respected.
It is more effective to adopt European framework provisions which can be accompanied by possible sanctions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Deprez">
The need to take the social dimension into account when liberalising international trade has, in the past, been evoked by those who in fact wish to increase protectionism in the industrialised world to the disadvantage of developing countries.
<P>
It is even more important that the call for widespread respect of a few simple principles and rules enshrined in ILO international conventions be considered as highly legitimate. These conventions are designed to restrict the use of child labour, prohibit the use of forced labour, and guarantee the right to join trade unions and engage in collective bargaining.
<P>
The European Parliament has called for this on many occasions and has also expressed its desire to see minimum standards included in a social clause, within the unilateral and multilateral trading system.
It has also said that it is willing to support the principle of a more in-depth dialogue on this issue, within the multilateral framework of the WTO.
<P>
We need to demonstrate our credibility to our partners at the many discussion and negotiating forums in which the European Union and Member States participate.
How can we hope to maintain this credibility when some of the Union's Member States have not ratified all of the ILO conventions specifically relating to these fundamental rights?
<P>
I broadly share the rapporteur's concerns and wishes, but I should particularly like to stress the need to put our own house in order first of all.
This is why I urge Member States who have not already ratified these conventions to do so as soon as possible.
Accordingly, I call on colleagues from these countries to use all of their powers of persuasion over their government authorities to ensure this is carried out.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Lindholm">
The resolution and the Commission's communication recommend the inclusion of a social clause, in the context of international trade. More substantial support for the ILO Declaration on fundamental principles and rights at work is also called for, particularly in respect of child labour both inside and outside the Union.
I therefore support the report, even though there are one or two things which I would question, such as financing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Palm">
The Year of the Child is just beginning.
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has been ratified by the governments of all the Member States, will be ten years old this year.
It is distressing to see the splits that exist in the Union over compliance with even minimum standards, such as a child's right to a childhood - to play and learn without having to work, as established in the Convention.
<P>
The report calls on the Member States to respond to serious shortcomings in the protection of children in society and at work.
However, there are a number of amendments which substantially weaken the report's intentions.
Amendment No 10 is the only one that actually enhances the report, and I am therefore going to vote in favour of it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Souchet">
Even if it contains several inappropriate comparisons, for example, regarding child labour in the United Kingdom, which are based on unsubstantiated information (school children or students who do a morning paper round cannot be considered in the same light as those who work 12 hours a day making carpets), the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has nonetheless decided to vote in favour of Mr Sainjon's report. This is because we all recognise the need to put an end to social dumping which has corrupted the world trading system as it currently operates within the framework of the Marrakesh agreement.
<P>
And yet, in 1994, not so many of us were of the view that the Uruguay Round negotiations had their place in the 1960s, in a world in which trade generally took place between a small number of similar or comparable countries. However, the end of the Cold War and the globalisation of transport and communications systems meant that countries of socially different levels found themselves in competition with each other.
Rules which may be beneficial in a specific context can nonetheless become quite the opposite in different circumstances.
Such is the situation we have been forced to acknowledge just a few years after the Marrakesh agreement entered into force.
<P>
In making an inventory of the EU resources still available to combat social dumping, the Sainjon report notes that such resources are scarce. What is more, the rapporteur can only propose optional and incentive measures.
One can only agree with the rapporteur's recommendations regarding the very stringent limits to be brought to bear on the marketing of products made by prisoners.
The same applies to the desire to combat forced child labour. The suggestion put to the Commission to intervene in WTO decision-making procedures to ensure that respect for minimum social standards by the applicant countries is upheld as a criterion for admission is also very positive.
We must urge the Commission to rigorously ensure such demands are carried out.
It is in fact clear that the decisive level for action in this area as in many others is global and not European.
Unilateral European provisions may even backfire on European companies if competitive third-country companies are not subject to the same rules.
<P>
The European Union and the Member States must therefore work at global level to promote the need for binding measures to put an end to both unacceptable working conditions and the phenomenon of distortion of competition linked to social dumping which has a direct effect on European companies and jobs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="van Dam">
The increasing liberalisation of world trade has shown that this area of human activity cannot do without standards and values either.
We have to have standards for trade.
If we do not, there is the chance of certain groups of people being exploited.
International recognition of labour standards is a valuable way of preventing such exploitation.
<P>
We are therefore glad to see the Commission making the point that the liberalisation of world trade is not altogether being matched by the recognition of labour standards.
We as the European Union must endorse international initiatives in this area as far as possible.
But if the Union is to do this credibly, its Member States must first put their own house in order.
We back the rapporteur's call for various Member States of the European Union to recognise and comply with labour standards.
<P>
However, the development of a whole range of independent European initiatives goes too far in the opinion of our group, for example when it comes to promoting education and training opportunities for young people in other countries.
We think it is better for us to make labour standards an integral part of our other policy areas, such as development cooperation.
So we did not support the rapporteur's paragraph 19.
We were happy with Amendment No 4, however.
<P>
We are in favour of a voluntary European code of conduct, and Mr Howitt's Amendment No 10 best reflects our vision of this.
Later this week, we shall be having a more comprehensive discussion of this topic.
Various other amendments are, we think, of little significance and we did not support them.
<P>
Our group agrees with the rapporteur that little has been achieved in the last four years as regards the recognition of international standards.
The adopting of this resolution will be a significant step towards an ethical system of trade.
We thus voted wholeheartedly in favour of the rapporteur's report, precisely because it seeks to support existing international initiatives.
<P>
Danesin report (A4-0372/98)
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Bernardini and Darras">
Since 1996, in discussions about the common transport policy action programme for 1995-2000, Parliament has considered using private capital to fund TENs.
<P>
The delay in financing means that the whole job-creation project is failing at European level.
We are all aware that one of the reasons for this delay is the decline in infrastructure investment by Member States that are keen to reduce their public deficit.
<P>
The public sector alone cannot provide this financing, which is why private sector funds are being considered.
The Commission's communication, which is the subject of our colleague's report, paves the way for such collaboration by setting up partnerships between public sector organisations and private sector investors and companies.
<P>
However, as with any successful collaboration, guidelines need to be set out.
A public-private partnership (PPP) should be aimed at planning, programming, financing and carrying out a project given the go-ahead by public authorities.
And in order to see it through to completion, the risks involved should be distributed according to everyone's ability to cope with them.
In fact there should be some form of guarantee to fall back on should one of the partners involved fail to deliver.
<P>
Lastly, as the rapporteur suggests, for the PPP to succeed, 'public procurement' directives will need to be amended. However, they must not become too liberal in nature and, to counteract this hypothetical risk, it would be preferable if the notion of public service utilities were taken into account.
<P>
Although the concept of the public-private partnership has the support of high-priority projects, there is doubtless great interest in smaller-scale infrastructure projects which are also 'of major potential value at local or regional level' (paragraph 17 of the resolution).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Palm, Theorin and Wibe">
The rapporteur believes that the mobilisation of private capital is essential if we are to be able to implement Community transport policy and, in particular, construct the trans-European transport networks (TENs).
<P>
Before the final vote, we should like to stress that in our view it is vital, when establishing public-private partnerships for infrastructure projects, to ensure that the basic infrastructures remain in public ownership.
We welcome private capital so long as public-private partnerships remain temporary ventures within an overall public procurement framework, but cooperation should not be allowed to lead to shared ownership.
<P>
Jarzembowski report (A4-0375/98)
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Bernardini">
The port sector handles more than 90 % of the Union's trade with third countries and approximately 30 % of intra-Community traffic, as well as more than 200 million passengers every year.
It is therefore indispensable for Europe to have an efficient port and maritime infrastructure in order to assure the important services offered by this sector.
Similarly, it must not be forgotten that ports constitute a crucial factor within the regional economy, particularly in the peripheral and ultraperipheral maritime regions of the Union.
<P>
The European Commission's Green Paper has the advantage of initiating a broad debate with all the parties involved (port authorities, sea transporters, freight forwarders, Member States) on the opportunities for improving the infrastructure and economic efficiency of European ports.
I welcome the fact that the House has had the opportunity to participate in the debate and, as an elected representative from a large port city in the south of France, I should like to make two comments.
<P>
The Commission document does not deal with the issue of recognising the notion of general interest services pursuant to Article 90(2) of the Treaty.
Nonetheless, a large number of installations, services and undertakings in sea ports can be classed under this category.
This omission therefore needs to be rectified.
<P>
Lastly, the main objective of the Green Paper is to eliminate the present discrepancies in regulations in the various Member States.
This is to enable European ports to be better adapted to the international context and relates mainly to the establishment of financial and competitive conditions.
We agree with the Commission's proposal to make an inventory of the financial flows of Europe's biggest ports before drawing up a proposal for a directive.
This should not be made on the sole premise of banning state aid for this sector, but should aim to correct the imbalances between southern and northern ports in terms of development.
The key role that ports play in local employment should not be undermined.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Girão Pereira">
The need to define and implement a European policy in the area of sea ports and maritime infrastructures has been apparent for some time.
<P>
In our opinion, the ports constitute a fundamental part of the European and trans-European transport networks, not only in terms of European competitiveness in the world economy, but also for intra-Community traffic and for the integrated development of the whole European territory.
Particularly in an enlarged Europe, short sea shipping is the alternative to road transport which is causing increasing congestion on Europe's roads.
<P>
The French lorry-drivers' strike, for example, paralysed a large part of the economy of several regions, and this is a warning that Europe needs transport alternatives based particularly on sea and rail transport.
Also, from the environmental point of view, sea transport offers unrivalled benefits.
<P>
An efficient port system can also constitute a local and regional development factor, particularly in outlying and insular areas. In addition to bringing these outlying areas closer to the centre, it is a dominant factor in economic and social cohesion.
<P>
We therefore welcome this Commission initiative, in the belief that other measures will follow to finally produce a port policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Lindholm">
Maritime transport and therefore ports play a vital role in terms of both people and goods.
We must increase the use of waterways if we are to achieve a 'policy of sustainable mobility'.
We are all agreed on that.
<P>
At the same time, conditions in terms of coastal regions, climate, population density, fishing and so on differ widely between Member States.
<P>
There is still some doubt as to whether ports come within the EU's field of competence, or even whether they should be regarded as part of the TENs.
<P>
However, a significant proportion of the structures, services and operations in ports are not specific to ports, and so comparisons cannot be made.
This also has repercussions in terms of competition and public procurement.
<P>
On the whole, the matter needs further discussion, particularly in the Member States and with the players concerned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Souchet">
The economic importance of European sea ports lies in the fact that more than 90 % of Member States' trade with third countries and almost 30 % of intra-Community trade is handled by them.
<P>
Traditionally considered by governments as growth poles, fulcrums of national and regional development and instruments of regional planning, Member States' ports and in particular the bigger ports have today become interfaces between trans-ocean sea transport, short distance sea transport (coastal shipping) and land-based transport. They are also centres of transshipment, services, distribution and logistics.
<P>
Given this development, the most pressing problem concerns finance and charges for sea and port infrastructure.
However, it must be stressed that Member States' ports differ in terms of ownership as well as in their organisational and administrative structure.
This structural complexity generates a considerable number of problems when it comes to analysing the differences in aid to be given so that the level of fairness in competitive terms can be gauged.
<P>
Our group endorses all the points contained in the Committee on Transport's resolution.
But it must point out that another category of ports exists.
In fact, some ports or port installations, services and undertakings are, by their very nature, of general interest and should therefore be entitled to aid for specific development projects, contrary to the rapporteur's proposals.
There are a number of modest or medium-sized ports which serve as a good example of this because they enable links to be established with remote islands.
Since these ports enable islanders to receive supplies they are clearly of general interest.
<P>
If the motion for a resolution were to be adopted in its present form, this category of ports would be excluded completely, which would certainly have detrimental economic and social consequences.
This is why our group supported Amendments Nos 1 and 3, which would enable this type of port to receive aid from national and local authorities.
In the name of fair competition, the public service offered by some ports or port infrastructures must not be undermined.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Theonas">
We condemn any attempt to intervene in the ownership status of ports.
The aim of such a policy is to do away with the social role ports and marine infrastructures are called upon to play, and to open them up to private exploitation and the creation of more profits for the Community's monopolistic enterprises.
Aiming to facilitate the direct or indirect privatisation of the whole or parts of port installations and to liberalise the market in port services, the Commission views ports as mainly commercial enterprises, 'commercial entities' as it characteristically calls them, and is promoting the restrictive application of the concept 'public asset' to obscure their inalienable and non-negotiable nature.
<P>
The Green Paper we are debating gives notice of specific legislative proposals, such as a proposed directive on port dues, a regulatory framework for the liberalisation of the port services market, facilitating the participation of private capital in port activities, the adoption of uniform pricing principles, etc., supposedly to improve the 'competitiveness' of ports, whereas in reality it promotes cost cutting and increased profits for private capital with major adverse consequences for society as a whole, on the pretext that there are prospects for the further development of international trade, for increasing European exports and for intensifying competition against other major ports outside Europe.
<P>
In the context of the celebrated public-private sector cooperatives, the Commission is trying in this branch as well to hand over the prime profit-making activities to the shipowners.
It is burdening the public sector with the cost of financing infrastructure and insisting that private capital must participate even in the planning and formulation of investments, and should be granted long-term exploitation rights.
The Commission's statements about the way ports are to be financed aim to undermine public or public-law enterprises by giving notice of the systematic and strict application of the Community framework for state aid.
<P>
The Commission is ignoring the fact that besides purely commercial transit functions, ports and port authorities provide very important services related to monitoring the implementation of safety requirements, carrying out surveys and reviews, exercising supervisory and administrative responsibilities, for example in the context of implementing the principle that ports should be controlled by the state, and social services to the benefit of the coastal and island regions they serve.
<P>
Measures are announced for the pricing system, which will result in a steep rise in prices in the name of the 'user pays' principle.
The cost, of course, will not be borne by the shipowners who have been pushing in that direction, but will emerge in the end price, in other words the price paid by the travelling public and in consumer prices for goods.
There is no mention at all of the fact that for countries like Greece, with an extensive island network, sea transport is the basic means for local development, communication and the development of tourism, and consequently any increase in transport costs would have an adverse effect on the development potential of those areas.
The Commission's plans for port dues will lead to a substantial reduction in the revenues of small ports which have a low turnover, with the result that their viability and operation will be placed at risk.
<P>
There are also serious threats to the rights of working people, while significant job losses are also on the agenda.
The Commission is seeking to extend flexibility in the port sector, it expresses reservations about the legitimacy of worker registers, and is preparing the ground so that the private companies it wants to bring into the market can use other personnel, non-registered personnel, thus giving the green light for an extension of black-market labour and the employment of low-paid port workers and thereby abolishing the long-established rights of workers in the sector.
<P>
Finally, as regards the inclusion of ports in the trans-European transport networks, we wish to stress that the said inclusion is not intended to secure Community resources for their development, but to impose the involvement of major capital in that sector.
We consider that any Community aid must take into account the development needs and characteristics of each region, and not be determined by the choices made by major multinational capital.
<P>
Workers in my country and in other countries too are already disturbed by these proposals, which some governments are already trying to implement by amending their national legislative framework.
Already the Piraeus and Thessaloniki Port Organisations - though both are profit-making bodies - are among the agencies likely to be privatised with a view to bringing Greece into the euro and are in the process of being converted to limited companies.
In any event, we will support working people in their struggle to prevent the adoption of these proposals, which hold out no promise of anything good for them.
<P>
Langenhagen report (A4-0413/98)
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Rovsing">
The Commission's proposal for an EU strategy for Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) deserves the full support of Parliament.
This is a very important area in which the EU already has substantial strategic, political, economic, industrial, employment, security and defence interests.
With a world market for GNSS estimated to be worth EUR 50 billion in 2005, it is clear that a European strategy must be given high priority.
<P>
The action plan proposed by the Commission represents a practical step towards developing a civil multimodal system, fully integrated into the trans-European transport and telecommunications networks.
I assume that the ESA - the European Space Agency - will act as the EU's technological arm in this area.
I was pleased to note the list of recommendations and proposals made by the committee in its report, and I largely agree with them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Souchet">
Over the past 30 years the satellite sector has undergone a veritable revolution.
Telephone networks and television channels are the prime users of space technologies, but a great many services based on satellite facilities are also provided to other sectors such as transport, agriculture, fisheries, protection of natural resources, and others.
<P>
As regards transport, for example, satellite navigation could help to make more efficient use of existing transport infrastructure, improve safety and reduce pollution.
<P>
In the fisheries sector, satellite navigation systems will enable widespread and undisputed implementation of controls within the framework of the common fisheries policy, but also and above all they will improve safety for ships' crews.
<P>
In terms of agriculture, satellite systems will facilitate control over planting perennial plants (arboriculture and viticulture), the analysis of ground water resources, the control of irrigation, and so on.
<P>
Over the next few years new applications will be developed to include worldwide satellite communications networks and new research platforms in space.
Everything must be put in place to enable Europe's Member States to gain a leading position in this highly competitive satellite market which is at present dominated by the United States.
<P>
Aeronautical and aerospace activity has developed thanks to cooperation between European companies in these sectors in accordance with their specialisms. As a rule, this cooperation has largely occurred outside the European Community.
It is therefore necessary for European countries to adopt a similar approach to the satellite sector. The success of the Ariane and Airbus projects, which were both developed outside the scope of European institutions, proves that it is perfectly possible to build a high-technology Europe without a heavy administrative technostructure.
The example given of the Ariane and Airbus projects, which used very few Community financial resources and in which the Commission played a purely anecdotal role, should serve as a model for the development of this European satellite industry in years to come.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 1.10 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Agenda 2000 (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on the reports from the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development on Agenda 2000.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, by way of a point of order, I have a request to make.
We are all busy preparing for important votes.
The Commission has promised to give us the list of the 157 UCLAF inquiries.
Twenty-seven of these concern the work of the Commission itself.
I think it is most important for us to have that list if we are to make a sound assessment of the Commission's work and its financial management.
May I ask you, as the President of Parliament, to do what is necessary tomorrow to get these documents for us ahead of our important votes on the Commission?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="President">
Mrs Maes, there is no list at present, but your request will be passed on and, if any such thing appears, you will be informed at once.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Hardstaff">
Mr President, when I spoke on the Görlach report on rural development late last year, I said that this Parliament should be honest as to whether it is serious about reform of the common agricultural policy.
A large number of amendments tabled to the reports we are discussing today sadly demonstrate that some political groups in this House are more interested in short-term political advantage in the run-up to the European elections, than in achieving realistic reforms to create an agriculture policy appropriate for a Europe of 20 to 25 countries in the 21st century, operating in a global economy and subject to World Trade Organisation rules.
<P>
It is unrealistic for some political groups to table large numbers of amendments to all the reports calling for increased subsidies year on year, where the Commission is proposing progressive decreases in order to reduce agricultural spending and make EU enlargement possible.
Indeed, events of this week and the last month must make the applicant states wonder just what sort of organisation they have applied to join.
Either we are serious about building up a genuine Europe, embracing all the countries which were separated from western Europe for 40 years by an accident of history, which we must ensure never happens again, and take steps that we know are necessary to make that possible, or a majority of this Parliament votes for amendments calling for subsidies we know are unsustainable and betray this historic moment of change.
<P>
Yes, we need to protect our farmers in the short term against too rapid change, so that they can cope with this transition period.
Yes, we should be encouraging the development of renewable non-food crops, though not tobacco, particularly on voluntary set-aside land.
Yes, we should encourage more extensive livestock rearing by adjusting the way premia are paid.
Yes, there should be financial assistance to those farming on the most difficult terrain and to help older farmers to retire.
Subsidies should be targeted to where they are most needed and an upper limit put on the size of individual payments, unless higher payments can be proved to benefit the wider rural economy or the environment.
<P>
These reforms are necessary quite apart from the wider context of Agenda 2000.
Europe needs competitive, but also sustainable, environmentally-friendly agriculture producing the high-quality food our citizens need for a healthy diet, without massive surpluses, without polluting our countryside, and without causing unnecessary animal suffering.
We need to support those who preserve on our behalf our rural environment and beautiful countryside, through special environmental payments.
New jobs, not directly connected to agriculture, need to be created in rural areas if we are not to suffer rural unemployment, depopulation and villages reduced to dormitories for towns and cities, with all the attendant transport and environmental problems that entails.
<P>
I challenge the groups when they draw up their voting list to look beyond short-term electoral gain and to vote in such a way as to support and improve implementation of the Commission's reform proposals rather than undermine them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Olsson">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, there are different ways of discussing agricultural policy: in principle and with a long-term perspective, or in terms of what can be achieved today.
<P>
In principle, I would prefer to see a more extensive reform of the CAP than the Commission has proposed.
Our agricultural policy has been handed down to us from the 1950s.
It is out of tune with our wish for a more efficient global market in line with the objectives agreed during WTO discussions, namely a global market with increased demand and where quality and protection of the environment are given higher priority both at home and abroad.
<P>
However, there have been many changes since the Commission first devised Agenda 2000.
In a single year, we have been hit by economic crises, particularly in South-East Asia and Russia, which knocked the wind out of our export market.
It is also interesting to note that the USA has reintroduced significant agricultural support measures.
<P>
There is consequently a question mark over what we should do in our present situation.
With hindsight, we know that between 1996 and 1997 the market caused prices to rise.
However, the position today is that the market has depressed prices.
In my view, it is an absurd situation when prices drop so far that they cannot be compensated for by direct payments.
<P>
On the question of 'renationalisation', I should like to ask the Commissioner for his assurance that compensatory payments and premiums at national level can be organised in a way that will protect farmers from distorted competition in countries whose governments are unsympathetic towards agriculture.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, taken together, the Commission's proposals amount to a package of measures designed to make even more suffocating and oppressive the Procrustes' bed upon which for some time now farmers' incomes have been sacrificed, with price cuts and the reduction or abolition of subsidies, the abolition of interventions to save resources, amounts which will now be made available for funding the campaign for the colonial exploitation of the Central and Eastern European countries by monopoly capital.
On the other hand, the same measures aim to do away with the inalienable right of farmers and their children to cultivate their land and develop their output, by means of unacceptable and arbitrary quotas, large and savage compensatory fines, so that there too monopoly capital will be able to spread, get its hands on agricultural holdings and throw farmers out of work or, if it allows them to remain and work in the countryside, then to do so as a new type of share-cropper.
Finally, these measures aim to establish economic and trade conditions such that monopoly capital, in negotiating its agreements with the World Trade Organisation, will be able to make concessions in return for benefits from American capital which will be to the cost of farmers.
<P>
By speaking for more than half an hour, the Commissioner tried to make all this sound better than it is.
But the whole plan will be upset by the angry and orchestrated response of the farming community.
And do not think that such a thing will never happen, that we will not have a repetition of the peasants' revolt.
We will have a mass agricultural movement with the manpower to brush aside this unacceptable policy.
<P>
The President cut the speaker off
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Guinebertière">
Mr President, CAP reform doubtless constitutes a vital stage in Community life because it must pave the way for the third agricultural millennium.
The same can be said of Europe's economies and cohesion as well as life in Europe's countryside.
CAP must of course evolve, but let us not too hastily overlook its finer points.
It has enabled the development of modern agriculture, agricultural exports and European markets to be supplied with safe, high-quality products.
It has also guaranteed farmers' incomes and has been the only fully integrated policy at European level.
<P>
What form does the Commission propose the reform should take?
A generalised price reduction in line with the world market, compensation in the form of direct aid, but granted on the basis of the criteria set, and Member States' participation in the allocation of flexibility envelopes. At the same time Member States are set to become the promoters of animal welfare in an increasingly globalised market.
<P>
None of this is acceptable in its current form.
The tough negotiations taking place here in both the Council and Parliament are proof enough of this.
I am particularly concerned about the COM in beef and veal and about extensive production systems in general.
Their role is in fact important in terms of land use and environmental protection and must not be overlooked, but it is above all the interests of farmers and consumers that I should like to protect with this reform.
<P>
In this connection, we will support Mr Garot's position as rapporteur and his request for limited price reduction, increased production controls and quality in terms of taste and health. We also support his request for public intervention to be maintained.
The difficulty of managing this reform is further complicated by the milk reform and other general measures.
Overall, CAP reform should prepare European agriculture for moving closer to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and their agricultural products, as well as preparing Europe for future WTO negotiations. This should not be carried out by setting European prices and immediately aligning them with world prices, but by asserting our European model which respects human life and life on earth.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Lambraki">
Mr President, today we are in the home stretch for the completion of approval for the part of Agenda 2000 which relates to the common agricultural policy - I would say its most important part, given the importance of the agricultural sector at many levels and its multi-functional character, let alone the extent to which the agricultural guideline plays a part in the Community's budget.
<P>
The proposed regulations for financing the markets for beef, cereals, dairy products and the direct support systems constitute a substantial package which relates to the rules and procedures for financing the common agricultural policy, while in parallel it concerns three common organisations of markets which absorb most of the agricultural guideline.
Of course, the fact that those three COMs relate to the main sectors of farming activity in northern Europe indicates the inequality and the degree of preferential treatment they enjoy compared to markets for products from southern Europe, inequalities which the present review - like its predecessors - has been able or has tried to mitigate.
As regards the financing regulations, though the Commission's proposals are not very far removed from the existing framework, they leave a substantial gap.
<P>
The addition of new actions to the EAGGF's field of intervention in the Guarantee Section, especially the measures concerning the development of the countryside and pre-accession aid to the applicant countries, raises serious questions about whether it will be possible to finance those policies in the future in parallel with expenditure related to the COMs, given the resources available.
<P>
A second but very important problem will be created by the proposal to introduce a cofinancing system for direct income subsidies by the Member States.
Commissioner, if cofinancing is adopted under pressure from the Member States who regard themselves as net contributors to the Community's budget, this will clearly be a first step towards renationalising the CAP and will act as a catalyst to exacerbate inequalities and nullify progress towards economic and social cohesion within the framework of the Union.
<P>
The attempt to renationalise the CAP is at the same time an attempt to call into question the fundamental principle of financial solidarity upon which the European Union's only common policy so far has been based.
<P>
As for the COMs for beef, cereals and dairy products, and granted how difficult it is to formulate common policies which will reconcile and satisfy so many different interests, the Commission's proposals form a good basis and are on the right lines.
This is the first time I have said that to the Commission.
I believe, however, that there is still much room for improvement and I have two things to say, one general and one particular.
<P>
The general comment concerns the need to increase support for small producers and for producers in mountain and disadvantaged areas.
The particular comment concerns the conditions pertaining to the milk market in Greece, because of the distance from other markets and the existence of a large number of islands.
Those conditions, along with the real need for fresh milk, have created a large discrepancy in relation to the existing reference amount.
<P>
I believe the Commission should take another more realistic look at the request to increase the reference amount for Greece by 150 000 tonnes.
The problem is not just a recent one, it began after the 1992 distribution and, unfortunately, though the Commission claims that it is trying to eliminate or mitigate the inequalities between products from different countries and areas, where milk is concerned it is causing this really distressing situation in Greece to continue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cunha">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr Santer, despite the efforts of the rapporteurs, it was not possible to find a compromise solution on this reform within the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development. This is to be regretted as it does not lend prestige to the role and image of this House.
<P>
I want to highlight four priorities with regard to the CAP reform, which were actually contained in the report approved last June.
<P>
The first priority is that it is essential for care to be taken when lowering prices.
The proposals of 15 % for beef and veal and 10 % for milk and milk products presented by this House seem more acceptable than those of 30 % and 15 %, respectively, presented by the Commission.
The reduction of 0 % approved by Parliament for cereals seems unrealistic.
<P>
The second priority is that it is essential for every effort to be made to achieve the internal rebalancing of the CAP by strengthening its second pillar and particularly by strengthening structural policy, agri-environmental and agri-forestry measures, special aid to disadvantaged areas, support for quality products and, in general, economic diversification and rural development.
Without this, there can be no European model of agriculture and no fair response from the CAP to the various European agricultural systems, which are patently very different.
<P>
The third priority is that it is necessary to avoid an uninformed decision in terms of the criteria for establishing different types of quota, premium rights or reference surface areas.
Very special cases, such as in my own country, Portugal, which is lagging behind structurally and which is highly dependent on imported food, will have to be dealt with selectively.
<P>
The fourth priority is that it is essential to respond to an enormous European deficit in oilseeds and protein plants.
Therefore, the difference in aid between cereals and the other oilseeds and protein plants must be maintained together with a specific base surface area for maize.
<P>
Finally, I want to say that the option of renationalising 25 % of the CAP financing is a matter for debate which must not be considered within this reform.
It is not a prohibited or taboo subject, but the debate must take place on a different level from this one, namely on the level of financing and own resources.
<P>
To conclude, I must say something to the President-in-Office, who I would especially like to welcome.
I would remind him that yesterday in this House, his colleague, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, said that one of the main reasons for reforming the common agricultural policy was to reduce the expenditure of the European Union.
Previously when holding the Presidency of the Council, Germany has always defended agriculture.
It now seems that the new German Government has changed strategy.
We would like clarification on this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Mr President, Commissioner, Parliament deserves no bouquets for its failure to reach a compromise on a number of dossiers.
Personally, I think we have to be realistic.
Agriculture policy must not become any more of a drain on European resources.
So I found it particularly interesting to hear Mr Santer saying this morning in his first speech that he was very sorry that Parliament had not welcomed a partial renationalisation of income support or national budgets.
It is an interesting option.
It would be a weapon in the battle against fraud, and this system would also make it easier to introduce environmental standards in individual Member States.
<P>
And I believe this part of the debate must really be conducted on a far broader basis, because I think this is what a majority of Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs wants to see.
<P>
Furthermore, I agree with Mr Olsson that we ought really to be far more innovative in agriculture policy.
Eighty per cent of people live in towns.
I do not, I live in the country, but I am well aware that this is so.
So there is a need for good animal health, a sound environment and a policy for quality.
It is therefore extremely important that attention should be focused on these things.
<P>
I also believe that any incentives we give should favour the countryside, such as using non-food products as raw materials for construction and energy.
<P>
Lastly, I would point to the great opportunities which information technology provides for new initiatives in the agriculture sector.
We have been too prone to see European agriculture as the producing of food in a way we have been accustomed to for years.
At the moment, innovation is the most important thing that we can introduce.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Daskalaki">
Mr President, when we speak about financing the CAP within the framework of Agenda 2000, we must remember that the Vienna Council was a Council which put off taking any decisions.
No decision was reached about own resources, nor about the way to divide the cost of enlargement.
The important decisions were left for March in Brussels, and there is no Council position on how much of the cost of enlargement is to be borne by Europe's citizens.
<P>
Meanwhile, the German Presidency's first concern was to inform us that Germany wants a considerable cut in its contribution to the Community budget.
Here, it is useful to remember that in Edinburgh the Community budget's own resources were set at 1.27 % of GDP, with the intention of increasing them over the period 2002 to 2006 to 2.5 % against average Community inflation of 2.2 %.
All this simply means that agricultural expenditure will have to decrease steadily if any of the above assumptions are not adhered to, or if, as mentioned in Agenda 2000, agricultural expenditure should become non-compulsory.
Let us also remember that in the last two Community budgets the upper limit of own resources never rose above 1.15 %, while a limit of 0.4 % of GDP has also been set for the Structural Funds.
<P>
This cofinancing for agriculture is really tantamount to partial renationalisation, indeed up to a significant level of 24 to 25 % in accordance with the third solution in the Commission's report.
We have already accepted some underhand activities vis-à-vis cofinancing, such as the 1996 review of the COM in fruit and vegetables, the recent abolition of intervention for oil and the possibility of redeeming unused individual tobacco quotas.
The proportion of cofinancing must be related to the level of economic strength of the Member State concerned, and in that case special attention must also be devoted to agricultural products in which the European Union is deficient.
<P>
We support the 'fair assumptions' on which the rapporteur at least wishes cofinancing to be determined, but we disagree with the choice of Article 43 of the Treaty as the decision-making procedure to be followed.
We favour Article 209, granted that what is involved is a financial amendment which requires unanimity in the Council, and we oppose partial renationalisation and the introduction of a generalised structural mechanism.
<P>
Now, as regards the reform of the CAP, we call for equal treatment for Mediterranean products and full compensation for loss of agricultural income by direct aid, especially for small producers and disadvantaged regions.
<P>
Finally, as regards the persistent more general imbalances between north and south, which have been mentioned already and are quite evident, I would like to remind you that the Cohesion Fund was no more than compensation for the single market policy which mainly benefits the industrial countries in the north.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, in my opinion the review of the common agricultural policy is largely motivated not by the actual internal dynamics of development and the new challenges to be faced, but by pressures exerted by certain powerful Member States related to the reduction of the European Union's budget, and especially a reduction of their own national contribution to it.
In that sense, I think we are rapidly moving towards worsening conditions governing the exercise of agricultural policy, which ought not to abandon agricultural production and the countryside to the dictates of the free market, but should take into account demographic and environmental factors and the danger that large areas of agricultural production may be deserted.
I wish to express our complete opposition to any attempt to use financing provisions to renationalise the common agricultural policy in any way, which would be particularly intolerable for countries with the weakest national budgets and financial means, and also to express my opposition to two major imbalances: firstly, between products from the north and the south, and secondly, between large and small producers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Campos">
Mr President, I am always delighted to listen to Commissioner Fischler because he has come on several occasions to this House. We are very concerned about the extent of the common agricultural policy reform.
He says that he intends to carry out a reform for the future yet I do not see how the Commission can claim to be carrying out a reform for the future which involves wasting half the Community budget on a sector in which 1 % of the richest people in Europe receive 40 % of this budget.
<P>
This is not right, Commissioner Fischler.
It is not right that a few Members and the Commission are speaking on behalf of farmers.
You are talking about a privileged minority who, thanks to the CAP system, will apply for public funds that we should be managing very carefully. This is not happening because we are giving these funds to people who do not need them.
It is impossible to reconcile your speech on the protection of the environment, on the protection of employment, and on the protection of safety and quality with payments for production.
There are currently no problems with production, Commissioner.
Technological developments and biotechnologies guarantee that production will continue to rise.
The problems are with the people.
Due to this policy, the rural population is already seven times smaller than in 1950.
Under this policy, just 2.5 % of the population will still have links with the rural world.
What you have to do is propose an end to all the production aid.
This aid must be used for research, it must benefit small farmers and it must be used for family-based companies, employment and quality.
This is how the aid must be used rather than for this incredible waste of half the Community budget, which is potentially paid for by those who need it most and distributed among those who do not need it. I am doing you justice, Commissioner.
You are less of a lobbyist than the Members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development because the three dossiers presented by that committee are worse than the proposal from the Commission itself. In fact, they want more, not to modulate, not to set a fair ceiling, not to keep people in agriculture, but to produce more for the surpluses.
We can then pay ourselves for storage, pay ourselves for not producing, and even pay ourselves again for producing, storing and exporting.
This policy cannot continue Commissioner Fischler. Enough is enough!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Redondo Jiménez">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, at this stage in the debate we have already torn apart each and every one of the legislative proposals contained in Agenda 2000.
Therefore, please let me comment on a few aspects that have not been touched upon by my colleagues, although I support much of what has been said here by Mr Goepel, as well as by Mr Funk, Mr Cunha and Mr Colino.
<P>
I will only mention three specific major points and three minor points.
As regards the major points, I should like to discuss the innovative aspect of Agenda 2000 regarding rural development.
Although it is not an issue under debate today, you said that more than 50 % of the population was over 55 years of age.
Therefore, the main objective in agricultural policy, Commissioner, must be to support the population in the rural environment and here there are two major problems: that of young people, and that of supporting women in the rural environment.
Without women, there is no solution to this problem and that is the truth of the matter, however much we may resent it.
Men follow along behind women and we are left with a rural environment where the number of people is dropping and where we have too many agricultural policies.
<P>
Another major point is the issue of cofinancing.
Do not destroy the principle of solidarity.
I believe that in cofinancing direct aid - aid that requires Member States to comply with certain measures - we could be heading towards severe discrimination.
<P>
In addition, we must maintain the requirements - and the control of such requirements - for products coming from third countries.
These products must meet the same requirements as we lay down for our own products.
<P>
As for the minor points, I cannot forget a few long-standing problems.
I should like to remind you of the matter of past yields, or of the increase in male bovine quotas, which is already over 70 000 and which should once again be increased.
We also welcome the increase in milk quotas although we will continue to protest that it is insufficient.
<P>
Commissioner, we have already established a European agricultural model. Adopt it, fight for it and, along with all the European institutions, fight for those farmers whom you already defend so fiercely.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Iversen">
Mr President, the common agricultural policy, which was set up in the 1950s when there were only six Member States, is now facing change.
Everyone, or virtually everyone, recognises that this policy is not equipped for an enlargement which means that the Union is going to consist of more than 20 countries.
We are therefore obliged to make some changes, whether we want to or not.
We would like to participate in those changes, and we actually think that the Agenda 2000 proposal from the Commission is both elegant and bold.
We know the main ideas: general support schemes are to be abolished and European farmers will have to compete on the world market.
That is something we shall have to accept as a result of the WTO negotiations, and I also believe it is healthy for agriculture that we are going to have this liberalisation in future and that we are therefore also going to move closer to world market prices.
I also believe that, in the slightly longer term, this will make it necessary for us to abolish the whole milk quota system.
Some people will have regrets.
But I have no regrets.
I think it will be a good idea to do this in the longer term.
I believe in fact that people should be aware that the process which will be started by Agenda 2000 will lead to more and more liberalisation in the agricultural sector.
We Danish Social Democrats are very happy with the Commission's proposal, and we think it is a necessary change both in view of the WTO agreements and also because of the enlargement project and the whole financing situation we are in.
<P>
We have tabled amendments to a number of the proposals which have been put forward in Parliament.
We also have some other amendments.
We feel that in many ways the Commission's proposal is more realistic than what Parliament has been able to agree on, and I hope that Parliament will understand that it is in fact necessary to fall in line with the approach set out by the Commission.
The fact is that a number of the amendments proposed by Parliament - which we have voted against, but which are still on the table - entail an increase in the budget rather than a reduction, which is what the Commission's proposal is about.
We therefore have to find a solution which can be implemented, and we also have to respect the time factor.
That is why it is crucial for us to be able to deliver our opinion when we vote on this later this month in Brussels, and it is crucial that these things are ready on time.
I therefore wish both the President-in-Office and the Agriculture Commissioner good luck, and hope that things will be in place in March.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Filippi">
Mr President, I agree with those colleagues who are concerned that the very valuable debate being conducted on Agenda 2000 might result in low-profile conclusions in terms of CAP reform.
The difficulties are clear; they emerged during our deliberations in the Agriculture Committee, where we were unable to come up with a uniform view on reforming the major sectors, and they re-emerged this morning during the speech by the President-in-Office, when it was said that a compromise should be sought within the Council of Ministers - and we all know how many obstacles to such a compromise have already arisen.
<P>
It would however be wrong to adopt the interpretation which has tended to surface during this debate, namely that on the one hand we have an innovative, reforming Commission and, on the other, a Parliament which is incapable of following the trail marked out by the Commission.
Unfortunately the truth lies elsewhere, as we have said since the outset: the Commission's proposals are interesting and important, but the resources earmarked are inadequate to sustain them from a quantitative and qualitative point of view.
On one side we have the ECOFIN Council - yesterday morning the German Foreign Minister repeated what the UK Foreign Secretary said at the start of his term of office, namely that we must curb farm spending - and on the other we have the farmers, concerned that price cuts will adversely affect their budgets.
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We must get out of this impasse and move forward.
The appeal I would make at the end of my contribution, therefore, is that the high-level group announced by the Commissioner this morning, which is to begin its work very shortly, should make a real effort to find a way of protecting farmers' interests, somehow seeking an outcome which is in keeping with the declared objectives - very ambitious ones - of the reform.
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<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="Wilson">
Mr President, I will speak generally and not to any specific report.
Whatever policies we agree for European agriculture from the year 2000, they must be easy to understand, easy to administer and easy to inspect.
Our reforms must continue to use the common policy as a social tool.
We argued during the GATT talks that our policies were helping the economies of poorer rural areas, not supporting production.
If we argued this before, we cannot now argue that it is wrong to penalise efficiency.
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We must put a ceiling on the aid to larger cereal farms.
We must use modulation but we must use it fairly and sensibly.
We must ensure the local economies do not suffer unjustly.
We must develop efficient and effective complementary national policies but we must ensure the policies remain common to us all and we must retain common financing.
We must resist the move to renationalise funding and policy-making.
<P>
If we agree part-national financing the required spending must be mandatory.
There is merit in the proposal for area payments.
This is part of our social responsibility but we must retain benefits for farmers in the hills and other difficult terrain and we must ensure that benefit goes where it is required - not to the large, the rich or powerful.
Re-distribution must ensure fairness.
While we should all welcome proposals to increase extensive farming, we must ensure that we can police the system simply and efficiently.
We must not build a huge bureaucracy living off the back of small farmers.
We must also ensure that health and safety costs, consumer protection costs and abattoir control charges do not escalate to the point where they cannot be afforded.
At present in my country of Wales there seem to be more inspectors than sheep.
<P>
We must also ensure that where regional policy objectives apply, they and agriculture policies cooperate rather than compete.
All over Europe we are seeing rural areas getting poorer and losing vitality and urban areas getting richer.
Rural areas need economic aid as well as houses for holiday-makers and relatively rich retired people.
Agenda 2000 through the CAP must be an integral part of the support required for rural economies.
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<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schierhuber">
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, the development of the common agricultural policy is a concern for all of us.
Nevertheless, I would like to make it clear that I personally consider the level of the cuts in intervention prices contained in the Commission proposal to be unacceptable.
I would now like to discuss two points contained in the Graefe zu Baringdorf report.
<P>
The first point concerns the concept of good farming practice, which means that farms that are managed in accordance with the principle of good farming practice will in future receive full financial aid. Of course, this applies only if they also meet the other conditions laid down in this regulation.
Where services rendered by farmers with a view to preserving the agricultural environment go beyond good farming practice, special payment should be given, for example within the framework of Regulation 20/78.
<P>
Member States should be able to impose sanctions on the basis of objective criteria if environmental principles are not complied with, and these criteria must also be in accordance with the principle of good farming practice.
This method of farming must be recognised EU-wide and generally accepted.
I believe that Member States should develop codes which they can then promote accordingly.
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The second point I would like to discuss concerns the employment situation in rural areas.
We all know that farming families must in future be given more new opportunities for income security.
It is up to politicians to create the conditions so that well- educated, innovative farmers - and this is how I see the farmers of the future - can ensure that rural areas retain their attraction.
An eco-social agricultural policy must be tailored to the multifunctional world of agriculture and rural areas.
The European farming model was agreed at the Luxembourg Council, and this must be the fundamental criterion for the next round of WTO negotiations, as European agriculture is of course considerably different from that of our other partners in the WTO.
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<SPEAKER ID=118 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, one of the major issues of a future common agricultural policy must be how we are going to achieve an active rural policy and a clarification of roles in the field of agricultural and rural policy.
The countryside must be viewed in its entirety.
There must be diversity in the range of rural occupations, and the countryside has to be developed with respect for nature and recreation.
We must safeguard access to areas of recreation.
We must have access to woodlands, meadows, beaches and the shores of lakes.
The right to roam the countryside must in no case be connected to rights of ownership, and public right of access must be secured.
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Agricultural policy demands reform.
Agriculture that is closer to nature must be the norm, not the exception.
It has to be said that the views of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and those of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection are reasonably close to one another here.
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Direct subsidies for agriculture must be tied to compliance with environmental standards.
The decisions taken under the Treaty of Amsterdam and later at the Cardiff summit on the inclusion of the environment in all EU policy, based on the principle of transparency, must be taken seriously in agricultural policy too.
Under this principle, linking environmental standards to the payment of aid cannot be left up to individual Member States.
This would not achieve the aim of a more environmentally sustainable agricultural policy and agriculture, whose produce we can rely on as being healthy and safe.
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In order for the environmental view to be taken fully into consideration Member States must work with the Commission to develop a code of practice for environmentally sustainable agriculture.
Aid should be paid only to farmers who comply with the agreed rules.
Special agricultural environmental aid should be paid only for projects which either protect the natural environment or improve the present state of the agricultural environment.
Special attention must be paid to the protection of areas of water.
Applying a code of good agricultural practice must be made more effective by being able to claim back our resources.
<P>
It is vital that the question of diversity in the European Union is taken into consideration, as agriculture is practised from the north to the south.
For example, in Finland organic meat production is not successful as the animals have to be kept outside the whole year round.
At this time of the year there might be a metre of snow and the temperature could be thirty degrees below zero.
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<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="Sturdy">
Mr President, I also wish to welcome the President-in-Office of the Council.
I do not want to reiterate what has already been said today but I should like to mention to the President-in-Office one of the points he mentioned: the WTO.
I have long argued within the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development that it is important that Agenda 2000 and WTO dovetail together.
The Americans are no angels when it comes to WTO negotiations and we have to be very careful not to lose out in those negotiations.
I am quite sure that he is well aware of that situation and will make sure that we are in a strong position for those WTO negotiations.
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I was delighted to hear the Commissioner say that 50 % of farmers are over 55.
I just qualify as being under 55 - I am not quite sure whether that also applies to the Committee on Agriculture.
It is a very poignant point: we must prepare for the younger generation because if we allow these young people to wither then the vine dies and with it the industry.
<P>
I should like to air one or two things which have already been said.
I agree with Mr Wilson that we must have clear decisions, uniform policies and continuity, because agriculture needs continuity.
There are three main issues in British agriculture which worry us.
We have seen a 40 % fall this last year in our income and yet we talk about such things as national envelopes and a renationalisation of the common agricultural policy, which strikes fear into people's hearts in the United Kingdom because it allows governments to control the spending on agriculture.
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One of my colleagues mentioned modulation.
One of the problems with modulation is that there is genuine concern that it will not be fair across the board.
Modulation is great as long as it is larger than your particular farm.
We are totally opposed to that.
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Finally, again, do not allow cofinancing to be a renationalisation of the common agricultural policy.
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<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Haug">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we all know that the success of the Agenda 2000 negotiations is closely linked to success in all parts of the Agenda, in other words to a compromise that we must all accept.
The reform of the common agricultural policy is a central pillar of the overall structure, but it is only together with the other pillars of reform that it can support the Agenda 2000 structure.
This means that the course for a successful financial reform must be set now in the context of the negotiations on the common agricultural policy.
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It is obvious that proper financial regulations are not possible without appropriate changes in agriculture, the area that accounts for almost 50 % of the European budget. As a financial manager myself, you will forgive me for being particularly annoyed by this.
<P>
President Santer rightly pointed out that the negotiations on the future financing of the budget represent one of the key elements of the Agenda 2000 negotiations.
But alongside the financial reforms support must also be given to the necessary agricultural policy reforms.
I do not agree with the assessment given by Commissioner Fischler this morning.
Cofinancing of agricultural policy measures, as proposed in some amendments, should not be dealt with separately from agricultural reform.
On the contrary, in our view it is one of the successful elements of the reform proposed for the agricultural sector, and it is clearly in line with the Commission's thinking in proposing to redirect the CAP away from price guarantees and towards income support.
If is it correct that we can assist rural areas more effectively by means of this redirection, the Commission should not have applied the brakes halfway through; not only should it have thought it through logically to the end but it should also have prescribed reform.
This also means that we have to put our faith in the tried and trusted mechanism of the Union and the Member States sharing joint responsibility for structural measures under the agricultural policy too.
<P>
In addition, Commissioner Fischler, if I had been you I would not have missed out on the dynamic effect of cofinancing.
There is no doubt that it increases willingness to discuss the scale and structure of the common agricultural policy objectively and in detail.
Awareness of the need for reforms, as proposed by the Commission, will increase rapidly in the Member States if in future the Ministers for Agriculture have to fight with their Ministers for Finance for part of the funding.
The proposed cofinancing is not in fact a means of solving net contributor problems but instead will play a crucial role in restoring the balance between market policy and income policy on the one hand and structural policy in rural areas on the other.
It is not a form of renationalisation, to reply to a fear that has just been expressed.
Like Mrs Boogerd-Quaak, I hope that the Committee on Budgets will find a majority in favour of cofinancing, as we need to show that almost 50 % of the budget is being used efficiently and is achieving results if we are to allow citizens to have confidence in the way their taxes are being used.
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<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Otila">
Mr President, the common agricultural policy must manage and control agriculture all the way from Sicily to Utsjoki, in countries that have totally different natural conditions.
It will be a tough job, and the fear that the special conditions prevailing in peripheral areas will be ignored in the final decisions that are taken is a very legitimate one.
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One of the many problems with the Agenda 2000 agricultural reform is the plan to turn grain policy upside down.
The reduction in the administrative intervention price of grain proposed by the Commission is a problem.
At the same time the Commission is proposing that only half the reduction in the administrative price should be paid back in compensation.
Grain production in the areas that are classed as peripheral in Finland is now very unprofitable, so that any reduction in price would cause production to suffer even further.
Special regional conditions, relatively low yields, and high costs must be taken into account in the reforms.
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Rural Europe will need viable agriculture in the future to preserve its vitality and diversity.
Agricultural development will continue to affect the well-being of the entire population of the continent.
If agriculture were left to waste away it would at the same time lead to the decline of the food and agricultural equipment industries and the commercial sectors connected with them, as well as limiting consumer choice.
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Agriculture has to move in step with the liberalising world market, but we must be able to impose a change in direction and speed. The direction in agriculture must not be downward.
Preserving the model of the family-run farm is dependent on the political will of the European Union.
If we can put our trust in the future of European agricultural production and unanimously take the necessary decisions, Europe will have a vital, diverse food and agriculture industry for the next millennium.
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<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldarelli">
Mr President, the proposed reform of the CAP contained within the Agenda 2000 package, to be implemented through the Structural Funds and the draft regulations under discussion today, is an effort, albeit a tentative one, which deserves our support.
But in actual fact, even these tentative efforts are being undermined by the desire for balanced national budget contributions and the lack of any true innovation.
The outcome or compromise, as the President-in-Office, Mr Funke, deliberately repeated several times this morning, must however take account of a long-standing culture which is remote from the real interests of consumers and producers.
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High-level groups, diplomatic mediation, informal contacts and claims that the budget is untouchable, on the one hand, and the desire to renationalise expenditure, on the other, make the gulf between economics and politics plain for all to see.
Farm incomes have dwindled.
Price reductions have forced European producers to compete in ways which have often been detrimental to both quality and social conditions, quite apart from having led to a decline in health and hygiene standards.
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We shall never forget BSE and what it did to consumer confidence.
But the most immoral aspect here is that the type of production which caused BSE has not been rooted out.
Production for its own sake, to rake in premiums, the misuse of scientific research, the difficulty of monitoring certification standards on the use of transgenic products at consumer level, the use of antibiotics and growth promoters in plants and animals - all of these have continued.
Impenetrable levels of specialisation and sophistication have been reached, and the phenomenon has continued to spread even since the BSE crisis.
How should we respond to these questions and these external costs?
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<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fraga Estévez">
Mr President, as a Spanish Member, I must express my disappointment at the Commission's proposal on the common organisation of the market in the milk and milk products sector. As I see it, a great opportunity has been missed to propose a true reform that would redress the balance in this sector of the European Union.
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Commissioner, you are well aware that my country has been asking for increased quotas of one million tonnes, but in your plan we are allocated approximately 220 000 tonnes, which is much lower than our needs.
It is clear that there is no real explanation for the fact that a Member State such as Spain, which accounts for 12 % of dairy farms, 11 % of the population and 6 % of consumption, only has 4.67 % of the overall Community milk quota.
In contrast, other Member States receive considerable increases in quotas that they neither need nor have ever requested.
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Nor is it acceptable that less favoured areas have been forgotten in the new reallocation of quotas. These areas should have been included, along with the mountain regions.
I also do not believe that the 'virtual cow' system is acceptable in calculating premiums as, once again, it will clearly penalise those countries that have insufficient quotas and whose production is less than the Community average.
<P>
Lastly, Commissioner, I believe too that maintaining the unjust and insufficient fat content referencing quantities, which many dairy farms have, is unacceptable.
There is no explanation for the fact that a Spanish livestock farmer can produce milk with an average fat content of only 3.63 % and yet, in contrast, a Danish livestock farmer is allowed to produce milk with a 4.31 % fat content.
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All this, as you know, has serious consequences, not only for profits but also for the quality and viability of farms.
Perhaps, Commissioner, an interim solution would be to allow all dairy production with an average fat content reference quantity under 4 % to be exempt and not subject to an additional levy.
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<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Berger">
Mr President, Commissioner, regardless of the outcome of the vote on the Agenda 2000 agricultural package and of the decision taken in the end by the Council of Ministers, I think it is clear that we expect - and must expect - European farmers to undergo enormous changes.
However, I have the impression that we are still doing too little both at national and European level to facilitate change and support the farmers through it.
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Unfortunately, it is often the traditional farmers' associations who, in their indiscriminate rejection of reform, forget to draw the attention of their members to new opportunities in good time.
These new opportunities are contained in the Commission's agricultural reform package, despite all the tough measures it may contain.
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For the majority of farmers in Europe - and these are the smaller farmers - the package of reforms is a step in the right direction, even if it is often lacking in vigour and is not sufficiently binding in terms of environmental and social criteria for aid.
Incidentally, it is the smaller farmers who have so far been most willing to accept change and to approach it positively.
But we often neglect them.
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By way of comparison, I would point out the important and necessary measures taken by the Commission and the Member States in order to prepare companies and banks for the euro.
Companies and banks are not exactly helpless organisations.
Nevertheless, we have helped them.
Members of Parliament have now even received euro key-fobs from the Commission.
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It would be much more important to launch a campaign to support farmers not only with practical matters such as adapting facilities and adjusting to change, but to lend them what we could perhaps call moral support.
It is sometimes easy to understand why farmers feel excluded from European politics and feel that they are always cap-in-hand outsiders.
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We must also place much greater importance on farmers' non-output-related performance in terms of its image as a service and a job, and we must make the transition from price support to direct aid more palatable.
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<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Virgin">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, Agenda 2000 already contains many far-reaching proposals from the Commission for making changes to the agricultural policy.
A reduction in prices to world market levels for milk, beef and cereals has been proposed.
The price reductions would be partially offset by higher compensatory payments based on area and the number of livestock.
In my view, it is important to adhere to the Commission's principle of basing this compensation on production capacity, for example in the case of milk.
In some cases, Parliament is proposing lower price reductions and thus lower fixed compensatory payments.
I have to say that I think the Commission's proposals are better and more carefully thought out, and therefore more deserving of our support.
<P>
It is true that there will be more pressure on the budget when the compensatory payments are raised, but any extra burden on European consumers and taxpayers would be more than offset by lower food prices.
In all probability, the charge on the budget will lessen over time.
According to most forecasts, the world market prices for current products are going to rise, enabling the compensatory payments to be gradually phased out.
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The danger in some of Parliament's proposals lies in the fact that they go only half way and would make it harder for European agriculture to operate on the world market and achieve the competitiveness that is essential for our long-term survival.
<P>
The Commission's proposals also contain a number of drawbacks.
Countries which cannot grow silage maize should receive fair compensation.
In the debate, it has been said that 20 % of farmers would receive 80 % of the support, but in fact most farmers come within the 20 % band. This is where we find the family-run farms.
The rich minority who happen to farm a large area make up a tiny group.
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<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="Thomas">
Mr President, I should like to begin by expressing my regret that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development was unable to come to any opinion on these reports in committee.
It seems to me a sad loss that no-one has mentioned that so far.
However, sadly, the vision of many of my colleagues in the Agriculture Committee appears to be one of national interests and not the global view that has been expressed by the Commission.
The global view must prevail if progress is to be made in this important sector.
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The reductions in support prices envisaged by the Commission are not only desirable but vital in the light of expansion and our WTO commitments, not to mention the legitimate concerns of those who have levelled criticism at the level of support enjoyed by this sector.
I have doubts as to whether the proposals will meet the objective of lowering the cost of agricultural products to consumers, but I sincerely hope that the Commission's forecasts are correct.
<P>
The introduction of measures designed to protect our rural environment and encourage more extensive farming practices are welcome, but I would draw attention to the degree of flexibility proposed for Member States to decide their own priorities, namely the national envelopes for the beef and milk sectors, the application of cross-compliance requirements and the labour force criteria.
Whilst the notion of flexibility is commendable, we must caution against creating an uncompetitive situation which will divide Europe's farmers.
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In conclusion, we need reform.
Most people in this Chamber would accept that.
I hope that my colleagues can be realistic in their voting pattern on 28 January and ensure that at least, at minimum, the Commission's proposals will be accepted.
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<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Trakatellis">
Mr President, the Commission has quite rightly proposed to extend the role of the European Agricultural Fund, which will in future undertake additional activities aiming to develop the countryside.
In addition, part of the review of the financing system should aim to improve the quality of agricultural products.
This helps both the producer facing international competition and the consumer as the end user of the products.
I also think that the Guidance Section should finance all measures to develop the countryside, including structural, agri-environmental and agri-forestry measures, as well as provide compensatory aid for disadvantaged areas.
<P>
The common agricultural policy is a cornerstone of the Union's European integration and an incentive towards development in the agricultural sector.
The possibility of cofinancing will in essence lead to renationalisation of the CAP, even in part, and will affect mainly those countries which fall below the Community average in economic terms, such as Greece and other countries in the south, while in parallel it will have negative consequences for the development of Community agriculture.
For that reason, I categorically oppose proposals, legislation and amendments which undermine the fundamental nature of the CAP and go against the principles of economic and social cohesion and solidarity.
The Union must not condemn the financing of European agriculture to Procrustes' bed in order to satisfy the demands of some countries for a reduction of their contributions to the budget.
And on that point it would be useful to examine not just what those countries contribute to the budget, but also the extent to which they benefit from the common market of the European Union's millions of purchasers.
I therefore believe that the principles of cohesion and solidarity demand that the agricultural policy should remain an undiluted common policy, and that it must be understood that efforts to renationalise it would set us on the slippery slope towards its gradual abolition, with the result that the cohesion of the European Union's fabric would be eroded.
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Finally, I disagree with the proposal for pre-accession financing of agricultural measures in the applicant countries from the Guarantee Section, and I support the entry of a separate category of pre-accession aid, one that is independent of the guideline for agriculture.
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<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Santini">
Mr President, we waited seven years for this reform of a reform.
Now that it has arrived, the manner of its presentation hardly makes us reach for the champagne.
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Let us repeat once again that the Commission's proposals severely marginalise the countries south of the Alps, that is, on Europe's southern periphery.
There is no in-depth understanding of the true problems inherent in carrying forward the proposals for the future.
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A second reason for dissatisfaction comes from the work which we have done - or rather, I should say, have not done - in Parliament, in that only one of the five reports under discussion was approved in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
I dare not imagine what will happen next week, when we begin to discuss the reform of the COM in wine.
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It has to be said, all things considered, that the scope of these proposals is very broad, in a territorial sense as well as time-wise.
Reference is made to a target date of 2006, but the effect of this attempted reform will probably last even longer.
Reference is made to openness towards Eastern Europe, and above all to what is happening in the west, in other words the WTO constraints.
What is perhaps missing, Commissioner, is a little more attention to people, to farmers themselves, who are still somewhat unprepared for all these developments.
The challenge of so-called globalisation affects them directly, but insufficient account is perhaps taken of the persisting uncompetitiveness of European agriculture.
The transition is a harsh one, and for once we can say that bureaucracy has actually outstripped the pace at which Europe's citizens are adjusting.
<P>
I am reasonably satisfied with the particular attention devoted in this reform to peripheral areas, such as mountainous regions, with the raising of milk quotas by 1 %, and above all the attention paid to young farmers.
Farmers are in fact a dying breed, Commissioner, given that 3 % of them are lost every year.
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<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mayer">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in the wake of important events, it seems that everyone wants to have their say on agriculture today.
So I would just like to comment briefly on the Graefe zu Baringdorf report, specifically on direct payments and reductions.
I think it is right that European agriculture needs more long-term stable conditions, but it also needs to become more competitive so that, as well as producing foodstuffs, it can also, in accordance with the European agricultural model, cope with the additional major tasks facing the whole of society, such as preserving the agricultural landscape or generally protecting the environment.
<P>
The Commission proposals are logical.
Changes made in one area are balanced by changes in another.
But they are also very blunt. For example, not enough attention is given to the situation of individual holdings.
Compensatory payments, introduced in the 1992 reform, are almost always really only partial compensation for losses incurred by farmers in the past and still today as a result of price reductions.
They are necessary if we are to be able to maintain extensive farming.
Good farming practice should be a prerequisite here.
However, high payments are often made in the case of farms that have substantial land or a high number of livestock, and these often attract criticism.
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I think that reductions are necessary for this reason.
Large-scale holdings find it easier to cut costs than smaller family-run farms.
Reductions are necessary in order to allow the situation to become reasonably fair for family-run farms.
The question is how to we are to carry out these reductions.
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<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office, in the two minutes I have been allocated in this important debate I will merely state clearly, in view of the significance of the present reform proposals for the existence of European agriculture, that these proposals could have unreasonable consequences for agriculture and for the European economy and society as a whole.
They are therefore not acceptable unless they are amended as my group has recommended.
In addition, they are incompatible with the decisions made at the 1997 Luxembourg summit.
<P>
I would remind you that, following the exploratory debate by the Ministers of Agriculture on the European agriculture model, the EU Agriculture Council on 19 November 1997 unanimously requested that the agricultural reforms should be organised in such a way as to allow the European agriculture model to be maintained.
At the Luxembourg summit in December 1997 this demand was taken on board.
The Heads of State and Government declared themselves not only against unilaterally dismantling European agriculture but in favour of further developing the existing European agriculture model with its multifunctional role in all regions; this means that the provisions of the reform under discussion today must target solutions that make economic sense and are justifiable in social terms, and also allow farmers to achieve an appropriate income.
<P>
Why did the Commission, in presenting its drafts, pay so little attention to these options that were agreed at a high political level?
It is truly incredible. In my small country the proposals in their present form would result in income losses of LUF 650 million, and would of course mean that agriculture would, quite unreasonably, be dependent on public finance.
This cannot be allowed.
<P>
I would also like to comment on milk production, which is such an important part of agriculture in Luxembourg.
We at least agree that the milk quotas must be retained.
However, the proposals as presented by Mr Goepel are the absolute minimum if we wish to prevent milk production from disappearing in many European regions.
I fear, Commissioner Fischler, that it is a naive fallacy if you would have us believe that the drastic price reductions you propose, which are so damaging to farmers, would allow consumers to enjoy price reductions in the order of EUR 10 to 17 billion.
The collapse of prices in the beef and pigmeat sectors has shown us that this is not the case, and you do not have a monopoly on political wisdom.
Listen to us and to the farmers a little, and then we will be able to find a balanced arrangement.
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<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Varela Suanzes-Carpegna">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, a long-standing error is restricting the development of agricultural and livestock farming in those Spanish regions that are lagging behind economically. Galicia is one of these regions, with Objective 1 status under the European regional policy, and it has a clear and long-established history of livestock farming.
The error I am referring to is, of course, the inadequate milk quota Spain was allocated when it joined what was then the EEC. Spain, and Galicia in particular, is therefore still calling for a larger milk quota.
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In our amendments, we ask that special consideration be given to allocating an additional quota to certain regions that suffer as a result of this unfair disadvantage. This would rectify the severe imbalance in the economic and social cohesion of some less favoured areas.
In order to survive and be competitive, these regions need a specific restructuring programme, cofinanced by the European Union.
<P>
The structural deficiency of the sector in these regions has led us to ask that premiums be allocated not in relation to the average Community milk production, as the Commission suggests, but rather in relation to the actual national or regional average, which is very different to the virtual Community production.
And to make it worse, beef and veal, which could partially alleviate the problem, are not included among European premiums that do not cover calves.
We ask that they be regulated and included and that the age for the slaughter premium be brought down to a maximum of eight months. This could help rectify the serious and unjust situation experienced by the Galician livestock sector, a sector which could have great potential.
We call on our European colleagues to show some understanding and ask them to support our amendments in a spirit of solidarity and justice.
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<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Klaß">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in the belief that persistence will get us there in the end, we hope that the discussion today will achieve something.
The farming families of Europe need a reliable political framework.
The 1992 reform introduced direct payments for farmers as a result of a price reduction.
Commissioner, the criteria for direct payments are explained only in vague terms by the Commission and are even left to the discretion of the individual Member States.
<P>
But what we need in this area is equal treatment for all agricultural holdings in Europe.
The level of the direct payments to be made to farmers and the additional conditions to be imposed must not be decided at national level.
This is the only way in the end to ensure that market and competition distortions are avoided.
Farmers must be given a regular sum on which they can rely, and they must also be able to plan economically and successfully.
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The Commission recognises the need to adjust to the world market.
This would expose European agriculture to worldwide competition, but it would at the same time be burdened by additional costs resulting from Europe's high environmental and social standards.
But how can we be competitive if conditions are so varied worldwide?
Direct payments to agriculture must in my view be considered from the point of view of less favourable natural production conditions.
We must not forget that farming families look after and preserve the agricultural landscape.
<P>
I would urge the Commission to use the given criteria as a basis for deciding on any further requirements to be imposed on agricultural production.
We must in future regard the principle of good farming practice as our starting point, a principle addressed by both Mrs Schierhuber and Mr Mayer.
We must establish a framework for European agriculture in which Europe's farmers can in future also survive on the world market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Keppelhoff-Wiechert">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it seems that everyone wants to have their say today.
Seldom have such great expectations been held of an EU presidency as of the German Presidency in the first half of 1999.
Bringing Agenda 2000 to a successful conclusion is almost equivalent to squaring the circle.
<P>
You may be able to bring our negative response to the proposals back to the Council in time, Mr Funke.
The content of the new agricultural policy must be finalised quickly, by the end of February, and my question is: are the Ministers of Agriculture still involved in any way in determining policy, or will the Heads of State and Government set the financial framework in advance at the summit in March?
The time for questions is long past.
Specific options are required, and farmers want finally to know where we are headed.
<P>
Yesterday in the House Mr Fischer, the German Foreign Minister, called for a reduction in agricultural expenditure. However, he also promised support for European farmers.
Mr Funke, I am sure you will be able to explain this confusion.
You speak in a very straightforward way that I really like; you have not adopted this technocrats' German, and please do not do so.
But to achieve the same result with less and less money is, in my view, a very difficult task.
<P>
Financial leeway is becoming limited in the search for solutions and there is not very much room for manoeuvre.
Perhaps this reform is the last available.
Following enlargement towards the east, the emphasis is increasingly on liberalisation, which our farmers know, but in my view the solutions that must now be negotiated under Agenda 2000 are only an intermediate stage.
In 2005, following the accession of the first group of applicant countries from Central and Eastern Europe, agricultural policy will be under the microscope once again.
<P>
As a member of the farming community, I really cannot endorse the discussion about price reductions.
In twenty years of professional involvement in agricultural policy I have never seen consumer prices fall as a result of lower agricultural prices.
Mr Funk said the same this morning.
We have a German expression: although cereal is becoming cheaper, bread is becoming dearer.
I could also say that although milk is becoming cheaper, yogurt is becoming dearer; you can be fairly sure of that.
<P>
In order to lay down Community rules for direct payments, which was my task as shadow rapporteur, I would also like to ask the Commissioner what these regions must commit themselves to paying their farmers if they can expect higher environmental requirements at the Commission's insistence, as is currently planned.
I know what I am talking about; I come from North Rhine-Westphalia and our farmers may be able to handle increased environmental requirements, but the question is: who will pay?
<P>
My second and final question concerns the sliding scale of direct payments to farmers in accordance with the number of workers, as Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf proposes.
Please simply tell me whether you accept Amendment No 27 or not.
Then we will be in agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="McCartin">
Mr President, when Mr Andriessen became a Commissioner which was many years ago, I was already a Member of Parliament.
I said to him that the big challenge before him was to make European agriculture competitive.
Since that day there has been no talk about making European agriculture competitive, but I want to thank Mr Fischler for continuing with that theme and at least putting forward the aspiration that European agriculture can take its place in the world and take its share of world markets.
<P>
With the world population increasing by 80 million per year, it ought not to be all doom and gloom.
We ought to plan and lay out some sort of strategy by which we can play our part in supplying this market.
It was extraordinary to read this morning that Argentina is importing beef at the moment.
That is an area of the world which we had thought was a great competitor and a threat.
Because of the climatic situation Australia is able to supply them with beef.
It gives us some reason to believe that things do not always remain exactly as they are.
When the MacSharry reform came in we proposed reducing production and increasing importation of food.
Today we propose taking a bigger share of world markets.
I welcome that.
<P>
I was a bit disappointed that the President-in-Office of Council talked more about animal welfare, environmental considerations and consumer protection than about the livelihood of farmers.
While I accept the point he made on those matters, we cannot consider those ideas in isolation from the need to provide farmers with an adequate income.
Farmers may complain about the common agricultural policy, but without it we would have a worse situation in Europe.
So I would be seriously concerned about any effort to shift the cost or the policymaking of the common agricultural policy back to Member States.
Under no circumstances can we permit this to happen.
There are so many different countries and climates in the EU and the common agricultural policy has saved us from the tensions that would have arisen in recent years with the great reduction in the number of people on the land.
We have a policy that works. Farmers suffer from it at the moment but our best hope is to carry out the necessary readjustments and keep it a common agricultural policy for all Europeans which contains all three elements - financial solidarity in particular.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ebner">
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to concentrate mainly on two areas: milk and beef.
With regard to milk and the report by Mr Goepel, which in itself I would like to support fully, I regret that some of the amendments did not meet with approval in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
Examples include the important alternative proposals concerning price support and income support for milk producers, particularly in the disadvantaged mountain areas.
These must be given greater consideration and distortions of competition must be avoided or offset.
<P>
It is also essential to introduce measures to promote the consumption of milk and milk products, and the necessary funds must be provided for marketing.
I would advocate that the individual reference quantity for milk be divided by the number that corresponds to the average milk yield of the region.
This would be a fairer method for the mountain areas.
<P>
Finally, in my opinion the Member States should be paid in accordance with objective criteria, taking particular account of their respective production structures, especially in the mountain areas, so that they are not so dependent on variations in the market.
Fourthly, I also consider publicly-financed transportation aid to be absolutely necessary and indispensable.
As far as the beef situation is concerned, greater consideration should be given to the disadvantaged areas, for example in terms of eligibility for premiums.
<P>
Accordingly, young farmers should receive further additional financial support.
Action needs to be taken in this regard, as Commissioner Fischler said earlier today.
I hope that the Commission, in particular the very skilled and able Commissioner Fischler, who comes from a mountain area and knows the situation extremely well, and the Council will give my objections the appropriate consideration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 NAME="Funke">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as you can imagine, it was very interesting for me to attend this debate, to listen to and digest the various speeches as best I could, this morning and this afternoon, and of course to take this with me to the debate we will be having on this subject in the Agriculture Council.
I already indicated in my introductory speech this morning that I place great importance on hearing your opinions and taking part in discussions with you.
I am also of the opinion that what you say and think must carry weight in the discussions in Council.
So I thank you for your contributions.
<P>
I should like to look at a number of points that were raised, without dwelling on them too long, particularly as some of them were addressed to me.
Perhaps I might begin by saying that when I compare the various speeches the overall effect seems to me to be equivalent to squaring the circle - to quote Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert - as is so often the case when the subject of farming is discussed anywhere out in the countryside.
Farmers are required to provide high-quality foodstuffs and use environmentally friendly production methods; at the same time, they are supposed to preserve the agricultural landscape, just on the side, and in addition they are supposed to do all of this economically, preferably at what we call world market prices.
<P>
Put in these terms, this is already equivalent to squaring the circle.
Nonetheless, we must put it in these terms, as no other terms are possible in pluralistic societies.
When considering compensatory payments, which I believe we were this morning and this afternoon, we are told by some that these should be as fair as possible and should take the respective structures into account.
I understand and accept all of that.
Yet at the same time calls are made - sometimes in the same speech, but at most two or three speeches later - for these to be implemented as simply and with as little bureaucracy as possible.
Again, this seems to me to be like squaring the circle, if I am judging it correctly.
<P>
I would like to begin by making a point concerning a speech that came towards the end.
I believe it was Mr McCartin who said to me that I had talked about animal welfare and environmental considerations but not the issue of competitiveness.
Mr McCartin, this morning I was in an excellent position; I had been asked not to improvise because the text of my speech had been given to the interpreters, so I kept to the text.
I do not usually do this, I will freely admit, but I can therefore say quite amicably and in all modesty that I know exactly what I said and what requests I made.
I quote: 'Future European agriculture must be competitive in order to hold its ground against international competition.'
<P>
I admit that it is possible, of course, not to hear a sentence like that. But because it is such a crucial one, I would like to quote it here once again to show that it was not the case that I completely neglected this aspect of agriculture.
It would have been terrible, had I done so.
<P>
I would like to add the following.
We have often been called upon to tell farmers the truth, so in my view we need to make one thing clear over and over again: if we reduce European agriculture - however it may be defined - solely to supplying raw materials for the European market, it will fail.
We have a wealthy internal market, with 80 million inhabitants in Germany alone.
In total, if we include the applicant countries, we will have a large number of consumers throughout Europe who can mobilise enormous purchasing power.
<P>
When reference is made to the purchasing power of the European internal market - especially when the other countries join - I must on the other hand continually point out that we have a degree of saturation in Europe and even surpluses, at least in some areas of agricultural production.
How can we hope to develop an image of the future face of European agriculture if we do not recognise that we must also conquer markets outside Europe?
I do not want to expand on this now, but to my mind this has to be part of European agriculture.
I want to make it very clear that European agriculture cannot function otherwise.
<P>
On the other hand, if European agriculture produces under very specific requirements - whether crop or livestock production - because society demands it, but the agricultural systems in other competing countries do not do so because their societies react differently to certain production conditions, then both compensatory payments and a minimum level of protection from foreign competitors must be guaranteed.
This is part and parcel of the fair trade conditions that we want to see, and it is a crucial point.
It also concerns the WTO, which you mentioned, Mr Sturdy.
Of course we must also look at this in detail, including in the debates on that specific issue.
In any case, Mr Sturdy, I agree with what you said.
<P>
In view of the Commission proposals, the question arose - or rather I was asked very specifically, by Mrs Anttila, I believe - as to how I, as President of the Council, proposed to prevent farmers from going bankrupt as a result of the price reductions.
Here I must say something about our concept of politics in general.
To believe or claim that politics can prevent bankruptcies - by means of any instrument, action or basic conditions - is an assumption that I would warn against.
<P>
Politics will never be capable of this under any conditions.
At best we can ask whether, with a view of the proposed solutions, the basic competition conditions are fair or not. We must discuss whether this makes sense for the future of agriculture.
But it does not relieve farmers of the business decision; it does not relieve me, as a manager, of the responsibility of taking the necessary decisions in my company to ensure its long-term existence in the light of the current conditions.
<P>
But we should not ask too much of politics.
Indeed, it seems to me that in the past we perhaps too often gave the impression that politics was capable of such things.
Perhaps we should no longer give this impression in future.
I therefore very much agree that we need reliable basic conditions, that we need to be competitive.
I also agree with the view that we must be careful with our money.
<P>
Another element of this squaring of the circle is that, on the one hand, we rightly require agriculture to provide a livelihood for as many people as possible, but on the other hand we must constantly explain to the non-farming population, and also to the farmers themselves, that the total sum spent on agriculture is not a small one, when we take into account the European budget, the national budgets and part of the regional budgets in federal Member States.
Nonetheless, we have a correspondingly high drop-out rate in farms, and we have not managed to satisfy the farming population either.
<P>
This is a discussion needs to go into more detail in certain areas.
This seems to me to be particularly important.
Perhaps it is true that we spend a great deal of money, but we do not spend it in such a way that it benefits the people working on the farms.
That is putting it very simply, but it is certainly worth thinking about.
It is a point some speakers mentioned, and although I do not want to go into detail because of time constraints, it is certainly a point worth noting.
Yet the call for greater extensification, increased environmental protection, a move away from purely economic considerations, and at the same time reduced expenditure - and such a call was made, if only indirectly, unless I misunderstood - is again asking us to square the circle.
It is important that we realise this is impossible.
It is easy to talk about whether to pursue greater extensification or increased environmental protection, but we must realise that it costs money, either because local requirements make compensatory payments necessary or because the environmental protection is organised as part of an agreement; it could be either.
One will mean more for one person, the other will mean more for another, but either way it will cost public money.
That is an aspect that must not be forgotten.
<P>
I believe I have covered the main points that were put to me.
Perhaps I placed too much emphasis on certain points, as I am new to this, but that should help you to get to know my point of view.
<P>
With regard to the view that we should perhaps nationalise the financing of the agricultural policy, which means that we would only receive money from Europe if we had organised national funds in advance or were obliged to organise these funds subsequently, forgive me for saying so, but I think that would be the end of a Community agricultural policy.
For this reason I have great doubts as to whether we should choose this path.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cunha">
Mr President, I should like the President-in-Office to clarify a statement by his colleague, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, who yesterday said that we should reform the common agricultural policy in order to reduce the expenditure of the European Union.
The Minister did not give me any information on this subject and he did not answer me, but I asked him if the German Presidency had changed from its traditional position.
This question is very relevant, politically speaking, and I would therefore ask and insist that I am given an answer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="Funke">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Cunha, it is not just the Germans who have so far discussed financial issues, particularly with regard to the agricultural policy; we can see from the negotiations in the Agriculture Council in which I was involved, and from the discussions which followed with the various Member States, that financial issues are discussed continually.
I just emphasised in my reply that in my opinion it is of course very important, and indeed it is part of the reason we need agricultural reform, to ask whether the money we spend on agriculture - at European, national and, in federal Member States, regional level - is always spent in such a way, because of the way the system is organised, that it really benefits those on the farms.
<P>
To my mind this is not really a question of the level of funds provided, but a question of distribution.
I want to place particular emphasis on this point.
We say that for an indefinite period we will allocate 45 %, or, according to some, 50 % - I do not want to argue this point - of the European budget to agriculture, and at the same time we see that agricultural income is going down, not up, at least in some areas of agricultural production. Surely we have to ask ourselves what we think we are doing?
We cannot simply accept it and say that the more money we have, the happier everyone is.
<P>
I believe we would all, in particular the landowners, be well advised to get involved in this discussion.
I do not know what the Foreign Minister said on this point, but if he thinks, as I understand it, that we can reduce expenditure without saying how and in what area it is to be done, then I would be inclined to say that just as I would come to an agreement with the Foreign Minister before expressing an opinion on foreign affairs, so should the Foreign Minister come to an agreement with the Minister for Agriculture before expressing an opinion on agricultural issues.
But I do not know what he said on this issue so I cannot comment.
I would like to discuss this with him.
<P>
In conclusion, I would like to say something that should give cause for thought.
I do not have sufficient information to speak for the other Member States of the European Union, but I can speak for Germany and for its Länder: it makes almost no difference - please note that I say 'almost' - what instruments we use in agricultural policy or what we focus on, we have had an average drop-out rate of 3 % in farming in the last 50 years since the end of the war.
Note: the last 50 years.
This drop-out rate corresponds exactly to the increase in agricultural productivity.
Scientists have looked into this and the answers are quite clear.
I cannot be quite so clear cut, but I wonder whether we are not going to have to realise that the increase in productivity levels is undoubtedly going to mean structural changes in agriculture, with farms being abandoned, as long as economics is the basis of agricultural policy, I might add.
For me it would be inconceivable not to have economics as the basis of agricultural policy.
The result would be a great waste of resources if this were not the case.
But perhaps we should also discuss this more in public than we have done in the past.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to thank all those who contributed to this debate.
In my opinion it was very constructive and set an excellent example, as I hope the public will note.
<P>
On the many questions concerning specific amendments, I will repeat what I said this morning, which was that I am prepared to distribute a list clarifying which amendments the Commission considers acceptable.
I also realise that I promised to be brief in my final speech, and I would like to keep to this.
<P>
Mr Funke has just given a very clear explanation of what is important in relation to the competitiveness of European agriculture.
European agriculture must be competitive in two ways.
Firstly, our products must be competitive, and they can only be competitive if we pay greater attention to quality that we have hitherto, if we realise and act upon our consumers' new appreciation for quality, and above all if we take into account the strength of European agriculture, which, as we know, lies in using agricultural raw materials to produce high-quality end products.
<P>
However, competitiveness in European agriculture also means that services other than the production of agricultural products must be accorded economic value and must be integrated into our market economy system.
<P>
A great deal has been said about the extent to which agricultural policy must also be social policy.
We must be realistic here.
Agricultural policy should have a social dimension but should not be purely social policy.
That would really be a mistake.
The question here is surely how we are in future to achieve a reasonable ratio, so that we do not have an imbalance like the present famous 80: 20.
<P>
With regard to environmental policy, I would like to remind you once again of the principle on which we in the Commission based our considerations.
The issue is not the importance of the environment within the common agricultural policy but the fact that in future we want to emphasise that compensatory payments, as we currently call them, must be linked to the environment.
For us it is essential that all farmers who receive public funds from the Community budget at least observe the principles of good farming practice.
We must certainly discuss the definition further in terms of production system, climatic region and so on.
<P>
However, we also consider it essential that other services that go beyond this are compensated separately, but these services must be voluntary.
We do not want to introduce a command economy in Europe by the back door.
<P>
I now come to the issue of financing.
The Commission has not made any proposals concerning cofinancing, as was suggested several times. It merely described, in the context of its report on own resources, possible ways of achieving a better balance between the contributions of the individual Member States.
In our view, it is now primarily up to the Member States themselves to say which of these financing models they would favour. I therefore believe that we firstly need the basics to be clarified before any political agreement can be set out in the relevant legal texts.
<P>
In the meantime, however, as you know, there are also other considerations such as stabilisation models that are very much worthy of examination. We are prepared to look into them.
But one point must be clear: regardless of which model we use, we will not be in a position to bring about an agreement between the Member States if we do not have the necessary financing to compensate for changes in pricing policy. As the saying goes, money makes the world go round.
We really must make available the funding that is needed and that is recognised as being needed, otherwise we will not achieve proper reform.
<P>
I would like to remind you of one further point: do not forget that with regard to payment for services that will in future be part of rural development, cofinancing has already been agreed and is planned to continue.
This means that the more we push forward rural development and the more importance we attach to payment for environmental services and similar, the more likely it is that cofinancing will become automatic, but in a form that does not allow cohesion to fall by the wayside.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Fischler.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on 28 January at 9 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Organic production
<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on the following oral questions:
<P>

B4-0719/98 by Mrs Barthet-Mayer on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, to the Council, on rules relating to organic production (livestock production); -B4-0720/98 by Mrs Barthet-Mayer on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, to the Commission, on rules relating to organic production (livestock production).
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Barthet-Mayer">
Commissioner, Mr President, as rapporteur for the Committee on Agriculture on the extension of Regulation 2092/91 to organic production, I would remind you that we obtained very wide consensus in Parliament on this text.
To the great satisfaction of Members, the Commission then took over a large number of our amendments and included them in its amended proposal.
<P>
During 1998, the successive versions of the text discussed in the Council unfortunately resulted in a significant shift.
So the purpose of my two oral questions today is to alert the Commission and the Council on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture, and I want to thank my colleagues in the Committee on Agriculture for their confidence and support in taking this action that meets their concerns.
<P>
This shift relates to three areas.
First, the transitional conversion periods are considerably extended.
It does not take 15 years to reduce the number of chickens in a building.
Next, there is an increase in the number of derogations, which could end up distorting the proposal.
This applies, for example, to the sensitive issue of feed. In principle, this should be entirely organic in this type of production, and in this respect the Commission's proposal is already sufficient derogation in itself, since it recommends 90 % organic feed.
Finally, standards and thresholds going far beyond the Commission's proposal have been progressively introduced.
There is also a risk of it becoming a form of catch-all regulation authorising intensification in organic agriculture, which is a contradiction in terms.
<P>
I am aware of what is at stake economically in connection with consumers' recent interest in this sector of production in the European Union, and also in connection with potential future exports. I thus felt bound to react to put the legislators on their guard against the internal risk from such a flimsy and incoherent regulation, which is likely to distort competition according to different national or regional interpretations and methods of control that are not harmonised.
<P>
I also want to put them on their guard about the fact that the application of a complete regulation is being delayed even further, with the risk that the European Union - a pioneer in this field - might have only have to meet the general standards of the codex alimentarius , its text being currently under discussion, with all that that also involves in terms of the actual nature of imports from third countries.
<P>
As in other agricultural sectors, the lack of a strong common proposal threatens to weaken the Union later on in the World Trade Organisation, because we know the debate is going on in the United States to try to impose GMOs, the use of urban sludge, irradiation of foodstuffs, and even natural hormones on organic farming.
All this is very different from our European conception of this sector.
Organic farming must undoubtedly remain a symbol of the most demanding, the strictest and the most thoroughly controlled quality, to the benefit of all who want it, both producers and consumers.
It is a voluntary approach and everyone is free to adhere to it or adopt another type of quality production.
<P>
As a result, I call on the Commission to stand by its proposal, and even withdraw it if it is being excessively distorted by the Council.
But I do hope that it will not be necessary to go that far.
And I am also very hopeful when I call on the Council to have another in-depth look at this proposal, in the knowledge that we are, of course, in agreement with its proposal of last December, which lays down the principles of organic breeding.
But we very firmly reiterate our request that the Council's text be revised, and we hope, in line with what Mr Funke gave us to understand this morning, that the Presidency-in-Office will heed the combined voices of Parliament and the Commission.
<P>
Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office, please do not let cut-price organic farming develop.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="Funke">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Barthet-Mayer, we dealt with this issue in the Agriculture Council of 14-15 December and, as you know, agreed on guidelines, but we also urged that it should be adopted as soon as possible in the spring of this year, in accordance with your wishes, as the Council also saw the need for speedy adoption.
<P>
Certainly, we cannot currently predict what the substance of the text of the regulation ultimately submitted will be.
We shall have to wait and see, but the opinion of the Council was that, as you requested, we need a clear demarcation between organic production and conventional production.
I fully agree with you on this.
However, on the other hand, we must proceed with the necessary flexibility and simply appraise the situation as we go along.
We must also be flexible in facilitating the transition for those who wish to change over to organic livestock production.
For this reason we also discussed appropriate transitional periods.
One side called for fifteen years.
If I remember correctly, we agreed on twelve years.
I know that there was a lengthy, in-depth discussion about this twelve-year period and - you are shaking your head anxiously - that we can of course also call for shorter periods.
On the other hand, however, we know that it was as a result of practical experience that we decided to favour longer periods.
I assure you that we will implement this quickly in accordance with your wishes and that we will monitor observance of the demarcation very strictly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as Mr Funke has already indicated, there were various problems in the discussions in the Council with the proposal submitted by the Commission following debate in Parliament.
The main problem is really that some of the elements of our proposal cannot be readily introduced in all Member States.
We therefore had a debate on transitional derogations to allow the national provisions that currently exist in most Member States to be brought into line with future Community law.
<P>
Some of the amendments concern in particular the origin of the animals, as animals or feedingstuffs can come from conventional holdings.
We must not forget that in a number of Member States organic farming has hardly been practised up to now.
We must give these countries an opportunity to start organic farming if they wish to do so.
This is really why we want a transitional provision of this kind.
<P>
I would also like to stress that harmonisation can only progress gradually, particularly if the relevant livestock production has hitherto been governed predominantly by national or regional rules.
Certain amendments were proposed in order to solve this problem.
They concern in particular the tethering of animals and requirements in terms of the lying area and litter area that should be provided for each animal.
<P>
Do not forget that for centuries tethering was the normal way to keep animals, particularly on small holdings. And if a farmer has his small farm in the middle of a village it is not always easy to provide the appropriate litter areas.
Nor should you forget that it is the smaller holdings that today are already recognised as organic farms, but that this recognition would have to be revoked if they did not have a litter pen.
So here we must be prepared to reach a compromise.
<P>
In conclusion, I would like to point out that derogations always apply for a transitional period only and that these are by no means unprecedented.
Such provisions also exist for example for seeds and plants or for conventional ingredients in organic foodstuffs.
With regard to future action I would simply like to clarify that the Commission is of course prepared to defend its proposal and if necessary to justify why certain exceptions are necessary on a temporary basis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rehder">
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office, I would like to say briefly that the Social Democrats in the European Parliament are very pleased that you have clarified these matters for us and that common sense has prevailed.
Of course snow falls in the beautiful Tyrol, in the almost as beautiful Allgäu and also in beautiful Lower Saxony, and then the cows just have to be brought into their stalls.
<P>
All this - you know that I defend the Commission and also the Council on all important issues - fell victim to propaganda in my home town during the election.
It was said that ropes were banned from cowsheds, so of course people moaned about the nasty Eurocrats again.
I am pleased that this subject is now closed and that common sense has prevailed in Europe.
Thank you. We can now at long last continue to support a very reasonable method of production.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ebner">
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office, organic farmers have often been depicted as outsiders, and I believe that if this continues they will continue to be outsiders.
The basic conditions should be created to ensure that they do not remain outsiders, with the exception of ideologues.
Flexibility, which you mentioned, Mr Funke, is right, necessary and sensible, but it should take the right direction and should not be a form of protection for large industrial concerns that wish to maintain forms of production that admittedly lead to relatively low unit prices in economic terms but ultimately harm public health.
I believe this is what you meant by flexibility.
In any case that is how I see it.
<P>
In my view, the transition periods are too long.
Pointless conditions that make organic farming much more difficult should be abolished or not introduced in the first place.
But I believe that marketing and promotion are vitally important and necessary, both to change consumer habits and, in the form of commercial initiatives, to create sales opportunities for small farms, as most of the farms concerned are small holdings.
<P>
Four weeks ago a study was presented to us by the chamber of commerce in Bozen in the south Tyrol. It was a comparative study of 1 500 cooperatives in the Alps, from France to Slovenia, and we learned that the farms that were involved in these cooperatives fared much better than the others in terms of income security.
Since mainly small farms are involved we would need to introduce greater support for cooperatives in this area.
If you do not yet have this study, I would be glad to provide you with a copy.
<P>
In Austria we have learned that almost 20 % of current production comes from areas of organic production.
I believe we are moving in the right direction.
It is an advantage for our consumers, for health, for better extensification of farmland and, I believe, it offers good future prospects for young farmers too, particularly as the average age of more than half of those employed in agriculture is over 55 years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Mulder">
Mr President, in terms of our subject this afternoon, we all agree that there is a steadily increasing consumer demand for organic products.
There are already rules in Europe on fruit and vegetables, and almost everyone knows what the definition of these is.
This is far from being the case with animal products.
I think it is very important that we should allow as few derogations from the rule as possible.
If there are derogations, I think consumers will lose all confidence, and it will also mean that there is no proper competition.
I think that Mr Funke's suggestion just now that we should look at all this again in the spring is a very welcome one.
<P>
Certainly not all countries will be able to start at the same time.
But that is not the issue here.
The issue here is whether we can sell customers things which satisfy their expectations and which are able to meet certain standards for organic production.
Other countries can join in later.
But it is important that consumers should have the assurance that there is a specific definition consistent with their expectations, and that producers should know the requirements to which they must produce.
That is it, really.
Anyone who cannot meet those expectations will not sell these products and will not produce them either.
Once again, we look forward with interest to the spring.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Mr President, the history of the regulation on organic farming began in 1992.
Initial discussions led to the regulation on plants, then followed the commitment by Parliament and then by the Commission that animals would be covered a year later.
It is now 1999, and as the President-in-Office said earlier, all we have to do now is to adopt it.
But please, Mr Funke, do not put urgency before quality since we have been working on this for so long already!
<P>
What is the current situation?
We are now at the stage of the legislative procedure where Parliament has adopted a position on this issue.
The Commission has adopted some of Parliament's amendments.
The Council requires a unanimous vote to reject this modified proposal containing Parliament's amendments, if the Commission keeps to its proposal.
<P>
I would like to discuss two points: tethering and gene technology.
Tethering is not mentioned at all in the Commission's proposal.
This means that it will have to be inserted later and the Commission will have to be prepared to compromise so that this problematic issue can be covered, because it is a subject that has been neglected completely, at least for cattle.
I would ask you not to insist excessively on animal welfare, which essentially has nothing to do with appropriate ways of keeping animals.
Appropriate tethering is perfectly possible, but exact details must be given, and we must not throw the baby out with the bath water.
<P>
For the use of genetically modified organisms the principle is different.
The Commission adopted the proposal that we do not want the use of genetically modified organisms to be included in this regulation and therefore in organic production.
This is therefore a ban.
There is a ban on using genetically modified organisms, and it should remain.
<P>
Yet we have the problem of what to do with potentially contaminated organisms. This is where we begin to weaken.
With regard to tethering I am in favour of a moderate approach, but here I am in favour of a strict approach, because if we allow contamination and then in the novel foods regulation, to which it relates, allow a certain percentage that need not be labelled, we are allowing the use of genetically modified organisms through the backdoor; if tests then show that products do indeed contain such organisms, we will lose our markets.
Here I would ask that we proceed with caution.
Furthermore, the question of contamination is dependent on what measures are taken to ensure that other areas are not contaminated during release experiments.
I would ask for a very strict approach to be adopted here, Commissioner.
It is in your hands.
If you do not seek a compromise with the Council on this, the Council's hands are tied.
We may postpone the matter once again, but then we must not act in haste but give priority to quality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has also signed the joint motion for a resolution on organic livestock production because the Commission's proposal is much too lax.
It provides for far too many derogations and it is in contradiction to the rigour of the national standards established by a number of Member States, including France.
Even if the final revised version allows Member States to maintain stricter national provisions than those to be applied at European level, we are bound to fear a levelling down.
<P>
Our group is aware of the potential of organic livestock production for the agriculture of Member States.
After what has happened with BSE and GMOs, the consumer wants a level of food safety that organic production can guarantee.
<P>
But before signing the joint motion for a resolution, the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations called for the incorporation of a certain number of points that it considers essential.
Derogations must be strictly and entirely limited to production subject to the external constraint of extreme and exceptional climate conditions.
Transitional regimes must be limited in terms of their duration to allow producers to adapt their system of production to European standards that are stricter their own specifications.
<P>
With the codex alimentarius due to determine the rules relating to production, labelling and marketing of organic products as from the end of June 1999, the Union needs to adopt a clear position that incorporates strict standards.
Finally, as regards labelling, our group is opposed to the harmonised European logo for organic products that some people want.
As national specifications are different, the harmonised European logo would be a source of confusion for the consumer and would involve a levelling down of the health standards of organic livestock products.
<P>
Through its national legislation, the United States has tried to authorise the incorporation of GMOs into feed for animals intended for organic production.
American consumers have succeeded in getting this proposal withdrawn and our group welcomes that fact.
Thanks to the constraints it imposes in terms of specifications and the traceability of products, organic farming represents an attractive opportunity for some producers.
It represents one means of linking agriculture closely to the land and permitting an agricultural price differential higher than standard world prices.
Mr President, this dual advantage must not be abandoned to the benefit of the purely mercenary approach adopted by certain Member States towards organic production.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pinel">
Mr President, two types of farming coexist today.
The first is one that responds to the demands of the multinationals, which are mainly American, that poisons the ground and foodstuffs, and that intends, for the first time in history, to patent living creatures and alter genetic heritage. It also plans to market non-reproducible seeds, has been spreading cancer for the last 50 years and has cut human sperm production in half through pesticides, herbicides and fungicides.
Then there is the other kind of farming, the form of peasant, traditional farming, which respects employment, the environment and human health, but which has been systematically marginalised by the lobbies, right down to its very name - organic - which is an ambiguous and opaque term as far as the general public is concerned.
<P>
The National Front prefers to talk about traditional and natural farming and chooses the farming that has shaped our civilisation down through the millennia.
Farmers are the main victims of chemical methods.
The socialists are the leading accomplices of this system: in France, for instance, they only grant FRF 100 per farm per year for conversion to organic farming.
For the leading agricultural nation in Europe, faced with the challenge of a rapidly expanding market, this is ridiculous.
Consumers want something other than mad cow disease, hormones and GMOs. These substances should be banned.
In the face of the challenges of pollution, urban overcrowding and the destruction of the countryside, organic farming makes only a vague appearance in Agenda 2000 and that is unacceptable.
<P>
So what should be done?
Firstly, we must increase the level of resources set aside for conversion.
<P>
Secondly, we must oppose all levelling down and any derogation that will endanger the quality and credibility of organic farming networks of any kind.
French standards are excellent in this respect, and must not be undermined.
We say 'no' to cut-price organic farming!
<P>
Thirdly, it is scandalous that in 1999, products that guarantee jobs and protect the environment and public health are taxed at the same rate as doctored products that are full of hormones and that are the result of chemical, transgenic methods that are tragically destructive for consumers and for natural environments.
So no tax or VAT should therefore be levied on organic farming.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 NAME="Hardstaff">
Mr President, the UK currently lags behind most EU countries in its production of organic food.
Currently only about 1 % of our farm output is recognised as organic.
However, the demand for such produce has risen enormously over the last few years, and not just because of the BSE crisis: our supermarkets simply cannot obtain enough organic produce to keep pace with this rising demand from their customers, even when looking to other Member States to meet the shortfall.
<P>
The demand is there and consumers are prepared to pay high prices for what they regard as a healthier and higher-quality product.
However, the transitional period for farmers switching to organic production is often very difficult, as they incur extra costs for some years before being able to obtain recognition as a fully organic producer and so able to command the higher prices.
On the other hand, consumers need to know that they are paying more for a genuine organic product.
<P>
Here I want to join my colleagues in urging both the Commission and the Council to take speedy action to implement the measures to further organic husbandry, as recommended by the Committee on Agriculture, for which Mrs Barthet-Mayer has been such an eloquent spokeswoman on this issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Keppelhoff-Wiechert">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will help to save us some time.
I think we can say that the EU Agriculture Council has essentially succeeded in dealing with the new EU eco-regulation.
In our opinion the Federal Government has found acceptable compromises, particularly from a national point of view, in order to achieve vital objectives relating to livestock farming, feedingstuffs and veterinary medicine.
I consider this intermediate step to be an initial reaction.
An acceptable basis has been found for sustainable basic conditions for improved ecological livestock production.
Several speakers considered this to be long overdue.
It is now possible to conclude the amendment of the EU eco-regulation under the German Presidency in the first half of 1999.
<P>
I have another question concerning the quality mark.
But perhaps I am simply not well enough informed.
Are we again to have all the different national quality marks and an additional quality mark that can be recognised EU-wide, as Mr Mulder requested before in his report?
I think it would be helpful to have an answer from you on this issue.
But perhaps it is already in the text.
Will there be different national quality marks or a harmonised EU quality mark?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, I would like briefly to answer two questions.
In reply to Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert's question, the Commission is working towards developing an EU-wide logo, as called for in the resolution.
<P>
The second question concerns GMO.
For us it is not problem - and we stand by this - that we do not want to allow the use of GMO.
But as Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf rightly said, there is a problem with contamination.
However, we wish to be as restrictive as possible here, so we would rather talk about unavoidable contamination than just contamination.
The details have yet to be worked out, however, so that there can be no excuses.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Fischler.
<P>
I have received eight motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 40(5).
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Question Time (Council)
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="President">
The next item is questions to the Council (B4-0004/99).
<P>
I should like to welcome Mr Verheugen, and we look forward to working with him and having the pleasure of his company in the days ahead.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, in reply to this question, the Council has already pointed out on several occasions when answering questions on this subject in the House - and I can only repeat this - that it has never been involved with issues concerning the matter which the honourable Member refers to in her latest question.
I would therefore ask her to appreciate that the Council is not in a position to provide an answer on this.
<P>
I would also point out that the interception of telecommunications, which is the subject of the proposal for a Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance in criminal matters, seeks to promote international cooperation in order to control international crime.
This type of interception does not pursue any other objectives apart from that of fighting organised crime.
<P>
I might add then that the honourable Members' questions are concerned with the interception of telecommunications for the purpose of solving crimes. The relevant Council bodies are currently dealing with a draft Council resolution on new technologies which is clearly connected with both the Council Resolution of 17 January 1995 on the lawful interception of telecommunications, and the discussions on the interception of telecommunications within the framework of the Draft Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance in criminal matters between the Member States of the European Union.
<P>
The requirements of the competent authorities with regard to the technical implementation of lawful interceptions in modern telecommunications systems are summarised in the 1995 resolution.
It should be noted that this resolution does not deal with the legal basis for authorising interception; it deals solely with the technical requirements for the monitoring agencies with regard to monitoring telecommunications on the basis of a valid authorisation.
<P>
The 1995 resolution is applied in principle to current and future telecommunications systems.
In view of ongoing progress in telecommunications technology, however, it is being considered whether the resolution needs clarification on a series of points, pertaining to satellite systems and the Internet in particular.
This draft resolution seeks to provide the necessary clarification.
<P>
As regards the Draft Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance in criminal matters, the possibility of adopting rules on the interception of telecommunications for the purpose of solving crime has been carefully examined both by experts and by the Council itself.
Conventional telecommunications systems operate within one country and are based on the assumption that a target in any one country can only be monitored by means of the telecommunications system in that particular country.
However, these technical restrictions do not apply to the new satellite systems.
New forms of cooperation are therefore necessary.
<P>
The ongoing discussions involve a series of highly sensitive political issues.
Moreover, the issues concerned are of a highly complex technical nature.
<P>
Naturally, due respect should be paid in this connection to the human rights angle and in particular to the relevant provisions of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
<P>
At its meeting on 3 and 4 December 1998, the Council examined the most difficult political issues.
These concerned cases of monitoring for the purpose of solving crime, where the technology could be made available for a country to monitor a target in another country without this country providing the technical support to do so.
<P>
A broad majority of Member States took the view that the country in which the target is located should be informed in these cases and should be in a position to demand that it is not monitored, or that it ceases to be monitored.
One Member State declared itself in favour of providing for exceptions for reasons of national security.
<P>
Some other issues were also discussed, in particular the question as to what extent the Member State in which the target is located should be in a position to demand that material already seized be destroyed.
In this connection, however, the question that requires urgent clarification is whether it is sufficient to merely inform the country in which the target is located, or whether this country should arrange for the target to be monitored under the mutual legal assistance arrangements in accordance with its legal framework.
<P>
This issue is also particularly important because the result of an obligation to merely inform the country in which the target is located would be to shape technology in such a way that individuals could be monitored in their own country by another Member State.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 NAME="McKenna">
What we are talking about here is that the Internet would be forced to put facilities in place so that the police can come in through the back door.
If these plans were implemented ENFOPOL would be able to monitor almost every communication mode. This would be a gross abuse of people's right to privacy and of basic civil liberties.
<P>
There is an internal Council document which was to be discussed.
It has been put on the Internet in German.
In the interests of transparency, this document should be available in all languages so people can see what is going on at these K4 meetings.
Even though you talk about the justification for this, you do not mention what the consequences are or the cost effect for the Internet providers to provide such a facility.
They are going to be asked to pay for this so that the police can, without warrants and without any justification, bar this bland statement by yourself, say that this is done to fight crime.
We need openness and to know what is going on.
Parliament should be informed, Member States should open up this discussion so that people in the Member States know what is going on before it is too late.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mrs McKenna, I would point out once again that the interception of telecommunications, which is the subject of the proposal for a Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance in criminal matters, seeks to promote international cooperation in order to control international crime.
<P>
This type of interception does not pursue any other objectives apart from that of fighting organised crime.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
I should like to ask if the President-in-Office can comment on the memorandum or protocol issued by the K4 Committee, which states that work on the overall structure of a global surveillance system, as agreed in the scheme arranged between the EU and the FBI, should take place outside the third pillar.
This is rather an interesting piece of news, since it could be that discussions do not take place within the Council itself but elsewhere, for example in the K4 Committee and in other committees and working groups.
<P>
However, the question still remains: why does the Council not find it convenient to discuss the matter openly with the European Parliament, particularly in view of the fact that it has a direct bearing on the public's right to privacy? There is also the possibility of any agreement turning out to be in direct conflict with national legislation.
A reply would therefore be much appreciated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mrs Schörling, I fully understand your concern, and I can assure you that the Council takes this seriously.
However, the discussions which you mentioned have not been concluded and, therefore, the outcome you indicated is not the case either.
<P>
If the Council were to achieve an outcome, everything necessary would of course be done to safeguard the rights of Parliament, but also of course to give the Member States the opportunity - which they will also have during the discussions that take place beforehand - to explain their interpretation of the law, and to see to it that fundamental questions concerning the legal culture of the European Union are not adversely affected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
I have two supplementary questions.
The first concerns the 1995 resolution on the lawful interception of telecommunications.
My question is as follows: what kind of cooperation has taken place with the USA and other non-European countries in this area?
Equivalent legislation already exists in the USA.
<P>
My second question concerns illegal telephone tapping and more precisely the Echelon system, which is a global military surveillance system without any legal base.
Has the Echelon system ever been discussed in the Council of Ministers, and is there any link between Echelon and the system of lawful interception that exists in the EU?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Sjöstedt, I would gladly answer your question, but I am unable do so because it is so far from the original question that I was unable to prepare for it.
I therefore hope it is acceptable if I reply in writing to both these questions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 3 by Alexandros Alavanos (H-1174/98) Subject: Changes in the system of EU own resources
<P>
The Commission report on the operation of the EU's own resources system includes a proposal that the Member States should continue to pay direct aid under the common agricultural policy based on Community legislation as they do at present, but that instead of receiving a 100 % refund from the EU budget, they will receive only a partial refund of 75 %.
Since, according to the Commission's data, such a change to the own resources system will not only harm the 'cohesion countries', and particularly Greece, but will also undermine the basic principles and rules governing the common agricultural policy, will the Council confirm that no proposals will be adopted which deprive the cohesion countries of some ECU 1.2 billion annually, while the unacceptable refund arrangements enjoyed by the UK since 1984, amounting to some ECU 1.3 billion, are retained?
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Alavanos's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, the negotiations on Agenda 2000 have entered their final phase and are to be brought to a close at the European Council meeting on 24 and 25 March 1999 in accordance with the undertaking given at the Vienna European Council.
Mr Alavanos will understand that the Council cannot comment on individual points mentioned during the discussions, given that the negotiations are still taking place and full agreement has not been reached.
However, the Council can at this stage indicate that it was specifically asked at the Vienna European Council to carefully examine all the issues raised and viewpoints set out during the discussions, so that full agreement can be reached.
<P>
The European Council has also asked all Member States to participate fully in helping to achieve, on the basis of solidarity and careful budgetary management, a fair and balanced outcome that is acceptable to all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, I thank the President-in-Office for his answer, though it cannot be categorical since the negotiations are still in progress.
<P>
More particularly, I should like to ask whether this proposal for the substantive renationalisation of part of the funding of the common agricultural policy is still on the negotiating table, because in negotiations some initial proposals are lost, other new ones appear, and so on.
Is the proposal for the nationalisation of part of the common agricultural policy still up for negotiation?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, Mr Alavanos, the situation is such that all proposals which were made by both the Commission and the Member States during the discussions up to now are still on the negotiating table.
An important prerequisite for the German Presidency was to make it clear that in this final stage of the discussions all proposals are on the table for the moment.
This does not mean that the package which is to be adopted as a final compromise will include everything that is currently on the negotiating table, but that all proposals which the Commission has made, and which have in the meantime come from the Member States, are part of the negotiations which the presidency is currently holding.
<P>
Moreover, I can assure you that solidarity in financing the European Union and making decisions on the European Union's budget is a matter which is of crucial importance for the German Presidency in particular.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 4 by Eva Kjer Hansen, which has been taken over by Mrs Spaak (H-1176/98) Subject: Institutional problems on enlargement
<P>
Do the unresolved institutional problems really mean that there will be no enlargement of the EU before 2005?
There are still no plans as to how enlargement will take place: Firstly, the protocol on the institutions with the prospect of enlargement of the European Union reduces the number of Commissioners to one per Member State provided that the weighting of votes in the Council is modified, but 20 new Commissioners are to be appointed in January 2000 for a 5-year term of office.
Secondly, Article 137 of the Amsterdam Treaty lays down that the number of Members of the European Parliament must not exceed 700, but at the next elections 626 MEPs will be elected for a 5-year term of office.
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer this question, which Mrs Spaak has now taken over.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, the Council would point out to Mrs Spaak that the protocol on the institutions with the prospect of enlargement of the European Union, which is intended to form the basis of a plan for adapting the institutions, has not yet entered into force, since the Amsterdam Treaty to which this protocol is annexed has not yet been ratified by all the Member States.
As soon as all the instruments of ratification have been deposited in Rome, the treaty and the protocols in the annex, which constitute an integral part of the treaty, will enter into force on the first day of the second month following the deposit of the final ratification instrument.
<P>
Mrs Spaak, this last sentence was so incomprehensible even in my own language that I should prefer to clarify it.
In other words, if everyone has ratified the treaty by the end of March, it will enter into force on 1 May, and if everyone has ratified it by the end of April, it will enter into force on 1 June.
I had trouble understanding the sentence myself.
<P>
At the Vienna European Council on 11 and 12 December, it was agreed that the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty still constitutes our first priority.
When it meets in Cologne the Council will decide when and how to tackle the institutional problems which are not resolved in the treaty, and which must be resolved before enlargement takes place.
The important question which you raised, Mrs Spaak, must be considered in this context.
<P>
Moreover, the Council would point out that, until now, there has been no formal confirmation of the date on which the current accession negotiations with the applicant countries will be brought to a close.
The case considered by Mrs Spaak is therefore not on the agenda.
<P>
As regards the question on Article 189, formerly Article 137 of the consolidated treaties, it should be noted that the number of 700 Members of the European Parliament from the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty is valid for the number of Member States in the Union at that time.
Apportionment amongst the individual Member States following enlargement will be negotiated at the appropriate time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Spaak">
Mr President-in-Office, I would just like to point out that the Amsterdam Treaty resolves none of the institutional problems raised in Mrs Kjer Hansen's question.
Waiting for ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty seems to me to amount to a long delay, especially for the applicant countries.
<P>
My supplementary question is as follows: has the Council yet considered the various proposals and the various problems highlighted by Mrs Kjer Hansen in her question?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, I consider the question to be a completely legitimate one, and I also share the concern which underlies it.
The Council has not yet dealt specifically with the proposals you mentioned, but has merely discussed the question of how the unresolved institutional problems are to be tackled.
As you know, the German Presidency was instructed only a few weeks ago to make a procedural proposal for the summit in Cologne.
We are currently holding the necessary discussions on this, and I have just pledged within another parliamentary body to ensure that the discussion within Parliament and the opinion it forms will be duly taken into account, because Parliament has a particularly important role to play, especially concerning the development of the institutional character of the Union.
<P>
We will therefore not be able to reach a decision on the core issues regarding institutional reform during the German Presidency, and do not even wish to, because for the moment we have only been instructed to make a procedural proposal.
I must draw your attention to the fact - and you of course know this - that agreement on a particular procedure is often already halfway to reaching overall agreement in the Union.
<P>
In connection with enlargement, I should also like to tell you that in the opinion of the presidency, there is full agreement on the need to resolve the institutional problems by the time the first accessions take place.
That the presidency also wishes to speed up the decision-making process on institutional issues is a positive signal to the applicant countries, and I think it is in our mutual interest that this positive signal can actually be given as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="Elliott">
I found the President-in-Office's reply very helpful and encouraging as far as it goes, but it does not fully address some of the points that are made in this question.
I am a member of the Joint Parliamentary Committee with Poland.
The Polish Government has indicated that it believes it will be ready for accession in January 2003.
They may not be able to achieve that. But are we, in effect, shutting the door to any enlargement within the period of the next five years?
It seems to me that if Commissioners are to be appointed at the end of this year on the same basis as they are at the moment, it would present serious problems.
The same, to some extent, applies to Parliament.
I wonder if some thought is being given to these issues.
If we are going to wait until next year or later before we begin to think about these factors, you can see the difficulties that will arise.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, I am very grateful to you, Mr Elliot, for asking this question because it gives me the opportunity to clarify a point.
A date has not been fixed for the accessions.
Neither a later nor an earlier date has been indicated, but rather the date fixed will depend solely on how the negotiations progress. As you know, there are altogether 31 packages for negotiation.
You are aware of the current situation. Three of the 31 negotiation packages have been concluded provisionally, and four more are about to be concluded.
We intend to start negotiations on six to eight more packages during the German Presidency, so that about half of all the packages are in the process of being negotiated by mid-1999.
<P>
By then we will have perhaps almost reached the stage where we can see how much longer we actually need. We will then have to decide whether or not to fix a date for the accessions.
I do not see the danger you seem to in the effect that institutional reform would have on enlargement.
According to the consensus we have established within the Member States, the institutional problems should be resolved by the year 2001. However, I would see this as the latest date for this.
It is highly unlikely that an accession treaty can be agreed upon and concluded with any one applicant country by 2001.
<P>
To answer this question very precisely, I do not believe that we will be in a position where the negotiations on accession have been concluded, but the European Union is not ready for enlargement because the institutional issues have not been resolved.
<P>
This matter is of the utmost importance for the German Presidency, and I am grateful to see that this is also an extremely important issue for Parliament.
I firmly believe that the credibility of the entire enlargement process also depends on how seriously we work towards completing the institutional reforms.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 5 by Paul Rübig (H-1183/98) Subject: Security in cities
<P>
During the European Parliament's May part-session in Strasbourg, the representative of the British Council Presidency, Mr Douglas Henderson, agreed to the immediate establishment of a group of experts who were to deal with the topic of the increase in crime in European cities.
<P>
Could the Council give me some indication of the composition and the activities to date of this Council group, as well as an insight into the further priorities of the German Presidency in this field?
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Rübig's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, security in cities is certainly one of the areas in which only a coordinated approach extending across authorities and disciplines can be successful.
Experts within the Council group on police cooperation are dealing with crime in European cities.
In the past, their work focused on violence in cities, police cooperation and violent gangs in urban areas.
<P>
In order to improve the exchange of information on proven methods, increase the exchange of experiences and extend practical cooperation, the group has agreed on an exchange programme for officials active in the area of violence in cities.
One of the first exchange schemes for police officers who are active in the campaign against violence in cities took place in France in October 1998.
Such exchange schemes will also be run in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, a few days ago Mr von Wogau's press officer was attacked at Place Schuman at 7 o'clock in the evening.
He was taken to hospital with a cut.
However, this is by no means an isolated case.
In the last year, Mr Voggenhuber, Mrs McCarthy, Mr Schiedermeier, Mrs Pack and many others have been attacked in Brussels.
My office carried out a survey of 300 offices in the European Parliament; over a third of them reported an incidence of criminal assault in Brussels within the last year.
<P>
I believe that the European institutions need to be made safer.
The Belgian national parliament is kept under surveillance by the army and the police force.
As far as I know, the European institutions are not kept under surveillance at all.
There are more than 10 reported cases of theft on average each month in the European Parliament alone.
How does the Council presidency intend to improve this situation?
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<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Rübig, you will understand why I have to point out firstly that maintaining public law and order on the territory of the Member States is primarily a matter for the police forces of the individual states.
Having said this, the facts which you described are to be taken seriously, and I will use this as an opportunity to address the issue at an appropriate time.
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<SPEAKER ID=178 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 6 by José Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra (H-1185/98) Subject: Communication on the First EU-Latin America and Caribbean Summit
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The First EU-Latin America and Caribbean Summit of heads of state and government is to be held in Brazil in June 1999. The European Parliament has already participated in the Ministerial Conferences of the San José Group and the Rio Group, in both the opening ceremonies and the various work sessions.
On what basis does the Council intend to include the European Parliament as a participant in this summit?
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I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Salafranca's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=179 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra, I must say right at the outset that you will be disappointed by my answer, but you will appreciate that as we have only been in office for 12 days there has not yet been a Council meeting during the German Presidency.
The Council has therefore not yet had any opportunity to examine the question of the European Parliament's possible participation in the meeting which you mentioned, and indeed has not done so.
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<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
I should like to say to the Council representative that the disappointment in his response does not mean that the Council's action should be disappointing.
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I would like to point out that at the last Ministerial Conference in San José, held last February under the British Presidency, the way in which the European Parliament delegation was treated was obviously wrong. It was in fact treated worse than the delegations from third countries.
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I would like to ask the Presidency-in-Office to ensure that the European Parliament delegation is treated correctly at this important summit, in accordance with the institutional role it plays and in accordance with its importance in maintaining momentum in relations between the European Union and Latin America
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On that particular occasion, a rather serious incident occurred at the beginning of the Conference. I would therefore be grateful to the German Presidency if it would guarantee that the European Parliament will be able to fulfil its corresponding institutional role, as I have requested.
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<SPEAKER ID=181 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
I am grateful to Mr Salafranca for expressing these concerns.
They give us a reason to make an effort to ensure that complaints of this kind are no longer necessary during our presidency.
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<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, the joint answer to both questions is as follows: I should like to refer to the conclusions of the European Council on this matter, as my predecessor did in a written answer to the questions asked by Mr Cushnahan, Mr Watts and Mr Wibe at Question Time in December last year.
The conclusions read as follows: With regard to the decision taken in 1991 on duty-free sales for travellers between the Member States, the European Council has asked the Commission and the ECOFIN Council to examine by March 1999 the problems which may arise with regard to employment and, on the basis of proposals from the Commission, to look at how these problems can be dealt with, including the possibility of extending the transitional provisions for a limited period.
From the Council's point of view, it cannot say anything further on this matter at the present time.
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<SPEAKER ID=184 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
I should like to welcome the new President-in-Office and say that I was extremely pleased with his reply, in which he said that it would be sensible for us to decide to postpone the matter.
I am particularly pleased that you say that the Council has directed the Commission to carry out this study and produce an answer by March 1999.
I have received an answer from the Commission in which the Commission denies any responsibility and says it is not its job, so I would like to ask you as President-in-Office of the Council to kick the Commission up the backside and ask it to start carrying out the study, which should be ready in March 1999.
I am extremely pleased with your reply, which is what we would have liked to have heard from the Austrian Presidency, which gave a completely unintelligent reply last month.
I really think this is a good start.
We would really like to thank you for that.
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<SPEAKER ID=185 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, Mr Blak, I am grateful to you for your kind words of acknowledgement, though I must add that we do not deserve them.
The praise should go to the Austrian Presidency, because the decision which I referred to comes from the communiqué of the Vienna summit.
It was agreed in Vienna.
The European Council has asked the Commission to present a report on this by March 1999; this is therefore not very far away, and it will of course be the presidency's task to ensure that the deadline set by the Council is observed.
I can promise you that we will not wait until the end of the year before asking whether the report is on its way and when it will be made available.
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<SPEAKER ID=186 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Moreau">
Mr President, first of all I want to emphasise that the Commission's study ought to be carried out objectively, given the serious consequences the elimination of duty free could have on employment, and I have an article here, an interview with the President-in-Office, Mr Schroeder, which highlights those serious consequences for employment at a time when the Council is, in fact, stressing the importance of employment issues.
<P>
So my question is as follows: do you not think that the Council use as a basis the precedent of the extension of excise duty exemption for the Nordic countries, which was justified on economic grounds and accepted by Mr Monti in 1996, and the opinion expressed by the European Economic and Social Council last September in favour of an extension of this system?
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<SPEAKER ID=187 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, Mrs Moreau, as you can imagine, the opinion of Mr Schröder, the President of the Council, is well known to me.
Your information is indeed correct.
However, I am still not in a position to report any conclusions; the Council cannot of course draw conclusions until the reports it commissioned are actually available.
I would ask for your understanding in this matter, but once again I specifically refer to the last phrase in the Council decision I quoted, which mentions that the possibility of extending the transitional provisions for a limited period is also to be reviewed.
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<SPEAKER ID=188 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, at the start of this afternoon's sitting, I asked for the list of the 27 cases referred to UCLAF so that Parliament could deliver an informed opinion tomorrow.
I received an answer in writing to a note in German from someone who is a French speaker - so it was a truly European conversation - and I was assured that this list had been given to the Committee on Budgetary Control.
All the time we have been sitting here, my colleagues have been trying to track down this list which we were supposed to have been given.
It could not be found.
Mrs Theato, for whom I have the utmost respect, refers us to the secretariat of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
But we have been talking all afternoon to this committee and to Mr Darras, the head of division.
The list is nowhere to be found.
I would ask you as President to take the necessary steps to procure this information for Parliament before we vote.
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<SPEAKER ID=189 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Maes.
The Bureau's services will set to work immediately as you are indeed right and we must find out where this list is and bring it here.
I therefore share your concern in this matter.
The Bureau's services will look for this list so that it is in fact available before the vote.
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<SPEAKER ID=190 NAME="Corbett">
I should like to underline the words of the President-in-Office when he emphasised that the Vienna European Council spoke only of a possible extension of the duty-free regime and said that this would be for a limited period of time.
I would like the Council to pay due attention to those two conditions.
<P>
I should like to ask the President-in-Office of the Council if he is aware that many Members of this House do not share the view that an extension of duty-free is a good idea?
The duty-free regime is a tax break mainly for the benefit of the alcohol and tobacco industries.
If the Finance Minsters of the Member States have some money to spare, I would submit that there are better ways of spending this money than allowing a tax break to continue for the benefit of the alcohol and tobacco industries - available, incidentally, only to international travellers.
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<SPEAKER ID=191 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, I can answer this question in the affirmative.
The Council is aware that opinions on this issue vary a great deal both in the Member States and in Parliament.
The Council is also aware of the fact that the decision which was taken in Vienna commissions a review and nothing more for the moment.
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<SPEAKER ID=192 NAME="Watts">
Does the Council share the view of my own Prime Minister, Tony Blair, that the loss of duty-free could lead to the loss of thousands of ordinary people's jobs across the European Union?
Does he consider it helpful as part of this examination that there is consultation with the industry, with the trade unions and indeed the regions to make sure that the concerns of local people are addressed?
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Would he agree with me that a suitable limited extension could be five or six years?
That is a figure that Messrs Blair and Schröder were contemplating during the Vienna Summit.
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<SPEAKER ID=193 NAME="McIntosh">
Regrettably, during the whole of Mr Watts' intervention there was no interpretation because his microphone was not switched on.
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<SPEAKER ID=194 NAME="President">
Yes, it was interpreted.
Perhaps you could not hear it but it was interpreted.
I could hear Mr Watts and I believe Mr Verheugen could too.
<P>
Mr Verheugen, I would invite you to reply to Mr Watts' question.
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<SPEAKER ID=195 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, Mr Watts, I understood the question in both languages.
I am assuming that the Commission and the ECOFIN Council will naturally be using all relevant sources as a basis for carrying out the task which they have been given.
I believe the sources you mentioned are relevant and should therefore be taken into account when collecting data and estimates which are really important for this.
You will understand that in my present capacity I cannot and may not comment on the political opinion of a Member State's Head of Government. However, I can of course assure you that conclusions from the reports which have been commissioned will not be drawn until the reports are made available, and that no conclusion is excluded for the moment; neither, therefore, is the one to which you referred.
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<SPEAKER ID=196 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 9 by Anne McIntosh (H-1193/98) Subject: Third country poultry hygiene inspections
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What inspection measures is the President-in-Office taking to ensure that EU hygiene standards are being met in imported poultry from third countries?
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I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mrs McIntosh's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=197 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, on 15 October 1990 the Council adopted Directive 90/539/EEC on animal health conditions governing intra-Community trade in, and imports from third countries of, poultry and hatching eggs.
This directive has been in force since 1 May 1992, and Articles 20 to 28 in Chapter 3 include provisions for imports from third countries.
As you know, Mrs McIntosh, it is the Commission's task to ensure that the standards laid down here are complied with.
If in your view there is cause for complaint, the presidency would be grateful if it were to be duly informed of this.
However, I also believe that it would be better to address your question to the Commission.
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<SPEAKER ID=198 NAME="McIntosh">
I have put this question to the Commission on a number of occasions.
The last time was yesterday. Is it really the Council of Ministers' and the Commission's intention to put our own poultry producers out of business in favour of third-country imports?
<P>
My question relates in particular to the implementation of the directive on fresh meat, which dates from the 1960s, which states that checks on poultry can be made only on a through-put basis, which would help producers.
In fact, they have to be done on a one-hour inspection.
The increased cost to the United Kingdom alone is deemed to be £40-£50 per inspection of each factory.
I cannot believe that it was the Council of Ministers' and the Commission's intention to do this.
There is also a 1972 poultry meat directive which makes EU and UK producers equally uncompetitive.
I just want an assurance from the Council of Ministers tonight that it is not its intention to put our own poultry producers out of business.
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<SPEAKER ID=199 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mrs McIntosh, I fully understand your concern, and I think that it will be necessary for the Commission to propose a solution to the problem which you have rightly described.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 10 by David Martin (H-1195/98) Subject: Democracy and human rights in Burma
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In the light of continuing reports of human rights abuses and the detention of democratically elected MPs in Burma, would the Council raise with the Burmese Government the issue of the 182 elected MPs and 701 members of the National League for Democracy (NLD) who are still held in detention in Burma?
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I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Martin's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=201 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, the Council's position on this issue is clear.
It has repeatedly called for the immediate release of all political prisoners in Burma.
It was because the Burmese Government did not respond to this demand, nor to the Union's appeal to the SPDC to promote democracy and national reconciliation, that on 26 December 1998 the Council reformulated its common position on Burma, extending its scope and expressing it in stronger terms.
<P>
The Council has also made an attempt to discuss these issues with the Peace and Development Council.
The presidency proposed a visit of the ministerial troika to the Burmese Government in the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in September 1998. However, the Burmese Foreign Minister turned down the proposal.
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<SPEAKER ID=202 NAME="Martin, David">
I thank the President-in-Office for his reply.
He is quite right to say that the Council has been consistent in its opposition to the regime in Burma.
I would ask him to consider, during the German presidency, putting this matter either on the informal Foreign Ministers' meeting or on the Heads of State agenda so that we can look at further measures for tackling this regime.
I agree that it is very difficult.
We are getting no cooperation from the SLORC regime in Burma but the European Union must continue to put pressure on that regime and the Council should continue to monitor and look at new ways of applying pressure.
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<SPEAKER ID=203 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Martin has hit upon the presidency's intentions completely with the suggestion he made in his question.
We consider it to be quite an important matter.
Our concern over the continuing human rights abuses in Burma is so great that I am able to add that the situation will be discussed further among the Foreign Ministers.
We will also have other opportunities to discuss this issue during our presidency, and also with the countries in the region.
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The aim of promoting the European Union's clear position on human rights and human rights issues in the area of international relations and wherever possible, to not only convey our concern regarding human rights issues, but also to take action to remedy the situation, is an absolute priority for our presidency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 11 by Gerard Collins (H-1199/98) Subject: Expanding voluntary care programmes at EU level for children with disabilities
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In the mid-west of Ireland, a voluntary 'Have a Break' scheme - aimed at enabling children with disabilities to have a holiday in the home of another family while their own family can have a break from constant care - has been running since 1987.
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Does the President-in-Office consider that such schemes should be extended to other EU countries and, if so, in what way does the Council consider such schemes could be promoted and developed at EU level?
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I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Collins's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=205 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Collins, I regret to have to inform you that the Council has not received a Commission proposal on the promotion of a scheme similar to that which you described, where families provide care for children with disabilities.
I can therefore only suggest that the information you require can be obtained from the Commission, if anywhere.
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<SPEAKER ID=206 NAME="Collins, Gerard">
Arising from the reply from the President-in-Office, would he consider requesting a proposal from the Commission on this important matter?
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<SPEAKER ID=207 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Collins, your suggestion is certainly worthy of consideration, but you know the procedures.
It must firstly be discussed in the Council, and only then can such a decision be made.
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<SPEAKER ID=208 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 13 by Liam Hyland (H-1207/98) Subject: Reversing rural depopulation
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Does the President-in-Office of the Council consider that the extent of rural depopulation is a cause for serious concern at the level of the European Union and that a comprehensive strategy to safeguard the common agricultural policy and promote new rural development policies should be considered as an essential way of reversing this decline?
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I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Hyland's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=209 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, the Council has always shown a special interest in matters in connection with maintaining a healthy population structure in rural areas.
I should like in particular to point out to Mr Hyland that the employment problem in the rural areas of the European Union is the subject of a letter which the President of the Agriculture Council sent to the President of the European Council in November 1997 in the context of the special employment summit.
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This letter focused in particular on the possible ways of maintaining a healthy rural population structure throughout the European Union.
A European agriculture model was drawn up in the context of work previously carried out by the Council on the Agenda 2000 proposals. This model, which is to be further developed in the future, is for a multifunctional and competitive form of agriculture throughout the European Union, and also in the regions with specific problems, which is viable in the long term.
It is a programme which should in particular be able to make an important contribution to the survival of rural areas.
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<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="Hyland">
I would like to ask the President-in-Office whether he perceives the role of family farming as representing the backbone of the rural economy.
Does he agree that the contribution of farmers to a society cannot always be evaluated in purely economic terms and that their role as environmental managers and guarantors of food security and quality puts them outside the economic realm of other professions?
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Finally, does he agree that rural development policy will not achieve its full potential in isolation from integrated regional policy?
Is it intended to make it mandatory on national governments to implement such a regional policy, thus providing jobs in the regions to sustain rural communities and provide off-farm employment for farmers who do not have viable farms and other rural dwellers?
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<SPEAKER ID=211 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
I can assure Mr Hyland that I fully understand his question, because I, as a Member of Parliament myself, come from such an area and see the problems at first hand everyday.
I can therefore say in principle that the task of maintaining sustainable rural areas is a matter of priority for the Council.
We must really make sure that the people in rural areas have the chance of a future.
This future need not necessarily be in the traditional areas of agriculture.
Opportunities for the future can of course also be created through structural change, as you know very well.
<P>
I firmly believe that we will manage to target European Union funds in the area of regional and structural policy even more efficiently on this objective, not least within the framework of the reforms which are being carried out under Agenda 2000.
This is a really important objective of the Union's regional and structural policy, in the opinion of the presidency at least.
It not only involves making standards of living more equal, but it means that important agricultural landscapes in the rural areas of Europe will continue to offer people quality of life and job prospects in the future as well.
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<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="Martin, David">
I welcome Mr Hyland's question and the Council's reply on rural depopulation.
Would the Council accept that agricultural policy is only one method by which we can assist rural areas?
In particular, looking at reform of the structural funds, will he bear in mind that we should not just look at per capita income or unemployment but also at levels of population density and depopulation in determining areas that should qualify for Objective 1?
I have in mind here - to be parochial - particularly the Highlands and Islands in my own country.
On per capita income, it would not qualify but - given its other problems, particularly depopulation - it should in my opinion remain in the Objective 1 zone.
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<SPEAKER ID=213 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
I completely agree with Mr Martin.
The problem which we have just discussed can naturally arise in any of the assisted areas of the European Union, with the exception of urban agglomerations, of course.
It can arise in Objective 1, Objective 2 and former Objective 5b areas, and we now need a coherent policy which coordinates and uses all our funds in such a way as to limit the effects of the problem we are discussing.
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Moreover, I am firmly convinced that the reform proposals which are under discussion within the framework of Agenda 2000 will considerably improve the quality of life in the countryside as well.
The adoption of Agenda 2000 is therefore also a matter of priority for the German Presidency.
<P>
In connection with the Employment Pact which Europe is seeking to achieve, it will depend to a great extent on not only bearing in mind the traditional areas of industry or the development of new technologies, but also taking into account in this context the specific problems of rural areas.
I am able to add that the German Presidency will give this matter its fullest attention.
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<SPEAKER ID=214 NAME="Crowley">
Following on from the President-in-Office's two responses to my colleagues, Mr Hyland and Mr David Martin, I would like to ask whether you have any proposals with regard to more focused coordination between the regional funds and the rural development funds as a way of ensuring that people in rural areas who suffer because of a drop in income can gain off-farm income through job creation and so on?
<P>
Would it be possible to see, through the presidency, whether this type of coordination will take place and would it be possible for the President-in-Office to come back to Parliament and present a proposed model of the type of integration which would take place, at the same time ensuring that there is no reduction in the commitment towards rural development, but also guaranteeing that all of the funding towards employment creation - which is so important for all of us here in Europe - is not just focused on urban areas.
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<SPEAKER ID=215 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Crowley, I agree with you that this is a very important issue. I can therefore assure you that the presidency is convinced that it will be possible, on the basis of the forthcoming reform of the agricultural policy and as a result of the new impetus which the rural development policy will be given, to develop a second pillar of the common agricultural policy; this second pillar will then be the foundation for a comprehensive and coherent policy for the benefit of the rural population in the European Union.
In order to achieve this, it will actually be necessary to achieve greater coordination between the different policy areas and also to establish clear priorities.
However, I must ask you to appreciate that we cannot be more precise about this until Agenda 2000 has been concluded and we have started to implement its objectives.
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<SPEAKER ID=216 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Verheugen.
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As the author is not present, Question No 14 lapses.
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<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 15 by Pat Gallagher (H-1211/98) Subject: Fisheries
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Will the Council, under the German Presidency, state what importance it attaches to developing the fishing potential of the less-favoured regions, such as Ireland, which have to contend not only with competition from within the EU but also from outside the EU and how it intends to conduct future negotiations with the applicant countries as regards fishing policy?
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I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Gallagher's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, first of all, on the issue of Community structural policy, the Council should like to point out that its discussions on the Commission's proposals with regard to reform of the Structural Funds, including the future of structural policy in the fisheries sector, have not yet been brought to a close.
Mr Gallagher will be aware that in view of the whole background to these discussions - that is, Agenda 2000 - decisions on these issues are being taken on a comprehensive basis.
These decisions will include the future status of regions in the Community from the point of view of their classification according to different objectives and the corresponding financial support provided by the Community in the area of structural measures.
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At the same time, the Council would point out that Ireland will continue to enjoy the Community support it currently receives until the end of the next programming period under a phasing out arrangement, no matter what the outcome of these decisions.
<P>
On the issue of future enlargement, I should like to remind you of the general position of the European Union regarding the accession negotiations in the area of fisheries when the accession conference was opened on 31 March 1998.
According to this, there will be no exceptions whatsoever for the acceding countries when adopting and transposing the acquis communautaire .
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If transitional arrangements are agreed, then these must remain the exception, and they must be for a limited period of time and restricted in their scope.
They must have a plan that clearly establishes the individual stages of application of the acquis communautaire .
It is therefore obvious that these accession negotiations do not involve negotiating mutual concessions, but rather guaranteeing that the applicant countries adopt all of the acquis communautaire , and are also in a position to transpose it effectively.
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So that the applicant countries are completely aware of the obligations which membership of the Union involves, an analysis of the acquis communautaire, which is known as screening, is carried out by the Commission prior to the accession negotiations.
The applicant countries are currently presenting their negotiating positions on fisheries.
The Union will analyse these positions and prepare its response in the first half of 1999.
As usual, the Commission will make a proposal for a common position to the Council, and the Council will establish the Union's common position for the negotiations.
The content of the common position cannot of course be anticipated at present.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="Gallagher">
First of all let me thank the President-in-Office for his response.
In short I presume it can be said that, in the negotiations, any applicant country will have to comply with existing criteria, and that any transitional arrangements will have to be limited.
Unfortunately that is the situation.
But can I say this to the President-in-Office: I am sure he will appreciate that in the region I represent - the west and the north-west of Ireland - and indeed the entire Irish coast, we had at one time prolific fishing grounds until these were plundered, not by Irish fishermen but indeed by our partners in Europe.
We have learnt a sad lesson from this and I would not wish this on any of the other countries who in future may join the Union.
<P>
In the regions and the coastal area of our country, an island state, we have no alternative source of employment.
Priority should be given to this in any future negotiations.
We will deal with the Irish case in the review of the common fisheries policy, but other small states should learn from the serious situation in Ireland, as a result of fisheries not being treated on the same level as agriculture or indeed industry.
Let us learn from the past and let other smaller states benefit from our sad experience.
<P>
Reference was made to the Structural Funds, and I should like to ask the President-in-Office whether he believes that Ireland will qualify for the transitional arrangements.
He will be aware that we are an applicant for Objective 1 status for the west coast of Ireland, which is very much part of the region that I referred to, but will he also let me have his view on having an Objective 5 or 6 or a specific objective for regions highly dependent on fishing, whether or not the country in question has Objective 1 status?
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<SPEAKER ID=220 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Gallagher, I am very grateful to you for the advice and information you have offered, and we will naturally take it into account during the current accession negotiations.
Also, your country, Ireland, is participating in the accession conference and has every possibility to raise the national and supranational viewpoints you have described during the negotiations.
I also firmly believe that this will be done.
However, I am not in a position at present to tell you anything about the implementation of the redefinition of assisted areas, or the criteria which affect assisted areas, as the decision of general principle has not yet been taken.
The individual Member States have obviously established their own positions.
However, as you already know, the Council has not yet stated its common position with regard to Agenda 2000.
I would therefore have to rely on assumptions at the present time, and making assumptions unfortunately serves no purpose in this case.
We must continue to be patient and wait until Agenda 2000 can be concluded.
However, it might be important for you to know that the presidency has agreed to exchange information and cooperate closely with Parliament on a particularly intensive and regular basis during the current decision process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="Killilea">
I should like to thank Mr Gallagher for the question and the President- in-Office for the very positive response.
As you are a new and fresh man in this particular position, may I also remind you, concerning the question of conservation, that somewhere in a cupboard in the Council or the Commission there is a very important scientific report concerning seals and the living resources in the North Sea.
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I appeal to you, President-in-Office, that during your six-month presidency you take that report out, have it reviewed, its consequences applied, and hold a very fresh and open debate on this most serious matter.
It is a reliable fact that the seals in the North Sea are eating more white fish than the total allowable catch by the European Community.
It is a very serious matter.
It is a matter which necessitates immediate consideration and an open and frank debate, before all the stocks are taken by the seals.
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<SPEAKER ID=222 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Killilea, I see that your question is an attempt to help the presidency carry out its task.
I am grateful to you for this, and I can assure you that the information which you have just given me, and the political problem to which you refer, will be taken into account during the current negotiations.
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<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Verheugen.
<P>
As the author is not present, Question No 16 lapses.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 17 by Brian Crowley (H-1215/98) Subject: The fight against organised crime
<P>
Will the President-in-Office of the Council provide an outline of the policy issues which it proposes to pursue in relation to the fight against organised crime, its position on the consumption of drugs, and the way it would like to see EUROPOL's role developed?
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I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Crowley's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, as far as organised crime is concerned, it is the presidency's intention to actively promote the implementation of the action plan approved by the European Council at its meeting in Amsterdam in June, and to start discussions on stronger measures to fight organised crime in accordance with the request made at the Vienna European Council, as well as to guarantee the unrestricted protection of civil rights.
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In connection with this, the Council will examine measures to step up the fight against fraud and counterfeiting.
On the basis of the Communication from the Commission on a framework for action on combatting fraud and counterfeiting of non-cash means of payment, discussions on an instrument of criminal law in this area have already been started.
The work begun under the Austrian Presidency on the protection of the euro under criminal law is being continued and intensified.
Moreover, the German Presidency will take an initiative under criminal law against fraudulent activity in awarding contracts in the internal market.
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Particular attention is being given to creating a European legal and judicial area in accordance with the Amsterdam Treaty.
This European legal and judicial area will be, or is meant to be, equipped with instruments which are necessary for effective judicial and police cooperation.
The presidency will arrange initiatives which will make it possible for the Council to closely examine to what extent and in which priority areas some form of approximation or harmonisation of the Member States' laws could help to fight organised crime.
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Furthermore, the presidency will actively continue the discussions on the Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance, which will be an important instrument for officials working on the ground to fight organised crime. The effective operation of the European judicial network and the mechanism set up by the Council for mutual assessment will also be priority issues for the presidency.
The German Presidency is particularly concerned to see Europol take up its duties.
As the agreement entered into force on 1 October 1998, we are making every effort to remove the remaining legal obstacles so that Europol can take up its duties.
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In this context, it is of prime importance to clarify the questions which remain unresolved in terms of the adoption of rules for the joint data protection monitoring agency.
Europol will take up its duties on the basis of a mandate which in the end was extended to include terrorism and certain aspects of trade in human beings.
Its mandate is soon to be extended to cover criminal offences such as counterfeiting of coins and banknotes and of other means of payment.
The German Presidency also intends to make a start with the discussions on the development of Europol in accordance with the Amsterdam Treaty.
In connection with this, consideration needs to be given to the role and duties falling to the judicial authorities in their relations with Europol in view of the extension of Europol's powers.
<P>
As regards the drugs problem, the German Presidency will actively continue to pursue the current initiatives, particularly in connection with Latin America and Central Asia.
In addition, great importance is attached to the development of a strategy for the period following 1999, under which measures to reduce demand will play an important role.
This role was confirmed at both the recent meeting of the United Nations General Assembly and the conference which followed it in Vienna in December 1998.
The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction is a very important player in the campaign to reduce demand.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="Crowley">
I would like to thank the President-in-Office for his response.
Indeed, I am delighted to hear that he sees Europol's role as being central to the development of the fight against organised crime on a pan-European level.
I hope that the presidency will have the opportunity to expedite the removal of the remaining difficulties, by bringing fully into play the role and opportunities available through Europol's operational capabilities.
<P>
However, I was somewhat disappointed at your lack of response on the matter of consumption of drugs.
The increasing use of drugs is one area where there is common concern across all Member States.
Bland statements such as 'reducing demand is an important aspect' is not good enough.
What we want to hear from the President-in-Office to day are specific measures for a common European strategy to save the future generation from dying from the effects of drug abuse.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
This is a very difficult issue.
Mr Crowley, you know of course that a special summit of Heads of State and Government on the subject of organised crime is planned for the second half of this year under the Finnish Presidency, and that the issues you mentioned in connection with the fight against drugs will also play a central role in the preparation for this special summit.
However, in cooperation with the Finnish Presidency we will do our bit so that the preparatory work for this is under way and so that the decisions we are currently in a position to make can be made at this special summit.
This limitation relates to the fact that we can obviously only make decisions which are in keeping with our capabilities, our resources, our instruments, and our institutions.
<P>
The presidency wholly shares the political assessment on which your question was based.
We consider the fight against drug abuse to be a key task of domestic policy in Western countries, and indeed in all countries.
It is naturally also a joint task which we should tackle - as far as possible - within the framework of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 18 by María Izquierdo Rojo (H-1217/98) Subject: Agenda items for the forthcoming Euro-Mediterranean Summit in Stuttgart
<P>
What measures or proposals are being prepared in order to give substance to the 'new impetus' to be applied to the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, as referred to in paragraph 116 of the conclusions to the Vienna European Council?
What new suggestions are likely to be put forward at the Third Euro-Mediterranean Conference, to be held in Stuttgart in April 1999?
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mrs Izquierdo Rojo's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, please excuse the fact that this answer will also be relatively long, because it is a very complex issue.
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, the Foreign Ministers' meetings which are held regularly generally serve to examine whether the Barcelona Declaration is being applied, and to define measures which make it possible to achieve the objectives of the partnership, as laid down in the Barcelona Declaration itself.
<P>
The work of the conference in Stuttgart will therefore cover all three chapters of the partnership.
As at the previous Euro-Mediterranean ministerial conferences, the participants should confirm their total commitment to the partnership, examine the results which have already been achieved, and give new impetus by laying down new guidelines.
The importance of the partnership's balanced development in all three chapters of the Barcelona Declaration and its work programme should also be emphasised.
<P>
As in the case of the second ministerial conference, the Council expects a Commission communication this time as well; this should be available at the beginning of March, and will serve as the basis for establishing the EU's position for the conference in Stuttgart.
Close cooperation with our Mediterranean partners will continue to be necessary in order to guarantee a successful outcome at the conference.
Within the framework of the economic and financial partnership, particular importance should be attached to the work carried out by government experts on economic transition and the overall view, which covers issues of free trade and the effects of economic transition in the region in accordance with the conclusions of La Valetta.
This will serve as a basis for the discussions on the future strategy.
<P>
In this context, the Council continues to hope that the negotiations on an association agreement with Egypt and Libya can be concluded before the ministerial conference in Stuttgart, and that progress can be quickly made on negotiating agreements with Algeria and Syria, in order to achieve the objective of creating an area of shared prosperity.
Moreover, the Euro-Mediterranean Conference on regional cooperation, which is being held on 28 and 29 January in Valencia, will prepare for the discussion of various aspects of regional cooperation at the conference in Stuttgart.
<P>
The EU's programme for these discussions will essentially be based on the Council's conclusions concerning the Communication from the Commission on the Euro-Mediterranean partnership and the single market.
The Council continues to expect proposals for the renewal of the MEDA regulation, MEDA 2 covering the period 2000-2004, including proposals for the simplification of MEDA procedures, which the Commission should present before the conference in Stuttgart.
The Council pays particular attention to achieving the political objective of creating a Euro-Mediterranean area of peace and stability.
At the ad hoc ministerial meeting in Palermo on 3 and 4 June 1998, an integrated approach for regional stability was adopted, and it was made clear that we need to devise a common understanding of the factors which can, according to general consensus, contribute to a regional stability programme of this kind.
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These factors include terrorism, organised crime, proliferation of weapons, illegal entry of immigrants, socio-economic challenges, prejudice, racism and xenophobia.
Furthermore, the Euro-Mediterranean partners will concentrate their efforts on drawing up a charter which contains the elements mentioned, and which will help to create a stable political and institutional framework for the whole region.
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The creation of an area of shared prosperity will make it possible for the Council to firmly support common values that should be recognised and applied by all Mediterranean partners.
With this in mind, the Council will work to ensure that greater attention is paid to human rights and fundamental freedoms as crucial elements of security in the region.
Without a political framework, the economic, social and cultural progress in the Euro-Mediterranean region will not be sustainable.
The Council will work energetically towards the adoption of the charter which I have referred to.
<P>
The conference in Stuttgart could give a lasting impetus that allows us to move a little bit closer to achieving this objective.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Rojo">
It seemed as if the President-in-Office was talking and was saying something, but in fact, he said absolutely nothing.
He did nothing more than make empty general statements that we had heard before
<P>
It is truly disappointing, Mr President-in-Office, to listen to a question from Parliament being answered in this meaningless bureaucratic tone.
As someone who, in just over four minutes, said nothing, please now answer a question for me, and I only have one minute to ask this question. I want you to be more specific about something that is extremely important in the Mediterranean.
<P>
I would like to know what the German Presidency is going to do, as far as Algeria is concerned, to combat fraud, corruption and abuses of power. Above all - and this is a very important matter - how is it going to defend the human rights of the Algerian people?
How are you going to safeguard the right to life of the dying rural population in Algeria - where 20 people died today, 20 yesterday and 40 the day before that - if the Council of the European Union does not take the hint, not even to say that it will take some action?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, I am sorry that you are so unhappy with my answer.
However, I would ask you to understand that I must report the positions which are supported by 15 countries.
Surely you realise as well as I do that one of the Union's problems is that we do not have a common foreign and security policy in the stricter sense.
Answers such as that which I have just given you are the result of this situation.
<P>
Such an answer does not reflect the capabilities or intentions of the presidency; it reflects the state of affairs in the European Union in the area of foreign and security policy.
I assume that you see this in exactly the same way as I do.
<P>
The presidency is obviously not in a position to change internal relations in Algeria.
It is merely in a position to exert an influence - by continuing the intensive political dialogue which has already been started with Algeria - on the improvement of relations with regard to democracy, human rights, rule of law, and fair social development.
I can assure you that the German Presidency will work towards this in this dialogue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Verheugen.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentleman, we have reached the end of, and indeed gone beyond, the time set aside for questions to the Council.
I should therefore like to thank Mr Verheugen for being here and for his political contribution. I wish him the very best for the coming year, particularly the six months we will spend together.
That concludes Question Time.
<P>
Questions Nos 12 and 19 to 29 will receive written answers.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 7.10 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Application of Article 93 of the EC Treaty
<SPEAKER ID=233 NAME="President.">
The next item is the report (A4-0418/98) by Mr Areitio Toledo, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation laying down detailed rules for the application of Article 93 of the EC Treaty (COM(98)0073 - C4-0160/98-98/0060(CNS))
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<SPEAKER ID=234 NAME="Areitio Toledo">
Mr President, this evening in the privacy of this Hemicycle we are going to debate an issue with the Commissioner which, in spite of the fact that there are very few people present, is very important.
The issue of State Aid and the need to control it has been a longstanding objective for the Commission and for the whole European Union.
Such aid distorts competition and free trade, hinders industrial restructuring and impedes the achievements of the stability pact.
<P>
The total volume of State Aid awarded is by no means insignificant, and I should like to remind you of the amount involved.
We are talking about figures approaching 1.5 % of Community GDP.
We are talking about 2.6 % of public spending in national budgets which, compared with the Community's own budget, is even higher.
And I believe that this cannot be tolerated within the framework of monetary union.
<P>
Unfortunately, due to the Treaty, the Commission only has the necessary authority to control such aid on an individual basis, analysing the compatibility of each case with the Treaty.
It is obvious that the resources available to the Commission to carry out such controls on each situation where aid is granted or on each aid scheme are clearly inadequate.
As I was able to point out on other occasions, I believe that in the long term there will be a need to put a global limit on the total volume of aid awarded by each Member State. Indeed, Parliament has already approved this approach in various resolutions.
If this does not happen, then tensions will develop within monetary union.
It is true that if there are weeds growing in a garden they can be pulled up one by one, but if there are too many weeds, then it is best to use weedkiller.
<P>
In any event, the Commission was aware of this problem and it began to reorientate the State Aid control policy at the end of 1996. The aim was to reduce the number of cases to be investigated and to improve the efficiency, transparency and coherency of the control procedure.
To this end, the Council adopted a financial regulation in November 1997 which allowed the Commission to exempt the Member States from declaring certain categories of aid, such as for small and medium-sized enterprises, for research and development, regional aid, aid for employment, aid for training, and so on.
<P>
The Commission's proposal for a regulation that we are considering today is the second stage of this reorientation which the Commission's new direction is based upon.
The aim of this regulation is to establish a clear procedure, which has never existed before now, to be applied to the Commission's control procedures for State Aid.
In short, it is a matter of increasing the transparency of this procedure and the legal certainty of those involved.
<P>
I must say that the Commission should be congratulated on this initiative that will undoubtedly make the control procedure easier, both for those who enforce it as well as for its victims.
With this very objective in mind, the rapporteur has suggested three amendments to the text which the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has adopted and which simply seek to strengthen the guarantees of transparency and legal certainty and to eliminate some aspects of the proposal which we believe to be of a discretional nature.
<P>
In any event, the need to give the Commission prior notice and the principle of suspensory effect, laid down in Article 93(3), remain central to the control policy.
<P>
I am not going to go into detail on the amendments.
I believe that the Commission is already aware of them and, in addition, they were also debated in the Council.
<P>
I trust that the contribution we have made with this report will help towards improving the State Aid control policy and I trust that State Aid will be more strictly controlled.
But I cannot fail to highlight, as I have said before, that when weeds grow too wildly in a garden, pulling them up one by one is ineffective. I must also point out that, sooner or later, this issue will also have to be dealt at macroeconomic level within the stability pact.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 NAME="President.">
Thank you very much. That is a good example from colleagues.
Perhaps we will not go beyond midnight.
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<SPEAKER ID=236 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rapkay">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, looking around me I realise that my three minutes would still be pretty much intact even if I were to greet everyone in the Chamber individually!
But time is precious at this late hour and I shall not be needing to use up my ample allowance of minutes on too many questions of substance.
Let me explain why.
<P>
Firstly - as we have seen on many similar occasions - there is no fundamental disagreement among the big political groups in Parliament on the substantive issues of competition policy.
Unanimity reigns. As to this particular matter, we may have argued in committee over a few minor points, but in the end we reached a uniform, consensual view.
We all share a desire to see procedures clarified and decisions taken in a transparent way.The Commission needs to see its position as a competition authority consolidated and its supervisory role in the field of aid strengthened.
I can go along with the rapporteur on all these issues.
<P>
I would make one point, however.
Not surprisingly - looking at the clock - no one from the Council is to be seen.
Our much-esteemed Competition Commissioner is with us, however, and perhaps he can enlighten me.
I am keen to establish what precisely we are doing here tonight.
It is not the content of the debate that worries me, but the form.
We have come together to deliberate over a text; tomorrow we shall be voting on our amendments.
As far as I can see, however, we have been overtaken by events. The actual decision was taken two months ago in the Council.
So I am wondering where we as a parliament come in.
Perhaps it is true that our views have been taken into account, but what about the points which were not heeded?
<P>
Article 14 - in the Council's version of the text - contains a paragraph which refers to the suspension of recovery proceedings.
This paragraph was unanimously rejected in committee.
I happen to know, because the relevant amendment came from me and, as shadow rapporteur for my group, I managed to get all my points through.
The committee expressly voted against this paragraph, but it figures in the Council text.
What happens now, Commissioner?
Could it be that we are simply engaged in intellectual gymnastics?
This is what concerns me.
Maybe we need to rethink our own procedures. The horse would appear to have bolted; it seems rather futile for us to be discussing the angle of the stable door.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Metten">
Mr President, the time when my group thought state aid was the ideal solution is long past, and we now support the Commission's current view that state aid should be allowed only in special cases, such as for regional aid or research.
But even here we must be careful.
Regional aid must not be allowed to lure jobs from one area of the Union to another, and research support must not become state aid for businesses by another name.
<P>
However, it has to be said that state aid is still being granted on a considerable scale, even to firms that do not represent the public interest.
Some of it is traditional aid that the Commission has tolerated or even approved up to now, and some is illegal support.
I have to say that it is very hypocritical of the Member States to support the generally rather restrictive policy on state aid, but then to make difficulties about claiming back aid that has been granted illegally.
As I see it, punishing abuses is all about showing credibility and effectiveness.
This also applies in my view to state aid in the form of tax concessions.
Demanding repayment means of course that the state has to get money back from individual firms, and it is rather ironic that the governments should be worried about this.
<P>
Regarding the fiscal aid that the Commission has tolerated up to now, I would heavily criticise the Commission decision published in the Official Journal of 18 December last year, which classifies Ireland's extremely low corporation tax that applies only to foreign undertakings as aid for exploitation and distortion of competition, but at the same time allows it to be extended until 2003 or even 2010.
The Commission is clearly being far too lax and inconsistent.
It is time to put an end to these sorts of practices.
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<SPEAKER ID=238 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sindal">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I shall be brief.
As previously mentioned, the matter has already been discussed in the Council, but I would like to mention something that was also touched on by Mr Metten, namely that there can be extenuating circumstances in connection with state aids.
What we are talking about is employment. I would like to emphasise that aid should be given during periods of restructuring, and that it should always be temporary.
I would also like to emphasise that it has been found that when people decide to remove the aid and to develop businesses instead, then jobs are in fact created.
So some of our competition money could well be used for development rather than aid.
I hope that when the Commission comes to simplify the administration of Article 93, it does not turn a blind eye to problems.
I realise that Mr Van Miert does not have so many people at his disposal, but I hope that it will be a good and effective simplification.
I am particularly pleased that on-site checks are being proposed.
I think that is a good thing, which could make this more effective and transparent and improve legal certainty.
I also think it is good for countering national bureaucracy and bad faith.
<P>
It is very difficult for a country to admit that it has made a mistake.
I know that from Denmark and from Germany.
We have had a lot of cases in shipbuilding, but as politicians we must all commit ourselves to looking forward.
I believe that what is on the table, even if it has now been dealt with in the Council, is a good way forward.
I also believe that, year by year, we should look at how it can be improved.
What the Council has arrived at this time could perhaps be improved next year, because we are always becoming better or more skilful at administering these rules.
I would therefore like to wish the Commissioner and the Commission good luck in future, and point out that Parliament supports the Commission in this area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 NAME="Van Miert">
<SPEAKER ID=240 NAME="President.">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Right to deduct VAT
<SPEAKER ID=241 NAME="President.">
The next item is the report (A4-0490/98) by Mr Garosci, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on
<P>
I.the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 77/388/EEC as regards the rules governing the right to deduct Value Added Tax (COM(98)0377 - C4-0474/98-98/0209(CNS)); II. the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) on verification measures, measures relating to the refund system and administrative cooperation measures necessary for the application of Directive 98/xxx/EC (COM(98)0377 - C4-0475/98-98/0210(CNS)).
<SPEAKER ID=242 NAME="Garosci">
Mr President, I am pleased that Mr Van Miert has called for a human and social interpretation even of fiscal and economic problems.
This House will undoubtedly provide the assistance he is seeking.
Besides, the matter under discussion this evening, concerning value added tax, is of no small consequence for the harmonisation which we are seeking at this very time in launching the single currency.
<P>
The Commission's document contains two closely related proposals, both aiming to improve the common VAT system.
The present lack of uniformity in this system directly results in the fragmentation of what should be a single market, or rather an internal market, as we prefer to call it.
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The fact that it is impossible to know about all the VAT provisions in force in the other Member States means that taxpayers have to operate in a situation of legal uncertainty, which provides those who know how to exploit it with the opportunity of creating a competitive advantage, which in effect constitutes a distortion of competition.
<P>
It is important to stress that these proposals are merely provisional, pending the entry into force of the definitive rules governing the common VAT system based - as we all know - on the principle of a single place of taxation and deduction.
<P>
The Commission takes the view that at present the best way to simplify significantly the common VAT system is to authorise taxable persons to deduct the VAT paid in another Member State in the periodic VAT declaration submitted in the state of residence.
This proposal requires an amendment to Article 17 of the sixth VAT directive introducing a regulation governing relations between Member States as regards compensation and VAT refunds and revoking the special VAT refund procedure described in the eighth VAT directive.
<P>
The effects of this proposal for taxable persons residing in the Community are that, if the taxable person is identified for VAT purposes in a single Member State, the VAT is deducted there, irrespective of the Member State in which he incurred the VAT-bearing expenditure.
If the taxable person is identified for VAT purposes in several Member States, then if he is identified in the Member State in which he has incurred the VAT-bearing expenditure, the VAT is deducted in that state.
If the taxable person is not identified in the Member State in which he has incurred the VAT-bearing expenditure, the VAT is deducted in the Member State where he supplies goods or services for which the expenditure is used.
Hence, the amount of VAT eligible for deduction will be determined in accordance with the rules of the Member State of residence, rather than of the Member State which collected the tax.
<P>
This proposal introduces a derogation from the eighth VAT directive by establishing that the Member State of purchase will be responsible for verifying that the VAT has actually been paid, whilst the Member State of deduction will be responsible for monitoring the actual deduction of the tax.
<P>
The second part of the Commission proposal concerns expenditure which is not eligible for full deduction of VAT.
This is expenditure which, even when incurred as part of the normal running of a business, is often intended to meet private needs too, because it has the characteristics of final consumption.
At present, most Member States exclude or limit the right to deduct by simplifying the administrative procedures and limiting the opportunities for tax fraud.
Only three Member States - Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands - guarantee the right to full deduction, the only exception of course being expenditure which has no business element.
<P>
The Commission is proposing harmonisation of the different national rules, whilst leaving the individual Member States a margin for discretion. As regards expenditure relating to passenger cars, generally speaking the normal deduction rules apply.
The only exception provided for is if it becomes difficult to ascertain the non-business use of the vehicle, in which case the Member State is entitled to limit the deduction to a maximum of 50 % of the total VAT applied, thereby obviating the need to monitor whether a vehicle is actually used for business purposes or not.
If the percentage of business use is not as high as the percentage of the ceiling for deductible VAT, the deduction is made according to the normal rules.
<P>
Finally, so-called 'business tourism' - conventions, congresses, business travel and so on - accounts for approximately 20 % of the total turnover of the tourism sector and plays an increasingly substantial role in it.
The business sector is of both economic and social importance, and makes tourist activities and resorts less dependent on holiday seasons.
In other words, the choice of a seaside, mountain, lake or other location for a business congress outside the tourist season enables such locations to be revitalised even in the off season or low season.
<P>
The national legislation of only eight countries out of the 15 allows use of the option provided for in the Sixth Directive No 388 of 1997.
It would therefore be logical to make VAT deductions the same in all the Member States with regard to hotel and restaurant expenditure.
Finally, the Commission considers that expenditure on luxuries, amusements or entertainment should be totally excluded from the right to deduction.
<P>
I believe that we and the Commission should be guided by this logic, given that a single currency ought to dovetail with a single fiscal, taxation and banking system.
That is true harmonisation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Randzio-Plath">
<SPEAKER ID=244 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Secchi">
Mr President, I wish to begin by expressing my support for this proposal and congratulating the rapporteur, whose arguments I fully endorse.
<P>
I should like briefly to explore three points.
Firstly, I believe that - as has already been said - this proposal has the great merit of helping to simplify the VAT system by allowing the right of deduction in the country of residence in certain cases. In one sense, therefore, over and above the advantages already highlighted, it also represents something of a bridge towards the definitive system.
<P>
Secondly, I would take up the rapporteur's point concerning the right of deduction and the need - especially in certain areas - to harmonise the different Member States' systems.
I too would emphasise the fact that business tourism is penalised in Italy - but not only there - from this point of view.
Such tourism is clearly at a disadvantage, in that the existing rules are not only incompatible with the elaboration of a broadly harmonised, definitive VAT system in Europe, but they are also unable to compensate for the serious distortions currently burdening a sector which can provide a large number of jobs, to the benefit of local economies adversely affected by seasonal factors.
<P>
My third point ties in with what I have just said, namely the need to step up our efforts to make the VAT system more compatible with the aims of job growth and economic development.
Because time is short, I would merely draw attention to the fact that the proposal to introduce on an experimental basis a reduced rate of VAT for non-commercial activities - ones unlikely to distort competition but likely to boost employment - has faded away.
Quite frankly, I find it increasingly difficult to understand the inactivity in this area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 NAME="Gallagher">
Mr President, at the outset I should like to congratulate Mr Garosci on the preparation and indeed on the presentation of his report.
We live in an internal market operating within the Union, with the free movement of goods, services and capital across the territories of the 15 Member States, covering a population of nearly 250 million people.
There is no common VAT system operating within the Union at this time and this lack of uniformity at this time has led to the fragmentation of the working of the single market across the 15 different fiscal areas.
The fact that it is impossible to know all about the VAT provisions in force in other Member States of the Union means that taxpayers have to operate in a situation of legal uncertainty as well as having to work with different bureaucratic structures.
<P>
VAT is one of the areas covered by the second phase of the SLIM initiative, in which the Commission has shown considerable interest.
In particular, SLIM has identified the need to bring in more simple VAT refund procedures, which would assist businesses across the Union in the payment of refunds for the sale of goods and the provision of services.
This is to be welcomed.
As part of the ongoing work to improve the common VAT system the European Commission has put forward proposals concerning the rate for deducting VAT costs that have been incurred, seeking to change the current system by which traders have to go through exceedingly complex and costly procedures to ask for a refund from the tax authorities in the Member States in which the VAT was incurred.
This will be replaced with the simpler system under which companies can use their regular VAT returns to deduct VAT incurred in another Member State.
<P>
I support measures which help businesses to prosper and operate more effectively within the territories of the Union.
The European Union must introduce fair and definite rules governing a common VAT system based on the principle of a single place of taxation and deduction.
<P>
Any proposal to simplify the tax procedures does not necessarily mean harmonisation of taxes.
To simplify tax procedures is indeed to be welcomed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, my group also supports the Commission's proposals for simplifying the VAT system among the fifteen Member States.
But as far as deducting VAT is concerned, we actually think the Commission's proposal is more sensible than what the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy is proposing.
We believe we have to distinguish between business travel and private travel and recognise that travel is very often dual-natured.
So we support the Commission's proposal that there has to be a limit to any deduction, for example 15 %.
The hotel and catering sector has obviously appealed to the parliamentary groups that business travel hotel and restaurant expenses should be deductible in full, but, in our opinion, that is not reasonable because of the possible dual nature of the expenses, as I said.
<P>
However, the hotel and catering sector in itself is vital for employment and Member States should now be able to experiment with lowering VAT to give support to employment in these areas.
In our opinion, the Member States should undoubtedly seize this opportunity.
It is quite clear that jobs in the future will be created ultimately in service industries and the hotel and catering sector is an important example of this, but it would be a mistake if business travel costs were made entirely VAT-exempt.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Metten">
Mr President, in this case my group supports the Commission rather than the rapporteur's amendments.
We recognise the importance of VAT as a possible way of promoting employment, but we do not support a policy in which certain sectors are promoted on an ad hoc, arbitrary basis.
<P>
We are certainly in favour of objective and transparent experiments to find ways of using VAT to promote employment.
The Commissioner knows what I am getting at here.
After Parliament's innumerable calls for this to happen, the European Council in Vienna finally asked the Commission to put forward proposals on experimenting with low VAT rates for labour-intensive services.
<P>
I would ask the Commissioner when Parliament can expect to see this proposal.
You know that this is a subject to which Parliament attaches great importance, and I would urge you to ensure that before this Parliament is dissolved we are given the opportunity to approve a Commission proposal on experimenting with low VAT rates for labour-intensive services.
This means that you would have to come up with something concrete either this month or next, which you could do perfectly easily, because we have already had extensive negotiations on this issue and we are, I think, largely in agreement that it must be limited to a number of very labour-intensive sectors.
We already agree on the approach, so I think the proposal is actually already there.
I would therefore urge you most strongly to ensure that we receive the proposal in the next few weeks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=248 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Thyssen">
Mr President, in an internal market where borders no longer exist and where we have now had a single currency for thirteen days, it is not logical that traders wishing to reclaim their VAT should have to apply to each separate Member State where they have spent their money.
The result, as we know, is that because of all the red tape involved many of them give up their right to deduct VAT, which is certainly not the intention.
<P>
Business people have been waiting for a long time for the rules on reclaiming VAT in other Member States to be harmonised, and harmonisation is certainly something to be welcomed, so we agree with the Commission's proposals here.
They represent genuine progress.
<P>
The principle of harmonising the rules on expenditure for which VAT cannot be deducted in full is also a step in the right direction, but here we support the amendment tabled by the rapporteur, Mr Garosci.
The proposal to make VAT on hotel and restaurant costs fully deductible not only responds to what the business community wants, it is also a logical fiscal approach.
Entertaining business partners is often the only way to publicise a company's products and services, particularly for small firms, so it is therefore logical to classify the actual costs incurred, whether in a hotel or a restaurant, as business expenses from which VAT is fully deductible.
<P>
In my opinion, the Commission could come up with more than these specific proposals, and then we can show businesses that the European institutions are concerned not just with the problems of the multinationals, but also with the problems of small firms and more besides.
This is why I support Mr Metten's question about what progress has been made with the idea of experimenting with low VAT rates for labour-intensive services.
It is a question asked many times before, Commissioner, but one that is not going to go away.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, Mr Garosci's report has my full backing.
Serious distortions of competition arise because of the differences in the way Member States treat tourism companies in respect of the right to deduct value added tax.
This affects 'business tourism' - in other words, conferences and congresses - as well as private business travel.
As the rapporteur says, business travel accounts for approximately 20 % of total turnover in the tourism sector. Expenditure per guest is by far the highest, since many overseas visitors - especially from North America and Japan - attend these business events.
Competition between the various congress and conference locations is consequently extremely tough.
Business tourism deserves our support as a valuable source of jobs. Hence the particular importance of Amendment No 7, which advocates full deduction of expenditure on accommodation and food or drink, as well as on entertaining business partners.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Torres Marques">
Mr President, the main objective of these two initiatives is to simplify the complex and extremely diverse procedure that exists in Europe regarding the refund of VAT as specified in the Eighth Directive.
<P>
Due to the lack of time, I will concentrate on the amendments on tourist activities, which I fully agree with.
These amendments relate to so-called 'business tourism' - conventions, congresses and business travel - which already accounts for nearly 20 % of European tourism and is highly likely not only to increase significantly in the medium term, but also to compensate for one of the most complicated phenomena in the tourist sector, namely seasonal variations.
Business tourism is therefore a way of helping to ensure that employment in the tourism sector remains stable throughout the year.
In fact, business tourism occurs in particular outside the high season, thereby contributing to a more balanced and more profitable operation of tourism businesses throughout the year.
<P>
Eight EU countries are fully aware of this. Belgium, Germany, Spain, Finland, Luxembourg, Holland, Sweden and the United Kingdom already allow the deduction of VAT on hotel and restaurant expenditure in the case of business travel.
This is a real incentive from the authorities of these countries to the development of business tourism, both for nationals of these countries and in order to attract congresses to the respective markets.
It must be borne in mind that competition in this sector is quite tough, despite Europe having exceptional conditions in terms of its supply.
<P>
The seven countries that have not adopted this principle, namely Austria, Italy, France, Greece, Portugal, Ireland and Denmark, are at a disadvantage due to both the competitive edge of the other eight EU countries already mentioned and the growing number of non-European destinations in the tourism sector where VAT does not even exist.
I am therefore personally in favour of the proposals included in the amendments tabled by Mr Garosci, who I must congratulate, as they seem to me to make a very important contribution to the future of European tourist activities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=251 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Peijs">
Mr President, this proposal does not entirely seem fitting in this turbulent week, since it is all about trust, trust between countries and between institutions.
The tax authorities in the Member States are going to have to work with each other to make this proposal successful, and it must be a success because the current state of affairs is a recurring source of irritation for the business community.
<P>
The legislation on which we are delivering our opinion today has great potential.
European businesses are heavily burdened by the red tape involved in claiming back VAT paid abroad, and if the VAT is reimbursed it often takes months or even years until it actually reaches the company in question.
It seems fitting that we should have an Italian Commissioner and an Italian rapporteur here, because the longest wait that I have ever heard of was twelve years for a VAT repayment from Italy to reach the firm entitled to it.
<P>
The proposal solves a number of existing problems, but this change to the VAT directive is not enough.
Our ultimate aim must still be to achieve a definitive VAT system based on the principle of the country of origin.
<P>
This proposal from the Commission is an important intermediate stage and should improve confidence between the various Member States and their administrative systems.
This confidence will be needed if we are ever to have a definitive VAT system with a sort of repayment clearing house similar to the repayment system now on the table.
The definitive VAT system will involve infinitely greater sums than is currently the case, since the VAT reclaimed from abroad, which is what we are discussing here, forms only a small part of the total VAT payments in Europe.
<P>
I very much support Commissioner Monti's proposal, and I congratulate the rapporteur on his report.
This first step should bring us closer to the definitive VAT system, which will make a world of difference to the non-exporting small and medium-sized companies that unfortunately make up the majority of those affected.
<P>
I agree with what Mr Metten said.
I think that from now on we must insist on lower rates of VAT for labour-intensive services in all our reports on taxation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Féret">
Mr President, the Belgian National Front, a national and European movement, has always believed that introduction of the single European currency, of which we were in favour, would require the harmonisation of social and taxation systems within the Union.
The Council's proposal to simplify the system for deducting VAT expenditure incurred in a Member State in which the taxable person is not established, a proposal which was improved by the amendments of Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, is a small step in the right direction, a very small step, since this simplification will make life difficult for the fraudsters.
<P>
A pity the Council does not have another, equally effective magic formula for preventing the corruption regularly perpetrated by one or two European Commissioners who cheat, scheme and fiddle with impunity.
So much for that footnote - I have finished, Mr President.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, Commissioner Bangemann, ladies and gentlemen, in principle I welcome the proposed changes in the deduction and refund system for VAT.
These procedures are particularly cumbersome in certain Member States; we repeatedly see the adverse effect on businesses of the time and costs involved.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy is therefore expressly in favour of simplifying the procedures.
We would even go a step further in some areas.
Accommodation and food or drink expenses incurred as part of a person's business activities should, we believe, remain fully deductible.
It is hard to see why money spent in hotels and restaurants for purely business purposes should be treated differently from any other business expenditure.
<P>
The business lunch or dinner is valuable when it comes to fostering contacts and building up client confidence - especially for small companies, who can also use the occasion to present their products.
In Austria, we have found that reducing the tax deductibility of business entertainment can harm the gourmet restaurant sector.
We therefore believe that Parliament's amendment offers an appropriate way of resolving this problem.
<P>
We also have a proposal on translation costs.
Tax administrations are quite entitled to ask for the details on an invoice or whatever to be translated.
We do know, however, that this can cause difficulties for SMEs, who often do not have the necessary language expertise to hand.
Some countries even require officially certified translations; this can mean bringing in a 'sworn' translator or court-recognised interpreter.
Consequently, it would make sense for the costs of external translation to be borne by the requesting administration.
I am delighted to see that the Commission's commitment to a leaner and fitter regulatory system at single market level is now bearing fruit in the VAT sector too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=254 NAME="Monti">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am very pleased to be discussing with you one of the first legislative initiatives on VAT which derives directly from the SLIM exercise, and to be doing so on the basis of such an excellent report as the one by Mr Garosci.
<P>
The work of the SLIM group has led to a series of important recommendations which we are following up as a top priority within the Commission's work programme, so as to improve the operation of the VAT system.
Therefore I am always happy to hear observations to the effect that, as Mr Secchi said, this is one stage on the way towards the definitive VAT system, to which Mrs Randzio-Plath also referred.
<P>
This proposal contains two parts: the first relates to the procedure for refunding VAT to non-resident taxable persons; the second relates to harmonisation of the rules governing deduction.
<P>
As regards the first aspect, the refund procedure - the purpose of which is to allow a taxable person to recover the VAT paid in a Member State in which he is not resident - has been identified as an area where simplification is urgently needed.
The procedure set out in the eighth directive has proved very unsatisfactory in practice, both for national administrations and for operators.
The latter criticise in particular the cumbersome administrative formalities and the delays in obtaining refunds.
<P>
The Commission has concluded that the only modification likely to bring about true simplification consists of abolishing this procedure altogether and replacing it with a mechanism enabling a taxable person to deduct, in his regular returns, tax paid in a Member State in which he is not resident.
This system requires the introduction of a bilateral refund and compensation system for debts between Member States, as well as a clear-cut division of the Member States' responsibilities for verification, presupposing that a relationship of trust exists.
The Commission notes with satisfaction that Mr Garosci's report supports its proposal concerning this first aspect.
<P>
The second aspect is harmonisation of the rules governing deduction of VAT paid on expenditure which is of both a business and non-business nature.
The proposal relates first of all to the deduction of VAT applied to expenditure relating to passenger cars, our aim being to end the total exclusion from the right to deduct which currently applies in certain Member States.
<P>
Furthermore, the Commission is proposing a flat-rate deduction of 50 % of the VAT payable on expenditure on accommodation, food and drink, and a total exclusion for expenditure on luxuries, amusements or entertainment.
I note that Mr Garosci's report basically endorses the Commission's proposed approach.
The amendments put forward relate mainly to the provision for a 50 % flat-rate deduction in the case of expenditure on accommodation, food and drink.
Even when incurred in the context of an operator's business activity, such expenditure is, by its very nature, intended to satisfy personal needs.
<P>
Application of the normal rules requires a discrete assessment of the business and non-business elements of expenditure; this assessment often gives rise to awkwardness between tax administrations and operators.
Consequently, the Commission is proposing a flat-rate deduction of 50 %, with a view to simplifying - that is the key word - verification, especially in view of the obvious risk of improper deduction.
Moreover, a flat-rate deduction makes it easier for operators to prove the business nature of such expenditure.
<P>
For these reasons, we cannot accept the proposed amendments.
Nevertheless, I can assure you that the Commission will take your observations into account during the forthcoming negotiations on this proposal in the Council.
Indeed, were the Council not to agree unanimously on flat-rate deduction but to argue that the application of the normal rules creates no insurmountable problems of verification, the Commission would then be prepared to suggest a practical solution, allowing a Member State to apply either a deduction in accordance with the normal rules or the flat-rate deduction of 50 %.
<P>
As well as thanking you for your support, which I consider particularly important in persuading the Council to adopt the proposal, I wish to close - in this very welcome climate of confidence between our institutions, referred to by Mrs Peijs - by answering the question concerning the possibility of a reduced rate of VAT on labour-intensive services, a subject touched on by Mr Secchi, Mr Metten and Mrs Thyssen.

<P>
As has been pointed out, the Commission presented a communication to the extraordinary European Council in Luxembourg in November 1997, asking the Council to back this proposal.
As you know, there has since been some inconclusive discussion in the ECOFIN Council.
The Vienna European Council invited the Commission to authorise the Member States to apply the reduced rate on labour-intensive services having no cross-border content.
Naturally, under the existing legal system, the Commission cannot authorise the Member States to do this; that would require an amendment to the sixth VAT directive.
<P>
I know that this matter is of great concern to Parliament, and I am pleased to take this opportunity of announcing that I intend to present the relevant draft amendment to the Commission in February, in order that Member States wishing to do so may, on an experimental basis, apply a reduced VAT rate to labour-intensive services.
<P>
I believe that the best way for taxation to help employment is to move towards fiscal coordination, and Parliament has always supported this major undertaking of recent years.
One specific contribution which may well be worth trying out is the one to which we have referred: the possibility of a reduced VAT rate on labour-intensive services.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=255 NAME="President.">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Globalisation and the information society
<SPEAKER ID=256 NAME="President.">
The next item is the report (A4-0366/98) by Mr Malerba, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication from the Commission on Globalisation and the Information Society - the need for strengthened international coordination (COM(98)0050 - C4-0153/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=257 NAME="Malerba">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the two Commission communications which are the subject of my report - one on the need for strengthened international coordination in the information society and the other, related to it, on the problem of an international framework of management for the Internet - raise specific points and also outline a method for addressing the challenges, legal ones in the main, which the Internet revolution has brought about.
<P>
What is new about the Internet that cannot be regulated merely by extending the rules already in force for the other media?
This is a valid question.
My answer is that the Internet really is a new, revolutionary technological product; its advent is on a par with the invention of the printing press.
Television, print and radio messages are one-way, broadcast indiscriminately to an audience without the means to interact. In contrast, the Internet changes the way we distribute information in two fundamental respects: every message can become highly participatory, while the distribution costs of information, on a worldwide basis, fall almost to zero.
Whereas in general the traditional broadcasting media are tightly regulated, on the Internet anyone can become a publisher and engage in dialogue with his readership.
There are no central points of control and no access barriers; no special licences are required to get on the Internet.
<P>
The Internet is still in its infancy, but statistics show that participation is growing exponentially.
Whereas a few years ago it was predicted that by 1998 there would be three million users in Europe, when 1998 came we realised that there were already 18 million, and this growth is still continuing.
<P>
As the new method of electronic data interchange develops, so do new forms of corporate organisation, looking ahead to the economy of the future.
Hierarchies are disappearing, production plant and physical processes are no longer concentrated in a fixed location, as was typical of the industrial era; a new knowledge-based society is emerging, one which is more mobile both geographically and culturally.
<P>
It could be argued that highly complex organisations, such as the information society and interactive IT networks, should be regulated not from the centre but from the periphery, as happens in the biological world.
Simple laws are imprinted into every cell of an organism without there being a single central control unit.
Order is maintained through the interaction of a huge number of individual entities, linked together by a close network of connections and reactions.
<P>
A pragmatic and flexible approach to the Internet phenomenon would therefore appear judicious.
I believe that Mr Bangemann deserves credit for his far-sightedness and perseverance in pursuing the policy of liberalising telecommunications services in Europe.
It is for this reason that we are not now fazed by this new challenge.
When, at the Bonn Conference in July 1997, the Americans proposed the promotion of world-wide electronic commerce, Europe was able to respond in the same vein, reasserting the principles of user protection and free access for all citizens, personal data protection and security of communication, fiscal non-discrimination where new technologies are used for electronic rather than traditional commerce, and intellectual property rights.
<P>
There is ample evidence of the need for international coordination, ranging from domain name management to the risk of a US monopoly, to the German judiciary's initiatives concerning providers' real or presumed responsibilities, not forgetting the risk of a proliferation of dissimilar legislation from one country to another as electronic commerce gradually gains ground.
I would stress that our aim here is certainly not to define and list all the crimes to which the Internet potentially lends itself - although the media tend to focus mostly on these aspects - but rather to draw up a code of conduct making this new tool more secure and reliable to use.
<P>
On this basis, dialogue can be established at various levels, involving industry and content providers, and multilateral agreements can be sought not only with the United States but also with Japan, India and any other countries embarking on electronic commerce.
This multi-layer, multilateral dialogue must recognise the competence of international organisations in individual fields, and the private sector and professional and users' associations must be involved in laying down the new rules.
<P>
What can Parliament do?
As well as giving encouragement and support to the Commission's international initiatives, I believe that Parliament should place this item on the agendas of its interparliamentary delegations, especially the one with the US Congress, and should continue working to raise public awareness.
<P>
As for the Commission, it must finalise and put forward for adoption in 1999 - before the end of this parliamentary term - a substantial set of rules governing electronic commerce.
We have observed the Commissioner's initiatives with industry in Brussels, at the OECD conference in Ottawa and at the Aspen Institute meeting in Lyons.
I should now like to hear him comment on the state of play.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=258 NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on External Economic Relations welcomes the Commission's proposal on international coordination, since this is the interests of both the public and private sectors.
The committee has already said in earlier opinions that it is the authorities' task to achieve agreement on an international legislative framework that is transparent, clear, technology-neutral, non-discriminatory and likely to stimulate competition.
It is important that the entire business community should be involved, as at the round-table conference on 29 July last year in Brussels.
<P>
The business steering committee set up recently by Commissioner Bangemann fortunately recognises this principle and includes representatives of firms from around the world.
There is a tremendous amount of work to do when you think of protecting intellectual property, the problems of encryption, data protection, liability and so on.
Parliament must be closely involved in drafting legislation, whether binding or not, and in particular must be closely involved in any future conferences on the subject.
The information society has enormous implications for the public and for businesses in terms of well-being, employment and prosperity, so democratic controls are absolutely vital.
<P>
This brings me on to my final point.
The Commission's proposal for a new directive designed to improve the climate for electronic trade on the Internet in Europe has come not a moment too soon for the European Union, or perhaps even a little late.
If we compare the European Union's performance in the field of electronic trade with that of the United States, we are forced to concede that the European Union is already lagging behind.
In December alone online spending in the United States grew by 230 %, the sort of figure that many firms in Europe can only dream about.
I thank Mr Malerba for his excellent report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=259 NAME="Sierra González">
Mr President, Commissioner, as the information society has begun to use new technologies in trade, one of the problems that has emerged is the need to establish a system of general legal guarantees for supranational transactions made on open access networks.
<P>
The fact that transactions are increasingly international has led to certain conflicts over jurisdiction. These involve matters such as the terms and conditions to be used in cross-border contracts, liability for third parties, the labour laws affecting teleworkers - even in cross-border transactions - copyright, and so on.
These are all matters that affect the reliability of transactions.
<P>
Without doubt, establishing a safe framework for businesses and consumers to operate in is essential in resolving these conflicts.
But it should be possible to achieve this objective if, on the one hand, the open access nature of the Internet is preserved and, on the other hand, the plurality and diversity of the network is maintained.
<P>
Introducing controls, barriers or licences for access to the Internet could be dangerous, and the jurisdiction of one sole country such as the United States becoming too widespread would be equally dangerous.
In my view, security must be compatible with freedom and limits should only be set in order to protect the public interest, with all that this entails.
<P>
The proposed International Charter would be a good idea, but Parliament should be involved in the debate surrounding it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=260 NAME="Leperre-Verrier">
<SPEAKER ID=261 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are not yet living in the information society; we are still on the way there.
It is a matter of information, which is refined into data, then perception and realisation, and finally culture and education: information is only a raw material.
Its content, however, is of the essence.
Our problem is no longer one of transmitters or receivers, computers or hardware.
Content is the area where the European Union has fallen behind, compared with its competitors. Content also provides employment and is very profitable.
You could say there was no end of uses for content, just as with food, such as the sausage, for example.
People can in practice enjoy content in an infinite number of ways.
<P>
I support the Commission's initiative for international action and a charter for the Internet and electronic commerce.
The Internet cannot work beyond the reach of the law and standards.
A crime is a crime on the Internet too, and that we must be aware of.
Apart from that, one advantage of electronic commerce is that the location is safe.
Rules, however, must not hinder developments, but lead and alter, and be flexible.
<P>
Obviously, there must be cooperation.
I believe that the United States is very keen to reach an agreement with us, as they have both economic and political interests.
Apart from companies and consumers, it is important that everyone should have access to this system.
It is a modern European Union's civil right and we will hold on to it. Nevertheless, it cannot be exempt from taxation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=262 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendes Bota">
Mr President, this is the new computer age and it is here to stay.
The myth of an information-based society has become a reality.
Information is now the key to everything, turning us into listed consumers of classified products.
Virtual reality is the order of the day, mesmerising us into accepting our collective loss of freedom on a global scale.
We are now ruled by the drug of information and all its consequences.
Thinking is in binary form: I buy - yes or no; I sell - this or that; my opinion - left or right.
<P>
The information drug has invaded our daily lives and we are now even calling for computer police.
The Internet revolution, due to its extraordinary potential, has developed into a massive free-for-all involving every type of deceit, fraud and abuse.
Consumers are being violated and the applicable law is contradictory, incoherent or even non-existent.
The central issue now for an information society in which electronic commerce is assuming a previously unimaginable dimension is to urgently establish, by worldwide consensus, the main economic groups of the world and the respective leaders.
<P>
The objective is to provide a solid and coherent legal framework that can regulate the activity of the information networks.
Using the argument of American supremacy in the electronic commerce sector to exclude Europe from being a pioneer in the creation of this new global economic space, as recommended by the opinion of the Committee on Culture, Youth Education and the Media, is an unrealistic attitude. It implies that we should stick our heads in the sand and ignore or refuse to understand the major changes in the world today.
<P>
The risks of cultural and linguistic marginalisation and of outlying or rural areas becoming more isolated are real.
It is obvious that the disparity between north and south has increased in the last few decades despite economic growth.
Nothing can prevent the world of one-way messages becoming a world of two-way communication via the Internet where everyone can be a publisher and broadcaster simultaneously.
Trying to ignore this change is as futile as trying to stop the tide coming in.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=263 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Mr President, this is actually a very interesting item on our agenda this evening.
In my view, the problem lies in the fact that we are trying to find a balance between the right to freedom of information and the difficulties we are facing in connection with the right to freedom of information, the right to freedom of electronic commerce, etc.
And we are facing difficulties, as everyone must agree, to do with tax, liability, the protection of information and information of a harmful or illegal nature.
<P>
The proposal before us is to introduce a non-binding international charter.
The fact that the charter is non-binding indicates where the seat of the problem lies.
We want to regulate a number of matters, but it is precisely in trying to establish the right to free trade and freedom of information, as I said earlier, that it is extremely difficult to restrict a number of things that we do not want.
<P>
I think that we should all welcome the fact that this proposal has been made and that we are going to reach a number of agreements, but agreements must never be so strictly defined that they infringe the rights of the individual.
As I see it, the information society is partly a way of encouraging individuals, states and so on to make responsible choices.
What we now have to recognise is that a number of countries that have up to now been accustomed to regulating certain matters within their own borders are now no longer able to do so because of the Internet.
<P>
I wish the Commissioner success with this charter.
It is a very brave effort, but it is going to be extremely difficult to find a balance between what we want and what we do not want.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=264 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Mr President, the Green Group, including myself, agrees with the Commission and its Members when they say that there is no need for a global regulatory framework, nor a new international authority to regulate the Internet.
Above all, we do not need an information police.
We now have the chance to come up with a viable solution, as I believe the rapporteur, Mr Malerba, has also recognised in his report when he calls for cooperation.
That is what is needed, not legal regulation.
<P>
Any agreement reached between the different countries should not be legally binding, but more on the lines of a code of conduct or, in the words of the rapporteur, a kind of highway code for the Internet.
I think that such an approach would find support, since a code of this type is needed to safeguard privacy, copyright and security.
We have also tabled some amendments which address the need to resolve this issue, not only from the point of view of the international organisations, but in a way that takes account of the interests of commercial undertakings, consumer associations and so on, and which also protects the interests of the general public.
<P>
Moreover, the ARE Group has put forward a proposal with which we absolutely cannot agree, since we regard it as protectionist.
However, they have also tabled some amendments relating to the interests of the general public which we can support.
We would also like to remind you that this is not just about Europe and the USA; we must ensure that the Internet becomes a truly global and democratic highway that everyone can use.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=265 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I compliment Mr Malerba on his report, which enables us to consider the issues surrounding the Internet and the information society.
It enables the people and the elected representatives of Europe to engage in a debate which, as we know, has major implications for society and I know that Commissioner Bangemann is personally very aware of that.
<P>
So for me the proposed text is a starting-point for our shared deliberations, but we all know that it cannot be an end in itself.
The idea of a global charter is interesting and I am in favour of it, even if it cannot answer all the challenges entailed in developing new communication tools.
The priority for all of us is to move our European cooperation forward as fast as we can, so that we are better placed to negotiate from a position of greater strength with our major partner, the United States.
<P>
I also agree with the rapporteur on the question of electronic commercial transactions and his desire to protect the consumer or user by means of secure systems of payment and the respecting of civil liberties.
At the same time, I think our European debate has to go further than that.
The faster pace of economic processes, new forms of work, is creating complex problems. These are challenging the systems of social relationships we have in Europe.
The information revolution is breaking down the ways in which society orders itself, and at the same time communication, the degree of information, is breaking down all the hierarchies, including those within businesses.
<P>
So although international agreement is necessary, I believe we must do more to ensure consistency with social and business legislation.
We must never forget, Mr President, that the new technologies and the Internet are tools.
After that comes the question of knowing what to do with them, and to what end.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=266 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the single market is now almost complete.
A few days ago, the euro was introduced; frontiers are disappearing.
These are good signs, I feel.
Nowadays we can use our European-manufactured mobile phone to ring home from Moscow or Malaysia; we can link up directly to the Internet. The world is in fact coming together faster than some people are willing to accept.
<P>
Regulatory systems vary around the globe, so we need to come forward with ideas on how best to strengthen international coordination in this area too.
Markets will want to know what the rules of play are.
Drawing these up is primarily the job of policy-makers, but it is essential that we involve users and manufacturers. All three sides will need to sit around the table.
<P>
We must first of all establish the current state of play and then move to develop ways of achieving our chosen goals. Mr Malerba illustrates the situation very well in his report.
Member States have considerable scope for shaping the information society, but need to bear in mind the extent to which previously separate sectors are moving closer to one another. This is where the challenge lies.
We should be envisaging setting up virtual libraries - places open to everyone, just as traditional libraries are. A click of the mouse will suffice, but people must be aware that the virtual library exists.
The benefit in terms of knowledge and experience will be enormous. And think of the boost for industry if concerted efforts are put into making this vision a reality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=267 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, Commissioner, it seems to me that a great deal has happened since the Commission first began work on its initiative nearly a year ago.
I am referring in particular to resolving the problems posed by the Internet domain names, and here I believe the Commission has chosen the right way forward.
Furthermore, our approach to the whole issue has changed since the initiative was first introduced.
We are not just dealing with a highway, there are many other areas where regulation is needed, either by means of legislation, rules or standards.
<P>
In my view, we have also taken forward the debate on the information society.
We should therefore avoid statements like the one we heard last night about Europe being so far behind America.
In fact, Europe has also made progress in this field.
<P>
Two issues that were agreed and discussed recently give some cause for concern.
Why did Europe go along with the so-called amendment of the Wassenaar Convention which makes it more difficult for us to export encryption techniques, and what part did the Commission play in this?
And the second is, of course, that there has still been no agreement on the UMTS standard.
What is needed here is continued vigilance and discussion.
We cannot accept that protecting our interests is the answer; there must be a solution that is to everyone's advantage.
<P>
We are told that the transatlantic dialogue has been useful and that there has been some degree of convergence.
Many people believe that it is important to combine the European and American approaches.
We have also seen that there is not always total independence in the USA, but that there is possibly more administrative regulation because of the federal system, which raises more obstacles than there are in Europe.
<P>
Finally, I should like to say that Commissioner Bangemann has done a very good job in this field simply by encouraging dialogue.
I am one of those who hope he will keep up the good work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=268 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, an Internet Charter makes very good sense. We are confronted daily with new communications technologies; these are penetrating ever deeper into all areas of our lives.
Care must be taken with regard to competition law, however. We do not want to see it undermined.
Globalisation and the information society influence not only industrial and cultural policy; the impact on human rights is considerable too.
I am disappointed, therefore, to see that combating Internet crime is accorded such marginal treatment.
The Internet is being misused for the purposes of spreading child pornography; child abuse is happening online; and trafficking in children is even being organised over the net. Society has a massive problem here.
<P>
The European Union should be giving its full attention to this baser side of globalisation. Greater international cooperation between administrative authorities and more financial resources are called for.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=269 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Lukas.
<P>
Mr Torres Couto is now due to speak but he has not graced us with his presence.
Therefore, we have reached the end of the speeches by Members and I would ask Commissioner Bangemann to take the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=270 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, may I begin by thanking the House for this debate, which has confirmed that there is no fundamental disagreement between Parliament and the Commission on this issue.
There is in fact a broad consensus and my thanks go to the rapporteur, who has made a big effort to absorb the logic and rationale of our proposal.
As a result, the analysis given in his report is very much to the point.
<P>
I should perhaps remind people, however, that today's discussion touches on only one element of the information society.
Just because we are focusing at present on electronic commerce and the Internet does not mean that other important aspects are being neglected.
What a pity that, yet again, the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media is coming out with the same old clichés. Its members preach their blinkered cultural pessimism and then depart, depriving anyone else of the chance to lighten their darkness.
<P>
Culture and open debate go together; in German, we even speak of a 'culture of debate'.
The information society has now entered that debate, and committees such as Economic and Monetary Affairs, or Research, Technological Development and Energy, or Foreign Affairs - with its Subcommittee on Security and Disarmament - are demonstrating more receptiveness towards this new cultural phenomenon than the culturally-challenged Committee on Culture, which cannot seem to grasp what is at stake.
The same old arguments have been wheeled out regarding the negative impact on minority languages and small or medium-sized companies.
But if ever there was a 'small-friendly' technology, it is the Internet. The new developments offer global exposure to smaller languages and small businesses at a fraction of the previous cost.
Much to my dismay, however, the Culture Committee fails to see this.
I have attended their meetings two or three times and, on each occasion, I came up against a brick wall.
<P>
We also hear repeated reference to US domination.
Mrs Thors rightly pointed out that this a red herring.
Thanks to the Internet Charter, Europe has taken a global lead.
We have been successful on domain names, as Mrs Thors also noted.
There is a danger, however, that people will begin to believe all this constant talk of how America has got poor little Europe pinned against the wall.
But it has not, and our progress can only be undermined if this is the message coming across.
I am therefore grateful to you for having stated clearly that you believe we are making headway.
<P>
Mr Malerba asked about the current state of play and where we go next. Of course, Parliament will be involved in the whole process.
Anyone wishing to attend the conferences has an open invitation to do so.
Mr Malerba and other Members have participated in such events in the past, and we very much hope that this practice will continue
<P>
The familiar problem raised by Mrs Boogerd-Quaak has to be seen in the light of the speed of technological advance and the inherently global nature of the Internet.
When things are happening fast, legislation is not easy.
Regulations which we adopted at the outset are already in need of review; keeping pace with these developments is extraordinarily difficult.
That is why we are seeking to devise alternative-style legislation.
<P>
The second element in the equation is the global dimension of this technology.
Even if we do decide to enact directives at EU level, these have no impact beyond the frontiers of the Member States; hence the need for political agreement with other legal areas on equivalent approaches.
The Internet Charter is a move in that direction, and it has taken off internationally.
We have also been involved in promoting the Global Business Dialogue, which has been officially launched in Brussels.
A management board has now been appointed and is currently, as I understand it, holding a two-day meeting in New York. Moreover, a conference will be taking place in September at which consideration will be given to the possibility of self-regulation.
The interested parties will either agree to sort out the problems amongst themselves or, where this proves impossible, will seek to find the most appropriate solutions.
The OECD meeting in Ottawa produced a list of some 12 to 15 problem issues, many of which can only be resolved through political decisions.
Taxation matters obviously cannot be left to the parties directly involved.
<P>
Nor can we afford to leave questions such as encryption to the sectoral players alone.
And I would point out that no decisions have so far been taken on which of the various possible systems will be authorised.
Some thought was given to the matter at a meeting of justice and home affairs ministers, but no statutory provisions have been adopted.
Until Parliament and the Council have been consulted on a Commission proposal, no legislative act can be envisaged. We all know that.
And there is as yet no Commission proposal.
<P>
There are similar issues with regard to intellectual property; legislative decisions are required.
The idea is that this conference should prepare the ground; we will then come forward with proposals for decisions.
The Japanese are already convinced of the need to initiate a political process to parallel the one whereby private interests are working to find a suitable accommodation. It now remains for us to win over the Americans; we shall then be in a position to respond at international level to the ideas emerging from the private sector's deliberations.
All in all, I think it is fair to say that we are satisfied with the progress of events.
May I once again express my gratitude for your understanding and positive input.
I know that you have high expectations of me over the coming months - and thank you for your good wishes.
I take it that I may hold out some hope for tomorrow's vote!
<P>
Laughter and applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=271 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Bangemann.
We all share in that hope.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Commercial communications in the internal market
<SPEAKER ID=272 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0503/98) by Mrs Larive, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee on the follow-up to the Green Paper on commercial communications in the internal market (COM(98)0121 - C4-0252/98).
<P>
I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mrs Larive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=273 NAME="Larive">
Mr President, this report by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on cross-border commercial communications also considers that the Commission is failing to do its duty.
As the guardian of the Treaties, the fact that it regularly flouts Article 169 - the infringement procedure - is a major democratic failing that cannot be tolerated in a democratic constitutional system.
The public, businesses and organisations are often rightly furious when their complaints take years to be dealt with, such as on France's Evin law and Greece's ban on the television advertising of toys.
<P>
I was also not exactly pleased to be handed just two minutes ago Commissioner Monti's reply to the letter that Mr Cox and I wrote to him about the infringement procedure.
All I have been able to read of it is the last sentence, which says 'I am nevertheless interested in the suggestions made by Mrs Larive in her draft report on commercial communications and will take them into consideration when they will be adopted by Parliament'.
I have not had time to read the rest, but I will hold him to his word.
<P>
In his eight-point plan last Monday, President Santer promised the European Parliament greater transparency and more information.
If he is to remain - or become - credible, therefore, the demands made in our resolutions must be met.
This means that the Article 169 procedure must be applied scrupulously and transparently, with time-limits for decisions to be reached and the compulsory proportionality assessment of all pending and new complaints.
Complainants must also be able to appeal against negative decisions.
<P>
Parliament is also calling for a public register of complaints accessible via the Internet, with the complainants' agreement, naturally, giving all the relevant information on the progress of the cases, or lack of it.
Parliament must be informed on a very regular basis, perhaps through its Committee on Legal Affairs, and I would propose that the committee should set up a working party to monitor infringement procedures, and not just those relating to commercial communications, of course.
<P>
The Commission can no longer be allowed to put unverifiable political considerations before legal arguments behind closed doors and without being answerable to anyone.
<P>
Commercial communications are a very delicate area.
On the one hand, they too should be able to take optimum advantage of the European single market, an extremely important consideration for this rapidly expanding, new technology-led sector which already employs more than one million people.
On the other hand, we naturally have great respect for national values and cultures.
This is why, Commissioner Monti, we are extremely happy with your proposals to liberalise the European market for commercial communications too, first in the Green Paper and now in the follow-up communication.
<P>
We support the proportionality assessment you propose.
Objective criteria can be applied in each case to determine whether a national restricting measure is in the public interest, or whether the intended public health or consumer policy objective, say, could be guaranteed by less drastic measures.
<P>
Unlike the Commission, however, we would like to see all new infringement cases subject to this assessment with clear time-limits, not just upon request, because then we would be back to the situation that I just described.
<P>
We also support the Commission's proposals for a central contact point, a website and a database, along with the expert group.
In this group too, the watchwords must be transparency and accessibility, so the agenda, minutes and minority opinions must all be made public.
<P>
We feel it is very important, as you know, Commissioner, that other people concerned should be included in the group alongside national officials.
I know you are a brave man, so try to persuade your colleagues to introduce what I call the 'European polder model' for the first time.
By this I mean participation on an equal footing, with one representative from the government, industry and consumer organisations in each country.
It is time to stop civil servants from having absolute power here.
<P>
Finally, the principle of mutual recognition and the country of origin principle must be the keynotes for commercial communications too.
Only if the proportionality assessment establishes that a national restricting measure is justified can these principles be overridden.
The industry must be given the chance to solve problems through self-regulation and a European code of conduct.
In my view we should set to work on this now, and only as a last resort should we consider harmonisation legislation to supplement the dozen or so directives that already apply to this sector.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=274 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, commercial communications should certainly be broadened further.
They are a source of employment and are going through immense changes.
Advertising has also made progress as far as content goes, but not necessarily only for the better.
Commercial communications are becoming increasingly image-orientated.
They are more and more often manipulative and carry value-related messages.
This is the basis of my own viewpoint here.
<P>
Today advertising creates society's opinions.
The consumer is not always able to resist the image of the world created in advertising, which is often a very unrealistic one.
A good example is a certain brown drink made from a plant extract.
The drink is no longer advertised as a drink in itself, especially on television, but the lifestyle that goes with it is: youth, beaches, freedom and beauty.
This means that we have gone from advertising the product to advertising the image, and the social issues that go along with it. Some things are regarded as desirable, others not.
<P>
Problems are caused by advertising which is targeted at children and others who are vulnerable.
We have to protect the weak.
The rapid spread of sponsorship, for example, in schools, is a good example of this.
Similarly, sports sponsorship and its sometimes negative associations, including the business of the Olympics, show what can happen when there is inadequate control and a criminally-inclined element.
<P>
A key aim of the Union is that the workings of the internal market should remain untarnished.
By making it easier to market goods and services we are giving support to our own objectives and, at the same time, providing opportunities for growth and, obviously, employment.
Good, flexible advertising is therefore an important goal.
Commercial cross-border communications must be founded on recognising the importance of reciprocal action.
The rapporteur suggests that if this is not going to be possible, we will have to resort to self-regulation.
I do not believe, however, that that would be a satisfactory approach.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=275 NAME="Mather">
Mr President, I should like to start by congratulating Mrs Larive on her report and welcome it on behalf of the European People's Party.
For some time Mrs Larive has steered the opinion of Parliament in this area on liberal economic principles and the fact that there is a lack of amendments to her report testifies to the hard work she has done and the support she has received.
<P>
I should like to emphasise four points which arise from her report.
The first is the emphasis on mutual recognition in this area.
The second is the approach based on emphasising self-regulation as the first resort and, as Mrs Larive said, the addition of further directives only as a last resort.
The third point which strikes me as arising from this report is the importance of a mandatory system to assess the proportionality of further legislative initiatives.
This is a constraint on legislators, but it seems to me a proper constraint.
We must fasten rules around ourselves.
If I may associate myself with Mrs Larive's broader points, the Community prospers the greater the more it is a Community of law, rules and of predictability.
<P>
This leads to the fourth point I should like to mention, which is about complaints.
The Commission has built constructively on its Green Paper, but if there is one obvious area where it might usefully make some further vigorous progress, it is in the area of handling complaints.
Strict time-limits would clearly be very useful here.
Also, the idea of a complaints register accessible on the Internet links the last debate with this one rather nicely and empowers those who have difficulties in this area.
It makes the Community systems more accessible to them. That is something I believe we can all support.
<P>
Mrs Larive emphasises the importance of the expert group and the need to bring in true outside experts to it at an early stage.
We in the EPP would support that too.
<P>
I conclude by encouraging Commissioner Monti to continue his work in this area. It is a rather messy and confused one.
Not all the directives which currently exist promote the aims which we would support together in this Parliament.
Perhaps Mr Monti might be able to apply his skills in bringing order and synthesis to a number of subjects to this particular area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=276 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, along with the single market comes transfrontier commercial communication. Huge amounts of money are being deployed by the advertising industry, affecting the behaviour of ordinary people and conditioning their needs.
Through sponsorship, product placement and image transfer, the influence of advertising and marketing has long been felt throughout the world of communication and interpersonal contact - in feature films and schools, for example. The net result is de facto dominance of the mighty and powerful over the smaller and weaker.
This applies at both state and company level.
The report is basically very sound, but it could be more explicit in advocating protection of those traditions and customs which are rooted in our historical psyche and form part of our cultural heritage.
<P>
More emphasis could also have been placed on protecting human rights and the interests of minors. These are important elements - and not all parts of Europe are necessarily on the same wavelength in this respect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=277 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, Commissioner Monti, ladies and gentlemen, the notion of commercial communications might initially seem a rather abstract one.
Thanks to the Commission's Green Paper and Mrs Larive's report, however, we can appreciate the true range of the subject.
At issue are all forms of communication where suppliers - in order to enhance their product's image or promote sales - set about targeting consumers. The scope is that wide.
<P>
The term commercial communications therefore covers advertising, direct marketing and sponsorship, as well as sales promotion and - significantly - public relations.
The sector already provides over a million jobs, and that figure is constantly increasing.
More importantly, we are dealing with a market of the future, which will eventually employ even greater numbers in other areas.
Since the single market will have a special role to play here, we need to ensure that its completion in this sector is speeded up.
To my mind, the section in the report on mutual recognition is therefore of paramount importance.
One of the cornerstones of a common market is that once an activity has been authorised in one Member State, transfrontier communication must be permitted.
<P>
This brings to mind the directive on buses, as dealt with by Mr Murphy in his celebrated report. Buses are not our topic today, but we did give priority to the principle of mutual recognition when considering that report.
Let us then hope that the Commission and the Council will rise to the challenge when pursuing their legislative agenda.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=278 NAME="Monti">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to begin by thanking Mrs Larive for her comprehensive and detailed motion for a resolution on the Commission's communication, as well as for her interest in our policy on commercial communications in the single market.
Thanks to your commitment, Mrs Larive, the European Parliament supported the Commission's proposals its Green Paper on commercial communications, thereby enabling the Commission to activate this policy through the communication now under discussion.
<P>
I welcome the rapporteur's positive attitude to our policy in this area, and I willingly take up her constructive criticism concerning further possible improvements.
In addition to making suggestions on the policy as such, Mrs Larive's report also proposes various ways of streamlining the Article 169 infringement procedure.
Since I have competence in both fields, I should like to give a brief preliminary reply to the main suggestions.
<P>
Let us begin with our internal policy on commercial communications.
The suggestions here focus on the need to improve the methodology for assessing proportionality, on the one hand guaranteeing that none of the proportionality criteria are used as a pretext for retaining protectionist barriers and, on the other, making this method for assessing proportionality mandatory in every infringement procedure.
<P>
I must say that I agree with both proposals and shall attempt to ensure that this instrument is applied effectively.
Concerning the suggestions on greater transparency in the work of the expert group, we are already taking steps to place the group's opinions and meeting agendas in the public domain.
I can inform Mrs Larive that the group's first opinion, on rules governing discounts in the Member States, should be adopted and made public in February.
Moreover, the names of the national representatives have been made known, and several Member States have established working groups with the relevant national organisations to inform them about discussions held in the expert group.
<P>
I hope that all the Member States will eventually proceed in this fashion, so that the organisations concerned are kept fully informed and can contribute to the debate.
The members of the expert group also consider that it would be useful for the organisations concerned to be able to submit their observations to the group, but that their permanent presence could detract from the frank and constructive deliberations enabling the group itself to comply with the six-month time limit laid down for its opinions.
<P>
Finally, since we are expecting two opinions per year on average, we hope to be in a position to present these to Parliament on a regular basis, together with the initiatives proposed by the Commission in response to these opinions.
I therefore believe, Mrs Larive, that we shall be able to follow through most of your specific suggestions concerning our policy on commercial communications.
<P>
Turning to the innovations proposed in the resolution concerning the Article 169 infringement procedure, I am particularly grateful for these contributions because I attach considerable importance to infringement procedures.
We have in fact attempted - perhaps not to the extent desired by Mr Mather, given his kind words - to bring order to this area, accelerate matters and lend greater transparency to the practices followed under the infringement procedure.
<P>
I agree with the rapporteur that this aspect is of crucial importance, since complaints of violations enable us to identify areas where problems still exist for the internal market.
I admit that the complexity and slowness of the infringement procedure may sometimes dissuade market operators from lodging complaints.
This means that the infringement procedure is not properly fulfilling its important role of identifying barriers, consequently making it more difficult to achieve our aim - and yours - of a single market which operates seamlessly.
<P>
As regards more specifically the frequency and time limits of decisions, I have done everything in my power to comply with the time limits, as suggested by the rapporteur.
<P>
Nevertheless, the two proposals on a public register of complaints and on access for complainants to the Commission's analysis prior to the reaching of a decision are worthy of more in-depth examination.
The register could only include cases in which the complainants had agreed to forego the right to confidentiality under the procedure.
<P>
As for the second proposal, the fact of asking the complainant's opinion on our analysis before the Commission reaches its collective decision would inevitably cause further delay.
I do however agree that there are good - very good - reasons for telling a complainant why, for example, his case has been closed.
<P>
I hope I have managed, at least to some extent, to convince you that the Commission intends to attach considerable importance to this resolution, and I would conclude with a very brief remark on transparency.
I am very keen on transparency and, as you know, one essential instrument of transparency in terms of compliance with Community single market legislation is proving very useful: the so-called scoreboard, which is putting pressure on the Member States to be more rigorous in enforcing the rules of the single market.
With regard to transparency in the infringement procedure in particular, I would point out that since 1996 we have been abiding by our decision of that year to inform the press systematically of every decision concerning a reasoned opinion or the referral of a case to the Court of Justice.
<P>
This, I must say, is a very useful means of exerting peer pressure to encourage the Member States to eliminate more effectively and more rapidly the infringements which trigger the procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=279 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Monti.
<P>
Mrs Larive has asked for the floor as rapporteur.
You have one minute, Mrs Larive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=280 NAME="Larive">
Thank you for your reply, Commissioner Monti.
It offered reassurance on a number of points, but it was also disappointing on certain others, particularly the composition of the expert group.
There were another two questions of mine that you did not answer.
Are you prepared to allow complainants to appeal against negative decisions?
And are you prepared to apply the time-limits referred to in the resolution for the infringement procedure?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=281 NAME="Monti">
Mrs Larive, as I said in general terms and also with particular reference to these last two points of yours, I reserve the right to carry out a more in-depth assessment.
As regards the first aspect - complaints - I believe that a modification of the Treaty would be needed there.
I would recall that, at the Intergovernmental Conference leading to the Amsterdam Treaty, both I myself and the Commission as a whole supported the proposal from certain Member States to strengthen these powers in order to streamline the appropriate procedures.
<P>
As for compliance with time limits, I think I said before that we are doing our utmost to comply with these time limits; I can stress this once again.
As you will in fact have noted, in some cases I have hesitated to take up your proposals immediately for the very reason that, although they seem good in themselves, they could slow down the procedure to some extent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=282 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Monti.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
European postal services
<SPEAKER ID=283 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions:
<P>
B4-0718/98 by the Union for Europe Group, to the Commission, on European postal services; -B4-0006/99 by the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, to the Commission, on postal services; -B4-0007/99 by the Group of the European Radical Alliance, to the Commission, on the liberalisation of European postal services.Mrs Moreau has the floor for three minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=284 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Moreau">
<SPEAKER ID=285 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Taubira-Delannon">
Mr President, Europe's postal services are big business: with a turnover of 360 billion francs, they handle a total of 108 billion items, their network comprises more than 106 000 contact points, but above all they employ 1 400 000 people and have more than 370 million potential users.
<P>

The main question is therefore whether there can be a single formula, a harmonious formula, for situations which are different: different in population terms to start with, because the areas and densities are not comparable, and four countries account for 60 % of the population; different in economic terms, with a per capita GDP ranging from less than 90 000 francs to over 150 000 francs and four countries accounting for 75 % of the turnover; different in financial terms, with a basic charge varying from 1.70 francs to 3.20 francs; and lastly, different in legal terms, with very different geographical situations and products covered.


<P>
In other words, a number of principles have to be upheld: the principle of a fair and just universal service, the principle of economic effectiveness, and the principle of cohesion and maintenance of the public service.
In other words, we must not give hallowed status to competition on the pretext of transparency, which would penalise the most deprived and the most remote users.
In other words, we must ensure proper safeguards for jobs and for the general interest.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=286 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, listening to the arguments put forward in these two last speeches, I feel as if I have gone back in time and am reminded of our very first discussions on liberalising telecommunications services.
The same fears were voiced then, although the dread scenario never came about.
On the question of a universal service, we did describe certain financial instruments that the Member States would be authorised to use, including in the telecommunications sector. But a universal service is, for the most part, being provided without recourse to these instruments, solely on the basis of the economic laws naturally governing the operation of communications systems.
These laws are clearly so alien to some Members and political groupings in this House that anguish grips them at every turn.
<P>
Let me be perfectly clear on this, Mrs Moreau.
Provided a market functions according to rules - and these can and should be laid down as part of a political process - there is no reason for an anti-social climate to arise.
On the contrary, if that market is run according to the rules which we ourselves set - and I am a logical man - the consequences certainly need not in any sense be socially damaging. Just consider prices in the telephony sector.
Thank goodness we say 'prices' and not 'tariffs' nowadays.
Because of competition - in other words, thanks to the market - by the end of this year we shall probably have prices that are every bit as favourable as in the USA. Ordinary communications, together with access to the Internet and other information sources, will be readily affordable.
<P>
That is social policy at its best.
The system is perfectly straightforward. It is no longer a matter of measuring need against yardsticks, with large bureaucracies doling out money at great administrative expense - and at the risk of fraud - to those who fit the criteria.
Today it is possible, Mrs Moreau, to telephone free of charge.
You need not pay anything at all; you can ring me up whenever you like - but not at night, please.
<P>
What is more, Mr President, this is the second time that I have been up and active at unearthly hours in this Chamber.
I would ask you to take note that I shall be looking at the possibility of establishing a trade union for Commissioners.
Things cannot go on like this.
We are being forced to work under inhuman working conditions. My human dignity is at stake, Mrs Moreau.
<P>
As to your questions, Madam, I really cannot answer them, unfortunately, and I will tell you why.
You understandably raised these issues because you felt the time had come for plain speaking. The trouble is, I have not reached any final conclusions yet myself.
You are not happy with the studies that were carried out because the results do not match your particular vision, but there is not much I can do about that.
We aimed to base our research on information from all postal operators around the Union, but I will be frank with you: sadly, not all of them provided us with the necessary information.
<P>
Heckling: It was not delivered!
<P>
That may well be so.
In any event, I am still working on my own final position, which will be submitted to the Commission at a meeting in about two weeks' time.
<P>
At that meeting, there will be a general policy discussion and I will endeavour to gather the views of my colleagues on the various issues. Then, and only then, will I be in a position to indicate provisionally where we intend to go in some of these areas.
There can be no question of my coming out with a Commission position as such today.
What I can say, wearing a purely personal hat, is that we shall be modelling our approach to the universal service requirement on the method which has been applied in the telecommunications sector. The principle is to provide a kind of safety net, if colleagues can follow my drift.
Although there will be no obligation, it will be made available for Member States if they feel the need to use it.
I myself do not see the need for such a provision, but so be it. We are in the habit of taking seriously even unjustified fears, and will probably be making a proposal along these lines - or I shall be, at any rate.
You can therefore go to bed with a calm conscience.
Let us hope, however, that the postal services people will soon be up and about.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=287 NAME="Simpson">
Mr President, the oral question on postal services and the subsequent wind-up motions give this Parliament an opportunity to reaffirm its often stated position on the future of postal services in the European Union.
It is also a great coincidence that this subject is being discussed on the same agenda that Parliament is considering the motion of censure on the Commission.
One of the reasons for the deterioration in Parliament/Commission relations without doubt has been the arrogant attitude sometimes displayed by certain Commissioners.
<P>
We experienced that ourselves in 1997, and I think we are about to experience it again in 1999, when Parliament overwhelmingly supported the report I put forward but it was dismissed at that time by Commissioner Bangemann with the words that he would return to pursue his highly liberalised plans - plans that have been rejected by Parliament.
Let me remind Commissioner Bangemann of Parliament's position.
Perhaps in this new spirit of reverence and respect for Parliament which seems to be sweeping the Commission this week, he will take note and ensure that Parliament's position is fully included when he finally gets round to presenting us - late - with the new postal directive that is being worked on at the moment.
<P>
We want to see a reserved area large enough to sustain a viable universal service.
That includes keeping direct mail and cross-border mail in the reserved area.
That reserved area is the responsibility of the national postal administrations.
<P>
We want to see a reserved area based on a realistic weight limit, not the 20 grammes, or even the 50 grammes which is rumoured to be the view of the Commission.
We want to see a detailed definition of what a universal service is and we want to know what the social effects of liberalisation will be on employment on jobs and on the quality of service that is delivered to the people of the European Union.
Reminding the Commissioner of the thousands of jobs involved and also reminding him that Parliament has severe doubts, as Mrs Moreau mentioned, about the authenticity of previous so-called studies in this and other areas.
We frankly believe they are rigged.
Florus, you will get your chance in a minute, so stop whining and belly-aching at the back.
<P>
We are still awaiting this Commission proposal, in line with Directive 97/67/EC, which means that the articles relating to liberalisation of the previous directive may no longer apply.
When, oh when, will the Commission recognise that you cannot compare fairly telecoms and post because, as we have often said, telecoms is about machines, and post is about people.
But we still have this great difficulty in getting that between the ears of the Commissioner.
<P>
Parliament knows I am a reasonable man.
But I say tonight to the Commissioner and the Commission in general that whether that Commission has one day or one year left to run, if you come to Parliament with a postal directive which attacks the concept of a publicly accountable universal service of high quality for all, if you come to Parliament having dismissed - as you have done in the past - or ignored - as you have also done in the past - Parliament's previously stated position, a position supported by the Council, and if you persist in enforcing a dogmatic, totally liberalised approach to the detriment of the postal services, then you are in for a monumental battle: a mother and father of all battles.
Be warned, Commissioner, Parliament's position has not changed.
Parliament is still of the same view with the exception of the lunatic fringe of the Dutch liberals.
What you need to do is to listen to what Parliament is saying to you, listen to what the people in the European Union want and stop this folly of trying to liberalise the postal services purely on a dogmatic basis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=288 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Simpson.
<P>
I have received seven motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 40(5) to wind up this debate.
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Ferber, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=289 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferber">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, may I begin by saying a few words to the last speaker. I would point out to Mr Simpson that he was speaking there on behalf of the Socialist Group, not of Parliament.
<P>
Here we are again, sitting late into the night and having to acknowledge once more that the Commission has problems getting the timing right when it comes to directives.
This is not the first sitting at which the Commission has had to be asked how much headway has been made.
A fresh proposal for a directive was supposed to have been submitted by the end of 1998.
That deadline has been allowed to pass.
As I have stated on several occasions in the past, Commissioner, you cannot expect the legislative process to run smoothly unless you meet the timetables.
You have forfeited the chance to produce long-overdue proposals on enhancing the quality of the EU's postal services. With proper competition, costs could be brought down and the system made capable of matching alternatives such as fax or e-mail.
<P>
If you did not act for fear of the left-wing majority in the Council, then I have little sympathy.
If you failed to deliver because you are not happy with the way the Member States are transposing the directive, then that means that the Commission has not fulfilled its duty as guardian of the treaties.
And whilst on this topic, I note with interest the provenance of the three questioners; their countries seem to have a particular problem with transposing this directive, although it has been officially adopted.
<P>
I would therefore appeal to you, Mr Bangemann, to come back to Parliament as soon as possible with a committed proposal for a further directive. The old one called for an intelligent approach to the development of our postal services, and I trust that this will be forthcoming in the near future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=290 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, as we have heard in the debate this evening, everyone knows our position.
Some people may call us the lunatic fringe, but we are standing up for consumers, because they are entitled to a better service.
The postal service must not be seen as a welfare service, nor must it be used by countries to provide services that belong elsewhere.
We all know that as soon as postal services are put in a monopoly position, they tend to be sidelined by faxes, e-mails and other modern media.
<P>
It also appears in practice, in countries like Sweden, for example, or the Netherlands - and Sweden is not a small, densely populated country like the Netherlands, it is an enormous place covering huge distances - that a privatised service or a service where competition is possible can be just as good as the inefficient monopolies that also provide social services.
This is why we are calling on the Commission not only to implement the old, outdated directive as soon as possible, but also to put forward new proposals on liberalising the sector.
This is what the Commission undertook to do.
The failure of Reims II and the failure to achieve full compliance because all sorts of integrators are now at work means that we need to come up with proposals for a new, modern service.
I hope that the Commission is not going to take another ten years over this and that it does not produce another white elephant like the last time.
Any resemblance to persons here present is, of course, entirely accidental.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=291 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I wonder if we might have a few comments from Mr Bangemann on his new role, since he said that it might be a good idea to start a union for Commissioners.
What an interesting thought!
<P>
I must say that I am rather surprised at the way the Commission has acted in this case.
In general, I am not opposed to privatisation and nor is my political group.
But why is the Commission in such a tearing hurry?
On the contrary, Parliament has already asked the Commission to assess the economic and social consequences, as well as the state of the postal sector, on a country by country basis.
However, this has not been done.
<P>
We have also said that in evaluating the effect of liberalisation on postal services, account should be taken not only of the Commission's own feasibility studies, but also of Parliament's consultations, postal sector trade unions, user organisations and so on.
If that had been done, Mr Bangemann would not be able to say that our concern is unfounded.
<P>
One of my colleagues has already mentioned that some liberalisation of postal services has taken place in Sweden.
However, studies show that the quality of services has deteriorated in the more remote areas, that there has been 'cherry picking', and that postal services in villages are not as good as they used to be.
Naturally, the postal sector has to be large enough to maintain the quality of what is, after all, a public service.
<P>
In my view, it would be totally inappropriate to put forward new legislative proposals without having some idea of what their overall consequences would be and without carrying out a general overhaul of the sector at the same time.
So there is no hurry, and it would be better to take our time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=292 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schmidbauer">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as Mr Bangemann himself said, this is by no means the first time that we have sat in this House at midnight discussing the question of European postal services.
And today's debate will doubtless not be the last - although a better slot next time round would be nice. We as a parliament clearly cannot overemphasise our position on liberalising postal services.
No one in the European Parliament would dispute the need for a functioning single market in the postal sector; we shall therefore need to expand on the existing market liberalisation directive within a reasonable time frame.
The differences of view among ourselves and with the Commission begin over when to take action and how much liberalising should be carried out. At the time of the majority decision on the current directive, that was certainly the case.
<P>
So let us take a close look at the timetable set for the new version of the directive.
It was adopted in 1997 and was due for transposition in the Member States by the end of 1998, although quite a number of countries have yet to take the necessary steps.
The directive also called upon the Commission to submit fresh proposals for further liberalisation by the end of 1998.
It would, however, be rather strange to start revising the directive before the consequences of the original have been properly assessed.
<P>
I appreciate that Parliament endorsed this schedule at the end of 1997, but what is the point of amending a directive that has not yet even been put into effect in all the Member States?
The Commission first needs to submit a report detailing the state of play on transposition and - most importantly - comparing the measures put in place in individual countries.
It will certainly emerge that there are some considerable discrepancies. Once the facts are established, action can be taken.
<P>
If the directive is to be amended, two sets of guarantees will be required.
We must be able to rely on an efficient universal service, with a solid financial base. And the postal sector must continue to offer jobs with proper social security coverage.
You cannot reasonably make comparisons with the telecommunications sector, Mr Bangemann. As Mr Simpson said, technology pretty much holds sway there, whereas the workforce - the human factor - is far more significant in the postal services.
<P>
Only a universal service is capable of ensuring that each and every European citizen, however remote his or her place of residence, has access to postal facilities.
Only then can we speak of 'communication'.
Our postal services fulfil a social remit; it is not just a matter of providing a commercial service. This remit is to offer the people of Europe an affordable and readily usable means of communicating.
It is therefore not enough to equip the Greek islands and more isolated villages in the Bavarian forests with computer terminals. These regions need real letter boxes, which will be emptied daily.
<P>
A universal service of this kind needs a solid financial foundation - which it will be denied if the reserved area is broken up, opening the way for commercial suppliers to pick the cherries out of the cake.
Instead, what is required is a system whereby postal undertakings offer a range of services, including non-profitable ones.
The universal service and reserved area dimension can then benefit from cross-funding.
Nor should we forget the 1.5 million people employed in the European postal sector, for whom we bear a social responsibility.
It is common knowledge that the process of postal liberalisation to date has been painful for the workforce, accompanied as it was by redundancies and switches to often socially insecure conditions of employment.
<P>
I doubt that any political group would argue with me when I say that this parliament will not stand idly by while the postal service suppliers turn their workplaces little by little into production lines.
We will not countenance quick profits for the companies at the expense of employees and quality.
We demand guarantees that a comprehensive and high-quality universal postal service, offering proper job security, will survive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=293 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Stenmarck">
Mr President, the old monopolies are no longer up to providing the efficient service which we have all come to regard as a right.
This has led to the deregulation and liberalisation of one sector after another.
Unfortunately, the postal services are a major exception to the rule.
<P>
A number of EU countries have already moved so far in the direction of free competition that they have extended it to the postal sector, and they can point to satisfactory results.
In Sweden, the process has gradually assumed a political significance of its own.
It is essential that encouragement should be given to its continuation.
<P>
Having filled you in briefly on the background, I should now like to put a question to Mr Bangemann which should wind up this debate: what measures is the Commission thinking of taking in order to further the process of liberalisation in the postal sector?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=294 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Stenmarck.
<P>
With that speech by Mr Stenmarck, we have reached the end of the list of speakers.
<P>
Mr Bangemann has asked to make a brief statement, and he now has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=295 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, let me attempt to answer these questions.
What Mr Stenmarck asked illustrates the confusion besetting this debate.
The Commission has not yet decided what measures it will take.
Not, Mr Ferber, because I am frightened of the Left - or indeed of anyone else.
I am not even in fear of Mr Stoiber, unlike some CSU members seeking re-election to this House.
I do not aspire to have my name on the CSU list, and this spares me the need to draw attention to myself with fiery rhetoric.
Nobody frightens me - not even you, Mr Ferber.
<P>
Mr Simpson seems to hold a very simplistic view of the relations linking Parliament, the Commission and the Council.
He has got things the wrong way round if he thinks that the Commission should always make proposals which match Parliament's vision.
The procedure is that the Commission proposes, then Parliament and the Council deliver their positions.
The Commission of course takes on board the results of this democratic process. Our own right to propose would be totally undermined, however, if I or any of my Commission colleagues were systematically to advocate what Parliament wanted - particularly since you will have noticed that the parliamentary position is not clear at this stage.
And how could it be?
The Commission has yet to make a proposal.
Once it has done so, we can see what Parliament has to say.
<P>
Let me repeat, however, for the sake of clarity: my personal intention - and I can speak only on my behalf at this juncture - is to defend the universal service. So you need have no worries, provided my colleagues in the Commission follow my lead.
What I cannot do is come forward with a proposal which would rule out extending the liberalisation process to the postal sector; nor can I advocate delay, since our postal services would simply end up being overtaken by developments elsewhere.
This is a point I have endeavoured to drive home in previous debates; once you have grasped it, you will understand that I am not 'out to get' those employed in the postal sector.
We can already see competition developing between those postal service providers who operate in a liberalised environment - Deutsche Post AG, for example - and the others who do not.
The former enjoy a natural advantage born of their market fitness.
They will be better placed legally as well, free as they are to buy up or merge with other companies; that door is closed to the monopolies.
Anyone who fails to comprehend that will truly be letting down postal employees - and Mr Wijsenbeek's consumers - alike.
<P>
This is not about ideology.
Very well, I am a Liberal and have been all my life.
Occasionally one wonders if one's colleagues on the Liberal benches have the same degree of common sense; be that as it may, I have certainly never abandoned my Liberal convictions.
It is not ideology which spurs me on - I see nothing Liberal in ideological positions; my aim is to do the job entrusted to me.
If you are not happy with the way I perform, Mr Simpson, you have all the opportunity in the world to kick me out, along with my colleagues.
It is fine by us; that is life on the democratic stage.
You can do it tomorrow if you like; the opportunity is there if you so decide.
I shall not be offended; Parliament will simply be doing its job.
And if you refrain because you believe that the Commission has not done so badly, after all - then many thanks in advance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=296 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Bangemann.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
The sitting was closed at 11.50 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Madam President, I would like to point out with regard to yesterday's Minutes that for the umpteenth time the UPE Group tabled an oral question with debate, to be moved by Mr Donnay, with an associated resolution on postal services being tabled by Mr Pasty.
Yesterday evening at 11.45 p.m. the UPE Group did not even take the trouble to be here - not a single one of them turned up.
I would urge that these sorts of unnecessary requests should not be allowed in future, because no new information or views were put forward and the Commission had absolutely nothing to tell us that it had not already told us before.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
We take note of that.
<P>
The Minutes were approved
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Article K.6 EU; Schengen cooperation
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on:
<P>
the oral question (B4-0716/98) by Mr Nassauer on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, to the Council, on the annual debate on Article K.6 of the Treaty on European Union, December 1998; -the oral question (B4-0717/98) by Mr Nassauer on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, to the Commission, on the annual debate on Article K.6 of the Treaty on European Union, December 1998; -the proposal for a recommendation (A4-0006/99) by Mrs Van Lancker, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the programme of activities to be conducted under the Schengen cooperation arrangements up to June 1999.
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Nassauer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is probably the last time that we will be holding this debate under Article K.6.
Once the Treaty of Amsterdam comes into force, our debate will not only be based on a new article, it will also be far more limited in scope, as it will only be concerned with police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters.
Madam President-in-Office, Mr President-in-Office, before I move on to the subject at hand, I would first like to make some procedural comments.
<P>
Up to now, we have normally held this debate at the end of a Council presidency, in December.
This had the clear advantage that at least one of the Presidents-in-Office responsible could respond to Parliament.
We really must insist on arrangements being made to return to that pattern in future.
I concede that this is less an issue for the Council presidency than for Parliament itself, but this does need to be coordinated.
<P>
However, my second point is most definitely one for the Council.
Traditionally, we get this debate underway with an oral question and a motion for a resolution.
For years we have been calling on the Council to provide us with a written report as a basis for our debate.
This would also have great advantages for the Council, as it could highlight what it sees as the key points and what it regards as successful achievements.
Giving us a written report before this debate could not fail to improve cooperation with Parliament.
<P>
This resolution includes various requests about cooperation between Parliament and the Council that we have made before.
However, during the Maastricht Treaty phase they never resulted in a proper procedure.
Interestingly enough, the rather unfortunate wording concerning the most important aspects of the activities on which the Council is supposed to consult Parliament has been eliminated from the Treaty of Amsterdam, which I am pleased to say makes it clear exactly when Parliament is to be consulted and when it is just to be informed.
<P>
But a series of consultations has been overlooked even under the present wording - I shall come back to this point in a moment.
The new arrangement we have requested provides for us to be kept informed about important developments, as stipulated in Article 39(2). This relates in particular, Madam President-in-Office, Mr President-in-Office, to Council meetings, including informal ones.
<P>
Parliament should not have to piece together information about events in the Council from press reports.
Surely it cannot be a problem to inform Parliament beforehand what is to be discussed at Council meetings, and, afterwards, what was discussed.
I would now like to refer to a few practical points.
Certain key legislative matters - and I am sorry to have to harp on about this - are communitarised in the Treaty of Amsterdam. They may require a unanimous vote for at least five years, but nevertheless they have been communitarised.
In other words, they have been removed from the legislative competence of national parliaments.
At the same time, however, they are still outside this Parliament's competence, since we are only entitled to be consulted until the codecision procedure has been introduced.
That means - and I can see two brilliant lawyers in front of me - that for the purposes of the development of European legislation areas that are clearly subject to the legal process, such as asylum and immigration, can no longer be directly influenced by an elected parliament, and that is surely not acceptable.
The only possibility I can see is for the Council to consult Parliament particularly carefully during the interim phase, five years plus x, and to take account of the views Parliament expresses during the consultation.
I just wanted to say a few words about that.
<P>
To conclude, I would like to mention another aspect, just by way of example.
I was delighted that the President-in-Office last Monday or Tuesday called for the scope of Europol's operations to be extended.
I was delighted to hear that because his erstwhile fellow member of the Green Group in the European Parliament, Ms Roth, would have run out of the Chamber screaming if she had heard words like that.
The point I want to make is that the further development of Europol is coming up against the limits imposed by the structure of intergovernmental cooperation.
In view of the communitarisation involved, progress in this field needs to be subject to parliamentary scrutiny and judicial control.
So anyone wanting to achieve progress in this field must submit themselves to the rigours of communitarised progress, and that is what Parliament is urging you to do.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="Van Lancker">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I think that today's debate on Schengen has come at just the right moment at the start of the German Presidency of the Union, which also coincides with Germany's Schengen presidency.
This is of crucial importance, because it is the time when, under the Schengen Protocol, the Schengen acquis must be transferred to the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Parliament has also just received the second annual report by the Executive Committee and the Joint Supervisory Authority.
I should therefore like to thank the German Presidency for this first opportunity to discuss this issue with them, and I would like to thank my colleagues for their helpful cooperation in dealing with this report as a matter of urgency.
<P>
Parliament has always had mixed feelings about Schengen.
On the one hand, we are naturally delighted that a number of Member States have taken the lead in establishing the free movement of persons and an area of freedom, security and justice in practice, but on the other hand we have always regretted the fact that this has happened outside the EU structures.
<P>
Legally speaking, too, Schengen is not exactly a thing of beauty.
The acquis is a melting-pot of guidelines, measures and decisions through which few people can find their way, let alone their rights.
Now that Schengen is to be integrated into the EU Treaty, we can take definitive steps towards greater clarity and democracy.
The inclusion of part of the acquis in the first pillar will pave the way for the communitarisation of this policy and will enable us to take measures to tidy up 'la nébuleuse Schengen ', as my predecessor used to call it.
However, all these good intentions have been jeopardised by the discussions that have been dragging on for 18 months now on how the Schengen acquis should be integrated into the Treaty.
First and foremost, it has not yet been possible to define what the Schengen acquis is, nor to eliminate the redundant clauses from it.
Thirdly, there is still a major debate going on about whether to include Schengen in the first pillar or the third.
I have to say that the obstinate refusal of certain Member States to transfer part of the Schengen acquis to the first pillar is threatening to undermine the modest progress that we have made with the Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
At the European summit in Vienna last month, the Heads of State urged that a decision should be taken quickly.
This was an important political signal, Mr President-in-Office, and I should like to hear from the German Presidency and also from the Commissioner as the guardian of the Treaties what political measures they intend to take to get out of this impasse.
I would also like to know how they intend to involve the European Parliament in this transposition process.
The integration of the Schengen acquis into the Treaty, and in particular how it is divided between the first and third pillars, will have important implications for Parliament's future involvement and the future development of all European legislation on security and freedom.
Even if the Schengen Protocol does not specifically provide for Parliament to be consulted, I still think that Parliament's rights must be respected, because it would be of enormous damage to our interests if we were not.
Parliament would have to think very seriously about going to the Court of Justice if our democratic rights were disregarded.
<P>
We would certainly urge that the aims of the Treaty should be borne in mind when integrating Schengen, and that the balance must be restored between efficient policing and respect for fundamental rights and the rule of law.
In my first report on Schengen we called for greater transparency, greater parliamentary and judicial controls and respect for human rights.
I think that these now need to be put into practice, and that in defining the Schengen acquis the opportunity must be taken to publicise it, to involve the European Parliament and the national parliaments more, and to provide the public with better information about their rights.
I would also point out that we feel that the future of the Schengen information system is of crucial importance.
Our recommendation even calls for the SIS to be developed as a trans-European network, managed by an agency under the operational authority of both the Commission and the Council, with data from the various sections strictly separated for end-users, and supervised by the body provided for in the Treaty.
I would like to know what the President-in-Office thinks about this point in particular.
<P>
The Presidency has naturally fixed other priorities, most of which we support, such as strengthening international cooperation in cases of criminal prosecution, which is very necessary.
The German Presidency is also calling for further harmonisation of visa policies, which would also be a welcome development, because the current situation is an out-and-out disaster.
As regards the accession of new Member States, Mr President-in-Office, I would simply say that the mistakes of the past are threatening to be repeated.
The evaluation of the applicant countries must involve more than just demanding watertight border controls.
We also expect you to assess the operation of their legal systems, their human rights record and their respect for the principles of the rules of law.
<P>
Finally, I should like to take a quick look at a number of points from the Schengen annual report.
Firstly, France is still maintaining border controls at its frontiers with Belgium and Luxembourg, despite all the efforts that have been made.
Can the President-in-Office tell me when this unfortunate situation will be resolved?
Secondly, there is the evaluation of the Schengen information system.
I have to say that as far as we are concerned, evaluating the amount of data stored is not a measure of the system's success, and we would strongly urge that a qualitative assessment should be made of the efficiency of the Schengen system.
Thirdly, there is the report by the Joint Supervisory Authority which monitors compliance with data protection requirements.
I have to say that reading this report raises serious questions about a number of lapses.
I could give you some hair-raising examples here, but unfortunately there is not time.
I would simply say that the Supervisory Authority has uncovered some very serious problems relating to data finalisation, the removal of data and refusal of access to the Schengen area.
We expect the Council presidency to carry out the Authority's recommendations here.
After the four years in which Schengen has been in operation, this first debate has come not a moment too soon.
There are many adjustments to be made and there is still a good deal of work to be done before a European area of security and freedom can be achieved.
The European Parliament expects to be involved in this work from now on.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Van Lancker.
The very difficult subject we are dealing with today means that the presidency is represented by two ministers, namely the Federal Justice Minister and the Federal Minister of the Interior.
I should like to thank them both for being here and first give the floor to the Federal Minister of the Interior, Mr Schily.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Schily">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Van Lancker and Mr Nassauer. Mr Nassauer, you were quite right in saying that it would be normal to give the report at the end of the Council presidency, but you know why it was postponed.
So the blame in this matter cannot be laid at the Council's door. Nevertheless, the fact that we are the ones making the report does have certain advantages, although I was not involved in both stages during the previous presidency.
But it does mean that we have the benefit of a certain distance which perhaps gives us a better view of the outcome of these presidencies.
Drawing on information provided by the previous two presidencies, I shall try to be as objective as possible.
<P>
There are two possible approaches to assessing progress.
The first is a quantitative approach, summating all the various achievements.
It is certainly true to say that a great deal has been accomplished: a dozen joint measures have been adopted under two agreements and political agreement has been reached on two further agreements.
But maybe it would be more helpful to assess progress in qualitative terms, paying particular attention to the Council's activities concerning the European Parliament's participation.
I would like to say straight away that I am happy to take up your suggestion of producing a written report, and we will try to implement that.
It is a perfectly reasonable suggestion to have a written report before us so that we do not have to rely on an oral report.
<P>
Like the Luxembourg Presidency before them, the two presidencies over the last year have involved the European Parliament in anticipation of the provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam, and we shall endeavour to do the same.
My colleague Mrs Däubler-Gmelin will give you further details of this.
We shall of course take advantage of this opportunity today not just to assess progress but also to give you a foretaste of our presidency.
Today the main focus of this is of course on justice and home affairs, with particular reference to the action plan for the establishment of an area of freedom, security and justice.
Mrs Däubler-Gmelin will also have detailed comments on that point.
<P>
I would now like to address a number of different points, taking one subject at a time.
The first is asylum and immigration.
More than any other, this is perhaps an area where we need to match our work to the pace of developments and to react to international events.
You know that Kosovo is one of the trouble spots we shall possibly be considering at the next informal meeting of EU justice and home affairs ministers because of its current relevance.
It will also be necessary to develop forward-looking strategies and to establish generally applicable rules.
<P>
1998 was notable for two influxes of migrants. First, the influx of Kurdish refugees from Iraq and the neighbouring region, and second, the problems caused by the conflict in Kosovo, which has already been mentioned and which has resulted in an influx of asylum-seekers throughout Europe.
Some countries have been especially affected by this.
<P>
In January 1998, the Council reacted to the influx of migrants from Iraq and the neighbouring region by adopting a comprehensive new action plan.
This influx of migrants also made it apparent that the Dublin Convention that had recently come into force was only capable of solving some of the problems it was intended to address, because of the role of criminal organisations in smuggling in migrants on an ever more massive scale.
And the situation is deteriorating.
<P>
The Kosovo crisis led to a similar but less widespread phenomenon.
In order to counter these developments the Council, acting on a proposal from the Netherlands, decided in December 1998 to set up a high-level group to formulate proposals for joint measures for a number of countries which seem likely to be the source of a massive influx of illegal immigrants.
This group is to analyse the push factors and then develop a strategy for dealing with them.
<P>
Last year there was a preliminary discussion of a Commission proposal for an agreement governing the admission of third-country nationals to the territory of Member States.
This is a very important proposal that would come under the new EC powers included in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The exchanges of views held so far suggest that Member States see a need for considerable further discussion before agreement can be reached.
<P>
I have already mentioned the Dublin Convention that came into force in October 1997.
Although it is certainly to soon to pass judgment on how the Convention is working in practice, there has already been a feeling for some time that a legal instrument is needed to support the implementation of the Convention by providing for fingerprints to be taken from asylum-seekers so that these prints can be compared by a central office.
<P>
This brings me to the draft Eurodac Convention, and I am pleased to report that the Council did indeed reach political agreement on this in December.
With the massive influx of Kurds revealing problems in implementing the Dublin Convention, the Council decided in March to extend the Eurodac project to fingerprinting illegal immigrants.
The protocol that will create the necessary legal basis is still being negotiated.
The progress made at the December Council meeting gives grounds for hope that the work will soon be concluded, which I regard as a matter of urgency.
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On the subject of asylum, one side of the discussions was the implementation of the Dublin Convention itself.
In this context, the committee set up under Article 18 of this Convention adopted a work programme and a declaration with the intention of improving some of the practical aspects of the implementation of the Convention.
The other side was the discussion of measures for temporary refuge and sharing of the burden between Member States in accepting refugees, particularly those fleeing from civil wars.
These proposals were put forward by the Commission in July and considered by the European Parliament in December, and the German Presidency intends to move them forward with all speed.
I should like to say that the German Presidency firmly considers that temporary refuge and burden sharing are inextricably linked.
As far as we are concerned, this is a sine qua non .
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Turning to travel, identity and residence documents, in June 1998 the Council adopted a recommendation on the provision of forgery detection equipment at ports of entry to the European Union.
In order to facilitate the checks concerned, in December the Council accordingly adopted a joint measure setting up the FADO electronic image archiving system, providing for a rapid exchange of information on both genuine and forged documents.
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The Council has pursued contacts with the applicant countries concerning visas, and two visa group meetings took place with the applicant countries, in May and November 1998.
Following the second of these two meetings, expert groups were set up to assess the security of the applicant countries' documents and to bring their computer systems into line with the Schengen cooperation requirements in relation to checking visa applications and the administration and organisation of visa offices.
A partnership has also been set up to evaluate the training and equipment needs of the applicant countries.
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In 1998 the Council adopted three instruments on the uniform format of residence permits. The first of these was a Council decision on sharing the cost of producing specimens of the common-format residence permits.
The second was a communication on the publication of the format for these permits.
The third was a Council decision on common rules for filling in the uniform format for residence permits.
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I would now like to turn to police cooperation, and especially Europol and the war on drugs - Europol has, of course, already been mentioned.
On 1 October 1998 the Europol Convention came into force, and although this was a very welcome intermediate step, Europol has still not commenced its activities, as it has not yet been possible to conclude work on certain implementing regulations required before it can start work.
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The following texts have been approved or adopted so far: determining the rights and obligations of liaison officers in relation to Europol, the rules applicable to analysis files, staff regulations, confidentiality regulations and the Headquarters Agreement. The financial regulation is to be adopted shortly.
I am pleased that it has been possible to reach a compromise on the senior appointments at Europol.
Once again, the financial regulation is to be adopted shortly.
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The following legal instruments have either not yet come into force or still need to be finalised: the Europol immunity protocol, Europol's institutions and staff members - in this case you may be aware that the ratification process has not yet been completed by four Member States - and the bilateral immunity and privilege agreements for liaison officers posted to Europol and their families.
The Member States have reached agreement with the Kingdom of the Netherlands on a text, and the relevant verbal notes are soon to be exchanged.
The Council has also adopted texts governing Europol's external relations with third countries and third bodies and the receipt of information by Europol from third countries and third parties.
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The joint supervisory body has reached agreement on its rules of procedure, which are now before the Council for approval.
The most important question still to be settled is on procedural aspects of the complaints procedure.
This relates to both the non-disclosure of data with security implications and observance of the necessary procedural guarantees.
A succession of discussions has taken place on this, and I hope that we will be able to resolve these issues during the German Presidency.
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I would now like to talk about Europol's institutions. Following the entry into force of the Convention, the management board and the joint supervisory body started work in November 1998.
The joint audit committee has been established and has issued a declaration concerning the financial regulation.
At the meeting of the Council held on 3 and 4 December, agreement was reached on the future composition of the management board.
The financial regulation will be revised to take account of this, if necessary.
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I would now like to talk about Europol's computer system. At its meeting in September 1998, the Council took note of a progress report on the setting up of the Europol computer system, TECS.
The report pointed out that because of the delay in setting up TECS, which is at present only approaching the procurement phase, an interim system would be provided for analysis and index purposes when Europol started work.
Regarding the scope of Europol's mandate, at its meeting on 3 and 4 December the Council adopted a decision instructing Europol to deal with crimes committed or likely to be committed in the course of terrorist activities against life, limb, personal freedom or property. The Council also agreed that Europol should be instructed to prepare to extend its mandate to dealing with the forgery of money and means of payment, particularly in view of the introduction of the euro - something which I consider to be very important.
Lastly, the definition of traffic in human beings as a form of crime in the Annex referred to in Article 2 of the Europol Convention is to be supplemented.
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I will now turn to the subject of drugs. As under the previous presidencies, the war on drugs was also a priority for the British and Austrian Presidencies.
The most important activities in this field were the preparation of a drug strategy for the period after 1999, the UN General Assembly special session on drugs, and the development of regional initiatives in Latin America and central Asia, both centres of the drug trade.
The principle underlying the European Union's approach has been to combat the scourge of drugs in a comprehensive, integrated and balanced way.
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Several initiatives, especially those of the UN General Assembly and the measures relating to Latin America, focused on reducing demand.
The work of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction played an important part here.
The programme of Community action on the prevention of drug dependence was continued, and a European Drug Prevention Week was held at European, national and regional level in November.
As you know, we also attach great importance to prevention at national level.
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It has emerged from the Member States' progress reports on the continued implementation of the joint measure on the approximation of laws and procedures that many Member States have, at national and European level and also within the Schengen arrangements, further strengthened measures aimed at achieving close cooperation between police, customs services and judicial authorities.
Implementation of the joint measure on new synthetic drugs was carried forward, and a detailed report on these activities was presented to the European Council in Vienna.
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That brings me to relations with third countries and enlargement issues, which Mrs Van Lancker has also expressed a particular interest in.
On enlargement, I would like to refer to two particularly important measures: on 28 May 1998 the Council adopted the Pre-Accession Pact on Organised Crime between the Member States of the European Union and the applicant CEECs and Cyprus.
The German word for pre-accession pact is one of those interesting new words that the bureaucrats are always inventing, and I nearly mispronounced it so that it came out as pre-cession! In the case of organised crime we are faced with criminal activities which are unfortunately spreading not only within the applicant countries but also from them into the Member States of the European Union.
It therefore makes sense to involve representatives from the applicant countries at this stage in the general effort to combat these widespread criminal activities - illicit drugs, traffic in human beings, prostitution and money laundering.
We really must not underestimate the dangers of these forms of crime.
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A group of experts on the Pre-Accession Pact, which consists of representatives of the 15 Member States and the 11 applicant countries, meets regularly for mutual exchanges of police experience and to draw up a joint strategy, in conjunction with Europol, to identify the main dangers and develop effective countermeasures.
There is also the joint measure of 29 June 1998 establishing a mechanism for collective evaluation of the transposition, application and effective implementation by the applicant countries of the acquis communautaire in the field of justice and home affairs.
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Recognising that it is not enough to pass laws and ratify agreements, but that the new legislation concerned also has to be applied by appropriately equipped and trained forces in sufficient numbers, the Council has set up a special group.
This is of course a well-known problem: it is not just about having the legislation itself, it is also about how it is enforced.
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The remit of the joint evaluation working party is to prepare and subsequently update, by analysing all available information, a collective evaluation of the situation in the applicant countries regarding the transposition, application and effective implementation of the acquis communautaire in the field of justice and home affairs, working in close cooperation with the K.4 Committee.
The Justice and Home Affairs Council receives regular reports on this.
This ensures that in particularly sensitive areas such as checks at external borders or the fight against organised crime, experts can monitor whether the standards flowing from the European Union or Schengen acquis are being achieved, and where there may still be room for improvement.
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Relations with third countries are particularly important in the field of justice and home affairs.
During the year the existing cooperation under the TREVI system was systematically extended and now includes the USA and Canada, the Mediterranean countries participating under Euromed, countries such as Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, Turkey, Morocco, Russia and Ukraine, while in special cases such as the fight against drugs it also extends to the countries of Latin America and central Asia.
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I now come to the second part of my report, on Schengen cooperation, and I would like to start with some fundamental comments.
Schengen cooperation consists of a balanced system of measures which guarantees freedom of movement in the Schengen area and at the same time reduces the security risks inherent in ending controls at internal borders.
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Over the period of almost four years during which this system has been applied in practice, it has largely proved its worth.
We must therefore continue to pursue its underlying concept of freedom of movement combined with security.
As Mrs Van Lancker has already commented, the development of Schengen cooperation has reached an important turning point.
The entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam means that Schengen will be integrated into the European Union.
The required legal and institutional preparatory work is already under way.
We must now push ahead with this work at full speed, so as to complete it, if at all possible, by the time the Treaty of Amsterdam comes into force.
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Germany has always firmly supported this objective and will ensure that the necessary effort continues under its EU presidency in the first half of 1999.
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The fact that we have already agreed that Germany will continue to hold the Schengen presidency in the first half of the coming year will assist the integration process.
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Now let me say a few words about defining the Schengen acquis .
For Schengen to be successfully incorporated into the EU, we will have a lot of homework to do on the EU side.
First and foremost, this means defining exactly what the Schengen acquis consists of.
Mrs Van Lancker talked about nebulous structures, and we certainly want to help to disperse this fog.
For reasons of legal certainty and clarity, the states already applying the acquis , the states that will have to adopt it on accession to the EU, and above all our citizens themselves need to know precisely which Schengen provisions will continue to apply and which will not.
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One of the tasks still to be accomplished is dividing the Schengen acquis between the legal bases of the Treaty establishing the European Community and the Treaty on European Union.
Current thinking and future strategy can be summed up as follows: because of fundamental differences between Member States at expert level, it has not yet been possible to find conclusive answers in either area, I have to admit.
It may well be necessary to sort this out at political level.
If it really proves impossible to reach agreement on this, we would have to resort to the Schengen Protocol safeguard clause, which fictionally deems that Schengen is entirely based on the third pillar.
Mrs Van Lancker, I know that you do not approve of that, and for the time being we will have to make every effort to reach agreement, but that would be the consequence.
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Negotiations with Norway and Iceland, which I am pleased to say have already made great progress, are to be finalised by means of an association agreement.
Germany has already sought to achieve the most efficient possible means of linking these states with the Schengen cooperation, and that remains our approach.
The planned cooperation structure is a good way to take account of these Nordic states' legitimate interest in participating in the process.
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My next subject is EU enlargement. Schengen faces another significant challenge because of the Central and Eastern European countries' accession to the Union.
The Schengen states will have to be prepared for the fact that in future all states joining the EU will automatically become members of the Schengen cooperation under the EU umbrella.
The transition protocol commits them to adopting the acquis in its entirety.
I must stress that it will not be possible to allow any departures from this principle during the accession negotiations.
Schengen's carefully balanced association of freedom of movement and security will only carry on working if it requires the same of all Member States.
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We also need to ensure that it will only be possible for a state to take part in this association in future if it can demonstrate that it fully complies with the necessary requirements.
To this end, the instrument concerning the entry into force of the Schengen regulations for any given state must at all costs be complied with.
We also still have a special problem with one country in the south.
We need to actively support new EU members preparing to adopt the Schengen standards.
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To conclude, I would like to say just a few words about the focal points of the German Schengen presidency in the first half of 1999.
This presidency has set itself the objective of further reinforcing cooperation in the Schengen states by means of a number of initiatives.
In doing this, we are continuing where the German Schengen work programme for the second half of 1998 left off.
The focal points are to be the following: improving police mutual assistance in criminal matters by adopting a catalogue of criminal investigations compulsory for all Schengen states, which the police can apply for and deal with without involving the judicial authorities, as a means of speeding things up, but without any loss of legal sovereignty; mutual posting of liaison officers involved in border police work to Schengen external borders to give advice and support; establishing the interoperability of various police digital communication systems in internal border areas; reviewing Germany's implementation of the Schengen Implementation Agreement, which means that we are subjecting ourselves to the first review, which I think is a good thing in itself; and improvement in the exchange of visa information and the introduction of an exit document.
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<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="Däubler-Gmelin">
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to thank you for this opportunity to discuss this interesting subject with you here today, a subject of great importance to the citizens of the Member States of the European Union.
I welcome the fact that we are not just discussing these issues today alone.
Continuing the theme already embarked upon by Mr Schily, we are at an interesting point in time.
As you, Mr Nassauer, pointed out, we are today in the unusual situation of not only having to report on the events and progress of the last year, that is on the achievements of the British and Austrian Presidencies. We also have to give you a short overview of the German Presidency's plans for the next six months.
It is good that today is not the only chance to do this, and I am delighted that we shall have an opportunity to continue this discussion about our plans and the problems informing our decisions over the coming week in the relevant committees of this House.
For that reason, I hope you will forgive me if I limit my presentation here to a few significant points.
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Mr Nassauer, I would like to start with a few general comments about relations between the Council and the European Parliament.
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I am very much in sympathy with your suggestions. We must certainly heed your comments about democratic control in areas which we have always traditionally felt - and I am sure rightly so - are subject to the law-making process.
I have read the passages in the motion for a resolution to be debated today with great interest.
You can rest assured that we will do what we can, within the bounds of the Treaty, to further enhance relations between the Council and Parliament.
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Looking back over the events of the past year, in the areas on which I have to report today, of course, it is fair to say that on the whole relations between the Council and the European Parliament have been fruitful and positive.
Both the British and the Austrian Presidencies had an opportunity to present their work programme for the next six months to you and to discuss it with you.
Depending on the area of competence, these work programmes were explained in detail and discussed with the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs or in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
There was also an exchange of views between the presidency and Members of Parliament on aspects of mutual interest in the fields of justice and home affairs.
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I think we can safely say, Mr Nassauer, that there was accordingly a chance to discuss issues before they were considered at formal or informal meetings of the Council.
We thus ensured that the views of the European Parliament had some impact at those meetings.
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It was also a useful exercise for the Presidents-in-Office to give a detailed report to Parliament's committees at the end of each half year on the work done by the Council during the period under review.
We will continue that practice.
Furthermore, the presidency also continued the practice established by the Luxembourg Presidency in the second half of 1997 of consulting the European Parliament in accordance with the Treaty of Amsterdam.
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We should carry on doing that. It has been another way - a successful one to my mind - in which we have tried to take account of the views of the European Parliament.
And in each case the presidency has conveyed Parliament's views to the relevant Council body.
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I would like to add that in December 1998 the Council consulted the European Parliament on a project which has a very special role to play, namely an action plan for the establishment of an area of freedom, security and justice, which your resolution also touches upon, albeit from a particular point of view.
This action plan is intended to point the way ahead and broadly determine how we proceed in future, in the first five years - you yourself, Mr Nassauer, said five years plus x - after the Treaty of Amsterdam has come into force.
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Let me say this again: you can rest assured that the German Presidency attaches great importance to improving relations between the Council and the European Parliament still further.
We think it was very positive that throughout the year the European Parliament demonstrated considerable interest in work in this field.
The Council received more than 100 questions, which I think is proof enough.
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Lastly, I would like to talk about the conclusions of the Council of 19 March last year.
These conclusions related to openness and transparency in the Council's activities in the field of Title VI of the Treaty on the European Union, providing a wider range of information on the activity of the Council and reinforcing its external impact.
Some of this relates to matters we have already discussed and some of it to your own proposals: making the calendar of meetings available to the public, publishing Council decisions on the Internet, and having public debates in the Council.
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I shall now turn to my second point.
What progress was made on judicial cooperation last year under the British and Austrian Presidencies?
The first point I should mention is judicial cooperation on civil matters.
I say that simply because we know very well that this is of special interest to Europe's citizens.
A key event in the field of judicial cooperation on civil matters was the adoption by the Council of the Brussels II Convention on jurisdiction, recognition and enforcement of judgments in matrimonial matters, and the signing of this convention by the Member States.
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As you know, this convention is of great interest to Europe's citizens.
It stipulates in which Member State a divorce, legal separation or marriage annulment can be applied for, and also determines which Member State is responsible for making a judgment on parental authority for children of binational marriages when a divorce, separation or marriage annulment has been applied for.
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I do not have to tell you that for binational marriages in particular, divorces involve many problems.
By virtue of this convention, we can endeavour to create a reasonable framework for legal and judicial processes and practice.
But it is of course almost impossible to legislate for the human aspect of the problems associated with this, and I think we will have to explore other options in this case.
I believe that the Members of this House also have a part to play in helping with this aspect of regulation and practice.
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But let me return to the convention itself. As soon as the courts of a Member State have made a judgment, it can then be recognised and enforced in other Member States by means of a quick, simple and inexpensive procedure.
It is also important to note that in connection with this convention the Council adopted a legal instrument simultaneously signed by the Member States concerning the interpretation of the convention by the European Court of Justice.
This legal instrument is not only important as a means of taking matters further forward, but also in that it highlights the importance of the European Court of Justice.
I believe that emphasising the significance of the European Court of Justice in this way is important as a means of furthering the concept of judicial control and thus also of constitutionality in the European Union, in exactly the same way as in all the Member States.
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Important work on judicial cooperation in the field of civil law was launched in relation to revising the Brussels I and Lugano Conventions.
This too was a very positive development.
The Brussels Convention of 27 September 1968 lays down uniform rules for the Member States on international jurisdiction, lis pendens conditions, recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters.
The Lugano Convention of 16 September 1988 is similarly structured but, as you know, there are differences of detail.
The signatories to the Lugano Convention are, in addition to the EU Member States, the EFTA states of Switzerland, Norway and Iceland.
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The German Presidency plans to revise these conventions over the next six months.
The objective of the discussions is to bring these two conventions more closely into line with each other, to make improvements on the basis of experience of legal practice and in particular to further simplify the mutual recognition and enforcement of judgments.
We particularly want to keep an eye on the simplification side.
So the aim of these negotiations is to achieve an important step towards establishing the area of freedom, security and justice which the Member States want to create together.
We hope to complete this during the German Presidency.
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In July 1998, a Council working party met to consider the requirements for creating a legal instrument on the law applicable to non-contractual obligations.
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This is known as the Rome II project, and it builds on Rome I, the agreement between the EU Member States of 19 June 1980 on the law applicable to contractual obligations.
The working party achieved a positive interim result and is now to produce a draft on the basis of a working document prepared by the Austrian Presidency.
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I shall now turn to judicial cooperation in the field of criminal law, which Mrs Van Lancker also touched upon.

First, I would like to mention the importance in practical terms of the Convention on driving disqualification, another subject with a very immediate impact on people in the Member States of the European Union. I have to tell you that in Germany too people are constantly asking questions and expressing their fears about this convention, although it is also widely praised.
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The convention adopted by the Council on 16 June 1998 provides that judgments no longer subject to the right of appeal may in certain circumstances be enforced in a Member State other than the state of residence.
This therefore makes a valuable contribution to road safety and simultaneously, by tackling such a practical subject, helps to create a common legal area of which our citizens are directly aware.
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There is another field in which I unfortunately cannot report the same degree of progress.
I am talking about improving mutual assistance in criminal matters.
Despite the extraordinarily commendable and persistent efforts of the Austrian Presidency in particular - which I would like to emphasise - there has been far less progress in this field, the reason being the different systems that exist in the Member States.
Another reason is the various expectations people have of the European Union in this field, and I think that in this case all the European institutions, and above all the European Parliament, have a duty not only to generate greater appreciation of the issue, but also to take supportive action so as to facilitate effective international negotiations.
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To do this it is necessary to improve the existing instruments of international mutual assistance in criminal matters and to adapt them to the requirements of modern international law enforcement.
This particularly applies, as we all know, to modern international communications technology, such as satellite communications.
The German Presidency plans to work towards adoption of the Agreement on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters as quickly as possible, preferably within the six months of our presidency.
There is a considerable body of earlier work for us to build on.
In particular, there is already a consensus about simplified procedures for passing on requests for mutual assistance, and also on rules governing modern methods of passing requests across borders - the key words here being controlled deliveries and undercover agents - as well as questioning via video-conferencing.
However, I am sure that I do not need to tell you again that there are still many problems to be solved.
We may perhaps have a chance to tell the relevant committees more about this next week.
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In the field of combating fraud and corruption, by adopting the joint measure on corruption in the private sector in December 1998 we have managed to create a new basis for combating corruption in business in the common market under criminal law.
I have no doubt that this too is a very important step forward that should be brought to the public's attention in an appropriate way.
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Let me now turn to the fight against organised crime. Just before the Treaty of Amsterdam was signed the European Council instructed a high-level group on organised crime to work out an action plan to develop a comprehensive approach to this task.
This has enabled the various parties involved - the police, judicial and customs authorities - to work together in a multidisciplinary team, initially for a limited period, to combat the scourge of organised crime. This is in marked contrast to the artificial barriers which previously separated them.
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I would once again like to stress that the Council very much appreciates the important contribution made by the European Parliament to the Multidisciplinary Group on Organised Crime.
I particularly have in mind Ms Cederschiöld's report on the action plan.
This report was - and still is - one of the cornerstones of the Group's work. For example, the resolution adopted by the Council on 21 December 1998 on the prevention of organised crime goes back to an initiative inspired by the debate in the European Parliament.
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Substantial progress has been made in implementing the action plan, and this was set out in detail in the report to the Vienna European Council.
I would like to draw special attention to the launch of the European Judicial Network and the adoption of a joint measure on money laundering, the identification, tracing, freezing, seizing and confiscation of the instruments used in and the proceeds from crime, and the adoption of a joint measure under which the legislation of all the Member States will make it a criminal offence for any person on their territory to participate in a criminal organisation, regardless of where it is located or pursues its criminal activities.
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As you know, the deadline for implementing the recommendations in the action plan is the end of 1999.
The Council will then have to reach a decision on the follow-up to this work and on how it links up with the new action plan on the establishment of an area of freedom, security and justice.
I am sure I do not need to tell you that this decision will be a rather important one.
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I would now like to say a few words about the action plan on the establishment of an area of freedom, security and justice.
The process of drawing up this new action plan was the focal point of the Council's work in the second half of 1998, making it the centre-piece of the Austrian Presidency.
As you know, the Cardiff European Council called upon the Council and the Commission to present proposals to the Vienna European Council on the best means of implementing the provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam concerning an area of freedom, security and justice.
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A document was presented to the Vienna Summit in which an attempt was made to pinpoint the changes and progressive innovations contained in the Treaty of Amsterdam, or in other words its added value, and to draw up a work programme for the next two to five years.
The Vienna European Council approved the action plan and stated that it would give the field of justice and home affairs a new dimension after the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, thus creating a concrete framework for developing activity in this field.
I think it is right to draw attention to this.
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At the same time, the European Council decided that progress to date should be assessed at the Special Justice and Home Affairs European Council to be held in Tampere in October 1999 and that that meeting should set further guidelines for EU action in the field of justice and home affairs.
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This is an important task and the opinion sought from Parliament by the Austrian Presidency in mid-December will be accorded its full weight.
I can certainly assure you that the German Presidency, which will be making the initial preparations for Tampere, will ensure that the European Parliament's opinion is fully taken on board.
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I am convinced that the Tampere Special Council will give us an opportunity to make significant further progress with discussions in this field and I hope that the German Presidency can count on the continuing support of the European Parliament in achieving this objective.
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I would like to mention once again that we are at the interface of two interesting phases.
The European Parliament elections are about to take place, and it will be important to enter into a dialogue with our citizens about the progress we have made and the potential of a European legal area and common security area.
The entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam makes this a time of radical change, and this will have a special impact in our area.
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We should all be aware that a key factor in driving Europe as a whole forward is the enormous interest shown by Europe's citizens in the common legal area - which will mean additional and common rights for all - and also in the common European security area.
So the challenge we face is to act jointly and to use our knowledge and ability to the full to find ways of bringing Europe as a whole closer to a social and democratic constitutional identity.
I think that is your objective, and it is also the objective of the German Presidency.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="Gradin">
Mr President, Ministers, ladies and gentlemen, EU cooperation in the fields of justice and home affairs is now entering its sixth year.
This area has gradually taken on greater significance, as Mr Nassauer also notes in his report.
At the same time, the need for a new approach has become increasingly evident.
Through the Amsterdam Treaty we have set ourselves a more ambitious task: to establish progressively an area of freedom, security and justice.
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One of my major goals last year was to give substance and intelligibility to this vision in the communication which I forwarded to the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament.
Previous experience shows just how important this is.
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Four years have now elapsed since, as Commissioner, I began work on cooperation in justice and home affairs, and a clear pattern has now emerged.
Underlying the initiatives, there are common challenges and a genuine desire for a European solution that works.
In most cases, there is strong popular support for the ideas behind the proposals, but when it comes to implementing them there is real resistance.
This point is well illustrated in Mr Nassauer's report where he lists the numerous issues which the Council of Ministers has not managed to resolve during the past year, partly due to the length of time that proposals have had to wait for a decision, and partly because, for various reasons, the decisions have not been implemented.
Of all the conventions dealt with during the past five years, only one - the Europol Convention - has entered into force.
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It is not just in the Council that progress has been slow. Parliament has also sometimes found it difficult to reach agreement on a common strategy.
There is therefore also a need for a far-reaching debate here in Parliament.
What is required is a new impetus to speed up the cooperation process.
I hope that during the spring we can have a broad public debate on the direction that EU cooperation on justice and home affairs will take in the future.
There are a number of basic issues to be analysed here.
We must look for answers in the everyday reality in which the citizens of Europe live.
I therefore wholeheartedly support Parliament's idea that we should try to arrange an interparliamentary conference next spring.
Such a meeting would be the perfect forum in which to launch a broad public debate on the Union's priorities in the future.
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Mr Nassauer notes in his report that not one single legislative instrument was approved in this field during 1998.
I too had hoped that we would make more progress.
This applies in particular to the proposal concerning temporary shelter where there has been a mass influx of refugees.
Two years have elapsed since the issue was first raised in the Council of Ministers, and I have put forward concrete draft proposals on two separate occasions.
I have also prepared a model for joint action in burden sharing.
With so much preparatory work, more should really have been accomplished, and I would like to say that I am open to any kind of suggestions.
At the same time, I naturally expect help from the Member States in finding a constructive alternative solution.
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Last year we had a major success with the Europol Convention.
It gives us more scope for action in the fight against organised crime.
This year we have to finalise our work on the plan of action for fighting organised crime.
The Commission will also be playing an active role in this task.
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We are also in the process of updating the Union's action plan on drugs.
As you know, the current plan runs for another year, and the Commission will be putting forward another five-year plan in the spring.
This work took on new momentum following the special session on drugs organised last year by the United Nations in New York.
While I was there, in the company of Members of the European Parliament, I noted that the work of the UN in this area would continue to be characterised by continuity and resolve.
I also welcome the resolution giving clear support to the UN Drugs Convention, which Parliament approved in October.
This ensures that for a long time to come, the policy on drugs will continue to build on past knowledge and experience.
<P>
Another important priority last year was enlargement.
A number of applicant countries are involved in the process.
Intensive negotiations are in progress with all of them, particularly in the field of justice and home affairs.
It is incumbent upon the Commission to give them as much help as possible, particularly through technical assistance.
The PHARE programme is an important tool in this respect, as is the education and exchange programme.
<P>
On behalf of my colleague Mr Monti, I should like to say a few words about Schengen.
To a large extent, the Commission agrees with the analysis prepared by the rapporteur, Mrs Van Lancker, and her recommendations concerning the integration of the Schengen acquis .
First of all, it is essential that Schengen should be integrated into the Union and not the other way round; secondly, integration should really serve to bring about the increased openness and legal control that is envisaged; and thirdly, the integration of Schengen should not hinder any future progress as laid down in the Amsterdam Treaty.
The Schengen Protocol clearly stipulates a line of communication between the first and third pillars.
If we cannot reach agreement, then the whole Schengen system would be deemed to be based on the third pillar instead of being integrated within the Union framework.
I think this would go against the spirit of the new Treaty and is therefore totally unacceptable.
The Commission will do everything in its power to finalise the work on this line of communication before the new Treaty enters into force.
Naturally, Parliament should be as fully involved as possible in the preliminary work.
In the coming weeks, the Commission is definitely not going to change its stance on this in any future contacts with the German Presidency.
We intend to work with the presidency to find the most effective way possible of organising our work with Parliament.
I am sure the House will be pleased to know that the negotiations with Norway and Iceland have now been concluded.
<P>
In the Amsterdam Treaty, justice and home affairs are upgraded.
The new Treaty opens the door to a number of fresh areas for action by the Commission.
I see new challenges ahead, above all in the area of justice.
The demands of our citizens for equal access to justice know no boundaries.
An integrated Europe where people move around freely both implies, as well as strengthens, a common sense of justice.
This is something we should welcome and encourage.
Terrorism, bribery, corruption, fraud and the sexual exploitation of women and children are just a few examples of crimes which arouse disgust throughout the Union.
The Treaty provides access to new and interesting initiatives, for example in relation to the right to punish.
<P>
Another area we began to investigate in 1998 was the Union's role with regard to victims of crime.
What can we do to protect people who are exposed to violence and other forms of criminal behaviour when they are in another Member State?
I intend, during the course of the year, to issue a communication describing what progress can also be made in this area through European cooperation.
<P>
As regards the enslavement of women and the sexual exploitation of children, over a period of several years we have only succeeded in raising the issue to its present level.
We have come up with a framework for a common strategy and put forward concrete proposals and measures.
Through the STOP programme, we have also succeeded in earmarking financial support for these activities.
Consequently, in the communication on the smuggling of women which I issued last month, I identify other areas where further measures are needed, such as temporary residence permits for women who would like to stay to give evidence against smugglers and pimps.
<P>
Last year, we also put forward a proposal for a programme of work known as Daphne, to be carried out over a number of years, with the aim of combating the abuse of women, teenagers and children.
I am especially pleased with this programme.
As you know, it is directed at the voluntary organisations with the aim of encouraging them to use their expertise in this area.
<P>
An important aspect of our work is increasing people's awareness of how Europe functions in practical terms in the fields of justice and home affairs.
In this way we can build respect for, and understanding of, the differences that exist, and develop an interest in finding solutions to the problems that arise.
To my mind, it is the best form of confidence building.
During 1998, we therefore devoted a great deal of time to the ongoing programmes of work we have begun.
Through them we have been able, over the past two years, to support hundreds of awareness-raising and confidence-building projects within the Union and around Europe.
I shall shortly be proposing that this work programme should be extended to cover the new democracies in Central and Eastern Europe.
They already participate in numerous projects, but now they should also be initiating their own.
<P>
Cooperation in justice and home affairs obviously has a place on today's EU agenda.
The decision to hold a special top-level meeting in Tammerfors later in the year is proof of this.
At the same time, support for cooperation should be deeply rooted.
An essential condition for establishing an area of freedom, security and justice is that our work should have strong popular support.
We must therefore commit ourselves to initiating a lively and sustained dialogue between the EU and its citizens.
<P>
I have a particular answer for Mr Nassauer.
<P>
Twenty-one proposals for conventions, joint actions and other instruments have been discussed in the Justice and Home Affairs Council during 1998.
Ten of these proposals were based on Commission initiatives.
The Member States presented 11 proposals.
The Commission has systematically sent copies of all its initiatives to Parliament at the same moment they were sent to the Council.
It has also always urged the presidency to consult Parliament in accordance with Article K.6 EU.
This includes both Commission initiatives and proposals submitted by the Member States.
Five Commission initiatives have not yet been finalised.
They are: joint action on temporary protection, joint action on burden sharing, the convention on admission, the joint action on support of reception, repatriation of displaced persons and asylum seekers and, finally, the initiative to revise the Brussels Convention.
<P>
The joint action on non-cash means of payment was presented late in the year so its finalisation could not reasonably be accepted before the end of 1998.
In many cases the reason for non-progress is the profound divergence of opinion between the Member States.
A good example is the actions on temporary protection and on burden sharing.
In the latter case the Commission, together with the German presidency, will attempt to find compromise solutions to the issues at stake.
On the basis of the content that is agreed, the Commission will then present post-Amsterdam proposals in the form of a Community instrument.
<P>
As a supplement to my answer, we have also produced a detailed table of initiatives taken within the field of justice and home affairs during 1998.
I have handed over this table to the chairman of the committee, Mrs d'Ancona, and I also gave it to Mr Nassauer before he left the hemicycle.
Others who might be interested can also look at this table. It makes it easier to see who has done what.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="Elliott">
Mr President, on a point of order.
You mentioned that we are under great time pressure.
This is partly occasioned by the fact that the statements by the two German Ministers took up some 50 minutes.
I am not complaining because what they said contained some fascinating, important and valuable information.
I wonder if it might be possible, exceptionally in this case, to have their statements translated into the official languages promptly.
I know this happens in the normal course of events but it can take up to a year.
It is such important information that it would be very valuable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Elliott.
I think that can be done through the committee or by other means.
I can also see that the ministers are nodding, so that should be possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="d'Ancona">
Mr President, I really have very little speaking time, and I have to say that in comparison with the time given to the Council and the Commission, Parliament's time is extremely limited.
I shall therefore confine myself to a few comments on what Mrs Däubler said about relations between the Council and Parliament.
<P>
First of all, it is a major step forward that the Amsterdam Treaty now requires us to be consulted about relevant issues.
It does not always happen, unfortunately, but nevertheless a good many proposals are put to us.
However, we are often given very little time to deliver our opinion, and the Council always seems to be in a hurry as well, so that it often scarcely has time to look at Parliament's opinion in detail.
<P>
My first question, therefore, is this: would it not be a good idea to organise a meeting shortly before the Council so that our rapporteur can inform the ministers?
This would be a good way of ensuring that the best use is made of our work.
For example, we will finish work on the action plan in mid-April, so it would make sense if we were given time then to explain our position.
<P>
Secondly, following on from this, we never actually hear what happens to our opinions.
I have just been told here that our recommendation on the action plan on organised crime was very useful, but it has taken until now for us to hear this.
It would therefore be useful, in addition to sending a representative to the Council meetings, if the Council could send us a written report on which parts of our opinions it is prepared to accept and which not.
<P>
Thirdly - I cannot go any faster or put my points any more briefly - as far as our committee is concerned the K.6 debate is extremely important.
We have asked on five occasions for an annual progress report on the third pillar, so we were absolutely delighted to read that the Council had decided on 19 March last year to send Parliament progress reports not just once but twice a year.
But nothing has happened - we have not actually seen one of these reports yet.
So I hope that the Council intends to keep its promise and that we will receive these reports in future under the new presidency, which I naturally wish every success.
<P>
Once again, I hope that we will receive replies to these three questions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Chanterie">
Mr President, I should like first of all to apologise to the President-in-Office of the Council for the fact that so few members of my group are here - an important vote is currently being taken in the group on an issue that is one of the next on the agenda.
However, I shall try to make my group's position on the Van Lancker report clear.
I should also like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Van Lancker, on the way in which she got us all to work together on this report, which had to be prepared under very difficult circumstances given the extremely short time it was before the committee.
<P>
We have been given a very comprehensive picture by the presidency this morning, for which I would thank the ministers concerned.
The presidency has clearly described the work which has to be done to integrate the Schengen Agreement into the EU Treaty.
There is an important point in the document from the German Presidency to which I would to draw your attention, where it talks about the Schengen system being founded on two pillars: the free movement of persons and security.
It says that the abolition of individual controls at the internal borders of the Schengen states is based on the assumption that the planned compensatory measures are genuinely effective.
I think that this is an important principle and one which my group wholeheartedly supports, because a number of Member States have attempted to use Schengen to introduce freedom of movement.
We must also not forget security considerations.
I think that internal security is an extremely important issue for the public, and that people want to have both freedom and security at the same time.
<P>
What we need to do now is to ensure that the fairly complicated transition from inter-state cooperation to cross-border policy measures should happen as smoothly and flexibly as possible.
With the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty, and this was another point made at the European Council in Vienna, Schengen must be incorporated into the European Union as quickly as possible.
The minister referred to the problems that are still being encountered, although these have not really been identified - the choice of legal bases for the Schengen acquis , perhaps?
I know that this is a fairly complicated subject.
Perhaps we could be given more detailed information, maybe in writing, on this and on the operation of the Schengen information system.
The PPE Group feels that the system must not become a 'big brother', but on the other hand it must not be a little system either.
In other words, data must be recorded accurately and carefully in the system and only the competent authorities must have access to it.
We must prevent any infringement of privacy, and we must prevent those responsible for international organised crime from having access to information that encourages the white slave trade or the trade in foreigners.
These are two of the biggest phenomena that we are facing and for which the international community, whether under the Treaty or the Schengen Agreement, has really not found an answer. I think, Minister, that we must give our fullest support to further efforts in this direction.
I have no more time to deal with any other points.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Goerens">
Mr President, I am sure you are aware that our thoughts are elsewhere at the moment, which is a great shame given the importance that should be attached to this debate.
<P>
I will therefore only say a few words in support of the approach proposed by Mrs Van Lancker.
The Liberal Group as a whole is in favour of her proposals and, once again, we join her in deploring the difficulties that the Member States are having in coming to an agreement on the definition of the Schengen acquis .
It would be unfortunate if these difficulties could not be overcome in such a sensitive field as the movement of persons.
It goes without saying that the European Parliament must be informed of the substance of Schengen and consulted on the draft decision that will allow the acquis to be integrated into the Treaty.
<P>
I welcome the presence here today of the German ministers who are assuming the Council presidency, and I would like to say to them that they will always be able to count on the Liberal Group whenever the rights of the defendant are at stake.
It is a matter that we feel is fundamental, and I welcome the initiatives that you announced in this field.
<P>
Although we should be pleased about the extension of the Schengen area, the common European approach means that the United Kingdom and Ireland need to join their partners as soon as possible so that the same rules can be applied to the movement of persons as to the movement of goods.
The timid approach that is the root of many obstacles in the field of free movement of persons must give way to a wider vision that focuses on the requirements of the vast area of freedom, security and justice to which a great majority of us aspire.
<P>
I will conclude by saying that through her sound proposals, Mrs Van Lancker is making a significant contribution towards achieving this great plan, and we will be sure to demonstrate the support that I have just outlined when it comes to the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Schaffner">
Mr President, the dual German Presidency for the next six months of both the European Union and the Schengen area gives weight to the recommendation to the Council from the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, presented by our colleague Mrs Van Lancker.
<P>
While the objective of Schengen cooperation is to ensure the free movement of persons and to remove internal border controls, that objective only has meaning if the necessary accompanying measures are put in place at the same time.
<P>
In Mrs Van Lancker's report, one senses an element of reproach, considering as it does that the main emphasis has been placed on strengthening external border controls, on admission policy and on police and judicial cooperation.
While these measures are not the primary objective of the Schengen agreements, they are an essential consequence of it, in order to guarantee the greatest possible security for the citizens of the Union and to ensure that they support the system.
<P>
With regard to the integration of Schengen into the Treaty and the division of the acquis between the first and third pillars, my group cannot share her view on the institutional catastrophe that would result from the application of the safeguard clause, which would mean a complete transfer to the third pillar.
This would be even less the case if the Council, as requested by the recommendation, informed Parliament by involving it both in defining the strategies and also in the legislative measures to be taken under the third pillar, and if it respected the transparency rules, certainly with regard to the European Parliament but also with regard to the national parliaments and the citizens.
<P>
My group welcomes the proposal to make a start now on converting the Schengen Information System into a European Information System by strengthening links with the Europol data processing systems.
This would allow the involvement, at least in this area, of the United Kingdom and Ireland, who are signatories of the Europol convention and, for obvious geographical reasons, are outside the Schengen area.
<P>
On behalf of my group, I of course welcome the German Presidency's objective of improving international cooperation in criminal affairs as well as the decision of the Member States to harmonise their visa policies and to introduce without delay a computerised format for residence permits for third-country nationals.
<P>
With regard to assessing the operation of Schengen, we also welcome the progress that has been made, in particular in the accession of Italy and Austria, and we agree that it is important to encourage the involvement of the United Kingdom and Ireland in the areas covered by Title IV of the Treaty.
I cannot, of course, agree with the regrets expressed concerning France's use of the exemption mechanism provided for in Article 2(2) of the Convention in respect of its land borders with Belgium and Luxembourg.
I prefer, and I have tabled an amendment to this effect, to place emphasis on continuing the efforts being made by those countries to combat drug trafficking.
<P>
The rapporteur also highlights an incident which occurred at the Belgian Sirene office, where personal data was stolen.
She questions the reliability of the database protection system, and I wonder whether the problem lies with Belgium rather than with the Sirene network.
Overall, apart from these various points, we will vote for these two reports.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Mohamed Alí">
Mr President, in this annual debate on the progress made on cooperation in the areas of justice and home affairs and, more specifically, the Schengen area, I would like to highlight certain aspects that prove that a great deal still remains to be done before we can talk about a true area of democratic justice that is subject to the supervision of Parliament and the jurisdictional bodies.
<P>
As the speaker before me, Mrs d'Ancona, pointed out, it is vital for the Council to comply once and for all with the provisions of the Treaty and to inform Parliament regularly of the preparations for and results of its discussions and official meetings.
Without such information, it is impossible to have any sort of adequate democratic supervision.
<P>
It is significant that at this stage we have not adopted any legislation relating to our policy on asylum, refugees and immigration. This demonstrates the lack of political will among the governments and European institutions to give decisive, serious and, above all, consistent consideration to these matters.
<P>
In this Schengen area that is being created, there should be a clause making it possible to implement common policies on the socio-cultural integration of immigrants, avoiding any discrimination against people or groups due to race, colour or religion or due to national, social or ethnic orientation.
The Schengen responsibilities must be incorporated into the Union's policies, as provided for in the Treaty of Amsterdam, but they must also be subject to the supervision of its institutions in order to ensure that they do not turn into an instrument for resisting immigration.
Integration is essential, yet we must also unequivocally guarantee respect for the fundamental rights of the citizens of the European Union and third country nationals.
The same can be said for the transparency and democratic supervision of the decision-making procedure.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, I would like to mention a specific problem, but one that is no less important in the creation of this Schengen area of freedom and justice: the protection of personal data, which must be guaranteed without exception in any democratic society.
The incident in the Belgian SIRENE office, where personal data were removed, is proof of the lack of sufficient protection for databases and the need to take clear measures to guarantee effective protection in this respect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ceyhun">
Mr President, my group cannot support Mr Nassauer's motion for a resolution.
We cannot accept the wording on Europol and on asylum and migration policy.
We are not opposed to Europol, quite the contrary, we are in favour of Europol and citizens' rights.
What is at stake is the legality of the work done by officials in the EU who are supposed to be dealing with citizens' security.
It seems that there is agreement on police cooperation, and on setting up Europol, but they are being denied the legal bases required for their work, in other words democratic legal bases guaranteed in the Member States.
We find that unacceptable.
<P>
The police need generally applicable laws in order to operate properly.
But that was not the subject of the decision - it was about the immunity of Europol officials.
Who are we protecting against whom?
We are protecting our officials against our own democratic laws and courts, but we are not protecting anyone else.
<P>
I am sorry that Mr Nassauer is not with us now. He welcomed the Austrian Presidency's failed initiative against illegal immigration.
The fact that he also welcomes the campaign in my home Land of Hessen against dual nationality is his problem.
I would like to ask him if we agree on the definition of illegal immigration.
What does illegal mean in the EU?
Does it include people recognised as refugees in one Member State but rejected in another because it has different asylum laws?
There is indeed illegal immigration, from eastern Europe for example.
We are not defending the idea of open borders, and we are prepared to accept reasonable regulations and harmonisation.
However, this must not mean that human rights suffer as a consequence.
<P>
I am grateful for the current Council presidency's suggestion that we need a new summit, as explained by Mr Fischer, the German Minister for Foreign Affairs, and I hope that the German Presidency will succeed in making certain changes in this area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pradier">

Mr President, I would first like to thank Mr Schily, Mrs Däubler-Gmelin and the Commissioner for what they have said, as I really think that in them we may have a joining of forces which will enable us to progress more quickly than we have up until now, and this is probably a good sign for the future.
The goal of the operation is still to set up this area of freedom, security and justice, and this is worth repeating, insofar as nowadays more importance is attached to increasing the number of bolts, fortifications, barbed wire and protective walls than to explaining to citizens the measures to be taken and the point of a Europe without borders, this Europe that is behaving more like a club for rich people who intend to continue to increase their wealth.
<P>
I do not know if you have been curious enough to take the train between Brussels and Strasbourg.
Well, between Brussels and Strasbourg, perhaps not exactly at the border crossing but a few kilometres either side, passengers are subjected to controls in which they are asked their nationality, their profession and the reason for their journey, and all with a degree of courtesy that is inversely proportional to the presumed importance of the traveller.
We have tabled two amendments in order to condemn and put an end to the French Government's attitude, as it continues to demand the application of exemption clauses.
The controls that are currently carried out at European internal borders should be able to end.
I would like to draw your attention to this point.
<P>
Secondly, with regard to the report presented by Mr Nassauer, this text will of course receive at least our qualified support.
We naturally welcome the progress made in 1998, although we know that despite everything this progress was made at a snail's pace rather than the fast pace we would have liked.
Commissioner Gradin drew attention to the fact that we were perhaps simply not very fast.
Nevertheless, I think that we must radically increase our speed.
<P>
In any case, Mr Nassauer must be supported in his demand that Parliament should be listened to and heard, and that its decisions and positions should be taken into account by the Council.
There are, of course, initiatives to be taken, but first of all it is enough to apply the clauses of the Treaty and to implement them effectively.
That would already be a significant step.
There are still two small points on which I would have reservations or disagreements, or which I would at least like to have clarified before the report is adopted, as they concern me slightly: one is the central fingerprints file and the other is the status and the monitoring of Interpol staff.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Buffetaut">
Mr President, in its day, the Schengen Agreement caused a stir in France because, having been negotiated in the utmost discretion, it was disclosed to our citizens somewhat inadvertently, proving once again that Europe and transparency do not go well together.
One of the fundamental elements of the Agreement is of course the gradual removal of border controls among the signatory states, and experience has shown that implementing the Schengen Agreement is a delicate and difficult matter. Indeed, this is why France was obliged to apply exemption mechanisms.
<P>
If the implementation of Schengen was difficult, then integrating it into the legal corpus of the European Union appears to be just as difficult.
The Member States are unable to agree on the definition of what, in Eurospeak, we call the Schengen acquis , nor can they agree on the division between the first and third pillars.
The easy solution would otherwise be to place everything under the third pillar.
<P>
In addition, as Mr Nassauer pointed out, in the transitory period, national parliamentary control will disappear, but without our Parliament's control coming into effect, and on that point we join Mr Nassauer in his request for information.
However, information does not mean control.
In practice, all these problems point to a reality: Schengen disregarded the facts and they are now catching up on Schengen and on the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lindeperg">
Mr President, as this debate on Article K.6 of the Maastricht Treaty is most likely the last one before the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, it is no longer the time to bemoan, once again, the slow pace, the inefficiency and the lack of transparency and democracy of the operation of the third pillar.
We have done plenty of this in previous years and the criticisms that we made then are still valid now.
<P>
The President of Parliament made an excellent summary of the situation on 16 October at a conference in Avignon, when he said that an evaluation of the initiatives and proposals of the last few years bears too great a resemblance to Dante's hell, in that it is paved with good intentions.
He also said that a huge number of conventions that were signed have not been ratified and it is reasonable to doubt that they will ever come into force.
The President was illustrating, in a concise but extremely exact manner, a major concern expressed by our committee in Article 23 of the Nassauer resolution.
This article gives a list of the main acts that have not yet been ratified.
What will become of these agreements and protocols?
How can we escape the legal insecurity that we are currently facing?
The members of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs invite the Commission to present, in good time, the proposals that are essential for transforming these acts into Community measures as from the entry into force of the new Treaty.
<P>
I also share the concerns expressed by Mr Pradier and by the Green Group.
I do not have enough time to dwell on those concerns and I would particularly like to refer back to a point that has already been made by several of my colleagues, notably by Mr Nassauer and Mrs d'Ancona, and which concerns us greatly.
It is the issue of democratic control, which for citizens is an essential counterweight to the sharing of sovereignty that they are being asked to accept.
I believe, and the opinion polls show, that they are prepared to accept the transfer of sovereignty that results from bringing part of the third pillar within the Community's powers.
They understand that together we are more capable of fighting large-scale crime, organised international fraud, and trafficking of every kind.
They do not want internal borders to continue to be an obstacle to justice, nor do they want mixed couples who divorce, and the children of these couples, to continue be faced with contradictory rulings.
In short, they feel that there is an evident need for the European judicial area that is taking its first steps, and they understand that a shared European sovereignty is better than a declining national sovereignty that no longer has a grip on events. However, this is on condition that effective parliamentary control, which is the only means of democratically operating that shared sovereignty, can be exerted, which is why the Council must take into consideration Parliament's opinions and change its behaviour towards Parliament.
<P>
Why is it, Mr President-in-Office, that the demands that we have made one by one over the years, through resolutions like today's, go unheeded?
Mr Nassauer's resolution recalls the terms of the resolution of 12 December 1996, for which I was rapporteur, which detailed the demands that we made then to the Council for more genuine and more complete information, for systematic consultation, and for our points of view to actually be taken into account.
Today we could repeat these terms word for word, as nothing has changed.
It is not acceptable, for example, that we were not consulted on the Austrian Presidency's strategy paper that is going to determine European policy on asylum and immigration for many years.
<P>
Nor is it acceptable that the Council, having taken the official decision, on 19 March 1998, and following our repeated demands, to publish an interim report at the end of each presidency, that is every six months, has not done so.
You have expressed your agreement, Mr President-in-Office.
You see, the problem is that the Council always agrees, in words, but the necessary actions do not follow.
If a report was presented beforehand, there could be a real debate in the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Lindeperg.
<P>
I have received a motion for a resolution tabled pursuant to Rule 40(5).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Däubler-Gmelin">
Mr President, although I cannot be here this afternoon, for which I hope you will forgive me, we will be able to continue this discussion in the relevant committees over the next week.
<P>
I would therefore like to pick up just two points which I consider especially important in this context and which need to be followed up.
The first is exchanges of information and relations between the Council, the Council presidency and the European Parliament.
It is evident from the comments made by honourable Members that there are genuine problems.
I would like to assure you that we will endeavour to work with you to solve these problems in a spirit of cooperation and in accordance with the European treaties.
<P>
The second point I would like to pick up is the transition from the Maastricht Treaty to the Treaty of Amsterdam.
I believe that we can expect an important debate on new ideas here - including the work done by the Commission - so that we can push ahead with our plans in the fields of internal security and the common European legal area, quickly and profitably.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="President">
Thank you, Madam President-in-Office.
<P>
We shall now adjourn the debate; it will be resumed at 3 p.m.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 10.55 a.m. until voting time at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="President">
The Conference of Presidents adopted an agreement yesterday on the order of votes.
We will begin with the motions for resolutions, and then request the Commission to give its position. This will be followed by a short suspension to allow the groups time for consultation and we shall then proceed to the vote on the motions of censure.
<P>
I have received a request from the Green Group to vote first on the motions of censure and afterwards on the motions for resolutions on the refusal to grant discharge for 1996.
<P>
Therefore, we must first decide whether or not to accept the position of the Conference of Presidents or to amend it.
Mr Telkämper wishes to speak to move the request by the Green Group.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
Mr President, we have made this request under Rule 119 because we assume that the vote on the motion of censure is the more significant one.
There is now an institutional conflict between the Parliament and the Commission, and I believe that we will not be able to explain it to our electorate if we start arguing about various individual positions and split Parliament into subtly differentiated factions, instead of adopting an unequivocal position towards the fraud, corruption and nepotism inside the Commission.
I think this House agrees that that is what this motion of censure is all about, and in that sense it is the most significant.
That is what we have to vote on.
We have requested a roll-call vote in this case because if it eventually comes out that Parliament did not act firmly in this institutional conflict, it will have made a poor start, a false start if you like, to the election campaign.
That is why I am requesting this vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Green">
Mr President, I would like to oppose that proposal on two grounds.
Firstly, there is a precedent for this way of proceeding.
As we discovered, when your services looked at the precedents, this is how we dealt with the BSE motion of censure: the resolutions first and then the motion of censure.
<P>
Secondly, this is an eminently political debate.
We all know that the way in which the resolutions go may well affect the outcome of the motion of censure.
There is no escaping that reality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="President">
I put the request from the Green Group to the vote.
<P>
Parliament rejected the request
<P>
Joint motion for a resolution on the consequences of the refusal to give discharge
<P>
Parliament rejected the joint motion for a resolution
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="President">
I give the floor to Mr Santer, President of the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="Santer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, your Parliament has just given its opinion by means of a resolution that sends a clear and firm message to the Commission.
It will shortly take a position, in all sovereignty, on the question of confidence.
This is an important moment in the life of our institutions.
<P>
I would first like to say a few words about the resolution.
As I said, the message to the Commission is a clear one, and I understood it fully.
I am taking on board the criticisms that have been expressed and I commit myself here and now to completing, according to a strict timetable, the ambitious programme that I have proposed, and to fulfilling the demands made by this Parliament.
I see this test as a means of giving a very strong impetus to the necessary reforms.
Today the European Parliament has strongly reaffirmed its authority and its monitoring role.
As democrats, we should all welcome this.
<P>
I would like to say a few words about this idea of a committee of experts.
I accept it, as it will enable us to completely review our methods, to improve our management, and to cast a critical eye over the fight against fraud.
Obviously, this committee could also examine certain individual cases, and I will state clearly that the recommendations from the committee of experts will be followed up with actions.
<P>
Moreover, it goes without saying that the Commission will continue to be accountable to Parliament's monitoring bodies.
I said to you on Monday that each case of fraud pains me.
Each time it is Europe that loses out.
I admit that mistakes have been made.
We have been criticised, but our good will has never been questioned.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr President, I have now been involved in political life for thirty years.
I have always thought of that as a privilege, but also as an obligation to absolute integrity.
I respect taxpayers' money and, with the help of Parliament, I am more determined than ever to continue the fight against fraud.
<P>
Now it is up to you, ladies and gentlemen, to decide, in good faith and in good conscience, whether you are going to grant us your confidence, the political confidence that we need to continue and to complete our political work in the interests of the citizens of Europe and to enable Europe to succeed.
That is purely and simply what I ask you to grant us today.
<P>
Applause
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 11.25 a.m. and resumed at 11.40 a.m.)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="President">
Following our agenda, I shall now give the floor to the first signatories of the two motions of censure - Mrs Green and Mr Fabre-Aubrespy - and then to each of the group chairmen for one minute.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="Green">
Mr President, I want to express my welcome and thanks to all those who voted with our resolution this morning.
In his comments Mr Santer said that this vote and this whole action has reaffirmed the authority of Parliament.
It is a major success for this Parliament ...
<P>
Protests
<P>
It is always a shame to see bad losers.
What the resolution has done is to give us the most extensive reforms ever of the internal workings of the European Commission.
<P>
Mixed reactions
<P>
Had we not tabled the motion of censure that would not have happened.
<P>
Mixed reactions
<P>
We heard Mr Santer's commitment to carrying through the requests in the motion for a resolution.
Mr Santer understands that this group and those who voted for the resolution were voting for a stronger European Commission, a stronger Europe, and we will keep him to those commitments.
<P>
Mr President, having achieved what we consider to be a very considerable success in reforming the working practices of the European Commission, I would like to give you notice that I am now withdrawing the motion of censure on behalf of the Socialist Group.
<P>
Mixed reactions
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="President">
The motion of censure of which Mrs Green is the first signatory having been withdrawn, I now give the floor to Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, first signatory of the second motion of censure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the 70 signatories of the motion of censure who come, I would like to point out, from all the political groups in the House and represent almost all the peoples of the European Union, maintain, with conviction and determination, their motion of censure against the entire Commission.
<P>
Applause
<P>
They invite you to ask yourselves, in good faith and in good conscience, a very simple question: 'do I have confidence in the Commission or not?'
Did it take the necessary measures following the various cases that came to light concerning the management of Community funds?
Did it inform the Parliament correctly and adequately?
If you answer 'no' to this question, then you must vote for censure.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, never in the history of our Parliament will your vote be of such importance!
Do not take the risk of hearing your electorate ask you in a few days or a few weeks, when a new case is revealed to us, why you placed your confidence in the Commission once again.
By voting for censure,
<P>
Applause
<P>
you will strengthen the credibility of our Parliament, you will give Europeans a renewed confidence in their institutions.
<P>
Loud applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President of the Commission, I do not think I am a bad loser.
What we have been calling for since December, thanks to the excellent work of the Committee on Budgetary Control led by Mrs Theato and with Mr Elles as rapporteur, has now been accepted in the Commission's eight-point programme within a very strict deadline.
Why should we not be happy with this?
On the contrary.
We have not been party to any political manoeuvring, and we have every reason to be happy because what was most important to us was the content.
<P>
There is a second point I would like to make.
It is now undeniably the case, Mr President of the Commission, that the era of bureaucracy and technocracy is over.
From now on, you are going to have to work with Parliament.
<P>
Applause
<P>
This is an undeniable and extremely important result, and I hope that it will be reflected in the forthcoming negotiations on the revision of the Treaty.
Mr President of the Commission, we passionately defended you here in the House in July 1994, and I am still happy with my commitment and confidence in you personally.
I certainly do not regret it today, far from it.
I should therefore like to tell you that even if the members of my group vote with their consciences and even if there is a majority - but of course everybody will be voting with their consciences - I still hold you in the highest esteem as a man of integrity and as the President of the Commission.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="Cox">
Mr President, this week the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party raised consciousness inside and outside this House of the fact that the rules of engagement for the democratic control of the European Commission by this Parliament are self-evidently inadequate.
This must change!
<P>
Our instrument of naming names was perforce indelicate since no proper Treaty-based alternative yet exists to hold individual Commissioners publicly accountable before this Parliament for the political management and conduct of European affairs and subject them to sanctions where and when they fall short.
<P>
For months in this House the college of Commissioners has suffered from a self-induced collapse in its credibility.
In collusion with the Socialist Group, the Commission inexplicably last December drew this week's crisis upon itself.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Politically we believe that this Commission is dead in the water.
<P>
Applause
<P>
When we demanded individual accountability, we were rebuffed by the shield of collegiality.
We have decided, Mr President of the Commission, to turn your shield of collegiality into our sword of parliamentary accountability.
For Europe, in good faith and in good conscience, the ELDR Group believes this Commission should go.
My Group will vote for censure.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Mr President, the Union for Europe Group is unanimous in deploring the serious management errors made by the current Commission and the previous one, as revealed in audits carried out by the Court of Auditors, internal enquiries and enquiries carried out on the ground by the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Our group condemns the lack of cooperation and transparency that the Commission has demonstrated for too long towards both Parliament and the Court of Auditors.
<P>
The Union for Europe Group has taken note of President Santer's promise to put right the most glaring problems, but it deplores the fact that it took a vote of disapproval, the refusal of discharge, and the threat of an actual motion of censure, on which we are now going to vote, to bring about that result.
<P>
As a result, some members of the group, notably the French members, noting that previous commitments that were made at the time of the BSE motion of censure, and also following the decisions of the Committee of Inquiry into Fraud in Community transit, were not entirely fulfilled, have decided to vote for the motion of censure ...
<P>
Applause
<P>
in order to remind the Commission that the European Parliament's monitoring powers must be respected because they are the only real means of protecting the citizens, the European taxpayers.
<P>
However, other members of the group, notably our Irish, Italian and Portuguese colleagues, have decided to grant the Commission mitigating circumstances and not to vote for censure, so as not to give rise to an institutional crisis at a time when Europe is faced with enormous challenges. This leniency cannot, however, be interpreted by the Commission as a blank cheque of confidence.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Puerta">
Mr President, on behalf of my group, I would like to say that we hope that the only winners in these votes and decisions by the European Parliament will be the citizens of Europe, European democracy and transparency, an element that is absolutely necessary, whether we are in the run-up to or in the wake of elections.
<P>
We hope that from now on, these decisions by the European Parliament will increase the credibility of this institution and its links with the real lives of the public. We also hope that they will mean greater political supervision of the Commission and that the Committee on Budgetary Control will be able to work under the necessary conditions.
I must add that, as regards this joint statement by my group, there were differences of opinions and conflicting ideas, as has happened in other groups.
<P>
The majority of the group believes that the Commission's management deserves to be censured and it is therefore going to vote in favour of the motion of censure.
However, certain Members are going to vote against, while others - a substantial number, including myself, although not the majority - believe that our political life and our institution have been constantly exploited by the motions of censure. We are therefore not going to take part in the vote.
<P>
We wanted to make this point here so that it can be recorded in the Minutes of the sitting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if Parliament now puts its trust in the Commission, then it also assumes political responsibility for the Commission's past.
The Commission itself has refused to do this, and will only make proposals for the future.
I have two comments on the resolution we are adopting.
Not only have we thrown away some of the things we achieved in December by voting differently from then, but worst of all we are surrendering our own powers by allowing a committee of wise men to decide what has gone wrong.
<P>
Applause
<P>
This is an out-and-out scandal and not worthy of any parliament.
What we are doing is tantamount to censuring ourselves, and this is supposed to be strengthening Parliament's authority, for goodness' sake!
My group has always made it clear that our basic line was that the Commission should resign and that we cannot put our confidence in it, not just because of the financial scandals, but also because of its policies in so many fields: BSE, genetically modified foods on the market, and so on.
<P>
So we say that the Commission does not have our confidence and we should vote en bloc for the motion of censure.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lalumière">
Mr President, the resolution that has just been adopted is a good text.
It is firm, even severe, and demanding.
It also contains many demands and proposals.
We note the comments made by President Santer, who has recognised the errors that have been made and has promised reforms.
The political climate is certainly far from being stabilised.
Our disappointments and our criticisms remain.
It will take time to restore confidence.
<P>
Should we vote for censure?
Our group has already done so in the past.
However, today, voting for censure would be an excessive gesture; it would be inappropriate for the situation and also dangerous for the stability of the institutions.
We are also aware of the calendar.
We know that the current Commission will in any case reach the end of its mandate at the end of this year.
<P>
For all these reasons, the majority of our group - we do not have unanimity - the majority of our group will not vote for the motion of censure.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
Mr President, there is a difference between blame and accountability.
You can have accountability without having blame.
The Europe of Nations Group does not have an opinion about who is to blame.
We leave that to disciplinary proceedings and the Court of Justice.
We are voting to censure the college because the whole Commission is accountable and must accept responsibility for the fact that so much has gone wrong and will continue to go wrong.
If the political leadership does not accept accountability, then there is no accountability.
The budget would then become a matter of helping oneself.
The main problem is that Mr Santer and his colleagues are not leading, but are allowing themselves to be led into a muddle of waste, fraud and corruption.
Mr Santer is a prisoner in his own fortress.
The Personnel Commissioner is a prisoner.
The Director of Personnel is a prisoner.
Only a motion of censure will release the prisoners and create a new culture of openness, closeness to the people and democracy, instead of secrecy, arrogance and bureaucracy.
Mr Santer reacted firmly when he should not have done, but he was not firm when he should have been.
He sacked an official for giving a document to an elected representative.
Instead, he ought to sack the people who do not give the elected representatives what they ask for.
That is why the Europe of Nations Group also wishes to sack Mr Santer's Commission today.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Muscardini">
Mr President, we have taken up a position against granting the discharge and we have raised the issue of the legality of certain operations in various questions.
We thus refuse to excuse mistakes in management or errors of omission and we want everyone in power to draw the appropriate conclusions in terms of political responsibility. But the Alleanza Nazionale - which will vote unanimously - will not be joining in the chorus of those who, in the name of cleaning up management, are actually either attacking the institutions themselves or engaging in power struggles to gain control of the particular institution in question.
<P>
With the current turbulence on the Brazilian markets a 'no' to the Commission could mean irreversible damage to the credibility of the euro and, consequently, serious damage to the completion of the Union and probable impoverishment of our fellow citizens later on.
<P>
As far as we are concerned the Commission and Parliament ought to become increasingly transparent and cooperative with each other in the interests of the people of Europe, because these are the two institutions appointed to establish not only the euro, but also that political union without which there will never be an economic project and the fight against unemployment will remain a dead letter.
Now we expect everyone to do their duty as responsible politicians.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="President">
We shall now proceed to the vote on the motion of censure on the European Commission (B4-0053/99).
<P>
Parliament rejected the motion of censure on the Commission
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Gutiérrez Díaz">
Mr President, it was unfortunate that during the procedure the President of Parliament did not allow me to speak, although I had requested the floor in plenty of time.
I want to state, in accordance with the Rules, that I was present but did not vote.
Therefore, I would like it recorded in the Minutes that I was in the House and that I did not vote because I disagree with the whole process that has led us to the motion of censure.
I am thus also expressing my rejection of the entire process.
Thank you, Mr President, and I would appreciate it if you could inform President Gil-Robles of how displeased I was that he did not allow me to speak at the right time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, the theatrical performance that we have seen today may have been a perfectly normal and legitimate procedure in parliamentary terms, but from the point of view of our electors it was highly regrettable, as the Socialist Group has unanimously covered up for its discredited Commissioners, and that is the real scandal that we will have to come to terms with in the next few months.
A few votes one way or other on the motion of censure will not change that.
We shall continue to work towards transparency, propriety, democracy and stronger rights for Parliament, whether the Socialists like it or not.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="Berthu">
Since December when the majority of Members of the European Parliament, including the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, refused to grant discharge to the Commission for the implementation of the 1996 budget, due to various management errors, fraud, and a general lack of transparency, we have observed in the House a whole series of diversions and excuses aimed at avoiding the logical consequence of that act: a vote on a motion of censure.
<P>
Firstly a resolution was tabled that was aimed specifically at certain Commissioners, with the purpose of defusing the risk of a general vote of no confidence in the Commission.
This first manoeuvre was thwarted.
At the same time, the Socialist Group tabled a false motion of censure, intended to neutralise its opponents, which it then withdrew at the last moment.
However, fortunately, this second manoeuvre was also thwarted, as the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations in the meantime tabled another motion of censure, this time a genuine one.
<P>
Finally, a draft resolution was tabled, aimed at putting an end to the debate by setting up a 'committee of experts'.
That third manoeuvre appears to have succeeded, as the resolution has just been passed.
However, in reality, it discredits Parliament.
<P>
In fact it is not a parliamentary committee of inquiry that has just been adopted, it is simply a committee of experts which, the resolution specifies, will be placed 'under the auspices of the Parliament and the Commission'.
In other words, this committee will depend at least partly on the very institution whose management it will be responsible for monitoring.
This blatant abandonment of Parliament's powers displays clearly the complicity that has long existed between the European Parliament and the Commission in order to advance the federalist cause at all costs.
<P>
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations considers that the Commission's errors are sufficiently serious, evident and repeated to warrant a motion of censure.
With this approach, we wish to call into question the very system of federalist complicity that has led to all the current problems.
We welcome the fact that our motion has received the support of 232 Members of the European Parliament (against 293), which, taking account of the usual discrepancies between public opinion and Parliament, must demonstrate that an overwhelming majority of citizens support us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="Barros Moura, Campos, Candal, Correia, Damião, Lage, Marinho, Moniz, Torres Couto, Torres Marques">
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Blak, Iversen, Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats are satisfied that the Commission is now committed to a plan which will rapidly change the corporate culture of the Commission and increase morale.
We believe that any suspicion of irregularities, waste and fraud should be investigated, either by the new independent office for the combating of internal fraud or by the national police authorities.
In such cases, the Council should be called upon to make use of Article 160 of the Treaty, which states that any Member of the Commission can be compulsorily retired by the Court of Justice, on application by the Council or the Commission, if he has been guilty of serious misconduct.
It is expressly the Council and the Commission itself which have this option, not Parliament, although we could consider including it in a future Treaty amendment.
In this way, we can have cases examined thoroughly, without succumbing to the lynch law of the press.
However, if this option is to work, Mr Santer will of course have to recognise his accountability as President of the Commission.
We shall follow very closely how the Commission keeps to the action plan we have adopted today.
The Commission should also consider a redeployment of all the senior officials in the Commission in order to clear the air.
We support Mr Liikanen's work on personnel reform, which is key to the whole clearing-up operation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Spiers">
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bloch von Blottnitz">
Mr President, the fact that the Commission - and this proves just how right my group was to vote for the motion of censure - said that it had behaved ineptly or that it had been the victim of its own transparency is neither here nor there.
It simply proves, once again, that the Commission is still incapable of grasping the political dimension.
The Commission has slipped back into a pre-democratic way of thinking.
It has proved incapable of behaving reasonably throughout this disastrous affair.
<P>
We were not just worried about nepotism and corruption.
We were also concerned that the Commission has recently become incapable of doing justice to the clear political remit entrusted to it.
It was obvious to us that this risks playing into the hands of those who want renationalisation.
Because we want a strong Europe and need a strong Commission, we had no option but to express our lack of confidence in this Commission.
We hope that the Commission has at last learnt the lesson that we are in a democracy and that it is time to end this pre-democratic mindset and behaviour. We also hope the Commission will now at last be able to take responsibility for creating a strong Europe without nepotism, corruption and affairs.
<P>
That is the reason why we voted for the censure motion today.
How sad that the Socialist Group has been playing political games with this, only to get cold feet at the vital moment.
That not only undermines the European ideal, it is also a drain on the energy that we need to implement Agenda 2000.
I just hope that in view of this vote the Commission will at least have the decency to accept responsibility for its actions and that the Commissioners who stand accused will resign.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations took the initiative, through Hervé Fabre-Aubrespy, of a motion of censure following the malpractice discovered in the functioning of the European Commission because we consider these errors to be neither accidental nor individual.
They are in fact a result of the nature of the institutional system itself.
<P>
The Commission says in its defence that it was overburdened with tasks which it did not have the resources to take on.
We reject this false excuse, because the rush to seize powers from the Member States is part of the system itself, which is always seeking to forestall the legitimate defensive reactions of the nations.
Moreover, of all the institutions, the Commission has always shown itself to be the most zealous promoter of this deplorable policy.
We do not have to go back very far in order to find the Court of Justice ruling of 12 May 1998, which ousted a whole series of budgetary headings that had been put forward by the Commission without a legal basis.
Some of these headings, such as the poverty programmes, had even been undertaken when the Council had formally opposed them.
Such behaviour, in contempt of the rule of law, is a direct result of the Commission's sense of superiority towards the nations that make up the Council.
The inevitable consequence of this is fraud, and this is the reason for our motion of censure.
<P>
The European institutional system has, for a long time, declared the Commission to be the guardian of an interest that is above that of the nations.
It has refused to allow the Commission to be monitored, and has used a lack of transparency as a deliberate strategy for achieving integration, and through its central figures has moved around considerable sums of money.
A haven for fraud, corruption, waste and nepotism has therefore been created in Brussels, and what was bound to happen has happened.
A sordid little world has been built up around the Commission, where influences are traded, far away from the concerns of citizens.
We are appalled to see that this little world has been granted considerable powers in initiating legislation and managing Europe.
We want to put an end to this system and give the control of the European institutions back to the nations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Nordmann">
Mr President, in legal terms, the censure was not passed, but in political terms the vote of no confidence is evident.
<P>
I voted for censure.
I had difficulty doing so, and it was done with regret and against my instincts.
I did so, not out of a desire to take part in a witch hunt, and in this respect I regret that Mrs Cresson was too quickly assigned the role of scapegoat.
I did it for political reasons, because, at a time when enlargement means that the institutions need to be strengthened, the scenario arrived at by Mr Santer and Mrs Green causes us to turn our backs on that reinforcement.
<P>
The Commission prefers the tutelage of experts to real parliamentary monitoring and Parliament is surrendering its monitoring powers temporarily, but once again, and it goes on, from one temporary surrender to the next.
I regret, Mr President, that the Commission and some groups have taken part in this game.
<P>
It is because I want strong European institutions for a strong Europe that I voted for this censure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Brinkhorst">
D66 is in favour of a strong Commission and a strong Europe.
As Mr Nordmann just said, it was difficult for us to vote in favour of the motion of censure.
This Commission has relinquished its independence by placing its future in the hands of a committee of experts.
We do not wish to be associated with those of our colleagues who are against a strong Europe, which is why it was so hard for us to vote in favour of the motion.
Nevertheless, the question now is how Europe can become stronger.
With a weakened Commission that will be unable to provide any real impetus over the next few years, or with a new, dynamic Commission?
This was why D66 voted in the end in favour of the motion, but let there be no mistake about it, we want to see greater democracy, greater authority and greater power in Europe, and not weaker European institutions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berès">
Mr President, the French Socialists refuse to grant a free rein to Jacques Santer's Commission.
<P>
Throughout this crisis of confidence between the European Parliament and the Commission, the French Socialists have firstly tried to secure the collegiality of the Commission and observance of the presumption of innocence.
Pigeon shooting is not a method of parliamentary monitoring.
They have also tried to show their unity and to find the basis for the widest agreement possible within the Socialist Group.
<P>
The French Socialists deplore the fact that the President of the Commission took so long to express the solidarity of the college and to make proposals to Parliament in terms of methods to improve the management of the Commission.
They deplore that we had to reach this degree of confusion before the President of that institution finally realised the scale of the malfunctions in the institution for which he was responsible.
<P>
What lessons can we draw from this crisis?
The fight against fraud, corruption and irregularities must be pursued with determination, and the means of doing this must be strengthened.
The collegiality of the Commission must be consolidated. It is the guarantor of Community integration and the foundation of a common administrative culture.
Otherwise, whoever had a majority at any given time could choose whichever Commissioner they liked as a whipping boy to fit in with their electoral calendar.
The Commission must have at its head a strong political figure.
Today political union is paying for the mistake made by the Council, which, under pressure from the British Conservatives, agreed to nominate a weak President.
<P>
I will now conclude, Mr President.
It would have been absurd for the Socialists to have used the strongest political weapon at their disposal in this vote.
We have significantly contributed to limiting the damage.
There is still a long way to go.
The resolution that we have just passed opens the way for this, but the Socialists would like to merit this crazy escalation of events with having revealed the urgent need for a reform of the institutions of the Union before any enlargement can take place.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Ripa di Meana">
Mr President, while I am very critical of the Commission's way of working, I have abstained, along with other colleagues in the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, from the vote on the resolution on discharge for the 1996 financial year and on the motion of censure because I do not agree with any of the texts presented.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Spaak">
Mr President, it was my unshakeable European conviction that made me vote for censure of the Commission.
Indeed, I feel that the crisis situation brought on by the Commission itself, with the support of the Socialist Group, demands a vote of no confidence in order to safeguard the institution.
<P>
This vote is justified especially by the fact that the Commission did not comprehend, or is comprehending too late, the following reality: the Maastricht Treaty and the future provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam make the European Parliament into a true political institution which has a duty to assume its political responsibilities.
<P>
President Santer's proposals aimed at improving the transparency and the running of the Commission come too late and at a time of crisis that does not allow us to evaluate them objectively.
The monitoring committee set up by paragraph 1 of the text of the Socialist resolution is placed under the tutelage of the Commission and of Parliament.
That is unacceptable.
<P>
The ultimate priority today was to re-establish in the institutional balance the authority of an institution that is, when it is in agreement with the European Parliament, the driving force behind progress in the European Union.
This Commission has a duty to be strong, united, independent, respected by the Council, by Parliament and by the citizens of Europe.
<P>
Each of us should now, at the end of this debate, ask ourselves the following question: have I, through my attitude, really contributed to the progress of the Union?
My vote responded clearly to that challenge.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, over the last few days, and again today, there has been an enormous amount of tactical manoeuvring which has dominated the behaviour of the leading political figures in Parliament.
This has somewhat obscured the fact that a motion of censure is actually a very simple question.
The question is: do the elected representatives of the people still have sufficient confidence in the leadership of the central executive body of the European Union?
The answer to this question has to be either yes or no.
And in my opinion, anyone who listened to Mr Santer on Monday, anyone who has listened to him in recent weeks and has witnessed his behaviour here today, is bound to conclude that given the important tasks ahead of us we can no longer have faith in the leadership abilities of this Commission and its President.
<P>
That was what Parliament needed to make a decision about, not about tactical trickery.
This is also the overwhelming view of my social democrat colleagues in the Federal Republic of Germany.
That is why we could see no alternative but to fulfil our parliamentary duty and tell the central administrative institution of the European Union that it is not people who express a lack of confidence who cause an institutional crisis, but people who fail to carry out their distinguished and important duties fully and adequately.
<P>
The leader of my group has told us that she has withdrawn the motion of censure submitted by the Socialist Group.
That is not correct.
The motion was submitted by individual members of the Socialist Group.
I would like that to be minuted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, it was with some regret that I voted for the motion of censure against the Commission.
But given the current legal position I had no other choice, as there are people in the Commission, such as Mrs Cresson or Mr Marín, whose behaviour and character indicate that they are not fit for their job.
I would like to emphasise that my vote was not directed again President Santer, for whom I have the greatest respect.
<P>
Today's events have demonstrated that there is still an unfortunate lack of democracy in Europe's institutions.
We need to reform these institutions if Europe is to make real political progress.
The Tindemans Plan provided us with a model that is just as relevant to the current situation as it was all those years ago.
So we do not need to conduct a great deal of research or set up token committees of wise men in order to achieve a substantial reform in the near future.
That is the task facing Parliament in view of today's events. In this way, in the not too distant future it will be possible - God willing - for a united and enlarged Europe satisfactorily to accomplish its task not only on behalf of the people of Europe but also in the interest of world peace.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Robles Piquer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my group is divided, as all the groups are to a greater or lesser extent.
I cannot therefore speak on its behalf. However, I can speak, I believe, on behalf of approximately half of the Members of my group who voted against our own group's resolution, supported the Socialist resolution and voted against the motion of censure.
<P>
I must begin by calling on Parliament to have a little modesty.
Last night, at 9 p.m., a debate was opened here on an own-initiative report by my friend and fellow countryman, Mr Areitio.
Mr Van Miert responded for the Commission.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, do you know how many Members were here in this Hemicycle with Mr Areitio at 9 p.m. last night?
There were none.
Can this Parliament therefore cast the first stone?
<P>
Moreover, can we cast an individual stone at any of the Commissioners when we know perfectly well that the College of Commissioners is exactly that, a college, a single unit, and that - whether we like it or not - those are the rules and we have to respect them?
<P>
There are obviously a lot of things that need to be put right.
And I believe that the Commission, presided over by a man of honour, Mr Santer, will keep its promises and make the necessary changes to a system of management that, as we know, is far from perfect.
<P>
There was a time when certain Israelites - those in the Bible, not the Israelis - wanted to demolish the temple, and they succeeded in doing so.
But the cost of this was that the Philistines and Samson died.
As I said to my group, the Philistines are of no importance to me, neither those in my group nor in the others.
And Samson is scarcely of any concern to me.
However, what does matter to me is the survival of our temple that has cost us so much to build.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, I voted against the motion of censure, remembering that Talleyrand said that all that is exaggerated is insignificant.
<P>
After the vote on the firm resolution on an in-depth reform of the administrative culture - and I hope, not only that of the Commission, but also that of Parliament, for example - after the undertaking, which was just as firm, by President Santer to deal with all the cases of fraud, mismanagement and nepotism so that those responsible can be punished at whatever level, voting for censure would be exaggerated.
<P>
I am happy to see that reason and a sense of responsibility have triumphed and that, along with them, Europe has triumphed.
The Santer Commission has indeed taken on its political responsibilities.
It has indeed completed the introduction of the euro and I hope that after the shocks that the euro has already undergone in the last few days, for which certain sorcerer's apprentices in this Parliament and their political policies are responsible, I hope that after this vote the euro will once again become a strong currency serving the citizens of the Union.
<P>
The Santer Commission has submitted Agenda 2000 to us.
It is up to this Parliament to deal with these important Agenda 2000 proposals, on which the welfare of hundreds of millions of Europeans depends, and which should concern us a lot more than the nepotism of which Mrs Cresson and others are accused.
The Commission is stronger, having come through this test.
I congratulate it.
I give it my renewed confidence, and I say that, today, it is Europe that has won.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, what were we supposed to do?
What have we done?
We were not supposed to vote for censure, because the motion at the root of this entire turmoil was tabled with an explicit aim: to grant the Commission our confidence.
What have we done?
We have done three things.
<P>
Firstly, we have not voted for censure, but we have not granted our confidence.
In this House an absolute majority of Members that had confidence in the Santer Commission could not be found.
The Commission engaged in a diabolical process, at the end of which it has not gained our confidence.
<P>
Moreover, we have made the cowardly decision to prolong the torture instead of executing the Commission.
That is not a brave thing to do.
It is not in accordance with the authority of the institutions.
Finally, the most cowardly thing of all is that we have decided to leave it to others to administer the torture.
<P>
We have therefore both weakened the Commission and refused to exercise our own prerogatives.
Today is a day of mourning for the institutions of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Mr President, I did not vote in favour of censure, unlike most of the French members of my group.
It seems to me that this motion of censure aimed to interrupt the process of refusal of discharge when it was tabled by Mrs Green.
She played with fire and the political coup that she had plotted was skilfully stolen away from her by Hervé Fabre-Aubrespy.
I am too old for these little games and, what is more, I no longer find them amusing.
This is why I did not join in with the 'Villierite' manoeuvre that was guided more by a rejection of Europe than by any other motives.
<P>
A fortnight after the launch of the euro, our Parliament and our Europe deserved more.
Despite this, the Commission is not being let off without giving us what we are due, and continuing the discharge procedure will now be its priority.
This why I am now giving it an appointment with us in March, and I hope that this time it will be able to answer the questions that we have put to it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I hope I will not seem like a bad loser if I say that this was an own goal.
All the complications and mess that came to light over the 1996 discharge were supposed to be swept away by means of a vote of confidence, but there has not been a vote of confidence.
I too see a committee of wise men as a poor substitute.
We must take this opportunity to make sure that this Commission - which I have already heard described in the corridors as a 'dead man walking' - now at least does whatever is necessary to achieve what Mr Martens rather pompously promised us here: an end to bureaucracy and technocracy.
<P>
If Parliament had not voted in such great numbers to express its lack of confidence, the Commission would have sat back and said it was just a storm in a teacup.
That is why I am glad - and I thought long and hard about this - to have supported this initiative and that we have effectively had a vote of no-confidence.
I would like to stress once again - and Mr Berthu can confirm this - that the aim of this initiative was to ensure a strong Commission and a true parliamentary system for Europe, and to make sure that we stop resorting to technocratic and bureaucratic practices, combined with a lack of transparency, to hush up shortcomings in Europe.
Lack of transparency is the real cardinal sin, though this does not mean that we can afford to be complacent about nepotism, mismanagement and fraud.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Konrad">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, where do we stand now? 232 Members have voted for the motion of censure, and 27 have abstained.
So in principle, 260 Members of this House have refused to express their confidence in the Commission.
We should not lose sight of that, that is the real message.
<P>
I find it totally unacceptable that Mr Santer steered the debate towards talk of reform of administrative structures, smaller private offices, and organisational change.
<P>
What is really at stake here are the personal failings of two Commissioners: Mrs Cresson and Mr Marín.
We are talking here about nepotism and about accepting responsibility for one's actions.
And that is precisely why I and many others have refused to express our confidence in the Commission.
<P>
What will happen next, I wonder?
The Commission cannot ignore this vote.
Surely we will not carry on as if nothing has happened?
I am pleased that the CDU/CSU group in the European Parliament unanimously supported this vote of no confidence.
The Socialist Group wants to cover up the Commission's actions.
I cannot emphasise that - and criticise it - too strongly.
<P>
However, one thing has certainly come out of this vote - the relationship of the institutions towards each other has changed.
We should not forget this, despite our disappointment that there was not a majority in favour of the motion of censure. It means that the CDU/CSU Members in this House made the right decision.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as a co-signatory of the motion of censure I of course voted for it and I believe that the large number of Members who supported the motion - about 40 % - makes it clear that the Commission no longer has the support of a broad majority.
The Commission has been wounded by this debate, and politically speaking it is dead in the water.
The fact that there was in effect a grand coalition between the majority groups makes the large number of Members who supported the motion of censure all the more significant.
Considering that in comparison with the BSE motion of censure the number supporting the censure vote has almost doubled, there is every reason to claim that confidence in the European Commission has eroded.
<P>
It seems that the European Parliament has taken two steps forward and one step back: having launched itself into the air like a roaring tiger, it has come down to earth again with a sad bump. It is regrettable that the European Parliament has relinquished its right of control to a 'committee of experts', thus depriving itself of its own rights.
I hope that will not mean that the European Parliament loses credibility, and I particularly regret the tactical manoeuvring of the majority groups.
Although there was wide support for the motion of censure, this is not the place for detailed discussion of the role of the committee of wise men - today should have been a day of political reckoning.
So as a co-signatory I am satisfied with the outcome of the motion of censure, which I think has given the Commission a great deal of food for thought.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Cardona">
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Blot (NI)">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as the National Front, we are voting for censure of the European Commission, due to the irregularities in management of which it has been accused by Parliament and which it has disregarded.
I will nevertheless add that I did in fact sign the motion of censure, along with Mr Mégret and Mr Le Gallou, at the express request of Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, who then decided to withdraw our signatures without consulting us, an action which I publicly deplore.
<P>
Moreover, I would like to note that the Christian Democrats of the PPE and their allies, along with the Socialists, make up a real block that supports the Commission in and against everything.
We are well aware that this outrageous alliance between those who claim to be right-wing and those who say they are left-wing gives the Commission a theoretical majority.
In my opinion, this is a failure for democracy.
Europe is revealing itself as what it is: a technocratic and oligarchical organisation.
<P>
In such a Europe, the interests of citizens, and thus of taxpayers, are censured to some degree.
By not censuring the Commission, I feel that the majority of this Parliament has in fact chosen to censure the interests of the people, and notably those of the French people.
Obviously, I deplore this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Girão Pereira">
The current motion of censure has as its direct cause the refusal by Parliament to grant discharge for 1996.
With this House having decided to refer the whole matter back to the committee responsible, I feel that the tabling of this motion of censure is premature.
<P>
Furthermore, the Commission has put forward a programme with an appropriate timetable to tackle the problem of fraud in cooperation with our own Parliament.
Added to this, as I do not agree with accusing individual Commissioners without an in-depth investigation into their guilt, I could not in all conscience vote for the motions of censure that have this intention.
<P>
Finally, Europe is at an extremely important stage.
Following the introduction of the euro, we are now facing the challenge of Agenda 2000, the reform of the CAP, enlargement and the Structural Funds, all of which are of enormous importance, particularly for the cohesion countries.
<P>
In order to ensure calm and stability and to avoid an institutional crisis, I have voted against the motion of censure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Fayot">
The Luxembourg Socialist Members of the European Parliament supported the Commission, while expressing their criticisms and their serious concerns regarding the management of certain financial and administrative affairs.
<P>
It is for this reason that we welcomed the eight-part plan presented to Parliament by President Santer on Monday.
The measures for financial and administrative reorganisation advocated in the Socialist resolution are along the same lines as the plan put forward by the President of the Commission.
<P>
This is why we clearly and plainly rejected censure of the Commission in order to affirm its mandate.
If we want the Commission to improve its management, we need to give it the time to do so.
<P>
Unlike some, who took advantage of the vote on discharge in order to weaken the Commission, the Socialists have always insisted on the need for a Commission that remains strong and operational right to the end of its mandate.
<P>
The Socialist motion of censure was a motion of confirmation of the Commission.
President Santer had himself requested it, the day before the vote on discharge, in December, in order to clarify relations between Parliament and the Commission.
Without this political initiative on the part of the Socialists, the measures announced by Jacques Santer would never have seen the light of day.
<P>
Moreover, the debates on this motion have led to the formation of a coalition in the European Parliament that is hostile to the Commission.
<P>
This incongruous coalition goes from the CDU and the Bavarian CSU (whose vice-president signed the motion of censure from the anti-Maastricht right), through the Liberals, to the Greens and the extreme right-wing.
Six months away from the elections, it wants to benefit at all costs from an unparalleled witch hunt that, through the most absurd rumours, is even affecting President Santer himself.
<P>
This irresponsible coalition has damaged not only the prestige of the Commission, but also the European Union itself, as a result of its extraordinarily relentless attack on a Commission whose political record, at the time of the introduction of the euro, is largely positive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Alavanos">
The vote of censure against the Commission is a political vote against lack of transparency, maladministration, bureaucracy, the democratic deficit, arrogance towards the European Union's citizens, and the networks of companies and consultants that feed like parasites on the Community budget which is financed by the European taxpayer.
It is a political vote for a strong Parliament in the European Union, which can intervene decisively and boldly in what is going on.
<P>
The intention of this vote is not to cast doubt on the trustworthiness of the Commissioners collectively or individually.
More particularly, I would like to take this opportunity to confirm our confidence in the Greek Commissioner, Christos Papoutsis, who has taken responsibility for areas in which in the past there have been major problems involving scandals and mismanagement, such as tourism and nuclear energy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Féret">
I voted for censure of the European Commission because, firstly, I feel that not doing so would mean granting them our confidence, which would be inconceivable, having seen the overwhelming number of cases of irregularities, fraud and malpractice that have been brought to light in various Community policies managed by the Commission.
<P>
I reject the trap of the Socialist text, which aims to do nothing less than exonerate the Commission of its serious errors and ensure that the executive remains in place, and I think that we should not hesitate to make the Commission face up to its political responsibilities, which it has so far cunningly shirked.
<P>
To vote for censure is to defend the credibility of the institution of Parliament, which has been treated with contempt by the Commission, the latter being more willing to give information to the press than to the committees of the European Parliament.
<P>
To vote for censure is, above all, to defend the interests of the citizens and the electorate of Europe, whose money has been misappropriated and squandered by a silent and secretive technocratic institution that has so far been incapable of doing its duty.
<P>
There is a great deal at stake. In my opinion, this is a decisive challenge that clarifies the debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Anttila, Ryynänen and Virrankoski">
We the undersigned voted against the motion of censure against the Commission, as it had not been shown that the Commission was guilty, in the discharge of its official duties, of any one particular action that might result in a call for resignations, although there is cause for comment with regard to its administration.
<P>
It is in accordance with Finnish interests that a properly functioning Commission continues to maintain the balance of power between the large Member States and the smaller countries in the final round of the Agenda 2000 talks, in which our country has important national interests to protect.
<P>
We nevertheless regard it as vital that the Commission should embark on measures, as requested by Parliament, to improve the administration of its finances and clarify individual responsibilities within the Commission.
Details of abuse and improper conduct must be brought to light and the parties concerned must be brought to justice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Grosch">
The information that has been given to Parliament in the last few weeks, especially that given to the Committee on Budgetary Control, prevents me from maintaining my confidence in the political management of certain Commissioners.
Parliament has weakened itself by entrusting its task of monitoring the Commission to a committee of experts.
<P>
I abstained from the vote of confidence in the Commission as a whole because I cannot condemn an entire institution for the actions of a few within it.
Moreover, I cannot be a party to the political game being played by certain groups, a game which is dictated more by electoral interests in their regions than by an objective assessment of the situation.
<P>
If every crisis brings with it a chance of renewal, we can, through our attitude, force the Commission to put an end to malpractice and to excessive bureaucracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Bonde, Krarup and Sandbæk">
The June Movement and the People's Movement have only voted to name individual Commissioners because the largest group in the European Parliament said that it would only vote for its own motion of censure if there was a majority in Parliament in favour of criticising a named Commissioner.
<P>
There is a difference between blame and accountability.
You can have accountability without having blame.
The June Movement and the People's Movement do not have an opinion about who is to blame.
We leave that to disciplinary proceedings and the Court of Justice.
We are voting to censure the Commission as a college because the Commission is accountable and must accept responsibility for the fact that so much has gone wrong and will continue to go wrong.
If the political leadership does not accept accountability, then there is no accountability.
The EU's budget would then become a matter of helping oneself.
<P>
The main problem is that Mr Santer and his colleagues are not leading, but are allowing themselves to be led into a muddle of waste, fraud and corruption.
Mr Santer is a prisoner in his own fortress.
The Personnel Commissioner is a prisoner.
The Director of Personnel is a prisoner.
Only a motion of censure will release the prisoners and create a new culture of openness, closeness to the people and democracy, instead of secrecy, arrogance and bureaucracy.
Mr Santer reacted firmly when he should not have done, but he was not firm when he should have been.
He sacked an official for giving a document to an elected representative.
He ought to have sacked the people who prevent elected representatives from obtaining what they ask for.
That is why the June Movement and the People's Movement wish to sack Mr Santer's Commission today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Lannoye">
The events of the last few months, which led the European Parliament to refuse discharge for the 1996 financial year, widely demonstrated a general lack of rigour in the management and monitoring of a number of Community initiatives and programmes.
<P>
This lack of rigour, which leads to waste and damages the interests and the image of the European Union, is in itself a reason to express our lack of trust in the Commission.
<P>
However, to this is added the Commission's politically unacceptable handling of the conflict with Parliament: a refusal to hand over documents, political cant, even arrogance, which reveal a culture of impunity that is present throughout the Commission.
<P>
Repetitive speeches from the Commission about transparency and the desire for 'open cooperation' with Parliament disguise an ever present reality.
There is often only transparency concerning widely-known issues and those on which Members have had to prise out information.
Cooperation is only rhetoric: we have lost count of the number of resolutions from Parliament that have still not yielded results, even when they have been adopted by a large majority, and Parliament is frequently kept at arm's length when it comes to burning issues such as transatlantic relations and trade agreements.
<P>
Some people cite the Commission's supposed efficiency in its role as the driving force behind the Union and the guardian of the Treaties.
The current Commission demonstrates varying levels of rigour: at the will of Mr Van Miert, it niggles over public aid and suspicions of distortion of competition, but it is more than reserved, if not silent, when it comes to implicating certain Member States.
For example, the attitude of the British Government in operation 'Desert Fox' is a violation of Article J of the Treaty, and with regard to the 'Echelon' affair, the Commission quite simply refuses to give an answer.
<P>
The current breaches in terms of management, transparency, coherence and political initiative are of a structural nature: it is the Commission as a whole that is in question and not only one or two Commissioners.
<P>
Those who talk about a political void in the event of censure are wrong.
It is true that it brings on a political crisis, but it is a useful crisis.
In fact, it is an illusion to believe that the Commission can still play a significant role in the various challenges with which the Union is faced (reform of the CAP and of the Structural Funds, the funding of the Union, enlargement) with the team of Commissioners currently in place.
The Santer Commission, which was already politically weak from the start, has lost its credibility and its authority!
<P>
The best thing it can do for the European Union is to go.
<P>
The European Parliament has the opportunity to send a strong signal to European public opinion by censuring the Commission: the time has come to admit that the European institutions are operating in an obsolete manner. The time has come to make the European institutions, and particularly the Commission, whose hybrid status must be reviewed, more efficient and above all more democratic.
<P>
Censuring the Commission is not a solution in itself, but it is the necessary condition for change.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Cars">
I voted for the motion of censure, because through his actions President Santer has undermined confidence in the Commission to such an extent that - regardless of the decision by Parliament today - it has made its position politically untenable.
It is incapable of acting with the strength required on the important issues currently on the European agenda.
<P>
As a Liberal and a devoted friend of Europe, I would like to use my vote to help restore the confidence of Europe's citizens in the EU institutions and the European idea.
My position does not mean that I deny that, in many ways, the Commission has done a good job and that the vast majority of the Commissioners are capable people deserving of respect.
It is therefore also my hope that the majority of Commissioners should be given the opportunity to fulfil their mandates by being confirmed in their office.
<P>
My hope therefore is that the Commission's President, Mr Santer, will soon be replaced by someone who can restore confidence in the Commission, and in the Union and cooperation in Europe as a whole.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Ford">
Speaking on behalf of the EPLP and Alan Donnelly as its leader, we have absolutely no hesitation today in voting against Mr Fabre-Aubrespy's motion of censure against the European Commission.
Mr Santer has belatedly recognised that the Commission's procedures need drastic overhaul if the system that has enabled fraud, nepotism and corruption to have a much regretted place within the institutions of the Community is to be ended.
<P>
We also have a commitment from the President of the Commission that the allegations against contractors, officials and Commissioners will be vigorously investigated and prosecuted.
Today it would have been totally wrong for the Parliament to act as judge, jury and executioner in advance of such investigations.
<P>
Nevertheless, this is the beginning not the end of the process.
If the Commission's promised reforms do not turn into reality, and if the report of the Group of Wise Men is not followed to the letter, we give notice that our critical support today cannot be taken for granted in the future.
This vote is less a vote of a confidence than a final warning.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Graenitz">
I voted against the motion of censure because I believe that my personal goal of efficient European administration and the concomitant economical use of budget resources can only be achieved if all the European institutions work together to create a new European-level administrative structure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Ilaskivi, Matikainen-Kallström and Otila">
The undersigned members of the European Parliament are of the opinion that a motion of censure by Parliament against the Commission would have made it virtually impossible for the forthcoming Finnish Presidency to operate normally.
Censure would have led to the appointment of a temporary Commission for the rest of its term, that is, until the end of this year, and this would have had an immediate negative impact on the Finnish Presidency due to start this summer.
<P>
However, it should be emphasised that the suspicions of fraud, mismanagement and maladministration that surround the Commission provide grounds for justified and heavy criticism.
The Commission has dealt with the many incidences of neglect in a cumbersome way, while at the same time trying to cover up mistakes.
With the facts that have come to light we have not been able to declare our total confidence in the way the Commission goes about its important work and sees to its enormous responsibilities.
<P>
In view of the above we considered that it would be best for us to abstain in the vote on the censure motion.
At the same time we hope that Commission Members Mrs Cresson and Mr Marín will draw their own conclusions from the situation that has arisen and resign of their own accord.
We would further like to emphasise that the Treaty of Rome does not permit Parliament to vote on the issue of confidence in individual Members of the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Lambrias">
The members of the Greek delegation in the Group of the European People's Party felt a sense of great responsibility in voting against the motion of censure that remained after the withdrawal of the previous motion by the European Socialist Party, which was a stillborn attempt to impress public opinion.
<P>
Under no circumstances, especially just as the euro has made its appearance amid high hopes, just as procedures connected with the historic necessity of enlargement are gathering momentum, just when there is a need to promote the CFSP, is it acceptable to generate an artificial institutional crisis and to weaken the Commission.
<P>
Only those who refuse to recognise that among the peoples we represent no distinctions are made between the institutional bodies, could rejoice at the authority of any one of the three being undermined.
It is the overall image of Europe that suffers if, without scrutiny of the facts, the reputations of prominent members are sullied and critical functions become tarnished by the breath of scandal.
<P>
In the confidence that this heavy cloud will soon disappear, as the President of the Commission has promised, the rejection of the motion of censure is a constructive vote which safeguards the control that the European Parliament has to exercise.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Lindqvist and Olsson (ELDR)">
We supported the Liberal Group's proposal for Commissioners to be individually accountable, with the call for the departure of Commissioners Marín and Cresson.
However, the individual Commissioners have taken shelter behind the Commission as a whole, so it has not been possible to impose accountability on them.
<P>
The President of the Commission, Mr Santer, has not shown understanding of the criticism which has been made.
Thus the Commission as a whole has assumed responsibility for all the criticism which has been directed at the Commission by the Court of Auditors, Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control and a large number of Members of Parliament.
<P>
We therefore voted in favour of the motion of censure against the Commission.
The failings and irregularities which have been discovered are now being put right, in the interest of everyone.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Mann, Thomas">
I have just voted for the motion of censure against the European Commission because of the incorrect, incompetent and scandalous manner in which two Commissioners have performed their duties.
<P>
In December, the Commission itself, in a flight of rhetoric, inappropriately dubbed the refusal of a majority in the Parliament to give it a discharge in respect of the 1996 budget as a 'crisis of faith'.
At the time of that vote, the leader of the Socialist Group, Mrs Green, gave notice of a motion of censure in the hope of effectively achieving a vote of confidence for lack of sufficient votes.
Her feeble tactics, including her theatrical withdrawal of the motion of censure today, will not be forgotten in the forthcoming European elections.
<P>
The two Socialist Commissioners who stand accused, Mrs Cresson and Mr Marín, have not acceded to the request that they should resign, which was supported by a large majority of the PPE Group and unanimously by the German group of Christian Democrats.
Confidence in the present Commission has therefore been permanently damaged, as demonstrated by the result of the vote, 232 to 293.
<P>
Mrs Cresson is responsible for the lamentable management of Leonardo, and for mismanagement of funds, nepotism and considerable irregularities in the commissioning of external consultants.
Similarly, Mr Marín has failed to demonstrate economical management and effective implementation of funds and financial control in accordance with regulations.
Neither has so far been prepared to accept full responsibility for their actions.
Furthermore, last week Mrs Cresson again repeatedly demonstrated her contempt for the European Parliament.
Her attempt to trivialise accusations of fraud and to portray herself as the 'victim' of 'conspiracies' originating in Germany is laughable.
<P>
The Commission has had time enough to root out these problems, as the European Parliament decided to defer the discharge back in March 1998.
So far, there has been no sign of any follow-up regarding the serious errors made in managing external policies such as ECHO, MED, PHARE and TACIS or the suspicions of corruption on the part of officials.
We have not been given a relevant list of all internal investigations on fraud prevention, and the European Parliament's democratic control has been hindered by documents being withheld, censored or forged.
<P>
During today's voting I also voted again the committee of wise men suggested by the Commission President in his eight-point plan.
We do not need an additional outside committee of inquiry that will not be able to complete its work in just a few weeks anyway.
I regret this majority decision, which is tantamount to the European Parliament depriving itself of its own rights.
In addition to the European Court of Auditors there is another powerful monitoring body, the European Parliament's own Committee on Budgetary Control.
That committee is the place for financial investigations.
<P>
I am in favour of a strong European Commission, but it will only remain efficient and effective if it is cleaned up.
It would have been in the Commission's own interest to clear up irregularities, sack corrupt officials and protect those officials who are competent, conscientious and reliable.
It needs to reform itself from within by means of a code of conduct on the appointment of senior officials and appropriate staff regulations.
The culture of cronyism and hiding behind collective decision-making has to come to an end.
Every member of the Commission must be prepared willing to answer for his area of responsibility.
Our citizens have a right to expect a transparent, fair and hard-working Europe which manages the funds entrusted to it with due care.
They also have a right to expect Members of Parliament to exercise their control functions without resorting to party-political tactics.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Martin, David">
I believe that the best interests of the European taxpayer are served not by sacking the Commission but by achieving serious and meaningful reform of the Commission's financial and personnel management.
<P>
The allegations are serious: financial irregularities, nepotism, cronyism and even fraud at the heart of the Commission.
<P>
In these circumstances Parliament must get at the truth, ensure mechanisms are put in place to rectify the situation and insist that any individual shown to be guilty of criminal activities is prosecuted.
<P>
The grand gesture of sacking the entire Commission will not achieve these objectives.
<P>
The Socialist proposal to appoint a committee of independent experts to examine how the Commission detects and deals with fraud, mismanagement and nepotism provides a basis for rooting out these unacceptable practices.
<P>
The President of the Commission's belated acceptance of the serious nature and extent of financial mismanagement in his services is welcome.
<P>
If Parliament and the Commission work together real progress can be made in 'cleaning up' the Commission.
If this does not happen the college of Commissioners will cease to have my support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Martinez">
He who is not punished for a greater crime will be punished for a lesser crime.
<P>
Between 1989 and 1992, the European Commission blithely allowed Great Britain to poison millions of cows. 146 000 British cows were destroyed without Brussels batting an eyelid.
Contaminated feed continued to be in circulation, and the European Commission still said nothing.
Several tens of cases of Creutzfeldt-Jacob's disease were declared, condemning young Europeans because the cattle disease had perhaps been transmitted to humans.
In any case, the risk was knowingly taken to contaminate millions of human beings.
This was done by the European Commission.
This health risk was taken by the Commission.
Let us not mince our words: in this affair the Commission's attitude was more than negligent, it was an irresponsible and criminal attitude.
<P>
Yet the European Parliament did not punish the Commission.
The motion of censure of 20 February 1997 concerning mad cow disease was not passed.
<P>
Also, in 1992 the European Commission, going beyond its powers, did not hesitate to secretly sign the Blair House agreement with the United States, an agreement that sacrificed the agricultural interests of Europe and of our farmers.
There was no punishment in this case either.
<P>
On top of that, in the Central American bananas affair, the Commission in Brussels, on its own initiative, made a gift of 12 billion francs' worth of annual customs duties, to the sole benefit of three American multinationals: Chiquita, Dole and Del Monte.
<P>
No motion of censure was tabled, and there was not even a single sign of indignation.
However, for the 3.9 million francs of humanitarian funds for the Balkans and for two of Edith Cresson's friends, hidden away in her office, the European Commission is finally inciting disapproval.
<P>
Europe is a system in which the poisoning of cows leaves us cold, where we are indifferent to a gift of 12 billion francs, but where the quiet fraud of a good traditional Socialist and the good kleptomaniac habits of 1980s socialism provoke reactions, which this time are heated reactions.
<P>
This is confirmation of the principal that he who is not punished for a greater crime will be punished for a lesser crime.
But better late than never.
<P>
After all, Al Capone was only convicted of tax fraud, after having escaped any punishment for murder, violence, robbery and organised crime.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="McCarthy">
Today is a watershed in the reform of the European Commission.
<P>
It was necessary to threaten the Commission with the sack in order to ensure that Parliament's demands for more scrutiny of budgetary procedures and financial management were met, and to force the Commission to undertake a root-and-branch review of the Commission's management of taxpayers' money.
There can be no tolerance in the Commission of fraud, corruption or financial irregularities.
<P>
President Santer has accepted reforms proposed by the leader of the EPLP, Alan Donnelly.
In particular, a panel of experts to scrutinise finances will provide for ongoing rather than retrospective scrutiny allowing a rapid response to any irregularities.
<P>
This will begin the process of restoring public confidence, but we have to acknowledge as must the Commission that this has been a real crisis of confidence and that strenuous efforts must be made to overcome the credibility gap.
<P>
As Labour's regional spokesperson, I will be calling for a standing item on the Committee on Regional Policy's agenda on budgetary implementation and scrutiny, and look forward to working closely with the Commission on monitoring funding under European regional grants so as to ensure transparency and accountability.
<P>
To have voted for Mr Fabre-Aubrespy's motion of censure to sack the Commission today, at the critical juncture when the Commission needs to be capable of taking major decisions on Agenda 2000 and reform of regional grants, could have thrown this decision-making process into paralysis.
This would have jeopardised timetables and led to potential delays for future European programmes.
It would be irresponsible to leave our needy regions in Britain with uncertainty and insecurity over future grants.
Our demands have been met and now it is our duty to see the Commission pledges and rhetoric translated into action.
I stress this is only the beginning of a process of stricter and more rigorous financial control and accountability.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Moreau">
Today's vote constitutes an unprecedented political rejection of the Commission, even though the majority for censure could not be achieved, although only by a few tens of votes.
This is the first time that a motion of censure has obtained such a high score.
<P>
Despite the manoeuvres of the two main groups in the European Parliament that were completely opposed to censure, 232 Members (out of the 552 who are present), including all the French Communist and allied Members, and the great majority of the GUE/NGL Group, voted for censure.
<P>
This demonstrates the strong discontent that is developing in the Union with regard to the ultra-liberal choices, the excessive role and the arrogant practices of the Commission.
<P>
The GUE/NGL Group also wanted to outplay the manoeuvres from the right-wing, attempting to release the Commission from its responsibilities by solely accusing two Socialist Commissioners.
In support of the new situation, we will continue to work towards a progressive reorientation of European construction and for transparency and democracy within the institutions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Ojala">
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Pailler">
The reason that I am voting today for censure of the Commission, as I also did at the time of the BSE crisis, is to express a precise political position without discrediting any one Member of the Commission, which is not our responsibility.
<P>
The relentless manner in which accusations have been made against individuals could almost lead me to withdraw from this debate, but my political responsibility demands that I take a clear position.
<P>
The Commission has on three occasions demonstrated its inability to deal, transparently and in the interests of European citizens, with such fundamental and varied issues as BSE (public health), international relations (the GATT, NTM, MAI and P&T agreements) and the budget (on several occasions).
<P>
It seems to me to be incoherent and dangerous for the future of European construction to continue to give our confidence to a Commission that is unceasingly arrogant on a day to day basis, but which says it is sorry and promises to change when sparks fly, without ever fulfilling its promises.
<P>
I do not want to grant political confidence to an institution that is too often only concerned with ultra-liberal aims, in contempt of the aspirations and needs of the citizens of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Palm and Theorin">
Parliament has an important investigative role with regard to the work of the Commission.
If Parliament is unwilling to grant a discharge for 1996, it is logical that the question of censuring the Commission should be raised. And that is what has happened.
<P>
The arrogance with which the President of the Commission has received Parliament's criticism is incredible and unacceptable.
Using suspension to punish an official who has provided Parliament with information about the Commission's unwillingness to get to grips with fraud and corruption does not demonstrate the openness which is needed to gain the confidence of the citizens of Europe.
The reports of nepotism do not strengthen confidence in the Commission in any way.
An independent investigation of the reports of corruption, fraud and nepotism is essential, and the Commission's work needs to be substantially improved.
In fact, we have no confidence in the President of the Commission.
<P>
Regardless of the outcome of the vote on the motion of censure, the Commission has been seriously weakened in political terms through its own actions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Pinel">
By rejecting the motion of censure tabled by 70 Members from all political standpoints, the European Parliament has covered up the fraud and serious irregularities in the European Commission, and has therefore lost all credibility in the eyes of its citizens.
<P>
In an attempt to protect two Socialist Members of the European Commission, the Frenchwoman Edith Cresson and the Spaniard Manuel Marín, the Socialist party, as usual, has made itself an accomplice to the dishonest - or even the mafiosos - and has taken the actions of the Brussels bureaucrats a little further away from the interests of the nations and of the people.
<P>
On this occasion, the National Front has unanimously reaffirmed its vocation: to defend the interests of our native countries and the freedom of the peoples of Europe and in particular of the French.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Reding">
I voted against the PPE Group's resolution and for the PSE Group's resolution for the simple reason that my group's resolution would have destabilised the Commission at a time when Europe is in need, not of additional problems, but of strength and courage to overcome problems.
<P>
I voted for the Socialist resolution because it asks for a committee of inquiry to shed light - as quickly as possible - on the fraud and unscrupulous actions committed in the Commission.
This resolution also takes up the arguments that led Parliament to refuse discharge on the budget in December.
<P>
President Santer and the large majority of his Commission have my complete confidence.
I have no doubt that the warning has been heard and that the admonishments from Parliament and the Court of Auditors will be followed up with actions.
Jacques Santer has promised to clean up his Commission, and that is why I rejected the motion of censure.
I want to give the Commission the opportunity to correct its mistakes, to make those at fault face up to their responsibilities and to emerge stronger from this crisis.
<P>
With this vote, I am expressing to President Jacques Santer the confidence I have in him and my confidence in the building of a strong, transparent and democratic Europe, a Europe that will know how to avoid fraud and malpractice in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Schlechter">
What we are voting on indirectly is to grant the Santer Commission discharge for 1996, so I shall be voting for the discharge and thus expressing confidence in the Commission presided over by Jacques Santer.
<P>
This has been a difficult decision for me too, as the European Court of Auditors' report quite rightly drew attention to the sloppy way certain Commissioners and some of their officials carried out their work.
<P>
However, Jacques Santer is not to blame for that, as with the best will in the world he cannot intervene in his Commissioners' individual departments.
<P>
However, it has to be said that the European Parliament has repeatedly called on both the European institutions and the national authorities to manage the money entrusted to them more carefully.
<P>
Unfortunately, the President of the Court of Auditors has once again reported that the Community lost billions last year because individual administrative units failed to cooperate satisfactorily.
<P>
But in this case it is not the Commission we are calling upon to discharge its duties properly, but rather the individual Member States, who have failed to equip their administrations so as to enhance European cooperation.
<P>
Although the European Court of Auditors and the European Parliament have repeatedly called for improved and more rapid checks, it is obvious that the Member States do not have the will to act here.
<P>
Remedial action is called for.
This cannot be achieved by sacking the Santer Commission.
Of course, it would have been in the interest of the Commission as a whole if a couple of Commissioners had accepted political responsibility for their actions, but as they have not done so, we shall in future have to find a way of avoiding a cliff-hanging censure vote potentially leading to the removal of the entire Commission.
<P>
As the supreme monitoring body, Parliament should be given the right to fire individual Commissioners and officials who do not carry out their duties in the general interest, even if this does not suit certain governments.
<P>
If we cannot achieve this, then I feel sorry for any future Commission President, as the present system, with all its faults, will go unchanged.
All the more so in view of the enlargement of the European Union, which will certainly not make matters any easier.
<P>
Furthermore, the European Parliament will not in future be able to opt out of exercising its absolute control function.
<P>
In the hope that this will never be necessary again, I shall, as I have already said, vote to grant discharge to the Commission under Jacques Santer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We voted in favour of the motion of censure against the Commission.
We did so on the basis of the responsibility we have assumed as representatives of the citizens of Sweden and of the rest of the Union.
We tried to disregard irrelevant, party-political considerations.
We cast our votes in order to facilitate the fundamental reforms which could create a credible and honest administration in the Union.
<P>
The credibility of the current Commission has been seriously damaged.
The financial mismanagement has been allowed to prevail for far too long.
The Commission President's promises of improvements, which were given under strong political pressure, cannot revive our confidence.
The inability - and to a large extent unwillingness - to get to grips with the mismanagement has persisted for much too long. The scale of the mismanagement has been extensively documented, first and foremost through the Court of Auditors' investigations, and most recently in the report from our Committee on Budgetary Control (the Bösch report).
A complete change in the patterns of behaviour is therefore required.
Our position is based on the fact that the Commission has collective accountability.
<P>
Our vote does not cast a shadow over the many conscientious and honest officials to be found in the Commission's services.
We express our solidarity with Paul van Buitenen, whose actions are evidence of this.
<P>
However, we are convinced that only a new Commission can restore confidence in the institution and implement the structural reforms, the new set of rules and the openness which the situation demands.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Souchet">
For the first time in the history of our Parliament, a motion of censure against the European Commission has obtained a number of votes which is close to a simple majority, and these votes come from all the political groups and all the Member States represented in the House.
The extent of this vote of no confidence, which gained 232 votes in the only real motion of censure, which was tabled on the initiative of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, powerfully demonstrates our people's rejection of the way in which Europe is currently being run.
<P>
The repeated scandals that tarnish the Commission in all its fields of intervention are not a matter of chance: they are the result of a system that the Member States have allowed to develop, the structure of which breeds corruption.
This system could be considered to be an actual distortion of democracy, because the result of it is that the responsibilities entrusted by the people to the governments that they elect are in fact carried out, through the Commission, by subcontractors that are not monitored by anyone: consultancy firms, ad hoc service companies, and so on.
<P>
Yes, we do need to review the European institutions, but this review needs to be in-depth: that is what we mean when we talk about the need to build 'another Europe'.
We mean that we must put an end to this absurd process that involves the Member States relinquishing powers to a Commission that is so greedy for powers that it is incapable of exercising them.
The solution does not lie in unmonitored sub-contracting, which leads to wastage and fraud at the expense of the taxpayers in our Member States, nor does it lie in constructing a federal super-bureaucracy.
<P>
The fraud that we are discovering and condemning today is nothing more than the result of applying the federalist dogma of the Commission's sacrosanct independence from the Member States.
Under the cover of this 'independence', there has been a quite natural development of the habit of exercising uncontrolled power, a culture of non-transparency, nepotism and arrogance, a society in which there is connivance and complacency, and a contempt for the rule of law. It is a closed world, cut off from the people and from their representatives, and it thinks that it is allowed to do anything: in short, it is the opposite of democracy.
<P>
We therefore need to move towards a complete reorientation of European construction if we really want to put an end to this drifting off course of the institutions of the Union that is discrediting the very idea of Europe.
The Member States in the Council must forcibly regain control of the Commission.
Their past laxity, in thoughtlessly allowing a body to develop outside any control, by shirking their responsibilities and giving in to the Commission's bulimic appetite for power, has endangered the future construction of Europe.
In order to clean the Augean stables, there is today no path to take other than that of setting to work on a Europe that is truly democratic and transparent.
The current system has shown itself to be incapable of reforming itself and incapable of taking account of the desire for reform expressed by the European Parliament: we only have to look at what became of the conclusions of our first two committees of inquiry.
<P>
The Commission only finds the energy to condemn those within it that advocate transparency, from Bernard Connolly to Paul van Buitenen.
Obviously, the little plans concocted between the President of the Commission and the Socialist Group to set up not a parliamentary committee of inquiry, but a committee of experts, on the appointment of which the Commission will have a right of veto, are not the worst of the problems to be solved in order to enable us to break the deadlock that is currently blocking the construction of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Spiers">
I did not vote for the motion of censure but will be prepared to vote for a similar motion in future if the committee of independent experts reveals serious wrongdoing or mismanagement and if culpable Commissioners do not then accept their responsibilities.
To use one of the few political clichés that has not been used this week, the current Commission is drinking in the last chance saloon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Thors">
Today I voted to express confidence in the Commission, because my judgement was that the Commission's departure now would do more harm than good to the Union.
My decision was guided by the fact that the final negotiations on the budget, structural policy and agricultural policy should be able to be completed as soon as possible.
This is in Finland's interests, especially as far as agricultural policy is concerned.
The issue now is one of recognising responsibility and not of demonstrating power, which has wrongly become an issue for many Members of the European Parliament.
<P>
In order to continue the battle against abuses in the EU, to achieve a sound administrative structure and to move away from blaming others, the Commissioners should be personally accountable.
The struggle for a better and more open administration is the key.
That is another reason why I have given my support to the ideas in the resolution from the Liberal Group.
It is also in line with the administrative reforms which have already started.
<P>
I also believe that the Commission has made substantial progress in cleaning up its administration.
The fact that mistakes have been uncovered is largely due to increased efforts to bring about a sound and healthy administration.
What has been uncovered is mainly mismanagement, and fortunately not many cases of fraud.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Thyssen">
I abstained in the vote on the motion of censure in order to register my protest at the way the Socialist Group has handled the discharge for the 1996 budget.
<P>
The author of the report put forward an excellent proposal, now referred to as paragraphs 26 and 27 of the Elles report.
He suggested a work programme that the Commission would have to fulfil by certain predetermined dates, thus allowing Parliament both to keep the debate open and to demand that the Commission put its house in order.
<P>
The Socialist Group wanted to close the debate and tabled a motion of censure which it itself was not prepared to vote for.
The motion resulted in the over-politicisation of the entire issue and, even worse, produced a result that was weaker than the proposals in the Elles report.
The committee of experts is a capitulation by the European Parliament.
Things should not have been allowed to get this far.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Valverde López">
The motion of censure tabled against the European Commission did not have adequate grounds.
The debates did not provide any new proof, any evidence, or any sound arguments.
I was therefore unable to vote in favour of the motion of censure.
<P>
Great political and institutional confusion has arisen.
Public opinion has received a very negative impression of the European institutions.
The same old anti-Europeans have made use of the occasion to damage the stability of the European integration project.
<P>
Consideration has not been given to an essential reality of the constitutional and administrative doctrine: that we must differentiate between the responsibilities of government and the responsibilities of administration.
<P>
We have also forgotten about the spirit and letter of the Treaty on European Union.
The European Parliament has the ability to monitor all the European Commission's activities on a daily basis.
This is one of Parliament's roles, which we carry out through oral and written questions and the periodic reports on the management of the European Union's activities.
<P>
Equally, the European Parliament has power to vote for a motion of censure to prevent the European Commission from continuing in office.
However, this crucial power must be used to assess serious incidences of negligence in the Commission's essential institutional responsibilities, which, basically, are its ability to initiate legislation and its responsibility as guardian of the Treaties.
<P>
Throughout the world, public opinion is aware that in recent years, the European Union has reached a high level of development and achieved some revolutionary goals.
The launch of the single currency has been a vital success.
The launch of negotiations to enlarge the European Union to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe will lead us to a united Europe, a revolutionary institutional model and a factor for global peace and prosperity.
The debate on Agenda 2000 is also underway and will put Europe in a position to face the challenges of the next seven years successfully.
<P>
Give all these successes, it would be irresponsible to censure the European Commission, which is undeniably the driving force behind the Community institutions.
<P>
This does not prevent us in the European Parliament from continuing with our task of strictly monitoring all the Commission's activities, and this includes the demand to improve its management structures.
I personally have been calling for changes in the Commission's procedures for the last 12 years.
Among other proposals, we have been asked to approve rules on administrative procedure and administrative justice, an area where there is a great vacuum in Community legislation.
These rules will provide legal certainty for citizens, as well as increasing efficiency and transparency.
At the same time, they will be an essential instrument in tackling the problems in the economic and administrative management of the European Commission. They will also allow us to distinguish, with legal certainty, between the economic and administrative responsibilities and the major political and institutional responsibilities, to which the final and most serious response is the motion of censure.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 12.40 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Happart">
Mr President, in order to clarify procedure for the future, I would like to request that you ask the Committee on the Rules of Procedure on the basis of which Rule the sitting was based just now in agreeing that the motion of censure tabled by the Socialist Group, and therefore signed by at least 63 Members, be withdrawn from the vote.
<P>
In my opinion, if this motion of censure had been retained, it would have gained more votes than the one on which we voted.
I would therefore like to know on which of our Rules of Procedure the withdrawal of this motion of censure, with more than 63 signatories from the Socialist Group, was based.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Happart.
I have noted your statement, which will be forwarded as you request.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, just to clarify the Agenda, I understand that we are now going to continue with the debate on the Van Lancker proposal, then move to the urgencies.
As someone who is a signatory to the urgency at point 5 on the Agenda, I should be glad if you would confirm that we are going to finish the Agenda, which simply means the vote is likely to be delayed by a few minutes rather than, as it were, losing an item of urgency which was, as you are well aware, lost from the Agenda last month for a similar reason.
<P>
There are people in the gallery who have come from the United Kingdom to hear this debate.
It would be rather absurd if they had to be told for the second month running: 'come back again next month'.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="President">
I realise the importance of the urgent item to which you are referring, Mr Ford, and I can confirm that our intention is to deal with all the topical and urgent subjects and then proceed to the vote, in other words to delay the vote on the urgencies so that all the items can be dealt with.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Article K.6 EU; Schengen cooperation (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on the two oral questions to the Council and the Commission and the proposal for a recommendation by Mrs Van Lancker on the annual debate on Article K.6 of the Treaty.
<P>
Both the Commission and the Council are represented.
I should like to thank you for coming back this afternoon to fulfil your duty to the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, I regret that this interesting debate and your equally interesting statement have been overshadowed by today's other events.
But I am grateful to you for staying on.
It is a very encouraging sign of the positive attitude of the Council presidency and the Council towards Parliament.
<P>
I have three points to make.
First, I am very grateful that you went into considerable detail on the subject of eastward enlargement. As Parliament's rapporteur on eastward enlargement and internal security, I of course think that these are pivotal subjects.
I have in mind not only the pre-accession strategy and the acquis communautaire , but also a series of measures ranging from jointly combating crime to Europol's eastward extension, which can be anticipated by means of agreements with the police in the applicant countries. I also have in mind the vital area of education and training, which requires some restructuring of the PHARE programme, but it has been possible to achieve a great deal already.
<P>
There are also two long-term objectives which I have mentioned in my report, and which I want to drawn your attention to.
One is the protection of Europe's future external borders.
I believe that we need to provide support measures to prepare for a common European border protection system, because I feel that we will need such a system in the long term.
I would also point out that we have proposed a European academy for internal security.
The Austrian Presidency was fairly receptive to this idea and I hope that you will seriously consider this project, which would be situated in the border area between the EU and the applicant countries.
<P>
Second, I would like to mention the topic of burden sharing.
We need an EU burden-sharing system with quotas for civil war refugees and asylum seekers.
The Austrian Presidency and the European Parliament have carried out some important preparatory work in this area too.
We will judge this presidency by the progress it makes in this field.
<P>
Thirdly, without wishing to spark off any internal policy debate, I would ask you to defer the sensitive subjects of citizenship law and thus of EU citizenship law in the individual Member States ...
<P>
The President cut the speaker off
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
Mr President, for me the motion for a resolution and the report we are discussing lack a clear refugee perspective - and by that I mean the perspective of the refugees.
It is increasingly clear that the Dublin Convention and the Schengen Agreement are contributing to the creation of a brutal and restrictive refugee policy in western Europe.
We can already see the unreasonable effects of the Dublin Convention when the principle of the first asylum country is applied to countries which have different criteria for granting asylum.
People are passed around between countries and their applications are not dealt with properly.
We can see that one of the main real motives of the Schengen Agreement appears to be to use methods such as carrier liability, tough visa policies and excessive border controls to prevent asylum seekers from coming to the EU at all in order to be able to seek asylum.
<P>
Unfortunately, we can also see how this motion for a resolution defends the totally unreasonable document produced by the Austrian Presidency, which is one long attack on anything that represents a humane and responsible refugee policy.
It is about 'Fortress Europe'; it is no longer about taking responsibility for the asylum seekers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindholm">
Mr President, I would just like to highlight some of the many points which ought to be discussed.
The aim of Schengen is to bring about the freedom of movement of persons in the EU.
However, Schengen's rules are centred entirely on border controls, security controls and compensatory measures.
What message does this send to our citizens?
Only a few articles are concerned with the positive aspect of freedom of movement.
This is not acceptable.
<P>
We also fear and are very concerned that Schengen could lead to a less generous and humane policy on refugees and asylum.
There are many things which point towards that.
That is why we are insisting that the UN's conventions on refugees should apply in all situations, even in the EU.
<P>
Schengen also has to be compatible with the intergovernmental Nordic Passport Union, so that freedom of movement in Scandinavia can continue and develop as it has done for 40 years.
It is therefore pleasing that the committee unanimously supports this.
<P>
As far as Schengen's integration into the Treaty is concerned, the negotiations must be open and involve both the European Parliament and the national parliaments.
Access to information and documents must be made easier so that both politicians and citizens are able to participate.
<P>
The Greens are of the opinion that the Schengen Convention should be revised and amended, having regard to the principle of subsidiarity, various important basic rights and the legal guarantees designed to protect our citizens' personal safety and integrity.
<P>
We are concerned about the enormous demands which are being made on the applicant countries and their ability to meet the requirements concerning border controls, legislation and so on.
We are therefore calling for flexibility, responsibility and understanding on the part of the EU for the serious problems which these countries are facing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Krarup">
Mr President, I shall be very brief.
On all the main points, I agree with the views expressed by my Swedish colleagues, Mr Sjöstedt and Mrs Lindholm.
There are two trends in the two proposals we are considering which are decisive for our group, for me personally and for the movement I represent in Denmark.
One is towards a strengthening of Parliament's power in these areas, which is taking place at the expense of the authority of our national parliaments, and the other is a drive towards integration and an almost imperialistic urge to dominate the world around us, not least Norway and Iceland.
We must oppose the trend to communitarise criminal law and all other areas of law, including police cooperation - in other words, the transfer of the third pillar to the first.
This is rash and ill considered.
It is an alarming development which runs counter to national legal traditions, especially the Danish one, which I support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Mr President, I would first like to support the rapporteur's critical remarks about the timing of this debate, which is being held in the presence of representatives of a Council presidency just a few days old.
Our job is to assess the work done by the British and Austrian Presidencies.
Both initially presented a realistic programme and announced improvements in cooperation with Parliament.
In practice, however, things turned out somewhat differently.
Neither the spirit nor the letter of the promises made to us has been honoured.
Many of the decisions foreshadowed have been deferred, and in a number of areas unsatisfactory compromises have been reached.
The most striking example of the European Union's laborious progress is probably the slow start that Europol has got off to.
<P>
I would like to make one more point. Paragraph 1(2) of the version of the Van Lancker report that I have before me seems to suggest that the Treaty of Amsterdam came into force a year ago - this must be one of those pre-cessions the President-in-Office was talking about this morning!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Elliott">
Mr President, regarding Mr Nassauer's report on police cooperation and the development of EUROPOL, I was very pleased with what we heard from the German presidency in relation to the development of EUROPOL in the context of the newly ratified convention.
I agree entirely with what others have said here: if we are to see any significant further extension of EUROPOL into the operational sphere then we must ensure that there is a proper system of democratic accountability of its activity, involving an enhanced role for this Parliament, and indeed a proper system of independent complaints against any of its activities.
This is essential, just as it is for any national police force.
<P>
Above all, in this whole area of judicial and home affairs there is now an overwhelming need for extensive and rapid progress in harmonisation.
The minimal progress we have made in this area, compared with the headlong progress we have made in the financial, economic and many other spheres of Community activity, is now causing serious problems.
We need to do everything we possibly can to catch up in the areas of, for example, extradition, cross-border crime, judicial and court cooperation, including civil matters as the German minister outlined, and legislation regarding nationality and citizenship.
<P>
Let me give you one example: I am dealing with the case of a family where the mother is Irish, the father British, and their daughter was born in Holland, but for the last eight years they have lived in Spain - very European.
But this girl, who is now 13, has no nationality and only a temporary travel document issued as a concession by the Irish authorities.
We must be able to deal properly with the situation of people in these circumstances and not allow a situation to develop where children can be virtually stateless.
We must get to grips with this.
<P>
I fully support Mrs van Lancker's report.
It contains many excellent proposals.
I am glad that the amendments adopted at committee removed some of the mild criticism of the British and Irish position which was agreed at Amsterdam as regards non-participation, for a period at any rate, in the Schengen agreement.
I am sure that as time moves on the situation will change.
We need to be aware of the implications for the whole operation of the European Union of the fact that Schengen will contain two non-EU Member States when Icelandic and Norwegian participation is confirmed.
And the fact that two or three existing EU Member States will not be part of Schengen creates complications which will need to be resolved.
<P>
Finally, I was pleased at the references the minister made to the question of the applicant countries.
The Committee on Civil Liberties has had a valuable meeting with parliamentarians from these applicant countries to discuss the whole judiciary and home affairs area.
The influx of people seeking asylum from certain of these eastern European countries at the present time calls into question the situation in certain of these countries and makes it urgently necessary for them to introduce effective legislation to protect their ethnic minorities.
I very much hope that in the ongoing negotiations Council and Commission will ensure that the issue of human rights and the protection of minorities is given the urgent priority it deserves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Reding">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, it is true that the Treaty of Amsterdam improves the running of European policy on justice and home affairs.
However, for five years at least, that policy, for example on asylum, is beyond all parliamentary control.
National parliaments no longer have a say in the matter and the European Parliament's rights are limited to consultation only.
This is insufficient.
It is unacceptable that such an important field as domestic security should be beyond parliamentary control and decision-making and should not be a part of democratic transparency.
<P>
My second point concerns the fact that important acts are adopted by the Council of Ministers, and then nothing happens.
These texts, which are essential to the smooth running of the Union and to the security of our citizens, are not ratified and therefore cannot enter into force.
Mr Nassauer's report cites thirteen such texts, which are among the most important ones.
This amounts to a denial of political efficiency, and to absolute opposition to change.
In other words, in terms of the fight against crime, and asylum and immigration policy, we see a lot of declarations and few actions.
<P>
I am not questioning the good will of our leaders.
I am quite simply stating the political reality, which is not very positive, and I strongly urge the Council to draw lessons from this negative situation and ensure that, the next time the Treaties are reviewed, the structures are changed, as the current shortcomings of the institutions are preventing us from doing good.
Our citizens ask us to act, and often we want to but are unable to do so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pirker">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, we all agree that the Schengen security system is quite simply essential if we are to achieve freedom of movement.
We should never forget that we can only enjoy freedom of movement if we continue to guarantee security for all our citizens, and if possible even increase it.
<P>
The facts demonstrate just how important the Schengen security system really is.
I requested some figures which show that there are approximately 30 000 successful searches made each year, totalling around 120 000 searches by the end of 1998.
That means that tonnes of drugs have been seized, thousands of stolen cars have been identified at the borders, weapons and stolen works of art have been seized, and thousands of illegal immigrant smugglers have been arrested, or, in the case of illegal immigrants, intercepted at the border.
So Schengen has led to an improvement in security.
<P>
This is also proof that the Schengen security system, as already implemented by 10 Member States, is sound.
I would go so far as to say that it is unique in the world, with 6 million data records on missing persons and stolen property, and controls at over 1 500 border crossing points.
<P>
So what further progress can we expect?
I see the emphasis as being on three focal points, which I would like to single out.
First, now that we have seen how well Schengen can function, and how important it is for achieving freedom of movement, we should implement the Schengen Agreement in all our Member States and thus improve security for all Europe's citizens.
Second, we should offer more support to those Member States faced with tougher challenges, particularly in connection with migration, by means of help with border controls and also help with burden sharing.
Third, we should use the Pre-Accession Pact as a means of offering support to the applicant countries, as accession to the European Union is only possible if the security standards are met.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, it is understandable that many states in the Schengen zone have been undecided about accepting the institution of a passport-free area in its entirety.
There has been alarm over such issues as the easy transportation of drugs within the internal market, and spillage over the EU's external borders, which we have had some grim reminders of, especially in signs of organised crime emanating from the east.
<P>
The fact is that Schengen is not yet a fully workable system.
When the Treaty of Amsterdam takes effect it will bring with it important changes to the judicial status of the Schengen provisions, bringing them largely within the scope of the first pillar.
For this reason, solving the Schengen problems and dispelling the doubts of ordinary citizens will demand action on the part of this year's countries holding the presidency, Germany and Finland.
<P>
Security arrangements for travel within the Schengen zone may best be ensured through multi-level cooperation, whose key elements will comprise rapid exchanges of information between national authorities, the work of Europol, and highly developed customs information systems.
Because there will be no checks at borders within the zone, the so-called system of invisible surveillance must be effective enough to ensure that the enormous benefit of freedom of movement is not abused by criminal organisations and tax evaders.
There has to be a sustainable balance between citizens' freedoms and general considerations of security, a system that will maximise the advantages of free movement.
<P>
In recent opinion polls Finns said they thought one of the most important tasks during Finland's presidency would be the prevention of international crime.
This must be borne in mind when this issue is next discussed at the summit in Tampere.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="Schily">
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office.
<P>
Mr Mendes Bota has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="Mendes Bota">
I am sorry, Mr President, but I must make a complaint regarding the fact that Portuguese was the only language for which interpretation was not provided during the speech by the President-in-Office of the Council.
I find this totally unacceptable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="President">
That is indeed completely out of order, Mr Mendes Bota, being both contrary to our Rules and unlike our excellent interpreters.
We shall look into it immediately so as to put things right.
<P>
In the meantime, my thanks again to the President-in-Office.
<P>
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place this evening at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
TOPICAL AND URGENT DEBATE
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>
B4-0044/99 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on Iraq; -B4-0059/99 by Mr Swoboda and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on future developments in Iraq; -B4-0079/99 by Mr Oostlander and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on Iraq; -B4-0097/99 by Mr Pasty, on behalf of the UPE Group, on the situation in Iraq; -B4-0098/99 by Mr Manisco and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on Iraq; -B4-0104/99 by Mrs Aelvoet and others, on behalf of the V Group, on Iraq; -B4-0105/99 by Mrs Aelvoet and others, on behalf of the V Group, on the Iraqi Kurds.

<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, during the last part-session, as you know, we held a very comprehensive and detailed debate on Iraq and the American and British air strikes.
Our present discussion is not intended as a repeat of that debate, but is designed to deliver the following clear message: in this House, among the European population and throughout the world there has been perfectly understandable criticism of the bombing raids by the United States and Britain.
That, however, does not mean that we either understand, tolerate or condone what Saddam Hussein and his regime are doing in Iraq, particularly to their own population.
<P>
Let me say quite clearly that the defence of the so-called no-fly zones in Iraq is absolutely necessary and warranted, especially for the protection of the Kurds and Shiites.
However widely opinions may differ on the events surrounding the air strikes, we are firmly behind the defence of the no-fly zones.
<P>
Secondly, the Kurdish organisations reached an agreement in Washington.
We in this Parliament wish to urge the Kurdish organisations to uphold this agreement, to set aside the argument that interests no one - except perhaps some Kurdish political leaders, but certainly not the Kurdish population and certainly not the Western world - to cooperate and to represent very clearly the interests of the Kurds.
<P>
Thirdly, we seek to draw attention to humanitarian issues, to the question of humanitarian aid for Iraq, especially the population of the no-fly zones.
In addition, we should do everything possible to ensure that the entire population suffers as little as possible from the policies of Saddam Hussein, from military actions and from the sanctions.
I believe that sums up our concern.
We want to help the population, not the regime.
That is what we wish to re-emphasise today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, this is the first time that we in the House have had a chance to comment on Iraq since the bombings last month.
My group regrets that the bombings were necessary, but under the circumstances we support the US/British action.
It was Saddam Hussein himself who flouted the UN resolutions, who refuses to allow UNSCOM to do its work, and who represses his own people and threatens his neighbours with his weapons.
It was Saddam Hussein who broke the agreement with Kofi Annan.
<P>
The bombings were right, and this sort of action could again be justified in future if the Iraqi leader continues down the same path.
We must uphold the UN resolutions, and we must uphold UNSCOM and ensure that it can continue its work.
Campaigns to undermine a just and consistent policy towards Saddam must be stopped.
If we give in to this dictator, we are not just undermining the international rule of law, we are also tolerating repression and threats.
The Union must adopt a hard line en bloc .
The no-fly zones must be maintained, and the people of Iraq must be helped, of course.
Saddam's policy of starving his people for his own political gain must be unmasked as the inhuman policy it is.
<P>
The Union must be prepared to send food aid if Saddam agrees to let his people be helped, but we must send it only through independent organisations.
Saddam must not be allowed to claim these measures as his own doing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, I believe this resolution dwells rather too much on past events and does not focus on the fact that a new danger is looming.
It is perfectly clear that the provocations are starting again, that the actions by the Iraqi side, or rather Saddam Hussein's side, are continuing, with the result that there is a serious risk of war on the horizon.
Saddam Hussein does what he wants, showing utter contempt for everyone.
The very fact that he has spurned the 'food for oil' programme is itself clear proof that he does whatever he pleases with the Iraqi people.
One simple fact should not be forgotten: this man comes from the town of Tikrit and is only interested in the Tikrit tribe; all others are only slaves who are used as cannon fodder.
<P>
Saddam Hussein is essentially an Arab version of what Hitler was in our part of the world.
He has exactly the same personality profile and pursues exactly the same type of policy, which is why there will be no peace until he has been replaced, until a different government is at the helm.
Actions that signal a real will to replace him are therefore entirely justified.
That is why I have been critical of the air strikes, which are a futile gesture.
Missiles were fired, the people were terrified, but Saddam Hussein was not harmed; on the contrary, the air strikes gave him an opportunity to strengthen his position still further and aroused worldwide suspicion that the purpose of the whole escapade was to divert attention from certain embarrassing events in the United States.
I even saw in one of our newspapers that they were calling the missiles 'Monica'.
<P>
We should perhaps bring out that point more clearly in the resolution, or at least in the discussion on the resolution.
For that reason, if the House adopts the resolution, which is a good one, it should reject the three amendments, the only real purpose of which is to undermine and water down this resolution.
That is important if we want to send a clear message.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="Daskalaki">
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="Kerr">
Mr President, let me do a rather unusual thing in the European Parliament and respond to the previous four speakers, not a thing that people often do.
All four of them, in different ways, criticised the US and British bombing of Baghdad last month.
I have to say to them: if you believe that, why is it not in your joint resolution?
We too should be condemning that bombing, as indeed most of the people of the European Union did when it happened last month.
As one of the speakers pointed out, it was mostly to do with American domestic affairs.
<P>
We in the Greens deplore the bombing.
As the speakers have said quite rightly, it strengthens Saddam Hussein, it does not weaken him.
The real policies to weaken Saddam are to back the democratic movements inside Iraq, to lift the sanctions, to help the people restore democracy.
That would be the quickest way of getting rid of Saddam.
Some of us have been around for a long time and have opposed Saddam from the start, when Christian Democrat and Socialist governments around the world were selling him arms and strengthening him.
Let us have a little consistency here in terms of historical perspective, something which Mr von Habsburg is certainly capable of.
Let us say that we should be maintaining our support for democracy.
<P>
In particular I want to deplore the role of the British Government in this.
Mr Blair again displayed, despite his warm words about Europe, his lack of commitment.
He is the man who is going around saying that we need a common European defence policy, but at the first sign of action from the US Mr Blair was there announcing his support for the bombing even before the US announced the bombing was happening.
If he is serious about a common foreign European defence policy then he has to demonstrate that by action as well as words.
<P>
As for the British Foreign Secretary who was previously a leading supporter of CND in Britain, it is a disgrace that he attaches his name and support to that action as well.
<P>
So let us support the Green amendments and let us mention the role of UNSCOM, which has been exposed as a conduit for the CIA.
Let us have an investigation into that issue, which needs to be dealt with before UNSCOM can go back to Iraq with any authority.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Neyts-Uyttebroeck">
Mr President, all the main points have already been made by Mr Bertens as the person who signed the resolution.
I think that however much we may all regret that it has been necessary to take further military action against Iraq, it must be perfectly clear that the person most responsible is Saddam Hussein who, as previous speakers have said, ruthlessly continues to hold his people to ransom, as can be clearly seen from the way in which he blocked the oil for food programme, bringing further suffering for the Iraqi people.
That said, I would like to express our group's support for the call for the Council to try to define an EU position on this issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, the Commission is very concerned about the events that followed the air strikes of 16 and 19 December 1998.
Naturally, the Commission and the Member States fully support the implementation of the 'oil for food' programme, which is administered by the United Nations. This allows the sale of oil up to a value of USD 5 000 million over six months, in order to obtain humanitarian supplies and spare parts and equipment for the oil-producing plants.
<P>
The Commission also welcomes the fact that the UN Security Council renewed this 'oil for food' programme on 24 November 1998 for a further six months.
We are obviously concerned at the slow rate at which the humanitarian aid and spare parts are being supplied, and we hope that the Iraqi Government will give its full support to the application of this programme and establish favourable conditions for its implementation.
<P>
Since the Gulf War in 1991 the European Union has been the largest donor of humanitarian aid to Iraq, having given aid to the value of EUR 200 million.
ECHO earmarked EUR 10 million for the first eight months of 1998 and another EUR 4 million for the period from October 1998 to 1999.
Our commitment, and that of the European Union, is to relieve the suffering of the Iraqi people, and this is what will continue to guide the Commission's actions, in line, of course, with the Council mandate and decisions.
<P>
However, I must point out that the Iraqi Government is creating a lot of problems for us because of the restrictions it is imposing on non-governmental organisations.
This attitude may well threaten the implementation of humanitarian aid programmes financed by the European Union.
<P>
As far as the Kurdish conflict is concerned, we must welcome the rapprochement of the two rival Kurdish factions in northern Iraq as a result of the 1998 agreement on a system of power-sharing, and elections are now being prepared in order to set up a Kurdish regional assembly.
The Commission and the Member States will together explore the possibilities for promoting the application of the agreement within the context of the common foreign and security policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>
B4-0054/99 by Mr Cunha and Mr Coelho, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the situation in Angola; -B4-0057/99 by Mr Nordmann, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on resumption of the war in Angola; -B4-0060/99 by Mr Newens, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the crisis in the peace process in Angola; -B4-0075/99 by Mr Telkämper and others, on behalf of the V Group, on the crisis in Angola; -B4-0088/99 by Mr Hory and others, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the situation in Angola; -B4-0094/99 by Mr Pasty and others, on behalf of the UPE Group, on the situation in Angola; -B4-0099/99 by Mr Miranda and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the situation in Angola.
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendes Bota">
Mr President, oil and diamonds have fuelled the 25 years of civil war in Angola and are at the root of all the problems.
They are the cause of the poverty and misery of the Angolan people and they are ensuring the prosperity of the arms traffickers and the corrupt politicians.
The number of mines that appear secretly in the night is double that of the mines opened during the day.
The masses of humanitarian aid, including food, seem to be a drop in the ocean for the people who are desperately in need.
<P>
The shooting down of two cargo planes chartered by MONUA, causing the death of 23 people, represented a new level of disregard for all the international agreements and institutions.
The war has been rekindled from the ashes of the Lusaka protocol, clearly demonstrating the failure of the UN mission responsible for overseeing its implementation.
The tolerance needed to consider the Angolan problem in a balanced manner and with equal respect for all the parties involved has been exhausted.
We know that the government excels in corruption and incompetence.
<P>
But the main party guilty of this carnage is UNITA.
This organisation of Jonas Savimbi, which recently made nearly four billion dollars on the world diamond market, has reinforced its military positions on the ground and its level of equipment. It has not disarmed or facilitated the extension of the state administration and it has disregarded all the accords and all the previous resolutions of the UN Security Council.
The latter has just passed another resolution in order to restrict the satellite communications controlled by UNITA and to prevent the trading of diamonds.
The patience of the international community is wearing thin.
There are powerful economic and geo-strategic interests supplying this machinery of war.
It is time to say that we have had enough.
Those responsible for this conflict must be charged with crimes against humanity.
Plundering and prospering on Angola's God-given wealth, leaving millions of war and famine victims to die, is a crime against humanity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Nordmann">
Mr President, the situation in Angola is extremely serious, and the resumption of the civil war is particularly worrying.
We have seen a peace process break down.
The Angolan Government, whose legitimacy is doubtful given its failure to complete the presidential election process, has tried to politically and physically destroy those who should have been its partners, and has forced UNITA to take action in self-defence.
That is the current situation.
It is a tragic situation because meanwhile the Angolan people are languishing in unspeakable poverty, while a few of the supposed élite are sharing the oil resources that they have seized.
<P>
We must be very firm in showing our disapproval of this situation and our determination in appealing for peace.
Peace is made between those who are fighting.
There will be no destruction of one side or the other. The two parties involved need to finally be able ...
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Nordmann.
Mr Newens now has the floor for two minutes as the author of a motion for a resolution. You have the floor, Mr Newens.
<P>
Let me just say to the speakers that we must keep strictly to the speaking time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="Newens">
Mr President, hundreds of thousands of Angolan people are today facing the threat of misery, starvation and death in central Angola as a result of the renewed outbreak of civil war initiated by Dr Savimbi and UNITA, despite all the efforts of the United Nations and other parties to bring peace and relief to this long-suffering country after decades of destruction and merciless hostilities.
<P>
Much-needed humanitarian supplies have been cut off after the disgraceful shooting down of two UN planes, whose personnel are still unaccounted for.
The son of the pilot of the first plane was on board the second, which illustrates the tragedy as far as those engaged on missions of mercy are concerned.
<P>
Every possible effort must now be made to end this war and sanctions must be tightened.
In particular, action must be taken to prevent UNITA from finding any market for the diamonds which have been used to buy arms and supplies, and De Beers and all other traders must be made to verify their sources of supply and to ensure no monies whatsoever get through to fund this war.
Peace cannot be achieved by armed hostilities and there must be a return to the Lusaka protocol.
<P>
We call upon both belligerents to cooperate immediately with the UN in seeking to establish the fate of the occupants of the UN planes which were shot down.
<P>
In the interests of the long-suffering people of Angola, it is vital that the UN, subject of course to the safety of its personnel, continues to be involved in Angola.
We appeal to the Commission to assist in the provision of humanitarian aid and, when it is possible, with the clearing of mines.
This war is a major disaster and all possible power must be mobilised to restore peace at long last.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
Mr President, we had hoped for peace in Angola.
Such hopes had been raised many times before.
Years ago, Jonas Savimbi was invited here to our Parliament and promised to make peace.
Then he took up arms, and the country was plunged into war again.
Four years ago there was the Lusaka protocol, an agreement that we saw as the basis for many years of peace.
We have been there with various delegations from the European Parliament, and we have seen weapons being surrendered in Huambo, for example.
We parliamentarians, however, criticised the fact that the weapons being surrendered were arms from the Second World War, not the weapons that had been used in the civil war.
In other words, UNITA has been pulling the wool over our eyes for years; they used a cease-fire to keep the lid on the civil war to some extent over a period of several years, but this civil war scenario was always on their minds, and they wanted to pursue it.
<P>
I believe we must take serious note of the UN Security Council resolution, which calls for the enforcement of sanctions against UNITA.
We must take it seriously in two respects.
First of all, there is a need to ensure that UNITA can no longer mine diamonds and buy modern weapons with the proceeds from their sale.
Secondly, these diamonds must not find their way into the European Union, be marketed here and provide the capital for these arms purchases.
So it is up to the Member States not to let these diamonds from Angola enter their markets and to take steps to prevent their sale in the European Union.
<P>
On the other hand, as in every war situation, we have a suffering population, a population sucked into the war, generally against their will.
In such cases, Commissioner Marín, it is our duty to keep providing humanitarian aid wherever possible, wherever the people who want to administer that aid are not endangered.
So that it can be administered, I believe it is essential for us to continue the efforts we have been making to ensure that landmines are cleared, to support the removal from that country of the most barbaric weapons in existence.
We should also support the rehabilitation effort.
We visited rehabilitation workshops and can confirm that they are working well.
I believe that both humanitarian aid in general and the specific projects are a very important asset to the suffering population, as well as a good and vital contribution by the European Union, by the Commission, Parliament and the Council - the budgetary authority and the executive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hory">
Mr President, our group has no more sympathy than Mr Nordmann for the Angolan regime, for its internal practices inherited from an Africanised Sovietism, or even for the shameless manner in which it is now interfering in regional affairs.
However, the fact remains that the truth does need to be established and that we do not feel that it is fair to apportion equal blame to the government and to Jonas Savimbi's uprising, for restarting a civil war for which UNITA bears the overwhelming responsibility, notably by seizing land and towns that in theory had been restored to government authority.
<P>
Similarly, we do not think that it is fair to suggest, as in the initial Liberal text, a European boycott of Angolan oil and diamonds.
We feel that it would be much more appropriate to check whether those products are in fact being exported by the Angolan State and not by UNITA, which is using them as a means of ruining both its country and the peace agreements that it has signed.
With regard to those agreements, which were made reluctantly and were never really applied, it is reasonable to demand a return to the Lusaka protocol.
We believe that peace needs to be completely rebuilt following a prior and very serious warning to UNITA, and that this can be done by a new conference in which European Union diplomacy could finally have an opportunity to assert itself.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Girão Pereira">
Mr President, our colleague, Mrs van Bladel, who cannot be present due to family reasons, has asked me to make a statement. After the part-session in December 1997, through both an urgent debate and questions to the Council, she asked for steps to be taken to prevent a war in Angola.
On three occasions she tabled motions for resolutions that were not accepted by this House, and she therefore considers that Parliament must also bear responsibility for the current situation in Angola.
She also says that, in her opinion, the deep mistrust between the government and UNITA, which has a historical basis, was aggravated by the 1992 massacres and that this is the fundamental reason for the conflict in Angola.
<P>
Personally, I believe that the Angolan problem is basically a question of trust, and the climate of distrust is the fault of both sides, not just of UNITA.
It must be said that many clauses of the Lusaka protocol were also flouted by the MPLA Government.
For example, 700 000 weapons were not collected from the civilian population and were consequently used for the bloodshed in 1992.
The second round of elections was not held.
The armed forces - except for those of UNITA - were not confined to barracks.
The reorganisation of the police force was not carried out.
The presence of the United Nations was not welcomed as was promised.
The national symbols - the flag and anthem - were not changed and are still those of the MPLA party.
The mercenaries were not returned to their countries and, in defiance of the agreement, the government continues to buy arms, particularly from Russia, which is a member of the troika and the UN Security Council.
Compliance with these clauses would have led to mutual trust.
<P>
But much more serious is the fact that, the state administration having been extended, this consists not of administrative officials but of the police and the army, which are destroying all the UNITA headquarters and killing or arresting all the leaders of this organisation.
In the meantime, a fictitious UNITA is being created in Luanda. The UN representative was prevented from talking with the real and historic UNITA and the mistrust has grown.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am not representing anyone, only my conscience and my beliefs.
I wanted to relate these facts because the dualistic attitude of always accusing just one of the parties does not seem right to me.
This is not how problems of war are resolved.
Sanctions will not bring peace to Angola.
Only an atmosphere of trust can do that, which this House can help to build.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Novo">
Mr President, Commissioner, UNITA is without a shadow of a doubt guilty of restarting the war in Angola and must therefore be held responsible. It has not abided by the election results, it has prevented the demilitarisation of its forces and the extension of the state administration to the whole territory and it has disregarded the Lusaka protocol and the recommendations of the UN Security Council.
<P>
At the same time, we note that the rearmament of this organisation has only been possible due to clear disregard for the international embargo, making it necessary for the European Union and the whole international community to apply and reinforce the sanctions. The proposal made today by the Commission to investigate the diamond trade that is financing UNITA's war effort is therefore welcome.
<P>
The incredible and disgraceful episode of the shooting down of two MONUA planes in territory occupied and controlled by UNITA together with the fact that hundreds of people have been killed and thousands left homeless by the resumption of this war form the basis for our demands. We want the weapons to be silenced, the peace process to be restarted, UNITA to agree to abide by the Lusaka protocol and the UN decisions, and the UN to decide to extend the mandate of MONUA in order to secure the conditions needed to help the refugees and to proceed with the emergency food aid.
<P>
I will end by saying that, in view of UNITA's continued disregard for the UN decisions, the international community will have to act more firmly. If not, it may be accused of having two different responses in accordance with the location of the conflicts and the convenience of certain countries.
Action must be taken to ensure peace and to help a people tortured by the permanent war waged by one organisation - UNITA - which is becoming increasingly irresponsible and more terrorist-like in its activities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, to be perfectly honest, I very much regret that the opinion expressed by many speakers and representatives of the authors is not reflected in the resolution itself.
Although I support the substance of the resolution, it is unfortunately very one-sided.
It depicts UNITA as the only villains of the piece.
This obscures the fact that there is actually a cruel dictatorial regime in power in Luanda and that both sides should really be treated alike, as they are in fact treated in some respects by the United Nations.
It is not enough to condemn the trade in diamonds, Mr Telkämper; you should also be condemning the oil trade, such as the sale of oil from the Kabinda province, occupied by the government, which, without any compunction, brings in foreign troops to exercise its power in the province.
This oil trade ought to be stopped in exactly the same way as we are now calling for a halt to the trade in diamonds.
I believe it is important that both sides are treated equally.
That is the only way for us to remain credible here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, despite all the United Nations' efforts, the situation in Angola is deteriorating again.
The warring factions are once again squandering the country's wealth and reducing the people to penury.
It is not fair to blame just one side for this - the government and the army must share some of the guilt.
They have failed to provide stability and are proving extremely two-faced.
We must not allow ourselves to be distracted by political tricks and stratagems.
In my view, neither side is willing to make any serious efforts to achieve lasting peace.
<P>
What should we do to try to stop the spiral of violence?
I hope that the United Nations will not relinquish its efforts and that MONUA will stay on after 26 February.
The international community must continue to provide support, but it will not be easy to maintain donors' commitment to Angola.
We must try, however.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, a point of order.
There is an unfortunate misprint in the joint motion for a resolution, which says that it was tabled on behalf of the ELDR Group by Messrs Bertens, Fassa and Cunha, whereas the last two went over to the PPE Group a considerable time ago.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, we firmly condemn the resumption of the war in Angola, which constitutes a setback in the peace process, and we believe it is necessary, as emphasised in the resolution we are debating, to start applying the Lusaka protocol and the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council again.
We think UNITA should be urged to respect human rights and to cooperate with the UN special representative, so that a negotiated solution can be found to the current conflict.
<P>
This call must also go out to the President of Angola, Mr dos Santos, who has equally failed to respect the rights of opposition Members of Parliament. They have been persecuted and prevented from carrying out their mandate as directly elected representatives of the people.
<P>
Finally we must emphasise that the European Union has a duty to mobilise all the necessary resources to contribute to the humanitarian aid effort and a duty to remind the parties involved that no military solution to the conflict is possible and only a return to negotiations will allow the Angolan people to find peace once again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="President">
Mr Telkämper has a point of order.
We are desperately short of time.
We are not going to have a debate within a debate, but if you want to make a personal comment in response to an earlier comment, please carry on.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
Mr President, I can be brief.
Mr Habsburg more or less implied that we were not credible.
What I said was the result of a report compiled by a delegation of the European Parliament that had just visited Huambo in Angola.
We observed time and again that UNITA had violated the peace agreement and had taken up arms again.
I believe the basis must be the Lusaka peace agreement, and we as a Parliament should insist that it be upheld.
It is the basis of a future peace, and we must demand compliance.
That is a credible approach.
To that extent we have a responsibility here, and we want to ensure that the agreement is respected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, the European Commission shares the view that the resumption of fighting in Angola is clearly very unfortunate and that any attack against planes not involved in military operations is unacceptable.
<P>
It also agrees that UNITA bears the main responsibility for the resumption of fighting and that it obtains funds through illegal trade in diamonds.
The Commission does not have the necessary resources to carry out an investigation into this illegal trade, but we will nevertheless forward Parliament's concern on this issue to the Council.
<P>
The Commission believes that the European Union will only be able to adopt further sanctions through a UN Security Council resolution.
In order to try to help the Angolan people the Commission's services have monitored the situation as closely as possible, and our monitoring of the European Union's cooperation will include, among other things, an analysis of the possible redeployment of the aid that the Union is currently providing.
<P>
The Union's aid will undoubtedly depend on the specific possibilities on the ground.
As Mr Telkämper rightly pointed out, this aid includes mine clearance. However, although this work has not been brought to a complete standstill, it has been restricted by the military operations, and this has meant that it is less safe for the teams that are working in Angola to clear the mines.
<P>
The European Commission has, of course, allocated and financed humanitarian aid to help the more vulnerable sections of the Angolan population in various areas.
The implementation of these programmes has also been partially affected by the deterioration of the political and military situation following the resumption of the armed conflict.
<P>
The suspension of aid flights by the United Nations after the serious incidents that took place - the shooting down of aircraft - has meant that practically no humanitarian aid can reach the areas most affected by the fighting.
I can therefore confirm that the situation is critical.
<P>
The Commission is going to make all efforts to resume the process of providing humanitarian aid as soon as it is safe to do so, and this will involve the participation not only of our delegation's services but also of the international institutions and the NGOs that are working with us in this field.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on following 25 motions for resolutions:
<P>
East Timor and Indonesia
<P>
Bertens, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the human rights situation in Indonesia (B4-0056/99); - Marinho and Barros Moura, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the human rights situation in Indonesia and East Timor (B4-0064/99); - Cunha, Coelho, Costa Neves, Lenz and Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the human rights situation in Indonesia and East Timor (B4-0066/99); - Dupuis, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the situation in East Timor (B4-0092/99); - Janssen van Raay and Pasty, on behalf of the UPE Group, on self-determination for the people of East Timor (B4-0095/99); - Ribeiro, Miranda, Novo, Jové Peres, Elmalan, Manisco and Ripa di Meana, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the situation in East Timor and Indonesia (B4-0101/99); - Telkämper, Hautala and McKenna, on behalf of the V Group, on Indonesia (B4-0108/99); Western Sahara
<P>
Watson, Fassa, Vallvé and Bertens, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on Western Sahara (B4-0045/99); - Swoboda, García Arias and Schmidbauer, on behalf of the PSE Group, on Western Sahara (B4-0061/99); - Telkämper and Aelvoet, on behalf of the V Group, on Western Sahara (B4-0073/99); - Oostlander and Hernández Mollar, on behalf of the PPE Group, on Western Sahara (B4-0080/99); - Ainardi, Sierra González, Eriksson, Miranda, Ephremidis, Vinci, Carnero González, Marset Campos, Alavanos, Seppänen and Gutiérrez Díaz, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the situation in Western Sahara (B4-0100/99); Trafficking of children in Guatemala
<P>
Bertens, André-Léonard, Vallvé and Goerens, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the illegal trafficking of babies coming from Guatemala (B4-0058/99); - van Putten, Kinnock and Newens, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the illegal trafficking of babies coming from Guatemala (B4-0062/99); - Kreissl-Dörfler, Kerr and Lindholm, on behalf of the V Group, on the illegal trafficking of babies coming from Guatemala (B4-0076/99); - Leperre-Verrier, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the illegal trafficking of babies coming from Guatemala (B4-0089/99); - Pasty, on behalf of the UPE Group, on the illegal trafficking of babies coming from Guatemala (B4-0096/99); - González Álvarez and Novo, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the illegal trafficking of babies coming from Guatemala (B4-0103/99); Peace process in Colombia
<P>
Gasòliba i Böhm and Bertens, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the peace process in Colombia (B4-0055/99); - Miranda de Lage, Howitt and Morgan, on behalf of the PSE Group, and Escolá Hernando, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the peace talks in Colombia (B4-0063/99); - Kreissl-Dörfler, Aelvoet, McKenna and Lindholm, on behalf of the V Group, on the peace talks in Colombia (B4-0074/99); - De Esteban Martín, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the peace talks in Colombia (B4-0085/99); -Puerta, Sornosa Martínez, Elmalan, Novo, Seppänen, Ojala, Alavanos, Theonas and Manisco, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the peace talks in Colombia (B4-0102/99); Sierra Leone
<P>
Telkämper, Aelvoet and Schörling, on behalf of the V Group, on the situation in Sierra Leone (B4-0072/99); - Hory, Castagnède and Maes, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the situation in Sierra Leone (B4-0087/99); East Timor and Indonesia
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, Indonesia's new president, Mr Habibie, is confining his reforms to certain selected measures, whereas what Indonesia needs are different measures which will promote democracy, respect for human rights and economic recovery.
The people of Indonesia are entitled to this.
The government must understand that democracy and human rights are essential elements for giving fresh impetus to economic renewal.
<P>
The Union wants to help Indonesia, but it must also take steps to help itself.
When will it release all its political prisoners, including Xanana Gusmao?
When will the repressive measures in areas such as East Timor, Aceh and Irian Jaya be stopped?
I hope that the new government will start to work in a genuinely democratic manner and will install a new, legitimate authority that is able to take action.
Indonesia still has a long way to go, as does East Timor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Damião">
Mr President, this motion for a resolution could not be more opportune.
The developments in Indonesia had led to the belief that the conditions were being created for the negotiation of peaceful solutions.
However, this was merely cosmetic.
Despite President Habibie having recognised the special status of East Timor owing to its profound religious and cultural differences, nothing has changed in the attitude of Indonesia towards the Timorese. This is despite pre-negotiation agreements having been reached in order to demonstrate the good faith of the parties and despite negotiations having been started.
<P>
The disproportionate and aggressive military presence is continuing and has now assumed the role of maintaining order and carrying out criminal investigations in the place of the police force and an independent judicial system.
The military are responsible for new acts of violence, new disappearances and new political imprisonments, and recently in Alas, the hope of the Timorese died along with a still unspecified number of people.
<P>
As we have said, this motion for a resolution is extremely urgent and opportune. Its most important elements are the call for the immediate opening of an inquiry under the aegis of the UN to establish the identity of those directly responsible for committing these crimes and the call for negotiations to find a rapid solution involving the democratisation of Indonesia.
<P>
In the first ten years of occupation, 200 000 Timorese disappeared.
It needed journalists to witness a massacre for international consciences to be aroused.
We must hope that more massacres are not needed for the UN resolutions to be complied with.
It is time to demand that Indonesia respects human rights, it is time to end the suffering of the Timorese and it is time to submit the dictator Suharto and the military personnel responsible to the force of international justice.
We cannot have two levels of response and two approaches, as demonstrated by the desire of some people to condemn Pinochet and to absolve Suharto.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Coelho">
Mr President, East Timor is once again on our agenda at a time when three important events are occurring.
<P>
Firstly, there is the greater isolation of Indonesia due to the change in the official position of the Australian Government on East Timor, applauded by almost all the Australian political parties and criticised only by the Indonesian Government.
Indonesia is becoming increasingly isolated in its claim to continue its military occupation and in its attempts to force the integration of East Timor into its territory.
<P>
Secondly, there is the fresh outbreak of human rights abuses.
Since the crackdown against the civilian population in Alas in November, the news reaching us from East Timor, despite being diluted by the censure of the military authorities, has contained worrying signs of repeated human rights abuses. We have also been informed of the creation of armed popular militias by the military, which is attempting by force to sow the seed of terror among those opposed to integration into Indonesia.
Bishop Ximenes Belo recently confirmed the arrival in the capital of East Timor of thousands of Timorese who have been forced out of their houses through violence and terror.
<P>
Thirdly, there is the refusal to accept a visit from a delegation from this House.
The Intergovernmental Group on East Timor met yesterday to assess the letter from the Indonesian ambassador refusing visas for Members to visit East Timor.
This refusal is indicative of their fear of this House, which is a shrine for freedom, democracy and respect for human rights.
<P>
We will not give up and we believe that the European Parliament should continue to cooperate through the motions for resolutions it has approved and through the one before us today, which we are proposing jointly with colleagues from other parties.
We are sure that, with tenacity, persistence and courage, the path of history can be directed towards respect for the individual and for freedom rather than towards tyranny, violence and disregard for the most basic human rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, a number of speakers have already talked about the lengthy conflict in which Indonesia has illegally occupied East Timor.
The European Parliament has always supported the UN resolutions, and now is a good opportunity to focus attention on them again and put this issue back on the international agenda.
As has rightly been pointed out, Australia, the only country to have recognised the annexation of East Timor, has changed its position.
The new thinking that is rapidly gaining ground at all levels of society in Indonesia could also mean new hope for East Timor.
The Indonesian Government is now coming under increasing pressure to improve democracy and to recognise the independence and right to self-determination of East Timor and other areas whose traditional identity has come under threat from Indonesia, such as Irian Jaya.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Girão Pereira">
Mr President, I should like to say that the problem of East Timor, having been forgotten for many years by the international community, has fortunately now become a subject of almost constant and major debate in the international institutions, in the United Nations, in the American Congress and so on.
I must also applaud the fact that the Council has already stated its position on this matter.
I believe that the Commission has done so too.
This House has also had an important role to play in the debate on this issue by highlighting the problems of Timor and the violations of human rights.
Obviously we support this motion for a resolution but I regret that it does not contain a proposal made by Mr Janssen van Ray that, at the time of the elections in Indonesia, a referendum should be held in East Timor on self-determination.
I believe that self-determination is the path that will have to be followed and for which this House must continue to fight.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Mr President, Indonesia and East Timor are again the subject of an urgent debate in this House. This has occurred periodically as a result of the persistence and insistence needed to ensure that we never forget this people's heroic struggle over twenty years for their right to self-determination.
<P>
Moreover, in addition to the basic need to keep this issue alive, there are always new reasons provided by Indonesia - due to its military occupation and repression - to justify this insistence and repetition.
The current reasons are the recent events in Alas and the violent military repression by Indonesia. We must be informed of the extent and consequences of this.
We therefore repeat the demand for inquiries and visits to East Timor, which Indonesia has refused this House since November 1991.
We also denounce the manoeuvre caused by Indonesia's abject weakness, which it is trying to hide. This manoeuvre involves agreeing to the principle of self-determination but it is accompanied by the assumption of Timor as a province of Indonesia, coinciding with a mock referendum at the time of the Indonesian elections next June.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, President Suharto fell from power in Indonesia last spring, but just six months later Amnesty International has found that promises relating to human rights given by the new president have not been kept.
I am most concerned that force has been used against peaceful demonstrators and that no progress has been made in freeing political prisoners.
<P>
I wish in particular to speak about East Timor. There too repression has increased alarmingly.
There is also reliable information that military power has been increased to a greater extent than official sources would have us believe.
Fortunately, the European Union has recently sat up and started to take notice of East Timor and it was with satisfaction that we noted the conclusions on East Timor reached at the Vienna summit, for example.
Information received only recently reveals that Australia's attitude has also changed for the better with regard to East Timor's future.
The aim must be to cautiously set the scene for a national referendum on the future of East Timor.
<P>
I would like to ask Commissioner Marín whether European policy on East Timor is becoming more active on specific issues.
For example, would it be conceivable to have an East Timor office in the European Union, in the same way that the Americans have a Kosovo office?
It would not need to be a fully-fledged diplomatic mission if the matter were deemed too delicate.
Secondly, I would like to stress that the forthcoming parliamentary elections on 7 June in Indonesia require European Union Member States and the Union itself to undertake to send people as observers, not just parliamentary observers but observers from voluntary organisations too.
<P>
Finally, I wish to inform you that on behalf of the East Timor Solidarity Group I am at this very moment engaged in negotiations with the Indonesian Government so that Members of Parliament might send an unofficial delegation to East Timor.
<P>
Western Sahara
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are witnessing a slow process of progressive pacification in Western Sahara.
It is probably still too early to be able to say that we are optimistic about the outcome, but we cannot fail to welcome the start of the referendum process which may mean the achievement of self-determination for the people of that region.
<P>
So it is vital for the European Union to urge the Moroccan Government and the Polisario Front to cooperate fully with the United Nations in the holding, without further delay, of a free, fair and impartial referendum on self-determination for this region, which has witnessed so much fighting and suffering in the past.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="McGowan">
Mr President, the European Union stands for democracy, human rights, self-determination, or nothing whatsoever.
There is a real possibility that the United Nations may decide to pull out of illegally-occupied Western Sahara at the end of this month and at this moment in time Kofi Annan is preparing a report to submit to the Security Council by 22 January.
I last had the privilege of meeting him in Algeria in November.
<P>
The European Union has been consistent in its support for self-determination and an end to the conflict.
I would like to thank in particular Mr Marín for the work he has done and give thanks for the humanitarian support and for the commitment to logistic support, as we approach a referendum.
<P>
We are on the eve of the end of this conflict that has caused so much suffering over 20 years, but we know that the problem today - and this is the view of the United Nations - is that Morocco is yet again up to its tricks of trying to delay and to block an agreement.
Morocco - present again of course in the gallery - cannot be bothered to have meetings with certain people in the European Parliament but is very effective in lobbying, in corrupting and even in acts of burglary in this building.
It is Morocco which is holding up a peaceful resolution.
<P>
We in the European Parliament can do even more.
I expect even more from you, Mr Marín - you know so much about this issue and you have been open to dialogue with Morocco and the Polisario Front.
Do not let the people of the Western Sahara down.
Let us make sure that we are fully behind the United Nations and the commitment of Kofi Annan and James Baker and that we can see an end to this conflict.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
Mr President, one difference between Angola and the Western Sahara is that there is a cease-fire in the Western Sahara.
A cease-fire, however, is still a step short of peace.
One of the last colonial conflicts is being waged there.
Since the Spaniards withdrew and the Moroccans occupied the country, this means that the old colonial policy has become Europeanised, and I therefore believe that the European Union has an obligation here and a responsibility for this part of Spain's colonial history.
<P>
The people who were forced to flee their homes have been living for decades in refugee camps.
For years, Morocco has vetoed the idea of a referendum, which is why the discussions on the Western Sahara have had a certain sameness over the years.
Now, apparently, the UN wishes to guarantee that the referendum can take place in December 1999.
That was what we had hoped for, we expect it to take place this year, and Kofi Annan seems to be emphatic about this, as his last visit to the region showed.
<P>
This means that we in the European Union are now in demand too and will have to give this process decisive political and logistic support.
We call on Morocco to refrain from obstructing the registration of electors and to stop evading the issue.
It would even be appropriate to encourage direct negotiations between the Sahrawi people and Morocco.
<P>
We call on the Council - and the Austrian Presidency gave many encouraging signals in this matter - to ensure that the referendum is guaranteed and that the humanitarian aid is continued until then.
I think we also need observers in the Western Sahara during the run-up to the referendum, not just when it takes place.
We ask the Commission to make the necessary resources available so that the referendum can be guaranteed and the humanitarian aid continued.
One approach we could use relates to the forthcoming fisheries agreement with Morocco, which could be linked to the holding of the referendum.
Whatever its outcome, the Commission and the Council - the troika - should guarantee that, along with the UN, the European Union will provide the necessary security for the referendum to take place.
That is my plea to the German Presidency of the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="Fabra Vallés">
Mr President, once again we can see just how sensitive this House is towards the issue we are dealing with, and the active role being played by the United Nations on the ground.
There is also significant humanitarian aid being donated, and this should continue.
However, while we are aware of this reality, a mirage is appearing in the sand dunes of the desert: the mirage of the referendum, a referendum that is seemingly never going to be held.
In spite of this, we must prevent feelings of impatience on the part of the United Nations, the international community, the Polisario Front and the Moroccan Government.
And we must avoid such impatience so as not to leave any deep-rooted problems behind, problems that could lead to future conflicts or a permanent state of guerilla warfare.
<P>
Therefore, Mr President, we hope that a referendum will be held soon and that its results will be accepted by all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Ainardi">
Mr President, we can welcome the fact that the Secretary-General of the United Nations has personally taken on the matter of Western Sahara.
In November and December he went to the area, and following his meetings with the parties in the conflict, he put forward a set of recommendations in order to break the deadlock in the peace process and to implement the Houston agreements.
The Polisario Front agreed to implement all of these proposals which come as an indivisible package.
However, the Government of Morocco is still rejecting them.
As a result of these blocking manoeuvres, it is responsible for holding up the implementation of the peace process.
The United Nations Security Council has also recognised this.
In its resolution of 17 December, it welcomes the agreement of the Polisario Front and urges the Government of Morocco to implement the United Nations settlement plan.
<P>
We are now in the home straight of the referendum process.
In order to ensure that it is carried through, that it is to the holding of a referendum on self-determination in December 1999, we have to frustrate the attempts by the Government of Morocco to block the process.
The Council and the governments of the Member States can contribute to this by playing a more active role in ensuring the success of the peace process, especially by using all the means they have available to persuade the Government of Morocco to implement the proposals put forward by the Secretary-General of the United Nations in their entirety.
Could the Council not also define a common position, as was requested by the European Parliament on 10 March 1998, or at least adopt a declaration expressing its support of the United Nations?
<P>
We need to support the compromise resolution in order to send a signal to the Council and to the governments of the Member States and to support the efforts of the Secretary-General of the United Nations in ensuring the success of the referendum process.
This referendum, which will finally allow the Sahrawi people to express the right to self-determination and independence, is the most appropriate democratic means of finding a fair and lasting solution to the problems of decolonisation in Western Sahara.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="García Arias">
Mr President, Commissioner, I wish that the President-in-Office was also here to listen to this debate.
<P>
I am not going to remind the Commission of something it is already aware of: the importance of the Security Council meeting and the latest resolution, which, in reality, Mr Fabra, already reflects a degree of impatience on the part of the international community.
<P>
It is true that we can be patient, and indeed the Sahrawi people have been patient, as they have been waiting endlessly for this referendum to be held.
This is a very delicate situation. On the one hand, we are faced with the suffering of the Sahrawi people, while on the other hand, as a previous speaker pointed out, we know that this cease-fire may be limited.
<P>
In light of this resolution, which was unanimously supported by the Security Council, we are calling on the European Commission and the Council to do the same. We want the Commission, Parliament and the Council to clearly set out in one document - in a resolution - their support for the Secretary-General of the United Nations and for the efforts being made.
<P>
I would also like to remind you of what the Security Council says and what we are all aware of: the Polisario Front has already accepted all the measures being proposed by the Secretary-General, and is also responding to the Houston agreements and the Secretary-General's proposal.
We also know that Morocco is continuing to put the matter off, and is apparently still trying to wear down the people and exhaust the patience of the international community.
<P>
Commissioner, we are very close to Morocco and we respect and admire its people and its government. We must say to the government - in a friendly but firm manner - that it has to accept the peace plan, that this situation cannot continue.
This is one of our neighbouring countries and it is situated close to the European Union. All the efforts made should be dedicated to helping the development of the Moroccan and Sahrawi people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, I believe we all want peace in the Western Sahara, and for that reason we probably all support the purpose of this resolution.
I must say, however, that I personally would have preferred this parliamentary resolution to be tabled after the Security Council resolution.
<P>
But let me say that it is surely not enough for everyone to point the finger at Morocco and to blame that country for all the delays.
We should perhaps correct certain fallacies that have even gained currency here in Europe.
If we talk about the people who are entitled to vote in the referendum, we cannot simply exclude those who have been living in what is now the Western Sahara for a good deal more than ten years and who have effectively earned their right of residence.
After all, there is also a great deal of discussion today in the various Member States of the European Union about the specific rights that people acquire by living in our countries for a certain length of time.
These people cannot simply be excluded from a referendum; similarly, those who are living in the refugee camps in Algeria must also be enfranchised.
<P>
But allow me to add a very brief historical footnote, since there is so much talk here about colonialisation, recolonialisation and so on.
The territory of the Western Sahara belonged to Morocco for many centuries before it came into Spanish possession.
I could not let that go unsaid.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="González Álvarez (GUE/NGL).">
Mr President, during the last part-session we held a debate with the Council after 10 Members asked an oral question.
I believe that it is necessary to repeat here some of the things that we said at that stage to the Council.
Firstly, what is lacking here is any sign that the European institutions are playing a visible role in the resolution of this conflict.
There is humanitarian aid; there is a presence, but it is only relative.
From what we understand the United States has a greater presence. The conflict in the Sahara is more closely linked to the European Union and certain EU countries than to the United States, yet it has a more obvious presence there than we do.
<P>
Secondly, and in spite of what Mr von Habsburg says - although I have great respect for him - it is Morocco that has been putting up obstacles to the referendum. We must be clear on this point once and for all.
I would remind you that, in principle, Western Sahara only accepted the Spanish census with an increase of 10 %, and now the Sahrawi people, in the latest proposal by Mr Baker, have accepted another 65 000 potential voters.
Yet Morocco is still putting up obstacles.
It seems as though the referendum is going to be delayed by another year, but this year is crucial.
It is crucial because we must ensure that there are no further obstacles in the path to a fair referendum that will provide an important boost for a brave and valiant race which, under terrible conditions, educates and cares for the health of its people.
<P>
Therefore, the European Union should set an example and try to resolve the conflict or help to resolve the conflict, and not leave Mr Baker and the United Nations to work alone.
It should also support the United Nations so that Morocco does not continue to obstruct the resolution of the conflict.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Caccavale">
Mr President, I want to express the full support of my group for the compromise resolution, but above all full support for the referendum process in progress in Western Sahara and for the undertakings given to the United Nations by Morocco, the Polisario Front and the individuals involved at this time in this fragile part of the world.
Naturally I would urge Members of this Parliament not to start immediately identifying the guilty and the victims in what is an ongoing and, I admit, difficult process. This is an unfolding situation which calls for close international attention, but we do not need to intervene with greater force than is actually called for by the current problems.
<P>
I confirm the full support of our group.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 NAME="Carnero González">
Mr President, Commissioner, what we are seeing here is a clear imbalance between Parliament's insistence on the issue of Western Sahara and the Council's silence.
<P>
Several months ago, we approved a proposal for a recommendation and in December we held a debate with more than 10 questions.
Today, we are discussing a motion for a resolution that has been signed by practically all the groups in this House.
<P>
In spite of this, the Council is maintaining its position of principle - which is important, yet easy - by saying that it supports the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara and the United Nations resolution. But it does not dare to take the necessary second step: helping the Secretary-General to carry out his work to ensure that the Security Council resolutions are applied, in this case by organising and holding a free referendum on self-determination within the time specified.
<P>
How can we help the Secretary-General?
In my view, we can help by stating which party is putting up obstacles and preventing the international legal provisions from being fulfilled.
And today that party is clearly Morocco.
<P>
I therefore believe that the Council should be aware that political pressure - along with cooperation - is essential to ensure visibility in this conflict and to help put an end to this situation.
<P>
Trafficking of children in Guatemala
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, international gangs in Guatemala are earning dirty money from the illegal trafficking of children.
It is, of course, entirely unacceptable and action must be taken to combat this inhuman abuse of poverty.
I think it is a pity that a recent UNICEF 'fidadigna' report is not mentioned in the resolution.
<P>
The government of Guatemala must ratify the relevant international conventions as soon as possible, and the Union must bring pressure to bear on Guatemala to ensure that it does.
What sort of government would allow its own citizens to be bought and sold?
The Union must ensure that a careful watch is kept for Guatemalan children at the receiving end, so to speak, and it must also support the aid projects for statutory adoption programmes in Guatemala itself.
In this the tenth anniversary year of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, measures to protect children should be given maximum publicity and should be our very top priority.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Putten">
Mr President, the previous speaker described just how serious this situation is, and I would like to add the following points.
I think that if we do not do whatever we can about the situation in Guatemala, the problem will spread to other countries.
The threat is already there.
There are other countries where we need to be on our guard, particularly at the moment in Eastern Europe.
However, I am happy enough with the compromise text, because this is a specific issue of which we have a fairly clear picture, no matter how great the scale of the problem, and the Commissioner and his officials can now try to do something about it through their contacts with the Guatemalan government.
The organisation that we mention, Casa Alianza , and its leader have revealed what is going on and are now themselves under threat.
The organisation and its workers, particularly Bruce Harris, deserve Europe's support.
<P>
I too regret that the UNICEF report is not mentioned, and I would add that I am also sorry - I think the liberals had something to do with this - that the resolution does not mention what I said in my original text about the need for DNA testing.
The United Kingdom already requires adoptive parents to prove that it was the child's legal parents who gave it up for adoption.
At the moment bogus mothers and other poor women are being paid to go to an embassy and say that they want to give their child up.
Other mothers hand their children over themselves.
A DNA test such as the one the UK requires clearly shows whether it is the child's real parents that are giving it up.
I would therefore call for this DNA test to become a Europe-wide requirement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Mr President, trafficking in children in Guatemala is a lucrative business.
A veritable Mafia kidnaps children, persuades poverty-stricken women to hand over their children, forges birth certificates and sells the children abroad.
Even a notary public has the power to authorise adoptions.
Prices of 15 000 to 20 000 dollars per child are not unusual.
Under the Guatemalan penal code, trafficking in children is not a crime and does not carry a penalty.
All the countries in the region have amended their laws in recent years in order to eliminate this inhuman and exploitative practice, but Guatemala has not yet taken that step.
It is now high time it did.
<P>
Guatemala must also proceed without delay to ratify the Hague Convention on Inter-Country Adoption and must meet its obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child by promulgating its Juvenile and Adolescent Code.
Adoptions are sometimes a valid last resort, but the child should remain as close as possible to its cultural and geographical roots.
Adoptions, however, can never be a contribution to development aid, because development aid means creating the conditions in which children can grow up in their own countries.
I urge everyone to bear that in mind.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Leperre-Verrier">
Mr President, once again we have cause to speak on the fate of children in the world.
<P>
Today we are discussing the adoption of Guatemalan children.
There is certainly no question of condemning international adoptions, but of considering the conditions in which they are carried out.
In this respect, Guatemala has become a real baby-trafficking location, so that in 1997 it was estimated that more than two thousand children were sold at a price of 15 000 to 20 000 dollars.
It is not difficult to imagine how such a lucrative activity could give rise to abominable practices on the part of the traffickers, who will stop at nothing to protect their dubious trade.
They will therefore not hesitate to intimidate or even threaten those who seek to reform these adoption procedures.
<P>
The Member States therefore need to ensure that legal provisions on international adoption are applied, especially with regard to children from Guatemala.
However, above all, we must also encourage the Guatemalan Government to be more strict in dealing with this matter, especially given that hurricane Mitch has recently increased the number of children available for adoption, which means that we should be even more vigilant.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, Commissioner, it is clear that some people are getting rich through the most despicable and revolting form of trafficking that exists: the trafficking of children.
<P>
I believe that the European Union must bring pressure to bear on the Guatemalan Government to prevent this trafficking, and one way of doing this is to help the Guatemalan Attorney General's Office, which is responsible for ensuring that the adoption procedures comply with legal provisions.
<P>
We are in no way opposed to legal adoptions.
We believe that they save many children from an uncertain and terrible fate in some countries. However, I agree with what a previous speaker said that if there were better living conditions in those countries, it would be better for the children to stay in their own country.
<P>
In any case, we must prevent the terrible trafficking of children, which is the most despicable form of all trafficking.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
Mr President, this problem of the illegal trafficking of children in Guatemala, or children who come from Guatemala, could be on a much wider scale involving many other developing countries.
However, what is certain is that the root of the problem can often be found in the developed world, where there are well-structured and experienced trafficking networks that are involved in the trafficking of children, women and human organs.
<P>
I believe that Parliament's resolutions must always be objective and rigorous, particularly when they relate to friendly countries such as Guatemala. Parliament has frequently recognised the progress achieved by President Arzú's government in consolidating the peace process, in bringing democracy to Guatemala and in consolidating the rule of law.
<P>
It is true that cases involving the trafficking of children have been uncovered in Guatemala.
But this has been happening there for a long time due to the unfortunate decades of civil war that have left behind a high number of orphans. The situation has deteriorated even further as a result of the terrible consequences of hurricane Mitch.
<P>
The United Nations mission in Guatemala has the express task of ensuring respect for human rights there, and I believe it is important to highlight the fact that Guatemala forms part of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
<P>
I am pleased that the Commissioner responsible, Mr Marín, is here this afternoon, and it is only fair that we recognise that, faced with the devastating effects of the hurricane, the European Commission has reacted quickly and effectively. We hope that it will soon be able to propose a rehabilitation plan for the region in accordance with the Commissioner's statement.
<P>
I therefore want to emphasise once again the need to strengthen cooperation with Guatemala and with all of Central America, and, more importantly, to step up our actions to relieve the suffering of the people and especially that of the children.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, international adoptions doubled in Guatemala in 1997: over 2 000 at an average cost of USD 15 0-20 000.
The most striking thing is that trafficking in children is not classified as a crime under the Guatemalan penal code and even the abduction of children merely carries a sentence of about a year, and that may be suspended.
<P>
Furthermore we do not believe international adoption can be penalised because these adoptions, if carried out through the correct channels and with guarantees for the child, almost always offer the chance of a better standard of living. Nor can we deny that international adoption constitutes an important form of international cooperation.
<P>
In expressing serious concern about information reaching us that people working in Guatemala to prevent illegal trafficking in children are being subjected to threats and intimidation, we look to the Commission and the Member States to urge the Guatemalan Government to ensure that adoption procedures are carried out with the proper legal guarantees - national and international - and that the law officers combatting illegal trafficking are protected.
<P>
Peace process in Colombia
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, the past 30 years have indeed been dark ones for Colombia, with tens of thousands of people killed, rocketing unemployment and low levels of economic growth that do not reflect the country's potential.
The drugs barons, on the other hand, are earning a fortune: 80 % of the drugs sold in the US come from Colombia.
<P>
President Pastrana has given us renewed hope and has injected fresh impetus into the peace talks.
The last-minute decision of the leader of the FARC not to attend was extremely disappointing.
The Union must, of course, encourage the peace process and make its own contribution to it.
Stability and peace, as everyone knows, are vital to give the economy a fresh boost.
<P>
I hope that all our good intentions will bring results here.
I would like to ask the Commissioner a question about the peace process.
A number of ECHO projects are running in the Comunidades de Paz, an organisation of villages that were built a year ago at Apartadó and Rio Sucio in the north of Colombia.
I was there a month ago, and I saw a sign in a field that said 'ECHO is building a hospital here'.
People there told me that this had been promised eight months ago, but the money had obviously got no further than Bogota.
Bogota is muy, muy, muy, lejos de aqui .
I know that you cannot give me an answer straight away, but perhaps you could think about this, and I will contact you about it later.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="Miranda de Lage">
Mr President, I would like to begin by congratulating President Pastrana very sincerely on the work he is doing to promote peace in his country. The dialogue held in San Vicente has given rise to real expectations and fulfills the mandate for peace which 10 million people voted for.
<P>
However, we must also point out that the FARC has understood the historic importance of the occasion and accepted the challenge to participate in the construction of this new area through dialogue.
We must recognise this, just as we must recognise that there are similarities between President Pastrana's agenda and the guerrillas' proposals.
After yesterday's meeting, the paths towards peace can be seen much more clearly.
<P>
Nonetheless, peace has very powerful enemies.
In this case, we must condemn the paramilitary activities and crimes that are taking place.
More than 100 people have been killed with the sole aim of obstructing peace. This is a direct attack on the whole of society.
The will to combat paramilitary activities is crucial in order to make progress.
It is equally vital to wipe out drug trafficking and corruption, and these issues are all on the agenda. However, the most important element is ensuring that the guilty are brought to justice, to ensure that human rights are guaranteed for the entire population.
The paths to peace are those expressed in the mandate from the people. Their voice cannot be ignored, nor can the victims.
The government is responsible for extending and strengthening the rule of law and for protecting those who are fighting for dignity and democratic principles.
<P>
However, we can also make certain requests, and I have some of my own.
The first is to ask the guerrillas to free all civilian hostages, and here I would like to thank them for having freed the European development assistant Camino Villanueva.
I would also like to ask the Commission, if possible, to explain how the European Union would be involved in the construction of these areas of peace.
There is hope in Europe and I believe that we here can also provide a response.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Mr President, there can be no peace without human rights.
We had numerous first-hand experiences of that when our delegation visited Colombia in December.
The murders - well over a hundred in number - committed by the paramilitaries have been another horrific reminder of the truth of that proposition.
The paramilitaries are not parties to peace talks.
The paramilitaries are criminal gangs that must be dissolved immediately.
Their members and their paymasters must be brought to justice, and all their helpers in the administration and the armed forces must be summarily dismissed.
Not until the right to life is guaranteed in Colombia will there be hope of real peace.
This means that the warring factions must immediately start to apply the fundamental principles of humanitarianism.
It means that the government must act to protect the victims of the conflict, including more than a million refugees, many of whom are blacks and Indios.
No more impunity for lawbreakers! Reform the administration of justice, particularly the system of military jurisdiction.
Agrarian reform has to be implemented, and economic and social justice must be established.
<P>
This is a task for the European Union too.
We should be helping here, instead of competing for pole position in the export markets.
We must pay fair prices and promote regional development, because peace is the reward for completing this process, not the prerequisite for launching it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lenz">
Mr President, I can only agree with the words of the previous speakers.
We do have to ask when this circle of violence, murder, kidnapping and hostage-taking will finally end, when the political authorities and the responsible democrats will finally be strong enough to silence the guns and stamp out corruption and drug trafficking.
<P>
The Pastrana government - and we congratulate them on this - are using the strength inherent in a new government to open negotiations with the strongest of the warring factions, with all the difficulties this involves.
We can but hope that negotiations with the other groups will follow, that the paramilitary groups as well as the guerrillas will stop the kidnapping, hostage-taking and killing and that the armed forces finally come to realise that their function is not only to defend the power of the state in a military sense, but also to defend democratic and humane practices.
In this respect, not only the armed forces but also, as has been said already, the constitutional State of Colombia - assuming it wishes to become one - certainly still have a very great deal to learn, and we must help them in that learning process.
<P>
It is degrading for a country when its name appears at the top of such a blacklist.
But it is even worse and even more horrific for its people.
We call on the Colombian Government to protect the defenders of human rights and shall support their efforts to do so. We shall also support them in their quest for justice and peace.
<P>
During our visit to Bogota in December, we also spoke to the UN High Commissioner for Bogota, who has been an extremely courageous champion of human rights.
There was a question mark over the future of her post.
We very much hope that the office of High Commissioner, which is held in high esteem in Colombia, can be preserved, and I should like to ask the Commission whether it is doing everything in its power to ensure that the post will in fact be preserved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, Commissioner, I believe that we all welcome the peace proposals, but it is impossible for there to be peace when, as other Members pointed out, more than 100 peasants, including women and children, have been killed indiscriminately in the last few days.
<P>
An article I have here by a Columbian who works for Justicia y Paz can express better than we can what conditions are needed to achieve peace in Columbia, and it is not a matter of just sitting down and talking.
He mentions reforming the agricultural legislation so that the land that was stolen from the peasants can be given back to them. He also talks about a law on natural resources, and the fact that four basic needs must be met: housing, health, education and employment.
In other words, vital basic standards must be guaranteed to prevent the situation from continuing in this manner, not only in terms of the murders, but also in terms of a hidden war that would have the same results.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 NAME="Howitt">
Mr President, since Thursday, 7 January, between 100 and 150 people have been killed in a series of brutal massacres carried out primarily by the AUC paramilitaries.
These were not indiscriminate massacres: the paramilitaries had lists of names - in particular community activists and leaders - and executed the people on those lists.
Many of the victims of the past few days were badly tortured before they were killed and most of the paramilitary attacks were in the north of the country.
<P>
So, whilst welcoming the peace talks between President Pastrana and the FARC guerrillas, which began on that day, Thursday, 7 January, we have to condemn the fact that the paramilitaries are seeking to sabotage these peace talks.
<P>
The Colombian President has committed his government to taking decisive action against these illegal paramilitary forces.
On Monday, 11 January, Mr Pastrana reiterated the exclusive responsibility of the state to disarm the paramilitaries in his ten-point proposed agenda presented to the FARC.
Yet this has just not happened.
On the contrary, there is well documented and internationally verified evidence of active and ongoing collusion between the Colombian armed forces and these paramilitary groups.
<P>
I ask the Commissioner, in closing this debate, whether he could commit himself to making urgent representations to the Colombian Government to discuss the need for immediate and decisive action to be taken against the paramilitary groups to protect the fragile peace process and prevent future tragic loss of life, in particular during the peace talks of these coming weeks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 NAME="Escolá Hernando">
Mr President, Columbia is a country facing a very difficult situation.
A civil war has been gradually developing there for more than 40 years.
Two significant guerrilla groups control a third of the country and clash with the army on a daily basis. There are many paramilitary groups that are committed to instilling fear among the population by carrying out massacres, and to date they have kidnapped 1 500 people.
Two peace processes have failed in recent years and thousands of people have died.
<P>
In the midst of this serious situation, a new opportunity for peace is emerging through an initiative by the new president, President Pastrana.
In my view, this initiative encompasses the feelings of most of the Columbian people.
A group of Members, including myself, recently had the opportunity to get closer to the situation and we met practically all of President Pastrana's ministers, various social bodies and the main trade unions.
The conclusion I myself reached is that there is a real and genuine desire to achieve peace. I also became aware of just how long and difficult the process will be and, above all, of the need for international support on both political and economic levels.
<P>
Our group believes that the European Parliament, and the European Union itself, can play an important role in the peace process in Columbia by adding an international dimension to the support for the process and by providing whatever help might be of use to the parties involved.
<P>
Sierra Leone
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
Mr President, we are dismayed and appalled that the civil war has broken out again in Sierra Leone.
We had hoped that a stable peace could be established between the government and the Revolutionary United Front once the President and the civil government were restored to office in March 1998.
<P>
We should do everything in our power to re-establish peace, and we call on both parties to agree a cease-fire without delay, to open negotiations - and I believe we must support these negotiations - to respect human rights fully and to recognise the international human rights conventions.
For the needy, who always bear the brunt of these conflicts, the provision of humanitarian aid is essential.
We want to ensure that famine does not develop in Sierra Leone and that the refugees in neighbouring countries are cared for, which means that there is a pressing need to conclude a cease-fire in the first instance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hory">
Mr President, everything has already been said in this House about the legitimacy, albeit untoward, of President Kabbah and the illegitimacy of the RUF and the military rebellion.
I will therefore not dwell on these points, and, using Sierra Leone as an example, I would like to make a more general observation concerning a triple failure brought about by unstable countries: that of the UN, that of the OAU and, it must also be said, that of EU diplomacy.
<P>
With regard to the UN, if a matter is not sufficiently serious in the eyes of the Americans for it to assert the right to state the rules of international law and to support this with military action, the UN goes from humiliation to rebuff to retreat, and its list of failures, from the UN peacekeepers of the former Belgian Congo to the intervention mission to Sierra Leone, must be a long one.
That list will never come to an end as long as the UN does not have the permanent military resources that it needs to ensure respect of the international law that it is trying to create.
<P>
As for the Organisation of African Unity, which is so badly named that it would be better to call it the organisation for connivance between the leaders of African States, it has decided to delegate its powers to regional authorities.
Meanwhile, is it dealing with development or democratic progress that would help reduce the tension?
Not at all.
Since it was set up, it has been almost exclusively concerned with ensuring the respect of the old colonial borders, thus guaranteeing the continuance of its members' power structure.
<P>
Finally, with regard to the European Union, it must be noted that, in Sierra Leone as elsewhere, it is noticeable by its absence, as it has been unable to attach any real diplomatic influence to its economic aid.
It therefore leaves the way open for the post-colonial diplomacy of its Member States, who have in the past sometimes shown their tendency to fuel crises and, in all cases, their inability to resolve them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Vecchi">
Mr President, in the past few months we have already had to deal with the worsening situation in Sierra Leone on a number of occasions.
In fact, in the course of the last few years, the situation there has steadily deteriorated both politically and in terms of the standard of living of the population.
<P>
Because of another attempt by the rebel forces to conquer the country, bloody clashes have again been taking place in the last week, resulting in another thousand victims and making life even more difficult for the civilian population.
<P>
In the last few hours news has come through of the abduction of the Archbishop of Freetown, Joseph Hendri Ganda, after Italian missionaries had been taken hostage, one of whom, the Jesuit Father Mario Guerra, is still in the hands of the rebels.
<P>
In these circumstances, the first and most urgent requirement, obviously, is to achieve an immediate cease-fire and the release of all the hostages, and to provide for the immediate needs of the population.
<P>
The immediate essential is for all harassment of the civilian population to cease and for the aid workers to be able to fulfil their mission.
<P>
But at the same time as the legitimate government forces restore order in the country, a start must be made on the more profound work of mediation and national reconciliation which alone can provide a stable political and institutional base for the country and prevent future tragedies.
<P>
Here again, the role of the Union must of course be to provide humanitarian aid to meet the urgent needs of the population, including the thousands of refugees in neighbouring countries, and also to take action to promote dialogue, reconciliation and respect for human rights, if necessary through initiatives of its own.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 NAME="Robles Piquer">
Mr President, Commissioner, and unfortunately in the absence of the German Presidency of the Council, we are all terrified.
That was exactly what the UNHCR observer said about the events in Sierra Leone.
<P>
Only recently, we have seen terrible scenes on television. They showed what Foday Sankoh's rebel forces have described, with awful black humour, as the 'short sleeves' and the 'long sleeves', according to whether they cut off the arms of the civilians - including children and women - just below the shoulder or at the wrist.
<P>
There is no doubt that the international community has a responsibility in this matter.
However, the people of Sierra Leone, and particularly the political and military leaders, must find a solution to their own problem.
Efforts are currently being made in this respect.
It has been suggested that the leader of the rebels, whom I just mentioned, be flown from the city where he is imprisoned, Freetown, to Conakry by the Nigerians to take part in negotiations to which he would add the pre-condition of his own release. That would indeed be a surprising turn of events.
But if his freedom meant that his supporters would not act with such brutal cruelty and that the supposedly civilian government - which shoots members of the military junta without allowing them any right of appeal - would not respond in the same way, then some progress would have been achieved.
<P>
Two excellent Spanish journalists, Javier Reverte and Alfonso Armada - and I am sure there are excellent journalists in other countries - have recently published very good books on sub-Saharan Africa, and they have asked us all to be understanding.
I believe that we must be understanding, but we must also demand that the armed citizens in Sierra Leone at least behave like human beings.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is extremely important that this resolution has been brought before Parliament, because it may play a part, however small, in re-establishing what is currently lacking in Sierra Leone, as in so many other countries of sub-Saharan Africa, and that is a minimal sense of statehood.
<P>
In fact, any semblance of a state has now been lost in that zone.
Armed bands, warlords, arms dealers - and especially dealers in raw materials, which this land is rich in - do as they please, riding roughshod over the most elementary human rights.
<P>
It is crucial that the action taken by the European Union should draw attention to the fact that what is most important, even more important than the rule of law, even more important than democracy, is just being a state, so as to contribute to re-establishing at least some of the minimum conditions of civil society.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, I will go through the debates in the order in which they were held.
<P>
I will look firstly at East Timor and Indonesia.
The Commission has always supported the democratic process in Indonesia and will naturally provide assistance during the next elections in the form of an overall package. The details of this have yet to be decided, although it is a subject that is being discussed in the Council, as Mr Bertens is well aware.
<P>
On 8 December 1998, the ambassadors of the European Union troika in Jakarta met President Habibie to gain first-hand information on his plans to implement the measures taken by the People's Consultative Assembly in relation to the political and economic reforms, and, in particular, its plans to hold democratic, open, free and fair elections.
<P>
President Habibie confirmed the following dates: there will be elections on 7 June 1999 and the new members of parliament will be sworn in on 29 August 1999.
He had no objections to international assistance and monitoring, nor to the presence of international observers during the elections.
<P>
As far as East Timor is concerned, the European Union also entirely supports the United Nations initiative to set up a permanent representation of the United Nations in that region.
The European Union has frequently expressed its concern to the Indonesian authorities about the various violent incidents that have taken place in certain parts of East Timor, in which a considerable number of civilians have reportedly died.
A visit to East Timor by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention is planned for the beginning of February. The European Union also welcomes the creation, in January 1999, of interest sections that will enable the Portuguese to maintain a presence in Jakarta, with the possibility of free access to East Timor.
The European Union is confident that a final agreement will be reached on the United Nations proposals for a statute of autonomy.
In relation to other East Timor issues, we have informed Parliament on a number of occasions that there is a specific cooperation programme with East Timor, which is, for the most part, implemented through NGOs and the churches in the region.
<P>
I will now go on to look at the Sahara, Colombia, the trafficking of children and Sierra Leone. Since it was decided at this morning's sitting to review the entire working methods of the Commission, the European Parliament and the Council, I am sure I am going to disappoint you, as 90 % of the questions that have been asked should instead be addressed to the Council.
All I can do, in fact, is to repeat what is in the common positions that have already been adopted and that you are all aware of. As a result, I am sorry if I cannot give you an adequate response to the problems relating to Western Sahara, Colombia, Sierra Leone and the trafficking of children.
<P>
With regard to Western Sahara, the European Union's general position is based on the statement by the Presidency of the Council on 29 December last year.
I will therefore pass on Parliament's concerns to the Council.
<P>
As far as the Commission is concerned, we are going to continue to provide humanitarian aid to help the Sahrawi population through NGOs as we have been doing.
We will continue to provide food as well as medical and health assistance for the refugees.
A decision on this was adopted in October 1998, as you know, and the aid being donated to the Sahrawi people now totals approximately EUR 10 million.
<P>
The Commission shares your concerns regarding the serious problems in Guatemala involving the trafficking of children and illegal adoptions.
This is indeed a totally despicable form of trafficking.
We have been following this issue carefully - not only in Guatemala, but also in other countries - and, as far as Guatemala is concerned, a series of specific programmes have been implemented with a view to finding a solution, or part of the solution, for this section of the population.
<P>
To be specific, there is a programme in Guatemala costing EUR 2.5 million that acts on three levels.
It is primarily aimed at promoting the application of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was ratified by Guatemala in 1989, in the hope that the Juvenile and Adolescent Code will be implemented.
In other words, the problem is not with the Convention and the Code as such, which we are helping the Guatemalan authorities to develop. Rather, the problem relates to their ability to apply them and their effectiveness in doing so, as is the case in most similar countries.
<P>
To make people aware of the new Juvenile and Adolescent Code, staff are being trained and preparations made for the institutions involved, including judges, the secretariat for social welfare, the attorney general's office, and the institutions responsible for childhood and youth issues. UNICEF is naturally providing a great deal of cooperation on the Code.
<P>
Attempts are also being made to ensure that a law on adoption is approved by the National Assembly, as this represents one of the great problems in Guatemala. It is hoped that it will cover both national and international adoptions.
Legal adoption in itself is clearly not the ideal solution for poor families, but it will at least be better to have normal, legal adoptions than illegal ones. In this respect, I would also mention - not only as regards Guatemala, but in general - all the problems related to the trafficking of children, child prostitution and paedophilia, as well as other problems involving third world countries, such as the trafficking of organs.
We need to look at all these issues to gain an overall impression and to deal with them under the principle of joint responsibility.
However, the rich countries are the ones that adopt illegally, that take drugs, that buy organs, and so on. We cannot just look from the North to the South with a critical eye, since we know that the developed countries are the ones that facilitate this type of trade because of their advanced economic and financial situation.
We must therefore redress the balance.
<P>
Moving on to Columbia, we will forward your political arguments to the Council and provide details of what the Commission might be able to do.
<P>
The Council's position and thus the European Union's position is set out in a statement that was made on 8 January 1999.
I would once again stress that it is very difficult for the Commission to take part in such debates since, apart from telling you what you already know - that we have a Council position, which you will undoubtedly say is of no use - there is very little I can add.
I therefore believe that in the future it would be a good idea for the Council to attend on these occasions so that it can hold a real political debate with you.
<P>

As regards the question from Mrs Lenz - and this is indeed a matter for the Commission - Mrs Mazarrasa has informed us that she wishes to leave, as she has been working there for two years.
As you can imagine, human rights work in Columbia is very demanding, and she has therefore decided to leave.
Mrs Robinson came to see us, as a commitment had been made on the part of the European Union to provide the Bogota office with funds for one year only.
Since the human rights situation in Columbia was extremely distressing, we decided to provide funding for a further year and we will have to decide whether or not to continue with this.
I believe that we should because the United Nations, and particularly Mrs Robinson's office, do not have a great deal of money at their disposal.
So we should provide this funding.
However, I say this very cautiously because, after this morning's debate, it is not easy for the Commission to take independent decisions. We will therefore keep Parliament informed.
If you agree - and I am sure you will - then we will be able to begin to provide more funds.
<P>
We are going to be very meticulous as regards your decisions.
Nonetheless, we must begin to show consistency.
We are approving resolutions that involve expenditure.
And we cannot vote for one thing in the morning and then in the evening call for decisions that involve spending.
I have told you that I agree with the proposal and that we need to continue to provide funding. But from now on, we will have to do so in the way you requested this morning.
<P>
I am therefore in favour of continuing to provide funding, and I will put forward a proposal to that effect.
<P>
In addition to this, we must look at what we can do to help the peace process.
The European Union as such is not an international player in the process, although it is true that the Commission delegate was invited to the ceremony marking its beginning.
The proposal we made to the previous government, and which still stands for President Pastrana - who is apparently going to visit the European Community soon - involves the implementation of an accompanying policy relating, in particular, either to internal reforms or to displaced persons and refugees. We already have some experience of this following previous conflicts in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala.
<P>
In response to your comments on Sierra Leone, Mr Robles Piquer, the Commission is following events there very closely, particularly the recent fighting between the rebel forces, including the Revolutionary United Front, and the soldiers from the old Sierra Leone army supported by the ECOMOG regional intervention troops.
With other partners, the European Union has condemned the recent attempt by the rebels to overthrow President Kabbah's legitimately elected government for the second time in two years.
<P>
The European Union has decided to give political support to President Kabbah's government and to all those currently working to resolve this crisis through negotiation. However, as you pointed out, the truth is that the situation is changing every day.
Once the situation has become clearer, the Commission will consider what practical support it can provide to help the peace negotiations.
As regards the Commission's area of responsibility, that is, the humanitarian situation, I cannot deny that, in view of the circumstances, we have been forced to evacuate all foreign citizens. And as a result, due to the extreme violence particularly in Freetown and its surrounding areas, there is no possibility of providing humanitarian assistance.
I can therefore tell you that the situation in the country is impossible.
The humanitarian aid situation is much better in neighbouring countries such as Liberia and Guinea, where, although the situation is not under control, it is at least somewhat easier to work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Putten">
Mr President, there was one point which the Commissioner made that I did not entirely understand.
I very much appreciate what he said about giving his full commitment to Parliament and work.
We will only see the benefit of this in days to come.
However, I do not understand why, when he then gave a list of countries where we want action to be taken, he started talking about budgets.
I think that in the case of Guatemala, for example, Casa Alianza is already being financed by the Commission and is an active member of the European Network on Streetchildren Worldwide, which has also been funded by the Commission in the past, so it should not be a problem.
The Commissioner could ring the delegation there tomorrow and tell them to approach the Guatemalan Government about it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="García Arias">
Mr President, I agree that, as Mr Marín said, a great deal of what we approve here during topical and urgent debates is the responsibility of the Council.
I would therefore like the Presidency of Parliament, which you represent, to explain the situation to me, because we often debate foreign policy issues in these topical and urgent debates, and that is a matter for the Council. Therefore, what can we do as Members of Parliament, or what can Parliament itself do, to guarantee the Council's presence at these very important debates?
Perhaps there is a gap in the Rules of Procedure.
If so, I would ask you to make the Presidency of Parliament aware of it so that it can examine this issue and put forward a proposal regarding the Rules to solve this problem.
<P>
The Commissioner, I am sure, will allow me to tell him that he is right.
However, I noted that when discussing the various procedural issues ...
<P>
The President cut the speaker off
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="President">
I have been very indulgent but I cannot allow you to go on any longer.
However, I will respond to your point about the attendance of the Council.
The Council is entitled to attend any of our debates and to speak in any of our debates if it so wishes.
There is someone from the Council here taking notes.
There is no one here authorised to speak on behalf of the Council. But the Council will be aware of our discussion.
Until now there has been no tradition of a representative of the Council presidency being here to speak.
Parliament is free at any time to ask the Council to be present.
If we were to do so I suspect we would have to change the timing of urgencies because no Member State would be able to field a minister at this time on a Thursday.
<P>
Mr Marín, do you wish to respond?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, when I said that many of the points raised would have been better served by a political debate with the Council, I did not mean to create a dialectical contradiction or highlight the fact that the Council is not here.
This is all being interpreted in a slightly strange manner.
I was not referring to that in any way.
<P>
Apart from discussing the common positions and statements approved by the Council, it is very difficult for me to add anything further.
Consequently, I must point out that you have mentioned many political aspects to which I am unable to respond.
That is what I meant.
And since I am unable to do so, I would prefer not to, because these are all subjects that I can refer - or Parliament can refer - to the Council.
But it is the Council that must take the final decision.
<P>
As far as Guatemala is concerned, Mrs van Putten, we do have the programme that I mentioned which deals with the children in Guatemala.
However, Guatemala is not the only example of this.
If my memory serves me correctly, I would say that within Latin America the same problem exists in Brazil, where there is another programme, and we also have further programmes for Columbia and four or five other Latin American countries.
With the financial resources we have available, we are first of all trying to implement basic legislation, although this is quite advanced in Guatemala.
Nonetheless, I would stress that the problem is more than just about having legislation; above all, it is about being able to enforce it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 NAME="President">
Am I right in thinking you have a point of order, Mr Telkämper?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
Madam President, I wanted to take up the suggestion made by the previous President of the sitting, Mr Martin.
There is no disagreement here between the Commission and the Council, or between the Council and Parliament.
I believe the Council should be present, because we parliamentarians have addressed remarks to the Council on several occasions, and it ought to know what we are saying.
If I may give the example of the Western Sahara, the Council's function with regard to humanitarian aid differs from that of the Commission, for example, and it must be aware of our views.
That is a political necessity.
I would therefore ask you, Madam President, to raise in the Bureau our wish as Members of Parliament that we should be holding a joint sitting on these matters, at which the Commission speaks but the Council is also aware of what is being said.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 NAME="President">
Yes, Mr Telkämper, I will certainly do that, and I think the Council should indeed be present.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>
B4-1096/98 by Mr Newens, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the peace process in the Philippines; -B4-1106/98 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the Philippines; -B4-1147/98 by Mrs Lenz and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the Philippines; -B4-1158/98 by Mr Puerta and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the peace process in the Philippines; -B4-1160/98 by Mr Telkämper and Mrs McKenna, on behalf of the V Group, on the Philippines.

<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="Smith">
Madam President, the European Parliament has long been in favour of a peace process in the Philippines and has in various respects sought to assist this.
Now that an agreement between the government and the National Democratic Front is in force and has been endorsed on both sides, it is important that its proposals are fully implemented and that all consequential steps are taken without delay.
<P>
It would appear that goodwill exists on both sides, but some factions which reject the NDF leadership are still not prepared to renounce conflict and a great deal of painstaking work therefore remains to be done if the peace is to be truly comprehensive and lasting.
The issues of human rights, humanitarian aid, land reform and rural development need to be vigorously pursued if the agreement is to be completely successful.
The Commission and the Council - and again we mention the Council - must give full support to this process and we appeal to them on this count.
<P>
In conclusion, I call on Parliament to give full and unanimous support to this motion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, for once we are here in this Chamber, on a Thursday afternoon, to applaud something which actually seems to be good, instead of condemning something dreadful.
The Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law, approved by the Government of the Philippines and the former rebels on 7 August 1998, is being respected. Socio-economic projects, development projects, projects to restore full democracy in the country are being approved and it even seems as if human rights may be respected.
So we should not only support this resolution, but we should also study the case of the Phillippines carefully, because it looks like a good example which is worth exporting.
<P>
I do not think there is anything further to add except that we must not drop our guard, as support, and not just moral support, from the European Union is certainly still necessary if the process of democratisation is to continue and be consolidated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lenz">
Madam President, the Philippines is a country that has a variety of ties with Europe, some of which, unfortunately, have certain adverse repercussions from a European point of view.
Foremost among these is sex tourism, the causes of which lie primarily in Europe.
What we are discussing here is a resolution on the peace process in the Philippines, the process of establishing peace between the government and the National Democratic Front.
This peace process should benefit the people and their country.
The potentially violent disputes must not be allowed to continue; efforts for peace, social and economic reforms and land reform must come to dominate the political landscape.
<P>
Human rights can only benefit from such efforts.
They are part of this process.
At least the people of the Philippines are well aware of the value of democracy.
They are also aware of the value of international humanitarian conventions.
There are many non-governmental organisations in the Philippines - social and church organisations - which care for people and promote peace.
I very much hope that the assistance provided by the European Union will also reach its target there too, for there is a need to mobilise all forces to assist in this complex process in a country which is, of course, already democratic, with a view to reconstructing peace and democracy.
<P>
We call on the government and the political parties to intensify their efforts, and we call on the European Union to support these efforts.
May I take this opportunity to say, Commissioner, that I am not sure whether I am entirely happy about your sudden solicitude for the Council.
We are not used to that here.
The point of the question I asked you before, and of many other questions besides, was to ascertain who has a say in the use of EU funds.
That was the point I raised.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
Madam President, the peace process in the Philippines has certainly been a lengthy process.
The European Union and Parliament, of course, have also made important contributions to the peace effort.
I can certainly recall visits by several delegations in the EC-ASEAN framework, for example in the early days of Mrs Aquino's government.
At that time we gave strong backing to the process.
There is goodwill on both sides - on the NDFP side and on the government side - as has been said. We must support and encourage this goodwill.
<P>
It seems to me that there are two especially important points.
The first is the monitoring of human rights observance, and the second is the essential land reform.
This takes us back to the institutional conflict between the Commission and the Council.
I believe - and I should like to say this quite explicitly today, Mr Marín - that the Commission has done valuable and significant work with regard to the Philippines.
It is, of course, important that projects are implemented and that there is no possibility of projects being implemented in which human rights are infringed.
But that is a political issue.
<P>
The call for land reform is addressed to the Council.
That is why I shall close by repeating my request that you in the Bureau, as David Martin suggested before, should ask the Council to attend these debates, to hear these messages for itself and to organise this new practice jointly with ourselves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Telkämper.
The message has been heard.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 NAME="Cushnahan">
Madam President, Commissioner, I welcome the fact that the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines have been engaged in building a peace process.
It is particularly pleasing that this has taken place with good faith being shown on both sides and also that they have been addressing political, human rights and social and economic issues.
However, it is a source of regret that latterly this process has slowed down and it is indeed a worrying development.
It is vitally important that this trend is reversed and that we accelerate the progress of the peace negotiations.
<P>
An important element in ensuring that this happens, as has already been said by Mr Smith in proposing the resolution, is the role of both the Council and the Commission.
In this context I would certainly like to underline the proposal contained in paragraph 4 of the compromise text, which urges these two bodies to provide whatever support and assistance is necessary to facilitate the peace negotiations.
In underlining that point I would ask the Members of the House to support this particular compromise resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 NAME="Marín">
Madam President, at the first meeting between senior officials of the European Community and the Philippine Government, held in Manila in December 1997, it was decided that the main target of European Union assistance should be the redevelopment and reform of rural areas, issues that affect only the indigenous Muslim population in Mindanao.
<P>
As a result, three projects costing a total of EUR 21 million are currently being implemented with a view to encouraging and consolidating the peace process between the Philippine Government and the NDF.
<P>
Moreover, the Commission is currently drawing up a project costing EUR 14 million to strengthen the communities affected by the agrarian reform in the four provinces in the centre of Mindanao. Preference will be given in this project to the Muslim and indigenous people in the region's provinces.
<P>
In accordance, too, with the aim of the Philippine Government, the project will be aimed at the Muslim communities, particularly the rebel repatriates who have become beneficiaries of the agrarian reform of approximately 37 communities.
Its aim is to provide assistance to improve the quality of the land, to organise and strengthen farmers' associations and to supply the basic social infrastructure. It also aims to guarantee water supply, build schools and health centres, promote productivity and undertake projects with minor infrastructures.
This is a summary of the European Union's participation in the process of rural redevelopment and reform in the Mindanao region. And indeed, it is one of the key elements in the peace process that was negotiated some years ago with the Moro Liberation Front.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place shortly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>
B4-1094/98 by Mr Ford and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the relocation of the Xerox Corporation; -B4-0077/99 by Mr Lagendijk and others, on behalf of the V Group, on the relocation of the Xerox Corporation; -B4-0081/99 by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten and Mr Pronk, on behalf of the PPE Group, on relocation by Rank Xerox.
<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="Ford">
Madam President, speaking on behalf of the Socialist Group on the relocation of jobs by the Xerox Corporation, first I should like to apologise on behalf of my co-signatory, Mr Metten, who, because of the delay in this debate has had to return to Holland.
<P>
With respect to our resolution let me be clear.
Our resolution deals with the transfer of 250 jobs from Venray in Holland, and over 500 jobs from Mitcheldean in the United Kingdom, to Ireland.
However this resolution is not an attack on Ireland or the Irish; nor is it an attack on the peace process.
We will be voting in favour of Amendment No 6 tabled by Mrs Ahern and Mrs McKenna which points out that the creation of employment in the Dundalk region is an important support for peace and reconciliation in the border area and welcomes in principle the initiative to create jobs in the region.
<P>
The joint resolution on behalf of the Socialist Group, the Christian Democrat Group and the GUE Group deals with two major separate issues.
First is the failure by the Xerox Corporation, an American-based multinational, to adequately consult with the workforce, particularly in Mitcheldean and with local government in both locations.
<P>
The company claims they have followed the letter of the law, but testimony from the workforce in Mitcheldean, two of whom were seated in the gallery today, suggests that the spirit of the law suffered from gross abuse.
They - the Xerox Corporation - claim they went through the presentation of a fait accompli in slow motion.
The company told me earlier this week that the consultation started on 7 April 1998 and the final decision was not made until September.
Since that time, however, I have been given a copy of a photograph and a press report that shows a picture of Irish Deputy Prime Minister Mrs Mary Harney with Mr Bill Good, Deputy Managing Director of Xerox, announcing the new plant on 2 June.
The period of genuine consultation was so short that the process was little short of a farce.
I hope the Xerox Corporation, when this resolution is passed, will try again, try harder and try properly.
<P>
The second issue we deal with is the more general concern about the possible use of European aid to shuffle jobs around Europe.
We are very much in favour of job creation with a rising 20 million unemployed in the European Union, but Xerox is an example - by no means the only one, by no means the worst and, unfortunately, by no means the last - where, on closer inspection, what are claimed to be shiny new jobs being created turn out to be a mirage.
They are somebody else's job, kidnapped and held to ransom and eventually sold across Europe to the highest bidder.
<P>
The 'somebody else's jobs' are devastating families and communities.
In the Forest of Dean, an area with high unemployment, Xerox is the single largest employer.
This is not an appropriate use of Community funds.
This is not an appropriate use of European assistance.
This is not an appropriate use of national assistance.
We should all be clear about this. Ireland has suffered as much as any.
Fruit of the Loom recently moved on to richer pastures.
We should all learn from each other that getting engaged in this kind of Dutch auction is not the way forward in terms of job creation.
<P>
I spoke to Xerox this week.
They have moved a little.
They have at least now agreed to consider applications for job transfer from individuals with appropriate qualifications, which is why we have to reject Amendment No 5 by Mr Dupuis, on behalf of the ARE Group which claims that Xerox is considering such requests.
It is a doubtful claim when the principle was only agreed two days ago.
<P>
Xerox is one particular example of an all too common problem.
We have good cause to complain and to protest about this case in particular, but we also have a responsibility to use Parliamentary power to change the rules to protect tomorrow's victims as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 NAME="Ahern">
Madam President, it is always a cause for deep concern when people lose their jobs and it is perfectly proper and natural to raise matters regarding consultation and compliance with EU regulations.
However, to target the creation of jobs for others, particularly in a region like Dundalk, which needs economic stability to copperfasten the process of peace and reconciliation, is unacceptable.
Therefore I very much welcome Mr Ford's comments, and the fact that he agrees with my amendment - which states the principle of the creation of jobs in that area - is important.
<P>
Relocation concerns the movement of industrial facilities from one Member State to another and is of concern to the EU in so far as state aid or Structural Funds are, or seem to be, fuelling and encouraging such relocation.
Many factors, however, can contribute to a commercial decision to relocate a plant.
In this context, it is a matter of constant criticism in Ireland that members of government, in particular prime ministers and deputy prime ministers, rush to announce decisions before they are properly constituted.
I would criticise Mrs Harney for so doing, if, as was said, she did that at a time in the process when consultations should have been taking place.
<P>
However, in Ireland we refuse to be cast in the role of villain because of one or two high-profile relocations in recent years.
We have also been the losers of important projects and significant job numbers.
Structural funds are not a factor in these packages, and the policy that state aid should be recouped if an enterprise relocates has been the consistent policy and practice of the Industrial Development Authority in Ireland.
This is simply a matter of best practice in industrial policy and the correct management of public finances.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Madam President, the reason we have tabled this resolution is not because we want to criticise the way in which Xerox has dealt with its works councils.
We have no such criticisms.
We also do not wish to criticise the way the Irish authorities have tried to make sure they secured this Xerox plant in order to bring jobs to the area.
What we do criticise is that European funding has been able to be used to relocate the electronics division from the Venray plant to a new location in Ireland.
<P>
Xerox claims that this is not a relocation, but some staff and part of the company are being moved.
What we want to know is why the Commission agreed that this multinational, which as we know wants to downsize worldwide, should be allowed, either by being provided with a suitable site or with subsidies, to transfer part of its staff to its plant in Ireland.
How can European Union funding, in other words taxpayers' money, be used to create such a distortion of competition?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 NAME="McCartin">
Madam President, this is not a very suitable subject to deal with through urgency.
<P>
First of all, most of the investment in Ireland is in entirely new projects and does not involve the relocation of jobs.
The incentives given to Xerox in Ireland comply fully with EU competition policy.
No European money whatsoever has been involved in the project.
So there is a serious mistake there.
<P>
The UK gets 40 % of all foreign investment which comes into the European Union.
Are we to have a Commission inquiry into this, with allegations that because it gets 40 % of all investment there is something wrong?
Recently we have seen headlines in Dutch and Irish newspapers about jet aircraft being chartered to fly workers from the west of Ireland to jobs in the Netherlands because the Netherlands cannot get workers to do this work.
Yet we cannot get enough workers for our own labour-intensive industries in Ireland.
Are we going to ask the Commission to investigate that?
Please do not be jealous of Ireland because we have had economic growth for the last year or two.
Ireland represents 1 % of the European Union, 1 % of the economy.
<P>
The 8 000 net jobs which we gained last year, our best year ever, will not solve the problem in Holland or the UK.
Please, MEPs, do not try to tell your constituents that it is the economic boom in Ireland that is taking jobs out of your constituencies.
That is a total distortion of the truth and an abuse of the urgency procedure in this Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 NAME="Fitzsimons">
Madam President, while I welcome the more moderate tone of the compromise resolution, I still cannot endorse it as it implies an unacceptable criticism of Ireland which is untrue.
Should it not be adopted, I am even more opposed to the thrust and the tenor of the Socialist and Green resolutions, nor can I support the EPP resolution.
Structural Funds are not a factor in these type of packages.
Our state aid to industry is reasonable and permissible and has been approved by the Commission.
It is declining in response to our increased development, public expenditure reductions and new European Union rules.
<P>
The question of relocation has been discussed in the Industry Council and Commissioner van Miert believes that the existing rules are more than adequate to prevent abuse of state aids and that no further action can be called for by the Commission.
I am proud of our record in securing inward investment.
Many factors can contribute to relocation decisions.
In Ireland we now have a talented and well-educated workforce and a good skills base, and the aid profile of the workforce in Dundalk is right.
We have the language skills and the necessary flexibility, productivity and labour costs.
Our wise investment in telecommunications has enabled us to benefit from one of the most advanced networks in Europe.
<P>
I would point out to the British proponents of the original urgency motion that their own Labour Government was the most vociferous when the German Government recently mooted the introduction of a harmonised tax system in the European Union.
How can you call in effect for a realignment of taxes in the Member States while such a move is opposed by your own government?
The Irish Government has reached an agreement with the European Commission with regard to regulating our corporation tax regime.
<P>
Naturally I welcome the Xerox decision to relocate in Ireland and I would urge it to do its utmost to avoid the need for any redundancies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Madam President, I do not think that we should be surprised at how things have developed.
Certain colleagues in this House have constantly broadened the scope of our urgency procedure.
We have discussed doping, and today we are faced with an even more serious matter, the individual case of a company.
Imagine how many company cases could be brought before this House and would convert it, as it is now, into a Parliament for unions and bosses in which no-one has the documentation and no-one can judge by the evidence.
<P>
In this case, there are a number of inaccuracies, and a number of things that are frankly false.
Moreover, we are talking about relocation. My colleagues should know that, in a single market, it is no longer a question of relocation, but of a choice on the part of companies who have every right to go wherever they please, wherever they feel offers the best conditions for them to produce.
<P>
Therefore, as we can do no more than limit the damage, I strongly urge my colleagues to adopt the amendments tabled by the Group of the European Radical Alliance in order to try to set the record straight and not to punish an American company that has done some restructuring in the Netherlands and in the United Kingdom, and which, in addition, has created 1 000 jobs in another country of the European Union.
<P>
We should, and we must, congratulate them.
This is why I invite our colleagues to vote in favour of the amendments from the ARE Group and I welcome the fact that there are still Americans who have confidence, who come to invest in our countries and who carry out restructuring when it is necessary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Vanhecke">
Madam President, the resolution before us on the relocation of a major company from one Member State to another brings us face to face with a familiar but fundamental problem.
What it boils down to is that huge amounts of money from the Structural and Cohesion Funds can be used directly or indirectly not really to create new jobs, but to attract firms and jobs from other Member States.
To put it bluntly but accurately, it is a sort of organised theft of employment.
<P>
I have to say that I do not know enough about the case in question to be able to judge, and I actually think that Ireland in particular has made a huge effort over the last few years to use the European funds intelligently and efficiently, which unfortunately cannot be said of all the other Member States or regions.
<P>
Generally speaking, however, the problems of how the European funds are used remain enormous.
There are problems of waste and fraud - as I am sure the Commission will agree - there are problems with the improper allocation of funds, and there are problems with jobs being relocated rather than created.
<P>
My province of West Flanders too has similar problems, with the neighbouring province in Wallonia luring firms with the 30 billion francs of Structural Fund money that it has at its disposal.
The Commission knows about this and acknowledges that it is a problem, but up to now it has done nothing about it.
If it is not tackled at its roots, I fear that the time will soon come when the people of Europe will no longer be prepared to show solidarity, and this would be a great pity.
If we want to prevent this, then it is high time we did something about it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="Banotti">
Madam President, most of what has to be said about this issue has been said. But I would just like to return to the fact that many colleagues are under the misconception that European funds have been used in an unethical way to attract the Xerox Corporation to Ireland.
<P>
I believe that what has attracted Xerox and many other high-tech companies to Ireland has been the decision on the part of successive Irish Governments to target education for young people and to prepare them for these high-tech jobs, which has resulted in Ireland becoming an attractive place for the location of such companies.
<P>
I should also like to say that I fully understand the anguish, particularly in the UK, of the workforce who perceive this as an attack on their jobs.
I accept their point that they were not given adequate consultation and if there was any, it was a very superficial kind of consultation, which in fact went against the works directive that this Parliament has supported.
<P>
That having been said, I welcome the jobs that are coming to Dundalk, a sad black spot that is desperately in need of better development and more jobs.
I hope that we can resolve this in a way that is acceptable to all of us.
Obviously there is not a strong difference of opinion between us here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 NAME="Marín">
Madam President, I would like to begin by saying, on behalf of the Commission, that I fully understand the problems of regions that lose jobs to other parts of the Community.
Fortunately, such cases are still relatively rare within the European Union and, of course, as you just pointed out, the new jobs created in regions that attract investment are welcome, since this means an increase in employment.
However, these positive elements do not mean that we can ignore the distressing consequences involved for the regions where the jobs are lost.
Therefore, it is a very difficult balance to strike.
<P>
The social repercussions of relocations can be worse if workers or their representatives are not adequately consulted beforehand.
In order to alleviate the negative social effects often caused by industrial restructuring, the European Union established various legal instruments designed to guarantee that this type of operation takes place in an acceptable social climate and that due consideration is given to the interests of those who may be affected.
In this respect, the Commission's services are currently trying to establish whether or not Xerox has complied with national and Community regulations on this issue.
<P>
When considering relocations, we must not exaggerate the importance of subsidies in the decisions taken by companies.
Such subsidies may influence the choice of the new site, but they do not necessarily influence the decision to close or reduce the capacity of existing plants.
However, this issue was discussed at the last two Industry Councils and on both occasions the Commission explained the measures that have been taken to reduce the incentives that Member States can offer to companies to make them move from one area to another.
I will give you a brief summary of them.
<P>
Firstly, in the new guidelines from December 1997, the Commission has reduced the levels of regional aid that Member States may grant.
These guidelines will enter into force at the end of 1999.
<P>
Secondly, the recent multi-sectoral guidelines on regional subsidies to large investment projects may reduce even further the levels of subsidies for large projects.
<P>
Thirdly, a durability clause has been added to the guidelines on regional subsidies and to the Structural Fund regulations, stating that investment projects that have received subsidies must last at least five years.
<P>
Fourthly, the Commission has also adopted a new communication on fiscal aid that explains how the rules on state aid are applied to tax incentives.
<P>
Fifthly, and this aspect is especially important in this case, the Commission has taken measures to eliminate the element of state aid involved in Irish corporation tax.
<P>
As regards the specific question of Community funding, Parliament should note that since 1 January 1998 the European Regional Development Fund has not provided any subsidies for local investment in Ireland.
There has thus been no intervention on the part of the European Regional Development Fund in Ireland since 1998.
This decision was taken in order to rationalise Community aid to the Irish production sector, but also because it was believed that this area should no longer receive Community aid precisely because of the high performance of the Irish economy.
<P>
Therefore, no subsidies for the new Xerox plant in Dundalk have been cofinanced by the ERDF, nor has it received any subsidies from the European Social Fund.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place shortly.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
VOTES (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="Gallagher">
We live in an internal market operating within the European Union where there is free movement of goods, persons, services and capital across the territories of fifteen Member States covering a population of close to 340 million people.
However, there is no common VAT system operating within the European Union at this time, and the present lack of uniformity in this regard has led to fragmentation of the workings of the single market operating across fifteen different fiscal areas.
<P>
The fact that it is impossible to know about all the VAT provisions in force in the other Member States of the EU means that taxpayers have to operate in a situation of legal uncertainty as well as having to work with various different bureaucratic structures in different Member States of the EU.
VAT is one of the areas covered by the second phase of the SLIM initiative (Simpler Legislation for the Internal Market) in which the European Commission has shown considerable interest.
<P>
In particular, SLIM has identified the need to bring in simpler VAT refund procedures which would assist business across the European Union in the payment of refunds for the sale of goods or the provision of services.
As part of the ongoing work to improve the common VAT system, the European Commission has put forward proposals concerning the right to deduct VAT costs that have been incurred.
It seeks to change the current system by which traders have to go through exceedingly complex and costly procedures to ask for a refund from the tax authorities in the Member State in which the VAT was incurred.
This will be replaced with a simpler system under which companies can use their regular VAT return to deduct VAT incurred in another Member State.
<P>
The proposal also seeks to lay down common rules for the right to deduct VAT on certain categories of expenditure which have an element of private consumption such as food, drink, hotel accommodation and passenger cars.
<P>
I support measures which help business prosper and operate more effectively within the territories of the EU.
The European Union must introduce fair and definitive rules governing the common VAT system based on the principle of a single place of taxation and deduction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 NAME="Murphy">
The European Parliamentary Labour Party abstained in the final vote on the report by Mr Riccardo Garosci on the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 77/388/EEC and Directive 98/xxx/EEC regarding rules governing the right to deduct Value Added Tax.
Both the rapporteur's recommendations and the Commission's proposal make significant changes to tax deductibility in respect of business usage of cars, hotels, food and drink, and entertainment.
In many instances these proposals will add to the administrative burden of businesses, especially small- and medium-sized enterprises.
In addition, not enough flexibility has been built into the proposals to reflect national systems of addressing such VAT deductibility.
<P>
Malerba report (A4-0366/98)
<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="Hyland">
I support the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy of the European Parliament which has expressed strong support for a proposal by the European Commission to strengthen international coordination in order to meet the challenges of globalisation and the information society.
The European Commission has examined the problems caused by the interaction between traditional regulation and the requirements of the on-line economy and it tries to identify areas where strengthened international coordination is needed.
<P>
It does not propose a specific solution to these questions as such and it does not suggest that global regulation should be introduced for the Internet or that new international entities should be created.
However, I believe that the idea to establish an Internet charter which will be a legally non-binding document setting out internationally agreed objectives and principles in areas such as taxation, liability, jurisdiction and data protection would be a very good idea indeed.
<P>
From a European perspective, the main purpose of this charter would be to ensure that European companies and organisations can fully participate in the opportunity offered by the Internet and electronic commerce so as to avoid premature and conflicting regulations and to ensure that the interests of consumers are safeguarded at all times.
<P>
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy of Parliament is right to endorse the European Commission's proposal for an international initiative for the Internet and electronic commerce.
Such a document would ensure that a set of internationally agreed objectives be drawn up in close cooperation with other countries, most notably the United States of America, and would encourage simplified regulatory governance of the Internet.
<P>
Information technology has made extraordinary strides in recent years and the advent of the Internet has brought the benefits of IT into many homes and businesses in recent times.
The setting up of an Internet charter would be a very sensible idea and one which would be for the benefit of consumers.
The rights of consumers must be of paramount consideration for the European Commission and the European Parliament at all times.
<P>
From an Irish perspective I welcome the recent initiative by the Irish Government which seeks to make Ireland the centre of electronic commerce in Europe in the very near future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 NAME="Rovsing">
The global electronic market requires technical, legal and commercial regulation of a flexible kind which does not prevent the electronic market from developing.
I therefore agree with the Commission that a broad dialogue between the authorities, business, consumers and international organisations is absolutely essential.
For the same reason, I have long supported the creation of an international Internet Charter, and I therefore welcome this proposal from the Commission.
<P>
However, I also support the extensions of the charter recommended by the committee, for example to protect the interests of consumers and avoid conflicting legislation, both inside and outside the EU.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 NAME="Titley">
I am voting in favour of this report today.
Strengthened international coordination will assist the fight against pornography on the Internet and protect consumers taking advantage of the electronic marketplace against credit card fraud.
<P>
In an increasingly knowledge-based society, the Internet is a major tool of empowerment for the people of the North West, Britain and Europe as a whole, whether in the marketplace or the workplace.
<P>
The Labour Party has a long track record of supporting the development of information technology.
It was Tony Blair who reached a ground-breaking agreement with British Telecom to connect every school in Britain to the Internet.
<P>
A recent survey found that 29 % of British adults now have access to the Internet.
I want to see this figure increase and Internet access broadened to as wide a cross-section of society as possible.
A successful, high-skill economy demands that knowledge be available to the many and not the few.
<P>
Larive report (A4-0503/98)
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="Blokland">
Although there are a number of good points in Mrs Larive's report, we decided in the end to vote against the resolution.
I should like to outline the main considerations that led us to this conclusion.
<P>
It is clear from the outset that it is not easy to apply the principles of the single market to commercial communications while at the same time meeting the public interest objectives.
Each Member State has its own rules on the admissibility of commercial communications, and the wide range of laws, rules and practices reflect the diversity of the religious, cultural and social values held by people in the Member States.
So it is more than just a legal problem.
Promoting efficiency is a good thing, but when the need for efficiency takes precedence over ethical and cultural aspects - such as by saying that they do not come within the concept of 'the general good' - then as legislator you no longer have any means of guaranteeing the necessary respect for fundamental values or of preventing people from being hurt or offended by things said in commercial communications.
<P>
The recognition of religious, cultural and social differences in the Member States should therefore be given full consideration in any legislation on cross-border commercial communications.
Recitals D and H and paragraphs 2 and 5 of the resolution call for exactly the opposite.
Finally, it must be seen as an omission that not a single mention is made of the harm done indirectly to the environment by the fact that many commercial communications simply encourage consumerism.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 NAME="Rovsing">
Commercial communications play a key role in the EU.
They employ more than a million Europeans and are still growing, thanks to the development of new information technologies and new demand.
The Commission has now decided to adopt a number of measures which will make it easier to offer commercial communications services across borders, but not of course at the expense of the general interest.
The Commission's initiative is a necessary and positive one, but I agree with the committee that the actions proposed should be adjusted and made more specific in a number of respects.
It will be extremely important to consider the committee's recommendations when the concrete proposals for measures are discussed.
<P>
European postal services
<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="Crowley">
The economic, social and employment benefits derived from postal services cannot be negated or reduced by the rush to free market liberalisation, as there are no guarantees that this move will allow the essential services on cost and universality to continue.
<P>
In Ireland the local post offices play a very important role as a contact point for people, especially the elderly.
Also, of all the public utilities, people employed in the Post Office generally live in their working area and contribute to the local economy and community development.
<P>
Therefore, it is vital that any moves towards liberalisation will have to be preceded by a full state-by-state evaluation of the economic, employment, social and community effects.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="Fayot">
The gradual and controlled liberalisation of the postal services has been underway since the adoption of Directive 97/67/EC.
The Luxembourg Socialists have always stressed the social and economic importance of the postal services and the need to provide quality services.
They also insist on a universal service that is not a minimum service, but one which ensures optimum coverage of the whole national territory.
The Commission had announced that it would present a new proposal on the gradual and controlled liberalisation of the postal services before the end of 1998, but nothing came of it.
<P>
We therefore support the wish of the European Parliament to evaluate the consequences of liberalisation before any further progress is made.
This evaluation must be based on the Commission's feasibility studies, but also on Parliament's own analysis, in cooperation with the postal services in the Member States.
<P>
It is clear that the evaluation must take into account not only short-term profitability, but also the consequences for employment, the social benefits for all consumers, and efficiency for the economy.
<P>
This is the manner in which the Luxembourg Socialists will approach any other moves towards liberalisation on the part of the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="Lindholm">
I welcome the resolution on the liberalisation of postal services.
It puts its finger on the causes for concern and the risks which liberalisation could bring with it.
Efficient postal services are a right for all EU citizens and should not fall victim to the whims of the market.
I look forward to becoming acquainted with the various feasibility studies which the Commission has carried out.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 NAME="Pasty">
Just one year ago, on 15 December 1997, we were adopting a framework directive on postal services.
Now, according to some information, the Commission services are preparing a new proposal for a regulation.
This would call into question the provision that was recently decided on, which notably moves towards increased liberalisation.
However, we had decided that, before undertaking any review, we should evaluate the effects of the new regulation.
<P>
Although we admit that any measure can be adapted to make it more effective, we question the merits of a major review of all the recent regulations on the European postal services, when we have still not established the results of those regulations.
<P>
If we try to legislate too much, and too quickly, we legislate badly.
This is why we think that, before any changes are made, we need to know the effects of the regulations that are in force.
<P>
With this in mind, we therefore ask the Commission to undertake an impact study of the changes brought about by the 1997 directive.
This evaluation would consider the consequences of increased liberalisation of the postal services, covering the social, economic and financial aspects.
The results of such a study would enable the European legislatures in the various countries to have highly precise information in order to be able to judge whether it is really necessary to take new measures, and to what extent.
<P>
As long as the results of this impact study of Directive 97/67/EC are not known in each country, we consider any change in the regulations to be inappropriate.
<P>
Annual debate pursuant to Article K.6
<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="Cederschiöld">
Mrs Van Lancker must be congratulated on what has been exemplary cooperation in this sensitive area.
Schengen creates the conditions for freedom of movement which we are seeking.
It is in all of our interests that the Schengen Convention should work effectively, without undermining integrity.
And indeed on these issues there is reason to praise the report.
<P>
My concern is the Nordic Passport Union.
In Scandinavia, we have an effective system of freedom of movement, and it is important that this can still be maintained when Schengen becomes part of the Treaty.
<P>
This requires better Scandinavian adaptation to EU legislation.
One example is the extradition legislation in Norway.
Other examples can also be found where coordination in Scandinavia is necessary.
The Nordic Council should go through the legislation to find areas which involve Schengen in order to achieve a common Nordic harmonisation.
<P>
The police and customs cooperation in Scandinavia, the Nordic Passport Union and the common travel zone between the UK and Ireland are all examples of effective ways of developing freedom of movement which do not involve creating more police controls than in other countries.
<P>
The legislation in the Nordic countries is not uniform, but there is a significant degree of approximation.
This shows that such approximation could also take place at European level, in step with the increase in day-to-day interaction between the Union's citizens, thereby also strengthening our common sense of identity and culture.
<P>
Legal approximation between countries must always be handled very carefully.
However, it is clear that this is needed within the Union.
It would make living together in the Union easier.
<P>
It has been possible to detect a certain north/south divide in the concept of right and wrong in the debates this week, as far as irregularities in the Commission are concerned.
Approximation between our countries with regard to a concept of justice would be welcome, exactly as has taken place in Scandinavia.
<P>
Finally, I would like to thank the presidency for its kind words about my reports on organised crime, especially the latest on preventative measures, which I hope will be able to provide a stimulus towards developing a common approach to legal issues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 NAME="Lindeperg">
The Socialist Group voted for the Nassauer resolution on Article K.6 because this resolution, as amended in committee and in the House, places emphasis on various points that we consider to be fundamental: the slow pace of the work towards implementing the area of freedom, security and justice and integrating the Schengen acquis into the Treaty; the delays in ratifying fundamental acts; and the failure of the Council to sufficiently take note of Parliament's demands with regard to being informed and consulted and its opinions being taken into account.
<P>
Paragraph 16, if it had been retained, would have prevented us from voting in favour of the final report, as it anticipated the right to consultation demanded by Parliament concerning the Austrian Presidency's strategy paper, and welcomed its repressive aspects.
As this paragraph disappeared in favour of Amendment No 4, which is more neutral, we did vote for the final text, despite the adoption of Article 19, which we would also have liked to have removed.
<P>
We felt that it was necessary for this report to be adopted in order to urge the Council to make up for the delays that it denounces and to take into account Parliament's demands on relations between Parliament and the Council.
<P>
Van Lancker report (A4-0006/99)
<SPEAKER ID=223 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Madam President, the recommendation that the European Parliament has just adopted on Schengen cooperation calmly states that 'the countervailing police and judicial cooperation measures cannot therefore under any circumstances' - I stress, under any circumstances - ' take precedence over consolidation of this area of freedom and security and continuing to ensure the free movement of persons.'
<P>
In other words, the free movement of persons is a priority and the countervailing security measures must, in all cases, take second place.
This astonishing statement sheds a very dangerous light on Articles 61 onwards of the Treaty of Amsterdam and could be sufficient cause for France to halt the ratification of the Treaty in order to find out more.
<P>
In particular, we would find it intolerable if the Council working group, which is currently considering the division of the Schengen acquis between the first and third pillars, were to block the Schengen safeguard clause.
This clause must be introduced in its current form and without the slightest restriction into the first pillar, notwithstanding the recitals of the Schengen Protocol, which, absurdly, seem to state the contrary.
If necessary, the French Government will have to go as far as using force on this issue, as it is so crucial for the security of our fellow citizens.
<P>
I would like to conclude by expanding a little on this.
For a week now, in the debates on fraud, we have been hearing the Commission say that if everything is going badly it is because it is overloaded with tasks that it does not have the resources to undertake.
Now, the recommendation on Schengen that we have just adopted after the Amsterdam Treaty demands that an unthinkable number of new tasks be transferred to the Commission, from the international criminal networks in Naples to tracking down illegal immigrants in the suburban areas of France.
Do we not think, by any chance, that things are already going badly enough?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR), Holm and Lindholm (V)">
Justice and home affairs issues should be dealt with first and foremost by the national parliaments.
We do not support the Schengen rules and their incorporation into the Union framework, which will deprive Member States of their right to take direct decisions on several justice and home affairs issues, such as those involving visas and asylum.
<P>
Cooperation in the fight against crime is necessary.
This should primarily take place between the national police authorities and Interpol, and not by building up a competing European police organisation, Europol.
<P>
The reason why cooperation in the field of justice and home affairs has not progressed more quickly probably lies in the fact that these issues are national ones and should therefore be decided at national level.
However, cooperation in distributing flows of refugees in the event of crises is desirable.
<P>
Schengen is supposed to be about the free movement of persons.
However, only a few articles deal with freedom of movement, while most of the Schengen rules are concerned with border and security controls.
The register of persons which is being built up around Schengen is unacceptable, and violates personal integrity.
Schengen could also lead to a less generous refugee and asylum policy.
The whole Schengen system must be revised.
Schengen could also have an adverse effect on the Nordic Passport Union, and we have therefore voted against the report.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Protection of families and children
<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0004/99) by Mrs Hermange, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the protection of families and children.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="Hermange">
Madam President, Robert Debré, the renowned pediatrician, used to say that our children are our eternity.
Now, in the construction of Europe, children and families are the ones who are most forgotten in the mechanisms that are being put in place for cooperation and solidarity.
This is unacceptable, as our children face particular risks such as road accidents, drug addiction, sexual abuse, stress at school, illiteracy, instability, and paedophile networks.
<P>
It is also unacceptable that 250 million children worldwide are at work, and that we in the developed countries buy, at a low cost, some of the products made by those same children.
It is unacceptable that more than a million children are used for prostitution and for the perverse satisfaction of western tourists.
It is also unacceptable that some families are tormented by distress.
While we were having what is certainly an important political debate these last few days, a few Members among us have been considering a very delicate matter, that of the Lancelin-Tiemann affair in which children were kidnapped by their father because procedures are not harmonised between two countries.
<P>
This is why, on behalf of the committee, I am presenting to you today an own-initiative report which has the sole objective of instigating a real political will to create a global approach to family policy based on giving the priority to children and on four principles: taking account of the diversity of family models, placing children at the heart of the European debate, going beyond the socio-economic approach of policies geared solely to benefits, and respecting equal opportunities for men and women.
<P>
Firstly, this approach means, as in the first measure in the report, drawing up family impact statements geared to the well-being of children to accompany all proposals for Community acts.
Secondly, at an institutional level, a series of measures should be implemented as quickly as possible, notably the extraordinary European Council meeting in order to debate the consequences of the demographic, family and child protection policies pursued by the various Member States. There should also be regular debate on family affairs and children in the Council of Ministers, and the unit within the European Commission that is devoted to those policies should be restructured.
<P>
In this respect, I would very much like the European Commission's inter-departmental group on matters related to childhood to be revived, especially as there are particular problems with the legal basis for budgetary headings concerning children.
I would also like to point out that, in order to implement this European strategy, I advocate the adoption of guidelines for action in favour of children drawn up with the partners in government after consultation with Parliament and in close collaboration with family organisations and solidarity organisations working directly or indirectly to improve the social integration of children in Europe.
<P>
With regard to child protection policy, certain proposals should be highlighted.
In the field of health care policy, we want to set up a European perinatal epidemiological network composed of regional perinatal surveillance units for each set of data and a common European perinatal database, which is something that urgently needs to be put in place in order to combat infant and maternal mortality.
<P>
With regard to parenting and education, which is a serious problem nowadays, we must implement strategies for relations between mothers and children from a very young age. Also, the establishment of schools for parents and out-of-school associations, which will improve children's integration into social life, should be encouraged.
<P>
In the field of prevention and of protection from danger in childhood, I would like to encourage the Member States to appoint children's ombudsmen with the task of reaching an amicable settlement in conflicts involving young people under the age of 18.
<P>
Finally, in order to prevent ill treatment and violence, I propose the creation of a European centre for children in danger, which would have the task of promoting the exchange of know-how and making available a European register of children who have disappeared and of culprits who have received sentences, drawn up in cooperation with the national police and judicial authorities and Europol.
<P>
Also, events that are unfortunately too frequent highlight the need to design, on the basis of the consideration currently being given to the European judicial area, a coordinated mechanism among our countries in the area of family law, for the well-being of our children.
<P>
These, Madam President, are the main measures that I would like to submit to the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
On 24 November last year, the Committee on Women's Rights unanimously supported my opinion.
The committee feels that pursuing a family policy at European level is impossible and undesirable for the following reasons.
Firstly, family policy is typically one of the areas where the principle of subsidiarity applies.
The Member States do not need the Community in order to have an efficient family policy.
Secondly, there is no definition of a European family, nor do we need one.
Differences in culture and tradition make it impossible to find a common basis for formulating proposals for such a policy.
<P>
The Committee on Women's Rights is therefore against the rapporteur's proposals calling for a European Council of Ministers on family policy, and all the other proposals for a special family policy at European level.
All that Europe can be responsible for is ensuring that, when new policy measures are introduced, account is taken of their effects on the situation of families in the Member States.
More European interference in the family could mean that families would suffer.
The Committee on Women's Rights agrees with the rapporteur's proposals regarding the protection of children and their rights, provided that they are consistent with the existing international legal framework and that they are cross-border measures.
<P>
The Liberal Group is against any European interference in family matters, and will therefore support only those paragraphs that are aimed at providing better protection for children.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Weiler">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, at the start of my speech I should like to thank the rapporteur for her willingness to compromise, because that is the only reason why the House has now been presented with a report that we in the Socialist Group are able to support.
We undoubtedly had problems in the initial stages, because I need hardly say that many things have already been decided here by Parliament in a similar manner.
<P>
But we also had problems because Mrs Hermange's first version incorporated many elements of social policy that were completely unacceptable to us, such as the expression 'Europe without Europeans' or the suggestion that Europe was committing suicide by letting its birth rate fall.
These and other misleading statements certainly made us have serious doubts at the start of the process.
There was also the fact, of course, that our committee became embroiled in an decidedly impassioned discussion on the enshrining of the traditional family model.
I shall return to that in a moment.
<P>
And then suddenly we had a number of amendments from other committee members which would have totally distorted the report; moreover, I have to say that the committees asked for an opinion did not exactly make things any easier for us.
The Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs even changed draftsmen, one draftsman having tried to refer the entire matter back on the subsidiarity issue.
That was not the position of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
<P>
It is our view that the family is definitely a matter which the European Union is competent to deal with politically at European level.
What is more, we in the European Parliament are a more suitable forum than national parliaments for the discussion of this issue, since everywhere in the Member States there are ideological battles about the concept of the family, about what does and does not constitute a family.
We in the European Parliament, with the mutual tolerance and respect we practise, are undoubtedly in a position to reach agreement on a modern family model, thereby setting an example for this debate in the Member States.
<P>
Before I move on, let me examine some aspects of subsidiarity.
I do not share the previous speaker's view that the subject under discussion has nothing at all to do with our area of responsibility.
Of course, I would not wish to interpret our remit too broadly, because the family should naturally be first and foremost a matter of national and preferably local government policy.
But as we know, policies on the family are also invariably associated with issues of sexual equality, which makes them a partly European responsibility.
Let us recall the guidelines for 1999, which include a new pillar specifically dedicated to equal opportunities, and the call for modern forms of work organisation.
What else does that mean but giving women and men, fathers and mothers, new opportunities to combine work with family responsibilities through changes in the organisation of workplaces and social structures?
<P>
This position, incidentally, has also been adopted by the European Court of Justice, which has delivered several relevant judgments on subjects such as part-time work and equal pay.
This is another argument in favour of the European dimension.
We jointly adopted the European legislation on parental leave, which is another contribution to a modern, enlightened policy on the family.
The fact that the amount of parental leave taken is so unevenly distributed between men and women in Europe should, I believe, provide some important food for thought in the Member States.
Let me mention just three statistics: 30 % of all parental leave in Sweden is taken by fathers, in Germany the figure is 3 %, and when the data were collected in Greece, only three men - yes, three men - were on parental leave.
That too is an indication of how we in Europe can learn from each other.
<P>
Let me finish with a point which is of great importance to me, a point that should stir us into action.
We have legally guaranteed freedom of movement for employees in the European Union, and that naturally extends to their families too.
For that reason and because of the single market, we have a duty - a shared duty, of course - to pursue a European policy on the family.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Glase">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I really do not understand why some Members are citing violation of the subsidiarity principle as their reason for wanting to vote against this report.
I really cannot identify any such violation.
What could be more important to us than our children?
That is precisely what makes this report necessary.
The subject is so wide and touches on so many areas that several reports ought actually to have been devoted to it.
<P>
The term 'family' is not a purely national or European one, but is a worldwide concept which means many different things to many different people.
The only thing I am sure of is that we can talk of a family when children have been born and are being brought up.
The subject can be described as European in scope, because families in Europe are in similar situations and have similar problems.
There are two reasons why it is very important that Europe should provide answers here. The first is that Europe is growing old and grey.
This has critical repercussions, and not just on social security systems.
The second is that Europe is becoming lonely.
There are an increasing number of one-person households and elderly people living alone.
Our society is becoming perceptibly more individualistic.
The weakest link in the social chain, namely our children, are being exposed to more and more dangers.
Television and the Internet without frontiers are bringing repulsive material into our homes.
Organised criminals have long been aware of the potential of children.
<P>
The report deals with the protection of families and children.
Both need protection and support.
My last point relates to a welcome development, but one which has extensive ramifications. More and more women in Europe are going out to work and have to be able to juggle their occupational and family responsibilities.
These developments have momentous repercussions, which must be reflected in political decisions.
Europe has to provide answers here, because families are far more important than we tend to realise.
We speak so often of social exclusion; the family is the most natural remedy.
Where does a person spend the most important years of the social integration process?
In the family!
What is the most suitable framework for the care of elderly and disabled people?
The family!
<P>
To express this in a simple formula, social policy begins with a policy on the family.
In the age of the euro and the single market, the term 'welfare' must not be entirely reduced to the growth of the gross domestic product.
The family is an essential element of quality welfare.
It is of inestimable value to us. At this point, let me thank the rapporteur once again for her constructive cooperation and for this excellent report.
I hope that these ideas are followed up and that the report does not turn out to have been a mere paper exercise.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR).">
Madam President, much of what has been said here makes good sense.
The basis of a secure environment for growing up is often an upbringing in a secure family.
However, families can look very different.
They may have two parents or a single parent, which is often the case around Europe today.
It is of course important for each of us in our own countries to ensure that people can combine work with shared responsibility at home.
<P>
There are many dividing lines and differences between children's chances of growing up in secure conditions.
Not only are there the differences between families, but also substantial differences between large towns and rural areas.
In rural areas, isolation is often a major factor in making children feel insecure, which we must of course combat by establishing more secure conditions for growing up by means of various kinds of support.
<P>
Poverty, exclusion, the more demanding pace of work in our modern world and, not least, unemployment all have a strong effect on children.
With 18 to 20 million unemployed people in Europe, our children are naturally affected.
It is therefore important to ensure that we can give them the security which enables social problems to be avoided in the future.
Several speakers have already mentioned this.
<P>
However, we in the Liberal Group believe that it is going too far to propose that the family ministers should meet regularly, that there should be a special unit within the Commission for family affairs, and perhaps a directive on childcare.
These are issues which first and foremost concern the most private of all areas, the close relationship between parents and children.
This should be handled within the family and in communities, in other words close to home.
These are communal, social, regional and national issues.
<P>
In Sweden we have a children's ombudsman, which works extremely well.
It is something we can imagine other countries introducing too.
The task of the children's ombudsman is to look after the rights and interests of children.
However, this is hardly something which should be regulated through a European family policy.
<P>
It is clear that a major effort is required to combat violence against women and children, which is increasing precisely because social circumstances are difficult for many people today.
Such problems stem from a hard working life and high unemployment.
<P>
Crisis centres are needed. These already exist in Sweden and the Nordic region, as well as elsewhere.
We have talked about the sexual exploitation of children.
Obviously this must be combated, but it should be done by proper methods at the proper level.
<P>
One thing which I believe we can do together here is to ensure that, in the negotiations with new Member States, we oppose in every way the abuse of children and the trafficking in children which is taking place, with children being exported from Eastern Europe and non-European countries.
<P>
From a Liberal perspective, we would like to say that all of this is extremely important and has to be addressed.
However, it must be done in a proper way and in the proper place.
Family policy, childcare and raising children are first and foremost national issues which should be dealt with at national level.
We must draw a line between what are children's rights and what are private matters of family policy and childcare.
As elected representatives, we have an obligation to protect children through such things as the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
This is essentially a good report, but we cannot support the proposals designed to introduce a European family policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Madam President, it is fortunate that we have reports to discuss in this House like the Hermange report, and I would say the same about the Sainjon report that we adopted yesterday.
It is fortunate that this House still finds time to discuss these matters and to adopt resolutions like those resulting from these reports, on which the rapporteurs must be congratulated.
It is fortunate that in discussing these reports and adopting these resolutions, we can find justification for some of the reasons for our presence in this House, having deserved - if this is what we deserve - the vote and representation of our voters.
<P>
Notwithstanding our general agreement, this does not mean that we have no comments and reservations to make or that we totally agree with the motion for a resolution tabled by Mrs Hermange on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
However, in order to express these comments and reservations, we have these debates which, through everyone's contributions, aim to improve what would already be satisfactory.
<P>
We do not totally agree with this proposal, not just due to the precise terms chosen but also due to the fact that we believe there is an omission or an aspect that is not sufficiently developed in the report.
<P>
We feel that it would actually be very appropriate for there to be a closer connection between the subject of the protection of families and children and the social consequences of a specific economic strategy and the interests that this serves.
It is true, as stated by the rapporteur, that 'the reconciliation by mothers and fathers of professional life and family life is a key factor in a modern family policy'. This same concern can be detected in paragraph 14.
However, we believe that the extent of this connection is insufficient and that the wording is not totally satisfactory. We have therefore tabled two amendments in order to specifically strengthen this aspect, as we feel it is necessary, and to contribute in a small way to improving the motion for a resolution to be adopted, without causing any imbalance.
<P>
We have the honour of being the first signatory of the motion for a resolution on child labour that is contained in this report. We would like to highlight the connection between the deregulation of working relations and the employment of the labour force being made clandestine, the consequences of this for the protection of families and children and the promotion, tolerance and concealment of child labour.
<P>
Our other amendment involves removing a value judgment from what can only be an objective reference.
Although it can be said that the directive on part-time work has the purpose of allowing, on a voluntary and non-discriminatory basis, improved reconciliation of family life and professional life, it is wrong to state that the directive makes this reconciliation 'easier'.
<P>
Finally, and to end as I started, it is fortunate that we have these opportunities to discuss such matters in this House, but much more is needed. We need to ensure that the requests, recommendations and demands contained in this motion for a resolution are not ignored or given less importance than the aims that are regarded as more important due to the fact that all political and social action is conditioned by the reactions of the so-called markets.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 NAME="Kerr">
Madam President, the problem we have in this debate is to know what it is we are talking about when we talk about families.
When I was growing up in Scotland we used to have an event called the Kerr Jaunt.
This comprised two large buses going to the seaside once a year with 150 people aboard.
That was an extended family.
I suspect that when she speaks about the family Mrs Hermange means the nuclear family of two parents: one husband at work, a mother at home looking after one child - indeed, only part of one child, given the birthrate in Europe at the present time.
<P>
The truth is that picture of the family is a declining picture of the family.
Families are a very disparate entity across the Union and therefore to try to adopt common social policies, legal policies and economic policies which deal with all families is probably a mistake.
Instead, we have to look for the best practice and best policy to deal with issues which may impact upon the way in which people want to live their lives, bring up children and live together, which varies considerably across the Member States.
<P>
Therefore, we need good policies for social security which, for example, include the notion of disaggregation, i.e. the notion of treating women independently from men, in their own right, with entitlements and access to social security, the question of children's rights, children's benefits and children's allowances, which relate to children and the cost of children, to the question of child care and the protection of children and to enshrining these rights.
The Swedish model we heard about from Mr Lindqvist with its children's Ombudsmen is very good.
<P>
All these things are separate in a sense from family policies but may add up to the same thing.
Whether we need the kind of policies at European level that Mrs Hermange suggests is open to question and although I am a federalist, there are areas here where subsidiarity has to operate.
I suspect that many other Members may feel the same.
We may achieve the same objectives by going about it in a different way.
That may be the way we have to approach it.
<P>
There is a slight moral overtone in the report, suggesting that single parent families are somehow deficient.
The evidence is very clear from all my social research over the years that where single parent families are properly supported in terms of social security and legal rights and child care, they are just as successful as nuclear families.
We have to encourage and allow that diversity across Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Madam President, it is clear from reading this report that it contains a lot of vague statements.
Politicians are gradually beginning to become aware of the ageing of the population, and we might have expected this report to head off in this direction.
But it would be naive simply to opt for a birth rate policy, particularly at European level.
What we need to achieve is a society in which parents can have as many children as they want and children can develop their full potential.
In our view this is primarily a task for the Member States, the regions and the local authorities, as other people have said.
I would have preferred the report to have dwelt rather less on this point, but I would stress that it is an important task nonetheless.
<P>
The report has a rather moralising tone, as if it were telling people what they should and should not do.
Looking at our various initiatives, we can see that there is often a lot more happening than could ever be listed in this report.
The protection of children is still a major concern, and I would point out that various countries still have serious problems here and that European and international measures are needed.
I would simply mention the international networks for the sexual exploitation of children, sex tourism, child pornography and so on.
<P>
The international Convention on the Rights of the Child requires reports to be produced at various levels, including European level, on how the convention is being implemented, and I am therefore very pleased with one of the practical measures in Mrs Hermange's report calling for a specific unit to deal with child protection.
Sweden has already set an example here, and Flanders too has a commissioner for the rights of children.
I shall be putting forward a proposal on this subject to Parliament shortly, but it is still being translated at the moment.
<P>
The terminology used in legislation on the protection of children is also something that we should be able to harmonise.
We approved the fight against child labour in the Sainjon report, so we do not need to keep coming back to it in other reports.
I would make a special plea for efforts to be made to track down children who have disappeared and to combat child abductions.
These are international agreements that Europe simply must subscribe to.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Seillier">
Madam President, I congratulate our colleague, Mrs Hermange, for the work that she has done and especially for the very extensive explanatory statement which enables us to consider the family from every point of view and to see how it is in fact at the heart of the reality of European life and how it should be at the heart of all sectorial policies.
Family policy is therefore not so much a policy in itself as a concern that should inspire all those who think about any aspect of economic, social and cultural life in the various countries of Europe.
<P>
I will leave the question of discussing a common family policy for the Community for the explanation of vote on 28 January, and I would just like to emphasise certain points that were watered down in the final report that was presented to us due to compromise amendments.
I do think that you were right to stress the need for economic justice for families.
Families are not charity cases for governments and their policies.
No, families are at the very heart of the creation of national wealth.
<P>
I think that here we can see a change of mentality to which your report could contribute, but we need to go further.
When we consider the question of the cost of living, we have to take into account those who have family responsibilities and should not take an overly individual, or rather individualistic, view in our calculations.
<P>
I would like to conclude with a point that I consider to be very important.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have no hesitations about talking about a political model.
In Europe we are referring to democracy.
We do not hesitate to talk about models when we are discussing social issues.
We talk about the European social model, which combines responsibility, personal initiative and solidarity.
So I must ask why we are so reluctant to mention the existence of a European family model in which men and women, with equal responsibility, in a loving relationship, are capable of engaging with society and with the children that will be born of that union, and of taking on that responsibility.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pinel">
Madam President, it is very encouraging to see the European Parliament taking an interest in the future of the family as a basic social unit.
Should we therefore also agree on what we mean by a family and by a home?
<P>
The current trends in the development of morals are leading the very concept of the family to be devalued.
I will not expand too much on this subject, as others have already done so before me.
I would simply like to propose going to Brazil, for example, to see what becomes of children there who are from broken or single-parent families.
<P>
Protection of the family and of children is a very broad subject.
Today, Madam President, I would like to deal with only one of the many issues, but one that affects just about all children and that has a very profound influence on them.
That issue is violence on television, and I am surprised that this serious problem has not been dealt with in the report.
<P>
Here are a few figures: in a week chosen at random, the French weekly ' Le Point' counted 670 murders, 15 rapes, 848 fights, 419 shootings, 14 abductions, 32 hostage situations and 27 scenes of torture.
Scientists have observed a correlation, and sometimes even a causal relationship, between the violence in the images seen by children and their level of aggression in real life.
Television is indeed guilty of encouraging violence.
<P>
Regardless of age, exposure to violence on television leads to an increase in childhood aggressiveness.
There is more and more violence on television.
In the space of 40 years, the number of murders has multiplied by one thousand.
Also, you should be aware that in the days following the portrayal of a suicide, the rate of real suicides among adolescents increases by 13.5 % among girls and 5.2 % among boys.
<P>
You will understand, Madam President, why I am particularly surprised that the issue of violence on television was ignored in this report, but maybe that would be touching on commercial interests that are beyond us.
Unfortunately, it would not be the first time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 NAME="Cushnahan">
Madam President, in the context of this debate, I want to express my concern at the totally inadequate cooperation and coordination throughout the European Union in response to the increasing activity of international paedophile groups.
The recent report entitled 'Child Abuse on the Internet', along with other research, indicates the scale of paedophile abuse of information technology.
It has recently been revealed that international paedophile groups are targeting child-friendly sites on the Internet to trace potential victims.
It has been estimated that some 20 000 paedophiles in Europe use the Internet daily.
While I appreciate that this is a complex technical issue, there is more that could be done to police this particular abuse.
<P>
I am also concerned that recently in my own country we have seen an increase in a number of attempted child abductions, especially over the last couple of months.
It is believed that this is the work of British paedophiles who have fled their native country.
This illustrates the need for better cooperation between law enforcement agencies in various Member States.
<P>
EU Member States need to consider ways in which we could harmonise our laws to exchange or compile registers of serious sex offenders.
Certainly I, personally, would support the concept of an EU-wide list.
<P>
We also need to place movement restrictions on those who have finished custodial sentences. There are many ways we can tackle this problem.
There are many ideas. I would like to see some attempt throughout the EU to coordinate activity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Madam President, the basic tenor of this report, which places the child at the centre of the European discussion, is to be very warmly welcomed.
And in very many details too, it strikes exactly the right note and addresses reality in a very frank and open manner.
<P>
I do not think the question of subsidiarity or competence arises here at all.
The family and the protection of children are naturally a matter for local authorities, municipal administrations and civic and charitable associations.
But the family is also a European and a global phenomenon, so why should European policymakers not concern themselves with the family, and why should there not be a special interest in the protection of children at European level?
It is necessary to break down the walls of silence, because there is far too much maltreatment of children in disturbed family environments.
<P>
Among the many proposals in this report, those that deal with the subject of child abuse are very important.
Where does the sexual abuse of children begin?
Probably in the family environment.
But a long time ago it began to assume a very global dimension, and what is happening on the Internet and in the domain of mass tourism may perhaps be termed the globalisation of perversion.
<P>
I should like to mention two more points that I consider very interesting and constructive, namely the call for a special meeting of the European Council devoted to child protection policy and the suggestion for the creation of a European centre for children, one of the principal tasks of which would be to compile and maintain a database on missing children and convicted child abductors, in cooperation with the national authorities and Europol.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 NAME="Marín">
Madam President, I would firstly like to congratulate Mrs Hermange on having taken the initiative to draw up a report on the protection of the family and children in the European Union.
This is an extremely important issue since the changes currently taking place in our society, be they demographic, sociological, ethnological or scientific, greatly influence the family.
<P>
The Commission notes the requests made in the resolution, although it admits that issues relating to the family are still the responsibility of the Member States themselves.
The birth rate is falling in almost all the Member States of the Union, fewer people are getting married, more couples are living together without marrying and more children are born out of wedlock, while the divorce rate is continuing to rise.
These are the trends that are currently influencing the family unit and, indeed, society as a whole.
<P>
There is a constant interest in the situation of families and its implications for our social and employment policies. It is also becoming increasingly evident that we need greater international cooperation on issues relating to the family as part of the global effort to promote social progress and development.
Although the Community has no direct responsibility in the area of family policy, it is paying increasing attention to the analysis and understanding of the social and economic repercussions these new trends and social changes have on families.
<P>
There are striking differences between the Member States as far as family policy is concerned.
These are based on the different ideas of the role of the State in economic and social life, the family's position in society, its rights and obligations, the roles of men and women within the family and the principle of the rights of the child.
However, the family has always been highly valued and will continue to be highly valued in all the countries of the European Union.
<P>
The Commission is promoting a series of measures and policies aimed at reconciling work and family life: the challenge of finding a balance between these two areas is vital for a whole range of employment and social matters.
Issues that directly affect the family include the changes in the composition of the workforce, the new forms of labour organisation, the restructuring of social protection, and the changes in the distribution between men and women of tasks involving the care of dependents.
<P>
The directives on pregnant workers, parental leave and part-time work are all valuable examples of the European Union's commitment to helping men and women in their family lives.
The recommendation on child care suggests that we should adopt initiatives that aim to provide child-care services for parents who work or who are still undergoing training, that pay greater attention in the workplace to the needs of workers with children and that encourage men to participate in caring for children.
<P>
The employment guidelines are also providing a great boost in terms of helping to reconcile family and professional life.
The employment guidelines for 1999 put even greater emphasis on the issue of reconciling family and job responsibilities as an integral part of the European employment strategy.
<P>
I would like to end by saying that the European Union must make substantial efforts to determine the similarities and differences in the way that the Member States react to the changes I mentioned, and to promote, at Community level, exchanges of information and the gathering of experience relating to all family issues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Marín.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Thursday, 28 January 1999 during the part-session in Brussels.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Code of conduct for EU firms in developing countries
<SPEAKER ID=240 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0508/98) by Mr Howitt, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on EU standards for European enterprises operating in developing countries: towards a European code of conduct.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 NAME="Howitt">
<SPEAKER ID=242 NAME="Kittelmann">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it will be no secret to the rapporteur that I harbour numerous doubts concerning the legality of the measures he proposes, of which, for reasons of time, I shall only be able to cite a few representative examples.
The cases you describe relate to glaring and despicable abuses.
We shall have to make every possible effort to scrutinise international law for ways and means of developing a code of conduct that will justify the conviction on moral grounds of the European firms which violate these principles of human rights.
<P>
On the other hand, we shall have to take care - and this is a point that has frequently come to my attention here in Parliament - to exercise our responsibility for keeping our reports within the legal bounds we have set for ourselves.
<P>
I strongly support the involvement of non-governmental organisations in the development of the existing guidelines for an international code of conduct, such as those followed by the OECD.
<P>
We must realise, however, that it is Utopian to call for a European legal framework governing EU-based companies with worldwide operations, and that such a framework would even be illegal because of its extraterritorial character.
We cannot condemn the Helms-Burton or D'Amato legislation for claiming extraterritorial jurisdiction, and then think that we can introduce the same sort of thing here.
The law is the law!
<P>
For that reason, I rather regret that there are four, five or six other cases which will be relevant to tomorrow's vote and which deviate from established legal standards.
For that reason, Mr Howitt, I should be glad if you would exercise some flexibility and tolerance at the vote in plenary tomorrow, otherwise I believe the form in which you wish to organise the vote will be unacceptable to many Members, at least to those in the European People's Party, even though you undoubtedly have a legitimate case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Vecchi">
Madam President, first, on behalf of myself and my group, I want to thank Mr Howitt for pressing for this own-initiative report from the Committee on Development and Cooperation and for having done some excellent work courageously, correctly and diligently. The report is the result of serious analysis of the international situation and of listening to the opinions of representatives of civil society, and is distinguished by the creativity of the proposals put forward.
<P>
The subject of the report is not simple, because of its obvious implications in dealing with the presence and activities of European firms operating in developing countries in terms of respect for the principles, standards and aims linked to recognition of fundamental human and social rights.
<P>
First let us say what it is not about.
It is not about wanting to impose rules artificially which make European firms less competitive or hamper them more in international competition. It is not about wanting to invent new rules, nor does it propose to.
<P>
It is simply - although we are well aware that this is not a simple thing - a matter of wanting to guarantee effective respect, by European firms, for international and European standards which already exist but are often simply ignored or actually violated.
<P>
It is a matter of creating a solid European political and legal base which strengthens and increases the credibility of the Union's commitment and that of its Member States to affirm those standards at international level without hiding behind the easy alibi of always leaving it to other authorities to shoulder the burden of taking action.
<P>
We think the European Union has something to say and a lot to do here, starting with itself.
<P>
I would add that, on this subject too - and here I would like to reassure Mr Kittelmann - the Group of the Party of European Socialists has worked to secure a wide consensus with the other groups in the European Parliament, even though they often started from very different points of view.
I hope we have succeeded and that the vote on the Howitt report, which should take place tomorrow, can be as positive and consensual as possible.
<P>
What are the fundamental factors underpinning this report?
<P>
First, there is the conviction that, especially in the age of globalisation, it is necessary to promote and integrate different intervention instruments to guarantee and promote human, social and economic rights, respect for the environment and sustainable development.
<P>
Secondly, there is the conviction that the actions of the various players operating on the international scene - regional and international organisations, national and local authorities, civil society organisations, companies - while differing, perhaps profoundly, in motivations and aims, are equally important in terms of their real impact on the actual situation of individuals, the local community and the people.
<P>
Research into optimising the action taken by the various players - public and private - in the different sectors and regions of the world is fundamental to pursuing the objectives of development and justice which ought to characterise the world of tomorrow.
<P>
In this context it is very important to support the process, already underway, of companies operating in third countries setting up their own voluntary codes of conduct.
<P>
But these codes cannot take the place of the obligation to respect principles, standards and rules ratified by law. They can anticipate or supplement action by the public authorities to protect individual and collective rights.
<P>
So there is no contradiction between voluntary codes of conduct and codes with a legal basis; instead they should be complementary.
<P>
For codes of conduct - voluntary or not - standards, principles and instruments of control to be realistic and effective, they must necessarily be based on the direct involvement of all those concerned: institutions, companies, trade unions, NGOs, etc.
<P>
Finally, development cooperation policy and economic cooperation policy in general must be able to respond to principles and aims which are diverse, yet consistent.
<P>
Of the various proposals contained in the report being debated today, the one I consider central is the European Parliament's request to the Commission and the Council to put forward proposals on developing an appropriate legal basis for establishing a European multilateral framework governing companies' operations worldwide and to organise, for this purpose, consultations with those groups in society which would be covered by that code.
<P>
If we succeed in doing that, I think the European Parliament will have made no small contribution to promoting a vision of the world and of international relations which corresponds to the expectations of the citizens of Europe and the developing countries, who are right to look to Europe as a positive factor for fairness and development.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Günther">
Madam President, I am sure that the examples used by the rapporteur at the start of his presentation are not in any way figments of someone's imagination, but there are also plenty of examples of companies conducting their foreign investments in a responsible manner.
If we look at these flagrant abuses that have been allowed to occur on the one hand and the many valuable global contributions of European companies on the other, we must surely have reason to hope that we can reach a solution in the end and bring about a reduction in the number of cases that we have been so loudly lamenting today.
<P>
I also see this whole thing in the context of our noble aim of supporting good governance, wherever it exists, through our development cooperation.
In my view, this also involves encouraging the countries of the third world to ensure that their own legislation, their jurisprudence and the implementation of their statutes and case-law create the sort of standards and provisions which would more or less eliminate the issue of extraterritoriality raised by Mr Kittelmann.
<P>
It is right to view the report in the context of a number of agreements, standards and conventions.
I believe we should really focus on the need to ensure that the decisions which have already been taken are actually implemented, and that we monitor the way in which promises are being honoured.
The numerous declarations that have already been made in this area were one of the reasons why the committee members from my group did not necessarily see it as a priority for the committee to produce this report on its own initiative and why we were initially opposed to dealing with this subject at the present time.
<P>
On the other hand, these codes of conduct are absolutely acceptable to us if they are adopted on a voluntary basis and if there is scope for us to publicise the involvement of companies in such schemes, including details of their compliance or non-compliance with the code of conduct, so that pressure can also be exerted by public opinion, which is certainly a very potent instrument.
<P>
I have already indicated that we are opposed to the exercise of extraterritorial jurisdiction.
I am not entirely convinced of the cogency of the examples cited by the rapporteur, because the question of arms exports concerns the Member States, which deal with such matters on the basis of their own export regulations.
We should not create a situation in which the appearance of weapons in any country legitimises some kind of recourse against the country of origin.
<P>
We should also beware of bracketing the infringement of social and environmental standards with child abuse, of all things, because the latter involves a paramount legal interest which is unquestionably eligible for extraterritorial protection, whereas I cannot see that the same applies to the former.
<P>
The third critical issue in this report was the question of a so-called monitoring mechanism. All manner of bodies were to cooperate within this mechanism, which would be coordinated by the European Parliament.
We cannot see any legal basis for such a mechanism.
During the negotiations we arrived at a number of compromises, and I hope that the report is acceptable in its present form and that we are all flexible enough to steer it successfully through the final vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I too want to thank Mr Howitt sincerely for his wide-ranging, in-depth and articulate work and for the generous and passionate commitment he has put into drafting this report.
<P>
It would be extremely serious if the Howitt report were to be read in a light unfavourable to business.
As liberals, we are far from opposing the involvement of companies in developing countries, and believe it is an absolute and essential condition for that economic development which is the logical premise of all human development.
<P>
Of course, it is necessary to prevent certain extremely negative cases from ending up polluting the climate and causing foreign involvement to be considered unsuitable.
From this point of view the Howitt report is undoubtedly helpful.
So 'yes' to the voluntary code of conduct for companies; 'yes' to a European code of conduct which would have to be largely based on existing international standards; 'yes' to clear, precise and agreed procedures for identifying any infringements or violations of the established rules backed by verification guarantees. But an equally strong and clear 'no' to the kind of temporary platform suggested in the Howitt report for the interim period, under the auspices and the aegis of the European Parliament, which, in our opinion as liberals, carries the risk of turning into a kind of people's court, without adequate guarantees, and is liable to be counterproductive at the end of the day.
<P>
So we rely on Mr Howitt's good sense as regards the amendments we have tabled on this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Girão Pereira">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, with regard to codes of conduct for multinational enterprises operating in developing countries, the position of this group can be summed up as follows.
We are in favour of the principle of codes of conduct adopted on a voluntary and non-compulsory basis. We are in favour of the multilateralism that would allow these codes to be defined within appropriate bodies, such as the OECD and the ILO, and that would make these codes applicable to all European and non-European multinationals.
Finally, we support the guarantee of impartiality of the bodies responsible for verifying compliance with the codes thus defined. This is why our group is tabling several amendments to ensure what, in our opinion, is a more balanced position, along the lines of what this House adopted in January 1998 on relocations and direct foreign investment.
<P>
However, we cannot support certain proposals in the report.
The rapporteur measures with extraterritorial effect covering human and workers' rights, the environment and the prevention of corruption.
<P>
Yet the European Union and Parliament are fighting against extraterritorial laws that the United States are trying to impose, such as the Helms-Burton Act.
It is therefore not appropriate to go down the same road.
<P>
With regard to the European Monitoring Platform, if such a body were created at some point, the proposals relating to both its composition and its tasks should be seriously reconsidered.
Our group has therefore tabled an amendment aimed at establishing transparent processes for the operation of this body and, in particular, for the appointment of experts of recognised competence and authority. This would involve processes to identify complaints, the guarantee that all parties would receive notification of complaints and the proof accompanying this, and the guarantee of possibilities of recourse.
<P>
In terms of Parliament's role, we are not in favour of a temporary European Monitoring Platform under the auspices of Parliament, nor of the appointment of special rapporteurs within this as these proposals seem to involve activities that do not fall within the competence of a parliamentary assembly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
Madam President, we welcome Mr Howitt's report on EU standards for European firms operating in developing countries.
The development of a European code of conduct is a very important aim which we must pursue vigorously.
It is an excellent idea to create a legal basis for this, Mr Howitt.
<P>
A model code of conduct is a necessity.
It is important that a European monitoring mechanism should be created, but a crucial factor from our point of view is the form that the monitoring and verification are to take.
Without monitoring and verification, a code of this type is an irrelevance.
The principle of voluntary action is important to us and must also underlie the legal basis in this domain. Each firm must be free to commit itself as far as it feels able.
There must, however, be some compulsory minimum standards.
This reflects the ethics of our Community, and these ethics must also be applied in our dealings with the rest of the world.
So there should be binding standards as a minimum basis, supplemented by voluntary undertakings.
<P>
The cooperation you propose in the new global agreement with the ACP countries is important, and represents another addition that we support.
We are also in favour of stepping up the initiatives at European level.
I did not entirely understand what Mr Kittelmann was saying.
He spoke of morality and said that we shall find ways and means of developing this at some time.
I do not know how he intends to accomplish that.
He also seemed to make a slip of the tongue.
He was speaking on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, yet he said in conclusion that the PPE Group could not accept the report.
Mrs Günther then seemed to say the opposite.
To borrow loosely from Brecht, first bellies are filled, then comes morality, and we know that capital is a great shark, and when it makes a killing in international business, the leftovers are few.
<P>
I also believe that this cannot be compared with the Helms-Burton Act.
Helms-Burton is a repressive measure on an international scale.
The aim of the present initiative is to create our own code of conduct for European firms.
We have other versions of this in the Basle Convention, in the Rhine Agreement within Europe, and in connection with the toxic waste that is shipped from Europe to South Africa, for instance, as the British example illustrates.
So we already have self-imposed codes of conduct to which we have committed ourselves.
That is why it is right and important that this initiative should be taken.
We support it and hope that a large majority of the House will do likewise.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=248 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Madam President, a short while ago we were talking about the protection of families and children, and now we are talking about the sustainable social and economic development that should form the basis for this, not just in the West but also in the developing countries.
Unrestrained globalisation cannot guarantee such development and can only, at best, provide a chance of achieving it.
But striving for maximum profit can also derail sustainable development.
<P>
Earlier this week, we debated the Sainjon report which is along the same lines.
Poor countries cannot force people to adopt a code of good conduct, nor can wealthy countries.
Many multinationals have a budget many times greater than that of many developing countries.
It is difficult, even for international organisations, to get a grip on these developments, yet they remain the greatest challenge that we face as a political community.
Our failure to create an international legal order based on internationally accepted rules, such as when the World Trade Organisation was founded, was in many respects a missed opportunity as far as I am concerned, because then we could have achieved a great deal.
<P>
So we are going to have to make do with the possibilities we have.
We are going to have to maintain a sense of moderation and realism, and the whole thing will have to be monitored very closely, because it will not work on its own.
<P>
We naturally welcome voluntary codes of conduct, but they are not enough.
We think we can count on the increasing awareness of Europe's consumers, who will not want to be party to exploitation.
This is why I would call for binding agreements and warn against hypocrisy.
I would like to finish here, because this would not be the first time that the countries of Europe, in claiming to support fine principles, were actually just protecting themselves against developments in developing countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Madam President, I should first like to congratulate the rapporteur on his report.
Operating standards deserve constant attention, particularly when they relate to trade with developing countries.
We need to put an end to exploitation in these countries.
European undertakings must be held responsible for establishing dangerous industries in countries where there is no labour inspection, for example.
<P>
In recent years, increasing attention has been given to codes of conduct in European firms, and a large number of multinationals have - perhaps under pressure from international pressure groups and public opinion - voluntarily undertaken to respect human rights in business and to publish an annual social report.

The European Union must support these developments, and this is why I am in favour of a voluntary European code of conduct, which will make it easy for businesses to trade ethically and responsibly, and will ensure that responsibility stays where it belongs: with the firms themselves.
<P>
The work we do with international organisations is another way of promoting compliance with international codes of conduct.
I do not think it makes sense to introduce all manner of European legislation and authorities, which would simply add to Europe's bureaucracy, and after the debates earlier this week, I think we would all agree that this is the last thing we need.
<P>
Finally, I have to say that I agree with Mrs Maij-Weggen that the developing countries must be involved as much as possible in the development of codes of conduct, but I see no reason to postpone the vote on this report because of this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Putten">
Madam President, I would largely endorse the congratulations to the rapporteur, but I would like to look at what this report means for the future, because I think it is an important document that will now trigger an entire debate on this issue.
At Mr Howitt's request, I would like to mention six points.
<P>
Firstly, what would the developments now being proposed mean for small and medium-sized firms?
After all, many of these also operate in developing countries, so should not the same or similar measures apply to them?
<P>
Secondly, should we not look at what we are already doing for environmental protection, in other words the covenants?
What does the type of covenant we are looking at mean for firms here?
Is there not work to be done in this field?
And the same applies for quality marks.
<P>
Thirdly, I sympathise with the argument which businesses put forward that if only European firms are affected, their competitiveness could suffer.
Take Shell in Nigeria.
We were right to put pressure on Shell, but in the end we have to accept that Canadazen and other non-European oil companies have reaped the benefit.
<P>
Fourth, what are we doing about the informal sector?
This is not covered adequately in the report, because the informal sector also supplies to businesses, and this is where help must be provided.
<P>
I have already dealt with my fifth point, which was that only European firms would be affected.
<P>
Sixth, how to involve the firms themselves in the discussions.
This too was not covered in sufficient depth, and in future I think it is important to involve firms both large and small in the debate.
I shall finish here, but I think that we are going to have to have a much broader debate on this issue in future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=251 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Madam President, I should first of all like to congratulate Mr Howitt on his report.
Although we do not agree with all the points he makes, we support the main thrust of his report and the principle of the need for a code of conduct for multinational companies, though I agree with the previous speaker that this does not mean that SMEs should not be included.
The need for such a code has become obvious from the large number of incidents or even disasters in the third world for which a number of firms have been responsible in recent years.
Think of the environmental pollution in Ogoniland in Nigeria, the problems of slave labour used in laying oil pipelines in Burma - which the European Union punished by taking away the preferential system - and the use of child labour in India, Pakistan and the Philippines.
These are all problems that we can prevent from happening in western Europe because we have legislation and a reasonably good inspection system, but the developing countries do not have this sort of legislation.
<P>
This gives carte blanche not just to the good firms, which some are, of course, but also to the bad firms, which then flout social and environmental legislation that they would have to respect in their own countries.
The developing countries, it has become clear, are the ones that most desperately need our help.
I would also point out here that this is also a good thing for the decent companies too.
Shell now has a code of conduct, but it has also told us that the Canadian and American companies in Nigeria do not follow it, and this has led to distortion of competition.
So we will have to be careful that goodwill on the part of certain companies does not itself lead to bad practices because codes of conduct are not universally accepted.
<P>
This is why a European code of conduct is both useful and necessary, and I support the idea.
What we do not think would be useful is an institution such as a monitoring platform that would result in far too much bureaucracy.
It would also not be a good idea to grant extraterritorial powers, and it would not be possible either, because the WTO would not allow it.
<P>
We would have preferred this issue to be put to the ACP Assembly again, but I understand that the rapporteur did not want this.
Perhaps we could approve the report tomorrow and still put it to the Assembly?
I think this would be a good idea.
I intend to support the proposal.
Of course we shall have to wait and see how the vote goes, but I hope that there will be broad support for this excellent report by Mr Howitt, for which I would like to thank him once again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Burenstam Linder">
Madam President, there is no easy way for poor countries to introduce the same standards and conditions in working life as rich countries.
If things were so simple that it was possible to increase prosperity quickly in developing countries by means of conventions, declarations, international conferences and sanctions adopted by third countries, then there would be no poor countries and no conditions for workers which we would consider substandard.
Unfortunately, however, things are not as simple as that.
<P>
Many countries are interested in attracting foreign investment to increase the availability of capital, enterprise and technology and thereby boost growth and employment.
Growth provides the real opportunity to improve working conditions, increase wages and extend social benefits.
Of course there are some irregularities in many places, but there are already rules to deal with that.
<P>
Now that we are considering the fundamental problem, it should be pointed out that countries which have relied on international investment have achieved far more progress than countries which have shut themselves off behind all kinds of socialist regulations.
That is why the economic development of Thailand has been much faster than that of Tanzania; poverty reigns in Cuba, but not in Taiwan; North Korea is characterised by exploitation, but South Korea is not.
Foreign entrepreneurs have contributed to improvements in wages and social conditions.
I think that this is still what we must use as a basis for judging what further efforts need to be made.
However, I think the report lacks sufficient understanding of this process; instead, it portrays international investment more as a means of exploitation which needs to be regulated.
If it is the case that host countries do not know what is best for them, then the EU should use extraterritorial measures, which we otherwise oppose, to ensure that our objective is achieved.
<P>
All reports have their good points, and this one is no exception.
However, it does not make a sufficiently constructive contribution, because in my view it is based on the wrong premise.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 NAME="Cushnahan">
Madam President, Commissioner, I would first of all like to congratulate the rapporteur on the production of this report.
Ironically the European Union can take pride in its achievement in improving health, safety and working conditions through the implementation of the social chapter.
<P>
We also strongly support the protection of human rights and we are always strengthening legislation to protect the environment.
It is not acceptable that at one and the same time as we improve the quality of life internally within the European Union that some EU firms are breaching health and safety rules or exploiting labour and are causing serious and permanent damage to the environment in developing countries.
It is totally immoral that we should increase the prosperity of the European Union at the expense of the people of developing countries.
<P>
I support the adoption of a code of conduct and the establishment of a European monitoring platform.
We must ensure that EU firms operating outside the EU treat their employees fairly, both in terms of the remuneration they receive and adequate health and safety standards in their workplace.
<P>
We must also prevent the construction of projects or the manufacture of products that have devastating consequences for the environment in these places.
I agree with the rapporteur's comments when he introduced his report that voluntary codes of conduct and binding agreements are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
They are in fact complementary to one another and should form the basis of our strategy in this particular area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=254 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldi">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is well-known that the European Union is the leading world donor of development aid.
But coordinated support is needed to ensure that governments of developing countries can incorporate standards that are already accepted internationally into their own national legislation.
So supporting European firms in this context is fundamental, because they are the major direct investors in developing countries and play a decisive role in sustainable global socio-economic development.
<P>
In contributing directly to the economic development of the poorest regions, business has a great social responsibility, especially as regards human rights.
This is why I think it would be useful to draft a European code of conduct which could help to ensure the better harmonisation of voluntary national codes of conduct on the basis of international standards.
<P>
The main objective of this code would be to guarantee the application of minimum standards relating to the environment, health and safety at work, the abolition of child labour, the protection of women's rights and, obviously, respect for basic human rights.
<P>
We must provide for an evolving and gradual approach to the rules of this code, identifying positive incentives for companies undertaking to observe the new arrangements.
<P>
But I do not agree with setting up a European Monitoring Platform, as already proposed by some trade associations, to monitor the situation and assess reports empirically. Not only can it not determine wages in developing countries but, as it stands, it will certainly not improve working conditions and, above all, there is no legal basis for European monitoring.
<P>
But it is important to recognise that the impact of liberalisation on the international community has both positive and negative effects.
Progressive expansion of social awareness, international recognition of human rights and free movement of goods, persons, capital and services could be counted among the positive aspects.
<P>
Unfortunately rights are sometimes threatened by environmental conditions and by the vast gap between rich and poor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=255 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendes Bota">
Madam President, there is no shortage of conventions, charters and declarations containing standards on labour rights, human rights, minority and indigenous peoples' rights, the environment or the fight against fraud and corruption.
<P>
The ILO, the UN, the OECD, the FAO, the WHO and the World Bank can provide a suitable ethical and legal supply of standards as the starting point for determining a European code of conduct intended for European enterprises operating commercially in developing countries.
Unfortunately, the profits of many European and American multinationals are stained by connivance with authoritarian regimes in which practices of oppression, abuse and exploitation of workers completely undermine the basic rules on fair competition.
These practices are an attack on the rights of people in fragile social situations, and involve, in particular, women and children who are subject to actual practices of forced labour.
<P>
The governments of developing countries must be made take responsibility for the implementation of standards that respect fundamental labour principles and rights.
However, the problem lies in the difficulty of imposing effective sanctions to penalise transgressors.
One practical solution may be positive discrimination, by providing special support and incentives to those countries that demonstrate good governance.
<P>
Specific initiatives must be undertaken.
We agree with the establishment of the European Monitoring Platform, bringing together trade associations, trade unions, NGOs and public bodies, with the initial impetus being provided by the European Parliament acting as a catalyst.
However, it should do more than this in order to stay within its competence.
Although sharing some of the concerns of our colleague Mrs Günther, we congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Howitt, on the report he has presented. It gives expression to the idea that the practice of fair trade is essentially a different philosophy from that of being in the world for a share of the spoils.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=256 NAME="Marín">
Madam President, I would first of all like to thank Mr Howitt and Parliament for their initiative and their action to increase the protection of the rights of workers throughout the world and, in particular, those in developing countries who work, either directly or indirectly, for European companies.
<P>
Over recent years, public opinion has been very sensitive towards these issues and progress has been achieved, thanks to the action of the European Parliament at times.
I am thinking specifically of the initiatives - which were then implemented by the Commission - always to include a system of incentives as regards, for example, the Generalised System of Preferences in the so-called social and environmental clauses.
A certain amount of progress has certainly been made in that area in recent years within the European Union and in its trade instruments and development.
<P>

Turning now more specifically to codes of conduct and social standards, following the technical meetings held in the European Parliament, with experts invited along to discuss the issue, the Commission considers that the voluntary nature of these codes is important and that, along with this, it is above all important to try to find ways of encouraging cooperation. Thus, with social pressure and incentives, European firms will gradually come to accept that when they work abroad they must meet certain basic standards in terms of labour and social rights.
<P>
Against the background of this generally positive philosophy, I would like to make a few more specific comments.
<P>
For years, the Commission has supported the voluntary initiatives of companies, industries, trade unions and NGOs to promote codes of conduct, and has particularly encouraged dialogue between the various partners.
Thus, in February 1998, a joint conference was held in Brussels in conjunction with the North American Department of Labour, where companies, trade union organisations and NGOs came together. The aim of this conference was to analyse the possibilities and limits of codes of conduct and social standards, and to consider what role public authorities might be able to play in this process.
The conference was followed by a seminar in November, which looked at issues involving the monitoring of codes of conduct and social standards, and by a visit to the United States in December 1998.
<P>
However, we must not forget that codes of conduct - and this is something I want to make clear on behalf of the Commission - can under no circumstances replace national and international labour regulations, which, at the end of the day, are the only way to guarantee universal respect for the fundamental rights of workers.
What do I mean by this?
What I mean is that a code of conduct can be important and positive and can apply a great deal of social pressure, yet it is also very important for a country receiving development aid to incorporate the international conventions on the protection of workers into its own national legislation.
In other words, it must be a combined effort, as not all countries receiving aid from us have incorporated certain basic regulations on protection into their national legislation.
<P>
As regards the legal basis for establishing a European framework governing companies' operations worldwide, the Commission believes that priority must be given to incentive schemes and measures involving a participative rather than a repressive approach.
In other words, we have never agreed with the idea of certification.
We have always thought more in terms of positive discrimination and incentives rather than sanctions.
<P>
Moreover, the Commission - and the European Union as a whole - believes that multilateral agreements are more important than unilateral rules with an international element.
I do not need to explain the Helms Burton dispute to you.
The European Union does not support such measures with extraterritorial effect.
<P>
As a result, to maintain some degree of logic, since we opposed the extraterritorial measures advocated by the United States Congress, it would be difficult for the European Union to apply extraterritorial laws even if they have what I believe to be noble objectives, such as social protection and the protection of the environment.
We must be consistent and we must therefore introduce this type of approach internally through dialogue and through incentives.
<P>
As regards the possibility of creating a European monitoring platform, it is true that the Commission had not included this in its conclusions of the November seminar.
However, we are prepared to help the partners involved to come together to create links through the various initiatives and we are equally prepared to encourage exchanges, to promote and share experiences, and to increase the visibility of the companies who apply these codes.
In other words, the Commission can collate all the experiences, all the codes and all the actions taken by each company, not only in Europe, but also in the United States. Indeed, some US companies have already introduced codes of ethical behaviour when working abroad.
In this respect, we are open to whatever Parliament decides.
<P>
Finally, the Commission is also willing, if the partners so wish, to set up a network that will allow us to work on the content of the codes and pool the various elements involved. It would also deal with the delicate question of independent monitoring.
This is a very sensitive issue because if we establish a monitoring system, it will have to be extremely objective and neutral in order to prevent situations from naturally being judged according to economic interests, a company's interests or simply political interests.
<P>
In any case, as has already been mentioned, subsidies have been requested by the European trade union federations for textiles, clothing and leather.
And, in principle, the Commission's response will be to work with the trade unions and federations for the textiles, clothing and leather industries with a view to providing them with financial mechanisms that will allow them to form their own networks.
<P>
As regards the financial resources required, which you asked about, line B7-6000 is available to cofinance a large number of NGOs, so we should be able to encourage this method of increasing awareness.
In any event, we are already taking action here, and I hope that we can continue to do so.
Last year, funding was granted, in particular, to those NGOs who worked under the 'fair trade' slogan, which I am sure you have heard of.
On a practical level, a 'fair trade' campaign was run in all the supermarkets in Europe involving products from this type of trade, for which an amount was credited at the checkout.
We can continue with these sorts of awareness-raising measures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=257 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Marín.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
The day has ended rather more quietly than it began!
<P>
The sitting was closed at 8.50 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="Howitt">
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="Howitt">
Mr President, in response to the barracking, it was not my wish to make an oral amendment, but we have come to a compromise and it seems to be sticking as far as the vote this morning is concerned.
<P>
Paragraph 24 has caused a lot of discussion between the political groups.
We have managed to come to a compromise on only a very short part of this paragraph.
I will read the slightly amended wording of the first line carefully.
It is extremely short.
It is: 'request the European Council clarify the scope of the 1968 Brussels Convention'.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Mr Wolf has the floor to speak against this oral amendment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, I object because this changes the meaning of the paragraph and I do not think we should do this orally.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="Howitt">
Mr President, there are two elements to this UPE amendment.
The first is to delete five words and as rapporteur I recommend against that deletion.
The second amendment is to add in the words later 'the OECD Committee for International Investment and Multinational Enterprises'.
It is to that second part that I advise the House to vote in favour.
It is not the whole of the first paragraph, just the deletion of those five words that I recommend against.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
I gather that the five words in English come to eleven in the Spanish text.
In any event, this is a purely linguistic problem.
<P>
Laughter
<P>
On this occasion, ladies and gentlemen, the Spanish win 11-5.
<P>
Parliament adopted the resolution
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
I should like to congratulate Mr Howitt and to thank you all once again for your cooperation during that complicated vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="Delcroix">
Everyone knows that poverty is the rule in developing countries.
The wealth of the 15 richest people in the world exceeds the total gross domestic product (GDP) of sub-Saharan Africa.
There is a high risk that this underdevelopment in the countries of the third world will continue or even become more marked.
The sale of raw materials is the most important area of trade for the economies of the developing countries, but the prices of raw materials have either reached their peak or are steadily falling. There is no hope of these prices rising again because the number of synthetic products that can replace them is increasing.
These same countries are falling even further behind in education and in terms of access to new technologies.
<P>
Faced with this worrying picture, we are witnessing the merger of large multinationals, some with a budget in excess of that of countries such as Austria or Denmark.
Together, they control 70 % of world trade.
The counterforce provided by the political parties, trade unions and independent media is becoming increasingly ineffective and this means that the public are seeing them as increasingly powerless.
<P>
In view of the state of the world and the concentration of the economy, some are tempted to surrender given the lack of proposals for a realistic alternative.
However, the world is always changing and the worst approach would be to despair and throw in the towel.
Potentially, humanity has reached a stage of development where - for the first time in its history - everyone could be fed, housed, cared for and educated, for just a few per cent of the global budget.
<P>
The scandal of poverty is therefore not totally inevitable and I am pleased that this is indicated in the reports - such as that by Mr Howitt - which intend to regulate the laws of the market.
Recital A of his motion for a resolution stresses that 'the EU ... and European enterprises ... can play a decisive role in global sustainable social and economic development'.
<P>
The 'Euroworks councils' were set up without any provisions for sanctions in the event of the rules being transgressed, which meant that certain European multinationals did not take them seriously. In light of this experience, I approve the three-fold action proposed here.
The first element of this involves establishing a European framework governing companies' operations worldwide. It also includes the definition of a code of conduct incorporating the minimum international standards that ensure respect for human rights, minority and indigenous peoples' rights, working conditions, the environment and the fight against corruption.
The second element involves setting up an independent 'European Monitoring Platform' responsible for monitoring the application of this code of conduct and for verifying that the activities carried out in the host countries are socially and environmentally sustainable. The final element involves legal actions against enterprises that fail to honour their commitments.
<P>
I regard this structure as completely justified.
The EU still has to act to introduce such a code of conduct. In addition, it has yet to to set up effective monitoring mechanisms and apply sanctions in the event of transgressions through agreements within the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
The political world and public opinion must win this battle, essentially through the help of NGOs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="Deprez">
The European Union is the largest donor of development aid while European enterprises are the largest direct investors in developing countries.
As the rapporteur points out, Europe's attitude can therefore play a decisive role in ensuring global sustainable social and economic development.
<P>
I am personally convinced that a worthy social policy must be based on wealth production that allows only sustainable economic development.
I am also convinced that economic expansion based on social injustice cannot last.
<P>
In this respect, Parliament must approve and support the voluntary initiatives taken to complement the international rules and obligations that fall to national authorities, with a view to promoting codes of conduct, provided that these are drawn up by all the parties concerned and are monitored and controlled in an effective and independent manner.
<P>
We must support the idea of drawing up a model code of conduct comprising the existing minimum international standards and the establishment of a European Monitoring Platform responsible for ensuring that these standards are adhered to. However, this monitoring platform must work in close collaboration with all the partners and must not eventually become an instrument used as an elaborate form of protection against the goods and services supplied by emerging and developing countries.
<P>
Finally, it would be beneficial if legal action against enterprises that failed seriously to meet their commitments in an emerging or developing country were taken in the EU country where they have their registered offices. Equally, legislation should be drawn up to allow legal action against multinationals in this respect to be taken before the European courts.
<P>
However, these ideas must be subject to lengthy discussion because if care is not taken to prevent this, they could also be diverted from their primary aim towards protectionist ends.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="Souchet">
I voted against the Howitt report.
Although the rapporteur's aim to define minimum working standards applying to trade with developing countries, the method suggested is illogical and dangerous because it limits a global issue to the European context.
<P>
These codes of conduct must be negotiated within a global context so that we can find a compulsory mechanism that can be applied fairly to all enterprises, both in third countries and in the Member States of the European Union.
Otherwise, we will inevitably be left with patchy and non-compulsory measures.
We must, on the one hand, rigorously ensure that the existing international rules, particularly within the context of the ILO, are effectively applied by all, and on the other hand, develop the rules of the WTO so that they take account of the essential issues of social and environmental dumping.
<P>
This is the direct responsibility of the Member States and the Commission.
The European Parliament does not add anything to the debate by merely making lofty proposals and may, in fact, detract from it, thereby risking penalising our European enterprises alone.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Democracy, rule of law and human rights in EU/ACP partnership
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0411/98) by Mr Fernández Martín, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the Commission communication entitled 'Democratisation, the rule of law, respect for human rights and good governance: the challenges of the partnership between the European Union and the ACP States' (COM(98)0146 - C4-0390/98).
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I give the floor to Mr Pomés Ruiz, who is deputising for the rapporteur.
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<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Pomés Ruiz">

Mr President, it is an honour for me to present Fernando Fernández Martín's excellent report to this House. His report seeks to give renewed momentum to relations between the European Union and the ACP states.
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Of course, the content of this report contains a real political challenge for the future of our relations with the ACP states. This is clearly highlighted in the title of the document the Commission has submitted to Parliament.
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The Lomé IV Convention already had one innovative aspect in that it referred to the respect for and promotion of human rights in the actual body of the Convention.
The review of the Lomé IV Convention in 1995 introduced an explicit reference to the recognition and application of democratic principles in Article 5, and to the consolidation of the rule of law and good governance in Article 366a. Article 224 goes into more detail on these issues.
What we must now do is move beyond the theoretical debate of concepts that are full of good intentions and move towards defining specific measures that will facilitate the transition from theory to practice.
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We must make our friends in the ACP states aware that, to a certain extent, these guidelines should be seen as an attempt to participate in matters that come under their competences, responsibilities and sovereignty.
I must say that many of the guidelines and measures we advocate in this report would not have any effect and would be inefficient if they were not adopted by the various ACP actors, and especially by civil society in the ACP states, as civil society is the ultimate beneficiary of such measures.
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I would also add that the Union must remain vigilant and must adopt exemplary sanctions to deal with some of the problems we must address. One such problem is corruption where, for example, infringements involve natural or legal persons or European companies.
As one of the most brilliant European thinkers of the end of this century said, corruption is the cancer that corrodes democracy.
Corruption, in whatever form it takes, inevitably leads to an economic system that smiles on immediate profit, arbitrary acts and individual interests and is opposed to any concept of transparency, fairness and the rule of law.
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Through the reports by Mr Martens and Mr Rocard, the European Parliament is demanding a new political dimension in European Union-ACP relations, based on the promotion of democratic principles and on respect for human rights.
In this field, education is an essential environment for political action seeking to encourage the strengthening of a strong and healthy civil society.
It is vital that such action pays special attention to the specific role of women and to protecting the rights of minors, who in some cases are victims of forms of indigenous slavery that is humiliating and that insults the dignity of human beings. Strengthening the rule of law and democracy must include developing the conditions in which the courts of justice, the police and the army operate.
It must encourage support for the media who seek to provide true information and remain independent of the public authorities. Society must be strengthened through citizens' associations, professional organisations and trade unions.
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We realise that these objectives, which, although ambitious are no less urgent or utopian, cannot be achieved without working on dialogue both between the European Union and the ACP countries and among the ACP states themselves.
This dialogue must be as broad and as intense as possible, covering all issues and areas affected.
In addition, it must include not only representatives from each state, but, in particular, members and organisations from the political opposition, representatives of the legislature and judiciary, as well as representatives from civil society and from non-governmental organisations.
For this purpose, we support the strengthening of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly's role as the preferred forum for developing such a dialogue.
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<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, the Commission communication on EU support for the promotion of democracy, the rule of law, respect for human rights and good governance in the ACP countries is a good document on an equally good initiative by the Commission.
This is the view of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, whose opinion I have drawn up for the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
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The Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy had certain comments which it has tabled as amendments, such as the fact that the communication does not take sufficient account of the unique existing EU-ACP structure, which enables both sides to consult each other about human rights, democracy and good governance through the EU-ACP Council and the EU-ACP Assembly.
Instead of introducing a lot of new structures, we feel that the existing structures should be put to optimum use.
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Secondly, where a certain ACP country has violated human rights or there is a serious lack of good governance or democracy, the EU-ACP Assembly can send delegations, draw up reports for discussion in the Assembly and take measures on that basis.
Instead of introducing a great many official reports, we feel it would always be better to give preference to and to make better use of this route via the Assembly.
This would avoid duplication of effort and place the emphasis on a political approach rather than an official one, which is generally more effective.
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Thirdly, most ACP countries have signed international conventions in the field of human rights and democracy.
This means that these countries are themselves obliged to report on a regular basis and to evaluate the reports in their parliaments.
If the European Union intends to take action, then account must be taken of the fact that these countries have their own responsibilities here.
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All of these points are set out in amendments which have been incorporated by Mr Fernández Martín.
We are therefore very happy with his report and we hope that the Commission will react favourably to it and to our amendments.
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<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Virrankoski">
Mr President, one of the greatest challenges of our time is how we can help the general principles of democracy and the rule of law to take root in developing countries.
Physical and spiritual development is possible only in circumstances where there is general protection under the law and equality of social rights.
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The hustle and bustle of finance requires clear legislation for its protection.
A major task of the European Union is to promote democracy, respect for human rights and the adoption of the principles of the rule of law.
It has already done much to further this cause, and will continue to do so. Money has been set aside for this purpose in the budget.
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The cultivation of democracy has to begin at the beginning.
The birth and growth of political parties have to be encouraged.
We must support openness, honesty and legality in government.
Local traditions and customs often hamper developments.
Corruption and the custom of favouring relatives are fairly common and, worst of all, widely accepted and tolerated.
In such circumstances it is difficult to use European Union funds wisely, because that can also easily lead to abuse.
That is why the implementation of democracy programmes is difficult and demands an enormous sense of responsibility on the part of the authorities concerned.
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When it was preparing last year's budget Parliament decided that an interinstitutional working party, including a representative from the European Parliament, should be set up to decide on funds - how to spend them and follow them up - to promote democracy, respect for human rights, and the furtherance of the rule of law.
The purpose of this working party would be to aid the implementation and follow-up phase of these programmes.
It is to be hoped that this system of coordination will get off the ground as soon as possible.
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<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Vecchi">
Mr President, first I would like to congratulate Mr Fernández Martín on the intelligent and balanced work he has done on this report, and give him my best wishes.
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What is the main thrust of the Commission's communication and the parliamentary report we are examining?
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It is nothing less than the recognition that democracy, the affirmation of the state of law, respect for and promotion of human rights, the fight against corruption and the implementation of good governance are not just universal principles and aims which should obviously be promoted all over the world, they are also, and above all, essential conditions for success in implementing policies for healthy, balanced and genuine development.
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In short we do not want to 'export' models to our partners in the third world, and the ACP countries in particular. We do not want to impose the principles and practices of the world's most developed countries, but we do want to affirm what is now recognised objectively: that democracy and human rights are the foundations on which a modern society can develop, and not the end result of development.
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Of course we know a close correlation exists between democracy and development, but that can never be used as an excuse to justify anti-democratic regimes and violations of the most elementary human rights, to deny the right to participate in decision-making, to tolerate widespread corruption, and so on.
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In the course of the last few years we have been able to witness, in many ACP countries, the turbulent, and even sometimes contradictory, emergence of civil society, which is demanding space, guarantees and rules, calling for the reorganisation of the authorities, and demanding that the authorities gear their action to the collective interest and the welfare of the citizens.
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It is on that basis that a start has been made on new processes of democratisation on the continent of Africa and elsewhere.
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The Union's approach has evolved a great deal over the years and since the start of the 1990s the focus has been on the issue of democracy as an aim of all development cooperation. Of course it is still useful to calibrate the instruments according to the two main types of possible measures.
First there are measures of 'negative discrimination' whereby sanctions are applied to countries responsible for human rights violations, involving active intervention.
This makes the negative approach 'expensive' and 'inconvenient'. The problem is that this approach, while necessary, often fails to secure the agreed participation of all those involved in international cooperation with a country, often rendering the measures useless.
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However the accent is now being rightly placed on the need for 'positive measures', that is, measures which, through direct cooperation, create conditions for effectively implementing the commitments set out in Article 5 of the Lomé Convention.
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Given that I agree with everything contained in both the Commission's communication and Mr Fernández Martín's report, I do not want to go into the substance of the various initiatives proposed.
I would just emphasise that, almost inevitably, there is a risk of an omission.
We need to consider whether, in some cases, the rules and procedures set out in the current Lomé Convention relating to contracts, the allocation and management of financial resources, and respect for commercial rules of origin, may not be the subject of mismanagement and even corruption in some ACP countries.
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To be more specific, the problem is that the lack of transparency and knowledge about the instruments of the Convention, which concentrates enormous power in the hands of the national organisers in ACP countries, can certainly give rise to problems of mismanagement, corruption or misuse of the resources.
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I think this is a point to be looked at carefully when it comes to renegotiating the rules for the next Convention.
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<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Corrie">
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating the rapporteur on his excellent report and being brave enough to highlight such issues as corruption and the lack of pluralism in some States.
We are all aware that many developing nations are in a serious financial situation because corruption is adding to the debt problem.
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Sadly, in many ways, democracy - or the lack of it - go hand in hand with corruption.
Having used democracy to gain power, some do not wish to relinquish that power.
For that reason, we need good governance as well as democracy if we are to combat corruption.
The whole structure of our Lomé agreement is based on democracy, human rights and good governance.
I should like to tell the Commissioner that fine words are not enough.
We cannot force nations to abide by these principles but we can use incentives.
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The whole thrust of any new arrangement after 2000 will have a much more political dimension, and we must insist on political pluralism in countries receiving aid programmes.
It is up to nations themselves to develop this.
As our rapporteur says, measures should be put in place to assist those ACP nations struggling towards democracy.
Regional cooperation should help in this.
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I totally support that but we must strike the right balance.
There are a growing number of applicant States which are altering their constitutions in such a way that political pluralism will be impossible and opposition parties will never have the chance to come to power.
We should not tolerate that.
What incentive is there for responsible nations struggling to stay within the rules if other nations which flout those rules of democracy continue to receive support?
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<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of my group I would like to endorse the praise that has been showered on the rapporteur, Mr Fernández Martín. I must say he has worked with uncommon speed.
In fact few reports have been put together so fast since the Committee on Development and Cooperation came into being.
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The picture he paints of relations between the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries and the countries of the European Union is very interesting.
He is quite right to highlight the move from a purely economic approach to a form of cooperation which instead puts the accent strongly on human rights, evolution towards democracy, and aid from the European Union countries to establish the rule of law in the developing countries, not just in form but also, and above all, in substance.
We should not forget that simply affirming the rules and principles of modern western constitutions is not enough to make democracy exist automatically, nor is establishing democracy enough to create conditions of genuine development automatically.
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This is why the Fernández Martín report wisely puts the accent on specific local characteristics as well. We cannot assume that our institutional models are universal, eternal and incontestable, nor can we think of superimposing them uncritically on the situation in countries with very different histories from our own.
But one thing is certain: the battle against corruption, embezzlement and bad governance must be fiercely fought, both in Europe and in the developing countries.
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<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Girão Pereira">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of my group, I should also like to welcome both the Commission's initiative and the report by Mr Fernández Martín.
I must mention the Commission's initiative because I regard this as extremely opportune.
As the Convention will soon be renewed, I believe that this is the time to clarify how the European Union interprets the contents of this Convention on human rights, democracy, the rule of law and good governance.
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A few months ago in this House, Commissioner Deus Pinheiro threw down the challenge involving the need to consider how the European Union cooperates with the ACP countries and with developing countries. This related, in particular, to those countries that have violent regimes in which fundamental rights are not respected, those where corruption forms part of daily life, and, above all, those where the existence of conflicts may result in cooperation funds being diverted to the war effort.
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However, it is refreshing to note that, in recent years, many ACP countries have implemented significant institutional reforms, often under very difficult socioeconomic and political conditions. And the fundamental values of the rule of law, the participation of the people, good governance and the protection of human rights have formed the structural objectives of these governments.
Anyone participating in the ACP assemblies can confirm this concern on the part of these countries.
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The new ACP-EU partnership must be given a strong political dimension based on the promotion of the values of democracy, as only a democratic state can guarantee full respect for human rights.
Furthermore, the Convention must include detailed and very clear provisions on measures to combat corruption, accompanied by very specific sanctions that can be applied to the ACP country, to the Member States or to the economic operators.
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Finally, we also believe that the appropriate institutional framework for the debate on the new concepts of the Convention and the pursuit of this policy is a new ACP-EU Joint Assembly that has been adapted and restructured.
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<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
Mr President, our group will also be supporting Mr Fernández Martín's excellent report.
We have spent many years debating democracy, the rule of law, human rights and good governance in developing countries and in the ACP countries.
Negotiating the Lomé IV Convention played an important role, and this report is the next step.
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It is important to create the necessary infrastructure to bring about the separation of powers.
To achieve this, however, many countries need support, which we should provide in the areas of development policy and cooperation with the ACP countries.
It is vital that the Joint Assembly is itself pluralistic, and that it is a body which is representative of the various parties and not of authoritarian regimes.
We must act together to ensure this.
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We must also act together regarding the allocation of funds.
If we in the EU wish to combat corruption - which was the subject of yesterday's debate - then this also applies to cooperation with the ACP countries.
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We should also look into the areas where, by means of infrastructure measures, human rights are being violated by the present international economic system - as Mr Fernández Martín points out in paragraph 7 of his report - that is, due to the debt burden issue, structural adjustment measures or the fact that European companies force the indigenous population to submit to structural adjustment measures, which is often an obstacle to the introduction of the rule of law and the separation of powers.
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<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, in the Commission document on relations between the European Union and the ACP countries I found an excellent definition of good governance: 'Good governance refers to the transparent and accountable management of all a country's resources'.
If we replace the word 'country' by 'European Union', then we can clearly see that we have no right at all to be paternalistic towards the ACP countries.
I have the impression that we are using the term political dialogue to conceal the fact that what we are really trying to do is to impose a western political system on the ACP countries.
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The poor results of the Lomé Convention as revealed in the Commission's 1997 Green Paper led to a wide-ranging discussion about whether the Convention should be continued.
If there was to be a new convention in 2000, then its substance would have to be completely different, and we now appear to have decided that this new substance should be political.
The failures of the past are all put down to inadequate government structures, corruption and other practices, in an attempt to find political solutions for economic problems.
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I have serious doubts as to whether this is the right approach.
I also think that the European Union is not the right place for this sort of political dialogue.
We would do better to channel our efforts into promoting the genuine involvement of the developing countries in the world economy, even if this could work against our own economic interests.
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<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, may I congratulate the rapporteur on his excellent work and stress how important it is that in future the promotion of human rights becomes a priority component of the EU's development policy.
I consider it important to give special emphasis to the fight against corruption, which is an evil that is all too present in many ACP countries.
Without wishing to polemicise over this issue I would however like to say that the EU must in future set a good example. We cannot preach water and drink whiskey.
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It is also a matter of priority to give urgent attention to the situation of children and to protecting the rights of children in the context of dialogue between the European Union and the ACP countries.
The only effective way to achieve a lasting improvement in the fate of socially deprived or sexually abused children in some of the countries involved is to convey an unmistakably clear message and impose certain conditions within the framework of development policy.
If the 'democracy and human rights' dimension is to become an essential component of the Community's foreign and development policy, children must be the focus of our attention.
We must not permit the growing phenomenon of child labour and the sexual abuse of children, which is taking place on an enormous scale, in any of our partner countries.
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Even though worrying developments in the environment sector are not necessarily taking place on our own doorstep, we must also, in view of the significant global interdependencies that are being created, integrate environmental aspects into our relations with the ACP countries.
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<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, I would of course like to endorse the congratulations offered to Mr Fernández Martín.
I naturally attach great importance to this report and to the Commission report, because the ever-recurring conflicts between the United States of America and Europe can be attributed not least to the fact that we have particularly close economic ties with 70 countries throughout the world and that great mutual support exists.
I believe that it is quite natural that we, as Europeans, should attempt to introduce and support, in these 70 countries with which we cooperate, certain principles which we have recognised as being correct, and that we look upon them practically as a basic condition in this area.
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Allow me, however, to make a slight criticism of this report that seems to me to be very important.
It relates to the fact that, once national rights have been established, we naturally place a great deal of emphasis on human rights and thus on the individual.
The fact that there are certain groups which also have rights is unfortunately being ignored.
The groups I am specifically referring to are the minority groups and the various ethnic groups which live in these countries and which unfortunately are not mentioned in this report.
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We see only too often that it is these very minority groups which are treated abominably and have no rights whatsoever.
In this connection I have in mind certain African countries, for example in the Great Lakes region.
If we look at what is happening in Rwanda and Burundi, it is my belief that it is enormously important for us, as a European Parliament that continually supports not only individual human rights but also the rights of ethnic groups, to ensure that the rights of these groups are guaranteed at an international level, which is not the case at the moment.
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<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, I applaud the way in which the Union's human rights policy is being progressively extended.
If it is to have maximum effect a human rights policy must be clear, transparent, fair and consistent.
Various proposals are put forward in this document, some of them good, some of them not so good.
I agree with some of what the previous speaker, Mr Habsburg-Lothringen, said about this.
In its communication, the Commission rightly proposes to extend dialogue with the ACP countries with the aim of promoting democracy and human rights there.
It also suggests a combination of positive and negative instruments in order to achieve this, and this balance is vital for success, in my view.
The rapporteur, Mr Fernández Martín, is therefore right to point out that Parliament must have a say in any decision on suspending ACP cooperation.
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Finally, I would urge the Commission to prepare a similar communication on the implementation of democracy and human rights policy in other regions.
The Union's policy on this in all areas of the world must be based on clear criteria.
You know what they are, I have already listed them: fairness, clarity, transparency, consistency and making allowance for the fact that not everyone in the world has managed to come as far as we have.
Nevertheless, in this case I entirely agree with my colleague, friend and fellow countryman Mr Blokland that once in a while we need to put our own house in order here.
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<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="Cushnahan">
Mr President, in September 1998 negotiations started between the EU and the ACP to agree the successor to the Lomé Convention.
I welcome the fact that a fundamental basis for this negotiation is a strengthening and deepening of political dialogue, an element which had been largely missing in the previous discussions.
One of the major components of the political dialogue is the subject of this report, namely democratisation, the protection of human rights and the operation of the rule of law.
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The report considers these issues thoroughly and I support its recommendations to include stronger provisions on the human rights front and to tackle corruption, and particularly important, its recommendations for the use of sanctions.
I support the strategy outlined in this report, I congratulate the rapporteur and I hope Parliament overwhelmingly approves it.
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<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="Oreja">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I should like to thank Parliament for its proposal for a resolution on the Commission's communication entitled 'Democratisation, the rule of law, respect for human rights and good governance: the challenges of the partnership between the European Union and the ACP States'.
And I should particularly like to thank the author of this report, Mr Fernández Martín, for the quality of his work, as well as Mr Pomés who spoke on his behalf. I should also like to thank all those speakers who participated in the debate.
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The importance of including human rights, the rule of law and democratic principles in EU policy in general, and in its external relations in particular, has grown over the last decade. This is mainly due to the belief that there can be no lasting human development without an institutional and political environment that respects these principles.
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However, each country must decide upon the political and economic model around which it will organise its communal life, whilst respecting the general principles of human rights as well as the conventions and international and regional legal instruments on such issues.
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This communication follows the same lines as previous communications from the Commission on these issues, particular that of May 1995 on the inclusion and respect for democratic principles in agreements between the Community and third countries. It is also along the same lines as the November 1995 communication on the European Union and the external dimension of its human rights policy entitled 'From Rome to Maastricht and beyond', as well as the March 1996 communication on the European Union and the issue of conflicts in Africa: 'Peace-building, conflict prevention and beyond'.
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This communication responds to three requirements: the need to clarify for ACP members how the European Commission interprets these principles; the need to contribute in terms of stepping up the debate in the ACP states; and the need to prepare and facilitate the debate on the future relations between the ACP states and the European Union.
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Therefore, the Commission believes that it is necessary to draw up a specific communication on the ACP states. The aims of this communication will be to clarify the concepts that appear in Article 5 of the revised Lomé IV Convention, to draw up an action plan for coordinating dialogue with ACP countries, to strengthen the debate on such matters in these countries, and to give special emphasis to a series of specific measures and priority actions.
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As regards principles and objectives, the Commission welcomes Parliament's approval and the fact that it responds to the guidelines from the reports by Mr Rocard and Mr Martens.
The Commission once again stresses the principle that the promotion of human rights, the rule of law and democratic principles forms an integral part of the European Union's development policy and constitutes an essential element of the Lomé Convention. The Commission also shares Parliament's concern that good governance be added to this with an explicit reference to combating corruption, as stipulated in the negotiating mandate for the ACP states and the European Union.
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In relation to the action programme, the Commission is delighted that Parliament supports the positive approach in these matters, the suggestion to the ACP states that they propose criteria relating to the promotion of human rights, and the recognition of the specific social, economic, political and cultural situation of each ACP state. As a result, they will be able to define objectives, priority actions and the pace of development, as well as assessing what has been achieved.
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Finally, I should like to stress that it is only through dialogue between the Community and the ACP states on such issues that the political and institutional dimensions of cooperation will be able to flourish, as will respect for the sovereignty and distinct characteristics of the countries in question.
We therefore support the proposals in the current resolution on how to forge ahead on these matters, with a view to negotiating the ACP-European Union Convention. We also support the need to define and institutionalise the process and the arrangements for this dialogue in the next ACP-European Union Convention - as defined in the negotiating mandate - as well as the importance of developing and extending this dialogue by including the various actors from civil society.
Advantages are to be gained by developing this dialogue to negotiate national and regional indicative programmes.
Finally, we share Parliament's view on the need to make the most of, and strengthen, the joint institutions, including the Assembly, in order to promote and develop this dialogue.
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In terms of determining specific measures and priority actions that will have to be taken, we do, of course, agree with the proposals in the resolution on the importance of supporting actions to help vulnerable groups, particularly the rights of children and of army and police personnel. These have been implemented over recent years through projects financed by budgetary headings from Chapter B-7, European initiatives for democracy.
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Finally, let me repeat what Mr Fernández Martín said in his report and welcome the laudable efforts and progress made in many ACP states over the last few years in spite of the difficult economic conditions they face.
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<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
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The debate is closed.
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We shall now proceed to the vote.
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Parliament adopted the resolution
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<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="Deprez">
The priority given to the promotion of human rights, the rule of law and democratic principles in the European Union's policy on development aid must be welcomed once again.
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It can never be stressed enough how the efforts made in these areas by developing countries must not only be welcomed but also encouraged, and, above all, they should be supported as they are more often than not made under difficult socioeconomic conditions.
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Another priority to be added to the next ACP-EU Convention must be the promotion of good governance and the fight against corruption, together with the instruments and specific measures needed to implement these.
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It is not actually possible to have a socially balanced policy on economic development as long as most of a country's resources are being diverted into the pockets of a few people.
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Similarly, another condition that I feel is essential to any sustainable development is that the new Convention should pay particular attention to our partners' respect for and implementation of the minimum international standards of the ILO.
This Convention must also ensure that the economic and social partners become stronger in the ACP countries and that a permanent and constructive dialogue is established between them.
In more general terms, it is once again important to support and extend the role of civil society in drawing up and implementing development and democratisation programmes among our partners.
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To conclude, I would also highlight the essential role played by women in all stable development processes and I would emphasise, together with our rapporteur, the need to constantly ensure that greater consideration is given to their legal and social rights as well as to their increased participation in political life.
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<CHAPTER ID=3>
Export of renewable energy technologies
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0477/98) by Mr Elchlepp, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the new prospects of the European Union in exporting technology and services for the use of renewable energy.
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I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mr Elchlepp.
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<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="Elchlepp">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this report draws our attention to a new, extremely promising, but unfortunately under-utilised opportunity for Europe to export to and cooperate with third countries in the field of renewable energies, and also proposes a practical plan of action.
It is a happy coincidence that, in this very area, Europe is in an ideal position to merge its interests in the export and labour markets with the interests of third countries in cost-effective, suitably adapted energy supply systems.
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The fact that renewable energies are an essential part of a responsible energy and environmental policy which may yet achieve the climate protection objectives set out in Kyoto is, hopefully, well-known.
But forecasts show that, because of both financial and non-financial considerations, wind power, solar energy, biomass and other energy sources in the renewable energies sector deserve to have much stronger support in the EU's industrial and employment policy.
That is why I expect the new German Presidency to set new trends in this area.
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Back in 1995, in the Commission's White Paper 'An energy policy for the European Union', a clear statement was made concerning renewable energies, also from the point of view of foreign economic policy, and in the 1997 White Paper 'Energy for the future - renewable sources of energy', the one million solar roofs programme for photovoltaic systems was introduced, which would satisfy half the energy requirements in third countries, and at the same time provide an opportunity to promote exports for our domestic industries in Europe.
Yet I ask myself: where are the actions?
I ask the Commission: where are the implementation proposals?
I ask the Council: where are the necessary funds, the majority of which must be provided by the Member States?
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Two things need to be done. Firstly, we need a long-term European strategy to encourage exports in the renewable energies sector; this will include the entire export chain and will be trans-sectoral in nature, and it will help in particular our small and medium-sized enterprises to gain a foothold in world markets.
Our SMEs often lack reliable information on overseas markets, which I was able to gain first-hand knowledge of during a visit I made yesterday evening to such an enterprise in my own constituency which exports solar vessel systems to third countries.
As is made clear in a report, out of 17 potentially relevant EU support programmes, there is not a single one that aims specifically to provide export support for renewable energies.
Many of these programmes are unsuited to small and medium-sized enterprises, as only large projects requiring at least EUR 1 million are being supported.
The lack of market information and problems in finding business partners are further obstacles, as I have seen for myself.
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In order to synchronise and significantly strengthen appropriate foreign trade activities in Europe, I am calling for a 'European Export Council for Renewable Energies', which will in particular help SMEs through effective advice and facilitate their access to the world's future markets.
This Export Council could be funded jointly by the EU and by industrial associations in the renewables sector.
It should first and foremost serve as a point of coordination, encourage the foundation of export cooperatives, link these up with strong partners in the target countries and support premarketing activities.
<P>
Haste is paramount.
The competition in the USA and Japan never sleeps.
In the USA there is already a 'US Export Council for Renewable Energies', which has offices in the client countries of the future and also has generous funding.
I will quote some figures to illustrate the importance of the sector as a whole. For the period 1990-2010 the overall world market in renewable energies will be almost EUR 1 800 billion.
The annual productive investment volume is estimated at EUR 86 billion.
The photovoltaic sector, which is not even the biggest sector, is recording an annual market growth of 15 %.
Even in the wind energy sector an average market growth of 26 % is being projected in emergent and developing countries for the period 1998-2002.
<P>
Employment opportunities are also considerable.
The Commission itself has talked of between 500 000 and 900 000 new jobs by the year 2010, and an equal number of jobs could be created by exports in this field.
No other industrial sector, apart from telecommunications, has such a high growth rate in employment as, for example, wind energy; Denmark is an example here.
The proposed export initiative can only have a chance if we in Europe help renewable energies along the road to success, as we create confidence in European technology among our world partners by using it ourselves and by creating a viable domestic market; we must therefore promote it considerably better than hitherto and in a completely targeted way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Mr President, this is a very important issue which should be examined particularly from the point of view of how to create a demand for renewable energy sources.
We live in a market economy, and commercial applications for which there is no demand are rarely developed.
However, we in Europe are in a situation where there is natural demand.
We have a situation of natural demand in the Member States of the European Union, but there is still more demand in the applicant countries.
The European Union is to enlarge, and in those countries that are currently applying for membership of the European Union there are very great problems in the energy sector.
They have obsolete industrial plants which are a serious risk to the environment, and outdated nuclear power plants which are also a risk to health and safety.
Nuclear safety must improve in these countries to comply with international regulations, and defective nuclear power stations must be taken out of use.
This has been said many times.
<P>
But what should replace them?
In my opinion it is necessary to switch to renewable energy resources and power stations that exploit the highest possible technology.
This will also be in the interests of the applicant countries in the European Union's internal market, enabling them, in this very difficult situation, to acquire an immediate competitive edge over the present Member States.
What it will mean for the present Member States is that we will be able to export the know-how.
But the problems themselves will obviously have to be solved in each country individually.
<P>
The Kyoto agreement as it is obliges us to find solutions.
When, for example, the international funding institutions of the European Union support energy programmes in the applicant countries, special attention must be paid to making sure the money is spent on the best possible technology as well as renewable energy sources, in order to improve our chances of acting in accordance with international climate agreements.
<P>
The rapporteur raised the issue of employment very forcefully; it is just as important in the applicant countries as it is in the European Union.
From the point of view of the applicant countries, if we underline the importance of decentralised production and renewable energy sources we can also do much to weaken the conflict that exists between environmental demands and questions of employment.
This problem will diminish if new jobs are created from the production of energy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schwaiger">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Elchlepp report is unequivocal and contains a number of demands. It is a report which will enable us to become directly involved in the spheres of activity of the European Union and to implement the measures it contains.
<P>
I believe that, as Mr Elchlepp has already stated, this can go some considerable way to helping third countries meet the environmental standards that were set jointly in Kyoto.
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For us, however, it is an enormous opportunity to progress through positive economic cooperation within the various development scenarios and agreements and, through cooperative partnership, to not only export new technologies but develop them jointly with our partners in the developing countries, within the framework of joint ventures.
<P>
First and foremost, these new technologies could help African countries to reduce their very costly consumption of fossil energy sources and to make significant progress, above all in rural development, not only in production of energy for electricity, lighting and hot water, but also for the energy needs of small and medium-sized industries and craft industries.
<P>
All in all, therefore, this is an excellent report which calls upon us to take action.
I would also like to mention that the European Union should establish a means of channelling aid, just as the Americans have done.
However, we are not in support of a system of aid which introduces export subsidies, such as those in the agricultural sector, for example, but we are in favour of one which covers quite a broad spectrum, as Mr Elchlepp has already partly indicated.
<P>
This should include, first of all, the provision of information. We need to inform our SMEs, who are leading players in this sector, about opportunities in the third world.
At the same time, however, we need to inform third countries, especially the ACP countries, about these opportunities and, above all, about the opportunities in rural development, where, for example, cooperatives and producer groups could implement these uncomplicated technologies.
<P>
Secondly, this should include education and training in respect of the new markets which could arise for our enterprises.
We already have the appropriate provisions and even the new budget items which make this possible.
However, these are far too modest, and every year in the Committee on External Economic Relations we fight to get the Committee on Budgets to see the importance of these opportunities and to translate this importance into a few extra million.
In comparison to the huge budgetary blocks, this is virtually nothing.
<P>
Finally, this should include pilot projects to show the SMEs what is possible in the third world in the field of rural development.
<P>
I would like to end by saying something more about actual implementation.
I am now talking, in my role as Vice-President of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly, about actual implementation for these countries.
In Africa there is sun in abundance.
We must take advantage of this and give our African friends the chance to use this energy correctly.
<P>
Secondly, we must also make the necessary organisational decisions.
I am glad that our rapporteur on the future of the Lomé Convention and chairman of the PPE Group, Wilfried Martens, is still here and is perhaps listening to my contribution.
We first of all have the possibility of setting up an energy chapter within the framework of the new Convention and then, within this new energy chapter, of giving priority to renewable energies.
<P>
Thirdly, we must also inform the Centre for Industrial Development, which is provided for in the Lomé Convention, about this report and, in our next meeting with the ACP countries we must point out to this centre that here we have new opportunities for action which can be very quickly implemented.
<P>
Fourthly, I would like to say that we must hold this discussion in the ACP-EU Joint Assembly over the coming months in a very intensive, result-oriented and targeted way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ryynänen">
Mr President, the rapporteur, Mr Elchlepp, has produced an excellent and very interesting report on this important issue.
Renewable energy technology and its markets are a global issue, requiring EU resources for development.
As the report points out, the new opportunities can help to solve problems caused by uncontrolled migration in developing countries, in rural areas, and elsewhere.
I see a great opportunity in the development of renewable bio-energy and wood energy technologies, and the logistics know-how associated with this whole sector, in the development strategies for countries like these.
<P>
I would also like to emphasise the importance of something close to us in the Nordic countries, which people are not always sufficiently aware of in more southern parts of Europe, which is that the most important aspect of renewable energy is the biomass that comes from the natural forest, such as branches, crowns and small-diameter trees in a thinned-out forest.
There could be a demand in other parts of the world for the export of know-how and logistics associated with gathering these, especially in the EU partnership and applicant countries.
We have already managed to develop the world's highest levels of know-how in the technology used in small combined heat and power plants.
It has also been adopted on a very large scale, as, according to the latest statistics, bio-fuels are the largest source of energy in Finland.
Renewables can thus be used for combined heat and power production.
Furthermore, in Central Europe the consumption of conventional fuels for fires and boilers could in this way be lessened or altogether replaced with renewable energy sources.
Some of the know-how already exists, as do more efficient boilers.
<P>
The common policy of the European Union calls for a particular focus on the most important issues, having, as we do, limited resources at our disposal.
I would like to emphasise in this connection the importance of business in developing and exporting renewables technology.
For that reason, the European Union must, as a priority, strive to support commercial exports, through marketing subsidies and investment aid, for example, in the less developed regions of the European Union.
Furthermore, there should be more opportunities for companies in the partnership countries such as those in the TACIS and PHARE programmes.
<P>
Because technology is still searching for new forms, instead of so much planning and guidance, the main focus should be on decentralised methods of progress, where all endeavours are encouraged and these forms of renewable energy become competitively priced compared to other energy sources.
During the first stage, however, we will still need financial incentives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, world energy production is predicted to grow at a rate of 1.6 % a year.
That means that by the year 2020 the world's energy production figure will have increased by 50 %.
The developing world's share in that figure will be substantial, and it will account for perhaps three-quarters of the increase in oil consumption.
The earth, however, will not tolerate this kind of democratised energy consumption if we go on the way we are.
<P>
Democracy of energy consumption demands new thinking and new technology.
It requires us to make room in our developed capitalist countries for energy consumption in other lands.
Market mechanisms hamper the role of democracy in energy consumption.
Prices of conventional forms of energy at the moment are too low compared to those of the new technologies, and for that reason we have to create incentives for their introduction.
<P>
We have common resources in the world and the rapporteur, Mr Elchlepp, quite rightly points out that the partnership countries and the developing countries are in an important position from the point of view of the future of energy consumption and its technological development.
It is also very important to stress the importance of solar and biomass energy.
Neither the goal of doubling the consumption of renewable energy by the year 2010 nor the Kyoto agreement will be implemented unless room is made for the new technologies in the production of energy.
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<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am very pleased with this very detailed and unambiguous report by Mr Elchlepp.
I am also very pleased that it is slowly getting through to this House that renewable energies will be quite crucial in the future.
We have neglected this sector for far too long. For far too long we have relied on energy sources that cost the earth and cannot be disposed of, such as nuclear power, for example.
This report gives us the opportunity to place our future hopes in new energy sources, in tandem with the countries in the south and with the new countries in the east.
This is also a special challenge for the German Presidency, which is held by Joschka Fischer.
We will need money, which we must take away from other energy sources, to effect this volte-face.
Despite the fact that new oil reserves are still being discovered, word should have got around by now that this substance is finite.
That is why we must follow this new path out of our responsibility towards future generations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Escolá Hernando">
Mr President, Europe is currently in an advantageous position in terms of research and development in the field of renewable energies, despite the scant support received by this sector of European industry in comparison with its most direct competitors, the United States and Japan.
<P>
In order to maintain this position, it is vital that the European institutions demonstrate their political and financial support for this important industrial sector. It is a sector that is capable of making job creation compatible with the protection of the environment.
A true Community policy for renewable energies and SMEs in this sector, coupled with an increase in the specific budget for such forms of energy and in appropriations for exports would make a valuable contribution to job creation, the European Union's main preoccupation.
<P>
It is estimated that close to one million direct and indirect jobs could be created between now and the year 2010 if the use of renewable energy were to double.
These jobs would also be compatible with the protection of the environment because the use and promotion of these forms of energy avoids the use of fossil fuels, thereby preventing emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere.
This is a particularly interesting point when we take account of the fact that, with this reduction in environmental pollution, we would also be fulfilling the commitments made at the Kyoto Conference on Climate Change.
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Moreover, a third of the world's population, mainly in third world countries, do not have any electricity supply. The use of renewable energies would therefore offer a rapid and effective way of resolving this problem without harming the environment.
<P>
It is for all these reasons that we welcome the idea of creating a regulatory European Export Council for Renewable Energies.
It would provide the Union with a coordinating body to work on a true European strategy for the entire export chain. In this way, it would contribute to job creation, to the protection of the environment and to the development of third world countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Karamanou">
Madam President, without claiming to be an expert on the subject, I nevertheless wish to stress some of the very positive aspects of the excellent report by Mr Elchlepp, and to add my voice to those of the millions of people who are fighting for the future of our planet, which is threatened by headlong destruction of the environment, by irresponsible use of natural resources and by a widening gap between rich and poor countries.
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Faced with the reluctance of world leaders to adopt direct measures, especially the greatest polluter of all - the USA - which emits a quarter of the world's total pollution, the Union is the only hope and the only possible avenue for effective action.
The White Paper and the positions of the European Parliament, as expressed in this report, provide a very good framework for stepping up efforts for the further development of technology, mainly through assistance for small and medium-sized enterprises and through the transfer of this technical know-how, so that the huge energy requirements can be met by renewable sources.
It is frightening to think that even today there are two billion people on our planet who live without electricity.
<P>
Renewable energy is certainly an important future market, because its potential is unlimited compared with the limited and low-entropy energy sources in the earth's crust.
In any event, the European Union must cooperate closely with developing countries in the context of the new Lomé Convention, to promote viable forms of development and to settle their debts - as proposed in the report - in exchange for coverage of their energy needs from renewable sources.
<P>
It must be clearly understood that mineral energy reserves are becoming exhausted, while solar and wind energy ensure a continuous and unlimited flow and their use involves no pollution at all.
In my own country, Greece, we have both those types of energy in abundance.
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In Buenos Aires, the world's powers assured us that they will be adopting measures in the coming century to implement the Kyoto decisions, but in the few months before the end of the millennium, ecosystems - which cannot of course await the outcome of negotiations - will have sustained further serious damage.
That is why the Union must act at once and incorporate fully into its trade policy, external economic relations and the framework for enlargement the promotion of renewable energy sources as a principal means of securing viable development, protection of the environment and enhancement of the Union's competitiveness and the creation of new jobs.
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<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Madam President, I would like first and foremost to congratulate Mr Elchlepp.
I have been in Parliament for 20 years now and rarely has there been such a good report as the one he has written.
Many thanks.
<P>
Applause
<P>
However, I would like to broaden the subject somewhat to include an area which lies particularly close to my heart.
We have a massive market for renewable energies on our very doorstep, that is, in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
I should like to cite as examples the countries which I frequently visit: Hungary, Croatia, the Czech Republic and Lithuania.
In all these regions there is still a tremendous amount of work to be done.
In this regard, Mr Elchlepp, I should like to add one point to your excellent report.
The people in these countries do not yet know enough about renewable energies.
They must be informed and the governments must be informed, because we are dealing here in with certain large commercial concerns which have no interest whatsoever in the use of renewable energies and will therefore do everything they possibly can to stifle it.
I should therefore like to ask you to ensure that both the people of these countries, and their governments, who also do not know enough, are informed.
<P>
In this context, two points are of particular relevance.
It must not be forgotten that under the Russian regime many dreadful sins were committed against the environment, but now in these countries the environment is being severely damaged by lignite.
The massive utilisation of lignite, which I see especially in Hungary, for example, in the region of Obosar, must be replaced by energy sources which have no such harmful impact on the environment.
This is a task which it behoves us to carry out because we can achieve so much in this field.
We can and should give these countries a great deal, because in these countries we can start from scratch and carve out the correct path.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Virrankoski">
Madam President, Mr Elchlepp's report is an excellent one, and I would like to express my sincerest thanks to him.
In Finland we use renewables mainly in the form of wood, in its various forms, and peat, which has a substantial share of the market.
The volume of peat that grows in marshlands is approximately equal to the volume of wood that grows in the forests.
When they form, wood and peat absorb carbon dioxide, so burning them does not upset the earth's carbon dioxide balance as with fossil fuel.
Harvesting and preparing the wood and the peat requires work. Peat and wood consumption, therefore, at the same time promotes employment.
Promoting the consumption of wood and peat is also sensible because energy can be produced as a cottage industry using very simple methods.
On the other hand, mass production requires highly developed technology.
The EU and our country too leads the world in the large-scale exploitation of renewables, and this will also mean great opportunities for exporters.
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<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
Madam President, our group fully supports the factual, in-depth report by Mr Elchlepp. Not only is it important because there exists a huge future export market for renewable energies, but it is also necessary to reduce the dependence of many developing countries on imports in this sector.
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As a result of the improvement of social and environmental living conditions, especially in third world countries and in Eastern Europe, and the finite nature of fossil resources, together with the lessons learned from the dangers inherent in atomic energy, it is necessary to take urgent support and cooperation measures in the renewable energy sector.
That is why we recognise that an important basis has been established in this report.
We have put in place five new budget items for third world countries.
This report could be the starting point for us to move forward in this area.
Expansion of production capacity in third world countries must be supported, for example by means of the European Development Fund.
Just as important are education and training, support for small and medium-sized enterprises, the one million solar roofs programme, 'debt for solar swaps' and also what was said by Mr von Habsburg.
<P>
I believe that the PHARE programme offers an important basis, not for supporting nuclear power plants in the East, but for supporting the renewable energy sector.
Within the framework of the Lomé Convention, we need not only an energy chapter but, as Mr Schwaiger said, determined action on the part of the Commission to implement the necessary measures.
In my opinion the Commission must set up a special unit to promote marketing and cooperation here, to support the NGO projects in third world countries and, through the PHARE, TACIS and MEDA programmes, to support projects in the Mediterranean region and in Eastern Europe.
As we do not have responsibility for the budget in the European Development Fund, demands must be made of governments and so the impetus must come from the Commission.
They must make use of our joint potential with these countries to help the people and to maintain the basis for our lives and our existence.
Otherwise we would not be able to survive because we would not have the energy sources.
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<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="Oreja">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to be able to address Parliament on the issues raised in this very timely report and to respond to the proposal for a resolution.
For a few moments at least, this will be an opportunity for me to return to a former role I had several years ago as Commissioner for energy.
<P>
The report and its explanatory statement are a valuable contribution to the current work on promoting renewable energy and will help us to understand better what opportunities such energy forms offer.
In a very clear and detailed manner, the report sets out the possible different courses of action that must be considered if our ambitious goals are to become an achievable reality.
Therefore, I should like to begin by expressing my sincerest thanks to Mr Elchlepp for this report.
<P>
The Union's strategy, contained in the November 1997 White Paper on renewable energy sources, has already received the support of both Parliament and the Council. Its main objective is to increase renewable energy sources in the Union and thereby enable us to create the internal base and platform needed to increase exports to the rest of the world.
<P>
In the work leading up to the adoption of the White Paper at the end of 1997, the Commission tried to take Parliament's contribution into account, as expressed in its resolutions on the White Paper itself and on access for renewable energy to the electricity market as well as the Altener II programme, which was adopted in 1998.
<P>
The White Paper reflects the views expressed by Parliament in 1997 on the main renewable energy issues that would be useful when drawing up a Community policy in this field. It also reflects the wide range of reactions and requests of industry, specialists, interest groups and the people in general throughout the Union who would be affected by such a policy.
One essential aspect of our common priorities is, of course, the export market for renewable energies.
<P>
Moving on from this, I will briefly tell you about the progress made in the first year since the White Paper was adopted.
<P>
Work on the necessary advance studies of the current programmes and efforts being made concerning renewable energies has almost been completed in the Member States and in the Community.
I should like to pass on the Commission's satisfaction with the progress made. It is pleased with the diversity of action plans and national programmes on developing renewable energies that have been drawn up since the adoption of the White Paper.
It is clear that much of the work we are asking Member States to complete over the next decade has already been planned, or at least initiated.
<P>
Of course, there is still a great deal to be done and there is no reason for us to be complacent, especially if we take into account the commitments made in Kyoto, as the report rightly points out.
I am pleased, however, that the majority of Member States have already announced policies and national plans which, generally speaking, have a similar scope and objective to the proposals for Community strategies and action plans. This will make applying these strategies and action plans much simpler.
The public debate that took place at the Energy Council of November 1998 confirmed their importance. The Commission will draw up a detailed study as soon as possible that will serve as a starting point for subsequent planning and coordination.
<P>
The key action plans must be applied within the Union but it is clear that the actual experience of promoting exports is valuable. We will also increase our credibility through successful marketing in third countries.
The amount of effort all this will require in terms of planning and presentation is also clear and the Commission fully shares Parliament's desire for close cooperation between the industry and the public sector, both at Union level and within each of the Member States.
<P>
In accordance with Parliament's wishes, renewable energies are, and increasingly will be, promoted in European assistance programmes such as PHARE, TACIS, MEDA, the European Development Fund and other Lomé Convention instruments.
All the relevant cooperation agreements will therefore be revised, as will other agreements with both industrialised and developing third countries. This will encourage our partners to follow this same line, yet without forgetting each of their priorities and specific restrictions.
<P>
As the proposal for a resolution suggests, a pro-active approach for exports and cooperation in the field of renewable energies will be promoted, particularly through EU programmes related to energy, such as the SYNERGY programme. We will also encourage the elements of the fifth framework programme on research relating to scientific and technological cooperation.
<P>
Many activities have been set in motion under the Thermie programme.
In the five years that this programme has been running, more than 190 programmes have been set up by the European industry. These have been cofinanced by the Community with more than EUR 20 million.
There have also been measures aimed at countries outside the European Union. These include projects aimed at determining and assessing export markets for EU technologies and at designing and applying the best strategies to encourage the use of new technologies in the markets selected in this way.
Aid for exporters of renewable energy sources from the EU will continue to be seen as a priority, particularly in terms of credit guarantees, insurance, organising the necessary contracts, disseminating information and setting up networks.
<P>
Another priority is cooperation on energy planning and integrated resource planning, particularly with emerging economies on energy policy. The reasons for this are highlighted in the resolution.
<P>
An additional aspect that the Commission believes to be extremely important is that of access to innovative financial instruments that are specifically adapted to the needs of the renewable energies market. The Commission will continue to cooperate with financial institutions such as the World Bank, the European Investment Bank and the Global Environment Fund.
I could give a number of examples of such cooperation, which currently extends beyond the European Union, such as the World Solar Programme 1996-2005, which aims to carry out high priority regional and national projects worldwide, particularly in developing countries.
And in relation to this, I should like to point out that the White Paper stressed the need to make special efforts regarding the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries.
Initiatives for promoting solar electricity and for encouraging diversification to alternative renewable energy sources have been implemented.
<P>
As regards the associated countries, one of our priorities is to encourage them to bring their legislation on renewable energies into line with European legislation. Other priorities are to extend EU programmes such as Altener to include these countries, and to involve them in activities under the fifth framework programme on research.
<P>
Some of this morning's speakers asked if any organisation had been established at European level with similar responsibilities to the United States Export Council on Renewable Energies, which receives federal funding.
On these lines, I should like to inform you that back in 1996, Commissioner Papoutsis opened the European Export Council on Renewable Energies in Brussels in the presence of various senior officials from the Commission and other organisations. The Council is currently composed of five European associations for renewable energy.
<P>
Finally, Madam President, I have briefly tried to explain what we are doing, and what we have in the pipeline in relation to the content of the report and resolution in question.
The European Parliament has once again shown itself to be most constructive in its initiatives for promoting renewable energies.
I can assure you that the European Commission also believes that the export market for renewable energy sources constitutes one of our main priorities for the immediate future.
<P>
I should like to finish my speech by once again thanking the rapporteur, Mr Elchlepp, and all the Members who participated in this debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Oreja.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
Parliament adopted the resolution
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Deprez">
There is no doubt that the technologies that use environmentally compatible renewable energy provide a cheap, decentralised energy supply.
Intensive use of these new technologies would therefore give the developing countries a more realistic chance of reducing their energy bills while increasing the amount of energy supplied to their populations, particularly in the countryside.
<P>
The increased use of these cheap and clean technologies also provides an opportunity for industrialised countries in that it may lead to the creation of new jobs in high value added sectors together with access to new and immense markets in the southern hemisphere.
<P>
As an aside, I must point out, as the rapporteur did, that greater use of these technologies within the EU would allow us to achieve our self-imposed objectives on climate protection. It would also increase our independence in the energy sector and have a positive influence on our energy balance.
<P>
In general, I support the proposal to set up a European Export Council for Renewable Energies whose responsibilities would include encouraging and structuring the activities of SMEs in this area.
<P>
I agree with the rapporteur that the European approach must be transverse and that, within the context of international cooperation and our partnership agreements, we must encourage our representatives to give strategic priority to renewable energy when planning their energy, environmental and development policies.
This must occur in such a way so as to ensure that their natural interest in guaranteeing development at the lowest possible cost matches our search for external markets.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR)">
This excellent report on new prospects for exporting technology for renewable sources of energy, which I have voted for, would gain in credibility if the EU's domestic energy policy had the same priorities.
Subsidies for nuclear power would then have to cease, and nuclear power would have to be phased out.
Oil and gas dependency would also have to be reduced, and the use of renewable energy sources would have to increase.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Impact of financial crisis on European industry
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the oral questions (B4-1162/98, B4-1163/98, B4-1164/98, B4-0005/99, B4-0008/99 and B4-0010/99) on the world financial crisis and European industry.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Miranda de Lage">
Madam President, this debate could not have been more topical or relevant.
<P>
One month ago we were wondering what impact the economic instability resulting from the crises in the Asian and Latin American markets would have.
And now this week, still without having had an approximate assessment of the impact of the crisis that flared up in August, a new episode in the saga has developed with the devaluation of the Brazilian currency. This may drag down other Mercosur currencies or force them to make adjustments.
<P>
Although this situation could temporarily benefit the Brazilian economy, it has already caused a truly spectacular stampede of capital.
And we are facing this fresh crisis with our new currency, the euro, which was indeed greeted with loud applause from the Japanese market.
<P>
However, we do not know how the economy will behave. Nor do we know how, in the medium term, it will withstand the consequences of a possible deterioration of the crisis, an increase in imports or unfair practices against our industry and exports.
As we all know, unfair practices and increased imports are already damaging two industrial sectors that are particularly sensitive: iron and steel, and shipbuilding.
<P>
Over the past 20 years, these two sectors have suffered losses and staffing levels have been drastically reduced.
If such reductions continue, these sectors will disappear. We will have gone from considering strategic aspects to industrial ruin in a period of 40 years.
<P>
We wonder what will happen to employment and that is the million dollar question.
Japanese and Korean practices aimed at cornering markets, their State aid and, in short, their unfair practices and disregard for standards that attempt to regulate the sector at a global level should all make us think carefully.
<P>
If these attitudes persist, the OECD or even the World Trade Organisation will find their regulatory role and their prestige severely affected.
The shipbuilding sector, for example, cannot make any more sacrifices.
If State aid disappears before the year 2000 and current practices continue - namely Asian dumping - the majority of shipyards will be forced to close and all the work on modernising and adapting them, financed with European citizens' money, will have been in vain.
If steel imports continue to be subsidised in the country of origin, I do not know how our businesses will be able to survive when left at such an unacceptable disadvantage.
<P>
For this reason, I should like to remind the Commission that the proposal for a resolution on shipbuilding included an amendment that called for a study on how to address the problems described.
Could the Commission inform us of the results of this study and the corresponding proposals, as well as giving us its opinion on the extension of State aid until the year 2000?
<P>
And as regards steel and industry, what proposals could the Commission put forward to support the affected sectors and when could it present them?
What trade policy measures could it muster up to combat the growing number of cases of unfair practice?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kittelmann">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we are only just beginning to feel the knock-on effects of the financial crisis which has created such a stir over the last few months.
As we predicted, the crisis in South-East Asia has had global repercussions.
The collapse of the financial system in the Far East has led to weaker market demand there.
The question that has been raised today in the House can only be the beginning of a very fundamental debate on this problem.
The European economy, in so far as it has been adversely affected by the crisis, is legitimately entitled to financial support in the sectors affected.
This is the background to our question.
<P>
So far the EU has in large part been able to cushion the changing trade conditions which have arisen as a result of the crisis and has also borne the corresponding financial burdens.
No other market, not even the American market, has had to cope with such a substantial rise in imports both in terms of absolute figures and percentages.
The European market is now being swamped with goods which would normally be exported to markets in the Far East.
Not only does this development look set to continue, but it will accelerate.
The damage inflicted on the European steel market, for example, will be further exacerbated by the dishonest trade practices implemented in certain countries.
<P>
In this connection, the intention of the American steel industry to solve the problem through draconian trade-policy measures, or protectionist measures, constitutes a serious threat to the EU market.
I call upon the Commission to see to it that the United States Administration is left in no doubt that, if it does not demonstrate solidarity in such matters but, on the contrary, resorts to dishonest measures, it will have to reckon with severe countermeasures on the part of the European Union.
If the EU does not adopt a clear and unambiguous position, the USA will make further attempts to push forward its own world trade policy.
<P>
In view of the fact that European industry is clearly in no way to blame for the present critical situation in the US market, in which it has operated extremely well over a long period of time, the United States must be called upon, at the highest political level, to ensure that there is a fairer trade policy.
The USA and Europe play a leading role in the WTO.
Conduct that is less than exemplary would be disadvantageous for both sides.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Madam President, the previous resolutions of 17 September and 3 December 1998 on the global financial crisis do not make today's oral questions and motions for resolutions redundant or merely repetitive.
That is because, in this first part-session of 1999, this subject is still current, and because the economic situation is unlikely to stabilise.
<P>
Another recent resolution, this time on asymmetric shocks, which was also adopted in December, was particularly relevant in the context of the financial crisis and its consequences on the national economies. It further strengthens the belief that this is the right time to discuss and determine solutions to prevent this situation from having economic and social effects on European industry and international financial development.
The situation is changing and developing, at times at a dizzying speed, and the signs are not reassuring.
If it was considered that the events in Brazil in October were the worst point of the crisis and that efforts had been made and financial resources mobilised to prevent this turning into a disaster, then the news of the last few days must be worrying.
<P>
This is why we are supporting the joint motion for a resolution, although we believe that it fails to attribute the basic responsibility for the crisis, which lies with the priority given to the financial and nominal situation over the real economy. We also feel it is right that concern is growing and that the requests are becoming urgent.
<P>
The inclusion of references to shipbuilding and iron and steel, which is the aim of Amendment No 2, is very relevant. However, it justifies an extension to other sectors, particularly the textile sector, which was included with these other sectors in a recital of our motion for a resolution and which was sacrificed to the benefit of the joint motion.
We therefore believe that, in order for the amendment to be approved, it should include the textile sector.
<P>
We are talking here about currency problems, stock market collapses and financial crises. Those are the subjects of these oral questions and motions for resolutions.
However, the crux of the matter is that it is becoming clear that this is increasingly a question of the currency, stock market and financial aspects of a latent economic crisis that is about to explode.
Brazil had better watch out. Indeed, this crisis is due to the fact that the financial and speculative instruments and mechanisms are out of synch with the structure and operation of the real economy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Hudghton">
Madam President, with three major economic upheavals within a few years in Asia, Russia and now Latin America, there should perhaps be some lessons for us in this experience and we should learn from our mistakes.
<P>
There seems to be a remarkable similarity between the build-up to the Asia crisis and that more recently in Brazil with, in both cases, massive lending power being given on the basis of over-optimistic projections of growth and industrialisation.
Investors, of course, can leave as quickly as they arrive, taking their money with them.
And when the bottom falls out of an economy there can be enormous knock-on effects.
<P>
In Scotland, as elsewhere, we are still suffering from the effects of the Asia crisis, with promised investments failing to materialise and with delays in lowering interest rates and the strong exchange rate of sterling continuing to hit our industries and our exports hard.
While the crisis in Brazil may not be quite so serious it can still have repercussions.
<P>
Greater economic stability in Europe should increase our ability to safeguard the well-being of those of our citizens most directly affected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Oreja">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, given that there are a number of questions on the impact of the financial crisis on European industry, I will, if there are no objections, answer them in one fell swoop. I will begin with the questions on the general impact of the crisis and then move on to answer those that refer specifically to the steel sector.
<P>
Last year's downturn in the world economic climate undoubtedly had a negative impact on the European Union.
However, in 1998, good internal conditions more than compensated for negative external effects. The growth of the 15 Member States in 1998 was 0.1 % higher than predicted in March 1998.
The economic crisis will mean losses for the European Union's economy in 1999. However, its effects should, in principle, be limited thanks to the introduction of the euro, as Mrs Miranda just mentioned, and by maintaining healthy economic conditions.
The Commission trusts that Europe's economy will recover in the year 2000, a year in which it is hoped growth will reach 2.8 %.
<P>
In that general context, some sectors of European industry are faced with fierce competition from imports.
There has been an increase in imports from South-East Asia and other regions. But exports have also increased in all sectors, despite the drop in exports to South-East Asia.
In the year leading up to September 1998, the European Union registered a trade surplus of ECU 22 billion for industrial products, that is, ECU 16 billion less than the surplus for the same period in 1997. The significant devaluations of South-East Asian currencies have damaged the competitiveness of short-term European prices.
However, this has been partially compensated for by the high national inflation rates in those countries.
It is difficult to predict what the final impact of the crisis in South-East Asia will be in terms of the EU's relative competitive position.
It is particularly difficult due to the fact that the fluctuations in South-East Asian exchange rates can have repercussions on the countries' commercial output and competitiveness. As a result, it is difficult to give a prognosis at this stage.
<P>
Clearly, the Commission is concerned about the implications of an increase in competitive pressure on European industry.
This heavy pressure will probably continue in 1999, although perhaps not at such high levels as in 1998.
The European Union's trade balance for industrial products should improve in relation to 1998.
Although we do not yet have data for the 1998 period, the Commission calculates that the direct repercussions are marginal in terms of total industrial output for that year, but that they could be more significant in 1999.
When the Commission made its autumn forecast, it pointed out that it expected growth in employment to reach 1.2 % in 1998, a more rapid rate of growth than the 0.8 % rate recorded in spring.
However, the slower growth of gross domestic product in 1999 will also be accompanied by a drop in the employment growth rate to 0.9 %. Nonetheless, it is hoped that unemployment will continue to decrease.
It should have dropped to 10 % in 1998 and should then drop to 9.5 % in 1999, from a maximum of 11.2 % recorded in 1994.
<P>
As regards the increase in competitive pressure on European industry, this does not necessarily mean that the Union's trading partners are using unfair trade practices.
The Commission is prepared to apply the instruments of the Union's commercial policy where conditions dictate and in accordance with the relevant WTO agreements.
To illustrate this point, only last week the Commission initiated two proceedings, based on two complaints submitted by the European Union's steel industry. The first relates to dumping concerning hot-rolled strips from Bulgaria, Iran, Yugoslavia, India, Taiwan and South Africa.
The second is a complaint against subsidies for the same products from India, Taiwan and South Africa. None of the countries mentioned in the anti-dumping or anti-subsidy cases are South-East Asian countries implementing IMF stabilisation programmes.
The Commission is not aware of unfair trade practices relating to imports of steel products into the Community, except for the cases it is already dealing with.
<P>
During 1998, until the month of September, imports of finished or semi-finished steel products rose to 18.5 million tonnes, 6.6 million tonnes more than for the corresponding period in 1997.
At the same time, exports dropped by 2.7 million tonnes to 18.3 million tonnes.
As a result, the European Union showed a trade deficit of 0.2 million tonnes compared with a surplus of 9.2 million tonnes for the previous year.
The unexpected increase in imports of steel products into the European Union caused prices to collapse in the second half of 1998.
<P>
Demand for steel from the manufacturing industry is expected to fall in the first half of 1999, but is later expected to improve, leading to total annual results similar to those of previous years.
In 1999, the level of imports is expected to remain high.
<P>
It is difficult for the Commission to estimate to what extent the South-East Asian steel industry will contribute to economic recovery in the region, given that it varies from country to country.
Nonetheless, it is clear that several countries in the region significantly increased their revenue from steel products in 1998.
This was the case for South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, China and Indonesia, amongst other countries.
<P>
During the United States-European Union Summit, held in Washington on 18 December 1998, debates were held on a wide variety of issues and one of these related to imports of steel products.
The Commission highlighted the need to keep markets open and to avoid delaying the recovery of those countries hit by the crisis that were carrying out IMF stabilisation programmes.
It is essential that all parties involved act in a responsible manner and in accordance with international standards in order to safeguard the advantages of trade liberalisation and avoid further trade disputes.
<P>
The United States administration, for its part, is aware that imposing trade barriers would harm countries that have been seriously affected by economic problems. But it is also facing strong internal pressure to react to the recent fluctuations in steel imports.
There is a possibility that the United States may adopt commercial measures on steel imports in the coming months.
The Commission will follow any developments closely to ensure that the United States acts in accordance with international trade standards.
<P>
I would now briefly like to refer to two questions that have been raised.
The first is from Mrs Miranda de Lage on the impact of the Asian crisis on the shipbuilding industry.
<P>
Following the devaluation of various currencies in South-East Asia, the Koreans, in particular, have enjoyed higher sales in this sector.
However, the Community industry managed to maintain a strong position in the world market in 1998: it obtained 29 % of new orders between January and September 1998, as opposed to 22 % for Korea.
As I said earlier, the Commission is watching closely to ensure that the countries involved in the crisis respect the conditions laid down by the International Monetary Fund and, more specifically, the conditions relating to structural reforms and the relations between industry and the Korean Government.
<P>
I should now like to say a few words on the impact of recent events in Brazil on European industry.
<P>
I believe that, at this stage, it is still difficult to give a correct diagnosis, and would, in fact, be rather hasty. A great deal will depend on how the financial markets react to the events in Brazil.
Here we have - as you will also have - the latest news to reach us on how the markets reacted and on the packet of urgent measures put forward by the Brazilian Congress.
These were part of the fiscal reforms demanded by the International Monetary Fund, in exchange for aid amounting to USD 42 billion. These measures form part of the restructuring plan being pursued by President Fernando Cardoso.
The Managing Director of the IMF, Michel Camdessus, yesterday stated that he was satisfied with Brazil's commitment to apply the budgetary consolidation programme agreed with the IMF. At the same time, the Brazilian President has continued to send out messages of confidence to investors.
<P>
In any event, the European Union and Brazil have important trade links and European businesses have invested quite substantially in industrial development in Brazil, in the automobile sector for example.
The European Union imports a large quantity of raw materials from Brazil and the devaluation of the real could obviously force down the prices of these products, with some positive implications for European industry.
However, the devaluation might increase the competitiveness of Brazilian exports to the European Union and reduce the competitiveness of the European industry's exports to Brazil.
<P>
These are just a few comments I wanted to make on the situation currently unfolding. There is still a need for caution in a situation such as this as we do not know how the financial markets will behave over the days and weeks to come.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Katiforis">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, of course the successful introduction of the single currency justifies greater confidence on the part of the Union, and nobody wants to be a herald of pessimism at a time like this.
<P>
I also believe, however, that we all know the success of Europe's economy will be judged not so much in monetary terms but in relation to the real economy, and there the situation is not at all encouraging.
<P>
Unemployment, the supposedly number one economic problem, which I fear we are making zero effort to address, has stabilised despite all your forecasts - for what you told us, Commissioner, amounts to no more than forecasts - at around 10.5 %, and even if it falls by 0.5 % that is not very much.
<P>
We have long forgotten the optimistic words spoken by Mr Delors in this Chamber at the beginning of our parliamentary term, about the creation of 15 million new jobs which would reduce unemployment to 6 or 7 %.
The prospective growth rate of Europe's economy in 1999 has fallen to just 1.4 %.
The money market crisis in the third world, which has of course become a crisis of the real economy there, has brought about huge job losses, reductions in real incomes and a fall of our own exports.
It is a fact that any development comes from the services sector in our own area and in the United States, while in contrast, in the manufacturing industry, there are already clear signs of surplus production capacity.
In the face of such a situation, it is not surprising that voices have been raised in favour of protectionism.
And what you told us about the steel industry verges on a brief protectionist declaration, not by yourself, but one that is increasingly to be heard in major parliaments, in Congress and in other decision-making centres in the world.
This is a very dangerous development, because there is nothing more dangerous than a return to the restrictions on world trade, which would of course affect the weakest economies worst.
<P>
Without oversimplifying matters, common sense shows that we must not make such a difficult situation even more difficult by suppressing demand in our own economy by the restrictions we have imposed on financial policy, in other words the celebrated 3 % deficit limit of the Stability Pact.
Besides, it is forecast that in 1999, in the present economic situation, the 3 % limit will not easily be held to by Germany, Italy and France, in other words the big European countries.
Will unemployment have to increase to 25 % before we begin reviewing a restrictive policy which, though it may have reduced inflation to zero, is now moving towards the achievement of zero employment as well?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herman">
Commissioner, the question you are being asked deserves relatively general answers that can be found, together with your comments, by reading our daily papers.
<P>
I would first of all point out how unwise we were to condemn the instruments that gave us the ECSC Treaty.
At that time, I asked for more care to be taken. We knew that the crises in the iron and steel industry would reoccur fairly frequently and we now find ourselves very poorly equipped.
<P>
It is a little too late for you to tell us that the Commission is going to determine whether or not the United States contravenes the international conventions or international WTO commitments.
As Mr Katiforis has just pointed out, measures have already been taken by the United States, which do not seem, at least at first sight, to comply to any great extent with WTO commitments.
<P>
In other words, the Commission seems to be equally at a loss when it tells us that caution is necessary and that the situation is difficult: that is just about all it can tell us.
We should be able to say to the WTO that changes in the exchange rate are in some respects similar to duties or customs duties.
What difference is there between imposing a customs duty on imports and devaluing the currency in a competitive manner? There is something amiss there.
Rather, the emphasis should be placed more on the stabilisation of exchange rates and we should positively adopt the approaches that Japan and some of our countries have already taken.
In my opinion, we should either improve the stability of exchange rates or at least ensure that we still have the resources to protect ourselves like other countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Madam President, three large volcanoes have just erupted: one in Asia, one in Russia, and one in Latin America.
The next volcano is already showing signs of erupting. That is China.
<P>
The problem is that capitalism, with its capital markets, creates instability and imbalance in the world.
Today's capital markets are hyperinflated.
Any concept of inflation worth its salt must take account of the fact that capital markets mean the unrestricted rise in value of capital goods.
International institutions issue erroneous advice when this situation occurs.
They give the same kind of advice to all countries, which are all different, and generally that advice is deflation, or, in the case of industrialised countries, cuts in social welfare.
These institutions, under the leadership of the IMF, do not prevent the forest fires from starting: they only light other fires to counter the problem, but that is not enough.
We should be preventing the fire, or, in this case, the volcanic eruptions, from starting at all.
<P>
In this situation the left has a real opportunity.
Real capitalism causes problems, so let us make a joint assessment of the situation and work according to that.
The third way is the outside lane.
We must now together find the second way for the left and the Greens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we must not keep on protesting that things are not really all that bad, as is always the case in short-time crisis management. Instead, we need to develop strategies, at the core of which must be, not moralistic advice, but well-understood self-interest.
The very real danger of a deflationary process which can no longer be controlled is moving ever closer.
Assurances that there is really no problem ring ever more hollow.
We must realise that long-term stabilisation of the global financial architecture is impossible without the stabilisation of the economy in global terms, and that this will not come about without the stabilisation of the global social order. In other words, the question is not: how do we arrive at an alternative global economic and social order?
This would be illusory. Instead, the old Keynesian questions - not his answers - are becoming once again very pressing.
<P>
How do we achieve a global payment system that functions well and remains stable in the face of short-term irritations and volatility? How do we achieve a global monetary policy?
How do we construct an international trade organisation that is in a position to stabilise commodity prices?
How do we achieve aid programmes with low-cost loans and subsidies to assist developing countries? And now that we are faced with globalisation it is no longer just a question of developing countries but also sectors, projects and industries.
<P>
The present discussion is too narrowly focused on the imposition of antidumping and antisubsidising measures, which in effect means denying certain countries the opportunity to develop.
The question must be posed differently: how is it in fact possible to solve the problem of actual demand, which is currently not being met, in terms of the value of money?
As an example, let us take global shipping.
We have a shipping fleet which is completely outdated, environmentally unsound and unsafe, the renovation of which would bring lasting employment and progress in resource efficiency.
So, instead of continually asking the wrong question about the world economy locomotive, we should be asking ourselves about a joint global investment train; as Europeans, we can make a contribution here and we have a responsibility to do so, a responsibility which we are currently not fulfilling.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, today we have a delegation from the US Congress here in the House. It is apparent to all that our debate is highly topical and that global problems need to be tackled at a global level.
Although the European Parliament can be criticised for perhaps proceeding with considerable caution and deliberation in certain matters, I nevertheless believe that the fundamental criterion for the European Parliament is to produce results and to benefit those who need it.
<P>
In this House we have already dealt on a number of occasions with turbulences in the world of international finance.
In Europe we now have the euro, which has brought with it a new stability, at least in the euro zone of the eleven and thus in the European Union as a whole.
Through the single market we have made progress in respect of border tariff problems, and we are also moving in the right direction in the area of subsidies.
That is why I am very grateful to my colleagues in the House for providing the opportunity for us to devote our attention once again to this issue, in particular to the repercussions in Europe.
<P>
Entire sectors of industry, such as the pharmaceutical industry, ship building and, above all, the steel industry, are facing new challenges.
Our opportunities for export in these areas have shrunk dramatically.
Exports to Asia, for example, have fallen by 56 %.
By contrast, imports into the single market from this region have risen sharply.
Import escalation rates of up to 700 % are currently being quoted.
For the first time the European Union has become a net importer of steel.
We must work together to reverse this trend, in the interests of those industries affected and of their employees.
<P>
In the light of these developments, I am delighted that we can today welcome to Strasbourg a delegation from the United States Congress. The USA is facing similar, if not quite so far-reaching, challenges.
We can only get to grips with these developments through cooperation, joint strategies and a joint problem-solving approach.
In this way each country will take on its share of the responsibility, but always in relation to the actual burdens and opportunities.
<P>
In this context, free access to markets has a crucial role to play.
Trade-policy instruments naturally include antidumping measures and WTO procedures in places where state interference is pushing down the price of exports.
But such measures can only be regarded as a last resort.
In the long term we need constructive transatlantic dialogue because only if we preserve free trade in goods and observe the rules of fair competition on both sides of the Atlantic, will we be able to guarantee a stable global environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Madam President, I should firstly like to thank the Commissioner for the information he gave us which, to a certain extent, was rather optimistic. However, it also demonstrates the same concern we have when asking questions.
And those of us who live in regions such as Asturias are concerned. Asturias has already lost more than 6 000 direct jobs in the steel industry, not to mention the indirect job losses that can also be added to this figure.
<P>
It is very important to us to prevent further job losses.
This is the Union's main concern at the moment.
Not only must we create employment, but we must also ensure that existing jobs are not lost.
If we do not do so, the employment plans drawn up in all the Member States will be of little use.
<P>
In the resolution we have signed there is the suggestion - and I know it is not a very popular one - that we should once again discuss a tax on financial capital transfers in the economies of such countries.
We do not know what might happen in Brazil.
You said so yourself.
We have received this news but we do not know what impact it will have on the European Union's economy.
Nor do we know whether the European Union, in spite of the euro umbrella sheltering us, will be able to weather the storm of serious problems that will affect such extremely important sectors in the future, that is, the steel, shipbuilding and textiles sectors.
This last sector is not included in an amendment by Mr Kittelmann, but we suggest that it be included because it is also extremely important.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="Oreja">
Madam President, I will only speak for a minute and I would like to thank everyone who has spoken this morning.
I will very briefly say to Mr Katiforis - whom I cannot see here at the moment - that I in fact believe that it would be a serious mistake at this time of international economic fragility for the European Union to lift protectionist barriers. This could provoke similar responses all over the world and lead us into a global recession that could last for a long time.
<P>
I should like to say to Mr Herman - whom I cannot see here either - that the Commission does not believe that the American plan for the steel industry is its last word on the policy it is going to adopt in order to address pressures facing the steel trade. Instead, we believe it is the beginning of a negotiating process with Congress and the steel industry that could lead to specific measures within a few months.
<P>
I should also like to say to Mr Herman that the ECSC Treaty still applies.
Our steel industry is bearing up well. The measures that the United States is currently adopting are the same as those being adopted by the European Community, in other words, provisions for applying the instruments of the commercial policy.
<P>
In response to some speeches, specifically that by Mr Wolf, I should also like to say that our concern at the current moment is that the countries in crisis come out of it as quickly as possible. This would not only benefit them but would also put them in a position to import European products.
Consequently, I believe that, on the one hand, we must see how well we can survive this situation, and on the other hand, we must help these countries to recover as we will then be able to export to them.
<P>
It is well known that the World Trade Organisation does not accept measures against currency devaluations and, until now, the United States and the European Union have not applied any measures in this respect.
<P>
Finally, I should like to say to Mr Rübig that we must use the instruments of our commercial policy against unfair practices in imports, that is, the instruments I referred to earlier: the anti-dumping and anti-subsidy instruments.
In any event, I should like to say that I have fully noted all this morning's speeches and I will pass them on to my colleagues in the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Berthu">
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Common fisheries policy action plan
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0462/98) by Mr Novo, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the Commission working document 'Improving the implementation of the common fisheries policy: An action plan (SEC(98)0949 - C4-0378/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Novo">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in addition to dealing with the specific proposals of the Commission's action plan, I intended in this report to consider, and often to confirm, political issues involving the whole common fisheries policy.
In fact, it is my understanding that controls cannot or must not be regarded as an isolated political priority. Rather, they must be looked at as one aspect of a set of broader policies that ensure the social and economic sustainability of the sector and of the fishing communities reliant on this sector.
<P>
Monitoring is clearly decisive in ensuring the success of the fisheries policy in a situation of declining resources that is affecting a growing number of species.
However, in order for controls to be accepted and effective, it is essential that they be applied correctly, universally, transparently and fairly. This requires, from the start, a simplification of rules and the broad and effective participation of all the social partners, at both state and Community level, in the process of defining these rules.
<P>
Furthermore, the need to adjust the fishing effort has to be based on multilateral and systematic scientific research, using adequate financial and human resources, which can identify the true state of the resources. They must also be able to assess independently and reliably the consequences of the various sources of pollution on the state of the oceans.
<P>
We must promote stability in the sector, particularly with regard to access to resources. The central issues must therefore be to guarantee the continuation of the exclusive national use of the territorial waters within the twelve-mile limit, and even to consider whether it needs to be extended and to guarantee the continuation of the international fisheries agreements.
<P>
The social development of the sector also requires policies establishing general levels of social benefits and welfare entitlements that are identical for all Community fishermen and that guarantee them the foundations for a common legal statute in line with higher standards of living.
<P>
The widespread introduction of new technologies is certainly positive, not only in terms of improving the reliability and transparency of the controls, but also in terms of allowing an overall modernisation of infrastructures, thus improving health and safety conditions at work and guaranteeing a higher quality of fisheries products.
However, the effects on increased productivity must be assessed. We must prevent over-fishing as well as the creation of conditions leading to large monopoly enterprise groups that are totally alien to the economic realities of the sector.
<P>
For these policies to be implemented in a global and integrated manner and for the controls to therefore be successful, it is essential that, at both state and Community level, fisheries policy has adequate financial support, thereby putting an end to its position as the poor relation of the Community budget.
In this context, the way in which the sector is dealt with in Agenda 2000 does not augur well and this situation must be radically altered.
<P>
As for the proposals of the action plan, in essence, responsibility for monitoring naturally lies and will continue to lie with the Member States.
This does not mean that efforts may not be made towards real cooperation in terms of information, without breaking any confidentiality rules. We can also aim to achieve effective equivalence and reliability of the assessment procedures, which are increasingly computerised, and ensure an agreed definition of the basic rules and offences and of the equivalent sanctions.
<P>
Inspection procedures must also be established by consensus, with a code of conduct being proposed. In addition, cooperation between administrations must be increased while equivalent vocational training must also be encouraged and the human resources allocated to the controls increased at all levels.
<P>
Similarly, it is vital to conclude the procedures allowing proper comparison of fleets and respective productivity by implementing the commitments made by some countries under the multiannual guidance programmes.
At the same time, we must accept that the reduction in the fishing effort cannot be implemented on the sole basis of reducing the number of vessels, but must also involve the voluntary reduction of operation time. These measures should, in any case, be permanently accompanied by adequate and general compensation and by training programmes and aid for retraining.
<P>
The report argues in favour of tighter controls on third-country vessels and on the so-called flags of convenience, as regards both access to resources and landing.
In this respect, it calls for compulsory satellite control of these vessels in Community waters and the correction of the imbalance between the controls carried out in Community waters and those carried out in international waters.
<P>
Finally, the recourse to greater certification of products landed and marketed in the EU is decisive.
Tighter controls on their origin are necessary and we must take into account the social and environmental conditions of their production methods, the minimum size requirements for the species and the health and hygiene standards required in the EU. Tighter controls on transport from landing to the final point of sale are also required in order to make it possible to reliably ascertain the origin and legal situation of products on the market.
<P>
The rapporteur and Parliament now hope that the Commission and the Council will take due note of all the policy guidelines approved today. If followed, these may contribute positively to improving the implementation of the common fisheries policy.
<P>
I must thank all my colleagues for their contributions to the drafting of this report and I must particularly thank all the secretariat of the Committee on Fisheries for its diligence in preparing this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="McMahon">
Madam President, Mr Novo has produced a very interesting report.
It is apposite in a week when we have been talking about control of the finances and the activities of the European Union, that here at the tail end of the session we should be discussing control of one of the most important policies and one of the few common policies we have, namely the common fisheries policy.
<P>
The Commission has produced a five-year plan for the common fisheries policy over the next five years.
When my party formed the presidency of the Council last year under the chairmanship of Jack Cunningham and Elliot Morley control and supervision of control was made a high priority.
It is very important because nothing brings the Union into greater disrepute - and we have seen that this week - than to have disputes and allegations of bribery and cheating.
Fishing is an area where a great deal of this goes on.
Indeed, in my constituency only last year a Spanish trawler was arrested and impounded in Greenock for illegal fishing off the coast of Ireland.
No doubt Scottish and Irish vessels have been impounded elsewhere.
<P>
All fishermen, irrespective of nationality, are very adept at bending rules to their own advantage and blaming it on the foreigner, blaming it on the Irishman or the Dane or the Spaniard.
This happens throughout the Union and it is important that the Commission and the Member States get together and establish some common rules and some common responsibilities.
Member States must face up to their responsibilities and we in Parliament must play our part by ensuring that sufficient resources are voted into inspection and surveillance.
<P>
It is apposite too that Mr Novo is the rapporteur because Portugal has a second-to-none scheme of satellite surveillance which our Committee on Fisheries visited only last year.
I was very impressed when I saw how they carry out surveillance by satellite and then send spotter planes out.
They can take photographs of ships and if they are in the wrong area they can be taken to task and the fishermen can be fined in the courts.
It is a very successful method.
<P>
My own government has introduced a designated port scheme which will stop the landing of illegal fish.
This has been a serious problem in the United Kingdom.
The Fish Merchants Association in Aberdeen has lobbied me about this.
It is worried about the impact of illegal fish on price in the North of Scotland.
These are some of the areas which are mentioned in the report.
It is a very good report.
The Commission has a produced a reasonable working document and hopefully together, Parliament's Committee on Fisheries, the Commission and the Council - who must face up to their responsibilities in this - will bring about proper control of the common fisheries policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Cushnahan">
Madam President, the success of the common fisheries policy depends on effective monitoring and strict enforcement.
This applies both to non-EU vessels and to the fleets of Member States.
Some fisheries resources have been badly depleted by over-fishing which threatens the current livelihood of fishermen and of fishing communities, which are often in the poorest peripheral regions of the EU.
Equally important, it threatens their long-term future.
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I welcome this report.
I believe the rapporteur is correct to criticise certain Member States for failing to supply adequate data.
It is totally unacceptable that vessels in the Mediterranean are exempt from the obligation to keep logs and declarations of catch in contrast to the requirements placed on vessels in other EU waters.
It is supposed to be a common fisheries policy, therefore common rules and obligations should apply to all equally.
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We must improve the methods of monitoring and impose stronger penalties for breaches.
Further cooperation between the Commission and the Member States is needed to achieve an effective implementation of the control of EU fisheries policy, even if the responsibility for the control is on Member States.
This cooperation will not be complete if we exclude the main actors affected by the fisheries policy, namely fishermen, producers' organisations and vessel owners.
<P>
Since control measures might harm the industry, we also must support the rapporteur's plea for the issuing of new compensatory training and reconversion measures.
It is also vitally important that Member States should allow access for Community inspectors to their waters, allowing for a complete and more effective cooperation between national and European authorities.
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Furthermore, an effective control of the CFP would also be incomplete if no measures are taken in the marketing of sea products.
Size control should also be a 'must' when we consider the design of an effective control policy.
<P>
Finally, I should like to make a point in relation to my own country.
The Irish navy has the responsibility of policing some 20 % of EU coastal waters.
Despite the meagre resources at its disposal it does an exceptionally excellent job.
While the EU has been helpful in providing additional resources, more is always necessary.
The reason I underline this point is that the role of the Irish navy is not an Irish one; it is undertaking a European task.
The Commission should provide much more resources because the task that they are doing will certainly improve the lot of fishermen throughout the EU.
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<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Hudghton">
Madam President, the Commission action plan on monitoring, if its aims come to fruition, is a positive move towards improving implementation of the common fisheries policy.
I suspect, however, that the enforcement of the CFP, despite repeated efforts, remains ineffective.
I am sure we could all quote examples of that.
It is thus important to stress the need for monitoring to be effective throughout the Community and not just in certain Member States.
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Uniform application of monitoring methods and standards of implementation must persist throughout the European Community and the disparities that exist should be brought to an end.
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To this end I welcome the recent adoption of a regulation seeking to establish a control system applicable to the CFP emphasising the use of Community inspectors in addition to national inspectors.
The use of new technologies in improving implementation is a step forward but clearly such methods should be financed properly and equally across Member States.
It is little wonder, for instance, that Scottish fishermen get annoyed when they are prevented from accessing support available to fishermen of other Member States.
In my view such inequalities undermine the objectives of the CFP.
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I agree strongly with the report where it states that standard penalties for the same offences should be the norm throughout the Community.
The fair and consistent application of controls is important but, again agreeing with the report, the system of controls must be an integral part of all the measures implementing the CFP.
There must be a wider approach to fisheries which includes transparency, cooperation and harmonisation of data and administrative documents.
A fundamental prerequisite for successful implementation is the greater involvement of the fishing industry in the entire process from decision-making to implementation.
This is something we must strive to achieve.
<P>
The UK's designated port scheme may have been well-intentioned but it has not been helpful to those ports which have not been designated but which do, in fact, have fish processing activity, which is important to these communities.
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<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Madam President, I am speaking on behalf of and according to the instructions of Mr Souchet, the vice-chairman of the Committee on Fisheries.
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The deliberations by Mr Novo and the Committee on Fisheries on the need to improve the implementation of the common fisheries policy have highlighted four main proposals that we fully support.
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The first proposal relates to the issue of controls.
These must be fair and new technologies must therefore be used.
However, this issue cannot be considered in isolation or without extensively involving the industry.
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The second proposal involves the need for very vigorous international action so that the measures allowing responsible fishing are applied to both third country fishermen and to Community fishermen, so that our fishermen are not penalised.
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The third proposal refers to the priority to be given to research, which will prevent dubious decisions being taken that are devoid of scientific basis, such as happened recently with the decisions on drift gillnets.
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Finally, the fourth proposal requires a strong political will to ensure that the fisheries sector is no longer the poor relation of the Community budget and that it is finally recognised as a specific asset of the EU countries.
In our opinion, these proposals are therefore excellent and we will vote in favour of this report.
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<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Oreja">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to thank you on behalf of the Commission for this report which shows a significant level of agreement between the Commission and Parliament.
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Concentrating on the two specific issues in this report, the Commission agrees with Parliament's idea of the need for overall consistency in the common fisheries policy. Efforts should be made to control all activities in the fisheries sector and this should be done fairly.
The Commission also agrees with Parliament on the importance of transparency and cooperation, both among Member States and with the Commission.
In addition, this is reflected both in the plan itself as well as in our proposal to amend the control regulation.
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Other elements in the report have already been covered in the amendments to the control regulation adopted by the Council in December.
We were able to discuss this in relation to Mr Teverson's report, which you have approved.
It is a matter of strengthening post-landing controls, strengthening cooperation between Member States and the Commission, tightening controls on third country vessels and even using new technology such as satellite controls. Lastly, there is also the matter of harmonising the concepts of infringements and penalties.
This was also debated at that time but at the moment is rather far removed.
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Some of the issues addressed in the report are linked to decisions to be made in a different context, as they relate to monitoring fisheries.
I am referring to matters such as European Social Fund allocations for training in the fisheries sector, or controls in international waters, which are, in principle, dealt with by the competent regional fisheries authorities.
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The same can be said of the Community financial contribution towards expenditure incurred by the Member States in implementing control systems, as governed by Decision 95/527.
Your report also mentions controls to be carried out before fisheries controls relating to scientific research into the state of resources.
We support this idea and agree with your opinion, although we will address this issue in a different manner.
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As for the rest, ladies and gentlemen, we believe it is especially important that the fisheries sector participate in these initiatives in order to increase its level of cooperation and to promote better information.
We have laid the foundations for adopting common parameters which will be useful for measuring the capacity and the size of the Community's fleets. We were also involved in a debate with the Member States and made commitments on a number of questions that centred on a common definition of inspection.
The Commission notes Parliament's comments regarding the content of the list of pilot schemes, which it believes to be biased as it centres too much on certain areas. We will closely examine the possibility of improving the Mediterranean's situation and we will keep an open mind.
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<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Oreja.
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The debate is closed.
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We shall now proceed to the vote.
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Parliament adopted the resolution
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<CHAPTER ID=6>
Fish discards
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0403/98) by Mrs Hardstaff, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the problem of fish discards.
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<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Hardstaff">
Madam President, before I start I should like to request that the vote be taken at the beginning of the next part-session in Brussels.
We are down to 38 Members present, and I am sure that some of those Members will have to leave within the next half hour, during the course of this debate.
I should like to feel that a reasonable number of Members have had the opportunity to vote.
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<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="President">
Mrs Hardstaff is requesting that the vote be postponed to the next part-session in Brussels.
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Parliament agreed to the request
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<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Hardstaff">
Thank you very much, Madam President.
Fish is the only major food in the European diet which is still hunted rather than farmed.
Our century has seen major technological developments in hunting methods which have led to a massive increase in catches, resulting in a corresponding serious decline in global fish stocks.
Many measures have been introduced worldwide, particularly by the European common fisheries policy, to try to stem and reverse this decline.
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Unfortunately, the introduction of quotas and total allowable catches to deal with this problem has brought about a further problem: discarding of over-quota and non-quota fish, which itself kills huge numbers of fish.
Many of these fish are discarded because they are of the wrong species, below the legal size and/or immature and are therefore killed before they have spawned.
It is estimated that between 20 and 40 % of all catches are discarded.
Not all discards damage the ecosystem: some are of species which are not under stress or they provide food for other species.
Nevertheless, there is no doubt that discarding, particularly of immature fish and species already under pressure, is a significant contribution to the depletion of fish stocks.
The fishermen themselves deeply resent having to throw back parts of their catch, which could be sold if the rules did not exist.
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We cannot avoid the need to continue to reduce overall fishing effort in the short term.
Technical measures can achieve a great deal but they have to be within the context of a strictly controlled total effort.
Larger mesh sizes and wider introduction of the square mesh cod end and other selected gears which allow undersized fish and non-target species to escape, clearly have a key role to play.
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However, careful monitoring of fish-spawning grounds is also necessary and should lead to short-term closures of certain areas.
If a catch includes over 15 % of immature fish, boats should be legally obliged to leave that area.
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Further research is required in Europe to identify species most at risk from discarding in our waters; also research into fish behaviour to develop the most appropriate and effective selective gears.
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In particular, my report calls for a pilot project and associated research to investigate whether the Norwegian system of banning all discards could assist in preserving stocks of one or more particularly at-risk species.
Such a pilot scheme should involve some flexibility to enable up to 10 % of over-quota good-quality fish to be sold on the market and taken off the following year's quota.
Obviously there should be no deliberate over-fishing but this would encourage fishermen to observe the no-discard rule.
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Targeted species of fish should only be landed at designated ports with proper inspection to cut down the amount of illegal over-quota fish being smuggled into the market.
Landed fish unsuitable for human consumption should, whenever economically practical, be used for processing for fishmeal and fish oil, to cut down dependence on industrial fishing.
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Member State governments should play their part in cooperating fully with the Commission to ensure fishing grounds under stress within their jurisdiction are closed when necessary and that they are conducting the controls and inspections for which they are responsible thoroughly and effectively.
Fishermen bitterly resent feeling that they are being subjected to very strict controls whilst others from other Member States are allowed to flout the rules with impunity.
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Aquaculture has been suggested as a means of providing additional fish, particularly for processing, and thereby reduce pressure on the most popular and at-risk species.
This could also provide employment in areas affected by a reduction in traditional fishing.
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There is no one simple solution to this problem of discards.
A multiplicity of related measures is required to make a real impact.
Above all, the fishermen themselves must be fully involved as they are the people who will make whatever strategies are agreed work.
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It is important that we improve training so that fishing training is as well organised as agricultural training and education.
If all those catching the fish understand the reasons for the many measures being introduced to conserve the fish, as well as they understand the technicalities of catching them, they will be willing to cooperate in the long-term interest of their industry.
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Finally, if overall fishing effort is to be reduced, fewer days will be spent at sea and fewer people will catch fish.
The EU must ensure that funds are available to help those areas very dependent on fishing to adapt and develop alternative employment opportunities.
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I believe that a combination of these strategies can lead to a significant reduction in the wasteful discarding of good-quality edible fish.
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<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Cushnahan">
Madam President, the EPP Group welcomes this initiative particularly because it is the first initiative on discard tabled by the European Union.
It shows that the Union is currently working with other international organisations to deal with the discard problem.
Nevertheless, discard is not only about juvenile catches but is also about the harm done to fish stocks.
The report focuses all its attention on the juvenile problem, but these discards have wider consequences.
In fact they have negative effects on fish stocks, the marketing of non-human-consumption species, technical measures and so on.
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That is why, in spite of supporting this report, it is important to remain vigilant on all the initiatives taken by the Commission to deal effectively and in a broader way with the problem.
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The main actors in resolving the discards problem are the Member States, as they have to support the European Commissioner if she decides to close fishing grounds within the waters or jurisdiction of their Member States when there is a clear conservation aim in doing so.
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The report highlights the need for further studies on discard and its biological, marine and economic consequences.
However, this should only be the first step to deal with it, both at European and international level.
Other measures are mentioned in the report, such as implementing new technical measures, compulsory landing of catches in specific fishing ports and a fixed reference price for non-human-consumption species.
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The EPP Group will remain attentive to further proposals from the Commission and, although we do not particularly share the limited approach followed by the rapporteur, we are ready to lend our support on this significant matter.
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<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Oreja">
Madam President, the Commission is pleased to have the opportunity to give its opinion on this own-initiative report by the Committee on Fisheries, and I should like to begin by congratulating the Committee on Fisheries, and particularly Mrs Hardstaff, on drawing up this report.
On the whole, the Commission supports the majority of conclusions and recommendations included in the motion for a resolution, and it is pleased to note that the report underlines the vital importance of increased selectivity of fishing gear.
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The report also includes a reference to implementing a ban on discards.
As the members of the Committee on Fisheries are already aware, the Commission does not fully support the idea of a global ban on discards for a number of reasons. However, the new regulation on technical conservation measures, which will enter into force on 1 January 2000, includes a significant number of provisions that could lead to increased selectivity of fishing gear and, as a result, may reduce the need to discard catches.
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The Commission notes the suggestion included in the report on investigating the value of banning discards for one or two species as a pilot project.
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Once again, Madam President, the Commission should like to thank Parliament for having drawn up this report.
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<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Madam President, I would just like finally to say that we have had a very exhausting week and that a really important point has been made. We have received confirmation from a representative of the Council that the Council will now look after security in Brussels.
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<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="President">
That is an important piece of news.
Thank you, Mr Rübig.
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The debate is closed.
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The vote on the report by Mrs Hardstaff will take place on 28 January 1999 in Brussels.
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<CHAPTER ID=7>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="President">
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
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The sitting was closed at 12.20 p.m.
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<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 15 January 1999.
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<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Schifone">
Mr President, I appeal to you and the office of President to find some time, if only little, during this part-session of Parliament to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the death of a young European who gave his life for the freedom and dignity of his people and his country.
Many people will have understood that I am referring to Jan Palach who committed suicide in January 1969, turning his body into a human torch in protest against the oppression of his people by national and international communism.
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Mr President, the Alleanza Nazionale delegation believes a place should be created amongst the many commemorations and prizes this Parliament promotes, possibly even a place of honour, in memory of a young man from Prague who sacrificed everything in the name of liberty, which is also championed by this Parliament.
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<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
As you will appreciate, Mr Schifone, what you have just said has no connection with the agenda and cannot be included in our order of business at the present time.
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<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García Arias">
Mr President, during question time at the December part-session Mr Pérez Royo and I put a question to Mr Van Miert concerning the legality of the aid the Spanish Government intends to award to the electricity industry.
Subsequently, at a meeting of the European Energy Foundation held a few days ago, the Commission Director-General responsible for energy went so far as to criticise so-called political exhibitionism and the fact that certain issues had been brought into the public domain when in his view they should have been dealt with discreetly in the European Commission's offices.
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If the Director-General was referring to the public debate Members of this House are entitled to during question time, I must ask you to lodge a very strong protest on my behalf with the European Commission. I object to a senior official of the European Commission voicing the opinion that such issues should not be discussed in the public domain - the precise phrase used was 'in the marketplace' - and that they should instead be discussed discreetly in the offices of the European Commission.
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I believe public declarations of this nature, made at a European forum such as the European Energy Foundation, must be criticised. As regards the transparency of the debate held in Parliament during the December part-session, I would ask you again, please, to convey a strong protest on my behalf to the President of the European Commission.
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<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
That will be done.
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<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, can I raise a point of order on the declaration of Commissioner's interests.
You will recall, as a former distinguished member of the Rules Committee, that pressure was put on the Commission some time ago for a declaration of Commissioners' interests.
This was done reluctantly but in the best spirit of Soviet bureaucracy kept secret, available only to the President and the Secretary-General of the Commission.
Following last week's events, it has now been published and what we have is twenty virtually blank pieces of paper, three years out of date, indicating, much to even my surprise, that the Commission are so dull and uninteresting that they have no interests.
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<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Mr Ford, that is not a question we need look at today.
You know perfectly well as a member of the Rules Committee that you have the option of putting questions to the Commission.
Then it can explain the matter to your satisfaction or you can call for changes.
It is not on the agenda today.
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<CHAPTER ID=2>
Ways towards a sustainable agriculture
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
The next item is the statement by the Commission on agriculture and the environment - towards sustainable agriculture.
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Commissioner Bjerregaard has the floor.
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<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, Commissioner Fischler and I have today presented a communication to the Commission on the link between agriculture and environmental policy.
The communication comes after long and fruitful cooperation between our departments, and I would like to take this opportunity to express my thanks to Mr Fischler.
The political response to the demand for a better environment is currently reforming the way in which the EU makes policy.
Integration is the watchword of the process that was set in motion by the Amsterdam Treaty, with the help of the conclusions of the Cardiff and Vienna summits, and integration is a process of which this Parliament has also been a keen supporter.
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Integration can take us further in areas where we are making no progress with traditional environmental policy.
The relationship between nature and agriculture is a good example of the fact that it has been difficult to achieve the right balance with the traditional instruments.
For too many years now, agricultural policy and environmental policy have each gone their separate ways.
In some places, the consequences have been dramatic.
Pollution of the groundwater with nitrates and pesticides and erosion and impoverishment in some of Europe's regions are partly the consequence of intensive farming.
Other areas are suffering from the marginalisation of agricultural land and depopulation - a development which also has serious consequences for nature and the countryside.
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Alongside these trends in agriculture, Europe has adopted some ambitious environmental legislation which reflects its citizens' wish to have a cleaner, healthier and more attractive future.
However, it has also become clear that the developments in agriculture have in fact made it difficult to ensure compliance with the environmental legislation.
Parliament's recent report on the implementation of the nitrates directive was a very good demonstration of this problem.
There is therefore every reason to integrate the environment into agricultural policy, and that is precisely the intention of the Commission's proposal for agricultural reform as part of the Agenda 2000 package.
That was the one which we presented in March last year, as you know.
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It is as one of the components of this integration project that the Agriculture Commissioner, Mr Fischler, and I have today presented a communication on agriculture and the environment to the Commission.
The communication aims to demonstrate and stand up for the need to maintain the environmental elements which are included in the Commission's proposal.
Anything else would make the governments' calls for integration sound hollow.
Before I deal with some of the key elements in Agenda 2000, let me stress that a good deal of Community legislation - including some outside traditional agricultural policy - has a bearing on agricultural production.
As I have said, the nitrates directive is a good and well-known example, but there is also EU legislation on pesticides, genetically modified organisms and consumer protection.
Legislation in these three areas is helping to limit the environmental impact of agriculture.
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But when we turn to purely agricultural policy and the environment, the Agenda 2000 proposal is a key element.
In brief, a reform is planned which is so green that agricultural policy and environmental policy will increasingly complement one another.
I should like to describe some of the main features.
<P>
Firstly, the guaranteed prices for beef and veal, cereals and milk are being reduced.
This price reduction is necessary to create a better balance in the market, but lower product prices are also good for the environment.
This part of the proposal gets to grips with the artificially high prices which for years have been partly to blame for the over-use of sprays, artificial fertiliser and energy.
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Secondly, the Commission is proposing that Member States should make the payment of all income support conditional on farmers observing the rules that are required to protect the environment.
This will provide a much greater incentive to implement what are ambitious but necessary EU rules in practice, and in this context I would once again mention the nitrates directive, as well as the environmental protection legislation and legislation on pesticides.
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Thirdly, support for particularly environmentally friendly farming methods is being increased as part of the so-called accompanying measures.
This is support for farmers who are willing to make a positive environmental contribution beyond the minimum legal requirements.
This may be organic farming, extensification or reforestation.
In this respect, the proposal is a consolidation of the pioneering schemes introduced at the beginning of the 1990s by what is known as the MacSharry reform.
<P>
Fourthly, so-called 'national envelopes' are being established for the livestock sector. This expression covers a sum of money which the Member States are free to distribute within the sector as they please.
A more environmentally correct distribution might be based on the amount of pasture land a farmer has, rather than providing support in proportion to the number of animals, as is now the case.
If used correctly, these 'envelopes' could help further promote environmentally correct forms of cultivation and reduce the cultivation pressure on sensitive land.
I would stress the fact that it will be up to the Member States, and not the Commission alone, to ensure that this takes place.
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Fifthly, it will now be possible for farmers in Natura 2000 areas who have had extra burdens placed on them to share in the aid distributed to less-favoured areas.
This should make it possible to increase the benefits provided by what is a cornerstone in the protection of Europe's environment.
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Let me also remind you that last spring I presented and secured the adoption of a strategy for biodiversity in Europe.
This means that by the end of 1999 an action plan will be drawn up on how European agriculture will contribute to safeguarding biodiversity.
Agricultural reform is, of course, a precondition for this measure.
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All these building-blocks of a new agricultural policy go a long way towards what a number of environmental NGOs and a large section of the European Parliament have been campaigning for.
It is clear that the Agenda 2000 reform proposal is an unambiguous signal that, from now on, aid will be redirected towards more neutral support for production and more support for the environment.
In future, the common agricultural policy will increasingly reward environmental values and responsible farming.
Farmers who take up the environmental challenge will have a financial advantage compared with the current system.
<P>
Agriculture itself, as Mr Fischler has often stressed, has a long-term interest in a redirection of aid.
I expect the outcome of the forthcoming negotiating round of the World Trade Organisation to point in the same direction.
It is a positive development in which there is the great challenge of ensuring that environmental aid does not just become a kind of window-dressing, protecting traditional monetary flows.
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But there are also other long-term perspectives in the reform.
My message is that, if it is adopted, the proposal will lead to greater local influence on policy than is the case today.
To a greater extent, agricultural policy will become a matter for our citizens and farmers.
Individual countries, regions and districts will be involved in deciding the requirements that will apply in their areas.
There will of course be conditions to ensure that existing European and national legislation is respected, but with an opportunity for people to take more account of local circumstances than is possible with very centralised solutions.
In fact, this is the principle of subsidiarity in practice.
Environmental organisations, local authorities, water companies and other interested groups will be able to sit down together with farmers and discuss how agriculture and the environment should work together to contribute to sustainable development.
Brussels will continue to draw the outlines, but the citizens will fill them in.
<P>
This will of course make considerable demands on both citizens and farmers.
A dialogue will be created covering everyone's interests.
This will give our citizens a great opportunity to influence developments, but they will naturally need to become involved and be willing to accept the responsibility which this brings.
It is important that all the EU countries take up this challenge.
<P>
The Commission's proposal, which was put forward in March 1998, has since been discussed in the Agriculture Council together with Mr Fischler.
It is far from being adopted, and it would be wrong to say that all the European agriculture ministers were enthusiastic about the prospect of a greener policy.
As you know, however, at the June summit in Cardiff, the Heads of State and Government called for agriculture to be one of the policy areas which should lead the way and demonstrate how integration should be carried out in practice.
This challenge was renewed and built upon in Vienna, with a request for a report for Helsinki.
That report will contain a timetable for gearing agricultural policy further to the environment and will deal with the question of what indicators can be used to measure the state of the environment.
This is an important question, because it is difficult to pursue environmental goals if the relationship between agricultural production and the state of the environment cannot be assessed in a way on which there is general agreement.
<P>
It is of course a precondition for making progress that the agriculture ministers should reach agreement on the reform package.
However, it is not enough to cross our fingers and wait for the outcome.
The environment could easily be forgotten in the final dash for cash.
I see it as a great personal challenge to ensure that that does not happen, which is why Mr Fischler and I have today presented the communication, which states, amongst other things, that intensive agriculture conflicts with the EU's ambitions for the environment and that a further effort must be made if drinking water and biodiversity are to be safeguarded.
The communication also highlights the important role played by organic farming, because it can make a positive contribution to solving these problems.
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The agriculture ministers will be held to the instructions given by the Heads of Government in Vienna and at previous summits.
Above all, it will be made clear that a reform without environmental progress is not sustainable, either for the environment or in political terms, for that matter.
Europe's taxpayers deserve and demand an environmental return on the cheque for EUR 40 billion which they donate to the agricultural sector every year.
<P>
Like Mr Fischler, I hope that the European Parliament will welcome this initiative and use it to reopen the public debate on agricultural reform and the environment, which is so essential.
The long-term success and acceptance of the reform depend at least as much on a sound environmental profile as on the price of cereals and meat.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cunha">
Mr President, this Commission initiative must be welcomed.
In the last few years I believe that significant progress has been made in reinforcing the environmental dimension of the Common Agricultural Policy. I also believe that the 1992 reform was a very important point given its establishment of agri-environmental and agri-forestry measures.
This Commission communication is heading in the same direction and will reinforce this aspect.
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However, there is one issue which I feel is rather contradictory.
If we analyse these proposals for reforming the Common Agricultural Policy, now being discussed within Agenda 2000, we find that there is only an increase of 5 % in the amounts intended for agri-environmental measures. In other words, this is only a very small increase to reinforce the environmental dimension of the CAP, which to a certain extent is in contradiction with the Commission's current political aim which I support.
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I would ask the Commissioner to explain why there is only a 5 % increase in the amounts for agri-environmental measures.
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<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, may I point out that Mr Cunha did not put a direct question, but since I do not agree with his last statement I would like to make the following clear.
It may be true that expenditure on those environmental measures that are currently summarised under Regulation 20/78 is only rising by a certain amount, but it is also true that this results in a whole range of other, additional expenditure, for instance an extra incentive for extensive beef production.
Finally, it must be emphasised that in future all direct agricultural aid payments will be subject to the observance of good agricultural practice, which de facto also means higher environmental requirements and for which absolutely no provision is made under our existing rules.
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<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Colino Salamanca">
Mr President, I must first recognise that progress has been made towards reconciling the needs of the environment with those of agriculture.
Nevertheless, I feel the Commission has shown a certain lack of judgment, in that a distinction should be made between measures designed to encourage good practice and simply meeting minimum standards.
The arrangements now in place mean that failure to meet minimum standards could lead to farmers not receiving aid.
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The Commission needs to codify these minimum standards clearly. At present, they are scattered throughout Community legislation.
However, measures designed to create an incentive are better codified, and in future we are likely to see them in the rural development programmes and then in certain sectoral COMs.
For instance, the Commissioner has just mentioned how those who wish to benefit from the ECU 100 extensification premium know they will have to maintain a specific intensity of cattle.
These measures are designed as an incentive to improve the quality of the environment.
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I would like the Commission to codify all the standards which will have to be met in order for farmers to qualify for aid.
Member States should not have the latitude to act as they see fit. It seems from the Commission's proposal that it is delegating all its responsibility to the Member States, whereas I feel it is incumbent on the Commission to codify the minimum standards required across the length and breadth of the Community.
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<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am very grateful to Mr Colino Salamanca for the statements he has made.
But let me clarify the Commission's point of view again.
Firstly, we have to distinguish in the proposals between measures that are obligatory and those that are voluntary, meaning first of all those that are obligatory or voluntary on the part of the farmer.
So the point is that the farmer is guaranteed the same level of direct payments, which correspond to compensatory payments, but that these will be subject to the general requirement of what is called gross compliance, which the Member States are indeed required to impose.
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It will no doubt prove possible under the implementing provisions also to coordinate the level of these requirements in such a way as to avoid any bias.
The second aspect is the voluntary payments, which must go beyond normal practice.
That is one of the conditions of eligibility for such payments in the first place.
But here too it is clear that they are a component of the second pillar, namely rural development policy.
After all our proposal is that we must have a rural development policy of this kind for every rural region.
But the proposals also specify that a programme will only be accepted if it definitely incorporates an 'agri-environmental measures' heading.
Seen from that aspect, I believe our proposals to a very large extent satisfy your requirements.
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<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Mr President, Mr Fischler, would you admit that environment-friendly agriculture is still the exception, that intensive farming is still the rule, that price reductions within the intervention system trigger more intensive production?
Secondly, I find it very sensible for you to say that the second pillar should contain an environment-based programme, but the funding is very low.
How do you propose to help the rural areas with this kind of structural programme?
Thirdly, when you, or Mrs Bjerregaard, refer to subsidiarity I wonder how this is to be achieved if we do not have any framework conditions at European level.
That is not subsidiarity, it is giving free rein.
Two small examples: in set-aside land you allow chemical industrial raw materials to be used in farming but you do not allow vegetables to be grown for animal feed.
My other example ...
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The President cut the speaker off
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<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, to simplify matters let me reply to the first part of the question and, as Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf wanted, Mrs Bjerregaard will reply to the second part.
On the first part: Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, I often agree with you but on this point I do not agree that price reductions, in fact the reduction of guarantee prices, automatically triggers more intensive farming.
We had the opposite experience with the 1992 reform.
If you look at the trend in expenditure on fertilisers, pesticides and so forth between 1992 and 1998 you will find that it fell rather than rose.
So your hypothesis is not correct.
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<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Let me add here that in my comments on subsidiarity there was no suggestion of any kind that people did not need to comply with environmental legislation.
On the contrary, I emphasised very clearly in my speech that one condition for discussing these things at all was compliance with environmental legislation.
As is emphasised in the communication, the positive message - which is also contained in the Agenda 2000 proposals - is that there should be cooperation at local level between people who are close to these problems.
So I think we all agree that environmental legislation should be respected, but also that the people who are close to the problems should sit down together more often and find some sensible solutions.
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<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Olsson">
Mr President, in principle, I am all in favour of decentralisation.
Nevertheless, I was somewhat surprised, to say the least, to hear Commissioner Bjerregaard sing the praises of decentralising environmental policy.
Where the decision-making process in relation to the environment is decentralised, different conditions will naturally obtain in the different countries.
This would distort competition by giving countries with lax environmental policies a competitive advantage.
That is not the right approach for the Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Bjerregaard">
No, Mr Olsson, that is definitely not right.
European environmental legislation must be complied with.
That is also why I said in my introduction that I was pleased with Parliament's report on the nitrates directive, and that we have taken specific measures against countries which are failing to comply with the directive.
In my introduction just now, I said that 'agricultural policy will become a matter for our citizens and farmers.
Individual countries, regions and districts will be involved in deciding the requirements that will apply in their areas.
There will of course be conditions to ensure that existing European and national legislation is respected, but with an opportunity for people to take more account of local circumstances than is possible with very centralised solutions.'
I therefore do not believe that there is a great difference between Mr Olsson's views and my own in this area.
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<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Barthet-Mayer">
Mr President, Commissioners, organic farming is a very good example of sustainable agriculture.
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The joint resolution from the European Parliament on organic livestock production questions the Commission and the Council on the technical progress needed to fulfil the Commission's proposal that is currently being examined. As regards the fundamental issue of animal nutrition, the derogation in this proposal that allows 10 % conventional feed to be used is quite sufficient.
With the 25 % recommended by the Council could production really still be called organic, particularly as organic farming must remain a byword for the strictest and most stringent quality standards?
You agree with this, I know for a fact.
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Does the Commission believe that an animal fed with 25 % conventional feed can still be described as an 'organic product'?
What is more, the nature of this conventional feed is not specified in any way.
It could include intensively farmed products, whereas the least we could do would be to specify products from regions covered by the agri-environmental measures, from integrated farming or even farming converting to organic methods.
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What does ...
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The President cut the speaker off
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<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the question Mrs Barthet-Mayer has put in fact goes in two directions.
We must draw a very careful distinction here: what is conventional production, what is integrated production and what is organic farming?
They are three different categories.
As you know - and, Mrs Barthet-Mayer, we recently discussed this in Parliament - the Commission proposed Community-wide guidelines that would also protect animal products, so as to establish a common, Europe-wide standard for the definition of organic products.
This proposal has now been on the table for some years and the Council of Agriculture Ministers is currently discussing it in detail - the most recent discussions were at the December Council - but to date it has not managed to reach a unanimous view.
There are a few sensitive aspects involved which, in my view, need further discussion, without accepting any watering down of the core question, namely the definition of what is actually meant by organic products; one specific aspect you addressed in this connection is the use of conventional feed and of feed containing GMOs.
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That is a question that is currently being discussed at another level, in connection with the revision of Regulation 220/90, and I believe we must endeavour to take a more balanced look at any measures that can lead to clearer consumer information.
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<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="Hardstaff">
Mr President, could I have an assurance that both Commissioners are united in opposition to the import of beef produced with hormones and also milk produced with BST.
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<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, Mrs Hardstaff, this is not in fact directly connected with today's subject but I would like to tell you one thing quite clearly: what we will and must do is, as stated in the panels' findings, to adjust our risk assessment to the WTO provisions.
In all the Commission has commissioned eight scientific studies.
We are now awaiting the findings of these studies and I hope we can then adhere to our position, as we have always intended.
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<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Goepel">
Mr President, Mr Fischler, am I right in assuming that in fact you drew up Agenda 2000 in order to make farmers more competitive on the world market and not in order to reduce the consumption of fertilisers and other means of production that farmers urgently need?
That is my first question.
Mrs Bjerregaard's explanation was about the last reason that could be given for why we have to implement the Agenda at all!
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Second question: can you tell me what percentage of the aid under Regulation 20/78 the Member States are taking up?
In my region it is 100 %, so it is worth raising this matter.
I would also like you to tell me what you mean in real terms by agricultural practice.
Please do not confuse the concepts of intensive farming and farming appropriate to the location!
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<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, I believe there is a good deal of similarity between what I have said to Parliament today and the proposal presented by the Commission in Agenda 2000.
The new communications on which Mr Fischler and I have reached agreement, and which it is important to have distributed, point out that there should be an interaction between environmental and agricultural considerations.
Neither of us accept non-compliance with environmental legislation.
We are framing the policy in such a way that it is feasible.
We are both of the confirmed opinion that it is feasible, and that it is possible for us to secure some sensible decisions in the Member States.
It may be that some help will be required before we achieve a constructive outcome, and we also naturally hope that Parliament will enter into this debate, so that we can achieve a result which ensures both sensible agriculture and a sensible environmental policy.
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<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Commissioner, let us presume that your intentions are good and what you have told us is interesting.
Let me remind you that agriculture does not stand alone in the economy.
It too operates in the context of a complete environment.
How can our farmers farm ecologically when the industries that supply them and those which are their customers impel them towards anti-ecological practices?
How can they compete against countries from which we import products which are not ecological, not produced by poor farmers but by the worst and most appallingly intensive exploitation of the soil and animals?
And how can they farm ecologically - I know many who do in Greece - when they face enormous problems in marketing their products, marketing which receives no aid under our regulations?
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Perhaps, therefore, we should consider these issues in relation to their environment?
Perhaps, instead of talking about ecological farming, we should be talking about an ecological economy?
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<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, as Mr Fischler said a moment ago, the reform is about more than just organic farming, which accounts for a very small percentage of European agriculture.
Obviously, it is desirable that this percentage should be increased, but we have of course concentrated on many other things.
Let me say this loud and clear: I believe that the citizens of Europe want clean water.
They are not willing to accept a situation in which the water they drink is not clean.
They cannot understand why it should be impossible to formulate a sensible agricultural policy and at the same time to have clean water.
We believe it is possible, and that is why we have put forward these proposals and also why we maintain that the environmental legislation must be observed at the same time that we have sensible agriculture in Europe.
It may be that we have to talk tough with the Americans on occasion, but if that is the case, then that is what we shall do.
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<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Robles Piquer">
I should like to put a question to the Commission. In the context of the search for a natural balance between agricultural production and the needs of the environment, what use does the Commission have in mind for agricultural produce not intended for consumption?
In particular, what future does it see for biomass which could be used to produce renewable energy? I believe this would be a logical use for some of the surplus production of European agriculture.
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<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, Mr Robles Piquer, on the second part of your question, whether we are also prepared to encourage biomass farming and the production of alternative energy sources, i.e. renewable raw materials, let me reply as follows.
Firstly, our proposals on cereal growing and oilseeds do provide for support for these products.
Secondly, under our proposals for rural development, investment in this sector is also eligible for support measures.
Thirdly, we have included an expanded forestry chapter in the rural development proposals, and these forestry support measures will also provide for increased support for wood as a renewable raw material.
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<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Mr President, it is very important that environmental policy is integrated into agricultural policy, and that environmental policy is integrated into all policy in the European Union.
Especially important, where agricultural policy is concerned, is the protection of rivers, seas and lakes, as has been mentioned here.
There has obviously been progress, in that compliance with environmental standards is being made a direct condition of income support, but, on the other hand, it should be clear as day that aid is to be paid only when the regulations are being observed.
But we should be happy to have come this far.
Now the question arises as to how Member States will respond to what is, to my mind at least, a step forward: how shall we monitor it? Will we need a long transition period?
And how should the matter be treated? Should we have recourse, for example, to an agricultural code of practice, to be used as an instrument of comparison in relation to established policy, and only after that grant direct income support?
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<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, Mrs Myller, first of all there will of course be appropriate controls and here, as always in such matters, we will have a shared responsibility.
That means that in situ checks on farms will primarily be the task of the Member States and the Commission departments will be responsible for ensuring and verifying whether the Member States are indeed adequately fulfilling this obligation.
Moreover, you must not forget that in regard to carrying out and applying agricultural practice and the financing of direct payments we are looking at Guarantee Fund resources, which simply means that all the expenditure is also subject to EAGGF supervision.
That means that if a Member State does not carry out the necessary checks adequately, we can debit that Member State when we carry out the audit.
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<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, the way we have approached the area of the environment is illustrated very well by the nitrates directive.
When it was clear that the Member States should have implemented the nitrates directive, we simply carried out a study in all the Member States of how far the implementation had progressed.
We published this report, and we instituted legal proceedings against - as far as I recall - 12 Member States which had not implemented the nitrates directive.
I believe that such an approach, whereby we examine the situation in all the Member States, increases our chances of persuading the Member States to implement the legislation.
One point on which I agree entirely with Mrs Myller is that it is of course vital for the credibility of our policy that it is also implemented by the Member States.
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<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Florenz">
Mr President, when I hear Mr Fischler and Mrs Bjerregaard propose a joint strategy here in this Chamber I am always very much on my guard, for in the view of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection there has been no harmonisation at all in the environmental field over the past five years; quite the reverse!
The legislation of the past five years teems with vague legal concepts, such as the ATO, a high protection level, good agricultural practice, etc.
All this has to be transposed into national law and only then, Mr Fischler, when we have a uniform policy line, can you carry out checks.
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My question to you, Mrs Bjerregaard, is this: do you intend to define all the vague legal concepts in this area via Ispra or some other instrument?
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<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="Bjerregaard">
First of all, may I say to Mr Florenz that I am quite happy to leave the question of a definition and a more detailed explanation of good farming practice to my colleague Mr Fischler.
However, I would like to say that, in view of the many discussions I have had with the Committee on the Environment, we can only welcome the fact that we now have a joint communication on the environment and agriculture.
Had we discussed this issue two or three years ago, I am sure Parliament would not have thought it possible for us to be in a situation where we have a document like Agenda 2000, which contains so much environmental thinking in the area of agricultural policy.
Obviously, there may be areas in which we would like to achieve more or where there are special wishes, but like Mrs Myller, I think we have every reason to be pleased that we have come as far as we have today.
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<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Campos">
Mr President, I have two questions.
In 1950, 35 % of the total European population was involved in agriculture.
Today this figure is 5 %.
As a result of this reform and due to ageing in the sector, this figure will fall to between 2.5 % and 3 % by 2006.
My first question is: can the environment be protected while the countryside is being abandoned, and why therefore is this reform heading in this direction?
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My second question is: how can the protection of the environment be promoted by spending 50 % of the budget on this 5 % of the population, which will shortly be 2.5 %?
In particular, aid for production just encourages producers to use every intensive production method available. This does not protect jobs, quality, the environment or safety.
How can the Commissioner reconcile the policy which he claims to want to implement with the abandonment of the countryside and payments for production?
Moreover ...
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The President cut the speaker off
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<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, Mr Campos, let me first address the question of expenditure in relation to the percentage of the farming population.
To be fair, you would have to compare it with total public expenditure.
If you add the national budgets to the Community budget and then deduct the agricultural part, you obtain a percentage of 2 % for 5 % of the population.
I do not think that is really excessive.
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Secondly, on jobs in agriculture, there is only one thing I can say to you. The more environment-friendly our farming is, the more jobs that will imply and not the reverse.
So this proposal to incorporate environmental aspects more firmly in the reform is certainly in the interests of agriculture and of jobs.
But there is one thing you must not forget.
If we are going to discuss making these additional demands on European agriculture, and in fact considerably higher demands than we make on our overseas competitors, then we must also be prepared to pay for it.
And we also have to stop arguing that agricultural reform must not cost anything!
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<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Mulder">
Mr President, we have talked about implementation of the nitrates directive on a number of occasions already.
In reply to a written question of mine, the Commission said recently that there were no uniform rules for sampling groundwater to check whether the directive was being implemented correctly.
That seems to me a very feeble basis for monitoring legislation.
When is that going to improve?
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My second question is this: nitrate in groundwater can come from sources other than animal manure.
It also comes from artificial fertiliser and from factories, sewage treatment plants and so on.
How does the Commission intend to differentiate between nitrate in groundwater from these sources and nitrate from animal manures, so that the burden is not placed entirely on agriculture?
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<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, it is of course not the job of the Commission to determine whether nitrates come from one source or another.
Our job is to monitor whether the Member States are complying with the nitrates directive, which simply means that checks are carried out as to how much nitrate there is in the groundwater.
That is what we are doing.
That is what we are investigating, and we have found that the areas where there have been particular problems in connection with the nitrates directive are also areas with a high concentration of livestock production, whether it be cattle or pigs, although pigs in particular have caused a great many problems.
That is why some countries have had particular difficulties in implementing the nitrates directive.
As I said, however, it is not our job to check whether it comes from one source or another, but we must ensure that the directive is complied with.
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<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Sturdy">
Mr President, my question is to both the Commissioners.
Tomorrow we take a vote on a pretty important piece of legislation, Mr Kindermann's report on animal welfare.
I would like to know how the Commission views the situation.
For example, in the United Kingdom, because of animal welfare legislation, the British pig farmer is suffering.
In Sweden it is estimated that environmental legislation in their country puts one Swedish kroner per kilogram onto the price of meat.
How does the Commission see the protection of European agriculture when it comes to imports from countries which do not have the sort of animal welfare legislation that we have in the European Union?
Please, Commissioners, do not use the argument that the consumer will decide.
The consumer decides on price.
I hope I can get a satisfactory answer.
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<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in regard to animal protection may I point out firstly - and precisely in order to counter the argument about international distortions of competition - that this should play a part during the next WTO round and should be considered during the next agricultural negotiations.
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Secondly, let me point out that it is of course self-evident that animal protection provisions must be respected.
We can never accept, either in agricultural stock-breeding or in stock-breeding in general, that the existing laws are infringed.
But what we have also made provision for, especially in relation to encouraging investment in agricultural undertakings, is that if a farmer sets up stock-breeding systems that are particularly kind to animals and invests to that end he will receive greater support than a farmer who is only prepared to observed the minimum standards.
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<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fantuzzi">
I have seen the report of the Consumers Consultative Committee on the reform of the CAP on the DG XXIV Internet page.
It is a very harsh indictment, expressing the consumers' point of view and in line with the position of the EBCU.
My questions are: how do you react to it and do you plan to do anything to reconcile the two sides, agriculture and consumer demands?
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<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I can entirely agree with Mr Fantuzzi here.
I really do find it most regrettable that this report is based in part on statements that are consistent neither with our actual proposals nor with the current state of the discussions.
I invite you to endeavour jointly with us to give the public more objective information, to protect agriculture against wrong and biased accusations.
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<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lannoye">
Mr President, my question is one for Mrs Bjerregaard.
I am, of course, delighted by the cooperation between the two Commissioners on the agriculture/environment problem, but I do wonder about the danger which may emerge as this sector develops in the future, namely the risk of the transfer of pollution.
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I believe that biodiversity is vital.
So I begin to ask questions when I see that the Commission, and Mrs Bjerregaard's service in particular, has shown it is in favour of using genetic technology and putting genetically modified organisms on the market before there has been any serious evaluation of their impact on biodiversity.
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I should like to know if Mrs Bjerregaard is prepared to reconsider the authorisation that has already been granted to some genetically modified organisms if it later emerges that such authorisation has a negative effect on biodiversity.
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<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, on the question of genetically modified organisms, I would like to say that the Commission has been very careful not to put itself into a situation where we have to say either that we want them or that we do not want them.
Instead, what we have done initially is to try to ensure that everyone who had a need to know was informed, which we did by implementing labelling of the products at a very early stage.
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We then dealt with the second question which was raised, namely the effects of GMOs.
Obviously, we are also aware of the connection with biodiversity.
This means that in the new proposal which is now before Parliament we are very clear on the question of risk analyses.
But we have also dealt with the long-term effects, which is probably what the question was actually about.
We should of course examine what is involved when such products are released into the environment and whether there could be any effects in the long term.
We are watching this very closely, and as the questioner perhaps knows, proposal 90/220 contains some provisions which mean that GMO products will not simply be approved for all time, but will be subject to reassessment, because we cannot rule out gaining some experience of the long-term effects or obtaining some new information.
So, all in all, we are trying to be as careful as we possibly can, and I am also looking forward to the discussion which I will clearly have with Parliament in February.
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<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="President">
I should like to thank the Commission for its comments.
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That concludes this item.
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<CHAPTER ID=3>
Defence-related industries
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0482/98) by Mr Titley, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the communication from the Commission on implementing European Union strategy on defence-related industries (COM(97)0583 - C4-0223/98).
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<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, the European industrial, scientific and technological base is essential to the security of the European Union.
It is that base which provides the capacity and capability which makes possible the political and military pillars of the European defence identity as expressed through the CFSP, the WEU and NATO.
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That statement is as true today as when I made it in my first report nearly two years ago.
Yet that base continues to get weaker despite the fact that Europe has some outstanding companies.
We have lost 50 % of the jobs in this sector in the last 10 years.
In 1995 the EU imported from the US six times the value of its exports.
In 1985 the ratio was 4: 1.
The reasons for this are set out very clearly in my first report but can be summed up in one statistic: we have 43 defence-related companies and a defence budget of 94.5 billion euros; The US has 14 defence companies and a defence budget of 212 billion euros.
A further 75 % of what we import comes from the USA. We do not even trade with each other, intra-EU trade being only 4 % or 5 % of procurement.
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It is not that we are not aware of the problem.
I have spent the last 3 years attending endless conferences where everyone is agreed on the problem, most people agree on the solution, but very few people seem willing to take the necessary action.
This is one field where rhetoric and action almost never meet.
I often feel, in fact, that all the players involved are cautiously circling each other in an elaborately choreographed 18th century dance when in fact what we need at this moment is a good dose of rock-and-roll.
I am sure that Commissioner Bangemann will be quite happy to lead that rock-and-roll.
<P>
Of course, there has been progress.
There has been the establishment of POLARM.
We have had the defence armament section in the Amsterdam Treaty.
We have had the setting up of OCCAR.
We have had declarations by Heads of State saying how important this is.
We had the letter of intent of 6 July by the six defence ministers which was actually a vital step along the way, as indeed was the code of conduct on arms sales.
We have had the WEAG action plan decided last November but action is not always carried through in this section.
Last year there was the announcement of the intention to set up a European aerospace and defence company but nobody can agree how we do it and there is a battle between those who believe there should be heavy state investment and those who believe it should be a private company.
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We agreed a long time ago that there should be a single corporate entity for Airbus but this has still not actually been signed.
It has become rather like watching the Becket play Waiting for Godot .
Westland and Agusta helicopters were meant to be merging but they are still wrangling about simple matters of valuation.
British Aerospace and DASA were meant to be merging but could not agree on the basis of the shareholding which is incompatible.
We have had the often proposed but never consummated marriage between Aérospatiale and Dassault.
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In fact, in Europe, it takes us three times as long to create a merger as it does in the USA and the end result is smaller.
British Aerospace/Matra has sales of 1.5 billion dollars compared to its main US competitor with sales of 5 billion dollars.
I will say nothing more about the saga of Euro-fighter, the Horizon or the multi-role armoured vehicle.
Compare that little minuet with the rock-and-roll in the United States where, since 1992, there has been a mass of mergers resulting in basically 3 1/2 major companies.
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That is why it is essential that we take action now.
We must use all our resources.
There should be no institutional wrangling.
There should be no standing on our dignity or on ceremony.
The Commission's recent communication is so important because it shows a willingness to use all the means that we have at our disposal whether they are Community or Member State instruments.
Firstly, companies have to be allowed to get on with it following commercial logic.
Governments should stand back and only use Article 223 where it is absolutely essential.
<P>
That is indeed what British Aerospace is doing, which is probably the closest we have got in the industry to a leather-jacketed rocker, in their amalgamation and mergers with companies like Saab and Matra.
The recent merger with GEC/Marconi is a good deal because it is based on the principles of shareholder value and a sound financial footing is important if we are to get value for money for the taxpayer.
It is also important because what we have seen in the US is that mergers have gone along like Noah's ark, two by two.
They have not tried to force too many companies together at one time.
That is why I think the British Aerospace merger with Marconi makes good sense.
<P>
Secondly, we now need to follow the Commission action plan and apply the principles of a single market as far as possible.
We should also use the instruments of CFSP in defining a common position on armaments cooperation, although that common position has to be flexible, bearing in mind the needs of this particular industry.
We also need to establish greater clarity in the CFSP and the function of the European defence identity which is why the initiative of the British Prime Minister and the San Malo Agreement are so important.
We need to define exactly what the Petersberg Tasks involve for our military so that industry knows what equipment it needs to be providing.
On procurement, we must move towards a European armament agency, bringing together OCCAR and WEAG in a loose arrangement, if necessary.
There has to be greater coordination here as indeed there has to be on research.
We have to establish that the best deliverer gets the contract.
We should now no longer rely on a juste retour .
<P>
Basically, if we do not start rocking the Americans are going to roll all over us.
Having said that, it is not intended that this report should be anti-American.
Rather we need a strong industry if we are to compete with or collaborate with the Americans and if we are to fulfil the security demands of NATO under the European defence identity.
We should be looking to collaborate with the Americans.
This, after all, is a global industry.
European companies are not really European companies any more.
They have investments in the United States and companies like Boeing have investments in Europe.
So let us stop this artificial distinction and build a strong European industry to collaborate with the Americans.
In fact, I know the industry will hate me for saying this, but the logical consequence of the Boeing/McDonnell Douglas merger is that the next step forward should be a link between Airbus and Lockheed Martin.
Then we will have global competition in the aerospace industry.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="Cars">
Mr President, democracy and freedom are worth defending.
If the will to defend them had not existed in Europe and America when it was most needed, we would not be sitting here today.
In Europe, experience has taught us that a feeling of security prevents war and helps bring about the disintegration of powerful dictatorships from within.
Where an adequate system of defence provides security, ideas about freedom can penetrate and break down even the thickest of walls.
<P>
The men and women charged with the task of dealing with European defence are entitled to have access to new weapons.
The question we should now be asking ourselves is whether some of those weapons could be developed and manufactured in Europe.
The response of this committee, including myself, is an unconditional 'yes'.
It is essential for Europe to keep ahead, and even to be right at the forefront in certain areas.
If we have something to offer as producers, we shall also be respected as customers.
Otherwise, we are more likely to have to make do with what we are offered, and at the seller's price.
<P>
During a long period of peace - something we dare hope may continue - it is natural that we should reduce our defence expenditure.
It is therefore all the more important for us to coordinate our dwindling European defence industry, so that by maintaining its competitiveness it will be capable of furnishing us with the arms we need to defend ourselves adequately. There will also be more likelihood of the United States wishing to exchange its experience and defence materials with us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, following Mr Titley's very impassioned plea there should really be no need to discuss this report further.
Let me begin by thanking Gary Titley for his report in which he tirelessly addressed and discussed a subject that is most important in both economic and defence and security policy terms.
Economically, we should have no illusions.
The United States of America, which of course always stands up for totally free trade, for totally free economic development, shows enormous interest and activity when it is a question of defending its own industry and securing its position on the world market.
<P>
That is particularly true of anything to do with the defence industry, the aircraft industry and so forth.
So unless it is to be naive, Europe must respond to this kind of competition, but without creating new monopoly positions.
But what we have here is in fact global competition, to which we must of course respond.
<P>
Secondly, in regard to defence policy, we are currently talking - and for the time being we are merely talking but I hope we will soon be taking concrete steps - about a European defence identity.
We are talking about Europe having to assume certain tasks without always stealing a glance at NATO or in particular the United States to check what they are going to do.
This kind of European defence identity cannot imply full self-sufficiency, yet a minimum of independence for our arms industry, coupled, of course, with cooperation with the Americans, is absolutely necessary.
I hope Gary Titley is right in saying that what is currently happening between British and American undertakings does not prevent the corresponding decisions and mergers from taking place at European level.
On the contrary, perhaps this will even create a pressure for rapidly taking the necessary decisions now to build up a European industry, not against the Americans but as strong partners.
<P>
Lastly, let me point out something that is also contained in the report although it is not its main subject.
We in the European Parliament should also talk about disarmament when we talk about defence.
The Social Democrats do not believe that all these endeavours to create a European security identity, a European defence industry, conflict with further steps towards disarmament.
That is still on the agenda!
The safest world is a world in which disarmament is writ large, which is why we should not play one aspect off against the other.
Sadly this is a world in which arms are necessary, in which we have to continue to modernise.
We should do so at European level while at the same time fighting for global, world disarmament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="De Melo">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are used to Mr Titley's numerous well-prepared reports and speeches on the subject of defence-related industries.
Mr Titley's work as a whole represents a commendable effort by this House to bring the matter to the attention of the European institutions and to call for changes to an inadequate policy on the military equipment of the Member States' armed forces.
I and my group are in total agreement with Mr Titley's report.
<P>
However, I am rather pessimistic about just how dynamic a European arms policy would be within a common defence policy, as mentioned in paragraph 3 of the report.
In actual fact I believe that only an effective common defence policy will allow a concerted strategy to be convincingly and properly achieved in the European arms industry.
But in my opinion, it will take many years for common actions to be realised in defence policy.
We are reassured by the protection provided by the Americans in terms of defence, although we regret our subordinate position in foreign affairs.
While this situation continues, I do not envisage there being a strong will, particularly among certain Member States, to develop and genuinely accept an EU strategy on military equipment.
<P>
If I may briefly refer to bilateral and multilateral cooperation, for which I do not want to take the credit, these initiatives which often benefit from WEU support must also be praised.
However, they can be sporadic and timid, lacking the comprehensive political will of the EU.
With every year that passes, we in the European Union are falling further behind our American allies in terms of the quality of our military equipment.
This is also true in defence matters.
This is why we are increasingly followers and no longer leaders in world policy.
Mr Titley's report, by drawing the EU's attention to these problems, deserves credit and also, therefore, our full support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, the Commission is right to have given priority to developing a European policy on the defence industry.
The European industry is fragmented and is losing the competition war to our American rivals.
Fortunately, the industry itself takes occasional steps in the direction of cooperation, mergers or expansions.
But the legislation has to keep pace with it all.
<P>
The Member States made a big mistake in keeping the defence industry out of the single market, at Amsterdam as well.
In seeking to defend their own national industry, our Heads of Government have signed that industry's death warrant.
I hope today's Commission proposals may change this.
But Europeanising the industry also means Europeanising the export control regulations.
Last July's code of conduct was a first small step, and now we need further steps.
<P>
My group, the Liberal Group, backs the German Presidency's proposals to have this code of conduct made mandatory as part of the legislation.
The issues here are not just the industry, but the legislation too.
I should also like to thank Mr Titley for giving us so much of his time as we discussed his report, both in the Subcommittee on Security and the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
My compliments to him.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, as the coordinator of the Socialist Group as well, Mr Titley has an important contribution to make to the work of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
However, specifically in relation to armament issues, I think it would be better if his passion and, I would say, fanaticism were to give way to a greater sense of reality and cool-headedness.
For I believe it would be a mistake for the European Union to become involved, so to speak, in a frenzy of competition with the United States over arms industry issues when the European Union still has no principles and basic mechanisms for its foreign policy.
<P>
When we see that over major issues, as for example the recent attack on Iraq, some countries align themselves with the Americans, other countries pretend an ostrich-like blindness, and others still make critical comments, how and upon what are we to base such an armaments policy?
I think we are moving into dangerous territory.
The important thing would be to establish the principles and fundamentals of our foreign policy and only then to look at economic and similar aspects related to military equipment for defence.
<P>
Of course, I too wish to stress that Mr Titley's report contains important observations which we will support despite our primary overall position, such as the issue of continuing the Konver programme, such as the subject of measures against anti-personnel mines, and such as the subject of a weapons export code which, we fear, will remain no more than a general principle.
And we know very well that the European Union countries persist in the iniquity of exporting the weapons they manufacture to various regimes around Europe, even the most odious and bloodthirsty among them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, have you forgotten?
We are living in a post-cold war era.
Europe is surrounded only by friends.
This is an age of peace.
It is the age of disarmament.
It is the arms industry that is not prepared to adapt to the new criteria of an age of disarmament and that is sounding the alarm.
It is calling for industrial mergers that would not be approved in the civil sector.
It is calling for subsidies, for political support for arms exports; it is calling for a more flexible policy on cartels.
What forces us to give in to these demands when we know that it would be senseless to do so, when we know that this will not solve the global problems facing mankind, the problems of unemployment and poverty, the problems of climate change?
Do not forget that we created Konver to replace rather than supplement rearmament.
That is why the Greens reject this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, I must add my voice to the criticisms we have heard here today of this report and the Commission communication.
There are too many arms in the world, nuclear weapons must be banned outright and conventional weapons must be drastically reduced.
There is too much selling of arms to unstable areas, whether legal or not, and it merely adds to the level of violence and insecurity in the world.
The codes of conduct are inadequate and poorly enforced.
<P>
If you are asking for a European policy, then we say yes to a European foreign policy and a European security policy which pursues the above priority objectives.
We want arms where they are absolutely essential.
The only thing to which I can give my unreserved support, and this is my personal view, is that the matter should be coordinated within a common European area.
For the rest, I have other priorities.
<P>
I should like to see a common policy of arms reduction.
I should like to see our own defence industry converted into an industry which pursues peaceful objectives.
I should like to see as few people as possible dependent on the defence industry for their livelihoods.
I want legally binding export controls for arms at European level.
I shall certainly endorse the call for the Council to submit an annual consolidated report on arms exports to Parliament so that we can check on how the codes of conduct are being implemented.
<P>
In the meantime, there seems to be very little of the European spirit behind the restructuring operations currently under way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Féret">
Mr President, the European Commission wants to implement a European strategy on defence-related industries.
Good idea, it is never too late to do something good like this!
The Titley report wants Europe's security and defence identity to be asserted - I am with him up to this point - but he goes on to say that this should be within NATO, which I find very disappointing.
<P>
As sceptical as I am, in its time, the Soviet monster was reason enough, in my eyes, to justify the fact that Europe should forget all conflicts of interest that pitted it against the United States in order to present a united front against a common threat.
Since then, as the European Union has developed, such points of conflict have only become more apparent.
Today, nothing short of an attack by extra-terrestrial monsters could make me forget that Europe is the United States' main competitor and that the United States will not rest until they have thwarted our expansion.
<P>
Once again, a free Europe cannot thrive without saying 'no' to NATO.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Speciale">
Mr President, I share the view that the Titley report is an important one, and it comes at a significant time.
It is very much in line with convictions which many of us hold and which we reaffirm, because controlling arms production and exports, indeed raising this issue, is already a way of preventing policy being made by weapons and those who use them, which is exactly what we do not want.
So it is an important report, and for three reasons in particular. First, because it evaluates Europe's defence industry in terms of forming European groups and competing with others, especially the United States industry, supporting scientific research and cutting-edge technology and, finally, in parallel, establishing coordination between the Member States to offer a frame of reference.
<P>
Secondly, because talking about the defence industry is a direct reminder of the need to get the common foreign and security policy off the ground, which is essential to the European Union's international credibility - and here I believe coordination with the applicant countries in the enlargement process is important too.
<P>
Thirdly, because I think it is right to highlight the fact that we are establishing a code of conduct for arms exports. This code governs a very sensitive area, introduces morality to it, makes it transparent and specifically prevents arms exports being in contradiction with European Union policy.
It is significant that the German Presidency recently stated its intention of making the code of conduct more legally binding.
That is the right road.
<P>
Finally, I think it is right to mention that the Titley report contains a small paragraph, which we should bear in mind, on the ratification of the Ottawa Treaty on Anti-Personnel Mines by all the Member States.
<P>
So all things considered, I think this is an important report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Frischenschlager">
Mr President, I would have preferred to see this important report discussed primarily in terms of security policy rather than economic policy aspects, for it represents a major step forwards towards achieving a Common Foreign and Security Policy, and surely the political need for that should gradually become undisputed.
Unfortunately perhaps, that requires an arms and arms procurement policy coordinated at European level.
Why?
Firstly, I am convinced that it is important for Europe to retain some independence in providing itself with military assets.
What I regard as important is not so much economic competition but a policy that is independent of the United States.
<P>
Secondly, it is also quite crucial for us to reduce our existing surplus capacity in the arms industry only on a basis of coordination, thereby also preventing financial resources from being wrongly allocated to arms contracts that are awarded under the heading of 'we want to protect jobs by creating more employment'.
We are all familiar with examples of this kind in our own home countries.
I also believe it is important that we consistently include the Central and Eastern European countries.
They are facing the biggest problems here and I believe, especially in view of EU and also NATO enlargement, that it is important that we include them here.
I regret - here I agree with the direction taken in the report - that the Konver programme is not being continued.
We have to demand that it is!
<P>
In the end it is not a question of markets.
The arms industry is not a question of markets and I believe that security policy is the decisive aspect, which is why it is important that we coordinate the arms industry, arms procurement, on a European basis in the interests of the Common Foreign and Security Policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Elmalan">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, following on from its 1996 communication, in 1997 the Commission put forward an action plan for defence-related industries.
It refuses to make allowance for the specific nature of this sector, particularly in terms of the close link between defence and sovereignty, and is determined to apply the principle of free competition for the sake of competitiveness.
It is even going one step further by opening the way for a European armaments policy within the framework of a European security and defence identity.
<P>
These guiding principles, approved by the report from the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, are reflected in the restructuring policies that have been implemented in the Member States.
Such restructuring, in the form of merger-acquisition operations at a global level, is based more on financial grounds than purely industrial ones and has serious economic, social and regional consequences.
For example, the French Government is pressing ahead with the restructuring and privatisation of the armaments industries, jeopardising more than 50 000 jobs.
<P>
Being active supporters of peace and disarmament, the French Members of my group support cutting expenditure on armaments, particularly on nuclear weapons.
We also suggest that an international conference on reducing the arms trade be organised, which could lead to an international convention.
But at the same time, we are against the restructuring and privatisation that cost so many jobs.
Currently, only 5 % of France's requirements are met by state enterprises and munitions plants.
This is why we believe that the arms we need to defend ourselves should be provided by national enterprises, despite the fact that the Commission thinks that the rules governing public procurement should be applied to military equipment.
<P>
The industrial activity generated could also go hand in hand with strengthened cooperation at European level, but without giving up all our advantages, technology and know-how to achieve this.
Such cooperation will only be effective if it is complemented by the establishment of a genuine Community preference for arms purchases, so we can stand up to a dominant America that has cornered 50 % of the world market.
This approach is further justified by the fact that 75 % of major conventional weapons bought by European countries come from the United States.
<P>
We also need to begin, and continue with, the process of diversifying and reorientating some military activities to the civilian sphere, particularly the aeronautical, space and electronic industries.
As the CGT, France's national state workers' union, stressed, the engineering and technical staff of these armaments plants have industrial skills and know-how and use technologies that could quite easily be used for civilian purposes.
<P>
Such diversification will only be truly effective if social measures are also introduced, such as reduced working time and improved training, in order to safeguard employment and keep sites operational in places where economic and social life is almost exclusively dependent on the armaments industry.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
Mr President, the overarching goal of any security policy is global disarmament.
This presupposes a scaling-down of both the manufacture and sale of arms.
The EU should take the lead on disarmament and limiting the arms trade.
This should be a constant element in any discussion on the European defence industry.
Although the international arms trade is a global problem, the Member States of the Union together represent the second most important player in the international arms market and therefore have a particular responsibility.
<P>
Mr Titley has certainly done an excellent job, but I cannot agree with him when he says, in paragraph 3, that 'a European arms policy is an essential element in... the establishment of a European security and defence identity within NATO'.
Sweden is a neutral and non-aligned country; it does not belong to NATO and will not be involved in a common defence.
Moreover, I do not believe that it is appropriate to create an institution to deal with arms production before any decision has been taken on a common defence.
<P>
As regards Article 223 of the EC Treaty, in my view armaments cannot be regarded in the same light as other goods and traded freely; on the contrary, they should be subject to special rules.
The EU should play an active role, not in making it easier for the arms industry to produce and export weapons, but in tightening up the rules so as to limit the sale and export of armaments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
Mr President, fortunately we are living at a time when there is far less likelihood of an armed attack against our countries and more scope for Europe to continue its policy of disarmament and détente.
However, such a perspective is entirely missing from Mr Titley's report.
Instead, it is all about building a common defence and devising a common code of conduct for the arms industry and exports.
A report of this kind should be seeking to formulate a strategy for turning a military capability into a civil one.
If the EU adopts a more active and aggressive approach to the export of arms, this will also serve to aggravate conflict situations where they occur in the world.
<P>
I also disagree with paragraph 2, where it is stated that European research and technology policy should begin to be used for military purposes.
On the contrary, we should be redirecting the enormous resources squandered on military research into the civil sector, where they will at least be of some benefit to the human race.
<P>
Furthermore, the report does not adequately take account of the fact that some EU Member States do not belong to NATO or the WEU.
Nevertheless, the rapporteur would like these structures to be included in the Western European Union and in cooperation links with NATO.
<P>
I am also unhappy that, as we can see, extending NATO to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe is having the effect of encouraging them to energetically rebuild their defence capabilities, which only leads to more countries in turn equipping themselves with new weapons systems.
As a result, tension is likely to increase in Europe rather than the reverse - even if some arms manufacturers are made happy in the process.
<P>
I agree that there should be an international code of conduct to limit arms exports, but this proposal goes much further than that.
I am therefore going to vote against what is, for the most part, a very reactionary report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, first let me thank Mr Titley, and not just for the fact that in terms of substance his report follows the lines proposed by the Commission but also for his realism and for the courage that is indeed required in order to deal realistically such a difficult subject.
That is why I want to begin with a very simple statement, before Mr Sjöstedt leaves.
This is what we so often see in debates: a Member tells us something or other and then leaves.
He never listens to what the others have to say.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Let me begin with a very simple statement.
I do not believe there is much dispute in the European Parliament about the need for a Common Security and Defence Policy.
A Common Security and Defence Policy, as its name suggests, is not some kind of policy of aggression but reflects the need in a world in which, unfortunately, we cannot guarantee security by peaceful methods alone, to build up a system that shows the public that we are able to defend ourselves.
That is why, even in a neutral country such as Sweden, there is no question at all about having a national defence system of its own.
<P>
Mr Sjöstedt, if in relative terms the European Union were to export as many weapons as Sweden, we would have to increase our exports considerably.
The reason why NATO adopts a different approach to Sweden than to Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania is partly because Sweden was never part of the Soviet Union.
So we should begin by stating quite soberly that we do need to defend ourselves.
That is my first point.
The second is that if that need exists and if it will take some time before we can achieve a common security policy - which is not easy politically - then, if it is going to take us another five or ten years to achieve that common security policy and if when we have finally achieved it we no longer have a common arms policy, we will face the problem that although we have a common security policy we have no means of producing weapons ourselves.
<P>
Anyone who does not understand that is beyond help!
That is why the Commission has taken the initiative of telling Parliament and the Member States that we have to do something.
For one thing is clear: our industrial policy approach in this area has been purely national to date.
That will not get us any further.
The complaints that have been made here, by Mrs Elmalan too, I believe, that we are constantly losing ground to American exports to the European Union, are true!
The reason is simply that the European industry is too widely dispersed among national undertakings, so that it does not achieve the same overall market penetration as some American undertakings.
<P>
We should just look at the order of magnitude.
If all the companies that produce arms in Europe joined forces, merged, they would still not be as big as the largest American undertaking operating in this area.
That is also a question of industrial policy.
The answer lies not just with the Commission, with the European Parliament and the European Union, it also lies with the Member States.
All the Member States have said they are aware of the need to restructure the industry.
The same applies to the Airbus.
Just recently the six countries cooperating on the Airbus came together again.
The problem there is quite simple.
Each country begins by defending its own interests, and sometimes its own policy.
The reason France finds it more difficult to privatise Aérospatiale is not because Aérospatiale does not want this but because the current French Government has more problems with this than a different government would have had.
The reason two UK firms have now merged is partly because if this aviation merger takes place, a company that has more influence can of course make more demands.
So we must realise that a kind of power struggle is taking place here.
It would be naive to disregard that.
<P>
At the same time all these trends show that the industry and the Member States have realised that something has to be done here.
I consider Mr Titley's report on this very difficult question most encouraging - it is easy enough for some people, including Mr Frischenschlager, to take the position that the right method is in fact to disarm.
The European Union would certainly be the first to accept that if we could make sure it applied worldwide.
Sadly, that is not an option.
That is why we have to take a different road.
<P>
We have proposed an action plan that quite clearly states what we can do.
I can assure you that the Commission will propose and implement all the necessary aspects of this action plan this year.
Standardisation is the first aspect.
On public contracts: what Mrs Elmalan said on the subject is the usual reflex in some EU Member States; when a problem arises, people take refuge in protectionism and in a European quota.
You could call it agricultural policy transposed to the arms industry.
But that is the very last thing we should do.
That would not get us any further at all.
<P>
So we must muster the strength to create competitive structures.
That means: common standards, joint invitations to tender, for the European arms industry can only become competitive if it issues joint invitations to tender and has common rules on the internal arms trade and on arms exports.
The European Court of Justice has on several occasions ruled that arms exports also lie within the Community's sphere of competence.
The Commission will do all it can to make progress in this area, for if we do not act now, we cannot complain five years hence that we cannot even ensure our own defence any more.
I believe we should follow a good European tradition here. We should be able to produce for ourselves what we need for our own defence.
That is precisely the Commission's aim and I am glad Mr Titley also sees it that way and supports it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
The Commissioner has commented on the fact that Sweden exports arms and the manner in which it does so.
I agree with him that this is both irresponsible and a good example of how it should not be done. Take for example the export of arms to Indonesia, or the present extremely aggressive techniques being used to sell fighter aircraft.
I too think that such actions are wrong.
Nevertheless, instead of having to witness the same mistakes at EU level, I should like to reduce the likelihood of that happening.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Environment, security and foreign affairs
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0005/99) by Mrs Theorin, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the environment, security and foreign policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Theorin">
Mr President, security policy has undergone many changes.
The cold war has ended, and a major war in Europe would seem impossible.
The conflicts which we see around us are the result of ethnic, religious and social differences.
At the same time, new threats are emerging in the form of massive displacement of refugees, terrorism, international crime and, no less importantly, environmental and natural disasters.
Bullets and gunpowder, however, are not the way to resolve such conflicts.
<P>
A number of environmental disasters have brought the human race new problems, such as the recurrent flooding in Europe, the dam disaster in Spain and, most recently, the widespread landslides in Central America.
It is clear that there have not been sufficient resources to detect or prevent such disasters.
Since environmental threats do not respect national boundaries, what is required is international cooperation.
There is a growing international awareness of the extent of environmental problems, as illustrated by the UN follow-up conferences on water, desertification, the environment and development, and climate change.
Environmental problems can lead to such serious difficulties that they endanger the security of both individuals and countries.
<P>
Fresh water is a very unevenly distributed natural resource.
Fewer than ten countries possess 60 % of the total fresh water resources on earth, and several countries in Europe are dependent on water imports.
In future conflicts, attacks on fresh water may not simply be an end in themselves, but may also be the cause of conflict.
An estimated 300 rivers, lakes and sources of groundwater are located in international border areas.
In the Middle East, nine of the 14 countries have a shortage of water resources.
Local and regional ecological problems can have serious implications for international relations, for example limited water resources or the large-scale displacement of environmental refugees.
The number of environmental refugees has now reached 25 million, compared with 22 million 'traditional' refugees.
By the year 2010, it is estimated that the number of environmental refugees will have doubled.
<P>
These new causes of conflict must be reflected in foreign, defence and security policy and the way in which nations establish and maintain peace and security.
We need to mobilise resources to meet the environmental challenge.
A much greater effort is required, but our means and resources are strictly limited.
At the same time, the change in the security situation has resulted in détente and disarmament.
The freeing-up of military resources has given the armed forces a unique opportunity and plenty of capacity to deal with the increasing number of environmental problems.
The armed forces have a highly efficient organisation and extensive technical resources which could be used for the enhancement of the environment without incurring any significant costs.
<P>
Prevention of environmental crises requires infrastructure, organisation and increased resources.
These are to be found within the armed forces, although capability may certainly vary from one country to another. In the main, however, they can supply qualified personnel, technologies, advanced technological resources, organisational capacity and military methods of research and development.
Military personnel are well equipped to intervene in the event of disasters and are trained to carry out missions under extreme conditions.
<P>
Military activity is also responsible for widespread environmental destruction.
Destroying the environment has been an established method of waging war since ancient times.
War is also far and away the most serious threat to the environment.
The military is responsible for emissions of several gases affecting the climate, fossil fuels, freons, nitrogen oxides and sulphur dioxide.
Nuclear and chemical weapons and landmines are some of the most obvious types of armament that cause extensive damage to the environment, even in peacetime.
<P>
The committee held a public hearing to find out more about the 'non-lethal' weapons and HAARP, the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Project.
However, I very much regret that the USA did not send representatives to the hearing or use the opportunity to comment on the material submitted.
<P>
There have been two public hearings to try to shed more light on the complex technical and legal aspects of the 'non-lethal' weapons and HAARP. We have also put forward proposals relating to the economic and practical implications of a training programme for environmental defence troops.
My original proposals were dealt with under the Hughes procedure, and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has looked into the environmental aspects very carefully.
Against this more detailed background, I am now presenting this resolution on the environment, security and foreign policy, which makes a series of proposals for measures to be carried out both at EU and national level.
The resolution recommends that the Member States should seek to utilise military-related resources for environmental protection through the setting-up of a training programme for environmental defence troops with a view to establishing a coordinated European environmental brigade, listing their environmental needs and the military resources available, and exploiting these resources in their national environmental planning while also putting them at the disposal of the United Nations and the European Union in the event of an environmental disaster, or under the Partnership for Peace.
Furthermore, the armed forces should comply with specific environmental rules and make good past damage to the environment caused by their own actions.
<P>
Civil environmental legislation should be applied to all military activities.
We call on the Commission to present to the Council and Parliament - as foreseen by the Amsterdam Treaty - a common strategy which brings together the common foreign and security policy and the EU's policies on trade, aid, development and the environment.
It is noted in the resolution that preventive environmental measures are an important instrument of security policy, and the Member States are urged to define environmental and health objectives as part of their long-term defence and security assessments.
<P>
The resolution also addresses the problem of the uncontrolled unprofessional storage and dumping of nuclear submarines and surface vessels, as well as their radioactive fuel and leaking nuclear reactors.
The Commission is urged to conduct an in-depth study of security-related threats to the environment in Europe and to draw up a green paper on military activities affecting the environment.
The report also examines the legal aspects of military activities and calls upon the European Union to seek to have the new 'non-lethal' weapons technology included in and regulated by the international conventions.
<P>
So long as nuclear weapons exist, there is a danger of them being used in error.
That danger could soon be considerably reduced if the nuclear powers were to implement the six proposals of the Canberra Commission.
<P>
Let me conclude by saying that almost every day we receive reports of environmental disasters which could be prevented if we used our available resources sensibly.
The resources in question belong to the armed forces, who could be allowed to continue to operate them.
All that is lacking is political will.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Olsson">
Mr President, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has considered this report and delivered an opinion about which I should like to make a few brief comments.
First of all, I am pleased to say that we agree with the background information provided by Mrs Theorin here in the House.
However, I should like to conclude my intervention by touching on one or two issues which we view in a different light.
<P>
It is quite obvious that nowadays there is no direct military threat to Europe's security.
However, there are other bigger dangers, such as environmental devastation, shortages of fresh water, desertification, climate change, accidents in chemical and nuclear power plants and so on.
It is therefore vital that we revise our ideas about security and develop them to include environmental threats, and on the whole, the report does just that.
<P>
It is a very good sign that we are applying normal civil environmental criteria to military activities - this is a necessary development in the present situation.
Tackling the problem posed by earlier nuclear weapons is a major step in this respect.
As to how this would be done, the report proposes that the armed forces should be 'trained' to enable them to cope with environmental problems.
That would certainly be a practicable solution, but the Environment Committee would like to make the point that if substantial resources continue to be allocated to the military, which is certainly the case today, some of those resources should be switched from military defence to the environmental sector, for example rescue and disaster relief services, the decontamination of land and water, and preventive measures to safeguard the environment.
We believe that this is more important than the creation of a special environmental brigade.
It is also an idea which could be put into practice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, I hope colleagues are aware of the importance and significance of this report.
I refer not just to the quality of Mrs Theorin's work, for which I congratulate her, but the fact that this report was produced by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
It is a sign that Parliament has recognised that the end of the Cold War has brought with it an entirely new concept of security and that environmental security is crucial to future peace and prosperity.
There is no doubt that the scarcity and degradation of environmental resources will lead in the future to conflict and we have to use all the resources available to prevent that happening.
<P>
If I have a criticism of the report as it has finally emerged, it is that the way it was amended by both the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has meant that we have tended to throw everything in including the kitchen sink.
That is a mistake.
We ought to focus on the basic points.
What is important to most people is the air they breathe, the food they eat and the water they drink - indeed, the water which helps to grow the food they eat.
<P>
I would like to concentrate on that one question of water.
It is perhaps the most important security challenge facing us in the next century.
For example, if we look at the Caspian Sea region, we find that it has tremendous oil potential leading potentially to great prosperity.
But it is also a disaster waiting to happen, specifically in the republics of Central Asia.
We all know the horrific tale of the Aral Sea.
Equally, there are other conflicts as a result of both the Soviet system which wasted water and the collapse of the system which has led to chaos in terms of distribution of water supply.
<P>
There is Kyrgyzstan's hydro-electric power which is undermining the downstream countries.
Illegal tapping of water supplies and questions of water access intermingled with nationalist rivalries could easily explode at any moment.
<P>
Similarly, if we look at the Indian sub-continent, a growing population accompanied by deforestation is causing flooding which is undermining effective water supply and dykes.
The headwaters of several river systems are to be found in Kashmir and we are all aware of the security implications of that.
In the Middle East access to the Jordan River is one of the key aspects of the Middle East Peace process, in particular in relation to the Golan Heights.
Indeed, the history of Israel-Jordan relations is as much a history of water relations as anything else.
<P>
So I welcome the fact that we are addressing these issues at long last.
I share with Mrs Theorin the hope that we can use all our resources - specifically military resources of satellite intelligence, etc. to start to attack environmental security.
If we do not, then in terms of conflict 'we ain't seen nothing yet'.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stenzel">

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Theorin's report on the environment, security and foreign policy addresses a detail of security policy, namely questions relating to environmental policy, exaggerates their importance and therefore tries to look at the security policy role of the armed forces mainly from that aspect and to change the task and role of the security forces.
It has become particularly clear in the former Warsaw Pact member states how the armed forces can pollute the environment, for there the withdrawal of the then Soviet troops very often left serious environmental damage in its wake.
Abandoned and often disintegrating nuclear submarines have become a danger to the seas, former barracks have left a legacy of oil-polluted soil.
Of course it is legitimate to ask who is responsible for disposing of the military waste, especially in these countries.
<P>
But to use this as a pretext for defining armed forces only in relation to their environmental compatibility, to prevent research on the grounds that it is not environmentally compatible, is to undermine the security policy task of those armed forces.
Since the end of the cold war has not yet brought peace, we have to reject this basic approach that is taken in the report.
To hold the armed forces responsible for the environmental damage does not take us forward, for it would put an unacceptable burden on the defence budget, limited as it is.
What is, however, important and right, is for the governments to have to pay for environmental damage and to apply the polluter pays principle here.
<P>
In spite of the basic approach taken in the report, which I reject on principle as unrealistic, some aspects are of course definitely worth supporting, such as the inclusion of environmental aspects in military research, gearing the arms industry more to the production of civil goods, the call for a ban on anti-personnel mines and for the immediate signature of the 1997 Ottawa agreement, control of waste from the nuclear weapons industry, control of biological and chemical weapons, the further dismantling of nuclear weapons and in particular observance of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
<P>
There is a great danger that weapons of this kind could fall into the hands of irresponsible despots or terrorist organisations and this must be prevented by a network of international agreements and by the appropriate controls.
To call for environmental training of military personnel with the aim of setting up an environmental protection brigade is inappropriate here and would get us nowhere since environmental aspects are already taken into account in the national armed forces and in the NATO Partnership for Peace.
Of course the armed forces must be prepared to deal with environmental disasters. But that is certainly not their primary task.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, the environment has to be an important factor in our foreign and security policy.
That is the essential message of this report.
I am grateful to Mrs Theorin for her energetic input here.
It would indeed be a good thing for the Union to devise a common strategy in this area.
There are already numerous conflicts which have their origins in problems of the environment.
Mr Titley mentioned some of them: water in the Middle East, overpopulation as a factor of conflict in the Great Lakes region, deforestation and floods in southern Asia.
<P>
It is clear too that the armed forces are part of the social fabric, of a society in which high priority is given to protecting the environment.
Where possible, we must make use of military personnel to resolve environmental problems.
Airborne surveillance of illegal fuel dumping by tankers in the North Sea is a good example of how the military can be used to good effect.
Environmental troops could usefully have been deployed to cope with the fires in Indonesia.
<P>
But this report also contains many things which are unrealistic and unnecessary.
We must not start setting up new centres, writing countless green papers and forming new task forces.
And we must leave it to national governments to switch budget funds away from the defence sector.
It is not Parliament's job to tell governments that they must have the army running environmental policy.
Each Member State must reorganise its budget as it sees fit, and then the environment will naturally be one of the issues dealt with.
<P>
My group, the Liberal Group, wants to see the report pruned to its essentials.
We shall table amendments to delete a number of paragraphs.
My group will wait to see what happens to those, and we shall then decide whether to support this report or not.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gahrton">

Mr President, Mrs Theorin has written an important report which has been improved during its passage through the committee. Nevertheless, it still lacks muscle in some respects, for example the responsibility of the armed forces for environmental destruction in peacetime, claims for damages against the military and, above all, space-based weapons systems.
<P>
There is a remarkable contrast between the explanatory statement and the resolution itself.
In the explanatory statement, HAARP - the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Project - is said to be a military research project on the lines of 'Star Wars' which is environmentally damaging, has an unknown effect on people's lives and is legally questionable and probably in breach of international law.
However, none of this is mentioned in the resolution, which only refers to further investigation.
The Green Group thinks the time has come to say loud and clear that this research has got to stop, and this we do in our amendment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kronberger">
Mr President, Commissioner, the realisation that security policy is closely bound up with environmental questions is to be welcomed on principle.
The conclusion that military activities have far-reaching environmental effects is also important.
But I would also draw your attention to a circumstance to which more account must be given in our future peace policy work.
In Africa as also in the Middle East, in South America and in the states of the former Soviet Union wars are being waged about oil and other resources.
Only when we manage to do away with this central source of war over the past century and move instead towards renewable primary energy sources will we see the first real success in regard to long-term peace protection on an environmental basis.
<P>
I regard one point as particularly important here.
The EU should launch an offensive against the increasingly widespread problem of mercenaries, which is very much implicated in this fight for resources.
Mercenary troops should be prohibited worldwide and their European headquarters should be prosecuted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Spencer">
, Security and Defence Policy. Mr President, I want to endorse the conclusions this report comes to.
It seems to me clear that the impact of the environment on security is both immediate, important and growing.
I absolutely endorse what both Mrs Theorin and Mr Titley said about conflict over water and resources and how central this should be as we plan the Common Foreign and Security Policy over the next ten years Equally, I am not going to add to comments that have been made on the impact of the military on the environment.
You can see that in the Kola Peninsula.
You can see that in the insecurity of nuclear sites in the Soviet Union of the kind that has been highlighted by General Lee Butler.
<P>
However, I want to say a word about the HAARP Project Mr Gahrton mentioned.
Having listened to the hearing and done some considerable work myself I find the dangers of experiments with polar electromagnetism to be potentially very damaging and possibly calamitous.
I say that without making any particular judgment as to the potential military applications of this technology, either as a weapon for disrupting an enemy's climate or its adaptability for the use in non-lethal weapons in either a military or a civilian situation, or perhaps most dangerously of all as a covert continuation of 'Star Wars' defence policies.
<P>
The fact is that when we look at this issue and when we listened in the hearing on HAARP, we appeared at times to be listening to science fiction.
But that science fiction should not blind us to this turning into a considerably threatening reality.
I echo other speakers' comments in saying that I regret that the American administration, despite contacts at the very highest level and contacts inside NATO, did not feel it reasonable to come to this Parliament and express a view.
In the absence of that, I have to say that this Parliament must take the view that this is a matter which should concern us all and to which we should return in the next mandate.
There are unanswered questions and this Parliament deserves some answers both from the Americans and from scientists involved in this issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, let me begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mrs Theorin, for her considerable efforts, which also - if I may be allowed a brief personal comment - admirably complement much of the political work that she has carried out in the past.
Clearly, this report covers a number of areas besides those I work with on a daily basis concerning the environment, but I shall be dealing with the report as a whole.
<P>
The Commission has taken great interest in Parliament's report and the motion for a resolution on the environment, security and foreign policy which it contains.
As has also been emphasised here today, it deals with a complex subject, the great importance of which is now being realised by the international community as a whole.
The report is commendable because it clearly points out many of the connections which exist or could arise between the environment, lack of natural resources and security.
A number of examples have also been provided in this debate, such as refugee problems and overpopulation or - in terms of the environment itself - water and climate.
<P>
The Commission's services have been investigating a number of security problems and their economic consequences in a broader context.
As part of this work, we have held a number of seminars, including one on the environment and security.
It was decided that, as a follow-up to these seminars, the Commission should produce a paper on the interaction of foreign policy, security and sustainable development, with the aim of starting a debate with the parties concerned and decision-makers throughout Europe.
As a result of this, my own services are already in the process of taking a closer look at some of the points in Parliament's report concerning the risks connected with global climate changes and the exploitation of resources, which could lead to an increase in environmental refugees, crisis situations and - as Mrs Theorin herself emphasised - direct conflicts.
<P>
DG XI has started its work on the environment and security. This will focus on issues such as water resources and water shortages, which Mr Titley touched on in particular, whether we are dealing with the Caspian Sea, the Aral Sea or the Black Sea, which Mr Spencer and I had the opportunity to look at more closely a little while ago.
We shall also be focusing on soil erosion, lack of natural resources, transfrontier problems regarding the destruction of forests and biological diversity and the security problems which could follow as a result.
In this context, we shall also look more closely at the effect on policy in other areas, such as trade, development aid and cooperation.
This work therefore covers a number of the proposals which have also come from the European Parliament, particularly the resolution's very important first paragraph.
<P>
On various occasions, the Commission has expressed its concern at the deforestation and desertification in Africa.
A large part of the emergency aid under the Lomé programme has been earmarked for combating these two phenomena, which of course have many causes, some of which are quite clearly of a military nature.
However, the Commission has neither authority nor expertise in the area of military affairs.
It does not have access to military activities or resources, because these are exclusively the concern of the national authorities.
We in the Commission will therefore not be in a position to ensure that some of the paragraphs in the motion for a resolution are followed up.
This applies to paragraphs 18 and 29.
The Commission participates fully in the common foreign and security policy, and we shall therefore try, together with the Council presidency, to act as spokesmen for the views expressed in the resolution in the various international security forums, including the UN.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, the Commission welcomes the fact that Parliament has produced this resolution and report.
It shares Parliament's concerns about the connection between environmental degradation and future risks in terms of security.
As I said, we have already started working on some aspects of the problem, particularly those which directly concern the environment.
With these comments, I would once again like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Theorin, for an excellent report and for the debate which we have had here today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Comprehensive partnership with China
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0479/98) by Mr Bernard-Reymond, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the communication from the Commission - Building a Comprehensive Partnership with China (COM(98)0181 - C4-0248/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Bernard-Reymond">
Mr President, China, an immutable yet changing country, has once again recently given us an example of its contradictions and its difficulties.
Having shown encouraging signs of opening up on human rights issues, a series of hurried trials have just reminded us - as if there were any need to be reminded - that unfortunately this country remains hostage to an authoritarian policy that shuns freedom, democracy and human rights.
<P>
Over recent months, there have been several encouraging signs such as the signing of two UN conventions on economic, social and cultural rights and on civil and political rights, the fact that there has been indirect contact with representatives of the Tibetan people, the Taiwanese representative's visit to Peking, the freeing of political prisoners, the troika's visit to Tibet, the fact that Mary Robinson, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, visited Beijing, and the public dialogue between the United States and Jiang Zemin which took place on Chinese television.
<P>
We are, of course, not so naïve as to think that, in themselves, these things all constitute a bold new policy, but the simple fact that they took place and the fact that the authorities in Beijing deemed them necessary, was, in itself, an incentive to continue and extend dialogue.
It was in this context that the Commission decided to draw up a new communication, which the Council has approved before Parliament has even given its opinion on it - hardly a good example of democracy to show China.
<P>
The Commission has adopted five guidelines that you already know about and that have been approved by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
I note with satisfaction the fact that these guidelines make political dialogue a priority, along with proposed aid to China to help establish the rule of law in compliance with international requirements.
We need to maintain political dialogue with this future major actor in the multipolar world, a power that could act as a stabilising influence in that region of Asia.
But political dialogue is equally necessary in order to persuade China that the key to becoming part of international society lies in the respect of universal values.
In view of this, we welcome the legal and judicial cooperation programme put forward by the Commission, providing a total of ECU 13 million over four years.
In this programme, respect for individual and trade-union freedoms should be made a priority, even though the legal security of economic society is also necessary, particularly as regards protecting investments and intellectual property.
<P>
However, ladies and gentlemen, we are considering these guidelines at a moment when Xu Wenli, Wang Youcai and Qin Yongmin have once again been imprisoned, and where a wave of arrests and trials forces us to ask just what this crackdown means.
Of course, we know that the prospect of the tenth anniversary of the events in Tiananmen Square is worrying Beijing, but we fear that the roots of such a hardline stance go much deeper than that.
<P>
On an economic level, China is undergoing major change.
Having learned from international developments over the past twenty years, from the development of globalisation and the efficiency of the market economy, China has decided to open up to the world and move from a centralised and bureaucratic economy to a socialist market economy.
It has rapidly reaped the benefits of this change. For a long time now growth has been 10 % or more, currency reserve levels have been high, foreign investment has increased considerably, external trade is in full expansion and inflation is gradually being brought under control.
<P>
The Commission proposes to support this trend by offering to cooperate in such diverse fields as human resources development, administrative reform, social protection, reform of the financial sector, combating poverty and regional disparities, the transfer of technological know-how in the energy sector, widening scientific and technical cooperation and protecting the environment.
<P>
But, as always, these sweeping changes have also exacerbated or created major disparities: between town and country, between coastal regions and the interior, between Beijing and local authorities, between the poor and the newly rich, between those in and out of work, and in environmental matters.
The authorities' desire to overcome these difficulties without endangering China's unity and whilst preserving its internal stability is justifiable but does the path which the Beijing authorities appear to have chosen not increase the danger rather than avert it?
<P>
A changing society needs flexibility, decentralisation, accountability, initiative, debate: in short, democracy.
Anything that is inflexible, authoritarian and centralist may fool people for a while, but in a changing economic society such an attitude always leads to obstacles being created, which in turn will trigger explosions or lead to that society being ostracised and isolated.
Although Europe is still willing to enter into constructive dialogue, it does not want China to follow any of these roads.
Europe would like China to gradually become part of international political and economic society.
We are prepared to help it to reach this goal.
However, China must be capable of being as courageous in the political world as it has been in the economic world.
We strongly encourage China to do this as we know that, for all peoples, freedom is the future of history.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Seppänen">
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that the picture painted by the rapporteur, Mr Bernard-Reymond, clearly illustrates the failings of the so-called constructive dialogue policy which the European Union has pursued with China for many years now.
<P>
He has highlighted all the shortcomings, or some of them at least, and the whole thing really is a failure of major proportions.
It must be pointed out that the Union and the Member States showed the same condescending attitude towards the citizens of the Soviet Union, who it was felt did not count as such.
For years, we believed that what worked for us, namely democracy, was something that did not apply to them, and for some time now we have been applying the same analysis to China. We have been following the same policy of not acknowledging that Chinese citizens, like us, have a right to democracy.
<P>
This is particularly serious as the situation in China is much more desperate than we are often told.
Tens of millions of people are unemployed due to social and economic contradictions.
Contrary to what people would have us believe, it is not the communist system - and this is indeed the issue here - that will guarantee the stability which our socialist colleague was discussing, but rather democracy, with its safeguards, its opposition forces and its social control mechanisms. Only democracy could help China to rid itself of such contradictions once and for all.
<P>
It would be better to push China, to demand that it and its leading communist class relinquish their monopoly on power, their violent monopoly over tens, even hundreds of millions of people. Such violence is the reason behind the tens of thousands of political prisoners - and these are official figures.
I would ask everyone to consider for a moment the conditions in which individual political prisoners are today being held in China, Tibet, Inner Mongolia and Turkestan.
We forget about them, we listen to dissidents when they are released from prison and we applaud them, but we forget that tens of thousands of other political prisoners are being subjected to violence and torture and very often killed, even as we debate this report here today.
<P>
This is the policy of constructive dialogue with the People's Republic of China that the European Union is endorsing and it is a disaster.
We have seen examples of such a policy with the Russian loans at the beginning of the century, and even if the situation is not entirely comparable I believe that, as far as our businesses are concerned, we should perhaps be slightly concerned at the risk to the high levels of capital invested by firms from the Member States of the European Union, which are in danger of waking up tomorrow to find themselves in a situation of unprecedented confusion in the face of enormous losses.
<P>
Next door to China is the world's largest democracy: India.
The European Union acts as if it has forgotten that this country and this great democracy exists and that at least there we can count on the ruling democratic classes there.
But no, we dig our heels in, we head straight for China and we forget these other examples.
My socialist colleague mentioned the Asian tigers but he forgets that South Korea, following the recent economic growth crisis, has further developed its democratic institutions.
He forgets that democracy in Taiwan, which is a Chinese country, is working better and better.
He forgets the positive examples but he also forgets about North Korea, a vassal of the People's Republic of China.
In a few years' time, when the North Korean regime has fallen from power because, for one reason or another, there is no longer any support from the international community, we will discover that there were millions of deaths in North Korea, and we will act as if we are surprised by this.
<P>
These are the sorts of regimes we are encouraging with our constructive dialogue policy.
We have not seen any progress in the People's Republic of China.
The rapporteur pointed out that international conventions have been signed, yet a few weeks after they were ratified new dissidents were arrested and sent to the notorious 'laogai', the Chinese concentration camps.
We saw young Chinese people being arrested for surfing the Internet.
This is the China we wish to support and for which we are providing de facto support with this constructive dialogue policy.
<P>
I am pleased that Sir Leon Brittan is here with us, as Parliament's policy used to be rather different, as shown in its urgent resolutions. No fewer than twenty resolutions have been tabled over the past five years, calling, in particular, for the release of dissidents.
None of them was released as a result of pressure from Europe.
Two or three were released due to pressure from America, namely Wong Dan and Wei Jingsheng, but we achieved nothing.
Mr Hada, the democratic leader of Inner Mongolia, is still in prison, as are the dissidents from Eastern Turkestan, and as are tens of thousands of political prisoners.
We do not have a High Representative of the European Union for Tibet, as Parliament has requested.
We have achieved nothing here either for human rights or for political freedoms.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, I would make it clear from the beginning that the Socialist Group is in favour of the Commission's communication about building a comprehensive partnership with China.
We emphasise the word partnership which is about dialogue between two parties not one party constantly lecturing another.
As Mr Bernard-Reymond is aware, my initial concern at his first draft report was that we were spending most of our time lecturing China.
I would like to thank him and pay tribute to him for the way he has been prepared to take on amendments and adapt his report.
I feel it is now a far better balanced report.
<P>
China is, of course, important, not just to the EU but to the world, as we saw when everybody was trembling at the prospect of a devaluation of the currency.
That does not, of course, justify us ignoring our own traditional positions.
We have our own standards and our own beliefs in relation to democracy and human rights and we are quite entitled to express those and expect our partners to respect the same principles.
However, we have to recognise that changing a system is not easy and that China in many ways is actually a developing country, not a developed country.
<P>
Therefore, we should be looking to encourage progress and reform.
Mr Dupuis is right.
The political and economic reforms go together.
They are not isolated from each other.
Sudden dramatic about-turns, such as those we had with the Cultural Revolution in China, do no good to anybody.
They disrupt and increase poverty.
We should be prepared to recognise when China is moving in the right direction, for example, the transition to Chinese rule in Hong Kong has gone far better than most people ever expected and we should recognise that.
We should be trying to encourage China to take its place in the world system, particularly its membership of the WTO.
That will allow us then to get to grips with issues like counterfeiting and lack of respect for intellectual property, which are major concerns for us at the moment.
<P>
We should, of course, be constantly driving home the message of human rights but we have to recognise that access was given to Mary Robinson and that China has moved towards taking on board the UN conventions.
We need to ensure these are ratified and we are quite right to condemn the recent crackdown which goes against the trend we have seen in the last 12 months.
<P>
We have to be aware when criticising China that we ought to be looking at ourselves.
We must speak as the European Union with one voice in our relations to China.
It is no good one or two Member States deciding to go it alone for trade reasons.
The European Union has to have a common policy in relation to China.
<P>
My final observation is in relation to Taiwan.
I am glad we were able to change the report's comments on relations with Taiwan because, while we should not interfere in the relationships between Taiwan and China, our position should be very simple.
Any solution to Taiwan should respect international law and the right of self-determination.
Beyond that, of course, it is a matter for the Chinese to resolve.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
Mr President, the Christian Democrats support the line taken by the Commission and the rapporteur, whom we thank for his good report.
We believe that only through constructive dialogue can we make progress. In reply to Mr Dupuis I would say that I share many of his views, but none of our urgent resolutions did any good.
We must begin a constructive dialogue and strengthen it, and I hope the other side, the People's Republic of China, understands that we are willing to meet it halfway if it does the same for us.
<P>
Both sides bear a great responsibility.
Firstly, the European Union would like and hopes to see the People's Republic of China take the necessary domestic steps to enable it to become a member of the World Trade Organisation as soon as possible.
We are also quite prepared, if it so wishes, to support the People's Republic of China in achieving its own objectives, to support it in transforming its economic system from a bureaucratic planned economy into a socialist market economy.
Above all, we believe that in the interests of trade and investment the approach taken by the People's Republic of China must lead to reforms of the legal and taxation system, otherwise world trade cannot continue to flourish.
<P>
Signing the UN conventions does not suffice for the development of human rights and democracy and we should tell our friends quite clearly that as we see it the principles of democracy and human rights also require the recognition of, in particular, political parties of a different tendency, the recognition of the cultural autonomy of regions such as Tibet, the civil rights of the individual and the release of persons imprisoned because of the exercise of their civil rights.
This message should in fact have got through today too.
<P>
Allow me to make one more comment on the subject of peace and stability in Asia.
Recognition of the existence of the State of Taiwan and of the rights of its citizens to self-determination is a fundamental condition for stability there.
The talks between the representatives of the People's Republic of China and of Taiwan are promising signs that both sides are moving towards a peaceful solution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cars">
Mr President, the Swedish writer Per Ahlmark has collaborated with a number of famous peace researchers in different parts of the world to show, quite convincingly, that democracies never go to war with each other and that disasters causing hunger over a wide area do not occur in countries which have a free press and market economies.
In the twentieth century, the victims of dictatorships can be reckoned in their millions. The dictators have driven these people out in time of war, they have executed them, degraded them in concentration and labour camps, or starved them to death.
Among the most notorious mass-murderers of our time are Hitler, Stalin and Mao, but others have existed - and still exist - who are their equal in many respects, among them Pol Pot, Verwoerd, Saddam Hussein and Kim II Sung, to mention but a few.
<P>
Since Mao's time, China has made considerable progress.
In Europe, we welcome this and share in the happiness of hundreds of millions of Chinese people who are enjoying better lives as a result.
But the people of China still have enormous problems to contend with.
China is still far from being a democracy; there is little room for freedom of speech or to form trade unions.
Those who have called for democracy and human rights in China have been given long prison sentences.
Executions are common, the Tibetans are oppressed and Taiwan is subject to blatant threats from Beijing.
So long as this situation continues, it is the duty of the European Union and of this Parliament in particular to call for change and to use all the means at our disposal to bring it about.
It is in our interests, but to an even greater extent it would be in the interest of China and its people too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, the communication by the European Commission, and by extension, I think, the debate as it is taking place, seem somewhat ignorant of history.
They have no basis in reality.
<P>
You are not prepared to take any account of the fact that China, that great country, that great nation, emerged only 50 years ago from foreign wars, from a status of prolonged colonialism, from civil wars, and within 50 years it is striving to create its own model, one which matches its history, its culture, which goes back 5 000 years before our debate today.
That is why the Commission's statement is of questionable credibility, it is presumptuous, self-interested in its objectives, it aims to explore how, through what loophole and by what artifices European multinationals can take part in the sharing of the enormous cake represented by the Chinese market.
<P>
So what is the statement doing?
I have no time, so I will try to mention only a few points.
<P>
At one point, the statement mentions continuing reforms which we will assist.
If that were sincerely aimed at China's development, at the prosperity of its people, we should all be in agreement.
No such thing!
The real aim is to establish reforms which will draw China in and subject it to your own model and to the standards dictated by your multinationals.
<P>
Elsewhere, the statement speaks of assisting the reforms in order to forestall crises in China such as those in other Asian countries.
But, ladies and gentlemen, those countries - the three you referred to earlier - had long been immersed up to the neck in your own models and liberal measures.
And yet the crisis still occurred.
Is that where you want China to go as well?
Has there not been a crisis in your own countries too, despite unrestrained liberalism?
Where are you looking for the causes of the crisis and seeking reforms according to your own models, supposedly out of concern, in case China suffers a crisis?
<P>
And another thing which means an attempt to intervene in China's internal affairs: yes, let us have bilateral trade, but where this concerns Chinese enterprises which, inside China, do not conform absolutely with the rules of the free market, then we must adopt special dumping measures against them.
That is blatant and inadmissible intervention.
<P>
And finally, the rule of law, democracy and so on, so that we can have 'partnership' and close relations with China.
That, of course, would be a very good thing for the Chinese people, for the European Union and from an international perspective.
But why are you closing your eyes?
The rather small country of Latvia, with which you have very close relations and which you are striving to bring into the Community, has 700 000 inhabitants out of 2.5 million who do not have the right to call themselves citizens, who have no rights at all.
Why?
Because they suffer the sole disadvantage of being Russian-speaking.
Why do you want such relations with them?
Why can you not see that?
This, then, is hypocrisy, self-interest and presumption.
One of the speakers even said that you aspire to teach them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
<SPEAKER ID=83 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gahrton">
Mr President, democracy in China has suffered a severe setback in recent months.
That is why I, as chairman of the delegation for relations with China, together with other members of the delegation and numerous colleagues, have tabled a separate amendment in which we not only express our concern, but also call for concrete information from the Chinese authorities regarding the large number of people who have been arrested recently.
It is vital that we continue to exert pressure on the Chinese Government and do not allow them to believe that we only see the positive developments. Of course we cannot do that.
<P>
Why are the Chinese people behaving in this way?
The situation in China is certainly very serious.
I should like to quote the French professor, Jean-Louis Rocker, writing in the report of the annual conference organised by the European Union - China Academic Network, which took place last week in Madrid: 'In recent years numerous demonstrations, petitions, sit-ins and violent actions have taken place in most big cities in order to protest against the degradation of living conditions'.
There is a feeling of social unease in China which the authorities harshly suppress.
There is good reason for the European Union to reconsider its policy towards China.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, the rapporteur Mr Bernard-Reymond deserves congratulations.
He has drafted a very good report.
We have had a number of discussions and draft amendments and I believe that has resulted in a very balanced report.
As Members we are in an extremely difficult situation in regard to China.
I could quote Mr Gorbachev, who said 'life punishes latecomers', but perhaps China would find that rather difficult to accept given the man who said it and against the background of the fact that the Soviet Union disintegrated in a manner that was not exactly positive and that it would be a disaster for China and the world were history to repeat itself in this regard.
That is precisely why we must remain in continuous dialogue with the Chinese and with the representatives of China and convince them that it is important for them, for China, to carry out the appropriate reforms and that this is not being forced upon them from the outside but forms part and parcel of the democracy movement in China.
<P>
Here we must consider three important issues, the political, the economic and the human rights issue.
Let us not be naive enough to believe we could eliminate any of these.
Let us not be naive enough to believe we could fight for human rights unless we continue the political dialogue at the same time and also support and promote the economic development of China.
China is an important partner and it is precisely those who keep saying that we need the United Nations and the Security Council for security policy measures and decisions in the world who must conduct this political dialogue with China, even in China's present, unhappy political form.
<P>
In regard to the economic question, of course I know that a number of undertakings have purely economic or trade interests.
But our common objective is the progress of economic development in China.
It cannot be in our interest to see China collapse; on the contrary we want China to develop economically.
Our policy and that of the European Union must be that at the same time - not as an alternative or substitute for that objective - we remain unyielding on the human rights issue and endeavour to persuade China to make progress with political democracy, in its own interests and in the interests of human rights.
For however many mistakes Mr Gorbachev made, those words are crucial. They apply for China too and in the case of China they could have far-reaching, disastrous results and consequences for the whole world: life punishes latecomers!
<P>
China will be the first to be punished if it does not try in good time to make parallel progress in the economic, political and human rights fields.
That is why I so much endorse what the report is now endeavouring to do: it is trying to approach China through dialogue, rather than prescribing from above in a kind of imperialist manner how China should conduct itself; instead China is being invited to join with us in making the world a better, fairer and economically more successful place.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Cushnahan">
Mr President, Mr Bernard-Reymond's report constitutes a valuable contribution to the on-going and evolving debate about the nature of the relationship between China and the European Union.
It is important that we engage in a positive and constructive relationship with China.
However, it must be an open and honest relationship.
The European Union has consistently supported the principles of democracy and the protection of human rights.
<P>
While we want to be positive about many of the changes that are taking place in China, we cannot, and indeed must not, turn a blind eye to the continuing abuse of human rights, in particular the scandalous treatment of political dissidents and members of religious faiths.
Failure on our part to speak out simply because many of the leading Member States of the European Union have profitable trading relationships with China would be an abdication of our responsibility and would undermine the moral authority of the Union to speak on other situations elsewhere in the world where human rights are being blatantly breached.
Furthermore, it would be a betrayal of the philosophy of the founding members of this Union.
<P>
As far as Hong Kong is concerned, I welcome the fact that the handover has taken place without many of our worst fears having been realised.
However, we must continue to keep a watching brief on Hong Kong and I welcome the publication of the Commission's recent report in that regard to which I hope we will be able to respond.
There have been a number of instances where the independence of the rule of law and the observance of human rights have been called into question.
These fears must be addressed as must also the wish to see the introduction of an accelerated timetable for the introduction of universal suffrage.
<P>
With these few comments, I commend the rapporteur's efforts and I very much welcome the report he has produced.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Madam President, Mr Bernard-Reymond's report indicates that there is no reasonable alternative to a balanced and comprehensive approach.
That is the view of a large majority of this Parliament.
I also welcome the fact that we do not now have a series of endless urgencies on incidental items but that we have a comprehensive approach.
This Parliament needs to take a mature approach and this is what Mr Bernard-Reymond has done.
As Mr Gahrton has indicated, the Delegation for China tabled Amendment No 11 which points out that it is very important that certain of the negative developments at the present time should be tackled.
I would like to hear how Sir Leon Brittan sees this turnaround on democracy and human rights.
It is an important and a negative development.
<P>
As other speakers have said, there are also positive developments.
We should at the present time see that in economic terms China is in the midst of a hurricane.
If that hurricane swamps it we will also feel the effects.
There has been economic and political courage on the part of the Chinese which is worth noting.
On Hong Kong, as others have said, things are better than we expected.
That is why I should like to emphasise that between the extremism of Mr Ephremidis and - my apologies, Mr Dupuis - the non-alternative of the ARE, which has tabled 26 amendments but really has no alternative policies, Mr Bernard-Reymond's policy is the right one.
<P>
We want to apply pressure to China on human rights, not only for moral self-satisfaction but because it is in the best interests of China itself.
That society can only develop if it takes into account pluriformity, human rights and political opposition.
That is the road ahead as the example of Russia has indicated.
The size of China is such that there are not many models that can be applied to that country.
For that reason we hope that Mr Bernard-Reymond's approach will be shared by a large majority of this Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Caccavale">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it seems to me that, yet again in dealing with China, Europe has demonstrated that it is weak with the strong and strong with the weak.
It is easy to get angry with Sierra Leone or Guinea- Bissau, but much more difficult to tell the truth about what is happening in China today. Every kind of opposition is fiercely repressed, all freedom of expression and opinion is denied, the only representatives of a possible opposition to the communist regime, which tortures and butchers those who oppose it, are convicted after farcical trials.
And we continue to have this accommodating attitude.
We see it in this report too. Despite Mr Bernard-Reymond's excellent intentions, it seems that, here again, Europe is demonstrating that it is completely subservient to the de facto logic of trade.
<P>
What has happened in the last few weeks cannot be passed over in silence.
I strongly believe that if Europe is worth anything, if it still has a purpose, it must speak out in defence of human rights, especially when dealing with the strongest countries which obviously set an example, as is currently the case with China on the Asian front, and not only there.
In the light of all this, how can we still consider granting aid and subsidies and maintaining relations with people who torture and butcher their political opponents?
In the light of all this, I ask you all whether there should not be a radical change in the attitude of the European Parliament and the Commission towards this bloody and oppressive regime.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Barros Moura">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I too approve of the five-point strategy proposed by the Commission which has already received the Council's support. This strategy is aimed at helping China to become an increasingly prominent player on the international stage.
In this respect, bearing in mind its own interests and the need to define an independent policy from that of the United States of America, I believe that the European Union should support China's accession to the World Trade Organisation given the obligations inherent in this.
<P>
I am pleased to see that progress has been made in the area of human rights. However, I feel that the realpolitik of the economic and commercial interests of the European Union, or rather of certain Member States, should not make us think that China is already applying the rule of law because it is not!
But we should support the progress being made in this direction.
However, I believe that we should give our Chinese partners a stern warning with regard to the recent worsening of certain problems involving human rights, the persecution of political opponents and ethnic and national minorities and, in particular, the situation of workers laid off without any union rights, trade-union freedoms or respect for the right to strike.
<P>
Turning now to the specific matter of Macao, in my opinion the rapporteur has handled this well because he has understood the specific situation of this territory arising from its history and its particular characteristics.
Macao can act as a gateway for China to the West and to the European Union and as a bridge between Europe, in all its diversity, and China.
<P>
In this respect, I believe that the European Union should monitor the transfer of Macao to Chinese rule at the end of this year as closely as it did with Hong Kong, in order to support the application of the 'one country, two systems' principle.
There are many problems still to be resolved relating to human rights and fundamental freedoms, nationality, the guarantee that China will respect the ban in force on the death penalty, religious freedom, freedom of association, the regulation of the two official languages of the territory - Chinese and Portuguese - and the need to establish an independent judiciary as quickly as possible, specifically with a local court of last instance.
<P>
I believe that the European Union can help the civil society in Macao to develop.
I would ask the Commission to prepare a communication, as happened with Hong Kong, on future relations between the European Union and Macao and, at the same time, to produce regular reports on the situation.
In order to ensure that everything works correctly, a Commission delegation is needed for Macao.
I must point out that the current delegation to Hong Kong has not been able to assume its responsibilities of also representing the European Union in Macao.
I would ask the Commissioner to explain the unacceptable attitude demonstrated by the European Union delegate to Hong Kong, who seems to be ignoring the fact that he is also responsible for representing the EU in Macao.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Porto">
Madam President, the building of a comprehensive partnership with China is to be welcomed in all respects as this is in our interest, it is in the interest of China and it is also undoubtedly in the interest of world peace and prosperity. This has been duly emphasised in the Commission communication and in Mr Bernard-Raymond's report, both of which should therefore be congratulated.
<P>
It is clear that this therefore lends particular importance to paragraph A-5 of the communication and to paragraph 41 of the motion for a resolution, which expresses the hope that the transfer of Macao to Chinese rule will be done correctly.
This transfer must happen in a way which benefits the Macao population and also China, which has much to gain from the existence in Macao of a democratic and prosperous society and of another gateway to the rest of the world.
<P>
However, the role which Macao can play is also of primary interest to the European Union. This role must be totally independent of Hong Kong's role, as has just been mentioned.
The alternative to links with us is surely not links through Hong Kong, which the people of Macao are entitled to reject in view of the fear that this would put them in a subordinate position with a real risk that they would become lost, without their own voice, in the massive territory of China.
<P>
Macao has its own identity and lies in an area which is very different from China, giving us twice as many opportunities to become closer.
This identity and these opportunities have to date justified the participation of Macao in the World Trade Organisation and the conclusion of a trade and cooperation agreement between the European Union and Macao - unlike with Hong Kong - which must be maintained after the transfer to Chinese rule.
This therefore represents a clear opportunity which the European Union would be foolish to waste.
An obvious step towards maintaining and increasing our presence would be the immediate introduction of our own representation in Macao. This would not cost much as the Macao authorities would certainly be keen to share the costs with us.
I would ask the Commissioner whether he intends to take any steps in this direction?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Brittan">
Madam President, I am pleased to have the opportunity to respond to Mr Bernard-Reymond's balanced and well-reasoned report.
I am glad to see that for many parts of the House, in particular Mr Swoboda, Mr Brinkhorst and Mr Porto, there is considerable support for its balanced approach.
The European Union has a profound interest in helping the emergence of a stable, prosperous and open China that embraces political pluralism, free markets, the rule of law and assists in building a secure international order.
To those such as Mr Dupuis' wing who believe that we have not been strong enough on the human rights situation, or Mr Ephremidis who approaches things in a rather different way, I have to say that I do not believe that they have put forward a real alternative.
<P>
The essence of our approach is that it is a long-term one.
It has to be pursued in good times and in bad, unless there is a fundamental change in the situation.
There is no doubt that both economically and politically the situation in China today is less hopeful than it was even a year ago.
I do not believe that is a reason for fundamentally changing the approach we have followed or the one that is commended by Mr Bernard-Reymond both in his speech and in his report.
<P>
The adoption of the report is timely.
Under Prime Minister Zhu Rongji China has launched a series of key economic reforms.
Against the backdrop of the Asian crisis, however, these reforms are likely to come under pressure this coming year as economic growth slows.
Recent events in China have also given rise to serious concerns related to respect for human rights.
In these circumstances it is important - indeed essential - for us to convey the right signals to China.
Our communication set out a number of fundamental objectives.
<P>
Firstly, we want to engage China further through an upgraded political dialogue into the international community.
Over the past decade China has taken welcome steps on arms control, non-proliferation regimes, on preserving the global environment, combatting international crime and drug trafficking.
We should build upon China's desire to be recognised as a global responsible actor on the world stage and develop dialogue on global issues of common concern.
The history of the past shows that can yield practical results and is not just an idle dream.
<P>
Secondly, we need to integrate China further in the world economy by bringing it more fully into the world trading system and by supporting the process of economic and social reform that is under way.
China is the fastest growing market for European goods and services.
It is clearly in our interest to bring it more fully into the global economy.
Access to that market is too restrictive.
We do not want to retaliate though by creating a self-defeating cycle of protectionism.
On the contrary, the openness of the European market will constitute our best contribution to helping China face the current crisis in Asia but we remain committed to opening markets further, including China's.
To the proposition that China should join the WTO, the answer is Yes, but on commercially meaningful terms, agreeing to the opening up of its economy.
That is appropriate for a country of its size and state of economic development.
<P>
I make no apologies for referring to the question of size.
It is the case that in a country the size of China - and it is not going to disappear and it is not going to change because we say nastier things or pass nastier resolutions - it is only by engaging honestly, economically and politically, being frank and candid, that we stand a chance of bringing about change in that country.
The European Union is dedicated to supporting China's transition to an open society based upon the rule of law and full respect for human rights.
Of course we are not satisfied with the current situation in China.
We have chosen a pragmatic and results-oriented approach on this issue in which we challenge the Chinese authorities on issues and events of concern to us such as the recent spate of dissident trials and arrests.
We are not silent on those issues but, at the same time, we expand our areas of cooperation.
Both poles of the policy are necessary.
<P>
The dialogue on human rights has been useful but we have made it very clear to the Chinese authorities that we now need to achieve specific and tangible progress to maintain the credibility of this dialogue.
Recent developments in China that have been referred to have underlined that need.
We have asked for the release of dissidents imprisoned after the recent crackdown and that issue will remain on our agenda until these dissidents are released.
<P>
Most importantly, we have made clear to the Chinese authorities that we will identify benchmarks by which progress in the dialogue will be judged.
This innovation will ensure that the necessary pressure and momentum in the dialogue is maintained.
The question arises: What kind of benchmarks?
The kind we will be looking at include the following demands: Firstly, we need more detailed information on political prisoners, their number, the charges on which they have been sentenced, their health conditions, as well as access to some prisoners for European and NGO representatives.
<P>
Secondly, we want to see specific steps taken to improve prison conditions and reform the penal system, including conditions of appeal and access to judicial review in line with international standards.
The latter point is particularly relevant with regard to the death penalty and the situation of dissidents convicted for so-called counter-revolutionary crimes.
<P>
Thirdly, we want to see benchmarks for progress towards the ratification of the United Nations Human Rights Covenants which includes the follow-up to Mary Robinson's visit and closer cooperation with the European Union within the human rights dialogue.
<P>
Fourthly, another category of benchmarks relates to ethnic minorities especially those in Tibet.
It covers a wide range of issues such as the transparency of demographic information, the free use of the Tibetan language as well as open and clear information on alleged incidents involving ethnic minority groups and dissidents.
<P>
Despite these recent differences on human rights, I hope you will agree that European policy towards China, as exemplified by the Commission communication and Mr Bernard-Reymond's report, has progressed significantly in a positive direction in recent years.
I am heartened to see that our communication and your report are broadly in agreement with each other.
That applies to Hong Kong as well.
I am sorry that I am not able to promise an early opening of a delegation in Macao.
We are having great difficulty in getting the resources and support we need for the delegations we want to open.
We will certainly examine the specific suggestions made in the report and incorporate them as fully as possible into the substance of our relations with China.
<P>
The challenge of developing a comprehensive and robust relationship between China and the European Union is one of the great geo-strategic challenges for the next century.
It is my belief that we have laid solid foundations to allow the European Union of the future to meet such a crucial challenge and that we should be steady in our approach, firm in what we have to say but balanced in our policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="President">
Thank you, Sir Leon.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Regional policy and competition policy
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0412/98 by Mr Azzolini, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Member States on regional policy and competition policy (COM(98)0673 - C4-0247/98); -A4-0421/98 by Mrs Riis-Jørgensen, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the XXVIIth report by the Commission on Competition Policy - 1997 (SEC(98)0636 - C4-0379/98).
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Azzolini">
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Riis-Jørgensen">
Madam President, I am privileged to have been appointed rapporteur for the report on competition policy for the second time during my career in Parliament.
I should like to begin by praising the Commission for the excellent work it has done in the area of competition policy.
I have very much enjoyed working together with the Commissioner, and I think there has been superb cooperation between the Commissioner and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
In my speech, I would like to concentrate on the five proposals for improvements I have identified in my report, and I look forward to hearing the Commissioner's comments on them.
<P>
The first concerns the democratic control of competition policy.
In my first report, we proposed a specific procedure whereby the Commissioner comes to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs every quarter to give an account of policy in the competition sector.
We have been very pleased with that and it has worked very satisfactorily.
The committee now wishes to create a permanent and more standardised procedure.
This procedure makes the same demands, but represents a more formal arrangement between the committee, Parliament and the Commissioner.
<P>
The second point concerns small and medium-sized enterprises, which are very important when we are discussing competition policy.
The committee regards it as important to ensure that SMEs are able to evaluate their legal position and can find out for themselves which side of the competition rules they are on - or in other words, whether or not they are in breach of the rules on competition.
I am myself a lawyer by profession, but I have no objection to SMEs being able to avoid paying too much money to lawyers to help them find out whether they are in breach of EU rules.
I am therefore calling on the Commission to put forward proposals or guidelines on how to use the so-called de minimis notice.
This is discussed in paragraph 10.
<P>
The third point also concerns SMEs and is dealt with in paragraph 15 of my report.
Again, it is a question of how SMEs can ensure that they comply with the EU's rules. Here too, I should like the Commission to publish guidelines and criteria on what the relevant market is and how it is defined.
Those are the two points concerning SMEs.
<P>
Then there is the question of state aid.
I know the Commissioner agrees with the committee that there is far too much state aid in Europe, but what can we do about it?
We should always remember that it is the Member States who distribute the money.
So it is not the EU which distributes the money, but the Member States who are the villains of the piece.
I think it is important for Parliament to ally itself with the Commission in the campaign against state aid.
The committee's proposal is that we should make things more transparent, so that third parties are able to see the extent of state aid.
I propose that we set up a register in which the level of state aid is published and that this register should be put on the Commission's website, so that everyone can easily go and find out the level and purpose of the aid, including state aid given under block exemptions, so that all state aid, regardless of whether it is referred to the Commission or simply takes place in the Member States, is publicly accessible.
It is important for individual companies, both small and large, to be able to find out whether they are being exposed to unfair competition.
Internet access will help, because in that way the company concerned will be able to check the level of state aid for itself. It will also have, or so I hope, the opportunity to complain to the Commission in a simple way via the Internet.
<P>
I have one more proposal concerning state aid. This has been inspired by the Commissioner responsible for the single market, Mr Monti, who has set up a 'scoreboard' showing the good guys and the bad guys of the single market.
We could do the same thing, in other words set up a list of the good boys and the bad boys - or girls - in terms of state aid.
<P>
Those are my proposals for improving competition and some instruments for increasing transparency and improving legal certainty for SMEs.
I hope very much that the Commissioner will enter into a dialogue with us on the subject of these proposals.
Once again, I would like to express my thanks to Mr Van Miert for the sincerity and enthusiasm with which he takes care of Europe's interests in these matters. And in passing, I should also like to thank him for his excellent work in bringing to an end the tubing cartel in Denmark and Europe and thus creating price freedom and low prices for consumers, because ultimately that is the most important target group for competition policy.
The important thing is that consumers get lower prices and more quality for their money.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Sierra González">
Madam President, as draftsman of the opinion on the XXVIIth Commission report on competition policy, I should start by saying that Community competition policy is gradually becoming more transparent. From a legal point of view it is also becoming more efficient and its administration has improved.
This is most certainly due to greater decentralisation of the implementation of certain regulations on competition to the relevant national authorities, and to the reduction in unnecessary notifications.
If we continue along these lines efficiency and transparency should improve still further.
Decentralisation has, however, come up against a serious obstacle: some Member States lack the legislation needed to implement Community legislation. In other cases, national case-law does not allow Community legislation to be directly implemented.
<P>
In addition to these legal difficulties, other problems have arisen concerning state aid. Legal protection can be reduced, depending on whether national law or Community law is applied.
Thus, Articles 85 and 86 of the Treaty allow enterprises and individuals to enjoy greater legal protection and therefore greater rights of appeal under national legislation than they would under Articles 92 and 94 of the Treaty.
No ruling has been given on which law should take precedence in such cases.
The issue has not been resolved, and disputes continue.
<P>
Finally, I would like to point out that the procedure adopted for the supervision of state aid for regional development purposes ought to be subject to the demands of economic and social cohesion. Further, the method of determining resources must take account of the legal concept of ultraperipherality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="McCarthy">
Mr President, the Azzolini report on the communication from the Commission to Member States on regional policy and competition policy comes at a very pertinent time, only months before Member States are expected to deliver their list of state aid areas to DG IV and at a time when big decisions are to be taken by Member States on the future maps of structural funds for both Objective 1 and Objective 2.
Let us hope that this will be at the Berlin summit in March.
<P>
In this debate I will restrict my comments to the issue of coherence and the linkage between regional policy and competition policy.
We know that concentration is the name of the game now in both the Community competition policy and indeed in structural fund assistance.
Of course, in the Commission communication consistency is a stated objective.
We support those principles, we support coherence and consistency.
We perhaps differ on the point of how we deliver that coherence and how we actually ensure some flexibility around the issues.
I must say that it is somewhat disappointing that some of the amendments to this report are seeking to look for exemptions for areas under Article 92(3)(a) in my view seeking to secure Objective 1 status by the back door.
My group will not be voting for those particular amendments.
Parliament is asked to take into account the need for this consistency and we are in favour of ensuring better coherence.
This is evident under Article 92(3)(a), Objective 1 areas, and the principle is very strongly adhered to in this area.
Nonetheless, there is a need for the Commission to acknowledge in its proposals, as is the case in the communication, and I quote 'that Member States must have a margin of manoeuvre to pursue regional policy goals specific to their situations in addition to areas designated jointly for purposes of Community and regional policy.
The Commission is aware that Member States deploy diverse goals and objectives for national and regional aid policy.
We need to respect this diversity and we need to find a balance between diversity and achieving coherence.'
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Therefore, the context of concentration and consistency, referring to Article 92(3)(c) areas, is somewhat restrictive and let me say why that is so.
The timetable in which Member States will produce their maps to DG IV predetermines potentially Objective 2 areas on the future structural fund map.
I will give you a very good example of that: in the 1994 to 1999 reforms the then Conservative government submitted a map to DG IV in the hope that those areas would then automatically be Objective 2 areas.
I am glad to say, the Labour commissioner, Bruce Millan, spotted this and was very clear about the fact that these areas could not possibly qualify for European Objective 2 under economic social cohesion need areas.
This is why we need to have that flexibility and we do not believe they should be, in fact, in the same map, even with the measure of flexibility that the Commission has proposed.
In some ways this Commission communication has been overtaken by events and I am delighted to see that in the General Affairs Council this week there has been a victory for common sense.
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I believe it is important that we have had this debate.
I believe Member States must address themselves to the fact that there must be better coherence but we need the flexibility to ensure that we are getting the right areas for state aid and Objective 2.
In that sense, the time of change, the time for concentration has come but the Commission must not complicate or impose additional constraints forcing integration of these areas through prescriptive mechanisms.
It is wise for the Commission to have chosen the route of allowing some margin of manoeuvre and thereby trying to encourage Member States in their efforts to make these maps more consistent.
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<SPEAKER ID=97 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Hatzidakis">
Madam President, as a member of the Committee on Regional Policy I will speak on the report by Mr Azzolini, whom I would sincerely like to congratulate on his work, which was exceptionally difficult because there were conflicting interests and - I think I need not explain - the issue of 'national aid' speaks for itself.
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I also wish to congratulate the Commission on its generally courageous attitude towards this issue.
The aid provided by Member States to their various regions can indeed constitute a distortion of competition and consequently impede the normal and effective operation of the internal market.
That is why the basic principle must be that when national aid is permitted, over and above the areas covered by the activities of the Structural Funds, such cases should be exceptional and should only be permitted in special cases when justified by the need to achieve economic and social cohesion.
In that sense, there is indeed a need for closer links and correspondence between the competition policy and the European Union's regional policy.
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Consequently, I agree with the Commission's intention to reduce the eligible areas, so far as Community aid is concerned, from the present 51 % down to 35 % - 40 % of the population, a reduction completely in line with the corresponding reduction of eligible population which will be entitled to structural aid in the future.
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I also agree that the criteria for state aid should correspond to those for Community aid.
However, I must express my concern and opposition to the restriction of the extent of the permitted national aid for Objective 1 areas to only 50 % of the cofinancing for those areas which are below 60 % of the Community average in terms of GNP, and to 40 % for areas above 60 % of the Community average.
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We also ought not to forget that even if 66 % of national aid in total goes to the less developed areas, the considerable economic resources of some wealthy Member States enable them to subsidise areas which, even though they may be less well developed at the national level, are not among the most disadvantaged in the European Union.
That, of course, goes against both the principles of competition and the need to achieve economic and social cohesion, because it means that already wealthy regions grow still wealthier, so widening the gap compared to the European Union's less developed areas.
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<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Vallvé">
Madam President, Commissioner, I should first like to congratulate Mr Azzolini on his report, particularly as it deals with such a complex and complicated issue.
In the context of competition policy a ban on state aid should guarantee the operation of the free market, and it is therefore necessary to regulate state aid and also regional aid in those Member States whose regions are empowered to grant it.
When identifying areas where such aid can be authorised - as provided for in Article 92(3)(a) and (c) of the Treaty - care must be taken to ensure compatibility with state aid to Objective 1 and Objective 2 regions.
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I shall now turn to the Objective 2 regions known as 'areas undergoing restructuring'.
State aid should be targeted at such areas: areas in the process of rural restructuring, with a low density of population, with population loss, and with an aging population.
State aid to such regions should certainly be authorised.
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Other areas undergoing restructuring are experiencing an industrial crisis of some sort, with high and rising levels of unemployment.
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In the areas where it is granted, state aid is important in order to supplement and guarantee better economic and social cohesion and also territorial cohesion.
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In conclusion, I should like to support what Mrs Riis-Jørgensen said concerning the need for transparency in connection with aid of this nature.
I believe such aid should remain available, but the process of awarding it ought to be as transparent as possible. It should also be made clear that in no way will this aid prejudice the freedom of trade and the single market which must prevail within the European Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Novo">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the basic issue raised by the Commission document involves deciding whether public, state or regional aid should be restricted territorially. As proposed by the Commission, this involves accepting the increasing and almost inevitable overlap between maps of Objective 1 and 2 regions and the map of regions which may be granted public aid.
This perspective does not seem quite right as, in our opinion, public aid must be granted whenever the social sustainability of certain sectors is at risk, particularly because of employment reasons, and also for many different reasons where problems of economic and social cohesion are involved, regardless of the location of the territory where these are occurring.
It is obvious that control and monitoring systems will be acceptable and necessary in order to prevent abuses and instances of unfair competition. However, these systems must not be confused with or turned into a comprehensive and universal obstacle to the granting of public aid where such abuses and instances of unfair competition are identified.
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In our opinion, Mr Azzolini's report, on which I congratulate him, does not tackle this question with sufficient clarity or depth.
However, it does deal adequately with the need to make the decision-making on specific regional situations more flexible.
If approved, the amendments, which deserve our support, should extend and increase the degree and scope of this flexibility.
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The Azzolini report also emphasises the priority given to the most disadvantaged regions, for obvious reasons of economic and social cohesion, the inclusion in the framework of possibilities of public aid for areas which will fall within the 'phasing-out' of the next Community Support Framework and the rejection of the Commission proposal to significantly reduce the state aid to be granted to the regions and sectors which need it and which will become eligible for it.
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Finally, on the plus side, we should note the reference made to the need to monitor and control the public aid granted to transnational undertakings in order to prevent them from relocating and to prevent them from taking advantage of public aid without developing long-term economic activities in the region.
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<SPEAKER ID=100 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Baggioni">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, regional policy and competition policy work towards objectives that do not seek to achieve the same outcome.
Competition policy is based on the principle of banning state aid to businesses, with derogations from Article 92(3)(a) and (c) that are restrictively applied in the free competition environment of the single market.
As for regional policy, it is based on the principle of providing aid for regional development by redistributing the Community budget, and it provides financial support for projects involving all the socio-economic actors in a particular region, including businesses, albeit in a minority capacity.
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If we want greater coherence we must draw a distinction between the two zoning systems when the diagnosis for certain regions indicates that it would be to their advantage.
The Member States must still be free to define their own business development policies, as if these were to be brought exactly into line with regional policy it would remove the specific benefits of the zoning of regional aid and the regional planning problems.
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Deciding on the level of coherence should be left to the Member States which, in any case, are responsible for submitting proposals for negotiation with the Commission.
The Commission must also realise that there is a risk it could harm many still fragile regions with its proposals for drastically restricting the intensity and duration of aid granted under Article 92(3). This is particularly true, as has just been said, of regions which will undergo a 'phasing out' period.
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Finally, as regards the list of regions assisted under Article 92(3), I should like to ask the Commission to reconsider the possibility of including the regions that the Amsterdam Treaty has acknowledged as having permanent handicaps, namely island regions, including those that are not eligible for Objective 1 status.
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<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioners, the Member State governments and you too, ladies and gentlemen, have always emphasised, in relation to Agenda 2000, that the Union's new structural policy must observe the guiding principles of concentration, efficiency and administrative agreement.
I would add that transparency must also be a basic guiding principle.
Accordingly the Commission has presented a proposal for implementing these principles and establishing broad coherence between the Structural Fund aid and national aid.
That is consistent and it is a sensible solution.
I hope the Member States also decide to follow that line consistently.
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What it so significant is that this is the only way to restrict competition about standards and the abuse of aid.
But we will also find that the different authorisation times in the different Member States will make it very easy to circumvent this.
So I ask the Commission to tell us how it proposes to organise the authorisation timing so as to prevent this from happening.
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Let me also point out that the Commission proposal does not deal with one particular problem, namely subsidy shopping.
National undertakings can still go on taking up aid unchecked and thereby damage regions.
So in that respect there are a few things missing in the proposal.
How are you going to resolve this question?
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<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Raschhofer">
Madam President, the Agenda 2000 proposals as also this report seek to strengthen the complementarity between competition and regional policy.
The arguments put forward for this are the ever widening divergences between policies and the overlaps in the various aid maps.
But those who support this approach are forgetting that the desired equal cover of national and EU aid areas makes it even more difficult for the Member States and regions to support their own problem areas by using their own resources.
That reinforces this policy of positive discrimination in favour of the most disadvantaged regions.
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In any case the objectives of Agenda 2000, namely greater concentration and coherence, already involve a serious cutback in aid to the relatively successful regions.
It would be not just absurd but in fact inconsistent with the very principle of subsidiarity to also deprive them de facto of the instrument of national aid.
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<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García Arias">
Madam President, I should like to congratulate the speakers, the Commissioner and his department on their reports. The public tend to perceive competition policy as essentially an economic issue.
They think of it as the system of ground rules governing the relationship between businesses in a market economy.
That is indeed what it is.
Yet they sometimes overlook the implications these arrangements can have for their daily lives as consumers and workers. In particular, they fail to appreciate the impact of these arrangements on their lives as ordinary citizens.
For instance, monitoring concentration of ownership and dominant positions will become increasingly important in view of globalisation and the development of new technologies.
This is particularly true in the energy and telecommunications sectors, the information society and the audio-visual industry. As far as these are concerned, not only is concentration taking place, but enterprises are becoming increasingly interrelated both amongst themselves and with the financial groups which control decision-making bodies.
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This is why public statements such as those made by the Commission Director-General responsible for energy are so alarming and a cause of such concern to all democrats.
I should like to take this opportunity of countering the Director-General's remarks.
They stem from a reprehensible philosophy of secrecy and confidentiality - in the worst sense of the word - which would confine debate on matters directly affecting consumers and citizens to the European Commission's offices. Such matters ought of course to be debated instead in the marketplace and with as much exhibitionism as possible.
I quote from Mr Benavides' derogatory description of the parliamentary debate taking place in my country.
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It is far easier for the economic and strategic power groups we sometimes euphemistically term lobbies to penetrate the Commission's offices than it is for the ordinary consumer or for the ordinary citizen to do so.
It pains me to say this, as the Director-General responsible for energy is a Spanish official, but it appears that where the so-called 'transitional costs' relating to competition in the Spanish electricity sector are concerned, he has departed utterly and absolutely from the principles of neutrality and objectivity. As the relevant political authority, the Energy Commissioner should immediately relieve him of responsibility for this matter, as this is the second time Mr Benavides has allowed himself to be swayed by external pressure and because considerable misgivings have been expressed in Spain as to his objectivity and impartiality in this regard.
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I do not expect the Commissioner responsible for competition policy to comment at the moment.
I am confident that a thorough and objective study of the legality of this aid will be undertaken, bearing in mind the needs of consumers and small enterprises. They should, in theory, be the ultimate beneficiaries of the free market and of liberalisation, yet in this instance, they have come out unanimously against this aid - aid which I consider to be illegal.
They will be forced to pay for it through their electricity bills, like a modern generation of feudal serfs. Not only will they have to pay for the losses the liberalised companies will allegedly incur over the next ten to fifteen years in a situation of free competition, but this will be covered by a legal argument alleging that the electricity companies have an acquired right to be indemnified or compensated.
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I believe this would mean setting a serious legal precedent in the liberalised sectors, which has in fact already been invoked by Telefónica, the company which until recently held the monopoly over the telephone service in Spain.
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Madam President, it is consumers and citizens who are the touchstone where liberalisation is concerned.
If the European Union cannot guarantee that they will not be crucified by the processes of liberalisation, the European institutions, including our own, will become ever more distant from the citizens.
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<SPEAKER ID=104 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Madam President, I want to confine my comments to two aspects.
First, let me unreservedly agree with what is stated so clearly for the first time in paragraphs 17 to 20 of Mr Azzolini's excellent report: tourism is a good thing!
For many parts of Europe tourism is the key to survival.
But subsidised tourism is a bad thing, it is unacceptable, because it does not produce sustained structural improvement but simply throws away and wastes huge amounts of European money.
When an undertaking that receives a large amount of aid relocates to the next place, it generally leaves far more damage than useful things behind it.
So let us put an end to this nonsense as quickly as possible!
Let the Commission apply its collective wisdom to finding good solutions.
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This brings me to the second aspect I want to address. We also need good solutions to Agenda 2000 as a whole and to structural reform in particular.
We need these good solutions quickly.
We have barely two months left under the German Presidency's new timetable and we have to put this time to good use.
The Commission and the European Parliament have done good work together in the past months.
Now the Council has to show that it can reach consensus.
It will certainly not be easy to accommodate fifteen different opinions on this difficult subject.
The Council must now show that it is prepared to cooperate with the Commission, but also and in particular with Parliament, which has been playing a very responsible part in this process so far and sought to find common, rational and objective solutions, but which must now also attach great importance to being included in the final decisions.
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We cannot wait another seven years for the assent provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty to enter into force.
We want to have a constructive say now.
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<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Gallagher">
Mr President, at the outset I want to congratulate both rapporteurs on the presentation and, of course, the preparation of their reports.
I, of course, agree that the internal market for the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital should operate in an even-handed manner.
For an internal market to succeed, all regions within Europe must be able to economically compete effectively in such an arena.
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At present there are some regions within my country and within Europe lagging behind the European Union average for economic performance.
It is only right and proper that the poor, disadvantaged and peripheral parts of Europe, namely Objective 1 regions, continue to be entitled to grant aid to the industries setting up within their region to the maximum of 40 % or indeed higher, if necessary.
The Commission has already brought out new revised state aid guidelines which have been approved by the 15 Member States of the Union.
These guidelines provide that Objective 1 regions will be entitled to grant aid to endogenous and inward investment companies setting up within their localities to a ceiling of 40 %.
Non-Objective 1 regions within the Union will be entitled to grant aid to industry to a limit of 20 % only while those areas within the Union, which are doing better than the Community average, will only be entitled to grant aid to industry to 10 %.
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This may appear unfair competition but it is necessary to bring the less well off regions up to a Union average.
I agree with the state aid guidelines and, of course, favourable state aid policies to Objective 1 regions, including my own constituency of Connaught-Ulster, will go a long way to ensuring the creation of long term sustainable jobs in the region.
It is also important that such policies are complemented by a higher proportion of spending under the ERDF so as to guarantee that any infrastructural deficit which exists in our transport network is rectified in the near future.
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<SPEAKER ID=106 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Azzolini for his excellent report.
As regards the Commission's proposal concerning regional aid, I find it both unacceptable and ridiculous.
The reason for this is that the Commission is proposing that only those areas which receive EU aid should be eligible for national regional support.
This implies that the Commission does not believe that the Member States are capable of conducting a regional policy which is in the interests of the respective countries and their citizens.
Instead, everything is to be centralised and managed through the EU and Brussels.
Decentralisation and flexibility are conspicuous by their absence.
It is not that I am opposed to a policy on regional aid, it is the way in which national regional aid is to be distributed that I find unacceptable.
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Sweden has a long tradition of regional aid, the purpose of which is to achieve a balance and to iron out differences between the various regions.
It was implemented in the interests of social solidarity and was an extremely costly process.
However, it was worth the expense and was a sound move, in my view.
The Commission's proposal rules out this kind of social and economic solidarity, which is a mistake.
Consequently, I believe the rapporteur has tried to remedy the worst deficiencies of the Commission document, and that Mr Macartney has also tabled a good amendment which I shall support and which substantially improves the report.
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<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Moretti">
<SPEAKER ID=108 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Karamanou">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the need for additionality and coordination between the competition policy and the Union's regional policy, aiming to provide equal development opportunities for all the regions and to secure economic and social cohesion, is one which I hope we all understand, along with the need for Europe's economy to adapt and respond successfully to the new worldwide competitive environment.
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A Union with huge differences in economic and social development between its various regions certainly can be neither credible, nor viable, nor competitive.
That is why the policy of economic and social cohesion, real economic convergence, a reduction of inequalities between the regions, the concentration of resources upon the Union's poorest areas and solidarity between Europeans are the essential parameters for a development which will be the more effective and competitive the more fairly it is distributed.
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It is a fact that the European regional policy has led to great improvements in the development rate of areas which were characterised by macroeconomic imbalances and low competitiveness, such as Greece.
However, there are still important regional inequalities which could become more acute, as a general phenomenon, as a result of economic and monetary union and the Union's enlargement.
So the policy of economic and social cohesion is a long-term and continual process which, in any event, must be compatible with competition policy if it is to be effective.
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However, it is known that several Member States are pursuing national strategies and state subsidy policies which are in many respects incompatible with the European cohesion policy to combat regional inequalities.
Indeed, if we include all the horizontal branch and regional forms of aid, it becomes evident that it is the wealthier areas which benefit most, and not the disadvantaged areas.
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For that reason, I think the Commission's proposals, and in particular the efforts by the Commissioner responsible, Mrs Wulf-Mathies, to achieve a new, fair and efficient regional aid system are on the right lines, and we support them.
However, I have a slight reservation concerning the extent of permitted aid for Objective 1, which could have an adverse effect upon the achievement of economic and social cohesion, as Mr Azzolini very rightly and appropriately pointed out in his excellent report, on which I congratulate him.
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<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Thyssen">
Mr President, as is customary every year, the Commission's 27th report on competition policy provides a good picture of the Commission's thinking in this area and of its specific policy data.
Flexible operation of the single market can only be achieved, certainly following the launch of the euro, if competition conditions are fair not only in law but also in fact, and if there really is equality of opportunities for all businesses.
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The Commission's efforts to ensure that there is free competition within the single market are thus vitally important.
The Commission does good work here, and the fact that its decisions are not always palatable to those Member States which it is forced to reprimand in no way detracts from the value of that work.
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I must compliment the rapporteur, Mrs Riis-Jørgensen, on the work she has done.
I thank her for her fine and constructive cooperation, and all I can really say is that her report sets out what we in the PPE Group wished to say on the subject.
So I have nothing more to add, in point of fact.
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I just have one question for the Commission, a very specific question.
Last year, in June 1998, the Court of Justice ruled in a case against Italy's National Council of Customs Agents that people in the professions are entrepreneurs like anyone else and are subject to Articles 85 and 86 of the Treaty.
I should like to hear from the Commissioner whether that ruling has implications for all the regulated professions.
The PPE Group's view is that account must be taken of the special role of certain professions in the general interest of society.
We should have liked to know the Commission's thinking on this.
I appreciate that I am rather springing this on the Commissioner.
I do not necessarily expect an answer here and now, but perhaps a written reply?
Forgive me, Commissioner, for not waiting to hear your answer now, but there is a group of 100 people waiting for me 50 kilometres away.
Unfortunately, I have to leave the Chamber straight away.
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<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, I think it is very important that both Commissioners are here at the same time, so that we can speak about regional policy and competition policy together, and speak too about regional aid and state aid.
The Commission should make its work more effective, encouraging as great a degree of transparency as possible with regard to all public aid.
In my opinion it makes no difference whether it is a matter of state aid or regional aid.
We should be creating a situation where every citizen and business would at any moment in time be able to acquire information about how much state aid or regional aid has been granted to which project.
There should be a page on the Internet where information could be listed on all public aid in order to ensure transparency.
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Another issue I wish to raise is the importance of real commitment on the part of business to regional aid programmes.
Thus, if a company receives aid it must remain in the region.
It must stay there for at least five years and ensure that jobs are preserved.
It cannot just pack its bags the moment it has been given public aid.
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<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Cellai">
Mr President, we definitely need a strategy which targets better coordination of regional policy and competition policy at European level.
The Commission plans to reduce the percentage of the total population of the Union receiving state-funded regional aid over the period 2000-2006.
Geographic concentration is welcome if it serves to improve the effectiveness of this type of aid and create positive discrimination towards the less favoured regions, especially when 85 % of state regional aid for industrial projects today goes to the four richest Member States and only 8.3 % to the least developed four.
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In these lean years for employment, synergy between national aid and Community aid can open up new paths and inspire new hopes.
In particular, national regional aid could be granted to provide an incentive for productive investment, paying particular attention to the creation of jobs directly and indirectly linked to the investment.
Investment in jobs must then be maintained in the region concerned for at least five years, so that national aid does not encourage relocations.
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To conclude, while taking note of the guidelines imposed by the Commission, I am perplexed by certain points which do not seem to me to encourage greater economic and social cohesion, as rightly emphasised in the excellent Azzolini report.
I refer to the reduction in the maximum intensity of regional aid especially for the new Objective 2 regions, where the maximum intensity of aid is reduced from 30 % to 20 % or even 10 %, in which case these regions will receive less aid than they did in the past.
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In addition to that there is also a problem for the ultraperipheral and island regions which, because of their difficult geographic position and their particular intrinsic nature, are already amongst the least favoured regions in the whole Community.
As the elected representatives of the citizens of Europe, it is our duty to voice the needs of the people in the least favoured areas and to remain constantly vigilant to ensure respect for the fundamental principle of economic and social cohesion in the policies of the Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Read">
Mr President, I rise to speak on the competition report introduced by my colleague, Mrs Riis-Jørgensen, to whom I offer my congratulations on the quality of her work.
I want to particularly praise Paragraph 14, where she is asking the Commission to examine unfair practices and also Paragraph 22 which is recognising the need for increased consistency between national aid schemes, Union aid schemes and competition policy.
I want particularly to support the amendments from my colleagues Mr Hendrick and Mme García Arias which talk about the possible abuses of dominant positions.
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All over the European Union we are seeing a merging of the ownership of the old, publicly owned utilities: telecommunications with broadcasting, electricity with telecommunications, railway links used as telecommunication networks, gas companies investing in water and over all banks taking a major share in these utilities.
This is not, in itself, an unwelcome development but it does exacerbate the risk of an over-concentration of ownership of the essential utilities.
The whole point of the liberalisation process is that it should bring the benefits of efficient, competitive, consumer-sensitive utility supplies to be widely available to consumers, both domestic and business.
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The reported situation in Spain, therefore, is of major concern.
It would be against the whole spirit and letter of European Union competition rules if the costs of the transition to competition in electricity supply were to be met initially out of public funds and this then to be passed on to the consumer.
This is a most serious distortion of the level playing field, particularly if the money is then to be used to gain a share in other utility markets.
I hope that the Commission will deal with this point in response because it is particularly important that the issue is highlighted and that the Commission response is on public record.
The rapporteur in this report mentioned naming and shaming and on the basis of the evidence available, this is a situation of sufficient seriousness to merit a considered reply from the Commission.
I am sure that this will be forthcoming.
I have apologised to you, Commissioner, because I cannot stay.
My colleagues are going to take a careful note of your response.
I know that we will want to follow up this issue.
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<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldi">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Azzolini, on his excellent work.
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In the 1960s it was the European Assembly, today the European Parliament, which was concerned about regional imbalances, drafted the plan for regional policy and started the procedure for implementing it. 30 years later, the geographic distribution of economic prosperity, in other words the achievement of economic and social cohesion, constitutes Parliament's, and especially our political group's, main interest.
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Certainly, ever since the Treaty of Rome, competition policy has been an integral part of the European economy as an essential factor in competitiveness for each of the European regions, whether less favoured or developed.
Before the Treaty of Maastricht, competition policy and the policy of economic and social cohesion ran parallel, but with the new provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty, currently in the process of ratification, it has become necessary to strengthen the complementarity and balance between them, given that cohesion, which expresses the duty of solidarity between the Member States, has become the priority for the construction of Europe.
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There is a danger, which is that aid from the European Union to particular regions may distort work already in progress in the market in favour of certain areas.
Here the rapporteur has highlighted the importance of having competition rules capable of guaranteeing the proper and transparent operation of the internal market, bearing in mind that exceptions to free competition, in the form of aid to Member States, are justified for the purpose of preserving economic and social cohesion.
While, on the one hand, the European Union's structural policy has contributed to reducing the existing development disparities, in particular in the cohesion countries, on the other hand it has also led to an ever-growing number of objectives, programmes and Community initiatives, a fragmentation of subsidies, and a complex and inconsistent approach to zoning.
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I think the rapporteur's approach to all this is fundamentally correct and I hope Parliament will follow his lead.
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<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="David">
Mr President, I welcome very much the Azzolini report and I agree with the essential arguments which are put forward.
Although the European Union's competition policy and its regional policy have very different roots, there is now an obvious need to have greater coherence and consistency on coordination between, on the one hand, national state aids, competition policy and the European Union's regional policy.
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I have to say that I have one reservation and that is whether we should have virtually total co-terminosity between the two kinds of maps that we are talking about.
I fear that we could be aiming at uniformity for the sake of uniformity.
I really believe that there is a real need for a measure of flexibility, that recognises that there are particular situations in different parts of the Union.
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Flexibility is needed essentially because we are talking about two different kinds of aid.
On the one hand, there is aid for developing the infrastructure and human resources of the less prosperous regions.
That is done through the European Union's structural funds.
On the other hand, there is aid for particular industries and enterprises through national state aids, like regional selective assistance in the United Kingdom.
That is national state aid.
In many cases, of course, the two will naturally go together.
But in some instances we need to acknowledge that to help certain areas we sometimes need to support industries that are adjacent to Objective 1 and 2 areas.
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Why do we need to do that?
One simple reason is that people are increasingly travelling significant distances to work on a daily basis.
To help people in one area occasionally you have to allow state aid to industries in another area.
Often, of course, firms developing in one particular area help the region immediately next to it.
There is a knock-on effect to economic development.
Therefore, there is a strong case for flexibility and with that one reservation I support Mr Azzolini's report in total.
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<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="McCartin">
Mr President, I agree with Mr Azzolini when he says that regions which are coming out of Objective 1 must not be treated as strictly as the Commission is proposing to do.
Regions that have just emerged from a state of low economic development usually suffer from serious deficiencies in their infrastructure.
<P>
In the case of Ireland where I come from, it is estimated that it would take 10 billion euro to bring our road networks up to the average EU standard, even if we have just enjoyed six years of very generous structural funds.
In all the regions of the EU which are just emerging from economic backwardness we must realise that there is still a serious burden of the past to be carried.
Until genuine economic equality has been achieved the Commission must be extremely careful not to impose rigorous harmonisation which could lead to a reversal of gains already made.
<P>
The Commission must also be aware that countries that have oppressive tax regimes, which are retarding economic growth and creating unemployment, are sometimes the authors of their own misfortune and it is their national policies that drive some industries to locate elsewhere.
Such tax regimes must not be imposed by the Commission as the norm for the EU as a whole.
Rather, we must promote as normal for all Member States the tax regimes which have been shown to be successful.
The basis for the European convergence model must be the successful tax regimes rather than the ones that are creating difficulties.
<P>
It is important to explain to EU citizens that they can only enjoy free trade and the benefits that it brings if they are prepared to have a body to enforce discipline and fairness.
There will always be those who will attack the efforts of the European Commission as bureaucratic interference but we must be prepared to explain to our citizens that they can only enjoy consumer benefits within a single market if fairness and equality is enforced.
It is also fair to say that levels of preferential treatment, either in the form of tax concessions or grant aid, that are not acceptable within a Member State are also unacceptable within the European Union, whether these are in the form of benefits that come from the EU or from national governments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the deepening of the single market, the creation of economic and monetary union and the globalisation of markets change the conditions of competition and the rules of play in competition policy, not just at international level but at European level too.
When I look at the Commission's report on competition policy, I find that it addresses many of these new problems and also considers the fact that in an era of globalisation we will have to reckon with an increasing number of mergers, of forms of cooperation and mega-mergers.
However, I wonder whether we always draw the right distinction between strategic alliances and the possible emergence of monopolies, which would be harmful to competition.
When I look at the Communities' competition law in regard to, for instance, cartels and subsidies I find, however, that it is in fact being reviewed continuously and as required.
<P>
In regard to state aid it certainly needs emphasising that this aid is still needed.
But we have good reason to criticise the very high subsidies granted in a few Member States.
It is also right to criticise the fact that increasingly few resources are being made available for the aid agreed under the common market rules, in the field, for instance, of small and medium-sized undertakings, environmental protection, research and development, while more and more aid is being given to individual undertakings.
That is certainly not in the common interest of effective, free and fair competition.
<P>
At this moment in time, distortions of competition as a result of tax aids are more important.
Not enough cases of this kind are being investigated.
More and more Member States want to attract business to their national locations by granting tax reliefs to undertakings, in the financial and insurance sector, as also in other economic sectors.
That distorts competition.
I believe the aid rules must look more closely into these distortions of competition.
The Commission must investigate more of these cases.
The list of 85 cases of tax reliefs, some of which are reminiscent of tax havens, currently before us speaks volumes.
<P>
The Commission must also play its part in preparing the next round of WTO talks, for we do need competition law that also works at international level.
Here the current GATT and WTO rules need to be supplemented by internationally effective competition rules.
I believe it would be important to have national reports on competition, like the WTO national trade reports.
I also believe it would be important to try to establish minimum standards for all states in order to prevent anti-competitive practices, and to set up independent competition authorities.
That could lead to effective, international competition rules under which the signatory states undertake also to make their national competition law internationally applicable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Viola">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioners, I want to begin my speech by congratulating Mr Azzolini on the excellent work he has done on his report on competition and cohesion.
<P>
Moving on to the substance, I want to say right away that the idea that the two maps used by DG IV and DG XVI should coincide might actually make sense if, in applying all its financial and constitutional instruments, the European Union would deal with the geo-economic problems by implementing Community competition and cohesion policies in the same way. Failing that, it would make more sense to leave the Member States free to act where the Union is not in a position to do so, although within the limits laid down by the regulations of the two separate Community policies, or, alternatively, to support countries or take their place where Community resources and, above all, the European logic dictated by the requirements of the single currency market permit this.
<P>
The Treaty of Rome defines competition policy in order to eliminate any form of distortion likely to interfere with the free play of market forces.
From Rome to Maastricht it was recognised that we needed a cohesion policy geared to strengthening the less favoured regions of the Union, thus substantially pursuing the same purpose - a homogeneous common market.
Between Maastricht and Amsterdam the aim was adjusted, as it was recognised that the free play of competition and market homogeneity could only be achieved through a policy of economic and social cohesion that paid more attention to territorial reality.
It is in that spirit that the Amsterdam Treaty adds, for example, a reference to the island regions, so that they can start from a level playing-field and compete on an equal footing while respecting market forces.
<P>
Now, on the other hand, we are seeing a development in competition policy, which is attempting to take account of cohesion policy by including it in its most important regulations, but all it is really doing is complicating those regulations.
In fact, on the say-so of the Commission and regardless of Parliament's opinion, only the island regions will be left on the sidelines, and the Commission will have to explain to them why, in addition to losing Community aid, they are also going to lose national aid, or why, faced with the Community's refusal to take their case into consideration, notwithstanding the Treaty, and for the sake of consistency with what DG IV wants, they will no longer be able to seek the state intervention which allowed them to compensate for the competitive disadvantage they suffer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Metten">
Mr President, regional policy and competition policy can be complementary and need not conflict with one another.
It is the wealthy Member States which make greatest use of the instrument of state aid, and cutting down on this by a more rigorous implementation of competition policy will definitely help the poorer Member States by creating a level playing field.
<P>
But regional policy can actually lead to unintentional distortions of competition.
I am not talking here about explicitly giving preference to the poorest regions, because that is what we are trying to do.
What I am talking about is regions which cannot, by any criterion, be deemed still to need assistance, but which continue to receive a great deal of aid and are also able to benefit from discriminatory tax regimes because they did need assistance in the past.
<P>
Our regional policy is too slow to react to change.
Part of the reason for this is that we take a decision just once every six or seven years on which regions qualify for aid, and we do that on the basis of figures which are already a few years old.
Thus it can happen that Ireland is still an Objective 1 region in 1999, the criterion for which is a GDP of less than 75 % of the Union average.
Yet Ireland's GDP in 1997 was already above the Union average, and the following year it was actually 116 % of average GDP for the Union.
<P>
To say that a country like Ireland has to adjust to no longer being an Objective 1 region under the new financial perspective and that it therefore needs both operating and investment aids for a few more years, whilst discriminatory tax regimes can continue till the year 2010, seems to me too daft for words, because that aid enables Ireland to lure firms away from other Union countries which are now poorer than Ireland.
<P>
The statement in the Azzolini report that the provisions are too strict for initial investment for whose who have since become too rich will certainly be too much for some of my group to swallow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fernández Martín">
Mr President, I should like to thank Commissioners Wulf-Mathies and Van Miert for their presence here today.
There is no doubt that to date the single market, together with its necessary consequence, economic and monetary union, has been the greatest achievement of the process of building the new Europe.
Such success would not have been possible without a policy guaranteeing competition as the best security for economic growth and job creation.
Nevertheless, free competition and growth must never compromise social and economic cohesion, key elements of the acquis communautaire , to which the Union devotes a significant proportion of its budget.
<P>
I should like to focus on the need to tackle the thorny issue of state aid.
According to the existing arrangements, agreements between enterprises, the abuse of dominant positions and unjustified state aid are regulated by constant monitoring to safeguard competition.
However, what sort of aid could be justified?
This is not a trivial question and has never been clarified, though the Commission attempted to do so in 1975, 1979 and 1988.
The interpretation of Articles 92(1), 92(3)(a) and 92(3)(c) still gives rise to a number of problems.
As regards the regions with the greatest objective and structural deficits, the only possible interpretation has to be the one that will provide for the greatest development of these areas.
Any other interpretation would certainly be branded as eurocentrist, difficult to justify and therefore unacceptable.
<P>
Mr Van Miert is a politician and not a technical expert.
He will surely understand that I would be failing as a politician if I did not take advantage of his presence here today to enquire about the current position regarding the problem being discussed by the Spanish Government and his department in connection with state aid to the Canary Islands.
I realise this is not the time for him to give me a detailed report, but I trust he will be able to give his opinion on the state of the discussions, and reassure public opinion which is very sensitive to this issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Walter">
Mr President, Commissioners, Mr Azzolini's report on the links between regional policy and competition policy is a most important one. It deals with concerns that directly affect the people in the Member States and the regions.
The resolution may not have any direct impact on the progress of the regional policy reform, yet it must be regarded as directly linked to it, given that we are talking about coherence between European and national regional aid.
<P>
Some Member States have no problem with the requirement of coherence which the Commission is laying down in order to secure its competition policy aims because almost their entire territory is covered by European aid.
But the situation is different in some other countries.
Here the dual approach of concentrating the European objective areas on the essential ones, which is right, while at the same time calling for maximum coherence with national aids, sometimes imposes a double burden that is very difficult in regional policy terms.
How can we explain to the people living in the regions concerned that both European and national aid is prohibited, despite the imminent threat of unemployment, despite the absence of promising job prospects?
<P>
It is a contradiction in terms for the Commission quite rightly to provide for multiannual transitional periods for phasing out European aid, which ensures that the regions have time to adjust, while using a sledge hammer to reduce national aid and calling for this to be phased out as quickly as possible.
The 2 % flexibility margin is not enough, nor is it convincing.
Nor is there any justification for it being 2 % rather than more or less.
That does not mean that the Commission's endeavour to bring about greater coherence is wrong as such.
In the long term we need a more balanced coverage if we want to avoid distortions of competition.
But the Commission is not taking sufficient account of the special problems of the regions when it subordinates everything to the imperative of free competition and tries to cut back European aid while at the same time taking away any means of granting national aid to compensate for this in a flexible manner.
That would take away any chance of adjustment for many of the regions.
<P>
In that respect I welcome the fact that agreement seems to be emerging between the Council and the Commission on taking a more flexible approach to the flexibility question, on not specifying any target dates and giving the Member States more margin for decision.
So the discussion we held in Parliament has had the desired effect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Mr President, we have arranged that I will speak first and try to respond to Mr Azzolini's report.
My colleague Mr Van Miert will then address the many concrete questions raised in connection with the competition report.
<P>
First I want to thank Mr Azzolini for his most interesting and careful report.
I am also grateful that we agree at least on the question of principle, namely that we need greater coherence between national and regional aid policies.
Let me emphasise again, as others have rightly said, that different problems are involved here.
In relation to Objective 1 we already have equal cover between competition aid and regional aid from European resources.
So no problems can arise here, whereas problems can indeed arise in areas where we have less competition aid and where the need for concentration - for Agenda 2000 to lead to greater geographical concentration - basically means that the aid must be reduced from two sides.
<P>
Nevertheless I believe that we must begin by emphasising the logic of our policy.
For it makes no sense, given that we concentrate European resources on a minimum number of eligible regions, namely those that have to undergo the biggest structural adjustment processes, for us then to allocate all the resources to these regions, not just European money but also the higher aid intensity.
It makes no sense to embark on a kind of division of labour that would mean that European structural policy looked after the less eligible areas and that national aid was then concentrated on the areas most in need of structural adjustment.
I do not think that would be logical.
What we are in fact proposing is to widen the Member States' regional margin for play, for as a rule national competition aid covers areas wider than those that can be supported through the Structural Funds.
That means that over and above European structural aid the national states and the regional authorities have a variety of means of supporting their structurally weak areas.
<P>

Mrs Randzio-Plath was quite right when she said that unfortunately far less use is made of aid that is authorised, aid for environmental improvement and technological development, than of aid for individual undertakings, which very often does not offer any guarantee that this investment will lead to integrated regional development.
That is why I believe that it does indeed make sense to establish more congruence between Objective 2 aid and Article 92(3)(c).
<P>
A number of Members have pointed out that on 25 January this year the Foreign Ministers' Council reached agreement on a compromise, which I shall briefly describe to you because it is important to your further discussions.
Let me take up what Mr Rack said, namely that Parliament can play a careful part in the discussions and in seeking Agenda 2000 solutions only if it also has the appropriate information.
I shall therefore read out part of the Foreign Ministers' agreement: 'In the interests of efficient programme planning, the regions undergoing economic and social adjustment must to a large extent be the same regions that are assisted by the Member States under Article 92(3)(c).
Here the Community's aim should be to achieve better coherence by the end of the period 2000 to 2006, with the Member States making the appropriate efforts - in accordance with their situation at the time.'
<P>
As I am sure you will notice, this is not necessarily the most direct way of saying that we want to improve the situation.
And I am sure it is no secret either that Mr Van Miert and I myself would certainly have wished to see better coherence.
Nevertheless, I believe that the compromise the Council has now reached will at least lead, on the one side, to rather more flexibility, which is something Parliament has always called for, but - and I believe it is important to note this, given also what Mrs Schroedter said - will also impose an obligation on the Member States to contribute through this regulation to a greater concentration.
Mrs McCarthy may no longer be here, but I would say that consensus will win the day only if we actually succeed in the end in bringing about greater coherence, not because we are purists or take fundamentalist positions in the Commission, but because that is the only way we can actually achieve the effects we want.
<P>
In regard to timing, the problems of competition policy and structural policy do indeed differ.
We take the view that the agreement that has now been reached in regard to the common communication will help us find sensible and closely coordinated solutions in both competition and structural policy.
Regarding subsidy shopping, let me point out that we are calling for a certain sustainability of investment for both policies, to ensure that once they have pocketed the aid undertakings do not then relocate and then claim new aid, be it national or European.
<P>
In relation to structural policy I just want to point out that I believe that if the monitoring committees play more part in the evaluation and are also given a more substantial role, there will be careful discussion about the sustainability of the investments and that the a major criterion for granting or not granting aid will be whether the assisted undertaking really is established in that region.
That could mobilise a substantial steering instrument.
I hope that in future the monitoring committees will ensure this too.
<P>
Let me return now to the concentration of aid on the most disadvantaged regions.
During this debate many speakers have said that this concentration is the crux of the reform and that without concentration any positive effects for poorer regions would be reduced out.
That is why I think it is so important that we do not counteract our own endeavours by watering down the 75 % criterion.
For the rest, the ultraperipheral regions do not face any problems, because they all fulfil the strict 75 % criterion.
In the case of Objective 6 regions we must indeed differentiate, as we must for islands, because there the state of development differs widely and we must all take that into consideration.
We would be doing ourselves no favour if we said that exceptions would guarantee everyone their own special rules; instead we must ensure that the level of aid is adjusted to the severity of the problems.
<P>
In that sense I hope we will agree during the further discussions on Agenda 2000, and above all its implementation, on the need jointly to promote the necessary coherence so that the structurally weakest areas can catch up.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="Van Miert">
Mr President, firstly I should like to offer my sincerest thanks to the two rapporteurs, Mr Azzolini and Mrs Riis-Jørgensen.
This is not the first time that I have had the pleasure of debating our annual report in person here with Mrs Riis-Jørgensen.
I am truly delighted by the quality of the reports, and also of the debate.
As a result, it is rather a shame, Mr President, that there is so little time to respond to the many comments made and real issues mentioned.
Therefore, I would like to ask you to forgive me for only responding to a few of the points that have been raised, but this is down to necessity.
<P>
Firstly, I should like to answer Mrs Riis-Jørgensen's question about democratic control and transparency.
It is a fundamental issue as the Commission has a direct and specific responsibility in this field.
It is both logical and necessary that, at any point in time, the Commission should be prepared to appear before Parliament or before the responsible committees to explain the decisions that it is taking or refusing to take.
<P>
Mrs Riis-Jørgensen, I am fully prepared to commit myself to coming here every month and talking to the responsible committee, which is much more than the three visits a year that were made a few years ago.
This is all I ask.
I am in your hands.
There are plenty of issues and problems to debate.
So it is up to you: if you invite me each month, I will be here.
<P>
With that said, I should very quickly like to turn to the report by Mr Azzolini, as Mrs Wulf-Mathies has already responded to a number of comments.
We need to agree on the objectives of this process.
Currently, 51 % of the population live in regions eligible for Structural Fund aid, and 47 % in regions eligible for national or regional aid.
With enlargement on the horizon, and bearing in mind that all the countries involved will be eligible for such aid, our policy is threatening to become illogical, given that the aim of regional policy is to help the regions in greatest need.
Therefore, we, Mrs Wulf-Mathies and ourselves, must now work together to try to reduce the number of eligible regions. We must make an effort to concentrate aid and try to be as consistent as possible.
And I am delighted by the fact that, at Commission level, we have been able to reach an agreement on this.
<P>
This is a rather delicate and at times politically difficult operation because even reducing the number of eligible regions by only 4 % - and reducing them from 47 % to 43-42.7 % is not difficult - is already causing a great deal of political upset.
Even a small reduction spurs all manner of forces into action, standing up to demand that their region remain eligible.
But if we do not do this, I feel that we will not be doing our job or our duty given the forthcoming enlargement of the European Union.
Therefore, we must work along these lines and accept that our policy will have certain effects.
<P>
We also need to decrease the intensity of aid.
On many occasions you have specifically criticised the problem of relocations.
Such relocations can be explained by the fact that sometimes, in certain regions, the intensity of aid is such that firms leave other eligible regions to move to regions where the intensity of aid is much greater.
You have called on us to do something about this.
<P>
So, in answer to your request, we are reducing the differences in intensity whilst also remaining within acceptable limits as the limit for A regions is 40 or 50 %.
For the outermost regions the limit may be even more, but for C regions I believe that an intensity of 20 % is a suitable ceiling and, in certain circumstances, could even drop to 10 %.
As a result, I believe that this is a better balance and, what is more, the national authorities will still be able to do a lot for the most needy regions.
Therefore, in the future, our policy will be much more balanced than before.
<P>
I will finish there on your report as there are a number of questions on Mrs Riis-Jørgensen's report also awaiting an answer.
Firstly, there is the general question of state aid.
Many of you have said that the economically most developed countries award the most aid.
This is indeed true, and it is also why we are trying to be much stricter.
I can tell you that, last year, we made a series of negative decisions on state aid, as many as 31, compared with only 9 in 1997.
This is clear proof that, little by little, we have become far stricter, as should be the case.
You know what the consequences of this are, sometimes involving disputes with governments, regional authorities and so on.
But that is the price that has to be paid for a more credible, consistent and coherent state aid control policy.
There is no other solution.
We must be sure of what we want.
<P>
Having said this, there are grounds for forging ahead with this issue.
Mr Metten talked specifically about fiscal aid.
Mr Metten, as you know we currently have approximately thirty cases to consider, but I should like to ask you where I can find the human resources to do so.
Once again, we have been given an extra job to do, which we are quite prepared to do as there is a need for it, but no one in the Council of Finance Ministers has asked if DG IV has the means to do this job.
No one has asked if we have the tax consultants to do it.
No one has asked this question.
Once again, we have been given an additional responsibility, which we would indeed like to carry out, but for goodness' sake, from now on, there should be more consistency by giving us the means we need to carry out this type of work.
<P>
As regards state aid, I would particularly like to mention the matter of the energy sector in Spain very briefly.
I am aware that this issue is gaining extraordinary political proportions.
This is how the situation stands. Firstly, the Spanish authorities would like to liberalise the energy sector more rapidly than in other Member States or than stated in the directive, and we can only welcome this.
This much is clear.
Secondly, it is true that this operation, not only in Spain but in other Member States, will involve what we call 'stranded costs', but in principle it is a state aid issue.
So the Commission and DG IV must be notified of all these cases, as well as DG XVII, so that we can examine them separately but coherently.
<P>
After the contact I had with the Spanish minister a few days ago, the Spanish Government has now agreed that it will also notify us of Spain's case. This will mean it can be examined by my service as it should be, in accordance with the principle that stranded costs should be classified as real costs linked to public service obligations previously imposed on businesses by the public authorities, and which now, in the liberalisation process, are in danger of causing the businesses involved to lose out.
This is the background to this whole exercise.
For the moment, I cannot say any more than that.
Once we have been notified, we will, of course, attempt to clarify the situation as quickly as possible.
<P>
Another issue is that of the Canary Islands.
We have already approved what we call REF, the economic and fiscal regime.
And now, we have been notified about the ZEC, as we call it - the Canaries special region.
The fact that the Canary Islands will remain an A region will clearly let us consider allowing more aid than if they had moved from an A ranking to a C ranking.
It allows for a broader based approach.
However, for the moment we are examining what the government has brought to our attention.
At this point, I cannot tell you any more.
<P>
Mr President, I see that I have already exceeded my speaking time.
Please allow me, by way of conclusion, to highlight an issue which unfortunately has not been fully debated here today, namely the modernisation of competition policy.
Mrs Riis-Jørgensen, I will take the liberty of suggesting a subject to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy so we can debate it.
You know that we have already taken a series of steps as regards state aid and in other areas such as vertical restraints, and so on.
But there are others and, very briefly, I should very much like to have an opportunity to discuss them with the responsible committee.
<P>
So we are attempting - and I will stop here - to ensure that our competition policy is more transparent, more efficient and more credible, but also that it is well enough prepared to face the challenges ahead.
Enlargement is one such challenge, and it is an extraordinary one. However, before the end of this Commission's term of office, we must also ensure that together we can say that we have done everything possible to prepare for the future and to allow the Commission to do its job properly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Climate change
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to report to you today on the results of the climate negotiations in Buenos Aires and the follow-up work for the coming months.
Parliament has put forward a very interesting resolution and I note with satisfaction that we are agreed on the great majority of points.
My assessment of the Buenos Aires conference is also that it was a success, although the overall result was limited.
<P>
To begin with the Community achieved its minimum objective, namely a Plan of Action with a Work Programme for concrete decisions on outstanding issues arising from the Kyoto Protocol and the Convention, which as you know will be taken up by the Sixth Conference of the Parties in less than two years' time.
<P>
Secondly, the EU played an important role in getting the G77 countries and China to the negotiating table, so that they could feel more closely involved in the process.
I continue to focus on better relations with the developing countries in connection with the preparations for the Fifth Conference of the Parties, not least by prioritising the practical formulation of the mechanism for sustainable development, the Clean Development Mechanism.
<P>
Finally, there is a commitment on the part of the Argentinian Presidency to strengthen political control of the process by holding ad hoc meetings at ministerial level in the enlarged Executive Committee between annual meetings of the Conference of the Parties.
I believe that such ad hoc meetings are crucial in keeping the process on the right track.
<P>
On the whole, therefore, I think that the Fourth Conference of the Parties succeeded in making good progress towards implementing the Kyoto Protocol.
As regards the individual parts of the Buenos Aires Plan of Action, I have the following comments to make: we have some hard work ahead of us in formulating detailed rules on the mechanisms, in particular because monitoring and recording are needed in order to prevent these mechanisms from being used as loopholes in the environmental legislation.
I therefore think it important that a decision should be taken at the Sixth Conference of the Parties on the three mechanisms together, so that the package will include a strong and cohesive system for monitoring the mechanisms.
<P>
We also want to continue the debate on how we can achieve the Convention's final objective, namely to prevent dangerous climate change, at the same time ensuring that the burdens are shared fairly and taking into account our common but differentiated responsibilities.
I call upon honourable Members to consider how we can best resolve this difficult question, especially having regard to the reluctance of the developing countries to take part in discussions on their own obligations, which was in fact again clearly demonstrated at the Fourth Conference of the Parties.
It is important that we do further work on implementing policies and measures to combat climate change, not just at international level but to an even greater degree in the EU and hence in the Member States.
I also agree with Parliament that we must concretise how we can achieve our aims, since good intentions are certainly not enough.
The Commission, Parliament and the Council must take their responsibilities seriously and come up with concrete actions and decisions.
<P>
In this connection, I stress that some important proposals have been presented which require a decision, for example the proposal on taxation of energy products.
I strongly urge Parliament to deliver its opinion on this proposal before the parliamentary elections, so that the new momentum from the German Presidency can be used to advantage and so that political agreement can be reached at the meeting of the ECOFIN Council in May.
<P>
In the field of taxation, our first objective must be to ensure that the proposal on taxation of energy products is adopted, since an increasing number of Member States now seem to agree that such taxation is necessary.
If the German Presidency does not succeed in bringing about agreement - which I certainly hope it will - we can still consider what we can do with the proposal for a CO2 tax, which was originally presented in 1992 and which, as you know, has not been withdrawn by the Commission.
<P>
With the Plan of Action and the internal policies and measures, our aim is that the Kyoto Protocol should be ratified and take effect as quickly as possible.
I am strongly in favour of speedy ratification.
But this means that we must put our own house in order, so that ratification will not be just an empty gesture.
In this context, the more proactive stance of certain American industrial interests in the effort to combat climate change and the signature of the Protocol by the USA can be regarded as positive steps.
There were signs in Buenos Aires of a more positive attitude on the part of certain sections of the American Congress.
But the goal has still not been attained, far from it, and honourable Members have a valuable role to play in continuing - as they did in Buenos Aires - to persuade their colleagues in the American Congress that the Protocol must be ratified.
Here I have to say that I am sceptical with regard to declarations from Argentina and Kazakhstan signalling their willingness to enter into a binding commitment at the Fifth Conference of the Parties.
In the long term it is important that the developing countries should be involved, but the real test of such voluntary commitments is their final effect in practice.
In order that a country can take advantage of the benefits of the Protocol, it must sign it.
It must also honour in full the obligations it has thereby taken upon itself.
Moreover, we must - as we have said before - ensure that we do not just get more hot air into the system through having unambitious objectives.
<P>
So let me come back to our internal programme of work.
As I already announced in September, I shall be presenting a communication in the spring of 1999.
This undertaking was welcomed by the European Council in Vienna, which concluded that it would take a decision on the basis of a report from the Commission on a comprehensive EU strategy for climate policy at its meeting in Cologne which, as you know, will be held at the beginning of June.
I entirely agree that we need a comprehensive EU strategy.
The year 2008 looks far ahead in the future, but we must act now if we are to have any chance of achieving our objective.
In the Commission communication therefore, we will concentrate on those elements that are crucial to ensuring that the EU can achieve its objectives.
These key elements include common and coordinated policies and measures, the Kyoto mechanisms and links with third countries.
The communication will contain a full analysis of the effects of the trade in emission rights, common implementation and the Clean Development Mechanism.
I assure you that I will do my utmost to expedite the adoption of this communication so that it can be presented promptly and be ready for the Cologne summit.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will say in closing that, generally speaking, I can support Parliament's resolution and I look forward to further very constructive cooperation in our common effort to combat climate change.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graenitz">
Mr President, may I remind the Commissioner that, according to one of our sayings, words and deeds are often oceans apart.
If we want to keep to the timetable that was drawn up in Buenos Aires and if we want to draw up our own timetable for that purpose, we shall have to cross those oceans together in the fastest possible time with the firmest measures we can implement, otherwise we shall be left sitting helplessly on one shore as the climatic disaster breaks out on the other.
<P>
I think it is essential, Commissioner, to do a number of things at international level.
One of these - and a very important one too - is to continue the dialogue with the developing countries that was so productive in Buenos Aires so that we can develop the proposals for the clean development mechanism together with these countries.
I also believe that, even though we have had little joy on this from the outset, we in the European Union must come up with some very specific proposals as to how emissions trading should ultimately work, how monitoring can be carried out and how individual emissions and reductions in emissions are to be assessed, so that we are armed with this information when the time comes.
<P>
I also believe it is essential to incorporate these issues more effectively into our strategies for negotiating the accession of the applicant countries to an enlarged Union.
In Kyoto, the countries whose applications are being considered for accession in the first wave undertook to make the same reductions in emissions as the Member States of the European Union.
The crux of the matter now, however, is to involve them in the preparation process, so that we do not have a situation in which they accede to membership of the Union without having made the necessary preparations and therefore cannot be integrated into the European system of burden-sharing.
<P>
I think some of my colleagues will want to deal in greater detail with European burden-sharing.
I only wish to say that, besides the coordination of national plans, it will also be necessary to ensure that we have the required legal bases at EU level and that we create such bases wherever they are lacking, because unless we pool our efforts we shall not achieve the goal we set ourselves in Kyoto.
<P>
I also believe that these measures will have to be accompanied by the development of safeguards in the areas of health, agriculture and ecological protection, because as the change in climate becomes ever more apparent, dangers will emerge that we may never have contemplated.
It is my belief that, as we prepare to enter the new millennium, we now have the opportunity to achieve sustainable development, rapid technological progress and above all a fairer distribution of the world's resources, and I hope we have the strength and the courage to grasp that opportunity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="Spencer">
Mr President, before I speak to the resolution, can I clear up a translation error.
In the English interpretation of what the Commissioner said, reference was made to the withdrawal by the Commission of the CO2 tax.
In fact, you were much wiser than that.
You did not withdraw the proposal, you amended it, and that amended proposal is still on the table and I hope the Council will take it up.
I trust that all the language versions will be consistent with what you actually said.
I am grateful for a copy of the text in English.
<P>
I had the honour to lead Parliament's delegation to the Buenos Aires Conference and the report from myself and other colleagues is available to Parliament.
In my view, COP IV was a moderate success dragged screaming from the jaws of what might have been a negotiators' deadlock.
The Buenos Aires Action Plan promises some progress by the time of COP VI in the year 2000.
For the first time it reflects interest in the principles of contraction and convergence and of global equity which this Parliament has voted for regularly.
<P>
My report draws attention to the helpful and positive role of the Commission in Buenos Aires for which I am grateful and for the courtesy which it showed towards Parliament.
My report also draws attention to the failure of the Council either to recognise, to use, or intelligently to consult MEPs during the course of the Conference.
The latest Council guidelines on MEP involvement, decided on a week before Buenos Aires, are positively insulting to Parliament.
I have raised the matter with the President and I hope that the Committee on Institutional Affairs would look at this in the context of the next IGC.
<P>
The Union learnt the lessons of our relative failure in Kyoto and reached out towards countries in the Group of 77, looking for allies in the cause of sanity in protecting the climate of the planet.
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I would like to use my last few seconds to make an appeal to the Commission.
Despite what the Commissioner said about the possibility of political progress between COPs, I should like to encourage the idea of a structural review of the whole process of the Conference of the Parties.
In my view at the moment it is far too prone to technical logjams stopping political initiatives.
The rhythm of the Conference of the Parties makes it difficult to take political initiatives between conferences.
<P>
I was in Bonn yesterday talking to Michael Zammit-Cutajar of the Climate Change Secretariat and I suggested to him that maybe the time had come for a structural review of the way we organise this whole process, perhaps using our old tried and trusted friend the Group of Wise Men - or Eminent Persons or whatever we call it nowadays - to stand back from the detailed negotiations and look at the destination of this process.
It seems to me, having been to all these COPs, that we are caught now between this being a continuing and at times difficult negotiation and, at the same time, being an institution with administrative responsibilities.
I hope the Commission will take up this suggestion.
I thank the Commissioner for her statement and I commend the resolution to the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is difficult to claim that Buenos Aires was really a success.
Whilst the Kyoto talks managed to agree on a reduction of greenhouse gases, regrettably no detailed rules were agreed on how exactly this should be achieved.
<P>
I think it is fair to say that the Union has done what it could, and I warmly congratulate Commissioner Bjerregaard on her hard work and determination.
We have the Buenos Aires action plan and we should give this our full attention, because important decisions will have to be taken at the climate conference in the year 2000.
<P>
I should like to emphasise two points.
Firstly, if the Kyoto protocol is to come into force, it has to be ratified by at least 55 of the parties which account for at least 55 % of all emissions.
We must keep hammering home the point that it is essential for the USA to ratify.
If the biggest polluter - the USA - and Russia do not ratify, for example, then Kyoto is meaningless.
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My second point is that emissions trading can only be allowed if the bulk of the effort is made at national level.
I quite agree with Commissioner Bjerregaard that we must set a ceiling on emissions trading.
We must not, so to speak, export the problem.
<P>
The positions of the Union and the USA are diametrically opposed to one another here.
The Union rightly maintains that action to combat climate change only makes sense if everyone plays their part.
And this has always been the position of Parliament, even if it is not explicitly stated in the resolution now before us.
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Finally, regarding the harmonised energy tax, we too are in favour of a tax of this kind, but provided it is fiscally neutral.
Our group has tabled two amendments calling for a harmonised tax, and they should be understood in that context.
<P>
I have one last question to the Commissioner.
Where does she stand on the question of a possible tax on aviation fuel, to be introduced at European level?
There are those who say, perhaps rightly, that the answer lies in better technology so that the level of emissions is reduced.
But the increase in air transport means that measures will definitely be needed in this area too.
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<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, how can one fail to agree with the Commissioner when she proposes specific measures, follow-up procedures, cooperation with developing countries and taxation in connection with the production of energy?
I am sure we all agree with her, particularly as she has put forward specific measures to ensure that what has been agreed is carried through.
According to scientific opinion and to the United Nations' report, 50 000 deaths and losses totalling 12 billion pesetas were caused by natural disasters in 1998. I do not myself believe these disasters were all that natural.
I am not sure what the losses amount to in euros, but 12 billion pesetas is certainly a lot of money.
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In my opinion, there are a lot of economic powers and governments that should be taking appropriate action, if only because of the economic consequences of these natural disasters. We, however, are going further, and we truly believe the European Union's proposal was the best, despite being rather cautious.
The European Parliament has expressed this view on several occasions.
<P>
Scientists also tell us that emissions must be brought down to between 50 % and 60 % of their 1990 levels, if we are to have a positive impact on climate change.
We are aiming at an 8 % reduction in the emission of six greenhouse gases.
If we do not even achieve that 8 % reduction, we shall be endangering the future of the planet.
<P>
We therefore welcome your proposals, Commissioner, provided you do ensure that the Member States comply with them. In particular, we should like to see the load spread fairly between industrialised and developing countries.
We are opposed to the idea of making developing countries start to pay, as the United States would have them do.
It is for us to pay.
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<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="Fitzsimons">
Mr President, I was part of the delegation with Mr Spencer and Mr Linkohr at the conference in Buenos Aires.
How one judges the conference is a matter of opinion.
Mr Spencer said it was a moderate success.
I think that is a fair description.
I recall Commissioner Bjerregaard saying at the press conference at the end that we would have wanted to achieve more, that we always do, but that this was as much as we could persuade the other parties to the conference to agree to.
The European Union showed real leadership, supported to a large extent by the candidate countries, the G77 and China.
<P>
I also recall the President-in-Office of the Council saying that at Kyoto we agreed on concrete reduction targets and greenhouse gas emissions by the industrialized countries.
In Buenos Aires we kept the momentum of Kyoto by establishing the action plan which was one of the objectives of Buenos Aires and deciding on other measures like the elaboration of a compliance system.
<P>
The international press treated the conference with a certain amount of cynicism; some called it a fiasco.
It was a difficult conference because there were long, tortuous and turgid negotiations but I cannot but support Mr Spencer and congratulate the Commission.
I also applaud the decision by the United States to sign the protocol.
While recognising that it may be a diplomatic formality, as we say in the resolution, at the same time it is very effective and signals a change of opinion in the United States.
<P>
We must also applaud the COP IV host countries, Argentina and Kazakstan for signalling their willingness to enter into a binding commitment at COP V to reduce their greenhouse emissions further.
That is progress of some sort, small though it may be.
So, it is a good resolution.
I support it as does my group and, along with Mr Spencer, I commend it to the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Fitzsimons, I would ask you not to exceed the time you have been allocated.
The services tell me we are running late.
I have no wish to cut you off, and I am confident you can regulate yourselves.
I know you are all very responsible and will take this reminder in the spirit in which it is meant.
Mrs Hautala now has the floor for one minute on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament.
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<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, the European Union has had a very positive role in worldwide negotiations, and, in my opinion, the Commissioner deserves personal recognition for this.
But at the same time the fact remains, and it gets ever more embarrassing from one day to the next, that the Union has not been able to take any decisions of its own which would lead to establishing its own commitments too.
For that reason it is vital that we debate the issue of energy taxation, something the Commissioner mentioned earlier.
It is also important that those countries that wish to go further than others can, in addition, adopt this original proposal for a carbon dioxide and energy tax.
It would be interesting to hear what estimates the Commission might have here.
We must remember that the Treaty of Amsterdam makes provision for a situation where some countries can move forward more swiftly than others, if those others are not ready.
But I am sure that industry has also realised that climate policy can give it a competitive edge, and this should be seized upon.
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<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Weber">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, was Buenos Aires a flop?
I do not think so.
It was not a flop, it just suffered from the last night at Kyoto when the Americans tried to introduce flexible mechanisms into the protocol without which they were not going to sign up.
It must also be said that the Conference President did not show the same diplomacy as Ambassador Estrada, who led the proceedings at Kyoto extremely well, but that is just a minor detail.
<P>
My group agrees with the idea of pursuing a 50/50 position in the flexible mechanisms. This means that at least 50 % of the reductions must be made at home before the flexible mechanisms may be used.
The European Union must continue to support this position.
<P>
I therefore agree with the introduction of the flexible mechanisms, which will finally allow the cost of emitting one tonne of carbon to be calculated in economic terms.
This will have repercussions on the tax systems of the industrialised countries which are included in Annex I. I particularly dislike the pressure put by the developed countries, in particular the USA, on the developing countries to undertake to reduce their emissions too.
It must be said that the developing countries, which are non-Annex I countries, do not even have any quota to sell under Article 6.
I recall a comment by the Chinese delegate at Kyoto, who said that the Americans have three cars per family whereas the Chinese go to work on foot and yet the Americans and the Europeans want to stop the Chinese from going to work on the bus.
We must be serious about this and rather more flexible with regard to the developing countries.
<P>
I would now like to turn to a subject of great interest to me, which is forestry.
The Kyoto Protocol stipulates that funding can be granted for reforestation, particularly for carbon sequestration and especially within the CDM or Clean Development Mechanism.
This can play an important role in allowing the industrialised countries to support and provide funding for reforestation projects in developing countries.
The NGOs concerned with the protection of the environment point out that it is essential that only projects which respect biodiversity are subsidised.
We must ensure that projects for intensively managed plantations are not subsidised at the expense of protecting biodiversity.
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<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, the outcome of the 1997 Kyoto conference on climate change was rightly seen as a turning-point, albeit only a first step in the right direction.
It represents a first attempt to reduce greenhouse gases and so halt the progress of man-made changes to the world's climate.
It is most important that the Kyoto Protocol should be speedily ratified by all the parties, notably the United States and Russia.
Pressure is building towards this, particularly amongst business circles in the United States.
<P>
It is clear that much remained to be done after Kyoto in terms of concrete follow-up.
The follow-up conference in Buenos Aires has resulted in a single programme of action with pledges and timetables.
That was a welcome development.
<P>
Much consideration must also be given to dialogue with the developing world.
But there is a danger that it may be restricted to the conclusion of agreements on emissions trading.
Firstly, in my view, the European Union itself must work to cut greenhouse gas emissions within the EU.
It is also very important to assist other countries, for example by the transfer of cleaner technology which can be provided through development aid.
It may be that emissions trading takes place within the continent of Europe.
Emissions trading will only take place with countries outside Europe if those countries actually take steps to reduce greenhouse gases.
If countries within the EU itself make an effort, this may encourage non-European countries to play their own part in cutting emissions.
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To achieve this reduction in emission levels, environmental policy needs to be incorporated into other policy sectors, such as energy, transport and agriculture.
Appropriate ways to do this are the promotion of efficient energy use, renewable energy and energy taxes.
Once again, I would advocate the introduction of a tax on aviation fuel.
<P>
Lastly, our responsibility for these issues is a shared one, but each individual country has an individual responsibility to contribute to resolving the problems too.
The individual citizen likewise has an individual responsibility.
So work is needed to create a worldwide awareness of the fact that things cannot go on this way and that a new model of sustainable economic development is needed, based on respect for the natural world and its Creator.
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<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kronberger">
Mr President, the slower-than-slow approach to reducing emissions that was adopted in Buenos Aires is like trying to have a wash without getting wet.
An effective policy on the global climate will not be achieved until the real cost of emitting active substances into the atmosphere is borne in full by the polluter.
For that to happen, we need a suitable legal framework.
The oft-repeated excuse that reducing emission levels is too expensive is suicidal.
A society that is unwilling to invest in the preservation of its own vital resources, and hence in the survival of the human species, is doomed to extinction.
The emissions catalogue that was negotiated in Buenos Aires is no way to tackle the problem.
In the long run, problems can only be solved at the point where they actually occur.
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<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Linkohr">
Mr President, I must say that one pleasant side-effect of the debates in this House on the global climate is that we are always in agreement.
That is the one ray of sunshine.
But when we compare our declarations of intent with the actual outcome, the picture begins to cloud over.
I shall simply use the figures I have obtained from the Commission.
Total CO2 emissions in the European Union rose by 2 % between 1990 and 1996.
In 1997 there was a small reduction, but the winter weather was mild in 1997, and there is nothing to suggest that we have wrought any fundamental changes.
The reduction we saw in the first half of this decade, which has now given way to further increases, can be explained away.
We replaced coal with gas.
We replaced oil with gas.
As a result of German reunification, an entire region was deindustrialised.
In addition, existing plants were modernised.
These are processes that will not be repeated.
In other words, accelerated economic growth in particular means that, by the year 2000, we must expect CO2 emissions to be higher - and indeed measurably higher - than their 1990 levels.
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Let me cite the example of my own federal state of Baden-Württemberg; it is quite a highly industrialised state.
Since 1995, per capita CO2 emissions have risen considerably there as a result of economic growth.
So the tide is definitely not turning.
That makes us stop and think.
Now of course we can say, 'Very well, we need to try harder' and so on.
But we have tried harder in some respects, as a result of which - and these too are Commission figures - there has been an average annual increase in energy efficiency of only 0.6 % since 1990, whereas 2 % increases were being achieved in the eighties and the late seventies.
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That too makes us stop and think.
It implies that we are capable of achieving less now than we could manage ten or fifteen years ago.
What we need - and this is addressed to the Commission and more especially, of course, to the Council - is an action plan with measurable targets.
I should really like to know exactly what each country and each industry has to do, what is expected in terms of transport policy and even what households should be doing.
Above all, we have to ask ourselves how this can be funded.
So how can it be funded?
And this brings me to my final recommendation to the Commission. Put something on the table here; suggest a way to reach agreement with the banks so that investments in the energy sector can be prefinanced, because funds are not being advanced at the present time for energy investments, and I believe this is the main reason why we are not making progress.
The technology is generally there, but the money is not!
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<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Pimenta">
Mr President, although Mr Linkohr has taken two-thirds of my speech, I am actually 100 % in agreement with what he has said.
I want to start by thanking the Commission and particularly the Commissioner for their work and personal commitment and also for the way in which, in Buenos Aires, they received and worked with the representatives of this House.
Unfortunately, the Council adopted an attitude which it cannot maintain.
In institutional terms, Parliament must now adopt a position in relation to the Council and each of the Presidencies, and before the next intergovernmental conference at that.
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The second part of my speech is connected with what Mr Linkohr said about policies and measures.
My concern is that reductions are not being made in many areas of the EU and in the majority of the world's countries.
In Portugal, for example, electricity consumption grew by 6 % last year, which was double the growth in production.
It is clear that this cannot go on.
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I support the Commission's intention to prepare a directive - which I would like to see as soon as possible - in order to establish certain compulsory minimum levels of penetration of renewable energy.
We have spoken to Commissioner Papoutsis and we agree that the directive is urgently needed.
The penetration of renewable energy in the market has been shrinking because of the fall in the price of oil and natural gas, and also given that the cost of energy does not currently include environmental costs.
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Secondly, we have the Structural Funds and the European transport network which are areas over which the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has some influence through the budget. The Member States must be forced to use this money to consider transport options which consume less energy.
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As for the applicant countries, PHARE and TACIS now have no influence over their energy consumption.
If this situation continues, Mr Linkohr's prediction will come true: as soon as the acute crisis has ended, emissions will increase.
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To conclude, I must say that the Commission could perhaps support the initiatives of certain companies such as BP and others, which are assuming positive attitudes towards climate change, by organising a major event in Brussels on the positive role that could be played by companies prepared to take this issue seriously.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Pimenta.
After your first few words, Mr Pimenta, I was considering withholding two thirds of your speaking time, but you then went on to exceed it by a minute.
Once again, I must urge Members to keep within the time they have been allocated, as the services tell me we are running late.
I know you all have very important issues to raise, but I would ask you to be concise.
My remarks are addressed in the first instance to Mrs Breyer, who now has the floor for one minute.
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<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, Commissioner, you referred to the role of the United States.
I believe the issue today is a different one.
It is about the need for the European Union to take the lead here.
To put it plainly, loopholes in the Protocol such as the scope for emissions trading must not be used as a means of wriggling out of responsibility.
Which takes us straight to this question: what has happened to the promised measures?
I should also like to hear from you exactly what is to happen now with regard to the implementation of the White Paper on renewable energy sources?
You referred to the key role that the energy tax is to play.
All right, we now have a proposal on an energy consumption tax, but that is surely a tiny step.
After all, the Commission itself has admitted that the implementation of this proposal will not prevent a 6 % increase in emission levels by the year 2010.
What did you say about the most intractable problem of all, namely transport?
We know that CO2 emissions by vehicles are set to rise by 38 % between now and 2010.
Here too, I would ask you to answer the questions my fellow Members have been asking. When will kerosene finally be taxed?
When will you make some serious efforts to honour the promise that was made to us last year?
We need action, not paper and not fine words.
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<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="Pollack">
Mr President, we need to lift our eyes from concentrating only on the fiscal measures.
We seem to do quite a lot of wringing our hands about the Council's reluctance to agree an energy tax and other fiscal measures.
I agree with the Commissioner that it is time the Commission put its own house in order on climate change.
I want to hear some detailed commitments that this is happening.
<P>
Early in the debates we heard some nice aspirations about sustainable agriculture and I applaud that.
However, I want to ask the Commission what action it is taking to green its approach to the single market, to the way it is implemented and to the way competition policy works, to the way in which it spends overseas aid, to its policy on trade, to its accession negotiations, which a lot of colleagues have mentioned, and the structural funds as well as the CAP.
We need to see active implementation on strategic environmental assessment with an eye to climate change and to use this as a tool for assessment of policy at European level, especially external aid as well as policy here in the European Union.
<P>
We also need more work on exactly what clean development technology transfer will consist of and the relationship with our overseas development assistance.
Active implementation of CDMs is going to be pivotal to winning the support we need for the Kyoto protocol from the developing countries.
Without some support from them for the notion of equity, we will continue to have problems trying to get America to ratify.
<P>
If we can make progress on some of these issues, the European Union could go forward with confidence to set the tone for COPs V and VI.
Certainly we know that climate change is not going away and it certainly will not go away because of the text that Parliament is going to vote tomorrow.
The United States is not going to ratify simply because we asked it to.
This week the Environment Ministers are down in the Antarctic watching how it is melting away, looking at what the problems are going to be.
We need some kind of commitment from the Commission and I hope that we will hear the Commission and the Council ensure that the European Union takes the necessary action to deal with the points I have raised as well as the perennial favourites of energy taxes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Virgin">
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldi">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, following the Kyoto Conference on Climate Change and the conference in Buenos Aires last November, the European Union has drawn up its own genuine action plan covering certain crucial issues.
First, it covers funding mechanisms to help developing countries face the challenges linked to climate change.
Secondly, it covers future work on policies and measures to be implemented which are already on the agenda for the next conference of the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention. Thirdly, it covers the development and transfer of clean technologies, which will help developing countries not to repeat the environmental blunders the developed countries have made, and fourthly, it covers the basic rules for the flexibility mechanisms contained in the Kyoto Protocol, although agreement needs to be reached on an institutional structure for these.
<P>
I agree with Members who have said that dialogue is fundamental, but I also want to mention that, in just two months, the Joint ACP-EU Assembly, which has a working group on climate change in small island states, will not only be adopting a highly important resolution for the developing countries but will certainly be making a statement after two years of work.
I would therefore like to ask Mrs Bjerregaard why on earth we have received no satisfactory response from the Commission when, for example, we have highlighted the importance of acting in synergy with other Directorates-General, such as DG VIII and DG XI, on science, research and development. We are extremely concerned for the ACP countries and we have called for a disaster prevention fund because we believe the small island states are extremely vulnerable to climate change.
So I would ask the Commissioner either to respond here and now or to let those of us who are working in very close synergy have some answers as soon as possible.
This is becoming crucial for us because the crises occurring in Africa and the ACP island states are leading to grave disasters.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, I should like to thank Parliament for the debate.
I think that Mr Linkohr was quite right and that he put his finger on something we may have noticed in these debates.
Parliament and the Commission are in agreement, but the reality we come up against is different: it could be said that the other parties we have to deal with, who are crucial in ensuring that all this will come to something, are not thinking on the same lines as ourselves.
In the course of the debate, I have heard a number of suggestions as to how we can do more to persuade the other parties to become more actively committed to the line that we have taken.
So I entirely share the view of Mrs Graenitz that it is important for us to continue the international effort, not least in relation to the developing countries.
I agree with Mrs Graenitz and others that the applicant countries must be more closely involved.
I think it was Mr Pimenta who also stressed this point.
It is what we are trying to do all the time.
It is also what we did in Buenos Aires but clearly, on the point of energy policy and its consequences, there is a great deal still to be done in relation to the applicant countries.
<P>
Mr Spencer was quite right about the interpreting error - that happens from time to time when one speaks a minor language - so I am happy to confirm that what I said was that the CO2 levy, which had originally been proposed in 1992, was not withdrawn by the Commission.
I also think we have good reason to consider how we organise the process.
We had some discussion of this in Buenos Aires.
I also mentioned that the continued Argentine Presidency had plans for a more political process, but I am happy to take part in discussions on other ways of tackling it.
<P>
Mrs Hautala stressed - and I think quite rightly - that we must meet our own objectives.
If we want to stick to the line we have embarked upon, then we must also be in a position to see it through to the end, and that is indeed what we intend to do, both by presenting a communication and also by taking the matter up at Council meetings.
In other words, the Commission must come up with a further plan, which I will be happy to discuss with Parliament.
<P>
The question of a flight tax or a kerosene tax, which we have discussed once or twice, is somewhat more difficult.
We have also taken this up in a number of forums.
The last occasion on which I myself pressed very hard for it was at a meeting we had under OECD auspices with the environment ministers.
It was very clear that there was powerful opposition from the USA, Canada, Japan and others, so the question is whether something can be done at European level, because the opposition at international level is formidable.
<P>
I share Mrs Pollack's view that there are a great many areas we must tackle.
There will be some initiatives on the internal market.
Later in the year, I think, we shall have an opportunity to discuss the problems relating to the WTO.
I think Parliament may remember that there was a joint communication from Sir Leon Brittan and myself, and we certainly intend to continue this cooperation up to the forthcoming WTO negotiations.
Fortunately, I can say that the German Presidency has included the proposal on strategic environmental assessment on its prioritised list, so it is also my hope that we can make further progress in this area.
<P>
Mr President, there may well be many things we need to discuss, but let me close by thanking Parliament for its support for the line we have embarked on. I look forward to the continuation of that cooperation.
We really need all our forces if we are to convince the other parties that we have set the right course.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Bjerregaard.
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I have received a motion for a resolution tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2).
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The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Food treated with ionising radiation
<SPEAKER ID=145 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0008/99) by Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, on behalf of Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council Directive on
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I.the approximation of the laws of the Member States concerning foods and food ingredients treated with ionising radiation (3631/98 - C4-0021/99-00/0169(COD))II.the establishment of a Community list of foods and food ingredients treated with ionising radiation (3632/98 - C4-0022/99-00/0169B(COD)).I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="Bloch von Blottnitz">
Mr President, I must, of course, express my pleasure at our having finally arrived at a joint text for the directive on irradiated foodstuffs after ten years.
It is worth noting that the Council alone has spent eight years considering the draft, which further testifies to the controversy that surrounds this method.
Naturally enough, we might ask why foodstuffs should be irradiated at all, since it has been proved that vitamins in fruit and vegetables are killed off and also that the irradiation of products with fat content releases free radicals, which, as we know, are carcinogenic.
But I should also like to remind the House that, for as long as we have not had a standard framework, we have naturally had no compulsory labelling either.
Since irradiation is practised in several countries, such as France, Belgium and the Netherlands, and since we have a single market in which irradiated products are traded, there is no real point now in maintaining the old position that Parliament once adopted.
We must prohibit it.
Just wait, Mr Bangemann; it is too soon to be rejoicing.
<P>
This will not now happen.
Eighteen months after the entry into force of the directive, labelling will become compulsory.
This naturally also applies to spices and other ingredients, even - and this is very important - if such ingredients constitute less than 25 % of the product.
In addition, we have managed to ensure that, after 1 January 2003, irradiation will only be permissible if standardised and validated verification methods are in place.
You certainly did some resolute stonewalling on this point, Mr Bangemann, and the only reason why we were able to overcome the resistance of the Commission is that the Council was on our side for once.
That was naturally very gratifying. Another important point is that changes to the list of foods and ingredients - which, for its part, has to be on the table by 31 December 2000 - are always governed by the provisions of Article 100a of the Treaty.
<P>
It has also been established that the treatment of foodstuffs with ionising radiation must not be a substitute for hygiene, nor must it be used in production processes or in agriculture.
It used to be the case that when food started to go off, ionising radiation was applied, and the eye was deceived, so to speak.
This will no longer be possible in future.
But the crucial point will naturally remain the extent to which we educate consumers on what it means when foodstuffs are treated with ionising radiation.
This, of course, is not something that the average housewife would know.
I can only hope, and we shall be pressing this point, that it will not appear in such small print that it is overlooked, because I still take the view that there is no real need to irradiate foodstuffs.
We should do better to ensure that we eat whatever is in season.
It is not absolutely essential to prevent onions, potatoes and so on from germinating.
For all that, we are naturally in favour of the agreement we have now reached.
Goodness knows how hard it was to achieve this agreement, and we shall do everything in our power to ensure that those who buy these products actually know what they are buying.
If that can be achieved, then I believe we shall have established a good Community system.
I am pleased that progress has been made at long last, and at the end of the day it is almost satisfying, if not entirely so, that we have all received our dues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graenitz">
Mr President, in several European languages the verb 'to congratulate' is reflexive.
I believe that today we not only need to congratulate the rapporteur on her report but that we can also congratulate ourselves as a Parliament for our dogged, lengthy and ultimately successful efforts to achieve a number of improvements to the original Council proposal and hence to the common position too.
<P>
Even though I myself do not believe it is necessary to treat many foodstuffs with radiation, because I share the rapporteur's view that the healthiest food is local produce consumed when it is ripe, I believe that labelling is of great importance to consumers as a means of indicating to them what they are buying and what they can expect from their purchases.
I also consider it important to emphasise that ionising radiation cannot replace good agricultural practice, which means that food should only ever be irradiated when it is fresh.
I also believe it is very important to validate and standardise inspection procedures, so that the Member States can exercise an unambiguous right of control and so that consumers are ultimately able to assert their rights.
<P>
At this particular time, when the issue of food safety is under widespread scrutiny, it is essential to have such a directive.
I also believe that the large size of many farms in the applicant countries makes it necessary for us to ensure that the directive is adopted before any enlargement of the Union, so that there is a body of EU food-safety legislation which can be applied to these farms from the outset.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schnellhardt">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the treatment of foodstuffs with radiation conjures up diabolic visions in the minds of many people, while sending many a practitioner and expert into transports of delight.
European policymakers were faced with the task of reconciling these two extremes and making the practical application of radiation treatment possible.
The treatment of foodstuffs with ionising radiation must be possible, we believe, where it is prudent and necessary, but not as a substitute for health measures and hygiene.
I do not believe what Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz said about radiation being used on food that is going off to make it fit for consumption again.
Not even radiation can do that.
That will be explicitly stated in future directives too.
It is a very important principle.
<P>
In my opinion, it goes without saying that the food in question poses no health hazard whatsoever.
But that has to be re-emphasised, because we have heard the opposite message again today.
Food treated with ionising radiation is not radioactive food, and we, the population of the EU, can consume it without becoming seriously ill.
Harmonisation at European level is therefore an urgent necessity.
The legal position in the various Member States has hitherto been unduly disparate.
Whereas food has been treated with radiation for years in France, Belgium and the Netherlands, for instance, irradiated foodstuffs are prohibited in other countries, so there is no trace of the single market here.
<P>
The result of the conciliation proceedings with the Council is good and has our approval.
The market in food treated with ionised radiation will gradually become a single market too.
Compulsory labelling will also enable consumers to make a choice.
I believe this represents a major success, and I cannot help emphasising the specific role played by my group in the inclusion of standardised and validated verification methods in the directive.
Without validated verification methods, there can be no credible labelling system. And without a credible labelling system, there can be no consumer confidence.
<P>
On the subject of confidence, I must repeat - and I agree with Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz here - that spending ten long years on a directive is not something we can afford to do very often.
Let me say to the Commissioners that we certainly cannot afford a repeat with regard to the chocolate directive or the labelling of alcoholic beverages.
Directives like the present one should not become the norm.
It is high time we started to build up consumer confidence by acting quickly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 NAME="Hyland">
Mr President, I welcome this directive because it creates a legal framework for the single market in foodstuffs treated with ionising radiation.
It sets high standards and limits to production which may be treated.
Improving food variety and quality through added value is now central to a modern food sector.
The quality of the product, information on its source and full details of the added value process must at all times be fully available to consumers.
<P>
Food products resulting from new research must only enter the food chain after the most stringent tests have been undertaken.
Consumers must at all times be protected from the uncertainty of inadequate testing of new products.
In a nutshell, public health and consumer protection must be paramount to all other considerations for Europe's agrifood sector.
This Parliament has played a key role in ensuring that the concerns of consumers are taken into account and that the eventual risks related to the control mechanisms are minimized.
The highest standards of food quality must be the primary goal of national governments and the EU.
And measures which enhance and improve food quality must be supported.
<P>
I am pleased that in Ireland there is a growing appreciation of the professional role of farmers in providing quality raw material to a food sector committed to the highest standards of consumer satisfaction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="Whitehead">
Mr President, in her absence, I should like to congratulate Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz for seeing this very difficult conciliation through.
It might have come more quickly.
Anything which includes the word radiation is bound to be fraught with difficulties, misunderstandings and misgivings.
What is the proper use of ionised radiation?
Essentially it has to be where consumer safety benefits.
It is for the consumer and for the consumer's health.
It is not where producer profits benefit because of the cosmetic effect on fruit and other foodstuffs of limited durability.
<P>
We do not benefit from eating strawberries which have passed their natural span simply because they can be artificially preserved.
We do, however, benefit from maintaining the natural span of spices and preservatives which are used in our stores and which are kept for long periods of time.
We have a strict range of products which can be sold now throughout the single market.
We can understand that in each Member State the same conditions apply and the same safeguards apply.
With enlargement soon to come, we should also understand that this is an important benchmark for the applicant states where all kinds of temptations lie in wait for the agricultural sectors in those countries, as Mr Schnellhardt has already said.
<P>
This is perhaps the first time we have been able to come to some sort of consensus on an aspect of radiation and radiation treatment.
It will not be the last.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, it is always a very silly situation when people feel they have been proved right, because it is very easy, of course, to feel vindicated by events and to say 'there you are, for ten years I have been fighting the good fight, and the others have finally recognised that I was right'.

But it really has to be said, as I have told Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz - and I believe this may not be primarily the fault of Parliament - that for ten years the Council has purely and simply turned a deaf ear to the argument which was presented here by Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz and which I have advanced at every Council meeting for the past ten years, namely that the situation we had was worse for the consumer than what we have been proposing.
Why?
Because we have placed very tight restrictions on the scope for using ionised radiation.
<P>
My second point is that we have always pressed for labelling, so that every consumer can choose whether or not to buy one of this limited range of treated food products.
Consumers can leave them on the shelves.
No consumer will be deceived into buying these products unwittingly, because they will be labelled.
As for the honourable Member who has now left, Mr President, I shall get up and leave in the middle of one of the next sittings to bring home to the honourable Members of Parliament how idiotic it is, not to mention discourteous to the Commission, for anyone here to comment on the chocolate issue and then simply to go away before the Commissioner can deal with the point that has been raised.
<P>
Protest
<P>
Oh I see, you have put your jacket on.
I thought you had left, because you were in shirt-sleeves when you spoke!
Well, as far as chocolate is concerned, the problem is exactly the same.
We proposed labelling so that all consumers can make an entirely free choice as to whether the chocolate they buy is made entirely of cocoa bean ingredients or whether they will accept the use of other vegetable fats.
Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz rightly said that we should have a certain amount of trust in the consumer.
That is the view of the Commission too.
So why not let consumers choose what they want?
Some of them can then insist on buying chocolate with only cocoa fats, while others might not mind taking other types of chocolate.
<P>
That has been precisely the problem with the radiation too.
As long as we did not have a common set of rules, some Member States treated all sorts of food with ionising radiation, and it was not labelled.
I am now in my eleventh year as a Commissioner. If Parliament is gracious to me, I shall see out my term.
If not, I would not be unduly upset either.
But for ten years I have been putting the case for this directive to the Council; for ten years I have been advancing these arguments - and this applies to many parliamentary debates too, by the way - and it has been like talking to a brick wall.
Sometimes one really does wonder whether it is at all possible to come up with a reasonable set of rules which everyone can accept while appreciating that they might not represent any one person's ideal solution.
There is no such thing as an ideal solution in a democracy anyway, because wherever a hundred people are gathered together, at least three or four different opinions will emerge.
But labelling will give consumers the freedom to choose for themselves.
Given the range of opinions on such subjects, the only answer is to give the individual a set of reasonable options.
That is why I am glad that we have finally reached this point.
<P>
But if I were a Member of Parliament, I should think thrice before celebrating this as a parliamentary triumph.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner, for your frankness in speaking to the House.
However, it has provoked a comment from Mr Fernández Martín.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fernández Martín">
Mr President, following the misunderstanding which arose and the Commissioner's remarks, I feel it is incumbent on him to apologise to the Member he addressed so discourteously, and to the whole House.
He cannot just get up and leave in the middle of a sitting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, I shall not do that, because the purpose of this debate is to draw some clear political lines at long last.
I did not say that Parliament alone was to blame; Germany, my own Member State, has blocked the solution of this problem for ten years.
I have spent ten years repeating the arguments that Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz has presented this evening.
I am damned if I will apologise, because this is a proper democratic discussion.
You have been wrong for the past ten years, and now you do not want to admit it!
That is unacceptable.
Duplicity kills democracy!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="President">
You will know what it says in the Bible about a sinner that repenteth, Mr Bangemann, and I think you should see Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz in that way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schnellhardt">
Just a brief comment, Mr President.
Commissioner, I have absolutely no idea why you should be pillorying Parliament.
With regard to the chocolate directive, I was merely trying to express precisely what you went on to say.
The Council thinks it is entitled to drag this whole thing out, and the other business too.
But if you can quote anything in our Rules of Procedure or in the Maastricht Treaty to show how Parliament could have been any quicker in dealing with this matter, I shall naturally be more than willing to act on your advice when the other two subjects come up.
But I agree with you entirely that both of us - the Commission and Parliament - should pillory the Council.
That was all I said.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Aid to ACP banana producers
<SPEAKER ID=158 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0012/99), on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the common position adopted by the Council (10460/98 - C4-0583/98-98/0014(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Regulation establishing a special framework of assistance for traditional ACP suppliers of bananas (Rapporteur: Mr Liese).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="Liese">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a rapporteur can discover some astonishing things when he listens to the debate on the preceding report.
I was certainly rather surprised to hear Mr Bangemann say that he would not be unduly upset if he were unable to complete his term of office.
That would not be a matter of indifference to me if I were a Commissioner bearing responsibility for Europe.
And perhaps I would work inside the Commission to ensure that the cases criticised by Parliament did not give any further cause for criticism.
<P>
But let us move on to the bananas. Our debate on my report at second reading deals with bananas at a time when this subject is in the international spotlight once again because of the possible escalation of the dispute between the EU and the United States, as well as some Latin American countries, and because of the threat of a trade war.
The report, which was adopted unanimously by the Committee on Development and Cooperation, deals with one aspect of the banana problem; although it is undoubtedly relevant to the WTO issue, it only deals with the payments to banana producers in ACP countries.
<P>
In 1997, the United States and several Latin American countries applied for a WTO panel investigation.
The WTO panel found that the EU market organisation of that time did not conform to WTO rules.
The Commission then submitted a proposed amendment package, which was accepted in 1998.
As part of the package of proposals, the Commission suggested that additional payments be made from the EU budget to the ACP banana producers.
There is still some controversy, even within the WTO, as to whether the adjustments made to the actual organisation of the EU markets meet WTO requirements.
I believe I speak for everyone here when I emphasise that it is not for the USA to take this decision, but rather the competent WTO authorities.
It needs to be emphasised time and again that the USA has no right to take unilateral action in this matter.
Speaking personally and on behalf of no one, however, I must also say that the European Union will surely have to prepare itself to accept the WTO ruling, and that further adjustments may have to be accepted at some future date.
<P>
The report, however, is only concerned with the package of compensatory payments proposed by the Commission, even though they are not part of a legal framework.
It asks the question how these compensatory payments are to be made, in what form and to which producers.
Here too, there are various positions within the European Union. There are differences between the Council and Parliament.
The Council has rejected some important amendments which Parliament tabled at first reading.
Some of these decisions are beyond my comprehension as the rapporteur, and I am sure the whole committee finds them equally baffling.
<P>
One of Parliament's main priorities was to support 'fair trade' producers.
This has always been a parliamentary priority and should also play a very prominent part in the allocation of funds to producers, rather than the minor role suggested by the Council in the common position.
We believe that payment should depend on compliance with minimum standards in terms of working conditions, and we believe that grower and producer organisations, the farmers' organisations, should be involved in the allocation of the funds.
The committee also decided by a majority vote to increase the funding of the programme and to diversify the funding targets in some respects, as set out in Amendments Nos 19, 9 and 15.
As the rapporteur, I voiced my opposition to this, but I had to bow to the majority of the House.
<P>
One of the key amendments, in my view, is our exclusion of multinational corporations from eligibility for support under this financial instrument.
It surely cannot be right, when everyone believes that Europe's purpose in this market organisation, in everything we do in the banana business, is to protect the small and independent growers against the large multinationals, if we table an amendment to precisely that effect, specifying that support payments are to be made to small and independent growers and not to multinational concerns, and if this amendment is then rejected.
That, however, is exactly what the Commission and the Council have done, even though Parliament adopted the amendment by a large majority at the first reading.
The committee has tabled it again, and I would ask the Commission to reconsider its position very carefully, because the European Union will forfeit all its credibility if we operate on the basis that it is all right to support the multinationals as long as they are working in the ACP countries, but if they are working in Latin America they are evil, and we must erect a wall of bureaucracy to keep them out of the European market.
That, in my opinion, is hypocrisy. It divests our entire policy of any credibility.
I believe the European Commission should express itself quite clearly on this.
Otherwise, I shall be more convinced than ever that our policy on the banana issue is rather too deeply steeped in hypocrisy.
There is a principle involved here, and we must apply it consistently.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Carlotti">
Mr President, Commissioner, on behalf of the Socialist Group I must endorse Mr Liese's report on the establishment of a special framework of technical and financial assistance to help traditional ACP suppliers of bananas to adapt to the new market conditions.
I support this report because it takes account of the interests of the most disadvantaged suppliers.
Small independent producers must be given special assistance and the multinational firms which possess banana plantations in several countries should not be eligible for assistance.
I also support this report because it stresses the importance of respecting social standards, working conditions and the environment and because it stipulates special support measures for fair trade bananas.
<P>
We socialists hope that assistance will be granted to improve quality and we believe that it is essential to help diversify production because, for many ACP countries, the banana is the only source of income.
Thus the contributions made by MEPs, added to the proposals accepted by the Council at first reading, such as taking into account the particularly dramatic situation of Somalia, will, I believe, all help to produce a very satisfactory regulation, provided that we are able to allocate a budget to the tune of approximately ECU 500 million for more than ten years, depending on how the ACP countries and the market develop.
<P>
However, what concerns us, as you suspected Commissioner, is the new line taken by the United States of America at the WTO, with threats of sanctions against numerous European products and delaying tactics and stratagems which do not befit a great country.
In a few days, the WTO will rule on the import regime for bananas and therefore on the possible sanctions that might be taken by countries which consider themselves to be prejudiced by this regime.
I fear that the World Trade Organisation's decision may once again serve American interests. I hope that these decisions will not be imposed on the European Union without us having a chance to respond or at least show our political will to defend our own producers and the producers of the poor countries of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific at any cost.
I believe that we have more than trade agreements with these countries: we have moral commitments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fernández Martín">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, as I said last June during the debate on the first reading of this report, the reform of the common market organisation for bananas proposed by the Commission was forced on us following the decision taken by the World Trade Organisation's group of experts further to the complaint from Ecuador and three other countries.
<P>
Now as then, Parliament, by a substantial majority, supports the Commission's proposal in principle. Some amendments have been put forward, and we would like to see them incorporated at the second reading.
In the interim, however, a critical event has taken place in the progress of what has become known as 'the banana war', and as a result, the debate has become political rather than technical.
What happened was that the United States showed its true colours and is now openly threatening the Union with trade reprisals against a list of European products if we do not modify our policy on protecting the banana production of ACP countries.
<P>
Weakened by certain developments at home and abroad, the United States administration has been unable to withstand the enormous pressure exerted by a number of American banana multinationals, and is preparing to take the law into its own hands.
The most extraordinary scenes were played out only yesterday at Parliament's REX Committee meeting. In this very House, the ambassador of the United States gave a splendid example of how that would-be empire understands WTO regulations, demanding they are complied with when it suits it but disregarding them whenever it sees fit.
<P>
I should like to take this opportunity to congratulate Commissioner Brittan on his forthright defence of the legitimacy and legality of our regulations at yesterday's REX Committee meeting.
Given the uncertainty of the current situation, I would ask the Commission, at the second reading, to accept Parliament's suggestions as they appear in Mr Liese's report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the ELDR Group, I must compliment Mr Liese on his energetic support in this report for the European Union's position on the framework of assistance for banana producers.
The stress on diversification, Somalia's special position, and not least, socially sustainable production and fair and supportive trading conditions, are definitely some of the report's strong points.
<P>
These very points indicate the philosophy of the European Union, which gives us the right idea of the free market.
It is wrong to think of the free market as a market without rules and where everyone competes regardless of relative strength.
Obviously that kind of free market would see abuse of power by the strongest economic operators or countries to the detriment of the others.
That is exactly what the European Union must do everything possible to prevent, by all necessary, useful and appropriate means.
<P>
It is precisely because we support this view of the free market that my group opposes Amendment No 9 to Article 1(2) of this report, tabled by the ARE Group.
The original text talks about a special framework for banana producers, to be implemented for a maximum period not exceeding ten years starting on 1 January 1999.
We believe that text should be maintained.
We must take action to put the ACP banana-producing countries in a position to stand on their own feet and not keep them in a state of permanent immaturity, which in our view would be the result of accepting the ARE amendment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sierra González">
Mr President, Commissioner, any changes to the organisation of the market for bananas must not be to the detriment of Community or ACP producers.
Though it may be too early to establish whether ACP banana suppliers have been adversely affected by the changes made, appropriate preventive measures should be taken, based on the values which underpin the principle of fair trade.
These values should be extended and applied to the promotion of alternative economic activities for those producers least able to adapt to the new market conditions, and should include technical and financial support for ACP suppliers who are in a position to adapt, enabling them to do so under the best possible conditions.
<P>
The aim is not only for the special aid regime to reflect the Union's desire to meet its obligations to its traditional suppliers, but also for it to contribute to the fight against poverty. At the same time, it should send a clear and unambiguous message that the Union will not bow to unacceptable pressures, such as those currently exerted by the United States with its list of reprisals.
<P>
I would urge the Commission to take into account the amendments contained in the Liese report, particularly those inspired by the principle of fair trade, which only received cursory attention in the common position.
This is most disappointing. It is also unfortunate that the large multinationals may be able to receive aid from Union funds in ACP countries.
<P>
It simply would not make sense to help the rich instead of the poor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Mr President, we have two symbolic issues before us this evening.
On the subject of laying hens, we will shortly be discussing the Kindermann report on the revolting practice of battery rearing which is symbolic of hyperproductivity.
With Mr Liese's report on bananas, this is symbolic of globalism.
<P>
This issue has been around for many years in this House.
Europe produces around 800 000 to 830 000 tonnes of bananas from Guadeloupe, Crete, Martinique, the Canaries and Madeira.
We buy around 830 000 tonnes of bananas from the ACP countries, including the Côte d'Ivoire and Cameroon.
And then there are the dollar bananas from Central America which the Germans particularly like.
Initially there were two million tonnes of these, and they were subject to customs duties, as were cereal substitutes.
Then, under the pretext that Sweden, Austria and Finland were joining the European Union, thereby prejudicing the United States, we agreed to import 2.5 million tonnes of Latin American bananas without customs duties or with reduced customs duties.
<P>
Yet all this is not enough for the United States.
They referred the matter to the World Trade Organisation, we went through various panels of first instance and appeal, we amended our legislation and the issue was referred again to the WTO; this evening, now that we have given in, we are even going to have to compensate the poor ACP countries that are going to lose out.
<P>
This smacks of hypocrisy, given all our talk of defending the financial interests of the European Union.
Mrs Cresson and Mr Marín may have redirected a few pence here or there, like any good socialist, but in this case, 14 billion francs have been given as gifts to a multinational firm, Chiquita.
Who are we to talk about the financial interests of the European Community?
<P>
We are calling into question our regional policy in Crete, Madeira, the Canaries, Guadeloupe and Martinique.
We are calling into question our cooperation policy with the ACP countries because the import licences are being called into question.
We are calling into question our human rights policy because, in Honduras, it is the multinational firm United Brand, now owned by Chiquita, which keeps order.
We are calling into question our social policy because the people producing these bananas are slaves earning only EUR 35 per month.
We are calling into question the superiority of European law because we are submitting to the law of Geneva and the World Trade Organisation.
<P>
And once again, faced with the United States' Section 301, our Europe of 370 million inhabitants, of the euro, a Europe with new power, is submitting in Kosovo, in Iraq and now on the issue of bananas.
We are toeing the US line.
I hope that we can slip on this banana skin in order to get back on track, but I doubt it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Vecchi">
Mr President, we have now reached the second reading of the proposal for a regulation we are forced to adopt, following the World Trade Organisation ruling, so as not to penalise further the traditional banana suppliers of the countries of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific.
On the whole the common position of the Council improves the original proposal for a regulation, thanks primarily to the European Parliament's action at first reading.
<P>
In particular I would mention that there is now a stronger possibility of using some of the resources provided under the regulation to promote diversification by suppliers unable to continue banana production in decent conditions.
On other points Parliament will back its own amendments, above all with a view to ensuring that small and independent producers can use the resources.
<P>
The Council's common position accepts Parliament's amendments designed to take account of the special position of Somalia and its banana producers.
This is the only commodity that unfortunate country can export to the European market and its fate largely depends on being able to maintain and strengthen banana production.
<P>
That is positive, but I would still point out that for the last two years, despite clear recommendations from the European Parliament, the Commission has frequently appeared to want to boycott Somali banana exports.
The country's banana regions have been seriously damaged by the natural disaster which has struck in the last two years but, incredibly, the Union has decided not to respond with aid.
<P>
So the Union must immediately undertake to give Somali banana producers direct access to the assistance provided under the regulation we are debating.
<P>
This would be a very tangible way to encourage the rebirth of Somalia and prevent its definitive departure from the Community 'Banana Club'.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Porto">
Mr President, Commissioner, regardless of the validity of each side's reasons, the banana issue cannot fail to shock because of the disproportionate reactions of the Americans.
Just how disproportionate the current reaction is with regard to this product can be seen from the fact that the European Union has been pursuing a protectionist agricultural policy with regard to various goods produced in the United States itself for four decades now.
As there has never been such a reaction before, we can only conclude that the US administration is more concerned about one or two multinational firms producing bananas in Latin America than about its own farmers.
Having said this, its reaction is also disproportionate in view of the production claimed by the European Union, which is relatively small and comes from peripheral regions such as Madeira and the Canaries or from poor ACP countries where there are no alternatives capable of supporting the rural population with a minimum decent standard of living.
<P>
We are not therefore talking about rich regions but areas which understandably deserve some support.
This applies to the financial support currently being suggested, the level of which is to be determined shortly, thereby removing any doubt about the seriousness of our proposals.
<P>
Finally, the retaliation that has been announced of limiting the imports of various products is also disproportionate and inappropriate because it will indiscriminately penalise countries, regions and sectors which have nothing to do with bananas.
Looking at the list, we can see that in order to defend one major multinational whose name has already been mentioned several times, European sectors where small and medium-sized businesses predominate are to be condemned, to a large extent involving the poorest countries and regions.
It seems to us to be in even worse taste that attempts are being made to divide the European Union by granting an exemption to Denmark and Holland, because of their alleged good behaviour, when this is a common policy which we accepted jointly once it was decided.
<P>
Disregarding this sad episode - which we hope will rapidly enter into obscurity - we must now look at the basic question of whether this will be the pattern for the future, with the two major world powers with very particular responsibilities in international trade being at loggerheads?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Santini">
Mr President, I want to concentrate on a single issue that was touched on just now by Mr Vecchi: the case of Somalia.
I would stress, with satisfaction this time, that the Council regulation finally takes sufficient account of this problem, which was something I highlighted in vain as rapporteur for the banana COM, when we debated the general problem as well as certain particular issues in this House.
Somalia is emerging from a couple of seasons which have been disastrous to say the least, in terms of environmental calamities piled on top of those of the past. Between October 1997 and January 1998, 70 % of the banana plantations were destroyed by a flood which submerged the plants for four or five months, permanently undermining their ability to survive.
<P>
Despite desperate appeals, the European Commission decided not to intervene in any way, either with European Social Fund money, STABEX resources, or any other kind of resources.
From the first, during the debate on the COM, it has refused to recognise the civil war, endemic and uninterrupted for some 30 years now, as force majeure , a disaster like those which have secured lavish compensation for producers in the Caribbean islands, for example.
<P>
Since last June all exports of bananas from Somalia have been suspended. Either there are no supplies or such as do exist are not cheap enough, in short, they are not marketable.
Now with this regulation Somali producers can finally lift up their heads.
But they should be able to have direct and immediate access to the financial benefits through their independent association, which was set up to counter the old excuse that there were no clear and authoritative recipients for aid in the past.
<P>
Well, now the organisation of Somali producers exists and is recognised at both continental and international level.
DG VIII, especially, must take this into account.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 NAME="Pinheiro">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like firstly to thank the Committee on Development and Cooperation and in particular Mr Liese for the hard work put into this dossier.
Before turning to the amendments, I should like to remind you briefly why this proposal is so important for the Commission.
Last year the Council adopted the measures necessary to bring the common market organisation for bananas into conformity with WTO rules.
These have now been applied since 1 January and will radically alter the market conditions for traditional ACP banana suppliers.
In our opinion this will jeopardise their continuing viability on the EU market, in particular since the special important licence system has been dismantled and there will no longer be a mechanism to bridge the gap in competitiveness between ACP and dollar bananas.
<P>
In order to enable traditional ACP suppliers to maintain their presence on the EU market as agreed under the Lomé Convention, the Commission has in parallel put forward this proposal establishing a special framework for technical and financial assistance.
This support is intended to help them to adapt to the new market conditions and in particular to enhance the competitiveness of their production.
I think we are agreed on the need for this regulation and for the need to get it in place as soon as possible so that the traditional ACP suppliers can continue their efforts to improve their competitiveness.
This action is required whatever the outcome of the ongoing discussions in Geneva.
<P>
Turning to the matter in hand, I should like to emphasise how much we see eye-to-eye on this proposal.
We have taken on board four specific amendments but our agreement goes much further than that.
Let us take diversification.
We agreed that funding should be available for diversification projects where improvements in competitivity would not be feasible or sustainable.
We all know that there are parts of the banana industry in the traditional ACP countries where production will probably not survive in a more competitive EU market.
These farmers should be given assistance to diversify into other crops.
There is now new wording introduced in the common position to provide for this.
<P>
Another area is social and environmentally-friendly banana production, so-called fair-trade bananas.
This is an important facet of an ACP country strategy to improve its competitiveness.
This is why specific wording was added to the common position but I must stress that this is not a regulation about fair trade.
There are many other methods by which an ACP country can improve its banana sector in a sustainable way.
These include improving transport links and distribution, designing new marketing strategies and providing training and technical assistance to farmers.
It should also be recalled that the list of programme criteria is not a prescriptive nor an exhaustive one.
The wording has been kept simple to allow for the necessary flexibility.
<P>
Another area where we agree is the need for open and transparent consultations.
This is part of good working practice to ensure that producer groups and banana growers associations are involved in the process of designing strategies for the banana sector.
We are already encouraging these discussions.
They are also an integral part of the ACP-EU partnership.
Specific wording does not need to be added to the regulation on this point.
<P>
There are one or two areas where we have somewhat divergent views.
This is where we have not been able to accept your proposed amendments.
Our arguments are the same as they were for the first reading in June.
One of these points is the provision of the direct aid to farmers, a form of income support.
This concept does not reflect our overall objective of improving the level of competitiveness of traditional ACP banana production.
Providing income support will postpone the day when non-competitive producers must leave the market.
It is a short-term measure.
It will not produce a sustainable industry.
Investments must be made to the infrastructure of the banana sector to unblock the bottlenecks, to produce an efficient industry for the countries as a whole.
<P>
To give you an example, one of the important producers, where the banana is very important to the economy, is St Lucia.
For those who do not know it, St Lucia is a very hilly country in which it will take you more than an hour to drive a distance of 20 km.
There the key to improvement of banana production, competitiveness and productivity will be to be able to water the crop on a drop-by-drop basis.
As some of the farms are relatively small, to do this they would have to get together.
So we started very early to try to form a strong farmers' association so that they could share this kind of watering system.
But this also requires the support of the government so some infrastructure related to this major work will also be taken up by government.
Therefore, the provision of such aid runs the risk of a challenge from our trading partners for being incompatible with international trade rules.
<P>
We also believe that regulations should not include specific budget figures in order not to prejudge the annual budgetary discussions as agreed in the Joint Declaration of 1982.
The annual figure of EUR 45m is the correct one and additional money should not be set aside for urgent measures.
This will create expectations.
We would need to discuss what constitutes an urgent measure and in my opinion it will delay the implementation of this project.
<P>
All projects should be integrated as part of a country strategy within the global envelope envisaged.
Nor should the door be left open to extend assistance beyond the ten years proposed.
This is not because I am absolutely convinced that ten years will be sufficient but because at this juncture we must have some radical changes as soon as possible in order to gain that competitiveness.
To give the idea of an extension at this stage would be to send a wrong message.
<P>
One final issue is the position on multinationals.
In this regard, the only one concerned, if I am correctly informed, is Fyffes in Surinam, Belize and the Windward Islands.
The reason we have some resistance is very simple.
It is not because we want to finance rich multinationals.
It is because quite often it is important not only to have joint financing for some projects but also because, on the specific allocation of funds, one should look at the specific situation of the one who puts the demand and on the merits of the project.
This would give us greater flexibility and would in the end be more effective regarding the country.
If you ask me if I expect multinationals to have a large share, the answer is No.
But we should allow this joint effort to be made if the multinational - in this case, Fyffes - wants to contribute.
I do not see why they should not co-finance such efforts.
<P>
Finally, I should like to say a word or two on Somalia.
This country, as you know, has been without a government as such for a long time.
Therefore, it was impossible for it to ratify the revised Lomé IV convention, the one which was revised in Mauritius.
So, in principle and in theory Somalia was not entitled to any aid from the European Union.
The Commission proposed that, bearing in mind the conditions prevailing in Somalia, and the fact that in some parts of the country the situation was more peaceful and the people were willing to make efforts for the development to continue our assistance, including in the case of bananas.
And so we did.
<P>
What is the current difficulty in Somalia?
It is not the definition of a quota or providing funds for assistance.
It is to identify who should be the one that should a grant a certificate for exporting bananas from Somalia.
There are some indications conveyed to us that one of the factions that is at war in Somalia is willing to have the possibility of certification.
This would be equivalent to financing the war effort of that specific faction.
That we cannot do.
That is the reason why discussions are continuing.
We want the association of producers to be the ones issuing the certificate rather than any political faction in Somalia.
I am confident that with the support of our Member States and in particular the efforts that Italy is deploying, we will be able to overcome these difficulties.
<P>
Finally on the WTO panel, I am absolutely in agreement with those who say that it is not a technical problem any more.
It is a clear situation in which the economies of different small countries - and if you visit them you would understand why they depend so much on this product as there are not many options - are being absolutely ignored in comparison with the interests of two multinationals.
On top of that, the fact that the United States is apparently not prepared to accept the rules of the WTO means that we will have to rethink this concept of globalised liberalisation.
My feeling is that if we leave this we turn a blind eye to the interests of the small and the poor and I do not think that Europe would be fulfilling its duties.
So far the Commission has stood very firm in this dispute.
I fully agree that Sir Leon Brittan has done a very good job.
But we must be aware that if we do not stand united, be it in Parliament or especially in the Council, we will weaken our position very much.
I sincerely hope that will not be the case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Universal telecommunications service
<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0386/98) by Mrs Read, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission communication on the first monitoring report on universal service in telecommunications in the European Union (COM(98)0101 - C4-0249/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 NAME="Read">
Mr President, first of all, can I say that the Parliament and the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee recognise that the implementation of universal service is at a very early stage and I hope that my criticisms, as set out in the report, will be taken in that spirit.
<P>
I want also to remind us all that the European Parliament's support for the liberalisation process of telecommunications goes hand in hand with the introduction and implementation of universal service.
It is very clear that market forces cannot, at least in the short run, deliver on universal service.
If this does happen through market forces in the next year I shall be the first to congratulate and draw attention to this.
<P>
Unfortunately, as the text of my report makes clear, there is a lack of information from the Member States on which to assess progress.
I give some examples: there is a lack of truly harmonised national data, there are failures to achieve uniform tariffs across an operational territory.
It is particularly disappointing that in half the Member States there has been a substantial rise in rental charges for the residential consumer.
Of course, this weighs particularly heavily on the infrequent user, often elderly, housebound, who cuts down on telephone calls.
It is important, too, to draw attention to the disabled users.
Remember in the voice telephony directive, the Parliament placed great stress on the rights of disabled users to access to telephones, both from a social point of view and also from the point of view of being able to gain work often from home.
Disabled users on the whole in the Community still do not benefit from satisfactory, special arrangements.
Indeed, the general trend seems to be that there is a penalty for residential users.
Although charges have come down they have come down disproportionately in favour of international calls which of course heavily favour the business user.
I am not being critical of those reductions in charges but I am drawing attention to the unsatisfactory skew against the residential user.
<P>
I wanted to draw particular attention to Paragraph 9 in the report which talks about the lack of definition of affordability by the Member States.
Without that definition of affordability it really does deprive consumers of a sound legal base with which to defend their interests.
I know how hard the Commission worked on getting the balance right between being over-prescriptive from the point of view of directives and allowing Member States some discretion, but it does rather shake one's faith in the amount of discretion that is left to the Member States when on something as basic as the definition of affordability there really has been comparatively little progress.
<P>
After I had drafted this report, BEUC, the European Union consumers' organisation, produced their own analysis on the implementation of the voice telephony directive.
Like me, they recognised that it is comparatively early days.
Nevertheless, the evidence contained in the BEUC report and the lack of satisfactory evidence supplied to the Commission give some cause for concern.
<P>
I will end on a personal note because I think the views of consumers in this field across the European Union really are important.
I tried to change my telephone.
Formerly a British Telecom consumer I switched some 18 months ago to Ionica, a company that sadly has now gone out of business.
I transferred my number, as my colleague Mr van Velzen laid down and as the Commission rightly proposed.
When I now try and change to a cable company I am told that number portability is not possible.
If I want to keep my own number my only choice is to go back to British Telecom, the old public monopoly.
It was a salutary lesson for me that, in spite of all the efforts of the Commission and the efforts of the Parliament, in practical terms it is still very rare to find true effective competition at local level for the domestic consumer.
I very much hope that the Commissioner will accept this report with its criticisms and I hope that it will strengthen his arm and those of his officials in making greater and speedier demands on the Member States to truly implement a universal service in the telephone field.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Camisón Asensio">
Mr President, I should like to begin by paying tribute to the wonderful parliamentary work undertaken by the rapporteur, Mrs Read, during the preparation of this report.
I must also say how pleased I am that almost all our amendments - eight in total - were adopted by the Committee on Economic Affairs. These amendments were of great importance to us.
Amongst other issues, we called for increased social support for the most vulnerable users - the less able - the dissemination of information to consumers, due consideration of the needs of low-income users and a halt to the current discrimination against residential consumers.
<P>
Given our commitment to the aim of putting a genuine information society in place as soon as possible, we are also delighted that this initiative represents a further step towards the implementation of agreements concerning interconnection arrangements, making preferential tariffs for schools, libraries and other educational institutions a reality.
I am of course referring to the Internet.
<P>
We remain concerned that the European Union has not yet adopted a uniform approach to providing a sensitive response to the needs of the disabled. Even now, one Member State is proposing to make free access to directory enquiry services available only to the visually impaired.
Another has so far failed to put forward any proposals. I am aware that reduced connection charges and free specially adapted equipment are available in many Member States.
I recognise that substantial progress has been made, but the final goal, the ideal, is yet to be achieved.
In addition, if we are serious about making the European Union increasingly cohesive, a determined effort is urgently needed to put in place the facilities which should be available to consumers in less populated areas.
<P>
Universality of service in the telecommunications sector must be further promoted.
I refer not only to take up but also to improvements in the quality of the service offered. For instance, we should press for an across-the-board reduction in the waiting time for connection to the network or for supply, and of the time taken for repairs to be carried out.
Equally important are improving accessibility to services and the regulation of costs, particularly as regards implementation of the option of spreading payment, types of prepayment, and less distressing disconnection procedures. The introduction of reasonable rates for selected calls and provision by the operators of a range of service packages tailored to the customers' needs should also be considered.
<P>
In conclusion, Mr President, this report certainly represents a significant step forward, but a lot of ground remains to be covered.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Mr President, a motion for a resolution from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy is now before us, relating to the first monitoring report on universal service in telecommunications.
In this motion, Mrs Read has given us an excellent opportunity to reflect on the changeover from what were public services originating in the public sector to the so-called universal service to be provided by private companies.
<P>
Our worst fears and expectations have been confirmed.
The promises and commitments made have not been fulfilled.
The liberalisation and privatisation of the sector has not led to the fall in prices for the economically weakest users which universal service should have provided as a result of the much vaunted virtues of competition.
On the contrary, the most powerful users economically speaking, namely multinational firms, have benefited from the change, and the private operators which have come to dominate the sector have even been able to obtain other lucrative benefits through the public financing intended to mitigate the change, contrary to the spirit of universal service, not to mention the public service obligations.
<P>
It is true that the current competition in mobile telephony, in addition to causing changes in social behaviour, has altered the parameters of the telecommunications market. However, this cannot justify the rises in rental charges and the increased costs of local calls, even to the extent of creating perverse situations where prices for currently competing products are increased in order to assist the introduction of new and more lucrative products.
<P>
Portugal and Portugal Telecom - and it is impossible in many respects to determine whether the latter is the original or copy of other telecom services - appear, in this process and in this monitoring report, to be in a rather unsatisfactory situation from the point of view of social balance and justice. These elements should be inherent in universal service if this is not just to be an attractive way of dismantling the public service.
<P>
Portugal is participating in the global tariff increase and is one of nine countries which have increased rental charges. It is also, with Germany, one of only two countries which have increased installation costs in addition to having created the activation charge which particularly penalises the poorest users.
This monitoring report therefore also provides a way of assessing something which is much more than just a name - ' universal service' instead of 'public service' - it is a whole philosophy which is self-revealing as it has shown how commitments which were used as justification or even a pretext have been sidelined or even ignored.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 NAME="Crowley">
Mr President, I too would like to join with my colleagues in welcoming the report by Mrs Read.
In particular it now gives us an opportunity to look at the question of liberalisation and its effect on the universal service question.
<P>
What is common to all the public utilities across Europe is the fact that they were originally established to ensure there was a social equality with regard to the distribution of services.
Whether one looked at telecoms, post office services, water supplies and so on, there was this idea of universality.
No matter what part of a country one lived in one got the same level of service at the same cost as everybody else.
Because of the advent of liberalisation and greater competition, which I welcome, let me hasten to add, we have also learned of some of the mistakes that can be made by just having a headlong rush into liberalisation.
There must be some restrictions and some controlling mechanisms and methods with regard to that liberalisation.
<P>
Some of my colleagues have already touched on the points.
I would like to deal with four particular points: firstly, ensuring that there is no cherry-picking of the most profitable and easily serviceable areas of telecoms.
Secondly, dealing with special facilities for the elderly population, particularly in this year, the International Year of the Elderly.
When we look at the increase in the numbers of people who are over 55 years of age in the European Union there is a social necessity to ensure them ease of access to telecommunication networks at very low cost, sometimes at no cost at all.
To give you one example, in Ireland telephone line rental for people who are on the old age pension is free.
Next, the disabled.
Because the new technologies which have been brought forward do offer new opportunities for communications and for greater interaction of people with disabilities and the wider community that should be encouraged and given at a lower rate.
Finally, with the Internet now being presented to us, we must ensure that this resource is tapped for the greater good not for exclusivity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, I welcome the consideration given by the rapporteur to the aspects of social policy that have taken on a new dimension in the modern information society.
I also support the amendments that are designed to take account of these new factors.
We must, for example, be absolutely rigorous in ensuring that disabled people are given access to service models that meet their special needs.
The development of public access to the Internet, in schools and libraries for instance, is an extremely important matter to which this and other Parliaments ought to devote more attention in the future.
<P>
The information society must not lead to wider social disparities.
If access by part of the population to the information media is denied or obstructed, stark differences in education levels will result, and these could create a glaring inequality of opportunity in the job market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the liberalisation of the telecommunications sector was a pioneering strategy which not only represented another step from the single market towards a European domestic market, but also had a significant dimension in terms of employment.
This development was referred to when we assessed the implementation of the reform package.
The information society is currently responsible for every fourth new job in the European Union.
For that we owe our thanks to the Commission, and especially to Mr Bangemann.
<P>
The Read report makes the accessibility of the basic services at acceptable prices and standards of quality a prerequisite of our support for the present liberalisation process.
I would like to go further than that.
The provision of a universal service can ultimately be a logical result and product of liberalisation.
What exactly are the universal services?
They are generally held to comprise a minimum range of telecommunications services of a certain quality that can be made available to all users at reasonable prices.
This includes access to standard public telephone services, such as 999 calls, directory enquiries and special facilities for people with particular disabilities.
<P>
This subject is therefore important in terms of the general confidence which the European technology of the future must enjoy.
It is also clear that in many areas, market forces cannot be given free rein from the outset.
That is why the concept of affordability is such a topical issue these days - and rightly so.
The affordability principle means that the Member States set geographical average prices, price ceilings and so forth.
One of the important aspects of this mechanism is the scope for easing unreasonable burdens on providers of universal services.
But I do support the Commission when it says that such measures can only apply until the market is competitive enough to exercise effective price control itself.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Porto">
Mr President, I am standing in for my colleague, Mr Mendes Bota, and I must start by saying that telecommunications has now become a permanent part of our lives. It is integral and indispensable to the information society which Europe increasingly wants to join and it is the gateway to a global market of which the European internal market is the vanguard.
<P>
However, there are several points to be considered.
Firstly, there is a great disparity between tariff trends in terms of installation costs and rental charges and between the costs of local, regional, national and international calls.
Some countries have low costs, others have high costs, but this report does not give a clear and comparative view of the costs of using the European telecommunications networks in the various Member States.
We believe that the more open the telecommunications market becomes to competition from the private sector, the more responsible it will be for regulating itself and for ensuring a minimum harmonisation of the European tariff system.
<P>
Secondly, it is clear that users on low incomes and the more peripheral and isolated regions are the sectors most prejudiced by the current tariff regimes. This is an aspect often neglected by the Member States.
<P>
Thirdly, the use of the Internet has exploded, and it is now being adopted by individuals, companies and institutions.
However, it is in no way accessible to everyone and it is far from forming a basic instrument for the promotion of solidarity and equal treatment.
Negotiations on creating an Internet card or code are continuing but the Internet remains outside the universal service in telecommunications.
<P>
We totally agree with the adoption of measures which will allow special tariffs to be granted to schools, libraries and other equivalent institutions and to charitable and non-profit-making organisations.
Public access to the Internet must be regarded as a personal right and as a strategic position in the fight against a new form of emerging illiteracy which will afflict all those in the future who have not mastered the use of the modern information technologies or who do not have access to them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, may I express my sincere thanks to Mrs Read as well as to everyone else who has contributed to this discussion for their comments.
The Commission is trying to find sensible solutions to this diverse set of problems.
The report we have presented is not entirely up to date, because it cannot yet cover the implementation of the voice telephony directive in its amended form. In other words, when we present another updated report this year as part of our task of evaluating the implementation of the existing directives, we shall be far better able to deal with some of your questions.
<P>
In the meantime, I should like to focus especially on four questions that have resurfaced in this discussion.
First there is the question how the Member States have established what affordability means.
Some Member States, anticipating the amended voice telephony directive, have already introduced more stringent measures to protect consumers.
Amongst other things, there are price-monitoring and prepayment systems, particularly in the field of mobile telephony.
Six Member States - Denmark, Germany, Spain, France, Finland and the United Kingdom - have already notified us that they have transposed the amended directive. We expect that Belgium, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria and Sweden will shortly announce similar measures.
<P>
As one speaker said in the course of today's discussion, affordability depends to a great extent on income levels in individual Member States. These vary widely.
Average incomes in some areas are three or four times the average income in another.
For that reason we are really relying on the Member States, in accordance with the solidarity principle, to take greater responsibility in this area than we could take ourselves.
What we shall be able to do, however, is to provide details in the new report of the progress that has been made in implementing the stricter consumer safeguards.
<P>
The second question relates to support for low-income users and disabled users, as well as for occasional users.
We have recommended special tariffs for such users precisely because we wish to counteract the first adverse effects of liberalisation that we, like others, expect to occur.
We have now managed - and Mrs Read knows this, as do her colleagues who have spoken on this subject, because they have all been studying these things - to achieve quite considerable reductions in mobile call charges this year, which incidentally has had a knock-on effect on standard call charges for fixed-network subscribers.
Moreover, the amended voice telephony directive provides for special tariffs for low-income users, price ceilings and affordability criteria in Article 3 and prescribes special measures for disabled users and users with special social needs in Article 8.
<P>
This, it should be said, has now been transposed into the national law of five Member States - not just of France, as the report stated, but also of Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
The new report will show us how things have developed from there.
The Commission, like Parliament, is anxious to ensure that the new legislation is actually benefiting these groups of users.
<P>
How should the operators of the universal service be chosen?
The Commission has no objections to any system that ensures the provision of a convenient, cost-effective universal service.
The services may be put out to tender, but they may also be based on a cost calculation, prices then being fixed to cover only the net cost of the service.
That is why we do not wish to come down on the side of any particular process.
<P>
The final question concerns the widening of public access to the Internet and especially the use of the Internet by public institutions.
We have always said that this is absolutely crucial to the development of the information society, and we are now gratified to note that competition has developed among service providers, as a result of which interfaces have become more user-friendly and charges have been reduced.
That is not the case everywhere, Mr President, and Mrs Read was right to criticise this state of affairs.
The root of the problem has been the so-called rebalancing of tariffs, whereby the relatively cheap local calls have become more expensive while the price of the relatively expensive trunk calls and international calls has been reduced; since Internet access is obtained through a local number, it initially became more expensive than it had been.
<P>
But that is now in the past.
We have certainly been observing price reductions; special rates for schools and other special tariffs are in no way inconsistent with the rules of competition, and we encourage these as long as the marginal cost is covered.
I can promise you that we intend to re-examine the universal service in connection with the review of legislation scheduled for the end of 1999, and that we shall subsequently communicate the results to Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Public procurement
<SPEAKER ID=180 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0394/98) by Mr Tappin, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication from the Commission on public procurement in the European Union COM(98)0143 - C4-0202/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 NAME="Tappin">
Mr President, as colleagues will know, this report offers a broad outline of the progress we have made and should be making in the immediate future on the question of public procurement.
In general, the Commission is showing that our past discussions during the debate on the Green Paper have been listened to.
What we now need is to ensure that although the broad approach is right, the detail must be equally precise, firstly, in terms of social and environmental standards and sustainability.
<P>
Following the adoption of the Amsterdam Treaty where the EU underlined its commitment to the greening of European policies, we need to clarify how these principles will affect public procurement legislation.
Members may remember from previous discussions that we asked the Commission for an assurance that there would be horizontal harmonisation of EU directives.
It is ridiculous if the right DG does not know what the left DG is doing.
The same applies to parliamentary committees.
It is even worse if we are aware of the discrepancies but do not take positive action to eliminate them.
In this way we have to confront the problems of building a certain model within our Union which is not always reflected in the directives we pass.
<P>
We have further requirements placed upon us by global or international commitments.
We must recognise these.
This is not a plea for one policy position or another but a recognition of the need for clear legislation which builds upon a secure base and thus becomes operational.
Until we address this problem, which does not only affect procurement, we lay ourselves open to allegations that the Member State is the origin of all clarity and wisdom and it is the EU which is generally mucking up the system.
<P>
Since, following the Green Paper, we have agreed that contracting authorities have a right to set environmental standards if they so wish, we need to know exactly how they can implement those rights without breaching the overriding rules on competition.
I shall say again - and let us be clear on this - we are not recommending a particular policy.
We are recognising the need for clarity, simplicity and applicability.
In the same way, concerning the issues of social affairs and employment, we have consistently said that public procurement is not a vehicle for promoting a particular policy in this area but adhesion to the rules and regulations of procurement must not be allowed to impede good employment practices.
Again we need clear guidelines on how this can be operationalised.
<P>
The Commission has promised a report on this.
We wait with bated breath.
We want to see how they are taking forward the principles of clarity, simplicity and legal applicability and making public procurement legislation pertinent, effective and enforceable within our modern society.
Any further legislation put forward now must cover these areas.
This point is important.
We are already looking to exempt telecoms from the procurement directives.
I do not think anyone would dispute that, generally, the choice available to the average user is increasing.
There may be some differences still which can be identified at national level but it is clear that the process of liberalisation in this sector is irreversible.
However, we are now also looking at the future liberalisation and possible exemption from procurement rules of other sectors.
<P>
There are a couple of issues here.
Firstly, we are waiting for the Commission to come forward with proposals for the process which they intend to use for these sectors: which article, what will be the criteria for deciding who can or cannot apply.
Secondly, we go back to the point we made at the very beginning of the Green Paper negotiations, namely the issue of competitiveness.
We must never forget that procurement legislation exists to benefit and protect the consumer.
That is the reason why we favour competition.
It is supposed to benefit the user so the underlying principle of any decision on competition must always include the consumer to ensure they retain the right to choose the most cost-effective service for them.
Retaining consumer choice will be a key element in proving that real competition exists.
<P>
As I have said before, new simple procedures must not undermine the principles of best practice through full competition.
I am aware that getting a fixed definition of what constitutes competition is not going to be easy.
It is not our aim to make it harder but if European industry is not to continue being disadvantaged by a requirement to prove de jure and de facto competition, it is a challenge we have to face.
We have tabled an amendment to this effect and hope the House will support us.
<P>
I wish to make just one oral amendment tomorrow.
I should like to thank the Commission for listening.
I spoke to Mr Monti outside.
I have another engagement now and I know he will understand my reason for leaving.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="Van Lancker">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, we in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs naturally looked at this communication primarily from the point of view of public procurement, on the one hand, and respect for social legislation and the use of social clauses on the other.
I am very grateful to Mr Tappin for incorporating many of our conclusions into his report.
<P>
This is not the first time we find ourselves debating this subject.
I have to say, Commissioner, that I am quite disappointed that the European Commission has not had the courage to take an important step forward in this communication, but has settled for an interpretative text here.
<P>
We for our part are convinced that 'soft law' is not enough.
The practice surrounding social clauses differs widely in the various Member States.
There are huge difficulties of interpretation and so we think that clear legislation is required.
I shall focus on two points here.
<P>
Firstly, public contracts must indeed be adaptable to the needs of the market, but the market must not be abused, Commissioner, as a way of weakening social legislation.
Contract guidelines must therefore explicitly state that international and national social legislation must be respected, as well as collective labour agreements, both by main contractors and subcontractors.
<P>
Secondly, very many Member States and local authorities use public contracts to take positive measures to help the long-term unemployed, the integration of migrants or the launch of neighbourhood campaigns.
The Court has clearly ruled that such positive measures are not in conflict with the principles of competition.
But to avoid confusion, Commissioner, the guidelines must state very clearly that positive measures are admissible and in what way social clauses can be introduced.
<P>
Now that the United Kingdom too, under Labour, has radically altered its position on social clauses in public contracts, I look forward to seeing how the Commission will respond to our recommendations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission has issued a communication on public procurement: it wishes to establish a legal framework, to simplify procedures, and bring a degree of flexibility to the market.
In addition, however, it is important to bear in mind the broader social objectives: principles of humanity, the demands of society and the working principles of the public sector, which are not always directly compatible with models of private enterprise.
<P>
I would like to thank my colleague, Mr Tappin, for an excellent report.
He feels that it is necessary to harmonise the social principles of the Union with EU legislation.
Workers' rights, such as minimum pay, working hours and health and safety, have not been such obvious issues to those who have profited from competitive bidding.
Why, for example, in the privatisation of transport, has it turned out that old drivers are being got rid of while at the same time they have started using old buses?
In developing EU procurement legislation the regulations need to be tightened up, and we have to make methods of monitoring their enforcement more effective.
Obviously, there have been problems in adhering to the content of directives.
<P>
The are even grounds for suspecting that it is not just a question of practical problems, such as legal complications or problems of varying labour market cultures.
What if it were also that bidding for public procurement contracts is not compatible with other principles that apply in the public sector?
Public corporations have also had to meet certain social policy objectives while involved in the business of procurement.
The quality of services has to be improved, employment figures have to rise, and environmental questions have to be tackled.
I await the report promised by the Commission on the total impact of procurement.
<P>
Both the Commission communication and Mr Tappin's report raise the issue of the need to make it easier for SMEs to access the public procurement market.
That is only right. It is important as there appears to be a danger of cartels forming connected with bidding for procurement contracts.
SMEs, and especially those that are obliged to observe labour legislation and environmental standards, need more information and training, however.
That is particularly important when it comes to using information technology as mentioned by the rapporteur, and that too has to be broadly applied, as it speeds up and simplifies processes.
<P>
We should also remember that local authorities, because of their democratic nature, generally have a better sense of morality than the business world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Peijs">
Mr President, the directives on public procurement were an important step in our efforts to make the European market more competitive and more open.
A good deal has changed in Europe since the first directive in this area.
A sector like telecommunications has been liberalised, and there have been optimistic signs here and there concerning public contracts.
Generally speaking, red tape was once again the villain of the piece.
The procedures which business and industry had to grapple with were unbelievably complex and inefficient.
We talk of a 720 billion euro market which really must be opened up if we ever want to have a truly single market.
But at what cost?
<P>
The directive provides for thresholds whereby it is no longer possible, above a given threshold, to tender in a private or national capacity.
In principle, that is a good thing.
The problem is that the incredibly complex bureaucracy involved makes it virtually impossible for small and medium-sized businesses to get a look in.
The fact is that under the system, framework contracts are not really feasible.
<P>
Large companies simply decide to have nothing further to do with public contracts and concentrate solely on the ordinary market.
The concept of the economically most advantageous bid is also frequently understood as meaning the cheapest bid.
That works against sustainable building methods, for example, since public authorities are interested only in the lowest price.
Many authorities have no provision for the service of capital, a system which is short-sighted and expensive for the citizen in the long run.
It is a poor system for small businesses, which do not have the longer-term strength of a bigger company that can calculate its profit out of capital resources.
So it is right that the Commission should give special attention to SMEs.
<P>
In the meantime, a large or medium-sized company can use digital systems to obtain information on published calls for tender.
But there is a good deal of ground to cover between the announcement of an opportunity and actually securing a contract.
In addition to the expense of putting together a bid, the firm or consortium has to demonstrate that it is financially sound and has enough experience in the field in question.
<P>
Registration systems may be the answer here.
These mean that companies only have to prove once that they are sound and competent, but for an authority which does not put work out to tender often, it makes no sense to set up a system of this kind.
I have therefore tabled an amendment jointly with Mr Langen and my group, an amendment which won the backing of the Committee on Economic Affairs, to have the threshold amounts increased.
<P>
This places the majority of contracts outside the scope of the directive.
To my mind, the thresholds are at present unacceptably low, given the huge amount of bureaucracy - hence the need to raise them.
<P>
The European Commission produced a green paper in 1996 and now it has produced a communication.
The communication does include some constructive proposals, but not a word on threshold amounts.
I hope that Parliament will give a clear message to the Commission with this report that things have to change, and that the Commission will address the matter.
<P>
My group will be voting against Mr Tappin's Amendment No 5.
It is unacceptable for firms to be blacklisted because accusations have been made against them.
In my country, you are innocent until proved guilty.
That would make competition far too easy.
We oppose Amendment No 4 because we have no idea what it means.
We have already requested a number of split votes and, lastly, we congratulate Mr Tappin on his report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Mr President, in its communication, the Commission has stressed the importance of full and fair competition.
However, similar emphasis has not been placed on the fact that it should be possible to apply environmental and social criteria to public procurement.
This point has been made by the rapporteur, as well as by Mrs Van Lancker in her capacity as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
They are proposing certain amendments which would mean that environmental and social considerations are taken into account in public procurement, but in my view the wording should have been tighter and clearer.
Nevertheless, the Green Group will vote in favour of the amendments, which still go further than the Commission's proposal or the report itself.
<P>
It seems to me to be quite a commonly held view that applying environmental and social criteria to public procurement would destroy free competition.
Nothing could be further from the truth, since environmental and social considerations naturally involve additional costs for individual firms.
If public procurement is not subject to the same extra costs, then those firms will be at a disadvantage - so much for full and fair competition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Secchi">
Mr President, first I would like to express the support and appreciation of my group for the Commission's initiative designed to improve the Community's legislative framework for public procurement. As has already been mentioned, this is an enormously important area of activity, representing over 10 % of the Union's GDP.
<P>
There are many innovations, an ambitious timetable has been proposed, and naturally we hope the various measures can be implemented smoothly.
<P>
There are two points I want to make: the first is to explain why I have tabled Amendment No 1 to paragraph 30, which is about making the competitive dialogue procedures more widely available.
I have to say that I am opposed to the possibility of post -tendering negotiations because even if they could be done transparently - and I find that hard to believe as there does not seem to be much point to them beyond publicity as an end in itself - surely such negotiations would damage parity of conditions, given that only the successful tenderer would enjoy its results.
That is what is behind Amendment No 1.
<P>
I also tabled Amendment No 2, but I hereby withdraw it so obviously I shall not dwell on it.
That just leaves Amendment No 1 from me.
<P>
At a general level, I want to take this opportunity to emphasise the need to make the tender procedure more transparent at European level, both procedurally and in terms of the dissemination of information.
<P>
This laudable initiative must not prejudice the need to simplify and remove some of the red tape, as my colleague Mrs Peijs and others have already said, particularly with a view to further integrating small and medium-sized firms into the single market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langen">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to draw your attention to one aspect of these directives and of this report by the Commission.
Parliament, through the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, has called for a marked increase in the thresholds, and I believe, Commissioner, that the Commission ought to display considerably more courage in this matter than it has done in the past.
The thresholds that apply today are far too low in many areas.
In particular, experience has shown that, with cross-border transactions accounting for less than 3 % of public procurement, the whole bureaucratic fuss, if I may say so, is a waste of time, because the thresholds are so low that no genuine competition takes place at all.
<P>
That is why our amendment provides for a marked increase in the thresholds, amounting to an average rise of 100 %.
It is a proposal that we ask you to incorporate into the next amendment of the directives, and we would urge you not to wait until something happens on the international front, but to ensure that Europe takes the lead in increasing these thresholds.
There is no point at all in insisting that all procurement contracts are put out to tender if the procedure is insufficiently transparent, small and medium-sized businesses do not bid, and these thresholds are ultimately devoid of impact on the competitive structure in Europe.
That is why we ask you, Commissioner, not only to improve the transparency of the public procurement system, but also to take the initiative now in preparation for the next round of international negotiations in the GATT framework in the year 2000 by substantially increasing the thresholds, not only for services but also for public works contracts.
I believe that this, along with the exemption of telecommunications from the utilities directive, will signal Europe's future intentions with regard to the development of public procurement.
<P>
If additional transparency can also be achieved through the use of modern media, such as the Internet, I believe all these things will put us on the right path, and I am convinced that the Commission can also take action to that end with the support of Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 NAME="Monti">
Mr President, first I would like to thank the European Parliament and the rapporteur, Mr Tappin, for the very significant contribution which his report makes towards making procurement policy more effective and adapting it to the needs of today's society.
<P>
The largely positive assessment of the action programme launched by the Commission with the communication on public procurement, which emerges from reading Mr Tappin's report and the motion for a resolution, is further evidence of the fruitful spirit of cooperation developing between the Commission and the European Parliament in this sector.
<P>
So it gives me great satisfaction to welcome the proposals and suggestions in the report on which there is a substantial convergence of view between our two institutions.
<P>
This applies first and foremost to Parliament's manifest concern about environmental and social issues, which the Commission fully shares and has already addressed in the communication.
It is our intention to examine these issues in depth to identify appropriate ways of reconciling the objectives of competition and transparency pursued by the rules on procurement contracts with the legitimate environmental and social protection requirements, which have been strengthened by the Treaty of Amsterdam.
<P>
Here we should not forget that the current rules already offer concrete opportunities for achieving adequate levels of protection, environmental in particular, but also social, without this altering the fundamental purpose of procurement policy, which remains essentially economic in nature.
These opportunities are not widely known and the Commission therefore believes they should be promoted and their scope clarified.
That is why we propose to adopt instruments for this specific purpose as soon as possible.
If this proves inadequate, the Commission will certainly consider whether it is appropriate to put forward more incisive proposals.
With reference to the social aspects mentioned by Mrs Van Lancker, Mr Paasilinna and Mr Schörling, I would point out that respecting current social legislation forms part of the clear and recognised obligation to comply with current legislation - all current legislation, not just social legislation - arising not from the directive but from the national legal system into which the directive is transposed.
Positive action is far more feasible than is commonly believed. Of course it must respect the principles of the Treaty, and the interpretative communication we will be publishing is precisely intended to clarify all this.
<P>
I would add that there are provisions in the directives to exclude candidates failing to comply with national social legislation.
The case-law of the Court of Justice confirms, in the Benjes judgment, that social requirements can be taken into account if this is stated in the general specifications for a contract.
Again, the Commission will spell out the possibility of taking these requirements into account in its interpretative communication.
<P>
As to the need, mentioned by Mr Secchi in particular, to simplify the current rules and related procedures and make them more flexible and adaptable to market developments, the Commission intends to clarify the scope of obscure or complex provisions and, if necessary, modify the current system.
With a view to this, proposals are being put forward designed to exclude from the scope of Directive 93/38 the sectors and/or services covered by it which operate under conditions of effective competition - water, energy, transport and telecommunications - and establish more flexible procedures, like the procedure known as 'competitive dialogue' and the framework agreements system.
With two 'public procurement' consultative committees, we are examining a new competitive dialogue procedure which ensures maximum transparency, as well as allowing greater flexibility.
<P>
Mr President, the report also specifically refers to the need for the new initiatives announced in the communication to help to ensure healthy and effective competition between economic operators during the tendering procedure.
This is an aim the Commission has always pursued in public procurement and it is the ultimate purpose of the interpretative communication on concessions and other forms of public and private partnership, which will be published in draft form in the next few weeks.
<P>
I would also like to touch very quickly on the important point raised, in particular, by Mrs Peijs.
We are aware of the difficulties currently faced by small and medium-sized businesses in taking part directly in tendering procedures, especially cross-border.
To reduce these difficulties and encourage the participation of small and medium-sized businesses, the Commission is drafting a communication to highlight the possibilities for giving SMEs increased access to public procurement in general, both through appropriate legislative changes and by identifying the opportunities currently offered by the existing programmes.
<P>
Internationally, the Commission will continue to act to ensure that the principle of reciprocity is established in the context of the current World Trade Organisation negotiations on the modification and simplification of the public procurement agreement.
<P>
I agree with Mr Tappin when he says that communication simply announces the initiatives the Commission intends to take and presents them in general terms, without providing details and particulars on each of them.
Mr Tappin is absolutely right.
That is inherent in the very nature of a general policy statement like the communication in question.
Obviously the details on each initiative will emerge when the initiatives themselves take shape.
As regards the legislative initiatives, these will be based on Article 100a of the Treaty and their adoption will therefore require the active participation of Parliament.
<P>
Finally, on the drafting of the interpretative instruments, while emphasising that this is an institutional responsibility entrusted to it by the Treaty, the Commission naturally appreciates the support of Parliament.
In this regard I have already proposed that a discussion group should be set up in Parliament for ad hoc informal meetings, tasked with interacting with the Commission departments concerned, and I think this idea should be studied in greater depth and acted upon, while still, of course, respecting the separate spheres of responsibility of our two institutions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schäfer">
Mr President, even at this late hour, a certain degree of attentiveness is required.
I found it difficult to follow the Commissioner's interesting remarks because the background noise level had risen very perceptibly in this Chamber, where sound carries over considerable distances, as a result of individual conversations.
Please ensure in future that we can listen in silence to every speaker.
Please advise Members and parliamentary staff that conversations involving groups of people can be conducted outside.
<P>
Protests
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Jobs of the future
<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0475/98) by Mr Thomas Mann, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on jobs of the future in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 NAME="Mann, Thomas">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, numerous academic studies and publications by employers' associations, organisations representing small and medium-sized businesses, trade unions and public institutions have served as the basis for my report on jobs of the future in Europe.
I am grateful to my colleagues in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the Committee on Women's Rights for their amendments, most of which I have incorporated into the report.
In the brochures I have obtained, even the glossiest of them, I find only a catalogue of achievements.
There are no visions or specific statements of intent for the next 10 to 15 years.
Globalisation, fierce international competition and ever shorter lifespans for innovations and decisions are resulting in deep-seated insecurity for everyone, from managers to part-time staff.
<P>
The hearing organised by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, in which the Union of the Industries of the European Community (UNICE), the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) and the European Union of Crafts and Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (UEAPME) took part, also made it clear that the current structural transformation is moving too fast to permit any long-term forecasts.
What are the trends that might influence the jobs of the future?
First of all, as we enter the information and knowledge society, we shall need suitably qualified employees.
They must have facts at their fingertips, they must keep educating themselves, even in their spare time, and they must be able to master technological equipment.
Once they have amassed a wide range of knowledge, they will be able to move from one discipline to another, switching from the occupation for which they were initially trained to another occupation and repeating that process three or four times in the course of their working lives.
They will have to be specialists and all-rounders at the same time, and will have to acquire key skills such as in-house communication, public relations, creativity and the skills of conflict resolution. As hierarchical structures dissolve and staff assume an increasing amount of responsibility, they must also be good team players.
They must be multilingual and able to empathise with foreign cultures.
<P>
School curricula and training programmes in the Member States will have to be reformed so as to emphasise knowledge of applied technology, educational breadth, new career profiles and the mentality of lifelong learning.
It is not only wrong to demand too much of people; it is also wrong to expect too little of them.
<P>
Secondly, in order to achieve high employment potential, in addition to these multiskilled employees there will be an increase in the number of job opportunities which involve the performance of basic tasks.
These are required in manufacturing and in labour-intensive industries.
Millions of people will obtain this type of work and will contribute to gains in productivity.
<P>
Thirdly, I cannot share the euphoric vision in which the service sector appears as an indestructible generator of jobs, because not every job that is done without payment today can be transformed into external paid employment.
Demand for services provided by regions and individuals will certainly increase.
These include care services, from the training of carers and care management to care of the elderly, home care and health care in hospitals and nursing homes.
Some services are business-related, ranging from insurance to corporate services; others are distributive, such as transport and communications; household-related services include retailing and catering, while other services relate to the social sector, covering areas such as employment and personal finance.
<P>
Tourism will be a strong growth area, from travel agencies marketing products designed for specific target groups to rural and cultural tourism.
To pave the way for new entrants to these jobs of the future in the Member States, the European Commission will need to launch initiatives but must, of course, respect the principle of subsidiarity at the same time.
<P>
Fourthly, there are good prospects in the fields of biopharmaceuticals and agricultural biotechnology, although public acceptance must be secured before these industries can take off.
No such controversy, however, attaches to systematically applied environmental technology, in which we Europeans already lead the field.
Considerable growth should be seen in research and development, which are the source of the innovative products and processes that enable companies to secure niches in the world market.
The TIME industries - telecommunications, information technology, the media and electronics - will be among the beneficiaries of the changing employment structure as networking and decentralisation take hold.
<P>
I believe there are three priorities with regard to sustainable jobs in the European Union. First of all, European support programmes - and this, Mr Flynn, is addressed to the European Commission - must be maintained in the long term without any reduction in their volume.
These include start-up programmes, schemes designed to enhance the competitiveness of SMEs and measures whereby women, who are still a disadvantaged group, can upgrade their qualifications and enjoy real equality of opportunity.
<P>
Secondly, the flexibility that is required for the jobs of the future demands a reorganisation of the work process.
There is a need for more company agreements to be concluded, providing for such things as part-time arrangements designed to enable parents to reconcile their occupational and family responsibilities, as well as proper social protection and childcare facilities.
<P>
Thirdly, instead of merely considering how to share out the existing workload among more people, the Member States must launch education and training campaigns.
The current presidency of the Council would do well to give up the idea of an EU-wide alliance for work, which is still a nebulous concept, and replace it with a far more meaningful and, what is more, an achievable alliance for the future.
Millions of people, especially those who are marginalised and unemployed as well as young, experienced and women employees, are waiting for this ambitious step towards a new dawn.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Weiler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I did not understand your last comment at all, Mr Mann.
There is absolutely nothing contradictory in the fact that the alliance for work which the German Federal Government is pursuing nationally, and which it is pursuing at European level during its presidency, is a useful contribution to employment growth.
So I am quite amazed by your comment because, as you know, we support your report in principle.
We also support your proposals on the environmental orientation of future economic activity and on the sabbatical year, and we hope that your group will not succeed in watering down the content of your report.
<P>
We see your report as a tile in the mosaic of the parliamentary quest for more employment, as part of the continuous process that we have been pursuing in Parliament for the past four years through the employment policy we initiated, through the Amsterdam employment summit and through the Luxembourg guidelines, despite some governments having dropped the occasional spanner into the works.
I also think you were right to include in your report the Commission's critical assessment of the national action plans, because there is little point in our being unwilling to learn from past mistakes.
But I am pleased, and I take the liberty of stating it here, that the priorities of the German Presidency will be the fight against youth unemployment and female unemployment.
This was not such a matter of course in Germany as you have implied.
<P>
I support the proposals contained in your report regarding the various means of creating sustainable jobs, and particularly the two main avenues.
The first of these is the redistribution of existing work.
That is hardly a new proposal, but we should not underestimate it in the context of a democratic society which enables mothers to hold down a job and which allows fathers to fulfil other social responsibilities besides their paid employment.
<P>
In my opinion, the second avenue of strengthening growth potential and improving basic conditions also requires special support.
By this, of course, I mean support for new business activities, for the tertiary sector, care services and, needless to say, for our great hope for the future, the SMEs.
By basic conditions I do not mean the supply-side policies that some countries have been pursuing, but the conditions for a modern system of education and vocational training.
I was also pleased to hear Mrs Edelgard Bulmahn, the German Federal Minister of Education and Research, emphasising to our committee that many Member States - including Germany, unfortunately - have education systems that are not Europe-friendly, not to mention their systems of further education, which are essentially at odds with the objectives we always proclaim in connection with lifelong learning.
<P>
Another important aspect is undoubtedly the acquisition of key skills, team skills and holistic thinking; we agree on that, and you know that I laid particular stress on the need for the men of our society to learn this kind of team skill.
I also thank Mrs Bulmahn for her pledge that Germany for one would be doubling its education and research budget over the next five years.
That, of course, is a signal by which we shall judge her.
We all know that the transfer of knowledge between the academic world and industry, in terms of real exploitable discoveries, is far too slow and that in many Member States it falls far short of what is required.
Our best bet in the initial stages, of course, is to support small and medium-sized businesses, which are the most powerful generators of new employment.
<P>
I should also like to mention one other target group that is often neglected in this debate, namely the foreigners who live with us in our EU Member States and whose enterprising spirit has done a great deal to provide additional employment.
Let me say here that I consider it a scandal that in my home state of Hesse, foreigners are currently being subjected to an unacceptable campaign of discrimination.
<P>
My last point concerns the lack of emphasis on what women can do in small and medium-sized businesses.
Their innovative capacity and their creativity are simply not able to come to the fore in the real world.
I believe the European Union should provide special support for enterprising women who want to start up in business.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Pronk">
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Mann for his report.
I think he has made a good attempt to focus attention on a number of new sectors in which jobs can be created.
He mentioned small businesses.
He also mentioned the need to learn.
'Learn, learn, learn' is the title I would like to give his report, because we can only create enough jobs if we have a population capable of meeting the challenge of the new technologies.
I think that is a most important point to make, and his report makes it.
<P>
We in the PPE Group of course support this report most warmly, but it is naturally something of a compromise.
I think Mrs Weiler is right in calling it a mosaic.
I have to say that some of the pieces added to the mosaic are worth rather less than others.
The bits added by the rapporteur himself are rather better than those put in later, and that is a danger.
<P>
When I was learning German, I had a little book entitled Schwere Wörter - difficult words -the differences between German and Dutch.
What we are getting at the moment from the German Government are schöne Wörter - fine words.
No new deeds.
At most it is going as far as the previous government went, but no further.
Absolutely nothing new is being done in real terms.
But the language used is splendid.
Old ideas are being dressed up in splendid new words.
But we are interested in deeds, in action.
I think it is important that the rapporteur has emphasised the need for action, for real and new jobs here and not various kinds of redistribution and other solutions, and not the fine words of the Federal Chancellor.
What we need is action, and it is on this that we shall ultimately be judged.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
Mr President, jobs are the Achilles' heel of the EU.
The economy and competition have dominated cooperation in the EU for far too long.
EMU has become a kind of mantra for the Member States which has pushed them into fighting inflation, meeting the convergence criteria, reducing their budgets and cutting back public spending, at the expense of creating new jobs.
From a European perspective, these things are important, but the approach is too narrow and one-sided.
EMU is actually making it more difficult to increase the number of jobs in the future.
I believe that peace, employment and the environment are the only areas by which our European citizens set great store.
<P>
The sections of the Amsterdam Treaty devoted to employment are commendable.
The approach should be based on intergovernmental cooperation, with objectives and guidelines set at European level and the possibility of coordinating national efforts. A good way for countries to do this would be by adopting sound ideas from other countries, for example variable taxation, shorter working hours and time off for study or training.
<P>
I would emphasise the fact that transport, the environment and energy are the sectors of the future.
I should for example like to see the EU, together with the Member States, making a substantial investment to ensure that, over the next ten years, petrol is replaced by environmentally friendly fuels, creating a large pool of environmentally friendly jobs in the process.
There is a market for vehicles powered by ethanol, methanol, electricity and so on.
<P>
Last summer, I visited a company in central Sweden: a small paper mill with 300 employees.
I asked the managing director what his biggest problems were in terms of the workforce.
I was anticipating that they would be pay, taxes and EU rules, but he told me that above all people wanted to know about schools, childcare, medical facilities and communications.
Basic public services are absolutely crucial when creating new jobs in many places, not least the northern part of Europe.
The Liberal Group supports this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 NAME="Crowley">
Mr President, I would like to welcome, very warmly, the report by my colleague, Thomas Mann, because it looks to the future and that is what we are talking about.
Not trying out failed systems of the past, not trying out failed mechanisms of the past, but dealing with the reality of what we are presented with.
Despite the risks and the dangers which new advances and new technologies present, they also offer us a wonderful new opportunity to correct some of the errors of the past, to be more socially cohesive within Europe.
<P>
A lot of mention has been made within the report and by colleagues speaking here tonight, and I am sure the Commissioner will also touch on it, about the importance of lifelong learning and education.
There is a very old saying 'Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish, you feed him for life'.
By investing more of our resources into giving real education and real training to our people then we can guarantee that they will benefit from the huge explosion in job creation opportunities which will be presented.
<P>
But there are dangers relating not just to individual actions taken by Member States but also to the question of tax harmonisation, about increasing taxation.
That is the biggest disincentive to investment which will hit job opportunities.
No longer can we have a huge state sector which will automatically take the overflow from the unemployed and give them meaningless jobs.
People now demand that they must have a meaningful role to play in life, with dignity.
If that requires them working part-time, so be it.
If it requires bringing more women back into the workplace, so be it.
Nobody should be denied the opportunity to ensure that they can play their full role in life.
But likewise, nobody should be forced, out of necessity, out of poverty, to take up a job opportunity that is not suitable for them.
Let us focus on education, let us work together for the common good.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, actions, not fine words - that is absolutely the right approach; that has to be appreciated from the outset.
An employment pact, rather than an alliance for goodness, beauty, truth or other intangible values, seems to me to be the proper step for us to take at this time.
There is much in Mr Mann's report that we are able to endorse, and we are opposed to any attempt by the PPE to emasculate it, but there are also a few points in it which are rather unclear.
So that we can have these points clarified, I shall try to present them systematically.
<P>
There are two possible sets of measures.
Additional demand for work can be created.
This can be achieved by means of an employment-oriented economic policy, by restructuring society and the tax system in line with environmental objectives, and by developing the tertiary sector to create social tasks which are necessary but which the market does not perform.
The second set of measures is designed to cut back the available volume of work. This can be achieved by redistributing the workload, reducing working hours, introducing part-time work, reorganising the work process, cutting the supply of work to employees by granting individual and collective rights to leave of absence and by granting sabbatical leave, which Mr Mann had in his report but which his group now wishes to delete.
This training measure has the dual effect of improving the quality of human resources after the sabbatical year and drastically reducing the available labour pool during it.
These measures can be taken, and we can close the labour gap in the European Union: 27 to 34 million, the Commission has calculated.
To do this, however, we must consciously address the problem, and for that we need a very substantive employment pact, not just a finely worded document.
We are in agreement on that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Damião">
Mr President, this report is like a mosaic which has the virtue of being in many different parts and therefore raising many issues.
It is a report which has not confined itself to simply expressing our concerns or to obtaining the unanimous approval of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (our concerns necessarily involve opposing exclusions from the current development model), but has put forward certain solutions which have already been mentioned such as work-sharing.
However, we all know that work-sharing is an approach that produces immediate but inadequate results given the scale of the problem.
We therefore have to find new ways of tackling this problem by recognising that we need to establish companies rooted in the people which, as has already been said, can help to solve the problems of the elderly, of community services and of the environment and which can be recognised and compensated in tax terms.
Companies involving the people and rooted in the people have a new role which must be welcomed and encouraged.
<P>
We know that the social security systems are now playing a role which they are unable to fulfil and for which they were not created.
Never, since the post-war years, have so many depended so much on these systems, either totally or partially, and they cannot withstand the pressure.
Therefore, only employment can produce appropriate, reliable and genuine social integration.
Jobs must be created and this means achieving agreement and cooperation on investment, because jobs which appear only in social statistics, which have no social quality, which have no future and which are inappropriate forms of social interaction between people are surely not the European social model which we want to build.
Therefore, it is not with jobs 'for statistics' that we will solve the problems, nor can quick fixes of training and work help us to tackle this mosaic which has to be sorted out.
<P>
We look to the Commission, knowing that, with the White Paper, we have overcome the obstacle of indifference.
It is time to act!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Hatzidakis">
Mr President, I should like to sincerely congratulate our esteemed friend and colleague Mr Thomas Mann on his very good work, although I think the end result is less good compared with the initial proposals he himself put to the Committee on Social Affairs.
<P>
In any event, be that as it may, I think this report is particularly important for two reasons.
The first reason is that we are in a period of very rapid developments.
We are in the age of globalisation, biotechnology, the information society, and it is essential and important for the European Parliament to look at the issue we are considering today, jobs for the future.
The second reason is unemployment, which is the scourge of the working population in the European Union in particular, and that is therefore yet another reason to consider how to deal with the developments that are coming and which are before us.
<P>
In a free economy, it is clear that the state cannot foresee exactly what is going to happen.
It can, however, do two things.
Firstly, it can support flexible, up-to-date and effective systems for the training and retraining of working people so as to keep pace with developments; and, secondly, it can put emphasis on language education, which also encourages the mobility of working people, especially in the context of the common market.
<P>
Above and beyond that, it is clear that the sectors to which attention should be turned, even in an indicative way, can be identified.
And here, quite rightly I think, the report points out that, firstly, one such sector is information technology and the electronics industry; a second sector, and one of particular interest to my own country, is tourism, agri-tourism and more generally the leisure industry.
Thirdly, emphasis should be placed on the tertiary sector, the provision of services.
It is clear that this sector will grow at the expense of the secondary sector; and, of course, a fourth sector comprises small and medium-sized enterprises, which are much more flexible and can create many jobs, as has been demonstrated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Heinisch">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to raise three points.
A major problem group throughout the European labour market of the future will consist not only of young people and adults without any training qualifications at all, but also those whose training qualifications are outdated or irrelevant.
Vocational training and further education systems must be adapted ever more rapidly to changing employment structures.
Joint efforts by the Member States to introduce innovations in this sector seem to hold the greatest promise.
Leonardo II in particular will offer excellent opportunities for cooperation in education and training, and it is imperative that these opportunities should be taken.
<P>
Secondly, the people of Europe have hitherto made little use of the single European job market.
A mere 2 % have been living and working for any length of time in a Member State other than their own.
Jobseekers are still too frequently unaware of employment opportunities beyond their national borders, and obstacles to the mobility of trainees and labour have still not been removed.
Initiatives such as EURES and Citizens First are steps in the right direction, but are not yet the complete answer.
It is up to Parliament, the Commission and the Council to launch new initiatives.
One particularly useful development has been the introduction of the Europass Training document, which guarantees the transparency of vocational qualifications acquired abroad.
<P>
Thirdly, additional employment opportunities can be created in Europe if new businesses are set up on the basis of innovative technology, new marketing potential or new service functions.
This, however, depends on young people in particular being able to take full advantage of these assets.
Even during initial training and then in the course of lifelong learning, entrepreneurship and knowledge of business practices must be imparted and encouraged.
At the same time, however, it is also necessary to eliminate excessive legal regulation, financial obstacles and information gaps.
The availability of venture capital, for example, is a key factor here.
Finally, may I again express my very sincere thanks to Thomas Mann for his excellent report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a few weeks ago, the unemployment rate dipped below 10 % for the first time in several years.
That is encouraging, but let us not rest on our laurels.
In particular, it would seem important to highlight positive trends and future job markets.
Thomas Mann's excellent report is especially valuable in this sense.
He quite rightly states that employers have an obligation to ensure the continuous training of their employees.
The point here is that the ability of staff to apply the latest specialised knowledge will primarily serve the interests of their employer.
That is why lifelong learning must be at the forefront as the prime instrument with which we can increase the level of employment throughout the Union, because only consumers can create jobs.
For this reason, it is essential to supply products and services that will actually be bought.
<P>
Care should also be taken to ensure that when a company changes hands there is a possibility of securing the jobs of the existing staff and subsequently expanding the workforce.
The report also refers to the fear that technological change could result in more redundancies than new jobs.
We must work resolutely and systematically to allay those fears.
The information society, for example, is the most dynamic economic sector in the European Union.
It already accounts for 5 % of our total GDP, is growing faster than every other sector and is creating more jobs too.
More than four million people are already employed by companies in the field of information and communications technology.
More than 300 000 new jobs were created in this area of the information society between 1995 and 1997.
But this potential has not been exhausted by any means.
There are still about 500 000 vacancies for ICT specialists.
Opportunities abound.
All we have to do is take them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schiedermeier">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, as the last speaker on this item, let me examine the problem under a slightly different light. What are jobs with a future?
The crucial thing is not the type of work that will be done, but rather whether jobs will still be available in the future.
The way I see it, some of the jobs of the future already exist.
And so what I should like to analyse is why these jobs of the present have a future.
That is not even a difficult task.
The management team or, in smaller businesses, the manager, must be quick to recognise market openings for their products and services and must adjust their range rapidly to keep up with customer demand.
To that end they require employees who are well trained, highly motivated and always prepared to undergo further training.
Such workforces do not grow on trees.
They need to be well treated, well informed and well paid.
Greater flexibility is more essential than ever today, but it must be a two-way flexibility that benefits not only the company but its employees too.
<P>
Modern workday patterns must not be detrimental to employees, as the latest example from the Volkswagen works in Wolfsburg illustrates.
Duties at work must not exclude anyone from his or her own family or from society.
National governments must play their part with a balanced taxation system, including tax relief where necessary, and must not capitulate under pressure, as in the case of your new government's DEM 630 legislation, Mrs Weiler.
So much for my basic analysis.
<P>
Inadequate school education, a lack of vocational training, an absence of further education and insufficient skills prevent many people from obtaining employment.
Discrimination against the older age groups and against disabled people must henceforth be prohibited by law.
We in Europe should learn from one another in this field.
The rapporteur, Thomas Mann, has made many good proposals.
The latest technological developments and in particular the service sector offer opportunities for the creation of secure, sustainable employment in which women and men would enjoy real equality.
I am all for defending the welfare state in the market economies of Europe, but I reject any attempt to spoonfeed people, because that could prevent the creation of jobs with a future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 NAME="Flynn">
<SPEAKER ID=204 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=13>
Protection for laying hens
<SPEAKER ID=205 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0481/98) by Mr Kindermann, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Directive laying down minimum standards for the protection of laying hens kept in various systems of rearing (COM(98)0135 - C4-0196/98-98/0092(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 NAME="Kindermann">
Mr President, this Commission proposal is intended to replace, from 1 January 1999, the existing directive 88/166/EEC on battery cages with a directive on the protection of laying hens kept in a variety of rearing systems.
These are only minimum standards.
The Commission's proposal implements the revision clause in Article 9 of the existing directive, whereby, on the basis of a report by the Scientific Veterinary Committee, it must put forward proposals for adaptation to take account of advances in our knowledge.
All new rearing systems will have to have nests, perches and litter.
Conventional cages without nests and litter may continue, exceptionally, to be permitted by Member States, but they must allow at least 800 cm2 floor area per bird and be at least 50 cm high at all points.
Under certain circumstances, old systems may continue in use until 31 December 2008 at the latest.
<P>
Our committee welcomed the Commission proposal because it is a step in the right direction, in other words it seeks to improve the conditions in which laying hens are kept.
In the first place, there is the increasing of the minimum floor area per bird from 450 to 800 cm2 , a measure which we particularly welcome, since the widely held view is that the current rules do not allow birds to follow their natural behaviour patterns, with the result that they are not kept in a manner appropriate to their species.
<P>
Regrettably, in formulating minium requirements for other rearing systems, the Commission only went half way.
The rules for non-cage systems in enclosed premises are incomplete, and above all there are no provisions on stocking density.
On free-range farming, there are no provisions at all.
We find that unfortunate, since the new directive will mean greater competition between the different rearing systems.
We therefore call on the Commission to bring forward a proposal on this shortly.
Also regrettable in the committee's view is the fact that the new 'enriched' cage with a nestbox, perches and litter, which in future is to be the standard cage, is not defined in detail.
I think we have helped to remedy that.
<P>
We also suggested that the date on which the new directive comes into force should be put back by two years, because the timetable envisaged by the Commission is totally unrealistic.
By the deadline it is setting, there will not be any cages on the market in the form specified for commercial use.
We also want a tighter definition of the Commission's monitoring activity.
This is because if the Commission merely tightens up the conditions for farming and changes the obligation to conduct on-the-spot inspections into an option, it is not carrying out its duty to ensure that the directive is complied with throughout the EU.
<P>
I shall move on now to the socio-economic considerations.
In addition to the option of cofinanced investment aids under the efficiency Regulation 950/97/EC, the committee is proposing the introduction of a system of aid which is independent of production, limited in time and paid on a reducing scale.
We think this tax mechanism will encourage reluctant Member States to adopt higher standards of animal welfare, and we urge the Council and Commission to consider this proposal closely.
<P>
The committee also wants care to be taken to ensure that Community producers are not disadvantaged vis-à-vis imports from non-Union countries.
In particular, this means that imports must meet the same animal welfare, veterinary and hygiene standards as EU products.
At this point, I should like to add a few words on the demand for a total ban on battery cages, made primarily by animal welfare groups.
The committee did not use the term 'battery cage' in connection with the new proposal for a directive, because it is inadequate and misleading.
There are at least three types of cage and each one, including the so-called 'enriched' cage, can be used as part of a battery.
So the term 'battery cage' only tells us how the cage is used, but nothing about its dimensions and properties.
Our committee therefore suggests that the term 'conventional cages' should be used to describe the cages defined in the current directive.
<P>
It is true that the October 1996 report of the Scientific Veterinary Committee concludes that 'because of its small size and barrenness, the battery cage as used at present has inherent severe disadvantages for the welfare of hens.'
But the key words here are 'at present', because the Veterinary Committee also says that alternative farming systems have serious disadvantages due to the risk of pecking and cannibalism ...
<P>
The President cut the speaker off
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="Needle">
Mr President, firstly I should like to say that I very much welcome the constructive and well-informed work of Mr Kindermann as a significant improvement to the Commission proposals which the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection feel are an inadequate compromise between the understandable concerns of producers and the welfare of laying hens.
<P>
The life-sized photograph I have brought with me tonight from a national newspaper showing the realities of space that are allowed by a conventional or battery cage says more than many hours of debate here possibly could.
Sadly, my committee is of the opinion that without financial measures in Member States to assist producers to move to alternative methods, it is unlikely the welcome aims of the directive will be effectively met.
They meet neither the aspirations of those seeking to achieve the best possible welfare standards, nor provide a realistic framework for EU egg producers to remain competitive or change rearing methods and retain sustainable employment levels.
<P>
In those circumstance, the committee gave priority to tackling the inherent severe disadvantages as quoted in the report of the battery system and therefore calls for an EU-wide ban on the use of such cages to be implemented as soon as possible but together with appropriate financial measures to be put in place by Member States with support from the Commission for alternative systems and relevant studies.
<P>
The Commission is also urged to take a strong negotiating position at the forthcoming WTO negotiations on equal welfare conditions for imported eggs, and particularly egg products, in line with the recommendation of the Commission Egg and Poultry Advisory Committee.
<P>
Therefore, in conclusion, I hope that tomorrow Parliament will adopt amendments such as Nos 50 and 92 tabled by my colleague Mr Watts and others and that the passage of Mr Kindermann's good report, thus amended, will be seen as a positive step towards the end of these cages - however we describe them - in the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 NAME="Watts">
Mr President, I would also like to thank the rapporteur for his report and for the constructive and comprehensive way in which he has tackled this very sensitive and controversial issue.
Like him, I welcome the Commission proposal to reform the battery cage system.
There appears to be recognition across the board that the existing battery cage system has got to go.
Whilst the proposal, from my point of view, does not go far enough, it signals the end of the existing battery cage system of production.
And about time too!
<P>
According to the European Commission's own Scientific Veterinary Committee, the battery cage system has - and my colleague Clive Needle just referred to this - ' inherent severe disadvantages for the welfare of hens'.
Only yesterday a new report highlighted the pitiful plight of the battery hen, crammed into a cage at just 18 weeks, no room to flap its wings, not enough room to stand fully upright, not able to scratch, doze or bathe.
After a year, at the end of their working lives, the scrawny near-naked birds are slaughtered and turned into pies, soup or petfood.
One in three of these birds sent for slaughter have fresh broken bones and almost all birds suffer from osteoporosis.
The cage is factory farming at its very worst.
<P>
However, if we believe the cage system to be cruel we should ban it completely.
My amendments and those of other colleagues seek to do just that.
By 2009 the battery cage system of egg production will be no more.
A ten-year phase-out is the best way of promoting the welfare of laying hens.
A ten-year phase-out is fair on the industry with a clear and certain future to plan for.
That future is free-range production.
In Britain it works.
It protects the welfare of the hen; it is profitable and it is popular.
89 % of the British public believe keeping hens in small cages in cruel.
Almost half of all Britain's households now buy barn or free-range eggs.
Some supermarkets like Marks & Spencers have banned battery cage eggs completely and now only sell free-range eggs.
This is the cruelty-free future we should all plan for and I hope we will all vote for tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Sonneveld">
Mr President, the new directive on battery cages is a political issue of the first rank.
We get a great many reactions on this from the public.
But it is also relevant to the farming operations from which many EU poultry farmers derive their living.
<P>
This latter fact means that we must take care over our legislative work and give producers a powerful incentive to review their systems of production in such a way as to ensure a higher level of animal welfare in farms which are economically viable in the European Union.
That must never mean an approach which forces all EU poultry farmers to switch to free-range egg production, even though this method is set to become increasingly important.
An alternative must remain in place, whereby birds are kept in greatly improved cages.
Tests on systems of this kind show that their quality of life is much better.
The Scientific Veterinary Committee will have to give a ruling on this too, and other aspects will have to be considered such as environmental considerations and the working conditions of poultry farmers.
If we want these greatly improved systems to take off in the very near future, we must make it more expensive to keep laying hens in conventional battery cages by significantly increasing the statutory number of square centimetres required per bird.
<P>
Whichever of the two production methods the European poultry farmer opts for in the next few years, in the interests of fair competition we shall also have to take full account of the conditions in which imported eggs are produced, whether fresh or as egg products.
What we must resist is any threat of a total ban, from a given date onwards, on the whole system of keeping hens in cages, even greatly improved cages.
<P>
The majority of the PPE Group will be supporting the line of the Kindermann report.
We do so with grateful thanks to the rapporteur.
We greatly appreciated his expert guidance as we tackled this subject.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Mulder">
Mr President, to start with I must compliment Mr Kindermann on his report and on all his hard work.
I think he has produced a good report.
<P>
The Liberal Group believes, in the first place, that in this case we should have not a directive, but a regulation.
We think it is most important to have this proposal acted on in the same way in all the countries of the European Union.
We cannot have certain countries falling short of the requirements.
So that is one important argument which the Liberals wish to express.
<P>
I have to say that I have rarely received as much post as I have in recent weeks on this matter.
My group has always been in favour of consumers deciding what they want to eat, and if they want to eat eggs from cages with a larger floor area, then we are very much in favour of that.
In this respect, we therefore support the Kindermann report's advocacy of 800 cm2 , rather than the 450 cm2 which are the rule at present.
<P>
We think that as much research as possible is needed in the meantime into alternative systems.
We shall look with great interest at the Commission's reports on this matter.
<P>
There is one thing we do not like.
In the USA, a major exporter to Europe, the area for laying hens is 350 cm2 .
And no one in America is making any fuss about it.
It is of course totally unfair competition if American eggs are imported free of any restriction under the WTO rules, and we strongly urge the Commission to raise this issue forcefully at the WTO talks.
We have to have fair conditions of competition.
We are very much in favour of mandatory labelling.
The customer has to be able to make a choice.
We hope that they will do exactly what they tell us in their letters.
<P>
Lastly, my group will be divided in its vote on Mr Watts's amendment seeking to have all battery hens banned from 2009.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bloch von Blottnitz">
Mr President, a cage is no place to live in.
And Mr Kindermann's honest and well-intentioned report will certainly do nothing to change that, because all it achieves is better cages and then only in ten years' time.
What we want is no cages at all, and I therefore hope that the amendments tabled by my honourable friend Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf will be approved tomorrow, because until we stop thinking of animals just as commodities with a sell-by date, supplying us with products as cheaply as possible, we shall not have decent and appropriate methods of animal husbandry.
We really must start seeing animals as they really are, namely living creatures, and not commodities to be used and then discarded at will.
<P>
I therefore urge the House to vote for our amendments tomorrow.
It would also be very beneficial to consumers if we do so, in the interests of health.
Only decent and appropriate methods of livestock management will produce healthy products.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="Nicholson">
Mr President, I should firstly like to congratulate the rapporteur on his report.
It is a subject that causes great concern to many people.
It is extremely difficult to achieve the necessary balance between all the elements involved and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development amendments are just about as good as we can achieve at this moment in time.
I know some will want to go further and much faster.
But I do not believe that we are in the right position to do so at present.
In the long term we must aim to achieve the ultimate.
This can only be achieved in cooperation with the industry.
<P>
We need to ensure that the industry is in a profitable position for these new regulations and others that will be required in the future which are extremely expensive to implement and to carry through.
The industry is in no fit position at this present moment in time to take on board the challenge that has been presented to it.
Profit margins are low.
I would support the amendment to provide assistance to modernise but with no expansion through increased numbers of birds within the industry.
<P>
We must also be very conscious as we burden our industry with extra costs that other world producers will not have the same criteria or pressures.
We have witnessed this in the pig industry, the beef industry and the milk industry.
I know it is a hobby-horse of mine but I firmly believe that if we in the European Union are going to set down such strict criteria and tie the hands of our producers so tightly then we must not allow imports into the European Union that fall below the criteria under which are expected to produce.
That must be the bottom line.
<P>
I urge the Commissioner to stand firmly behind the producers in the European Union because, while we will respond to him and the producers will respond to him, he must defend them against the world when it tries to take over our markets.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Mr President, Commissioner, I am in favour of abandoning the use of cages for laying hens.
Naturally, I welcome the Commission's initiative to improve things and draw up a new directive, but that is not enough.
Even the Scientific Veterinary Committee agrees that the current method of keeping birds in cages is particularly problematic.
I think it is an especially cruel form of livestock management which should be eliminated as soon as possible.
<P>
Of course perches, litter, baths and nestboxes are an improvement, but are we not once again encouraging producers to invest money which will very soon prove to have been wasted?
The fact is that more and more consumers throughout Europe are calling for a blanket ban on cages.
This will come, the only question is when.
<P>
We have 250 million hens in conventional cages, and only eight million free-range hens.
Certainly we cannot change that overnight, but we can change it in maybe eight, nine or ten years, and the amendments tabled by Mr Ebner, Mr Watts and Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf are all aimed at achieving that.
Europe's farmers have enough land to make the change, and the extra jobs will no doubt be easy to fill!
And battery farming cannot be healthy.
These poor hens usually die after a year, they last no longer than that, whereas a normal chicken usually lives for four to five years.
<P>
The extra cost to the consumer of an appropriate system of poultry management is estimated by the Commission - and for this too we thank them - at two euros per person per year.
Anyone who has ever seen a battery cage operation goes right off eggs for a very long time!
But the enlightened, informed consumer is perfectly willing to pay a little more and - once again I quote the Commission here - wants to see cages scrapped.
Please vote tomorrow in favour of Amendments Nos 52, 62 and 67.
You will all find that your breakfast egg tastes a little better!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
Mr President, it is as well to bear in mind that the current legislation on laying hens goes back to 1988 and should have been revised in 1993.
So this debate is taking place at least five years late, and yet the revision proposed by the Commission, which ought to guarantee both the welfare of the animals and the quality of the product, is not at all satisfactory.
The extraordinary logic underlying the rearing of laying hens in batteries will be recalled: they are no longer regarded as living creatures but as objects, industrial machines, parts of a production line.
Unfortunately, 93 % of eggs are produced like this in Europe, but the consumer does not know that the eggs he buys come from egg factories, where the hens are kept in narrow cages, piled up to ten storeys, like a sort of concentration camp. There are four or five hens in each cage, they cannot spread their wings or scratch the ground or perform any of the activities typical of their natural behaviour.
<P>
But a few extra square centimetres do not solve the problem.
That is why the Greens urge all colleagues to support the amendments tabled with a view to eliminating cages over the next few years and proposing free range rearing at a density compatible with the characteristics of these birds, a law which is, moreover, already in force in Switzerland.
<P>
Finally we support the request to the Commission to make it compulsory, as soon as possible, to label eggs so that the consumer will know how the hens laying them are reared.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
Mr President, I find it deeply depressing when animal welfare is only taken really seriously in this Parliament when it is a question of fox trapping or seal hunting and when it is indigenous populations who have to pay the price with their own welfare, which is sometimes even more precarious than that of the animals.
We have 70 amendments to a report on chickens, seeking to improve conditions for laying hens, in particular by imposing requirements for more space and stimulus.
This is somewhat illogical when what really disrupts the welfare of the hens is that they cannot satisfy the particular egg-laying needs which are natural to them.
And that will not be altered by giving the hens more space, which will only help to legitimise the situation for many years to come.
We should be more ambitious than that.
We should of course in the long term ban battery cages for laying hens.
In order to minimise the disadvantages for the egg producers, we could pay transitional premiums for a switch to alternative production systems.
Neither the Commission paper nor the Kindermann report contained proposals for such a ban.
I can therefore only urge everyone to support the amendments which seek to achieve this.
<P>
If the EU wants to speak up in the forthcoming WTO negotiations for including animal welfare in world trade, a domestic ban on battery cages would undeniably strengthen the EU's credibility and hence its negotiating position.
As a next-best solution, the Commission's proposal for compulsory labelling of the production system used should be welcomed.
All the indications are that a great many consumers are willing to pay extra and choose alternatively produced eggs.
But that is only possible if the market is transparent.
For example, the designation 'fresh eggs' is confusing.
All eggs should be fresh.
Besides, these eggs do not come from free-range hens, as some may be tempted to believe.
In Denmark, a labelling scheme of this kind specifying the production system was recently introduced, and there was a marked shift in consumer choice, since it was then clear which eggs were from battery hens.
Politically aware consumers are generally far more responsible than politicians.
The committee's proposal that labelling should also include egg products is a good step in the direction of better consumer information, and the proposal that the new minimum requirements should also apply to imports from third countries needs to be supported.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pinel">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we should not just improve battery rearing, we should ban it.
If we look at battery rearing in general, we can see that firstly it destroys biodiversity, secondly it destroys jobs and rural employment in particular and thirdly it constitutes a real hell on earth for these poor birds.
<P>
I personally cannot accept billions of hens spending their unfortunate lives in a space smaller than a shoebox. These birds also have to live through having their beaks being cut, their decalcified skeletons fracturing repeatedly and the skin being burnt from their feet and abdomen by the ammonia from their droppings.
How can we talk about quality after that?
Finally, at about the age of one year when their production drops, they are gathered together in scandalous conditions and piled up for their final journey. On arriving at the abattoir, one in three have broken feet.
As with sows, their sorry state means that their flesh cannot be sold, even in pieces. They will end up as the filling for ravioli or in stock cubes.
<P>
There is a fourth aspect which should be decisive in this dossier and which should result - if we are fortunate enough to live in an intelligent economic and social system - in a total and definitive ban on this type of rearing.
This fourth aspect is the health of consumers.
Here are birds which eat flavourless food with no consistency but which is loaded with hormones, if only natural hormones resulting from the animal's stress, and antibiotics whose improper use has significantly contributed, through a process of habituation, to penicillin-based antibiotics becoming ineffective in humans.
<P>
It is clear that these diabolical methods and this gigantic-scale production do not benefit consumers, who are entitled to expect more than poor quality food full of water and medicines, or producers, who can only watch as prices crash with the resulting risks of bankruptcy, or of course the animals who are the first victims.
<P>
The solution is obvious but it goes against the interests of the large multinationals.
Priority must be given to a system which is healthy, which creates jobs and which is capable of revitalising the rural environment.
Basically, priority must be given to everything which is contrary to the concept of meat factories.
We need free range rearing where the hens can wander across grass and gravel. We need quality products which obviously are a little more expensive, by say two euros per person per year, but which will reduce the social burden and medical costs.
<P>
Finally, we should not forget that one of the basic elements at stake in this type of dossier is quite simply the future of the rural environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
<SPEAKER ID=218 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, I too very much regret the fact that neither the Commission report nor Mr Kindermann's report proposes ending the practice of keeping laying hens in cages.
As long as cages continue to be used, even if they are bigger and fitted with a perch, we cannot really speak of appropriate methods of keeping these birds.
The European Parliament ought to prove that it wants no half-hearted compromises in matters of animal welfare, and it should vote for those amendments which seek to have the cage system done away with altogether.
<P>
The fact that 93 % of eggs produced for consumption in the EU come from battery cages must not stand in the way of a ban on this shameful form of mass animal torment.
Rather, this figure proves that the European consumer is not sufficiently aware of animal welfare issues, or of questions of product quality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I must thank Mr Kindermann for his extremely competent and detailed report.
I am happy to see that Parliament's basic position on the protection of laying hens kept in various systems of rearing is the same as that of the Commission.
<P>
What objective is the Commission pursuing with the proposal we are debating here today?
Firstly, a real improvement in the welfare of laying hens on the basis of scientific knowledge.
The present system of battery cages is very much a candidate for being improved or replaced.
Secondly, in order to facilitate the switch to methods of rearing which are more appropriate to the basic needs of laying hens, we wish to ensure that the minimum standards result in production costs which are comparable for the various alternative methods of rearing and the improved battery cage system.
<P>
Acceptable systems are non-cage systems and so-called 'enriched' cages.
These are enriched in the sense that they have not only perches, as already mentioned, but above all nestboxes and scratching areas.
Thirdly, a ten-year transitional period is envisaged for existing barns, but new and converted barns will have to meet the new standards straight away.
<P>
Fourthly, the directive will be revised after seven years to take account of any further scientific progress.
Egg labelling will be mandatory.
Let me comment now on the amendments which have been tabled.
In drafting its proposal, the Commission took due account of jobs, the environment, health and the economy.
Amendment No 1 is therefore consistent with the Commission's thinking and we accept it.
This does not apply, however, to Amendments Nos 20, 21, 45, 51 and 61.
Amendment No 10 represents an improvement in the wording and seeks better protection for poultry.
So this amendment too is acceptable.
<P>
The Commission's proposal amounts to the same thing as Parliament's Amendment No 13, but this amendment can also be accepted as it makes the text clearer.
Amendment No 15 is acceptable, since the provisions on feed and water systems in the Commission proposal relate to cages.
In systems other than cages, however, the space per hen can be reduced.
The distinction between single-floor cages and multi-floor systems is perfectly acceptable.
So Amendments Nos 16 to 19 can also be accepted.
<P>
Amendments Nos 22, 23 and 29 are also acceptable.
These are improvements to the Commission proposal.
The remaining amendments are not acceptable to the Commission for the following reasons: Amendments Nos 2, 37(3) and 36, 42, 59, 69 and 70 are not consistent with Community policy.
As for Amendments Nos 5, 38 and 55, current WTO rules do not allow the Community to use animal welfare provisions as an instrument of trade.
As you know, however, the Commission is considering whether, at the forthcoming round of WTO negotiations, animal welfare provisions might be introduced as a new element in the WTO's terms of trade.
<P>
Amendments Nos 4, 54, 57 and 68 are superfluous to this proposal.
Amendments Nos 6, 12, 43, 44, 45, 51, 58, 63, 64 and 65 have no scientific basis, and our proposals have to be constructed on a scientific basis.
Amendment No 8 is linked to Amendments Nos 24 to 28, 30, 32 and 33.
These, together with Amendments Nos 9, 14, 46, 49 and 56, do not constitute improvements of any kind and therefore cannot be accepted.
Amendment No 7 clearly concerns a linguistic problem, because this amendment corresponds exactly to the English text of the Commission's proposal.
<P>
Amendments Nos 50, 52, 60, 62, 66 and 67 are premature in the Commission's view, since the matter concerned is still under discussion.
It is therefore a good idea to postpone the date of the directive's entry into force.
This then makes Amendment No 11 and the related Amendments Nos 31, 34, 35, 39, 40, 41, 47 and 48 perfectly acceptable.
Finally, I agree with the view that a directive is preferable to a regulation, and consequently I cannot accept Amendment No 53.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
The sitting was closed at 0.15 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=0>
<SPEAKER ID=1 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Madam President, as we are voting on these agricultural reforms, the Agenda 2000 reforms, I would just like to inform my colleagues that it has been over fifty degrees below zero in Finland this week. Such conditions are worth noting, as cars and other kinds of machinery are frozen solid.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hawlicek">
Madam President, I have a point of order on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media.
At the sitting of Wednesday, 13 January 1999 in Strasbourg, Commissioner Bangemann spoke on the Malerba report on globalisation and the information society.
The Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media is sorry to see that Mr Bangemann is apparently so afraid of it that he felt obliged to exercise his prerogatives under the Rules of Procedure and criticise the committee as a whole for having presumed to express its own views on the substance of the report in the form of a letter.
<P>
But the committee members can be forgiving of Mr Bangemann's remarks.
The Committee on Culture is happy that its principal comments on the Green Paper on convergence were taken on board last October.
Mr Bangemann must have been sorely disappointed to find that a committee which he regards as so insignificant was in fact able to push through its main ideas on convergence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Hawlicek.
I note what you have just said, but Mr Bangemann is not here to give you an answer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fayot">
Madam President, I would like to say that the acoustics in this room are very bad.
We can hardly hear you without the headphones.
The technical services should deal with this, as the situation is absolutely intolerable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
You are quite right, Mr Fayot.
You will know that several of us have raised the question of the acoustics here in the Chamber.
<P>
I would make two comments in response to what you have said.
Firstly, the Bureau has given the matter consideration, and we have called in a firm to see how the acoustics can be improved.
Secondly, I would ask Members to cooperate; if they would be good enough to take their seats as quickly and as quietly as possible, that would naturally improve the situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wolf">
Madam President, I would like to come back to the point that was made about Mr Bangemann, and to urge the House to show some understanding towards him, as he is clearly suffering from end of mandate syndrome.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Wolf.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Mulder">
Madam President, may I suggest that we postpone the vote on the legislative resolution, in line with our practice on other reports on agriculture and also because the Commission failed to keep the promise it gave in Strasbourg and did not make its position on the reports available to us until last night.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rehder">
We are happy with that, Madam President.
But we shall see what we actually achieve with the Council in the direct talks beginning next week, and then we shall vote.
We all had a chance to read that yesterday evening, of course.
Our thanks to the Commission, although it did come a little late!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
Yes, I understand the situation.
To do things in the proper form, I shall put the proposal by Mr Mulder to the vote.
<P>
Parliament decided to postpone the vote and the matter was deemed to have been referred back to committee
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
I should like to ask the Commission, pursuant to Rule 60, whether it is prepared to accept the amendments that we have put forward here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Fischler">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we distributed a list yesterday of the amendments which the Commission is currently able to accept.
Regrettably, the Commission cannot accept all the amendments which have been adopted here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
I have read the Commission paper, Madam President, but I wanted to do things by the book, which is why I asked Mr Fischler once again to say that the Commission is not accepting everything.
I therefore request referral back to committee pursuant to Rule 60(2).
<P>
Parliament decided to postpone the vote and the matter was deemed to have been referred back to committee
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rehder">
Madam President, this means that we have finally got rid of one of the most grisly premium payments, namely the Herod premium.
I should like to thank the whole House for that!
<P>
Before the vote on the draft legislative resolution
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Garot">
Madam President, I would like to request that the vote on the legislative resolution be postponed, pursuant to Rule 60(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
Parliament decided to postpone the vote and the matter was deemed to have been referred back to committee
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rehder">
Madam President, I should like to clear up one more point concerning the vote on Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf's report.
I think there was some confusion at the end.
We approved the report, and as I understand it the rapporteur's request for referral back to committee concerned the legislative resolution.
So this is not a referral back to committee, but simply a referral of the legislative resolution forward into a better future.
We are counting on the wisdom of the Commission and the Council to round the whole thing off nicely.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
Yes, Mr Rehder, I think that was quite clear.
I did indeed put the Commission proposal as amended to the vote, and it was approved by a considerable majority.
The same thing happened with the other reports, for example that by Mr Garot which we have just dealt with.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Goepel">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am basically very happy with the way in which the House has voted.
I should like to propose, and I would ask my colleagues to agree to this, that we postpone this final vote pursuant to Rule 60(2), in other words when we come to the legislative resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="President">
Yes, Mr Goepel, you are being a little premature, but I think that everyone will have understood your intention.
<P>
Before the vote on the draft legislative resolution
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="President">
I put to the vote the rapporteur's proposal that the vote on the draft legislative resolution should be postponed.
<P>
Parliament decided to postpone the vote and the matter was deemed to have been referred back to committee
<P>
Second proposal for a regulation
<P>
Before the vote on the draft legislative resolution
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="Goepel">
Madam President, Commissioner, in accordance with the Rules of Procedure, I would ask you if you are prepared to accept Amendments Nos 7, 10 and 11 - the amendments concerning the option of transfer with or without the corresponding land, and more flexible application of the superlevy if quotas are extended to the year 2006?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Fischler">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Goepel has in fact asked two questions.
The first refers to the option of transfer with or without the corresponding land.
I am prepared to accept the amendments relating to this.
As regards the superlevy, I should point out that a more flexible superlevy is not something which can be achieved overnight.
In the meantime, we are discussing a possible review of the operation of the milk system, about half-way through the conversion period, so in 2003 or thereabouts, and consequently I would prefer it if we could take this matter up again after that review has taken place.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rehder">
Madam President, I am grateful to the Commissioner for having explained it for the third time.
I hope everyone has now grasped it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="Goepel">
Madam President, I shall take the Commissioner at his word, because to me these are the most important features of this market regime.
He has confirmed his willingness to accept them.
So we can vote on the legislative resolution.
<P>
Parliament rejected the draft legislative resolution and the report was thus referred back to committee
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="Fantuzzi">
Madam President, there is no point in repeating the same old story.
For the same reasons as my colleagues, to have more time to examine the Commission's position properly, I would ask for the vote on the legislative resolution to be postponed.
<P>
Parliament decided to postpone the vote and the matter was deemed to have been referred back to committee
<P>
Second proposal for a regulation
<P>
Before the vote on the draft legislative resolution
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="Fantuzzi">
Madam President, after that stroke of luck, I hope to be equally fortunate in asking for the vote on this legislative resolution to be postponed.
<P>
Parliament decided to postpone the vote and the matter was deemed to have been referred back to committee
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Liese">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, to my mind we are in something of a quandary here.
We have a report which admittedly covers only one aspect of the whole dispute over bananas, but in the present delicate situation we should be careful not to make any mistake here, perhaps as a result of having too few Members present in the House.
I have the feeling that, because we need 314 votes, there ought to be rather more Members present for this vote.
The fact is, though, that we were given the common position of the Council on 5 November.
So I would ask the presidency to check whether we can still vote on this report in Strasbourg, given the low number of Members present, or whether the deadline for doing so has automatically expired.
I would urge my colleagues to come back to the Chamber, otherwise we shall have no means of influencing this procedure if we cannot obtain the necessary 314 votes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="President">
Mr Liese, I understand the problem.
I will first check to see how many Members remain in the House and then I shall consider what to do.
This is because, on the other hand, if we postpone the vote until Strasbourg, until the February part-session, we will have a deadline problem.
<P>
It was established that 335 Members were present
<P>
I wonder whether I ought to propose that the vote should be postponed until February and, if necessary, we can request an extension of the deadline.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Vecchi">
Mr President, while it is true that there are only a few more Members present than the absolute majority required, there are actually enough Members here.
All the amendments from the Committee on Development and Cooperation were adopted by very large majorities.
This is the second reading of a very urgent and very important legislative proposal, so I think the right thing to do is to vote on it now.
Every Member and every political group must take responsibility for the outcome of the amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, I think the majorities are extremely slender.
So I would suggest that we postpone the vote and that you put this proposal to the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="President">
We shall now vote on the proposal to postpone the vote until February.
<P>
Parliament rejected the proposal to postpone the vote
<P>
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="President">
I would like to point out to Parliament that in future the Bureau does not intend to accept these requests for votes on sections of texts, which create total confusion.
We would also ask the political groups to take more care.
It is very difficult for the House to understand when a phrase within a sentence is taken in isolation.
I will accept it now, but for the last time.
<P>
Parliament adopted the resolution
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
On reflection, I should like to ask for voting to be halted at this point.
I think that not only we, but also the Chair which has performed so well, are getting a little tired.
My apologies to those whose reports have not yet been put to the vote, but I think there is no longer any point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="McMillan-Scott">
Mr President, I should like to make a brief point on Mr Bernard-Reymond's comprehensive and excellent report on which we are about to vote.
We can do it much faster if some of the amendments are withdrawn. I will explain because it is quite an important point.
<P>
We have been here all morning dealing with some very trivial amendments.
In the Bernard-Reymond report there are 32 amendments tabled by Mr Dupuis.
None of them were tabled in committee.
The rapporteur has generously accepted five of them. Only two of them relate to events since the report was taken in committee.
I therefore invite Mr Dupuis to withdraw all his amendments except the two.
If he will do so we can deal with this report in two minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fontaine">
Mr President, with all due respect to Mrs Oomen-Ruijten's suggestion, I must point out that it is not yet 1 p.m.
We can therefore vote on Mr Bernard-Reymond's report.
<P>
Mixed reactions
<P>
I am well aware that we are all very tired, but it is not yet 1 p.m. and we could follow Mr McMillan-Scott's proposal and vote on this one last report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="President">
We shall now vote on the proposal to suspend voting at this point, before the vote on the report by Mr Bernard-Reymond.
<P>
Parliament approved the proposal to suspend voting
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, I asked for the floor five minutes ago, firstly in order to congratulate you on the way in which you have conducted the sitting.
I note the result of the vote, and I am bewildered by the proposal that was made by a Member of this House, namely Mr McMillan-Scott.
I thought that such methods belonged to the People's Assembly in China, but I see that people dare to put forward such proposals even in the Strasbourg and Brussels Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Friedrich">
Mr President, I voted in favour of the Mulder report, because this represents the first official mention in a European Parliament decision of the principle of cofinancing.
I regard this as a major policy success, because we keep on saying that the autonomy of the regions and nations has to be preserved, that we must only do at European level things which cannot be done at national level, and this principle holds true also and above all when it comes to the funding of agriculture.
We must not have the funds going first to Brussels and then coming back from Brussels.
It is feasible and would make better sense for a proportion of these funds - 25 % or even 50 % - to be provided by the regions and the states themselves as their contribution to financing agriculture.
That will also reduce the chances of mismanagement and fraud: the money can remain in the hands of the Member States.
I think this is a good idea and a good resolution on the part of the European Parliament, offering sound guarantees and prospects for the future, and for that reason I voted for the Mulder report with a clear conscience.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="Andersson, Lööw, Sandberg-Fries, Theorin and Wibe">
The Swedish Social Democrats are in favour of three overall objectives for agricultural and food policy in the EU.
Firstly, agricultural and food production should be driven by consumer demand; secondly, production should be sustainable in the long term, both ecologically and economically; and thirdly, the EU should be contributing towards worldwide food security, for example by ensuring that the principles of free trade are upheld in the agriculture and food sectors.
Free trade should, however, be compatible with the interests of consumers, animal protection and regional and environmental policy.
<P>
We think that in the long term, both restrictions on production and subsidies under the COMs should be phased out.
The financial resources thus released could be used for investment in regional industrial development, infrastructure, rural development and environmental services, which may well be necessary as a result of reform.
In the long term, agriculture - like other sectors - will generally have to operate on the basis of market conditions.
During a transitional period, however, temporary support may be required to enable the adjustments to be made in a way that is acceptable from a social point of view.
Well-defined measures are needed in order to meet the vitally important environmental goals, as well as to promote rural and regional industrial development.
<P>
We are also convinced that the reduction and eventual abolition of market support measures and better adaptation to free market principles will lead to a reduction in the cost of the agricultural policy.
In order to achieve this goal, some additional pressure on the EC budget, of a temporary nature, may be acceptable. In the long run, however, there will be a reduction in agricultural spending.
We regard this as an urgent matter, since it would facilitate the forthcoming enlargement of the Union towards the east.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="Blak, Iversen, Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats today voted in favour of the Mulder report.
This is because we support the entire enlargement project, which we think is one of the most important steps taken by the European Community in our time.
It must be the aim of all Europeans to ensure peace and stability in our continent.
We did however vote against the amendment on cofinancing, since we think that this would mean a renationalisation of the agricultural policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Ephremidis">
Only as a euphemism can we any longer speak about financing the CAP, when the proposals we are debating in reality concern savage cuts in the appropriations available for agriculture, leading to the annihilation of small and medium-sized family holdings mainly in the southern parts of the Community, with the result that the number of holdings and the number of people working on them will fall drastically and the unemployment ratio in rural areas will rocket upwards, dangerously accelerating the desertion of the countryside.
<P>
By calling into question and continually reducing the share of the Community budget for agriculture, which is what the 'Agenda 2000' proposals and the CAP review proposals are doing, what is in reality being called into question and undermined - and this moreover without any further attempt to hide the fact - is the decisive role played by agriculture hitherto in most of Europe's regions, especially in the south.
The European Union is constantly reducing its existing agricultural workforce, since now its declared aim is to save resources and to prepare for the predatory enterprise of enlargement towards the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, so that European monopolistic capital can respond to the new regime of the World Trade Organisation from 2000 onwards, with its notorious submissiveness to the demands of the USA.
<P>
We disagree with the rapporteur's view that pre-accession aid to the applicant countries should not be entered under a separate category and that it should be included in the guideline, in order to reduce the burden on the rest of the budget.
Pre-accession aid must be a separate category, not included in the guideline, so as to prevent a reduction of the already savagely reduced resources available from the Guarantee Section for farming in the Member States.
<P>
With compulsory cofinancing of direct aid by the Member States, this proposal heralds a flagrant and unacceptable intrusion in the national budgets of Member States, on what are effectively conditions of submission.
This not only contravenes the provisions of the Treaty, but indirectly prepares the ground for a substantive transfer of compulsory expenditure to national budgets - with no prior opinion from the national parliaments - for policies and decisions adopted by the EC executive.
With a surfeit of hypocrisy and populism, and in the name of an illogical so-called rationalisation which goes against any notion of solidarity, a misrepresented renationalisation is being sponsored which will nevertheless relate solely to expenditure, while the Community will retain exclusive powers to determine every detail of the CAP - quotas, price and export subsidies, taxes and so on - without any margin of flexibility or any scope for the Member State itself to frame its own agricultural policy.
<P>
We are categorically opposed to this Commission proposal, and there is no room for 'its better management'.
It is our duty to oppose and reject such a policy, which is against the interests of small and medium-sized farmers and growers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="Lindqvist">
I agree with the main objectives in Agenda 2000.
The agricultural policy is definitely in need of reform. However, this should not be carried out in a way or at a speed that is detrimental to either agriculture or employment.
Slightly smaller price cuts are therefore in order.
<P>
Some crops will have to be used for purposes other than food, for example as fuel and in industrial processes.
Europe should embark on a wide-ranging programme aimed at bringing about a switch from petrol to environmentally friendly fuels.
A ceiling should be set on the amount of agricultural support that can be given to individual holdings.
Additional support should be made available to less-favoured regions, particularly in northern Europe, so as to ensure the survival of farming in Sweden and Finland.
Quality assurance should be introduced for agricultural methods and products.
In general, support should be geared more towards environmental purposes.
<P>
Cofinancing by the Member States should be allocated on the same basis as assistance from the Structural Funds.
However, it should be possible to vary the amount according to the needs of different countries and regions.
Naturally, farmers should be adequately compensated for lower prices which reflect price falls on the world market.
Where the relevant environmental or animal welfare legislation is not applied, it should be possible for payments to be withheld.
However, in the case of organic food production, price cuts should not be too large or happen too quickly.
<P>
The present system must be reformed in line with market principles in terms of paying for what is produced, and support should gradually be phased out. This is what had been decided in Sweden just before we joined the EU.
More support should be provided for environmental and rural development. It is also what many farmers, as well as a significant section of the general public, would like to see.
If the enlargement process is to be carried through, then agriculture will continue to be dependent on some EU funding. The timescale for this should therefore be extended.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Titley">
I am reluctantly voting in favour of this report today.
In my view it is far too cautious.
Nothing less than root-and-branch reform of the CAP will do.
A CAP designed for the Europe of the 1950s is no longer suitable for a Europe entering the new Millennium.
Radical reform will benefit consumers, taxpayers and most farmers.
<P>
For far too long the people of the North West, like every one else, have been paying the price (literally) for the failure of the CAP.
Consumers have been paying too much for their food bills, taxpayers have been paying too much for their tax bills, and hard-pressed small farmers and hill farmers have not received the support they need.
Indeed, it is hard to see who actually gains from the CAP.
<P>
The answer, of course, is large farmers backed by their Tory allies.
The Tories have always been the large landowners' lackeys.
They supported them during the BSE crisis while Labour supported consumers.
They continue to support them on fox-hunting while Labour - like most people - support a ban.
Once more, in championing CAP reform, it falls to Labour to stick up for the interests of ordinary people.
<P>
Graefe zu Baringdorf report (A4-0480/98)
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Blak, Iversen, Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats today voted in favour of the Graefe zu Baringdorf report on direct support.
We think it important to reduce intervention as an element in the overall reform of the common agricultural policy.
<P>
The reform of the common agricultural policy is a precondition for enlargement, which we think is one of the most important steps taken by the European Community in our time.
It must be the aim of all Europeans to ensure peace and stability in our continent.
We voted against the amendment on special support for the planting of fodder legumes which would be good for the environment.
We do not think that fodder legumes are necessarily any better for the environment than other plant species.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Barros Moura, Campos, Correia, Damião, Lage, Moniz and Torres Marques">
We have followed the voting instructions of the PSE on these two reports, with the amendments and conditions which we consider appropriate to safeguard the interests of Portuguese agriculture and farmers in the framework of a revised and fairer European agricultural policy.
<P>
Despite the fact that the results achieved in the votes may be regarded as heading in a direction more favourable to these interests than the original proposals, particularly those of the Commission, we feel it is necessary to vote against these reports in the final vote. This is because we believe that it only makes sense to take decisions on, or with implications for, the financing of the CAP in the framework of the ongoing negotiations on own resources, financial perspectives and the financing and content of policies covered by the Structural Funds and of all EU policies.
<P>
We are once again being guided - while still supporting the extensive reform of the CAP - by the aim of not limiting nor jeopardising before time, by piecemeal decisions, the negotiating scope required to secure a final result which is favourable to the interests of Portugal in these difficult negotiations, which should lead to an EU with greater solidarity and which is more fairly financed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="Andersson, Lööw, Sandberg-Fries, Theorin and Wibe">
The Swedish Social Democrats believe that investment in rural development is both right and necessary.
However, we doubt that the way to go about this is to deliberately scale down agricultural productivity.
For the sake of the rural economy, employment and the environment, we think it would be preferable for agriculture to adjust to the market and to be exposed to competition.
<P>
Garot report (A4-0494/98)
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="Andersson, Lööw, Sandberg-Fries, Theorin and Wibe">
We should like to use this explanation of vote to point out that the Swedish Social Democrats believe that the Member States should make up their own minds on whether to grant premiums for heifers under the suckler cow scheme up to a ceiling of 20 %, which in the case of Sweden would mean that the ceiling for male bovine animals should revert to its original level.
The same would apply to the quotas for suckler cows and heifers.
We have serious reservations about the effect of increased production, as proposed by the Commission, on the environment.
To allay our fears, we are calling on the Commission to draw up a more extensive and radical proposal based on a study of the environmental implications, in accordance with the conclusions reached by the Council meeting in Cardiff.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Blak, Iversen, Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats today voted against the Garot report on the organisation of the market in beef and veal.
This is because the report seeks to maintain intervention on beef.
We think it important to reduce intervention as part of the overall reform of the common agricultural policy.
The reform of the common agricultural policy is a precondition for the enlargement project, which we think is one of the most important steps taken by the European Community in our time.
It must be the aim of all Europeans to ensure peace and stability in our continent.
We support the proposal presented by the Commission on the organisation of the market in beef and veal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Souchet">
Yesterday the Commission presented to the House its proposal on agriculture and the environment, rightly stressing the need for European agriculture to be environmentally friendly.
<P>
The proposal for a reform of the COM in beef that the very same Commission is now proposing to us is in complete contradiction with its desire to promote environmentally friendly agriculture.
<P>
The Commission actually wants to abolish the specific compensation for the production system that is most environmentally friendly: the production of suckler cows.
Rather than consuming imported proteins, these suckler cows eat grass and use pasture land.
<P>
This form of agricultural production, which is mainly practised in less-favoured and environmentally sensitive areas, will eventually disappear if the Commission's proposals are accepted as they stand.
<P>
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has therefore tabled several amendments to enable this form of production, which responds to the particular expectations that consumers have in terms of both health and safety and of land management, to be re-established.
The removal of this type of production would in fact weaken areas which are already suffering from major desertification.
<P>
As for lowering the price by 30 %, this is unacceptable.
The world price for beef is half the European price.
This 30 % reduction will therefore not be any help in gaining market shares, but it will weaken the sector as well as considerably reducing the incomes of a category of farmers that already earn the least.
<P>
In order to compensate for this reduction in prices, the Commission envisages partial compensation through direct aid.
This direct aid will be called into question by our partners in the WTO (the former GATT).
<P>
To conclude, what is being proposed today is a major reduction in the price of beef, for which there will only be partial compensation, and from 2003 onwards we will be told that in order to fulfill our international obligations we must reduce compensatory aid.
At the end of the day, the only ones who will lose out are the farmers, whose income will be reduced unless they increase their production by using growth promoters (hormones).
Once again, farmers will be confronted with a dilemma: either they disappear, or they use technology that is not in keeping with ethically responsible behaviour.
<P>
Our group will vote against the Commission's proposal if the amendments that it has tabled are not adopted and accepted by the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="van Dam">
Basically we agree with the rapporteur that a 30 % cut in the guaranteed prices for beef and veal is particularly severe.
Unfortunately, some reduction is inevitable in view of the imminent accession of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
In these countries a high proportion of people's incomes goes on food, even though food prices are relatively low.
Current EU guaranteed prices would be disastrous for those countries and a serious obstacle to their accession.
<P>
Lowering guaranteed prices to world market level is going too far, in our view.
Livestock breeders in the EU are entitled to continue to be assured of a decent income, this being the raison d'être of the CAP.
So a lowering of guaranteed prices must go hand in hand with a raising of compensatory payments, which cannot be paid if there is no longer any price support.
<P>
Not enough attention is given in the Commission proposal to limiting production, as the rapporteur rightly points out.
Set-aside and quotas are useful for limiting surpluses, which work very much to the disadvantage of developing countries.
But limits on production must not lead to an artificial shortage, so that market prices rise far above guaranteed prices.
<P>
Goepel report (A4-0446/98)
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Andersson, Lööw, Sandberg-Fries, Theorin and Wibe">
We Social Democrats believe that milk quotas should be phased out as quickly as possible, and by the year 2006 at the latest.
We also think it is reasonable for quotas to be raised by a further 2 % above the proposed 2 % during the transitional period.
In our view, the intervention price for butter and skimmed milk powder should be reduced to the world market level, meaning a cut of 30 % instead of the proposed 15 %.
Finally, we think it is essential for direct payments to be based on the quantity of milk produced, in other words on milk quotas and no other criteria.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="Blak, Iversen, Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats today voted against the Goepel report on milk and dairy products.
This is because the report only seeks to reduce price intervention by 10 %, whereas the Commission is proposing 15 %.
We think it important to reduce intervention as part of the overall reform of the Common Agricultural Policy and are in favour of a reduction of 30 %.
Reform of the common agricultural policy is a precondition for the enlargement project, which we think is one of the most important steps taken by the European Community in our time.
It must be the aim of all Europeans to ensure peace and stability in our continent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Souchet">
While there is a world market for cereals, meat and protein-rich foods, our Group would like to point out that there is not a world market for milk, but only for milk products.
This is the reason for the position adopted by the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, which is opposed to any reduction in the price of milk.
<P>
Moreover, more than 90 % of European milk production is consumed on the European market, so why does the Commission reject the system of 'double price, double quota' that is used in some countries such as Canada?
Rather than maintaining a European price for the milk consumed on the European market and defining, on the basis of a specific quota, an adjusted price which will enable companies and cooperatives to market their processed milk products in third countries, without any refunds, the Commission prefers to lower the price of milk across all European production.
<P>
That reduction will only encourage producers to increase their productivity, either through intensification or by expanding their farms.
<P>
During this legislature, we have experienced the painful problem of BSE.
We all know that this problem was linked to the feeding of suckling herds.
Why, therefore, should we encourage further intensification?
<P>
Meanwhile, the expansion of farms leads to the desertification of the countryside.
More than two million farmers have already disappeared in the European Union since 1992.
Do we want unemployment to rise?
<P>
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations will vote against the Commission's proposal, as in the milk sector there is nothing to justify a reform of the common organisation of the market in milk and milk products.
<P>
Fantuzzi report (A4-0496/98)
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="Andersson, Löow, Sandberg-Fries, Theorin and Wibe">
We Social Democrats warmly welcome the Commission's proposal, which is a step in the right direction.
Consumers are in favour of having cheaper food, and there are better prospects of removing export subsidies.
The proposed changes are particularly urgent in relation to maize, which is a major food crop as well as an important element in the production of livestock.
In our view, the premium for silage maize should be phased out, for the simple reason that it has a distorting effect on competition for those countries in the northern part of the Union where the climate makes it impossible to benefit from this support measure.
If for some reason it is not abolished, then the farmers in those countries who are adversely affected must be compensated for the cuts in the price of milk and male bovine animals, which have been linked to the continuing support for silage.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Blak, Iversen, Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats today voted in favour of the first part of the Fantuzzi report on arable crops and against the second part.
We support the first part of the report, which backs the Commission proposal to reduce the intervention price for cereals by 30 %.
We think it important to reduce intervention as part of the overall reform of the common agricultural policy.
<P>
We are also in favour of the Commission proposal for a support system covering certain arable crops, but since the second part of the report rejects this proposal, we are voting against the second part.
The Commission proposal maintains compulsory set-aside, and direct payments for oil seeds and linseed are kept at the same level.
Reform of the common agricultural policy is a precondition for the enlargement project, which we think is one of the most important steps taken by the European Community in our time.
It must be the aim of all Europeans to ensure peace and stability in our continent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="Souchet">
The planned reform of the common organisation of the market in cereals proposed by the Commission would have to be seriously modified before it could be adopted by our Group.
<P>
The Commission's proposal makes absolutely no mention of agricultural products for non-food use.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations deplores this and stresses its interest in this sector, which could allow considerable advances to be made in environmental terms (renewable energy sources, bio-fuels, etc).
<P>
With regard to oleo-proteins, the Commission's proposal takes no account at all of the European Union's huge protein deficit.
As a result of the ban on animal meal feed for cattle following the BSE problem, the European Union's level of self sufficiency has fallen from 20 % to 10 %.
Instead of promoting a policy of developing protein-rich foods, the Commission seems to want to destroy the industry by drastically reducing the compensatory aid to that sector.
Protein-rich foods, as well as being useful for reducing the European Union's dependence on the United States and Brazil as its main suppliers, are also an important sector of production in agronomic terms, as they are an ideal rotation crop for farmers.
<P>
Another rotation crop is maize.
In that sector, the Commission's proposals are unacceptable as they stand.
If we apply the reform as proposed, European maize production will be dramatically reduced.
I would point out that a quality rotation crop means that wheat on wheat rotations for the soil can be avoided.
All farmers know that the absence of a rotation crop reduces the quality of the soil and obliges them to increase the use of fertilisers and phytosanitary products.
<P>
To conclude, Mr President, rather than drawing up their own sophisticated technocratic proposals, the Commission staff in Brussels should make the effort to gain a little more knowledge of the agronomic constraints on farmers.
Some directives and some regulations aim to make European farming more environmentally friendly, using less fertilisers (nitrates directive) and less phytosanitary products (directive on residues and liability for food products).
However, there is a total contradiction between those positive steps and the proposal for the reform of the COM in cereals which has been submitted to us.
<P>
In order to compensate for the shortcomings and weaknesses of the Commission's proposal, our Group has tabled several amendments, and if they are not accepted by the Commissioners we will be forced to vote against this proposal.
<P>
Mulder, Graefe zu Baringdorf, Garot, Goepel and Fantuzzi reports
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="Burenstam Linder, Carlsson, Stenmarck and Virgin">
We have decided that, in the main, we will support the Commission's proposals in the vote on the agricultural part of Agenda 2000.
In our view, this will help to make European agriculture more competitive on the world market, which in turn will serve to increase prosperity.
The fact that consumers will benefit from lower food prices will more than compensate for any initially increased budget costs.
According to the Commission, the reforms will also facilitate the enlargement of the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="Cars">
In the numerous votes on agriculture, I have tried to vote as far as possible for cuts in subsidies and for further deregulation of the food sector.
<P>
As long as there is due consideration for the environment, the EU's objective should be to abolish all subsidies and to place farmers and food producers on an equal footing with other manufacturers and businesses in the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Dybkjær">
I want the agricultural policy to be transformed into a system which is geared to market conditions.
That must be the aim of reforms to the EU's agricultural policy.
However, the reforms must take place with due regard for transitional arrangements and the environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
In the final votes, we voted against the above reports for the following reasons.
<P>
The reports reflect the unwillingness of the majority in Parliament to accept the reforms and policy changes which the common agricultural policy so badly needs.
In particular, the Garot, Fantuzzi and Goepel reports resemble nothing more than an attempt to sabotage the reform process instigated by the Commission and the Council.
The Commission's proposal to cut intervention prices as a means of restructuring is being thwarted by the requirement that full compensation should be paid through direct support, and that new support measures or other forms of market intervention should be introduced.
Such requirements imposed by the majority in Parliament reduce the scope for an active policy of rural development, which is badly needed if we are to provide alternative ways for farming families and other country dwellers to earn their living.
<P>
We support the Commission's overall efforts to bring about agricultural reform, particularly the importance it attaches to a broader rural development policy.
We also support the proposal that there should be less intervention.
However, we are doubtful - or indeed critical - regarding some of the specific proposals, for example the so-called horizontal measures, and every possible outcome needs to be more carefully examined.
It is also regrettable that there is no detailed description of the environmental implications of the various reform proposals, a shortcoming that should be corrected.
In any further work on reform, it will be impossible to avoid addressing the question of export subsidies, which apart from being a problem in themselves also adversely affect the global food situation.
<P>
We are aware that any major reform process has to be carried out gradually and taking account of the wider social implications, particularly as regards the many small farms that still exist in some Member States.
We are opposed to an unfettered free-market approach in the agricultural sector on the lines of New Zealand.
Any such policy would further undermine the global market and damage food production in the third world.
Farming serves to sustain us, and should be treated as a special case to which it is inappropriate to apply dogmatic economic principles and market philosophy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Novo">
With this explanation of vote we are saying that we have no more doubts about our position on the proposals on which the House has just voted.
Our amendments were duly considered, yet it is obvious that these amendments - although positive - can only amend parts of the regulations without altering their basic content or aims.
<P>
We should have prevented the present reform from being a mere extension of the 1992 reform by eliminating the discrimination which this reform introduced and worsened among farmers, regions and products, with profound consequences in terms of the reduction in the number of holdings, the abandonment of the countryside and the ruin of small and medium-sized holdings and family-based farming.
<P>
We should have prevented the attempted submission to the WTO and rejected further price reductions which will generate further falls in agricultural income - which in Portugal has already fallen by 13 % in each of the last two years - without full and total compensation.
<P>
We should have rebalanced the funding by drastically limiting the support to large farmers and directing it instead to small and medium-sized holdings.
This would have introduced genuine modulation instead of accepting the mockery which the Commission is intending to introduce.
<P>
We are therefore voting against the proposals on the reform of the meat, milk and cereal sectors and the regulation on horizontal measures and we want the position of the Socialist Group against the principles of genuine modulation to go on the record as we feel this is highly relevant.
<P>
We are also voting against the proposed regulation on the financing of the CAP in which one amendment was approved, tabled by Mr Cunha in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development. This amendment opens the door for the Commission's proposal for the cofinancing of this common policy to be approved.
With this door opened by this Portuguese Member it will certainly be easier to renationalise the costs of the CAP, which will further worsen discrimination and exacerbate the negative consequences for internal cohesion, disregarding the Treaties themselves and calling into question the basic principles of solidarity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="des Places">
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Trizza">
I think the European Commission's approach of not radically modifying the old model of financing the CAP is right. Although certain points need adjustment, it has been an effective and efficient instrument for supporting European agriculture.
<P>
I agree that the rural development interventions should be included in the guarantee section of the Fund, so as to ensure modernisation and diversification beyond Objective 1 programmes, and I would stress the importance of including in that section actions designed to improve the quality of agricultural food and non-food products, with the ultimate aim of ensuring that European producers receive an adequate return on capital invested.
<P>
I also agree that the rural development measures under Objective 1 and the Community Initiatives should be included in the guidance section.
As regards Parliament's supervisory powers, I believe the House should intervene at the payment stage.
<P>
I also agree with the need to ensure national financing of income support measures for farmers, thus strengthening the principle of subsidiarity in aid.
<P>
Finally, I accept the Commission's proposal for establishing a new system whereby direct support to farmers is reduced on the basis of a digressive sliding scale depending on the manpower employed and environmental requirements, but I do not think it is right to impose a maximum intervention ceiling linked to respect for environmental standards.
<P>
In general I think it is important that the Agenda 2000 reform of the CAP should be in place by next spring and should still guarantee protection for the interests of small farmers while providing consumer protection and market orientation measures geared to protection of the environment. Small farmers represent a large percentage of the predominantly agricultural economies of some European regions - for example Southern Italy - and they must be able to count on compensation for the greater costs imposed by the reform.
<P>
Liese recommendation (A4-0012/99)
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Andersson, Lööw, Sandberg-Fries, Theorin and Wibe">
Our basic position, founded on detailed explanations from the Commission and others, is that preferential trade arrangements have not acted as a real motor for trade.
We therefore agree with the Council's proposal that the protocol relating to bananas should only be applied so long as the Convention is in force.
<P>
The committee refers to 'fair trade' in its amendments.
In principle, we are sympathetic towards 'fair trade', but we do not think that the support measures should be concentrated on this type of production.
In our view, priority should be given to supporting diversification, in other words moving away from banana production, and the support should be made available through the states in question.
Consequently, we believe that ownership should be in local hands and that the administration should therefore be carried out by the recipient countries.
<P>
For the above reasons, we are unable to support the following amendments tabled by the committee: Nos 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17 and 20.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Souchet">
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations supported Mr Liese's report.
<P>
Indeed, Parliament must support all efforts by the Union and the Member States to help our African and Caribbean partners to deal with the negative impact on their economies of the changes made to our COM in bananas following the findings of the World Trade Organisation.
<P>
Nevertheless, it is regrettable that, in calling for aid for the retraining of banana producers to be included in the programme, Mr Liese's report is going along with our opponents.
<P>
We are in the paradoxical position, having amended our COM in accordance with the demands of the WTO, of having to defend its conformity against an opponent, the United States, which is refusing in advance to abide by any decision that does not rule that the COM is incompatible.
<P>
Even beyond the obligations that we have to our development partners, which are just as important politically as the obligations to which we agreed in the WTO, the current banana crisis is a test case and its outcome will set a precedent: it will either be proved that respect for the law and for international commitments are legitimate demands, or else globalized trade as we know it today will hereafter only have one rule, that of unilateralism, and the survival of the fittest.
<P>
The underlying issue in this dispute is in fact the following: what objective is the American administration hoping to achieve through this outbidding process?
What drives a country that does not produce a single banana to take the risk of triggering an economic war with Europe, the Caribbean countries and part of Africa?
Maybe, for the United States, globalization simply means applying American law on an international scale?
<P>
The day before yesterday, when Commissioner Brittan presented the various sides of the banana dispute to the Committee on External Economic Relations, he blamed the crisis on certain multinational companies, particularly Chiquita.
That explanation oversimplifies the issue.
It is in fact the 'transatlantic dialogue' as a whole that is being severely put to the test.
It is the usefulness of the TABD and the summit meetings that is being questioned.
The real question that the banana crisis is asking us is this: Do we or do we not accept the law of unilateralism, bypassing the WTO time and time again?
<P>
Kindermann report (A4-0481/98)
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Guinebertière">
Mr President, I voted against the Kindermann report, which is not fair to egg producers and which appeals to people's emotions by dressing up an economic offensive to look like concern for animal welfare.
Researchers who specialise in the production of food from animal sources, whom I went to meet in the wilds of Brittany, assured me that a study on the implementation of the proposals in the revised directive did not show any improvement in the well-being of hens.
<P>
The efforts made by a pressure group to get its message across by disguising Members as hens, taking their photograph and putting hen cages in our letter boxes, amount to behaviour that is unacceptable in this Parliament.
Who pays for all of this, if it is not those who have an interest in destroying the egg production industry?
Where in this report is the health of consumers taken into account, given that it seems to prefer to put eggs in dirty and dusty nests, as long as the hens are happy?
<P>
Europeans are shocked to see that Europe is more concerned about living conditions for hens than about housing people who have to sleep under bridges and who may sometimes only have duvets to keep them warm.
Let us all come to our senses and stop giving in to the pressure groups who only exist because of the money that they receive from the countries and companies for which they act, as they appeal to people's emotions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Iversen">
Mr President, as regards the Kindermann report on battery hens, I wish to say that we Danish Social Democrats are in favour of anything that will lead to the abolition of battery farming.
There is in fact a powerful desire among consumers for free-range poultry farming of various kinds.
I think it is our task to help bring agricultural production up to date and not cling to old production methods which do not take account of animal welfare.
The step which has been taken here today is in my view a partial victory for the philosophy that wishes to get rid of these battery cages.
It is not happening fast enough, in our opinion, but it is a partial victory that the amendments seeking to abolish this method of production over the next ten years have been adopted.
That was good, and I also hope that the Commission, which has now left, understands this, and I hope that the Council in its deliberations will also take account of what has been adopted here in Parliament today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Elliott">
Mr President, I am delighted that the Parliament has adopted the Kindermann report and that in particular the amendments calling for the total phasing out of the battery cage system by 2009 were also adopted.
I hope the Commission and Council listen to the view of the Parliament on this issue.
I could not disagree more with Mrs Guinebertière.
Of course I am concerned about homeless people but concern for the welfare of animals and concern for the welfare of people go together.
<P>
This is a very progressive and important step forward.
It is something that the Parliament's intergroup for animal welfare, which I have the honour to chair at the moment, has demanded for a very long time.
We have to end this domination of our society by the producers and ensure that the concerns of consumers and ordinary people are given far more consideration.
The overwhelming majority of people condemn factory farming and the battery system.
The fact that more and more free-range eggs are being bought and that more and more retailers are now moving towards the sale of free-range eggs demonstrates the concern of people in many countries of the European Union.
Let us hope that we have many more examples of this very important and progressive step forward.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Andersson, Lööw, Sandberg-Fries, Theorin and Wibe">
We should like to thank the rapporteur for his excellent report on what is a pressing matter.
The situation of laying hens in various systems of rearing is serious from an animal welfare point of view.
The Commission's proposal and the report are therefore welcome.
In order to improve animal protection, it is essential that systems of rearing should take account of scientific studies in order to avoid impeding the natural behaviour patterns of the animals.
At the same time, the systems should comply with strict labour regulations to protect the workers in these plants.
We welcome the committee's proposal on the animal welfare aspects, but we do not think that a delay in implementing the directive can be justified.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Blak, Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats today voted against the Kindermann report on the protection of laying hens in various systems of rearing.
We supported some of the amendments, since they contained improvements in this area, but we voted against the report as a whole.
We did so because we felt that, in spite of everything, the result was not good enough.
The report contains too many derogations, and the time-limits for improvements are too far off in the future.
<P>
We think that in the longer term, production should be switched to other systems which take more account of the environment and animal welfare.
Altogether the report does not contain enough improvements, so we cannot vote in favour of it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Titley">
I am voting in favour of this resolution today.
I am a keen supporter of animal welfare and have received many letters from my constituents on this matter.
This resolution is just a first step towards banning battery hen farming throughout the EU for good.
<P>
The battery farming of hens is undeniably cruel.
Hens, sometimes four or five at a time, are routinely kept in battery cages their entire lives.
The cages are so small they cannot even stretch their wings.
The battery farming of hens is also unnecessary.
British consumers are able and willing to buy eggs from free-range hens.
They would rather pay slightly more for their eggs than support inhumane farming methods.
<P>
Britain's Labour Government is leading the way.
We have announced our intention to phase out the battery farming of hens in the United Kingdom.
This is in sharp contrast to the uncaring attitude of our Tory predecessors who always put wealth before welfare, whether for hens or for humans.
<P>
An effective ban must be an EU-wide ban, however.
Battery hen farmers must not be able to ply their cruel trade elsewhere in Europe.
For Britain, famously a nation of animal lovers, such a ban cannot come soon enough.
<P>
Hermange report (A4-0004/99)
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Bébéar">
At the close of the 20th century, does the family still have a role to play in our European societies?
The regular heated debates in our national parliaments, regional institutions and in the media leave us in no doubt about this.
Sociologists and demographers all agree that it is the family that binds together a social system.
Without the family unit, there cannot be a well-functioning society.
If we all accept this, we should also recognise that it is vital that our national governments should be concerned about the family given the fact that the population is ageing.
<P>
Who knows better than the family how to fight against marginalisation and isolation?
Who is the prime source of education for children?
Who is taking more and more responsibility for elderly and disabled members of the family?
Who ensures that there is solidarity between generations?
Although the answers to those questions would be almost identical in the fifteen countries of the European Union, the support provided by the different Member States varies considerably.
Family policies are extremely disparate, and as the family does not have any authority which is recognised in law or in legislation, so far no efforts have been made to bring them into line with each other.
<P>
Given this state of affairs, the European Union must act through its own institutions and through the governments of the Member States in order to put forward these arguments: there cannot be a balanced society without active support for the family.
<P>
Pro-family policy deserves to be supported by comprehensive measures which place the child at the heart of society.
A family policy cannot be limited to just paying out allowances and benefits, but should also encompass the problem of housing, recreational infrastructures, care facilities for very young children, out-of-school support, etc.
<P>
Despite the advances made by international bodies, children are increasingly in need of protection.
In this area, family structures can also play a key role, by fighting against poverty, child labour, child prostitution, violence and paedophilia.
<P>
I therefore support the Hermange report and its provisions, as they show a real will for genuine action to be taken and are not simply a catalogue of broad ideas.
I am referring, for example, to the very specific measures aimed at evaluating the impact on the family of every European measure introduced.
The European Parliament has a major role to play in such plans.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Buffetaut">
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Bonde, Krarup and Sandbæk">
We abstained from the vote on the Hermange report.
We entirely share the view that family policy is the responsibility and competence of the Member States; the EU should therefore not involve itself in these areas.
So we cannot vote for those sections of the report dealing with Europol and the Commission's responsibility for various initiatives in connection with the Member States' policies, or the considerations regarding a European judicial area.
We believe that children must be protected against abuse, that they must be integrated in society and be covered by acceptable provision in the education and social fields and so on, but this is and will continue to be a responsibility for the Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Cars">
I voted against the entire report in the final vote because I believe that family policy, including protection for families and children, should be a purely national matter and not subject to EU procedures and decisions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Deprez">
In our European societies, which are seeing a number of fundamental changes taking place at once, the education, protection and welfare of children must be a central concern.
Even within the European Union, too many children are victims of poverty, exploited or maltreated for us not to notice the symptoms of an underlying evil that is eating away at our society, and which as a result is a challenge for politicians.
<P>
Along with our rapporteur, I think that each level of authority needs to grant a significant place to child care and child support policies, while respecting the principal of subsidiarity.
<P>
With this in mind, it would be useful for the Commission to examine in detail the policies that should be pursued by the various levels of authority, in order to ensure that children have the best possible conditions in which to develop.
<P>
This thought process should be ambitious and should be broad in its scope, covering the economic, social and cultural dimensions of the problem.
<P>
I unreservedly support the proposals contained in the resolution before us.
Indeed, I think that in this respect each level of power should have the ability to put right anything in the economic, social and cultural spheres which may be unfair to children or make life too difficult for them.
<P>
However, we need to have the courage to stress that no policy will ever be able to replace a good relationship and real dialogue between parents, whether they live under the same roof or not.
<P>
Political leaders need to have the courage to remind parents that, whatever their marital status or their personal relationships, in having children they have committed themselves to maintaining a minimal level of dialogue without which their offspring will be left to their own devices.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We are sympathetic towards much of what is contained in the report as regards the treatment of children in the Union Member States.
However, we cannot support the call for a 'coherent and coordinated family policy' as referred to by the Council, or a strengthening of the structure for dealing with family policy issues under the aegis of the Commission.
<P>
Furthermore, we are extremely sceptical about the references to Europol and the SIS.
The Council of Europe and the UN are already organising conferences on the situation of children at which the EU Member States are represented.
We shall therefore abstain on the points where we think such action is appropriate, and we shall vote against the report when it comes to the final vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Hermange">
I would like to thank all my colleagues in Parliament for having voted for this report on the protection of families and children.
In fact, in all the time that the European Parliament has been sitting, there has never been a report on this issue, which is such a sensitive one.
<P>
Up until now, for reasons of ideology and hostility towards the protection of families and children, our institution had not considered this very important issue.
Legal arguments were put forward, using the principle of subsidiarity as a pretext.
<P>
It is true that we cannot underestimate these legal obstacles, but we cannot say on the one hand that Europe is too technocratic and that it should not just be a 'Europe for traders', while on the other hand being hostile when Europe is used for the service of the people.
That is why I welcome this vote.
<P>
I also welcome the fact that it was my political group, the Union for Europe (UPE), that brought a message of optimism to families and children.
<P>
Finally, I would like to say that although, as rapporteur for the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, I was obliged to oppose a number of amendments that were absolutely fundamental, it was only in that capacity that I did so, because an agreement had been reached and I had to observe that agreement.
Otherwise, we were in danger of not achieving a majority on this text, and therefore of depriving the families and children of Europe of genuine progress.
<P>
To the authors of those amendments, which defend the family as an essential component of our society, with the family based on a couple offering a solid educational framework, I would like to say that I agree with them and wholeheartedly support them.
I thank them for their fundamental contribution to this important debate, which aims to construct a Europe that is more humane and is based on solid values as we enter the 21st century.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Holm">
The aim of this report is undoubtedly commendable, and it should be taken very seriously with regard to children's welfare.
Many of the ideas and intentions in the report are also good, and I can support them.
However, I have two major complaints.
<P>
Firstly, the report indirectly implies that a family should be defined as comprising a man, a woman and children, in accordance with the usual practice.
However, I should also like to see other family situations being recognised, for example homosexual couples with children.
In Sweden, we are currently looking into the possibility of whether homosexual couples should be able to legally adopt children, a move of which I am in favour.
It would have been helpful if this aspect had been dealt with in the report.
<P>
Secondly, many of the requirements and intentions relating to the protection and welfare of children are currently dealt with at national, regional or local level, in other words closer to the parties concerned.
I do not think that issues relating to the treatment of children should be dealt with at EU level, for a number of reasons.
We must respect the principle of subsidiarity.
Naturally, this does not mean that I approve of the way in which children are treated in Greece, for example.
However, there are widely differing reasons for the problems that exist, and EU involvement would only serve to complicate the situation.
It goes without saying that countries and regions should share their resources in terms of information and capabilities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Lindqvist">
Some of the specific proposals in the report are worthwhile.
However, there are many others which concern local, regional or national issues and therefore should not be addressed at EU level.
I am in favour of all the proposals relating to the protection of children's rights, but I cannot support those which are aimed at establishing a common European family policy.
<P>
Hardstaff report (A4-0403/98)
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Souchet">
The management of fishery resources at Community level is based around three main elements: fixing fishing quotas for certain species, regulating the fishing effort and the technical characteristics of the various types of fishing gear.
These three elements enable us to control catches and to guarantee the continuance of the various fish stocks.
<P>
It is true that fishing involves wastage of resources, mainly as a result of fish discards.
<P>
The report presented by our colleague Mrs Hardstaff highlights this problem and its complexity very well.
Nevertheless, our Group has tabled certain amendments to this report, as adopts a rather questionable approach to certain problems to do with fishing techniques, such as the use of trawl nets with square mesh and the banning of the use of drift nets.
<P>
With regard to the use of trawl nets with square mesh, we should be aware that several scientific studies have shown that this type of gear is, in some circumstances and for some species, less selective than the traditional cod end nets.
This is why the Council, when it adopted Regulation 850/98, did not consider it appropriate to generalise the use of that type of gear.
<P>
With regard to the use of drift nets, this is the first time that this type of gear has been associated with the problem of fish discards.
Everywhere in the world, apart from in the Community institutions, the drift net is considered to be one of the most selective types of fishing gear.
<P>
Finally, we can only support the suggestion of limiting or banning discarding into the sea for certain species, and we ask the Commission to carefully examine this proposal.
<P>
Titley report (A4-0482/98)
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Andersson, Lööw, Sandberg-Fries, Theorin and Wibe">
Global disarmament should be the overarching goal of any policy on security.
This presupposes a scaling-down of both the manufacture and sale of arms.
The EU should take the initiative and give a lead on disarmament and limiting the arms trade.
Whenever there is discussion of the European defence industry, the ultimate objective of global disarmament should always be borne in mind, particularly since the EU Member States together represent the second largest player in the international arms market.
<P>
It is stated in paragraph 3 that a European arms policy is an essential element in strengthening the European security and defence identity within NATO.
Sweden is a neutral country and does not belong to NATO, nor will it be involved in a common defence.
Moreover, we do not think it is appropriate to create an institution to deal with arms production before any decision has been taken on a common defence.
<P>
As regards Article 223 of the EC Treaty, armaments cannot be viewed in the same light as other goods and traded freely; on the contrary, they should be subject to especially restrictive rules.
<P>
The EU should play an active role, not in making it easier for the arms industry to manufacture and export weapons, but in tightening up the rules so as to limit the sale and export of armaments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Bonde and Krarup">
We are voting against the Titley report, since we cannot in any way support the EU's arms policy, which goes hand in hand with the ambition of establishing an EU defence policy within the framework of the CFSP.
The report's view that production in the arms industry should be geared to actions taken under the CFSP and the specific requirements of these for military equipment reflects a wish to turn the EU into a military superpower - a wish that we oppose.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Deprez">
The shortcomings of the CFSP, the absence of a real European identity with regard to security and defence, the lack of any truly operational European armed force, the fact that budget resources are spread too thinly because of the way they are distributed at national level and the division of defence contracts among companies that are both too numerous and too small, all place the Member States in a situation of blatant incapacity and military dependence.
<P>
Recent and current events barely a few miles from the external borders of the Union have repeatedly shown the tragic effects of this situation.
<P>
It is therefore high time that the single market was extended to defence equipment.
The action plan proposed by the Commission in its second communication is definitely heading in the right direction.
I also completely agree with the rapporteur that setting up and developing a technological and industrial base for defence depends on close cooperation between the WEU and the European Union, and that the Union should be granted observer status in the European armaments cooperation bodies.
<P>
At least in the aerospace sector, the restructuring of the European defence industries seems to be under way.
However, in order to progress, industrialists need a clear framework of reference provided by the European Union and the Member States under the CFSP.
The Member States also need a common body of doctrine for the use of arms.
Only such an agreement will allow the economies of scale which arise from group purchasing.
<P>
I therefore agree with all the rapporteur's conclusions in which he reaffirms the need for an agreement between the Member States on clearly defined objectives under the CFSP, both in its foreign policy dimension and in its security and defence dimension.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Lindqvist">
Our objective must be global disarmament, and this must be a reciprocal arrangement.
Furthermore, the EU should be taking the lead on disarmament and arms control, but such a perspective is entirely missing from the report.
Some basic rules to control arms exports could provide a solution.
I do not agree with the proposal relating to the use of EU research funding for military purposes, or the proposal in paragraph 3 for a European arms policy, which takes no account of the fact that some EU Member States - Sweden, for example - are neutral, non-aligned nations outside NATO and the WEU.
For these reasons, I have voted against the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="McKenna">
The push for implementing European Union (EU) strategy on defence-related industries is clearly aimed at boosting arms sales and finding new markets for EU arms manufacturers.
<P>
The EU is going in exactly the same direction as the United States and what many of us wonder about is will EU taxpayers eventually find themselves subsidizing EU arms manufacturers as they try to compete with the U.S.
<P>
We believe the boosting of the arms industry is totally irresponsible and runs counter to efforts around the world to end armed conflict.
<P>
How the unsuspecting taxpayer can end up helping the merchants of death (the arms manufacturers) is clearly outlined in a special report by the Arms Trade Resource Centre World Policy Institute in the U.S. The report states that the Cold War has not brought an end to U.S government subsidies for weapon exports, instead government support for weapons exports has increased in the form of taxpayer-backed grants, loans and promotional activities.
And if the plan to expand NATO to include Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic goes ahead then the subsidies are likely to increase even more rapidly.
<P>
Nineteen potential NATO members are receiving Pentagon Foreign Military Financing.
These funds are being drawn from the FMF financing that has been allocated to the Partnership for Peace programme.
The Clinton Administration's foreign aid submission to Congress makes it clear that these Partnership for Peace monies are specifically designed to 'Prepare countries for NATO membership' by supporting 'acquisition of NATO compatible equipment.'
<P>
These findings make it clear that firstly, Partnership for Peace is only a stepping stone to full NATO membership and secondly, that Partnership for Peace is very much connected to the principle of helping weapons manufacturers to sell weapons to these countries, countries who do not even have money to provide proper health care and education for their citizens.
<P>
Although the U.S is unwilling to pay its debt to the United Nations it is quite willing to write off arms exports loans.
During this decade alone, the U.S has written off or forgiven $10 billion in loans for military-related exports including $2 billion in guaranteed loans for militarily useful technology to Iraq.
<P>
In 1997 Norman Augustine (former CEO for the major military contractor Lockheed Martin) toured Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania and Slovenia with the goal of 'drumming up business and supporting the largest possible expansion of NATO.'
In Romania, Augustine even promised to support their bid for NATO membership as a follow-on to Romania's purchase of an $82 million radar system from Lockheed Martin.
<P>
Lockheed Martin is one of a number of U.S arms manufacturers who will be supplying funds for a pro-NATO expansion foundation that is being established by the Romanian Embassy in Washington.
<P>
It is not just the U.S who are supporting NATO expansion with the primary aim of finding new markets for their weapons, EU weapons producing countries are taking the same approach.
In 1996, the former British Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind flew to Slovenia en-route to Bosnia.
In subsequent newspaper reports it was suggested that he told the Slovenian government that their acquisition of better military hardware would be one of the preconditions for British support for their bid to join the EU and NATO.
<P>
The end of the cold war has not brought an end to excessive support for arms manufacturers, instead the EU has pushed along with the U.S to expand NATO and to find new justification for arms manufacturing and weapons exports.
<P>
The stark reality is that EU and U.S arms manufacturers have helped fuel conflicts around the world and coerced poor countries into buying weapons which caused death and destruction and diverted much needed monies away from essential services such as health and education.
<P>
The involvement of vested interest groups such as EU arms manufacturers in EU policy on this issue is totally unacceptable.
The involvement of the WEA and others is clear proof that any EU policy on arms will clearly favour, support and boost the arms industry.
The Common Foreign and Security Policy of the EU is clearly designated to help the arms manufacturers as stated in paragraph three on the resolution.
<P>
Will EU Member States not involved in this wretched trade be dragged in?
What we should be doing is pushing for conversion to non-weapon production.
The vast sums of money used in the arms industry and the technical expertise which it requires should be reallocated to helping people not killing people.
If the same efforts were directed towards helping cure diseases, solving world hunger and environmental degradation then the world would be a far better place and there would be little justification for military blocks, armed to the teeth with weapons of mass destruction.
<P>
The Green Group voted against the Titley Report today because it supports and values arms manufacturers and the arms industry over and above the safety and welfare of the EU citizen, a policy the Green Group could not possibly condone such a policy.
<P>
Theorin report (A4-0005/99)
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Bertens">
The environment is indeed an important subject, and it is most important that environmental considerations should be made a part of foreign policy.
This report makes this and a number of other points well.
At the same time, however, it covers such a wide range of subjects that the focus is totally lost.
The ELDR Group has tried to remove some of the most unrealistic and undesirable proposals from the text.
Our group prefers a transfer of funds out of defence and into the environment, rather than the achieving of environmental and health objectives via defence.
<P>
We tried to get the most problematic paragraphs voted out of the report, but did not fully succeed.
Consequently, my group has abstained in the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Bonde and Sandbæk">
We are voting in favour of this report, since we believe it is sensible to use military-related resources for environmental purposes.
We are aware of the problem that there are not sufficient resources in the world to cope with the environmental problems which already exist and those which are yet to come.
We therefore consider it an excellent initiative to call on the Member States to restructure their armed forces so that they can be used in environmental disaster situations.
We support the committee's view that preventive environmental work is an important security policy instrument.
<P>
We would like to point out that it is the Member States which are to be called upon to set up centres, train military personnel and take account of the environment, and definitely not the Commission or the Council.
We support arms reduction, the abolition of nuclear weapons and the environmentally sound destruction of arms in general.
We also think it a splendid idea to call for openness and public information in relation to national defence.
We further support the call to train military personnel to enable them to deal with environmental problems.
We have voted in favour of those parts of the report which call on the Member States to take account of the environment during military exercises.
We also take a positive view of the requirement that the military should clean up after exercises, and so on.
<P>
We have decided to vote for this report because we think it an excellent idea to call on the Member States to restructure their armed forces for the benefit of environmental objectives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Cars and Dybkjær">
We abstained from the vote on this report because the basic concept of using surplus military capacity for the environment is wrong.
If there are too many military resources, military expenditure should be reduced.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Krarup">
I cannot vote for this report, since I am unable to support military cooperation under the auspices of the EU.
I object to the basic idea of raising the EU's foreign and security policy profile.
This report seeks to promote the coupling of the CFSP aspects of EU policy with the EU's trade, aid, development and international environmental policies.
The report reflects the idea of having a common corps, organised militarily under the auspices of the EU.
I fear that despite the well-intentioned environmental considerations, this common corps is merely the starting-point for an actual military force under EU auspices, which would be assigned real military tasks both inside and, not least, outside the area of the EU.
I do not wish to legitimise general military cooperation through 'military environmental cooperation'.
<P>
I can support that part of the report which deals with arms reduction, the abolition of nuclear weapons and the environmentally sound destruction of arms in general, and can also endorse the calls for openness and public information in relation to national defence.
I have voted for those parts of the report which call on the Member States to take account of the environment during military exercises and so on.
But for the reasons I have indicated, the People's Movement against the European Union is unable to support this report.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="President">
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
<P>
The sitting was closed at 1.15 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 28 January 1999.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Statement by the President
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
I should like to inform the House that I have addressed a telegram to the Jordanian royal family and to the President of the Jordanian Parliament, expressing the European Parliament's condolences on the death of King Hussein.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
The Minutes of the sitting of Friday, 28 January 1999 have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Chichester">
Mr President, on a point of order.
I wrote to you last week drawing your attention to a letter which was addressed to you, dated 28 October, from President Santer of the Commission.
Although it was addressed to you, the letter was in fact in response to a letter from me.
I wrote to President Santer on 28 October; his reply, addressed to you, came on 7 January.
<P>
I rise not about the substance of the letter but to ask whether it is normal practice for the Commission to respond to letters from Members in this way and whether it is acceptable that there should be a ten-week delay.
Perhaps I should add that the correspondence was to do with matters that were very much under debate during the last part-session.
I would ask for your view of the conduct of the Commission in this regard.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President.">
Mr Chichester, as you will appreciate, this is a question that only the Commission can answer, especially as regards the delay.
Perhaps you could put the question to the Commission in the normal way.
In any case, when I meet President Santer, which happens very often now, I will raise the question with him.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Malangré">
Mr President, my name is not on the attendance register in the Minutes.
As there is proof of my attendance in the form of various comments and in the roll-call votes, I would ask you to add my name to the register.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Malangré.
We shall make the necessary checks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Mr President, I am shown as voting for Amendment No 6 to Mr Garot's report.
I do not know if that was my fault, but in any case I intended to reject this very important amendment.
I wanted to vote against it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
That will be corrected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="García Arias">
Mr President, I should like to point out that I was in fact present at the last sitting on 28 January.
I apologise for not signing the attendance register.
The vote took so long and I was so tired by the time I left that I forgot to sign.
Please note that I was present on that occasion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs García Arias.
That will be noted.
<P>
The Minutes were approved
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
I give the floor to Mr Spencer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Spencer">
Mr President, I wish to make a short personal statement of apology to the House.
The greatest of Conservative prime ministers is supposed to have advised parliamentarians: 'never apologise, never explain'.
I intend to disregard half of Benjamin Disraeli's words of wisdom.
The act which brought my private life to public attention was one of extraordinary foolishness.
I broke the law of England, Her Majesty's customs officers treated me fairly, and I paid the penalty.
While I believe that my personal life has always been, and continues to be, rooted in love, I accept that it may cause genuine offence to my colleagues.
I wish, therefore, to offer a personal apology to anyone who is offended, to every Member of this House.
<P>
I love this House and I love this Chamber.
I was here at the hour of our democratic birth in 1979 and I was here for the censure debate, when we came of age.
I believe in Parliament, and I believe in Europe, and future historians will understand that the spirit of Europe lives here.
I wish, therefore, to make it clear to those who would use my stupidity and hubris to attack Europe and its Parliament, that the fault is mine and mine alone.
<P>
I offer my apology to Parliament.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President.">
I should like to thank Mr Spencer for his statement.
He has addressed the House with dignity and indeed with courage.
He and his family have paid a heavy price for what is a personal matter.
We in this Parliament must respect the dividing-line between private issues and public and political matters.
<P>
Applause
<P>
The House has expressed its sentiments on the question and, pursuant to Rule 108, no debate is necessary.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Membership of Parliament
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="President">
The Spanish authorities have informed me that Mr Carlos María Bru Purón has been appointed to replace Mrs Díez de Rivera Icaza with effect from 4 February 1999.
I am unable to welcome Mr Bru to the Chamber at present, because he experienced the same problems as I did - fewer means of transport - and travelled on an aircraft from Paris which arrived over two hours late.
I should like to say, however, how very much I regret Mrs Díez de Rivera Icaza's resignation, and especially the reasons for it.
Those of us who are aware of the situation are all very saddened.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth-Behrendt">
Mr President, thank you for your comments. I would be grateful if you could send an appropriate telegram to Mrs Díez de Rivera Icaza.

<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
I shall certainly convey the message, and also Parliament's sympathy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García Arias">
Mr President, you have just explained that our colleague Carmen Díez de Rivera has resigned from Parliament.
We are all aware of her reasons for doing so.
As a member of the Spanish Socialist delegation Carmen was part of, I would like to speak for the whole delegation and say how very much we regret her departure. We shall miss her strong campaigning in favour of the environment and in favour of European integration.
Please note her colleagues' appreciation in the Minutes.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Puerta">
Mr President, I would like to add my voice to Mrs García Arias'.
I am sure that not only will the Spanish Socialists regret Mrs Díez de Rivera's departure, but that she will be sorely missed by all Members of this House, whatever their nationality.
<P>
We all pay tribute to our fellow Member's work.
We are aware that she resigned for health reasons, and hope she will recover and be able to return to the House.
<P>
She will be constantly in our thoughts. We recognise the significance of her work and pay tribute to her unfailingly friendly and approachable manner in her dealings with all Members, regardless of their political affiliation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valverde López">
Mr President, on behalf of my group, I should like to say that we, too, very much regret that Carmen Díez de Rivera is unable to continue her work in the House.
<P>
We worked together for many long hours, and came to know her as a friend. We valued the personal dignity, common sense and spirit of solidarity that always characterised her work and are very sorry that events should have taken such a turn.
Carmen will always be in our thoughts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="Banotti">
Mr President, lest it be thought that it is only the Spanish Members who appreciate Mrs Díez de Rivera Icaza I, as one of her friends in this group, would like to say how concerned we are for her health and how deeply we regret that she will not be with us for a while.
Hopefully she will come back.
She is much loved throughout Europe.
She knows my country very well, and there will be great distress when they hear she is ill and unable to continue her work here in Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, on behalf of the Spanish Socialist delegation, I should like to express my appreciation for the tributes paid to my colleague today by so many Members of the House, not all of them Socialists. I shall pass on their kind words to Carmen Díez de Rivera myself.
She is certainly much loved here and, as Alonso Puerta said, let us hope she makes a speedy recovery.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="Ewing">
Mr President, I have been here longer than any other Member, and ever since Mrs Díez de Rivera Icaza came we have been close personal friends.
I admired her in every respect, as a friend, as a politician and as a loyal Member of this Chamber.
I would like my words to be added to the tributes she has had.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bloch von Blottnitz">
Mr President, I had the good fortune to serve alongside Mrs Díez de Rivera Icaza on the Environment Committee from 1984 to 1989.
She really had a great fighting spirit, but at the same time she was flexible and ever cheerful.
She and I, and also Beate Weber, worked together very successfully during that period.
On behalf of our entire group I would like to wish her a speedy recovery and a good future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="President">
I shall pass on these unanimous sentiments to Mrs Díez de Rivera.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Monitoring mechanism for greenhouse gas emissions
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0052/99), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council (8829/98 - C4-0542/98-96/0192(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Decision amending Decision 93/389/EEC for a monitoring mechanism of Community CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions (Rapporteur: Mr Fitzsimons).
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Hyland, who is deputising for the rapporteur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Hyland">
Mr President, I should firstly like to apologise on behalf of my colleague Mr Fitzsimons who is unavoidably absent and has asked me to present this report in his place.
In 1993 a decision was adopted establishing a monitoring mechanism for the Community's anthropogenic CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions.
Having a monitoring mechanism for greenhouse gas emissions in place has always made sense as part of an overall coherent strategy to limit greenhouse gas emissions and improve energy efficiency.
<P>
This monitoring mechanism serves a double purpose.
It could monitor progress towards the stabilisation of CO2 emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2000 in the Community and it could monitor the fulfilment of the Community's commitments under the United Nations framework convention on climate change which entered into force in 1994.
The Kyoto Protocol adopted in December 1997 established principles and introduced legally-binding targets and timetables for Annex 1 countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions.
<P>
At COP IV in Buenos Aires in November last year some further progress was made.
For the first time parties agreed to the adoption of a single plan of action.
The Buenos Aires plan of action contains an important list of commitments with timetables on a range of key issues which will help to achieve the Kyoto objectives.
<P>
A monitoring mechanism is all the more necessary now. Many assessments would indicate that CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions are likely to increase significantly.
At the same time the Community has signed up to the Kyoto Protocol and has committed itself to a reduction in its emissions of carbon dioxide and a group of other gases of 8 % below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012, that is 5.2 % in the case of Kyoto Protocol parties as a whole.
<P>
It is as simple as this.
We need a reliable efficient system for measuring and monitoring our emissions.
This draft recommendation is the outcome of Parliament's and Council's consideration of the Commission's updating proposal of 1996.
Parliament held its first reading of this proposal in September 1997.
<P>
The Council's common position was received by Parliament in October 1998.
In the meantime, of course, the 1996/97 proposal and report have been largely superseded by the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol.
<P>
The common position has done a workman-like job of updating the mechanism to make it consistent with the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol.
It has also incorporated several of Parliament's amendments.
However, while the rapporteur is on the whole satisfied with these aspects of the common position, he has retabled some of Parliament's amendments from the first reading which he feels will strengthen the text.
Other amendments have been added to lend further coherence to the new elements introduced into the common position by the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol.
<P>
Most of the amendments are self-explanatory, but Mr Fitzsimons would like to draw your attention to two compromise amendments that he has tabled.
One of the amendments is a compromise reached between Mr Fitzsimons and Mrs Pollack: it strengthens the text and is in line with two requirements of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol.
The second amendment is a compromise between the rapporteur, Mr Fitzsimons, and the Commission: it deals with the evaluation of progress and draws attention to the absence or incompleteness of newly reported data from Member States.
If the proposal does not provide for sanctions, the compromise text on Article 6 by Mr Fitzsimons and the Commission is, in his view, the best way forward.
Mr Fitzsimons hopes that Members will be able to support these compromise amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lange">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, any agreement on CO2 emissions is of course meaningless without a sensible monitoring mechanism.
We have to be able to check compliance with what has been agreed.
Otherwise, we can agree or negotiate whatever we like, but without a monitoring mechanism it means nothing.
That is why we need to get to work as quickly as possible on creating a consistent monitoring mechanism for the European Union.
<P>
The Commission submitted its proposal on 4 September 1996, so we have been discussing this for nearly three years.
I think this is disgraceful when you think of all the developments since then and the urgent need to make progress on climate protection.
That is why I am anxious that there should not be any further delay, and that we should be in a position to implement this directive as quickly as possible.
Nevertheless, I do have a few reservations, especially because subsequent developments have meant that some aspects of the international negotiations on CO2 reduction have not been taken into account yet.
Nowadays, we are no longer negotiating about whether and by how many percent CO2 emissions should be reduced.
No-one is disputing that any more.
The negotiations are now about whether emissions can be traded and in what framework.
That has not been included here yet, so to that extent this legislation needs to be developed further.
And of course to do that we also need a framework guaranteeing the democratic rights of Parliament.
The Council's amendment of Article 8 is arguably so substantial that we ought to consider, in accordance with Rule 62 of our Rules of Procedure, whether this debate should continue at all.
<P>
I believe that we should finally get this sorted out here and now, so that we at least have an instrument that would enable us to make progress and set up a monitoring system.
So I do not advocate going down that particular road.
However, in view of developments in the CO2 debate, and given the issue of Parliament's democratic participation, I would like to put two questions to you here in the House, Commissioner, and I would also ask you to reply to these two questions in the House.
<P>
The first question is about comitology.
Article 8 provides for a specific regulatory committee. However, even if our amendment is accepted, the Commission alone will bear responsibility for further development.
So my first question is whether the Commission can assure us that Parliament will be kept informed about agreements reached in this committee and about further development, both promptly and in detail.
<P>
Secondly, in view of the need for further development of monitoring systems, can the Commission assure us that a new amendment to this directive will be brought forward, and that in particular flexible mechanisms for emissions trading will be covered in this new version?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schleicher">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Lange has just mentioned that if we want to achieve objectives, we also need to produce proof.
It is intended that in order to counteract the greenhouse effect the level of emissions recorded in 1990 should not be exceeded.
It is of course because of carbon dioxide, that is CO2 , and other greenhouse gases that, as the experts have it, warming is occurring.
Admittedly, looking outside, it does not seem to be getting warmer, quite the opposite.
Nevertheless, you know that the seasons vary quite dramatically and that overall there will probably be a warming effect here.
That is why there has been a call at global level for each region to make its own contribution.
<P>
I can only say that this version of the directive as it stands in the common position also fully reflects the wishes of my group.
Various amendments proposed by Parliament have already been accepted, but now there are more.
I would like to ask Commissioner Bjerregaard if she is able to accept the committee's amendments.
This is important for us, because we believe that our amendments make for greater precision.
<P>
However, I would like to repeat that we believe this system gives us a reliable basis for preparing further legislative action, as without this overview we are really fishing in the dark.
We will only be able to ensure that we have reliable data once effective measuring and monitoring systems come into force.
<P>
Important decisions have been taken at international level since the first reading, and these have been picked up in the common position. For example, the European Union's greenhouse gas monitoring system has been adapted to the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol.
This legislation therefore has an important part to play in implementing European climate protection policy.
I believe that Europe is really well ahead of other parts of the world in this field.
This also applies to the reporting requirements of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which stipulate that a body of data is required and that we cannot examine results until we have this data.
<P>
So I must say that the work done by Parliament in conjunction with the Commission and the Council has been a success.
I hope that we will be able to complete it as soon as possible, and that there will be no more delays, as it is important for Europe to set a good example.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, Mr Fitzsimons has done a good job on his report.
Monitoring CO2 emissions is very important in ensuring that the commitments given in the Kyoto Protocol are met.
It serves a dual purpose, evaluating progress made in reducing greenhouse gases and also in fulfilling commitments under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
<P>
I support the European Commission's proposal to extend the monitoring of emissions beyond the year 2000.
It is also useful to extend the monitoring system to include anthropogenic emissions and reductions.
Nevertheless, it will remain very difficult to monitor greenhouse gases, where a staggering number of factors are involved in determining emissions and concentrations.
This system for monitoring CO2 emissions is therefore very much a first attempt and we should have no illusions about this.
<P>
I very much support the amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kronberger">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the debate on reducing greenhouse gases is like a never-ending story.
Everyone talks about it, and everyone is convinced that it must happen, but when it comes to actually implementing it the picture is not so rosy.
Both reports are helpful steps in the right direction, but we need to be clear about what is fundamentally at stake here.
The amount of CO2 emitted every day world-wide is equivalent to the total amount for the 3 000 years before the industrial revolution.
If we extrapolate this figure to a whole year, we find that this corresponds to a period of 1 million years for every year. In other words, every year we are releasing as much CO2 as was previously released in a million years of the world's history.
And these are scientific results.
<P>
No one can predict precisely how long the earth's atmosphere can sustain this, or what the long-term consequences will be.
No one disputes that the effects are already perceptible now.
The important thing is for the reduction targets to be met as quickly as possible.
In this context, the amendments to the Hautala report tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection are crucial.
Technically speaking, it is certainly quite feasible to bring the measures forward by two to four years.
<P>
People often recommend switching from oil and coal to natural gas as a way of achieving the Kyoto objectives, but this is not a real solution.
It is true that compared with oil and coal, less CO2 is released during direct combustion of natural gas, but large quantities of methane escape at the exploration stage.
At the same time, an enormous amount of power is consumed in transporting energy from Siberia or Algeria to Europe.
The former Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs and current President of Georgia, Edvard Shevardnadze, has admitted that up to 50 % of methane gas transported escapes into the atmosphere.
These considerations also need to be taken into account if total greenhouse gases are to be correctly calculated.
<P>
Amendments Nos 2, 3 and 4 in the Fitzsimons report, which delete the words 'as far as possible', are particularly important.
Those Member States with no particular interest in reducing greenhouse gases could use these three words to avoid meeting their obligations in full.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graenitz">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I do not have very much to add to the previous speakers' remarks.
I would like to ask Mr Hyland to convey my congratulations to Mr Fitzsimons on his report, particularly because of the way he has highlighted essential points and cut out irrelevant detail.
<P>
I would just like to add one further point about measurement being necessary if we are to establish precisely where reductions in emissions need to be made first and in what way, and how we can then check whether objectives are being achieved. Once we have adopted this legislation, applicant countries will have to adopt it as common legislation during their preparations for accession, enabling them to bring their strategy more into line with EU strategy at an early stage and to use the same measurement techniques as the existing Member States.
This means that on accession they can be assimilated seamlessly into the European emission reduction strategy for achieving the Kyoto objectives.
This is something I attach great importance to.
<P>
I also believe that we cannot achieve everything we are now discussing about flexible mechanisms without precise measurement both within the European Union and world-wide.
In this context I would like to remind you that the flexible mechanism most successfully implemented so far, both for the environment and for industry, namely the reduction in CO2 emissions by US industry, has worked because penalties applied if obligations entered into were not met within the relevant time frame.
I wonder if we should not consider something like this in the European Union, especially given that Member States do not always report their figures, data and reductions to the Commission on time, so that the Commission's reports to the Parliament are delayed and it is not clear why this is happening.
I think we would all very much welcome it if it were possible to monitor from the outset what measurements are being taken, what efforts Member States are making and what needs to be done to coordinate those efforts in order to achieve the Kyoto objectives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking the Environment Committee and Mr Hyland, who spoke on behalf of the rapporteur, Mr Fitzsimons.
I would like to thank Parliament for the work that has been done, and for the attention that has been devoted to this proposal.
We all know that, after the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol, it is extremely important to have a clear and effective monitoring mechanism for CO2 and other greenhouse gases.
There is an obvious link between such a mechanism and the Protocol.
<P>
Compliance with the Kyoto obligations is of course the most important aspect, if we want to show that our action has a real effect in moderating climate change.
Having said that, I recognise that the present proposal for an amendment to Decision No 389/93 on a monitoring mechanism does not cover all the elements in the Kyoto Protocol. Several speakers have drawn attention to this.
There are for example no provisions on how the mechanisms are to be monitored.
There are good reasons for that.
To begin with, it must be remembered that the Commission presented its original proposal to the Council in September 1996, in other words a long time before the Kyoto summit, and it is true, as Mr Lange said, that much has happened since then.
<P>
Secondly - and this is perhaps more important - the principles, rules and guidelines that govern these mechanisms have not yet been laid down at international level.
If we look at the Buenos Aires Plan of Action, they must be laid down within two years from now at COP VI.
The Commission's stance has always been clear in this respect.
As soon as we have greater clarity on how these flexible arrangements are to operate, we will present a new decision on monitoring which will cover this key aspect of the Protocol, and it is clear that we will continue to be active in this matter.
<P>
As far as the amendments are concerned, let me say that the Commission can support all those which have been tabled.
Mr Lange put one or two specific questions to me.
One was about further proposals. Certainly there will be some.
I expect to have a new communication ready in the spring, which was also mentioned at the recent part-session in Brussels.
And as regards contact with Parliament, quite clearly that is important.
It was important in connection with the progress which we made in Kyoto and Buenos Aires.
In Brussels we spoke about the need to improve cooperation with the European Parliament, not least in connection with the forthcoming COP negotiations. Whatever happens, I will certainly play my part in ensuring that Parliament is actively involved in our continued work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Bjerregaard.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Reduction of sulphur content of liquid fuels
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0002/99), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council (10577/98 - C4-0564/98-97/0105(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Directive relating to a reduction of the sulphur content of certain liquid fuels and amending Directive 93/12/EEC (Rapporteur: Mrs Hautala).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this proposal concerns the view that emissions that acidify the atmosphere should be reduced to a minimum.
The Union has a strategy for acidification, and this proposal relates to legislation to limit the sulphur content of liquid fuel oils.
As we know, sulphur falls to the earth, acidifies the soil and does harm to nature. It also causes damage to buildings.
It thus has many kinds of adverse effects.
<P>
If we look at the common position of the Council of Ministers we could say the European Parliament has already in fact convinced the Council, in certain respects, of the justification for our views.
The Council has acted as we hoped it would: the Council and the Commission have, for example, jointly decided to start fixing limits for the sulphur content of fuel oils used on ships. This is undoubtedly to be seen as a step forward.
The Council has also approved in principle the view of Parliament that the sulphur content of light fuel oil should be limited far more drastically than was originally intended.
This is also highly satisfactory.
The problem remains, however, that the Council's common position, which is a unanimous compromise, will mean this reduction in the sulphur content of light fuel oil will not take place until the start of 2008, and that can hardly be regarded at this stage as a hugely radical move.
We really are talking about very long transition periods if we start to enact laws now that will not come into force until the year 2008.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection therefore proposes a compromise of sorts, which is that this stricter sulphur content limit for light fuel oil should come into force by the year 2004.
<P>
Then there is the very important question of how the sulphur content of heavy fuel oil should be limited.
The difference of opinion that still exists between the Council of Ministers and Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, when the common position is examined, lies in the fact that the Council is only prepared to apply a limit to the sulphur content of heavy fuel oil as from the start of 2003.
Now the Committee is suggesting that we should reach a reasonable compromise here too, with an amendment to come into force by the start of the year 2001.
<P>
There is a certain aspect of this report that is perhaps sometimes forgotten: Finland, Sweden and Austria, when they joined the Union, gained the right to maintain tighter environmental requirements over a four-year term, which ended at the end of last year.
This proposal was originally intended to guarantee that the strict sulphur content limits for light fuel oil which apply in Austria would be adopted throughout the Union. This is not exactly what has happened.
Member States have not had the courage to go as far as to introduce the sorts of provisions that currently apply in Austria.
This is directly relevant to the view of the Council of Ministers, which is that we cannot achieve the Austrian levels until the year 2008.
As I said, this really is a long transition period.
On the other hand, it has to be said that the nightmare scenario of Austria giving up its stricter limit values is now not going to happen.
Things have been organised in such a way that the legal basis of the proposal is Article 130s. It is thus a minimum requirement, which enables Austria to maintain its own stricter limit values.
We could say that, at least as far as this is concerned, the worst has not happened.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lange">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the rapporteur, Mrs Hautala, and I have been very firm in our dealings with the Council about the Auto-Oil programme.
We also went into battle over the reduction in the sulphur content of fuels and really thought that the fight was going to go to a second round.
But it has now turned out that this is not really necessary.
Which is just as well, as the problem of acidification is of course vital for the northern Member States, and we are therefore delighted that the Council has taken almost all Parliament's requests on board, which means that we finally have a really good piece of legislation.
I cannot help thinking of the words of a German pop song called 'Miracles keep on happening'.
I must say that in this case the Council has shown that this is true, and that it can sometimes simply accept the proposals made to it by Parliament - well-founded proposals of course.
<P>
I would like to highlight one particular point, and that is the inclusion of bunker oil for ships and the need to make progress with negotiations at international level to ensure that the fuel used in ships is as low in sulphur as possible. I say this because potential emissions from this source are now far greater than from power stations on dry land.
<P>
Of course there is also a little link with the Auto-Oil programme here: if you demand that oil with a relatively low sulphur content should be supplied for use in cars, it is quite conceivable that the refining industry will hit upon the idea of offering the rest, the mucky stuff, to ships.
In the interests of consistency, identical or at least similar legislation must also apply in this field.
That is why I particularly welcome the inclusion of bunker oil in the directive and I recommend that we should press for regulation at international level.
<P>
I have just one very small request relating to Amendment No 1, which is about the sulphur content of heavy oils.
This is the only thing it will take to make me perfectly happy with this legislation.
In this case the Environment Committee proposes bringing forward the relevant date by two years, from 2003 to 2001.
This is not an unprincipled suggestion, but really just a reinstatement of your own proposal, Commissioner.
I would therefore urge you to accept at least this one amendment and make my day!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Grossetête">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that we all agree on the objectives we are trying to achieve as regards acidification.
We are all extremely aware of the problems this causes and we can be content with the common position that included most of the amendments that the European Parliament had adopted at first reading.
As far as heavy fuel oils are concerned, some people are questioning the date set by the Council, which is 1 January 2003.
I believe that this date is perhaps more sensible as, if we wish to achieve our environmental objectives, we must also take account of one another's problems. Such problems are not always the same in northern Europe as they are in southern Europe.
<P>
As regards gas oil, the Council provides for two stages in reducing sulphur content.
I am always in favour of a gradual reduction rather than setting objectives that, if achieved in a single stage, may sometimes be rather restrictive.
The Council has set an initial deadline of the year 2000 - which is just around the corner - for limiting sulphur content to 0.20 %. It has then set a second deadline of 2008 for limiting this content to 0.10 %.
It also provides for derogations but limits their duration to a five year period from 2008 onwards on the understanding that this derogation period is non-renewable.
<P>
We can, I believe, be pleased with the fact that the Council, in its common position, has not covered bunker fuel as this accounts for only 2 % of total sulphur emissions.
However, I believe it is important to remain extremely vigilant in the case of particularly sensitive areas that must be protected, such as the North Sea and the Baltic Sea in particular.
Here, it would be appropriate to take action within the framework of the MARPOL Convention.
I believe it is important to stress this and to be extremely vigilant.
Therefore, we must insist that some areas that are particularly sensitive to sulphur emissions from bunker fuel, such as the areas I have just mentioned, be declared special protection areas.
<P>
Lastly, I believe that it is good that aviation fuel, which only accounts for approximately 0.2 % of sulphur emissions, is not included and is not deemed a priority.
<P>
In conclusion, there were some difficult negotiations in the Council over this common position and I believe we should bear this in mind.
On the whole, the content is along the lines of what we had hoped to see at first reading.
I believe this is a balanced common position, as it lets us delay until 2003 the entry into force of the limit value for sulphur content in heavy fuels. It also gives stricter guidelines for the exceptions that can be made.
In view of these conditions, the Group of the European People's Party refuses to systematically try to outdo the Council.
We will vote against the three amendments that have been tabled.
<P>
In effect, if the European Parliament adopts a single amendment at second reading, a unanimous or a qualified majority vote is required in the Council, depending on whether or not the Commission accepts the amendment. This will be impossible given the differences of opinion that exist between the northern and southern countries, and given that the oil coming from the Persian Gulf has a higher sulphur content.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, a dynamic approach to acidifying emissions is required if we are to protect human health, plants and sensitive ecosystems, as well as buildings.
The proposal we have before us is just a part of this approach.
The most effective way of combating acidification is through large furnaces, as these are responsible for 63 % of SO2 emissions in the European Union.
Nevertheless, we are pleased with the Council's common position on the reduction of the sulphur content of certain liquid fuels.
Thanks to Mrs Hautala's excellent proposals, the common position now looks a lot better than the original Commission proposal.
I can also wholeheartedly support the few amendments the rapporteur proposes at second reading.
The prospects of meeting the various demands are fair.
The crude oil from Norway, Libya and Russia contains less than 0.5 % sulphur and there are good techniques for desulphurizing the crude oil from the Middle East with its high sulphur content.
Another point is that the heavy fuel oil used by furnaces and cement factories should also contain less sulphur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking the Environment Committee and in particular the rapporteur, Mrs Hautala, for the valuable work that has been done on this proposal.
I would also like to thank Mrs Hautala and Mr Lange for their comments on the progress that has been made.
<P>
The proposal provides for a reduction in total emissions of sulphur dioxide of about 1 million tonnes, of the 3 million tonnes required by the acidification strategy.
The average cost of EUR 700 per tonne of pollution reduction will be far outweighed by the benefits, in particular to public health, which are put - and we have figures for that too - at about EUR 4 000 per tonne.
These figures for costs and effects say something about how important this proposal is.
<P>
Most of the 27 amendments adopted by Parliament at first reading have already been incorporated into the common position.
The aim of the common position was to perform the difficult act of striking a balance between what specifications for the sulphur content of a fuel will be necessary to reduce acidification damage and what we think European industry can achieve.
The Commission therefore supported the common position in its communication to the European Parliament.
I will now comment on the three new amendments.
<P>
Mr Lange and Mrs Hautala asked directly about Amendment No 1, which brings the deadline for implementation of the new 1 % limit for sulphur in fuel oil forward from the year 2003 to 2001.
As Mr Lange also noted, the Commission had originally proposed 2000, and we regretted in the communication on the common position that the Council had deferred that deadline.
The Commission therefore considers that the Council should take up the matter again.
Hence it follows that we can accept Amendment No 1 and, if that satisfies Mr Lange into the bargain, then that is another plus.
However, as I said before, the common position sought to strike a very careful balance, and we may in the end have to accept that it is not possible to get the Council to change its mind. But at least we shall try.
<P>
However, the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 2 and 3.
Amendment No 2 provides for a different upper limit for sulphur content in fuel oil in conjunction with a possible dispensation from the 1 % requirement.
The Commission wishes to discuss dispensation applications individually on the basis of the criteria laid down in the directive, so in that context the precise upper limit is not so critical.
It should be pointed out that in the common position, the Council has tightened up the conditions for the granting of dispensations by introducing the 'critical load' concept, which I think we can all find acceptable.
<P>
Amendment No 3 seeks to bring forward introduction of the 0.1 % limit for sulphur content in gas oil from the year 2008 to 2004.
In its communication on the common position, the Commission was favourable towards a tightening-up of the requirements for sulphur content in gas oil from the year 2008.
The reason why the Commission did not originally propose that tougher standard, however, was that it is not cost-effective throughout Europe.
There is still no justification now for bringing forward the deadline for implementation throughout Europe.
I would therefore emphasise - as the rapporteur, Mrs Hautala, also has - that we are talking about minimum requirements, which was also a key element in the Commission's original proposal. This means that the Member States are free to introduce the more stringent limit earlier than the year 2008.
<P>
Let me end there, Mr President.
The proposal as it stands will already improve the environment from next year.
It is therefore a good start on the concrete implementation of the acidification strategy.
Thank you for your time and your attention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Bjerregaard.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Shipments of waste to non-OECD countries
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0001/99), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council (5474/98 - C4-0538/98-95/0029(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Regulation establishing common rules and procedures to apply to shipments to certain non-OECD countries of certain types of waste (Rapporteur: Mr Virgin).
<P>
I give the floor to Mrs Jackson, who is deputising for the rapporteur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Jackson">
Mr President, as the more observant amongst you will have noticed, I am not Mr Virgin.
Mr Virgin is stuck in the snow somewhere between here and Sweden.
He may have got as far as Brussels and is probably now trying to come cross-country with huskies.
I apologise that I am not Mr Virgin, but I am presenting the report in his name.
<P>
It is particularly sad that he is not here, because this is an important report which he has worked very hard on over the last few years.
I have only a few remarks to make in relation to it and one very important question to ask the Commissioner, a question which I hope she will be able to answer.
<P>
The amendments look extremely technical and they are so.
In particular, Mr Virgin, on behalf of the committee, considers that the new Annex C proposed by the Council should be deleted, as the ban on exports of the types of waste listed are already covered by lists of waste in the Basle Convention, and yet another list further complicates what is already very complex legislation.
I would be grateful if the Commissioner could comment on the individual amendments as she goes through them and on their acceptability to the Commission.
<P>
The general point I want to make is one that has been raised by a number of Members of the European Parliament, particularly from the United Kingdom.
There is a scare in my country, and possibly other countries as well, that the net effect of this legislation would be to make it much more difficult to export used clothing of the types that are collected by charities to countries that have not replied to the Commission's questionnaire on the acceptability of exports of waste to them.
Perhaps this sounds complicated, but it does not necessarily have to be.
The trouble is that - perhaps they were not well brought up or something - a number of countries have simply not replied to the questionnaire sent to them by the Commission.
The suspicion has grown amongst Members of the European Parliament that one of the consequences of this is that it would then be extremely difficult to continue to export used clothing to these countries.
<P>
The problem is, as we have understood in the course of the debates as it were, off-stage, on Mr Virgin's report, that used clothing, when collected by organisations belonging to the churches, Oxfam, or whatever, ceases to be a waste once it is sorted and that sorted used clothing does not actually come within the orbit of this directive at all.
Therefore there would be no difficulty for charities and others that export such used clothing.
<P>
I spoke this afternoon to the BIR - the Bureau of International Recycling - and was told: 'Yes, that is our understanding, but there is legal uncertainty on this point'.
My question to the Commissioner - she may not be able to answer now but could perhaps write to us to let us know exactly what her position is - is as follows: is it true, therefore, that there is absolutely nothing flowing from this legislation to prevent charities from our countries exporting quite freely, with no bureaucracy about it, used clothing to those countries - predominantly, I suspect, in Africa - which import them at the moment?
If it is true, then can we make sure that there is legal certainty on this point?
If we need legal certainty, does that mean that we therefore need to have some adjustment to this regulation?
<P>
I am sorry to labour this point but it is one which has emerged in what is otherwise a rather technical regulation as a point that people can understand and about which many people are worried.
I would be grateful for the Commissioner's reply.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Kokkola">
Mr President, Commissioner, any economic activity in developed countries unfortunately results in damage both to the environment and to public health.
Waste is an unavoidable side-effect of such activity.
<P>
Both toxic and non-toxic waste cause huge problems in all countries in relation to reprocessing and storage.
The export of waste from producing countries to recipient countries, either for reprocessing or for final storage, is a 'solution' which is fraught with dangers, both for the environment and for the health of EU citizens.
It is very important, therefore, that the entire process should be governed by strict rules and procedures.
<P>
The European Union is fully aware of this need and has put forward a number of measures and rules for the transportation of waste.
One such regulation, which is contained in the document before the House, relates to the implementation of common procedures which are to apply to the transportation of waste of certain kinds intended for countries which are not members of the OECD.
This regulation must set limits and respect the decisions of the countries involved, without, in so doing, causing major problems.
<P>
It is a well-known fact that, in third countries, cheap labour, poor environmental legislation and a relatively free import system provide favourable conditions for waste to continue to be exported to them as recipient countries.
Environmental organisations have set in motion information campaigns about the problem, both in developed countries and in those countries which accept waste for economic reasons.
We must realise that waste is not just another exportable commodity.
<P>
It is a great pity that Mr Virgin is not here today to outline his report to the House, but we certainly agree with most of the points which he expresses.
There is just one point on which our group does not agree and that is on Amendment No 2.
We believe that the monitoring mechanism contained in Article 15 of Regulation (EC) No 259/93 should remain in Article 2 because a simplification of the procedure would lead to major pitfalls.
<P>
Can I also make the point that there is another important question: the question of monitoring compliance with this regulation.
The European Union must put in place stiff penalties for Member States which are in breach of this regulation, and it must make available procedures to prevent the illegal exportation of waste which, as we know, is going on.
<P>
The final point I wish to make has to do with the addition of a new annex, Annex 5, to Regulation (EC) No 259/93.
I believe that amalgamating the lists of waste in the Basle Convention will simplify the implementation of the legislation.
I would like to thank Mr Virgin - albeit in his absence - for his report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Striby">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should just like to point out that we have with us in the official gallery a delegation from the Conseil régional d'Alsace and from the Conseil général du Haut-Rhin , brought here by their president, Mr Constant Goerg.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Striby.
We therefore welcome them to the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Taubira-Delannon">
Mr President, the issue of waste shipments to non-OECD countries brings us back to some rather delicate and difficult problems that all come at a price. One such problem is that of public health and, as a result, our ability to help protect the most vulnerable populations, who are mainly children.
There is the problem of our ability to help protect those we call street children, who often live in these non-OECD countries.
Then there is the risk of environmental dumping that leads to some countries being transformed into rubbish tips, particularly so-called developing countries.
This is because these countries are often forced to agree to all manner of deals to bring in the revenue required to finance their needs, particularly in terms of public facilities.
There is also the problem of sovereignty, and of restricting the possible choices in some activities.
<P>
In other words, we are forced to try to strike a balance.
On the one hand, we must be extremely strict, and this means introducing the highest possible requirements for waste shipments.
On the other hand, we must leave these countries the flexibility they need to be able to choose the possibility of recycling. Recycling would then help these countries to establish industrial or semi-industrial activities that would, as a result, help them generate income.
<P>
When we consider the idea of drawing up lists, namely the green list and the red list, it is clear that such industrial opportunities mainly affect products on the green list.
In effect, we should keep to the principle that the danger level is linked to the product and not to the difficulty some countries have in responding.
We are fully aware that all countries are not equal as regards administrative controls and techniques for the import, storage and processing of such waste.
We should support them but firstly we should suggest the principle of transparency. We should consider the issue of extending the waste producers' responsibility.
Perhaps we should finally take a good look at the volume of waste we produce. In other words, we should look at the risks that our consumerism poses to our common heritage, and also at the drawing rights we have awarded ourselves on the common heritage of the planet and, as a result, on the protection of the environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, I also wish to thank Parliament for the report, although Mr Virgin is not here, and for the active work done by Members on it.
As Mrs Jackson remarked, there has been much disruption due to the weather today, so we must get by without Mr Virgin.
<P>
The proposed regulation deals with the shipment of waste on the so-called green list for recovery to certain non-OECD countries.
Waste on the green list is waste whose transfer is generally not considered to pose any risk to the environment.
Waste on the green list for recovery is traded as merchandise within the OECD and in the EU.
I would also make it quite clear that the export of hazardous waste to non-OECD countries is prohibited under current EC legislation.
<P>
In 1994, the Commission asked all non-OECD countries what control procedures, if any, they wanted to be applied to the shipment of waste on the green list.
The proposed regulation is only concerned with countries which replied that they did not wish to receive items from the green list or certain of those items, and with countries which did not respond to the Commission's survey.
Mrs Jackson asked me specifically to comment on the eight amendments which have been tabled, and I will say something about them now.
<P>
The Commission can accept six of these, five in their entirety and one with a minor change, and the Commission can accept one amendment in part.
There is only one that is not acceptable to the Commission.
According to Amendment No 1, the Commission must inform the countries which are covered by the regulation on changes to Annexes A and B on a regular basis. The Commission can accept this, and we shall of course make sure that it happens.
Amendment No 2 implies that the shipment of waste on the green list to countries which have not replied to the questionnaire can take place under the procedure for the orange list, which only requires tacit consent from the importing country.
I am pleased to note that Parliament is no longer, as at first reading, demanding a ban on such exports, because that would be against WTO rules.
But your proposal to follow the procedure for the orange list, i.e. based on tacit consent, goes in the opposite direction.
The control procedures which you are now demanding will mean that the shipment is permitted if there is no answer from the importing country within 30 days, in other words you take silence to mean 'yes'.
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In July 1997, I heard it said in this House that it is unacceptable for the Commission to assume the right to interpret non-response on the part of a country to its own advantage.
The Commission agrees with that statement, and it is therefore more appropriate, where we have not had a reaction from a country, to apply a procedure based on express written consent.
In this way we can make sure, prior to any shipment, that the destination country is really aware of the implications of the waste import in question.
I would appreciate it if this comment could be duly noted.
Thus the Commission still prefers the red list procedure, whereby the shipment can proceed after express written consent.
This procedure takes account of both the exporter's and importer's interests in a transparent manner.
In its common position, the Council has requested application of the procedure under Article 15 of Council Regulation No 259/93, according to which written consent but also a longer time-limit are required.
The Commission thinks that the solution applying the red list procedure strikes the best balance between Parliament's and the Council's proposals and therefore cannot accept Amendment No 2.
<P>
Then there are Amendments Nos 3, 5 and 8 dealing with waste which, according to Article 39 of the Fourth Lomé Convention, may not be exported to ACP countries.
These are useful proposals, since recital 9 in the preamble is clear enough and yet another annex with yet another list of waste may give rise to confusion.
The Commission can therefore support these three amendments.
Also, Amendment No 4 is acceptable to the Commission since the wording corresponds to that of Article 17(3) of Council Regulation No 259/93.
<P>
Finally, the Commission can support a change in the time-limit for periodic review under Amendment No 6, but cannot agree to consultation of Parliament in this connection, since the Commission considers that the regulation falls within the common commercial policy and that Article 113 forms the only legal basis.
The Commission can support Amendment No 7, provided that Commission Regulation No 2048/98 is explicitly mentioned along with Council Regulation No 120/97.
The Commission Regulation of 6 November 1998 involves an amendment to Annex V to the Council Regulation.
<P>
I would come back now to the very important question of the shipment of used clothing, which Mrs Jackson had a good deal to say about in her speech and which I myself have raised on a number of occasions.
It is quite clear that charitable organisations have been very concerned over how the proposal we are dealing with today might be interpreted.
I know that three amendments were presented at the meeting in January of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, but they were not followed up for procedural reasons.
Certain misunderstandings have arisen in that connection.
It is also clear that many representations have been made and there is widespread concern over the matter.
It is true, as Mrs Jackson mentioned, that people are afraid that the export of used clothing for recycling will be prevented.
I would therefore like to place on record the Commission's view that used clothing, when it is sorted, cleaned and repaired prior to export, cannot be regarded as waste but can be treated as products.
Since the proposed regulation only applies to waste items, this regulation will not apply to used clothing and, with the debate that has taken place here today, we should be able to dispel completely the concerns which have been voiced by charitable organisations.
I think in fact that it will give them much reassurance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Jackson">
Mr President, would the Commissioner agree, in the light of what she has just said, that she would actually need to move an amendment to the text here to clarify that it does not apply to secondhand clothing which has been sorted and disinfected?
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<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, let me say to Mrs Jackson that we do not think there is any need for an amendment because we think that the text is in fact clear enough.
But I agree with Mrs Jackson to the extent that, because of the many misunderstandings which have arisen, we should at least find some way of ensuring that the charitable organisations know what rules apply.
We shall try to find an appropriate way of overcoming this problem.
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<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Bjerregaard.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
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<CHAPTER ID=8>
Landfill of waste
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0028/99), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council (6919/98 - C4-0539/98-97/0085(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Directive on the landfill of waste (Rapporteur: Mrs Jackson).
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<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Jackson">
Mr President, I hope somebody somewhere is taking notice of the fact that Mrs Bjerregaard and I and other Members are spending this evening doing very unglamorous things such as debating landfill and the export of used cardigans.
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The landfill directive is one of the most important environmental directives the European Parliament has dealt with in recent years.
It marks the beginning of a major shift in waste management practice in Europe.
For the public this is the end of an era in which many people in many countries have had to give very little thought to what happens to the waste they produce.
Seven countries currently landfill more than half of the municipal waste they produce.
These are Austria, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom.
For these countries in particular, this directive marks the end of what one might call the throwaway society.
It also marks the beginning of an intensive period of innovation of waste management restructuring and, above all, of expenditure on other means of disposal by taxpayers.
I represent part of the south-west of England and a recent study that I did of the local authorities in the south-west of England led me to the conclusion that most of them were thinking very hard about schemes for recycling and reuse and recovery of waste.
However, none of them had actually been able to move near the kind of demands which this directive is going to make on them within the next five to ten years.
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The three key features of the directive are firstly the promotion of the move away from landfill to what are considered more environmentally acceptable alternatives.
I use the words 'what are considered more environmentally acceptable alternatives' advisedly since I personally do not have much faith in the hierarchy of waste management alternatives.
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Secondly, the directive calls for the establishment of European Union wide standards for proper management of landfills; thirdly, it should result in the discouragement of the transport of waste across frontiers - waste tourism we call it - by removing the disparities between the practices and prices relating to landfill in the 15 Member States so that waste simply searches for the cheapest hole.
<P>
The Environment Committee, while welcoming the directive as amended by the Council, still wanted to insist on further amendments and it is these amendments which I move tonight since this is the second reading of this directive which is coming forward under the cooperation procedure so we will not, I regret to say, see it again.
<P>
First, as regards the timetable for implementation; at its maximum we will have to wait until the year 2020 before those Member States with more than an 80 % dependence on landfill, which are Greece, Ireland, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, have to reduce the volume of waste going to landfill to 35 % of the total in 1995.
That is a very big switch indeed.
But that is looking a very long way into the future.
Think about it.
Four Parliaments hence at least.
We MEPs have therefore altered this grace period to two years and set the figure to be attained at 25 %.
What we are saying is that at its maximum this directive should mean that by the latest 2018, all European Union Member States should only be sending to landfill 25 % of their 1995 totals.
<P>
Make no mistake about it, this directive does not rule out landfill as an option.
Landfill will still be a very important option but it will be diminished from its present importance.
This is going to be very difficult to achieve and we feel that the totals and timescales set out in the directive tend to represent, as so often in this House, the triumph of hope over experience.
We have therefore submitted two amendments to Article No 5(2).
The first would ensure that Parliament is involved in monitoring, over the next 20 years, what progress the directive is actually making.
In Amendment No 10 to Article 5 we try to ensure that the directive does not become the kind of legislative Titanic sailing on into the iceberg of non-compliance.
Since the timetable set out for compliance is in three stages, we should surely monitor along the way whether compliance is satisfactory throughout Europe.
If it is not, then we may need to take practical steps to make sure that in practice we get the high level of protection the directive demands.
In the past the Commission has been reluctant to go along with the quite elaborate mechanism of reporting to it and to the European Parliament from the Member States which we would like to see.
We believe that this system of reporting is our best hope of ensuring that this directive itself does not join other directives in, to change my metaphor, the landfill of non-compliance.
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Our Amendments Nos 14 and 16 represent the committee's concern that there are two important loopholes in the directive.
First existing landfills below a certain size on islands would be exempt from considerable proportions of the directive altogether.
We think that these should not be allowed to continue to operate without full public access to the record of what is dumped there.
Secondly, we insist that Member States shall close any existing landfill sites which have not been granted a permit under the waste framework directive.
It is a bad omen that such sites are still operating at all.
The siting of landfills is extremely controversial.
It is no part of our responsibilities to interfere in local planning matters but the committee agreed that we should set out our guideline in the annex for the desirable minimum distance between new landfills and residential areas.
<P>
As rapporteur, I must present the report on behalf of the committee, although personally I am not in favour of some of the committee amendments, notably the refusal to place a time limit on liability for damage occasioned by land filling.
I would be grateful if the Commission could comment on Amendment No 15 and its workability.
<P>
In conclusion, I commend this directive to Parliament.
Once it is adopted, however, the work begins, especially in my country.
Once we accept the directive's targets, we must put in place recycling and composting schemes - and we hope that we will get a composting directive before the end of this year - that will work and have good markets for what they produce.
We must reduce the amount of waste we produce.
We must make a bold assessment of the part that energy from waste incinerators can play in dealing with the waste that we must divert from landfill and take the necessary decisions, if we decide to take that route, to build such incinerators in the full knowledge that public opinion at the moment will have to be won around.
<P>
This evening and tomorrow when we vote, we pass the baton now to Members of Parliament and, above all, to local councillors in our various countries, some of whom may be here in the gallery tonight.
I cannot think of a directive that better illustrates the partnerships that must exist between legislators at the European, national and local levels.
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<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="Malone">
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mrs Jackson for her work.
I want to reassure her that people are interested in the environment but they are not interested in paying for the improvements we all want to see.
I was a member of a local council for many years and I did not think it would take so long for the various Member States to coordinate action in this area.
It is amazing that so little progress has been made.
I represent one of the countries that has been mentioned among the guilty parties with regard to landfill.
Therefore I have studied the report very carefully.
<P>
What I find most disappointing is the Council's attitude to this legislation.
The Member States have placed the concerns of industry and their own cost concerns ahead of the interests of our citizens.
I note in particular that the Council has failed to include minimum distances from residential areas for landfills which contain either hazardous or non-hazardous waste.
This is certainly a very contentious issue in my own area of Dublin.
<P>
The Council has instead persisted with its vague commitment to consider the matter when the location of future landfills is chosen.
I also oppose the Council's position that Member States should be given eight years, rather than the five years proposed by Parliament, to ensure that existing landfill sites comply with the terms laid out in this directive.
I welcome the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection's support for the polluter pays principle and the proposal for a tax on waste going into the landfill sites.
<P>
I find it very ironic that Ireland has supported this common position.
In a recent policy paper the Irish Government committed itself to reducing landfill and increasing the use of more sustainable means of waste disposal.
As has been said, Ireland relies very heavily on landfill - I think only Greece is more reliant.
So we have to wonder just how committed the Irish Government is to tackling the problem if it continues to support the Council's very watered-down amendments.
I would hope that the Commissioner present today will fight the case for consumers and for citizens who want to see the whole waste disposal and landfill issue dealt with in an environmentally friendly way.
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<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am very happy indeed to support the report presented by Mrs Jackson, because I believe this represents a great step forward in environmental matters for the whole of Europe.
Although it will involve some tightening up in Austria, I have to say that a number of provisions already apply in Austria which it would have been impossible to gain acceptance for throughout Europe.
I certainly tried to emphasise this by the way I voted in committee.
<P>
I would like to illustrate this point with a single example - Article 6, the classification of waste according to categories of waste.
It is to be permissible to deposit certain types of solid non-reactive hazardous waste on landfill sites for non-hazardous waste.
This relates to waste which is categorised as hazardous because of handling issues, that is to say where there is a risk of inappropriate handling, but which can in fact be deposited with other non-reactive waste without any risk to the environment.
This implies waste with low leachability.
Such waste cannot be deposited in Austria unless it can be scientifically proven that it is not dangerous in landfill conditions.
We have also developed a model for providing this proof.
This chiefly relates to vitrified or solidified hazardous waste.
<P>
I believe that this is a very important point which we will have to reflect on again in the future.
Nevertheless, this directive represents a great step forward for Europe and I am therefore really pleased to give it my approval.
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<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Mr President, first of all may I thank Mrs Jackson and congratulate her on her report.
I would like, President, to make a few comments.
Listening to this debate I feel as though I am from a different planet, living as I do in a country, Greece, which, as Mrs Jackson said, is one of those countries which depend heavily on landfills for the disposal of waste.
<P>
First of all, I agree with the proposal that there should be prevention, then recovery, followed by recycling, incineration and finally landfill.
But in my country, Commissioner, virtually nothing has been done about prevention and recovery, and recycling has only been talked about. As for incineration, it has been recommended to us on many occasions, and even by the Commission itself.
Is the Commission so much in favour of incineration?
Personally, I have my doubts about incineration. I know that cities in Belgium, including Brussels, and recently Lille in France have come out against incineration, claiming that it causes serious environmental and public health problems.
I would like a better response in relation to this issue before I cast my vote and declare that incineration is a way to solve the problem.
<P>
A second point, with which I am in full agreement, is the taxation of waste destined for landfill sites.
I find this a perfectly correct thing to do.
But who decides the level of taxation?
Who collects the tax and what is to be done with it?
We are talking about a long period of time - three decades.
In my own country local government does not have the power to raise taxes, which puts paid, at least for the time being, to this, in my view, perfectly reasonable solution.
<P>
A third point I would like to mention is this. What kind of authority is to be responsible for landfill sites?
I agree with Mrs Jackson when she says that there should be a time limit.
I would say, however, that I do not fully agree with her.
If an authority is to have responsibility for a landfill site for 30 years after its closure and be permanently liable to pay compensation, then it absolutely has to be a public authority.
I am not sure whether it should be centralised or decentralised, autonomous or independent, but it must be a public body.
No other solution can be envisaged and this has to be said otherwise how, in 30 years' time, will I be able to find the responsible owner, who has meanwhile closed down his company or his establishment?
<P>
Finally, I would like to make one further point, Mr President.
We have not made sufficient reference to former debates we have had in relation to the severe problems that implementation of this legislation will entail for certain regions such as small islands and isolated mountain regions.
The transportation of waste to sites which can financially justify this transportation is virtually impossible. Rather than look for loopholes in the legislation, we must find alternative subsidies to enable these regions to get rid of their waste in a hygienic and environmentally friendly way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="Collins, Gerard">
Mr President, I welcome the thrust of this report, which seeks to implement strict rules with regard to the operation of landfill sites within the territories of the Union.
<P>
The essence of the report includes the implementation of the following key provisions: procedures which must be met before a licence can be granted for landfill operations; the monitoring procedure during landfill sites' operational phase and closure; technical conditions to be met by sites and facilities which have to serve as landfill deposits; classifying the different sets of wastes which can be accepted in landfill sites across Europe and setting targets for the reduction of the amounts of biodegradable municipal waste being deposited in landfills.
<P>
European and Irish waste policies have to be based on a hierarchy of options, with prevention the most desirable and disposal the least desirable.
However, the stark fact is that over 90 % of municipal waste is disposed of in landfill sites in my country, and four million tonnes of waste is produced each year in the continent of Europe.
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Future waste disposal in Ireland does not and cannot rely on the continued search for landfill sites by local authorities up and down the country.
I fully welcome the initiative taken by my government which has commissioned a study into the possible use of new, alternative forms of waste management and disposal.
The government is right to look boldly at new ways of disposing of residential, industrial, commercial and agricultural waste.
<P>
Only 8 % of all municipal waste in Ireland is recycled and this figure is simply too low.
We need to give consideration to all innovative options for waste minimisation so as to put in train the medium to long-term process of eliminating the use of landfill sites in the future.
This, in itself, would be a very bold objective.
The government is presently formulating its national development plan outlining our social and economic investment priorities for the years 2000-2006.
I am very confident that, if proposals are included in this plan to deal with our waste problem in a novel manner, the European Commission will financially support alternative waste-disposal methods during the next round of EU Structural Funds.
The European Commission and European Parliament certainly want all Member States to take advantage of the cleaner new technologies which are coming on-stream to deal with the problem of waste management.
<P>
The implementation of the Waste Management Act of 1995 is also a positive step in the right direction.
Under this legislation local authorities are required to prepare waste-management plans either individually or jointly, but I believe that there must be widespread public consultation in drawing up such plans.
Finally, it is important that, as newer technologies come on stream, this process must involve the consent and widespread participation of the general public and local communities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, I should like to ask the Commission to clarify Article 14.
Authorities in some countries, including my own, are already planning to close down a number of landfill sites over the next two years.
One of the important aspects of this legislation is after-care.
What I want it know is this: if, for example, these waste sites are closed down before the transposition into law of the directive, will they be exempt from the directive, in particular in relation to after-care?
That is one of the major problems.
Some of the landfill sites that are being closed down pose major problems, so it is essential that these sites also come under the directive.
There seems to be a slight confusion here.
<P>
One of the most important aspects of this report that I want to raise is the whole issue of the distance of landfill sites from residential areas.
We have been very disappointed with the response of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and its members who are there to protect public health, because they are basically saying that a suggested guideline is proposed in the text.
That is unacceptable.
It is like saying we will make legislation as suggested legislation, and you can do what you want afterwards.
<P>
There have been a number of recent reports - a very important study in The Lancet last year for example - which show that babies born within three kilometres of toxic landfill sites - and potentially all landfill sites - are more likely to suffer birth defects than babies born elsewhere.
The research stated that residents within three kilometres of a landfill site were associated with a significantly higher risk of congenital anomalies and that systematic environmental health surveillance is needed for municipal landfill sites and other pollution sources.
<P>
It is extremely important that a precautionary approach is taken here.
It is clear that the proximity of residential areas to landfill sites poses a huge risk.
It is essential that this legislation makes it mandatory for local authorities and the authorities of the Member States to adhere to a minimum distance.
We know that there have been cases of toxic waste being dumped in Member States, including my own, in sites that were not geared towards toxic landfill: local authorities in my own country have been found responsible for illegally dumping toxic substances like mercury into landfill sites which were not meant for toxic waste disposal.
So there is a huge time-bomb waiting to go off, if, first of all, these landfill sites are not covered by the directive and have been closed down before it enters into effect and, secondly, if no action is taken to ensure that any landfill site is beyond a certain radius from residential areas.
It is not acceptable that public health be put at risk like this.
We will be looking for a roll-call vote on this aspect of the report tomorrow.
It is essential that the voters in the Member States know how serious the Members of this House are about protecting the health of European Union citizens.
Studies have shown that babies - the most vulnerable members of society - are at risk.
There are other aspects of the legislation which are also extremely disturbing.
In landfill sites which are geared to non-toxic waste, there will be a loophole to allow toxic waste to be added, depending on what kind of justification is given.
<P>
Although the directive is an improvement on the Commission's proposal which we rejected in 1996, it still does not go far enough to protect the environment and public health.
I would therefore like some clarification on Article 14 from the Commission.
The directive must make it mandatory for landfill sites to be located beyond a certain distance from residential areas.
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<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Posada">
Mr President, I have to begin by congratulating the rapporteur, Mrs Jackson, on her excellent report, and backing the amendments tabled by the Environment Committee.
I agree wholeheartedly with this order of priority.
<P>
Pollution has long been a concern in Europe and we in Galicia, Spain, face a problem with waste disposal that, in our opinion, has yet to be resolved. This relates to an urban waste incineration programme.
A plant known as (...) is to be started up in Vila Boa, not the best choice of site since:
<P>
firstly, it will be on the coast near the Galician river-estuaries or rias , an area known worldwide for its fish stocks and as a tourist attraction; -secondly, it will be located in the town of Vila Boa, which is densely populated and is near Pontevedra, a town already heavily polluted because of a cellulose factory. A river running through an extremely beautiful and fertile valley has been diverted to build a railway line which has spoilt part of the historic Portuguese route to Santiago de Compostela.
A number of protests against the plant have been staged by local residents, with as many as 30 000 people marching, and messages of protest have been sent to the Environment Committee in Brussels.It is up to the Commission to control waste elimination and processing plants like this one.
Given that they are built with the aid of substantial European financial subsidies - as much as EUR 78 million in this case - there should be checks on where they are located, how they are built and how they are run.
The Commission should also make sure that these investments are not only properly planned and carried out, but also used profitably.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Madam President, there are various options for waste processing.
The solution to the waste problem must be sought in prevention, reuse and recycling.
European waste policy must ensure that progressively less waste is dumped.
I therefore agree with the rapporteur Mrs Jackson when she describes landfill as the very last choice on her list of possible waste processing methods.
<P>
Unfortunately, in the past, in other words between 1991 and 1996, attempts to introduce effective landfill regulations failed.
The Commission proposal is a considerable improvement on the common position rejected in 1995.
It is no longer the case that 50 % of EU territory is excluded from the directive.
<P>
Every effort must be made to process biodegradable waste into compost and biogas, rather than landfilling or incineration.
A good system of separate collection should make it possible to further reduce the 25 % norm for the dumping of such waste.
<P>
I agree with the rapporteur's proposal of imposing a levy on landfill waste.
This must be based on the real operating costs, so that the taxpayer does not have to contribute.
In this respect, we are concerned at the continuing practice of transporting waste to cheaper landfill sites or incineration ovens.
There is a very large landfill site in Spain, for example, and this will not be closed until it is completely full, which will not be for some decades.
<P>
There are of course many uncertainties in regard to the protection and management of landfill sites.
The risks of soil and water pollution remain very considerable, especially in the long term.
It is my hope that the Member States will implement this directive effectively, but giving absolute priority to waste prevention, reuse and recycling.
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<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Mr President, as Liberals we also believe it is very important to adopt a waste management strategy in connection with the landfill of waste, which must be the very last resort.
The release of dangerous substances into the soil and groundwater places an excessive burden on the environment and on public health.
This is why we attach such importance to this directive.
<P>
We find it irresponsible to further delay appropriate legislation.
We therefore believe the common position must be approved, as modified of course by the amendments proposed by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
<P>
In this respect I believe the amendments on biodegradable waste are crucially important.
The rapporteur is right when she says that it is much kinder to the environment to produce compost and biogas from biodegradable waste than to dump it or incinerate it.
I support this view.
<P>
However, I believe the rapporteur is being too cautious by proposing no more than a guideline on the minimum distance of landfills for urban waste.
I do not believe this is a matter for subsidiarity.
In this instance we prefer the amendments tabled by the Green Group, which seek to impose a minimum distance of half a kilometre for urban waste and two kilometres for hazardous waste, the precautionary principle taking priority over that of subsidiarity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Banotti">
Mr President, coming as I do from a small country which landfills 99 % of its waste, I am particularly anxious to make a few remarks about this extremely important directive.
<P>
The directive allows a 20-year period for countries which landfill more than 80 % of their waste to come into line.
But small countries like Ireland simply do not have 20 years!
We are going to have to address this problem a lot more quickly, in particular we finally have to address the extremely sensitive issue of incineration which in most countries, I believe, causes local problems when it is mooted.
<P>
Many years ago somebody asked me what I thought were the five most important environmental issues of our time.
I answered: number one is waste, number two is waste, number three is waste, number four is waste and number five is waste.
It remains perhaps one of the most intractable problems facing all of us.
<P>
I should also say that I would like to have seen the directive slightly stronger on the protection for redundant landfill sites, because resistance to landfill and also to incineration is very often directly connected to the fears of those who live near these sites that they will not be adequately maintained and protected.
We also need finally to take seriously the question of the sorting of waste into recyclable groups of waste and of course, the recycling of treated waste.
<P>
I congratulate the rapporteur.
We have relied very much on the leadership of the Commission to push this as a political issue in our country.
I am very happy to support this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valverde López">
Madam President, I believe that this directive can serve as a model because it is aimed at the citizens and affects everyday life, and also because it shows how Community regulations approved centrally by the institutions must subsequently be implemented by local authorities.
It underlines the fact that we are primarily addressing local and regional authorities.
<P>
I believe that there are three important points which warrant repetition because they should always be at the forefront of our minds: landfill must be a last resort; all sites must be secure and monitored; and all costs must be covered.
It is easy to state these three requirements, but fulfilling them will be rather more difficult.
<P>
Although the regions are constantly calling for the implementation of the principle of subsidiarity and for the autonomy to enable them to implement the relevant legislation, we must nevertheless appeal to those whose responsibility it is to comply with it. This legislation is very important, and yet there are thousands and thousands of unregulated sites.
Even worse, in small villages there are official sites on steep riverbanks and waste is incinerated daily. It is incredible that this should be happening in this day and age, but it is.
<P>
I believe that the European Parliament is sending a very clear and positive message, and that we should congratulate the rapporteur on reaching this overall result. The European Commission is also to be congratulated of course, as it kept this proposal alive for years despite the many difficulties it encountered, even, it has to be said, in the Council of Ministers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Watson">
Madam President, I would also like to congratulate Mrs Jackson on the substantial amount of work she has done on this.
As a Liberal Democrat I always favour measures which protect and enhance our environment and there is much in the Commission directive and in this report which does just that.
<P>
However, I believe that good legislation should be practicable.
And I am surprised that the rapporteur, coming as she does from the south-west of England, believes that Amendment No 11 which reduces the time allowed to Member States to postpone attainment of targets from four to two years and Amendment No 17 which reduces the compliance timetable by three years from eight years to five are practically achievable.
Indeed, Amendment No 17 may lead to the rapid adoption of new means of disposal which will mean less sustainability.
<P>
In the south-west of England we landfill more than 85 % of our waste.
We have a rapidly growing level of environmental consciousness leading to much composting and much landfill geared specifically to the production of biogas.
Indeed, I launched a report this morning called 'The Greening of Somerset' in which we pointed to what Liberal Democrat authorities have done in this direction.
We are proud of our record.
We are making great strides but I will vote against Amendments Nos 11 and 18 because I believe they are almost impossible to attain, will demoralise the industry and add very substantially to the costs imposed on waste site operators and on local authorities.
<P>
In conclusion, I favour the use of legislation to push, to coax and to accelerate change but there are many ways to crack an egg.
Using a sledgehammer is only one of them.
These two amendments are the sledgehammer approach.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Madam President, the Council directive is a positive step, and the amendments proposed by Mrs Jackson make an even more positive contribution.
<P>
However, although these will go some way to improving the existing situation, I fear - and I do not here wish to make a prediction - that the future situation will not be radically different.
I have listened to talk of measures stretching over 30 years, of measures which will come into force very gradually.
However, all the waste materials destined for burial, incineration and so on are multiplying at a very dangerous level and at a much faster rate than the measures put forward by the Council and the Commission and those put forward by us in this House.
We run the risk - that is, those of us who introduce such measures - of being buried along with those waste materials, because of the speed, or lack of it, with which we are moving to tackle the problem.
<P>
Madam President, I have heard the word 'prevention' being bandied about. What does this mean?
Who is producing this waste? Who is the main source, the person responsible for the excessive production of waste?
Is it the individual, the citizen? And why is it that never before have we had such a rampant increase in the amount of waste?
The answer is clear to all: at the root of the problem lie certain industries, certain conglomerates, which produce and sell for profit, without the slightest regard for the waste generated as a consequence.
<P>
Prevention, therefore, must be carried out at source, so as to reduce the volume and the hazards of waste.
Prevention through the management of the reduced amount of waste produced either as a result of recovery or through alternative waste management methods. Only a tiny proportion of waste should be destined for landfill, in conjunction with preventive measures to ensure that such waste does not harm people's health, the environment, or the eco-system.
I have not seen, nor have I heard talk of, such measures, and this is why I have expressed the fears that I have.
<P>
I wish to say that this hesitation on the part of the Council and the Commission owes more to their reluctance to confront those chiefly responsible for this wretched situation.
Take the bull by the horns and face up to the problem with courage.
Parliament will be right behind you and you will have public opinion on your side. Madam President, in every corner of the Community, epic battles are being waged to avoid landfill sites being opened up.
By contrast, there are numerous interests that wish to establish landfill sites in certain regions and set up incineration units etc. from which they can obtain kickbacks, rake-offs and profits.
Such are the multitude of lobbies which are milling around the issue.
Liberate yourselves from the nightmare of lobby pressure and confront this problem, which is a matter of life and death for our society.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Crowley">
Madam President, I too should like to join with my colleagues in welcoming the Jackson report.
As we move towards a new Millennium we are facing new problems associated with the wealth which is being created and the extra economic growth.
One of these problems is how we dispose of our waste.
For many years landfill was seen as the easiest and least expensive option.
However, the studies which have been carried out - and referred to here - on public health and, in particular, the health of children and babies, show that there is an urgent need to take action to resolve this problem.
<P>
I welcome Mrs Jackson's report.
It is, in the main, a balanced approach to tackling this problem.
In particular, it highlights the necessity for increased use of regulation to ensure that all Member States take action at the same time.
However, it also points to the fact that some Member States are more advanced than others, I believe we should also now focus on the new opportunities and new technologies available to us.
Using waste for renewable energies, recycling some other types of waste and incineration are among those that have been mentioned.
The dangers associated with incineration in the past have generally been overcome as a result of technological progress.
Also, with new designs of landfill sites, certain of the dangers have been eliminated.
<P>
I would draw Members' attention to Amendment No 7 where we lay down guidelines allowing non-hazardous waste and inert waste to be excluded from the scope of the directive.
However, we should not allow this amendment, if it is adopted, to be a carte blanche for those who want to abuse the directive.
It is there merely to help those Member States that are lagging behind or that cannot catch up quickly enough with regard to new technology.
<P>
I welcome the action of the Irish Government in initiating a process whereby the extra options will be looked at.
With the reform, under the Agenda 2000 proposals, of the structural and cohesion funds, perhaps an opportunity could be found to make new funding available, not only for research and development as regards how the new technologies may be best adapted but also for cooperative programmes between the local authorities and the Member States at a local, as well as a European Union, level to try and resolve some of these difficulties and problems.
<P>
My final point is that there is no simple solution to the problems of the excess waste which is now being created.
There is no one simple answer.
There are a range of multi-faceted options which can help to alleviate the problem.
The waste can also be turned to good use through the different processes.
Unless we are willing to cooperate with each other and learn from the best practices available, we cannot hope to resolve these difficulties.
I commend the bulk of this report to the House.
My group will be supporting its general tenor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
Madam President, I wish to add my voice to those Members who have criticised the Council's common position, which apparently takes no account of the needs of either citizens or the environment.
It is particularly important to say that the approach to waste management has to be based on prevention, reuse and recycling; incineration and dumping, both of which involve potential risks to health and the environment, ought to be the exception and not the rule.
And so it is important that we put a stop, as soon as possible, to the dumping or incineration of the organic biodegradable component of waste.
Our aim has to be the production of compost or biogas and, on that point, I hope the Commission will transmit to us the proposal for a directive on composting as soon as possible.
<P>
I should add that if a number of different measures are applied to separate out, at the start, those components of waste that can be reused and recycled, and if compost is produced, all we shall be left with is inert waste that can be managed much more easily, avoiding the need for incineration which in any case leaves us with ash that has to be dumped.
<P>
Let me end by saying that it is important that we approve the amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, but it is also - and I stress this - necessary to take the steps required to establish a mandatory minimum safety distance from residential areas.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Madam President, I would like to express my sincerest thanks to the rapporteur for her subtle treatment of the directive.
The amendments comprehensively cover issues required for the landfill directive.
I would especially like to stress the importance of two points, in Amendments Nos 6 and 7, which deal with the disposal of non-hazardous waste.
Non-hazardous waste is defined as that which has undergone no significant physical, chemical or biological change.
This includes waste produced from mining and its associated refining processes, or by-products of that industry.
By-products include surface material, quarried host rock and sand, which are stored in the area of the mine or service area and are used in mining, for example as filler for extra support and safety, or which may be processed further.
<P>
The principle of sustainable use is immensely important and is something we should all be aware of.
Let us exploit what materials we can.
It is unreasonable to classify this sort of non-biodegradable but otherwise still useful extracted material as landfill.
Further measures simply need to be taken.
Mrs Jackson has understood this very well, and included it in her proposal.
Finally, I would like to ask the Commission why it still has not made any distinction in its own report between hard, non-biodegradable, non-hazardous stone, and biodegradable materials.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Madam President, I am very glad that the European Parliament has put landfills on the agenda today, because we have been making steady progress with this proposal on waste dumping.
But also, listening to the debate today or reading the report, one can see that we are now well on the way to an important result.
It was with great interest that I read the draft report adopted by the Environment Committee, and I would take this opportunity of saying thank you to the committee, and in particular to Mrs Jackson, for the great effort which has been put into preparing this proposal.
Many views have been presented today on the significance of this report, both in relation to consumers and to the citizens of Europe in general.
But I will not dwell on that.
I share these views.
I shall concentrate on the amendments, partly because that is the way we debate these proposals, but also because the amendments are important and worthwhile and because they will make the Council's common position more consistent and the procedures more transparent.
<P>
Overall, I can tell the House that the Commission is able to accept 12 of the 19 amendments adopted by the Environment Committee.
I will comment on them individually.
I entirely agree with Amendment No 1, which provides a new recital indicating the Community's prioritisation of waste management options.
The Commission can also accept Amendment No 4, which stipulates that the costs of the financial security must be included in the price charged for the dumping of waste.
The same change features in Amendment No 12, which can also be accepted.
Amendment No 3 as well, which indicates that taxes on waste going to landfill can help to achieve the directive's objectives, is acceptable provided that it refers to initiatives at Member State level.
<P>
On the other hand, the Commission cannot promise to bring forward a new proposal to promote the use of economic instruments in the form of a tax on waste going to landfill, as proposed in Amendment No 13.
Amendment No 2 calls for a proposal for a new directive on composting, which was raised by Mr Eisma in particular.
I entirely agree with Parliament that composting of biodegradable waste is an environmentally friendly solution for this type of waste.
So the Commission has already begun the preparatory work for an initiative on composting.
However, I cannot accept the way in which this call is made in the amendment and so the amendment itself must be rejected, although of course not the work which has already been set in motion.
<P>
I am pleased to see that Parliament associates itself with the desire of the Commission and the Council to reduce the dumping of biodegradable municipal waste.
I am particularly happy to see that Parliament, in Amendment No 8, is seeking a return to the final target of 25 %, which had been in the Commission proposal.
The common position provides for reasonably long-term reduction targets for the Member States.
Mrs Jackson commented on Amendment No 11 in particular.
I agree with what she said, in other words that Member States which currently send more than 80 % of their waste to landfill should only be allowed an extension of two years to achieve the targets.
<P>
It is however crucial that the reduction targets for biodegradable waste in Article 5 remain unchanged and legally binding.
Only in this way can we ensure that the Member States have optimum chances of planning, initiating and implementing alternative procedures for the management of biodegradable waste.
The Commission cannot therefore accept Amendments Nos 9 and 10.
<P>
I must stress that the Commission cannot agree to more exemptions than those contained in the common position.
The common position already contains many exemptions - one could say too many - which were not in the Commission proposal, and I do not think we should make this list any longer.
I have special misgivings regarding Amendments Nos 6 and 7, which Mr Crowley referred to in particular.
Their effect would be to exclude from the scope of the directive the use of non-hazardous waste for redevelopment and construction purposes and the dumping of non-hazardous waste from mining operations in landfills.
The Commission cannot accept these amendments.
We cannot guarantee satisfactory environmental protection if non-hazardous waste can be dumped without regard to the provisions of the directive.
<P>
Amendment No 15 specifies the site operator's responsibility in the period subsequent to closure, and it was an amendment which Mrs Jackson was specifically concerned about.
I agree with the aim of this amendment.
The wording of the last sentence concerning liability for damage is not entirely clear, however.
The Commission can accept the amendment in principle, if the last sentence is to be understood in such a way that liability for closure and subsequent monitoring does not affect any national laws on the liability of the waste producer.
<P>
We have a serious problem with illegal landfill sites in the Community.
This emerges clearly from the many complaints and petitions which the Commission receives and, along with Parliament and as a number of speakers have pointed out this evening, we think that this situation has to change.
The Commission can therefore accept Amendment No 16, which demands the closure of such sites.
<P>
The Commission cannot accept Amendment No 19.
It is the technical committee mentioned in Article 16 of the Commission proposal which has to determine the specifications in the annexes.
The annexes are to be viewed as a whole, and the Commission cannot guarantee the necessary environmental protection if some of the parameters in the annexes are altered at this stage.
The Commission can however accept the change to Annex 1 which Amendment No 18 would involve, namely reinstatement of the requirement of a minimum distance to landfills.
I realise that the amendment does not introduce any legally binding minimum distance, as in the third Commission proposal.
Both Mrs Malone and Mrs McKenna mentioned this in their speeches.
<P>
It is instead a suggested guideline for a minimum distance to recreational areas, waterways, water bodies and other agricultural or urban sites.
As you know, the Council could not accept a binding minimum distance as contained in the Commission proposal and in Amendment No 20.
I hope that the Council will be able to accept this looser way of securing a minimum distance to landfills. So for the moment I prefer Amendment No 18 to Amendment No 20, but it is mainly because I believe that this will give us a better chance of getting the proposal adopted by the Council.
<P>
Finally, I will just mention briefly that the Commission can accept Amendment No 17 on the time-limit for existing landfills, Amendment No 14 on supervision of landfills which are exempt from the directive and Amendment No 5 on the definition of liquid waste.
Mrs McKenna asked me specifically about Article 14, which provides that operating landfills must meet the requirements of the directive.
Landfills which are closed before this directive is transposed into national law are thus not covered by the requirements of the directive.
This means that, under this directive, we do not have any scope for dealing with such a situation. I naturally therefore hope that the Member States will act responsibly, but I stress that it is important to remember that existing landfills must of course comply with Article 4 of our framework directive on waste, which already now provides that landfills must be licensed and that waste must be dumped without hazard to humans and the environment.
<P>
I therefore hope that the European Parliament will adopt this text, which guarantees a high level of environmental protection.
Many of the amendments point in the right direction and tighten up the environmental requirements contained in the Council's common position. I am therefore very pleased with this constructive support from the European Parliament.
I will do my utmost to ensure that we get an environmentally responsible directive on the landfill of waste adopted as quickly as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Madam President, I have listened closely to the Commission's views on the amendments, but I am afraid that the Commission's position on Amendment No 19 escaped me.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="President">
Can you give an answer to that, Commissioner?
It was on the subject of Amendment No 19.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Yes, Mr Eisma, I think I mentioned that, because I can see that it is the amendment on the technical committee which I could not accept.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Watson">
Would the Commissioner also clarify whether or not she said she would accept Amendment No 11?
It was not clear to me.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Yes, Madam President, I did also mention that amendment.
We can accept Amendment No 11.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Bjerregaard.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
The sitting was closed at 7.35 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Madam President, a French weekly paper, Marianne , has just announced that the members of the Committee of Independent Experts appointed by Parliament and the Commission are to receive 29 200 euros per month, which is 191 000 French francs.
<P>
As this committee was set up under the auspices of Parliament, it is important to check that this information is correct.
If it is not accurate, what are the true figures that should be passed on to the taxpayers in the various Member States?
Which budget article do the corresponding amounts come from?
<P>
I should like to know whether this information is indeed accurate, particularly as regards the members of the Committee of Independent Experts who already receive an allowance from the Community budget. I should like to know whether, in these cases, the above sum will be added to their allowance or not.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, we cannot discuss here each and every newspaper article that is published.
A decision has been taken by the Bureau. That can be made available to you, and the matter can then be discussed at the appropriate level.
The plenary is not the right place for that, however.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Hardstaff">
Madam President, last night I wished to go through the amendments to the Philippe Martin report but they were not available in English.
Although I have a whole stack in German, I would prefer them in my own language.
As this is a very important and technical report, could you please make sure that they are available so that everybody has the chance to go through them carefully in their own language before the vote on Thursday.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Thank you for pointing that out.
We shall ensure that everything is available in good time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="Ford">
Madam President, can I ask whether, in view of recent political developments in France, the Conference of Presidents will put the issue of Rule 31 on the agenda and consider, in the interests of order in the Chamber, separating Mr Mégret's runt faction of the Front Nationale from Mr Le Pen's 'diva' group.
Secondly, turning to Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, I suspect the newspaper he is reading is very similar to the ones we have in the United Kingdom where they say the only thing you can believe is the date.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Madam President, I do apologise.
Yesterday it was my privilege and pleasure to be permitted two minutes' speaking time in this House.
It was obviously out of excitement at this great event that I forgot to sign the register.
I was definitely present.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
Yes of course, that was demonstrated by the fact that you spoke.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Azzolini">
Madam President, I rise for the same reason as the previous speaker.
My name does not appear to be on the list, even though I was here in Parliament yesterday from 10.30 a.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
We take note of that, and it will be checked.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Barzanti">
Madam President, I just wish to point out that I was here yesterday.
I would therefore like to have my presence recorded, even though I forgot to sign in.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, it is a good thing that the details of Members' attendance are corrected.
As long as there are just one or two cases, that is all well and good, but when there are ten or twenty, things become difficult.
I would ask you to ensure that you all sign the register.
<P>
The Minutes were approved
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
There was clearly a misunderstanding yesterday, when it was said that the recommendation by Mr Fitzsimons would not be put to the vote until Wednesday.
That is wrong.
This item has been correctly placed on the agenda and will be put to the vote at 12 noon today.
The deadline expires today, so if we do not vote, we shall miss the opportunity to deliver our opinion.
The vote must take place today.
I simply wished to make that clear to the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Madam President, I quite understand and you are perfectly correct. However, I would draw your attention to the fact that the amendments to the Fitzsimons report were not yet available this morning.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="President">
That will also have to be looked into.
We shall investigate the matter.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Taxation of energy products
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0015/99) by Mr Cox, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Directive on restructuring the Community framework for the taxation of energy products (COM(97)0030 - C4-0155/97-97/0111(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Cox">
Madam President, in its proposal to extend and deepen the base of energy taxation the Commission will have the support of Parliament.
The energy tax directive is timely in terms of our commitments to reduce global warming and is desirable as a means of promoting greater energy efficiency and encouraging a lower energy intensity per unit of output; furthermore, it is necessary to explore new tax bases if we are ever to tackle successfully the structural difficulty in too many of our States of lowering non-wage labour costs in societies suffering unacceptably high rates of unemployment.
<P>
We in Parliament will say 'yes' to new taxes but 'no' to more taxes.
Regrettably Parliament cannot insist in law on fiscal neutrality, but it does so as a matter of political conviction.
Member States and the Council will betray the wider public purpose of this proposal if they fail to use the extra revenue from energy tax to offset excessive non-wage, tax-driven labour costs.
We insist on such a trade-off because, to reiterate the point, this Parliament wants new tax but not more tax.
<P>
The Commission proposes an extension of the excise tax regime on hydrocarbons to a much more comprehensive tax base, including sectors that have heretofore been excluded in some or all of the Member States - sectors such as coal, gas, electricity and home-heating oil.
Parliament supports this as commendable, yet no sooner is this tax base definition established in the Commission proposal, than, through a complex series of total or partial exemptions, total or partial refunds, which variously are mandatory or optional, the Commission proposes a form of tax governance based more on exceptions than on rules.
This, in our view, is a bad legislative proposal because it is too complex.
It lacks the characteristics of good tax law, which should be simple to understand, easy to collect, predictable in its statutory implications and difficult to evade.
<P>
I should say that some colleagues confuse this proposal with the CO2 tax.
This is not a CO2 tax directive.
The Commission services, and ultimately the College of Commissioners, have submitted to Parliament a proposal which, we believe, reflects too many of the priorities of the lobbyists with which they have dealt and too little concern for the wider public interest.
<P>
In first studying the proposal, I recalled the rather unkind remark about a recent presidency in the United States, which likened the behaviour of the President to a cushion which, it was reported, always bore the marks of the last arse to sit on it.
In some respects, the exceptionalism in this document appears to me to reflect that kind of logic.
This is the kind of legislative proposal that has to stop.
My report proposes radical surgery to remove the glut of exemptions but still proposes the retention of green exceptions.
<P>
On tax deepening, we believe the Commission has opted for an unnecessarily complex formula.
We propose starting with the Commission's Year 2000 tax rate proposals and then applying an accelerator formula, subject to five-year review, but which would stay in place pending the outcome of the review.
It has the advantage of clarity and certainty and avoids the endless institutional complications of the alternative proposed to us.
<P>
There remains the outstanding difficulty about firms and sectors whose costs may dramatically increase to the point where their competitive position could be destroyed.
We do not ignore this issue: we propose a form of constrained subsidiarity, where such firms or sectors can seek relief provided there are extenuating circumstances, but where they must pass a wider EU test for objectivity so that they do not violate the rules of fair competition or the rules related to state aids.
<P>
I also propose an additional amendment at this stage that sectors where this is systematic should potentially be subject to a Commission-approved block exemption or refund.
<P>
In summary, the European Parliament will support new energy and ecotaxes, but does not support more taxes.
We demand fiscal neutrality of the states.
We insist on lowering labour taxes as the counterpart of this tax.
We want a simpler and more certain tax-based definition than that proposed by the Commission.
We want a more predictable base-deepening formula for determining the evolution of tax rates.
We want competitive handicap to be addressed where it is a genuine problem but not to be used as an excuse for going soft on necessary change.
I commend the report to the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Estevan Bolea">
Madam President, Commissioner, the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy is well aware of the fact that we should be working towards tax harmonisation and that, as Mr Cox pointed out, what is needed in Europe is new tax not more tax.
<P>
It should be borne in mind, however, that we are currently implementing the directive liberalising the electricity and gas markets whose main objective is to bring down energy prices.
Progress is in fact being made.
I am most familiar with the situation in my own country, Spain, where electricity prices have fallen by 11 %.
Other countries have not moved as quickly.
The directives are being implemented and liberalisation of the electricity markets is beginning to take place.
I feel we would be trying to do too many things at once if we placed an additional tax burden on energy at the moment.
<P>
Consequently, we do agree that in the future direct taxation should be replaced by indirect taxation and that energy should be taxed, provided there is genuine fiscal neutrality and that such a move does not result in increased costs for businesses.
<P>
The current situation means that we must become more competitive. As you are well aware, Commissioner, energy is very cheap in the United States.
In Europe, taxes constitute the major part of the cost of energy and hydrocarbons are a good example of this. In France and Belgium, for instance, taxes on transport are very high, whereas in other countries such as Spain they are considerably lower.
<P>
Within the Union, we need to legislate for all 15 countries and that is not an easy task.
We must begin to liberalise the gas and electricity markets and we must become more competitive and implement countless regulations on the environment which businesses must then comply with. This week, for instance, we shall be considering the directive on water.
Industry will be very much affected by this directive, and will have to make substantial investments.
We shall also consider directives on waste.
In our view, Commissioner, we must allow some breathing space before implementing this directive.
We do agree with the spirit of the directive, but we do not think the timing is right.
<P>
There should be no more discussion on CO2 .
It is certainly true that if the cost of energy rises, it will be used more efficiently and less will be used.
However, this calls for considerable investment. Emissions of CO2 and other pollutants will certainly be reduced.
<P>
We are not going to support Mr Cox's report.
The directive you are proposing, Commissioner, is indeed complex and full of exceptions, but Mr Cox's document, as approved by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, is far more radical and is also impossible to implement as it would do away with all grants and subsidies.
<P>
We will vote against Amendments Nos 13, 14, 15, 16 and perhaps also against others.
If they are approved by the House, we will vote against the report.
What is currently consultation may in the future become codecision.
Whatever the outcome, it would be advisable to postpone this directive for a while.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Spencer">
Madam President, may I say what a pleasure it is to be speaking to the House on this subject.
I would also like to add that I failed, because I must have been distracted, to sign the register yesterday.
<P>
I wish to endorse absolutely what the rapporteur has said.
I want to speak on my own opinion on behalf of the Environment Committee in which the amendments were unanimously adopted by all members from all groups.
The aim of those amendments is to indicate that while Mr Monti's proposals would be good, a green version of Mr Monti's proposals would be better.
So our view is 'brown Monti good, green Monti very, very good'.
However, I suspect that the Council will not have the wisdom either to take up Mr Monti's brown proposals or even any green version of Mr Monti that we choose to recommend to it.
I believe that when you discuss harmonising taxation, you are talking not just about the technicalities of harmonising taxes but how you use them, and - it seems to me - the Council will miss a huge opportunity if it does not pick up the Monti proposals.
It should remember what it has been saying about Kyoto and Buenos Aires and use this as an opportunity to influence the way in which energy is used in our Community.
<P>
As a consequence of my own stupidity, it may be that the Spencer report on CO2 Energy Tax, for which I have been hereditary rapporteur for nearly ten years, will not reach Parliament in my time.
It is being held in committee and I strongly recommend to Parliament that it remain held in committee.
I believe that the Commission and the Council will have to come back to a CO2 Energy Tax because that is one of the ways of making a real difference.
I recommend that future Parliaments hold that report in committee and, if I might be a bit mischievous, perhaps leave the words Spencer on it, not for me but - since climate change is a long-term issue - maybe for my daughters' time in this Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Madam President, the Group of the Party of European Socialists supports both the Monti proposal and the proposal in the report, because on many points the latter has some practical suggestions to make which are better geared to the aim of changing tack on tax.
In this respect, it should be emphasised that neither the original proposal for a directive, nor the proposal as amended by the European Parliament, can be anything other than a first step towards ecological tax reform, even though I have to agree with Mr Spencer that the proposal itself does not actually provide for a green energy tax.
That is why my group also supports amending the Cox report, so that we at least make it obligatory for the Member States of the European Union not to levy taxes on electricity and other products derived from renewable sources of energy.
<P>
I believe that this proposal, which rightly seeks to tax energy so that the tax burden on labour can be eased - as already foreseen in the Delors White Paper of 1993 - improves the directive in this regard, also making it greener.
I do not think that this has an adverse effect on the system; I believe it is necessary.
I know that this directive is intended to make the internal market function more effectively, and to eliminate anything that interferes with it, including in the country of consumption, but we also need to bear in mind that in 1920, when the former economist, Mr Pigou, first developed the whole idea of using taxes to help to save resources, he also brought about a change in the nature of our debates by choosing this approach.
<P>
It is also important for the proposal for a directive to emphasise fiscal neutrality.
In this respect, when it comes to implementation, efforts must be made in the Member States to ease the tax burden on labour so that the effects on employment really can come into play too.
The energy tax - and this needs to be emphasised - is not an ecotax.
I believe that there is actually an urgent need for us to reopen the unfortunate discussions and debates which we held at European level after Rio and Kyoto, and which yielded no results.
Since then, I believe that many Member States have gone further than the proposal for a directive does.
<P>
I also think it would be a good idea for European countries to learn from one another, and I would very much welcome any moves by companies which are heavy consumers of energy - and to whom a rebate will definitely have to be granted - to adopt a practice which has been so successful in Denmark, and to submit to an energy audit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Areitio Toledo">
Madam President, this directive was devised to meet a triple objective, and is therefore difficult to analyse. Difficulties have also arisen in the drafting of Mr Cox's report.
On the one hand, the directive aims at fiscal harmonisation to improve the operation of the market.
On the other, it seeks to meet an economic target: replacing labour taxes with energy taxes.
In addition, it also has an ecological purpose.
Combining three objectives in a single directive is bound to prove complicated.
I feel that in his report, Mr Cox, the rapporteur, has attempted to lighten this heavy burden somewhat, and to reduce the scope of the triple objective a little.
Preparing a Union-wide harmonising directive on as complex a matter as energy is certainly a complicated business.
<P>
I believe that the Commission's initial approach was wise, because the problem calls for countless exceptions to the general rule.
There is no other way of dealing with the situation.
On this point, our group differs from Mr Cox's approach.
The fact of the matter is that when it comes to drafting fiscal regulations, exceptions are the rule, as existing regulations will prove. I therefore find it hard to understand why in this case the exceptions we feel are essential in order to safeguard the competitiveness of the European Union's system of production cannot be accepted.
<P>

Consequently, as Mrs Estevan Bolea has already said, if the rapporteur's position on the deletion of a series of amendments, that is, Amendments Nos 13, 14 and 15, remains unchanged, we will vote against the report. We earnestly believe that to deal with this issue appropriately, and in view of the difficulties involved, the whole range of exceptions envisaged by the Commission, along with others which are bound to arise, ought to be included and analysed in depth.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gasòliba i Böhm">
Madam President, on behalf of the Liberal Group, I should like to express our support for Mr Cox's report. This report contains a range of improvements to the Commission's proposal for a directive and represents a timely and appropriate response at European Union level to three fundamental challenges.
<P>
The first of these involves strengthening the internal market. The proposed fiscal harmonisation aims to do away with current imbalances.
<P>
The second is to ensure that the European internal market becomes more competitive at international level.
Clearly, if better fiscal harmonisation becomes a reality, as the application of this tax sets out to achieve, it will be possible to do away with labour costs or lower them without reducing the level of fiscal income at Union and Member State level. As a result, the European Union as a whole will introduce an element of competitiveness into the cost structure on the international market.
<P>
The third challenge is also important, although I am aware that there have been some criticisms in this respect. An appropriate environmental policy will contribute to sustainable development, which is one of the European Union's main aims.
As we see it, Mr Cox's report will allow these three challenges to be met, whilst allowing the Member States considerable leeway to adapt this directive, provided that there are no negative consequences for the level of competitiveness nor for the achievement of the European internal market, which is one of the Union's main aims.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Madam President, with reference to the Commission's draft directive and Mr Cox's report I have three comments to make.
<P>
First, nobody can disagree with the need to protect the environment from energy product emissions.
However, what we really need is positive intervention in favour of renewable forms of energy, in favour of the modernisation of plant and production methods in order to ensure that our energies are more environmentally friendly. We do not need indirect tax-raising measures which will have a serious impact on people's incomes.
<P>
Secondly, the level of taxation of energy products of all kinds which is being proposed here will, we feel, lead in some cases to a very significant rise in prices, which could be as much as 9 % or even 11 %. In a period of severe financial constraints within the framework of economic and monetary union, this will put increased pressure on the living standards and conditions of the public at large.
<P>
Thirdly, Madam President, we would like to express yet again our deep concern at the proposed substitution of social contributions made to the social security system, the so-called 'employment tax', by the so-called 'energy tax'.
Such substitution would not only not lead to an increase in social security funds, but would actually permit governments to privatise these funds, which would have severe repercussions on the entire social security system.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="Hautala">
Madam President, our colleague, Mr Cox, has done some excellent work on the Commission's proposal.
I would also like to thank Tom Spencer for the work he has done for years now in this House in connection with the CO2 tax proposal.
The Green Group fully agrees with Mr Spencer that we must preserve this proposal for a CO2 tax.
We must not reject it, as it contains more elements which would influence environmental behaviour than Mr Monti's proposal which we are now discussing.
<P>
Mr Cox really has made this proposal of Mr Monti's 'greener'.
It now contains clear justifications for exemptions, and these exemptions have indeed to be justified from the environmental point of view.
Furthermore, his explanation of how industry could receive energy tax relief is extremely clear.
He suggests that industry must be able to justify this relief for reasons of competitiveness, and everything should then proceed under the eye of the Commission.
<P>
Mr Cox's report proposes taking as a starting point the tax base in the year 2000, which would then be increased by 2 % above inflation every year for a period of five years.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is a very modest increase.
If we wish to move in the direction of environmental sustainability, we would do well to consider a slightly bolder approach.
For this reason the Green Group have made a proposal for this annual index figure to read 4 % above inflation.
The difference between Mr Cox's proposal and ours is that over five years his proposal would increase energy taxation by some 10 %, while ours would not increase it any more than 20 %.
I therefore appeal to you all to consider this amendment by the Green Group.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
Madam President, the June Movement supports minimum taxes on energy, but the money must remain in the national treasuries and not provide new revenue for the EU.
We want the right to impose higher taxes on energy so that we can make savings and promote the switch to renewable energy.
The June Movement also insists on representing those who have no voting rights, those who will come after us.
We cannot simply squander the Earth's scarce resources.
If the border between Denmark and Germany is abolished, people will go to Germany and buy cheap petrol and heating oil.
The taxes will end up in the German Treasury instead of the Danish Treasury.
We shall then be forced to lower our taxes and duties to the German level.
There will then be less money in the public purse to finance support for education, early retirement and old age pensions.
We have greater equality between people in Denmark than in Germany and the rest of the EU.
The June Movement defends this Nordic welfare model, and that is why we vote for the highest possible minimum prices but, at the same time, we want to remain free to tax energy which is imported at lower prices, so that French nuclear power does not replace action to switch to renewable energy, solar energy and wind power.
There are only guaranteed minimum prices for wind energy in three countries: Germany, Spain and Denmark.
And it is here that we have most of the world's windmills.
Solar energy and wind power must not be exchanged for nuclear power.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Madam President, the rapporteur has been successful in reaching a sensible compromise between the needs of the environment and the need to reduce the statutory charges on labour.
This is an accomplished balancing act between the two main thrusts of our policy, which come into conflict with each other in the most fundamental of projects.
At a time when combating the massive levels of unemployment is the main economic and social concern of European policy, and when we are all aware of the dangers of damaging the environment by using non-renewable forms of energy, the cautious but clear-cut approach outlined here seems to be the right way forward.
<P>
It is to be hoped that some of the amendments which make the report more obviously a green one, giving greater emphasis to the decisive role which renewable sources of energy will play here in the future and promoting their use, will be accepted.
On the other hand, amendments such as Amendment No 13, which would bring huge losses for some branches of industry and cause jobs to be lost, should be rejected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lange">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I fully support Mr Cox's report.
It makes the Commission proposal clearer and ensures that it will be effective.
Nonetheless, I should like to take up two points which are mentioned in the Environment Committee's report.
At this stage, I should also like to thank Mr Spencer, in particular, for his determined efforts on this matter and for his trusting cooperation.
<P>
The first point concerns the issue of renewable sources of energy.
I believe that if we also want this tax reform to result in a change of direction, then we need to exempt renewables from this tax, because we should not make them subject to national competition.
If one country says it will exempt them and another says it will not, then this issue will immediately be at the mercy of competition.
That is why we should send out a clear signal based on Mr Cox's proposal - clear, efficient rules.
I say: let us exempt renewables from this tax.
<P>
The second point relates to the sector currently responsible for the greatest increases in CO2 emissions, namely aviation.
Last year, there was a 17 % increase in CO2 emissions.
This sector is completely excluded because there are certain problems with levying this tax on kerosene.
I would urge you, therefore, to accept Amendment No 29 and to say that we are bearing this in mind and that we instruct the Commission to propose an adequate solution so that this sector too can be included.
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<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Thyssen">
Madam President, this proposal to introduce harmonised minimum taxation of energy products is designed to please a lot of people.
It aims to improve the environment, reduce labour costs and promote the optimum operation of the single market, while all the time of course avoiding any risk of jeopardising the competitive position of our industries.
The proposal is no doubt based on good intentions, but both the proposal itself and its amended version lead me to question what its effects are likely to be in practice for labour-intensive companies, including many SMEs.
If, out of a perfectly justifiable concern for the competitive position of energy-intensive companies, they are granted an exemption, refund or reduction in energy tax, on an individual basis or otherwise, I wonder whether this does not present a real risk that it will be mainly the labour-intensive companies which will find themselves paying the CO2 tax.
If we assume that tax neutrality is not applied per operating unit but rather in a horizontal and more general manner, is there then not a real danger of shifting fiscal pressure from energy-intensive companies to labour-intensive companies?
Would we not then, I wonder, be achieving the very opposite of what we set out to do, with small polluters paying relatively more than the large ones, and labour-intensive companies being harder hit than energy-intensive companies?
<P>
Commissioner, the SMEs are not very happy about this.
There is not much support for this proposal in such circles, and I should like to have heard you say something to refute what I have just suggested.
I should also like to know how you view the timing. When do you think the Council will take a decision on this?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Madam President, a good environment tax is a tax that can be avoided.
It steers producer and consumer behaviour in a way that has a positive impact on the environment.
The prime objective cannot be a fiscal one.
<P>
But there are certain issues that cannot be avoided. One is the northern view of this matter.
The record for cold weather in Finland was exceeded this winter: minus fifty-four degrees.
At the moment it is minus thirty in Helsinki, and more than forty degrees below zero in the north.
Furthermore, I should like to point out that distances are very great in the north, and energy is required for purposes of mobility.
My constituency measures a distance of 1 300 kilometres across.
When I consider the two issues of the need for heating and the need for mobility, we must be eligible for exemptions and these exemptions must be made available for households too, as otherwise ordinary people living in remote areas will be paying for the very tax relief which this policy wants to grant to energy-intensive industry.
It is being proposed that employers' contributions be reduced, but in our case those reductions would result from wrong intentions.
<P>
Because the European Union is so naturally diverse, it must be able to apply differing taxation systems.
We accept a minimum standard, but EU regulation must end there.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Madam President, of course as a member of the Greens, I too - as Mr Spencer said - would have liked this to be an even greener proposal.
However, as a Green, I can say that I regard this as an important, if tentative step, in fact only a first small step forward on taxation - or at least harmonisation - in this sector.
<P>
If I may, however, I shall also make two points: I think Mr Cox was right to say that renewables should be exempted, because of course this is also about triggering a turning-point in our energy policy.
We all know that the future belongs to renewables, and that here too we need to set the right course.
<P>
I am also hoping, however, that the House will support our amendment seeking to exempt local public transport, because this too is a decisive point.
If we want to contribute towards reducing CO2 emissions, then we need to cut the damaging numbers of private cars on the roads, which is of course one of the aims of this tax on consumption.
But it is also necessary to create incentives for environmentally friendly local public transport.
<P>
We also believe that we should not continue to subsidise air traffic.
There are other possibilities, such as a tax on CO2 emissions, which might exonerate us from the principle of unanimity, and which would also be compatible with international agreements.
It is to be hoped, therefore, that the Commission will finally present an adequate proposal to us in March.
<P>
To sum up: we think that this is an important step in the right direction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Metten">
Madam President, over the last two decades labour in Europe has been taxed increasingly heavily.
If this trend is reversed, which - the exception proving the rule - is what has happened in my country since 1994, the persistently high level of unemployment in the European Union can be substantially reduced.
It is in this context that we must view the two taxation reports - the Cox and Pérez Royo reports - submitted to us today.
The tax burden must be shifted from labour to the environment and capital income.
The Cox report deals with excise tax on energy products.
The main problem with the present legislation is that the tax base is very incomplete.
A number of energy products, such as natural gas, coal and electricity have to date been exempt from excise duty.
Other fuels which are normally taxed are granted exemption in the case of specific uses, such as kerosene for aviation or fuel for shipping or fishing.
<P>
A third problem is that the same fuels are taxed differently depending on their use.
Fuels used for transport purposes are taxed more heavily than if used for heating.
Fuels which are generally used by industry are also subject to a lower tax than fuels for consumer use.
A final problem is that although the minimum taxation rates are harmonised at European level, this is at such a low level that it virtually ceases to have any meaning.
<P>
Of course the Cox report cannot be expected to deal with all these problems at once.
This is legislation requiring a unanimous vote in the Council, which is usually a guarantee of inaction.
But what the report does recommend - and we strongly support this - is extending the tax base to include coal, natural gas and electricity, scrapping some of the mandatory use exemptions and increasing and index-linking minimum rates.
This indexing also includes the notion of an accelerator.
Every year the tax must not only keep pace with inflation but increase by 2 % above the inflation rate.
<P>
Finally, the Cox report retains optional exemptions which the Member States are at liberty to grant, while nevertheless tightening up the conditions.
All in all, this report is a major step in the right direction, not only in terms of shifting the tax burden but also in environmental terms, as many uses which were previously tax exempt will now be taxed for the first time.
It is also clear that much more remains to be done in both these respects.
The lower rates for energy products used by industry, for example, are totally indefensible from an environmental point of view as it is precisely these fuels which cause the most pollution.
<P>
Finally, the optional exemptions which the Member States can still apply are totally irrational in environmental terms.
Nevertheless, this report is still very much needed, and it sends a strong signal to the Council about where Parliament stands on this issue - a necessary signal, as the Council does not seem to be strengthening the Commission proposals but rather undermining them to the point where they scarcely have any meaning at all.
This is why I appeal to fellow party members in the European governments to put the need to shift the burden of taxation away from labour before national short-term interests.
I believe this matter should be a test case in this respect.
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<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Porto">
Madam President, there can be few areas that call for such a dispassionate analysis as this one - energy taxation. We must make sure that the objectives claimed for it are attainable and that fairness and cohesion are not overlooked.
<P>
Just as with the initiative on the taxation of carbon dioxide emissions, once again it is being claimed that the targets are fiscal neutrality and the replacement of taxes on labour, thereby helping to create jobs.
Apart from the obvious fact that any measure that changes production processes cannot be called neutral, another question is whether taxation penalising energy use will not discourage investment - by SMEs in particular - and thereby result in job losses. We also need to ask to what extent direct taxation will be replaced by a form of taxation that, if it succeeds, will discourage the use of energy and therefore will not bring in more revenue.
In other words, there is a conflict between the parafiscal and fiscal aims - you cannot have your cake and eat it.
<P>
Another important question is how to avoid regressive taxation, given that poorer people spend proportionately more of their money on energy, and how we can prevent poorer countries from being penalised, as they lie on the outer edges of the continent, have less up-to-date equipment and face higher transport costs.
This problem exists in the north, as Mr Seppänen said, but it is more serious in the south.
It is especially unacceptable to penalise road transport when there is no proper alternative in the form of rail - something that should be given European Union support as a priority.
<P>
Let us take a look at the figures: in fuel tax, road tax and tolls, road users already pay twice as much as is spent on them, compared with just 56 % in the case of rail and 18 % for shipping. These taxes are equal to 2 % of the European Union's GDP.
<P>
I therefore call on you to support the amendment tabled by Mrs Esteban Bolea, from my group, to avoid discrimination between different forms of transport - not forgetting air transport, which is also responsible for pollution.
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<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Madam President, the Commission's proposal relating to the taxation of energy products was accurately summed up by the Environment Committee in its opinion as a proposal to improve the functioning of the internal market.
Now the rapporteur, Mr Cox, and the opinion from the other committee, as well as some of the amendments, have in fact turned this report into a 'green' proposal, setting us on the road to compliance with the agreements reached in Kyoto and Buenos Aires, as well as in the other conventions relating to the reduction of CO2 emissions.
The introduction of tax credits for solar, wind and water power might also send a clear signal to industry when it is investing in energy, thereby facilitating the transition to renewable energy sources.
I therefore regard this report as a first step in the right direction.
<P>
Furthermore, the recommendation that the Member States should achieve fiscal neutrality by lowering labour taxes and taxing energy instead - a so-called tax trade-off - immeasurably improves the proposal by pointing it in a totally 'green' direction.
I would also urge you to support the amendment tabled by the Green Group.
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<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="García Arias">
Madam President, we should certainly be moving towards fiscal harmonisation in the energy sector.
This will, however, be a difficult task in view of the existing differences amongst the 15 Member States and because we ought not to increase prices. That might mean losing competitiveness and employment, which is the exact opposite of what we are aiming at.
<P>
As it stands at the moment, this proposal involves increasing taxes and making the cost of transport dearer in the 'cohesion countries', that is, those countries that are located on the periphery of Europe and that, in fact, produce the least pollution.
<P>
Moreover, if the tax is extended to cover other energy products, the internal market will not be harmonised.
Instead, competition amongst the various sources of energy will be distorted. For instance, coal - which is still our main indigenous source of energy and currently undergoing a technological revolution - will be heavily penalised.
<P>
Mr Cox's proposals present a somewhat contradictory situation.
If the European energy-consuming industries that are currently making great efforts to save energy are exempted, our competitive edge will be lost.
That technological effort would be penalised and competitiveness on the international field jeopardised.
The steel sector is a good example of many of these industries. It competes both within the European Union and internationally, with energy as an important factor.
<P>
In light of this situation, we find it difficult to accept a number of unilateral proposals that were put forward.
The Spanish Socialists will vote against Mr Cox's proposals and we hope agreement will be reached in Council. Nevertheless, I must stress the difficulty of the task because not only do the different arrangements for energy in the various countries need to be harmonised but also the very countries that are least responsible for the high level of pollution in Europe will be penalised.
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<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hoppenstedt">
Madam President, Commissioner, it is clear that this is a complex topic from the fact that this whole dossier has been in a protracted stalemate for some time now, and given the divergence of positions, this will be the case for longer still.
Mr Cox's approach, basically to simplify the proposal, is of course commendable, but it does not meet with the approval of a majority of the Group of the European People's Party, as indeed has already been emphasised.
<P>
I believe that we have also already made it clear in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy that we agree with Articles 13 and 15 in terms of the approach chosen by the Commission and presented to us here, and are not in favour of their deletion.
The Commission's approach, to have the EU define the main exemptions and not the Member States, is the one that we favour, because we believe that if the Member States lay down the exceptions, then competition will become a major factor after all, because in fact no indication is given of the scale of the exceptions permitted.
There will be a flood of control measures here.
<P>
We have heard - and indeed we know - that the focus is on the environment, but also on jobs.
However, it is precisely the competitiveness of energy-intensive end products, such as steel, cement, aluminium and others, which is at stake here, and it is also from the point of view of competition from third countries that uniform rules should be adopted in the EU, as advocated by the Commission.
<P>
An increase in energy prices, as proposed by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, and in particular in Mr Cox's amendments, is something we oppose, because this of all things seems to us to be counter-productive from the point of view of employment.
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<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Linkohr">
Madam President, I too think that Mr Cox's proposal is very reasonable, and I am prepared to vote in favour of it.
I should also like to thank Mr Spencer, who has, after all, kept the home fires burning for many years.
Unfortunately, the fire will probably have to burn for even longer, because I suspect that the Council of Ministers will not reach an agreement.
That is also illustrated even now by the very inconsistent picture here in the House.
That is the real problem.
In this respect, I think that the Commission proposal is sensible, because it does not in fact take the environment as a starting-point, but Article 99, and therefore the harmonisation of existing taxes.
I think that is much more sensible; it brings us closer to our goal perhaps, simply because liberalising the markets means that we are compelled to harmonise the background conditions too.
The fact that this also has an environmental side-effect is all to the good.
Whether the Council appreciates that, I do not know; I suspect that there will be substantial difficulties there, but in any case I wish the German Presidency the best of luck with making further progress on this.
<P>
I have one more comment: paradoxically, it is actually industry which has had the greatest success in cutting its energy use in recent years, while private consumption and consumption in the transport sector have tended to increase.
This is plain to see in the countries of Central Europe.
In proportion to gross domestic product, energy consumption has fallen, in some cases dramatically, while the energy consumption of households and the transport sector has risen.
If, therefore, we wish to have a device, an environmental device, for reducing energy consumption, we must, I am afraid, mainly target households and the transport sector and design a tax instrument in such a way that it particularly affects them.
That is probably also why this tax is so unpopular.
No party will win an election if it puts this at the centre of its campaign.
Nevertheless, I see this as a long-term task which we have to set ourselves, and I should like to thank all those who are working on introducing these thoroughly unpopular, but reasonable measures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schmidbauer">
Madam President, as a member of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, and as rapporteur on the Green Paper on the internalisation of external costs and the ensuing Commission White Paper on fair payment for infrastructure use, I am glad to have the opportunity in this debate to consider the complex subject of energy taxation from the point of view of one aspect of transport policy.
<P>
In its proposal for a directive to introduce a new framework for energy taxation, the Commission has made a proposal for road transport which the rapporteur, Mr Cox, obviously regards simply as one of the many confused exemptions which he wishes to remove from the draft directive.
In Article 16 of its draft text, the Commission proposes that it should be possible for Member States to introduce tax reductions for road transport, if at the same time charges are imposed on a non-discriminatory basis which reflect infrastructure, environmental and congestion costs.
<P>
As you know, in the committees, my colleagues in the Group of the Party of European Socialists voted against the deletion of Article 16, and I should like to strongly urge all of you to do the same at the vote in plenary, because the provisions which the rapporteur wishes to delete from the draft directive form the starting-point for a new approach to European transport policy, for a transport policy which is environmentally friendly and efficient.
The Commission was only being consistent when it integrated the concept of charging into the proposal on energy taxation, because this is in line with the proposals it made in its Green Paper and subsequently also in the White Paper.
<P>
As rapporteur, I agree with the principles contained in these documents, and that is why I should like to advise Parliament also to be consistent and to support this new departure for transport policy in the debate on energy taxation, particularly since we have already done so in the House in the context of our debate on the Green Paper.
I would therefore urge you to make an efficient and sustainable transport policy a possibility in Europe and to vote in favour of Article 16 as it stands in the Commission proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Schmidbauer has hit the nail on the head: the fair payment model in the transport sector has shown us that we need to work on the essential points, which means that we should dispense with cross-subsidisation.
Non-wage labour costs are a completely self-contained issue which needs attention.
We need more competition there and we must see to it that we bring about significant reductions in these costs, and that personal responsibility plays a greater part in the system.
<P>
Energy taxation is a completely separate sector.
As far as energy taxation is concerned, it is basically a question of bringing costs down to reasonable levels, so that we become more competitive internationally and create new jobs.
Excessive price increases will simply result in job losses in the energy-intensive sectors, such as steel, and all the others with which we are so familiar.
I must also stress that we cannot disregard the consumer.
At the end of the day, it is consumers who create jobs, by deciding which products to buy and which services to use.
We cannot force them into these decisions by adopting general regulations.
<P>
That is also why I think having a ceiling for energy-intensive companies is very important.
It ought to ensure that those businesses which have already brought their technical facilities up to date - and have thus gone a long way towards bringing their energy consumption close to its theoretical minimum level - are given due recognition.
We should reward those which are minimising their energy input.
In this case, higher rates of energy tax will not bring any further significant reductions.
In addition, and quite apart from the environmental argument, doubt has also been cast on the effect which this would have on easing the employment situation.
Only competitive companies are in a position to meet these requirements.
I am therefore in favour of a system which is not out of proportion, but which will actually be able to achieve the declared objectives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Monti">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am extremely grateful to Mr Cox for his clear and consistent report and for the conclusions he has reached in it.
I am really glad that you are in full agreement with the grounds for this proposal and the way in which they have been put into effect.
<P>
The Commission has put a proposal to the Council, based on the need to modernise the Community system of taxing mineral oils, and extending this to cover all energy products.
This has to be done to improve the functioning of the internal market.
The measures proposed are actually designed to reduce the distortions caused by taxation that currently exist in this sector.
<P>
The Commission has also taken advantage of the opportunity which this proposal affords of both meeting its responsibility for reviewing the minimum rates of duty on mineral oils and responding to ECOFIN's request that it table new proposals now that, as you will be aware, the negotiations on the CO2 /energy tax have reached an impasse.
<P>
I have also to say to the House that we are seeing ever increasing concern - and that has been patently clear this morning - about the environmental effects of burning fossil fuels; and the Council's recent adoption, in response to the Kyoto Protocol, of the limits on polluting emissions to be achieved by the Union is a further example of this.
Those objectives will not be easy to attain, but the fiscal measures - and Mr Spencer and a number of other honourable Members pointed this out - are one of the specific ways that can be used to achieve them.
I am also grateful for the acknowledgement that has come from many sectors that this is a step in the right direction in environmental terms as well.
<P>
The Commission is able to accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 4 and 5 and some parts of Amendments Nos 12 and 14, particularly those parts of Amendment No 14 that refer to renewable energies.
However, we cannot agree to the proposal that we should move directly to the second stage, provided for in relation to the minimum rates, as early as January 2000, and then move on to annual increases equivalent to the rate of inflation plus 2 % for the five following years.
Moreover, as regards removing the initial stage of increases in the minimum rates for which the date was initially set at 1 January 1998, it is worth pointing out that this deadline has long since passed.
However, the discussions in the Council have shown that even the minimum rates caused problems for a number of Member States.
Consequently, any increase in those rates is unacceptable.
<P>
The same applies to the proposal that the minimum rates could be increased annually on the basis of the rate of inflation, increased by 2 % for a period of five years.
The Commission proposal limits the tax increases to the rate of inflation in an effort to meet half-way those Member States that would be compelled to introduce substantial tax increases simply in order to reach the minimum rate laid down.
It is therefore unacceptable to compel the Member States to apply increases that are actually above the rate of inflation.
<P>
Moreover, we cannot agree to the removal of the bulk of the - compulsory or optional - exemptions and reductions that have been proposed for products that are not currently subject to taxation.
Those exemptions and reductions were provided for very specific reasons: some are already reflected in the Community legislation currently in force, and others are needed to meet certain Community commitments arising out of international agreements.
There is a final group considered vital to secure the competitiveness of the Community industries in relation to their third country competitors.
Furthermore, I do not need to remind the House that this is an issue that requires unanimity.
<P>
Mrs Thyssen and other honourable Members have asked for information concerning the progress of this issue in the Council and the timetable for it.
I can tell you that the relevant Council working group has been asked to submit to the ECOFIN Council meeting of 15 March a report that will then be referred to the Cologne European Council in June.
And so we shall soon be able to see whether or not a political consensus is forming.
I very much hope it is.
<P>
There is one point I should like to make in conclusion, Mr President.
What we are dealing with here is fiscal coordination which meets the needs of the internal market and, in this instance, environmental needs, and which is also, as many of you have pointed out, a response to the need to shift the tax burden in such a way as to promote employment.
There have been times in the course of recent European debates when a peculiar attitude has emerged: there has been a tendency to look back and to reflect on the earlier White Paper, as if no progress had been made since then towards achieving the kind of coordination we are talking about.
In point of fact, the progress that has been made is now clear: this morning, we have the Cox report on energy, and the House will shortly be debating the Pérez Royo report on taxation of savings income.
Meantime, the code of conduct to prevent harmful tax competition is being applied, and next week I shall be presenting to the Commission the proposal to allow those Member States that so wish to apply a reduced rate of VAT to labour-intensive services.
And so, as you can see, the various elements of genuine progress towards fiscal coordination designed to encourage employment are under way; they all have the firm backing of this House, for which I am very grateful.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Monti.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Taxation of savings income
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0040/99) by Mr Pérez Royo, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Directive to ensure a minimum of effective taxation of savings income in the form of interest payments within the Community (COM(98)0295 - C4-0404/98-98/0193(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="Pérez Royo">
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Madam President, my group supports the rapporteur's position.
Like the rapporteur, whom I congratulate, I too should like to say once again how glad I am that - ten years after the last proposal foundered - there is at last a possibility of making progress in this field.
I think that there is a need for fair taxation in the European Union.
Fair taxation is also a principle which should be observed in the internal market, which means that interest on savings cannot simply be exempted from tax.
Both the proposal for a directive and the rapporteur's report make it very clear that according preferential treatment to non-residents - a concept which is not actually compatible with the concept of the internal market either - is now a thing of the past, because the directive will not permit any further discrimination.
<P>
Of course, a major difficulty with the proposal was that, here too, the unanimity rule applied and continues to do so.
At this juncture, I must emphasise once again that it is absolutely essential for further discussions to be held in the Council on the issue of majority voting.
<P>
The Commission proposal contains a coexistence model, and rightly so, because I think that this was the only basis on which there was any chance of its being adopted, although I do believe that a uniform regime is inevitable in the long term.
<P>
What is important is that this proposal is part of the tax package, because in this way unfair tax competition can be consigned to the past.
That is also why we could not allow any exceptions, because if we had, we would in fact have been authorising a kind of tax haven in a particular sector.
In this respect, I must support the Commission proposal, which also includes Eurobonds in the regime.
<P>
At this stage, I should just like to say a brief word on the problems associated with only taxing the interest on savings accounts.
Even though this particular proposal does not cover interest payments to legal entities and companies, in the interests of fairer taxation and also bearing in mind the opportunities open to all the Member States in the European Union to secure revenue, further thought needs to be given to how the scope of this directive can be extended.
<P>
I should also like to say that I fully support the rapporteur's call for us to keep to the rate of withholding tax proposed by the Commission, namely 20 %.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Thyssen">
Madam President, the fact that quite a lot of Member States give more favourable fiscal treatment to the savings income of non-residents than the savings income of their own residents leads to problems on the single market.
People go tax shopping with their savings and for obvious reasons omit to declare the savings income received in other Member States to their own tax authorities, thus avoiding paying tax.
The Member State of residence fails to collect its tax on savings and the single market becomes distorted.
It seems the Member States' reaction is to try and keep the tax burden on volatile capital at a low level or to reduce it, often at the expense of upward pressure on labour taxes.
<P>
Now that we have entered the euro era with the disappearance of the exchange risk and soon also transaction costs, there is a great fear that the temptation to engage in this form of tax evasion will increase further.
The Belgian tax authorities have been familiar with this for some time.
The exchange risk between Belgium and Luxembourg disappeared a long time ago, and the so-called coupon trains to Luxembourg are always very full.
<P>
Although the proposed directive consists of just 15 articles, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy tabled no fewer than 89 amendments.
Fortunately, in the opinion of the PPE, only 10 were approved.
Each of these 10 was approved by our group.
<P>
Madam President, Commissioner, the PPE wants to keep as close to the Commission's proposal as possible, but we would like to see the withholding tax reduced to 15 %.
We hope that this amendment, which has also been adopted by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, will be accepted here in the plenary.
The PPE also continues to oppose extending the field of application to include legal persons and the exclusion of Eurobonds, for reasons which were discussed at length in committee.
<P>
Finally, the PPE also does not support the amendments which want to see an agreement at OECD level first and which seek to make the directive's entry into force dependent on this.
We believe there are sound arguments for adopting a different approach to intra-Community and international capital movements, including those to do with the free movement of capital and exchange risks.
<P>
Madam President, this directive does not provide the ultimate, comprehensive solution, but it is a major step in the right direction.
We want to encourage this and will therefore be voting for the Commission's proposal.
But I would have liked to have heard from the Commissioner, and this is my final point, when he thinks the Council will grant its approval.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Goedbloed">
Madam President, the proposal we have before us today and which is the result of extensive but fruitless discussions 10 years ago is once again back on track because it has been decided to opt for a coexistence model.
I believe it is a good solution and a step forward in ensuring that existing differences, and in particular unfair differences, are removed.
<P>
The Liberal Group supports the main thrust of the proposal as it stands and is pleased that the original proposal to extend it to include undertakings has now been dropped, so that it is now purely concerned with the interest earned by physical persons.
This being so, as was pointed out in connection with the previous proposal, we have to consider whether there is scope to reduce labour costs.
This is why we have retabled our amendments in order to ensure we have a kind of fiscal neutrality by which the resources in question are channelled back to the individual.
At the end of the day, the fact that a number of people - and these were very large groups - were able to pay less than no tax had a knock-on effect for everyone else, because the money has to come from somewhere.
If we now introduce taxation, and can do so on a common basis, then I believe we must ensure that the others who have had to pay more get this back in the form of lower taxation on incomes.
<P>
I have one last comment regarding the article and amendment, as approved by Mr Pérez Royo's committee, concerning the sale before maturity of the relevant securities.
I myself added a technical amendment on this, that in the case of purchase after the original issue, you must be careful to ensure that - especially now that it is increasingly common for the portfolio to be reclassified in line with developments on the capital market - a provision is also in place for private individuals.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="Gallagher">
Madam President, at the outset I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Pérez Royo, for his report on the proposal for a Council directive on the taxation of savings income.
<P>
The difficulty of trying to find a system aimed at a minimum of taxation on savings income within the European Union has been more keenly appreciated as progress has been made in liberalising the movement of capital.
This liberalisation goes back some 12 years.
<P>
It is important to recall that the Commission directive which aimed at introducing a single Community-wide scheme for withholding interest at source did not obtain the unanimous consent of the Council.
It was withdrawn and replaced by the proposal which is under discussion today.
<P>
In 1997 the Council agreed that the Commission should preserve the idea of a coexistence model of taxation, meaning that each Member State will have different options: either to operate a withholding tax or to provide the other Member States with information on savings income paid to residents or indeed, a combination of both.
The Commission proposed a withholding tax to be levied at a minimum of 20 % by the paying agent.
Our committee has opted, albeit narrowly, for a lower rate of 15 %.
<P>
It is important that the Member States were able to agree that the Union should promote the establishment of equivalent measures in third countries in parallel with the discussions on the proposed directive.
The Commission is due to report back to ECOFIN next month on consultation with third countries.
Contact with third countries and associated territories must cover the same ground: in other words, minimum taxation on the equivalent co-existence model and adoption of the paying agent method.
I fully support the need for contacts with third countries.
At this stage it is obviously necessary to limit initial contacts to nearby third countries, for example, Switzerland and Monaco.
<P>
Our group can support the principle of the draft directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there is no need for me to comment in detail here on the general problem of tax competition, where there is of course a basic conflict between the democratic principle of equal voting rights and the economic principle of purchasing power.
On this we agree: there is harmful tax competition within the EU.
This is precisely the source of the mechanism - and this is always portrayed as the pressure of globalisation - which causes destructive competition between the Member States in the internal market, triggering a downward spiral and undermining the tax base, tax equity and the use of taxes to promote employment.
We can do something about this.
We can intervene in this mechanism and do something for ourselves, without simply waiting for a lead from the OECD or worldwide negotiations.
<P>
I have three points.
Firstly, we should not tread more carefully than the Commission here.
What we should actually do is apply the US model and demand 25 %.
Secondly, we should not allow this to be postponed indefinitely, and we should not introduce provisions restricted to physical persons.
If we achieve all that, then I believe that not only will it be a step in the right direction, Mrs Thyssen and Mr Goedbloed, but that it really will be the first step on the way to reform and a political union.
I should especially like to thank Commissioner Monti for his patience, accuracy and perseverance, because in actual fact the only way in which we will overcome the principle of unanimity is by making progress on taxation and the internal market in tandem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Castagnède">
Mr President, as you know, the issue of a minimum taxation of savings income in the Union does not quite have the unanimous support of all Member States, and these differences of opinion are reflected within my group.
As a result, I will speak here only in a personal capacity and on behalf of the majority of the ARE Group. I should like to say that we are in favour of the Commission's proposal for a directive on a minimum taxation of interest at the rate of 20 %, along with the option of declaring interest paid to the fiscal authorities in the country of residence.
<P>
We support this position for two main reasons, but I will not go into the details here.
On the one hand, Commissioner Monti reminded us earlier of the need to redress the balance in the Union's tax system, a system that places too heavy a burden on labour. On the other hand, there is a need to bring direct tax systems closer into line, which would be consistent with healthy tax competition, without going as far as harmonising such tax systems.
<P>
Our support for the Commission's position is accompanied simply by a few recommendations.
We should like to thank the Commission in advance for doing everything possible to extend this minimum taxation beyond the Union and, in particular, to OECD countries.
Perhaps we should also make additional efforts to reach a consensus on minimum taxation between all Member States, possibly by agreeing on an appropriate timetable.
<P>
We also think that it is important to establish a sound link between the provisions of the tax agreements and this minimum taxation project.
In our opinion, this is the aim of the amendment we tabled, namely to establish sound links between minimum taxation and the provisions of the tax agreements, and this amendment was adopted by the Commission.
It is rather a shame that, in this respect, our measures for eliminating double taxation within the Union are currently based on bilateral agreements.
<P>
Finally, to come back to Mr Pérez Royo's excellent report, we should like to point out simply and succinctly that we do not support the idea of extending taxation to include interest payments to companies.
Instead, we are in favour of taxing interest received through undertakings for collective investment in transferable securities (Ucits).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Jensen, Lis">
Mr President, at the end of the report, the rapporteur describes the intention of the proposal as 'a major step on the way to tackling fiscal evasion and the distortions to the functioning of financial markets at Community level'.
That is a laudable intention, I must say, but is it enough?
In other words, is it enough to take measures against tax evasion on interest income at EU level?
As far as I can see, the answer to this is a clear 'no'.
The problem is more a global than an EU one.
It is necessary to take measures on a worldwide scale in this area.
I do not think there is any need in this House to remind you that there are tax havens in other parts of the world, outside the EU.
The possibilities are there.
<P>
Recital 8 of the Commission proposal says: 'in accordance with the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality set out in Article 3b of the Treaty, the objective of this Directive, which is that of the effective taxation of savings income within the Community, cannot be sufficiently realised by the Member States and can therefore be better achieved by the Community'.
But is not the real issue something different?
I think it is.
Surely what this is really about is that, after the introduction of the single currency, the euro, on 1 January 1999, some people cannot wait to bring about further harmonisation of the whole area of taxes and duties.
That is understandable enough, of course, when we remember what the purpose of monetary union actually is: further political integration.
The former President of the European Commission, Jacques Delors, said that EMU was a launching pad for political union, and you cannot say it more clearly than that.
But that is not the language used in everyday encounters with the bemused populations of the EU countries.
Why not say quite openly that, if monetary union is to function satisfactorily, it means that there must inevitably be a common policy on finance, taxation and redistribution?
Then people would at least have a fair chance of grasping the real issue.
Perhaps the reticence is due to fear of the reaction which would come from the people if the unvarnished truth were told.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Féret">
Credit should be given to the Commission for putting an end to tax havens for savings and, at the same time, embarrassing the most corrupt political parties in Europe: Belgium's Francophone Socialist Party, the PS, and its Flemish counterpart, the SP. Both parties have developed the nasty habit of stashing their spoils with welcoming bankers in Luxembourg who, in spite of themselves, accept the plentiful bribes generously handed out by Dassault and Agusta.
<P>
However, I cannot help feeling rather sad when I think about the small-time Belgian investor who, having had an excessive amount of direct tax deducted from the fruits of his labour, will see his honestly earned but small savings being heavily penalised yet again.
This person will never enjoy the astronomical incomes that elicit such kindness from His Serene Highness the Prince of Monaco, whose status as a tax haven is confirmed by the European Union without any hesitation or crises of conscience. In the most illegal and immoral manner possible, it is a tax haven reserved for the rich only, no matter how they may have obtained their fortune.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berès">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, after the birth of the euro, we are well aware that the fight against fiscal dumping is one of our main tasks.
In view of this, Commissioner Monti's initiative has come at just the right time.
The text we are considering today, in the form of the excellent report from my colleague Mr Pérez Royo, is one of the strands of this initiative.
The other strand relates to interests and charges.
We should not confuse the two strands.
I understand the concern expressed by those who did not want us to deal with the issue of the rights of companies or legal entities under this text, as they clearly come under the other draft directive.
As for the two proposed options, I believe their merit lies in the fact that they should make it easier to obtain unanimity within the Council. We must use this device if it allows us to make progress.
<P>
I believe that there are grounds for negotiating the rate.
Some suggested 15 %.
This would be wholly unacceptable to us.
In its proposal, the Commission retains a rate of 20 %.
In my country, the rate currently in force is 25 %.
There is room for negotiation here and I believe that the proposal from the Commission is a useful one.
<P>
In terms of the scope of the directive, the issue of Eurobonds was raised.
I am delighted that the Commission's proposal includes these Eurobonds in the directive.
What sense would it make to have a directive on this subject that did not cover these Eurobonds even though, as we well know, they are the main form of activity for some of our Member States?
This directive will only make a difference if it can be applied to all actors and operators in all Member States.
It is with this in mind, Commissioner, that you drew it up.
It is, I hope, with this in mind that the Council will accept it.
<P>
Whilst debating this report, I believe that we should perhaps begin to draw a lesson from the method to be used for tax harmonisation.
Two approaches are becoming clear, one of which is a pragmatic approach.
The directive being put forward today is clearly along these lines. We are delighted by this and will seize any opportunity to use it.
On the other hand, there is a more long-term approach.
I will outline three aspects of this approach. The first is clearly the issue of tax havens that we will have to resolve one day as we in the EU cannot impose drastic measures on ourselves and yet see tax havens flourish on our doorstep, or even within the Union itself.
<P>
The second aspect relates to the issue of qualified majority voting.
Some people feel that changing over to qualified majority voting comes up against problems with the transfer of sovereignty.
Unfortunately, the issue is more complicated than that.
Undoubtedly, in some of our Member States, there are questions being asked about the fact that changing over to qualified majority voting will lead to a transfer of sovereignty. Yet there are also conflicts of interests between states inside the area and states outside the area.
<P>
Finally, and I will conclude here, Mr President, the third aspect relates to external issues.
In this respect, our rapporteur's proposal that multilateral agreements could be reached with our main partners, the United States or Switzerland, without introducing a sine qua non condition on this issue, seems to be perfectly credible and realistic in the longer term.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Secchi">
Mr President, I too take the floor to speak on behalf of the PPE Group on this extremely important Commission proposal which, as has already been said, is part of a broader package of measures designed to set in train a process of fiscal coordination among the Member States in all those areas in which excessive fiscal competition is very clearly having negative effects that must be countered.
But I must tell you that my group is firmly convinced that it is important not only to move in this direction, but also to restrict our activity to those situations in which the damage is evident. In that way, we avoid losing the benefits of healthy fiscal competition which may bring about convergence of taxation systems, particularly in the direction of lower levels of fiscal pressure that would certainly have a positive effect on the competitiveness of the European system.
<P>
Turning to the directive and the proposal for a directive that we are debating today, I agree with what Mrs Thyssen said, and also join with all those who have complimented the rapporteur, Mr Pérez Royo, on his work, even though we cannot agree with some of his proposals.
We consider the Commission proposal to be largely acceptable, subject to a few technical improvements that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has sought to introduce: we believe, in particular, that this should be limited to non-resident physical persons, excluding therefore companies already taxed on the basis of their results.
We are in agreement with the model of coexistence and take the view that, as far as the proposed rate is concerned, and subject, of course, to the Council's prerogatives, the idea of lowering rates in an initial stage from 20 to 15 % could also help prevent the risk of capital flight from the Union.
In fact, we have pressed the Commission to embark on negotiations as soon as possible, particularly with those countries closest to the European Union, to persuade them to incorporate the main principles of the directive into their own taxation systems in this area.
This, we realise, will be no easy process, and we certainly do not want to see any kind of conditions attached to what we are asking the Commission to do, as we have no wish to see the entry into force of the directive postponed indefinitely; we actually want the Council to give its consent as soon as possible.
It is important that the whole package should be implemented as swiftly as possible, since that will also enable us to acquire the knowledge we need to set to work in other areas: to quote just a couple of examples, the taxation of company profits and transfrontier working would appear to be good candidates for this.
<P>
We agree with Amendments Nos 1 to 10 by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, but reject all the others, although we have some sympathy with Amendments Nos 23 and 24 from the Liberal Group and Amendment No 25 from the Socialist Group which we shall therefore be supporting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Weber">
Mr President, I am speaking both as an environmentalist and a Luxembourger.
Allow me to link the Pérez Royo report to the Cox report, which we have just debated.
<P>
If a tax reform is to be worthy of that name within the European Union, it must, by necessity, involve a redistribution of the tax burden in favour of the environment and of labour. I do not believe that introducing a tax at source on savings would favour labour or the environment.
I agree with introducing energy taxes to promote energy efficiency and, while on this subject, I must point out that I am also speaking as a representative of a country that, under the Kyoto Protocol, is committed to cutting its emissions by 28 %.
It is clear that Luxembourg will have to do something about energy taxes.
<P>
What is more, I do not believe that introducing a uniform tax of 20 % on savings for residents and non-residents alike is a good idea. This is simply because the middle classes will have to foot the bill yet, for them, saving is a way of supplementing their pensions.
These savers, who often do not have lucrative pension schemes, do not deserve to be punished by the widespread introduction of a tax on savings income.
You can also rest assured that the major companies and multinationals will be able to arrange to have their capital hidden outside the Union.
I believe that by allowing such behaviour we will be doing a disservice to financial markets within the European Union.
<P>
Mr President, to sum up, I should like to say that I support a tax reform that involves a redistribution in favour of the environment and of labour, and that I am against a tax on savings income.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fayot">
Mr President, Commissioner, I agree with the basic approach of the majority of Parliament in saying that a single economic and monetary area also requires a certain degree of tax coordination; if we do not have this coordination, we will be heading closer towards fiscal and social dumping.
I also agree with those who wish to redistribute the tax burden on labour, capital and natural resources in order to contribute to the fight against unemployment, and I think the majority of Members of Parliament support this.
I should also like to stress the fact that the fiscal package put together under the Luxembourg Presidency must be implemented in its entirety.
<P>
To turn to the directive that Parliament is today being consulted on, it will undoubtedly be the subject of lengthy haggling in the Council, where unanimity is required.
It must be said that the fiscal instrument, together with a whole range of legislative provisions and regulations, is of considerable importance for the development of financial services in Europe.
We cannot manage such an instrument without dealing with immediate competitors and neighbours, as there is a danger of weakening this important service sector in the European Union.
I therefore welcome the amendments on this subject that were adopted by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
<P>
I should also like to ask the Commissioner what stage negotiations with third countries have reached, countries that, in the financial services sector, are immediate competitors for European Union markets.
Have negotiations really begun?
How will they develop?
When can we expect to see some results?
I believe that the answers to these questions are vital for the events that will follow, particularly for negotiations in the Council.
<P>
I am of the opinion that a European tax system on savings will only materialise in the European Union as a result of binding agreements on a code of conduct on tax.
I am told that we must first start with the European Union and that other countries will then follow.
I do not really believe this.
I rather believe that there will be a certain amount of upheaval, that capital will be re-invested elsewhere under better tax conditions, and that the financial services sector will suffer as a result.
<P>
In addition, we can see that professional groups have reservations concerning the dual system proposed in the directive.
The European Banking Federation accepts a minimum rate of a 10 % withholding tax, but rejects the regime of information.
It is true to say that this regime of information is technically cumbersome and in danger of becoming bureaucratic.
However, it does have the advantage of making it easier to coordinate taxation of savings and it could, as Mrs Ber&#x010D;s has just said, help obtain a unanimous vote within the Council.
<P>
In my opinion, a tax of 10 %, which is deducted at source, would allow the internal capital market - and I stress that it is the internal market - to function smoothly and the services sector to flourish.
If I am stressing these aspects, Mr President, it is for the simple reason that I consider the development of a services sector with high employment potential, in my own country as in all the countries of the European Union, to be important above all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langen">
Mr President, you will see that there are a whole series of Luxembourg Members on the list of speakers.
The debate must have something to do with Luxembourg.
I well remember the Luxembourg Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Jean-Claude Juncker, stating on more than one occasion that where this important issue was concerned, he saw the coexistence system as providing a definite opportunity to achieve an acceptable degree of harmonisation in terms of taxing interest.
You see, Mrs Randzio-Plath, this is not just about savings income, but about income of any kind received by physical persons.
That is why the committee also proposed including Eurobonds, so that the United Kingdom and the City of London would not be virtually exempted from the provisions.
<P>
The second key point in Parliament and in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy was deciding what tax rate to opt for in the coexistence model.
The Commission has proposed 20 % and Mr Fayot 10 %.
However, there do not seem to be any amendments calling for 10 %.
I have not seen any, despite reading them all.
We have proposed 15 %, and I believe that this is a reasonable approach.
Curiously, Mr Pérez Royo, speaking in his capacity as rapporteur, has just mentioned 20 % - it is not for him to do so.
We adopted the report with 15 %, and it is the rapporteur's duty to convey that here too.
I should like to recommend that we give our full backing to the compromise reached in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy: a minimum rate of 15 %, with an invitation to work towards greater harmonisation in negotiations with third countries at OECD level, and in the knowledge, Commissioner Monti, that your commendable work on tax harmonisation finally needs a worthwhile result.
We hope that this will be the case, for our own and for your sakes.
I hope that it will be possible, despite unanimity, to find a sensible solution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Metten">
Mr President, the proposal for a minimum level of effective taxation on interest earnings is really very modest.
Most Member States tax the interest their own residents receive but not that received by residents of other countries.
That is of course an invitation to tax evasion, which occurs on a major scale.
When tax on movable sources of income is so easy to evade, we should not be surprised to find that the tax burden on labour, which is not so easy to evade, increases.
If we want to break this trend - and we certainly do - we must ensure that movable sources of income can also be effectively taxed.
<P>
The Commission's proposal for a coexistence model does no more than that.
Member States can either exchange information on interest receipts with the tax authorities in a saver's country of residence so that it can tax them, or they themselves can levy a withholding tax without exchanging information on the saver.
This proposal, although better than nothing, is of course very imperfect, because although the withholding tax does not in principle provide discharge, and thus should be declared for income tax purposes in the country of residence, in practice it can easily provide discharge as the information on the withholding tax paid is not exchanged.
A compulsory exchange of information would therefore have been better.
Because of this loophole it is important that the withholding tax should be as high as possible so that there will be a maximum incentive to declare such income in the country of residence.
<P>
The proposal to reduce withholding tax to 15 %, adopted by a narrow majority by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, is therefore astounding, and seems more of an encouragement to lower taxes on interest earnings throughout Europe than to increase them.
I am not convinced by the argument that otherwise savers will turn to Switzerland or eastern Europe.
The Union is in such a strong negotiating position with all these countries that any tax flight to them can be avoided if the Union itself has a credible system.
In addition, the exchange rate risk is likely to scare off most investors.
<P>
Finally, the UK-Luxembourg proposal to exempt Eurobonds is unacceptable.
Any residents using them do so purely in order to evade tax.
Members of this House who are so strongly in favour of exempting Eurobonds should reflect for a moment on this.
Despite all its limitations, this proposal must therefore be supported, but with a higher level of withholding tax than 15 %.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="Cassidy">
Mr President, let me begin by saying, and this will come as no surprise to the Commissioner, that I do not see the need for this particular directive, because I believe the concept of harmful tax competition is absolute nonsense.
We, in the European Parliament, believe in competition as being good for the consumer in goods and services.
What is wrong therefore with tax competition?
My conclusion is that some Member States are doing themselves harm by having excessively high rates of tax, whereas they really ought to be reducing the tax burden on their citizens.
However, due to time constraints here, I am unable to elaborate on the mechanisms of doing that, but you are welcome to talk to me afterwards.
<P>
There is one respect however in which I very much support the excellent work done by the rapporteur.
Unfortunately neither I, nor the rest of my group, was able to agree with him when he proposed that the directive should be extended to companies: this would have done enormous harm to the citizens of Europe, as it would have had an negative effect, for example, on undertakings responsible for trading in transferable securities as well as harming the potential of crossborder pension funds.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy did well in rejecting the rapporteur's amendment and indeed, from that point of view, I am happier with what the Commission is proposing.
<P>
I understand that some Member States have reservations about the detail.
Could the Commissioner tell us a little bit about those Member States and their technical reservations?
Secondly, I understand that the presidency, the Commission and the past presidency, have opened exploratory contacts with third countries about the possibility of extending it.
Thirdly, a question addressed to the Socialist Group - is it Socialist Group policy to support Amendment 25 by Mr Hendrick which is calling for the harmonisation of capital gains tax in Europe?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Willockx">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, whether people like it or not fiscal coordination is a matter of great importance.
It is to Commissioner Monti's credit, and I bear witness to this, that we again have some movement on this matter.
The code of conduct on company tax is operational.
Today we have two directives before us, including this one on capital income.
<P>

Let us be quite clear about this, this is a fundamental debate from three different points of view: the single market, about which Mrs Thyssen has already spoken; making sufficient budgetary resources available to the Community; and finally, breaking the disastrous spiral of constantly increasing taxes on labour and constantly decreasing taxes on capital income and other movable tax bases.
<P>
Coexistence is not exactly the best system, but in the short term it was the only possibility for a compromise.
I still hope and believe that in the course of the decision-making in the ECOFIN Council we will perhaps be able to move towards a single system, maybe based on the withholding tax.
<P>
Opponents of coexistence are clearly right on one point, which is that the system must not end up subsidising the Member States with the greatest banking secrecy, in other words those Member States with the most non-residents who will collect the withholding tax.
It must be possible for this to be declared for tax purposes in the country of residence.
This is why I want this discussion to be included in the debate on the European Union's own resources.
It is the view which Belgium is currently putting forward in the own resources debate, and I believe it is a view which must be given serious consideration.
<P>
Finally, it is my belief that it is not for us to deal with rate levels.
The rate level must be determined, for example, according to whether or not it grants discharge.
I believe this is a job for the final compromise round of Europe's finance ministers.
This is again a test for the tenability of the unanimity rule.
I hope and am counting on the fact that no country will dare to use the right of veto to block something which the vast majority of Europe's citizens want to see, namely a shift from taxes on labour to taxes on savings.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, may I first point out that it was under the Luxembourg Presidency that a historic breakthrough on harmonising direct taxation was made on 1 December 1997.
On that occasion, four elements were adopted that could form a basis for a proposal for a directive on taxation of savings.
One of the elements was the coexistence of the system of a withholding tax and the regime of information.
<P>
Unfortunately, if we want this to work, the system provided for in the proposal for a directive is too complicated and too expensive for the paying agents.
The certificates procedure provided for under the framework of the withholding system is extraordinarily complex and makes the coexistence of both systems practically impossible to manage, and even distorts it.
Leaving aside such administrative atrocities, the proposal for a minimum of 20 % for the withholding tax would destabilise the Union's financial markets. 15 % is also unacceptable and, in my opinion, a deduction of 10 % at source is a maximum.
What is more, the broad definition of interest, which differs from the definitions adopted in the conventions against double taxation, will lead to conflict and even discrimination between financial products that are all much of a muchness.
<P>
By including in the scope of the directive collective investment undertakings in the sense of the 1985 directive, we will be chasing them out of the European Union once and for all. They will flee Europe, unless they have already 'got the hell out' - if you will excuse the expression - due to administrative burdens that would put them at a competitive disadvantage in terms of their internal management costs.
Therefore, the end of European collective investment undertakings is on the cards, as is the early redemption of Eurobonds, as the market for such bonds will be established outside Europe.
It is of little consolation that few natural persons hold Eurobonds and that major capitalists will therefore be able to continue with their plans outside the Community.
This would mean accepting that taxation at source will only apply to small savers' deposits.
<P>
With things the way they are, to adopt this worthless text that only advocates agreements with third countries offering a particularly attractive environment to non-residents, is to completely ignore the fact that Switzerland, for example - which is already rubbing its hands with glee - does not discriminate between residents and non-residents as regards taxation of savings.
Agreements simultaneously establishing measures similar to those adopted in a directive are needed with all third countries that are likely to attract the Union's capital.
If the directive comes into being there cannot be any question of not applying it to dependent territories or territories linked to Member States.
Mr President, I must tell you that there will no fool's bargain struck with us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ettl">
Mr President, time and again I am filled with admiration for Commissioner Monti and the patience with which he is trying to disengage the brakes on coordinating tax policy in Europe.
He really deserves the utmost respect for this.
Where coordinating tax policy is concerned, the main objective is to limit manoeuvring and distortions on the capital markets.
It is a question of reducing harmful tax competition between the Member States, and part of creating equal economic opportunities is to make sure that investors are subject, at least in terms of approach, to a similar tax burden.
Seen in this light, the Commission proposal is definitely a step in the right direction, and this is accordingly supported for the most part by our rapporteur, Mr Pérez Royo.
<P>
But it is precisely because we agree on the principles in this Parliament - at least in what we say out loud - that some of the amendments adopted by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy are more than just ideas to curb the development of European tax policy or precautionary measures.
However, seeking to reduce the rate of withholding tax from that proposed by the Commission to 15 % or 10 % falls into the 'back to square one' category.
In this context, we should not forget that there are some countries in the European Union with a 25 % tax rate.
My country is one of them.
Ultimately, it is also necessary to reduce the imbalance between the taxation of wages and salaries on the one hand and capital on the other.
That is the goal we have set ourselves.
<P>
Moreover - and this is also worth mentioning - exempting Eurobonds from the tax arrangements, as intended or desired by several financial centres in Europe, would give the securities market a considerable advantage over other savings instruments and would substantially limit the scope of the directive.
With 'a little less, please' as our motto, we will not be able to make any progress on coordinating tax policy.
You will need to be patient, Commissioner!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as a Socialist and a Frenchman, I am particularly pleased today to approve a proposal for a directive that will finally let us put an end to a situation where a whole section of savings income was completely avoiding taxation, and this within the European Union.
I should like to thank Commissioner Monti and his team for this.
Of course, I should also like to warmly thank our colleague and rapporteur Mr Pérez Royo for the important and serious work he has done on this issue.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, at a time when the single currency will promote the cross-border movement of capital, this text was long overdue.
It is quite simply vital for the Union's cohesion.
Of course, like many others, I approve of the fact that the idea of excluding Eurobonds from the scope of the directive was rejected.
If we were to exclude them, there would be a danger of serious tax evasion and of distortion of competition.
Lastly, of course, I am also against establishing a conditionality link between adoption of the directive and its simultaneous application in third countries.
<P>
In conclusion, I would like to discuss an extremely important point that has been debated at length this morning, namely the rate of the withholding tax. Although I personally would have preferred a rate of 25 %, I am prepared, together with the rapporteur and the Socialist Group, to accept the 20 % rate put forward by the Commission.
I will do so in the spirit of compromise and negotiation.
<P>
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I now hope that this case will be closed, as we expected, at Helsinki in December 1999 at the latest and that, after this, tax harmonisation will finally gain pace.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, I too should like to welcome this proposal to work towards greater coordination.
I believe that it is a question of establishing common definitions and creating an environment which makes fair competition possible.
<P>
My question is as follows: is there already a study or a simulation model of the impact of the proposals or ideas put forward?
How will competition develop within the European Union on the basis of the amended provisions, and how will the European Union be able to prove itself when competing at international level?
<P>
I believe that it is also important to highlight again and again the difference between the fiscal regime applied to companies - and its consequences - and that applied to consumers.
Ultimately, of course, we believe that it is important to reduce the tax burden as a whole, so as to become more competitive and to guarantee a higher personal income for consumers.
<P>
My final question is this: when will these proposals be agreed with the OECD countries, and are discussions under way with Switzerland and Liechtenstein?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Monti">
Mr President, I must congratulate Mr Pérez Royo on his excellent report, which reflects his own considerable talents, and for supporting the rapid adoption of the directive.
My thanks also go to the other members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and all honourable Members for their contributions to the debate and for the kind words they have had for the Commission.
<P>
This proposal is part of a package which, as everyone has reminded us, was adopted during the Luxembourg Presidency, and the first element - the code of conduct - was swiftly put in place by the United Kingdom Presidency.
I therefore have to make it quite clear that, although they may have reservations on some points, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom are participating fully in this process to counter harmful tax competition, the aim of which, as mentioned by Mr Secchi and other speakers, is not general harmonisation but a concerted effort to counter the harmful effects of tax competition.
The aim is not to increase fiscal pressure in Europe, but to allow it to be reduced gradually and in an orderly way.
The further aim is, of course, to shift the balance of the tax burden which is currently having an excessive impact on employment.
<P>
I welcome the amendment tabled by the rapporteur which is designed to improve the current text of Article 5© and tighten up the criteria for identifying collective investment funds.
I think I can safely say that, subject to possible technical drafting improvements, the Commission's services are optimistic about the possibility of including, in an amended proposal for a directive, that amendment and, similarly, the amendment relating to tax competition, that is to say the new recital 7a.
While I understand the spirit of the other amendments tabled concerning the scope of the directive, I think that, as matters stand, they should be considered useful contributions to the debate rather than a direct contribution to the legislative text.
I am referring here in particular to the problems of the zero coupon bonds which are being discussed in detail in the Council.
We are able to accept the spirit, if not the wording, of Amendment No 24 from Mr Goedbloed and will try to ensure that it is accepted by the Council.
<P>
As far as the issue of Eurobonds is concerned, the Commission's position is that we are opposed to general exemptions; we are very much willing to consider solutions designed to contain the administrative burdens on intermediaries and take a balanced approach to the problems relating to those bonds already in circulation.
On rates, the Commission still believes a 20 % rate to be a sufficient compromise which could, from the point of view of all the Member States, meet the need to secure a minimum of actual taxation of interest.
<P>
I have noted that a great deal of attention - and I am entirely in favour of this - has been paid to the issue of contacts with third countries.
Though no questions were put on this, I can say that, as instructed by the ECOFIN Council, the German Presidency along with its Austrian predecessor and Finnish successor, as well as the Commission, is establishing both technical and political contacts with Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, San Marino and Andorra, and we have been asked to report back on this to the ECOFIN Council meeting of 15 March.
A report on the whole subject-matter of the directive will be presented to the May meeting of ECOFIN and, Mrs Thyssen, as regards the timetable for reaching agreement on this matter, the Vienna European Council set the target date of the Helsinki Council.
<P>
Two points finally: this is not a new tax; that would be a great mistake.
This is not a proposal for a new tax, it is a way of enabling the Member States to cooperate to ensure that the taxes already in existence are not systematically evaded as a result of the creation of a fifth freedom alongside the four freedoms of the internal market, that is to say the freedom not to pay taxes because of transfrontier movements.
<P>
On the question of financial services, my response to Mr Fayot and other Members is that the Commission is very much aware of the need to boost the financial services industry in Europe and that, in that context, in the recent framework action on financial services, it has shown how a degree of sensible coordination of taxation can benefit rather than penalise the financial services sector.
<P>
Finally, Mr Cassidy, I appreciated what you had to say today, as I always appreciate your comments, even when critical.
I have said that we do not favour combating all forms of tax competition, but only those that are harmful and unfair.
However, were we to accept the idea that any form of competition between the Member States is good, given that competition is a positive thing, then we should also, for the sake of consistency, have to allow them to compete fully with each other using state aids.
That is not, I think, a generally accepted view.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Monti.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Liquid-fuel tanks
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0495/98) by Mr Camisón Asensio, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Council Directive 70/221/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to liquid-fuel tanks and rear underrun protection of motor vehicles and their trailers (COM(98)0097 - C4-0257/98-98/0071(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Camisón Asensio">
Mr President, as you all know, the aim of this proposal is to introduce new provisions concerning vehicle fuel tanks made of plastic material, to extend the title and scope of Directive 70/221 to include tanks for fuels other than liquid fuels - gaseous fuels, for instance - and to amend the directive adapting it to technical progress so that in future, technical provisions for tanks for all kinds of fuels may be introduced and modified by the committee procedure.
<P>
It is also appropriate to bring the directive into line with the technical requirements already adopted by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe in its regulations concerning the harmonisation of services in connection with the prevention of fire risk.
The use of gaseous fuels for the propulsion of motor vehicles is increasing, particularly for ecological reasons.
It would therefore also be appropriate to include specifications relating to tanks for non-liquid fuels.
In the interests of consistency, the title and scope of the directive should be modified to allow for the inclusion of technical specifications on tanks for gaseous fuels.
<P>
Given the impact of the proposed action on the industrial sector concerned, the measures under consideration are essential to attain the desired objective, namely, the harmonisation of vehicles across the Community.
It is impossible for Member States to meet this objective acting individually in isolation.
<P>
The Commission is proposing that these new provisions be applied to all new types of vehicles with effect from 1 October 1999, and to all new vehicles with effect from 1 October 2000.
These time-limits are clearly too short, and have therefore been amended in our report.
<P>
We should remember that the modifications to the present directive only concern fuel tanks made of plastic material, and that there is therefore no need to invalidate any approval already granted under the directive.
Nor is there any need to refuse the registration, sale or entry into service of new vehicles with metal liquid-fuel tanks approved under existing harmonisation arrangements.
<P>
The eight amendments we put before the Committee on Economic Affairs, and which were subsequently approved, stemmed from these arguments and form the basis of our legislative proposal. One amendment states that the modifications needed to bring the requirements into line with the annexes to the technical project be adopted following a more appropriate procedure.
Another concerns the time-limits mentioned earlier.
Another provides a more rational definition of unladen mass.
Two further amendments introduce an element of common sense by restricting regulations on the flow of fuel from one compartment to another to normal conditions of use only.
They seek to prevent us making impossible demands on the industry.
Yet another amendment is aimed at simplification, taking references to the tank to include its accessories as a matter of course. The final two amendments stress the hazard that the accidental spillage of fuel - especially diesel - onto the roads represents to pedal cyclists and to the riders of motorcycles.
This was a major gap in the Commission's proposal.
<P>
We are firmly of the opinion that this proposal represents an important step forward in the approximation of Member States' legislation on liquid-fuel tanks and rear underrun protection of motor vehicles and their trailers. The approval of vehicles with regard to the prevention of fire risk, particularly for fuel tanks made of plastic material of category MI vehicles will therefore be more rational.
Category MI vehicles are those intended for the carriage of passengers comprising no more than eight seats in addition to the driver's seat.
<P>
The general objective of the Commission proposal seems to be very reasonable and we therefore believe that the situation for the industrial sector concerned will improve when provisions at European level are harmonised with these provisions.
<P>
The technical changes proposed by the Commission concerning the title and scope of the directive to make the inclusion of gaseous fuels possible in the future do not cause any problems for the industry concerned. Equally, the proposal to modify Annex 1 to the directive to include more severe tests does not appear to pose problems for the industry either.
As was mentioned earlier, these provisions are already included in the United Nations regulations.
<P>
However, as regards the amendment on the comitology procedure to be applied for adaptations of this directive to technical progress, we do not share the Commission's view.
We believe that it would be more appropriate to convert this into management committee procedure 2A. The Commission could then defer application of the measures proposed for a period of not more than one month if the measures were not in accordance with the opinion of the committee.
<P>
Furthermore, the proposal is in line with the approximation of provisions laid down by law, regulation or administrative action in Member States which have as their aim the establishment and operation of the internal market.
In this context, the Commission is striving to guarantee a high level of protection of health, consumers, the environment and safety. We fully support this endeavour.
<P>
The principle of subsidiarity is also safeguarded, as the measure proposed by the Commission is justified by the fact that the Member States acting individually could not adequately achieve the directive's objective.
<P>
I would like to end by summing up and saying that what we have before us are purely technical provisions which will not have any negative impact on the competitiveness of enterprises or on employment and which will significantly increase road safety.
We therefore ask you to vote in favour of them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, we should like to thank the rapporteur for the work he has done on this rather technical proposal.
Although these are technical changes, he is also right to say that this is actually about safety and environmental considerations, which are important policy objectives for us.
Of course, our proposal is also intended to ensure the proper functioning of the internal market, and to make it easier for manufacturers to comply with the provisions by introducing a standard form of type approval.
<P>
We can accept four of the amendments tabled, Nos 3, 4, 5 and 6.
As far as the other four amendments are concerned, we believe that this is not the appropriate place for some of these rules, and that instead we can refer to provisions which either already exist or are to be adopted; that is why we do not think that we can accept these amendments.
However, Mr Camisón Asensio, ladies and gentlemen, given that this is the first reading, we will certainly have further opportunities to look at details, and an overall agreement may still be possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Bangemann.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 11.25 a.m. until voting time at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, following the debate on the Pérez Royo report earlier, your fellow President announced that the vote on that report would take place tomorrow.
However, it appears on the list of votes for today even though it has only just been debated.
As a result, it would make more sense to vote on it tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="President">
You are absolutely right, Mrs Lulling.
The Pérez Royo report is scheduled to be voted on today, as you quite rightly said. If we have time, I hope we will be able to vote on it today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, the opposite is the case.
Your predecessor said earlier - we only finished the debate barely twenty minutes ago - that this report would be voted on tomorrow.
I am asking that the vote indeed be held tomorrow, as the President said it would.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="President">
Mrs Lulling, perhaps my predecessor in the Chair made a slight mistake.
The Pérez Royo report is scheduled to be voted on today and, as I said, if we have time, we will take the vote today.
<P>
Proposal for a Council Decision on the position to be taken by the Community within the Association Council established by the Europe Agreement signed on 19 December 1994 between the European Communities and their Member States, of the one part, and the Slovak Republic, of the other part, with regard to the extension for a further period of five years in accordance with the provisions of Article 64(4)(a) of the Europe Agreement (11544/98 - C4-0633/98-98/0073(CNS))(Procedure without report)
<P>
Parliament approved the Commission proposal
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Riis-Jørgensen">
Mr President, I would like to put forward an oral amendment calling for the removal of the words: 'pursuant to the Amsterdam Treaty'.
So I am requesting that these words be deleted.
The deeper meaning will not be changed by this amendment, but it will provide greater scope for ensuring future development.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="President">
Mrs Riis-Jørgensen, your proposal is very clear.
<P>
Does the House object to putting the oral amendment to the vote?
<P>
Parliament agreed to put paragraph 17 with the oral amendment to the vote
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, on a point of order.
Could you remind members of staff in the House that it is not their job to substitute for Members by indicating how the vote should go?
The woman in seat 301 seems to be telling the rest of her group how to vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Barros Moura">
Since it is in Europe's interest - and that of the international situation - we are backing the Commission five-point plan that gained the support of the Council on 29 June last year.
<P>
We welcome the improvement in relations between the EU and China, which are in the interest of ordinary people in both places, and which should boost the EU's influence in international politics, independently of the USA. The EU should therefore support China's accession to the WTO, in keeping with China's multilateral principles.
But, without denying that some progress has been made in resuming talks on human rights, such as the ratification of the two United Nations pacts on economic, social and cultural rights and on civil and political rights, I do not think that we can act as though China respected fundamental rights and freedoms.
China is far from doing so.
<P>
The economic and financial interests of certain EU Member States cannot justify a Realpolitik that skims over truth and justice and means that we fail to apply common standards and demand less of China than of weaker countries with which the EU has economic or trade agreements including the human rights clause.
<P>
The latest serious violations of fundamental rights and freedoms in China - the persecution of political opponents, human rights activists and members of ethnic minorities - should be condemned by the EU in the strongest terms.
The same goes for the violation of workers' rights, especially lay-offs without compensation, and the absence of trade union freedom, collective bargaining and the right to strike.
<P>
Now we come to the references to Macao.
<P>
In the motion for a resolution, we have:
<P>
' Hopes that the joining of Macao to China will comply on all points with the agreement of 13 April 1987 and enable it to develop a democratic and prosperous society on its own soil; '
<P>
In the explanatory statement, we find:
<P>
' Macao: another bridge between Europe and China
<P>
Similarly, the situation in Macao, whose return to China in December 1999 has been settled by an agreement signed on 13 April 1987, should be monitored closely.
<P>
Macao embodies a Latin culture, and therefore stands in direct connection with one of the fundamental components of European civilisation.
Macao consequently is in a position to help improve relations with China by enabling that country better to understand our diversity as Europeans.'
<P>
I think that the rapporteur has understood the role that Macao could play in the future, given its past and its special characteristics, as an 'open door' for China into Europe and the west in general, and as a bridge between Europe, with all its diversity, and China.
<P>
The EU should very closely monitor the handover due on 20 December next. It should be just as demanding as it was in the case of Hong Kong, mutatis mutandis , so as to guarantee that the principle of 'one country, two systems' also applies to Macao.
<P>
There are still a number of problems about enshrining the rights and principles contained in the constitution, as guaranteed by the Joint Luso-Chinese Declaration, into local legislation.
The EU could give both parties, and the authorities of the territory, its backing with a view to achieving the following:
<P>
to guarantee that China respects the prohibition of the death penalty; -to ensure that China honours its pledge not to station troops in Macao; -to make sure that China duly stops criminals from crossing the border into Macao and threatening safety there; -to regulate and guarantee fundamental freedoms, especially religious freedom, freedom of association and membership of political parties, trade union freedom and the right to strike; -to regulate the use of the territory's two official languages - Chinese and Portuguese; -to regulate the issue of nationality, fairly and humanely; -to establish an independent judiciary with a local Court of First Instance.The EU should, both now and in future, support the development of a civil society; give its backing to associations including human rights organisations; support cultural activities and university cooperation with China; support the action of the European Studies Institute and foster exchanges between lawyers, enabling continental European law to be made known in China, in particular through the activities of the legal translation centre and the centre for training judges.
<P>
I would ask the Commission to repeat what it did in the case of Hong Kong - namely to issue a statement on future relations between the EU and Macao, guaranteeing from the outset that it will draft regular reports on developments in the situation after the handover.
<P>
The EU's responsibility for Macao requires an active and competent Commission and EU delegation in the territory.
I would like to ask the Commission what measures it intends to take or has already taken in this respect.
<P>
Once again may I point out to the Commission how displeased the entire EP/China delegation was that the Commission's delegate to Hong Kong and Macao did not bother to meet the EP delegation in person or by proxy when it last visited the territory in mid-1998.
I hope that this serious incidence of discourteous, incompetent and inconsiderate behaviour will not be repeated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Vaz da Silva">
The way China develops is vital for the way our own societies develop.
It will influence not only our economies but also - and above all - prospects for democracy world-wide.
<P>
I think that the European Union must shoulder the main responsibility for steering China into the democratic fold.
It must do so audibly, consistently and effectively, particularly by backing the notion of 'one country, several regimes'.
<P>
Europe is not treating Macao or Taipei with the attention that their status as outposts of democracy in the East demands.
The European Union must show more determination.
For that we need:
<P>
European Union delegations in Macao and Taipei (not miserly little offices but fully operational agencies); -clear support for either China or Taiwan's membership of the WTO; -political action by Members of the European Parliament of all colours in support of Portugal in the final 'sprint' to thrash out an agreement with China on a democratic and Sino-European identity for Macao; Although I agree with the Bernard-Reymond report, I should have liked it to take a firmer line in calling for the European Union to shoulder its full responsibility.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Porto">
I congratulate the Commission on their initiative and our colleague Caroline Jackson on this report - nobody can fail to be aware of this subject.
Special mention is made of concern for the quality of life in urban areas, and the demand for a minimum distance between landfills and residential or recreational areas is understandable.
<P>
That distance should obviously be several kilometres and this should be an immediate issue for all governments - sadly this is not the case with the Portuguese government - when dealing with toxic waste incineration or coincineration. It is unacceptable, given that it cannot seriously be claimed that there is no risk, that people's lives and health are being put at risk, thus violating their rights.
<P>
Castricum report (A4-0025/99)
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Bernardini">
Directive 96/96/EC established the principle that commercial road vehicles must undergo an annual roadworthiness test at an approved testing centre.
<P>
In its proposal for a directive, the Commission gives every Member State the option to carry out unannounced roadside checks on such vehicles.
We believe that this initiative has arisen out of concern for the respect of users' safety.
In fact, if we look at how international traffic has increased, statistics show that a high number of vehicles travel more than 150 000 kilometres per year!
Carrying out annual roadworthiness inspections is no longer enough to guarantee the safety and reliability of the vehicle.
<P>
Our rapporteur supports the proposal for unannounced roadside checks, and we are pleased with this.
Yet for this initiative to have the greatest possible effect, we must implement a proper system of checks, with agents trained to the highest technical levels.
In the same way, the Member States must cooperate with the Commission to strengthen approval procedures.
<P>
Finally, transport operators must not see this measure purely as a repressive one.
Deciding to immediately immobilise a road vehicle when an unannounced check has revealed a manifest defect is a necessary step in protecting users' safety.
We cannot allow 'travelling bombs' to drive on our roads simply so that we can save money.
<P>
Camisón Asensio report (A4-0010/99)
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Bébéar">
What would become of all our attempts to eliminate obstacles to free movement and speed up the dismantling of our borders if we did not have an ambitious and high-quality policy on transport?
What can our actions on economic and social cohesion and regional development amount to without vital infrastructure links?
What can come of a policy for boosting employment if there is no real desire to provide transport links?
<P>
Today, it seems vital that we coordinate national efforts and that there is cooperation between public and private sectors.
Until now, there has not been any significant progress in the field of goods and passenger transport.
There is now more of a need than ever for fresh momentum.
Too many projects are vague, with uncertain timetables and financing.
<P>
The European Parliament is in a position to monitor the level of progress, particularly where local and regional financing are concerned.
It is, in fact, vital that public finances are contributed, in spite of current restrictions.
Nothing can be done without this active role because, as in many fields, financial matters are at the heart of the debate.
<P>
I therefore support the Camisón Asensio report, and I am disappointed by the serious delays and disagreements that have occurred in implementing the majority of projects drawn up in Essen in 1994.
I also believe it is a shame that, in view of such a situation, the European Commission has not proposed measures to stimulate these projects and has simply accepted this state of affairs.
It would perhaps be worth reminding the Commission of its mission and asking it to arrange for a Council of Ministers to seek solutions to the problems I have just highlighted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Escolá Hernando">
Through this explanation of vote, I should like to put on record my vote in favour of the Camisón Asensio report. My main reason for voting in favour of the report was the explicit call to speed up the 14 Essen projects.
<P>
Early completion of the Essen priority projects is indeed crucial to the development of social and economic cohesion within the European Union. Together with the other trans-European transport networks, these projects will strengthen the internal market and contribute to job creation.
<P>
To this end, Community structural policy must be coordinated with the trans-European transport networks in order to promote balanced sustainable development within the European Union and to reduce the disparities that currently exist between the regions.
<P>
Most of the priority projects identified at the Essen summit are running well behind schedule.This is due, amongst other reasons, to the lack of funds to implement them.
An appropriate Community response to meet these financial needs would be to encourage public-private partnerships, along with financial efforts by the Member State concerned. This would be of great help to the delayed projects and to the trans-European transport networks as a whole.
<P>
Soltwedel-Schäfer recommendation (A4-0044/99)
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Andersson, Lööw, Palm, Sandberg-Fries and Theorin">
We should like to stress the importance of ensuring that the design of the euro takes account of the special needs of the disabled.
It is essential that all our citizens should be able to use it.
<P>
With regard to the specific proposal relating to the introduction of the gold 100 euro coin, as put forward by the rapporteur, we are inclined to think that no real justification has been provided for the introduction of such a coin.
In the vote, therefore, we have decided to follow the line adopted in committee by our political group.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Berthu">
The second reading of the Council's draft regulation on the definition of the technical specifications of euro coins provides me with an opportunity to point out that it is completely inappropriate to propose taking all national currencies out of circulation on 1 January 2002.
<P>
This operation would be extremely costly for citizens in psychological terms and would serve only to provide ideological satisfaction for those who wish to see nations disappear. However, both could quite easily continue to exist simultaneously, as is the case today.
There would be the euro, on the one hand, staying as it was when it came into force and restricted to the stock exchanges and to international financial activities. Then, on the other hand, there would be the national currencies which would remain in circulation.
In any event, eliminating the national monetary level would hardly be wise, as we do not know what crises will emerge in the future. If an asymmetric shock hits us in the near future, we may very well be glad that we can modify the exchange parities between the euro and some national currencies in order to bring a certain amount of flexibility to the system and not force our fellow citizens to make unnecessary sacrifices.
<P>
In this way, if we continue to allow both European and national monetary levels to coexist, we will have rediscovered a system similar to that of the common currency, which the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has always supported.
Such a solution would safeguard our future without forcing our fellow citizens to take pointless risks.
Therefore, I hope that the Council will listen to the voice of wisdom and that ministers will not charge headlong towards unification, as this would be a dead end.
<P>
However, in order to justify continuing with unification, some people will no doubt hide behind the legal argument in Article 109l(4), which states that 'at the starting date of the third stage, the Council shall...adopt the conversion rates...at which irrevocably fixed rate the ECU shall be substituted for these currencies (the currencies of the participating countries)...The Council shall...also take the other measures necessary for the rapid introduction of the ECU as the single currency of those Member States'.
<P>
But this argument does not have the same weight as other legal arguments: in circumstances beyond our control, we can modify the text in an emergency or we can find another way to interpret it.
For example, we could say that as the euro was due to replace the national currencies on the starting date of the third stage, in other words on 1 January 1999, then it has already happened and we should not discuss it any further.
Governments would do well to seriously consider this line of thinking.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Trizza">
On behalf of the non-attached Members, I stress the need to provide a gold coin with the nominal value of EUR 100.
As well as enhancing the symbolic value of the single currency, the effect would be to stabilise the price of gold, making gold reserves increasingly unnecessary.
<P>
Finally, I agree with the rapporteur's decision to limit the cost of the metal and actual coinage production to the latter's nominal value.
<P>
Bernard-Reymond report (A4-0479/98)
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
In the vote, we have taken a far harder line on China's human rights violations than that expressed in the motion for a resolution.
Even though it may be important for Europe to develop trade and political relations with China, economic interests should not blind us to the human rights violations perpetrated there, nor prevent us from criticising them.
The EU should also be consistent in following the same line in its dealings with a number of other countries, for example Colombia and Peru.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Palm">
Naturally I am in favour of the development and opening-up of China.
Openness is one way of undermining the totalitarian regime and bringing freedom to the Chinese people.
However, I seriously doubt that the introduction of free market principles, which the report so enthusiastically recommends, is the right solution.
<P>
We should learn from the mistakes that were made, for instance, in the former Communist states of Eastern Europe.
The people were looking for freedom and openness but instead they ended up with the crudest form of capitalism, which brought with it social exclusion and poverty.
<P>
As cooperation with China increases, we should place greater emphasis on the social situation and those areas where we might be able to support development, such as youth exchange programmes, education and increasing the number of non-governmental organisations.
Furthermore, as the report makes clear, we must go on exerting pressure so that, in the end, human rights will be respected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Rovsing">
In its communication, the Commission quite rightly noted the major changes which are currently taking place in the economy and civil society of China.
But it is also important to stress that fundamental human rights are still being suppressed by the Chinese authorities.
In its report, therefore, the Foreign Affairs Committee included some very positive demands for the incorporation of a human rights clause into the agreement between the EU and China.
If economic cooperation with China is to be possible, it is of crucial importance that such a clause should be fully respected.
The supplementary requirements which the committee has added to the areas prioritised by the Commission may help to point development in China in the right direction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Souchet">
Mr Bernard-Reymond's report advocates the development of economic and cultural links between European Union countries and China. The report claims that this is in line with the belief that intensifying relations with China will automatically lead to an improvement in the democratic and human rights situation in that country.
<P>
This strategy, which may prove to be effective in certain cases, seems, in the case of China, to come up against realities that must not be trivialised.
<P>
It is now nearly 15 years since China began to modernise its economy and in these 15 years it has experienced unprecedented development. Western heads of state, company managers and buyers from the retail and distribution sector are now all rushing to Beijing and Shanghai to sign numerous contracts.
<P>
Nonetheless, we must note that although China has liberalised its economy considerably over the past 15 years, it has, in contrast, made very little progress in terms of civil liberties and religious freedoms.
The policy on bringing Tibet increasingly under Chinese rule has not relented in the slightest over recent years, in spite of extremely strong pressure from the West.
<P>
On a more general note, the very serious problems linked to violations of religious freedoms in China should have received more attention from our rapporteur.
<P>
Implementing a policy of compulsory registration for all places of worship in 1991 gave rise to the biggest wave of anti-religious repression that has taken place since the cultural revolution.
<P>
This new policy gives the Chinese authorities the means to completely control religious activity on spiritual and material levels.
The Chinese Government has, for example, decided to control the content of the articles of faith of the various Christian religions, and is itself selecting which it deems acceptable and which are banned.
The civilian authorities thereby label religious truths such as the Last Judgement, the communion of saints, genesis and the sanctity of life as forbidden truths.
<P>
Faced with such pressure, many Chinese believers are joining 'underground churches' and one of these is the illegal Catholic church.
Followers of these churches are then subject to police harassment, confiscation of their possessions, imprisonment and torture.
Members of the clergy are victims of particularly insidious torture.
Such totalitarian practices do not spring from a bygone era but affect the daily lives of Chinese people today, and we must not disregard this.
<P>
The European Parliament is usually more exacting on human rights issues.
Why are we being so lenient with communist China?
<P>
Azzolini report (A4-0412/98)
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Bernardini">
The communication from the Commission, on which our colleague's report is based, reflects the political priority of applying competition rules to the Structural Funds policy.
<P>
The Commission is striving to ensure that the state aid map and the Structural Funds map are entirely consistent.
We support the idea of a discussion in this field, taking into consideration the specific nature of certain regions that makes them eligible for Community funds.
<P>
In effect, we are forced to acknowledge that state aids are exceptions to free competition for a very specific reason, namely that of maintaining economic and social cohesion.
<P>
The Member States, in partnership with local authorities, must have a certain degree of flexibility.
This will vary according to the development problems in certain regions, and I am specifically thinking of Objective 1 and 2 regions.
It would not be a good thing to blindly apply competition rules and risk endangering the efficiency of Community and national interventions.
<P>
I believe that the report by our Committee on Regional Policy is heading in the right direction, with finishing touches added by amendments the PSE Group submitted to this House.
What is more, this request for flexibility was noted at the last General Affairs Council meeting. It will cooperate with Member States, local authorities and the Commission in order to determine the economic and social criteria specific to each region that allow them to be classed as exceptions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Darras">
The European Commission's initiative is clearly laudable and necessary, seeking as it does to establish better concentration and increased coherence of national regional aid and European regional aid, all of which leads to strengthened efficiency.
<P>
The aim is to identify the regions most affected and to make European structural aid coincide with national regional aid. The Commission therefore thinks it is being pragmatic.
But, more to the point, perhaps it is being too pragmatic!
<P>
In effect, until now, Objective 1 regions were determined by the Council, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission, such as NUTS regions where GDP per capita is less than 75 % of the Community's mean.
Objective 2 and 5b regions were determined by the Commission using Community and national socioeconomic criteria as a basis and in cooperation with the Member States.
In addition, the Commission has exclusive competence in matters of state aid.
<P>
In this new proposal, the Commission suggests also including the Objective 2 map in state aid maps under Article 92(3)(c).
This amounts to saying that the Commission will include under the new Objective 2 all the regions that the Member States undertake to include in the list of assisted regions, which they must notify the Commission of under Article 92(3)(c).
The proposal also suggests that Objective 1 regions be determined on the basis of strict respect of the 75 % criterion for GDP per capita, so that they fully correspond to regions that will be exempt under Article 92(3)(a) and can therefore be assisted at national level. And all this must be defined by 31 March 1999 at the latest.
<P>
We believe that this is a little too rigid to be accepted in this form by governments, by our group and by this House, even more so as all states are calling for some flexibility in choosing their aid policies and in defining their territorial competences.
I believe that making zoning systems consistent must continue to be a political objective for the Member States, without forcing them to obtain results.
It is for this reason that the PSE Group has tabled several amendments, in particular a new paragraph after recital Q and a new Amendment No 6 calling for greater flexibility. These are amendments that I hope will be adopted by this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Deprez">
The great merit of the Commission's communication and of the report we are considering today lies in the fact that they once again highlight, in an almost paradigmatic manner, the contradictions inherent in European integration. These contradictions set European policies at odds with one another and the report highlights the paradoxical effects of these very same policies.
<P>
There is, in fact, a major need to review and rationalise economic and social cohesion policy, that has been implemented pragmatically and sometimes erratically over the past twenty years to respond to successive enlargements and the different crises that have weakened the economic and social fabric of the Member States. This must be done in order to face up to fresh challenges and to better meet the objectives of this policy.
<P>
In this vein, I should like to offer my support for the options endorsed by our rapporteur.
Therefore, in this speech, I will concentrate on two of the new measures proposed in the context of reforming the social cohesion policy.
<P>
Although this reform was designed to reduce disparities between the levels of development of European regions, it has in fact increased the disparities between the richest and the poorest regions.
<P>
Reducing the share of aid cofinanced by the European Union would worsen this situation, as such a decision would effectively force Member States to make a larger financial commitment. This would, by necessity, increase the burden for the poorest Member States.
<P>
There is clearly a contradiction between the stated aims of social cohesion policy and the foreseeable outcome of measures taken to attain these aims.
<P>
Finally, I also believe that the time-limit for 'phasing-out' aid given to regions that previously had Objective 1 status seems too draconian for still fragile economies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Lindqvist">
There is no good reason why state aid should be dependent on EU regional aid.
Such a serious infringement of national freedom of action is unacceptable.
I therefore support the committee's proposal that Objective 6 funding should be exempted from this linkage.
According to Agenda 2000, Objective 6 funding which was agreed during membership negotiations would eventually be included under Objective 1.
This is acceptable provided that the former Objective 6 support criteria are transferred, unchanged, to Objective 1 and that the funding for Objective 6 regions remains the same.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Rovsing">
In its communication, the Commission has presented some proposals for greater consistency between regional policy and competition policy in the EU.
This is an immensely interesting and important initiative.
Under the current rules for support to poor regions and those lagging behind, there is a high risk of distortion of competition.
There have unfortunately been examples of this.
It is therefore crucial that the regional classification which will apply in future in respect of the scope for Member States to allocate regional aid should be defined in such a way as to minimise the risk of adverse consequences for free competition.
I therefore fully support the analysis presented in the committee's report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Schiedermeier">
There is no doubt that, despite all the efforts made, disparities of development between the regions of the EU still remain wide.
<P>
On the other hand, a strict application of the principle of concentration - which we must strive for if cohesion policy instruments are to be deployed effectively - must not overlook the fact that, in the context of subsidiarity, national support measures must continue to be permitted outside these regions.
<P>
The so-called rich countries must be given the possibility of introducing appropriate support measures in good time, especially in structurally weak regions bordering third countries.
<P>
I am voting in favour of this report because my Amendment No 1 opens up this possibility.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Souchet">
Mr Azzolini's report on regional policy and competition policy addresses the question of national regional aid.
<P>
It is particularly concerned about the provisions of the new guidelines which limit the permitted intensity of national aid.
For Objective 1 regions it is reduced to 40 or 50 % depending on the poverty of the region concerned, and for Objective 2 regions it is limited to 10 or 20 %. The report asks whether such a restriction could be paving the way for the gradual disappearance of national regional aid and, in time, for the pure and simple banning of such aid.
<P>
The report from the Committee on Regional Policy once again comes out in favour of changing regional planning policy in the Community.
We could not support making this policy more systematic even though, in certain fields, we believe harmonisation or close cooperation is vital, such as in trans-European transport networks or ecologically sensitive areas, for example.
Yet Member States must maintain their freedom to use state aid, if they deem it necessary, to maintain the balance in their territory and to correct distortions induced, in certain cases, by some Community policies, such as the policy on free trade, the effect of which has not yet been evaluated.
<P>
In this respect, I should like to point out that recital C of the report is the result of an amendment by our group that was adopted in committee. It points out that competition policy is essential to the competitiveness of the economy of the European Union, on condition, however, that this competition is conducted fairly, particularly on the part of certain of the EU's trading partners, and does not have the effect of sacrificing our social and environmental standards.
<P>
This text shows that the Commission's recent decision to prevent France from awarding aid to its textiles industry, which had undergone a particularly severe relocation process, was unacceptable.
This case is an excellent example of blindly applying competition as a dogma, regardless of social or regional planning considerations. This is a concept that our group is resolutely opposed to.
<P>
Read report (A4-0386/98)
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Caudron">
I should first like to thank Mrs Read for the reliability and clarity of her work, which has allowed us to hold such a useful debate.
<P>
As well as this introductory praise of the content, I should also like to offer my full support for the recommendations made by our colleague.
This constant wish to guarantee equitable access for all and, first and foremost, for the most vulnerable users among us, fits in with what should be a universal service.
<P>
Following Mrs Read's example, I believe that the Member States of the Union should consider implementing, by means of certain terms and conditions, a tariff scale adapted to low-income users.
If some people believe that such a measure is unfair, then what do they think of the majority of consumers subsidising the long-distance calls of a minority?
As a result, people who are poor or unemployed can only have low level usage paid for at full price.
We must not forget that the telephone is also a useful job-seeking tool.
<P>
Similarly, the fact that the Internet is becoming more common calls for the implementation of adapted tariffs, both for individual users and for educational establishments.
I have already said this but I should like to reiterate that the Web must not become the property of a well-off minority!
<P>
On the other hand, I should like to draw my conservative colleagues' attention to the amendments they wish to introduce.
I believe that, in the long term, these amendments jeopardise equality of access to this means of communication.
These proposals are dangerous, both for the telecommunications sector and for the future of the universal service on a more general level.
<P>
I am at last daring to hope that the right wing will be brave enough to declare their intentions in the coming months, in this field and in others.
A politician's first duty is to defend his ideas.
So, if you believe that liberalising services should mean unequal access, please be honest enough to say so to our fellow citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Deprez">
The guarantee that everyone should be able to have access to essential services at affordable prices and to a satisfactory quality standard is a sine qua non for the socially successful and sustainable liberalisation of what used to be called public services.
This is why there is such major importance attached to this monitoring report on universal service in telecommunications, which we are examining today.
<P>
We cannot fail to notice that this first report describes a situation that is far from satisfactory. It shows that the free play of market forces and competition cannot of itself ensure that everyone is properly included in the information society and in communication technology.
<P>
Of course, this first report points out a number of problems that must be rectified as quickly as possible.
I would pinpoint in particular the fact that operators are under no obligation to use a uniform tariff for the same service throughout their territory. This is a serious threat to a true universal service.
<P>
The fact that some Member States show an overall upwards trend in tariffs is equally worrying, especially as it affects in particular residential users, especially those on low incomes.
<P>
Like our rapporteur, I firmly believe that we must pay particularly urgent attention to the case of infrequent users, and especially of disabled people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Rovsing">
One effect of the liberalisation of the telecommunications sector in the EU is that the Member States are obliged to ensure provision of a minimum set of telecommunications services by all operators, and that there is intervention if these requirements are not met.
The Commission has noted that steps have been taken to secure this minimum access to telecommunications services for consumers, but the collection of data has not been entirely adequate in all cases.
It is therefore right for the report to stress the importance of remedying these shortcomings, and of ensuring that the relevant information on the compliance of telecommunications services with the minimum requirements is available.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Wolf">
Mrs Read's report has shown that a mixed assessment of the progress made on universal service provision is in order.
Overall, progress is rather unsatisfactory.
That is why renewed efforts need to be made.
We Greens support this conclusion in Mrs Read's report.
<P>
In addition, however, it is necessary to consider whether in fact more instruments are needed - such as specifications, different levels of state supervision and so on - to increase the public interest element, to safeguard the quality of the services and to take account of the social and societal impact of new services.
Some instruments of this kind are already provided for under media law and can be used as models.
<P>
Tappin report (A4-0394/98)
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Andersson, Löow, Sandberg-Fries and Theorin">
We should like to thank the rapporteur for an excellent report.
In our explanation of vote, we wish to stress the importance of applying social criteria and objectives, a possibility that features most prominently in paragraphs 10 and 11 of the committee's draft report and in Amendments Nos 5 and 6 by the rapporteur and Mrs Van Lancker.
In our view, it is essential that in achieving greater openness in public procurement, in the interests of employment and increased competition, there should be an equal balance between social and environmental objectives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Rübig">
As regards the increases in thresholds proposed in the report, past experience shows that the lower the thresholds are set, the more firms participate in public calls for tender.
However, a correspondingly larger number of businesses then fail to receive a slice of the cake. This also results in an overall increase in what might be termed futile expenditure.
<P>
However, since I personally am against raising thresholds on principle, I have abstained on the paragraphs in question.
<P>
T. Mann report (A4-0475/98)
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Bernardini">
As the next millennium approaches, we cannot tolerate the fact that, in the European Union, more than 28 million people are unemployed.
It is our responsibility to combat this plague, and the paths outlined in the report submitted to us are along the right lines.
<P>
Since the Luxembourg summit, guidelines established in each Member State have already helped us to fully gauge the Member States' commitment to this fight.
But the fight must also take place at the level of the European institutions.
<P>
In order to achieve this, we could firstly devote our energies to potential job-creating sectors, for example the tourism sector; it is a shame that the Philoxenia programme was blocked within the Council of Ministers.
This remains an impressive framework for action and there are many operators and actors waiting for it to enter into force.
We must also consider jobs in local services or care services.
It is often difficult for local authorities to take over job creation measures that were set in motion by associations.
<P>
On the other hand, there is also the possibility of beginning discussions on a new organisation of work.
We can see that several Member States are currently working towards bringing in a reduction of working time, and this has been negotiated with various partners.
This solution must not become entrenched in a national-level mentality.
A joint contribution at European level must be considered.
<P>
Our rapporteur makes some excellent recommendations, presented as an inventory.
We must not fall short of our citizens' expectations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Caudron">
For many months I have been asking that we open a debate on the social consequences of technological developments.
As a result, I welcome the report by our colleague, Mr Mann, which responds to one of the main themes of this debate.
<P>
In fact, it is important that this House promotes the emergence of these new jobs that appear to have great potential.
I should also like to point out that I support most of the concerns and proposals outlined by the rapporteur.
<P>
However, I will express certain reservations and make a few comments on different points that do not in any way detract from the author's initial aim.
<P>
Although I agree with Mr Mann that society must invest financially to generally adapt training to such new sources of employment, I would like to make two comments.
<P>
Firstly, I believe that we must invest a considerable amount, particularly as regards jobs with high added value.
We have an obligation to do so, in view of the means needed to obtain quality training.
Furthermore, I admit I was pleasantly surprised to note that our conservative colleagues are becoming aware that private initiative cannot cater for some of society's needs.
<P>
I am also delighted by the willingness to legislate on life-long training by including it in the law on entitlement to annual training leave.
This request for legislation is an important step forward in terms of recognising this right, a right that must allow all employees to develop their careers and enjoy increased employability.
<P>
Finally, I cannot finish without mentioning some of the threats posed to workers' rights that, to my mind, must not adapt to new technologies but should instead aim to guarantee an acceptable quality of life for all.
I believe that our fellow citizens will not indefinitely accept a deterioration in their quality of life, a quality of life that is very much threatened by a minority among us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Darras">
How can we not vote in favour of this report that endorses a whole range of common sense measures. The report begins with observations on the current state of affairs: an unemployment rate approaching 11 % in the European Union, of which 22 % are young people, and a precarious work situation for women.
<P>
These are therefore common sense measures as they place the emphasis on SMEs, which offer the greatest job creation potential but, in the context of increasing globalisation, must have favourable conditions in order to develop.
The Commission has already established a number of actions to help them.
We must increase the number of SMEs and encourage them.
They are common sense measures as they emphasise the sectors of the future: tourism, culture, new technologies, research and media. There are so many fields that could breathe new life into our local authorities and our regions if we properly prepare access and training for future occupations.
They are common sense measures as they call on Member States to implement the employment guidelines drawn up in Luxembourg in 1997.
<P>
They are also common sense measures because they call for a system of further training that adapts to the constant development of new information and communication technologies.
They call for a system that is capable of accompanying the worker throughout his career in such a way that he can develop as technology develops.
<P>
Again, these are common sense measures because they do not want to exclude groups of people, nor do they wish to further isolate regions that are already classified as less-favoured regions.
This is why there are calls for transport and telecommunications infrastructures to be developed to provide access to world markets, so that regions and their populations are not cut off from the labour market of the future.
<P>
Finally, they are common sense measures because they call for the principles laid down in the Amsterdam Treaty to be recognised, in particular that of equal treatment of men and women.
Some of our French senators could certainly learn from this!
<P>
In conclusion, this resolution, which analyses our society, the changes it is experiencing and its future prospects, is not a revolutionary one; however, if it were truly to be taken into account, it would mean the beginning of a better world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="Deprez">
No one here will deny that job creation is one of the few fundamental problems that public opinion will use to judge the overall positive or negative effect of European integration on the everyday lives of our citizens.
<P>
We can therefore be pleased once again that the Amsterdam Treaty has fully gauged the scale of this challenge and has devoted a chapter to employment.
Nonetheless, such awareness must result in tangible positive effects for our fellow citizens, especially for young people and women, as they are the most vulnerable groups.
<P>
I wholeheartedly support the analyses and recommendations outlined by our rapporteur, and therefore it is without any hesitation that I will vote in favour of this report.
<P>
Nevertheless, I should particularly like to stress the fact that if we reorganise work according to opportunities provided by the development of multimedia, it will allow us to make substantial ecological gains for society as a whole. It will also result in improved quality of life for many workers who will no longer be forced to make arduous daily journeys.
<P>
Reorganising work in this way would ease congestion in access routes to major towns and would also allow us to eventually free up considerable human and financial resources that could then be used to concentrate on developing communications infrastructures in less-favoured regions and in job-creating sectors of activity.
<P>
I also wish to emphasise that measures that use very little of the budget and are, on the whole, relatively easy to implement would also let us create jobs rapidly.
For example, I should like to discuss rationalising and streamlining any form of red tape that places a burden on small and medium-sized enterprises. Or we could even give such enterprises access to a powerful network for market research and for passing on the information gleaned from these markets.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Palm and Theorin">
Fundamentally, this is a very good report.
It concentrates on combating unemployment and ensuring that everyone has a job.
No one is left out; there are clear references to women, for example.
The report contains many excellent ideas about the labour market in the future.
It is heartening that the European Union recognises the problems and is willing to focus on them.
Sadly, what is otherwise an excellent report is spoiled by two unfortunate items.
<P>
Firstly, taxation is a matter for individual states.
The European Parliament should therefore not 'recommend' that tax 'burdens' should be reduced, as is the case in paragraph 41.
<P>
Even more shocking is the ignorance displayed in paragraph 23.
What the rapporteur refers to as the 'tax burden on labour' is in fact employees' own money.
The money which employers hand over to the state to be administered, in the form of payroll tax, is money which we have chosen to set aside, instead of taking a higher salary, to pay for sickness benefit, pensions and protection against unemployment.
<P>
Payroll taxes represent an increase in employees' salaries which they have chosen to forgo to pay for state welfare.
Moreover, a system in which this task is undertaken jointly is the most effective and equitable kind.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Sornosa Martínez">
This report is both timely and extremely significant since employment is one of the main concerns of the citizens of Europe.
Consideration of the future will enable us to undertake sound preparatory work now, as we strive to do away with unemployment. This latter is currently at an unacceptably high level and is threatening the cohesion of our societies.
<P>
The main aim is to combat unemployment through the creation of sufficient quality employment, taking into account the new needs of a society that has changed and that will undergo further changes in the future.
<P>
Information technology, communications, demography, sustainability, leisure - with the consequent growth of tourism - and, above all, the accession of women to the workplace, with more equal opportunities, all combine to create new needs for this new society. As I stated in my opinion, these needs call for an innovative, balanced and realistic political response.
Such a response must bear in mind the great opportunities for job creation and respond to the new demands, whilst preventing new forms of discrimination against women at work as well as further uncertainty and deregulation. We should certainly welcome and support new job creation initiatives and the extension of social welfare and workers' rights aimed at guaranteeing social cohesion and full employment for both men and women.
<P>
Fitzsimons recommendation (A4-0052/99)
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="Hyland">
The full cooperation of Member States is needed if the European Union is to play its full part in reducing the level of greenhouse emissions.
<P>
We owe it to future generations to take seriously the long-term implications of the uncontrolled emissions of CO2 and its impact on the environment.
Failure on the part of some Member State governments to cooperate fully in updating and reporting 'new data' is unnecessary and only has the effect of undermining attempts to implement effective control programmes as envisaged in the Kyoto protocol.
<P>
Unless we have proper measurements then it is impossible to monitor the effectiveness of control programmes or the full extent of the threat from global warming to 'future generations'.
Ignoring now what is accepted as a real threat will only make the final solution more difficult to achieve.
<P>
I welcome the fact that the Environment Ministers have agreed to reduce the EU emissions of six greenhouse gases by 8 per cent between the years 2008-2012.
The figures agreed will permit Ireland to increase emissions only by 13 per cent relative to 1990 figures.
<P>
The European Parliament has worked hard in implementing legislation which reduces the use of CO2 gases.
For example, the EU's new directive on regulating pollutants obliges oil companies to sign up to ensuring that the sulphur content in petrol is cut by a threefold reduction and that the sulphur content in diesel is cut by a seven-fold reduction by the year 2005.
<P>
If the overall social, human and environmental benefits of clean air are to be secured then the standards laid down by the EU's recent directive on vehicle emissions and fuel quality must be strictly adhered to.
<P>
There must be maximum cooperation between the EU Member State governments and all interested bodies so that a reduction in the use of CO2 becomes a reality in the very near future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Souchet">
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations voted in favour of all the amendments improving the Council's proposal for a monitoring mechanism for CO2 emissions.
<P>
In effect, the monitoring mechanism must form one of the essential parts of the Union's general strategy on stabilising CO2 emissions at their 1990 level.
This stabilisation will help to improve energy efficiency, whilst also allowing us to honour the commitments we made under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
However, CO2 monitoring alone is not enough.
We need to monitor and stabilise methane (CH4 ) emissions, nitrous oxide (N2 O) emissions, gases that directly affect air quality, and gas emissions that have negative effects on the ozone layer, such as perfluorocarbons (PFCs), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and sulphur hexafluoride (SF6 ).
<P>
Expanding our monitoring to include gases not initially provided for will allow us to carry out a more reliable analysis of all elements that harm our atmosphere.
I should also like to remind the House that although the European Union has made visible efforts to maintain air quality, similar efforts must be made by all developed countries.
Our efforts would be in vain if other countries did not bring their greenhouse gas emissions under control.
This is why the action taken by Member States to extend the debate to world level is so important.
<P>
Hautala recommendation (A4-0002/99)
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Lindqvist">
Acidification is a very serious problem in Scandinavia.
It is not just we who create the problem - the United Kingdom and continental and Eastern Europe also contribute to it.
The Commission's proposal to place a ceiling on the sulphur content of heavy fuel oils and gas oils is a step in the right direction.
Allowing for exemptions and permitting Member States to impose tougher standards also bodes well for the future.
<P>
However, the proposal lacks muscle.
The committee's requirement that the objective should be the elimination of sulphur as a pollutant is, on the whole, a definite improvement.
The Council has accepted Parliament's demand that the directive should also include bunker oil and marine gas oil.
At second reading, the committee has specified that implementation should be speeded up by bringing forward the deadline for fuel oils.
I support the committee's proposal that the lower limit value for gas oils should come into force as from the year 2004, instead of 2008.
<P>
Virgin recommendation (A4-0001/99)
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Blak and Kirsten Jensen">
One day waste is of no value, but suddenly the next day it is very valuable.
That transformation was particularly noticeable in the past, when waste from the EU was exported to third countries.
These countries may possibly have been able to extract a small amount of the metals contained in the waste, but it was not a very good proposition for the environment.
There were also examples of third countries simply not being able to use the waste they accepted; they were simply paid for acting as the receiving country, in other words we used these third countries as dumping grounds because they were cheap alternatives to compliance with European environmental standards.
<P>
The new rules have given rise to much confusion and concern among humanitarian organisations which make collections for people in need.
Let us make it clear that the collection of clothing for people in third countries who need it can continue.
However, the new factor is that recipient countries must actively inform the Commission that they wish to receive the waste.
That is the only way in which we in the EU can be sure that the recipient countries have actually decided that they want the waste we ship in across their borders.
It is a guarantee that the countries can handle it in a proper way, according to their own rules.
We must keep all unusable waste at home and treat it under our own rules in environmentally sound waste disposal facilities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Caudron">
The report by our colleague Mr Virgin attempts to provide a satisfactory response to shipments of certain types of waste to non-OECD countries.
<P>
On the whole, I share the rapporteur's views, particularly as regards abandoning the idea of a new list of forms of waste that cannot be exported.
<P>
Like Mr Virgin, I believe that we need to reconsider the definition of waste.
In this respect, it is vital that the Commission is able to take swift action in this field.
<P>
I also share the fears of non-profit organisations as regards exporting certain forms of waste and, more specifically, exporting secondhand clothes.
<P>
These organisations' activities help our most vulnerable fellow citizens to truly become part of society, as well as trying to 'offer' the affected populations in these countries a better life.
Challenging the export of these clothes would have serious consequences for the viability of such organisations.
<P>
Jackson recommendation (A4-0028/99)
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="Caudron">
It is with satisfaction that I welcome the report by our colleague Mrs Jackson.
However, I cannot help thinking that this text has taken far too long to come into being.
<P>
My disgruntled mood is not caused by the author of this report but rather by the Commission which, I believe, has behaved very casually towards such an important aspect of environmental policy.
<P>
Faced with the increase in waste from urban areas there is, as the rapporteur underlined, a need to take steps to reduce the volume of landfill.
In view of this, it would be most pleasing if the Commission were to take strong initiatives to promote alternatives such as composts and biogas from biodegradable waste.
<P>
However, I support the proposal to introduce a tax on waste going to landfill.
How can we actually think that we have an infinite amount of space available for use as landfill sites?
Health considerations are also part of the equation as no one can deny that this type of landfill is potentially dangerous, not only for the environment but also for human beings.
<P>
Finally, I certainly support the hierarchy in waste treatment introduced by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
However, once this hierarchy has been established, the Commission must take it into account when drawing up Community programmes related to such issues.
<P>
We must show how determined we are to progress in this field as we cannot accept that future generations be left to suffer the consequences of our current inactivity!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="Jensen, Lis">
As at the first reading of the Jackson report, I have decided to support the report because its basic views are reasonable and well thought out.
However, I would continue to point out that the greatest threat to the ability of Member States to set up national waste disposal systems which go further than the rules that can be adopted at EU level remains the EU's internal market.
As long as waste in the EU's terminology continues to be treated as merchandise, there will be an incentive for large producers of waste in EU countries with strict rules on waste management to ship their waste to facilities in other Member States which only comply with the EU's minimum rules.
<P>
If it is not made possible, not just in principle but also in practice, to put a stop to this waste tourism across the EU's internal frontiers, the environment will continue to suffer.
At the same time, we should not forget the economic damage to waste disposal facilities located in environmentally progressive EU countries.
Their facilities will lose quantities of waste, perhaps to a neighbouring country with its cheaper solutions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="Nicholson">
I am pleased to support Mrs Jackson's report.
Landfill of waste should, as the rapporteur says, be an option of last resort.
Landfill is necessary in some cases.
We must accept that.
The problem is that in many EU Member States it has become the easy option with dire consequences for the environment.
Stricter controls are necessary.
People in residential areas should not have to put up with unsightly and potentially dangerous sites in their neighbourhoods.
At the same time we should have a much better programme in every state to encourage people to dispose of waste with more regard to the environment.
I know that in some countries there are already schemes for the separation of household waste to provide for better recycling.
I trust that this will eventually become the norm in every Member State.
<P>
It is the responsibility of Member States to improve waste disposal, using alternatives to landfill, without penalising the taxpaying public.
The landfill tax in my country is a prime example of how an ill-conceived idea that does not address the real problem can lead to taxpayers being out of pocket.
Without a strategy from central government to rethink waste disposal, the landfill tax simply means that local authorities find themselves with no alternative but to pass the cost on to ratepayers.
How this contributes to reducing dependence on landfill is anyone's guess.
<P>
I trust that in the future we will have a much better approach to waste disposal in the EU.
It is essential that landfill becomes, as far as possible, a thing of the past.
To achieve this compliance with the legislation is essential.
Member States must embrace this legislation if it is to have any effect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="McKenna">
The EU Council's common position on a proposed landfill directive aims to prevent or reduce environmental damage and health risks caused by landfill. But unfortunately it is lacking in a number of key areas.
<P>
This directive will have major implications for waste disposal throughout the EU and especially in Ireland where waste management has tended to focus exclusively on landfill.
Despite the fact that landfill is considered the least-favoured option for waste disposal in Europe, Ireland comes top of the EU list for using landfill to dispose of its huge waste mountains.
<P>
This is the second attempt at an EU landfill directive.
The Commission first submitted a proposal in 1991, which was withdrawn after Parliament, under pressure from environmental groups, rejected the Council's common position in 1996.
<P>
Although in some respects the proposal is much better than what was presented in 1996, I am concerned that a number of aspects of the legislation are very weak and could result in governments finding ways to opt out of their commitments on waste management and public health protection.
<P>
One major problem is the possibility that landfill sites which have closed at the time of transposition of this directive will be excluded from the remit of the legislation.
Authorities are already planning to close down a significant number of currently active landfill sites in Ireland over the next two years.
Some of these are extremely problematic sites.
Since aftercare is an important part of the directive, it is essential that these sites due to be closed come under the directive.
<P>
I am extremely disappointed with the attitude of the European Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection for not insisting that a minimum distance from the site boundary to residential areas be established.
<P>
The EU Commission had originally proposed stipulating a minimum distance of 0.5 km from the site boundary to residential areas but the Council of Ministers deleted this from the text of the draft directive.
<P>
The issue of distance is extremely important to community groups throughout the EU. Especially since research (published in The Lancet , August 1998) has shown that infant mortality and birth defects increase by as much as 33 % in host communities within a 3 km distance of landfill dumps.
<P>
This failure to set a minimum distance and thus protect local communities from the dangers of landfill goes against the precautionary approach and the protection of public health.
<P>
The Green Group tabled an amendment on the issue and will be requesting a registered vote so that local communities at home can see how serious MEPs are about protecting public health.
We find it incredible that so many MEPs would reject measures to ensure that public health is protected.
<P>
It is also worth pointing out that in the original proposal from the Commission a minimum distance from residential areas was included and was later removed by the Council.
The Commission should have stuck to its original position and the Socialists should not have done a U-turn on this issue either.
They have failed miserably in their responsibility to protect public health.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="Souchet">
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations is in favour of Community harmonisation of measures on the landfill of waste.
Indeed, if one of the Member States had lax legislation, we could easily find ourselves faced with the problem of waste being relocated.
Member States with stricter legislation would obviously transfer their waste to the less strict Member States.
<P>
However, our group points out that the Member States must retain sovereignty as regards setting a tax or fee.
This is why we voted against the amendments providing for a European tax on the landfill of waste.
<P>
On a technical note, we voted against the amendment replacing the term 'inert waste' with the term 'non-hazardous waste'.
I know from experience that in the European Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, the majority of Members prefer the term 'non-hazardous waste'.
At what stage can we decide that waste is non-hazardous?
Initially, some people may wish to use a sufficiently vague definition and then later draw up increasingly strict standards, or even unrealistic ones. This would have severe financial repercussions both for economic operators and for local and regional authorities.
<P>
Finally, our group voted against the amendment seeking to shorten the time-scale for applying the directive.
It is important to allow enough time for local authorities and waste sector operators to conform to the directive.
I should like to point out that any standard and any decision will only be accepted if it is realistic and fair.
<P>
To conclude, our group did, of course, vote in favour of the recommendation at second reading and in favour of the majority of amendments promoting biodegradable waste, which is the most environmentally friendly form of waste.
<P>
Cox report (A4-0015/99)
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="Tappin">
Mr President, we are now in a very difficult position on this report.
The whole report has been referred back.
I hope this Parliament will now look at the implications for taxation on those products which are manufactured using energy.
In particular in the ceramics sector we have a policy in the European Union of encouraging employment, and having a resolution which will tax one sector unilaterally is going to be very difficult.
We now have a second bite at the cherry.
I reserve my right to come back on this when it goes back to committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="Andersson, Lööw, Palm, Sandberg-Fries and Theorin">
The Swedish Social Democrats are of the opinion that a tax trade-off whose aim is to improve the environment and create jobs should be based on a high minimum level of taxation.
Consequently, we have decided to vote for the highest possible minimum level of taxation on electricity and fuel.
On the question of whether to exempt energy-intensive industries, in our view the Commission's proposal has advantages and disadvantages.
There is a danger that imposing very high taxes on energy-intensive industries will mean that their competitiveness in relation to their counterparts outside the Union will be impaired.
At the same time, it should be borne in mind that energy-intensive industries represent a major source of tax revenue if we are to meet the environmental objectives by means of a tax trade-off.
<P>
Furthermore, it should be noted that exemptions for energy-intensive industries could put the enterprises against whom they are competing, but which do not use energy-intensive methods to produce their products or materials, at a competitive disadvantage.
In adopting a position on the taxation of energy-intensive industries, we have decided to strike a balance between these approaches.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="Blak and Kirsten Jensen">
The Danish Social Democrats have voted in favour of a revision of the minimum rates of duty in the EU for the taxation of mineral oils.
The Commission's original proposal had a long series of complicated grounds for exemption, but the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has proposed a better solution.
Its effect will be that firms which can show that they will suffer a competitive loss as a result of the duties may be exempted from paying them.
This proposal builds on the EU's active employment policy in providing a reasonable stimulus for a change in tax systems so that the taxation of labour is reduced, while at the same time taxes on the use of natural resources are increased.
This is a green policy with an employment objective.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="Blokland">
We strongly supported the Cox report, which adopts a courageous and original stance on a subject full of pitfalls.
The Commission proposal tried to steer a course through them all, but the complex result remained stranded on the sandbank of the status quo.
The European Union cannot afford to let this happen.
It must respect the undertakings given in the UN Framework Treaty on Climate Change.
<P>
The rapporteur is right in starting from the assumption that the polluter must pay.
It is not a question of saddling taxpayers with extra taxes, but of making the polluter face up to the consequences of his behaviour.
Our ultimate goal is to reduce harmful emissions and improve public health and the environment.
Member States must therefore make a serious start on reducing secondary labour costs.
<P>
In this respect, the Member States must be given maximum scope on the exemption options, so that one Member State can pursue a stricter than average environmental policy on the one hand, and its own exemption policy on the other.
Of course this policy must not negate the objectives of the Community legislation.
<P>
We voted against Amendments Nos 37 and 38, as they are inconsistent with the rapporteur's proposals.
Above all, people have to realise that transport prices in general are too low in relation to the external effects which transport causes.
We supported Amendment No 29.
The international exemption for aircraft kerosene must be abolished as quickly as possible.
Until an agreement on this seems to be within reach, an EU regulation on a fly-over tax would seem to be a good temporary solution.
<P>
Finally, we believe that this regulation will be more readily accepted if we fix the minimum rates for a period of five years.
Companies will then know a long time in advance what they are going to be faced with.
The indexing of minimum rates introduced by Mr Cox is a good way of making the regulation simple and reliable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="Deprez">
I fully agree with our rapporteur that a good tax is one that is simple to understand, easy to collect and difficult to evade.
The proposal for a Council directive, as amended, largely meets these criteria.
I also support the line taken by our rapporteur in advocating a strict application of the 'polluter pays' principle.
<P>
It is also important that any increase in tax measures in order to better protect the environment is accompanied by an equivalent reduction in the tax burden on labour.
Through the principle of tax neutrality, better respect for the environment will make a positive contribution to the fight against unemployment and to job creation, which is something that we all need.
And it will do this without jeopardising the financing of social security, the pride and joy of the European development model.
<P>
Unfortunately, in the final analysis, it would seem that our rapporteur only partially takes into consideration the different environmental aspects of the issue.
This explains why he supports, for example, preferential tax treatment for more environmentally friendly modes of transport, and quite rightly so, yet does not distinguish between whether or not the energy used has harmful effects on the climate.
<P>
The implication behind the proposals is that 'the common minimum rate will apply equally to electricity and heat generated by solar, wind or combined heat and power and to that generated by coal'.
One may think, as the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection does, that there is a gap that must be filled as rapidly as possible if the Union and its Member States are to honour their international commitments concerning climate preservation.
<P>
To my mind, we should seek to develop this proposal a little further along these lines.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="Jensen, Lis">
I cannot support the Cox report, though not because I do not share its views on the need to tax the use of energy and fuels, especially those which are non-renewable.
The reason why I am withholding my support is that I do not wish to contribute to any decision whereby policy on taxes and duties is determined to an ever-increasing extent by the EU.
There may be many good reasons why countries should negotiate common minimum rules for the taxation of areas such as energy consumption - concern for the environment, as well as concern for fair competition between countries - in various international forums such as the UN, the Council of Europe, the OECD, the WTO and so on.
<P>
For me, the Cox report and the proposal for a directive on which it is based are a glaring example of the creeping harmonisation of Member States' tax and duty policies which is currently taking place in the EU: harmonisation which is motivated first and foremost by concern for the internal market, but to an ever-increasing extent by concern for EMU and the single currency, the euro; harmonisation which is logical and correct, if one is an advocate of the EMU and the euro.
I am not an advocate of either the euro and EMU or the internal market, and for that reason I shall not be supporting the Cox report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="Lindqvist">
The Commission's proposal represents the first step towards a tax trade-off from labour to energy through the introduction of minimum levels of taxation.
However, the Commission's proposal contains far too many exemptions for energy-intensive industries, in other words those which should by rights be taxed.
As a result, the legislation is complex, hard to understand and difficult to apply.
<P>
The committee's proposal broadens the tax base by removing some of the exemptions.
The committee also proposes that the Member States should be entitled to allow firms a tax-free period if they can demonstrate that it really puts them at a competitive disadvantage.
General exemptions should only be granted on renewable sources of energy such as bioenergy and solar and wind power.
<P>
The committee proposes that tax rates should automatically be reassessed in line with inflation, with an extra 2 % increase every year, to enable industry to plan ahead.
This is a good way to proceed.
However, I have voted to raise the level to 4 % in order to facilitate compliance with the Rio, Kyoto and Buenos Aires declarations on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="Souchet">
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, with the majority of the House, rejected the Cox report.
<P>
Firstly, it was rejected because it is the Member States' responsibility, and theirs alone, to define taxation on the energy products they deem appropriate to their needs and specific requirements, particularly as regards energy independence.
<P>
In addition, our group voted against the proposal for a directive as presented by the Commission as it was both too complex and too unjust.
Our group also voted against the proposals by Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy as the proposals appeared both to excessively penalise some sectors of activity and to be fully inconsistent with the commitments we made within the framework of the WTO.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="President">
That concludes voting time.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 1.15 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Mutual recognition of telecommunications equipment
<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0055/99) by Mrs Read, on behalf of Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council Directive on connected telecommunications equipment and the mutual recognition of the conformity of the equipment (3635/98 - C4-0024/99-97/0149(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="Read">
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, Commissioner, in my opinion Mrs Read has achieved excellent results.
I did not realise that she was such a fine diplomat when it comes to politics and the telecommunications and radio sector.
She has succeeded in combining the many very diverse elements of this issue, and, on behalf of my group, I wish to say I am happy that we have achieved consensus.
<P>
Certain factors which Parliament feels are important have now been taken into consideration, such as, for example, adapting equipment for use by the disabled, something that has to be included in all technical matters.
Standards have been raised, and the question of the radio ham has also been given attention.
The question of the responsibility of the manufacturer and that of the distributor has also been raised.
That is important because when this procedure is applied more widely it will be as if the burden of responsibility were much further removed, and thus Parliament is absolutely right to have highlighted the issue.
We have found a procedure to apply in the case of equipment that does not comply with standards and in emergency situations, and naturally, as usual, Parliament has stressed the need for transparency.
<P>
We see that many of the requests made by Parliament have been given due attention, making for a healthy compromise.
Customers and consumers can therefore feel safe using equipment, while sanctions and operations remain in skilled hands.
I therefore think the agreement that has been reached is a good one and an example of how progress can be made in such matters, to end in a spirit of consensus.
Practice will reveal what the future holds, and if there are defects in the system we will have to go back and deal with them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hoppenstedt">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I rise to address this subject out of sympathy more than anything else, because everything that there was to say on the content of the proposal has already been said.
I say out of sympathy also because since 1992 this subject has played such a major role here.
Parliament and the Council are of course working on the final phase of adoption, but in the preliminary stages, the Commission and all the services were very heavily involved.
I mention this in particular because - especially as far as radiocommunication services are concerned, and this is the direction in which the debate is now heading - it simply was not possible to start work on this soon enough for this dossier to be brought to a conclusion in time to have an effect.
It is this area of development which we believe is particularly significant.
If you think that in the future a large proportion of terminal equipment will operate by radio, that is by cordless transmission, then you will see how important this whole subject is, and how important the whole debate has been.
<P>
If you listen to the experts, who say that in terms of technical development, one year today is equivalent to seven years in the past, then you have some idea of how urgently this decision was needed.
I can only congratulate all of us - Parliament, the Council and the Commission - on going through the conciliation procedure and thus concluding our work on this far-sighted proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, if Mrs Read is feeling a little lonely here in plenary she could comfort herself with the words of England's own bard, Shakespeare: 'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers' (and, I would add, sisters ).
The presence of many people is not always a sign of the importance or seriousness of the subject.
Both the Commission and I personally have always greatly appreciated your work.
By bringing forward European legislation and in that way defending the interests of citizens I would say that you are one of the most effective Members of Parliament.
I only hope my remarks will not harm your chances of re-election.
<P>
Unfortunately the citizens themselves do not always appreciate the good that is being done for them, especially here.
Both Parliament and the Commission have to show that they are effectively fighting red tape and over-regulation.
There is a prejudiced view that we produce ever more regulations but, in fact, the piece of legislation that we have been producing here - and, thanks to your efforts, have been able to complete and convince the Council of - is replacing more than 1, 000 national regulations.
<P>
I am sure that we are listening to each other.
People who have prejudices will not listen to us.
They will repeat what they are always repeating, namely that the European Parliament and especially the Commission are eager only to produce new regulations for regulation's sake.
Considering the advantages for small and medium-sized enterprises that this is creating, I would like to see some of their associations praise Mrs Read.
It is something which is making their lives easier.
I would say to our trading partners, the US and Japan especially, who are always attacking Europe and saying we are a Fortress Europe, that we are now the most open market-place for these products in the world.
We can only hope - and we will do our utmost to ensure - that our trading partners will follow our example.
<P>
So many thanks to Mrs Read and to everybody who has participated in the work.
The Commission is quite satisfied, and we endorse the declaration by Parliament and the Council that some adverse effects could possibly result from the introduction of these devices.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Copyright and related rights in the Information Society
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0026/99) by Mr Barzanti, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the Information Society (COM(97)0628 - C4-0079/98-97/0359(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="Barzanti">
Intellectual property is not theft.
Copyright and related rights do not create obstacles or lead to unjustified reward: the fact is that authors, interpretive and performing artists, companies and distributors involved in creative activity in Europe, in developing the arts and cultural production, will only be able to enjoy the certainty and autonomy they need if the various forms of intellectual property are strictly protected.
<P>
If the information society is excessively dominated by the major telecommunications companies and if there is a general move towards deregulation, to the point where there are no rules at all, this will not be a society for knowledge, encouraging easier and freer movement of original ideas, recognisable images and identifiable messages. Too many people believe that to be successful, all you have to do is rely on technology without supervising, directing or controlling it.
The difficult and complex problems that arise out of the need to protect copyright and related rights in this new environment, in which digital technologies prevail, are at the heart of this crucial debate. These are not technical and marginal issues; they form an important chapter in the way in which the information society is managed.
<P>
As you will be aware, there are already in force five basic directives that tackle these issues, and the European Parliament was both prompt and forward-looking in the way in which it cooperated in their drafting. The directive we are today considering covers aspects that have yet to be broached: the right of reproduction, the right of communication to the public, the right of distribution and protection of the means of identifying and protecting works and therefore combating rampant piracy.
This directive is also needed to secure consistent implementation, bringing national laws into line with the principles and guidelines set down in the two recent treaties signed in late 1996 under the auspices of WIPO.
<P>
Europe cannot stand back. Even now, many misunderstandings surround the debate with which we are concerned.
Let me say once again that copyright provides a guarantee for the creators and, for users, it provides a guarantee of quality and integrity.
There is no point complaining that the major information networks are being misused for dishonest and harmful activity that offends morality and flouts the law, unless at the same time we work to establish strict and clear rules and to defeat piracy and illegality.
<P>
Cyberspace must not be allowed to be a no-man's land in which currently recognised and established rights cease to apply. The report that I am presenting on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights is balanced overall and takes account both of copyright and related rights, of the fair demands of the operators and of our citizens' desire for knowledge.
I shall confine myself to commenting on a number of fundamental points and extremely controversial issues, beginning with the rewording of Article 5(1). Amendment No 33, tabled by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, provides a tighter and clearer wording, and it has been much attacked and criticised, even though I would point out that it was approved by a large majority of the committee.
I fail to understand what is so complicated or strange about asking that where a work is used to make copies that are transitory and essential as part of a technological process, this should be authorised or at least permitted by law if it is not, as such, of economic significance to the rightholders and is therefore not damaging to them. Is that not a useful recipe for achieving transparency?
Does it not provide a sufficiently secure way of guaranteeing that the wishes of both authors and small and large publishers are properly and responsibly observed? Is it so outrageous to ask at least to be in a position to know who is the owner of an image, a musical performance or an audiovisual work, in order to be able to monitor its path and ensure that it can be identified?
<P>
There are other issues, including the distinction between analogue and digital copies: a digital copy is actually a clone.
The report points out the need for fair remuneration to be accorded for each type of copy, in a manner to be decided by each of the Member States.
Indeed, arrangements of that nature already exist in 11 Member States.

Plainly, if there are technical ways of protecting the works that should not be abused, copies will not be able to made at least for a time; but that must not jeopardise the right of access and nor does it, it merely prevents unremunerated use.
<P>


Copyright, I repeat is not theft; the remuneration that has to be paid is not an excessive charge.


<P>
Furthermore, adequate exemptions have been provided for libraries, archives and other teaching, educational and cultural institutions, as well as for press reviews and reports, educational activities and scientific research.
<P>
Particular attention has been paid to the handicapped, and here I still consider Amendments Nos 17 and 42 to be clearer and more workable.
We have to intensify our efforts to combat piracy and illegal activities, as well as the advertising, trade and instruments which are designed to facilitate them; I consider that the redrafting of Article 6, in particular, will help in this.
A strange kind of alliance actually exists between those who preach anarchy and those who wish to benefit from the maximum of freedoms when it comes to rules and rights.
It is right that surfing the Internet should be more secure; this should be the aim of most people, and I hope it is.
For that reason, I ask the House to vote for the amendments tabled by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, which has also accepted some of the amendments tabled by other committees, in particular the Commission on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media. I am not, however, in agreement with the bulk of the amendments tabled subsequently, except for Amendment No 82.
However - if I may be permitted a personal assessment which I feel I have to make - Amendments Nos 30, 32, 48 and 56 are contradictory, impenetrable or downright dangerous.
<P>
Little is being done to promote the different cultures and give momentum and resources to European programmes; the Union ought therefore to encourage - and it has done this to some extent in the past - sound rules that protect a world increasingly exposed to triviality and commercialisation, in which the vast majority of ideas and projects are rooted, to far too great an extent, in market considerations.
Those considerations must not be allowed to sweep aside rights and traditions that form an integral part of Europe's history.
The lobbying on this directive has been frenzied and relentless from all quarters; huge numbers of faxes have been received, all of them suggesting how we should vote.
Ladies and gentlemen, I believe the time has come to forget the advice pressed on us and the biased points of view; I hope that each of you will make his or her own decision with a mind free of prejudice, not forgetting that these are crucial issues, prime among them respect for intellectual achievement and artistic invention which must be allowed autonomy and the opportunity to function independently.
Unless they are guaranteed resources and rights, the cultures of Europe will all become more vulnerable, and the position of those involved in this difficult work that enhances our lives will be less secure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 NAME="Cassidy">
<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="Whitehead">
Mr President, I want to congratulate my colleague, Roberto Barzanti, who has always been an elegant and eloquent contributor to our debate.
Speaking as a near contemporary of his, I am somewhat alarmed that he has felt that this should be his last Parliament, which of course also means that this will be his last report.
I salute him for all he has done in this area.
<P>
He has, of course, been caught in the balance of forces between all the great interests involved here which Mr Cassidy referred to, and he is also caught by the fact that the regulations we are trying to make here have to fit in with the new world of encryption and electronic commerce, as well as all the other areas where copyright and ownership are of the essence.
I wish I could say all was sweetness and light in this debate. Alas this has not been the case and there are doubts that have to be expressed.
<P>
I wish to list just a few in my brief minute.
Many of us are not certain that we should assume that the world is utterly changed because of digital technology.
We can see from the report that the Commission takes a more cautious view than the rapporteur, and rightly so.
Digital copying obviously makes profound differences to some, especially in the field of music reproduction, which we need to take account of that and protect it as fully as we can.
We also need to deal with piracy with an iron hand. But when you use the iron hand, you have to be very careful what you crush, and many of us have tabled amendments giving some protection to other interests which may lose in the new digital field what they have traditionally enjoyed in the analogue field, because of the implications of some of the rapporteur's suggestions.
<P>
I mention in particular those groups which are covered by such exemptions under the right of reproduction and may lose them: the disabled in all their various categories that are not specifically and sufficiently mentioned by the rapporteur; and those institutions of learning which also tackle disadvantage.
Amendments 89 to 96 which I and a number of other colleagues have tabled attempt to strengthen their position, not because we have anything against the definition of copyright and the protection of rights holders, but because we consider other cultural matters as well.
<P>
The last doubt I can raise in this brief account concerns the right of free speech which is entrenched in the protection of quotation, criticism and review.
We have to be certain that this does not disappear under the assertion of copyright.
I have to declare my interest as a rights holder in some broadcasting matters, but I am not speaking here today in that sense. I am speaking against myself and in the interests of access by consumers and citizens which also has to be considered very seriously when we debate this directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="Günther">
Mr President, I too should like to join in the congratulations to the rapporteur, also on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, because I think that the draft report, as subsequently adopted in the committee responsible, does actually adapt the legislation effectively to the new technical reality.
I wish to comment briefly on the points already made in connection with Article 5, points which proved to be particularly contentious in the discussions of recent months and to which the mountain of letters piling up in all our offices also relates.
<P>
Should the exceptions in Article 5 be compulsory or voluntary for the Member States?
Both the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media and the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights have opted here for non-compulsory provisions, because - and this is also in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity - they give the Member States a certain amount of scope when drawing up their own legislation.
If the Member States provide for exceptions in this context, however, they must also ensure - by a method to be devised by the Member States - that rightholders receive a share of the proceeds or a particular level of compensation.
<P>
The Culture Committee envisages that rules of this kind might comprise either a flat-rate charge and/or methods analogous to those already used in the Member States to regulate the protection of intellectual property.
<P>
A further point was how private copying should be regulated in the digital environment.
I think that a derogation should only be granted for reproductions made by individuals which are intended purely for their own private use and not for commercial ends, and where there is no further dissemination to third parties.
If technical measures are insufficient to prevent this right from being abused, then in my opinion a remuneration scheme - for example a levy on equipment or copying materials - should be introduced to ensure that rightholders receive at least partial compensation, as is of course already the case in the analogue field in eleven of the fifteen Member States.
<P>
This position may at first sight conflict with the interests of consumers and the hardware industry, because their associations are calling for the existing provisions in the analogue field to be extended to digital copying as well.
I can understand this demand from the point of view of the groups I have mentioned, but I think that ultimately, exceptions to the exclusive right of copyright can only be justified by a higher social interest, which should then be substantiated as accurately as possible.
Broad sections of the population having access to these new forms of knowledge and learning is something we should very much welcome.
We should not forget, however, that in the long term, the wishes of equipment manufacturers and consumers can only be met if diversity of content is guaranteed.
This diversity of content requires those offering it to be protected too.
<P>
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has generously accepted a number of the ideas put forward by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, which means that we can also support the report's adoption in the form in which it has been presented by the Legal Affairs Committee.
I think it is balanced, even though this concept has now been the object of some criticism here.
It is a directive which safeguards the interests of rightholders and protects intellectual property.
It is therefore bound to carry a certain amount of weight in this sector, and rightly so in my view.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rothley">
Mr President, where cultural matters are concerned, it is the duty of the European Parliament to protect artists, stimulate creativity, strengthen society's creative powers and thus show respect for intellectual achievement.
That is our cultural duty, and it is one which the rapporteur has fulfilled admirably.
That is why the Socialist Group will be supporting this position.
<P>
The Commission proposal bears all the signs of a compromise.
Of course, with such diverse interests it is very difficult to reach a consensus, and of course there is room for improvement.
I should just like to mention two points which I think are very important.
The first concerns the limitations on copyright, in which context we have logically proposed providing compensation.
Limiting copyright is not synonymous with doing without compensation.
I know that this view was shared by some of the Commission.
I would be very grateful if the whole Commission would support these proposals.
<P>
The other point concerns the infamous Article 5(1).
I really do not understand the Commission here at all. You see, by introducing Article 5(1), what the Commission does is abandon artists.
It leaves them unable to defend themselves against piracy.
Illegal distribution of works, of all things, is to be promoted, with artists being left defenceless.
Anyone acting in this way and actually giving preference to the interests of the distributors is no longer being objective.
<P>
I do not believe that the comments we have heard on this point in the public debate are accurate.
It is claimed that the Internet would grind to a halt or that services would not be able to work uninterrupted.
That is certainly not true.
That is why I make this urgent request: let us rectify this, the most dangerous point, as it continues to be in the amended Commission proposal.
Let us say no, we will equip artists and rightholders with the technical instruments, in particular, with which to defend themselves against piracy.
The Commission is not able to tell us today how it actually intends to do this.
I believe that we in the European Parliament should stand on the side of the artists, the rightholders, and that in so doing we are making our contribution to the intellectual development of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, this directive affects at least three interested parties. Their interests may not always conflict, but they certainly do not coincide either.
<P>
In the first place, there are the creators.
One of the distinguishing features of European culture is that long ago it gave rise to the concept of intellectual property, the creator's property. There has been a general consensus that creativity should be recognised and remunerated, remuneration being the ultimate form of recognition.
Creators are therefore the first interested party and we should not forget this, as it is one of the distinguishing features of European culture.
<P>
The consumers constitute the second group.
<P>
The third group is made up of the middlemen, who have a range of differing interests.
<P>
If there is a conclusion to be drawn, it has to be that nobody is happy with Parliament's report.
From my experience as a lawyer, that could be a good sign, because when none of the three parties to a dispute agree with the solution, it probably represents a good compromise between them.
<P>
I must therefore congratulate the rapporteur, because both his detailed knowledge of the subject and his skilful handling have been crucial to the matter in hand. Further, I have to say that the Group of the European People's Party will support this report, even though it is a contentious issue within our group, as indeed it is for your group, Mr Barzanti.
In addition, we will support all the amendments, including some that you personally are not in favour of, and in which certain points of detail are indeed technically incorrect. These amendments - particularly Amendments Nos 30, 31 and 48 - may well prove problematic.
<P>
Our group approached this matter from a broad political point of view rather than a technical one. We are aware that the report contains a number of technical difficulties, but they can be dealt with at second reading or by the Commission.
We wish to adopt a political stance.
We support this report and I feel that the fact that neither of the two main political groups has tabled amendments as a group must be an encouraging sign.
<P>
I should also like to point out that this report is in line with the Commission's thinking.
The directive is not aimed at complete harmonisation.
It only concerns 'the harmonisation of certain aspects'. It is primarily a directive aimed at updating Community regulations to suit other existing directives, such as the directive on hire, the directive on databases and the directive on computer programmes.
In particular, it follows the two major 1996 WIPO agreements.
The structure must therefore be respected, and I feel that this report by the Committee on Legal Affairs represents an excellent response to the delicate balance called for in the Commission's proposal. The three fundamental principles - reproduction, communication and distribution - receive even-handed treatment in an article which allows room for manoeuvre, enabling the various Member States to maintain often long-standing differences which do not hinder the smooth running of the internal market.
I believe that this is an important directive, pointing the way, as I have suggested, to 'framework harmonisation' directives which do not seek to harmonise every last detail, but only what is necessary.
<P>
I offer the rapporteur my full support, and hope that his position will be endorsed by a majority vote tomorrow. Finally, I must reiterate my view that the rapporteur's approach is well-balanced and sends a clear message to the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, Commissioner, it has been said on countless occasions here in the House that what is needed is a set of international rules for the information society to ensure that our countries retain their competitiveness in the new business sectors it creates.
<P>
If we adopt the directive in the form in which it has been submitted by the committee, I am afraid that we shall not be acting consistently with what we have said in other circumstances.
We will be setting up a system which makes it more difficult for many of those participating in the information society to operate.
There are no clearly defined rules governing the sharing of responsibility.
As a result, I believe that a growing part of the action is moving away from Europe to other places - one might say that 'the best is the enemy of the good'.
<P>
While the proposal for a directive was being drawn up, I asked repeatedly and with ever more insistence the following fundamental questions: would it not be better to ratify the WIPO Convention quickly and approve the directive dealing with electronic commerce?
Do we need anything else?
Should we not accept that this directive was produced before we had come up with a definite proposal on electronic commerce and before we had formed a general view on the sharing of responsibility on the networks?
<P>
It is essential that the WIPO Convention should be ratified quickly.
It affects absolutely everyone in this sector.
It is not certain that we need this directive, and in fact I believe it is holding up ratification.
Is it really in anyone's interest?
<P>
Many countries in Europe have public rights of way, in other words the public has access to private land where no damage is likely to result and prohibition would be unreasonable.
In my view, similar rights of way should exist in the digital world.
To a degree, the Commission's proposal respected that, but not the rapporteur's.
Consequently, we have tabled a number of amendments which are based on the idea of a 'digital right of way'.
I agree with Mr Whitehead that we should not make too great a distinction between digital and analogue technology here.
<P>
Cultural differences do exist, and so I do not understand why there should not be mandatory provision for exemptions.
On the other hand, the list of copyright exemptions needs to be complete.
<P>
We have to combat piracy, and the way to do so is through cooperation with the countries with whom we have dealings and other forms of association.
However, we should encourage those concerned to devise a method that is neutral, in other words capable of preventing piracy but which does not impede openness or lead to the emergence of a closed system.
That would fit the bill, and I am glad to see that Mr Cassidy has at last woken up to the fact.
<P>
At the same time, it is also crucial that the public should not be deprived of the rights which the directive would give them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 NAME="Crowley">
I also wish to join in the congratulations to the rapporteur on his very able handling of an extremely difficult brief and report.
Even though I do not subcribe to all the proposals put forward by the rapporteur, I personally believe that he has come up with a very balanced approach towards resolving the problem.
<P>
However, I disagree with some Members who say that the Internet and the new technologies offered by digital communications do not present a danger or mean a huge change in the future, because we can already see, in its very infancy, that digital technology, the Internet and the new information society have altered the way we do business and communicate.
In the future, they will also alter the way in which we get our entertainment - whether through music, plays, television programmes, films or books.
Therefore, it is essential for us now to come up with a balanced approach as to how best protect the intellectual property rights of the creators.
<P>
Often people involved in music, art or literature tend to be laughed at because they have no business sense: they tend to care more for their art and the public presentation of their art than for mere commercial realities or business necessities.
Therefore, it is incumbent on us, as we benefit spiritually from the material these people produce, to put in place protection to guarantee that their rights will not be usurped by pirates or others.
<P>
Some time ago we debated about giving the rights to artists who sell their artwork.
There was a lot of debate in this House about whether artwork sold by auction would go to America rather than to Europe if we adopted this legislation.
Since that legislation came into being, there has been no noticeable difference.
There is a proper balanced way to achieve the rights that everybody here wants to see.
<P>
Whilst consumers also deserve protection of their rights - ensuring that they have the widest possible access to information at the most reasonable cost (sometimes for free) - there are also responsibilities on the consumer to pay for some of these rights.
That responsibility must also be balanced with the rights of the authors and the creators of these works to ensure that their rights are protected.
<P>
I have submitted a number of amendments to this report to ensure that there will be no reduction in the dissemination of information through public libraries, educational facilities and so on; that indigenous culture will be preserved and developed; that the needs of disabled people will not be undermined by this legislation and that the cultural and social importance of major sporting events will be protected.
All in all, my group will support the Barzanti report but we urge that our amendments be adopted.
<P>
Finally, I should like to ask the Commissioner whether there will be another proposal from the Commission with regard to copyright and related rights in the information society in the near future?
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<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ullmann">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, thanks to digitisation, reproduction technology is now so advanced that there is no discernible difference between the original and the copy.
In an age of digital communication, anyone not wishing to put at risk everything that copyright rules have achieved must reformulate them in such a way as to take account of the demands of the new technology and the industry using it.
<P>
The fact that this draft satisfies these demands - and not least that it puts the stress on copyright - is due to the preparatory work carried out by the Commission, but in no lesser measure to the judiciousness, determination and patience of the rapporteur.
If these achievements are not to be put at risk, it is particularly important to adopt Amendments Nos 33, 34 and 37 and also to take into account the consequences, as expressed in Amendments Nos 97 and 95.
<P>
I hope we all agree that we do not want to go back to a time when the famous composer Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Chopin's teacher, had to secure copyright protection for composers for the very first time, and when the great philosopher Schelling lost a case challenging the illegal reproduction of his texts because he was not protected by any rights at all.
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<SPEAKER ID=144 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
Mr President, the June Movement sees free access to information as the very cornerstone of democracy.
The public must retain the right to information and education at libraries and other publicly financed institutions.
In this context, consideration should be given to the weaker members of society.
That is why the June Movement has tabled amendments, seeking to ensure that for example the visually handicapped have the same free access as everyone else to material in libraries when the purpose is not commercial.
<P>
A second general principle is that artists should own all the rights connected with the exploitation of their work.
They themselves should be able to negotiate the scale of their remuneration and what rights they transfer to a producer.
In Scandinavia, we have a long successful tradition of solving difficult copyright issues with the help of licensing agreements, and we need to retain this option.
<P>
Finally, I would like to draw attention to Amendment No 56, which quite unreasonably calls for journalists to have the same rights as authors when newspapers use their articles.
Such a principle is contrary to both copyright law and agreements, and would entail an unreasonable commercial risk for the newspapers.
This too is a question of democratic access to information.
In other respects I am in complete agreement with Mrs Thors with regard to this directive.
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<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Mr President, the proposal for a directive is significant because it points the way ahead.
This has already become clear from the public response.
The right of artists to have their works protected must also be guaranteed in the age of the Internet.
For this to be the case, a legal framework needs to be established and the rapporteur has successfully done this.
I can support most of the amendments proposed by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
Alongside the pro-artist provisions, I should in particular like to draw your attention to the proposed rules on the use of archive productions.
I think that the rules need to offer incentives to producers - producers of audio media and those who work for radio - to provide on-line access to the productions they have either produced themselves or on someone else's behalf.
The new technology can make it possible for the film and audio material currently languishing in cellars to be made available to a much larger audience.
<P>
Finally, however, let me sound a note of criticism on the linguistic quality of the proposal.
Parts of it are, I think, the perfect example of legislation which is remote and difficult to understand, and which intrinsically fails to comply with the rule of transparency.
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<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Berger">
Mr President, in all the time that I have been a Member of the European Parliament and its Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, I have never before experienced anything like as complex a legislative procedure as this one on adapting copyright to the requirements of the information society.
There is, therefore, all the more reason for me to wish to thank the rapporteur for trying to guide us through the jungle of numerous conflicting interests and to identify a sound policy.
We may perhaps not agree on all the individual points in this policy, but it has been sketched out and can therefore serve as a guide to both the Council and the Commission.
<P>
One point on which everyone is agreed in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights is, in any event, the need for a European model of the information society, in which works of high cultural and artistic quality form the core of the content, and the new technologies are not used to undermine existing rights.
Given that content and technologies are universal, however, this does beg the question of whether this aim can be better achieved by having a higher level of protection - compared with the situation worldwide - or whether by doing so we in fact make life so difficult for other players in the European information society that this ultimately also has an adverse effect on rightholders.
<P>
If we want more high-quality content, then we should not make it too difficult, or even impossible, for the content providers - as they are now known - and in particular television and radio broadcasters, to distribute this content and pioneer new ways of publishing it.
Consumers are also expecting the information society to bring an increase in easily accessible content, and not repeated requests for money in the future.
This is true, above all, of particularly sensitive groups of consumers, especially the disabled.
I should therefore once again like to call on the rapporteur to tone down the reservations he expressed concerning Amendments Nos 30, 32 and 48, which were accepted by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
I should also like to express my thanks for the support which these have attracted from the speakers in the House so far.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 NAME="Perry">
Mr President, I will confine myself to just two points.
The first is that in Europe we need to encourage the use of the Internet and not discourage it.
Equally, we have to recognise that new technology requires modern thinking and a digital copy simply is not the same as an analogue copy.
It is a clone. This poses a risk for the music industry if such cloning is totally unrestricted.
<P>
We should not underestimate the young people of Europe and their entrepreneurial capacity to produce those clones.
Even in today's Financial Times I saw reference to a product of a French company which has launched a multipurpose CD duplicator.
At the press of a button you can produce an exact clone of the original CD.
I have no doubt at all that the long-term solution to all of this lies in new technology, but there will also be legal restrictions where that is necessary.
<P>
The second point I want to address is the proposal made in a number of amendments, including my own, concerning the possibility of having mediation where there could be disputes between the producers and the disseminators.
We are going to see a lot of litigation as a result of this legislation and that no doubt will play into the hands of the lawyers.
We want to have a system where, in those countries that are prepared to allow it, there should be the right of recourse to an independent mediator who can listen to both sides of the story and arrive at an objective solution that is not actually going to cost vast sums of money which the small users, the small producers, the individual musicians and the like would not have access to.
<P>
That is a small point but one I would hope the rapporteur and the Commission would have some sympathy with as a way of helping some of those who are going to be affected by this legislation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Monfils">
Mr President, the report by Mr Barzanti is excellent and perfectly balanced.
It defends legitimate copyright but takes into account the concern to make all works available to as many people as possible.
This is an important point because in this technical and complex debate some people would have us believe that consumer interests are being prejudiced.
This is completely inaccurate.
Neither the author's copyright on his creation nor the remuneration that he is entitled to expect for its dissemination constitute obstacles to making the work available to the public.
<P>
If Member States consider that cultural policy demands free access to works, for example, it is up to them to provide for the necessary measures; it is not up to the authors to foot the bill.
In education, for example, could we imagine asking teachers to give up half their salary to pay for the education service?
This would obviously be absurd.
Moreover, in my view the fears expressed by television companies and electronics manufacturers are groundless.
<P>
Copyright has never been, and never will be, an obstacle to technical progress, and this has been the case since printing was first developed.
On the other hand, without serious protection, technical development can undermine copyright and, as a result, stymie creation.
<P>
In my opinion the system proposed by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights in the area of digital private copying is a good one because before any technical measures are developed to protect the rightholders, there will be a financial contribution and fair remuneration, probably as is currently done with the analogue equivalent.
<P>
In conclusion, our job is not just to organise a technological free competition and free trade area.
It is also our job, as Mr Rothley said, to maintain and develop cultural creation in Europe in all its diversity.
This directive, as amended, generalises and thus confirms the European copyright model without preventing works from being disseminated.
For this reason I, together with part of the ELDR Group, will vote in favour of Mr Barzanti's report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Svensson">
Mr President, the Commission's proposal and the report both pinpoint the flaws that exist in the Union's legislative procedures.
An international panel of experts should have been appointed to investigate thoroughly the complex problems associated with copyright and public access.
There should have been a broad public discussion before the legislative process was embarked upon.
<P>
Instead, we now have a legal text that is obscure and not sufficiently businesslike.
Nor does a surfeit of words make the legislation any clearer.
In particular, we regret the lack of clarity in defining the position as regards the provisions that exist in the Nordic countries whereby ordinary people are entitled to have access to official documents and information.
What is most needed in this, as well as in other areas, is a serious in-depth analysis of the problems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="De Clercq">
Mr President, Tony Blair once said that his country's culture industry is a greater source of revenue than the steel industry. But digital technology has now opened up a whole new dimension for pirating.
It is estimated that about one million CDS are stolen from the Internet every day.
It is therefore high time that we introduced legislation, not just for music but for all kinds of audio-visual material.
We must ensure that the author or copyright holder is granted exclusive rights to the reproduction, distribution or any communication of his work to the public.
That is the only way to create a favourable environment which can stimulate creativity and investment.
<P>
Effective cross-border protection of intellectual property offers many benefits.
In economic terms it will ensure an expanded market, which in social terms will create more job opportunities, and last but not least there is the cultural dimension.
Consumers must continue to have the guarantee of good quality and, let us not forget, creativity and artistic innovation are the source of income for authors.
In order to continue to preserve and further enrich our artistic identity, our artists must be further encouraged.
Above all, we must take care of young talents who are busy creating what in future may be much loved but unprotected.
<P>
People are looking to us to provide effective regulation, including on behalf of those who are not yet famous.
It is up to us as the European legislator to guarantee this.
For this reason I shall be voting for Mr Barzanti's report, on which I congratulate him.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindholm">
Mr President, the directive is on three levels, namely technical, legal and political, which adds considerably to its complexity.
Both the committee and the rapporteur, Mr Barzanti, have nevertheless done an excellent job.
However, I would urge the House to vote against Amendment No 48 which calls for a non-voluntary licence, or legal presumption.
<P>
The Nordic countries have had licensing and collective agreements for a long time, and the experience has been constructive.
The agreements also extend to authors who remain outside the organisations responsible for concluding the agreements, and guarantee rights and levels of remuneration.
It is essential that such a system, which benefits all the parties concerned, should be retained and not replaced by a non-voluntary licensing arrangement.
To do so would contravene both the Berne and WIPO Conventions.
<P>
This is basically a cultural issue, but there is also the question of safeguarding the rights of public institutions, such as hospitals, schools, libraries, museums, archives, prisons and, last but not least, both the rights and opportunities of the disabled.
Free and equal access to information, culture and public documents is essential for the democratic development of society.
It is essential that this is guaranteed by the directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 NAME="Oddy">
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for his good humour and fortitude in tackling this difficult report: difficult, firstly, because it needs to strike a balance between the rights of the authors and the needs of consumers and, secondly, because technology is changing rapidly, which makes it hard to anticipate legislative problems in such a context.
I want to pinpoint three issues: disability rights; the need to be able to report parliamentary and judicial proceedings; and the issue of fair compensation.
<P>
On the disability rights issue, I have tabled an amendment for the British Labour Group which is preferred by the disability lobby because it is mandatory rather than optional like the amendment adopted by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
Philip Whitehead and I have also tabled an amendment to allow fair reporting of parliamentary and judicial proceedings.
<P>
The issue of fair compensation, and I speak for the British Labour members, poses a problem for the United Kingdom.
Although the exceptions are optional and can be adapted to national law at the will of the Member States, the amendments as they stand at present would introduce the obligation to introduce fair compensation.
In Britain people have got used to copying their favourite TV programme and watching it at leisure at the time most convenient for them.
This is a right which does not incur financial consequences.
The British public would be extremely unhappy if this right was curtailed by having to make a payment.
Therefore my Group cannot accept that concept.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, copyright is not merely restricted to the question of who is due compensation and how it may be most effectively collected.
Mr Barzanti's report should basically be concerned with the principles of the free development of the information network and its commercial exploitation, in other words, enabling the consumer to use the Internet at the lowest possible cost to him or her.
<P>
The protection of copyright is in everyone's interest, but not necessarily on the terms of those who up to now have been in the strongest position.
It is a matter of setting priorities: greater rights for the holder, or the freedoms of the Internet user and the right of the Internet service provider to operate.
As far as the future of the information society is concerned the latter objective is the more crucial one.
<P>
The report's basic theme, that digital copyright may be best protected by prohibiting the temporary reproduction of material for transmission, is completely at odds with the widely accepted principles associated with operating the Internet.
If the prohibition of temporary reproduction is allowed to go through and technological monopolies spring up, such practices as surfing the Internet could be forbidden and an ordinary computer could be regarded as an illicit piece of equipment used to dodge copyright protection.
<P>
One of Mr Barzanti's main objectives is to improve the conditions under which European copyright holders can get their work published.
However, over 80 % of the market in the sales of music products in Europe is now in non-European hands.
Tightening up on electronic copyright would further concentrate business in the mega-companies of Hollywood.
This, contrary to the opinion of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media in particular, would not improve conditions for European artists to get their work published and sold.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ryynänen">
Mr President, safeguarding copyright in the world of the digital information network is a crucially important objective.
Illegal reproduction threatens the legitimate interests of copyright holders and ultimately the production of content in its entirety as well as the profitability of creative work.
However, the public's right to information is just as legitimate and important, as is the development of an information society available to all.
<P>
In many Member States a viable copyright environment has been successfully created, one that safeguards a balance between a flexible approach to the use of material and the interests of rightholders.
The EU's copyright directive, and especially the more stringent version proposed by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, is a threat to this balance.
In its present form the directive would significantly restrict the free circulation of information and the ability of public service institutions to provide citizens with a service.
<P>
The copyright balance also requires provision to be made for minimum compulsory exemptions connected with access to information, study and research, to act as a counterweight to strong harmonised protection of copyright; such exemptions have already been acknowledged and ratified in all international agreements in this sector.
In addition to compulsory exemption we must be able to create codes of practice to be applied nationally, on the basis of local tradition and culture, for example in collective bargaining agreements.
<P>
The consequences of library services being solely dependent on licences being granted, or not, by rightholders, as the proposal for a directive suggests, will be particularly disastrous.
The right to information must not be subject to licence in the lifelong learning society, while distance learning and virtual network services are becoming ever more common.
We certainly do not want to take a step backwards and have a situation where electronic material cannot be seen, browsed or reproduced without a separate licence or charge.
In the democratic information society it is appropriate to safeguard the practice of reproducing material for purposes of study, research or private use particularly via libraries, as libraries, archives and museums have an obligation to guarantee that materials connected with matters of culture and heritage are preserved and accessible in electronic form also.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="Tongue">
Mr President, many thanks to Mr Barzanti.
He has balanced diverse interests very well.
Quite simply, intellectual creation is vital to the future of our economy but it is also the lifeblood of our society, be it music, film, photographs, books or software.
We are told we must balance interests but, quite frankly, all interests are not equal.
Large telecoms companies will always survive but if we strangle and silence individual creators we will never win them back.
Blank screens will not enrich our society.
<P>
We have to ensure creators enjoy sufficient incentive and reward for their work.
A strong system of copyright as proposed by the Commission and Mr Barzanti will ensure dignity, independence and survival for creators.
Too many continue to scrape together a living in a kind of La Bohème garret.
Only 7 % of authors in France earn above the minimum wage.
Let us never forget that.
I have friends who are authors and they survive hand-to-mouth on royalties and have to sell their own belongings to write the next book or create the next film.
I can therefore never support an amendment providing for the forced transfer of rights away from authors to others.
<P>
It is absolutely critical to have exemptions for the disabled, education, research, archives, investigative journalism and libraries.
Some would argue that there should be fair use without fair compensation.
Why do we demand of authors and artists what we do not demand of other workers in our economy?
Systems of fair compensation through a blank tape levy exist in 11 out of the 15 countries.
All the UK creators and their trade unions support a blank tape levy.
All I am saying to British Members of this House is: do not vote against Amendments Nos 34, 36, 37 and 41.
Allow the creators and others in the United Kingdom to have a fair debate about whether we should have a blank tape levy.
<P>
Let me make it clear that these are not obligatory exemptions.
Voting for those amendments will not force the British Government to introduce a blank tape levy.
Let us ensure that out of this we have a cultural rainforest, in the words of our great author Maureen Duffy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ebner">
Mr President, in my opinion, the report drawn up by Mr Barzanti is a very balanced document.
Whenever the paths cross of those who own intellectual property rights and those who have access to the information, there is a conflict.
I believe that the property issue is a fundamental one, and that this is not a question of how the information is disseminated.
For this reason, I believe that the principles Mr Barzanti has identified and incorporated into his report are the right ones.
Obviously exceptions are needed, but they should be limited and should uphold the rules on the protection of intellectual property.
<P>
I will soon have served as a Member of Parliament - both at national level and here - for 20 years, and in all that time I have never before been lobbied so intensively on an issue by the interest groups.
When it comes to the vote, I hope that this Parliament will not help the new forms of media - which have a role to play and should be able to do so - to strike it rich, at the expense of authors.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there are three branches of industry which have an interest in seeing a strong and clear copyright directive, namely the content industry, the telecommunication and service providers, and suppliers of consumer electronics.
Then there are also of course our consumers, libraries, schools, etc. to be considered.
<P>
The Barzanti report clearly weights the balance in favour of the content industry, at the expense of the other branches of industry and especially the consumers.
Copyright holders are given an absolute right to protection, with the banning of copying for private use for example.
American companies are now trying to lobby for legislation in Europe to go much further than in the United States, where such an absolute right has just been forcefully rejected.
US companies are therefore deliberately placing Europe at a disadvantage and Europe will be accepting this if we accept the Barzanti report.
We will be falling behind, especially our industry, and this will cost jobs.
<P>
It is primarily the Committee on Legal Affairs which is now busy fighting a rearguard action, because with this directive the established industry is trying to maintain its present market position in the old media at the expense of the new.
New technological developments, such as the Internet, will be held back by the directive and artists manipulated and made to dance to industry's tune, with big names such as Claudia Cardinale being brought in.
But the new generation of artists who are distributing their products on the Internet are being left out in the cold.
<P>
Finally, I have a question for Commissioner Monti. How does the copyright directive stand in relation to the proposal for a directive for electronic commerce?
In other words: if there is a difference in copyright protection between the Member States, which applies? The principle of the country of origin or the country of destination?
In the directive on electronic commerce we now have before us, the basis is the country of origin.
I would appreciate an answer from Commissioner Monti to this question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Erika">
Ladies and gentlemen, the directive we have before us is a complex one, and I have appreciated the way in which Mr Barzanti has dealt with it.
I am not overjoyed about everything, as he and many other Members of the House know.
This is the first reading - we still have the chance to improve many aspects - and I hope that we are on the right track.
<P>
But let us just get one thing clear, and let us not be under any illusion: we are not waging a cultural war here.
This is not actually about poor artists; Ms Tongue, you know how strongly I support your position against the large telecommunications companies.
It is not about the software industry, about Microsoft versus European companies.
Nor is it about the fact that one industry is being played off against the others here.
Let us be honest.
It is about who wins control of this electronic marketplace, and a hard battle is being fought out there over this.
We are standing in the midst of the interest groups, as we can tell from the constant stream of publications arriving in our offices.
<P>
But let us not skate on thin ice by supporting one industry and believing that in doing so we are helping creators and artists; we do not want to follow a good European tradition and then end up in an American blind alley.
I would urge you not to make this mistake.
In the United States, a compromise has been reached on many points which is acceptable.
Let us not fall behind this compromise in Europe.
I would urge you to examine the law.
The happy medium lies somewhere in between.
It lies in the Commission proposal.
It lies in the proposal which Mr Barzanti has made.
It lies in the proposal made by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, which I supported - and as you know, I put forward many suggestions.
It will lie in the second reading, and in the proposals which the Council tables.
Only please let us not choose the wrong approach, let us not be under any illusions, but let us choose a very realistic, pragmatic approach which puts European industry on the right track, which protects the interests of authors and all those in this market - the great and the small, the telecommunications industry and the Internet providers too.
I would urge you to adopt this approach, and that is why I am asking you to take another considered look at the amendments, and in particular those relating to Articles 5 and 6, in time for tomorrow; Article 6 also safeguards the interests of European industry.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Vaz da Silva">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there are very few areas where the quality and the future of the European integration process are really at stake.
Copyright is one of them.
It may seem that the common agricultural policy or the trans-European transport network are higher priorities, but they are not.
<P>
European copyright policy also relates to food and transport.
It concerns the production and distribution of books and newspapers, of music, and of audio-visual and multimedia products.
If these products are in short supply or of inferior quality, that will sound the death-knell for Europe.
European society will be unable to assert its differentness, will lose its vitality and will fail to balance its trade unless it can claim that share of the cultural market that is its by right.
With the advent of the Internet and digitalisation, and whatever other unknown technologies are around the corner, along with globalisation of the market, enlargement of the Union and the increasing role of multilateral treaties, a policy on copyright is a priority for Europe.
That is because creators and artists act as our antennae for the future, as our critical conscience and as our calling card.
It is therefore in all our interests that they should thrive.
<P>
So what is involved?
Basically, facilitating the distribution of creative work, rewarding everyone taking part in that process, creators and investors alike, and eliminating piracy.
What ought to be done?
We should set up a permanent body to help the Member States negotiate, guarantee the international compatibility of European legislation and make sure it is constantly updated. We should also automate remuneration systems as far as possible, and increase the use of protection technologies.
<P>
The Barzanti report is an excellent one because it not only adopts a cultural perspective but it is also an appeal for the key words to be 'compatibility' and 'harmonisation'.
That is after all the only way of defending the interests at stake.
All parties - Member States and artists, producers and users - have to be shown that they are in the same boat and need to row in time and row hard if they are to reach a safe harbour.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Garosci">
Mr President, in today's proposal on copyright, we are rightly concerned to protect authors and performers, but also record and phonogram producers who must be properly remunerated.
At this point, however, the House is being asked to approve legislation which limits the right of European operators to have access to the Internet, in contrast to what has been provided in the recent World Intellectual Property Organisation treaty and the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
This is rightly being done to protect copyright, but under pressure from the big multinational record companies which are now all American, if not by origin then at least in terms of their economic interests.
<P>
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has required technical copies to be authorised, but I do not see how that can strengthen copyright.
Copyright is in fact already substantially protected by Article 2 of the directive, which establishes the principle whereby no one may place works on the networks without the permission of the copyright holder.
How will that further authorisation improve the position of authors?
That is not the way to combat piracy, at least according to the US legislation, which takes the view that the procedures for identifying and closing suspect sites provide the most effective way of combating that particular scourge.
If network operators were required to monitor all of the 'packages' sent by service suppliers, numbers would have to be reduced, leaving them concentrated in just a few hands.
That is not what the independent record industry in Europe wants, that same industry which is investing in most of the recordings made in Europe, which is creating jobs and development, believes in young artists and is exporting Europe's musical products to the outside world.
It is those with interests on the other side of the Atlantic that want it.
The people who are asking us to close off access to the Internet are importing into Europe music produced elsewhere.
Even the small proportion of music produced in Europe is adopting commercial standards that require mass sales, which are in turn dependent on the kind of hugely costly advertising campaigns that the Italian supervisory body recently condemned in Italy in its decision against the Big Five, that is to say the five big music companies.
<P>
Let me end by pointing out that the independent record industry and the managers - the artists' true representatives - are asking us to call a halt before it is too late.
I propose to accept their advice and vote for the Cassidy and Thors amendments which come closer to meeting the needs of artists.
In that way, we shall be able genuinely to protect the future of the information society, of music and of consumers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, Mr Barzanti's report is an important one, and he has demonstrated some artistry in putting it together!
It is true that this is only the first reading and we can correct many of its possible shortcomings if any emerge later on.
However, I would like to point out that a good balance has been achieved in many Member States by virtue of agreements made without any directive whatsoever, as, for example, in my own country.
<P>
Three issues are at odds with each other: first, there is the public's right to information, which means libraries, lifelong learning, and so on.
That cannot be violated; it is a vital principle.
Secondly, most important is the right of creative people to their intellectual property.
Thirdly, we must create and maintain a viable context for the electronic market, as it is an area that employs a lot of people in Europe.
We have to be able to make these three issues compatible.
<P>
We all believe that piracy is a crime, and we have to oppose it.
For that reason, I believe we should look at the next stage of the directive, after voting. We need to discuss the work of the rightholder on the one hand, and industry on the other, from the employment point of view, to achieve the best possible European employment model in relation to copyright and industry, with regard to radio, television and other electronic media.
<P>
At present we seem to be squabbling quite a lot among ourselves, and employment and material in Europe are suffering as a result, yet both these issues are now among our most crucial concerns, as they represent European identity, culture and jobs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, as this debate draws to a close, I should like to refer to an oft-neglected matter, namely, certain recitals. I said earlier that this report set a political course although it was technically imperfect.
There are some very clear examples of this in the recitals. Some of the recitals do not correspond to any of the amendments to the main body of the text and are therefore technically unacceptable, but they outline three clear political ways forward.
Mr Barzanti mentioned the first of these, which concerns indigenous peoples and their cultural rights. The second, referred to by Mr Perry, suggests that the WIPO has made a determined effort to promote mediation as a solution to disputes.
The Group of the European People's Party will support two amendments to recital 21 to that effect, that is, Amendments Nos 82 and 91, if I remember correctly. The final political direction concerned an issue that I should like to consider in greater detail, as it has been somewhat sidelined, even though it was the subject of heated debate.
<P>
Despite being related to another important directive under discussion at the moment - the directive on electronic commerce - and also to a directive on responsibility in a general sense, this directive has its own distinctive features.
The usual procedures should be followed and it should be approved as soon as possible.
An amendment has, however, been tabled - and it is supported by the Group of the European People's Party - emphasising in effect that though all these directives have their own distinctive features, they should be handled in parallel and implemented at the earliest opportunity.
<P>
Finally, I have to say that I was delighted to hear such an authority as Mrs Mann sound a note of reason with regard to what is often portrayed as the entrenched rivalry between European and American industry.
I fully endorse her views. I believe that this is a balanced directive.
It will need to be improved at second reading, but it sends a clear political signal.
The ball is now in the Commission's court.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, Italian companies account for 80 % of original European production, but the big multinationals take up 80 % of the market by importing products from outside Europe, in particular from the USA.
At one time, almost all Europe's major hits came into being with the help of a producer who believed in them.
Only later, because of distribution needs, did they have to approach a multinational.
That is why our approach to the directive differs from that of the big multinational record companies, which have established a stranglehold on distribution and advertising because they control all the systems for access to stores, the media and the charts.
<P>
We feel that the Internet provides an effective way of avoiding that stranglehold.
What is really at stake here is not protecting copyright, that is already guaranteed by Article 2 of the directive, but maintaining the current state of freedom of access to the Internet for everyone, and not just the big boys.
<P>
The requirement for technical copies to be authorised, adopted by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, would actually have the effect of extending to the digital sphere the dominance which the multinationals already enjoy over the way in which music is conventionally distributed.
We therefore take the view that it is necessary to redraft Article 5(1) to avoid limiting de facto access to the networks for independent operators.
Furthermore, we believe it necessary to encourage the investments of independent access providers who are the natural partners of independent music producers in Europe.
The reality is that European producers primarily need unrestricted and low-cost access to the networks in order to be able to offer the kind of music which the big multinationals regard as uneconomical in terms of their own commercial criteria.
In offering their product on the Internet, the companies also need to use systems compatible with the interfaces most commonly used by consumers, as they cannot run the risk of investing in websites that might subsequently prove incompatible with the new versions of dominant software.
Secondly, European producers need programmes of support similar to those through which the audiovisual sector is supported via the media.
Finally, they need strategic research and development programmes that will allow the European music industry and the European technology industry to establish, by common accord, standards for the secure and effective distribution of music, as an alternative to the American analogue standards.
<P>
For all of these reasons, the non-attached Members believe that it is right to reassess the situation and are therefore calling for the directive to be referred back to committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="Monti">
Mr President, creative and innovative activities will be critical to the development of the information society.
This proposal for a directive is an important part of the legislative framework which is currently being drawn up at both a European and a global level to guarantee harmonious development of the information society.
The information society is in fact evolving in a global context.
In 1996, the international community adopted two treaties under the auspices of WIPO: one on copyright, and the other on interpretation and performance and on phonograms.
<P>
I would remind the House that the European Union played a vital role in the drafting of those treaties.
It can now accede to them as the European Community and be among the first to ratify them.
The United States has already met its requirements.
Thirty instruments of ratification will have to be deposited before the treaties enter into force.
The European Union accounts for 42 because of the agreements that link it to the countries of the European Economic Area and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, and the fact that it has association agreements with still more countries.
Ratification of the treaties by the Union and its Member States is based on their incorporation into the national legal systems; it is their incorporation into Community law that is, among other things, the objective of this proposal.
<P>
Alongside meeting our international commitments, the basic aim of the proposal is to put in place a harmonised legislative framework for copyright and related rights.
We expect that greater legal certainty, guaranteeing investment in creative and innovative activity and in the network infrastructures, will boost growth and the competitiveness of the European industry and job creation.
It is for us to tap this huge cultural and economic potential by providing the appropriate legislative framework.
<P>
In drafting and adopting this proposal - which, as you will remember, is the product of wide-ranging consultation dating back to 1994 - the Commission has taken the greatest care to retain a fair balance between the various rights and interests at issue, which are frequently in open conflict.
I am well aware that this was also the aim of Parliament's work.
On behalf of the Commission, I wish to thank the rapporteur, Mr Barzanti, for having done his job so efficiently.
He has managed to combine a thorough understanding of the problem, founded also on the earlier work on the 1995 Green Paper and the 1996 communication, with the great resolve that tackling such sensitive proposals demands.
<P>
Fifty-eight amendments have been tabled, 30 of which relate to the operative part of the text and 28 to the recitals: of those 58 amendments, the Commission is able to accept 28 and to take into consideration 14, but it has to reject 16.
The amendments the Commission is able to accept are the following: Amendments Nos 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 17, 18, 20, 21, 24, 29, 31, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 55 and 57.
<P>
The Commission will take into account the following amendments, albeit with a number of mainly drafting changes: Amendments Nos 9, 11, 16, 22, 33, 39, 46, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 58 and the new Amendments Nos 82 and 91.
<P>
As far as the recitals are concerned, the Commission rejects Amendment No 3 which, in our view, confuses protected work and information in general and is contrary to the principles of the acquis communautaire ; the first part of Amendment No 13 which is incompatible with the WIPO treaty, though we accept the second part; Amendment No 14 which does not, in our view, succeed in defining the concept of 'public', a responsibility we believe is best left to the Member States, which are in a better position to define this somewhat elastic term; Amendment No 19 which does not correspond to the amendments tabled in relation to Article 5(2)(b); Amendment No 23 because it calls into question the approach taken in the proposal to the exceptions; Amendments Nos 27 and 28 which are already covered by the third recital; and Amendments Nos 15, 25 and 26 because they are too far outside the scope of the proposal.
<P>
Turning then to the actual articles of the directive, the Commission rejects Amendment No 30 because the issue it tackles is taken into account in Article 5(1); Amendments Nos 32 and 48 which are designed to introduce new exceptions for the benefit of broadcasters - I wish to deal separately, in just a moment, with our rejection of Amendment No 56 concerning Article 5(1) - Amendment No 40 because the concern on which it is based is amply taken into account by Article 5(3)(c), an amendment at your suggestion; and Amendment No 47 because that issue is being dealt with under the 27th recital, amended by Amendment No 20.
<P>
As regards the amendments tabled at this part-session, given that they either reflect viewpoints and concerns already taken into account in the report of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights or are amendments rejected by that committee, the Commission endorses the report.
Of the new amendments, we are able to take into account only Nos 82 and 91 which relate to mediation, a point mentioned by Mr Perry and taken up by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi.
<P>
Overall, the Commission is thus able to take Parliament's line on many points.
I repeat: we are rejecting 16 amendments, taking account of 14 and accepting 28.
<P>
To conclude, I have two points to make concerning two specific issues.
As far as the broadcasters are concerned, the House is proposing to add three new exceptions for their benefit.
I would remind you of our interest in observing a balance between the rights and interests which are at stake.
The Commission accepts Amendment No 39, which introduces an exception for broadcasters in respect of specific acts of reproduction necessary to facilitate a legitimate broadcasting act, because it meets a genuine technological need.
In contrast, and in an effort to achieve a balance between the interests in play, the Commission feels compelled to reject Amendments Nos 32 and 48, the first of which introduces an exception that would allow broadcasters to make available, on request, programmes largely consisting of phonograms.
<P>
We then come to Article 5(1) - the source of such controversy.
What is the purpose of that provision?
It is designed to establish an exception to the right of reproduction in regard to some technical acts of reproduction that are an integral part of a technological process, carried out for the sole purpose of enabling a different use to be made of the protected material.
This is the only mandatory exception in the whole of the proposal and it is therefore very clearly drafted.
That provision will give the telecommunications operators and service providers the legal certainty they need to be able to perform operations for the benefit of the network services, which are very often transnational in nature.
<P>
We have subdivided your proposals on this and are able to take account of some.
<P>
As far as the definition of the scope of the exceptions is concerned, we are able to accept the inclusion of the words 'transient' and 'incidental', as providing a closer definition of the concept of 'temporary' that appears in our proposal, and of the word 'essential' which further defines the incidental nature of the act in relation to the technical transmission process.
Consequently, we reject Amendments Nos 65 and 88, which have the effect of watering down the latter condition.
<P>
We cannot, however, accept the concept of 'economic significance' for the rightholder.
The reference to our concept of 'independent economic significance' is consistent with the aim of the exception and therefore workable when the exception is actually applied.
It is in any event worth bearing in mind that protection against unjustified economic harm is provided for in Article 5(4).
<P>
Finally, we cannot accept the insertion of the clause referring to 'uses... authorised... or permitted by law', the addition of which would mean that the exception would be triggered only in relation to items whose use had been authorised by the rightholders or permitted by law.
We are aware of the concerns of rightholders who fear that the network will end up acting as a broadcasting vehicle for items that have been illegally copied - pirated items - but if we are to hit our target, we have to consider beforehand what is the most workable and balanced way of achieving it.
In this case, that way has to be sought by ensuring a proper balance between rights and exceptions to those rights.
<P>
Finally, I would draw your attention to a very important group of amendments: those concerning private copies.
Your amendments uphold two important principles: the right of rightholders to fair remuneration and the fine distinction concerning private digital copies.
The first principle protects a need for equity; it is a measured step forwards in the quest for legal certainty in this sector.
The Commission's acceptance of the amendment relating to digital copies for private use must be seen in the context of the approach already set out in recitals 26 and 27 of our proposal.
Specifically in the light of what is set out in those sections of the proposal, the Commission agrees to recognise the principle that, in the digital sphere, the possibility of making a copy for private use must exist, without prejudice to the effective and workable technical means that are capable of protecting the interests of rightholders.
We therefore align ourselves with the solution you have put forward, though the amendment will have to be redrafted in such a way as to provide an accurate statement of the principle.
<P>
You link not only analogue and digital copies for private use but also the exceptions concerning illustration and teaching to the principle of fair remuneration for rightholders.
That is a formula which allows broader harmonisation and respects the traditions and practices of the Member States.
The Commission is able to follow Parliament's line here too, and therefore accepts Amendments Nos 36 and 37 as well as Amendments No 35 and 41.
<P>
The protection of technological measures forms the subject-matter of Article 6 of the proposal, which has been substantially recast by your Amendments Nos 49, 50, 51, 52, 53 and 54.
We are able to take those amendments into consideration, subject to a degree of clarification which the Commission considers important.
<P>
We congratulate Mr Barzanti on a comprehensive and determined piece of work. I welcome the fact that you support the Commission proposal, in terms of both the overall approach and - I think I can honestly say this - the main components.
In the past, Parliament's influence has been decisive in the adoption of the five directives already in force; the cooperation that exists between Parliament and the Commission in the field of copyright and related rights is something we can rely on, and for that I am truly grateful.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Mr President, I put a specific question about the compatibility of this amended copyright directive with the proposal for a directive on electronic commerce that the Commission made to the Parliament and the Council.
In the proposal on electronic commerce the country of origin is the principal component.
In this copyright directive it could be the country of destination.
That is why I asked my question and the Commisioner did not answer it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="Monti">
Mr President, I am fully aware that I did not answer.
This was because of time constraints.
However, I shall now answer very briefly.
The Commission submitted its proposal on the legal framework for electronic commerce last year.
Both proposals are independent and each has its own crucial importance.
According to the proposal on electronic commerce the country of origin principle does not apply to intellectual and industrial property in accordance with existing international law.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Common organisation of the market in wine
<SPEAKER ID=168 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0261/98) by Mr P. Martin, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) on the common organisation of the market in wine (COM(98)0370 - C4-0497/98-98/0126(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="Martin, Philippe-Armand">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the common organisation of the market in wine is certainly the most complex of all the COMs because it includes not only aspects relating to vineyard management and conditions of grape production but also all rules concerning oenological practices - the processing of wine - as well as rules on labelling.
<P>
The very structure of the text of the COM in wine shows us that wine is an agricultural product rather than an industrial product.
In the time I have been allocated I am not going to present all of the 248 amendments that are included in my report and that are the result of a vote in committee on almost 600 amendments tabled by all Members.
I would like at this stage of my presentation to thank firstly all the officials in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and all those colleagues who made my task easier for me and enabled me to draw up a coherent report.
<P>
What are the central themes of my report?
Firstly, a significant number of amendments concern the decision-making procedure.
The Commission, in its proposal, wanted to have sole authority to change the rules.
In my report we have asked that the procedure known as the Article 43 procedure be reinstated, so that the Council takes decisions on the basis of proposals from the Commission and after consulting the European Parliament.
I personally believe that this procedure, although cumbersome, will allow us to preserve specific rules for wine, promoting its status as an agricultural product.
In view of wine imports from third countries and the intentions that some people have, as we well know, European wine must retain its status as a local, quality product.
In this connection, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development adopted an amendment which I had put forward, prohibiting the vinification of musts imported from third countries.
If this proposal is accepted by the Council, in the form in which we adopted it, the quality image of European wines will be preserved.
<P>
With regard to structure, the Committee on Agriculture adopted the principle of the right to growth, by an increase of 3 % in the vineyard, while preserving restrictions on planting.
Vineyards with an expanding market will be able to obtain other rights on condition that the Member States and, where appropriate, their regions genuinely monitor them.
This was what led us to adopt a specific amendment on maintaining the rules on the computerised vineyard register.
<P>
The duration of planting rights has been extended to allow the land to be rested as necessary.
Other structural measures were adopted concerning the renewal and regeneration of the vineyard.
We have also included measures relating to the vinification tool.
If we finance measures allowing the quality of the grape to be improved, the vinification tool must also be adapted so that the wine will be of good quality.
Finally, the Committee on Agriculture, concerned about the future of the wine-growing profession, wanted all structural measures taken to give priority to young wine growers, either on their establishment or during the period when their holdings are growing.
<P>
In the area of market management we wanted to set up distillation for the purpose of supplying potable alcohol so that European viticulture can preserve its own market.
Moreover, as far as crisis distillation is concerned, we have adopted an amendment specifying that it should be compulsory rather than optional, on condition that it targets only those regions and products in which there is a surplus.
Budgetary reasons and considerations of fairness argue in favour of our position.
With regard to producer organisations, the committee has changed the Commission's proposal only slightly.
Nevertheless, it has deleted measures extending their powers and has reserved the tasks given to them for its members alone.
<P>
As for the interbranch organisations, which we have called 'trade organisations', we have completely changed the Commission's proposal, which seemed to us to be more suited to the fruit and vegetable sector.
At my request and at the request of the chairman of our committee, Mr Colino Salamanca, the European Parliament's Directorate-General for Research carried out a study analysing the role of trade organisations in the wine-growing sector.
<P>
I must commend the excellent work carried out under the leadership of Mr Ramsay and Mr Angelidis, which led to the drafting of Article 42 setting out the principle of delegation of powers and the role of trade organisations.
I believe that the amendment we have adopted takes all interests into account, those of the producer Member States and the non-producer Member States, while preserving all the rules on competition and the internal market.
<P>
With regard to oenological practices, we have adopted amendments allowing the reintegration of all Community legislation currently in force.
We are wary within the committee of implementing regulations that could turn out to be much too lax.
Finally, with regard to inspections, we wanted to establish a Community inspectorate that has sufficient manpower and is responsible for checking whether inspectors in the Member States are applying Community provisions fairly and consistently.
<P>
To conclude on my report, I would like to make it clear that as rapporteur I will be voting in favour of all the amendments adopted in the Committee on Agriculture, with the exception of Amendment No 121, which is inconsistent with Amendment No 124.
I feel it is necessary to preserve the production of marc, such as Burgundy marc or Gewürztraminer marc, and for this reason I will be voting in favour of Amendment No 124 and against Amendment No 121.
Some Members have also tabled amendments, and I will vote in favour of those which follow the line taken in my report, as adopted in committee.
<P>
For this reason I will be voting in favour of Amendments Nos 250 and 251 by Mr Arias Caete, Amendments Nos 256, 257, 259, 261 and 268 by the GUE Group, Amendment No 273 by the ARE Group and the Green Group, and Amendment No 274 by the ARE Group and the I-EDN Group.
I will not be voting for Amendment No 249 because we cannot know how the potable alcohol market will develop.
I will also be voting against Amendments Nos 252, 253, 260, 262, 264, 265, 266, 267 and 269, which are contrary either to the principle adopted by the committee of maintaining the status quo on enrichment and dry sugaring or to other amendments adopted by the Committee on Agriculture.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Görlach">
Mr President, I should like to start by offering my sincere thanks to Mr Martin.
By putting in a great deal of work and showing a great willingness to compromise, the rapporteur has successfully produced a good compromise between the individual regions of Europe - which are of course also reflected within our group.
I emphasise that it is a good compromise.
Sometimes, of course, if there is no prospect of a result, compromises are hastily stitched together, simply to paper over the problems for the time being.
That is not the case here!
That is why I am very grateful to Mr Martin.
<P>
Where wine growing in the European Union is concerned, we must make sure above all that the wine and the regions in which the wine is produced are not seen solely from the point of view of the end product.
It really makes a difference whether I see the wine - be it directly from the wood or in the bottle - just as a product, or whether I see the whole culture and the whole region behind it, and how it is part of the landscape.
I therefore believe that it is worthwhile for Europe to take special care of its wine.
It is at this point - and I may be speaking on behalf of my group, but I do come from a northern Member State - that I should like to thank Mr Martin, because he has shown a feel for the peculiarities of wine growing, for how wine-growing traditions and also oenological practices have developed - over centuries, almost - and because his proposals have made it possible for us actually to forget the dispute we had for a very long time between northern, southern and central Europe.
Problems will remain, and new ones will arise.
When I think of the amount of rectified concentrated grape must which is coming into the European Union in increasing quantities from outside, it seems that we will also have to call on the Commission to be watchful here.
<P>
I think it is particularly positive that flexibility is being preserved where new planting rights are concerned, and that a fair compromise has been found here.
It was decided to increase the area under vines by 3 % by 2010.
Although many would have liked to have seen more, for others this already goes too far.
On distillation, the approach - which is the same as that adopted by the Commission - is absolutely right, namely that we need to cut back on compulsory distillation and that here too we need to introduce a little more market, but that we should keep compulsory distillation as an instrument, to be used in the future where it proves to be necessary.
<P>
A particularly positive initiative, both in the Commission proposals and in the proposals which we discussed and adopted in committee, is the specific and rather privileged - because it is necessary - support for young producers.
Anything which is important in terms of actively supporting young farmers is particularly important where young wine producers are concerned.
I should like to say, even at this early stage, that of course my group wishes to support the rapporteur in his efforts to maintain the compromise reached in the committee and to examine with due care all the amendments which could unravel that compromise.
There are a number of amendments which are in the spirit of the compromise, but there are also a whole series of amendments which could destroy it.
<P>
Our group would like to support it, to make it possible for the considerable amount of work which we did in the committee with Mr Martin to be crowned with a large majority at the vote in Parliament.
The Commission supports this, and the Council would be well advised to take this good compromise produced by Parliament as the basis for its deliberations, because it has in fact failed to make a start on these negotiations for at least the last three years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langen">
Mr President, I too should like to begin by thanking the rapporteur and his colleagues, because they have produced a very good piece of work.
This new Commission proposal has taken us down a different path from the one we took in 1994 and 1995.
At that time, Parliament was split.
The proposal, Commissioner Fischler, was also not nearly as good as this one.
Circumstances have changed in some respects, while in others they have remained the same.
Compared with the 1980s, surpluses have tended to decrease.
Unfortunately, per capita consumption has fallen in the main producer countries, Italy and France.
As a result of the GATT round, we have new competitors in the quality wine sector, a fact which we have borne in mind, and this is where we have made real progress under the leadership of the rapporteur, Mr Martin: in this Parliament, we have finally accepted the special regional characteristics of wine growing in the north and south of Europe.
That is where the real progress has been made.
That is why my group, the PPE, has not, as a group, tabled any amendments to the Agriculture Committee's proposal and against Mr Martin's compromises.
<P>
I should like once again to outline briefly why we have acted in this way.
I believe that in this new proposal, we have successfully put right what was wrong with the old organisation of the market in wine.
Take the subject of distillation for a start.
Compulsory distillation has not proved its worth.
It is right to make it voluntary.
On the other hand, it is also right - and that is why we have also voted in favour of various compromises - for the potable alcohol market to have a guaranteed supply of wine, for example for cognac, brandy and other products which are traditional regional specialities.
<P>
Secondly, for the very first time we have a legal base for producer associations and trade organisations.
We want to make this rather less complicated than it is in the Commission proposal.
That is why we support the Agriculture Committee's call for a framework regulation.
There is - we have agreed in our group - just one point on which we wish to depart from the compromise.
This relates to the first indent of Amendment No 179.
Mr Martin, we have agreed that we want to settle the issue of compulsory packaging in the area of production - as previously discussed - in the Lulling report and not now, and that we want, above all, to wait for the decision of the European Court of Justice on this issue.
We will be voting against the first indent at that point.
<P>
On all the other issues, however, we have supported reasonable compromises, on the status quo for saccharose, on oenological procedures and on diverse traditions.
I believe that overall we can vote in favour of this draft report.
For the first time, Parliament has the opportunity to speak with one voice on this very controversial issue and thus - and most importantly - to influence the Commission and the Agriculture Council.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Vallvé">
Mr President, I do believe that this time we have come up with a helpful document on the common organisation of the market in such a complicated sector as that of wine growing and wine making.
I also feel that the Commission's proposal, though initially valid, has nevertheless been substantially improved by Parliament's report.
<P>
Wine growing and wine making naturally take place in certain specific areas with a long tradition of growing vines, areas where replacing vines with other crops would prove difficult. The producers have years of experience in making wine and it is traditional to drink wine.
Wine used to be almost the only alcoholic drink consumed by the local people.
However, as a result of the so-called globalisation of society, the situation has changed dramatically in recent years.
<P>
This COM seeks to bring production into line with market demand, and in that respect, I believe it is a positive move.
I feel it is helpful to allow a slight increase in new planting, and also welcome the measures designed to allow new young growers to become involved in this traditional process.
<P>
I have no wish to discuss the various methods of wine making, some of which have long been established in certain Member States.
Each area has its own way of making wine.
<P>
Consumers, however, are a key element of our society and certainly deserve consideration.
It is not enough simply to put the wine on the market.
A certain amount of information is called for, together with research into the beneficial effects of wine and education in the sensible consumption of this product.
Wine does have a beneficial effect on health, and should be considered as a food.
Wine and health is a nice phrase, but we cannot just depend on tradition. It is up to the producers' associations to make information available to the consumers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Jové Peres">
Mr President, it is unusual for Parliament to deal with the same issue twice in a single legislature.
Fortunately, the context of the common organisation of the market in wine is now radically different from what it was at the beginning of this legislature.
<P>
The difference lies in the nature of the Commission's proposal.
The proposal put before us early in the present legislature was based on what I would call an apocalyptic vision of anticipated surpluses.
<P>
In the Commission's view, the only way of pre-empting such a situation was the mass destruction of vines.
Fortunately, the ensuing proposal gave rise to such opposition within the Council that the matter was shelved.
<P>
Five years later, the situation is radically different due to the fact that the proposal put forward by the Commission is so unlike the previous one. Reality is stubborn.
Five years have gone by and the much-feared structural surpluses have not materialised. The Commission's draconian proposals therefore no longer make sense.
It is worth pointing out that proposals of this nature abound in the Commission when reforms affecting mainly the southern Member States are at issue.
<P>
Of crucial importance to us today, however, are the rigour and quality expected from research undertaken by the Commission in its role as the institution charged with putting forward legislative proposals.
This is of key importance when what is at stake is the whole package of agricultural reforms contained in Agenda 2000. Often, problems can arise not only from research undertaken but also from what is omitted or has not been done.
<P>
I trust the Commission's present proposals will not have the negative consequences of the 1992 reform as far as the grubbing up of vines and the loss of agricultural jobs are concerned.
<P>
As regards Mr Martin's report, I must congratulate him on the excellent work he has carried out.
His report is coherent and this is particularly commendable as he has had to deal appropriately with a great many amendments.
I would, however, like to highlight - and I know he will not take it amiss - a fundamental problem which remains unresolved. It appears that the use of sucrose for enrichment will continue to be permitted.
A valuable opportunity to replace sucrose with concentrated musts might therefore be lost. Replacing sucrose with must would be in line with traditional practice and would allow wine making to be based entirely on the vineyard.
<P>
In conclusion, Mr Martin, I should like to remind you of a visit you made to my country, and to thank you for having taken the trouble to go there and to meet with the agricultural organisations.
I am most grateful to you for doing so, and feel that some good has come from it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Rosado Fernandes">
Mr President, I hope it was not under the influence of wine that such wide-ranging agreement has been reached in this Parliament.
But if Dionysus has helped us to reach agreement, so much the better!
The truth is that Philippe-Armand Martin's report, while defending the status quo , also manages to modernise and adapt it to the new circumstances of the globalised market, to make it flexible and to free it from the Commission's inherent dirigiste tendency. It places the onus on Member States, producer organisations and committees of viticultural experts, and increases the responsibility of both producers and Member States' governments.
<P>
It also takes into account the need to increase our wine production, market conditions permitting, but at the same time to ensure that this is achieved through greater cooperation between the Member States.
I have no doubt that very simple measures are called for, such as reliable registers, something that does not exist right now.
We must also prevent the fraudulent use of concentrated must, for example, and in our negotiations with certain third countries we should apply a very low tolerance threshold about the fraud practised in those countries.
As for compulsory distillation, we should be more flexible.
And this implies greater responsibility on the part of whoever decides whether or not to distil, on the basis of market fluctuations.
But arbitrary, senseless compulsory distillation should not be the rule.
Another important point is to respect oenological identities, regional oenological practices, and to avoid pointless squabbles: I have to say that I am sick and tired of arguments that frankly have not improved relations among European wine growers.
<P>
I also think it is important - and I must confess that this is an extremely sensitive area for Portugal - to look at the issues of bottling in the region of origin, of accountability, and of quality wines, which are products with a considerable international reputation.
We therefore disagree with Amendments Nos 171 and 179 and we, or at least the Members closest to me, will be voting against them.
Otherwise I think this is an extremely positive report because we have avoided consensus for consensus' sake but have reached a proper agreement.
That is what is of interest: consensus for its own sake is little short of treachery but an agreement is a contract in everyone's interest.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Mr President, the reform of the organisation of the market in wine is another case where the EU must eliminate the problems at their source, instead of only intervening - as it always does - when the floodgates have already been breached.
Distillation and the grubbing-up premium are typical end-of-pipe solutions.
They actually ought to be abolished, because distillation is an invitation to produce massive quantities of lower-quality wine, and the grubbing-up premium encourages the transfer of production from regions which are problematic in terms of labour costs, but important in terms of regional culture, to rationalised, export-driven production.
We will only counter overproduction by introducing comprehensive new quality criteria.
I would caution against the belief that here too genetic engineering can be of assistance.
<P>
We wish to retain the historical lands developed and cultivated by man and to safeguard an appropriate income for wine growers.
In the long term, quality is the only way this can be achieved.
I am particularly concerned about this, because I believe that we will only be able to defend our European viniculture at the next WTO round if we are able to throw something into the ring related to the environment, social policy and quality, because the Americans would like to have our designation of origin off the negotiating table and to negotiate about brand names instead.
That would mean that Coca-Cola could buy the Bordeaux name and then resell the cheapest wines in the world under that name.
But that is not what we want!
We must therefore have good arguments to explain why designation of origin needs to consist of more than alcohol content, quality grade and colour.
<P>
The much vaunted EU model of agriculture will only carry weight and have any substance if we are able to designate regional, social and environmental characteristics for each wine and thus also enter into the negotiations on the offensive.
We support Mr Martin's report and we say one thing: quality not quantity!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Chesa">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, firstly I would like very much to thank our rapporteur Philippe Martin for his excellent report which takes account of all Europe's vineyards.
<P>
I was there when, at the beginning of August, Mr Martin met viticulture and trade representatives of the Languedoc-Roussillon region in the town hall at Carcassonne.
I was pleased to note that their principal demands were included both in the report and in the vote in the Committee on Agriculture.
<P>
What are these principal demands?
With regard to wine-growing potential, we must preserve the principle of limiting rights by providing for the right to growth of 3 % in the short term, with the possibility of updating this in line with market needs once a proper inventory of planting rights has been carried out.
<P>
With regard to improving vineyards, I must stress the importance of this structural component.
As an elected representative of the biggest wine-growing region in Europe, whose vineyards have undergone considerable renewal, I can assure you, Commissioner, that quality is essential for the future of viticulture.
<P>
This is why we have asked that the whole of the 'reconversion' component should allow regeneration of the vineyard and vinification tools.
All of these structural measures, both in terms of wine-growing potential and vineyard improvement, must give priority to young wine growers.
<P>
As far as market management is concerned, we must maintain compulsory distillation of by-products, apart from existing derogations.
The alcohols produced must be suitable for the potable alcohol market in order to reduce the budgetary cost of this measure.
<P>
As for crisis distillation, in order to be efficient this must remain compulsory only in the regions in which there is a surplus.
<P>
With regard to authorisation in the sector, the tasks and responsibilities of the producer groups have to be recognised even though the rules cannot be extended.
I therefore consider the report as adopted in the Committee on Agriculture to be perfectly suitable.
<P>
With regard to oenological practices, we must draw up an exhaustive list of authorised practices and preserve the principle of status quo, including in aid for enrichment using concentrated musts.
<P>
I would like in particular to draw your attention to Amendment No 274 on the production of natural sweet wines.
Here too we need to maintain a list of compulsory information to be given on the labels.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, with regard to trade with third countries, we must keep in place the current rules prohibiting vinification of musts from third countries.
If this ban is lifted, as the Commission proposes, there is a danger that the image of wines produced in the European Union will be considerably damaged and that there will be an actual reduction in quality, which is inconsistent with the objectives of the COM.
<P>
In conclusion, I must just mention the procedure proposed by the Commission both for managing planting rights and for labelling oenological practices and market management measures.
Contrary to the Commission proposals, we must preserve the current procedure known as the Article 43 procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Barthet-Mayer">
Mr President, I very much hope that all Members will vote in favour of the main body of the proposals by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, which are the result of considerable effort by Mr Martin to compromise in order to be fair, realistic and open, and I congratulate him.
<P>
It is essentially a question of ensuring that wine remains a more strictly defined agricultural product, banning imports of musts from third countries, allowing vineyards to increase in size in line with market demand, maintaining the status quo on oenological practices - including dry sugaring - and having compulsory crisis distillation only in regions where there is a surplus.
As the text does not specifically mention natural sweet wines, I, along with several other Members, tabled Amendment No 274 in order to refer to them expressly, which is essential if we are to adhere to our common aim of respecting the diversity of the 'terroirs ' which give European wines their quality and individuality.
<P>
In conclusion, Mr Martin, I shall be tabling two or three amendments, for example on GMO, in the hope that this new wording will be acceptable to the rapporteur and to all the Members.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Mr President, we have been dealing with this wine dossier for six years now, which shows how important - or even doubly important - it is.
It is important firstly because our wine growers are important.
They account for 7 % of agricultural GDP and only 2.5 % of budgetary expenditure, which means that wine growers bring in a lot of revenue and cost very little.
It is important also for the economy in general because viticulture is a key item in our balance of trade.
Moreover, on the issue of the balance of trade, Commissioner, I fear that your proposal is rather putting us at risk.
<P>
We know what the Commission proposal involves.
It is based, as always in the field of agriculture, on the fallacy of overproduction.
According to you, by the year 2000 we would have produced 180 million hectolitres of wine.
We would consume 150 million of these, leaving a surplus of 30 million hectolitres of wine.
Hence the measures you proposed in 1993: early harvests, wine quotas, in short, all the extreme measures that we know so well.
<P>
Fortunately, today we know that in 1998 the figures balanced and you agreed to compromise.
Technically, therefore, there were positive changes.
But I believe that, beneath the surface, the Commission's negative attitudes remain.
<P>
I will look firstly at the positive changes.
It is true that from the Sierra Bardaji report in 1993 to the Fantuzzi report in 1998, and now the Martin report, we have succeeded by means of amendments - 600 in this case - in improving the situation: amendments on distillation, which is now compulsory, amendments on new planting rights of 3 %, on regeneration of vineyards, on rest periods for the land, on potable alcohols, on aid for concentrated must - and not merely for the CIII zones, which worried my wine growers in Languedoc-Roussillon and those of Raymond Chesa - amendments also on inspectors, as we had only two inspectors for the whole of Europe, and perhaps even on interbranch organisations, which go back to Maréchal Pétain and are supported by the Left.
But that is not the important point.
We may even have made progress in the religious war on dry sugaring.
<P>
However, I fear that other more sinister attitudes are lurking beneath these technical concessions.
There are four, as far as I can see: Malthusianism, fundamentalism, internationalism and dehumanisation.
With regard to Malthusianism, firstly, as is the case with meat, cereal, milk and even coal and steel, you only ever have one management instrument: a drastic cut in supply.
You never look into developing demand.
It is true that we must prepare for the opening of the wine market to the East, with the arrival of Hungarian, Romanian and Bulgarian wines, and even the World Trade Organisation in the year 2000, with our Australian, Californian and South African friends.
<P>
Fundamentalism in this case is the fiscal anti-wine fundamentalism of Northern Europe, with 3 euros in excise duty on each litre of wine in Denmark and the United Kingdom.
It is the health fundamentalism that is seen in Sweden and Finland, where they are lax about drugs but puritans when it comes to alcohol, even though wine is a health product with positive cardiovascular effects, to say nothing of the mental effects of beer-drinking seen in the hooligans at Heisel.
<P>
Internationalism is the six million hectolitres of imports, a tenth of a euro in customs duties and the famous concentrated musts from third countries that you were preparing to authorise.
Fortunately, the Commission was able to resist.
All that was needed to perfect this internationalism was to authorise wines in bulk and not to authorise bottling in the region of production. This brings me to the fourth and final undesirable effect, that of dehumanisation, which would make wine an industrial product rather than an agricultural one.
This is the source of the conflict between the beer-drinkers of Northern Europe and the wine-drinkers elsewhere in Europe, and I fear this must affect the balance in the Council of Ministers.
But I would suggest to the House that if there had ever been vines in Saudi Arabia this would have changed the strategic face of the world.
I fear there must be some complicity here between the fundamentalism of the North and the fundamentalism of the South, since neither of them drink wine.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 NAME="President">
We will adjourn the debate at this point for Question Time.
It will resume at 9 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Question Time (Commission)
<SPEAKER ID=180 NAME="President">
The next item is questions to the Commission (B4-0020/99).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 38 by Paul Rübig (H-1252/98)
<P>
Subject: The euro in textbooks The smooth introduction of the single currency and its acceptance by European citizens will depend to a very great extent on how rapidly and comprehensively information can be provided in the educational sector.
Particular attention will, of course, be paid to educational establishments and subjects which are in general concerned with currency aspects, for example commercial colleges and subjects such as accountancy and bookkeeping.
<P>
Can the representative of the Commission present today say what progress has been achieved in the transition to the euro in the educational sector and, in particular, in updating textbooks and teaching materials?
<P>
I should like to welcome Mrs Cresson and ask her to reply to Mr Rübig's question.
You have the floor, Mrs Cresson.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="Cresson">
The Commission is aware of the major challenge which the transition to the euro represents for the educational sector.
Children will play a crucial role in helping parents to adapt to the single currency.
While respecting the exclusive competence of the Member States in this area, the Commission is supporting several projects within the Socrates programme which are helping to disseminate information on the euro in schools and to integrate this topic into the different curriculum subjects.
<P>
A number of concrete measures are worth mentioning here.
A working group entitled 'Education and the euro' has been set up, comprising representatives of the Ministers for Education and the national agencies of the Socrates programme.
This group's work concerns the promotion of educational initiatives on the euro and the exchange of information and good practice in this area.
<P>
The work of this group has led notably to the creation of an inventory of educational tools and initiatives on the euro, both at national and Community level, which is accessible on the Internet on the page entitled 'The euro at school' on the Europa server.
A handbook describing Member States' initiatives in this area, particularly concerning the training of teachers and adaptation of school syllabuses and textbooks, is currently being put together.
This document will also be available on the Internet and will be distributed to interested parties.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Commissioner, I should like to ask a supplementary question: if this is being offered on the Internet and multimedia information is thus also being made available, do you see any chance of this being learning entertainment or a learning adventure, which will make it an enjoyable experience for people to learn about this subject, because in the end it is also a question of parents finding out from their children what prospects this has to offer for the future?
<P>
As far as the research programme is concerned, I would be interested to know whether there are programmes in the research sector which address the issue of how the euro can best be introduced and what problems might arise when this actually happens, so that these can once again be overcome by giving instruction before the event.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="Cresson">
This activity or action does not directly concern the research sector but rather the education sector. As I said, we are indeed intending to disseminate information via the Internet which will be designed for schools and will therefore be presented in the most attractive format possible.
The idea of designing innovative educational software and games has not been ruled out.
<P>
Moreover, I would point out that, every year, we carry out a project of Internet and multimedia dissemination during a week of what are known as 'net days'.
For the next week of net days, which will take place at the beginning of the next school year, I will recommend that we introduce the topic of the euro in exchanges which take place between European schools so that this genuinely topical issue can feature in the programmes organised at the time.
<P>
I also believe that raising the awareness of teachers is absolutely essential.
This was already begun three years ago, as part of my initiative concerning the use of multimedia and the Internet.
As we will have to explain the subject of the euro in greater detail, however, we can start the ball rolling first with the teachers.
That is the information I have on this type of activity.
<P>
With regard to research, at my request and suggestion, the structure of the fifth framework programme of research was modified substantially compared with the fourth framework programme, and the second main chapter heading now deals with information technology.
As in the other chapters of the framework programme, within information technology there is a series of key horizontal actions relating to disciplines in both pure sciences and social sciences.
With regard to the issue of educational software and multimedia, it will also be very useful to be able to introduce incentives and invitations to tender relating to the euro so that we obtain responses to our proposals which we can then disseminate if they are good.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 39 by Richard Howitt (H-0094/99)
<P>
Subject: Charges for international bank transfers and the single market in financial services Does the Commission agree with my constituent, Mr Vaughan of Rochford, that it is unreasonable for UK banks to charge up to GBP 20 for direct transfers to banks in other EU countries when the same function is operated by the Dutch bank ABN/AMRO for just NLG 15 (GBP 6.50)?
In a Union where we are trying to abolish barriers to trade and free movement of labour, would this high cost of transferring money from one Member State to another not contradict the Commission's principles and actively discourage citizens from undertaking work and business in other countries?
Will the Commission consider whether the UK banks are thus responsible for anti-competitive behaviour in breach of Article 85 of the Treaty or whether this is indeed a breach of the single market in financial services?
<P>
I should like to welcome Mr Van Miert and ask him to reply to Mr Howitt's question.
You have the floor, Mr Van Miert.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="Van Miert">
The honourable Member asked first of all whether the level of fees charged by British banks for international money transfers within the European Union could be an infringement of Article 85 of the Treaty of Rome.
This famous article outlaws agreements or concerted practices between undertakings in so far as they have a restrictive effect on competition and affect trade between Member States.
So as long as the pricing in question is the result of an independent, uncoordinated decision of individual banks there is no infringement of Article 85. But if something else is going on there might well be a real problem.
<P>
Secondly, the honourable Member asks whether the level of fees in question is a breach of the single market in financial services.
In its communication on easier cross-border payments of 1992 the Commission stated its view that the full benefits of the single market and economic and monetary union will be achieved only if it is possible for businesses and individuals to transfer money as rapidly, reliably and cheaply from one part of the Community to another as is now the case within most Member States.
<P>
The Commission continues to hold this opinion.
However, there is no legal base in the Treaty for using legislation to eliminate the higher costs borne by users who are making cross-border as compared with domestic transfers.
<P>
Indirectly, however, the Commission has brought pressure to bear on the banking and payments systems concerned, notably by proposing a directive on cross-border transfers.
This directive has been adopted and is going to enter into force on 14 August 1999.
That proposal has encouraged banks to review their systems and to make them more efficient in order to be able to meet the directive's requirements, especially on transparency, guaranteed time schedules for transfers and the money-back guarantee to senders.
There is some evidence that some banks have reduced their prices over the past five years since the proposal came on to the Commission's agenda.
Pricing policy, however, is ultimately a matter for the individual service providers, whether the transfers are made within one country or between countries.
<P>
Finally, in its Green Paper on the introduction of the single currency, the Commission renewed its appeal to banks to treat the introduction of the euro as the golden opportunity to move towards a single payment area, at least for euro payments.
The Commission is presently reviewing its policy on retail cross-border payments in order to deal, amongst others, with the issue of what are still significantly higher prices.
<P>
The situation as it is now is certainly not satisfactory. You can rely on the Commission to continue to work to remedy that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 NAME="Howitt">
I thank the Commissioner for a very full answer and for agreeing with me that this is an unsatisfactory position.
Will he go further and say that the 1992 survey showed that most Member States - most but not all - have low rate and efficient payment systems?
Does not the survey by my constituent, Mr Vaughan - showing that British banks are charging up to three times more than their Dutch counterparts - reveal that we have a particular problem in Britain?
Will you commit yourself specifically to addressing that problem?
<P>
When you say that you will continue with voluntary efforts, will you take into account the commitments from your own colleagues. Commissioner Monti, after he met the European Banking Federation on 29 January said: 'I intend to examine in a communication what remains to be done to improve the functioning of retail payment systems in the single market'.
Similarly, Commissioner de Silguy, issued a warning to Europe's financial institutions on 7 May 1998 urging them to look at this matter again.
Will we have more action, not just more of the same?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 NAME="Van Miert">
As far as the last part of the question is concerned, the answer is yes, but leave it to us to use the instruments in the best way we can and according to the rules.
There should be no doubt about our determination to do so in all respects.
As far as the first part of the question is concerned, this should also be addressed to the British authorities to find out what is happening in Great Britain.
To the extent that it might concern the European Commission, including as a competition authority, we certainly are prepared to look into it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 NAME="McIntosh">
May I welcome the Commissioner here to the Chamber this evening.
May I ask him if he does not agree with me that there is, in fact, great difficulty in ensuring the transparency of the cost of transfers until such time as the euro applies in each Member State?
Would he also agree with me that there is a lack of choice of financial intermediaries within the United Kingdom to access venture capital, particularly for small and medium-sized companies?
I feel great concern, which I would like to place on record, that to access loans through the European Investment Bank there is only a choice of one intermediary in the United Kingdom.
Is there anything the Commissioner or the British authorities can do to stimulate competition in this field?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 NAME="Van Miert">
As far as the intermediaries are concerned, if you could give us some more evidence, we would be certainly prepared to look into that.
It is also related to the responsibilities of my colleague, Mario Monti, but, again, we are certainly open-minded about it and will look into whatever evidence you might make available to us.
<P>
For the rest, I am puzzled to learn that there is such a big difference between the transfer fees which are still applied in Great Britain and some other European countries.
There must be an explanation for that though, as far as I can see, it would be very difficult to come up with a satisfactory explanation.
Something must be done about it.
As I mentioned earlier, it is also a reason for the British authorities either to take action or to look into what is really happening.
But there should be no doubt that, as we see it, the present situation is largely unsatisfactory.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 40 by Willy De Clercq (H-0091/99)
<P>
Subject: Major national differences in respect of recognition, recognition procedure, classification of and controls on medicinal products Completion of the Internal Market still seems a long way off as far as medicinal products are concerned.
Companies are experiencing difficulties in having new medicinal products recognised in the various Member states because of differences in recognition procedures and in exactly what is classified as a medicinal product.
<P>
It is not only companies but consumers, too, who suffer as a result.
In some Member States patients can use a particular product but not in others.
Furthermore, the different controls in the Member states are often the source of legal uncertainty and of inadequate protection.
Nor is this an adequate means of guaranteeing safety for patients.
<P>
What progress has been achieved with completion of a uniform and harmonised market within the EU for pharmaceuticals, and what action does the Commission intend to take in the short term?
<P>
I should like to welcome Mr Papoutsis and ask him to reply to Mr De Clercq's question.
You have the floor, Commissioner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 NAME="Papoutsis">
Mr President, there has been considerable progress made with regard to the internal market for medicinal products.
The picture presented by Mr De Clercq in this respect fully reflects the reality of the situation as it was several years ago.
However, since 1995, major steps have been taken leading to considerable progress being achieved in bringing about a single market, the technical harmonisation of which is almost completed.
In broad terms, what is being pursued in this sector can be broken down into three strategic action plans: the development of a European procedure for the granting of permits for the circulation of such products; the development of a high level of protection of intellectual property rights; and the development of the medicinal products market itself.
<P>
As regards the granting of permits for the distribution of medicinal products, in 1995 two new Community procedures were launched which today allow us swift access to the European market as a whole by means of a single procedure. This procedure is based either on a joint central assessment carried out by the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products, resulting in the granting of a single distribution permit issued by the European Commission, or on mutual recognition amongst Member States, resulting in the harmonisation of national distribution permits.
<P>
As regards intellectual property rights, I must say that, through legislation adopted by Community institutions, Europe now has available the most adequate provisions worldwide in respect of medicinal products.
The legislation adopted in 1998 by Community institutions made it possible to safeguard innovations in the biotechnology sector by issuing patent certificates, thereby putting an end to the uncertainty plaguing this particular sector.
Furthermore, the procedure for the granting of distribution permits protects the data that is used in such requests for six or, more generally, ten years.
<P>
The third aspect of this strategy for developing the internal market in medicinal products is the development of the single market itself and, more especially, the development of the principles of free movement and competition in the context of economic regulation in this sector, in which products are subject to strict checks in terms of pricing and returns.
In May 1998, the Single Market Council adopted provisions regarding the development of a single market in medicinal products.
In November 1998, the Commission made a statement on these issues in the form of a communication which deals with a survey conducted into the progress made thus far in constructing a single market for medicinal products.
<P>
Mr De Clercq has asked a question which relates to the existence in the near future of plans to improve the operation of the internal market. I can assure you that the Commission has already made a number of proposals in the realm of so-called 'orphan drugs', in other words, drugs for rare diseases, and also in relation to a more effective regulatory framework for clinical tests.
The debate on the single market in medicinal products will continue. Last year, in its communication, the Commission emphasised the importance of a more rational approach, which would be supported in the market, towards a regulatory framework in the pharmaceutical sector.
The aim is to improve patients' access to quality drugs and to improve the competitiveness of the pharmaceutical industry.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="De Clercq">
Thank you for that reply. I will check it with those who requested me to ask the question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 41 by Ludivina García Arias (H-0080/99)
<P>
Subject: Neutrality of the Commission's Director-General for Energy Does the Commission not believe that the remarks made by its Director-General for Energy, a Spanish national, during the debate organised by the European Energy Foundation on 'the implementation of the energy directive in Spain' constitute an intervention in respect of the texts enlarging on and interpreting Article 24 of Directive 96/92 (EC) on the arrangements governing the transition to competition, and that serious doubts therefore arise concerning his neutrality as regards the legality of the imputation of the costs of the transition to competition relating to the Spanish electricity sector?
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Papoutsis to answer Mrs García Arias's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 NAME="Papoutsis">
<SPEAKER ID=196 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García Arias">
I regret to have to say, Commissioner, that the first part of your answer is not an accurate account of what actually took place.
I was myself present at the European Energy Foundation dinner together with a number of other journalists. In the light of some of the things said on that occasion, I began to feel that, as a Spaniard, I was betraying my country.
However, other journalists present confirm what has since been made public, and I agree with them. As I said, I was myself present at the dinner.
<P>
In addition, I now have serious doubts as to the neutrality, impartiality and objectivity with which the Director-General for Energy is dealing with this issue. By his very presence at that meeting and by what he said there, he endorsed the legality of the costs of transition to competition in Spain.
I should like to put a specific question to you, Commissioner, in view of the fact that this appointment has provoked a mixed reaction in Spain.
In fact, it has led to much debate, is being challenged in the courts as unconstitutional, and the consumers' associations have lodged appeals in the hope of ensuring that the procedure is carried through in an objective manner.
Would you be prepared, Commissioner, to meet with representatives of the consumers and of the political parties in Spain who are opposed to the procedure chosen to deliver this aid?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 NAME="Papoutsis">
Mr President, I would like to stand firm on what I have already said.
The cost of transition towards competitiveness is something which the Commission services are investigating thoroughly under conditions of absolute confidentiality. Neither I nor any other Member of the Commission would wish to second-guess the outcome of these investigations, in strict compliance with the provisions of the Treaty which insist on the confidentiality of this process.
<P>
For this reason, we will leave no stone unturned in our attempt to achieve an objective, neutral and substantive assessment of this particular case.
All of us - the Commission, of course, the Directors-General and all the Members of the Commission - have a duty to remain neutral and objective in assessing the various cases.
I would like to assure all the political parties in Spain that this is the line the Commission will continue to take.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Estevan Bolea">
The cost of the transition to a competitive market will not be taken from public funds.
It will be borne by the consumers and will constitute an additional element of the price of electricity used.
<P>
My question relates to the nature of the costs.
However, further to Mrs García Arias' comments, I should like to say that I, too, was present at that dinner, and I agree entirely with you, Commissioner, as to the neutrality of the Director-General.
It is quite usual for senior officials from the Commission to attend dinners. It would be much stranger if you did not allow them to go.
Furthermore, we all want to hear what they have to say.
I am also quite sure that you all operate discretely and maintain confidentiality.
<P>
My question, however, is this: is the cost we are discussing state aid?
Or is it an additional element of the price of electricity which will simply be absorbed like any other, since it is a result of investments made to guarantee energy and to guarantee supply in tightly regulated and controlled markets?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 NAME="Papoutsis">
I would like to assure you that, following discussions held with the Commission, both with me and with my colleague, Mr Van Miert, the Spanish Government has accepted that the Spanish case be looked into. This will allow our services to investigate, as is proper and in accordance with the rules, whether these are indeed costs relating to the obligations of the public services, which were previously imposed by the public authorities on their own corporations, and which are now being imposed on the process to free up the market, and which run the risk of causing casualties among the companies involved.
<P>
These are the boundaries within which the matter is being handled.
For the time being, I have nothing more to add and under no circumstances will I seek to pre-empt the conclusion which our services will come to.
What I can do, however, is reassure you yet again that, in carrying out their assessment, our services will abide by the principle of absolute neutrality and will simply assess the facts on their merits.
I would also like to point out that this procedure is closely bound up with the operation of the internal market for energy and, as such, it must be a litmus test for the credibility of the system.
This is one more reason for the Commission to stand firm on the impartiality of the procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pérez Royo">
It will be for the Commission to consider whether the so-called costs of the transition to a competitive situation are genuine costs and should be included in the electricity bill or whether, on the contrary, they are to be seen as state aid.
I must take this opportunity to mention that prior to this debate, the government had refused to raise the matter with the Commission.
<P>
Secondly, I wish to put a question along the lines of that raised by Mrs García Arias concerning Mr Benavides' attitude.
I find it quite unacceptable and I feel personally insulted.
Mr Benavides' reference to political exhibitionism can only be understood as a reference either to members of the Spanish Parliament or to Members of this Parliament, and I find any such reference totally unacceptable.
<P>
I must also remind Mr Papoutsis that very soon, when the common market for energy becomes a reality, all issues relating to energy - and this one in particular - will come within the Commission's competence.
In this context, I have to make it quite clear that in my judgment - in our judgment - Mr Benavides has forfeited the impartiality and objectivity which are essential when dealing with an issue of this nature.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 NAME="Papoutsis">
Mr President, allow me to give my assurances yet again to the honourable Member and to this House that I personally and the services within the Commission will do our utmost to ensure that the directive to create the internal market in electricity is implemented in the most neutral and impartial way possible.
Let me reiterate that what is at issue here is the credibility of the operation of the internal market system and the responsibilities assumed by the Commission in implementing this directive.
On this basis, therefore, I would ask that you respect the answer I gave before regarding the Director-General for Energy.
<P>
Mr President, in line with Parliament's rules and the conditions governing the conduct of its proceedings, the honourable Member will receive the same answer I gave to Mrs García Arias in writing, as provided for in the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 NAME="President">
Thank you for those answers, Mr Papoutsis, and for attending Question Time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 42 by Jan Andersson (H-0020/99)
<P>
Subject: Conditions for Swedish adoption of the common currency The introduction of the euro at the beginning of the year has lent urgency to the debate in Sweden on its possible future adoption of the common currency, the timing of which is one of the principal issues.
Here it would be valuable to clarify the formal criteria for adopting the euro.
<P>
Can the Commission explain how the present qualifying periods for joining the ERM are to be interpreted?
Are they irrevocable and absolute, or are there circumstances which might be invoked for allow Sweden to join the ERM at an earlier date than that implied by the qualifying periods laid down for the ERM?
<P>
I give the floor to Mr de Silguy to answer Mr Andersson's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 NAME="de Silguy">
In reply to Mr Andersson, I would like to say firstly that the Treaty does not specify any qualifying period for the passage of a Member State to the third stage of economic and monetary union.
I would remind you that in accordance with Article 109k(2), which lays down the procedure for entry into EMU for Member States with a derogation, the Commission and the European Central Bank must report to the Council at least once every two years or at the request of the Member State concerned.
<P>
So to enter the third stage of economic and monetary union it is necessary to have achieved a high degree of sustainable convergence.
This is what the Treaty says.
The Commission examines the following criteria here: the achievement of a high degree of price stability, the sustainability of the government financial position, in terms of both deficits and debt, and the observance for at least two years of the normal fluctuation margins provided for by the exchange rate mechanism of the European Monetary System.
The sustainability of convergence achieved by the Member State and of its participation in the exchange rate mechanism of the European Monetary System are also reflected in the long-term interest rate levels.
<P>
With regard to Sweden, the Commission considered in its report of 25 March 1998 that this country did not fulfil the necessary conditions for the adoption of the single currency.
Firstly, Sweden's national legislation, including the statute of the national central bank, was not compatible with Articles 107 and 108 of the Treaty and the Statute of the European System of Central Banks.
Secondly, Sweden did not fulfil the criterion of exchange rate stability.
The Swedish krona never participated in the exchange rate mechanism and, in addition, in the two years under review by the Commission, 1996 and 1997, the Swedish krona fluctuated against the ERM currencies, reflecting, among other things, the absence of an exchange rate target.
<P>
With regard to the criterion of exchange rate stability set out in the third indent of Article 109j(1) of the Treaty, the Commission considered in its report last March that the currencies of Finland and Italy, although having rejoined the ERM only in October 1996 and November 1996 respectively, had 'displayed sufficient stability in the last two years'.
<P>
In conclusion, I would say that there is no qualifying period and I would point out again that the conditions of entry for the Member States that are today the 'pre-ins' are the same as for the countries that are currently participating in economic and monetary union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Andersson">
I should like to begin by thanking the Commissioner for his reply.
I put the question because the main reason why Sweden decided not to join EMU was that public opinion was against it.
Now, I can safely say that public opinion in Sweden has changed dramatically.
According to the latest polls, a large majority of Swedish people are in favour of the euro and of joining the single currency.
This means that next year, or perhaps a little later, Sweden will hold a referendum to decide whether to join the single currency.
I should therefore be grateful if there could be some flexibility over the timetable for entry.
In the past year, the Swedish Parliament has decided on the position of the central bank.
Consequently, I believe that we are now seeing a period of more stability.
<P>
I am therefore once again putting the question to the Commissioner.
The most important aspects should still be Sweden's economy and its eligibility for a place in the club in terms of inflation, interest rates and so on.
In this respect, the situation looks fairly promising.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 NAME="de Silguy">
I have already had the opportunity to comment on this subject and I pointed out that there are only two countries which have an opt-out facility under the Treaty, and these are Denmark and the United Kingdom.
It is obvious that we are not going to force a country manu militari to adopt a single currency if it does not wish to do so.
<P>
As for the rest, I very much hope that the economic and political advantages of membership of the single currency that we are currently observing will be able to sway opinions in the countries which do not belong today.
I hope that opinions will be changed quickly, and the excellent stability programme presented yesterday by the Swedish Government and accepted by the Council of Ministers is an encouraging factor here.
<P>
However, I would add that the exchange rate criterion is important.
It has legal force and will therefore be applied under precisely the same conditions.
I will gladly forward to Mr Andersson a copy of the speech I made yesterday concerning the Swedish Government's convergence programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sandberg-Fries">
I should just like to make sure that we have understood the reply correctly. The background to this issue is as follows.
The French Minister for Europe, in a leading article in a Swedish newspaper, recently described his perception of Sweden's attitude to the euro under the heading: 'A stronger euro if Sweden joins'.
He also said that Sweden was perfectly entitled not to join the single currency for the time being.
<P>
As my Swedish colleague mentioned earlier, the situation has now changed significantly.
I believe it would be a very good thing, in view of the new positive attitude that currently prevails, if the Swedish people were to feel that the present members of the single currency were keen for their country to join.
<P>
I should just like to confirm that the Commissioner and the French Minister for Europe are both agreed on that point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 NAME="de Silguy">
It is not my place to comment on any statements or articles by European Union ministers.
What I can say is that the Commission obviously hopes that Sweden, together with the other countries which are not participating in economic and monetary union, will join or be in a position to join the euro zone as quickly as possible, because our analysis shows that this is in the interest of the countries in question and in the interest of the EU as a whole.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 43 by Astrid Thors (H-0042/99)
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Subject: The Target payment system The new Target system for payment transactions between European banks was put into practice in connection with the transition to the euro at the beginning of this year.
The system has, at least during the initial phase, been extremely unsatisfactory and caused considerable delays to payments between EU banks.
Delays in payment have resulted in substantial losses for the banks.
<P>
According to the Commission, which measures are needed in order to guarantee that the new Target system will facilitate the banks' transactions instead of making them more difficult, as is now the case?
<P>
I give the floor to Mr de Silguy to answer Mrs Thors's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="de Silguy">
Mr President, the Target payment system comes within the competence of the European System of Central Banks, which operates it.
It is not therefore the Commission's responsibility to deal with matters concerning the operation of Target, nor is it my place to advise the ESCB on the matter.
<P>
Nevertheless, the Commission has read the various reports describing the initial difficulties encountered by the system.
I assure you that these difficulties are rare and limited, and that they in no way represent functional defects.
<P>
According to the Commission's information, Target itself has posed hardly any problems and seems to have operated normally from the first day of use.
The difficulties mentioned are more likely to result from the inexperience of certain commercial banks, which is only to be expected in the early stages of using a new system.
For example, these banks have input data that are incompatible with the system; it has also been the case that, out of habit, certain banks have concentrated most of their transactions in the latter part of the day, thus giving rise to bottlenecks.
<P>
Finally, it has been necessary to bring the national payment systems' links - particularly computer interfaces - into line with Target, which also explains the teething problems noted.
However, given the scale and complexity of the system, these difficulties appear to be minor, and the European System of Central Banks now seems to have them completely under control.
This is illustrated by a press release of 21 January in which the European Central Bank indicated that the problems encountered with the cross-border flow of liquidity during the first few days of the euro area money market had diminished substantially and that, overall, only three weeks after its creation the market had reached a satisfactory level of integration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, Commissioner, I quite agree with you.
I think you have explained that the problems I asked about were really just teething troubles.
<P>
I think it is important to note that part of the problem stems from the fact that some systems do not operate throughout the day. This means that there is a great deal of payment activity at the end of the day.
Is the Commission aware of the continuing existence of this problem?
According to my information, the situation at the end of January was that some banks were still not connected to the Target system throughout the day.
That is why the problem has arisen.
<P>
I should also like to ask whether the Commission has taken part in any discussions regarding the question of compensation that has arisen as a result of the delays.
It was my understanding that in certain circumstances the compensation issue was to be addressed.
Consequently, I should like to thank the Commissioner for his written reply about another matter, which I received this morning.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="President">
Mr de Silguy, we are supported by interpreters in the House, and the Spanish booth at least had not completed the interpretation of Mrs Thors's speech in Swedish.
I was obviously anxious to hear the speech in full, and would therefore remind you to wait until you are given the floor.
I have no wish to flaunt my authority. I am merely concerned for the smooth running of proceedings.
You now have the floor to respond to Mrs Thors's supplementary question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 NAME="de Silguy">
I apologise, Mr President; interpretation may be quicker in one language than in another.
In any case, I congratulate Mrs Thors on her French; I certainly cannot speak in Swedish or Finnish.
<P>
On the two aspects you raised, Mrs Thors, I must point out firstly that this was an extremely complex and cumbersome system and that the difficulties encountered were negligible compared to what could have happened, although all preparations had been made.
Once again, it is a question of habit.
You referred to payments made at the end of the day; this is also a question of habit and all these problems will disappear as the market becomes integrated and begins to operate more smoothly.
I believe that now only small technical or electrical problems occur occasionally but these are dealt with quickly and, I believe, in everyone's best interests.
In any case, the system works.
<P>
Secondly, when the system was introduced, the Commission had to deal with certain aspects which fell within its jurisdiction, for example issues related to competition, which might have posed a problem when the system was set up.
These have now been resolved and are once again the responsibility of the European Central Bank; you could ask Mr Duisenberg this question at the next opportunity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 NAME="President">
As the author is not present, Question No 44 lapses.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 45 by Anna Terrón i Cusí (H-0082/99)
<P>
Subject: Excessive commissions charged by Spanish banks Is the Commission aware that, on the pretext of the introduction of the euro, Spanish banks are charging excessive commissions for exchanging euro-11 currencies, ranging from 3 % to 10 % (in the case of sums less than Pta 30 000)?
Does the Commission believe these practices are likely to make the public more enthusiastic about the advent of the euro?
<P>
I give the floor to the Commissioner to answer Mrs Terrón's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=216 NAME="de Silguy">
These two questions are very much related and it is difficult to separate them because they rightly raise the problem of the cost of banking transactions now that the euro has been introduced.
This is a vitally important issue for the Commission because the acceptance of the euro by the general public depends on it.
<P>
We must make the situation clear and distinguish between national banking transactions and cross-border transactions within the euro zone.
With regard to national transactions, on 15 April the Commission adopted a recommendation providing both for equal treatment of the euro and the national currency and for compulsory transactions to be free of charge.
In accordance with this principle, all banking services must cost the same, whether the sum is in euros or in the national currency.
On this point, as far as we know, breaches of the recommendation are quite rare.
<P>
The situation regarding cross-border transactions, on the other hand, is different.
There are both manual foreign-exchange operations - exchanging notes for notes - and cross-border transfers.
In the Commission's opinion a clear and detailed presentation of the level and structure of bank charges for both types is essential to promote competition and thus a reduction in the commission charged, which would be of great benefit to the consumer.
<P>
The exchange rate risk has disappeared with the advent of the euro.
The conversion rate between currencies in the euro zone has been fixed irrevocably, thus preventing the use of 'spread', which means different buying and selling rates.
But the euro does not eliminate all costs, for example certain handling or transaction costs.
<P>
In total, according to our information and our calculations, the birth of the euro should represent an average saving of approximately 20 % on transaction costs in comparison to the period prior to its introduction, and this should of course logically be passed on to the customer.
<P>
With regard more specifically to cross-border payment systems for small sums, the introduction of the euro does not automatically unify these systems.
They will therefore continue to operate independently, in accordance with the structure of the national systems.
The issue of manual exchange will, by definition, be resolved definitively on 1 January 2002, but there will be no automatic progress with regard to transfers.
For this reason we must aim, as soon as possible, to create a Target system for the public so that transfers of small sums - these being of interest to individuals, whereas the Target system which we were just discussing is of interest to the banks - between countries in the euro zone are carried out as securely and quickly as national transfers and at a similar cost.
<P>
That is the situation.
In the light of this, the Commission has taken a number of measures to encourage banks to facilitate use of the euro by reducing excessive bank charges.
Firstly, the banks are called upon to increase transparency.
To this end they must publish the structure of the bank charges that they have applied since 1 January 1999.
Ireland, for example, has published notices on this issue in the national press, and I believe this sets an example for other countries.
<P>
The European banking federations must submit a complete overview to the Commission by 31 March at the latest, and at that time the Commission will undertake a full evaluation of the situation.
<P>
Secondly, the Commission has just set up a fax and e-mail system, known as 'eurosignal', which the public can contact directly; it has also published e-mail addresses in the press so that people can send messages, and we guarantee to reply to every single one of them.
<P>
Thirdly, the Member States are called upon to quickly set up euro monitoring centres, as the Commission has recommended.
Finally, the Commission has encouraged the banks to develop the cross-border payment systems that I have just mentioned, which are safe, fast, efficient and at a reasonable cost.
<P>
In spring, the Commission will publish a communication which will allow us to bring all this together and to propose a framework for creating a single payments area.
This communication will examine both existing methods of payment - cards, cheques - and future methods, and here I am referring to the electronic wallet.
<P>
My aim is that, this summer, all tourists - and God knows there are plenty in Europe - will realise that the euro makes it cheaper for them in 1999 than it was last year to travel to another European country and to exchange money.
The Commission has not delayed in taking action; it is determined to achieve a real improvement in the situation, and this must be visible by this summer at the latest.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Terrón i Cusí">
Thank you, Commissioner, for your detailed account of planned developments in the euro zone, but I had put a specific question to you. Are you aware that on 4 January, all the financial institutions in Spain simultaneously began to charge high commissions on the purchase of currencies that are part of the euro?
<P>
This development and the fact that all the institutions took action simultaneously lead us to suspect that some agreement on this policy must have been reached in advance. Clearly, any such agreement would contravene the basic rules of the market.
<P>
Commissioner, you claimed that tourists will find it cheaper to travel within the euro zone this summer. However, tourists who come to Spain and try to change spending money may find that they lose up to 10 % of the money they change, and with no prior warning.
<P>
Are you aware of the situation and do you intend to introduce specific measures to remedy it?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="de Silguy">
To give you further details, I can tell you that Mr Van Miert is going to speak before the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs next week.
I am sure that for the specific case you have mentioned he will be able to provide you with all the information that you require and that can be given.
I would also assure you that the Commission will fully assume its responsibility and will apply the powers it holds in accordance with the Treaty.
Finally, we have been in direct and constant contact with the banks for one and a half months now, precisely in order to help advance the situation.
I think we are currently making progress.
We could not hope to resolve everything on the first day.
I believe that, from now on, the whole of the banking sector will be more aware of what is happening, and the situation has already improved in a great many cases.
I hope that this will become more widespread in the weeks and months to come.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pérez Royo">
You will recall, Commissioner, that when this House approved the report on the euro and the consumer - for which I myself was the rapporteur - it also approved a recommendation to the effect that the Commission should put forward legislation designed to eliminate or curtail such practices.
Unfortunately, this never happened, and so unfortunately, events have shown that we were right, and we are now having to raise our voices and complain on behalf of consumers about current practices in the various countries. These practices are preventing the citizen - the consumer - from appreciating fully that the euro has arrived and that charges should therefore disappear.
<P>
The Bank of Spain is to be commended for its initiative to provide free exchange of all currencies from within the so-called euro zone in Spain. Unfortunately, however, the Bank of Spain's network is limited and this initiative has not prevented the private banking institutions from pursuing a policy which may well have been agreed in advance.
If that proved to be the case, I am sure Mr Van Miert would have something to say about it.
In any case, our misgivings as to possible abuses of this nature have proved well founded.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 NAME="de Silguy">
Firstly, I believe we should not generalise certain cases which have arisen.
Secondly, it must be understood that the Commission does not have the necessary legislative powers to compel banks and bureaux de change, by regulatory means, to exchange notes free of charge or to observe a maximum tariff.
This also applies to charges on cross-border transfers.
The Commission ensures that banks observe the existing legal obligations: conversion between the euro and the national currency unit without charge, conversion of accounts to the euro unit without charge, and non-discrimination between the euro and the national currency unit in charges for identical services.
<P>
Furthermore, the measures we have taken are currently leading to progress in this area.
I have already said this and I will say it again: I believe that what happened at the beginning was overexposed in the media.
We must not generalise this at EU level.
We must be vigilant.
This is why we are maintaining pressure on the banks, and this pressure must be translated into action.
If in fact no change is observed at the end of a reasonable period, we might have to consider alternative measures.
But I do not believe that we have reached this stage yet: the results of measures undertaken in recent weeks lead us to believe that the situation is improving.
<P>
It took forty years to put this single currency into circulation, so we should not expect the obstacles and constraints encountered by our citizens and consumers to disappear all at once.
Also, these obstacles are not generally linked to the currency itself but result from other factors, for example the links between banking systems.
<P>
I can therefore assure you once again that the Commission is aware of the problems, and we are being vigilant.
We are working in close cooperation with the banks and consumers, and we have issued a number for dealing with complaints and any difficulties that arise.
We will answer all calls.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García Arias">
Like you, Commissioner, I believe in European integration and I certainly believe that we have taken a historic step forward.
Furthermore, millions of euros are in fact being spent on campaigns to inform the citizens about future developments which will benefit them in two years' time.
Nevertheless, the citizens have had to put up with being charged commission by the banks from the very first day of trading, and there is a sneaking suspicion that the banking institutions may have come to an agreement. This is quite feasible, as there are not many of them.
<P>
I do not therefore believe that we can dismiss these as just a few isolated cases seized on by the media.
In practice, when an ordinary citizen travels, he is forced to part with a commission.
<P>
Do you not think that a public statement might be called for, Commissioner?
I understand that you have been in contact with the banks, but could you not give a more helpful response to the citizens who have complained?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 NAME="de Silguy">
I believe I have already answered all the points you raised, except one.
You asked if I could not do so publicly.
We have done so: on 5 February we published an extremely detailed press release dealing with the questions you have raised.
I will pass this press release on to you very shortly, and I will be distributing it to the whole of Parliament, to show that we are dealing with this issue.
<P>
I will bear in mind however - as these debates are of especial interest to me - that Spain has been particularly affected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 46 by Christine Oddy (H-0002/99)
<P>
Subject: Amnesty International and the European Union's human rights policy Is the Commission aware that Amnesty International has marked the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with the publication of a report on EU human rights policy?
What steps is the European Commission taking to evaluate this report with a view to using its main recommendations to flesh out EU human rights policy?
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I should like to welcome Mr van den Broek and ask him to reply to Mrs Oddy's question.
You have the floor, Commissioner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="van den Broek">
I am pleased to confirm that the Commission has received the report to which the honourable Member refers.
This report by Amnesty International contains a number of interesting proposals which warrant closer examination.
This is why the Commission has invited Amnesty and a number of other human rights organisations to exchange their views on this with members of the interservice group of the Committee on Human Rights, which includes representatives from all the relevant Directorates-General.
<P>
I would also point out here that in our external human rights policy, a subject which we have discussed on several occasions in Parliament, the European Union is certainly very active.
Where I believe we need to step up our efforts is on the proposals to focus our attention on human rights situations within the European Union itself.
<P>
In this connection I should also like to refer once again to the Treaty of Amsterdam, the human rights paragraphs of which were the subject of lengthy debate during negotiations.
There is also a proposal by the German Presidency circulating at present to draw up a charter of human rights.
We will be discussing this tomorrow with representatives of the Council of Europe, in particular in order to see how this initiative should relate to the existing European Convention on Human Rights.
<P>
To return to external human rights policy, I would remind you of the important declaration in Vienna by the Council of Ministers in connection with the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
This declaration also announces a number of initiatives and studies in the field of human rights policy, one of which I should particularly like to mention, which is the suggestion that we should consider whether the European Union should draw up its own annual human rights report, something that the European Parliament has also called for.
<P>
Finally, I should like to point out that the Commission feels that if we are to take such a far-reaching initiative it could be very important to opt for an annual report which deals with a limited number of human rights themes, rather than perhaps seeking to produce a worldwide report.
Apart from the human and financial resources which would be required, the US State Department already issues such a report.
I fear that otherwise we will simply be duplicating their work.
<P>
All these initiatives are currently being discussed, a fact which we welcome.
I would say to Mrs Oddy that we have the very definite feeling that interest in human rights issues is not only widening but also deepening in the European Union, which is most definitely to be welcomed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="Oddy">
I thank the Commissioner for his helpful response.
As this is such a broad subject, I will just devote myself to one area.
On the EU code of conduct on the arms trade, is there yet a common list of military equipment covered by that code?
How many countries have refused export licences for arms?
And how are you monitoring that Member States are carrying out their duties under this code properly?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="van den Broek">

Mrs Oddy will recall that under the British Presidency agreement was finally reached on a code of conduct for arms exports, that of course the content of this agreement was the result of a compromise between the Member States on a difficult issue which has been the subject of discussion for so many years, and that the German Presidency has resolved to see whether the terms of this code of conduct can be further tightened up to allow stricter controls on arms exports.
We must await the outcome of this, but it goes without saying that the European Commission strongly supports these efforts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
Please remain with this question.
Mr Truscott has the floor to put a supplementary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 NAME="Truscott">
In welcoming the recent legislative changes in Latvia and Estonia to expedite the naturalisation process for non-citizens born in these countries, does the Commission believe further measures are necessary under the Copenhagen human rights' criteria to allow the full integration of Russian speakers in Latvia and Estonia?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 NAME="van den Broek">
The Council and Commission both welcomed the legislation to facilitate naturalisation which was recently adopted in Estonia and Latvia.
I believe I am right in saying that in the past we insisted on compliance with the recommendations of the OSCE High Commissioner for national minorities, and on this point, and particular in relation to stateless children, these recommendations have been met.
What we are currently monitoring more closely, on the basis of cooperation and constructive dialogue with these countries, is the situation regarding the language regime for minorities and the language knowledge requirements in order to stand as candidates in national or regional elections.
But I believe there is every reason to be optimistic as the politically difficult decisions taken in this area fortunately, particularly in the case of Latvia, received very broad support in a referendum on the issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
Mr van den Broek, you spoke about an EU charter of fundamental rights, but all the Member States have incorporated human rights into their own constitutions and there are also international rules on human rights, so what would the EU achieve through having a special EU charter on human rights?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 NAME="van den Broek">
This is an interesting question in itself.
It is also the reason why I said earlier that we need to take a careful look at what this charter could mean in terms of strengthening human rights within the Union.
The honourable Member is quite correct, apart from the national constitutions of the Member States, which generally provide sufficient protection for fundamental rights and freedoms, there is also the Council of Europe's European Convention on Human Rights which is still unique, including in the sense that it is the only human rights convention in the world which also includes an enforcement mechanism, on the basis of which a separate court in Strasbourg can be asked to pronounce on violations and infringements of the convention.
<P>
Taking all this into account, the honourable Member will also remember that there has already been an in-depth debate on whether or not it would be possible to allow the European Community to be a party to the European Convention on Human Rights as a legal personality.
The Court of Justice in Luxembourg ruled that this was not possible on the basis of the present EU Treaty.
So if this is out of the question, it then raises the question of how else human rights protection can be regulated at European level, perhaps including powers for the Court of Justice.
<P>
That is the debate currently on the agenda, but as I said, we are also having discussions with the Council of Europe.
We will certainly keep you informed of the progress of these discussions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 47 by Giorgos Dimitrakopoulos (H-0007/99)
<P>
Subject: Security in Cyprus Given that the EU, and some Member States in particular, had raised objections to the initial plan of the Cyprus Government to site a surface-to-air missile system, consisting of S-300 missiles, on the island and subsequently congratulated it on its decision to cancel the plan, how does the Commission feel that Cyprus should improve its security?
<P>
I give the floor to the Commissioner to answer Mr Dimitrakopoulos's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 NAME="van den Broek">
My expert colleagues have prepared a long answer to Mr Dimitrakopoulos' question.
With all due respect for everything this contains, which I am sure Mr Dimitrakopoulos is already perfectly familiar with, I would like to try to give him a rather more off-the-cuff reply.
I agree with him entirely that the developments in Cyprus have had a positive effect in that President Clerides' decision not to place air defence missiles on the island has considerably helped to ease tensions, and not only on Cyprus: it has also reduced tensions which were in danger of escalating between Greece and Turkey, which could in turn have put further strain on relations between the European Union and Turkey.
<P>
We also know that we are engaged in an intensive process of cooperation with Cyprus with a view to accession.
I believe that this wise and courageous decision by President Clerides has created a better climate for that process.
<P>
Thirdly, and this is not the least important point, the honourable Member will be aware that the European Union, both the Council and the Commission, are intensively supporting the efforts by the UN Secretary General, and more particularly the special representative Mr Herkus who is on the island at present, to try to make progress towards a political solution for Cyprus.
<P>
Here too we can say that the process was certainly not made any easier as long as the threat of conflict over the air defence missiles was in the air.
The positive step taken by President Clerides - at the expense of internal political tensions within his government - was not only a wise but also a courageous act. But what does this mean for the whole political development of Cyprus as such?
Although I cannot be very optimistic - there are not enough positive indications that the political process under UN supervision will bring concrete results in the foreseeable future for that - it must be said that it has increased the prospect that, for example, the dialogue on security and the military situation on the island, which is being conducted in the form of confidential diplomacy by the United Nations, will have a greater chance of success.
The honourable Member can be sure that the European Union will try to contribute where we see such chances developing, through the presidency, Member States' contacts and also the European Commission.
<P>
To conclude this answer, we all know what an enormous positive contribution would be made to Cyprus' integration in the European Union if a solution could be found to the still fundamental problems that exist on the island.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Dimitrakopoulos">
<SPEAKER ID=235 NAME="van den Broek">
When I speak of expectations my answer must always be conditional, in the sense that positive steps may of course be expected from two parties when it comes to solving political conflicts.
I have clearly stated what President Clerides' contribution has been. It could therefore also be expected, especially when the security situation on the island itself - and here I am speaking of matters such as the militarisation or demilitarisation of the island - is so closely linked to President Clerides's decision, that it would be extremely welcome, and we must now urge the Turkish Cypriot community and thus also Ankara to move forward on this very issue.
<P>
Mr Herkus too has made great efforts recently to see whether it is possible to progressively demilitarise the island, also given the very positive boost which that would give to the rest of the political talks which, as the honourable Member well knows, are at present at a serious impasse.
<P>
Once again, wherever the European Union, including the European Commission, can give encouragement in its contacts with the Turkish Government, it will certainly do so.
I believe we must also be realistic enough to recognise that Turkey is at present on the eve of parliamentary elections, which is not a period when it is customary to see the most courageous political acts.
But let us hope that when the elections are over we will again see new opportunities opening up.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
I must make a further demand on your time, because in accordance with the Rules, Mr Hatzidakis has asked for the floor to put a supplementary question.
Mr Hatzidakis now has the floor for one minute, and his will be the last question to Mr van den Broek today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Hatzidakis">
Commissioner, I would like to ask you two things.
<P>
Firstly, the Cypriot Government previously put forward a proposal to completely demilitarise the island, which was rejected by the Turkish Cypriots - wrongly, in my view. But now the Cypriot Government has put forward a new proposal to establish a NATO peacekeeping force on the island and to bring about the withdrawal of the Turkish forces of occupation and the Greek armed forces from the island.
What is your position on this?
<P>
Secondly, in the light of the positive gestures made by the Cypriot Government and given that it has put a stop to its plan to install the S-300s, and since it has said that the Turkish Cypriots should participate in discussions concerning the membership of Cyprus in the EU, which the Turkish Cypriots have refused to do, and in the light of the more general mood of conciliation within the Cypriot Government, do you not think that the Commission and Council should now make an unequivocal statement that Cyprus will join the EU, notwithstanding the stance of the Turkish Cypriots and their participation or otherwise in the negotiations?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 NAME="van den Broek">
It is not exactly the business of the European Commission to state whether or not it is desirable to replace the present UN contingent on Cyprus with a larger peacekeeping force. However, I am convinced that if the parties could agree at some point on the terms for demilitarisation and if the UN Secretary General's special representative should deem it useful and necessary to comply with the desire for a UN peacekeeping force, then it would certainly then be discussed on the Security Council.
A decision would have to be taken at that point.
I do not therefore believe that the problem lies in the international community's reluctance to make a contribution, in whatsoever form.
But there must of course be a basic agreement in principle between the parties themselves.
<P>
As regards the negotiations, you know the Commission's position. We have said time and time again - these negotiations have been going on for nine or ten months now - that now is not the time to talk about what the situation will be if the negotiations end without a political solution to the problem of the divided island.
We do not believe it is productive to speculate on this at present and will therefore refrain from doing so.
At the same time, the Commission has done all that is necessary to keep the momentum of the negotiations going and will continue to do this if the situation remains as it is at present.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr van den Broek.
<P>
As I indicated, ladies and gentlemen, that brings us to the end of the time set aside for questions to Mr van den Broek.
Questions Nos 48 to 56 will therefore receive written answers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 NAME="President">
As the authors are not present, Questions Nos 57 and 58 lapse.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 59 by Alex Smith (H-0045/99)
<P>
Subject: Nuclear waste mismanagement Has the Commission examined the report on nuclear waste mismanagement at UK nuclear sites, drawn up by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate and released in December 1998, which sets out how the incompetent management of solid radioactive waste at Dounreay and Sellafield may affect the health of UK citizens and the environment of other EU Member States as a result of the leakage of radioactivity into the sea?
<P>
I give the floor to Mrs Bjerregaard to answer Mr Smith's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, the Commission was not aware that in December 1998 the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate published a report on solid radioactive waste at Dounreay and Sellafield.
The Commission has asked the UK authorities to give us this report.
It is not clear whether the report to which Mr Smith is referring only concerns the safety of the plants, or whether it also deals with the impact on the environment in the event of radioactive discharges into the sea.
If the latter is the case, our study of the report will focus on compliance with the basic safety standards for the protection of the population against ionised radiation, and if necessary will take the form of an inspection pursuant to Article 35 of the Euratom Treaty.
The Commission plans to carry out further inspections under Article 35 of the Euratom Treaty in March 1999 at Dounreay and probably in the year 2000 at Sellafield.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 NAME="Smith">
I notice that Mr Fitzsimons is actually in the Chamber.
Perhaps the Commissioner will reply to his question as well.
<P>
I must confess I am totally surprised that the Commission was not aware of this report, given its sensitivity at this particular time.
It may indeed talk about the things that the Commissioner talks about, or it may indeed talk about something completely different.
But the important thing is: I would have assumed that the Commission, given its obligations under Article 35, would have been aware of this particular matter.
Quite honestly, I am getting a bit tired of the Commission coming along here and telling us various things.
When we approach the Council on these matters the Council always says this is a matter for the Commission, the Commission's responsibility.
We come here to ask a question of the Commission and the Commission says 'We were not aware of this'.
<P>
So I do not have a supplementary question, I just want to register my protest.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, I am very surprised by the comments from Mr Smith, because in the light of his question, I am naturally obliged to tell the House that we were unaware of the report and that, as soon as we were made aware of it, we asked the UK authorities to give it to us.
We assume, of course, that we will receive it, and then we shall deal with it in accordance with Article 35 of the Euratom Treaty.
Since we had not heard of this report, it would have been very difficult for me to respond other than in the way I have done here today.
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<SPEAKER ID=245 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">

I would like to ask Mrs Bjerregaard whether there is such poor communication between the environment ministers and the Commission that the Commission is also unaware, as Mrs Ahern points out in her question, that in December 1998 the Scandinavian environment ministers complained to the UK Government about the radioactive pollution which also affects Scandinavian waters; whether against that background it is not a very long time to wait until the year 2000 to start inspections; and whether it would not be more relevant to immediately send the inspection team to Dounreay, as Mrs Ahern is asking the Commission to do?

<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, I would like to give the reply which was prepared for Mrs Ahern - who is not present here today - to Mrs Sandbæk instead, because that is what the question was about, as I understood it.

<P>
The Commission is also unaware that the Scandinavian environment ministers have submitted complaints about marine pollution due to radioactive discharges from the processing plants at Sellafield and Dounreay.
This is not in fact a great surprise to us, because it concerns matters which are subject to the bilateral or multilateral contacts between these countries and the UK, and Mrs Sandbæk also said that they had complained to the UK.
However, the Commission is of course aware that high concentrations of technetium 99 have been found along the coastlines of the Scandinavian countries and in the Arctic Sea.
The Commission took an active part in the Council of Ministers meeting held in Sintra in July 1998.
At that meeting, at which I was also present, the question of radioactive discharges was raised and a reduction in principle of the volume of waste was adopted with a view to reaching a concentration close to zero - and now we are looking a long way ahead - by the year 2020.
The UK Government has given assurances that it is acutely aware of the problem with technetium 99, not least in connection with the handling of Sellafield's discharge licences.
Against that background, I think I can say that we are of course monitoring developments very actively and that we also have the necessary contacts, but that we must of course have it incorporated into our work schedule and take into account the number of people available if we are to carry out inspections.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Bjerregaard.
I should remind the House that we are dealing with Question No 59 by Mr Smith, to which that was a supplementary question.
Mr Fitzsimons now has the floor to put a further supplementary.
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<SPEAKER ID=248 NAME="Fitzsimons">
My question is related to Mr Smith's question.
I thank you for your replies thus far, Commissioner, but for years the Commission has been side-stepping the whole Sellafield issue which Mr Smith, myself and many others have been raising.
It has always failed to deal with the real issue, namely the closing-down of Sellafield.
Recently the German Government has been doing U-turns and going through all sorts of contortions in relation to the whole nuclear issue.
<P>
Since there is no real future for the reprocessing of nuclear waste, Commissioner, do you not agree that it is time, and that there is justification, for the closing-down of Sellafield?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, it is of course a pleasure to see Mr Fitzsimons so that we can also deal with this part of the question.
Now, we may of course have many different opinions about nuclear power, and for that matter about Sellafield and other things.
I can well understand that Mr Fitzsimons and others think that some of my replies have been inadequate, but I am obliged to confine myself to our areas of competence.
And the Commission has no competence when it comes to inspecting the safety of nuclear plants.
This supervision is the responsibility of the competent authorities of the Member States.
It is also the operator and the Member State concerned who have to assess the economic viability of the facilities.
Therefore, every time we have had questions on these lines, we have had to examine where we have competence and where we do not. And if you want more to be done, as I understand that Mr Fitzsimons and others do, I am afraid I have to disappoint you, because I cannot exceed the competence we have been given in this area.
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<SPEAKER ID=250 NAME="Ewing">
Mr President, I would like to ask a supplementary question.
I indicated at the beginning of Question Time that I wanted to do so.
I have sat here patiently and I find it quite extraordinary that you are not calling me.
Dounreay is in my constituency.
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<SPEAKER ID=251 NAME="President">
Mrs Ewing, it is not that I wish to deny you a supplementary question, but the Rules only allow for two supplementaries, and those have already been called. As President, I have to abide by the Rules.
The two supplementaries to Mr Smith's question have been dealt with.
I must now move on to Question No 60.
Do you have something to add, Mrs Ewing?
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<SPEAKER ID=252 NAME="Ewing">
Mr President, Mr Fitzsimons had his own question.
It is very common when someone is a minute or so late to allow their question to be taken.
That is what Mr Smith suggested.
Instead of that, you called Mr Fitzsimons as a supplementary to Mr Smith.
My request, which was registered in good time, is being ignored.
As the longest serving member in this House, I would say to you that there is no point in coming to Question Time if this is how you are going to treat the Member who represents the area in question.
I am quite disgusted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 NAME="President">
I hope I have made it clear how sorry I am, Mrs Ewing.
In any event, however, Mr Fitzsimons was not given the floor to put his own question but for a supplementary one, because he arrived late.
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<SPEAKER ID=254 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 60 by Antonios Trakatellis (H-0026/99)
<P>
Subject: Maliakos Bay link - breach of Community environment law As part of the Pathe road network, tenders are being invited for the Maliakos Bay link, an underground tunnel 4.5 km long and 4 metres wide, to be dug at 18 metres below the sea bed.
Local authorities and organisations in the area are categorically opposed to the proposed project and studies have shown that Maliakos Bay is an unsuitable site for construction of this type (a small, shallow closed bay, geological fault, earthquake-prone, fish farm).
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Is the Commission aware that the location of the project and the invitation to tender are in breach of Directives 85/337/EEC and 97/11/EC in that no complete and specific environmental impact assessment has been carried out, no information has been made available to the public and there has been no attempt to find alternative solutions?
<P>
Bearing in mind that Maliakos Bay and the wetland of the River Sperkhios have been proposed as protected areas under the Natura 2000 programme, is it possible for this project to go ahead when it endangers the ecosystem and threatens to wipe out all forms of marine life in the region?
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Can the project be jointly financed from Community funds when it is in breach of Community legal provisions and what measures does the Commission intend to take to enforce those provisions?
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I give the floor to Mrs Bjerregaard to answer Mr Trakatellis's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=255 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, the project concerned is part of the new motorway between Athens and Salonika.
Large parts of the rest of the motorway are being cofinanced with the Commission.
The section referred to by the honourable Member is not included in this financing.
On the contrary, it is to be built, financed and operated by private investors.
However, I would like to stress that EU legislation must, of course, still be observed.
Only the provisional studies in relation to the tunnel, including therefore the environmental studies, are being cofinanced through the operational programme for road networks within the framework of EU aid to Greece for 1994-1999.
<P>
I have the impression that the honourable Member believes the public invitation to tender in connection with the tunnel has already started.
That is not the information which I have.
According to the information which the Commission has, that is not the case, and the only thing the Greek authorities have done is to announce that the project will be carried out and thus invite individual businesses to register their declarations of interest.
Before a public invitation to tender is issued, there will be an environmental impact assessment in accordance with the provisions of Directive 85/337.
The Sperheios River valley and the Maliakos Kolpos estuary are indeed among the sites which the Greek authorities have proposed for inclusion in the Natura 2000 network in accordance with the habitats directive.
The Sperheios estuary has been designated as a specially protected area under the birds directive.
According to Article 6 of the habitats directive, a project which is damaging to the ecological integrity of a Natura 2000 area, and for which there are no alternative solutions, can only be given consent for imperative reasons of overriding public interest, and if appropriate compensatory measures are adopted.
These rules already apply to the specially protected areas, including the Sperheios estuary, but not to the site as a whole.
This will happen automatically if the site is included in the Natura 2000 network.
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Consequently, in accordance with Directive 92/43 and the Treaty on European Union, the Greek authorities must refrain from any activity which could significantly damage the ecological integrity of this site.
The Commission's services will make enquiries of the Greek authorities to ensure that they have complied with their obligations under the current legislation, and with regard to the project in question.
According to the Greek authorities, the project will not affect the Sperheios area, but that is one of the things of which the Commission wishes to be sure.
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<SPEAKER ID=256 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Trakatellis">
Mr President, I would first of all like to thank the Commissioner for her answer and I would also like to remind her - and I am sure that she is mindful of the fact - that all the prefectures and communities in this region have already registered their protests.
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Thirty-two authorities from throughout the region, which have protested and which have not been asked about the project, have appealed under Greek law to the State Council.
In accordance with the Community directive, these official bodies should be allowed to participate in the project.
As a result, there has been a great deal of turmoil in the region and nobody wants this project.
However, there are alternative solutions.
This bridging project could be carried out differently - not via the Gulf of Maliakos. It is curious to note that, while the Ministry for the Environment places this region within Natura 2000, with the onset of the work it will destroy this region by carrying out a bridging operation which will totally transform this deep gulf into one which is incapable of supporting any form of marine life whatsoever.
I would ask the Commissioner therefore to monitor this affair very closely, as it is of great significance for all communities and inhabitants in the region.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=257 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Yes, I am aware that this is a matter which has aroused a great deal of interest in Greece, and also that there have been protests in connection with the project.
That is also why I can assure Mr Trakatellis that we will ask the Greek authorities about this matter.
There are rules which apply in this case, both in connection with the habitats directive and Natura 2000, and we shall of course study carefully the replies we receive, because it is our task to ensure that the environment is treated properly, which is also what we shall do in this case.
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<SPEAKER ID=258 NAME="McMahon">
It is now 7.14 p.m. and as Commissioner Bjerregaard was given 20 minutes for questions, starting at 6.55 p.m. by my calculations there is still some time remaining.
<P>
Could I draw your attention to the Rules, in particular to the annex to Rule 7 - conduct of Question Time - and could I respectfully suggest that, as well as showing a red light to Members, you show a red light and a red card to Commissioners at times because this is what is taking up the time.
The last answer that Commissioner Bjerregaard gave took 3 minutes, 56 seconds.
Members are cut off at 1 minute while some of the answers from Commissioner van den Broek were very long-winded.
It might be salutary for the Commissioners to instruct their staff to give briefer and more pungent answers to Members' questions which in turn would allow more Members to get a chance to raise the concerns of their constituents.
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I was about to raise a very serious incident relating to a power failure at a nuclear power station which, had it taken place, could have had catastrophic implications.
I would like to draw this to your attention.
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<SPEAKER ID=259 NAME="President">
I am always grateful for comments and suggestions from the floor, because I believe I need to take everyone's views into account to be an effective President.
Do bear in mind however, Mr McMahon, that this afternoon's sitting began at exactly 5.30 p.m. Question Time to the Commission should therefore have finished at 7 p.m.
We ought to be concerned not only for the Members, but also for the services working in the House.
At present, for instance, we are running 16 minutes over the finishing time for our services, including the interpreters. As you are aware, the work of the latter is particularly demanding.
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As President, I do my best to deal fairly with the many supplementary questions which arise, but I cannot work miracles.
Hence we have run 16 minutes over the time allocated for today and Mrs Bjerregaard has used the time to which she was entitled.
I must now close Question Time and thank Mrs Bjerregaard for her replies, for being here today, and indeed for her patience.
Questions Nos 61 to 104 will receive written answers.
<P>
That concludes questions to the Commission.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 7.15 p.m and resumed at 9 p.m.
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<CHAPTER ID=10>
Common organisation of the market in wine (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=260 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report (A4-0046/99) by Mr P. Martin, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on the common organisation of the market in wine (COM(98)0370 - C4-0497/98-98/0126(CNS)).
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<SPEAKER ID=261 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Colino Salamanca">
Mr President, I think we need to begin by acknowledging the significant amendments the European Commission is making to the 1994 proposal.
The image of a wine sector that produces huge surpluses was all that remained of that proposal, a proposal we have fortunately moved on from today and which was geared exclusively to the wholesale grubbing-up of vineyards.
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The current reform, however - which is today clearly also the subject of discussion and controversy - focuses on improving the present balance between supply and demand and, above all, giving producers the opportunity to adapt to and take advantage of expanding markets.
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But we should not be overly optimistic.
In my opinion, the proposals put forward by the European Commission in relation to one of the issues being debated - new planting rights - seem more fitting than the Committee on Agriculture's opinion.
I also think that the Commission's proposals are better able to provide this guarantee of dynamic equilibrium.
What is more, it seems more positive to grant 1 % of the replanting rights in relation to the designated wine-growing areas in zones where demand is increasing, than to extend the limit to 2010.
<P>
Complementary measures in this regard might include permanent grubbing-up measures for regions with structural surpluses and a revised regulation for replanting rights, which might extend beyond the 13 wine years after the year in which grubbing-up took place.
<P>
The chapter on reconversion, which also focuses on aligning production to market demands, has been concluded positively, both in terms of recovering restructuring costs and including the possibility of financing specific measures to support wine making in regions which, because of drought, have difficult cultivation conditions.
However, we completely disagree with the fact that Member States may continue to contribute up to 25 % of the cost for production regions located outside of Objective 1.
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As regards market mechanisms, we fully endorse the increase in the volume of alcohol in wine-making installations to 15 % from 7 % through the vinification of grape musts.
Similarly, we think that an important step has been taken as regards the use of specific distillation methods in potable alcohol which means that supplies to the Community sector will be guaranteed, a sector that annually demands almost 15 million hectolitres.
<P>
Lastly, in the event of a market disturbance, we should like to see the continued application of crisis legislation on a voluntary basis, in line with the Commission's proposal in Article 30.
In our opinion, it is vital that specific aid and measures for promoting wine consumption and providing consumers with information be included in a new title in the new regulation.
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From the point of view of who has overall responsibility for these matters, the number of important decisions to be taken by the management committee as laid down in Article 74 and subsequent articles seems excessive. This is why we endorse measures aimed at restoring balance to the decision-making procedures.
<P>
Finally, we must once again stress our opposition to the oenological practices used to increase levels of alcohol strength through the addition of saccharose. This immediately calls into question the definition of wine in Annex 1, where it is defined as the product obtained exclusively from the total or partial alcoholic fermentation of fresh grapes or of fresh grape must.
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<SPEAKER ID=262 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cunha">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by congratulating the Commission on having taken the initiative to present a proposal for reforming the common market organisation for wine.
If we take a look at the world around us, we can see that Europe has lost its economic and commercial clout in this sector to new wine-producing countries such as the United States, South Africa, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Australia and even New Zealand.
These countries have enormously expanded their vineyards and have increased their production exponentially while, undoubtedly, improving the quality of their wines.
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In contrast with that expansionist policy, the Commission proposes that we in the European Union should continue with a policy of conditioning vineyards and vines over the next ten years.
We have some fundamental criticisms of the Commission proposal:
<P>
First, the 1 % increase in new planting rights is too low to develop the European Union's vine and wine-growing potential.
The 3 % figure approved by the Agriculture Committee, which the European Parliament intends to propose, is much more realistic, although in my opinion it is still rather unambitious.-Secondly, the vineyard restructuring scheme excludes older vines, which is unacceptable given the high average age of European vines.
For example, in Portugal, my own country, 60 % of vines are at least 40 years old.
Parliament also proposes to correct this error in the Commission proposal, with an explicit reference to the renewal of vineyards as one of the priorities of the restructuring schemes.-Thirdly, the proposal is too rigid as regards sectoral and inter-branch organisations.
Subsidiarity should be strengthened on this score and the organisational traditions of the various Member States should be respected.
Amendment No 171, second indent, should be rejected, for example.I would like to conclude by congratulating Philippe-Armand Martin on the compromise that he has managed to reach, on the basis of his skill and hard work, in negotiating a far better proposal than the Commission's.
However, I should like to emphasis that the new Article 42(a) inserted in the text is an affront to most producing countries, since it prevents the Member States from making the bottling of wines in their region of origin compulsory.
It makes no sense to discuss this matter in relation to this regulation, since the Commission has presented a specific proposal on this, which is dealt with in Mrs Lulling's report.
Amendment No 179 must therefore be rejected or else we will be guilty of a great injustice - nor, in my opinion, would we be playing by the rules.
This must be analysed elsewhere.
Apart from that, the Court of Justice has yet to take its final decision in this respect on the Rioja case, which is all the more reason for leaving any discussion of this matter until we debate the Lulling report.
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<SPEAKER ID=263 NAME="Querbes">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, with regard to Mr Martin's report, we should welcome not only the important and high-quality work produced by the rapporteur, but also the fact that the time devoted to preparing, discussing and organising this work enabled the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development to provide Parliament with a good report which is comprehensive and coherent, and which was adopted by a large majority.
<P>
We should be aware that such a result was only possible due to the close dialogue held with wine growers, and also because the basic ideas behind the report were inspired by the general report on the reform of the CAP which had already been adopted by Parliament.
This also means that in several areas the report does not follow the liberal proposals made by the Commission.
<P>
The report therefore maintains a definition of the quality of wine, an agricultural and viticultural product, and in this way rejects all forms of industrialisation.
It affirms Europe's intention to increase its share of world production of quality wine, which is linked to human health when consumed in moderation.
In order to achieve this, the report proposes controlling the expansion of vineyards, notably for the benefit of young farmers, and a more efficient measure for replanting and improvements to vineyard management techniques.
Finally, all of this must be guaranteed by regulated management which includes promotion and adjustment instruments such as compulsory distillation, and which must not be left to the responsibility of the Commission.
<P>
I strongly support the priority given within such a framework to enrichment by grape musts rather than by sugaring, the ban on the import of musts from third countries, which would be a Trojan horse for the quality of European production, the ban on blending white wine and red wine and, finally, the clear definition of the specific characteristics of each wine product; natural sweet wines, for example, are the only product capable of maintaining a level of human economic activity in certain areas of production of the Union.
<P>
Everyone can see that the draft CAP reforms tend to become embedded in the rut defined by the Commission's too liberal tendencies.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development is very attentive to the demands of the experts and of society.
This is why we will be approving the report which has been presented to us.
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<SPEAKER ID=264 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Lambraki">
Mr President, today the round of debates on the reform of the CAP within the framework of Agenda 2000 comes to an end.
These debates have revealed how difficult it is to find a common denominator which will reconcile national interests which are divided by profound and increasingly visible differences.
<P>
I hope that the debate on wine-growing will benefit the wine producer, the product and the consumer alike.
Our rapporteur, Mr Martin, has contributed substantially towards this.
If nothing else, wine has brought people together from time immemorial and has been an important element in social, cultural and religious life.
<P>
As far as an appreciation of the Commission proposal is concerned, it represents in principle a step forwards in tackling the problems faced by the sector.
The complex regulatory framework which has thus far taken shape is an obstacle to attaining market equilibrium, developing productive capacity, improving the quality of wine and promoting products on the European and global market.
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The current policy of grubbing up vines has resulted in a 20 % reduction in the area given over to vines in the EU, which is being inundated with wine from third countries, thanks to their aggressive production and marketing policy.
In Greece, in particular, there has been a 35 % reduction, which is threatening the quality of Greek vineyards, as the abovementioned policy has primarily affected vineyards of local varieties of high quality but with a limited production capacity.
<P>
For this reason, at least 3 % must be se aside for new planting rights in order to enable European vineyards to make the necessary quality adjustments, especially in the regions which have been damaged most by the grubbing-up policy.
As regards trade with third countries, we cannot accept a proposal which allows grape must to be imported from third countries for use in wine production.
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With regard to wine-making practices and the possibility of increasing the alcoholic content of wine with sugar, we must maintain the status quo, the historical continuity of a product which is pre-eminently traditional.
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I would like to end with a word about the problems faced by island vineyards and vineyards in mountainous regions, especially in Greece, where production is dispersed over small-scale vineyards in just such regions.
The special soil and climatic conditions favour the production of high-quality products, which the consumer wants, but production costs are high and constitute an inhibitory factor.
The new COM must provide a special support structure for these crops.
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<SPEAKER ID=265 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Arias Cañete">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should also like to congratulate Mr Martin, not only on his excellent report, but also on his tireless efforts in the search for agreements and compromises.
<P>
I should also like to congratulate the Commission because, on this occasion, it has put forward a proposal which differs radically from the famous proposal it unfortunately put forward in 1994.
This time, the proposal is better adapted to the current needs and concerns of the sector and therefore constitutes a valid starting point to allow Parliament and the Council to reach important agreements.
<P>
I should like to concentrate here on three of the fundamental issues approved by Parliament.
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First, safeguard clauses have been included in the recitals, articles and provisions on repeal which, in spite of the repeal of more than 23 Council regulations, are aimed at guaranteeing future respect for the acquis communautaire in the area of quality wines produced in specific regions.
<P>
Second, with regard to the distillation of table wines to obtain alcohol for potable uses, I should like to thank the rapporteur for having accepted our amendments and for having included them in the final version.
This has meant that the aid set for table wines to be distilled for potable uses will definitely not be set at the Commission's discretion. Instead, the Commission will have to set the aid in proportion to the needs to supply potable alcohol to those sectors which, according to the rules, are obliged to use it.
Brandy and liqueur wine production will be safeguarded as a consequence, and the production of more than 300 000 hectares of vines and thousands of jobs in vineyards, wine-cellars, related industries andancillary services will be maintained.
<P>
It is crucial for this aid to be set at a level which guarantees the competitiveness of by-products of wine for potable uses.
If both the by-products of wine and the aid given for these products were to disappear, the cost of the by-products used to make brandy would increase by 300 %, whereas alcoholic products made from molasses and cereals would remain stable. This would increase the current price differences in alcoholic wine products and force drinks that have to use the by-products of wine off the market.
<P>
Moreover, Parliament has improved the Commission's proposal by setting out the ways in which the aid given will be annually reviewed and precisely how primary and secondary aid will be monitored. And, as in previous amendments that I tabled in the House, I believe that this will guarantee the prices of potable alcohol as well as an annual minimum distillation volume of 15 million hectolitres.
<P>
Lastly, I welcome the Committee on Agriculture's decision to accept separate technical definitions for fortified wine and fortified liqueur wine in Annex 1.
The particular production methods and organoleptic characteristics of these types of wine mean that they are differentiated and distinct, and, as such, merit a separate definition.
<P>
The proposal for a reform offers a welcome opportunity to set out an independent and distinct definition of these fortified wines, which were not and are not the same as the liqueur wines mentioned in the original 1970 COM in wine. And, in terms of geographical appellation, surface area of the vineyard, wine producing and wine making, trade and job creation, they mean far more than other products that are defined separately in the basic regulation of the original COM.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=266 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, this proposal encourages and promotes free imports of wines and musts from third countries destined to be mixed with Community wines.
The Council and Commission forget that there are Community wines of a very special quality, which can enrich the quality of Community wines in a most wonderful and natural way. It is not necessary to import such wines from third countries.
<P>
They also forget the relentless way in which the vineyards have been targeted over many years.
Tens of thousands of hectares of vines have been grubbed up, at a rate which has been very detrimental to Greece.
This tragic situation is very difficult to reconcile with the approach you are taking today, unless of course there are ulterior motives and dubious interests at work.
<P>
You are promoting a moratorium on planting and you want to restrict wine growing, push it to the brink and perhaps even create a shortfall to justify opening the floodgates to imports to serve the interests of the WTO and GATT, thereby obtaining compensation in other sectors which interest you.
You are allowing sugar to be added to Community wines, especially to German wines, in order to increase the alcohol content.
This is inconsistent with the restriction on production and the quality that you are after.
If you wish to favour Germany, then at least have the sugar content written on the product.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, this proposal upgrades the institution of the inter-branch organisations and aims to force the poor wine grower to compete on the same terms as the ruthless industrial processors of this precious commodity.
You are sacrificing this product, Commissioner, and you are sacrificing it to illicit, questionable interests.
You forget that it is not simply a product, it is a popular form of sustenance, and it provides excellent employment. Wine is civilisation, it is tradition and culture.
Do not forget that. There are countries in which, since the time of Homer, people have been brought up with this culture of wine.
And you are sacrificing it on the altar of questionable multinational interests.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=267 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Filippi">
Mr President, I too believe that Mr Martin has done a good job overall, particularly bearing in mind the outcome secured in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development as compared with the others.
Nonetheless, I am not one of those satisfied with the end result, and I therefore did not vote in favour in the Committee on Agriculture.
I think more can be done, and will therefore discuss two aspects in particular that I believe to be gaps about which I am dissatisfied.
<P>
My first point concerns the reinclusion of compulsory distillation, which had actually been removed from the Commission proposal.
This proposal is contradictory: we cannot demand, on the basis of the market equilibrium that has now been achieved, to be allowed to launch a policy of replanting and renewing vines, while once again proposing compulsory distillation.
I think this is a contradiction that has to be resolved by the vote in plenary, and our action - as I suggested earlier in the 1997 price package - must be based primarily on a policy of replanting or intelligent grubbing-up, managed on a regional basis within the European Union.
I believe this is the policy that must be pushed forward, combined with the flexible, adaptable and creative approach that other honourable Members have already mentioned.
I believe this is a problem that must be remedied.
At any rate, all we Italian Members will be working for that, not least in the vote in plenary.
<P>
My second point concerns our conception of quality.
Many Members in this House have spoken about quality and the need to protect the agricultural origin of the wine and the product itself; however, no effort has been made to work towards harmonisation, not even of production and vinification methods.
I recognise that it is difficult to ban the addition of sucrose, but all the same, something could be done to improve quality: measures could be taken regarding the level of minimum must content or labelling, or we could leave things as they are but find a way of rewarding those countries with the best record on this.
But nothing significant has been done here.
And that is why - without wishing to start a revolution - we shall again be raising the issue of quality rather more seriously and consistently.
<P>
Finally, it is worth pointing out that we are discussing a sector that has been penalised in terms of resources; it is accorded half of what it contributes to European agriculture's GDP.
More must be done to promote the product on the international markets.
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<SPEAKER ID=268 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Novo">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Philippe-Armand Martin's report modifies some aspects of the Commission proposal.
These changes are mostly positive ones and take account of the amendments that we tabled and adopted in the Agriculture Committee.
They include the possibility of renewing vineyards and aid for promoting consumption in the internal and external markets, and banning products made from musts originating in third countries or prohibiting imports of such musts for vinification.
Lastly, I would like to refer to our acceptance of crisis distillation and the introduction of certain aids, albeit insufficient, for producer organisations and vines planted in less-favoured areas.
<P>
However, we cannot go on allowing wine, a Mediterranean product accounting for around 7 % of the Community's agricultural production, to be funded by only 2.5 % of the agriculture budget, whilst arable crops, which chiefly concern the countries of central and northern parts of the EU, receive 43 % of that budget, although they account for less than 15 % of Community agricultural production.
<P>
This is just one more example of the clear discrimination that will still exist between different crops after this reform.
We also think it is unacceptable for products resulting from processes such as sugaring to raise alcohol content to be called wine.
We are therefore tabling certain amendments, which we hope will be approved, making it compulsory to include this on the labels of such products, to inform and protect consumers, and also to set a five-year deadline for ending once and for all the practice of adding sugar to wine.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=269 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fantuzzi">
Mr President, Commissioner, for at least seven or eight years now, we have been discussing wine and the now notorious reform of the wine sector.
As you will be aware, Commissioner, back in 1993-1994 for instance, proposals were tabled on which I had the honour to act as rapporteur in the House, in 1995.
So this particular wine has been tasted at some length.
That shows both how complex and controversial reform of the sector is, but it also demonstrates that clouds do sometimes have a silver lining.
And that is fortunate, because the failure to implement the old 1994 concept of reform has been a blessing for European wine-producers.
That reform was finally shelved, and what we have on the table today, as previous speakers have rightly pointed out, are other ideas which are certainly an improvement on the past.
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The fact is that the fundamental approach taken previously was flawed.
I recall that your predecessor, Commissioner Steichen, predicted that come the year 2000 there would be a 40 million hectolitre wine surplus; that was used to justify adopting drastic and extremely punishing measures, inspired by the pessimism of the bureaucrats, which would have been highly damaging to Europe's wine growers.
In point of fact, there have been no surpluses for some years now, and that change of fortune is, I believe, not the work of Bacchus but a result of the extensive grubbing-up and the ban on replanting during that period which substantially impoverished European vineyards and left us with ageing vine stocks.
<P>
Europe has therefore lost ground in an art in which it has been and remains the world leader.
Of course, that has caused some alarm bells to ring.
Competition from new European producers is beginning to have a significant impact within Europe too.
In the space of a few years, imports of wine from outside Europe have doubled.
There are countries where costs are far lower than they are here, countries that enjoy far greater freedom of movement and which are not restricted by the bureaucratic obstacles and red tape that have always plagued European wine growers.
And so this new and sensible approach is welcome; I acknowledge that, Commissioner Fischler.
<P>
With this new proposal, the Commission is I think taking a fresh approach based on the premiss that we now need to help a sector which has in recent years achieved market equilibrium, and must therefore avoid adopting measures that could destroy it.
In my view, the best remedy is a good dose of liberalisation.
I realise that, coming from a Socialist, that may sound surprising, but the wine sector in particular shows that excessive regulation can also be fatal.
And so we need to take a more dynamic approach to Europe's vineyards: there has to be advance replanting, extensive restructuring of vineyards and higher allocations than currently provided for in the Commission proposal.
Indeed, I share the view expressed by previous speakers that more must be done to restore balance.
<P>
We have an agricultural policy under which products continue to be protected by applying two different sets of criteria, a policy under which there is a huge gulf between the support given to products from central and northern Europe and the support given to Mediterranean products.
I think that the rapporteur has done a good job, but not good enough: the report is sound on a number of controversial issues, such as the import of musts, the powers of the Commission and the efforts made to make Europe's vineyards more dynamic.
On two points, however, which have already been mentioned by Mr Filippi, we are unable to agree with Commissioner Fischler, principally the questions of compulsory distillation and the addition of sucrose.
I do not agree with the point concerning compulsory distillation, because the Commission has proposed optional crisis distillation which I consider to be the right response to the new market dynamic.
As far as the addition of sucrose is concerned, I am well aware of the fact that anyone tackling this problem runs enormous risks, in particular the risk of blocking all the rest of the reform.
Nonetheless, it would have been worth taking account of the existing differences and inequities and sending out the message, which we are always calling for, that European producers must enjoy equal worth and show solidarity.
We are always talking about quality; well, I believe that quality also means giving priority to products wholly derived from the vine.
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<SPEAKER ID=270 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, Commissioner, I hope it has been worth the wait!
After the abortive proposal to reform the Common Organisation of the Market in Wine in 1994, and following our proposed amendments in 1995, the Commission has certainly taken its time in submitting a new proposal for reform.
However, it has now adopted a more positive approach, and it is indeed inconceivable that we should think of meddling with Europe's wine-growing potential, with all its tradition and its wonderful variety, and simply abandon the European internal market and the world market to competition from third countries, whatever the World Trade Organisation may say.
<P>
The human race would be healthier if far more people could afford to drink one, two or even three glasses of wine every day.
The way to meet such a level of demand is not compulsory distillation or grubbing-up, but a far higher production levelof quality wines, especially in the Community, and of course far lower excise duties than those currently levied in many Member States, particularly in the north of the EU.
Having said that, I am delighted that, thanks to the enormous amount of work put in by our rapporteur, Mr Martin, whom I would like to thank very sincerely, the Agriculture Committee has managed to make some real improvements to the Commission proposal. This has involved some sensible compromises, and to achieve these compromises we have all had to mix a little water with our wine.
<P>
I am sorry that despite all these efforts some of our colleagues from the south have again gone on the war-path against the centuries-old wine-growing practices in the north of the Community.
And the strange idea some people have that wine growers not using enrichment should be given additional planting rights is simply crazy.
I personally can agree to the compromise, which took so much hard work to achieve.
I can live with it, especially because overall it represents a positive approach to maintaining and increasing marketable wine production, which after all makes a magnificent contribution to preserving our wonderful landscape, not least in my own country.
But the Agriculture Committee's proposals are also well-balanced and sensible when it comes to wine-growing practices, new planting rights and flexible measures in the event of poor weather conditions or unusually abundant grape harvests, where maximum yields are involved.
<P>
I would ask the Commission, and Mr Fischler in particular, to adopt our proposals for the additional chapter on special aid and support measures for wine products and for the involvement of trade organisations in this.
I would be pleased if he could confirm this today.
The proposals also include initiatives to promote moderate wine consumption and advertising campaigns outside the Community.
That is the right way to go.
I hope that the Commission and the Council of Ministers will support us in this, and that a substantial majority of this House will vote for it, as a large majority for this sensible compromise is our best chance of making our voice heard in the Council of Ministers.
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<SPEAKER ID=271 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, I wish to point out that firstly vineyards are just recovering from the shock of large-scale grubbing-up.
Secondly, they are suffering massive discrimination.
Statistics given by the Commissioner show that, in 1994, a dairy company received an average of ECU 13 140 million from the EAGGF, a combined meat and dairy company received ECU 11 536, arable farmers received ECU 11 207, while a wine-producing company received, on average, ECU 4 590.
The figures speak for themselves.
<P>
We are concerned about what is happening, and I wish to highlight the following important points.
<P>
Firstly, sugar is used for making cakes and pastries, not wine.
Existing regulations and their planned extension will, in my opinion, undermine the essence of the European Union wine-producing proposal and position.
<P>
Secondly, do we not want to improve the quality of our wines?
We have must within the Community, which is of excellent quality, and we do not need to turn to imports from third countries.
<P>
Thirdly, to alleviate the shock caused by grubbing-up, there must be an increase in planting, which can start with the 3 % which is being debated.
<P>
Fourthly, we believe that distillation is not something we can impose willy-nilly on the producers.
They produce wine.
If they want to carry out distillation, this should be left up to them, as it is now, and we should not legislate to make distillation compulsory.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, I think that special measures are needed for vineyards in mountainous and island regions.
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<SPEAKER ID=272 NAME="Hallam">
Mr President, I am sorry to see that the idea of insisting on bottling at source has crept into Mr Martin's otherwise excellent report.
Insisting on bottling at source is a well-meaning and naive attempt to protect jobs and the reputation of the wines from particular wine-growing regions.
Unfortunately, with respect, it shows an enormous ignorance of what actually happens to wine in those countries that it is shipped to.
Nor does it recognise the changing way in which wine is distributed, marketed or consumed, especially in northern Europe.
<P>
On arrival the wines are specially packed to meet the needs of the particular markets.
They are canned or boxed with the supermarkets' own labels or they are placed in specialist chilled containers for the restaurant and pub market for easy sale by the glass.
I am assured that bulk imports in the UK are carefully protected by making sure that the right label goes on the right wine.
They do not put the word 'Bordeaux' on a bottle of wine or a can of wine that has come from a third country.
They make certain that their computerised systems respect quality.
The bottlers have an interest in ensuring that they are seen to be selling quality wines.
<P>
It may be that we need to ensure that these control systems are transparent and obvious to all.
Perhaps this is something we can discuss in detail during the passage of Mrs Lulling's report at some point in the future.
But, please, do not let us risk job losses in our own wine areas and possibly creating problems for our own bottlers by creating barriers between producers, distributors and consumers which are artificial and will damage trade within the Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=273 NAME="Bébéar">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the importance of the wine sector in the rural economy of the European Union is recognised by all.
However, it must be pointed out that this is due to Europe's dominant international position: Europe's share of the production in this sector is 60 % and, moreover, 80 % of this is exported.
So, you may ask, why have a market organisation?
Well, quite simply because the economy is increasingly becoming a global one, and we have to adopt Community rules in order to organise ourselves properly in view of this globalisation.
That is why I consider it useful to emphasise certain aspects of the report which are of major importance to wine growing in Europe.
<P>
As regards the planting of vines, we have made great efforts over the past ten years to reduce the areas under vines. From now on, if we need to know how to grub up vines in certain fragile zones, we should also know how to replant them taking into account the requirements and demand for quality.
This is why we must show flexibility and allow expanding regions to meet demand by replanting vines, while reducing surpluses in certain areas.
<P>
As for oenological practices, I am very concerned by what I have just heard.
As a Frenchman in the heart of Europe, I would say this to you: let us put an end to this war waged by the Gauls in southern Europe against those in northern Europe, and let us respect the traditions inherited from our ancestors which are accepted and effective.
We are fighting amongst ourselves, and our attitudes are equally rigid.
<P>
As regards the wine industry, it is clear that it is the close cooperation between production and trade that has established satisfactory trade patterns for both the consumer and the quality of the wine appreciated by him.
This is why we need to respect the organisations set up in our regions and, above all, the crucial role they play in adapting resources to requirements.
<P>
As far as exports are concerned, let us know how to open up our markets to the outside world and provide the means to promote communications on product quality in Europe.
<P>
Finally, it is in this spirit and on the basis of a Commission proposal which seemed to us overcautious and, at times, Malthusian and too bureaucratic, that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has examined the report on the COM in wine.
Numerous meetings and discussions have enabled us to arrive at the compromise reflected in the text which has been presented to you.
Ladies and gentlemen from both North and South, we must vote in favour of this report.
It represents significant progress in comparison with the 1994 proposal, and it should ensure that our opinion is taken into account by the Council.
At any rate, I sincerely hope this is the case.
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<SPEAKER ID=274 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Klaß">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is the diversity, its variety, the special characteristics, the taste and - last but not least - the way it is identified with specific regions that ultimately sets European wine apart.
We now find ourselves faced with the difficult task of trying to regulate this diversity within a Common Market Organisation, and to regulate it in such a way that this diversity is preserved. We do not want a uniform European wine, but we do want a legal framework that is workable.
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I come from one of Europe's northern wine-growing areas, from the Mosel region.
Our wines grow in different climatic conditions, which makes them different, but they have their connoisseurs, and there is certainly a market for them.
<P>
I would like to thank the Commission and our rapporteur Mr Martin, and also the Agriculture Committee, for making it possible to reach a compromise on this common organisation for wine, which, in recognition of the specific characteristics of individual regions, provides for traditional wine-growing practices to be maintained.
This means the wine from Europe's regions that we know and appreciate will be preserved.
Jobs in upstream and downstream sectors will also be preserved, as will our agricultural landscapes.
You can regulate the market, but you cannot regulate nature, the weather and the harvest.
<P>
I am therefore in favour of setting a quantity of wine that can be marketed in any given year.
Our wine-growing regions have already set corresponding maximum yields per hectare.
But I am vehemently opposed to the Commission's proposal that if the yield per hectare is exceeded by 120 % the entire harvest would lose the right to be designated as quality wine.
Up to now, quality wine has not been regulated in this way.
Every farmer and every wine grower is dependent on the weather, and good years are needed to compensate for bad ones.
Wine from years when there was a good harvest can be marketed during years with poorer yields, as a way of ensuring the income of family businesses.
So we should allow carry-over.
I would particularly ask you to consider this point again.
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<SPEAKER ID=275 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Redondo Jiménez">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should firstly like to congratulate the rapporteur on his report and on the level of consensus reached in the House, which is something that has not been easy.
This issue is still pending from the 1992 CAP reform and the Commission's proposal is of vital importance for the present and, above all, the future of this sector, especially given the crossroads European wine making has reached.
We need the instruments to enable us to be competitive in today's open market and to enable the European Union to maintain its position as world leader in this sector, a sector which has an enormous added value in both social and economic terms.
<P>
The consensus reached clearly respects the specific traditional qualities and the various oenological practices that exist and also lays great emphasis on quality and promotion both inside and outside the European Union. What is more, it enables European wine making to enjoy moderate and controlled growth.
<P>
As regards alcohol and other related issues, I shall try not to repeat everything that has already been said, but I should like to stress the need to strike a balance between the technical progress made and the need to preserve the specific characteristics of European wine.
This is something else that the reform must resolve.
<P>
As a result, demand for European wine in an increasingly open market would increase if it were more competitive, and if such competitiveness was not solely confined to vineyards but also extended to include improved installations, as was mentioned, and wine promotion that is linked to the dissemination of the results of scientific research on wine.
We are also in favour of the creation of a standing committee for wine exports, as we believe this is vital.
<P>
Commissioner, there is, however, one other issue which concerns me, namely, wine making which purports to be European but which uses grape musts that have been imported from third countries.
Can you comment on this?
<P>
In my view, Commissioner, you have a golden opportunity to adopt the amendments approved by the House and, in particular, the consensus reached here which we have worked hard to achieve. Indeed, we must admit that some have worked harder than others.
Nonetheless, I believe that this would be in the interests of European wine making for you to adopt these amendments.
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<SPEAKER ID=276 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Santini">
Mr President, Commissioner, as far as I can see I am the last speaker.
Well, we have drained this particular bottle and, as often happens, we are left with the lees that could have clouded the wine.
Thank goodness I am, as I said, the last speaker: yes indeed, because I think that the Commission proposal is a sound one, I think the rapporteur has shown admirable zeal - taking the diplomatic rather than the technical approach - and yet, for me, the reform and the outcome of this work are something of a hollow victory.
<P>
In politics, there is a tendency to evaluate any given issue depending on whether you come to it from the Left or the Right.
When we discuss agriculture, we inevitably return, Mrs Lulling, to the old way of looking at a problem as perceived from the North or the South.
Despite the best of intentions, that gap has yet to be bridged; in fact the gulf is still very wide.
This could have been an opportunity for trying to reach across it but, for reasons that other Italian colleagues have already explained, we cannot be optimistic about the chances of what I would venture - a little exaggeratedly perhaps - to describe as an almost epoch-making recovery from an age-old handicap, and it will be a few years yet before there is any possibility of even a partial recovery.
<P>
However, I do not wish to cloud the issue of the wine at all.
There are some positive aspects, and I would like to mention one or two of them. First we have the move towards quality and the promotion of wine as a drink that is completely harmless and digestible, suitable for all ages and all tables; then there is the aid for vineyard restructuring, replacing table wines with quality wines; in addition, we have aid for young producers and for disadvantaged mountain regions.
Those elements with which I cannot agree are, however, the dearth of protection against wine from third countries, and the excessive focus on the technical aspects of cultivation and bottling, with less attention paid to the aspects of production. Unsatisfactory also is the drive towards replacing saccharose with concentrated and rectified must, with all the necessary incentives, for reasons already explained by other colleagues.
<P>
Finally, I come to compulsory distillation: I have to wag my finger at my old friend Mr Martin here.
It was an excellent idea on the part of the Commissioner and the Commission to get rid of compulsory distillation and keep only crisis distillation.
For reasons that I have yet to understand, our friend Mr Martin has sought to reinstate it.
It is up to you to redress the balance, Commissioner!
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<SPEAKER ID=277 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to thank you all for the work you have put into examining the Commission proposal on the market in wine.
And I would especially like to thank Mr Martin as rapporteur for his analysis of the proposal, and above all - and this has already been acknowledged by several speakers - for his efforts to achieve a compromise.
By virtue of all these efforts we have been able to ensure that the proposal for the wine sector will not slip behind the other Agenda 2000 reform proposals.
<P>
As you know, this proposal is intended to replace 23 existing Council regulations, to achieve simplification and to cover all basic areas, from the vine to the labelled product.
Although the final list of amendments is rather long, I am still pleased to see that there are many important subjects on which we are at one.
In particular, we are in agreement that quality is essential to maintain and improve the competitiveness of Community wine, and that the conversion measures planned should play an important part in achieving this objective.
<P>
We are also agreed that the market position requires more flexible administration of production potential.
There is also agreement that we must preserve the specific character of all Community wines and provide a legal basis for this by means of regulations on traditional winemaking methods.
<P>
Before I respond to your amendments in more detail, allow me to remind you once again of the seven objectives of the Commission's reform proposal.
First, we want to make the wine sector more competitive.
Second, we want to maintain the improved balance between supply and demand.
Third, we want to eliminate the availability of intervention as an artificial outlet for surplus production.
Fourth, we want to continue to maintain all traditional outlets for potable alcohol and other products.
Fifth, we want to accommodate regional diversity.
Sixth, we want to strengthen the role of producer organisations and inter-branch organisations.
And, seventh, we want to considerably simplify the legislative framework and make it more transparent.
<P>
There is a large degree of agreement on these objectives.
Some of your amendments suggest improvements in the measures we have proposed in order to realise these objectives.
In particular, we consider the new wording of the provisions on the creation of a legal framework for producer organisations and inter-branch organisations to be a very constructive proposal.
I hope that will answer Mrs Lulling's question.
We have already started to discuss this.
<P>
Other helpful amendments are those on the introduction of criteria for triggering crisis distillation, new rules for liqueur wines and a whole series of technical improvements.
However, there are also areas where we differ and I would like to discuss those in rather more detail today.
In order to give areas where production cannot keep pace with demand an opportunity for some limited expansion, the Commission is proposing an allocation of newly created planting rights totalling some 35 000 hectares.
Spread over a period of three years, this is nearly twice as much as the additional rights granted under the last two agriculture price packages.
<P>
Furthermore, the proposal that producers undertaking to grub up areas under vines will simultaneously be granted replanting rights will also lead to a considerable expansion in production potential.
This expansion could even be substantially greater than the 35 000 hectares which we are to achieve with the additional percentage.
So I cannot see any scope for us to go any further, as we would otherwise jeopardise the objective of balancing supply and demand.
<P>
In one amendment, there is a call for the inclusion of pure and simple renewal of vineyards in the restructuring measures.
I would like to remind you that the restructuring measures are intended to help to adjust production in certain problem areas to changes in market demand.
Of course we only have limited means at our disposal and we cannot therefore afford to finance measures which up to now have always been part of normal vineyard management.
<P>
Again on restructuring measures, you have suggested that restructuring costs outside Objective 1 areas should be cofinanced by up to 25 % by Member States.
I recognise that cofinancing is still under discussion, but a final decision on that will have to be taken as part of the Agenda 2000 package.
This therefore needs to be dealt with separately from the common organisation for wine, as part of the overall financing of Agenda 2000.
<P>
Certain other amendments raised doubts about the status quo as regards enrichment, especially enrichment by sugaring.
I have to agree with Mr Bébéar in this case: I think it is 150 years too late for us to start thinking about waging a new war between the southern and northern states.
So I believe that we are right in sticking to the various traditional enrichment methods or oenological practices.
<P>
As regards the amendments concerning the proposed crisis distillation measure, I am firmly convinced that the Commission's approach is the right one.
Compulsory measures are inappropriate in the more open market which has prevailed since the Uruguay Round, in which minimum prices can no longer be set, as the withdrawal of quantities of wine would simply result in making room for additional imports.
However, I can accept your proposal to incorporate additional criteria for triggering the measure in the Council text, particularly those on market prices.
<P>
Another amendment calls for the common market organisation to include measures for internal and external sales promotion.
I would like to be clear about this: I think that external sales promotion would be more effective in a horizontal regulation. But I am of course in favour of external sales promotion measures.
However, I think that the various views of the Member States on the promotion of sales in the internal market and the overall stance of the Member States on the sale or promotion of sales of alcoholic drinks would make it difficult to include this in the common organisation of the market in wine.
<P>
With regard to lifting the current ban on producing wine from must originating from third countries - a subject several Members touched upon - I am conscious how strongly some Member States feel about this provision.
We have taken detailed advice from various experts, and have received clear legal opinions indicating that our WTO obligations quite simply require us to lift the present general ban.
The Commission has nevertheless explained to the Member States that our proposal will very probably include provisions on controls and labelling, including a scheme for depositing an import security, in order to guarantee that wine made from third country must cannot be regarded as Community wine.
<P>
Lastly, a number of amendments have been tabled about quality wines produced in specified regions.
I would like to make it clear that we intend to adopt the provisions of the current Council regulations in their entirety. Nevertheless, we want to limit the Council regulations to general provisions and to cover the remaining provisions in implementing regulations.
With regard to maximum yields of quality wine, the Commission has already taken this opportunity to draw up a common scheme for cases where a maximum yield is exceeded, so that uniform conditions are guaranteed for Community producers of quality wine.
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As long as Member States can settle this question efficiently themselves by means of transparent provisions at national level, then we could revisit this proposal and thus take account of Mrs Klaß's concerns.
<P>
Lastly, I would like to discuss an amendment affecting various parts of the proposal.
This calls for various Council decisions affecting market organisation to be subject to Parliament's opinion.
Although I regard this as an excellent decision-making procedure for major changes and above all changes of policy, it is simply too slow and cumbersome for purely technical market organisation measures, where decisions are needed so that we can react promptly to the market situation.
It is precisely for that reason that we have made a conscious decision to cover basic principles in a Council regulation, whilst decisions on market organisation are to be made at Commission level.
This is intended to maximise flexibility and ensure a rapid response.
I cannot therefore accept any amendments that would jeopardise this objective.
<P>
I hope that my comments have made the Commission's position on the amendments included in the report sufficiently clear.
In conclusion, I would like to stress once again the large measure of agreement which is apparent on many important questions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=278 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cunha">
Mr President, I was thoroughly confused by Commissioner Fischler's explanation about imports of must from third countries for vinification.
I did not understand his explanation. Does the Commissioner realise what an explosive decision it would be to allow this precedent?
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<SPEAKER ID=279 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, I really thought that my explanation on that point was very clear.
I clearly stated that the present GATT rules do not allow us to keep a ban on imports of must.
If we are to comply with GATT, we have to change this.
However, what we very probably can do is to ensure that imported must, even if it is mixed with musts produced in the Community, is adequately labelled so that anyone can see that the wine in question has been produced from imported musts.
<P>
So it is a question of ensuring that consumers can see that a wine containing imported must is indeed a wine that is either partly or entirely produced from imported must.
But we cannot simply ban imports of must.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=280 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Fischler.
<P>
The debate is closed.
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The vote will take place on Thursday at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Crossing of EU external borders
<SPEAKER ID=281 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on:
<P>
the report (A4-0450/98) by Mrs Lindeperg, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the harmonisation of forms of protection complementing refugee status in the European Union; -the second report (A4-0045/99) by Mr Lehne, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, onI. the proposal for a Council Act establishing the Convention on rules for the admission of third-country nationals to the Member StatesandII. a draft Convention on rules for the admission of third-country nationals to the Member States of the European Union(COM(97)0387 - C4-0681/97-97/0227(CNS)); -the report (A4-0043/99) by Mr Lehne, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, onthe proposal for a Council Regulation determining the third countries whose nationals must be in possession of a visa when crossing the external borders of the Member States (COM(93)0684 - C4-0665/97-97/0922(CNS))andthe Council guideline on the draft Council Regulation determining the third countries whose nationals must be in possession of visas when crossing the external borders of the Member States (11323/97).
<SPEAKER ID=282 NAME="Lindeperg">
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, thegovernments of the Member States have now accepted the fact that asylum policy can no longer be dealt with at national level only.
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The Amsterdam Treaty has confirmed this view by making it possible to eventually make asylum a Community policy with qualified majority voting in the Council.
However, time is short and such an uncertain time-limit for harmonising Member States' practice is not feasible.
Several attempts have been made under the third pillar, and we must hope that these will be transposed promptly into Community law.
<P>
The Dublin Convention has entered into force, but several problems have been observed with its implementation.
The Council resolution on minimum guarantees for asylum procedures comprises some positive developments, but we regret that its provisions are not binding.
The Council's Joint Position of March 1996 on the harmonised implementation of the definition of the term 'refugee' endorses a restrictive interpretation of the Geneva Convention, which excludes persons persecuted by third parties from being granted refugee status, and creates situations which are difficult to manage and tragic in human terms.
The successive proposals for a joint action on temporary protection which seek to provide a response in the event of massive inflows of displaced persons have met with difficulties in the Council.
<P>
There is an area where progress has not been made on harmonisation, and that is forms of protection complementary to the Geneva Convention, although it has been included as an item in the Council's programme for several years.
In fact, the Geneva Convention does not cover all situations involving persons who have fled their country of origin and cannot or do not wish to return because they have justified fears of being persecuted.
Even if the Geneva Convention were interpreted in accordance with the UNHCR recommendations, which is what we are firmly calling for in this report, a legal vacuum would still continue to exist between the level of protection guaranteed by the Geneva Convention and the temporary protection currently under discussion, which is only applicable to massive influxes of refugees and therefore excludes individual cases.
<P>
At present, solutions, where they exist, are left to the discretion of the national authorities, and they differ widely, to say the least.
What happens to nonsuited persons according to the terms of the Geneva Convention who would be in serious danger were they to return to their country of origin?
Fortunately, the majority remain within the territory of the Union, and we will see under what conditions they do so.
However, we must not forget that some are sent back, regardless of the danger and putting their lives at risk, as several tragic cases have demonstrated.
<P>
The situation is becoming so worrying that for example, in my country - the situation in other Member States not being any better - NGOs which do not have a reputation for following hardline or irresponsible policies have set off alarm bells denouncing the ridiculous bureaucratic demands made on displaced persons reporting incidents of torture or degrading treatment.
These organisations deplored the decline in recognition rates for the status afforded under the Convention and the tragic situation of nonsuited persons, some of whom were convinced that their applications would be rejected and no longer dared to request refugee status.
They advocated a change in our way of thinking and a return to a code of ethics based on precautionary action.
<P>
As regards nonsuited persons who are not sent back to their country of origin, what conditions are they offered?
They are subject to national provisions in the host country which vary extremely widely.
These range from those who are fortunate enough to enjoy genuine protection complementing refugee status, to those who are merely tolerated and do not have refugee status or rights, and whose situation is totally unstable, precarious and constantly being called into question.
<P>
Current national provisions, where they exist, differ widely in the various Member States, and often even within a Member State.
Who benefits from this kind of inextricable labyrinth?
Evidently not the interested parties, but neither the Member States, which cannot expect asylum applications to be distributed in a coherent fashion and are faced with the problems that arise from the presence of less advantaged people in society.
<P>
The aim of my report is to bring to the attention of the Commission and the Council the urgent need to make headway on the harmonisation of these complementary forms of protection and to define refugee status and rights, thereby making it possible for those persons who will remain on the territory of the Union in any case to extricate themselves from precarious and distressing circumstances.
These forms of complementary protection must not call into question the full implementation of the Geneva Convention and must at the same time be clearly distinguished from temporary protection.
<P>
As regards the amendments, the majority of those proposed aim to alter the meaning of the text considerably and in fact appear to conflict with the actual object of the report.
Everyone will therefore understand why I am rejecting them.
<P>
I would have liked to agree to the ARE Group's amendments concerning the persecution of homosexuals.
However, I understood that agreeing to them could negate the lengthy consultation process with members of other groups and, when all is said and done, the final vote could be jeopardised.
I will therefore be asking my group to reject them.
<P>
I should like to conclude by thanking the many Members who have contributed to this report, which I hope will eventually establish a practice in the area of EU asylum policy that is more in keeping with the international undertakings to which the Member States have subscribed, and with the humanitarian principles on which our Union is based.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=283 NAME="Lehne">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am presenting two reports here today.
The first is about the Convention on third-country nationals, and the second is about the harmonisation of visa law within the European Union.
I would like to start with the Convention on third-country nationals, which is certainly the more complex legislative project.
<P>
I believe that within a functioning European Union internal market we need to have close cooperation on immigration and of course on the rights of third-country nationals who are long-term residents.
It makes no sense using Schengen and other provisions to abolish borders if at the same time there are large numbers of third-country nationals living here whose freedom of movement within the internal market is very limited, and if there are in any case different immigration regulations in the Member States.
This can lead to cases where some Member States admit immigrants who then of course find their way onto the internal labour market as a whole, ultimately contributing to the impact - I do not want to say burden - on other Member States.
<P>
That is why I very warmly welcome the fact that the European Commission has brought forward a proposal for a Convention on third-country nationals.
I think that this in itself is a step forward.
<P>
Unfortunately, the history of Parliament's consultation on the Convention on third-country nationals is not a happy one.
You will recall that we concluded our discussion of this Convention in the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs last summer, and that the final debate on it was to take place in the plenary in September.
At that point, the Socialist Group requested that the Convention on third-country nationals be referred back to the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, and I supported this.
The reason was quite simple: at that time a series of highly controversial changes had been made in the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs and submitted to the plenary. These included an almost unlimited extension of the right to reunification to all members of the immediate family, including grandparents.
The existence of a partner relationship was to be adequate justification for family reunification.
Opportunities for seasonal workers to repeatedly enter into rolling contracts were extended.
The mere offer of a job was to be sufficient to justify immigration rights.
Expulsion for serious criminal offences was to be abolished.
All this would have led to overloaded labour markets and social systems in the Member States of the European Union.
<P>
Apparently the very people who supported the amendments got cold feet and then quite sensibly requested referral back to committee.
At that point I attempted, as rapporteur, to find compromise solutions.
I believe that the report before us today is a genuine compromise and that an attempt has been made to reconcile the various points of view within the committee.
<P>
On family reunification, we have gone no further than the Commission proposal.
Regarding seasonal workers, we have given the principle of subsidiarity priority in the individual Member States. We have also been guided by the principle of subsidiarity in the case of making jobs available in Member States.
At the same time, and I always thought this was correct, we have quite simply deleted Chapter 8 from the Convention entirely.
This chapter refers to the rights of third-country nationals who are long-term residents of the European Union. We have done this because we believe that, as its name implies, the Convention should deal with immigration and not the rights of third-country nationals who are long-term residents.
<P>
However, we are at the same time calling on the Commission to submit a new proposal to Parliament dealing with the rights of third-country nationals who are long-term residents of the European Union in a separate draft, because that of course also needs to be legislated for.
<P>
Furthermore, we in the committee have gathered from preliminary discussions with Commission officials that in view of Parliament's opinion on the third-country nationals convention and in view of the Council's reaction to it at first reading, the Commission in any case intends formally to withdraw this draft Convention and rework it, with a view to reviving it as a proposal for a directive once the Treaty of Amsterdam has entered into force.
I welcome this and I am sure that it will also be welcomed by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
I believe that a revised Commission proposal would provide a more appropriate basis for discussion than has been the case up to now.
<P>
I would like to stress that I intend to reject the amendments tabled by the ARE Group, the GUE Group and the Liberal Group, purely and simply because these amendments effectively resuscitate ideas from the first consultation in September, which I rejected for the reasons I have already stated and which I have no alternative but to reject again now.
Let me make myself very clear: if these groups' amendments were to be adopted, I would be forced, after the votes had been taken, to ask the House to reject my own report.
That is why I am asking you to reject these amendments.
<P>
Now for the second report, on what is known as the visa directive.
This too has a rather unfortunate history.
You will recall that the European Parliament gave its opinion on this directive years ago, and the Council subsequently reached a decision on it.
We did not agree with the text adopted by the Council, for the very simple reason that although the Commission had submitted a mandatory proposal for a visa list which we in Parliament supported, the Council subsequently adopted a visa list which was effectively not mandatory at all, as each Member State was allowed to introduce additional visa requirements for other states, and was simply required to notify the Commission of this.
<P>
The result of this was that the European Parliament brought an action concerning the directive before the European Court of Justice, and ultimately won, because we had not been adequately consulted.
<P>
The debate in recent months, since this judgment was pronounced, has essentially revolved around procedural aspects, namely what we are actually being consulted on - the amended Council Regulation annulled by the European Court of Justice or the original Commission proposal?
We subsequently reached a compromise by taking the Commission proposal as the basis for our consultation, but by also giving an opinion in our new report on the proposals mentioned in the Council decision.
<P>
I would like to draw attention to a key political problem on which my position as rapporteur has always coincided with the majority view in Parliament in previous debates.
This is the question of Bulgaria and Romania's inclusion in the list of states required to obtain a visa.
In my opinion, Bulgaria and Romania should be deleted from the list, for two reasons: firstly because discussions with the relevant Commission officials, and in particular with Directorate-General Ia, have shown that Romania and Bulgaria have already met some of the conditions imposed on them for the removal of the visa requirement.
They have not all been met, but a great many have.
<P>
Secondly, I believe that it is time for the European Parliament to set an example.
You know that in the negotiations on eastward enlargement and in the run-up to these, some states felt that they had done well, but there were also other Central and Eastern European countries which felt that they had come off badly.
I believe that it would be good if Parliament set an example by lifting the visa requirement for Bulgarians and Romanians.
<P>
I do not intend to use all my speaking time.
Thank you very much for your kind attention. That completes my comments on the two reports which I am presenting to Parliament here today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=284 NAME="Terrón i Cusí">
Mr President, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and my group, I should like to begin by pointing out something that has come to my attention.
Following the approval of the Amsterdam Treaty, our committee received several documents detailing the progress made in the communitarisation of issues relating to immigration, asylum and refugees, in addition to all the other work being carried out within the framework of the third pillar.
<P>
This is something we welcome and look on as a step in the right direction.
However, my attention would not have been drawn to this information quite as much had it not been so easy to see that the progress made is not always consistent in terms of content and strategy.
Proof of this lies in both the proposal the Commission is putting forward with regard to the entry of citizens from third countries and the other documents Parliament has recently received, for example, on the strategy adopted by the Council.
<P>
In my opinion, Parliament is not some machine designed to give out orders or amend each and every document we receive, but it does have to have an overall view of events and proposals put forward by institutions in relation to this matter. As a result, I should like to find out what strategy the Council and Commission intend to adopt, if indeed such a strategy exists, and what direction we are heading in.
<P>
As regards the convention, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, I should like to point out that we are aware of how important the way in which we deal with immigration is in terms of our relations with third countries. I should like to make three comments in this regard.
The first relates to the fact that we cannot carry out border controls alone. We need the help of third countries, as has clearly been demonstrated by events at Mediterranean borders and the troubles experienced there.
We also believe that immigration is an important factor in codevelopment and we should help, for example, to provide citizens from third countries with the opportunity to study in the European Union, and for account to be duly taken of this. It is also something we would like to see reflected in the report.
<P>
As this is closely linked to the content of the draft convention that has been proposed, I have to say straight away that I feel that the rapporteur's reference to the previous debate was inappropriate.
I am under the impression that the report had been referred back to committee with its support, and I also think that we have made an effort to continue with the debate because, as I said before, we think it is heading in the right direction.
This is why the rapporteur's comments seemed inappropriate.
<P>
There are a number of things that we should like this report to avoid in particular. First, it must avoid generating a climate of legal insecurity for immigrants and those wishing to enter.
Second, it must avoid the tendency for illegal immigration which occurs because of excessive bureaucracy or bureaucratic red tape. In other words, we must prevent people who could reside among us legally from being reduced to the status of sans papiers , as they are known in France.
Nor must we be over stringent, because zero immigration does not and will never exist.
And in my opinion, if we were to act in such a stringent manner, we would be forcing these people into the hands of people traffickers.
<P>
That is why we have tabled a number of amendments and reached a compromise; these both represent positive steps forward on a number of important issues.
As regards people who work for others, we believe that entry into a country should be linked to an offer of work, and, in turn, that the work contract should be linked to the opportunity to reside in that country or obtain a residency permit, as opposed to granting entry and residency solely on the basis of a contract.
To me, this seems somewhat utopian.
Certain countries, such as Italy, have already put forward imaginative proposals along these lines.
<P>
As regards temporary work, subsidiarity must be adhered to, as the rapporteur pointed out.
<P>
And as regards entry granted to people wishing to undertake independent economic activities, I think it should be pointed out that countries that have quotas should be excluded from the rule provided for in the report.
<P>
There are a number of points that I unfortunately do not have time to go into here, but I should like to mention the fact that through the issue of family reunification, we have introduced the question of exceptional cases. I should also like to stress that under no circumstances shall we accept the amendment tabled by the PPE Group which seeks to lower the age at which children have the right to family reunification to 16.
<P>
Lastly, I should like to mention section eight.
We believe that the Commission should put forward a proposal detailing the rights of immigrants living here to give them a status and regulate their legal situation.
These are rights that all European citizens living here enjoy.
We do not wish to create a Community with two types of citizens, one with one set of rights and the other with a different set, but, in effect, the rights citizens possess in order to be classed as a citizen in a Member State - if you will excuse the repetition - do not apply to immigrants. We therefore believe that the Commission should put forward a proposal which includes these immigrants and resolves the issue of free movement for those legally residing here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=285 NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, two years ago, in December 1997, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy called in the Oostlander report for the visa requirement for Romania and Bulgaria to be abolished.
This position was supported by the plenary and was adopted again in a second report in March 1998.
So Parliament has always been consistent in its view that the visa requirement for those countries should be lifted.
Of course, as everyone here this evening knows, the requirement causes a lot of problems for people in both countries, many of whom are increasingly seeking opportunities to come to the European Union for study meetings, seminars, exchanges of contacts and so on in the context of the enlargement process.
This means that there are huge queues at the EU embassies and people face long waits, often after travelling considerable distances to get there.
In short, it all takes a great deal of effort and is an obstacle to opportunities for direct contact.
This is why we would strongly urge that the requirement should be abolished.
<P>
Furthermore, the countries in the leading group, in other words those which have made more progress in negotiations with the European Union, are now also planning to impose the same requirements as part of the adoption of the acquis communautaire , so instead of becoming more integrated, they are not only becoming more excluded from the Union, but it is also being made more difficult for them to have contact with former eastern bloc countries.
<P>
In my opinion, which has the backing of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, I also draw attention to the fact that it is wrong to introduce a visa requirement for Hong Kong, given that it does not apply vice versa and EU citizens are free to visit Hong Kong without a visa.
It is also sending an important political signal to let it be known that the Union still regards Hong Kong as an autonomous administrative region.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=286 NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, I am draftsman - or should I say 'draftswoman' - of the opinion of the Committee on Women's Rights on the initiative taken by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs which seeks to establish harmonised minimum rules that are uniformly applicable for asylum seekers not covered by the Geneva Convention.
This initiative, commendable in itself, must not of course result in the European Union leaving its borders wide open in order to grant asylum to almost all the inhabitants of most countries throughout the world.
However, if we are limited to justified and necessary harmonisation, my aim is to draw attention to the specific problems experienced by certain categories of refugee women whose situation is a special one in some countries.
<P>
In the opinion of the Committee on Women's Rights, the harmonisation recommended to complement the Geneva Convention should cover special situations, such as gender-specific persecution, sexual violence and exploitation, and trafficking in women, where these put the lives and health of the women concerned at risk.
Our intention is certainly not to grant asylum to all women in all countries because of women fearing sexual violence.
Moreover, there are also cases of this in the Member States of the Community.
However, where women can legitimately invoke the right to asylum in this type of special situation in their country of origin, we urge in particular that they are granted a status separate from that of their husband or relatives, and that they also receive special medical and psychological help. All of this is along the lines of the conclusions adopted in my opinion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=287 NAME="Lindholm">
Madam President, as you know, this report has already had a remarkable history, to say the least.
This also accounts for why it has taken so long to reach the plenary, but now at last it has arrived.
<P>
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights would like to see Parliament give its support, as it has recommended, to the amendments such as those calling for the criteria determining who should appear on the common list - black or grey or whatever you will - to be the same for all countries and accessible to the public.
On the other hand, these initial criteria should also include provisions allowing for the list to be abolished.
The list itself should be evaluated and updated on a regular basis.
There is no need for it to be set in stone.
<P>
The question of compulsory visas for Bulgaria and Romania has already been mentioned and the Legal Affairs Committee has delivered its opinion.
This concerns the applicant countries which are still in the process of membership negotiations, but which in the meantime are being discriminated against.
Such a situation is unacceptable.
We should also like to have sight of the reports that were compiled by the Committee of Experts who visited the respective countries and on which the visa requirement for Bulgaria and Romania has been based.
We should like to see these reports laid before Parliament, since it would be interesting to see on what principles they are founded.
Consequently, we shall give our support to Amendments Nos 28 and 29, amongst others.
<P>
With regard to the policy on refugees - which is the subject of this joint debate - on behalf of the Green Group, I should like to express concern over the EU's refugee policy, particularly in the light of the Schengen Agreement and the fact that each year fewer and fewer refugees believe that such a thing as asylum actually exists within the EU.
Should we not be preventing the walls around the Union from becoming too high?
The Green Group believes that a generous policy on refugees, in accordance with the UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, is an absolute requirement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=288 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="d'Ancona">
Madam President, it is unfortunately the case that asylum and immigration are politically sensitive issues, particularly in the run-up to elections.
It is a great pity that they are increasingly being exploited for political reasons, despite the fact that many political parties have signed up to the charter against racism drawn up by the Monitoring Centre in Vienna.
It is obviously very tempting to try to curry favour with the voters by exaggerating the risk that we will be overwhelmed by sweeping tides of asylum-seekers and by playing on people's fears that too many foreigners will threaten our prosperity or identity.
<P>
There is therefore every good reason to regulate asylum and immigration policy at European level, not just in order to prevent these sorts of abuses at national level, but also because of the cross-border nature of the problem.
Time and time again, however, the Council has disappointed us here.
Of course, when it comes to restrictive measures, defending fortress Europe and passing the problem off onto neighbouring countries, it is only too happy to turn a blind eye and has no problem in finding agreement.
But constructing and harmonising a humane and fair asylum and immigration policy seems to be well-nigh impossible.
<P>
This is why I think it is good that the Commission and Parliament keep putting these issues back on the agenda.
Mrs Lindeperg's report on the harmonisation of forms of protection complementing refugee status is certainly needed now that it appears that many people are falling through the net, sometimes because the Geneva Convention is interpreted too narrowly and sometimes because people do not actually meet the criteria to be classified as genuine refugees but cannot return to their country of origin.
<P>
It is often claimed that the Geneva Convention is being abused, that the people asking us for asylum are not genuine refugees, and that the asylum problem is beset by liars and criminals.
But we ourselves largely encourage this by making the Convention the only possible way of getting into Europe.
This is why I particularly welcome the fact that the Commission has looked at this side of the problem and considered under what conditions the nationals of third countries can be admitted.
We very much appreciate the fact that the Commission, and particularly Commissioner Gradin, have asked us for our opinion on this.
However, in order to arrive at an opinion we have had to make a sacrifice, because we were only able to achieve a majority in the committee by deleting Chapter 8.
We can well imagine that this will come as a disappointment to the Commission, as indeed it is to us, because it means that the basic objective, which is one that we value, has been nipped in the bud.
<P>
Amendment No 49, which calls for a status to be introduced for third-country nationals, is designed to counter this objection.
I hope that the Commission realises that my group at least supports its idea of improving the position of illegal residents too.
We are therefore hopeful that a status will be created which establishes the rights of fellow citizens from third countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=289 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pirker">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, my own comments relate to the proposals, underlying trends and amendments emanating from the left of the House.
They generally have one thing in common: they repeatedly support immigration from third countries and above all an extension of family immigration and reunification, with an overwhelming tendency to class all forms of partnership - regardless of gender - as a family, and at the same time adopting an increasingly wide definition of relatives.
The result must be obvious.
<P>
These proposals also tend to facilitate access to the labour market of the European Union. For example, one amendment suggests that the mere offer of a work contract should be enough to qualify for a one- to four-year stay in the European Union.
<P>
The extension of refugee status is another issue exercising our minds.
I am all for thought being given to this and for seeking solutions.
However, we will not find any solutions based on the very vague definitions we have of the groups involved, for example, if when we talk about groups of people threatened with violations of fundamental human rights, we insist on categorising the right to health or the right to work as basic rights, or if we include groups who are threatened by major disruptions in public order, or people who give homosexuality as grounds for asylum.
The net is being widened somewhat too far if all these groups are to be given the status of refugees wishing to enter the European Union.
<P>
If you consider the extensive new appeal arrangements, which provide that an appeal always has suspensory effect for all these groups, even if there has been abuse of the system, then you end up with similar problems, as I have already mentioned.
Regarding asylum, I would also like to mention that we must of course give positive signals to states such as Bulgaria or Romania who are making an effort. However, I know from my own experience of the Ministry of the Interior there that there are major problems with the justice system, the police and the development of border security.
We know that there is a constant risk of illegal immigrants entering the Member States of the European Union via these countries.
We must help them to improve their border security. However, we cannot remove the visa requirement whilst Europe has no guarantee of security.
<P>
The effect of all these demands tends to be an increase in immigration, an invitation to abuse asylum status and an impression that we are doing too little for refugees.
This effect is unacceptable and that impression totally erroneous.
What we need, and we in the PPE Group are arguing for this, is a comprehensive solution embracing asylum and refugee issues, which provides for burden sharing and for measures to counter abuse.
The objective we should be setting ourselves is to help refugees, but to limit and regulate immigration and to combat abuse and illegal activity, so that in future we can guarantee a safe and stable Europe, in the interests of our all our citizens.
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<SPEAKER ID=290 NAME="Goerens">
Madam President, I should like to make four remarks in the joint debate on the Lindeperg and Lehne reports.
<P>
The first concerns the appropriateness of holding the debate on the Lehne report at this time. Mr Lehne himself said in his report that we can raise the question as soon as the Amsterdam Treaty - once it has entered into force - provides a more appropriate framework for dealing with problems connected with the admission of third country nationals.
In this case, however, the Commission has exercised its right of initiative for the first time by formulating a position on the subject.
Parliament has repeatedly called upon the Commission to give impetus to policies which come under the third pillar, and therefore cannot take a favourable decision on this.
Moreover, the urgent need for harmonisation in this area no longer has to be demonstrated.
<P>
Secondly, the admission of non-Community nationals concerns issues as important as the labour market, vocational training, family reunification, all issues giving rise to controversy which is sometimes very acute. In short, we are dealing with an extremely sensitive issue here, which - if the case arises - provokes emotional and impassioned reactions and is also very often the cause of irrational thoughts and behaviour.
<P>
Words are therefore important in themselves because of the ideas they express and the messages they convey, or rather suggest.
Recent events remind us that regarding nationality as an ethnic concept, for example, would by its very nature wake evil spirits from the past and make it possible for parties pursuing this line of approach to win elections.
It is the whole political class that is being questioned about the way in which it must take up these challenges.
<P>
To summarise my view regarding the admission of non-Community nationals on the territory of the European Union, in particular, and general relations between European citizens and non-Community nationals, I would say that there is reason more than ever before to consider how the debate should be organised, and how to encourage reflection and to convince the sceptics.
We need to show ourselves to be understanding and sometimes patient, as well as imaginative and generous towards those concerned by the policies referred to in the Lehne and Lindeperg reports.
<P>
In other words, two different approaches are possible.
The first approach, which is based on populism and electioneering, tends to send out a strong message to the more fortunate members of society, and a weak one to disadvantaged social groups.
The second approach, which consists in giving positive signals to the vulnerable groups in society, and less positive ones to those who are more fortunate, seems to me quite obviously to be more compatible with our duty to show solidarity, as is stipulated by the Geneva Convention with regard to asylum seekers.
<P>
Thirdly, and I thank Mr Lehne particularly for having mentioned this aspect, we should welcome Parliament's coherent attitude towards maintaining visa requirements for Romanian and Bulgarian nationals.
Of course, the Member States will probably not follow the conclusions of Parliament, which calls upon them to remove Bulgaria and Romania from the famous common list.
<P>
It would be a real shame if the Council were to persevere in its attitude.
However, without being particularly optiministic, I hope it will respond favourably to our demand.
In doing so, it would merely be recognising the progress achieved by both these countries. What is more, it would merely be putting an end to a form of discrimination which affects two countries associated with the European Union.
<P>
Finally, I should like to say that the policies at the centre of our debate are part of an overall picture.
I am also the first person to regret that no progress was made on burden-sharing, a subject to which a previous debate was devoted.
This would allow us to progress more quickly in terms of the policies we are currently discussing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=291 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Mohamed Alí">
Madam President, once again we are dealing with the important issue of asylum and, more specifically, protection complementing refugee status in the European Union.
However, we must remind ourselves that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - a declaration that is often cited and one that is presumably adopted by all - recognises the right of any person to protect themselves against persecution and to enjoy asylum in any country. We must also bear in mind that the Geneva Convention, without restrictive interpretations, must be the frame of reference for all national or Community regulations on the right to asylum and refugee status.
<P>
On the basis of the content of these texts, we strongly criticise the ever more stringent conditions that Member States are imposing on persons seeking protection in countries of the Union.
Entry, residence and the status of persons seeking international protection in the territory of Member States cannot, under any circumstances, be treated merely as issues relating to the internal security of those states. They must be considered with respect for international conventions and a supportive policy of aid for development and economic cooperation.
<P>
In recent years we have noted with some concern that legislation on asylum has been tightened up. This has resulted in a downward trend in the number of applications for asylum in the European Union and stagnation in the rates of acknowledgement of refugee status in many countries, despite the fact that the human rights situation in the world has not considerably improved.
<P>
With regard to protection complementary to refugee status, we support the measures put forward by the rapporteur. They focus on the protection of persons threatened by widespread violence, internal conflict or violations of human rights and lay particular emphasis on the international recognition of women who are subject to sexual violence.
We also believe that it is essential to adopt measures to ensure the integration of refugees into society and to help them develop as residents.
<P>
Lastly, I should like to highlight the case of the Kurdish leader, Abdullah Ocalan, and call on the Council to make a determined effort to intervene in this situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=292 NAME="Schaffner">
Madam President, human rights and citizens' rights are not principles that are infinitely variable.
They must be applied constantly and coherently in all countries; there must be no exceptions and no grey areas.
In this sense, Mrs Lindeperg's report endeavours to increase throughout the European Union the level of protection for refugees and persons subjected to persecution.
It proposes a useful complement to measures protecting human rights.
With reservation, we approve the need to harmonise at EU level the rules applying to refugees who cannot claim the status afforded by the Geneva Convention but cannot return to their country of origin for fear of losing their lives or being subjected to degrading or humiliating treatment.
<P>
The definition of refugee status given in the Geneva Convention is interpreted in a narrow sense by a Council decision: refugee status is only granted where persecution is carried out or encouraged by the authorities.
Where the authorities fail to act, the persons concerned are eligible for forms of protection under national law, and this is where the shoe pinches and the measure proves to be inadequate.
Complementary protection can vary from one Member State to another, creating to all intents and purposes disparities with regard to opportunity of protection depending on the place where the individual being persecuted makes his application for asylum.
This unequal treatment can have serious consequences, for example where a refugee's life is at risk if he returns to his country of origin.
<P>
Harmonisation is therefore desirable.
Moreover, it will make it possible to establish a set of rules which will provide a basis for examining the forms of protection taken from the European Convention on Human Rights.
However, refugees benefiting from complementary protection must not be confused with immigrants.
Poverty in a country may result in severe disruptions to public order or create internal conflict.
Is a person fleeing this type of disorder a refugee with the right to complementary protection or an immigrant?
This is where there is the risk of confusion.
Harmonisation of these forms of complementary protection must not of course be an end in itself either.
We must not only pursue a policy of education by constantly denouncing human rights violations, but we must also provide development aid for those countries and regions where human rights are flouted.
Mrs Lindeperg's report corresponds to the notion of generosity to which we are attached, and proposes solutions which seek to improve the rights of persons subjected to persecution by making progress in the area of the rule of law and in this case, accepted standards of behaviour in Europe.
However, our final vote will of course take account of possible subsequent amendments which will be tabled and adopted in plenary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=293 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ceyhun">
Madam President, at a time when in many European Union countries asylum seekers are not necessarily regarded as refugees who are to be welcomed, Mrs Lindeperg's report is a valuable document.
She is a Member of Parliament with the courage of her convictions.
Migration is a social reality in the European Union.
We are concerned about the tendency in some Member States to substitute temporary so-called refuge for genuine recognition of refugee status under the Geneva Convention.
The EU should not harmonise forms of protection supplementing the Geneva Convention without allowing for a liberal interpretation of the Convention on the status of refugees.
<P>
For this reason we welcome the debate needed on the Austrian strategy paper on migration and asylum policy.
The report makes it clear that Austria's so-called strategy paper is intended as a deterrent, and is not suitable as a basis for solving the problems of migration and asylum-seekers, because it confuses not only the various issues surrounding their causes, but also the solutions to these problems.
Of course there is an urgent need for coordinated action.
The objective is to create approximately equivalent admission criteria for refugees by means of a common legal protection system, so that recognition criteria can be interpreted as uniformly as possible.
Mrs Lindeperg's report makes a valuable contribution to this.
<P>
I would also like to say something about the two amendments tabled by my group.
It is our view that Amendments Nos 16 and 17 are not relevant to this debate.
A debate about the future or the fate of refugees in general is not the place for a discussion of what has happened to Mr Ocalan.
That should be dealt with separately.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=294 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by thanking Mrs Lindeperg.
The ARE Group has always supported her attempts to find a decent solution to the problems facing asylum-seekers and many others in this world who feel oppressed and threatened.
We share her concern and we will continue to support her.
We are in favour of harmonising legislation at European level in principle, but we fear that it would be used as a way to consolidate fortress Europe, with the legislation and the Convention being applied increasingly strictly, whereas what we want is greater understanding for the huge numbers of refugees throughout the world and for all those under threat.

<P>
We regret the fact that the European Parliament has been reduced to an advisory body on this issue and that we are not able to make a more decisive contribution.
In our experience the Member States are the only ones that take the decisions, and they are often very hypocritical about it.
Very often they talk about solutions that need to be taken at European level, while at the same time rejecting existing European solutions and pursuing their own restrictive policies.
We are extremely unhappy that various countries are pursuing this approach, and we think that the Convention should be updated to include a more modern definition of the term 'political refugee'.
We want new categories to be admitted to allow people over this very difficult hurdle.
We want people persecuted for their gender or sexual orientation to be included, and we want new rights for a new generation.
We know that Europe cannot escape its responsibilities here, and we know that we are weak when it comes to protecting democracy in the world.
On the other hand, we ourselves create illegality.
It will always be more difficult - it already is - to enter Europe legally than illegally.
And this causes distortions in our own society and condemns people to go through life 'sans papiers '.
We want nothing to do with such a short-sighted policy.
We want things to be regulated properly so that the problem can be brought under control.
We do not want to be or to become a totalitarian state, but we want to adopt a pragmatic approach in order to deal with current problems realistically.
<P>
We have tabled two amendments which, from what I have heard, can count on considerable support.
Mrs Van Lancker, I am sure that there are a lot of people as well as you who agree in their hearts, but we will have to wait and see if they actually vote for them.
What is the point of going for a Conservative majority when we could win a more progressive majority here in the House, with various representatives of the Liberals and our two groups?
<P>
Madam President, I have decided.
I have to point out that we agree with the first Lehne report, but we definitely cannot vote for the decisions in the second report, where we thought the Commission text was much better than what the report says.
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<SPEAKER ID=295 NAME="Berthu">
Madam President, the three reports on the crossing of EU borders, which are the subject of this joint debate, are very different.
Two of them are the result of what is termed the intergovernmental method of negotiation: they concern the draft Convention on rules for the admission of third-country nationals, and the proposal for a Council regulation which was also negotiated by consensus within the Council, which determines the list of countries whose nationals require a visa to enter the Union.
The third text comes under a completely different category: it is an own-initiative report produced by the European Parliament which proposes a wide interpretation of the refugee status laid down by the 1951 Geneva Convention.
<P>
Yet, just as the first two texts try to be strict on the subject of the crossing of external borders, the third text clearly adopts a more liberal attitude and is inspired by ideas which it would be difficult to claim are shared by the majority of our fellow citizens.
I will come back to this point in my explanation of vote.
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In fact, it is as though this joint debate had a hidden agenda seeking to lead us to the following conclusion: the intergovernmental negotiations unanimously concluded in the Council are the ones that produce the texts which are the closest to what happens in the real world.
<P>
This is why, for all crucial issues connected with the international movement of persons, my group hopes that we stay with this method and reject the possibility of switching over to majority voting and codecision with the European Parliament, as provided for by the Amsterdam Treaty.
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<SPEAKER ID=296 NAME="Elliott">
<SPEAKER ID=297 NAME="Reding">
Madam President, the right of asylum is sacrosanct.
That is enough said about the grand and noble principle.
On no account should the right of asylum be changed in any way, either in the form of a restrictive interpretation of the Geneva Convention by the Member States, or through abuse of the system by interested parties.
What we need, on the other hand, is an extension of the principles of the Geneva Convention by means of a regime providing complementary protection to deal with exceptional cases.
However, such an extension must in no way aid the interests of those who try to misuse the right of asylum and wish to throw the door wide open to all forms of abuse.
<P>
If we are to be effective, we need to find solutions which are pragmatic as well as humanitarian.
We must firstly promote transparent solutions at European level and then - instead of pursuing a liberal line of action - seek sensible solutions which guarantee the right of asylum while preventing it from being misused.
<P>
I do not think that the Member States are closing their doors to asylum seekers, as is suggested in the Lindeperg report, but they are rightly closing them to illegal immigrants seeking to abuse the system on economic grounds rather than on political grounds.
By combating illegal and uncontrolled immigration, the Member States guarantee the right of asylum and prevent our citizens from making asylum seekers outcasts.
<P>
Yes to the right of asylum and complementary protection!
No to lax and ideological attitudes on this serious matter!
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<SPEAKER ID=298 NAME="Pailler">
Madam President, I fully endorse the Lindeperg report because it reinforces the right of asylum and provides an adequate response to the strategy paper produced by the Austrian Presidency, which calls into question the international law on refugees guaranteed by the Geneva Convention.
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However, I am opposed to the Commission's draft Convention on rules for the admission of third-country nationals.
In fact, it proposes an admission and residence policy which conforms with the Member States' most restrictive rules.
This is particularly true in the case of employment since it makes national and Community preference one of the key principles of the admission policy.
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Was the Commission never informed of the OECD study in which it is acknowledged that there is no close correlation between the influx of foreigners into a country and the increase in the unemployment rate?
I nevertheless admit that the adoption of certain amendments has made a significant improvement to the draft.
However, I am dismayed at the compromise amendment proposed by the PSE/PPE to Article 7(1) on employment.
This amendment not only implies acceptance of the notion of national preference, but it clearly vindicates the system of quotas which would allow each Member State to take from poor countries the manpower and qualified workers it needs.
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My group has therefore tabled an amendment to correct what I had hoped was only a mistake until I heard Mrs Terrón i Cusí's speech.
My group's final vote will depend on acceptance of this amendment, and I will be requesting a roll-call vote.
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The Commission's draft convention does not augur well for the substance of future Community immigration and asylum policy, as provided for by the Amsterdam Treaty.
We must warn the organisations of the dangers of this and take action with them to transform the present stumbling blocks into proper reception conditions.
I am taking pains to do this.
<P>
I reject this notion of a fortress Europe which is inward-looking.
We must put an end to this scapegoat strategy which the Minister of the Interior, Mr Schily, also talked about a fortnight ago in the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
However, our French Minister is no better on this subject.
He has never addressed the issue of immigrants in terms of the legal implications.
He has consistently linked immigration with unemployment, insecurity and criminality, as if evil always comes from elsewhere.
The danger of this type of xenophobia - it cannot be called anything other than this - is great, for as Gorki wrote, 'it is preferable to expect the best of man; expecting the worst will only lead him astray'.
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<SPEAKER ID=299 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Madam President, I wish that Mrs Lindeperg could have had a better time-slot and a fuller House for this debate.
Not only is it one of the most important reports we have discussed for a long time, it is also one of the most outstanding.
It demonstrates, with depressing sobriety and enormous clarity, that we find ourselves slipping into a human rights dilemma or even a human rights emergency.
Many of the Members not here today would, if they were to study this report, very probably have to stop telling the public that asylum, in terms of human rights and international law, is not under attack.
It is.
Mr Pirker, on the other hand, is an example of someone quite capable of maintaining all his aggressive prejudices despite being in possession of the facts.
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I would really like to know how you can escape into Europe.
I think you would need to be the invisible man or jump down from a satellite. Otherwise, it will soon be impossible to penetrate this continent famed for its justice and human rights.
We have abolished the right to asylum within the European Union, despite the Geneva Convention and current international law. We have simply taken matters into our own hands, and no one is doing anything about it.
Outside the EU, we have created a cordon of states that we have lumped together as being safe third countries, thus flying in the face of the Geneva Convention and current international law.
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Under the Geneva Convention, an applicant is only entitled to asylum if a justified fear of persecution can be demonstrated.
We have changed the criterion to one of proving that persecution is a fact.
We are constantly raising the hurdles, creating barriers and imposing new conditions, so that it has become virtually impossible to get into Europe.
The end result is mass deportations, children held in pre-expulsion detention centres, families torn apart, and refugees being repatriated to countries where they are in danger of life and limb.
That is where we now stand in the European Union, which when it wants to implement something like the internal market, the euro or competition law, applies itself with great determination, but which is achieving less and less when it comes to human rights and democracy, the underlying principles of the Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=300 NAME="Stirbois">
Madam President, Mr Lehne's report gives me the opportunity once more to denounce the excesses of Europe's emigrationism .
Immigration policy is and must remain the responsibility of each Member State.
I reject the outright harmonisation of immigration policies, the right of asylum, and criminal and judicial procedures that is advocated by Brussels.
A healthy state is first and foremost a state which controls its influx of immigrants and makes it possible for its nationals to work and go out in the evening in complete safety.
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We will vote against this report which protects non-Community nationals and damages the interests of European nationals, and which encourages family reunification even where a family unit is not legitimate or recognised as such in the eyes of the law, since it talks about partners.
What is more, we want to offer jobs to foreigners when seven million people in our own country are unemployed or live below the poverty line.
I would point out that according to this report, a contract of employment will be sufficient to obtain refugee status.
If adopted, these various amendments will undoubtedly turn our Europe - which is already an open door when it comes to immigration - into a Europe where the floodgates are opened to what will become a spate of immigrants.
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Some Members of Parliament talk to us about populism, electioneering and racism.
But they do not live in the so-called problem areas.
It is the poorest and weakest people who put up with this type of situation, and this can no longer be tolerated.
It is unthinkable that those who advocate jobs and security in Europe could support such initiatives which are destructive to our countries and people.
I for my part will not do so.
Allow me to remind you of the famous words of one of our colleagues, who said that we cannot take all the troubles of the world upon our shoulders.
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<SPEAKER ID=301 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Zimmermann">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased that most of us in this House are not of the same opinion as Mrs Stirbois - thank goodness! - and that the majority of us see refugees in a different light.
I confess that I am now finding it difficult to keep to the subject I had actually planned to speak about, that is Mr Lehne's report on visa policy.
We have been discussing this subject ever since I have been in Parliament.
Our discussions on how to formulate arrangements giving people from third countries legal access to the European Union spanned the whole of the previous legislature.
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The judgment of the European Court of Justice - as Mr Lehne has already said, Parliament took this to court - still failed to clarify the degree of consistency we should apply to this question.
My group has also taken the line that if we want to retain our credibility we should give our opinion on both the Council and Commission proposals.
But as we have found ourselves in a state of deadlock with the forthcoming ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam, we expect that once it has been ratified and the Treaty has come into force, the Commission will submit the new proposal it has announced without delay, and that the amendments from Parliament that we are voting on tomorrow will appear in the new proposal.
<P>
Nevertheless, I agree with the rapporteur that the procedure for granting visas should comply with the same requirements and procedures in all the Members States.
The fact that there is a visa requirement for certain third-country nationals does not mean that the relevant procedures should be unjust or even discriminatory. Yet that is very often the case at present.
People who need a visa for relatives or business visitors or for youth and student exchanges should be given clear information on the documents required and the time taken to issue a visa when they submit an application.
We know all too well that waiting times of six months are frequent, with all the costs that implies.
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The authorities in the Members States should have to observe clear guidelines in this area, to make the process both transparent and humane.
Article 62 in fact requires uniform conditions and procedures in this field.
We also hope that incorporating the Schengen Agreement into the Treaty will at last make it possible to draw up a single European list of third countries whose nationals require a visa for travel into the EU.
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Many members of my group also believe that both Romania and Bulgaria should be deleted from the list, something Parliament has indeed been advocating for the last four and a half years.
It cannot be right that countries with whom we have association agreements are still at a disadvantage and are still on this list.
I often go to Romania and Bulgaria myself.
When you see how things are going there, you are bound to conclude that this needs to be changed, because both these countries have already made great efforts ...
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The President cut the speaker off
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<SPEAKER ID=302 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Madam President, even though the two Lehne reports are extremely important, I am only going to refer to the Lindeperg report, as it would be impossible to talk about all of them in the two minutes I have available.
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I should firstly like to welcome and thank the rapporteur for demonstrating her ability for dialogue and for constantly seeking solutions. Of course, when such solutions have not been forthcoming, she has sought to point out discrepancies in a way that I consider to be very constructive.
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The rapporteur is aware that many of us, and in my view, a broad majority in the House, agree with her objectives.
As she points out, these complementary schemes of protection must be harmonised so that those who genuinely merit a specific form of protection, but who do not meet the conditions laid down in the Geneva Convention, can receive it.
Therefore, we must not lower ourselves to the level of popularity-seeking, because this is ultimately the worst enemy of those who are or who should be allowed to enter under the terms of the Geneva Convention, and those for whom complementary forms of protection must be found.
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The two amendments tabled by the ARE Group, which Mrs Lindeperg wanted to accept and which I hope she does not accept, are a clear example of this.
I hope they will be rejected because they are really the epitome of what Parliament is not able to do.
Whether we like it or not, the Geneva Convention says what it says and, Mrs Lindeperg, there are other people who are qualified to interpret it apart from the United Nations High Commissioner, including the Member States' high courts.
However, this is something that appears to have been overlooked.
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We obviously cannot try to change the Geneva Convention and say that it protects homosexuals. That would be impossible because in order to change the Geneva Convention, we must use all the traditional instruments of international law.
And, were we to do this, in short, we would merely be prejudicing those groups - and potentially even homosexual groups - in need of adequate protection, protection that is not provided for in the Geneva Convention. Indeed, the complementary measures we are currently seeking are, in fact, aimed at those groups.
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<SPEAKER ID=303 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Lancker">
Madam President, Commissioners, I should like to begin by saying something about the Convention on rules for the admission of third-country nationals.
Mr Lehne's report and the Commission proposal are extremely important elements of what should become a common immigration policy.
A European approach is particularly important here because the differences that currently exist between the Member States undermine not only the free movement of persons, as Mr Lehne said, but also, in my view, the rights that we grant to immigrants.
This is why a European approach is so important.
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I must admit that the view that Parliament is putting forward today does not exactly fill me with enthusiasm.
Even here in the House there is not a majority in favour of opening the door a little wider for further immigration.
Of course, I realise that this is a highly sensitive issue with its connotations of unemployment and social exclusion.
But the main point is that there are still people, even here in the Chamber, who constantly manage to present immigration as a threat and as something that will inevitably bring an increase in crime, thus encouraging xenophobia and making the whole issue taboo.
I hope that some day the majority will support the view that migrants not only need Europe, but also that Europe needs migrants, if only for the sake of our own labour market and demographic development.
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It is important to have this report, because these proposals ensure that European harmonisation will not be harmonisation downwards.
The references to quotas and measures deliberately allow those Member States which have a broader policy the scope to implement it.
We are not defending quotas as such, but as some countries already have them, it is important for us to support them.
This also guarantees that families have the right to be reunited.
We must learn to accept that people do not migrate temporarily - these are men, women and children who are entitled to a family life.
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I would like to say a few words about the report by Mrs Lindeperg, on which I congratulate her.
I am particularly pleased that there is broad support for this report in the House at long last, as an additional status is absolutely necessary.
Many countries such as Belgium only have a 'tolerance status' with complementary forms of protection, and this has particularly damaging consequences.
It causes uncertainty for the refugees in question, and uncertainty for society, because having residents with no rights in an insecure position is not good for any society.
So we really need an additional status in Europe.
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All I would add is that in December 1998, the Council of Ministers of Justice and Home Affairs put these two important issues that we are discussing today on the agenda for the forthcoming legislative period, but with such an unreasonable deadline that there is a danger that it could become a long-term project or even be shelved altogether.
So I think it is particularly important that Parliament should today send a political signal to the Commission, and via the Commission to the Council, that we in the House want to tackle these two sensitive and difficult issues, and I hope that this will then lead to a clear signal being given not in five years, not in twenty years, but at the Tampere summit that we need solutions to them.
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<SPEAKER ID=304 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Nassauer">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, many speeches on asylum and refugees in Europe remind me of Bertold Brecht's famous play 'The Good Woman of Szechuan', in which the main character has to work hard at night as a realist to put right the damage she has done as a philanthropist during the day.
We are being urged to drop the visa requirement for Romania and Bulgaria, yet any security specialist can show that this would promote organised crime, traffic in human beings and drug smuggling.
Where does that leave our concern for our citizens' security?
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Here in Europe, we quite rightly accept refugees and people facing political persecution.
There is no dispute about that, as every right-minded person knows.
However, there are also numerous economic refugees who can neither come here nor remain here permanently, and now Mrs Lindeperg is proposing that we should accept everyone coming from countries where there is widespread violence, internal conflict, or other circumstances which have severely disrupted public order.
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My dear Mrs Lindeperg, this definition applies to three quarters of Africa and half of Asia.
So provision is to be made for measures to ensure that all these people are integrated into social and economic life - not forgetting that we have 20 million unemployed in Europe - and at the same time, if they are rejected, they can lodge an appeal with suspensory effect!
Mrs Lindeperg, that may well earn our respect and you may deserve our sympathy, but it will not win our vote for your report.
It is high time we limited immigration into Europe.
Only then will we have a chance of integrating those who already live here, and that should be our priority.
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<SPEAKER ID=305 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, firstly I should like to congratulate the two rapporteurs, Mr Lehne and Mrs Lindeperg on the enormous amount of work they have put into the three reports we are discussing jointly this evening.
I can support Mrs Lindeperg's report without hesitation.
It must be sensible when subsidiary protection issues will be an area of growing importance for the EU, for Member States to operate similar procedures and a similar level of social provision for all refugees.
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With respect to Mr Lehne's report on the admission of third country nationals, one can only share the report's view that the draft convention is unbalanced with unnecessary rigidity in many areas and with unworkable elements in others.
However, despite my acknowledgement of Mr Lehne's hard work, I have some problems with his report on visas for third country nationals.
The main areas of difficulty are: firstly, the fact of his adding to the visa-required list a visa-exempt list; secondly, the ruling-out of Member States' right to impose national visa regimes in certain circumstances like those we have experienced in the United Kingdom recently; thirdly, while I acknowledge the progress made by the Bulgarian and Romanian authorities in combating illegal immigration, the reality is that significant numbers of Romanian and Bulgarian nationals continue to make poorly-founded claims for asylum in Member States of the European Union.
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Despite this, however, I intend to support the report, primarily because I completely endorse the rapporteur's view that visas should be not be required for individuals who hold residence permits in any state in the Union.
As long as he continues to press the point that residents of the European Union should have the same rights and same duties as citizens I have to be in favour of this report.
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<SPEAKER ID=306 NAME="Gradin">
Madam President, Mr Lehne and the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs have spent a great deal of time familiarising themselves with the Commission's proposal relating to the Convention on rules of admission, and I appreciate their efforts.
I have followed with particular interest the various twists and turns of the committee's deliberations.
Numerous demands have been made, many of which touch on one or two issues that are absolutely central to the proposal. It is those that I should now like to comment on.
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The first concerns family reunification, which is a fundamental right laid down in international law.
The Member States of the Union, through international agreements, have established the importance of the family for the welfare and well-being of the individual.
This bodes well for agreement on a common line to be followed, but as ever, the question is how far should we go?
The concept of family varies from one Member State to another, and the same applies to age limits.
In both instances, my proposal means a step towards a closer approximation within the Union.
The discussions in the Council of Ministers will show whether there is scope to advance our positions further, which the Commission naturally welcomes.
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Secondly, integration requires stability and a long-term perspective.
The objective must be that immigrants are able to live under the same conditions as those enjoyed by European citizens, a vision that should run through all the policy initiatives on immigrants.
Consequently, our proposal also addresses the question of the rights to be offered to Europe's immigrants.
In this respect, my first thoughts are focused on the nationals of third countries who have lived legally in Europe for many years.
In the proposal, we have identified the following basic areas in which we think our citizens and immigrants should receive the same treatment: access to the labour market and freedom to pursue an activity as a self-employed person, basic education, vocational training, trade union rights, freedom of association, and access to the housing market and social assistance.
We have also taken up the question of freedom of movement for nationals of third countries.
For example, it would be reasonable for permanently domiciled immigrants to apply for jobs that are not filled in other Member States.
The alternative is a segregated Europe with all the attendant problems of discrimination, social tension and instability.
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As one might expect, the views in the Council of Ministers differ widely on this issue.
Consequently, I had hoped to be able to count on a clear expression of support from the European Parliament.
Now it seems as though this is not to be, which is deeply disappointing.
Nevertheless, I have no intention of withdrawing the Convention.
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The underlying causes of current migration are largely unchanged.
People are looking for a better life for themselves or their children.
There are no longer any uninhabited continents, and migrants therefore look for places which they can physically reach.
Europe will continue to be an attractive destination, a state of affairs we should accept as permanent and normal, instead of regarding it as a passing and somewhat dramatic occurrence.
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Furthermore, a strategy for a common policy on migration is a natural consequence of integration and the idea that similar social and economic conditions should prevail throughout Europe, with no one being left behind.
I would assume that the ideas contained in the Lehne report will be taken into account in the forthcoming negotiations.
Naturally the Commission will do its best to ensure that progress is made.
<P>
Mrs Lindeperg, in her report, addresses the issue of protection for people who flee their homes but do not fulfil the requirements laid down in the Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees - what we sometimes call supplementary forms of international protection.
The rapporteur urges the Commission to begin work at the earliest opportunity on harmonisation of the European Union's asylum policies.
I am sure the House will be pleased to learn that this work is already in hand.
<P>
As a beginning, I have put forward a proposal for a directive on asylum procedures within the Union.
At the request of the German Presidency, I will soon be submitting a working document on the subject.
The aim is to begin discussions on the points at issue as early as the spring.
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Secondly, we have now begun work on adapting the Commission's proposals on temporary protection and burden-sharing to meet the requirements of the new Treaty.
As you know, we have been putting in a great deal of hard work on this since the Commission submitted its original proposal in 1997.
The issue will be discussed for the third time at ministerial level during the informal meeting of the Council in Berlin at the end of the week.
But despite all this, the Member States are still a long way from reaching a decision.
If there is no agreement by the time the new Treaty enters into force, we shall have no alternative but to submit entirely new instruments.
In my view, this is what will happen.
<P>
Thirdly, the adaptation of the Eurodac Convention is another major task.
Last December, the Council of Ministers decided to freeze work on Eurodac, wishing to wait until the Amsterdam Treaty had entered into force before further negotiations.
During the meeting, the Commission was also asked to submit a new proposal in the form of a regulation.
Such an adaptation of Eurodac will mean a great deal of work, and it goes without saying that it should begin immediately.
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The work on this area alone will take up much of the time between now and next June.
In the longer term, the new Treaty stipulates minimum standards for supplementary protection.
This is in fact mentioned as a key point in the action plan on freedom, security and justice which the Council approved on 4 December.
<P>
Asylum policy in general and supplementary protection in particular will accordingly be the focus of considerable attention during the coming years.
Consequently, the Lindeperg report makes a welcome and constructive contribution to the discussion on the future direction of asylum policy in Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=307 NAME="Monti">
Madam President, my thanks to Mr Lehne for his excellent report.
This consultation of the European Parliament completes the process that began with the annulment by the Court of Justice in June 1997 of Regulation No 2317/95 laying down the list of third countries whose citizens had to be in possession of a visa.
We need first to put this into context.
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The regulation that was annulled was based on Article 100c of the Maastricht Treaty.
According to that article, Community jurisdiction in relation to visas is limited, firstly, to determining the third countries whose nationals must be in possession of a visa when crossing the external borders and, secondly, the introduction of a uniform format for visas.
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If it has to be adopted before the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the new regulation will be adopted by the Council again on the basis on Article 100c. That circumstance, which cannot be avoided, makes matters still more complex.
This tricky situation has been well depicted by Mr Lehne, and some of your amendments reflect this.
<P>
My view is dictated by the evolving legislative context.
I wish also to draw attention to the prospect of incorporating into the Union the progress achieved through the Schengen Agreement and its consequences for visa policy.
<P>

I turn now to the amendments, which I shall separate into two categories: first of all, there are many amendments based on the evolving legislative framework that I have just described and which I would roughly classify as anticipatory amendments: Amendment No 1, concerning the title, describes the regulation as provisional; Amendments Nos 3, 7 and 11, relating to the recitals, include a number of references to changes that will be introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam.
But when we look at the actual articles of the regulation, the amendments I have described as anticipatory are incompatible with the provisions of the current Article 100c. Let me cite to you, by way of example, Amendments Nos 18, 19, 20 and 21, concerning the various aspects of visa issue, an area that is not at the moment - and I stress for the moment - an area of Community responsibility.
In these circumstances, it is not legally possible for the Commission to accept those amendments which anticipate an area of Community jurisdiction that will not exist until the Treaty of Amsterdam enters into force.
<P>
Secondly, the European Parliament is proposing a number of amendments that fall perfectly within the scope of Article 100c: these respect the parameters of that article, but we do have to consider them, paradoxical though this may seem, in the light of the forthcoming entry into force of Amsterdam.
I can explain this better by taking as an example Amendment No 5 concerning the criteria for determining which countries will be subject to the visa requirement.
The way in which this issue is dealt with, viewed in terms of the existing Article 100c, will be significantly different once Article 62(2) of the Treaty of Amsterdam has given the Community the additional authority to draw up the list of countries whose citizens will not be required to be in possession of a visa.
The prospects for achieving total harmonisation of visa policy, something which Parliament wants, moreover, therefore mean that we have to look again at the issue wearing our Amsterdam-tinted spectacles, so to speak.
I do not, however, wish to be absolutely negative about the possibility of accepting the amendments Parliament is proposing as part of the new consultation on the following regulation.
The prospect of the now imminent entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty will bring about profound changes with regard to visas; new powers will be transferred to the Community in relation to the measures to be adopted in these sectors.
The Treaty of Amsterdam has set definite time-limits, while the recent Commission and Council action plan on the area of freedom, security and justice actually provides for more rapid adoption of some visa-related measures.
<P>
The Community must shoulder the obligations its new powers bring with them, and the Commission will have to assume its own responsibilities without delay.
I can assure you that the work Parliament has done as part of this new consultation will not have been in vain.
I am also certain that some of the proposed amendments will be largely taken into consideration in the new proposal for a regulation that the Commission has included in its own programme of work, on which Parliament has recently delivered its opinion.
<P>
I shall conclude, Madam President, with a reference to the question that has been raised concerning Bulgaria and Romania.
The inclusion of a third country on the common list of countries whose citizens have to have a visa is based on an assessment of the main criteria involving the risks to security and the threat of illegal immigration.
Having said that, the assessment made at the time the regulation is adopted is not set in stone.
And with that in mind, the Community and Bulgaria and Romania have on several occasions in recent months had the opportunity of discussing this problem, which has a variety of implications.
From those various contacts, through the association councils at ministerial level and through correspondence, it has become apparent that Bulgaria and Romania are making considerable efforts, not least with the help of the Union and supported by the PHARE programme, in a whole range of important areas, with a view to the decision that will have to be taken on their inclusion in the common list.
Without entering into detail, I would just mention the strengthening of controls at external frontiers, the conclusion of readmission agreements with other states, security of travel documents, the fight against crime and so on.
<P>
The progress that has been made is, I assure you, being closely monitored, thanks to the presence of experts in the field.
The view of the European Parliament will probably be a decisive factor as far as the Commission is concerned, at the proper time, once the Amsterdam Treaty has entered into force.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=308 NAME="President">
Thank you for that speech, Mr Monti, and for the explanations you have given to the House.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Classification, packaging and labelling of dangerous preparations
<SPEAKER ID=309 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0020/99), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council (8956/98 - C4-0537/98-96/0200(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive concerning the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States relating to the classification, packaging and labelling of dangerous preparations (Rapporteur: Mrs Baldi).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=310 NAME="Baldi">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this proposal for a directive is designed to replace, expand and revise Directive 88/379/EEC, in an effort to harmonise the rules on the classification, packaging and labelling of dangerous preparations placed on the European market.
It therefore facilitates free movement and seeks to avoid creating obstacles to trade, at the same time guaranteeing a high level of protection for human health and the environment.
<P>
On 26 June 1997, the European Parliament delivered its opinion at first reading, adopting 26 amendments.
Subsequently, on 23 September 1997, the Commission tabled an amended proposal and, on 24 September 1998, the Council unanimously adopted its common position, taking on board 12 amendments unchanged, accepting two in principle and rejecting 12.
<P>
Although this second reading takes up the fundamental points approved at first reading, we also have a range of new and interesting elements, such as the specific reference to animal welfare and the obligation to use suitable alternatives to animal testing whenever possible; there is also the extension of hazard classification and labelling requirements to cover pesticides, with the label specifically stating: 'To avoid risks to man and the environment, comply with the instructions for use'.
Furthermore, a clearer and less complicated procedure is provided for requesting confidentiality for harmful and irritant substances, allowing the industry to protect its own know-how and thus remain competitive on the global market, while at the same time guaranteeing a high level of protection for consumers.
The proposal also requires safety data sheets to be provided, and this requirement must therefore be extended to cover non-classified preparations, such as for instance industrial detergents containing substances dangerous to the environment.
This is an important point, because the safety data sheets are mainly of use to specific users and experts in the sector.
<P>
The mandatory information on the label also applies in the case of preparations containing at least one substance classified as sensitising, present in concentrations equal to or in excess of 0.1 % That limit, lower than in the past, means that the preparation will have to be labelled, bearing a warning for individuals who may be sensitive to it.
Finally, we have the introduction of transitional arrangements for Finland, Sweden and Austria, which had pointed out at first reading that they would have problems.
<P>
The intention has thus been to rationalise and harmonise the existing legislation in relation to chemical substances, and even though those not directly involved may find the proposal hard to understand, we do need to be aware of the role of this House.
I any event, the danger a product presents is assessed by determining its characteristics by reference to its physical and chemical properties, those of its properties that have effects on health, and those that affect the environment.
<P>
I would point out to the House that, as compared with the 1988 proposal, this proposal introduces changes designed to extend the scope of the directive in relation to dangerous preparations to the following five new sectors: classification and labelling in terms of environmental risks, plant health products and biocides, non-classified dangerous preparations, explosives and the labelling of some sensitising substances.
<P>
I thought it appropriate to retable at second reading three of the 12 amendments rejected by the Council.
Those amendments, which were unanimously approved by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection on 20 January this year, are: Amendment No 1 concerning comitology, the intention of which was to restate a fundamental principle of the European Parliament.
In this instance, we refer to consultation of a type A committee, made up therefore of one representative per Member State and chaired by a Commission representative, which is able to adopt the proposed measures should the Council fail to respond, subject to consultation.
Type B committees cannot adopt any measure without the Council's agreement.
I have retabled Amendment No 2 concerning the possibility of using tests already in existence to assess possible risks to the environment, thus making it unnecessary to develop further methods; and finally, there is Amendment No 3 which simplifies the text of the information given on the label of preparations containing sensitising substances.
<P>
If the House adopts these amendments, since the directive is based on Article 100a, we shall have to appoint a delegation from the European Parliament as soon as possible to take part in the conciliation committee, in accordance with Rule 75 of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
There is no question that the work which has been done to achieve the widest possible degree of consensus has been particularly demanding and exhausting, but I believe it is crucial to draw up a directive that takes account of the health of consumers, the different laws of the Member States and the needs of manufacturers of dangerous products.
The labelling of dangerous substances and preparations is thus a vital way of ensuring that easily comprehensible information on the dangers of the product is provided faster.
Consumers must be protected when purchasing and using certain products by giving them clear, accurate and simple information which sets out the risks.
<P>
The aim of this report is to group together in a single act all the existing Community legislation on dangerous preparations, and it concerns hundreds of thousands of products, destined both for European consumers and more specialised operators.
If this new labelling is approved, and this also involves classification and packaging in the light of the potential danger, it will be easier to recognise and use any kind of product in the most appropriate way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=311 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Hulthén">
Madam President, it is once again time for us to discuss important health and environmental questions at an hour that is scarcely popular either with those responsible for the report or us who are involved in the debate.
It is a remarkable coincidence that in Strasbourg environmental work always seems to take place on Tuesday nights.
<P>
In every other way, the report we are discussing tonight is very important.
It concerns many citizens of the European Union, since it deals with the classification and labelling of dangerous preparations.
The topic is particularly relevant for Finland, Sweden and Austria, for whom the problem of regulating chemicals was a matter of concern in their membership negotiations.
Transitional arrangements were made for all three countries allowing them to retain for a time their own legislation on chemical preparations, which was more stringent than that in force in the Union.
<P>
I have to admit that I had serious misgivings during the first reading of the directive.
The position adopted by the rapporteur and then by the Commission was, in my view, far too lenient, bearing in mind the dangers associated with chemicals.
Consequently, we had a fairly intensive discussion on the subject at first reading and, as a result, the outcome now looks quite promising.
<P>
Many of the earlier amendments have considerably sharpened up the wording of the document, thereby bringing into focus the health aspects for European citizens.
It is particularly important from the point of view of those people who have to work with these types of chemical preparations every day.
The obligation to provide safety data sheets means that information is available both on the components of the preparations and on how they should be handled.
It is essential that everyone has access to these data sheets, regardless of the size of the enterprise - everyone is entitled to a safe working environment.
Classification and labelling should not only be carried out where the danger is apparent or life-threatening, but also where the preparations are allergy-forming, cause irritation or are harmful to the environment.
<P>
In other words, the rapporteur has done a good job and deserves to be congratulated.
The classification of preparations is not an easy subject to discuss, but Mrs Baldi has certainly succeeded.
Nevertheless, I should just like to bring up a minor point if I may.
Even though it was agreed in committee, I cannot really see the point of Amendment No 1.
Perhaps we are only further complicating a matter which should really have left Parliament as quickly as possible once a decision had been reached.
But the card has been played, and now it is up to the Commission to make a move.
<P>
For the future, let us hope that many more alternatives are found to replace these dangerous preparations, so that we can be spared having to discuss how they are to be regulated and concentrate on finding substitutes instead.
None of these preparations can be said to enhance either the environment or people's health in the long term.
We must therefore begin by doing our best to find suitable substitutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=312 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
Madam President, the title of this debate is so boring that many people must believe it makes no difference.
But behind the words packaging, classification and labelling of dangerous preparations there are some important rules for the environment and, above all, for the working environment.
In practical terms, the common position means that painters will now have information about what they are working with.
From 1 July 2000, volatile organic solvents will be labelled for their narcotic effects.
You may ask yourselves whether this kind of information ought not to be a human right.
The improper use of organic solvents was already causing problems 20 years ago.
In Denmark, we call it the painter syndrome.
Now we are going to get the safety data sheets for which Denmark has been campaigning for many years.
We have finally silenced the oil industry, which tried to block the directive with every means at its disposal.
The idea that painters are less intelligent than other people has been dispelled for ever, and can in future only be used in history books as an example of how a debate can sometimes degenerate for economic reasons.
It should be clear to everyone that the EU is developing in the right direction and that the working environment and public health are now being improved, which is the only way to go if the EU project is to have public support.
We will now continue the good work of gaining recognition of the long-term effects of solvents on the sense of balance, hearing and sight, and explaining the effects of hormone-like chemicals.
Chemicals are still on our agenda in the EU.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=313 NAME="Gradin">
Madam President, on behalf of the Commission, I should like to congratulate Mrs Baldi on a very worthwhile effort.
There has been excellent cooperation on this highly technical proposal.
Thank goodness we have finally reached the last stage before adoption.
The proposal particularly concerns Finland, Sweden and Austria, and it offers an acceptable solution to the difficulties they experienced over their existing legislation on the products in question and pesticides in their membership negotiations.
As we know, this led to temporary transitional arrangements for those countries.
<P>
At first reading, the European Parliament supported the proposal's underlying principles.
At the same time, Parliament had to decide on the 26 amendments, which were also adopted.
The Commission was able to include the majority of these in the common position, and the discussions in the Council also produced results.
In the Commission's view, the common position adopted by the Council meets both the objectives laid down in Article 100a of the Treaty, namely the establishment and functioning of the internal market and a high level of protection.
Furthermore, the proposal also takes account of the needs of new Member States.
Consequently, the Commission is endeavouring to ensure prompt adoption of the directive.
<P>
Now, at second reading, Parliament has tabled three amendments, all of which the Commission supports.
The first aims to change the committee procedure from type 3b to type 3a, which marks a return to the Commission's original proposal.
It so happens that this was the position we adopted in the Council, but it was unanimously voted down.
We still think that this amendment would make it easier to carry through the directive.
The second amendment, which we also accept, is intended to clarify and improve a particular provision.
The third amendment, which the Commission had already approved at first reading, was as you know rejected by the Council, so we would like to retable this amendment as well.
<P>
The Commission warmly welcomes the practical approach adopted by Parliament in only submitting three amendments at this reading.
As I have already said, the Commission finds all three acceptable.
Naturally, I hope the Council will also give its approval, so that we can avoid conciliation.
It is now up to Parliament and the Council of Ministers to make a decision.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=314 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Gradin.
I am also sorry, Mrs Hulthén, that there are not more Members here to follow the debate on this very important report, but that is how things are.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
The sitting was closed at 0.10 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, on a point of order under Rule 9 - Code of conduct.
Last month Parliament rightly demanded openness and transparency with respect to the Commission, yet Parliament at the moment is being hypocritical in respect of its own openness and transparency.
What is sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander.
Rule 9(2) and Annex I (Article 3) indicate that declarations of Members' interests should be available to the public.
At the moment the register is only available in the three working places - Luxembourg, Brussels and Strasbourg.
It is very difficult for me to defend that when I receive questions in my constituency.
If someone wants to look at the register, they have to travel abroad.
<P>
Mr President, I should like to ask you whether you will give an interpretation of the Rules to say that 'available to the public' means that it should be available in Parliament's information offices.
If you are not prepared to do that, will you refer the matter to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities because, as a member of that committee, you are very well aware that it was the clear intention of the committee that 'available to the public' should mean in each Member State?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Mr Ford, I will check the matter you have raised.
In fact there was an amendment asking for the register to be made available in every Member State but Parliament rejected it.
I cannot give an interpretation against what was clearly the will of the House at that moment.
I will refer the matter to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, as you request, so that it can submit the appropriate proposal, if necessary.
In which case it would be necessary to translate the declarations from Members which, at present, are only available in their original languages.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Green">
Mr President, you will remember that I raised that very issue last week in the Conference of Presidents.
I suggested that, given our insistence that the Commission is more open, there is a very simple way in which we can be in the vanguard of actually demonstrating transparency on this issue, and that is by attaching the declaration of Members' interests to each Member's particular entry on Parliament's website.
That would immediately demonstrate to everybody that we were both transparent and prepared in the public interest to put our record completely publicly on the website.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Mrs Green, I agree, but I cannot give an interpretation on a very sensitive matter contrary to what was decided.
It was not decided that these declarations would be public: the House decided to make them available to the public.
The Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities could make this proposal and, if it obtained the necessary majority, that would be excellent and it could be put before the House for ratification.
This would be better and everyone then would have full knowledge of the proposal which, personally, I have nothing against.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Mr President, we all received your letter saying that the Bureau has decided to alter Parliament's information strategy.
From now on ten or twelve subjects of interest will be selected from the week's part-session, which Parliament's press service section will publish.
At present we have a daily report giving information on the previous afternoon's sitting.
Today's report focuses on Mr Barzanti's report, which is most definitely of interest as far as the issue of information is concerned.
I am worried what the impact on Parliament's profile will be if only ten or twelve subjects of interest are selected from the week's part-session.
How, for example, will voluntary institutions acquire information on issues the press are not necessarily reporting, and which are not necessarily the main news stories of the day?
I am rather worried about this, and I will be writing to you on the matter, Mr President. I would like a reassurance that this change with regard to Parliament's press service will not lead to a situation where citizens are deprived of information on the work of Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Mrs Ojala, the Bureau took this decision after studying Parliament's information policy. It takes the view that if Parliament details everything that has been debated in the House, then ultimately of course nothing will be publicised, because the newspapers cannot publicise 30 or 40 different issues.
If we want the media to make the public aware of the work we are doing, we naturally need to select those issues that might be of most interest to them.
This is a purely technical problem involving communication and the transfer of information.
At the same time, the Rainbow will be available much more quickly so that everyone can read it as soon as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Leperre-Verrier">
Mr President, we should spare a thought this morning for the victims of yesterday's avalanche in the Chamonix valley which swept away around 20 chalets.
<P>
In this winter holiday period, this incident should serve to remind us that the mountains form a specific area which rarely gives the European Union cause for concern.
I propose that this issue be included in the topical and urgent debate during the part-session in March in the context of natural disasters. In the meantime, we should send the victims and their families a message of support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Leperre-Verrier.
I shall of course be sending Parliament's condolences to the families concerned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, this morning Parliament was besieged by police officers and others, and I have read in the press that Parliament will suffer another round of sieges, this time by farmers, especially from the Alsace region.
I wanted to ask you whether you could inform us what has brought this on, what is happening, and whether you have already had requests from the farmers that they should be received.
<P>
It is clear that they wish to submit requests through the Members of this House and that they are not simply surrounding Parliament for the good of their health.
It would be interesting if we had a briefing on this matter, as farming is going through a critical phase and we have debated these problems on several occasions, both last week and this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
Mr Ephremidis, it would seem that they are not going to perform any gymnastics because they are coming on tractors.
Nevertheless, President Santer, Commissioner Fischler, Mr Colino, chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and myself are going to meet them to find out what exactly their demands are.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR).">
Mr President, I should also like to know what the European Parliament is planning to do about today's demonstration.
It is important that we make an effort to listen to the demands of European farmers and that we have a delegation ready to meet them when they arrive.
<P>
I think the actions I have proposed would be effective.
It would be a constructive move to meet the farmers who are here and to answer their questions when they arrive at the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
Mr Lindqvist, I would remind you that Parliament does not have any forces to maintain public order. That is a matter for the French police here.
We have therefore naturally taken no measures in this respect.
<P>
I would ask you all to let the matter rest, now that we have given you information on this issue, since there is nothing to be gained from discussing it any further.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, on the subject of Article 47 and natural disasters, such as snow and farmers, I would draw your attention to the fact that yesterday in the Netherlands - a country 325 kilometres long - we had tailbacks totalling 975 kilometres.
That is three times the length of our country, with the result that nobody could get in or out.
Could we not at some time, Mr President, discuss road pricing and how to relieve road congestion in Europe under the topical and urgent procedure?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="President">
Mr Wijsenbeek, I am sure you are well aware of the procedure for topical and urgent debates.
If you believe that this matter is urgent, you should ask for it to be included in a forthcoming debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Killilea">
Mr President, I should like to ask for your advice.
Yesterday I had a question down to the Commission and today I have a similar one to the Council.
In fact, it was so far down on the list that, naturally, it was not taken.
This morning I received the reply to my question, and it was the greatest fudge and cowardly reply I have ever heard from the Commission.
<P>
Mr President, what recourse have we in this Parliament to such cowardly responses to serious questions?
My question concerned the absolute destruction caused by the seals in the North Atlantic fisheries.
It has now been conclusively proven scientifically and yet we here in the European Union are not capable nor even have the courage ...
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
Mr Killilea, I do not know what we can do.
However, what we cannot do is to go into the issue now, as this is not the appropriate occasion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, I find it interesting that Mr Killilea quotes scientific evidence.
However, on another issue: I should like to know under what criteria you agree to meet certain demonstrators who come here to Strasbourg?
Do you take into account farmers on the periphery of Europe - Ireland, Greece, Spain or wherever - who cannot get here?
Under what criteria do you meet people?
People in close proximity can come, other people cannot.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="President">
Mrs McKenna, what you are saying reminds me of an anecdote. Once, after a demonstration had been announced, a Spanish minister for the interior said to the British ambassador: 'Do you want us to send more police?'
The British ambassador replied: 'No, send me fewer demonstrators'.
<P>
Laughter
<P>
I do not think that Parliament is providing demonstrators or organising the demonstration.
Therefore, I cannot answer your question.
<P>
Before moving on to the objections concerning the topical and urgent debate, I should like to congratulate our colleague Mr Menrad, who is celebrating his sixtieth birthday. We hope he celebrates many more years with us.
<P>
Applause
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
EMU and enlargement
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0030/99) by Mr Barros Moura, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on constitutional consequences of EMU in the context of enlargement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="Barros Moura">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this report takes as its starting point the undeniable success of the adoption of the single currency after a rigorously applied convergence process.
The achievement of Economic and Monetary Union, with an independent European Central Bank, is a quantum leap for the European Union, leading to the emergence of a genuine supranational political authority with responsibilities in matters of monetary and exchange-rate policies that once belonged to the sovereign States.
<P>
However, the institutional establishment of Economic and Monetary Union has been unbalanced, in that the power to centrally manage monetary policy is not matched by any real powers for the Union to effectively coordinate economic policies by means of broad guidelines or any binding multilateral surveillance.
At the same time, the inadequacy of the Union's arrangements for ensuring transparency and democratic accountability in the activity of the European Central Bank has become apparent.
<P>
In order to deal with these problems, my report recommends two approaches: one is to explore in depth the opportunities offered by the existing Treaties, in particular through the interinstitutional agreement already proposed by the European Parliament, and the other is to reform the Treaties, now that the successful introduction of the euro has eliminated the risk that starting the review process might jeopardise EMU itself - the famous 'Pandora's box' theory.
<P>
The current situation, that of a common monetary authority without matching political authority, highlights the Union's democratic deficit and also conflicts with national economic and social policies, where a possible clash with centralised monetary policy could undermine that rigorous centralised policy as regards the need to safeguard the overriding aim of maintaining price stability. However, we should also be seeking to guarantee all of the European Union's policies, including job creation and fighting unemployment, at the same level.
<P>
The report therefore recommends that EMU should be accompanied by effective means of establishing and guaranteeing coordinated economic policies in Europe so as to promote solidarity, economic and social cohesion and equal opportunities among all citizens of the Member States. This calls for a constitutional framework, the only elements of which I should like to highlight for the time being are an Economic and Social Union as a counterweight to Economic and Monetary Union, and a new social contract to underpin intra-European solidarity.
This should involve a minimum of social harmonisation: labour legislation, social security, combating social exclusion and creating jobs.
<P>
The proposals on Monetary Union are intended to guarantee the independence of the European Central Bank while strengthening its democratic accountability.
The proposals on Economic Union are essentially intended to guarantee effective coordination and coherence between the Union's economic policies and those of the Member States, by means of a set of binding 'policy mix' policies.
<P>
For that purpose, given the shortcomings of the Stability Pact, the recommendation will have to be replaced by a decision on the annual preparation of the broad economic policy guidelines and the multilateral surveillance of their application.
<P>
As far as the institutions are concerned, the report calls for Parliament's monitoring and codecision roles to be reinforced in all areas of EMU.
It also recommends strengthening the initiative-taking and political impetus of the Commission, whose political accountability would also be improved in that way.
It further calls for improved coordination of the Council's work so as to give macroeconomic regulation priority over the tendency to centralise all powers in ECOFIN. And it recommends monitoring the formal economic coordination carried out by the Euro-11 Council by means of legitimate democratic machinery, and participation by national parliaments in monitoring EMU.
<P>
As far as EMU's external representation is concerned, the report recommends speaking with one voice - to be decided upon jointly by the Council, Commission and European Central Bank, according to their respective powers in international financial bodies like the IMF or G-8.
The aim will be to use the power conferred by the euro, a monetary unit that may even challenge the supremacy of the dollar, to economically regulate globalisation in such as way as to promote justice and to challenge the hegemony of the USA.
<P>
Finally, I should like to refer to the proposals for new European policies which, according to the report, are vital in view of the introduction of EMU. These are: a guarantee that employment will be the Union's top economic priority; harmonisation of taxes; a social policy promoting and safeguarding the European social model; and a federal-type budget that promotes economic and social cohesion and helps us to tackle crises or asymmetrical shocks in one or more Member States.
We do not intend to call EMU into question but we want this quantum leap forward to be mirrored by corresponding democratic progress in the political, economic and social fields.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Herman">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, given the lack of time, I will mention just three issues: the coordination of national economic policies; the legal framework for supervision; and the external representation of the monetary union.
<P>
On the first issue, the current situation is unsatisfactory.
This is because we were told in Amsterdam not to touch the monetary union title for fear that this would open Pandora's box from which anything could emerge.
This was just a pretext to hide the disquiet, uncertainty and lack of conviction of many governments.
However, this problem, which was pushed under the carpet then, is now reappearing.
We have one monetary policy for 15 different economic policies.
Clearly, we should try to balance this situation from an operational and functional point of view but this is not being achieved.
We were told that recommendations would be made, represented by the infamous broad economic policy guidelines.
However, we realised straightaway that these guidelines were a disaster.
<P>
This was because the representatives of the national administrations and national finance departments all decided to maintain the status quo and refrain from any criticism of the policies conducted by their respective countries.
The result was that these guidelines have been reduced to formulaic and generalised declarations of principle which commit no-one.
This approach was therefore a failure and has resulted in the development of totally divergent and uncoordinated economic policies.
<P>
This situation should be viewed in terms of the striking contrast between the US economy which is bursting with health and the languid European economy.
Since the triumphant introduction of the euro, reality, in the shape of inadequate national economic policies, has reestablished its grip.
I do not want to cause a political controversy, but we must recognise that the fact these problems have not been resolved just because once again the majority of those in power are Socialists.
<P>
The second issue involves the legal framework for supervision.
There is not yet sufficient awareness in political circles of the enormous changes that the international financial markets have experienced.
Politicians believe that the current system, in which each country organises its own banking supervision, is adequate.
But times are changing.
The Internet and globalisation are now prevalent and the instruments for supervising these financial markets are clearly inadequate, even at European level.
An extraordinary transformation is therefore needed mentally and culturally to cope with this.
Clearly, the current situation in Europe is unsatisfactory and it must change.
I am not alone in thinking this, as reasonable and moderate people like Mr Lamfalussy also share this view.
<P>
I cannot go into detail on this issue due to lack of time. Also, I want to briefly mention the third issue of external representation.
We have seen the results of this.
At the moment, the people of Europe are still incapable of speaking with one voice on monetary problems, even though they have one monetary policy.
We keep returning to the same problem of everyone wanting to retain their authority and refusing the Commission the right to speak on their behalf. This means that, in the G7 or elsewhere, we are paying our dues but we cannot make decisions or exercise any influence.
<P>
These three issues must be resolved.
I note that the Council is not present.
I know that Mr de Silguy is convinced of the validity of my thoughts, but it is the Council that must be convinced. I believe that the Commission and Parliament would do better to work together in order to try to achieve this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Mr President, in his excellent report the rapporteur has rightly pointed to the further problems of institutional questions in the context of monetary union but also of enlargement.
We must indeed put far greater intellectual and political emphasis on finding means of resolving these questions, in relation to the international representation of EMU but above all in relation to policy coordination.
On the international aspect I would add that just as the rapporteur said, we must speak with one voice here.
But in this context we must also give the Commission, as the motor of European integration and guardian of the Treaties, equal rights of participation in this international representation.
Parliament must continue to support that.
<P>
What is particularly important is that we use the successful launch of monetary union in order to reduce the democratic deficit in the European Union.
It really is time for the European Parliament to be given a codecision right that is consistent with the further democratic development of this European Union; that right must apply not just to the annual economic report and the economic policy guidelines but also to the whole procedure for determining the excessive deficit and to the deliberations on the stability plans and convergence programmes.
This is particularly necessary with a view to enlargement as well as to monetary union and the form it assumes.
<P>
In this connection I want to point to one other matter.
The idea of the Euro-11 Council may be useful and may be very pragmatic.
I am not criticising, indeed I am welcoming the Council's efforts to improve economic coordination and begin preliminary discussions on the kind of policy mix that can act as a positive incentive to growth, investment and employment.
After all, the crucial point is that today we can no longer just have the European Central Bank responsible for monetary policy, the social partners for wage policy and the states for financial policy.
We need all these players to act together.
<P>
The European Parliament must not be kept out of this interplay.
The Euro-11 Council is not an institution enshrined in the Treaties.
So we really do need an interinstitutional agreement.
I very much hope that the German and the Finnish Presidencies will find a procedure for including the European Parliament in these discussions and that we who represent the people of Europe can actually offer some impetus towards achieving a balanced policy mix that promotes employment in the European Union.
This interinstitutional agreement is overdue.
We called for it in 1994 and it must be concluded before the year 2000.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Brok">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I quite agree that following the launch of the euro we need a more closely coordinated economic policy.
This is urgently needed if we are to round off the whole project and make it effective.
But I would warn against using the term 'counterpart'.
We do not want a counterpart to the European Central Bank; rather, we want to complement it.
We do not want a political counterpart that runs counter to the European Central Bank's search for stability, for that is something that is beyond dispute and irrevocable; nor do we support the attempts to undermine the Stability Pact through the policy mix.
<P>
I think we must make it clear that this complementary policy of coordination is the key to supporting stability, to making stability a prerequisite, to ensuring that stability is not one aim among many others; it is on this basis that we must pursue a sensible economic policy aimed at growth, progress and employment.
That is a different approach from the one Mrs Randzio-Plath put forward just now.
We also believe that the kind of social contract envisaged is not acceptable as it stands.
We want to see an approximation of social policies, but not to opt for a social contract that acts as a counterpart to the European Central Bank. After all, until now we have been pursuing a sensible social policy based on minimum standards rather than harmonisation, and I believe that is an important aspect that we must not forget!
<P>
Mr President, allow me to make a final remark on external representation.
We must emphasise the need to upgrade the Commission's role, as Mr Herman also pointed out.
European economic and monetary union comes under the first pillar.
It is a Community task.
But the finance ministers are acting as though it were an intergovernmental matter, in terms of both external representation and the role they are taking upon themselves with the Euro-11 Council.
That is why Parliament should now make it clear that we will not allow a Community task to be watered down into an intergovernmental task, just to flatter the vanity of the finance ministers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Neyts-Uyttebroeck">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, anybody reading the title of this report would think it was concerned with the constitutional aspects of EMU in the light of enlargement.
But that does not seem to be the case at all, because there is just one reference to enlargement, and then only indirectly in Recital A. The rapporteur is not really concerned with enlargement and its consequences for EMU or vice versa. The rapporteur has used this report to argue for an enforceable and compulsory policy mix of social, fiscal and economic measures which must be as mandatory as the measures on EMU.
<P>
I do not doubt that the rapporteur believes in all good faith that growth and employment are things which can be decreed, despite the wealth of evidence to the contrary.
I and my group do not share this belief, and a large majority of us will consequently be voting against the Barros Moura report.
<P>
That said, I should like to clarify our position.
We support the European Parliament's increased and more on-going involvement in determining global guidelines.
It is just that we do not want guidelines to become directives.
We therefore support the proposed interinstitutional agreement.
We are in favour of social convergence, but we do not believe these minium standards can be imposed from above.
<P>
Finally, we most certainly support strict and clear rules of jurisprudence.
But we do not believe that a Council of Ministers - even if it is made up of wise men - can bring employment and prosperity to Europe by means of an enforced policy mix.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herzog">
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when this House gave its assent to the third stage of monetary union on 2 May last year, many speakers maintained that this common currency would lead almost automatically to political union which, thanks to its own internal logic, would remove the imbalance between economic and political integration in Europe.
For those with the insight to realise it, that was a dangerous illusion even at that time.
I believe that today it is clear to us all that it was an illusion.
Anyone who thought the common currency must and would necessarily lead to a common economic policy, then to an employment policy and finally to a social union is now disappointed.
One employment summit after another has failed.
The economic players of European integration will not manage to create a political Europe: they cannot because many people are far too interested in creating a market Europe and not a political Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="Spiers">
Mr President, there is a good deal to welcome in Mr Barros Moura's report.
Whatever Mr Voggenhuber says, EMU will certainly have great political consequences.
It is premature to expect to see an immediate and fully fledged economic and social union after five weeks.
There will be great political consequences from EMU which have very often being underplayed or even denied by its proponents.
Mr Barros Moura is to be congratulated for highlighting those political consequences.
<P>
He is also to be congratulated on seeking to ensure that EMU will not widen the democratic deficit more than is absolutely necessary.
No doubt it will widen: an independent and barely accountable central bank publishing its minutes someway down the line seems to me to be utterly undesirable.
However, Mr Barros Moura makes various sensible proposals for ensuring that the democratic deficit is not too greatly widened.
<P>
Nevertheless, I have several concerns about the report and I speak here on behalf of the other British Labour MEPs.
In particular, we do not welcome the proposal to enshrine the euro-X Council in the Treaty.
Already four EU members are not actually members of Monetary Union and, as enlargement proceeds, other members will join the European Union without taking on the euro.
We must be wary of institutionalising a two-tier Europe in the way that entrenching the euro-X Council in the Treaty would.
<P>
We also do not accept the need to harmonise taxes by qualified majority.
Already, not only in Britain, but across Europe there is great scepticism and concern about the effects that monetary union will have and it can only be a success if it proceeds by consensus.
To try and force people into tax harmonisation in this way will certainly not help achieve that consensus in the United Kingdom.
For that reason also, the reference to a federal style budgetary system was decidedly unhelpful: anybody here who knows anything about British politics knows you must never use the 'f' word in a European context if you are trying to persuade people to get more closely involved in the European Union.
For those and other reasons the British Labour MEPs will be abstaining on Mr Barros Moura's report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="Méndez de Vigo">
Mr President, as spokesman for the Group of the European People's Party, I would like to close this debate by saying, on behalf of my group, that we are going to support the report by Mr Barros Moura.
<P>
I believe that this report and our support for Mr Barros Moura prove that the consensus needed on the implications of Economic and Monetary Union does exist.
I also believe that the decision of 2 May is of great significance.
As far as Spanish people are concerned, for two centuries 2 May has represented the rebellion against the French.
However, I believe that from 1998 on, 2 May will mean something else: it will mean that we are building Europe together.
<P>
In my opinion, the most important element of the report by Mr Barros Moura is that it looks to the future.
There is no doubt that the way forward is fraught with difficulties, since we are building something that is completely new.
I think it was Baron Lamfalussy who said that in the process of building a single currency there were more 'ifs' and more conditionals than in the famous poem 'If' by Rudyard Kipling.
There are clearly many 'ifs' along the path towards the creation of the single currency.
<P>
Mr Barros Moura outlines the problems we are going to face in the future.
He does this very well in respect of the role of the European Parliament and the new European policies.
I realise that there are many things that Mr Spiers does not like - he seems to me to be more Old Labour than New Labour.
However, Mr Spiers, it will happen in the end.
<P>
Whether we like it or not, we will eventually have to bring our fiscal policies more into line with each other, and decisions will have to be taken by qualified majority.
In an enlarged Europe with 28 or 30 Member States - which is the issue Mr Barros Moura raises - it will be impossible for decisions to be taken unanimously.
Clearly, what we really want is consensus, but decisions will have to be taken if we want Europe to work.
<P>
This House has always led the way on the issue of European integration and I am sure that it wants Europe to work.
I believe that many of the points made by Mr Barros Moura are useful and will be useful in the future.
We will therefore support his report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Haarder">
Cooperation on the euro requires self-discipline, which prevents certain acts of stupidity and forces countries to show more consideration to each other.
It is not a threat to employment.
It will benefit employment and social stability.
It is a safeguard against acts of stupidity carried out in the past to the detriment of prosperity and stability, especially by some social democratic governments.
But it is still the Social Democrats who believe they can protect us against the effects of the euro through new centralised control instruments.
That is complete nonsense!
On the contrary, the euro is what protects us against old-fashioned social democratic policies of devaluation, deficit and interference in the operation of central banks.
<P>
For those of us who come from a country which has lived with fixed exchange rate policies for 17 years, this has been the backbone of the prosperity, stability and employment we have enjoyed during that period.
We look forward to being able to join the euro and so enjoy its full benefits.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Mr President, when we adopted EMU and the euro we thought that, with the euro, politics was making a come-back in Europe, and I believe that Mr Barros Moura's report proves this.
<P>
I think that it proves one thing above all: that the Amsterdam Treaty has already come to the end of its useful life and it is time that we took steps to revise it. This is in fact what Mr Fischer said the other day in Parliament, and it is now being said by others in the German Presidency.
I read in the press, Mr President, that there are committees of wise men already working informally on revision of the Treaty.
I think that the European Parliament should be preparing rather more officially for this new revision, with all of us participating in it.
<P>
I think that Mr Barros Moura's proposals are very good ones and I wish to highlight those relating to the interinstitutional agreement, which could give a political interpretation to the existing terms of the Treaty, to control of the Euro-11 Council - it is hypocritical to allow it to decide on policy and for us not to say anything on the matter - and to the Community's policy and the pact on employment, without which neither the euro nor EMU has any legitimacy in the eyes of EU citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berès">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Amsterdam Treaty has been mentioned today, yet this Treaty was not even allowed to mention the institutional consequences of the transition to Economic and Monetary Union.
We are now considering this issue and not before time.
If we failed to do so, we would be allowing the intergovernmental approach to sneak in by the back door, which is something we do not want.
At first glance, I feel that there are three essential aspects to this issue. Firstly, as stated by Mr Herzog, we need a closer link between the broad economic policy guidelines and the employment guidelines.
We have been calling for this for some time in this House.
Otherwise, the social sphere will remain an appendage of the economic sphere, which is not the best way to resolve the matters facing us.
Secondly, the external representation of the euro zone is clearly only just beginning.
This was a matter of urgency and that meant that a solution was cobbled together which is not satisfactory in the long term.
A more substantial solution must be found.
Thirdly, the transition to EMU and the changeover to the euro will force us to adopt qualified majority voting, both in taxation and in the whole social sphere.
<P>
I now come to the crux of the matter.
The institutional consequences of the changeover to the euro cannot be analysed solely in the context of enlargement.
They must also be considered in the wider context of the institutional reform needed.
In this dual context, the existence of the Euro Council is positive because it ensures an element of effectiveness which we need.
However, it is just being created and we must think about the future.
We must therefore strengthen the democratic control of this body. Given its effectiveness, it must be controlled and we must determine how it interacts with this House.
It must also be included in the overall institutional mechanism with regard to enlargement.
The essential issue in the reports by Mr Barros Moura and Mr Bourlanges is the interlinking of these two questions.
The ECOFIN Council cannot become the dominant Council and the General Affairs Council must regain its coordinating position.
If this means that it no longer deals with foreign affairs, then so be it.
However, we do need a Council to coordinate foreign affairs, the economic and financial situation and employment, but this role cannot be played by the ECOFIN Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, the report we are debating is moving towards greater centralisation of the economic and monetary policy of the Union and of the Member States which, in my view, goes beyond the ambitions of the architects of EMU, who of course are not in this Parliament.
<P>
It reinforces the institutional expression of a multi-speed Europe and, in the name of a single economic policy, it aims to bestow on ECOFIN characteristics of an economic government and, on the general guidelines of economic policy, a legal substance which will be compulsory for Member States.
These are choices which strengthen the policies of imposing a centralist Europe, and which reduce to zero the possibilities of Member States to shape their own economic and social policies. These are choices which give rise to concern among working people and the public at large, who are suffering the consequences of the choices made at Maastricht and over EMU and the stability pact.
<P>
It goes without saying, Mr President, that, under these conditions, we cannot support the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="de Silguy">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report by Mr Barros Moura is to be welcomed, coming, as it does, just after the introduction of the euro.
It has come at a good time as it is useful to consider the consequences of Economic and Monetary Union and the imminent institutional reform of the Union prior to the next enlargement.
The Commission broadly supports many of the proposals and analyses in this report.
However, I believe that this work must be extended by looking towards the future, as Mr Méndez de Vigo just mentioned.
And this is the right time given the operating practices of Economic and Monetary Union and the dynamic created by the euro in other European policies and institutions.
<P>
In this respect, I would like to mention briefly two points in response to your questions.
The first point concerns the economic aspects of Economic and Monetary Union from an institutional perspective while the second relates to the effects of implementing Economic and Monetary Union on the institutional balance of the Community.
<P>
On the first point, EMU has its own unique structure, as several Members have pointed out, because it consists of a single monetary policy combined with separate national economic policies.
This is why we need to coordinate these policies and why the European Councils have for many years been defining the framework for increased coordination of economic policies.
However, this is not a question of establishing counterweights, as Mr Brok quite rightly pointed out.
<P>
This increased coordination is based on a whole series of instruments with which you are familiar.
These are the broad guidelines, the excessive deficits and the stability and growth pact. However, along with the Commission, I agree with your rapporteur when he says that the broad economic policy guidelines must be the overall instrument for coordinating economic policies.
<P>
The Amsterdam European Council asked for the broad guidelines to take account of the employment guidelines.
And since the Vienna European Council, we have had the prospect of two complementary contributions: one concerning the internal market, the Cardiff 1 report, and the other involving the economic reforms, the Cardiff 2 report.
Therefore, the introduction of the euro has clearly encouraged and is encouraging the development of a genuine European economic policy programme.
It is therefore the content of the broad economic policy guidelines that is important. They will affect budgetary policies, our level of competitiveness, and the exchange rate policy together with economic reforms and structural policies, both in the market in goods and services and in the labour market.
All these elements aim to make our economic policy work to the advantage of growth and employment in Europe.
<P>
This is a brief outline of the current legal and institutional framework. As the rapporteur has quite rightly pointed out, it is the Commission's responsibility to see to it that this work is coherent by ensuring that the various components of this economic policy coordination come together perfectly.
I note with interest your proposal - which was highlighted by Mr Herzog and Mrs Berès - to develop the guidelines for employment at the same time as the broad economic policy guidelines.
Personally, I agree with you but this is a very controversial point, even within the Commission, because it poses various problems.
I am not going to go into detail on these today but this is why, given the failure to fully resolve this problem, we have included the content of the employment guidelines in the broad economic policy guidelines. This will form the work for next June.
<P>
To fulfil its task, the Commission is clearly trying to ensure that this work is coordinated. However, the Commission is also responsible for constantly monitoring the economic situation of the Member States.
This is why we are insisting on professionalism, promptness and awareness and these are the instructions and the method being applied, at least in the services under my responsibility.
This is also why the services of Directorate-General II have recently been completely reorganised to allow us to assess the situation of the euro zone as accurately as possible using analyses and forecasts.
We must learn to learn to think in terms of the euro zone.
<P>
Furthermore, we are currently thinking of organising economic discussions in Brussels, in the form of study days, in which this House would be involved.
They would take place from this year and could be held at regular intervals, for example, once or twice a year.
They would obviously be run with the help of top independent experts and would allow the debate on European economic policy to be extended. The aim would be to make this policy more visible and more transparent and therefore to contribute to the democratic debate you are calling for.
<P>
Your rapporteur asks us to go further and to consider the scope of the broad guidelines, with a view to creating an obligatory policy mix.
You have suggested amending Article 103(2). However, I would remind you that the current Treaty already provides for the adoption of the broad economic policy guidelines by a qualified majority in the Council.
Nevertheless, I have taken note of your wish and the Commission will consider your proposal with interest. In any event, we understand the reasons behind it.
<P>
Nevertheless, this issue must be considered in light of the operating practices of Economic and Monetary Union, which is only just starting out. It must also be considered in light of the respective roles of the Euro-11 and the ECOFIN Council.
I had proposed to you that the Euro-11 be recognised in the Treaty, but my understanding was that Mr Spiers did not agree.
This is a problem which is arising now and which will arise in the future in the light of experience gained.
<P>
For its part, the Commission has always been in favour of improving the operation of the broad economic policy guidelines.
These are not a failure, Mr Herman, even if this aspect is not as good or as successful as we would have liked.
We will make more specific, formal proposals on the 1999 broad economic policy guidelines for each Member State this year, and you can expect to receive these in March.
<P>
With regard to external representation, an agreement was signed in Vienna. This must be respected and it is the responsibility of the German Presidency to ensure that it is accepted by our main trading partners and our main international partners.
I have every confidence that the German Presidency will ensure that this agreement by the Heads of State and Government is respected, remembering that this is a minimum and transitory agreement.
<P>
The second point that I must briefly mention concerns the institutional balance.
Mrs Randzio-Plath very rightly underlined the democratic deficit affecting the European Union in the context of EMU.
I believe that an interinstitutional agreement is a good idea. This is actually one of two courses set out by your rapporteur and something that was also highlighted by Mr Papayannakis.
The Commission is in favour of this and has always supported the possibility of reaching such an agreement.
In my opinion, the practices already used in this respect should be made official and some of the courses mentioned by the rapporteur should be explored, in terms of both defining and monitoring the multilateral surveillance.
<P>
The euro will also have an impact on certain policies.
I am thinking mainly of fiscal policy, if only to prevent the tax race as it were.
I am also thinking of social policy as this House must take part in drawing up the new social contract and in the actions intended to preserve the European social model.
These are areas into which the Economic and Monetary Union will clearly extend, although I am not going to go into them in detail here.
<P>
I will end by mentioning the final stage, that is, the new institutional developments.
EMU offers us the option of a method that involves defining precise objectives - transition conditions and deadlines - and ensuring a form of organised flexibility to inspire certain institutional innovations.
This method must be given particular consideration with the imminent enlargement of the European Union in the context of our discussions on the institutional question.
There are two key issues involved here.
The first is qualified majority voting.
Mrs Berès is right: if we want to avoid the risk of paralysis in the decision-making system, we must extend this type of voting and bring it into general use.
However, the problem with this, as pointed out by Mr Spiers, is the fiscal policy.
A choice must be made between effectiveness and national sovereignty and in this case the dilemma must be resolved.
The second key issue is the workings of the Commission, the institutions in general, and therefore the Council.
Whatever formula is envisaged, it must respond to the triple requirement of effectiveness, representation and democratic control.
<P>
To conclude, I must point out, like your rapporteur, that in my opinion, the euro can now act as a genuine catalyst which Europe can use to become structured, stronger, more developed and enlarged.
Europe still has to be able to adapt and reform itself.
It is in this respect that your report is an interesting and useful element which will contribute to the discussions in the months to come.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="Barros Moura">
Mr President, I must just say something very quickly, not to comment on the debate, but to give Mr Herzog some information.
<P>
I am pleased that you recognise that my report raises questions for the future, even if it clearly cannot provide an answer for them at the moment.
I am also pleased with the criticisms made by the Liberals in the House as they reassure me that I have chosen the right economic and social policy.
I would just like to ask Mr Herzog to read Amendment No 11 tabled at my request by the Socialist Group. This amendment deals specifically with the role of public investment expenditure which, when calculating the public deficit, must not be compared to or put on the same level as consumer expenditure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Haarder">
I appreciate that the Commissioner is being polite and diplomatic, but will he not give an opinion on paragraph 10 of the report?
Is the Commissioner in favour of the euro operating with common goals, or is he in favour of having a binding common economic policy, as proposed in paragraph 10?
That is what I would like the Commissioner to give an opinion on.
The Commission usually says what it is for and what it is against.
Is the Commission in favour of paragraph 10?
I hope not, but I would like to have that confirmed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="de Silguy">
I believe I gave a clear answer on this. The broad economic policy guidelines must be as realistic, precise and specific as possible.
The ideal situation would be for these to be binding and obligatory but, as the Treaty currently stands, this is not possible.
We must therefore proceed pragmatically which means initially using the system of group pressure and ministerial pressure in order to succeed in pushing through changes.
This is beginning, as noted last Monday in the ECOFIN Council, with regard to the stability and convergence programmes.
It is in the light of experience that we will see to what extent and in what way we can introduce an additional stage to make the system more binding.
To be too hasty would be prejudicial and would probably be contrary to the objectives set out by those who are in favour of making the guidelines binding.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Decision-making in Council
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0049/99) by Mr Bourlanges, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on decision-making within the Council in an enlarged Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="Bourlanges">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the main features of the report before us are its aim, its scope, its content and its orientation.
<P>
As regards its aim, Parliament, through its Committee on Institutional Affairs, has chosen to interfere in something which is not really its concern. In other words, it has chosen to talk openly and transparently about another institution, namely, the Council.
Some have taken offence at this. However, we consider that this is our duty because Parliament must be concerned with the institutional future of the European Union as a whole and also because scrutiny is always much more thorough when carried out by someone else.
Personally, I would not have any problem with the Council preparing a report on Parliament.
<P>

Secondly, with regard to its scope, this report analyses the decision-making process in the Council and, in general terms, the difficulties the Council experiences in its operation. It does not hope to lay down the full institutional history of the European Union for when this is eventually achieved, but it is not confined purely to the short term.
We have tried to define certain changes that must take place in light of the three challenges facing us. These challenges are the political transition of the European Union, the euro, which requires an economic policy to be defined, and enlargement, which is exerting a quantitative pressure.
<P>
In terms of content, in certain sections, the report proposes and recommends institutional reforms affecting the Treaties.
In other sections, less extensive interinstitutional changes and even administrative changes are suggested.
We believe that the Council operates as a whole, regardless of the legal instruments used. There are certainly only a few reforms that affect the Treaties, but all the changes to be made to the Council's operation are very important.
<P>
The final key feature of the report is its orientation. It aims to protest against certain drifts that are becoming evident, and I will mention two instances.
The first is a drift towards paralysis, linked, in particular, to an increase in the number of participants without the necessary reforms.
And this is related to the whole problem of qualified majority voting. The second is a drift towards the use of informal procedures, ad hoc committees and meetings between staff or between governments, which are tending to bypass the effective, transparent and democratic procedures laid down in the Treaty.
What we want to see is more formality and stricter respect for official procedures.
<P>
The report is divided into two main sections relating to structures and procedures.
I clearly do not have time to go into them in detail.
<P>
However, with regard to structures, I must stress a point that Mrs Berès rightly made and that relates to the crisis of the General Affairs Council.
The report recommends a very clear separation between the foreign affairs function, which must be carried out by the foreign ministers, and the general affairs function, which is a coordinating function to be carried out by ministers close to the coordinating authority.
This is an important point.
Indeed, there is nothing to prevent the foreign ministers from fulfilling this role, if that is what the Member States want.
<P>
With regard to the procedures, we are rather concerned about the limits on the extension of qualified majority voting.
The report makes rather daring proposals on own resources and foreign policy which will perhaps not be accepted by our colleagues. However, we must realise that in the Europe of the future, everything subject to unanimity will be paralysed.
<P>
More generally, the report calls on each of us to participate in the logical distribution of roles between the Council and the Commission.
We are currently helping to create two parallel executive structures, which is not advisable.
The Commission must be responsible for proposing and implementing in all areas.
The Council must be responsible for making provisions but does not need to propose and implement, while the Commission must not assume parallel functions of government.
Our message is that we must clarify this distribution of roles.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Izquierdo Rojo">
Mr President, I would like to speak on a point of order.
As Mr Bourlanges rightly pointed out, the Council is at the heart of this debate.
I would therefore like to ask the President of Parliament to tell us who is now representing the Council in this debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="President">
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, the Chair shares your sentiment that the Council should be here today.
However, this was not scheduled, the Council was not informed and is therefore not present. That is all I have to say.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Corbett">
Mr President, there is no issue of greater importance for the future of the Union as we move to have over twenty Member States, as will be the case in the next few years, than the reform of the decision-taking procedures within the Council.
That is why it is legitimate for Parliament to examine this question.
The very functioning of an enlarged European Union will depend on the answers brought to the questions raised in this report.
We know that as we soon will have 20-something states around the table of the Council any area that requires unanimity will be an area in which the European Union is likely to be paralysed.
If it can take decisions, they will be slow, cumbersome and on the basis of the lowest common denominator.
<P>
That is why reform is essential.
Any policy area subject to unanimity will be blocked.
But on top of that the very functioning of the European Union can so easily be brought to a halt by a single government if it choses to do so.
Take appointments: to appoint the President of the Commission, to appoint the Governor of the Central Bank, even to appoint a member of the Court of Auditors requires unanimity in the Council.
A single government may well be tempted to hold the Union hostage.
After all, we have seen this in the past.
The former Conservative British Government, a few years ago, in the dispute over mad cow disease blocked all decision-taking in the Council that required unanimity in pursuit of a particular dispute.
Who is to say that when we have 20-something states around the table that sometime some government or another will not be tempted to use a similar tactic?
<P>
We also saw the difficulty of wrangles over the appointment of the Central Bank Governor recently and over the President of the Commission four years ago.
In both cases a single government was able to hold up proceedings to make the others pay a political price for an eventual concession that was made or a new compromise that had to be found.
It was very difficult.
Imagine that with more than 20 Member States.
That is why the first and most essential reform is a massive extension of qualified majority voting.
Without that, enlargement will be a hazardous exercise and risks bringing us to paralysis.
<P>
Yes, we must look also at the question of the weighting of votes in the Council.
There is a proposal to have a double majority system: a majority of votes and a majority of the population or a majority of states and of population.
Mr Bourlanges' report underlines that that is not strictly necessary to avoid the possibility of a qualified majority being composed of states representing a minority of the population.
Arithmetically that cannot happen.
That is why I - and up until now - my group have always been very reticent about the idea of moving towards a system of double majority in the Council.
The Council should have votes representing the states just as Parliament has a more proportional system representing the population of the European Union.
<P>
In this report Parliament is fulfilling its traditional role of looking ahead, being a little bit adventurous, but looking to the future: as we did with Spinelli report that preceded the Single Act, the Martin report that preceded Maastricht and the Bourlanges report which preceded Amsterdam.
We know that there will be new intergovernmental negotiations to reform the treaties on these points.
It is right that we put something forward-looking on the table.
<P>
Of course there will be problems on specific points.
My own group has problems and will be tabling amendments and requesting split votes on particular points.
But if it is understood that Parliament is fulfilling its visionary role here, looking to the future, putting the problems on the table, pushing governments to go further rather than being reticent, then there will be an understanding of the role of this report and I congratulate the rapporteur for the tremendous efforts that he has put into it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Méndez de Vigo">
Mr President, Mr Corbett has given Mr Bourlanges' report the best possible praise by comparing it to the Spinelli report.
I believe that the two reports have something in common: they both concentrate on the future and propose courageous solutions.
And that is indeed welcome.
<P>
I believe that, just as in the case of this morning's report by Mr Barros Moura, what we are actually doing here before the Treaty of Amsterdam is ratified by all the Member States is looking to the future, which is one of Parliament's tasks.
<P>
I agree with the comments made here regarding the extension of qualified majority voting.
That is the major challenge facing us, particularly since this report has been drawn up with an enlarged Europe in mind.
Since the accession of the last three Member States the difficulties involved in decision-making have increased.
What will happen when Europe has 25 or 28 Member States?
We must provide solutions, find ways of preventing paralysis and work to ensure that the European Union does not turn into an intergovernmental organisation.
Our most important task is to defend the principle of integration.
And when we eventually have 25, 26 or 28 Member States, the principle of integration will only be able to be maintained if decisions are taken by qualified majority.
There is no doubt about this, and we will have to ensure that it happens one way or another.
<P>
In this respect, I believe that the report by Mr Bourlanges hits the nail on the head in terms of the sensitive issues to be dealt with. I am sorry that the Council is not represented here because I think that it would learn from this debate and the points made during it.
<P>
The issue of the weighting of votes is one of the areas included in the Protocol on the institutions in the Treaty of Amsterdam. In addition, the German Presidency seems to want to make some kind of proposal in this area.
I believe that we must look at two possibilities: giving new weighting to the votes or creating a simple double majority system, as proposed by Mr Bourlanges. He is from a country that has always opposed this idea and I think it is admirable that he has considered it in his report.
<P>
As a result, and because we believe that this is an important report, my group will vote in favour.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cardona">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I usually defend the unanimity rule, but not this time.
The rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges, whom I respect, but with whom I basically disagree, declares in his latest report that this is a conservative report.
In my opinion, anyone familiar with thinking on Europe will know that while he might be accused of a certain cautiousness, he can scarcely be labelled a conservative.
That is why, now that the debate over who is pro-European and who is anti-European has become fairly meaningless, and now that Eurosocialists are asking for more Europe, we, who are neither on the left nor Socialists, are best placed to propose and actually achieve a better Europe.
<P>
A better Europe at institutional level - the subject of this report - quite simply means that the Council should be in charge of Europe's political management, since that is where the Union of States and the primacy of sovereign States come together.
It should be the European Parliament that supervises the executive actions of the Union, in a seamless and close connection with national parliaments. The Commission should, in our view, be given back its original implementation and administration role, instead of trying to grant it new tasks, new prerogatives and new powers.
<P>
The rapporteur also claims that the European Council has become the vanguard of the European Union.
We could not agree more.
But here too the conservative side of this report gives way to the bolder side, with the suggestion that the European Council should meet, whenever necessary, as the Heads of State and Government, when for decision-making purposes it should adopt the procedures usually followed at normal meetings of Councils of Ministers.
<P>
I am no Europhobe nor am I Euroallergic.
I think that first and foremost we have to explain to the citizens of Europe, as a matter of urgency, the kind of Europe we have and the kind of Europe we want.
I have already been called a Eurorealist for taking that stance, despite my optimism.
That adjective is not to my liking - but I would rather be a Eurorealist than a Eurocentralist, Eurofederalist or, most certainly, a Eurosocialist.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mr Bourlanges on this own-initiative report, which makes very interesting, though sometimes quite demanding reading.
I entirely agree that we should be directing our efforts towards establishing a system that is clear and simple, and eliminating any ambiguity as to who has responsibility and authority.
The present confusion over roles, which is all too obvious, is of course to be criticised.
Informal networking and meetings behind closed doors with no democratic control is also unsatisfactory.
Furthermore, we know that the second pillar is unsound, a situation which is totally unacceptable.
On this much we are all agreed.
<P>
Might I be permitted, with all due respect, to call into question Mr Bourlanges's analysis of the situation and the basis of his reasoning?
He considers that the Member States have reacted to the new challenges with an 'excessively ad hoc approach to the institutional question ... this approach has led to the rampant de-institutionalisation of the Union'.
But is this really the case?
On the contrary, I believe that the new Treaty and institutional arrangements go in quite another direction.
However, a much-needed reform which should be implemented is the apportionment of roles, in other words the allocation of decision-making responsibility.
In my view, we should return some of the decision-making that is currently carried out at EU level to the Member States and the regions.
<P>
Furthermore, there is no good reason why the European Council should play a less central role; nor would it be legitimate for the Commission to develop into a 'European executive', as envisaged in Mr Bourlanges's proposal.
The European Union is the sum total of its Member States, and even if unanimity has not always been an effective arrangement, the aim was that it should not just be effective, but also democratic.
<P>
I do not say that the Committee on Institutional Affairs was wrong to take an interest in an area which does not really concern it, but let us accept this report for what it is: an intellectual exercise.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Saint-Pierre">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would also have taken this opportunity to welcome the Presidency-in-Office but, unfortunately, I cannot as there are no representatives present.
<P>
Firstly, on behalf of the ARE Group, I must congratulate Mr Bourlanges on his important work, particularly as he has managed to include in his report the essence of many suggestions made by his colleagues in the Committee on Institutional Affairs.
<P>
My group therefore regards this report as an excellent starting point.
There is currently a lack of transparency in the European Union due, for the most part, to the dual nature of the Council, which can meet as an executive body and as a legislative body.
This situation poses a problem which could worsen with enlargement in that, in its legislative function, the Council operates more like the Congress of Vienna than a real legislative house.
<P>
Our fellow citizens must be able to understand the European Union's institutional system. This is definitely not the case at the moment.
Therefore, the Council must no longer be a gathering of national executives meeting in secret and deciding virtually everything unanimously.
It must become a second legislative house, just like the European Parliament.
<P>
We also need to find a new balance for the institutions and this will put an end to the constant strengthening of the Council and the European Council.
The latter must extend its role of laying down general guidelines and providing political impetus for the Union without becoming a decision-making body.
The bases of this new structure mean extending qualified majority voting in the Council.
In the Treaty, there are still no less than 40 articles on which unanimity continues to be the rule. This means that there are many areas in which, given the prospect of enlargement, the European Union is virtually condemned to paralysis.
<P>
We feel that the report by Mr Bourlanges can be improved further.
This is why my group has tabled two amendments which we would ask the rapporteur to consider.
<P>
The first amendment involves the urgent need to use the Community method to prepare the next revision of the Treaties. It became apparent during the negotiations on the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties that the intergovernmental method was unsuitable, ineffective and even out of date.
<P>
The second amendment relates to the opportunity we have to consider creating a new function, that of President of the Union, in order to add a degree of permanence and to allow greater visibility in an enlarged Union.
<P>
I hope that these constructive proposals will be adopted by the majority of Members.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
Mr President, the report before us today was written by the French chairman of the Europe Movement according to the formula: much more Union.
The June Movement is opposed to union, so we are voting no.
Mr Bourlanges wants many more laws to be adopted by a majority decision in the Council of Ministers, but that means democracy can be outvoted, because the essence of democracy is that you can go to the polls, elect a new government and change the law.
The report's proposal means that we can go to the polls, but that we as Danish voters will never again be able to change the law.
We can replace three out of 87 votes in the Council of Ministers.
We can replace 16 out of 626 Members of the European Parliament, but we can never again as voters decide to bring in a new law.
We can get new politicians, but not a new policy.
We shall be transformed into an electoral district instead of a nation.
We shall become a national minority, instead of an independent people.
<P>
The June Movement does not want to reduce democracy.
Our mission is a Europe of democracies in which each country cooperates closely, but which only adopts common laws on issues which transcend borders.
Air pollution and marine pollution are problems which we cannot solve individually.
Here we need to have binding international cooperation, but they should be minimum rules, giving everyone the right to go further.
The EU should not be able to forbid a country from banning pesticides and colourings which cause allergies.
We want an environmental Europe, but not more union and certainly not a new state, so we are voting against the Bourlanges report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Mr President, my apologies for being somewhat late - I had another engagement.
To Mr Bonde, I wish to say that he is at the wrong debate.
We are not talking about Europe's general position; we are talking about the Council of Ministers.
I welcome the excellent report produced by our colleague, Mr Bourlanges.
It is consistent and very coherent.
The institution where we find the greatest difficulties in decision-making is not the Commission or Parliament - although there are a number of difficulties of which we are aware - it is the Council of Ministers.
Mr Bourlanges spoke about the rampant deinstitutionalisation of the Council of Ministers and that is exactly right.
The Council does not even follow its own rules.
He spoke about the European Council as the 'Tour de France broom-wagon'.
Indeed, the European Council is becoming increasingly inconsistent, and it is against that background that I very much welcome the overall approach of Mr Bourlanges.
<P>
I wish to make two essential points: the qualified majority is a problem and Commissioner Oreja is aware of how the Commission has been fighting to obtain the necessary changes here.
The point about internal coherence relates to the fact that there are too many specialised councils, as Mr Bourlanges said, and the Foreign Affairs Council fails to play its proper role.
The suggestion that we establish a real General Affairs Council strengthens coherence.
I hope that the Commission will also stress this point.
<P>
Then we have the proliferation of committees.
Unfortunately, we have a first, a second and a third pillar but as we move towards communitarisation, for instance in the area of Justice and Home Affairs, it makes no sense to retain a K.4 committee of some kind in the first pillar.
It erodes the initiative power of the Commission as well as the role of COREPER, the central body that prepares the work of the Council of Ministers.
I endorse that view also.
<P>
Turning to the political committee, we should move in that direction.
But there everything depends on whether the CFSP finally becomes a real common foreign and security policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schäfer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today we are supposed to point the way institutionally.
Where do we stand, where do we want to go?
We are about to see the conclusion of the ratification procedure and the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty.
As we know, the last intergovernmental conference did not manage to resolve some of the important issues relating to the forthcoming enlargements.
<P>
So the German Presidency is seeking a procedural decision on the necessary institutional reforms at the summit this June, once agreement has been reached on the key questions of Agenda 2000 at the end of March.
The European Parliament outlined the scope and direction of these reforms in its Mendez/Tsatsos resolution.
In its programme of activities over the past year and a half the Committee on Institutional Affairs has clarified the direction to be pursued.
The result is the three reports we are debating today.
<P>
The Bourlanges report contains a resolution that departs from the norm.
It is not a list of demands but an important prospective document.
Its key concern is the need to move to majority decisions in more areas and to adjust the voting procedures in the Council so that it will retain its ability to act even after the forthcoming enlargements.
These tasks derive from the Treaty of Amsterdam and the positions the European Parliament has adopted thereon.
<P>
Let me say openly that in my view the significance of some of the details of today's resolution is a rather more illustrative one.
In the current stage of the European debates, the general guidelines require political authority.
In that way we and Jean-Louis Bourlanges will live up to our view of ourselves as giving impetus to the European integration process.
<P>
It follows that the next European Parliament will also have to debate the next round of institutional reforms in more depth.
Here we expect the Cologne European Council to consider our ideas too when it decides the timetable and methods of these reforms.
Jean-Louis Bourlanges has done very good preliminary work in this respect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Lambrias">
Mr President, Mr Bourlanges's report, which has cast a stone in the stagnant waters of the institutional bodies, is worthy of our praise both for its audacity and its realism.
Time forces me to confine myself to highlighting the effort to drive out the lethargy and to dispel the confusion which, over the years, have stood in the way of a coherent common foreign and security policy taking shape. Such a policy is a sine qua non for what we have been rushing headlong since March to call the European Union to be a real union of states and citizens.
<P>
Not only has the aspiration contained in the original Treaty not been fulfilled by the revision of the Amsterdam Treaty but it has, on the contrary, been undermined.
It has become even more complicated and obscure.
Since the enlargement procedure has begun, it would be dangerous to delay finding a solution to existing institutional indecision.
It is quite symptomatic and yet sad that we have recently begun to hear nationalistic outpourings from heads of Member States.
This regression simply means that individual interests are being supported at the expense of Community interests.
<P>
Paragraph 24 of the Bourlanges report contains specific and unambiguous proposals to check this slippery slide.
We may not agree with one or two technical details.
What none of us can accept, however, is to allow the acknowledged inability of the EU to fulfil its supranational role of ensuring international order and peace to be concealed behind a wall of silence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, the political testament of Mr Bourlanges, coming just before the end of our mandate, contains some important points.
However, only when the euro is a success and the national parliaments are prepared to provide a good foundation for the Europe of Nations do I believe the time will have come to take major new steps forward.
In the meantime, it remains to be seen whether a common approach to crime, asylum for refugees, the harmonisation of fiscal policy and the creation of jobs is going to be successful.
Nevertheless, European ideas for deepening European institutions and enlargement must be further developed.
But let us not overwhelm the public with too many changes in too many different fields, as this obscures their control over and insight into their own sovereignty, and that is more likely to lead to a rejection of Europe than the contrary.
<P>
The Bourlanges report is an interesting intellectual exercise, but we must not force the pace with giant steps but rather take the slow road like Tom Thumb.
That way we will keep the public with us.
At present my group cannot support your report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Mr President, reforming the Council is probably the most difficult task of all.
In practice it simply means calling on the Council to reform itself.
So I am not surprised to find it was not even present to listen to this appeal and that it seems to be fairly indifferent to Parliament's reform project.
The Council is the Achilles heel of European democracy, if not the black hole.
That is because of its amphibious nature.
As a European institution it is constantly distancing itself from the national parliaments and the national and European courts.
It is constantly distancing itself from the European Parliament by presenting itself as a meeting of the Member States.
That is why I do not have any real hope that this black hole of democracy can be closed, that we will finally see open legislation, majority decisions, the democratisation of the second and third pillar.
This kind of governmental cooperation is increasingly becoming a democratic no man's land.
<P>
I congratulate the rapporteur on his attempts to at least sketch out the broad lines of reform here.
I also congratulate him on the clever way in which he proposed a revolutionary shift of power in favour of the large states while presenting this as maintaining the existing balance.
That is a particularly successful intellectual proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, the Bourlanges report subscribes to the view that the Council should become a second house representing the Member States and that the Commission should gradually develop into a genuine European executive.
As I explained in the minority opinion attached to the report, the I-EDN Group considers that such a development would be dangerous and that the Council must continue in its role as a central decision-maker, representing the Member States, and as the hierarchical superior of the Commission.
<P>
In fact, one of the lessons we should draw from the recent debates on the motion of censure against the Commission is that the European institutions, which cover many countries, are particularly at risk of becoming cut off from the people.
This is especially true of the Commission, which relies on a European civil service with fairly weak national links.
The remedy must involve carefully strengthening the subordinating link by which Brussels serves the Member States.
This link places the Council in a privileged position.
This is why the individual voice of each Member State must be maintained in the Council by preserving unanimity and why every means must be used to strengthen the Council's control over the Commission.
On this essential issue, the Bourlanges report is silent.
Therefore, the opportunity to solve one of Europe's current major problems is being missed. In fact, Europe is heading in the wrong direction towards a superstate cut off from the people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Barros Moura">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by congratulating the rapporteur who, in my opinion, has presented us with a magnificent report that offers a forward-looking analysis of the institutions of an enlarged European Union and of issues that the Treaty of Amsterdam obviously failed to resolve.
I think that his report's strongest point is its defence of the Community method at a time when there are clear signs of a return to intergovernmental working in the European Union.
I think especially that the rapporteur's proposals on reorganising the Council's business are a step in the right direction. Not only in terms of efficiency, by extending qualified majority voting, but also by restoring the institutional balance provided for in the Treaty, where there has been a shift towards a greater executive and governmental role for the Council, to the detriment of the Commission's roles in taking initiatives and acting as a political driving-force, which are recognised in the Treaty and which it should continue to play.
<P>
That is why I cannot understand the rapporteur's detailed proposals on the weighting of votes in the Council.
It is obvious that the demographic weight of the different countries should be reflected in their voting power and that a minority of the population should not be able to prevail against the majority.
That would be undemocratic and would be rightly rejected by public opinion in the larger countries.
<P>
In my opinion, however, it is in Parliament, with its legislative codecision rights, that the different demographic weighting of the Member States should manifest itself: we shall in any case soon have to change the current proportion of Members per country, in view of enlargement and the plans for a smaller Parliament with 700 Members.
In the Council, given its governmental role, the original balance between small and large countries should be maintained.
We should avoid giving the impression that we are setting up a directing board of large countries - especially four months away from the elections and in the midst of all the anti-European propaganda that we have heard in today's debate.
<P>
One last remark on the content of paragraph 33. I cannot accept this because it would give greater decision-making powers on the budget to the bigger contributors and is totally at odds with the Community method.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Mr President, the Bourlanges report is excellent, as was only to be expected.
For many years Jean-Louis Bourlanges has spearheaded the process of European integration. Looking at him, though, perhaps he is not quite as pointed as a spearhead.
<P>
But the Bourlanges report is also an important one.
For it reminds us in good time that the Union is constantly facing two tasks: enlargement and deepening.
We have spoken a great deal about enlargement over the past months. And we have repeatedly and rightly referred to the homework the applicant countries must do.
Let me remind you, for instance, of the debate in this House prior to the Vienna summit.
At the same time we must not forget to do our own homework here in this House and here in the Union.
The European Union must remain able to act, or to be more precise, become more able to act.
Amsterdam has brought some progress in this area, but the opportunity for progress at the last minute was clearly not taken.
<P>
In particular, the important questions of decision-making in the Council have remained open.
The Bourlanges report considers these questions and seeks constructive, forward-looking solutions to them.
By and large, I believe it has done so with great success, as many of the previous speakers have pointed out and emphasised.
I believe there are still some question marks in regard to certain parts of the call - however right in principle - for the general introduction of majority voting in the Council.
I am particularly sceptical about paragraphs 28, 32 and 33 concerning own resources and qualified majority voting.
<P>
Let me address a last point that was rightly raised in an amendment tabled by Mr Saint-Pierre. We must also consider the method of the next treaty reform, and here it is the Community method that is the right one, not the intergovernmental conference method, which is governed only by the power of veto.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="De Giovanni">
Mr President, this is a crucial time to be debating and voting on this report on the Council - an excellent report incidentally.
The European Union is currently at a complex and difficult stage. It is going through a period of evolution, and a lot of balances are being undermined.
So it is becoming one of the European Parliament's essential tasks to debate the institutions and the way they work.
I am tempted to say that in the absence of real reform and with all the institutional balances fluid, Parliament really must start thinking strategically about the development of the Union again.
The Commission is being weakened. That is a fact.
I cannot say whether there is also a political attack going on against the Commission, but it is certainly being weakened.
The role of the European Council is developing in an anomalous way, as the Bourlanges report rightly emphasises. Parliament and the Council should legislate in parallel, but it cannot really be claimed that this is really what is happening.
In essence, the whole way the system operates is changing, especially with the enlargement approaching and after the launch of the euro.
The Bourlanges report confronts these issues head on, with a free-ranging, imaginative approach to the institutions.
There has never been a greater need for imagination about the institutions, inspired by a dynamic rather than a literal interpretation of the Treaty, and of course, as everyone knows, dynamic interpretations sometimes go beyond the legislative text. There has never been a greater need to highlight the institutional hypocrisy of those who claim that an enlarged European Union can continue to function without reform of the institutions.
<P>
There are many worthwhile ideas in the report but I am not going to highlight what is probably the central point, namely the redefinition of the role of the General Affairs Council, which Mr Bourlanges discusses.
Instead I want to emphasise a point which, in my opinion, emerges from the interpretation of the report.
I believe that attention should be focused on trying to restore the balance between the European Council and the Commission, the two authorities driving policy and legislation.
The future progress of the European Union will largely depend on this balance.
This is a fundamental point.
I think the balance is currently being undermined by both the anomalous development of the Council and the weakening of the Commission.
<P>
To conclude, Mr President, I see this whole report as going beyond the old approach of intergovernmental versus supranational.
Redefining the balance between the Council and the Commission marks the end of that approach.
That is where I think Mr Bourlanges has made an extremely important contribution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Delcroix">
Mr President, I did prepare a speech but I have left it aside because many of my points have already been excellently made by previous speakers.
I therefore see no need in repeating what has already been said.
However, I must mention two points.
<P>
The first is that it has been a matter of regret for a long time, and still is now, that the Amsterdam Treaty did not go to its logical conclusion and effectively prepare for enlargement.
The European Parliament must take some of the blame for this because it did not propose any solutions because of the fact that it was still divided.
<P>
Now that this moment has arrived, I welcome the fact that the Committee on Institutional Affairs and its rapporteur have dared to put forward a solution.
I feel that the most important point is that our hands are no longer empty.
There may be better solutions, which must now be put forward, but at least we have a solution to offer.
<P>
My second point is that, through the debates within the political groups, between the small states and the large states, a fundamental element of the future of Europe has become evident: within the European structure, each of us as individuals is part of a minority and each of the Member States is part of a minority. We must therefore heed each other and develop this minority culture which is the future of Europe.
To conclude, I believe that with a solution in one hand and a philosophy in the other, this process has indeed begun, and I welcome that fact.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Izquierdo Rojo">
Mr President, regarding the content of the report, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges, for having supported the amendment we tabled. It is an amendment that will make it possible in the future for there to be formal Council of Ministers meetings involving the ministers responsible for women's rights.
<P>
It is an important amendment as it deals with a key problem in Europe today: the traditional exclusion of women from the decision-making process.
I hope that the PPE Group will also support this amendment and that the Commission, which is represented here in this debate, will be sensitive to this issue and support this move.
<P>
At the moment, the ministers responsible for women's rights cannot meet in a formal Council of Ministers.
I therefore believe that by providing for this possibility, we are taking a major step forward in defending the necessary involvement of women in the decision-making process.
<P>
Secondly, and from a general point of view, I believe that it is not only advisable but also necessary for us to reflect on such issues given that the European Union is currently initiating a large-scale process of enlargement.
The report by Mr Bourlanges proposes undeniable improvements and I must say that, in my view, he also proposes the correct path to be followed in favouring a Community method that renders the traditional, and until now prevalent, intergovernmental method obsolete.
<P>
It is truly shameful that the Council of Ministers is not represented here when Europe's elected representatives are debating something that directly concerns both it and all Europeans.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I do not rightly understand the meaning of all this paperwork and its timetable.
Perhaps it is obvious to some, but to many of us it is not.
There has been insufficient preparation for and discussion of this issue, yet it is a very serious matter.
Nevertheless, I believe that an increase in qualified majority voting is appropriate if the work of the Union is to be more effective.
The report contains some conflicting ideas, however, such as paragraphs 35 and 36.
Paragraph 35 states that Member States with small and medium-sized populations are over-represented and this system should thus be replaced with a reorganisation of the weighting of votes and a double majority.
However, paragraph 36 says that the current balance must not be overturned. This seems to be in conflict with the previous paragraph.
It is perhaps due to the fact that the rapporteur is actually only referring to the balance that exists among the states with large populations.
<P>
At the time of the Amsterdam conference Finland put forward a preliminary proposal for a compromise, whereby all Member State votes would double in number; however, the larger countries would get two or perhaps more extra votes in the process.
This would also be an acceptable solution for small countries.
Such a model would possibly be a less destabilising solution than the current weighting structure, and would not be too much of an upheaval for the countries with small populations.
The basic position here is that institutional reform will not succeed without also taking the share of the small countries into consideration when the number of votes is being weighted
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Oreja">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by thanking the Committee on Institutional Affairs and its rapporteurs for their various reports on specific issues related to the application of the Treaty of Amsterdam or on issues that we will have to tackle in the near future in order to achieve a more effective, democratic and transparent institutional system.
<P>
The report by Mr Bourlanges fits perfectly into this context and the vast majority of speakers clearly recognised this.
I would also like to thank him for the educational way in which he presented his report, outlining, as he did, its key aspects: its objective, in case we were in any doubt; its scope; its content; and its focus.
<P>
The report deals with an institutional problem that, to my mind, is essential in defining the future architecture of Europe and, more specifically, that of a Union that hopes to become the instrument that peacefully unites the continent.
I am referring to the European Union's decision-making process in the light of enlargement, an issue that many speakers referred to.
<P>
Our task is to devise and build an institutional system that must be based on three key principles, in my opinion. The first is to ensure the continuity of a process and an institutional structure that has provided extraordinary results in terms of peace, progress and democracy.
<P>
The second is to adapt to a changing world that, even as far as public institutions are concerned, requires a high degree of flexibility.
I agree with the idea put forward by Mr Izquierdo Rojo concerning formal meetings of the ministers responsible for women's rights on issues that directly affect them and that must become a Community responsibility.
This idea is very welcome and I have taken note of it.
<P>
The third principle is to ensure that we can organise an entire continent around a single system that must aim to be politically and economically coherent.
I therefore believe that we must initially look at the various aspects of our system with a view to reforming it and implementing the constitutional mechanism that Mr De Giovanni mentioned. This mechanism is currently being discussed and is in need of clarification.
<P>
I believe that we can ask ourselves a series of basic questions here.
<P>
Is there confusion between the Council and its various formations, as mentioned by Mr Brinkhorst and other speakers?
<P>
Is there confusion between the institutions that have an executive role?
This was mentioned by Mrs Cardona, among others.
However, I must admit that I totally disagree with the idea that the Commission should merely play an implementing role.
It has another key function, that of initiating legislation, and we cannot forget that.
<P>
Moreover, can we talk about excessive bureaucracy in the preparations for the Council's political decisions? Should it not improve its capacity for action, as Mr Rack pointed out?
<P>
The report seems to respond positively to these questions. It also puts forward certain proposals that would undoubtedly improve the current situation.
I entirely agree with the rapporteur's opinion about the Council's dual executive and legislative role.
And in this respect, I understand the comments made by Mr Saint-Pierre to the effect that the Council cannot merely be the sum of the national executives.
In my opinion, this dual role - legislative and executive - is only possible from an institutional point of view if we also have a strong Commission. The Commission must be able to carry out its full role and exercise its right of initiative as well as monitoring the application of Community law and, where possible, its implementation.
<P>
Without going into each of the specific proposals in the text, I would say that Mr Bourlanges' comments on the European Council should be given consideration. And in my view, the European Council must clearly continue with its role of providing political momentum and direction for the entire Union.
<P>
In this respect, I also agree with the remark by Mr De Giovanni concerning the need to find a balance between the role of the European Council and that of the Commission.
I recall that during the speech I made when I assumed responsibility for institutional issues, someone asked me if I thought that the Commission should only have a relationship with Parliament and not with the European Council.
I replied that both should be given consideration.
As far as I am concerned, there is to some extent a form of double legitimacy and it is therefore logical to have such a double relationship.
<P>
I would now like to look at the issue raised by the rapporteur concerning the need to strengthen the legal aspects of the Council's decision-making process, including the decisions taken by the Heads of State and Government. I must say to Mr Bourlanges that I have some doubts here.
Moves in this direction would undoubtedly eventually weaken the noble role of the European Council as an institution that is the driving force behind our major political and strategic orientations. It would risk becoming a body to which we referred even the most minor decisions, as happened in the 1980s.
We must ensure that that situation is not repeated.
<P>
I do not need to remind you of the dangers that situation brought with it.
In short, it is clear that we now need to strengthen our institutional system, although it has already reached a certain degree of maturity since its institutions are increasingly subject to the democratic control of this Parliament. Moreover, we need to clarify the responsibilities of the national parliaments within the Community framework.
There are two roles here: the fundamental role of the European Parliament and the role of the national parliaments.
<P>
As Mrs Schörling said, we must do this in such a way so as to ensure that we know who does what.
We therefore need greater clarification of the issues, something that is often lacking.
<P>
I also believe that it is of the utmost importance to do all we can to make the Council more coherent.
This means that both from the point of view of the workings of its various formations and in terms of the participation of the governments, we need to ensure that we can guarantee that its positions in the various bodies are consistent.
This is an issue that several speakers mentioned.
<P>
There are other points in the resolution that are particularly important. Firstly, I fully agree with the basic principle that the power of initiative should not lie with the Council.
The Community system is based on the Commission's monopoly of legislative initiative, and this is a system that, in general, has worked well.
Despite certain attacks on the Commission's monopoly, the negotiations during the last Intergovernmental Conference confirmed that this is not only to remain intact as far as the Commission is concerned, but that in certain areas - such as justice and home affairs - the Commission will automatically gain the monopoly after five years.
This principle is probably the most original feature of our institutional system, and perhaps even its cornerstone. We must certainly not relinquish it.
<P>
As regards decision-making in the Council, I am of course totally in favour of the extension of qualified majority voting. Most speakers referred to this issue, although some were naturally opposed to it.
I believe that the extension of qualified majority voting does not mean that there will not be certain exceptions.
There must be exceptions that are very clearly defined, specifically as regards what we could call constitutional decisions.
The resolution considers these. In my view, they are only logical, as there are clearly some fundamental decisions that have to be agreed on by all the Member States.
However, as Mr Corbett mentioned a moment ago, the most important question is: how will a Europe with 20 or 25 Member States be able to take decisions unanimously in certain areas?
<P>
It is extremely urgent to give consideration to the weighting of votes, to the composition of the Commission and to the extension of qualified majority voting. As you know, these issues were not resolved at the last Intergovernmental Conference, but we need to find solutions to them in order to comply with both the Protocol on the institutions in the Treaty of Amsterdam and the express wishes of the Member States.
<P>
The report puts forward balanced proposals concerning the weighting of votes.
However, I noticed that some speakers, such as Mr Corbett, for example, were rather reluctant about creating a double majority system.
I have also noted the comments made by Mr Barros Moura in this respect.
<P>
I would like to end by looking very briefly at two issues.
Firstly, I believe it is important to ensure that the framework for the common foreign and security policy set out in the Treaty of Amsterdam is applied as soon as possible and as willingly and effectively as possible. However, I have noted that some people are pessimistic in this respect.
<P>
The second problem relates to transparency.
The Treaty of Amsterdam requires additional efforts in this area on the part of the Union and its institutions.
Each institution must therefore review its procedures and eliminate a whole series of prejudices concerning confidentiality and the secrecy of deliberations. These are incompatible with legislative activity that requires deliberations to be made public.
The Council needs to make significant efforts in this direction, as the Court of Justice has pointed out in recent judgments.
<P>
Transparency and the public's trust in the institutions are an essential condition both for the very existence of the institutional system and to guarantee that it runs smoothly. And this is particularly true in an enlarged Europe.
We can adopt the reforms we want to, but if we do so in secret meetings, or if we give the public the impression that we want to hide the reasons behind our decisions, we will come to realise that we are lacking the important democratic and public nature that all national democracies possess. This is something that we need to bring to European democracy.
<P>
I will thus end with three words: democracy, effectiveness and transparency. And, as Mr Méndez de Vigo very wisely said, we must concentrate on the future and provide courageous solutions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Strengthening EU institutions
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0034/99) by Mr Gutiérrez Díaz, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on strengthening EU institutions with a view to creating an area of democracy and freedom.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Gutiérrez Díaz">

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this House is today considering the report on strengthening the Union's institutions with a view to establishing an area of democracy and liberty. This report is the result of the contributions from the Committee on Institutional Affairs and includes the valuable opinion by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, which Mr Goerens drafted.
<P>
The initial consideration of this issue stemmed from the contributions by Mr Herzog, whom I replaced as rapporteur. In replacing him, I hoped to be able to complete the definitive version of the report we are considering today, which takes account of the debates held and includes most of the amendments tabled by the Committee on Institutional Affairs designed to increase the involvement of the general public and social players in the operation of the European Union's institutional system.
<P>
The key aspect of the report is based on the belief that it will not be possible to construct a democratic Europe unless its citizens are recognised not only as being the direct beneficiaries of the integration process, but also - and perhaps, fundamentally - as subjects who actively help to formulate common objectives.
<P>
Despite its inadequacies, the Treaty of Amsterdam does offer us some new elements that strengthen the guarantees provided at European level for the respect of fundamental rights. It also reinforces the social dimension of European integration by coordinating national employment policies and incorporating the requisite legal bases for the formulation of European social legislation.
Finally, it enhances the free movement of persons.
<P>
In our view, this should all be brought together within an overall plan for a European area of freedom and democracy built on strong foundations. To construct such an area, we will need to specify the common objectives of European society, to upgrade the rights accorded to Europe's citizens, to reinforce the rights of minorities, to determine the legal instruments for the implementation of such rights, and to provide for citizens to participate in the creation and enrichment of this area.
The report sets out three major objectives here: freedom of movement, social rights and European citizenship.
<P>
As regards freedom of movement, I would like to point out, in particular, that security and justice must be accompanied by the necessary democratic and judicial guarantees.
<P>
As far as social rights are concerned, the concept of European integration is based on solidarity between the Member States. As a result, enlargement to embrace the countries of Central and Eastern Europe should not be regarded as an extension of the internal market but as a duty imposed by the requirements of solidarity.
<P>
As regards European citizenship, I would like to highlight the final proposal in the report that calls for the Treaty to bring all the rights conferred on citizens within the ambit of a specific title.
<P>
I believe that if we approve this report by a wide majority, we will be contributing to the much-needed construction and reinforcement of an area of democracy and liberty within the Union. I would therefore urge you to vote in favour of this report.
<P>
Finally, allow me to thank those who tabled amendments to the report. As I mentioned, I generally tried to incorporate them, except in two cases: when the amendments did not conform to the vision of European integration that I support, or when they introduced points, albeit legitimate ones, regarding competitiveness, which I felt did not belong in this report.
<P>
I would therefore like to thank you all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Manzella">
Mr President, we are indebted to Mr Gutiérrez Díaz for this excellent report. As he has just said, the area of freedom, security and justice introduced by the Amsterdam Treaty represents the Union's most ambitious forthcoming programme of integration.
And because of the way it connects with daily life in families, cities and businesses, the programme is also arousing great public interest.
Furthermore, it establishes vital links between the roles of this Parliament and the national parliaments.
I think this five year transition phase does involve Europe's entire parliamentary system, but during transition there must also be pressure to start applying the community method and the codecision procedure as soon as possible to a field as vital as this to integration.
<P>
In a sense this programme has already begun to form part of our legislation and it is natural that it should become the focal point of the wider vision which inspires this report - the establishment of a European area of political freedom and democracy.
Encapsulating the catalogue of fundamental rights and social rights in a single vision, and developing programmes for freedom, security and justice is exactly the right way to set about promoting and actually achieving the concept of European citizenship introduced at Maastricht.
Indeed, this is the essential constitutional institution on which to build the very idea of a European public and political area, an area where rights and duties - all rights and duties, with no special emphasis on any one - are balanced in the European Union's framework for inclusive democracy.
Mr President, that is why we should vote for this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cederschiöld">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, every citizen of the European Union should be entitled to live in an area of freedom and democracy.
That is what the report is endeavouring to safeguard.
There is a great deal in the report about social rights, but rather less when it comes to establishing a legal base for them.
<P>
Up to now, we have held fast to the idea that in Europe, citizens should enjoy the same rights as the citizens in the countries in which they work.
At the beginning of paragraph 14, however, the rapporteur proposes that citizens should be provided with guarantees at European level equivalent to those provided at national level, which in some cases would be absurd.
Therefore, we strongly support the indents calling for an improvement in cross-border coordination of civil legislation.
We would also stress the need for the mutual recognition of judicial decisions.
<P>
Observance of the Union's pension provisions is abysmal.
They should be made more effective, so that citizens are granted pension rights irrespective of their place of residence or work.
In that respect, the rapporteur is right.
However, we should be wary of any change that would lead to the adoption of a rate based on the highest common denominator, which would in turn lead to a very high level of taxation.
It can be difficult to reconcile social legislation of this kind with the overall objectives, for example stimulating employment, reducing unemployment and enhancing the quality of life, because of the different levels of development and economic progress that obtain in the various countries.
<P>
Sometimes social rights that are appropriate in one country are inappropriate when translated into another country's social and economic system which is based on a different set of priorities.
Imposing social rights on others may lead to a hypothetical quality of life, but in reality only serves to undermine the general well-being - this is always so where the welfare system is financed through taxation.
We should approach the problem from the other direction, by ensuring that the Union has in place the right structures for strengthening competitiveness and providing a climate that is conducive to business development. After all, it is enterprises that will generate a better quality of life and, as a result, an improved social welfare system.
<P>
The main aim of the report is to strengthen citizens' rights, and in particular to protect them against crime.
It is essential for the Union to make progress in this respect, particularly in view of future enlargement.
In this context, we have tabled an amendment on the incorporation of Schengen into the Treaty.
Accordingly, we should like to see an end to the Council's tortuous decision-making process during the five-year period with regard to certain legislative issues.
What is needed in that area is a clear and unambiguous taking of positions, just as Mr Bourlanges has done in his exemplary and practical report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Mr President, I should like to compliment Mr Gutiérrez Díaz on his report which covers a wide range of issues.
Originally it did not quite do justice to the crux of the matter which is the strengthening of the institutions involved in the creation of an area of freedom, security and justice.
After the Amsterdam Treaty comes into force that will be one of the major achievements of the Intergovernmental Conference.
These areas of asylum, immigration and border controls are now going to be common policies.
<P>
However, this has come about at a cost.
Member States have watered down the role and the competence of the European Union's democratic and judicial institutions, notably the European Parliament and the Court of Justice, and also the decision-making procedures for a period of at least five years.
This undermining of the Community must not create a precedent.
Rather, it must be reversed.
Against that background, I tabled amendments and I should like to thank Mr Gutiérrez Díaz for accepting them.
The key points are that the unanimity requirement stands in the way of efficient and rapid action in this field.
Action in the field of freedom, security and justice must be accompanied by the necessary democratic and judicial guarantees.
The Council must start applying the Community methods in full.
<P>
Ultimately the Treaty must also remedy the very bizarre position of the United Kingdom, Denmark and Ireland which have opted out of the new policies, although, in fact, a country like Denmark will apply the policies as they stand but on an intergovernmental basis.
For the time being - and this is a point I have always emphasised very strongly in this hemicycle - there is the continuing failure to incorporate Schengen into the first pillar.
We still do not have the final division between the first and the third pillar.
<P>
Against this background, the report has now developed these concepts and my group will vote for it.
However, I hope that we see it only as the beginning.
We have only started the common area.
The final development will take place in the coming years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Mr President, first I would like to congratulate Mr Gutiérrez Díaz on an excellent report.
Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam provides a legal basis for the action necessary to prevent discrimination on the basis of disability, age or gender, among others.
How much weight Article 13 will carry in the future very much depends in the long run on political will.
Take the guidelines on employment, for example.
There was sufficient political will there, and hopefully this will also be the case with Article 13.
<P>
I am happy to see that the Commission has embarked on preparatory measures as a result of Article 13.
I also hope that Germany, as the current presidency, and its successor - my own country, Finland - will be active in the Council in exploiting the opportunities presented by Article 13.
Our citizens have considerable expectations.
It is also important that the European Parliament has a major influence on what is contained in Article 13 in practice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Mr President, the gradual creation of an area of freedom, security and justice has constantly been held up as one of the successes of the Amsterdam Treaty.
This is logically linked to the idea of supporting the steps required to achieve freedom of movement with accompanying measures to respond to the citizens' need for security following the opening up of the borders.
The security summit it has just been decided to hold, and which the Finnish Presidency has undertaken to organise, is also a sign pointing in the right direction.
<P>
So I regret the fact that the report we are debating today treats the subject of security in a rather summary manner and is reduced to a report on democracy and freedom rather than on security.
As I find in my daily dealings with them, our citizens take the subject of security very seriously.
The Commissioner has also emphasised its importance.
Of course it is important to take a visionary approach.
But as the representative of the people, the European Parliament would be well advised to attach greater importance to the citizens' need for security and to focus particularly on looking after their interests within the institutional system.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Iversen">
Mr President, the Amsterdam Treaty is a good starting-point for achieving a more democratic and open EU with freedom of movement and more fundamental rights for our citizens and a stronger social dimension.
I think there are many sensible things in this report.
The new Treaty opens up a host of new possibilities, but whether or not they are carried out in practice depends, of course, on the political will.
There is no doubt that we in Parliament will have to exert pressure if it is to succeed.
There is no other way.
Some decisions still require unanimity and some countries, including Denmark, still have reservations about participating in supranational cooperation, for example in the area of refugees and asylum.
That is a decision taken after a referendum on the Maastricht Treaty and it should of course be respected, until the people decide otherwise.
I would like to stress that it is also part of democracy that people in nation states can form an opinion on these things on the basis of how they see them, and that only the people themselves can change the decisions they have made.
<P>
The rapporteur is very concerned about a multi-speed Europe, meaning that countries opt out of some areas of cooperation, or that a group of countries begin to cooperate more closely.
I too can see that this danger exists, but sometimes it is necessary, not least when more countries join in cooperation, to respect the fact that there may be different speeds within that cooperation.
I also believe that we shall face such a dilemma in future when people have different ideas about what we should cooperate on, but I agree with the rapporteur that a multi-speed Europe should naturally be a last resort.
I think we should be aware that the pragmatic cooperation we need to have, at the same time as our visions, may also make it necessary for there to be different speeds.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Nicholson">
Mr President, I welcome Mr Gutiérrez Díaz' report.
I have known the rapporteur a long time and I know him well.
He has produced a very good report but there are a number of points I find it difficult to agree with.
We must remember that Europe is an area of democracy.
There are 15 Member States with democratically elected governments.
There are also numerous regional governments and local government.
And that is all the democracy we require.
We are in danger of going too far.
I do not believe we need further levels of bureaucracy paid for by the European taxpayer.
<P>
However, there are areas where we could bring Parliament and, indeed, Europe closer to the people.
I feel very strongly that anywhere there is a Commission office in the Union there should also be a Parliament office.
This is necessary because the people of Europe can identify with the European Parliament more easily than with the faceless bureaucracy of the Commission.
That has been proved in this Parliament in recent times.
So, where you have regional parliaments or assemblies Parliament should also have an office.
That would go a long way to counteracting the remoteness of Brussels and the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Coelho">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, a great deal has been said about the democratic deficit in Europe. As a result of that legitimate and well-founded accusation, the European Parliament's powers have been increased as each successive new Treaty has been approved.
The democratic deficit in Europe's institutional architecture has naturally made it essential to strengthen a body with the direct legitimacy bestowed by European citizens.
But sometimes this debate has concentrated too much on the relationship between the European institutions, the balance of power and their operational and decision-making procedures.
The initial success of the introduction of the euro and the resulting dynamics have once again highlighted the economic side of the Union, thus accentuating the delays in other areas, that is the political, security and social fields.
<P>
That means tackling institutional reform not so much in terms of distributing powers between the Community institutions, but rather in terms of stressing the link that gives our mandates their legitimacy: the people we represent here.
There is a need for a continuing debate, to which the report by Mr Gutiérrez Díaz has just given a further boost.
<P>
We certainly want a more efficient Union, but we also want a Union that is not so much a bureaucratic monster or a complex and impenetrable web of vested interests and influence, as an increasingly important reference point for our citizens.
We need measures to strengthen the rights of European citizens, improve labour relations and social welfare, guarantee genuine freedom of movement, and improve information systems and administrative transparency. These are measures that would help to reinforce European citizenship, which is so often spoken about and so seldom practised.
<P>
In addition to these measures to simplify and strengthen people's rights, I should like to emphasise two more:
<P>
first, the need to simplify the Treaties, creating a clear body of law, accessible to ordinary citizens, thus making European law a benchmark that everyone can understand instead of an impenetrable mass of rules and regulations; -second, we need a charter of citizens' rights guaranteeing all Europeans that, regardless of the Member State where they were born, live, study or work, they are assured of a set of economic and social rights that safeguard our civilisation and our standard of living.
Mr President, Europe will go no further unless Europeans can feel, experience and desire a Europe that is a genuine area of democracy and freedom.
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Kaklamanis">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, anyone who has been following the three reports of our three colleagues throughout the morning will be asking themselves what in fact was discussed at Amsterdam about issues such as EU institutions, the democratic deficit, transparency and the rights of European citizens.
The answer is a resounding nothing!
<P>
Mr Gutiérrez Díaz is to be congratulated on his report, in particular in respect of a proposal he makes to create a special charter for the rights of European citizens.
However, I have to say to those European citizens who are listening to us today in the public gallery that we turn our minds to them once every five years, just before the elections.
The Parliamentary groups, in particular the two large groups, the Socialists and the Christian Democrats, present them with ideological manifestos which are utterly remote from reality and which bear no relation whatsoever to what they do and to their voting record over their five-year term of office.
<P>
It is a great pity that the Council of Ministers appears to be too busy to come here and attend the debate today.
And the citizens of Europe must know that there are just two institutions in the entire world which meet behind closed doors: the National Assembly of China and the Council of Ministers of the European Union.
How is it possible for this to go by the name of democracy and how is it possible that, in the name of this democracy, we call upon you to vote in the June elections!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Collins, Gerard">
Mr President, I wish to begin by complimenting Vice-President Gutiérrez Díaz on his interesting and thought-provoking report.
<P>
If the Union and its institutions are to continue to develop and become stronger over the coming years, it is vital that the citizens of each of our countries continue to accept the democratic legitimacy of these institutions.
We are all citizens of democratic countries and, as far as I am aware, the vast majority of the citizens of each of our countries accepts the democratic nature of our national governments.
<P>
However, at European level serious questions continue to be raised by many of our citizens concerning democracy and the European institutions.
It is important that the European institutions that are directly accountable to the electorate - in other words, Parliament and the Council of Ministers - should continue to have - and be seen to have - the final decision-making authority on issues of importance to our citizens.
It is equally important that the Commission, as the institution charged with implementing European policies, should have a reputation for efficient, fair-minded and even-handed administration of European policies agreed on in Parliament and the Council.
This could be best achieved by first ensuring that the interests and concerns of the citizens of each of our countries are made known at the highest level in the Commission.
The present system, whereby there is at least one Commissioner from each Member State, has worked well in the past and should be maintained.
Those who advocate the end of this guarantee of one Commissioner per Member State, supposedly in the interests of efficiency, risk the creation of a Commission which is remote from the citizens of our individual countries.
This, in turn, would weaken the Commission as a European institution.
<P>
In any event, the basic structures of the Union, which existed at the time individual countries joined the Union and which enjoyed the support of the majority of our electorate at that time, should be preserved as far as possible.
Foremost amongst these basic structures was, and still is, the principle that each country should have representation at decision-making level in all the major institutions.
<P>
Finally, the Council, the Commission, Parliament and the Court of Justice all have representatives from each Member State at present, a fact which contributes significantly to the legitimacy which these institutions enjoy in each of our countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Oreja">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would also like to congratulate Mr Gutiérrez Díaz and the Committee on Institutional Affairs on this excellent report.
<P>
In my view, the Treaty of Amsterdam is inadequate in some respects; it has both good and bad points. However, it has allowed us to make significant progress in the area of citizenship, although it is currently difficult to assess the full scope and implications of this.
The Treaty provides us with the possibility of creating the largest ever area in which people can move and work without any obstacles, with equality and with full respect for their rights and for the foundations of the rule of law.
<P>
The Commission presented a communication in July 1998 on the creation of a European area of freedom, security and justice.
As you all know, and as Mr Hager just pointed out, during the informal meeting of the Heads of State and Government in Pörtschach, a decision was made to hold a special Council meeting dedicated solely to issues relating to justice and home affairs in October of this year in Tampere in Finland.
<P>
I fully understand your concerns over certain issues raised by the Treaty and, in particular, the question of how to establish the conditions required for its implementation.
The Treaty of Amsterdam does not precisely define the objectives to be met by the institutions, as Mr Kaklamanis pointed out.
However, this lack of precision is to a certain extent necessary since an area of liberty can never be fully consolidated. It can only exist if it is capable of constantly adapting to reality and of guaranteeing freedom and rights along with security and justice, to all people in general and to its citizens in particular.
<P>
The definition and implementation of these objectives require democratic participation, which, in the long term, should come to mean full participation.
Unfortunately, as Mr Brinkhorst pointed out, the Treaty specifies that a period of five years must pass before the Commission will have the monopoly of initiative in this area and before it can apply the codecision procedure in decision-making.
Parliament must fully exercise its democratic control in this area by continuing to cooperate closely with the national parliaments. This cooperation is something that Parliament has been building on and that will continue to develop.
<P>
In this context, we must make full use of the role of the Court of Justice in order to assert respect for the law as a condition for creating this area.
One possibility here would be for the Court of Justice to sanction the actions of the institutions if they did not respect fundamental rights.
There are limits to the jurisdiction of the Court in Luxembourg, particularly as regards the second and third pillars, but these must be progressively overcome.
<P>
I agree with the rapporteur that it will not be possible to build an area of liberty unless we fully respect certain rights inherent in freedom of movement, which are only partly respected at the moment.
We must ensure that we adapt our rules to the reality of civil society.
We have social standards that were perfectly adapted to the type of freedom of movement that existed 20 or 30 years ago, but these might prove ineffective in the future.
Equally, the restrictions demanded by the Member States in days gone by may seem unjustified today.
We need to create an area of liberty like that so skilfully described by Mr Manzella.
In addition, we need to realise that we will only have achieved complete democracy when European citizenship is fully consolidated in that area and fully accepted in our daily lives.
<P>
I believe that the key here is to go back to the heart of the process of European integration as it was conceived in the 1950s.
We need to get rid of the feelings of hostility and rejection or even the idea that a European from a neighbouring country is a foreigner, and we must replace them with the firm belief that the process of integration is, above all, a process of solidarity.
<P>
I would also like to say that I am convinced that if these principles had formed the starting point for the actions of the Member States, our institutional system would have been able to adapt much more quickly to citizens' needs. I therefore fully agree with the opinion expressed by the rapporteur, Mr Gutiérrez Díaz, in this respect.
Moreover, if these principles were truly followed, the intergovernmental conferences would concentrate more on the common interest and be able to take some of the drama out of negotiations that are so important for the continuation of the process of European integration. At the same time, we would move towards a Union that is more closely linked, that has a greater sense of solidarity and that is more in tune with the concerns and needs of its citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
OCTs, ACP countries and remote regions
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0036/99) by Mr Aldo, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on relations between the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs), the ACP States and the ultraperipheral regions (UPRs) of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Aldo">
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Castagnède">
Mr President, the Committee on Regional Policy was consulted on the excellent own-initiative report by our colleague Mr Aldo, and considered the issue of relations between what are known as the ultraperipheral regions and the OCTs or ACP countries close to those ultraperipheral regions.
This is the case for the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean.
<P>
The Committee on Regional Policy unanimously decided that here we have countries that are united by geography, history, culture, and often by language, but that completely ignore each other from an economic point of view.
Moreover, there are complaints about how confined the markets are in the ultraperipheral regions.
In reality, we feel that it is absolutely necessary that these neighbouring countries - which are naturally close - should form real regional markets, with a view to achieving sustainable and balanced development.
<P>
The European Union must contribute to this by promoting joint ventures, that is, associations between companies from ultraperipheral regions and from neighbouring ACP countries and OCTs in order to develop these regional markets and their exports to the Union or to third countries. The Union will also have to include the ultraperipheral regions, the OCTs and the ACP countries in the negotiations that will lead to the future Lomé conventions.
These conventions must, of course, promote the establishment of the regional markets by doing away with the customs barriers. In our view, these barriers are like the leftovers from traditional colonial agreements, and I would like to draw our colleagues' attention to this.
Economic exchanges between these countries must be guaranteed so as to encourage them to develop in a harmonious manner. And, once again, there needs to be better understanding between neighbouring countries that are in such close proximity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, the Committee on Fisheries welcomes Mr Aldo's initiative. It has the advantage of drawing attention to the perverse effects of the diversity of Community action concerning territories that are close in geographical terms, but which have a different status.
We need to avoid a situation whereby membership of the Union means that a territory is subject to a series of ill-adapted constraints and whereby non-membership means that a territory benefits from aid that promotes extra-Community competition to the detriment of our own territories.
<P>
The socio-economic balance of all these territories is largely linked to activities that depend on the sea, particularly fishing.
Therefore, our committee unanimously adopted a series of recommendations, which were all taken over by the rapporteur. They are aimed precisely at preventing a situation whereby membership of the European Union is a handicap for our ultraperipheral territories.
<P>
Our committee highlights the need for changes in the law to allow the CFP to be applied differently in these regions that are very remote from the European continent. It must be adapted to the opportunities for development offered by their maritime areas that have a strong fisheries potential.
We also emphasise the need to improve equipment, in particular by regionalising the MAGPs. Moreover, we would stress the need to introduce a modulation of the POSEIDOM aid scheme, as although its effectiveness has been proved, certain provisions need to be refined in order to ensure better protection of resources.
Our committee recommends that Community policies for the OCTs should be consistent with the European Union's cooperation policies for the ACP countries, particularly as regards preferential trade measures and policies on direct aid. They should also be consistent with the GSP measures, especially the drug GSP, and we should reconsider the validity of this mechanism.
<P>
Finally, our committee underlines the urgent need for delimitation of waters in the Caribbean, as that is the only means of achieving fisheries agreements in that region. It also calls for stricter checks in Community waters dependent on the OCTs and ultraperipheral regions, as these waters are frequented by many fleets from third countries that are drawing on the resources in an anarchic manner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="President">
We shall suspend the debate on the Aldo report at this point; it will be resumed in the afternoon.
<P>
We have now reached voting time.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Duhamel">
Madam President, I would like to speak on a point of order pursuant to Rule 101.
Like all my colleagues who were present in the House this morning, I noted with astonishment the Council's absence during the debate on the Bourlanges report on decision-making within the Council in an enlarged Europe.
<P>
Under Rule 101, the Council may be present in the Chamber.
As this is a debate on the reforms which must be undertaken in future in the context of the process of major institutional reform which Parliament is firmly demanding and which is at last gaining widespread support, we feel it is imperative that the Council should attend.
It may not be required to do so by any rules as such, but it is surely only proper for it to do so.
<P>
Whatever our opinions, we all agree on the importance of this debate and of the ideas it allows us to develop prior to enlargement.
I would ask the President to protest strongly to the Council, on Parliament's behalf, at its absence during this morning's debate.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="President">
I can assure you that I will pass on your request, Mr Duhamel, since this is indeed a very unfortunate absence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Lindeperg">
Madam President, we are now going to vote on Amendment No 18.
There is a technical problem here, because I believe it would be a good idea to replace the first part of the original version of recital D with the first part of this amendment. I therefore propose a vote in two parts, the first part up to 'victims of gender-specific persecution'.
But if the second part of the amendment is not adopted, I would ask that we should vote on the second part of the original version of the recital.
Otherwise this would not make sense.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Lindeperg">
Madam President, paragraph 11 poses a linguistic problem in the French language version.
Mrs Pailler put forward an amendment in committee and I pointed out to her that the term 'statut de non-droit ' was contradictory.
We therefore changed it with her agreement.
However, I see today that it is still included in the French version.
You must tell me which text is authentic, and if it is the French text, this expression must be changed once again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="President">
Yes, it is the French version which is authentic.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lindeperg">
I propose that we insert 'situation de non-droit ' in the French version to replace 'statut de non-droit '.
This is also the term that was adopted in committee.
<P>
Parliament adopted the resolution
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Banotti">
I am voting against this recommendation/common position because I believe it does not adequately address the technical issues involved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Gillis">
I intend to vote against the proposed draft Council regulation because I believe that the technical details have not been properly or fully investigated.
There is need for a full review of the technical standards to ensure that safety standards are fully met whilst at the same time aircraft that are satisfactorily functioning from every point of view are not lost to our fleets.
<P>
Gahrton report (A4-0047/99)
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Gahrton">
A civil peace corps is an old 'green' idea for channelling European foreign policy cooperation in a constructive, rather than a military and therefore destructive direction.
The European Civil Peace Corps will be able to call on a core of full-time employed professionals, as well as a pool of mission-specific professionals, including conscientious objectors on a voluntary basis and unpaid volunteers, for specific missions.
<P>
It often happens that conflicts flare up again in the wake of a military peacekeeping mission because the causes of the violence have not been addressed.
Facilitating dialogue and mutual confidence building should be a part of every peace mission.
A lasting peace can be achieved, above all, through a genuine process of reconciliation.
It is in that context that a civil peace corps should be able to fill a gap.
<P>
I am fully aware that many of those who voted for this proposal believe that a civil peace corps should be complementary to the Union's military capability.
However, the Green Group, including myself, clearly hope that it will become an alternative.
We have absolutely nothing against the EU taking part in operations abroad, provided that the activities are peaceful and constructive.
Perhaps a successful civil peace corps might persuade some European activists that it is unfashionable and outdated to earn respect on the world stage through a show of military might.
The future belongs to those who promote peace, not war.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Theorin">
This is a very important and much needed initiative.
It is imperative that a peace corps of this type should be an entirely civil undertaking.
The main task of the peace corps should be to reduce tension and prevent conflicts from escalating; it should operate under a mandate of the United Nations or the OSCE, and its primary purpose should be conflict prevention.
<P>
In my view, concrete examples of the tasks to be performed by a civil peace corps are as follows: mediation and confidence building, humanitarian assistance, the disarmament and demobilisation of former combatants, supporting refugees, rehabilitation and reconstruction, and the stabilisation of economic structures.
Other tasks might include monitoring and improving human rights situations, empowerment for political participation, as well as interim administration to facilitate short-term stability.
A civil peace corps might also extend its remit to providing information and establishing educational structures and programmes designed to eliminate prejudice and hostile images.
An essential condition for achieving a peaceful outcome is involving both parties to the conflict in common projects.
<P>
What is required is a core of full-time employed professionals, backed up by a pool of experienced men and women to be called on for specific missions.
In particular, their professional expertise as peacekeepers, conflict-solvers, psychologists and so on should be exploited to the full.
<P>
Read report (A4-0055/99)
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Rovsing">
Through an active and very skilful effort by Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee, Parliament has succeeded in having most of its wishes from the first and second readings put into effect.
For me it has been crucial, throughout the procedure for the adoption of this extremely important directive, to ensure that transmission and receiving equipment built by radio amateurs for their own use should not come under the directive's rules on manufacturer's self-testing and declarations of conformity.
<P>
Barzanti report (A4-0026/99)
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Ahern">
I wish to thank the rapporteur for his work on the EU Copyright Directive which is a complex and technical subject of importance to artists in Europe.
The Greens have sought from the beginning to make the protection of the creativity of writers, composers, musicians-performers EU-wide, a priority in amending the Copyright Directive.
In Ireland musicians and performing artists such as BoyZone and the Corrs have appealed for copyright protection for their work.
<P>
The rapporteur has my full support in his appeal for a strong directive, protecting the music industry from piracy on the Internet.
The fact is that digital technology can 'clone' an exact reproduction of the original, leading to an increased risk of piracy on the Internet.
<P>
I will continue to support a call for a strong Copyright Directive.
I am personally committed to the protection of the rights of European artists, writers and composers.
Europe's cultural industries have a great deal to lose if this new directive is not absolutely protective of creative rights and intellectual property.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw, Palm, Sandberg-Fries and Theorin">
We share the rapporteur's view that harmonisation is needed to create a fully functioning internal market for those with copyright protection.
<P>
However, we cannot agree with Amendment No 48, since it would mean that anyone wishing to set up a broadcasting organisation would be required to have a licence.
In Sweden, we have an effective system based on a licensing agreement. In practical terms, it consists of a collective agreement concluded by a representative licensing body.
<P>
We would also like to emphasise that, in our view, the Member States should provide for exemptions from the copyright restrictions specified in Articles 2, 3 and 4 in the case of non-commercial use for the benefit of people with disabilities.
This is best expressed in Amendment No 72.
<P>
We would point out that, in our view, there should be exemption from the restrictions in Articles 2 and 3 for use where the purpose is to make official documents accessible to the public, as set out in Amendment No 69.
<P>
We support the amendments granting exemption from the restrictions in Articles 2 and 3 in respect of the setting-up of a library or archive, for example.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Blak, Iversen, Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
At the end of 1997, the Commission put forward a controversial proposal for the harmonisation of copyright law in the Community.
It did not believe that national laws were working well or had kept up with technological developments.
The Commission also wished to limit the extensive pirate copying of CDs and CD-ROMs.
In its original form, the proposal meant that a consumer who had bought a CD could not copy it on to tape in order to be able to listen to the music while he was out jogging.
Furthermore, the Commission's original proposal for a directive ignored the fact that a number of public service stations would have problems if they wished to use CDs as background music for TV broadcasts, and that the visually impaired and people with reading difficulties would not be able to enjoy special offers from libraries.
Special offers made available by public institutions to the handicapped will not be affected by the proposal.
In the light of this, the Danish Social Democrats have endorsed an amendment which ensures that special national schemes will not conflict with EU law.
<P>
In this way, it has been possible to secure a well-balanced copyright law which both safeguards the rights of producers to their own output and protects the interests of TV and radio stations and consumers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Bonde and Sandbæk">
At the first reading of Mr Barzanti's report today, we have abstained from voting on the report as a whole.
We are very concerned that the harmonisation of copyright law in the EU will obstruct free access to information for all social groups, especially people with a visual handicap, for example.
The June Movement regards free access to information as the very cornerstone of democracy. Without opportunities for individual citizens to obtain knowledge and information, the democratic process would become confused.
<P>
Nonetheless, we would have liked to support the report in order to protect the interests of artists and safeguard their rights in connection with the exploitation of their work.
Because most of the amendments which we had hoped would safeguard the rights of artists were not adopted, and since most of those which we had either tabled ourselves or endorsed and which would have ensured free access to information for the handicapped and others were also rejected, we chose to abstain on the report as a whole.
We will take the matter up again at second reading.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Caudron">
Issues related to the information society and the Internet are of great interest to me.
Apart from the aspects which imply a radical change in the way our societies are organised, there are still a number of questions about how our legislation and our legal tools are going to have to change in future in this area.
I would therefore like to congratulate our President, José Maria Gil Robles, and Roberto Barzanti for having responded so rapidly to artists' concerns that their work is too often being used illegally on the Internet.
<P>
While it is relatively easy to draw up a report and protecting the concept of copyright is the least we can do, it is not easy to legislate at European level to provide proper protection for the 'victims' of this plagiarism.
This is an area where we need to show imagination in establishing effective legal protection.
To do this, I believe we must promote measures which are appropriate for the different forms of dissemination and piracy.
Following the example of existing broadcasting legislation, should we not also introduce a user charge levied when compression tools such as MP3 or MP4 are sold?
<P>
However, we have to be realistic, since we have to find common ground with all parties concerned, and in particular with the United States and the producers of this type of software.
<P>
Therefore, while I agree on the whole with the rapporteur's concerns, I question the distinction that is made between analogue copying and digital copying.
In my opinion, digital has already won.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Eriksson, Seppänen and Svensson (GUE/NGL), Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling (V), Lis Jensen (I-EDN)">
The Barzanti report stems from an important debate concerning the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society.
We believe that the report creates a good basis for further discussion of the protection and exercise of the privileges of rightholders.
If we cannot endorse the report, it is not because we wish to remove the advantages enjoyed by rightholders with regard to the exploitation of their work, but because the proposal adopts an unnecessarily restrictive approach to the definition of rights, which in the worst case would deny artists the right to negotiate for themselves both the scale of payment and what rights they transfer to a producer.
<P>
The Scandinavian countries have a long tradition and great experience of solving difficult copyright issues with the help of licensing agreements.
We think that this traditional Scandinavian model involving collective agreements ought to be retained.
At the same time, we take the view that publicly funded institutions which are open to the public, such as museums, libraries, archives and so on, should have the opportunity to participate fully in the development of the information society.
Taken to the extreme, the contents of the report would mean that copyright legislation would prevent them from fulfilling their non-commercial, educational function.
<P>
If the report is adopted in its current form, without taking into account a number of proposed amendments, it will for example no longer be possible to record radio and TV broadcasts for short-term use for the inmates of care homes, hospitals, prisons and so on.
We believe that a move in this direction, which does not sufficiently take account of the general public's need for and right to free and equal access to information, would be disastrous in terms of social development and democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Martinez">
Technological changes are currently weakening certain legal categories.
This is true of the field of taxation, where the Internet is changing basic concepts such as the tax frontier, tax territory and the tax base.
<P>
It is also true of the field of artistic and literary property.
Two principles are in conflict here: the right of the author to protect his work and his right to a fair income from his work versus the freedom of the Internet.
<P>
In this respect, the European Union is all the more contradictory as one of its fundamental principles is precisely that of free movement.
However, where there is freedom of movement, there cannot be protection, and vice versa.
<P>
In literary and artistic works, the Europe of Brussels is finally discovering what it has spent 40 years refusing to see with coal, steel, textiles, cars and agricultural products, namely that freedom of movement prevents real protection.
<P>
We want to give the field of culture what we have denied our farmers by reducing customs duties and the common agricultural levy, and we wish to do so by means of an exception.
This is good, but it must be applied across the board.
<P>
In itself, the draft directive that we have been looking at includes entirely acceptable elements which are designed to protect authors' ethical and financial rights.
If we take music, for example, there is no doubt that digital compression technologies, such as MP3 or the new VQF standard that has appeared recently, represent a potential danger to the record industry, even if no scientific study has as yet been undertaken to confirm this.
In France, we have seen only a slight drop in the sale of singles but this may be a mere coincidence.
<P>
Another danger that is equally real lies in the solutions that might be introduced.
It would be tempting to place the information society under supervision, then we could control everything.
The European Union makes no secret of its ambitions for the Internet: to transform this information area, this tool of cultural and personal development, into a mere shopping arcade.
<P>
In France we have seen the success of Canal+, where a broadcasting monopoly was effectively created.
But nobody pointed out that Canal+ developed without any competition.
In France the state has a monopoly on broadcasting.
By penalising the pirating of Canal+ decoders, we effectively created a monopoly on reception.
And some people would like to do the same with the Internet... the best of all possible worlds!
<P>
The solution is not only to be found in a directive inevitably restricted to the European Union.
Taking into account the level of market penetration, it is above all American authors who are protected.
European authors, on the other hand, do not have the same sort of guarantee as in the United States, for example.
The concept of copyright is much more restrictive there than in France, for example.
In order to effectively protect copyright and related rights, a better solution would be an international conference on the subject, where sovereign states could defend their own industries and agree to protect other countries' in accordance with the principle of reciprocity.
<P>
A balance must be struck between freedom and ownership.
For the first time in history, freedom is being played against art.
<P>
This is a novelty for the artists.
They had been taught by the Left to be defenders of freedom.
Today they are pleading against it for the sake of their right to ownership.
The Internet really is changing everything, even the most firmly entrenched roles.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Musumeci">
The Community has certainly taken its time in getting round to harmonising the legal framework for copyright.
<P>
In the last few years we have seen open and flexible legislation designed for an increasingly developed world of technology and computers on the one hand, and on the other, old and outdated rules, as in Italy, where the matter is governed by a law going back 60 years.
<P>
While there is absolutely no question of challenging the sacrosanct right of authors and editors to have their work protected, we think it is crucial, in regulating individual Member States' exceptions to the right of reproduction, not to dance to the tune of large record multinationals, for example, to the detriment of small and medium-sized European recording companies.
Article 5 needs rewording to avoid de facto restriction of access to the network for independent operators.
<P>
There still needs to be a right of reproduction for scientific and cultural works which are educational rather than commercial, together with a flat rate payment if more than 20 % of the book is reproduced.
<P>
This would also make things easier for small craft companies involved in reproduction, and indeed for their clients, almost always university students forced to buy very expensive textbooks even when they only need one chapter, thus feeding an often unregulated lobbyist market obviously speculating on comparative prices.
<P>
Until standard criteria which meet the needs of the market are finally established at Community level there is a risk that Member States may embark on different and even divergent paths, seriously prejudicing the much-trumpeted achievement of the single market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Ripa di Meana">
I was sorry to have to abstain from the final vote on the Barzanti report.
Adopting the text for Article 5(1) as proposed by the rapporteur and approved by the Committee on Legal Affairs means that quite unjustified authorisations will be required for making technical copies from the Internet, which will simply have the effect of extending the supremacy in distribution of the great American recording multinationals into the digital world.
This is an extremely restrictive measure for European operators, in clear and paradoxical contradiction to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act just promulgated in the United States.
<P>
In other words, two different legal frameworks are being constructed as regards Internet accessibility.
In the United States operators' freedom of access is recognised, while in the European Union, under pressure from the large multinationals and with the pretext of combatting piracy, the scope which authors and independent groups have to express themselves is being reduced.
As the procedure provides for a second reading, considerable efforts are needed to promote an approach that gives greater weight to the legitimate principles of expression and right of access for European operators, who are excluded today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Rovsing">
At a time when incredibly rapid development is taking place in the area of digital technology, we have found that earlier legislation in the field of copyright does not cover this area adequately.
In dealing with this directive, the Conservative Members of Parliament are working to create a balance between protecting the rights of copyright holders who are threatened by digital developments and safeguarding access to information for individual consumers, especially in connection with television and radio.
For me it is crucial that this balance is secured in the best way possible, so that in future, copyright holders will be assured of payment for the use of their work, without severely limiting the range of information available to ordinary citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Theonas">
The creators of intellectual works, and all those who have contributed to their creation, are now virtually defenceless against the use, distribution and reproduction of their work by means of new reproduction and communication technologies.
<P>
National laws to protect intellectual property and associated rights together with the corresponding Community legislation, which was inadequate even before globalisation and the implementation of digital technologies, need reforming and supplementing immediately on the basis of the new technological facts.
<P>
It is also crucial that measures be taken at national, community and international level to protect authors and composers from piracy and from the theft, use and reproduction of their work. We believe that there has already been a considerable delay in implementing such measures.
<P>
Notwithstanding certain objections and reservations we may have, the report of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights is a positive attempt to tackle this problem. It also calls for already existing Community legislation to be brought up to date, by providing legal protection in areas such as reproduction rights, public broadcasting rights and distribution rights, and by providing legal protection against piracy.
<P>
Extending such protection to cover not only authors, composers and performers but also producers of CDs and CD-ROMs and radio stations, while positive and logical in principle, must be examined to determine whether all these rights can be regarded as the same. Perhaps it would be better to examine such protection separately to avoid the danger of misinterpreting the term 'intellectual creation' and the definition of composers and performers.
<P>
Finally, the most important, and perhaps the most intractable problem is that of the distribution of artistic works and, more generally, intellectual property via the Internet, and the possibility of reproducing such works using digital technology.
Although the report attempts to tackle this problem, we feel that it can only be solved if we address the more general issue of electronic copying, especially at an international level, and if we combat the new forms of piracy and forgery which are springing up and going unpunished.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Ullmann">
The Green Group in the European Parliament welcomes the draft directive aimed at revising the protection of copyright and related rights by harmonising it on a Union-wide basis so that it can meet the requirements of digital electronic communication.
It takes account both of the user's need for access and of the market conditions for the media suppliers and for the producers of the required technologies.
<P>
We endorse the rapporteur's endeavour to define the directive more precisely by giving precedence to copyright as the main concept.
That decision was justified not only by the subject matter of the directive.
Authors' rights are the weakest in terms of the requirement of market and industrial freedom and therefore most in need of protection, given that they relate to works that can only be treated as products to a limited extent.
<P>
Consumer and producer protection have their place within this primary aim in that the consumer receives free access to the desired transmission of a work while at the same time the rightholder obtains fair compensation, and the producer receives full protection against piracy.
<P>
We welcome the fact that the Commission has largely incorporated Parliament's position and therefore very much regret that it has rejected Amendment No 25, in the form of a new recital, which deals with the treatment of cultural works not protected by copyright, as not relevant to the subject of the directive.
<P>
Pérez Royo report (A4-0040/99)
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="Andersson, Lööw, Palm, Sandberg-Fries and Theorin">
The Swedish Social Democrats are delighted that steps are being taken to put an end to unfair tax competition between countries both outside and inside the European Union.
However, we are not sure that the Commission, in its proposal, is going the right way about it.
In our view, the fairest way would be for citizens to pay tax where they reside.
Accordingly, we wholeheartedly support the idea of an exchange of information between states, rather than a model based on a minimum rate of taxation.
Prior to the present proposal, we would have preferred to be able to adopt a position on an exchange of information, as opposed to a minimum tax rate.
Now that this is not possible, we have decided to support the amendment that advocates the highest minimum rate of tax.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Blak, Iversen, Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament are voting in favour of the EU setting rules on the minimum taxation of interest income from savings.
Until now, people have been able to avoid paying tax on savings deposited in other countries.
This has led to unreasonable incomes and distortions in the market, and has favoured banks in Luxembourg, for example.
<P>
The European Parliament has just approved a twin-track approach which means that a minimum percentage of interest income will either be withheld in the individual Member State or that banks and authorities will exchange information across borders so that tax can be collected.
Banking secrecy could therefore be maintained if the first option is used.
The Danish Social Democrats do not see the proposal in any way as a move towards tax harmonisation, but as convincing evidence that the EU can put a stop to the extensive tax speculation in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Deprez">
The proposal for a Council directive that we are examining today is one of the most important on which we have had to give our opinion in recent years.
<P>
We all acknowledge that a guaranteed minimum effective taxation of savings income in the form of interest payments in EU Member States other than the investor's country of residence is an ideal way to prevent harmful tax competition between the Member States.
<P>
Apart from helping to reduce the distortions that are still widespread in the internal market, this widening of the tax base will allow Member States, if they so wish, to reduce the excessive costs that burden labour income and sometimes seriously handicap our businesses, subject as they are to international competition in an increasingly global economy.
<P>
The proposal for a directive that we are discussing today is certainly not the last word in capital taxation regimes.
On this point I agree entirely with the rapporteur that a great deal remains to be done in order to achieve an ideal capital taxation system and, in particular, that we need the broadest possible discussions on the issue with the EU's major partners in the capital markets: the US, Japan and Switzerland.
<P>
While we are working on such an agreement, I, like many others, believe that this proposal for a directive is certainly an important step in the right direction.
I would even say that it is the progress we have been waiting for for a number of years.
The Commission has certainly done some excellent work here.
<P>
I will therefore be supporting, without any reservation whatsoever, the proposal for a directive as amended by Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="Fourçans">
I am delighted with the amendments introduced by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy to the proposal for a directive on taxation of savings, which aims to ensure a minimum of effective taxation of individuals' savings income in the form of interest payments within the Community.
<P>
I am particularly delighted that my amendment to reduce the level of withholding tax from 20 % to 15 % has been adopted, for three reasons.
Firstly, too high a rate would harm investment, and therefore also growth and employment.
Secondly, the rate of withholding tax applied in international tax agreements only rarely exceeds 15 %.
Thirdly, too high a rate would make all attempts to limit capital flight completely futile.
The aim of the directive is to prevent capital flight to EU Member States where rates are higher.
So how can we prevent capital from seeking out more favourable tax environments?
From this perspective, choosing a rate of 25 %, as suggested by the French Government, would be an economic error that would run counter to the objective of fighting harmful tax competition.
<P>
In this respect I am delighted with the proposal by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy to begin negotiations with neighbouring countries on fiscal matters.
It has also been suggested that these discussions could then be extended to include the OECD members.
This being the case, it is good that the European Union is not making the outcome of these discussions a precondition for implementing the directive on taxation of savings.
There are enough stumbling blocks already without adding others...
<P>
I will therefore vote in favour of the resolution and the proposal for a directive, provided that no amendment is adopted to modify my proposal for a withholding tax of 15 %.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
As the House approves the 20 % and does not deem it necessary to first reach an agreement with our neighbouring countries, I am voting against the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR)">
Tax policy is, for the most part, a national matter.
However, dumping through unfair tax competition where the aim is to avoid paying tax should be tackled by means of European rules, provided minimum rules are applied.
I have therefore voted in favour of the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Lulling">
I voted against the Pérez Royo report on taxation of savings because it is the best way to ensure that savings leave the European Union.
<P>
New York and Zurich, which are already rubbing their hands, will be the main beneficiaries of this suicidal relocation operation, Zurich in particular when it comes to European collective investment undertakings within the meaning of the 1985 directive.
To top it all, it is only the collective investment undertakings that are targeted, with the result that the promoters will try to relocate outside the EU in order to continue to sell collective investment undertakings to their European customers tax-free.
This will mean the end of many of the European collective investment undertakings.
You will have promoted tax evasion outside the Community and internal tax revenue will be non-existent.
<P>
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has turned a deaf ear.
None of my 34 amendments were adopted and my arguments against the ridiculous administrative burden proposed were not heeded.
This enormously expensive red-tape for the paying agents will in itself create competitive disadvantages in terms of management costs and will result in collective investment undertakings leaving the EU.
<P>
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, like Mr Monti, is also turning a deaf ear to the need at the same time to take measures equivalent to those adopted in a Community directive in third countries that are likely to attract EU capital.
If the directive was introduced it should apply above all to the dependent or associated territories of certain Member States and also where these Member States have particular responsibilities or tax prerogatives.
The real tax havens within the Community are Monaco, San Marino, Andorra, the Channel Islands, the Netherlands Antilles, and so on.
<P>
Surely you do not believe that, as Mr Poos, the Luxembourg Minister, has just stated in our Chamber of Deputies, my country is prepared to agree to a fool's bargain and to be the only one to play the unenviable role of the sacrificial lamb on the altar of rigged tax harmonisation?
<P>
Moreover, do not forget that there can be no question of abandoning our condition that the fiscal package put together on 1 December 1997 under the Luxembourg Presidency should apply across the board.
Long live unanimity!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Martinez">
This is a classic example of tax harmonisation.
First there was harmonisation of VAT and excise duties.
Since then, the European Commission has been dragging out its plans to harmonise corporate tax and above all to harmonise taxation of savings, especially as the single currency has heightened the distortions between many tax systems, with all the risks of relocation and competition between them.
<P>
Being a poor loser, the Commission has tried to guard against the fiscal dumping that is inherent in free movement by means of its European Code of Conduct, which is in fact only a cartelisation code for tax authorities in order to maintain the oligopoly.
It is against this background that we have the Pérez Royo report on the proposal for a directive of 4 June 1998, which clearly aims to set a ceiling on taxation of savings income in order to counter the Luxembourg tax haven.
<P>
There would be a dual ceiling: either the application of a 20 % rate of taxation on interest payments or the supply of information. Taxation or information.
The choice would be between paying the withholding tax and being subject to taxation in the Member State of residence. This is what we call the model of coexistence: the coexistence of states that apply the withholding tax regime and states that do not.
<P>
But that does not solve the problem of globalisation.
Capital moves around, even beyond Europe.
The problem exists for Eurobonds, which may be underwritten by investors outside Europe.
Hence the proposal from Professor Pérez Royo for a multilateral agreement with Japan, Switzerland and the US.
This shows how outdated Europe is: the tax village is becoming global.
<P>
In terms of capital, globalisation is complete.
European taxation is therefore obsolete.
It can only apply to taxpayers whose residence is fixed and localised, with the glaring injustice that we all know so well.
Europe without frontiers overtaxes labour income to make up for not being able to tax capital income.
<P>
This is why the Europe of free movement is a Europe that deprives people who are permanent residents in favour of nomads.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="Mendes Bota">
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="Murphy">
Britain's Labour MEPs support the principles behind the Commission's proposals to prevent tax evasion on cross-border payments of interest to individuals. However, these proposals as currently drafted are flawed and against the interests of employment in Europe's financial services industry.
<P>
The timing of the introduction of a withholding tax directive is crucial.
Unilateral European Union level action runs the genuine risk of creating an outflow of capital to third countries- for example, Switzerland.
Should this happen, then jobs in EU financial centres will be lost to third countries as capital leaves.
In addition, there will be no benefit to exchequers as the taxable interest payments will be outside the 15 Member States.
<P>
It is not appreciated that Eurobonds or international securities are included within the scope of the directive.
Such a move would also run the genuine risk of relocating the whole Eurobond market outside of the EU and in particular, the City of London.
British Labour MEPs are acutely conscious of the New York experience of imposing a unilateral tax on such financial services.
For many years, Eurobonds were almost exclusively traded in New York.
The introduction of a unilateral tax regime saw their near total relocation to London.
As currently drafted therefore, this directive poses a direct threat to between 10 000 and 110 000 jobs, mainly in London's financial services, depending on whose analyses you believe.
Indeed, there are already clear indications of Swiss preparations for any new opportunities that may arise as a result of EU action.
<P>
British Labour MEPs will be supporting calls for a multilateral policy development with the other OECD financial centres to tackle this important issue of tax evasion, and for the exclusion of Eurobonds from this directive.
<P>
In the absence of such amendments being carried, British Labour MEPs will vote against this directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="Porto">
Both the Commission proposal and the Pérez Royo report on introducing a minimum level of taxation on savings income undoubtedly deserve our support.
Especially now, with the single currency and the absence of any exchange risk, this is the only way to rule out predatory fiscal competition.
<P>
We must, however, be vigilant about competition in this area from third countries and should therefore demand - particularly via the OECD - that they too should apply minimum levels of taxation.
We recognise that this cannot be expected immediately and must therefore agree with the amendment approved in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy in favour of a 15 % rather than a 20 % minimum rate, to less the impact of any harmful competition.
We therefore disagree with the rapporteur, who has just told us that he would be voting for the 20 % figure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="Reding">
Alongside the Code of Conduct adopted by the Council in an effort to avoid harmful tax competition among Member States, the Commission has presented a text, in the form of a proposal for a directive, that is both premature and immature.
It is premature because it lacks a global approach towards tax harmonisation.
Harmonisation of taxation of savings is just one specific aspect of a harmonisation operation that must encompass a number of other areas, of which company taxation is one of the most important.
Harmonising only one part of the tax system is potentially more harmful than maintaining the different fiscal regimes that currently exist.
As a result, the true merit of a directive on harmonising taxation of savings can only be appreciated once the overall plan has been drawn up and approved.
<P>
The text is immature because all of its components are largely controversial and their effects on the European economy are not known.
The European Commission and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy set out the principles on which agreement could be reached in time: a withholding tax, coexistence, a common rate of withholding tax.
But the practical application of these principles requires more careful consideration and, above all, solutions must first be found to many specific problems: the definition of a realistic minimum rate of withholding tax; coexistence, yes, but without the additional untransparent complications of a system of certificates and reimbursements, paving the way for problems in the system; imprecise definitions of the 'beneficial owner' and the 'paying agent'; potentially negative consequences for the European financial markets if Eurobonds are included in this directive without exemption, and so on.
None of these problems has as yet been resolved and as a result this proposal for a directive can at the very most be considered as a preliminary draft that still requires intensive work.
<P>
Some of Parliament's amendments are a step in the right direction, without necessarily touching on the fundamental problems: the rate of the withholding tax has been lowered; the role of certain neighbouring countries, which will be the sole beneficiaries of the directive in its current version, is mentioned; the usefulness of a certain degree of fair tax competition and the subsequent beneficial reduction in fiscal pressure is underlined.
Otherwise, the report remains too close to the Commission text.
Even though the explanatory statement is not part of the legislative text, it contains several opinions with which I do not agree: reducing the problem of Eurobonds to a purely British problem and, above all, the rapporteur's ideal vision, according to which 'an ideal (fiscal) regime should be based on the principle of supply of information to the fiscal authorities, i.e. on the elimination of banking secrecy for fiscal purposes'.
<P>
For these reasons I am voting against the Pérez Royo report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="Rovsing">
I can support an effort being made to counter speculation due to the different rules on the taxation of interest on savings accounts in the EU's Member States, so as to ensure a modest minimum level of taxation.
I can also support the Commission's thinking as regards a minimum level of taxation, but I would like to stress that this does not mean that the Danish Conservatives endorse an actual harmonisation of tax rates.
I would also like to help bring about a certain exchange of information between Member States to make it possible for taxation to take place in one form or another.
At the same time, however, we must ensure that new EU rules in this field do not encourage pension funds and other financial institutions currently based in the EU area to move to countries outside the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="Souchet">
'It is not necessary to recall the origins of this proposal for a directive, or the importance that the fiscal regime of interest assumes in the functioning of the single market - especially when regarded in relation to the introduction of the euro.'
<P>
The first three lines of the rapporteur's explanatory statement thus crudely reveal that the objective being pursued is to combat the pernicious yet entirely predictable effects of the creation of the euro on certain capital movements.
<P>
As a result of the introduction of the euro in the single market, the tax differentials between the various Member States are causing significant capital movements, and attempts are now being made to curb these, for example by introducing a minimum rate of taxation on income from capital invested by individuals.
<P>
It is astonishing to note that the effects of the euro on capital movements were not properly understood before it was introduced.
<P>
Regarding the report itself, the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has voted in favour of the amendments spelling out the need to harmonise the basic principles of taxation with OECD members.
If we introduce harmonisation that is limited only to the Member States of the European Union, it is highly probable that we will witness the flight of capital to third countries.
<P>
With regard to the minimum rate of taxation of interest paid, our group voted in favour of the amendment by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, which lowers this minimum rate to 15 % from the 20 % rate proposed by the Commission; a minimum rate that is too high could result in the flight of capital to third countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="Theonas">
EMU and the euro demand the harmonisation of fiscal policy within the European Union and the shaping of a single taxation framework for economic activity in all Member States.
This attempt at equalisation pays scant regard to the different growth levels of each country, to the repercussions that a single tax policy will have on national budgets, to growth and social expenditure and, above all, to the incomes of working people. Its aim is to increase hard-hitting tax measures at the expense of working people and to lighten the tax burden on businesses and capital markets, thereby increasing their profits.
<P>
The fiscal policy which is taking shape, little by little, within the European Union, a typical example of which is the proposal to tax income from savings that we are debating today, will strengthen even further regional and social inequalities. It will make big business even more unaccountable and strengthen the divisions in economic life.
<P>
The Commission proposal favours tax havens of all kinds and the multifarious exemptions that exist in the system for taxing large corporations.
It taxes the interest on the savings of the small investor and the small saver and eases the tax burden on companies and large conglomerates.
This is happening at a time when, in the name of social security funding or the reduction of public deficits, proposals are being elaborated or ideas are being put forward to further increase the burden of indirect taxation, which blights the lives of the ordinary person in the street, and to further reduce the public social provision of health and pension cover, because of the high costs involved.
It is clear that those who rule the EU believe that the enormous profits and revenues which can legally avoid any form of tax burden through a series of exemptions and derogations which are provided for in national tax laws, such as revenues from financial products, cannot and, what is more, must not play a role in achieving these aims.
The people and the workers will bear the costs, and the profits will go to large companies and the capital markets.
<P>
We regard as unacceptable and at the same time revealing of the intentions of the EU and EMU the fact that the proposed directive only covers physical persons, when we know that the vast majority of those entitled to hold foreign accounts or cross-border bonds - government or not - are the large institutional investors.
Indeed, it is extremely telling that the amendments which called for the directive to be extended to cover legal entities were rejected.
It is incomprehensible to us that taxes should be instituted which exempt companies.
Such a regulation is a harsh blow to employment and growth, as it encourages capital to be kept in banks or to be converted into bonds or other financial products rather than into investments in production. This is not taxation.
Working people are being penalised for doing their utmost to save money.
This regulation is simply paving the way for the corruption of economic life, the exploitation of working people and the creation of brass-plate companies, which are set up solely to avoid taxation.
It is also creating the conditions - and this is made easier by the convergence of interest rates - to transfer accounts to a country other than the country of residence, or to strengthen the cross-border market in bonds at the expense of the domestic market. The aim is to circumvent tax legislation for 'residents' and to avoid paying tax.
In particular, this regulation makes it easier to use zero coupon bonds as a way of laundering money, as they can be sold before their due date to people who are not covered by the directive and are therefore not subject to tax.
<P>
The proposal for a directive that we are examining is part of a package adopted by the Council in December 1997, and we wish to reiterate that we wholly disagree with the logic of packages which aim to ward off any genuine objections which may arise and to allow decisions to be made which hurt the weakest countries.
This is exactly what is happening with the proposal for a directive to tax the interest earned by affiliated companies, which directly hurts Greece as it is an importer of capital.
<P>
Taking advantage of the opportunity provided by the relevant forecast in the draft directive, and bearing in mind that the start of a new round of multilateral negotiations is approaching, we urge the Commission and the Council to take the necessary actions to institute, at international level, a means of ensuring that interest on bank deposits and revenues from bonds of all kinds and other financial products are taxed. Such actions must be targeted at large international institutional investors and, more generally, at legal entities.
A way must also be found to tax all kinds of cross-border capital movements which are carried out for profit, in order to put a brake, albeit in a limited way, on the increase in the volume of parasitic, speculative capital.
<P>
Lehne report (A4-0045/99)
<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw, Palm, Sandberg-Fries and Theorin">
<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="Andrews">
It is essential to point out at this stage that asylum seekers are covered by existing conventions aimed at protecting them against persecution.
Different criteria must be applied to those wishing to enter the European Union on economic grounds.
<P>
The key issue now under debate is whether we should have a strict or a relaxed admission policy.
I would argue that if the European Union admits third country nationals for the purpose of servicing the specific needs of individual Member States' labour shortages then it would be repulsive to adopt a 'revolving door' policy by taking no responsibility for the tangible economic input of workers from third countries.
<P>
I would further argue for a strict rather than a relaxed admission policy so as to protect the rights of third country nationals by outlining clearly the necessary criteria for admission.
<P>
Harmonising Member States' visa policies with regard to third countries is, in my view, essential as a major step towards improving the safety of travel documents.
The mutual recognition of travel documents is paramount to implementing EU policy on the admission of third country nationals.
<P>
From an Irish perspective, the influx of refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants is a relatively new experience for us as a nation.
Mistakes have been made in dealing with this evolving problem by successive governments.
I have to say I am angry at how some of our citizens treat these strangers.
<P>
We can at times hide behind the provisions of the Dublin Convention, which states that the first EU country that an asylum seeker enters must process their application for asylum.
Ireland is seldom the first port of call for prospective asylum seekers.
<P>
The Irish Government should be bold and courageous enough to bring in an amnesty for existing refugees and asylum seekers in Ireland.
It should then introduce new and uniform rules to deal with new applications in the future.
<P>
The Irish people must show some compassion on this issue.
We, more than most nations, have benefited from the generosity of spirit and kindness of other nations in our history, most notably Britain, Australia and the United States of America.
<P>
The very fact that Ireland is currently experiencing an unprecedented economic boom must mean that we do not forget our humanitarian duty to others.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="Bébéar">
Immigration in Europe is one of the areas which we have dealt with least during the present parliamentary term and, as a result, the work done in this area is largely superficial.
However, the Amsterdam Treaty which is to be implemented in the near future obliges us to broadly review the current status quo with a view to implementing new immigration measures.
<P>
All this will very probably lead to numerous problems, in view of the current inflow of persons and the inability of the European Union to become an outlet for world poverty.
One of the major difficulties will consist in making the distinction between foreign nationals who have already been resident in the European Union for several years, and those who have just arrived.
Hence the importance of new provisions in the Amsterdam Treaty which differentiate - with a considerable degree of humanity - between short-term and long-term residence, and immigration and temporary asylum policy.
<P>
In the face of the numerous political conflicts currently taking place throughout the world - including on our continent - we cannot close our eyes and just turn away asylum seekers saying that they are not our concern.
Significant progress has been made with regard to the idea of collective responsibility of a group of nations.
European legislation must therefore act as a very strict barrier to foreseeable inflows of persons.
The same applies to 'economic' immigration, the criteria for which must be laid down very clearly.
<P>
The European Parliament has always ardently defended very strict international rules that can be applied in practice.
Controlling our migratory inflows is becoming a major issue, particularly on the eve of enlargement when a number of third country nationals will soon become full citizens.
<P>
I therefore approve the second Lehne report because it takes into consideration the realities of the world today without being too liberal and causing harm to our own nationals, but leaving the door open to integration that is controlled in terms of the number of immigrants and in terms of time.
The European Parliament needs to find the right balance.
Immigration must not constitute an obstacle to European cooperation programmes, but for all that we cannot refuse positive immigration, nor can we reject agreements with third countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="Blak, Iversen, Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
Today the Danish Social Democrats voted in favour of a report concerning uniform rules for the admission of third-country nationals to the Member States.
In Denmark, there has been a halt on immigration since 1974.
We have some very tough rules on immigration for the purpose of paid employment.
Age patterns in the Member States and a general upturn in the economy mean that we are going to have a shortage of labour in some sectors in the near future.
We may therefore be forced to consider how persistently this halt on immigration should be maintained.
<P>
Lehne report (A4-0043/99)
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw, Palm, Sandberg-Fries and Theorin">
<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="Berthu">
The draft Convention on rules for the admission of third-country nationals to the Member States of the Union is quite obviously responding to a need: to try to introduce minimum conditions for the crossing of EU external borders in order to avoid wide gaps allowing immigrants to enter a Member State and then move throughout the whole of Europe.
However, this text, which has clearly been carefully negotiated by the Council, has been damaged by the European Parliament's amendments.
At any rate, it is affected by a structural defect which calls for serious reservations on our part: possible revision would be practically out of the question.
<P>
In fact, Article 42 provides that the Council shall unanimously decide on any amendments to the Convention, which might seem logical given that the text will have been adopted unanimously.
However, this provision poses a problem because if unanimity governs the adoption of a text, it ends up being ultraconservative and even intransigent when it comes to its revision.
In fact, the proper rule which should be laid down is that when a text has been adopted unanimously, the failure of one Member State to give its support - by requesting that it be revised - must automatically lead to improvements being made to it.
<P>
This is not a hypothetical question.
It is currently being raised in France in relation to the 1979 directive on the conservation of wild birds.
It could be raised tomorrow in relation to the Convention on rules for the admission of third-country nationals, for example, if a signatory country requests amendments to the rules on family reunification.
Nor is there anything extraordinary about this question: no text can remain unchanged forever, and it is normal to provide the means to make changes to it in the future.
<P>
Moreover, an additional problem arises in the Convention we are dealing with today: if a country which had not managed to successfully renegotiate a text wanted to be withdrawn by democratic means from part of or all of the text, it would be difficult to see how this would be possible when - as provided for by the Amsterdam Treaty - it would not have the right to re-establish unilaterally certain checks at its internal borders.
<P>
We may therefore find it quite strange that governments are pursuing such conventions without having resolved problems as serious as these beforehand and without having taken all the necessary precautions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="Buffetaut">
Demands relating to the desire to harmonise immigration and visa policies are also made in Mr Lehne's report.
The rapporteur's original idea - like that of Mrs Lindeperg, whose report results from the same logic, despite the fact that they belong to different political groups - is that in view of the present difficulties in these areas, the policies can no longer be dealt with at national level alone.
The draft Amsterdam Treaty should therefore allow the simultaneous harmonisation of visa policies, without which the free movement of persons, implementation of a fair asylum policy, harmonisation of immigration rules, action to combat illegal immigration and effective checks at the external borders would be jeopardised.
<P>
The report has undoubtedly been produced within the context of the ratification of the draft Amsterdam Treaty.
It establishes a provisional regulation, the Commission having already undertaken to submit a fresh proposal - in the form of a directive - as soon as the amendments agreed in the Amsterdam Treaty enter into force.
However, in the explanatory statement of the proposal for a Council Act, the Commission considers that current economic factors and the situation on the labour market make it impossible to do away with selective admission policies formulated by the Member States for the purposes of paid employment or independent economic activity.
Nevertheless, it persists in believing that it is Europe's duty to adopt a global approach with regard to immigration policies.
<P>
What about the problems experienced by immigrant populations integrating into societies which already have difficulty defining structures for human and social relations, both internally and with other societies?
What about the economic and social cost of such measures?
What about the checks I mentioned at the Community's external borders which we know do not actually exist or are ineffective in certain regions?
How much flexibility will the Member States have to react to special situations, in view of a safeguard clause providing for an exception whose duration is limited to what is strictly necessary, and taking into account the interests of other Member States which the state keeps closely informed as well as the Commission?
<P>
All these questions remain unanswered today.
Too much is at stake for us to venture into the unknown in this way.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
This maxim is too easily applied to the spirit of Mr Lehne's reports.
Politics is the art of reality, not of utopia.
The generations of this century have been paying too high a price for this since 1917 for us to transform the European Union of tomorrow into a vast Yugoslavia in the name of false generosity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR)">
The Amsterdam Treaty and Schengen both give the EU greater discretion as regards immigration, visas and asylum, and the report is an extension of this policy.
However, the committee is of the opinion that the report does not go far enough in respect of the harmonisation of visa requirements in the individual Member States.
<P>
The existence of common rules for visas makes the European Union more like a state.
For a number of countries, it also means that some third-country nationals would have to apply for visas to enter the Union.
There is also a strong possibility that such a policy would serve to reinforce the external borders and encourage an inflexible approach to refugees and immigrants. Consequently, I have voted against the report.
<P>
Lindeperg report (A4-0050/99)
<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="Berthu">
Madam President, in the Lindeperg report which has just been voted on, the European Parliament calls for the 'upwards' harmonisation - these are the words used in the explanatory statement - of forms of protection complementary to refugee status.
In fact, the Geneva Convention of 28 July 1951, signed by all the Member States of the Union, provides for this status to be granted to individuals persecuted in their country of origin on grounds of race, religion, nationality, membership of a social group or political opinion; the European Parliament thinks this is too restrictive.
In particular, it would like a broader definition of the recognised causes of persecution - to include gender-specific causes, for example - and of potential persecutors, whose definition would no longer be confined to state bodies.
<P>
In addition to a less restrictive interpretation of the definitions of the Geneva Convention, which would open up the way for a complementary refugee status, a temporary protection scheme for displaced persons is being set up at the same time by the European Union, in order to offer a full range of legal structures for reception to all individuals or groups of persons wanting to flee their country of origin for one reason or another.
<P>
The proposal which the European Parliament is making with regard to this complementary status seems to me to be completely typical of how it usually acts.
It is announced that the new status will grant rights, without taking the trouble to say which ones and merely giving the impression that they will not be subject to a time-limit.
No attempt is made to ascertain how many new refugees there will be as a result - directly or indirectly - nor how much all of this will cost the taxpayer.
Of course, there is no mention anywhere in the report of what the citizens of the Member States might think about this.
<P>
For our part, we consider that this is a completely irresponsible way of doing things.
Of course, the countries of Europe must show concern for the welfare of foreigners who have been persecuted, firstly by scrupulously applying the provisions of the Geneva Convention.
However, this solicitude can take very different forms, one of which being residence on our territories for an unlimited duration, which we would have to reject more or less outright.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Madam President, I am making this explanation of vote not only on my own behalf but also on behalf of the Spanish delegation in the Group of the European People's Party.
We abstained in the vote on this report and I think that I should give you an explanation as to why we neither voted in favour or against. This is particularly important since an issue such as this is perhaps one that requires us to take a particular stance, which is what the Spanish delegation in the PPE Group is doing.
We are naturally in favour of harmonising complementary forms of protection so that refugees who do not meet the conditions laid down in the Geneva Convention yet who truly deserve protection, will receive it.
That is why we have not voted against the report.
<P>
We agree with the rapporteur and the majority of this House about the objectives involved.
However, we did not vote in favour of the report because it contains serious flaws. In addition to its legal shortcomings, it also tries to force an interpretation of the Geneva Convention on us which is totally contrary to international law.
However, it was essentially political reasons that prevented us from voting in favour of the report: the demagogy it uses only serves to harm the interests it aims to protect.
This therefore explains the constructive abstention of the Spanish delegation in the PPE Group.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw, Palm and Sandberg-Fries">
<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="Blak, Iversen, Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
Today the Danish Social Democrats voted in favour of a report on the need to adopt common rules in addition to the Geneva Convention.
There is a need for European cooperation on refugee questions.
The first step towards a common refugee policy was taken with the adoption of the Geneva Convention.
The next step should be some common rules for people who are not covered by the latter.
These are people who are not being persecuted individually by the State for political reasons, but who need asylum on other humanitarian grounds.
The Member States should have a uniform interpretation of how these people can be assured of proper protection.
It is time for us to start discussing a common definition of de facto and other humanitarian protection.
There should be certain minimum standards with which all the Member States are obliged to comply.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 NAME="Deprez">
Since the start of the 1990s, the European Union has been experiencing an influx of refugees who have fled their countries of origin for various reasons.
Many of them do not fall into the category of 'refugees' as defined by the Geneva Convention.
However, the European Union cannot refuse these persons entry into its territory.
In fact, sending them back to their country of origin without further ado would put their lives at risk, or would at the very least jeopardise their moral or physical integrity.
<P>
Harmonisation of the policies pursued by the Member States is necessary in this area, and this will be possible as soon as the Amsterdam Treaty has entered into force.
Within this framework, we need to set up an instrument to harmonise the forms of protection complementing refugee status.
<P>
I broadly agree with the rapporteur on all these points.
<P>
In fact, I believe as she does that the European Union must grant a specific status to persons who cannot claim refugee status within the meaning of the Geneva Convention.
The debate is mainly concerned with the definition of the categories which are eligible for this complementary status.
It seems to me that a number of points still need to be clarified.
<P>
One example will illustrate my view: whatever we think otherwise of the death penalty, can a person who at the end of a fair trial is sentenced to death for crimes and offences under civil law, having exhausted all the possibilities of legal redress, really enjoy the specific status I mentioned - as the rapporteur seems to suggest - under the pretext that capital punishment has been abolished by the Member States of the European Union?
If so, on what terms?
Can a condemned person be given the same status as, for example, a woman fleeing her country of origin because she has fears of being subjected to sexual violence, or inhuman or degrading treatment?
This type of question is at the very least worth taking time to discuss in depth.
<P>
Complementary status is essential.
I just think that the dossier is not ready yet.
I am therefore voting against this report and urge that the debate be continued.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="Bonde and Sandbæk">
The June Movement is going to vote for the Lindeperg report to show our willingness to accept refugees.
The Lindeperg report is more humane than the policy which the civil servants and justice ministers are planning.
But, for the record, we should not forget to point out that it should be for the Member States themselves to decide on immigration and refugee policy.
We do not want any supranational cooperation in this area because refugee policy is improved if the people have the opportunity to endorse it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="Holm">
In the main, this is a balanced document which addresses some very important fundamental issues.
I sincerely hope that the amendments tabled by the Conservative groups are not adopted.
They would only detract from the quality of the report, as the aim of those political groups is not to make life easier for refugees and asylum-seekers.
<P>
Consequently, I hope that Amendments Nos 1 and 2 relating to homosexuals tabled by the ARE Group are adopted by the House.
The matter should be taken very seriously, since homosexuals are persecuted in many countries.
Some countries mete out a range of punishments, including the death penalty, for a person's sexual predilections.
Freedom from persecution or harassment because of one's sexual predilections is a basic human right. It is essential that this should be taken into account in the discussions on asylum legislation, as well as with regard to protection for homosexuals.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 NAME="Jensen, Lis">
I cannot endorse the Lindeperg report, because I do not think that asylum policy should be a matter for the EU.
In my opinion, this belongs solely at national level.
Of course, individual countries are morally and politically obliged to comply with whatever international conventions there may be in this field, both in letter and in spirit.
The rich democracies in particular are obliged to take a lead where the protection of the persecuted people of the world is concerned, which includes providing asylum themselves for those who are being persecuted.
However, my rejection of the report on grounds of political principle should not overshadow the fact that Mrs Lindeperg clearly deals with an important matter in a proper and humane way.
An example is her highlighting of the problem that there are people today who in reality are refugees, but who are not recognised as such according to the definition of the term contained in the Geneva Convention.
<P>
I would like to point out, however, that it would be a grave mistake for the EU to set about creating an alternative definition of refugees.
That would be contrary to the principle that refugees are protected by an international convention, agreed under international auspices.
At the same time, I could well imagine that an EU agreement on a different definition of refugees would not be seen as an addition to the Geneva Convention, but as a step towards depriving the Geneva Convention of its substance, so that many more people could be turned away - with a clear conscience - at the EU's external borders.
The general impression of the EU, and not least of its Member States, is not that they want to expand the definition of refugees, but on the contrary that they wish to restrict it.
The Danish Prime Minister said before the Danish referendum on the Amsterdam Treaty that 'a yes to the Amsterdam Treaty will mean fewer refugees in Denmark.'
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="Theorin">
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="Vanhecke">
The report by our colleague Mrs Lindeperg totally misses the main point of the asylum seeker problem in the European Union, which is that we are not in fact facing a real asylum problem at all, but an asylum cheating problem.
That is something totally different.
<P>
Everybody knows that just a few percent of asylum seekers in Europe can justifiably invoke the recognised international conventions on asylum.
If the hundreds of thousands of asylum cheaters who arrive every year to benefit from social security in our Member States were systematically and effectively sent back over the borders, then there would be no asylum problem at all in Europe.
<P>
You may be shocked by the use of the term asylum cheater.
Yet it has the benefit of clarity, highlights a reality and contains no human condemnation.
There are only two possible approaches here: either you play at being Santa Claus and say 'all foreigners are welcome in Europe and can be supported by us', or you must apply the existing agreements to the letter, in which the case the asylum cheaters must be sent back to their own countries: not just because they put the whole asylum system at risk and thus harm genuine asylum seekers, but also because in Europe itself there are many poor and underprivileged to whom we first owe an obligation before we can take all the suffering of the world on our shoulders.
<P>
Mrs Lindeperg clearly opts for the Santa Claus policy.
But she is playing Santa Claus at the taxpayers' expense.
If her proposals for a further undermining of asylum regulations were to become a reality, the final barrier would be down and we would risk being swamped by fortune seekers from all over the world.
<P>
This is therefore an irresponsible report - yet another to come before Parliament - that we will not be approving.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 1.25 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Progress on Agenda 2000
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="President">
The next item is the statement by the Council on progress on Agenda 2000.
<P>
I give the floor to the President-in-Office of the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when Mr Fischer presented the programme of the German Presidency here approximately a month ago in his capacity of President-in-Office of the Council, the first priority he listed for this six-month term was the successful conclusion of the Agenda 2000 negotiations by the time of the special European Council meeting on 24 and 25 March.
It is now just six weeks to the day until this meeting, which will be held in Berlin at the request of Chancellor Schröder.
<P>
The negotiations on the individual components of the Agenda, which we have been conducting intensively since the Commission submitted its legislative proposals eleven months ago and at full stretch since the beginning of the year, have now reached a crucial phase.
I am glad that at this stage I can now discuss Agenda 2000 with you in detail.
<P>
Let me start with a brief outline of the timetable up to the special summit.
By the time of the General Affairs Council and Agriculture Council in just under a fortnight's time we will have had a first run-through of all the major components of the global compromise to be reached by the Council bodies and Councils.
This first consideration of the key questions, under the aegis of the General Affairs Council, the Economic and Financial Affairs Council and the Agriculture Council, has already proved fairly successful in terms of reaching compromises and consensus on some aspects.
But it also became clear that we still have an enormous way to go and very little time to do so.
<P>
The Heads of State and Government will assess the progress made to date, especially the results we hope to see from the Agriculture Council on 22 and 23 February, at their informal summit in Bonn on 26 February.
We expect this meeting, to which Chancellor Schröder has also invited the President of the European Parliament, to provide important guidelines for the further activities of the final phase.
<P>
Immediately after the Bonn summit we will, after all, have to start tying up the package that the Heads of State and Government are to finish negotiating on and bring to a political conclusion at the end of March and during April, under the responsibility of the General Affairs Council as the coordinating body.
For the rest, you could regard the fact that Chancellor Schröder has moved the special summit from Brussels to Bonn as a sign of our strong commitment to bringing the negotiations to a successful conclusion.
<P>
The German Presidency will do its utmost to achieve that successful conclusion.
We have become convinced that other Member States are also firmly resolved to achieve it and therefore want to conduct the negotiations in a constructive and positive manner.
Everybody realises that a balanced package is the only solution, and that there can be no winners or losers.
Each Member State must have its appropriate say on the final result, but at the same time each must make its contribution to achieving that result.
Everything must be laid out openly on the table.
There can be no taboo subjects!
<P>
It is of paramount importance to the Union and thus to all the Member States - and all the partner states realise this - for us to be able to declare the European Union the winner at the end of March; for one thing is sure, Europe could very easily become the loser.
Putting it off will not make the solution any easier, on the contrary.
If a few months after the entry into force of monetary union, and indeed only a few weeks before the June elections to the European Parliament, we disappointed people's hopes that we would prove capable of action, the consequences would be very serious.
<P>
If the European Union, which since the beginning of this year has become a new financial market with global influence and global responsibility, cannot also resolutely assume the corresponding political responsibility - on the basis also of the Amsterdam Treaty - then too Europe would be the loser.
And if the momentum of the enlargement negotiations is weakened and the date of their conclusion is postponed, the effects would be so damaging as to set us back in our work for a long time.
I hope these and other arguments will prompt all the Member States to make more and even greater concerted efforts.
<P>
Meanwhile it is generally realised that, unlike the case of the earlier Delors I and Delors II packages, this time it will not be possible to reach a compromise in the end by making extra funds available.
On the contrary, the unequal burden-sharing that resulted from this kind of approach in earlier cases must be corrected this time, for the sake of the legitimacy and future viability of the European Union.
I do not think any of our partners questions the principle of fair burden-sharing, just as they cannot question the principle of solidarity, which is the constitutive principle of the European Union.
<P>
One basic condition for the success of the negotiations as a whole is that the Heads of State and Government decided in Vienna to include all the components of the Agenda in the discussion and only to seek a solution in the form of an overall package.
Everything is laid out on the table.
That means a balance can be found covering every aspect, and the combination of various parameters ensures that the further negotiations will be sufficiently flexible and dynamic.
<P>
In many areas of the Agenda, it has proved possible to broaden the basis of agreement over the past weeks.
This applies in particular to the reform of the Structural Funds, where consensus has now been reached on major issues.
I am thinking, for instance, of the reduction of the number of objectives from seven to three, the reduction of the number of Community initiatives and the long-disputed question of coherence between national aid and EU aid; I am also thinking of the efficiency performance reserve, where gratifying progress was made at the last General Affairs Council.
<P>
On other important questions, such as strict adherence to the 75 % criterion for Objective 1 areas and reserving some two thirds of funds for Objective 1, the discussions have already produced clear majorities.
Here you must not forget that under the Austrian Presidency broad political agreement was already reached on the pre-accession instruments that are so important to enlargement policy.
The same applies to the financial regulation on trans-European networks.
<P>
In both areas - structural reform and pre-accession instruments - I held talks yesterday with European Parliament representatives under the informal consultation procedure, continuing those that were begun under the Austrian Presidency.
We attach the utmost importance to this dialogue at political level as a means of concluding the Agenda successfully and on schedule.
In the coming weeks we will therefore carry on with this dialogue intensively and in a constructive spirit.
<P>
Mr Fischer gave another assurance to that effect in his reply to the letter from your President, Mr Gil-Robles Gil-Delgado.
Dialogue is not a one-way street.
The Council will take account in its decision-making of the positions expressed by the European Parliament during these discussions.
The informal consultation forms part of our endeavour to provide Parliament with comprehensive information at all times, as reflected in our debate today and our offer to hold an exchange of views on Agenda 2000 at any time in an informal political trialogue.
<P>
We are well aware that not only the Council but especially you, the Members of the European Parliament, will have an important part to play in resolving the Agenda-related problems in good time.
Our presidency will do all it can to cooperate closely with you on a basis of trust.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="McCarthy">
I do not need to remind the President-in-Office of how essential it is to meet the timetable, not only to secure the necessary democratic legitimacy for the Agenda 2000 package but also to allow programmes and policies to be implemented in a timely and effective manner.
We welcome his efforts in this respect.
<P>
We, however, need to make progress on our priorities.
Parliament's priorities on the general framework regulation are, in fact, clear.
As regards the modified proposal on the efficiency performance reserve, Parliament must be involved in decisions on the mid-term review and the reallocation of the national reserve.
What role for Parliament can the presidency and the Council envisage to guarantee effective parliamentary scrutiny of the reserve mechanism?
<P>
Thirty-four pages of guidelines have been produced by the Commission for the operation of regional programmes.
How will these relate to the regulations?
How will they be discussed in the Council?
The guidelines underline the vital role of urban areas in the European economy.
Will the presidency demonstrate its commitment to urban areas by arguing in favour of Parliament's priority requiring continuation of the URBAN Community initiative?
<P>
The Commission's reform proposal does not contain any contingency plans for unexpected economic and social restructuring in the regions.
Does the presidency agree that it would be wise to set aside some resources under a special Community initiative for unexpected crises to enable the Union to act in such situations?
Likewise, is the presidency prepared to promote this priority in the Council.
<P>
Finally, partnership is a key priority for Parliament in ensuring that the Europe we build and its policies are genuinely inclusive, supporting a People's Europe.
For this reason, we want a strong partnership pact in both designing, drafting and implementing the new generation of programmes.
Will the presidency back Parliament's demands in the Council for a strengthened partnership pact, and what concrete and practical actions will the presidency take to ensure that partnership is not just an optional extra but an integral component of all programmes, strengthening the cohesion of a People's Europe?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
Mr President, having just listened to the presentation by the Council we cannot immediately say that it has provided a great deal of information.
We are in fact very much interested in the Council's own activities concerning enlargement, and in particular how the Council views the state of progress in the negotiations.
Is it the case, as we often read at present and also hear from the various think tanks, that we are already thinking about discussing accession dates for certain countries?
There are certain reports to this effect and there is a great deal of optimism, and we have also heard the Foreign Ministers of certain Member States say that it is time to set accession dates.
It has always been the case with the enlargement strategy that both the Commission and the negotiators have said that this would be the wrong approach, that the accession date is a matter for the country itself and not the Commission or the European institutions as such.
The countries themselves must satisfy the rules and conditions for membership and it is our job to encourage progress.
<P>
It has always been said that setting dates for certain countries would be an encouragement for them to be rather less energetic in their efforts as it would be seen as a kind of guarantee of membership.
Is there any reason to review that position and now to say it is better to set dates after all?
What would be the reason for this?
Do you see any virtue in this?
<P>
Secondly, we are seeing that public opinion is changing, and this is affecting the negotiations.
In some applicant countries public opinion is becoming progressively less positive towards membership of the European Union.
It is perhaps also true that in many cases there is a serious lack of knowledge about the Union, as also in the Member States at present.
Is there not good cause for the Council too to encourage a drastic improvement in information on the European Union in the applicant countries?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Mulder">
Mr President, first of all I should like to express my appreciation to the German Presidency for taking the trouble to come here this afternoon in order to explain how far negotiations have progressed.
I am pleased that Mr Verheugen has said that everything is on the table during these negotiations.
I should like to stress that fair burden-sharing is one of the important points in this whole negotiating process, and I believe that this must not be ignored when we talk about support for Europe.
<P>
Over recent weeks Parliament has voted on the main points of Agenda 2000.
We voted on structural policy and on agricultural policy.
If my calculations are correct we are planning to spend considerably more than what I read at present in newspaper reports on the Agenda 2000 negotiations.
I believe there is a danger here that we will not reach agreement on the financial perspectives.
If my knowledge of the rules is correct 314 votes are needed, and when I saw the voting pattern on the main points here in Parliament we seemed to be very divided.
I would also warn against assuming in advance that if there is agreement in the Council on drastic spending cuts, Parliament will automatically approve them.
I fear this is not so.
We would then fall back on Article 203, which would mean that we would be spending considerably more than the Finance Ministers generally want to see or consider desirable in relation to the launch of the euro and so on.
<P>
I am a member of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and I should also like to say something about agriculture.
I would warn against the general view that everything spent on agriculture is a waste of money.
I am not just saying this because of this morning's demonstration here in Strasbourg.
Too often I hear that half of the European budget goes to 3 % of the population and so on.
I believe we must see this in relation to all tax revenue.
When I look at the tax burden in Europe, approximately 50 % of the gross national product, my calculations tell me that approximately 2 % goes to 5 % of the population.
That is certainly not excessive.
We must of course always ensure that money is not wasted.
We must have no more surpluses and keep production within limits.
But we need to keep agricultural management in Europe basically as it is, and I think the German Presidency would do well to try to achieve this..
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="Pasty">
Mr President-in-Office, you have just said that there would be neither winners nor losers in the general agreement that you hope to develop between now and the Berlin summit.
<P>
We saw today that there were many French and German tractors in Strasbourg.
If my information is correct, there will also be many tractors on 22 February in Brussels and these will come from all over the European Union.
<P>
We understand the farmers' concerns.
The common agricultural policy is the European Union's main common policy.
They are worried because they cannot subscribe to the Commission's proposals.
Moreover, I am very surprised that Mr Fischler is not on the Commission bench, while two other Commissioners concerned with the Agenda 2000 package are present.
The Commission's proposals are going to bring a drop in prices that will not be fully compensated, but if my information is correct, the Council would favour more moderate reductions in prices but with a reduction in compensatory aid.
<P>
I would therefore like you to explain how, when agricultural revenue fell by almost 4 % throughout the European Union in 1998, you will ensure that there are no losers among farmers when the final package is presented.
I would like to know what the Council's current thoughts are on this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Miranda">
Mr President, I should like to begin by saying that we obviously all agree that reaching agreement on such an important matter as this should not be put off indefinitely.
But I would also say that a good agreement is better than agreement at any price, we should not seek just any agreement but rather a good one, especially since it will remain in force for seven years.
<P>
I must also refer to an underlying problem in this area: both in the original Commission proposal and in the proposals that have been discussed in the Council, we have noted the same thing: a lowering of own resources from 1.27 % to 1.13 % in the case of the Commission proposal - entirely to the detriment of the structural funds and actions.
How can that be acceptable?
<P>
I should therefore like to ask the Council how it can reconcile this situation with the fundamental principle of economic and social cohesion enshrined in the Treaties.
And what can you tell us about own resources, Mr President-in-Office?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="Nicholson">
Mr President, I welcome the President-in-Office here this afternoon.
Could he tell us, firstly, what pressure he is under from the Finance Ministers to bring about a deal within the financial limits they require?
Will he be able in the longer term to bring about a deal under which the European Union will be able to finance the extra support that is required because of the cuts in prices?
Is it not time to face up to reality and accept that this reform as proposed will not work?
It will be more expensive to the budget and the consumer will not get any benefit.
The processors and the retailers will eat it all up.
<P>
We saw the demonstration here today and know that agriculture throughout Europe is in a serious state.
My problem is that when I go back to my farmers and tell them of 30 % cuts in beef and 15 % cuts in milk they do not understand.
Nor do they want to understand it.
The most recent statistics indicate a 57 % fall in income in my region during 1998.
This is on top of other serious falls in 1996 and 1997.
<P>
Turning to the regional aspect, I understand that yesterday in Bonn the President-in-Office met my party leader, David Trimble, First Minister Designate from the Northern Ireland Assembly.
I understand that during that time you had discussions with him on support for Northern Ireland under Objective 1 and our position in the future.
As you will know, politics in Northern Ireland is at a very delicate stage at this moment in time.
Could you tell us if you were able to reassure him, that the Council will be supportive to Northern Ireland in the future?
The fact remains that if the Republic of Ireland and border counties achieve Objective 1 status and Northern Ireland does not, that will be unacceptable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, the meeting of the ECOFIN Council of 8 February marked the collapse of negotiations on Agenda 2000.
A joint text setting out the financial framework is vital to enable finance ministers to allow their opposite numbers in the agriculture ministries to implement the long-debated reform of the common agricultural policy, but there was no consensus.
The German minister, Mr Lafontaine, went too far and, instead of confining himself to the subject of agricultural spending, structural spending and own resources, sought to widen the debate. The result was disagreement and, in effect, a decision to stabilise spending for the period 2000-2006.
<P>
The countries in favour of freezing agricultural spending lined up with the position of the German Presidency, leaving the question of the CAP worryingly unresolved, while outside the Chamber the farmers' anger is becoming a genuine cause for concern, especially as the next few days will see demonstrators from all over Europe joining those who are here today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 NAME="Barón Crespo">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, I would like to ask four specific questions.
Firstly, are you working on the basis of the Commission's proposal or on the information provided by the Austrian Presidency?
Secondly, given that the Union's main objectives are to strengthen the euro and create employment, what resources are being set aside for these in the financial perspective?
Thirdly, as regards the fair distribution of payments, how are you going to remedy the fact that under the agricultural policy, 20 % of farmers receive 80 %of the funds?
And finally, as regards enlargement, do you plan to divide up the budget in the areas of agriculture and the Structural Funds in particular, and, if enlargement does not fit in with the Cohesion Fund, to separate regional funding too?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Hatzidakis">
Mr President, I too have noticed that there has been a delay in negotiations in the Council.
If you were to continue at this rate, Mr President-in-Office - and I do not want to level criticism at you personally or at the German Presidency - you are not going to be able to stick to the timetable that you yourself have set.
It is clear that, unlike the Council, the European Parliament after painstaking debate has been able to adopt coherent positions on the issues arising under Agenda 2000.
<P>
Back in November last year, Parliament set out its priorities regarding the general framework regulation. Perhaps I may be allowed to mention a few of them.
<P>
Firstly, we said that 0.46 % of Community GDP should be made available for structural actions.
I understand the pressure that is exerted by public opinion in the richer Member States. However, we must not forget that the EU budget, despite all the ambitious targets it sets, is currently equivalent to that of Spain.
<P>
Secondly, we said that exactly, and not approximately, two thirds of Objective 1 resources should be made available, and that we must stick to the criteria defined by the Commission for including regions under Objective 1, one of which states that only those regions with a per capita GDP which is less than 75 % of Community GDP can be included.
<P>
Thirdly, we said that priority status should be given to Interreg, and that there should be a special part relating to cooperation with islands and among island regions.
<P>
Fourthly, we opposed the efficiency performance reserve, as originally proposed by the Commission.
Proposals for a smaller reserve of 4 % with national top-ups are a move in the right direction.
<P>
I also want to make two points in connection with the Cohesion Fund.
Firstly, Mr President-in-Office, I think that we must respect the Treaty, which provides that Member States with less than 90 % of Community GDP must participate in the Cohesion Fund. Secondly, I would like you to tell me to what extent the positions of Parliament will be taken into consideration, as it is obvious that the European Parliament is not prepared to budge from these positions.
Of course, we will discuss and negotiate, but we cannot adopt stances which are completely out of line with these priorities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="Carnero González">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, I do not know if the Presidency-in-Office is fully aware of the fact that large sectors of European public opinion currently think of Agenda 2000 as a threat rather than as a necessity or an opportunity.
Nor do I know if the Presidency-in-Office is aware that this is largely due to the way in which Austria, and now Germany, are approaching this issue.
In my view, they are putting an overly unilateral slant on the work and giving too much consideration to the pressure of public opinion within their own countries, rather than taking an overall view of the European Union as they should do.
<P>
Clearly, the basic problem, in my view, lies in the fact that the ceiling for own resources is insufficient.
However, it is also true, of course, that the debate has concentrated on expenditure and forgotten about revenue.
There is no doubt that we need an agreement that not only guarantees but also develops the principle of social and economic cohesion, together with the relevant instruments.
We also need to have a proper debate not so much on how to reduce those instruments, but on how to increase the contributions from all the Member States fairly.
For example, what is the Presidency's view of the proposal to include the criterion of relative prosperity in the chapter on revenue?
Does the Presidency agree with the French proposal for some form of aggressive measures for the Cohesion Fund, which to my mind would be unacceptable?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, I have two questions for the Council.
The first concerns the pre-accession aids.
Pre-accession aids are to be coordinated in the PHARE committee without, as it seems now, the presence of the applicant countries themselves.
To what extent can this kind of pre-accession strategy be described as being based on partnership?
<P>
My second question to the Council concerns the regional policy/Structural Fund component in the EU.
How much importance does the Council assign to the principles of partnership in the Structural Fund regulation, especially the participation of the environmental partners, the participation of the environmental NGOs, the participation of representatives of equal opportunities for women and of the social partners?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Walter">
Mr President-in-Office, we discovered yesterday evening that we agree to a very wide extent on the pre-accession funds.
Even though the Austrian Presidency already achieved a consensus, that is to say a consensus was already reached during the Austrian Presidency, I do of course have to ask again how far you can still take Parliament's decisions into consideration.
We saw positive steps in that direction yesterday, but I believe you should clarify once again whether there is in fact still any chance of movement here.
<P>
Let me also say a few words on the Structural Funds.
The current debate that centres on the need to stabilise expenditure and ensure fair burden-sharing is certainly right, but we in the European Union have another task before us which must always be given due consideration: it is the question of job creation.
Here I will take up the cudgels for the Structural Funds and for maintaining these policies as far as possible.
Structural aid is targeted at forward-looking development models and economic sectors which have the potential to create new employment opportunities.
Is the Council aware that we must set this as a priority?
Fighting unemployment and creating jobs is in fact the top priority, and this is reflected in Agenda 2000 too, where it is very strongly emphasised.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Arias Cañete">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioners, the President-in-Office said that the choice of Berlin as the seat of the European Council is a symbol of how important the Presidency believes it is to bring Agenda 2000 to a conclusion in time to allow this Parliament to complete its legislative procedures before the European elections.
<P>
He pointed out that the final agreement should not have any winners or losers and that Europe must be the only winner.
We agree with that.
But he also said that at this stage there will be no additional budgetary resources, and he stressed, in particular, that the budgetary burden should be more fairly distributed.
<P>
Up to now, Mr President-in-Office, none of the proposals that the Presidency has put forward in the Community institutions, be they in official documents or in 'non-papers', appear to look for a compromise to ensure that this burden is fairly distributed between all those involved. Instead, they only appear to consider the decision to reduce Community expenditure, which is beyond any logical justification.
<P>
With all due respect, you are planning a reduction in agricultural expenditure of almost EUR 41 770 million - almost EUR 6 000 m per year - and a reduction in Category 2 expenditure of EUR 47 000 m - almost EUR 6 714 m per year - without any justification, in the light of Commission reports on cohesion. This does not seem to reflect a compromise that has no winners or losers.
On the contrary, there clearly are losers: the cohesion countries who will have to bear the burden of enlargement.
<P>
I would therefore like to ask the German Presidency the following question: when is the Presidency going to put forward truly balanced proposals for a compromise in which all the Member States will participate, with each country naturally prepared to make allowances that might enable us to reach an agreement when necessary?
<P>
Up to now, Mr President-in-Office, there has been little progress in the informal negotiations between Parliament and the Council. Parliament merely sets out its views and the Council takes note of them.
<P>
We were in the same situation with the Austrian Presidency, and we have very little time left now to conclude important agreements.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="Colom i Naval">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, allow me to link the beginning of your speech with the end.
You said that the main priority was Agenda 2000 and ensuring that it reached a conclusion on time, while, at the same time, you said that you hoped for our cooperation.
<P>
I think you should have added something there.
It is not that you hope for our cooperation, but that you need it.
The financial perspective forms part of the Interinstitutional Agreement and, by its very definition, the Interinstitutional Agreement is an agreement between institutions.
Therefore, it is not enough for you to reach an agreement with the members of the Council. You must put forward a proposal that Parliament is satisfied with, and, as Mr Mulder pointed out, it will require 314 votes to be approved.
<P>
What proposals can you put forward that might satisfy us?
Have you already considered some kind of flexibility mechanism or would you prefer us to apply Article 203?
<P>
You cannot call for more Europe in every way and more policies, try to combat unemployment and proceed with enlargement while providing less funds to do so.
I think that a clear proposal is needed here. And in conclusion, I would like to ask whether we are soon going to see signs that social democrats are in the majority in the Council?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Goepel">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, except for the fact that you once used the term Agriculture Council you have actually succeeded in speaking for 10 minutes without even once really mentioning the reform of agricultural policy; as the agricultural spokesman for my group I do feel a little hurt.
But I will probably manage to stop myself from asking you your views on voluntary set-aside since you will certainly not be able to answer that question.
<P>
But there is one thing I would like to know.
I understand from a major German newspaper that as from the year 2002 for field crops, 2004 for beef and 2005 for milk products, the respective compensatory payments will be reduced cumulatively by 3 % a year and that the intention is to reuse only 25 % of these cuts for special agricultural measures, which means that 75 % goes back into the EU budget.
Let me ask you quite plainly: if this 75 % of aid is removed again, then as I see it that will lead to a spectacular increase in the net contributor position of some states.
That in turn will produce a further redistribution at the cost of those who already pay a large amount into the EU and get far less back.
I would be grateful if a little more could be said about this issue, at least in relation to Agenda 2000, since it does after all have something to do with agricultural policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jöns">
Mr President, we already had an opportunity yesterday to exchange views with the presidency of the Council on Parliament's demands in relation to the Social Fund.
But who could know better than you, Mr President-in-Office, that political demands can only succeed if they are repeated again and again?
Yesterday you announced that the German Presidency of the Council felt great sympathy for our concerns.
Yet I would like to formally ask you again today whether the German Presidency of the Council is also prepared, where necessary, to actually firmly support these demands in the Council, namely the demands that in future 15 % of Social Fund money is allocated to preventive labour market policies and specific aid measures for women, that people who are already marginalised socially are given an opportunity to work through the Social Fund, that the Member States assume obligations in all five intervention areas and that the target groups are designated centrally, and finally that in future 1 % of Social Fund resources for global subsidies is earmarked for local projects.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="Izquierdo Collado">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, we are aware that this is an important time: we are planning for the next seven years before the beginning of enlargement, which will transform so many things.
The atmosphere surrounding the negotiations does not seem to be particularly optimistic. Instead, there is a vague but nonetheless real feeling of renationalisation.
<P>
I only want to make a brief comment on the structural policies.
You said that you believe that solidarity is a key ingredient of the European Union.
Solidarity in structural terms is not something that is easily achieved, but it is something that is, in fact, required by the single market.
<P>
Will funding continue to be allocated to the structural policies?
Will the Cohesion Fund be maintained?
Are you going to accept the budgetary level of EUR 270 000 million proposed by the Commission, which many Members here consider to be a minimum?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I hope that you will reply to three questions.
The Commission is proposing, with Parliament's support, that the current Objective 6 regions be incorporated in a new Objective 1 region.
There are excellent grounds for this, as the northern geographical situation, with its long distances and the fact that it is so far away from European centres, puts the Objective 6 regions in a much weaker position than many others.
What progress has been made on this in the Council?
<P>
There has been much forceful discussion on the issue of employment, not least during the German Presidency; how is this matter viewed in talks on structural policy?
Will greater importance be attached to the issue of employment in the Objectives 1 and 3 criteria?
<P>
Border area cooperation is often regarded merely as cooperation which is linked to borders.
Is cross-border inter-regional cooperation now to be developed, with border areas being seen as a broader cooperation issue?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would be happy to answer the questions.
I have noted down 83 questions.
Do I have 83 minutes' speaking time?
No.
So I will have to try to summarise the main subject areas and give combined answers.
<P>
First, all the questions relating to supposed results are pointless.
So far there are none except for the two I mentioned.
There is agreement on the efficiency reserve and there is agreement on the question of the consistency of national aid regions and EU aid regions.
But these two agreements are also conditional on an overall agreement being reached.
Let me tell you at the outset: before the European Council meeting in Berlin there will be no advance agreements on any of the questions you have raised here, simply because the global package has to be made up of many, many components, components that will bring the individual Member States advantages and disadvantages.
The Member States' assent is bound to depend on the overall balance the package produces for each Member State.
<P>
We are talking about a lot of money for the individual states.
Unfortunately, the political majorities in the Council play no part at all here.
During the deliberations each country naturally looks to the needs and interests of its own people and tries to reconcile them with our common European objectives.
I am not counting on us being able to obtain advance results on important individual issues before Berlin because the global package has to balance out the different interests.
Most of the questions in fact suggested that agreement or plans already exist on these issues.
<P>
Nor has the German Presidency made any compromise proposal at all at this stage.
After all, our duty as the presidency is not to put all our efforts into pushing through the German point of view; our duty as the presidency is first of all to sound out where the broad lines of a compromise are emerging and then, when the time is ripe, to propose that compromise.
And that is what we will do.
But at present we are still trying to narrow the options.
I gave you a few examples of areas where we can already see majorities and perhaps also consensus beginning to emerge.
But this process is not complete yet on any single important issue.
<P>
One Member of this Parliament referred to public opinion in the Member States.
That is something I take very seriously and which the German Presidency also takes very seriously.
Let me just point out to you that public opinion in Europe is not united on these questions.
I am well aware of public opinion in Spain.
But public opinion in Germany, for example, is quite the opposite of what it is in Spain.
The same applies elsewhere.
So there is no point in telling the presidency about public opinion in a particular country.
We have to concentrate on finding a solution that is acceptable to all and consistent with our European objectives.
Let me confirm quite specifically that one of the objectives of Agenda 2000 - and we treat it as such - is to concentrate available European resources more emphatically on the objective of combating unemployment.
That is one of the key objectives of the whole operation.
The people of Europe see unemployment as the main challenge and expect us to do everything possible to combat it effectively.
Agenda 2000 can make a major contribution towards that.
<P>
I also confirm specifically that the Agenda is directly linked to the question of enlargement.
I do not believe that the question of dates is really important at this moment.
In any case there has never been a fixed date for the enlargement process.
Neither the Council nor Parliament, nor the Commission, nor the applicant states ever fixed a date.
Agenda 2000 also establishes the preconditions for enlargement.
If we do not manage to conclude the Agenda by March, that will send out a discouraging signal to the applicant countries.
That is another reason why it is so important for us to conclude the Agenda in good time.
<P>
In view of the conditions under which Parliament is meeting today, with farmers and tractors outside on the street, let me point out that agricultural policy forms one component of the global package.
It is not a question of agricultural policy alone.
That policy is a component of it in terms of financial volume, and given the structure of our budgets it is of course the biggest component.
A large majority of Member States are convinced that agricultural policy must also play its part in achieving the overall result, which is to say it must also be reformed, firstly in relation to compatibility with the WTO competition rules and, secondly, in relation to the financing of the European Union after enlargement.
<P>
Since the specific question was asked, let me also say quite clearly that the objective of a European agricultural policy cannot and must not be to jeopardise or even destroy farming.
On the contrary, the objective of European agricultural policy must be to preserve farming in all the European regions for the future.
The presidency for its part is convinced that the proposals that are under discussion - after all we are still only at the discussion stage - do not tend in a direction that would allow us to say that farming no longer has a future in Europe.
<P>
I can understand that you would like to be able to discuss concrete agreements now.
But that is not possible because, given the negotiating process that is under way, the global package will in fact not be tied up until March.
In cooperation between the presidency and Parliament we opted for a procedure that is now gathering momentum rapidly.
We are meeting more and more often and are also discussing more and more subjects.
We are fully aware that we need Parliament's assent.
During the discussions in various forums the presidency does indeed point out that when the various national positions are put forward, account must be taken of the European Parliament's opinion.
However, I must admit that some Member States take this more seriously than others.
And some people seem to think we can just leave it to the presidency to decide how it will then persuade the European Parliament to agree to the results of the special summit.
<P>
In any case we are endeavouring to incorporate as many as possible of Parliament's views in the results of the summit.
That is why I am grateful for all the ideas put forward in this debate in the form of questions.
Let me assure you that we will take account of all these ideas, comments and recommendations in our deliberations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 NAME="Teverson">
Mr President, on a point of order.
As a Member of Parliament who has sat through this question-and-answer session, I find it particularly unsatisfactory that, after a lot of statements, the President-in-Office has, in the end, such a short period of time in which to answer about 83 questions.
<P>
A much better way to hold this sort of debate, which is vital, is to inject some life into it and apply the Brussels format we use to question the Commission on occasion.
At present, it really does not work!
This is a vital subject for European citizens.
This has been a dead debate, where few Members have been able to ask questions, but even fewer have received answers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="President">
I shall bring your comments to the attention of the Bureau, Mr Teverson.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Situation in Kosovo
<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="President">
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the situation in Kosovo.
<P>
I give the floor to the President-in-Office of the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the contrast could hardly be more glaring. While you, ladies and gentlemen, are discussing how the Member States of the European Union can live together more unitedly under a common European roof, a few hundred kilometres away, in Rambouillet, the issue being discussed is whether they can live together under any kind of common roof.
That shows the strategic challenge Kosovo represents for the Union.
<P>
Here we have the single market and the dismantling of borders, there a policy that still regards national borders as a means of fencing oneself off, as a shield.
In line with good diplomatic practice, it was agreed that the Rambouillet negotiations would be confidential.
They are to be held between the parties concerned and not publicly.
So I know no more about them than you, who are well-informed politicians.
That is why at this point I have to confine myself to informing you that as expected the negotiations are proving difficult, that so far both sides are giving no ground at all and that the mediators are currently concentrating on identifying any common areas over and above the differences.
<P>
Moreover, progress reports on this kind of negotiations can be very misleading, for the truth is that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.
The European Union has a key role to play in the search for peace.
With his preliminary work in Pristina and Belgrade, the EU special envoy, Mr Petritsch, made a crucial contribution to enabling these negotiations to take place at all.
He is now conducting the negotiations in Rambouillet together with his American colleague Mr Hill and his Russian colleague Mr Mayorski.
That is a great challenge and one in which Mr Petritsch deserves our full support.
<P>
Incidentally, the fact that the negotiations are being conducted jointly by an American, a Russian and a European shows that the European Union has now acquired a certain ability to act in the field of foreign policy too.
We have certainly not reached our goal, but at least we are on the right road.
<P>
The European Union reacted to the conflict in Kosovo at an early stage.
Since spring last year it has gradually established a differentiated system of sanctions in response to the brutal use of force by the Serbian security forces.
At the same time it has allocated a substantial volume of humanitarian aid, amounting of over ECU 45 million in 1998 alone.
The EU has supported the independent media to counter the propaganda from both sides.
It has also provided aid for democratisation and the development of a civil society in Kosovo.
<P>
Our political objective was always the same: far-reaching self-government for Kosovo together with maintenance of the territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and effective protection of all minority rights.
At its last meeting on 25 January 1999 the General Affairs Council again confirmed the European Union's position.
Let me briefly repeat the key points.
<P>
One: the European Union is seeking a political solution.
The use of force, by whichever side, only exacerbates the conflict and inflicts even greater suffering and misery on the people.
<P>
Two: in this context the European Union supports the political solution proposed by the Contact Group, which forms the basis of the negotiations in Rambouillet.
<P>
Three: the European Union is calling on Belgrade to fulfil in full the undertakings it gave to the OSCE and NATO and to comply with the demands of the UN Security Council.
<P>
Four: the perpetrators of the Racak massacre cannot go unpunished.
Their names must be transmitted to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.
<P>
Five: the European Union calls on the Kosovo Albanians to fulfil their commitments vis--vis the UN Security Council in full. It condemns KLA provocations that give added impetus to the spiral of violence.
<P>
Six: the European Union supports the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission, which has developed into an important stabilising factor, regardless of all the difficulties it faces, and emphasises that President Milosevic has assumed responsibility for the safety of the mission personnel.
<P>
Seven: the European Union is prepared to make its contribution to implementing a negotiated settlement.
That applies also and in particular to reconstruction.
<P>
Eight: the people of Kosovo must know that the European Union is prepared to help them along the road to peace.
<P>
On 25 January 1999 the General Affairs Council extended the mandate of the former Spanish Prime Minister Felipe González as EU Special Representative for the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia until January 2000.
I want to thank Mr González for his willingness to continue with this difficult job.
At the same time I call on the Belgrade leadership to cooperate with Mr González and to make full use of the opportunities this offers it in relation to the European Union.
<P>
Peace and stability in Europe not only demand a successful negotiated settlement in Rambouillet, although that is of course the conditio sine qua non ; peace and stability in Europe also mean that we must regard the conflicts and problems in the former Yugoslavia as a challenge to which we have to find the right, which means the European, answer.
<P>
We must strengthen the democratic, pluralist elements in the societies concerned.
We must promote and develop regional cooperation.
We must establish cooperation and pre-accession structures that match up to these countries' European vocation.
Above all, of course, we must establish peace in this region and show how the people of this region can coexist.
The European Union offers its support to that end.
However, the responsibility for this lies with the warring parties.
They must realise that nothing is to be gained through force whereas much is to be lost and that there is no realistic alternative to finding a compromise solution at the negotiating table in Rambouillet.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office.
<P>
I now give the floor to Mr van den Broek for the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, naturally the European Commission is also pleased that the parties have acted in response to the urgent call to begin peace negotiations in Rambouillet.
Many more efforts will be made to reach an agreement, the presence of the Serbs and Kosovo Albanians in Rambouillet being seen as a sign that they are ready in principle to find a solution.
Pressure must however remain at a maximum if an acceptable and workable result is to be achieved.
As you will know, Foreign Ministers Robin Cook and Hubert Védrine regularly attend in order to help keep the momentum of the negotiations going.
<P>
The European Commission is also represented in Rambouillet and is contributing to negotiations on the economic and reconstruction aspects of the draft agreement.
Next weekend there will probably be a further meeting of the Contact Group at ministerial level.
The aim will be to appraise the results to date and to discuss what points require extra effort or attention.
<P>
For its part, the European Commission is making the necessary preparations for its contribution to the process of reconstruction following a possible agreement.
In December and January a so-called 'damage assessment' was carried out on the Commission's initiative, looking at the damage to houses and the basic infrastructure, although it was not possible to visit all the areas because of the fighting.
Rough estimates currently put the number of homes damaged to some extent at about 30 000. Initial calculations estimate that it will take EUR 330 million to repair them.
<P>
The Commission is planning to hold an international donors conference shortly after a peace agreement is reached.
But of course neither this nor reconstruction are possible until there is an agreement and a clear will by the parties involved to live together in peace.
<P>
Given this necessary conditionality, the actual reconstruction work can of course only begin when the security situation in the field permits.
It is encouraging to see the growing consensus among the Member States and other countries to support a possible agreement with an international force on the spot.
That will help further guarantee the reconstruction work.
<P>
The most important objective of the reconstruction work is of course to allow the thousands of displaced persons and refugees to return to their original homes.
The financial resources made available by the Union for this year are limited.
It will certainly be possible to make a start on reconstruction, but the budget lines available for this, which is in fact the budget line for the reconstruction of the former Yugoslavia, is also needed to pay for the reconstruction of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
<P>
The Commission will return to these matters as soon as we know what the international contribution to the reconstruction work is to be and the time-frame involved.
Humanitarian aid through ECHO, to which the President-in-Office of the Council has already referred, will be granted in the meantime.
We also want the European Union's activities to be very visible, which is only possible by coordinating and presenting all our activities as effectively as possible.
To this end, the Commission's presence in Belgrade and soon also in Pristina must be increased and assured.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
I have received seven motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, on behalf of my group I certainly support the statements by both the President-in-Office of the Council and the Commissioner.
I believe I may say without any arrogance but with a certain pride that it was my group that kept pointing out that we need both: the offer of talks and the threat of force.
Some people, here in this House too, wanted us to use force sooner; but that would have been wrong.
As is becoming clear, there is still a possibility of achieving what is - I hope - our common aim through talks and mediation.
I do not exclude the possibility of failure, as at any conference, which would then make it all the more necessary to use force.
But the opportunity that now exists really must be used to the full.
<P>
The President-in-Office of the Council named names.
I am glad that a European representative is playing a prominent role.
And I take a personal pride here, for before becoming ambassador in Belgrade Wolfgang Petritsch was a colleague of mine and he really is doing a splendid job here, which is much appreciated.
But I am concerned not with personalities but with the matter itself.
And that is the importance of having a European Union representative playing the most prominent part here.
<P>
Secondly, I consider it just as important that not only the Americans but the Russians too are involved.
People often disregard the fact that we also need to remind Russia and the Russian Government of their responsibility for this continent.
Given that it does have that responsibility, Russia must play its part in finding the solution, to ensure that it is a lasting solution.
<P>
On behalf of my group let me also repeat that we are against borders being forcibly redrawn in today's Europe.
If any changes are to be made, they can only be made on the basis of a final consensus, not by force, not unilaterally.
If necessary, troops will have to be deployed, as the Commissioner said, to ensure longer-term security.
I have no illusions about a solution being found overnight and I would ask everyone in this House to remember that it is not just Kosovo that is under threat now, but that the entire region will be under threat unless we find a sensible solution: FYROM, and Albania too.
It is most important for the European Union to urge Albania in particular to listen to the voice of reason and the voice of consensus.
It is important to have Albania as a whole on our side, not a divided and divisive Albania, if we are to achieve a common solution here.
In that sense I fully endorse the statements by the President-in-Office and the Commissioner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my dear Mr Verheugen, we did nothing about Kosovo in the early days.
We have known what is happening in Kosovo since 1989.
We took no notice; we only took notice when we ourselves triggered the KLA movement.
Those are the facts and anyone who denies them has not been watching the story unfold.
<P>
Today we applaud ourselves and pat ourselves on the back for providing so much funding, which we would never have had to provide had everything not been destroyed, had the West intervened sooner.
Our group also supports the Rambouillet negotiations.
And I am glad the Europeans are playing a more important role, but as always, of course, they are too late.
I hope they are not entirely too late, but I believe we should realise that we could have made an earlier start, for instance last October.
Many people would not have died in Racak and elsewhere if we had done in October what we are doing now.
<P>
NATO's threat of air strikes must be credibly maintained.
Here I am addressing some Members of this House who are against this.
With the unconstitutional destruction of the autonomous status of Kosovo in 1989 Milosevic set in motion the disintegration of Yugoslavia as a whole, after which he stirred up nationalist resentment with his Kosovo propaganda.
He is now facing the end of his pointless policy of violence against the Kosovo Albanians and will try to extend the 15-day deadline by any means possible.
He does not and cannot want a solution to the Kosovo conflict forced upon him by the West.
For then he would lose all international significance and would finally have to govern his people.
And then his political mediocrity and incompetence would very soon become apparent.
<P>
The long-overdue prosecution in The Hague would then also become inevitable and our countries would have to produce the evidence in their possession.
So the NATO threat is indispensable.
Should an interim solution be found in Rambouillet, as we hope it will, it would have to be safeguarded by ground forces to protect the Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo.
But even if no solution is found, air strikes alone cannot secure our objectives.
We will need ground forces then too.
We are all hoping to see results, but at the same time we expect the West and NATO to show their steadfast resolve, otherwise we will bear responsibility for throwing away this last chance!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cars">
<SPEAKER ID=171 NAME="Carnero González">
Mr President, I think that this is the time for hope, hope that the negotiations in Rambouillet lead to positive results.
<P>
Parliament has often called for effective international action on Kosovo. Unfortunately, it has come too late for those who have already died, those who have lost their homes and their belongings, and those who have become refugees.
<P>
Nevertheless, we must support the efforts made and the substance of the plan proposed by the Contact Group.
If we do not want these problems to spill over into other countries, the solution to the conflict must undoubtedly allow Kosovo to enjoy broad autonomy within internationally recognised frontiers.
This is the first thing that must be done.
<P>
I think that three very clear points must be taken into consideration.
The first is that we must continue to exert pressure on the parties involved to persuade them to reject the use of violence as a means of achieving their objectives.
<P>
Secondly, if NATO is going to carry out military operations, the international High Representative should clearly be European, as is the case in Bosnia where excellent results have been achieved.
<P>
Thirdly, as Felipe González has pointed out on many occasions, we must not forget that President Milosevic and the absence of democracy in Serbia are the main causes of these conflicts. If we do not get rid of them, further conflicts are bound to arise in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is true that the European Union has acted with too little effect and too late.
But the difficulty is and remains that if the Council is divided no unanimous action is possible.
Parliament was also divided in its opinions.
So let us not condemn others when we are facing the same difficulties ourselves.
I believe it is a good start that work is now being done towards a political solution.
The whole question is whether or not the present offer of extensive autonomy - comparable to that of Montenegro - will be sufficiently convincing for the Albanians after all that has happened and after the radicalisation which has taken place within the various movements there.
<P>
My question remains: what about the big stick?
There is always agreement that pressure must be kept up, and I share that view, but how can we apply pressure on the KLA to honour its commitments?
It is not only the Serbs who fail to keep their promises.
The KLA is also guilty of this, as we have seen.
We therefore believe that a solution must be sought in a common approach to the whole of the southern region of eastern Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
<SPEAKER ID=174 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Parigi">
Mr President, history teaches us that it is hard to tell who is good or bad or cruel or kind in the Balkans.
Likewise, historical accuracy requires us to recognise that, for the Serbs, Kosovo is their original homeland, just as Israel is for the Israelis.
If anyone wonders why intervention in the Kosovan tragedy has come so late, I would cynically suggest that it probably suits some people to destroy and then rebuild.
<P>
All the same, we welcome the attempt to resolve the conflict through diplomatic negotiation guaranteed by the international institutions. Yet we cannot deny that the European Union's role is too weak and it hardly amounts to a common foreign policy when some Member States take a view of the Balkan question which is the complete opposite of the position of other Member States, including their view of history.
<P>
The complex Balkan question has its roots deep in time, in the history of these people, and in their traditions and cultures.
There is one incontrovertible fact which must never be forgotten in trying to find a way out of the present tragic situation. The integration of the two civilisations - Muslim and Orthodox - is becoming impossible because the nature of each is so strong and the two cultures so diverse.
So the aim must be coexistence. That is becoming vital unless we want to see the current conflict perpetuated - and where there is conflict there is also violence, ethnic cleansing, genocide, abuses and violations of human rights.
<P>
Europe can no longer tolerate such an explosive situation, rooted more in ethnic than geopolitical considerations, continuing to develop on its doorstep.
That is why we believe that coexistence, respecting the different values and cultures, must be the goal.
This kind of conflict cannot be resolved by war, nor can the Belgrade Government restore peace to the region by arming the police.
But the Kosovans cannot be allowed to use the profits from drug-dealing to buy arms to perpetuate the war.
<P>
Uprooting people from their land and the land of their fathers, where their identity is rooted, will always be a source of new tragedies and future conflict.
The best way to ensure peace is to find means of making coexistence possible, with guarantees for both parties.
So we think the most appropriate political and institutional solution would be the widest possible autonomy for Kosovo within a constitutional framework which guarantees it, backed by the international institutions and the European Union.
In turn, Europe can and must contribute to economic development in the region and become, both for the Serbian people and for the people of Kosovo, a reference point for a peaceful and balanced Federation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wiersma">
Mr President, despite the intensive effort by the international community, acts of violence remain the rule in Kosovo.
The OSCE observer mission is not having the desired effect.
The dreadful massacre in Racak on 15 January marked a new low point in the conflict between the Kosovo Albanians and the Serbs, and it ended the uneasy cease-fire which was imposed in November.
It is not only the Serbian forces but also the KLA, which is proving increasingly effective in its guerrilla tactics, which are responsible for this daily violence.
As a result, several thousand people have again been forced to flee their homes.
There is and was good cause for the international community to be more active in its intervention.
Brutal violence, the ethnic cleansing of the civilian population and the destabilisation of Yugoslavia must be stopped.
Those who commit all these crimes must also be brought to justice.
<P>
My group strongly supports the Contact Group and the proposed draft peace plan, with a transition period in order to establish substantial autonomy for the Kosovo region. This is a precondition which my group has always supported.
The talks in Rambouillet are a final attempt to arrive at a workable solution without military action by NATO.
Parliament also therefore supports NATO's preparations for intervention as a way of applying pressure in order to ensure a successful outcome to the negotiations.
<P>
I would add that it is also important for us to prepare to send troops as part of the implementation of any agreement.
During the talks pressure is being applied to the Serbs and to the Kosovo Albanians to agree on a solution to the conflict.
In order to prevent the Rambouillet talks from playing into the hands of the KLA, it has quite rightly been made clear to the Kosovo Albanians that the only way of having a NATO peacekeeping force in the area is for them to make genuine efforts to reach complete agreement with the Serbs on interim autonomy for Kosovo within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
<P>
It was in March last year that the conflict broke out in full force.
That is nearly a year ago.
It is time all the parties to the conflict reached agreement.
We therefore also call on the European Union and its Member States to play a clear and active role in ending this conflict.
We should like to express our support for the action of the British and French Governments and also express our appreciation for the efforts of the German Presidency.
<P>
As the European Union we are taking the lead.
Let us continue to do so.
I say again: this is not about Kosovo's past but its future, and the future of the people who live there.
It is not a question of being right but of being put in the right.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bianco">
Mr President-in-Office, there is no question of breaking the confidentiality of the Rambouillet meeting, the negotiations were obviously secret. But perhaps you could tell us a bit more because, having heard that a start has been made but it is an uphill task and there are difficult issues, we do still need to know that, if Rambouillet fails, there is a fall-back plan for resolving the problem and dealing with the aftermath.
As has been said, we cannot rely solely on the parties involved acting responsibly; that would mean Europe's policy had failed again.
<P>
The Commissioner mentioned the idea of a peace-keeping force possibly being stationed in the area. But the broader and more important question the German Presidency needs to confront is the creation, at last, of a general framework for the whole of the former Yugoslavia.
Fires are being lit even now in Macedonia.
The newspapers say nationalist tension is breaking out again in Brisco between Muslims and Serbs, and the situation is heating up. The European Union as a whole needs to succeed in implementing a policy across the whole area.
<P>
What guidelines are there, beyond mere emergency intervention, beyond mere stopgap solutions to a difficult situation?
What general guidelines does the European Union intend to pursue to establish a genuine peace process for the whole area?
That is the question, and we hope that Germany will be in a position to launch the debate on this issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Manisco">
Mr President, like Mr Bianco we too would have preferred to have had answers from the Minister and the Commissioner to the questions raised and the reservations expressed by many people about the opening of these negotiations.
<P>
Naturally, everyone in this Chamber hopes Rambouillet will succeed in defusing the Kosovo time-bomb, but plenty of people in this same Chamber can see in the political-military approach some alarmingly counter-productive factors liable to make that bomb explode, with an inevitable chain reaction of associated flare-ups.
<P>
The threat of military intervention - assuming it can make either party to the conflict less intransigent, which is not necessarily true - would prove counter-productive once it ceased to be a threat.
NATO aircraft would be KLA aircraft to all intents and purposes and would also involve the prospect of an intervention force.
Such a force could only be commanded by the OSCE, with a NATO component and a UN mandate, and it should obviously include men and resources from the Russian Federation.
And then there is the problem of Albania, which continues to provide a means of transit for massive arms supplies to the rebels.
<P>
But the stress should be on diplomatic, political and economic pressure, and the imminent deadlines that were rashly imposed on the Rambouillet negotiations should be extended to leave no alternative unexplored which might eventually be acceptable to the two parties involved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, I have to say by way of prologue how refreshing it is to hear a government minister admit he does not know any more about a situation than we do.
I welcome the statement by the President-in-Office.
We have to recognise that, although frequently in these debates about Kosovo it is all doom and gloom for Parliament, tremendous progress has been made, and two points in particular should be reinforced.
The fact we have negotiations now is largely due to European Union leadership.
At long last we are taking effective action and I congratulate the German presidency on the progress made, and indeed the British Foreign Secretary and French Foreign Minister also.
<P>
Secondly, as the Socialist Group has always demanded, we have managed to keep the Contact Group together and, indeed, have now got Russia actively engaged in pursuing peace.
This is very important and we must not do anything to undermine the cohesion of the Contact Group.
Of course the background of the NATO military threat has been absolutely essential, as we in the Socialist Group have always insisted.
<P>
Clearly our next great challenge will be if these negotiations drag on. We have set a timetable.
Inevitably negotiations go on beyond a timetable but we clearly must not be sucked into the kind of manoeuvring we have seen in the past with one side or the other deliberating dragging on negotiations for much too long.
We must be clear that we are ready at literally 24 hours' notice to carry out the threats that NATO has made to bomb Yugoslavia if it is not prepared to reach appropriate conclusions in the negotiations.
We must be clear that we are not going to commit ground troops until there is a political settlement.
We should not send one soldier from the European Union or from NATO to risk his life unless we, as politicians, have delivered a political settlement.
<P>
In doing this, we must put particular pressure on the KLA.
It has been very easy for the KLA to provoke the Serbian forces into inappropriate responses in order to win international sympathy.
We must make it clear to the KLA that they can gain only if there is a political agreement which will give them a large degree of autonomy.
Only then will we as a European Parliament sanction the sort of reconstruction effort that Commissioner van den Broek has indicated.
We have to ensure that, in condemning the Serbian side, we are equally tough on the Albanian side and do not, out of sympathy for one side or the other, provoke a worse situation than exists at the moment.
<P>
Finally, we must, I think, as Mr Wiersma has said, avoid the trap of constantly reciting history in this dispute.
We have to look forward to a system of government that would allow the Balkans finally to be at peace, enabling economic reconstruction to go ahead and prosperity to be built for the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Imbeni">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, we thought of having this debate after the Racak massacre, but I do not really think we can make a major contribution today, with the Rambouillet Conference still going on.
All the speeches we have heard have been interesting, but it is difficult for us to speak at a stage which is quite properly secret, as you said, Mr President.
But not everything needs to be kept secret.
Of course secrecy is right at diplomatic conferences but, for instance, the Council and the Commission could help the European public understand who is helping the combatants when fighting breaks out.
Why do we always have to wait two, three, four, or even five years?
Why do we only find out who is supplying the weapons by reading about it in the newspapers?
Why do we not improve prevention, given that informing the public is a means of prevention?
Having said that, I support the work the presidency has done.
I think it is important for the European Union to take the initiative and demonstrate to the public that it has a greater political role than it had in the past, even though our humanitarian role, our aid for democratic development and our support for the growth of civil society remain the priorities.
These are all extremely important, but they do not add up to actual political weight.
<P>
I do not want to condemn the European Union entirely, of course, because I think its role is on an upward curve.
But the point I want to make is the same one as I made last time we debated the situation in Kosovo.
<P>
We are not dealing with a great area of peace, serenity, tranquillity, progress and economic development which just has one rather serious recurring problem of inter-ethnic conflict.
No, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, we are looking at a part of a larger problem.
The strategic limitation of our operations - and I mean the operations of the European Union, the United States, Russia and all the other countries involved - is that we persist in looking at one piece of the mosaic, and forget that even if we were to succeed in finding a solution to the Kosovo problem, there would still be the Balkan question.
That is the point.
We need a Rambouillet which lasts for years, involving far more players. We need a standing conference with Albania, Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia and Bulgaria participating.
I know that is very difficult, but we should be looking at the whole Balkan scenario, because the situation will not be resolved even if - and we hope it happens as soon as possible - a solution can be found for Kosovo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I want briefly to address three aspects that were brought up during this important debate.
First: what can the European Union actually do?
We should realise that we have neither the political nor the material capacity to resolve the Kosovo conflict by ourselves.
It was necessary for various institutions, namely the Contact Group, the European Union, the OSCE, NATO and the United Nations, to work together in close coordination, which they managed to do, by using their great political prestige and all their energy, and that is a special achievement.
Five different international levels had to be coordinated.
That was the only way to create the necessary political, legal and military conditions for this initiative.
And in fact all this was achieved in less than ten days.
Mrs Pack rightly asked why nothing was done earlier.
The question should really be handed back to her, because the government I represent here was not in office at the time.
But I would have liked to see an earlier German Government ...
<P>
Heckling by Mrs Pack
<P>
Yes, it was a German Government!
I would have liked to see it put forward this initiative.
So I do not know why it did not, but we are now in the present time.
It has happened now because, as it turned out, the agreement the American special envoy Mr Holbrooke reached with Milosevic last autumn did not hold up because Milosevic did not keep to it.
<P>
Let me make it quite clear again: the European Union was not in a position by itself even to provide the necessary military backup, to build up a credible military threat.
It does not have a single soldier it could have used as a threat.
So we should not just keep saying that the European Union has simply gone on making mistakes in Kosovo.
You must realise that it is not exactly an easy task to get these institutions to work together, to keep the Russians and Americans in the same boat, to make the Contact Group effective.
I could also make a few comments on the difficulties in the Security Council, on the need to gain Russia's support; but most of that has already been addressed.
<P>
The second point I wanted to make is this: once an interim agreement has been reached, which is of course what Rambouillet is all about, it needs military backup.
What I am talking about is the military backup for an agreed settlement.
I am not talking about military intervention against the will of the warring parties.
That is an entirely different matter.
What we are seeking is an agreement now in Rambouillet, which would initially be a three-year interim agreement.
During that period it will certainly need the military backup of a SFOR-type operation.
A number of European states have already declared themselves willing to make ground forces available to that end, including the UK and Germany, but others too; so it is highly probable that we can set up a sufficiently large and also robust operation.
<P>
We must use the time between the Rambouillet agreement that we hope to reach and the expiry of the interim period to prepare a Balkan conference that will do what several speakers have called for, namely look at the overall picture and finally move away from a policy that focuses only on one issue and forgets that all these individual issues are interrelated.
<P>
It is the presidency's intention - and this forms part of the EU initiative that the UK, France and Germany jointly put forward - that we work towards that conference with the aim of establishing stability, security and cooperation throughout the Balkan region.
That is a very, very ambitious project.
<P>
We will only achieve it - and this is my third point - if we can define a clear and convincing strategic perspective for that part of Europe.
I said this morning during the discussions I held with the Council of Europe on behalf of the presidency and I repeat it again: the situation we are facing is a confrontation between two different concepts of Europe.
This Chamber here represents the Europe of the 21st century, the Europe of integration, of peace, of democracy, of human rights and therefore also, in the final analysis, of man's prosperity and personal welfare.
<P>
The Europe we see before us in Kosovo, in Bosnia and sadly also in other parts of Europe remains imprisoned in the atavistic attitudes of the 19th century.
We must make it clear to those people that they have the choice of joining the modern, forward-looking Europe of integration, or remain imprisoned in the conflicts, the blinkered attitudes, the nationalism of the 19th century, which can only result in misery, oppression and the loss of human lives.
But we must at least make it clear to them that they have this choice.
That means we must also be willing to offer the prospect of integration into Europe, and do so with all the institutions and instruments available to us.
It is certainly a very long-term prospect.
I am speaking not of years but quite certainly of decades.
But even the longest journey requires a first step.
The time has come for us to take this step.
<P>
I am in fact confident; and as for all the business about secrecy in Rambouillet, well, those happen to be the rules.
You know that and it would be naive to believe that we could have genuine negotiating results, interim results so early on, or that, if there were any, we could present them here.
But let me put it this way: the fact that the delegations are still talking, that they have come in the first place, that there was no game-playing at the outset - for example, we won't sit in the same room, or so-and-so cannot participate, or we will only talk under such-and-such conditions - the fact that the negotiations have been going on since Sunday does suggest that the participants are looking to achieve results.
In a few days' time the Contact Group will present its evaluation of the results so far; then it will be time to decide the further procedure.
<P>
I would definitely contradict the speaker who protested because the negotiations were being put under such time pressure.
A major component of the chosen strategy is to put the warring parties under the strongest possible pressure, which includes the pressure of time.
I firmly believe that a negotiating approach that allowed the warring parties to play for time would fail.
So there is a certain element of pressure, and it is very strong.
You must remember that they were not prepared to come to the negotiating table in the first place; they only did so in response to a very strong and severe threat and ultimatum issued by the international community.
Part of it was that the negotiations must produce results within a given time frame, which was deliberately made very short.
<P>
In summary I want to say that we Europeans may now have shown an improved ability to act in foreign and security policy.
Mr Swoboda was right to say that it is an initiative in which the European Union has played a prominent role, which shows what we can achieve if we are creative and use our imagination.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
Mr President-in-Office, may I cordially ask you not to forget that when you come here you are not a German minister, but the President-in-Office of the Council who speaks for the Council. I have always spoken my mind to the gentlemen of the Council - and apart from once they have always been gentlemen - of whatever political persuasion they happen to be, without regard for party politics.
If I have a complaint to make against the Council, I will do so, and you are now representing the Council for six months.
Next time it will be a Finn, and I will not treat him with kid gloves any more than I do you.
You are here not as a German minister, but as President-in-Office of the Council, so please do not be so touchy and do tell your people back home that we are not attacking the Germans here, but the presidency!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bianco">
Mr President, speaking as an Italian, and since you referred to the countries involved in the problems of the Balkans, I just want to say that, as well as France, Germany and the United Kingdom, Austria and Italy are also involved and they are crucial countries in the area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
OCTs, ACP countries and remote regions (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report (A4-0036/99) by Mr Aldo, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on relations between the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs), the ACP States and the ultraperipheral regions (UPRs) of the the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Vecchi">
Mr President, first of all I would like to congratulate Mr Aldo, on behalf of the Socialist Group, on producing a brilliant report for the Committee on Development and Cooperation, a report he pressed for and felt very strongly about.
<P>
In today's debate we are looking at an issue that is important for the development of territories which are very diverse in terms of legal status and levels of development, but which at least share a geographic location.
Overseas countries and territories, ACP countries and ultraperipheral regions do in fact differ and the Union has rightly established a range of instruments for them.
<P>
To be frank, I am not entirely convinced by everything in Mr Aldo's report.
But I think we must support its basic political message, which is the need to deepen relations between the three different groups through intensive decentralised cooperation, with a view to achieving harmonious territorial development.
<P>
The report essentially deals with the outlook for the ultraperipheral regions and OCTs, and that is what the European Parliament is expressing its opinion on today.
But I do think it is absolutely vital to involve the countries of the Caribbean and the Pacific fully, to listen to their ideas and their requests and make sure that any initiative is in their interests too.
The full involvement of all interested parties in the consultation and decision-making process is very important.
<P>
The report also deals with issues relating to commercial regimes.
Here it is essential to proceed with great caution, because even recently difficulties have arisen from abuses of the special rules relating to OCTs.
The aim of encouraging the commercial integration of UPRs, OCTs and ACP countries is undoubtedly laudable, but its implementation must respect the special position of the ACP countries and take place in the context of the definition of new, broader rules linked to the new post-Lomé Convention, the new GSP, the CAP reform and the WTO rules.
<P>
At the same time, the interests of all European farmers must be taken into account in the context of the common organisations of various markets.
<P>
As a whole, however, this own-initiative report sends an important and positive message. Closer external cooperation and more refined instruments will mean that even those territories of the Union which are geographically most marginal can find new roles and embark on new development paths, which will also benefit neighbouring developing countries.
<P>
That is an important message, and it has our full backing.
It is the reason our group will vote for the whole report as approved in committee, although we still think some specific points need further study.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="Lehideux">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in my opinion, the report by our colleague Mr Aldo is a significant text.
It is significant due to way in which it was prepared, because it affirms the natural desire of the regions, countries and territories concerned to establish regional partnerships. It is also significant because of the proposals that it puts forward.
<P>
During a fascinating meeting, the Committee on Development and Cooperation listened to representatives from the overseas regions and overseas countries and territories.
That was a new experience, but it was a fundamental moment in Parliament's understanding of the problems, needs and plans of Europeans from other corners of the globe.
Such a dialogue was necessary and must be continued in as many contexts as possible. Indeed, the report makes proposals in this respect and we support them.
<P>
As I said a moment ago, this report affirms the natural desire of the ultraperipheral regions and the overseas countries and territories to establish regional partnerships.
This is obviously extremely important for them, for their development and for their future. However, it is also, and perhaps above all, essential for the Union, because the Union will be involved in each of these partnerships, adding a particularly important dimension to its cooperation with the ACP countries.
To some extent, this is recognition and affirmation of the Union's global dimension, of its economic role, but also, and above all, of its political importance.
We should not only accept these partnerships; rather, we should support them and help them to develop.
<P>
In order to achieve this, the rapporteur makes several proposals.
In the time I have available, I would like to mention just one of these: the establishment of devolved units of the Commission in the ultraperipheral regions and the establishment of offices or contact points in the overseas countries and territories.
This suggestion comes, notably, from local elected representatives in an ultraperipheral region, and I would thank the rapporteur sincerely for having included it in his text, thereby giving it weight and strength.
However, this suggestion must not just be wishful thinking. If Parliament adopts it tomorrow, we will have to closely monitor its implementation.
Little by little, it will become an essential element of the cooperation between the Union and the ACP countries and we will have to pay particular attention to this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
Mr President, the committee adopted this report by a large majority and I think it is the result of lengthy discussions.
It describes the pressures on island regions that are remote and isolated from the economic centre of the Union.
It points out that there are three different kinds of subregions, which must be consulted, must be involved in the decision-making; and here I believe the reference to new ACP negotiations is important.
<P>
The reference to trade, to the generalised system of preferences and to the need for a coherent policy is one of the key points of this report and a key to the future negotiations.
We should support the concrete demands set out in relation to telecommunications, research and development, education and training and the prevention of natural disasters.
I believe we all agree on the need for regional integration.
However, the use of the term 'Caribbean Europe' on page 11 of the report reflects both the problems that exist but also, in my view, a problem we have been carrying around with us since colonial days.
<P>
Would it not make sense to consider these three subregions together, to give them independence, to link them into a regional association through a new treaty and to help them in that endeavour, so that we can finally be through with this episode of old colonial history?
That is a thought and an idea worth considering, because I find this demand, and the very term 'Caribbean Europe', quite incomprehensible!
I am in Europe, I am in this economic area, I am in this trade area, which we want to shape and control democratically.
And the people of other regions want the same.
Do we not want to support regional developments?
Our resolve for the future should be to pursue this idea further!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hory">
<SPEAKER ID=189 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
Mr President, the June Movement can only applaud the fact that the Committee on Development has taken the initiative to produce a report investigating the connections between the Overseas Countries and Territories, the ACP States in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, and the ultraperipheral regions of the European Union.
It is important that the projects supported by the EU in these areas are coordinated, and that the EU takes more account of them in its own policies.
There is an advantage in promoting decentralised and regional cooperation among the OCTs themselves and with the ACP States, because this can help promote their development.
It is therefore important to enter into a dialogue and to develop an equal partnership which respects each of the partners' characteristics.
<P>
We neither can nor should sit in Strasbourg and dictate what this cooperation should be aimed at.
In the first place, that is unworthy.
Secondly, the countries themselves naturally have the best understanding of the local conditions.
However, as the Committee of the Regions points out, we can encourage cooperation financially in areas such as research and development, technology transfer, education and culture, the improvement of sea and air connections, environmental protection and access to information technology.
And we should also ensure in the negotiations on international trade that we maintain the trading privileges enjoyed by the OCTS and the ACP States.
In that way, we shall also promote the thing on which all our discussion of development should be focused, namely the fight against poverty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Antony">
<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, I think that we must begin by clarifying what the actual aim of the Aldo report is.
It does not try to define the status of those regions of the European Union that are outside the European continent. Their status has already been defined.
The ultraperipheral regions form part of the Community territory and have equal rights.
The citizens of those regions, including myself and Mr Aldo, are therefore voters and can be elected representatives within the European Union. We live in regions that are situated far from the continental heart of Europe but we are members of the European Union in the same way as any Community citizen.
The only difference is that we live further away.
<P>
There is clearly a certain ambiguity as regards the British, French, Dutch and Danish overseas countries and territories, as some of these regions still seem to be evolving. Nonetheless, they too are still territories of the European Union.
<P>
The ACP countries are independent and are sovereign states.
No-one is trying to regulate their status or to assimilate them.
On the other hand, the Canary Islands - where I am from - clearly form part of the European Union and will continue to do so as they have been a part of Spain since the fifteenth century.
<P>
The purpose of the Aldo report is to use the European Union's potential in these far-off regions to help to promote one of the EU's aims, namely development aid.
The ultraperipheral regions - and perhaps to a greater extent the overseas countries and territories - have a relatively low standard of living compared with the Community average, although it is still much higher than that of the ACP countries.
<P>
The proposals in the Aldo report are aimed at establishing a relationship, and this is of particular importance for the region where Mr Aldo himself lives, the Caribbean. The geographical distribution there rather affects the situation and the status of each of the regions.
<P>
I believe that these are positive proposals, as Mr Vecchi said.
They probably need to be examined in more depth, but the fact that the Commission is using these regions as platforms for development aid operations is a positive step. This is a way of promoting a certain degree of integration between those regions and their less developed neighbours.
<P>
This report by Mr Aldo is an own-initiative report and is clearly not binding. The Commission could therefore use some of the points and proposals made by Mr Aldo as a basis for specific proposals that would allow both the ultraperipheral regions and the overseas countries and territories to play a serious role in its work to support development aid in the rest of the world.
<P>
In this respect, I believe that we should welcome this excellent report by Mr Aldo. For me, it represents at least the beginning of one aspect of the Community's action in the area of development aid.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 NAME="Fernández Martín">
Mr President, the debate on the report by Blaise Aldo has the merit of being politically expedient.
<P>
The ACP countries have often shown their support for an increase in regional cooperation in the fields of politics, economics, trade and culture. This was particularly evident last spring during the meeting of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly in Mauritius.
<P>
The European overseas territories are increasingly calling for greater consideration so that they can participate in a developing world with a globalised economy.
<P>
We must remember one basic fact: the overseas territories are not territories of the Union, but their inhabitants are Community citizens and we must never forget about them.
The Union's ultraperipheral regions enjoy a specific status, which has been incorporated into the Treaty of Amsterdam as primary Union law. If they are capable of making the most of their geographical situation, they will be able to play a role in the future development of the Union's relations with ACP countries, for example, within the framework of Interreg.
<P>
There are many examples of interregional cooperation, including Réunion in the southern Indian Ocean, the French overseas departments in the Caribbean and the cooperation between the Canary Islands and certain countries in western Africa.
These cases demonstrate the possibilities offered by cooperation; we cannot ignore them. Three weeks ago, the general secretariat of the ACP Chamber of Commerce met in the Canary Islands with a view to establishing its headquarters there.
This is just one of the many examples of cooperation.
<P>
For these and other reasons, we are going to vote in favour of the Aldo report.
The Commission is aware of all the points we have made. I would therefore like to end by asking the Commission for its opinion - given the absence of a legal basis - on how we could bring all these elements together so that three different entities might be able to cooperate and help each other.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Carlotti">
<SPEAKER ID=194 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Günther">
Mr President, when I look at the globe and consider the regions we are discussing, it almost makes me feel dizzy to think about the problems around the world that we are tackling from here in Europe.
First and foremost we have special obligations towards the ACP states.
The rapporteur, whom I congratulate on his work, pointed out in his explanatory statement that developments in these regions, in the OCTs, are not particularly positive, in spite of favourable conditions.
I do not know whether we are taking the right approach to changing this situation.
On the one hand he proposes a range of administrative measures, on the other a range of financial measures.
I would like to see more emphasis put on the regional approach to which some previous speakers have repeatedly referred.
For I believe that is where the best chances lie for development, that we must exclude the long-distance approach from the outset and focus more on cooperation within these regions.
<P>
Although I am a member of the Committee on Development and Cooperation I still have a few problems with some of the paragraphs and sections of the report. First there is the question of enhanced Union citizenship which it discusses; but that is after all tied to very definite conditions.
Then there is the question of a special fund under the Community budget.
Here I fear that we would to some extent be restricting ourselves, tying ourselves down and losing flexibility. Thirdly, there is the idea of setting up offices or contact points in all these countries, which I also see as an added administrative burden without any obvious benefits.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Putten">
Mr President, I too would like to stress the importance of the Blaise Aldo report, for which I thank him.
He is right to call for attention to be paid to these regions which have just been described, and he looks, among other things, at the issues of trade and equal treatment with the ACP countries.
As regards the funds, I also have questions like those raised earlier by other speakers such as Mrs Günther.
But I am not yet convinced that this is the best solution.
<P>
It is also striking that it is largely the French who are conducting this debate and, unfortunately, I find that I am the only Dutch person to speak on the subject, despite the fact that the Netherlands Antilles are also concerned.
It is very noticeable too that there are no Englishmen present, yet they also have overseas regions.
There are two kinds of overseas regions.
There are the Overseas Departments and there are Overseas Territories.
The Overseas Departments are exclusively French.
We say in the Netherlands that the Overseas Territories are a sort of poor relation in that they are treated rather differently, and it is on this that there is now a major conflict again.
<P>
This sometimes results in bizarre situations.
The Netherlands Antilles, for example, have Sint Maarten, while the French have Saint Martin.
That is simply the other side of the island.
On our side there is the airport, while the French side is European territory.
It is amazing that no graduate student in the Netherlands or France has written a thesis on what this means for Europe's border controls and the like.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, I believe that we must also look at the treatment of the Overseas Territories in relation to the Overseas Departments.
If these Overseas Departments have such a special status, what does that mean for the Overseas Territories?
I should like to know whether in the future as a follow-up to the Aldo report - which I repeat is very important - the Commission will also turn its attention to this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendonça">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am standing in for Mr Mendes Bota who is unable to be with us.
<P>
The possibility of a new tripartite regional set-up - with closer economic, social and political links between overseas countries and territories, the ACP countries and the ultraperipheral regions of the European Union - could not have come at a better moment.
Mr Aldo's report opens up new avenues towards a new type of development aid, a new model that differs considerably from traditional aid, as provided for until now in the Lomé Convention, the old EDF or in bilateral agreements between rich countries and developing countries.
<P>
At present there is a dangerous decline in world solidarity.
In 1997 state aid and private credits in the OECD countries earmarked for cooperation fell by 41 billion dollars, to 324 billion, the lowest level for a decade.
We need to reverse that trend and these regional and sub-regional partnerships could prove to be an investment with a visible return for all interested parties.
The institutionalisation of the OCTs and the ultraperipheral regions of the EU as special partners under the Lomé Convention, particularly by including them in the new Joint Assembly, deserves a warm welcome from us.
By the same token, we also support, overall, the very diverse range of proposals and ideas contained in the draft legislative resolution in this report.
<P>
With special reference to the ultraperipheral regions of Madeira, the Azores, the Canary Islands, Réunion, Guadeloupe, Martinique and French Guiana, we should stress that they are not only furthermost frontier of the Union but also genuine strategic centres for strengthening trade relations with various regions around the world, as well as local beacons of democracy and freedom in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans.
The European Union should set up delegations in those regions with decentralised powers to coordinate support actions as part of the regional cooperation debated here today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldi">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first I want to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Aldo, on his excellent work and the impassioned way he has imparted his own experience in this report.
<P>
There are certainly parts of the world where ACP states, overseas countries and territories of Member States of the Union, and ultraperipheral regions which are an integral part of the European Union coexist in one region.
<P>
The Third Lomé Convention, covering 1984-89, first introduced the idea of strengthening cooperation between these three groups with differing status.
Now, in parallel with the negotiations for the Fifth Lomé Convention, which opened on 30 September 1998 between the European Union and the ACP group, and the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty, the future of the ultraperipheral regions and overseas countries and territories will begin to be considered.
<P>
Undoubtedly we need to take a keen interest in these territories and distinguish them carefully.
One point the rapporteur highlights, and which I particularly want to stress, is the fundamental importance of disaster prevention. This has also been stressed by the group on climate change for the small island states, which I chair in the Joint ACP-EU Assembly, because these territories are particularly vulnerable and need our assistance, especially as the activities vital both to their economies and to social welfare principally develop along the coastal strip.
<P>
Mr Aldo has looked at these problems in great detail and I think he should be strongly supported, especially as a report along these lines is to be approved at the next Joint Assembly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, my colleague João de Deus Pinheiro deeply regrets that he is unable to address you this afternoon.
I am very honoured to replace him in the debate on this matter, as the Commission welcomes the work that has been done by your Committee on Development and Cooperation, thanks, in particular, to its dynamic rapporteur, Mr Aldo. It also welcomes the work carried out by the committees that were consulted for an opinion and their draftsmen, Mr Castagnède and Mr Souchet.
<P>
This work resulted in an own-initiative report that is very detailed due to the wide range of subjects it covers, including financial, trade, humanitarian and geopolitical issues. It is also complex due to the various types of status to which it refers: the ultraperipheral regions of the Union, the four overseas departments, the Canaries, the Azores and Madeira, the 20 countries and territories associated with the European Community, and the ACP states, with which the Union is currently negotiating a future partnership agreement.
<P>
I would like to add that this is a bold own-initiative report, and I think that that is the best compliment that can be given to Members.
It often goes very far in asserting certain concepts that have yet to be realised.
Examples of these are the decision to do away with the unanimous procedure governing the association of the OCTs, Article 136 of the Treaty, or the establishment of free trade areas in the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean, involving ACP countries, overseas territories and overseas departments.
Other examples include the establishment of a special fund for the development of the OCTs, to be included in the budget, and the plan to give a voice to the OCTs through some sort of involvement in the ACP-EU Joint Assembly.
<P>
Elaborating your ideas, coming up with revolutionary concepts and drawing up daring proposals are the most important contributions your institution can make to help the Commission and the Council.
<P>
The Commission, for its part, has also entered into extensive discussions on the 20 OCTs.
The results of this will be submitted to Parliament, through its Committee on Development and Cooperation at its meeting in April.
The Commission plans to consult local leaders on the results of its discussions.
The ideas taken up in your own-initiative report will be very useful to the local representatives involved during these consultations. Finally, they will also be of great use to the Commission as it will have to draw up proposals following these various consultations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Coffee and chicory extracts
<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0054/99) by Mr Lannoye, on behalf of the Parliament Delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council Directive relating to coffee extracts and chicory extracts (C4-0023/99-96/0117(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 NAME="Lannoye">
Mr President, I hope my presentation will be sufficiently brief to allow us to settle this matter.
<P>
Parliament has been called upon to give its opinion on the joint plan, approved by the Conciliation Committee, for a directive on coffee and chicory extracts.
I would like to point out that this is one of seven proposals on food products.
Along with coffee extracts, chocolate, honey, fruit juices, jams, tinned milk and sugar were originally the subjects of a joint debate that took place in October 1997.
However, these were separate proposals for directives that were naturally inspired by the same idea of simplification in order to facilitate trade. But those seven proposals had varying results.
Only the one that we are discussing today managed to come this far.
The political and technical obstacles, as well as the differences in opinion between the institutions - the Council, the Commission and Parliament - have, in my view, been overcome to the complete satisfaction of Parliament.
<P>
Indeed, after a Council common position in which Parliament's three amendments were rejected due to an unfavourable opinion from the Commission, Parliament then confirmed the amendments at second reading.
That was in September.
Two months later, the Council rejected the amendments again, which meant that the Conciliation Committee was convened.
<P>
What do the amendments involve?
Two of them - one a recital, the other an article - aimed to keep the principle of limitation of the range of nominal weights available on the market in the directive.
That appears to be a technical matter.
In fact, it is a little more than a technical matter.
The purpose is, in fact, to prevent any confusion for consumers and unfair competition for producers.
Needless to say, these amendments were widely supported both by consumers' associations and by producers' associations, which is unusual.
The third amendment related to the method of analysis of the free and total carbohydrate content, for which the European Parliament wished to apply Standard ISO 11292 of February 1997, which is the most modern method available.
<P>
At technical meetings and in a tri-partite meeting between the Council, the Commission, Ken Collins, chairman of the Committee on the Environment, and myself, it became apparent that the disagreement was not a political one, and was based more on methodology than on substance.
We therefore gave our agreement to a compromise, which was endorsed in the Conciliation Committee in December 1998. This compromise alters the common position of the Council by first of all introducing a new recital into the text.
This recital announces a Commission initiative, to be introduced before 1 July 2000, that aims to introduce a range of nominal weights for coffee and chicory products in horizontal directive 80/232 on weight ranges.
Parliament's aim is thus clearly achieved by a different method, but what matters is that we achieve the same result.
<P>
Secondly, paragraph 1 of the annex to the directive includes a clear reference to the methods of analysis of the carbohydrate content which allows the use of the most modern methods, but without making the text rigid by limiting it to a particular method.
Here, the Commission's concerns, which we found to be legitimate, were taken into consideration.
<P>
I will conclude by saying that the political balance of this conciliation is, in my opinion, entirely satisfactory.
Moreover, it has been unanimously approved by the Committee on the Environment, and I feel that it is essential that Parliament votes in favour of it.
I therefore call on the House to support this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Thyssen">
Mr President, I should first like to congratulate the rapporteur on his work on a subject which he has presented so clearly.
This has become a rather technical dossier in which it is hard to see the wood for the trees, but it nevertheless deals with a subject which is of concern to people in their everyday lives, namely their cup of coffee, or at least what appears to be coffee.
People rightly expect us to also take these matters seriously and deal with them thoroughly, which is what has happened in this case.
<P>
At second reading we adopted a number of amendments with which the Council did not immediately agree, but in the end conciliation has produced a good result.
Everything finally went so smoothly that the official Conciliation Committee became no more than a formality.
<P>
The PPE fully approved the present result in the Conciliation Committee, and we will also of course do the same here in the plenary.
I would just like to add that I hope that progress will also be made on the other six proposals to which the rapporteur has referred in principle, including chocolate, and also the other points in the package originally submitted to us, and that here too we will ultimately arrive at a satisfactory result.
I would like to know whether the Commissioner has any idea of the timing.
When can we expect something, Commissioner?
Then we will have a better idea for planning our own work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, I just want to make two comments.
First, I want to congratulate the rapporteur and also Mr Collins on the very good result they have achieved.
We have an excellent compromise that really can be supported in all good conscience.
<P>
Secondly, in the case of chocolate, it depends upon whether the Council can make up its mind to adopt a sensible position.
That is not entirely out of the question, although we will have to wait and see.
<P>
Thirdly, this is the shortest speech I have made so far!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Question Time (Council)
<SPEAKER ID=205 NAME="President">
The next item is questions to the Council (B4-0020/99).
<P>
<P>
Question No 1 by Roy Perry (H-1253/98) Subject: Media ownership concentration
<P>
Does the German Presidency plan to address the ramifications of increasing media ownership concentration, in particular when this leads to dominance in other economic spheres, i.e. sport?
<P>
I should like to welcome Mr Verheugen and ask him to reply to Mr Perry's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, Mr Perry, let me preface my answer to your question with the following. As President may I specifically state on behalf of the Council that it attaches the utmost value to protecting freedom of expression, of which the freedom of the media is one of the most important factors.
The Council is profoundly convinced that freedom of expression is a cornerstone of democracy and of the other individual freedoms, as stated 50 years ago in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
That is why the Member States and the Community check very carefully, within their sphere of responsibility, that access to the media is assured in all areas of society, taking account of the variety of political and religious convictions.
<P>
As regards consulting the Council on questions of media ownership concentration, let me point out that to date the Commission has not submitted any proposal on the subject to the Council.
Of course the Council would consider any such proposal in detail.
In this connection, let me draw the honourable Member's attention to the fact that the question of concentrations between undertakings comes under the Community's competition law, specifically in this case Council Regulation (EEC) No 4064/89 of 21 December 1989 on the control of concentrations between undertakings.
Responsibility for applying that regulation lies with the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="Perry">
Mr President, I should like to thank the President-in-Office for his response.
I, of course, like all democrats, totally share the views expressed about the necessity of a free press in democratic societies.
The problem I am seeking to address in this question is that concentration of media ownership sometimes causes problems with freedom of the press, particularly when that concentration of ownership stretches beyond just ownership of newspapers and into other economic fields.
Many European citizens are concerned when they see, for example, the takeover of Manchester United by BSkyB, the extension of the ability of broadcasters to strike deals with particular football clubs and the proposals for a European Super League.
All this could be challenging the freedom of sport to operate as it has up to now.
I would like to think that when a report comes from the Commission the Council will address that issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Perry, I fully sympathise with your concern.
But let me point out again that this matter comes under competition law.
We have definite legal bases for this within the European Union and the Commission is responsible for applying this law and implementing the regulations.
This matter has to be dealt with in the Commission and that is the appropriate procedure.
Let me repeat that the Council is prepared to consider the matter if the Commission puts the appropriate proposal before it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 2 by Hans Lindqvist (H-1254/98) Subject: Depopulation of the Swedish countryside
<P>
Not since the 1960s has there been greater depopulation of the Swedish countryside.
The population has declined in some 210 of the 280 municipalities in Sweden, mainly in inland central and northern Sweden.
Membership of the EU was to have strengthened regional policy so that the country as a whole could be developed.
The reality has turned out to be different.
The present trend is unacceptable.
Can the Council hold out any hope for those regions in Sweden which are now severely affected by depopulation? Will the approximately SEK 4 billion refund on Sweden's annual membership fee of SEK 21 billion increase or decrease in the future?
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Lindqvist's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Lindqvist, the Council is aware of the problem of depopulation, especially in certain parts of the Union, and has always attached great importance to measures to maintain a viable population structure in rural areas.
As for aspects related to the reform of the common agricultural policy, during the deliberations on the Agenda 2000 proposals the Council envisages formulating a European agricultural model that will have to be further developed in the future, namely the model of a multi-functional, sustainable, competitive agriculture that exists throughout the Community, which means also in regions that have the kind of specific problems to which you refer in your question.
<P>
The Council acknowledges that rural development policy has a fundamental role to play in endeavouring to make use of every means of preserving viable rural structures throughout the European Union.
Under EU regional policy Sweden currently receives structural aid for its least populated regions.
Until 31 December 1999 the Structural Funds, the financial instrument for fisheries guidance and the European Investment Bank will each continue to make their respective contribution to achieving a priority objective, which is called Objective 6.
That objective is to promote the development and structural adjustment of very sparsely populated regions.
As is also provided in the second recital of Protocol No 6 of the Swedish Act of Accession, these rules are currently being reviewed in the context of the Commission's proposals on reforming the Structural Funds.
<P>
For the period from 2000 to 2006 the Commission proposes continuing the fund aid for Objective 6 regions under Objective 1.
As for the progress of discussions within the Council, I can tell you, Mr Lindqvist, that in addition to this Commission proposal there is another one from the Member States, on which no decision has yet been taken.
It proposes that the existing Objective 6 be retained and the aid measures continued.
This will be decided on in the context of the global package of Agenda 2000, on which I reported to you during this afternoon's debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR).">
Thank you for that reply.
Today's demonstration by French farmers in support of their livelihood and their very survival provides a graphic example of the situation in this part of Europe.
The same problems exist in Sweden, particularly in the north of the country.
Three or four farms close down every day.
It is the small farms with 15 to 20 cows whose owners are forced to give up and move to the cities, above all to Stockholm, Malmö and Göteborg.
There has not been such a dramatic migration away from the inland communities since the 1960s.
Of the 279 local authorities that exist in Sweden, 211 - all of them in the interior of the country - have lost part of their population.
<P>
I have a supplementary question concerning Objective 6.
Could the Council provide more information on whether Sweden and Finland are to remain as Objective 6 regions, and will the Objective 6 criteria be included in the new framework for Objective 1?
I would appreciate an answer to this question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Lindqvist, we are fully aware of the problem.
I myself was informed of it in detail by the Swedish Government in Stockholm last Sunday. Let me repeat that in addition to the Commission proposal there is another one that will be decided upon.
Only when it has been decided what funds will be available in future for structural aid in sparsely populated areas, and not just, as you rightly said, in Sweden and Finland, but also in other parts of the Union, can the decision be taken on the concrete shape of such a programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
Will the President-in-Office assure Parliament that it will be able to have full details of every subsidy from the agricultural funds, so that we can do something about the fact that 80 % of the farmers receive 20 % of the subsidies, while 20 % of the farmers receive 80 % of the subsidies from the EU, and about the fact that these 20 % together receive less in income than we as consumers and taxpayers pay in subsidies, i.e. that a large amount of money disappears somewhere between the two?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Bonde, I do not think I need tell you how the present system of the EU common agricultural policy came into being and how it has developed.
It is based on decisions that were taken in years gone by. At this moment we are about to embark on a reform of European agricultural policy that is aimed at making agriculture in Europe more competitive, more productive, more sustainable and more ecologically acceptable.
The Commission's proposals to that effect are on the table and what I have just said holds true here: within the Council, the Member States have very different ideas about the final shape of the reform of agricultural policy.
Some Member States even think we should not make any changes at all.
<P>
I am expecting the Agriculture Council, which will be meeting from 22 to 24 February, to give us the first insight into the agriculture ministers' view of the future of European agricultural policy.
It is too soon to do so today. I cannot answer this question today because the relevant decisions have not yet been taken.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="Martin, David">
I appreciate that the President-in-Office cannot anticipate the outcome of the structural fund reforms, but would he draw the attention of the other members of the Council to the fact that there is serious concern in this House that the Commission proposal for Objective I - namely applying the strict criterion of 75 % of GDP is unfair to some regions of this Community.
On the regional question, if you take the Highlands and Islands of my own country, Scotland, you will find that it is a very rural area in danger of greater depopulation.
At over 75 % it would seem to be the very sort of area that we should be defending in this reform.
Yet if we stick to the Commission's strict 75 % it will lose out.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Martin, I am happy to do what you say and draw the Council's attention to this fact.
You will not be surprised if I say that one Member State has already done so and is doing so very insistently, which means that the Council is very well aware of this problem.
<P>
I must add, however, that the deliberations to date show that a broad majority within the Council is in favour of an extremely strict application of the 75 % criterion for Objective 1 regions.
That is partly because there are of course also a number of areas that come just below that threshold and a few that are just above it.
The trend as I see it at present is to continue to apply this criterion strictly.
But the Council is fully aware of the problem. I will see to it that Parliament's and your concerns are taken into account during the further deliberations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="President">
We should now be taking Questions Nos 3 and 4 together, but as the author is not present, Question No 4 lapses.
<P>
<P>
Question No 3 by Christine Oddy (H-0001/99) Subject: Amnesty International and the European Union's human rights policy
<P>
Is the Council of Ministers aware that Amnesty International has marked the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with the publication of a report on EU human rights policy?
What steps is the Council of Ministers taking to evaluate this report with a view to using its main recommendations to flesh out EU human rights policy?
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mrs Oddy's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, Ms Oddy, the Council attaches great importance to the human rights activities of non-governmental organisations.
It pays great attention to the NGOs' opinions and recommendations and seeks contacts and exchanges of experience with them.
The same applies to the question of fleshing out the European Union's human rights policy.
<P>
In that respect let me point out that in December 1998 the then presidency of the Council distributed the Amnesty International report referred to by Ms Oddy to the CFSP Working Party on Human Rights.
The Council agrees with Amnesty International on the importance of seeking constantly to further improve EU human rights policy.
In that endeavour, the Council will also pay attention to Amnesty International's proposals.
<P>
The Council would refer you to the declaration published on 10 December 1998 on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was subsequently confirmed by the European Council.
The declaration of 10 December contains a range of operative proposals and the Council will be discussing their formulation in the coming months.
On 25 January 1999 the General Affairs Council confirmed this.
<P>
The follow-up to the operative proposals in the declaration of 10 December 1998 forms an important part of the presidency's work programme. It includes the question of an annual EU report on human rights.
<P>
The work programme also gives high priority to the endeavours to gain recognition of the EU's positions on human rights policy in relation to specific countries and issues in the framework of the United Nations.
That includes the important questions of the reform of the UN human rights mechanisms and preparations for the world racism conference.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="Oddy">
As I have been war-wounded getting here and fallen over I shall expect a better answer than I got from the Commission yesterday.
<P>
I should like to know about the EU code of conduct on arms sales.
I should like to know whether a common list of military equipment is adopted in that code, how many licences have been refused and what progress the Council and Member States are making in this area?
As I said, I shall expect a better answer than I got yesterday, which was dreadful.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 NAME="Verheugen">
No I cannot and, above all, I will not do so, for major reasons of principle.
I cannot see that this supplementary has any relevance at all to the original question that was put.
The presidency could not be prepared for this question.
I am not about to give you an answer on such a sensitive matter off the top of my head, so to speak.
I am quite willing to give you a written answer.
But, as I said, I cannot see that the supplementary has any relevance to the actual question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Verheugen.
Mrs Oddy, you cannot come back on that again.
You are well aware that during Question Time, you can only have the floor once.
Mr Verheugen has offered to respond to you in writing.
You will therefore be able to have your question answered by him in that way, as he has promised.
However, in accordance with the Rules, I must now continue with the next question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 5 by James Provan (H-0004/99) Subject: Humanitarian aid to the Russian people
<P>
In the resolution on humanitarian aid to the Russian people, adopted by Parliament on 19 November 1998 , attention was drawn to the outbreak of tuberculosis in Russian prisons, where up to 15 % of the prison population are carriers of the disease.
<P>
Will the Council instruct the Commission to propose an action plan to combat the danger that Russian carriers of tuberculosis might infect other sectors of the Russian population, neighbouring peoples and, sooner or later, European Union citizens?
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Provan's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, at its meeting in Vienna the European Council reaffirmed the EU's solidarity with Russia and its people during the current economic crisis.
For that reason, on 17 December 1998 the Council adopted a comprehensive programme to supply agricultural produce to Russia.
Since 1991, ECHO has spent ECU 50 m on humanitarian aid for Russia.
<P>
A sum of ECU 4.8 m remains from the allocation for 1998.
After checking where the people were in greatest need, it was decided to concentrate on trying to resolve the problem of tuberculosis, especially in the prisons.
The Commission and the Council therefore entirely share the concerns expressed in the European Parliament's resolution of 19 November 1998 and the concerns voiced by Mr Provan.
<P>
With the new outbreaks of tuberculosis in the developing countries, prisons became the main breeding ground for this disease.
Russia has the highest rate of imprisonment in the world, 1 % of the total population.
Russian prisons are overcrowded.
In many penal institutions up to 10 % of inmates are infected.
That is why the Commission decided to use the lion's share of the ECU 4.8 m remaining from the 1998 budget, namely ECU 4.24 m, for projects to stem the tide of tuberculosis.
<P>
As you know, the ECHO aid is dealt with by NGOs in the EU, the United Nations agencies and international humanitarian organisations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="Provan">
Thank you very much President-in-Office of the Council for a very full reply.
I am concerned about tuberculosis and I am glad to know that the Council is making a major proportion of the funding available to that end, because it could be a serious problem.
<P>
Regarding the other aspects of agricultural products that might be going to the Russian people at the present time, I believe that part of the programme is going to allow the food aid that is sent there to be sold on the local market at existing market prices.
The main problem, however, is that the people do not have the funds to pay for it.
There is insufficient funding in the economy at the present time, and that is a major problem.
<P>
What assurances can the Council therefore give us that any produce that is sent from the European Union to Russia will in fact find its way to the actual people who need help?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Provan, you have addressed a very grave problem and one which the Council in fact considered at length during a very serious debate.
Indeed we are facing the dilemma of on the one hand recognising a humanitarian obligation and wanting to help, while on the other we know that in the country we want to help we come up against structures that often stand in the way of achieving the purpose of the aid.
The Council has therefore laid down a political guideline for the Commission, to the effect that when these products are supplied to Russia, it must be ensured that they do indeed reach those who are in greatest need, that this does not disrupt any remaining food supply structures that still work and that it helps promote a viable policy for securing future food supplies to the people.
That was the Council's intention.
It has proved extremely difficult to apply these political conditions in relation to practical aid.
That is why I am persuaded that the Council will have to look into this whole issue again at once.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 6 by Giorgos Dimitrakopoulos (H-0006/99) Subject: Security in Cyprus
<P>
Given that the EU, and some Member States in particular, had raised objections to the initial plan of the Cyprus Government to site a surface-to-air missile system, consisting of S-300 missiles, on the island and subsequently congratulated it on its decision to cancel the plan, how does the Council feel that Cyprus should improve its security?
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Dimitrakopoulos's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Dimitrakopoulos, in the European Union's view, the way for Cyprus to improve its security is to continue seeking a political solution to the problem of the division of the island.
Here Cyprus can continue to count on the full support of the European Union and of the entire international community.
The European Union takes the view that there are already far too many weapons in Cyprus, producing a real risk that each new build-up of weapons on one side will immediately be matched by the other side, which will lead to less rather than more security.
For this reason the European Union welcomed the decision by President Clerides, which Mr Dimitrakopoulos mentioned, not to site S-300 missiles on the island of Cyprus.
That decision sent out an important signal about reducing the excessive number of weapons in Cyprus and the European Union hopes both sides will take further steps in that direction.
<P>
The decision not to site those missiles has removed one of the sources of tension on the island.
The Council believes this can promote progress towards a just and lasting solution to the Cyprus conflict.
The European Union strongly endorsed UN Security Council Resolutions 1217 and 1218 and fully supports the ongoing efforts of the UN Secretary-General's Deputy Special Representative for Cyprus.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Dimitrakopoulos">
Mr President, I should like to thank the President-in-Office for his reply. There are two additional points I would like to make.
<P>
Firstly, the President-in-Office talked about further measures which could be taken by both sides.
Bearing in mind what has been said so far and the statements that have been made, what kind of measures does the Council expect to come from the Turkish side?
<P>
Secondly, is there any prosect of Cyprus becoming a member of NATO when it joins the European Union, in order to solve the security problem? Or at least is there any prospect of deploying a NATO force on Cyprus which will enable the Turkish and other armed forces to leave the island?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Dimitrakopoulos, the Council's principal demand to the Turkish side in Cyprus is that it should finally be willing to take part in the accession negotiations.
As you know, the European Union's political strategy here is to start the accession negotiations with Cyprus, in the hope that they can act as a catalyst to help resolve the political problem and in the end indeed resolve it.
<P>
So far this hope has not been fulfilled, but we still make the same very clear demand to the Turkish side to take part in the negotiations.
In any case, of course, we call on the Turkish side to keep a low military profile and to help defuse the situation by taking steps towards disarmament.
I cannot tell you anything about the possibility of Cyprus joining NATO, or about deliberations within NATO on the potential membership of Cyprus, since I represent the presidency of the European Union and not the NATO Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=231 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Sánchez-Neyra, the Council has not deliberated the matter to which you refer.
Nevertheless I can provide you with some information.
The Council reaffirms the position it adopted in regard to the agreements reached at the EU-USA summit in London in May 1998.
At that time the Council said that for legal reasons and reasons of principle it firmly rejected secondary boycotts and laws with extraterritorial and retroactive effect.
<P>
The Council welcomes the new measures taken by the US Government.
But even if they reflect a more flexible attitude on the part of the US towards Cuba, the Council regrets that the American embargo on Cuba remains in place.
Such actions are not the best means of promoting democracy and respect for human rights.
The Council still believes it right to seek a dialogue with Cuba, as we stated in the common position of December 1969, and to support a process of peaceful transition to a pluralist democracy, together with respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and sustained economic recovery in Cuba.
<P>
The EU still regards the implementation of the agreements of the EU-USA London summit of 18 May 1998 as a priority.
But in spite of the efforts of the US Government, to date there is still not the kind of progress that would lead the USA to radically review its sanctions policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
I would like to thank the presidency for its assessment of these measures and to put a supplementary question.
<P>
You are aware, Mr President-in-Office, that it was agreed at the Transatlantic Summit between Commissioner Brittan and the Clinton administration that the European Union was to withdraw the complaint it had filed with the World Trade Organisation. As you know, one of the other agreements was that the United States would amend Title IV of the Helms-Burton Act.
<P>
When speaking before Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs, Mr Brittan confirmed in response to a question I put to him that if the United States Congress did not amend Title IV, the complaint might perhaps be lodged once again with the World Trade Organisation.
<P>
Does the Council share this view?
If so - and I will end here, Mr President - when would the deadline be?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Yes, Mr Sánchez-Neyra, the presidency does share the Commission's view on this question.
I cannot tell you anything about time-frames at this point because the Council has not taken a decision on this.
I personally think it should happen at the time of the EU-USA summit in June this year at the latest.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President-in-Office, thank you for the information you have provided. However, I would like to give you some new information which was received this week by a group of Members from all the political groups who form the intergroup against the blockade affecting Cuba, and, of course, against the Helms-Burton Act, which is exacerbating the situation still further.
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During a meeting, the Cuban authorities showed us a letter from farmers in the United States who are putting pressure on Mr Clinton to allow them to sell directly to small Cuban firms or relatives of Cubans in Miami, within the context of the recent flexibility measures introduced by the United States Government.
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Mr President-in-Office, you have just said that the situation will have to be assessed in June. I would ask you to bear in mind that the paradox might arise that North American farmers are able to sell to Cubans without any problems, while Europeans continue to find it very difficult to trade and conduct a normal relationship with Cuba because of the Helms-Burton Act and the blockade, which, as you know, is illegal and contravenes United Nations resolutions.
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<SPEAKER ID=235 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mrs González Álvarez, I am extremely grateful to you for that information and would in fact be most obliged to you if you could, as you say, put the relevant documents at the Council's disposal so that it can take account of them in the appropriate decision-making processes.
I would not like to make any political assessment at this moment, before actually seeing the documents.
I am sure you will understand that.
But this course of events you have just described ought also to be considered at the EU-USA summit in June at the latest.
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<SPEAKER ID=236 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Verheugen.
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Questions Nos 8, 9 and 10 will not be taken because the subject to which they refer is included on the agenda of this part-session.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 NAME="President">
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Question No 11 by Esko Seppänen (H-0016/99) Subject: Wassenaar Arrangement
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At the beginning of December it was decided that cryptographical goods should also be subject to the Wassenaar Arrangement.
The EU is not a party to that Arrangement, but plans are now afoot for the EU to adopt a Directive on the subject.
What are the Council's grounds for not allowing free trade in cryptographical goods, and does the Wassenaar decision accord with the WTO Agreement?
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I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Seppänen's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=238 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, Mr Seppänen, under the Wassenaar Arrangement, cryptographical goods always were subject to export controls.
At their plenary meeting on 2 and 3 December 1998, the 33 contracting states of the Wassenaar Arrangement merely decided to review the rules on export controls for encryption techniques; these are known as cryptographical goods.
The aim was to relax the export controls and ensure that cryptographical restrictions did not become entrenched.
Those contracting states that are also EU Member States were particularly concerned to avoid any rules that would further restrict free trade.
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It is true that the European Union as such is not a contracting party to the Wassenaar Arrangement.
At present there is an integrated system in which the Council, the Commission and the Member States exercise their respective responsibilities, with a view to protecting the Member States' fundamental security interests and fulfilling their international obligations.
The Council is currently preparing to implement the Wassenaar decisions.
To this end it will amend Council Decision 94/942/CFSP and adjust the list of dual-use goods subject to export controls pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 3381/94, which is the dual-use regulation in question.
The Council hopes the revised list can enter into force on 1 April 1999.
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<SPEAKER ID=239 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, did I understand correctly that you mentioned a decision taken at a meeting on 2 and 3 December 1998 at the plenary meeting of the states participating in the Wassenaar Arrangement to ease trade restrictions in respect of cryptographical goods?
If you did, you are wrong. The licensing process was made much tighter at that time, and the Member States of the European Union went along with demands mainly from the United States to make the prevention of espionage more difficult.
Cryptographical goods are used specifically for protection against Echelon and other spying activities carried out by the USA.
Was I right in thinking that you said the trade in cryptographical goods has become less restricted, and do you think that this licensing arrangement for trade in cryptographical goods is generally in line with WTO regulations?
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<SPEAKER ID=240 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, yes Mr Seppänen, you understood me correctly.
Let me repeat: at the plenary meeting on 2 and 3 December the Wassenaar contracting states decided to review the export control rules on encryption techniques. So these are the cryptographical goods you mentioned.
Under the new rules the export controls have been relaxed.
And that was precisely the aim of the EU Member States, namely to prevent cryptographical restrictions from being entrenched in these new rules.
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<SPEAKER ID=241 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Verheugen.
Mr Seppänen, you cannot speak twice during Question Time.
Moreover, your speech is not being interpreted. It is therefore impossible to continue with this discussion.
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Mr Rübig wishes to put a supplementary question.
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<SPEAKER ID=242 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, I wanted to ask about the quantity and quality of these systems in the future.
Has the Council carried out any analyses?
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<SPEAKER ID=243 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, Mr Rübig, I am genuinely sorry I cannot answer this very specialised question offhand.
I will have to give you a written answer.
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<SPEAKER ID=244 NAME="President">
Mr Rübig will await your response in writing.
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<SPEAKER ID=245 NAME="President">
Questions Nos 12 and 13 should now be taken together, but as the author is not present, Question No 13 lapses.
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Question No 12 by Nuala Ahern (H-0017/99) Subject: Harmonisation of the OSPAR Agreement to stop further radioactive pollution by nuclear plants of the seas surrounding the EU
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What action will be taken by the Council to ensure Europe-wide harmonisation of the agreement to stop further radioactive pollution by nuclear plants of the seas surrounding the European Union, in particular Sellafield and La Hague, drawn up at the meeting of the ministerial working group of the OSPAR Convention on the protection of the seas held in Dublin last month?
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I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mrs Ahern's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=246 NAME="Verheugen">
Mrs Ahern, at last year's conference of the contracting parties to the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic - the OSPAR agreement - held in Lisbon, the OSPAR Commission adopted a strategy on radioactive material, in the form of a political declaration.
The goal of that strategy is to prevent the pollution of the marine environment from ionising radiation.
This is to be achieved through the continuous and substantial reduction of discharges, emissions and losses of radioactive material with the aim of keeping their environmental concentration close to the background values for naturally occurring radioactive material and keeping them virtually nil for man-made radioactive material.
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In pursuing this aim, account was also to be taken of the legitimate uses of the sea, technical feasibility and the radiological effects on man and organisms.
By the year 2020 discharges, emissions and losses of radioactive material are to be reduced to a level where any concentration increases above the already existing concentrations are virtually nil.
The OSPAR working party on radioactive material that is responsible for implementing this declaration met in Dublin from 19 to 22 January 1999.
The contracting parties agreed to report by autumn 1999 on the measures they had respectively planned to reduce discharges, emissions and losses of radioactive material.
The Council wishes to point out that the question raised by Mr Fitzsimons primarily concerns bilateral relations between two Member States of the European Union and therefore falls within their terms of reference.
At the same time the Council would specifically remind him that the nuclear plant he referred to is subject to the Community's legal provisions relating to health protection, in particular Directive 96/29/Euratom, which lays down stricter standards for the protection of workers and the general public against ionising radiation.
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The presidency-in-office of the Council can also inform you that the German Government is currently holding intensive negotiations with the UK on the continued operation of the Sellafield reprocessing plant.
I will be happy to report to you on this at a later date, once these talks are concluded.
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<SPEAKER ID=247 NAME="Ahern">
I would like to ask the President-in-Office of the Council if he thinks that fuel reprocessing at Sellafield can possibly be compatible with the commitment to reduce emissions to zero, or virtually nil as he puts it?
I note what he says about the intensive bilateral negotiations currently taking place between Germany and the UK and, indeed, I believe France over emissions.
Since 1994 significant increased emissions have been documented from THORP, and this cannot possibly be compatible with the commitment to reduce emissions to zero.
While I am very pleased to hear about these intensive negotiations, I would also like to make the comment that, according to recent scientific journals, there is no question of compensation being paid.
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<SPEAKER ID=248 NAME="Verheugen">
Mrs Ahern, in your supplementary you have linked two entirely different matters, which really have nothing to do with each other.
The current talks between the German and UK Governments on Sellafield have nothing to do with the decisions OSPAR took in Lisbon.
They are two entirely different matters.
There is no link between them.
I do not have any way of judging to what extent the operation of the plant to which you refer is or is not compatible with the provisions.
As I said, this autumn we will be receiving reports from the contracting states on what they propose to do in order to achieve the objectives laid down in Lisbon.
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<SPEAKER ID=249 NAME="Hyland">
Is the President-in-Office aware of the continuing concern of people, in particular on Ireland's east coast, about the safety of the accident-prone Sellafield plant?
Is he willing to bring this concern to the attention of the Council with a view to encouraging the British Government and British Nuclear Fuels to cease operations at Sellafield and, in particular, to stop the reprocessing of nuclear waste?
I would ask the President-in-Office if he could provide a clear timetable as to when the reprocessing trade will be brought to an end.
This is a matter of great concern to most citizens.
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<SPEAKER ID=250 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Hyland, obviously I cannot provide a timetable of this kind because the Council is not currently considering the question of bringing nuclear technology in Europe to an end or the question of when the reprocessing technology will come to an end in Europe.
That is a matter for deliberation in the Council.
As for the concern of the citizens, I believe that the Member States concerned should make these concerns known to the Council.
It cannot be the presidency's job to discuss a Member State's problems if that Member State itself does not wish it.
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<SPEAKER ID=251 NAME="Cunningham">
I have a very brief question on the issue of Sellafield.
Perhaps the President-in-Office could comment on these remarks from the deputy chief executive of the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland printed in The Irish Times .
He says: 'they do not pose a significant health risk ... and have been dropping for some time'.
Could the President-in-Office comment, please.
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<SPEAKER ID=252 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, I cannot comment on that quotation because the Council has not considered this matter.
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<SPEAKER ID=253 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 14 by Jan Andersson (H-0019/99) Subject: Conditions for Swedish adoption of the common currency
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The introduction of the euro at the beginning of the year has lent urgency to the debate in Sweden on its possible future adoption of the common currency, the timing of which is one of the principal issues.
Here it would be valuable to clarify the implications of the qualifying periods for joining the ERM on the date Sweden might adopt the euro.
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Does the present position of the Council rule out Sweden's adoption of the euro at an earlier date than that implied by the qualifying period for it to join the ERM?
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I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Andersson's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=254 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, Mr Andersson, pursuant to Article 109k(2) of the Treaty, at least once every two years, if not sooner, at the request of a Member State with a derogation, the Council shall decide which Member States with a derogation fulfil the necessary conditions for the introduction of the euro on the basis of the convergence criteria in Article 109. In relation to Sweden, that means that in May 2000 at the latest the Council will review the derogation agreed for Sweden in May 1998.
If Sweden wishes to adopt the euro at an earlier date, it can do so.
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<SPEAKER ID=255 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Andersson">
Many thanks for your reply.
The fact that Sweden is not a member of EMU has nothing to do with the Treaty, but with public opinion which has prevented a decision on whether to join.
However, there has recently been a sea change in people's views.
<P>
There is a continuing debate on whether countries would have to have been in ERM II for two years, and my question also refers to this, since events may move quite quickly in Sweden.
There could be a decision next year following a referendum.
If that turns out to be the case, would Sweden be obliged to be in ERM II for two years before being allowed to become an actual member?
Or would it only be necessary to fulfil the criteria relating to inflation, interest rates and so on?
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<SPEAKER ID=256 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, I cannot make a political judgment here because this is a purely Swedish matter.
In legal terms, in terms of the Treaty, I can certainly give a positive answer.
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<SPEAKER ID=257 NAME="Crowley">
Mr President, I apologise as I refer not to this question but to my own question, No 18.
I am in the middle of an emergency meeting of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
I wish to apologise to the President-in-Office as I will not be here to take his response.
If possible, could he give me a written response?
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<SPEAKER ID=258 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Crowley.
In any event, when we come to your question, I will call your name. If you are not here, then in view of the explanation you have provided, I will ask the President-in-Office to answer your question in writing.
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As the author is not present, Question No 15 lapses.
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<SPEAKER ID=259 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 16 by Mihail Papayannakis (H-0027/99) Subject: Third pillar and illegal immigrants
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What is the position regarding the problem of illegal immigrants who are smuggled into an EU Member State which does not have diplomatic relations of any kind with the countries of origin of the illegal immigrants, thereby leaving that State in a quandary over what to do with them?
In Greece, for example, this intractable problem is apparent with immigrants mainly from Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Myanmar who have been held in police cells or prison for some 7 months and have been poorly or humiliatingly treated.
Could dilemmas of this type be dealt with at Community level by enlisting the help of those Member States which have diplomatic relations with the countries in question?
Should there not be specific provisions within the third pillar to deal with such cases, which would take into account the principles of human rights, fundamental freedoms and respect for private life?
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I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Papayannakis's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=260 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, Mr Papayannakis, the Council is aware of the problems arising from situations such as those described in your question.
The responsible Council bodies have taken them into account when they discuss the problems facing Member States that want to deport people to certain third countries.
Deportation to third countries does indeed call for good cooperation with the state in question so that the necessary formalities can actually be completed.
In particular, the identity of an individual must be determined before he or she can be provided with the necessary re-entry documents.
If there are no diplomatic relations or there are only restricted diplomatic relations, that is of course an obstacle to this cooperation.
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<SPEAKER ID=261 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Mr President, I should like to thank the President-in-Office for his reply, but the real point of my question was this: Greece has diplomatic but not consular relations with the countries I mentioned, such as Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Myanmar. These countries do not have embassies in Athens, and I imagine that this must be the case in other countries as well.
The upshot of this is that illegal immigrants who have been arrested cannot be set free or expelled; nor can they be sent for trial, which means that they stay in police custody for months, and I regard this as unacceptable.
<P>
Could not the Council intervene, possibly via the consular authorities of these countries in another Member State, so that these people can be given the documents they need to solve their problem?
Otherwise we end up with something resembling a Kafkaesque impasse.
This is my question to the President-in-Office and I would ask him to intervene, if he can, in such cases.
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<SPEAKER ID=262 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Papayannakis, I find it very difficult to answer a question concerning a problem that Greece has with certain other states.
To my knowledge what normally happens is that a state that does not have diplomatic relations with a particular other state can be represented in that state by a protecting power.
I do not know whether this is the case for Greece, but if not, the most obvious solution would probably be for the Greek Government to request representation from another state that does have diplomatic relations with the states concerned.
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<SPEAKER ID=263 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President-in-Office, I just want to ask whether this problem that is facing Greece is not also connected with two other issues. One is the question of common measures to combat illegal immigration, the other is a fair distribution of the personnel burden as regards asylum applicants and other immigrants.
So long as no progress is made on these issues, I fear we will not have a common approach on other such issues either.
So my question is: on what is the Council focusing in this area in order to adopt a common approach on these two issues?
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<SPEAKER ID=264 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Posselt, as you know, we do indeed regard this as an important and fundamental issue.
But it is not directly linked to this very specific Greek problem.
I really cannot tell you how the immigrants from Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Myanmar actually get to Greece.
But the basic problem you have raised is one that is currently being discussed in depth in the Council, and the Council intends to cooperate more closely in this area and to take decisions and decide on joint action here at the latest by the time of the special summit to be held in Tampere in Finland during the next six-month presidency.
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<SPEAKER ID=265 NAME="President">
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Question No 17 by Bernie Malone (H-0028/99) Subject: Access to transport for people with disabilities
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Does the Council agree that the needs of people with disabilities should be mainstreamed into regulations for structural funding of Member States' transport systems, in the light of the recent protest made by Mr John Doyle of Bray, Co Wicklow, Ireland, outside Heuston Station in Dublin after it was revealed that CIE had spent IEP 8.5 million of EU funding as part of an IEP 26 million investment on the acquisition of 150 buses which did not provide for disabled access.
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I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Malone's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=266 NAME="Verheugen">
The Council shares the concern expressed by the honourable Member and by Parliament as a whole in relation to the quality of life and especially the mobility of disabled citizens.
Access to public transport plays an important role in this context.
The Council's concern in this regard is also reflected in the new Article 13 of the Amsterdam Treaty, one of the aims of which is to prevent discrimination on the basis of disability.
As for the special case to which Mrs Malone referred, I am sorry to say that the Council is not aware of it.
But since it obviously concerns an EU Structural Fund measure, I would suggest that she address this question to the Commission, which is responsible for ensuring the proper implementation of EU structural policy.
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<SPEAKER ID=267 NAME="Malone">
This is one of those rare occasions when cynical politicians get outraged.
It happened when I saw disabled people protesting in the rain outside the transport company because of the fact that new buses had been acquired with EU structural fund money and that they were not accessible.
There are buses that are accessible.
They are in use in London.
So this is disgraceful.
I hope that the presidency will bring it to the attention of his colleague, the Irish minister for public enterprise, Mary O'Rourke, and to try to force her to take the needs of disabled people into account in all EU funds expenditure.
She will probably tell you that the shape of our roads is inadequate.
One of the excuses the minister has given is that there is a dip in the roads and the types of buses available in London would not possibly be suitable.
I do not find that to be an acceptable explanation.
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<SPEAKER ID=268 NAME="Verheugen">
Mrs Malone, I would very much like to tell you what I think about this, because I really have very specific views, which I am sure are not very different from yours. But as you know, I cannot do so.
All I can tell you at this point is that the Commission would have to check whether in the case you describe there was any infringement of the provisions on the use of Structural Fund resources.
It is up to the Commission to do this; the Council cannot do so.
Presumably today's Question Time will, as you hoped, raise European public awareness of this issue.
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<SPEAKER ID=269 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Verheugen.
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We should now be taking Question No 18 by Mr Crowley, who was with us earlier and asked Mr Verheugen to answer his question in writing.
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<SPEAKER ID=270 NAME="President">
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Question No 19 by Liam Hyland (H-0036/99) Subject: Tourism
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As we move ever closer to the next millennium, a time which corresponds to long-term predictions that, by the end of the 20th century, tourism would be the biggest industry in the world, will the German Presidency outline what new directions it intends to give at EU level to consolidate the strengths of the EU tourism product, particularly in relation to the peripheral regions which are dependent on tourism?
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I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Hyland's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=271 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Hyland, the Council is aware that European tourism will be a very important industry in the next century.
On 6 June 1996 the Commission submitted a proposal for a decision on a first multiannual programme to promote European tourism.
The subject has been considered several times since then.
The Austrian Presidency took it up again and at its meeting of 7 December 1998 the Council once again considered the multiannual programme to promote European tourism on the basis of a document drawn up by the Austrian Presidency.
In spite of the presidency's proposal to shorten the duration of the programme and to reduce the budget funds allocated to it, some delegations continued to raise objections.
Let me point out that if no consensus is reached the German Presidency proposes the following: continuation of the work on this programme, taking account of the recommendations made by the High Level Group on Tourism and Employment, and renewed consideration of the subject in the light of new developments.
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<SPEAKER ID=272 NAME="Hyland">
Does the President-in-Office agree that rural tourism must be prioritised in the context of the broader EU tourism package and that agri-tourism must be promoted and developed as a means of sustaining farm families and rural communities?
Would he agree that rural tourism requires additional funding under the proposed new operational programme for tourism?
I am sure the President's heart is in the right place when it comes to promoting rural tourism.
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<SPEAKER ID=273 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Hyland, I am sorry to have to tell you that there is no agreement in the Council on any of these questions.
On the contrary, there is much dispute about them.
Unfortunately my personal view in this regard is of no significance.
But you can guess what it is when I tell you that I myself represent a rural constituency in the German Bundestag.
Let me say again: the German Presidency will continue nonetheless to try very hard to achieve the consensus that is still lacking, and will certainly continue to keep the matter under consideration.
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<SPEAKER ID=274 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Verheugen.
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As the authors are not present, Questions Nos 20 to 24 and 27 lapse.
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Question No 25 by Mrs McIntosh will not be taken because the subject to which it refers is included on the agenda for this part-session.
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Mr Papayannakis wishes to raise a point of order.
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<SPEAKER ID=275 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Mr President, I had asked, with the agreement of Mr Alavanos, to take over his question.
Is that not possible?
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<SPEAKER ID=276 NAME="President">
Mr Papayannakis, to reach such an agreement with Mr Alavanos, the Rules state that a written request must be received from Mr Alavanos before the beginning of Question Time, asking that you be allowed to deputise for him.
We have not received any such request from Mr Alavanos.
Therefore, under the Rules, you cannot deputise for him.
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<SPEAKER ID=277 NAME="President">
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Question No 29 by Ioannis Theonas (H-0074/99) Subject: Provocative statements by UK spokesman on Cyprus, Sir David Hannay
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Statements made by the UK government spokesman on Cyprus, Sir David Hannay, advising the Greek Cypriots to follow the Swiss model, which recognises the sovereignty of the Swiss cantons, an alternating presidency and equal numerical representation of the cantons, have been met with utter dismay and sharp protests by the Cypriot government as well as all political circles in Cyprus.
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Bearing in mind that such statements are completely in keeping with Turkish views and are contrary to UN Security Council resolutions, including the most recent, resolutions 1217 and 1218, will the Council say in what manner it will respond to these provocative remarks, which cultivate a climate of tolerance, enabling the Turkish side to advance unacceptable positions which contravene all notion of international legality and law and undermine efforts to bring about a just and viable solution to the Cyprus problem?
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I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Theonas's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=278 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Theonas, it is for the British Government to react to the alleged statements by the UK government spokesman on Cyprus, Sir David Hannay.
He is the spokesman on Cyprus for the British Government and not for the European Union.
The presidency has information to the effect that Sir David Hannay's statements were misunderstood and that the British Government has now clarified the matter.
The presidency therefore sees no occasion to comment on these statements.
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<SPEAKER ID=279 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, unfortunately I am unable to thank the President-in-Office for his answer because, whether Sir David Hannay represents the British Government or not, it is important to state one's position on the substance of the declarations.
In this regard, I am interested in the position of the Council, that is if it insists on solving the Cyprus problem on the basis of the recent Security Council Resolutions 1217 and 1218, and if it considers that a loose federation, such as that sought after by Mr Denktash - and unfortunately Sir David Hannay appeared to agree with this idea - is the solution which the European Union could be happy with in respect of the Cyprus problem and in respect of the process of solving one of the longest-standing problems in Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=280 NAME="Verheugen">
There has been no change to the Council's position on the Cyprus question.
As I just said, Sir David Hannay's statements do not fall within the remit of the Council or the European Union, and therefore I cannot comment on them.
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<SPEAKER ID=281 NAME="President">
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Question No 30 by Nikitas Kaklamanis (H-0075/99) Subject: German Presidency and accession of Cyprus
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The German embassy in New Delhi, India, reportedly issued an official document on 6 January 1999 concerning the German Presidency's objectives for the first six months of 1999.
This document makes no reference to the accession of Cyprus to the EU; chapter 5 ('Enlargement of the EU and accession process - European Conference', pp. 17 and 18) merely refers to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, while placing particular emphasis on the promotion of EU relations with Turkey.
<P>
What are the German Presidency's views on this entire matter and when will the mistake of omitting Cyprus from the document issued by the German embassy in New Delhi be rectified?
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I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Kaklamanis's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=282 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Kaklamanis, the document you mention does not specify any applicant country by name but refers only to the applicant countries as a group, which of course means all six of them.
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<SPEAKER ID=283 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Kaklamanis">
Mr President-in-Office, I am not going to beat about the bush.
You are here in the European Parliament.
This morning, when we debated issues concerning the Council, the Council was absent, which shows a lack of respect for this House.
You are mistaken if you think that a 30-second answer is adequate for the question I asked you.
This shows contempt for the European Parliament and our intelligence.
The contents of the official telegram from your embassy were not disclosed this time by Sir David Hannay, but by the representative of the German Government.
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I would like you to give me a direct answer.
Firstly, what is the position of the German Government and of the German Presidency?
That is what concerns me.
Is there a question mark over the accession talks concerning Cyprus because the political problem has not been solved?
Secondly, if the talks end and the problem has not been solved, what is the position of the presidency?
Please give me direct answers to both these questions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=284 NAME="Verheugen">
I reject this criticism.
The Council was perfectly well represented at this morning's sitting; it must be left to the Council to decide at what level it is represented.
I have nothing to add on the matter.
The document you quote does not refer specifically to any one applicant country but refers to all the applicant countries.
That means Cyprus in the same way as it does Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Estonia.
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<SPEAKER ID=285 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Verheugen.
<P>
Mr Verheugen, Mrs Theorin has now arrived in the Chamber for Question Time, which she usually attends.
The fact that we dealt with the previous questions so quickly clearly explains why she was not present when we came to her question.
I would therefore like to ask you if you could perhaps respond to Mrs Theorin's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=286 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 26 by Maj Theorin (H-0061/99) Subject: Nuclear disarmament
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Nuclear weapons continue to represent a huge threat to the whole of humanity merely because they exist.
The UN General Assembly has decided, by a very large majority, to support the proposal by Sweden and Ireland for new nuclear disarmament measures.
The vote showed a marked change in attitudes towards nuclear weapons; the only EU Member States to vote against the resolution were the UK and France.
<P>
What steps does the Council intend to take to support new nuclear disarmament measures?
<P>
I should like to appeal to your generosity, Mr Verheugen, and ask you to answer Mrs Theorin's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=287 NAME="Verheugen">
Of course I will answer this question.
Naturally the European Union is committed to strengthening the Non-Proliferation Treaty and making it universal.
This treaty gives rise to obligations on the part of nuclear states to take nuclear disarmament measures.
The EU reaffirmed this commitment and took note of the decision in question and of the New Agenda Resolution at the European Council in Cardiff on 15-16 June 1998, thus expressing its position.
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<SPEAKER ID=288 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
Thank you for answering my question.
My reason for putting it is that nuclear disarmament is at a standstill.
Nothing much had happened before the initiative by Sweden and Ireland, amongst others, which prompted new questions about a realistic way to eliminate nuclear weapons.
The initiative was based on the Canberra Commission proposals, as they are called.
It does not involve anything unrealistic or Utopian, but is a practical initiative.
<P>
I am pleased to note that most Member States of the Union either voted for the resolution or abstained; only the two nuclear powers voted against it.
I have high hopes that the German Presidency will be prepared to take up the initiative, bringing nuclear disarmament a step nearer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=289 NAME="Verheugen">
Let me specifically confirm again, Mrs Theorin, that in the presidency's view the Non-Proliferation Treaty is one of the most important international instruments of disarmament and international security.
The German Presidency attaches the utmost importance to strengthening the non-proliferation system, to ensuring that the provisions are respected, that the commitments contained in the treaty are fulfilled and that the non-proliferation system can be maintained and further developed in future too.
As you yourself just described, there are still differences of opinion on this subject among the Member States of the European Union; that also applies to the New Agenda Resolution tabled by Ireland, Sweden and a number of other states in the First Committee of the United Nations General Assembly.
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Irrespective of these differences of opinion, the reasons for which you know as well as I, let me also emphasise that there is agreement in some important areas.
That means the Council supports the implementation of the decision, of the principles and objectives of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, of the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference.
In this context I would point out again that under this treaty the nuclear states have undertaken to totally abolish these weapons in the framework of the general disarmament efforts, under strict and effective international control.
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<SPEAKER ID=290 NAME="President">
As the author is not present, Question No 31 lapses.
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Questions Nos 32 and 33 will not be taken, as the subject to which they refer is included on the agenda of this part-session.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=291 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 34 by Patricia McKenna (H-0088/99) Subject: US breaching UN Conventions
<P>
What opinion does the Council have of, and how does it intend to react to, plans by the US Administration to deploy anti-ballistic missiles, in breach of the 1972 Anti-ballistic Missile Treaty , and to the fact that the US Administration is developing, and is likely to deploy, weather-modification weapons in breach of the 1977 ENMOD Convention (Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques)?
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I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mrs McKenna's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=292 NAME="Verheugen">
Mrs McKenna, the Council has not been informed of the US Government plans referred to in your question.
Neither the European Union nor any its Member States are parties to the ABM Treaty.
But the US Government has declared that it intends to adhere to the core of the treaty and jointly discuss a modification to it with Russia.
Some Member States of the European Union are parties to the 1977 Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques.
But to date this convention has not been discussed in the framework of the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy.
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<SPEAKER ID=293 NAME="McKenna">
The European Union has a responsibility here, and the Member States that are cooperating with the United States on military matters have an obligation to ensure that international treaties are respected.
There seems quite a lot of evidence to back up these allegations.
The President-in-Office has said that they are only allegations but there is a lot of information and data to back them up.
It seems to be fact. The United States would appear to be thumbing its nose at international treaties, and it is incumbent on the European Union, as regards global disarmament and international security, to make sure that the United States is held accountable for what it is planning.
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<SPEAKER ID=294 NAME="Verheugen">
Mrs McKenna, I am happy to take note of your comments but I cannot predict whether the Council will consider this matter.
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<SPEAKER ID=295 NAME="President">
As the authors are not present, Questions Nos 35 to 37 lapse.
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Mr Killilea has just joined us and has asked if the President-in-Office would perhaps respond to Question No 28.
<P>
Mr Verheugen, I must once again ask you if you would be kind enough to answer Question No 28.
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<SPEAKER ID=296 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 28 by Mark Killilea (H-0071/99) Subject: Seals
<P>
In April 1997, Bord Iascaigh Mhara, the Irish Sea Fisheries Board, submitted a report to the European Commission on the physical interaction between grey seals and fishing gear.
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Research at two selected sites in Ireland over a 2-3 year period produced conclusive evidence of damage to fish stocks by seals.
This study is supported by extensive previous research.
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Can the Council inform me whether it has been made aware of this research by the Commission?
Would it not agree that this report and others reveal that the extent of damage to fisheries by seals is very significant financially in local terms?
Would it not also agree that measures to prevent such an impact would have to be considered justifiable, particularly where a proven case existed?
Would it be in support of the Commission financially assisting national fisheries organisations to carry out such studies in order to scientifically assess such a need?
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I would once again call on Mr Verheugen's generosity and ask him to answer Mr Killilea's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=297 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Killilea, I will give you an answer. But I know in advance that you will see it as a non-answer because the Council has not received the report on the interaction between grey seals and fishing gear, which is, after all, the report you are referring to.
For this reason the Council cannot give its views on the report.
But I have been informed, Mr Killilea, that you have addressed a similar question to the Commission.
I believe the Commission is more likely to be in a position to give you a satisfactory answer.
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<SPEAKER ID=298 NAME="Killilea">
Mr President, thank you for allowing my question and thanks to the President-in-Office for his answer, even though he has stated that it is a non-answer.
I received another non-answer from the Commission.
I do not know where we stand.
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European taxpayers' money was given to the Bord Iascaigh Mhara to do this research.
The documentation and the serious scientific research has been in print since 1997 and it sits there gathering dust.
I suspect, Mr President-in-Office, that we lack courage to tackle this major problem.
But I want to point out to you that in the three sample cod catches on the west coast of Ireland, 98 % of the cod caught in the nets was either destroyed or severely damaged by the seals.
<P>
Similarly, with other species of white fish, the overall figure was 58.8 % of the total allowable catch of Irish fishermen destroyed by seals one way or another.
It will take a lot of courage to stand up to the nonsense that goes on about those pretty animals.
They may be pretty with their heads out of the water but they are not so pretty beneath the sea where they are devouring thousands of tonnes of very precious fish and food for the people of Europe.
I say to the critics: is it more important to feed the seals or to feed human beings?
My opinion is that it is more important to feed human beings.
<P>
I would like the President-in-Office to continue to put pressure on the Commission to have the moral courage to stand up to this awful situation which is staring us all in the face.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=299 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Killilea, since I too have experience of the lengthy procedures in this House I fully understand your problem.
I do not quite know whether I should support the seals, the fish or the people.
I would advise the Irish Government to bring the matter up again if as you say - and I do not doubt your words - it is important to the people of the west coast of Ireland.
The Council cannot take the initiative to discuss a report by an Irish authority or to take a position when the report has not even been submitted to it.
My advice would be, if the Commission cannot give you an answer either, that the Irish Government itself should raise this matter in Brussels.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=300 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Verheugen.
<P>
That concludes Question Time.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 7.02 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Water policy
<SPEAKER ID=301 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0261/98) by Mr White, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal and amended proposals for a Council Directive establishing a framework for Community action in the field of water policy (COM(97)0049 - C4-0192/97, COM(97)0614 - C4-0120/98 and COM(98)0076 - C4-0121/98-97/0067(SYN)).
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I should like to say at the outset - as I will be repeating through the evening - that I shall have to be strict with regard to speaking time, since we have a very tight schedule which will take us late into the night.
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<SPEAKER ID=302 NAME="White">
Mr President, I am very glad to be able to present my report on the water framework directive for this first reading.
The path of this proposal has been almost as tortuous as a salmon swimming upstream.
I should like to acknowledge the personal contribution of my colleague, Mr Collins, in the long haul that has finally brought us to this first reading.
In 1995 Mr Collins chaired Parliament's hearing on water policy that gave birth to the water framework directive.
Perhaps we should call it the 'water baby', and he will be heartened to see his 'baby' at last christened by this Parliament before he leaves us later this year.
I should like to pay tribute to the little puddle of water rapporteurs - also present at the christening ceremony - which include my colleagues, Mr Florenz, Mrs Schleicher, Mr Eisma and Mr Collins himself, who also has a water report.
We have developed amongst us an esprit du corps , whereby we have become water-minded, and that is a very useful thing to have done.
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This proposal provides an historic opportunity to secure the Union's most basic need for adequate supplies of good quality water for today's and tomorrow's generations.
Its outcome will determine the future of the Union's water resources well beyond the Millennium.
Reform of the Union's water policy is overdue and welcome.
Piecemeal evolution has resulted in an incoherent body of legislation, with differing and sometimes conflicting methods, definitions and aims.
The perilous state of much of the Union's water resources is plain to see from the evidence provided to us by the Environment Agency in Copenhagen.
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The first report on Europe's environment - the so-called Dobris assessment - sets out the problems in a clear manner and last year saw the publication of another assessment by the Environment Agency.
Comparison of the two reports shows that progress still has to be made.
The Dobris assessment reported that a quarter of Europe's rivers are of poor or bad quality, with either sparse populations of fish or completely devoid of fish.
Last year's assessment noted that there has been 'no overall improvement in river quality'.
There has not been any significant improvement in groundwater quality since the first assessment.
Europe's groundwater is endangered and polluted in several ways, we are told.
'Problems include pollution by nitrates, pesticides, heavy metals and hydrocarbons, leading to eutrophication, toxic impacts in other parts of the water environment and possible effects upon human health'.
Moreover, despite the numerous international agreements and many statements of good intent, the implementation of Union water legislation remains poor.
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The Commission, having taken part - and I am grateful to them for that - in the hearing which took place in 1995, produced its communication in February 1996.
Following Parliament's response to the communication, a dialogue has been continuing between the Commission and myself.
In that dialogue I voiced the concerns of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection about the early proposal.
The Commission is to be congratulated on its response in providing detailed annexes and basic definitions missing from the original.
I am also heartened by the constructive attitude of the present German presidency.
<P>
Before Parliament today there are 12 compromise amendments dealing with important issues where, in the spirit of the Amsterdam Treaty yet to be ratified, I am pleased to present the results of a recent trialogue between myself, the Commission and the Council.
These compromise amendments show a new willingness to move towards the Environment Committee's position on wetlands, public participation, marine monitoring and underground gas storage.
<P>
This is, and has had to be, a complicated proposal. It aims to promote a sustainable use of water resources.
Member States will be obliged to achieve good status for all surface and ground waters by a set date.
Good status means a healthy ecosystem and a low level of pollution.
These targets will be achieved by river-basin management plans and backed up by Union-wide limits on pollution.
The proposal sets out how Member States must identify river basins, appoint river basin authorities and ensure that they produce plans.
The plans will stipulate what must happen for good status to be achieved, including pollution control, promoting more efficient use of water, regulating obstruction and introducing a charging system.
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My suggestions for the reform of the Commission proposal are designed to address the considerable problems which continue to undermine the implementation of Union water policy.
At the same time, my amendments seek to create a water policy framework which is both practical and ambitious.
I urge that a tougher regime of pollution control is needed, the goal for the longer term, already contained in international conventions such as OSPAR, HELCOM and Barcelona, to which the EU and Member States are signatory, is the eventual phasing out of toxic substances.
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In conclusion, I should like to repeat the importance of the proposal before us.
What can be more important to the future of the Community than secure and abundant supplies of healthy water.
This is the first piece of Community water legislation to apply to all surface and ground waters.
It bases the management of these waters firmly on the principle of sustainable development.
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<SPEAKER ID=303 NAME="d'Aboville">
Mr President, water quality, particularly in coastal waters, is vitally important to the fisheries and aquaculture industries.
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The seas are generally the end recipients of pollutants emitted into the water, particularly their coastal fringes, which are vital for the reproduction of many species.
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The proposal for a directive directly affects those who live off these activities, particularly as it will repeal two former directives, one on fish waters and the other on shellfish waters.
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We have therefore tabled amendments in this respect. Amendment No 154 extends the directive's scope to include coastal areas and estuaries.
This amendment falls within the context of recital 11(a) adopted by the Committee on the Environment and specifies that the Member States will have the option of taking into account pollution in coastal areas in order to assess its consequences on fishing activities. Amendments Nos 153 and 156 state that fishermen cannot be classified as users of water in the strict sense since their activity is not detrimental to this resource in quantitative or qualitative terms and since they are primarily the victims of any pollution.
Finally, Amendment No 155 proposes support for the more vulnerable economic categories, in particular, the small aquaculture plants which must take measures to protect themselves against the pollution which they may cause.
<P>
This would not involve tax exemption measures but rather support for filtration and purification equipment.
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Finally, on behalf of the UPE Group, I must express our support for the concept of management by river basin.
This has demonstrated its worth in certain Member States and is the key issue in the Commission's proposal.
It must therefore be safeguarded.
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<SPEAKER ID=304 NAME="Cunha">
Mr President, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development calls on the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following conclusions in its report.
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Firstly, the Agriculture Committee stresses that farmers use water for the benefit of consumers in general and that they are the first to be concerned about obtaining good water in order to ensure quality agricultural production.
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Secondly, the committee acknowledges that, in addition to the objectives of protecting water against degradation of aquatic ecosystems and the long-term conservation of water resources, further steps need to be taken to reduce the adverse effects of floods and droughts.
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With specific regard to agriculture, the committee rejects the idea of full cost recovery in respect of services provided for water, as advocated in Article 12 of the proposal for a directive. However, it does agree with the principle of amortising the costs of water services, taking due account of the social, environmental and economic consequences of amortisation and the geographical and climatic situation of the regions concerned.
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In particular, the hydrological regime of the Mediterranean and southern areas of the European Union requires specific solutions in this respect.
Without these and also without irrigation systems, which often involve extremely high water storage and distribution costs, it would be impossible to ensure the modernisation and long-term survival of these areas.
Without a specific solution, agriculture in the southern regions of Europe would not be able to survive in competition with the northern areas which have rain throughout the year.
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Fourthly, the Agriculture Committee suggests, with regard to the definitions and annexes, that specific reference be made to bodies of water used for irrigators, namely aqueducts, and to the way in which their quality and quantity is to be assessed, and also to irrigation farming as a distinct form of cyclical water use.
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Fifthly, it proposes involving irrigators' associations so that they can participate in the use and management of water basins and water in general.
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Finally, as a Portuguese national, I must stress the importance of establishing more stringent rules for the management of cross-border water basins in order to ensure basic quality levels and rates of flow of the water in these international rivers.
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<SPEAKER ID=305 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Mr President, the primary purpose of the framework directive on Community action on water policy is to ensure that every citizen has a right to good quality water, both as something that sustains life and as something that exists in the environment.
Water quality has been argued over a good deal, however, as pollution has been difficult to regulate.
For this reason, as a binding guarantee of people's entitlement to good quality water, provision must be made for the polluter pays principle, effective monitoring to ensure that water is of good quality with the smallest number of exemptions possible, and the examination of materials that harm water quality, primarily from the health point of view.
Negligence and irresponsible action can have disastrous and irreparable consequences.
<P>
There is much that is good in this report, so I would like to thank the rapporteur.
It contains a particularly welcome amendment with Article 3(a), which provides for the monitoring of the implementation of the River Basin District Management Plan.
The authorities in the Member States must be committed to better monitoring of water quality.
However, there is one problem with the report, in my opinion, which is to do with how water charges should be regulated.
To my mind, at least as far as Finland is concerned, this is a matter of local democracy and the right of the local authorities to regulate charges, and this should therefore not be interfered with.
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Special attention must be paid to groundwater.
No-one should ever think that the situation is hopeless, and that the water is so polluted that it is not worth doing anything about it.
There are plenty of examples of problems being solved, not perhaps returning water to its natural state, but at least making it safe for humans.
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<SPEAKER ID=306 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Florenz">
Mr President, Commissioner, representatives of the presidency of the Council, the fact that we are discussing a framework directive today is thanks not least to Ian White.
A few months ago the situation still looked quite different.
The Commission wanted to present us with a communication - at the time I was the rapporteur and together we ensured that we would achieve this result today, in face of the rapid-fire decisions the Council wanted to take.
That is in itself a success.
As Members of this Parliament we must not forget that.
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The object of the directive is not, as many of my colleagues believe, especially Austrians, that we want to regulate the ownership of water.
Quite the contrary: we want to protect the quality of water; that is the purpose of the directive.
Now it seems to me that the Council and the Commission want to propose that we should promise one another to protect the water, but how we protect it should be left to the Member States to decide.
I am not quite sure this is the right European approach.
I am not in favour of issuing thousands of bans, but I am in favour of issuing a few important bans and making them applicable throughout Europe. They need to have sound scientific backing.
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We decided to create the single market and one of the main objectives of the single market was to harmonise standards in the European Community, not necessarily to make them exactly the same, but to approximate them more closely.
We seem to be moving away from that at present in environmental policy.
You know what I am criticising.
Unfortunately, the directive on a framework for Community action in the field of water policy does not define Europe-wide quality standards and emission standards, at least not the way the Council and the Commission formulate it although that is certainly what Parliament wants to do.
I believe it is important to take this combined approach, which we want to and will continue to pursue in future too.
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As someone who lives beside the Rhine - my house and my farm are a few hundred metres from it - I believe it is important that the local residents, whoever they are, make a start further up the river.
If they do not make a start there, if we Germans do not continue setting high standards, our colleagues in the Netherlands will soon be drowning in dirty, polluted water.
This cannot after all be a matter for individual, national policy-making; we need European standards, not hundreds of them but perhaps 40 or 50.
I believe the Rhine, the Rhone, the Mosel need these European standards if we are to make any progress here in the future.
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The Council did not show any very serious commitment.
We turned 188 amendments into ten compromise amendments.
So we have done a little better than the Council. The presidency of the Council has certainly achieved much in administrative terms.
But in my view Parliament's proposal was the better one. We believe that if we get what the Council wants, we will find it complicated to regulate matters at national level and will end up with a Babylonian environment policy.
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<SPEAKER ID=307 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Mr President, the decision-making surrounding this water framework directive has certainly been a clumsy affair as a result of the informal political agreement that the Council reached without waiting for Parliament's first reading.
The enormous gulf between the substance of that agreement and what Parliament wanted, reflected in over 200 amendments, forced Parliament and the Council to the highly unusual step of informal consultation, something which is not yet provided for in the European Treaties, though it may well be in future.
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Mr White has been our guide through this political jungle, and I must congratulate him.
He did a good job of defending Parliament's views before the Council and succeeded in winning a number of points.
He refused to succumb to pressure from the Member States on the points we feel are important, such as the priority list and the combined approach.
Despite the pressure of work and the complicated nature of the discussions, he also managed to keep us all as up to date as possible.
However, it is now Parliament's job to deliver a report at first reading clearly setting out how the quantity and quality of ground, surface and coastal waters can best be protected.
Strict definitions, clear targets and transparent procedures are needed here.
<P>
The Committee on the Environment has put forward some excellent proposals, and I cannot understand why the Council is prepared to accept so few of them.
It even has difficulty with amendments designed to ensure that environmental standards are met in line with other European directives such as the nitrates directive, and with international conventions such as the OSPAR Convention.
It is quite incomprehensible.
I have no idea why the Council is against them.
But we need not worry, as the common position will not be dealt with in this parliamentary term, and by the time the new parliamentary term begins, the Amsterdam Treaty will have entered into force, so the second reading will come under the codecision procedure.
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The Council will then have no choice but to take account of our views.
I hope it realises how it cut off its own nose in concluding the informal political agreement, and draws the relevant conclusions from this.
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<SPEAKER ID=308 NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for all his hard work on today's report, which takes account of the need for a more transparent framework directive that has a higher level of participation. As the rapporteur himself says, echoing the concerns expressed in the Committee on the Environment, one third of European rivers are polluted and coastal waters and groundwater are being overexploited.
It is therefore extremely difficult to obtain enough drinking water for the population. It will be even more difficult in the future, particularly in some southern countries.
<P>
That is why we are in favour of the proposal and why we were even more in favour of the previous proposal.
For example, Amendment No 38 by Mr White was, in our view, an improvement as it was more complete.
However, we must work to ensure that there is a high level of participation in the river basin management plans in order to create a common, transparent framework and to promote cross-border cooperation.
Along with our Portuguese colleagues, we visited the River Tagus and we realised that the Portuguese were anxious to ensure that Spain made good use of its resources. That will be the only way of guaranteeing cross-border cooperation between our two countries.
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<SPEAKER ID=309 NAME="Crowley">
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate the rapporteur on his tremendous work.
These proposals are very welcome indeed because they attempt to establish an integrated approach to water management and protection, which are very important.
<P>
The underlying basis of all of this, the polluter pays principle, is one that we should be pushing most of all here.
However, the terms of the analysis that has been carried out must be broadened to consider the very important social consequences of what is essentially a unique social service.
The provision of water for domestic needs, as a necessity of daily life, for economic needs and for farming and other activities must be guaranteed.
I would refer Members in particular to Amendment No 22 dealing with Article 12 (1) which provides that there will not be universal charges for water where special social and other conditions apply.
These distinctions are important and, in particular, we must ensure the continued free service for those who most need it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=310 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
<SPEAKER ID=311 NAME="Escolá Hernando">
Mr President, in my autonomous community of Aragon, we believe that our future depends on water.
We also believe that it is not that there is too much water in our territory, but that we are lacking the investment needed to use and make the most of what there is.
We are very aware of the fact that without water, there can be no development. It is essential in order to preserve the environment and to generate wealth and employment, in both the agricultural and industrial sectors.
<P>
Our problem is not the quality of water, but the quantity of water, in other words, its scarcity.
It is therefore almost an insult to us that the River Ebro, the largest river in the Iberian Peninsula, flows through Aragon for 200 kilometres, part of which is desert, yet we scarcely make any use of its considerable volume. This is mainly because of the Spanish Government's historical lack of investment.
In fact, it is precisely because of this lack of investment that some might say that there is an excess of water and thus justify transfers to other more developed areas. We therefore believe that it is extremely important to prevent these policies of transferring water between basins.
Far from balancing the region, in practice they actually heighten the imbalance and lead to further depopulation.
This is because the work involved is costly and it almost always harms the environment.
Moreover, it does not guarantee sustainable development with an unlimited supply.
Indeed, these transfers are merely the reflection of a policy where the strongest asserts its power over the weakest.
<P>
Tomorrow, we will vote on various amendments that have already been approved in committee. They aim to limit inter-basin transfers to very specific situations where prior authorisation has been granted.
It must also be demonstrated that the basins receiving the supply have taken all possible measures to reduce demand. In our opinion, this is the appropriate path to follow so as to ensure that our water policy is an effective instrument for European social and territorial cohesion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=312 NAME="Aparicio Sánchez">
Mr President, I would like to point out the differences that exist in some respects between the position of the Spanish Socialists and that of our political group.
We fully support the idea of a framework directive for the Community's water policy and we very much welcome the proposal for a directive.
However, these legislative attempts to harmonise policies may become something of a farce if we disregard Europe's special territorial characteristics.
The issue of water in countries with sufficient rain cannot be dealt with in the same way as it is in other countries, such as my own, where water is a very scarce commodity.
We cannot treat countries that are used to floods and droughts, such as the Mediterranean countries, in the same way as northern countries.
<P>
We have therefore tabled a number of separate amendments.
We believe that it would be very unfair, for instance, to impose the strict obligation to recover full water costs. This generalisation would mean that a Spanish citizen or farmer would pay between 40 and 60 times more for water than British or Belgian citizens, for example.
<P>
Other amendments refer to situations involving infringements, some of which are impossible to resolve in certain southern regions, and to the requirements for transfers and the recharge of aquifers. They are all following the same line of thought.
Parliament has legislative power that can be used on the basis of scientific and balanced criteria. However, it should not be used to try to make the various European regions seem the same, particularly given the differences that exist in terms of the quantity, quality and pattern of their rainfall.
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<SPEAKER ID=313 NAME="Valverde López">
Mr President, I fully agree with the speech just made by my colleague Mr Aparicio. It is clear that we must not forget the idea of unity in diversity, nor the fact that proactive measures can cost us dear.
We must therefore remember that Spain's water problem is a strategic one, as you are well aware, Commissioner. Amendments have been tabled in this respect and I hope that the Commission takes account of them and excludes cases of serious drought or flooding from the directive's requirements.
This is a factor that must be considered.
<P>
The directive must also allow Spain to build links between basins that are adequately balanced, as provided for in the National Hydrological Plan.
It is only in this way that we can guarantee supply for the southern parts of our country.
<P>
We also need to adapt the principle of recovering full costs.
We cannot add further difficulties on top of those that some countries are already faced with. We must avoid making the cost of water in countries with less water so expensive that individuals and multiple users cannot afford it.
<P>
I cannot support many of the amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment in this case as they are unreasonable.
There are some things that do work, such as the interregional agreements between neighbouring countries. I therefore do not see why we need to have agreements on international river basin districts when these agreements are already working well.
We should restrict this to consultation with the Commission, on the initiative of the Member States, if a problem arises so that it can resolve it and act as arbitrator, as it always does.
<P>
As regards the quantitative aspects, I am very concerned at some of the amendments tabled regarding transfers and the recharge of aquifers.
This is standard practice in Spain and it allows us to derive much more benefit from our scarce resources.
These are mere quantitative issues which, moreover, would prevent this directive from being approved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=314 NAME="Marset Campos">
Mr President, Commissioner, I would also like to begin by congratulating the Commission and Mr White on the proposal and expressing my support for it.
However, I would like to look at two issues that are the product of neo-liberal fundamentalism and the democratic deficit in the European Union.
<P>
As far as neo-liberal fundamentalism is concerned, the desire to recover the full costs of water use is a comparative insult to Spain, as was pointed out by Mr Cunha, Mr Aparicio and other speakers.
It would be particularly bad for regions such as Murcia, Andalusia, Aragon, and so on, where it would have serious consequences.
<P>
As regards the democratic deficit, I think it is important to consider involving the communities of irrigators such as the Tribunal de las Aguas and the Consejo de Hombres Buenos , which in some cases, such as in Valencia or in Murcia, have been working for over a thousand years. It is essential to ensure that there is democracy in this field too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=315 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, the framework directive that we are discussing today and voting on tomorrow will be a breakthrough in the European management of water quality and quantity.
But it will be more than just that.
It is also the crowning glory of all the tireless hard work done by some of our colleagues.
Let me mention here Karl-Heinz Florenz, who initiated and championed our cause, my Dutch colleague Doeke Eisma, and of course the rapporteur Mr White, whom I congratulate on his report and on the compromise amendments that should enable us to achieve a large majority tomorrow.
<P>
The water framework directive is the only correct response to our hitherto fragmentary, inefficient and inadequate policy on water quality and the total absence of a policy on water quantity.
Water plays a supremely important role in the lives of Dutch people.
In one of our folk songs we sing about Limburg as 'where the broad Meuse flows majestically to the sea', and the Zeelanders' motto 'luctor et emergo ' - I struggle and I emerge - refers to their struggle with the sea which, after the disastrous floods, eventually led to the Delta works, a dam that brought us worldwide fame.
We also reclaimed land in the Flevo polder.
<P>
We struggle with water on a daily basis in the Netherlands - in the polders, the delta where the Meuse, the Rhine and the Scheldt flow into the sea.
Anyone who dares to claim that we with our well-organised Dutch water management system can solve the water quantity problem ourselves has only to look at the floods that have overwhelmed us in recent years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=316 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Mr President, I have just three points to make. Firstly, I support a water policy which promotes the rational use of water by encouraging rational control of its demand and discouraging irrational increases in its supply.
Secondly, I would stress that river basins form the basic unit for surface water and groundwater management. These river basins do not stop at national borders: they always run from source to mouth, no matter what countries may lie in between.
Finally, I must emphasise the understanding and collaboration achieved within our group between the Spanish and Portuguese Members. This recently led to the preparation of a water manifesto considered in this report and which is particularly symbolic as, because of our group, it involved Members of both these nationalities.
Although we can be pleased with this motion for a resolution, the same is not true of the agreement on common rivers signed between the two governments. In this case, Community solidarity must be shown and cooperation between the Member States is called for.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=317 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schleicher">
Mr President, this directive had a difficult birth.
On behalf of our colleagues let me after the event thank all those who played a constructive part in the work, including of course our rapporteur, Mr White, but also the Commission, which has showed signs of flexibility.
I expect the German Presidency to scrutinise Parliament's work carefully, otherwise there could be a bad surprise in store for it at the second reading in the European Parliament, in the form of rejection.
<P>
As rapporteur on the groundwater action programme, which is another extremely important area, I regard the following requirement as essential: to lay down comprehensive groundwater protection measures, ban direct discharges of harmful substances and, linked to that, not to lay down limit values for groundwater, to preempt what is called the watering down effect, and finally to remove and prevent where possible what are called indirect discharges into groundwater and of course to clean up polluted groundwater as far as possible by technical means.
<P>
Three of my amendments serve those goals.
Let me point out again that I am particularly concerned with Amendment No 77 and do not accept the compromise amendment.
I would warn against making exaggerated, unrealistic and impractical demands.
Even if environmental protection has in the past had a raw deal in many other policy areas and too little attention has been paid to it, we must not repeat the same mistake by going too far in the opposite direction.
That is why I and my group are firmly opposed to certain amendments, some of which are simply not feasible, either for financial reasons or because we do not have the available technical resources.
Legislation that called for too much would not be credible.
<P>
Let me conclude with a question to the Commission. What is happening with the draft directive on ecological water quality?
If the Commission has officially withdrawn that proposal, I am not aware of it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=318 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Mr President, Commissioner, in line with Parliament's wishes this report introduces very important innovations in regard to protecting what is perhaps Europe's most valuable asset, water. It clarifies and enshrines the combined approach, enshrines across-the-board water protection and sets ambitious quality targets for groundwater.
For many Member States, the combined approach represents a real quantum leap in terms of clean water.
It is high time to rethink our approach Europe-wide.
We do not have the right mercilessly to pollute and poison the rivers and seas; instead we have an obligation first of all to clean up all waste water, including industrial effluents, to the best of our technical ability, and then to divert it.
We need strict emission standards, not just discharge standards.
<P>
I regard the attempts to enshrine water resource management in the directive in quantitative terms as negative, so I am very glad that the legal services of both the Council and the Commission take the view that enshrining it in this way is not compatible with the legal basis envisaged for the adoption of the directive.
I am also glad that I have already managed to get an amendment through in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection that specifies quite clearly the kind of supranational authority that needs to be created.
A Member State's right to manage its water resources cannot possibly be restricted.
If that is decided tomorrow, I will be happy to vote for the report, on which I warmly congratulate Mr White.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=319 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, the ample supply of good quality water is a basic need of the Community.
Problems have been discovered both in the quality of the water in the rivers and with water being wasted in urban and industrial areas.
Water resources in the different European states do not constitute the common property of Europe, as with any other natural resources which are used for trade.
Each Member State, however, must, as a nation, become involved in improving the water quality of its own rivers, in developing and implementing action to save water, and in protecting its groundwater.
<P>
The idea of a common water policy should be made a reality through measures to protect areas of water that are shared by neighbouring countries and those affecting different states.
Recently the condition of the Baltic Sea has deteriorated because untreated waste water has been pumped into it.
Efforts must be made to prevent environmental disasters such as these, in accordance with northern dimension policy, and those responsible for the Community's water policy should also be involved.
The northern dimension will provide staunch support for this, as it does for other projects aimed at protecting the environment.
<P>
The desire is expressed in the proposal to introduce certain quality standards for water consumed in the European Community.
It is good policy to incorporate such elements in a common policy, as long as we remember to leave sufficient scope for solutions to be found which correspond to specific national conditions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=320 NAME="Redondo Jiménez">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am the last speaker in this debate on water and since the problem is being looked at from the point of view of quantity rather than quality, I shall allow myself to take certain liberties.
I will try not to repeat what has already been said by my Spanish and Portuguese colleagues and will talk about something that is not contained in this report.
<P>
I should merely like to put forward a specific argument regarding the issue of costs.
We reject the initial proposal presented by the Commission that the full cost of water services - such as infrastructures - should be recovered from the users, who are mainly farmers. We also reject the proposal that the costs must be taken into account, since this could ruin the already fragile agriculture in the south.
<P>
We need to look at the technical improvements that are possible in industrial processes, taking account of the cost-effectiveness ratio as well as the situation in the sector.
We must abide by the political agreement reached by the Council of Ministers in June.
We must look at eliminating hazardous substances and the environmental objectives we want to achieve in the light of the actual technical and economic possibilities open to us.
<P>
We nevertheless agree with the proposal to make an exception in cases of drought. Indeed, it is very important that an exception be granted for both droughts and floods.
As far as the international river basin districts are concerned, I believe that the principle of subsidiarity should be applied. An agreement has already been reached with Portugal, which is responsible for our neighbouring basins.
As regards the quantitative aspects, the conditions for transfers and the recharge of aquifers, the proposal offers no legal basis. The Treaty requires unanimity in this area and we are therefore not going to support this at the moment.
<P>
As far as the amendments I tabled are concerned, I would only say that three relate to definitions that have not been taken into account, such as the mass of artificial water ...
<P>
The President cut the speaker off
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=321 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking the Committee on the Environment and its rapporteur, Mr White, for their thorough consideration of the new proposal for a framework directive on water resources.
As has been emphasised, Parliament has taken the reform of water policy very seriously, and I would like to take this opportunity to praise the substantial and very positive influence which Parliament has had both with regard to starting the reform and developing it further.
The Commission's proposal on the treatment of dangerous substances and Annex V on ecological status are largely based on Parliament's constructive involvement.
<P>
The same constructive involvement lay behind the recent informal talks between Parliament, the Council and the Commission, and as Mr Eisma pointed out, this was largely an innovation.
On the whole, the results of these talks further improved the text, while they also brought the views of the two legislative institutions closer together.
This is a positive development, and I can of course endorse the outcome which appears in the form of Compromise Amendments Nos 189 to 201.
In fact, most of Parliament's amendments improve the technical quality and make the text clearer, and I am very pleased to be able to say that we endorse the thinking behind most of them.
<P>
We can in principle accept 85 of the 122 amendments in full or in part.
The Commission is also able to endorse a number of the other amendments.
We support Parliament's initiatives with regard to the treatment of dangerous substances, openness, the combined approach and the inclusion of radioactivity.
<P>
As you can see, Mr President, there are a great number of amendments, and it would be impossible for me to go through them all in a reasonable period of time.
I shall therefore confine myself to mentioning some of the main areas.
Firstly, there is the treatment of dangerous substances.
This is a major problem, on which the report rightly focuses.
It is important for us to be consistent with our obligations within international organisations in terms of discharges.
However, a lack of information about the social and economic consequences means that it is not always appropriate to introduce legally binding requirements at the present time.
We therefore intend to accept the principle behind Amendments Nos 6, 19, 47 and 83 and in Article 1 of the proposal of introducing a reference to elimination as a final goal.
This is in line with the approach in the declaration of the North Sea Conference and all the relevant maritime conventions.
The other amendments on this subject, i.e. Amendments Nos 22, 43 and 46, are therefore rejected.
<P>
As far as openness and involving the public are concerned, the discussions between the Council and Parliament have been particularly productive.
The Commission can fully endorse the rapporteur's compromise amendment, which reflects the agreements reached concerning public inquiries or consultation, and both the Council's and the Commission's reporting.
Amendments Nos 25 and 29 concern the need to define the combined approach, which the Commission accepts in principle, although we are proposing a slightly different wording in order to make the scope more precise in legal terms.
The Commission is also able to accept in principle Amendments Nos 87 and 88, which call for a timetable for the Commission to introduce controls for priority substances.
However, Amendments Nos 84 and 85 on reviewing the priority list do not allow sufficient time to deal with the substances. The Commission is therefore rejecting these amendments and is proposing to keep the existing review period of six years.
<P>
The Commission accepts in principle Amendments 34 and 122 concerning the inclusion of radioactivity in the proposal, although they may require some rewording.
With regard to charges, which have featured strongly in the debate here this evening, a more complete integration of environmental and resource costs is essential, but the problem needs to be looked at more closely.
Amendments Nos 67, 68 and 69 therefore cannot be accepted at the moment.
However, Amendment No 66, which calls for charges to be set at a level which encourages the attainment of environmental objectives, is very helpful and can of course be accepted.
<P>
Then there are a number of amendments which the Commission is rejecting for technical reasons.
There are also some which we are rejecting in the form in which they are presented, but which contain many elements which we think can be included in the amended proposal.
I shall refrain from mentioning all of these.
<P>
In conclusion, I can only welcome this report, and the same applies to the progress which has already been made.
Parliament has played a significant role, and the constructive approach which has been expressed in the discussions provides the basis for a good working atmosphere at future negotiations.
In connection with such an important subject, it is clear that a number of issues will require in-depth discussion before they can be resolved.
I am convinced that the firm stance adopted by Parliament as the legislative process has progressed will help us to achieve our goal, which is a water policy we can be proud of.
Let me just add, on the question raised by Mrs Schleicher, that in our view the proposal concerning ecological water quality is contained within this proposal, and is therefore now redundant.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=322 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=13>
Deliberate release of GMOs
<SPEAKER ID=323 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0024/99) by Mr Bowe, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directive 90/220/EEC on the deliberate release into the environment of genetically modified organisms (COM(98)0085 - C4-0129/98-98/0072(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=324 NAME="Bowe">
<SPEAKER ID=325 NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, scientific knowledge is very often shaky when it comes to almost all issues of general environmental interest.
Various research institutes produce ever-changing data which are used as a basis for political decision-making, and which may be interpreted whichever way is desirable.
Painting a threatening picture is often the easiest option.
Excessive restrictions on research shift the responsibility onto the shoulders of others while the Union sneaks along behind, like a stowaway.
But then regulation is an unconditional prerequisite, and this is indeed a very sensitive area of research.
<P>
It is the choice of the consumers themselves which products they wish to consume. Their choice is informed by factors that have to be respected, factors based on knowledge just as much as feelings.
For this reason goods must be labelled clearly, comprehensibly and uniformly.
There must be an attempt to increase consumer awareness of the benefits and possible risks of genetically modified products.
To achieve this objective we have to invest time and money in publishing the work of the research institutes in a language that everyone can understand, giving the consumer the chance to take part in the lobbying process.
<P>
To gain consumer confidence we have to observe the precautionary principle.
As our experience and scientific knowledge grows, the content of the directive will naturally have to be reappraised.
There would have to be a thorough evaluation of the risks involved, and that would have to extend to an assessment of possible delayed effects.
Farmers cannot be assumed to have sufficient knowledge to bear any responsibility, but developers and manufacturers of genetically modified products, having conducted the appropriate tests, will have full responsibility for any harm resulting from the release of any product, whether into the environment or for human consumption.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=326 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Jensen, Kirsten">
Mr President, the Committee on the Environment originally called for the introduction of a European moratorium to give us time to reflect.
The Council rejected the idea, but that does not mean there is anything wrong with it.
On the one hand we have so much scientific uncertainty, and on the other there is a rather dubious decision-making procedure for individual applications to place products on the market, so there would have been grounds to call a halt, and even the Commission's influence has lacked direction.
There is uncertainty in particular regarding the question of ethics, the benefits to society and the long-term consequences for the environment and health.
We should not have GMOs containing antibiotics or resistant genes, or GMOs which can cross-pollinate with their cousins in the wild.
<P>
The Commission's proposal tightens up the procedures in many ways.
This applies to the common principles for environmental risk assessment, obligatory monitoring of products placed on the market, and limiting the period on the market to seven years.
This is all very good.
It provides the right basis for the approval of genetically modified organisms, a basis which I think should apply to the approval of all GMO products.
But the same proposal will exclude products covered by other Community legislation in such a way that there will only be an environmental risk assessment.
This could lead to GMO products evading the thorough controls, time limits and evaluation proposed in this directive.
<P>
I am also concerned about the new, simplified procedures which make it easier to release or market certain GMOs.
This is a problem because the basis we have for making such decisions is too small.
Our experience is too limited and too uncertain in the area of GMOs.
The technology is so new that restricted authorisation would enable the authorities to have better control.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=327 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Liese">
Let me say this from the point of view of the PPE: I hope that what I just heard Mrs Jensen say is not the point of view of the entire PSE Group, for that would mean the talks we have been holding over the past weeks were not very constructive.
But I believe we will manage to agree on many points during the vote tomorrow.
I particularly thank the rapporteur, David Bowe, for going to such great trouble with this report, for always being open to discussion and also being very pragmatic and determined, even if we do not agree on every point.
I hope therefore that we will manage to adopt the report tomorrow on the basis of a very broad consensus.
<P>
What is the PPE Group's standpoint?
We want safety for man and the environment, but we do not want more red tape.
I believe it is a big mistake to believe that more and more red tape will protect man and the environment from harmful effects.
We need clear rules that match up to the risk.
If we bear that in mind, as we in the PPE Group do, then we could say there is both good and bad in the Commission proposal.
And there is both good and bad in the report from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
In the Commission proposal we particularly welcome the improved labelling provisions, compared with those in the original directive, and we welcome the fact that the Committee on the Environment has improved them again.
We particularly welcome the fact that the Commission has opted for the simplified procedure. We also welcome the fact that provision is made for at least a rudimentary majority-state procedure.
<P>
What is very negative about the Commission proposal is that it lays down that consent shall generally be granted for a fixed period of 7 years.
Let me ask the Commissioner: what is the scientific basis for these 7 years?
What risks arise after precisely 7 years?
Do they occur after 7 years for all GMOs?
Why not after 6 or 8 years, why not after 12, 15 or 2 years?
<P>
We are in favour of the approach that has become established in pharmaceutical law.
If there is a risk, then the consent must be withdrawn at once, without waiting until the seventh year.
If there is no risk, then there is no need for a time limit.
So we are very much against any general time limit.
We agree with the Committee on the Environment's proposal to make this a discretionary rather than a fixed provision.
I would prefer to be even more specific here. That is why we have tabled an amendment.
We want time-limits to be the exception, justified on scientific grounds.
But the Committee on the Environment is moving in the right direction here.
<P>
On another question the committee is moving in the wrong direction.
I listed a number of points in the preliminary discussions.
One important point we are discussing again tonight is the question of socio-economic criteria.
I believe that you are giving the Americans a through ball here.
If we make authorisation conditional on socio-economic criteria, we will be taken for a ride at the WTO.
Then we will not have a chance to gain the support of any panel in this area.
For that reason alone we should not take that decision.
<P>
The PPE Group's decision at the final vote will depend on whether the disputed points, which we have also raised in committee, are properly clarified and agreed.
I hope we will all be able to vote for the report tomorrow and thereby send out a good signal for biotechnology in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=328 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Dybkjær">
Mr President, the report we are now debating is one of the more sensitive ones before Parliament.
It contains genuine conflicts between European industry and its desire to catch up with the USA and the more cautious environmental approach expressed through the application of the precautionary principle.
I believe that this really is an area where the precautionary principle should be applied in practice, not of course as a rejection of GMOs nor in the form of slow handling of the matter by the authorities, but as a cautious approach to the subject.
In my view, a great deal can be achieved through open discussion, not least with interested citizens - without of course revealing commercial secrets - and through careful and preferably rapid handling by the authorities.
<P>
Like other groups, the Liberal Group is divided in its attitude towards both the Commission proposal and the amendments.
I personally belong to the group which supports the Commission's seven-year rule but not the simplified procedure, although a simplified procedure could become a possibility if we considered a renewal of the marketing authorisation for the products, in other words extending the seven years.
Nor am I a supporter of creating a multinational application procedure at this time.
<P>
One of the problems in connection with the complex procedure is that decisions are made through a committee procedure in which Parliament has no influence. We have seen in the past that this creates conflicts later on, and it would therefore be desirable if the process could begin now.
We hope it will be possible to find some form of sensible compromise tomorrow - in my view preferably with as tight a timetable as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=329 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cabrol">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, genetically modified organisms can be regarded as the latest food scare.
In my opinion, every effort is being made to fuel these scares, even down to the terms used.
GMOs should actually be called GIOs, genetically improved organisms, as they are being created to substantially improve quality.
<P>
The words 'deliberate release' in the directive's title imply a deliberately committed offence. However, this phrase actually means placing the organisms or their products on the market only after very strict controls have been carried out and after carefully considered consent has been given for the experimental cultivation of these products.
<P>
These food scares are forcing the political decision-makers to hide behind the sacrosanct precautionary principle which, if comprehensively applied, would prevent any scientific progress. Yet this progress is demanded by those who want their comfort improved and their ills cured.
As a surgeon, this principle would have prevented me from getting anywhere near a scalpel.
<P>
We really should not be using this word of the moment - ethics - for anything and everything as it has a very specific meaning and can be better replaced in most cases by a much more appropriate term.
<P>
As for including in this directive the medicinal products already covered by another directive, as indicated by Amendment No 22, which aims to delete the excellent Article 5, this would strike a fatal blow to research on new medicines which are desperately needed to treat new and serious illnesses.
<P>
To conclude, we must make certain requests.
Firstly, a full information package must be provided before any consent is granted to the placing of GMOs or their products on the market.
Secondly, there must be a rigorous labelling policy.
Thirdly, traceability and monitoring must be guaranteed together with a detailed assessment of the risks and benefits involved, rather than using the precautionary principle at each stage.
Producers must be held liable for any damage to people or property and the placing of these products on the market must naturally be halted in the event of an alarm. We should authorise the cultivation of GMOs to be marketed within the European Union to prevent our Member States from being penalised and other countries enjoying an advantage, such as the United States, which produces and consumes genetically modified products and these are increasingly invading our supermarkets and will continue to do so.
Clearly, we must continue to ensure that these products do not constitute a risk to human health or the environment by taking account of the periodic opinions of appropriate and competent scientific committees.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=330 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lannoye">
Mr President, since 1990, when the current directive was adopted, the situation involving GMOs and their release has changed significantly.
<P>
Firstly, scientific uncertainty about the nature and extent of the risks is increasing.
Secondly, for certain categories of GMOs, there is proof that serious or irreversible risks do exist.
Thirdly, and with all due respect to Mr Cabrol, the precautionary principle has acquired legal and political status and has become a basic principle of European legislation.
The directive must therefore be adapted to this new situation.
<P>
The Commission's proposal does not take this into consideration.
Instead, it aims to accelerate the consent procedures and facilitate international trade.
The adoption of a simplified procedure for placing new GMOs on the market cannot be justified on the basis of a claimed equivalence with existing GMOs.
This concept of equivalence does not have any serious scientific basis.
In fact, this simplified procedure opens the door to the mutual recognition of standards allowing products authorised in the United States to be imported into Europe in increasing numbers.
<P>
We therefore feel that certain categories of GMOs that constitute particularly serious risks to the environment or health should be destroyed, not released.
This relates, in particular, to those GMOs that contain antibiotic-resistant genes, those that release toxins that are harmful to the useful fauna, and those that are likely to cross-breed with related wild or cultivated species.
<P>
We have tabled eight basic amendments which we hope will be adopted by the House.
Our group's vote depends on the fate of these amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=331 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, it is claimed that the world's food production will struggle without genetic modification, but I have serious reservations about this statement when I compare it with the story about the terminator gene.
By making seed infertile, western firms are making developing countries dependent on their grain supplies, thus perpetuating the unfair distribution of food even with genetically modified organisms.
This example shows that our debate on GMOs must look at more than just the long-term effects on consumer health and safety.
We would be missing the really central issues, because what we are dealing with here is an ethical problem.
<P>
I believe that God created reality, and I therefore reject the simple reduction of plants and animals to production factors to be manipulated.
As humans we are not masters but stewards, and this is the principle on which we should base our position on the introduction of GMOs.
In practical terms this means that we must strictly enforce the precautionary principle, as the rapporteur rightly points out.
From an ethical point of view, I am wholeheartedly in favour of this.
In the Committee on the Environment, I tried to put forward amendments to extend the risk assessment to include ethical aspects, but unfortunately there was not enough support for this.
<P>
Fortunately there are proposals from the rapporteur which give people with ethical objections the freedom to choose GMO-free products.
I think it is highly desirable for GMOs to be traceable through clear labelling and the preservation of GMO-free production chains.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=332 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graenitz">
Mr President, there is a proverb from the Ladin hills, not far from your own home area, that goes Qui va prudan', va sicur' e lontan' .
It means, he who goes cautiously, goes safely and goes far.
I believe it is a proverb that the rapporteur, whom I thank for his work, has borne in mind in his proposals.
He has made the Commission proposal more precise, careful and safer in a number of areas.
I believe it is indeed necessary to take that approach in a field in which we do not yet have the necessary experience.
<P>
I do not have the time to go into every individual point so I will only comment on a few that I regard as most important.
I think it is most important that the precautionary principle is specifically enshrined.
In my opinion, now that it is enshrined in the Amsterdam Treaty, we should do so in all legislation.
<P>
I also consider it most important that Parliament's proposal makes greater provision for information, for involvement of the public.
It is also most important to ensure that genetically modified products and organisms can be identified, to make it easier to recover them and also to assess the risk.
Risk evaluation of long-term effects has been enshrined, as has the possibility for Member States to set additional requirements for environmentally sensitive areas.
<P>
I also consider it most important - and here I would second the rapporteur's question to the Commissioner - for consent to be limited rather than unlimited.
There are other areas of environmental legislation where we find that unlimited authorisation has been granted for plant and then at a time when we already have quite different legislation, that plant can go on operating under the old limit values for a long time and does not have to adapt to new technology.
So I believe it is necessary to set limits.
But I would also have liked to ask the Commissioner whether seven years is the right period, or whether there could not be a different, more appropriate number.
For it is important when we inform the people to be able to tell them why a particular decision was taken rather than another one.
<P>
I hope Members will endorse the Environment Committee's proposals at the vote tomorrow, so that we can present the Council with a proposal that takes account of what this Parliament stands for, namely concern for the citizens of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=333 NAME="Valverde López">
Mr President, we cannot forget that this proposal amends a previous proposal and that the Member States and the Commission itself therefore already have a great deal of experience with it.
As a result, we should welcome some of the proposals that improve on previous provisions, such as the introduction of a mandatory post-marketing monitoring system for products, the introduction of clear risk assessment criteria, the classification of the experimental releases of products, an improvement in administrative procedures and increased transparency throughout the process.
<P>
These are all improvements and I therefore find it difficult to understand many of the amendments that have been tabled in the Committee on the Environment. They seem to reflect an excessive desire for control.
<P>
Biotechnology in general and genetic manipulation techniques provide great hope for humanity. They are not a threat and we must get that message across to the whole of society.
We must also get rid of the whole unscientific mentality surrounding this issue.
<P>
We must not allow fundamentalist political ideas to hide behind the cloak of ethical objections.
We cannot forget that the patent laws already take account of the ethical dimension and public policy before a patent is granted. In addition, we have always rejected socio-economic criteria when approving the release of any product onto the market.
This is political pro-activism pure and simple.
<P>
I therefore clearly support the main points of the Commission's balanced proposal, although I will vote against many of the amendments that have been tabled.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=334 NAME="Teverson">
Mr President, I welcome very much the tightening that this new directive represents. It confronts a number of important issues as does the report by Mr Bowe.
However, it misses one major strategic point and that arises from the fact that European citizens are very much more concerned about GMOs and their potential effects than other populations, particularly in North America.
What is missing from the recommendations here, and the directive, is the provisions for Member States to apply moratoria that are not necessarily based on strict existing scientific opinion.
What I would want to see, certainly in the second reading of this directive, is provision for Member States at least to put forward moratoria for five years while that research is taking place.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=335 NAME="Hyland">
Mr President, thank you for the opportunity to make a brief contribution to this debate.
Genetic research has much to offer mankind in alleviating disease, enhancing food security and quality and in the area of environmental protection.
Understandably, there have been many concerns raised in relation to this new and developing science.
They include lack of product labelling, environmental effects, antibiotic markers used in the selection process along with ethical, moral and social considerations.
These issues need debating and both consumers and public are right to be cautious.
<P>
On the question of food safety, I repeat my view that only after the most stringent tests should genetically modified food or food ingredients be allowed into the food chain and only then with detailed consumer information.
The consumer must be given a clear choice at all times.
<P>
It would be wrong, however, to deprive agriculture of the benefits of modern research.
To do so would tie the hands of the industry at a time when, for example, my country Ireland, as an agricultural exporting nation, must become increasingly competitive.
The selective use of genetic research would assist in developing my country's green image and lead to a reduction in the use of fertilizers and pesticides.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=336 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, I was very glad that Mr Bowe accepted our proposals regarding liability.
But I hope I have no grounds for mistrust after hearing Mr Liese's statement and hearing about his preliminary talks.
I hope we do not drop the idea of the insurance certificate, for otherwise liability would be pointless.
People would think we were mad if we said tomorrow that drivers were allowed to take their cars on the road without an insurance certificate.
It would be even more senseless in the case of a risk technology to call only for liability without making it compulsory to have insurance.
<P>
I hope that tomorrow's vote will be the proof, indeed the acid test, that the European Parliament can assume responsibility.
I was also pleased by the call just now for Member States to be able to apply moratoria.
We tabled an amendment to precisely that effect in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, but unfortunately it was in vain.
We hope you will be able to approve it tomorrow. I hope tomorrow we will send out a signal that we take the alarming scientific findings seriously.
A simplified procedure is irresponsible, as is Category I and the majority-state procedure.
<P>
But what I regard as the ultimate irresponsibility is a 12-year consent period for doubtful cases.
That is pure cynicism, for surely it means that we are using man and nature as a form of guinea-pig!
We believe it is vital to ban antibiotic-resistant genes, for otherwise we are heading for a therapeutic disaster, and to ensure that high-risk plants, i.e. those that can cross over to others, really must not be allowed to spread ...
<P>
The President cut the speaker off
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=337 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Trakatellis">
Mr President, the applications of genetically modified organisms are very broadly based and can be found in significant areas of human life, from medicine and the protection of the environment to agriculture and foodstuffs.
However, it is natural for the citizen to ask how we can ensure that the explosive pace at which this phenomenon is evolving does not exceed our capacity to regulate the issues that arise, while at the same time ignoring the safety of our society and our eco-systems.
<P>
Taking all these factors into account, the Community issued Commission Directive 90/220/EEC, which was implemented for the first time in 1991.
However, experience necessitated that it be revised.
Today we have before us a report which seeks to revise the directive, and I should like to thank our rapporteur, Mr Bowe, for the tremendous work he has put into this report.
<P>
By tabling my amendments, I wished to clarify the relationship that exists between humans and GMOs, and this because the definition of such organisms in the Commission's text is formulated in such a way as to include humans.
Amendments Nos 9 and 10 which I have tabled help to clarify this point and permit the use of human genes in the transfer and creation of GMOs. In this way, we can produce useful substances such as human insulin and many other human bio-molecules.
In my second amendment, I have ruled out human beings as recipients of GMOs, which would have led to the creation of genetically modified humans, and this would not have been acceptable for scientific, ethical, social and legal reasons.
<P>
We must wake up to the fact that GMOs and biotechnology are neither an economic nor a universal panacea, but nor are they a Pandora's box.
This is indeed a force, a force which opens up wonderful opportunities, if we use it prudently and responsibly.
It offers us the opportunity to combat far more effectively catastrophes on a global scale which all types of polluting activity inflicts on the environment. It offers us the opportunity to combat the misery that disease inflicts on human beings and the wretchedness wrought on society by famine.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=338 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR).">
Mr President, I can think of a number of basic requirements in relation to GMOs.
First of all, there is a stronger requirement for food to be wholesome.
People are becoming more aware, and this is leading to discussions concerning antibiotics, salmonella and additives.
<P>
Secondly, consumers should be able to make an informed choice, and labelling would enable them to do this.
Such a requirement is absolutely crucial.
<P>
Thirdly, the ethical and environmental implications should be explained, and there should be a ban on crops which have been made resistant to pesticides.
<P>
Fourthly, there should be rules at both European and international level governing the safety precautions that are required should GMOs be released into the environment.
Clearly, there has to be a deadline for drawing up these rules, as well as rules relating to producer responsibility.
<P>
Finally, the Member States should be entitled to impose their own stricter rules and to adopt more progressive measures, for example moratoriums.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=339 NAME="Jackson">
Mr President, I welcome the Bowe report and congratulate the rapporteur, who has put an enormous amount of work into this.
<P>
It is obviously very important that we put in place legislation that the people of Europe will have confidence in.
I am one of those who regard advances in genetic modification as having enormous potential benefits for mankind.
However, in recent months and years the voices of those calling for caution have got louder than those pointing out the advantages.
Of course, politicians should never simply react to the loudest lobby but public concern about GMOs has grown to such an extent that it is now very difficult to find farmers in my country who are prepared to have these trial crops grown on their land.
<P>
Unfortunately for the scientists engaged in GMO research, the public have heard relatively little about the benefits of GMO technology and a lot about the potential disadvantages.
This is a defect of the debate that scientists still have to put right in the public arena.
<P>
The directive before us is on the right lines and we believe broadly strikes the right balance between the freedom of the scientists to innovate and market the product of their innovation and the right of public authorities to insist on safety.
<P>
I agree with Mr Liese that the seven-year authorisation period is unsatisfactorily arbitrary.
If there is doubt about any genetically modified material, then surely it should not be permitted for release in the first place.
There are, however, certain amendments - for example Amendment No 68 - which call for more caution and which we, British Conservatives, want to support.
In this we shall be taking up the recent call of our party leader in the House of Commons where he spoke in favour of a three-year moratorium on the commercial release of genetically modified crops until more research is done into the consequences of such releases, especially for biological diversity.
Curiously, the British Government, which Mr Bowe unfortunately does not adorn, has ignored the advice of its own nature protection body - English Nature - by refusing to agree to such a moratorium.
More curiously still, Mr Bowe and Mr Collins, we suspect, were on the brink of supporting such a moratorium before their voices were stayed by a telephone call from London.
Such is the fate of principle in the New British Labour Party.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=340 NAME="Bowe">
Mr President, I wish to make a personal statement under Rule 108.
<P>
I listened carefully to what other colleagues said with regard to the issue of a moratorium.
I should say first of all that the chairman of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and I, as the rapporteur, signed a request to the Commission to consider the possibility of some kind of moratorium until the new proposal we are debating today was brought into place and the appropriate safeguards introduced.
However, there has been a reference to a moratorium in the amendments by Mrs Breyer, on behalf of the Green Group.
I hope that somebody can identify for me in the eight amendments tabled by Mrs Breyer the one which calls for a moratorium.
It seems to me that none of them do and I do not understand why she says there is one because that is simply not the case.
<P>
Finally, I would just say this: I was very surprised by Mrs Breyer's remarks describing the maximum time limit of 12 years as something awful, because Amendment No 75 by her own group itself requires a maximum time limit of 12 years!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=341 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, on the 12-year question: the committee called for a 12-year time-limit where there are safety doubts.
I am surprised to hear Mr Liese applauding, for it would be cynical of me to say: I shall put products on the market which I know in advance are doubtful.
That would be turning man and nature into guinea-pigs.
What we would have liked to see are monitoring programmes before the seven years are up, i.e. a fixed time-limit but with monitoring programmes that start before that date.
We tabled several other amendments in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, doing so in three different ways in regard to the moratorium for release.
The Group of the Party of European Socialists rejected them.
We have now tabled Amendment No 77, which reverses the burden of proof by saying that the Commission must provide proof to the contrary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=342 NAME="President">
That is not a personal statement, Mrs Breyer, and I must therefore cut you off.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=343 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, this is not the first time I have had the opportunity to discuss the issue of GMOs with Parliament.
We have done so several times, and each time we have created more clarity in the area, and now we have come to the legislation.
I would like to thank the rapporteurs of the committees which have been working on the subject, including Mr Bowe of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
<P>
As has been pointed out during the debate this evening, the directive currently before us seeks to make the decision-making process more efficient and more transparent, while at the same time ensuring a high level of protection for health and the environment.
In the long term, the directive will thus hopefully increase public confidence in the legislation in this area. I believe that is a crucial point.
In line with the precautionary principle in the field of health and the environment, the Commission's proposal aims firstly to toughen up the risk assessment to be carried out before authorisation for the release of GMOs is given and, secondly, to improve the chances of identifying and monitoring GMOs so that the competent authorities can react immediately and appropriately in the event of acute risk.
<P>
Against this background, I am glad to note that many of the proposed amendments improve on or clarify the Commission's proposal.
In many cases, we shall be able to use the ideas behind Parliament's amendments.
We can accept 44 of the 100 amendments in full, in part or in principle.
Amongst others, the amendments aimed at introducing a means of identifying genetically modified organisms will simplify, though not reduce, the monitoring and inspection measures.
However, the Commission will word these amendments a little differently, and we would also like to position them slightly differently so that they fit in better with the rest of the text.
<P>
The proposal seeks to meet the growing scepticism of the public towards biotechnology, which is something all of the speakers have probably touched on.
The Commission therefore cannot accept those amendments which change the balance and weaken the safety net which is built into the proposal, including the principle that authorisation is to be for a limited period.
On the strength of this principle, all new information will be taken into account and it will be possible to amend the requirements in accordance with the latest knowledge.
We have proposed a seven-year period.
Mr Bowe said this must be my favourite number and others also asked why it should be seven years.
Obviously, there are several options which people could argue for.
We saw it as a balance between the normal lifetime of a genetically modified product, the monitoring system we have proposed, and the need for the administrative procedures for this directive to be clear, practical and founded on science, in accordance with the precautionary principle.
I would also like to add that I personally, at any rate, do not think that the seven-year period should be extended, which means that I reject a number of the amendments.
This applies to Amendments Nos 41, 45, 45 and 75.
In the light of the debate which has taken place in the various Community institutions, however, the Commission can go along with an optional time-limit for the renewal of authorisations.
In line with this, the Commission is unable to accept Amendment No 24, which is aimed at introducing tacit approval for trial releases in Category I. In the Commission's view, the precautionary principle means that express written authorisation is required in all cases of release into the environment.
<P>
Labelling is one of the means which creates openness and reduces public misgivings.
The proposal therefore requires clear labelling of all genetically modified organisms which are placed on the market.
If there are any doubts, the labelling must state that the product 'may contain genetically modified organisms'.
If we introduce a system which does not require labelling below a given threshold, companies which process genetically modified organisms will not receive the information they need in order to be able to fulfil the strict labelling requirements imposed by the product legislation.
Therefore the Commission is unable to accept Amendments Nos 37, 67 and 76.
<P>
Another important question is the liability of the Member States in connection with decisions on product approval.
Here the Commission has proposed to change the committee procedure to give more influence to the Council.
The participation of the European Parliament in the committee procedure will now take place in accordance with the modus vivendi agreement and will, I believe, be formalised in a decision on the new committee procedure.
The Commission therefore cannot accept at this stage Amendment No 55, which is aimed at making alterations to committee procedure 3b.
Amendments Nos 36 and 80 strengthen the connection between this directive and product legislation, and so ensure that the whole framework legislation on biotechnology involves an extensive environmental risk assessment.
These amendments can therefore be accepted in principle, after some rewording.
However, the Commission cannot accept the removal or any alteration of Article 5, as proposed in Amendments Nos 2, 22 and 98.
The question of liability in Amendments Nos 7, 56 and 95 is currently being considered in the Commission, which intends to publish a white paper on liability.
A good deal of progress has been made in this area, and the Commission will of course present its white paper as soon as possible.
We cannot accept Amendments Nos 19, 21 and 51, which are aimed at regulating the import and export of genetically modified organisms.
These amendments would pre-empt the final wording of the Protocol on Biosafety which is currently under discussion.
<P>
I would also like to draw attention to Amendments Nos 27, 29 and 32 on public inquiries or consultation in connection with trial releases.
The Commission is able to accept these amendments in principle, but we would like to see them reworded so that they ensure agreement with the Århus Convention on public participation in the decision-making process.
Amendment Nos 6 and 54 are acceptable in principle because they confirm that the Council and the European Parliament can request the Commission to consult with the Ethics Committee on general ethical problems in connection with the release of genetically modified organisms.
<P>
Finally, I would like to emphasise that, apart from the question of the fixed-period authorisation, the amendments which the Commission has accepted in full, in part or in principle have resulted in a clear improvement of the quality of the proposal.
An example of this is Amendment No 14, which will simplify the monitoring and detection of GMOs.
In my view, the amendments make the Commission's text clearer and sharper, and will therefore create a sensible and feasible framework for achieving the high level of safety we all wish to see for the release of GMOs into the environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=344 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, I find it unacceptable that the Commissioner has been coming here for the past six years and announcing that a White Paper on liability is imminent.
We debated Directive No 90/219 exactly a year ago. There too we called for the introduction of liability.
The Commissioner said there would be a White Paper in a few weeks' time.
But a White Paper is not a directive.
Six years have passed since the Green Paper.
Commissioner, I think what you are doing here is gradually becoming an insult to our intelligence!
You refuse liability by stalling us for six years with a horizontal directive
<P>
I would now like you to tell us exactly why you keep lying to us and in particular why you said there would be a White Paper in a few weeks' time and why you are stalling us again now.
Even then we would still be far from having a directive. That means it would still take years.
Where, I ask myself, is the own responsibility of industry and science?
I find it totally irresponsible and no longer acceptable for you to stall us like this!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=345 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=346 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, we are moving quite a long way away from the actual proposal, but I would like to emphasise that I have definitely not promised Mrs Breyer in the past that there would be a proposal for a directive on liability.
We have previously discussed the question, and we have worked on a green paper.
It is an extremely complicated issue which produces a great many reactions, and of course it takes time to get such a proposal through.
That is why I have emphasised this evening that we will make an effort to have it ready as quickly as possible, but the Commission has not yet finished its work on the proposal.
Mrs Breyer also knows very well that these are the conditions for presenting a proposal in Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=347 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Liese">
Mr President, I am asking for the floor because I was personally addressed and attacked in the last but one statement by Mrs Breyer and if she is given the floor again this must be clarified.
She said that because we are in favour of an optional time-limit that means we regard people as guinea-pigs.
That really is absurd.
The fact is that the Commission evidently sees a need for introducing a time-limit.
We say there need to be scientific grounds for doing so.
If there are scientific grounds, then it should be done; so it has nothing to do with guinea-pigs.
For there are some areas where no such grounds exists, where no scientific reasons can be found for setting a time-limit, and that is the issue.
The issue has nothing at all to do with guinea-pigs or whatever but concerns a procedure that is commensurate with the risk!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=348 NAME="President">
Thank you.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
I shall now suspend the sitting for a few minutes.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 10.45 p.m. and resumed at 10.48 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=14>
End-of-life vehicles
<SPEAKER ID=349 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0051/99) by Mr Florenz, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Directive on end-of-life vehicles (COM(97)0358 - C4-0639/97-97/0194(SYN)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=350 NAME="Florenz">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, eight or nine million or cars a year are discarded in the European Community.
That calls for rules, and I think it was high time the European Commission addressed this issue.
I was a little annoyed to find that in this very important area, which is important not just to environment policy but also to economic policy, we received a proposal from the Commission that contained no annexes, or rather annexes that were empty.
For we know that the annexes are the crux of the matter.
Normally we have tended to send this kind of proposal back.
But since we have started, we may as well try to go on with our endeavour.
<P>
I believe this directive has set a good course. There are some areas where it needs tightening up a bit.
And in some areas it is very strict.
In committee we decided by a fairly substantial majority to concentrate only on two- and three-wheeled vehicles, unlike the Commission, which wants to set out broader rules.
The object of this directive is to ensure that in future vehicles that have reached the end of their life can only be deregistered on production of a certificate of destruction, which may sound very good at first, but which is in my view rather difficult to achieve, in some Member States at least.
A little more work needs be done here and we have made a few proposals to that end.
Article 6 concerns the treatment of end-of-life vehicles.
I believe here too a few nuances are needed, but basically we will follow the Commission line.
<P>
Another point I do not entirely understand is how the costs will be distributed in future in Europe.
The Commissioner reverted to a rather fuddy-duddy approach and opted for no costs for the last owner and/or user.
No doubt that sounds quite interesting to a politician, especially when elections are on the horizon. But no costs for the last user either, that can never be!
That is a fallacy.
I think we have overlooked the fact that no costs will automatically lead to a monopoly and, as we all know all too well, monopolies always lead to concentration processes, which are always a bad thing!
<P>
That really will drive the small and medium-sized enterprises that we keep supporting and praising in our electioneering speeches out of the market.
Jobs will be lost.
It will cut the regional incomes of our petrol stations, of our garages.
After all I would not drive to some posh body repair shop to have my car deregistered, I would go to my local dealer who lives in my village and has been looking after my car for years.
I believe that is the wrong approach.
My proposal is that the Member States should be responsible, together with the economic operators involved, i.e. the manufacturer, recoverer, shredder, last owner, etc., for developing a system at their own cost that will where possible involve no cost for the last owner, but not par ordre de moufti .
I think an insurance system like the one for motor vehicles, where everyone pays in one euro a month, would be quite a good solution.
That would certainly have been in my amendment.
<P>
There is a second point - and here for once I agree with the Commissioner, in fact I am quite enthusiastic - and that is the very exacting recovery targets.
<P>
These very exacting recovery targets will without doubt require the industry to make quite an effort.
And that is a good thing, for we have a great number - hundreds of thousands, millions - of cars in Europe and obviously we want to go on having them.
But precisely because we want to have them, we also need sensible recovery quotas.
I believe the committee has moved in the wrong direction here, because it has accepted an amendment by a colleague of mine, whom I normally hold in very high regard, that prescribes that nothing more will be done until the year 2020.
<P>
If I am interpreting that amendment correctly, then in future the motor industry will only have to ensure that there are no passengers in the car; apart from that, it can send the car to the shredder and do whatever it wants.
That is not environmentally friendly, and you know that this is something I keep a very close eye on.
I believe the Commission's approach is a little too harsh, but if it could be toned down a little the basic principle would be right.
<P>
It is precisely because we have nine million tonnes of scrap cars that we need recycling rules.
We turned the whole of Europe upside down for one ridiculous little package and introduced packaging regulations for it.
We are now deciding on the labelling to go with this packaging regulation - the rapporteur is sitting behind me.
So if we fix a recycling quota for such a small matter, then we surely also need to have recycling quotas for nine million tonnes of scrap cars, and certainly before the year 2020.
I do not think this is acceptable!
A lot of lobbying is going on here, but we will put a stop to it.
<P>
We may quarrel about the ban on hazardous substances.
The Commission has proposed values and parameters which, in my view, are very tough.
In this field too we are now seeing an enormous expansion.
I would stick to the Commission's principle and propose a combined committee made up of Directorates-General III and XII, which would make a critical, scientifically sound proposal after three years on whether these tough rules need to be maintained and implemented.
I know it is sacrilege to invite DG III and DG XII to the same table, but I do not think it is such a bad idea.
<P>
Some people want to ban PVC.
I cannot judge the merits of that.
I am not an expert in chemistry.
But if PVC is dangerous, then all this junk should be banned in a horizontal directive and not stigmatised in an individual secondary directive.
The Commission needs to hurry up here, and that is where you, Mrs Bjerregaard, come in.
I know you have some very important colleagues who are slowing this whole business down.
It is up to you to see to this horizontal directive.
This kind of thing cannot be regulated in the directive we have here.
That is stigmatisation, and I do not think it is right.
<P>
I am a passionate supporter of voluntary agreements.
If there are Member States which dispose of their old cars in line with the objectives of the European directives then, for God's sake, provided they can be monitored, we should also allow them to retain their voluntary agreements.
Instructions from above are always a second best.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=351 NAME="Bowe">
Mr President, in this debate it falls to me to represent the views of the committee which has offered an opinion to the Environment Committee which, I have to say, was very favourably received, and I thank the rapporteur and the members of the committee for accepting many of our amendments.
I can, therefore, commend the report itself to the House, on behalf of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee.
<P>
In relation to that report we do not just have to take on board the importance of the ideas expressed by Mr Florenz about recycling - endorse them though I do.
He is absolutely correct: there are large tonnages of waste coming from cars every year.
Much of it is not metal and much of it has to be dealt with under very difficult circumstances.
We need a serious and proper approach to it.
Certainly one of the outcomes of this would be a more orderly market-place, one in which recycling takes place, not in the traditional scrapyard, which we are all familiar with, but in a proper recycling facility which will create employment opportunities and the kind of jobs which are so sorely lacking in many parts of the Union and which will isolate the metals and other substances from cars and put them to good economic use.
<P>
There are two issues we cannot ignore and I would press on the House.
The first is the issue of leaded steel.
We have some amendments before us tonight which recognise the difficulties involved in removing certain metals from cars completely; I hope we will endorse those amendments tonight to ensure that the recycling of cars is done in an environmentally friendly way that does not require additional expenditure of energy which, if we took out all the metals referred to by the Commission, would be needed.
<P>
In addition, I should like to point out that it is very important from the point of view of the final consumer that take-back is free of charge - perhaps the consumer could even receive the deposit back, but take-back must be free of charge.
That is very important if we are to ensure that the system functions effectively.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=352 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lange">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I believe we are aiming at two major objectives with this directive.
First, we want to dispose of these eight million vehicles properly and, secondly, we want to dump as few as possible as landfill.
The question is: how do we achieve that?
I believe that first we must guarantee take-back free of charge to the last owner, and for several reasons, one of which is of course social.
For it is surely not acceptable to penalise the last owner in this way.
Many others have had the benefit of this car; many others have driven it.
The manufacturers sold it, of course, so they also benefited from it.
So if we take this approach we must distribute the cost fairly among everyone and not just foist it on the last owner.
That is why I say: no charge for the last owner.
How the Member States apply that is of course their business.
There is the Dutch system, there is the German system, the French system - I do not want to lay down any rules.
It is the principle that concerns me.
<P>
And there is a second reason.
What, I ask you, is happening today in countries where disposal is either self-financing or is cost free?
In those countries used cars are stored illegally or exported to the east. Surely that cannot be our waste-disposal policy!
In Germany some 50 % of used cars are transported in an exodus to the east.
So it is quite clear to me that we must insist on freedom of charge.
Nor will that spell the death of small and medium-sized enterprises.
After all, what does the motor industry do in the case of services, of supply contracts?
It invites tenders and there is competition.
The same will apply to the recovery of old cars.
<P>
However, and this is my second point, I believe we must draw a distinction between old and new cars.
After all, we cannot expect a car that was built 20 years ago to satisfy today's requirements.
That would be like saying that a 20-year-old car had to meet the Euro 4 standard for 2005 under the current legislation on exhaust gas.
So we must ensure that as few old cars as possible are dumped, but we certainly cannot lay down what quota is to be recovered in what way.
Just imagine in real life: an old car is taken to the shredder, goes through the shredder; at most you can determine the weight before and after, but not how the individual materials are used - that is quite absurd.
It would mean that the very people who keep fighting bureaucracy would have to set up an enormous monitoring system for old cars which would be impossible to verify.
<P>
I think we should only decide on matters that we can also guarantee and verify.
So for old cars we can restrict the materials that may be dumped, but not set a sub-quota on how they may be used.
For new cars, however, which are being manufactured now, we need an ambitious system to ensure that they are as recycling-friendly as possible.
So in that case I am in favour of a type approval that lays down such quotas.
There we can carry out checks, as we do with the crash test, as we do for exhaust gas emissions.
For new cars we must apply stringent reuse and recycling requirements.
<P>
After all, the question of application is the key question.
Mr Florenz said, in his nice way, that we would be taking a softer line and the directive would only apply from the year 2020.
Let me tell him, that is total rubbish!
We say the directive should apply immediately, and to all cars.
Regardless of how they are serviced, regardless of any spare parts they contain - all cars must be taken back and recovered free of cost at once, not just in 2005, as the Commissioner proposes.
So we are taking a more stringent line.
<P>
Secondly, we say that the type approval rules as from 2005 must provide in precise terms that new cars must be recycling-friendly.
That too makes this legislation more stringent.
That means, to put it mildly, that it is not right of Mr Florenz to say that we would be watering down these Commission proposals in any respect at all.
On the contrary, we are following a different system.
But I am firmly convinced that we are tightening up the Commission proposal for the sake of environmental protection and consumer protection and moving it in the right direction.
It is quite obvious to me that we need clarification on the question of heavy metals, which is why we must now make it clear once and for all in what areas we want or do not want heavy metals.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=353 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Grossetête">
Mr President, the proposed directive under discussion is particularly important and concerns all of us as users of motor vehicles.
<P>
I am not going to go over the ground covered by my colleagues Mr Florenz and Mr Lange, but will instead mention a few points which I feel are essential.
<P>
Firstly, some people are calling for a ban on PVC, but we must be consistent.
Calling for a ban on PVC is in complete contradiction with our recent call to vehicle manufacturers to build vehicles that consume less and therefore have lower levels of emissions.
It is common knowledge that if vehicles cannot use PVC, they will be heavier and will therefore consume more.
So we must be consistent.
<P>
On the other hand, I totally agree with Amendment No 34 tabled by Mr Lange. In my opinion, it is essential to make a clear distinction between old and new vehicles that will receive type approval before and after 2005 respectively.
At least this gives vehicle manufacturers an idea of the constraints to be imposed on them after 2005.
<P>
Finally, it is essential to carry out a risk assessment of the materials and substances included in Annex II.
In my opinion, it would be better to assess these risks and, if a risks exists, to then look at the exemptions that could be granted.
That would allow us, in this case, to achieve an appropriate balance between the environment and the motor industry.
<P>
These are the points which I feel are particularly important if we are to find a solution to a problem that is sweeping through our entire industrial society.
I sincerely hope that appropriate solutions can be found to solve this problem of end-of-life vehicles, particularly since we are now all aware of it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=354 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Olsson">
Mr President, Commissioner, I should like to say that I was impressed by this proposal for a directive.
Mr Florenz has also done his work well, although I would actually rate his work in other areas more highly than in this one.
He has not been quite as tough as he has tended to be in other circumstances.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has, however, sharpened up the directive and I sincerely hope that the Commission will now approve it.
<P>
I should like to mention one or two points.
It is abundantly clear that there should be some form of manufacturer responsibility for cars as well.
It would therefore be reasonable for manufacturers to bear the major share of the responsibility, but in point of fact the consumer alone foots the bill; it is always the consumer who has to pay.
However, the final consumer should be able to get rid of his or her car free of charge.
I believe that this is necessary if the scheme is to work.
There should also be quotas and rules regarding the quantities to be recycled using different methods.
<P>
As regards new cars, far more stringent criteria need to be introduced as quickly as possible.
We know the industry often claims that to do so would be impossibly difficult or expensive, but it then goes on to do just that.
In a number of different areas, the industry has shown that it is capable of making the necessary adaptations.
Bearing in mind that cars eventually have to be scrapped, environmentally unfriendly materials such as lead, mercury, chromium and cadmium should be eliminated, that much is patently clear.
My group and I also think that the same should apply to PVC, since if we allow it in cars, it is never going to be clear to people that we want to eliminate this material, only we have to wait for a horizontal directive in order to do so.
You cannot explain such things to ordinary people. In all probability it is only our politicians who understand them.
Consequently, I think it should be included in this proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=355 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="d'Aboville">
Mr President, I have two initial remarks to make.
The first concerns so-called 'historic' vehicles.
In a limited number of cases, these vehicles are kept by their owners either for restoration or as a source of spares.
They are part of our industrial heritage and their preservation must be encouraged.
We therefore fully support Amendment No 1 tabled by the rapporteur.
<P>
My second remark concerns two-wheel vehicles, which cannot be regarded as a threat to the environment for the simple reason that the concepts of 'end of life' and 'discarding' do not apply to them.
Although a few may attain the hallowed status of historic vehicles, the ruthless world of two wheels is typified by cannibalism as parts are easy to strip off and many owners carry out maintenance and minor repairs themselves.
Two-wheel vehicles are therefore generally stripped and their components naturally reused.
<P>
I must also highlight Amendment No 53 which concerns the recycling or recovery percentages.
It maintains our ambitious objectives but, based on the experience of the 'packaging' directive, it pragmatically provides for the option to periodically review these objectives and alter them if necessary.
We will also support Amendment No 54 which rightly stipulates that the free recovery of vehicles will not be backdated.
<P>
On the other hand, we will vote against Amendment No 21, which would ban the use of PVC, for three reasons.
Firstly, the usefulness of this material is indisputable.
Secondly, it is an anticorrosive product which extends the life of vehicles, reduces their weight and thereby has a positive impact on consumption and pollution, as indicated by Mrs Grossetête. And thirdly, the majority of PVC is reused or recycled and it would therefore be particularly illogical to move away from the Commission's horizontal approach in this respect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=356 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, this proposal for a directive is a stroke of luck for the environment, since assigning responsibility to the manufacturer was long overdue and it was also high time waste prevention applied to the motor vehicle sector too.
I am glad the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection also stood up for freedom of charge to the last user.
I very much regret that Mr Florenz has expressed his personal view here rather than that of the Environment Committee.
I hope that tomorrow Members will also stand by their amendment on banning PVC from the year 2005.
<P>
I find it shocking to hear that there are obviously plans to bow to the PVC industry here tomorrow!
And let me tell Mrs Grossetête and others that we are not talking about banning plastic.
We are talking about banning PVC, about products involving chlorine.
There is actually a bioplastic and other plastic materials.
The argument she put forward was quite absurd and I must say that unfortunately that shows that she was not well-informed and that obviously this is merely a question of arguments ...
<P>
The President cut the speaker off
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=357 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Jensen, Kirsten">
Mr President, problems with end-of-life vehicles which are to be scrapped are largely due to the way they are produced.
That is why we should both ensure that vehicle parts are reused and that specially harmful substances are not used in the new generation of vehicles.
That brings us to PVC.
Like other Members, I wonder what the Commission intends to do about this.
As we know, PVC is not the solution of the future, even though in the material it sends us, the PVC industry tries to distort the Swedish PVC action plan, for example, so as to persuade us that the Swedes think PVC is a health product which everyone should have more of.
In fact, they do not think that at all.
PVC has a wide range of applications, but its disposal creates environmental problems.
PVC produces even more waste after incineration than the amount that was sent to the incineration plant.
Incinerated PVC produces dioxins, which are among the most dangerous toxins that exist.
In addition, the plasticisers used in PVC, the so-called phthalates, are suspected of being hormone interferers, and in legislation which is geared to the future we must observe the precautionary principle.
<P>
Every time that PVC is involved in a proposal for a directive, we are told that this problem in particular cannot be looked at on its own or vertically, but that we should look at it globally and horizontally, and that the Commission will do the thinking for us.
As far as I am aware, it has been meaning to do so since the 1980s.
Today the Commission must tell us when it will take an initiative in the area of PVC, because that will have a bearing on the way we vote tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=358 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, I want to congratulate Mr Florenz because reuse really should be given priority; but I also want to say absolutely no to the PVC ban because we do not yet know of any viable alternatives.
To include the collection of used parts from repaired cars would involve the entire garage waste disposal system and in the final analysis that has nothing to do with the directive.
Take-back free of charge would also destroy market forces and, above all, would exclude existing firms from the recovery chain and produce expensive bureaucratic obstacles to trade.
<P>
On Amendment No 42 I would say it is a positive sign for environmental agreements because with many agreements on end-of-life vehicles in Europe compliance tends to be concentrated on just a few articles.
On Amendment No 44: in my view the technical annex is too detailed and also contains provisions that make no sense.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=359 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking Mr Florenz for the work which the Committee on the Environment has done on this important and complex proposal.
The Committee on the Environment has proposed 45 amendments, and with a further 16 there is a total of 61.
Some of the amendments clarify or improve the proposal, and I can already say that the Commission is able to accept 20 of them in full or in part.
There are also some amendments which dilute the Commission's proposal and reduce the level of environmental protection.
Here I am thinking in particular of topics such as producer responsibility, recovery targets, and the scope and implementation of the proposal.
These elements are central to the Commission's proposal, and we cannot accept any watering-down of them.
<P>
I would like to comment on the many amendments in groups.
Let me begin with the scope of the proposal.
Here I shall comment on two aspects in particular.
The first aspect, which relates to Amendments Nos 9, 14 and the second part of 17, concerns veteran vehicles.
We do not think that veteran vehicles which are in museums or owned by private individuals constitute waste.
They are therefore not covered by the proposal, but we can of course make that clearer in the proposal itself.
Then there is the proposal concerning the extent to which this should apply to two and three-wheeled vehicles.
We have also considered this, and we think that these vehicles should only be exempt from Articles 4 and 7 of the proposal.
Amendment No 18 means that two and three-wheeled vehicles would be exempt from all the articles apart from Article 6 of the proposal, and we cannot agree to that.
<P>
Then there are the heavy metals and PVC.
In its proposal, the Commission has chosen to require that some of the heavy metals should be removed from the vehicles before they are reused, and I see that the Committee on the Environment is in favour of a clear phasing-out of such heavy metals and a list of derogations which can be amended through the committee procedure.
Unfortunately, I have reservations about this, so at the moment I cannot support Amendments Nos 20, 21, 45, 56 and 59, and Mrs Jensen was quite right that my answer concerning PVC would be that we are currently working on a horizontal initiative, so I cannot accept Amendments Nos 8, 19 and 21.
<P>
Then there is the question of the collection and take-back of end-of-life vehicles.
Here the Commission accepts Amendments Nos 24, 28 and 29 which clarify the text, but we cannot accept Amendments Nos 26 and 27. Amendments Nos 22 and 23 require careful consideration, so we are not accepting them today.
I would like to emphasise that both free take-back and the principle of producer responsibility, which have also featured strongly in the debate today, are key elements in connection with making production and consumption more sustainable in the longer term.
This is also the reason why we cannot accept Amendment No 25 or Amendments Nos 46 and 54, but we can endorse Amendment No 43.
As far as recycling, reuse and recovery of end-of-life vehicles is concerned, the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 34, because it would remove the short-term recovery target.
Then there is Amendment No 61, which makes the targets less clear, and Amendment No 53, which represents a serious obstacle to achieving the long-term targets and is also unacceptable.
<P>
We cannot accept Amendments Nos 49 and 50, which would make it difficult to monitor whether the quantified targets have been reached, but we can accept Amendments Nos 57 and 58.
There are also the amendments relating to implementation and, lastly, there is the question of environmental agreements, which we cannot accept at the present time.
In this context, I must point out in passing that this concerned an entirely different debate, when we were discussing a different proposal from the Committee on the Environment regarding voluntary agreements.
<P>
I hope it will be possible to find a compromise in the course of further negotiations which strikes a balance between considerations relating to the environment, consumers and industry.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=360 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=15>
Unilateral US measures against banana regime
<SPEAKER ID=361 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions:
<P>
B4-0017/99 by Mr Querbes and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, to the Commission, on unilateral retaliatory measures taken by the United States against Community exports in the wake of the 'bananas' dispute; -B4-0018/99 by Mr Aldo and others, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, to the Commission, on unilateral US retaliatory measures in the dispute over the European banana import regime; -B4-0019/99 by Mr Castagnède and Mr Hory, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, to the Commission, on the new WTO panel on bananas and unilateral US threats of retaliatory customs action; -B4-0139/99 by Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel and Mr Moorhouse, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, to the Commission, on the functioning of the WTO Dispute-Settlement Procedures and the US/EU banana dispute; -B4-0140/99 by Mrs Mann, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to the Commission, on unilateral measures taken by the United States against the import of EU goods; -B4-0141/99 by Mr Souchet, on behalf of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, to the Commission, on unilateral retaliatory measures which the United States of America is threatening to take in the dispute over the European banana import regime; -B4-0142/99 by Mr Kreissl-Dörfler and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, to the Commission, on the WTO and the trade dispute between the EU and the USA concerning the common organisation of the market in bananas; -B4-0143/99 by Mr Kittelmann and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, to the Commission, on unilateral trade measures taken by the United States of America against selected European products and the WTO Dispute Settlement Procedure.






<SPEAKER ID=362 NAME="Sierra González">
Mr President, I would like to point out that the measures agreed on by the United States, the problems involved in applying the regulation on the COM for bananas and the conflicts that have arisen in this area mean that we must consider two basic issues.
<P>
The first is that the Union must defend its internal law, which is an expression of its autonomy. It is being attacked by rules such as Section 301, that are applied with extraterritorial effect and that are used to defend interests rather than rights.
<P>
The second is the need to guarantee that the arbitration procedures are effective. These have been used against the Union in the past and now, due to circumstances, they are being called into question because of the unilateral protectionist measures that have been taken.
<P>
Both questions lead us to the conclusion that we are pursuing an open market policy that is not reciprocated and that benefits the United States.
The US not only wants European markets to be open to products from the United States; they must also be open in the way that the United States dictates.
<P>
We must ensure that we maintain the Union's legislative autonomy; in this case, the COM for bananas is symbolic.
What we are trying to do is to assert the Union's autonomy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=363 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Sierra González, and thank you for keeping to your speaking time.
I would remind the House that I have to be extremely strict this evening in order for us to stay on schedule.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=364 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Aldo">
Mr President, since my election to this House, I have repeatedly denounced the constant attacks by the United States against the COM for bananas.
<P>
Despite the far-reaching concessions granted by the European Union during the reform of the COM, this new regime continues to be attacked by the United States which basically wants it to be dismantled. I must point out that, at the time, we fought against those concessions as they undermine the basic principle of Community preference.
<P>
The threats now being made by the United States, in total defiance of the rules governing the multilateral trading system, are coming directly after the establishment of the transatlantic partnership.
The UPE Group is therefore calling for an appropriate response from the European Union.
<P>
In essence, the European Union can under no circumstances be subject to United States sanctions if no decision has been made by the relevant bodies of the WTO, in accordance with the applicable procedures guaranteeing the observance of due process.
If the Americans were to go down the road of unilateral action, they should realise that they would bear a heavy responsibility for weakening the international trading system.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=365 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Erika">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I do not want to go into detail today.
Some Members have already addressed certain questions and I assume that others here present will be referring to many of the details.
If the consequences of these fresh disputes with the United States were not so serious, this quarrel might seem amusing. But the consequences are very serious and I hope that we will reach a satisfactory solution in the very near future, otherwise we would seriously jeopardise transatlantic relations.
<P>
Let me remind you: the European Union and the United States did most to initiate the dispute-settlement procedure within the WTO.
This procedure may not be perfect in every way and may need to be developed further but it is the only international instrument we have to resolve trade disputes.
The United States doubts whether the new banana market organisation is WTO compatible.
That is indeed its right.
But it does not have the right to take unilateral measures against its trade partners and to issue sanctions, such as in this case the absurd 100 % duties on products from EU Member States.
<P>
It does not have the right to take it upon itself to deliver a verdict.
The conduct of the United States does considerable damage to the WTO dispute settlement procedure.
It makes the preliminary negotiations for the new WTO round considerably more difficult and it damages confidence in the process of transatlantic partnership.
It gives the impression that the American margin for play in trade policy is increasingly determined by a purely national political agenda, which causes justified fears that it is trying to impose a particular American trade philosophy worldwide.
That is playing with fire and puts the WTO itself in the firing line.
Protectionism must not always be seen as the solution to national problems.
In the scheme of things we are all dependent on one another and the WTO is an instrument for harmonising egoistic national approaches.
It is not beloved of everyone, it is not perfect, but it is extremely necessary.
<P>
To approach national issues, such as bananas, hormones and many others I could mention, in emotional political terms, takes the reason out of politics as a whole and sets in motion a trend that may not be stoppable.
My group fully supports the Commission's position.
You have before you an appropriate joint resolution from the Committee on External Economic Relations that strongly rejects the unilateral measures taken by the United States, fully supports the Commission and, moreover, in my view can form a good basis for further European policy measures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=366 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
With regard to the banana dispute, the crisis affecting the relations between the European Union, its Member States, its ACP partners and the United States illustrates the ambiguities of the EU's trade policy.
<P>
Faced with the determined stance of the Americans, who are skilfully playing a double game with their European partners by seeking both partnership and sanctions, the European institutions appear divided, powerless, paralysed and reluctant to truly defend European interests.
<P>
There are several reasons for this.
Firstly, the American desire for domination is not perceived as such by many Member States.
Secondly, the 15 Member States increasingly appear to have divergent interests. And thirdly, the absence of democracy within the European institutions is ensuring that any complicity is obscured.
<P>
The fact remains that we are faced with a situation in which the United States has unilaterally decided to publish a list of European products which it intends to sanction by raising customs duties to 100 % if the EU does not amend its new banana import regime. In addition, they have taken this decision even before the WTO has decided whether or not this regime is compatible with its rules.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=367 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Mr President, as US Ambassador Vernon Weaver recently made quite plain in the Committee on External Economic Relations, the current banana war is a test case.
The real test will come when the EU bans meat containing hormones in a few weeks' time.
Next on the cards - and here too Mr Weaver did not mince his words - will come genetic manipulation.
Under the pretext of offering the consumer a wider choice, US firms are to be allowed to put genetically modified tomatoes and laboratory-made soya on our supermarket shelves.
And if possible they will not label it as such, since the poor consumer might find it too hard to take in so much information!
<P>
The issue goes far beyond bananas.
That is precisely why we cannot give way to the unjustified US demand, even though and in fact just because they are threatening lunatic sanctions. After one WTO panel we revised the organisation of the banana market.
Whether that revised regime is compatible with the rules is something that same panel will decide again.
Any form of US sanction against European firms prior to the panel's findings would deprive the WTO of all meaning.
If any penalty duty is imposed before the panel's findings, we might as well shut down the WTO.
<P>
Unfortunately the Commission has to take some of the blame for this situation.
The founders of the WTO manoeuvred themselves into this position because world trade is not being regulated according to the principle of sustainable development, consumer protection and social protection.
Instead the ruling principles are economic growth and profit seeking.
With a view to the forthcoming millennium round, it is high time to formulate concrete reform proposals.
Precautionary measures, the environment and local development must become the guiding principles of economic action.
At the high-level WTO meetings in March, the Commission ought to begin by submitting the appropriate documents if it really wants, as promised, to make transparency the primary obligation of EU officials.
Today's protests in front of Parliament by the French farmers have given some idea of what they think of the adjustment to the world market and the mania for liberalisation and deregulation, as also what they will be capable of once they really get going.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=368 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Liese">
Mr President, the Group of the European People's Party supports the joint resolution.
We consider it most important for the WTO rules to be observed.
It is absolutely unacceptable for the USA to threaten unilateral measures again European firms that really have nothing at all to do with the banana market organisation, with the dispute about it.
It is also entirely unacceptable for US policy to give in to the pressure from Chiquita and others.
We must support the Commission in its demand for respect for the WTO rules.
<P>
But the EU must also respect the WTO rules, which means that if we lose again at the next panel, we will have to revise the market organisation again.
I would ask the Commission to consider how we will react if that happens.
For myself, I would say that I do not regard this as a good organisation of the market.
It discriminates against producers in Latin America and it does not protect small producers against the multinationals, as is said so often, for there are small, independent producers in Latin America too.
In Ecuador, 60 % of producers have fewer than 20 hectares, and they are owned nationally, not owned Chiquita.
<P>
In Costa Rica there are fair-trade bananas, and the organisation of the market discriminates against all of them.
For Commissioner Pinheiro actually to say two weeks ago in regard to my report on bananas that the Commission should give the multinationals in the ACP states money to build up banana plantations is pure hypocrisy, if at the same time we say we want to defend the small producers against the big shots.
Perhaps quite different issues are at stake here.
But that should not prevent us from insisting again and again that the WTO rules must be respected and that we cannot accept the US attacks.
Nor can we accept the US views on hormone-containing meat and on the question of genetically modified organisms.
Here we must stand up for our legislation.
But should we find that our legislation is not compatible with the WTO rules, then indeed we have to revise it.
<P>
I would also draw Sir Leon Brittan's attention to the debate we have just held on the Bowe report.
There the committee proposed an amendment to the effect that we should take account of socio-economic criteria when authorising genetically modified organisms.
I believe that if that amendment is adopted and has an influence on the legislation, it will be a through ball for the Americans.
We have to prove on the basis of scientific evidence that our policy is the right one, and this applies both to the hormone issue and to GMOs.
We regard the precautionary principle as the foundation of our policy, not some arbitrary socio-economic criteria.
Here too we must take care we do not come up against new problems in the autumn.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=369 NAME="Brittan">
Mr President, I wish to begin by welcoming the support that Parliament has given generally to the Commission on this issue and also thanking it for the resolution that has been drafted, which we find very supportive.
<P>
The questions raised two key issues: what is the Commission doing to avoid the threatened US sanctions and, if sanctions are nevertheless applied, what does it intend to do then?
All our actions, both present and future, are and will be taken in full compliance with WTO rules.
Two wrongs do not make a right. That does not, however, mean, that we are powerless.
American sanctions are illegal because they are based on a unilateral determination that the European Community has failed to bring the banana regime into compliance with WTO rules.
We have therefore sought to persuade the Americans to submit the question of the conformity of the new banana regime to a WTO panel procedure, in accordance with Article 21(5).
In fact, WTO procedures make this an obligatory step before any sanctions can be authorised.
<P>
As early as last September, and in the weeks and months following, we offered to reduce the WTO procedure to an absolute minimum of time.
We even initiated the procedure ourselves, inviting the United States to participate.
But the fundamental problem is that, at the end of the Uruguay Round, the US Administration promised Congress that it would take sanctions immediately at the end of the period for implementation of the WTO panel ruling in application of the domestic Section 301 procedure.
The Administration now has to prove that it can deliver.
That is the simple American political background.
The United States has, therefore, ignored the fact that where there is disagreement between the parties, the conformity of implementing measures must first be tested through the obligatory WTO procedures.
<P>
In the bananas case the American Administration promised Congress to implement sanctions at the latest by 3 March 1999 whatever happens in the WTO!
That is what ties the hands of the US Administration.
That is why the United States has refused to participate in any WTO procedure on the conformity of the new EC banana regime simply because that would have taken the Americans beyond their self-imposed internal deadline, which does not comply with WTO rules.
<P>
By initiating the Article 21(5) procedure ourselves, we succeeded in bringing Ecuador to launch its own procedure to challenge the conformity of our regime.
This procedure is now under way and panel reports are due by 12 April.
After this, the normal procedures provide that the other side has the right to appeal.
Meanwhile, the US has continued to press for authorisation to take retaliatory measures by 3 March.
There has been a major debate on this, in which almost all the WTO members who spoke supported our position that there cannot be authorisation of retaliation in the absence of a WTO ruling on the conformity of the regime.
<P>
We will now continue to argue before the arbitrator that he can only determine the level of any retaliatory action if and when the non-conformity of the new banana regime has been determined.
Otherwise, the arbitrator would be sentencing the European Community while its guilt has not been proven.
<P>
We have also asked the WTO General Council to give an authoritative interpretation on this question.
<P>
Finally, we are challenging the conformity of the American Section 301 legislation.
We have requested a panel which will, in due course, be set up.
The US, from its side, has requested consultations with us and we will enter those consultations in good faith.
<P>
This brings me to the second question: what would we do if the Americans go ahead with sanctions on 3 March?
Firstly, we would challenge the legality of those sanctions through the WTO dispute settlement procedures.
<P>
Finally, as long as those sanctions lasted, we would have the option of retaliating, quite legally, by withdrawing concessions or imposing measures in areas not covered by WTO disciplines.
There are such measures that could be imposed and we would be entitled and would give the most serious consideration to applying them in the face of such flagrant breach of the law.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=370 NAME="Smith">
Mr President, we support the Commission view that the unilateral action by the United States is illegal as it is outrageous and totally irresponsible.
Its very threat is already causing severe damage to cashmere garment producers who are wholly innocent parties in this dispute and who stand to lose around GPB 20 million of export orders and possibly 1000 jobs.
By these vindictive actions, the United States has prejudiced, not only their own reputation, but also the future of the transatlantic partnership.
Precisely what the USA asked for - an arbitration panel under Article 21(5) - I believe in the letter to Sir Leon of 13 July is now under way.
We must condemn the crude attempt at intimidation by the United States, singling out for exemption from sanctions products from Denmark and the Netherlands because these countries voted against the banana regime in Council.
On this point, I wish to ask the Commission what mechanism is at the disposal of the US authorities that would allow them to distinguish between products originating in say Denmark or Holland as opposed to those from France or the United Kingdom.
<P>
The points we make in the resolution of the Committee on External Economic Relations are very clear.
We demand that the European Union fulfill its obligations to our ACP trade partners and we expect the Commission to achieve that objective within the WTO framework.
Finally, we cannot and will not tolerate further damage to our industries by a regime whose ambition is matched only by its arrogance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=371 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, perhaps we have not done very well with the banana regime we have adopted in Europe. But to react to that by immediately declaring war, by imposing a 100 % duty on candles, weapons, pullovers and suchlike, is not, in my view, the right answer.
It is the old method of trying to get your way by might and main that was used in the wars of the past.
The winner is the one who can shoot most people dead.
<P>
We have learned a lot more since then in Europe.
Basically it is a question of finding a better solution.
That means if we have two different points of view, we should acknowledge that both sides could be right.
Then we should try to meet each other halfway and say, let us not just accept solution 1 or 2, let us also try solution 3, 4, 5, 10 or 15 and go on until we find a solution that everyone can accept; and these solutions must be worked out at a high official level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=372 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Ainardi">
Mr President, because two or three major American companies control the banana production of the Latin American countries, the United States, which does not itself produce any bananas at all, is relentlessly maintaining its offensive against the Community import regime.
<P>
Although the European Union has taken account of the WTO verdict by amending its regulations, the United States is again threatening trade sanctions against imported European products.
The United States also wants the EU to lift its embargo on imports of hormonised meat and is preparing an offensive against genetically modified organisms.
<P>
On 28 January, the US ambassador to the European Union stressed that the banana dispute was a minor issue compared to the potential scope of the hormonised meat and GMO issues.
<P>
This reaffirmation of the commercial and political domination of the United States and the latter's desire to start the next round of negotiations from a position of strength are basically calling into question the WTO mechanisms.
<P>
The motion for a resolution tabled jointly by my group and the Green Group condemns the threats of American sanctions.
It urges the Commission to stand firm in the face of this new offensive so that we can continue to protect the interests of Community and ACP producers.
<P>
While awaiting the next arbitration proceedings of the WTO panel, an interim agreement has been obtained. However, the United States has not abandoned its threats.
If the sanctions announced are applied unilaterally, is the Commission ready to reply by applying equivalent retaliatory measures if necessary?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=373 NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, I would like to thank Commissioner Brittan for being here at such a late stage in the evening as it shows his interest in this issue.
Tonight, we are showing our support for the Commission, as the Commissioner himself pointed out. There is therefore no point in repeating arguments that have already been put forward.
<P>
I should like to make a few comments, although I do not know if I shall receive any response to them.
<P>
Firstly, I would like to look at the problems that this crisis entails.
The initial problem is that although, during the final round in Marrakesh on the World Trade Organisation constitution, we insisted that the dispute settlement procedure be included, what we wanted was to combat American unilateralism.
Now, however, Section 301 of US external trade law is coming back to haunt us.
<P>
Secondly, it seems as though the Americans may be exempt from the dispute settlement procedure as it has not been possible to contest either the Helms-Burton Act or the D'Amato Act effectively within the World Trade Organisation.
<P>
Thirdly, what we are concerned about - particularly the members of Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs - is whether or not the Commission really has sufficient resources to face up to the huge team of legal experts the United States has assembled in Geneva.
It seems as though the United States is capable of winning almost all the cases we are bringing: we have just mentioned the issue of hormones, we have a possible appeal on genetically modified organisms and we also have the banana war.
<P>
In other words, if we do not soon reach an agreement on this issue and if the United States insists on multilateral measures, the Community may have to reconsider to what extent it is prepared to submit to a multilateral mechanism, which the United States itself does not seem to want to respect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=374 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Porto">
Mr President, during the last part-session in Brussels, we discussed the banana issue with regard to the financial assistance to be granted to ACP countries suffering from reduced production.
<P>
As we pointed out at the time, the scale of the retaliatory measures announced seems to be disproportionate, regardless of the rights and wrongs on each side.
On our side, this dispute threatens assistance for two peripheral regions - Mr Mendonça will doubtless mention Madeira - and for poor ACP countries which have no satisfactory alternative to banana production. As for the Americans, this dispute does not threaten the interests of their own farmers, just those of extremely powerful multinationals which operate in Latin American countries.
<P>
While we obviously must be sensitive towards the populations of these countries, it must be stressed that the market available both outside and within Europe is still very extensive, regardless of the established quotas.
<P>
We therefore support one of the oral questions put to the Commission about whether or not an understanding can be achieved within the WTO panel.
As we inevitably have major reservations about the fairness of the American position, we would also ask - and this is also a policy suggestion - whether the Commission is ready to rigorously and rapidly apply the trade policy instruments at its disposal.
<P>
We must lend our full political support to the Commission's continued firm position on this dispute, as clearly indicated in Paragraph 3 of the motion for a resolution which follows on from the oral questions tabled.
<P>
By taking this step, we are not simply trying to legitimately defend the interests of the people and areas affected, which in this specific case are the banana-producing areas on one hand and the areas which would be hit by American retaliatory measures on the other. Much more importantly, we are ultimately helping to ensure the multilateral resolution of disputes, in accordance with WTO rules, and consequently the rejection of unilateral retaliatory measures which use a political logic which we would rather not qualify.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=375 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Novo">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the United States of America is not satisfied that a WTO arbitration board, convened on behalf of its interests and its multinationals in the dollar banana zone, recently ordered the revision of the common organisation of the banana market.
Instead, the USA is continuing its offensive with the aim of destroying any Community banana support regime and wiping out the remaining production in less-developed and ultraperipheral regions, as is happening in Madeira.
<P>
However, the most scandalous aspect of this offensive is its unilateral nature, with total disregard for WTO structures.
The USA is now threatening to impose new customs duties on European products exported to the United States. In practice, this would mean a ban on various products entering the American market, including textile products.
<P>
This offensive also includes new attacks to force the European Union to accept imports of American hormonised meat and genetically modified products, with total disregard for the health of European consumers.
Commissioner, this offensive must be stopped in its tracks.
If the USA carries out its threat, it is essential that the EU should be able to retaliate immediately by clearly restricting the access of American products to the European market.
It is also essential, and fundamental, that the Commission should use all available mechanisms under international trade law to reestablish the legality which the USA is trying to undermine.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=376 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendonça">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as I come from an ultraperipheral banana-producing region of the European Union, I wish to protest in the strongest terms and indicate my deep anger at the retaliatory stance taken by the United States of America in the latest dispute over the Community banana import regime.
<P>
I must take this opportunity to point out that the European banana-producing regions include some of the ultraperipheral island regions which are still suffering from a lack of economic development. In these regions, banana production is the main and sometimes only source of income for thousands of families.
We cannot begin to imagine the economic, social and environmental damage which would have occurred in the autonomous region of Madeira if the European institutions had yielded to the pressures which American-controlled multinationals determined to defend their own interests are continuing to exert on the banana market.
<P>
Under these circumstances it is clear that, in order to protect itself, the European Union must not submit in any way to the pressure exerted by the USA with regard to matters which may still be under discussion.
The European institutions should, within the various international bodies, maintain their steadfast opposition to unilateral retaliatory trade measures.
In this respect, the sanctions announced by the USA are scandalous and are already starting to have negative effects on other sectors which have nothing to do with the infamous banana dispute.
<P>
We totally support the Commission's position as long as this remains resolutely in accordance with the spirit of the principles and rules of the World Trade Organisation. However, the Commission must be prepared, as it seems to be, to respond rigorously and rapidly if unilateral measures are applied by the United States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=377 NAME="Brittan">
Mr President, may I first of all say that those who have spoken in the latter part of the debate have pointed out that the action taken by the United States is not only action taken against parts of the Caribbean countries, but also against parts of the European Union which are very dependent on bananas.
In the case of some of the Caribbean countries, if they gave up producing bananas they would be likely to be driven to being drug havens which would do more damage to the United States than it would do to the European Union.
<P>
Mr Smith asked how can the United States discriminate against products completely unrelated to bananas such as cashmere, and in the case of Italy pecorino, and other products of other countries?
Our view is that they have no right to do so whatsoever and that this is simply a bullying tactic designed to persuade the European Union to succumb to American threats.
<P>
As to Article 301, which was also a point that has been raised, our view has always been that it is unlawful.
Up to now we have been content to let it stay on the American statute book and only to take action if it is actually implemented.
If it is implemented, the action will certainly be taken.
<P>
We were asked by Mr Medina Ortega whether we are able to face up to the American lawyers in these various threats?
The answer is certainly Yes.
We have done so as he has pointed out in the case of the Helms-Burton and D'Amato Acts and we will do so in the face of all other legislation.
<P>
What will we do if action is taken?
First of all we will respond in the WTO by taking a case against the Americans, as we have begun to do.
Secondly, if we win that case, we will be entitled to retaliate lawfully against the United States but, in addition to that, we will have to give serious consideration to taking action which would be in accordance with the WTO but would involve the withdrawal of concessions which are not bound in the WTO and which the United States do not have as of right.
I hope it does not come to that but the European Union is ready to defend its interests against anybody, including the United States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=378 NAME="Smith">
Mr President, perhaps I did not make myself clear to the Vice-President.
The United States have exempted two European countries from sanctions.
What mechanism do the United States authorities have at their disposal to distinguish between goods coming from these two countries as opposed to goods coming from any of the other 13?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=379 NAME="Brittan">
I do not know how the United States proposes in practice to do that.
It will be difficult for them.
It is not a question for me, because we think the action is unlawful in any event and we will take action against it.
I agree with you that looked at from their own point of view, they might well have some problems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=380 NAME="President">
I have received nine motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 40(5).
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
The sitting was closed at 11.55 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
EC-Israel scientific and technical cooperation agreement
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0035/99) by Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision concluding the Agreement for scientific and technical cooperation between the European Community and the State of Israel (COM(98)0457 - C4-0555/98-98/0241(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="Quisthoudt-Rowohl">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, back in 1996, Israel became the first non-European country to be fully involved in the framework programme for research and technological development, and it remains the only non-European participant.
The basis of this agreement is that research cooperation is fundamentally international in character and that it makes no sense to limit it to the territory of the EU if it would benefit both parties and if there are no other political objections.
Israel pays and is treated like a Member State.
The other states' contributions are not reduced, which means that the funding of the programme as a whole is topped up as a result of Israeli participation.
<P>
Under the fourth framework programme, which has been implemented since 1994, the number of calls for tenders for the various programmes was higher in 1995 and 1996 than at the end of the programme period.
Although Israel, anticipating the conclusion of the agreement, began to contribute financially and submitted tenders, subject to conclusion, in 1996, the bulk of the funds for many programmes had already been allocated by that time.
That is why Israel is very interested in full integration into the fifth framework programme from the outset.
We all know that the start of a multiannual programme is an important phase, and so for sheer reasons of time my first plea to the House is that we approve this agreement today.
<P>
But it is, of course, essential to take account of the general political context too, even in the case of a technical agreement.
Let me say the following on that: first of all, there are many strong links between Israel and the European Union.
The value of trade between us is twice as high as that of Israel's trade with the United States.
It is important that the Union's relations with the Middle East and its influence in that region remain steady and strong.
This agreement is one of many instruments that govern these relations and with which Parliament will deal in greater detail in March.
I believe that EU-Israeli relations in general are so stable that they can withstand the difference, important though it admittedly is, in our respective assessments of the progress achieved in the peace process.
<P>
And now my second point: even during the fourth framework programme, we were pressing for Palestinian research groups and companies to work with us and to be involved in projects.
This agreement is therefore an indirect means of promoting mutual understanding.
We shall insist that this cooperation be intensified, and when we come to review the programme here in Parliament we shall check that this is actually happening.
<P>
My third point is this: if the agreement is implemented, information networks will be set up under Article 6.
The Israeli side has expressed the wish to participate more fully in future evaluation measures.
I would ask the European Parliament to support that wish.
<P>
The fourth point I wish to make is that, in order to reinforce this cooperation and to incorporate it into the same framework as the other agreements and cooperative projects, we should ensure that regular contacts are established between the European Parliament and the Knesset, so that the research cooperation can be monitored and promoted at parliamentary level.
<P>
Some of the groups in this House believe that, by approving the agreement and not suspending it, we would be intervening in the internal political debate in Israel, since as we all know, a general election is about to be called there.
Let me say to you that our failure to approve the agreement today would constitute far more serious interference in Israel's domestic politics, and we have no right to exert heavy pressure on foreign governments to alter their domestic policies.
<P>
Lastly, as your rapporteur I should like to make the following comment: relations between the Commission and Parliament are somewhat strained at the present time.
For that reason it is my sincere wish, Commissioner, and not just a pious hope, that in future negotiations the Commission will provide Parliament with comprehensive information from the very start and keep it abreast of the latest developments in the negotiating process.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stockmann">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, my group endorses the report and very largely agrees with what the rapporteur, Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl, has said.
The Agreement on Scientific and Technical Cooperation between the European Community and the State of Israel allows us to build on past successes, which began in 1996, at least as far as the present high level of cooperation is concerned.
At that time Israel, with the status of an associated state, was allowed to take part in all non-nuclear programmes under the fourth framework programme for research and technological development.
<P>
In a period of only three years, 369 joint projects, costing a total of ECU 53 million, have been successfully implemented. However, the added value deriving from cooperative arrangements is far greater than that.
In fact, some 1 000 joint applications have been received.
The continuation of this cooperation in the fifth framework programme is in the interests of both sides.
Our own interest lies not only in the high quality of Israeli research, but also the emerging adoption of European processes and standards and the future development of more marketing opportunities in the region.
<P>
Israel, for its part, has an interest in being involved in the discussion on strategic developments in the research field which Israel alone cannot achieve.
Moreover, high-tech products are the only means whereby Israel's balance of trade deficit, like ours, can be reduced.
This cooperation in our mutual interest is therefore a long-term proposition. That is why it is natural that not only Israel but also our Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy and the great majority of my group favour the smoothest possible transition from the fourth to the fifth framework programme.
<P>
Postponement of our decision for whatever reason would mean, as has already been explained, that the conference of foreign ministers on 22 February could not ratify the agreement, as a result of which Israel would be unable to take part in the first round of tendering, which will take place in March, and would be placed at a financial disadvantage, as happened in the fourth framework R&D programme.
<P>
In accordance with its gross domestic product, Israel will contribute to the success of the fifth framework programme for research and technological development by making an annual commitment of around EUR 30 million.
Various members of our committee have had the opportunity to see at first hand the high quality of joint EU-Israeli research.
At our insistence, Palestinian companies and research establishments were also involved in joint projects.
It is true that even greater efforts could be made in this direction, as my honourable colleague said, and indeed we are demanding progress here.
<P>
In my own personal opinion, further research cooperation can help in the long run to stabilise the peace process, which, it has to be said, is seriously deadlocked.
The aims of science are full understanding and effective communication.
Its universal nature also offers a matrix for resolving conflicts that arise from sectional interests.
Conversely, however, scientific cooperation can only flourish in the long term in a peaceful environment.
Even if the procedure applied here is that of a simple hearing, I would ask the House to approve the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Rovsing">
Mr President, our group can also endorse the report and would like to see it implemented as soon as possible.
We are delighted at Israel's participation in the Community's research programmes up to now, and we look forward to the results of the cooperation between the European Union and the State of Israel in connection with the fifth framework programme.
Israel was, of course, largely created by immigrants, refugees and individuals with a very strong character, who have been able to endure dictatorships and oppression and who in many cases have an extremely high standard of education to contribute.
This has been reflected in the research programmes.
What is being made available here for the cooperation between the European Union and the State of Israel is therefore a considerable mass of talent with high levels of education, competence and diligence.
<P>
We look forward to the cooperation and hope that the report can be implemented as soon as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="Marset Campos">
Mr President, our group is very pleased with this very reliable and broad-minded report by Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl.
However, we cannot approve it at this stage, because we - the European Union and the European Parliament - would be being used by a head of state who has shown total disregard for the peace agreements and for the process of promoting peaceful coexistence in the region.
<P>
We do not want to be manipulated by a head of state whose actions are almost Nazi-like: he demonstrates nothing but racist disdain for the Palestinian people in general.
As a result, and for that reason alone, we believe that it would be better to suspend the application of this agreement. We must hope that, after the elections, we will see the arrival of a new government whose behaviour and positive attitude towards coexistence, the United Nations resolutions, the Oslo Agreements and the Wye Plantation Agreements show that guarantees do exist.
<P>
We understand the situation in the region and believe that both parties should receive equal treatment. In order to do so, it would be more appropriate if, instead of establishing cooperation between Palestinian firms and universities in Israel, the European Parliament itself implemented an agreement with the Palestinian people, its research organisations, its university and its firms.
This would be more fitting in that since the end of the Second World War - when the UN was set up - the question of consolidating the Palestinian state through a UN resolution has remained unresolved. By doing so, the European Union would be giving equivalent, equidistant and equal treatment to both parties involved in the conflict, thereby showing that it does not allow itself to be swayed by either side.
<P>
Therefore, when it comes to the vote on this report, our group will ask that it be referred back to committee so that it might indeed be approved under better circumstances.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Mr President, this report on the research agreement between the EU and Israel is no simple matter.
I can go along with part of what Mr Marset Campos said here, namely that this report, which we had thought would support the peace process, could just as easily be seen as a threat to that process if these issues are used to the wrong ends and in the political arena.
As far as the content of this agreement is concerned, those parts of the programme that relate to nuclear safety and fusion are, of course, excluded.
These areas are not included in this research agreement, a fact which I am pleased about.
At the same time, however, I am concerned, because we need to be aware of the fact that Israel has nuclear weapons, even though the country denies this.
I am a little anxious that, in spite of everything, funds will sneak in from other programmes precisely for use in research on nuclear fusion and nuclear activity.
This is something that I simply cannot support.
<P>
In this context, mention also needs to be made of Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli researcher who disclosed details about nuclear weapons and nuclear energy research in Israel.
It will soon be ten years since he was imprisoned.
It would now be appropriate for Israel to release him as quickly as possible.
There was an application for his release, but that has now been rejected.
I would like to ask Mrs Cresson what steps the Commission is taking to seek Mr Vanunu's release.
Openness is perhaps not Commissioner Cresson's strong point, but I would nevertheless like to appeal for efforts to be made to prevail on Israel to release Mr Vanunu.
<P>
There are several other parts of this research project which I do not, perhaps, view as positively as the rapporteur does.
One such area is space research.
We Greens do not think that the EU should take part in space research.
We are therefore also against cooperation between the EU and Israel in this field.
We are just as reluctant for such research to be conducted in the EU as we are for it to be conducted within the framework of agreements with other countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pradier">
Mr President, the issue with which we are concerned today has an obvious political element.
Renewing a link between Israel and the European Union in the middle of an electoral period could be looked on, at least locally, as support for the political powers. It could also facilitate the re-election of the rabble-rousers and those behind the disastrous situation in which the peace process now finds itself.
That would indeed be absolutely deplorable.
It is also why some countries have still not ratified the association agreement with the State of Israel.
However, in this case, the situation is entirely different.
<P>
It is worth giving more consideration to continuing scientific and technical cooperation, especially as several Palestinian companies and universities are involved in this agreement. I am thinking, in particular, of Al Qods, the University of Jerusalem, and the University of Bethlehem.
They will benefit from participating in it and this is also something that we must monitor.
<P>
Moreover, penalising universities or the high technology sector - which, on the whole, are avid supporters of peace - would probably amount to targeting the wrong enemy.
<P>
Finally, an agreement such as this is not only an agreement, or a matter of charity; it is also - and this must be pointed out - a means of returning to prosperity through exchanges.
This all means that there are varying opinions within the Group of the European Radical Alliance. Many of us will perhaps abstain or will, in any case, either want to vote in favour or be tempted to do so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating Mrs Quisthoudt on her excellent report and the speech she has just given.
I entirely agree with her, and my group will also be supporting her position.
In an increasingly global economy and with growing competition, cooperation between European partners in the fields of research and technology is no longer enough.
Scientific and technological cooperation between the European Union and third countries and the involvement of third countries in the framework programme help to promote knowledge and technology transfers and innovation in the European Union, which is good for employment here and helps to strengthen the links between people in the partner countries and the Union.
Such cooperation can also help to find solutions to the trade disputes that the Union sometimes has with its partners.
<P>
The Liberal Group is therefore very much in favour of continuing scientific and technological cooperation with Israel.
However, we do not want it to use participation in the framework programme as a political instrument in the Middle East.
There is no reason to block aid to its neighbours. The Union has good relations with those countries too, and our aid to the Palestinians in particular is not producing the hoped-for economic development in the region because Israel sometimes frustrates our aid programmes.
<P>
My group therefore hopes and expects that if Parliament delivers a positive opinion on scientific and technological cooperation, Israel will clean up its act.
I am hoping to see some positive developments in the Middle East.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Antony">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we welcome the conclusion of scientific and technical cooperation agreements between the European Community and the State of Israel.
We would nevertheless like to take advantage of this debate in order to express our concern.
<P>
We are concerned because, although a large proportion of Israeli research is dedicated to the civilian sector, another part of it - for which we do not have exact figures - involves the military sector.
With this in mind, it is impossible to forget the plane crash involving a plane full of chemical and bacteriological weapons, which claimed so many victims in the Netherlands.
That brings us to a question I raised in this very House on an article in The Sunday Times , which I actually thought was a hoax. The article claimed that Israeli researchers had tried to isolate genes specific to Arabs in order to be able to use bacteriological weapons against them.
<P>
I did not receive an answer to this question, but in the Israeli press, the daily newspapers Haretz and Maariv also published the story, and it has not yet been denied.
We could therefore be dealing with the most extreme and most abominable type of racism ever experienced.
<P>
As a result, we would like to be convinced that these cooperation agreements are not going to contribute to such extremely dangerous research.
We are in favour of the security of the State of Israel, and we are aware of the threats that have hung over this young nation. However, Israel must understand the desire of the Palestinians to regain their land and their sovereignty.
Therefore, we would like Europe to do everything possible to ensure that a definitive peace agreement, based on the recognition of the rights of the Palestinian people, is finally reached.
That is the necessary condition for peace in the region.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, Commissioner, it has certainly emerged from the statements on behalf of the various groups that this is not a purely technical agreement but that there are many political aspects involved, a point which the rapporteur made perfectly clear too.
It is true that there have been voices in all the groups, including the group to which I belong, which have spoken against the conclusion of such an agreement at the present time.
However, it is my experience of foreign policy more than anything else which makes me think that the reasons against concluding the agreement are far more tenuous than those in favour of concluding it.
<P>
Whenever anyone says that we need a few good cards in our hand to engage in diplomacy and that such agreements should be used for that purpose, I can certainly endorse that argument.
But if we in the European Union want to make our voice heard more clearly in Israel, which we do, and if we want to have more influence on the decisions taken by the State of Israel, we have no option but to approve this agreement.
We would forfeit any credibility as a negotiating partner and any possibility of bringing our influence to bear in Israel if we did not approve this agreement now.
<P>
By so doing, we shall not be endorsing the current government.
The choice of government is a matter for the people of Israel.
They will decide who should be prime minister and they will no doubt decide on the composition of the Knesset.
The agreement will scarcely influence their decision.
The present government could perhaps use our rejection of the agreement to illustrate how ill-disposed and hostile Europe is to Israel at heart, which is not the case at all.
The only reason for our heavy criticism of the present government is that it has done nothing to promote peace and has failed to do many things that it could have done.
<P>
We do not know who the next prime minister will be; nobody knows that today.
Above all, we do not know what the composition of the Knesset will be.
That is why a postponement will achieve very little.
The same situation, or even a far more difficult one, may result from the elections.
Things cannot become all that much easier, given the abundance of parties and candidates.
That is why it surely makes good sense to decide now.
To my Palestinian friends - and I do not hesitate to say that I have very many of them and am in close contact with them - I should like to say here and now that, precisely because we are developing ideas in Israel, with Israel and for Israel, because we are establishing cooperative mechanisms that can help to break the deadlock on the peace issue, we in Parliament should, and indeed must, decide to ratify this agreement in order to maintain the common ground that can underlie and justify our continuing dialogue with Israel.
For that reason, the Palestinian people have a special interest in our approval of this agreement, which I, particularly as someone involved in foreign policy, can certainly commend to the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="Nordmann">
Mr President, I would first of all like to congratulate Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl, because her report is quite outstanding and her presentation is a model of balance and synthesis.
<P>
Of course, we must ratify this agreement.
The proposals to postpone it are extremely worrying because postponing the agreement would naturally mean changing the nature of the agreement.
Excluding Israel from the first round of invitations to tender would amount to a virtually irreversible penalty and would make Israel into a lesser partner in terms of cooperation. This cooperation must be exemplary in all respects, and it is of fundamental importance, both in terms of scientific exchanges and in terms of developing our cooperation with all the countries in the region.
It obviously augurs well that Israel is prepared to accept the participation of Palestinian Arabs in this project.
<P>
I will conclude by saying that it is extremely worrying to see that some people are trying to postpone this cooperation. The combination of the extreme right and the extreme left is significant in this respect and it is clear that these attempts are due to the resurgence of old feelings of hatred that we would have hoped not to see here again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Elmalan">
Mr President, I will not respond to the attacks that were just made.
I am a friend of Israel too. I even have family in Israel.
<P>
However, I think that the scientific cooperation agreement with Israel appears, at first glance, to be an essentially technical document that could stand in the way of the development of cooperation between universities and research institutes elsewhere in the Mediterranean.
There is a risk that the adoption of this agreement could be seen as an electoral tactic and a positive sign for the Israeli Government, which would be encouraged to continue blocking the peace process.
The Palestinians are already under considerable pressure to abandon their decision to proclaim a Palestinian State on 4 May 1999. Indeed, some of that pressure comes from this House, as we can hear.
<P>
We must use all the means at our disposal to put pressure on Israel, on Netanyahu's government, to respect its commitments.
We have the ideal opportunity to do so by postponing the vote on this scientific cooperation agreement until after the Israeli elections.
This would not, in fact, be the first time, as in January 1990, Parliament blocked the scientific cooperation agreement so that Palestinian universities would be reopened; at that time, they had been closed for over two years.
It was mainly due to this vote that the Israeli Government decided to reopen them.
Why should we not repeat this approach in order to achieve some real progress in the peace process?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, I congratulate the rapporteur on her work.
There are two aspects to this report.
Firstly, the technical aspect, and here the agreement is sweet: mutual benefit to the European Union and to Israel.
The latter has a technological advantage in a number of areas: biotechnology, opto-electronics, medical information technology and software development.
The European Union can benefit from the knowledge that is available there.
<P>
The Israelis also have skills in space technology and in the nuclear sector, areas where I would have strong reservations about cooperation.
This applies particularly to the nuclear sector: ten years ago I spent some time outside Mordechai Vanunu's prison in Gaza trying to visit him.
He is, of course, still in jail.
I would welcome the Commission putting some pressure on Israel to deal with that.
I would reassure Mr Antony who has now left us that if anyone in Israel or, for that matter, in the Arab world was stupid enough to try and develop ethnic weapons, they would be self-destructing in the sense that the gene pools of the Arabs and the Israelis are sufficiently close that it would be very difficult to identify or produce weapons that would not harm people on both sides of the divide.
<P>
I hope that this can be a force for progress.
I will certainly be voting in favour of the report, as long as there is a commitment that we will not cooperate in the nuclear area.
I certainly would not want to have any cooperation in the space sector and I agree completely that we should be encouraging Israel and putting pressure on the Israelis to cooperate with the Palestinians in their research programmes.
<P>
Finally, I hope that we will make sure that none of this money goes into parts of Occupied Palestine.
That would be a provocation and the European Union would have some responsibility for that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Eriksson">
Mr President, I would also like to express my thanks for this report, especially for the conclusions that are drawn in it, and above all for its desire to support the peace process by means of cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian research bodies.
The problem with this agreement is that no mention is made of cooperation between Palestinian research bodies.
The rapporteur says in her introduction that after the agreement has entered into force, and after it has been in operation, we shall make an assessment of the extent to which different Palestinian centres have been given the opportunity to participate.
This would appear to me to be a rather absurd way of drafting an agreement if one wishes to achieve a given objective: surely one would normally include that objective in the agreement?
<P>
This aside, I would very much like to endorse Mr Holm's request that we should do something for Mr Vanunu.
I also believe that we must address the question of obliging Israel to sign a non-proliferation agreement as far as nuclear weapons are concerned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Caudron">
Mr President, Commissioner, rapporteur, ladies and gentlemen, as the chairman of the Delegation for relations with Israel, I would like to welcome the fact that our colleague Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl has proposed that the new scientific and technical cooperation agreement between the European Union and the State of Israel be approved.
<P>
As many people have pointed out this morning, this is the result of particularly effective joint work: since 1996, 369 joint projects have received subsidies amounting to a total of more than ECU 59 million.
It is also the proof of real cooperation between the European Union and Israel, and as we are well aware, it has considerable technological and intellectual benefits for both parties.
This is a clear example of how a balanced partnership should work.
<P>
It is actually helping the peace process in the Middle East, and we make no secret of this. In fact, the agreement will lead to further joint work with Palestinian researchers, laboratories and universities.
And the Israeli authorities have made commitments to this end.
<P>
I would like to congratulate the rapporteur very sincerely, to thank all our colleagues in the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, and, of course, to express my agreement with the very strong proposals made by Mr Stockmann.
<P>
A few weeks away from the Israeli elections, I would personally like to see in our decision - which I hope will be a positive one - a strong signal to those in the region with intelligence and spirit in favour of a peace based on development, progress, mutual respect and partnership.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Cresson">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first of all like to express my gratitude to the rapporteur and to the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy. They dealt with this issue in a very short space of time and almost unanimously support the conclusion of the scientific and technical cooperation agreement between the European Community and the State of Israel.
<P>
The Commission welcomes the fact that Parliament is now able to make a decision on this matter.
In 1996, the Union and Israel signed a scientific and technical cooperation agreement for the duration of the fourth framework programme.
Israel thus became the first, and currently the only non-European, country to be fully associated with the Union's research activities.
<P>
What has this cooperation become today?
As has just been mentioned, it has led to around 350 joint projects and these have produced results that are already visible.
New products and practices have been developed, for example, a high-performance camera for medical imagery and a rapid photo-printing machine, to mention but two.
All these projects are based on partnerships that combine their complementary skills, and the institutions of the two parties involved draw considerable benefits from them in terms of knowledge, but also in economic and commercial terms.
<P>
The association between Israel and the Union is firmly based on the principal of mutual benefit, which is applied to each project. Israel's population is among the most educated in the world.
It could be looked on as an example from which we could learn a great deal. This is due to its extremely advanced technological know-how, the dynamic nature of its small and medium-sized enterprises and its innovation policy, which makes it the second leading country in the world in terms of the number of start-ups that are generated as a result of cooperation between universities, laboratories, businesses and financial organisations.
Moreover, I have visited the country on several occasions to see what progress was being made.
Israel has become a partner that is very much in demand and highly valued by European consortiums.
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All the evidence shows that the participation of Israeli institutions brings a considerable added value to our programmes.
I would like to add that, insofar as the agreement guarantees reciprocity, European researchers also have access to Israeli programmes.
The agreement has fulfilled all its promises.
The two parties have therefore expressed their desire to continue and to strengthen their cooperation for the duration of the fifth framework programme.
The Israeli authorities would like this agreement to be implemented as quickly as possible.
In fact, Israel would suffer if there were a delay with respect to the agreement entering into force, as happened with the previous agreement.
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With this in mind, the Commission and the Israeli authorities completed the negotiations in the record time of three weeks.
Nevertheless, certain Member States are reluctant to bring this to a rapid conclusion and link the approval of the agreement to the progress of the peace process in the Middle East.
On the contrary, I think that the development of scientific and technical cooperation could make a significant contribution to the peace process.
As the rapporteur points out, it is important, from this point of view, for Israeli and Palestinian research institutes to be able to strengthen their cooperation. Some speakers have spoken on this subject, and I would like to reassure them.
This work has already begun and such cooperation will be particularly encouraged within the framework of the international section of the fifth framework programme, which gives priority to actions in the Mediterranean region.
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Above and beyond its intrinsic interest, cooperation between the Union and Israel in research is part of a broad political perspective.
This is an additional reason for concluding the agreement to associate Israel with the fifth framework programme as soon as possible.
Finally, the Commission will continue to keep the relevant committees regularly informed of the progress of the negotiations.
<P>
In order to respond to certain speakers, I would like to say that the Commission believes that rather than encouraging regrettable abuses, the renewal of the scientific and technical cooperation agreement aims to maintain dialogue within a specific sector and with a population that should be supported.
We must not turn this agreement into a political challenge as the effects of this would be counter-productive.
I would like to add that the agreement does not cover nuclear research, even of a civilian nature, nor, of course, does it cover the military sector.
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The Commission wishes to encourage cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian research institutes, as I have already said. In order to achieve this, it will use all the possible actions provided for in the fifth framework programme for the Mediterranean countries.
One very specific area that comes to mind is that of water management. This is naturally an extremely important field as it is vital for bringing together populations that may be in a conflict situation.
<P>
Israel's recent policies in certain respects have shown regrettable shifts.
However, as regards the measures contained in this agreement, given that the peace process is facing certain obstacles, we cannot add to those problems by suspending cooperation with a scientific community that is among the most brilliant in the world. As has already been mentioned, its members are in favour of peace, and some of them are even very actively involved in the peace process.
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We should not punish those people.
On the contrary, we must try to help them, support them and continue to hold dialogue with them, in the interests of the people. If we do not, the people will be directly penalised by our reservations.
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We must show that we are open and generous, although that must not prevent us from being aware of any possible shifts in Israeli policy.
However, I do not think that we should join these two elements together in order to use this scientific and technical cooperation agreement as a bargaining chip. It is a good agreement, it has a certain symbolism and it has considerable political implications.
It tries to take the best of both scientific communities in order to make things easier for the people there who are going through difficult times. We must learn to appreciate better their skills, courage, nature and great intelligence, and become aware of how much we have in common with them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
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The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Ship-generated waste and cargo residues
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0023/99) by Mr Lagendijk, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Directive on port reception facilities for ship-generated waste and cargo residues (COM(98)0452 - C4-0484/98-98/0249(SYN)).
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<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Lagendijk">
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating the Commission on its proposal, which I feel is a successful attempt to combat the pollution that is still being caused by vessels dumping their waste at sea.
The approach adopted here is, in my view and that of the Committee on the Environment, a balanced one, in that vessels are required to deliver their waste and ports are required to build facilities to deal with it.
So far so good.
But you will not be surprised to hear that there were also certain points where the committee wanted to improve or tighten up the proposals.
<P>
First of all - and this is the most important point on which there was the most discussion, as there probably will be in future - there is the issue of payment.
The Commission proposes that a substantial proportion of the costs of receiving and processing the waste should be paid by all those using the port.
In my view this is rather too vague, so we have tabled an amendment to replace the word 'substantial' by 90 % of the costs. Why?
Because I think it is extremely important to prevent ships from having a financial incentive to dump their cargo or cargo residues at sea outside the port.
If only a small part of the costs are shared in the port dues, then there will always be an incentive for vessels to consider dumping their waste at sea.
This is why we are in favour of replacing the word 'substantial' by at least 90 %, not because we want to have a precise figure, but because we simply want to make it clear that the processing costs are to be shared among all vessels, irrespective of whether or not they use the reception facilities.
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The second point on which we think the proposal could be tightened up is the monitoring of compliance.
This operates on two levels.
First, monitoring at ports of call.
If a vessel, for some good reason, does not have the time or the opportunity to deliver its waste at a particular port, it must not be free to do likewise at the next port.
It must be possible - and it is already possible - for ports to inform each other about the situation of vessels sailing to and fro between them or calling in at subsequent ports.
The systems are already in place, but they need to be further developed, which is why we are calling on the Commission to support efforts to do this.
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Another aspect of monitoring concerns inspections within ports, and here too we were a little unhappy with the rather vague wording used by the Commission, which says that 'a sufficient number of such inspections' must be carried out.
Instead of this we would prefer to use a figure which the Commission itself suggested in earlier regulations, so that 25 % of all vessels must be inspected.
This figure is already included in a number of regulations.
The Commission has said that it may be dropped, but at the moment we do not feel that there is any reason not to go ahead with this, so as far as we are concerned the directive should contain the reference to 25 %.
<P>
The third change to the Commission proposal concerns fishing vessels.
The Commission itself has admitted that it was a mistake that its proposal excludes all fishing vessels.
We do not want to create unnecessary red tape, so we are not in favour of bringing all fishing vessels within the scope of the directive, but it seems too stupid for words that huge vessels like factory ships which generate enormous quantities of waste should be excluded from the rules.
This is why we have proposed to exclude vessels under 15 metres and include vessels over 15 metres.
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The fourth improvement concerns rewarding environment-friendly behaviour, which we feel is an important part of any environment and transport policy.
We should be in favour of rewarding vessels that do their best to encourage environmentally friendly work practices on board or in dealing with waste.
To do this we need to make it clearer exactly what an environment-friendly ship is, which is why we urge the Commission to support the attempts being made to produce a more detailed definition.
<P>
My conclusion - and this is perhaps more of a comment on EU proposals in general - is that all too often, the Commission and sometimes Parliament too put forward proposals that are difficult to implement because they do not correspond to the situation in practice.
I am convinced that the Commission proposal, with Parliament's amendments, does correspond to the situation in practice.
There are ports which already have reception facilities or are planning to build them.
Vessels are prepared to deliver their waste.
There are plans to produce better definitions of what environment-friendly vessels are.
It is precisely because these plans are already being made and the proposal dovetails with them that I think the Commission proposal is a necessary, useful and viable attempt to prevent the dumping of waste at sea.
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<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sindal">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, when the British Presidency put marine pollution on the agenda, following quite a few requests from the Committee on Transport and Tourism, among others, there were many of us who said: At last!
And I mean this quite sincerely.
We have witnessed many accidents involving oil in European waters.
We have witnessed many ships that have spilt oil in our waters.
This directive imposes obligations on the ships.
We are moving from a convention - an IMO convention - which was a recommendation, to legislation, whereby we oblige the vessel and its master to give an account of any oily waste that may be on board.
<P>
In addition, we shall be obliging the ports - but not necessarily all ports - to receive waste oil.
In my opinion, it is essential that this directive should be made as functional as possible.
It must not be difficult or bureaucratic.
I hope that in the final version, the Commission and the Council find a model that makes this directive workable and attractive for the ships and the ports.
<P>
There are two problems.
The rapporteur has touched on one of them.
There are two problems that I would like to address.
Of course it must be paid for.
Of course it is not free of charge.
I hope that these costs will not become yet another restriction on shipping.
After all, the short-sea report clearly demonstrated that port charges are one of the contributory reasons for choosing other forms of transport.
So the small coaster - or the large coaster for that matter - will certainly incur a charge here, and I consider this to be a problem.
If one were to regard this as infrastructure, it would be possible to make it free of charge.
It is also possible to look at it from the point of view of the waste oil that is brought ashore.
Surely this can actually be recycled and used.
If one were to exempt it from oil taxes, VAT and so on, then it could actually finance this system.
I think that we should come up with some good ideas with regard to this question of financing and present them to the Member States.
<P>
Ships in transit in international waters that do not call at European ports are a different matter.
After all, we do not get hold of them.
I feel that we should think back to what happened with the Pallas Athene .
Here we have a vessel which bursts into flames in international waters, drifts through Danish territorial waters and ends up on German territory, and there we all are, sitting down together and playing a kind of official 'pick up sticks'.
The first ones to make a move lose the game, since it is they who pick up the bill.
If we had had a monitoring system in the North Sea, we could have intervened collectively - Denmark, the United Kingdom and Germany - but we did not.
We allowed the bill to be passed on to the place where the ship ended up.
I therefore believe that it is also our job to get the Member States to take ships in transit into account in their deliberations on future policy.
I am well aware that this is not covered by this directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
Mr President, let me express my thanks for the preceding remarks and extend a special welcome to my honourable colleague the Transport Commissioner.
I am delighted that we have been given another rare opportunity to discuss this matter in the morning, rather than at 11 o'clock on Tuesday night.
<P>
But let us turn to the business in hand. I believe that the Commission has adopted an excellent approach in the directive.
As a native of Hamburg, I am pleased to see that it incorporates all the results of a European international conference on the issue of port waste-discharge facilities, which was held in Hamburg.
Practice has shown us, of course, that the Marpol Convention with its discharge requirement for ships is inadequate.
We must ensure that the waste on board ships is actually discharged.
If we say here that the ports must provide discharge facilities and that everyone will have to pay anyway under a no-special-fee system, I believe that more captains will decide to use the port discharge facility, since they have paid directly for it in their harbour dues.
This is a very important issue, because we have no other way of cleaning up our beaches, especially those on the North Sea and Baltic coasts.
We still have a lot to do here, but the same can be said for the Mediterranean and other parts of the European Union.
<P>
The approach, then, is exactly the right one.
I thank Mr Lagendijk, who is a new member of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, for his excellent cooperation.
I believe the committee adopted the recommendation unanimously, and it is a good thing and to be applauded that all the groups in this House are pulling in the same direction on this occasion, promoting environmental protection without neglecting economic interests.
<P>
Allow me to deal briefly with two more points.
We have tabled a number of amendments, and I hope the Commission will be able to approve them all, Mr Kinnock.
At any rate, I should like to highlight two things.
First of all, the Commission must be urged to ensure that the system of charges now being introduced does not distort competition between ports.
It is to be expected that one port or another will try to offer a particularly attractive scale of charges or to obtain particularly large profit margins in order to secure a competitive edge in the usual conflict, so to speak, that occurs between ports over cargoes.
The Commission must be watchful, and we may have to beef up the legislation.
I also believe, as the rapporteur said, that we must require Member States and ports to ensure that 25 % of all ships are actually inspected every year.
After all, we are familiar with the problem of inadequate control from our experience with rest periods for long-distance lorry drivers. We had to tighten up there, because the Member States were not sticking to the rules.
<P>
That, Commissioner, should not be a problem either, since we have the same figure of 25 % in the port state control directive.
One and the same official may be able to carry out both types of check.
We need effective control of waste discharge, for the sake of the sea and for the sake of animal and human life.
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<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Donnay">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the proposal for a directive that has been submitted to us responds to a perfectly commendable objective, as it aims to ensure better protection of the marine environment.
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International rules do exist, but everyone recognizes that they are not always respected, far from it, in fact.
These international rules include the MARPOL Protocol, and the proposal for a directive transposes its provisions into Community law. These include reducing dumping at sea, improving port reception facilities, stepping up monitoring in order to force vessels to hand over their waste, and establishing a system to fund these facilities.
<P>
On the whole, we can agree to this, but the methods of implementing these objectives are of some concern and add to those we already expressed when considering the Green Paper on ports and maritime infrastructures.
I would like to mention here the principle of subsidiarity.
I would point out that the Maastricht Treaty does not give any particular powers to the European Union to organise the port system and the rules for managing sea ports.
It would be unfortunate if the Union tried to interfere in that management through environmental issues.
We should therefore ensure that the principle of subsidiarity, to which my group is particularly committed, is not called into question through such methods.
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With these reservations, we approve and support the proposal for a directive, as amended by the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
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To conclude, I would like to commend the excellent work carried out by the rapporteur and congratulate him on the quality of his report.
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<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, people in civilised societies do not relieve themselves in the street.
The requirement that ships discharge their waste in port follows the same elementary logic.
I believe that Mr Lagendijk's report makes that perfectly clear.
There must be no incentive, such as the avoidance of special fees, to circumvent that requirement.
There must be a 50 % inspection rate.
Anything else will give rise to absurd or dangerous situations, and the system must be weighted in favour of environmentally friendly vessels.
<P>
Basically, this report pussyfoots its way indirectly towards addressing three key points.
The first is the question of a European maritime regulatory area.
The United States has had one for a long time. The European Union continues to act as if it were a patchwork of small states, between which only the IMO standards apply.
That is an indefensible state of affairs.
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The second point is the need for control by the port state.
This is an imperative of the first order, given the development of flags of convenience and dual registration.
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The third point is the primacy of ecology, since the destruction of our vital resources is certainly no basis on which to develop an economic activity.
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<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="Camisón Asensio">
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Lagendijk, on his excellent work, which, it must be pointed out, rightly deserved the unanimous approval of the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
I fully agree with what was said by Mr Jarzembowski and would merely like to clarify a few points.
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As was mentioned, the aim of this proposal on port reception facilities for ship-generated waste and cargo residues from ships is to reduce pollution and thus protect the environment, in particular by monitoring the legal discharge of waste and other pollutants at sea.
In this case, the Commission proposal was a necessary and desirable addition to existing legislation on the protection of the marine environment and the creation of fair conditions of competition between the ports of the Community.
We therefore welcome this opportunity, especially the legal requirement for ships to dispose of waste and cargo residues in ports.
<P>
The fee system proposed, which comes very close to a 'no-special-fee' system but avoids any downward pressure, is to be welcomed in general terms.
<P>
The proposal includes provisions that mean that ship-generated waste is treated slightly differently from cargo residues.
Ships are required to deliver both types of waste in ports, but under MARPOL 73/78 rules in the case of cargo residues. This means that the treatment and disposal of cargo residues are not covered by port charges but special fees could be charged for the process.
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I would like to end by saying that it is only natural that warships should be exempt from the provisions of the directive and, generally speaking, we support the proposal.
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<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
Mr President, we are all familiar with pictures of birds and fish fighting that final, impossible battle against oil spills and other waste from our ships along our coastlines, because the international conventions which prohibit dumping at sea are not being enforced.
This situation will hopefully be remedied by this directive, together with the amendments proposed by the committee, whereby the ships must - under all circumstances and regardless of the quantity of waste - pay a port fee to dispose of their waste.
Like the rapporteur, we in the June Movement normally uphold the principle that the polluter pays.
But we also agree with the rapporteur that in this case there is a need to depart from this principle, since a fee which corresponds to the quantity of waste would make it tempting to dump the waste at sea.
Control is the cornerstone of this directive.
But in order for this to become effective, the June Movement is urging that the amendments tabled by the rapporteur should receive particular support with regard to the following points: that a definition should be found for the term 'environmentally friendly ship'; that the controls should be made more specific; that the expression 'a substantial contribution' should likewise be made more specific, so that this becomes sufficiently large to ensure that it does not pay to dump at sea; and finally that cargo residues should be covered by the port dues.
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<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Stenmarck">
Mr President, it is in many contexts a major problem that waste from ships is not being managed in the proper way.
The traffic through the Baltic Sea is a particular problem in this respect, not least due to the extremely sensitive nature of this particular sea.
Every year huge quantities of oil are discharged directly into the Baltic.
In Swedish waters alone, there are hundreds of discharges of this type every year.
And it is virtually never possible to determine which vessel the oil has come from.
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In the light of this situation, Sweden has a law which gives every passing vessel the opportunity to enter practically any port and dispose of its surplus oil there.
Of course, such a system has both advantages and disadvantages.
Naturally, a huge plus point is that this means that nobody will need to dump oily waste directly into the sea for purely economic reasons.
At the same time, however, a system like this costs a great deal of money - above all when there are only a few countries that apply the system.
<P>
Given this situation, it is a natural and obvious development to implement the same type of measures in a European context and also, in my view, to make the same demands of all the EU's applicant countries.
This would mean that, within the near future, practically all the countries situated around the Baltic would be subject to the same conditions with regard to the reception of such substances as oily waste.
<P>
On this basis, let me put a question to the Commissioner responsible: what steps is he prepared to take in order to include the EU's various applicant countries in today's decision?
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<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
Mr President, I wish to begin by welcoming Mr Lagendijk's report, not only because it supports the Commission's efforts to ensure a major reduction in marine pollution, but also because it is his first as a member of the Committee on Transport and Tourism - I congratulate him on that.
It is an accomplished piece of work, if I may say so, and in return for the support and the quality of the work, I am very happy to say that the Commission can endorse many of the amendments tabled by the rapporteur.
<P>
Specifically, the Commission can accept at least the underlying principles of Amendments Nos 1, 3 4, 5, 12, 16, 17 and 18 (England 0, France 2 - I thought I might get that in).
There is, however, another set of amendments which the Commission must reject, mainly on the grounds that it feels that the concerns expressed have already been dealt with in other parts of the existing text.
I am sure that, on further examination, the honourable Members will understand and, I hope, accept that point.
I refer specifically to Amendments Nos 6, 10, 14 and 15.
That leaves just 6 out of 18 amendments where there is a more substantial degree of disagreement with Parliament and I must say that, even in those cases, the divergence is not fundamental.
<P>
Amendments Nos 2 and 7 propose to extend the obligation to notify the onboard waste situation in writing to fishing vessels over 15 metres.
Mr Lagendijk referred specifically to this in the course of his speech earlier on.
The Commission's concern is that this could easily lead to an excessively bureaucratic system without bringing any substantial benefit to the environment.
We should bear in mind, of course, that fishing vessels are not excluded from the requirement to deliver their waste in ports and to contribute to the cost of facilities.
They are only exempted - I emphasise this - from the obligation to make a written notification before each port call.
The reason for that is simply that most fishing vessels, obviously, have one or more standard ports where they normally land their catches.
The prior notification proposal exists in order to allow the port to make the necessary arrangements for receiving waste from ships.
In the case of fishing vessels, the port will generally be very familiar with the needs of the vessels, even without a written notification.
<P>
We also believe that the length limit of 15 metres, like any other limit, is bound to be somewhat arbitrary and therefore difficult to justify.
For those reasons - we hope that the House will accept practical reasons - we cannot accept Amendment No 13 either.
Having said that, however, I share Parliament's concern that if very big fish factory vessels were to be excluded from the statutory obligation, that would be very retrograde.
I should like to reassure the House that those vessels are definitely subject to the notification and control obligations, since fish factory ships, which are not engaged in catching fish, are not considered to be fishing vessels under the terms of this proposed directive.
<P>
The most controversial amendment, as indeed Mr Lagendijk said, is probably No 8 on the charging system for the delivery of ship-generated waste.
Here the objectives of Parliament and the Commission are absolutely the same: all of us want to achieve a charging system in which ships are not given incentives to discharge waste at sea.
However, we differ about methods of securing that objective.
The Commission's proposal seeks to strike a balance between the need to make the best possible progress in encouraging waste delivery to ports and the plain political reality of taking into account the very different views of Member States on this issue.
The end result of both Parliament's and the Commission's approach is that fees cannot only be based on actual delivery.
Neither of us thinks that ships which do not deliver waste should be free from the fees associated with waste management.
Our divergence, therefore, arises only from the fact that the Commission's proposal preserves a greater flexibility for the Member States in deciding the extent to which the so-called no-special-fee system will be applied.
<P>
In addition, we should bear in mind that ports, marinas and fishing ports in Member States are obviously very different, not just between but also within Member States.
As I said, however, the fundamental objective of sharing the cost between users and non-users is crucial if we want to encourage the delivery in ports of waste and reduce and, indeed, prevent the pollution of the sea.
<P>
Amendment No 9 is unacceptable because the Commission can adequately deal with competition matters under the powers it already has under the Treaty.
The proposed amendment would have the effect of reducing those necessary powers merely to the possibility of making a proposal, and that, clearly, would not be in order.
Again, I hope, on reflection, that amendment may be withdrawn.
<P>
Finally, we cannot accept Amendment No 11, which relates to the number of spot-check inspections to be carried out for control purposes.
The Commission considers that a certain flexibility is needed, partly because of the potential future inclusion of the waste control regime in the existing port state control directive, which obviously would have exactly the effect anticipated correctly by Mr Jarzembowski.
Our feelings arise partly from the fact that the main elements for enhancing compliance with this directive are not only set down in the control part of the directive.
The Commission, therefore, considers that a slightly less systematic spot-check system is adequate for the purposes of the directive and achieving the purposes of combating the pollution of the sea, at least as far as checks outside the port state control regime are concerned.
Clearly, as Mr Jarzembowski said and as other Members have noted, in the course of the normal port state control check, it would be extraordinary if the inspector taking his 25 % quota, as it were, were not to pay attention to the waste-disposal situation on board the craft.
One could readily anticipate that will be undertaken - it is a relatively simple check.
<P>
One or two questions were raised by the honourable Members, to which I should like specifically to respond very briefly.
Mr Sindal raised the question of wrecks in international waters.
We recall in this House that he has fastidiously pursued the questions raised by the disastrous wreck of the Pallas in international waters.
Currently, as the House and Mr Sindal know, just vessels are the responsibility of the flag state but we are all aware of the deficiencies of that system, and coastal states may get involved in order to protect their own environment.
Clearly there is something to be desired in respect of using those powers as well.
The House may be glad to know that the Commission is supporting discussions in the International Maritime Organisation about placing the mandatory responsibility for safeguarding against pollution and other effects of wrecks on the vessel owner.
In my view, that could be a very real breakthrough in our efforts to achieve quality shipping in all waters, particularly in European waters.
I hope that progress can be achieved without great delay in the IMO.
Naturally we would prefer the standards to be global, if that is at all possible, and then followed up with a legal regime in our own maritime area.
I hope we can embark upon that without great delay when the discussions are completed in the IMO.
<P>
Further, Mr Sindal also asked about VAT on waste disposal fees.
That is a crucial question which is probably why discussions on the matter are still continuing.
However, in the course of the further development of this legislation, I will be in a position to give a more specific response.
<P>
Mr Jarzembowski's point, which is well taken, that it is essential that the fees levied do not result in the distortion of competition between ports, because their rivalry is, to say the least, very interesting.
After I retire I propose to write a novel about this to do them real justice - maybe a fairy tale, who knows!
There will be differences in the level of the charges which arise mainly because of the relative efficiency or inefficiency of the system.
If a port, because of its efficiency in handling waste disposal, is able to charge smaller fees, well the very best of luck to that port.
What we are then seeing is effective competition and not a distortion of competition, as I am sure Mr Jarzembowski will agree.
<P>
I conclude by expressing my gratitude to the Committee on Transport and Tourism and specifically to the rapporteur, Mr Lagendijk, for the expeditious work and the excellent report on this detailed and important proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place shortly.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Combined traffic: dimensions and weights
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="van Dam">
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Piecyk">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a word of thanks first of all to Mr van Dam, who stepped into the breach for Florus Wijsenbeek, who for very honourable reasons handed back the report.
If I sense the mood correctly, the House will reject the report when it is put to the vote or at a subsequent stage, and with good reason too.
But why?
After all, we agree on the aim of promoting combined transport, because we want to see the transport of goods shifted from the roads to the railways and waterways.
So we agree on the aim.
The question is whether the solution proposed here by the Commission is a suitable means to that end.
I believe it is an unsuitable means; I believe it is counter-productive.
<P>
When the Commission proposes in Article 9a that goods vehicles be exempted from all restrictions on traffic movements that may be applicable at weekends, at night, on public holidays or in the event of heavy atmospheric pollution, provided they constitute combined transport within the meaning of Article 1, this would open a Pandora's box, which we cannot endorse.
In other words, as well as the 44-tonne trailer combination that we have consistently rejected in Parliament, another adverse development is being permitted here, allowing almost anything to run on our roads as long as it operates in the name of combined transport.
That cannot be our line.
We are willing to negotiate about precise times and routes in this Parliament too, but this blanket clause, this carte blanche , cannot be in our interests.
It is the wrong way to proceed.
That is why the Commission must think again on this in order to come up with a better proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in view of the shortness of time, I can only state that we essentially agree with the Socialists and in particular with the rapporteur.
We do not want to promote combined transport in this way.
We are in favour of promoting it by offering tax relief.
But lifting the bans on night driving and weekend driving and increasing the maximum permissible weight are unsuitable measures which, in the interests of the people of Europe, we must reject.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, I shall be very brief.
I have seldom encountered a worse example of hypocrisy than what we are hearing this morning.
How do people intend to achieve the modal shift if combined transport is not given any advantages?
How is rail transport supposed to compete with road transport if large containers cannot be brought to the trains and we are therefore forced to accept the 44 tonne limit?
Trains run every single day, including weekends and holidays, but the freight has to be brought to them, which will be impossible if we keep the ban on weekend driving in place.
<P>
I would add that, structurally speaking, a total weight of 44 tonnes or 40 tonnes makes no difference to the infrastructure whatsoever.
Mr van Dam, who was the one who included this in the report, is telling us a load of nonsense here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
Mr President, I too want to defend the Greens' opposition to the Commission's proposal.
Taking up points made by those who have already spoken, with the exception of Mr Wijsenbeek, we believe it is crucial to keep road transport down to 40 % and we cannot accept conditions which entirely favour road transport in every particular, such as being allowed to drive at weekends.
We think the road transport legs should be limited to a maximum of 200 kilometres but an increase in the maximum weight to 44 tonnes is unacceptable.
<P>
In view of all this, although this approach is obviously designed to promote combined transport, we think it is just a means of making road transport easier.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="President">
We shall suspend the debate at this point since it is now voting time.
It will be resumed this evening.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, I would like here to raise an issue that has led to the European Parliament being deluded.
In his reply to Mr Donnelly's question, Wim Duisenberg, the President of the European Central Bank, said that the members of the board of the European Central Bank receive a salary that is ten per cent greater than that of the Members of the Commission.
In Finland yesterday it was revealed that the Bank of Finland, which belongs to the European Central Bank organisation, pays Sirkka Hämäläinen, who is on the board of the European Central Bank, a pension of around EUR 10 000 a month in addition.
I believe there is reason to suspect that other members of the board of the European Central Bank receive such additional payments.
I hope that the appropriate parliamentary committee will look into this matter, and will not condone such immoral goings-on.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="President">
I am sorry, Mr Seppänen, but that is not a point of order and I therefore cannot let you go on.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, yesterday, when the President of Parliament was in the Chair, I raised the point that Parliament had been besieged by demonstrating farmers, and I asked the President if he would give us further information on the subject either yesterday or today, after he had talked to them. I also asked if Mr Santer and the Commissioner responsible for farming would be present to report back to us on what had taken place between them and the demonstrating farmers.
<P>
This is an extremely important matter.
Farmers are also demonstrating in Greece.
I would like to know whether we are going to have a statement from the Commission today or not.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="President">
We take note of what you say, and no doubt the Commission will also have heard your comments.
We shall now move on to the votes.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Martin, Philippe">
Mr President, with regard to the legislative resolution, I would request that we do not vote on it so as to comply with the procedure that has been adopted for all the reports on Agenda 2000.
<P>
As I have the floor for a moment, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all my colleagues for the vote and to inform them that I have analysed the Commission's position on each of the amendments that were tabled and adopted.
I noted with great satisfaction that the Commission has accepted half of the amendments adopted in the Committee on Agriculture.
<P>
Nevertheless, there are naturally differences on some points that were considered to be fundamental by the majority of the members of the Committee on Agriculture.
I will defend these points in the meetings we will hold with the Council and the Commission up until the vote on the legislative resolution.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="President">
I therefore put to the vote the proposal by Mr Martin that the vote should be postponed pursuant to Rule 60(2).
<P>
Parliament decided to postpone the vote and the matter was deemed to have been referred back to committee
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Striby">
Mr President, I just wanted to inform you that in the official gallery there is a delegation from the parliament of Taiwan, led by Mr Lee and Mrs Song.
<P>
Loud applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="President">
I therefore welcome the delegation from Taiwan.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Aparicio Sánchez">
Mr President, the report on which we are about to vote, the White report, is, in my view, the most important report for the physical territory of many countries of southern Europe and even for European agriculture.
Since it is likely that there will be few Members here for the vote this evening, I would ask you, along with the rapporteur and our colleagues here, to agree to postpone the vote on this report to the next part-session in Brussels to be held in 12 days' time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="White">
Mr President, I am acutely aware of the problems presented to the Iberian peninsula by the issue of water.
In view of what has just been said I do not object to what is proposed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="President">
Mr White and Mr Aparicio, the decision will have to be taken in due course, at the beginning of the vote.
You can ask then for the vote to be postponed, if you so wish, but as things stand at present the vote is on the agenda for today at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw, Palm, Theorin and Wibe">
The Swedish Social Democrats are of the opinion that wine - bearing in mind the health aspects - is not a product which should be supported by the Union's common agricultural policy.
Our view is therefore in principle that this support should be stopped.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Barros Moura, Campos, Correia, Damião, Lage and Torres Couto">
We are voting against the common organisation of the market for wine because it falls outside the whole existing CAP framework.
The financial envelope allocated to this COM is insignificant compared to the amount earmarked for meat, cereals, milk and tobacco.
<P>
Contrary to what happens with those COMs, wine producers will not be entitled to any direct aid.
<P>
The permitted planting areas cannot sustain a self-sufficiency policy for the European Union, with 14 % of trade already in the hands of third countries.
<P>
Despite the Union's campaign to ensure transparency for the consumer, the COM does not make it compulsory to list the ingredients used to produce the wine on the label, leading to unfair competition between wines containing sugar and those produced from grapes alone.
<P>
The COM seeks to distinguish liqueur wines from naturally sweet wines, thus adding to the fiscal burden on them and creating unfair competition between port and Madeira wines.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Blak, Iversen, Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted against the Martin report because it rejects large parts of the Commission's proposals for a reform of the organisation of the market in wine.
We support the Commission's proposals, since the reform is in line with the thinking behind Agenda 2000.
<P>
The Commission has proposed that the wine sector should become more market-oriented, so as to achieve a better balance in future between supply and demand.
The proposed arrangements therefore mean an adaptation of the market, which in turn means reorganisation and bans on replanting of wine areas in certain regions, together with the abolition of artificial outlets for products that cannot be sold on the market.
This avoids surplus production, which is marketed at prices far below the costs of production and distillation.
<P>
The Martin report paves the way for a dilution of the Commission's proposals by retaining part of the distillation arrangements, which the Commission proposes should be abolished, and imposing longer timescales for the individual objectives, and this we cannot endorse.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Chesa">
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="Escolá Hernando">
I want to use this explanation of vote to express my support for the report by Mr Martin on the reform of the common organisation of the market in wine. This reform is essential and aims to adapt the sector to the current situation and to the high degree of competition in the global market.
<P>
We need to establish a better and more complete system of Community aid and support for those wine-growing zones that are both in crisis and expanding, due, for the most part, to increasing competition from third countries.
<P>
In this respect, the Commission must provide greater protection for quality wine through the designations of origin system both within the EU itself and in international agreements with third countries.
<P>
A comprehensive policy to combat the crisis in the wine sector must aim to ensure that vineyards do not relocate to areas receiving EU subsidies.
In this respect, the Commission must allow the sector to be cofinanced at national level. Moreover, we must not consider wines made with grapes from third countries to be Community wines, as the Commission proposes, since they would therefore be eligible for subsidies.
It is also essential to increase to 3 % the area for new planting up to 2010.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling">
The organisation of the market in wine is, from start to finish, an absurdity that would make the Soviet Gosplan planning authorities green with envy.
Moreover, support for wine amounts to an irresponsible waste of taxpayers' money, which not infrequently is actually embezzled.
In spite of this, it is proposed to increase the support from around EUR 1.1 billion per annum to around EUR 1.3 bn - i.e. from some SEK 10 bn to SEK 12 bn a year!
<P>
We believe that this form of organised swindle involving EU funds should be phased out as quickly as possible.
Wine is not a foodstuff, but a luxury item which should be subjected to the laws of the marketplace without any further intervention from central authorities - apart from any steps that might be justified for reasons of alcohol policy, but these would need to be effected at Member State level, not EU level.
<P>
If, for social reasons, the wine-growing countries wish to support their growers, then of course they have every right to do so, but to make taxpayers contribute in this way, over and above what they pay to purchase the wine, is nothing short of grotesque.
It is hard to imagine a more flagrant example of misdirected pseudo-solidarity than support for wine.
We are in favour of genuine international solidarity, including increased foreign aid.
This is one of the reasons why we have voted against the report as a whole.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR)">
Wine producers are farmers, and must therefore be entitled to EU support in the same way as other farmers.
However, EU support must be changed and become more of an environmental support and focused more on smaller agricultural holdings.
In the long term, the support needs to be reduced.
<P>
It is wrong to include such a large number of detailed provisions in the report.
I have abstained from the final vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Reding">
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="Schlechter">
Again and again and again - one regulatory frenzy after another from the European Commission!
In 1962, for example, a set of market regulations for wine was adopted and remained in force until 1970.
Then came new market regulations for wine, but these were originally devised for France, Germany, Italy and Luxembourg only.
The accession of Greece, Portugal and Spain made the problems greater, and as time went by we had a growing surplus of table wines which had to be brought under control.
<P>
The Martin report is therefore of great importance to Luxembourg wine growers too.
Who does not remember the epic discussions on the two wine reports by our honourable colleagues Mateo Sierra and Julio Fantuzzi?
Two worlds were pitted against each other - the wine-growing areas of the south and those of the north.
Although the Fantuzzi report was adopted by a slender majority, it did not attract majority support in the Council of Agriculture Ministers.
The Moselle and our winegrowers once more emerged relatively unscathed, because the Commission's pessimistic forecasts of wine production and consumption proved to be inaccurate.
<P>
Almost five years after the Fantuzzi report, Parliament has to deal again with a proposal from the Commission on the common organisation of the market in wine.
And at this point I should like to congratulate Mr Martin as a specialist in this field for the good report he has tabled, and especially for its fairness.
In the expectation that the report will achieve a majority in both Parliament and the Council this time, let me say that the compromise amendments he has tabled will enable the wine growers of the northern vineyard regions to go on producing their quality wines just as they always have done.
<P>
In any case, I believe that the production of quality wines in the European Union falls under national jurisdiction by virtue of the subsidiarity principle, and that Luxembourg still produces some of the best of those wines.
<P>
Our aim must be to achieve a decrease in the production of table wine and to prevent the importation of must from non-EU countries.
Above all, there must be a reduction in large-scale distillation, in other words the organised destruction of wine, before it reaches the market.
<P>
I shall therefore be voting for Mr Martin's report, and I do so in the hope that producers in all wine-growing areas will be spared any further rules and regulations in future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="Souchet">
I would first of all like to commend the exceptional quality of the work that has been done in the context of this detailed study of the importance of activities linked to wine in our societies.
This is due to the professional experience of the rapporteur, combined with the best possible knowledge of the subject that came from the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, and the study carried out on the ground by the writers of the report, on the basis of contributions from producers and in close cooperation with our Directorate-General for Research.
<P>
This debate brings to light several fundamental points, dealing with both the nature of the common agricultural policy and the actual running of the European institutions.
<P>
At the centre of our concerns is the desire to clearly affirm that wine is an agricultural product and not an industrial one.
It is essential to take this position, as it conveys the need to maintain a genuine, close and rigorous link - not only in terms of marketing - between the land and the product.
It also implies the desire to encourage the promotion of products on the basis of the place of production.
Respecting this link between the land and the product is essential to ensure consumer safety.
It is a necessary condition for the future of food safety, and also for the possibility of maintaining balanced land-use planning.
It enables us to prevent destructive concentrations and to continue to develop the production of food from the land, which is part of our culture.
<P>
In order to maintain this link, we must prevent the development of a dangerous shift, that is, the possibility of making wine from musts imported from third countries.
Our colleague Mr Chesa, who comes from one of the most important wine-making regions in Europe, rightly highlighted the risks of a reduction in quality and of breaking the link between product and land that this move would entail.
<P>
Parliament has proposed banning wine making with musts from third countries.
However, Commissioner Fischler argued that this position was not well-founded, considering that the provisions of the Marrakesh agreement establishing the WTO no longer allowed the countries of the European Union to declare such a ban.
We in turn contest Mr Fischler's interpretation, as the proposals in the Martin report merely take up the exact provisions of the COM in wine which are consolidated in the GATT.
I have, moreover, addressed a written question to the Commission on this fundamental point, and this must be clarified quickly.
<P>
Rather than taking the relevant step of encouraging the development of a sector in which European countries are world leaders, the Commission has adopted a Malthusian, restrictive and cautious attitude towards several issues.
Fortunately, the Martin report deliberately breaks away from this philosophy by rightly proposing a controlled restructuring and regeneration of vineyards and measures to improve the quality of grapes and wine-making facilities. It also gives priority to structural measures to help and support young people when they are setting up their operations and as they expand.
<P>
Finally, the Martin report quite rightly requests that the Council's authority and rights be entirely preserved in this important sector, while the Commission proposed, as usual, an excessive increase in its own powers, claiming that it alone held all the powers of modification and regulation.
We can only hope that the Council, which is the only European institution that has real democratic legitimacy, will be able to resist the pressure from the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="Trizza">
The Alleanza Nazionale is voting in favour although, personally, I am only partly satisfied.
I think reform of the organisation of the market in wine must essentially respect the following principles:
<P>
Although market regulation mechanisms are needed to balance supply and demand, the Commission is not justified in extending the ban on new planting up to 2010 while permitting wine making from imported musts.
While other world wine producers have a free hand, this restriction represents a serious threat to the Union's dominant position on the world market, where Europe currently accounts for over 50 % of total production.-Maintaining the status quo on enrichment with sucrose to obtain the final alcohol content of wines is unacceptable.
This kind of regulation would hinder the development of markets like Italy's which focus on alcohol produced in vineyards rather than cellars.
The significant cost-savings achieved by the simple addition of sugars would make quality production, like Italy's, barely viable and condemn it to a niche position on the market.-I also think it is important to regularise the position of the Italian vineyards planted without formally respecting Community regulations, and I reject the Commission's idea of deducting these from the new planting reserve.
In fact, if the Commission's approach were accepted, Italy would be at a distinct disadvantage compared with Spain, which currently meets the provisions in the proposal.-Finally, under Commission Decision No 94/173/EC of 22 March 1994, the wine-growing sector should be included amongst those benefiting from aid for product transformation and processing.
If Italian cellars cannot access European aid to invest in production technology it will be impossible to improve the quality of their products and entrepreneurs boasting one of the oldest wine-making traditions in Europe, who accept the market logic of product improvement and are counting on penetrating the upper segments of the market, will be penalised.- Barros Moura report (A4-0030/99)
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, Mr Barros Moura's report raises the issue of which European institutions and policies are needed to complete the transition to the single currency and enable it to function.
It has not come too soon.
<P>
This issue was deliberately avoided at Maastricht so as to facilitate the Treaty's ratification, and again at Amsterdam, so as not to open debates that might have led to doubts among the citizens on the eve of the single currency's entry into force.
Nevertheless, we are faced with the issue now and we must face up to it.
<P>
The Barros Moura report opens up several debates, but by no means all the debates.
For example, it does not thoroughly examine the issue of the democratic control of the single currency, as this issue seems practically impossible to solve.
It also fails to consider the issue of who will make the ultimate decision on external exchange rates, because it is such a contentious issue at present.
And even though it mentions the need for a federal-style budgetary system, it fails to specify what this means in terms of new taxes and the rates they would be set at.
<P>
In fact, what does this report actually deal with?
Essentially, it deals with the coordination of economic policies which it would like to see extended to other related areas, such as structural policies. This is something it would like to see become more centralised, to the Commission's advantage, and more binding, along with the obligatory decisions taken by a qualified majority.
The socialist leanings of the rapporteur, who views all solutions in terms of a superstate, are clearly evident in all of this.
<P>
Our Liberal colleagues appear somewhat taken aback by this prospect, and yet the result was obvious.
It is true that the choice has still not been formally announced between socialist or Liberal-style euro management institutions, but, in short, that choice has been largely predetermined.
The single currency is in itself a unifying and rigid principle, something our Liberal friends seem to have realised a little too late.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw and Sandberg-Fries">
We would like to thank the rapporteur for the accomplished work that has been put into this important report.
We believe that there is good reason to highlight the need for an effective consensus with regard to the policy on EMU and other policy areas, such as employment and social policy, the overall macroeconomic policy and environmental policy.
We also believe that there is good reason to highlight the need for political control over the ECB within the framework of the independence demanded by its operations.
The enlargement of the EU compels us to pay greater attention to these questions, a point which is also emphasised in the committee's proposals.
<P>
However, we feel that in several instances the committee's proposals run the risk of tackling the issues from the wrong starting-point.
The development of increased coordination between policies relating to EMU - above all employment and social policies, overall macroeconomic policy and environmental policy - should be based on more active initiatives and more closely coordinated objectives in these areas, rather than on static demands for changes in the Council's decision-making procedures and the introduction of binding rules.
In our opinion, it is essential above all that the Community should increase its efforts to achieve more active employment and social policies and better coordination of overall macroeconomic policy.
We believe that increased efforts cannot in all respects be driven primarily by institutional changes in the way that is proposed by the committee.
In our view, this is a valid position even in the context of enlargement.
<P>
Furthermore, we are of the opinion that changes in the rules for making decisions on economic policy should be based on clear definitions of which areas of the Member States' current economic policy would be affected.
We believe that some of the proposals for institutional changes that are being submitted by the committee do not take into account this need for clear definitions.
One example of these essentially unclear definitions is the committee's paragraph 18 on 'federal-style' budgetary systems.
<P>
As regards the committee's proposal of a legal basis in the Treaty for the Euro Council, we believe that this fails to take into account the fact that EMU should be seen as a matter for all EU countries, even those which are not currently taking part in the euro.
EMU and the common currency have an impact on large areas of Community policy and should therefore not be a matter that is handled exclusively by the Euro Council, as envisaged in the proposal put forward by the committee.
<P>
This consideration has guided us in the position we have adopted on individual points in the report and the individual amendments that have been tabled.
The fact that the report as a whole contains certain weaknesses does not mean that we believe it should be rejected in its entirety.
The relationship between EMU policy and other policy areas and the consequences of enlargement for EMU are so important that this matter warrants further attention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Bonde, Lis Jensen and Sandbæk">
The Barros Moura report sets the course, in a clear and technically convincing way, for the development of the EU in terms of the establishment of the internal market, EMU and the euro.
Consequently, the next logical and inevitable step - if a breakdown of the monetary union project is to be avoided - is to establish a real federal structure.
Amongst other things, this means giving more power to the Commission and the European Parliament and less power, first and foremost, to the national parliaments.
At the same time, majority votes will be the norm.
There will be a common economic policy and a common tax policy.
In addition, a 'federal-style' budgetary system will be created - a budget that will be used to resolve crisis situations in the individual Member States.
To put it more directly: the report is canvassing for the establishment of a federal state with a federal budget at its disposal, similar to the federal system that exists in federal states such as Germany and the USA.
<P>
As a counterbalance to EMU, the report wishes to create a social and political union.
The establishment of a social union will mean that a framework will be created at EU level for the way in which social security benefits and schemes are to be administered.
The Union will establish parameters for determining who is entitled to benefit from the social security system, how much they are able to receive and how the benefits and schemes are to be financed.
We do not share the Barros Moura report's vision of a federal EU, and we are therefore voting against the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Deprez">
The transition to the euro is the result of the political will demonstrated by the Union and its Member States.
It was not an end in itself, but simply one stage further along the road to European integration.
The launch of the euro provides the Union with a single monetary policy which makes it necessary to restore some kind of balance, particularly in the economic sphere.
<P>
The ECB, among other institutions, now performs all of its tasks with full independence, which is certainly a positive thing.
<P>
However, the absence of a genuine political authority in economic matters at the European Central Bank clearly places the issue of the lack of democratic accountability in European integration at the centre of the debate.
<P>
It also gives rise to the fear of an uncompromising monetarist policy which would govern the Union's strategic choices and be a burden for potentially healthy economic growth which is able to create jobs.
<P>
Coordinating economic policies becomes a pressing need if we wish to promote an efficient and competitive European economy, which - as our resolution states - is also able to generate jobs, solidarity, economic and social cohesion and equal opportunities between citizens of all the Member States.
<P>
In order to attain this, we now need to openly declare our commitment to an economic and social union as well as to define a new 'social contract' that establishes the common principles in social matters.
However, this will not be possible if the development of an integrated economic policy is not accompanied by closer alignment of Member States' tax systems.
<P>
In short, I very broadly share the conclusions reached in the resolution we are considering.
I will support it all the more as it highlights the need to strengthen Parliament's role in all matters concerning Economic and Monetary Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Lindholm">
Sadly, I have to note that the scenario we feared will become a reality if this text is adopted. We predicted that the existence of EMU would result in calls for harmonisation in areas such as taxation, as well as employment and social policy.
The Member States are, in other words, being asked to harmonise their economic policies - which is one of the reasons why I voted against this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR)">
EMU means 'more Union'.
Decisions on economic policy, as well as interest and exchange rates, become an EU-only affair.
In the long term, fiscal and financial policy will be decided at Union level too.
A whole raft of reports from the European Parliament confirms this trend.
<P>
EMU is an economic and political project - the cornerstone of a future EU state.
This report admittedly takes a relatively softly-softly approach, but the underlying message is there.
Economic policies are described in terms of 'issues of common interest'.
The report speaks of approximation of fiscal and social policy, more qualified majority voting and a stronger Commission.
<P>
The rapporteur calls for 'conclusion of the draft interinstitutional agreement on the coordination of national economic policies and on monitoring the stability and growth pact'.
Such measures would only increase the power of the EU and widen the democratic deficit.
I therefore voted against this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Palm, Theorin and Wibe">
The rapporteur clearly views EMU as a platform for championing the transformation of the EU into a federal state.
In the recitals to his report, he uses formulations such as 'The European Parliament... considers that the absence of a common economic and fiscal policy appears to be completely incompatible with the unified management of monetary policy'; or '... points out that establishing monetary union would require a 'federal-style' budgetary system'.
<P>
EMU as an enterprise is fundamentally undemocratic.
Yet the rapporteur erroneously hopes to remedy its shortcomings by granting increased powers to the European Parliament and allowing qualified majority voting in the Council on the general guidelines for the Member States' economic policy.
<P>
The EU should operate on the basis of intergovernmental cooperation.
Accordingly, unanimity must be the rule when Community-wide measures are decided upon. It should be governments that appoint the president of the ECB, and the Member States must be responsible for shaping national economic and fiscal policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Rovsing">
In the interests of the continued positive development of the EU, it is necessary for economic and monetary union to be a success.
Especially in the light of the prospective enlargement, it has become even more important to ensure that the structure of EMU is as healthy and as effective as possible.
This can be achieved in part by providing for strict control of the economies of the participating countries.
<P>
In my opinion, it is important to ensure that a healthy balance exists between decisions taken at national and supranational level.
Coordination of macroeconomic regulation is essential, but it is important that the EU does not deprive the Member States of the responsibility which they are obliged to live up to as members of the economic and monetary union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Spiers">
The European Parliamentary Labour Party welcomes much of the Barros Moura report, and the attention it pays to the political consequences of Economic and Monetary Union.
However, we have major reservations about some aspects of the report.
<P>
In paragraph one, second indent, we cannot support the implication that social security must be harmonised to make EMU a success.
<P>
If the President of the Central Bank is to enjoy the confidence of all Member States, he or she should be appointed by consensus.
We therefore voted against paragraph 8.
<P>
We are concerned about the proposals to extend QMV to the management of economic policy and voted against paragraphs 10, 16 and 20.
The proposal for a 'federal-style' budgetary system in paragraph 18 is also one we oppose.
<P>
Paragraph 14 calls for the Euro Council to be enshrined in the Treaty.
This risks institutionally a two-tier Europe in which non-EMU Member States of the EU will be in some sort of second division.
We oppose this.
<P>
On the final report, the position of the EPLP was to abstain.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Wolf">
Mr Barros Moura focuses on a key problem connected with the current stage of European integration, which can only be described as lopsided market radicalism. Although we have a single European market, a European currency and a European monetary policy, we have no equivalent instruments of political union.
There is not even an effective European exchange-rate policy at the present time which could position the euro strategically in relation to the other currencies of the world, especially the dollar.
To prevent any misunderstandings, let me stress here that such a policy would have to be based on cooperation; it must not mean an intensification of unbridled competition through government interference. This lopsidedness that market radicalism has inflicted on the European integration process must be rapidly rectified as a matter of urgency.
We need a Community exchange-rate policy that is worthy of the name, a binding 'monetary dialogue' among the Community institutions, European economic governance as the basis of a Community macroeconomic policy, and the effective development of Community policies and of coordination between the Member States' policies in key areas such as taxation in the single market, employment and the establishment of the social and environmental conditions in which fair competition can take place within the European single market. These are the things we need in order to build up the general economic momentum that will drive us towards the goal of sustainable economic activity.
<P>
In view of the effective new level of supranational and global interconnection in the business world, the EU, in pursuing its goal, will always have to present a united front to the international community.
But we can and we must make the first move here.
<P>
Bourlanges report (A4-0049/99)
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, we believe that of all the European institutions, the Council of Ministers and, to a greater extent, the European Council, possess the greatest relative legitimacy because people see their elected representatives meet in these institutions at the highest level.
<P>
No other European institution has achieved such status, neither the European Parliament, which is still considered to be a lower House, nor, of course, the Commission, which is considered to be a mere collection of civil servants.
In the very interests of Europe, attention must be focused on the most legitimate institution.
Therefore, the Council must be granted the right to propose legislation and exercise control over the Commission, even censure it.
Also, decisions must be taken unanimously for all major issues.
<P>
In this respect, the Bourlanges report asserts that 'unanimity is an arrangement fundamentally inappropriate to effective decision-making '. In the explanatory statement, the rapporteur presents some gloomy calculations showing that with 15 players, the probability of achieving a unanimous position is one in 32 769.
This is quite clearly wrong, because in today's Europe, a great many decisions are taken every day by general consensus.
In fact, the system of unanimous voting forces each partner to respect the point of view of others and endeavour to understand that point of view in order to negotiate better.
The decisions taken as a result are more valid because they are based on mutual consensus.
It seems as though this system is perhaps somewhat slower than others that are more authoritarian in nature, but it nonetheless produces good results.
An enlarged Europe with 25 or 30 members should be able to operate in this way.
We also reminded you, through an amendment, that the Luxembourg compromise should be incorporated into all parts of the Treaty. Unfortunately, that amendment was rejected.
<P>
In any case, we have to accept that a Europe with 25 members cannot be monolithic and must obey the model of variable geometry.
All of these measures, including the variable geometry which will make decisions on European cooperation more flexible, will strengthen the link between Europe and its nations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Andersson, Lööw, Theorin and Wibe">
If the Union is to meet its goal of enlargement, reform will need to extend beyond agricultural policy and the Structural Funds to embrace the whole process of decision-making.
The report is therefore a welcome initiative.
<P>
We do not however agree with the rapporteur's proposals on the common and foreign security policy, the CFSP.
Our view is that the Council plays - and should continue to play - a central role with regard to the EU and the CFSP.
We would refer to the political spirit underpinning Article J.7 of the Treaty of Amsterdam, where it is stated that the Council shall be responsible for decisions in all areas affecting the Union's security.
The rapporteur's paragraphs 10, 13 and 14 are not acceptable in the light of this.
<P>
We believe that the concept of positive abstention could be of assistance in fulfilling the Petersberg tasks (humanitarian intervention, and peacekeeping and peacemaking measures). In our view, however, political will alone can equip the EU to be more active in crisis management.
The outcome will hinge on how the new decision-making procedures work out in practice. We cannot therefore support paragraphs 30 and 31.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Barros Moura">
We support the forward thinking in the Bourlanges report about the way the Council should operate in an enlarged European Union.
<P>
In particular, we support his call for better coordination and greater efficiency through increased use of qualified majority voting and, above all, the vital importance of returning to the Community method by re-establishing institutional balance, with a strong Commission endowed with a real power of initiative and political drive.
<P>
We have voted against certain points:
<P>
The rapporteur's limited definition of constitutional issues for which unanimity would be maintained; -Paragraph 33, which would give qualified decision-making power in budgetary matters to the States contributing most. This is at odds with the Community method and the principle of constitutional equality between the Member States; -On the weighting of Council votes, anything that goes beyond maintaining the current balances and might therefore encourage the concept of a 'directing board' of the larger Member States; -As in the previous points, anything that might predetermine the position of the European Parliament on basic political and constitutional issues before the process of revising the Treaties begins; -Anything that would make good anti-European propaganda in the coming election campaign.Our final overall vote was determined by the outcome of the votes in the House on these issues - on which, thanks to our initiative and our efforts, the PSE Group has adopted exactly the same approach.
<P>
Given that some of these essential concerns of ours - especially the weighting of votes in the Council - have not been sufficiently safeguarded, we have voted against.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Caudron">
Before I make any comments, I should like to congratulate Jean-Louis Bourlanges on the quality of his report and the relevance of his remarks.
Without prejudice to the future of the Community institutions, this text provides a particularly interesting basis for an excellent debate and, moreover, is proof of the maturity of this House, if indeed that still needed to be demonstrated.
<P>
As regards the comments made about the Council, I share the rapporteur's concerns and cannot imagine enlargement ever taking place without there first being a thorough reform of the present decision-making process.
My greatest fear is to see a paralysed European Union and one that is incapable of giving impetus to a clear policy.
Faced with the challenges of the next millennium, we need a Council that is capable of setting out Europe's central themes.
I also think that the ability to do this is fundamentally incompatible with the present system of the rotating presidency, which is why the question raised by Jean-Louis Bourlanges regarding the Council's powers is important, even if it is difficult to answer.
<P>
As regards the way in which the Council of Ministers currently operates, and following the rapporteur's example, I am actively campaigning for a rehabilitation of its role: in my view, it must be the Union's driving force.
Contrary to the report, I would prefer to see the various ministers for European affairs engage in closer coordination with a view to achieving greater consistency in national and European policies.
In accordance with the agenda, the relevant minister should be in charge of the matter.
<P>
Lastly, as regards the system of procedures and, more specifically, the general principle of qualified majority voting, I believe that this system should be extended.
I am not opposed to the principle of the double majority, which to me seems more fair and legitimate than the present weighting system.
<P>
Indeed, I also think that we need to begin debating the powers of the future European Commission within the context of the Union's enlargement.
<P>
Finally, I should like, once again, to stress that enlargement cannot take place without there first being a change in the present institutional framework.
This prerequisite is not, in my view, designed to hinder the process but, on the contrary, aims to establish the foundations of a political Europe that is able to take responsibility for the choices it makes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Delcroix">
Jean-Louis Bourlanges has quite rigorously conveyed the expectations of our Committee on Institutional Affairs, which has for a long time been calling for a radical reform of the Council's role, structure and modus operandi .
Without such reform, successive enlargements will paralyse this central decision-making organ.
<P>
During the discussion on this report, my concern - in thinking about European citizens - was to extract clear principles from the recitals which will push the European project towards the objectives of our efforts and proposals.
In my opinion, this project is inextricably linked to an increased democratisation based on the principle of majority voting, the political accountability of the authorities, scrutiny on the part of parliamentary institutions and the transparency of decision-making procedures.
The Union must progress towards a model which clearly reveals its dual nature as a union between Member States on the one hand, and as a union between peoples on the other.
In this model, the Commission will become a genuine European executive, with Parliament representing the people and the Council representing the Member States.
This model of Europe will be able to act as an integrated whole, which is both coherent and united, thereby increasing its international influence.
<P>
As this is an own-initiative report from the European Parliament, my second concern relates to both the principle behind the report and the time chosen to adopt it.
Generally speaking, I appreciate the efforts made by Jean-Louis Bourlanges and, in particular, his attention to detail in the proposals.
However, I think that until the Amsterdam Treaty is ratified and implemented by the Member States, it would often be appropriate to leave to the future negotiators the job of putting forward specific rules and limiting our role to simply announcing the general guidelines we are to follow.
In this way, we can be justified in our desire to see the double majority adopted in the long term, as this is a guideline that the vast majority of the House can ratify. But we will not go into detail regarding percentages here, as these should be studied at a later stage.
<P>
I was pleased to note that the rapporteur had recommended that the weighting system be maintained until this double majority is adopted.
However, it would perhaps be somewhat restrictive and ill-advised to suggest that current percentages must be maintained.
The most important thing is for the principle of equilibrium to be maintained, chiefly between the larger and smaller countries.
We should by all means clearly specify a guideline - maintaining equilibrium - but try to prevent divisions emerging by beginning a debate on quantification.
<P>
As regards qualified majority voting, in the majority of cases, Jean-Louis Bourlanges' intention to withdraw the resources that belong to the cases that are excluded from this type of majority gives rise to concern.
Parliament already gave its opinion on this matter when it examined the Méndez de Vigo-Tsatsos report - a report which expressed a balanced opinion and which was approved by the broad majority of Members - by making an exception of constitutional and 'semi-constitutional' matters in terms of qualified majority voting.
In my opinion, it would not be wise to go back on this agreement at the present time, even if the term 'semi-constitutional' poses a problem.
<P>
With regard to the issue of foreign policy, we are waiting for the Amsterdam Treaty to be both ratified and implemented before deciding whether or not to reject the idea of 'positive abstention'.
I think that opinions on this are divided, even within the groups.
<P>
Allow me to briefly sum up the approach that I advocate.
At the present moment in time, we simply express the principles that guide us, which essentially means our desire to keep the balance, but we avoid discussing details that might divide us.
This approach is similar to the 'culture of minorities', which leads to respect for others and rejects the abuse of dominant positions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Deprez">
For a long time, it has been clear to those of us that are in favour of consolidated European integration that successive enlargements have brought European institutions to the edge of paralysis.
Any further enlargements are likely to hamper a system which, in its time, has proved its worth, but which was never designed to function with 15 members and less still with 20 or 25 members.
<P>
Before any further accession takes place, European institutions must be reformed, including the Council, which has become tangled up in the growing multiplicity of its organs and takes more and more liberties with procedures that had, however, been determined in the Treaties.
This is clearly an unacceptable situation.
I fully share the rapporteur's conclusions, particularly where he affirms the need for a thorough reorganisation of the Council's structure and role, as well as the need to rationalise and consolidate procedures with a view to making it more efficient and transparent.
<P>
I lay great emphasis on the role the rapporteur would like to see conferred on both the President of the Commission and the High Representative for the CFSP, instead of and in place of a Council presidency that is forced to concentrate on its conciliation duties.
This effectively implies a new division of tasks that is likely to give fresh impetus to the Union.
<P>
In this connection, I fully approve of the idea that qualified majority voting should become the general procedure for decision-making in the Council.
Unanimous voting would then become the exception, its use only justified on the grounds of the seriousness and importance of a few rare decisions.
<P>
What is more, I think that any future change to the weighting of votes needs to retain the present principle of the relative over-representation of Member States with small and medium-sized populations.
<P>
To conclude, I should like to highlight the quality and importance of the work carried out by the rapporteur in the hope of helping European institutions to cope with the challenges they have yet to meet and overcome.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Fayot">
There are several comments I should like to make in relation to this excellent report.
<P>
1.I do not believe that Parliament should get involved in the Council's internal procedures as the Council has nothing to do with Parliament's.2.Contrary to the rapporteur's wishes as set out in paragraph 1, I believe that we would be ill-advised to make a distinction between the national and legislative role of ministers, as this might lead to calls for the creation of a new institution, such as a senate, which we do not need.3.I do not approve of the high-profile role the rapporteur confers on the European Council, as it is a role that appears to result from a very centralised and radical approach to politics.4.I do not share the rapporteur's scepticism concerning the rotating presidency.
I cannot accept his proposal to hand over the tasks of Union leadership to the President of the Commission.
On the contrary, I think that the presidency, with its enhanced responsibilities, has a significant effect on the attitude of each Member State towards the process of integration.5.This report once again raises the problem of small and large European countries in the context of the weighting of votes in the Council.I was extremely pleased to note the reasonable and well-thought out approach taken by the rapporteur on this issue and his rejection of the popularity-seeking attitude shown by the larger Member States. It is an attitude that comes from an unfounded fear of being dwarfed by a coalition of less populated states.
<P>
What we need to do is to find a way of preventing a deadlock in the key areas of common legislation and extending the use of qualified majority voting. However, we must not lose sight of the fundamental principle of the partnership between small, medium and large states, formed on the basis of mutual confidence and equality; it is a principle that is all too often forgotten today.
<P>
Lastly, I would wonder about the status of this text.
If it intends to establish Parliament's position for subsequent negotiations, it is somewhat premature, but if it aims to launch the debate, it is welcome.
<P>
For once, I shall abstain from voting.
I do not oppose the report, because it is both detailed and interesting.
However, if I voted in favour of it, I would feel that I was making a definitive decision about a matter that has yet to be debated and that will surely evolve.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Lindholm">
I am disturbed that three quarters of this House should be backing a report which unequivocally advocates such a radical institutional overhaul of the EU, without there having been any proper airing of the issues in the Member States or among ordinary citizens.
The call for effective abolition of the right of veto and the desire to turn the Commission into a quasi-government constitute a huge leap in the direction of political federation, and away from the principle of intergovernmental cooperation as enshrined in the Treaties.
I wish to distance myself resolutely from this new trend.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR)">
This report advocates a set of measures which, taken together, would lead to 'more Union'.
Specialist committees, it is argued, should be abolished, centralising power at Coreper level.
The Commission - and, in particular, its president - would gain power too. It would be entrusted with 'tasks of leadership of the Union' and would act as the driving force behind foreign and security policy, in conjunction with the CFSP High Representative.
<P>
This scenario is quite unacceptable to a non-aligned country.
The Committee on Institutional Affairs is calling for qualified majority voting in the Council to become the general rule, even when contributions to the EU budget are at stake.
I therefore voted against the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Palm">
I believe that the EU should be based on intergovernmental cooperation.
I cannot therefore endorse statements lamenting that there 'must' still be unanimity when decisions are taken in certain fields.
<P>
Nor can I go along with the idea that the Commission should be the only body enjoying the right of initiative.
Not allowing elected representatives to amend or propose legislation constitutes a serious breach of democratic principles.
<P>
Finally, I believe that the CFSP High Representative should be Council-based and not transferred to the Commission, as the rapporteur proposes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Spiers">
The European Parliamentary Labour Party welcomes much of the Bourlanges report, which deals with an important subject and makes many useful suggestions.
<P>
Nevertheless, the EPLP has serious reservations about some aspects of the report.
<P>
We voted against paragraph 10, which suggests that the leadership of the EU and the conduct of foreign policy will have to be handed over to the Commission President and the High Representatives of the CFSP, while the Council presidency concentrates on its conciliation tasks.
<P>
If senior appointments are to retain the confidence of all Member States, they should be appointed by consensus.
We therefore voted against paragraph 23.
<P>
We do not accept proposals to extend QMV to matters of taxation, own resources, foreign policy and the UK rebate.
We therefore voted against paragraphs 28, 30, 32 and 33.
<P>
The EPLP position was to abstain on the final report.
<P>
Gutiérrez Díaz report (A4-0034/99)
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw, Sandberg-Fries and Theorin">
We fully endorse the assessment of the Treaty of Amsterdam offered by the rapporteur in paragraph 1, where he says that the new provisions in many ways constitute a new stage in the development of the European Union.
In this connection, we welcome his reference to the principle of non-discrimination.
<P>
It is absolutely vital, in our view, that the Treaty be ratified as soon as possible. We cannot therefore support paragraph 11.
<P>
On paragraph 13, we feel that it would be inappropriate, in the current circumstances, for the European Parliament to propose that 'police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters ... be defined more broadly'.
As a result, we are unable to accept paragraph 13.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Berthu">
The Gutiérrez Díaz report unintentionally shows, right from its title, the impasse the European Union is about to reach, stating that it is aimed at 'strengthening Union institutions with a view to establishing an area of democracy'.
What more blatant admission could there be that, for federalists, European democracy is now an objective, rather than a path to achieving a goal?
<P>
This is indeed the situation we are faced with because of the adoption of the Amsterdam Treaty which is building a European superstate at the cost of a real decline in democracy.
On the one hand, it is destroying the national democratic area, excluding national parliaments, and making national law - including constitutional law - subordinate to Community law.
On the other hand, it is proving incapable, for the time being, of establishing the slightest democracy at European level, quite simply because the European people do not exist.
What is more, the transposition of parliamentary procedures into this House only manages to produce joint positions that are all too often artificial and that are only ever accorded secondary importance by the people of Europe.
<P>
It would appear that, in spite of all of these diversions, genuine democracy remains the ultimate goal.
I, however, have my doubts about this.
Once antidemocratic institutions that are allowed to be strengthened without impunity are established, a return to control by the citizens can no longer take place spontaneously and painlessly.
<P>
In spite of its good intentions, the Gutiérrez Díaz report exacerbates the situation by proposing that all the rights conferred on citizens by membership of the European Union be brought within the ambit of a specific Treaty title on 'citizens' rights'.
It is to be noted that this aim appears very similar to that of the German Presidency, which has proposed to create a 'charter of fundamental rights' for the post-Amsterdam period.
<P>
However, this is a guideline that would bypass national democracies even further and restrict their legitimate role as a pillar of the Union.
It is indeed this role that we wish to preserve instead, so that democracy and respect for the people are always present in the life of the Community.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Deprez">
European integration will only progress in the long term if the citizens of the Member States see any interest in it either for themselves or their children.
Therefore, it is, in fact, vital that the Union's citizens do not perceive the various stages in European integration simply as an accumulation of ethereal texts, but as something tangible and meaningful for all.
<P>
The rapporteur is right to lay particular emphasis on the practical provisions that have resulted from the adoption of the Amsterdam Treaty.
So surely the free movement of people is thus a tangible way for everyone to assess the reality of the Union in a positive manner.
On the contrary, the insecurity associated with organised crime which, to a certain extent, is also a result of the removal of internal borders, generates a very negative image of European integration in the eyes of our citizens.
<P>
In my opinion, it would be irresponsible of us to lead citizens to believe that it is possible to simply remove internal borders in Europe without there being any negative effects, something that the rapporteur does not do.
<P>
The free movement of persons naturally goes hand in hand with the creation of an area of security and justice which also enjoys enhanced police and judicial cooperation and respect for transparency and legal certainty.
<P>
It therefore falls to the various institutions to act promptly, each in the area of its responsibilities, in order to meet people's expectations.
<P>
I am absolutely convinced that it would be beneficial for everyone if the Council and the Commission were more open in their cooperation with the European Parliament, in these areas, as in many others.
And on this particular point, I fully agree with the opinion of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Lindholm">
This resolution, which was unfortunately adopted, includes a series of demands, amongst which are: increased power for the Court of Justice; the coordination of national employment policies at EU level; the creation of legal bases for the formulation of social legislation; legal recognition for transnational or 'European' political parties, with an entitlement to financial resources from the Union budget.
<P>
These are all important issues, but they must be the subject of wide-ranging debate in the Member States before politicians from this Parliament adopt a position.
And this debate - which will need to be held at all levels, in all contexts and in all countries - will have to centre on the major questions.
Where is the EU going? What are the goals being pursued by the various organisations?
What do our citizens want? If we wish to retain people's faith in us, I believe that the time has come to discuss these matters openly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Palm">
I cannot support this report in its entirety.
I believe instead that:
<P>
Since the EU ought to be based on intergovernmental cooperation, the employment policies of the Member States should not be coordinated at Community level, although far-reaching cooperation is of course possible.
This applies to legislation on pensions, civil legislation, etc.-Unanimity should be required in the Council on matters of asylum, visas, immigration and free movement.-Schengen should be done away with as soon as possible.-Police cooperation should also cease; we already have Interpol and it works very well indeed.
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Spiers">
The European Parliamentary Labour Party voted for the Gutiérrez Díaz report, but with reservations.
<P>
We abstained on paragraph 6, which is critical of the use of unanimity in the Third Pillar, and paragraph 8, which calls for co-decision for Third Pillar decisions.
<P>
We abstained on paragraphs 10 and 19 on the Court of Justice and voted against paragraph 11, calling for the incorporation of Schengen into the Treaty, and paragraph 12, which criticises the Danish, Irish and UK opt-out.
<P>
The Amsterdam Treaty has not even come into force and would be better judged after it has been tested in practice.
<P>
Paragraph 28 calls for funding for transnational political parties.
We oppose this.
<P>
Bowe report (A4-0024/99)
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, the Green Group voted against this report because we feel it does not go far enough.
We have succeeded in some areas such as antibiotic resistance - that has been banned - and also on GMOs that cross-breed.
That too has been banned.
Other categories may be added later.
<P>
There is a huge amount of confusion over the time limit of 12 years.
Initially we wanted what the Commission proposed, namely seven years.
We then had to propose 12 years because the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, which is supposed to protect public health and the environment, actually weakened the proposal and took out the time limit.
So it was essential that we put some amendment in.
We put in 12 years because we felt we would get some sort of consensus for it, which we did.
But it is still unacceptable that the Environment Committee should actually water down a proposal by the Commission.
We are supposed to be there to protect public health.
That is a total contradiction.
<P>
The whole issue of fast-track marketing is extremely concerning for the Greens.
Basically it will mean that Member States who have some sort of conscience about environmental protection and public health will be side-lined because the Commission will decide and negotiate with the United States.
Member States who feel it is important to protect the environment and public health will be side-lined.
Already there are Member States within the European Union who have a conscience about this issue, who have serious reservations.
The European Union is now going to set aside their concerns and negotiate as a whole.
So multinational companies who control the EU and the United States are going to control this whole issue.
<P>
Those are two of the reasons why we voted against this report.
Having said that, there are some very positive elements in it.
But even on time limits it is quite confusing.
In certain areas we voted for the 12 year time limit but later on there were other votes taken which seemed to confuse the whole issue.
So it is not very clear.
<P>
One of the most disappointing things is the fact that the Environment Committee and the Socialist Group, along with the PPE in this House, have collaborated with industries' interests instead of with the interests of public health and consumer protection and the environment.
History will prove that they were irresponsible in not upholding the rights of the environment and of public health.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pinel">
Mr President, GMOs provide an extra tool of dependency for nations and people, as is already the case for non-reproducible hybrid seeds and, generally speaking, all patented life forms, because these days, man's madness is leading him to patent the living world.
<P>
Let us not be mistaken, all of this comes under a strategy for world domination, since people are being deprived of the ability to feed themselves.
We must not forget, in passing, that these methods lead to large-scale job losses, and destroy the environment, quality, tastes and biodiversity.
<P>
As the next millennium approaches, here is a sample menu the European Commission might serve up: human gene ham, hormone-enriched beefburgers, somatotrophic pasteurised cheese, and genetically modified apples from Chile.
Ladies and gentlemen, I wish you all bon appétit !
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, I voted against this, because despite two major successes, namely the ban on marketing those genes that can be made untraceable and the fact that we managed to insist on a certificate of liability insurance, the text on which the House decided at the end of the day is worse than bad.
It represents the demolition of environmental and safety standards.
<P>
We have even backtracked from the Commission's stance.
The fact that we want to limit the marketing of products to a fixed period where there is inadequate monitoring experience relating to the marketing of comparable organisms effectively means that human beings and their environment are being used as guinea pigs, because if there is not enough experience available, these products should not be put on the market at all.
And we have no right to say that they can be marketed for a fixed period.
This is tantamount to saying that we shall see what has happened after twelve years, and only then will we draw the necessary conclusions.
That, I believe, is utterly irresponsible, just like the simplified procedure, the procedure for simultaneous release in several Member States and the Category I classification, because all these organisms fall under Category I. This means in effect that an environmental risk assessment is virtually ruled out.
<P>
I find this more than deplorable, along with the fact that no scope has been created for more stringent labelling.
This makes it obvious that we have bowed the knee to industrial interests here.
We shall see what the Council makes of it, and whether we can still pull the fat out of the fire together and initiate something that will really take us forward.
I also hope that industry will finally get down to discussing the risks and that the insurance business stands by what it has said, namely that the risk is too great for it to cover.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Ahern">
I call on all Irish MEPs to protect the Irish environment and peoples' health by voting to strengthen the Directive on the Release of Genetically Engineered Organisms in the Environment.
This is a huge opportunity to safeguard the future of Ireland's clean green image of food production.
<P>
I am calling on the Irish representatives to come off the fence and, along with other Members of the Parliament, to resist the intimidating lobbying tactics of the gene-industry.
These companies are panicking because their plan to foist their tampered food products on the public in secret has been exposed.
Governments and even the companies themselves are now admitting the dangers of gene crops and food, so the genetic industry is now reverting to type by pressurising governments on the quiet, while trying to fool consumers in public.
<P>
The Bowe report will subsequently translate into the legislation to govern the crops grown and the food eaten throughout Europe.
The Green Group is pushing for full and open labelling of GE foods, proper risk assessment and a moratorium on GE crop and food which would be of immense benefit to Irish agriculture.
I call on all Irish MEPs to support socio-economic provisions along with public liability.
<P>
One of the most important questions is that of liability and who pays if there is a crisis like BSE.
The insurance companies say that they cannot give cover unless the risks can be quantified.
I am demanding that the Irish Government take steps to ensure the biotech companies quantify the risks to consumers.
<P>
As well as resisting the attempts by the multinationals to water down these proposals, we have to eliminate fast-tracking mechanisms which would allow the gene industry to be unaccountable and uncontrollable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw, Sandberg-Fries, Theorin and Wibe">
Genetically modified organisms - particularly when used in food crops - have been the topic of intense debate within the Union.
Ethical considerations underlie many of the questions surrounding genetic engineering technology.
Research has run on ahead, with public debate and political regulation lagging well behind.
Ordinary citizens lack the knowledge to oversee developments, and this limits all our scope for reflection and critical appraisal.
This directive is designed to introduce strict rules to govern the deliberate release of GMOs.
The safety of human beings and the environment is put first, which is a good thing.
And many of the amendments tighten up the Commission's text.
<P>
Nonetheless, we feel that a more restrictive stance on the development of GMOs for use in food production should have been adopted from the outset. Equally, there should have been broader discussion of the advantages of this kind of research before we accepted trial applications, followed by the presence of GMOs in our food.
<P>
We also believe that consumers have an absolute right to information, which means that they ought to be able to choose whether to buy products containing genetically modified ingredients or substances.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Berthu">
The title of the Commission's new proposal for a directive regarding the placing of GMOs on the market might mislead people as to its severity: 'directive relating to the deliberate release into the environment of genetically modified organisms'.
And yet, in spite of this somewhat dramatic title, the actual context of the text turns out to be quite vague, to the extent that 177 Members - including those from the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations - out of 439 saw fit to oppose it.
<P>
The content of this text is admittedly not completely negative.
For example, the European Parliament has just voted in favour of some interesting amendments that recognise civil liability and force people to take out sufficient liability insurance to cover the losses that might be incurred by persons releasing GMOs.
<P>
In spite of this positive point, there are four major faults with the report which have led us to reject it.
<P>
First, it confirms that a centralised procedure in Brussels for the release of GMOs is planned for the majority of cases without any safeguard for Member States who would like to adopt more stringent measures.
Therefore, under the auspices of the single market, it appears that underhand plans are afoot which might soon force Member States who do not want anything to do with GMOs to soften their approach towards them against their wishes.
<P>
Second, it creates a simplified consent procedure for GMOs which contains a number of references.
Speeding up the procedure of common law like this would mean that cases would not be properly researched, and that is unacceptable.
<P>
Third, the European Parliament has extended the time-limit for placing GMOs on the market to 12 years, whereas the Commission itself only proposed a seven-year time-limit.
This undoubtedly signifies a victory for pressure groups who have been lobbying the larger parties in this House, both the Socialists and the Christian Democrats.
<P>
Fourth, some high risk GMOs have not been banned with sufficient force.
Like the Green Group, we would like to see three categories of GMOs prevented from being placed on the market: GMOs with antibiotic resistant genes; GMOs with toxins that are dangerous for useful fauna; and GMOs likely to crossbreed with similar wild or cultivated species.
Instead of voting for an outright ban, Parliament has voted in favour of some very weak amendments, while claiming that certain measures need to be taken to prevent the transfer of genes from these GMOs.
<P>
Overall, this proposal for a directive provides a general view of the direction in which European integration is currently heading: it is taking power away from the Member States and centralising it in Brussels under the pretext of being able to defend the people better. However, once the people have been stripped of their powers, the central decision-makers, who are in the driving seat, are themselves not monitored by anyone and do what they like.
In the end, we find ourselves in a no-win situation, at the mercy of forces that are based in Brussels far more than anywhere else.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Lindholm">
Questions concerning genetically modified products loom larger every day.
Neither politicians nor scientists can foresee the consequences for man and nature.
It is therefore unforgivable, as things stand, to be giving the green light to genetically modified products; future generations may well have to pay dearly for our mistakes.
<P>
The Environment Committee has produced a good piece of work, endeavouring to make the best of the situation.
Many of the amendments were tabled in a similar spirit.
Sadly, Parliament did not vote in favour of some of the most important ones, however, including the right of Member States to say 'no' (a 'black list') and more stringent labelling requirements.
Along with the rest of the Green Group, I therefore voted against the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Future employment in Europe largely depends on the successful development of biotechnology.
This is why it is important that European firms and research institutes should be able to operate in the same way as their partners in America and Japan.
Only then will they be able to survive against cut-throat competition worldwide.
The industry needs a clear and viable legislative framework, and it goes without saying that great care is needed in this new field.
Many of today's amendments to the Commission proposal for the release of genetically engineered organisms in the environment would result in excessively restrictive legislation for the biotechnology sector, putting the food industry and the EU's competitive position at a disadvantage compared with the US.
The legislation would also have an impact in the Netherlands, where biotechnology has become one of the country's leading sectors, and this is why the VVD delegation has departed from the ELDR Group's position by voting against a number of amendments, including those tabled by Mrs Dybkjaer and Mr Eisma.
The VVD continues to demand an unambiguous, viable and straightforward European legislative framework with simplified procedures for the biotechnology sector.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Souchet">
The position of our group regarding the Commission's communication on biotechnology favours some degree of development in this sunrise industry, while taking great care to anticipate potential drifts.
<P>
With this in mind, strict labelling procedures must be introduced to enable genetically engineered products to be monitored effectively.
<P>
During the various debates we have had on genetically modified organisms, industrialists have persistently stated that the release of such organisms is under control.
This is why our group supported the urgent request calling on the Commission to introduce specific rules relating to the liability of the various operators.
<P>
The BSE crisis has highlighted the dangers of focusing all research on extremely high levels of agricultural production and the need to provide for a genuinely independent monitoring system.
To this end, we supported the plan to create a central scientific committee, but we must ensure that the proper procedures are developed so that the mistakes that were made during the mad cow crisis are not repeated.
<P>
To conclude, our group places much emphasis on the need to retain the precautionary principle so as to guarantee both consumer and environmental protection.
The citizens of Europe will only fully accept biotechnology if they receive genuine assurances about its safety.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Stirbois">
It takes 15 years for experiments to be carried out on medicines before they can be placed on the market.
However, here we are faced with the prospect of GMOs being released into the environment after only three years of piecemeal experiments and with no extra time allotted for assessing their direct or indirect effects on the environment and health.
<P>
In this regard, we must bear in mind the answer given by the Commissioner for Industrial Affairs when asked if he thought that industrialists and politicians were not playing the sorcerer's apprentice once again.
Mr Bangemann replied, ' We must not create metaphysical problems with GMOs; placing them on the market will prove their worth'.
<P>
In other words, in the Commission's view, the best guinea pigs are still the consumers, to the extent that they are not even granted the right to correct information on the goods they are buying as labelling procedures are so lax.
They are not even granted the freedom of choice.
<P>
The report mentions on page 33 that genetically modified crops present 'few risks', but what does this decidedly unscientific term actually mean?
We should remember that the nuclear power station at Chernobyl was, until April 1986, said to have presented 'few risks'.
<P>
According to Professor Cabrol, we should not ban GMO production in Europe and thus let the Americans have a monopoly on GMO products.
This is an interesting comment, but his conclusions are surprising since if the Americans are allowed to export products that have not been fully tested to Europe, the best response is not for us to produce similar products ourselves.
The only acceptable answer for the sake of public health is to ban the import of such products altogether.
<P>
This is the logical application of a simple, but fundamental, principle, namely, the precautionary principle.
<P>
How can we explain the European Commission's submission in the face of American agri-industrial lobbies?
GMOs, sterile hybrid seeds, the patenting of life forms, and so on, are all perhaps part of a more global strategy concerning people's and nations' dependency on food.
As one American secretary of state said, food is the best weapon of the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, while I support technological progress, I am voting in favour of this report today because I believe that my constituents should be protected from the excesses of US biotechnology firms, like Monsanto, eager only to turn a quick profit.
All genetically modified foods must be clearly labelled to allow consumers make an informed choice when feeding their families and loved ones.
<P>
Recent advances in bio-technology were first brought home to us by British scientists when they produced Dolly the Sheep - the world's first genetically-cloned sheep.
And, with proper safeguards, biotechnology has the potential to help mankind defeat world hunger and disease.
Without proper safeguards, however, the consequences of altering the order of nature are unthinkable.
Safety must always come first.
<P>
The Labour Government has proven its commitment to the welfare of consumers by creating the FSA (Food Standards Agency).
Its Tory predecessors, in contrast, were committed only to the welfare of the food industry and created BSE.
Only Labour will stand up for ordinary people against Monsanto's madness and ensure that the food on our plates is safe to eat.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 1.15 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
TOPICAL AND URGENT DEBATE
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>
B4-0126/99 by Mrs André-Léonard, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on presidential elections in Kazakhstan; -B4-0161/99 by Mrs Lalumière, on behalf of the ARE Group, on presidential elections in Kazakhstan; -B4-0184/99 by Mrs Schroedter and Mr Lagendijk, on behalf of the V Group, on violation of international human rights standards in Kazakhstan; -B4-0186/99 by Mr Swoboda and Mrs Hoff, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the presidential elections in Kazakhstan; -B4-0196/99 by Mrs Castellina and Mrs Sornosa Martínez, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on presidential elections in Kazakhstan; -B4-0205/99 by Mr von Habsburg, on behalf of the PPE Group, on presidential elections in the Republic of Kazakhstan.


<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Madam President, the presidential elections in Kazakhstan on 10 January were a slap in the face for the partnership and cooperation agreement that the Union signed with that country.
Democracy and human rights are now a fundamental element of these agreements, but the conditions under which the elections were held did not correspond to the promises which the Kazakh Government made.
The OSCE rightly refused to give the elections a seal of legitimacy, and the Union too must also - and not for the first time - clearly link the continuation of cooperation with progress in democratisation.
President Nazarbayev must move quickly to take corrective measures, and we must hope that he has the means to do so.
The suspension of cooperation must be a real option if he cannot guarantee that the forthcoming elections will be truly democratic.
I know that this is easy to say here in the House, but if we do not take this approach with a country like this, with which we have signed agreements, then we are in nowhere country.
<P>
In the meantime, we must step up cooperation with social organisations and the free press to promote democracy in Kazakhstan.
As I have said, this is not a task we are setting ourselves, it is a request we are making to the Kazakh Government.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Madam President, it is essential that we work for consolidation of the democratisation process in Kazakhstan, ensuring that developments take place in the interest of human rights and fundamental freedoms.
The partnership agreement signed with the EU stipulates that Kazakhstan must comply with OSCE rules for free and fair elections.
<P>
The serious crimes committed in connection with the presidential elections in January deserve firm condemnation.
We do not wish to see a repeat performance, with infringements of civil liberties, when elections are held later this year.
Freedom of the press and the right of individuals to stand as candidates are fundamental elements of democratic elections.
<P>
I would like to use this opportunity to ask the Commission what steps it intends to take in order to ensure that the existing partnership and cooperation agreement with Kazakhstan is fully implemented.
And how does the Commission plan to assist in strengthening the faltering democratisation process there?
We must help to ensure that democracy fares better than it did at the ill-fated presidential elections in January.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Truscott">
Madam President, on behalf of my Group, I wish to say how profoundly disappointed we were in the conduct of the recent presidential elections in Kazakhstan.
It is clear that these elections did not conform to OSCE standards for free and fair elections which are part of the commitments entered into with the signing of the partnership and cooperation agreement between the EU and Kazakhstan.
This House should make it absolutely clear to President Nazarbayev, as both Mr Bertens and Mr Holm have said, that implementation of the PCA will depend on progress with the democratisation process and full respect for human rights, especially in the forthcoming local and parliamentary elections.
At the same time the Commission must monitor the human rights situation in Kazakhstan closely and report back to this House on progress, or the lack of it.
Kazakhstan is a vast country with great economic and political potential.
It should not allow that potential to be stymied by its failure to guarantee civil and human rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Madam President, I believe that when we talk about Kazakhstan, we often tend to wag the finger at the Kazakhs and tell them that they ought to start functioning as a perfect democracy with immediate effect.
In so doing, we forget that Kazakhstan has only been a free country for ten years and it has actually done remarkably well to come as far as it has done in that time, not to mention the fact that Kazakhstan is a very important partner for us in that region, a partner which, I am glad to say, has freed itself of at least some of the shackles of Russian rule.
We should show a great deal more understanding towards the Kazakhs, as well as remembering that we did not become perfect democracies overnight; we too required a lengthy development process.
So we should exercise the same patience with the Kazakhs that we keep demanding for ourselves.
<P>
The only reason why I wanted to say that is that I believe we ought not to forget, in our dialogue with Kazakhstan, how important this country is, not only for our own future but also for that of the entire region.
We should therefore take due account of this important role and show patience; of course, we should keep telling them how to improve, but without that unbearably schoolmasterly tone which we are all too often inclined to adopt.
After all, we must not forget that the Kazakhs are a people with a great history of which they have reason to be proud; if we act like the world's teacher, they will react in a way that neither benefits us nor promotes the achievement of our objective.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Camisón Asensio">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as chairman of Parliament's delegation for relations with Kazakhstan and other countries in Central Asia, I closely followed the news we received about the progress of the presidential elections held in Kazakhstan on 10 January.
Unfortunately, this news was not as encouraging as we had hoped as regards the observance of essential and indispensable democratic standards.
<P>
Kazakhstan is an important country surrounded by other important countries - Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and even Mongolia - all of which are of enormous interest to the European Union. This is due not only to their significant potential in terms of natural resources - natural gas, oil, gold, wool - but because the European Union is the global power that at this moment in time can contribute most to resolving the deficits that oppress these countries most after almost a century of Soviet influence: the democratic deficit, the human rights deficit, and the deficit in terms of learning how to establish themselves in a free market economy.
That is why this resolution comes at just the right time. All it does is to draw attention to the democratic safeguard clause in the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between the European Union and Kazakhstan.
It is also timely in that free elections are going to be held in Kazakhstan this year.
<P>
However, ladies and gentlemen, I agree with Mr von Habsburg.
I would like to end by warning you that this resolution must be seen more as a statement of help and understanding than as a reproach.
We cannot expect to see perfect results immediately.
What we really want is for the process of democratisation to continue.
We want it to progress as quickly as possible, to continue and to be free of obstacles.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Brittan">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I agree with the points that have been made about the need to see Kazakhstan in a historical perspective and about the importance of Kazakhstan to us and in the region and also about the fact that we have to encourage Kazakhstan to move further, to say when things have gone wrong but to do it in the right way.
<P>
The resolutions are based in part on the statement made on 20 January by the presidency on behalf of the European Union.
It was clear ahead of the presidential elections that the way in which they were to be conducted fell short of OSCE standards, and that is why the OSCE did not send a full monitoring mission, nor did the EU participate.
I also agree with the preliminary statement issued by the OSCE Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights that we have a basis for important further cooperation with Kazakhstan in these fields.
<P>
President Nazarbayev announced last October a wide-ranging programme aimed at the gradual democratisation of Kazakh society.
The Kazakh Government has assured us that it intends to cooperate with the OSCE and the EU in implementing this programme, in particular regarding the law on parliamentary elections which will be held in the course of this year.
I expect the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with Kazakhstan to enter into force in the coming months.
The first cooperation Council has already been scheduled for July, and it is the Council's intention to continue the exchanges of view on the democratisation process and to incorporate these into the political dialogue foreseen in the PCA.
<P>
The European Parliament will also open a direct dialogue on these issues with members of the Kazakh parliament through the Parliamentary Cooperation Committee which is one of the three institutions which will oversee the PCA.
Despite the flaws and irregularities which marred the presidential elections, the atmosphere in Kazakhstan remains relatively liberal.
These elections were the first in the history of the country to be contested by a number of candidates.
I am firmly of the view that the only way to improve the situation is through constant patient work on the part of the EU and other donors and international organisations.
The PCA offers us the basis for this.
Moreover, we are about to launch a major TACIS project to support the entry into force of the PCA and you will recall that the PCA incorporates by reference the principles set out in the OSCE documents.
<P>
Commissioner van den Broek intends to visit Kazakhstan shortly, and we will reiterate our determination to implement the principles we have jointly subscribed to and our readiness to assist with the further development of democratic institutions and the rule of law.
The Commission will keep Parliament informed of developments in Kazakhstan and other countries of the region with regard to the implementation of our agreements.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="President.">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>

B4-0165/99 by Mr Fassa and Mr Bertens, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea; -B4-0182/99 by Mr Telkämper, Mrs Aelvoet, Mr Schörling and Mr Tamino, on behalf of the V Group, on the new outbreak of hostilities between Ethiopia and Eritrea; -B4-0195/99 by Mr Vecchi, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea; -B4-0210/99 by Mr Hory, Mr Castagnède and Mr Scarbonchi, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Madam President, after the cease-fire, the senseless war between Ethiopia and Eritrea has broken out once again.
I really wonder whether we will ever manage to make the two sides realise that there can only be losers here.
The issue now is who actually started the fighting - a fratricidal struggle between two obstinate leaders who six years ago lived in one country.
Both sides claim land on the basis of old colonial maps, and both are too stubborn even to talk to the peace negotiators and listen to what they have to say.
There are mutual recriminations, with each accusing the other of having started the trouble.
<P>
All the efforts of the UN, IGAD and the OAU have come to nothing, but I hope that they will not give up.
International pressure must be brought to bear on both sides to bring about a new cease-fire for a start.
<P>
Eritrea and Ethiopia must realise that they have a great deal to lose if Lomé cooperation is suspended.
Both sides will eventually come back to the peace proposals put forward by the OAU, or at least I hope they will.
I also hope that they will come to their senses quickly.
The longer it takes them to realise that there can be no military solution to this conflict, the more enormous will be the cost.
The disastrous effect that this is having on the people and the economy of both countries is indescribable.
I can tell you this from first hand experience, as I spent some time there when both countries were still united.
I have to say that the situation in this area of Africa deserves to be given our fullest attention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
Madam President, may I make an initial remark outside my allotted speaking time.
At our last part-session, we said that the presidency of the Council should attend these debates.
It would be good if that were the case, but unfortunately I see nobody from the presidency.
Perhaps you could arrange that for next time through the Bureau.
<P>
On the border between Ethiopa and Eritrea, serious conflicts occurred between those two countries in May and June of last year.
There were battles in which thousands died; in June 1998 a moratorium was signed, but hostilities have broken out again.
We have a frontier conflict here which the population certainly does not want.
International conciliation efforts appear to have failed.
Nevertheless, we should not stop trying to achieve peace in that region, because peace will never be achieved there by military means.
<P>
It is right to say that we shall have to exert pressure on both countries.
That is why it is also right to threaten them with suspension of support under the Lomé Convention and of development aid from the European Union and its Member States.
But this pressure may not be enough.
Perhaps it would also be important and appropriate - and we saw this when we met the two ambassadors in the Committee on Development and Cooperation and in the Executive of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly - for us to draw up a development plan, subject to both sides withdrawing their military hardware, to their showing willingness to negotiate, and to their being prepared to develop democracy and the rule of law and to grant reciprocal inspection rights. We would then deliver a development plan and would step up the current level of development aid as an initial measure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Vecchi">
Madam President, sadly what we all feared has happened.
It was widely predicted. Armed conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea has broken out again with unprecedented violence.
<P>
Although the information reaching us is very patchy, it is clear that there have already been thousands of victims, military and civilian, and the conflict, which apparently flared up after a small border problem, is threatening to become one of the bloodiest wars in the history of Africa.
<P>
In this Parliament we have always been concerned about relations and tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea, and Parliament's Committee on Development and Cooperation succeeded in getting the ambassadors from both countries to attend several meetings it organised - something which no-one else has managed to do.
<P>
Today we call on the governments of Ethiopia and Eritrea to cease hostilities immediately.
We also call for absolute compliance with the moratorium on air raids, which has already been violated, unfortunately.
<P>
The leaders of the two countries of the Horn of Africa now have the historic responsibility of choosing between peace and even worse crimes against their peoples.
<P>
The OAU proposal for an agreement between the two countries must be accepted by both parties without further delay, before the situation on the ground renders it obsolete.
<P>
All arms supplies and military assistance to the two warring sides must immediately cease, as called for yesterday by the United Nations Security Council.
<P>
The European Union must join the Organisation for African Unity in applying intense pressure and offering political and diplomatic mediation, which has been totally inadequate in the last few months.
<P>
The United States of America might have been expected to take on the task over the last few months, but it has proved quite incapable of doing so.
<P>
So we call on the Council to take a clear and strong political initiative along these lines, and on the Commission to ensure that the thousands of refugees and victims of the conflict receive the maximum humanitarian assistance wherever possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Moorhouse">
Madam President, alas the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea has a long history, but so have human rights abuses in Ethiopia, as all of us know only too well.
One can but continue to deplore the fact that international mediation efforts have failed to secure a peaceful settlement, and the two countries must surely share the blame.
<P>
The double tragedy is that the population of the two countries is poverty-stricken and suffering in so many ways.
This makes it all the more difficult to link development aid and Lomé-related benefits.
But it may be that a hard line will need to be taken by the EU.
Clearly, the OAU and the UN have a continuing role to play, but is it out of the question for the ACP-EU Joint Assembly to play a key role as well in trying to resolve this desperate situation?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Madam President, in yesterday's International Herald Tribune, the following appeared in the section 'News from 50 years ago'.
I will quote it in English and hope that the interpreters can follow me: '1949: Eritrea's fate.
Rome.
Foreign Minister Sforza said that the interests of three powers - Great Britain, Italy and Ethiopia - are involved in the problem of Eritrea, former Italian African colony.
Count Sforza expressed the hope that Eritrea would not be annexed to Ethiopia.
The attempt to reconcile these interests at the expense of Eritrea by territorial partition recalls the old scramble for Africa.
Count Sforza said it was repugnant.
He said Eritrea could achieve independence after a period of trusteeship administration.'
End of quotation.
<P>
Fifty years later, on 11 February 1999, the headline in the International Herald Tribune reads 'Addis Ababa rules out cease-fire in border war'. So that is that!
The article goes on to say that Washington is particularly angry that Antonovs and Migs are being used to bombard Eritrean territory.
This is exactly what Ethiopia has been doing for some time, arrogantly disregarding all advice or agreements, simply because it enjoys political support in the world.
However, I think that we cannot allow this to continue: we need to adopt a rather more critical approach.
Ethiopia's diplomatic circles may be bombarding us with paper to try to convince us that its cause is just, as it has every right to do, but at the same time various issues relating to the border war and attacks on the Oromos - the largest minority in the area, some of whom have been imprisoned - are being brushed under the carpet.
<P>
Our urgent resolution today is a desperate attempt by the European Parliament to prevent the war in the Horn of Africa from escalating and further destabilising the region, and it even calls for more humanitarian aid.
Quite honestly, I think that we should be talking about stopping financial aid, since it is obviously being used to buy Antonovs and Migs.
We all know that Russia will not supply on credit, because it needs cash in hand.
<P>
If it appears that Eritrea too is not prepared to listen to what we say, then it should suffer the same fate.
Although the tone of our resolution is very mild and no mention is actually made of stopping financial aid, I would like to ask Commissioner Brittan what he thinks about this, because it is just a waste of money, like in Angola.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Madam President, after the madness of the red dictator Menghistu and the tribal hatreds of the Yemen, the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea places the Horn of Africa centre stage again, while Europe looks on with nothing but words to offer.
Antagonism which could have been resolved through democratic dialogue has instead deteriorated into a tragic situation inflamed by ethnic claims.
<P>
The Africans therefore need to consolidate still delicate regional balances by combining as much of their authority as possible, and in particular by involving civil society so as to put the necessary pressure on the governments involved to find a peaceful solution to the conflict.
<P>
This is where Europe should intervene, speaking one language: the language of development aid, guided and determined by the drive to achieve political and social stability, which remains the only means of preventing conflicts and reducing the number of zones at risk.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Madam President, in the resolution we are discussing today, great importance attaches to paragraph 6, which actually says everything.
That is where we say precisely what is to be done, namely that the payments made by the European Union to Ethiopia and Eritrea should be linked to both countries' compliance with certain conditions.
I believe that this is enormously important if we bear in mind on the one hand that the war which we now experiencing between Ethiopia and Eritrea was entirely foreseeable, and on the other hand that the settlement of this conflict will surely be frustrated by a real lack of democracy in both countries.
To my mind, it is a very serious problem when I see, for instance, that newspapers in Ethiopia, which are naturally controlled by the government, are even now reporting continuously on the amounts of money they have already amassed for the next 'election campaign'.
I have to say quite honestly that I fear the campaign chest contains some money which our taxpayers might have provided, whereas the opposition has to try desperately to raise funds abroad in order to conduct its election campaign, in order to establish itself as a proper opposition, and the resources for that are non-existent.
This is extremely regrettable, and I very much hope that the appropriate steps will be taken within the European Union to ensure that the funds we provide are used for legitimate purposes.
I am sure the Commissioner will agree with that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="Brittan">
We have to call on both sides to cease all hostilities and stop fighting because clearly negotiation is the only way to solve the problem.
The Commission has underlined on several occasions, to both governments, the need to resolve and settle the conflict by peaceful means alone.
A military option or so-called solution will entail - and is already entailing - enormous human suffering and loss.
We will continue to support all efforts aimed at peaceful resolution of the conflict, in particular the OAU efforts and proposals.
We will continue to put the maximum pressure on both parties, are willing to take any action needed to help find a solution and are currently examining what could be done.
<P>
I listened with interest to Mr Moorhouse's suggestion that the EU/ACP Joint Assembly could play a role, and will draw that to the attention of my colleagues dealing on a more day-to-day basis with this issue.
<P>
As regards the humanitarian situation the Commission is providing humanitarian assistance to both countries and has responded to appeals from both to assist the displaced population in the area of conflict.
The Commission has allocated EUR 1 790 000 to two NGOs: Norwegian Church Aid and the Lutheran World Foundation for food and non-food assistance to persons affected by the conflict in Eritrea.
In Ethiopia the Commission has allotted EUR 1 890 000 through CISP, an Italian NGO, also for food and non-food assistance.
Furthermore, EUR 300 000 was approved for ICRC activities in Ethiopia and in Eritrea.
The Commission will continue to monitor closely the situation and is ready to mobilise additional resources if needed.
<P>
I should like to comment on the wider point that has been raised.
The Commission is preparing a communication to the Council on cooperation with ACP countries involved in armed conflicts.
In the meantime, in the absence of a European Union position on the matter, the Commission does not think it should take unilateral and isolated measures in the case of this conflict.
But the Commission has decided to allocate structural adjustment programme funds in smaller tranches and link further disbursements to a periodic review of the conflict and its possible impact on public spending, particularly in the social sectors.
Moreover, when releasing financial assistance to countries in conflict, the Commission will send a letter to the head of state or government requesting assurances that no funds are diverted for belligerent purposes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>
Greg Summers
<P>
B4-0188/99 by Mrs d'Ancona, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the death penalty against Greg Summers - Texas, USA; Leonard Peltier
<P>
B4-0169/99 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the case of Mr Peltier in the United States; -B4-0175/99 by Mr Weber, Mrs Ewing and Mrs Maes, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the detention of Mr Leonard Peltier in the United States and refusal of proper medical treatment; -B4-0179/99 by Mr Cohn-Bendit, Mrs Schroedter and Mr Kerr, on behalf of the V Group, on Leonard Peltier; -B4-0199/99 by Mrs Pailler, Mr Coates, Mr Manisco, Mr Vinci, Mrs Sierra González, Mrs Ojala, Mrs Eriksson, Mr Alavanos, Mr Novo and Mr Ephremidis, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the case of Leonard Peltier; Religious freedom


<P>
B4-0131/99 by Mrs Lenz, on behalf of the PPE Group, on religious persecution, xenophobia and racism; -B4-0132/99 by Mr van Dam, on behalf of the I-EDN Group, on anti-Christian violence in India; -B4-0189/99 by Mr Hallam, on behalf of the PSE Group, on anti-Christian violence in India.Greg Summers
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="d'Ancona">
Madam President, it is a sad fact that the European Parliament is once again having to draw attention to terrible events that are taking place in a so-called civilised country.
I am referring here to the use of capital punishment in the United States of America.
Despite the horror that we have expressed in a number of urgent resolutions, a horror that we share with many human rights organisations all over the world, with the churches and with Amnesty International, the number of people being sentenced to death in the United States is increasing, often because their trials are not conducted with due care.
<P>
This afternoon we are calling for attention to be given to the case of forty-year-old Greg Summers who, although innocent, has been sitting for years on death row in the Alace Unit in Texas waiting for the lethal injection that is shortly to end his life.
Our resolution calls on the judicial authorities at least to examine the application for a review of his case.
<P>
We also call on the United States, and in particular the authorities of the State of Texas, to abolish the death penalty immediately and to sign up to a worldwide moratorium on the execution of death sentences.
<P>
Finally, there are a number of amendments calling for attention to be given to other similar cases, and it goes without saying that we will vote for them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Leonard Peltier has been sitting in gaol for 23 years now, and the American authorities have finally admitted that he was wrongly imprisoned.
It is absolutely incredible, and it is something the House should not just criticise but condemn.
I hope that his case will be reviewed very quickly, and it would appear appropriate that a pardon should be granted.
Human rights must be defended all over the world, it is as simple as that.
Partly as a result of his treatment in prison Mr Peltier's health has visibly declined, but he is still being denied appropriate medical treatment for reasons which no one will explain.
Like anyone else, this man deserves proper medical treatment in hospital, the prison hospital if necessary.
<P>
A few months ago, I put a number of questions to the Council here in the House about the Peltier case, but the President-in-Office said that he did not think it necessary to take action, and it was not in his power to do so.
I would now urge the Commission to take the case up, and I think that the Union as a whole should at least enter into discussions with the United States about its human rights policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pailler">
Madam President, during December's part-session, the American delegation led by Angela Davis, who had come to prevent Mumia Abu-Jamal from being executed, alerted us to the fate of Leonard Peltier.
<P>
I can still remember the alarming remarks made by their spokesperson, Bobby Castillo, who had experienced American prisons.
As a leader of the American Indian Movement, Leonard Peltier has played and continues to play a major role in the defence of the rights of indigenous people.
<P>
Following the events of June 1975, in the Pine Ridge reserve, South Dakota, he was given two life sentences, although no proof of his guilt was ever furnished, and despite the fact that he had been illegally extradited from Canada.
After 23 years in prison, his health has deteriorated dramatically and, although he permanently suffers as a result of complications from an operation, the prison's management deny him access to adequate treatment in a specialised hospital.
Amnesty International, the IFHR and France Liberté have launched a new campaign to defend Leonard Peltier and fight the unacceptable number of human rights violations in the United States.
<P>
Mumia Abu-Jamal, who is still on death row, has sent him a message of support.
We should, for our part, once again participate in this action and ensure that public opinion is alerted throughout Europe.
<P>
If Parliament adopts the resolution cosigned by my group, it will be sending a clear message to the American authorities and prison directors.
Leonard Peltier must be given the chance to get better and receive the appropriate medical treatment in the clinic of his choice.
He must be released from prison so that he can take up his legitimate struggle for the defense of the rights of the indigenous people that the United States continues to scorn.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lindeperg">
Madam President, I have always advocated the principle whereby the European Union must first of all put its own house in order before giving human rights lessons the world over.
The latest report on human rights in the European Union shows that we are far from being beyond reproach in this area.
<P>
In other words, if I take the floor today to speak about the case of Leonard Peltier, it is because all other possible avenues have genuinely been exhausted and time is short, given the worrying state of Mr Peltier's health.
There are, in fact, two issues to our message to the United States. The first concerns the procedures used that resulted in Leonard Peltier's sentence, and the second concerns the prison authorities' refusal to let him receive the appropriate medical treatment.
<P>
We must remember that Amnesty International expressly admitted that it had reservations about the procedures that lead to Mr Peltier's sentence and that the government authorities themselves admit to the vagueness that surrounded the sentence. Moreover, the trial revealed the unusual methods used during the case's preparation, as my colleagues previously mentioned.
<P>
These facts should have lead to a retrial, but this case confirms that no court, be it American or European, will easily reopen a trial on which a sentence has already been passed.
Herein lies a future struggle.
<P>
However, as the previous speaker pointed out, the most incomprehensible and intolerable aspect of this case is the refusal of the American authorities to let Mr Peltier, whose health has considerably deteriorated, receive the medical attention he needs.
The fact that prison facilities are unable to treat his condition is completely unacceptable as an argument to deny him the treatment he needs.
Solutions do exist and have already been put forward.
The refusal of the prison authorities to let him receive such treatment amounts to a blatant violation of human rights and of the commitments made by the United States.
<P>
This is why our group will support the call for appropriate treatment and the request to grant Mr Peltier clemency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Madam President, there is an annual pantomime that always sends something of a shiver down my spine or at least leaves me open-mouthed in amazement, and that is the occasion when the President of the United States delivers his address on the state of the nation and the world.
All the countries of the world are given plus and minus points.
Words of praise and censure are pronounced.
What it boils down to is that the whole world has to submit to American values and ideals.
<P>
I believe it is very important to do what Parliament is doing today, to hold a mirror in front of the Americans and to tell them that, if they must try to force their values on everyone else, they should also acknowledge that there are sections of the population of their own country - some of them native Americans - who may have other ideals in some respects, a different bond with their own country, with their own native soil, than the Americans who arrived later.
In this situation, it is very useful for us to keep returning to the specific case of Leonard Peltier.
<P>
This is a case that has attracted international attention.
There is an international Peltier Committee, of which I, for example, am a member and which has been dealing with the case for many years.
I consider it particularly important that the European Parliament too has adopted a resolution calling for the case of Leonard Peltier to be placed on the agenda of the next talks between the delegation for relations with the United States and its American counterparts, in order to expose something of the hypocrisy that has so often dominated the US line of argument in this matter.
<P>
Peltier has now been kept in prison for 23 years under exceedingly dubious circumstances.
He is in very poor health.
He has frequently been transferred, which has happened whenever public pressure has mounted and has become too great a burden for the prison in which he was accommodated.
This just goes to show that not only the US population but also the international community are really unwilling to accept such injustice from a country that is constantly preaching justice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="Manisco">
Madam President, it is with a feeling of dismay and deep anguish that we again raise our voices on behalf of Leonard Peltier, languishing in an American jail for 23 years for crimes he did not commit and after a court case which cast serious doubt on the administration of justice in the United States of America.
<P>
Representative, Joe Kennedy, the son of the martyred President, recently said: 'This government has the moral duty to correct this injustice.
Seeing that justice is upheld for Leonard Peltier would amount to a major act of reconciliation for past injustice done to the native American peoples.'
The anguish of millions of people who follow this case increases by the day with the rapid deterioration of his health.
After an egregious case of medical malpractice in prison hospital, Peltier is suffering a fibrosis of the masseter muscles and ankylosis of the mandibular joint.
That means that he cannot eat - that his mouth cannot be opened any more.
<P>
The United States Bureau of Prisons still denies his request to be operated on by proper surgeons.
Enough is enough.
In the name of humanity we urge the United States Administration to take prompt care of its native son.
We ask President Clinton to use his powers of pardon to release Leonard from prison immediately.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Madam President, half an hour ago, in the discussion on Kazakhstan, I said that we should not go around teaching the world how to behave.
This time, however, it is quite a different matter, because we are now dealing with those who constantly seek to lecture us, as Mr Habsburg-Lothringen was saying before.
In other words, we do have the right in this instance to say that things simply cannot go on like this.
The whole process, which I have studied very closely, raises all sorts of doubts.
Not a single piece of conclusive evidence was brought against Peltier.
The way in which the American judiciary dispensed so-called justice in this case is simply indefensible for a highly civilised country.
We should therefore point out to our American friends, to whom, of course, we owe a huge debt of gratitude, that something has to be done about Peltier.
<P>
To deprive a person of 23 years of his life, to cast an Indian into prison and give him no opportunities to move about, to give him literally not a single moment of freedom and to leave him languishing in uncertainty is utterly indefensible.
Having followed the history of the Peltier case, I would almost make so bold as to say that, even if he had done something, which I do not believe, he would already have paid twice over for everything that happened.
If we are convinced that he is innocent into the bargain, that is all the more reason for us to make every effort to ensure that the Americans make justice prevail in their country too - and if not justice, then at least clemency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="Kerr">
<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lenz">
Madam President, if the European Parliament resolves today to speak out against the increasingly frequent and violent infringements of religious freedom, such a resolution will be a token of our great concern.
Freedom of religious observance is a sign of respect, not only for a very profound sense of devotion within many people but also for freedom of expression and association, and hence for a significant part of the corpus of human rights.
We are well aware that the violation of religious freedom can have many different causes.
We also know that these waves of persecution are not always unleashed by governments.
The causes vary from one country to another.
There are power struggles for the control of sources of raw materials and water, as in the Sudan, where an armed majority is let loose on a large minority; hatred, envy and social and political tension can focus on ethnic groups, as in India and Pakistan and now in Indonesia too.
There are intolerant state religions, as in Iran, Afghanistan and other countries; intolerance can also come from adherents of non-established religions.
It would be impossible to list all the countries involved.
<P>
The toleration of these persecutions and the forms they take cause us grave concern.
They range from horrific murders, as in the case of the Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two children in India, to arrests, torture and the disappearance of individuals; they extend to trials on trumped-up charges.
Extremism, xenophobia and racism often rear their ugly heads, with governments either impotent or unwilling to curb them.
And yet there are many constitutions, even in those very countries, which enshrine freedom of religious worship, and states have signed international covenants and UN conventions which are supposed to guarantee religious freedom.
But there are also new religious laws with provisions that hover dangerously on the brink of intolerance, and the European Parliament wishes to draw attention to these new risks.
Religious groups themselves, however, must also remain tolerant towards those with different beliefs from their own, and must respect freedom of conscience and of the individual as well as obeying the law of the land.
That goes without saying.
<P>
Abuse of religious freedom is symptomatic of the abuse of human rights.
That cannot be said often enough.
Respect for the religious beliefs of minorities is also a sign of properly functioning constitutions rooted in natural law and guaranteeing tolerance and peaceful interaction between the various sections of the population.
We in Europe have bitter historical experience of the effects of intolerance.
We have overcome our intolerance, and we are now trying in this House to help others to do the same.
<P>
Political and social tensions have been used time and again in the past as an excuse for savage religious persecution.
On the threshold of the third millennium, and in view of the increasing degree of global interdependence, I believe we must call on governments and on the representatives of the major religions, who also exercise power in their own name, to observe and to act upon the warning signs.
By including democracy and human rights clauses in its treaties with non-Member States, the European Union tries to ensure observance of human rights in the countries with which it cooperates.
The European Parliament will not cease to ask searching questions on these matters.
<P>
Suppression of religious freedom - let me emphasise again - is a clear symptom of human rights abuses, the causes of which are rooted in national circumstances that need to be improved, circumstances that not only result from religious strife but are also due in particular to social and political factors.
The Commission supports interdenominational organisations in many countries; in that way, it reaches the people and gets to the roots of the problems, and we want to ensure that the resources we provide for this purpose are not affected by the developments on which we have been focusing today and that these channels remain open to us.
<P>
That is the background to the resolution which we have tabled today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Madam President, 50 years on from the introduction of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, more and more new rights are being added to it.
In fact, people have been saying, quite rightly, that it is all beginning to get out of hand.
But this does not mean that the old, established rights are now universally respected.
Quite the reverse.
<P>
There are still problems with the rights of religious minorities, which we are discussing today in connection with an urgent resolution on the issue.
In many countries, people are still not free to express their religious beliefs in public or to follow their faith as they would wish.
They are subject to persecution, repression and discrimination.
Recently in Parliament we have talked about Pakistan and Iran, for example, and now unfortunate events in India are giving us cause for concern.
<P>
For years now, but increasingly so in recent weeks, Christians in India have suffered attacks by Hindu activists.
In fact, over the last year there has been an enormous increase in the number of attacks on Christian schools and churches in India.
Priests are accused of forcing people to convert to Christianity by bribing them with money and jobs, for which they must be punished.
Missionaries in particular are bearing the brunt of the attacks, because they are seen as the legacy of British rule, although strangely enough a lot of the missionaries are actually Christians of Indian origin, a fact that seems to be overlooked here.
<P>
Recently, a large group of Christians and Muslims protested against the fact that the authorities are doing nothing to counter these forms of aggression.
The attacks have been condemned in the media, and it is certainly not true that the majority of the population approve of them.
But this does not make the attacks any less worrying.
One possible reason for them is the increase in the number of Christians in India, and strangely enough they are the ones who have been bearing the brunt in recent times, whereas before that it was mainly Muslims who were the target.
The reason for this shift is clear: the Muslims in India are concentrated in certain areas, where they are an important factor when it comes to the elections.
The Christian minority is smaller in number and is largely scattered all over the country, so it is not important in electoral terms.
<P>
Fortunately the Indian Government has now promised to set up a committee to investigate the recent attack on an Australian missionary and his children aged seven and ten.
Yet it still appears indifferent to such occurrences.
There is clearly a link between the increase in attacks in India and the fact that the BJP, an extremist Hindu nationalist party, has come to power.
It believes that too much attention is paid to religious minorities in India, and these attacks help it in its attempts to change this situation.
<P>
With this resolution Parliament is making a clear appeal to countries and governments to take a responsible approach in dealing with religious minorities living in their territory.
In particular, it calls on the Indian Government to investigate the attacks of recent weeks and to try to prevent them in future.
If the situation does not change, the European Parliament and the Member States may wish to consider whether the events in India should affect their dealings with that country.
Any respectable government must help to ensure that minorities in its country can live in freedom and can pursue their faith as they see fit.
Human rights here involve not just rights for individuals, but also an obligation upon governments to give minorities the freedom that is God's gift to everyone.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="Hallam">
Madam President, as someone who has a parent who was born in India and has many friends from India in the various and diverse communities of faith which make up India's rich mosaic of cultures, I can assure you that it gives me no pleasure to move this resolution today.
<P>
There have been Christian communities in India since St. Thomas landed in Kerala in AD 52.
By and large the Christians have lived alongside their neighbours for many years in peace.
But the horrific death of Graham Staines and his two sons, in January, sadly brought to public attention a worsening persecution.
<P>
These murders were the apex of a spiralling campaign of violence against Christians of all denominations.
In a courageous address to his people the Prime Minister of India highlighted other incidents which are not acceptable in a modern, tolerant democracy.
These killings and other attacks have been unreservedly condemned by the World Hindu Council.
The perpetrators of these atrocities do not represent the people of India or mainstream Hinduism.
This resolution will be a significant message to those extremists that the people of Europe are in solidarity with all those who value and defend religious and communal tolerance.
<P>
Finally, not as a spokesman of my group but as an individual who worships Sunday-by-Sunday in a British church where we have members of the congregation who see India as their mother country, let me assure the people of India that they are in our prayers and that we pray for both the persecuted and the persecutors.
India, you have our love, our respect and our prayers in this difficult time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="Pollack">
Madam President, I oppose religious persecution wherever it occurs.
However the text of this resolution, I believe, is ill-judged and unfair in singling out one country when throughout the region and elsewhere there are many similar cases.
We should realise that Christianity has flourished in India for 2000 years - longer, in fact, than here in Europe.
<P>
I have been given permission to move on behalf of my group an oral amendment, which is to add to rectial C. the words: 'and applauding the Prime Minister's speech to the nation on 30 January supporting this and opposing sectarian violence'.
We will be supporting that during the vote but unfortunately I will not be here because of the difficult timing of flights out of Strasbourg, so I have to leave before the vote.
The officials have a copy of that text and so will the Socialist Group representatives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Madam President, the Liberal Group has always stood up for human rights in general, and of course the right to freedom of religion deserves attention as part of this.
I know that I am entering dangerous territory here, but from time immemorial, the greatest violations of human rights have been carried out in the name of religion.
It has happened regularly throughout history that religious minorities have not been entitled to exercise the same rights as religious majorities, and this is still true today, with religious riots and other problems in India and on Ambon, and structural repression in Iran and Afghanistan.
We are not here just to protect Christians, I hope - we must protect and make room for all religions, and this means standing up for Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia, for example, who are currently facing prosecution in Moscow.
<P>
The Liberal Group calls on the Commission and the Council to remain vigilant and to take account of religious freedom when assessing the human rights situation in third countries.
I hope that there will be an opportunity in the next legislative period to produce a comprehensive report on human rights and the role of religion.
Sadly, I will not be here to see it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="President">
Mr Bertens, I deliberately allowed you to exceed your time, as you are one of the most regular attenders in this House.
We have some time in hand, but I would ask you not to exceed our time-limits.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Mr President, attacks and assaults on religious minorities are unfortunately frequent in India.
Although the Indian Constitution expressly guarantees religious freedom, the violence goes on.
Human rights are also constitutionally safeguarded.
<P>
This resolution was tabled following the murder of a Christian missionary, but we must not limit our attention to Christians alone; other religious minorities in India, such as Sikhs and Muslims, are subjected to even greater religious persecution.
<P>
There is no inevitability about these attacks; people are not programmed to use violence.
Not at all. The truth is that several extremist groups are fanning the flames, among them the VHP, which patently has links running high up the political ladder.
<P>
Nor should we forget the origins of the stand-off in India between different religious groupings: social strife, poverty and illiteracy.
Efforts must be made to tackle these problems; then we may well see less religious tension.
<P>
India is not the only country where religious groups are pitted against one another, however.
Similar problems exist elsewhere in Asia, for example in Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Maldives.
It is incumbent upon all of us to work for human rights. Religious freedom is one important element, together with freedom of speech, freedom of movement and the right to non-discrimination.
We must also counter violent crimes against individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation.
A great deal remains to be done in defence of these principles.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Vanhecke">
Mr President, I belong to a political party that has itself experienced in its own country what it is like when a government tries to clamp down on the freedom of expression of a growing opposition party, so I have every sympathy for anyone whose freedom of expression or religion is under threat.
We will therefore naturally be supporting the joint resolution on freedom of religion in India.
We unreservedly condemn the use of violence against Indian Christians, and we demand that the national government and the state authorities responsible for maintaining law and order should take firm measures where necessary not just against the perpetrators of the violence, but also against the police officers who simply stand by and watch.
<P>
I would point out here that in Orissa, where a missionary and his two children were brutally murdered, it is not the BJP that is in power, contrary to what some people think, but the Congress Party, to which the likely murderer also belongs.
The violence against Christians should also not make us forget that for the last ten years, particularly in India, thousands of Hindus have been systematically murdered by Muslim fanatics in riots and pogroms that have sadly been much worse than the current violence against Christians.
For example, in 1990 almost the entire Hindu population of the state of Kashmir, around a quarter of a million people, fled after a series of massacres in which more than a thousand people were killed.
The instigator of this ethnic cleansing, Amanula Khan, the leader of the Kashmiri Muslims, is still given a hero's reception in various European countries, including my own.
I think a little consistency is called for here.
In this respect the joint resolution, which I think is very general, could also have made reference to the systematic and particularly barbaric persecution of Christians and all non-Islamic religions in the neighbouring country of Pakistan. That omission has now been put right.
For the rest, we shall be happy to support this resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, despite the important contribution made by representatives of all faiths to the humanitarian mission of aid, care and relief for the underprivileged, religious intransigence seems to be becoming increasingly radical in many parts of the world.
<P>
Last month we heard that, in clashes in Djakarta, Islamic fundamentalist mobs were busy burning Catholic churches and hunting priests and nuns, while the forces of public order looked on powerless.
<P>
In India violence against the clergy is currently being encouraged by anti-Christian - but also anti-Muslim and anti-Sikh - rhetoric from fundamentalist groups who claim that they are determined to end any form of religious conversion in the country by the year 2000. This illustrates the lack of effective protection for religious minorities working in India, but above all it shows that the real aim of racist fundamentalism is to restrict freedom of religion and opinion.
<P>
All this should prompt Europe to stress its wholehearted support for the basic principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, making respect for those principles a prerequisite determining the very nature of the bilateral relations Member States maintain with countries which flagrantly disregard them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="Brittan">
Mr President, I shall begin with the resolutions on the death penalty.
The Commission shares the general concern of the European Parliament on this issue, especially in respect to the United States.
We believe that in all cases in which the death penalty is imposed the guarantees laid down in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and other international instruments should be respected.
<P>
We welcome the adoption by the Council of Ministers of general guidelines on the issue of the death penalty in June 1998.
These guidelines make it clear that the objective of the European Union is to work towards the universal abolition of the death penalty.
<P>
We also welcome the adoption by the UN Human Rights Commission on 2 April 1998 of a resolution which calls for countries that have not yet abolished the death penalty to apply a moratorium on the execution of death penalties with a view to abolition.
EU Member States co-sponsored the resolution, which had been introduced by Italy, and it is striking to note that the United States voted against it.
<P>
The Commission is greatly concerned about the rising number of executions taking place in the United States.
The European Union has raised this question a number of times with the US authorities.
As the Commissioner responsible for relations with the United States, I have no embarrassment or hesitation in raising this issue with them: it is appropriate that one should do so with a country with which we have close links and which has expressed on numerous occasions its concern about human rights elsewhere.
<P>
The European Union follows closely individual cases in the United States and has made a number of démarches in specific instances.
In the event that it concerns a person having the nationality of one of our Member States, the Union will pay special attention to compliance with the provisions of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 1963, which in Article 36 provides arrested foreigners with the right to consular assistance.
<P>
I turn to the specific case of Mr Peltier, who, of course, is not on death row but is a long-term prisoner.
I can only say that anybody who heard the speeches made from diverse parts of the House, with different political viewpoints, could not but be moved by what was said.
The Commission, through its delegation in Washington, is looking into the circumstances of the medical condition of Mr Peltier and will do its utmost to support the actions of the European Parliament in this regard.
We will carefully follow up this case, and look forward to the exchanges on this issue at the next meeting between the European Parliament Delegation for relations with the United States and the United States' Congress.
Not only is it legitimate that this subject should be discussed but, in the circumstances described, it is inevitable and natural.
<P>
On the question of freedom of religion, I am glad that it has been broadened out and has not concentrated entirely on the situation in India, because it is right to say that there are problems, to put it mildly, with regard to freedom of religion in many countries, and it would be misleading to focus only on India.
As far as we are concerned, freedom of religion is a fundamental human right and we should defend it wherever it comes under attack.
<P>
Nonetheless, there has been a certain topicality with regard to the reports about attacks on Christians in India, which are deeply worrying.
The Commission's delegation, which continues to keep us fully informed on the situation as it develops, is fully associated with Member States' missions in monitoring the situation.
<P>
Sadly, ethnic and religious violence is not a novelty in India, but violence against Christians on the scale reported is new.
The issue is now highly politicised in India and it has the potential to affect the political situation there - reference has been made to the statement by the Prime Minister which, of course, we have noted.
The issue is dividing not only Opposition and Government but is also controversial within the BJP itself.
<P>
There is no doubt that the principle of secular government and the protection of minorities is deeply ingrained in Indian democratic tradition.
There can also be no doubt that opinion leaders and civil society in India are deeply shocked about the events and the damage done to India's image, and that is amply reflected by the wide press coverage which these events have received since they began.
<P>
The Commission is convinced that responsible Indian politicians, together with a strong consensus in civil society, can succeed in mobilising the necessary political momentum to control violence.
We strongly support the continuation of the quiet and persistent work of our representatives on the ground, our ambassadors, NGOs and concerned Indian citizens as the best guarantee to check the current situation, and for that they were recently thanked by the Archbishops of Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore.
<P>
The Commission fully endorses the objectives of racial tolerance, social harmony and full respect for human rights which underpin the European Parliament's motion for a resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions on the situation in Guinea-Bissau:
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B4-0136/99 on behalf of the UPE Group; -B4-0168/99 on behalf of the ELDR Group; -B4-0173/99 on behalf of the PPE Group; -B4-0183/99 on behalf of the V Group; -B4-0191/99 on behalf of the PSE Group; -B4-0202/99 on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group; -B4-0211/99 on behalf of the ARE Group.
<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, the situation in the West African state of Guinea-Bissau is extremely worrying.
After the November 1998 agreement and the new agreement at the start of this year, violence has broken out once again between the troops of President Vieira and General Ansumane Mane.
The conflict of June 1998 has returned and people are once again fleeing in large numbers.
The civilian population are suffering yet again as a result of the destruction caused by this war.
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The Abuja peace agreement has been suspended and the foreign troops are committing countless human rights violations.
It is extremely important that the Abuja agreement should once again be applied in full.
All foreign troops - except of course for the ECOMOG forces - must leave the country and the government of national unity must try to organise proper elections, which would be an almost unprecedented event.
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Europe must be prepared to do something to help here.
Great efforts are needed in West Africa to prevent conflicts from spilling over into other countries.
There are far too many transnational conflicts.
We must do everything we can to prevent the proliferation of light weapons, and the Union must offer ECOMOG technical and financial support and humanitarian aid for the people.
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<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Correia">
Mr President, Commissioner, war has returned to Guinea-Bissau.
The European Parliament must show its solidarity with the people of Guinea-Bissau, who are suffering in this civil war.
Hundreds of people have died, thousands of civilian refugees have had to leave their country, hospitals are short of medical supplies and are struggling to cope, and hunger and disease are spreading.
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There was an agreement in Abuja which provided for a cease-fire and arrangements to contain the conflict.
Despite this, military operations have started again, and everything points to this being the responsibility of President Vieira's troops.
We deplore the political irresponsibility and shortsightedness of political and military leaders who put their own interests above the interests of their people.
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The European Parliament must demand respect for the Abuja agreements which provide for the formation of a government of national unity and the organisation of presidential and legislative elections, respecting the independence and territorial integrity of Guinea-Bissau.
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There is a danger that the conflict will become international, given the situation in Casamanca.
The presence of foreign troops, notably from Senegal and the Republic of Guinea, whom international human rights organisations are accusing of human rights violations against civilians, is aggravating that danger.
So the withdrawal of all foreign troops is a fundamental prerequisite for restoring peace.
The only troops that should stay to guarantee the cease-fire and ensure compliance with the agreements are the ECOMOG troops.
The people of Guinea-Bissau desperately need help, and this means strengthening humanitarian aid and ensuring that aid actually reaches the people who need it.
Here I would stress the importance of neutral non-governmental organisations operating on the ground.
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Finally I call on the European Union to support the efforts of the Prime Minister designate, Francisco Fabu, to establish a government of national unity capable, above all, of serving the interests of the long-suffering people of Guinea-Bissau.
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<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Coelho">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, what is happening in Guinea-Bissau is tragic. There are thousands of displaced persons, and widespread hunger and misery caused by a war which it seems nobody wants and is of no use to anyone.
It is vital to restore peace and to silence the guns in Guinea-Bissau.
It is vital to observe the Abuja agreement and rapidly establish ECOMOG, the peace-keeping force of the Economic Community of West African States.
President João Bernardo Vieira and General Mané have to bear the heavy responsibility of enabling and ensuring compliance with the agreement they have signed, by stabilising the situation in Guinea-Bissau, installing the new government of national unity, organising free elections and allowing the country to develop.
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Europe can and must help, and that is what our compromise resolution is about.
Humanitarian aid and technical and financial support are needed, but we can also help by firmly condemning the escalation of the war and demanding the immediate withdrawal of the foreign military forces involved in the conflict.
Without that withdrawal the human rights abuses will continue and peace will not be possible.
In this case, Parliament's recommendation that the Council should speak with one voice on this matter is very apposite.
And given much of the news published in the media, I would like to ask if the Commission can give Parliament any information guaranteeing that there are no military forces from any Member State of the Union involved in this sad conflict, which we hope to see ended as rapidly as possible.
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<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
Mr President, the acts of violence in the West African State of Guinea-Bissau are causing us serious concern.
President Jean Bernardo Vieira and General Ansumane Mané concluded a peace agreement in Abuja on 1 November 1998, and it is absolutely essential that they observe the terms of that agreement.
The Council and the Commission must insist on that.
The agreement requires the withdrawal of foreign troops, especially from Senegal and the Republic of Guinea.
Here too, it is up to the Council and Commission to exert pressure.
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The deployment of ECOMOG troops was requested, permitted and wanted.
The peacekeeping forces of the Economic Community of West African States are essential as guarantors of the peace.
Since 3 February another cease-fire has been in force.
We support the territorial integrity of the country, or so I believe.
We call on the government to reform itself into a government of national unity.
If that is done, the Commission should then provide appropriate aid, since thousands of people have fled their homes. Refugees are being produced here, and famine is being produced here.
We should also mention that much of the misery has been caused by weapons from Western Europe.
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The politicians and the armed forces must abide by the terms of the peace agreement.
If they do not do that, they are irresponsible, uncaring and blind to the lessons of history.
They must observe international law and human rights.
Their observance of international law and human rights is the basis on which we can provide humanitarian aid and support ECOMOG through the Council and the Commission.
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I believe that would be a strategy for underpinning the peace.
It is up to the two sides in Guinea-Bissau.
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<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Mr President, Commissioner, first I would like to welcome this joint motion for a resolution and stress our joint condemnation of the new wave of violence in Guinea-Bissau and our demand for full implementation of the cease-fire agreed on 3 February.
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Recent events have frustrated the hopes raised by the Abuja agreement of 1 November, hopes that the conflict might be over and that Guinea-Bissau, and especially its martyred people, might enjoy the peace needed to recover from a situation of enormous economic backwardness, aggravated by the destruction and chaos provoked by the conflict which broke out last June.
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That hope must be urgently rekindled, above all in the Guineans who have witnessed and been victims of this senseless confrontation, which can only be ended through negotiation, peace and respect for the agreements.
We also want to highlight and denounce the destabilising role of foreign troops since the beginning of the conflict. That role is all the more serious because it may be one reason why the Abuja agreement is not being respected.
Withdrawal of all foreign military forces not in the territory in strict compliance with that agreement, like the troops from Senegal and the Republic of Guinea, is a prerequisite for implementing the agreement and for the government of national unity to take office in line with that agreement.
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The West African intervention force has a peace-keeping mission, and that mission must not be complicated by other foreign forces hindering its action or pursuing other purposes.
This conflict must not be turned into some kind of cockfight for the only perch in the chicken coop.
A political solution must be found which guarantees peace, respects what has already been agreed, does not undermine the independence and territorial integrity of Guinea-Bissau and puts an end to a tragic situation which is destroying a country and a people.
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Initiatives to bring humanitarian aid, particularly food and medical aid, to the people are urgently needed and should be welcomed and encouraged.
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<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="Robles Piquer">
Mr President, Commissioner, it is a sad fact that the situation in various parts of Africa brings one question to mind: how far can the absurd, the ridiculous and the irrational go?
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Guinea-Bissau is one of the poorest countries in the world. Before the recent conflict that began eight months ago, it had an average per capita income of around USD 220, which is equivalent to less than half an ecu per person per day.
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The situation was beginning to improve. The country was starting to see an increase in reserves, inflation was falling and annual growth stood at 5 %.
This has all disappeared over the last eight months.
The country will now have negative growth, in other words over the next few months the annual growth rate will be -5 %.
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The war there was undoubtedly the result of the conflicting ambitions of a president who seems to have been in power for ever and an ambitious general. As we know, it has left the country in a situation in which its citizens are fleeing, some are becoming refugees, people are starving and its limited reserves have been squandered.
The conflict is even becoming international, with the clear involvement of troops from Senegal - moving from the conflict in the southern region of Casamance - as well as troops from the Republic of Guinea.
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There is no doubt that the international community must do everything in its power to try to put an end to this situation.
We must be able to restart the aid programme that the international bodies had launched and which has once again been paralysed.
We must ensure that foreign troops are withdrawn and that only the ECOMOG peacekeeping forces remain. Finally, given that the cease-fire that was renewed in February - only a few days ago, in fact - has already been broken, we must provide the Prime Minister designate with the power he needs to allow the people of Guinea-Bissau to resolve their future in peace.
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<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="Brittan">
Mr President, I can be comparatively brief because the Commission shares the view set out in Parliament's proposed resolution.
We are closely monitoring developments in Guinea-Bissau and are aware of the tremendous difficulties faced by the civilian population.
Through ECHO we are providing, I hope, speedy and effective humanitarian assistance to meet the population's needs.
We also support the mediation efforts currently underway and call on the parties involved in the conflict to comply with the Abuja agreement.
We are ready to resume cooperation with Guinea-Bissau once democracy has been restored.
We are aware of the role played by ECOWAS in the international community's efforts to maintain stability in the region and we support the Abuja agreement including the deployment of ECOMOG troops in Guinea-Bissau.
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Reference has been made to the suggestion that troops of some Member States are participating.
I am aware of those rumours but I am not in a position either to confirm or to deny them.
We are consulting Member States, however, on ways to finance aid in the form of supplies and non-military equipment for the ECOMOG forces.
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<SPEAKER ID=145 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
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The vote will be taken at 5.30 p.m.
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<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions concerning natural disasters:
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Storms in the Canary Islands
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B4-0128/99 by Mrs Sierra González and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group; -B4-0163/99 by Mr Escolá Hernando and others, on behalf of the ARE Group; -B4-0193/99 by Mr Medina Ortega, on behalf of the PSE Group; -B4-0207/99 by Mr Fernández Martín and others, on behalf of the PPE Group; Earthquake in Colombia
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B4-0192/99 by Mr Newens, on behalf of the PSE Group; -B4-0203/99 by Mr Puerta and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group; -B4-0206/99 by Mrs Banotti and others, on behalf of the PPE Group.Storms in the Canary Islands
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<SPEAKER ID=147 NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, the order of speakers was not really very important.
What we are talking about here is the catastrophe that devastated the Canary Islands, and I must point out that this catastrophe adds to the problem of the region's ultraperipheral location. The storms affected its entire port and coastal infrastructures, as well as its agriculture, in other words the tomato and banana crops which are fundamental for the region's economy.
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We do not need the full minute we have been allocated as we merely want to urge the Commission to make additional efforts in its structural programmes to help this remote region to overcome this catastrophe. It is called a 'natural' catastrophe, although we may soon have to consider the fact that such catastrophes are not so natural and that they are sometimes the result of the damage we have done to the environment.
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<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Posada">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, at the beginning of January a violent storm struck the islands of Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Palma and Hierro, doing untold damage to port infrastructure, coastal roads and shore installations. It also affected the tomato and banana crops, and other fruit and horticultural production.
As these are islands, there is no alternative infrastructure, so it is vital to the life of the archipelago for it to be in full operation.
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Agricultural production in the islands in 1997 amounted to 105 495 million pesetas and the damage to agricultural production represents 14.4 % of the damage to infrastructure and about 16.7 % of 1997 turnover.
Furthermore, the largest tomato producers in the Canary Islands have suffered damage amounting to 5 664 million pesetas, equivalent to 19 % of production, and the damage in the banana sector amounts to 7 393 million pesetas, corresponding to 20.5 % of 1997 production, while damage to infrastructure amounts to 2 470 million pesetas.
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That is why we are asking the Commission to check the extent of the damage quickly, and to include the Canary Islands and specific projects for repairing damage caused to the coastal infrastructure in the Union's structural programmes.
We are also concerned about the effects of the storm on the turnover of agricultural producers for 1999 (and consequently, on the Canary Islands' economy) and we call on the Commission to provide the aid necessary to mitigate the damage suffered in this sector.
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Ladies and gentlemen, while I have the floor I want to take the opportunity to express my deep sadness at the news of the devastation caused by the Colombian earthquake of 25 January 1999, which is said to be the worst earthquake to have struck the country this century, killing over a thousand people and injuring countless others, most of them from the poorest communities in the region.
So I want to express the solidarity of the Group of the European Radical Alliance with the victims and the families of the dead, and with the people of Colombia.
According to news from the area, the Colombian army apparently faced great difficulty, despite sending thousands of soldiers to the region, in preventing widespread looting in the city of Armenia, where the looters fired on the rescuers and public disorder is hindering rescue operations.
There is also the danger of corruption, which may also prevent all the international aid reaching the people it is actually intended for.
So I urge President Pastrana and the Colombian Government to take firm measures to restore public order in the disaster areas while respecting human rights, and to take all measures necessary to ensure that emergency aid reaches its proper destination.
But most of all I hope this terrible event will not disturb the peace process under way in Colombia, which is already difficult enough.
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Finally, Mr President, I also want to express our satisfaction that the Commission made EUR 1.5 million available immediately, including EUR 0.5 million not spent last year, and to applaud the constructive cooperation of the Red Cross, Oxfam and other NGOs operating in the region.
And I call on the Commission and the Governments of the Member States to cooperate with the appropriate NGOs in making every possible effort to resolve this crisis and to implement a special development programme to meet the medium- and long-term needs of the earthquake zone.
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<SPEAKER ID=149 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Posada. Of course you did not mention just the problems of the Canaries, but those of Columbia as well, which is the next item on the agenda.
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<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, we are fortunate that Commissioner Brittan is present here with us because last night he took the trouble to stay here until midnight to discuss an issue that is very closely related to the ultraperipheral regions and the Canary Islands, that is, the banana industry.
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Mr Brittan, I am addressing you directly because if you read our motion for a resolution you will see that it relates to the serious damage that has been caused to agriculture in the Canary Islands.
To be specific, and although this is not mentioned in the motion for a resolution, I can tell you that as far as banana production is concerned, there has been so much damage that neither in 1999 nor in 2000 will we come close to the minimum guaranteed production of 420 000 tonnes per year. This is because not only parent banana trees but also young banana trees were destroyed.
I am telling you this because when we hold talks in Washington with a government that talks about defending free competition, I think we should let them know that our banana plantations have to contend with adverse climatic conditions and that in some regions of the Community, both in the West Indies and in the Canary Islands and Madeira, such catastrophes often occur.
I believe that this is an important argument.
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However, the aim of the resolution we are moving is rather different.
I would like to read something unusual to the Commissioner as I think it is very interesting.
It comes from the Las Palmas newspaper La Provincia today, 11 February 1999, which states that the representative of the federation of fruit and vegetable exporters in Las Palmas, Roberto Góiriz, welcomed the agreement that the European Parliament is about to adopt and pointed out that it would be an institution based in Strasbourg that would eventually find the solution to a problem that affects everyone living there.
It is unusual that regions as remote as our own now look to the Commission as a source of inspiration and a source of aid.
The Commission has always been very receptive to the problems experienced in these regions.
We are now asking, among other things, that it should implement as soon as possible the new Article 299(2) of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which provides for special measures for these regions precisely because of the adverse conditions affecting their economies.
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<SPEAKER ID=151 NAME="De Esteban Martín">
Mr President, I am speaking on behalf of Mr Fernández Martín, as he has had to leave.
As has already been pointed out, and as you are all aware, at the beginning of January the Canary Islands were hit by a violent storm that has led to significant economic losses in terms of both infrastructure and agricultural production.
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I must emphasise that the losses do not just translate to the significant figures contained in the resolution of around EUR 90 million between the banana and tomato crops, which, as you know, form the basis of the region's economy, a fact that has been highlighted. In addition to these losses, there were also significant losses in terms of infrastructures, totalling approximately EUR 15 million.
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We therefore call on the relevant institutions within the European Union, and particularly the Commission, to take account of the scale of the destruction and to launch specific projects to remedy the damage caused to the infrastructures. We also ask that adequate measures be taken to provide effective and rapid aid to the people affected by this catastrophe and to the regional government to repair the damage that was caused.
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Earthquake in Colombia
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<SPEAKER ID=152 NAME="Miranda de Lage">
Mr President, the tragedy caused by the earthquakes in the Colombian regions of Pereira and Armenia come on top of other violent catastrophes that have destroyed people and property in Central America and parts of the Caribbean.
Europe's response in every instance has been rapid and united. This has allowed us to alleviate some of the devastation and bring a little hope to the victims.
Clearly, the extreme circumstances affecting Columbia were aggravated by the destruction of infrastructures, which delayed the arrival of aid and the implementation of the emergency plans.
It is therefore extremely regrettable that some unscrupulous people are exploiting the tragedy to rob, steal and trade in the scarce resources that were already in the region or that were able to get through.
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Nonetheless, these regrettable facts must not overshadow the heroic acts or the excellent example of civic-mindedness demonstrated by the non-governmental organisations, the civilian population, anonymous individuals and the army, who are all involved in the recovery and rescue operations.
We must highlight their positive responses, as well as the rapid reaction of ECHO and the European Commission in distributing the aid that is so important at the moment. I congratulate them on that.
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After the damage has been assessed, we will have to follow up the present project with a further programme aimed at helping the recovery of those regions that have been totally devastated.
Unfortunately, we can do nothing for those who have disappeared apart from extending our condolences to their families. Indeed, there is very little we can do to predict other earthquakes.
However, we can see to it that the donations from European and other countries are used as transparently and effectively as possible so as to prevent any doubts about embezzlement or the misuse of the funds.
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I would like to end by saying that this resolution supports the commitment made by President Pastrana to combat corruption. We call on his government to make every effort to guarantee security in the region and respect for human rights.
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<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, there is very little I can add to what our colleague Ana Miranda de Lage has just said on this issue.
In my view, the same thing has happened with this earthquake in Columbia as happened with Hurricane Mitch. As usual, it is the poorest people that are affected.
More than 1 000 people have died and many have been injured.
In my opinion, we must first of all welcome the rapid response of the European Commission in releasing EUR 1.5 million, which is a considerable amount, and its work in collaboration with non-governmental organisations such as the Red Cross, Oxfam and others.
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It is important for the European Commission to guarantee, in some way, that the aid sent reaches those who are genuinely affected.
On previous occasions, a certain section of the population has taken advantage of the confusion - as is now the case - and exploited the breakdown in public order to use or sell goods that were intended for those who were most severely affected. There have also been cases where the aid was not distributed as it should have been and did not reach those most in need.
So the European Commission can perhaps play an important role in this respect.
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We must also welcome the fact that Mr Pastrana has made a commitment to eliminate corruption and that while those most in need are receiving aid, human rights are being respected in Columbia.
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<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lenz">
Mr President, I can certainly subscribe to the previous speakers' remarks, on behalf of my group.
It is not the first time that Colombia has been hit by such a great disaster, and on this occasion it appears to have occurred in a part of Colombia with relatively few problems.
It is all the more tragic that a region inhabited by people who, though dependent on help, had hitherto managed to eke out a decent living, has now been struck by such a disaster.
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Our urgent plea to the Commission is that it should cut through the red tape wherever possible, that it should ensure as far as possible that the aid goes directly to the people in need.
We are pleased that action has been taken so quickly, since we often criticise Colombia here.
It is our biggest headache in several respects, as you well know, Commissioner.
I believe that if we can take this occasion to show clearly to Colombia and President Pastrana that we are also capable of constructive intervention when practical humanitarian assistance is needed, we shall have achieved a great deal.
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<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="Howitt">
Mr President, in joining in the expressions of sympathy for the victims of the Colombian earthquake, let us ensure that the European Union provides the long-term assistance required to help people rebuild their lives.
Still today the communities affected lack basic storage containers for clean water, have too few latrines or waterproof shelters and not enough equipment for food preparation or tools to help clear and reconstruct their homes.
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Barefoot children lack shoes to climb over the rubble of their former homes, and lives have been destroyed.
Though agencies like Oxfam are seeking to help 8 000 families per month, over 400 000 people have lost their belongings or their livelihoods.
We must learn the lessons too, for despite the early announcement of assistance which we welcome, no international aid had arrived locally a full 48 hours after the earthquake struck.
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Finally, in a situation which should unify the disparate groups in the Colombian conflict for absolutely clear humanitarian reasons, I have to express disbelief at reports that paramilitaries may have used the disaster to cover the killing of human rights defenders in the NGOs in Colombia and that it may have been the pretext for withdrawing a bill condemning forced disappearances at an extraordinary session in the Colombian Parliament last week.
We call on President Pastrana not simply to attack fraud and corruption but also to promulgate that bill.
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<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="Cushnahan">
The twenty-fifth of January is a date which will be etched in the memory of the Colombian people but, regrettably, for the wrong reasons.
It was a tragedy of immense proportions, as has already been pointed out, resulting in over one thousand deaths and many thousands more being injured.
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It must be said that the Commission is to be congratulated on the speed with which it responded to the crisis and in particular the way in which it cooperated with NGOs in the region.
However, the aid sent from the European Union and other donor countries is a mere token, given the scale of the destruction and suffering, and particularly in view of a statistic mentioned by Mr Howitt: almost half a million people have lost their homes and their belongings.
Therefore, a very comprehensive aid and development programme is required to meet the long-term needs of the country and its people.
It is vitally important that, if this aid is forthcoming, it is properly coordinated and channelled to those who need it most.
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The resolution is right to point out the danger of corruption and the need to eliminate it.
I welcome, as does the resolution, President Pastrana's commitment to ensure that this does not happen.
The resolution is also right to point out that, in trying to restore public order, it is vitally important that human rights are not violated.
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<SPEAKER ID=157 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Mr President, everyday life in Colombia is grim.
Every month we could discuss the latest human rights violations, the paramilitaries, attacks on the Indios and the black population, people driven from their homes and the disappearance of individuals.
This time, however, the cause of our concern is what we call a natural disaster, namely the earthquake in the city of Armenia.
It has heaped untold suffering on the population, and I do not propose to repeat everything my honourable colleagues have already said on the subject. Nevertheless, the natural disaster has been compounded by a home-made disaster in the form of corruption and incompetence, partly within the Colombian government apparatus, which are hindering the effort to ensure that help reaches the victims and reaches them quickly.
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We must be particularly worried by reports that the allegedly rapid assistance provided by the European Union has failed to arrive in many places.
There is an urgent need to find out how accurate this information is. An official report on this matter is urgently required.
In the wake of the earthquake, the paramilitaries have launched a campaign to annihilate human rights activists.
Politicians and others at home and abroad insist that it is high time President Andrés Pastrana took decisive action.
Alas, we have seen too little of that.
Here too, there is an urgent need for the Commission to demand that the Colombian Government act to stamp out these violations of human rights in the aftermath of the earthquake.
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<SPEAKER ID=158 NAME="Brittan">
Mr President, dealing first with the situation in the Canary Islands, the Commission is well aware of the terrible storms which hit the islands between 6 and 9 January.
I am grateful for the further information supplied by the honourable Members in their resolution and also in the speeches that have been made.
As far as the issue of bananas is concerned, I am well aware of the particular role that industry plays in the economy of the Canary Islands and have particular sympathy for what has occurred, coupled with the other problems which we dealt with last night.
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I would like to express the Commission's sympathy and support for the local population affected by the storms.
We are very sensitive to the difficulties that have arisen as a result and we will be looking carefully at the situation as a whole in the light of the instruments and regulatory provisions that may be available to give assistance.
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So that those involved can make a proper study for the Commission, what we would like the Spanish authorities to do, is to provide, as soon as possible, detailed information about the nature of the severe weather, its impact on production and production potential in the region as well as the damage caused to the infrastructure.
If we receive a formal request from the Spanish Government at the next meeting of the monitoring committees for structural assistance in the Canary Islands and the Objective 1 Community Support Framework for Spain, we will look into the possibilities of reprogramming current structural assistance in partnership with the national and regional authorities as well as any allocation from other resources available as a contribution to repairing the infrastructures damaged by the storms in question.
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Turning to the situation in Colombia, preliminary official figures show that the number of dead has risen to over 900, of whom 582 are in the Department of Quindio and the number of injured to approximately 3 400, and 200 000 persons are homeless.
Clearly the immediate priority is to respond to the emergency needs of the most vulnerable sections of the population throughout the region hit by the disaster.
A detailed needs assessment confirms that it is essential to provide temporary shelter, food, blankets, kitchen utensils, medicines and chlorine as a matter of urgency.
Pending a more exhaustive analysis of needs, a relief programme, amounting to EUR 1.5 million has so far been prepared by ECHO.
The Commission was able to announce on 26 January a timely contribution to international relief efforts, and I am grateful for the kind words that have been spoken this afternoon about what the Commission has been able to do.
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This first contingency plan is being implemented by various European NGOs in cooperation with the Colombian Red Cross.
ECHO is considering the adoption of a further relief programme for the victims of the earthquake.
In the context of their mission to Colombia next week, the Commission services will begin to study possibilities for the long-term rehabilitation of the earthquake areas.
But I would add that we fully share the view expressed in the European Parliament that President Pastrana's government must take steps to restore public order and combat corruption, whilst fully respecting human rights, and should ensure that the killing and kidnapping of human rights activists and of local NGO workers is fully investigated and the results of any such investigation are acted upon with firmness and speed.
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<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
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The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
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In view of the fact that the debate has ended early and we cannot proceed immediately to the vote, I am obliged to suspend the sitting until voting time.
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The sitting was suspended at 5 p.m. and resumed at 5.30 p.m.
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<SPEAKER ID=160 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I congratulate the House on its unanimous adoption of the resolution on Kazakhstan.
I have the German version in front of me.
It consists only of the following phrase: 'beauftragt seinen Präsidenten, diese Entschließung an die und die weiterzuleiten ' (instructs its President to forward this resolution to such-and-such).
The only other thing on this sheet is two straight lines.
I just wanted to ask whether others have read the resolution and whether their versions contain the text.
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<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="President">
Mr Posselt, I am sure every Member has read it.
There must have been a mistake in the particular text that you were given.
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After the vote on topical and urgent debate
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<SPEAKER ID=163 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I have to say that my previous remark was not meant as a joke but as a formal protest.
The resolution on Kazakhstan, at least in the German version, consists of two straight lines.
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Laughter
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May I ask you to declare the vote null and void.
According to our Rules of Procedure, a vote is invalid if the text is not available.
Failure to annul this vote would establish a precedent.
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<SPEAKER ID=164 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, that is not the case.
There is a complete version of the German text.
Perhaps you have been given the wrong sheet, Mr Posselt.
I will gladly provide you with a copy so that you know exactly what you voted for!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="President">
Mr Swoboda, I have also been shown a full version.
I was suggesting to Mr Posselt that there was something wrong with the printing in the version he had obtained.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hänsch">
Mr President, could it be that an honourable Member of the Christian Social Union has one or two blind spots?
<P>
Laughter
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 NAME="President">
Surely not.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
VOTES (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=168 NAME="White">
Mr President, I wish to make one or two points about the vote.
Firstly, I apologise that there are more than 200 amendments; we tried as best we could to reduce the number.
<P>
I should like to explain the meaning of 'compromise amendments' in connection with tonight's vote.
They are not compromise amendments in the way we normally understand them, that is to say compromise amendments between political groups.
They represent the results of an informal trialogue which took place in Brussels over the last couple of days and weeks and amount to a considerable amount of work put in by myself and the other water rapporteurs.
<P>
It is absolutely imperative that we, having agreed those compromise amendments between the water rapporteurs, now agree to endorse them because the German presidency, which was not represented at last night's debate, has stated in a letter: 'The German presidency is hoping to achieve a common position on the draft directive at the March Council.
They will do their best to include in that common position the text that came out of the informal consultations.'
<P>
A prerequisite will be that this text is included in the decision on the proposal that Parliament will be taking tonight.
So we need to fulfil our side of the bargain: endorse the so-called compromise amendments, and then we have the beginnings of something we can take further after the second reading when we move to co-decision.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="Cabezón Alonso">
Mr President, at the end of the votes this morning, I requested that the vote on this report be postponed to the next part-session in Brussels.
I would like to repeat this request, given the importance of this report, and ask that the vote be taken in Brussels.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="President">
You are quite correct that the point was raised this morning but the Rules say that it either has to be a political group or 29 Members.
I have had no formal request from any of the political groups or any wish expressed by 29 members.
So I intend to take the vote.
With good will I do not think it will take us very long.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 NAME="White">
Mr President, what you have just said about the request is proper but the trouble was that I could not get the consent of my Group to have this matter put over until next week.
I apologise to the Spanish delegation.
<P>
After the vote on Amendment No 165
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="Anastassopoulos">
Mr President, I wonder whether the political groups which are asking for so many roll call votes are aware that each roll-call vote costs the European taxpayer EUR 300.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Mr President, may I simply ask the questioner whether he knows how important it is for the public to know who bears political responsibility and how much that knowledge is worth?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Anastassopoulos">
Mr President, there is not the slightest doubt that our citizens have the right to know, and we are under an obligation to inform them. But not about every proposal and every political group.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 NAME="President">
Colleagues, we have had a long week and we are all tired.
Let us move on.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
Mr President, I merely wanted to reassure the honourable Member.
We are all in favour of budgetary thrift, Mr Anastassopoulos, and when I cast my eye over your group and see all the empty seats, it is clear that many Members will only receive half of their per diem allowance today, which will no doubt please you.
<P>
Laughter
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 NAME="President">
I am tempted to have a roll-call vote on whether roll-call votes are worthwhile but that would be absurd.
<P>
Parliament adopted the legislative resolution
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 NAME="Collins, Kenneth">
Mr President, this has been a very long and complicated vote but it is a very satisfactory conclusion.
<P>
However, I want to draw the House's attention to the fact that, firstly, it was made necessary by the fact that the Council reached a political agreement on this at a very early stage.
This is an example of the unwisdom of the Council in reaching these political agreements.
Secondly, the satisfactory result would not have been possible without the immense work by Mr White.
But I want to stress that it would not have been possible without the cooperation of his fellow rapporteurs on water, Mr Eisma and Mr Florenz; it would not have been possible without the coordinators of all the political groups; it would not have been possible without close cooperation with Commission staff, with the chairman of the German presidency's Working Group on Water and without the secretariat of the Environment Committee.
I hope that people recognise these people are due recognition, because without them Mr White would not have been so successful.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 NAME="President">
I am glad to hear the water directive was 'overflowing' with cooperation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 NAME="Cassidy">
Mr President, I am interested in the number of roll call votes we have been having on this report.
In the vote on the previous report you always identified the group which called for the roll call vote, which caused some discomfort for our colleagues in the Green Group.
In this instance, not once have you identified who has asked for the roll call vote.
Surely we should be told who has asked for a roll call vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 NAME="President">
If you really want I can read it all out but it will only take up more time.
<P>
On Amendment No 44
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graenitz">
Mr President, I should like to point out to the House that in Amendment No 44, in the second indent of point 2(a), the German wording 'entfernen pyrotechnische Komponenten ' must be replaced by 'neutralisieren pyrotechnische Komponenten ' in order to make the wording consistent with the rest of the legislative text.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="Florenz">
In an engineering dissertation the wording would be excellent, but it is entirely unsuitable for a legislative text.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="President">
As the rapporteur confirms that, we will ensure that the German text is amended accordingly.
<P>
Parliament adopted the legislative resolution
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 NAME="President">
I have received a request under Rule 129 from the Group of the United Left to refer this report back to committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Manisco">
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, I request that the Quisthoudt-Rowohl report should be referred back to committee, under Rule 129, for the following reasons: we think the adoption of the report at this time may be interpreted as interference in the electoral processes of a sovereign state, Israel, and - regardless of its merits or intentions - as explicit support for one of the more controversial parties in the election, specifically that of candidate Benjamin Netanyahu.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, if we had to refer the reports back every time there were elections in the countries concerned, we would no longer vote on any reports.
I therefore do not believe that we can refer this report back.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 NAME="Quisthoudt-Rowohl">
Mr President, I believe we should vote on this report now.
Any delay would be detrimental to Israel as well as to the Palestinians.
<P>
Parliament decided against referral back to committee
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 NAME="Aldo">
Mr President, I just wanted to table an oral amendment, but one that I feel is appropriate.
<P>
I propose that after the words 'regional integration', we add 'through the abolition a priori of the principle of non-reciprocity in ACP/OCT/UPR relations as soon as the new EU/ACP general agreement enters into force', so as to provide us with a better understanding of the amendment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, the Socialist Group supports Mr Aldo's motion for a resolution in general terms. However, the oral amendment he is proposing is quite serious, so we cannot accept it at this stage.
It is not a simple formal amendment; its content is very significant. We therefore oppose the oral amendment.
<P>
More than 12 Members indicated their opposition to the oral amendment
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="Blokland">
In the 21st century, good quality water will perhaps be of greater strategic importance than oil, which is a good reason for thanking Mr White for the efforts he is making now to ensure that we have good quality surface water by 2010.
The river basin approach enables the Member States to pursue policies which are specifically tailored to river basins, which we think is an excellent idea.
If the best use is made of local knowledge, such as the water boards can provide, it will help to achieve better results.
Involving those who are directly concerned makes it much more likely that new policies will be accepted.
<P>
Establishing a new framework directive is certainly going to take some doing: the way it was dealt with at first reading was extremely confusing.
Our examination of the draft framework directive was postponed several times, mainly because of the 'premature position' that the Council adopted last June.
All in all, it was a strange state of affairs.
After that, with the Amsterdam Treaty in mind, progress started to be made towards reaching a political agreement, though this has only been successful in a small number of areas because certain Member States refuse to be flexible.
This is a pity, because it is often much easier to reach agreement at an early stage before opinions become too firmly entrenched.
<P>
The compromise amendments which I and others have tabled are a rather disappointing result after a very promising start.
Amendments Nos 189 to 193 on the wetlands are designed to maintain a buffer water capacity which is essential in order to prevent floods and drought.
<P>
Compromise Amendments Nos 194 and 195 take account of the fact that the protection of marine waters is already covered by international agreements.
We are in favour of organising occasional conferences on water policy, which all parties concerned, including NGOs, should be able to attend, as proposed in Amendment No 198.
<P>
The re-injection of water for certain necessary activities must still be possible, provided that it is done in a responsible manner, and Amendment No 201 creates adequate safeguards here.
<P>
With the emission limit values, all the various sources must be considered, not just the major polluters.
The difficulty here is in enforcing the polluter pays principle, and we therefore wonder whether Amendments Nos 65, 67 and 68 can really be implemented in practice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 NAME="Des Places">
The Commission's proposal establishing a framework for Community action in the field of water policy is a reworking and combination of a number of directives currently in force on the quality of surface and bathing waters, waters used for fish and shellfish farming and waters for human consumption, on the protection and management of groundwater, the treatment of municipal waste water, control of effluent and pollution by nitrates.
<P>
In addition to simplifying the situation, the main new feature of this proposal for a directive is its underlying approach, which is based on the notion of river basins. Good management of these will ensure that the quantity and quality of surface and groundwater are safeguarded, whether these waters belong to one Member State only or straddle a border.
<P>
By the end of the year, the Commission is to put forward technical specifications which will form the basis for all data collection and analysis operations, notably regarding the definition of river basin districts and the analysis of their physical, demographic and economic characteristics, analysis and monitoring of water quality, and the evaluation of water quantity and quality.
<P>
Each management plan will consist of a programme of measures to be fully operational by 31 December 2007 at the latest.
The objective of 'good status' must be achieved by the year 2010.
<P>
Responsibility for implementing these requirements will very largely rest with the Member States.
<P>
In response to this proposal, I tabled 17 amendments on behalf of the Europe of Nations Group, most of which were adopted either on their own or as part of a compromise amendment.
These amendments naturally included wetlands and their specific ecosystem in the context of these Community measures.
But we also pointed to the importance of agriculture and the specific link between this industry and water.
We needed to take account of the special features of agriculture to ensure that it was not restricted by too bureaucratic an approach.
<P>
We voted against compromise Amendment No 201 on the underground storage of natural gas and LPG.
The Commission proposal introduces a derogation for existing stores, but would ban any plan to develop further storage of natural gas in aquifers, whilst the French experience of storing gas underground (since 1957) and LPG in abandoned mine workings (since 1965) indicates that all requisite measures for protecting the environment are in place.
<P>
We did, however, vote for Amendment No 160, which authorises underground storage where this does not compromise the environmental objectives of this directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 NAME="Escolá Hernando">
This directive recognises the importance of the advances in certain areas and therefore concentrates on the quality of water, leaving aside the quantitative aspects of the problem.
<P>
There is a serious shortage of water in southern countries, which means that it is becoming a limited resource.
<P>
We must therefore restrict the temptation in wealthier, more developed and more powerful regions to transfer water from other areas, as is the case with the River Ebro.
<P>
Through Amendments Nos 16, 18 and 75 the White report puts an end to such practices by limiting this water policy.
I was therefore happy to vote in favour of these amendments and the entire report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 NAME="Grossetête">
To begin with, we should welcome today's adoption at first reading of this framework directive on water policy which Parliament has been pressing for hard for a long time.
This text will clarify and simplify the existing Community legislation, which is fragmented and labyrinthine.
<P>
Secondly, I must deplore once again the fact that political agreement was reached in the Council before Parliament had had its say.
Moreover, after his report was adopted by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, Mr White, outside all the normal channels of official procedure, negotiated 12 'compromise' amendments with the representatives of the Council.
I find it most regrettable that he did not take the trouble to inform the Committee on the Environment at any stage of his dealings.
<P>
Over and above that, I deplore the fact that he added on his own initiative a thirteenth Amendment No 201 which was never agreed with the Council delegation.
The rapporteur made this addition without respecting the elementary rules of transparency, and without even consulting the authors of the amendments which his compromise proposal was designed to replace.
This is no way to do things.
On principle, therefore, and also because the content of Amendment No 201 was not consistent with the wishes of the PPE Group, we voted against this amendment.
<P>
Despite Mr White's best efforts, his attempt to reduce the number of amendments to this text as far as possible only succeeded with the Council on points which, whilst useful, were thought to be of minor importance.
We have had to vote in today's sitting on nearly 200 amendments.
That proves, Mr President, that Parliament is using the powers granted it under the Treaty, despite the dubious practices employed by the Council of Ministers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 NAME="Rovsing">
A good environment in rivers and streams is an important element in the overall quality of the environment in the European Union.
However, the highly intensive exploitation of freshwater resources that has taken place over the past 25 years has created major problems for animal and plant life in European rivers.
It is therefore gratifying that the Commission has taken the initiative of a directive establishing a framework for EU action in the field of water policy.
The Commission's proposals for a phased solution to the dual problems of pollution and supply bear witness to a legislative proposal that has been prepared with great care.
Through the discussion in Parliament and the Council, I hope that it will be possible to satisfy the demands of both the environment and supply.
<P>
Florenz report (A4-0051/99)
<SPEAKER ID=196 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw, Palm, Sandberg-Fries, Theorin and Wibe">
This explanation of vote is mainly concerned with those sections of the report dealing with PVC.
Although we appreciate that PVC is not the only issue here, we are ready to back those amendments which seek either to ban or to restrict the use of PVC.
We naturally support reduced use of traditional PVC, but we do feel that today's technology offers ever more ways of cutting back on those component substances in PVC that are a danger to the environment and health.
We also know that industry, and in particular the automobile sector, is working actively on many fronts to find alternatives to PVC, or to use less hazardous forms of it.
We therefore hope that the Commission will very soon come forward with a proposal for a directive on the whole issue of PVC, without this being restricted to any particular sector.
<P>
As to the disposal of PVC, we believe that the optimum solution is reuse or recycling; the second-best choice would be incineration, coupled with energy production.
Landfill has to be seen as the option of last resort.
<P>
Adopting Amendment No 25 fails in our opinion to do justice to the important area of producer liability.
We therefore voted against this amendment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 NAME="Blokland">
The following order of priorities is used in the treatment of waste in the European Union: prevention, reuse, recycling, incineration and landfill.
The same order must therefore also be used in disposing of vehicles, particularly when we consider that there are huge numbers of end-of-life vehicles each year and that the first priority must be to ensure that the dangerous substances they contain are given appropriate treatment.
<P>
As regards the prevention of PVC waste, we feel that this would be better dealt with in a horizontal directive, and we are expecting a proposal from the Commission on this shortly.
This is why we voted against Amendments Nos 8, 19, 21 and 56.
<P>
The best way of ensuring successful collection is to enable the last owner to deliver the vehicle to an authorised treatment facility free of charge.
The treatment costs can then be passed on in the price of new vehicles.
In many countries, however, it happens all too often that vehicles are dumped illegally, even in surface water, with all that this implies.
We voted for Amendments Nos 22 to 25, even though they do not take adequate measures to prevent these problems from happening.
<P>
The existing arrangements for the collection of two and three-wheeled vehicles must be left in place, and it is therefore a good idea to exclude them from Article 5.
We voted for Amendment No 18, despite the fact that all the provisions on prevention, reuse and recovery have been dropped.
<P>
On the subject of treatment, we wholeheartedly supported Amendment No 30, and the same applies to Amendment No 34 on the percentages for reuse and recovery.
As everyone probably knows, the complete dismantling of end-of-life vehicles is currently possible and economically viable.
This would mean a reduction in the shredding of such vehicles.
The targets set out in Amendment No 34 are certainly attainable: in the Netherlands, for example, we have already reached 86 %.
<P>
We are in favour of Member States concluding agreements with the economic actors concerned, so that the directive can be implemented flexibly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 NAME="Delcroix">
I am glad that the European Commission and Parliament are at last planning to legislate on the recycling and proper disposal of end-of-life vehicles.
Motor vehicles are one of the most important areas of capitalist production.
In the European Union, as we approach the year 2000, close on 10 million vehicles are scrapped every year.
To quote just one of the many eloquent figures, the non-recyclable waste which remains after crushing and shredding makes up 10 % of the total volume of hazardous waste.
<P>
In the case of vehicles and other major consumer items, a fundamental principle could usefully be adopted on a large scale.
The producer should also be made responsible for disposing of and recycling his products.
The purchase price would of course reflect the cost of this responsibility.
In this way numerous pollutants, often harmful to the environment, would be eliminated and this would enable the process of recycling and disposal to be organised more efficiently.
European standards should be put in place for the various product categories to regulate their collection, processing, reuse, recycling and the monitoring of these operations.
<P>
I think this idea will also enable many pollutants to be eliminated at the production stage, since the producer himself will have to make provision for recycling his products in the simplest and safest way possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 NAME="Grossetête">
<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="Nicholson">
I naturally welcome any proposal which aims to improve waste management in the European Union.
Clearly, the waste which results from lack of control in the motor industry has become unacceptable, and measures are needed to address the problem.
To that extent, I support the report and the means of improving waste management contained in it.
<P>
However, I am not satisfied that due regard has been given to motorcycles.
Motorcyclists, if anything, have been more environmentally friendly than those of us who travel on four wheels.
There is a strong tradition of recycling motorcycle parts.
I was therefore concerned when the original proposal was put forward that it appeared to ignore this tradition by putting two-wheeled vehicles in the same category as four-wheeled vehicles.
My own view is that motorcycles, as well as vintage cars, should have been excluded from the legislation and that separate legislation should be drafted which would ensure compliance with genuine environmental concerns.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 NAME="Rovsing">
End-of-life vehicles are a major environmental problem in the European Union.
There are pollution problems associated with the types of waste that are separated from scrap vehicles during shredding, but abandoned vehicles in particular are a major environmental problem in nature.
It is therefore necessary to ensure that end-of-life vehicles are managed in a lawful and responsible way.
Common EU rules in this area will help to reduce substantially pollution from hazardous substances.
In addition, end-of-life vehicle treatment undertakings can become more viable and generate more jobs.
The proposed directive is therefore an immensely positive initiative.
<P>
An appropriate means of preventing the use of certain hazardous substances in the manufacture of new cars is an important element in the proposed directive.
However, it is not realistic at the present time to introduce a total ban on certain substances which are necessary - in small quantities - in connection with certain alloys and rust-protection procedures.
Moreover, the demand for a horizontal directive providing for a total ban on PVC in the EU before 2000 is unrealistic, and therefore cannot be given Conservative support in the European Parliament.
<P>
Quisthoudt-Rowohl report (A4-0035/99)
<SPEAKER ID=202 NAME="Ford">
Mr Antony's tirade in this morning's debate on research and development cooperation with Israel in which he accused Israel of producing ethnic weapons that would select their victims on the basis of race tell us more about Mr Antony's views than Israel's research policy.
<P>
Only a racist could give credence to such nonsense.
Only someone who believes the world is composed of sharply-defined 'races' arranged in a neat hierarchy with them at the top of the food chain could imagine such a horror.
It is not possible.
There are more similarities in the genetic make-up between so-called 'races' than between individuals within such 'races'.
Anyone who started such a programme would have already demonstrated they lack the scientific knowledge to carry it through.
<P>
As I said this morning I will be voting to support this report with the few reservations I indicated then.
Mr Antony's views have only reinforced this decision.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 NAME="Palm">
The State of Israel has laws which result in the persecution of and discrimination against its Palestinian neighbours.
I support this agreement, but would stress the need for the EU to draw attention to the way the State of Israel is showing scant respect for human rights and the ongoing peace process.
Peace in the Middle East can be brought closer through cooperation with the West and technical development. Sustainable peace, however, requires acknowledgement of every human being's right to life, together with compliance with the peace process that has been entered into.
<P>
Kosovo
<SPEAKER ID=204 NAME="Souchet">
Our group did not co-sign the draft 'joint' resolution on Kosovo.
We believe that the text remains excessively one-sided, containing too much simplistic and inflexible analysis, a black and white approach left over from the cold war, with its 'good guys' and 'bad guys', and a measure of inability to grasp properly the complex historical, cultural and religious realities which a resurgence of Communist ideology has caused to resurface and which nevertheless now form the very heart of the problem on which an agreement is being sought.
<P>
What our resolution should have done was to welcome the fact that, firstly, the advocates of a diplomatic solution have for the moment won out against the irresponsible hotheads and, secondly, that two European countries are playing a leading part, for the European Union as a whole, in the search for that solution.
<P>
The Council clearly recognised that the best way to help achieve a diplomatic solution was not to use the complex and uncertain machinery of the CFSP, but to lend resolute support to the work of the 'contact group' made up of the powers inside and outside Europe which are best placed to play a decisive role in finding a way out of the crisis.
<P>
The Rambouillet talks confirm the major role played in the 'contact group' by the two European countries most heavily and specifically engaged in the search for a peaceful solution: France and the United Kingdom, the two European members of the UN Security Council.
This House can only hope that the two European co-chairmen of the Rambouillet conference, helped by the negotiators of the 'contact group', will bring both their diplomatic skills and the utmost political determination to bear in persuading the protagonists in the fighting - despite the absence of Milosevic, which weakens the process - to reach an agreement which will allow the question of Kosovo's independence to be managed as peacefully as possible.
<P>
Aldo report (A4-0036/99)
<SPEAKER ID=205 NAME="Correia">
<SPEAKER ID=206 NAME="Ribeiro">
<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="Souchet">
<SPEAKER ID=208 NAME="President">
That concludes voting time.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Statement by the President
<SPEAKER ID=209 NAME="President">
At a meeting today the Conference of Presidents decided, pursuant to Rule 10(4) of the Rules of Procedure, to bring forward the second March part-session to 22 and 23 March.
The part-session will begin at 5 p.m. on Monday 22 March and will continue on Tuesday 23 March.
Voting time will be at 3 o'clock on Tuesday.
<P>
The Conference of Presidents has decided to include in the agenda of Monday 22 March a Commission statement followed by a debate on the action to be taken on the report of the Committee of Independent Experts.
<P>
The deadline for tabling motions for resolutions will be Thursday 18 March at 5 p.m.. The deadline for tabling amendments and joint motions will be on Monday 22 March at 10 p.m.
<P>
The other items on the agenda will be decided by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting on 4 March.
It should be noted that it will be possible to hold a political group meeting on Wednesday 17 March at 6 p.m. and possibly on 18 March at 10.30 a.m. as well as on Monday 22 March before 5 p.m.
<P>
Committee meetings already scheduled for 22 and 23 March will be postponed until 24 and 25 March.
Further details will be provided by the committees involved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I am afraid I do not intend to respond to the remarks made by Mr Hänsch, who was probably inspired by the Carnival in the Rhineland, because he could not possibly have been inspired by the election results in Hesse. No, my intention is to raise the question of the Kazakhstan resolution again.
Since making that point before, I have received faulty copies from other Members, and I now have this pile of 63 faulty copies of the Kazakhstan resolution, each comprising only straight lines.
Following our earlier exchanges, I checked at the desk outside - this is no laughing matter, gentlemen - to see whether proper texts were available there.
They do not have a single text that is properly printed.
I do think we ought to take our parliamentary work seriously enough for me to be able to ask you to check what has happened here and for you to ensure that it does not happen again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 NAME="President">
We are going to check again but I have been assured that a fresh batch of properly printed resolutions were made available at the distribution desk.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="Robles Piquer">
Mr President, I would appreciate it if you could tell me whether or not the statement you have just read out has been printed and is being distributed in some way to Members. We have naturally taken note of it, but there are too many changes to the calendar.
It would therefore be better if we received a written copy this evening, perhaps in a fax to our offices.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, I should like to ask whether there will also be a vote in plenary on this change of date, because as far as I am aware, the original calendar of part-sessions was adopted by us here in the House. If there is to be a vote, when will it take place?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 NAME="President">
I understand that the answer is No.
The Conference of Presidents has the power to alter the date.
I cannot answer detailed questions as I am no more informed about it than you are.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="McGowan">
Mr President, I am interested in your announcement about the changing of the date of the mini-session.
I am sure you are aware that visits are arranged for people from many parts of the world in the light of the timing of the mini-session.
This change will certainly cause great difficulty as far as some of my visitors are concerned.
Could you give me an explanation, that I can pass on, as to why the mini-session has been changed?
I am sure there must be some very clear political reason but I did not quite understand what it was - I did not quite hear what the explanation was.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 NAME="President">
As I say, I am learning as I go along.
I am told it is because the original date clashed with the European Council meeting and we wish to meet before that meeting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, just to give an explanation to Mr McGowan.
The problem is that we have to hold a debate on the results of the Committee of Independent Experts in that mini-session.
This has to happen in the presence of the Commission.
But on the same date the Council is meeting in Berlin and it is impossible for the Commission to be in two places at the same time.
Therefore, the only solution was to find another date for the mini-session.
As it is a sensitive issue, we could not postpone it until the month of April.
That is the real political explanation.
Of course, normally we would hold the mini-session on 24 and 25 March, and the committee meetings would take place on 22 and 23 March.
So this is reversed: the mini-session will be on 22 and 23 March and the committee meetings on 24 and 25 March.
That is the whole explanation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="President">
It is useful to have someone who attended the meeting to explain the situation.
However, the plenary is not the place to debate this.
It was a decision taken by the Conference of Presidents.
If you have a problem with it speak to your group leaders and raise the matter in your political groups.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Combined transport: dimensions and weights (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=220 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stockmann">
Mr President, I hope that I can find my bearings again in the debate which we interrupted.
The role of combined transport is to shift goods transport from the roads to the railways.
It is capable of doing that despite its structural disadvantages, thanks to the preferential measures designed to enable it to compete with the transport of goods by road.
Nevertheless, it has not developed to the extent that we transport policymakers had hoped and expected.
The main reason is that the railways are taking a very long time to develop into modern service enterprises, if they are developing in that direction at all.
<P>
Combined transport is also the forerunner of a future model, namely that of intermodal transport, which will improve the flow of traffic for all types of carrier.
A decisive breakthrough in the development of intermodal transport will naturally require a sea change in the political regulation of transport in Europe.
What we are asking about today are the conditions under which the present superannuated form of combined transport can be sustained for long enough to develop into that model of the future, without it grinding to a halt and simply being overrun by the road-transport juggernaut.
<P>
The new proposal for a directive starts off in the right direction, broadening the definition of combined transport to pave the way for intermodal transport.
We are naturally calling for a precise limitation of the ratio of road legs to total mileage.
<P>
The second step in the Commission's proposal, namely the European harmonisation of preferential measures, also points in the right direction, in my opinion.
The issue of grants poses fewest problems.
The maximum weight of 44 tonnes and the exemptions from driving bans, however, remain bones of contention.
I personally consider them necessary for a transitional period until a level playing field has been created for all modes of transport and intermodal transport has become an everyday phenomenon.
I share some of my colleagues' fears, however - firstly that the abuses which are already occurring today will become more widespread, and secondly that the increase in exemptions from driving bans and derogations from weight limits could open the political floodgates for the extension of these privileges to road hauliers in general.
For that reason, we insist on follow-up negotiations to review the situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="Brittan">
Madam President, both Parliament and the Commission agree that there is a need to actively promote combined transport by increasing the efficiency of the means of transferring transport of goods from road transport to more environmentally-friendly, safer and more energy-efficient modes which are less prone to congestion.
I welcome Parliament's support for this approach.
However, I regret that the report before the House rejects two of the three main measures proposed by the Commission to promote combined transport and substantially amends the other.
The suggestions set out in the report would not achieve what both of our institutions and the majority of Member States want and that is the further development of combined transport as an efficient and viable alternative to current dependence on road transport.
Therefore, it would be useful to pursue discussions on this text at a later stage to allow us to take Council's view on this proposal into account.
<P>
Meanwhile, on Mr Wijsenbeek's amendment, it is generally acceptable, since it developed some of the ideas in our proposal, while remaining faithful to the existing directive.
But I am aware that Mr Wijsenbeek's colleagues on the Committee on Transport and Tourism do not share his views.
<P>
Let me briefly comment on two of the three components of the proposal: exemptions from driving bans and derogations from weight limits.
<P>
The Commission proposed Community-wide exemptions of the road legs of combined transport from restrictions on driving at weekends, during the night, holiday periods and during periods of high pollution.
Such exemptions would improve the competitiveness of combined transport, by comparison with road transport, and would ensure greater reliability and regularity of combined transport services without jeopardising social and environmental standards.
Obviously combined transport would have a major advantage if clients could have their goods moved and delivered when unimodal road haulage was forbidden.
At present, there are about 47 lorry bans in existence in the Community, with many detailed exceptions to them for combined transport services.
That needs serious improvement because combined transport obviously involves several links and if one is not allowed, for example on Sunday night, the whole chain is jeopardised.
If a ban ends at 10 p.m. there just is not time after the trucks have reached the terminal to form a rail train that would allow arrival the next morning.
That means all transport operation starting at 10 p.m. would go totally by road; and in international road container traffic, that means average driving distances of about 1 000 kms.
Is it really safer, or more socially acceptable, or more efficient to do that than to have a road journey of about 100-150 kms to or from a rail terminal on a Sunday?
The environmental congestion, social and efficiency arguments all point in one direction.
<P>
Secondly, we believe that transport operators should have the option of using a maximum authorised vehicle weight of 44 tonnes for road transport when it is specifically used as part of a combined transport operation involving the movement by different transport units in the whole Community.
That is not just a marginal incentive.
It may lower costs by 10 % and is, of course, only applicable over the shorter road legs of the combined transport journey.
It is an efficient way of making combined transport more attractive.
For these reasons, I am at this stage only in a position to accept two technical amendments in addition to Mr Wijsenbeek's ones, Nos 3 and 6, and I have to reject the other ones.
<P>
It would be most productive to revisit this issue at a later date, against the background of the Council's common position, and after detailed discussion of the arguments.
I hope we could then take a joint view about how a satisfactory compromise could be developed so that we could fulfil our common objective of supporting combined transport.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Article 366a of 4th ACP-EC Convention
<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation (A4-0013/99) by Mrs Aelvoet, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the draft Council Decision on the framework procedure for implementing Article 366a of the fourth ACP-EC Convention (5644/98 - C4-0156/98-96/0050(AVC)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="Aelvoet">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, about two years ago the Council consulted the European Parliament about the procedure for implementing Article 366a of the Fourth ACP-EC Convention, which deals with how the European Union reacts to serious human rights abuses or the total failure of democratisation processes and so on, as a result of which the Union may suspend cooperation with the country concerned.
The whole issue has been dragging on for two years now because of a fundamental disagreement between Parliament and the Council about the role that Parliament should be allowed to play in this process.
Originally it was the view of the vast majority, in fact nearly all Members of this House, that we wanted the assent procedure to be applied, but this was rejected out of hand.
We then decided to go for the consultation procedure.
<P>
In connection with this, I had informal contacts - not really enough to merit the term negotiations - with the UK Presidency on behalf of the Council, but these proved fruitless.
The issue was raised again during the Austrian Presidency, which then ensured that the Council was formally consulted to see whether it would agree to the consultation procedure.
<P>
The result was that only two of the fifteen Member States were prepared to agree to Parliament's request.
So once again we came back empty-handed.
Since then the Council has made a small change to the text of the proposal, which had originally called for a qualified majority for any decision to be taken in this context.
The qualified majority still stands, but unanimity is now required in the case of full suspension of the application of the Convention.
It is important to note that up to now this has never actually happened, even in very difficult situations such as with Nigeria a few years ago.
It was always the case that a number of articles were suspended, but never the entire Convention.
<P>
The situation today is as follows.
If Parliament decides to refuse to give its assent, then in any event as soon as the Amsterdam Treaty comes into force - and that is not so far off now - all that is required under the provisions of the Treaty is that we should be informed.
That is the only right we have in this context.
So there is little point in obstinately refusing to give our assent here in Parliament, given that this will only result in the unanimity rule applying for the remaining months if cooperation is to be suspended.
This is certainly not likely to promote rapid and appropriate action by the Union in cases of serious human rights violations.
So because we would much prefer rapid action to be taken where possible by a qualified majority, I did not think I would be justified in calling for us to stick to our guns and refuse to give assent to the Council's draft decision.
<P>
Against my will, therefore, but in consideration of the practical consequences, I therefore recommend that we accept the decision as it stands, knowing that we have one small consolation, which is that whenever such a measure is to be taken, the Commission will inform Parliament at the same time as the Council, so that Parliament can react in good time.
I have to say that it is thanks to our particularly close cooperation with the Commission on this document that we are able to relinquish the genuine consultation that we should have had with rather less distress than would otherwise have been the case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Vecchi">
Madam President, we have already debated the implementation of Article 366a of the Fourth Lomé Convention on many other occasions. It lays down the procedure for suspending cooperation with countries in violation of the essential provisions of Article 5.
<P>
This was one of the principal innovations of the Fourth Lomé Convention, and it makes cooperation dependent on respect for human rights, democracy and the principles of good governance.
<P>
I also want to thank Mrs Aelvoet on behalf of the Socialist Group.
Under her wise guidance as rapporteur the European Parliament tried to democratise the procedures the Commission proposed, by making Parliament's opinion compulsory through the assent procedure.
<P>
But the Council's intransigence, plus the objective legal restrictions of the Lomé Convention, made it necessary to move towards a compromise.
<P>
As the rapporteur says, all things considered, the result is better than nothing.
<P>
The decision in the Council is no longer required to be unanimous but is to be by a qualified majority, and the Commission undertakes to inform Parliament in good time of any major change in the implementation of the suspension procedure.
Parliament will obviously be extremely vigilant and insistent about this.
<P>
It is, effectively, better than nothing, so our group will vote in favour of the draft decision, as recommended by the rapporteur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="Corrie">
Madam President, as always Mrs Aelvoet has produced an excellent report on a very delicate subject.
However, it is a sad indictment of the world we live in that Article 366a has to be written into the fourth ACP-EU Convention at all.
<P>
Having just returned from Africa yesterday and hearing of the latest events in Zimbabwe, it is vital the Commission has the power of suspension and is able to act quickly.
Of course it would be good practice if Parliament - and by that I assume the Committee on Development and Cooperation - could be consulted before suspension took place.
But I have to be honest and say that we live in the real world.
There will be occasions when the Commission has to act quickly to convey the message to any nation abusing human rights before it has the opportunity to ask Parliament.
<P>
The key to the report is the sentence that the Commission, wherever possible, will inform Parliament in advance of any suspension or indeed resumption of cooperation.
I believe that is a fair compromise between the Commission and Parliament and therefore support the proposal that Parliament give its assent to the draft Council decision.
<P>
However, there is an interesting situation which will arise after the year 2000, under the new Lomé Agreement, whatever that may be.
As the Commission will know, the proposals for any new ACP-EU agreement could be based on regional cooperation and integration, with funding being distributed via the regional organisations rather than through individual nations and national indicative programmes.
I wonder how Article 366a can operate in such circumstances, as the Commission will have lost the ability to sanction an individual nation within a region.
It would be unfair to sanction the entire region.
Perhaps Commissioner Brittan could pass on that particular question to the appropriate Commission service for an answer at a later date.
<P>
As there are a number of difficult situations building up in various African states I hope the Commission will use Article 366a in its widest form.
Human rights, to me, should include pluralism, good governance, an independent judiciary, a free press, as well as free and fair elections.
<P>
My group will be supporting this report.
Once again, I congratulate Mrs Aelvoet on the work she has done on behalf of this Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Madam President, the Liberal Group has always called for transparency in our human rights policy.
Procedures must be clear.
Article 5 of the Lomé Convention makes human rights policy an essential element of cooperation, and Article 366a which we are discussing now deals with the procedures surrounding the suspension of cooperation with the Lomé countries.
The fact that such an operational article exists is an advantage, but the procedures themselves should have been better.
The rapporteur has done her best to ensure that Parliament has a say and that majority decisions apply in the Council.
<P>
The Liberals have always taken the view that Parliament's assent should be needed for Lomé cooperation to be suspended.
After all, Parliament's assent was needed for the Lomé Convention to come into force.
The fact that we are now simply to be informed by the Commission if cooperation is to be suspended is not enough, but as a pragmatist, I realise that we could not have obtained more.
After all the interinstitutional discussions since the Commission proposal of February 1996, the procedure finally needs to be wound up, and we must put this new instrument to good use in our human rights policy as quickly as possible.
<P>
Finally, I should like to thank and congratulate Mrs Aelvoet for this recommendation, but she does not need to be told that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 NAME="Brittan">
I should like to thank and congratulate Mrs Aelvoet for all the work that she has done to make it possible for Parliament to give its consent and for the realistic and reasonable approach that she has shown, as have other speakers such as Mr Corrie and Mr Vecchi.
I would like to reiterate what we stressed when the interim report was discussed here last June, namely, that we intend to keep Parliament fully informed of any initiative which we might take or any proposal which we might submit to the Council with regard to the implementation of Article 366a of the Fourth Lomé Convention which sadly, as has been said, is not something that can be regarded as a purely theoretical possibility.
I would add that in the only case so far in which Article 366a was invoked, against Togo, the Commission immediately informed Parliament of its intentions, as the rapporteur has acknowledged in her report, for which I thank her.
<P>
We will continue, as ever, to take very seriously any opinions or resolutions adopted by Parliament which might affect implementation of the consultation and suspension procedure laid down in Article 366a.
<P>
With regard to Mr Corrie's query about how it would work in a situation where the regional element is to the fore, I will certainly convey that query to those who are handling this matter on a day-to-day basis.
The Commission is pleased that with Parliament's assent the framework decision will take effect, giving us a proper and transparent procedure for taking appropriate measures if essential provisions of the revised Fourth Lomé Convention are violated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Macro-financial assistance to Albania
<SPEAKER ID=230 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0041/99) by Mrs van Bladel, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council Decision providing macrofinancial assistance to Albania (COM(98)0507 - C4-0590/98-98/0273(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 NAME="van Bladel">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in this debate on the granting of EUR 20 million in macro-financial assistance to Albania, I think it is extremely important to look at the political and economic context in which the assistance is being provided.
Let me pick out a few points.
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Albania freed itself from Marxist dictatorship much later than other countries in the eastern bloc, and this means that the problems of developing a pluralist society are persisting for longer than in any of the other countries, where some progress has been made.
The economic and social conditions are such that, in my view, Albania can rightly be described as a third world country on the Union's doorstep.
<P>
The collapse of the pyramid schemes, the plundering of the munitions depots - which we all remember very clearly: a Kalashnikov now has a street value of five to ten dollars - the effects of the conflict in neighbouring Kosovo: all of these things have led to the enormous tide of refugees who are now on the move, with economic refugees coming to the Union and political refugees fleeing Kosovo for Albania.
<P>
In short, Albania does not just have serious internal problems to resolve. Because of its geographical situation, it cannot escape being politically influenced by surrounding countries in the Balkans.
Mr Imbeni made this point very clearly during the Kosovo debate yesterday.
<P>
However, there are some glimmers of hope.
Last November a new constitution was approved with a 90 % turnout, and a new leader, Mr Majko, seems to be making good progress towards guaranteeing independent roles for the president, the legislature and the judiciary.
However, Albania's political recovery is closely linked to the priorities to be met for economic recovery.
Last October, the Albanian authorities in Tirana assured the group of donors that they will promote the development of an action plan to combat corruption and introduce legislation to create the climate needed to encourage investment, which is currently at a very low level - there is almost no investment from outside the country - so that investors will also have a better guarantee of getting their money back in future.
<P>
It is also important here to monitor whether the new Customs Code does indeed consolidate customs and tax revenue collection, and then the main concern is the further winding-up of the pyramid selling companies, though it is still not known whether Albanians will ever see any of their money again.
Unfortunately, we can do nothing to ensure that they do.
<P>
Since 1991 the European Union has been the largest donor to Albania, and in view of the country's economic and financial situation, international aid is still desperately needed, if only to keep the current account going.
This is why it is vital that we should flesh out the ECOFIN Council decision of last April as quickly as possible.
The Commission is in an excellent position to do this, with its considerable experience of Albania.
Up to now we have mainly provided donations, but this time it is a loan.
However, in my view we must prevent Albania from falling into the disastrous vicious circle of being financially dependent on outside help.
<P>
For this reason, in the extremely successful cooperation which I had with Mr Brinkhorst from the Committee on Budgets, for which I would like to thank him - unfortunately he could not be here this evening - I proposed that a coherent assessment should be made of the direction and state of progress of the political and institutional reforms in Albania.
I have therefore asked the Commission not just to rely on the technical evaluations of international financial bodies such as the IMF, but to involve the Committee on Monetary Affairs and the PHARE committee in its assessment.
<P>
The aim is for Parliament to have a comprehensive picture of the reforms before the second tranche is paid.
The intention is not to put Albania under the microscope, but to promote sound and efficient management.
In my opinion, this is not just what EU citizens want, it is what Albanian citizens want as well.
<P>
I should like to thank the members of the Committee on External Economic Relations for their critical yet supportive views, and I hope that tomorrow the House will accept the amendments which are before us, because almost a year has already passed between the ECOFIN decision and the start of implementation, and Albania is simply raring to go.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Karamanou">
Madam President, we know that Albania is still facing many intractable problems, especially problems in connection with internal security and public order which are affecting all other areas.
<P>
Nevertheless, in the midst of all these problems, relatively speaking I am amazed at the success this small country has had in implementing the six-month contingency programme from October 1997 to March 1998, which allowed it to tackle the social crisis and the civil war in the spring of 1997.
We therefore have initial proof at least that, by following a specific programme in a well-disciplined manner and with adequate technical support, the Albanian Government can be effective and make progress.
<P>
However, as was clear from the serious regression which took place in September last year, the problems of Albania centre more around the lack of communication and dialogue among the country's political powers and their inability to reach agreement on a minimum joint programme to extricate the country once and for all from the crisis it is in, rather than on the genuinely deep economic recession.
<P>
The European Union and international organisations must give generously all the help they possibly can to enable this country to find positive solutions to its problems.
Albania is part of Europe, it has contributed to the history of Europe and, from this standpoint, it is a potential applicant country for the European Union.
<P>
It must nevertheless be made clear to all the political powers in Albania that responsibility for the progress and future prospects of the country lie fairly and squarely with them.
The European Union is granting macro-financial aid to support the efforts made by Albania, but this must in no way be taken as a shifting of responsibilities.
The Albanian Government must intensify its own efforts to solve its problems, and it must push forward policies and economic reforms to ensure that democratic institutions run smoothly and that the rule of law operates correctly.
<P>
The adoption of the constitution was of course a major step in the right direction. However, we must have guarantees that human rights will be respected, that there will be a smooth transition to a market economy, financial stability and, above all, a revitalisation of the credit system.
Corruption must be stamped out and organised crime combated.
Structures and procedures must be created to guarantee transparency and to ensure that public money is handled honestly.
Only in this way can a climate of security be created for investment.
<P>
The EUR 20 million are rather less than what the Albanian Government had hoped for and, more importantly, less than what the country needs to tackle its problems.
Nevertheless, strengthening the credibility of the country and ensuring economic and political stability will gradually increase its ability to take on loans and, above all, will attract foreign investments, which Albania desperately needs.
<P>
We all know that my country, Greece, sincerely hopes that progress will be made, and it supports in every way the attempts of the Albanian Government to carry forward the necessary policies and institutional reforms which will bring Albania closer to the European model.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schwaiger">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by thanking Mrs van Bladel for her excellent report.
It has our full support.
As she said, and as my honourable colleague Mrs Karamanou has just stated, Albania is not only one of the weakest countries in economic terms, it is also lagging far behind the other countries in the development of democratic structures.
Its situation is similar to that of Bosnia-Herzegovina; in other words, Albania has to be financially drip-fed by the European Union.
We not only provide food aid. We not only provide general reconstruction aid.
The European Union also spends money on the refugees from Kosovo who have found a temporary abode in Albania.
<P>
But the crucial point - and this is where we start to see the light - is that the last government reshuffle and the adoption of a constitution in Albania have laid the foundation stone for the construction of a stable system of government.
It is important to us, of course, to have a partner in whom we can have at least a reasonable degree of trust, and whom we can provide with the necessary funds to develop the structures of government and to ensure that the police and the armed forces return to their role as servants of the democratic order instead of being a law unto themselves, with all the problems which that has entailed in Albania over the past two to three years.
<P>
It is also crucial that Albania should gradually win over the confidence of the international financial system and of investors, that Albania should thereby become an interesting location for prospective investors in the long run, and that at the same time the conditions should be created in which welfare capitalism can flourish.
<P>
We have come a long way.
What we must do is to make sure that the control which is now required can also be extended to cover macrofinancial aid to a certain degree.
The very idea of macrofinancial aid, of course, is that it is not designed to fund specific projects, but to provide the state with a pool of funds with which it can perform and develop the tasks of government.
But I nevertheless consider it important that we strike a good balance between trust and verification, a balance that will also encourage the Albanians, the Albanian Government, to progress along the right path.
<P>
I have the impression that this financial aid of ours represents a small mosaic tile that Albania needs in order to go on constructing a stable future, and I hope that we shall soon see appropriate verification measures from the Commission to help ensure that this goal is achieved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Lagendijk">
Madam President, my comments on the report and the rapporteur's amendments are very brief.
Our group supports them in their entirety.
As regards the aid, although we feel this should be granted under the most favourable conditions possible for the time being, there must also, of course, be a number of conditions attached, as both the Commission and the rapporteur propose.
<P>
Let me just mention one of these.
We think that it is high time that the investigation into the pyramid selling schemes was completed; the capital collected should be paid out to the creditors and legislation should be introduced to combat money laundering.
The schemes demonstrate the need for better financial controls on all sorts of institutions, including banks.
<P>
That said, the greatest risk still remains, as the rapporteur pointed out, that one hand will be paying out what the other receives, in other words that one loan will be applied for in order to pay another loan off.
This would be a disastrous development for a country that does not need one loan after another but productive investment, including from the European Union, so that it can generate its own, independent economic development.
This is what Albania needs in the long run.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we must compliment Mrs van Bladel on her report.
Obviously the European Union has made a good many mistakes over Albania, and this EUR 20 million loan will not fundamentally change the situation.
That said, this loan will be something of a shot in the arm for Mr Majko, who is making heroic efforts but has very little room for manoeuvre.
<P>
It is the European Union's general attitude on Albania which is wrong.
We are witnessing the growth of criminal activity, encouraged ultimately by the European Union.
The Union should be far bolder in its policy.
We should do what to some extent our Greek friends are doing - but not other countries, starting with Italy - and set very generous immigration quotas in order to break the power of mafia groups which feed on the traffic in labour and other commodities, such as drugs.
We should generously open our universities and give thousands of study grants to Albanian students.
Measures are needed to block the rise of opposition to the legal authorities in Albania, to prevent pyramid selling operations and situations of general political instability, notwithstanding the good intentions and intelligence of the current Albanian leadership.
In the absence of such measures, Albania will mark time for a good many years to come.
<P>
I therefore call on the Vice-President of the Commission in particular and the Commission in general to urge the Member States not to regularise the situation after the event, as has been done now in Italy, where 250 000 people have been legalised as immigrants - because in the meantime the emigration mafia have netted their profits.
We should act ahead of the event and set quotas in all countries of the European Union.
I think that if the burden were spread over the Union as a whole it would not be too severe, and this is what we need to do to tackle the root of the problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Madam President, I should also like to begin, of course, by expressing my sincere thanks to the rapporteur, who in my opinion has truly produced a very, very good piece of work.
I believe that when we speak of Albania, we must not forget that it is a country which has had to make an unimaginably huge leap forward within a few years and still has an enormous amount of ground to make up.
During the Enver Hoxha era the country was virtually dragged back into the Stone Age, and now it needs to progress by leaps and bounds at a time when the entire surrounding region is far from stable.
<P>
I believe our aid can only be a drop in the ocean, but it may serve a useful purpose inside the country, helping to overcome the barriers that exist there.
We must remember that Albania is divided into two large areas, the north and the south, with the Gegs and the Tosks respectively, traditional enemies who naturally continued to wage war during the Stone Age into which Enver Hoxha led the country, and that many of the conflicts we see today have their roots in that antithesis.
It is even reflected in the party structure we find in Albania today.
<P>
The new Albanian constitution has naturally raised high hopes.
I very much hope that it will be possible to give the opposition a suitably constructive role to play in the Albanian political system, because I believe it has adopted very constructive positions in many areas.
Only then will it be possible for Albania to bring the problems with its neighbours under some sort of control.
<P>
Naturally - and this has been emphasised several times this evening - it will be necessary to introduce appropriate verification mechanisms.
Only if these mechanisms exist, particularly in relation to the Albanian democratisation process, will the aid from the European Union be able to achieve anything.
Many other verification measures have been mentioned, especially the mechanisms designed to curb the corruption, the arms trade and the drug trafficking that exist in Albania.
We cannot achieve complete control in these areas; we can only do a little here to help the Albanians to help themselves, but we should do whatever we can.
In that respect, Mrs van Bladel's report and the efficient aid that should result from it represent a step in the right direction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 NAME="Brittan">
Madam President, I wish to begin by congratulating the rapporteur on the excellence of her report and also thank her for the support given by Parliament to the Commission proposal.
<P>
The purpose of the macro-financial assistance of a maximum of EUR 20m for Albania is to shore up the country's official exchange reserves.
This operation forms part of the global strategy pursued by the international community, and in particular by the European Union, since the crisis began at the end of 1996.
It supplements the actions we have taken under the PHARE programme, the priorities of which are institutional reform.
The specific purpose of this operation is to support the programme of structural economic reforms embarked on by the government under the aegis of the IMF.
<P>
Even during and immediately after the crisis that broke out in the country at the end of 1996, after the collapse of the pyramid saving schemes, fiscal and monetary policy management was actually extremely prudent and, as a result, the macro-economic situation has improved in recent months.
The budget deficit as financed domestically has been reduced substantially, inflation has fallen dramatically, but the external payments position is still precarious.
The shoring up of foreign exchange reserves that the Community operation will permit will, therefore, help the Albanian authorities in pursuing a prudent macro-economic policy.
Of course, the Commission will pay special attention to efforts to combat corruption by improving customs procedures and the management of public expenditure.
<P>
I turn to some of the amendments: the Commission supports and welcomes Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3 and 6, some of which, in particular No 3, will enable us to adopt a stronger negotiating position with the Albanians in sectors which we think are very important.
<P>
Generally speaking, our rejection of the other amendments stems from our concern to safeguard the effectiveness of the implementing arrangements and the integrity of the objectives being pursued.
These implementing arrangements have stood the test in numerous similar operations managed by the Commission, and to make them unduly onerous would prejudice the effectiveness of the operation.
For example, the mandate of the PHARE Committee does not provide for it to be consulted in advance on a macro-financial operation and on the financial conditions attached to the associated borrowing and lending operations.
But the Commission will ensure that the operation is fully consistent with and complements the objectives of the PHARE programme in Albania.
<P>
Under the proposed arrangements, the Commission will send to Parliament and the Council, at least once a year, a report evaluating how the decision is being implemented.
It does not make sense to go beyond that.
In the context of the evaluation provided for, the Commission will keep Parliament informed of the conditions attached to the loan.
Furthermore, we are, of course, prepared to reply to any questions Parliament might put to us, both during the operation and after it has been completed.
But negotiating the conditions of disbursement, which lies at the heart of such an operation, necessitates some room for manoeuvre and the observance of the confidentiality requirements that the authorities of the countries concerned might impose with regard to the substance and timetable of reforms.
<P>
It is essential to protect the objectives of an operation designed to underpin stability and economic reform.
Its scope would be over-stretched if immediate policy objectives were also assigned to it.
As we have invariably done in the past, the Commission will, of course, examine during the implementation phase whether the political context is compatible with disbursement in accordance with the principles of sound management.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
The sitting was closed at 7.50 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="McMahon">
Madam President, the work which we have carried out this week could not have been done without the help of interpreters.
It has come to my knowledge that we have 300 freelance interpreters whom the Commission has not paid properly since October.
This week the Commission published a document on how it is going to improve things in the administration.
We have 300 interpreters who have been without proper pay and who are experiencing some financial difficulties.
Could Commissioner Bangemann take this back to his colleagues, and would President Santer, when he has some time away from meeting farmers, arrange to meet the interpreters who work for us and settle this problem?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
We take note of that, Mr McMahon, but at the moment we are dealing with the approval of the Minutes.
I would ask that only Members who wish to speak on the Minutes should ask for the floor now.
If you have a point of order, please say under which Rule you wish to raise it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Hallam">
Madam President, I would just like to reiterate something that was said yesterday in the minutes about the large number of roll-call votes.
We have 245 pages of roll-call votes, and it seems that the smaller the group the more roll-call votes it wants.
I defy anybody to tell me whether there is one citizen anywhere in the European Union who wants to know how David Hallam voted on the second part of Amendment 20 of the Florenz Report.
It is a ridiculous situation and a waste of money, and should be brought to an end.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
That point was raised yesterday, Mr Hallam.
We take note of your comment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Madam President, it is recorded in the Minutes that I raised an objection yesterday to the effect that we did not have a correct German text of the Kazakhstan resolution.
My objection was not about the lack of a correct text, but rather the lack of any text at all!
Lines drawn below the heading 'Kazakhstan' and crosses and dots can scarcely be called an incorrect text; quite simply, there was no text.
That is why I must insist on asking for a check to be carried out to ascertain why such a document was distributed.
The reason why some Members mistakenly thought that the proper text was available is that copies of the text were produced for a meeting of the group leaders yesterday morning, but by yesterday evening the distribution desk only had this version with the lines and crosses.
The point I am making is that all Members of the House must receive printed texts and not only individual representatives of the groups, otherwise we might as well abolish the Chamber and conduct all our business in the Conference of Presidents!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
I can understand your dissatisfaction, Mr Posselt.
The matter has been looked into, and it appears that there was indeed a version such as you have described, although there was the other version too.
We shall investigate why the proper text was not the only one to be distributed.
At least the rest of the House did have the correct version.
But we shall look into how it was possible for this to happen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Evans">
Madam President, it grieves me to have to agree with Mr Hallam, but the point I would like to make also concerns the number of roll-call votes which was discussed yesterday.
What concerns me is not the actual number of votes - I know this is already in hand - but rather why every single Member has to be presented with this weighty tome, when far fewer copies could be produced for those sad Members who actually wish to go through and check how they voted.
Alternatively it could be available on the Internet which would save an awful lot of money.
<P>
Likewise, with the huge book of minutes.
I am sure it is very important, but there are large numbers of Members who have already departed from Strasbourg but are still getting a copy of this in their pigeonholes.
It represents a vast expense of time and effort, and could be made available just to those Members who want it or drawn down off the Internet when people wish to refer to specific items.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I can understand your agitation, but the Rules of Procedure provide for this to happen.
If you wish to change this, you have the opportunity of submitting amendments to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure.
Every Member is entitled to do that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Madam President, concerning pages 29 and 30 of the Minutes in the French version, the president of the sitting - Mr Martin, I think it was - reported that the Conference of Presidents had decided to bring forward the Brussels mini-session from 24 and 25 March to 22 and 23 March.
<P>
I should like to repeat here what I said at the Conference of Presidents on behalf of my group.
We find this decision neither opportune nor legally correct.
It is not opportune because the calendar was set long ago, was adopted by the plenary, and this change has not been put to the House.
I am not sure that it is really the place of the Conference of Presidents to change the calendar which has been agreed.
The fact that the summit is scheduled for 24 and 25 March in Berlin is no reason to bring the part-session forward and make us decide our position at all costs in advance of that summit.
And legally speaking, I am surprised that the Committee on Budgetary Control, one of Parliament's committees, should have been sidestepped in this matter.
<P>
The report we asked for from the committee of experts is part of the consequences of our withholding the discharge for 1996.
It runs parallel to the procedure normally followed here.
The Committee on Budgetary Control, under the annex to the Rules of Procedure which lays down the powers and responsibilities of the committees, has sole responsibility for all questions concerning the implementation of budgets and all questions concerning the financial management of the Commission.
It thus has responsibility for giving an opinion - under paragraph 11 of the annex in question - for giving its opinion to Parliament before the House decides its position.
The group of experts does not have to put itself in the hands of the political groups. It must first put itself in the hands of the appropriate members of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
That is why I regard this decision as neither opportune nor legally sound.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I know there is dissatisfaction, but I should like to explain the legal situation to you once again.
According to Rule 10(2) in Chapter II of the Rules of Procedure, which deals with the sessions of Parliament, Parliament shall itself determine the duration of adjournments of the session.
This therefore means that we decide once a year on the dates of our sittings for the year ahead.
In addition, Rule 10(4) states that the Conference of Presidents, stating its reasons, may alter the duration of adjournments decided pursuant to paragraph 2 at least two weeks before the date previously fixed by Parliament for resuming the session; the date of resumption shall not, however, be postponed for more than two weeks.
<P>
Now, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy is saying that he opposed this in the Conference of Presidents.
However, it was announced to us - and most of the chairmen of the political groups are present here - that this was in fact the decision taken by the group chairmen in that body.
In legal terms, that is perfectly in order, even if you are expressing your dissatisfaction at what was decided.
The reasons are as follows - only a few Members were present yesterday, and Mrs Aelvoet made the same point, and she is also a member of the Conference of Presidents: the Conference of Presidents decided to bring forward the part-session in Brussels to Monday, 22 and Tuesday, 23 March to enable Parliament to express its views on the report by the Committee of Independent Experts before the European Council meeting on 24 and 25 March, and in the presence of the President of the Commission.
That is quite clear, and we do not need to discuss it any further.
The decision has been taken!
If you are unhappy, please take the matter up with your group chairmen.
There is no point in discussing it any further now, since the legal situation is quite clear.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mombaur">
Madam President, you were kind enough to announce that Mr Posselt's legitimate objection will be examined.
May I ask another favour of you: would you please inform the House what will happen if it transpires that Parliament really did vote on a series of lines and dots?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Vallvé">
Madam President, this morning I bought a postcard of the new European Parliament building - the new Hemicycle that is being built - but...
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
I am sorry to interrupt you, Mr Vallvé, but we are still dealing with the approval of the Minutes!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Vallvé">
It says on this postcard that the new building is the new hemicycle, the new plenary chamber for the Council of Europe.
Did we really erect this building, I wonder, for the Council of Europe?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Corrie">
Madam President, during the last two part-sessions of this Parliament we have sat in this Chamber and voted on hundreds of amendments in various different reports.
Many of those reports have then been sent back to committee.
Is it not about time that we looked at the Rules of Procedure and tried to decide that if any report comes forward with a certain number of amendments to it, it goes straight back to committee without wasting the time of this House?
We would then have more time to get on with debates, which is what we should be doing as Members of Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
Let me repeat: if any Member feels that the Rules of Procedure need to be changed - and incidentally there will be a debate on this subject in March - then they should simply take the necessary measures.
Each and every Member is entitled to propose amendments to the Rules of Procedure.
There is no point in just calling for these changes and then not following this up with any action.
If you think that things are not being done in an appropriate way, then you can submit your proposals.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Theato">
Madam President, you rightly said, and substantiated it by reference to the Rules of Procedure, that the part-session dates are laid down and can be changed again within a certain time-limit. I do not question that.
Nevertheless, I should like to remind everyone that the report by this committee of wise men has been produced in response to the whole question of how we should deal with the discharge for 1996.
To that extent, it is only right that the committee responsible, namely the Committee on Budgetary Control, should be able to deliver its opinion on the issue.
<P>
Applause
<P>
If we did that through resolutions by the political groups, that might be a solution, but at the end of the day this report is floating in thin air somewhere, in the sense that it is not in any way incorporated into our parliamentary work.
I wish to point out that we should initiate a proper procedure here to avoid the possibility of the report falling victim to political discrepancies and thereby failing to shed any light on the issue, in which case Parliament could do nothing with it.
That is why I insist that this report by the wise men be dealt with in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Theato.
Your comments will be passed on and recorded in the Minutes.
They will be dealt with by the appropriate body.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Goepel">
Madam President, may we therefore assume that the committee meetings which would have been held on the 22nd and 23rd have now been postponed until the 24th and 25th?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="President">
That is indeed the case.
However, you will be informed of that again in writing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Madam President, still on the subject of the Minutes, may I say that you quoted the Rule correctly, but that Rule 10 in Chapter II also has a fifth paragraph, which states that, exceptionally, after consulting the Conference of Presidents, the President shall convene Parliament at the request of a majority of its Members or at the request of the Commission or the Council.
So this means that, provided a majority of Members so wish, we can indeed discuss these dates.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="President">
That is correct, Mr Rübig, but at the moment no such request has been submitted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it was essential to find another date for the mini-session, because otherwise the Commission would have had to be in two places at once - with us in Brussels to hear Parliament's assessment of the report of the committee of wise men, and in Berlin discussing Agenda 2000 with the Council.
That was not possible.
So we agreed at the Conference of Presidents - I did, my group did - that the mini-session should be brought forward.
That is one part of the story.
<P>
The second part of the story is the question of why this is being discussed here in the plenary.
I maintained that this should be dealt with through the Committee on Budgetary Control.
But I was in a minority, as other people were too.
So if the House thinks it would be better done through the Committee on Budgetary Control - as I do - we should plan to hold a vote on it, and we can easily do that at the March part-session here in Strasbourg, because that will be coming up first.
So I propose that we schedule a vote on this for the March part-session, and then it will be over and done with.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Aelvoet.
Since some of the members of the Conference of Presidents are also present, that will no doubt be discussed again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="Cox">
Madam President, I had not intended to intervene but some of the questions that have been raised here and in the debate are based, perhaps, on a certain misunderstanding.
Mrs Aelvoet has dealt with the issue of the date.
There was a preference in the Conference of Presidents to bring the date of the plenary session forward. That was for a number of good reasons.
We wanted to have present at our debate President Santer from the Commission.
If the House insists on maintaining the original date, President Santer will, instead, be at a European Council meeting.
It would not make sense for us to have a debate without the President of the Commission.
<P>
A second point on the timing: this Committee of Experts will make its report available - if I recall correctly - on 15 March.
In my view, the Conference of Presidents rightly considers that this House should express a political view on that matter at an early date.
We should not have a report on which everyone in Europe has their say but the people who commissioned the report are not players in the field.
That too means we should come forward earlier, and not later.
<P>
The Committee of Experts was established, as you will see if you read the terms of reference and the original vote in this House, under the auspices of Parliament not one of its committees.
In the first instance Parliament will then need to have the work of that committee returned to it and express political conclusions in a debate in the House.
<P>
At the Conference of Presidents it was also said, acknowledged and understood that in the normal course of events, apart from that political debate, the substance and conclusions of the work of the experts will revert to the Committee on Budgetary Control.
The Conference of Presidents assumes that the committee will then wish to incorporate any of the relevant observations and conclusions into its proper, ordinary work which serves this House so well.
<P>
So we should not have a debate based on misunderstanding.
No-one is highjacking the work of the committee.
The House set up a group which reports to the House and we have a general political debate.
But within the House there is a committee responsible for incorporating the substantive work.
Nothing was done at the Conference of Presidents to undermine, diminish or set to one side the substantive or procedural work of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
If that was the case I would have objected.
It was not the case and hence I did not object.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Madam President, Rule 24 deals with the duties of the Conference of Presidents.
It is high time the chairmen of the groups, Mrs Aelvoet especially, grasped the fact that our calendar of part-sessions is set by the plenary a year in advance.
If the dates of meetings of the Council of Ministers then clash with those of our part-sessions, it is the Commission's duty, since it is the Commission which is under scrutiny here, to be with Parliament and not the ministers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="President">
Mr Wijsenbeek, the Rules also say that in an exceptional case the reasons must be stated, and that has been done.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am disinclined to contribute to this debate.
I feel a little bewildered.
Various group leaders are each giving their version.
What we need is an accurate account of what was decided yesterday at the Conference of Presidents.
Parliament needs to be informed in the case of sensitive procedures like these.
That seems to me the right way to do things.
The wrong way is to have each member of the Conference of Presidents standing up here and giving his version of what was decided.
I am in favour of this decision, and I shall vote for it.
There was no majority in favour of some of my views, but I think that if Parliament is to function properly we must have decisions reported here properly, by the President of Parliament, for example.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Happart">
Madam President, as Mr Wijsenbeek says, the Council manifestly takes no account of Parliament's calendar, since it sets dates which clash with ones we ourselves earmarked over a year ago.
<P>
But I think we should have held the debate yesterday evening, when the announcement was made, and when there were still enough people in the Chamber to hold a vote, if necessary.
Personally, I suggest quite simply that we get on with our work this morning and proceed with the votes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="President">
My colleague Mr Martin was in the Chair yesterday and announced the facts of the matter to the House.
The sitting then continued as usual, without any debate.
I would assume that most Members were at first somewhat taken aback and needed to reflect on the situation.
However, it must also be possible for such a topic to be discussed outside the normal schedule, since that is in all Members' interest.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="Green">
Madam President, I simply want to express my absolute agreement with the comments made by Mr Cox, not just as regards the outcome of the decisions which he expressed but the reasons which guided the decisions that were made yesterday in the Conference of Presidents.
He was absolutely correct.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Poettering">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it has clearly emerged during our discussion here that this is an impossible state of affairs.
Just because the ladies and gentlemen who head our states and governments - all gentlemen, as it so happens - are to gather for a meeting, they take it for granted that this Parliament will alter its schedule to accommodate them.
That is unacceptable!
<P>
Applause
<P>
Just imagine that a national government - and as a German, I am naturally aware that my country is currently presiding over the Council, but that is not my point; the identity of the government is irrelevant - decided to hold a cabinet meeting and expected the national parliament to alter its schedule.
That would be an intolerable state of affairs, which is why I say that the European Parliament should not take this lying down.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="Green">
Madam President, these dates were set by the former German Government.
I thought Mr Poettering would like to know that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="President">
There would seem to be no further comments on the Minutes.
<P>
The Minutes were approved
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="Bernardini">
This House has spoken out on more than one occasion in favour of a mode of transport which is kind to the environment.
How could we fail to welcome this opinion?
The European Commission is endeavouring to develop combined transport as far as possible, as an alternative to road transport.
This solution is endorsed by transport operators, and likewise by the members of the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
<P>
But this time, as part of its moves to encourage the development of combined transport, the European Commission is putting a controversial measure to us, namely the lifting of restrictions on weekend and night driving for movements of road freight which are one leg of a combined transport operation.
<P>
We cannot agree to this proposal.
Its aim would be purely and simply to get round national prohibitions.
Moreover, it is for each Member State to enact such prohibitions, according to the principle of subsidiarity.
<P>
There are other ways of promoting combined transport, and I am thinking in particular of the PACT programme.
We should use and expand existing initiatives before introducing measures which are unpopular and which often do not produce the right effect.
<P>
van Bladel report (A4-0041/99)
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="van Dam">
It is a good thing to be giving macro-financial assistance to Albania.
Events in Kosovo are having a major economic and social impact on that country.
Various international embargos, including that of the European Union, are a partial factor too.
So we cannot deny them macro-financial aid.
For these reasons, I voted in favour of the Commission proposal.
I did not, however, vote for Amendments Nos 5 and 12 to the van Bladel report.
<P>
These amendments make the provision of aid contingent on political criteria which are far too demanding.
Of course a healthy political climate is necessary for economic progress.
But you could equally well put it the other way round.
We have taken on political obligations which we cannot evade, even if the political situation in Albania is other than we would wish.
My second reservation concerns the breadth of the criteria.
To my mind, a good customs code is not a sensible criterion for granting aid.
<P>
These reservations do not mean that I think aid should be given with no strings attached.
The European Union has a clear policy here.
There is the human rights clause, for example.
For individual countries, general criteria provide the guideline for decisions on whether or not aid should be given.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
EAGGF: recovery of claims
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0009/99) by Mr Bardong, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Council Directive 76/308/EEC on mutual assistance for the recovery of claims resulting from operations forming part of the system of financing the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund, and of agricultural levies and customs duties and in respect of value-added tax and certain excise duties (COM(98)0364 - C4-0392/98-98/0206(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="Bardong">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the directive we are debating today and on which we shall be voting relates to mutual assistance between Member States in the recovery of tax debts.
There is certainly a great deal of scope for such assistance.
Member States can even enforce judgments in these matters.
The proper functioning of the single market depends in part on the effectiveness of this mutual support.
That, sadly, is far from being the case at the present time.
Nevertheless, since 1993, the annual number of recovery requests has averaged about 1 000, the total sum claimed amounting to ECU 50 million.
This enforced payment of tax debts always becomes particularly difficult for both parties when the debtors have deposited all or part of their assets in another Member State to protect them from seizure.
The result is that only 3 % to 5 % of such debts are actually recovered.
<P>
Directives which were adopted back in 1976 and 1977 contained provisions designed to deal with this problem, not only for agricultural levies but also for customs duties, and subsequently for VAT and excise duty too.
In 1990 the Commission made an additional proposal, but it was voted down.
It is now proposing new amendments to improve and modernise this procedure, because some aspects of it are no longer in tune with present-day requirements.
The crux of the matter, to which I shall restrict my remarks, consists of three points. Firstly, taxes on income and property are brought into the scope of the directive.
This may come as a surprise to many people, because it is not even mentioned in the title.
In Article 2 of the amended directive, however, it is explicitly stated.
We welcome that, and surely cannot do otherwise, but I wonder why the Commission did not deal with this more clearly and why this aspect of the directive is not really apparent from the title.
<P>
Secondly, when one state asks another to recover tax debts for it, the requested state must take the same trouble that it takes to collect its own taxes.
<P>
Thirdly, executory titles transmitted by a requesting state are to become directly enforceable in the requested state.
This means that there should be no more of the delays that have hitherto resulted from the need for official recognition of the titles, sometimes entailing an additional authorisation process.
Executory titles will therefore be directly enforceable, even in the other state in which the debtor is being pursued, and no requested state may insist on implementing its own validation procedure.
<P>
We believe that the Commission proposal is right in principle and is necessary if the single market is to function properly.
In our view, however, it does not go far enough in some points to provide the basis for really decisive improvements.
For that reason, the Committee on Budgetary Control is proposing a number of further amendments.
First of all, to combat fraud and tax evasion more effectively, we need to guarantee the assistance of the other Member States for a longer period of time. Instead of a three-year lifetime for claims, the committee proposes five years.
If the period is made any shorter - and there could certainly be reasons for so doing - the notice or decision that the attempted recovery has failed will be delivered more rapidly, but fewer cases pending does not mean a higher success rate.
<P>
In addition, Member States must accord the same priority to claims from another Member State as they accord to their own claims.
Community claims, indeed, may even take priority over national claims.
These statements have only been included in the recitals.
We hope that they will ultimately be included in the operative section too, but for the time being we are happy to see them in the recitals.
<P>
At the same time, the Member States are absolutely free to decide whether and how the costs are to be shared in cases where recovery causes particular problems or is especially costly, for example when it is a matter of trying to combat organised crime.
Irrespective of the proposals before us, I believe that the Commission still has much to do.
For example, the training of tax officers in the Member States under the Fiscalis programme needs to be improved.
Efforts are also needed to assimilate or at least harmonise the different recovery powers of the various Member States.
At all events, this is another area where solidarity and mutual trust are indispensable.
These qualities are essential to the projects in question.
<P>
Allow me to say in conclusion that the financial interests of the Community and the Member States, as is often the case, would be well served by the plans presented here.
Not only the Community, but also - and to a greater extent - the Member States will benefit from an efficient recovery procedure.
Some of the calls for amendments which the Commission has now answered have come from the Member States.
They ought therefore to ensure that the Council makes the right decision.
As for the Commission, however, if you think about the length of time that elapsed before it tabled a proposal, the Commission does appear to have been rather dilatory.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="Mather">
Madam President, on a point of order.
I ask for your clarification.
The title of the report we are discussing appears to concern the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund but the comments of the rapporteur went very much wider than that subject.
Is there an error in some respect in the title or is the report broader than that?
<P>
Secondly, the text of the rapporteur's report refers to tax havens and raises that question in relation to Amendment No 5.
However, that amendment does not mention the subject matter.
I wonder whether there is another problem with this report there.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="President">
These are really things which should be discussed in committee, However, Mr Bardong will say something briefly on that as rapporteur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="Bardong">
Madam President, I shall be brief. The report and even the title of the report are certainly broader, or at least cover more types of taxes and public charges, than may appear from your documentation.
The effects on incomes are clearly formulated in the Commission proposals.
All I was criticising was the fact that they do not feature in the title too, because I consider them to be important.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="President">
We are not going to have a debate here which ought in fact to take place in committee.
Under which Rule do you wish to raise a point of order, Mr Mather?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Mather">
Madam President, on a point of order.
I seek your guidance again.
It seems to me to be dangerous for the Rules of the House and the proceedings if Members are asked to vote on a subject of a report which bears very little relation to the title.
Members who look at the titles of reports and think this is limited to agricultural matters ...
<P>
The President cut the speaker off
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="President">
I am sorry, Mr Mather.
To repeat, we are not going to have a debate here which ought to take place in committee.
You could have gone to the committee and expressed your views on this there.
Also, you did not ask for the floor through your group, and you cannot force your way into making a speech now, even though you were not down to speak.
Everyone might start to do that!
You must now listen to what other Members have to say, and then we shall vote on the matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bösch">
Madam President, I did ask for the floor, and my name is down on the list to speak at this point.
I hope I am not pressurising you unduly on this Friday morning.
<P>
The title of the directive on which we have to take a decision today could hardly sound more technical, but for all that, I believe Mr Bardong's report manages to pack a powerful political punch.
We know that any freedom can be abused.
This is also true of the freedoms which the common internal market offers the people of the European Union - freedom to travel without frontier checks, freedom to settle in another Member State.
Welcome though these freedoms may be, they have also occasionally been abused for purposes such as tax evasion.
The instruments we have today to protect ourselves against such abuses are not effective enough.
Since 1976, there has been a directive which provides for mutual assistance between Member States, but the main purpose of the directive was originally to collect customs duties or levies in the framework of the common agricultural policy.
<P>
Today, with the spiralling volume of intra-Community exchanges, this provision is no longer sufficient.
That is why the Commission has put forward these proposals on which we have to decide - for example, the proposal that Member States should be able to collect each other's fines and fixed penalties in response to a request for administrative assistance.
We in the Socialist Group support this proposal as well as the other proposals, because they target all forms of tax evasion and fraud.
The Commission is also proposing procedural improvements, for example that administrative assistance should be requestable in future even before all domestic means of recovery have been exhausted.
This is designed to prevent crafty lawyers from stalling for time and to eliminate abuse of the legal system.
<P>
As far as the rapporteur's amendments are concerned, he has our full support for all of them.
I shall mention three points, some aspects of which have already been addressed by Mr Bardong. Firstly, the statute of limitation proposed by the Commission is too short and should be extended from three to five years.
This view is substantiated by practical experience in past years.
Secondly, when a case of enforced recovery relates to both Community claims and claims in favour of a national budget, the Community claims should be accorded priority.
Thirdly, liability for the costs arising from administrative assistance should be determined by common consent between the Member States.
The precise division of costs is something that a directive does not have to dictate to Member States.
<P>
Let me sum up: despite the technical nature of your report, Mr Bardong, it is a very important document that will help to secure the long-term functioning of the common market in the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Santini">
Madam President, Commissioner, beyond the technical complexity of the subject - after all even the title is quite a mouthful - I think this report should be hailed as a further contribution towards achieving the objective so dear to many European citizens, namely transparency.
Transparency in public administration means rectitude in Community systems for distributing resources and fighting fraud, both public and private.
<P>
The rapporteur reminds us that there has been a strategy for mutual assistance in recovering claims since 1976, but because of anomalies in implementation, recovery cannot be fully guaranteed for either legitimate creditors or the Community and its budget.
<P>
The rapporteur - whom I compliment on the work he has done - mentioned an average recovery figure of 3-5 %, which verges on the ridiculous.
This figure is bound to worry people who are talking, with increasing conviction, of common fiscal systems, Community contributions policy, and intra-Community VAT and excise regimes.
Indeed, the introduction of the two latter regimes in 1993 has led to a considerable rise in claims to be recovered, and many Member States are already demanding their rights.
<P>
Member States themselves are calling for so-called direct taxation, mutual control of potential evaders and the fight against tax havens, which are easily established today not only inside the cumbersome banking systems of third countries, but also inside those of Member States.
<P>
It is a bold step from the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund to tax havens, a strange departure by this report, but it serves to demonstrate that large systems, including fraudulent ones, start small, at individual level, and then become widespread.
That is why the strategy for demolishing them must be based on the general interest, but must also be able to reach right down to the very roots of fraud in order to eradicate it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Virrankoski">
Madam President, Mr Bardong's report now under discussion focuses on how the recovery of claims, agricultural levies, customs duties and taxes relating to the EAGGF can be made more effective.
The subject is a difficult one, as it is a delicate area.
I wish to thank Mr Bardong for what is a well prepared and expertly explained report.
<P>
Mutual assistance in the recovery of claims is becoming ever more important.
With the establishment of the single market it will be much easier for those with tax liabilities to move their assets and income from one country to another.
There is a danger that tax havens will start forming within the European Union.
This would mean conditions that were all too ideal, especially for organised crime.
<P>
The European Union's problem is that it has its own budget but does not have the proper machinery to implement it.
Member States are taking practical steps to improve the situation regarding both the payment of levies and the recovery of claims.
However, the Member States are independent economic units which are primarily concerned with their own affairs in respect of revenues, and the recovery of other revenues takes second place.
Thus only 3 to 5 % of requests for recovery in the EU have been successful.
<P>
The second problem is that the act of recovery itself, the recovery of claims, the seizure of property and other matters connected with the process, fall under the second pillar of the Union.
The matters that fall under this pillar are not a proper part of the EU decision-making process, but they do call for cooperation among Member States.
Member States are very sensitive to the threat of violation of sovereignty in this area.
For that reason, the recovery of claims, and the degree of cooperation which that demands, are politically sensitive questions.
Despite everything, it is clear that the recovery of claims in respect of taxes and overpayments must be successful in the EU context too.
For this reason, Mr Bardong's report and the Commission's proposal are to be strongly supported.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Madam President, I would like to thank Mr Bardong for all the effort he has put into this important report, although I too wish to comment on its title, which fails to do justice to the full range of the subject.
A large part of the problem could well be that the Commission does not want to admit what is really at stake.
The question of how much power the EU should exercise in this area has been the subject of much debate, not least in our Member States.
Perhaps that is why the Commission is beating about the bush in this way.
<P>
Several speakers have commented on Amendment No 5.
The Commission proposes that Articles 4, 5 and 6 should apply only to claims not more than three years old.
I believe that it is right for us to be calling for five years, since these matters take a great deal of time to process.
If the articles in question are to have any impact at all, the Member States must have more than three years to complete their work.
<P>
Amendment No 2 causes some difficulties for me personally.
I am not sure that we should be saying that national claims are secondary in importance to claims payable to the Community budget.
This strikes me as unfair.
My feeling is that national and Community claims should be treated equally; it would be wrong to give precedence to one set over the other.
As I said, however, this is my personal view.
The Green Group will be supporting the report, together with the amendments from Mr Bardong and the Committee on Budgetary Control.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
This is a good report, Madam President.
The amendments tabled by the Committee on Budgetary Control are good too.
We shall vote in favour of them.
<P>
All of us here are aware that some shameless debtors may organise their insolvency in such a way that the creditor Member State is obliged to apply to another Member State to whose territory the recalcitrant taxpayer has transferred - or where he holds - assets that are available for enforcement.
<P>
I should like now to put a very specific question to Commissioner Bangemann.
One scenario envisaged by the Commission as part of Agenda 2000 is that Member States should cofinance the CAP.
In that case, who in the event of fraud will be responsible for recovering sums disbursed in error out of the portion cofinanced by the Member State? How would one recover a sum paid in error to a fraudster who had transferred assets to another Member State or who had assets in another Member State?
<P>
Before proposing a scenario, we need to consider the legal procedures that are essential for it to come about, because in this case, where operations are cofinanced, it is the European institutions which decide on the amount of agricultural aid and thus the amount payable by the Member State in question.
The separation between the party deciding and the party paying will pose real legal problems when it comes to debt recovery, and these may hamper the implementation of cofinancing as envisaged by the Commission - one more obstacle along a road which appears decidedly rocky.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Madam President, I should like to convey my special thanks to Professor Bardong for his excellent work on an insoluble problem.
The report, which has been criticised in some points, such as the inconsistency between its title and its content, shows quite precisely the real sort of jungle in which we find ourselves.
I should like to say a few words on that.
There have been repeated references in this discussion to tax havens or, as we call them in German, 'tax oases'.
Let us consider what that expression means.
Where do we find oases?
In the desert, of course.
This means that when we speak of tax oases, we have to admit that everything in this landscape that is not an oasis is a desert.
<P>
That is the very nub of this entire discussion.
Our difficulties derive from the build-up of bureaucracies and technocratic measures; above all, they are indicative of the way in which our whole tax system is becoming increasingly complex and incomprehensible.
In that respect the report is truly excellent, and I shall vote for it, because it is technically correct and shows us precisely where the problem lies, namely in the fact that in the individual states, but also to some extent in the Union as a whole, the situation is becoming ever more complex for our citizens, which naturally gives crooks the opportunity to exploit that complexity.
<P>
I should like to see us addressing that problem very seriously, because if we do not establish a clear picture here, if we cannot adopt and implement simple solutions, we shall continue to have the same problems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="Hardstaff">
Madam President, on a point of order.
I wish to draw your attention to the fact that during the speech of Mr Souchet and also during part of Mr von Habsburg's speech, Mr Mather was using a mobile phone, which I believe is not allowed in this Chamber.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="President">
I should perhaps point out again that using mobile phones in the Chamber is not allowed.
Please switch them off!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="Bangemann">
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lulling">
Madam President, this is indeed a very important report.
I have to say that I am not a member of the Committee on Budgetary Control, but I am certainly rather confused after everything I have heard.
Now I must ask Mr Bangemann this question: if the system is extended, can it happen that, for instance in the case of value-added tax, excise duty ? well, just give us some examples of charges that might be covered here.
If we were then to have a withholding tax on interest and dividends - which heaven forbid - what would the situation be with regard to recovery by one country on behalf of another?
Please tell us what this monstrous title covers.
I am not at all sure any more whether I can support this proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="President">
Is Commissioner Bangemann prepared to answer that question?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="Bangemann">
Madam President, I shall answer any question from Mrs Lulling, since she voted in favour of the Commission.
<P>
Laughter
<P>
I shall also answer questions from the Members of Parliament who voted against the Commission, though somewhat more briefly!
<P>
Well, Mrs Lulling, the areas covered by the draft directive are indicated in the proposal.
Claims for value-added tax can certainly be subject to the recovery procedure.
It is indeed possible, and the proposal refers explicitly to that possibility.
At the present time, of course, we cannot include a reference to a withholding tax on interest and dividends, because it does not exist.
Should such a tax be introduced, a separate provision on its recovery would have to be inserted, because that type of tax is not covered by the proposed legislation.
Since there is no withholding tax on interest and dividends, there are no provisions for its recovery.
Should it be introduced - against your ardent wishes, which are naturally inspired by your concern for the future of Europe and for justice and are totally unconnected to the situation in your own Member State - the directive would have to be supplemented so that any outstanding amounts of withholding tax could be recovered.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Bangemann.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
Parliament adopted the legislative resolution
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
European standardisation
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0501/98) by Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the report from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament 'Efficiency and Accountability in European Standardisation under the New Approach (COM(98)0291 - C4-0442/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, what we have here is a Commission report on efficiency and accountability in European standardisation under the new approach.
The new approach for the field of technical harmonisation was introduced in 1985 and is based on four principles.
<P>
Firstly, the European legislator sets out the essential health and safety conditions which products must meet before they can be placed on the market.
The standards institutes then draw up the technical specifications which the manufacturer needs in order to manufacture products to those requirements.
There is, however, no obligation on the producer to produce on the basis of the standards.
Lastly, the authorities are required to associate products that comply with the harmonised standards with a 'presumption of conformity' with the essential conditions.
<P>
The Economic Affairs Committee judges the new approach to be a good one, above all because the harmonisation of legislation is restricted to the essential conditions.
This is a policy matter and separate from the compilation of technical specifications, which is the business of the standards people.
In other words, every man to his own trade.
<P>
The market-oriented character of the new approach contrasts too with the mandatory nature of the legislation.
No one is forcing the manufacturer to comply with the technical specifications.
A new approach makes flexible legislation possible, which can be rapidly adapted to keep pace with technological progress.
More efficient and more transparent standardisation work is the province of the independent institutes CEN, CENELEC and ETSI, but the reviewing of progress and the process of checking that the institutes take account of deadlines remains a crucial responsibility of the Commission.
At regular intervals, the Commission has to remind the standards institutes of their duty of responsibility, using cost-benefit analyses.
It can also benchmark the standardisation process vis-à-vis our main trading partners and study market effects.
Lastly, and we attach great importance to this, it can take the Member States to task when it comes to transposing the European standards into national standards if they record a poor performance on the internal market scoreboard.
<P>
We are against a merger of the three institutes, for the simple reason that this would dramatically impair efficiency.
Nor am I sure that the use of formal voting is desirable at an early stage of the standardisation work with the aim of speeding up the process.
After all, the new approach requires the involvement and mutual trust of all the partners, namely the national standards institutes, small businesses, employers, employees, consumers and the environmental groups.
<P>
Another important factor is the extent to which national bodies recognise each others' technical approval or declarations of conformity.
For many manufacturers this is a real problem, especially in the building materials sector.
In effect, they cannot export their products to all the Member States.
So the Commission needs to tighten up the procedures for dealing with infringements of the principle of mutual recognition.
<P>
More generally, firms need to have a clearer idea of whom to contact if they have complaints about the mutual recognition of test results.
A unit at the Commission? Or is there another solution, Commissioner?
The European Parliament has already said that the parties concerned, namely small businesses, employers, employees, consumers and environmental groups do not have the funds or staff to keep abreast of everything happening in the standardisation field.
So I suggest the Commission looks at whether they might get more help from Europe.
<P>
But there is not just a problem at European level; consumers are involved, for example, in only seven Member States.
I think something needs to change there.
The Commission is asking CEN, CENELEC and ETSI to have an independent assessment made of the way in which the European standardisation process is funded.
I support it on that.
<P>
Lastly, we must ensure that standards institutes in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe are involved more closely in the work of the European institutes, and that the parties concerned in those countries are able to count on aid from the European Commission.
<P>
These are the main observations of Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
My thanks to honourable Members for their interesting and useful contributions to this report.
<P>
I have two more questions for Commissioner Bangemann.
The first concerns closer involvement of the parties involved in standardisation.
As I said earlier, it is a matter of money.
I should like to ask the Commissioner if he has any concrete proposals which will allow small businesses and other organisations to take a more active part in shaping the European standards.
<P>
My second question concerns the problem of harmonising plugs and sockets.
I deliberately did not cover that in my report.
But the question comes up regularly and questions are asked about this.
As we all know, the debate has been going on for 30 years.
I would like to hear from Commissioner Bangemann if there is actually a solution - is it a matter of money, or technology?
Is there actually the political will to do anything about this?
These are my two questions to the Commissioner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we want to move from an internal market to a domestic market, and for that we need principles, and an important determining factor here is standardisation.
Standardisation is an economic instrument which will guarantee us freedom of movement for goods and services in future too.
But we want modern legislation.
We want the new approach, and specifically in the area of standards we have seen that it is necessary to reflect together on how we can secure better procedures.
The story of the tractor seat has shown that it makes better sense to opt for the new approach, that is to say to let the standards institutes in the individual countries operate independently of one another.
I think it is important nevertheless to have legislation - a directive - for this area in order to provide a political framework.
<P>

But there is a clear division here between the legislator on the one hand, who does not want to have to compose weighty tomes full of rules which are often difficult to understand - we want legislation which is lean and efficient - while on the other hand there are the voluntary and independent standards organisations where manufacturers and users quite simply meet and discuss areas which they know extremely well and where they can decide very precisely what it is they want.
<P>
We had a good example here in the House with the bus directive, the so-called European bus.
We had 142 pages of proposals, and Parliament managed to trim this proposal down to three pages.
There is no reason why buses in Europe should all look the same, from a hot and dusty village in Sicily to the rush hour in London or the distant wastes of Finland.
We think the legislator should really confine himself to specific points here, to a few requirements which have to be observed throughout Europe, while the rest should be decided on freely within standards organisations, so that here too there can be competition which does not hamper innovation but ensures that good products get on to the market safely and fast.
<P>
A further part of the system is the CE symbol.
I think the CE symbol gives us a guarantee that existing legal provisions are not being flouted.
But in addition we need to have voluntary symbols of conformity which are designed to ensure that subsequent production is monitored by independent bodies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Kerr">
Madam President, when my group told me that I had 1 1/2 minutes to speak on normalisation and standardisation this morning, I was worried that it was part of a New Labour process to apply standardisation to candidates across Europe.
But I discovered, to my relief, that it is in fact a very good report by my good friend, Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens, which I commend to the House.
<P>
There is a serious issue which I want to raise on the report and I hope Commissioner Bangemann might respond to it.
He may remember a constituent of mine, Simon Hossack, who wrote many letters to the Commission and I tabled many questions on his behalf.
He was an inventor who had produced a very ingenious device which made any electrical apparatus standard across Europe.
He found that it was impossible for him to market this device because the standards committees were dominated by the big plug manufacturers of Europe who were perfectly happy with the situation where a variety of different plug forms across Europe were allowed to operate because this allowed them to retain their market share.
By refusing to allow his device the standards committees prevented him from entering the market.
<P>
I know that Commissioner Bangemann as a good free-market deregulator would not approve of this and I hope that he will take account of this in making sure that the standards committees are fully representative of all the people in the Community, including new people who want to enter the market, as well as the existing large monopolies.
<P>
Finally, Commissioner Bangemann, I voted to sack you last month and I will vote to sack you again next month, so you can give me a very short reply.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Blot">
Madam President, like the rapporteur, I think the Commission's report on European standardisation under the new approach is broadly satisfactory.
It wants harmonisation of the legislation to go no further than is essential for safety and health.
The machinery of standardisation is based essentially on consensus between the professionals and the institutes.
The report does not prohibit manufacturers from making products which do not meet the standards, and the responsibility thus lies with the market.
There is of course one sector where problems remain, that of building materials.
But the general line adopted seems to be satisfactory.
<P>
However, it would seem opportune to mention here the problem of standards being used for protectionist purposes on markets outside Europe.
I am thinking of the USA and Japan.
The subject was not strictly speaking considered in the report, it is true, since the report dealt only with the functioning of the internal market, but I think it needs to be looked at by the European institutions.
In fact, the subject is not unrelated to the setting of internal standards for Europe: the external and internal aspects cannot be separated.
There is no reason, for example, why these internal European standards should make it easier for American imports to come in, unless there are reciprocal arrangements over the setting of standards in the USA, product for product.
So the European standards institutes cannot disregard the policy pursued on the other side of the Atlantic.
I should like to see this too being taken into consideration in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Bangemann">
My thanks, Mr President, to the rapporteurs and those honourable Members who have spoken. I shall try to deal briefly with some of the questions raised.
<P>
We follow the work of the three European standards organisations with close attention.
We meet with them at regular intervals.
The last time was just two weeks ago.
We talk about problems, for example the issue of transparency and efficiency, and we try to make the overall procedure as efficient and helpful for consumers and industry as possible.
Misconceptions will always arise, for example the misconception that our standards might create technical barriers, or alternatively that if we allow other countries such as the USA and Japan to use our standard, the Americans and Japanese will not reciprocate.
All these are misconceptions of the principle which underlies our standardisation work - and the work in the USA and basically in Japan as well.
<P>
I must repeat that, with an eye to the charge of protectionism levelled against us by the Americans.
We are not accusing the Americans of some kind of protectionism; it is the Americans who constantly accuse us of it, the latest example being UMTS.
This is quite untrue, because - and I say this once again most emphatically, since it is the essence of this policy - with a few exceptions which are necessary for reasons of safety or security, there are no standards which are mandatory.
No standards which are mandatory! In other words, anyone - including this ingenious inventor with his universal plug - can market his products.
He does not have to comply with a standard.
He can market a product which is constructed quite differently.
<P>
What we want, especially with interoperable systems, is that a standard agreed on by the parties concerned, including consumers, trade unions and so on, should also to some degree be attractive, so that people accept it.
The attraction is basically that the manufacturer of a product - without any need for recognition by other Member States - can make the claim that this product meets the requirements of the European Union.
That is then the CE symbol and it gives him an advantage, if you like.
That is the system.
<P>
Now to your individual points.
Firstly: we already fund small and medium-sized enterprises and their participation.
We have no objections at all to transparency.
Anyone with a legitimate interest is free to take part in this process.
It may be a little longer as a result, but it is altogether possible.
<P>
Thirdly, I should say for the benefit of the rapporteur, Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens, that we have taken numerous initiatives involving potential new Member States of the Union, and with great success.
CEN, CENELEC and ETSI work very closely with the standards organisations of these countries.
We fund this work under PHARE and other accession-oriented financing programmes.
So in principle all that is being done.
<P>
One last comment regarding plugs: since the standards organisations are supported by business and industry and their work is funded by business and industry, it is perfectly understandable and obvious that in the current situation - which is not a problem for manufacturers, only for consumers - business and industry are not unduly interested in hearing that we ought to have standard plugs throughout the Union.
So they do nothing about it.
Member States too - and we could of course resolve this by political pressure, admittedly not for reasons of safety, but certainly very much in the consumer interest - are totally uninterested in applying a standard of this kind unless the standard adopted is the one already used in their own country.
Thus Denmark would be very keen to see Danish standards becoming European standards, and so on.
But that cannot of course be the right answer.
<P>
The right answer can only be to devise a European standard that is fully consistent with modern technical requirements.
We would then treat this standard the same as others; it would not be mandatory, but would bring certain advantages to the manufacturer.
If everyone manufactured their plugs to this standard, this would then mean not only that future plugs and sockets would look like that, but also of course that all existing plugs and sockets would then have to be converted, and you can imagine how much all that would cost.
That is why neither business and industry nor the consumer is all that keen on changing things.
But this report goes to the Council as well as to Parliament, and we shall be discussing it again with the Council.
In effect, this is a clear example of something on which there has been no European standardisation, although it has nothing at all to do with the work we do, and do successfully.
The way we go about the work of standardisation is the best in the world.
To quote just one example: GSM, the second generation of mobile phones.
With this standard, European manufacturers have captured two thirds of the world market.
If we complete UMTS, the third generation, successfully - and work is still ongoing because there are a few problems with intellectual property rights - if we succeed in this, and American and Japanese firms have also been involved with the work right from the start, we shall probably capture a bigger share of the world market than we did with GSM.
So we have no need at all to be modest about standardisation.
We are the world leader here!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Bangemann.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
Before the vote on paragraph 5
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Kerr">
Mr President, I just wanted to point out that in the English version on page 9, it says binging instead of binding and I know Commissioner Bangemann would not want to be associated with binging.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="President">
Thank you very much for letting Mr Bangemann and Parliament as a whole have that information.
That warning will be noted.
<P>
Parliament adopted the resolution
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Euro-Mediterranean partnership in the transport sector
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0438/98) by Mr Kaklamanis, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament concerning the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership in the Transport Sector (COM(98)0007 - C4-0102/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Kaklamanis">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this report is a follow-up to the Barcelona Conference on Euro-Mediterranean Cooperation.
<P>
It also attempts to gradually implement the decisions taken at the meeting of the European Council in Cardiff on the same issue.
The report aims to turn the Mediterranean Sea into a bridge of political, economic, developmental and cultural communication between all the countries of the European Union and the third countries on the shores of the Mediterranean.
It discusses all modes of transport from the European Union to these third countries and vice versa.
It attempts to set out guidelines for developing modes of transport within the third countries of the Mediterranean and establishing links between them.
<P>
I hope that the Forum on Transport in the Mediterranean, which will meet on 24 and 25 March in Malta, will turn to good account the green light which I am sure the European Parliament will give today, and that the Council will draw up a list of priorities relating to the implementation of the plan to develop modes of transport in the Mediterranean region.
<P>
I hope that the EU's budget will be able to reinforce this attempt, but I must confess that I am not very optimistic. You only need to look at the EU budget for 1999, or at what has already been discussed in relation to the budget for the year 2000.
<P>
I should like to draw the attention of the Commission to the question of the continuous monitoring of the proper use of funds which will be made available to the third countries of the Mediterranean region. We know that in a number of these countries there are problems of democracy and transparency, and that in some of them there are also problems of political stability.
<P>
The European Parliament strongly emphasises the need to protect the environment during the implementation of this programme - especially the marine environment - from all types of pollution, mainly involving toxic and nuclear waste.
I should like to draw the Commissioner's attention to this last point in particular, because of the decision that has been taken by the Turkish Government to construct its own nuclear power station on the shores of the Mediterranean, in the region of Akuyu. This comes at a time when we know that the epicentre of the major catastrophic earthquake which struck Adana just a few months ago is just 50 kilometres from the proposed site of this nuclear power station.
<P>
Commissioner, the Malta forum will take place in March, and it is a great pity that the European Parliament will not be allowed to participate in it.
Moreover, it is Parliament's view that it should have taken place earlier to enable us to put forward more specific proposals. Be that as it may, we hope that you will keep us informed of the decisions that are taken there, above all in relation to the list of priorities I mentioned earlier.
<P>
In conclusion, I would like to make a correction to paragraph 3 on page 6. The Malta Euro-Mediterranean transport forum, which was to have taken place in February, will now take place in Malta on 24 and 25 March, and the corresponding changes need to be made.
<P>
My thanks go to my colleagues on the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
Their amendments have done a great deal to improve my report.
I would also like to thank the secretariat of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, and indeed the Commission. Our opinions may have differed on certain points of detail, but cooperation overall has been very good.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, first of all may I thank the rapporteur for his report, and above all for his critical approach to the Commission communication.
We are constantly talking in Parliament - and not just here, but in international organisations in general - about globalisation.
This report brings home to us the fact that this concept of globalisation is not always appropriate.
The fact is that we cannot even manage to establish a proper order and structure in our immediate vicinity which is beneficial to a body like the European Union in matters that concern its immediate sphere of interest.
<P>
In talking of the Mediterranean region, I think we must of course look too at its common history.
We should not forget that the Mediterranean was once really an inland sea in Europe and only later became Europe's southern frontier.
This common history means that the goals we have set ourselves, such as the creation of a free trade area by the year 2010, should really be perfectly feasible if the necessary infrastructure can be put in place, if it is possible to do that.
<P>
Inadequate infrastructure, especially in transport and telecommunications, is the main barrier to the development of this area's foreign and interregional trade.
I think it is most important to look at transport not just for the states immediately bordering on the Mediterranean but for the region as a whole, including the various Balkan states.
These countries must be included, and they must be included in a report of this kind.
<P>
I think a critical eye is important and necessary to ensure that this debate, this support and also the involvement of Parliament continue, and that communication between Commission and Parliament also continues in future to help bring about progress in this region.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Vallvé">
Mr President, Commissioner, I think it is very positive that we are talking about the Mediterranean today, the southern border of the European Union, and that we can hold a debate specifically on transport in the Mediterranean.
<P>
It is nearly four years since the 1995 Barcelona Euro-Mediterranean Conference, and I believe that the Commission has acted positively in presenting this document on transport in the Mediterranean.
<P>
Transport is the means of communication which makes trade possible.
The last speaker said that the Mediterranean was an inland sea, but for many years it divided the North from the South, a developed North and an undeveloped South, a North with a stable population and a South with a rapidly growing population, a generally Christian North and a Muslim South.
And this division has made dialogue and mutual understanding difficult.
<P>
The major challenge of the Barcelona Conference was greater mutual understanding and a closer relationship between the North and the South.
There is talk of a free trade area for the year 2010, but this needs groundwork.
Communications must be improved as must the relationship between North and South.
If that relationship does not improve, then unfortunately the only transport on the Mediterranean will be those little tubs full of immigrants, struggling across the Straits of Gibraltar to find the answer to their problems in the European Union.
<P>
Better transport and more mutual understanding can lead to development in this area, which should be an area of close relationships and mutual comprehension to the benefit of all concerned.
As our poet says, there should be ' un pont en la mar blava' , a bridge across the azure sea.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, the Commission is very busy.
We all know that, and not a great deal can be done about it in the short term.
What we need to do is to set priorities amongst all the work which is planned.
A number of comments on this initiative therefore suggest themselves.
<P>

I do not altogether agree with the objectives of the agreements, although I do believe that the effort put into ties with the Mediterranean countries is certainly justified, in view of the agreements reached by the various parties.
<P>
In the first place, I think the Union has a duty to improve relations between the Union and the Mediterranean countries.
Once we have done that, we can worry about relations between the various Mediterranean countries themselves.
These countries must also make efforts of their own to improve their position.
<P>
Moreover, the Barcelona declaration on the Euro-Mediterranean partnership mentions transport, and specifically infrastructure.
This means that the European Union does not have to concern itself with promoting particular transport services in the Mediterranean countries.
It must, however, ensure that investment is consistent with the policy of sustainable transport initiated by the European Parliament.
This must lead to prime consideration being given to sustainable connections between the sea ports of Member States and those of the Mediterranean countries.
Only at a later stage should connections between the Mediterranean countries themselves be addressed.
Naturally, these connections too must be consistent with efforts to achieve a sustainable system of transport.
<P>
I am all the more sure of this when I see that the trade flows between the European Union and the Mediterranean countries, in themselves not all that large, are considerably larger than the trade flows between the Mediterranean countries themselves.
To my mind, this makes the reservations which the rapporteur mentions in his report somewhat relative.
<P>
In short, we have to respect and abide by agreements.
So I would like to see us upholding the agreements we have concluded with and in respect of the Mediterranean countries.
But this must not be at the expense of other, equally important tasks.
Hence my amendment, which seeks to ease somewhat the pressure which the rapporteur is putting on the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, following approval of the communication being debated here today, the recommended working party has already been set up.
The programme has been drawn up, so we have made a fair amount of progress.
We shall of course monitor the work of this forum and make suggestions in the context of the priorities set at the Barcelona conference.
We do not need to change those.
For example, environmental measures too have already been dealt with there as a priority.
<P>
We shall also - and this is the other matter arising from the debate - support and prepare the first meeting of the forum to be held in Malta on 23 and 24 March.
The European Parliament will be fully briefed on this.
All the texts presented and adopted there will be published.
Here too, there is already a clear emphasis on environmental activities.
<P>
So I think that we are currently well advanced with our efforts and have no need to fear a lack of success.
<P>
Of course - and that is really the problem with all this work, and with industrial cooperation too - success depends not only on our goodwill, but on that of our partner countries as well.
This goodwill on the part of our partner countries is certainly there, but to varying degrees.
Some partner countries in the Mediterranean area will certainly react very positively to all these activities.
Others would like to, but for a wide variety of reasons cannot, so we shall probably have to reconcile ourselves to a variety of results.
But that is not down to us, it is down to the partner countries themselves.
We in any case will do everything necessary to ensure a successful outcome.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Bangemann.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
Parliament adopted the resolution
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Bernardini">
Europe's relations with its neighbours to the south will undoubtedly be the major challenge in the years ahead.
The minimum degree of economic prosperity, social balance and security that is desirable in the region depends on the revival of a dialogue which is currently faltering, and which needs to produce greater consideration for the interests of the countries on both sides of the Mediterranean.
<P>
In 1995, the Barcelona conference came up with an answer, launching the MEDA programme which built a new partnership on three pillars - political, economic and human.
<P>
The communication placed before Parliament outlines a general strategy for transport.
This text has the virtue of restating the importance of transport links towards the south, which have to be balanced against the extension of the trans-European networks, the TENs, towards the east.
<P>
But like our rapporteur, I wonder if the will to rebalance the TENs is really there.
There are no concrete plans for financing them at all.
Are they to remain merely a pious wish?
<P>
We need to launch, support and give practical form to a genuine Mediterranean project.
There is no apparent will to do this, and that must be deplored.
Let us get away once and for all from all the shilly-shallying and endless fine words that never turn into deeds.
If we look at the fact that the MEDA programme has been translated only into one or two association agreements, it must be said that all this falls well short of the intentions stated and the resources promised at various summits both before and after Barcelona.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Salmon
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, the Commission deeply regrets the heavy losses suffered by the Scottish salmon-farming industry due to the presence of infectious salmon anaemia (ISA).
This is a severe blow to a sector which is already under strain on account of the fragile market situation for salmon.
<P>
The Commission services are following very closely the evolution of the disease and the measures taken by the UK authorities to combat the disease.
We trust that the measures taken are in compliance with EU legislation.
These measures impose compulsory slaughter at infected sites and movement restrictions on suspected farms.
We are concerned about the consequences of both the disease and the eradication policy for the sector.
<P>
I draw your attention, therefore, to the possibilities that exist under Community legislation for Member States to grant national financial aid in case of disease outbreaks in the aquaculture sector.
Any request to the Commission from the competent authorities in the UK to establish a compensation scheme will be examined rapidly.
Provided such a request meets the required criteria under the present rules for approval by the Commission, we will not hesitate to act accordingly.
We further believe that the disease is so serious and its presence puts such a heavy burden on the future of salmon farming in the Community, that eradication of the disease is justified.
If this policy proves unsuccessful, we could, of course, consider submitting proposals to change this policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="McMahon">
Mr President, it is very apt that Commissioner Bangemann is taking this speech at the end of the week.
He may remember a previous occasion when he and I had an exchange of views about the Commission's position, after I had spoken to Scottish farmers.
<P>
I welcome wholeheartedly the Commission's views.
It is a very serious issue in the Scottish farming industry.
It is a disease which started in Norway and has affected several farms in Scotland.
It started off in Glen Nevis in a fish farm in the Highlands.
It is extremely serious indeed coupled with the threat from the Norwegian government dumping salmon within the European Union at prices which threaten the livelihood of many salmon industries.
In Scotland and Ireland we have about 6 000 people employed in aquaculture.
It is important that we ensure that the type of chemicals that the salmon industry uses are not harmful to the marine environment.
As in all fishing policy we have to marry the exploitation of resources with the proper treatment of the environment and conservation of stocks, although the salmon farming world would obviously not want to conserve the stocks.
<P>
I welcome the Commissioner's statement.
This week my own government has very generously committed itself to offer GBP 9 million - GBP 3 million a year over a three year period - to assist the salmon farmers.
They are asking for matching funds and it is going to be administered by Highlands and Islands Enterprise and the industry itself.
This follows on from discussions which the Scottish office has had with the industry.
I welcome the fact that the Commission is not going to stand in the way of Member States because the second major condition is that the EU competition policy allow these salmon farmers to benefit from this assistance.
This is particularly important, given the ownership of many of the salmon farms in Scotland by Norwegian companies.
Indeed in the Shetland Islands, 50 % of the salmon industry is owned by Norway so it is extremely important that the Commission does not stand in the way and responds, as the Commissioner very generously promised, extremely rapidly to the moves and to any approaches from the Scottish office.
I will be contacting Callum McDonald and John Sewell immediately after this meeting urging them to put in a quick request to the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Virrankoski">
Mr President, I wish to thank the Commission for the vigour it has exercised in tackling this issue of salmon in Scotland.
Meanwhile, I would like to point out that Scotland is not the only region to have suffered from salmon diseases, which are partly due to the very efficient breeding of salmon in nets, as practised in Norway.
Stocks of salmon are under threat in Finland too as a result of this sort of intensive farming, particularly as the dreaded salmon parasite has spread to the waters of southern and central Norway.
It has spread north up as far as the Skibotn river, and therefore to the top of the arm of Finland, as it appears on the map, and the Tenojoki river is under imminent threat.
The Tenojoki is Europe's longest salmon river.
The Finnish authorities have been involved in intensive talks with their Norwegian counterparts, but no solution has been found for the protection of natural salmon stocks in the Tenojoki river.
An added danger is the net breeding that is practised by the Norwegians in the Teno fiord.
On the one hand, it threatens the genes of the salmon in the Tenojoki and their future survival in Europe's northernmost salmon river, and, on the other, the spread of the salmon parasite threatens the whole salmon stock in the Tenojoki.
I would hope that the European Commission will embark on vigorous action to save the salmon stock in the European Union's longest salmon river for future generations and prevent it from being sacrificed on the altar of intensive fish farming.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Mr President, this is the third instance of this type of infectious anaemia in the North Atlantic.
Previous outbreaks occurred in Norway and Canada, and now Scotland is affected.
These situations arise because large numbers of salmon regularly escape from fish farms.
Last year, for example, at least 70 tonnes of salmon disappeared from a fish farm near Oban.
To make matters worse, we happen to know that the presence of infectious anaemia was suspected at this particular site.
I believe it is only a matter of time until the disease spreads to wild salmon too - in which case we really will have serious problems, given that wild salmon stocks are already so depleted.
<P>
A whole host of problems surround aquaculture and salmon farming in general.
All aspects of the question need to be brought together; perhaps a thorough investigation of the whole practice of aquaculture is now called for.
I wonder whether the Commission would support such an initiative.
<P>
Another parasite called gyrodactylus sallaris is also present in Scandinavian waters.
Norway recently came forward with a plan to treat 20 rivers with rotenone.
That was an extreme decision, since such toxic treatment also extinguishes all other forms of life.
What a desperate attempt to get to grips with this parasite!
<P>
Perhaps Commissioner Bangemann could tell me whether the Commission is aware of the presence of this parasite in fish in Scotland, Ireland or elsewhere.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Hudghton">
Madam President, I would like to thank the Commissioner for his helpful statement and for his recognition of the fragility of the salmon market and for the concern he expressed about the consequences of this disease for the hard-pressed fish-farming industry, particularly in Scotland, where it is of vital economic importance to areas such as the Highlands and Islands where there is very little alternative employment.
<P>
Around the coastline some 340 salmon farms are supporting some 6 000 jobs in some of the most rural areas of Europe.
It is an industry that is well organised and well managed, but it is in crisis due to infectious salmon anaemia.
This disease, which is a kind of salmon 'flu, was exotic to the European Union until it first appeared in Scotland in May 1998, since when millions of healthy fish from just ten affected farms have had to be destroyed.
<P>
ISA has been known to cause very high mortalities in farmed salmon cages, but it is a disease that cannot affect human beings and it does not render the affected fish inedible.
European Union directives as well as UK regulations aim for eradication.
However, the eradication policy does not address the social and economic consequences of the destruction of millions of fish.
The reality is that mass destruction brings with it the prospect of financial ruin for many of the small family firms which are involved.
It can destroy the whole financing of smaller enterprises.
<P>
Since this issue was put on Parliament's agenda, the Secretary of State for Scotland has acted, recognising the employment consequences.
As Mr McMahon said, the government has promised GBP 9m over three years, but this being on a matched funding basis with the industry, it is now under negotiation.
It may not be possible for the small farms to meet the matched funding and so what sounds generous may, in fact, for some small enterprises be meaningless.
<P>
Banks have indicated that they will not lend on the security of fish stocks, so unless the larger companies are prepared to act as a financial umbrella, it is difficult to see how the offer will stave off financial ruin for these small firms.
The big companies might be able to buy up the small ones, but in many cases it is the small companies which have a fine investment record in our rural areas.
<P>
Norway has tacked this problem with a policy of containment rather than slaughter and the question must be asked whether consideration should be given in the European Union to alternative methods of combating the disease.
<P>
It is vital that we take action.
Scottish salmon farms are standing at a critical juncture, with decisions on buying next year's smolts now imminent.
It is essential that urgent consideration be given to what further measures, including compensation, may be possible to assist the small-scale enterprises I have referred to.
I cannot emphasise enough the seriousness of this situation.
Swift and determined action is essential if we are to avoid the severe consequences being felt in some of Europe's most economically vulnerable communities.
<P>
Finally, Commissioner, may I ask you to confirm whether you would be prepared to consider the introduction of a Community-funded eradication programme should the current national proposals fail?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Kellett-Bowman">
Mr President, it may seem odd that with my constituency in Hampshire, I should want to intervene in a debate about Scottish salmon.
My constituency is called Itchen, Test and Avon, and these are three rivers famous for their salmon.
I listened very carefully to Commissioner Bangemann.
He mentioned the treatment of the areas affected.
Does he specifically exclude any veterinary or pharmaceutical treatment of the disease, either where it occurs, or as a prophylaxis in areas which could in future be affected?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, as I said, the Commission is awaiting the proposals of the British Government.
Some measures have been announced but we have received no plans giving detailed and concrete proposals and their financial impact.
<P>
But, as I indicated, we appreciate the seriousness of the situation, so no measure is by definition excluded.
I have outlined the policy we are following for the time being.
If it becomes necessary to add a new policy, we will, of course, try to be as helpful as possible.
That also applies to research measures - as far as I know - I am not an expert in research.
<P>
As far as we are aware, we have not undertaken any research so far.
But, as always, in our fisheries policy there may be funds available immediately.
If there is a need for additional research from the Community side, of course we could do that as well.
<P>
I repeat, we are waiting now for concrete proposals and then we will do our utmost to authorise them and, if necessary, add something more.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Bangemann.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
Parliament has now completed its agenda.
The Minutes of today's sitting will be submitted to Parliament for its approval at the beginning of the next sitting.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of our work in what has been an interesting week.
I gather from Parliament's services that we have broken a record. We can put this week in the Guinness Book of Records, because we have held over 150 roll-call votes.
I cannot comment on the advantages or otherwise of roll-call votes from my position in the Chair.
They are governed by our Rules of Procedure.
<P>
But in any event, ladies and gentlemen, there is no doubt that each and every one of you has made a great effort, and so have Parliament's services.
Our officials and interpreters have had to make a special effort, so it is my pleasant duty to thank them for their cooperation, and I say that with special emphasis today.
After a week of snow this city has presented us with a wonderful day, so let us thank the city for this wonderful day and hope it will accompany us to the various points of the compass to which we shall now disperse to continue our work for the European Union.
<P>
Before we end, Mr Bangemann has asked to speak and it is an honour and a pleasure for me to give him the floor.
You have the floor, Mr Bangemann.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, I just wanted to ask, if you are going to have this number of roll-call votes entered in the Guinness Book of Records, please add the speech I made yesterday.
It was the shortest speech ever given by a Commissioner.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="President">
Mr Bangemann, I think there should be a double entry for that, firstly because it was the shortest speech, and secondly because it was made by you and your answers are usually very comprehensive, which is much appreciated.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="President">
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
<P>
The sitting was closed at 11.15 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 12 February 1999.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Statement by the President
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, several Members and political groups have drawn my attention to the fact that over the last few weeks a number of avalanches have taken place in France, Italy, and more recently in Austria, and there have been a great many casualties.
Indeed, the latest avalanche in western Tyrol was the worst for the last 50 years. Five people lost their lives and 33 more are still unaccounted for.
<P>
I am sure I speak for the whole House in expressing our condolences to the authorities and to the victims' families, as is our custom after disasters of this nature.
I am quite certain that you all share in the sadness following these events within our Union, in France, Italy and Austria.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stenzel">
Mr President, let me give you warm thanks on behalf of my delegation and also of the delegation of Austrian Social Democrats for your words of sympathy on the avalanche disaster in Tyrol.
Let me also make a point of order.
As you said, this was the worst avalanche disaster in Austria since the second world war, although of course other Alpine regions have also been hit, in Italy and France and in a non-Member State, Switzerland.
In Austria, the National Assembly observed one minute's silence for the victims.
I think it would be fitting for the European Parliament also to observe one minute's silence in memory of the victims of the Galtür avalanche.
<P>
I would add the further request - addressed to the Commission representatives - for funds to be allocated from the 1999 budget, from budget line B4-330 for protection against environmental and other disasters, to help the regions concerned.
Aid that is given rapidly is doubly useful.
Thank you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Stenzel.
I am sure the Commission will have taken note.
It is not Parliament's custom to observe a minute's silence following disasters of this nature, for the simple reason that we would have to do so frequently since they are, unfortunately, all too common in Europe, and Europe is so large.
Nevertheless, I am quite prepared to agree to your request.
I invite Members to observe a minute's silence if they feel this to be appropriate.
<P>
Parliament observed a minute's silence
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
In the past few days, I have also received a number of complaints from certain Members concerning the decision to cancel the meetings planned for last Monday.
I should like to take this opportunity to explain the precise impact of this decision and the reasons for it.
<P>
I must first emphasise that the European Parliament did not close its doors.
It remained open throughout the whole of Monday, and the minimum services required to support Members and any visitors were provided.
For example, Vice-President Imbeni was able to meet a delegation of Italian farmers on Parliament's premises.
<P>
Secondly, it is worth pointing out that the European Parliament is not empowered to guarantee public order in the immediate vicinity outside its buildings.
That falls to the Belgian authorities, who were responsible for the decision to seal off the area surrounding the Community's institutions.
<P>
Thirdly, in view of the fact that due to the arrangements put in place by the Belgian authorities, it was impossible to guarantee the presence of the staff needed to ensure the smooth running of the parliamentary committee meetings - which, as you know better than I, require the attendance of a whole range of officials, interpreters and so on - the wisest course of action seemed to be to cancel the meetings.
That decision was taken by the Secretary-General, who had been in constant contact with me. It was taken on my express authority, following consultations with the Quaestor responsible for security.
<P>
Finally, it should be made quite clear that at no time did the demonstration's organisers request a meeting with any European Parliament body.
However, the farmers who took part in the demonstration held in Strasbourg during the last part-session did request a meeting, and I myself met them together with President Santer, Mr Colino, the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture, and Commissioner Fischler. The meeting lasted approximately one hour.
<P>
On this last occasion, the demonstrators were targeting the Council, not Parliament, which is why no meeting was requested.
Had such a meeting been requested, the necessary arrangements would certainly have been made. Naturally, any delegation would have been officially received if it had been possible to do so.
<P>
The decision taken may or may not have been the right one, but I can assure you that it was based on the practical difficulties of gaining access to the premises and on the perceived need for caution. It should not be interpreted as a slight, nor as an attack on the right to demonstrate or to put political positions to Parliament.
Parliament always welcomes citizens' political views.
<P>
Mr Nassauer, you have the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Nassauer">
Mr President, did I really understand you to say that the Belgian state informed you, the President of the European Parliament, that it could not guarantee the security of sittings in this Chamber?
<P>
Secondly, where does it say in the Rules of Procedure that with the agreement of the President the Secretary-General can cancel duly convened parliamentary sittings or other meetings?
Is that not a matter for the Bureau or the responsible bodies?
<P>
Applause
<P>
Thirdly, do you really think it fitting for the European Parliament to abandon its sittings under pressure of an announced demonstration and to bring its political activities to a halt?
Would it not have been more appropriate for Parliament as such to have spoken to the demonstrators, rather than simply closing its gates?
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
I shall certainly reply to your three questions, Mr Nassauer.
<P>
With regard to your first question, the Belgian authorities did not tell us whether or not we could hold meetings.
What they did say was that they intended to seal off the area, that public transport - the underground, trains and buses - would be unable to reach it, and that there would be three access routes for cars.
It did not seem possible to guarantee that committee meetings could go ahead in the light of these plans, as the presence of the officials and interpreters required to support the meetings could not be relied on. I should point out that this was the only parliamentary business cancelled.
<P>
Concerning your second question, this decision was made public by the Secretary-General but authorised by me. In taking it, I was merely exercising the powers granted to me under Rule 19 of the Rules of Procedure, according to which I am empowered to ensure that parliamentary business, and therefore committee business, is properly conducted.
If I am unable to do so, because I cannot guarantee interpretation and the support of the relevant officials, it is my duty to request the Secretary-General to cancel the meetings in question.
<P>
Turning to your third question, business was not cancelled as a result of the demonstration, but because the Belgian authorities had decided to seal off the area in which the European institutions are located. This affected not only Parliament, but also the Commission and the Council.
The measures that were planned hindered access to Parliament.
<P>
A number of Members have asked for the floor.
I have no wish to deny the floor to anyone, but I would point out that as Mr Verheugen is unable to be present through illness, the Council will be represented today by Mr Volmer.
Mr Volmer also has commitments in the Bundestag . The more time we spend discussing this matter now, the less there will be to discuss the items on the agenda.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Perry">
Mr President, on a separate but related point: when I came into this building this afternoon there was some sort of demonstration taking place at the very doors of this Chamber.
A huge banner was being raised - it does not matter to what end.
I have in the past written to you, Mr President, and I have received a reply from the College of Quaestors to say that demonstations of that nature at the door of this Chamber will not be allowed.
This afternoon such a demonstration took place.
Can I be assured that if we cannot keep order in the streets of Brussels, we can at least keep order inside the Parliament building?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
Mr Perry, unfortunately it was our own Members who were demonstrating.
I presume you are not asking me to ask the gendarmerie to disperse them.
Five Members were involved and we felt it was better to let their demonstration take place than to help their cause by breaking it up.
<P>
I do not think we should continue with this discussion.
I see there are six people asking for the floor.
I regret it very much but we must proceed with the approval of the Minutes of the last session.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
The Minutes of the sitting of Friday, 12 February 1999 have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fontaine">
Mr President, my name appears to be missing from the attendance register for the last sitting, although I was definitely there and even remember signing the register.
I am therefore very surprised at this omission and would ask that my presence on Friday, 12 February be recorded.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
We shall check that without delay.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Theato">
Mr President, I have a comment, or rather a request, to make to you about page 7 of the German version of the Minutes of the sitting of 12 February 1999.
In the point of order recorded in it, I said that the expected Wise Men's report should also be referred to the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Let me ask you to forward this report to us officially for our committee meeting on 15 and 16 March.
We need it for consultation, we need it so that we can, if necessary, consider it in the light of the discharge procedures that are still pending.
I said that this committee is the right forum for deciding the appropriate steps to take.
The report is quite clearly of great relevance to our committee.
So I would ask you to ensure that we receive the documents in good time for our meeting.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
Mrs Theato, the Committee of Independent Experts is due to submit its conclusions at 5 p.m. on Monday, 15 March. The report will be made available to your committee as soon as it has been translated.
This should be on the following day, as the translators will work overtime. The Conference of Presidents has decided that the groups may present their own resolutions on this report, but your committee will naturally receive the report in order to consider the outstanding issues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I asked to speak about the Minutes.
The Secretary-General and the Deputy Secretary-General seem to be able to see the demonstrating farmers in the distance better than they can see the Members in the Chamber.
<P>
On page 1 of the minutes, my speech has been recorded rather too concisely in my opinion.
It says that I described the decision taken by you and referred to by the chairman of the Committee on Budgetary Control, Mrs Theato, as inopportune and legally inappropriate.
I would like the Minutes to record that I quoted Article 5 of Annex V of the Rules of Procedure as the basis on which the Committee on Budgetary Control should receive the report of the Committee of Independent Experts. My speech should not have been presented so concisely, even in the Minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="President">
We shall check the transcription of your speech, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, and make any necessary corrections.
<P>
The Minutes were approved
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Agenda
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
At the request of a number of political groups, the following changes to the agenda are proposed:
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Wednesday
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from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. in fact now from 3.20 p.m. to 4 p.m.: Council and Commission statements on the arrest of Abdullah Öcalan and the need for a political solution to the Kurdish question; -from 4 p.m. to 4.30 p.m.: Council statement on the refusal to approve the draft agreement with South Africa negotiated by the Commission; -from 4.30 p.m. to 8.30 p.m. and 9 p.m. to midnight: the agenda to be changed as follows: the Commission communication on competition in sport to be deleted; the recommendation for second reading by Mr Bazin on vehicle registration documents (A4-0033/99) to be taken without debate and put to the vote tomorrow, at the request of the Committee on Transport.Mrs Breyer has the floor.
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<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, pursuant to Rule 129 of the Rules of Procedure, the Green Group requests referral back to committee of the Grossetête report.
I would justify this as follows. I believe we should not vote on reports that have already passed their sell-by date.
The Commission is already working on a new proposal and has also spoken to a number of MEPs and made it quite clear that a completely revised version now exists.
I do not think there is much point voting on a report that is totally out of date.
I also think it would make us look a little ridiculous.
There is enough other work to be done without embarking on this kind of Sisyphean task.
So I would ask for this report to be referred back to committee.
You need only ask the Commission, which will confirm that a new draft will be available in the very near future and that there is little point deciding on a report that is already out of date.
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<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="President">
Mrs Breyer, I cannot put your proposal to the vote.
The agenda was approved in Strasbourg.
The only proposals I have made now concern modifications previously discussed with the political groups, and I have done so because there was general agreement amongst them.
You are raising a new issue, which nobody has been able to debate, at a time when, according to the Rules, it is not possible to do so.
I cannot put your proposal to the vote because you should have submitted it earlier so that it could have been debated, or at least submitted it prior to the fixing of the agenda.
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I will put to the vote the modifications to the agenda proposed in agreement with the political groups.
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Parliament agreed to this proposal
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<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, I do not think you are proceeding entirely correctly.
Rule 129 states quite clearly: 'may be requested ... when the agenda is fixed or before the start of the debate'.
We have not yet started the debate and, if I have understood you correctly, we have just fixed the agenda.
Let me also point out that at its last meeting the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy actually asked for this item not to be included on the agenda because of the new Commission proposal.
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So let me urgently repeat my request - and you are welcome to give the Commission the floor again.
After all it really is outrageous for us to debate a totally obsolete report.
So I urgently ask you to put this motion to the vote!
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<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="President">
Mrs Breyer, please read the Rule carefully.
It allows you to request referral back to committee at three stages.
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Firstly, when the agenda is fixed, which we are not doing now.
We are not fixing the agenda now, but only changing it.
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Secondly, before the start of the debate.
When the time comes for the start of the debate, you will be able to make your request.
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And thirdly, before the final vote.
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At the moment, however, we are not fixing the agenda but simply approving a number of changes, which is what we have done.
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<CHAPTER ID=5>
Detention of Abdullah Öcalan and Kurdish question
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="President">
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the arrest of Abdullah Öcalan and the need for a political solution to the Kurdish question.
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I give the floor to Mr Volmer, President-in-Office of the Council.
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<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="Volmer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am glad to have this first opportunity to speak to the House.
Unfortunately, the matter we are about to debate is a regrettable one.
Following the arrest of Mr Öcalan by the Turkish authorities, and the inability or impotence of the international community to find an international solution to the question of how he could be brought to trial, there has, unfortunately, been a rising tide of violence in nearly every European country, which has caused loss of life, injuries and very serious material damage.
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We utterly condemn the use of violence.
We cannot tolerate or accept political problems, however serious, being tackled by the use of this kind of violence.
Ever since this issue erupted into a crisis, people at all levels, in all the European states and in the European Union, have been discussing how they can help to resolve the conflicts in south-eastern Turkey.
You, ladies and gentlemen, took note of the EU's joint statement of 22 February 1999 on the subject.
There are increasing calls to the effect that after the PKK riots in Europe this is now an EU foreign policy issue.
I agree.
We must not forget that the excesses of the last few days were precipitated by a conflict that is occurring primarily in the country of a NATO partner that will one day also be an EU partner, namely Turkey, where it also has its origins.
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In any case, the thinking behind much of what has been said in the public discussions over the past few days needs to be sorted out.
Let me try to contribute to this.
In my view it is true that the PKK has discredited itself by its acts of terrorism and violence.
It has also discredited itself in terms of its claim to represent the legitimate interests of the Kurdish people.
But Öcalan's PKK, as it is seen and perceived today, with the role and power it has today, would certainly not have been conceivable were it not for the present internal situation in our partner state, Turkey, which lives in constant fear of its territorial integrity being put at risk.
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In that sense the PKK, its aims and its methods are in part the symptom of a more deep-seated problem.
And it is precisely for that reason that we cannot regard it as the legitimate expression of Kurdish interests or as a warring party that we should recognise.
On the contrary, because of its random acts of violence, the PKK has repeatedly discredited itself as a political force.
There is now an unmistakeable risk that this will also discredit Kurdish concerns as such among large sections of European public opinion.
The PKK is largely responsible for the fact that today Turkey still perceives almost any movement towards ethnic identity as a threat to its national unity and territorial integrity.
If Turkey is to be in a situation in future where it can satisfy the legitimate demands of ethnic groups and distinguish them from terrorist threats, the first need is to allay these fears.
The major if not only obstacle to such a process is that a group that is prepared to use violence and all too often does so in Europe too is presenting itself as the legitimate representative of Kurdish interests.
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If we really want to see progress here, we must have the courage to speak the truth and the strength to promote reconciliation.
The first step along that road is having the courage to speak the truth in all friendliness, however uncomfortable or inconvenient that truth may be.
In my view we must recognise, first of all, that there is a Kurdish question. Secondly, in the end that question can only be resolved in Turkey.
Thirdly, we should start a dialogue with Turkey on the best way of resolving this question.
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We believe that every nation and every ethnic group has the right to cultural autonomy and to at least partial self-administration in this area.
But that right must be clearly distinguished from the right to national independence, which implies separatism.
This distinction between cultural autonomy and national separatism was the key to the Contact Group's attempts during the Rambouillet negotiations to seek a peaceful settlement, and in our view this same distinction is also the key to resolving other regional conflicts.
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We hope the Turkish Government will grasp the opportunity presented by Öcalan's arrest and that it will perceive the difference between national separatism and cultural autonomy.
We could also argue on the basis of international law.
The people's right to self-determination does not automatically imply the right to form a state; but conversely minority rights, such as the right to cultural autonomy, must not be rejected and suppressed simply on the grounds of a justified or unjustified fear of separatism.
We hope we will be able to start a dialogue with Turkey that has a fruitful outcome.
Some statements from Turkey itself encourage us in that hope.
For example, President Demirel suggested there could be an amnesty for PKK fighters who laid down their arms.
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Prime Minister Ecevit spoke out against the death penalty.
The Turkish Parliament has drafted a bill providing for a degree of regionalisation in Turkey.
These are encouraging signs, which we will gladly follow up in the hope of reaching a viable result both for the Turkish State and for the Kurdish minority.
Our stand is entirely clear: Turkey has a quite justified interest in maintaining its national integrity. We will support it in that.
On the other hand, the Kurds also have a quite legitimate interest in developing their cultural autonomy. We support that position too.
We will discuss the open questions with the Turkish Government.
The conditions for a dialogue are better than they were in the past, now that Turkey has been informed from various quarters that there is a prospect of it becoming a full member of the European Union if it satisfies all the conditions laid down in Copenhagen for all applicants to EU membership.
In particular, these conditions relate to standards of democratisation and human rights.
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The discussions on improving citizenship rights in Germany - to turn for a moment to the domestic politics of my own country - have also led to a considerable improvement in the terms of our dialogue with Turkey, which is one of the most crucial prerequisites if we assume that the problems of refugees and asylum-seekers must be resolved in the country where their causes lie.
In that respect our German discussions on reviewing citizenship rights fulfil an important function.
I hope Turkey will grasp the opportunity inherent in the present situation and that by resolving the Kurdish problem on the basis of democracy, human rights and minority rights Turkey will itself move a step closer to Europe.
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Applause
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<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="van den Broek">
Time is short, Mr President, so I will be brief and simply echo what has been said by the presidency and emphasise that the Commission naturally endorses in every respect the statement adopted last Monday by the Council.
That once again condemns acts of terror in the most explicit terms, but it applies not only to measures which Turkey takes against extremists when they break the law but also to acts perpetrated by the Kurds, of the kind we have regrettably seen subsequent to Mr Öcalan's detention and removal to Turkey.
Secondly, and equally, there is a reaffirmation of the territorial integrity of Turkey, which should not be an issue in this whole debate.
We also want to see Turkey abiding by the agreements it has signed, allowing a fair and independent trial and respecting the rights of the accused to defend himself. We expressly urge Turkey to do that.
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Lastly, we urge too that there should be no let-up in resistance to terrorist activity, and we must of course support Turkey in this.
We do not accept terrorism in our own countries either, but we should not leave it at that, and should look afresh at ways of finding a political, non-violent solution to what has come to be known as the Kurdish question.
Recognition that this question exists is the first step towards a solution.
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We agree with the Council that it is not right simply and solely to criticise Turkey.
On the question of upholding human rights, neither the Council nor the Commission has pulled its punches in criticising Turkey.
But the Kurdish question as such is of course enormously complex and complicated, with broad repercussions in all directions.
And with that in mind, I would remind your President and the House of earlier proposals which the European Commission made in an attempt to help improve the situation in the south-east of Turkey, in particular the social and economic underdevelopment there, by means of MEDA programmes aimed specifically at that region, knowing as we do that areas of social underdevelopment are usually a fertile breeding-ground for terror.
The Kurdish question is not intrinsically an economic one, of course, but economic factors have to be considered alongside political action to find a lasting solution to the Kurdish community's legitimate claims to respect for their cultural identity and their minority rights.
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<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="Green">
Mr President, until today whenever we have raised the Kurdish question, the response from Turkey was that, firstly, it is an internal matter and, secondly, it is a question of terrorism.
The events of the last days and months, and in particular, the recent demonstrations in Europe have proved that it is an international question with important implications for European peace, stability and security.
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My group believes and has stated on many occasions that terrorism is a symptom of problems and that terrorism can only be tackled if the causes which nourish it are eliminated.
Just as in Northern Ireland, Bloody Sunday created a ready-made recruiting ground for the IRA, the destruction of villages in the south-east of Turkey and the impact of the state of emergency on civilians have only served to strengthen terrorism.
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In my constituency in North London live many thousands of Kurdish refugees, mainly from Turkey.
Anyone like me who has spent time listening and talking to those people cannot doubt their despair or their passionate desire for peace, and their genuine desire to exercise their culture, language and tradition as Kurds.
Those of you who watched your TV screens last week will have seen a 15-year-old Kurdish girl set herself on fire in London.
That young girl lives in my constituency in Wood Green.
She and her family live as refugees.
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I want to reject any suggestion that those people, who we all saw demonstrating last week, were nothing but a bunch of terrorists.
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Applause
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This is simply not true.
Of course, amongst those demonstrators were those who support terrorist activity and we all actively condemn them.
But the majority were people as concerned for peace as you and I. That is why my group would now make an appeal to Turkey to recognise that this moment represents a chance for the Turkish authorities and political parties.
The arrest and forthcoming trial of Mr Öcalan provide an opportunity to demonstrate that even in the most sensitive of trials, Turkey's judiciary can act in a fair and transparent manner, fulfilling its international obligations.
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People ask if we have a right to even ask that question.
Of course we do.
I have spoken to Turkish ministers who have told me that there are extrajudicial murders in Turkey and torture in prisons.
So of course we have the right to state those demands.
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However, a bigger opportunity exists.
Turkey could now move to address the legitimate grievances of its Kurdish citizens.
I welcome the Council's statement in that context.
It could reform the political system to allow the Kurdish minority to express itself within the political system.
It could move to address the stark economic inequalities between the south-east and the rest of the country.
It could ensure that Kurds in Turkey enjoy the right to have their children educated in their own language.
As we approach elections in Turkey it could put an end to the harassment of HADEP and give them the chance to participate on an equal footing with Turkey's other parties.
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Applause
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These are the steps which would convince us that Turkey is serious about its application to join the EU.
These are the steps which would immediately promote stability and security both for Turkey and the European Union and would receive the most enormous support from this House.
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Applause
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<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="Oostlander">
Mr President, everyone of course, including the press, is saying very clearly just now that there must be a fair and public trial for Mr Öcalan; even for someone who will probably be found guilty of manifest acts of terrorism; even for someone who has not shrunk from acts of violence, a kind of action with which we have never had the slightest sympathy, any more than we like the brutal repression exercised by the Turkish army in the south-east of the country.
Öcalan has to have a fair, just and public trial, and not just because of our concept of the values of the European Union, and because otherwise Turkey cannot aspire to become a member, since it would of course be strange to hold a fair and public trial for those reasons alone.
And in any case, we have quite a few other political problems to resolve over our relations with Turkey before there can be any question of its joining the Union.
I am surprised by the reactions we hear along these lines, sometimes from the foreign ministers too, the Dutch minister amongst them.
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We in the European Union must realise that this trial is symptomatic of a deeper problem, a problem which is relevant to us all, since there are so many Turks and Turks of Kurdish descent living in the European Union.
Year after year, generation after generation, they have become used to democracy and the rule of law, and many of them would be willing to hold talks, would really like to enter into a dialogue.
I would urge those who speak for the Union, and the Council and Commission, to support the people in our Union, Kurds and Turks, who would be willing to engage in a dialogue from here, from inside the Union, in order to help Turkey to resolve its minorities problem, because these people are moderates who might succeed in finding a solution here.
Mr Öcalan's arrest prompted more than just violence.
We unreservedly condemn that violence, but there were also demonstrations, including ones in Amsterdam at the end of last week, which were very dignified and in which the Kurds showed that their numbers include a moderate and democratic community of people.
We ought to listen to them.
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I think Turkey must now make use of this development and show generosity - generosity in resolving the problem of the Kurds.
I think we all want a state which is seeking membership of the European Union to give proper heed to this minority issue.
It can be resolved without disturbing the territorial integrity of Turkey. I think we all agree with the President-in-Office that you have to make a distinction between self-determination and the justification for separatism.
Self-determination is possible when you live in a democracy where the rule of law applies.
Turkey needs to seize the opportunity of moving resolutely in that direction.
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Applause
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<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, there are two aspects to Mr Öcalan's arrest.
Firstly, we have here the man who is the tough leader of a terrorist organisation, the PKK.
This House has never expressed the slightest support for the actions of this man and his PKK, however tragic and hopeless the fate of the Kurds might have seemed.
But we are pressing for a public trial before a civil court.
If Turkey seriously wants to join the Union, it goes without saying that it must show itself to be a state truly based on the rule of law.
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Secondly, the arrest of Mr Öcalan once again puts the tragic fate of the Kurds on the political agenda.
I would refer the House to a report by my former colleague, the Italian Liberal Mr Gawronski, which was adopted seven years ago in this House by a very large majority and which examines ways in which Parliament, the Commission and the Council might place the Kurdish question on the agenda.
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This, as you know, is a people numbering 25 million souls, whose existence is not recognised.
They were the victims, it is said, of internal discord, and they were scattered over seven countries, but above all they were denied a national identity by the international community at the beginning of the 1920s, when France and the United Kingdom were still world powers.
The PKK is not the same thing as the Kurds.
This radical movement speaks for only a fraction of them.
There are many organisations among the Kurds which do respect the rules of democracy.
The Turkish Government is wrong to ban all these organisations, and Mr Oostlander touched on this.
In so doing, it alienates the forces of democracy and encourages the Kurds to be more radical, closing the door to possible solutions.
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What can our Union do?
The Union must continue to promote democratisation and the rights of Turkey, and we must send observers, yes, of course.
The Union must press Turkey to respect the rights of its citizens and minorities.
Its citizens must have the right to their own language and culture.
Democratic parties, such as HADEP, must be given their rights too. When are all these Kurdish members of parliament, currently held in detention, going to be released?
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Turkey must move forward with the social and economic development of south-eastern Turkey.
I have a whole list of other things it must do.
Without meaning to, Turkey has indeed put the Kurdish question on the agenda.
Perhaps, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, we too can put something on the agenda.
We must have a common position on the Öcalan case. We did not have this before.
As a Union and as Member States we should have determined our responsibilities, had our contingency plans ready, for a problem which has been in existence now for 20, 30 or 40 years.
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<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, after years of guerrilla fighting and repression against the perpetrators of terrorist attacks, resulting in thousands of deaths, Turkey has now managed to arrest the main instigator of this violence, the leader of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan.
Our aim must not be to criticise, which is easily done when not personally involved in a conflict, but to try and highlight the positive aspects of the new situation caused by Öcalan's arrest, in order to promote peace in the region.
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For more than two decades, the only means of expression open to the Kurdish people living in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria has been violence.
Clearly, we condemn all forms of terrorism and all acts of violence, which are never helpful to a cause. However, now that the leader of the main organisation responsible for these attacks is in prison, an urgent solution must be found to the problem which this population of thirty million presents.
The last twenty years of guerrilla war have obscured the cultural, linguistic and humanitarian rights of these people. The international community's role should now be to work for a peaceful diplomatic solution which gives the Kurdish people the right to a certain degree of autonomy within the current borders of the four countries involved.
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Öcalan's arrest must also be used to highlight the fact that the PKK is not the only representative of the Kurdish community. It is our duty, in this respect, to stress to the Turkish authorities that the whole Kurdish community should not be held responsible for the actions of Öcalan, who has taken it upon himself to act as spokesman for all the Kurds.
We must also insist that the Turkish authorities should ensure that the trial is conducted in such a way that the international community and also the Kurds themselves can assess the true merit of the reasons for his arrest and imprisonment.
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My last point concerns the violence which has occurred in Europe and the hostage-taking at various embassies by Kurds demonstrating against the arrest of their leader.
Whereas these violent actions were clearly very well organised, it is apparent that the European Union was totally disorganised.
This should act as an incentive for us to strengthen links between our respective police services in terms of exchanging information so that we can crack down on international terrorism in our countries.
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<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, the Abdullah Öcalan affair started badly last November and it has continued badly.
The countries of the European Union were agreed that Mr Öcalan should not be handed over to Turkey, but they did not give any answer to the question of where he should stay.
No one, not one country either individually or as part of a group, offered him political asylum.
That of course was the other side of the coin.
If you state one part of your position, you have to state the rest of it as well. Europe did not do that.
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In Turkey itself, despite the many triumphalist pronouncements made there, we now see the dawning realisation that Öcalan's arrest has not resolved the Kurdish question.
The question now is whether Europe can take any action which is politically relevant.
It is true that the Kurdish problem is a political problem, an international one, but also that it is primarily an international problem arising within Europe.
We do not have the feeling that the measures taken by the United States took account of the implications for Europe.
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We believe that what Europe can do in specific terms is, firstly, to continue exerting pressure on the way in which the trial is conducted.
We see that the criticisms to date have already had some degree of success, in that Turkey is beginning to soften a little on the fact that the case is to be heard by a state security court, where normal independent jurisprudence does not usually apply, by starting to take some limited measures to appoint only civilian prosecutors and so on.
We must persist in consistently attacking the idea of a military court.
And we must send a delegation from the Union, with doctors, lawyers and people well versed in human rights issues, to ensure that Öcalan gets a fair trial and is kept in a decent state of health.
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Secondly, we think it is crucial that in the run-up to the elections there should be room for democratic Kurdish voices to be heard.
HADEP currently has great difficulties in this regard, and we need to make it clear that, in a normal and fair electoral process, all parties must be free to take part without impediment.
That is not the case at present.
The European Parliament should take an initiative here, and it can do that very well by sending a delegation.
It is only in a democratic Turkey, a democratised Turkey, that a solution to the Kurdish question can be found.
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<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
Madam President, every people has a right to its own nation, and anyone accused of a crime has a right to a fair trial.
Turkey is oppressing the Kurdish people, and I have no confidence that Mr Öcalan will get proper justice.
I believe that even now he is being tortured.
I have never known of anything else in the course of my work with political prisoners in Turkey.
Once I was with a group of politicians drawn from most Western European countries who accompanied two exiled politicians to Ankara.
We were to be their shield.
As soon as we arrived at the airport, they were arrested and sent directly for interrogation and torture.
We tried to visit them in prison but were not allowed in.
In the entrance hall I saw two boys of the same ages as my own children - 8 and 11 - in handcuffs with their hands behind their backs.
How can adult human beings treat children as criminals before they have even reached puberty?
When we visited Ankara for the second time during the trial, I delivered a personal letter from the President of Parliament, Lord Plumb, to the two detainees.
In that way I was able to get through the barrier and talk to them.
They told of serious torture.
The worst was not the cigarette burns or electric shocks.
The worst was that they were woken every time they fell asleep for fresh interrogation and torture.
The European countries must tell Turkey once and for all that torture is a crime against humanity.
It is not possible to have normal relations with Turkey as long as it continues to torture and as long as it continues to oppress the Kurdish people.
May I propose that we send members of our Turkey delegation to take turns in attending the trial as observers?
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<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Cellai">
Madam President, Alleanza Nazionale is prompted by the Öcalan affair to make a number of comments. Firstly, the Kurdish minorities in Turkey, Iraq and Iran are entitled to recognition of their identity, specific character and aspirations to large-scale autonomy; secondly, the PKK is neither the sole nor the largest party capable of representing these aspirations; thirdly, in its struggle the PKK has resorted to outright terrorism and deployed the most unscrupulous methods of funding itself, including drug trafficking; and fourthly, the Europe of left-wing Socialist governments has proved unable to handle the Öcalan case in a united and coherent way.
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Having said that, a summary trial by Turkey without any guarantees is unacceptable; we call for the trial to be conducted with respect for the rights of the accused, rather than under threat of the death penalty.
It is equally unacceptable for our cities to become the scene of clashes and gratuitous violence on the part of those who are allowed entry for humanitarian reasons.
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Finally, I would refer to the extremely serious statements made by the President-in-Office.
It would indeed be a cause for concern if a Member State such as Greece really had been supporting the PKK - more or less indirectly - on the grounds of a deep-seated and, these days, incomprehensible antagonism towards the Turkish people.
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<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Madam President, the President-in-Office of the Council said in so many words that the Council and the European community of states have shown that they are unable find a common position on the Öcalan issue.
Yes, this inability is there and it is a scandal how it has been demonstrated in the last few months.
But what annoys me especially and what is particularly scandalous is that even after Öcalan ended up in Turkey - against his will - a statement was issued that is not worth the paper it is written on, for it does not once mention the Kurdish problem or the Kurdish situation.
It refers to problems that need to be resolved.
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Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you are not specifically responsible for that document.
You have spoken out quite clearly here.
You did not treat the PKK gently, but at least you spoke clearly and unequivocally.
I would like to see the foreign ministers or the Council get round to speaking unequivocally instead of producing documents that merely reflect their inability to reach a common position.
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Secondly, we are also dealing here with the Öcalan case and not just with the Kurdish question in general, and Pauline Green very clearly described our position in regard to achieving a peaceful political solution.
We regard Öcalan neither as a great hero nor as a particularly nice man, but like many others he deserves fair treatment, treatment that respects his health, treatment that is fair, decent, public and transparent, treatment that allows him to be visited by lawyers, whom we hope he really can choose freely.
That is why we are also discussing Öcalan, because he has become a symbol, a symbol for many other proceedings in Turkey which unfortunately go unnoticed and which are unfair, untransparent and make a mockery of the constitutional state.
For Turkey it is not just a question of humanity, it is also a question of political wisdom that it conducts at least these proceedings in an objective, fair and public manner.
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We call on Turkey - and will not cease to do so - to change its approach and seek a political solution to the problem, to take a political approach to the problem of the Kurds and the rights of the Kurds - and here I entirely agree with what you said on the matter.
If it takes that approach, then Turkey can be sure that every Member of this Parliament will try to convince the Kurds that they too must make their contribution towards a peaceful, political solution.
It takes two sides, it takes Turkey and it takes the Kurdish organisations, who must do their utmost to achieve a peaceful settlement.
But we in this Parliament will not cease to support a peaceful solution to a question that can only be resolved by peaceful, political means.
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<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Graziani">
Madam President, it is a fact rather than a value judgement that once a man's name becomes - or is made - synonymous with a political problem, it is then difficult to distinguish one thing from the other.
We should have learnt as much from the Arafat precedent!
In other words, just as the name Arafat was and is connected with the Palestinian question, so the Öcalan case raises the unresolved problem of the Kurdish people.
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Like it or not, this should be Turkey's starting-point in tackling what is a domestic problem, by granting autonomy to the Kurds and fulfilling one of the conditions that will enable it to make a dignified entry into Europe at some date in the future.
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And yet the events since Öcalan's illegal arrest do not give us much cause for hope.
When a prisoner is shown off - proudly - in the conditions in which Öcalan was shown, every human right in the book is being flouted.
When lawyers find it difficult even to meet with their client, it is doubtful that the procedural rules are being observed.
When a special tribunal is appointed, one of whose members is a colonel, one has the impression that the rule of law is no longer a valid concept.
And finally, when the shadow of the gallows looms over the outcome of the trial, Turkey should be informed of Europe's views, for the sake both of Turkey and of Europe itself.
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<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kronberger">
Madam President, when crises flare up, as they did after the arrest of the PKK leader Öcalan, we only discuss the immediate symptoms rather than the general political background to these conflicts.
That is true of the Kurdish problem, it is equally true of the problems in Kosovo or the trouble spots in the CIS states.
Of course we must call emphatically on Turkey to observe the European Convention on Human Rights.
Similarly, we must condemn the death penalty worldwide.
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But over and above day-to-day politics, we should use the Öcalan case as an opportunity to take long-term measures, to develop an active European peace policy; but that also means imposing the appropriate sanctions on countries that systematically violate human rights.
Human rights and the right of the people to self-determination must take precedence over economic interests.
Unfortunately, at present the reverse is true.
Every time we stand by and watch basic injustices continue for years without raising our voice, we ourselves become accomplices.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Dankert">
Madam President, Mr Swoboda has just reproached the Council communiqué for not including the word 'Kurds'.
Let me quote a Turkish newspaper, the Turkish paper Radical which praised this text as being 'rédigé avec finesse et précaution ' - carefully and delicately worded.
So in other words it is an exceptionally hypocritical text.
I agree with the Council that the problems in Turkey must be solved by political means.
I welcome the Council's statement that '... all genuine efforts to separate the fight against terrorism from the search for political solutions ...' must be made, but my problem is that the Council does not say that efforts of that kind are conspicuous by their absence at the moment in Turkey.
<P>
Mention was made of the HADEP trial before a state security court, a trial which significantly is being held before the elections, to be concluded after the elections, so that voters know that they risk voting for the wrong party if it has just been banned.
The number of intellectuals sentenced or still before the state security courts for doing precisely what the Council wants to see happening in Turkey is alarmingly high.
There is not a word about this in the whole of the Council document.
That is what I regret most.
<P>
A word or two on what Commissioner van den Broek said just now about aid to south-eastern Turkey.
I agree with him.
But I think it has so far been extremely difficult to give aid to an area where two parties are engaged in military confrontation.
Aid is then always aid to one side which gets used against the other.
The situation at the moment is somewhat clearer, in that the PKK really has been pushed back quite a bit by the army, so that rather more can be done in the region.
But the Commissioner might also have said that the European Union, with Parliament's backing, is currently addressing this, and that we have initiated some fairly sizeable health and vocational training projects aimed at that region.
The problem remains, though, that the Turks have still not signed the cooperation agreement and therefore cannot currently accept this aid because the financial basis is not yet there, and that is their fault.
<P>
One more small point. I think it is essential for the Commission to support the NGOs in Turkey in order to bring about the civil society, the democracy and the human rights we need there.
I think it is quite dreadful that the Commission, by insisting that the NGOs provide financial guarantees, sums which they do not have, has currently brought these kinds of programmes to a complete halt.
Urgent action needs to be taken on that, and very soon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langen">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Parliament too must take a definite position on the arrest of PKK leader Öcalan.
I find that the opinion delivered by the Committee on External Economic Affairs, Security and Defence Policy of 17 February does not do so, for in my view there is no doubt that the European Parliament must condemn the PKK's terrorism most emphatically.
We must also very strongly condemn the acts of violence committed by PKK fighters throughout Europe.
So we call on all the states to take consistent action to combat this use of force and terrorism, as they keep declaring they will do.
<P>
Some EU Member States have not covered themselves in glory in recent years when it came to Öcalan and the PKK.
Let me tell the state minister, Mr Volmer, that these states include Germany, not just Greece.
I can only repeat what we said at our delegation meeting in Istanbul, as President Dankert noted: for Turkey, this arrest is a total success, given the attitude of the European states.
The result is clear to see: acts of violence throughout Europe.
<P>
We must be clear about a number of things.
One: Mr Öcalan deserves a fair trial, has a right to a fair trial.
Two: Turkey must also guarantee an independent judiciary.
Three: independent observers must be admitted.
Four: if Mr Öcalan is, as expected, condemned to death, Turkey must allow him to live.
Five: although we totally condemn the PKK's acts of terrorism, Turkey itself must take steps to find political solutions to the Kurdish problems.
Six: Turkey would be sending out a clear signal if it allowed the Kurdish party - which obtained 4.6 % of votes last time - to participate in the elections on 18 April.
That is another demand that is not set out in the statement!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Lambrias">
Madam President, much confusion has been created, both intentionally and unintentionally, around the issue of Mr Öcalan.
Government propaganda, secret services, mutually opposed organisations, as well as a multiplicity of interests, have whipped up and continue to feed public opinion in Europe, thereby diverting it away from the responsibilities of the European Union.
Amid all this confusion, we are overlooking the simple and universal principles which must be observed.
<P>
Firstly, the civilised world abhors terrorism and condemns it whatever its aims.
The end can never justify the means.
Secondly, however, until guilt can be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt, everyone must be protected so that they can defend themselves.
It is a sad fact that in Europe, the birthplace of these principles, their implementation was not called for.
All those responsible tried, each for their own reasons, to rid themselves of the Öcalan problem.
Germany could have tried him, since it acknowledges that he was the leader of a terrorist organisation in Germany.
Instead, Mr Öcalan finds himself on trial in a country where there is not the slightest guarantee that he will get a fair trial. And now we are uttering vain wishes that Turkey will hold a fair trial, when just the other day the Council of Europe decision was issued regarding the tortures that are taking place there.
<P>
Madam President, I very much regret that Europe will have to apologise, not to the terrorist organisation, the PKK, but to the blood-soaked Kurdish nation, which has been persecuted by Turkey for 60 years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Robles Piquer">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, all Members of this House who carry out their democratic function here day in and day out do of course earnestly hope that Mr Öcalan will receive a fair trial in the presence of external observers and with all the rights to which a defendant is entitled.
Many of us are nevertheless aware that what has happened is the natural outcome of many years of war, death and destruction throughout which Mr Öcalan has led the Kurdish Workers' Party.
Those who resort to violence regularly must be aware of the danger of having it turned against themselves.
<P>
Recent events are certainly regrettable inasmuch as they cast a shadow over Europe's handling of matters of public order.
We must hope for a solution to the Kurdish problem and continue to call for such a solution. The natural right of the Kurdish people to express themselves in their own language must be recognised together with their right to their own culture and way of life.
Such recognition should not, however, jeopardise the stability of old European nations. Turkey is undoubtedly one such nation as although it is not part of the European Union, it is certainly an important member of the Council of Europe and of other European bodies.
<P>
We must therefore appeal to all sides to remain calm.
We must urge the Kurdish Workers' Party not to spearhead more violence nor to resort to the shows of force which have endangered their leader's position. Let us hope that justice will prevail and that the legitimate rights of the Kurdish people will be recognised both within Turkey and in neighbouring countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Volmer">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am glad that by far the majority of speakers have in principle supported the Council's basic views on this matter.
I get the impression from this debate that there is very far-reaching agreement on some points, which I would like briefly to summarise again.
<P>
One: we very definitely condemn all use of force or terrorism.
In any case the EU ministers of the interior will be meeting to discuss this question in the next few days.
<P>
Two: we must recognise politically that the Kurdish question does exist.
The Kurdish question must not be suppressed any longer.
<P>
Three: we must distinguish clearly between the PKK and the Kurds.
Only a minority of Kurds commit acts of violence.
The majority of Kurds are peace-loving people, as we all are, and simply want to live in peace and security.
<P>
Four: the Kurdish question is no longer a domestic Turkish matter, for the violence on our streets shows that it affects every European country.
<P>
Five: drawing a distinction between separatism and cultural autonomy can be a key to progress in resolving this problem.
<P>
Six: we agree that we must call on Turkey to conduct a trial that is in accordance with the law and that we reject the death penalty on principle.
<P>
Let me add that a troika mission of political directors will be visiting Turkey before April, followed by a troika mission at foreign minister level.
We will use these opportunities to hold talks with Turkey, drawing on the discussion we have held here and on the points I have just addressed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Madam President, I just have a brief question for the President-in-Office of the Council. Is he prepared to submit what he has just said as a general statement to the Council and to ask the Council to accept it?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Volmer">
Madam President, I hope what I just said was recorded in the Minutes and that we can put the Minutes before the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Madam President, I spoke earlier about the three Kurdish women who are in an embassy in Nairobi and I asked the Council to give assurances that, since they have foreign passports, they would be able to go in safety to the country which issued them with their passports.
Their lives are in danger.
The President-in-Office did not give me an answer.
Would he please tell us whether he will do something about this matter?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Dankert">
Madam President, the Council has replied.
As I understood it, the Commission was going to reply too, but I saw that vanish from the screen all of a sudden.
That seems a little strange to me.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="President">
The Commission has not expressed the wish to do so.
Did the Commission wish to say something on this?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="van den Broek">
I do not want to make life difficult for you, Madam President.
In reply to Mr Dankert, I shall look into the problem which he mentioned about NGOs being asked to provide a bank guarantee.
For the rest, I agree with him that at the moment Turkey is not cooperating in the implementation of programmes at all, let alone wholeheartedly.
In any event, I am grateful to Mr Dankert and his colleague Mr McMillan-Scott for their efforts to get these programmes up and running.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr van den Broek.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Draft agreement with South Africa
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="President">
The next item is the statement by the Council on the refusal to approve the draft agreement with South Africa negotiated by the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Volmer">
Madam President, the European Union has been negotiating an agreement with South Africa since 1995.
Among other things, the draft agreement provides for the creation of a free trade area within the space of ten years and for the wide-ranging development of cooperation in the political, economic and development policy fields.
The negotiations proved very difficult from the outset, especially because of the problems on both sides in regard to opening up their agricultural markets and because of the divergent positions on the use of designations of origin for port and sherry produced in South Africa.
<P>
Sensitive agricultural products can only be exempted from the liberalisation to a certain extent, because otherwise the agreement might not be WTO-compatible.
Despite these problems, the European Union has repeatedly confirmed its great political and economic interest in the agreement with South Africa.
The Vienna European Council called for the agreement to be concluded by the time of the Berlin special Council at the latest.
A global compromise was negotiated between Commissioner Pinheiro and the South African trade minister Mr Erwin in Davos on 29 January, on the margins of the world economic forum.
<P>
The German Presidency of the Council tried to achieve political agreement on the conclusion of that agreement in the Council on 22 February, on the basis of this compromise package, which was to have been formally confirmed in the Council on 22 March.
But it emerged at that Council meeting that there was still no consensus within the European Union on the conclusion of an agreement based on the compromise package negotiated by the Commission.
The main problem is the reservations expressed by several Member States about the proposed rules on the use of designations of origin for port and sherry.
In practice it is a question of the use of the designation port and sherry on the South African market for products produced in South Africa.
What is a particular headache for some Member States is that unsatisfactory rules might create a precedent for relations with other trade partners.
Similarly, some Member States are not happy with the negotiated import quotas and tariff-dismantling timetables for tinned fruit and fruit juices.
<P>
Given this situation, the Council welcomed the progress made in the last round of negotiations and requested the Commission to submit proposals for resolving the pending questions as soon as possible, with the aim of reaching political consensus on the conclusion of the agreement at the next Council meeting on 22 March.
At the same time the presidency confirmed that the EU was resolved to reach consensus before the special European Council meeting in Berlin on 24/25 March.
<P>
The Commission has already gone to work and opened bilateral talks with those Member States that still have problems with this.
We do not yet know the details of a possible solution.
Perhaps further talks will be needed with South Africa.
In the run-up to the Council of 22 January the South African leader of the negotiations, the trade minister Mr Erwin, sent a letter to Commissioner Pinheiro in which he actually categorically rejected any amendment of the compromise reached in Davos.
The German Presidency is fully aware how important this agreement is to political and economic relations with South Africa and of its importance as a clear sign of support for South African democracy and as a contribution to stabilising southern Africa.
<P>
In the next few weeks we will therefore resolutely support the Commission in its difficult task.
We are firmly resolved to keep to the timetable laid down by the European Council in Vienna - conclusion of the agreement by the time of the special Council in Berlin.
We are confident that all concerned will show the necessary flexibility to resolve the few remaining points of dispute.
You may rest assured that the German Presidency will do all in its power to ensure that the Council assents to the conclusion of the agreement in good time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
Madam President, ever since the abolition of apartheid in South Africa, the leaders of the European Union have constantly given President Mandela assurances that a fair agreement on trade would be concluded - a much-needed, strategic agreement which would encourage development in the poorest regions of South Africa, and which is of the utmost importance for the peace, stability and development of the whole southern African region.
<P>
The negotiations, which have been in progress for nearly four years, have not always reflected those fine promises, but have been marked on numerous occasions by the worst sort of protectionist tendencies, regardless of whether the goods involved were fruit and vegetables, wine, potatoes or cut flowers.
<P>
Time and again, Parliament and its delegation for relations with South Africa have called for the finalisation of such an agreement.
The Heads of State and Government, when they met in Cardiff and Vienna, promised to conclude the agreement as soon as possible, and no later than March 1999.
The reasons are obvious: the negotiations have been going on for far too long, the South African Parliament is to be dissolved in March, and Nelson Mandela's term as President will come to an end.
To put it mildly, it is embarrassing that now, in the final stages of the negotiations, some countries are prepared to assume the enormous political responsibility of jeopardising the agreement and thus the whole credibility of the European Union in the eyes of the third world.
How is anyone to feel confident about negotiating with the EU if we cannot finalise this agreement with South Africa?
<P>
What has Europe done?
Well, our predatory pricing tactics have forced down the price of tomatoes on the South African market, thereby putting thousands of women out of work - women who, in turn, provide for seven or eight other people - and now, at the last minute, we are quibbling over port and sherry.
This is an issue that has already been resolved during the negotiations.
I assume that the constructive approach which the Council has shown here will actually be carried through.
Of course, it is not just the European countries that are protesting with whom we should be having discussions: South Africa should also be a party to the talks.
South Africa also has to have something to show its citizens.
Should we really be jeopardising Europe's good name in this way?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Madam President, I shall open this debate on a positive note by expressing our thanks to Commissioner Pinheiro, who really did everything possible to put a good compromise on this agreement before the General Affairs Council.
Mr Pinheiro stuck his neck out.
I think it is in fact a great shame that he was let down by four Member States.
In my opinion, the issues involved - wine names, quotas of wine, fruit and a couple of juices - really did not merit such a fuss.
But I am glad that the matter of cut flowers, which was causing quite a few problems in my own country, has at least been resolved.
<P>
The talks have taken four years.
It was a very difficult dossier.
We knew that.
But the fisheries problem had already been sorted out, because a round of talks was held at the same time.
So I find it all the more regrettable that the problems were not resolved beforehand in the specialist Councils.
<P>
Thirdly, the social and economic situation in South Africa is downright bleak.
It is a great deal worse than we had expected back in 1994. Surely - and I put this question to the Council presidency - part of the reason is that we continue to close our European market to them?
So I wonder if we are not partly to blame.
Remember Cardiff: remember the promises made to Mr Mandela there.
And remember what was agreed in Vienna, that the dossier had to be completed.
<P>
My question to the German Presidency is this: what rabbits can you pull out of your hat in order to unblock the dossier?
I do not doubt that you have done your best.
But how are you going to unblock it?
I am calling on the presidency here, and in fact I am issuing you with a challenge: let us see what you are made of, and try to find a solution, because the people of South Africa are entitled to our continuing support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cars">
Madam President, we Europeans have good reason to be ashamed of the totally inadequate support we gave the people of South Africa during apartheid.
Are we to be shamed yet again?
We have often said how much we respect South Africa for the way it has tried to heal its wounds following the abolition of apartheid, and how much we admire and esteem President Mandela.
Consequently, we are mortified to learn that our Council of Ministers has been too weak to give its approval to the trade agreement with South Africa, an agreement that has taken an unconscionably long time to negotiate - three and a half years, to be precise.
<P>
The arguments put forward by the French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish ministers for not approving the agreement are trivial and petty in the extreme.
There is some cause for concern that their true objective is to leave the door open for a renegotiation of the whole agreement.
<P>
Consequently, I should like to ask the representative of the presidency if he can give his assurance that my concern is unfounded, that all the main elements of the agreement stand and that it will be approved in the near future, in other words by 22 March, without undergoing any substantial change.
If the European Parliament receives such an assurance from the presidency, then today's debate will have been worthwhile.
For my part, I can assure the Council that indignation is rife in the House over what we see as a betrayal of the strong desire that exists in Europe for an expansive and warm relationship with a country and a continent that are close to our hearts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Moreau">
Madam President, after more than three years of often difficult negotiations, the Commission and South Africa have achieved a draft agreement.
This House has already underlined the importance of this agreement by asking for the negotiations to be speeded up.
Having helped to eliminate the odious system of apartheid, we cannot ignore the fate of the people of South Africa.
Every effort must be made to ensure that the black population which has suffered so much finally sees an improvement in its living conditions. The European Union must help with this.
<P>
This is why my group is disagreeably surprised by the Council's rejection of this agreement.
Obviously the reasons cited must be taken into consideration, but they could be resolved at a later stage without jeopardising the whole agreement.
I must stress this point. Surely the agreement could be implemented and the problems raised could be sorted out later.
The Council's rejection sends the wrong signal to the South African people.
Therefore, on behalf of my group, I must ask you, Mr President-in-Office, to intervene in order to ensure that the Council urgently gives the go-ahead to an agreement which can only serve to help South Africa develop.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, first I would like to welcome you to your first part-session here. I can assure you that this new presidency of the Council already enjoys a good advance reputation and we hope that good reputation will be reflected in an equally good outcome to the negotiations with South Africa.
We are surprised that at its last meeting the Council did not accept the compromise Mr Pinheiro negotiated with South Africa.
Four years of negotiations means of course four years of toil on both sides.
We expected a great deal of South Africa after the bitter times of apartheid, a policy that was supported by many EU countries and not just financially.
<P>
I think it is, therefore, only appropriate that the European Union should support South Africa, and time is pressing.
Mr Mandela has tried his best.
He needs the support of this agreement for the forthcoming elections - for it is not just European elections that are about to be held, but South African elections too - and support not just from the Member States but from the presidency of the Council.
<P>
We do not want the debts of apartheid to have to be paid, because that the would mean that the population, the people of South Africa, would have to pay twice over.
That is one point.
But we also want to try to accommodate them, not just in regard to the wine and sherry market but also in an area that seems to be causing difficulties - for Germany, the Netherlands and Austria - namely the emigration clause.
I believe it is up to us to show that we can reach a rapid outcome by March, and that is what we request and urge you to do as President-in-Office of the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Posada Gonzalez">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, everyone thinks that the agreement with South Africa is necessary to maintain a burgeoning democracy in a country that could act as a role model for other African countries in the same geographical area.
Although we understand the United Kingdom's special attitude towards the South Africans, we would like to see the same understanding and tolerance of our own position on products which rival those of our Mediterranean economies, as 40 000 farmers reminded us the other day. I particularly have in mind products with such revered names as sherry, port and grappa, which are flooding our supermarkets.
<P>
We are not just opposed to the quantity of these products. Our opposition is chiefly aimed at labelling, which sparked off this dispute.
Consumers need clearer and more informative labelling, particularly as regards origin. France is waging a campaign in defence of French names such as champagne and cognac.
They are even tackling the Russians because of their Champansky. It is only logical that we should be anxious to protect our own designations of origin, because these reflect the cumulative cultural effect of generation upon generation of producers, and this is certainly appreciated by connoisseurs.
<P>
In addition to products covered by agreements on fishing, textiles and imports of competing agricultural products, the question of designations of origin is also a legitimate source of disagreement. We cannot accept this situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Madam President, the Council has acted wisely and consistently in rejecting the Pinheiro-Erwin compromise on the grounds that it does not respect the negotiating mandate which the Council itself gave the Commission.
This latest example of the Commission exceeding its mandate highlights the need for strict supervision of its role in trade negotiations.
The negotiating mandates must be sufficiently precise and their execution must be subject to constant monitoring by the Council. The Commission must not be allowed to sign draft agreements which appear to be binding on the Council and which put the countries with which we are negotiating in an uncertain position.
<P>
It must be made clear that it is not the Commission which gives undertakings on behalf of the EU but the Council acting as the representative of the Member States.
In the present case, although the Commission may be acting with the best of intentions in trying to reach an agreement with South Africa, it should not be allowed to exceed its mandate and irresponsibly offer to sacrifice the interests of whole sections of our agriculture, particularly at a time when, as we saw on Monday here in Brussels, European agriculture is experiencing very serious social problems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="Kinnock, Glenys (PSE).">
Madam President, as a veteran observer of these four-year long negotiations I suppose I should not have been surprised by the attitude, particularly of France and Spain, at Monday's meeting of the General Affairs Council.
How can they argue that the Davos package is too generous to President Mandela's South Africa?
How can such a ridiculous proposal as that on port and sherry be allowed to scupper the greatest opportunity that we have to offer real and practical solidarity to South Africa?
<P>
Contrary to what we have heard over here, South Africa has made considerable concessions on port and sherry in the interests of making a wide agreement.
The South African negotiators have brokered a very significant consensus in their own country in a very difficult situation.
Alex Erwin, the Trade Minister, speaking this morning in Cape Town, said that the decision on Monday was extremely disappointing.
He does this against a backdrop of increasing nervousness in the agriculture, industry, trade union and other sectors in his country.
Mr Erwin asked Europe to see sense, to avoid re-opening the package, and once again to talk about trade, development and cooperation.
<P>
We do not want to open up the wider negotiations, to talk about multilateral negotiations regarding trips and the WTO.
The time has come for all EU Member States to display realism, generosity and vision, and less of the petty short-sighted protectionism we saw on Monday.
Political vision is what we need to see now.
Both the South African Parliament and the European Parliament are anxious now to sign off this agreement once and for all before both in South Africa and here we move on to elections.
March 22 is the EU's last chance to complete this agreement and to show real solidarity with our partners in South Africa.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Mezzaroma">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as chairman of the delegation for relations with South Africa, I should like to thank the House for having agreed to draw up rapidly a resolution aimed at safeguarding our relations with this great country, following the collapse of the five-year compromise which was operated by the Commission and destroyed by the Council.
<P>
In my opinion, the Council has taken no account whatsoever of the political aspect of our relations.
South Africa needs help in consolidating a democracy which at present still seems very fragile; it needs to develop and progress; it needs people to teach the inhabitants how to work and how to become part of a world which is unknown to many of them.
South Africa should be helped and not humiliated, especially now that the second democratic elections are about to take place, in May.
<P>
Europe must not miss this opportunity.
Europe is expert in the art of work, it has strong traditions, it can provide training, and it has SMEs that are ready to teach others how to see a job through and how to develop employment.
All these talents should be passed on, so as to help promote a great nation which, until a few years ago, did not know the meaning of freedom, democracy and progress.
<P>
The Council should consider all these aspects and not dwell on four fruit juices.
<P>
Next Monday, our delegation will be in South Africa.
I should like to take President Mandela and the Speaker of the South African Parliament, Mrs Juvuala - who was our guest in Strasbourg three months ago - a message of hope and fraternity and a positive response to their request for assistance.
I should like to tell them that we wish to negotiate as equals but with understanding for their problems, not merely to listen, and also that we can overcome the obstacles which - regrettably - have emerged on our side and have wrecked the compromise.
<P>
I hope that the joint resolution will be adopted tomorrow, so as to restore a relationship which is currently looking rather jaded, it seems to me.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Barros Moura">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as long as I have been involved in politics I have fought against apartheid and I do not think there is anything I do not know about the subject.
I say that by way of introduction to my comments on this issue.
I think that the Council did the right thing in blocking this agreement until the points on port, sherry and other related issues have been rectified. These points are very important for our citizens and electors.
Whereas we as Members of this House represent our electors, Commissioner Pinheiro only represents himself.
Let me repeat that: he only has himself to represent.
That is why he can afford to be so relaxed about solving the sherry and port issue.
<P>
Therefore, whilst I am all in favour of rapidly concluding an agreement that would meet the key requirements of our friends in South Africa and strengthen the anti-racist democratic system in that country, I am also appealing for a sensible approach which recognises the interests of our own producers.
My English friends who have spoken in this debate will know from their history lessons that port is produced in Portugal.
Furthermore, they are linked to that history themselves.
That is why they should be defending the authenticity of this product.
I would be pleased if those historical links did not stop with the Methuen Treaty, but continued with present-day port.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kittelmann">
Madam President, I am not particularly pleased about the reason for this debate, but I am pleased that in this case we have to settle two fundamental questions in a short space of time.
Mr Volmer said in his charming fashion: we are firmly resolved, we are confident, we will do our utmost.
In the same breath he added: but we do not yet know what the various components of the solution will look like.
Thirdly, he said: South Africa has rejected any amendment of the agreement out of hand.
Somewhere in the middle of all this is the discretion that we actually have at our disposal.
<P>
Like all the previous speakers on this subject, I personally regard what we are doing with South Africa as a scandal.
Anyone who looks at developments in South Africa can see that things are going downhill, that social conditions are getting worse and worse, that social conflict can be expected when Mbeki takes over from Mandela, because the people who were promised the moon can be given nothing.
We had all hoped this southern African country could hold the promise of economic growth, from which we could draw some hope again for this supposedly lost continent.
And what does the Council do, and incidentally not just after this rejection?
The whole business has been dragging on since 1995, with one scandalous decision after another!
The Council is deliberately allowing a country that needs our help to go downhill.
That has psychological consequences too!
It is a question of credibility, of honesty, which is why you, esteemed representative of the Council, must be as tough and rigorous as you can!
Germany also hesitated for a long time before openly discussing the agricultural problems, but now, like other countries, it is doing so.
I beg you not to underestimate the implications this also has for the European Union!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Spiers">
Madam President, I want to make two points.
Firstly, we are talking here about a package.
Both sides have made compromises.
If you try to re-draw the package at this stage you will lose the whole deal.
Various Members have talked about wines and spirits and the labels for port and sherry.
They should read what is in the agreement.
South Africa agrees to phase out the labels in third countries within five years.
In any case, it is a minuscule market.
They will phase them out in SADC over eight years.
They will keep them in SACU for twelve years pending settlement in the WTO.
The EU should not try by thuggish pressure to subvert South Africa's position in what are multilateral negotiations.
<P>
Secondly, I agree with Mrs Oomen-Ruijten that Commissioner Pinheiro has behaved well.
That does not apply to all the Commission.
DG VI has been at its protectionist worst and everyone knows that is very bad indeed.
Behind all the arguments about wines and spirits, port and sherry lies raw agricultural protectionism.
Spain raised problems with agriculture.
France raised problems with export refunds.
If the Heads of Government cannot assert themselves and overcome these sectional interests we risk losing the whole agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Volmer">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I have taken very careful note of your criticisms of the decisions, but I feel that in principle you have tended to support the approach of the presidency of the Council.
After all, the Council has made enormous efforts to finally get this agreement concluded, for we rate its importance as highly as many of the speakers here.
Considering that we introduced economic sanctions in the past to bring down the apartheid system, it would be only logical to give economic aid now in order to support the process of democratisation.
<P>
The European Union must take a decision of principle between solidarity with developing countries that are going through a difficult phase of transformation and the national interests of individual Member States.
I think that what many Member States are demanding for themselves, namely the improvement of their own development chances by structuring their economy in a certain way, applies all the more and all the more clearly for third world countries. That is why basically all I can do is take up your criticism and your ideas and put them before the Council in the hope that the countries that are blocking the conclusion of the agreement will also take due note of what you have said and perhaps review their position again.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Harmonisation of social legislation on transport
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0032/99) by Mr Grosch, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on transport policy and the harmonisation of social legislation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Grosch">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it certainly was a most interesting enterprise to examine the social legislation on transport on behalf of the House, for the different rates of development of liberalisation, which is far advanced in air, sea and road transport but lagging behind in rail and inland waterway transport, also affect the development of social legislation.
These nuances had to be taken into account in the report.
The social aspects on which the report focussed naturally concern working time, safety and health, qualifications and training, mobility in general and not least employment.
As an important economic branch in freight and passenger transport, the transport sector is clearly situated in a field of tension between the demands of competition on the one hand and safety and working conditions on the other.
In road and rail transport, it forms part of the public service and is also the basis for the mobility we want for all citizens; with 6 million employed and 3 million self-employed workers, it also represents an important branch of employment.
<P>
For these reasons we believe we must look at the social provisions in the field of transport separately, for in areas where liberalisation has occurred without the necessary minimum social rules, competition has had an adverse effect on working conditions and the safety of workers and therefore also of the public.
This unregulated competition not only has destructive social effects but also has questionable economic effects.
So the kind of realistic and pragmatic harmonisation proposed in this report does not conflict with sensible liberalisation measures - quite the contrary.
It will provide the stable foundation this economy needs for sustainable growth.
I regard that as the basis of this report, namely complementarity between liberalisation and social harmonisation.
<P>
Of course - and this is the first aspect on which the report focussed - dialogue with the social partners is vital in the preparation of all the measures to be taken.
In this context it must be ensured that they are fully represented; but even if the negotiations do not produce any results, the Commission will have to take legislative action and must not use the inconclusive negotiations as a reason for delay.
<P>
The directives on working time must now cover every sector of transport.
Road transport is a good example because it shows, on the one hand, that the Commission needs to take initiatives but on the other that this is not just a matter of driving time and rest periods.
In addition, the concepts of mobile and non-mobile workers and the various activities involved in the job need new, common definitions in all areas, especially road transport.
The flexibility proposed in this report must relate to the various aspects of transport, including working time, but must never call in question the principles of the health and safety of the employees and therefore also of the public.
<P>
Fifty thousand transport-related deaths - there is a report that speaks volumes about road safety.
Strikes that paralyse whole countries in a matter of hours, ferry disasters - these were signs of the need for action here.
We believe we should not wait for accidents or strikes to create new pressure for taking initiatives in areas where they are still needed.
But good rules are not enough in themselves.
They will only be effective and even revive the market if uniform checks are carried out and inappropriate behaviour carries uniform penalties in all European Union states.
No country may fall short of the minimum controls and Parliament must not be made to wait another four years for the reports evaluating these controls.
In this context, modern technology that can improve safety must be used to full advantage and in our view there are no economic interests, such as producers' interests, that allow or justify any failure to draw on technological progress.
I need only cite the example of the tachograph.
Compared to the technology available now, I would describe the tachograph that is still in use today as well-nigh medieval.
<P>
The report also places great emphasis on access to employment.
Qualifications and their mutual recognition are one of the cornerstones of transport policy, as is working time.
They guarantee a quality service and safe working conditions.
In air transport, for example, the Council seems reluctant to clear this hurdle, although the aircraft cabin crew perform important safety tasks.
<P>
Taking account of social aspects in the transport system also implies ensuring the mobility of the public in its various forms, which includes the needs of persons with reduced mobility.
This concerns the public service and, of course, calls for a very general discussion.
Let me conclude by commenting on the employment aspect of transport policy.
Every year our Member States spend more than EUR 180 billion on employment, which is why our committee believes that every proposed measure must always be examined as to its employment impact.
<P>
Finally, I would say that if we want to create a transport area in the European Community, in which working conditions are no longer detrimental to the health, safety and quality of life of its citizens, we must consent to a minimum of social harmonisation, for there are aspects we need to regulate that the market alone will never be able to regulate.
The Treaty of Amsterdam may offer us limited means of doing this.
So it is in our hands.
Thank you for your attention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="McMahon">
Madam President, Mr Grosch's report introduces wide-ranging issues covering all the social aspects of transport.
The fact that his report was carried virtually unanimously in the Committee on Transport and Tourism shows that there is a great deal of support within Parliament for provision in the social area of transport.
Indeed, Mr Grosch's report will be complemented by the forthcoming report from Mr Chanterie, on behalf of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment dealing with the extension of the general working time directive and my own report on lorry drivers' hours.
<P>
There is no doubt that there is a direct link between the proper regulation of working time, the health and safety of employees and, of course, most important of all, passenger safety, irrespective of the mode of transport used.
The Commission must be congratulated on assisting the social partners in the railway industry in achieving an agreement on 30 September last year.
We rightly believe that a similar agreement should be found in the other transport sectors.
Unfortunately, this has not happened and that is why I am producing a report on lorry drivers' hours because the Commission was forced to resort to the legislative route.
<P>
The other area which gives us some cause for concern is the slow progress being made in the harmonisation of flight times and rest periods for air crews.
We are particularly perturbed about this.
<P>
In conclusion, the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment supports the report.
We believe several difficulties have arisen with the transport industry as a result of liberalisation.
I would mention in particular postal services.
In many Member States liberalisation of the postal services has resulted in considerable problems in this sector.
As a consequence, postmen throughout the Union are being put on part-time contracts, in many instances without adequate pension cover.
I believe that the concept of universal service should be the norm and it should be applied in the postal services operating throughout the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Schlechter">
Madam President, Mr Grosch is trying with this report to rekindle a discussion which has been going on for fifteen years or so, aimed at improving Regulations Nos 3820/85 and 3821/85.
In the meantime, the Social Affairs Council has adopted a common position on the proposal for a working-time directive.
<P>
I think it is outrageous to regulate all activities in the private and public sectors and yet to leave unregulated a sector such as road transport which employs over seven million people.
In my opinion, in order to put a stop to all the abuses which have occurred in the past and will continue to occur in the future, we must consider annualising working time in the transport sector. We must also decide that any hours worked over and above the standard 48 hours must be classified and paid as overtime, including social security contributions and taxes.
I believe this is the only way of persuading employers to stop requiring workers to do unpaid overtime, and it would have the major benefit of allowing professional drivers to take advantage of the right to retire at 55 because of the number of hours they have worked annually and the contributions they have paid.
<P>
Finally, I realise that Commissioner Kinnock recently proposed to allow the working time of a professional driver to include all work, in other words all the time when he is at his employer's disposal.
This is a long-standing trade union demand.
In addition, in a fairly specific sector like the transport sector we could go along with Mr Kinnock's proposals to extend the 48-hour week to 60 hours if the average of 48 hours per week is not exceeded over four months.
<P>
However, this complex concept will certainly pose problems in practice, and I believe that not enough thought has gone into it.
Although calculating 48 hours over four months may not pose any problems for a large company, it could be difficult for small and medium-sized firms. The supervisory authorities in the Member States would also find this difficult.
The new tachograph will clearly help, but until then this idea will only cause problems.
<P>
In any case, the supervisory authorities responsible for implementing the regulations must be required to set up a system of checks and sanctions which is both effective and acts as a deterrent.
Mr Grosch's report should lead to the House exerting the necessary pressure on the Commission and the Council of Ministers in order to ensure that the intolerable situation in the transport sector ceases once and for all. In this respect I must thank the rapporteur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendes Bota">
Madam President, the liberalisation of transport markets, a process started in 1993 as part of the implementation of the internal market, has resulted in greater dynamism and diversification of supply and has in general led to lower prices for consumers.
However, the downside of these benefits has been the heavy social and professional cost paid by workers in the transport sector.
The general public is normally only aware of such problems when heavy goods vehicle drivers periodically paralyse the whole of Europe with long-running strikes which inflict serious damage on the economy as a whole and capture the media limelight.
The truth is that the climate of exaggerated competition in the transport sector - between companies, between the Member States themselves and between the European Union and the Central and Eastern European countries - has led to instability on the job market, lower wages, less consistent social security provisions and dumping in terms of prices, taxation and the vehicles used.
<P>
The extent of liberalisation in the various transport sectors - road, air, rail, shipping and postal services - still ranges from total liberalisation to a monopoly of the few.
This range is also reflected in the working conditions and social protection enjoyed by workers.
But there should be a guaranteed minimum level.
That is why the Council and the Commission need to intervene to provide for harmonisation of social legislation in the transport sector, as improved safety, greater job security and improved health protection for the workforce also implies higher productivity for companies and enhanced safety for passengers.
<P>
Nevertheless, there are two particular points that cannot go unmentioned. The first relates to road transport and is the issue of working time.
This includes not only driving time and time spent loading and unloading the vehicle, but also all the other time during which the worker is at his employer's disposal. This needs to be approached cautiously and impartially, because if companies are faced with an unreasonable definition of working time, they are in danger of becoming non-viable and possibly going bankrupt.
<P>
Lastly, although we support the Commission's firm approach in not extending the scandalous fiscal privilege of duty-free sales, we also exhort the Commission to adopt specific support measures for the sea transport sector, in view of the serious consequences that this change will have on existing jobs.
<P>
In conclusion, we would like to congratulate Mr Grosch on his excellent report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Madam President, I too am happy to add my own words of appreciation to the rapporteur, who has done an excellent job here, and to the three previous speakers, namely Mr McMahon and my friends Mr Schlechter and Mr Mendes Bota.
<P>
I have said right from the start that working time has to be the decisive factor in the transport sector, inclusive of other activities over and above merely sitting behind the wheel or otherwise travelling in a vehicle, ship or whatever.
On the other hand, however, there has to be the necessary flexibility in implementing the rules, so that hauliers are not forced to be on the road or travelling for longer than is strictly necessary.
If you work longer hours in one week and can be compensated with shorter hours another week, that means that you have to be able to work longer hours in order to complete or conclude a journey.
<P>
Mr Grosch is mistaken on one point.
We have already introduced rules for the digital tachograph.
All we are waiting for now is the latest technical data and then these can be made generally applicable, but the rules are there, and the Commission has been waiting to put forward this proposal so that both things can be dealt with together.
<P>
We must be careful not to get it wrong.
The frequent reports of driving and rest periods being exceeded - and grossly exceeded, according to the press - are prompted mainly by the fact that rest periods which are too short are counted as not having been taken at all.
This gives rise to idiotic figures of 48 hours' consecutive driving time, which does not happen and is impossible.
<P>
I have just one or two more comments to make.
Firstly, there must be no discrimination between countries.
Secondly, the safety risks of road passenger transport must not be exaggerated.
It is the safest mode of transport that we know, with the lowest percentage of accidents per kilometre travelled.
And lastly, in maritime transport it is essential, in order to maintain proper levels of infrastructure and training, that we should indeed have very strict rules on this for European crews too, but especially shorter sailing times overall, not working hours, not work and rest periods, but simply a reduction in the length of time that ships are under way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Moreau">
Madam President, the work of Mr Grosch and the Committee on Transport and Tourism deserves close attention.
Social harmonisation in the transport sector is essential and must be keenly pursued.
It is essential first for the sake of economic efficiency, which means addressing the glaring inequality between modes of transports, particularly rail and sea transport compared with road transport.
Secondly, it is essential in order to improve working and living conditions for employees and to encourage employment.
Finally, it is very important for safety, particularly in road transport.
<P>
The improvements suggested by our group and accepted by the committee confirm certain important ideas.
These include the need to reduce working time without cutting wages, the development of social dialogue and the principle of social non-regression, so that progress for some does not lead to a backward step for others.
<P>
These principles, together with the demand made in Mr Grosch's report for a clear definition of working time in the road transport sector, which should include all the time when a worker is at his employer's disposal, and the confirmation of the role to be played by the public services, should help to promote a progressive approach to the construction of Europe with technical progress and know-how being used to ensure the advance of civilisation. This involves using everyone's skills but without opposing existing diversity, which would bring everyone down to the lowest common denominator.
<P>
Finally, I would stress that we must be very careful to ensure that the proposals in the Grosch report are more than just good intentions. They must be incorporated into all the specific decisions which Parliament is called upon to make, particularly in sectors excluded from the working time directive.
<P>
The view which the people of Europe have of the European Union is dependent on the assertion and effective implementation of the principles of social justice.
There is a major deficit in this area which must be remedied without delay.
Popular sympathy, support and participation are required in order to breathe life into the objective of social harmonisation at the highest level so that the Europe that people want can be constructed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Madam President, people's increasing mobility and the very rapid growth of the travel industry make it urgently necessary to approximate certain social rules at a high level, if only for transport safety reasons.
This particularly concerns transport by air and road.
In the field of bus and coach transport, which is a welcome form of transport for environmental reasons, we need Europe-wide rules to guarantee that overtired drivers do not put passengers and others involved at risk.
<P>
I want to address recitals D and G, in which the rapporteur says that social harmonisation should eliminate competition which is damaging to health, quality of life and mobility and that working time is an important factor in protecting transport safety.
Any move to eliminate competition is dangerous on principle.
But I believe that in this case, and especially since it is a question of people's safety, it is justified.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sindal">
Madam President, harmonisation of social legislation in transport policy has been the focus of much attention from our committee and the Commission, and I am sure that everyone in this Chamber can see the problems.
I also think that we can agree on certain solutions, but when it comes to decisions in the Council, that is when things slow down.
Should good conditions give way to inferior ones?
That is what is at stake when harmonisation is under discussion.
How do we harmonise?
The report shows the extent of the problem, or shows how many opinions there are on this matter.
Transport is a cross-border process and is therefore a suitable area for drawing up common rules.
There must be common traffic rules and there must be common provisions on the environment and working time, as the rapporteur also pointed out.
On the other hand, we have very large national transport industries.
But national rules and traditions are so divergent that social provisions often determine the ability to compete, another point that has been raised here this evening.
We have the employees on one side and the transport customers on the other.
Safety and working time go together, and that must not be at the expense of competitiveness.
In my view, there should be European rules where they are needed, but to a certain extent we need to take account of national agreements and traditions.
As soon as we bring social conditions, taxes and duties into the harmonisation context, things go badly wrong.
I think that we have an excellent document here, but if we are to achieve a reasonable result, we must see what the possibilities are in the Council of Ministers, and we must see at what level we need to harmonise.
I repeat my question: must good conditions give way to inferior ones?
That is what we should be discussing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Stenmarck">
Madam President, let me begin by thanking Mr Grosch for the effort he has put into preparing this report.
There is much that is constructive in the report, on which we now have to take a position, for example where the rapporteur states that the aim of harmonising social legislation is not to control market forces.
<P>
I am one of those who has doubts about carrying harmonisation of social legislation in the different countries to extremes.
As I see it, social legislation is mainly the responsibility of the individual states.
I think this is in keeping with the principle of subsidiarity, which we refer to in many other contexts, and so to a large extent this would be the appropriate way to go.
I would also question whether it is actually possible to proceed in any other way.
There are already huge differences in the conditions that exist in the Member States, and they will increase dramatically with each enlargement of the Union to include the countries of Eastern Europe.
However, that is not to say that certain areas of social policy would not benefit from having common rules.
For instance, there is a need for greater traffic safety, and no one would dispute that having common rules would improve the situation.
<P>
In my view, however, the rapporteur oversteps the mark when he says that a reduction in working time without cuts in wages is one of the major objectives in the transport industry.
I do not believe that an across-the-board reduction in working time is the answer where traffic safety is concerned. Instead, the hours that people work at a stretch should be reduced and regular rest periods introduced.
Clearly, there is good reason to find a common solution at European level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
Madam President, I would like to join with others who have spoken in the debate in congratulating Mr Grosch on his report which is generally complimentary towards the Commission.
Naturally therefore, I reciprocate by thanking him and his colleagues on the work they have undertaken introducing this report on social harmonisation in transport.
<P>
It is a helpful reminder that, whilst liberalisation to strengthen transport performance and systems must be pursued, it is essential to ensure that it is undertaken in a way that pays proper regard to the reasonable need of employees and to the security and service of the general public.
That is a point Mr Grosch has made himself and it has been echoed throughout the debate.
<P>
On the major issue of working time, it is clear that there is hardly any divergence of view between Parliament and the Commission.
I have to advise the House, however, that, as most honourable Members will know, the Commission has absolutely no power to make proposals relating to the desire that reductions in working time can take place without loss of wages, a point made by Mrs Moreau and by others in the course of the debate.
<P>
The Community directive on working time - and therefore the current proposals - are based, as the House will know, on the protection of the health and safety of workers.
Whilst it is obvious that proper application of that principle could bring about reductions in working hours in some cases, management of the practical consequences of changes in the law must be left to negotiations between employers and employees, preferably through normal social dialogue.
Management of that kind obviously cannot - and, indeed, should not - be done by the Commission or by the law.
<P>
Concerns have been expressed about the levels of checks on driving and rest periods and also about the levels of fines and penalties imposed for contraventions.
In response, I would say to the House that I agree that controls must be effective.
Otherwise, they are meaningless.
As Mr Grosch's report recommends, the Commission will consequently propose an increase in the minimum number of checks that have to be carried out.
The Commission has also been aware of the concerns relating to fines and penalties for some time and we are currently therefore preparing a report on the efficiency and effectiveness of enforcement measures.
That report will address all aspects of these questions.
Naturally I will acquaint the House with our findings when we have completed that work.
<P>
The report before us suggests that there is a need to evaluate measures in the transport sector in terms of their effect on jobs, working conditions and mobility in general.
I hope that everyone in the House will accept that neither I nor my colleagues in the transport sector would neglect such issues when preparing proposals.
I have to say, however, that I do not think there is any significant added value to be gained from drafting a general report that considers these issues.
The House will be aware that all the proposals we present take account of such issues by providing for flexibility or for derogations or for transition periods.
I hope the House will recognise that this is a practical and transparent way of doing things and has the essential effect of being a continually applied principle of policy rather than a periodic report which merely offers comments.
<P>
That is, however, a relatively minor point in the overall context of this report and it should not detract in any way from the substance of the work done by Mr Grosch and his colleagues which I am very glad to be able to commend to the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Kinnock.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Including Turkey in Socrates and Youth for Europe
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0048/99) by Mrs Heinisch, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, onI. the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision amending the basic Decision relating to the Socrates programme to include Turkey among the beneficiary countries (COM(96)0199 - C4-0293/96-96/0130(COD))II. the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision amending the basic Decision relating to the third phase of the Youth for Europe programme to include Turkey among the beneficiary countries (COM(96)0199 - C4-0294/96-96/0131(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Heinisch">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have now spent nearly three years considering whether Turkey can participate in the Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes.
Now that these programmes are coming to a close at the end of this year and we are already discussing follow-up programmes, this subject has finally come onto Parliament's agenda.
One reason why it has taken so long is that people tended to link the subject of this report to the basic question of relations between the EU and Turkey and of Turkey's full membership of the European Union.
<P>
Article 28 of the EU-Turkey Association Agreement already provided for the possibility of Turkish accession to the EU.
The December 1997 European Council in Luxembourg, and in particular the June 1998 Cardiff European Council, confirmed the importance of binding Turkey more closely to the European Union in every area.
From the outset that also implied Turkish participation in Community programmes such as Socrates and Youth for Europe.
<P>
However, the Council has repeatedly noted that the applicant states must first achieve institutional stability, as a guarantee of a democratic and constitutional system, of the protection of human rights and of respect for and the protection of minorities.
There is no doubt that the human rights situation in Turkey, especially in regard to the treatment of minorities, remains unsatisfactory, as reflected in the most recent annual report by Amnesty International.
Moreover, Turkey's policy of obstructing Cyprus' application for accession is not acceptable.
Let me say that quite plainly.
<P>
But I do not want to go into any further detail today on the current human rights situation.
We have made our position on this clear on several occasions and in a variety of reports, as most recently in the Swoboda report by our committee on the development of relations with Turkey and on the European strategy for Turkey.
We have said all that needs saying on that subject.
Parliament's demands have been set out in numerous documents.
So this report confines itself to the question of Turkey's participation in the education and training programmes.
The wider-ranging discussions on Turkey's accession to the EU distract us from the objectives we are actually pursuing with the exchange programmes and which should really be our main yardstick when we look at this question.
<P>
The Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes were developed in order to teach young people the values of tolerance, democracy and active citizenship.
A declared aim of the European Union in establishing these programmes is to enable young people to play their part in building Europe, for young people who are brought up in a spirit of openness and tolerance are the most promising architects of a peaceful and humane Europe.
That is precisely why we should try to bind young people more closely to the idea of Europe and to its values.
That is why we began by opening these programmes to young people from the EFTA states and then also to young people from the associated Central and Eastern European states and also Cyprus and Malta.
That is why we must not simply leave Turkey out in the cold.
<P>
One of the tasks named in the justification for the first phase of Socrates was to put Europe within the reach of the man in the street and to give it a human dimension.
With that in mind, Turkey seems almost predestined to take part in the exchange programmes.
Europe must be brought into the field of vision of young people in Turkey, for it is these young people who are open to change in their country and are forward-looking enough to bring it about.
Moreover, young people have a very basic and responsible role to play in the process of democratisation and rapprochement between peoples.
<P>
The potential that exists here is shown by the fact that people under the age of 25 make up more than 50 % of Turkish society.
That offers a huge opportunity!
Of course we can only reach a fraction of these young people with our programmes.
But just think of the enormous amplifying effect produced by young people who gain positive personal experience from these programmes.
That is why we must offer young Turks a chance to get to know our western European culture and the way we treat fundamental rights and human rights for themselves.
This does actually work, as we have seen from the existing cooperation schemes between European youth and students' organisations.
<P>
Let me also emphasise again that we will seek fair participation of minorities and especially Kurds when we carry out the programmes.
The violent disputes that are now occurring on European soil make no difference here.
But we cannot achieve that through votes or suchlike.
Instead, we must carefully monitor the participation of the various minorities by drawing up an annual report.
<P>
In conclusion, let me just say that in my opinion we should remember the well-known saying by Jean Monnet, who kept emphasising that all European efforts at integration must in the end be based on bringing people closer together and not just uniting nations.
Closer cooperation among young people and the offer of exchange grants are important factors for strengthening democracy and respect for human rights in Turkey.
So both are an important step in terms of binding Turkey to the west in the long term.
I would therefore ask you to support me in calling for Turkey to participate in the Community's education and training and youth exchange programmes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Schwaiger">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, exchanges between pupils and young people from Turkey and from the European Union offer an excellent opportunity to promote mutual understanding between our people and citizens.
They also encourage Turkey to open up more to the democratic and constitutional states of the European Union.
The Committee on External Economic Relations therefore unanimously endorses Mrs Renate Heinisch's excellent report.
<P>
We want to see young people in Turkey participate more closely in the long-term construction of a pluralist society within a constitutional state, as the Turkish social partners have repeatedly demanded.
The adoption of this report would also be a sign that the European Union is gradually living up to its responsibility towards our great neighbour in the south by formulating a medium and long-term strategy for Turkey, and that areas of cooperation are constantly growing and being strengthened so that in the long term they will manage not only to eclipse the conflicts of the day - indeed we have been discussing Öcalan today - but also to eradicate them in the long term, with the growth of a new society in Turkey.
<P>
Commissioner, the European Parliament for its part is prepared to promote cooperation in other areas too, in addition to the areas covered by this Heinisch report, so that the European Union can successfully complete all its unfinished homework - here I am thinking mainly of financial aid.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Elchlepp">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I shall be brief.
My group is also in favour of extending the Youth for Europe programme to Turkey, although this decision has nothing to do with our everyday political relations with Turkey or with our serious reservations about certain domestic conditions in Turkey.
Why?
The Youth for Europe programme pursues its own educational objective, which is to promote tolerance among young people towards other ways of thought and life in other countries, through projects of intercultural encounters and exercises in solidarity based on practical participation in local schemes, to name one example.
<P>
The programme is aimed at encouraging personal experience and making young people less vulnerable to nationalist movements.
The young Turks who visit my country, even if some of them are hand-picked, do have their first chance to really get to know Europe and to correct the biased picture of Europe they may have received from their national press.
The softening of set ways of thought and the advent of a new generation can bring about socio-political change in a country.
That is precisely why we must support the dialogue with young people in Turkey, with the help also of this democracy programme. To all those who are against it I would say: the young Turks we invite to our countries should not be made to pay for the wrongs of their government.
We cannot combat nationalist attitudes while at the same time saying no to a cross-frontier dialogue with young people in Turkey.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Monfils">
Madam President, although Mrs Heinisch's report is a very good one, it clearly poses a political problem, as has just been mentioned.
This is because it proposes to let Turkey benefit from the Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes even though, by the rapporteur's own admission, the human rights situation in Turkey is still giving cause for concern.
Recent events are also not indicative of any change for the better in Turkey: I am of course referring to the arrest, detention and trial conditions of Abdullah Öcalan, and also to Turkey's reactions to the European Union's statements and proposals calling for Turkey to solve its human rights problems.
What has Turkey's response been?
It has said that the EU's statements simply add to the list of items to be resolved prior to cooperation being extended between Europe and Turkey.
The mind boggles!
<P>
In view of this situation, the sensible course of action might have been to refer this report back to committee in order to allow time for reflection.
However, this will not happen and so we must decide what to do.
Some people may consider, as has just been said, that the young people of Turkey cannot be held responsible for the current problems in their country and that perhaps closer ties with the EU could in the long run steer Turkey towards greater democracy, greater respect for the resolutions of international organisations, improved justice and more freedom.
<P>
However, others, myself included, consider that to vote for Mrs Heinisch's report would be tantamount to telling Turkey that it can take any liberties, that it can refuse to make any gestures and that it can continue to take everything offered by Europe without giving anything in return.
We would also be saying that Turkey can continue to violate human rights while arrogantly ignoring the fact that the basic principle of the EU, to which Turkey wants to accede, is actually absolute respect for human rights.
<P>
You cannot be heavy-handed in negotiations, as Turkey has been, but I feel that the European Union is being too timid with Turkey, whereas with the applicant countries of Eastern Europe the EU is being very demanding about their legal systems and the protection of human rights.
<P>
The ELDR Group wishes to give the young people of Turkey a chance, which is why we will not be voting against the report, although it would be wrong to think that Turkey's current attitude is not supported by its young people.
Nevertheless, we should still give them a chance, but Turkey should not be allowed to regard a positive vote as another victory and as a ratification of its current policy of arbitrary executions which are attacks on freedom of expression.
This is why our group intends to abstain.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Guinebertière">
Madam President, this report on including Turkey in the Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes has been the subject of much debate in the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media. We have also been awaiting decisions for a long time given that the first exchange took place in September 1996.
The programmes concerned will end in 1999 and the new Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes will start in 2000, when they should be open to Turkey in accordance with certain procedures to be established.
<P>
In the current context, I am therefore wondering what sort of urgent message we need to send to Turkey.
Clearly, such programmes are a way of imparting the values of a community based on democracy and tolerance of other people and other cultures, not to mention all the other virtues of education and training.
In this respect, I agree that the Socrates programme should be extended as broadly as possible.
However, I must point out that an amendment tabled by my colleagues on the Culture Committee, which stated that this decision should enter into force after the European Parliament has verified that human rights are being respected by Turkey, has been rejected.
<P>
For this reason, the members of our group are to vote freely and according to their consciences on this report. I myself intend to abstain.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ceyhun">
Madam President, I think that human rights can only be assured in a country if there are enough people there who stand up for them.
And that is precisely the point of today's debate. We unreservedly support Turkey's participation in the Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes because we believe that we can make an important contribution by giving young people in Turkey a chance to use the opportunity offered by our programmes to turn their country, Turkey, which, sadly, is rightly described as not sufficiently democratic at this moment, into a democratic republic.
In that sense we regard Mrs Heinisch's report as very useful.
We certainly endorse it and believe that this report, today's discussion and, I hope, the vote in favour will act as a signal in Turkey.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Madam President, happily we do not need to wait for Turkey's young people to learn about Europe.
There are a lot of young Turkish people living in Europe, and they spread the word within Turkey.
So I do not see such a pressing need for decisions today.
<P>
In 1996, the Commission submitted its proposal to have Turkey included in the Socrates, Youth for Europe and Leonardo programmes.
In the meantime other countries have been admitted, but specifically because of its human rights record, Turkey remained excluded.
The European Parliament backed that exclusion in 1996.
<P>
At this stage too, the Social Affairs Committee wonders, to my mind quite properly, whether we should not hold back on budgetary measures for implementation of these programmes until there has been more progress on solutions to the Cyprus and Kurdish questions.
After all, our debate a few hours ago on the Kurdish question and the Öcalan affair are proof enough that Parliament still regards the situation in Turkey as highly problematic.
<P>
Everyone recognises the value of the programmes as a means of promoting mutual understanding and respect amongst individuals and peoples.
But what guarantees do we have that participation in these programmes will be open to young people in Turkey from all the various population groups? I have no illusions about this at all.
It would surely be sending the wrong signal if we approved Turkish participation and opened the door now, at this dramatic moment just before the elections.
We know very well that a start cannot be made before the year 2000. So why should we start making preparations just as Parliament is pressing Turkey to show some real movement on human rights?
We must be logical and consistent and not send out the wrong signals.
<P>
We are basically in agreement with the proposal, but we shall abstain because we think that this is absolutely the worst possible time to be sending out this signal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Vanhecke">
Madam President, first of all I would state my firm belief that as Europeans we have every interest in having the best possible relations, political and cultural, with all our neighbours, and naturally that goes for our neighbour Turkey as well.
However, I have the feeling, with this proposal to admit Turkey to the group of countries eligible for Socrates and Youth for Europe, that Parliament is firstly making itself seriously ridiculous and, secondly, that we are committing an error of principle.
<P>
We are making ourselves ridiculous here in Parliament because for years now, and in any case since the final talks on the Customs Union in 1995, we have been threatening Turkey that there had to be progress on Cyprus or on the Kurdish question, otherwise we would have to see, and Parliament would then block this or that dossier.
Well, I should like to know what progress there has been since then, on Cyprus for example.
I am not aware of any.
Parliament makes itself ridiculous by constantly uttering threats and not following them through.
<P>
Secondly, we are committing a particularly grave error of principle in embroidering further, without protest, on the position of the Council and the Commission and in seeing Turkey as a candidate for membership of the European Union. That is absurd!
Historically, culturally and even in purely geographical terms, Turkey is not part of the continent of Europe - or at least only 3 % of it is.
Europe is not a product like a soft drink or dog food; unless I am very much mistaken, it has evolved from a social, cultural and historical base.
<P>
In short, and I will end here, Parliament should have the courage to tell our Turkish neighbour that we wish to maintain ties of the greatest friendship and cooperation, but that Turkey is not a European country and so cannot be a candidate for membership of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sichrovsky">
Madam President, this whole debate in fact shows up the dilemma of human rights discussions in the European Parliament.
We support this report, perhaps also because we believe that there should be no abstentions when it comes to human rights questions.
We must decide for or against, support or impede the process.
We think Turkey must be included in the educational programmes because the level of education of a society always has a direct bearing on the progress of democracy.
<P>
We can and must certainly use every political means of persuading Turkey to become more democratic.
But we must not punish the young people for the sins of their political leaders.
These leaders will not change their behaviour if we exclude young people from the educational and cultural programmes.
Perhaps it is a sign of political intelligence if for once we show the ability to differentiate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Musumeci">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Italian group Alleanza Nazionale very much welcomes the proposal for Turkey to be included in the European programmes for training and young people.
<P>
We cannot, however, refrain from voicing our disappointment that this House is only now being consulted on a proposal which was put forward by the Commission back in May 1996.
There can be no denying that this delay has been caused by obstructionism, resistance, hostility and reluctance in various quarters and at various levels, with regard to Turkey's inclusion in the cultural programmes.
<P>
The Turkish Government, it is maintained, does not yet provide sufficient guarantees regarding human rights. Of course we share this opinion and concern, in spite of the considerable improvements in Turkey's legal order in recent years; our concern is compounded by the continuing affair over the terrorist leader Öcalan and the uncertain and - for us - distressing fate of the Kurdish people.
<P>
Nevertheless, the European Union cannot penalise Turkey for the reprehensible slowness of its democratisation process by abandoning to dangerous international isolation that very section of the Turkish population which is most sensitive to change and to the basic principles of civil coexistence: I refer to young people, in other words 50 % of the population of this Mediterranean country, since youngsters are the main beneficiaries of the Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes.
This rich and opulent Europe, this pacifist Europe - which is as strongly critical in words as the sternest public prosecutor, but timid as a rabbit when it comes to action - already bears the responsibility for not having intervened to prevent the Öcalan case from degenerating. It must not now make itself similarly responsible for preventing Turkish youth from acquiring - by means of cultural exchanges - those values of democracy, freedom, tolerance and justice through which Turkey will soon become a new reference point in the policy of enlarging Europe in the Mediterranean area.
<P>
This at least is our wish, as pro-Europeans and citizens of the Mediterranean.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Le Gallou">
Madam President, this new report by Mrs Heinisch marks a new phase in the European Union's prevarication towards the situation in Turkey.
It aims to allow exchanges between Turkish and European young people through the Leonardo, Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes.
However, it should be pointed out that Turkey's population, language, culture, religion and history are not European.
<P>
In December 1995 we denounced the agreements on the Customs Union - which were what the United States of America wanted - warning that they were an unacceptable first step towards the integration of a non-European country into the Union.
Now, by extending European youth and education programmes to Turkey, the EU is taking another step down this road.
<P>
The European Union is also being inconsistent in its relations with Turkey.
On the one hand it is concerned about human rights in Cyprus and the rights of the Kurdish minority, yet on the other hand it is aiming to strengthen its political and cultural relations with Turkey.
This is a contradiction and is not a serious-minded or responsible attitude.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="van den Broek">
Madam President, may I say first of all that I am pleased to see that a large majority of honourable Members are now in favour of admitting Turkey to these Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes.
With specific reference to the previous debate and the many earlier debates we have had on the European Union's relations with Turkey, I would say that I agree with all those who think, despite the many political problems we have with Turkey and our many differences of opinion, that we have to make an effort - precisely towards Turkey's young people - to develop and strengthen our mutual understanding further and seize the opportunity through these exchange programmes to exchange and share our views on democracy, tolerance and citizenship.
Catch them young, as the saying goes, and I am sure that this is true of programmes such as these as well.
<P>
I must also compliment Mrs Heinisch on her report and her perseverance in producing this recommendation, after long discussions in the Committee on Culture, and seeing it supported.
I should add that we do not really have any problems with the proposed amendments, although as regards Amendment No 5, which refers to the need to ensure fair representation of minorities - something altogether consistent with Commission policy - we are rather less happy that this may create the impression, when it comes to implementing the programme, that a quota system is to be applied, albeit informally, for the numbers of participants from minority groups.
<P>
We think these minorities must be assured of success without that assurance being introduced into the text in this way by the amendment in question.
I hope that the rapporteur and other Members of the House will go along with us on that.
<P>
Lastly, decisions on Turkey's participation in the context of the current proposals do not, as we know, mean that Turkey can take part in the programmes straight away.
After discussions with Turkey, a decision has to be taken on the implementing rules, the financial aspects of participation.
Parliament will of course be consulted on this.
It is already assumed, however, that the new Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes running from the year 2000 to 2004 will include Turkey, and approval of the draft decisions now before us will give the green light for a series of preparatory measures which are absolutely vital if Turkey is to participate satisfactorily in these programmes.
Decisions to allow Turkish participation are, I think, one more positive signal from the European Union to civil society in Turkey that the EU is prepared to develop its cooperation with Turkey in certain sectors further.
We are hoping for a positive reply and a positive response from the Turkish side.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Socrates programme (second phase)
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0062/99), on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0018/99-98/0195(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Decision establishing the second phase of the Community programme in the field of education (Socrates) (Rapporteur: Mrs Pack).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Pack">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I do not want to discuss the fundamental importance of this education and training programme.
We have done so often enough over the past months and even years.
Basically we know it all.
Perhaps I could say to the President-in-Office of the Council, although he is not present, that good Europeans do not grow on trees!
They are educated for Europe in Europe.
We have to create the necessary European added value, the European dimension in the education and training system, by creating a European area of education and training.
<P>
We are not trying to take over any of the obligations of national, regional and local politicians to carry out European education and training activities; but we want to give them the extra help that is more than ever needed to achieve coexistence on a basis of tolerance in Europe.
At the first reading we already found that the Commission had greatly improved its Socrates II proposal.
The procedures are simpler, access is easier, there is less red tape.
We also achieved one small thing that was important for many in the Comenius programme, namely that where necessary, exchanges of pupils can also be arranged in the framework of Comenius.
<P>
I will confine myself now to the amendments we are tabling today and will be voting on tomorrow that I consider important.
First I want to say that I believe it is particularly important for people living in frontier regions to be taught and learn languages.
Frontier regions where the inhabitants do not understand their neighbour's language cannot fully experience the single market at local level.
Learning English is of little use to them; for instance in Saarland, where I come from, on the frontier between Luxembourg and France, French is useful, which is why the inhabitants should learn French, from nursery school on!
It is in their interest to do so.
<P>
A second point we made is that we absolutely must strengthen the system of recognition of studies pursued abroad, what is known as the ECTS system.
We need to do so to ensure that the time young people spend studying abroad is credited to them when they return home rather than being a waste of time in that respect.
<P>
There is another aspect we consider very important.
The Erasmus programme study grants are very small, given the shortage of funds, but young people cannot go to a foreign country with only 100 euros in their pocket.
They can only do so if they have parents or relatives who will finance them.
If they have parents and relatives who will do so, they might not even need the 100 euros, so perhaps it would be a good idea if the universities looked at students' financial and economic circumstances before handing out grants.
If someone wants to go abroad as an Erasmus student and can finance their studies themselves, it would be better to save these euros three, four or five times over. A less well-off student could go abroad to study with four or five times these 100 euros.
So that is what we have urged and I hope that at this next sitting the Council will show more understanding here than it did before and perhaps endorse our approach.
<P>
Of course we have suggested something else too, for given that the programme now runs for seven years rather than five, which we have accepted, we obviously need an evaluation at the end of the year 2002.
This evaluation can no longer relate just to quality but must first and foremost also be financial.
That is why I hope the Council will agree that given the length of the programmes we should carry out a mid-term review, but a serious one, not just a piece of paper!
<P>
The main point of dispute facing us now is, of course, as it has always been with Socrates since 1994, when I first dealt with it, funding.
The Commission wanted EUR 1.5 billion for a five-year period.
We said: that is not enough, we need EUR 2 billion.
And we do need that in view of the extension of the programme to all the countries that want to join in.
We have just been talking about Turkey today, but Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia and Slovakia also want to join.
The Council promises all that in its Sunday speeches, and then on Monday we do not have the money to pay for it.
So we need more money.
Now the Council has played a very clever trick.
It has extended the programme to seven years and given us EUR 1.55 billion.
But all that is rather symbolic, for it has given us less than we used to have for the five-year programme.
So we have made a very wise proposal: we want EUR 2.5 million.
We do not want it for ourselves; we want it for all the young people in the European Union, for the 300 million people eligible for this programme, from the cradle to the grave, as I said last time.
For this is a programme of life-long learning that begins at school and continues into old age.
<P>
It would be a pity if the Council did not keep all its promises to allocate substantial funding.
For then we really could do something for the citizens of Europe, and in view of the coming European elections, I believe we must fight for this together.
I assume you will join me in this!
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Elchlepp">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I congratulate Mrs Pack on her report and I am glad we reached broad agreement in committee on the direction of the future programmes.
We have had enough discussions about the principles of this most successful Socrates programme.
One thing I want to highlight today is the totally inadequate funding proposed by the Council.
Unfortunately, thousands of people are still barred from taking part in this programme, as shown by the high number of applicants whom the agencies concerned have to turn away each year for of lack of funding.
Here the EU could do more to demonstrate its support for the European exchange programmes.
That is why my group has called from the outset for more funding, in order to give young people a chance to experience living abroad and also to make the current Socrates programme less socially biased.
Sunday speeches may well tell of a Europe in which young people meet each other, a Europe of tolerance and a common education and training area; in practice, however, great difficulties arise when it comes to funding decisions.
But surely it would be a good thing, and reflect a genuine European vision, if as many young people as possible could receive part of their education in a neighbouring country.
<P>
Let me also point out that a wider knowledge of foreign languages and early awareness of the cultural situation in other countries are excellent means of promoting mobility on the European labour market, which forms part of an active employment policy.
Labour market experts have long recognised this as an accepted fact.
The call for EUR 2.5 billion for the new programme period agreed by the committee is the absolute minimum.
In contrast, the Council's proposal of only EUR 1.5 billion for seven years is not really an increase in funding but, as Mrs Pack rightly said, no increase at all if you consider the total duration of the programme, if you look at the extra tasks of adult education and opening up the programme to Central and Eastern Europe, if you seriously want to remove the social bias apparent in some parts of the programme.
The Erasmus grants, for instance, which currently amount to about EUR 70, really offer little added incentive to young people from socially disadvantaged families to do some of their studies abroad while those who can afford it in the first place get this extra funding anyway.
<P>
For the rest I am very pleased that the socio-political demands my group made in its amendments were carried, for instance that universities should in future take more account of the applicants' means when allocating Erasmus grants and that Comenius should focus on mobility measures, especially for young people from vocational schools and in vocational training, because this group has always had fewer chances of taking part in exchange projects.
I also welcome the fact that the committee agreed that aid for learning the official neighbouring language should become one of the priorities under the Comenius programme.
That will promote cross-frontier activities and the creation of bilingual areas, as for instance in the region where I come from.
We want to create a bilingual area on the southern upper Rhine, and if we could do so, with the approval also of the Council, that would be a wonderful means of supporting this development.
All this will do much to show the public the practical and useful side of Europe, something that is often lacking in European policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Heinisch">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, let me thank Mrs Pack very warmly for her strong support for the Socrates programme.
In particular, I am in favour of a financial boost for this programme.
As rapporteur for the report on the European year of life-long learning, I know how important the Grundtvig III action is, which supports life-long learning for young people without adequate basic training and also for adults who want and need to widen their knowledge and abilities.
If we want to work together in partnership on education and training at European level, we must keep all the parties concerned informed about education and training issues.
In terms of schools, that means we must first of all inform parents and teachers, so that they can recognise and promote the European dimension of education and training jointly with the young people involved.
<P>
Especially in the Central and Eastern European countries, in Cyprus and in the Baltic states, parents and others involved in education and training expect to be given the means to support the process of democratisation in schools and in society.
I spoke earlier about the report on Turkish participation in the Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes and I discussed this question with young people and teachers in Istanbul last week, as I did this week in the delegation with our Lithuanian counterparts.
They all regard adult education as a big chance of moving towards a more democratic society in their country.
Here again the old saying I learned at school about adult education still applies: it is often more important to educate and train parents and adults than young people.
So I am glad this programme offers support in that area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Virrankoski">
Mr President, Parliament is now discussing the second phase of the Socrates action programme and the Council's common position on it.
I would like, at this stage, to thank Mrs Pack for all the very hard work she has done for the good of the Socrates programme, which is evident from the report now under discussion.
Socrates has been one of the most successful of EU programmes.
Within its framework thousands upon thousands of Europe's young people have been able to study abroad, gain knowledge and stimulation, and have their image of the world enriched through actual international experience.
The programme has been particularly invaluable for Member States with small populations. It has both opened new doors for students in those countries and brought new students in from other countries, thus strengthening highly-valued European interaction.
<P>
The Council has now reached a common position.
The main difference between Mrs Pack's report and the Council's position is that the latter is offering a sum of EUR 1550 million, whereas Mrs Pack and the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media are asking for EUR 2500 million for the next seven years.
When we consider that the EU will, in all likelihood, enlarge in the next seven years, EUR 2500 million would seem to be the right figure.
It is further justified by the fact that European industrial and commercial competitiveness depends greatly on the level of education we can offer our young people and our older citizens too.
<P>
Concerning the content of the Socrates programme, I would like to raise just one question: the report specifies that the study of languages should be limited to the official languages of the EU, as well as Irish and Letzebuergesch.
As the languages of the Member States' neighbouring countries are not often learnt to any considerable extent within the EU, it would be appropriate to remove this harsh restriction and broaden language learning to embrace the often ignored but important languages of our neighbouring countries.
In this way we would be advancing the cause not only of EU enlargement, but also transnational cooperation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Guinebertière">
Mr President, I must firstly congratulate Mrs Pack, the rapporteur for the Socrates programme, on the work which she has accomplished not only in the House but also in the negotiations with the Council and the Commission to obtain EUR 2 000 million for the programme's operation.
<P>
If there is one European programme which our citizens know about, it is Socrates.
This is a programme that has proved itself, and its success has gone far beyond its financial scope. However, it is unfortunately helping to a certain extent to create a privileged class of people, namely those who have had access to Socrates.
<P>
Socrates brings genuine European added value to the national dimension of our education systems as it encourages the learning of European languages and the study of other cultures all around us.
Why is this programme so popular?
In my opinion, the answer is quite simply that it responds to people's expectation that Europe should be interested in its people, in their personal development and in their integration within their own territory.
Socrates enables students and teachers to meet and it also allows cooperation between teaching establishments, improved recognition of qualifications and experience of other European educational systems.
<P>
The Culture Committee tabled a number of amendments to improve the Commission's initial proposal, and in particular we requested an increased budget in order to include lifelong training in Socrates.
The introduction of Minerva, which is intended to encourage the use of multimedia in education, is an excellent innovation in my opinion, as also are the joint projects to be conducted with other Community programmes such as Leonardo and Youth for Europe.
<P>
Finally, I hope that the implementation of this programme will be effectively monitored, as I am sure it will, and that information relating to this will be distributed to those responsible for supervising the programme or even to anyone who wants such information.
This is the second reading of this report and we are therefore drawing closer to the programme's implementation. I would therefore wish everyone well who benefits from our work and consequently comes to realise that Europe is for them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Kerr">
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate Mrs Pack on her report.
Mrs Pack has been a good fighter for Socrates in Parliament for the past five years during which time I have sat with her in the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media.
Clearly, we are going to have to go on fighting the Council of Ministers.
Although we managed to get an increase in the budget, it is clear that the increase is inadequate to meet the demands of the growing numbers of countries that want, quite rightly, to participate in the education programmes under Socrates.
<P>
It is important that they do.
If we are going to build a greater Europe, not just confined to the current 15 Member States, it is right that we should be expanding the programmes to other countries.
The evidence is very clear from my knowledge of the programmes as a former lecturer in higher education, that the more we can get young people across Europe meeting and talking to each other, the more they will understand the importance of Europe and the importance of building Europe.
I only wish that a few British journalists could take part in the programme as well.
Then they might understand Europe a little better.
<P>
I hope that Commissioner Cresson will respond positively to the report and will take up the battle which Parliament wants to continue, to expand the programme and expand the budget so that we can have a truly successful Socrates programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Thomas">
Mr President, we are in the midst of a transition from an industrial society to a society based on knowledge, in which education is the new social issue.
If every individual is to be in a position to pursue a variety of professions during their career thanks to technological change, then we have to create the necessary conditions.
One major building block on the way to creating a Europe of knowledge is the Socrates programme for general education, as Leonardo is for vocational training.
These education and training programmes improve individuals' knowledge and abilities and equip them for the future.
Good quality school education and the application of our concept of life-long learning are a way of mastering many of the challenges facing us, for the profile of tomorrow's workers is as follows: the ability to develop leadership abilities and to act independently, while at the same time showing a team spirit and social skills.
<P>
Workers and managers must be able to communicate and represent their own interests and aims while also showing an awareness of what appear to be alien cultures, identifying the differences and trying to break down the barriers.
How else, if not by improving their linguistic knowledge, can people become more mobile, can they study away from home anywhere in Europe, can they complete a training course or find a job?
The fact that Socrates supports language teaching even in less familiar European languages is a plus in terms of solidarity.
The proposals put forward by Mrs Pack, a proponent of practical policies, deserve unreserved support.
I have learned from my visits to schools, at which Europe is put to the test nearly every Monday, how much support there is for Socrates, despite all the problems with applications for funding.
Exchanges between pupils and encounters between teachers carry more weight than any number of glossy brochures.
<P>
But what is the use of splendid ideas if they do not serve the general good?
The EUR 2.5 million we are calling for is a minimum if you look at the growing circle of recipients, if you look at the number of applicant countries.
Socrates is an exemplary, sensible and verifiable investment in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Frischenschlager">
Mr President, I want to address two particular points in connection with this debate on the excellent and important report drafted by Mrs Pack.
We are talking about the cultural project of promoting cross-frontier language learning.
Here we should take particular note of the situation in the Central and Eastern European countries.
When we visit these countries we keep finding that their inhabitants have an excellent knowledge of our languages, but who of us in western Europe speaks their languages?
It is here that the European Union has a special responsibility to make sure that our young people learn the languages of their Central and Eastern European neighbours, for economic but even more for cultural reasons, for reasons of European policy.
That is my first point.
<P>
My second point is one that Mrs Pack has also addressed, namely our special responsibility for frontier areas.
We are now seeing a phenomenon, especially in Austrian frontier areas, where after complaining for years about dead frontiers and deaths and the iron curtain we are suddenly afraid of open frontiers again.
We must respond to this with cultural initiatives, with education and training measures.
So it is most important that we institutionalise this. Exchanges between pupils, between teachers, but in particular bilingual, even trilingual schools can be a means of linking up these frontier areas not just economically but also in cultural, linguistic terms.
<P>
We have the experience of a particular situation in Austria, in Kärnten, where we have very special Slovenian and German-language educational facilities because of the Slovenian minority.
With the opening up of frontiers, we can now see how useful these young people with their training are in terms of general and cross-frontier economic development.
So we have these examples, which is why I believe that money invested in this programme is money very well spent and well invested.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Hyland">
Mr President, I join with previous speakers in welcoming the opportunity to make a brief contribution to this debate.
Socrates phase one has been a very worthwhile experiment in transnational education.
In my own country of Ireland there are many teachers and students who can testify to its success as a unique learning experience.
Apart from its obvious educational dimension, Socrates has provided a sense of belonging and an opportunity for young people to share and enjoy the cultural diversity of the European Union and its Member States.
<P>
It exposes young people through well-designed educational programmes to the differing lifestyles and individuality of each EU country, while at the same time helping them to appreciate more their own rich and diverse heritage.
<P>
I welcome the fact that the Council has now reached a common position on future education and training programmes including the Socrates programme, that the operational time for the new programme is to be extended to seven years and that the budget is to be significantly increased.
Europe, in my view, must continue to invest in young people.
A skilled and mobile young population is our greatest asset in a world that is becoming increasingly competitive.
Ireland has demonstrated how its young people are contributing in a major way to its significant economic growth.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hawlicek">
Mr President, first I want to warmly thank Mrs Pack for her report, and in particular for the commitment she has shown to the subject.
The content of the second generation of education and training programmes was decided on the basis of the discussion on the White Paper on teaching and learning, by the Green Paper on cross-frontier mobility and by the Europe of Knowledge programme.
The aim is to give all the target groups easier access to the programmes, to simplify the application and selection procedure and to achieve a participation rate of 10 % of schools and 10 % of students and pupils.
<P>
Particular emphasis is also placed on removing all forms of discrimination.
So at second reading we now have the additional provision that the economic situation of applicants should be taken into consideration in an appropriate fashion when grants are awarded, as should the promotion of equal opportunities for women and men and, which I particularly welcome, closer involvement of the social partners.
One innovation found in Socrates II, as a consequence of the concept of life-long learning called for in all education and training programmes, is the inclusion of adult education in the Grundtvig programme.
Another innovation is that we now have a training programme with a female name, in the form of the Minerva education and multi-media technology programme, another successful proposal by Doris Pack.
In short, this means that Socrates is a good programme covering added aspects, that seeks a higher quota of participants and is open to a larger number of eligible applicant states.
We must not forget that most of the applicant states can already take part in the training and education programmes and that more and more of them will be able to do so in the next seven years.
<P>
That makes the Council proposal to reduce the Commission's proposed funding from EUR 1.4 billion for five years to EUR 1.55 billion - but for seven years - even more scandalous.
That would mean that Socrates II had to do more for more participants for less money.
So I ask the European Parliament to endorse the committee's justified amendment, that was adopted unanimously, providing for EUR 2.5 billion for a period of seven years.
That really is the minimum we can ask for if the Socrates programme is to continue to be applied successfully for young people, for students and teachers and for all those who want to teach and engage in further education in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, the Socrates programme is one of the most important channels of support for mobility and diversity of education within the Community.
To include the student population of EU applicant countries and certain other countries close to us in the programme is a natural step towards an enlarging Europe.
In the expanding Socrates process we need to ensure that individual participation in the programme is not made more difficult by such matters as underfunding.
It is important to take account of the financial situation of participants when deciding how to allocate funds.
The study of minority languages in the European area, as well as support for the Sami language as part of international policy, will preserve valuable local cultural traditions, which must be kept alive in an ever more internationalist Europe.
The inclusion of adult learners and trained teaching staff in the programme will broaden its scope by appealing to a much larger section of the population.
Their involvement will make it considerably easier to promote the mutual recognition of courses undertaken in different countries, which in turn will help the mobility of labour.
Money invested in the programme will be recouped many times over in the future.
<P>
I hope that the Council and the Commission will the give this issue the consideration it deserves and that the present Socrates programme will have a follow-up which is just as good as the current programme, supported by the funding proposed by Parliament.
Obviously, there are many parties with a claim to a share in the budget, but if we make cuts in the youth programmes, we will be making cuts for our future and the development of Europeanisation, which will be a be very shortsighted policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Crowley">
Mr President, I should also like to join with my colleagues in congratulating the rapporteur on the tremendous proposal she has put before us.
When we discuss any issues regarding education we have to see this as an investment in the future for our young people to give them the skills to adapt to the changing technologies in the changing world in which we live.
It is also an investment in the future for a greater understanding of the diversity in the European Union - cultural, social and linguistic.
<P>
That is why it is important, as the previous speaker has said, that the study of minority languages should be encouraged in the Socrates programme.
I speak in particular of the Irish language.
It is an official language of the European Union and should be given greater prominence.
<P>
However, as many speakers have said, despite what the Council may say about the importance of education and despite the Commission's good faith regarding lifelong learning, there is a lack of commitment on financial resources.
Therefore, I urge all Members to support the amendments tabled by the rapporteur to ensure that this new seven-year Socrates programme is given proper funding of EUR 2 500m.
<P>
It is also important that we learn from mistakes made in the programmes in the past.
I refer in particular to the Erasmus programme which dealt mainly with third-level student exchanges.
It contained an element of exclusivity so that if a family could not afford to support a student studying in a foreign country that student could not benefit.
It is incumbent on us to ensure that some financial support would be available under these programmes, either at European or national level.
If Member State governments will not provide this, we should reduce the amount of money they receive under the Socrates programme and other education programmes.
<P>
In conclusion, I urge all Members to support this and to give more hope for the future of the European Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Elliott">
Mr President, I strongly commend these recommendations and the amendments which the rapporteur has put forward.
I have not been so directly involved with the discussions on these programmes in Parliament of late but some five years ago I was co-author with Mrs Pack of Parliament's report on the first Socrates programme.
Everything that has happened since has vindicated the strong support which Parliament gave to this programme.
<P>
Other speakers have referred in glowing terms - and rightly so - to the value of the Erasmus exchanges and the school networking which these programmes provide.
Not only do these programmes benefit the individual students who participate in them and the schools and colleges of which they are students, but we must also remember that they make a real contribution to awareness and a meaningful understanding of the work of the European Union itself for large numbers of students and their families.
It makes it real for them.
<P>
I am pleased also to see the inclusion of the applicant countries, together with Malta and Cyprus.
I was in Malta last week for the joint committee and I can tell you they are very eager that Malta should be fully participating in these programmes.
The key point is the funding.
Unless we have adequate funding we cannot ensure that all young people who could benefit from these programmes are able to do so, nor can we avoid the elitism which means that only those able to afford it are able to participate.
<P>
I very much hope we will support this figure of EUR 2.5 billion.
It sounds a lot of money and Ministers quail at the figure. But what is EUR 2.5 billion?
It is EUR 1 per European citizen per year of the programme.
For many people it is less than the cost of a cup of coffee or a newspaper.
It is less than 5 % of Bill Gates' personal wealth - which is an interesting reflection.
Perhaps we could ask him for a donation if we cannot find the money any other way.
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<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Mr President, Socrates is a wonderful idea.
As a university teacher I can only endorse, year after year, what Doris Pack has described in general terms and has rightly highlighted as positive, as well as what she has rightly criticised.
The idea is wonderful, but the stumbling block is the funding.
Only a few weeks ago we had to award grants at my university and I well remember the enthusiasm of the young people who heard that they could now study in Rome, Paris, Trieste, Thessalonica and elsewhere, just as I remember the tears of those who could not do so because of lack of funds.
I remember, and in fact see it again week after week with great pleasure, how much an Erasmus student can do for his or her place of study abroad during a traditional academic year.
But as we said, the problem is the money.
<P>
We keep enlarging, and we are right to enlarge towards the Central and Eastern European countries.
We are deliberately trying to open up new horizons there.
But - and this is something I have thought about very deeply in recent weeks - when I compare the applications before me now with the typical applications of two or three years ago, I find there is a huge difference, namely that a great many people apply for grants who really do not need them any more, who already have two, three or four study periods behind them.
In fact, I no longer tend to receive applications or receive fewer and fewer applications from good, young candidates with linguistic knowledge, who are committed, who are prepared to make their contribution but who have not already had one or two previous study opportunities in the course of their curriculum vitae .
So I think we must not cut the funding but must jointly do all we can to offer the young people of Europe the kind of opportunities we would all wish them to have.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="Tongue">
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Pack, and Mr Elchlepp in our group who has helped to prioritise disadvantaged students in the programme.
As everyone has said, Socrates is a success story.
Its extension to schools is an incredible success and extraordinarily beneficial.
I would just like to mention one project: four primary schools, four countries, entitled 'Water in our Culture'.
The children have learnt that other countries, cultures and languages exist, that we share aspects of our culture and that we must protect the environment.
They have also learnt how new technology can help them communicate across frontiers - an absolutely fantastic achievement.
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It is the cornerstone of the People's Europe.
I know that Mrs Cresson joins us and appreciates this point.
As has been said, EUR 2.5 billion must be found.
It is a very small price to pay for building empathy and understanding between our children and our young people.
After all, that is the real basis for long-lasting peace and understanding in Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stenzel">
Mr President, anyone who is seriously concerned about education and training, about mobility and therefore about giving the young people of Europe greater opportunities on the labour market must also be most concerned about Socrates II.
Unfortunately the Council and Parliament have not yet managed to reach agreement on the amount of funding.
Since the duration of Socrates is being extended to seven years, it is only logical to call for EUR 2.5 billion for this programme.
Socrates must also be evaluated in both qualitative and financial terms by 31 December 2002.
I support Doris Pack's proposals in every respect and hope they will be taken into account.
<P>
Promoting linguistic knowledge, learning two foreign languages, of which at least one should be the language of a neighbouring country, is a vital means of giving our young people the chance to obtain qualifications, to make use of the single market, to find work and to develop a sense of Europe.
I also fully support the proposal to change the way grants are awarded to ensure that people do not all automatically receive grants that are barely enough to keep body and soul together.
Those who need the money should be given adequate grants.
I hope these points will be accepted and that the Conciliation Committee reaches a satisfactory conclusion before the end of this legislative term.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Cresson">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I must warmly thank the House for its unfailing commitment and support which will allow the second reading of the new phase of the Socrates programme to be concluded today, barely two months after the adoption of the common position by the Council.
<P>
In particular I note the political will of Parliament to conclude the negotiations on the new programme as quickly as possible. This sends a strong political message to the people of Europe, just before the European elections, about our common desire to advance the construction of a European educational area.
<P>
I must particularly thank Mrs Pack for her excellent report and also her colleagues on the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media for their constant support.
<P>
I have previously emphasised the very positive attitude taken by the Austrian Presidency, which was strict but sensible in advancing the work within the Council so that the common position could be adopted in December.
The signals from the German Presidency are also positive and encouraging, and show that a common political will exists to adopt this decision before the new Parliament is elected.
<P>
You will remember that we had an opportunity during the sitting on 5 November to discuss three proposals on the Socrates, Leonardo and Youth for Europe programmes.
As you know, the Council of Ministers for Education of 4 December adopted common positions on the first two programmes, although a consensus was not reached on the Youth for Europe programme for budgetary reasons.
I could not give the Commission's agreement to the proposal made, which meant that an overall agreement could not be achieved.
The situation at the time meant that the Commission was unable to give the go-ahead.
<P>
We hope that Parliament will deliver its opinion at second reading on the Leonardo programme before the end of this Parliament so that the final decision can be made under the German Presidency.
<P>
As for the Youth for Europe programme, I hope that the situation will be resolved in the coming weeks so that a common position can be adopted at the Council meeting scheduled for 27 May.
<P>
The Commission has examined your amendments in an open and constructive manner, and I can tell you that it will accept in full or in part 15 out of the 16 amendments tabled.
These will be included in a revised proposal which will be submitted to the Council in the next few days.
Many amendments are similar to the Commission's initial and amended proposals and therefore help to improve and even correct certain politically important aspects of the common position.
<P>
If you will allow me, I will mention a few of the more significant examples.
I must thank you for having accepted the 'European educational area' concept in Amendment No 2, as defined in our proposals.
The term 'area of cooperation in the field of education and training' requested by the Council has excessively technical and abstract overtones and would be difficult for people to understand.
On the other hand, 'educational area' sends a strong political message to all the citizens of the Union and clearly indicates to them the direction that the Community is taking in education and training.
In this respect, I must particularly thank those who insisted on this term, namely Mrs Guinebertière, Mr Hyland and Mrs Hawlicek.

<P>
Turning now to the procedures for selecting projects, I am pleased to note that Parliament agrees with the Commission's aim of increased simplicity, greater transparency and increased ease of use for programme beneficiaries, as indicated by Amendment No 14.
Parliament's proposal to eliminate one of the Member State consultation stages within the centralised actions would considerably simplify and shorten the project selection procedure.
<P>
I am also pleased that Parliament intends to introduce a revision clause in Article 12, as indicated in Amendment No 8, to allow the Commission to present a report on the results achieved, including on the financial framework, three years after the start of the programme, together with any proposals it deems appropriate.
As the Council has decided to extend the programme's duration to seven years rather than the five proposed by the Commission, the clause introduced by Parliament will allow the programme to adapt flexibly to any new requirements.
<P>
Obviously I accept Amendment No 12 which aims, when awarding Erasmus grants, to give priority to students whose financial situation requires special assistance.
On this point I must thank Mr Rack and Mrs Tongue, who stressed the importance of this.
Particular emphasis must also be placed on an aspect which other speakers have mentioned, which is that it is often students from the most-favoured categories who apply for grants. This is because they are less inhibited, they are used to travelling with their families, they hear discussions at home about events abroad and they are, perhaps, culturally better prepared.
But the decisions are, after all, taken locally and we can have every confidence that those awarding the grants will distinguish between those who have ability and those who perhaps have greater merit but less ability and for whom the awarding of the grant will be more decisive in their professional and personal development.
<P>
In this context, I would point out that, following Parliament's initiative last autumn, the Commission launched a study on the socio-economic situation of Erasmus students.
The results of the survey, which covered ten thousand students, will be presented to you in the next few months.
<P>
In addition, for two years now the Commission has been systematically urging universities and national agencies to take account of the financial needs of students when awarding Erasmus grants.
This is something that I myself have monitored very carefully, and I would like to thank those who have looked into this question.
<P>
I can also accept the principle behind Amendments Nos 10 and 16, which establishes the possibility of initiating pilot projects to allow young unemployed teachers to teach for a time at a school in another Member State.
All the Member States really need teachers from other countries of the European Union - we have all experienced language teaching in our own countries.
It is clear that being taught even for a short while by a teacher from a foreign country who can provide a unique view of his or her own culture is very important, particularly for young children.
<P>
Such an initiative would allow young teachers to acquire vital professional experience while helping to give a real European dimension to teaching.
<P>
Several other amendments aim to clarify and reinforce certain aspects of the common position and as such their substance or principles can be accepted.
This is particularly the case with Amendments Nos 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13 (second part) and 15 which cover the following aspects, among others: the importance of the European Credit Transfer System; more support for young people undergoing training in the form of language learning projects; clarification of the procedures for the participation of Cyprus; a reduction in the minimum percentages specified by the Council for Actions 2 and 3; the priority to be given to languages less widely used and taught, and, in frontier regions, the languages of neighbouring countries.
Several speakers were concerned about this last subject, namely Mr Elchlepp, Mr Kerr and Mr Mann.
I cannot, however, accept Amendment No 6 on the financial article.
<P>
I note Parliament's support for increasing the programme's budget to EUR 2 500 million.
In its original proposal, in line with the priorities established under Agenda 2000, the Commission specified a financial framework of EUR 1 400 m for a five-year period.
Applying the same priorities to a seven-year period, as specified in the common position, and taking into account the average growth rate, the Commission would have proposed a figure in the order of EUR 2 151 m.
However, in order to achieve a common position at first reading, the Commission was forced to adopt the figure of EUR 1 550 m which was approved by a qualified majority.
<P>
I am pleased that the Commission and Parliament agree on increasing the budget in line with our ambitions.
I hope that after the negotiations the Council will feel able to agree with us and I also hope that we can move forward together during the conciliation procedure.
Obviously, I will be determinedly on your side in this procedure.
<P>
Finally, I would stress that I believe we are on course to achieve a final decision under the German Presidency which would allow us to prepare for the implementation of the new programme under the best possible conditions.
Clearly I hope that a satisfactory agreement on the budget can be reached during the negotiations.
<P>
I would like to end by again thanking the Culture Committee and its rapporteur Mrs Pack in particular for their excellent work and their constructive amendments, and also the House as a whole for the support which it has constantly given us.
I am convinced that this programme will help to build a Europe of knowledge which will send out a strong political message and respond to the needs of the public.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Cresson.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Tobacco taxes
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0021/99) by Mr Langen, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 92/79/EEC on the approximation of taxes on cigarettes, Directive 92/80/EEC on the approximation of taxes on manufactured tobacco other than cigarettes and Directive 95/59/EC on taxes other than turnover taxes which affect the consumption of manufactured tobacco (COM(98)0320 - C4-0402/98-98/0189(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Langen">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in 1998 the European Commission submitted a report on the structures and rates of excise duty as well as a proposal for the amendment of three different directives on the taxation of manufactured tobacco.
The report, which provides the basis for the proposed technical amendments and for the changes in the minimum rates of excise duty, examines whether current legislation guarantees the smooth functioning of the single market.
Two factors are particularly important in this context: firstly the fact that tax fraud and smuggling are rife as a result of the relatively high rates of excise duty on tobacco and tobacco products and because of the wide disparities between the excise rates levied by the various Member States, and secondly the fact that the practical application of the rules governing excise duty has raised a number of problems which call for technical adjustments.
<P>
The current system was introduced in 1993, and today's proposal has its origins in lengthy discussions in connection with the single market which date back to 1995.
Excise duties on tobacco are a significant source of revenue for the Member States, varying from 0.4 % of GNP to 1.6 % of GNP in Greece, for example.
The fact that duty is generally suspended when goods subject to excise duty are taken from one Member State to another creates problems with documentation, with the potential for forgery and with other aspects of such operations, and indeed the European finance ministers will scarcely be able to rest easy when they check the findings announced last year by the President of the Court of Auditors, which put revenue shortfall from excise duties at the alarming figure of EUR 75 billion per annum, with particular problems in the areas of value-added tax, excise duties on tobacco and duties on wines and spirits.
This is an appallingly large revenue shortfall, which certainly calls for direct action on fraud and tax evasion in particular.
<P>
Today, unfortunately, we are not dealing with the fight against tax fraud or even with the harmonisation of measures in that area, but rather with relatively modest adjustments.
When we talk about tobacco duties, we have to distinguish between the excise duties on cigarettes and those on tobacco products other than cigarettes.
These other products account for only about 5 % of the total market.
Cigarettes account for the other 95 %, but as far as they are concerned, this report only deals with technical adjustments to the taxation regime.
The system for calculating the minimum rates of excise duty is highly complex, and I do not propose to hold forth on that subject here, since only a handful of specialists understand it in any case.
<P>
The substance of the proposal made by the Commission is that rates of excise duty may fall short of the minimum levy, which is 57 % of the retail price, for an adjustment period of up to two years.
The proposal also provides for a very moderate increase in two stages, the first of which was scheduled for 1 January 1999; as you will be aware, that date has passed without the change having been effected and without Parliament having delivered its opinion.
The second stage of the moderate increase is due to take effect on 1 January 2001.
These amendments were supported by a majority of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, with the tax increases only securing a narrow majority, and the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party has now tabled new amendments which would upset the existing balance.
If we were to accept these amendments, the minimum excise duty on loose tobacco for those who hand-roll their own cigarettes would rise drastically, which would make sudden 30 % price increases inevitable.
We were opposed to this, and I ask the House to reject these amendments proposed by the Liberal Group, since they relate to a specifically Dutch problem and have nothing to do with young people's smoking habits.
<P>
It is a fallacy that those who have just taken up smoking are most likely to roll their own cigarettes.
On the contrary, the main purchasers of loose tobacco come from a particular age group and a particular income bracket and are established smokers.
Young people go for lighter cigarettes.
But we have also asked the Commission to present an interim report by 30 June 2000 on the subject of public health and in particular on the problem of tax fraud, and I should like to underline that point.
Another reason why the interim report is necessary is that nothing has been happening in this sector.
I should like to express my thanks for our past consultations, and I hope that the great majority of the House will approve the report as adopted by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Rosado Fernandes">
Mr President, on behalf of the Agriculture Committee, I would like to congratulate Werner Langen on the excellent work he has done, on the balance he has demonstrated, and on the common sense he has displayed in presenting an amendment requiring excise duties to be examined every four years instead of every five years.
We welcome his committee's proposal.
<P>
But, my goodness, here we are talking about tobacco taxes when a large proportion of these taxes are not even collected in the European Union.
The truth is that, like alcohol, tobacco has an irresistible attraction for organised crime.
And anyone who was present at the Committee of Inquiry on Community transit, anyone who regularly reads UCLAF reports or anyone who keeps abreast of current affairs in my own country, where 70 containers of tobacco disappeared just the other day, with the Portuguese Government claiming 14 billion escudos in compensation from a transport company, will know just how many millions escape the Community's financial checks.
And this often happens with the connivance of the Member States and also of certain European institutions, as funding for scanners for border checks and for physical checks at ports is often not granted.
Nevertheless, I think we should be talking about taxes.
But it would also be advisable for the Commission to think about how it checks the payments due to it and how it could force defaulters to pay up.
<P>
Another omission I identified in the Commission document was the lack of a programme to educate young people about tobacco.
They are the smokers of the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Metten">
Madam President, the European Commission is very modest when it comes to the approximation of taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products.
It gives the Member States more flexibility in applying the minimum rate of 57 % of the retail price.
As a result, this percentage can actually fall below 57 % for a time.
Whilst this is presented as a technical measure, we shall have to make sure that it does not distort competition.
<P>
In addition to this flexibility, the Commission is proposing to adapt the specific duties on tobacco products to inflation in two stages.
Given that actual duties are already higher everywhere than the minimum levels, this is primarily a cosmetic proposal.
In the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, however, it was the view of the largest possible minority that the European Commission should have done more.
Mr Langen made reference to this just now.
We think that there should be an end to the preferential treatment given to shag and hand-rolling tobacco, which currently attracts a far lower rate of tax than cigarettes, with which it is in competition.
<P>
There are, amongst others, three amendments tabled by the Liberal Group, Nos 6, 7 and 8, which my group supported and will support again.
If there is any reason to tax hand-rolling tobacco or shag differently from cigarettes, then the tax should in fact be higher, because shag is generally more harmful than cigarettes.
The lower tax on shag constitutes a price incentive which steers smokers towards the very product which is most harmful.
That misguided incentive has to end.
This does not in any way mean that the hand-rolling tobacco industry has to come to an end, but simply that it has to lose its fiscally advantaged status.
In this respect, Amendment No 7 by the Liberal Group is less radical, since it raises the percentage of the price to the consumer accounted for by tax from 30 to 45 %.
You have to compare that with the 57 % for cigarettes.
<P>
The strangest of arguments are heard in the debate on equal tax treatment for cigarettes and shag. Not only should hand-rolling tobacco continue to enjoy a tax advantage because that is good for jobs in the small business sector, but shag is supposedly the poor man's cigarette, since the poor man cannot afford real cigarettes.
But if you put a high rate of tax on tobacco products to dissuade people from consuming a product which harms their health, and all Member States do that, you cannot tax the most harmful tobacco products at a lower rate.
If smoking is harmful to health, it is also harmful to the health of the poorest people.
<P>
My group's view is that there is no place here for cynical derogations.
Cynical is exactly the word to describe those who favour the present system.
So the Commission proposal and the Langen report do not go far enough.
I very much hope that the Commission will shortly come up with a more radical reform of the taxation of tobacco products.
If my group has anything to do with it, Parliament will make a start on that tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, when we talk about tobacco products, we cannot overemphasise how much damage they cause to people's health, not just active smokers but also those who are passively exposed to the carcinogenic effects of tobacco smoke against their will.
Because of this, we need to give the protection of public health special attention, imposing taxes on tobacco products at national level and introducing legislation on tobacco at Union level.
Revenue from tobacco products will in future have to be increasingly steered in the direction of preventive public health measures.
<P>
Tobacco is not just a national or regional problem, but very much a global one.
For example, the activities of American tobacco companies in Asia, where there is still no ban on tobacco advertising or legislation to protect public health, are positively scandalous.
For example, there have been threats to move big sports events to countries where the interests of tobacco companies are viewed more sympathetically.
<P>
The proposed directive now being discussed mainly contains technical amendments to Community legislation on taxation of tobacco products.
In addition to the technical amendments, we also need to solve surveillance problems connected with the transportation of cigarettes.
Organised criminal gangs smuggle cargoes of cigarettes to avoid paying duty, yet some Member States are against the introduction of effective surveillance systems.
In my opinion, sanctions should be imposed on Member States in future if they fail to adopt modern and effective surveillance systems without delay within the framework of the taxation system that has now been proposed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Mr President, I can only agree with what Mrs Matikainen-Kallström said in her excellent speech and with her views on tobacco, which I entirely share.
Tobacco and smoking cause harm.
We must do everything we can to make poor wretches like me who smoke stop, and to discourage young people from smoking in the first place.
<P>
Naturally, the Greens would like the tax on tobacco, or rather the price of tobacco, to be as high as possible.
However, the internal market makes that rather difficult.
In Sweden, for example, tobacco prices are among the highest in the EU; a packet of tobacco in Sweden costs an arm and a leg.
However, our overall tax is among the lowest in Europe.
Consequently, Sweden does not currently comply with the minimum tax rate in the directive of 57 %.
It is therefore essential for the Commission to review the problem of taxation, so as to allow individual countries to impose higher taxes.
Sweden, after raising the tax on tobacco two years ago, was then forced to lower it again because of a dramatic increase in smuggling and tax evasion, which compelled us to lower prices again.
This should not happen, but we must have higher taxes on tobacco in order to force us to smoke less.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Porto">
Mr President, I do not intend to comment on Werner Langen's report, although I do congratulate him on it. I just want to express my regret that the Commission has not taken this opportunity to switch to an ad valorem tax on tobacco instead of the present system, which is largely specific.
<P>
As I said here back in 1992, at the time the first regulations were adopted, this means that some types of tobacco bear a heavier burden than others, resulting in a distortion of competition. In this particular case, this distortion works in favour of American tobacco, which is more expensive, so that specific taxation amounts to a smaller fiscal burden, thus disadvantaging European tobaccos, which are generally cheaper and therefore more heavily taxed in percentage terms.
<P>
The heavier tax burden on these cheaper European tobaccos amounts to a regressive form of taxation, as they represent a larger proportion of goods bought by people on lower incomes.
It could be argued that this is conducive to the socially desirable objective of reducing total tobacco consumption, given that there are more poor smokers than rich ones.
However, given that we should be equally concerned about the health of the poor and of the rich, it would be hard to justify a policy that benefited the health of the poor at the expensive of the rich.
I cannot imagine what political philosophy could be used to justify this distinction.
<P>
We cannot understand, and this is the point of my speech, why the Commission has not taken this opportunity to adopt a purely ad valorem form of taxation. It cannot say that it is a question of administrative convenience, given that there are precedents for this kind of taxation and given that it is extremely easy to levy taxes of this kind on a very limited number of well-organised producers.
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<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to ask the Commission why tobacco growing is still being supported to the tune of one billion euros, and in particular why lower-quality tobacco is supported rather than the high-quality varieties which are less damaging to health.
And now moves are afoot, in the form of Amendments Nos 2, 5 and 6, to make marketing even more difficult by adding 30 % to prices, which would further increase the incentive to engage in smuggling and line the pockets of those responsible for transit fraud.
<P>
I also believe that arbitrary censorship of tobacco advertising is a disaster in terms of health policy.
What we need in tobacco advertising is rational, explanatory, quality-orientated information.
If a blanket ban is imposed on advertising, there will be no means of advising consumers on their best course of action.
I believe it quite simply represents a lost opportunity to educate smokers in the use of better-quality tobacco as a health protection measure.
This arbitrary censorship scheme simply must be scrapped.
We must be given the opportunity to advertise in a way that focuses on health, and in a way that can prevent young people from taking up smoking at an excessively early age.
Perhaps the focus should be on sheer enjoyment and on moderation, to combat chain-smoking, and if some people smoke the odd cigarette for enjoyment, they should not be immediately subjected to social sanctions.
Tobacco is a legal product, a highly taxed product, and I believe it is inappropriate to ban the advertising of such a product.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="Cresson">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to thank Mr Langen for his report and for the conclusions that he has drawn.
In general, Mr Langen recognises the need to make some technical adjustments to Community legislation on the taxation of tobacco products.
These changes were seen to be essential during the last review of the rates and structures of excise duty on tobacco products, in order for the provisions to be interpreted and applied in a more uniform manner in the Member States, and also in order that they may be easier to implement, so that the single market can function correctly.
<P>
Having consulted national governments, firms and interest groups, the Commission did not feel it was appropriate to carry out a fundamental review of the existing structure, and in particular of the minimum rates applied to tobacco products.
<P>
With regard to the amendments proposed by Mr Langen concerning the extension of the period of review of the rates and structures, the Commission can accept a period of four years instead of the five years envisaged in its draft proposal.
The report will take into account the proper functioning of the single market, the real value of the rates of duty and the wider objectives of the Treaty.
<P>
With regard to the amendments proposed, in order to include the recitals on fraud, health and the links between these elements and the price of manufactured tobacco, allow me to say that I do not see the need for such an approach in the directives covered by Article 99 of the Treaty.
The directives are limited to establishing a minimum level of taxation for the products in question, while leaving the governments of the Member States to fix the rates at national level, as long as the minimum levels established in Directives 92/79/EEC and 92/80/EEC are respected.
Subject to this provision, it is therefore to a large extent up to the Member States to decide on the level of taxation that they apply and to take into consideration factors such as health and fraud.
<P>
As the assessment carried out in order to draw up the report on manufactured tobacco products did not reveal any justification for progressively aligning taxes on hand-rolling tobacco with the existing taxes on cigarettes, the amendments concerning an increase in rates for hand-rolling tobacco are unacceptable to the Commission.
The hand-rolling tobacco industry is less automated than the cigarette industry and therefore needs a more concentrated work-force.
In order to safeguard their livelihood and also to safeguard employment, the lower rate for hand-rolling tobacco was deemed necessary.
Once again, there is nothing to prevent Member States from fixing high national rates for this product if they consider this to be necessary for health reasons.
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<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Metten">
Madam President, I refer specifically to Commissioner Cresson's closing remarks to the effect that, even before the amendments on a small increase in the rate of tax on shag and hand-rolling tobacco are adopted, she could not accept this because it would be so bad for jobs.
She then ended by saying that tax on tobacco and tobacco products was so important for health.
I really cannot follow that at all.
She made reference to research carried out by Member States and professional organisations.
I should like to hear from her what the interest groups to which she refers - for example health bodies and consumer organisations - have to say on this subject.
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<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="Langen">
Mr President, may I ask the Commission a question?
If what Mr Metten has said is correct, it would have to be an amendment that affects cigarettes, because 99 % of the market is unaffected by the proposals that the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party has tabled.
They only affect one per cent, which is precisely the share of the market that is still in the hands of small and medium-sized businesses.
The cigarette industry is highly concentrated.
Can you confirm, Commissioner, that the plans to increase tobacco duty which Mr Metten is advocating here would only affect small and medium-sized businesses, which account for one per cent of total turnover, and that Mr Metten's health-based arguments are therefore unfounded?
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<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="Cresson">
I can only confirm what I said earlier: that it does not seem that these products, namely hand-rolling tobacco, are directly in competition with cigarettes.
<P>
Moreover, as I have already said, the hand-rolling tobacco industry needs a much greater workforce, even though this product's share of the market is not very great, and it directly affects jobs.
We therefore considered that it was necessary to safeguard employment and the existence of this industry through the lowest level of taxation for hand-rolling tobacco.
<P>
Once again, there is nothing to prevent Member States, if they decide otherwise, from establishing national rates which could vary according to their assessment of the effect on public health.
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<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Cresson.
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The debate is closed.
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The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
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<CHAPTER ID=11>
Regionalisation of common fisheries policy
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0018/99) by Mr Gallagher, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on regionalisation of the common fisheries policy.
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<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="Gallagher">
Mr President, in tabling this report on regionalisation which is an own-initiative report from the Committee on Fisheries, let me immediately pay tribute to our former colleague Allan Macartney whose strong sense of European identity pervades this entire document.
His outstanding contribution to the Committee on Fisheries strengthened and safeguarded the European fishing industry whose interests he stoutly defended during his lifetime.
His presence, needless to say, is sorely missed in this House.
But he will not be forgotten.
His commitment to the European ideal lives on in this report to Parliament.
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There are many calls for and conflicting interpretations of regionalisation and its relevance to the common fisheries policy.
This state of affairs arises from the belief among many fishermen that there is a lack of cohesion in the regional application of the common fisheries policy and Community institutions.
It has been my consistent opinion that unless greater efforts are made to involve fishermen's organisations in the decision-making process the best efforts of Community legislators will fail.
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Consequently, this report draws attention to the potential for an already emergent regionalisation policy within a European context.
In doing so it must be recognised that although renationalisation of fishing areas adjacent to EU countries is not an option, there is still an overriding obligation on Community institutions to safeguard the future of fisheries-dependent communities.
Long-term survival of such communities will depend not just on a legal recognition of their legitimate historical rights safeguarded by the principle of relative stability and the six- to twelve-mile limits but also on a commitment by Parliament to ensure that future European policy reflects the need to facilitate their participation as stakeholders.
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The aim of this report is therefore not to discuss whether this regionalisation should be implemented but rather to explore how it can be widened, developed and institutionalised.
No one should take the view that this report is to introduce regionalisation immediately.
It is an opportunity to debate the issues and to explore how it can all be developed.
<P>
The current common fisheries policy already includes large elements of regional variation and localised cooperation which could be explored more effectively in respect of stock conservation.
Examples include the introduction of square mesh legislation.
This is now part of my own country's legislation as a direct consequence of initatives by fishermen acting as responsible stakeholders.
Other regional examples exist within the Community, such as the French local, regional and national committee systems, illustrating that developed regional management units, involving the industry and the decision-making process, can lead to a more rational, workable and realistic management system than presently exists.
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It is a wonder that, whilst large sums of European taxpayers' money are spent on largely irrelevant, theoretical, scientific and management studies, no effort is made by either Community scientists or legislators to study fully functional democratic management systems that already exist in the Community.
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In tandem with this report I would hope that Parliament would support my call for studies on existing regional management systems as a matter of priority, with a view to implementing them on a wider scale within Community regions.
I refer to the amendments tabled by my colleagues, many of which I can support, and I personally endorse the amendments to extend the limits to 24 miles.
<P>
In conclusion, while I would wish to draw your attention to the socio-economic implications if we fail to develop a cohesive regionalisation policy in Community fisheries in the very near future, I firmly believe that this report offers a ray of hope for a new departure within the common fisheries policy which will be acceptable to most, if not all, fishermen.
I ask the House for its support by voting in favour of this report.
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<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldarelli">
Mr President, this report is the fruit of a good deal of work by the Committee on Fisheries and follows on from a number of its previous proposals to the House: the reform of the common fisheries policy, the regulations, the own-initiative report on international agreements and the discussion to be held within the next few months on the structural regulations, the FIFG and the Structural Funds.
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All of this will be better organised and implemented if the principle of subsidiarity is paramount, if bureaucratic structures and superstructures are eliminated, and if fishermen can be involved in managing the CFP; after all, this is the very essence of regionalisation.
<P>
When referring to regionalisation, we are thinking of an aspect of the common fisheries policy which exists already.
We are not of course thinking of a breach of Community solidarity; on the contrary, the involvement of local policies and active subsidiarity allowing for a local presence will make the reform of the CFP more successful.
In this way, it will also be possible to take up useful innovations and to achieve a balance between fisheries and the environment, which is important for the preservation of Community resources, as well as providing worthwhile opportunities for fishing activities aimed at maintaining a balanced environment, such as small-scale fisheries and the creation of new jobs - which the fisheries sector is of course still in a position to offer, in a Europe where unemployment is so widespread. There is work not only for fishermen but also for other guardians of the sea, for example in aquaculture and handicrafts linked to the marine environment.
In the Socialist Group's opinion, it makes sense to call for territorial waters to be extended to 24 miles; this request takes account of the ability to manage marine activities and resources in the coastal zone, and could maximise the involvement of associations.
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The common fisheries policy must take account of the various players operating in the sector.
Here we insist, for example, that other players should be brought into the Advisory Committee, without however weakening the participation of certain important parties: the members of the Advisory Committee should comprise not only shipowners and - quite rightly - NGOs and consumers, but also a strong trade union contingent.
This is our blueprint for the future, and in this way we shall make a contribution to the future of fisheries.
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<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="Provan">
Mr President, it is nice to see the Commissioner here with us tonight as this is a debate the European Parliament can be proud of.
The report we are discussing follows logically on from the Fraga report which we discussed in November.
The common fisheries policy was devised in 1973 and enacted in 1983, and it was believed at that time that we were setting up a policy for the long-term future.
With hindsight we can recognise that a number of mistakes were made and the common fisheries policy is highly over-bureaucratised.
<P>
It has failed to protect fish stocks.
It has failed to sustain viable fishing communities around the coast.
Many of the rules are arbitrary and unfair and abuse is rife.
The Gallagher report is therefore a great opportunity for this Parliament.
As the rapporteur said, it follows on from the basis set out by Mr Macartney.
I agree with his sentiments that Mr Macartney's loss was a tragedy.
The alternatives are quite clearly set out in the Gallagher report.
<P>
In my own view we need to reinforce the localisation of the common fisheries policy.
We need to make the local communities around the coasts of Europe feel part of the common fisheries policy, a policy which they currently reject.
Therefore we have a huge opportunity to get the fishermen involved.
We must recognise the fact that the local communities have to be assisted.
They must be given the opportunity to look after, to harvest and also to husband the local fish resources.
It is essential therefore to extend the 12-mile limit to 24 miles, to make that economic zone an area within which they can earn a living.
<P>
It is the local fishermen one needs to look after.
The 24-mile area is the one in which they work.
If we deny them the opportunity of harvesting their own local resource they are not going to feel fully involved in the common fisheries policy.
If they are involved they will police it and will make sure that the long-term management is in place for future generations.
Anybody who really believes in conservation of fish stocks has to be involved in encouraging regionalisation and ensuring that the local fishermen are part of the common fisheries policy and operate it under Community rules.
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<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, regionalisation can mean different things to different people.
As the report correctly says, to some it means renationalisation.
It can also mean devolution of some aspects of decision-making to sub-national areas or managing on the basis of large bodies of water such as the North Sea or parts of the Mediterranean.
There are many different meanings.
<P>
While some sort of devolution may in some cases be acceptable or desirable, it must be remembered that fish swim around so management of fisheries must be achieved at an appropriate level.
The same level of management authority is not necessarily appropriate for all stocks in a region.
For instance, the difficulties in managing highly migratory species such as tuna are completely different from those for harvesting seaweed or some species of shellfish.
<P>
The problem with the Gallagher report is that it does not address these points and simply argues the case for regionalisation.
It never defines what is meant by the term or gives any guidelines about what should be regionalised or how.
It simply states that there is a need for comprehensive regionalisation of the common fisheries policy.
Without a clearer definition of what is meant by this, the Green Group cannot support the report.
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<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="Ewing">
Mr President, I rise with mixed emotions today.
Allan Macartney was my dear colleague and I am glad that his work is here before us.
I am grateful to Mr Gallagher for carrying it on so ably and to the Committee on Fisheries.
I am happy that Allan was succeeded by his own close friend and election agent, Ian Hudghton, who will be speaking later.
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I am passionate about this subject as my constituency has many fishing-dependent communities, including 90 inhabited islands, some of them going almost up to the Arctic Circle.
Some of these communities are very fragile and totally dependent on the fishing industry.
I have shared with them their despairs and their hopes, their tragedies and their disenchantment with this policy.
I have been to sea many times both in calm weather and in gales.
One thing I notice is that fishermen have great rapport with fishermen from other parts of the Community and, in fact, of the world.
Perhaps if fishermen got together and made policy we would not have so many problems.
There would certainly be more fairness and less bureaucracy than hitherto.
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We have to be able to offer a future to all our fishermen.
They have to believe they have a future.
Many of them do not have that belief at the present time.
Mr Gallagher has offered a ray of hope.
Amendment No 4 by Mr Provan is very dangerous, as was an answer he gave in a press conference today.
Although the regulation comes to an end, the policy does not.
We have agreed that the principle of relative stability continues.
Any reference to expiry of the common fisheries policy without the addendum is very dangerous.
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Ms McKenna talked about fish being different because they do not stay put like animals in a farmer's field.
This is recognised.
The CFP was a derogation in itself from the Treaty of Rome.
The aims were great.
There was to be fairness, maintenance of dependent areas, a traditional way of life, stabilised markets, reasonable prices, relations organised within the Community and with third countries.
It was wonderful.
Unfortunately, the reality has fallen short.
We have neither been able to protect the fishermen, nor the stocks.
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That is why I think regionalisation is necessary and I have given examples in Amendment No 24.
We are already on the road to regionalisation.
There are many examples.
I will not read them out but you should all look at Amendment No 24 where you will see positive examples.
Discard problems, for example, vary from country to country.
If you think of the square mesh which could solve the problem of conservation in many areas, you will see that we are already on the road to a regionalisation policy.
<P>
I would question Mr Novo's amendments.
He talks about decentralisation as if it is the same thing.
I would suggest that regionalisation could affect a whole region involving several states.
Ms McKenna mentioned that.
It could be the whole North Sea or the whole Mediterranean.
Decentralisation suggests a relationship with one Member State only.
So, although I admire Mr Novo's work and commitment, I have to say that I will not be supporting his amendments.
<P>
I support Mr Teverson's amendments and, obviously, I support my own.
I am grateful to Commissioner Bonino who has shown enormous calibre as a very hard-working, clever Commissioner for Fisheries, and to the Commission, which has arranged numerous places where there will be forums for everyone to get involved.
But I go further.
I go with Pat the Cope in wanting direct involvement of the fishermen and I support the regional management committees.
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<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="Provan">
Mr President, I would like to inform Mrs Ewing that we have withdrawn Amendments Nos 3, 4 and 5.

<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, the CFP already contains elements of regionalisation.
These may be in the form of regulatory measures specific to particular sea areas, or conservation measures particular to certain fishing regions, ICES areas or sub-areas. There are also restrictions affecting particular species and specific fishing grounds, involving various restrictions with regard to access to the waters or the halting of fishing during certain periods, varied regional regulatory measures decided by the Member States under the principle of subsidiarity, and urgent measures on conservation of resources taken on the initiative of the Commission.
<P>
The fundamental issue is of course to know what exactly we mean by 'regionalisation of the CFP'.
If by 'regionalisation' we mean 'decentralisation', that is with global decisions being centralised at national level by each Member State, particularly in planning and fleet management, and the delocalised application of those decisions, we are of course in favour of a certain degree of regionalisation of the CFP.
If, on the other hand, by 'regionalisation' we mean a transfer of decisions from national level to the administrative regions, we are opposed to it.
<P>
The principle of subsidiarity must be correctly applied.
Although the Commission's task is to define general objectives, it should in no way lay down the decisions through which those objectives should be achieved.
It is at national level that coherence should be defined for land management, coastal management and maintaining a balance between the various types of fishing - inshore fishing, high-sea fishing, deep-sea fishing - and, moreover, the regions have no desire to take the place of the national authorities on this matter.
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Boats from home ports in different administrative regions may in fact fish in the same areas.
In this case, if different or even contradictory decisions were taken by different regional authorities, that could have damaging effects by causing the relocation of fishing boats or reducing the level of monitoring.
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It is therefore essential, given that the territorial administrative region and the regional fishing area often do not coincide, to establish a clear system that is coordinated by the national authorities.
The regional authorities, meanwhile, are in a better position to implement, in a decentralised manner, both structural measures and measures linked to the marketing of fishery products.
<P>
As a result, our group will vote in favour of the amendments which aim to encourage the development of a decentralised policy rather than an actual regionalisation of the CFP.
We will reject all of the amendments and articles of the resolution which seek to transfer decisions which should remain at national level to the administrative regions, and we also reject the amendments which seek to alter the six and twelve mile zones.
We know the position of certain Member States on the Boxes, but we do not think that this resolution should aim to alter the regulatory bases of the CFP.
It can only deal with the functioning and organisation of the CFP.
<P>
Our group will closely follow the development of the vote and will vote in favour of the resolution if national prerogatives with regard to decisions on the implementation of the CFP are preserved.
Under no circumstances do we want the development of the application of the CFP to lead to the role of regional administrations being strengthened to the detriment of the role of national administrations.
However, we believe that the elements of regionalisation in the current CFP, which I pointed out at the beginning of my speech, should be applied further, in order to respond in the best way, and in line with real needs, to the different characteristics, both in terms of fishery resources and in structural terms, of the various areas of production which constitute the fishing zones.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Gallagher on his work and to take my turn in recalling the memory of our former colleague Mr Macartney, who initiated this report on the regionalisation of the CFP.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="Paisley">
Mr President, I would like to associate myself with the remarks of other Members of the House about the colleague of the lady from Scotland who has just spoken.
She knows how I feel about this matter personally.
I am glad that Mr Macartney's influence in the committee lives on tonight and that we can help to achieve his goals.
<P>
I would remind this House that early in the 1990s the Commission initiated a report on Northern Ireland fisheries.
It found that in the three large harbours which carry on the fishing endeavour - and I refer to Kilkeel, Ardglass and Portavogie - all the fishing is carried on within a family system.
The percentage of people outside the families who work in the industry is very small indeed.
So the life of these communities rests in a proper appraisal of their needs and their voice needs to be heard.
<P>
That is why I like this report.
It believes that fishermen's support for fisheries regulations will improve by involving the local fishery organisations in the decision-making process.
What is wrong with that?
That is what we need.
We need the contribution of these people whose livelihoods are at stake.
The fishermen will not find a regime legitimate unless they are able to make a contribution and their voice is heard.
This whole programme can be made more acceptable if this happens.
<P>
Northern Ireland is an Objective 1 area but this will possibly come to an end.
What will happen to the system today that is geared into decommissioning fishing boats when we no longer receive Objective 1 funds?
Will we see to it that these little communities - and they are tiny compared with the big fishing industries of the rest of the Community but vital to us all - are safeguarded?
Those are the matters which really concern the fishermen of Northern Ireland.
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<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sindal">
Mr President, in the past fishermen themselves could run fisheries, but technical possibilities have changed the fishing industry.
It is not only regional or coast-based; it is that too, but not only that.
I am in broad agreement with the rapporteur, in that we must be sure not to lapse into romanticism, because fishing has changed and that is what we should be addressing.
We cannot turn back the clock and dwell on the good old days.
I would therefore also like to comment on the 24 nautical miles question.
Mrs McKenna mentioned that fish swim around; they may spawn in one area and be caught in another.
If we start to be restrictive towards one another, we do not have a common fisheries policy, because what is the use of fish spawning in our area if we are not allowed to catch them ourselves?
Some cooperation and exchange of quotas are therefore necessary.
I am also a little sceptical about what Mr Souchet said regarding the national level.
We could talk instead about regional cooperation between several countries.
We have really good experience of that in the Baltic.
As regards over-bureaucratisation, which was mentioned earlier, we must aim for self-management and taking influence on our own situation.
When people have responsibility, they can help in bringing their own situation under control, and that works against bureaucracy.
<P>
We have reasonable cooperation in most places.
In this connection I must not forget to thank Allan, with whom I worked in the North Sea Commission, precisely on these matters.
Even though we have good rules, national exemptions may mean that a 100-tonne trawler with a rating of 1000 hp can suddenly turn up, roll out a net the size of a football pitch and simply clean out a sea.
When there are two such trawlers in the Baltic, it hardly matters whether or not we have self-management and regionalisation.
Two trawlers based in the North Sea can make life difficult for 50 small fishermen.
Regionalisation therefore means self-management, responsibility and active participation.
That demands something from us in the European Parliament, but at national level too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 NAME="McCartin">
Mr President, I want to thank Mr Gallagher for taking over this report from Mr Macartney and for doing an excellent job in maintaining the concern and knowledge which Mr Macartney brought to the subject and his particular feeling for the industry and the people engaged in it.
Mr Gallagher has the same qualifications as he comes from the same sort of region and has the same sort of experience of the fishing industry.
<P>
We have to recognise that there is a repair job to be done so far as the common fisheries policy is concerned.
When European farmers demonstrate in the streets about the common agricultural policy, it is not because they are against the policy but because they fear that they may be deprived of it.
But fishermen, generally speaking, do not appreciate what we and the Commissioner have been trying to do on their behalf.
We have to recognise that there is a sort of mutual misunderstanding in fishing ports throughout the European Union.
Everybody believes that everybody else has a better deal.
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Therefore, it is important to break new ground, to offer fishermen the hope of greater participation than they had in the past.
If we cannot achieve that we will not bring it home to them that the fight is about their livelihood.
The fight is about preserving the resources they have and protecting the regions they live in.
That is not always clear to them.
I spent Sunday evening in Donegal.
I met a lot of fishermen and generally speaking they were very unhappy people.
If it was not the weather, it was quotas or bad prices.
There are so many problems that they feel it is out of their hands.
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This proposal by Mr Gallagher is to reinvolve them.
By no means do we want to tell fishermen that we are offering them anything like a renationalisation or that we are removing the common fisheries policy.
What we want to do is get the regions and the communities involved in the design of the policy and updating on a regular basis.
I welcome this report and I look forward to the discussion that will follow and the eventual policy we can redesign around those proposals.
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<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="Hudghton">
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Gallagher and other speakers for their generous tributes to my predecessor, the late Dr Allan Macartney.
He initially drafted this report to contribute to the current Europe-wide assessment of the achievements and failures of the CFP.
In September last year Mr Gallagher kindly agreed to take over responsibility for this report and I should like to put on record my appreciation of his efforts in steering it through the committee.
<P>
The original draft was based on the premise that the common fisheries policy is, and from its inception has been, partially regionalised.
The draft looked at how more local involvement in resource management and conservation measures might best be achieved and called for the existing regionalisation to be consolidated and expanded through the creation of regional management units.
Like Allan Macartney, I firmly believe that bringing the decision-making process closer to those who are most affected by the CFP and are responsible for its implementation would lead to more respect for the provisions of the CFP and for a more successful policy per se .
I would therefore like to call for greater involvement of fishermen and the fishing industry as a whole as an essential prerequisite to the success of the CFP.
<P>
Complementary to involving the fishing industry in the decision-making process is the need to heed the concerns of the fishing industry as a whole under the banner of regionalisation.
The causal link between the fish caught in a given region and the industry it supports within that region can be easily undermined.
This was brought home to me last week when I met with fish processors based in my constituency.
They expressed concern that fish caught in that region are not always landed there.
Therefore, essential jobs in the processing industries in what are clearly fisheries-dependent areas are put at risk.
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Consequently, I should like to stress the importance of Article 12 of the resolution.
The time has come to consolidate what de facto exists and to expand the principle of regionalisation of the CFP to all Community waters.
This step is necessary if we are genuinely to involve fishermen in the decisions which affect them and offers the only clear and practical means of recognising the unique variables that exist in the fisheries sector.
<P>
I am in no doubt that regionalisation would further the primary goal of conserving fish stocks through sustainable fishing so vital for the fisheries-dependent communities of Europe.
At the committee stage Mrs Ewing and I successfully tabled a number of amendments to ensure that the fundamental principles of the CFP such as relative stability are not undermined.
My group has now tabled amendments which complement the consistent regionalisation of the CFP and ultimately will help to secure a successful future for the policy.
<P>
Regionalisation already exists, albeit in an ad hoc and inconsistent manner.
These amendments address that anomaly and stress the importance of involving the fishing industry within the Advisory Committee on Fisheries.
I would urge the House to support these amendments and the report as a whole.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="McMahon">
Mr President, I welcome Mr Gallagher's report.
It highlights two possible approaches in the reform of the CFP after 2002: an intra-state approach, devolving responsibility to regions within Member States; and an inter-state approach where Community waters are divided into regions with a devolved management structure.
<P>
About a year ago the Commission sent out a questionnaire to all Member States and organisations throughout Europe, to people in the industry, consumers, processors and others.
The Commission held hearings in various locations throughout Europe.
A summary of the findings revealed that most expressed the great desire for decentralisation and regionalisation.
So this is what the fishing industry throughout the European Union wants.
<P>
It is my belief that the principle of decentralisation and regionalisation, coupled with relative stability, must form the cornerstone of any future reform of the CFP.
The concept of relative stability was enshrined in the 1983 agreement and strengthened by the extension of the coastal bans to 12 miles.
Indeed, I support Mr Provan's amendment to extend the coastal bans further.
It is important that communities such as North-East Scotland, the Western Isles, Donegal, Cornwall, Galicia and Brittany are protected from the over-exploitation of fish stocks.
It is important, therefore, that the European Union sets down various principles with regard to exploitation and conservation.
There must be a stronger commitment within that policy of devolving fisheries policy.
Regionalisation of the CFP will encourage the active involvement of fishermen in decision-making as well as the participation of producers' organisations at local level.
<P>
In conclusion, I support Mr Gallagher's call for regionalisation of the European fisheries policy which is necessary if we are to remedy the current deficiencies of the CFP.
Any reform, however, must retain the principle of relative stability which will best serve the interests of fishermen and the marine environment alike.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fraga Estévez">
Mr President, in the context of the necessary evolution of the common fisheries policy, changes should never be rejected outright simply out of fear of the unknown.
I believe it is true to say therefore that changes leading to the sector becoming more actively involved in decision-making and to better implementation of the principle of subsidiarity are fully supported by Parliament.
However, such features are not yet defining characteristics of the common fisheries policy though we would like them to be.
<P>
Bearing all this in mind, the imposition of a system of regionalisation as proposed in the report - through the creation of regional management units whose composition and responsibilities are not specified - does appear to be a leap in the dark. It is bound to hinder the process of bringing the common fisheries policy closer to those most directly affected by it, given the lack of a consensus and of the consideration needed before taking such a significant step.
<P>
Before even beginning to consider the form regionalisation could take, we should establish channels of communication with the sector and set in motion a decentralisation process reaching down to regional level. Many Member States do not even have the appropriate instruments for doing so, as many national governments have not devolved the administration of fisheries to the regions.
Indeed, according to the replies to the questionnaires sent out by the Commission concerning the review of the common fisheries policy, the sector itself does not support the need for regionalisation, the only exception being the United Kingdom.
<P>
Similarly, the request to extend territorial waters to 24 miles is also supported only by a minority.
Any decision of this nature would involve significant changes in the status of the fleets and ought to be considered in the wider context of the review of the common fisheries policy. Indeed, even the details of this are unclear, as the figures of 24, 35 and 50 miles are all quoted when the review of the common fisheries policy is discussed.
I am therefore opposed to Amendments Nos 6 and 20.
<P>
Furthermore, the experts who looked at regionalisation on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries have stated that regionalisation would involve substantial changes to the principle of relative stability. Yet many Members who support such regionalisation are opposed to the modification of this principle, and I would be grateful if they could explain this to me.
In addition, it would be necessary to redefine the balance between coastal and industrial fleets. This would call for a system of compensation.
<P>
I am sure I have said enough to make it clear that in its present form the proposal for regionalisation is far from being a practical solution. Much more work and thought are called for if the idea is not to be stillborn.
It only remains for me to thank Mr Gallagher for his work and to thank all Members present today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Varela Suanzes-Carpegna">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by congratulating our colleague Mr Gallagher, the rapporteur, whose meticulous work is well known to all those in the Committee on Fisheries. I offer him special congratulations on this report, despite disagreeing with it myself.
Although he was not originally the rapporteur, Mr Gallagher was called upon to take charge of this report. In this context, it is appropriate to pay tribute again to the memory of our colleague Allan Macartney.
<P>
It is becoming abundantly clear in this debate that the term 'regionalisation' does not have a clear meaning.
What does regionalisation involve?
I think we should reach a consensus on what we understand by regionalisation of the common fisheries policy before discussing it.
The terms 'regions' and 'regionalisation' have widely differing meanings in the 15 Member States, and carrying these differences through into an area like fisheries and the common fisheries policy means that, in my opinion, the report lacks clarity. I would even go so far as to say that it is contradictory and that it sheds very little light on fisheries and on the future common fisheries policy, where light is sorely needed.
<P>
A process of decentralisation which involves greater participation and transparency has to be welcomed. It must, however, be carried out within the global framework of a common policy which respects the principles of equality and nondiscrimination and which is compatible with the fundamental principles of freedom of movement within the single market enshrined in the Treaty.
The needs of fishing-dependent communities should not be confused with covert renationalisation through regionalisation. Such a move would represent an attack on the global nature of a common policy.
Participation in Community decision-making certainly ought to be improved. However, this should not be at the cost of fragmenting the CFP with regional decisions, thus increasing bureaucracy and weakening the guarantees of impartiality in the decision-making process.
<P>
Any review of the common fisheries policy must allow this sector to finally become part of the Community's economy and should naturally take into account the need to continue defending coastal fishing and fishing-dependent communities. The status quo needs to be maintained and there should be no extension of the coastal areas, contrary to what a number of amendments suggest.
<P>
For all these reasons, we do not feel that the report before us today is appropriate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cunha">
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to start by congratulating Pat Gallagher on all the hard and positive work he has put in. I would also like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to our former colleague, the late Allan Macartney, who was a great Member of Parliament and a great friend.
<P>
Experience has shown that the fisheries sector is plagued by conflicts between fishing communities about access to fisheries resources, and above all conflicts between fishing communities in neighbouring countries.
In order to keep such conflicts to a minimum, the common fisheries policy has always reserved a fixed area of the EU Member States' territorial sea for fishing by local communities.
This limit was set at six miles in 1972, and was subsequently increased to 12 miles in 1983, under the present common fisheries policy regulation.
However, that regulation expires on 31 December 2002, so that if nothing is done, the principles of the single market will apply, in other words there will be unrestricted access to fisheries resources in all EU waters.
This would of course have a very negative impact on fisheries, especially small-scale fishing, which has a very important economic and social function in many Member States, not least in my own, Portugal.
<P>
For this reason, it is essential to ensure that the principle of relative stability is adhered to and that the fishing areas reserved exclusively for national or local communities are not just maintained, but also extended.
For the same reason, I have joined James Provan and other colleagues in tabling seven amendments to the Gallagher report to ensure that this principle of relative stability is safeguarded as of now and to start to have a more active influence on the negotiations on post-2002 common fisheries policy, with a view to extending the 12-mile area for national and local fishermen to 24 miles.
<P>
Mr President, I would also like to say that as far as we are concerned, decentralisation is not a route to renationalisation: decentralisation simply means greater decentralisation and flexibility, or, in other words, greater accountability and efficiency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="Bonino">
Mr President, I wish to begin, on behalf of the Commission and in my personal capacity, by echoing the words of sorrow and grief over the loss of your colleague, Allan Macartney, not without recalling that - when I was much younger and a Member of this House - Mr Macartney and I belonged to the same group.
I would therefore echo your words both on behalf of the Commission and personally.
<P>
I must say, ladies and gentlemen, that whenever we discuss fisheries - indeed, we have become a 'friends of fisheries' group, always more or less the same people - it is my impression that some of you think, or at least your words imply, that the fisheries sector once experienced a glorious and splendid heyday.
I am something of a novice, having dealt with this sector for only four years, but none of the books or publications I have read on the fishing industry in former times refer to that golden age: the sector has always had an extremely tough existence, particularly at certain moments, constantly struggling to preserve the balance between extraction and resources.
From this point of view, I believe that the Commission has proved very attentive and very open to suggestions from various quarters - Parliament, the Advisory Committee and also the sector itself - in an attempt to improve the situation.
<P>
I have studied the Gallagher report carefully from this perspective, and I wish in all honesty to make two points: firstly, as you know, wide-ranging consultations are under way for the reform of the common fisheries policy in 2002. We took pains to launch these consultations well in advance, so as to allow ample time for the debate.
<P>
Not all the questionnaires have been returned, but judging by the overwhelming majority of those which have reached the Commission and are now being evaluated, only part of the sector in both the UK and Ireland favours this type of proposal.
Indeed, Mrs McKenna is right on one point: we should first be clearer about what we mean, or what you mean, by regionalisation, and how exactly it differs from decentralisation - which entails greater transparency and greater involvement - and, above all, how the fundamental principle of relative stability, which many of you have stressed today, can be reconciled with regionalisation.
<P>
I believe that this report is an important and useful contribution to the debate.
Tomorrow morning, I shall be putting my proposed reforms to the Advisory Committee on Fisheries, but I would assure you that the present common policy already contains some very strong regional elements: for example, the regional MGPs and the whole section relating to regional cooperation and meetings. In short, a whole range of initiatives can be expanded on.
<P>
The final point which I would draw to the House's attention - and this is why I say that further consideration is required - is a problem concerning the Treaty.
While this report does not establish clearly what the Commission's role would be, there would undoubtedly be some difficulty at the final stage, that of the Council of Ministers, the 15 EU ministers.
In my opinion, that stage cannot be seen merely as a rubber-stamping of decisions taken in the regions or by regional organisations.
<P>
I hope that we shall continue to discuss this issue with one another, because I am sometimes aware of two overlapping elements: decentralisation - the proper application of subsidiarity, with greater involvement of local communities - which is very necessary, and regionalisation, which I think deserves much more investigation, since certain problems cannot be solved at regional level.
I should therefore not like us to select the wrong approach and to devise radical reforms without having studied them in great detail.
<P>
I hope that we shall be able to carry forward these ideas together, in order to make the necessary reforms to the common fisheries policy after having examined them in a little more depth.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Bonino.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 8.25 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Legal protection of inventions: grace period
<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0037/99) by Mr Rothley, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the introduction of a grace period for innovations in national patent laws.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 NAME="Rothley">
Mr President, researchers, scientists and inventors in the European Union are faced with a problem.
Either they publish the results of their research, their scientific findings, thereby waiving the right to subsequent protection by patent, or they steer clear of the academic discussion process in the expectation of a future patent.
That is the dilemma facing researchers, scientists and inventors in the European Union.
They are forced to choose between contributing to scientific knowledge and obtaining a patent.
The problem has been solved in the United States; it has been solved in Japan; it has been solved in many other countries of the world, but not in the European Union.
This has fatal consequences.
European researchers, scientists and inventors can naturally apply in the United States for patents on what they have developed, on the scientific ideas they have publicised. Of course they can do that, with the result that they will naturally make further investments in the country in which they hold the patents.
<P>
In other words, the lack of a grace period means that our rules in the European Union both impede innovation and discourage research.
What does the grace period mean?
It means that a publication by the inventor himself or herself will not prejudice the granting of a patent to the same person.
I hasten to add that this does not in any way alter the 'first to file' principle.
Now there are some clever people in the European Union, for example in the Association of the Chemical Industry, who tell us that this is all a matter of legal uncertainty.
The Americans, the Japanese, the Canadians and many other peoples in this world would rub their eyes in disbelief to see the German Association of the Chemical Industry citing legal uncertainty.
They will scarcely share that sentiment.
<P>
Another astonishing thing is that, when Europe negotiated with America in the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) framework on the basis that they were introducing the 'first to file' principle, so we would introduce the grace period in Europe, the whole of European industry actually agreed with the introduction of the grace period.
I know that the Commission, which incidentally held a hearing in October and, to the astonishment of the European public, communicated its conclusions the very next day, has said that it can only look at this in conjunction with the 'first to file' principle and with the issue of the 'first to invent' principle, which, as you may know, plays a major role in the United States.
<P>
One thing is sure: the Americans will never deviate from the 'first to invent' principle.
This being the case, we Europeans are effectively left with the sole option of doing the sensible thing, of acting in our own best interests at long last by introducing the grace period.
Now it is not my job to make recommendations to the other political parties.
I shall not make any recommendations to the PPE or the Liberals; they may possibly reject all of this.
That may well be.
I merely wish to point out one thing: the position that the PPE seems to have adopted and the position that the Liberals seem to have adopted will both have to be abandoned.
They will not be able to assert their positions.
They will lose this argument.
<P>
I am, of course, not entirely unaccustomed to having to wait until the second round before winning the day, but however Parliament may decide on this initiative, I know that we - my group - will succeed with it in the end; that is quite certain.
We shall organise an international congress on this topic with the best people, and then we shall probably be able to tell the Commission how the world sees this question instead of merely presenting the narrow viewpoint of the Association of the Chemical Industry in Germany.
My recommendation would be this: if I were the PPE or the Liberal Group, I should be somewhat more cautious.
It is always difficult to have to give up a position that has become unsustainable because it is hostile to research, because it impedes innovation and because it has nothing to do with the international harmonisation of patent law.
This position is untenable. You will have to give up this position, and so will the Commission.
You will abandon it!
<P>
It would perhaps be wiser to line up on the side of common sense from the outset.
So whatever the result tomorrow, whether we secure 314 votes or not, it will be of no consequence at all.
If my group had not taken this initiative, the whole issue would not have arisen.
The Commission, of course, would have preferred to keep the lid on this issue and not to have it discussed in connection with the Community patent.
That is what the Commission would have liked best.
The only problem is that we have now put it on the agenda.
We shall talk about it, and whatever the outcome of tomorrow's vote, the prospect of failing to secure the necessary majority does not perturb me.
We shall conduct the real discussion in connection with the Community patent, and we shall ultimately win this debate and thereby strengthen the European Union as a location for research and industry.
It continually puzzles me, when Europe's standing as a business location is being ruined by such anti-investment and anti-research instruments, how anyone can still wonder why the jobs are all being created elsewhere.
That is why I am convinced that common sense will prevail in the end.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="Oddy">
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur who is one of the most imaginative Members of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
He was the first person to pilot an own-initiative report through Parliament on motor insurance which led to the Commission producing legislation.
Yet again Mr Rothley has been imaginative on the subject of inventions.
<P>
It is important that the European Union does not suffer competitive disadvantage, vis-à-vis other parts of the world, as far as our engineering skills are concerned.
Patents are an important plank of legal rights to encourage inventions.
Creativity is the engine of productivity in the European Union.
Engineering is important in my constituency so I particularly appreciate the importance of patents and inventions.
To cite just two examples: in my constituency Frank Whittle invented the jet engine and James Brindley invented the safety gears on bicycles.
<P>
This report is important as a proposal because it would allow researchers a year to publish before the need to file for a patent.
This would help researchers to publicise their work and would follow the example of the United States and Japan.
We need to make the European Union as competitive as possible.
We need to have a strong manufacturing base and patents are an important part of developing the industrial output of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Añoveros Trias de Bes">
Mr President, the legislative initiative before us today is based on the second paragraph of Article 138b of the EC Treaty and on Rule 50 of our Rules of Procedure. As the rapporteur has explained, its purpose is to introduce a one-year grace period into legislation on patents.
During this period the inventor may file for a patent without suffering adversely from prior publication of the invention. This therefore amounts to setting up a system similar to that which already exists in the United States and in Japan, where the grace period is six months.
<P>
The attempts by the WIPO to introduce such a grace period have so far proved unsuccessful. The main reason for this has been the failure to resolve the issue of who has the right to the patent.
In the United States it is the inventor, but in Europe it is whoever files for it.
<P>
Mr President, I have a great regard for my colleague Mr Rothley, as he knows.
I truly believe that he is a great parliamentarian and a fine lawyer.
Nevertheless, I do have to say that, in this case, I am completely opposed to what his report proposes.
He has referred to the need for prudence.
I am not sure whether it is more or less prudent to request a grace period than not to do so.
My speech could in a sense be redundant, as Mr Rothley has already referred to the arguments I intend to adduce.
He has anticipated what I have to say by presenting the arguments against such a request, and I can but wonder why.
As we see it - Mr Rothley said so and I shall therefore repeat the point - the grace period results in a high degree of legal uncertainty and also in financial uncertainty for those responsible for the invention to which the patent relates. This is undeniable and, as Mr Rothley also pointed out, industry would clearly not be able to bear the costs of the uncertainty resulting from such a grace period.
<P>
What is called for is a detailed study to establish the actual effect of the existing discrepancies between European and United States legislation, yet no such study has been undertaken. We must remember that the grace period currently provided for in the United States is the consequence of a risk capital system that differs greatly from that which exists within the European Union.
It would therefore be inappropriate to provide for such a period within the Union, as it would not take account of the specific nature of our current financial system.
<P>
It should also be borne in mind that in October 1988, the Commission organised a public hearing attended by representatives of the sectors concerned.
The conclusion of this hearing was that for any initiative linked to the introduction of a grace period to be successful, it would have to take account of globalisation. Consequently, it would have to operate within the framework of a regulatory authority.
<P>
We do not therefore agree that Article 138b of the Treaty can serve as the legal basis for this proposal.
We believe that it is expecting too much of the Commission to ask it to take a legislative initiative of this magnitude. We do not consider that it would be prudent to do so, and Mr Rothley himself referred to the need for prudence.
My colleague stated that the real debate will take place in the context of the patent and he is quite right.
If that debate takes place, then a grace period is not required and could in fact prove counter-productive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, this is clearly no easy matter to deal with.
As the rapporteur has pointed out, it would be advantageous in some cases, for instance scientific research and small businesses which are unfamiliar with the procedures.
However, when we talk about the EU lagging behind in the number of inventions per head, this only applies at EU level.
In my view, we should also be investigating the differences that exist between the Member States, since here the picture is not nearly as clear as the rapporteur is saying.
<P>
The disadvantages that have been mentioned include uncertainty about the law and legal procedures, and the possibility that European businesses may end up in a worse situation than their American counterparts.
<P>
We Liberals believe that the matter should be looked at in conjunction with some of the trade wars that are currently taking place between Europe and the USA. Clearly, what is at issue is intangible property; I have in mind the UMTS dispute in this respect.
We were evidently very close to a settlement some years ago, when it would have been better to have had 'first to file' rather than 'first to invent' as a general, worldwide principle.
We should also have made provision for a grace period.
<P>
We should not now give up the chance of bringing these two principles together through the unilateral introduction of a grace period.
It is plain that the rapporteur, with this initiative, has goaded the Commission into action.
I think we can see this in the Commission's last communication on Community patents, in which it specifically points to the need for some kind of interim arrangement for an enquiry to take place, whereby it is registered that something has been invented.
Such a clear boundary is considerably better.
Consequently, the Liberals are opposed to a formal initiative.
Nevertheless, we are in favour of further investigations and of the EU holding to this course in the forthcoming trade policy negotiations.
We have reached this decision bearing in mind the current state of relations between the trading blocs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ullmann">
Mr President, Commissioner, there may be different views, or even very different views, about whether it was wise to abandon the European tradition of patent law in favour of adaptation to the US system. But what quite certainly cannot be done, and I believe the rapporteur is absolutely right here, is to refuse to accept the consequences of the decision after it has been taken.
Adopting the US patentability criteria without taking the logical next step of introducing the grace period, which has long been in force in the United States, would mean placing European research at a blatantly unfair disadvantage.
It would rob European researchers of the advantages that adaptation was supposed to bring, and would only result in their being compelled to publicise their work and apply for their patents in the United States. Going it alone at a national level is clearly not an option in this case, and it is equally clear that we need to adapt our rules to those laid down in the Convention establishing the World Intellectual Property Organisation.
<P>
The purpose behind the objections to the grace period that have recently been raised by the chemical industry is to ensure that scientists safeguard the industry's interests by keeping their discoveries secret.
I believe it is the duty of this House to defend scientific freedom and the right of scientists to control their own intellectual property, which is why I ask the House to support the rapporteur's initiative as emphatically as it can.
I should also like to convey my special thanks to the rapporteur for having taken this initiative.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gebhardt">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, it is indeed an astonishing fact that our global players sometimes perform like teams in the lower reaches of the Third Division!
Here we have international groups and their industrial lobby actually trying to dissuade us from including a grace period in the patent laws.
And the groups of companies that are trying to dissuade us from affording protection to inventors are the very ones that are coping very comfortably with such provisions in other parts of the world, such as the United States or Japan.
Unlike the lobby, which condemns the grace period as hostile to research and a barrier to investment, I share the view of the rapporteur that European patent law cannot go on operating without the speedy introduction of a grace period.
It nurtures research and protects small and medium-sized businesses, to which the European Parliament is very committed, and with good reason, since these businesses create jobs that are urgently needed and are the channels through which the technologies of the future are introduced.
<P>
The ideas of young researchers at universities and research institutes provide the vital spark.
They must be able to discuss and publicise their innovations without jeopardising their right to apply for a potentially profitable patent.
Large companies can afford to conduct research behind closed doors and to keep new developments under wraps until the time is right to profit from them in the market-place.
Researchers at universities, on the other hand, must be able to publish their findings in order to establish and confirm their academic credentials.
The usefulness of the grace period can be seen in the United States.
That is where the most frequently cited researchers live, in a country with an enviable wealth of innovative small businesses.
If we want to compete with them, Europe will have to wake up - not gradually but as quickly as possible - whether or not it suits the large industrial groups.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 NAME="Bonino">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the question of introducing a grace period for innovations in national patent laws is a delicate and, in several respects, important aspect of the current debate on the reform of the patent system in Europe, as implied by the rapporteur himself.
For this reason, the Commission is grateful to the House, and in particular the rapporteur, for having taken this initiative.
<P>
Having heard a number of speakers refer to the US and Japanese systems, I feel I must point out that, although US legislation does indeed establish the principle of a grace period, this must be understood in the light of one specific feature of the American law, namely that it operates according to the 'first to invent' principle, whereas the European legislation operates on a different basis: the 'first to file'.
Whether we like it or not, any comparison with other systems must in my opinion acknowledge the different starting-points and rules on implementation.
<P>
Secondly, as has already been said, the Commission held an ad hoc hearing of interested parties on 5 October 1998.
The Commission does not take decisions single-handedly: the hearing was attended by 150 people representing all the relevant circles, and perhaps I should list them for your information.
They included large, small and medium-sized enterprises, associations of inventors and researchers, national, European and international representative bodies, patent consultants, national and European patent offices, international institutions, Member States and international experts.
<P>
Perhaps all these persons were mistaken; the fact remains that one initial, important conclusion can be drawn following this hearing: a legislative initiative concerning the grace period can be envisaged only at international level, through the World Intellectual Property Organisation.
It emerged plainly that a unilateral European measure would not produce the desired result.
<P>
Furthermore, according to the overwhelming majority of those attending the hearing, a grace period increases legal uncertainty by abandoning the principle of absolute novelty in favour of relative novelty.
The grace period seems in fact to be regarded as an inadequate response to genuine problems, such as the complexity of the procedure for filing applications, the lack of relevant information and the need to disclose one's inventions before filing for a patent.
<P>
In any event, the hearing on 5 October brought to light certain solutions which the Commission has undertaken to explore; moreover, it made such an undertaking in the communication on the future of patents in Europe, which was adopted in February.
<P>
In particular, as regards the complexity of the procedure for filing patent applications, the Commission has undertaken to investigate the idea of filing an application provisionally, on the basis of simplified formalities and without payment of a fee.
Our consideration of such matters will be completed by the end of 1999.
Further, to meet the specific needs of inventors and SMEs, who need to disclose their inventions before filing for a patent, the Commission has undertaken to re-examine two exceptions to the principle of absolute novelty, which currently applies under European law: manifestly unlawful use to the disadvantage of the applicant, and presentation of the invention at international exhibitions.
<P>
In these circumstances, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission has to say concerning the motion for a resolution that it cannot accede to the request to propose a Parliament and Council directive based on Article 100a of the Treaty.
The Commission can, however, accept the amendment put forward by Mrs Palacio, calling on it to continue its deliberations, taking into account the conclusions of the hearing to which I have just referred.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=13>
Reinforcing cohesion and competitiveness
<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0027/99) by Mr de Lassus Saint Geniès, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on reinforcing cohesion and competitiveness through research, technological development and innovation (COM(98)0275 - C4-0491/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 NAME="de Lassus Saint Geniès">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, everyone agrees that research and innovation are the driving force behind economic development, but no-one dares to add that this economic development needs to be balanced.
Indeed, it is trite to point out that fundamental research is demanding ever greater investment, and that it therefore seems to have to be carried out by only a few small powerful teams associated with a very concentrated intellectual and industrial environment.
<P>
The demands of inter-continental competition lead to the appearance of major industrial alliances, and public investment, especially European funding, is welcome in order to help these efforts.
The principle of developing research effort should itself be seen as standing for the progress, competition and attractiveness of the most powerful zones of activity and consequently for concentration.
Cohesion, on the other hand, stands for efforts towards prior redistribution in favour of the development of less favoured regions.
These are thus two opposing principles.
<P>
It is clear that research processes cannot themselves lead to convergence and that future convergence will be underpinned by autonomous development.
The less favoured localities and regions should therefore create, with the help of the entire Union, an environment which is favourable to initiative and innovation.
<P>
The opportunity that we have is that instead of large-scale fundamental research carried out by concentrated teams, today a whole world of intercommunication is appearing, which will facilitate networks of small research teams spread out across an entire territory.
We must seize this opportunity.
All European programmes must take part in the convergence of economies, and the framework research programme should not escape this objective, which is set out in the Treaties and was also highlighted at the Amsterdam summit.
<P>
In its communication, the Commission has put together a few paths to take in order to reinforce both cohesion and competitiveness through research and innovation.
The drafting of this communication, interesting though it may be, cannot, however, disguise the discussion that is going on in the Commission on this issue, which is similar to the debate that we could have on regional planning: is it really possible not to reduce the European effort towards competitiveness while at the same time directing research funds to the less favoured regions of the Union?
<P>
In any case, several studies show the worrying increase in imbalances between the regions, while the figures for gross domestic product per inhabitant in the Member States of the EU continue to show a residual convergence.
There is in fact a certain discrepancy between national growth and regional cohesion, but even at state level the differences are extreme: in research and technological development expenditure, Germany and France, for example, spent 60 % of the total research expenditure in the Union in 1993, while Ireland, Greece and Portugal spent only 1.3 % between them.
Whether it is the capacity to translate basic research into innovations, the number of patents per inhabitant, or staff employed in research and development, all these criteria reveal the extent of the disparities in technological development.
<P>
What is the balance of European action in this respect?
Let us note, for example, that a group of regions which includes the whole of Greece, with the exception of Attica, three Portuguese regions and Calabria in Italy, were only able to participate in 2 % of the third framework programme.
It is true that since 1993 the Commission has endeavoured to encourage greater synergy between Community programmes and the objective of economic and social cohesion.
We could also - and the Commission has thought about this - use Structural Funds more in order to correct the trend that has been observed.
Nevertheless, the share of funding devoted under the various objectives of the Structural Funds to specific investment in favour of research and development has remained limited, even though it has increased from one programming period to the next.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, I propose to you to strongly press for a more balanced distribution of the key factors of competitiveness in the various regions of the Union through programmes to support research.
This House can, in terms of the Commission communication, underline what seems to be the key objective, namely the development of innovation in the SMEs in the less favoured regions.
The idea is to encourage innovation in all the small undertakings that have neither the resources, nor the skills, nor the time necessary to embark on innovation and integrate it into the practices adopted by the undertaking.
<P>
However, this type of development requires a well-defined regional commitment, a close synergy between the fifth framework programme and the strategies adopted by the regions as cofinanced under the Structural Funds.
It is also essential that we now fix the criteria for measuring progress in achieving the feasibility thresholds above which the spirit of innovation and competitiveness can be developed.
Without this prior conceptual work, we will find it hard to act in the most efficient manner in order to ensure that these thresholds are achieved in the less favoured regions.
<P>
We must also call on the Commission to draw the full consequences from its correct observation that excellence in vocational training is of fundamental importance for the cohesion sought in this area.
The only conclusion which the communication draws for the moment is that there is a need to promote vocational training courses in centres of excellence.
We cannot stress the importance of human resources and then stop at such a weak conclusion.
New funding mechanisms and boosting local policies for improving quality should at least be proposed.
<P>
To conclude, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission communication provides an interesting basis for discussing a new way of approaching cohesion issues, but much remains to be done in order to clarify objectives, criteria and procedures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Karamanou">
Mr President, I think that, in his excellent report, the rapporteur has put his finger on the crux of the matter regarding the implementation and the effectiveness of the Union's political, economic and social cohesion. His report underscores the omissions and the wrong choices of the past which have impeded a speedier adjustment of the less-favoured regions, which would have reduced the existing regional imbalances in the European Union.
<P>
The enormous disparities in growth which still exist among the different regions of the European Union are in great part due to the huge divergencies in the technology sector, especially in investment in research and technological development.
Details that are available paint a vivid picture of imbalances in the European Union, with discrepancies in technology being double the discrepancies in revenue.
As we have heard, just two countries in the European Union, Germany and France, spend 60 % of the total available funds for research and technological development.
<P>
Of course we congratulate these countries on their capacity to absorb funds for research and technological development. However, we must also stress the need to fully integrate research and technological development into meeting the objective of economic and social cohesion and the reduction of regional imbalances, so as to achieve more balanced growth within the European Union.
This can be done by strengthening the basic factors which shape competitiveness in the different regions of the European Union, and by increasing resources and support for attempts to make up for technological deficiencies, especially in the Objective 1 regions, where the problems of technological deficiencies are most pronounced.
<P>
We need a more integrated approach to the problems of growth during the new development period 2000-2006 and, of course, more effective cooperation between the Structural Funds and the fifth framework programme for research and technological development.
I believe that this must be one of the basic priorities for the new period of development.
Finally, we all need to realise that cohesion is the ally of competitiveness and of the dynamism of our production system, and vice versa.
<P>
In closing, I agree with all the proposals contained in Mr de Lassus's report and with the priority he has given to balanced support for the different regions of the European Union. I agree with the proposals he has put forward to assist small and medium-sized enterprises and, above all, with the proposals to strengthen the links between research centres and universities by means of local vehicles for growth.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Berend">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, if the creation of jobs in the European Union is one of our priorities, we must devote the utmost attention to research, technological development and innovation.
As Christian Democrats, we are utterly convinced that competitiveness creates the safest jobs.
Businesses that seek to remain or become competitive, however, cannot achieve that aim without sufficiently outstanding research and development and without innovating.
It is true, as the Commission and the rapporteur have emphasised, that there are huge regional disparities in terms of research, technological development and innovation.
Most research, of course, is conducted in regions with high levels of economic development, and far too little research, or indeed scarcely any, takes place in underdeveloped areas.
That is a fact of life.
Our efforts must be channelled into encouraging a continuous exchange of information between richer and poorer regions.
<P>
We are convinced that cooperation should indeed take place between the research programmes and the Structural Funds.
But a clear distinction must be made between the finances allocated to each. They are and will remain separate support mechanisms.
That does not mean, however, that they cannot supplement each other or that they are in any way incompatible.
In short, we are saying yes to cross-pollination, but no to common funding.
I can cite some successful examples of this approach from my own part of Germany, from Thuringia, which is an Objective 1 area.
We have companies there which are household names in Germany and which have now established international reputations, such as Carl Zeiss Jena, Jen-Optik or the Jena ovenproof glass company. The European Regional Development Fund has helped to create the infrastructure conditions for the success of these companies, which have also launched some excellent pioneering research and innovation projects with the aid of funds from the fourth framework programme for research and technological development.
<P>
From that point of view, however, we cannot entirely endorse the rapporteur's proposal for Article 21, which is why we have requested a split vote on that article.
I do wish to emphasise, however, that this should not detract from our general approval of the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="Ahern">
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for his excellent report.
A strange phenomenon is occurring in the European regions.
While the figures for GDP per inhabitant reveal a residual growing convergence amongst the Member States, a process of rising imbalances between regions in the same state is taking place.
In other words, there is a certain discrepancy between national growth and regional cohesion.
<P>
An intelligent policy to disseminate technological innovation would be one of the skills to counteract this process of polarisation.
Unfortunately, research and development are still a monopoly of the richest regions.
In view of the sensitivities of this, the Greens have proposed three important points.
<P>
There should be more structural assistance for technological development instead of heavy infrastructures in the less-favoured regions, especially in the Objective 1 regions.
Secondly, we call for the application of a principle of positive discrimination in favour of the less-favoured regions under the new RDT framework programmes.
That means the allocation of resources under the framework programme should be made applying award criteria on the model of the structural funds allocation criteria.
And thirdly, an orientation of technological innovation in the less-favoured regions towards the promotion of sustainable development, promoting local skills and using local natural and human resources.
<P>
Finally, we have tabled an amendment introducing the principle of positive discrimination in R & D for the poorer regions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Vallvé">
Mr President, I must first congratulate the rapporteur, Mr de Lassus, on what I believe to be an excellent report on the fundamental issue of strengthening cohesion amongst European citizens.
In this connection, I feel that research and technological development are crucial to the development of geographical cohesion amongst the citizens of Europe.
This does not of course mean that research and development ought to be distributed throughout Europe, but rather that specific policies should be put in place to promote activity where maximum benefit could be derived from technological development. This would usually be in the most advanced regions, those most advanced at European Union level and at Member State level.
<P>
Such regions are the real economic powerhouses and tend to be in a position to make a more effective contribution to the development of the other less favoured regions.
The latter should not however be prevented from obtaining investment to improve their technological level and their competitiveness.
Indeed, if they do not, cohesive development across the whole of the European Union will not be achieved.
<P>
I should like to conclude by congratulating the rapporteur again because I do feel that this report has identified the main issues relating to the achievement not only of economic and social cohesion but also of geographical cohesion amongst all the regions of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Lage">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, Mr de Lassus, although I do not want to preach a Ptolemaic view of science, which is always a temptation for modern western science, it is impossible nowadays to ignore the fact that knowledge, science and research are the real engines of both intellectual and economic progress in our societies.
And in the face of enormous challenges from the United States, this is in danger of becoming the weakest link in the European Union.
Whilst this is a fundamental challenge for the richer and scientifically better-equipped countries and regions of the EU, it poses an even greater challenge for less-favoured countries and regions: not as regards talent and creative capacity, because these are equally spread, but in terms of know-how and technological innovation.
<P>
For these reasons, the Commission communication before us is to be welcomed in that it calls for greater Structural Fund spending on research and innovation, with a view to strengthening the weak scientific capacity and reinforcing the know-how and technological bases of industries in these poorer regions.
<P>
Nevertheless, the strategy proposed by the Commission suffers from one great flaw which is flagged up in the excellent report prepared by Mr de Lassus Saint Geniès, on which I would like to congratulate him. This flaw is that it does not take account of the need for more equitable distribution of resources available under the RTD framework programmes.
I do not have in mind some kind of populist geographical dispersal of major themes and priorities in the framework programmes, far from it. But I would like to see some decentralisation away from the more exalted centres of research and technology towards more modest centres and towards smaller and more flexible teams based in poorer regions.
<P>
After all, although these framework programmes only represent 4 % of EU research expenditure, if spending under them were distributed more evenly, they could provide a powerful impetus for countries like Portugal, which up to now have been the poor relations of research and development in the European Union.
Dissemination and absorption of scientific knowledge, technological progress and innovation should be one of the priorities of regional development and cohesion policy in the Europe of the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, the rapporteur attaches particular importance to the need to promote innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises.
He has hit the nail on the head there, because the large combines negotiate directly with the research centres in any event.
Small and medium-sized businesses are essentially in a difficult position.
Our prime concern is to encourage innovation in those companies which are not large enough to devote time, money and human resources to deal systematically, and primarily on their own initiative, with innovative developments.
It is a question of creating a real innovation culture among SMEs with a view to making European business competitive and safeguarding jobs.
<P>
Any initiatives that will help to achieve this goal, especially those which encourage young entrepreneurs to invest in innovation, are particularly welcome.
The most efficient approach would be to ensure that the largest possible slice of the budget for both the framework R&D programme and the Structural Funds is devoted to this aim.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Hatzidakis">
Mr President, Mr de Lassus's report raises a particularly important issue: how to promote cohesion and competitiveness in the European Union by supporting research, technological development and technological innovation.
I believe it is important because, as we all understand, however many roads and railways we build, however many ports and airports we construct, however much we promote infrastructure, transport and the environment, research and technology represent an irreplaceable impetus for development.
It is the quickest and most up-to-date road to growth.
This growth will help the regions to help themselves and to create their own future, without the need to continuously struggle to keep up with the others.
<P>
In the light of this, it is a sad fact that imbalances between the different regions regarding research and technology are much greater than in other sectors. According to Mr de Lassus's report, they are many times greater than differences in revenue.
For example, the difference in per capita expenditure on research and technological development between Berlin and Macedonia is, more or less, in the ratio of 1: 100. There is also a considerable problem of concentration of resources.
Sixty-eight per cent of people who are involved in the sectors of research, technology and technological innovation throughout Europe are based in just 10 % of the regions of the EU.
These facts and figures may explain why, despite all the attempts to achieve cohesion which have been made over all these years, the differences in revenue among the regions continue to be huge and, in some cases, are becoming even larger.
<P>
We must realise that research and technology are an important weapon in achieving cohesion and competitiveness in the EU, and this is why we must give them greater importance in the future.
It is unfortunate, therefore, that the relevant Commission statement was issued after the drawing-up of the fifth framework programme for research and technology, and that its conclusions could not be included in the programme.
<P>
In any event, emphasis must be given to promoting research and technology in the less-developed regions of the EU.
I should like to take this opportunity to say that such actions must be given greater weight in the regional and structural policies of the EU during the next period, because this is the best, quickest and most far-sighted way for these regions to achieve growth.
<P>
It is also the best way of promoting employment, because it will generate steady, sustainable jobs in sectors with future prospects, and it will help small and medium-sized enterprises to become the backbone and the major employers in this sector of production.
However, Mr President, we must render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's.
This is not the responsibility of the Commission, it is the responsibility of the Member States to promote these actions during the new programming period.
I should like to take my own country, Greece, as an example. Unfortunately, Greece lags behind the other 14 Member States in this sector.
Our expenditure is just 0.63 % of GDP, when the Community average is 2.4 %.
This is therefore an opportunity for us to use the new Community support framework to promote research and technology.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Mr President, birds of a feather flock together.
This is the principle that businesses apply when they choose their locations.
They prefer those central positions where the bulk of economic power is already concentrated, and then employees, educational establishments and infrastructure investment are drawn into these existing centres.
Then we have phenomena like the Golden Arc or the Sunbelt on the one hand and the peripheral areas on the other, a scenario which calls for a regional policy to counteract this magnetism and prevent mass migration from the periphery to the main population centres.
There are some especially effective ways of doing this.
Research and technological development can be used to establish footholds in the hinterland, so that not only know-how but also employment can develop outside the economic heartland and the main population centres.
<P>
This policy is convincingly presented by the communication from the Commission and by Mr de Lassus's report.
My one wish is that the convincing words of both the communication and the report can be turned into action.
One of my main interests relates to paragraph 15 of the report, which speaks of interregional and cross-border cooperation, because it is especially important to break new ground in these areas.
Already this evening we have spoken about educational cooperation in connection with the Socrates programme when we discussed the Pack report, and we expressed our gratification at the fact that European Union funds had paved the way for closer cooperation in the field of education in precisely those areas.
I hope and wish for all of us, and particularly for the regions at the external frontiers of the Union where Interreg is trying to reverse the manpower drain, that the promises made to us in the Commission communication and the de Lassus report will be fulfilled in those regions, so that some birds will start flocking to places where none of their feather have gone before.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 NAME="Chichester">
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mr de Lassus on his report.
This is an important matter for my constituency of Devon and for my region of the South-West and in particular for Cornwall, which the Commissioner will know has a very strong claim for Objective 1 status.
There is a great deal of activity going on in the research field in our region already, which shows what can be achieved by way of generating local employment, not just at the universities of Exeter and Plymouth.
<P>
There is a very exciting project at a small town called Holsworthy where a plant to create energy from agricultural waste is being developed with assistance not only from a research project, the Altener programme, but also from Objective 5b funding.
This is a good example of the synergy of regional and research funds coming together.
The most important thing for remote regions of the Community is the information technology networks and the potential they have for drawing together researchers from far-flung corners of Europe for mutual benefit.
<P>
I am working at present on a report in the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy for integrating environmental policy with energy policy.
Here is a field where there is great potential for employment creation in the less-favoured regions.
There was a rather interesting project a while back for a prototype hybrid bus running on a battery in the city centre and normal diesel fuel in the outlying districts.
This was another example of where funding from Europe can materially assist projects for employment and for environmental concerns.
<P>
I welcome the emphasis in this report on small businesses.
In my constituency in Devon small businesses and the self-employed form a particularly large section of the economy.
They are a vital generator both of jobs and of innovation and new projects.
So I welcome giving emphasis to them in this report.
<P>
In conclusion, I would like to say that we must beware of placing contracts for research work on geographical grounds alone.
We must treat the merits of the project as the first priority.
Otherwise we will damage the research work of the European Community.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Porto">
Mr President, Commissioner, there can be few initiatives with sound and important recommendations more relevant to Portugal, which is a unique case as a country with an ill-balanced policy on the location of scientific and technological facilities, where balanced support would have an enormous effect.
<P>
As is highlighted in the Commission communication and in the report by Mr de Lassus Saint Geniès, technological development is a key factor in the internal development of less-favoured regions and in reducing regional disparities.
On the other hand, promoting technological development in just one or two already privileged areas, in line with centre-periphery or cumulative effect theories, is bound to aggravate imbalances, negating the effect of any overall balance in expenditure on infrastructure and services. Although this might have social benefits, it would not have any effect as regards self-sustaining developmental trends.
<P>
The statistics on Portugal speak for themselves: 65 % of RTD funding, 82 % of state research and the lion's share of Community funding are concentrated in Lisbon.
This means that there is no correlation with present levels of productive activity - the Lisbon area accounts for only 25 % of Portugal's industrial GDP and an insignificant percentage of the country's agricultural and forestry GDP. Nor is there any correlation with potential levels of activity, not to mention the social and political benefits that some if not all would see in balanced regional development of the country.
<P>
A well-balanced spread of support close to existing and potential users would also ensure that the needs of Portugal - or of any other country - are met, whilst promoting a wider spread of company expenditure, which is also desirable. This would involve a different approach to that of the present major laboratories, which are remote from most economic activity.
I believe we should build upon the positive experience of technological centres sited at appropriate locations in the regions.
<P>
When all is said and done, we are talking about complying with the Maastricht Treaty, which clearly stipulates that support should be given to universities, research centres and to SMEs.
I believe that this approach is correct and that it should be adopted throughout the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Mr President, let me begin by thanking Mr de Lassus for this highly significant report and the motion for a resolution.
I am delighted to note that Parliament agrees with the main thrust of our communication, and it should be appreciated that this is the first time we have tried to release the synergy between these two policies, as you have rightly been urging us to do, and to achieve closer coordination of our common research and development policy with our structural and cohesion policy.
<P>
We share your view that research, technological development, innovation and modernisation of the production basis are essential means of creating steady jobs and reducing regional disparities.
That is why, in the draft guidelines for the next structural programme, covering the period from 2000 to 2006, which it adopted on 2 February, the Commission reaffirms the approach that is also clearly outlined in the present communication.
The competitiveness of a region is crucially dependent on whether or not it possesses an innovation strategy.
<P>
In the guidelines for the next period of the Structural Funds, the Commission therefore recommends to the regions a whole raft of measures designed to encourage innovation, from new forms of funding, such as venture capital to promote business start-ups and innovative developments, to specialised services and facilities for technology transfer.
The contributions to the present debate have further emphasised the fact that the transfer of knowledge and know-how and the dissemination of new techniques represent a vital contribution to the enhancement of regional competitiveness.
For that reason, the guidelines state that payments from the Structural Funds should primarily help small and medium-sized businesses to acquire the skills they need in order to go on developing, but they should also be used to set up cooperative ventures and centres where knowledge and skills can be pooled and to fund involvement in Community and international research and innovation networks, not forgetting the business innovation centres and the various European networks through which we have already done a great deal to enable small and medium-sized businesses to benefit from the results of research conducted by other bodies.
<P>
In response to your criticism of the fifth framework programme for research and technological development, let me say that this programme, as you know, was the result of two years of negotiation with Parliament and with the Member States, and that the framework programme is not primarily concerned with cohesion, but also focuses on the competitiveness of Europe as a global region in terms of leading-edge technology, which naturally implies that one of its aims is to enable Europe to compete with the United States and Japan.
So the key point is that in pursuing the one aim, we do not neglect the other, and above all that we ensure not only that the development of research, particularly in the field of leading-edge technology, benefits the poorer regions directly but also that exchanges of researchers, which will be supported under the fifth framework R&D programme, can be used to promote innovation in the structurally weaker regions.
<P>
If you look at some of the elements of the fifth framework programme - at the development of human resources potential in the field of research, or at the improvement of the socio-economic knowledge base - if you consider the Marie Curie homecoming grants for researchers from underprivileged regions and if you examine the development grants for research establishments in underdeveloped areas, you will see that the fifth framework programme responds to many of the needs of structurally weak regions and that its subject areas, such as the sustainable management of water supplies and water quality, sustainable agriculture, forestry and fisheries, rural areas, the town of tomorrow and the cultural heritage, are all of particular importance to regional development.
The same applies, of course, to objectives such as the promotion of innovation and the involvement of small and medium-sized businesses.
<P>
As the rapporteur has already indicated, we have made progress over the last ten years, not least in terms of funding.
We started in 1988 with 200 million, and we now have 8.5 billion allocated to the Structural Funds for research and technology.
It also has to be said here, of course, and I am grateful to Mr Hatzidakis for pointing this out too, that the Commission is not solely responsible, but that the Member States must also do more to ensure that such projects are included in their programmes.
In a recent Objective 1 evaluation, we observed that more money spent on research and innovation does not automatically mean more innovation.
In the cohesion countries in particular, the public sector is still largely overrepresented, while business innovations do not receive their fair share of funding, which is why I believe it is very important to put greater emphasis on the latter, because it is absolutely crucial that the regions themselves should be able to devise their own innovation strategies, which would be the best way to ensure that due account is taken of specific regional circumstances.
<P>
That is why initiatives such as the regional information society initiative, in which the regions cooperate - across national borders, incidentally - and exchange best practices in the field of innovation support, are so important.
That is why it is also important that the innovation dimension should become a more integral part of interregional and cross-border cooperation.
Parliament and the Commission are, I believe, on the right path, but I agree with the rapporteur when he concludes that there is still a considerable way to go before we can say that the poorer regions have really started to bridge the gap in research and innovation, as well as in other areas.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=14>
Conformity assessment procedure for packaging
<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0053/99) by Mrs Grossetête, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on marking and packaging and on the establishment of a conformity assessment procedure for packaging (COM(96)0191 - C4-0627/96-96/0123(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="Grossetête">
Mr President, I would first like to directly address a question to the Commission, as there are a number of rumours flying around.
I have reason to believe that certain manoeuvres have been undertaken and I would like to ask the Commission whether it is true that it is preparing a proposal that would encompass the directive with which we are concerned.
If there is indeed a new proposal that we are to discuss in the near future, I would like to know if it really covers the directive that we are discussing this evening.
If that is the case, depending on the Commission's answers, I will decide what attitude to adopt.
<P>
Meanwhile, to come back to the main issues of this directive, I would like to point out that an initial examination took place in October 1997, and that work was suspended while awaiting precise answers from the Commission; however, having obtained those answers, after several months' delay, we were not satisfied.
Without an active contribution from the Commission, I was finally forced to make a different proposal.
<P>
The Commission was proposing two new symbols indicating the recyclability and reusability of packaging waste.
However, these two symbols are completely new and do not provide sufficient information for the consumer.
As the Commission itself recognises, recycling systems do not by any means cover the whole of Europe.
We are now aware that the 1994 directive on packaging and packaging waste is not correctly applied across the whole of Europe.
I therefore felt it was preferable to provide consumers with information which would allow them to be really active individually.
Consumers must actively participate in the sorting of this packaging waste on the basis of symbols, which are already well-known, indicating the nature of the packaging material.
This should help them in individual sorting.
The symbols were chosen through the work of the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN).
<P>
The Commission was concerned about the appropriateness of these symbols, and I can reassure them as all of the symbols are in the public domain.
I even know that certain companies have taken the trouble to write to the Commission in order to inform them that their symbols were at its disposal.
The Commission's proposal also envisages a conformity assessment procedure for evaluating whether packaging conforms to the main requirements of the 1994 directive on packaging.
It says that the manufacturer must draw up a declaration of conformity, establish technical documentation and keep it at the disposal of the national authorities that will carry out the necessary inspections.
<P>
We are aware that the packaging sector is particularly complex and often involves a great number of professionals.
In order to take account of this situation, I believed it was necessary to alter the text of Annex III to avoid any confusion for the packaging manufacturer and the product manufacturer, in other words not to force the manufacturer of the product contained in the packaging to take responsibility for any fault in the packaging. The aim of this is to take into account the responsibility of each party at their stage of contribution to production: the packaging manufacturer, the filler and the packer.
I also had discussions with Mr Bowe, and we found common ground which is set out in Amendments Nos 19 and 20.
<P>
To conclude, I would like to point out that the approach that I am proposing, which should enable us to find an intermediary solution while we are waiting for the latest revision of the 1994 packaging directive, is supported by all of the packaging sectors and by the consumers' associations, and it seems that the majority of Member States will agree to it.
This is why I maintain my proposal and, while, of course, awaiting the debate, I hope to hear precise answers from the Commission, to which I addressed a question at the beginning of my speech.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="Riis-Jørgensen">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I have had the pleasure of serving as draftsman for the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, where I have looked at the consequences of this proposal for a directive.
I have the following comments to make.
To begin with, I would point out that barriers to trade may arise with regard to partners outside the Community if a separate European reusability label is adopted.
As I see it, an international label would have more impact and would not give rise to barriers to trade.
It seems to me inappropriate to ask firms in Europe to spend money on introducing a European label if they will subsequently have to change over to an international one.
Of course, the labelling scheme is voluntary, but it still has to be seen as a marketing 'carrot' or advantage to make use of the Commission's proposed label.
According to what I have heard, the ISO will already have a label ready for the summer of 1999, in other words in a few months' time.
And what is actually the point of the Commission's proposal?
The Commission's proposed label is not linked to a European collection scheme, which would justify the label's message that the material on which it is used is more environmentally friendly.
For example, packaging which contains PVC could, according to my information, be labelled as recyclable. Consumers would interpret that as an indication of benefit to the environment, although the packaging in question would in Denmark perhaps go for incineration and not for more environmentally friendly recycling.
No, against that background, I do not see anything that justifies the Commission's proposed labelling or the Commission's timing.
I therefore have no objection to waiting for an ISO label.
<P>
Then I have a few comments to make on the essential requirements.
When we look at the Commission's choice of conformity procedure, I grant that the Commission has made a wise choice.
Internal production control is welcomed by industry, since it can be incorporated into existing control systems for quality, the environment and health.
But internal production control is based on the essential requirements of the packaging directive, Directive 94/62.
These requirements seem to be too weakly defined.
This is a view we have heard from industrial circles, but also from the national control authorities.
It serves no good purpose for our firms to spend time and money unnecessarily because they are in doubt as to whether they are complying with the EU legislation.
Similarly, it is not a good idea to leave the interpretation of these essential requirements to the national control authorities, with all the possibilities which that could entail in the form of technical barriers to trade and distortion of competition between the Member States.
So, although I support the Commission's proposal for internal production control, I do not think it would be right to take this proposed directive any further before the essential requirements have been laid down in CEN standards.
The Commission has itself admitted in our committee and in the Environment Committee that this proposal was put together in haste and is not as well thought through as might have been wished.
I therefore believe, as our committee has concluded, that the only correct thing to do would be to hold the Commission to its responsibility and ask it to withdraw the proposal until the CEN and ISO have completed their work.
<P>
Let me comment briefly on Mrs Grossetête's report.
In the Liberal Group, we are very much in support of the proposed material identifications.
The labelling scheme proposed by the rapporteur gives consumers real information and involves them in a positive way in relation to the environment.
When consumers have to make a purchasing decision, they themselves can choose the type of packaging they prefer, and - most importantly of all - consumers are in a better position to sort the packaging waste.
This information and this involvement of consumers generates a real, active and positive environmental effect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 NAME="Gillis">
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur and congratulate her on this report.
I welcome attempts to harmonise the management of packaging waste while recognising the high initial cost of putting in place schemes for recovery, recycling and sorting of waste.
The long-term benefits far outweigh these costs and will lead to a considerable reduction, if not total elimination, of the use of landfill as a waste disposal solution.
<P>
We must take the long-term view when dealing with the disposal of packaging waste.
Manufacturers must be encouraged to use far less packaging material.
Quite often, for example, supermarket goods are wrapped several times.
Marking symbols used on packaging to indicate in which category the waste belongs must not only be clear and easily understood but must use the same marking symbols and same colours right across the EU.
Furthermore, bags and containers used for waste selection must also use the same colour codes and symbols in all the EU member countries.
This is not the case at present.
<P>
For serious package waste management to be successful such symbols must be easily identifiable by the consumer.
Consumers will only participate in sorting and recovery schemes if they are simple to manage and if good collection of separated waste bags is available.
Modern households living in confined spaces do not have room for holding or stockpiling waste for long periods.
Children are naturally concerned about their environment.
If they can be encouraged to give their support by starting their training in schools, the good practice will be continued in the home.
The key message for success is to keep it simple.
Otherwise it will fail.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the previous speaker very clearly expressed what we should be trying to achieve with the packaging marking regulations under the packaging directive, which is that the consumer is actually able to select the correct means of disposing of packaging, in order to be as environment-friendly as possible.
But we know that the Commission proposal is already obsolete, and it is now absolutely vital to wait for the Commission to revise the basic directive, the packaging directive of 1994, and incorporate its ideas and proposals for the marking of packaging accordingly.
The Green Group intends to vote against this report, as, technically speaking, it would seem to be the only way to get the Commission to withdraw this obsolete proposal.
Excellent though the work of Mrs Grossetête has been, I believe the only rational alternative is to get the Commission to withdraw its proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, the challenge is how to encourage the European consumer to sort packaging waste.
I think the efforts of the Commission and the rapporteur to that end are well-intentioned, but will not achieve the desired effect.
The Commission's proposal would mean that each Member State had to replace its marking symbols with European ones.
I would not mind that if the markings were better, but in my opinion they are not.
Given that there is no uniform collection system, all the proposed markings do is indicate that the product can be recycled.
The sense of that escapes me.
I would prefer, for example, the various Dutch symbols whose meaning is crystal-clear and which fit in with the Dutch system of collection.
<P>
The proposals put forward by the rapporteur will not encourage the consumer either.
She suggests indicating the type of packaging.
This would use voluntary marking, but one form of marking only.
The producer could not use any other form.
So the Dutch bottle bank symbol, for example, would have to go.
I do not think we are making it easy for the consumer if he has to decide for himself from a list of packaging ingredients how he should sort his waste.
<P>
But I acknowledge that there are wide differences between the Member States in how packaging waste is collected.
They do not all attach the same importance to environmentally friendly methods of collection.
However, I think the solutions suggested by the Commission and the rapporteur are inadequate.
There is a very real danger that they may be counter-productive.
If accepted, these proposals may be very confusing to consumers not only in the Netherlands, but in other Member States as well.
<P>
To conclude, if we want to provide an incentive for consumers, we must encourage the Member States to make serious efforts to set up an environmentally friendly system of collection.
Until we have a uniform system of this kind, I see no point in harmonising markings.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, the management and control of waste can be done through various processes: reducing the materials used, recycling, reusing and energy recovery.
We support the development of all these methods of recovery and re-use, as the considerable development of the role played by packaging, with its functions of protection, safety, logistics, and especially of aiding marketing, means that we need to deal with the growing environmental burden it represents, without ignoring any procedure that could be useful.
We will therefore vote in favour of all the amendments that have been tabled, except for Amendments Nos 12, 13 and 15 from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
<P>
We reject Amendment No 13, because by specifying that packaging and packaging waste must be treated according to their marking, it favours one waste-management system over the others.
We need all of these systems.
Some people want to give priority to recycling and re-use of packaging, to the detriment of energy recovery: this approach is contrary to an integrated management of packaging and its waste.
<P>
Amendments Nos 12 and 15 place all the responsibility for the conformity assessment procedure for packaging on the processor, and exonerate the packaging manufacturer from all responsibility: under the polluter pays principle, it is the packaging manufacturer who should be responsible for this procedure, not the packer.
Moreover, it is much easier to monitor the packaging manufacturers, as they are much fewer in number than the processors: if we take the wine sector as an example, in France there are only a few bottle manufacturers for more than 30 000 bottlers, and this example is typical.
<P>
To conclude, Mr President, if these three amendments from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, which we feel distort the nature of our colleague's report, are rejected, we will vote in favour of Mrs Grossetête's report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, I am pleased that the European Parliament has put labelling of packaging on the agenda for today.
As you all know, the Commission adopted this proposal back in 1996, and I would like to thank the Environment Committee and especially the rapporteur, Mrs Grossetête, for the report.
The reason why the Commission has presented this proposal is the obligation contained in Article 8 of Directive 94/62 on packaging and packaging waste, which many speakers have also mentioned.
Article 8 states: 'The Council shall... decide no later than two years after the entry into force of this Directive on the marking of packaging'.
I realise that there has been some criticism, especially of the new symbols the Commission is introducing under the proposal.
The intention of the symbols is to indicate to consumers that the packaging can be reused or recycled.
However, the symbols are not meant to give any kind of assurance that the packaging will be reused or recycled, and that is clearly a problem.
I was interested to see the report adopted by the Environment Committee.
The proposed amendments - and this has also been made clear by the rapporteur herself - will completely alter the Commission's proposal.
They will in fact turn it into a proposal on material identification.
The symbols proposed by the rapporteur aim to inform the consumer on the packaging material.
The symbols for aluminium, glass and plastic, however, also show 'chasing' arrows, thus indicating to the consumer that the materials are recyclable, and in this way could give misleading information.
<P>
Then there is a further problem, in that we already have a Commission decision on material identification, Decision No 97/129, which was adopted on 28 January 1997.
This establishes identification systems for packaging materials.
Specific identification systems were introduced in the form of figures and abbreviations, applicable to plastics, paper, cardboard, metal, wood, textiles, glass and composites.
The use of the identification system is voluntary.
Under Article 3 of the Commission Decision, however, the system can be made compulsory.
The proposed change from a labelling system for reusability and recyclability to one which serves as an identification system will not provide any value added in relation to the current Commission decision.
For that reason - and this will hardly come as any surprise to the House - I cannot accept Amendments Nos 1, 3 to 11, 13 or 14, nor can I accept Amendments Nos 16 and 18.
<P>
There is another important aspect to the Commission proposal, and that concerns the procedure for the assessment of conformity.
I would stress that there is an acute need for a procedure for conformity assessment, among both manufacturers and authorities, in order to check conformity with the essential requirements of Directive 94/62.
I fully support Amendment No 12, which stipulates that all packaging must have undergone a conformity assessment procedure before it is put onto the market.
Amendments Nos 2 and 21 are also acceptable, since they clarify and complement the proposal.
It is important to stress that it is the manufacturer who is responsible for undertaking conformity assessments.
I cannot therefore accept Amendment No 14 or Amendments Nos 19 and 20.
Shared responsibility is not possible when conformity assessment procedures are to be implemented.
The packaging manufacturer must ensure that the packaging produced and marketed is in conformity with the requirements of the packaging directive, i.e. Directive 94/62.
<P>
In conclusion, let me stress again that I do not believe that consumers, manufacturers, authorities or the environment will gain any value added by turning this proposal into a proposal on voluntary material identification.
<P>
Mrs Grossetête began by asking me a direct question, namely whether the Commission was already working on a new proposal.
It is not.
What may possibly have given rise to the rumours is that we have started discussions on a revision of the packaging directive, but we are still at a very, very early stage in those discussions, so it would be wrong to give the impression that we had a new proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=15>
Labelling, presentation and advertising of foodstuffs
<SPEAKER ID=173 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0003/99) by Mr Schnellhardt, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directive 79/112/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the labelling, presentation and advertising of foodstuffs (COM(97)0020 - C4-0059/97-97/0027(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 NAME="Schnellhardt">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have a report before us which has been occupying the European Parliament for a long time.
Even during the preparation of the labelling directive, the question of listing the ingredients of alcoholic beverages was being discussed, but the move was blocked time and again by the Council.
Commissioner Bangemann, so that we have no misunderstandings such as those which occurred at our last meeting at the same place and time, I should like to say from the outset that I am grateful for the timely presentation of this report.
That is exactly what was agreed on during the conciliation procedure. I find that very professional.
<P>
The Commission's proposal seeks to close a loophole, and that is to be welcomed.
Unlike other foodstuffs and beverages, alcoholic beverages have hitherto been exempt from compulsory labelling of ingredients.
For all the points under discussion, there is surely one thing on which the House is in agreement, namely that the labelling of ingredients has to be introduced in the interests of the single market and in the interests of proper consumer information.
I should like to stress that we are all united on that point.
Not only in the committee responsible for the report, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, but also in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, these Commission proposals have been supported and enhanced.
<P>
The Commission proposal does not deal with the substantive aspects of ingredient labelling.
Let me make that quite clear.
It deals first and foremost with the question of the legislative procedures to be applied when the labelling provisions are laid down.
Some widely differing ideas are surfacing here, and I must say that the situation starts to look precarious when the rapporteur and Members of the House attack each other, as for example in a press statement in which my honourable colleague Mrs Lulling implied that I had been guilty of obsessive behaviour and procrastination in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
I should be grateful, Commissioner, if you would confirm afterwards that I came to see you a year ago and that we tried to urge the legal services of the Commission and Parliament to deliver a joint opinion.
We do not seem to have succeeded in this, for I have not received any word as yet.
<P>
That was also a reason why I hung fire, because I should have liked to know what was right.
There are two divergent opinions on this matter.
The proposal, in my view, is most probably designed to attract the support of the Council, but I do not think it is in any way logical.
Three different legislative procedures for the same legislative measure, a measure of consumer protection, will elicit a protest from any Member of Parliament, especially if the codecision procedure is to apply only to spirits and aromatised wines.
The Maastricht Treaty granted us the right of codecision in the domain of labelling, and I must insist on that right, not only in respect of spirits and aromatic wines, but also for beers and all other alcoholic beverages.
<P>
It is surely high time we rid ourselves of this very frequent fault of ignoring expert opinion when we discuss wine and beer in the European Parliament.
That is why I based my work on this report on the following principles: firstly, the provision of consumer information on foodstuff and beverage labels, including the labelling of alcoholic beverages, is essentially a measure relating to the single market, a measure of consumer protection.
The relevant legislation is the foodstuff labelling directive.
The listing of ingredients on labels must therefore comply with that directive.
It is simply not true that, as someone is bound to assert in the course of this debate and as others have asserted before, the labelling of wine can only be dealt with in a set of special provisions because it constitutes agricultural produce.
The agricultural aspect is irrelevant here; the issue is the labelling of products and the provision of consumer information.
<P>
Secondly, when it comes to labelling the ingredients of alcoholic beverages, all such beverages must be treated equally.
This applies both to the timescale, especially the simultaneous entry into force of the provisions, and to the procedures to be applied.
There are no differences of opinion in Parliament on that principle.
<P>
Thirdly, the equal treatment of all beverages does not exclude the possibility of specific labelling directives for each category of beverages to take account of the special features of the individual beverage types.
The proposal made by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection allows for that option.
The response of the industries concerned has shown me that equal treatment of all beverage categories is no mere pipe dream.
It is not my job as a rapporteur, nor is it the task of Parliament as the legislative authority, to champion the cause of any particular industry.
Our task is to provide a level playing field and to avoid discriminatory measures.
That is why we insist that a uniform procedure must be applied and that the same timescale must apply to all categories of alcoholic beverage.
This principle is enshrined in our committee's proposal.
We shall have to decide tomorrow whether we want comprehensive parliamentary involvement or whether we wish to leave some labelling to the Council.
I have to say, Mrs Lulling, that this is not obsessive; indeed, your press statement testifies to a lack of knowledge of this matter when it asserts that, under the Treaty, wine and spirits have to be labelled in accordance with the common organisation of the market in wine.
Now that really is the most novel idea I have come across!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 NAME="Klaß">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, emotions are running high in the Chamber.
I believe the consumer should be informed, indeed the consumer must be informed.
That is the principle, and we all agree with it.
The difficulty comes when we have to decide in detail on the form that such information should take.
We are talking today about the labelling of beverages with an alcoholic content in excess of 1.2 % by volume - an extremely wide variety of beverages, ranging from wine to fortified beverages and even to the so-called alcopops.
Each beverage has its own special characteristics that distinguish it fundamentally from the others.
Wine is a natural beverage made from grapes, and I believe the consumer is well informed about it.
Above all, there are specific regulations which clearly define the ingredients that wine may and may not contain.
<P>
It is a different story with the so-called designer drinks, the alcopops.
A set of rules is urgently required here, first and foremost to establish that these are quite clearly alcoholic beverages, that they must be categorised as such when offered for sale and must not be placed on the same shelf as soft drinks.
The Schnellhardt report does not deal with the details of labelling; our task today is merely to establish who should decide on these details at a future date.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development supports the Commission's proposal that labelling, wherever it may be required, should be prescribed in the specific Community provisions that already exist.
We do feel, however, that the three-year period for implementation proposed by the Commission is too short, given the need to produce a sophisticated classification system, and we are therefore requesting an extension of that period.
<P>
The labelling provisions for all other products should be laid down in accordance with the procedure set out in Article 189b of the Treaty.
Criteria based on practical expertise must be paramount in the realm of labelling.
Try telling wine growers and farmers that we need more directives!
For that reason we consider the Commission proposal to be acceptable, since we have specific Community rules in this area, and we can adapt them to cover labelling.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, with the best will in the world, it cannot be said of this report on the draft directive relating to the provisions on the labelling of alcoholic beverages that good things come to those who wait.
For roughly two years the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has been tinkering with its report, despite the fact that the Committee on Agricultural and Rural Development and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy delivered their opinions back in November and December 1997 respectively.
Both committees adopted their opinions unanimously apart from two abstentions.
In both committees, 74 Members took part in the votes on the opinions, which largely endorse the Commission proposal.
The proposal only governs the procedure for labelling the ingredients of alcoholic beverages, but not the technical details of the information that should be displayed on labels.
<P>
We have known since 1979 that the Commission, the Council of Ministers and Parliament too are struggling to come up with a set of rules on the labelling of alcoholic beverages.
Nevertheless, it is irresponsible of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection to fritter away a whole year after the submission of opinions by the committees consulted, only to present us with a hotly disputed report which was adopted in the first holiday week of January and for which only 24 Members voted, while 15 voted against it and one abstained.
Why were such tactics adopted?
Because the rapporteur and the members of the Environment Committee who supported him simply refused to recognise that, under the Treaty, wine and spirits in their various forms are agricultural products, the production and marketing of which are subject to the common organisation of the market in wine.
A different legal basis applies to all other alcoholic beverages, including beer.
<P>
The European Commission has presented a logical proposal on where the rules relating to the ingredients in these two groups of alcoholic beverages will be determined - not how they will be determined, that will come later.
The plain fact is that agricultural policy, whether it suits us or not, rests on the legal basis of Article 43, which only provides for Parliament to be consulted.
As for the legal provisions on the labelling of other alcoholic beverages, which are industrial products, we now have the right of codecision.
The fact that many people in this House plead the case for codecision and are trying - tous azimuts , on all fronts, as De Gaulle would have said - to achieve codecision where the Treaty does not provide for it may be understandable, although I personally have no time for such pettifoggers.
<P>
The rapporteur's veritable obsession with securing a right of codecision on the labelling of agricultural products too - he was always speaking about it - is now reaching grotesque proportions, and as you are aware, Mr President, we in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy have reintroduced some reasonable amendments.
We agree that the provisions on the labelling of ingredients for both beverage categories can enter into force simultaneously.
We can also live with a three-year time limit for all of this, but anything else would be in contravention of the Treaty, which is why I hope that the House will agree with us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 NAME="Whitehead">
Mr President, I want to support the rapporteur against that attack from his own side.
It is not the fault of Mr Schnellhardt that this remained locked in committee for some time.
It is not the fault of Mr Schnellhardt that there has been a woeful refusal to see that common policies on labelling require common procedures.
It is not the fault of Mr Schnellhardt that there have - to put it mildly - been a number of obstructions.
<P>
Most of the people in the committee believe that it is imperative and legitimate that Community provisions having the same objective should be subject to the same legislative procedure, namely that which is laid down in Article 189 of the EC Treaty.
We want that to apply both to the specific Community provisions referred to here and to all other alcoholic beverages.
We are not involved, and we do not want to be involved, in an argument about what should be on the label.
That, for the moment, is the concern of another department.
<P>
We do not want to be involved in a North-versus-South debate or one between those who have a particular sector of the agricultural market in their care against those who have other such sectors.
We do not want to be involved in the stigmatising of alcoholic drinks with the sole exception of areas where new products may present a health hazard for the unwary.
We want a uniform opinion.
We want all recognised legitimate and traditional alcoholic products incorporated within it.
That is why a series of amendments, most notably Nos 9 and 15, seek to include cider and perry on the standard list with wines, spirits and beers.
<P>
I would appeal to the wine enthusiasts here to contribute to the spirit of compromise in bringing about a common procedure.
We all have to do that.
I have done it myself.
I am prepared to accept Mr Bébéar's amendment, supported by the last speaker but one, with regard to the possible dangers of the new alcoholic beverages, the so-called alcopops.
I do that in the full knowledge that these are made in my own constituency.
The people who vote for me make these products.
I am prepared to say on the record here and now that they can present health hazards and they need to be treated in a special way.
<P>
I never hear any of that spirit of compromise from those who come here and tell us that the drinking of wine is a cultural experience, that somehow it should be left outside all the arrangements and scrutiny of this Parliament.
Those who say that and make these rather dreary claims are not just insulting the intelligence of Europe's consumers - most of whom would strongly agree with Mr Schnellhardt and his long labours on this issue.
Worse than that, they are insulting this Parliament itself.
They are deliberately saying that there is an area of scrutiny and oversight in which this Parliament, in the matter of labelling, should play no part.
I cannot accept that and I hope Parliament will not either.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schleicher">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, beverages provide us with some of our nutrition.
In my home state of Bavaria, we came to the conclusion back in the 15th century that the consumer also needed to know that his beer was brewed in accordance with precise rules, since beer, after all, is a significant part of the Bavarian diet. There are naturally other drinks as well.
Doctors are now recommending that we consume at least three litres of liquid every day, and consumers have a wide range to choose from.
However, it is important for them to know the quality that is available on the shelves.
I do not believe that consumers would ever enquire whether a beverage comes under the common organisation of agricultural markets or under other areas of the single market. What they need is information that will help them to choose the right product.
<P>
I am thinking of people who have perhaps already consumed too much alcohol and should not therefore drink any more, but this is also about people with diabetes, for example, who need to know how much residual sugar a beverage contains.
These are all very important things nowadays, and I believe we need legislation that takes account of today's world and not only prescribes that beer and cider should be displayed in the opposite corner of the shop from wine, but actually provides us with a realistic legal basis. I only wish to appeal to reason.
I believe that Mr Schnellhardt's report provides a rational basis, and I should be pleased if Parliament endorsed the material that Mr Schnellhardt has prepared.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Riis-Jørgensen">
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Schnellhardt very much for an excellent report.
I think it is important, as many of my colleagues have pointed out this evening, that we do not divide up the alcohol market in such a way that we have one thing in one corner and another somewhere else.
It must be a precondition that uniform requirements for the labelling of ingredients apply equally to beer, wines and spirits.
That is the first point.
The second point is that the rules should come into force simultaneously, in order to avoid a situation in which different rules apply depending on whether one drinks beer, wine or spirits.
And the third point is that, in order to ensure uniform rules, it is necessary that the same decision-making procedure should be used, that the same rules should be applied, with the full involvement of the European Parliament.
On behalf of the Liberal Group, therefore, I support Amendment No 1 calling for the addition of Article 129a as the legislative procedure.
I also support Amendment No 23, which requires it to be indicated on the bottle how much alcohol or how many ingredients it contains, so that we car-drivers and others know how much we can drink from a health point of view.
I also support Amendment No 12, which prefers the word 'ingredients' to the phrase 'prepared with', and finally - as I said before - it is very important that we treat alcoholic beverages uniformly, so I support Amendments Nos 15 and 9.
<P>
I very much hope that we can adopt this report tomorrow.
I am well aware that there are major differences between North and South, but I think it incredible - and I agree entirely with Mr Whitehead - that we should talk about culture in connection with wine drinking, whereas beer drinking is regarded as an expression of something completely different.
In both cases, we are talking about liquids which are consumed at social gatherings or with a meal.
So I very much hope that we can arrive at a situation in which all these things are dealt with uniformly and with the full involvement of Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 NAME="Cabrol">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this proposal for a directive amending Directive 79/112/EEC concerns the labelling, presentation and advertising of foodstuffs, in the alcoholic beverages sector.
This proposal, which does not include rules on the listing of ingredients, nevertheless allows for the indication of these ingredients in the five Community regulations which already exist.
The European Commission proposes that this information should enter into force within a period of three years from 1 July 1998.
<P>
We would like to make the following comments.
First of all we must congratulate the European Commission on taking account of the need for consumer information on the ingredients of alcoholic beverages.
However, we must add to this the concerns that may arise regarding the new alcoholic beverages aimed at young people, known as premixes or alcopops, which are not mentioned in this proposal.
The presentation and advertising of these drinks attract young people and could result in real damage to public health.
It is therefore important that these drinks should be labelled with their ingredients and the percentage of alcohol.
The European Commission urgently needs to present a text on these drinks, which are referred to as soft drinks but contain alcohol, and which must be displayed on the wines and spirits shelves in shops.
<P>
Some of these drinks contain more than 3 to 4 % of alcohol by volume; the alcohol is of non-specific origin and the taste is covered up by sugar.
With regard to the drinks that are affected by these labelling measures, and which are mentioned in Article 6(3), we should add to these aromatised wine-based beverages and aromatised wine-product cocktails, which are governed by Regulation 1601/91/EEC.
<P>
Beer, meanwhile, is not subject to any specific Community regulation.
It would normally be excluded from this article, which is why I would like to ask you to support Amendment No 14 and to reject Amendment No 9 by the rapporteur.
This Article 6(3) fixes a period of three years from 1 July 1998 for the application of the labelling rules.
This short period already seems to be impossible to apply, because it comes too soon after the adoption of the directive.
The period proposed by Amendment No 14 is therefore much more realistic.
<P>
Finally, as was pointed out by the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, the phrase ' élaborée à l'aide de' used in the French version seems less appropriate than the phrase ' préparée à l'aide de' .
We therefore prefer the latter form, which is also well known by consumers in the food sector.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Marinucci">
Mr President, 'grasp all, lose all', as we say in my country.
I do not know whether this applies to Mr Schnellhardt, and I hope that his report, duly amended, will at last be adopted by this House.
There is no doubt, however, that Mr Schnellhardt's desire to include wine among the beverages to be labelled in accordance with the procedure set out in Article 189b of the Treaty has caused a serious and inexcusable delay.
Indeed, the Commission referred this proposal to Parliament on 10 February 1997.
The committee responsible, the Environment Committee, appointed Mr Schnellhardt rapporteur on 16 April 1997, almost two years ago.
And the proposal was an urgent one, all the more so because the Commission itself was behind the schedule laid down in Article 6 of Directive 79/112.
Nevertheless, the Environment Committee - which normally examines and approves reports very rapidly, thanks to the efficiency of its chairman - had to discuss this matter no fewer than three times over the two years; this was compounded by an unspecified number of strategic postponements, sometimes due to elections.
Why?
Because, believing that Parliament's decision should be as broad-based as possible - a view shared by us all - Mr Schnellhardt sought to remove wine from the scope of the specific measures relating to it, overlooking the fact that, in the case of wine, labelling forms an integral part of its definition: table wine, quality wine and so on.
<P>
Those of us who represent regions which are proud to be major producers of wine cannot agree, and I am grateful to the group to which I have the honour of belonging for allowing me to say so in this House.
<P>
No, we cannot agree.
It is not - or not merely - so as to protect producers, even though that profession certainly does deserve our consideration, given the esteem in which it is held throughout the world; it is not - or not merely - so as to protect production in our regions; it is also, and I would say above all, so as to protect consumers in Europe and elsewhere. Among these, ladies and gentlemen, I would include keen beer-drinkers, just in case they should decide - and I hope so for their sakes - to drink a good glass of wine once in a while.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="Hyland">
<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="Bébéar">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Schnellhardt, I think that you are all wrong.
I do not think that you have understood our approach.
I really think that you are mistaken.
Mr Whitehead, I am a doctor.
I do not accept that you could suppose for one moment that I support alcoholism.
Every day I fight the battle against this scourge.
I cannot accept you talking to us about alcopops.
These are evil, deadly drinks which we should remove from consumption and which are dangerous to young people.
Mr Whitehead and Mr Schnellhardt, I would like you to think a little about our European culture, which, Mr Whitehead, is represented by savouring a quality wine or whisky in moderation, as part of festivities.
<P>
I do not think, my friends, that you realize that not long ago, less than a fortnight ago, we passed an essential reform, the reform of the common organisation of the market in wine.
On that occasion we tried to defend the principles of quality and of regionalisation, and the principles of respect for our traditions involving wine and alcoholic beverages, in the interests of the consumer and the diversity that we have across Europe.
<P>
Labelling, Mr Schnellhardt, is an integral part of what we adopted, providing rules for the presentation of wine and telling people what may be represented by descriptions and designations of origin, such as the châteaux, the Rivesaltes, Prädikat wines, as you say in German, Mr Schnellhardt, Q&A, and so on. In short, we are here to defend a particular culture.
We are following our approach towards the recent common organisation of the market in wine.
We want to respect consumers, we want to protect wine, and we will therefore vote against you, Mr Schnellhardt, tomorrow morning.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="Gillis">
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Schnellhardt for his clear and concise introduction to what is a complex, emotive and difficult piece of legislation.
As regards the labelling of alcoholic beverages, my position is that consumers have a right to transparency and complete openness.
Labelling of all consumer products and in particular all food items, including soft and alcoholic drinks, is essential to give the consumer a clear description of the items concerned.
<P>
I realise that traditional products have not normally carried labels as to their content.
Also, labelling cannot solve all problems.
Labelling must be accurate and checked to ensure consumer confidence.
Inaccurate and uncontrolled declarations are useless and bring the whole system into disrepute.
<P>
Despite all these problems, labelling has an important role and should apply to all food products including alcoholic beverages.
In the vote I would like to see the proposal to include beer extended to include cider also.
Therefore I will be supporting Amendment No 15 as well as Amendment No 9.
<P>
To conclude, consumer information must be complete and accurate.
I therefore support the declaration of ingredients on all food items.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, I have been involved in these debates for eleven years now, and I have experienced all the various efforts to rationalise the area we are discussing again this evening.
The Commission has now made another attempt, which actually focuses more on procedural and less on substantive issues, because if we begin with the substance, this proposal will suffer the same fate as the first two proposals. We shall not make any progress.
For that reason the approach adopted by the rapporteur, which is the same approach we suggested in our proposal, is undoubtedly the right basis.
<P>
I cannot interfere in internal disputes.
It is true that I spoke to the rapporteur, but I do not know whether he delayed the proposal, Mrs Lulling.
On the other hand, I have a natural inclination to believe everything you say.
However, I have no wish to interfere in this matter.
<P>
What did we propose, and what is this argument actually about?
I do not intend to involve myself in the question of whether one product is culturally superior, although a great deal could be said about that.
After all, wine is mentioned in the Bible, and that is certainly something!
As far as these things are concerned, we should not be engaging now in any sort of Kulturkampf between wine and beer or between wine-growing areas and beer-brewing areas. We should be considering how we can ensure that the information which is important to the consumer is actually on the label.
That, in short, is what we all want to achieve.
That is certainly an aim on which there are no differences.
<P>
If that is our common aim, we cannot ignore the fact that there are already very detailed specific rules for certain alcoholic beverages, as well as very experienced institutions which exercise responsibility for ensuring compliance with these rules.
That is really no more than what we are proposing.
We are not trying to say that there is a difference in quality between wine and beer, or between beer and grappa or whatever; the real question is whether we make use of what we already have and thereby avoid any duplication of effort.
The wine market and the rules governing the sale of wine are already highly sophisticated, and if we were now to overlay the whole structure, as it were, with a set of general provisions, Mr Schnellhardt, the result would surely be a situation in which consumers would tend to lose their bearings and in which producers could face the biggest problems.
That is really the only crucial difference.
<P>
Now I could not fail to notice during the discussion that there are very widely differing positions on this issue in Parliament.
That always suits us, because we can then wait and see which position prevails.
That is precisely what I would suggest we do in this case.
However, I can imagine that the Council will be more inclined to subscribe to our proposal.
But there too, of course, we can wait and see.
<P>
I should therefore like to move on now to say a few words on the various amendments, so that you can consider our positions on these when deciding how to vote.
We can accept Amendment No 3, which proposes an additional recital enunciating the two aims of the proposal, namely consumer protection and consolidation of the single market.
We certainly have no problem with that.
The same applies to Amendment No 17.
<P>
Amendment No 1 is unnecessary in our opinion, as there is no need to supplement the legal basis by adding a reference to Article 129a of the Treaty, because Article 100a also covers consumer protection.
In any event, I have no intention of interfering in the dispute between the legal services.
We made this proposal in the way we always make proposals.
We chose what seemed to us to be the most logical legal basis.
If there is a feeling that Article 43 should also be included because we are dealing with disparate products, that can naturally be done too.
<P>
I have said that we make a distinction between wine, aromatised wines and spirits because we already have comprehensive Community rules for these, including provisions on labelling.
It seems logical to us that the rules on the listing of ingredients on the labels of these beverages - we shall still have to reach agreement on the substance of those rules, of course - ought to be adapted in the framework of the new provisions.
We shall certainly have new provisions, but they must serve as the basis for the adaptation of these specified rules, and not vice versa.
<P>
For beverages that are not covered by Community regulations, such as beer and cider, the labelling provisions must be laid down in Commission directives.
The question will then arise, Mr Schnellhardt, as to the legal basis we have to adopt and the form of parliamentary involvement.
I appreciate that Parliament naturally prefers to work with a procedure that requires, or virtually requires, its consent and thereby strengthens the position of Parliament.
But this cannot be taken so far that the principle is even applied in cases where it offers no practical benefit.
There is no point in waging a conflict of competence at someone else's expense.
I consider that very unwise.
<P>
We can accept the improvements of wording in Amendment No 14, and we can also accept the extension to five years of the time-limit for the adoption of procedures.
But that should then apply to all products.
Amendment No 19 proposes that it should only apply to wine and spirits.
We believe that this amounts to unfair treatment, which we cannot accept.
For the same reason, we cannot accept Amendments Nos 5, 6, 7, 11, 16 and 20 or the second part of Amendments Nos 9 and 15.
The first part of Amendments Nos 9 and 15 is acceptable to us.
<P>
Amendments Nos 2, 10 and 18, which are evidently designed to make Article 6 of Directive 79/112 directly applicable to other beverages such as cider or new industrial products, are unacceptable to us, because we should have to insist on the listing of ingredients on the labels of these beverages as soon as the amending directive was adopted, whereas the same requirement would not yet apply to wine, beer and spirits.
This means that we should then have another case of unfair treatment, although this time the boot would be on the other foot.
<P>
As far as these beverages are concerned, by the way, the real problem has more to do with consumers being misled, which is due in many cases to strict application of Article 2 of Directive 79/112.
This could very easily be resolved through the watchdog bodies in the Member States.
It is not so much a matter of new rules.
<P>
We suggested in our proposal that the list of ingredients should be preceded by the words 'produced from' in cases where it is impossible to include every ingredient in the list.
It could be decided, for example, not to include water among the contents of many of these beverages, such as whisky, because it is not one of the active ingredients.
Mrs Schleicher put forward an argument that might be difficult to sustain.
She said that when consumers are already under the influence of alcohol to a certain extent, they can consult the label on the beverage to see whether they can drink another glass of it, but I submit that by the time they reach that state, they will no longer be able to read the label anyway!
<P>
We are not happy with the wording of Amendments Nos 12 and 22, which implies in some languages that wine is the product of a manufacturing process, and so we do not wish to accept those amendments.
We cannot accept Amendments Nos 4 and 13 either, but we shall incorporate the standard article on consulting the Scientific Committee; in other words, we accept the role of the Scientific Committee in principle.
Amendments Nos 23 and 24 relate to the problem of alcoholism.
That is no more a subject for this debate than the GMO problem - the honourable Member who raised the question of genetically modified organisms has left already.
The problem, of course, has already been the subject of an expert opinion from the medical side.
Mr Schnellhardt, by the way, is a medic too.
You specialists can discuss this later among yourselves.
<P>
Heckling

<P>
Vets are also medics, and animals are sometimes harder to treat than humans. On the other hand, I have to admit that alcoholism is not a great problem among animals!
<P>
Let me ask in conclusion that we establish our agreement on one point, namely that these are truly products with a long tradition.
We need not pit one tradition against the other in a Kulturkampf , but it is clear that these traditions are worth preserving.
The problem of alcoholism does not arise in connection with beverages that a consumer buys and drinks because he or she values its taste and quality.
No consumer will buy a bottle of Pétrus or Amarone in order to get drunk.
There are certainly cheaper ways to do that, and this is something we all have to appreciate.
We cannot be indiscriminate and lump everyone together.
That would be unfair to many people - including, incidentally, the average consumer of alcoholic beverages.
Consumers are not so stupid that they cannot obtain information unless we prescribe labels for them to read.
We should not think of consumers as beings that we alone can release from ignorance.
<P>
I do not object to having a little more information on a label, but I know exactly which alcoholic beverages I drink and which ones I do not.
Within the various categories too, I choose very carefully, even if there is no information at all on the label.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
The sitting was closed at 11.25 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Year 2000 computer problem
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0014/99) by Mr A.J. Donnelly, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: The year 2000 computer problem (COM(98)0102 - C4-0233/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="Donnelly, Alan">
Mr President, this is an extremely important issue for the business community and for citizens within the European Union.
Individual citizens own many products.
They travel by different forms of transport.
They use public utilities.
All of these will be affected by the computer problem associated with the year 2000.
While some months ago many members of the public believed that this was a problem only for computer companies, it is now very clear that the issue of the millennium bug will affect all citizens in every aspect of their lives.
The most important thing for the European Union to do in the course of this year is to make sure that all social groups and every part of the business community are made fully aware of the potential complications of the millennium bug.
<P>
I am less concerned about the way in which major multinationals are preparing to deal with this issue.
It is pretty clear that if you are a major multinational you can afford and probably have had experts working on this issue for several years.
But we know that within the European Union there are approximately 18 million small enterprises.
How many of those have identified whether or not they have potential problems after 1 January 2000 because of systems they are operating within that small business?
<P>
In some countries - my own included - several thousand experts have been appointed to go round and help the small business community to identify whether a small business will be affected.
But across the whole of the European Union, given the importance of the small business community to the EU, we need to make sure that as much pressure as possible is exerted on the Member States to provide the same facility in all 15 countries.
I would be very grateful if the Commissioner could explain to us this morning whether there is any surveillance programme to identify whether all 15 Member States are providing expertise to help in advising the small business community on how the millennium bug could affect them.
<P>
In relation to public utilities - electricity, gas, water and so forth - it is essential that they too manage their own affairs in relation to the millennium bug.
It would be disastrous for citizens in the European Union if, because of inadequate preparation, the public sector and the public utilities found they had problems after 1 January 2000.
What measures are being taken across the European Union to have a coordinated response and to ensure that proper information is going to the public services in this area?
<P>
As far as European Union legislation is concerned, there is a body of legislation dealing with liability for defective services, product safety and other liability legislation.
What is not clear to me is whether we will be applying those product liability directives to any problem that might occur in relation to the millennium bug.
In the United States, for example, they have considered waiving liability legislation so that companies are not affected by the failure of their products or services.
Will European citizens be able to call upon product liability and defective services liability legislation in the European Union in the event of goods or services not operating as a result of the millennium bug?
This is a matter people in the European Union want answers to.
Can they resort to law if they find they have problems?
<P>
There are two final points I want to deal with.
What contingency plans are Member States making and what collective initiatives are taking place across the European Union in the event - God forbid - of a serious problem associated with a major industry within the EU?
What action is being taken by the civil authorities to prepare for a potential disaster in one or another part of the EU?
For example, are the Interior Ministers discussing whether or not there needs to be a contingency plan for 1 January 2000?
Some people may say that this is a Cassandra trying to paint a very black picture but the fact is that we do not know whether there are potentially very disastrous problems waiting round the corner.
<P>
Finally, with regard to our external relations.
Around our borders we have relations with the Eastern European countries and with the former Soviet countries.
They have extensive nuclear installations which we know are already in a very serious state of decline.
What work is being done by the European Union to secure these nuclear installations and other major utilities around our borders against potential disaster because of a lack of preparation by these other countries?
This is not just a European Union problem but could have very serious implications, in particular in very sensitive sectors such as the energy sector, unless we make proper preparations.
<P>
This is critically important to us.
It is not only computer buffs who should be concerned.
It is for every citizen to recognise the danger to their own livelihood and risks to our safety.
The Commission and the Parliament must make it very clear that we will push throughout this year to guarantee that all steps that can be taken are taken to secure the safety of our citizens, to secure the legal rights of our citizens and to secure the prospects for our business community, together with the safety of our neighbours at this very critical time, as a result of the changes in technology.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="Hendrick">
Mr President, I should like to start by congratulating my good friend and colleague Mr Donnelly on an excellent report which covers most aspects of the problems associated with the millennium bug.
This report has not come too soon - rumours of it being on the agenda of the December part-session are unfounded!
<P>
In my own country, estimates are that the millennium bug problems could cost up to 2 % of GDP.
Given that growth in many countries is estimated at below 2 %, this is a very unsatisfactory position and everything should be done to try to minimise the impact of the problem, in particular with regard to public services, business, transport, domestic problems and, as Mr Donnelly mentioned, the threat to safety.
The most worrying of all is nuclear safety and we know that there are problems in Central and Eastern Europe and possibly elsewhere.
<P>
I should like to address three areas which give cause for concern.
These are public awareness, liability in the case of failure and, thirdly, the issue we have touched on, namely safety.
In terms of public awareness, I know that there are programmes in each Member State to give information to consumers in particular, but also businesses.
I would call on the Commission to use the European Information Centres to distribute information to ensure that the public and businesses are aware of their responsibilities and the risks involved in not preparing for the year 2000.
Business awareness is a problem for the reasons I have outlined and its effects on economic performance.
The wait-and-see attitude which some businesses are adopting is unsatisfactory.
The situation could be far worse than they could possibly imagine.
<P>
In terms of liability in the case of failure, consumers should be protected.
The present position of whether it is unavoidable failure or unforeseen is inadequate.
Many insurers are trying to shirk their responsibilities.
Consumers should be insured on the basis that it is reasonable for the consumer to expect recompense, given the age of a particular product.
<P>
Finally, on safety.
Obviously, the nuclear industry is an area of concern - and Mr Donnelly touched on this.
Transport is another.
All attempts should be made to build in fail-safe measures where there are doubts about the proper functioning of equipment after the year 2000.
<P>
I commend this report to the House and congratulate Mr Donnelly again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Velzen, W.G.">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I must congratulate Alan Donnelly very warmly on this first-rate report.
I think he gives an excellent answer to all the questions of concern to the European Union here.
It is not his fault that the report is late, it is just one of those things.
It looks as if the European Union is reluctant to shoulder its responsibilities in this area, and I should like to put the following question to Commissioner Bangemann.
At one of the meetings of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, he said that the millennium problem was not really all that serious.
We would find in the year 2000 that it had all been 'hype' on the part of the software manufacturers.
What I actually want to ask him is how seriously does he now think we need to address the millennium problem at European Union level?
I will focus on four points.
<P>
The first is the problem of 'chain reactions'.
We all know that you cannot solve the millennium problem at local, regional or national level alone, you have to look too at the EU dimension as a whole.
But obviously all these things are closely interrelated.
The better we are able to map and resolve the problem of potential chain reactions, the more successful we shall be in tackling the millennium problem.
From the point of view of the internal market, I therefore think it is most important that we pay attention to what develops with regard to potential chain reactions in this area and at European Union level.
The example of electricity is a very familiar one.
If the system cannot cope somewhere in one country, the integrated nature of the electricity grid means that this will have major repercussions on other countries in and outside the European Union.
<P>
The second point is liability.
We know that efforts are now under way in a number of Member States to discuss who will be responsible for what, if and when the millennium bug actually strikes.
Some insurance companies have set aside funds, others have not.
I should like to ask the Commissioner how he is handling this manifestation of the internal market?
Because if liability is well regulated in one Member State of the European Union and not in another - take the problem of embedded software, for example - how ultimately are we going to deal with that?
I do not think the European Union can remain passive on this question.
<P>
My third point is awareness.
Awareness of the millennium problem means firstly that plans have to be made, above all that tests have to be run, and also that the public has to be shown what we are actually doing and what the effects of our endeavours are.
The more clearly we can show our people that we are on top of things, that we are working on the problem and that it is of course soluble, the more I think popular confidence will increase.
I think that is most important.
<P>
My final point concerns the nuclear sector.
We have no idea what will happen here.
So I think it is most important to pay a great deal more attention to this, because it may be an area of increasing popular anxiety.
So I would urge the Commissioner and his colleagues to clarify what we are doing in Central and Eastern Europe and what we are doing in Russia, because there is of course a big question mark over that in particular, and so our citizens need to be given clear information on that point as well.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, a question for you.
What is the European Parliament doing to ensure that the European Parliament is millennium-compliant?
Perhaps you could tell us presently what Parliament is doing.
I am very curious to know.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Mr President, I too must compliment Mr Donnelly on his excellent report.
I should like to take up one point which previous speakers have also made.
On 1 January 2000 many computers will think, if they are not millennium-compliant, that the clock has suddenly been turned back to 1900.
This carries great risks to the economy, to the environment and to people.
Above all, I find the situation in Russia and a number of Central and Eastern European countries alarming.
Due to the economic crisis there, efforts to deal with the millennium problem, which had in any case not received a great deal of priority, have virtually ground to a halt.
Now I know that people there say that some computers do not have the problems we have in the West.
But we cannot be sure of that.
To be on the safe side, I recently paid a working visit to the only nuclear power plant which my country boasts.
I found there that they had been working for a full year to make the plant millennium-compliant.
I also raised the question of the Central and Eastern European countries, which they were certainly aware of, and they were not happy about what is going on there.
So I am grateful to Mr Donnelly for having incorporating my amendment on this point.
<P>
Mr van Velzen raised the matter of liability, and I would mention that all insurance policies exclude disasters involving nuclear energy or other nuclear disasters.
So that is one more reason to give some thought to this question.
<P>
I still believe that the European Union should give a lead here and be open and honest on the subject, together with Russia and Eastern Europe.
It is high time that we accepted our responsibilities, and I think account must be taken of this in our aid programmes.
A variety of studies show that it can be done at relatively modest cost.
The total cost of resolving the Russian millennium problem is put at USD 100 million.
I think that would be money well spent.
If we, the citizens of the European Union, want to be sure of a safe roll-over into the new millennium, then we too must be prepared to get our wallets out.
Time is getting on. We have no time left, and the responsibility rests with the West just as much as with the East.
So I would urge Commissioner Bangemann to place this subject high on the agenda, not just because of the risks of not being insured, but above all because of the damage to the environment if things do get irretrievably out of control.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="Kerr">
Mr President, I should like to begin with a confession.
I am a complete technophobe and clearly this is why my group has chosen me to speak on this complex topic.
I have read Mr Donnelly's splendid report and commend him for it.
A thought did occur to me.
Has he checked out that the Labour Party computers at Millbank Tower have been programmed to take account of the change so that all Members will remain on message in the year 2000 as they have in 1999?
<P>
Clearly this is an important issue.
One fundamental question which occurred to me when I read the report is: how did it happen that computer designers and software designers were allowed to make and programme machines in such a way?
Everyone knew that the year 2000 was approaching but it did not seem to occur to them to sort out this rather fundamental fault in the process of design.
Then the question arises: what about the matter of liability for any damage that occurs if these machines crash?
Could we sue Mr Gates for his many billions of dollars for his responsibility in the process?
Or perhaps we could nationalise him as one US economist recently suggested.
<P>
I have read that the British Government has done some serious preparation for this but I was slightly alarmed to read in the papers the other day that the Italian Government - I do not want to criticise my Italian friends - has just set up a study group, with no offices, no budgets and no resources, to look at this problem only nine months before the event.
It seems to me a little late in the day.
Indeed, Parliament is also a little late in the day with its report.
But I am sure that Commissioner Bangemann will tell us that the Commission is well advanced with its planning.
<P>
Finally, might I suggest that to restore confidence in Europe, Commissioner Kinnock could take to the air and fly on the eve of the year 2000 and that Commissioner Bangemann should resurrect his well-known feats on motorcycle with Mr Barton and travel through the traffic systems of Brussels on the back of Mr Barton's motorcycle.
That would reassure the citizens of Europe that the Commission has the situation well in hand.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, if computers jump from '99' to '00' on 1 January next, no one knows exactly what the consequences will be.
They may be far-reaching.
But it may also be that the millennium problem exists mainly in people's heads, planted there by software manufacturers eager to make a fast buck.
<P>
The millennium problem brings us unequivocally up against the limitations of human knowledge and ability.
To anyone who puts all his trust in technology, the millennium problem must be a huge disappointment. A mere trifle like leaving out the digits '19' from the year gives rise to a life-threatening situation.
We are too quick to forget that all technology is the work of human beings.
We can fool ourselves that we are all-powerful and talk about the 'triumph of technology', but meanwhile that same technology is an enormous threat.
<P>
Recital C of the resolution rightly points the finger at the economic considerations which led to the year being displayed as two digits only.
In a way, we wanted the new computer technology to produce economic results too fast.
Is this not the root of a great number of current social and cultural problems?
We are addicted to the pursuit of profit and economic gain.
Everything has to give way to that imperative, including the natural world and our very human existence itself.
<P>
It is therefore particularly regrettable that Mr Donnelly's report embroiders further on the theme of the problem-solving ability of human intelligence.
Of course we have to try to prevent possible disasters.
But I think we need equally to reflect on the deeper cultural and religious causes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Paasilinna">
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="Ilaskivi">
Mr President, it is not quite ten months to the turn of the century.
Despite that, the testing of computer systems is lagging behind in many sectors, and has not even yet begun in all of them.
There are some who do not even know anything about the problem at all.
<P>
The European Parliament is quite rightly addressing the possible problems the year 2000 will cause, the so-called 'Y2K' problem.
However, it lays the main emphasis on cooperation from its Member States and the western world.
But the problems are not confined to here.
It is well known, and it has been pointed out here, that in Russia and its immediate surroundings there is a lack of intellectual and material resources to solve the problem.
Air traffic needs up-to-date computer systems, particularly for computer-based air-traffic control systems and in modern aircraft that rely on computers; and nuclear power stations are global problems that affect us all.
Failure to upgrade systems could constitute a serious danger to health and present other types of risk for people in various parts of the world.
<P>
The issue is neither a political nor an ideological one, and in dealing with it borders must not act as barriers.
The EU must invest in finding a solution on a broad scale that transcends its own borders and that looks at the problem from the human angle.
It is preferable to make this investment sooner rather than later, as delay could prove costly.
The images of horror that have been painted by over-imaginative science-fiction writers, conjuring up apocalyptic visions, must not be allowed to come true.
The responsibility is a global one.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, I basically agree with Mr Donnelly's excellent report, though his comments about SMEs in recital D need to be modified a little.
It is certainly not true that smaller firms lack specialist technical knowledge; on the contrary, SMEs are the ones that generate innovation and research in many fields.
Their structure and specialist technical knowledge mean that they are able to react quickly to any software problems that come up.
On the other hand, however, if major firms or public administrations have computer problems, these could have a massive impact on SMEs.
The rapporteur's comments on the nuclear sector in Eastern Europe and Russia are extremely important.
This is a field that is receiving huge financial support from the European Union, but up to now, unfortunately, we have not seen any significant improvement in the safety of nuclear power plants.
<P>
It is now high time to make sure that the funding available really is used to improve reactor safety.
It is probably unrealistic to hope that the nuclear power stations will be shut down by the year 2000, so we must at least ensure that there are no breakdowns caused by the year 2000 problem.
We need to give top priority to eliminating any risk to the population of Europe, since Europe's taxpayers have after all provided a lot of money for nuclear safety in Eastern Europe and Russia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pinel">
Mr President, the subject we are dealing with today, the 'Millennium bug', is an extremely impenetrable one for the majority of our fellow citizens.
To save time, I will simply say that it is like a grain of sand that can cause the most sophisticated machine to grind to a halt.
But we must look beyond this.
I believe that it actually defines the limits of our so-called modern society, a short-term society built on sand, a society that often cannot see beyond the end of its nose.
For the sake of saving a few minuscule bytes in systems software, two generations of computer programmers have deliberately ignored the advent of the new millennium.
Even today, we still do not know how big an effect such irresponsible behaviour will have.
<P>
As the saying goes, to govern is to predict.
Well, this is proof that no-one is governing our world any longer.
Mitterrand, Fabius and Clinton are all fighting the same war: that of the generation of those who prefer to use politics to serve their own purposes rather than their people.
This is a generation where the irresponsible are in charge. This is a generation that knowingly lets populations slowly poison themselves with contaminated blood, that builds nuclear power stations knowing full well that one day they will blow up in our faces, and that would rather fly bombers over innocent crowds to detract from their sexual dalliances and conceal them.
<P>
This whole issue of computer faults is not as innocuous as it may seem.
It is a symptom, amongst others, of this climate of decline and of the widespread shunning of responsibility, where no-one has to answer to anyone any longer.
Unfortunately, the other side of this issue is that, once again, our leaders will probably not take this new lesson seriously, and that is a shame.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, it is not true that Parliament has come to this problem too late, because it is something we have discussed on a number of occasions over the past few years, and the Commission has constantly reported on what it has been doing.
We have been looking at the problem for four years now and have tried to do everything we can.
I would like to thank Alan Donnelly for spelling out in his report exactly what our responsibility is and where efforts can still be made over the next few months.
<P>
I must point out straight away that he is no Cassandra, because Cassandra's predictions were always right.
Her problem was that everything she said was always true, but this is not the case with Alan Donnelly.
I am sure that some of the fears expressed here in this debate will not come true at all.
<P>
Let me begin by telling you what the Commission has been doing.
The first problem was to make everyone aware that there was a problem, and that it affected them.
I think we have now got this message across, partly thanks to the rather exaggerated reports of impending doom.
The good thing about these kinds of hysterical reports is that even when they are completely exaggerated, they still have the effect of making people sit up and listen.
All these horror stories of planes plummeting from the skies, electricity failures and the Labour Party being unable to count its members alarmed people so much - particularly the last of the three - that now everybody knows we have a problem on our hands.
This was the most important priority, so in itself it is no bad thing.
<P>
The Commission did what it could to help here, focusing particularly on small and medium-sized firms.
From the outset, we involved the Member States and international authorities such as the Atomic Energy Commission in Vienna in our discussions.
Of course, we had to try to ensure that the various measures were carried out by those in the best position to do so, so we did not try to do everything ourselves, but tried instead to provide the various responsible bodies with the highest possible levels of specialist knowledge, and in some cases also with funding.
For example, we provided the atomic energy authority with funding to enable it to carry out operations in Eastern Europe.
So we tried to get a whole series of organisations and responsible bodies involved, and in particular those directly affected in private industry.
<P>
The result is reasonably good.
It is true that the smaller firms, as usual, face bigger problems, since they do not have the manpower or often the money which they need - there is now software that can solve most of the problems, of course, but it is relatively expensive, so there is also the problem of affordability.
<P>
We have been doing everything we have listed in the communication.
We have had regular meetings with the Member States, and we have worked together, and are continuing to do so, with the relevant international organisations in the financial, telecommunications, energy and transport fields.
These fields were not chosen at random, but because they vary in the way in which they use computers.
For example, if you have computers that are designed and programmed to run according to a regular timetable, they are more likely to suffer from the problem than computers that have nothing to do with regular timetables and simply collect data.
The data are not linked to particular time intervals and will therefore not be affected by the millennium bug.
So this is something else that needs to be looked into.
<P>
Nevertheless, we are working with all those concerned to try to establish exactly what they can do and what we have to do to ensure that the various infrastructure sectors carry on operating smoothly.
If people wanted, the Commission could even do more, particularly in the way of providing financial support.
But the sums that the individual private firms affected need to spend are so great that it is hard to imagine any public authorities being able to afford to pay them.
Of course, we have done everything that needs to be done to guarantee immediate security, but many of those involved are also doing a great deal at their own expense to protect their own interests.
I cannot imagine any airport in the world that works with computer systems and that has not found a solution to the problem by now, and it would be absolutely unthinkable if there were airlines that had not now taken the necessary precautions on board their aircraft.
<P>
What else can we do to adapt the legal provisions if necessary?
This is an interesting question, because it is an area where we could already be taking action.
We have looked into this too.
Legal rules already exist to deal with problems such as this, because in legal terms it is nothing new.
Anyone who makes a mistake when supplying a product or service must of course take responsibility if it is a culpable error or if there is no-fault liability.
Firms which use a lot of suppliers working with these kinds of systems have in many cases already written to them to point out that if there is any disruption they will hold the suppliers responsible.
In other words, they themselves have let their suppliers know that they will be held to be at the very least negligent if they do not tackle the problem.
<P>
This is why we do not think it would be a good idea to propose new legal rules.
Alan Donnelly mentioned the 'Good Samaritan Legislation', the new American law designed to promote the provision of information by limiting liability for declarations of millennium compliance.
Of course, this does not encourage people to tackle the millennium bug, quite the reverse, unfortunately.
So we think that the existing legal rules, together with the information that suppliers are being given, will be enough to deal with the problem in legal terms.
Of course, this will not be the case everywhere.
For example, someone asked whether Parliament will continue to operate after the year 2000.
This is a question not of legal responsibility but of political expedience, and the Commission does not wish to comment on it at the moment.
<P>
Someone else asked what we are doing about our own computer systems.
It would hardly be good for the Commission if we spent five years telling everyone to do something about the problem but failed to do anything ourselves.
Of course we have ensured that our own systems will operate.
A project designed to ensure that they are millennium-compliant is nearing completion.
Once we have done the tests, we will be able to inform you that the Commission at least will be operating after the year 2000, if that is any consolation to you!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Velzen, W.G.">
Mr President, I asked if you would be willing to tell the House what preparations the European Parliament is making to deal with the millennium problem.
We now know what the Commission is doing, but can you tell honourable Members what stage Parliament has reached?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
I will convey your request to the President of Parliament and ask him to communicate with you in due course.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Safety, hygiene and health protection at work
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Ojala">
Mr President, I should like to start by discussing the annual reports of the two health and safety committees.
Both the Advisory Committee on Safety, Hygiene and Health Protection at Work and the permanent body for safety and hygiene in coalmines and other extractive industries work on the tripartite principle, which I hope the Community will adopt to a greater extent in the future.
Both committees suffer from a lack of resources.
Even so, they have succeeded in doing an excellent job.
However, we should be thinking of ways to make the work of the committees more effective, such as through reorganisation, and to put their expertise to better use.
<P>
The most important aspect of the Community's activities in the area of health and safety at work is legislation and its application.
Considerable progress has been made in this field.
Whereas in 1996 the Member States had transposed 74 % of the directives on health and safety at work into their national legislation, that figure has now risen to 95 %.
Acceptance of the directives themselves, however, still does not mean they are being interpreted and applied correctly or that they are producing concrete results at the workplace.
Enforcement is, however, what all the EU health and safety activities hinge on.
The report contains specific demands for a total ban on asbestos, an extension of the cancer directive, a call for directives on physical factors, scaffolding and minimum requirements in the transport sector, as well as a proposal to protect those who work outdoors.
<P>
In its interim report, the Commission proposes four main priorities for the period 1998-2000: firstly, more effective legislation; secondly, preparation for enlargement; thirdly, stronger links with the issue of employability; and, fourthly, the risks arising from changes in working conditions.
These are important priorities. The Commission's extended list of priorities will present a real challenge for action on health and safety at work.
Occupational health and safety in the applicant countries is not nearly at the same level as in current Member States.
They will need every possible kind of support to achieve the levels that exist in the Community.
<P>
Maintaining older people's capacity for work is also one of the major challenges of the coming years, and I wanted to talk about the Finnish example here.
In Finland, action to maintain the capacity to work is taken jointly by the employer, the employee and the cooperation organisations.
Finland's good record in this area could be taken as a model of good practice for the other Member States.
There is a fundamental link here with employability.
<P>
Assessing the health and safety risks at the workplace is still too often limited to physical, chemical and biological risks.
Nevertheless, muscular-skeletal diseases and psycho-social factors currently constitute the greatest threats to workers' health.
Our committee has already mentioned stress, in particular, as being one of these.
I would also draw attention to the issue of violence, which is a growing problem in the service sector.
<P>
The Commission also states in its interim report that the increase in female employment brings with it certain special problems connected with health and safety at work.
I think we need to obtain statistics in this area, broken down by gender.
Certain jobs that women do carry their own health and safety risks, which result, for example, from lack of autonomy, monotonous and repetitive work, and other such factors.
<P>
Finally, I would like to say a word about the amendments.
I am prepared to approve all of them other than Amendment No 1.
Amendment No 2 I approve as an addition to paragraph 15 in the report.
I cannot approve Amendment No 1, as it would reduce paragraph 3 of the report to a mere complaint about the small number of women on the committees and would exclude the important proposal for improvement.
To explain what I mean, the Committee on Women's Rights has pointed out, in the opinion it has drafted, that women comprise only 10 % of the employers and 20 % of the employees on the advisory committees, and it has urged that the proportion of women be increased.
A more balanced representation of both genders is entirely feasible without impinging on the independence of the nomination system.
In the Nordic countries there are excellent examples of this, and for that reason I recommend that Amendment No 1 be rejected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Soltwedel-Schäfer">
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Skinner">
Mr President, Mrs Ojala has been very effective in the committee in driving through a very important report.
I pay tribute to her patience and understanding on this issue.
There are so many people dying each year or becoming sick and injured that we need to do everything we can to ensure that the activities of the European Union are focused in such a way that reduction is given priority.
<P>
Across Europe there are many bodies which play a role in protecting citizens' lives.
Trends and patterns of work tell us that the terrain of that work is changing and we need to adapt new strategies, new techniques and new practices to take account of and anticipate the effects of this change.
I can therefore support both the approach and the substance of Mrs Ojala's report because it moves in that direction.
We should welcome this.
One issue I particularly commend is the recognition of the type of work that agencies such as the Bilbao Health and Safety Agency perform.
It should please us all that SMEs, which have been the scene of some of the worst accidents, are receiving special attention.
Although Safe Action in Europe is no longer with us in body it is still with us in spirit.
The Bilbao agency has succeeded in encouraging the process of spreading best practice effectively.
<P>
This year, when health and safety will be defined by working times, scaffolding, chemical agents, carcinogens and, in particular, asbestos - and I am glad the Green Group raised this latter issue - Parliament should feel very proud of the role it has played in promoting the change which is going to be necessary to bring about a ban on asbestos.
The Committee on Social Affairs and Employment has played a key role in making sure that the scientific evidence is there to promote that ban and we can expect to celebrate before the European elections a dramatic reduction in the deaths caused by this.
<P>
However, most of all we should celebrate Parliament's vigilance.
It is only by this vigilance that we are able to promote the best strategies which will effect the best practices.
To this end, I regard this report as a major part of the machinery of good practice and effective regulation in this field.
The rapporteur is to be congratulated for bringing it together.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Pronk">
Mr President, I too am grateful to the rapporteur for her report.
It is a good report which has many very valuable things in it and reminds us of the importance of safety and health at work.
This is an aspect of social policy which has actually generated the most legislation.
It is also a part of the internal market.
That is sometimes overlooked.
If there are major differences in safety and health legislation, that leads directly to all manner of distortions of competition.
So that is one of the reasons why we have such a broad range of legislation covering the field.
<P>
There has of late been a problem, I feel, in that the Commission has not done enough to ensure that the legislation is in fact complied with.
It is only really in the last year and a half that the matter has been addressed with any vigour.
That, I think, is one of the essential things which need to be done.
And I believe we can distinguish between two stages: firstly whether the directives are actually transposed and, secondly, whether they are in fact implemented, in other words whether there is adequate scrutiny.
That too is an extremely important aspect. These comments are all directed, really, at the Commission.
<P>
My second point concerns Eastern Europe.
I see we have Mr van den Broek here with us.
It is perhaps worth making the point once again that it is important to appreciate that this directive and everything that goes with it is part of the acquis communautaire .
I know from my own experience that there is sometimes the feeling in Eastern Europe that this is not the case, because people say yes, we want those other things, but these are all social directives and what have you, and all that is a bit difficult.
Of course, we cannot accept that.
It is a formal part of the acquis , but in order to enforce that in Eastern Europe too, it is indeed very important for us to begin programmes now which aim to bring both the technology and the legislation up to the mark on this point.
I think that this is extremely important.
<P>
The third point is the question of the committee itself.
In one of her amendments, Mrs Ojala has made a direct attack on the independence of the social partners.
The social partners play an important role in this committee, and she is seeking to restrict the social partners' right to appoint their representatives.
That is not acceptable, in my view, and we have tabled an amendment accordingly.
I think anyone who believes that the social partners should decide for themselves whom they wish to appoint will vote in favour of it, and anyone who has a sort of paternalistic view of the social partners will of course vote against; they will do so in the context of the politically correct thinking observed on the other side of the House, and they will in fact be saying 'we are going to decide exactly whom the social partners can appoint'.
But that, I think, will spell the end of the road for the committee, because then the social partners will no longer be able to speak their own mind.
They will be forced to say what others think.
<P>
Those are the points I wished to make - my compliments to the rapporteur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Mr President, like other speakers, I think that Mrs Ojala has produced an excellent report here, and there are just one or two points which I should like to explore further.
<P>
First of all, I wish to underline the points she made about asbestos, an issue which certainly merits closer consideration at European level.
I would also like to see attention being given to an area in which European legislation is still nowhere near as good as it might be, namely the need for proper consideration of organic mental syndrome.
OMS attacks the nervous system and can cause severe forms of brain damage.
The disease is caused by occupational exposure to chemical solvents such as toluene and xylene, in painters and decorators for example.
<P>
Last year, Parliament approved the amended directive on the protection of workers against exposure to chemical substances at work, and this contains a number of provisions which are very important for the prevention of OMS.
The amended directive introduces a statutory obligation to use less harmful substances in the work process in place of certain harmful chemical substances, including solvents.
I believe that the substitution of low-solvent products for high-solvent products is a powerful way of helping industry to be innovative.
However, reduced competitiveness is often cited as a reason not to use products which have a lower solvent content but a higher price.
<P>
Alternatives which are technically perfectly good and less harmful have been available for a long time - as I have pointed out on several occasions - and have already been made mandatory in the USA and the Scandinavian countries.
Ideally, the Member States should transpose the changes to the directive into their national legislation as fast as possible.
My country decided last year already to introduce mandatory substitution for a large number of chemical agents as of the year 2000.
I would urge the Commission to ensure that other countries too make progress on this front.
<P>
Another answer might be to promote the use of reactive solvents, in which a chemical reaction causes the coating to become a part of the binding agent, so that it is not inhaled.
I would point here to successful experiments on solvents obtained from the marigold, notably an experiment funded by the European Union which might thus be taken a little further.
<P>
Lastly, I should be grateful for some answers from the Commissioner to questions which I put some time ago at a special hearing in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
I should like to know what further research the Commission is doing into substances suspected of causing OMS.
I am also interested to know if the Commission is still prepared to tighten up the 1990 recommendation on compensation for people exposed to chemical substances.
The European Court of Justice has already ruled that Member States must take account of OMS and set up systems of compensation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Mr President, first of all I must congratulate Mrs Ojala on her excellent report.
Although all political issues are equally important as a general rule, occupational health and safety can be regarded as particularly important because it involves social relations as well as being a technical issue.
Mrs Ojala's report allows us to consider this issue as requested, we should remember, by Finnish members of our group.
There is a very pertinent comment in the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, drafted by Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer, which underlines that in the EU almost 8 000 workers die each year in industrial accidents and 10 million fall victim to such accidents or occupational diseases.
<P>
This situation must be tackled conscientiously and responsibly.
On the occasion of the 21st annual activity report of the Advisory Committee on Safety, Hygiene and Health Protection at Work, this report certainly hits home.
We would have preferred the monitoring and assessment of this annual report of the Advisory Committee to have concentrated more on examining and updating Directive 92/57, although we agree that the mere transposition of directives is not enough and that these must also be effectively implemented and applied.
We believe that it is important to ensure that all directives which are considered relevant are transposed into national legislation and that their effective application is monitored.
<P>
With regard to Directive 92/57, we raised questions about its transposition and application which were unfortunately very opportune as they referred to serious accidents at civil shipyards in Portugal in October 1994 and March 1995, whereas the Portuguese Government did not transpose the directive until July 1995.
However, transposing the directive is not enough, and we have stressed this, for example in the case of workers suffering from tendinitis at Ford Electrónica Portuguese in Setúbal, by means of questions to the Commission in November 1995 and January 1997.
And we will continue to stress this point!
<P>
Yet this is not the only situation which needs to be tackled, as we are seeing a general trend which must be resisted.
Monitoring in this area indicates that general conditions, the working environment and occupational health and safety are not developing positively.
As pointed out very clearly by Mrs Ojala in paragraph 25 of her report, 'some types of atypical working conditions and subcontracting have led to an increase in workplace accidents'. This is why the report urges the Commission to stress to the Member States that the directives must be complied with and that compliance must be closely monitored.
<P>
However, the general framework for the reorganisation of work also needs to be revised.
We should remember that, when President-in-Office of the Council, the Luxembourg minister Mr Junker commented that the policies of weakening and creating uncertainty in contractual employment relations result in an increase in the number of accidents at work. He also said that uncertainty is the working condition which most seriously threatens the health and safety of workers.
This is why problems must be tackled on the basis of industrial relations.
<P>
Following on from the Green Paper on the reorganisation of work, the House now needs to deliver its opinion on a Commission communication.
This is a major issue, but unfortunately the report on this, for which I am responsible, will not now come before this House as there is not enough time.
I must therefore take the opportunity to stress that this report tackles questions which are unquestionably of prime importance, as they concern working conditions, working relations and the duration of work and therefore particularly affect health and safety at work.
I would also make the point that, significantly, although there is time to discuss minute details on currency matters, there is not enough time for these vital and urgent issues to be debated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lataillade">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report by our colleague Mrs Ojala critically examines two types of document.
The first type covers two activity reports: one from the Advisory Committee on Safety, Hygiene and Health Protection at Work, and the other from the Safety and Health Commission for the Mining and Other Extractive Industries. The other type, that is by far the most interesting and, I would say, more political, is the mid-term report from the Commission on the Community Programme concerning Safety, Hygiene and Health at Work.
And from the outset, my group should like to compliment Mrs Ojala on this excellent report.
<P>
As regards the first two reports, we fully agree with the criticisms expressed by the rapporteur over a certain lack of transparency in the data from the Advisory Committee. We also share the rapporteur's concern for the lack of financial resources for concrete proposals aiming to improve the situation in the workplace and the exchange of information, and, in fact, these resources are currently decreasing.
Such concern may have become evident through the Safety and Health Commission's report.
<P>
The interim report is a more political report as it relates to the Community Programme for two periods: 1996-1998 and 1998-2000. In relation to the first chapter, we support the observations made by the rapporteur on the four fields covered by the excellent work of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, based in Bilbao.
We support her comments on the unjustified cuts in resources allocated to the European Foundation in Dublin.
We agree, too, with the points made regarding the Council's disappointing attitude that led to it rejecting the SAFE programme which aims to encourage specific projects in the field of health and safety. Lastly, we agree with the rapporteur on the positive developments in terms of legislation, particularly as regards transposing these laws into national law in the Member States.
<P>
For the 1998-2000 period, we also share the concerns expressed by our rapporteur that, as we see it, relate to two areas. There must be a more careful analysis of the new world of work as in our societies we are seeing changes in working conditions, a growing service sector, an increase in the number of women in employment and the ageing of the workforce as well as new ways of organising work.
We will not go into the details here, but added to this, new risks are also emerging.
There are indeed physical, chemical and biological risks, but there are also risks linked to muscular-skeletal diseases and also to psychosocial factors.
This aspect has already been mentioned so I will not go back over it.
<P>
This report is in keeping with our concerns from three points of view. Firstly, it reflects our desire to establish vital social measures for all countries in the Union.
It discusses the economic challenge that the world of work.
Finally, it looks at the situation of work both within the Union and in relation to third countries.
It also highlights the fact that we have a duty to be politically accountable. This is why this report must be followed up and why efficient proposals must be provided to meet our common concerns.
<P>
I should like to once again complement Mrs Ojala on her report and assure her that our group will vote in favour of it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate Mrs Ojala, who has once again demonstrated that someone from the Left who shows a sense of commitment and responsibility can really help to improve the quality of the work done by the entire House.
What is this issue all about?
It is about a revolution in the world of work, which is currently undergoing fundamental changes.
The traditional factories and conveyor belts and the safety measures that went with them are all in decline.
In the single market, we need to ensure that the new forms of work organisation do not lead to more uncertainty and stress, and that conditions of employment which are protected by social and labour legislation are not gradually replaced by conditions determined by commercial law. We must also ensure that the progress achieved in working conditions under the old structures, particularly at national level, is genuinely reflected in new and appropriate forms at European level.
<P>
We have two types of mechanisms here: the balance of interests and communication on the one hand, and the Community programme on the other.
I think it is quite clear that the social partners' right to make appointments is an important element of their independence, but it is also our job to ensure representativeness and efficiency.
I therefore think that Mrs Ojala is right on this issue, rather than the PPE Group.
<P>
Secondly, on the subject of the Community programme, some of the major points such as asbestos and mental strain have already been mentioned.
Parliament has already done a considerable amount of work on these, but there is still more to be done.
Generally speaking, the acquis communautaire in this field needs to be deepened and we need to ensure that we are properly prepared for the process of enlargement to the east and, in part, to the south, which will bring new generations of workers into the single market. It will be absolutely vital to ensure that every employee has fair, healthy and humane working conditions, because that is, after all, what this is all about.
The humanisation of working life is the task that now faces us in the single market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, I must firstly also offer my compliments to Mrs Ojala.
Secondly, I wish to comment on the question of structures.
In Mrs Ojala's report, we find criticism of the fact that the Advisory Committee and the Safety and Health Commission have too few women members.
On the other hand, I hear it said here that we ought not to concern ourselves with that, because it would look like paternalism vis-à-vis the social partners.
I protest very vigorously against that attitude, because I cannot believe that the social partners would be unsympathetic to the idea that women, being involved in all areas of economic life, must consequently be involved in all areas of decision-making.
Perhaps we should just give the social partners a little nudge, so that they give women with the necessary ability the chance to become members of these bodies.
<P>
The criticism I read in this document of the bodies set up by the Commission is fairly fierce.
The accusation is made of a lack of transparency on all sides over the substance and results of the work of the Advisory Committee and of all the new working parties which have been set up, eight of them in 1996.
And may I draw the attention not only of Parliament but of the Commission and the bodies it has set up to the criticism made by the Committee on Women's Rights, namely that the reports pay too little attention to typical gender effects.
Gender issues, and I quote 'must not be restricted to pregnancy and breast feeding, but should be related to all health and safety issues and their impact on women'.
I would argue that for men too there may be typical work-related problems and conditions, and we would like to see more attention paid to those.
There is more than just reproductive health at issue here.
<P>
Various honourable Members have mentioned the mental stress factors which increasingly affect workers.
Take yesterday's bus strike in this city, when bus drivers protested at the danger they run at work, where they are regularly the victims of violent attack.
Take the conditions which make life very difficult for teachers in some Member States.
Take the fact that after a few years, nearly all nurses start to have back problems, and so on.
<P>
There is a second point I should like to expand on - previous speakers have done so too - namely the removal of asbestos.
The Commission of course earned itself brownie points by spending a great deal of money on stripping the asbestos from the Berlaymont building.
But the Commission probably never knew about the irresponsible way in which this was done by the workers in charge of removing the asbestos, about the way in which the asbestos waste from the building was driven away through the streets of Brussels.
You should make sure that you are better informed, instead of sitting shuffling papers and smugly concluding that on paper everything looks just fine.
It is true that the public authorities are increasingly aware of the problem of asbestos, but in the same town where a small museum is obliged to remove asbestos sheets from its ceiling, asbestos is still being produced, and the Commission really must do something about that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
Mr President, the June Movement can support Mrs Ojala's report, because it is full of good intentions for our working environment and safety and health at work.
But it does not tackle the key issue, namely those cases in which total EU harmonisation will come into conflict with the Member States' wishes to have better rules than those adopted in the Community.
When the EU adopts provisions on the environment and the working environment as such, they apply as minimum provisions under which we all have the right to go further.
We always support those in the June Movement.
However, the problems arise when rules are adopted instead under provisions relating to the internal market, because then a majority decision taken in a secret committee or a closed Council of Ministers meeting can put the Folketing in the dunce's corner and abolish a law, even when it has been adopted unanimously in the Folketing.
Take the cancer list, for example.
Now Danish workers have to handle substances which both the World Health Organisation and the Danish authorities regard as carcinogenic, because the Commission will not present a proposal and because 62 out of 87 votes in the EU cannot be found to prohibit them.
For creosote, Denmark has invoked the environmental guarantee and banned the substance because it can cause cancer, but in the EU it is now forbidden to forbid the substance, and the Commission has not yet approved the Danish use of the environmental guarantee.
When the Amsterdam Treaty comes into force, no doubt we can expect a letter from the Commission requiring us to outlaw the Danish ban on creosote, because the Amsterdam Treaty does not permit countries to go further than the majority where measures relating to human health are concerned.
Free movement for carcinogens takes precedence over public health!
Let me call on the Commissioner - in conclusion to this debate - to announce instead that it is intended to propose a ban on creosote throughout the EU.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, the contemporary world of work requires specific controls to ensure that safety and health protection standards are adequate to meet the challenges of a society which has long since passed the so-called post-industrial stage.
<P>
When we refer to safety at work, we automatically think of the structures already in place.
My first comment relates to asbestos, its use and its applications: some are known, others are as yet unknown or not covered by a rather toothless Community directive.
This strikes one immediately and therefore merits particular attention.
<P>
Secondly, because of its need to adapt to the demands of a rapidly developing society, the world of work is beset by difficulties which have caused new psychoses, as well as genuine new occupational diseases that are still under investigation but very much need to be regulated.
I am thinking here of the steady increase in cases of work-related stress, fatigue resulting from sedentary or repetitive activities, but also those with indirect causes such as sexually motivated violence and harassment.
<P>
There is undoubtedly a need for a European agency, and we therefore hope that the Bilbao agency, which already exists, will become truly operational. But above all, the second phase of the SAFE programme needs to be adopted as a matter of urgency.
<P>
The present rate of transposition of the directives into national legislation is looking very positive, in that it rose from 70 % in 1996 to 96 % last year.
Of course, much still remains to be done, but we hope, or rather we believe - with our congratulations to the rapporteur - that we are working along the right lines.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
Mr President, I was immensely pleased when I saw that my good friend, Jens-Peter Bonde from the June Movement, was finally going to take part in this debate.
I thought that we would be hearing something constructive and positive.
But it turned out to be one of the usual propaganda speeches, focusing on what are transient issues.
<P>
This report is a good and important initiative.
It is important that the EU and the European Parliament pursue an active and progressive policy in this area.
The EU must be a lever for better safety and health in the Community's workplaces.
Industrial injuries and accidents cost billions of euros every year, but more than anything they represent personal tragedies and costs.
Often it is too late when the damage has occurred.
That is why it is so important to allocate sufficient resources for research and prevention.
It is not just a good investment from the economic point of view; it is an investment whose results cannot be assessed in terms of money.
<P>
I am glad that Parliament is calling on the Commission in this report to do something serious about the asbestos problem.
It is time that asbestos was completely banned.
Many workers have been exposed to this dangerous substance over the years, with catastrophic consequences.
The after-effects are something people have to live with for the rest of their lives, and often they develop cancer - a disease which we all know can be fatal and painful.
So we must demand a total ban.
<P>
Finally, let me stress how important it is that the EU should be constantly at the cutting edge of developments.
We must not just sit on our hands and wait for more accidents to happen.
We must take an active stance and put pressure on the Member States to act before the damage occurs.
We must focus on new forms of industrial injury, which can involve skeleto-muscular damage.
For example, many people who work in offices contract repetitive strain injury, because they use a computer all day long.
Also, the psychological working environment is a problem which for too long has not been taken seriously.
In addition, we must of course campaign to bring about a reduction in limit values which apply to dangerous substances.
The EU's citizens are entitled to expect and demand action from the European Parliament in constantly monitoring and developing a safe and healthy labour market policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, may I begin by presenting the apologies of Commissioner Flynn, who is unfortunately unable to be here for today's debate, but to whom occupational safety and health is a subject of the utmost importance.
With the help of his excellent officials, I shall stand in for him as best I can.
<P>
May I express, in particular, my appreciation of the work done by the committee as a whole, and even more particularly of the excellent work done by the committee's rapporteur, Mrs Ojala.
Her report contains much that the Commission is anxious to consider and act on.
We agree on the fundamental importance of promoting safety and health at work in the countries of the Union.
Much has already been achieved at Union level, and we must continue to build on this in the future.
<P>
The Commission's priorities for future action are grouped under four main headings.
The first priority is to make EU safety and health legislation more effective.
The Member States have already made considerable efforts in that direction, and 95 % of Community instruments have now been fully transposed.
We now have to concentrate on actual implementation of the national legislation and ensuring that it is effective.
We must also constantly review existing directives and update and streamline them where necessary.
The Commission takes note of your constructive suggestions on how we can best ensure that the legislation is made as efficient as possible.
The ultimate objective must be to prevent and minimise the number of accidents at work.
The Commission will wholeheartedly support Member States' initiatives to create the necessary culture of safety amongst employers and the workforce.
The Bilbao Agency and the Foundation in Dublin play a key role in this policy as providers of information.
Better information to small and medium-sized enterprises is of course crucially important.
<P>
A second priority is the work of preparing for enlargement of the European Union.
In the area of occupational safety and health too, the applicant countries will have to make significant efforts if they are to reach the level of safeguards required in the Union.
The Commission monitors the degree to which the applicant countries satisfy the criteria of the acquis communautaire . From the results of that, we can determine the kind of help we need to provide.
There is a need for training, information and technical know-how, as you say in your motion for a resolution, and it serves no one's interest to have poor working conditions used as a means of competition in the internal market.
I say that also in response to something which was said by Mr Pronk.
<P>
The third priority is to strengthen the link with employability.
More sustainable jobs and the promotion of employability are two of the principal elements of the European employment strategy.
Measures to improve health and safety at work can make a significant contribution to these activities.
We know that accident prevention is crucially important to individual workers and their families, but we often underestimate its economic benefits.
Fewer accidents mean more work, better competitiveness and lower costs to social security.
That is perhaps not sufficiently understood by the policy-makers and is not taken into account sufficiently in political decision-making.
<P>
The fourth priority is the consideration which needs to be given to new risks.
The labour market, as various honourable Members have pointed out today, is developing and changing fast.
The transformation of the economy into a service-based economy, the steadily increasing number of women who work, the ageing of the workforce, the large-scale use of new technologies and new forms of organising work all have implications for safety.
The European Commission will place greater emphasis on identifying the consequences of these changes and will ensure that these matters are addressed in future health and safety policy.
In this context, your analysis is also extremely relevant.
<P>
You rightly stress in your report that the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty will greatly strengthen the role of the European Parliament and the social partners.
The Commission is already busy drafting the necessary measures.
The Commission believes that the correct forum for conducting a dialogue on health and safety at work is the Advisory Committee on Safety, Hygiene and Health Protection at Work.
It plans to strengthen this committee by merging it with the Safety and Health Commission for the Mining and Other Extractive Industries.
<P>
A number of questions have been asked, and in response to these I would also say that Parliament's resolution stresses once again the importance of research in this field.
The Commission cannot but agree entirely, and I would add that due attention is given to this in the fifth framework programme of research and development and that under this programme of research, support must in fact follow for community activities in this field.
<P>

Mrs Boogerd mentioned new diseases, including organic mental syndrome resulting from the use of certain chemicals. This field too is receiving attention under the fifth framework programme, which has as one of its themes the prevention or combating of the effects of stress.
<P>
As regards the question about possible compensation, I think it will be better to discuss that once the research I mentioned just now has provided us with a better understanding of the issues.
<P>
Lastly, the ban on asbestos has been mentioned several times and by several different speakers.
It is true that some types of asbestos have not yet been banned.
That too is something we are still researching in Directorate-General III, for which Commissioner Bangemann is responsible. Once we know more by way of results from the study in question, we shall brief you in greater detail.
So that too is being looked into by the Commission.
<P>
I will end with that, and I thank the House once again for your most useful suggestions and contributions. These will point us in the right direction and be of great benefit to worker safety and to the economic prosperity of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr van den Broek.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 11 a.m.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 10.35 a.m. and resumed at 11 a.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, the registers of those who were present yesterday have been distributed twice today.
On both registers I am recorded as being absent, whereas I signed the register and I spoke on the Öcalan question.
Perhaps because I spoke in favour of Mr Öcalan and in favour of the Kurds, an anti-terrorist sanction has been applied against me and both registers have recorded me as being absent.
Could this please be corrected?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="President">
For some reason we have had problems with the attendance register but we know you were present and your attendance will be recorded.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Robles Piquer">
Mr President, I find myself in the same position as Mr Ephremidis.
I should like to make it clear that I was also present and that I did sign.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="President">
We will ensure that your attendance is recorded.
I apologise for that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, I have been trying to get the floor yesterday and this morning, so thank you for giving me the opportunity to say something now.
Yesterday Mrs Stenzel talked about the avalanche disaster in the Tyrol, and I would like to thank her for her words, which we wholeheartedly endorse.
Unfortunately, she specifically said that she was speaking on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists and her own delegation, thus leaving out a third of the Austrian Members.
This was a pity, because in view of the terrible scale of the disaster, we would have been happy for her to speak on our behalf too.
This is no time for internal political grudges.
On behalf of the non-attached Members, therefore, I should also like to convey my deepest sympathies to the families of the victims.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="President">
Thank you.
The whole House expressed its condolences to the victims yesterday afternoon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, on behalf of the Liberal Group, I request that the Heinisch report be referred back to committee, in view of the delicate political climate currently surrounding our relations with the Republic of Turkey.
We do not think it right to adopt a certain stance concerning the Öcalan case and, at the same time, to establish a cooperative relationship with Turkey.
This is not because our group disagrees on the principle of the matter - on the contrary, we entirely agree that Turkey should be included in the Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes - but because we do not consider the timing to be appropriate. By voting in favour, we would be endorsing the political legitimacy of the Republic of Turkey and its government at the very time when the Öcalan affair is on everyone's lips.
<P>
For this reason, I believe that it is essential to pause for thought.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Palm and Theorin">
The war against the Kurds in the south-east of Turkey has recently intensified.
According to the representatives of human rights organisations, the situation of the Kurds has deteriorated considerably since the capture of Abdullah Öcalan.
<P>
The European Union, individual Member States, other democratic countries and the international organisations have all allowed Turkey to participate in various forms of cooperation, often with the aim of promoting human rights and democracy.
Some of the cooperation links have been accompanied by more or less forthright demands that Turkey should respect human rights, a requirement which, sadly, it has not fulfilled.
<P>
It is vital to maintain and continue the dialogue with Turkey.
To sever all links with undemocratic countries is not generally regarded as a constructive solution.
<P>
The youth exchange programme gives young people a chance to study the workings of democracy, thereby instilling in them a desire for change.
However, it is vitally important that the selection criteria should make it possible for all young people, regardless of ethnic origin, for example, to participate in the programme.
Another criterion should be that the young people who take part do not find themselves subjected to repressive measures on their return home.
<P>
As things stand at present, we think it would be inappropriate for the European Parliament to approve the proposed cooperation project.
Parliament should withhold its approval until there is clear evidence that human rights are being respected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="Bonde and Sandbæk">
We abstained from voting today on the participation of Turkey in the Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes.
As long as Turkey fails to uphold human rights and to guarantee acceptable conditions for minorities in the country, we have difficulty in supporting its participation in these programmes.
Our voting tactic today is entirely in line with our stance on other questions regarding Turkey, for example the Customs Union and the Öcalan affair.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="Buffetaut">
In relation to the report from the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, the European Parliament is today suggesting that we include Turkey among the beneficiaries of the Socrates and Youth for Europe III programmes.
Even though the European Union has quite rightly set out clear and precise conditions for the accession of the CEECs, this House believes that there is nothing unusual in involving Turkey, a country that can hardly be said to fulfil these criteria, in such Community programmes. Given the current state of affairs, guaranteeing financing for such programmes is already a rather delicate task.
<P>
The international community currently suspects Turkey of having prepared a political trial for Mr Abdullah Öcalan where the sentence has already been determined. The European Council has been forced to specify that it hopes that he will receive 'fair and correct treatment and an open trial according to the rule of law before an independent court with access to legal counsel of his (Mr Öcalan's) choice' with the condition that, if this is the case, it 'cannot but affect EU-Turkey relations positively'.
In this way, the Council has displayed its concern as to whether or not these conditions will be met.
<P>
Once again, on this subject as on many others, the European Parliament is wearing rose-coloured spectacles, wishing to see its counterparts not as they are but as it wishes them to be.
We cannot have double standards when differences between fact and fiction reach such a high level.
It is perfectly acceptable for the CEECs to participate in these programmes as soon as they meet the appropriate criteria and if they are preparing to eventually become part of the European Union.
<P>
However, Turkey has a great deal of ground to cover even to meet these criteria, if indeed it hopes to go further and become part of the Union.
In effect, Turkey, which only has a tiny section of its territory on the European continent is not a European nation, neither through its history nor its civilisation.
It would be more constructive and more logical to make this clear once and for all and to develop partnership agreements and close relations with this large country that are founded on something other than promises of possible membership that are always being postponed.
That is why we voted against this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Darras">
This second reading of the report by Mrs Heinisch under the codecision procedure has been postponed several times due to the controversial nature of the subject.
What is at stake here is whether to allow Turkey to become involved in Community programmes on education and youth.
These programmes, the Socrates and Youth for Europe III programmes, do of course expire at the end of 1999, so it is therefore not at all certain that young Turks would in fact participate.
However, voting in favour of this step does at least mean acting on principle and improving relations in sectors that are essential for Turkey's future, that is, education and youth.
What is more, this House already stated that it was in favour of this in a resolution in September 1998, while the Luxembourg European Council of December 1997 confirmed that Turkey was eligible to become a member of the European Union.
<P>
Voting in favour of this step also means helping young Turks to open their minds through contact with their European counterparts. It means encouraging them to become more tolerant and, as a result, we can hope that the Turkish population in general will become aware of the fact that democratisation is vital and necessary.
<P>
Voting in favour of this step is a challenge for the future and a challenge for the respect for human rights. For these challenges to be met, there is a need for education and specific training that can be obtained by participating in these programmes and in exchanges.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR)">
Every possibility of involving Turkish citizens in the work of programmes aimed at securing democracy, freedom of expression and human rights must be exploited.
Dialogue with its people, in particular the young, offers a valuable opportunity for discussing the important social issues implied in democratic development.
However, this is not the right time to be considering extending the Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes to include Turkey.
<P>
The manner in which the PKK leader, Abdullah Öcalan, was detained, and the legally dubious conduct of his trial should be met with resistance and denunciation.
Turkey refuses to guarantee Abdullah Öcalan a fair trial with legal representation throughout, under the supervision of international observers.
Turkey also refuses to discuss the issue of the recognition of Kurdish identity, language and culture, as well as the question of granting regional autonomy to the area inhabited by the Kurds within Turkey's borders.
Nor does Turkey recognise democratic rights such as freedom of expression and the right of the Kurds to form democratic parties in the same way as the Turks.
HADEP, the predominantly Kurdish party which intends to take part in the Turkish elections on 18 April, is currently awaiting a decision from the Constitutional Court on whether it is to be banned from doing so.
<P>
The EU should send a delegation to Turkey to monitor developments in the trial of Abdullah Öcalan; an international conference should also be organised to initiate a dialogue for peace in Turkey.
<P>
It would create the wrong impression if Turkey were to be given EU funding and allowed to participate in various EU programmes before there is any clear indication of how it intends to tackle the Kurdish question.
As a condition of participation in the Customs Union with the EU, Turkey promised, amongst other things, to comply with the requirements relating to democracy and human rights, and to stop the use of torture.
<P>
Bazin recommendation for second reading (A4-0033/99)
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Rovsing">
Insurance statistics show that car theft is a major problem in the EU Member States.
Many stolen vehicles end up being taken out of the EU, where they are repainted, re-registered and sold on.
In order to combat car theft it is necessary to be able to check registration certificates, but differences in the Member States' rules on certificates make verification difficult.
The proposed directive is therefore a valuable and necessary initiative on the part of the Commission, providing for a uniform set of minimum indications and information codes on vehicle registration certificates in the EU.
Fortunately, Parliament's amendments to the Commission text from first reading have to a large extent been taken up by the Council. Hence there is a good chance that the directive will be adopted and implemented soon, so that it may become possible to put a stop to phenomena such as organised car theft in the EU.
<P>
Pack recommendation for second reading (A4-0062/99)
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Bébéar">
Since 1994, the European Parliament has been fighting to obtain sensible and consistent funding for the Socrates programme.
The last compromise voted through in 1998 left us feeling rather disappointed by the European Commission's overcautiousness.
Today, however, I see that our efforts have been rewarded as the overall budget for 2000-2006 has increased.
As a result, I approve the Pack report.
<P>
The 119 million students and 4 million teachers in the European Union hope to see this programme continue, a programme that has allowed half a million students to study in another country. It has given 60 000 teachers the chance to teach abroad and has allowed 110 000 young people to take part in educational exchanges.
<P>
Such cooperation must be encouraged and this increased mobility and the general European dimension must be developed at all stages of education.
In fact, 87 % of participants believe that their involvement in Socrates was positive, particularly as regards European integration and in terms of increasing awareness of our immediate neighbours.
<P>
The new philosophy behind Socrates II concentrates more on the needs that have not been met over the past five years, such as enlarging the programme to include young adults with no qualifications and to include the applicant countries.
<P>
In view of this, it would be impossible to maintain this programme with an ever-decreasing level of resources, something that has afflicted the Socrates programme from the outset.
Today's increase in the budget is therefore extremely significant and logical.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Darras">
The second reading of the report by Mrs Pack under the codecision procedure is proving to be 'in our favour'.
The Commission supported us by adopting, in full or in part, 34 of the 54 amendments tabled at first reading.
At the last meeting of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, our rapporteur was able to reach a compromise with our colleague Mr Elchlepp, and we now have a very good report in our hands.
<P>
We should like the idea of student mobility to be strengthened, particularly in the case of those who are already undergoing training. What is more, we maintain that students' socio-economic situation should be properly analysed and taken into consideration when awarding grants.
In addition, we would urge the Member States to provide the extra funding needed for such mobility.
To put it clearly, we would ask them not to stop helping a young person financially just because he is participating in a Socrates programme.
<P>
Therefore, all that remains is to confirm our budgetary proposals through our vote today: EUR 2 500 million over a period of seven years, instead of EUR 1 550 million for the same period, as the Council of Ministers wishes.
We must unite to defend our point of view, which is all the more justified as this programme is open to associated countries from Central and Eastern Europe, to Cyprus, to Malta and to Turkey.
<P>
Rothley report (A4-0037/99)
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw, Palm and Theorin">
We do not think it falls within Parliament's remit to submit a proposal in this area.
In our view, the European rules have certain advantages: that patents are only granted for inventions which are new in relation to what was known before the application was filed.
That is a clear and simple rule.
A grace period would presumably lead to more wrangles over who owns the rights to an invention which has already been made public.
<P>
If the rules are to be changed, there should first be a comprehensive study of the legality and implications of such a change.
However, it is not Parliament that should be carrying out this task.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="Rovsing">
The own-initiative report by the Legal Affairs Committee on the introduction of a grace period covers an immensely important aspect of patent legislation.
Clearly, it is a basic principle of any patent law that patents must not be granted on inventions which are already publicly known.
But the grace period, which is a feature of American and Japanese patent law for example, gives an advantage to these countries in relation to the EU in an area which has great importance for the development of firms and the creation of new jobs.
It is therefore absolutely essential for this imbalance to be removed by the introduction of a limited grace period in the EU as well, during which patents can be granted on inventions which are publicly known.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We appreciate the rapporteur's businesslike approach.
In our view, however, patent law should be dealt with by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and the European Patent Office.
To make the European Union a party only complicates the issue.
Furthermore, the Commission's claim that the Union has competence here is tenuous in the extreme.
<P>
For the reasons given above, we voted against the report in the final vote.
<P>
Grossetête report (A4-0053/99)
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="des Places">
As my colleague Mr Souchet highlighted in his speech, our group voted in favour of all the amendments tabled to this report, except for Amendments Nos 12, 13 and 15 by the Committee on the Environment.
<P>
In effect, there is a need to promote all sectors that support waste management for packaging materials and do not restrict such waste management to reuse or recycling alone.
Heat recycling is a possibility and this should not be forgotten.
Packaging such as cardboard or wood is useful in the incineration process for household waste.
<P>
As regards the conformity assessment procedure for packaging, packaging manufacturers must accept responsibility, not those who recycle it. This can be achieved by applying the 'polluter pays' principle and by simplifying the administrative procedure on the number of operators.
<P>
Lastly, I should like to clarify our group's position on eco-taxes on packaging.
In some Member States, heavy and restrictive eco-tax systems have been implemented and are restricting access to their market for products from other Member States. In this respect, it is essential that the Commission adopts a clear position, based on eco-tax systems applied in both Germany and France.
In effect, these systems are based on a common marking system that is valid for the whole of the 'waste recovery' sector.
They are based on a simple and fair administrative system, both for internal operators in the Member State and for operators from other Member States. They are also based on a system that allows the integrated management of packaging and waste packaging to be applied in the best possible way.
<P>
I should like to point out that the tax system must also be fair in relation to the material or materials used in producing the packaging.
In France, for example, some public services wish to introduce a reduced VAT system promoting the 'multi-material' approach in order to promote the Eco-emballages company, and yet this is to the detriment of other eco-tax collecting companies.
If such a fiscal change is introduced, recycling sectors such as the glass recycling sector would be penalised and other more polluting materials would benefit.
<P>
Schnellhardt report (A4-0003/99)
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, I should like to explain why I voted the way I did, because I have been accused of voting in favour of wine and ignoring the beer produced in my constituency.
I deliberately voted in favour of wine, because I happen to believe that wine is one of the most fundamental elements of our civilisation.
We can trace it back to the time of Christ, who performed his first miracle when he turned water into wine.
If he was alive today he might have turned wine into water instead, but he turned water into wine. This is why we must support wine as part of our European tradition, not to mention the fact that European wine is facing a major onslaught, so we need to increase our defences.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Lulling">
I voted against this report as I want the Treaty to be respected. In other words, I want everything related to wines and spirits to be regulated in the context of the rules concerning the common organisation of the market in wines and spirits.
<P>
Parliament has voted through a text containing provisions that are totally contradictory.
If this vote had been a final one, which fortunately is not the case, a directive such as this would be completely unenforceable.
<P>
Given these conditions, the report should have been referred back to committee.
Unfortunately, the rapporteur himself has wreaked havoc by handing out a voting list that contradicts the official list from the group I belong to and to which he also belongs.
<P>
This is further proof of his refusal to play fair, something that has been clear all the way through the debate and the vote in committee.
<P>
The Commission is on the same side as the 206 Members who voted against the report, and that reassures me.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="Souchet">
Our group voted against the legislative proposal and against the amended proposal for a regulation.
In effect, the aim of this directive was to establish a procedure for labelling alcoholic beverages.
<P>
The vote in this House displays two major flaws.
One relates to what we call 'premixes', in other words, alcoholic drinks containing carbonated water, sugar, and flavourings and that are aimed at young people.
After the vote in this House, these drinks would have a much more beneficial labelling procedure than wines or spirits.
Wine is a cultural product aimed at an older population and is mainly consumed during meals.
The effects of the alcohol in wine and in such premixes are therefore totally different as these premixes are consumed on empty stomachs during evenings out.
<P>
The second flaw concerns the list of products included in the annex.
In effect, Amendment No 14 from Mr Hallam included beer, cider and perry in this directive.
However, such drinks are not agricultural products, that is, they do not come under the common organisation of the specific markets, as governed by agricultural regulations under Article 43.
Brewers' and cider producers' attempts to amalgamate these products could harm the whole of the wine-producing sector.
<P>
Consequently, these two reasons led us to oppose this directive.
We hope that during the codecision procedure, in other words, at second and third reading, these two amendments will be rejected by the House.
<P>
Langen report (A4-0021/99)
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Palm and Theorin">
For the sake of people's health, tobacco should be taxed heavily, since high prices serve to dampen demand.
Through a combination of high prices, age restrictions, strict control of sales outlets and public health information, we stand a good chance of restricting the use of tobacco products.
<P>
In some cases, having a higher total tax burden on tobacco products than other countries can lead to an increase in illegal imports and the existence of a black market.
Sweden was afflicted in this way and, as a result, was obliged to lower the tax on cigarettes temporarily to discourage illegal trade and put an end to black market activities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="Blot">
We will vote against the Langen report.
We will vote against it not because it suggests unacceptable amendments to the Commission's text, but because members of the National Front have always been opposed to tax harmonisation and have defended one of the principal aspects of sovereignty: a state's ability to levy taxes.
<P>
We will vote against this report for another reason: the widespread hypocrisy of all public authorities when it comes to tobacco.
Everyone knows that smoking is bad for you.
This even appears on every cigarette packet in words that people stopped reading long ago.
Decision-makers periodically pride themselves on how the fight against smoking epitomises the concern they feel for public health.
But in my country, the government is, at the same time, in favour of producing cigarettes, and for every packet sold pockets 75 % tax.
We are right to ask whether the concern shown for public health is not merely a screen to hide the true tax objective of maintaining significant budgetary revenue.
In France, and undoubtedly in other countries of the Union, smokers are being milked in the same way as motorists are.
<P>
What is more, there are economic realities which we must not lose sight of.
We must ensure that the tobacco industry in the European Union continues to exist, particularly as we are aware that our national producers only cover 20 % of manufacturing needs.
We must ensure that there is support for such activity as it plays an important role in preserving the fabric of rural society in a number of regions, such as in Alsace.
We must encourage the production of quality tobacco with lower tar levels.
This is why, on the whole, we support reform of the COM in tobacco, and supporting it just this once will not do any harm.
And we can but regret the fact that nothing has been done to reduce the EU's external dependence in this field.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Nicholson">
The biggest problem being faced by the tobacco industry in the UK is smuggling, particularly of handrolling tobacco from Belgium and France.
I am therefore pleased that the rapporteur addresses this matter in his report.
It is interesting that because of single market dogma, the Commission could not care less about the people who will lose their jobs through the abolition of duty-free, and yet it has been similarly indifferent to the jobs in the tobacco industry which are threatened by the differences within the single market which allow smuggling.
My own preference would be for my national government to reduce tax on handrolling tobacco in the UK.
Given that this is unlikely, the alternative is for taxes on handrolling tobacco to be increased on this side of the English Channel.
<P>
In 1998 alone Customs and Excise in the UK estimated a loss of revenue of £1000 million as a result of cross-channel smuggling.
This did not take account of revenue lost through smuggling in large freight consignments or by air.
There is clearly a major problem which is affecting jobs in the UK.
The Commission should take note of the demands from elected politicians for action on this front.
<P>
Detention of Abdullah Öcalan (B4-0223/99)
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, I deliberately voted against everything in this resolution because I disagreed with it for the simple reason that it elevates and honours a terrorist who has thousands of victims on his conscience, yet at the same time the President of the European Parliament - not you, but someone else - refused to allow us to discuss the issue of the Albanians in Kosovo, thousands of whom have been murdered by the Serbs, and postponed the debate indefinitely.
I think this is absolutely outrageous, because our first duty is not to terrorists but to innocent civilians, women, children and old people who are being murdered!
That was why I deliberately voted against the entire resolution, because it was extremely inappropriate.
It is not our job to stand up for terrorists, but for those who are working actively and peacefully to secure freedom for their people.
<P>
Draft agreement with South Africa (B4-0222/99)
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="Barros Moura, Marinho and Torres Marques">
We do not want this to be mistaken for protectionism, but we cannot recklessly give way on a fundamental issue just because we support Nelson Mandela and South Africa's struggle to consolidate its anti-racist democracy, which, as far as we are concerned, has always been the goal, even though some of its most vocal defenders today were previously on the other side, attacking Mandela and the ANC.
<P>
Protection for the port and sherry denominations of origin was hard won from the European Union and, from the year 2000, from the World Trade Organisation.
<P>
We therefore cannot allow this guarantee to be abandoned, particularly when no assurance is given in the draft agreement concluded by Commissioner Deus Pinheiro that South Africa will stop using the port and sherry denominations after the lengthy transition periods have expired, during which South Africa would be able to export, for example, to important markets like the USA.
<P>
This issue is therefore not restricted to bilateral EU-South Africa relations, as it risks setting a precedent which could be used against port and sherry by other wine-producing countries such as the USA (California), Australia, Chile and so on.
<P>
As we represent voters and specific groups of people, unlike those who irresponsibly signed the draft agreement in Davos, we voted against the resolution asking the Council to urgently approve the EU-South Africa agreement amended as indicated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="Collins, Gerard">
It is extremely disappointing to learn of the latest difficulty that has arisen in the negotiations between the European Union and South Africa.
<P>
The talks with South Africa have been going on for over three years now and I would call to mind the commitment we have entered into to conclude the EU/South Africa agreement by March at the latest.
<P>
The final package negotiated by Commissioner Pinheiro and endorsed by the full Commission is the basis of a solid partnership for trade, development and technical cooperation.
<P>
In this context I would urge the governments of France, Italy, Spain and Portugal to consider carefully the implications of delaying an agreement.
<P>
Let us not forget that this agreement is not merely about trade and commerce.
It bears a highly political significance.
South Africa is a country struggling to build a new democratic identity and reconcile itself with its past.
It is a country where there are both political and social problems.
This agreement is vital to encourage the processes that have got under way.
To hold it up now would be a serious blow to our South African partners.
<P>
I appeal to the governments concerned to reassess their position and to remove any obstacles to agreement which reflect a short-term view of the situation.
I call on them to take the long-term view - to accede to the Commission's proposals which also reflect the wishes of this house and indeed of the Vienna European Council.
<P>
Every effort must be made to put in place the Compromise reached at Davos which will allow for a copper-fastening of EU-South African relations.
This is as I have said a vital agreement for the new South African democracy, but it is also the basis of a partnership of equals, one which will enhance both sides economically as well as strategically.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Cunha">
The agreement on trade and cooperation with South Africa deserves our full support as it aims to develop relations between the European Union and the major economic and social area of South Africa, an area which represents one of the great hopes for the future of humanity.
However, this agreement only makes sense if it is in the interests of all parties.
<P>
Yet some interests of the parties have not been protected.
This is particularly the case with port wine, where it must be made absolutely clear that South Africa may not produce or market any wine with this name after the end of the transition period.
This is an issue which must be enshrined in the text of the agreement or in an annexed declaration.
The aid of EUR 15 million granted by the European Union only makes sense if it is devoted to converting these wines into table wines or to abandoning this activity, otherwise there is no point in granting a tariff concession for a quota of 32 million litres of table wine.
<P>
For these reasons, we believe that the Council has acted wisely in postponing a decision until all the issues have been clarified.
We therefore also voted against the resolution which the House has approved today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Novo">
There can be no doubt about the political importance for South Africa and its democratic regime of concluding a cooperation agreement with the European Union.
We also cannot ignore the importance and necessity of helping to consolidate a regime which has allowed South Africa to regain its national dignity and which is trying to eradicate racism.
Some of those who are now claiming to defend democracy in South Africa, and who previously ignored the persecution and crimes of the apartheid regime and regarded President Mandela as a terrorist, do not have the moral and political authority to invoke democracy with regard to this agreement.
<P>
Having said this and despite the fact that the Vienna Council stated that a decision on a draft agreement should be taken by March of this year, it should be stressed that the further postponement of this decision is not particularly worrying.
In fact, the specific commitments made by Commissioner Deus Pinheiro on behalf of the Commission are not totally acceptable as they are opposed by at least four Member States (Portugal, France, Spain and Italy).
They must therefore be revised so that an agreement which claims to be balanced does not prejudice important Community sectors.
With regard to my own country, these commitments must not undermine the port wine industry, which is so important to the national economy.
Reasonable deadlines should therefore be set in order to finally end the production and marketing of a product which is made only in the Douro valley in Portugal and whose denomination of origin cannot be used elsewhere, whatever the pretext.
<P>
We therefore consider it prudent not to offer concessions but rather to wait a little longer in order to ensure the effective protection of this and other issues. In this way, an agreement can be rapidly reached which fully satisfies all the parties involved.
We therefore do not support the proposal approved today, which ignores important aspects of the future agreement between the European Union and South Africa. If these elements are omitted, they could compromise the full political and economic effectiveness of this agreement.
<P>
Grosch report (A4-0032/99)
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Caudron">
It is with a certain satisfaction that I welcome the work by our colleague Mathieu Grosch, as he has accurately addressed the social issues in the transport industry, and particularly the crucial matter of working time.
<P>
I share the rapporteur's approach in linking working time to safety.
But I would also like to add here the quality of life of employees.
However, I note that the text, as a matter of principle, states that a reduction in working time cannot be accompanied by a drop in basic wages.
This was a necessary step.
<P>
Nonetheless, it may be dangerous to link a reduction in working time to the concept of flexibility, as we are aware that, as a general rule, employees in the transport sector already have to be extremely flexible. Such flexibility brings with it a strong possibility of a direct or indirect lack of safety when one looks at the extent of current working hours.
<P>
In addition, I should also like to congratulate the Commission, and Mr Neil Kinnock in particular, who became aware of these risks very early on. He was also aware of the impact on society of social dumping by certain companies and its repercussions in terms of intra-Community competition.
<P>
Lastly, when faced with the growing internationalisation of transport, it is increasingly necessary to defend our legislation in international bodies and to obtain basic rules, particularly for sea and air transport.
<P>
I now hope that this important step towards harmonising social legislation for the transport sector will serve as a lesson for other sectors to follow.
<P>
I continue to believe that a strong European Union cannot be built without bringing national social standards closer into line.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling">
It is undeniable that this report sets out to make a constructive contribution.
There are many points which we naturally agree with, for example those relating to working hours in the transport industry and to the disabled.
However, we would question whether the European Union is the appropriate authority to take decisions on many of the issues involved.
It is certainly acceptable for the EU to coordinate decision-making on certain issues, but we believe it would be misguided to make the EU responsible for taking supranational decisions on all social legislation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR)">
This report is absurd, officious and unduly detailed.
Working hours and social legislation in the transport industry should be dealt with through agreements between the partners in the labour market and, if that is not possible, through legislation at national level.
There is no reason why driving times and schedules, rest periods and other specific issues should be regulated through EU directives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Palm and Theorin">
Basically, we think this is a good report.
It tackles the problems that employees whose work involves crossing borders can encounter with social legislation which, in Sweden, forms part of labour law.
<P>
We appreciate that there is a need for the proposed legislation, but we do not think that the Commission should be the body to formulate and put forward the legislative proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Theonas">
No one can be left in any doubt that measures to liberalise the market have led to a drastic reduction in jobs, to the growth of part-time, atypical employment as opposed to full-time, steady jobs, to the contravention of labour and social security legislation through the use of contracts for the provision of services, to the overthrow of collective bargaining and to a reduction in incomes. Yet the Commission and the Member States alike are persisting in this logic and promoting new measures aimed at the railways and at passenger road transport.
They insist on adhering to the timetable for the complete liberalisation of maritime cabotage.
<P>
Against this background, the provision of high-level social protection for people working in this sector is especially important, to the extent that this improves existing working conditions, complies strictly with protective regulations, supports collective labour agreements and reduces working hours without reducing incomes.
The Commission could use the opportunity of the debate on extending the working time directive in the transport sector to revise the working week downwards.
We are opposed to any attempt to further extend flexibility and to allow the jettisoning of rules on the working week by extending the transition period for mobile workers which is provided for in the proposed scheme.
Moreover, there must be clear consolidation of the concept of working time, since this is an especially sensitive concept in the transport sector. It must include not only driving hours and the time taken to load and unload, but the whole time workers are at the service of their employer.
<P>
In particular, we deplore the lack of measures on the part of the Commission to address the issue of the undermining of working conditions and wage agreements through national legislation to enable companies to increase their profits in the light of increased competition.
The issue of second merchant shipping registers, for example, must be addressed immediately.
Instead of taking measures to improve legislation in the Member States, the Commission, through its proposal to amend the regulation on cabotage, is taking away from the recipient state the power to determine its own staffing arrangements.
<P>
We believe that international competition and, more generally, market forces must under no circumstances be used as an alibi in order to reduce protection.
On the contrary, they require the most concerted efforts to institute high-level social laws which would strengthen the level of protection in countries with less social protection, protect working people, and ensure their safety and that of users.
This can only be achieved by respecting the principle of public service and by curbing the progress of misguided liberalisation, which thus far has led only to negative developments.
<P>
The protection of people working in the transport industry is especially urgent today, since the intensive liberalisation of the sector has given rise to the most serious problems and to the dramatic weakening of safety and working conditions of working people.
On this basis, we wish to highlight the positive nature of many of the rapporteur's proposals and to ask that they be adopted and implemented.
<P>
Gallagher report (A4-0018/99)
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR)">
I have voted in favour of Amendments Nos 6 and 20, calling on the Commission to propose that the 12-mile limit should be extended to 24 miles in the proposals which it is required to submit by 31 December 2001 at the latest.
This is a question of decentralisation and allowing coastal states to manage coastal fishing at national level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Nicholson">
There is no common fisheries policy in the EU because the regions are always overlooked.
There is a growing need to have a better understanding of the needs and requirements of these small but very important areas where the fishing industry, both at sea and on land, is vital to the local community and economy.
<P>
We require a fisheries policy that has the ability to reflect the needs of the industry.
The present policy, especially given the Hague Preference, works totally against Northern Ireland and should be altered to allow fair play for everyone involved in fisheries.
We also need an increase in the present limits on our coasts.
I urge the Parliament to vote for a twenty-four mile limit to protect our small fishing fleets.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Novo">
There are some important elements in this report which must be underlined.
Firstly there is the maintenance of the principle of relative stability.
There are also, in particular, elements which were included in the report as a result of our amendments and which confirm the House's desire not only to keep access to the 12-mile reserved zone within the exclusive national sovereignty of the coastal countries but also to extend this zone to 24 miles.
<P>
These elements are important and decisive for the implementation of a regionalisation policy which, as we understand it, means applying the principle of subsidiarity to the common fisheries policy. This can be achieved by increasing decentralisation, which will allow the Member States to adapt general guidelines on stock preservation and monitoring of the common fisheries policy and to determine, together with the sector and the European Community, which specific measures at regional and/or national level are suitable for converting into more general objectives.
<P>
However, this is not how the report sees regionalisation.
In the report, regionalisation seems to be a very vague and inadequately defined concept which consists more of dividing seas and parts of oceans into regions and sub-regions. These would then be subject to devolved management assumed by various groups of countries in accordance with the geographic location of these divisions.
Under this management, guidelines would be regarded as definitive and not subject to joint discussion, and they would cover nearly all the aspects currently falling under the common fisheries policy.
The imbalances and discrimination which could result from this are clear.
<P>
We therefore support the proposals mentioned relating to access to resources, because we tabled them, but we reject the view of regionalisation which the report contains.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Souchet">
Our group voted against adopting the report by our colleague Mr Gallagher, even though the amendments in favour of the decentralisation of the CFP had been adopted. This was to the detriment of the regionalisation process that the rapporteur had initially proposed.
<P>
In my speech yesterday evening in this House, I specified that I rejected all the amendments that aimed to substantially modify the CFP.
Therefore, I rejected Amendments Nos 6 and 7, tabled on behalf of the PPE Group by Mr Provan, which aim to extend the limit from 12 miles to 24 miles.
Such an increase in national waters reserved for fishing will pose major problems for fishermen in Brittany and Normandy who will no longer have access to traditional fishing areas, particularly those close to the United Kingdom.
<P>
I am surprised that these measures were adopted in this vote, especially by French Members, as they go against the interests of our fishermen.
<P>
That is our main reason for deciding to vote against the legislative resolution resulting from this own-initiative report by the European Parliament.
<P>
The CFP is due for reform in 2002 and I hope, in the interests of French fishermen, that this resolution will not alter the views of the Commission and the Council.
The current status quo of a 12-mile limit for the area is the best possible compromise for the whole of the French fishing sector.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Teverson">
I have voted in favour of this report, as it is one of the most important in the area of fisheries to be considered by this Parliament.
The key problem of fisheries in Europe's seas is that of maintaining healthy stocks.
That means good management in terms of control regimes and scientific data.
It is impossible to have good management under the imperfectly centralised regime of the present CFP.
The only answer is regionalisation, and full involvement of all stakeholders.
The Commission must take notice of this report, and that is why I have called for practical action to set up machinery to move towards a regionalised CFP according to a strict timetable.
<P>
de Lassus Saint Geniès report (A4-0027/99)
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Caudron">
A few months ago, I was rapporteur for a text on the competitiveness of European industry. As a result, I have followed the work of our colleague Mr de Lassus on competitiveness and the regions very carefully.
<P>
I must say that the text confirms the analysis I had myself made of the key measures that need to be taken in order to increase our competitiveness. However, the current proposals fall short of what is really needed, especially as the European Union is debating the future of the Structural Funds within the framework of Agenda 2000.
<P>
Indeed, for a few years now, we have once again been observing a tendency for regional disparities to increase, particularly in the field we are considering today.
<P>
Moreover, to try to redress the balance between the regions, following the example of the rapporteur, I also believe that we must extend the link between the research programme and the Structural Funds.
However, we must be realistic, and for our determination to have an effect, we must also continue to examine how we can improve the lines of communication between these 'less-favoured' regions.
I cannot conceive that innovative businesses will settle in regions that often have few transport services and that, in fact, find it difficult to break this vicious circle.
<P>
Lastly, we must not conceal another constraint linked to the Member States. We must remember that European regional planning is still heavily dependent on national planning policies where control has been devolved to the various governments.
<P>
Therefore, there is a need to develop our degree of synergy.
Such synergy between local authorities, the Member States and the European Union is, of course, complex but it is also vital. And we must also promote the development of cross-border systems of decision-making.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="des Places">
The report by Mr de Lassus sparks off an interesting debate on strengthening cohesion and competitiveness through research and technological development.
<P>
The rapporteur is quite rightly disappointed by the small share of the Structural Funds given over to research: 5.37 % for Objective 1 and 2.06 % for Objective 5b.
The European Union could obtain added value by encouraging high-quality scientific projects and by linking economic and social partners to these projects, such as SMEs, consular bodies and universities.
<P>
In this respect, the report emphasises the role SMEs can play in technological development.
On many occasions, we have had the opportunity to stress the importance of SMEs in terms of job creation and also in terms of the vitality of the rural world.
SMEs must be able to reap the benefits of research that has been carried out.
Therefore, it is vital that we make adapted and efficient financial instruments available to them.
<P>
In promoting the competitiveness of SMEs, our policy on research and technological development will encourage social cohesion and the vitality of the least-favoured regions.
Mr de Lassus himself mentions the case of ultra-peripheral and island regions.
We believe it is essential that we also highlight the case of rural areas and areas dependent on fishing.
<P>
In this respect, new information technologies offer us the opportunity to set up or to relocate research and development teams in these rural areas.
Such teams will allow businesses established in outlying regions to have access to the new technologies they need to remain competitive and innovative.
Whilst we must be wary of being too optimistic, we must realistically make use of the new opportunities that are available to us.
<P>
We are naturally disappointed that Mr de Lassus is making use of this occasion to call for a European regional planning policy.
However, the quality of his work and the relevance of his proposals encouraged the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations to support his report.
<P>
Alan J. Donnelly report (A4-0014/99)
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Caudron">
I am pleased to welcome the report by our colleague Alan Donnelly.
<P>
On the whole, I share the rapporteur's concerns regarding the transport, banking and nuclear fields.
In this respect, I support the idea put forward in the text to help Russia to get over this hurdle.
The dangers may become real, even without giving way to gloom-mongering.
Therefore, it is our duty to prevent such risks in this field and also in other sectors of the economy.
<P>
However, I do wonder about the responsibilities of the main actors in the information technology industry in the face of this deadline, a deadline we have been aware of for many years.
I am astonished, to say the least, that they feel that once a product has been put on the market, they can wash their hands of it.
<P>
This is how they behave over problems linked to changing over to the year 2000, but it is also a valid observation for other products that need regular updating to correct some hidden defects, and for which the luckless buyer must foot the bill.
<P>
Therefore, I will vote for the resolution by Mr McCartin so that the Commission can negotiate with this industry to allow individuals and small businesses to rectify this 'error'. It is to be hoped that they will do so without, yet again, having to pay for a problem that has been evident for a long time yet for which they are not responsible.
<P>
Lastly, I believe that now is the time for us to extend the debate so that we can take steps that will allow us to protect the consumer's basic rights as regards businesses that supply hardware and software.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Rovsing">
The public are today dependent on a range of computerised services, such as pensions, family allowances, sickness benefits, insurance, energy supply and transport.
Many of these vital services could be affected by the 'year 2000' problem.
The responsibility for solving the year 2000 problem rests of course in the first instance with the suppliers and users of the computer programmes, but because the problem is so extensive, the public authorities must also provide support.
I therefore endorse the Commission's many initiatives in the year 2000 area, including the launching of cooperation across national borders and discussions of the problem in the Council and with all the relevant contacts in industry and the Member States.
The Commission's reports on what progress has been made in solving the problem will be of great importance in coordinating efforts.
It is of course absolutely essential that particular attention should be paid to especially sensitive sectors, including for example the cross-frontier problems which may arise at the Eastern European nuclear power stations, and for the necessary measures to be taken.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, I am voting in favour of this report today.
Although it may at first appear to be a minor technical matter, the millennium bug has in fact the potential to bring the everyday life of millions of people to a grinding halt - if not worse.
It is easy to forget how much nowadays we rely on microchips to run everything from dishwashers to dialysis machines.
Vital services could be interrupted, transport could come to a stop and businesses could be forced to close.
Yet with proper preparation, we can ensure that our hangovers on 1 January 2000 will just be from bubbly and not from bugs.
<P>
Britain under the Labour Government is leading the battle to beat the millennium bug in Europe with its ground-breaking Action 2000 campaign.
Under its auspices, British utility companies (including water, gas, electricity and telephone companies) have already reported that they expect to offer 'business as usual' over the millennium.
Other vital public services, such as the NHS, emergency services, DSS, Post Office and railways, are not far behind.
<P>
Britain cannot afford to rely solely on its own efforts, however.
In an increasingly globalised world, the preparedness of other countries (or lack of it) will affect Britain too.
I wish to ensure that my constituents are free to enjoy the millennium without fearing the morning after.
I therefore support EU efforts to ensure that Europe - and the world as a whole - are ready to swat the millennium bug.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="President">
That concludes Voting Time.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="President">
As we have concluded our business, I declare Parliament's session adjourned.
<P>
The sitting was closed at 12.30 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 25 February 1999.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Statement by the President
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, today's agenda opens with a series of debates on one of the most important issues for European and world politics today: equal rights for women. I am sure that we all agree that by including these issues in the European Parliament's agenda, we are contributing to what has been a long struggle.
That struggle has had various successes but it is still not over; indeed, it would seem that it still has a long way to go. Its aim is to ensure that women have exactly the same rights as men in the employment, social and political fields.
<P>
I therefore believe that I am speaking for the House when I say that by including these points in our agenda, we are demonstrating Parliament's political will to continue this struggle. It also demonstrates our desire to make progress not only in terms of legislation but also in the various other areas alongside it.
<P>
Parliament's Bureau is soon to consider a report by Mrs Hoff, who was asked to consider how we could make progress within Parliament's own administration to ensure that more women hold senior posts.
There is a great deal of work to be done.
Efforts have been made, but there is no doubt that we need to continue in the same direction.
<P>
Another important aspect is the fact that we are in the run-up to elections, and it is therefore an excellent opportunity for all the political parties in Europe to ensure that more women hold seats in this House.
It would be a great pity if this opportunity were lost.
<P>
Applause
<P>
The will of this House is therefore very clear and I would like to end this introduction by expressing, on behalf of the entire House, our thanks to the Committee on Women's Rights and all its members for all the work they have done to help gradually turn this ideal into a reality.
Our fellow Members here in the House are among the most active supporters of this cause and it would be remiss on our part not to thank them for all their efforts and for the work they have carried out during this legislature.
<P>
I would therefore ask you to give a round of applause to thank all our female colleagues in the House and particularly the members of the Committee on Women's Rights.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
The Minutes of the sitting of Thursday, 25 February have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
Mr Wijsenbeek has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, what you have just said is all very well, but we should respect our own Rules of Procedure, especially on a day like today.
I must point out that Rule 6(6) states that the report of the committee shall be placed at the head of the agenda of the first sitting following the day on which it was tabled. I see this has not been done in the case of the report by Mr Wibe, which is placed as the last item on today's agenda following a whole range of reports by the Committee on Women's Rights.
Rule 6(6) has therefore not been respected by the Conference of Presidents whose members, as usual, never read our Rules of Procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
I thought that you were going to give priority today to the reports concerning women, Mr Wijsenbeek, but in any event, when we come to the order of business, I shall put your request to the vote to determine whether the Wibe report will be taken first.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
- (FI) Mr President, I am pleased that you remembered to mention International Women's Day in your opening speech.
I also wish to raise the subject on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights.
As many of us know, the most important topic of discussion on this International Women's Day seems to have become that of violence against women, children and young people, which is really a very serious worldwide violation of women's human rights.
This evening here in Parliament we shall be discussing with the Commission how the European Union can take determined action against violence towards women.
It is most distressing that half of all women who are killed in Europe do not die as a result of violent crime by someone unknown to them, but are murdered by their own spouse or partner.
Violence against women has been a sort of taboo up to now, and it is gratifying that we can embark on a programme of practical measures in this area together in our capacity as the European Parliament.
It is worth pointing out too that the European Parliament has been responsible for the action the European Union has taken to begin to combat violence against women.
<P>
I would add that the Treaty of Amsterdam places entirely new obligations upon us and provides opportunities to promote sex equality at many levels.
This means that we have to work more single-mindedly than ever to promote equality.
The Treaty of Amsterdam places us under an obligation to make equality between men and women an essential element in all Community action.
Nothing of the sort has happened as yet.
We know how difficult this work is. But we are acquiring new tools for the task, and we must carry out this work together.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Hautala.
I would ask that we do not embark on a debate on this question.
<P>
Mr Santini has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Santini">
Mr President, like many others, I am keen to take up the invitation to highlight all initiatives aimed at avoiding injustice against women.
I would however like to add one further element to such considerations: it is not only women who are subject to injustice and violence, but sometimes entire communities.
This is the case of the Valle di Fiemme communities in Trentino, the German-speaking, Polish and Belgian communities who were the victims of the plane crash on 3 February 1998, which last week became sadly and gruesomely topical when the trial in the United States came to an end.
As we all know, the pilot who - in a hazardous manoeuvre, to put it mildly - severed the ski gondola cable, sending 20 European people to their deaths, was inconceivably absolved of any guilt.
<P>
I appeal to you, Mr President, somehow to convey to the US Government our sense of anger and dismay, not of course to demand justice or vengeance, but simply to express our bitter incredulity over this outright injustice.
I would also ask you to be so kind as to reply to the letter which I sent you on the very day of the tragedy, 3 February, proposing that Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy should draw up an own-initiative report on the presence of NATO air bases on European territory, and on the pros and cons of allowing these armed personnel excessive freedom to make training flights.
I sent the same letter to the Commission President, Mr Santer, but he did not reply either.
<P>
I now ask that justice be done for the families ...
<P>
The President cut the speaker off
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
Mr Santini, this is not the right time for you to be making this speech.
It is, of course, an important issue and you have written to me about it.
On behalf of this House, I will support the Italian Government, which is currently dealing with the issue and which is responsible for any action taken.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="Green">
Mr President, yes it was, because I wanted to express, on behalf of my group, not just our shock but our disgust at the result of the military tribunal in the United States which acquitted the pilot who was responsible for the dreadful accident in which 22 Europeans died.
I want to give notice to this House that we shall be seeking to table an urgency on this very issue.
I hope the rest of the House will join us in putting it on the agenda for this week.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="Banotti">
Mr President, I thank you for your very kind remarks about Women's Day, and a very happy day to all the brothers and sisters in the House and indeed in the gallery.
<P>
Your remarks were particularly welcome in view of the proposal to do away with the Committee on Women's Rights.
I hope this kind of support will maintain this very important committee.
<P>
I have another question.
On 18 February another woman in the Community won her case in the European Court of Human Rights - Denise Mathews v. the UK Government.
I would like to request that you inform the House, if possible this week, whether any efforts have already started on the part of both Parliament and the Commission to enable the citizens of Gibraltar to vote in the coming European elections.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
I cannot answer you because it is up to the groups and Members to take the initiative.
<P>
Like you, I have read in the press that the United Kingdom Government is going to deal with the question.
If any group or Member wants to take initiatives they will do so in accordance with the appropriate rules.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="McMahon">
Mr President, on Friday of the last part-session I drew attention to the scandalous situation of the part-time interpreters who work for Parliament and have not received proper remuneration.
They want to see some money.
The situation has not been very clear since October when I wrote to Commissioner Liikanen to ask him to investigate it.
It now appears that Commissioner Santer should deal with this matter.
I understand they are threatening industrial action, which could possibly affect the drawing up of the new Structural Fund regulations.
<P>
I should like to ask the Bureau to speedily resolve this problem, which is causing considerable difficulties for many people without whose good work we could not do our own work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
Mr McMahon, the Secretary-General is taking the necessary steps to resolve the matter as quickly as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Striby">
Mr President, a few months ago I asked you when we were going to move into the new Parliament building, IPE IV.
At the time, you said you did not know.
We are now three months away from the end of our term of office, and I should like to ask you once again when the new premises will be completed.
Will it be before the end of the present term of office or will we have to wait for the next term?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="President">
I can only give you the same reply, Mr Striby: when it is ready.
That is not in our hands, but in those of the contractor, who was not chosen by us.
He was chosen by SERS, a publicly owned company incorporating various public enterprises in the Strasbourg region.
You might do better to put your question to the contractor and ask if it is going to keep to its schedule.
If that were the case, the building would be completed towards the end of this parliamentary term, but it was meant to be finished last year as well, and that did not happen.
So I can only tell you that we shall have the building when it is ready.
I cannot add anything more, since this company regularly fails to keep to its own schedules.
It is unfortunate, but that is how things are.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Striby">
I would like to make one further point. I happen to know that France has done everything necessary.
It would appear that the ball is in the European Parliament's court.
If you are denying this, I am happy to take note of it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="President">
The French Government has used all possible means to try to make progress on a question which is not its direct responsibility, but that of a company, as I would repeat.
Clearly, when it does not have the means to do so, it cannot force the company's hand and make it fulfil its obligations.
The French Government is trying to move things forward as far as possible, and thanks to its intervention, we have made up some of the delay, which would otherwise be even worse.
I can tell you nothing more.
Put your question to SERS, which can tell you what it is doing in order to meet its commitments.
In any event, we are unable to do anything.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, after hearing your fine words on the follow-up to Mrs Hoff's report on equal opportunities for women and men at the Secretariat of the European Parliament, I should like to point out that during the COPEC meeting we had with various officials this morning at the Secretariat of the European Parliament in Luxembourg, we took the view that the European Parliament should set an example by adopting a programme of positive action with fixed time-limits and statistical objectives in order to put an end to the under-representation of women, particularly in A-grade posts in the European Parliament where they only account for 20 %.
You will therefore have the opportunity to practise what you preach by taking an ad hoc decision in the Bureau, the majority of whose members are men.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="President">
I am sure that all the members of the Bureau will have taken note of your comments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, according to an article published by the Finnish joint news agency on 26 February, we said we did not believe that enlargement of the European Union was being delayed, even though the negotiations on Agenda 2000 were dragging on.
Furthermore, we are supposed to have said that the negotiations on Agenda 2000 might continue during the Finnish Presidency and even up to and including the Portuguese Presidency without creating any problems for the enlargement process.
<P>
Mr President, I should like to put it to you first of all, was the report in the Finnish press correct in saying that we do not think it would create problems for enlargement?
Secondly, what was such a view based on?
And, thirdly, is this consistent with your duties in accordance with Article 19 of the Rules of Procedure?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="President">
At the moment, I cannot respond to any articles in the press since I do not know whether or not they accurately reflect my position.
When asked in the past if I believed that Agenda 2000 could be concluded, I have always given the same reply. Parliament is doing everything it ought to ensure that, as far as we are concerned, it can be concluded by May.
As far as the Council is concerned, it will be up to the Council itself to decide if it will be able to conclude the negotiations in March.
Enlargement may perhaps take place in 2003.
But as I do not have the exact details of the article, I cannot tell you whether or not it is correct.
If you send me a translation of the article, I will gladly tell you if it is a true reflection of my views.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="García Arias">
Mr President, I thought I heard Mrs Banotti requesting that the citizens of Gibraltar should have the right to vote in the European elections.
I may have missed the first part of her speech, so I would like to know if she initially also asked for the citizens of Gibraltar to have the right to vote in British elections, since exercising European citizenship goes hand in hand with exercising national citizenship.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs García Arias.
I believe you heard correctly, but that is a quite legitimate contribution to the debate.
<P>
The Minutes were approved
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Order of business
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="President">
The final version of the draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents pursuant to Rule 95 of the Rules of Procedure has been distributed. The following amendments have been proposed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="President">
Mr Wijsenbeek made a comment earlier about the Wibe report.
Rule 6(6) of the Rules of Procedure is left over from a time when the reports on these requests were put to the vote at the end of the first item on the agenda.
This was subsequently changed and they are now voted on later instead.
I therefore believe that the spirit of the rule is basically that the debate on the report should be held on the first day of the sitting following the tabling of the report and that this does not mean that we have to change today's agenda.
<P>
Mr Fayot has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Fayot">
Mr President, I have listened to your interpretation of the Rules of Procedure.
I am sorry to have to contradict you, but in my opinion the provisions of the Rules are perfectly clear.
They state that the report of the committee shall be placed at the head of the agenda, and I think that as the French version uses the term 'd'office ', meaning 'without consultation', there is no need to take a vote, and that this term simply means the report should be placed at the head of the agenda.
<P>
I am sorry that I have to contradict both the Conference of Presidents and the President.
I think that if we are to follow our Rules of Procedure, we must therefore place the report at the head of the agenda.
There is no need to take a vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="President">
Very well, we have heard the opinion of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, and I do not claim to be infallible.
We shall therefore place the report at the head of the agenda and the other reports will follow immediately afterwards.
<P>
Tuesday:
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="President">
The Group of the Party of European Socialists has asked for the Commission statement on the trade dispute over bananas between the European Union and the United States to be brought forward from Friday to Tuesday and taken after the report by Mrs Haug on the Union's own resources.
<P>
Mrs Green has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="Green">
Mr President, I wish to say, on behalf of my group, that it is important that this issue, which has become a major trade dispute between the United States and the European Union, should not be dealt with on Friday.
Important as the Friday sitting is, and we all accept that, it is more important for us to be able to debate and vote on this issue when there is a very substantial number of Members in this House.
<P>
In the last few days it has become a very critical issue - bearing in mind the fact that the United States is imposing sanctions at this very moment in advance of the WTO ruling - and my group feels very strongly that we should bring it forward to tomorrow so that we can hear the result of the discussions in the WTO today and the relevant Commissioner can be available tomorrow to deal with it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, I am opposed to this.
Why?
Because we chose to deal with the matter on Friday.
This means that whenever there is a debate which is a tiny bit important, it gets taken off the agenda.
That is no kind of a solution.
That is the first thing.
<P>
The second thing is that we have already had problems enough with the large number of reports which now have to be dealt with on Tuesday.
If we add bananas as well, our agenda for Tuesday will be even more crowded.
<P>
We would be prepared to consider Thursday.
But we cannot endorse the principle as such that an important issue should be taken off the agenda for Friday.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="President">
Having now heard one speaker in favour and one against, I put to the vote the change proposed by the Socialist Group.
<P>
Parliament approved the request
<P>
Wednesday: no changes
<P>
Thursday:
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="President">
The Group of the European Radical Alliance has asked for the report by Mrs André-Léonard on EU-India enhanced partnership to be brought forward from Friday to Thursday.
<P>
Mr Dupuis has the floor, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, I find it literally scandalous that a report on the enhanced partnership between the European Union and India has been placed on Friday's agenda.
We manage to find a space on the Wednesday or Thursday agenda for China, the great Communist empire, but we can find only five minutes at the end of a part-session for the largest democracy in the world.
It is absolutely scandalous!
<P>
A vast amount of progress is being made in India. There is the potential for a strategic partnership for the European Union with a country that has a population of one billion, and we treat it as if it were a small remote island in the middle of the Pacific.
I therefore urge the House to see to it that this matter can at least be discussed on Thursday.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="President">
Is there a speaker for or against?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="Green">
Mr President, I am not exactly speaking against it but I am concerned that if we take it on Thursday it will, in any case, be voted on Friday.
If that is the case I wonder whether it might not be better simply to take it to the next session when we can discuss it at a more appropriate time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
I have to be against, then.
We have a major problem of principle here in this House.
Various honourable Members have sought to uphold Friday as a full day of the part-session, and we have done that in circumstances which were often difficult.
<P>
A second point of principle is that either we take Fridays seriously in Parliament or we do not.
I have some sympathy for Mrs Green's arguments on the matter of voting, but it is an extremely important question of principle here in Parliament if we decide to stop debating important subjects on a Friday.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Green">
Mr President, as Mr Martens well knows, we also have an agreement that if there is an issue on the Friday morning that groups feel is inappropriately placed, then we would agree to try and find a better place for it or defer it.
That has been our position for some time now in the Conference of Presidents and I think if there is clear disagreement by some of the groups that this should be on Friday morning then we should stick with that agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="President">
I do not think that is quite what the agreement is.
The agreement is that if there are reports which are controversial, they should not be placed on Friday's agenda.
In any event, however, I now put to the vote the request by the ARE Group.
<P>
Parliament rejected the request
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="President">
There are no changes to the agenda for the sittings on 22 and 23 March 1999.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Request for a waiver of immunity
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0076/99) by Mr Wibe, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on the request for the waiver of Mr Rosado Fernandes's immunity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="Wibe">
Mr President, let me first of all say that I had no objection to postponing my business in order to allow the important debate on violence against women to take place.
Instead, I shall be brief.
<P>
The matter under discussion concerns a request from the Prosecutor-General of the Portuguese Republic for a waiver of immunity in respect of one of our colleagues, Mr Rosado Fernandes, for his disparaging remarks about Portuguese agricultural policy, as well as certain references he made to the Minister of Agriculture at the time.
The matter turns on whether the remarks can be construed as disparaging.
<P>
In judging a case such as this, knowledge of the legal principles that govern parliamentary immunity is of paramount importance.
In this Parliament, as in most democratic countries, parliamentary immunity is most assuredly not a personal privilege bestowed on individual Members.
Rather, it is a form of protection for Parliament as a democratic institution.
It provides protection for Members, thus enabling them to carry out the political duties they were elected to perform.
It follows that the key principle underlying our rules on immunity is that the latter should only be waived where the charge has nothing to do with one's work as an MEP.
If the charge has a direct, or even an indirect connection with one's parliamentary work, immunity should not be waived.
Other circumstances where it cannot be waived include clear cases of victimisation where the aim has been to discredit a Member politically, or where a trivial occurrence might have serious political implications.
In such cases, it is reasonable to maintain that immunity should not be waived.
<P>
In the present case, it should first of all be noted that the Member of Parliament in question, Mr Rosado Fernandes, has a deep and lively interest in agricultural policy issues - in actual fact it is his speciality.
He is also a member of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
It should also be noted that the remarks with which he now stands charged were made in a definite political context.
They refer to the agricultural policy of his own country.
It should finally be noted that the tone adopted by Mr Rosado Fernandes did not greatly depart from what would be regarded as the norm in a heated political debate.
<P>
To sum up, it is therefore reasonable to say that the remarks made by Mr Rosado Fernandes cannot be divorced from his work in Parliament.
For that reason, I do not think the request for a waiver of immunity should be granted.
I therefore propose that we do not grant the request for a waiver.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Violence against women - Daphne programme
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on:
<P>
the Commission statement on violence against women; -the oral question (B4-0145/99) by Mrs Hautala, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights, to the Commission, on the programme of Community action (Daphne Programme) (2000-2004) on measures aimed at preventing violence against children, young persons and women.I give the floor to Mrs Gradin, for the Commission.

<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Gradin">
I shall start with the declaration.
It is the last International Women's Day of this century.
A declaration on the situation of women, and especially on violence against women, is thus appropriate.
The Member States of the European Union are democratic societies where women and men have equal rights.
Women form slightly more than half of the population in every country.
However, this is not reflected either in decision-making bodies or in administration or business life.
<P>
All of our countries have subscribed to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
We all know that the human rights of women and of the girl child are an inalienable, integral and indivisible part of universal human rights.
What then is the situation in our countries?
Women have the right to live in safety, but a great number are not even safe in their own homes.
Women have the right to be treated with dignity, but thousands and thousands of women are sold like cattle and regarded as only having the value their pimps and traffickers can get from exploiting them.
Women have full human rights but oppression and violence keep them in subordinate positions in all our countries.
<P>
Today the issue of violence against women is internationally recognised as a substantial problem.
With the 1993 Vienna World Conference on Human Rights, women's rights were finally accepted as human rights.
Gender-based violence and all forms of sexual harassment and exploitation are incompatible with the dignity and worth of the human person.
Such behaviour has to be eliminated.
The issue of violence against women was on the agenda of the United Nations Women's Conference in Beijing in 1995.
The Platform underlined that violence against women is an obstacle to the achievement of the objectives of equality, development and peace.
<P>
For years it was often said that women had themselves to blame if they were beaten and raped.
It was said that they should not wear short skirts.
This argument is sometimes still used but in slightly different forms.
I personally would not, by the way, use the argument that the wearing of jeans is a guarantee against rape.
Today, the common view is that the woman and her testimony should be relied upon in court.
Most Member States have changed their laws so as to make violence against women a criminal act.
Also, rape within marriage is now a crime.
Women often have the right to a special counsellor during court proceedings.
Women's organisations play an essential role in the fight against violence.
They reach out to those at risk and are active in raising awareness among the public.
This is the very basis of the Daphne initiative.
Since 1996 we have supported nongovernmental and voluntary organisations in their fight against violence towards women and children.
The demand for support is far greater than the resources available.
The new Daphne programme will also be open for NGOs from countries from Central and Eastern Europe.
<P>
The Commission and the presidencies have also launched a campaign against violence towards women, in response to the demand by the European Parliament to make 1999 a year against violence against women.
During this campaign a number of European actions are being organised.
The next big European event will be the ministerial conference on violence against women, to be held in Cologne at the end of this month.
<P>
The campaign against violence is not just a series of official European conferences: the Member States themselves are of course invited to initiate events involving both the public and NGOs.
For many years the issue of violence against women was discussed as a women's problem. But it is not women who are the problem, it is the violent behaviour of men.
Therefore we should not only focus on women.
Women and children are the victims of this violence.
The problem is men who argue using physical force and violence instead of words.
This campaign should therefore also focus on men and what can be done to change the present situation.
Projects by, for and about men will be supported in the Member States.
Let me quote a Swedish doctor who wrote before the United Nations Women's Conference in Beijing: 'Sufficient numbers of men must discover and take an active stand against the violence which occurs around them.
A greater number of men must make themselves heard at workplaces in the public debate and refuse to go along with this violence.
Violence of this kind is despicable and inhuman and therefore also unmanly.
Real men do not behave like that.'.
Fathers must pass this message on to their sons, teachers to their pupils, military commanders to their men, and friends to one another.
<P>
As part of our European campaign I invite all men today to support the campaign by wearing a white ribbon.
This ribbon is a sign that you are real men, who say 'no' to violence against women.
<P>
Applause
<P>
The achievements under the Daphne programme have been impressive.
Violence against women, adolescents and children has been placed high on the political agenda.
A total of 95 projects have been supported since 1997.
These projects have led to the establishment of useful networks and cross-border cooperation between non-governmental organisations.
An observatory on violence against women has been established and research projects are under way.
<P>
An important part of the Daphne programme is the campaign against violence against women.
This campaign is based on an initiative from the European Parliament.
A preparatory meeting was held in June last year under the British presidency.
In December the Austrian presidency hosted a conference in Vienna.
It focused on the role of the police in combating violence against women and violence against migrant women.
At the end of March the German presidency will host a ministerial conference in Cologne.
There are also plans for a concluding conference towards the end of the Finnish presidency.
<P>
Between these conferences several actions are being organised on both a European and a national level.
Examples are the production of television spots, information packages and a website on the Internet.
We are also conducting a statistical report on violence as well as Eurobarometer.
Projects will also be supported in the Member States.
One of the main targets will be projects focusing on men and how to prevent violent behaviour from men towards women.
<P>
On 20 May 1998 the Commission presented a proposal for the new Daphne programme.
This programme will run from 2002 to 2004 with a total budget of ECU 25m.
Since then I have been anxious to have the proposal adopted as soon as possible.
We need to have the programme in place at the latest by 1 January 2000.
During the Austrian presidency progress was meagre.
By the end of 1998 the discussion focused on the legal base of the proposal.
A number of Member States made it clear that they were opposed to Article 235 as the legal base for the programme.
On the other hand, many Member States saw Article 129 as an appropriate alternative to the legal base.
The discussions in the Council in January and February showed clearly that there was a considerable risk of blockage if Article 235 was maintained.
<P>
The Commission was therefore forced to accept the proposed new legal base.
Nobody should be in any doubt that we would have preferred to keep Article 235 but we had to face the fact that there is no value in an unadopted Daphne programme.
I assume that Article 129 will not limit the scope of the programme.
The context in which we work to combat violence and in which women and children suffer is, indeed, the context of human rights.
However, the impact of violence on women, young persons and children amounts to injury or the risk of injury to their physical, mental and psychological health.
It should be noted that according to the World Health Organisation's definition, health is 'a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity'.
<P>
Furthermore, the Daphne programme is victim-based.
Its aim is to prevent all forms of violence and to protect all victims and potential victims of violence, irrespective of whether the violence takes the form of trafficking, sexual abuse, the abandonment of children or any other form.
I regret the inconvenience that this amendment has caused the European Parliament. However, in our view it was necessary to act swiftly in order for Parliament to take account of the amended proposal at its committee meeting on 16 and 17 February this year.
<P>
When the new Daphne programme is adopted it will provide a new impetus in the fight against violence.
Under the programme we will continue to provide support for NGO cooperation within the European Union but we will also be able to include cooperation with NGOs in the candidate countries.
I recently participated in a conference in Budapest with NGOs active in the fight against sexual exploitation of children.
The extent of the problem is immense.
The need for support and cooperation with the NGO community in these countries is evident.
<P>
If we are to succeed in the fight against violence we need concrete action involving all parts of our society.
To fight against violence towards women is the responsibility of us all.
We welcome the fact that the European Parliament will consider the amended proposal in its appropriate committee in March with a view to submitting it to the April plenary session for first reading.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, I am speaking here on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights.
Hardly anyone can be left in any doubt that the Committee on Women's Rights and the European Parliament have been responsible for the European Union's decision to tackle the problem of violence against women, children and young people.
We want these campaigns to be carried out as this is a very serious social problem.
In previous years the European Parliament adopted specific budgetary policies to counter the problem of violence against women, children and young persons, and there has been overwhelming interest in setting up projects of this kind, so that in 1997, for example, funding could be provided for only just over 10 % of all the projects proposed.
<P>
The European Parliament has also approved two very important reports dealing with violence against women. A report compiled under the leadership of Marianne Eriksson raises the issue of so-called zero tolerance in matters of violence.
An important report was also put together under the leadership of Susan Waddington extending the debate to cover the issue of the trade in women. It is an astonishing fact that there are two million women and young girls in the world being sold every year to be sexually exploited, which means that the issue is not actually merely an EU problem, but a global one, and one in which we must be able to intervene.
<P>
Our committee is very worried that if the Commission now gives in to those Member States which do not agree that the Daphne programme should be made law under Article 235, the scope of the programme will not be adequate to the scale of the problem.
We would like it to deal with all the possible legal aspects connected with violence against women, including the trade in women.
If the legal basis is the promotion of public health, we want guarantees that the Commission will actually be able to create a programme, in conjunction with the Member States, in which violence against women is not merely reduced to a health problem.
<P>
All credit goes to Mrs Gradin for her attempts to meet our demands that the notion of public health must be understood in as broad a context as possible here.
But we actually want guarantees that legal instruments might also be on the agenda.
Let me tell you about the situation in Finland.
A law came into force at the beginning of this year in Finland under which the police or a court can impose a restraining order on a person who has behaved violently. In other words, a person may be prevented from coming near their victim when there is reason to fear that violent acts will be carried out again.
In the Member States there are certainly other excellent examples of how this matter can be approached using legal means.
<P>
As for the global nature of this problem, I have received, in my capacity as chairman of the committee, a letter from an Iranian organisation pointing out that women in Iran are still being stoned.
We should also remember that we are sure to become involved in these global aspects of the issue with this programme.
<P>
Commissioner, I was not altogether convinced, having heard your reply, that this change to the legal basis will now guarantee us a good programme within the Daphne context.
Perhaps we can try together to convince those reluctant Member States I mentioned that they should agree to consider Article 235 as a legal basis.
I understand that in fact you were of the same opinion as us originally, but that now you base your opinion on the overall importance, in general terms, of accomplishing this programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gröner">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I warmly welcome you all to International Women's Day.
I have just come from a worldwide video conference, organised by Unifem, the UN women's organisation, which calls for a worldwide campaign for a world free of violence against women.
We in the European Parliament are preparing to make an important contribution to this campaign.
We are taking part in worldwide actions and I think it is most important for the women in our Member States to realise that they are not alone, that we are fighting alongside them.
<P>
We in the European Union have been fighting for a long time for a European year against violence against women.
A year ago 350 Members supported the written declaration calling for this and for a campaign to that end.
Now we have reached the point where we can start the campaign and have a draft programme on the table.
But legal problems are arising now: reasons - which in my view are pretexts - are being put forward by the most varied groups of people, which will prevent the Daphne programme from being adopted at an early date.
<P>
We Social Democrats want rapid action. We want the programme to be adopted quickly, obviously with the participation of the European Parliament, which also has a greater say thanks mainly to the use of Article 129 as the legal basis.
But I can see that it will be very difficult to get the programme ready on time so that it really can enter into force by 1 January 2000.
<P>
What we definitely want to ensure - and we will fight for this - is that large sections of the previous draft programme are not cut, such as those on trafficking in women and domestic violence - I find it difficult to call it häusliche Gewalt , violence in the home, as it is called in German, for no home is violent as such, it is always the people, and usually the men who are violent in the home - and that we get the programme wrapped up in good time.
You all know we will be having new elections, Parliament has to be formed first, and the Council presidencies have to take that into consideration.
<P>
The German President-in-Office of the Council, Christine Bergmann, said in the Committee on Women's Rights that she wants to see the Daphne programme signed and sealed as soon as possible.
The Justice Ministers want the programme too, but nevertheless formal difficulties have cropped up again.
This is probably largely because we do not have a formal Council of Ministers for women's affairs that could adopt the programme, and this is another very crucial demand made by my group.
<P>
If we discuss the matter at all, we would say that Article 129 must definitely lead to a multidisciplinary approach.
We also want to take account even at this stage of the provisions that will come with the Amsterdam Treaty, which will presumably enter into force by the year 2000, and we want a comprehensive definition of what the concept of health actually covers. This means that we must also look at the social background to violence and in particular we must adhere to the approach that non-governmental organisations, Member State authorities and the judiciary and police can all work together here.
That is vital if we are to pass on the message to our citizens that Europe and the European Parliament are fighting to prevent all forms of violence against women.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Bennasar Tous">
Mr President, today is a day of celebration for many of us, a day of solidarity, a tribute and a mark of our respect for all the women and children who still do not have rights and who are subjected to abuse and violence.
The fight for equal opportunities and the struggle against violence affect us all and their success benefits the whole of society.
<P>
I would have liked to have been here presenting the report by the Committee on Women's Rights on the Daphne Programme, for which I am the rapporteur. However, as you all know, this was not possible as the legal basis was changed at the last minute, when a great deal of work had already been done on the report.
It is not bad news although certain aspects do concern us.
Our main priority is to ensure that the Daphne Programme moves forward.
As you will remember, it was this House's initiative to create a special budget line to fund measures for combating violence against women and children, and in the three years since its creation, it has seen magnificent results.
There is a high degree of collaboration between NGOs, civil society and public bodies which has led to many new ideas and projects. Together they are searching for better solutions, and it is our responsibility - and that of all the Community institutions - to implement this programme before the end of the year.
For the first time, the European Union is facing the challenge of a five-year programme to combat violence.
Five years is a long time for those who are suffering.
It is therefore also our duty to prepare a good text setting out an appropriate strategy for the medium term that effectively helps to prevent and mitigate the effects of violence on women, children and young people.
As a result, Commissioner, we are extremely concerned about the definition of the concept of public health.
This must be interpreted more widely to mean a state of physical, mental and social well-being and we hope that this will be the case.
Trafficking in women, sexual abuse and the disappearance of children are all forms of violence.
The European Union can provide an important added value in combating such violence.
It would be unfortunate if these issues were left aside just because a legal concept was poorly interpreted.
<P>
Today is the last 8 March of this millennium.
On the first 8 March, women were almost invisible.
Over the last 20 years many inequalities have been corrected but discrimination still exists.
I do not want to end without highlighting the major challenge facing us if we are to make the principle of equality a reality.
The ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam will certainly help us to do that as we will have firm legal bases that establish mainstreaming as a fundamental and horizontal objective.
There is still too much direct and indirect discrimination that prevents women from playing a full role as citizens, that hinders their access to employment and that prevents them from being independent and having high self-esteem.
The fourth action programme serves as a guideline in all the Member States but its aims must not end with the programme. Rather, we should pursue them and improve them in a fifth action programme.
We must promote the reconciliation of professional and family lives and encourage women to get involved in politics. These are key elements for the participation of women in society and, of course, their integration into the labour market.
The European Union has many resources it can draw on to provide assistance.
I hope that Agenda 2000 and the new Fund regulations - which are vital documents - establish clear measures in favour of working women.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I totally endorse what Commissioner Gradin has said.
She rightly points to the fact that women are still under-represented in decision-making forums, government and the world of business and industry.
This is despite the fact that there are more women than men in the European Union.
Parliament's President himself has just said that more work is needed here.
She rightly observes that women's rights are human rights.
Women are entitled to be safe and to be treated with human dignity.
To a lot of men, including men in this Chamber, violence against women is a marginal and rare phenomenon, at least in the European Union.
But the figures tell us that one woman in five has at some point been the victim of violence.
Violence against women and children too occurs in all societies and at all levels of society, irrespective of culture or religion.
<P>
She is also right to say that the battle against violence against women must not be waged solely by women and by non-governmental organisations seeking to help stop violence against women.
First and foremost we have to tackle its root causes, and those are not short skirts or too little assertiveness on the part of women, but the millions of European men who use violence in some form or other every day.
<P>
We must use 1999, the year of campaigning against violence towards women, to make men aware of their obligations.
For all these reasons and given your most excellent statement, I find it a pity that the new legal base for the Daphne programme is so restrictive, even though you are asking for it to be interpreted broadly.
<P>
Lastly, the Daphne programme also covers violence against children and young people.
I have tabled a number of amendments on behalf of my group to ensure that this is made clear in the resolution, in the title and in a number of paragraphs as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Crowley">
Mr President, I am delighted to be the first man to speak in this debate on International Women's Day.
I want in particular to assure my colleagues here that the vast majority of men would support them fully in ensuring that they have full equality of rights, parity of esteem and protection against any violence whatsoever.
I am proud to wear the white ribbon to show that I make that stand myself personally.
I know I speak for the majority of my colleagues here as well.
<P>
It is important that the statements made in this House are not just made in a vacuum and that we send a message out to the wider world that we in the European Parliament are willing to be visionary and to bring the world into the 21st century by guaranteeing equality of rights for all; and, in particular, by putting in place special protection programmes for those who suffer violence.
That is why the Daphne programme is so important to us, not only because - if I could use the phrase - it was our own child, but also because we see the importance of its effect on a global scale.
<P>
We have already experienced some of the benefits from the Daphne programme.
It is unfortunate that legal difficulties - which this Parliament has encountered many times through the use of Article 235 - have delayed the implementation of the new programme.
However, I am confident that, utilising the new legal base, we can begin once again to put this issue on the map.
<P>
It is also important that when we decide to bring in new programmes, we ensure that the voluntary sector and the non-governmental organisations who are working at the coalface, who are there with women's and children's refuges to help them, are brought in at the very earliest stage to advise us of what is the most effective way of utilising funding.
But it is equally important to bring the governments of the Member States along with us, because, as has been seen from the use of Article 235, certain governments felt this was an imposition on them, and that it interfered with their democratic rights under the rules of subsidiarity within the Treaties.
Therefore, we must ensure that governments are seen to be playing an active role in that regard.
<P>
The new equal opportunities created for us in the Treaty of Amsterdam must be grasped fully. But henceforth let the message from here be: men and women oppose violence against women, against children, against all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Eriksson">
Mr President, there has been some talk about the legal basis.
If the Commissioner does not have a problem with the legal base, then as regards the Daphne programme, nor do I. It is just that my own personal dream of including preventive medicine and the trade in women has still not been fulfilled.
I hope that in spite of everything, we may yet be able to reach agreement on all areas.
However, I can see that it is going to be an uphill struggle, although perhaps we should not paint too gloomy a picture.
<P>
Now that I have the floor, I should in any case like to thank the voluntary organisations for their work, not just within the European Union, but all over the world.
Even though we politicians may be amazingly competent, we cannot deny that there is a need for teamwork between us who are elected by the people and those who toil at grass-roots level.
It is that teamwork which will enable us to make progress.
<P>
I should also like to mention that I am wearing jeans in honour of the day.
I must say that I was extremely surprised by the Italian court ruling.
It made me think that if only it were a simple matter for myself and our children to wear jeans, we would have an infinitely better working arrangement with the jeans manufacturers who are currently having such problems.
Unfortunately, however, wearing jeans is not a simple matter.
I have been wearing jeans now for several days in celebration of International Women's Day, which was first proclaimed by women Socialists at the beginning of the century, and by the United Nations in 1975, since we are hardly ever able to celebrate it on 8 March.
I hope that some time in the next century it may be possible to designate 8 March a holiday in honour of us women, so that we can celebrate that one day in a fitting manner.
<P>
I am delighted about the 'White Ribbon' campaign, organised by 'real' men in Canada to demonstrate, by wearing this token, that they actively oppose violence by other men against women.
I think it is a very commendable campaign, and I sincerely hope that all those men who are wearing a ribbon today in the House continue to sport it for the rest of their lives, instead of discarding it once this day comes to an end.
<P>
Violence by men against women is, as was mentioned earlier, a worldwide problem of enormous proportions and with devastating implications for those concerned.
It is not good enough for one man to say 'but I for one am not usually violent'.
Obviously, there are other men who are.
This is something we are frighteningly aware of today.
<P>
I should also like to thank the Swedish Government, which last year brought in legislation to protect women that viewed their problems from a different perspective.
For example, the customers of prostitutes are to be criminalised, an approach which this House found highly amusing some 18 months ago, but which is now the subject of legislation in one Member State at least.
<P>
Finally, I should like to extend my thanks to Leyla Zana, one of several women who are still the victims of political violence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="President">
Although the President should never make comments, Mrs Eriksson, I would inform you that in several of our countries there are many initiatives along the same lines as the one launched in Canada, even though they have not yet been as widely publicised.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, once again for the umpteenth time we find that in some Member States it takes clever legal manoeuvring to combat violence against women and children in an effective manner, and that some Member States resist that.
We hope the Commissioner is right, or wins through, and that even with an inadequate legal base she will manage to implement a programme which is effective in combating crimes such as trafficking in human beings.
<P>
Measures to combat violence against women and children are a priority worldwide.
They really mean the start of peace - the start of moves towards a peaceful society and a humane society from which many women and children are still excluded.
Many men suffer violence too, but as we take up and intensify the campaign against violence against women and children today, I think we can be pleased with what Commissioner Gradin has said, although of course the Chamber does not altogether reflect that.
The men have drifted away in droves, despite being sympathetic on this issue.
Happily we have already heard one male speaker, and undoubtedly there are many others who will feel sympathetic.
But it took some time before women too realised that we must not simply act to defend the victims better, but that violence is a problem of men which must therefore be tackled by men.
<P>
That being so, I readily endorse what has been said here on the subject.
I shall respectfully submit a written declaration to you, Mr President, I hope on behalf of a large number of honourable Members, asking you as the President of Parliament to take steps to set up a commission on children's rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="Antony">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like first of all to point out how ridiculous it is to hand out little white ribbons at the entrance of Parliament, as if it were heroic to wear it as a sign of courage and originality.
For goodness sake, what type of conformism is society being taken over by?
Would anyone here dare to say that if he does not wear this white ribbon, it is because he is in favour of violence against women?
<P>
There were other periods in history when it was more difficult to wear the white rosette, as did young knights who fought to defend the most martyred queen in our history, Marie-Antoinette.
In France, where I come from, talking about violence against women would involve mentioning all those women who were guillotined during the French Revolution, the Carmelite nuns of Orange and all the acts of persecution.
It would mean having to mention the 3 000 French women who were deported to Algeria in 1962 amidst total indifference.
<P>
The European institutions did not want to hear a word about it.
These women were deported to houses of pleasure of the Fellaga army rabble in Algeria.
Jasmina and a friend of hers were saying to me only yesterday in my office that yes, they are frightened every day, frightened of being threatened with their lives or being raped.
That is the reason there is violence against women.
Why not say so then?
In some areas in my country, there are more cases of rape each day than there are burnt-out cars.
This year, 700 cars have been burnt out in Strasbourg.
Yet, how many more rapes were there?
Nothing is said about this because it is a millstone around our necks.
It certainly must not be discussed.
<P>
However, why not talk about the presence of displaced persons on our territory who have the same morals as those who are fighting over in Algeria, and who are raping women and slitting people's throats?
Talking about violence against women would mean having to talk about the infamous group, 'Nique ta mère' , which has been glorified as a so-called anti-racist group.
It is despicable that it dares to have a name like that, and yet the records are selling thanks to capitalists promoting them, as is seen in FNAC and elsewhere.
<P>
Talking about violence against women would of course mean having to talk about abortion, which is the worst kind of violence, and which has become commonplace nowadays; it would also sadly mean having to talk about self-destruction, a type of violence sometimes forced on women by the propaganda with which we are all familiar.
Finally, talking about violence against women would mean having to admit that the death penalty, which is necessary for the most abominable assassins, must be reintroduced for those capable of such forms of torture.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Waddington">
Mr President, I would like to begin by warmly congratulating Commissioner Gradin on her speech on the issue of violence against women.
This is a very significant day.
It illustrates a real determination for a Europe-wide campaign against violence to women.
All the work we have undertaken in the Committee on Women's Rights and in this Parliament in the last few years illustrates the influence of Parliament and the Committee on Women's Rights in taking a determined stand against violence to women.
<P>
We expect to see action across every Member State.
We know the difficulties we have already experienced in getting this far.
There have been objections from many quarters. Yet we have reached the point, that we know there are going to be new actions, new research, new initiatives, new projects, all of which will contribute towards raising awareness of the issue of violence towards women and combating it.
I am sure all of us recognise that we have a responsibility to work in our own Member States, in our own networks, to combat violence.
<P>
The European Parliamentary Labour Party have accepted that and we are beginning our own campaign this week.
We intend to consult with practitioners in all the regions of the UK and to prepare a platform for action.
We also want to develop partnerships between our own non-governmental organisations and those in other Member States so that we can share good ideas and good practice.
We want to extend that globally to work with countries like South Africa.
I have just returned from that country and the issue of violence against women is very high on the agenda.
There is a great need for all of us to work together globally.
<P>
Like Commissioner Gradin we also want men to stand beside us.
It is men in this Parliament and men in the various committees that have been dealing with this issue who, for budgetary and legal reasons, have often resisted the work we have been doing.
It is men who are the perpetrators of violence against women and men have to take this seriously.
I think the white ribbon campaign is excellent and I want to see British men, and men in all communities and all towns wearing that white ribbon and supporting women across the European Union.
<P>
One in four women experiences violence and virtually every woman is vulnerable to violence.
Every woman supports this campaign.
The European Union is known for combating oppression and opposing violence.
Let us make sure we oppose it in our own cities, towns and homes.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="Banotti">
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate Mme Gradin.
When she was appointed in 1995 she made this topic one of her priorities and despite a great deal of discouragement she has actually won through and we are now having a major debate in this Parliament about a subject that was often sniggered about but rarely taken seriously until she decided to do so.
<P>
I would also like to congratulate the staff who are running the Daphne Programme.
They are always available and always very supportive.
Mr Simpson is perhaps the person we know best.
He has made a real campaign out of this and a real mission for himself.
These programmes - Daphne, STOP and Grotius - came into existence following the tragedy of the Dutroux murders in Belgium.
<P>
It was a tragedy but also proved to be a catalyst when finally the political classes woke up to the fact that there was a really serious problem.
<P>
If I concentrate my remarks on children in this debate it is not because I am not totally at one with my colleagues who have spoken about the need to confront very seriously the major problem we have in all our societies with violence against women; but increasingly, in the last three or four years the issue of children's rights and the protection of those rights have begun slowly but finally to take their place amongst the political priorities in many of our countries.
All too often the real movers and shakers in this area are the NGOs who are, invariably, inadequately funded and constantly knocking on the door to try and bring these issue to the public.
For that reason we need a dedicated unit within the Commission to draw together the many programmes.
They are quite small, there is not a lot of money in them, but they are in danger of fragmentation if things continue like this.
<P>
I would stress that all of us in our own countries, as Mrs Waddington has said, have to get the men to recognise that children are not just the responsibility of their mothers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Monfils">
Mr President, I obviously agree with Mrs Hautala's resolution and of course, with women's struggle to secure their right to human dignity and integrity.
However, I should like to make one remark in connection with this.
Like Mrs Banotti, I note that the Committee on Women's Rights has to some extent taken possession of the Daphne programme, which is the result of the initiative taken by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, and which to begin with was mainly directed towards the campaign against paedophilia.
<P>
Like Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens, I should not like current events to result in this programme being redirected slightly, guaranteeing protection for women only and neglecting its other mission when every day children are the victims of unthinkable acts of cruelty.
I therefore urge the Commission to continue to earmark a substantial proportion of the funds for important measures undertaken by organisations whose task is to search for children who have disappeared and support families who are victims of this type of tragedy.
<P>
Finally, I would say to the House that rather than tearing each other apart for the sake of a small amount of funds, I wish that all the different parties could join together - not only today but also when we discuss the budget - in calling for a significant and substantial increase in funds for a purpose which is quite obviously first and foremost a humanitarian one.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Mouskouri">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today we are celebrating International Women's Day with great enthusiasm, emotion and hope.
I should like to add 'with admiration and dignity', as women represent 50 % of the world's population and are responsible for the remaining 50 %.
<P>
In modern societies, a woman is called upon to perform many roles, as mother, wife, simple companion, scientist, worker, politician, and as a woman in the arts.
Today a woman can claim these roles as her own and on an equal footing with men, with whom she can also share them.
I believe that the European Union has made a significant contribution to bringing this about. The European Parliament especially has taken decisions to strengthen equal rights and equal opportunities legislation on behalf of the women who live in our Member States.
<P>
Yet it is a sad fact that, even today in our modern and civilised societies, we see that prejudice still exists in relation to the position of women.
The practical implementation and observance of the regulations we institute cannot always be taken for granted and is often difficult to establish, as discrimination is something which does not always happen directly.
Let us not forget that there are countries where women and children still lack the most basic rights and where women do not know what is going to happen to them or how important their children are.
<P>
I should like to remind you that, above all, women continue to be responsible for passing on our culture, our identity and our values from generation to generation.
That is why modern society needs them more than ever, especially as a vehicle for culture and peace.
<P>
If we want the legal protection of women's rights to have any substance and if we want the opportunities and rights of women to be put into effect, we must ensure that they receive the support they need to enable them to fulfil their roles. Today more than ever, we must place greater emphasis on education, training and health and on allowing women to grow up with dignity.
Women must be able to take advantage of their rights and to take on their responsibilities. They must be able to pass on the precious values our society needs today and to cross the threshold of the new millennium with faith in justice and in the freedom of mankind.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="García Arias">
Mr President, Mr Antony has already left but his speech reminded me of the intrinsic institutionalised violence against women, the disabled, and ethnic and religious minorities that we unfortunately experienced during the era of European fascism.
<P>
Commissioner, you are well aware that violence against women is not a public health problem, although as in the publicity against tobacco, we can say that violence and violent men seriously damage the lives and health of women and children.
<P>
Violent people are not sick people.
We must make it quite clear that they are criminals.
Nevertheless, we are now faced with a challenge that has been laid down by the European Commission: we must readapt the objectives of the Daphne programme to fit a different legal basis, namely the protection of public health.
<P>
Commissioner, I know just how much your personal commitment and efforts have allowed us to truly begin to cooperate in the fight against violence within the European Union.
But I would like to ask you what effects you think the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam might have in the coming months in terms of our approach to combating violence.
Will it mean that at a later date we will be able to modify the Daphne programme again or extend its scope?
I am worried about this because as you said, despite the broad interpretation of the concept of health, the fact is that all references to cooperation or programmes concerning the trafficking in women have been removed from the programme, yet we know that this is a Community programme.
I disagree with Mr Crowley's defence of the principle of subsidiarity.
The Community provides an added value in combating trafficking in women and children, the abuse of children and paedophilia, and this is important when the European Union has to act not only in the context of cooperation under the third pillar, but also in collaboration with NGOs.
<P>
In conclusion, Commissioner, I would like you to give us some reassurance about the broad interpretation of the concept of health and to tell us what effect the Treaty of Amsterdam might have, since I wonder whether it might not be better to wait until it enters into force.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Todini">
Mr President, how pleased I am to have heard some male voices in this debate, and likewise that this part of our discussion is being chaired by such an attentive male President: thank you!
<P>
It is vital that Europe should feel duty-bound to take action concerning both general and sexual violence against women.
All of us - all of our governments, the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council - have been striving over this past year to achieve a single currency and a single bank, to ensure that the euro is capable of holding its own against the excessively powerful dollar.
We all strive to give financial matters pride of place; but we must try equally hard to ensure that the campaign against violence, particularly violence against women, becomes a cornerstone of European culture.
<P>
Mention has been made of Daphne and of pursuing new aims: I agree with what has been said here, but I would call for new and steadily increasing funds for the programmes and projects under Daphne relating to children and women.
I must thank the Commissioner, Mrs Gradin, for having mentioned in her speech the question of so-called anti-rape jeans.
A tragi-comical judgment handed down a month or so ago, in Italy, caused astonishment around the world.
<P>
Today, provocatively, I am wearing jeans and displaying them for all to see, not to attract attention but because the Italian Supreme Court and Court of Appeal have declared that a woman wearing jeans cannot be raped.
Jeans are a guarantee against rape.
<P>
We do not wish to judge the Court of Appeal, but to highlight a lack of culture.
The Europe which we create must be one of culture!
Let me quote an item from yesterday's Italian press, originally published in an Austrian newspaper: the miniskirt is dangerously provocative.
In Austria, a woman in a miniskirt has been dismissed because of her attire.
However, the problem is that everyone rushed to the defence not of the woman, but of the man who dismissed her, because apparently it was he who had been provoked and suffered sexual harassment.
Mrs Gradin said that women must be protected; but we must also look after men wherever they need looking after, as men and as human beings.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Marinucci">
Mr President, I shall speak later on the Hautala proposal, and I shall refrain from commenting now on 8 March.
Instead I would turn to the Commissioner, Mrs Gradin, and begin by taking this opportunity to thank her for her hard work.
I believe that Mrs Gradin's dedication to this topic - her strength, intelligence, good will and generosity - will go down in the annals of the European Union.
She is without doubt responsible for the fact that, in recent years, there has been a series of actions aiming to overcome violence against women.
<P>
On this point, I would ask that we take a positive view of the transition to Article 129, in that it confers much greater powers on Parliament.
This House should theoretically be pleased, because progress might perhaps be more rapid at the end of the day.
It remains to be seen, however, whether the programme will stay as before.
I am all in favour of looking after men; indeed, I am convinced that only if we do so will they at last stop thinking that women can be bought, robbed and seized rather than being won over.
I also agree to looking after women who have been the victims of violence and have suffered physical as well as psychological damage.
But we are also committed to other actions under Daphne, and all I wish to know is whether the move from Article 235 to 129 will alter the content of this programme.
That is precisely what we would not want.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Ghilardotti">
Mr President, I too am most grateful to the Commissioner, Mrs Gradin.
Without wishing to repeat what colleagues have said, if the European tide has been turned in this area, then we owe it largely to her.
<P>
I would echo what Mrs Marinucci said concerning the scope of the programme under Article 129.
Let me give an example: in Italy, as elsewhere, women's organisations have for years supported, protected and housed women who have suffered violence, helping to reintegrate them socially. They have done so partly through refuges, where women can take shelter, along with their children, and can receive psychological and legal support as well as help in returning to work.
In my view, if Article 129 really were restricted to health matters alone, it would greatly curtail the activities which are already under way and need to be extended.
I therefore believe that, although we in Parliament certainly do have an important role under Article 129, since we can step in and bring matters to a rapid conclusion, we share Mrs Gradin's desire to see this programme up and running by early 2000.
It really would be a shame and a retrograde step, in my opinion, if all the actions originally scheduled for Daphne could not be included in their entirety.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Gradin">
Mr President, I wish to thank everybody for a very interesting debate, and the Committee on Women's Rights for the support it has given to this campaign concerning violence against women, and also for the support for the Daphne programme.
<P>
Many of you have been concerned that we have had to change the legal base for Daphne.
It must be said that we had a long debate in the Commission before we presented this programme to the Council and Parliament and we came to the conclusion that Article 235 would have been the best base.
That is why we proposed it to both institutions.
During the debate at least five countries - Germany, Britain, France, Denmark and Belgium - were very categorical that they could not accept Article 235.
They wanted Article 129.
In my view, it is better to get Daphne decided, and then after a year we can see whether the programme can be improved.
Perhaps the programme is narrower than we had originally planned but let us get it started now, and then we can review the situation later.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
I have received a motion for a resolution tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2).
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Women's health
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="President">
The next item is the second report (A4-0029/99) by Mrs Hautala, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights, on the Commission's report to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on the state of women's health in the European Community (COM(97)0224 - C4-0333/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, I would like to say, concerning the previous speech, that Mrs Gradin has our full support to get the Daphne programme under way, and we will certainly be in a position to cooperate fully on this issue in the future.
<P>
But now I would like to focus on another matter.
The European Commission commissioned a report from the University of Limerick on the subject of women's health in the European Union.
However, Parliament was rather perplexed as the Commission did not really make any decisions on the basis of the report, but sent it directly to us and the Council.
Our task, as Parliament, then, is to lay down guidelines on how the issue of the state of women's health should be understood.
<P>
It is certainly quite obvious that public health has improved in many respects and thus women are also healthier and live longer.
However, we should realise there are new kinds of health threats which target women, such as the fact that more and more women have to be solely responsible for looking after their families, as single mothers.
As is well known, they have many financial problems in such roles, and it is clear that the capacity and resources available for all the different kinds of health care are perhaps not perfect either.
<P>
There are also new kinds of health problems which women seem to suffer from in particular, and which were not really so very widespread in earlier times.
Take, for example, eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia, though it has to be said that, surprisingly, young men too have started to suffer from these.
The nature of such problems is certainly so difficult to understand as to be inexplicable, but we should recognise these phenomena and think about where their actual origins lie.
Why does society put so much pressure specifically on young women, pressure that makes them react in this way?
<P>
It is a very interesting time to raise the matter of women's health, as the European Union is committed under the Treaty of Amsterdam to including at least two matters connected with this as part of all its activities.
The first issue to form part of all Union policy is equality between women and men, and the second is public health.
In my report I state that we have before us a double challenge, and that we have to apply the principle of transparency.
Thus we really must examine the Union's future public health policy particularly, in this case, from the point of view of women.
<P>
My first contention is that women are very poorly represented in decision making in the healthcare sector.
They are of course very fully represented in the workforce, for example as nurses. But they are clearly under-represented on the managerial ladder and on decision-making boards in the healthcare sector.
I know of research that shows that when women are also included in the management team the whole perspective changes.
More attention starts to be paid to preventing, rather than merely curing, illness.
This is a very interesting example, and one that shows that women also have their own way of working when they are allowed to take decisions.
<P>
Then there are illnesses that only affect women, especially in health problems relating to childbearing.
It is vital that we ensure that at every stage of a woman's life there are good, high-quality basic healthcare services available to her, whether they relate to maternity problems, maternity welfare or other gynaecological issues.
<P>
Then there are complaints that affect women in a different way from men: heart and vascular disease, and alcoholism.
Depression also seems to be commoner among women.
This all has to be discussed without forgetting that as the population ages, there will be even more of us older women in society and that will place enormous demands on the healthcare system.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Redondo Jiménez">
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to congratulate the Committee on Women's Rights on the report it has tabled and to say that, in general, I support it.
However, I would like to highlight the fact that we do not aim to attach more importance to women's health than to men's health but to look at them in an equal light.
Nonetheless, we need to emphasise that some of the health problems experienced by women are different and therefore require specific action.
<P>
I am not going to describe again the state of women's health in the European Union as we already have a very clear picture.
Moreover, the rapporteur, Mrs Hautala - whom I would like to congratulate on her report - has already done this exhaustively and the details are included in all the documents.
I am therefore only going to concentrate on those points that the Committee on the Environment wishes to stress.
We essentially want to focus on primary prevention when harmonising measures on women's health to be implemented in all the Member States. Some of these measures are already being implemented in certain countries and, in our view, we need to step up activities in specific areas.
The first of these relates to smoking and alcohol consumption among women. It is particularly important to combat this among adolescents as more and more young women are beginning to smoke and consume alcohol at an earlier age, which is why preventive measures are important.
It is also essential to highlight the importance of a balanced diet.
Anorexia, bulimia and coronary diseases are becoming more prevalent and, in the case of anorexia and bulimia, increasingly common among young women.
We must also work to prevent the spread of AIDS by providing young people with more information.
Preventive measures like these should devote more attention to young people.
<P>
It is important, too, to look at secondary prevention measures as there are significant differences between the Member States. We need to introduce and implement more programmes to detect both cervical and breast cancer in the EU and provide systematic screening for all women, particularly those in high-risk categories.
Early detection of diabetes is becoming increasingly important as are the issues of hormone replacement therapy, osteoporosis and so on.
In addition, we need to ensure that any health statistics published are broken down according to sex. There are substantial differences that must be taken into consideration when decisions are made if these statistics are not broken down, as is the case at the moment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="García Arias">
Mr President, this is the second time in the past few months that we have held a debate on a report on women's health in the European Community and I do not want to repeat what we said earlier.
<P>

Mrs Hautala has made enormous efforts to improve the report and, in particular, to reach an agreement within the Committee on Women's Rights that will allow us to finally approve it, and I congratulate her on this.
<P>
The Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy also studied the report drawn up by the Commission, which shows statistically that there are clear differences between the disease processes in men and women and that particular solutions therefore need to be found to problems or diseases which are specific to women. It also highlights the fact that for women, universal public health cover is essential as they still have lower living standards and earn lower wages than men.
In any event, the Committee on Research believes that we need better statistics on the public health situation which should be broken down according to gender, age group, income level and place of residence.
We also believe that more scientific research is needed into the causes and appropriate treatment of diseases such as anorexia and bulimia which, unfortunately, are currently having devastating effects on the health of adolescents.
It is also important to give greater consideration to occupational illnesses that are more common among working women, and this is particularly important today, 8 March.
We must point out that since it is more difficult to organise women in society, we know less about the incidence of occupational illnesses among women.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Marinucci">
Mr President, people are still reluctant to recognise that there is anything specific about women's health, even though ample evidence exists.
How could one fail to realise that women's health is quite different from men's in certain respects?
Men do not have problems linked to reproductive health, and have fewer ailments caused by nutrition and lifestyle.
Men lead completely different lives from women and age less.
If it is true - and it is - that ageing is currently one of the major problems confronting all our health systems, there are generally more elderly women among the population, and they are sometimes poorer than their male counterparts.
Women's health is different, as was recognised in the Beijing platform: indeed, its key paragraph recognised the right of women to the safeguarding of their health, above all their reproductive health.
<P>
It is a good thing that the Commission has presented a report specifically on women's health, but conclusions must be drawn from it, and I am grateful to our chairman, Mrs Hautala, for having rescued this report against all odds. She has made it down-to-earth, coherent and constructive, and is now rightly calling on the Commission to go one step further by presenting a specific programme.
We wish women's health to be taken into account in the health programmes and mainstreaming to be built into these, guaranteeing the high level of protection which is recognised - first in the Maastricht Treaty and then in the Amsterdam Treaty - as an obligation of the Union.
We wish for even more than that: a specific programme!
Surely the need for this is obvious, especially in respect of information?
<P>
Women do not take care of themselves; they are used to looking after the health of their families but neglect themselves and, often, neglect preventive care because they are too busy looking after their nearest and dearest.
Once they realise they are ill, it is already too late.
Campaigns must be mounted to educate and inform women, to convince them to look after themselves.
Information campaigns must be directed at family doctors and general practitioners so that, when they enter a home to look after a sick child, they speak to the mother and ask her whether she is using contraceptives, whether she is looking after herself and whether contraception could help her avoid the need for an abortion.
Family doctors and GPs should take every opportunity to make women think about themselves and answer questions on their health.
Often they do not do so, which is why a specific programme is needed to provide information for women and for health personnel dealing with women.
This topic must not be deferred any longer.
Today is International Women's Day, and not the Festival of Women, as its detractors call it.
It is the day that Clara Zetkin called for in 1912 to advance the condition of women.
We want women to occupy positions of power, but above all else we want them to be healthy, so that they can do so as well as possible.
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<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Heinisch">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, although the past few years have seen enormous progress in our knowledge of the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of illnesses that put women's health at risk, there is still a great deal to be done in this area.
I thank Mrs Hautala very warmly for her report.
<P>
I think we have managed this time broadly to reconcile our positions on the important aspects with those of the other groups.
The report concentrates on the essential aspect, namely women's health, and also considers the distribution of powers in the European Union.
The provisions on the controversial question of abortion and on toxic shock syndrome are worded in such a way that most Members can support them.
<P>
Yet I still believe that it is difficult for the European Union to give an answer to the question of abortion.
However, during the discussion on pregnancy, we gave priority to the possible health risk to the woman, including the psychological health risk, and even the risk to her life, in addition to the child's right to life and protection.
<P>
I welcome the fact that the report also takes up issues such as society-related health issues, which also show that lifestyle, socio-economic circumstances and a healthy life are determining health factors.
I think it is only right that the report calls on the Commission to take into account and refer specifically to the topic of women's health in its new action programme on health.
<P>
If we want to improve the health of women, it is important to take targeted measures on information, prevention and health promotion.
Women must become better informed and more involved in the planning and implementation of preventive programmes.
Since women live longer than men and have a lower mortality rate at all ages and for all causes of death, there is a general impression that they are healthier than men.
But the price of a higher life expectancy is the risk of becoming chronically ill and infirm.
If we use indicators to assess the state of health that also look at illness and impairment, and not just mortality, we find that in all age groups the state of women's health is worse than that of men.
This applies particularly to older women.
So we must aim to give women a greater chance of living their later years in good health, with greater independence and less impairment.
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<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, improving the position of women in health care was one of the 12 strategic objectives at the conference in Beijing.
The Amsterdam Treaty which will shortly be coming into force increases the Union's powers in the areas of both health and equal opportunities.
There is no longer any excuse to do nothing about a policy for women's health.
More to the point, we need a policy for women's health.
Certain diseases are specific to women, are more frequent in women or affect women differently from men, and in defining this policy the following points are of prime concern.
A gender-specific approach to health care can reduce its cost.
Better prevention, for example through realistic health targets for conditions affecting women primarily in later life, such as osteoporosis, certain cancers and cardiovascular disease, can improve the quality of women's lives.
Equal and adequate access to health care remains a problem for some women outside the Union, but in the Member States as well.
<P>
In line with its traditions, my group is sceptical about Europe interfering too much in policy areas which ought really to be regulated at national level.
In other words, we do not want to undermine the subsidiarity principle.
We certainly recognise the importance of a specific policy on health at European level, but we think this is only feasible if its aims are to prevent, encourage and coordinate.
So we shall vote against paragraphs 10, 11 and 16, and part of paragraph 24.
We would also warn of the excessive cost to the budget of all the calls for studies and research contained in the resolution.
<P>
Speaking personally, I should like to compliment the rapporteur on the way in which she revised the report after broad consultation with the groups.
Mrs van Dijk's report was not acceptable to us and we could not approve it.
This report is much better, and at least makes clear what Parliament's priorities are with regard to women's health.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Madam President, today is known internationally as a day for taking action in support of women, and we need to reflect a little on the continuing, unimaginable struggles of the women's movement, which continue to bring about many changes not only for women but for society as a whole.
<P>
Today we must honour the force of these struggles, and stress the need for them to continue, as crucial problems remain unsolved and other, new, problems appear which threaten their rights and achievements.
<P>
Women continue to be one of the most vulnerable sections of the population, as their rights, including their right to health, are violated.
These rights are often infringed by the current socio-economic system, and we must acknowledge this if we want 8 March to be more than just an opportunity for anniversary celebrations.
<P>
Throughout the length and breadth of the planet cultural and political underdevelopment, hunger, wars and skirmishes, conservative and backward-looking societies, economic regulations, have all dealt a cruel blow to women, to their role in the economy, in society and in the family.
<P>
The Hautala report puts forward interesting proposals regarding the serious health problems faced by women, and I congratulate the rapporteur on her work.
<P>
However, I wonder whether promoting issues relating to women's health problems, and affording women protection under the law against discrimination of any kind, can be understood and strengthened within a socio-economic system which commercialises everything and subjects public health to the harsh financial policy of EMU. I wonder whether a policy which affords women substantial protection can be implemented, regardless of the reorientation and the grass-roots reorganisation of the development model of our society.
In the face of exploitative and oppressive plans and practices, in the face of discrimination tactics, women are called upon to push forward and assert their claims together with men, in the context of a broad popular battle front ranged in each country.
Today's date, 8 March, and the tradition of militancy which accompanies it will show the way.
Let us follow it unflinchingly.
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<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Seillier">
Madam President, in view of the short time I have to speak, I will be concentrating on the paragraph in my colleague's report which is devoted to reproductive health.
This term is a little complex, and I suppose we must take it to mean all health issues linked to a woman's ability to give birth.
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I fully agree with your demand in paragraph 8 that 'high quality reproductive health services' must be available to women, and with your demand in paragraph 12 that 'attention is drawn to the advantages and disadvantages of hormonal treatments for menstrual and menopausal problems, and that alternatives to these are researched'.
<P>
Having said that, I should like you to go into more detail about the advantages and disadvantages of hormonal contraception.
However, I will not be able to agree to your recommendation in paragraph 10 where you call for 'the promotion of unrestricted availability of contraceptives'.
Should we take this to mean that contraceptives are to be made available without any medical follow-up, which is essential wherever hormonal contraceptives are being taken since they affect the endocrine system and natural hormonal regulation?
I am therefore unable to agree with you on this point.
I think unrestricted availability of contraceptives without any medical follow-up does not show due respect for women's health.
<P>
In anticipation of the United Nations Conference on Women in Beijing, I have obtained within the framework of STOA a study on the impact on health of the different contraceptive practices in Europe and the reliability in scientific terms of what is called natural family planning.
Unfortunately, the study was ended prematurely.
It would be worth resuming the work carried out on it because in accordance with the resolutions voted by Parliament on 11 March 1994 and 28 October 1994, I think we need to respect a genuine freedom of choice for women.
They need to be aware of the risks involved in the different methods of contraception so that they can choose alternative methods without risk to their health.
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<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Gradin">
Madam President, I would first of all like to thank the committee for its constructive report on women's health.
Mrs Hautala, the rapporteur, has produced an excellent piece of work.
The Commission decided that its first specific report would be devoted to women's health and medical problems.
The report deals with the major trends in women's health.
It also includes an overview of women's illnesses and the factors that crucially affect women's health.
Furthermore, the report discusses particular problems such as eating disorders, HIV/AIDS, family planning, abortion, the menopause and violence against women.
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As has been pointed out, to a certain extent women experience different health problems from men.
We must therefore ensure that these differences are taken account of in health services and medical care.
Adequate resources should also be made available.
I also agree with Mrs Hautala that we need better data gathering on women's health.
It is important that medical research takes into consideration the differences between women and men.
We know, for example, that most experiments on animals are performed on males.
As a result, women may experience undesirable and harmful effects when they use medicines that have only been tested on male animals.
<P>
The Commission has already taken a number of initiatives with the aim of promoting women's health.
A study has been carried out on osteoporosis in older women, and the report will be ready shortly.
The EU is also giving its support to projects that include studies of life expectancy and general health development, as well as of statistics relating to morbidity and mortality.
In these studies, we have stressed the importance of gender differences.
Support will also be given to studies on cancer, age-related diseases and women's health problems.
<P>
Since 1996, the Commission has been running a special programme aimed at preventing AIDS and other infectious diseases.
The programme includes several projects relating exclusively to women.
Last year, for example, we set up a network to combat the spread of AIDS among women in the Mediterranean countries.
The Commission recently submitted a report on the implementation of the 1995 directive relating to health and safety measures at work for pregnant women and women with new-born infants or mothers who are breastfeeding, known as the pregnant workers directive.
The conclusions of the Commission regarding implementation of the directive are generally satisfactory, although unfortunately some Member States have not yet implemented it in full.
The Commission has therefore started proceedings against those countries for non-compliance.
This concerns, amongst other things, sick leave, a statutory two-week paid holiday, maternity leave and a ban on allowing pregnant women to carry out work that is potentially harmful to health.
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Another important instrument is the 1996 directive on parental leave.
As you know, it entitles all employees, regardless of sex, to at least three months' unpaid leave to look after their own children of eight years or less.
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As part of the programme on equality of opportunity for women and men, the Commission has compiled a report on the representation of women in health services and medical care.
The report covers state and semi-private health care institutions in all the EU countries.
A qualitative study of women in decision-making positions has been carried out in France, Italy and Sweden.
The results showed that involving women in health care decision making has a positive effect.
Women bring new needs, ideas and values to the work.
Furthermore, they often represent a different style of leadership and an alternative approach to decision making.
<P>
The aim of the Commission's 'mainstreaming' strategy is to incorporate equal opportunities for women and men into all Community policies and activities.
The Union's health policy is no exception, although consideration should be given to the differences that exist between the sexes.
Parliament and the Committee on Women's Rights have, through this report, made a valuable contribution to the work in hand.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Gradin.
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The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Mainstreaming
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0072/99) by Mrs Eriksson, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights, on the follow-up to the communication on incorporating equal opportunities for women and men into all Community policies (COM(98)0122 - C4-0234/98).
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<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Eriksson">
Madam President, what Commissioner Gradin has just said in her concluding remarks about incorporating equality of opportunity into all Community policies, and that health should be no exception, is indeed gratifying.
However, after studying the Commission's progress report on the incorporation of equality of opportunity for women and men into Community policies, I should say with a touch of irony that I hope in fact it is an exception - a positive exception.
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Besides the Commission's report, I have also examined other documents from the Council of Ministers and the United Nations, amongst others.
However, I decided to compare the report with the Beijing Declaration.
It is true that we have not signed this declaration. Nevertheless, since 1995 we have been stressing the importance of 'gender mainstreaming' in policy making and other areas of work.
I think that Chapter V, in particular, has most relevance for the European Union.
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In comparing the Commission's report with the Beijing Declaration, I see that there has been no fundamental change: there is still a lack of clearly defined objectives and accountability mechanisms, and changes in the internal dynamics - including the introduction of different values, behaviour, rules and procedures - have not been implemented.
The European Union is not pursuing an active and visible policy on equality of opportunity accompanied by such things as follow-up and evaluation procedures to assess its performance and policies.
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The Commission rightly notes that there has been progress, but obstacles and shortcomings still exist.
The measures taken up to now have not had an effect in all areas or on the direction in which Community policy is going.
In the Commission's view, the most serious obstacles are a lack of awareness of gender equality issues at the decision-making level, a lack of human and budgetary resources, and a lack of gender experts.
However, your rapporteur believes that the first of these is the key point, namely a lack of awareness of the need for gender equality at the decision-making level.
Unfortunately, this lack of awareness does not only apply to the Commission, it also permeates large sections of society and, I would also contend, Parliament itself in large measure.
We know that for only 28 % of the Members of Parliament to be women is hardly representative of the European population a whole, but that is how things stand in this particular decision-making body.
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Naturally, something has to be done.
In our view, the committee, through my report, lays down some constructive proposals.
In order to make everyone happy, let me assure you that these proposals do not increase costs by one single euro.
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The Commission can and should show the way by deciding on the objectives and accountability mechanisms, cooperating with new policy players, strengthening the methodological framework, overhauling its own structures and introducing gender equality at the decision-making level. Of course, the same also applies to Parliament.
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It is still the case that women in the workplace are held in lower esteem than men.
This state of affairs has not changed in more than 100 years, but hopefully at some stage - and perhaps soon - change will come.
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Consequently, this is one of the issues on which the committee hopes to be able to cooperate with the Commission - as an ongoing and balanced committee.
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<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Kokkola">
Madam President, Commissioner, as today is 8 March I too would like to say a few words. For me today is a day of remembrance, not a day of celebration.
It is a day of remembrance for those women who led the struggle for equal rights and equal opportunities.
8 March is a symbolic day for this unending struggle. It is a day on which to render an account of women's achievements, a day of raising awareness and debate.
<P>
I should like to take this opportunity to stress once again that we are fully behind all those women who, at great danger to themselves, are fighting against totalitarianism and against any plan to create a society in which women are marginalised.
They are fighting against violence and racism, they are fighting for democracy and human rights, they are fighting for their survival in many parts of the world where poverty is still rife or where wars are being waged.
<P>
I should like to thank Mrs Eriksson for her excellent report and for what she has told us.
It is significant that, in its progress report, the Commission resumes its stance and expresses its desire to promote a policy of equal rights in relation to other policies.
This progress report makes it clear that incorporating an equal rights policy is a long-term measure.
As the Commission correctly points out, there are obstacles to implementing this policy.
Nevertheless, I fervently believe that the Commission must create or strengthen special mechanisms to incorporate equal opportunities, for example in the new technologies and information technology, and in research where access for women is especially limited.
The gender issue must also be incorporated into all legislation and into all action programmes and action plans.
The Commission must continue to urge Member States to take initiatives to promote and implement mainstreaming and we too must push our governments in this direction.
<P>
We must stress once again the need for gender relevant statistical data for the purpose of assessment and programme planning, in relation to which the Commission's progress report exhibits certain weaknesses.
The message of this progress report and also of this House must be twofold.
Firstly, there must be systematic implementation of the analysis relating to the gender issue and its impact on all the policies and actions of the European Union. We must also press on with and strengthen the special positive action measures to promote equal opportunities.
<P>
In closing, Madam President, I should like to say that, of course, for all this to happen, we need the necessary resources and the right people, as an analysis of the gender issue can only be undertaken by people with the appropriate training.
It requires knowledge and information.
I should also like to stress that a fifth action programme is necessary and I hope to hear the Commissioner announce one.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Lulling">
Madam President, it most certainly augurs well for us that today, on the occasion of International Women's Day, we have the opportunity to review this much talked-about mainstreaming, this great concept which consists in incorporating equal opportunities for women and men into all Community policies and activities.
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Two years after the communication on mainstreaming was adopted by the Commission, it seems clear that progress has been rather modest, and that we still have a long way to go both internally and externally.
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In fact, in spite of the good intentions of which we are assured, the results seem to indicate some disparities, and numerous barriers and shortcomings still exist as regards the balanced participation of women and men in both the decision-making process and the implementation of Community policies.
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This is why I consider it necessary for the Commission to now reassert its firm commitment to the promotion of an active and visible policy on equal opportunities.
<P>
The entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty and the stronger legal basis for equal opportunities for women and men must be turned to good account in order to envisage positive action and take 'all-out' measures, if I may use the military language used by General de Gaulle, in order to achieve equal treatment and equal opportunities for women and men, which we have still have not achieved in many areas.
<P>
However, it is my duty to point out here that mainstreaming does not render unnecessary the specific equality policies that have so far been developed by means of directives and Community action programmes.
<P>
May I also take this opportunity to remind you once again that we are hoping the Commission will finally propose an amendment to the watered-down 1986 directive on equal treatment between men and women engaged in an activity in a self-employed capacity, including assisting spouses.
Apart from two round-table discussions, no action has yet been taken in response to the report I produced in 1996, in which Parliament unanimously proposed a framework status for assisting spouses in Europe; there are millions of these invisible workers in our societies, and the overwhelming majority are women.
<P>
This status - the framework of which needs to be outlined in the 1986 directive that is to be amended - will need to provide for compulsory registration of assisting spouses, independent social security entitlement and, in particular, compulsory pension insurance.
It will need to put an end to all forms of discrimination which assisting spouses are subject to, for example in companies and professional organisations, especially in the event of divorce, and so on.
<P>
Rest assured, Commissioner, that the Committee on Women's Rights will - within the scope of its political responsibilities, which will need to be redefined and strengthened following the elections on 13 June this year - keep an watchful eye over the action taken by the Commission in response to this debate and our report.
Madam President, I also hope that Parliament itself and its political groups will not ignore the conclusions reached in paragraphs 19 to 22, particularly with regard to strengthening the political responsibilities of the Committee on Women's Rights, and not abolishing it, as advocated by some of our colleagues.
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<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Larive">
Madam President, I made my maiden speech in 1984 on emancipation and here I am now giving my 'old maid's speech'.
I have three points to make.
Firstly, after seven directives on emancipation, I think the cornerstone of European legislation has to be the burden of proof directive.
A fair distribution of the burden of proof between employer and employee makes it possible for women to enforce the rights which these seven emancipation directives give them.
For the rest, I think we should hold back and leave any law making to the social partners.
<P>
Secondly, we have to straighten out the things that are crooked.
In other words, positive action is still needed until the barriers left over from the past have been removed - until the crooked is made straight.
<P>
Thirdly, we must strive manfully - or perhaps womanfully - to see that new obstacles do not arise.
The biggest challenge of the 21st century for emancipation is mainstreaming, the integration of equal opportunities into all areas of European policy.
The Amsterdam Treaty provides a good legal basis for this.
It is a splendid concept, but a dangerous one too: splendid because it is more effective, if properly applied, than constantly introducing new pieces of legislation; and dangerous because it can serve as a lightning conductor, a sop, a paper tiger.
So extreme vigilance, healthy suspicion and the measures suggested in Mrs Eriksson's excellent report are called for.
She rightly asks for a breakdown by gender and statistics, as Mrs Hautala does too, whose report is better than that by Mrs van Dijk, though that is not to say it is a good one.
<P>
We want more women involved in decision making.
Commissioner Flynn, incidentally, has no women at all in his private office.
The Commission and Parliament have five women officials in lower-ranked policy-making positions.
Mainstreaming means building without obstacles, not first erecting obstacles and then solemnly dismantling them.
Mainstreaming also means emancipation impact assessment.
As suggested in paragraph 21 by our Liberal colleague Mr Cars - a man at that - we need an interinstitutional working party for Parliament and the Commission and a monitoring board within the European Parliament.
<P>
Can we wind up the Committee on Women's Rights?
No, we still need it as a watchdog, to see that mainstreaming actually happens.
And I think it means one must be able to sit on the Committee on Women's Rights in addition to being a full member of another committee.
We cannot have one cancelling out the other, or we shall have an underuse of resources, we shall have fanaticism operating in isolation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Hyland">
Madam President, I welcome the opportunity to speak briefly on this report incorporating equal opportunities for women and men in all Community policies and activities.
I want to refer specifically to the need for such integrated policy for women in rural society, for until now suitable employment opportunities have been limited, with women having to migrate to urban growth centres to find employment.
This is an unsatisfactory situation and has contributed significantly to the depopulation of rural areas.
It is a serious social and economic problem which everyone, including this Parliament and national governments, now recognises - late in the day, perhaps - and that we are now endeavouring to correct through rural development policy.
<P>
Committed as I am to rural policies, I now believe they will not achieve their full potential in the absence of integrated national and regional policy.
Unless we create sustainable employment at regional level and, in the context of this report, employment suitable for women, then the economic and social viability of rural communities will be put at further risk.
If rural society is not economically and socially attractive to women it will be impossible to retain living and vibrant rural communities.
<P>
While such policies are relevant to all rural women, I want to specifically refer to the often forgotten role of women in agriculture.
I am sure Parliament will agree that in the context of the present discussions on Agenda 2000 the viability of many family farms will be put at risk.
If we are serious about retaining the European farm model referred to in the Santer proposals then we must provide suitable off-farm employment for both women and men.
<P>
I want to acknowledge and pay tribute to the significant contribution of women to the work of voluntary community organisations.
Their role, however, must not be confined to voluntary community work.
They are entitled to participate, if they so desire, in the work of nation-building and to meaningful and rewarding employment opportunities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Kerr">
Madam President, as the coordinator for the Green Group on the Committee on Women's Rights, I should like to stress the importance of having men support women in achieving equality in the European Union.
I, along with my colleague Mr Mann and one or two other men, are active on the Committee on Women's Rights in support of those objectives.
I only wish we had the wholehearted support of many of the other men in this Parliament including those who tried to abolish the Committee on Women's Rights earlier in the year.
I am glad we have resisted that so far and we must resist it in the future.
<P>
I congratulate Mrs Eriksson on her report.
It shows clearly that equal opportunities and mainstreaming are good objectives.
However, we have moved very little towards them.
Until the men in the European Union take them seriously we will not achieve them.
And that begins at the very top, in the leadership of the Council of Ministers: all those male leaders who are not taking it seriously.
I include my own government in this.
Its record is rather poor.
Tony Blair forgot to appoint a Minister for Women, then called Harriet Harman back in and gave her the job of Secretary of State for Social Security as well and finally sacked her because she had to carry out unpopular decisions.
He has now given the job to the Leader of the House of Lords and women's issues have tended to sink without trace.
<P>
By effectively deselecting three of our women colleagues - Sue Waddington, the Labour Spokesman on Women's Rights, Christine Oddy and Veronica Hardstaff - the Labour Party has made a poor contribution to getting women re-elected to the European Parliament.
We should look at the record in the Member States if we want to achieve our equality objectives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Madam President, Commissioner, I am happy to add my own thanks to the Commission.
Seven directives, that is no mean achievement.
Women in Europe can see that the Commission is sympathetic to women's concerns.
But much still needs to be done on jobs and equal pay, for example.
I would say that men are still lagging behind when it comes to care, both in and outside the family.
<P>
What worries us most at the moment is the continuing inequality of power.
This is an injustice which we must battle against.
The Nordic countries have quite a good record, with 37.6 %, and the European Parliament too, with 28 %, compared with the 13.1 % of women involved in the highest levels of decision making worldwide.
But it is a long way from the democratic parity we dream about.
It is after all a democratic right that the bodies taking decisions which affect society should reflect the make-up of that society.
In any event, the Commission should continue to press the Member States to take steps to ensure that this is indeed the case.
<P>
Women will then recognise their role, will feel more involved, will see their problems acknowledged as political problems and will also feel more attracted to the political arena.
That reciprocal effect is by no means commonplace at present.
<P>
Many good things have of course already been said about mainstreaming.
I echo them.
We need equal opportunities at all levels, in all undertakings, and we need to study gender effects in all areas, devising instruments to monitor whether or not progress is in fact being made.
But this must not form an excuse for abruptly halting a number of positive actions in favour of women which are still desperately needed.
That is not only the case in Europe; I can think of certain cases in the developing world where actions in favour of women are simply being stopped because all attention has now switched to mainstreaming.
Slogans are no use to us.
We want women to be given the real leg-up they sometimes need in order to make full use of this splendid mainstreaming.
<P>
I hope the Committee on Women's Rights will remain vigilant, because we need that committee.
And that is one of these positive actions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Seillier">
Madam President, I support everything that Mrs Lulling has said on the need to provide a status for assisting spouses, a position held by so many women in the various countries of the European Union.
I hope that the term 'non-working female population', which I find shocking in connection with the subject of equality between men and women, will be eliminated both from Commission texts and various other European documents.
There are probably tens of millions of these women in Europe and they should not be described in this way simply because they are engaged in unwaged work.
<P>
I would like Mrs Keppelhoff's report - an assessment of the economic value of women's unwaged work which dates back ten years or so - to be taken up again.
We should broaden our economic concepts so that the contribution made by this unwaged work to a nation's wealth is taken into account in the GDP.
This would seem important with regard to the subject which we are dealing with here.
<P>
Moreover, the complete marginalisation of the various aspects of pregnancy and motherhood also seems a great injustice with regard to the matter we are dealing with at present.
I think there are some avenues here which we need to explore at all costs, in order to achieve greater justice between men and women in the different countries of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Raschhofer">
Madam President, equal rights and equal opportunities for men and women are recognised as an indisputable basic principle of democracy and human rights.
This recognition is reflected in the Amsterdam Treaty, in which equality between men and women is set out as a goal of the Union, and in the fact that the principle of equal opportunities is enshrined as the fourth pillar of EU employment policy.
<P>
But the Commission's first progress report shows up the very wide gulf between demands and reality.
For instance it states that the measures taken to date have had no tangible influence on the various policies.
That should give us food for thought.
Of particular importance is the awareness raising, awareness changing and sensitisation of all the various decision-makers in all the various areas of society.
But specifically as a woman I would not want to see the baby thrown out with the bathwater.
Will a call such as that for a balanced participation of women and men in the decision-making process really achieve any added value for women?
Are we talking about quantitative or qualitative equal treatment?
If I manage to succeed in my job, it is not because I am a woman but because of the good work I have done.
I know that many women agree with the view I take of the policy of positive discrimination.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Ghilardotti">
Madam President, several colleagues as well as the rapporteur, Mrs Eriksson - whom I wish to compliment - have said how much has already been done in Europe to implement an equal opportunities policy.
I would point out that the European Union actually introduced the principle of mainstreaming into its actions and documents prior to the Beijing Conference.
As we all remember, this was first done in the regulation on the Structural Funds in 1993.
Therefore, from the point of view of intentions, but also of directives implemented, we can say that much has been done, helping to change our conduct, actions and culture.
It does not, however, mean that no problems exist.
The first evaluation report, which was the subject of Mrs Kokkola's report, made it very clear that the statements and documents were by no means being implemented in practice by the Commission and the Member States. As regards the Structural Funds, for example, even though the policy of mainstreaming was introduced as long ago as 1993, the latest progress report reveals that only 1.6 % of their resources have been used for this policy.
<P>
We are a long way from the practical implementation of equal opportunities in all policy fields!
That is why we, as a Parliament, urge that mainstreaming should not merely be reasserted as a principle in the renewed Structural Funds, but that the Member States and the Commission itself should be subject to some form of sanctions if this principle is not translated into tangible measures.
With regard to the European Social Fund, we call for 15 % of project funding to be targeted at women, since much still remains to be done in terms of their employment and pay.
In our view, the action plans submitted by the governments following the Luxembourg summit are very disappointing.
There are still too few countries where equal opportunities are deemed to be an across-the-board principle to be applied in all policy areas.
The real problem, however - and I can say this because I come from a southern country, Italy - concerns the presence of women in decision-making positions.
In Italy few women are to be found, whereas in northern European countries there are more. Where women are present, the political agenda of governments and institutions really does change, and the policies introduced really do change as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Thomas">
Madam President, as soon as the Amsterdam Treaty has been ratified in all Member States, it will produce new benchmarks.
But we will have to wait a few more months before the principle of equal opportunities for women and men is also strengthened.
It is stipulated as a principle and a goal of the Community in Articles 2 and 3 of the Amsterdam Treaty.
Today, on International Women's Day, I recall other articles, such as those on equal treatment in the workplace and on the labour market, on equal pay for equal work and on combating discrimination on the basis of sex.
<P>
The European Commission has established that there are considerable shortcomings as regards incorporating equal opportunities into the Community programmes.
The main reason, according to Mrs Eriksson, the rapporteur, is the lack of awareness of the decision-makers, and this is a view that the Group of the European People's Party naturally shares.
Effective individual measures cannot replace an integrated general concept.
However much cooperation there is with the NGOs, with the committees of other bodies, there are no adequate organisations to promote awareness-raising among the political players.
When they do exist, it will become possible to check the incorporation of equal opportunities in draft legislation, ensure a balanced gender participation in decision-making jobs and finally prepare statistical material that can be broken down into gender-relevant data.
<P>
We need a benchmarking procedure to make it easier to evaluate programmes and projects and we must continue vigorously taking positive measures in favour of women.
However, the working party between Parliament and the Commission that is called for in paragraph 21 already exists!
Its members include two representatives of the Committee on Women's Rights and two representatives of the Committee on Employment; I am one of them and we hold regular meetings with the representatives of the European women's lobby on the one hand and the responsible Commissioners and heads of cabinet led by Jacques Santer on the other.
<P>
We have always reported on their outcome in the committees.
We will have to do so in more detail and certainly also in writing.
I believe that is one message that comes across from today's International Women's Day.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="McKenna">
Madam President, I think that, as has already been mentioned here tonight, the key is to have women in decision-making roles and in positions of power.
That is the only way we are going to get any change.
You only have to look at the European institutions themselves.
Look at the number of women Commissioners.
I know that my own country has yet to appoint a woman Commissioner, and I hope that when it appoints a new Commissioner, the government will take this into account and appoint a woman Commissioner.
<P>
The Irish Government has never yet appointed a woman to the Court of Auditors.
In most of the key areas and senior positions of power, women are not visible.
That is the reality.
You only have to look at a photograph of the Heads of States of the European Union and compare the number of men and of women - it is just not acceptable.
The only way we are going to get some sort of equality for women is when women actually occupy the key decision-making roles.
As someone said a few years ago in my own country: when there are as many incompetent women in roles of power as there are men, then we will have true equality.
Women have to be two or three times better than men if they are to get anywhere, to actually achieve anything.
This is the problem - the women who are here at the moment in this Parliament - the women who have actually achieved - who have got somewhere - are much better than the vast majority of men.
That is because they have to be so much better to actually get there, and we really have to address this point.
<P>
What we also have to do is make it possible for them to get to that position.
You cannot compare the position of men and women in society because first of all women have families, they have commitments; and it is only in countries where proper structures have been put in place that women can participate on an almost equal footing.
That has not happened throughout the European Union, and we have to do something about it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gröner">
Madam President, Commissioner, once again we are nearly only women debating this report.
But I must inject a strong note of protest into our joy at discussing many aspects of equality between men and women. If we look at the draft agenda for this part-session, we find no mention of the existence of our debate about women.
The three reports on women are mentioned once right at the end.
If that is what the press and audiovisual services understand by mainstreaming then I must say I have good reason to fear that in the end all that will be left is the mainstream.
<P>
The credibility of our Parliament depends on it.
Last Friday I held talks with colleagues from this House.
Women represent 54 % of the staff working in this House.
At first glance this figure seems fine, but if we take a closer look we see that women account for 80 % of category C staff employed in the lower echelons, 40 % of category B staff but only 20 % of category A, where staff hold senior positions, and 0 % of directors-general!
Women MEPs are fairly well represented in Parliament, making up 28 % - I thank Mrs Eriksson, who established this - but it is not enough.
On 13 June Parliament will be re-elected and then we women must be more strongly represented.
We must move closer towards parity.
I am pleased that in my party in Germany, the Social Democratic Party, 44 % of nominations have been for women.
So we are approaching parity here too.
But we simply must ensure that equal opportunities are enshrined in all policy areas, which means that we cannot just look at the gender mainstreaming aspect but need to accompany it with the dual approach, with special measures for women.
We need the fifth action programme and regular checks of the results, especially by the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities, otherwise the whole issue will disappear from the agenda and women will no longer play any part in European politics.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Delcroix">
Thank you, Madam President, and thank you, Commissioner.
I am very proud to be able to add in a small way today to what our colleagues have said, particularly in my capacity as a member of the Committee on Women's Rights.
<P>
We may be surprised that in our society which is based on human rights, we still need to emphasise the need to incorporate equal opportunities for men and women into all Community policies and activities.
I think Mrs Eriksson's report is excellent, but she raises a number of points on several issues.
I hope her questions will be answered.
<P>
I should like to mention a further point which I am concerned about.
You will no doubt remember that of the priorities singled out by the hearing in Luxembourg on employment, the fourth and final priority concerned the problem of equality between men and women.
It is not a coincidence that this priority has indeed been put in fourth place in the subsequent National Action Plans, whereas if it had been incorporated into all the other policies, it would have had to be in first place.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
Madam President, the EU's policy on equality has been very progressive, but equality has yet to penetrate the thick walls of the European Commission.
You would have to look a long way to find more traditional gender role patterns than those found in the Commission.
The higher you go in the hierarchy, the greater is the male dominance.
Women make up 80 % of the people who carry out secretarial and office work, while men occupy 87 % of the managerial positions.
The Commission maintains that it sets targets and draws up action plans to bring more women into managerial posts.
I would therefore like to ask the Commission, and especially Mrs Gradin, whether it would not be a good idea to introduce positive discrimination for women in managerial posts within the Commission?
Positive discrimination should not be used aimlessly and without thinking.
There should always be individual assessment of individual candidates.
But if a man and a woman are equally qualified, the woman could be chosen.
Positive discrimination should not be a permanent solution, but as the situation stands in the Commission at the moment, it is necessary to resort to drastic measures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Gradin">
Madam President, I welcome Mrs Eriksson's report on mainstreaming.
It sets out some valuable points of view on the Commission's progress report on the incorporation of equality of opportunity between women and men into all EU policies.
We hope that in a few months' time the Amsterdam Treaty will be ratified by all 15 Member States, thereby making equality of opportunity between women and men an overarching goal in our Treaty.
<P>
Mainstreaming is an important policy instrument.
The point was made most emphatically by the United Nations at the Fourth Women's Conference, where the EU was one of the driving forces behind the principle.
Even more importantly, some progress has been made.
In my view, one of the most significant achievements is that gender equality has been written into some of the common strategies for employment.
It has also been mentioned during our discussion that gender equality should be taken into account in the allocation of Structural Fund resources.
<P>
The Commission has now appointed officials within its directorates-general whose remit is to ensure that equality of opportunity is respected in their day-to-day operations.
I can assure Mr Blak that the Commission practises positive action.
When two people with the same qualifications apply for a job, it is given to the member of the under-represented sex.
<P>
In my view, it is not just in terms of employment and structural policies that gender equality is an important factor; it must also be incorporated into all the policies that affect the daily lives of women and men.
At the moment we are trying to pursue major initiatives in the health sector, but the same principle also applies in education, science and technology.
A notable example in this respect is of course the communication recently forwarded to Parliament on women in research.
We have already discussed my own particular areas of responsibility, namely the STOP and Daphne programmes, as well as violence against women and children.
<P>
Mrs Eriksson, the rapporteur, also raises the issue of gender equality at the decision-making level.
We know from our research that only when one third of decision-makers are women will they have any real influence on decisions.
<P>
In its communication on women in science and technology, the Commission has established that the under-represented sex should account for at least 40 % of those working in these fields. The same figure also applies to the proposals concerning advisory committees, evaluation groups and, more importantly, decision-making bodies in the fields of research and technology.
<P>
Finally, like the committee, I too am keen to see separate sets of statistics for women and men.
It is particularly important for us to have clear data, so that we can formulate policies that take account of the needs of both women and men.
We are also working on establishing criteria for measuring gender equality and its practical effects.
At the same time I agree with all of you, and Mrs Eriksson too, that a great deal remains to be done in order to ensure that there really is gender equality.
There is no shortage of work in this area for this House, the Commission or the Council of Ministers.
<P>
Earlier, someone alleged that my colleague Mr Flynn did not have any women in his office - he has one.
And I can assure you that in my office I have four women and three men.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Gradin - and for setting such a good example.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Equal treatment for men and women
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, Commissioner, following the Kalanke ruling - concerning the gentleman from Bremen whom the European Court of Justice ruled on 17 October 1995 to have fallen victim to discrimination because his female colleague had been promoted rather than himself, based on the state law on equality in the Land Bremen - the Commission submitted on 17 March 1996 a proposal to amend the 1976 directive.
In so doing, it most certainly believed it had done the right thing.
<P>
I was then appointed rapporteur on 2 July 1996. I considered that this proposal - which was admittedly well-intentioned - still jeopardised the positive action which we, at least in the Committee on Women's Rights, still consider to be necessary in order to achieve equal treatment and opportunities for women and men, should we want to see this equality before the year 3000.
In agreement with Parliament's Committee on Women's Rights, I decided to await the Court's ruling on another case, that of the Marschall case: again a man, this time from North Rhine-Westphalia, who claimed to have fallen victim to discrimination because his female colleague had been chosen for promotion over him.
<P>
In this case, the Court of Justice did not find in favour of Mr Marschall in its ruling of 11 November 1997. Why not?
Did it want to correct what many experts we consulted had referred to as the serious mistake committed in the Kalanke case?
Does the Amsterdam Treaty, which will soon be ratified, have anything to do with it?
In fact, the Treaty makes equal opportunity policies a Community task, and expressly stipulates in Article 119 that measures providing for specific advantages with a view to ensuring full equality in practice between men and women are compatible with the principle of equality, and do not therefore constitute discrimination.
In other words, positive discrimination does not discriminate.
<P>
Following the Marschall ruling, we considered in consultation with another expert hearing whether the positive action can be preserved without amending the 1976 directive.
Since we know that on the open sea and before judges we are all in God's hands, we took the view on the one hand that in a future case we would not be able to trust the Court because it might completely change direction on this.
On the other hand, we considered that the proposed amendment still jeopardises positive action.
Why?
<P>
Certainly, both judgments can be interpreted as meaning that only rigid, inflexible and automatic positive discrimination granting the absolute and unconditional right to appoint or promote women - or men - where they are under-represented would be incompatible with Community law, but even a quota system which does not preclude the assessment of the particular circumstances of an individual case would be compatible with the directive.
This means that, in practice, a woman can be given priority for promotion in the event of equal suitability, competence and professional performance, unless reasons specific to an individual candidate tilt the balance in his favour.
<P>
Precisely because the Commission proposed a text to us which stipulates that measures giving preference to a member of the under-represented sex are possible, 'provided that such measures do not preclude the assessment of the particular circumstances of an individual case', we consider that with such a formulation comes the danger that the aim of positive action will be circumvented where reasons specific to an individual candidate are put forward which risk not being interpreted objectively, thus watering down the positive action which, for that matter, increasingly concerns under-represented men.
In my country, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, the number of women primary school teachers and magistrates has already been increased too much, in my humble opinion.
<P>
Giving the current situation regarding the Amsterdam Treaty, we take the view that the amendment of the directive proposed in 1996 is inappropriate.
We call on the Commission to withdraw it, but we also urge it to submit a new proposal based on the Amsterdam Treaty. At the same time, we stress the fact that it is no longer necessary to regard positive action as a derogation - which is permitted and can therefore be revoked at any time - from the principle of equal treatment, in order to recognise an individual right only and not a right which has a place in a society seeking to achieve such equality through democratic means.
<P>
We no longer dare to question the right to equal treatment and opportunities between men and women as a fundamental right of a democratic society, which demands equal treatment and opportunities that are achieved through a series of active measures, including positive action.
<P>
The proposal for a directive which we are hoping for should contain mandatory legal instructions with a view to taking positive action wherever necessary in order to achieve equal treatment and opportunities for men and women and to remedy the under-representation of women in decision making.
<P>
Our message is clear, Commissioner: withdraw the proposal to amend the existing directive and draft a new one, taking account of the conclusions of my report which we will be voting on before the draft legislative resolution.
Moreover, before voting on this legislative resolution, we want to see here and now, hic et nunc , the Commission's clear and firm commitment to agree to both these paragraphs in the draft legislative resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Oddy">
Mr President, I welcome this general debate on equal opportunities on International Women's Day.
Women have come a long way this century.
In the 19th century in English law women had no capacity to enter into contracts and were classified along with minors and lunatics.
It was only this century that they were granted equality in divorce law.
In my profession women were forbidden to become solicitors until 1919, and I recently celebrated 75 years of the first woman solicitor in England.
But there is no room for complacency: women still have not achieved equal pay in reality or equal status in very hierarchical job structures.
<P>
Mrs Lulling's report looks at the Commission's proposal on positive discrimination following the decision in the European Court of Justice, namely the Kalanke decision, which decreed that positive discrimination was not normally lawful.
Subsequent to the Commission proposal, the Marschall decision was given by the European Court of Justice which qualified the Kalanke decision and said that in certain circumstances positive discrimination could be lawful.
<P>
In addition, we need to note the Amsterdam Treaty, which will strengthen equal opportunity rights for women when it has completed its ratification process and comes into effect.
<P>
Consequently, I agree with Mrs Lulling's conclusion that the Commission's proposal is not timely and needs to be withdrawn and a new, better proposal needs to be reintroduced when the Amsterdam Treaty comes into effect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gröner">
Mr President, let me once again ask you too to persuade the audiovisual services to ensure that the debate on International Women's Day is at least put on record here tomorrow, even if it is not published in advance.
<P>
I would say to the Commission: you really will be offering flowers to the women workers of the European Union if you withdraw the proposed amendment to the equal treatment directive.
<P>
Women have waged a hard struggle here in the European Parliament, but also in my country, Germany, especially the Social Democrats, to achieve progress in equal treatment legislation.
In Bremen and in North Rhine-Westphalia we had a very progressive ruling, which then suffered a bitter defeat with the European Court of Justice ruling in the Kalanke case.
We had an equal treatment law that emphasised that given applicants with the same qualifications, preference should be given to the under-represented sex, something we have finally also achieved in the Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
A man felt this law discriminated against him.
So he took legal action and won his case at the European Court of Justice.
Fortunately the Marschall ruling mitigated this a little, by specifically stressing the hardship clause in North Rhine-Westphalian law, which allows positive measures to be taken.
<P>
The Kalanke ruling had disastrous outside effects.
The fact that the Commission proposed an amended directive following that ruling reflects the same trend.
<P>
I was approached by the Korean president of a women's organisation who had examined the effects of the proposed directive in Korea.
The Kalanke ruling was also discussed at many international meetings.
But worst and most frightful of all was the discussion in our Member States, among the regulars in the pubs and bars, where the men all started to feel discriminated against and thought they could invoke the law.
<P>
We must ensure that this proposal for an amended directive is withdrawn.
I cordially request you to announce this today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Thomas">
Mr President, the struggle for equality between men and women has seen some significant successes but has also suffered some bitter setbacks.
The 1995 Kalanke ruling, which found in favour of a man who believed he had been discriminated against because an equally qualified female colleague was given preference over him, belongs in the second category.
The ruling stated that, given identical qualifications, it was an infringement of Community law for female candidates automatically to be given preference.
The Commission amended its directive and argued that a rigid quota system that did not take account of individual circumstances was unlawful, while positive action - for instance flexible quotas - was lawful.
Our Committee on Women's Rights regarded the proposal as a whole as not very useful and warned against any watering down of the directive.
<P>
While the Kalanke ruling was a setback, the European Court of Justice's decision in the 1997 Marschall judgment was encouraging.
Laws that give priority to women but also allow individual cases to be assessed and do not exclude men from the outset are absolutely consistent with Community law.
Accordingly, positive action measures must be taken to remove the still considerable inequalities on the labour market and in regard to promotion.
At the time the Commission was waiting for the Court of Justice's judgment and for the negotiations in the run-up to the Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
So it would be consistent for you, Commissioner, to take a similar approach today.
Articles 2 and 3 of the Amsterdam Treaty stipulate that equality between men and women is a task and an aim.
All active policies will pursue that aim in future.
So I would ask you to accept the plea by Astrid Lulling, our as ever pugnacious rapporteur, which the European People's Party will of course approve again.
Withdraw your proposal to amend the directive; it dates from the time after the Kalanke and before the Marschall ruling, so it is certainly old enough!.
A new proposal must respect the evaluation of equal opportunities as a Community task, as it must the specific advantages allowed in Article 119 for the under-represented sex in the Member States of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Mr President, Mrs Lulling's report recommends that Parliament should reject the Commission's proposed amendment to the directive implementing the principle of equal treatment of men and women in the field of access to jobs, vocational training and promotion and working conditions.
It argues for it to be rejected since both the hearing which took place and the text of the Treaty on European Union show that the Commission proposal is already outdated. This further drives home the fact that if this directive, which is getting on for a quarter of a century old, is to continue to be justified it will have to be updated so that it can make an effective contribution towards positive measures to combat social discrimination on the grounds of sex.
<P>
The rapporteur believes that it is not enough to combat discrimination by means of civil law and insists that the right to equal opportunities must be guaranteed by having social structures designed to achieve that equality in society. We cannot make do with formal and, to some extent, inconsequential statements.
<P>
Equal opportunities have, after all, a lot to do with access to the labour market and, regardless of whether or not we agree with the position taken by the rapporteur and the Committee on Women's Rights which has been put before Parliament, it seems highly appropriate to recall - yet again and at the risk of repeating what has already been said about the subject - what day it is today.
<P>
For our part, 8 March is extremely significant and this report makes it all the more appropriate to mention it.
8 March was not plucked out of the air but was selected as Women's Day because, in 1857, the seamstresses of New York held a major demonstration to protest against the exaggerated excess (pardon the tautology) of their working hours.
<P>
Nearly half a century later it should be pointed out that one of the main demands is a reduction in working hours in keeping with modern living and working conditions while, on the other hand, employment is becoming more precarious. As a result of what is known as atypical work, the working day has virtually become limitless especially for women, who are taking on all kinds of tasks.
<P>
Home-working, piecework and contracting out are all, in some way, turning today's textile workers into latter day New York seamstresses. They are now experiencing at very close hand the worsening discrimination in the labour market.
It is therefore with some surprise that we realise that in 1999 we are not so far from 1857.
We could and should have come a very long way from those times.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Raschhofer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the present report on implementing the principle of equal treatment for men and women provides a good opportunity for asking some crucial questions about women's policy.
We have two rulings by the European Court of Justice before us, in addition to the proposal to amend the Council's directive.
The Committee on Women's Rights finds that the proposed amendment would water down the directive.
<P>
Just as it cannot be right to rectify one injustice by committing another, so it cannot be right to rectify the discrimination against women by discriminating against men.
The very concept of positive discrimination should make us think again.
Positive and discrimination: how can you combine the two?
For the word positive must mean removing practical occupational hindrances, obstacles or disadvantages affecting women, such as the shortage of child care facilities or the non-payment of pensions for the years spent in child care.
The strategy of women's policy should not simply be to achieve a numerically fair distribution.
Reverse discrimination in the form of a mechanical preference in fact conflicts with another basic value, namely the equal treatment of every individual.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Lancker">
Mr President, on this International Women's Day, I would ask Mrs Gradin, who has already been so helpful on women's issues, to give Europe's women a special little present by withdrawing this proposal for a Commission directive, as other Members too have urged her to do.
I fully appreciate that the Commission was trying with this proposal to resolve the uncertainty which has existed since the Kalanke judgment and which in my view the Marschall judgment did nothing to dispel.
We are quite convinced that the proposal now before us will just make things more chaotic still.
The fact is that the individual power of assessment in recruitment and promotion envisaged in the text will in our view trigger huge numbers of lawsuits in which men invoke individual exemptions to the positive actions rule.
We are convinced that escalating numbers of lawsuits like this will weaken the action taken by Member States which have strong legislation on positive action and which apply quotas - not positive discrimination but positive action - in favour of equally well qualified women. This legislation may be undermined.
<P>
We have a basic problem in Europe, namely that European law has always regarded positive action as the absolute exception to the individual's right to equal treatment.
All of us in this Chamber know that the position of men and women is very different in employment, in education, in the family, in society, not because one sex is worth less than the other, but because society remains fundamentally male-oriented and thus inherently discriminates against women.
My conclusion from that is that equal treatment alone cannot get rid of inequality.
On the contrary, equal treatment reinforces inequality.
So our view is that this Commission proposal does not provide the answer.
<P>
As other speakers have already said, the Amsterdam Treaty will help the Union a great deal, because it commits the Union to taking active measures against discrimination and at the same time to taking active measures to promote equality.
So that means not just the mainstreaming we were looking at just now in Marianne Eriksson's report, but positive action too.
So once again I join other Members in asking the Commission to withdraw this proposal and come up with a new and stronger one.
<P>
This really would be the best present the Commissioner could give Europe's women on this International Women's Day, but you could do something else as well.
I had a phone call from Bosnia-Herzegovina recently.
Elections are due there very soon.
There used to be quotas for women on the list in Bosnia-Herzegovina, although it was not a statutory requirement.
It now looks as if these quotas may be scrapped, and Bosnia's women are looking expectantly to Europe for help.
It really would be terrible to see a retrograde step being taken here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stenzel">
Mr President, as far as women's rights are concerned, we obviously keep taking one step forward and two steps back.
In regard to equal opportunities for women the Amsterdam Treaty may be one step forward, but the European Court of Justice ruling in the Kalanke case and the Commission proposal to amend Directive 76/207/EEC represent two steps back.
<P>
Women today are better educated and more mobile than ever and the number of women in employment is rising.
But there is a definite shortage of women in the higher echelons of politics, industry and science.
That is not because women are less qualified or less intelligent but because of the glass ceiling, an unseen barrier set up consciously or unconsciously by a traditionally male-dominated ruling class.
<P>
So why the Commission has replaced the term 'women's opportunities' with the term 'under-represented sex' is beyond me.
We should not adopt a directive that falls short of the Amsterdam Treaty and thereby undermines women's opportunities to occupy a position in society consistent with their qualifications, especially now that the European Parliament and the Vienna Council have taken up the equal opportunities cause.
The Amsterdam Treaty represents progress along the road to equal opportunities.
It must be implemented and not watered down.
So the Lulling report and the request to the Commission to withdraw its amended proposal for a directive make sense.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, in an ideal world positive discrimination should not be necessary but, unfortunately, we do not live in an ideal world.
While some people may say that it is not the right approach, it is the only way we are going to get any sort of progress for women.
As you can see, even in the electoral process in Member States positive discrimination is the only way to get women elected to national parliaments and to the European Parliament.
<P>
It means that men and the policy-makers are going to have to look at the way society is structured.
As society stands in the vast majority of Member States, it does not favour the participation of women in the workforce.
It is important for women who have not been in the workforce before to get access to it.
<P>
Even the way the programmes have been set up in Member States does not take account of the fact that these women were in the unofficial workforce and were contributing to society in their role as carers etc.
They are now being prevented from joining the workforce because they do not have a track record.
Even in training programmes this is not taken into account.
The only way we are going to move forward is if we put in place measures which some people may feel discriminate against men.
Unfortunately, society has discriminated against women for centuries and the only way we are going to move forward is if we put in place some sort of structure that ensures that women actually get into decision-making and into the workforce.
When we eventually have true equality there will be no need for positive discrimination.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Gradin">
The report by Mrs Lulling already has a long history.
After the Kalenke judgment in 1995, the Commission proposed to amend Directive 207/EEC of 1976.
This proposal was submitted to the Council at the end of March 1996.
Since then the Committee on Women's Rights has worked long and hard on that proposal.
In Mrs Lulling's report the Commission is now asked to withdraw its proposal.
That is also what all of you have been talking about.
As you know, my colleague Commissioner Flynn appeared before the Women's Rights Committee on 16 February and clearly stated his position. His intention is to propose to withdraw the proposal as requested by Parliament.
On the same occasion Commissioner Flynn announced his intention concerning use of the new legislative powers given to the Community.
The aim is to adopt measures in order to ensure full equality or treatment between women and men in the field of employment, and these two issues are linked.
<P>
The ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty will hopefully be complete within a few months.
We will then have a Treaty which confers a new legal base, Article 141(3), for legislating equal treatment between women and men in the field of employment.
I can confirm to you that we are looking very actively and positively at the question of legislating under Article 141.
We are doing so with a very open mind.
There are legal questions on several aspects of the Article, particularly as regards its scope.
The Commission is therefore taking legal advice.
In the light of this advice we will then decide the content of a proposal for a directive based on Article 141.
<P>
I believe this statement should answer Parliament's question and indicate the Commission's willingness to make use of Article 141 in a general positive action.
<P>
Finally, let me once again thank the Women's Rights Committee and Mrs Lulling for their work on this important issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="President">
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Closing of the session
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="President">
I declare the 1998-1999 session of the European Parliament closed.
<P>
The sitting was closed at 8.35 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Opening of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare opened the 1999-2000 session of the European Parliament.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Decision on urgent procedure
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="von Wogau">
Madam President, let me say in regard to this item that we have not yet concluded our discussions in committee, and therefore cannot agree to the request for urgent procedure at this part-session.
But I would suggest we deal with it at the second March part-session, by which time we will have concluded our discussions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Mr von Wogau, another solution would be - if you and the House were to agree to it - for us to vote in favour of urgency now, but to include this on the agenda for the sitting on 22 March.
Would you be in agreement with that proposal?
<P>
Parliament agreed to urgent procedure for 22 March
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Amendment of the Rules of Procedure
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President">

The next item is the report (A4-0070/99) by Mr Corbett, Mr Gutiérrez Díaz and Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on the amendments to be made to the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
I would inform the House that Mr Crowley has endorsed the minority opinion which is set out in the explanatory statement.
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Fabre-Aubrespy for a procedural motion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Madam President, under Rule 128 I must move the admissibility of the document to be debated.
Either I can table it now or I can wait until you have formally opened the debate on this document, as you wish.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
We are at the beginning of the debate, so you have the floor, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Madam President, the purpose of this inadmissibility motion is to raise procedural issues which emerged during the drafting of this text.
I am disputing the debate on this text on two essential grounds.
The first is that it is intended to make some of the proposed changes to the Rules of Procedure in implementation of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
People may say that the Treaty of Amsterdam has been ratified, or just about.
But one country, France, has not yet ratified it, and it would be discourteous to my country's parliament to make changes to our Rules of Procedure before the Treaty has been formally adopted.
<P>
But above all, and this concerns all the Member States of the European Community, a treaty which is an essential instrument of Community law cannot enter into force until it has been formally ratified by agreement of the Heads of State and Government of all the Member States.
However, clearly none of the Member States has yet exchanged instruments of ratification, to put it in diplomatic terms.
<P>
The second reason is that while it is the responsibility of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities to apply the Treaty of Amsterdam, or rather the draft Treaty, which should soon be ratified, the Committee on the Rules of Procedure has gone way beyond that.
The Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament, which is our fundamental document, must be subject to basic laws, in particular the Treaty.
In my minority opinion which I submitted on this text I list the points where I think the report goes too far.
I shall not go into them now, but those are my reasons for asking Parliament to make a decision on my motion of admissibility.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Fayot">
Madam President, I would like to reply briefly to the two points raised by Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
<P>
The first was on the implementation of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Changes to the Rules of Procedure obviously cannot enter into force until the Treaty has itself come into force.
What we are doing here is preparing Parliament for that time.
Clearly the provisions of the Rules of Procedure that are linked to the Treaty will not apply until the Treaty of Amsterdam is itself in force.
It is also clear that Parliament needs to prepare for this as it is a complex matter. We cannot wait until the Treaty of Amsterdam is in force to work on the implementation of the Rules of Procedure, and that is why I think Mr Fabre-Aubrespy's objection is unacceptable.
<P>
The second point was whether we have gone too far with these changes to the Rules.
We have actually taken advantage of the work relating to the Treaty to adapt a number of our Rules to new circumstances.
I believe a parliament's most fundamental right is to adapt its rules to the constant changes in parliamentary life.
For this reason I cannot accept Mr Fabre-Aubrespy's second point either.
In my capacity as chairman of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure I therefore urge Parliament to reject Mr Fabre-Aubrespy's objections.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, we have heard Mr Fabre-Aubrespy present his motion, and Mr Fayot in his capacity as chairman of the committee.
<P>
Does anyone wish to speak against?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Madam President, I am opposed to Mr Fabre-Aubrespy's position for the following reason: although strictly speaking - as Mr Fabre-Aubrespy is well aware - his first objection, which relates to the Treaty might perhaps appear acceptable in the context of this parliamentary procedure, his second objection concerns the essence of the matter.
In such circumstances, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy should restrict himself to voting against certain amendments if he feels they should not be adopted in the context of this revision of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
To return to the first question, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy is well acquainted with the nature of statutory law. It has the privilege and also the duty of regulating the internal running of an institution.
The institution in question is therefore not merely advised but required to take appropriate measures in anticipation of the entry into force of the Treaty.
It needs to draw up internal rules that will be compatible and consistent with the Treaty when it enters into force. It is this Treaty of course which establishes the guidelines for the development of these internal statutes.
I therefore believe that his first objection is not acceptable either, Madam President.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
Does anyone wish to speak in favour of the motion by Mr Fabre-Aubrespy?
<P>
That is not the case.
<P>
Parliament rejected the motion
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Corbett">
Madam President, this report constitutes the most comprehensive revision of our Rules of Procedure since the entry into force of the Maastricht Treaty in the early 1990s.
It does not simply deal with the necessary transposition into Parliament's Rules of what is contained in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
It takes the opportunity, as we did after the Maastricht Treaty, to review the whole of Parliament's working methods and its procedures.
In short, we are preparing Parliament for a new era.
<P>
Parliament has traditionally taken the treaties and tried to stretch them like a piece of elastic.
We cannot contradict the treaties, we cannot do things that are forbidden by the treaties.
But the treaties inevitably allow a margin of appreciation, a scope for interpretation.
They leave space and gaps to fill in.
Parliament has always tried to do that in order to make the Union more effective, more open, more transparent and more democratic.
That is the philosophy that underlies this revision of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
Of course, if you stretch elastic too far it can snap and you can hurt your fingers.
But I am convinced that the package that we put before you today has stretched the elastic to just the right degree and that what we have come up with is a package which we can commend to the House.
<P>
After Amsterdam Parliament will be an equal part of a bicameral legislative authority with the Council, at least for the areas subject to codecision which will include most non-agricultural legislation.
Much work has therefore gone, in this report, into improving and redefining our legislative procedures.
This includes technical improvements to simplify the way that we vote in plenary.
<P>
The codecision procedure has been rewritten in our Rules, partly to take account of what has been agreed in Amsterdam: the possibility of first reading agreements between the institutions, for instance; the elimination of the Council's right to adopt a text unilaterally at third reading if Parliament fails to reject it.
These changes are incorporated into the Rules and we have done so in such a way as to encourage early dialogue between the Council and Parliament to try and reach agreement early in the procedure, wherever possible.
We have also highlighted the cases where it is the final vote in Parliament which will henceforth determine the entry into force of European legislation.
<P>
In another area we have looked at the new provisions giving Parliament the right to vote on the President of the Commission.
This new legally binding vote is highlighted in the revision of the Rules by describing it as the election of the Commission.
We want to underline the fact that the Commission, the Commission President and, later, the Commission as a whole are politically accountable to Parliament.
The Commission is not an unaccountable bureaucracy as some eurosceptics would have us believe.
The Commission is a political executive accountable to the directly elected Parliament.
This, too, we have attempted to highlight in the revision of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
Parliament must look, too, at the developing Common Foreign and Security Policy and sharpen its procedures for monitoring, scrutinising and controlling that policy.
The Rule changes do this.
We have taken up a number of suggestions made by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy in this regard.
They include provisions for dealing with the new High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy.
We provide for the High Representative to enter into a dialogue with Parliament, to come to Parliament to explain his or her statements, to go before the relevant parliamentary committee and for Parliament to monitor the procedure for appointing a High Representative.
<P>
We have put new provisions in the procedures for dealing with what we could call 'atypical legislative procedures': Third Pillar procedures and Schengen procedures, legislation adopted at the request of the social partners under the Social Agreement, legislation proposed at the initiative of a Member State under Article 67 (1) of the Treaty, suspension of a Member State, and legislation adopted under enhanced cooperation.
All these will now have a precise procedure allowing parliamentary involvement in what would otherwise not obviously be the case under the treaties.
<P>
We have tried to reform Parliament's internal voting procedures so that less time will be spent - as we do so often, spending hours - voting in plenary.
We have brought in a number of technical changes which would simplify the way that we vote in plenary, without diminishing the rights of Members or groups of Members to table amendments.
We hope we have come up with a balanced package there.
<P>
We have tried to rationalise our procedures in other ways.
For legislative reports, for instance, there would no longer be explanatory statements. They would be replaced by short justifications for each of the amendments tabled to a Commission proposal, as we already do for the budgetary procedure.
Similarly, opinions from other committees would be confined to tabling specific amendments.
This would focus our work specifically on the legislative texts and the changes that we wish to make to them and away from long discursive texts where Parliament's opinion is not always clear.
<P>
Topical and urgent debates would be rationalised as well, in that the subjects chosen would be agreed when the agenda is adopted on the Monday and not by an ad hoc procedure one day later.
This will leave more time to prepare the debates properly and that, too, would be a small but significant step forward.
<P>
New rules would ensure transparency of Parliament's proceedings at all levels and guarantee the public a right of access to EP documents.
Here we are following up the recent report on openness and transparency by my colleague, Mrs Lööw.
<P>
We also eliminate the possibility of late challenges to the legal base of proposals, when this challenge is only made at the last stage in plenary as a way of having the matter referred back to committee and to the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
We have a rationalised procedure there, which preserves the right of the Legal Affairs Committee and of the committee responsible, leaves the final decision in plenary but avoids the possibility of filibustering.
<P>
In terms of enhancing our scrutiny of the Commission, we also provide in our new Rules for the President of the Commission or another member to come and make a statement to Parliament immediately after Commission meetings, where we so request it, and to be subject to a half-hour period of questioning on the decisions taken at that meeting.
That would again illustrate the accountability of the Commission to Parliament, but would give the Commission the possibility of informing Parliament directly, rather than the press, of the decisions it has taken as our executive.
The initial announcement of the decisions taken would be here and the initial reaction would be by directly elected Members posing questions to the Commission.
<P>
We would also try to liven up parliamentary debates.
At the moment we have debates, as you know, by long lists of speakers.
We have experimented with what we used to call the Delors procedure, where for an hour the President just gives the floor to individual Members who catch the President's eye.
We codify both systems in the Rules of Procedure - neither of them is explicitly there at the moment - but we would allow for the possibility of combinations.
The debate could start with the usual rounds of speakers from each political group, but an hour, half-an-hour or even just ten minutes could be left at the end for a few extra speakers to come in by catching the President's eye, so that Members who have sat here throughout the debate, patiently listening to the arguments, could come in and respond at the end; somebody who has already spoken might wish to come back and respond at the end.
This would liven up our debates a little bit, make them appeal more to the public, without taking away the right of each group to have its appropriate share of speaking-time.
<P>
We also provide for the Rules of Procedure to be rewritten, where necessary, in gender-neutral language.
It was International Women's Day yesterday and I know that many of our female colleagues take offence at the fact that the Rules in some languages refer only to Members in the masculine form - as he and not as he or she - and the rule changes would also cater for that particular problem.
<P>
There are also minor things taken up in these rule changes.
I shall not go into all of them.
A lot of minor details are tidied up and we seek to improve procedures wherever possible.
Individually, many of these changes are minor but cumulatively they will improve Parliament's working methods and its procedures.
They will also make Parliament more open and transparent.
<P>
This package has been put together over almost a year - a year of hard work in the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
I must pay tribute to my co-rapporteurs, to Mr Fayot in his capacity as chair of the committee, in which he has had a trying time but has handled it extremely well; to all the members of the committee and, indeed, other committees which have tabled opinions and proposals to us, and, last but not least, the secretariat of the committee, which put an enormous amount of work into this report.
<P>
After a year's hard work, I am confident that we have put together a package which is fair, balanced and can command a virtual consensus across most of the political groups of this House.
I have no hesitation in commending this package to the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Gutiérrez Díaz">
Madam President, if I were strict with myself I would refrain from speaking because I agree entirely with the detailed report Mr Corbett has just presented. I confess, however, that I lack the self-discipline to forego the opportunity of addressing the House and reading the speech I have prepared.
As a result, you will already have heard some of what I am about to say.
<P>
As the explanatory statement points out, we are dealing here with a proposal to amend our Rules of Procedure.
This revision was prompted by the changes required to prepare for the implementation of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
It aims to establish new working methods and procedures allowing the House to respond to the legislative requirements of a new era which will bring further challenges and responsibilities for the European Parliament. The package also sets out to promote the powers of this House as much as possible within the framework of the Treaty.
As befits the nature of the proposal, this has been a long process. We now find ourselves at the appropriate juncture - in the run-up to the ratification of the Treaty - to present the proposed revision to the House.
A great deal of thorough preparatory work has been undertaken. Though this has not attracted unanimous support, it has certainly generated a solid consensus on the vast majority of the amendments tabled.
<P>
As this lengthy and fruitful process draws to a close, it is only right for us to express our appreciation to all those who have made it possible to come this far.
I should like to thank the members of the secretariat of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure who have coped intelligently with a huge amount of work. The working members of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure are to be congratulated too for demonstrating the will for positive cooperation throughout.
The results achieved are proof of this. The representatives of the various political groups have also helped to achieve this consensus.
Mr Fayot, the chairman of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, deserves a special mention, as do my two co-rapporteurs, the very able Mrs Palacio and the tireless Mr Corbett.
<P>
As part of my modest contribution I should like to highlight certain points which I believe to be particularly important.
The first of these relates to Amendment No 16 to Rule 32 and Amendment No 17 to Rule 33 on voting by roll call on the appointment of the President of the European Commission and the Commission itself.
It will not have escaped Members that integrating these provisions of the Treaties into our Rules of Procedure is of great political importance, as Mr Corbett pointed out. This clarifies Parliament's role in the appointment of any future European Commission.
Similarly, Amendment No 23 to Rule 39, which in fact takes up but slightly modifies Amendment No 152 by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, rendering it more flexible, ensures that the European Central Bank will make the maximum amount of information available and makes formal provision for its statements.
<P>
In addition, and as a result of Amendments Nos 30 and 31, the Rules will provide for consultation of the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions with the necessary distinction between these two institutions to take account of their respective identities.
The heads of both Committees have been consulted on these two amendments and have responded positively, suggesting that in addition to the provisions of the Rules, it may be appropriate to draft a code of conduct regulating exchanges between the European Parliament, the Committee of the Regions and the Economic and Social Committee.
<P>
In conclusion, I should like to highlight the proposed inclusion of a new Chapter VIA providing for regular exchange of information with the national parliaments of the Member States.
As I said at the beginning of my speech, we have here a carefully crafted proposal for a far-reaching revision of our Rules, adapting them for a stage when the European Parliament will have greater legislative powers and significant political responsibilities, such as in the election of the President of the European Commission.
It is to be hoped that tomorrow's vote will represent a satisfactory outcome for the work that has been carried out.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Gutiérrez Díaz.
The vote will not take place tomorrow morning, but on Thursday morning, as I will have the chance to make clear shortly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Madam President, as the two rapporteurs who preceded me have already indicated, this revision of the Rules is first and foremost a way of regulating our work in the House, as are the Rules themselves. The result should reflect the interests of the House, the concerns of all the Members and also the concerns of those who work behind the scenes undertaking essential tasks, to whom we have already paid tribute.
In this context, I should like to add my voice to those who have congratulated the other two rapporteurs.
They worked as a team on a task where natural differences of opinion actually make the work even more challenging.
I should also like to congratulate the technical services, principally those attached to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure. However, congratulations are also due to all of Parliament's services, and in particular to the officials of the Group of the European People's Party, who have given me tremendous support.
<P>
Madam President, I referred to our Rules as a way of regulating our communal life, and the lodestar of parliamentary activity.
Nevertheless, it is worth remembering that the Rules of Procedure have a much more important role to play.
They are a symbol, a banner, a programme and a point of reference.
They are the internal constitution of this institution; they summarise and reflect how Parliament wishes to present itself and the role it sees for itself in the interinstitutional balance. They represent all that Parliament has stood for throughout its short but fruitful history, and anticipate the part it would like to play in the process of European integration.
Consequently, any revision of the Rules of Procedure must inevitably take account of the Treaty, bearing in mind however that there is considerable scope for interpretation when applying the Treaty to existing situations, as there is with any legal instrument.
The Rules must be practical and realistic, whilst retaining their emblematic value.
They must enshrine respect for all, for groups - both large and small - and for individuals. They must also establish a definitive balance between the inertia carried over from when this House was merely a parliamentary assembly without power and its new role as a colegislator which is to all intents and purposes on an equal footing with the Council.
<P>
All the amendments are important, Madam President.
The most minor detail of parliamentary Rules of Procedure can have far-reaching political consequences, as we have seen recently.
Nevertheless, the amendments can be grouped into three main categories, according to their nature.
<P>
First, there are those of a directly political nature that have direct political consequences. Among these, I would highlight Amendment No 15 on the composition of the political groups.
It will doubtless be criticised, but it is in line with the concept of European integration. If we are moving towards greater integration in Europe, it does not make sense to have a group composed exclusively of Members of one single nationality in a Parliament whose function is to represent all the people of Europe.
<P>
Amendment No 16 on the election of the President of the European Commission has also received a great deal of criticism.
I do feel that here, we have respected the spirit of the Treaties, as should be the case. We have taken advantage of the Treaty of Amsterdam to ensure that Parliament's vote on the appointment of the President is an integral part of the process, and this is reflected in our Rules of Procedure.
<P>
It is also worth mentioning the statements on the broad guidelines for economic policy laid down in Article 99 of the Treaty of Amsterdam, as well as Rule 24 which fully exploits the opportunities provided by the text in question.
<P>
I shall not go into details on the High Representative, as his or her function has already been extensively debated.
Nevertheless, I should like to support my group's amendment which clarifies the situation and, I feel, does away with certain somewhat arbitrary features of the current Amendment No 129.
As regards relations with other institutions, I would emphasise that relations with national parliaments will be strengthened, as will relations with the Committee of the Regions and the Economic and Social Committee.
I should also like to highlight Amendment No 28 on interinstitutional agreements which enhances the status of these fundamental acts which are so important to us. Above all, they are rendered more transparent, legally sound and directly accessible to all.
<P>
I mentioned transparency, and the new Chapter XVIIa has been referred to in this connection.
It clearly reflects the new guidelines laid down in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
There are many other issues I could mention concerning the third pillar, human rights and compliance with the principles of the Treaty.
<P>
Nevertheless, I should like to move on and deal with the second group of amendments, albeit briefly. These amendments have a direct bearing on the new legislative powers.
<P>
I would stress that all these amendments have a dual purpose. They aim to promote interinstitutional relations, to foster the joint but unregulated efforts being made by the Commission, the Council and Parliament, and to streamline and update existing procedures.
<P>
Turning for a moment to the issue of the legal basis, the Group of the European People's Party has tabled an amendment in this connection, together with the Liberal Group.In my view, the Committee on Legal Affairs' right to review has so far proved very useful and should be maintained.
We must remember that any dispute concerning the legal basis can as a last resort lead to a case before the Court of Justice.
The Committee on Legal Affairs' right to review must therefore be maintained, together with its special powers.
<P>
Madam President, I referred earlier to inherited inertia, and this leads me to the third group of amendments, to which Mr Fabre-Aubrespy referred.
Given that Parliament was previously a parliamentary assembly with no power, it retains a number of earlier procedures.
Some of these have already been streamlined, whereas others are in need of further reform.
The will is certainly there.
There are certain outstanding reforms which do not go beyond the Treaty of Amsterdam but which are an inescapable consequence of the Treaty as they involve bringing Parliament's earlier historical functions into line with its recently acquired role of colegislator.
An effort has therefore been made to make speaking time and resources more efficient, and to simplify and update procedures through the use of new technology.
<P>
Finally, now that I am discussing resources, new technologies and speaking time, my own speaking time has elapsed.
I firmly believe that although this is not a perfect document, and despite the fact that I personally do not support all the amendments, the package before us is a clear representation of what this institution stands for, its energy, its vitality and the role it seeks to play at the heart of European integration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="President">
We have included a number of reports in this debate, namely those by Mr Ford, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, Mr Vecchi, Mr Nordmann, Mr Voggenhuber, Mr Fayot, Mr Wijsenbeek and Mr Spiers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Ford">
Madam President, firstly I would like to congratulate the three rapporteurs on their joint report amending the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament in the light of the Amsterdam Treaty.
It contains an enormous amount of work which will underpin Parliament's ability to use its powers to the full and, as Mr Corbett says, stretch them to the limit.
<P>
Some people in this Parliament describe the Rules Committee as like watching paint dry in 11 languages.
The fact that many people believe this is demonstrated by the speed at which the Chamber emptied when you said that we would be talking about rules.
Nevertheless, I often think that the Rules Committee Members are the stagehands of this Parliament - the unsung heroes without whom the political stars of this institution would lose their lustre.
<P>
Mr Corbett and his colleagues have very adequately outlined the thrust of their report.
I want to concentrate on aspects of the nine other reports by the Rules Committee that have been taken simultaneously, particularly the series of amendments relating to issues concerning the declaration of Members' interests.
<P>
With the passage of the Nordmann report and my own report on control and registration of lobbyists in 1996, this Parliament made an enormous step forward in transparency and openness.
We now know that every Member has five shadows behind him.
There are 3 000 lobbyists trying to shape the views of 600 Members.
A dialogue with the representatives of employees and employers, consumer groups, producer groups, representatives of foreign governments and environmental and human rights organisations is both necessary and desirable.
But dialogue should not turn into ownership.
Members cannot be seen as products on the shelves of some kind of political supermarket available for purchase by those who have the money.
In these reports a number of holes in the system are being filled in.
<P>
Firstly, Amendment No 10 from my own report deals with the plight of former Members.
We currently have an ambiguous situation in which some former Members are honorary Members, which has led to confusion in the past, with people considering them as senior Members of this institution rather than ex-Members of the institution.
My amendment gives the Bureau the job of laying down the rights and privileges of former Members without distinction.
<P>
Secondly, we have Amendment No 110 in the Wijsenbeek report which changes the rule on declaration of interests so that Members with a direct financial interest must orally declare such an interest before speaking in committee or plenary.
<P>
Thirdly, Amendment No 112 in the Spiers report will make the chairs of intergroups responsible for making an annual declaration of any assistance in cash or kind received by such groups and making that available to the public.
<P>
Fourthly, Amendment No 111 deals with two problems.
Firstly, with the failure of a small number of Members - 9 for 1996 and 21 for 1997 - to complete their declaration of Members' interests.
It would mean that, after a final warning given by the President, their names would be published in the Minutes of our proceedings and then, if they still failed to comply, they would be suspended from the House.
<P>
The second part makes it clear that benefits of a value greater than ECU 100 must be declared.
At the moment there seems to be a great deal of ambiguity on what constitutes the level at which declarations should start.
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Finally, Amendment No 2 from Mr Vecchi makes it clear that after elections or the appointment of new Members, credentials cannot be verified without a full declaration of interests, and that they will not be allowed to take an elected position in Parliament or to be represented on any delegation until they have completed their declaration of interests.
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In the current climate of public opinion we owe it to our electorate and ourselves, not only to operate in a fair and proper manner, but also to allow the people of Europe to see that we do so.
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<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I was asked to write a report on one very small, very specific point in the amendments put forward today.
It involves the existing Rule 8 of our Rules of Procedure, more precisely two of its paragraphs - paragraph 3 and paragraph 5 - governing resignations by Members of this Parliament, which can sometimes pose a problem.
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There is some uncertainty surrounding the date of effect of a resignation as a result of a legally doubtful distinction which is drawn between, on the one hand, the formal conditions governing resignation - first a letter and then notification in an official record - and, on the other, the date of effect of that resignation as stipulated by the existing paragraph 5 of Rule 8.
Notification of resignation in an official record was intended to be a condition which must be fulfilled before the resignation can take effect.
It is a guarantee for the Member of Parliament and there is no question of changing it.
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But we considered whether we needed to retain the procedure of the resignation letter and the official record, and concluded that the Rules could be simplified by stipulating that notification of the resignation must be made in the form of an official record, as laid down in the existing paragraph 3 and dispensing with the letter of resignation, and that the vacancy will be established as from the date indicated by the resigning Member in that official record.
So the ambiguity on this point will be removed if Parliament adopts Amendments Nos 6, 7 and 9, which I believe met with widespread agreement in the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
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I would now like to speak on the report as a whole to explain why, on behalf of my group, I am opposed to its adoption.
Quite frankly, the report does not properly answer the question that was asked, and it imprudently raises questions that were not asked.
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With regard to the implementation of the Treaty of Amsterdam, I maintain that this implementation is premature, firstly - and here Professor Duhamel might remember that the parliament of the state he represents consists of two chambers - because in fact the ratification debate is currently still taking place in the French Parliament, and also because, with no date set for the Treaty to come into force, the provisions we are going to adopt will come into force in the next part-session, which will be before the Treaty has been ratified.
But the text also goes beyond the Treaty of Amsterdam.
This is the case, in particular, in Amendment No 28 enshrining the practice of interinstitutional agreements, which are legally doubtful.
This also applies to Amendments Nos 67 and 68 on the common foreign and security policy.
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The report is also imprudent in introducing issues not included in the mandate given by the Conference of Presidents.
This applies to Amendment No 90 which provides that mutually exclusive amendments are inadmissible; this is a very ambiguous provision.
It also applies to Amendment No 96 which states that the composition of the committees shall, as far as possible, reflect the composition of the plenary.
It also applies to Amendment No 14 on censure of parliamentary office-holders and to Amendment No 78.
I refer Members interested in these issues to the minority opinion where I have set out my reservations.
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<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Vecchi">
Madam President, in recent years, consolidated practice concerning the verification of credentials has established a number of procedures and precedents, which lend a broad interpretation to both the Act of 20 September 1976 and Rules 7 and 8 of the European Parliament's Rules of Procedure.
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Confirmation of the validity of the mandate of elected Members has thereby become more rigorous, as have the conditions governing the termination of the mandate and the full extent of Members' powers.
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This is of course a complex field where a plethora of common rules - laid down by the Treaties and by Parliament's Rules of Procedure - and national rules coexist.
There are moreover several large 'grey areas', where the borderline between national and Community competence is not always clear.
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Greater certainty concerning powers and competences will be achieved once the uniform electoral procedure and the single Members' Statute enter into force.
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Nevertheless, the Rules Committee appointed me to draw up a report - which has been incorporated into the report now under discussion, in Amendments Nos 2, 3, 4, 5 and 8 - on ways of exploiting fully the existing scope under the Treaties to maximise the European Parliament's competence to ensure that the composition of Parliament is and remains as desired by the electorate, and that the exercise of its mandate is not subject to undue impediment.
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The amendments propose, firstly, that procedures already followed during this legislature should be written into the Rules of Procedure, for example the obligation to sign declarations of non-incompatibility and financial interests.
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Secondly, we wish to enhance Parliament's powers to monitor withdrawals of candidates under national law.
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Finally, Parliament is empowered to require the Member States to cooperate fairly and squarely in forwarding all information liable to affect the exercise of the mandate, concerning national electoral legislation or the conferring of a national assignment on an MEP.
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Amendment No 4 is of particular importance: it enables Parliament to interact with national authorities in procedures which might lead to the disqualification of a Member from holding office.
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The adoption of these amendments will constitute a further step towards an effective Community-wide Members' Statute, which is a vital precondition if our institutions are to function properly and the European Parliament's role is to be strengthened.
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<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Nordmann">
Madam President, first I have to present my own modest part in this overall report.
It involved the necessary clarification of the Rules on expressing minority opinions, and I am delighted that the work schedule has you chairing this sitting, because in a previous legislature we were co-authors of a minority opinion and we came up against difficulties in applying the Rules as they were then and as, on the whole, they remain.
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What was needed then, and is needed now, is to specify the conditions whereby a minority opinion can appear in the explanatory statement, and the general idea has been to use the technique and model set out in our Rules for the written explanation of vote, setting a precise ceiling on the number of words.
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It was also necessary to decide where the minority opinion should appear.
The opinion must be expressed when the vote on the full text is taken in committee.
That is the time when ideas, thoughts and vague hopes are crystallised into a completely identifiable formal opinion.
Of course, an arbitration authority is needed in case our work is inadequate and does not cover the range of situations which could arise, and we feel that the chairman of the committee should be able to settle any disputes which might still arise despite this improvement in the Rules.
That is the intent of Amendment No 99, which clarifies paragraph 3 of Rule 146.
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<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="Voggenhuber">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, of course you are right to note or criticise the fact that this report aims far beyond the amendments that would have necessarily resulted from the Amsterdam Treaty and therefore also exceeds its task.
But that is not really my problem.
What I criticise is the spirit underlying these amendments.
I believe that we must ask ourselves whether such a comprehensive amendment of the Rules will really make Parliament more democratic.
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The acid test of the democratic culture of a parliament is minority rights.
Have they been strengthened or weakened here?
I think it is not difficult to see that the countless amendments restrict the rights of the smaller groups, the minorities, that they do not strengthen the rights of the individual Member, that they give precedence to majority rights and to the bureaucratisation of Parliament.
I think it is a pity that the majority of Members are using this opportunity to make Parliament less democratic rather than taking substantial steps to make it more democratic.
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Mr Corbett has described the Commission's position in relation mainly to future integration and is looking, in the final analysis, to a European government; but I think he must also realise that a European government of this kind would have a particular result for Parliament, as it would split it into an opposition and government parties.
That is what makes it so precarious, for it would mean that minority rights were restricted rather than strengthened.
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There are many examples of this.
Let me name three: the vote of no confidence against senior office holders of this House - no one group even has the right to express no confidence; the number of signatures in support of initiatives is increased from 29 to 32; it will become more difficult to table motions for resolutions.
That is the reverse of making Parliament more democratic.
It is an attempt by the majorities to win themselves advantages, and I regret this development because it does not benefit the European Parliament, and certainly not its democratic culture.
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<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Fayot">
Madam President, I wish to speak on Rule 168 (new), in other words Amendment No 109, which is the result of an own-initiative report.
This is the last rule in our Rules of Procedure and it concerns the annexes.
The annexes are not exactly rules, but they are still part of the Rules of Procedure, and with this new Rule 168 we aimed to clarify the structure of the annexes by arranging them under three headings:
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implementing provisions for procedures under these Rules, adopted by simple majority in Parliament; -provisions adopted in implementation of specific terms of the Rules of Procedure, in particular, for example - as an illustration - Rule 9 on the code of conduct.
The code of conduct is adopted by an absolute majority.
Provision is also made in our Rules for permanent and temporary committees to be set up by the Conference of Presidents and under Rule 135; -interinstitutional agreements, and a whole series of procedures with a bearing on Parliament's operation.I think this subdivision will make the annexes clearer and easier to follow.
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Let me make one final point, Madam President.
We are discussing eight reports by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, in association with the Corbett-Palacio-Gutiérrez report.
This is like clearing out the Rules Committee's cupboards.
I do not think it is a very useful practice, but I suppose it is better than nothing at all.
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<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Fayot.
I note that by addressing the Chair as 'Madame la Présidente ', you are already applying the proposals made by Mr Corbett.
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<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Madam President, in French I would say 'Madame le Président ', because the position you hold represents a role.
So we should see you not as an individual person, but in a particular role.
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Having said that, Madam President, I shall now return to my mother tongue, Dutch, because the Rules are written in each of our languages and I think we should respect that fact.
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Let me begin by saying that I do not intend to talk about my own report.
Mr Ford has already covered it for me extremely well.
To me it is obvious that if you are speaking on a subject in which you have a personal interest, you make that fact clear to the House.
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I will start by complimenting Mr Corbett on all the work he has put in on this extremely complicated subject.
The same goes, in different measure, for the two co-rapporteurs, Mrs Palacio and Mr Gutiérrez Díaz, the latter supposedly expressing the opinion of the smaller groups.
I cannot in all honesty say that it was unduly prominent.
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I think we can say that with this review, Parliament certainly has come a step closer towards becoming a true parliament but has not yet come of age, and that consequently this general revision has not quite achieved its goal.
Why do I say that?
Because we still chop up our debates into little snippets, with all nationalities and parties and shades of political opinion speaking individually, rather than having a single spokesmen for all the groups who can make a real and fundamental contribution to the debate. Nor is there a true dialogue with the Council and the Commission in which Parliament says something, the Council or Commission responds and then we have the chance of a second round.
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One last comment addressed to Mr Voggenhuber.
He is exaggerating, these are not Rules of Procedure for the big groups.
All they do is consolidate the current position.
Forgive me for exceeding my speaking time.
It was due to inattentiveness on the Council's part.
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<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="Spiers">
Mr President, I am going to speak about what was my bid for parliamentary immortality as the Spiers report but what is now merely Amendment No 112 of this much larger report.
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Some years ago the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities was asked to extend to intergroups the rules that require individual Members to declare any outside support received.
This proved surprisingly tricky, partly because no definition of an intergroup could be agreed, and partly because some groups registered as intergroups with the group chairmen do not receive outside support whereas some other groupings of Members which are not considered to be intergroups receive such support.
The amendment therefore speaks in terms of groupings of Members, both intergroups and other unofficial groupings.
These will now have to declare any assistance they receive whether in cash or in kind, which would include secretarial assistance, support with research and so on.
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Such groupings in the European Parliament often perform a valuable role.
There is not a major problem with intergroups in the European Parliament and the current Rules which require Members to declare any significant support they receive would embrace support received via an intergroup as well.
However, there are concerns about intergroups and there is clearly a lack of transparency.
These rule changes should make everything much more open.
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Finally, the quaestors are charged with drawing up detailed rules.
These should include a requirement that groups receiving outside support must file their minutes and records of attendance with the European Parliament, and that these should be publicly available.
That would enable everyone to see who might be influencing whom.
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<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="Spencer">
Madam President, my task on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy is an easy one.
Our suggestions have been both accepted and now explained by the rapporteurs.
It is our belief that it is a legitimate prerogative of this Parliament to debate, to suggest and to question actions taken by the Executive in foreign affairs, be that the Commission or the Council.
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The High Representative will be the key, and it seems to me a matter of great urgency that we hold a confirmation hearing jointly with the chairmen of the foreign affairs committees of the Member State parliaments to examine the mandate and the intentions of the successful candidate, whoever he or she may be, once the High Representative is appointed.
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It also seems to me - and we cover this in our draft opinion - that a similar procedure should be available to us on the appointment of special representatives, envoys and EU ambassadors.
So, I can endorse these rule changes heartily.
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I should like to make a personal intervention to suggest to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities something it might like to consider in the next Parliament.
I detect an insidious growth in the power of the Conference of Presidents over the internal organisation of this Parliament, a growth in power at the expense of the Bureau, of the Conference of Committee Presidents, of the Quaestors and, most importantly, of this plenary.
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I have had the opportunity of watching the Conference of Presidents in action.
It is consistently overworked and often ill-briefed.
To make the Conference of Presidents the ultimate arbiter of every decision in this Parliament is an abuse and a mistake.
I am full of admiration for the leaders of the two big groups, but to adapt the terminology of the World Trade Organization, these are the two great elephants of Parliament.
They cannot be experts on everything.
They each lead complex coalitions.
Their joint voting power in the Conference of Presidents leads to the governance of this House by a 'condominium of the confused'.
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It will be real test of the democratic vigour of this House if it can look its leadership in the eyes, and amend its Rules accordingly in the next mandate.
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<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Theato">
Madam President, first let me express my appreciation to the rapporteurs and congratulate them on their comprehensive work.
The revision of the Rules of Procedure focuses on the innovations arising from the Amsterdam Treaty.
The Committee on Budgetary Control proposed few amendments, since the Treaty of Amsterdam makes no substantive changes either to the process or the nature of the discharge procedure.
It tabled only two amendments.
The first concerns institutional responsibility for decisions overruling a withholding of approval by the Financial Controller, which in our view should revert to the President of Parliament.
Secondly, we want to clarify that there is no interaction between the consequences of discharge and the procedure whereby Parliament may request the Commission to submit to it any appropriate legislative proposal pursuant to Article 138b of the EC Treaty, on the basis of an own-initiative report.
Unfortunately, neither amendment has been adopted to date.
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Meanwhile things have progressed, however.
The refusal to grant the Commission a discharge last December brought to light a whole range of inconsistencies between the provisions of the Treaty and Annex V of the Rules of Procedure.
These inconsistencies must be remedied immediately to ensure the smooth running and completion of the discharge procedure.
We can congratulate the Committee on the Rules of Procedure on its zeal and thoroughness in tackling this problem.
We await Mr Fayot's report in the near future, confident that it will clarify this complex subject for us.
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<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="Heinisch">
draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Petitions. (DE) Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Petitions urgently requests the Committee on the Rules of Procedure to take account of the following points when adapting the European Parliament's Rules of Procedure to the provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
With reference to Rule 157(1), second paragraph, of the Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament, the Committee on Petitions welcomes the guidelines for specialist committees of the European Parliament considering petitions, which have been drawn up by the Conference of Committee Chairmen.
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However, the committee stresses the need to build on the successful cooperation established between the European Parliament and the European Ombudsman and to anchor it sufficiently clearly in the Rules of Procedure.
We therefore propose that Annex VI, XX (Powers and responsibilities of standing committees) should be clarified and that relations with the European Ombudsman should be included among the responsibilities of the Committee on Petitions.
We further propose that clearer rules on submission of the annual reports and special reports on the activities of the European Ombudsman should be included in Chapter XX, Rule 161 (Activities of the Ombudsman).
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It is important to insert in the Rules of Procedure more precise rules on the submission and consideration of the Ombudsman's annual reports and special reports by the European Parliament.
If in future the Ombudsman were to submit more interim or special reports on very specialised topics, we would advocate that not all of them should necessarily be considered in plenary.
Some of the matters covered by such reports could be dealt with more effectively if simpler and more rapid procedures were applied, which might be devised if this were felt appropriate.
Corresponding provisions, modelled on Rule 44 or Rule 52, could be inserted in the Rules of Procedure.
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Finally, it would be appropriate for a procedure to be introduced in the Rules of Procedure for urgent consideration of the Ombudsman's reports by Parliament, especially with regard to their placing on the part-session agenda.
I thank the rapporteurs and hope our amendments will be adopted.
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<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rothley">
Madam President, while thanking the rapporteurs I also have one point of criticism. The committee proposes that the vote on approval of the President of the Commission and the Commission as a whole shall be taken by roll call.
That is a grave mistake.
Behind rules there are thoughts, ideas, concepts, aims, strategies.
What were the Heads of State and Government thinking when they wrote into the Treaties that the vote on a motion of censure shall be by roll call?
The thought behind that is obvious.
Roll-call votes split Parliament into national delegations and political groups.
This puts Parliament under pressure and therefore makes it subject to control.
That is the point of a roll-call vote.
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Now we are introducing it for approval of the President of the Commission and the Commission as a whole.
And that means that we too are exposing ourselves to pressure and can therefore be controlled.
That is the result!
Parliament would be stronger if the vote were by secret ballot.
In fact the Commission would also be stronger if the vote were by secret ballot.
This vote on approval would not give the impression of being a forced vote.
That is why I regard this as a grave mistake.
I cannot imagine that Members really want it.
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Hence my appeal to support the amendments calling for a vote by secret ballot.
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<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Madam President, the Group of the European People's Party supports the amendments tabled by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure.
My group has nevertheless tabled a number of amendments - Amendment No 125 and the subsequent amendments - most of which are technical. We trust that these amendments will therefore gain the necessary support within the House.
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I should like to respond to the remarks made by Mr Rothley on behalf of the Socialist Group.
As ever, his remarks were pertinent and largely justified.
It can nevertheless also be argued that a vote as important as the one to approve the nomination of the President of the European Commission must display visible symbols of its significance, and voting by roll call has traditionally always served that purpose.
Notwithstanding this, we shall certainly consider the suggestions put forward by the Socialist Group.
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On behalf of the European People's Party, I should like to highlight a number of points on which either the group cannot agree with the Committee on the Rules of Procedure or where it has tabled political rather than technical amendments to clarify the issue.
Referring again to the three categories of amendments, and more specifically to the political ones, our group is opposed to the so-called 'internal censure motion' provided for in Amendment No 14.
In our view, it achieves nothing and would result in more complications than advantages.
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Amendment No 124 by the Socialist Group concerning interparliamentary delegations raises serious legal problems.
The delegations are, after all, bodies with power vested in them by the House, and it is inconceivable that their membership should fall into two categories - primary members from the Bureau, elected by the House, and secondary members, appointed by the Conference of Presidents.
The Group of the European People's Party understands the logic behind this amendment, but feels that the democratic principles which must provide the foundations for the composition of each and every one of Parliament's bodies should also be respected as far as these interparliamentary delegations are concerned.
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As regards the appointment of the High Representative, we have tabled Amendment No 129, which provides further detail and is more in line with the Treaty than the amendment tabled by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure.
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In terms of the legislative amendments, the Group of the European People's Party is totally opposed to the amendment to Rule 53 concerning the legal basis and is therefore also opposed to Amendment No 38.
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Turning to the third group of amendments on the indirect consequences of having gained the status of colegislators, and as regards time, improved management of resources, translations, the introduction of new technology and so on, the Group of the European People's Party tabled Amendment No 144 which clarifies the situation concerning explanatory statements and makes it more manageable.
A large majority opposes the exclusion amendments to Rule 90 and the one-minute speeches in Rule 78.
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Finally, I should like to say a word about the implementation of this revision.
As Mr Fabre-Aubrespy has rightly said, we must be aware that implementation must await the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Before Thursday, therefore, an oral amendment or technical amendment needs to be introduced to take account of this situation.
On behalf of the European People's Party, I propose that all the amendments should come into effect at the first part-session following the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
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<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="De Clercq">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I have just one minute and shall confine myself to one point concerning the powers of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, namely determining the legal basis.
As you are aware, where there is uncertainty as to the correct legal basis, every committee of Parliament has so far had to seek the opinion of the Legal Affairs Committee.
Amendment No 38 is now proposing that, in the event of a dispute, this requirement to seek an opinion should be replaced by a requirement merely to inform the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
That is a very dangerous development in the wrong direction.
If every committee can determine the legal basis individually, this will lead to still more conflicts of responsibility between the committees and it will be very hard to see any consistency in the basis or Treaty article which the European Parliament uses in its decision making.
My group has therefore retabled Amendment No 138 to the effect that in the event of disagreement over the legal basis, the Legal Affairs Committee must be consulted, not informed.
Arguments against this on grounds of the supposed unnecessary delay are overcome by an urgency procedure which is appended to the amendment.
I would commend this amendment to the House.
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<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
Madam President, many of the proposals contained in this comprehensive report constitute definite improvements or necessary adaptations to the new situation created by the Amsterdam Treaty.
There are, however, some rather radical proposals of a political nature which would give the European Parliament more power than is actually provided for in the text of the Treaty.
In that category belong, for example, Amendment No 60 on the agreement between the labour market partners, Amendment No 69 on the Council's foreign policy representative and Amendment No 16 relating to the President of the Commission.
It is totally unacceptable to attempt to overstep the clear boundaries set in the Treaty.
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The report also contains other proposals that are equally unacceptable.
This applies particularly to Amendment No 90, which states that groups may not table mutually exclusive amendments.
I think there are many people in the House who regard censorship of this type as undesirable.
We all know that different viewpoints can be accommodated within the various political groups.
I therefore hope this proposal will not succeed for one reason or another.
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In my view, we should have used this opportunity to establish that the President of Parliament should be elected for five years, so that we can be spared the extraordinary procedure whereby the two large groups end up sharing the office between them.
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<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="Crowley">
Madam President, I would like to thank the rapporteurs for their tremendous work in this area and, even if I do not agree with a lot of what they did and their final conclusions, I do appreciate their diligence and their efforts to try and find compromises where it was possible.
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As has already been highlighted by other speakers within this Parliament, there are a number of contradictions and elements within this combined report which will cause us difficulties in the future.
I would specifically like to draw Members' attention to the question of whether we elect the President of the Commission or whether we approve the nomination of the President of the Commission.
Likewise, this proposal that the Conference of Presidents acting by three-fifths majority, representing at least three groups, may propose to the plenary - acting by absolute majority - to terminate any elected office holder's position within this Parliament.
I think it is ridiculous that somebody who is elected by the body of the Parliament - by the individual Members here within the Parliament - can have their office terminated by a decision of the Conference of Presidents.
I have no difficulty if three-fifths or three-sixths or three-sevenths of the Parliament decide to terminate such offices, but if the Conference of Presidents does so it is absolutely crazy.
Likewise, the role of the EU High Representative on Foreign Policy and the special officers should also be brought before this Parliament.
We are imposing new restrictions which we do not have the power to do under the Treaty.
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I am delighted that my group's amendment with regard to the numbers required for the formulation of groups has been accepted and I also hope that Members will vote for the one-minute speech at the start of the first sitting of each part-session which gives us the opportunity to raise issues of importance in our own Member States.
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It is important for us to ensure that our new Rules of Procedure are unambiguous, direct, and able to deal with the actual powers that we have and not try to create new ones.
Most importantly, it must be remembered that the dignity of the Members of this House and their rights as elected representatives of the people of Europe must be foremost in any formulation of our rules.
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<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Madam President, the rapporteurs have done a thorough and comprehensive job, in fact too comprehensive in my view because the proposed amendments go beyond the innovations contained in the Amsterdam Treaty and therefore also beyond the task assigned to the rapporteurs.
Many of the amendments were eliminated in committee, but a few that worry me remain.
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I am particularly concerned about one point.
It is particularly important that the European Parliament, which has rightly dedicated itself to the protection of minorities, does not lose sight of this aim in its dealings with the minorities in its own House.
The proposals to amend the provisions on the formation of groups, and also the horizontal increase in the number of required signatures from 29 to 32, unjustifiably weaken the small groupings whose importance to the diversity of opinion inherent in a democracy has indeed recently become more than apparent.
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<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
Madam President, at present the Commissioners are appointed by each individual Member State.
Mrs Bjerregaard is Denmark's representative and a new majority in the Danish Parliament can send a new representative next time.
So ultimately our voters are the ones who have the final say and indirectly appoint the Danish Member of the Commission.
The Amsterdam Treaty gives Parliament the right to approve nominations by the Member States, and this is a power which is now to be written into the Rules of Procedure.
But now Parliament is saying instead that it should elect or reject the Commission.
The Commission is no longer to be a result of the decisions of the Member States alone, but in effect a common government of the EU.
The Commission is to be elected by Parliament in almost the same way as a national parliament elects a government.
That is a recipe for a federal state with a common parliament and a common government.
Parliament expects to be able to reject the names which are put forward by the Member States when they are not in line with the views of the majority.
In reality, Parliament wants to transfer the power to appoint the Commission from the national parliaments and governments to this supranational assembly.
That is contrary to the Amsterdam Treaty and therefore illegal.
Parliament cannot simply take power from the Member States on its own authority.
The June Movement is therefore voting against the new Rules of Procedure, and we call upon the Member States to protest against Parliament's attempt to transform the national parliaments into a kind of junior branch of local government.
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<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wibe">
Madam President, first of all I should like to say what many others have already said, namely that the three rapporteurs have done an excellent job.
I agree with 99 % of what they have produced; however, there are two points on which our views diverge.
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The first concerns the proposal that would prevent political groups being formed of Members from one country only.
I simply cannot find a logical reason for such a proposal.
It is justified on the grounds that the larger countries should not be given an advantage, which is illogical and untenable in itself since the larger countries always have an advantage, for instance when it comes to having to collect 29 signatures in order to table an amendment.
The only logical reason I have been able to find for such a change is political, in other words the rapporteurs would like to make it impossible to form national groups so as to tone down national differences in the House, thereby giving it a more European character.
This is a commendable objective, but the Rules of Procedure are no place for political aims.
The Rules of Procedure should be politically neutral.
For that reason, I am going to vote against this amendment.
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The other amendment which in my view is unnecessary states that a political group cannot table amendments that are mutually exclusive.
It is already difficult enough to table amendments in this House.
Such a change would only add to the difficulties.
I do not think we should set about making Parliament less democratic in this way.
Furthermore, the gains in efficiency that would result from such a change are negligible.
At most, only a tiny fraction of all the votes are mutually exclusive.
Consequently, I am going to vote against these two proposals.
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<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Manzella">
Madam President, the valuable work done by our three rapporteurs confirms, yet again, the need for the exercise of MEPs' constitutional duties to be autonomously regulated.
Consequently, this House is lending an initial interpretation to the Amsterdam Treaty - assuming that it does enter into force - even before the establishment of the relevant judicial and extra-parliamentary practice.
<P>
We must devote particular attention here to the regulatory nature of the new legislative procedures, since in its next term, Parliament is certain to enjoy equal status with the Council in a twin-chamber legislative system.
More specifically, according to this blueprint, the new codecision procedure is in line both with the resolution adopted by Parliament on this matter and with the joint interinstitutional agreement that is soon to be approved.
I must however endorse the requested addition to Rule 66, recognising the Commission's role in so-called informal conciliation.
<P>
The Commission's monopoly over legislative initiative is undoubtedly an anomaly within the Community system; but it is a welcome anomaly, considering the meagre legislative output of many national parliaments.
The Commission's role of counterbalancing the two legislative bodies is in itself an element of regulatory coherence and consistency, with its constant emphasis on the rationale behind proposed legislation.
But this role must be performed throughout the legislative process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fayot">
Mr President, the European Parliament is a young parliament.
This is a fundamental difference between it and the national parliaments, some of which have been sitting for centuries.
<P>
Twenty years is barely an anniversary, not quite the age of reason.
So our Rules, which are the charter of our parliamentary life, are particularly important.
For democracy to work despite all our differences, the letter as well as the spirit of the Rules must be observed.
They cannot be bent to the dictates of the political climate. Their reliability depends on consistency in their daily interpretation and application.
That is also why the Rules need to evolve.
Above all they must be amended to make the procedures simpler and less burdensome so that they are faster and more effective.
We must not allow them to be used politically to block a parliamentary institution whose role is to take legislative decisions.
<P>
In a Parliament where five-year government majorities do not exist, but where majorities change with the issues, simple and transparent procedures are essential for the public to understand what we do.
So I cannot accept Mr Voggenhuber's complaint that this change in the Rules means less democracy.
I think a balance has been struck between democracy and effectiveness.
<P>
I would like to make one last remark, Mr President, following what Mr Spencer has just said in the debate. It has been suggested that when we restructure the committees in the next parliamentary term, we should remove the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities by merging it with another committee.
I would regret such a merger. Personally I think it would be better to create a proper constitutional committee in the European Parliament to deal with all aspects of the working life of Parliament.
I think it is important to oil the wheels of our procedures.
<P>
As chairman of the Rules Committee may I make one last comment on the controversial issue of entry into force.
I think, and the three rapporteurs agree with me, that this package of amendments to the Rules should come into force at the same time as the Treaty of Amsterdam.
There are two series of provisions here, some adapting the Rules to the Treaty of Amsterdam, others independent of the Treaty.
So for reasons of simplicity, Mr President, I think the best course is to bring the changes into force at the same time as the Treaty of Amsterdam.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="Oreja">
Mr President, the Commission is aware that first and foremost, Parliament's Rules of Procedure concern this House and its independent internal organisation.
Nevertheless, in the light of the Commission's role in the legislative process, it does have a legitimate interest in the Rules as they do affect us to a certain extent.
<P>
I should like to start by offering my sincere congratulations to the three rapporteurs.
Thanks to their work, Parliament will be equipped with new Rules which take into account the significant changes introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam, particularly where the legislative procedure is concerned. These new Rules will be ready to be implemented as soon as the Treaty comes into force.
I should also like to highlight the efforts made by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure to clarify rules and simplify procedures without overlooking the importance of reaching agreement amongst the various groups.
In addition, I appreciate Parliament's legitimate desire to take advantage of the fresh opportunities offered in the Treaty of Amsterdam and to enshrine them in the new text. Parliament had already expressed this wish on the occasion of the Single Act and again at the time of the Treaty on European Union.
I agreed with Mr Corbett's image of a piece of elastic you can stretch or let go of and which needs to be tight enough but not so tight that it snaps.
<P>
I shall single out certain features of the new Rules which merit special consideration.
Firstly, we are somewhat concerned with the new arrangements to review the Commission's proposals in relation to human rights and the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality.
In our view, the proposal is somewhat vague as it states only that if Parliament considers that a Commission proposal does not respect one or other of these principles it shall ask the Commission to make the necessary adjustments.
Does this therefore mean that a special reading will be devoted to these matters or will they be given particular consideration at first reading?
If the first option were to be applied, the procedure could slow down the entire legislative process and might even contradict the Interinstitutional Agreement on subsidiarity.
The need to safeguard the Commission's right of initiative should not be overlooked either. I am confident that neither Mr Corbett nor the other rapporteurs are doing so, as they are very much aware that this is a key component of the entire institutional system.
The same is true of the proposals relating to the consideration of the legal basis.
<P>
We believe that the new conciliation procedure provided for by the new Rule 66(5) at second reading with the relevant parliamentary committee could be most useful.
We are convinced that greater dialogue between Parliament and the Commission is desirable and may prove effective. Nevertheless, we feel that in line with the spirit of the new joint declaration on codecision which is shortly to be approved, this should feature in each and every one of the stages concerned.
Whatever the formula eventually approved, this dialogue should become an integral part of the actual process.
Consequently, we feel that the amendment tabled by Mrs Palacio which provides for the Commission's presence is entirely appropriate.
<P>
As far as comitology is concerned, you will be aware that we are engaged in interinstitutional contacts in the hope of reaching a solution.
We therefore feel that it would be premature to formalise arrangements concerning comitology in the Rules.
<P>
The new Rule 90d introduces a procedure similar to the so-called 'advice and consent' procedure used in the United States Senate. In this case, however, it would be invoked to appoint the heads of Commission delegations to third countries.
In my view, a distinction should be made between the appointment of civil servants and essentially political appointments made in accordance with the Treaties and involving hearings in the House. Here, I am referring to the appointment of Commissioners, members of the Court of Auditors, directors of the European Central Bank and the High Representative for the common foreign and security policy.
In our view, it is not appropriate to hold hearings on the appointment of officials as this falls within the Commission's competence and is essentially the Commission's responsibility.
<P>
I should also like to inform the rapporteurs that we are happier with the final version of Rule 107(9) on speaking time.
This states that the amount of time allocated to the Commission has to be agreed with the Commission and must in any case be without prejudice to the provisions of Article 197 of the Treaty, according to which the Commission is entitled to put forward its view at any time.
We are prepared to cooperate with the efforts to plan and simplify debates but we must insist on our rights under the Treaty.
<P>
Finally, in connection with Mr Corbett's remarks concerning the Commission, I should like to inform both him and the House as a whole that the Commission is quite prepared to strengthen its political relationship with the European Parliament. A closer relationship between the two institutions must take account of their specific roles.
The Commission's role is to initiate and execute, and Parliament's role is to monitor. This strengthened relationship must be an essential component of the Union's institutional structure, and should benefit, in particular, transparency and legislative issues.
<P>
In conclusion, I should like to congratulate the House on its initiative to move ahead with the revision of the Rules of Procedure before the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
I am confident that in future we shall have an effective instrument at our disposal which we can use to continue and strengthen our interinstitutional cooperation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Thursday at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Orphan medicinal products
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0078/99) by Mr Cabrol, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Regulation (EC) on orphan medicinal products (COM(98)0450 - C4-0470/98-98/0240(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="Cabrol">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the proposal for a regulation that is before us concerns orphan medicinal products.
Its purpose is to encourage the pharmaceutical industry to concentrate on the research and marketing of medicinal products which would not otherwise be marketed by the industry because they concern rare diseases affecting only a very few people, and are consequently not commercially viable.
Tropical diseases, which affect so many who have no hope of paying, should also be included. That is the aim of Amendment No 2, which I support.
<P>
This regulation raises two main issues and several secondary issues.
The initial problem is that of definition.
The first criterion is epidemiological, in this case diseases affecting no more than 5 per 10 000 of the population and, of course, serious, chronic and debilitating diseases.
This is specified in Amendments Nos 3 and 7.
Then there is a medical criterion which applies where there is no satisfactory method of diagnosis, prevention or treatment for these diseases.
I think that is an excellent criterion, and I reject Amendments Nos 33, 34, 35, 41, 42 and 43, which seek to limit diagnostic research to curable diseases, as if it were not important to be able to recognise a disease.
That seems ridiculous, to doctors in any case.
<P>
The second issue is that of incentives.
I think they will be effective, whether it be assistance in drawing up a research protocol, exemption from registration fees - supported by Amendments Nos 11, 14 and 21 - national incentives, fiscal for example, and above all market exclusivity for ten years, although with provision to reduce it to six years if certain criteria are no longer met or a clinically superior medicinal product is discovered.
I shall not be supporting Amendments Nos 25, 28 and 31, which seek to remove this criterion, because I think it will be quite simple to observe in practice.
In terms of obtaining excessive profit, I find the guarantee relevant.
I shall therefore uphold that criterion against Amendments Nos 17, 32, 36, 37 and 39 which seek to remove it, but propose to pay the excessive profit - if there is one - to a research support fund for new orphan medicinal products.
And I shall be supporting Amendment No 38, which makes it impossible to extend an authorisation to market a similar non-orphan medicinal product for the same therapeutic indication.
<P>
I am also in favour of a retroactive measure for orphan medicinal products presented before this regulation comes into force, in order to benefit the sick people concerned as early as possible.
That is the aim of Amendment No 40.
In accordance with the proposed regulation, the designation of these orphan medicinal products will be obtained from a special committee set up within the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products.
<P>
Finally, I support Amendment No 15, which calls for that Agency to receive a special contribution that is sufficient to cover the exemptions from registration fees and is intended to maximise the incentive to carry out research in the orphan medicinal products sector and submit these applications for authorisation.
<P>
In conclusion, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think this regulation is extremely important and useful as it will not only allow the treatment of diseases for which no diagnostic or therapeutic resources are currently available - and that includes vaccinations of course - but it will also lead to research in the pharmaceutical industry that will create employment, in particular in small and medium-sized enterprises.
<P>
I therefore urge you to vote for this regulation, taking into account, of course, the amendments I have mentioned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Heinisch">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, after lengthy preparatory work, this proposal for a regulation is a step in the right direction.
In accordance with a need felt by millions of patients, it aims to create favourable conditions at Community level for research into and the development and marketing of medicinal products to treat rare diseases.
<P>
First and foremost, the development of treatment possibilities for patients requires that the field of application of the regulation be extended as far as possible, in particular to new indications even for well-known pharmaceutical products and forms of treatment.
Since most of the applications come from small and medium-sized enterprises, at least in the United States, it would be appropriate for the Commission to specify special conditions for the SMEs so as to step up the use of funds earmarked under the fifth framework programme and the programme of Community action on rare diseases.
<P>
We agree completely with the idea of full access to the centralised procedure, without this becoming binding, and a partial or total exemption from the payment of fees to the Agency, provided that it is guaranteed an adequate supply of funds, and we would hope that this financial incentive would also be adopted by the Member States in the event of the mutual recognition procedure being applied.
This should explicitly be laid down in the regulation, at least in the form of an emphatic recommendation to the Member States.
Exclusivity is one of the lynchpins of any system of incentives and hence should be extended to every application, in particular to new indications for well-known medicines, so as to encourage research in fields which otherwise would not be exploited for lack of adequate patent protection, provided that the criteria set out in Articles 3(1) and 3(2) are respected, especially in the case of well-known drugs.
<P>
The concept of a 'similar medical product' should be given a more detailed scientific definition in order to take into account current scientific developments and the characteristics of the products.
Only through cooperation between the private and the public sector and the creation of favourable conditions for research into new medicines, with the help of treatment and diagnosis, can we respond to the patients' needs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Marinucci">
Mr President, Europe is finally catching up with the United States, which has for some time been encouraging the research, manufacture and marketing of medicinal products intended for the diagnosis and treatment of rare disorders which - although affecting only a small number of people - are serious, incapacitating and often fatal.
<P>
We note with satisfaction that the Commission has kept its word to Parliament and, after the adoption of the provisions on rare diseases, has presented to Parliament and the Council a draft regulation intended to steer the industry towards researching and manufacturing medicinal products which are unlikely to be profitable, given the narrow user base.
<P>
In this way, the European Union as an institution is meeting its commitment - laid down in the Maastricht Treaty and consolidated in the Amsterdam Treaty - to contribute to ensuring a high level of health protection for all European people; it is also, for humanity as a whole, assuming the responsibilities deriving from its economic and cultural strength.
Biomedical science has made tremendous progress and yet, in the case of certain genetic diseases and rare disorders, our degree of impotence is unacceptable to patients' families, who feel abandoned and betrayed.
The families have achieved a good deal by grouping together and organising themselves.
Celebrities from political and artistic circles have joined them in collecting funds for research: we need only think of the growing role, year by year, of initiatives such as 'Telethon'.
<P>
The European Union cannot shirk its duty, which is not to take over the role of private manufacturers in the individual Member States, but to draw all the necessary strands together.
To this end, the measures provided for in this regulation will be complemented by Community funding under the fifth R&D framework programme.
The main incentives will be market exclusivity for ten years, awarded to the manufacturing company on certain conditions, assistance from the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products, exemption from paying all or part of the fees due, and the possibility of tax incentives - albeit at national level.
<P>
Having pressed the Commission to present this proposal, the Socialist Group - to which I have the privilege of belonging - now supports it enthusiastically. We would stress that the final version of the regulation must prioritise scientific and humanitarian bodies rather than economic ones.
In other words, the caution required in a field such as this must not cause difficulties in offering incentives or implementing the provisions, which must be formulated and read in such a way as to open the door wide to the research, manufacture and marketing of medicinal products to treat rare disorders.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valverde López">
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, I should like to express our full support for the proposal for a regulation put forward by the European Commission.
It responds to a social need and to long-standing requests by patients' groups.
Incidentally, I believe that those groups deserve special public commendation here and now, in the House, for their excellent support of the parliamentary work we all carry out.
<P>
For his part, Professor Cabrol has prepared an excellent report. We are happy to support its general approach and agree with its main conclusions.
Nevertheless, we have tabled a number of amendments aimed at increasing the effectiveness of the regulation.
I should also highlight the fact that there has been an excellent climate of cooperation and agreement amongst all the political groups represented in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
<P>
In my view, it is important to accept the amendment that allows the committee on orphan medicinal products envisaged in the Commission's proposal to operate under the aegis of the European Agency for the Assessment of Medicines.
This would lead to increased efficiency whilst the Commission's powers would remain intact.
<P>
It is also important to make adequate financial resources available in the European Union's budget on a regular and permanent basis.
Amendment No 18, which I tabled, aims to create a fund to promote innovation, Mr Bangemann.
The intention here is to respond to the demands of efficiency and demands of an ethical nature.
Once the period of special protection for these orphan medicinal products has elapsed, it is only reasonable that part of the income from them should be used to build up a fund which will continue to support this regulation and new orphan medicinal products. This will in fact provide better treatment and respond to what could be called society's ethical demand for continued operation.
<P>
I urge the Commission to study the operational experience gained in the United States and Japan.
Our proposal must be in line with our own European identity and the restrictions imposed by Community legislation and our institutions.
I believe it is workable, though it may be somewhat complicated.
I hope that the Commission will welcome this idea with the high degree of efficiency we have come to expect of it and I should like to thank the Commission in advance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is just as difficult and costs just as much to find a treatment and develop a medicinal product which will save a few human lives as it does to market a medicinal product which will save millions of lives.
If we want to do more than simply fight a lot of very common diseases but also help those who suffer from one of the 5 000 identified rare diseases, then we have to give the necessary incentives to the industry.
And we should not forget that today's rare condition may become tomorrow's far commoner disease.
So we must encourage research into these rare diseases by assuring investors of a measure of exclusivity and allowing them advantageous tax treatment.
<P>
The regulation is certainly a step in the right direction, but I think the Commission needs to rethink its definition of 'orphan medicinal products'.
A number of other Members as well as myself have tabled amendments on this.
Perhaps a compromise amongst the various suggestions can produce a better definition.
<P>
Together with Mrs Dybkjær, I have also tabled an amendment which provides for the industry to be given an extra incentive in the case of a disease which has around three thousand sufferers in Europe.
We suggest that the pharmaceutical industry should receive six months' additional patent protection for another medicinal product which it places on the market, if it develops a remedy to treat an extremely rare disease.
I hope a majority of the House will back this amendment, and I would welcome Mr Bangemann's opinion on it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pradier">
Mr President, first I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Cabrol, on the excellent work he has done on this subject. Secondly, I want to say that I am particularly pleased about the creation of a Committee for Orphan Medicinal Products.
However, questions may arise as to the composition of this committee, the way it operates, and the real weight it will carry, in other words, at the end of the day, what resources will effectively be made available to the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products.
<P>
There is one other point I need to mention.
There has been an attempt to float the idea of unreasonable profits.
I am no fanatical defender of profits for pharmaceutical industry multinationals.
All the same, I find this idea utterly arbitrary. As regards the planned ten-year period, if there is a review at the end of the fifth year - which seems appropriate - then rather than assess the profits it should check that the therapeutic indications have not been extended and that the prevalence has not changed.
If these two factors are taken into account our group will vote for this resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, there has been no willingness to invest substantially in pharmaceutical research into some 500 diseases, afflicting a limited number of people, or to comply with the existing procedures, because it is well known that the end product - which is subject to various evaluations and must absorb high manufacturing costs - will be of relevance only to the few people who suffer from a rare disease.
<P>
As the United States is now at the forefront of clinical and pharmacological research, it has become a model of contemporary society in several respects. That country has had extremely successful legislation on orphan medicinal products since 1983.
The EU is now hoping to follow suit, through Professor Cabrol's report.
<P>
No fewer than 837 drugs have been designated 'orphan medicinal products' in the US over the past decade. Research and experimentation on these products - which we are discussing today - has been facilitated in various ways, contributing to the identification and knowledge of previously unknown etiologies and hence their treatments.
<P>
The question is what incentives to offer the industry; the main one offered by the US authorities seems to me to be tax relief, which covers almost 50 % of clinical research.
<P>
Unfortunately, rare diseases are in fact well-known diseases, although their low incidence of morbidity on the population places them in a limbo of unanswered questions.
We support Professor Cabrol's attempt to get things moving and put the uncertainties behind us.
<P>
Moreover, on the threshold of the third millennium, it is distressing to think of patients being prevented by the market from obtaining appropriate treatments.
If this society of ours cannot express proper solidarity under such circumstances, then goodbye Europe!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Needle">
Mr President, first of all, and most importantly, I should like to add my strong support for both the Commission proposal and particularly Mr Cabrol's excellent report which is well drafted and pertinent, as his reports always are.
As my colleague Mrs Marinucci has set out, we, on this side, will maintain our approach taken in committee.
Providing meaningful incentives to ensure development of products to tackle some of the most debilitating and upsetting conditions in the world is clearly a job for a new kind of innovative, public/private partnership.
To succeed, progress must be based on epidemiological and economic criteria which have been worked out in the rather difficult passage of these proposals to this stage.
<P>
The Commission has rightly made provisions for unreasonable profit-taking to be avoided.
Although some within the pharmaceutical sector protest at the very thought that there might be any risk of that, it seems reasonable to myself and many others that the use of public resources and legal support should be absolutely transparent.
Therefore I hope that Parliament and the Council will vote to maintain the concept as part of the partnership with research and development sectors and will include the practical means for the programme decision-makers to reach fair, just and accurate conclusions which also bear in mind the generic development industry.
<P>
This is an important development in the context of the many exciting advances being made in genetic identification, treatment and, best of all, prevention of diseases.
Some of this work I saw for myself just last week in my own region.
Together with the forthcoming programme on rare diseases, plus what I hope will prove an effective new framework for public health policy over the next five years, this initiative offers realistic new hope to those who suffer pain and misery.
<P>
Credit is therefore due to all those who have worked so hard to bring this proposal before us today.
Now it is up to all of us to take responsibility for ensuring its future success on behalf of those patients who suffer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Liese">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the present proposal for a regulation is certainly to be welcomed.
The hopes of many patients suffering from rare diseases rely on our obtaining a regulation on orphan drugs in Europe too as soon as possible.
We should be guided by the experiences of the USA and Japan.
We should also learn from experience.
In that sense, Mr Cabrol's report proposes a series of improvements to the Commission proposal, although I do have problems with some of the proposed amendments.
<P>
I believe it is most important that we also include tropical diseases in Amendments Nos 1 and 2.
It is important for Europe to look further than the end of its own nose and also to consider people suffering from tropical diseases.
That is not necessarily the case under this regulation, but we must create an instrument to do so very quickly.
<P>
I have problems with the amendments that impose additional obstacles on industry in regard to obtaining orphan drug status for a particular medicine.
This applies, for instance, to Amendment No 18, on which I would be interested to hear the Commission's view.
My impression is that if we siphon off the revenue obtained by industry after the ten-year period, that will in turn reduce the incentive to invest in the first place and I would be interested to know whether things really work in the USA in the way suggested in that amendment.
Personally I doubt it.
<P>
Finally, I want to raise the question of diagnosis, which we have already had occasion to consider in committee.
I believe I can say from my own experience that particularly in the case of genetically-related diseases - which after all means most of the rare diseases - the patients are waiting for prevention and treatment while we, if we only have diagnosis but no corresponding prevention or treatment, sometimes actually produce problems.
That is why I personally am in favour of giving priority to treatment and only supporting diagnosis if treatment or prevention are also available.
For the rest, however, we should certainly support Mr Cabrol's report and the proposal for a regulation and should not jeopardise the entire project by quarrelling about details.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Tannert">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is a German proverb that fits the bill in the EU as regards orphan drugs. It goes as follows: if you go on long enough, it will be alright in the end.
It took the Commission long enough to present a proposal for a European orphan drug act.
What I expect of this regulation is that it will provide a strong incentive for the development of these medicines and therefore for research into molecular biology.
Unfortunately, the Commission felt it was unable to follow the US model in regard to providing additional tax relief, tax relief at least in the sense of definite recommendations for action on the part of the Member States.
I would certainly be interested to know whether the Commission sees any possibility of doing so.
<P>
But experiences in the USA show that tax advantages offer the most effective stimulus for investment in orphan drug development.
In general terms, the reasons for EU-wide tax harmonisation are accumulating by the day and the orphan drug regulation is another reason.
It would also be a good idea to set up a special fund for additional support for the development of these medicines.
There are no bounds to what we could imagine here, even if a certain amount of state dirigisme is required to achieve our aims.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, we are very happy about the very positive response to our proposal.
The rapporteur has done much towards achieving this, thanks to his very careful work.
Since we are now at first reading, I will not go into all the amendments tabled. Instead, I will take up the most important ones that were raised during the discussion and explain why the Commission does not regard some of them as very useful.
<P>
First of all, everyone realises - and this became clear during the discussion - that we need this proposal because market mechanisms alone cannot produce useful results in the cases we are dealing with here, the so-called orphan drugs.
And that is perfectly understandable.
The fact is that research in particular is becoming increasingly expensive and if by definition this expenditure cannot be recouped at all, then of course nobody working in the private sector can be expected to take it on board.
<P>
For the rest, we have been trying for many years to control and counter this situation.
It is not the case that nothing has been done in past years.
We have made quite substantial funds available for research in these areas in the research programmes, in the third and fourth framework programmes of research.
The fact that we are only now proposing this regulation - I believe the American legislation has existed since 1983 - does not mean that we have done nothing since then.
But it is clear that with the experience we have gained from America we can perhaps present an improved proposal now.
<P>
The problem is easy to describe.
Since there are no economic incentives, we have to compensate for this.
Of course we can do so directly through support for research, and we shall continue to do so in future.
Even more emphasis has been put on this kind of research in the fifth framework programme.
In that respect the situation there has not changed, and if it has, only for the good.
<P>
But we also want to create a range of additional incentives, for instance through the ten-year market exclusivity right.
This kind of market exclusivity right does of course offer an additional opportunity to make profits, but since this market is by definition very small, nobody can in fact count on making enormous profits.
On the contrary, the opportunities to do so will be fairly restricted.
Nevertheless, these ten years are a key element and cornerstone of our system of incentives for research and development in the area of orphan drugs, which indeed are also found in a very similar form in the other existing legislation.
<P>
We cannot propose any tax relief, at least not at this stage, because it is not up to us to decide this.
The Member States would have to do so.
At this point we want to wait and see what the effects are of these experiences.
Tax relief is always a very convenient way of creating incentives.
Here we have a whole range of options that are at least equally effective.
Access to the centralised procedure, in particular reduction of the fees - and here I agree with Mrs Heinisch - is of crucial importance to small and medium-sized enterprises, who often complain of these fees.
The fees can be waived in part or in whole.
The Agency in London can also be of assistance in developing a protocol for trials and we believe this can certainly lead to useful support.
<P>
I am very glad that some Members also spoke in favour of a special committee, during the debate.
We believe that this is such a specialised problem that we need this kind of committee and cannot and should not use the committees normally available.
<P>
We have proposed two kinds of criteria.
Of course you can always try to formulate others. But then you must remember the aim of our proposal.
We want to support research.
We want to make it more attractive, which is why we believe that the right criteria are epidemiological criteria, because they are objective and in particular because they can easily be applied at an early stage of product development.
<P>
There are problems with economic criteria.
Forecasts and projections can hardly be made before the expiry of the ten-year period.
Of course we would have to call for considerable transparency on the part of the undertakings, which they are not always prepared to agree to, in order to be able to make these forecasts and projections.
<P>
As I said, we are at first reading.
Let me begin by telling you which amendments we can accept.
There is a whole series of them: Nos 4, 5, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 29, 32, 38 and 9 in part.
Then I want to make a few comments on the amendments we cannot accept, beginning with No 6, which sets out an additional economic criterion.
I already said that it is not very attractive, it makes the whole trial procedure more difficult and after all we have learned from the American experience.
The USA had a similar criterion, which did not prove successful.
It did not work. That is why we want to support research rather than make it more difficult.
That is why we do not want to accept that amendment.
<P>
I will now look at the second group, concerning diagnosis, namely Amendments Nos 33, 34, 35, 41 and 42.
They all aim to exclude medicines for diagnostic purposes where no procedure exists for the treatment or prevention of the disease to be diagnosed.
That could mean that we were preventing access to diagnosis, with the result that no appropriate treatment could be developed.
We believe that is a risk we should not necessarily take on.
<P>
Then we come to the question of the fund, which has also been raised during the debate.
It concerns Amendment No 18.
In our view, the idea of a special fund that could be set up from the proceeds from the sale of orphan drugs following the expiry of the ten-year period of market exclusivity could reduce the potential interest of undertakings, which would mean that we would still not have enough resources available in the fund, because the proceeds would not be enormous.
For by definition an orphan drug is precisely a drug that offers very limited prospects of making a profit.
<P>
I will turn now to the measures for tropical diseases, which have also been mentioned.
Of course we support the view that specific measures to support research in developing countries are useful.
But we do not take the view that including a corresponding reference to this in a recital can produce that result.
It would mean that, as unfortunately happens so often when we submit a detailed proposal, its scope is broadened because people want to take the opportunity to include a whole lot of other problems.
But that is not a very logical way to make legislation.
That is why we hope we can come back to this question of tropical diseases.
<P>
For the rest we can say that research into and consideration of tropical diseases is traditionally in the very best hands in the European Union.
It is not the case that we have not lived up to our obligations here to date.
But if Parliament so wishes, we can of course take another look at the question of how we can further improve this specific area of research into pharmaceutical products.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
Mr President, may I have an answer from Mr Bangemann to the question I asked concerning his thoughts on Amendment No 30 which I have tabled with Mrs Dybkjær.
This asks for a pharmaceutical company to be given an additional or extended period of six months' protection on a patent if it develops an orphan medicinal product - in other words, a further six months' protection for another product already introduced or marketed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="Bangemann">
I did not go into this matter directly.
As I already said, this is the first reading.
That is why I did not want to go into all the amendments.
That is more or less the same argument I put forward in regard to tax relief and against the fund in general.
I have already spoken against the fund.
If additional patent protection is to be introduced, for instance in the event of the development of treatments or of the returns flowing back into a special fund, we would virtually be precluding competition from generic drugs.
<P>
After all, that is what always happens.
Once a medicinal product has been developed, researched and authorised, the ten-year market exclusivity, which can in addition become a patent protection period, applies in all cases and the result is that during that period of protection no generic drugs can come onto the market.
But if this period were further extended, that would have adverse effects.
For generic drugs at the end of a patent or other protection period are of course useful.
They may have additional effects, but at any rate they tend to be a little cheaper.
<P>
That is why we do not regard this amendment as useful, because it would preclude the supply of generic drugs once the protection period has expired.
In our view that cannot be the purpose of the proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Bangemann.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Electromagnetic fields
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0101/99) by Mr Tamino, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Recommendation on the limitation of exposure of the general public to electromagnetic fields 0 Hz - 300 GHz (COM(98)0268 - C4-0427/98-98/0166(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="Tamino">
Mr President, no one can have missed all the press coverage of electromagnetic pollution over the past few years; public opinion is very alive to this issue.
The reason why electromagnetic pollution is currently attracting public attention is that, unlike other forms of pollution, it cannot be seen and does not smell.
People are not aware of it; they can just see appliances which could be the cause of such pollution.
It was established 20 years ago, thanks to the work of Nancy Wertheimer in Colorado, that electromagnetic fields could have not only direct effects, causing damage due to heating - acute thermal effects, as they are called - but also long-term effects, leading to leukaemia and cancer.
<P>
It was partly because of these concerns that, during the last parliamentary term, Messrs Vernier, Santos and Pimenta tabled a resolution which then became the report by Mr Lannoye, adopted on 5 May 1994.
Parliament established certain facts in that report, including the need to apply the precautionary principle to EMF effects on the population.
In response to Parliament's report, the Commission saw fit to present a recommendation - now under discussion - concerning the entire radiation spectrum from 0 Hz to 300 Ghz.
As was pointed out in our Environment Committee, this recommendation lays down limits for acute thermal effects only.
With regard to long-term non-thermal effects, however, it is considered on the basis of opinions from certain international bodies that there is insufficient evidence to lay down limits for such exposure.
<P>
Clearly, in a formal sense, most of the evidence could be said to prove incontrovertibly that electromagnetic fields cause thermal effects; after all, everyone knows that microwave ovens are used for heating food.
But as regards long-term effects, the current wide-ranging debate has brought to light many scientific investigations, some epidemiological and others related specifically to cells and tissue, in vitro as well as in vivo , which indicate a probable EMF effect on cellular connections.
This could cause the epidemiological effects which have resulted in leukaemia and cancer, as well as several other forms of long-term damage, such as nervous disorders, amnesia and so on.
<P>
The public is concerned not only about fixed installations such as electricity transmission lines, television transmitters and mobile phone antennas, but also about the fact that we are continually in contact with domestic appliances and other devices which emit electromagnetic fields; the best-known one at present is perhaps the mobile phone, currently the subject of much debate.
<P>
For these reasons, Parliament's Environment Committee decided to table various amendments to the Commission recommendation, so as to take long-term effects into account.
First of all, the committee proposes taking into account the health of workers and consumer protection, by introducing the precautionary principle and the principle that the best available technology should be used so as to keep radiation as low as possible.
Next, the committee draws attention to the large existing body of scientific documentation on the application of the precautionary principle and, hence, the need to review the data and to keep it under regular review, as well as the need for reporting to the European Parliament.
It also calls for higher levels of protection in areas where the public spend significant time, and for minimum distances from fixed installations and appliances to be laid down.
It is however also true to say that the Environment Committee did not come up with any clear or precise data on ways of protecting the public from long-term exposure.
<P>
That concludes my presentation - which is also on behalf of my group - of certain amendments which take account of long-term effects and others, on the basis of the precautionary principle and of safety levels adopted in some countries, such as Italy and Sweden.
This is the thrust of Amendments Nos 16, 17, 18, 19, 21 and 22.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="Whitehead">
Mr President, this is a recommendation and not a directive.
As such it may not be transformed into a more serious piece of legislation for some years.
The main emphasis that Mr Tamino has quite properly laid in his report, which is entirely endorsed by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, is that the precautionary principle must apply.
And here this principle inevitably means scrutiny, scrutiny and scrutiny.
<P>
It is a powerful infant industry we are dealing with, in particular when we consider many of the reservations about mobile telephones.
We appreciate its economic importance.
Speaking not only for my group but for the majority of the Committee on the Environment, I can say that we did not think that the levels set by Mr Tamino were practical at this stage.
They would, in effect, have meant the elimination of many electronic devices which are used in the home, as well as taking a major stand against electricity pylons and the industry as a whole.
<P>
However, we believe that it is absolutely necessary to monitor these devices and the Committee on the Environment's amendments have attempted to set out precisely why and how.
I will read Amendment No 9 to the House.
If anything carries the spirit of what Mr Tamino is attempting to do and what we endorse it would be Amendment No 9 as adopted by the Committee on the Environment.
<P>
It says that Member States should 'lay down minimum safety distances from electrical equipment and minimum distances from public buildings, housing and workplaces for the siting of high-voltage transmission lines, radar equipment and broadcasting and rebroadcasting transmitters, including cellular phone base stations and shall set down the recommended safety distances for use'. Such recommendations should be 'displayed on the product concerned, paying particular attention - because of the proximity and length of exposure involved - to mobile telephones'.
<P>
These measures have to be taken immediately and the process of monitoring should thereafter be continuous.
All of us would wish to see by 2001 - not in four or five years' time or ten years' time but within the space of 18 months - a further review of the safety measures used and of these instruments themselves.
There are widespread public misgivings.
There are a number of studies now which begin to suggest further cause for concern.
When we referred this matter to Dr Michael Repacholi who carried out one of the original studies in Australia on the possible inducing of cancer in rats, he said that he believed that the standards now set down on the WHO guidelines were sufficient.
<P>
However, I believe we should further monitor this situation in the interests of the public, consumers and public safety generally.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Trakatellis">
Mr President, the Commission's proposal for a recommendation on limiting exposure of the general public to electromagnetic fields concerns all European Union citizens, as this form of radiation has entered all of our lives.
<P>
Our concern stems from the significant increase in the environment of non-ionising electromagnetic radiation. This increase varies from region to region depending on the proliferation of sources such as railways, tram lines, electricity lines, electrical appliances, broadcasting transmitters, mobile telephones, radar and so on.
We must find an answer to the question of the extent to which public health is safeguarded from the effects of increased exposure to electromagnetic fields, because we do not have conclusive scientific evidence to establish the existence of any long-term harmful effects of these fields on our health.
Consequently, the international scientific community is quite rightly investigating and studying these effects.
<P>
The European Parliament, adhering to the precautionary principle, was the first body to request the Commission, in 1994, to put in place legislation and standards to limit exposure to non-ionising radiation and to undertake actions, studies and research into the impact of electromagnetic fields on living organisms and especially on human beings.
<P>
The Commission proposal attempts to fill the legislative gap that exists in the European Union on this issue.
In addition, because some Member States have already introduced the appropriate legislation, the Commission proposal aims to define common principles at a Community level so as to avoid the introduction of non-homogeneous legal frameworks.
<P>
Further improvements were made to the proposal in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
Amendment No 2 calls for compliance with the precautionary principle and the principle of preventive action as well as the principle of keeping exposure to radiation as low as reasonably achievable, as defined by the World Health Organisation.
The Community framework must be uniform and binding in order to protect the general public. It would have been preferable if a different form of legal instrument had been chosen which would be more binding than a recommendation, that is, a regulation, directive or decision, as Parliament had requested.
<P>
We believe that the recommendation we are debating must be reviewed at fixed intervals in the light of experience that is gained and that it must be readjusted on the basis of the results of scientific studies.
A system to monitor appliances which create electromagnetic fields must also be put in place, at the latest by 1 January 2001.
<P>
Finally, it is necessary to disseminate information and to inform the general public, as well as to promote research to examine in depth the long-term effects of electromagnetic fields on health.
<P>
The recommendation we are examining is a positive first step towards protecting the people of Europe and we believe that its implementation will give rise to substantive observations which may lead to further improvements being made to the legislation aimed at protecting the general public from exposure to electromagnetic fields.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="President">
We shall adjourn the debate at this point for voting time.
It will be resumed at 3 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Guinebertière">
Madam President, Amendment No 1 tabled by the Europe of Nations Group states that 'young people still consider the family as their main reference framework'. I would like to amend this orally to read 'young people still consider the family as part of their main reference framework'.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Buffetaut">
Madam President, we have no objection to this oral amendment. We accept it.
I would just mention that in our amendment we merely followed Mrs Hermange's wording.
<P>
Parliament adopted the resolution
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Lulling">
Madam President, in yesterday's debate I ended my introduction by asking the Commission to give a clear and firm commitment, before the vote on the legislative proposal, to accept the two paragraphs of our draft legislative resolution.
<P>
First there is the paragraph inviting the Commission to withdraw its proposal.
We are sorry to hear from Mrs Gradin that Mr Flynn cannot be here, but she has explained that he intended to propose withdrawing the proposal to amend the 1976 directive.
I do not know whether that formula is to do with the internal organisation of the Commission.
Is Mr Flynn required to propose withdrawal of the proposal to the Commission, which we know to be a college after all the debates we have had on the subject?
If he does so, can we be sure the college will back him?
It is very important for us to know that.
If the Commission had told us it was withdrawing the proposal, that would have been fine.
But it is telling us it is going to propose - I do not know to whom, to itself, I suppose - to withdraw the proposal to amend the 1976 directive, which we consider dangerous for positive action, and I want to know whether the Commission is effectively going to withdraw this proposal. Is it going to back Mr Flynn?
<P>
Secondly, ...
<P>
Mixed reactions
<P>
I am sorry, but this is very important.
You may think issues of equal opportunity for men and women do not matter much. Well, I want to point out to the male majority here that they will soon need positive action too, because the professions are becoming more predominantly female.
In my country there are hardly any male teachers in primary schools and hardly any male magistrates left.
So positive action is not just for women. It is for under-represented sexes and you will soon be an under-represented sex.
So you need to realise that positive action is for you as well.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="President">
Mrs Lulling, I think that Commissioner Pinheiro has heard you loud and clear and that he will be able to enlighten us not on the state of mind of Mr Flynn, but simply as to whether, in accordance with Rule 59, the Commission will or will not withdraw its proposal for a directive.
I would therefore ask Mr Pinheiro to enlighten us, if he can, on this specific point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Pinheiro">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am able to announce that the Commission will be withdrawing its proposal as requested by the Committee on Women's Rights.
I am also able to tell you that my colleague, Mr Flynn, intends to legislate under Article 141 and will obviously do so in a spirit of greater cooperation with the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Lulling">
Madam President, in that case we will trust the Commission to withdraw its proposal and put forward a proposal for a directive on the basis of Article 141.
Mrs Gradin still had some qualms and reservations but we now think this proposal for a directive will come to us on the basis of Article 141.
I can therefore propose that Parliament vote not on the three articles, but on the draft legislative resolution as a whole.
<P>
Parliament adopted the legislative resolution
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Eriksson">
Madam President, in the Swedish version of Amendment No 4 there is an unfortunate mistake.
It reads 'uppmanar medlemsstaterna att ... under vissa omständigheter ... '
We have requested that these last three words 'under certain conditions' should be deleted.
It is therefore very odd that the original text has been retained in this amendment.
I would like to draw this to the attention of all Swedish Members.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="President">
We shall see.
If the amendment is adopted, then of course we will make the correction.
We shall take care to do that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Madam President, this is very important. The French text states that Parliament calls on the Member States to legalise induced abortion 'under certain conditions', and we are asking for a separate vote on the phrase 'under certain conditions'.
The English text has 'in certain circumstances', which is quite different.
There is a difference between 'in certain circumstances' and 'under certain conditions'.
The authentic text is 'under certain conditions'.
That needs to be made very clear.
Obviously we do not want to legalise abortion wholesale, without conditions, at least not in my group.
So it has to be 'under certain conditions'.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="President">
Normally, the version deemed authentic is that in the language of the rapporteur, who is Mrs Hautala, unless she drew up her original text in a language other than Finnish.
We shall of course carry out a check, when the vote has taken place, so that everything is brought into line with the original text.
<P>
Parliament adopted the resolution
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Souchet">
The equilibrium of the societies of Europe rests in large part on the preservation and development of a culture composed of diversity, on the vitality of our remarkably rich languages and, as a corollary, on the rejection of uniformity.
The audiovisual sector plays an essential role in this regard.
<P>
The present draft decision seeks to define more precisely the industry, the various audiovisual markets and related sectors, and to get a better idea of its components and the way they are evolving, by establishing an appropriate statistical information infrastructure. This is a useful exercise.
<P>
Members of the Europe of Nations Group are therefore in favour of this decision, provided certain amendments are adopted.
The 'relevance' of these statistics needs to be monitored and the statistical data must be collected in the light of a 'need to know' for businesses, but also to manage policies in the sector.
So Eurostat should at least look at employment levels and trends, qualification requirements, and age distribution for this sector, which would give some insight into the policies undertaken at both European and national levels.
<P>
It is vital not to forget the essential role of the SMEs in this sector.
Too often, when it is mentioned, the need for concentration is highlighted.
But business in the audiovisual sector is essentially done by small and medium-sized enterprises.
<P>
So policy must support these SMEs, and there is also the advantage that they are distributed right across the entire territory of the Member States of the European Union.
<P>
Finally, I want to mention that these SMEs will only be able to develop through cooperation at European level and real subsidiarity benefiting Member States and respecting their autonomous policies, taking account of the impact and influence of their national languages as well as their individual cultural diversity.
That is the only way to avoid another type of uniformity, which would not respect the specificity and diversity of our European culture.
<P>
Anttila report (A4-0073/99)
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We have voted against the report for the following reasons:
<P>
1.Negotiations between the governments on the reform of agricultural policy are still in progress and will be resumed today.
There is no reason for Parliament to comment on individual sections of agricultural policy in the current situation.2.Special decisions which benefit some Members States pose a threat to the reform process as a whole.3.Parliament should not make pronouncements on increased assistance for some countries when the objective is to lessen the heavy burden imposed on the Union's agricultural policy.
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="des Places">
The Europe of Nations Group naturally recognises the specific features of arctic agriculture and the significance of the fact that more than 30 different ecosystems have been identified across the Member States of the European Union.
<P>
As the CAP's name indicates, it is a common policy.
That is why the Europe of Nations Group opposes paragraphs 3 and 7 of the rapporteur's resolution.
In fact, a specific regional agricultural policy for the agriculture of the arctic regions is being proposed.
<P>
While it might be possible for us to consider incorporating specific products, such as reindeer, into an existing COM, for example the COM in beef, we should not use the excuse of a specific ecosystem to replace a common agricultural policy with 30 specific agricultural policies.
<P>
The regional aspects of the CAP must be recognised in both rural development policy and regional policy.
I would emphasise that the sub-arctic regions are currently part of Objective 6 and have been incorporated into the new Objective 1 under Agenda 2000.
<P>
So these regions benefit now, and will continue to benefit in the future, from specific and significant support to compensate for the higher costs inherent in the ecosystem.
I would remind you that, in the context of regional policy for this region, Community subsidies amount to 75 % of the total cost of structural investment.
<P>
Consequently, as paragraphs 3 and 7 were adopted, our group voted against the resolution in the final vote.
<P>
After the drive by some people to 'break' the CAP by incorporating the principle of cofinancing, a principle which is contrary to the Treaty and the specific status of compulsory expenditure, others are now hoping to damage the CAP by trying to regionalise it on the basis of specific ecosystems.
<P>
Members of our group are attached to the CAP which has been one of the fundamental bases of the construction of Europe as enshrined in the Treaty of Rome.
It is surprising that those who defend an integrated and federal Europe should be destroying the only genuine common policy apart from the common fisheries policy.
<P>
Katiforis report (A4-0090/99)
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Palm and Theorin">
In this report, the rapporteur describes the future harmonisation of taxes and tax systems.
Through this explanation of vote, we wish to make it clear that taxation is a national responsibility and therefore does not come within the EU's field of competence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Souchet">
Members of the Europe of Nations Group are particularly interested in small and medium-sized enterprises. They are a central factor in development and the keystone of employment in European Union countries.
In the European Union 99 % of companies have fewer than 250 employees and they represent 66 % of total employment.
Almost all of them contributed to net job creation during the period 1988-1995.
<P>
At some stage in their development all SMEs experience problems arising from their weak capital resources.
So risk capital needs to be developed.
If we take the United States as an example, of seven million jobs created in that country between 1991 and 1995, six million were the result of new SMEs starting up.
Some of them have become large companies, even world leaders, in the high-technology sector.
<P>
In the United States it is easy for an SME to obtain access to risk capital.
Things are very different today in European Union countries, where SMEs with competitive advantages in terms of high technology are penalised in this respect.
<P>
So entrepreneurs must be able to access start-up capital, then intermediate and development capital as the company expands, and, finally, they must be able to access institutional and private investors supported by a sizeable European financial market.
<P>
At Community level, the absence of legislation on venture capital funds is an obstacle to the operation of the market.
Existing Community financial regulations are too fragmented and are lacking in terms of both readability and consistency.
We might do well here to draw on the experience of the United States, which created a national control body - the Security and Exchange Commission - by establishing a regulatory body responsible for harmonising the provisions of national regulations so as to allow secondary financial markets to develop.
<P>
In addition to the finance that venture capitalists can mobilise, there is also a vital need for mentorship in terms of management.
Finance and mentorship should go hand in hand.
A simple but effective way for the investor to reduce risk is to be directly or indirectly involved in the daily management of his or her investment and to give the entrepreneur real support.
<P>
But the Europe of Nations Group would like to highlight the contradiction we face.
We are all aware of the role of SMEs, and we often boast of their economic success and the major role they play in creating jobs, but when we are dealing with environmental standards, technical standards and administrative measures, the majority in our Parliament does not pay enough attention to the concerns of entrepreneurs and their special responsibilities. Entrepreneurs take major risks with few guarantees, either in terms of welfare payments and or in terms of retaining their family property.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Wibe">
I agree with most of what is said in the report, but not however that it is the 'fragmentation of capital markets across Europe' which is responsible for the shortage of risk capital.
Fragmentation itself probably has very little to do with the availability of capital.
<P>
However, my main objection is that, to my way of thinking, the principle reason for the major shortage in terms of small businesses in the European Union is low demand rather than the availability of capital.
If demand were to increase, so too would risk capital, regardless of whether the markets are fragmented or not.
<P>
I also object to the numerous references to tax harmonisation.
This has nothing to do with the subject under discussion and is simply an expression of a desire to create a federal Europe.
The report would have been better without such intellectual ballast.
<P>
Newman report (A4-0093/99)
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Hager">
The non-attached Members welcome on principle all measures and steps taken both in the EU and in the Member States to combat money laundering.
Accordingly we have voted for most of the paragraphs.
But we have rejected the report as a whole because we believe that the proceedings instituted against Austria in relation to the Austrian savings accounts are exaggerated and go beyond the actual purpose of combating money laundering.
<P>
Vaz da Silva report (A4-0103/99)
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Vaz da Silva">
A long process of contacts and consultations with the arts world in a good many European countries (not just the 15 Member States) is coming to a close.
<P>
The ground had barely been explored previously.
Not even the Member States seem to be aware of the potential contribution by their artists to their own quality of life and nor do the artists themselves seem eager to emerge from their own circles and discover other practices and other countries.
Not only are the various national laws on the status of artists diverse and incomplete, but also the Member States have not made the slightest effort to work together to make it easier for artists, their works and productions to circulate.
At least now an attempt has been made to pinpoint the problems and outline possible approaches for political action in the future.
<P>
By taking the initiative to produce this report, the Committee on Culture set out to equip the European institutions - at the vital moment of enlargement and the definition of a new political and financial framework - with a political instrument that will have a huge impact if only they know how to use it.
<P>
An ongoing coordinated policy supporting and promoting artistic creation and education may be the missing factor needed by European society to make the leap into the 21st century.
The fight against violence and exclusion relies upon it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Wibe">
This report contains a number of excellent points.
However, I cannot agree with those sections, of which there are a considerable number, that call for 'an approximation of social and fiscal laws' (in order to accommodate artists!), as in paragraph 16, for example.
Nor am I particularly impressed by the suggestion in paragraph 11 that artists should be given a 'European card' which would give them certain fringe benefits, or that we should devise new forms of funding for art 'at European level' (paragraph 8).
And I am not convinced that 'tax benefits for sponsors' is a wise move, as proposed in paragraph 17.
<P>
Consequently, the report's federalist tendencies and its belief in the value of tax benefits (especially for wealthy sponsors) go a little too far for my taste.
<P>
Guinebertière report (A4-0100/99)
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Darras">
This report by Mrs Guinebertière, as amended by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, lays the foundations of a genuine integrated and comprehensive youth policy.
Community cooperation policy for youth has undeniably achieved a great deal in terms of education, vocational training and exchanges through the Socrates, Leonardo and Youth for Europe programmes (and we should add the European voluntary service initiative to that). But these achievements are still not enough to meet the specific needs of young people.
Highlighting the need for education and training for all, however essential that may be, is not sufficient to create a youth policy.
Complementary issues need to be considered, such as creativity, civic education, learning about tolerance and democracy, health and housing.
<P>
Our rapporteur sets out these objectives very clearly, while respecting the necessary complementarity and added value that Europe brings to the 'plinth' formed by the Member States.
Hence her appeal to the Member States to draw up 'national plans for young people', similar to those they drew up for employment.
The Commission's role, after evaluating the national youth policies, is to disseminate information about best practice and the most successful examples within the European Union.
All of this can assist the creation of innovative projects, by and for young people, and encourage young people's spirit of enterprise.
<P>
Youth policy at Union level must be designed to pay greater attention to young people and involve them more in decisions through youth groups. I will therefore be voting for this report, which gives us an overall view of what that European policy might be at the dawn of the 21st century.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Wibe">
The aim of the report is praiseworthy.
However, its federalist tendencies are rather too pronounced.
For example, it advocates a 'comprehensive European youth policy', the 'integration of young people in the Union', the 'active use of European citizenship', the 'coordination of youth policy at European level', the creation of an EU 'information policy aimed specifically at young people' and recommends that the Commission should establish 'a 'Youth' Internet site... administered on the basis of Europa'.
<P>
Personally, I am convinced that it would be much better to devise a youth policy that was not constrained by this eternal striving after a federal Europe.
<P>
Corrie report (A4-0065/99)
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Souchet">
The Europe of Nations Group has voted in favour of Mr Corrie's report.
This document reflects our group's main concerns about the future of the ACP-EU link.
<P>
ACP-EU cooperation has proved its effectiveness, and is an indispensable instrument of multilateral cooperation for the EU and the countries of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, yet it is under unprecedented attack, putting its survival at risk.
<P>
Predictability and confidence are central to this instrument. The fear is, unfortunately, that these factors are being undermined by the continuous attacks to which it is being subjected by those whose view of the new world order includes no regulation other than that of markets and competition.
<P>
In this context, the ACP-EU Joint Assembly more than ever constitutes an essential forum where the people and their elected representatives can express their real needs and be heard.
It is also the place to reflect on the long-term future of North-South relations.
<P>
The Joint Assembly is also playing a central role in the negotiations for the next Lomé Convention.
In particular, it has spoken out on several occasions in favour of giving greater consideration to the legitimate interests of developing countries in the world economic order.
Since 1995 it has been expressing alarm at the negative consequences the Marrakesh Agreements were bound to have on the very existence of preferential tariffs.
<P>
The Lomé Convention is an exemplary instrument of North-South cooperation. It must certainly adapt to the progressive diversification of ACP countries and, in particular, to the development of the African private sector, as the President of the OAU, Mr Blaise Compaoré, rightly stressed this morning in this Chamber.
In this era of globalisation it is as relevant as ever. The Lomé system must be renewed and strengthened, not weakened in the name of a free trade ideology that is irresponsible and is prepared to expose countries with fragile societies and budding economies to excessive competitive shocks which would have destabilising and destructive effects on them.
<P>
Lüttge report (A4-0057/99)
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Souchet">
The Helsinki Conference, held from 23 to 25 June 1997, brought together representatives of European governments and parliaments, European Union institutions and intergovernmental organisations, trade unions and employer associations, and financial institutions, representing 51 different countries in all.
<P>
The Europe of Nations Group very much welcomes this cooperation to promote a pan-European transport policy based on a partnership among the main actors involved, the states first and foremost.
<P>
The first such conference only took place in 1991, in Prague, and it opened the way for the first steps towards a common transport policy between countries bordering on the European Union and its Member States.
<P>
Three working groups were set up in 1994 at the Crete Conference: Transport and Market Economy, Transport Infrastructure and Financing, and Horizon 2000 (intermodal transport, new technologies, safety and environmental protection).
For the first time, a special link was established with the Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs).
<P>
Finally, the third conference, which was held in Helsinki, introduced long-term promotion of transport systems which are efficient, respect the environment, and can meet the economic, social, environmental and safety requirements of the public and of businesses.
It was also necessary to reduce regional disparities and equip the European economy to compete on world markets.
That is why principles of interoperability, subsidiarity, transparency in decision making and non-discriminatory cooperation were established at all levels and between all the parties and groups involved in the transport sector.
<P>
The aim of the decisions adopted in Helsinki is to implement the following measures:
<P>
approximation of safety and environmental legislation; -progressive liberalisation of transport markets; -development of intermodality; -development of infrastructure at pan-European level; -creation of a Europe-wide network partnership; -promotion of public passenger transport; -application of intelligent transport systems; -more research and development activities in the transport sector; -internalisation of external costs; -facilitation of transit; -cooperation in the field of data collection.The success of the Helsinki Conference again demonstrates the effectiveness of the cooperation method.
By adopting a group of measures which define the framework for developing the pan-European networks, the Member States of the European Union and their neighbours have developed a useful and practical dossier that is essential to the future of our continent: Europe rediscovered and reunited.
<P>
Cabrol report (A4-0078/99)
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Souchet">
In the course of the last few decades, the pharmaceutical industry has made great progress, increasing life expectancy and eliminating a number of diseases.
<P>
Alongside very widespread and well-known diseases, there are a whole series of diseases which affect only a limited number of patients. Some 5 000 diseases of this kind have been identified.
However, pharmaceutical research and development is so expensive that the industry is not inclined to develop medicinal products for the treatment of these diseases.
With such a limited market, the industry cannot make a profit on the cost of developing these treatments, hence the term 'orphan' medicinal products.
So incentives need to be established to encourage the industry to develop this type of medicinal product to help sufferers not only in the European Union but throughout the world, certainly including developing countries.
<P>
The aim of the Commission's proposal is to establish a Community procedure for designating orphan medicinal products and to provide incentives for related research, development and marketing, in particular by granting exclusive marketing rights for ten years.
<P>
While the Europe of Nations Group certainly applauds this initiative from the Commission, because it is an example of real cooperation between Member States where a larger market facilitates costly research, we do find it regrettable and unacceptable that the process has been so slow.
This proposal for a regulation was actually included in the Commission's 1997 programme.
Apart from the fact that it has taken nearly two years to present this proposal for a regulation, we have to recognise that an incentive system for developing orphan medicinal products has existed in the United States since 1983.
A comparable system was introduced in Japan in 1995, Singapore in 1997 and Australia in 1998.
<P>
Areas vital to the health of Europeans certainly ought to be prioritised for intensified action and initiative by the European Union.
<P>
The Europe of Nations Group has voted for the amendments supported by the rapporteur, Professor Cabrol.
We hope the process will be completed rapidly, because we all know it is necessary to act quickly where public health is concerned.
The European pharmaceutical industry can take advantage of this type of programme to develop new medicinal products more easily, thus helping to boost the level of research and enhance its reputation.
<P>
Lulling report (A4-0038/99)
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Deprez">
The slogan is 'Equal pay for equal work'.
But there is many a slip 'twixt cup and lip, as shown by the difficulty of actually obtaining truly equal treatment between men and women in terms of access to employment and vocational training.
There are many reasons for this, several of them involving the persistence of stereotypes prejudicial to women who work.
<P>
Equal treatment is a very important issue.
Parliament has demonstrated its great interest in this area on a number of occasions.
But the debate we are holding today seems to be outdated, for two reasons.
The first is that the ruling of the Court of Justice in the Marschall case has made it broadly possible to clarify the meaning of its ruling in the Kalanke case.
Secondly, under the Amsterdam Treaty, equal opportunities policy is a Community mission, and political and objective equality is a collective right.
In addition, it provides a strengthened legal basis for positive action in the future.
<P>
There is no longer any point to the Commission's proposal to amend Directive 76/207/EEC following the Kalanke ruling.
So I agree with the rapporteur.
We should reject the Commission's proposal and invite it to prepare a new proposal for a directive which takes account of the new factors which have since arisen.
<P>
Second Hautala report (A4-0029/99)
<SPEAKER ID=86 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Madam President, I voted against the Hautala report, or rather against all the amendments except those tabled by the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, out of inner conviction.
As Christians we cannot pronounce against life and the unborn child is just as alive as the child that has been born.
This is something we find quite simply intolerable, which is why I voted against out of my innermost conviction.
Today we are in the minority.
Perhaps we will be in the majority one day, for in the long term this situation will be a great disaster for our population.
Let me also say that I am not against women, for whom I have infinite respect.
I have seven children and 18 grandchildren.
So you can imagine how much I respect my wife. All I want to say here is that this is precisely why I voted against the Hautala report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Cushnahan">
Madam President, there are many aspects of this report which I support because it addresses serious problems in relation to women's health.
However, I cannot support the reference to abortion.
The European Union has absolutely no competence in this area.
It cannot interfere in the policy of individual Member States in this sensitive area, nor, I believe, would it wish to do so.
This is formally stated in the Treaties in reference to public policy, which is reserved exclusively for the Member States.
Member States have an absolute right to legislate in matters of public policy.
<P>
As far as my own personal position is concerned, I have voted in accordance with my own conscience, which is that I am opposed to abortion.
However, just as I am guided by my own conscience, I do not presume to pass judgement on how other people will act in relation to their own consciences and in very difficult circumstances.
<P>
I have also supported paragraph 10, simply because if one wants to reduce the number of abortions, one should recognise the right of individuals to avail of counselling about sex education, including counselling about responsibilities in relationships and information about contraception.
I was guided by these particular principles when I voted on this important report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Madam President, I greatly regret that the Hautala report was debated yesterday, on International Women's Day, because I do not believe it really contributes to the dignity and honour of women; it is in fact a disgrace.
<P>
It is surely rather curious for a report on women's health to call for the alleged right to abortion.
For me, health policy means saving lives and not destroying them.
If a report on women's health does refer to abortion in the first place, then in my view there should also be some discussion of the effects of post-abortion syndrome.
But the harmful psychological effects that abortions have on women are deliberately and constantly concealed.
<P>
Pregnancy is not an illness!
It is absurd to posit a so-called women's right to go against the right to life, which applies to everyone.
Demands of this kind abuse the dignity of women and create a culture of death, which in the final analysis rebounds against women and harms them.
For these reasons I had to vote against the Hautala report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw, Palm, Sandberg-Fries, Theorin and Wibe">
This excellent report throws some more light on gender-related health issues.
Furthermore, the report contains a number of specific ideas which should lead to a breakthrough as regards the status of gender in health.
<P>
However, there is one issue, outlined in paragraph 11, which clearly detracts from the report's otherwise good intentions.
Entitlement to free abortions equates with women having the right to manage their lives and make decisions about their own bodies.
It should always be the woman's choice as to whether she wishes to terminate her pregnancy.
Every day, 500 women die from the complications that arise as a result of illegal and risky abortions.
The only way to deal with the problem is to give women access to contraceptives and safe, legal abortions.
In our view, the right to free abortions should be unconditional.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Bonde, Lis Jensen, Krarup and Sandbæk">
Generally speaking, we think that Mrs Hautala's report on the state of women's health is a good one.
It points out some of the illnesses faced by women and also puts forward some proposals about how certain policies could be adapted so that consideration is given to women's special needs.
However, we have problems with some parts of the report, for example the sections where the Commission is called upon to ensure that regular check-ups for breast and uterine cancer are free and repeated at intervals, where attention is drawn to the benefits and side-effects of hormone replacement therapy in connection with menstruation problems, and where the demand is made for the sexual rights of women to be safeguarded.
We believe that these are matters which should be dealt with by the Member States.
However, we can fully support these measures, as long as they are carried out at national level.
<P>
On the basis of the above considerations, we have decided not to vote against the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Buffetaut">
By means of the Hautala report the European Parliament has expressed its legitimate interest in the state of women's health in the Community.
Given the stresses of contemporary society and the increasing responsibilities women rightly have within it, it is important to recognise in this way the specific health problems women are facing, or are liable to face.
<P>
Unfortunately, the Committee on Women's Rights and the European Parliament thought fit to include abortion in the list of problems.
<P>
In chairing the meeting, Mrs Fontaine herself recognised that this was a 'sensitive' issue.
Is it right that the life of a child in its mother's womb should be dealt with surreptitiously, as one point among so many others, in a report examined between a request for waiver of immunity and a communication from the Commission?
There is no easy answer to the painful issue of abortion.
Respect for all life should make us act responsibly when faced with the distress some mothers suffer, as well as welcoming life which only women have the joy of giving, though not without the intervention of a man; this is a fact that we must unfortunately point out, since the affirmation of women's rights can lead to the rights - and duties - of fathers being overlooked.
At any rate, this subject should at least be dealt with more objectively and seriously than has been the case today.
<P>
Finally, I am sorry to find some on the left applauding this text, just as they applaud the liberalisation of the 'drug market' or the recognition of euthanasia, seeing this as progress in our society while in fact only a terrible culture of death is gaining ground. I am equally sorry to find some on the right again showing disdain for convictions so often proclaimed ... in the corridors.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Caudron">
What emerges from Mrs Hautala's report is that men and women are not equal when it comes to illness.
This means a specific health policy for each sex is absolutely essential.
<P>
The report deals with work by the European Commission which takes account of this requirement for the first time.
That can only be a source of satisfaction.
The European Commission must continue to forge ahead, paying special attention to the problem of women's health in its new action programme on health.
<P>
Some health problems concern only, or mainly, women.
Specific measures are therefore needed.
I would also like to highlight the new eating disorders which are wreaking havoc among adolescents.
It is deplorable that the European Commission's report does not give them higher priority.
<P>
Women live five years longer than men on average and are more affected by physical and psychological problems linked to ageing.
As a member of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, I would like to mention that the fifth framework programme provides funding for research to meet the challenge of ageing population.
<P>
Finally, we must take account of the fact that unemployment, which is more frequent amongst women, job insecurity and poor social security cover have repercussions on women's health.
It is well known that health care is virtually a luxury for people with limited means.
That is absolutely intolerable.
<P>
So we must implement a global approach that includes both a specific health policy for women and employment and social security policies which incorporate a health dimension.
<P>
I will conclude by giving the rapporteur my full support on making domestic violence against women a criminal offence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Deprez">
We naturally welcome the fact that the Commission has chosen the state of women's health as the subject of its first specific report.
Too often, in fact, the issue of health is approached globally, disregarding the specific needs of each sex.
So I fully support the demand for regular assessment of the gender impact in all health budgets, programmes and projects.
<P>
I think it is particularly important to emphasise how much the state of women's health may depend not on the specific physiology of their sex but on socio-economic disparities that are objectively quantifiable and verifiable. Member States need to recognise this and remedy the situation by means of appropriate policies and measures.
<P>
Domestic violence - including marital rape and sexual mutilation - also constitutes a particularly worrying attack on women's health and we need to put maximum effort into combating it.
In fact this must be a fundamental dimension of Community-funded campaigns for combating violence against women.
<P>
In the same spirit, I share the rapporteur's conviction that Member States must implement all necessary measures, including criminal prosecution, to eradicate this evil and help the women who are victims of it.
<P>
In conclusion, and more generally, I want to stress the importance of prevention as a means of fighting early deterioration of health in general, and the consequent importance of the kind of society we want for ourselves and our children.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Kristoffersen">
As a Danish Conservative, I have abstained from voting on this report because in principle I take the view that the subject primarily concerns matters which should be decided by each of the Member States individually.
If the principle of subsidiarity is to have any meaning, it must be applied to matters of this nature.
I am thinking here, amongst other things, of issues such as the law on abortion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Lindqvist">
Every woman should have the right to decide under national legislation.
It is the women themselves who should decide whether or not to have an abortion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Vaz da Silva">
Every year on 8 March demonstrations are held and statements made in support of sexual equality but it cannot be repeated often enough that if society is not involved in that process there is little that legislation can do to ensure that women's representation in public life matches their demographic importance.
What are the prerequisites guaranteeing that laws - where they exist and are good - are effective?
<P>
We need:
<P>
a society that gives women the freedom to make vital choices.
In other words: creches, school help, home help, medical help, shop opening hours, flexible working arrangements, teleworking, etc.-education, from an early age, in equality and peace.
In other words: teacher training and curricular reforms from kindergarten level onwards so that from an early age tomorrow's men and women can build different relationships with each other and with the world around them, excluding violence from their daily lives.Female involvement in public responsibilities is necessary for a healthy democracy, but it needs to be done not against men or despite men but always with them.
The notion of quotas is a last resort and a subject that mainly comes up at election time, but it is a solution that I shall never support because women are not a minority in need of protection.
What they do need is positive discrimination in the work place to enable them to come up to the level corresponding to the 52 % of the population that they represent.
<P>
I am confident that the Daphne programme will develop a coordinated policy between the Member States to promote public recognition for the role of women and I hope that my country will finally take the basic measures necessary to deal with the under-representation of women in decision-making posts. I also hope that we will not get bogged down in the argument over quotas and laws that are never implemented simply because the culture of equality needed to support them has yet to be created.
<P>
Eriksson report (A4-0072/99)
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Darras">
The rapporteur starts by observing that the Beijing Conference, the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Commission communication of February 1996, the Luxembourg European Council in 1997 and the Cardiff summit in June 1998 have all stressed the need to ensure equal opportunities for men and women.
<P>
This involves bringing about fundamental changes of both an external and internal nature to and in the existing institutions.
'Quite simply, what is involved is a power struggle. A redistribution which is as difficult for those with power to accept as the struggle to redistribute economic resources from the haves to the have-nots.'
<P>
This objective requires a comprehensive approach to policy making and the mobilisation of all policy actors.
It involves a systematic rather than an individual approach, which is why the rapporteur is calling on the Commission to develop an evaluation method to identify the impact of all Community policies and measures on gender equality.
She also asks for gender relevant statistics and for the Member States to act in a similar manner.
<P>
The rapporteur also calls on the Commission to identify the circumstances and reasons why, for equal work, women are valued lower than men in terms of pay.
In addition, she gives specific examples of how to promote gender equality in various policy fields, in particular by setting aside a percentage of the Structural Funds for measures specifically for women or by treating social services which provide child care and care for the elderly as infrastructural requirements.
Similarly, in public contracting, tenders should indicate how many jobs per year the project will create and how these jobs will be divided between women and men, and so on.
<P>
Finally, the rapporteur calls for a working party to be set up between Parliament and the Commission to promote the objective of equality in all spheres of activity of the institutions.
There are therefore plenty of reasons to vote for this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Delcroix">

Mrs Eriksson's report is intended to follow up the communication on 'Incorporating equal opportunities for women and men into all Community policies and activities'.
As may be expected, this involves underlining the current shortcomings and the subsequent requirements.
The rapporteur's requests include the following: an evaluation method to identify the impact of the measures taken; the implementation by the Member States of the recommendation on the balanced participation of women and men in the decision-making process; the identification by the Commission of the reasons why women with equivalent qualifications are valued lower than men in terms of pay, and the setting up of a working party between Parliament and the Commission to promote the objective of equality between women and men in all spheres of activity of the institutions.
<P>
Mrs Lulling's report on the 'proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 76/207/EEC on the implementation of the principle of equal treatment for men and women as regards access to employment, vocational training and promotion, and working conditions' is radical, and rightly so.
It rejects the Commission proposal which is based on the European Court of Justice ruling on the Kalanke case and it calls for a new proposal for a directive based instead on the Treaty of Amsterdam and on recognition of the collective nature of the positive action measures needed in order to achieve equal treatment and opportunities for men and women.
<P>
On the basis of the Kalanke and Marschall rulings, the rapporteur rightly concludes that 'only rigid, inflexible and automatic positive discrimination granting the absolute and unconditional right to appoint or promote women where they are under-represented would be incompatible with Community law'.
<P>
She consequently calls on the Commission to await the ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam which requires the Community to eliminate all inequalities and to promote equality between men and women and which allows Member States to maintain and adopt positive action measures in favour of the under-represented sex.
The Commission must withdraw its now outdated proposal and present a new directive which clearly must be based on the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Only constant vigilance on our part to ensure that our equality requirements become reality will allow us to fight against the ever-prevalent spirit of conservatism.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Deprez">
To a certain extent, ensuring equal opportunities for men and women is like trying to attain the unattainable.
<P>
However, equal opportunities cannot just remain an ideal but must become an objective which must be achieved.
In this respect, we welcome the fact that this objective was incorporated into the European employment strategy, as agreed in Luxembourg in November 1997, and that the Vienna European Council called on the Member States to make tangible progress on this issue.
<P>
We clearly have a long way to go to achieve real equality as so many sexist prejudices and attitudes are still so ingrained in us and in our actions that we are not even aware of their profoundly discriminatory nature.
<P>
Without underestimating the extent and difficulty of an evaluation task which is uniquely complicated by the diversity of our cultures and traditions, I share the rapporteur's belief that the Commission must strive to define accurate indicators and common criteria which will enable the progress made in equal opportunities to be regularly evaluated. This work must be based on specific objectives and clear and predefined accountability mechanisms.
<P>
To change society is an ambitious objective and we must therefore firstly make sure that our own 'house' is in order.
This is why I totally support the rapporteur's proposal calling on Parliament and its political groups to take certain initiatives to effectively promote genuine equal opportunities for men and women within the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Martinez">
Yesterday was International Women's Day.
We all know that the future of society depends on women and so everyone is in favour of equality, parity and justice.
<P>
The situation in India is appalling as 50 million women are missing because they are eliminated right from the stage of conception.
<P>
Yet this legitimate defence of dignity, equality and freedom is hypocritical!
<P>
How can Europe allow the immigration of Jews, Muslims and those with diminished legal status while defending the rights of women enslaved by countries, religions and 'civilisations' supported by us?
<P>
In Belgrade, we are threatening to bomb a people who refuse to hand over the region of Kosovo to a culture which practises concealment and confinement.
In Baghdad, we are bombing a secular people where the women teach and work, and yet we are supporting the interests of countries where women are veiled, confined and demeaned.
<P>
You should realise that the defence of women is simply rhetoric when not confirmed by the facts.
<P>
But it gets worse. Are we really sure that blatant injustice is based on gender rather than society?
Are women marginalised because they are women or because they are members of a disadvantaged social group?
When Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister of India, it is well known that women were not victimised among the Brahmins.
It was among the poor, the untouchables and the working class that women were victimised.
<P>
This is the cynical part of the Left's feminist rhetoric as it uses gender to classify discriminations which are actually social.
It is not because she is a woman that the female worker in the textile industry is in a sorry situation, it is because she is working class.
<P>
What is appalling is not so much that the number of women in parliament is small but that the number of working-class women, female employees, women who are socially of low birth and women of modest income is played down.
Where is the progress in replacing a male MP from the upper middle classes with his privileged wife, sister or daughter?
This is even more pertinent given that those supervising the political leadership will always replace elected males from modest backgrounds with elected females from privileged backgrounds.
<P>
What a deception the Left is practising!
It is forgetting its working-class roots.
It is forgetting the poor, the disadvantaged and the marginalised in order to protect one more advantage of the social category which already has everything, even a clear conscience.
<P>
We have already had to suffer the anti-racist rhetoric which would have us believe that social discrimination is based on colour. In fact, the basis of racism is social.
The top universities, the highest circles, the magical places of power are not closed to blacks or to women, but to the poor.
<P>
From now on we will have to suffer even more of the anti-patriarchal rhetoric of Mrs Eriksson in particular and of the Scandinavians in general or of Swedes.
It was in Sweden under a Socialist government that 60 000 women from modest backgrounds were sterilised. The descendants of that government are here today claiming to be defenders of freedom and dignity.
<P>
The revolution in our societies will not occur by changing the sexual order as this is only a reflection of other greater inequalities.
Now and in the future, the revolution to prevent actions which injure, humiliate and destroy will occur by changing the social inequalities which Europe has simply aggravated.
The fate of the poorest, of those at the bottom of the wage, income and asset scales, still depends on the goodwill of those at the top of the tree.
<P>
This is what is appalling and this is what feminism, like anti-racism, makes us forget.
It is clearly not by chance that feminists and anti-racists are by profession from the privileged classes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="President">
That concludes voting time.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Agenda
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, would you agree to bringing forward the Commission statement on bananas to this afternoon, and taking it before the Haug report? That would enable us to benefit from the presence of Sir Leon Brittan.
<P>
Parliament approved this proposal
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Madam President, in an atmosphere of general confusion you proposed bringing forward the report to enable Sir Leon Brittan to attend. This has been approved.
However, this means that Mrs Haug's report, on which I and Mr Fabre-Aubrespy are due to speak, has been postponed until the 9.00 p.m. sitting.
<P>
Unfortunately, tonight we should both be attending a student debate at the Political Studies Institute in Strasbourg.
In my opinion, the casual manner in which the agenda of this House has been changed is open to criticism as this change was approved in an atmosphere of complete confusion. I believe that the students of the Political Studies Institute deserve as much consideration as Sir Leon Brittan.
I would like this to be recorded in the Minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="President">
Mr Giansily, I would say quite simply that I shared your reservations when I was given this piece of information at the last minute, as you too will have seen.
Having said that, the only point on which I disagree with you is that I have the impression that there was a very large majority in the House in favour of this proposal, as you are well aware, that Members were not at all confused when they voted, that they understood quite clearly what was involved, and that if this change had been put to the vote before, it would have been unanimously accepted, Mr Giansily, as you well know.
<P>
However, I am very sorry for the inconvenience which may have been caused to some Members who will not be able to speak on the Haug report.
Once again, I share your feelings, but I cannot agree with you when you say that this was decided in confusion and that Members did not understand what was involved.
They understood that very well, as you and I both know.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 12.55 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Electromagnetic fields (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report (A4-0101/99) by Mr Tamino, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Recommendation on the limitation of exposure of the general public to electromagnetic fields 0 Hz - 300 GHz (COM(98)0268 - C4-0427/98-98/0166(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Riis-Jørgensen">
Mr President, this report is a very important and interesting one.
In my opinion, the important thing when we discuss legislation at European level are the reports and scientific evidence which underlie this legislation.
It is very important that the quality of legislation is right.
We talk about this a great deal in the individual Member States, and we should also be aware of it when we are creating European legislation.
On behalf of the Liberal Group, I would like to say that many of the amendments proposed by the Greens make the Commission's proposal far more restrictive than is necessary.
I would very much like to know on what kind of scientific evidence the Greens are basing all these amendments.
If I may take the liberty of referring to my own country, Denmark, where the Anti-Cancer Association has carried out analyses of risks in this area, it has been found that there is no connection between electromagnetic fields and cancer.
Children and workers at power stations were both studied.
With children there was a very small risk, and with power station workers there was no risk.
That was, of course, a Danish study.
<P>
But I fail to see how studies from other countries would justify the requirements being proposed by Mr Tamino.
I would therefore like to ask the rapporteur, and not least the Commission, what scientific basis there is for these very restrictive demands from the Greens, because if the Greens' amendments are adopted, there would be very serious economic consequences for power stations and, not least, for general consumers.
The Liberal Group is therefore opposed to the Greens' amendments, and I would ask the Commission on behalf of the Liberal Group what it has to say about the scientific studies to which Mr Tamino refers.
I must say that on the basis of the national and international studies which have been carried out in this area, I have difficulty in recognising the assertions which have been made.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Mr President, I on the other hand believe that the report by Mr Tamino is very important as it makes reference to very specific scientific studies, carried out in Sweden and elsewhere, and includes names and a bibliography.
<P>

This is a significant problem that is very familiar to people living in Greece, where we are literally drowning in a sea of television transmitters. Just recently hundreds of transmitters for mobile phones were erected in Pefki, which is just outside Athens, and we have high voltage transmission lines and so on.
<P>
We have evidence, Mr President, but we apparently do not have proof.
However, three Member States have much stricter legislation than what is being called for here.
We also have the precautionary principle, which we are obliged to implement.
This is why I believe that, until further studies have been carried out and the facts have been observed further, as Mr Whitehead said, we must abide by the recommendations made by Mr Tamino. There are very significant issues at stake regarding public health on a long term basis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Collins, Gerard">
Mr President, the Commission's proposal for a recommendation on limiting exposure of the general public to electromagnetic fields was formulated against the background of increasing public concern over possible links between electromagnetic fields and health problems.
This is an issue which affects aspects of everyday life.
The fields concerned are created not only by high voltage lines and broadcasting transmitters but by ordinary household appliances that we are all in regular contact with, such as mobile phones and television screens.
Naturally there is a need to reassure customers by providing adequate protection from real and proven risks and by keeping them informed.
What we do not need is irresponsible misinformation and scare tactics.
<P>
The Commission sought to take into consideration all well-founded scientific and experimental evidence in preparing its proposed recommendation.
The guidelines and exposure proposed by the Commissioner are based on those recently published by the International Convention on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection.
This is a formally recognised organ of the World Health Organization.
Thus there is a solid scientific basis for the proposed limit values.
Furthermore, this WHO body takes the added precaution of incorporating large safety factors into the limit values to public exposure.
In fact, we are talking about a safety margin at least 50 times lower than the levels for which possible health effects have been established.
<P>
The national authorities in most EU states have already accepted the health basis from which the WHO body derives its guidelines.
These are enforced in the Member States which ensure compliance by industry and are vigilant in protecting the health of their citizens.
<P>
Mr Tamino's proposals are therefore greatly disproportionate.
They seek to impose exposure limits which go far beyond what the Commission is proposing and what are scientifically shown to be necessary.
If such exaggerated proposals were to be approved they would have a serious socio-economic impact with no health benefit.
<P>
Furthermore, the report fails to address the basic problem that there is no common European measurement system.
This allows different national limits which create barriers to trade and distort a single market.
The differences in standards have also contributed to public anxieties - consumers wonder why their countries have a different limit to another country.
My group and I are calling for a European research project aimed at harmonising calculation methodologies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lannoye">
Mr President, there seems to be a great deal of confusion in this debate on Mr Tamino's report.
In particular this is because the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and some of our colleagues are proposing to lay down limit values for the distance between certain installations generating electromagnetic fields and people living close by, and also because they consider that the Commission's proposals are acceptable.
<P>
I would draw your attention to the fact that the Commission's proposals do not strictly change current practices in any way. In actual fact, these proposals endorse the activities of industrial groups which, with regard to the transport and distribution of electricity or telecommunications, are exposing people to significant electromagnetic fields.
For example, there is a magnetic field of a few micro tesla in a vertical line from a high-voltage power line of 380 000 volts.
The Commission's proposal fixes a limit value of 100 micro tesla which means that it is endorsing what is already in common practice.
<P>
This is unacceptable because numerous epidemiological studies and several laboratory studies have shown that effects on health involving the nervous, endocrine or immune systems start to be detected from values which are up to 1 000 times smaller.
Limiting the problem to the appearance of cancer is a simplistic approach which will cause us to make serious mistakes in terms of public health.
On the basis of what is already occurring today in one of the Member States, namely Italy, we therefore believe that it is possible to recommend much lower limit values, with which Mr Tamino agrees. These certainly do not threaten the various current economic activities but they do prevent people being exposed to electromagnetic fields which may endanger their health.
<P>
I therefore propose that everyone thoroughly reviews this dossier in order to avoid falling into the trap of saying that Mr Tamino's proposals would cause excessive economic damage.
This statement has already been made three or four times but has not been proven by any argument.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Escolá Hernando">
Mr President, electromagnetic fields can be a danger to public health. According to various scientific studies, they can lead to the development of cancerous cells.
<P>
Although the findings of these reports are not totally conclusive, it would be wise for the Commission to take account of the two basic principles of risk prevention: the safeguard principle, that is, avoiding risk in cases of doubt; and the ALARA principle, in other words, that exposure to radiation should be as low as may reasonably be achieved.
<P>
In this context, I should like to draw the attention of the House to a project currently under consideration: the connection of the French and Spanish electricity grids through a high-voltage line of 400 000 volts across the Pyrenees. This project was approved at Essen.
Citizens likely to be affected by the line have been campaigning against it for more than 15 years on account of its environmental impact and the electromagnetic fields that would be generated.
This is a good opportunity for the Commission to adopt a common sense approach and look for alternative solutions in order to ensure that we have no regrets in the future.
<P>
The Commission needs to establish a common framework to safeguard public health. This should stipulate that minimum safety distances and an environmental impact assessment are essential preconditions for the construction of power lines.
It should then be possible to avoid the electromagnetic fields generated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
Mr President, there should be no doubt that the June Movement in general is a great supporter of applying the precautionary principle.
This means that the consumer should be given the benefit of any doubt, even if there is only a hint of risk in using modern techniques.
That could quite easily be the case, and GM foods are only one example of it.
But today we are considering the short-term effects of exposure to radiation from electromagnetic fields.
The Greens' amendments in the report, on the other hand, concern the long-term effects, and they have not yet been adequately studied.
We therefore think that the very restrictive advice which would result from supporting the amendments is untenable.
We cannot get round the fact that electricity is a fundamental cornerstone of modern society.
It is also clear that all scientists agree that the short-term effects of being exposed to radiation are very small, and to hinder or even prevent the supply and consumption of electricity would be like using cannons to shoot sparrows, as we say in Denmark.
<P>
In this context, I have also stressed the fact that, after extensive research, the Anti-Cancer Association came to the conclusion that it would be quite irresponsible to make people afraid to use various electrical appliances which are part of every household, such as kitchen equipment and shavers.
One cannot of course rule out the possibility that the long-term effects might be different.
This is being studied at the moment by the World Health Organisation, and if they should come to a conclusion which reflects Mr Tamino's amendments, then we in the June Movement would of course fully support the amendments which we are rejecting today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pinel">
Mr President, electromagnetic fields are increasingly present in our environment.
High-voltage power lines, GSM radio transmitters and many domestic appliances are disrupting the natural balance.
<P>
The 1994 Lannoye report demonstrated the harmful effect of these electromagnetic fields on health and in particular the risk of the development of cancers, leukaemias and diseases of the nervous system and brain.
However, just because scientists do not yet understand the mechanisms of these attacks on the human body, this must not be used as a pretext to stick our heads in the sand.
On the contrary, we must use the precautionary principle and prohibit or at least limit any equipment, even any technology, which endangers human health.
<P>
The current situation gives the consumer the responsibility of proving that a device is dangerous. The burden of proof must be reversed and manufacturers must be required to prove that their goods are harmless.
A Commissioner said that the best way to validate a product is to place it on the market.
In the case which concerns us today, major suspicions exist about the harmfulness of these electromagnetic fields to the human body.
It is therefore high time to act and we must not put off implementing limit values on the effects, whatever they may be, and not just the thermal effects.
<P>
If over the five years since the Lannoye report there has not been enough sufficiently convincing scientific research, this is precisely because some people had much to lose from this.
In any case, it is scandalous to say that this report would harm industrial development, firstly because this is false and secondly, and in particular, because public health must come before any economic considerations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Scapagnini">
Mr President, with the advent of modern telecommunication systems, the large-scale expansion of electrical and electronic equipment and the proliferation of high-voltage electricity transmission lines, interest in and concerns about the effects of electromagnetic fields have increased considerably over the last few years, amidst repeated calls for measures and standards in this area.
And yet the precise effects on the organism of exposure to electromagnetic radiation are not known.
Worrying theories have been put forward on the possible harmful health effects of exposure to artificially produced fields, and a debate is under way concerning the existence of possible long-term effects, first and foremost cancer, and particularly cancer of the blood, leukaemia.
<P>
At the present time, however, there is no conclusive scientific evidence that electromagnetic fields can directly cause cancer.
In most Member States, the authorities are constantly being questioned about such effects, revealing considerable concern among the public.
Experiments have proved only that prolonged exposure to high frequencies may cause pathologies.
As draftsman of the opinion of Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, which I chair, on the limitation of exposure of the general public to electromagnetic fields, I believe that it is crucial for Europe to create a single, coherent body of legislation enabling all the Member States to protect their inhabitants from these potentially harmful effects.
Such limits should not however exceed the bounds of knowledge and reasonableness, causing severe economic damage both to industry and to employment.
<P>
The recommendation introduces, throughout Europe, a proper level of protection against EMF health effects.
It is rightly based on well-established health effects, the acute ones, while stating that there is currently no convincing evidence that these fields produce long-term carcinogenic effects; the available data cannot be used as a basis for developing exposure guidelines.
<P>
In conclusion, Mr President, I believe that it is absolutely crucial for further high-level studies to be conducted on long-term exposure, on the one hand so as to protect the public and, on the other, to avoid panic and unemployment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Mr President, Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has done some excellent work on this report.
I have no doubts at all about the rapporteur's well-meaning proposals for limit values, but the committee was unable to accept them on the basis of the facts presented here.
This in now way implies that the principle of preparedness should not be vital for everyone, for example, in the elimination of the adverse effects of non-ionising radiation.
<P>
The basis here must, however, be the results of research and the WHO recommendations, as well as the principle that the degree of exposure to electromagnetic radiation must be kept as low as is reasonably possible.
Member States must also introduce minimum values for safe distances from electronic equipment and minimum distances in general which must be complied with in the vicinity of people's homes and places of work.
This a very new subject area, and research into possible problems and their prevention must continue.
This will be one of the sections of the Fifth Research and Development Framework Programme.
Responsibility for the research will lie with the equipment manufacturers as far as product development is concerned, but to ensure impartial results the source material will have to be as broad in scope as possible and independent of any bias on the part of the researchers.
<P>
While there are calls for an increase in research into the possible problems of non-ionising radiation we have to ensure that resources are used effectively in the health sector as a whole.
There are limited resources for public health and we must see to it that they are exploited effectively.
We have to consider what social costs are worth paying so that public health can expect a good return on its investment.
Assessment of the social costs is the job of politicians, and acquiring information on the possible risks is that of researchers and scientists.
Politicians have a responsibility in all this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, for some twenty years now there has been research into the effects on health of electromagnetic fields produced by low-frequency electronic equipment and the electrical power network.
The Commission's estimates of what would be health-endangering values reflect the outcome of the research carried out.
Certain MEPs, however, have suggested values which are considerable more stringent than the Commission's recommendations, in recognition of the possible health impact.
This method of investigation, where conclusions are based on vague estimates and the policy is to ignore other research data, cannot have any real meaning.
Furthermore, we also have to take into account the relationship between the desired recommendations and the tangible effects on health as well as the cost of any action that needs to be taken.
<P>
In recent years one subject of debate that has quickly assumed prominence is the possible effect on people's health of the increasing use of mobile phones.
Hopefully, we all appreciate the need for a closer study of the effects of these on users, and the possible need to take action when we have some real facts before us.
I do not believe that anyone wants to start restructuring the electrical power networks in heavily populated areas, preventing the use of mobile phones in cities, or replacing household appliances as a result of possibly unfounded restrictions.
We must respect the precautionary principle, but excessive caution must be substantiated by the results of research.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, most people speaking here today talk about how 'the precautionary principle must be respected, but... '.
There is a total contradiction there.
If the precautionary principle is to be respected, then we need to ensure that we have definite evidence that this kind of radiation is not dangerous.
We do not have that evidence.
One of the major failings in the Commission's proposal is that it does not take the precautionary approach.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has been a complete disaster on this.
It has completely diluted the rapporteur's proposal.
It has failed to protect public health and the environment.
This issue has come up again and again and the Commission has done nothing about it.
Even Member State governments have done nothing about it.
In my own country mobile phone masts are erected close to people's houses and right beside schools.
The central nervous system bioeffects - which the Commission does not refer to - seem to be occurring where mobile phone masts are located close to people's homes.
There are reports of headaches, sleep disruption and a number of other effects, which are not referred to by the Commission.
<P>
As the rapporteur has pointed out, there is a suggestion that exposure to electromagnetic fields could lead to an increase in occurrences of cancer and other serious threats to human health.
We need to ensure that the precautionary approach is taken.
The Commission seems to base its findings on certain research but to ignore other research that is available.
We need proper research centres to be set up to ensure that the real effects of this kind of non-ionizing radiation are properly examined by independent assessors.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Hulthén">
Mr President, I should like to begin by saying that this is an important matter.
We obviously have to regulate the amount of radiation that people are exposed to.
However, it is essential that the rules should be reasonable.
We cannot have a situation in which a single political group claims a monopoly of the scientific knowledge; instead, we take it for granted that the Environment Committee and the House will do their best to reach a satisfactory decision.
<P>
Electromagnetic fields and their effect on people are subjects that have come up for debate with increasing frequency in recent years.
In point of fact, we still do not have any precise answers to the questions which they raise.
We do not know how ordinary electric currents and magnetic fields affect us.
What we do know, however, is that more and more people are becoming hypersensitive to electricity.
<P>
We should be establishing limit values on a Europe-wide basis, but they should be reasonable as well.
Sweden has been mentioned in the discussion as one of the countries with satisfactory limit values.
All I can say about this is that the limit values are well above the levels proposed by Mr Tamino.
The values are 100 micro tesla in normal daily life and 500 micro tesla in industry and places of work.
That is substantially different from those proposed by Mr Tamino.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Rovsing">
Mr President, when we talk about radiation damage, we must make distinctions.
First of all there is low-frequency radiation from high-tension cables and frequencies generated by them.
All the experience from all the new research carried out by our governments shows that nothing can be proved.
In Denmark, we have a cancer register in which all cancer cases are recorded, and the central register of persons shows where people live.
All the 30 000 people who work in the electricity supply industry were examined in a major study carried out in 1998, and no connection was found between their work in the electricity supply industry and cancer.
The claims that extensive studies have not been carried out are incorrect.
<P>
Then there are mobile telephones.
More or less everyone in this Parliament uses a mobile telephone, sometimes a great deal, although there are some who believe that mobile telephones are dangerous.
I agree that not enough research has been done on this question to know whether the vital parts of cells or the basic building-blocks of human life are being destroyed by this radiation.
Considering how many children in their teens and younger use mobile telephones, it is important that such research is started, so that we can have some specific conclusions.
However, I am not aware of suggestions that there is any danger from the base stations which are being set up or the DECT stations in supermarkets.
And of course no one stands in front of a radar beam or rays from a microwave source.
These are concentrated rays, but they do not penetrate down to where we usually are.
Many of the amendments, in other words Nos 14 to 24, are only designed to create unease and are not based on the necessary scientific research.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="Ahern">
Mr President, it is really important that we produce a recommendation for minimum distances from people's homes for mobile phone masts.
These are proliferating in my own country.
If, as the companies producing them say, there are no health risks, why should we not have a mandatory health indemnity?
The vested interests that produce these should be legally liable for insuring people's health if something goes wrong.
That is something that we should be considering seriously at European level.
If they are not dangerous, then there is no risk.
So why should we not insure people against the problem?
<P>
A recent conference in Vienna concluded that the biological effects from low-intensity exposure are scientifically established, so it is no longer acceptable for Member State governments or the Commission to say that more research is required before setting standards.
People deserve to have their health protected and not have the ball kicked into touch for a scientific investigation that may take years.
Then we will be in the same situation as with the tobacco companies where millions could be paid out to people whose health has been put in danger.
<P>
I am very shocked that my own government has made several attempts to water down EU proposals to regulate emissions of electromagnetic radiation from mobile home masts.
It is scandalous that these attempts by the Irish delegation to delete clauses are claimed as being in accordance with the precautionary principle.
There is sufficient evidence to warrant a whole re-think on the health implications of these masts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="McAvan">
Mr President, I am very pleased to be able to speak on this issue, which I think everyone agrees is of major public concern.
In my own country in the last three days there have been front-page articles about the effects of mobile phones and in my local newspapers stories about power lines and their effects on people.
Some of these reports are alarming and some are worrying and it is not surprising that the public are confused and do not really know what to think.
So the Commission proposals are very timely.
We need some form of European-wide action on this issue.
The approach of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection is also very balanced.
<P>
I want to stress two amendments which are important.
The first deals with the application of the precautionary principle, based on the ALARA proposals from the World Health Organization.
My second point is that we must keep this under constant review.
It is not enough to set standards now and then never come back to them.
People are increasing their mobile phone usage; parents are buying mobile phones for their children; people are switching to mobile phones.
So I hope the Commission will take into account some of these amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schnellhardt">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report before us concerns limiting the exposure of the general public to electromagnetic fields 0 Hz - 300 GHz, which is the entire spectrum of possible effects.
This is no doubt a good approach, but it does not allow for detailed rules at European level so that in my view the subsidiarity principle should be applied in some areas.
<P>
Overall, it is to be welcomed that the Committee on the Environment did not accept the doubtless well-intentioned proposals from the rapporteur, on the grounds I referred to above.
But well-intentioned does not always mean good.
Moreover, the rapporteur's proposals could not be justified scientifically - as many speakers have mentioned today - and would in practice have led to low limits that could not have been adhered to.
Or should we go so far as to get rid of mobile phones and emergency telephones?
I do not think that can do us much good.
<P>
Let me raise another point.
The discussion between experts has shown that laying down safety distances from fixed installations, for example high-voltage transmission lines, is of extremely questionable use in protecting against radiation because, apart from the distance as such, numerous parameters specific to the installation can have quite a determining effect on exposure.
In the case of electrical devices, laying down minimum safety distances is even more of a problem.
As a rule the distance between such devices and the public is surely determined by whether they are used as they should be.
In this case I think it is confusing, unhelpful and inconsistent with the aims of adequate protection against radiation to lay down additional safety distances.
<P>
The situation is different in the case of equipment that is designed to produce fields, such as broadcasting transmitters.
Here, safety distances can no doubt simplify matters.
I would ask you to consider this at the vote.
I have tabled the corresponding amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, the Commission would like to begin by warmly thanking the committee and also the rapporteur.
Of course this is a subject on which opinions can differ, as they do here in the discussion too, for not every individual issue has undergone adequate scientific investigation and been supported by unequivocal findings.
<P>
Nevertheless we wanted to take a first step with our proposal.
For one thing, there is increasing concern - and that is undoubtedly true - on the part of experts too.
There is a wide debate, particularly among the public, which is not always very objective but which does of course create doubts in the public mind.
That is why we believe it is right, given also that the Maastricht Treaty commits us to aim for a high level of public health, to propose a common framework of basic restrictions and reference levels under this recommendation.
<P>
One thing I want to say quite clearly here, since Mrs Riis-Jørgensen also put this question to the Commission - even if she has gone now; indeed it is sadly becoming increasingly common for Members to put questions and then to disappear - is that even if you raise the question of scientific findings, our proposal is based on the recommendations of the International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection and on the positions of the Commission's Scientific Steering Committee.
So it is not the case that we have not taken account of these scientific positions.
<P>
I could now discuss all the amendments, but that would be going too far, given also that this is a recommendation.
But let me say that we can accept in whole or in part Amendments Nos 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10 and 13.
Other amendments go far beyond the recommendation, for instance in assuming that this kind of recommendation also has legal implications, which is not the case.
By definition a recommendation is addressed to Member States and they may follow it but are not obliged to do so, which means that this kind of recommendation cannot lay down other legal commitments.
<P>
That applies in particular to the question of minimum safety distances.
Mr Schnellhardt made a few comments on this question that are worth considering.
But I must say that even if everything he says is right - and basically I have no doubt it is - we cannot lay down any binding minimum safety distances in the recommendation.
<P>
Then there is Amendment No 12.
We have already made provision for a review system.
That means that we will of course ourselves draft a report for the Union, on the basis of the Member States' reports, and naturally we will take account of all the new scientific findings as they become known.
If necessary, the Commission will act at once.
But it is also certain that we cannot act according to the principle that this is a matter of health and that we must therefore discontinue all our activities, even if that cannot be justified on scientific grounds.
We cannot proceed according to that kind of principle.
I am saying this with particular reference to some of the comments made by the Greens.
If, for instance, we switched off the entire electricity network, I wonder what the public would say to that.
<P>
Heckling
<P>
I did say 'if'.
So if we want to proceed in a sensible manner here, we can only do so in the light of and on the basis of scientific findings.
Any other approach would be arbitrary and not right.
That could not be justified in a constitutional state!
What is called the precautionary principle relates to very restricted exceptional cases in which it allows us to do something when we do not yet have the relevant scientific findings.
And the Commission does apply that principle.
For example we introduced very strict limits for baby food, even though there are no scientific findings, because in that case it was justified, even in terms of the expenditure involved, to do something although we did not know whether it was necessary.
But obviously we cannot make that a general principle.
If we were to proceed according to this principle, the end results really would be totally absurd.
And you cannot expect that of the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Public health policy
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0082/99) by Mr Needle, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on the development of public health policy in the European Community (COM(98)0230 - C4-0393/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="Needle">
Mr President, the development of the European public health policy has now reached a very important stage.
This welcome Commission communication identifies the strengths and weaknesses of the first framework period, which is now coming to a close, and points to both the challenges and opportunities which can be foreseen, offering a positive and clear new framework.
This Parliament has a strong reputation for promoting the protection and improvement of public health and, as I will indicate later, we ourselves can still improve.
<P>
Many distinguished Members of this House have been prominent in ensuring that the European Union has a role in health policy, to say nothing of the established and growing part it now plays in research or food safety, environmental policies, for example.
<P>
The first point to make is that the Amsterdam Treaty thoroughly enshrines that role by declaring in the new Article 152 that a high level of human health protection shall be ensured in the definition and implementation of all Community policies and activities.
The rest of the article is far from perfect, but provides the basis for some serious work over the next five years.
<P>
How should that work be organised?
I am delighted that the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has achieved a broad consensus that the way forward is via clearly focused priorities which offer added value to the work of partners in Member States, agencies such as the World Health Organization, and non-governmental organisations.
That will require the Council, the Commission and Parliament to do two things at the crucial next stage, when the three newly identified strands of information, rapid response, promotion and prevention are translated into new horizontal action programmes.
<P>
Firstly, it is time for bold thinking.
The interpretation of the draft Treaty will be vital and, if the benefits of new technologies, skills, knowledge and freedoms are to be realised by European citizens, there will have to be a political and administrative willingness to move forward.
In this I refer particularly to the need to share information on best practices - we have to be prepared to address common and specific problems transparently and honestly - and to the recent judgments in the European Court of Justice regarding cross-border access to medical products.
<P>
I also have in mind the need to address health factors which are exacerbated by decisions within the EU.
A great many of our citizens regard the situation whereby we introduce anti-cancer or cardiovascular disease programmes alongside support for tobacco producers to be nonsensical.
I fear we are going to repeat that error in another report later this week.
<P>
We must work to end that in a sensible way.
I would ask the Commission today to tell us of its strong support for proposals which are imminent on combating tobacco consumption.
We also need to make sense of often conflicting information on diets and nutrition - I suspect that is of interest to the Commissioner and myself in particular - and to develop coherent new food policies on that basis.
<P>
That leads to the second requirement, which is one of responsibility.
At the very time we are seeking these steps forward, the non-governmental organisations which play a leading part in sustaining and nurturing public, professional and political awareness of health issues are being faced with potentially damaging budget cuts.
It is not acceptable for the budgetary authorities to be so out of step with previously agreed commitments, but it also demonstrates that we must all face up to some tough choices.
That is why clear and decisive prioritisation of future programmes will be essential, matched by a clear and certain simplified budgetary procedure.
That is why we not only support the move away from small vertical programmes to horizontal strands but also seek a vastly more integrated approach, based around an identifiable single health directorate so that health truly becomes an integral part of the EU process, at its very heart.
<P>
That means appropriate health impact assessments, starting with the Commission's own programmes, and proportionately more officials with the appropriate expertise, as identified in the excellent study carried out by Parliament's services in support of our well-received public hearing last October.
It means partnership at all levels to tackle the greatest public needs and health inequalities most effectively, not least in the current process of enlargement of the Union, where a much-needed further Commission text is imminent.
<P>
With its report, Parliament has responded thoroughly, responsibly and with vision to help establish a sound framework for progress.
In 13 tightly-argued recommendations, we have made a cogent case for a new priority for health as part of a European decade for health, which will truly begin to meet the real needs of our citizens.
But it is the next step in the new Parliament which will determine whether we have the courage and determination to turn those aims into reality by ensuring the major chronic diseases of this century do not bedevil the next.
<P>
I finish by thanking all those who have contributed to the communication and to the publication of this report and have worked so hard to take EU health policies to this stage from where we can look forward confidently to the road ahead.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Marinucci">
Mr President, one of the hardest things to explain to Europeans, when one meets them privately or at public debates, is that the Community has no real competence over health.
The public wonder how it can be that a supranational entity, which has equipped itself with a single currency and been extremely successful in securing peace, progress and well-being for its citizens, does not concern itself with health and is confined just to the limited scope offered at long last by the Maastricht Treaty and reinforced by the Amsterdam Treaty.
As we all know, the Treaty of Rome made no provision at all in this area. It is hard to explain.
It is also hard, on the other hand, to expect countries to surrender sovereignty over their national health systems.
So what should be done?
We must ensure that the limited scope that does exist, in terms of both competence and resources, is harnessed to achieve maximum results in terms of cooperation, information exchanges, identification of best practice, and health education - as has already been done under the various specific programmes and the 1993 framework programme.
The Commission's presentation of this communication is most timely: in a sense, it establishes a transition between the final phase of that programme and the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty, when there will be a new framework programme.
<P>
Mr Needle's excellent report makes a series of timely and practical proposals.
There could be others too, and I believe that this debate should continue outside this House: health researchers and operators should provide the Commission with information and proposals as to how maximum benefit can be drawn from the meagre powers and resources available. How, for example, can we act rapidly in response to an unforseen disaster such as BSE, or cope with inevitabilities like population ageing, dwindling public funds and rising health costs.
Yesterday this House discussed a document on women's health; in both that report and this one, we call for separate statistics on and specific programmes for women.
Finally, for the sake of Europe's women and men, we call for a Community presence in the health arena which offers real protection.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Poggiolini">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the communication on the development of public health in the European Community will probably be the last major health policy issue on which Parliament expresses an opinion before the end of this parliamentary term.
Mr Needle has produced an excellent and most welcome report, and has made considerable efforts to amend the Commission's text.
<P>
The communication takes stock of what has been done over the past five years, but above all it outlines a new global public health strategy for Europe in the twenty-first century, which will very soon be followed by specific measures, once the Amsterdam Treaty enters into force.
I would recall that the eight existing health programmes - 'Europe against cancer', AIDS, drug addiction, health monitoring, the epidemiological surveillance network on communicable diseases, and so on - will lapse in or around the year 2000.
The EU's citizens, who enjoy the advantages of a single market and are about to acquire a single currency, also have a right to a high level of health protection, as stipulated in the new Article 152 of the Amsterdam Treaty.
But if this objective is to be attained in practice, public health must stop being the Cinderella of Community policies: it must be funded much more generously than to date.
<P>
Whilst fully respecting the principle of subsidiarity, the Union can do a good deal to improve information in this area, to react rapidly to health threats and, above all, to confront the main causes of diseases through prevention.
We therefore welcome the rapporteur's suggestion of a single operational unit and enhanced administrative structures within the Commission, in order to equip DG V-F with sufficient staff and resources to manage effectively all aspects of health policy.
It is crucial, however, that the Commission should present as soon as possible detailed, concrete proposals for the next five years, taking Parliament's wishes into account.
We very much regret that not all the recommendations contained in the 1993 resolution on health policy after Maastricht were acted on, and that inadequate follow-up was given to three important resolutions adopted almost unanimously by this House in 1996, concerning the European health passport, blood self-sufficiency in the Community and, especially, Alzheimer's disease.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, the period 2000-2010 has been declared the European Decade for Health.
It is our duty to fulfil the expectations of 375 million people who aspire to live in peace and prosperity, but above all in good health.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Mr President, my compliments to Mr Needle on this excellent report, in which he rightly notes that the Amsterdam Treaty offers new opportunities for greater weight to be given to public health in the European Union.
The current policy is ripe for review and the financial resources are regrettably very limited.
The Commission, and I am looking to Mr Bangemann here, must do something about that.
I am keen to see what initiatives the Commission will take to meet the growing need for public health policy in the early years of the next century.
<P>
As rapporteur on the 1999 budget for the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, I advocated increasing public health spending to EUR 50 million.
By way of comparison, that is just 5 % of the total budget for premiums to tobacco growers.
<P>
It is obvious to me that an effective public health policy in Europe is not just a matter of more money. What we have to do is integrate public health aspects more effectively into other areas of policy.
Take agriculture and transport, two areas where there is much to be gained.
I do not need to spell it out: BSE, the countless deaths on our roads and the pollution caused by the transport industry have everything to do with public health policy.
<P>
One final point on enlargement to include Central and Eastern Europe.
The public health problems there are huge.
It will take a great deal to bring their standards of public health up to our own.
And their standards have great implications for ours.
So I hope the Commission will put a good deal of energy into solving the public health problems of Eastern Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, my group supports Mr Needle's report because by taking the Treaty of Amsterdam as a starting point to promote a high level of public health protection, it deals with all the issues that are crucial to achieving such protection.
<P>
Funding comes first and foremost, and Agenda 2000 is currently under discussion.
We do not yet know how European Union funds will be distributed between 2000 and 2006; it remains to be seen how much will eventually be available for the health sector.
<P>
Secondly, cooperation with Member States and with international organisations involved in health protection must be strengthened.
<P>
Thirdly, we need to integrate our health policy with all other European policies.
The memory of the consequences of a misguided agricultural economic policy, namely the BSE problem, must surely be fresh in all our minds.
<P>
Fourthly, the need for prevention must be emphasised. We must remember that although responsibility for the provision of health care rests with the Member States, the European Union and the Member States can cooperate on issues concerning prevention.
<P>
The European Union is in a position to promote and develop cooperation and information networks at all levels.
Previous health programmes experienced problems relating to transparency, inadequate assessment and insufficient funding.
Mr Needle proposes eliminating the shortcomings of previous programmes during what ought to be the decade for health, between 2000 and 2010.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cabrol">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this Commission communication on the development of public health policy in the European Community expresses the Union's concern to increase the competence which it has acquired in this area due to the Maastricht Treaty being ratified and which has been confirmed by the Treaty of Amsterdam.
<P>
However, with regard to this public health policy, it is proving somewhat difficult to gain the acceptance of certain principles to which all the Member States should adhere.
For example, I could mention the European epidemiological monitoring centre which is particularly needed and which my various reports on health have called for over the last four years. However, this has encountered resistance from both the Commission and the Council.
Yet, as indicated by the Commission, this centre would allow us to react rapidly to threats to health.
<P>
The other two principles proposed by the Commission for a future health policy are an improvement in information on public health and effective actions for health promotion and disease prevention.
These principles and the issues which they raise are genuine problems which the Union must solve in the future. Their main priorities will be nutrition, obesity, cardiovascular disorders, Alzheimer's disease and so on.
<P>
In this respect, I must forewarn you about the new scares which might arise due to the progress needed in order to allow this health policy. These scares might lead to this progress being blocked as a result of the misuse of the sacrosanct precautionary principle.
It is true that all progress involves risk.
This is where we must apply the cost/benefit principle by weighing the advantages against the disadvantages.
It is only if the disadvantages equal the advantages that we should use the precautionary principle.
In this respect, public information must be clear and objective without being distorted.
<P>
This is why I must congratulate the rapporteur and this is also why the Commission's communication is an excellent initiative which is along the lines intended by the European Union. We will therefore vote in favour of this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
Mr President, this report gives the European Parliament another opportunity to draw attention to the importance of health policy which, thanks first to the Maastricht Treaty and then to that of Amsterdam, is at last no longer subordinate to economic policies but has its own dignity and independence.
Not only projects, programmes and research can now be pursued in this area but so can directives, and - thanks to the inclusion in the Maastricht Treaty of the precautionary principle - prevention has become the cornerstone of European health policy.
<P>
This does not however mean in practice that these statements of principle are applied unreservedly.
Colleagues have already referred to the lack of action over the European health passport, the fact that health funding remains utterly inadequate, and that even after the BSE scare, insufficient attention is being paid to the linkage between health and food.
In general terms, it can be said that the public is still not being properly informed about health issues, assuming that public health should not be subject to the interests of economic lobbies.
Regrettably, the opposite was likewise demonstrated in the previous debate on electromagnetic fields.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pradier">
Mr President, what we have just heard about public health policy in Europe raises two issues.
Firstly, we need to take into account all the inhabitants of this continent, both the sick and the healthy.
The sick must be listened to individually by doctors, which is precisely the latter's role, but they must also be listened to collectively by politicians, particularly through associations for the sick.
It is AIDS which has taught us these lessons in recent years.
<P>
By bringing these people together we can promote a dialogue between the public authorities, as the responsible authority, the experts, led naturally by the WHO, the medical profession, which must not be forgotten, the NGOs, industry and the trade unions.
Everyone must have two objectives: firstly, to identify priorities and concentrate resources to combat epidemics which will be accurately identified, and secondly, to fight against inequalities among the people of this continent with regard to the protection of their health.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, people in the European Union are amongst the healthiest and longest-lived in the world.
The Needle report on the European Union's new public health policy seems to ignore this fact completely.
The Commission notes it, but talks of a large number of 'premature deaths' in Europe.
What, I ask myself, is premature?
In the Commission proposal, the age of 68 is the critical threshold.
But we are forgetting that elsewhere in the world, life expectancy is far shorter.
We also have to accept that we are mortal and that European citizens, with or without a European policy on public health, cannot be absolutely sure of surviving past 68.
<P>
I would also make the point that Article 153 of the Amsterdam Treaty clearly aims merely to complement the public health policies of the Member States.
Only if there is a clear benefit for Europe as a whole can we make budget funds available, for example to fund the exchange of knowledge of new medicines and therapies and the development of orphan medicinal products.
I would therefore like to see a limited budget, and I regard a separate directorate-general for public health as unnecessary.
<P>
If we are going to spend more on public health, let us show solidarity and support the public health policies of the Central and Eastern European countries, rather than giving greater priority to health-related obligations, as the rapporteur would like to do.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="Paisley">
Mr President, one of the greatest dangers to our health comes from air pollution.
Emissions into the atmosphere are catastrophic to health.
Up to 24 000 people in my country die prematurely each year due to this major hazard.
Already in Northern Ireland, a product - Soltron - is in use which has had immediate results in combating poisons emitted.
If we are to make progress as fast as possible in our efforts to improve Community health, we should be creating an incentive for the use of this product in order that a major health gain can be made.
<P>
We must harness the field of science to deliver rapid and affordable solutions today.
In Northern Ireland it has been discovered by the largest transport operation called Translink that 60 % of black smoke and 40 % of carbon monoxide has been wiped out by using this product.
This technology is available now.
It is our duty in the quest for improved public health to put it to use.
<P>
I regret that both my colleagues and myself who met with Commission officials many months ago have not heard from them or seen any action taken.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Mr President, as has been pointed out, Article 152 of the Treaty of Amsterdam decrees that a high level of human health protection shall be ensured in all Community policies.
The Treaty makes people's health a more binding policy aim than previously, not only at Community but also at national level, and it is important to focus attention on how we can acquire that Community added value, so that it is visible at both Community level and national level.
<P>
I do not intend to repeat the praise that has already been heaped on Mr Needle's excellent report.
I would like to go a little further and make a few remarks on the fact that public health must be seen from a very broad perspective.
Of course it is already very broadly based at the present, but it must be said that employment is an important basis too for public health.
We have discovered from various sets of statistics that unemployment is one reason for deteriorating public health; exclusion in particular, stemming from long-term unemployment, for example, is a clear risk to health.
We obviously have to act against this, taking advantage of the Treaty of Amsterdam, in which employment was placed at the centre of Community policy.
Public services, universally available health services and effective social networks are the factors which ensure we have a standard of public health that is as high as possible.
Furthermore, consumer and environmental policies are extremely important, as is the fact that public health should play a clearer role in the enlargement strategy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schleicher">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Needle has gone to great trouble with the hearing in committee.
Of course many wishes and desires were voiced about all the things Europe could do.
Naturally I agree with Mr Needle that we must devote a great deal of attention to health, but unlike many previous speakers I do not believe that this can all be done in Europe
<P>
I believe that the Member States have a very major responsibility.
There is a short phrase in one paragraph to the effect that a future revision of the Treaty should provide for greater involvement of the Community in matters relating to health protection.
In my view only the Member States can take on this responsibility.
If we keep giving the Community more responsibility, I do not believe, given the relatively restricted apparatus of the Commission, that it will be in a position to accomplish everything the Member States have so far been able to do with their much more extensive administrative resources.
So I would like to draw attention to a few points I am not happy with.
<P>
At this point I would like to see the EU implement those matters that are referred to in the Maastricht Treaty and the Amsterdam Treaty but I would not like it to go beyond that or to call on the Commission to do so either.
I also think we are not in a position to create equality in health.
There are very different ideas and considerations on, for instance, cures and treatments.
I am glad we have these widely different approaches and also that we have freedom of movement.
After all, the Court of Justice has ruled that people can be treated differently in different countries.
I want to retain this and would not like to see everything forced into line in Europe.
I would far rather see the responsibility left with the Member States.
I also believe that the regional authorities are not all in a position to establish contacts with the Commission.
I would like to see pilot projects.
Information can be provided but information campaigns are another difficult matter, as we cannot conduct an information campaign that is the same for all Member States because health policy also has to be conveyed in a psychologically very different manner.
That is why I take a different view on these points and would be glad if these points, with which I am not happy, were dropped as a result of the vote.
Only then could I approve the report.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pailler">
Mr President, I support the report by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection because it positively confirms the importance of public health in Europe and the need to have improved resources at all levels.
<P>
However, this debate on health takes me back to the vote at midday today on the Hautala report on women's health and I am astonished that nobody has referred to this.
The vote on paragraph 11 restricting the legalisation of abortion marks a real backward step when compared with many national laws. I would never have imagined myself participating in such a setback for women, particularly after yesterday.
This challenging of the right to the termination of pregnancies is the result of one of those awful compromises which the PSE and the PPE so often make.
It is indicative of political cowardliness, capitulation and the renunciation of all the struggles which have helped to increase women's rights over their own bodies. It just shows contempt for the battles which have in their time led to vital alliances in the political struggle of certain women, in particular Simone Veil, in defiance of the insults which she received from her own side.
<P>
This attitude shows irresponsibility and political poverty.
You can count on me and the 54 Members who voted for our amendment to continue the struggle in an atmosphere of heightened solidarity with the most reactionary women in our countries on this subject.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, the Maastricht Treaty and then that of Amsterdam have considerably increased the competence of the Parliament and Commission in the field of public health.
This has given us greater responsibilities, because we must now issue directives and interpret responsibly a role which until recently was a mere aspiration.
First of all, therefore, we must change our attitude and attempt to address Europe's public health problems.
That is what Mr Needle's report seeks to do, and consequently we are happy to approve it.
<P>
One fundamental aspect here is to recognise Parliament's role in determining and controlling the health budget.
This is a vital point, in that resources are the overriding problem in our attempt to achieve common standards and respond to public health requirements.
Then there are the problems of improving information and reacting to health threats.
In my opinion, it is no longer enough to confine ourselves to certain initiatives, as we did in the past; nutrition, obesity, cardiovascular disease - and not only cancer, AIDS and so on - now need to be addressed in a harmonised, coherent fashion in all the EU countries.
<P>
In this context, Professor Cabrol's suggestion of a European Health Observatory, which is also taken up in Mr Needle's report, is well worth considering.
Mention is made in particular of a Directorate-General for Health located in Brussels: that would undoubtedly be a fresh approach to dealing with this problem.
<P>
Then there are other problems, including enlargement to the east, where scientific trends and responses to health requirements undoubtedly lag behind those in Western European countries.
It is important to tackle this problem, because harmonisation is crucial and cannot be achieved in circumstances of inequality.
<P>
I would merely say in conclusion that, since we are approaching the European Decade for Health - from 2000 to 2010 - I hope that the Needle report, which we support, will generate renewed and reinforced interest in public health.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Virgin">
Mr President, there can be no doubt that public health policy is, to a very large extent, a national matter.
Mr Needle's excellent report also makes this plain.
Nevertheless, there are obvious areas where collaboration at European level creates added value.
Cooperation between the Member States might be advisable in certain circumstances, thereby avoiding duplication of work, for example in analysing the health risks posed by chemical substances or in disseminating information more effectively.
<P>
The report mentions best practice and standards in health care.
In my view, this is the area where the Commission has an important role to play.
In the business sector, best practice - known as 'benchmarking' - is an excellent way for businesses to maximise their performance.
Similarly, it would be worthwhile for the EU countries to pool their experiences with such things as how policy-driven systems operate compared with patient-driven ones, how private and state-funded health care compete with one another, and the effects of competition between the different systems on medical care.
I am sure that most of this information is available today, but it should be compiled and made available to the Member States.
The proper use of this information could lead to improved medical care at a lower cost.
I am convinced that my own country, Sweden, would also find the exercise very valuable.
<P>
The report also mentions agricultural policy and the BSE crisis.
However, I think that support for tobacco growers is a matter of serious concern.
Smoking already claims hundreds of thousands of victims every day.
So it seems unreasonable to support tobacco cultivation to the tune of EUR 1 billion every year.
The support should be phased out and transferred from agriculture to the regional policy budget.
This would make it easier to reach a decision on providing support for alternative sources of employment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, standing in for my colleague who is in fact the Commissioner responsible and who regrets not being able to be present at the debate, let me thank Mr Needle for his very good report.
<P>
It has become clear from the discussion where we must start with our work.
If there is still confusion even in this House about what the priority should be in European health activities, then of course we must first be clear in our own minds what we can do to combat existing weaknesses in the EU health system.
In my view, there is a great deal we can do.
<P>
Of course it is not a question of setting up a new administration, that is to say to add a new, European health administration to the various administrations that already exist at national and also regional level.
Here I can reassure Mrs Schleicher that that is not our intention.
But I must say that in our view the idea put forward by some Members that we need simply to increase the funds and then spend the resources accordingly, and then we would manage to tackle the problem properly, is not the right method either.
<P>
In the area of health we cannot hope to create a greater effect simply by allocating more resources; instead we must realise that this system is no longer working in the way it really should.
It is not efficient enough.
That is why the Commission considers it very important that we begin by collecting and collating the information in order, as Mr Virgin just said, to establish a kind of benchmarking for the various systems, so as to identify where there are better options that can perhaps be recommended to others.
<P>
Even the collection of information on, for example, the use of medicinal products, would do a great deal towards reducing costs and making treatment more efficient, because at present the experience gained in particular clinics or by practising doctors is simply not being collected or made available on a Europe-wide basis.
That is in itself a disadvantage for research, but it is an even greater disadvantage in practice, because patients could be cared for much better if general findings were available that could then be tailored to the individual patient.
So there is a great deal to do here.
Of course the Member States can also do it on their own behalf, but collating the findings would indeed produce a European added value.
In any case, there is no need to discuss that further.
The Treaty of Amsterdam has now passed that task on to the European Union and Mrs Schleicher does indeed appreciate that competition between systems, for instance the freedom to offer medical services in the single market, can be useful; I also find the European Court of Justice rulings in this area very positive.
<P>
There is something else we should not overlook, and where we also have experience, especially from the USA which puts far more emphasis on the involvement of the patient in question or the potential patient; this means the patient is involved in the shaping of the health system.
Where that happens, for example where drugs are freely obtainable, namely what are known as OTC or over the counter products, we find a markedly higher health awareness on the part of the individual.
That means that the more you involve the public in the decision making and the more they themselves are asked to make the decisions, the surer you can be that they will become more health conscious.
For that is certainly one of the problems.
I have been looking at the judgments pronounced in America against the cigarette industry, as you probably all have too.
It is not fitting for us to criticise this on legal grounds, but if someone comes along and institutes proceedings claiming that he was not adequately informed about the risks of smoking, then we can only wonder whether than person has been living in our society at all.
The risks have constantly been indicated for the past twenty years, not just on the packets but all around us, and here we should not do something that would be very dangerous, namely release individuals from their responsibility for their own, highly personal health and in a sense look after them, care for them and prescribe to them exactly what they must do, from the cradle to the grave.
That would certainly shorten rather than extend their lifespan.
<P>
So what we want to achieve is the active involvement of the public, and especially of those who are sick, of the patients.
I therefore very much agree with what Mr Pradier said, namely that we should cooperate even more closely than before with patients' associations, whether they centre on a particular disease or simply represent particular patients' interests.
That is in fact the point of departure we have chosen here and I am very glad all this has been properly understood.
Of course I will report back to my colleague, who is responsible for this area, and also tell him what you said about setting up a new directorate-general.
If Parliament in its wisdom follows this up and grants us the corresponding posts, we will be able to do all these things.
Similarly we agree with Mr Virgin's comment that it makes no sense whatsoever to spend money on preventive health care, especially on information about the risks of smoking, while at the same time subsidising tobacco crops.
Here we agree with his assessment of the situation.
Unfortunately, at its last vote on the subject Parliament approved these subsidies by a majority.
Since, thank God, we live in a democracy, this time it is for Parliament to cry mea culpa .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="Needle">
Commissioner, before you disappear: I am grateful for much of your answer but I asked you a specific question.
<P>
I deliberately did not devote much of the report to the measures on tobacco consumption which are expected imminently from the Commission because we thought that that would come at the same time.
I wonder can you say what progress is being made in the Commission in bringing those forward so that we can take the practical measures which you are talking about.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 NAME="Bangemann">
Sorry for not answering your question.
I was rushing out not to avoid answering your question but because bananas is the next item and I cannot hear any more on the subject of bananas.
<P>
I have just learnt that the proposal is within inter-service consultations.
That means that a decision will be taken within the next couple of weeks in the Commission and then it will be handed over to you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Bananas
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="President">
The next item is the Commission statement on the trade dispute between the European Union and the United States over bananas.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 NAME="Brittan">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, since I last spoke about this topic on 10 February this year, several new developments have taken place.
On 15 February the WTO General Council discussed the EC request for an authoritative interpretation that a member cannot be authorised to suspend concessions in the absence of any WTO ruling on the conformity of the measures complained of.
Most WTO members who spoke supported our position on this and rejected unilateralism.
However, because of a widespread reluctance on the part of other members to vote on this, we opted for a chairman's conclusion registering the prevailing sentiment in the General Council.
<P>
On 2 March we obtained the establishment of a panel against the United States' section 301 legislation.
As you know, this legislation is the domestic legal base for the United States' unilateral threats and actions in the banana case.
This panel will start its work shortly.
Also on 2 March, the arbitrators, who had been appointed to examine whether the US proposed level of concessions of $520 million is equivalent to the level of nullification or impairment, rendered an initial decision.
This decision states very clearly - as we had argued all along - that it is not possible for the arbitrators to set any level of concessions in the absence of an examination of the WTO conformity of the revised banana regime.
This point of principle is very important.
<P>
The arbitrators also ruled that the 60-day time limit from the end of the reasonable period for amending the regime which the US had claimed to be all-determinant is, in fact, not a decisive factor.
This removes any excuse from the United States to claim a right to take sanctions at the expiry of the 60-day period.
Finally, the arbitrators also gave a clear indication that the American estimate of damage will at least have to be reduced by the amount of indirect damage they have wrongly claimed which should, in any event, reduce the total damage by half.
The arbitrators have requested further information from the European Union and the US by 15 March and their final ruling is expected shortly after that.
<P>
Notwithstanding this initial ruling, the US decided on 3 March to impose sanctions effective as of that date against over $500m of European imports.
These sanctions take the form of withholding liquidation and subjecting imports to a contingent liability of 100 % duties to be imposed retroactively.
This is not just a provisional measure to preserve US rights.
Its real intent and effect is to stop all imports of the products in question immediately.
The United States has admitted as much.
From information we have received from European industry this is exactly what seems to have occurred.
This action is a blatant defiance of WTO rules which explicitly prohibit the suspension of concessions while arbitration is still taking place.
<P>
The Commission reacted immediately by asking on the same day for urgent dispute settlement consultations with the United States.
This will permit us to request a further panel on this issue after 20 days.
The Commission also requested a special General Council meeting.
That took place on 8 March.
The United States' behaviour was strongly criticised by most WTO members.
The position of the European Union as agreed with Member States is that our own reaction should be in conformity with the WTO rules.
We do not intend to follow the American approach of taking unilateral and illegal action.
The WTO procedures will inevitably lead to a condemnation of current US behaviour.
<P>
In the meantime, the panels launched by Ecuador and the EC regarding the WTO conformity of the revised EC banana regime are due to issue their rulings on 12 April.
In parallel we continue to be willing to pursue our discussions with the United States on the substance of the banana regime.
With a view to exploring the American position and the possibilities of solving the problem, the Commission has, at the request of the Member States, entered into informal discussions with Washington.
We have made it very clear to the United States, however, that any ideas for resolving the dispute must take into account the rights and economic well-being of the ACP countries.
We have not been negotiating but are continuing to explore the US position.
<P>
In conclusion, our approach is two-fold.
Firstly, we will resolutely oppose American unilateralism and take all steps available to us in the WTO system to see to it that this behaviour is condemned and that action flowing from that condemnation can be taken if necessary.
Secondly, it is important to stress that we will find out shortly from the WTO dispute settlement system whether or not our current amended banana regime complies with the WTO rules and, to the extent that it does not, we will have to put our house in order.
This dispute must not be allowed to fester and we will continue to strive urgently to resolve it.
But Europe will not stand by while the world's trade rules are flouted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Erika">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Sir Leon, this is the second time this year that the European Parliament is reacting to the current transatlantic trade dispute about bananas.
Sir Leon has just described the background very accurately.
The dispute is becoming increasingly bitter and is beginning to look like a trade war.
It is becoming more and more absurd and putting the credibility of the WTO and its procedures as a whole at risk.
<P>
The European Union put a new and revised banana regime in place on 1 January 1999.
It did so after the WTO decided that the previous regime was not in conformity with WTO rules.
The USA continues to doubt whether even this new, revised complies with WTO rules.
That is its right.
But it is not within its rights to pronounce unilateral trade sanctions in the form of punitive tariffs directed against the companies of its transatlantic partner.
This conflicts in every respect with the spirit of the World Trade Organisation and therefore means a breach of the WTO rules, in particular Articles 1, 2 and 22.
In so doing the United States is placing itself outside the multilateral legal system.
Sanctions may not be imposed before the conclusion of the arbitration procedure.
<P>
My group supports the Commission's negotiating position.
We support the Commission's statement that our side will not impose unilateral measures and we want to remain in conformity with WTO rules.
However, we certainly believe it would be sensible to keep all the options open.
<P>
Let me at this point appeal to our American colleagues in the Congress and the Senate.
It is especially important that the transatlantic partnership, and in particular the economic partnership that we have approved, prove themselves in times of crisis.
<P>
However much sympathy I have for national interests, however much sympathy I have for the desire to make up the American trade deficit, these must not put the very fragile WTO rules at risk.
It is rather ironic that the EU-USA parliamentary delegation will, we hope, be holding its first video conference this week at which it will be discussing and also organising closer political coordination and management of the transatlantic dialogue.
<P>
I think we should jointly discuss how we can strengthen a common world organisation and ensure that we do not unilaterally put it at risk by playing on national interests.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kittelmann">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I agree with what Mrs Mann said on behalf of the Socialist Group.
The European People's Party also finds that the USA has quite clearly breached the WTO rules.
But that does not necessarily mean we know what will happen next.
We are familiar with the Americans' political rules of play; the US Administration feels under pressure from Congress, and rather like the case of the Helms-Burton Act, it no longer pays any heed to the rules of international law but seeks instead ways of defending itself from within, which is presumably how we should regard the imposition of unilateral sanctions.
<P>
Let me point out quite firmly that we would be well-advised - even if we are in the right with the second part - not to forget that the panel, that the WTO, will probably only find conditionally in our favour on the main issue.
That happens to be the way things go in international law, which is why I would advise the Commission, on behalf of the European People's Party, to do all it can to explore further in the discussions - which Sir Leon described as informal - with the US Administration where there are possibilities of resolving the conflict, rather than leaving it to the final WTO decision, if only because we will be facing an incredible number of points of conflict with the USA in the coming years.
<P>
If we believe we have to win this time, we will be the losers in other cases where there might be a willingness to compromise.
That is why we, who all supported and wanted the WTO, urge that it not be regarded merely as a pawn in the conflict of interests between the USA and Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 NAME="Moorhouse">
Mr President, the quarrel between the USA and the EU runs very deep.
It is no longer merely a question of bananas but threatens to affect EU/US trade on a much wider scale.
More than that, it could conceivably affect the very future of the WTO and tip the balance away from free trade to protectionism.
<P>
As I said in a letter to the Financial Times this very day, it is a great misfortune that European Union political leaders, including the UK Prime Minister, Mr Blair, I regret to say, have failed to heed the many warning signals and failed to grasp the nettle with the Americans at a much earlier stage.
For that and many other reasons we support the motion for a resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Novo">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in February the European Parliament called on the United States to comply with the international rules and not to introduce customs duties unilaterally and illegally block access by European products to the American market.
<P>
At the same time, the European Parliament warned of the need for the European Union to make plans to retaliate against the US decision.
Despite our appeals the Americans have carried out their threats.
The Commission should not accept this situation and must react against this blatant provocation which to my mind is typically imperialistic.
It must block all transatlantic economic partnership negotiations, protest against the Helms-Burton and D'Amato Acts as the European Parliament has already demanded, and block access by all American products to European markets.
<P>
The United States has shown that it holds negotiations in contempt.
We have to take action rather than insisting on an approach that is clearly not being respected.
The Commission must also reassert its commitment to defend Community law and to fulfill its obligations towards the ACP countries and Community banana producers.
The Commission must also tell the United States that it will not let it undermine the European Union's social and employment policies or try and jeopardise public health and the environment in the European Union.
<P>
In conclusion, the Commission and all the Member States, without exception, must tell the United States that the tactic of divide and rule is an ancient one but is well known to us Europeans and will not work with the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, bananas have become the symbol of a looming and escalating trade war which has in fact been simmering away quietly for six years already.
Fiercer world competition is forcing the protagonists to take a clear and tough position.
But the US, in threatening a trade boycott, is overstepping the bounds of that clear position and the bounds of the transatlantic partnership.
The boycott is illegal until such time as the WTO panel has given its verdict and it is politically unacceptable, coming at a time when we have just concluded our economic partnership.
This uncompromising attitude undermines the authority and rules of the WTO, poses a major problem for the next 'millennium round' of talks due to begin in December in Seattle, and will not least be harmful - if the US gets its way - to British exporters above all.
Once again, none of the parties, least of all the Caribbean banana producers, have anything to gain from a trade war.
<P>
Commissioner Brittan has played a leading role in the debate on world free trade.
According to today's Financial Times , your swan song could turn out to be bananas - because we shall hear it one day when you step down.
But I doubt it, because in recent years you have dealt with all manner of trade issues.
So I ask you, where do we go from here?
Do we wait for the ruling of the WTO panel?
Are Washington and Brussels going to talk, or is the EU going to pay the US back in the same coin?
And if so, what coin will that be?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Mr President, it is with bananas of all things that the USA is currently making huge efforts to dismantle the WTO.
Just because Bill Clinton promised the US Congress in autumn 1998 to impose punitive tariffs on 3 March, the WTO rules were bent and broken.
But in fact this will go on happening even after the banana dispute: in May there will the ban on meat with hormones, next will come genetically modified food.
<P>
The USA announced and began this massive campaign for free trade a long time ago, without regard for human health or the environment.
But just to appeal to one's adversary to be reasonable really is not enough.
What we must remember is that the USA is overruling the legislation in force.
We must not go on negotiating considerately with opponents of this kind because, Sir Leon, that is precisely the way to further undermine the credibility of the WTO.
The dispute must be settled by the WTO and until that happens all other negotiations with the USA should be suspended.
Here I am thinking in particular of the TEP and the preparations for the millennium round.
<P>
I am definitely not a protectionist, but please consider what decisive steps you can take to protect undertakings in the European Union, for things really cannot go on as they are.
If we do not achieve our objective of resolving this dispute, then I fear the WTO will slip on a banana skin.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 NAME="Ewing">
Mr President, one really wonders why the most powerful state in the world has sunk so low into global immorality.
But we learned from the press - if they are correct - that both parties in America get substantial donations from the three big banana companies.
That makes the situation even worse.
<P>
Again, one wonders why they are so greedy as they seem to have 40 % of the EU bananas and the Caribbean only 9 %.
They seem to be prepared to write off the Third World.
I am glad that Commissioner Brittan mentioned the ACP.
Why is it that we have been in Lomé all these years?
We have always had this commitment of access to our markets.
Why now?
It is a most puzzling matter.
<P>
I represent Moray where there is a big cashmere mill.
Along with mills on the borders, a fragile area, they are losing orders of £1 million.
Commissioner Brittan should know this.
I heard it on Friday.
Even before the event, orders are being cut down and people are being put out of jobs.
I also have the shortbread biscuits.
So I feel that in the north of Scotland, at any rate, any claim of a special relationship will be treated with some considerable derision.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, I would urge the Commission not to lose sight of the interests of the people of Europe, and indeed the people of all parts of the Community, in this banana dispute.
The banana regime may have doubly adverse effects on the people and therefore on the consumers, in Austria for example.
Since its accession to the European Union, banana prices have risen steeply.
In a country with a continental climate, this hits the so-called man in the street, who relies heavily on bananas for his fresh fruit supplies in winter, particularly hard.
<P>
I realise that is not the issue today.
But if as a result of possible protective tariffs against European exports, our exports to the USA, our most important overseas market, were to fall, that could lead to bankruptcies and massive redundancies.
In view of the extremely difficult situation on the European labour market, the Commission should therefore take a more pragmatic stance on this question, which unlike the case of meat with hormones does not involve health considerations, in order to prevent the dispute from escalating.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Vecchi">
Mr President, what the European Union has to do in this phase of the so-called 'banana war' is extremely awkward.
It must attempt at one and the same time to defend its own legitimate interests and those of its ACP partners, and to prevent the escalation of a trade war consisting of reprisals on both sides, which could severely damage Europe's political, economic and commercial interests.
<P>
The appropriate forum for the settlement of this dispute is the World Trade Organisation.
It was the WTO which condemned the previous rules on banana imports and sales in the EU.
The decision of the WTO 'banana panel' was what made the Union move its own goalposts.
The onus is now on the WTO, to which the United States has again appealed concerning the new European regime, to issue an unequivocal condemnation of the illegal, unilateral steps taken by the American administration.
<P>
The United States is now triggering a fully-fledged trade war, which could do serious damage not only to vital export sectors in the Community - and particularly in Italy - but also to transatlantic relations in general.
<P>
Although there is no doubt that the commercial interests of the US and the EU differ - indeed in the near future they will conflict increasingly - what seems unacceptable is that the Union should submit to WTO rulings even when they are clearly biased, as in the case of bananas, but that the United States should flout them at will.
<P>
What is more, this situation strengthens our conviction that, in the new age of globalisation, the European countries' interests very often converge with those of many developing countries, especially the ACP countries.
<P>
The Union must therefore take steps, both bilaterally, multilaterally and within international organisations, to stand shoulder to shoulder with the poorest countries more often, beginning with the ACP countries, to give us greater strength to face the challenges confronting us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="Elles">
Mr President, it is astonishing that we are confronted by a dispute about a product of which neither the EU nor the US is a major producer.
Intemperate comments are the order of the day.
One has the cynical feeling that in the United States the degree of intensity of their comments perhaps depends on the degree of lobbying which they have had from, as one speaker said, the three companies which control over 80 % of the world banana trade.
<P>
I should like to congratulate the acts that have been taken so far by the Commissioner on our behalf and, in particular, to look after our European interests in the context of the WTO and to make sure that the solution is fair to ACP producers.
<P>
In The Times today a comment sums it up for me: 'Justice, fairness, mutual global responsibility should outweigh lumbering regulation.
Chiquita and the rest do not depend desperately on that last little slice of the European market.
The Caribbean producers do.
If big producers can sleep easy at night after fighting this ignoble cause of the day, the same should not be true of responsible world leaders.'.
<P>
Therefore, secondly, in the light of the fact that the EU and the US are the leaders of the global economy, we should now see an initiative at presidency level: of that of the head of the EU presidency with President Clinton to make sure that the proper procedures in the WTO are followed and to lessen some of the rising political impact of this conflict which could become very dangerous.
<P>
Lastly, it seems to me that there is a lesson for our longer-term transatlantic partnership.
We can invent any dialogue that we like or an economic partnership, but unless you get the political communities buying into this system with a broader partnership agreement between the EU and the US so that we can, as politicians, not talk by video conference but actually have a deeper dialogue between the two sides of the Atlantic, then the situation will not improve.
I therefore urge the German presidency to take whatever initiative is necessary in the Bonn EU/US summit in June.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Mr President, this banal issue is turning into a western entitled 'Once Upon a Time in the West - of Europe'.
The United States of America is advancing with a 'Colt' 301 at its hip whereas Sir Leon Brittan is advancing with his hands behind his back prattling on about the law.
This banana dispute is definitely revealing the hidden truth about Europe.
<P>
Europe represents a union of great strength, yet we have been giving way on this issue for three years.
Europe represents cooperation with Africa, yet we are abandoning Cameroon and the Côte d'Ivoire.
Europe represents the ultra-peripheral regions, yet we are abandoning Crete, Madeira, the Canaries, Guadeloupe and Martinique.
Europe represents social welfare, yet we are abandoning the banana workers, paid EUR 10 per hour, in favour of the slaves of the multinationals, paid EUR 2 per hour.
Europe represents the market and free trade of which Sir Leon is a symbol, yet we are yielding to American protectionism, to Section 301 and to 100 % customs duties.
Europe represents the law and the superiority of European law, yet we are yielding to the law of Geneva.
<P>
Just two multinationals, Chiquita and Dole, are forcing the European Commission, the Council of Ministers and the European Union as a whole to their knees.
This is why there must be changes in Europe.
We too must adopt a Section 301.
We must reestablish unanimity, and the European Commission must not be left to defend our commercial interests because where there is sovereignty there is freedom and superiority.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, I should first like to make a minor correction to what my good friend James Elles has just said.
I do support his point of view, but according to him, neither the United States nor the European Union are major producers of bananas.
This is something the CNN channel has been reiterating in a campaign on behalf of the United States.
<P>
I am not sure if this is true of the United States, but Europe certainly is a major producer of bananas.
We produce about a million tonnes of bananas in the European Union, in the autonomous community I represent, in Madeira, Greece, Martinique and Guadeloupe.
The European Union is indeed a major producer of bananas.
I do however agree with everything else James Elles said and, of course, I agree entirely with Erika Mann.
<P>
The Union is currently involved in a legal dispute.
In such a situation, when a country like the United States has flouted the law, the only course of action open for the Community is to defend its position from within the law.
<P>
I find the position advocated by the Group of the European People's Party through its spokesman Mr Kittelmann rather dangerous. The proposal made was that we should now sit down and negotiate with the United States.
It is as if someone were to steal my wallet and I were then expected to sit down and negotiate with him.
If someone stole my wallet, I would go straight to the police, I would not sit down and negotiate with the thief.
<P>
The present situation is that the United States is in breach of the World Trade Organisation regulations and the only possible response is to take the action the Commission has taken, and deal with the matter through legal channels.
I should like to draw the Commissioner's attention to certain statements printed in the Financial Times . They may not be correct, but Mr Rod Abbot, the European Union Ambassador to the World Trade Organisation is quoted as saying that 'they will find probably something out of line' and 'I don't expect the answer to be zero because this is a political process as well'.
The Union is not involved in a political process at this juncture.
What we are involved in is essentially a legal process.
The time to sit down and negotiate will be after the World Trade Organisation has decided on the solution.
I have asked the Commission to advise its representative to consider his actions carefully, because any statement by him may later be used against the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Burenstam Linder">
<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="Smith">
Mr President, because of this dispute and its impact on the cashmere industry, feelings in Scotland are running very high.
People feel hurt and bewildered at being involved in a dispute which is not of their making but which threatens to devastate significant parts of the economy.
Such is the strength of feeling that a major Scottish newspaper The Sunday Mail has organised a campaign to boycott Chiquita bananas and it has received a massive response.
And this is understandable.
<P>
In this House also we are angry and dismayed at the petty vindictiveness of the United States.
So, let us take the gloves off.
No more softly, softly on Helms-Burton.
Let us have a WTO panel on that.
Full support from this House for your attack on the extra- territoriality of Section 301, a re-affirmation of our solidarity with the EU's traditional suppliers in the ACP, an unequivocal warning to the United States of what is at stake here - an ordered regime of world trade which we can build upon or a descent into chaos.
<P>
Who can now have faith in the WTO and its disputes settlement procedure, in particular the developing world. They can see their vital interests being sacrificed on an altar of free trade which amounts to no more than a platform for the imperialist ambitions of the corporate cartels of the United States.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendonça">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, since I represent a country with very remote banana-producing regions, I have to tell you of the deep revulsion felt by many communities in those regions at the frequency and duration of these never-ending conflicts over banana production.
<P>
Very often the problem is not so much the size of the banana production in these regions or countries but the important part that it plays in their economy or social and environmental fabric.
We cannot only look at volume or quantities; we have to take into account our communities, our European Union and our ultraperipheral regions, regardless of whether they are small or big producers.
<P>
The ACP countries represent a pledge made by the European Union, a pledge that it has to honoured.
We have already given in to the World Trade Organisation on many occasions.
What is the aim?
To flood the European Union with bananas produced in countries where low labour costs mean that they can practise unfair competition.
The attitude of the United States is an unfair one and calls for a firm stance from the Commission, with no giving in.
Fundamentally, the Commission must continue to fight for the interests of the small and poor regions that still exist in the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 NAME="Kinnock, Glenys">
Mr President, bearing in mind, Commissioner, that the WTO referred the US call for sanctions to arbitration and that a panel has been established to determine whether the proposed new EU regime is in fact illegal, can you now assure this European Parliament, as my colleagues have asked you to do, that the Commission will not bow to illegal pressure from the United States.
This is essentially blackmail and a manipulation of the World Trade Organisation disputes procedure.
<P>
This blackmail aims to force the European Union to renege on its obligation to our traditional suppliers to advance the interests of one well-connected corporation, namely Chiquita.
Will you be prepared to stand firm in face of this kind of pressure and will you acknowledge, as I do, that in the past companies like the United Fruits Company were companies which bought Costa Rica and bought Hondurus.
Now we can say that the banana barons in the United States are actually buying the United States and buying favours from the people on Capitol Hill in Washington.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="Brittan">
Mr President, I wish to begin by saying how much I appreciate the broad degree of support that Parliament has given to the position that the European Union, and the Commission in particular, has taken.
That support is not only appreciated; it is heartening, because it has to be added to the support given by the international community represented by the members of the WTO in their deliberations in Geneva.
I can assure all concerned that I share the sense of indignation expressed, for example by Mr Smith and Mrs Kinnock, at the fact that innocent people, both in Europe and in the banana-producing countries of the ACP, are being taken hostage in a battle for which they have no responsibility whatsoever.
<P>
I can assure you that we, the European Union, will take action against the United States, have taken action against the United States, but we shall do so in accordance with the rules of the WTO.
In discussing matters with the United States, as I was careful to say in my opening statement, we will stress above all our obligations to the ACP countries but also to producers of bananas within the European Union.
It is indeed the case that the companies concerned already have some 70 % and more of the market.
It is not the case that they are being excluded from Europe in any sense of the word.
<P>
It is also the case, as Mr Medina Ortega has rightly said, that we are engaged at the moment in a legal, and not just a political, process.
We shall abide by the law, when it is pronounced, and we shall condemn those, such as the United States, who break it in advance of any decision.
We shall not only condemn them.
We shall, as we have done, take them to the WTO and follow the consequences of that action.
<P>
Finally, I wish to say that there has been talk of trade wars.
We have not started a trade war and we shall not pursue a trade war but we shall do what we are entitled to do under the WTO rules.
Talk has also been prevalent about the impact of this on transatlantic relations generally.
I would say both to this House and to our American friends that it is impossible for action to be taken in flagrant violation of the rules of the WTO by the United States and for the United States to believe that can have no impact on our relations generally, important as they are.
I believe I have worked as hard as anybody not only to maintain but to develop those relations.
That is in the interests of Europe, it is in the interests of the United States and it is in the interests of the world as well.
However, for that to happen and for that to happen effectively and for the work of those who have striven to improve those relations not to be set at naught, the United States must play its part: it must abandon its resort to unilateralism and conform to the rules of world trade.
That is the appeal I launched to them but it is not just a vain appeal; it is also expressed with the support of this Parliament and the determination of the European Union to defend its legitimate interests.
<P>
One speaker referred to an article which suggested that bananas might be my nemesis.
We all have our nemeses in due course.
It affects people and it reaches them at different times and on different issues.
I am not afraid of a banana nemesis because I know that the policy we are pursuing, with your support, is one of complete adherence to world trade, of a determination to build a relationship with the United States but on the solid basis of mutual respect and of equality on both sides of the Atlantic.
On that basis, nemesis can be avoided.
However, let us, in avoiding that nemesis in this way, also recognise that wiser counsels exist.
It is our task to ensure that wiser counsels prevail.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner, we are behind you.
<P>
I have received eight motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2).
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Thursday at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Own resources
<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0105/99) by Mrs Haug, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the need to modify and reform the European Union's own resources system.
<P>
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy first has a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, before the debate on the Haug report starts, I wish to move the inadmissibility of this report.
This is for the following two reasons: firstly on a matter of substance, linked to the report's content, and secondly on a procedural matter, linked to the way in which the report was drafted in the Committee on Budgets.
<P>
Firstly, on the substance, this reports contains a provision which can simply be called the cofinancing of agricultural expenditure. However, under the Treaty, agricultural expenditure is regarded as compulsory expenditure.
For this reason, financing shared between the European Union budget and the national budgets cannot be permitted. A minority opinion from Mr Bourlanges sets out this point.
<P>
Moreover, the report in question was not submitted for an opinion to the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, although this committee is clearly responsible for expressing an opinion on an issue of this kind.
<P>
The procedural matter involves the fact that Rule 150 of the Rules of Procedure has not been applied. This is because the principle of compromise amendments has been adopted, as so often happens in this committee, whereas the rapporteur should have presented a new report with a new deadline for the tabling of amendments.
<P>
These are the two reasons why, pursuant to Rule 128, I am moving the inadmissibility of this matter which I would ask to be put to the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="President">
As I understand it, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, you wish this item to be removed from the agenda.
I can now give the floor to one speaker in favour and one against.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Mr President, added to Mr Fabre-Aubrespy's arguments is the fact that the Haug report is not available in French at the documentation centre.
A pirate electronic version is available but not in French.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Mr President, I wish to speak against the motion, since in my view the argument put forward by Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, namely that cofinancing is impossible because the expenditure is compulsory, is not covered by the EC Treaty.
The question of compulsory expenditure has nothing to do with the way decisions are legitimised, which is why I would ask for the motion to be rejected and the Haug report to be debated now.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, I believe it should be quite normal and necessary in the European Parliament to discuss the future too and quite simply to mark out the course we want to follow in future, which is the purpose of this discussion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="President">
I put to the vote Mr Fabre-Aubrespy's motion to remove this item from the agenda.
<P>
Parliament rejected the motion
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 NAME="Haug">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is quite clear that this week we are waiting for important signals to be set in the European Union, even if that is precisely what Mr Fabre-Aubrespy and a few other Members wanted to prevent.
In addition to the Structural Funds and the common agricultural policy, the financing of the Community needs to undergo radical reform.
President Santer rightly pointed out that financial reform is one of the main pillars of Agenda 2000.
<P>
Parliament has already taken important steps in regard to the interinstitutional agreement by laying down our principles, but financial reform will quite simply remain inadequate unless we also see changes on the revenue side.
Interinstitutional agreement and reform of own resources are two sides of the same coin.
The financing structure we have at present no longer matches up to the increased demands made on it.
We need greater flexibility, transparency and autonomy in the European financial system.
<P>
The present system relies too heavily on sources of finance that are calculated in a highly complicated manner and which, on top of that, virtually still take the form of Member State contributions.
These shortcomings, together with the obvious imbalances in the distribution of the burden among the more prosperous Member States, need to be remedied.
The Committee on Budgets therefore proposes a step-by-step readjustment of the own resources system.
<P>
We voted on this last night and basically reached the following conclusions.
Firstly, European budgetary revenue must take a simpler and more transparent form and come under stricter democratic control.
We want to replace VAT-based own resources and GNP-based own resources with a uniform, new, simplified source of own resources on a GNP basis.
This measure will also help eliminate the imbalances between Member States in relation to funding the budget.
<P>
Secondly, in principle the European budget must be financed under the same conditions for all Member States.
This means that existing correction mechanisms must be phased out and we must not add new correction mechanisms or even rebate systems.
In concrete terms this means that the British rebate must have been phased out gradually by the time of the accession of the first new Member State at the latest.
In its time, this rebate was granted to make up for the fact that the UK received too small a share of payments under the common agricultural policy.
But at that time the agricultural proportion of the budget, accounting for over 70 %, was considerably higher than it is today.
A rebate is anti-systemic and in no way justifiable, even in relation to financing the Structural Funds or the costs of enlargement.
<P>
Thirdly, I would emphasise that reducing economic differences and achieving solidarity among the Member States are an important pillar of the Treaty and of European integration.
But we cannot achieve this important aim on the expenditure side.
Such an attempt would merely create rules that would make the budget complicated and less transparent.
We have policies created specifically for the purpose of achieving solidarity among the Member States, such as structural policy.
We want horizontal justice and vertical solidarity to be our principle for shaping the budget.
<P>
Fourthly, ever widening imbalances have emerged in the course of time in the financing of the budget.
They now form a considerable obstacle to the development of the European Union.
You can see that just by looking at the current discussions in the Council.
To put it plainly: there will always be net contributors and net beneficiaries, nobody disputes that. But we must avoid excessive imbalances and unfair distributions of the burden.
Otherwise there is a risk that our people will doubt the legitimacy of the Union.
<P>
It is obvious that these imbalances can only be eliminated if the largest expenditure heading, agricultural policy, which accounts for almost 50 % of the budget, is not disregarded.
It is all the more important to have rules that include agriculture because that is where many of these imbalances stem from.
That is why it is sensible and reasonable for agricultural policy to be cofinanced in future, as the Committee on Budgets decided last night.
<P>
In this context let me also emphasise again that cofinancing does not mean renationalisation - on the contrary.
In fact it involves the Member States more closely in framing Community policy, in qualitative terms too, and therefore leads to deeper integration.
Nobody would even think of denying the Community nature of our structural policy.
However, we do not want anyone to be overburdened as a result of this kind of measure, and I could imagine that when cofinancing is implemented, differentiated rules, which is to say lower cofinancing rates, could perhaps be found for economically weaker Member States.
<P>
I would also add that the considerable differences of opinion in the Council on this subject have naturally also had an impact on the discussions on our report, and have also had an impact on Parliament.
Since there were heated disputes about the instrument of cofinancing, I submitted a compromise proposal to the Committee on Budgets. Accordingly, agricultural expenditure was to be reduced every year by a certain percentage and part of the resources thus obtained would go on structural aid measures in rural areas.
This compromise did not obtain a majority, for which those who strongly rejected cofinancing bear particular responsibility.
But since any solution that disregarded agricultural policy would have no substance and no prospects, we re-submitted the original cofinancing proposal, which was then accepted, although not until after the compromise proposal had been rejected.
<P>
By correcting the unbalanced distribution of the burden we create the conditions for a viable budget for the future.
To ensure that the European Union is financially independent, in the long term its financing should be based on new own revenue which does not take the form of Member State contributions.
Primarily this revenue would consist of own taxes.
As a first step towards this objective, a proportion of these taxes should accrue to the Union budget, on the basis of an agreement between the Member States on certain types of tax.
Here we must emphasise, however, that this new own revenue should not be additional but should replace existing revenue, so as to avoid putting a further burden on the European taxpayer.
<P>
In my view, what we are trying to achieve is to adjust the financing of the Union to the requirements of the new quality of Communitisation.
We have nearly achieved this new quality of Communitisation with the completion of economic and monetary union.
The Member States' economies are interwoven in a particular manner.
That means that the Member States' budgets and the European budget can no longer be looked at in isolation from one another.
In the long term the stability of our common currency and the potential for growth of our closely linked economies depend on whether the European budget also becomes capable of taking economic action.
<P>
When we vote on this report we will also be deciding our own ability to act.
Shall we sit and wait for Council decisions or are we capable of developing the power to shape policies by ourselves?
If we adopt this report here on Thursday and make its demands the subject of negotiations with the Council on the new interinstitutional agreement, we will have made an important contribution to the reform of the European Union.
Support us along this new road and let us dare to embark on it together.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="Bourlanges">
Mr President, I would be prepared to support the revolution but it is actually the opposite which is being proposed.
I am speaking on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs.
<P>
The Committee on Institutional Affairs had two concerns on this issue.
The first was to ensure that clarification was given on whether, in the future, own resources should be national contributions or resources collected in the form of taxes from economic operators.
Although I must congratulate Mrs Haug's report which has achieved some very important work, I do not share its conclusions and find its answer to this question to be rather paradoxical.
This is because it initially suggests that national contributions should end and then it proposes extending the GNP national contribution and making this the main resource of the Union's budget.
Work that one out if you can!
<P>
The second concern of the Committee on Institutional Affairs was to clarify the status of cofinancing.
Would this be a subsidy granted by the Member States on a voluntary basis to supply certain areas of Community expenditure?
If so, this would involve a system which would call into question the unity of the common agricultural market and which would involve renationalisation and distortion of competition, as each country would subsidise its own agriculture at will.
If, on the contrary, this involved compulsory cofinancing imposed on the Member States, this would be a new own resource, which is what justifies the project appearing in the Haug report.
This new resource would be outside the legal framework of the Treaty as it would not comply with Article 201.
<P>
Either we have a system of own resources with unanimous agreement and ratification by the national parliaments or we forget this and work within Article 43, in which case this would be highly illegal.
The main proposal of your report, Mrs Haug, is therefore contrary to the Treaty.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 NAME="Valdivielso de Cué">
Mr President, despite the increased use of the concept of gross national product, I should like to look at contributions to the European Union's budget from the point of view of the people's Europe.
If we take as a point of reference the contribution made by each individual in each Member State expressed as a percentage of his or her income, it emerges that the contribution made to the Union's budget by people in certain countries with a lower standard of living is higher than the Community average in terms of a proportion of their income.
On the other hand, if the same terms of reference are applied, say, to an Italian or to a British person, it is clear that their contributions are well below the average.
<P>
The European Commission's communication puts forward three courses of action aimed at resolving the problem of budgetary imbalances. It should be borne in mind, however, that the Commission has been accused of partiality in formulating these proposals, as it only seems to defend the interests of certain net contributors.
<P>
It is abundantly clear that the Commission's communication does not exhaust all possible solutions.
One of the most ingenious, as far as fairness is concerned, involves compensating countries whose balance differs from what it should be as a function of their gross national product and relative per capita wealth. The combined negative balance would be financed by the remaining members, excluding the Member States benefiting from cohesion funds.
<P>
This option would allow cohesion to be preserved within the Union and would permit a fairer distribution of the financial effort required to maintain this level of cohesion.
<P>
Though I commend the rapporteur for the work she has put into this report, I have to disagree with her. We should be advocating fairness - equitas - a principle which dates from the earliest days of Roman law.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 NAME="Wynn">
Mr President, firstly I should like to congratulate Mrs Haug on her report, not just because she is from our group but because she embarked on a Mission Impossible to try to get the agreement of the European Parliament on the future financing of the European Union.
I am sure when we come to the vote you will see how impossible that position has proved to be.
And yet the hard work she has put into it has made some progress towards a position that all the political groups can support.
<P>
Her original drafts resulted in 241 amendments.
That shows there was more than a little interest.
The fact that 241 amendments were tabled gave rise to some concern in the Committee on Budgets.
The last thing we wanted to do was to come before Parliament with so many amendments to be voted on.
So we asked the rapporteur to try to obtain as many compromise amendments as possible.
And that is exactly what she did.
She then put together a revised draft. And that is what the Socialist Group has tried to go along with.
She has pleased just about every nationality except one, namely my own, in the way she has taken on the majority of interests.
She has done very well.
<P>
However, I would not be telling the truth if I were to say that we were unanimous in our support for the final report we voted on last night in committee.
If I were Greek or Irish, where the GDP of my country would be affected by Amendment No 141 which refers to the co-financing of agriculture, I would not want to vote for that amendmen.
Others believe that Amendment No 141 should be supported wholeheartedly as it would help reduce the net payments of their Member States and if I were German or Dutch, I would wholeheartedly support this new paragraph 13.
<P>
Fourteen out of the fifteen delegations within the Socialist Group want rid of the UK rebate and they will vote for those paragraphs which refer to it.
If I were speaking for the British, I would make a valid case why the UK rebate is fair and justified but I am not speaking for the British and therefore I cannot say these things.
<P>
The one thing my group can agree on is that the status quo needs to be changed.
It has not developed in any systematic way nor in accordance with any European strategy or real forward planning. Rather, it has developed as a reaction to events at given periods of time.
I will give you a couple of examples. The original traditional own resources was the one truly European own resource.
At the same time that one truly European own resource is waning rapidly in its importance.
Yet, the good old traditional own resources are the cause of major headaches for control and concern about fraud.
<P>
And what about the VAT and GNP-based own resources?
As a member of the Committee on Budgets for almost ten years I would challenge any Member - except Mr Samland and Mr Colom I Naval - to explain the formula for VAT and GNP-based own resources, that is to say how to calculate Member States contributions.
Try to explain it to members of the general public and - even if you can do it - how are they to understand it?
That is the situation that exists.
We have a system of own resources that is extremely complex and lacking in transparency.
All this Parliament wants is a clear and comprehensible system.
We are somewhere near to getting an agreement on that through Mrs Haug's report.
I would hope that at the end of the voting we have a clear and concise position and most of my group will be supporting it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Mr President, I wish to move a procedural motion.
<P>
At the end of the morning sitting, the President put to an informal vote a change in the agenda for this afternoon in order to allow Sir Leon Brittan to attend.
We have now reached Question Time and this change has caused a totally unacceptable imbalance between the political groups in this debate.
The rapporteur, Mrs Haug from the Socialist Group, has just spoken for eight minutes followed by Mr Wynn from the Socialist Group for five minutes.
This means that this debate on a report that is extremely important for European finances will now be suspended until the evening sitting, thereby preventing the other political groups from speaking before 9.00 p.m.
For this reason I urge you to ensure that at least one speaker from each group is given the floor by encroaching into Question Time. Otherwise, the press who are listening in the press room will have heard thirteen minutes from one group - actually five but the rapporteur is from the same group - and nothing from the other groups.
<P>
In view of the importance of this report and of the vote on Thursday which will be closely followed, with three minority opinions and roll-call votes, particularly with regard to agriculture, I would consider it deplorable if this House were to begin Question Time without at least one speaker per group having spoken.
<P>
Mr President, I would ask you to consult our colleagues because I feel that the groups must be allowed to vote on this in the same way as you put to the vote the possible referral of the report back to committee due to the inadmissibility of the matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 NAME="President">
You are right, Mr Giansily, that there is a tremendous problem every time we change the agenda.
It makes life very difficult for Members, Commissioners and the press.
I also hope you will appreciate that when it is established that Question Time begins at 5.30 p.m. it is very difficult for the President of the sitting to disregard that.
But if you insist that we take a vote on the matter, then of course it can be done.
However, I would prefer it if we could avoid that and let Question Time begin now.
On the other hand, I think it is important that Mr Giansily has made our audience and the press aware of the imbalance which has arisen in that only members of one political group have had the floor.
I think you are quite right in that respect, although I would point out that Mr Bourlanges has also spoken, as well as Mr Valdivielso.
Do you insist on having a vote, Mr Giansily?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Yes, Mr President, I am asking for a vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Mr President, I just wanted to propose a compromise.
I think seven groups still have to speak and there are only a few minutes left.
Perhaps we could come to a compromise.
After all, you do not have to work through the whole list of speakers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 NAME="President">
I understood Mr Giansily to mean that he wanted the seven Members who are speaking on behalf of the political groups to have the floor before Question Time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
One speaker per group, Mr President.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Colom i Naval">
Mr President, I should like to make a further remark.
When the opinion of the House was sought on the timing of the Commission's declaration on bananas, we were never told that that would mean cutting short the debate on own resources.
I am one of those paying the price for this, as I am will now have to speak in the evening.
It does seem to me, however, that it is politically unacceptable not to allow all the groups to express an opinion at least once before postponing the debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, I would suggest that we continue the debate here in plenary immediately after Question Time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="President">
I put to the vote Mr Giansily's request for the political group spokesmen to be given the floor before Question Time.
<P>
Parliament approved the request
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bardong">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Budgetary Control has repeatedly considered the system of own resources on the basis of the various reports by the Court of Auditors.
Mrs Haug has now done an extremely comprehensive job on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, but I am sorry to have to say that the great number of amendments tabled in committee have not made the whole business any clearer or more convincing.
<P>
Basically I would like to point out that as long as the issue is confined to the fair distribution between the Member States of the own resources that have to be found, we will keep having to deal with conflicting financial and budgetary interests, to bemoan the lack of transparency and lack of ascribability of both revenue and expenditure.
Only if the contribution of each individual taxpayer throughout Europe is taken seriously and evaluated could this dispute be brought to an end.
That is why I particularly regret the rejection of the proposal from our Committee on Budgetary Control that the Commission provide information concerning the possibility of personalising the contributions that feed the own resources system.
<P>
We should adhere to the principle of own resources, even if only traditional own resources - duties and agricultural levies - are genuine own resources, which in addition have been regressive for years.
In addition, the Member States deduct these own resources as their contribution and ask for 10 % of them back for their customs administrations.
One should at least check whether this 10 % can be appropriated for the customs administrations in the first place.
At any rate, there is still quite a lot of circumvention and evasion in this area by the Member States.
<P>
VAT-based own resources are tending increasingly to take the form of national contributions to the EU budget.
Their share is being distorted because of the size of the black economy in some states.
<P>
GNP-based own resources still correspond most closely to contributions.
But I am sorry that the net-contributor issue is not being resolved at all.
I am in favour of cofinancing, I am in favour of the phased abolition of the British rebate and I am also in favour of examining the question of new own resources.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Mr President, I should also like to compliment Mrs Haug on her report.
She nearly had a mission impossible but we should make a distinction between some very controversial points and the general direction in which Parliament can express itself.
It is essential for Parliament to indicate before the Berlin summit that it does not like the concept of juste retour , that it does not want to have further exemptions, that it wants to review the exemptions of the British rebate and that it does not want to go in the direction of a general correction mechanism.
These are very fundamental points for the future.
It is also important for the future for us to look at the prospect of having own resources of a real nature, although this may still take some time yet.
In that respect it is a report of fundamental importance which we should welcome.
<P>
Obviously there are a number of points which cause difficulties.
The issue of cofinancing will clearly be shared by a large majority of my group.
I would take issue with Mr Bourlanges who says it is illegal.
He said so in so many words.
It is not illegal.
It is the review of a policy which should remain communautaire .
There is no question about that.
The question is whether, in 1999, we should still have the same amount of finance in the Community budget for an agricultural policy which is in need of review.
That element has nothing to do with legality.
It is a question of appropriateness and of review.
<P>
In the same way it is very important that the report very clearly says that we should find corrections on the expenditure side in the future.
We know, for instance, that within the framework of the review the Spanish Government has put forward suggestions concerning asylum and immigration.
It may be that the specific ways in which it is formulated need correction, but it is that kind of correction which will ultimately make, as Mrs Haug said, a Community of solidarity and a Community of justice.
<P>
Against that general background the Liberal Group is very positive about her overall approach.
There will certainly be individual items with which we may disagree.
It is clear also that not everybody would be happy to phase out the UK rebate right away.
We have heard that point before.
But again, it is relevant to know that a large majority in Europe does not want to have any specific positions for any specific group of countries or individual countries.
Indeed, as Mrs Haug rightly said, it should also be clear that by the time the first new batch of countries comes in, there should be an end to such special arrangements.
That is a very positive point.
It would be quite illogical if one Member State were not to cofinance enlargement of the European Union, which has nothing to do with the fact that in 1984 there was a specific situation concerning agriculture.
<P>
Against that background it is also important that Mrs Haug makes it clear that we should have more democracy and a bigger say for Parliament in the future.
Our colleague, Mr Colom i Naval will have considerable support for the issue of having more flexibility and transparency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Mr President, thank you for having agreed to put our proposals to the vote.
Clearly they were positively supported.
In my opinion, this is because Mrs Haug's report is extremely important for the future of this House and the European Union.
<P>
This report boils down to just a few questions.
Are the own resources that allow Community policies to be financed still sufficient?
Do they guarantee the financial autonomy of the European Union?
And finally, will they be sufficient to finance the future enlargement and to allow the Community to keep its commitments with regard to the common policies?
<P>
The problem is that, although the rapporteur asked good questions, the Committee on Budgets provided poor answers in its vote yesterday.
Firstly, Mrs Haug has instigated a real witch-hunt against the common agricultural policy because, just by citing the share of agricultural expenditure in the Community budget, she has asserted that this is a main cause of the budgetary imbalance.
<P>
We cannot support such an erroneous assumption.
Although the share of agricultural expenditure in the budget has remained constant over the last twenty years in terms of GDP, it has nevertheless constantly fallen from year to year because the other policies have increased and also because a financial straitjacket has been imposed on this. Agricultural expenditure now represents less than 45 % of the total volume of EU expenditure whereas, when this House was elected for the first time in 1979, it represented over 90 %.
<P>
Secondly, having found that the CAP share of the budget is inappropriate, Mrs Haug proposes nothing less than cofinancing of agricultural expenditure by the Member States.
Mr Bourlanges has just explained that this is totally unacceptable. This is due primarily to the special status of agricultural expenditure which, because of its effect on the economy and its support of the markets, cannot be lumped together with all the non-compulsory expenditure and cannot be subject to the will of this House.
Even partial cofinancing of the CAP from national budgets would inevitably lead to agricultural expenditure being renationalised and would lead the European Union down the dangerous road of reversing the integrated nature of the common policies.
In this case, we cannot risk heading disastrously towards the disintegration of the common policies as, due to financial convenience and political opportunity, full financing would no longer be assured.
<P>
Any reform of Europe's finances must consolidate Community solidarity, yet the options put forward by certain delegations continue to give cause for concern, particularly in terms of the Structural Funds.
In my opinion, as recalled after the Brussels and Edinburgh European Councils of 1988 and 1992 respectively and the signing of the Maastricht Treaty, the main priority in this issue is to respect the commitment made to the Member States which most need these funds, namely Greece, Ireland and Portugal. In this respect I am speaking on behalf of my colleague, Nikitas Kaklamanis.
<P>
Finally, how can we fail to keep the commitments made previously when we are trying to integrate these states into the European Union and to ask for their full solidarity?
The vote on Thursday will demonstrate that solidarity must be maintained between the Members of this House and between the European partners.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Miranda">
Mr President, the first question to be asked about the European Union's own resources is whether they are sufficient for the policies that we intend to implement.
What policies and at what level?
Or, in other words, to use an expression we have often used, we must have the means to realise our ambitions.
This is our vital starting-point, especially now that we are heading towards a further and considerable enlargement due to bring into the European Union a large number of countries that, at best, have a level of development that is markedly below the current Community average.
<P>
These questions cannot be avoided.
That is why, in our opinion, a clear answer will have to be found to the following questions: do we or do we not wish to continue with the current Community policies - and now is not the time for us to discuss what kind of policies they are - and do we or do we not want to prepare the ground for extending them in the future to the applicant countries?
Furthermore, we must also consider whether there might not be other areas in which Community action is desirable and which would need resources to be allocated to them.
<P>
I am thinking, for example, of the fight against unemployment.
What I have just said obviously clashes with the general direction taken in this discussion since, very often, the level of implementation in terms of revenue is confused with the level of implementation in terms of expenditure. Also, on a more fundamental level, there seems to be one overriding concern: to regard the current level of own resources as adequate and as a proper starting-point and, in the light of the new developments - particularly preparations for enlargement - to settle for a fresh redistribution and allocation of those resources.
<P>
Obviously, we do not go along with that approach, which is, in any case, out of keeping with all of the efforts made by the European Parliament on this subject for many years.
We are the first to call for a root-and-branch reform of the CAP, but that does not mean that a properly reformed CAP will require less finances.
We must, after all, ensure a fresh distribution of the available resources between producers and regions.
<P>
Therefore, we reject outright the proposal to renationalise CAP funding and the proposals to introduce a degressive approach.
On the other hand, we feel that solidarity and cohesion must be at the forefront of the European Union's concerns, and we even believe that the current 1.27 % of GNP earmarked for those objectives will prove insufficient to guarantee effective redistribution in the future.
In particular, we should make it crystal clear that there can be no enlargement with this level of own resources.
<P>
Furthermore, there are other job-creation projects which cannot be delayed, and they also call for additional funding.
I would say that this is the central issue: how the European Union is to be properly financed.
Therefore, in our opinion, and without wishing to go over the top, we think that this problem can only be solved if we improve the existing system of own resources, in particular by giving greater weight to GNP when calculating the transfers.
We believe that this is the only sure way to achieve this objective.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Mr President, the fate of the Haug report on Thursday still rests in the lap of the gods, but nevertheless, many thanks for this great endeavour.
<P>
I would like to make it clear that the question of cofinancing agricultural policy has nothing to do with the cheapest version of the net-contributor debate that we keep hearing but that it is necessary in order to achieve what we have always called for: structural reform that will bring about more democracy in expenditure policy and that, above all, can make us capable of enlargement, for otherwise we would never manage to finance eastward enlargement.
<P>
In my view, to describe this is as 'the only communitised policy' is just a cliché to hide the fact that in this area, which accounts for nearly half the budget, there is no democratic control.
When the ministers for agriculture meet and decide on their EUR 45 billion, neither the European Parliament nor any regional or national parliament has any say.
That is the fundamental mistake in what is called the communitised agricultural policy.
Support for environmental policy in rural areas, yes, as a structural policy, but support for a single sector, the agricultural sector, really is out of date in my view. It casts very serious doubt on the credibility of European policy-making and is something that must also be discussed during the negotiations on a new financial framework.
In that respect I warmly thank the Committee on Budgets for nailing its colours to the mast!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is a shame that so little attention is being paid to this very important debate, which we owe to Mrs Haug, because we are in the eye of a major storm which arose in our Committee on Budgetary Control in what I might describe as a spectacularly unacceptable way.
I must say we are content that the question of national rebates has been abandoned: that notion - like all other such demands relating to sums totalling some 10 or 12 000 billion lire, a mere fraction of a Member State's overall budget - goes to the core of a topical debate which is gnawing away at European integration.
<P>
I welcome the abandonment of this principle; however I do not welcome some of the attitudes struck in the report, particularly where we resuscitate an idea that has disappeared from the agenda of our governments and the Council of Ministers.
We learned a few days ago that the German Government, which had been calling more loudly than any other for a new method of cofinancing the common agricultural policy, has withdrawn its proposal.
To make Parliament, which unfortunately has a purely advisory role, return to the fray on this issue now strikes me as a mistake on the part of our committee yesterday.
We shall vote in favour of the report, as long as it is somehow divested of all such inappropriate and blatantly controversial considerations.
European integration does not depend on a few thousand million lire, but on creating true political union among the peoples of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Mr President, the characteristic feature of our four own resources is that they are inappropriate. There are three reasons for this.
Firstly, their basis of assessment is fudged.
This is true of both VAT and GNP.
Secondly, they are not clear or transparent.
Who among us can calculate the British rebate? Thirdly, these resources fortunately do not belong exclusively to Europe but are disguised contributions from the Member States.
<P>
It is now intended to alter this system under pressure due to enlargement to the East and pressure from Germany.
The European Commission has made a number of proposals.
In fact, these own resources are serving to reveal the truth.
The European Union cannot maintain its ceiling of 1.27 % of GNP and so we will ultimately end up with additional European taxes.
Federalism will roll on implacably. Just as in the United States of America, Brazil, India and Australia, we will have to share income tax and corporation tax receipts between the nation-states and Europe.
Only one thing can protect us from this unfortunate fate and that is the rule of unanimity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Martinez.
We shall adjourn the debate at this point.
It will be resumed this evening at 9 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Question Time (Commission)
<SPEAKER ID=192 NAME="President">
The next item is questions to the Commission (B4-0144/99).
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, today's Question Time to the Commission is starting 26 minutes later than it should according to the agenda approved on Monday.
I apologise to the Commissioners for the delay.
We had asked them to attend at 5.30 p.m.
I apologise also to the authors of the questions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 41 by José Valverde López (H-0139/99)
<P>
Subject: Food analysis unit of the Environment Institute (Ispra) The European Environment Institute in Ispra has a food analysis unit which monitors the quality of food ingredients, additives and chemical products generally used in the preparation of foodstuffs.
<P>
What links does this unit have with the various Commission services responsible for food security?
Are there any plans to incorporate this unit into the planned European Food Security Agency?
<P>
I should like to welcome Mrs Cresson and ask her to reply to Mr Valverde's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 NAME="Cresson">
Mr President, I am happy to answer this question which concerns an important subject, namely the Environment Institute and the problem of food safety.
Since 1 October 1998, the Food Products Unit has been part of the new Institute for Health and Consumer Protection of the Joint Research Centre.
This unit provides the independent scientific expertise needed for preparing and implementing various EU policies.
<P>
As the fifth framework programme for research is implemented, the unit will continue to provide scientific and technical support to various directorates-general of the Commission, for example to DG III for industry, to DG VI for agriculture, to DG XI for the environment, to DG XXI for customs and to DG XXIV for consumer health protection.
<P>
The main research priorities of the unit within the fifth framework programme for research are to control the safety and quality of food and related items and to detect genetically modified organisms in food and also in the environment.
<P>
The unit's activities will essentially involve developing, validating and harmonising analytical methods.
To a certain extent this involves determining uniform European analytical methods which we can therefore regard as reference methods.
The unit's activities will also involve developing databases and disseminating the results of research. The areas covered by the unit include food and animal feed, cosmetics, food packaging and childcare products and toys.
<P>
I can give you some more specific examples of the work to be carried out by this Institute. In particular it will validate two methods, one involving general screening and the other which will be more specific, for the detection of genetically modified organisms in staple foods, for example soya bean or maize flour.
This study will be extended to processed products.
I can also cite the development of methods for determining the presence of vegetable oils and fats other than cocoa butter in chocolate.
This study will serve as a scientific basis for the new 'chocolate' directive which is being prepared.
The Institute will also participate in studies on the migration of phthalates in toys.
This work involves developing and coordinating the validation of a mechanical method to simulate the sucking of toys and childcare products.
You will be aware that there was recently a major debate on this subject because phthalates can be the cause of serious illnesses in children who suck or chew toys.
<P>
Another example is the validation of methods in respect of bovine spongiform encephalopathy and the safety of animal feed, one demonstrating the appropriate heat treatment of animal meals according to the legislation and the other allowing the detection of animal meals in animal feed.
Finally, I can mention a database for wine, covering over 10 000 wines, and the fight against fraud in the area of wine, alcohol and spirits.
These are just a few specific examples of the Institute's activity.
<P>
As for the reference to the European Agency for Food Safety, the Commission would point out that it has not so far put forward any proposals on this.
It therefore seems premature today to discuss the possible participation of joint research centres. However, this is clearly something which can be studied at a later date.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valverde López">
I should first like to thank the Commissioner most sincerely for her lengthy reply to my question.
Her detailed account of the major restructuring which has taken place at Ispra and, in particular, of the new activities undertaken by the Institute for Health will also be of great interest to the general public.
<P>
What I would like to emphasise if I may, Commissioner, is that the Commission must continue working on the project to establish the new food analysis unit which will be able to coordinate all these activities and render the combined effort more efficient.
I am reiterating a hope rather than putting a question, and I hope that the Commission will be as efficient as it has been in restructuring the Ispra centre and will be able to complete its work with the creation of this unit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 NAME="Cresson">
I can confirm to the honorable Member my interest in the problem of food safety.
I am keen that particular attention is paid to this subject within the restructuring of the Joint Research Centre.
<P>
I can inform you that a document will be made available to Members.
This gives the work programme for 1999 and also contains a description of what has been achieved, in greater detail than I can give you today, together with the list of publications which have been issued as a result of the work carried out by the Joint Research Centre.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 NAME="President">
Thank you for your reply, Mrs Cresson.
Once again, I apologise for the delay and thank you for waiting so patiently to reply to Mr Valverde's question.
Thank you very much.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 42 by Christine Oddy (H-0211/99)
<P>
Subject: Financial control problems in Nicaragua I visited Nicaragua from 17-21 February and was alarmed to find, when I went to the Commission office in Waspam Rio Coco that no work appeared to be carried out and the people at the office were watching television; a caretaker showed us round and said the project manager had gone to Managua in December and had not returned. The skeleton staff had not been paid for several months, there were no files in the filing cabinet, the Land Rover outside had lost its spare tyre and was not properly locked and another Commission car was lying wrecked in another part of the village.
I have severe misgivings about the appropriateness of such a lavish Commission office in such a small remote village. Will the Commission investigate urgently?
<P>
I offer you a warm welcome, Mr Marín.
Mr Marín and I go back a long time. Not only are we friends but we also fought side by side in the cause of civil liberties in Spain during a difficult period.
So I am particularly pleased to be able to give him the floor.
Mr Marín, you may reply to Mrs Oddy's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 NAME="Marín">
Thank you for your kind introduction, Mr President.
<P>

Mrs Oddy has asked me about the situation concerning what appears to be a European Commission office in the Río Coco area of Nicaragua. I must first of all make it quite clear that the only European Commission delegation in Nicaragua is located in Managua.
<P>
The premises you visited do not belong to the European Commission and the staff you met are not employed by the European Commission.
That project was completed in 1997.
Therefore, none of the individuals on the premises have any professional association with the European Commission.
<P>
As regards the office equipment and the two Land Rovers which you said were not being put to good use in 1997, you will doubtless be aware that whenever a project is concluded, any remaining vehicles and office equipment which are sufficiently depreciated are handed over to the local authorities. In this case, the vehicles and office equipment were handed over to the Nicaraguan governor of the Río Coco province.
Clearly, there has been a misunderstanding.
<P>
Nevertheless, I have instructed the Commission's delegate in Managua to visit the Waspam region and ascertain in situ why the Nicaraguan authorities did not, as it appears, put the two Land Rovers and the office equipment donated to them to good use.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="Oddy">
Thank you for the answer.
I am aware that the project was closed down but nevertheless the building is operating to all intents and purposes as a Commission building.
It has a sign to that effect outside and the two vehicles I referred to have Commission logos on them.
To the outside world it appears to be a Commission office and people in the village refer to it as a Commission office.
I do not accept the answer I was given and the people who I spoke to thought that they were still employed by the Commission.
<P>
I can only reiterate what I have asked in the original question.
This situation needs to be investigated urgently.
If there is a misunderstanding then the people should be put right who think that they are in arrears of salary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 NAME="Marín">
Mrs Oddy, the necessary checks have already been carried out, and I can confirm that the building in question does not belong to the Commission.
I am unaware of the reasons behind this situation you describe though I can make an educated guess at them.
The delegate has indeed confirmed that the European Union's logo is painted on the wall of the building.
The European Union's logo is also painted on the two Land Rovers.
<P>
As I explained, when a project is completed any sufficiently depreciated vehicles are handed over to the local authorities, and in this case they were given to the local governor.
I will tell our delegate to get rid of the logos on the Land Rovers.
But I must stress that the building does not belong to the European Commission.
It used to, but we stopped using it two years ago.
A misunderstanding has arisen.
<P>
Quite apart from all this and following the devastation caused by hurricane Mitch, the Commission decided to repeat the process, as you will doubtless be aware. On this occasion, of course, it was handled in a different way, and not through the local governor of the Río Coco province.
A competition was held and was won by an Italian NGO.
We decided on such a procedure because this small example illustrates once again how difficult it is to deal with what we always term sustainable development.
<P>
The European Union financed this project aimed at the Misquito Indians for five years.
According to the arrangements for sustainable development, once a certain period of time has elapsed, responsibility must be transferred to the local authorities.
We did so two years ago in 1997. You have seen for yourself how sustainable development often requires constant European presence, because when European cooperation is withdrawn, the kind of situation you witnessed can arise.
<P>
Rest assured that the delegate has been instructed to ask the governor of the Río Coco region for an explanation, and I shall also ask for the logos to be removed from the office and from the Land Rovers in order to prevent any confusion amongst the local population.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 NAME="Kellett-Bowman">
I have not been to Nicaragua but Christine Oddy has and she has reported faithfully what she saw.
<P>
It would seem to me to indicate an unhappy situation in the representative's office because he should have done two years ago what you are now arranging to do.
That office is overdue for a visit of inspection from your department - possibly, from the Financial Controller and possibly also from the Court of Auditors.
<P>
When this question was raised some months ago, the body concerned foolishly wrote to Managua and said it is not intended to make a visit during this year.
If one is worried about things not being properly run it seems a pity if you advertise the fact that they are not going to be checked.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 NAME="Marín">
Mr Kellett-Bowman, I am not exactly sure what you are trying to say.
Could you please explain it more clearly?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 NAME="Kellett-Bowman">
I thought I was clear enough.
What I have been hearing about the representative in Nicaragua is indicative that the project had not been properly closed down.
<P>
A visit to Managua should be made.
I invite you to say that an inspection visit will be made, possibly from your department, from the Financial Controller and from the Court of Auditors.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 NAME="Marín">
Mr Kellett-Bowman, I understand you now.
The delegate has been asked to visit the area to ascertain exactly how the local governor of the Río Coco region has been dealing with the project since it was transferred to the Nicaraguan authorities. I must however reiterate that a misunderstanding has arisen.
I have been asked how Commission premises came to be in such a regrettable state and I can only reply that the premises in question do not belong to the Commission.
<P>
Secondly, the staff on those premises - who were indulging in rather unorthodox behaviour, according to Mrs Oddy - are not Commission employees.
I would like to make that crystal clear.
Therefore, neither the building nor the staff have any connection with the Commission.
How do you expect a financial audit to be carried out in relation to a situation that is based on a misunderstanding over officials who are not employed by the Commission?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 NAME="Kellett-Bowman">
I said Managua, I did not say the site of the project.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="Marín">
Mr Kellett-Bowman, when the Commission states the obvious, it sometimes provokes a reaction I cannot comprehend.
I am referring to the Río Coco project.
Naturally, the Managua delegation ...
<P>
The President cut the Commissioner off
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 NAME="President">
Mr Marín, please reply without engaging in a dialogue, as the Rules do not provide for one.
I have been far too generous with Mr Kellett-Bowman because he and I work together on Fridays, but I cannot allow myself to continue in this vein.
Please reply as you feel appropriate and we shall move on to another question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 NAME="Marín">
There is no difficulty over carrying out an audit of our official delegation in Managua as you request.
It has to be audited in any case, as part of SEM 2000.
As regards the premises referred to in Mrs Oddy's question however, those premises do not, I stress, belong to the European Commission, nor, I repeat, are the people she saw at those premises employed by the European Commission.
It is as simple as that.
I am sorry, but that is the way it is.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 43 by Hans Lindqvist (H-0203/99)
<P>
Subject: Aviation safety It is important that aviation safety standards are high and, in order to enhance those standards, there are plans for a European Aviation Safety Authority (EASA).
The Commission is working on these plans at the request of the Council.
Originally, a proposal was promised for the beginning of last year.
The date has been gradually postponed ever since.
The latest information, however, is that a draft convention will be available by the end of February.
<P>
Is a draft convention now available?
When will it be possible for the convention to enter into force?
<P>
I would like to welcome Mr Kinnock to the House.
I am sure he will show due consideration to the interpreters and to the work of the Chair today, and I invite him to reply to the question by Mr Lindqvist.
Mr Kinnock, you have the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
I am grateful to the honourable Member for his question.
In reply I would say that following the Council decision of 16 July 1998, the Commission was authorised to open negotiations with the states whose civil aviation regulatory authorities are full members of the joint aviation authorities but not members of the European Community, with a view to concluding an agreement establishing a European civil aviation safety authority that takes the legal form of an international organisation.
<P>
The negotiations will be carried out in accordance with the negotiating directives and in accordance with the ad hoc procedures specified by the Council in order to ensure close coordination between the Community and its Member States.
The authorisation to open negotiations entailed the establishment of a special committee to which the Commission is obliged to submit a draft text of the founding treaty before commencing negotiations.
The Commission has prepared a first draft text which has recently been submitted to the members of the special committee.
<P>
When a text has been finalised it will serve as a basis for the negotiations with the European countries outside the Community.
It is envisaged that such negotiations can be finalised within the course of this year The European Parliament will naturally be kept fully informed of the process.
The convention will then have to be ratified by the contracting parties and signatories in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements.
<P>
For the Community this will be done in conformity with Article 228 of the Treaty, that is after consultation of this Parliament by the Council.
In order to avoid delay in implementation it is envisaged that the potential contacting parties should agree to implement the convention on a provisional basis as early as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
Thank you for your reply.
I have asked this question on behalf of the voters in my country who are interested in what you have to say.
I am not especially knowledgeable myself, but I understand from Commissioner Kinnock's remarks that 'things are coming along', the task is on the way to completion and work is progressing on the forthcoming convention.
I am well aware that it is not possible for Mr Kinnock to tell us when it is likely to be completed or become a reality, since it will have to be ratified by the Member States.
<P>
However, I should still like to have some idea of when we may expect the convention to enter into force, as it is a matter of considerable importance for all the Member States of the Union and for people in general.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
I am getting used to procedures here very gradually.
I share the honourable Member's eagerness to ensure that the safety authority is established quickly and is soon operational.
Indeed, I think I can safely say that there is nothing but goodwill towards this development which is why, exceptionally, we have a provision which will allow for the operation of the convention on a provisional basis as soon as possible.
Everybody is working in a cooperative spirit and I hope the time for the establishment and operation of this essential safety authority is now not far away.
I doubt, however, whether it will fall within the term of this Commission.
I just hope that I will be invited to the opening ceremony because we worked damned hard to get it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Kinnock.
We trust you will be invited to that opening ceremony and to many more.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 44 by Bernie Malone (H-0209/99)
<P>
Subject: Dumping of canned fruit on South African market Is the Commission aware of the profoundly detrimental impact that certain aspects of the present Common Agricultural Policy are having on many third-world farmers?
I refer particularly to subsidies for EU fruit producers and the dumping of European fruit on the South African market.
<P>
Does the Commission agree that this situation is undoing much of the good work being done by Community development policy, and if so, what does the Commission intend to do to rectify this?
<P>
I should like to welcome Mr Pinheiro and ask him to reply to Mrs Malone's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 NAME="Pinheiro">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the question put to me by Bernie Malone could also apply to other products in the past, especially beef, during the upheaval on the South African market.
European exports rose during that period but the situation has now been rectified.
<P>
As for the issue of canned fruit and vegetables on the South African market, I can tell you that European exports are extremely small.
The only product of any significance is canned tomatoes, but even they account for no more than 7 % of the market.
They are therefore unlikely to lead to any sort of crisis or cause major concern.
As far as the fruit and vegetable market in South Africa is concerned, the country suffered serious problems in the wake of the World Trade Organisation agreements, especially since South Africa applied a highly irrational customs system, often imposing customs duties instead of quotas.
In some cases, the reduction in customs duties was excessive.
The situation was such that, when we started negotiating the cooperation and trade agreement with South Africa, we had to accept - and did - that the principles of 'stand still' and 'roll back' - traditionally sacrosanct principles in negotiations and free trade agreements - could be subject to a number of exemptions in the case of South Africa, so as to take account of the unusually large reduction in customs duties on certain South African products and, specifically, on goods such as canned fruit and vegetables.
<P>
The negotiations that took place forced us to look in detail at our bilateral trade in canned fruits and vegetables and all other products and enabled us to reach a satisfactory solution: South African exports to Europe will continue to take account of our ability to absorb them, the country's export capacity and the Community's own supplies.
These were by no means easy negotiations but I can tell you that the final outcome is well-balanced. It is true that some Mediterranean countries maintain that we were too generous with the South Africans.
For my part, I feel that the negotiations were balanced and that they open the way for achieving a sustainable market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="Malone">
Thank you, Commissioner, for your reply.
This is an area of European policy that a lot of citizens are very worried about.
You are aware of the campaign that is being run in relation to canned tomatoes in particular.
It is not just a few people campaigning but it is a massive campaign.
<P>
Many of the letters I receive in Dublin are from members of religious orders, for example.
They have a very healthy respect for the European Union but they disagree fundamentally with the way the common agricultural policy operates with regard to all the areas mentioned in relation to food and also in relation to fisheries.
<P>
You know yourself that the agreement with South Africa was held up because of the fisheries question, too.
Europeans are going down there and trawling for whatever they can get, damaging the indigenous fishing industry.
<P>
You have to take more into account the whole question of, not just giving aid, but fair trade.
I would like you to come back and tell us what reply I can give to the people who have written to me.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="Pinheiro">
As regards canned tomatoes, the largest exports that we had account for roughly 7 % of the South African market.
As regards other African countries, our exports are of roughly 90 000 tonnes for the whole ACP area.
So, I do not think frankly they are disrupting the internal market in South Africa.
<P>
As regards fisheries, nowadays there is no access for European boats to South African waters.
We have asked South Africa to put us on an equal footing with other countries which have access to South African waters.
It is not asking too much to be considered on an equal footing especially when we are prepared to open up our markets to South African fisheries products in a way which suits South Africa.
<P>
It is quite easy to blame big Europe for some of the difficulties that exist from time to time in South Africa.
But let me reassure you that in the Development Council, and in the Commission as well, we have been looking very carefully at all the potential inconsistencies between CAP policies and development policies.
The problem with beef arose a few years ago and I am quite confident that has been solved and that there is no such problem today.
But if one should occur, we are always prepared to deal with it.
Our policy is to have coherence between the CAP and development policy.
So we are always open to listen to complaints and study them, in any situation whatsoever.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="Spiers">
I congratulate the Commissioner on his valour in doing the dirty work for DG VI on this question but the information that I have received is that dumping of cheap subsidised tomatoes on South Africa has had very serious consequences for domestic producers there.
It may only be 7 % spread over a year but the information I have received and which I will pass on to you is that a flood of cheap tomatoes, particularly last year, contributed to the loss of some 10 000 jobs in the canning industry, in areas with extremely high unemployment in South Africa.
Certainly the trade unions and others have been blaming the European Union for that.
I think that matter does need looking at again.
<P>
On a related matter: as you know, when the trade agreement with South Africa was rejected by the General Affairs Council, France raised the general issue of export refunds as one of its reasons for refusing the deal.
Can you tell us how confident you are that the meeting of 22 March will endorse the trade agreement?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 NAME="Pinheiro">
Sometimes subsidies are paid to canned-tomato producers because the price at which they have to purchase tomatoes is higher than the international average price.
So it is to compensate them for the higher prices which the CAP imposes on tomatoes, to ensure a level playing field as regards canned tomatoes.
Sometimes we are accused of dumping because of those subsidies to the producers of canned tomatoes.
I do not think it is appropriate to use that word.
<P>
The overall amount was 6 500 tonnes of canned tomatoes.
That is the figure of our exports to South Africa which accounts for 7 % of their consumption.
No doubt, after these two interventions, we will look at it again, together with DG VI.
<P>
As to trade agreement and refunds, it was indeed suggested at a certain moment in the negotiations that if South Africa would lower some tariffs we would phase out our export refunds.
<P>
For the European Union, the difficulty for France is not with the specificity of a given product but the fact that these may rise or may open up the door for phasing out export subsidies altogether, which France is not prepared to do at this stage.
<P>
The compromise of lowering tariffs, phasing out export subsidies: at the end the one who pays is the South African consumer.
So for South Africa it was not such a big deal.
That is why when France raised some difficulties, I immediately said that I had no doubt whatsoever that I could take it out of the agreement without any difficulty at all, because in the end it would be South Africa which would have to pay for this kind of deal.
That was why I said I would take it out immediately because South Africa, of course, was ready to accept that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schierhuber">
Mr President, following the Commissioner's answer I would like to put a general question to the Commission.
Is it really in the EU's interest that we thereby also put many of our trading partners in a very difficult position?
Is it really in our interest that we thereby cause market disturbances, whereas in my view it would be far more important to have strong partners and fair competition?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 NAME="Pinheiro">
Mr President, I agree 100 % with Mrs Schierhuber.
The problem is that in trade negotiations we must bear in mind the interests of our Member States.
That is our first obligation.
The second is to try to make the agreement as fair as possible and take account of the special requirements of the other party.
That is where negotiations sometimes throw up difficult points for one side or the other and that is why sometimes it is difficult to reach an agreement.
<P>
I have to say, however, that in my opinion the European Union was exemplary in the way in which it took account of certain legitimate South African concerns - in particular the fact that it had inherited a difficult situation in terms of how customs duties were applied, and the need to restructure the automobile and textile sectors (something now under way), to mention just two examples. Similarly, we met with some understanding on the South African side over some of the problems that we face within the European Union, reflected in some specific points of the agreement.
<P>
I still believe that this agreement is a good one and have high hopes that on 22 March, perhaps with some fine tuning, the Member States will see the final outcome as positive for the European Union and acceptable for each of the Member States.
But, as for the principle, I fully agree with Mrs Schierhuber.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 45 by Fernando Pérez Royo (H-0121/99)
<P>
Subject: Fishing in Gibraltar Has the Commission studied the situation in Gibraltar, in the wake of last week's events (the seizure of the Spanish fishing boat 'Piraña' by the Gibraltarian authorities), and is it planning to take any measures to ensure that Community legislation is respected?
<P>
I should like to welcome Mrs Bonino and ask her to reply to Mr Pérez Royo's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="Bonino">
All the Commission has to say is that the cause of the conflict between the Spanish fishermen and the Gibraltar inspectorate does not in any way involve infringement of Community fisheries regulations.
It concerns the limits of territorial waters, a matter which is not within the Community's competence.
<P>
As it has said many times in the past and reiterated only recently, the Commission is not therefore empowered to intervene directly in this situation. All the Commission can do is encourage both parties to resolve the problem and maintain contact with the governments involved.
The Commission does however regret that because of its legal basis, this issue does not fall within the Community's competence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pérez Royo">
The events to which my question refers - the detention of the crew of a Spanish fishing vessel in Spanish waters by the Gibraltarian police - are indeed a matter for international law and do not involve the Commission directly.
<P>
Nevertheless, these events took place in an area where Community law does apply.
The area in question is covered by the Treaty. Indeed, serious doubts have also been cast on the effective application of a whole range of Community directives in this area relating not only to fisheries but also to other issues such as taxation, finance, money laundering and so on.
<P>
This apart, I should like to make a final political comment.
I agree with your remarks on good relations and the need to create a climate in which this and other disputes can be handled in a reasonable way, avoiding unnecessary tension in the area. Such tension has a negative impact on both the Spanish and the Gibraltarian populations, though the Spanish population are uppermost in my mind at present.
The appropriate climate in which to deal with this dispute in a reasonable way will not be created by making life difficult for the local Spanish population.
<P>
What is needed at the moment is a series of measures designed to reduce the tension which has built up in the area. Only then will it be possible to resolve this dispute and any others which might arise in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="Bonino">
The Commission shares the view that it is essential to reduce tension and work towards a solution.
I feel it would also be relevant to read you a note on the application of Community law to the sectors you mentioned. The text of the note is as follows:
<P>
The Commission seeks to ensure the correct implementation of Community directives in Gibraltar as it does in all areas of the Community, taking account of the particular regime that applies to Gibraltar as defined in particular in the Act of Accession of the United Kingdom.
Where appropriate the Commission has launched infringement proceedings against the UK for failure to implement applicable directives.
In the area of company law, for example, the Commission has sent four reasoned opinions to the UK for failure to implement company law directives in the territory of Gibraltar, etc. etc.
<P>
This is just to explain that although, strictly speaking, the matter is not within the Commission's competence, we are working to ensure that the acquis communautaire is applied, as it should be in all cases.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="Teverson">
I wish the Commissioner well in her presidential campaign in Italy.
I will support your campaign.
<P>
This is a very important point which was brought up by Mr Pérez Royo, particularly the matter of is it planning to take any measures to ensure the Community legislation is respected?
In terms of actually reducing tension in that area, the most important thing is to start to implement freedom of movement between Gibraltar and Spain.
If we actually started that and sorted it out locally, as the fishing dispute has been pretty well sorted out locally between those two communities, tensions would disappear very quickly.
So could the Commissioner suggest ways in which Mr Pérez Royo could help towards that freedom of movement as required by the Treaties, and reduce those tensions?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 NAME="Bonino">
I do not think it is a real question.
It is mostly a debate between two Member States.
The Commission is really trying to de-escalate and help so you can both resolve this conflict.
<P>
I should like to take this opportunity to say to Mr Teverson that I am not campaigning for any presidency.
It is procedurally impossible in my country.
There is no question about it.
I am a full-time commissioner and I will act as a commissioner, full-time, as is my duty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Morán López">
I merely wish to make a remark concerning the limits of territorial waters.
There is no reference to territorial waters surrounding the Rock in the Treaty of Utrecht, which justifies and legitimises certain British activities in Gibraltar.
You will be aware, Commissioner, that according to the Treaty of Utrecht, the town and fortress of Gibraltar were ceded to the United Kingdom.
However, that Treaty does not cover the area later occupied by the British and which does not have territorial waters.
The extent of Spanish and British territorial waters has never been specified, because although Spain recognises the Treaty of Utrecht, it disputes the United Kingdom's claims in this respect.
<P>
Furthermore, Spain's claims were not affected in any way by its accession to the Community.
On 12 June 1985, Spain signed the Accession Treaty along with the United Kingdom.
On 15 June, letters were exchanged with the British Minister for Foreign Affairs, making it quite clear that Spain's accession to the Community did not affect its claim to Gibraltar.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Morán.
Mrs Bonino, I invite you to respond to Mr Morán's remarks.
Mrs Bonino tells me that no response is necessary.
Thank you for being here today, Mrs Bonino, and thank you for your replies and for your courtesy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 46 by Robin Teverson (H-0132/99)
<P>
Subject: Fraud In the event of fraud, who should take responsibility for a directorate-general's finances - the individual Commissioner in charge of the directorate-general, the Director-General of the DG concerned, or the entire Commission?
<P>
I should like to welcome Mrs Gradin and ask her to reply to Mr Teverson's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 NAME="Gradin">
The Commission bears the overall political responsibility for budget execution and for the fight against fraud.
It may delegate management of individual budget lines to a Member of the Commission or to a Director-General.
In any specific case of fraud, it is the individual who committed the crime who will be held legally responsible.
However, the Commission or Commissioner or the Director-General concerned are still responsible for appropriate control and management measures being put in place.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 NAME="Teverson">
I thank the Commissioner for that reply with words like 'responsibility' and 'individual responsibility for certain areas'.
My supplementary question is very precise.
If the report from the experts finds very specific problems within the Commission, will that mean that individual Commissioners will at that time take responsibility for the areas under them and, if appropriate politically, resign individually?
I need only a short answer, just one word will do in any of the official languages.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 NAME="Gradin">
I have already given the answer and I am not going to say what will happen after the Committee of Wise Men give their report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Commissioner, in the Committee on Budgetary Control Mrs Cresson recently denied any knowledge of certain scandals.
Meanwhile we have learned that she was informed of them by her administration and we now want to know: who is it who has to resign here?
The official who informed her or the Commissioner who falsely said in committee that she had no knowledge of these facts?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
I would like to ask Mrs Gradin whether she would reinstate Paul van Buitenen, who was suspended because he took the trouble to give an elected representative a document which he believed the elected representatives ought to read as part of the investigation into fraud at the Commission?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 NAME="Gradin">
Mr President, it seems to me that we have digressed from the question that was put to me and to which I have already replied.
So I think that is enough for today!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 47 by Jan Andersson (H-0136/99)
<P>
Subject: The Commission's action programme on drugs The EU's current action programme on drugs is due to end soon, and the Commission is said to be drawing up a new action programme.
<P>
Will the Commission say what the timetable is for putting together its new action programme on drugs?
<P>
I give the floor to Mrs Gradin to answer Mr Andersson's question, which has now been taken over by Mrs Hulthén.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 NAME="Gradin">
As you know, the EU's current action plan on drugs comes to an end this year.
The European Council has therefore requested the Council of Ministers, the European Parliament and the Commission to draw up a new action plan for the period 2000 to 2004.
In the Commission, the work is progressing well.
Most of our services are directly involved and are now working flat out to produce their contribution.
I and my officials are responsible partly for the internal coordination of the work and partly for the sectors that have a bearing on the area of justice and home affairs.
<P>
It takes several decades to develop a European drugs policy.
Consequently, my premiss is that the EU's actions must have a sound body of knowledge and well-evaluated experience on which to build.
In the long term, therefore, continuity and consistency will be the main themes in our forthcoming proposal.
As a result, our contribution will build on the previous plan, but it will include an evaluation of what has been accomplished during the last five-year period.
And last but not least, we are describing new trends and tendencies that require special treatment.
<P>
Our goal is to be in a position to present the new action plan by the end of the spring - in May.
Our proposal will then as usual be forwarded directly to the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers for further consideration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Hulthén">
I should like to thank Commissioner Gradin for her reply.
This is merely an observation, but it will presumably be another Parliament and presumably another Commission too that will be adopting a position on the new action plan.
While the issue is still under discussion, and since Mrs Gradin has just mentioned some points that will be central to the new action plan, it would be interesting to know which areas she is intending to concentrate on.
For example, is the Commission in a position to say, in terms of preventive measures in the face of new types of drugs, how we are going to safeguard our external frontiers to ensure that we do not have more drugs inside the Union than we do at present?
We should appreciate a reply on that aspect too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 NAME="Gradin">
Most of the private offices and directorates are already involved.
What is needed is a combination of repressive measures and social commitment.
We should therefore be trying to combine a policy of repression with social responsibility.
We shall be discussing the new trends in consumption and trafficking and the prospects for the future.
We shall also be discussing what is to be done at international level to evaluate and meet the new challenges.
We shall look into how we are going to involve the Central and Eastern European countries that are currently knocking at our door and asking to be admitted as members.
<P>
Accordingly, we shall be discussing access to and demand for drugs, and of course the new trends such as synthetic drugs, as well as the need for Europe to keep its own house in order if it is to be a credible cooperation partner, for example on the international stage.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, Commissioner, I was in America again recently and one thing was crystal clear to me: drugs cannot just be combated at the frontiers, by checking consignments from the producer countries to the consumer countries; it is far more effective to shape the legal system in the consumer countries in such a way as to make drugs traffic more difficult, as is done in the United States for instance.
What does the Commission propose to do to combat drugs here in Europe?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 NAME="Gradin">
Like the USA, the Commission is working at international level. We have formed cooperation links in Latin America and in the golden triangle in order to promote alternative types of crops and to restrict access to drugs.
At the same time, we are tackling the problem of consumption, just as we have in the Member States.
In this respect, we are extremely keen to involve voluntary organisations as well as schools and parents, since we believe that the people who practise drug abuse do not just listen to us politicians, but that the efforts of friends in the workplace and at school are also needed to influence and dissuade them.
Consequently, we are trying to tackle this very serious problem on all fronts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 48 by María Izquierdo Rojo (H-0149/99)
<P>
Subject: Illegal emigration from northern Morocco to the EU What is the Commission's view, with regard to illegal emigration, of the current situation and possible future developments in the Straits of Gibraltar and north Morocco area?
<P>
What progress and improvements are in prospect?
What steps will be taken to prevent deaths among those making the crossing in small boats next summer?
<P>
I give the floor to Mrs Gradin to answer Mrs Izquierdo Rojo's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 NAME="Gradin">
Illegal immigration to the European Union from northern Morocco is, in many cases, a straightforward matter of the smuggling of human beings.
It is not only a pressing problem for the Member States in the Mediterranean region, but also concerns, to a large extent, the entire European Union.
The individuals who allow themselves to be persuaded by the people-smugglers are, more often than not, the poorest and most vulnerable migrants, some of whom are desperately seeking better living conditions and are prepared to take enormous risks to achieve their goal.
Others fall victim to the modern slave trade in women that goes on all over Europe.
Each year, a growing number of young women are lured by false promises of well-paid work into prostitution or other forms of sexual exploitation.
Many lives are wasted every year because of the depredations of the people-smugglers.
We know for certain that those who try to reach the coast of Europe by sea from Morocco often meet a grim fate.
The battle against the trade in people must remain a priority in the Union.
During the past year, a great deal has also been done to step up cooperation in precisely this area within the Union.
<P>
In 1996, the EDU's mandate was extended to include the smuggling of human beings.
With the establishment of Europol, the Union's capacity in this area will be further enhanced.
In November of the same year, the Council of Ministers also set up the STOP programme, the aim of which was to strengthen the Member States' ability to combat the trade in human beings.
It has enabled us to support and encourage an exchange of experiences and to pursue activities to raise the level of competence throughout Europe.
<P>
Together with the American Government, we have also carried out preventive work in the countries where the trade in women originates.
Among other initiatives, campaigns have been mounted with the aim of trying to make young girls aware of the risks involved in trying to reach Europe with the help of people-smugglers.
<P>
These measures are only regarded as a first step along the right road.
Obviously, major economic interests are at stake and fundamental values are being put to the test.
In future, the Commission will continue to avail itself of every opportunity to put a stop to the smuggling of human beings.
It is also gratifying that the new Treaty makes it easier for us to really get to grips with this problem in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Rojo">
I should like to thank the Commissioner for her reply, which was doubtless well-intentioned.
Her reply was very specific as far as the analysis of the problem was concerned, but quite inadequate when it came to the Commission's competence, that is to say, the measures it plans to take.
The feeling here is that her answer has not provided us with any information at all.
<P>
As you stated yourself, Commissioner, the problem is very serious indeed but certain measures could easily be taken.
For instance, in the summer it would perhaps be possible to set up surveillance operations to detect the flimsy craft used to make the crossing.
Such arrangements already exist to detect fishing operations and fish, yet we seem unable to do the same in order to detect people.
In addition, television campaigns designed to dissuade would-be immigrants from making the crossing could be broadcast on television in northern Morocco.
<P>
The Commission is doing nothing at all to cope with the very serious problems which exist on the southern borders of the European Union. For you to reply to a question like this by merely setting out all the possible measures amounts to an abdication of responsibility.
It amounts to saying nothing at all, Commissioner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 NAME="Gradin">
Of course the Union is doing a great deal, as I made clear in my reply to the honourable Member.
There are good prospects for Europol, but at the same time, if it is to achieve practical results in its surveillance operations, as the honourable Member would like it to do, this has to be done through cooperation with and between the Member States.
We know that there are boats plying between Morocco and Spain and Gibraltar, and that the different authorities concerned are cooperating fully.
I have been to the places in question myself to see what is being done, both as regards control of the trade in human beings and the presence of drugs on these boats.
<P>
Of course practical measures are being carried out, in which Europol is also participating.
Furthermore, the Council of Ministers has only recently set up a high-level group specifically to study the countries from which large numbers of people are trying to reach our nations.
In point of fact, Morocco is one of the countries they will be studying in that context.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=248 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Hernández Mollar">
It appears that I have to contradict what you have just said, Commissioner, because I have been informed by the director of Europol himself that no operation or investigation is currently under way concerning the organised mafias operating along the south-western border of Europe. I am referring in particular here to the area of northern Africa which has a direct influence on the migratory pressures originating in the Maghreb.
<P>
I should like to enquire what the Commission's view is on this blatant neglect of an area through which such significant migration towards Europe takes place, neglect recognised by the director of Europol himself. I should also like to know what steps the Commission intends to take to ensure that Europol does turn its attention to this dreadful scourge of organised crime which is leading to so many tragic deaths around the Straits of Gibraltar.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 NAME="Gradin">
With regard to Europol, I should be extremely grateful for the support of this House so that we can get Europol up and running at long last.
The convention itself has been ratified, but there are a number of protocols which still need to be ratified by the Member States before Europol can fully enter into force.
Consequently, I should really appreciate your support since this would allow us to further reinforce its work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, how is it planned to distribute the burden in regard to this problem within Europe?
What do you think are the target routes here?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=251 NAME="Gradin">
As the honourable Member will be aware, during the four years that I have been a Member of the Commission, I have worked hard to bring about a situation in which we all share the burden.
The first proposal was not accepted, and another proposal is now before the Council of Ministers.
<P>
Unfortunately, some Member States are deeply committed to burden-sharing, while others are not.
As you know, unanimity is required to reach a decision under the third pillar, which functions on the basis of intergovernmental cooperation.
I had hoped that we would have made more progress, but we may now hope that the German Presidency will be successful in persuading its colleagues that what is needed is a really vigorous effort.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Gradin.
<P>
That brings us to the end of the time set aside for questions to Mrs Gradin.
Question No 49 will therefore receive a written answer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 50 by Concepció Ferrer (H-0111/99)
<P>
Subject: Follow-up to the complaint concerning unfair trade measures which has been lodged with the TWO At the end of 1997, in response to trade restrictions imposed on exports of skins and hides produced in India, the Commission initiated a WTO dispute settlement procedure in order to protect the interests of the European leather sector which had been suffering from the harmful effects of those restrictions for some time.
<P>
From the initial consultations held in Geneva at the beginning of 1998 there emerged clear confirmation of the fact that the complaint lodged by the Commission was justified.
Since that first meeting under the procedure laid down by the TWO, it appears that the negotiations have ground to a halt.
<P>
Could the Commission explain why a date has not yet been set for a resumption of the dispute settlement procedure?
<P>
I should like to welcome Sir Leon and ask him to reply to Mrs Ferrer's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=254 NAME="Brittan">
The de facto export ban on hides and skins by India led the Community to hold formal WTO consultations at the beginning of 1998.
<P>
The Commission has repeatedly raised its concerns with regard to the GATT incompatibility of the Indian regime since then.
The Indian authorities finally promised in October 1998 to seriously consider the suggestion of replacing the current export licensing scheme by tariff-based measures which could take the form of an export tax.
<P>
In the context of the preparation of the new budget such a proposal is currently being discussed by the Indian authorities.
We are closely monitoring the matter and should know whether the regime has been modified within the next few weeks.
<P>
I remain hopeful that we will be able to solve this sensitive issue.
If that does not happen by the time of my planned visit to India in early April I intend to raise this matter at Ministerial level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=255 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Ferrer">
Thank you for your reply, Commissioner, and thank you also for pursuing the matter of the Indian Government's failure to comply with regulations on opening up the markets for leather goods. I would however like to ask you as a matter of urgency to move things on as quickly as possible, so as to guarantee full compliance with the rules governing international trade.
<P>
I am not making this request as a matter of principle but because it is the only way of ensuring that all those companies that have been making great efforts to update their business and become competitive are able to export freely and thus ensure their survival.
<P>
Once again, I urge you to remain vigilant. If you wait until April, many companies may already have closed, precisely because of the difficulties involved in exporting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=256 NAME="Brittan">
I do appreciate the importance of the imports of raw material for the European tanning industry and I can assure you that I take this issue very seriously.
I cannot promise a result before April.
We are pressing hard and we will continue to press and take whatever action is open to us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=257 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 51 by Paul Rübig (H-0113/99)
<P>
Subject: Differences in punitive duties and voting behaviour in the Council There are many aspects to the trans-Atlantic discussions on banana imports into the EU.
One fundamental issue relates to the selective imposition of punitive US duties on imports from thirteen Member States.
The equivalent of the sum that has been announced amounts to unilaterally estimated losses of EURO 508 million.
<P>
The banana market organisation applies equally to all fifteen Member States.
Within the WTO, too, the EU speaks with one voice.
However, punitive duties which affect the EU Member States in different ways distort comparative costs and competition in the Internal Market.
<P>
What action will the Commission take to ensure that sanctions imposed by third countries do not deliberately favour individual Member State, so that such 'tactical manoeuvres' do not affect future voting behaviour in the Council and overshadow common interests?
<P>
I give the floor to Sir Leon to answer Mr Rübig's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=258 NAME="Brittan">
I agree that the issue raised is serious.
There are two reasons why third countries exclude some Member States from retaliatory measures against the Community.
<P>
First, Member States are still, separately from the Community, individual members of the WTO.
Secondly, the origin rules applicable to imports to third countries from the Community are still based on individual Member States.
Although Community legislation provides for the notion of Community origin, which is mandatory in certain situations, US and other third countries continue to make a distinction between Member States in this field.
<P>
It is worth recalling that retaliatory measures may only be applied legally after authorisation by the WTO.
In the case of the bananas dispute the United States has not received such authorisation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=259 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, my supplementary concerns the punitive tariffs themselves that the United States has imposed unilaterally.
According to our view of the law these measures are direct trade restrictions that even now, at this cautionary stage, are inflicting serious damage on our domestic firms.
How will you bring claims for compensation in the event that the WTO panel declares these measures inadmissible on principle or in terms of their level?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=260 NAME="Brittan">
If our case against the United States on the basis that the measures that have been taken are unlawful is successful, then either the United States will have to withdraw the measures and give us compensation or we will be entitled to take lawful retaliation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=261 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 52 by Arthur Newens (H-0127/99)
<P>
Subject: Trade with Cuba Would the Commission make a statement about the trade agreement reached with the United States in May 1998 and whether it is still likely to come into operation, and will it give details of the present state of trade between the EU, its Member States and Cuba and of the effect that the Helms-Burton Act is having upon those relations?
<P>
I give the floor to Sir Leon to answer Mr Newens's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=262 NAME="Brittan">
The agreements reached with the United States on Helms-Burton and ILSA legislation in May last year represent important progress on the issue.
The Commission continues to work towards full implementation of these agreements.
The onus is on the United States but we on our side are ready to implement the agreements once the United States grants a waiver under Title IV of the Helms-Burton Act as foreseen in the London Agreements.
<P>
From the outset we have expressed determined opposition to both acts.
As part of the defence of the European Union against the extra-territorial effects of these acts the Council passed the blocking statute in November 1996.
Its object is to counter the extra-territorial effects of legislation on a third country, such as the Helms-Burton Act and ILSA on the territory of the Community.
Detailed statistics on EU trade with Cuba are not available.
We have consistently taken the view that such trade is legitimate.
The Helms-Burton Act has had a chilling effect in the past and may have distorted the channels in which trade has flowed.
That is why the May 1998 agreement was an important step forward.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=263 NAME="Newens">
While thanking the Commissioner for his answer, I do not accept that it is true that as long as Congress in the United States refuses to agree to the waiving of Titles III and IV, no real progress in implementing the basis of the agreement can be put into effect.
At the same time, some individuals, some traders and some companies who would otherwise trade with Cuba are playing safe and holding off.
In those circumstances, how much longer can we continue with this state of affairs in which there is real uncertainty for all concerned?
Does he see any change taking place in the near future?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=264 NAME="Brittan">
It is true that the agreement is not fully implemented and cannot be until Congress passes the necessary legislation.
It is not true, however, to say that it has no effect.
<P>
I would draw the attention of those whom you describe to the fact that, since the agreement was entered into, no coercive action has been taken against any European company or individual under either of the two pieces of legislation.
That is something that the businessmen should note and a lot of trade is going on.
<P>
As to further progress, we are pressing the US Congress and have made it clear that we will not implement our part of the rest of the agreement until they implement theirs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=265 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 53 by Hugh McMahon (H-0174/99)
<P>
Subject: Predatory pricing and dumping of salmon by Norwegian producers in European markets Can the Commission inform Parliament of the steps it has recently taken with respect to actions against Norwegian companies which have flouted agreements with the EU through practices of predatory pricing in the salmon market and will it indicate which Norwegian companies have been involved in such practices?
<P>
I give the floor to Sir Leon to answer Mr McMahon's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=266 NAME="Brittan">
In June 1997 an agreement was reached with Norway as part of the definitive anti-dumping and countervailing measures.
These consist mainly of individual price undertakings from 190 Norwegian exporters.
The Commission devotes considerable resources to monitoring those undertakings and 84 exporters have now had duties imposed upon them because they breached or withdrew from their undertakings.
In addition, the market is being constantly monitored, the time given for the reports on the undertakings has been shortened, and when the monitoring showed that the minimum price for salmon fillets was too low, it was increased to include an amount for processing costs.
Having found that a number of parties with undertakings were not exporters, those parties were made to withdraw their undertakings, and after it appeared that the proceeds of the Norwegian export tax, which is part of the countervailing measures, were not used in accordance with the agreement, a further agreement between the European Union and Norwegian industries was entered into in October 1998 to deal with that.
<P>
More recently, the Commission and the Norwegian authorities have agreed on further joint action specifically to root out the possibilities of circumvention.
Norway introduced in December 1998 a regulation making it illegal for there to be any salmon sales to the Community via intermediary exporters not bound by the undertakings.
The Commission mirrored this restriction and the text of the undertakings also included a stricter minimum price provision where importers related to exporters in Norway source salmon from other intermediary importers in the Community.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=267 NAME="McMahon">
I thank the Commissioner for a very full answer.
Could he give me an up-to-date position?
I understand from sources in the Scottish industry that there is a major company involved in Norway at the moment.
Would he be prepared to give the House the name of this major company?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=268 NAME="Brittan">
It is not entirely clear what the major company is supposed to have done or which one the honourable Member is referring to.
As I have said, 84 exporters have had the undertakings replaced by duties instead.
I do not know which particular one the honourable gentleman is referring to.
If he would like to write to me giving me the details, I will see whether there is any further information I am able to supply.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=269 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 54 by Richard Howitt (H-0217/99)
<P>
Subject: Burma Selective Purchase Law In 1996, the State of Massachusetts in the USA introduced the Burma Selective Purchase Law banning government procurement from companies that do business in Myanmar.
The EC expressed its opposition to the Federal authorities and also filed a complaint before the WTO.
Aware that this complaint has temporarily been suspended awaiting the results of a legal investigation into the validity of its ruling, the fact that the Commission submitted a complaint before the WTO is not only contradictory to its own policies imposing sanctions against Myanmar and expressing concern for human rights violations, but it can also be considered a cynical act of impeding an attempt to set a precedent in making international trade policies more coherent with international human rights standards.
Can the Commission explain why it applies such contradictory policies and has pursued this policy, thus expressing a contempt for human rights in Myanmar?
Under what circumstances can it withdraw its complaint?
<P>
I give the floor to Sir Leon to answer Mr Howitt's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=270 NAME="Brittan">
Our position on Burma is clear: we deplore the situation facing the people there and support Member States in their determination to maintain pressure on the leadership.
This has led to the adoption of a common position on Burma and the withdrawal of GSP benefits.
<P>
Last October the Council adopted an extension to the common position and strengthened it through the widening of a visa ban and by suspending high-level government visits to Burma.
We have also sought to coordinate policies on Burma internationally in order to make the actions of all concerned more effective.
<P>
While our objectives as far as Burma is concerned are similar to those of the United States, that does not mean that we can condone the flagrant breach of international obligations arising from the Massachusetts law.
We took the decision to request the panel to rule on the compatibility of the law with the relevant WTO rules, in particular the plurilateral government procurement agreement in July 1998, after having failed in two years to resolve the matter in other ways.
<P>
The National Foreign Trade Council of the United States also challenged the Massachusetts law and the US District Court last November declared the law unconstitutional and suspended its application, so, naturally, we suspended our proceedings in the WTO but the American court ruling is under appeal.
<P>
Our decision to complain to the WTO is not an endorsement of the regime; it is about ensuring predictability in the international trading environment and adhering to internationally binding trade rules.
There is no contradiction between the steps we have taken against the Burma regime and our expectation that the United States observes its international commitments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=271 NAME="Howitt">
Thank you, Commissioner, I think you will understand that I profoundly disagree with your answer though it was helpful to the House that you expressed it so clearly.
The contradiction was contained in what you said.
For us to deplore human rights abuses in Burma and say that we wish to coordinate actions internationally to make the Burmese regime change its policies and then to eschew the opportunity of using trading opportunities through the WTO in order to coordinate those actions is contradictory.
<P>
I appreciate that we have a set of rules under the World Trade Organization but it has repeatedly been the position of this House, both in September last year when the actions of the Commission were condemned, and in my own report on codes of conduct of multinational companies, to say that we must use trading relations through the WTO to uphold trading which is ethical, and respects the environment and human rights.
Can he answer the last part of my question which is under what circumstances, should the appeal go the other way in the United States, would the Commission withdraw and ensure that the panel is not revived?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=272 NAME="Brittan">
The WTO proceedings are suspended at the moment because of the decision of the US district court.
That has already happened.
But I have to say that it is a very different question as to whether or not we should use trade sanctions for example under the WTO, where permitted by the WTO, and whether we should just accept that, without consultation and not as part of an international agreement, an individual state in the United States should take action to apply, as it were, its own foreign policy.
<P>
We may have a very high degree of sympathy with the motives behind the Massachusetts legislature but you really cannot have a world trading system in which the particular way of imposing pressure on a country is determined by one state in one country with consequential affects upon the rest of the trading world.
<P>
It damages the front against Burma for us to find fragmentary action of that kind being taken, which damages the European Union and is not part of a consolidated, agreed international package of action against a particular country which we have profound disagreements with.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=273 NAME="President">
Thank you, Sir Leon.
<P>
With that question by Mr Howitt, we have completed the group of questions to Sir Leon Brittan.
We thank him for attending Question Time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=274 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 55 by Mihail Papayannakis (H-0107/99)
<P>
Subject: Transparency of financial relations between Member States and public undertakings In reply to my Oral Question H-0761/98 , the Commission informed me that the Greek authorities had notified it, on 2 July 1998, of the provisions that they had adopted to incorporate Directive 80/723/EEC , as amended, into Greek law.
However, owing to a disagreement over the obligations deriving from that Directive, the Commission had decided to wait for the supplementary information it had requested from the Greek authorities before expressing its opinion on the possible discontinuation of infringement proceedings.
<P>
Could the Commission say precisely what the disagreement concerning the obligations deriving from Directive 80/723/EEC, as amended by Directive 93/84/EEC , consists of and whether the supplementary information provided by the Greek authorities does or does not warrant the discontinuation of the infringement procedure initiated against Greece in 1996 because the information provided was not consistent with the requirements of the above Directive?
<P>
I should like to welcome Mr Van Miert and ask him to reply to Mr Papayannakis's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=275 NAME="Van Miert">
The Commission can inform the honorable Member that the disagreement in question concerned the scope of the obligation to inform the Commission under Article 5 of Directive 93/84/EEC.
According to these provisions, Member States must in particular send the Commission a list of their public undertakings in the manufacturing sector by 31 March of each year at the latest.
Non-compliance with this obligation constitutes an infringement of the law to which the Commission must respond through an appropriate procedure.
<P>
A few days ago, on 3 March, Greece finally supplied the information requested and it seems satisfactory with regard to the undertakings in question.
In so doing, Greece has therefore abandoned its alternative view of its obligations under the directive in question.
Consequently, the Commission will in all likelihood discontinue the infringement proceedings, subject to a detailed analysis of the information provided.
I can therefore give you good news as I believe that Greece is on the way to complying with Community law.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=276 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Commissioner, as far as I understand it, the issue centres around whether the list of companies was submitted or not.
What concerns me most, and what I would like your opinion on, is whether the provisions of the directive were adhered to, in particular as regards transparency and the actual use to which public funds were put.
<P>
I personally am in favour of funds going to public companies on condition that there are clear objectives, that the methods of allocating the money are transparent, and that this is where the money actually goes.
<P>
Does the Commission have any information on this or does it wish to comment on the issue, or was the dispute with Greece merely procedural?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=277 NAME="Van Miert">
A distinction must be made between the obligation deriving from the directive, which only now seems to have been complied with by Greece, as I have just indicated, and the scrutiny by the Commission of the report in question on the undertakings which are on the list.
<P>
This is a different process on which I cannot comment at the moment, given that we only received a fairly full report a few days ago.
<P>
I must congratulate and thank the Greek authorities for having finally agreed to fulfil their Community duty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=278 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 56 by John Iversen (H-0144/99)
<P>
Subject: Merger The Commission is currently considering the notification of plans for a merger between Danish Crown and Vestjyske Slagterier.
<P>
How will the Commission ensure that a merger will not mean that Danish Crown/Vestjyske Slagterier acquires influence over and an insight into a smaller, competing business such as Defco Food, in which Danish Crown currently has a minority shareholding?
<P>
Defco is a limited company which manufactures and sells products to FDB and Dansk Supermarked in direct competition with Danish Crown and Vestjyske Slagterier.
Obviously, it is of the utmost importance for a company such as Defco that the merger does not mean that Danish Crown/Vestjyske Slagterier will acquire an insight into and influence over Defco Food.
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Van Miert to answer Mr Iversen's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=279 NAME="Van Miert">
First of all, I should like to inform the House and the honourable Member in particular that today the Commission authorised the operation, but on several conditions which had been negotiated with the parties concerned during the so-called second phase of the merger procedure.
<P>
The specific question relates to Defco Food company, which is a Danish producer of processed meat products, and the relationship with Danish Crown, the largest Danish cooperative slaughterhouse, which has a minority shareholding in the company concerned.
<P>
The Commission, as I said, decided today to authorise the operation.
But as far as this specific question is concerned we did not find a real problem.
In this case we are talking about the market for processed meat products.
Processed meat producers, including Defco Food, buy the pork and beef meat they require for their production from within the whole of the EC and not only in the country concerned.
So the impact of the merger in this market has to be seen in a wider perspective than the situation in Denmark, while the other problems were mainly related to the situation inside Denmark.
Therefore, although we identified several problems, we did not find a problem here so we could not insist under the rules on specific remedies in relation to the question you raise.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=280 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Iversen">
I would like to thank you for your reply.
The background to my question was a criticism of the merger.
I fully understand it - in fact I think it is a sensible thing.
I am a little tired of the fact that people have not been willing to look more closely at the problem which arises, for example, from the fact that the company concerned is dependent on Danish Crown.
This means, amongst other things, that the company cannot give its employees the opportunity to buy shares because the new, very large merged company will be entitled to step in and acquire shares ahead of the employees.
But I do understand that it is a difficult problem for the Commission to solve, so I would like to thank you for your reply.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=281 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Iversen.
Mr Van Miert is indicating that he does not feel the need to reply to Mr Iversen's comments.
<P>
As they deal with the same subject, the following questions will be taken together:
<P>
<P>
Question No 57 by Juan Izquierdo Collado, which has been taken over by Mrs Frutos Gama (H-0161/99)
<P>
Subject: Transparency and control of State aid in the field of competition policy In the field of competition policy, the criterion of transparency was introduced to facilitate control over areas such as State aid to the European coal industry (Decision No 3632/93/ECSC) , requiring Member States to transfer subsidies previously included in electricity charges to their national budgets.
Does the Commission not see the need to pursue the same legal course in the case of the costs of transition in the electricity sector?
From the point of view of competition policy legislation, what grounds could be cited to justify treating the two types of aid differently?
How, for instance, are consumers supposed to understand why the costs of European coal are no longer deducted from their electricity bills, whilst on the other hand they must bear the costs of the transition to competition resulting from non-profit-making investment arising out of public service obligations?
<P>
<P>
Question No 58 by Ludivina García Arias (H-0162/99)
<P>
Subject: Consumer protection in the field of competition policyThe Commission has announced that the costs of the transition to competition which may be authorised in the liberalised sectors should relate to real investment arising out of the former universal service obligations.
Does the Commission not take the view that, where competition policy is concerned, it would be unfair and contrary to the principles of the Treaties for the said costs in the electricity sector specifically and, potentially, in the telecommunications sector, to be charged to domestic consumers and SMEs, and that this State aid should thus be included within national budgets in order to facilitate transparency and control?
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Van Miert to answer these two Members' questions together.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=282 NAME="Van Miert">
This is an issue which clearly concerns this House because I have answered questions on this before.
As you know, we have stressed to the Spanish Government that it must notify this case because it involves what are called stranded costs.
<P>
You will also know that this problem is not unique to Spain as it has arisen in several other Member States due to the electricity directive.
We have stressed that, when a system of stranded costs is specified, this may in principle involve a public aid operation and therefore the Commission must at least be able to check whether this aid is in accordance with the stranded costs.
As the problem is currently arising in different ways in several Member States, we are trying to develop a coherent method.
<P>
With regard to the Spanish case, we have received the notification and are currently analysing this. Contact will no doubt be made with the Spanish authorities in the coming weeks in order to discuss the Commission's analysis.
As for the consumer, given that this involves public aid, we must judge this case according to the rules in question, namely to see whether the 'aid' specified is actually compensation for the stranded costs.
Consequently, consumer concerns are not a priority in these 'state aid' matters.
These are the rules.
<P>
Having said that, we must not ignore this issue.
However, I must remind you that the rule requires the Commission to check whether, in such an operation, the specified aid exceeds what is justifiable.
By doing this, I personally believe that we are also acting in the interests of consumers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=283 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Frutos Gama">
Thank you for your reply, Commissioner.
This matter is certainly causing concern amongst Members, but it is particularly worrying for domestic consumers and small and medium-sized enterprises who seem destined to bear the cost of the transition to competition.
<P>
I had therefore been hoping for a common sense reply, Commissioner, not a technical one.
<P>
Given the obscurantism of the Spanish Government and its Minister for Industry, I feel you should take it upon yourself, Commissioner, to inform domestic consumers and small and medium-sized businesses in some of the least favoured regions of the Union - the one I represent, for instance - that this will not be the case.
It really is curious to find that the Spanish Minister for Industry is proposing to 'sell' the reduction in compensation to the sector - in the event that the European Commission does eventually decide on a reduction - as a favour to domestic consumers. According to him, the consumers would be the major beneficiaries of the ensuing reduction in charges.
<P>
In conclusion, Commissioner, I would be most grateful if you could explain in plain language to the ordinary Spanish consumer how the costs of the transition to competition will be met: through the electricity bills or from the national budget.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=284 NAME="Van Miert">
In the first instance, if we try to limit any state aid, be it in this case or another case, to the strict minimum, at the end of the day it is to the benefit of the consumers because they are usually also taxpayers.
Also, we are going to continue to pursue this case, as I explained earlier, the reason being that we felt that this case had to be notified to allow the Commission to do its job.
<P>
Apart from that I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the declared aim of the policy, namely to liberalise the electricity sector, is entirely shared by the Commission.
We feel that more flexibility, more real competition means that we have to see to it that in the energy sector companies do not have too much control of the market; that there is real competition, not only for companies, but also for the individual consumers.
As you know, this is not yet the case with the directive.
The directive is more modest.
But we certainly share the view, which is apparently held by the Spanish Government, that one should liberalise beyond what has been agreed in the directive.
That is being encouraged and acknowledged in a positive way by the Commission.
But that should not distract us from our other task, to scrutinise whether the costs are strictly proportionate to the money which is under consideration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=285 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García Arias">
Commissioner, you must be aware that as things stand at the moment, these costs will be borne by domestic consumers and small and medium-sized enterprises.
The rates they are charged will not be reduced as they should have been, even without taking liberalisation into account.
<P>
I have a more technical question to put to you, however.
Rule 3 of the Council's Rules of Procedure on the subject of aid states that aid will only be allocated following a Commission decision to authorise it. I do not know if the Commission is aware that the 4.5 % in question is already being deducted from the charges.
Aid is therefore already being received. Do you intend to stand firm, Commissioner, and call the Spanish Minister for Industry to account tomorrow, insisting that such charges and the amounts already illegally charged to consumers be frozen, and insisting, too, that all these monies be returned until you authorise the aid?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=286 NAME="Van Miert">
There has clearly been a misunderstanding. The authorities should have notified their intentions under the directive and the majority have done this.
However, it was not properly understood that this type of operation should also have been notified under Articles 92 and 93. We have had to stress this before certain governments would accept it and this has taken time.
<P>
This has now been achieved.
In short, there are two scrutinies: firstly the scrutiny under the directive, for which Mr Papoutsis is responsible, and secondly the scrutiny of a problem or case concerning a state aid.
In the case in question, we recorded this as unnotified aid given that the measure had actually already been implemented.
However, I must acknowledge that, given the rather confused and unclear situation and perhaps without any intention to mislead, certain governments thought that it was sufficient to notify the case under the directive. We are therefore in an embarrassing position with a government which, I believe in good faith, thought that it had done its work whereas we have had to remind it that it had additional work.
<P>
This is the situation.
As for the others, you will recall that in this very House I warned the authorities concerned that, as the case was being scrutinised, it was perhaps ill-advised to continue the measure in question, given that the result of the Commission's scrutiny must normally be awaited.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=287 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pérez Royo">
You did indeed advise that in cases such as this, it would be wise to delay implementation of the mechanism provided for under Spanish law until the Commission's ruling was published.
<P>
The fact is that the Spanish Government and the electricity companies have not heeded this advice and have already implemented the mechanism. This has given rise to the problem of how to reimburse customers if it turns out that they have been overcharged.
<P>
How could millions of customers be reimbursed if the charge had already been included in their electricity bills?
Do you not think that in terms of monitoring state aid, which is what this really is, it would be more transparent and more workable if payments were made in stages, annually, through the state budget? Monitoring would also be easier and any wrongs could easily be righted should the need arise.
Such an arrangement is already in place for aid to the coal sector. Do you not think that this would be a more sensible method than introducing a 4.5 % surcharge to electricity bills, as well as floating such aid on the financial markets?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=288 NAME="Van Miert">
Firstly, we warned the authorities that if they went ahead with the securitisation they would be doing so at their own risk. This is because, as I have already said, the situation remains uncertain until the Commission has completed its work, in this case drawn its conclusions from the scrutiny.
However, the authorities are responsible for this.
<P>
Secondly, with regard to the amounts, for the moment no one can say what these may be.
I would repeat that it is only after scrutinising the stranded costs to check that these exist that we can conclude what amount is correct and justifiable in relation to these stranded costs. It is only then that we can say that a particular sum is acceptable for this stranded costs operation and that a sum beyond that is not acceptable.
However, I will only be able to tell you this when our scrutiny is completed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=289 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
Question No 59 will not be taken because the subject to which it refers is included on the agenda of this part-session.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, with that joint answer to Questions Nos 57 and 58, we have reached the end of the time set aside for questions to the Commission.
Questions Nos 60 to 111 will therefore receive written answers.
<P>
For reasons beyond the Chair's control, Question Time to the Commission has exceeded the allotted time by 42 minutes.
This has placed a considerable strain on Parliament's services and I offer them my apologies.
Their cooperation is much appreciated.
<P>
That concludes Question Time.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 7.45 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=13>
Own resources (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=290 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report (A4-0105/99) by Mrs Haug, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the need to modify and reform the European Union's own resources system.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=291 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Colom i Naval">
Mr President, I confess that, at the time, I doubted the chances of this report ever being drawn up. I was concerned about its consistency in relation to the report I have the honour of presenting on Agenda 2000.
<P>
Now the draft report has been voted through in the Committee on Budgets and - this is not just a personal opinion - I admit that it seems not only superfluous but also counter-productive.
And I say this whilst being fully aware of the work the rapporteur, Mrs Haug, has put into the report and the excellent hearing she organised where we all learned a great deal about own resources.
But in my opinion, the Committee on Budgets has not reached the right conclusions.
<P>
Frankly, I am concerned that the Committee on Budgets has submitted a text to this House which, I might add, does not correspond to the proposed commitments the rapporteur was defending yesterday in the meeting.
The text of the motion for a resolution never really gets off the ground and it is also confused.
What are we really talking about here?
In theory, we are discussing own resources. In practice, we are discussing national contributions.
But this is an artificial problem. It was created by politicians themselves in the Member States but it lacks an objective basis and is strongly anti-European.
It has no legal basis whatsoever.
<P>
The Treaty has for many years included the concept that the European budget should be financed wholly from own resources, without prejudice to other revenue. In 1992, the Treaty on European Union, which was signed by the Maastricht Council and ratified by all the national parliaments, including those of the countries that joined afterwards, repealed Article 200.
This was the article relating to national contributions and their scale.
For electoral reasons and in order to appeal to the masses, the subject has been brought up again. We are undermining European political integration with all our comparative injustices between countries, budget balances, cheques and cries of 'I want my money back'.
<P>
We talk about having more Europe, but some wish to see less Europe. This whole debate is leading to a renationalisation of the budget, and here I am not talking about cofinancing but rather about the general approach of the report by the Committee on Budgets.
<P>
In my opinion, this motion for a resolution misses the point.
It is unable to get away from the perverse logic of national contributions and step up the debate.
As I see it, it does not complete its task of showing the Council what the medium-term objective should be.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, how often do we have to point out that citizens pay taxes, not countries?
The main inequality has nothing to do with whether or not the level of contributions from Germany or the United Kingdom are fair, but rather that two citizens with the same income may contribute in totally different ways depending on the country they live in.
As a result, it could be that the unemployed in Brandenburg are funding large estate owners in Andalusia.
<P>
Therefore, we have a duty to ensure fair treatment insofar as every inhabitant of the European Union should contribute to the budget - this paltry budget that represents approximately 1.1 % of GNP - according to their income.
This is the first injustice that must be rectified.
One objective we must have is to introduce a straightforward and proportional European income tax.
Yet what does the motion for a resolution suggest?
It concentrates on national balances that lead to rivalry and that discourage solidarity. And, to top it all, it suggests cofinancing the CAP, an idea that was rejected by this very House in November and that was even rejected by the government that proposed it to the Council.
<P>
Mr President, my proposal may be utopian, as Mr Spinelli's was, but the proposal in the report is an anachronism.
It is 25 years out of date.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=292 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Christodoulou">
Mr President, the issue of own resources is, and always has been, extremely complex, as the system requires unanimity to change it and, above all, as improving its shortcomings by amending the current decision on own resources would give rise to other shortcomings and would most likely create new opposition.
<P>
The Commission itself accepts that the shortcomings of the system are not sufficient to motivate an urgent amendment of the decision on own resources and confines itself to putting forward alternative solutions to addressing the problem of financial imbalances, which was raised by some Member States.
Mrs Haug's report does not avoid this logic; it enlists the measures put forward in the short term solely to achieve the same objective, that is, to reduce the differences in contributions for the financing of Community expenditure, while in the medium and long term, it resorts to general recommendations.
Mrs Haug has attempted to reconcile opposing views but unfortunately these remain as far apart as ever.
In addition, we have focused all our attention on the issue of cofinancing agricultural subsidies and we have forgotten many other issues which we could have tackled and which, unfortunately, have gone by the board.
<P>
The solution proposed in the report therefore, which is the partial cofinancing of the common agricultural policy, despite assertions to the contrary, essentially boils down to the partial renationalisation of the common agricultural policy. This touches on a fundamental aspect of Community policy, which goes beyond the amendments this policy is called upon to undergo in the context of Agenda 2000 not only due to the planned enlargement to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe but also because of the commitments which the European Union has assumed in the context of GATT, which we are to some extent ignoring.
<P>
What this new provision contains, moreover, runs counter to the philosophy we would expect to govern a union in which the achievement of EMU would normally provide the impetus to aim for greater unification rather than lead to the adoption of the notion of correcting financial imbalances which arise from its operation and from the implementation of policies which were defined many years ago.
The notion of net financial surpluses is therefore a retrogressive notion and must be abandoned by the European Parliament.
Any direct or indirect attempt to cofinance the common agricultural policy must also be abandoned.
An increase in the receipts of some Member States cannot be made on the back of the reduction of the receipts of other Member States. Nor can it have the character of a correction.
Quite the contrary: it must be creative, in other words it must be the outcome of participation in existing or unfolding new policies.
<P>
Mr President, it would be a sad fact if the logic of financial accounting were to dominate, especially at a time when the eyes of the people of Europe are on the European Parliament in view of the forthcoming elections, and if we were to give the impression that we were betraying policies and achievements of the European Union that were of long-standing, great historical significance and of great importance in relation to issues which were fundamentally accounting solutions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=293 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Virrankoski">
Mr President, Mrs Haug's report on the organisation of the EU's own resources is both relevant and necessary.
It aims at the heart of the matter, as Agenda 2000 negotiations have reached a critical stage.
For that reason I wish to thank Mrs Haug most sincerely for an excellent report.
<P>
The report's most important proposal concerns not EU income but expenditure, and suggests that the Member States should meet half the costs of the CAP.
The proposal is a radical one and would have enormous consequences for the EU budget, which would shrink by some EUR 18 billion, approximately the cost of eastward enlargement.
Thus the proposal would solve the financial problem threatening eastward enlargement.
The common funding of agriculture would have an immense impact on net contributions.
At a rough estimate, Germany's net contribution would be reduced by approximately EUR 1 300 million a year and that of the Netherlands by approximately EUR 450 million, while the contributions of Spain, Greece and France would increase by EUR 1 billion.
<P>
The proposal would also have enormous consequences for matters of principle.
If the point of departure here is for consumers to benefit from EU agricultural aid in the shape of reduced food prices, is it right that some producing countries should have to pay more? Would it not be fairer if all those benefiting also paid?
From the point of view of the farmer, it is also a question of whether the new system will be as secure as the present one.
The main question is whether the CAP should remain under the tightly-controlled jurisdiction of the EU, with levels of aid at least stable, and nationally based aid which does not distort the single market.
<P>
Mrs Haug's report is an important addition to the Agenda 2000 debate, and to the ongoing preparation process for the next phase of the programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=294 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, Commissioner, I have noticed in this debate that those countries which are net beneficiaries do not wish to speak about net contributors or net beneficiaries, whereas this is exactly what the countries that are net contributors want to talk about.
The issue is the financing of EU enlargement. We are now fighting over who is going to pay for it.
On that basis I would like to express an opinion which is important to me and from our point of view generally.
<P>
The total EU budget should not be increased by more than 1.27 %.
The EU should not be given the powers to tax its citizens or collect taxes in the Member States: the money must be collected from the Member States themselves.
The best basis for calculating how much each Member State should pay is GNP.
I do not think it is out of the question to increase the share that agriculture itself contributes.
It will only divide up EU income and expenditure in a new way, but we cannot object to that in principle.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=295 NAME="Blot">
Mr President, this report gives us the opportunity to raise some important questions of principle regarding the financing of the European Union.
In fact, the European Union's so-called 'own-resources' system - as it functions at present - seems to us to be dangerous for the taxpayer, as demonstrated by the changes in budgetary revenue in recent years.
<P>
Studies on the economic rationality of parliaments - particularly, for example, those carried out by Professor Buchanan, who won a Nobel prize - have successfully demonstrated that parliaments are always interested in increasing taxes, the burden of which is shared amongst all taxpayers whilst the expenditure itself can relate to an individual group, and benefit a specific group of politicians.
Owing to this rationality, each elected Member of the European Parliament therefore receives payment for expenditure which he can make in his constituency, and he is not disadvantaged by the burden of having to pay taxes which are levied by the national authorities.
<P>
As regards the bureaucratic machinery itself, most of which comes under the Commission, its interest in extending the tax system is obvious.
Numerous studies have shown that when the members of the general public themselves vote for taxes by referendum, as is the case in Switzerland and some states in the United States, for example, they do not vote at all as parliamentarians or bureaucrats would wish them to.
This tells us a great deal.
Admittedly, however, such referendums can only take place at local or national level, and it is difficult to imagine a large-scale referendum on tax taking place at European level.
<P>
Therefore, if we want to avoid an increase in tax, it would seem preferable for the Union to be financed through payments made by the Member States that would be fixed on the basis of unanimity and would put into practice the principle of 'juste retour ' in order to prevent tax increases.
Our defence of taxpayers therefore leads us to reject the Haug report.
Finally, we should point out that defending the taxpayer is at the heart of defending the freedom of nations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=296 NAME="Tomlinson">
Mr President, Mrs Haug's report represents a significant effort to draw together many differing strands of opinion.
I want to congratulate her on that.
However, she left me with a serious physiological dilemma: how to applaud her with one hand while gesticulating angrily to her with the other.
A lot of her report deserves applause but she went somewhat awry when she tried to interfere in decisions that were made at Fontainebleau and were incorporated in the own resources decision, a decision which requires unanimity to change it.
I speak on behalf of the British Labour Members on that major area of dissent.
<P>
The United Kingdom rebate was created because of the inequity of our net contribution compared to our receipts from the Community budget.
That inequity continues and the circumstances of Fontainebleau have not changed for the better.
If anything, they have worsened over the years.
Instead of threatening the United Kingdom rebate, what we ought to be concentrating all our efforts on doing is mitigating the necessity for the United Kingdom to have such a rebate.
That means a combination of all of four things: agricultural spending reform and deep agricultural spending cuts; cofinancing in addition to that reform; a re-evaluation of the cohesion fund countries who have qualified to join the single European currency and therefore an examination of their entitlement together with a capping of the budget and strict budgetary stringency.
<P>
Therefore, while I welcome much of the Haug report, the British Labour Members stand firmly behind the efforts of successive British Prime Ministers, including Tony Blair, in their just demand for budgetary fairness and equity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=297 NAME="McCartin">
Mr President, I really think this is much ado about very little.
We have spent the last three or four years talking about cutting back on spending at European level, freezing the budget and maintaining the present rate of spending.
At the moment we spend 1.11 % of Community GDP and we have written a great volume on the whole question of how we are to collect this money.
Personally, I think own-resources is whatever we decide own-resources are.
Whatever European law says is own-resources, that is own-resources.
Even if we ask the county councils or national governments to collect it and pass it on to us, that does not prevent it from being own-resources.
So I think we make too much of that issue.
<P>
The other point is the question of the just return.
Maybe I am wrong when I tell people that when the European Union was founded there was a common agricultural policy not because it made absolute common sense that we took that particular industry and made it common, but because it was recognised that the single market would give great advantages to a skilled, industrialised country like Germany, and the French demanded, as a corresponding benefit, a common agricultural policy.
So we recognised that there were benefits to be gained from the single market in the European Union other than just the amount of money that people got from the budget.
<P>
That has been borne out because we cannot just evaluate the benefits of European Union on the basis of how the balance of payments in the European budget works out.
At the moment, Germany has a massive surplus in its balance of trade with the rest of the Union - something like 25 billion.
That is fair enough!
I do not begrudge Germany that, it got that out of the single market because of its efficiency and hard work.
The Dutch have a bigger surplus still, something like 35 billion.
Some of that may be the Rotterdam factor but, even if it is, it still leaves profit that would not have been there and could not possibly accrue to the Dutch economy if it were not for the single market.
So the single market gives benefit to the Dutch and Germans.
Ireland gains because it has a surplus in its trade with the rest of the Community, except the British.
We also are net beneficiaries, and have the best of all worlds. So I am not in favour of rapid change!
Being serious, we are going much too far and the demand for national contributions to the common agricultural policy is not a reasonable proposal.
It is definitely renationalisation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=298 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, in the one minute I have at my disposal I should like to make three short comments.
<P>
Firstly, does the total amount of Community budget receipts cover the current requirement of the European Union?
My opinion is that it does not.
The report has nothing to say on this.
<P>
Secondly, this is a distortion of reality: while here we are talking about the system of own resources, that is, the system of collecting budget receipts, the report concerns itself essentially with expenditure. It wants to reduce expenditure on the common agricultural policy, the Committee on Budgets is transformed into the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, it recommends the restructuring of agricultural policy and finally calls for national contributions to this policy.
From 70 % of the budget the common agricultural policy has fallen to 45 %.
How much further do we want it to fall? How much further do you want it to fall?
Let us just reflect on the fact that, without a common agricultural policy, there would be no European Union today.
<P>
My third and final comment is this: the notion of net contributions must cease.
We must accept that contributions are determined by the single market as a whole and not just by the Community budget.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=299 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, this report is an admirable and very well formulated attempt to chart a course between various conflicting mega-interests, what a skier would call a slalom.
But it has no clear thrust.
In order to develop that, the report should really be referred back to committee.
During the debate emphasis has repeatedly been put on the need for economic and social cohesion and solidarity, and rightly so.
But solidarity also means that all the Member States must commit themselves fully to combating waste, corruption and mismanagement.
For when it comes to collecting revenue we see particularly large losses in the Member States as a result of irregularities and fraud.
The aim of the future own resources system must not just be to make the revenue system more transparent, simpler and more rational but also to reduce the burden on European taxpayers as a whole.
<P>
In this context, any European Central Bank profits should not, as proposed, be paid into the Community budget but accrue to the Member States' budgets.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=300 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bösch">
Mr President, I want to extend my warmest thanks to the rapporteur for what she has done on behalf of the Committee on Budgets and this House.
Ladies and gentlemen, I rather got the impression today that you thought Mrs Haug had drawn up this report largely for her own amusement.
Every one of us should realise that she took a real Sisyphean task upon herself here and I believe she has done an admirable and fantastic job.
Each of us comes from our own Member State and we really have seen today that we are all bringing our own Member State's special interests with us here.
The discussion showed that extensively enough.
<P>
The way I read this report, Mrs Haug has tried to propose short and medium-term measures.
They include the question of the British rebate and of course they include the question of cofinancing agricultural policy. And to the Member who declared it was about renationalising the agricultural system - something people sometimes say against their better judgment and that has been debated at length - I would say that such matters must of course be addressed here.
<P>
But Mrs Haug has also paved the way for what we will in the final analysis need on the revenue side, namely European revenue in the form of European taxes.
Only then will we see an end to the interminable debate about who is the biggest net contributor, who is the biggest net recipient, which is what it is obviously all about just now.
Because this report is sufficiently logical and well constructed and because it comes very close to fulfilling the task we set, namely to formulate and document Parliament's position prior to the European Council decisions, I would call on everyone to support it accordingly.
<P>
It will not be the last report by the Committee on Budgets to cause us problems.
Looking at the question of the financial perspective, we may find that the balance of interests differs somewhat from today's, but we as the European Parliament should seek to remain capable of action at budgetary level.
With this report we certainly are, which is why we should support it on Thursday.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=301 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, with the Haug report the European Parliament underlines once again its political commitment to the question of the Community's own resources.
Although the number of parliamentarians present today is not very high I must say that the issue is still of the highest political topicality in all the member countries as we prepare for the Berlin summit.
<P>
Like its predecessors, in particular the famous Langes report of 1994, the Haug report combines short-term realism and long-term vision.
I am happy to note that the same difficulties that we had in the Commission when we had to draw up our report have also been encountered in the European Parliament.
I congratulate Mrs Haug for this balanced combination of those issues: short-term realism and long-term vision.
<P>
The Haug report and the Commission report on the operation of own resources published last October are on the same wave-length on many questions.
For example, both reports agree that the present system has provided sufficient resources to finance the Community expenditure, but also that it lacks transparency, comprehensibility and financial autonomy.
Both reports agree that the notion of juste retour is unrepresentative of the relationship of the EU with the Member States and misleading in several respects.
Both reports note that VAT resources pose a series of difficulties in terms of transparency and complexity, as well as the possibility of replacing VAT resources by GNP resources.
This has been given a lot of attention in the present discussion with the member countries.
Both reports recognise the diminishing importance of the traditional resources: it is necessary to take the cost benefit aspects of their collection into account.
<P>
Finally, if the weight of the GNP resources increases - which may prove possible in the next few weeks - it will become even more necessary to use the latest and most credible GNP estimates which take account of all the underground economy aspects.
<P>
With regard to specific new own resources, positions still differ considerably.
These differences have also manifested themselves within the European Parliament.
Given the cumbersome decision-making procedure in the field, more convergence of views will be required before an initiative can hope to have any possibility of succeeding.
Intellectually it is very interesting but politically there are not very many realistic options today.
<P>
Timing is important here.
The successful launch of the euro and the difficult negotiations on the harmonisation of certain taxes in Europe could be slowed if too close a link is made with the question of potential Community own resources.
I fully agree that the question of the financing of the Union has to be seen as an integral part of the integration process of the Union, that it has to move forward in tandem with it.
I once again congratulate the rapporteur for her excellent work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=302 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Liikanen.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Thursday at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=14>
Transportable pressure equipment
<SPEAKER ID=303 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0094/99), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the common position adopted by the Council (12050/98 - C4-0679/98-97/0011(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Directive on transportable pressure equipment (Rapporteur: Mr Camisón Asensio).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=304 NAME="Camisón Asensio">
Mr President, as we have said on previous occasions when we debated this very technical issue, we are faced with a proposal for a directive that has been developed mainly to fill the two main gaps in the rules on the manufacture, transport, marketing, use and maintenance of all transportable pressure equipment. These gaps have hindered normal development and have resulted in a lack of transport safety and in problems for the free movement of such equipment in the Community market.
We therefore had to meet these two fundamental objectives and I sincerely believe that we are close to achieving this.
In any event, the proposal for a directive is open to amendment as the recovery procedure has been included for possible future enlargements, and this offers some safety for the future. This is an issue that could, in itself, be resolved by potential changes to the European Agreement and International Agreement on the carriage of dangerous goods by road and rail respectively.
<P>
In accordance with the common position approved by the Council, the mutual recognition of inspections is guaranteed on the basis of criteria that take account of experience and the bodies concerned are given a sufficient degree of independence to allow them to function and be credible.
This House has tabled a series of amendments, many of which have been accepted by the Commission and taken over by the Council in its common position.
Among these amendments is one that deletes the word 'refillable' from the original text, as was suggested by the Economic and Social Committee. There is also an amendment that limits the inspection bodies to only the two more independent categories.
The new version of the directive refers only to 'notified bodies', formerly type A, and 'approved bodies', formerly type B. Category C was not sufficiently independent and has been deleted from the text, as requested by Parliament at first reading in accordance with our corresponding report approved by the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
It is now clear that transportable pressure equipment used exclusively for goods transport between the Community and third countries is excluded from the scope of this directive.
It would be fitting to accept this exclusion as it complies with the international agreements in force, although we should like to point out the objective difficulty of clearly distinguishing equipment which is used only for this type of transport.
As we see it, this is also the right time to accept the possibility that the Member States might allow the conformity of manufacture in series to be established by an approved body. This body would also be linked in some way to the undertaking body without the Community marking provided for in the directive.
But it would be appropriate to guarantee notified inspection bodies a right of control, as outlined in our amendments.
<P>
The possibility of granting a transitional period has also been raised.
We believe that this too is acceptable, provided that no extensions are granted.
<P>
There are other less important changes on top of these.
Some merely refer to purely linguistic and formal aspects.
<P>
Consequently, we are, on the whole, in favour of this common position and we even believe that some of the changes it makes are positive ones.
However, I believe it is necessary to mention the need to improve some further aspects, since the efficiency and quality of the legislation in this sensitive sector cannot exclude precise rules on transparency and legal certainty. This is in accordance with the law throughout the European Union and our amendments are along similar lines.
<P>
In any event, and to sum up, the main issue in the proposal being debated centres on the major dilemma between the experience and independence of the inspection bodies.
This is the crux of the matter. Given such a dilemma, the best solution is to strike a sensible balance between both points of view and to strengthen official monitoring of different conducts.
We sincerely believe that with this common position and our amendments we will strike a sensible balance. This is why we are asking you to vote in favour of this common position that was unanimously approved in the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=305 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Aparicio Sánchez">
Mr President, one year ago, Mr Camisón Asensio drew up an excellent report, as this House confirmed during the first reading of this timely proposal for a directive.
The report's view has not changed at second reading and is one that will help increase safety as well as improve conditions for free movement in terms of the manufacture, use and transport of transportable pressure equipment in Europe.
The Socialist Group supports the criteria of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, which are the rapporteur's initial criteria. Our group will therefore vote in favour of the small yet important amendments contained in this report and that the rapporteur has summarised.
<P>
The creation of a single economic area based on a common market remains one of the objectives from the Treaty of Rome that requires constant improvement.
Consequently, Parliament and the Commission have a lasting obligation to iron out technical problems in the trade of industrial goods in this area whenever there are cases where eliminating such problems will still guarantee a high level of safety.
Both high safety levels and the elimination of technical difficulties can be achieved with this report.
I still do not understand how the Council can be against approving and increasing transparency in limits on times when loaded lorries can use European motorways at weekends. Fortunately, we only have three months left of the German Presidency, after which we can assume that such approval will be granted.
<P>
We should like to congratulate Mr Camisón Asensio for his work throughout these two readings and also the Commission for its excellent initiative and for accepting most of the amendments from this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=306 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
I should like to begin by thanking the Committee on Transport and Tourism and, in particular, Mr Camisón Asensio for the time and productive effort that he has spent on this issue, not only at this time, but for the period in which he has been living with this proposal - the past 18 months or more.
The result of his efforts has been improvement in the Commission's proposal.
We have recognised that in the most practical way by accepting a significant number of his first reading amendments.
The sight of Mr Jarzembowski always disorientates me.
Such a thing of beauty at this time of night!
<P>
The Commission's position, which includes all the amendments accepted by the Commission - the common position - will improve the safety of transportable pressure equipment such as gas cylinders or tanks, will allow their free circulation and free use and will meet these purposes through provisions relating, among other things, to the conformity of new equipment, the reassessment of existing equipment, periodic testing and relevant Community marking.
<P>
Let me comment on the amendments to the common position that are offered by the report that we are considering tonight.
First of all, the Commission is able to accept Amendment No 2 since it introduces the compulsory notification to the Commission in case of undue marking.
<P>
We are not, however, able to accept Amendment No 1. The reason for that is that reassessment of an existing receptacle by an agreed body is only a possibility under the terms of the proposal.
The House will know that the Member States that are going to use this provision are those that already have a lot of experience with agreed bodies.
They will only authorise some specific agreed bodies for the reassessment activities.
In those circumstances and taking into account the fact that a notified body will have previously reassessed the type of conformity, unannounced visits by a notified body are not necessary.
<P>
I should like to congratulate the interpreters on the way in which they followed that passage that I have just read out.
<P>
Since Amendment No 4 is a consequence of Amendment No 1, that too is not acceptable.
The Commission is also not able to accept Amendment No 3 for the simple and formal reason - which I know the rapporteur understands - that the report to the Council and the European Parliament on the adaptations to technical progress are laid down in the directives of the Commission which are published in the Official Journal.
<P>
I hope that the honourable Members will accept that the Commission's reasons for not accepting these few amendments are entirely the result of practical and procedural considerations and not objections in principle.
<P>
I should like to offer my thanks to the rapporteur and his colleagues for their very constructive approach and bid Godspeed to this useful piece of legislation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=307 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Kinnock.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=15>
Ports and intermodal terminals
<SPEAKER ID=308 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0074/99) by Mr Piecyk, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision amending Decision No 1692/96/EC as regards seaports, inland ports and intermodal terminals, as well as project No 8 in Annex III (COM(97)0681 - C4-0151/98-97/0358(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=309 NAME="Piecyk">
Mr President, perhaps I will not need my whole seven minutes of speaking time.
After all, one can keep it a bit shorter.
We transport politicians always try to be precise, without letting things get out of hand.
<P>
When we began working on the TENs in 1994, it was clear from the outset that the TENs will not be some unique event that suddenly erupts like a volcano, something that is decided just like that; what was clear is that there will be a process that will continue for a number of years and will also have to be reviewed constantly.
That is why the 1996 decision taken by the Council and Parliament is sensibly entitled 'Guidelines for the development of the trans-European transport network'.
During the conciliation procedure the Council and Parliament could not agree on what Parliament called for at the time, namely the need to include ports in the TENs.
I think that anyone with any brains and common sense will realise that a transport network without interconnection points is an incomplete system, but then nobody has ever pretended that every member of the Council shines with common sense.
I would never go so far as to say that.
<P>
During the conciliation procedure the Commission - indeed you, Commissioner - declared that a proposal on seaports would be on the table immediately.
Immediately took rather longer than we would normally understand by the word.
But in the end we did get what I would regard as a very sensible proposal, namely to bring seaports, inland ports and intermodal terminals together in one proposal.
It makes sense because all three are after all transport connection points and as such they are indeed the condition for linking the various transport modes together.
Moreover, seaports and inland connection points interact with one another and are a significant factor in the development of intermodal transport.
<P>
The market is crucial to the development of seaports.
We do not deny that either and so when we lay down European criteria for seaports this must not lead to any distortions of competition.
But regarding the volume criterion, I believe that a traffic volume of 1.5 million tonnes of freight a year is quite certainly more appropriate for a European network than the 1 million proposed by the Commission.
What is totally incomprehensible, however, is the Commission's specifications for seaports.
Quite rightly, there is a great deal of detail about port infrastructure, but in the end the Commission proposal says that infrastructure projects are not eligible for aid!
We, and indeed I, regard that as totally wrong.
We stick to our original approach: we want to recognise port infrastructure as eligible for aid on principle, but certainly not superstructure, which is a different matter.
<P>
To make it quite clear what infrastructure means, my report proposes a basic definition of the term.
After all, we have all sorts of fancies in our mind about all the things that could be supported.
But if these are to be kept in check, we must also have a basic definition of what infrastructure means in the future networks.
<P>
The situation regarding inland ports is somewhat different.
Of course, as the Commission proposes, they should be equipped with transhipment installations for intermodal transport; that would be one criterion.
But those inland ports that only tranship bulk freight should have an annual traffic volume of at least 500 000 tonnes of freight.
The Transport Committee is adding that criterion to the report.
<P>
There are two other points I would like to address.
The Commission also wants to include rail freight freeways in the TENs.
Parliament has always supported the Commission and you personally, Commissioner, on the matter of freeways.
We think this is necessary in order to move more freight from the roads to the railways.
And we continue to support you.
However, by virtue of their construction, the freeways are a service installation and not an infrastructure.
That is why both I and the committee believe that in terms of the system - not of the principle, where we entirely agree - they do not belong in the TENs, simply because they are not an infrastructure.
<P>
Then there is the famous project No 8 of the 14 very important projects endorsed by the Essen summit.
For God's sake, these projects have been examined a thousand times as to whether they can go ahead!
The Christophersen Group went to great trouble, and now everything is to be changed again!
This is certainly not a glorious chapter in the annals of the Council.
But I believe Parliament and the Commission should both forgive and forget here and say yes, while specifying one thing, namely that to be precise project No 8 is a project consisting of several individual projects.
And that is the basis on which we should decide tomorrow.
<P>
All that remains is for me to thank my colleagues in the committee for their cooperation, to also thank the Commission departments with whom we also cooperated, and finally to call on the Council to finally get round to producing a common position before the end of the legislative term, so that we can get on with this in the autumn.
<P>
Finally, on principle the Commission is considering possibly presenting a white paper on the basis of its review of the networks.
We think that is wrong.
Article 21 of the decision provides that the review shall be followed by Commission proposals, which means we should not rethink the whole matter again in the form of a white paper.
That is why we expect the review, when it finally appears, to put forward new, revised proposals, but not, so to speak, to start from scratch again.
We have worked on the networks too long for this to happen. That is why it is useful to have the completed proposal on the table now.
I can only wish the Commissioner luck in his work and hope that we will manage to achieve a common position during this electoral term.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=310 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sindal">
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Piecyk for a good report and a resolution which is a leftover from our resolution on trans-European networks.
We did not get as far as how ports should be included in the master plan.
Since then, we have shown that a lack of efficiency and higher costs both in ports used for inland shipping and seaports have contributed to restricting shipping.
The report on short-sea shipping demonstrated that.
We have discussed the green paper on ports, and we have in fact progressed a long way in our debate on ports.
<P>
There is a need for development all over Europe.
We are now jointly picking out some priorities and some ports.
It is important for us to consider not only the functional aspect, but also the need for uniform conditions as far as bureaucracy is concerned.
That is what I want to talk about today.
There is one thing that is very inconvenient for ships when they arrive at ports, and that is the inconsistency in the way they are received and the way the ports operate.
I would therefore urge the ports in the Member States which, through the 'fellowship' of the trans-European network, are now expected to provide a more sustainable transport system, to fulfil the obligation which goes with being part of the transport chain and all its bureaucracy.
Another point is that the selection of ports should be based on strategic considerations, and not just on regional and local factors.
A port may have great local significance, but it may not live up to the idea of a trans-European network.
Local desires for expansion should therefore be held in check when we talk about the development of trans-European networks.
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<SPEAKER ID=311 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Tuesday evening is the time for the Committee on Transport and Tourism, so let us get to work again.
<P>
I want to thank the rapporteur, Mr Piecyk, very warmly for his report.
He has managed most successfully to incorporate the points we made at the time of the discussion on the green paper on seaports.
In terms of the white paper and amendment of the TEN proposal, he has included Parliament's views in his report and reconciled them.
That is a most important task and ensures that we do not have two different legal acts and follow different courses.
I believe it also demonstrates how right we were to be stubborn in 1996 and not to adopt the seaports proposal at the time. For with the Piecyk report we now have a far more precise and clear definition of the tasks relating to supporting or not supporting seaports and inland ports.
I admit that, Commissioner, and also thank the Commission for improving its proposal compared to the original text.
In that respect, we have come closer to one another.
<P>
I also believe it is important for us to have a proper map of European seaports, for the public did not understand why we had a map showing airports, railway lines and roads, without any indication of seaports.
I agree with Mr Piecyk that including seaports in the maps does not mean that no other ports have a chance of achieving prominence in Europe; those ports simply have to manage that themselves.
I think that is the crucial point.
<P>
In particular, I think it is very good that we have a clear delineation between port infrastructure and port superstructure in the Piecyk report.
One of our central tasks continues to be to avoid distortions of competition between seaports through national aid or even aid from the Cohesion Fund or the Structural Funds.
That means we need clear definitions of port infrastructure and port superstructure.
<P>
I hope the Commission, Mr Kinnock, will agree with our more precise definition of project No 8.
The Council keeps talking about the Essen and Dublin projects, but we have always taken that to mean that this is a matter of codecision and not of a Council decision: it is after all a list of priority projects and not a list of generally applicable priority tasks.
Unfortunately No 8 was a generally applicable commitment.
We have defined it more precisely on the basis of the Commission's practical proposals, and we are prepared at the next stage perhaps to find a common, stronger, more precise definition.
But it is important that we are clear in our minds what the priorities are and do not restrict ourselves to generally non-applicable tasks.
<P>
I also agree with Mr Piecyk that we do not want a white paper on the TENs, for that always means two years of discussions and everyone in this House and everyone in the Council knows what we are talking about here.
We need a brief report summarising the experience gained and a clear review.
That is our task and I believe the Commissioner should do us that favour.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=312 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, following Mr Jarzembowski who spoke of Tuesday evening being transport night, I would add that it is striking to see how many of us transport people are on the back benches.
Perhaps, Commissioner Kinnock, if you keep this portfolio and we exercise our powers of codecision, we can make an effort to move this a little closer to the centre of the political stage and have it acknowledged as rather more important.
<P>
Having said that, I must begin by complimenting Mr Piecyk. We have worked together on this remarkably well, and if his predecessor Günther Topmann could see the harmonious atmosphere in which this report was produced, I think he would find it heartwarming.
<P>
I share the views that have been expressed, but there is one aspect which I should like to develop a little further.
Ports are of course the most important points of intersection in our trans-European networks.
After all, all our Union imports and exports pass through them.
The importance of ports is determined not only by history, but also by the ease of their links to the hinterland.
Why, for example, is the port of Oporto rather less busy than that of Rotterdam?
Because, despite the fact that it means two or three days' less sailing time, transport from the coast to the interior is more difficult because the infrastructure which the port requires is not yet well enough developed.
That is one of the reasons why we established the TENs and why it is most important to have multimodal transport services from the ports to the hinterland.
<P>
So I am also grateful to the rapporteur for mentioning waterways which are at least as important, the Elbe-Lübeck canal and the Twente-Mittelland canal which was added in committee as the result of an amendment.
We should be very glad to see the Commission stressing the importance of these waterways as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=313 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Torres Marques">
Mr President, first of all I should like to congratulate Mr Piecyk on his excellent and important report.
Please bear with me if, in the short amount of time at my disposal, I concentrate on priority project No 8, dealing with links between Portugal and Europe via Spain.
<P>
The project now submitted could be regarded as a genuine revolution in the world of transport as far as Portugal is concerned.
It fully incorporates the new philosophy which we in the European Union, and particularly in the European Parliament, have always supported.
The fact that Portugal's current Public Works Minister used to be a member of the European Parliament may have something to do with the far-reaching transformation that has occurred in proposals for Community projects affecting Portugal.
<P>
The previously planned project consisted of a motorway between Lisbon and Valladolid, and this is also part of the new project, but what has changed in my opinion is, above all, the philosophy behind it.
Account has been taken of ports and intermodal transport, with rail and road links guaranteeing merchandise improved access to ports outside and inside Europe.
As Mr Wijsenbeek said earlier, there really is a world of a difference between the port of Oporto and the port of Rotterdam in terms of infrastructure.
<P>
What is being proposed in this project - in my view nothing short of a revolution in the world of transport in my country, which is why I ask both the European Parliament and the Commission to support it - will enable Portugal to overhaul its transport system and create a logical and complementary network that will link up the different means of transport and modernise every form of access to the Portuguese ports. That means that we will be on a new cutting edge of development.
We therefore think that this project must be approved. It is of overriding importance for Europe and Portugal alike.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=314 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sisó Cruellas">
Mr President, firstly I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Piecyk, for this report because, as we have come to expect, he has once again done some excellent work.
<P>
We gladly welcome the Commission's proposal as it is important and urgent that we complete the conciliation procedure between the European Parliament and the Council. This procedure began in 1996, as no agreement could be reached on the way in which ports were to be incorporated in the TENs.
However, the Commission's proposal, as the rapporteur has already highlighted, was delayed and the procedure for the current proposal will overlap with the preparations for the Commission report on the fundamental revision of the guidelines.
In fact, the Commission's explanatory statement in its proposal for amendment constantly refers to the forthcoming review that will take place in accordance with Article 21 of Decision 1692/96/EC.
<P>
What is more, I do not believe that the proposal for a continuous process of updating and reviewing the guidelines should be made through a White Paper.
And as regards Amendment No 13, concerning point 8, and more specifically on the corridors in the Commission's proposal, 'Multimodal link Portugal/Spain with the rest of Europe', the following corridors are included: Galicia (La Coruña)/Portugal (Lisbon), the southwest corridor (Lisbon/Seville) and a third corridor Irún/Portugal (Lisbon). The Spanish side of this last corridor is not properly defined.
I believe this is a transcription error, as it should read Irún-Valladolid/Portugal (Lisbon). As a result, I ask that this be corrected in order to avoid any misunderstanding and I would ask the rapporteur to clarify this when it comes to the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=315 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldarelli">
Mr President, this Commission proposal completes a significant range of measures concerning the trans-European networks, although it has to be said that the solution envisaged will not be the last word on this matter.
<P>
Unlike some colleagues, I am convinced that the new TENs project requires in-depth discussion, harking back to the original spirit of the White Paper by Jacques Delors and stimulating innovation, above all by linking these networks to the development of urban and industrial areas.
I am therefore in favour of a Commission communication which generates a wide-ranging debate with Parliament and with European society, and is not merely a list of projects mediated by national governments.
<P>
I am broadly in agreement with this proposal, and I think that a compromise should be possible on one point.
In my opinion, the classification of seaports on the basis of freight volume should not be related exclusively to an annual volume of 1.5 million tonnes, but should be considered over a longer period of at least three years.
<P>
As far as competition is concerned, although careful attention must be paid to distortions, I believe that support from the Structural and Cohesion Funds is crucial to port structure and superstructure activities.
The Commission's survey of ports is most useful here, considering that public funding also benefits many non-Mediterranean ports, albeit indirectly.
A very clear and accurate analysis of both Mediterranean and non-Mediterranean ports is required.
<P>
I believe that the important concepts here are nodes, intermodality, technological innovation and the rational development of interconnected networks, including links with railway nodes.
Intermodality is a key factor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=316 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendes Bota">
Mr President, of the fourteen priority projects for the trans-European transport networks established at the Essen Council in December 1994, three are at the finishing stages and six are due to be completed by the year 2005, while for the other five there is a great deal of vagueness about their timetable, costs and funding.
That is the case with the multimodal link between Portugal and Spain and the rest of Europe.
<P>
In 1996 when the new Socialist government came to power in Portugal, policies changed, Madrid moved into line and, at the Dublin Council, the European Union approved the new emphasis on multimodal transport with which we happen to agree.
<P>
Two and a half years later we still do not know what actual projects for multimodal links with Portugal and Spain and what economic or environmental impact studies have been presented in Brussels or what their cost and sources of funding will be.
It is curious that as we are changing the designation of project No 8, which relates to three Iberian multimodal corridors, the Portuguese Government has just presented its national social and economic development plan for the period 2000-2006 and refers to four main Iberian corridors as part of the current set of trans-European network projects, namely the Galician-Portuguese corridor from Vigo to Lisbon; the Irun-Portugal corridor; the Extremadura corridor from Lisbon to Madrid; and the Mediterranean corridor from Lisbon to Seville via Faro and Huelva.
<P>
So where does that leave us?
Are there three or four corridors?
Which text accurately reflects the current political will of the Portuguese Government?
Which of them can we rely on in the future?
We must avoid getting bogged down in vagueness, toing and froing, putting off the vital day when Union funding must be forthcoming.
In particular, regions such as the Algarve and Andalucia cannot be satisfied with simply being 'on the map' while in practice being indefinitely left out of the transport corridors linking those regions to Europe.
The rail network in southern Portugal is the worst in Europe as there are no links with Seville or with Faro airport.
In the short term the Lisbon-Algarve motorway, the second stage of the Via do Infante and the Ayamonte-Seville link must be joined up to form part of the European road network.
We have now had enough inertia and vacillation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=317 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
Mr President, I begin by offering my regrets that I will not be as precise and brief as Mr Piecyk, partly because there is a complexity about this report.
I want to make a candid and as full as possible response to what has been said because these are important issues.
So I hope the House will bear with me if I stray a little over the five minutes.
I also think that Mr Wijsenbeek, as ever, has made an excellent suggestion that in these late night sessions we actually gather closer together so that we can save electricity by not having to project our voices so far and maybe, at the end of the evening, we can join in some community singing.
That would be very good.
<P>
Sometimes I feel rather lonely, although, as Mr Wijsenbeek says, this is a packed House by comparison with what we are sometimes used to.
That is a testimony to the very great interest that is expressed in this important subject.
<P>
I am glad that Parliament has taken up the proposal we have put forward and there is general support in the House for its objective, which is the completion of the trans-European networks transport guidelines with the inclusion of seaports, inland ports and intermodal terminals.
<P>
Mr Piecyk, the rapporteur, must have a particular sense of accomplishment in producing this report since, after our joint experiences in 1995 and 1996, I always think of him as the parliamentary midwife of the transport TEN guidelines.
<P>
It will be clear to honourable Members that the development of a multimodal trans-European transport network would be incomplete if the principal interconnection points were not included.
That is the reason, as several Members of the House will know, why the Commission, following the request of this House, declared in the conciliation procedure on the guidelines that we would submit a proposal for seaport projects in 1997.
Indeed, it is consistent with the entire thrust of our TENs policy which, because of the mission of developing real networks, must focus increasingly on connection points and access to main arteries rather than simply on traditional stretches of infrastructure.
<P>
I am glad that the committee has supported the main principles and the main objectives of the Commission.
A number of amendments adopted by the committee can be accepted either in their entirety or, at least, in principle.
<P>
Before dealing with the substantive amendments, I should like to comment on Amendment No 1 - an issue that has arisen repeatedly in the course of this debate - which inserts a recital stating that the European Parliament expects a legislative proposal on the revision of the guidelines, rather than the White Paper that the Commission has announced.
I understand that view very well.
However, it must be said that under Article 21 of the guidelines decision the Commission is requested to present a report and not a proposal for an amendment of the law.
We are therefore fulfilling that requirement.
I hope that the House will agree that there is good sense in producing a report as a White Paper, deliberately in order to provide this Parliament and others with a real opportunity for a broader debate on the trans-European networks policy in general before a new proposal is finally decided upon.
Parliament and the wider community have everything to gain and absolutely nothing to lose by this approach, especially in terms of real participation in policy development in what is a crucial strategy for the European Union.
<P>
So rather than in any sense being evasive in not immediately coming forward with a legislative proposal, we are, frankly, trying to do the opposite and being more transparent and more inclusive in the approach that we are making to consideration of the TENs guidelines after the experience and after the evolution of the policy over four years in which a great many developments have taken place.
<P>
I shall address the other amendments in three main groups: those relating to 'Trans-European Rail Freight Freeways'; secondly, those on the criteria for deciding which ports are included; and, thirdly, those relating to the types of infrastructure, superstructure and rolling stock investment support that are eligible.
<P>
Amendments Nos 2 and 7 refer to the 'Trans-European Rail Freight Freeways' which, as Mr Piecyk said, have been supported by this Parliament as a means of making early progress in reviving rail freight across the Union.
This revision of the guidelines provides us with a further means of encouraging the development of rail freight freeways by making clear that infrastructure investment in the freeways routes will be given priority.
That makes sense because the viability of infrastructure investments obviously depends on competitive revenue-raising services and competitive services clearly need quality infrastructure.
So investment in infrastructure will certainly help to deliver better services.
But I thought that was the whole purpose of infrastructure investment in any case.
<P>
Indeed it is in line with the amendments that Parliament itself put, and we accepted, on the project action for combined transport programmes.
So I cannot support Amendments Nos 2 and 7 which have the effect of dropping all references to trans-European rail freight freeways.
I would, however, be happy to consider a reformulation of the provision that does not directly refer to the rail freight freeways but rather to cross-border trans-European rail freight corridors open to all operators.
If that was accepted, I hope that all parts of this House could then give support to the reference.
<P>
Turning to criteria for identifying ports, the Commission accepts that part of Amendment No 4 gives special treatment to ports in the outermost regions.
However, the increase in the minimum traffic volume stipulated in the proposal from 1 million to 1.5 million tonnes of freight would exclude about 27 ports, mainly in remote areas of the Union.
We, therefore, cannot support this specific point because of the breadth of our commitment and indeed the Treaty requirements relating to the function of the trans-European network strategy in connecting up the peripheral regions of the Union to the centre.
Meanwhile the stipulation that ports must be connected to the TENs routes that is set out in the amendment would have the effect of excluding a number of ports that are not currently linked to the trans-European network.
Similarly, the inclusion of a minimum volume threshold for bulk freight in inland ports envisaged in Amendment No 3 would alter the present approach which is essentially based on intermodal freight.
Those proposed amendments cannot, therefore, be accepted entirely.
I hope the House will recognise that there are practical reasons for the Commission taking this view as well as reasons that are also connected to a desire to provide a breadth of effective coverage in the trans-European network strategy as we are further developing it.
<P>
Amendment No 6 makes more radical changes to the guideline maps, adding new links and creating new categories of ports.
As I am sure the House recognises, these are, in reality, issues for consideration in the forthcoming general revision process.
Consequently, I cannot accept that amendment for that reason.
<P>
Amendment No 5 mainly tightens up definitions and can be readily accepted.
I am grateful to Mr Piecyk for putting that amendment.
<P>
Turning to types of eligible investments, I can easily concur with the argument that all projects of common interest, including those related to ports, should, in principle, be potentially eligible for TENs funding.
That means dropping a restrictive paragraph in our proposal on the non-availability of funding for infrastructure in the port area.
Of course financing of those infrastructures - as Mr Jarzembowski pointed out - must not distort competition.
What would, however, create real problems is the introduction of a new concept of superstructures in ports as the distinction between superstructure and infrastructure is far from clear.
We would open the door to uncertainty about eligibility, in particular in the area of combined transport.
If the Union in its wisdom would appoint Mr Jarzembowski to be the inspector of TENs superstructures in all the ports of the European Union, that would mean he was gainfully employed, dedicated to the service of the Community.
All I would regret was his prolonged absence from this House.
But if that power was not vested in Mr Jarzembowski I am not sure that I could accept any definition that clearly delineated between superstructure and infrastructure.
I will illustrate the point by taking the argument further.
<P>
The idea of giving a detailed definition of port infrastructure in Amendments Nos 8 and 9, although I recognise the good intentions of putting it forward in that way, has been very thoroughly examined by the Commission.
We have had to conclude, however, that the provision of a detailed definition would definitely carry the risk that relevant features could be missed out. In the case, for example, of this specific amendment, the proposed definition, although it is carefully crafted, still misses landing places, quay walls and locks - matters of critical interest in both sea and inland ports.
<P>
On balance, therefore, and for practical reasons, I prefer not to have a more precise and exhaustive definition of the term 'port infrastructure' in the legal text.
I emphasise strongly to the House that it is only for practical reasons that are directly connected with the desire of the Commission to get effective commitment to the development of ports.
<P>
Finally, the Commission accepts in essence Amendment No 13 which seeks to describe more precisely the specific project No. 8 in Annex III which has been the subject of several references in the course of the debate, though the accuracy needs cross-checking with the two Member States concerned.
<P>
Summing up, the Commission cannot support Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, part of 4, 6, 7, most of 8 and 9, and 11.
But we can accept Amendments Nos 5, 10, 12, the first part of Amendment No 8, and 9, and we can certainly subscribe to the principles of Amendment No 13 and part of 4.
<P>
I warmly thank the House for having taken this proposal forward and also by expressing my particular gratitude to the Committee on Transport and Tourism and specifically to the rapporteur, Mr Piecyk, for the excellent work that once again has been done by himself and his colleagues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=318 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
Commissioner, I would just remind you that when you became Commissioner for transport five years ago you promised to listen to Parliament.
What you have just offered us, namely to reject all the proposals we submitted, is outrageous!
But perhaps we will be meeting again next year!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=319 NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, I have a similar, short question.
The Commissioner did not accept the amendments on the specific inland waterway links with ports.
Could the Commissioner at least assure this House that he will take seriously inland waterway links with the important points that ports constitute for our trans-European networks?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=320 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
Mr President, I will be extremely brief because I am conscious of the fact that unavoidably my first contribution was long.
<P>
Firstly, I entirely sympathise with the point that Mr Wijsenbeek makes.
This, however, is not the proposal before the House.
It is not a general revision of the trans-European network strategy.
I very firmly give him the undertaking that precisely the point he is making will be a feature of our proposal relating to the general revision.
He need have no worry about that.
<P>
Secondly, I say to Mr Jarzembowski, who is a Parliamentarian like myself, that I made a solemn undertaking - which I honour every moment that I work - to listen to the Parliament.
He will recognise, however, democrat that he is, that this does not imply being a rubber stamp or accepting everything the Parliament says.
It does, however, mean, that I owe the Parliament my honest judgment. That he always gets, whether he likes it or not.
Happily, he likes it more often than he dislikes it!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=321 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Kinnock.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=16>
Railways
<SPEAKER ID=322 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0058/99 by Mr Sarlis, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 91/440/EEC on the development of the Community's railways (COM(98)0480 - C4-0561/98-98/0265(SYN)); -A4-0059/99 by Mr Swoboda, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, onI.the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 95/18/EC on the licensing of railway undertakings (COM(98)0480 - C4-0562/98-98/0266(SYN))II.the proposal for a Council Directive relating to the allocation of railway infrastructure capacity and the levying of charges for the use of railway infrastructure and safety certification (COM(98)0480 - C4-0563/98-98/0267(SYN)).
<SPEAKER ID=323 NAME="Sarlis">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in its resolution of 13 January 1998 on the White Paper on a strategy for revitalising the Community's railways - the personal work of Commissioner Kinnock - this House wholeheartedly and consistently supported the Commission's strategy on virtually all its lines of attack.
However, it also highlighted several important points.
One of these was that we called upon the Commission to submit proposals in order to give railway undertakings the right of free access to railway infrastructure on the basis of an amendment to Article 10 of Directive 91/440/EEC regarding the operation of international freight transport, along with accompanying measures.
<P>
The Commission's new proposal, or rather the package of three separate proposals, one of which concerns the amendments to Directive 91/440/EEC, goes in the right direction but is not sufficiently substantial.
The most important point I would like to highlight is that the Commission proposal fails to make recommendations for the gradual extension of the liberalisation of the railways, as I mentioned earlier, which this House introduced in its resolution of 13 January 1998.
This omission becomes even more apparent when we realise that this issue has stagnated somewhat in Council circles and that the third directive of the package submitted by the Commission is essentially a measure accompanying a policy which is leading to partial liberalisation, which was set out in the White Paper and, above all, in Parliament's resolution of January 1998.
<P>
As a result, in line with what I have already said and, most importantly, with the almost unanimous view of this House, which was expressed in January 1998, I put before the Committee on Transport and Tourism Amendment No 10 granting Community railway undertakings free access and transit rights on equitable conditions to the infrastructure in all Member States for the purpose of operating international railway services for the transport of goods.
<P>
This right currently exists only for international groupings of railway undertakings and not for individual railway undertakings.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have the 1969 directive, which expressly provides for the gradual liberalisation of rail transport in the European Union - which was then the European Community - and has not been implemented since that time.
As a result, with this amendment, which was adopted by a large majority in the Committee on Transport and Tourism, we are putting back on track the process towards the gradual liberalisation of rail transport, starting with the transport of goods.
<P>
Amendment No 6 puts forward a new provision which obliges Member States to create legal entities, separate from railway undertakings, for the management of their national railway infrastructure, not later than two years following the date of entry into force of the directive.
<P>
Finally, the remaining amendments which I propose, and which have been adopted in the Committee on Transport and Tourism, concern improvements to the Commission proposals. For example, Amendment No 5, in contrast to what was proposed by the Commission, reconfirms that responsibility for operating the control and safety systems lies with rail infrastructure providers.
<P>
Last of all, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to underline three things.
Firstly, the reports being debated this evening in joint debate are harmonised and complement each other.
Secondly, there has been an announcement from the German Presidency that, very soon, some time in March, it will take the initiative to promote issues relating to the railways.
Thirdly, this is a significant milestone in the liberalisation of this important form of transport in Europe.
I hope that the solidarity that was shown in the Committee on Transport and Tourism will still be there tomorrow during the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=324 NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first I want to thank my colleagues in the committee, who worked together admirably, and especially Mr Sarlis, with whom I cooperated closely.
I am also grateful to our Commission colleagues, who provided us with a great deal of information and were most understanding, although I very much regret - as did the entire committee - that one Commission colleague decided in the end that none of the amendments was acceptable.
Commissioner, I do not know what you will say; as a democrat of course I have to accept it.
But I would certainly be sorry to see all the amendments simply dismissed out of hand.
<P>
Commission, I entirely agree with what you have repeatedly said, namely that the European railway system needs to be reformed.
But I cannot agree with those - even if we have close political links in the unions and in other areas - who believe that it would be best to leave things as they stand, or who believe that the difficult problems with the railways had been created by the Commission's proposals.
No, the difficult situation of the railways has arisen partly because many railway undertakings believed they did not need to reform, they did not need to change anything, they could continue operating in a national framework.
That is not true and in principle I agree with the ideas put forward by the Commissioner and the Commission.
<P>
It is certainly true that the difficult situation as regards rail/road competition in my view disadvantages the railways and that this needs rectifying.
In that regard I have taken several aspects into account. And I can understand that the unions and the railway undertakings are highlighting this.
<P>
There is much talk of privatisation and liberalisation.
But privatisation does not even come into question in this context, it is not being proposed.
We can certainly consider liberalisation up to a certain point.
I would prefer to say something different, in relation to our proposals: it is a question of Europeanising the railway system.
Air transport has been Europeanised, all the undertakings have been Europeanised, there is a common market.
However, many railway undertakings continue to believe they can frame their programmes at national level and then they wonder why freight traffic and employment and so forth are declining.
That is untenable!
<P>
That is why I, like Mr Sarlis - and that is the thrust of my amendments - believe that we should target the next step towards liberalisation or Europeanisation at an area where we have a European market, where the competition between rail and road is particularly strong, namely cross-border freight traffic; I have made the corresponding proposals.
<P>
So I entirely support the Commission's basic premise and its proposals on opening up the market.
It is up to the railway undertakings to decide whether to do so more in the form of cooperation or of competition.
Of course we do not want new monopolies to emerge.
It is a question of the transparency of the decisions, the transparency of the allocations.
Although this sector has not been regulated, it is certainly also a question of technical framework conditions.
So we need harmonisation in the technical field too.
And it is a question of equal competition and fairness, not just between rail and road but also as regards the railways themselves, in these individual decisions.
<P>
I come now to a central point, where my opinion differs from that of the Commission.
In particular it concerns the large number of both central and decentralised rules.
I believe the Commission has done a very good job in many cases. Its detailed proposals are probably also the most sensible way to go about this.
But I do not think it is always sensible of the Commission to want to propose and implement them without making the national rules sufficiently flexible in their turn.
That is why I have deleted a fair number of provisions - and this really must not be seen as any disrespect for the Commission's work here - not because I think they are bad but because I believe it is not the Commission's job to regulate this in such detail, particularly since I am convinced that nobody can control all this centrally.
I happen to believe that we should only adopt rules of this kind if compliance with them can also be checked, rather than having an abundance of rules that cannot be monitored.
<P>
As for the charging principles, here again I agree with the Commission: on principle marginal charges should be required.
But I think the external costs should only be charged in the railway system if they can also be charged at about the same rate for road traffic.
I believe that a profit that bears a proper relation to the costs would be entirely acceptable and could be calculated, and that higher costs could also be charged for certain special investments.
However, I have deleted the detailed rules on this from the report.
<P>
Regarding the central issue of the authorised applicant, I personally have nothing against the Commission's views on this.
But I have added one restriction, which I consider important to ensure that this is acceptable and that we really concentrate on what is necessary.
Each country should continue to be able to regulate this as it wishes in its area of jurisdiction.
But all European Member States must note and accept that for cross-border freight traffic all European railway undertakings shall be regarded as authorised applicants, meaning that they shall be eligible to request capacity.
I think that is the essential point.
If we take this decision in Parliament tomorrow, then I believe it will be a real milestone in the development of a European railway system.
We will then have competition in cross-border freight traffic; that is where it is most important, that is where the railways must make efforts.
For I hope we will take a decision on all those matters that the Commission is rightly proposing, such as on the European tax disc, on the Switzerland package and the fair distribution of costs between rail and road.
It is vital for the railways also to show that they are willing to reform and to make the appropriate reforms.
That is why I hope, Commissioner, that you will be able to accept some of these amendments and that this package will help us finally also to have a European railway system.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=325 NAME="Wibe">
Mr President, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has adopted a number of amendments, all of which involve the deletion of sections containing over-detailed rules.
In general, one should be very careful about over-regulating, for example in relation to charges, times of operation and so on.
It can easily lead to a situation where the gains made through increased efficiency are swallowed up by administrative costs.
<P>
Personally, I should like to see a number of other requirements deleted.
I do not believe it is possible to forcibly increase efficiency by means of highly detailed directives from Brussels.
In my view, it is totally unacceptable for directives to specify the exact date on which all railway companies in the Union should change their timetables.
The requirement that all railways should have separate accounting for freight and passenger transport is also quite unnecessary.
Both these proposals may well cause serious problems, especially for small railway companies that wish to participate in the market, while the bigger former monopolies can easily adapt to them.
Consequently, the proposals could, in practice, produce the opposite effect to that intended and become an obstacle to increased competition.
<P>
In my view, before introducing all these detailed requirements, it would have been wiser to wait and assess the long-term effects of the ground-breaking directives approved by the Council in 1991 and 1995, which established the principle of increased competition in the rail sector.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=326 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sindal">
Mr President, these changes to existing directives and the adoption of a new directive on the allocation of infrastructure and the levying of charges represent a final break with national monopolies and provide opportunities for competition.
Or is that really the case?
As Mr Wibe has just been saying, there are problems.
It is a long way from decision to reality.
Consideration for public services and social obligations make the consequences difficult for many people.
Many countries and regions are worried, and perhaps with reason.
We should bear that in mind.
But the opportunity for the renaissance of the railways is at hand, and that is what we should strive for.
That is our goal.
The goal is to ensure that an appropriate share of all transport work goes to the railways.
Like the ports, the railways are also part of the transport chain and are therefore under an obligation to develop sustainable transport.
<P>
We must solve the problems of this process together with our citizens.
This afternoon we discussed public services, competition and state aid with Commissioner Van Miert in a working group, and it is very interesting to see how things are developing in Europe.
I believe we should be aware of the fact that changes and market developments do not happen by themselves.
We have to prompt them in one way or another.
Whether or not it is too detailed, as Mr Wibe suggests, I could not say at present, but if we want the best for the railways, we have to work on it seriously.
Parliament should also say to the Council and the Member States that if we want something like this, then we also have an obligation to act.
There has been a great deal of talk about the railways over the past ten years, but it has done little to help.
Decisions need to be taken.
The market will not change this situation by itself.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=327 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, let us see what you have to say to Mr Sarlis's and Mr Swoboda's proposals today.
Compared with my own objectives, I do not think the demands made by either of them are tough enough.
A year ago we called for a gradual liberalisation that took account of social framework conditions but was sufficiently clear-cut.
Nevertheless I endorse both reports.
They are a balanced mix of Parliament's views and I hope, Commissioner, that you will prove a rather more generous benefactor this time and accept the amendments.
<P>
Let me address a few points.
In my view we cannot accept that the railways should decline as a result of your deliberate policy of not applying European legislation.
Directive 91/440/EEC - separation of infrastructure management and operation of trains - has been applicable by all Member States since 1986.
Some simply refuse to do so.
I hope that at least you, Commissioner, are in favour of the call in both reports for progress to be made towards this objective in the next two years.
If need be, we will have to initiate proceedings here.
For only if we separate the two can other railway undertakings also effectively use the railways; we want to see effective use made of the railway network, we do not want some countries to seal themselves off and not let anyone through.
That is why we need a clear separation between infrastructure management and operation services; we need clear rights of access, as both colleagues called for, we need wider rights of access, lenient rights of access, but definite improvements; and thirdly, we need uniform rules on transport charges.
<P>
Mr Swoboda, in your place I would have preferred not to bring up the idea of marginal costs.
After the hearing in committee, we should not get involved in this.
For the rest, I agree with you that if we look first at road costs - building and maintenance costs - we would say that external costs may only be increased if the other transport modes are required to bear similar costs.
In the same way I would like to see the railways given greater opportunity to compete with the other transport modes on the basis of sensible and reasonable transport charges.
<P>
But I also think we must then say that regardless of how high or low we set the transport charges, they must be charged in all the Member States.
We cannot have some Member States saying that temporarily, for the next two years, we will not impose any transport charges, at least not on certain routes.
In this respect it is then up to the Commission to ensure equality under the law.
In this difficult battle between Council, Parliament and Commission to open up the railways so that they will become client-oriented and effective, we are on your side, Commissioner, and I hope you are on our side!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=328 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, here too I must congratulate the two rapporteurs.
Mr Jarzembowski is right in saying that there is indeed a broad measure of agreement on this amongst the various groups. And there were times when that was not the case, when we had some fairly heated clashes on the subject of railways.
But there are a few facts that we must face.
We have made nothing like the progress on railways which we ought to have achieved.
The proportion of freight carried by rail continues to decline.
So that is the opposite of what we actually want.
<P>
Mr Wibe has left the Chamber, but as draftsman for the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy he said that there was not really any need to separate the exploitation of infrastructure from actual transport operations.
I do not agree with him at all.
How can we license individual operators if we do not make that separation?
I think the Commission will have to press that point and stick to it.
<P>
And for this reason too, not so much because it makes all that much difference, but more because we wanted to send a signal, our group wished to maintain an amendment which says that we want to see the separation between the exploitation of infrastructure and rolling-stock within the year, and not in two years' time.
Why do we say that?
Because the railways have had plenty of time since Directive 44/91.
That is eight years ago.
They have still not all taken the measures which the Commission wants the railways to take.
So we should like to hear from the Commissioner how things stand, and which railway operators have not yet taken the necessary action and why not.
And we want to see a real separation, not the kind between SNCF and VFF which is a separation in name only, and not in practice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=329 NAME="Hyland">
I welcome this report on the need to upgrade the railway systems within the European Union, as well as guaranteeing the most efficient use of railway infrastructure to meet consumer needs.
This is quite a timely report from an Irish perspective.
Only last week the Irish Government announced a dual strategy involving the spending of £Irl 430 million on improving rail safety standards, alongside the expansion of commuter train services in Ireland.
As a result of this investment, which I fully support, the suburban rail network will be increased in capacity in terms of over 60 %.
As a Member of the European Parliament for the constituency of Leinster, it is good news because towns such as Naas, Newbridge, Kilcullen, Wicklow, Athy, Arklow, Kildare and Monasterevin must all in the near future secure the necessary finance for the upgrading of their respective railway operations.
<P>
While the upgrading of rail infrastructure is of paramount importance, equal concern must also be the quality of service, and the Irish rail company Iarnród Éireann must, in my view, be up to the task.
The legitimate request of the people in Monasterevin, for example, for the re-opening of their train station and the people of Portlaoise for the upgrading of the service is fully justified.
The overcrowding problem on suburban trains will also be eased by the addition of more passenger carriages, and platforms will also be lengthened.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=330 NAME="Moreau">
Mr President, with the reports by Mr Sarlis and Mr Swoboda the European Parliament is forced to take a stand which is fraught with consequences for the future of rail transport.
The Commission's directives - and, by extension, both reports - are in keeping with a policy of liberalisation, as they open the market in international freight transport to competition.
<P>
Mr Sarlis's report even goes beyond the Commission directives, which do not advocate liberalisation, for example by proposing to amend Article 10 of Council Directive 91/440/EEC.
Yet, there has been no evidence in the railway sector to confirm the belief that liberalisation is the only way it can be revived.
On the contrary, the sorry state of affairs that resulted from the liberalisation of British railways represents a genuine counter-example.
Conversely, high-speed trains which have brought about the irrefutable development of railways could not have come into existence in a liberalised system.
This is also the case for the first rail freight corridor which was set up on the basis of cooperation between public services.
<P>
I should like to go back over two points.
Firstly, the amendment of the concept of authorised applicants which allows any natural or legal person to request infrastructure capacity. This is likely to lead to a chaotic liberalisation with the increase in the number of new operators.
The railway undertakings would thus be restricted to a role of service providers ensuring the traction of trains.
This system can only lead to the most profitable sectors being creamed off, leaving the railway undertakings to take responsibility for personnel, maintenance of rolling stock, and the least profitable sectors.
Only one liberty is therefore granted, that of allowing companies who are not at all involved in the rail sector to take the biggest share of the profits without providing the conditions for developing this sector.
The nuance provided by the Committee on Transport and Tourism which makes it possible for Member States to provide for authorised applicants is an illusory precaution, since one unauthorised applicant in any given country would in fact impose itself on others.
<P>
The second point I should like to make concerns competition.
Rail transport is subject to competition, competition from road transport which benefits from its small-scale use of infrastructure and the extremely low level of social conditions it needs to provide.
No effort is made to remedy this distortion of competition that is so costly in terms of the environment, social protection and safety.
The reports by Mr Sarlis and Mr Swoboda advocate competition within the rail sector itself, which does not exist in any country and risks compromising the progress achieved, particularly in view of the specialised infrastructure for rail transport in comparison with that for road and air transport.
<P>
Together with their trade unions and the ETUC, the railway workers of the European Union made known their opposition to the liberalisation of railways during a day of large-scale strike action across the European Union.
Within the Council, governments are divided on the issue: some, including the French Government, are against it, whilst others think there is no need to force liberalisation on countries that do not want it.
For this reason, before voting starts tomorrow, I will be requesting that both these reports be referred back to committee so that Parliament does not take such an important decision as this in haste.
<P>
The European Parliament must reject the liberalisation proposals and envisage instead measures to encourage the development and modernisation of the rail sector and its public service obligations, as well as the development of cooperation and social harmonisation at a high level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=331 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Lagendijk">
Mr President, I can deal briefly with the Commission proposal, though it is far too detailed, and with the proposals put forward by Mr Sarlis and Mr Swoboda.
We are happy with them.
Discussions outside Parliament often assume that the Greens will probably be against, like our colleagues on the left.
That is a major misconception.
The Greens are in favour of more freight going by rail, and they are for fair competition and against monopolies, whether they are private or state monopolies.
So we are also in favour of breaking national monopolies on the management of infrastructure.
We are in favour of transparent administrative and financial structures for managing infrastructure and providing services.
We are in favour of the market being opened up to all kinds of responsible operators, with an independent body to scrutinise them.
And I would say in reply to Mrs Moreau that this is not a kind of wild west-style liberalisation or privatisation.
In our opinion it is a gradual, cautious but very resolute attempt to ensure a future at last for rail freight.
We all know that the market share of the railways has declined in recent years.
That trend has to be reversed, and I think that these proposals are a good start.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=332 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Escolá Hernando">
Mr President, European railways need to undergo far-reaching reforms that tend towards liberalisation but that do not jeopardise their role as a public service.
<P>
The proposal to end monopolies and separate infrastructure management from railway undertakings is an interesting one but how are we going to guarantee the adequate maintenance of lines that are less profitable in economic terms but that are needed by society?
We cannot forget that railways are a strategic element in vital development in many regions. Let me give you an example: service on the only international link through the central Pyrenees, through Canfranc, has been interrupted as a bridge collapsed on the French side and it has not been repaired.
It has not been repaired for 30 years.
The reason for this is very simple: the line was not very profitable for the publicly-owned undertaking that was operating it and, as a result, the line is now closed. Moreover, there is no possibility of other more efficient undertakings using it.
In other words, the deterioration of infrastructures is hindering the liberalisation process.
<P>
This means that we must find ways to ensure that networks are maintained, no matter what their current uses and profitability may be. In contrast, liberalisation will only lead to reduced services, particularly in the less developed European regions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=333 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
<SPEAKER ID=334 NAME="Simpson">
Mr President, first of all I will resist the temptation to list all the stations on the West Coast main line in my constituency and also on the trans-Pennine route.
But I note that Mr Hyland has left.
<P>
First of all, on behalf of my group, I would like to thank Pavlos Sarlis and Hannes Swoboda for their work in this very important area.
It has been, for a long time now, a priority of my group to revitalise the railways of the European Union.
We have also recognised that the action that needs to be taken to enable our railway industry to survive has to be radical in its approach, innovative in its conception and courageous in its actions.
<P>
The scale of the problems facing the railway industry cannot be underestimated.
At a time when the overall transport market is expanding, we find that rail's share of that market has been reduced to no more than 6 % of the passenger - and 16 % of the freight - sector.
Put simply, the railway sector throughout the EU is in such a perilous state that we have to question whether international passenger services or freight services will still exist in 15 years' time.
Therefore, if I can use a medical analogy here, we have a very sick patient who is in need of major help, and I believe that our two rapporteurs, along with the Commission, have given us the medicine to make our railways fit and healthy well into the next century.
<P>
There are some in the railway industry, and indeed, some in this Parliament, who believe that we can carry on with a system that is based on old working practices, functioning only within a national network based on the ideals of the 1930s.
<P>
My group believes that the status quo is not an option in this case, and that those who believe it is will contribute to the death of our railways.
If we are to ensure that railways have a future outside of commuter services, particularly in freight, then we have to take the actions that have been outlined to us by our rapporteurs.
Rail cannot compete in the freight sector against road haulage if the service it has to offer takes 67 hours to travel 850 kilometres in comparison with 13 hours by truck.
<P>
However, my group recognises that there are concerns amongst railway workers - after all, we are proposing a shift in emphasis that is quite radical.
This is why we have supported a more guarded approach to the introduction of free market rules in other areas outside of freight, coupled with social protection measures, and with the public service obligation a high priority.
<P>
We have an opportunity today to lay the foundations for a new railway age in the new millennium.
My group welcomes that opportunity and supports the Commission and our rapporteurs in their efforts to secure a future for Europe's railways.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=335 NAME="McIntosh">
Mr President, it gives me great pleasure to welcome the Commission proposals presented to us this evening with the intention of liberalising European railways and opening up the markets to greater competition.
I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate both rapporteurs on the exceptionally hard work they have put in on each report.
<P>
It gives me particular pleasure, in the presence of the British Commissioner here tonight, to recognise a historic moment at which the Commission has caught up with Britain; Britain being the first country to liberalise its railway network, which was, at the time, a brave move, foreshadowing these Commission proposals, and bringing, in my view, very positive results: more passengers travelling by train, more freight travelling by rail and therefore off the roads, with high levels of safety achieved.
<P>

The main proposals contained in the Commission proposals and Mr Sarlis' and Mr Swoboda's reports, and the three main developments, are very welcome: greater transparency, separating the provision of the infrastructure from the operation of services on it; for accounting purposes, taking infrastructure, passenger and freight operations and putting them into separate business units; extending the current E regime for licensing international operators to all rail sectors, both domestic and international, across the European Union; making track charging and train path allocation based on principles regarding how the charges should be set and what conditions should apply in the allocation of train paths.

<P>
I welcome these proposals and the developments towards the liberalisation of the rail sector.
But these are modest steps.
We think we should have progressed much further to open up the European market for all types of international freight.
The challenge is to make this a truly single market for European railways.
More needs to be done, especially on the licensing system, requiring operators to participate in certain common arrangements for networking and resolving the question of marginal cost pricing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=336 NAME="Sainjon">
Mr President, the Commission is proposing a package of directives which seek to modernise the rail sector, but its assumption that intermodal competition is the only way to develop Community railways is incorrect.
The French members of the ARE Group oppose the direction that is being taken here, as it does not seem capable of resolving the present difficulties in the rail sector.
Why is this?
<P>
Introducing more competition in rail transport at this time will serve only to undermine a sector which is already in difficulty.
The privatisation of British railways at the start of the 1990s led to dissatisfaction amongst the general public and a deterioration in the quality of service.
According to the Sunday Times, British railways have since been less reliable and less punctual than those in Pakistan, India and China.
We can therefore understand why railway workers protested last year against the shift towards liberalism.
<P>
We are not opposed to increasing cooperation between European railway undertakings, in accordance with the examples set in passenger transport by Thalys or Eurostar .
As regards freight transport, we began setting up freight corridors between France and its neighbouring countries at the end of 1997 at the initiative of the Commission; these have allowed the capacities required for long-distance rail links to be requested for freight.
So why change direction before we have had a chance to develop this approach?
The Community should instead help to complete infrastructure, set up trans-European networks and facilitate the technical and social harmonisation of railways.
<P>
We are therefore fighting to encourage as much coordination as possible between European railway undertakings.
Who better than the public authorities to take up such a challenge by creating vast networks and rail freight corridors across the Union.
While we are not against all aspects of the draft directives, we cannot support the measures seeking to open up the market, as provided for in the definition of authorised applicants in the draft Council Directive 95/19/EC, or Amendment No 10 by Mr Sarlis, seeking to broaden the scope of Council Directive 91/440/EEC.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=337 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schierhuber">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first I want to thank the two rapporteurs, Mr Sarlis and Mr Swoboda, for their cooperation in committee.
<P>
There is no doubt that these are two very important reports.
The whole package of measures is crucial to the further development of European policy on rail transport; or I could say, looking at the station clock, that we had better run for the train so as not to miss it, that it is high time Parliament and the Council finally tackled this subject.
So I welcome the proposals on gradual liberalisation and boosting competitiveness.
<P>
Another important aspect is the separation between railway undertakings, the separation between transport infrastructure management and transport services, between use and maintenance.
This separation is vital to prevent distortion of competition and discrimination.
<P>
Let me also point to the importance of the railways in relation to combined transport.
The railways are a more environmentally friendly, safe and expandable mode of transport and must therefore continue to be supported in future.
As we all know, the capacity of the railways is still far from exhausted, in relation to the transport of both goods and passengers.
<P>
It is vital for the railways to become competitive and become a serious alternative to road transport.
The EU and the Member States must remedy any shortcomings in this respect if they genuinely are to put forward a credible policy in support of an environmentally friendly transport mode.
That also means allocating the necessary budget funds.
Shifting transport from road to rail will help preserve the environment throughout Europe.
<P>
It is also important to promote rail transport with a view to the new Member States we will no doubt be welcoming among us one day.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=338 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Stenmarck">
Mr President, we all realise that the railways have to be improved in order to ensure their survival.
European railways, with their outdated structures, have declined steadily since the 1960s.
The Commission's White Paper on a strategy for revitalising the Community's railways and the proposal relating to trans-European freight corridors were the first step in a new direction.
The fact that the work is now in hand is a positive development.
<P>
Both the reports before us today represent further necessary steps along the same road.
In particular, today's debate demonstrates that there is a far greater understanding of the need for continued liberalisation if we are to halt the rapid decline.
<P>
There will certainly have to be more liberalisation if constructive changes are to come about.
Amongst other things, there is a need for a division in all the Member States between those who are responsible for the tracks and those who run trains on them.
<P>
Presumably, it is perfectly reasonable that the various states will, for the most part, continue to own, build and maintain most of the infrastructure.
However, it is equally reasonable that competition among the operators who use their tracks should be as free as possible.
The infrastructure should be financed mainly by all those who use the tracks paying for the privilege.
Should that happen, the national companies will doubtless continue to be the major operators, but they will have to compete with others on the same terms.
This is the direction in which things are going today.
The Transport Committee's report supports this type of development, which will allow new railway companies to compete.
<P>
The reports we are considering today both take a decisive step in that direction, thereby giving Europe's railways the chance to develop positively in the future.
However, it is worth emphasising that this is only the first step.
The Commission must continue to come up with further initiatives if the railways are to have a future in the twenty-first century.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=339 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
<SPEAKER ID=340 NAME="Sarlis">
Mr President, the Commissioner very wisely said at the beginning of today's debate that a politician listens - and must listen - but does not commit him or herself.
I hope that Commissioner Kinnock, despite his negative stance today on certain basic issues, listened, and that there will be some scope and some space available for him to reverse his negative views over time, as tomorrow - as I have been informed and as my colleagues are aware - he will be confronted with two proposals which have been unanimously adopted by the European Parliament.
It is impossible for us to move forward, that is, for the Commission not to push through Article 10 and yet to ask us to fully accept the concept of authorised applicant. This is a position which, I think, no one is going to accept.
I ask, therefore, that we have the benefit of a revision of opinions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=341 NAME="President">
I am sorry, Mr Sarlis, that is the end of the debate.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=17>
Ro-ro ferry and high speed passenger craft services
<SPEAKER ID=342 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0061/99), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the common position adopted by the Council (12893/3/98 - C4-0004/99-98/0064(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Directive on a system of mandatory surveys for the safe operation of regular ro-ro ferry and high speed passenger craft services in the Community (Rapporteur: Mr Watts).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=343 NAME="Watts">
Mr President, the history of ferry safety can only be described as scandal: despite the tragic events in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, next to nothing was done.
Literally thousands of lives were lost before the basic, fundamental, and in some cases outrageous shortcomings in ferry design and operations were addressed, despite repeated warnings from the unions, consumer groups and indeed this Parliament.
In particular, it took the loss of the Herald of Free Enterprise , the Scandinavian Star and, most tragic of all, the Estonia , before ferry companies and governments started to come to terms with the consequences of their negligence.
However, since 1994 we have all at last seen both words and action from the Commission - action this Parliament has welcomed and I believe, as rapporteur, sought at every turn to facilitate.
<P>
The latest measure from the Commission seeks to submit regular Ro-ro passenger ferries and high-speed passenger craft to mandatory survey regimes by host states before entry into service and then at regular intervals.
The unique feature is that this will apply irrespective of the flag state.
These measures therefore also close the loop-hole which currently prevents Member States from investigating accidents involving their own citizens.
For the purpose of facilitating the investigation the proposal includes a carriage requirement of a voyage data recorder - a black box.
<P>
However, on first reading, the Parliament highlighted the weak wording which would in effect, in my view and that of the Parliament, allow certain ferries to either carry a sub- standard black box or not carry a black box at all.
Hence our reasonable demand that black boxes meeting the latest standards must be fitted to all ferries within five years.
This unfortunately was rejected by both the Council and the Commission.
The Commission commented in its communication to this Parliament that it could not accept this because, in its words, it would render the further operation of the ferry or craft 'economically non-viable'.
<P>
I am, as your rapporteur, informed that to retro-fit a black box to a ferry undergoing a refit would cost a lot less than new carpets or curtains.
I invite the Commission tonight to join with me in putting safety first by supporting our amendment.
<P>
On first reading, we also welcome the desire on the part of the Commission to require the data relating to compliance to be made available to the Commission in order to establish a new transparent system accessible to all parties concerned.
However, our demands for public access were rejected.
The Commission commented in its communication that neither the Commission nor the Council could accept the request by the European Parliament that information on the ferries and craft should be made publicly available.
We would point out that such a view flies in the face of the Commission's own quality shipping initiative, which says: 'exposure of the sub-standard players to public knowledge is essential to the objective of the quality shipping initiative.'
<P>
Indeed, the Commission itself is already establishing a European quality shipping information system available to the public.
What better way to shift the initiative and the campaign away from a mere list of nice intentions towards real action?
After all, what has the industry to hide?
Of all the interested parties, do the travelling public not have a particular right of access to information about the safety of the vessel to which they entrust their lives and those of their families?
<P>
It is time to make black boxes a mandatory requirement on all ferries and high-speed craft in the interests of passenger safety and confidence.
It is time that ferry safety data be made publicly available so that we can name and shame sub-standard ships and operators.
It is time to put ferry safety first.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=344 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking the Committee on Transport and Tourism and, in particular, Mr Watts, for the quick and thorough work on the Council's common position on this important proposal.
As the report acknowledges, most of the amendments adopted at first reading were accepted by the Commission in its amended proposal and incorporated in the Council's common position.
That obviously signifies a very useful consensus on the main features of the legislation.
<P>
For reasons which I well understand and which he has again articulated very effectively, Mr Watts is resubmitting two amendments which the Commission could not accept at first reading, and I should like to respond further to those amendments tonight.
<P>
The first amendment deals with the issue of granting derogation from the technical specifications for voyage-data recorders to be installed on board existing ferries and high-speed craft.
When the Commission tabled this proposal, we took due account of the technical difficulties that could arise from fitting these instruments on board existing ships and craft and we therefore made the provision that the committee could agree on exemptions from some of the technical requirements that VDRs have to comply with.
<P>
I understand that Mr Watts agrees with this approach in principle but that he wishes to see this derogation limited in time so that after the proposed five-year period, existing ferries and high-speed craft should be equipped with VDRs that comply fully with all the technical specifications that are applicable for new ships.
<P>
I understand the principle but it must be said that a provision of this kind would require the replacement of the voyage-data recorder and, in almost all cases, the replacement of navigation and engine-control equipment in order to ensure the availability of the right communication protocols for feeding information into the VDR.
In many cases that would also entail extensive recabling between the VDR and the equipment from which it has to retrieve its information.
Obviously, the cost associated with this re-engineering work would greatly exceed the purchase cost of the voyage-data recorder.
In my view, that would not be justified or proportionate, when we recall that the envisaged objective of the proposal is to make possible the collection of information for the purposes of accident investigation.
<P>
In addition, I must also say that ferry companies which have already voluntarily installed VDRs on board their vessels should not be penalised by being forced to replace such equipment, with all the re-engineering that implies.
So, for all those reasons - practical reasons, not reasons of principle - I cannot accept the five-year limitation period that is proposed in Amendment No 1.
<P>
Amendment No 2 repeats the request made at first reading for the information on the particulars of roll-on/roll-off ferries and high-speed craft permitted to operate on regular services, including information about any operational limitation.
It asks for that information to be made public and available by the Commission.
In response, I have to say that the House may recall that at first reading I cautioned about the risk of making public all data on the inspected ships and craft, particularly so far as reliability, security and the possibility of commercial abuse were concerned.
It is that concern which prompted the Commission to propose that it is for the committee, established for the purposes of this directive, to determine the conditions for access to such data.
So there is no question of closing down, there is a question of the practical discretion of the committee.
I hope that honourable Members can accept the validity of that approach.
<P>
The ferry survey database proposed in this directive should be considered as a specialised instrument that is designed primarily to assist Member States and the Commission in monitoring and enforcing the implementation of the directive by providing detailed information on the application of this survey regime.
<P>
Having said that, I wholeheartedly share Mr Watts' opinion that any relevant information on matters relating to the safety of passengers should be disseminated to the public as widely and clearly as possible.
On that basis, as Mr Watts stressed in his report, the Commission has undertaken to develop a database on the quality performance of shipping called Equasis, in the context of our quality shipping campaign, and in order to greatly improve transparency of information about the safety performance of shipping in general.
We will meet that commitment.
The Equasis database will be widely accessible to the shipping community and to the general public.
I consider that it will provide the most appropriate means of disseminating all relevant information on the safety performance of ferries, the issue which rightly excites the particular interest and indeed missionary zeal of Mr Watts.
<P>
When the conditions of access to the ferry survey database are elaborated in the committee, my services will give full attention to the need to feed as much information as possible from that database into the Equasis database.
I am convinced that, in practice, this approach will ensure the level of transparency that Mr Watts and his colleagues in this House quite rightly are asking for, without having to amend the text of the common position.
<P>
Finally, I can inform honourable Members that I support the objectives of Amendment No 3, since it clarifies the exact scope and extent of inspections for life-saving appliances and equipment in line with the requirements of the Safety of Life at Sea Convention.
<P>
I conclude by thanking Mr Watts and his colleagues for facilitating the adoption of this directive, which, together with other measures already enacted and implemented in recent years, will have a direct and beneficial effect on the safety of people travelling on conventional and high-speed passenger vessels in European Union waters.
Mr Watts rightly reminded us of the passenger ship tragedies of recent years.
Let us hope that by the implementation of these measures we will make it almost impossible - as impossible as travel by sea can allow - for any repetition of such tragedies to take place.
When we can say that, I must say that the useful work and the dedication shown by Members of this House will have played a significant part in reaching that desirable standard.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=345 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=18>
European capital of culture 2005-2019
<SPEAKER ID=346 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0106/99), on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the common position adopted by the Council (9268/1/98 - C4-0493/98-97/0290(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Decision establishing a Community action for the 'European Capital of Culture' event for the years 2005 to 2019 (Rapporteur: Mr Monfils).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=347 NAME="Monfils">
Mr President, the dossier on European cities of culture which has been open since October 1997 will be closed, I hope, tomorrow.
The debate has lasted for more than a year and a half because the position of the Commission and the European Parliament was profoundly different from that of the Council of Ministers.
<P>
The European Parliament wanted the choice of city to be based on the quality of the projects, without reference to any contribution made by the Member States or choice made according to Community decision-making procedures, that is, the codecision procedure.
The Council of Ministers had itself opted for Member States to nominate each year, in turn and on a pre-established rotational basis, one of their cities as European capital of culture.
The European Parliament rejected the Council's common position at second reading by adopting a declaration of intended rejection.
<P>
We therefore found ourselves faced with a choice: either to continue a dialogue of the deaf with the Council for several months, exhausting the procedure provided for by Article 189 - and I believe that there would have been no winners or losers at the end of this procedure, which would have continued indefinitely - or to see whether a compromise would be possible.
We chose the second option and proposed to the Council of Ministers compromise amendments which took account of both the Council's point of view and, naturally, the European Parliament's position as well.
<P>
This procedure, which is rather uncommon in the context of informal contacts, was accepted by the Council which used the paper we submitted as a basis for discussion, and the bargaining ended with an agreement.
I think it is a creditable agreement considering the gap which separated the views of Parliament and the Council.
Admittedly, the Council's idea of nominating cities in turn for each Member State has been preserved, but the direct choice of city to nominate by the Member State has been abandoned; several cities in the same country may submit an application.
<P>
Moreover, the selection panel which was no longer included in the Council's common position, was re-established.
It is composed of seven experts on the cultural sector, and it must issue a report on the nominations.
Finally, each nominated city must make a detailed submission on its cultural project; this is something Parliament had wanted, and was also no longer included in the Council's common position.
We did not obtain the right of codecision in the choice of city to nominate, but the European Parliament may deliver a prior opinion on the nominations; the Commission forwards its recommendations, which are based both on the selection panel's report and the opinion delivered by Parliament, to the Council.
<P>
This compromise, which mainly reproduces the European Parliament's position, has been made possible due to the concern expressed by the German Presidency regarding opening up to other cultures, which I salute.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is not very often that the Council takes Parliament's point of view into consideration, and this bargaining seems to me to be a positive example of how our institutions work.
However, this compromise would not have been possible either without the constant support of the members of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, and its chairman; they have continually supported the rapporteur's opinions and have cooperated closely - through the amendments they have proposed - on the improvements to be made to the text, as well as taking part in the negotiations along with myself.
<P>
I should like to conclude by saying that I hope these amendments which the Council has obviously accepted will be adopted tomorrow by Parliament, and I am convinced that in the concrete follow-up to this decision, the Commissioner responsible and his staff will pay particular attention to the cultural merit of the projects submitted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=348 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Vaz da Silva">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the 'European Capital of Culture' programme is a success story.
For the Member States, it has become a very strong symbol, so much so that taking away their power to designate and administer the programme has become a sensitive issue.
<P>
But it is precisely because the governments do not want to lose control over the cultural capitals that the Commission and the European Parliament feel that a programme of such importance for the public could not remain in the inter-governmental sphere.
The Commission therefore presented, in November 1997, a proposal to communitarise the programme with the backing of the European Parliament in May 1998, demanding co-decision for the nomination and selection of cities based on solid cultural criteria.
<P>
For the European Parliament, it was vital to involve as many members of the arts world as possible in the events, to instigate forms of lasting cooperation, to foster the creation and circulation of works of art, while enhancing our historic heritage and urban design, opening up initiatives to a wide-ranging public and avoiding Eurocentrism by involving as many non-European cultures as possible.
In a nutshell, the Parliament wanted to ensure that the programme would bring about a real change in the quality of life of the cities and their inhabitants long after the festivities themselves are over.
<P>
The divide between the Council and the European Parliament turned into such an abyss that conciliation seemed impossible, yet it has succeeded.
This is a great victory for democracy.
Parliament's firmness and the negotiating skills of rapporteur Philippe Monfils worked the miracle of forcing the Council to abandon its undemocratic arrogance and come to the negotiating table.
The outcome is an honourable compromise in which neither party loses face: the governments managed to hold on to the right to define a rota system among the Member States to decide which of them is entitled to nominate cities, while Parliament has been given the right to select the given cities within that system.
The governments agreed to the principle of basing the choice of cultural capital on cultural criteria, on the basis of the opinions of a joint panel and the European Parliament, just as the European Parliament intended.
<P>
Therefore, as of 2005, the European capital of culture will enjoy the optimum conditions for using the event as an ideal opportunity for inter-cultural collaboration.
The governments are willing to come up with generous funding for this great joint festivity, as was the European Parliament's initial wish.
Finally, I should like to say that today we are going to vote on this project and on behalf of my group I would ask you to lend your support to an excellent example of how politics work.
That is because interinstitutional consultations are playing an increasingly important part in the Community's decision-making process and that is why the Group of the European People's Party will be voting for this report without any hesitation or regret.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=349 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sichrovsky">
Mr President, we support the proposed compromise in order to optimise the way the European capital of culture is selected.
But perhaps it is not so very important which city is finally chosen. Perhaps it is especially important, however, to define in precise terms the responsibility that city will have to assume.
What is important here is the content of the submission, as listed in Article 2a for instance, including the need to promote dialogue between European cultures and those from other parts of the world.
<P>
There is one thing we must not forget: in a future united Europe the cultural capital of Europe will not just represent itself but will act as Europe's cultural ambassador for that period.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=350 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldi">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by thanking the rapporteur, not only for his excellent work but also for having been so patient at an awkward stage in our deliberations.
<P>
Article 128 of the Maastricht Treaty stresses the importance of cooperation among Member States to conserve and safeguard Europe's important cultural heritage.
Europe has great cultural diversity: throughout history Europe has been - and still is - a pole of exceptionally rich and varied cultural development, where European cultures are still being shaped and disseminated.
The desire for cultural integration in Europe also means becoming conscious of the European cultural area.
Every city considered as a possible European capital of culture has its own characteristics which can be summarised in four key words: knowledge, tradition, mobility and communication.
These words express the coexistence of attempts to modernise, innovate and safeguard our historical and artistic heritage: a combination of past, present and future which keeps alive the memory of the roles and functions which, down the ages, have led to a cross-fertilisation of cultures, knowledge and hence communication, by which I mean a diverse pattern of mobility and interaction.
<P>
As the rapporteur has indicated, the European Parliament wishes to see greater Community involvement in the process of choosing the European Capital of Culture in the years 2005 to 2019, by altering the system of automatic nomination originally drawn up by the Council.
<P>
The suggested changes to the common position include the possibility of having several cities nominated in any one year and the establishment of a panel of independent experts, appointed by the Community institutions to provide opinions on these nominations.
The overwhelming majority of delegations in the Council are minded to endorse Parliament's suggestions and have called on the German Presidency to reach an early consensus with us.
<P>
This consensus needs to be found rapidly, so that each European city which is nominated can, firstly, draw attention to cultural trends shared by the European people which that city has inspired and to which it has contributed significantly; secondly, promote cultural events in association with other cities in EU Member States, designed to bring about lasting cultural cooperation; thirdly, circulate these around the European Union; and fourthly, foster dialogue between the cultures of Europe and the rest of the world, but above all enhance that city's historical and artistic heritage by improving the quality of life there.
Europe's architectural heritage is the expression of our different identities and, at the same time, of our common origins, in that materials, elements, forms and spaces meet, unite and divide in constant search of a balance between old and new.
Knowledge and understanding of our architectural heritage are therefore key factors in determining our cultural identity and bear witness to our origins and our history.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=351 NAME="Oreja">
Mr President, I admit that I was greatly relieved when I saw the agreement that had been reached and when I saw how it had been reached because, at one point in time, I was seriously worried as I doubted that we would be able to reach an agreement at all. The lack of such an agreement would have been very serious indeed as it would have meant the loss of the European Capital of Culture, one of the most symbolic results of all cultural Community actions.
For this reason, I should like to thank Mr Monfils in particular for having had the determination and, at the same time, the flexibility needed to reach these agreements.
Also, I should like to thank the President of the Commission who, through his enthusiasm and good judgement, helped make this outcome possible.
<P>
As you will remember, on 30 October 1997, the Commission presented a Community initiative for the European Capital of Culture.
The Commission's proposal centred around three main elements.
First, the Member States notify the Commission of their candidate city or cities that are competing to organise the event.
Then, the Commission forms a selection panel composed of independent members that will draw up a report on the cities nominated and submit it to the Commission. Lastly, on the Commission's proposal and after prior consultation with Parliament, the Council will select the European Capital of Culture by qualified majority.
<P>
In effect, what we discussed was replacing the intergovernmental procedure that had been used until that point and had also proved to be increasingly cumbersome as a Community procedure that involved Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
Then, in its common position of July 1998, the Council arrived at a solution that was barely satisfactory and that was based on a rota system linked to the Presidency.
The selection procedure was significantly different to the Commission's proposal and, furthermore, Parliament was virtually excluded from the procedure.
<P>
The determination of this House and the declaration of intent to reject the common position announced on 13 January gave rise to the so-called 'mini-conciliation' procedure and today we are reaping the benefits of negotiation between the two arms of the legislature, to which the Commission has also contributed.
<P>
The eight amendments we have before us, and which the Commission accepts, reintroduce the panel of leading independent figures back into the body of the text along with criteria that allow us to ensure the cultural quality and European dimension of the city's programme.
<P>
Lastly - and this is important - as an exceptional case the Council will adopt its decision on the basis of a recommendation by the Commission rather than a proposal. The recommendation will be drawn up after considering the European Parliament's opinion and the panel's report.
In this way, a Community dimension going beyond the simple rotation of the Presidency will be introduced.
We are therefore delighted by the outcome of the negotiations and we hope that both arms of the legislature will be able to accept the agreement that is today being put forward. And I should once again like to thank the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, as well as the rapporteur, Mr Monfils, for his active involvement in this procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=352 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Thursday at 11 a.m.
<P>
The sitting was closed at 12 midnight
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I refer to yesterday's Question Time, and in particular page 24 of the Minutes.
At that point, I actually asked Mrs Gradin a question in connection with the false statement which Mrs Cresson made before the Committee on Budgetary Control; I asked her whether Mrs Cresson should resign because of this.
Mrs Gradin did not answer the question.
This course of events is now recorded in the Minutes as follows.
It simply says: 'Mr Posselt spoke'.
I should like to point out, however, that I asked a perfectly proper supplementary to which no answer was given.
<P>
Loud applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
We shall ensure that the Minutes are corrected so that they reflect exactly what took place.
<P>
The Minutes were approved
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, I do not want to comment on the Minutes.
I should simply like to point out to this noble House that today is the 40th anniversary of the occupation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, I have a complaint.
It is true that I often speak in languages other than my own, but now I can no longer hear the Dutch interpretation on channel 5. I believe this is a deliberate act on the part of the administration.
So in future, I will always speak in another language and I will also listen in other languages.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
We shall carry out the necessary technical checks straight away, because you do also speak Dutch.
<P>
Laughter
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Agenda
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Mr President, on today's agenda one of the items under the heading 'Votes' is the vote on the De Giovanni report on the scrutiny of the exercise of the Commission's powers.
You all know that the question of how far the European Parliament's right to information extends, pursuant to Article 206 of the Treaty, was the subject of fierce controversy with the Commission in connection with the UCLAF report on the ECHO affair.
As a result, it was agreed that negotiations should be held between the Commission and Parliament with the aim of laying down rules on how Article 206 should be applied in the future.
These rules are now on the table in the form of an agreement between the Commission and Parliament, and are supposed to be adopted today under the procedure without debate.
Given the complex nature of this issue, and therefore the contents of the agreement, I do not believe that this is appropriate.
<P>
In this agreement we undertake to waive our right to information in the case of, for example, final reports on administrative inquiries, which are internal Commission reports on administrative procedures.
I would therefore request, pursuant to Rule 99 of the Rules of Procedure, that we do not simply put this to the vote today without having a debate.
Parliament must have an opportunity to debate this complicated and sensitive issue, and I have just submitted the necessary 29 signatures in support of this request.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
Mrs Müller, your request has been made correctly in accordance with the Rules.
However, I would like to say two things to you. Firstly, the UCLAF problem must not be mixed up with this other problem.
They are totally separate.
A working party made up of representatives of Parliament, the Council and the Commission has been established to look at the UCLAF problem.
When they have completed their work, they will report to Parliament.
<P>
Secondly, this is a different issue.
This issue concerns one of the other points raised by President Santer: the forwarding of confidential information to Parliament.
At this stage, we can choose one of two solutions, but I do not wish to prejudge the matter and I would like to know what the groups' opinions are.
The first solution would be to enter the item, with debate, on today's agenda; the second would be to enter the item, with debate, on the agenda of the next part-session.
<P>
Irrespective of what you decide to do, it is clear that no amendments can be tabled since the report concerns an interinstitutional agreement.
As has been the case with all the interinstitutional agreements, we must either approve it or reject it.
However, we can consider the two options available and I would like to ask the groups if they would prefer to include the item, with debate, in today's agenda or to wait until the next part-session.
<P>
Mrs Green, you have the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="Green">
Mr President, it is my view, given that Parliament and its Members have not had a chance to really see the proposal, let alone talk about it, that we should defer the vote until the next part-session.
In particular, the Committee on Institutional Affairs and the Committee on Budgetary Control should have the chance to look at it and discuss it before it is put to the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="Theato">
Mr President, we - the three persons mentioned - had the task of drafting this proposal for an agreement, and that follows from the resolution which Parliament adopted in January.
We started work on this very quickly, but worked very intensively, and negotiated it at political level.
As far as budgetary control is concerned, I might tell you that UCLAF is excluded until the arrangements for OLAF - its replacement, which is also under discussion - are complete, which means that the provisions for UCLAF are not affected by this agreement; the same applies to the question of information we receive through the financial controller.
<P>
The task we were given needed to be completed quickly.
That was also what Parliament wanted.
On the procedure, I would like to tell you that I did not have to determine this myself.
It was the Conference of Presidents which approved the proposal put forward by the three experts, and I had assumed that the groups would have been informed of how their chairmen voted.
I do not therefore see why we should protract this process, and I would certainly be in favour of voting, so that these arrangements can be applied accordingly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Mr President, when I gave my reasons for making my request, I only referred to UCLAF because of the row over handing over the report on the ECHO affair.
I understand that these rules are not about UCLAF.
On behalf of my group, I should like to support what Mrs Green has said.
I believe that we should give the House the opportunity to read this carefully and in full, because we are formulating certain rights and conventions here which affect a fundamental right contained within Article 206.
It should be examined with the utmost care.
This week is very busy, so I suggest we postpone the issue to the next part-session, and then we can take our time over our decision.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Green">
Mr President, it is important to say that, whilst we approved it quite clearly last Thursday - and I added my support to that in the Conference of Presidents - it is not available in all the languages and it had not been seen by Members, even as late as yesterday.
My Group, I am sure, will add its support to an interinstitutional agreement of this sort, but we need at least for Members to be able to read it.
I would have thought that Mrs Theato could have agreed to that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
I see that there is no agreement between the groups as regards changing today's agenda.
I shall therefore ask the House to decide whether or not we enter the item, with debate, on the agenda for today's sitting.
<P>
Parliament rejected the proposal
<P>
Therefore, since we are not going to take the item with debate today, we shall put it on the agenda for the next part-session, pursuant to Rule 99 and as requested by Mrs Müller and other signatories.
The report will be referred back to the committee responsible, which is the Committee on Institutional Affairs, since we are dealing with an interinstitutional agreement.
As with all agreements of this type, I would remind you again that no amendments may be tabled.
We can merely approve or reject the agreement, after giving it the necessary consideration, of course.
<P>
Mr Elles has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="Elles">
Mr President, as that decision has now been taken by the House, could we be assured that the same procedure will be used for the report of the Committee of the Wise Men, which will be distributed in all languages and available to all Members before it is brought to the floor of this House and to go to the appropriate committee, which is the Committee on Budgetary Control, before it is voted on?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="President">
The report of the Wise Men will not only be distributed to all Members but it will also be put on the Internet, so that everybody can look at it.
In fact, the Conference of Presidents decided that the procedure would be resolutions by groups.
Nevertheless, the Committee on Budgetary Control will be familiar with this report when approval of the 1997 discharge comes before the House.
That is a different question. It can use the report of the Wise Men or anything it thinks useful at that time.
<P>
The will of the House on the report of the Wise Men will be expressed through resolutions tabled by the groups as they see fit during the week following presentation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Theato">
Mr President, I should just like to seek clarification on the timetable.
Obviously I accept that we will not be voting on the agreement on information today.
I would simply like to know whether it will therefore be put on the agenda of the mini-session.
I have to know so that I can plan a further discussion of it.
I think that the same goes for the Committee on Institutional Affairs; it might also need to discuss it again, since it is of course the committee responsible.
It is, after all, the one which has tabled this report here, not the Committee on Budgetary Control.
In any case, we want to discuss it again and I just need to know whether it will be on the agenda then.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
It will be taken at the next part-session in Brussels.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
Mr President, a Kurdish demonstration is currently taking place outside Parliament's premises.
I should therefore like to ask the President whether he intends to send a delegation to meet the Kurdish representatives who are assembled outside to hear what they have to say.
I think it would be wise to do so if we are to show the same consideration to everyone who wishes to express their point of view to us as Members of the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="President">
Until now, Mr Lindqvist, we have had no request to receive a Kurdish delegation.
When we had such a request in Brussels, during the last part-session, we received the delegation and they presented us with their requests.
If they make the same proposal today, they will obtain the same response.
In other words, we will meet the delegation and listen to what they are asking for so that we can then consider it in the House.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Preparation for the extraordinary European Council in Berlin on 24-25 March 1999
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="President">
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the preparation for the extraordinary European Council meeting in Berlin on 24 and 25 March 1999.
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen, President-in-Office of the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to have this opportunity today - immediately before the foreign ministers begin the final round of Agenda 2000 negotiations at their informal meeting this coming weekend - to give you an overview of developments in the Council and inform you of how the negotiations on Agenda 2000 will proceed in the run-up to the European Council in Berlin on 24 and 25 March.
<P>
Some weeks have passed since this subject was last debated here in the plenary on 10 February, and in that time the Council has made considerable progress in its search for a balanced overall package.
Of course, I am not giving anything away when I tell you that on some pivotal issues a compromise has not yet been reached.
That is entirely due to the nature of the project and was not to be expected; it simply illustrates the need to find a balanced solution across all the sectors.
As the holders of the presidency, we assumed from the outset that the overall package could only be tied up in Berlin, and this will indeed be the case.
<P>
Over the last few weeks, however, it has been possible to make significant progress on the necessary preliminary work which is intended to prepare the ground for the Berlin summit.
For example, the conclave of foreign ministers in Luxembourg on 21 February made substantial progress on a number of issues. I should like to outline this for you briefly.
It is now generally acknowledged that the use of constant 1999 prices for drawing up the financial perspective offers a number of practical advantages.
As far as accession and pre-accession expenditure is concerned, it is agreed that expenditure intended for the applicant countries will be set aside and clearly identified as either pre-accession expenditure or expenditure solely for accession, so as to ensure that appropriations for the new Member States cannot be used by the present 15 Member States and that, by the same token, appropriations earmarked for the present 15 Member States cannot be used to cover the costs of enlargement.
The presidency has put forward a proposal on this which meets with the approval of the vast majority of the Member States.
<P>
We were also able to note a large measure of agreement on the amounts proposed by the Commission for pre-accession aid in the immediate future.
The fact that we already reached a broad political agreement on the pre-accession instruments under the Austrian Presidency therefore sends out a clear signal to the applicant countries that we attach particular importance to the pre-accession instruments, as they will enable enlargement to come about quickly.
<P>
It has already been possible to reach agreement on several key aspects of the future financing of the common agricultural policy: it was agreed to keep the agricultural guideline and review it before the first enlargement, and to set a ceiling below that which better reflects actual expenditure.
As regards structural expenditure, further consideration is being given to a presidency proposal which takes account of both the need to stabilise expenditure and the need to consolidate the cohesion effort.
<P>
This plan proposes stabilising Structural Fund expenditure; this will involve the average per capita level of aid for the three objectives being consolidated at current levels for the forthcoming period.
In general, there is support for reducing the number of Community initiatives to three, provided that the existing scope of other initiatives, which have proved to be effective, is covered by the core objectives.
<P>
For Categories 3 to 5, as a basis for further negotiations, the delegations set ranges within which the final annual ceilings will lie.
A large measure of agreement could be noted on Category 6, reserves.
On the subject of own resources and budgetary imbalances, the ministers made an initial assessment of the elements which might form part of a comprehensive agreement.
It was generally felt that a final agreement - if it is to improve the balance of the financial framework - will require a combination of measures on both the expenditure and revenue sides.
At the same time, account will be taken of the effects the political reforms contained within Agenda 2000 will have on the Member States, and also of the need to implement measures of this kind in several phases, with the first phase beginning in the year 2000.
<P>
On the basis of the foreign ministers' deliberations, the Heads of State and Government met on 26 February at Petersberg near Bonn and discussed Agenda 2000 as a whole for the first time, exploring the scope for an overall political compromise.
It was clear from the outset that the aim could not be fundamental decisions or even an overall agreement.
Neither were we surprised, therefore, when the compromise paper presented by the German Presidency attracted not only support but also criticism.
<P>
I would, however, like to point out that the criticism came from both sides.
We were criticised both by the Member States which want to save more and by the Member States which want to spend more.
I think that this puts us more or less in the middle, and if we agree that a compromise certainly has to be found somewhere between the extreme positions, then I have a feeling that the presidency is not so very wide of the mark.
<P>
Applause
<P>
In the end, a number of important and useful pointers came out of the meeting of the Heads of State and Government, and these will form the basis of the further work of the Council - in its various configurations - in the run-up to the special summit in Berlin.
The most important point is that all the partners have once again reaffirmed their determination to comply with the instructions of the Cardiff European Council, and to achieve an overall political agreement by the end of March 1999 at the latest.
On behalf of the presidency, I should also like to make it perfectly clear and state in all seriousness here that we will not abandon this goal and that we will strictly refuse to engage in any discussion on a possible extension of the deadline, also because this is in Parliament's interests.
<P>
Applause
<P>
The principles governing the negotiating procedure, which were agreed at the Vienna European Council, were confirmed: Agenda 2000 to be treated as a complete package; all the Member States to be willing to compromise, and a need for all the elements to be on the table.
That was on 26 February; today it is 10 March and all the elements are no longer on the table.
In terms of substance, it became clear that no one is seriously calling into question the need for budgetary stabilisation and budgetary discipline.
The feeling prevails amongst all the Member States that at a time when national budgets are characterised by austerity, it would be unacceptable to deliver anything other than this to the public.
There is a general conviction, therefore, that at the end of March in Berlin it will be possible to reach an overall compromise which respects the own resources ceiling of 1.27 %.
<P>
The discussion which the Heads of State and Government had on the future financing of the common agricultural policy also took account, to a large extent, of the need for budgetary stabilisation.
A majority of the Heads of State and Government came down in favour of giving the agriculture ministers clear instructions to reconcile agricultural reform and genuine stability, and in this context also to examine various models for making step-by-step reductions in agricultural subsidies.
In the course of their deliberations this week and last, the agriculture ministers have been endeavouring to produce a basis for a genuine and reasonable reform while satisfying the austerity constraint.
<P>
Progress is being made as we speak which, given the diversity of different interests and the complexity of the subject, is to be judged favourably. It also makes me all the more confident that it will be possible to finalise a result in Berlin which will be acceptable to everyone.
<P>
In structural policy, the overall approach to be adopted towards appropriations for the Structural and Cohesion Funds remains controversial.
Support was expressed for the presidency proposal to provide EUR 200 billion for the period 2000 to 2006 for Category 2, that is including the Cohesion Fund, but - and I must be quite clear about this - it was also violently opposed.
The issue of the appropriations to be allocated is being given further careful consideration at the present time, along with various models.
I am assuming that it will only be possible to resolve this issue in the very last phase of the negotiations, that is in Berlin itself.
<P>
In principle, there is agreement on the transitional arrangements for regions coming off aid, although some details are still to be decided.
On the issue of own resources and budgetary imbalances, there is a general willingness in the Council to review the decision on own resources, provided that this initiative is part of a balanced package which also takes account of the expenditure side.
This will be a question of combining the right measures with a phased or staged approach.
It might also be appropriate to incorporate a safety net into the overall package.
<P>
Since the summit at Petersberg near Bonn, the presidency has once again stepped up negotiations at all levels.
The scope of the negotiations was revised in the light of the discussions and will once again be presented for discussion to the foreign ministers this weekend and the ECOFIN Council next Monday.
In his capacity as President-in-Office of the Council, the Chancellor will tour all the capitals between 15 and 19 March; he will discuss the results achieved so far with the Heads of State and Government and will try, as a result of the tour, to bring home with him the makings of a compromise.
Following this, the General Affairs Council, meeting on 22 March, and a preliminary conclave, meeting on 21 March, will make the final preparations for the European Council in Berlin.
<P>
The President of the European Parliament, Mr Gil Robles, was invited by Chancellor Schröder to meet the Heads of State and Government at Petersberg and to present Parliament's thoughts on Agenda 2000.
This is what happened, and it underlines the great political importance which the Council attaches to dialogue with Parliament.
In this context, Chancellor Schröder emphasised that this dialogue is not a one-way street, but that it should allow both the Council and Parliament to influence each other's opinions.
<P>
My stay here in Strasbourg today and tomorrow will include further informal consultations on the Structural Funds and the pre-accession instruments and will therefore promote cooperation between the Council and Parliament, which is vital if Agenda 2000 is to be resolved on time.
Our Minister, Mr Funke, will also be taking part in separate discussions with Parliament on agricultural policy shortly.
<P>
I can assure you that the presidency will do its utmost to ensure that Parliament will be able to see its concerns reflected in the results of the Berlin summit.
I think that we all want this great challenge that is Agenda 2000 to yield workable results for the future of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Verheugen.
<P>
I now give the floor to Mr Santer, President of the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="Santer">
Mr President, the coming weeks will be crucial for the Union's future.
We are preparing to take decisions on Agenda 2000 which will be decisive in meeting the challenges of the 21st century and which will pave the way for the Union to welcome a substantial number of new Member States.
<P>
The European Council has repeatedly expressed its commitment to conclude negotiations by the end of this month and to adopt the necessary reforms.
I should like to stress once again why this deadline must be met.
First of all, we must maintain the new momentum which the Union has shown with the euro.
Secondly, we must make proper preparations for the new structural programmes for the period 2000 to 2006. Finally, we must send a clear message to the applicant countries.
<P>
There is nothing to be gained by procrastinating, and much to be lost.
The European Council must now assume its responsibilities.
<P>
It is one thing to express the political will to conclude this package.
It is another thing to accept the compromises needed to implement it.
This means respecting several principles at the same time.
First of all, there is budgetary discipline, to which the two arms of the budgetary authority have attached considerable importance in recent years. Then you must also have the necessary resources to finance the Union's projects: growth and employment, solidarity through economic and monetary cohesion, a viable agricultural policy and, finally, enlargement.
<P>
I would add that the Commission is keen to ensure that the issue of financing the Union does not get reduced to pushing figures around on paper.
While budgetary discipline is most certainly necessary, it must not become an end in itself with no attention being given to our actual ambitions for Europe.
<P>
Mr President, in this context, I should like to make a comment which in my view is important.
In our proposals on Agenda 2000, we drew attention to the resources which should be made available to the institutions, and to the Commission in particular, in order to achieve the stated ambitions.
I want to say very clearly that the Commission is no longer be prepared to accept ever-increasing tasks without receiving the means to execute them.
A compromise must be reached in Berlin and this is perfectly possible. It is possible because a great deal of headway has been made with the preparatory work, especially on the legislation.
In this respect, I would congratulate Parliament on its commitment and its attitude to the legislative process.
A lot of progress has also been made in terms of the interinstitutional agreement.
Moreover, with regard to those matters not yet resolved, all the elements are now on the table to put together a package which should be acceptable to all.
<P>
Allow me to briefly review the three key areas in which we must make further progress.
First of all, I would like to look at the common agricultural policy and rural development.
The negotiations in the Agriculture Council are difficult and are still going on. I cannot therefore go into the details.
The real problem facing us is the call for genuine stabilisation of expenditure on the one hand and the need for a real reform of the common market organisations on the other.
There are different ways of reconciling these objectives.
Some have spoken of phased reductions, others of cofinancing.
The Commission is prepared to consider all the options, but there is one direction it refuses to take, that of a diluted and distorted reform.
This would be contrary to the interests of Europe and its farmers.
It would be irresponsible to allow expensive intervention stocks to build up again which would eventually send CAP expenditure through the roof.
We must also take action straight away to prepare the ground for the forthcoming negotiations within the World Trade Organisation.
<P>
The second problem still to be resolved concerns economic and social cohesion.
By way of a preliminary remark, I would like to point out that the solidarity implied in this concept is, and must remain, one of the cornerstones of the European Union.
There can be no question of the Commission going back on what was achieved with the last financial perspective, though this area too must be subject to budgetary discipline.
I believe that a reasonable compromise would involve consolidating the solidarity effort on the basis of the level of aid achieved in 1999.But resources must be targeted more on the regions and groups within our society that need them most.
It cannot be right for more than half the Union's population to be dependent, in one way or another, on aid from the Structural Funds.
As always in the Union, we will find the appropriate transitional solutions that enable us to avoid excessively brutal shocks.
We will also take account of certain specific situations.
<P>
I come now to the third item of Agenda 2000, the financial aspects.
In its October 1998 report on own resources, the Commission placed a number of possible options on the table.
It added that it was prepared to make the necessary proposals if there were signs that the Member States could reach an agreement.
At Petersberg I saw that most of the Heads of State and Government do not believe it is possible to achieve a balanced compromise unless action is taken on the issue of how to finance our policies.
In particular, the question of fairness of contributions to the Community budget was raised.
<P>
We have to admit that this is a political issue, but at the same time, we must not allow everything to hinge on the highly ambiguous concept of net balances.
Everybody at Petersberg stated what they wanted and how far they were able to go.
We can now sketch the outlines within which a compromise will have to be reached.
Personally, I do not rule out a phased solution.
In fact, some of our financing mechanisms were devised at a time when enlargement to include Central and Eastern Europe was no more than a distant prospect.
<P>
We therefore have a very difficult task on our hands.
In recent times, and in particular in connection with the launch of the single currency, the Union has shown that when faced with important occasions, it is able to overcome national differences.
Each time, the political will of the College has been there to see us through.
The Berlin summit is another such important occasion.
Agenda 2000 is essential for the future of the Union and for the future of the European continent.
<P>
Day after day, the conflicts around us show just how important it is to make progress on the path towards the peaceful reconciliation of our continent.
It is something I have said frequently but I will say it again to you here today: for the first time in 500 years, we have the unique opportunity to achieve this objective while our people live in peace and freedom.
I am confident that this process, guided by the Community method, will be crowned with success.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I would like to thank the President-in-Office and the President of the Commission for the detailed accounts they have given us of the current situation.
However, I do not believe that they have told us anything new.
All three institutions are concerned about the need to reach a political agreement this month if we want to fulfill the objective of approving all of Agenda 2000 during the German Presidency.
The Socialist Group naturally shares the concern of the President-in-Office and the President of the Commission that we have not as yet reached a definitive agreement. Nevertheless, we hope that we might be able to lay the foundations of such an agreement, particularly after Chancellor Schroeder's tour of the capitals which begins on 15 March.
<P>
Our main concern in the Socialist Group is to ensure that we do not destroy what we have already achieved, namely Agenda 2000 itself.
The Commission's document was supported by a broad majority in this House and we still believe that it is the key element for the future funding and the future financial perspectives of the European Union.
<P>
Within the Agenda 2000 package, the financial discussions should not allow us to forget that there are certain basic aims forming part of the European Union's policy which we must not renege on.
The first is the principle that there must be sufficient funding to develop Community policies.
I do not know of any type of policy that can be implemented without funding.
It may be that in recent years we have devoted too much time to discussing exclusively financial issues and that this has tarnished the Community's image in the eyes of the public. There is the risk that all we appear to do is haggle between governments over what each must pay, despite the fact that this clearly forms part of politics too.
However, it is absolutely clear that no policy - be it national, regional or local - can be implemented without sufficient funds.
I therefore believe that the principle of having sufficient resources for Community policies is a key element.
<P>
Parliament has set out a series of priorities that, in my view, are similar to those of the Member States and the Commission. For example, we all believe that employment is a priority and it is a major concern of our citizens.
In a Europe where 18 million people are unemployed, the issue of employment is extremely important. In fact, this priority was marked by an extraordinary European Council, the Luxembourg European Council, and I imagine that it has not been forgotten in the Council's deliberations.
In my opinion, it is not enough to have national policies to combat unemployment from now on.
As President Santer pointed out and as was confirmed by the Luxembourg summit, what we need is a Community employment policy.
<P>
My second point - and this is no less important - concerns the question of cohesion.
A community cannot be built at two different speeds where some countries or regions are more developed and others are less so.
The last report by the Commission on cohesion policy highlighted the fact that the Community policies have been effective in reducing the differences between various regions in terms of the level of development.
The creation of a community where there are different levels of development would harm not only the less developed regions but also the more developed regions and sectors, as they would find that the levels of consumption would be too low in the regions with a lower purchasing power.
<P>
Finally, one very important issue for the European Parliament's Socialist Group is the environment.
It is clear that we need sustained and sustainable economic development.
There is no point in pursuing economic development that cannot be maintained in the long run, and one of the elements or pillars of that economic development is, in fact, the preservation of the ecological balance.
This is something that all our people are calling for at the moment.
There was a time when ecological issues were perhaps only raised in the more developed countries. However, today we can say that all Europeans are 'green' and that the 'green' label can no longer belong to a single political group because, at least within the Socialist Group, we are naturally very concerned about environmental issues.
<P>
Therefore, I believe that the Socialist Group in the European Parliament is aware of the same contradictions as the Council.
We have exactly the same ideas as those you have to discuss within the Council.
Moreover, we fully understand the difficulties the Council faces and our concern is to ensure that the timetable is met.
The Socialist Group believes - and the President of the Commission also highlighted this - that it is extremely important to meet the timetable set for 1999.
Our group is doing all in its power to adjust to that timetable and if the Council fulfills its duties, the European Socialists will make every effort to ensure that the European Parliament can do the same.
<P>
In short, we are now at a stage where we are doing the hard work in the engine room to further the construction of Europe.
The German Presidency has had some thankless work to do, but without it the European Union would not move forward.
The Socialist Group hopes that once this hard slog is over, once this work has been done properly - which is what we expect of the German Presidency, and this German Government in particular - we might be able to strike off on a new path.
The end of the German Presidency should mark the end of these lesser discussions on strictly budgetary issues and a new beginning along a path set out by the Presidency of the Council and by the Presidency of the Commission in Agenda 2000.
This path should lead us to a wider Europe into which we can welcome the millions of Europeans who are currently facing enormous difficulties and whose problems are much greater than our own.
Indeed, our reach should also extend even further, as it is not only the countries of Central and Eastern Europe that have expectations of us, but also the Mediterranean countries, Latin America, Africa and the third world in general.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Brok">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, I hope that the President-in-Office was right when he said that he had a feeling that the German Presidency was close to the mark.
I hope that he is not mistaken, because of course the German Presidency did not make life very easy for itself from the very start.
It made grand speeches at the end of last year setting itself high standards.
It also said what Germany ought to gain from all this, and we will see how this measures up.
In any case, there has been no improvement on the initial position of finding a compromise solution for the negotiations.
<P>
We in the European People's Party will be prepared to play a constructive role in this process - despite all that has been said - and to help to find a solution which will allow us to steer the European Union forward.
If you are to bring about an agreement which will benefit the European Union, you will of course also need the support of our group.
But this has to be a good agreement, not an agreement for its own sake, not an agreement at any price, but an agreement which makes sense, which respects budgetary discipline and which contains the necessary reforms, if we are to be able to support it, and if at the same time we are to retain scope for enlargement within the 1.27 % which you mentioned.
I believe that this is of crucial importance.
<P>
In addition, we must of course also say that the debate on rural areas and agriculture is a very important one for our group.
If degressive models are agreed which mean that farmers' income is reduced and if appropriations can only be spent in certain areas without being of benefit to agriculture itself, then this is a point which we will have to consider very carefully in terms of the overall balance.
This is certainly not something you did not already know.
<P>
Furthermore, it should also be said - and this is in the joint motion - that we are not prepared to put at stake the principles underlying the internal market in the negotiations on structural policy, and that controls on subsidies must continue to be recognised as one of the basic preconditions for the proper functioning of a common market and should not be abolished as part of the structural policy.
<P>
Of course, nor must we allow discussions held in connection with the employment pact to jeopardise the largest project which we have tackled for years, namely the introduction of the euro.
At this stage, we should stop reducing interest rates - this is also a request to the President-in-Office of the ECOFIN Council - as this will cause the value of the euro to fall still further.
We must make our contribution to stabilising the euro, and the German Presidency has a particular responsibility here. I believe that this responsibility can be assumed in an appropriate manner in the latter part of the presidency.
<P>
With your permission, I will briefly address one final point.
The Cologne summit will establish a mandate for the next intergovernmental conference, and we should like to know from the German Presidency whether, when it is preparing this mandate, it will engage in a dialogue with the European Parliament about the issues which should take priority and be dealt with at an intergovernmental conference of this kind, and whether it is also prepared to involve the European Parliament in the negotiations on amendments to the Treaty, changes to the decision-making structures and so on.
<P>
Let me draw your attention one last time to one of Parliament's resolutions.
You will respect democracy in the European Union if you nominate the President of the Commission after the European Parliament elections, because if you make a nomination beforehand, which does not take account of the outcome of the Parliament elections, then you run the risk of the Council proposal being rejected by this House, and that is why we should rethink this timetable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Mr President, in a sense of course it is true that the Community is approaching the moment of truth.
As both President Santer and President Verheugen were saying, if there is to be no agreement by the end of this month then there will be difficulties.
Indeed it is very useful that there is no speculation about delay.
<P>
In this time of difficulties in the Commission, I would like to say that Agenda 2000, which was put forward two years ago by the Commission should still be the basis of the overall approach.
It is only on that basis that a balanced approach can be found.
It is necessary that, irrespective of the haggling about individual finance, that approach should be kept.
The Liberal Group, especially, will judge the overall outcome on whether or not it deviates from the future development for a viable European Union.
<P>
Against that background we welcome the fact that the President-in-Office of the Council has indicated that already, at this stage, there is an agreement that money available for enlargement will be set aside.
It is essential that our internal haggling is not at the expenses of the new candidate countries.
Only in that way can we identify the real political will which was our starting-point.
We really want to move forward.
<P>
On the CAP, President Santer indicated that there is a basic conflict, on the one hand between stabilisation, and on the other hand a real reform.
We, in the Liberal Group, accept real stabilisation.
It has perhaps taken too long for us to become aware that there is a limit to financial growth.
At the same time, real reform is necessary.
It is essential that we do not have a make-believe reform.
<P>
The Liberal Group believes that within the overall envelope it is possible to carry out reforms but rural development should be part of a structural policy, which takes a broader view than the purely agricultural.
That is an essential point.
<P>
Finally, on the question of own resources.
We still believe that the approach in the Haug report - namely that the corrections should primarily be made in terms of expenditure rather than in the area of revenue - is important.
Why?
Because a special rebate which has now been there for a very long time should not be the model for future financing.
If I understand the President-in-Office of the Council correctly, the phased approach also means that individual adjustments will finally be phased out and we will arrive at an equitable and balanced approach where all countries can really feel that they are participating.
That would be the right approach for the future.
<P>
I wish the presidency and the President of the Commission every success for a positive result in Berlin.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Collins, Gerard">
Mr President, the Agenda 2000 negotiations now under way are among the most difficult which the European Union has faced as an institution and political entity since the foundation of the European Economic Community.
The Union can take credit for the bold and innovative initiatives which it has taken over the last 10 years in order to improve the competitive performance of European economies.
European leaders and European Union institutions can equally point to the fact that an internal market has been put in place, allowing free movement of goods, persons, services and capital, as well as the creation of a new single currency regime which commands so much influence within the European Union itself.
<P>
The negotiations which brought about the internal market and the single European currency were difficult but were always based on the premise that stability of the European Union is paramount at all times.
This must be the overriding consideration of European Union leaders as they search for agreement on the key aspects of future EU policies under the Agenda 2000 programme.
The EU governments must look to the issue of reforming the EU budget, the common agricultural policy and the EU structural funds in a balanced, even-handed manner.
<P>
The partnership approach involving all European governments and all the institutions in order to develop and formulate key EU policies must always be preserved.
We should remember at this time that the European Union budget only amounts to a little more than 2 % of the overall spending undertaken by the 15 Member States of the Union in any given year.
One option to reform the European Union budget which is not acceptable is the renationalising of the common agricultural policy back into the remit of the individual Member States.
<P>
The common agricultural policy is a uniform European-wide programme.
Its operation will clearly be fragmented and distorted if national governments within the EU have to contribute 25 % of all CAP payments to their respective farmers.
<P>
From an Irish perspective, I welcome the recent support given by the Commission for Ireland to continue to receive cohesion funds until the year 2003.
17 % of all expenditure carried out on improving our roads, water treatment and transport networks under our capital programme originates from the European regional cohesion funds.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="Puerta">
Mr President, the decision on the Union's financial perspectives is becoming extremely difficult politically, giving the impression of a confrontation of national interests without a common vision of European integration.
Moreover, the economic outlook is not positive. Economic growth is lower than expected, exports and investment have fallen, and inflation has reached an all-time low, forcing us to consider the problems that affect a deflationary economy.
I might add that we share some of the concerns expressed by Mr Lafontaine.
<P>
The previous enlargements of the European Union were always preceded by a considerable increase in the budget, but the Agenda 2000 budget is so inadequate that it does not allow us to guarantee internal solidarity and cope with the new members.
When we talk about enlargement, what we are really doing is endangering the economic and social cohesion of the Europe of Fifteen, without any thought to the future, with less solidarity, without a social dimension and without a genuine employment policy.
Regardless of how much rhetoric we use, it is not possible to enlarge Europe with this budget.
<P>
The Commission's initial proposal was better in that it reflected a possible and reasonable balance, with the contributions from the Member States more in proportion in terms of the Community's gross domestic product. However, the Council disregarded this proposal and focused the debate on reducing expenditure.
As a result, the approach adopted by certain governments, who are calling for a reduction in their net contribution to the Community budget without taking account of the commercial advantages of the internal market, is making the negotiations very difficult.
<P>
The German Presidency is at fault in that it has not helped to solve the problems in a situation where the Commission no longer has the ability to mediate.
In that respect, we must point out that we cannot accept the philosophy of net balances. We should instead move towards reaching a solution that we can all support.
In our view, it would not be acceptable to make drastic cuts in the Structural Funds and agricultural spending, thereby unfairly penalising certain countries and certain production sectors.
As far as the agricultural policy is concerned, we have already rejected the negative proposal to cofinance expenditure. The best economic and social solution would be to introduce a fairer differentiation of aid: the current system is unfair as 20 % of farmers receive 80 % of the aid distributed.
With correct differentiation, we could ensure that aid was distributed more fairly and we could provide specific solutions for producers of milk, beef and veal, and cereals. We could also reduce budgetary expenditure.
<P>
The financial perspectives must be approved unanimously in the Council and by a sufficient majority in Parliament.
It would therefore be better to reach a balanced solution.
The agreement must be acceptable to all, not only a majority.
<P>
Moreover - and I would like to address this specifically to the Council - we want to see very practical political deliberations.
We are convinced of the importance of a strong and legitimate Commission for the future of the Union.
We would therefore call on the European Council to postpone the nomination of its candidate for the Presidency of the Commission until after the European elections, and we would like a response on this matter.
<P>
In conclusion, I would point out that the extraordinary European Council on 25 March in Berlin will coincide with the anniversary of the Treaty of Rome.
Given the uncertainty that exists, we call on the German Presidency and on all the Heads of State and Government to unite once again and commit to a common political project.
We urge them to fulfill their responsibilities.
And an essential condition is to reach a fair agreement on Agenda 2000 so that no government or country is the winner.
The only winners should be the European Union and all its people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, the Berlin summit must succeed in tying up the Agenda 2000 package.
A delay would send out a fateful signal to the EU and the outside world and would only encourage nationalist forces.
We must not allow this to happen.
If next year we are to continue to provide structural support - the internal bridge between poor and rich regions - then we need an agreement on Agenda 2000 which, in small matters and in large, is characterised by solidarity, will be workable in the future and leaves no room for national egoism.
Outwardly, the failure of the summit would mean the failure of the great pan-European project of eastward enlargement. That is why there is no room here for exaggerated national demands.
<P>
We make this plea to the Council: all the Heads of State and Government must travel to Berlin prepared in all earnest to close the gap between them.
That applies just as much to the German Government as it does to the southern countries.
Because when huge efforts have been required of the applicant countries for years, it would be a fateful sign if the EU were simply not to hand in its homework.
The European Parliament has proved through the compromises in its reports that an agreement is possible, including on the crucial points.
The demands are balanced and they are before the Council.
So it is possible!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lalumière">
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Minister, in his speech to Parliament of 12 January, Mr Joschka Fischer sketched the framework for a vast and ambitious European policy and led us to hope for an active and effective German Presidency, which is what we need.
<P>
We have become somewhat concerned over recent weeks, the difficulties seeming more serious than expected.
In such a climate, the Berlin summit assumes great importance.
It is essential for Berlin to provide new momentum and to demonstrate that the initial differences are now being overcome.
A European Union without optimism and without the will to act would be in very poor shape to tackle forthcoming key events such as the parliamentary elections on 13 June.
<P>
I would stress one point: budgetary resources.
We are perfectly aware of the need to reform the public finances of our Member States but, for all that, and even if it is not exactly what certain governments state, it would be a dangerous calculation to refuse the Union sufficient resources to succeed in doing what is requested of it.
<P>
By this I am not of course speaking of the waste and malfunctioning in the Commission's management practices, which have already been denounced.
Leaving aside these errors, which must of course be corrected, I am speaking of deep-rooted problems, for example, the preservation of the European agricultural model, the policy of cohesion and solidarity, and Europe's competitiveness in the high technology sector.
I am also referring to the success of enlargement, as without a minimum of resources the tension will jeopardise European integration as a whole.
Finally, I am referring to the Union drawing up and implementing economic, social and employment policies - within the framework of the Treaties of course - which are worthy of the name.
This also calls for a minimum level of resources.
<P>
It is a good thing to manage the Union's finances with care.
But it would be dangerous to manage them sparingly.
Not only do the Union's policies risk running out of steam, but there is the danger that the Community spirit might weaken.
Today we are again discussing renationalisation and direct national contributions.
Fortunately, the German Presidency seems to have abandoned this dangerous idea with regard to the common agricultural policy.
We are also again discussing net contributors, positive and negative balances, British cheques, and so on.
I do not deny that it is sometimes necessary to have a close look at the accounts and to seek new balances, but we must not recreate the climate of 1984.
<P>
Mr President, the Berlin summit will largely decide the survival and even the strengthening of the Community spirit.
I hope that we will be heard.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Krarup">
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I am not sure whether this excellent and instructive proverb is also found in the other ten official languages.
It exists in Danish at least, and I am reminded of it almost every day in the institutions of the European Union, because these institutions - the Council, the Commission and this Parliament - have never grasped the wisdom, the very simple wisdom contained in the Norwegian handbook for mountain walkers, which says: 'in the event of disagreement between the map and the terrain, you should follow the terrain'.
In this Parliament - and in all the EU's institutions, including the Commission and the Council - people consistently and with an almost religious zeal follow the once adopted map and ignore the terrain.
The terrain will have its revenge, and I shall mention three points without going into detail, because my speaking time will not allow that.
<P>
Firstly, in our opinion - and in the opinion of many Danish andNordic citizens - the enlargement project is heading in the wrong direction.
On the one hand, the process which is taking place is humiliating for the applicant countries and, on the other hand, it has - to put it mildly - not been properly thought out in political terms. It is not a project which is based on democratisation, but one which is about empire-building.
Secondly, the political conditions have at best not been properly thought out and the financial conditions, which are the subject of the extraordinary summit in Berlin, leave the gigantic money machines which the European Union has built up over the years in total chaos, in particular the common agricultural policy and the Structural Funds.
This is a sharp reminder that you cannot ignore the terrain without the terrain taking revenge at some stage.
Thirdly, this summit is taking place only days after we in Parliament were discussing the most serious constitutional crisis the institutions have yet faced, and I can imagine that - as so often in the past - the agenda of this summit will be different from the one which reflects the current political reality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Muscardini">
Mr President, the extraordinary Berlin summit has been convened to unravel a complex tangle and solve a fairly knotty problem.
Budgetary adjustment, the cost of enlargement, the future of the CAP and structural policy reform are all on the agenda.
We shall never tire of repeating that the complexity of the problems and solutions would have been less traumatic if the institutional structure had been overhauled prior to enlargement and, consequently, the balance of power within the Union redressed.
But now the thorny problems already on the table are compounded by the bombshell of Germany's call for a reduction in its budget contribution.
Forgetting the overall input from Community coffers to the development of the five ex-Communist Länder , the German Government is now playing the card once used by Mrs Thatcher, a tactic which blocked Community activity for quite some time and has left an unpleasant aftertaste.
Our first request to the German Presidency is that it should spare the Union a repeat of past performance, whereby problems are bounced from one summit to the next and resolved to the disadvantage of one group or another, one country or another, poisoning minds and keeping the public away from the ballot box next June.
<P>
There is a risk that agricultural reform will be confined to a mere cost-cutting exercise, rather than aiming for quality production and safeguarding the certificate of origin, the sole guarantee that a product is typical and meets consumer demands.
Extensive, American-style agriculture, rather than intensive farming as preferred in Europe, would destroy all that is distinctive about our specialities in the various production sectors.
Germany's point that agriculture accounts for only 4 % of EU GDP is too narrow-minded: we must not overlook related sectors, the agri-food industry, processing and farm machinery.
But even if the contribution to GDP really were so minimal, let us not forget that farming in Europe also represents a civilisation, a way of life and tradition which it would be criminal to abandon in favour of canned foods from the hypermarket shelves and futuristic transgenic products.
Why not set up a European agency to manage any surpluses generated, dispatching these to countries experiencing production shortfalls or lean years?
By the same token, monetary donations to humanitarian associations could at least partly take the form of foodstuffs, thereby indirectly compensating for market fluctuations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rehder">
Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, a few days before the EU summit in Berlin, where a decision will also be taken on the future of policy in rural areas, it is timely to repeat two demands made by the European Socialists.
Firstly, Europe needs a socially responsible support policy which assists the weak and demands practical solidarity from the strong while also giving them the necessary freedom.
Secondly, through its structural and support policies in rural areas, Europe must also make determined efforts to safeguard existing jobs and create new ones, because for Socialists throughout the Union, labour market policy must be the number one priority.
<P>
The decisions made in Berlin must and will be positive for the EU.
Given the diversity of the issues and the fact that they are crucial to the EU's future, compromises are obviously going to be necessary, as they are in any democratic system.
Anyone announcing to the House here and now, for the benefit of the media, that they alone will come back a winner is certainly about to become painfully isolated.
Those who are already talking in terms of a crisis, dispensing advice in the manner of a schoolteacher and heavily criticising the way in which the German Presidency is conducting the negotiations should recall, Mr Brok, that many of the problems which are having to be tackled here have been put off for years, and that there are a good many who watched without a word of protest while two thirds of the agriculture budget of DEM 75 billion disappeared for entirely economic reasons and was not even spent as we intended, but was instead poured into export subsidies and storage costs.
This is a policy which is unsocial, if not even antisocial!
<P>
The evidence is clearer in agricultural policy than in any other EU policy that if the old support system is continued, smaller concerns will be - as they have been for years - the ones to suffer, not to say the foolish ones, and basically this is the way it will stay.
In the meantime - and this too needs to be stated in this House - lobbyists on the look-out for a convincing policy have hit upon a new idea.
Suddenly they are saying: away with all subsidies, away with all bureaucracy. We only want a regulated market.
<P>
But if you take a look at this system or this new proposal, this regulated market turns out to be a European Union which is closed off to the outside world, managed, as it were, like a sandpit.
However, a fortress state of this kind, in the 19th century style, would not only mean an end to the common market and the free movement of goods.
Those who advocate such utter foolishness - because they have run out of ideas and people are running away from them - are also, and with a complete lack of responsibility, leaving the 6 % who still work in rural areas to face the anger of the remaining 94 % of Europeans, who then rightly point out that a 'philosophy' of this kind will not only cause jobs and social security to disappear for ever, but will eventually cause the downfall of the successful model which is the European Union, and which is unique in the history of Europe and the world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="Galeote Quecedo">
Mr President, two weeks before the Berlin European Council, I believe it is pointless to try to hide the pessimistic atmosphere that prevails.
<P>
Frankly, I cannot see what progress the Council representative was referring to.
On the contrary, some of the proposals by the German Presidency have not exactly given us much cause for hope, not to mention the decision to resort to the unusual mechanism of presenting them in the name of the German delegation. I do not know if that is what the Council representative calls a happy medium.
<P>
But perhaps the most worrying thing is the confusion that exists, with constant changes of direction and a lack of impetus from those who are supposed to be in charge.
<P>
The European Parliament has the right, not to mention the duty, to demand that the debate be more focused.
We must remember that what we are discussing is how to finance the European Union until 2006 and how to reform the Structural Funds and common policies in the light of enlargement.
The debate is not about determining how a specific country might pay less, but rather how to finance a range of common policies in a fairer and more effective manner. The aim of this is, of course, to create more jobs and reduce inequalities.
In my view, the Presidency would do well to set aside the debate on net fiscal balances and look for solutions to its problems that keep faith with the Treaty.
<P>
I do not think I have to remind you that the final agreement requires consensus.
In other words, the automatic application of the system of majorities leads us to a dead end, to failure. And nobody - I would imagine - wants this Presidency to be remembered as one that failed.
It is up to the German Presidency to put forward proposals that bring us closer to a final agreement, that accommodate the different interests involved, but that also set out a future objective of integration that all the people of Europe can identify with.
<P>
The European elections in June will allow us all to measure our representativeness through the exercise of democracy. Only then should the Council propose its candidate for the Presidency of the European Commission as provided for in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Moreau">
Mr President, on the eve of the year 2000, it is commonplace to hear of the need to breathe new life into Europe.
The least that can be said, unfortunately, is that the Berlin Council is not part of this approach.
<P>
There is no question of a more social, more democratic Europe, nor of a Europe of solidarity, as budgetary discipline and reduced contributions for some - and not the least important among us - are at the centre of the debates, and this at a time when we are preparing for enlargement.
This is very worrying, as any rejection of the notion of financial solidarity in Europe can only favour increased globalisation, dominated by American ambitions.
<P>
I note that there now seems to be movement on the question of cofinancing agricultural expenditure, demanded by some and rejected by others, including France.
I welcome this, without being entirely reassured.
In order to arrive at an agreement which is global, positive and acceptable to all, we must move beyond complicated calculations and develop financial solidarity on new bases in order to promote economic and social cohesion, which is under pressure from unemployment and growing poverty.
The ceiling of 1.27 % must therefore remain so as to respect the constraints of the stability pact, although it would be better to replace it with an employment pact and find new sources of finance, based on a corporation tax or a capital gains tax, for example.
To arrive at a more balanced budget, the share of each Member State must be in proportion to its share in the Community's GNP.
A limit must be placed on farming subsidies and they must be designed to be of more benefit to small and medium-sized farms, as well as to employment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, I listened to your statement very carefully, Mr Verheugen.
I have something to say on one point which may well be important for the negotiations.
Tomorrow, when the House votes on Mrs Haug's report on own resources, it may pronounce itself in favour of 50 % cofinancing in agricultural policy.
In view of both this decision tomorrow and the forthcoming elections, I think it is absolutely essential that we do actually have all the alternatives on the table for the final showdown.
<P>
We all know that cofinancing of agricultural policy is actually the right way forward.
It may not be accepted because of opposition from individual countries, but it is the only approach which leaves the way open for a genuine structural policy for rural areas.
Should there not be a move towards cofinancing, however - which is of course likely - then we need, in any case, to develop corrective mechanisms or capping systems which come as close as possible to meeting the desired objective.
I would like a scheme, a capping system, which, once we have taken the first step, will inevitably lead on to further reforms.
Were we not to succeed in doing this in the negotiations, then in my view we would be faced with a complete disaster on the first day of enlargement, because we all know that step-by-step reductions and capping alone are not much help to us when the question we really need to answer is how to restructure agricultural policy.
<P>
We also know that the real problem with agricultural policy does not lie in the agricultural policy of the 15 present Member States, but in the agricultural policy of those who are to join us, because that is where the heartland of European farming is to be found.
That is why I would emphasise once again that it is important for absolutely all of the alternatives to be on the table.
Only then will it be possible to find a genuine compromise, which the German Presidency can then pull out of the hat with the kind of flourish which people like to see at a summit of this sort.
For this I hope you have a good hand!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="Nicholson">
Mr President, I listened with great interest to the President-in-Office of the Council when he said that central questions have not been resolved.
I think that will go down as the understatement of the day. Quite clearly the Council and Commission have been able to make no progress in the whole area of the reform and everything that goes with it.
<P>
Everybody talks about reform and says that reform is needed and required.
I think we all accept that change is always necessary and we have evolved with that change.
What I want to make very clear to both the Commission and the Council here today is that if they are going to have reform it must not be at the price of destruction of our rural communities throughout the European Union.
There is a grave danger as we go forward that is what will happen.
We must defend European Union farmers against the threats of the Americans and everyone else in the world who want to destroy the European agricultural industry.
If you destroy the European agricultural industry you will destroy vast parts of the whole rural community and the whole infrastructure throughout Europe.
<P>
This reform will be like all the reforms in the past.
It will not save one ECU.
It will not save one D-mark or one pound.
In fact, by the time it is finished, it will cost more.
The real truth is that the time has come for some of these countries who have benefitted very well over the past years from membership of the European Union, and who tell us that they are great Europeans, to begin to delve into their pockets and pay their way.
I think that is the challenge.
<P>
I noted with interest President Santer's comment that he will take note of certain specific situations within the European Union.
I hope he will do that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Le Pen">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when Jacques Santer and the European Commission presented Agenda 2000 in July 1997 with a view to preparing for enlargement towards Eastern Europe, they did not think that they would be jeopardising Europe's cohesion, and the Franco-German axis in particular.
<P>
It is true that just a few months before the European elections, national concessions are difficult to win amidst this vast bargaining process of European reform.
Germany is both judge and interested party as for six months it is presiding over Europe's fate while at the same time itself demanding a substantial reduction in its contribution to the Community budget. But it is finding it very difficult to impose sacrifices on its partners, each one being more or less agreed to support the idea of stabilising expenditure.
Even the euro is showing signs of weakness against the dollar, proof if ever there was that a single currency is not something which can be forced upon us.
Of the three reforms included in Agenda 2000 - reform of the CAP, reform of the Structural Funds, and the review of the financial perspective for 2000-2006 - only the first has been discussed at length by the ministers, and the only tangible result is that Germany has abandoned the idea of national cofinancing of direct subsidies to agriculture.
<P>
In these difficult negotiations, France has made two enormous mistakes.
First, it put its cards on the table much too early, the others keeping their joker for the end of the game.
Also, it is very dangerous for France to try and reach agreement on the CAP without reforming the Structural Funds and Europe's future financial framework since, with 23 % of the EAGFF Guarantee appropriations, it is Europe's leading agricultural nation and most vulnerable to budgetary restrictions.
Do we blame the United Kingdom for defending the annual rebate granted to Mrs Thatcher in 1984, or Spain, Portugal and Ireland for defending the Cohesion Fund and the Structural Funds, or Germany for defending a reduction in its contribution, or Italy for defending the system of own resources, in particular VAT, which is to its advantage?
We certainly do not.
<P>
The France of Mr Chirac and Mr Jospin is the only one not to clearly defend its national interests, to sacrifice its farmers, its regions and its tax-payers to the European illusion.
I must say here very solemnly that the phased reduction in direct agricultural subsidies as proposed by France is a bad idea because it will lead to a further decrease in farmers' incomes, but also because these subsidies only partially compensate for the price reductions.
In the name of what principles should farmers alone bear the cost of this technocratic Europe which is responsible for their extinction?
As for the reform of the Structural Funds, Corsica and French Hainaut will see their regional aid cancelled, while fragile rural areas that enjoyed Objective 5b status will only receive the minimum share of a new inconsistent package.
<P>
Given these conditions, ladies and gentlemen, the Berlin European Council on 24 and 25 March is likely to produce a fool's bargain.
In 1918, France said that Germany would pay.
Times have changed.
Now it is France that will pay for the new eastern Länder, for southern Europe's infrastructures, and even for Ireland, which has a growth rate that is much higher than our own.
Later, it will pay for the Eastern European countries.
<P>
The National Front, which I am honoured to lead, rejects the federalist excesses of Agenda 2000 which lead to destructive free trade and reductive globalisation.
We call for a Europe of nations, of peoples and of national identities, a Europe which gives renewed hope to our fellow citizens who have been exploited for the last 40 years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="McCarthy">
Mr President, it will come as no surprise that my main plea today is for the Council to make the effort to meet its timetable to enable Parliament to fully exercise its democratic mandate and add democratic legitimacy.
But let me repeat what I believe is now coming loud and clear from our regions, municipalities and partners: those on the ground who are using these funds will continue to need funds, but they need to have the certainty and security that agreement can be achieved in Berlin.
Programmes will not start on 1 January 2000, but we need to minimise delays in order not to fall into the problems and traps of the previous round of funding where late starts led to problems of underspends, delays in projects, project cancellations and difficulties in sustaining matched funding.
We need to avoid this for future programmes.
<P>
But precisely because of these potential programming delays it is important that in Parliament's priorities the idea of transitional programmes are the same length for all objectives: six years to allow regions coming off regional aid adequate time to put into place self-sustaining programmes by using financial opportunities of loans and venture capital.
This takes time.
That is why we again make the plea for the same transitional period.
This will give these areas a soft landing, when they come off regional support.
<P>
Last week I was engaged in my own tour and mini-summit, as it were, in Berlin.
I was there to speak on urban policy.
I was even more convinced of the need to retain the URBAN initiative in the European Union.
Across the European Union, even in areas of relative wealth, we encounter severe deprivation, and communities which are not getting fair access to opportunities.
While we acknowledge the need to continue to concentrate our resources on the poorest and declining areas, some of which are in my own region Merseyside, we still have to have solidarity as a two-way process.
We have to retain the capacity to invest and support in our marginalised groups and communities which are not necessarily in Objective I or Objective II areas.
The URBAN initiative is a small programme with a big impact.
I make the plea that we continue to support this.
<P>
I was also in a northern industrial suburb in Milan.
We took the opportunity to look at a steel restructuring works.
You know of course, that the Resider funds will no longer be there to support these kinds of areas. They will probably not qualify for Objective II.
This means that we also have to have a crisis initiative in order to enable us to support the future crisis sectors.
We need an initiative to enhance our credibility and to prove that Europe is capable of responding to economic and social crisis.
Which of us knows today what will be the crisis sectors of the future?
<P>
I thank the President-in-Office for the continuing support, particularly for investment in Northern Ireland.
My latest visit indicated that the peace process there is incredibly fragile, but people take tremendous heart from the fact that Europe is supporting their cause.
There is an imperative to continue to invest.
I am pleased that the German presidency has also made a priority of support for Northern Ireland.
<P>
We need to have partnership.
The partnership principle is fundamental to enhancing the democratic credibility of the funds that we use back in our regions.
I know that the presidency has accepted that partnership is a key principle.
We do not want to be prescriptive.
We simply want evidence that a partnership pact is going to be an operation with local authorities, with NGOs and, indeed, with the social partners.
Let me commend your efforts to try to meet the timetable.
We know it is no easy task to achieve a fair, equitable and acceptable outcome for 15 Member States, but a fair and equitable outcome has to have democratic legitimacy in the European Parliament.
The final package must perforce reflect Parliament's priorities.
I look forward to seeing these reflected in the final regulation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Castagnetti">
Mr President, I would endorse Mr Santer's opening remark, to the effect that the decisions now facing us are vital to Europe's future.
I also concur that an agreement, compromise or meeting of minds must be found in Berlin.
<P>
The European Union must be given a new lease of life on the eve of the elections and, as Mr Galeote has just said, we cannot ignore the scepticism and pessimism currently pervading Europe because of the difficulties confronting the euro: the disagreements, the uncertainties, the misguided statements being made on the stability pact, the wrangles over the autonomy of the European Central Bank and the pressure for a further drop in interest rates are all creating a climate of uncertainty and gloom at the very start of the euro's life, raising some extremely serious, inescapable problems such as the completion of institutional reform.
<P>
The ECB President, Wim Duisenberg, recently stated in an interview that he had been asked to defend the value of the euro, our common currency, and price stability.
If he is to pursue these aims single-handedly using monetary means alone, he will undoubtedly create more unemployment.
There is a need, therefore, for economic and political governance: the Central Bank can only be independent if a political government assumes responsibility for economic policy-making.
This is a matter of the utmost urgency.
<P>
This aspiration is not universally shared within the EU at present, nor by this presidency: this morning's speech by its representative was scarcely encouraging in this regard.
The Berlin Council, and then that of Cologne, needs not only to produce agreements on figures and sums, but to focus on what is important and give centrestage to the issue of job creation - as called for by the Socialist Group.
<P>
Ways to boost employment include the promotion of more liberal labour market policies, progress concerning Mr Monti's proposals, the exclusion of public expenditure and investment from the deficit, and fiscal policy harmonisation: none of these subjects have been mentioned this morning.
A commitment is required above all to reconciling the need for a redistribution - and not a reduction - of financial contributions to the Union with the need to keep intact the policies of the Cohesion and Structural Funds, since these are geared to generating employment.
<P>
We wish to hear the German Presidency confirm these commitments, and expect them to be followed up at the Berlin summit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="des Places">
Mr President, no-one is any doubt that the extraordinary summit in Berlin will be of great importance to the future of European integration and, as a result, to the farming sector.
<P>
I have listened to you, Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, and I must admit that I am not satisfied, as you fail to sufficiently tackle the underlying issues, preferring to make politically correct general statements.
It is not enough to say that the future of the common agricultural policy will be preserved. You must say how, and why!
<P>
We all know, President Santer, that we are facing a budgetary problem.
The question here involves the CAP's future share in the budget.
Faced with planned price reductions, the Commission's proposals increase direct subsidies to farmers.
This partial compensation will lead to a progressive and steady fall in the incomes of European farmers.
And I know that statistics can be used to say anything you like.
You can say, for example, that farmers' incomes have increased since the CAP reform of 1992.
But in reality, Europe's farmers have had to adapt and have been forced to increase their productivity either by having larger farms or by adopting more intensive farming practices.
The 1992 CAP therefore led to the desertification of the countryside, due to the fall in the number of farmers and to an increase in intensive production systems.
It seems that nobody has learned from the lesson of BSE.
<P>
In future, in their search for productivity, certain producers are going to have no alternative but to use genetically modified organisms, or hormones, or who knows what else.
<P>
Given this budgetary problem, the Commission has proposed a number of paths.
First, there is cofinancing, which we reject in its present form as it will inevitably distort competition between farmers in the various Member States and cause problems for the only common policy, whose legitimacy - I would remind you - is based on the Treaty of Rome.
The farmers believed in Europe because they believed in the CAP.
I ask you not to disappoint them.
<P>
Other Commission proposals are now circulating, particularly that involving the phased reduction of subsidies of up to 3 % a year.
This proposal fails to take account of the differences between the various types of agricultural production as the farmers most affected by this measure will be those who are most dependent on agricultural subsidies.
I am thinking, for example, of sheep farmers and of beef cattle farmers, who will have to give up farming altogether if they do not receive a sufficient level of compensation.
A phased reduction of 3 % a year, in addition to the currency depreciation, which we can now estimate at 2 % a year for the period 2000-2006, means that farmers must increase production by 5 % a year.
That objective is hardly compatible with the food and health safety of European agriculture.
<P>
We are becoming increasingly dependent on the agricultural production of third countries and will no longer be able to guarantee the quality of the products European consumers buy.
<P>
We are now faced with a budgetary problem and I understand its origins and constraints. The European Union must therefore make a strong political choice.
It must give preference to those policies for which it is entirely responsible, and in which the CAP must clearly be a key component.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="President">
I would inform the House that I have received seven motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jöns">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, reaching a compromise in Berlin which is acceptable to everyone is not only about keeping to our timetable for Agenda 2000; it is also - and this should be made clear to the German Presidency - about our credibility.
It is about our credibility in the eyes of all the people in the Union, but above all it is about our credibility towards the 27 million who are unemployed, whom we repeatedly assure that both the Member States and the European Union itself will make every effort to combat unemployment as effectively - and above all as quickly - as possible.
<P>
The Social Fund is the only instrument of labour market policy which we have at European level, and that is why it needs to be pressed into service for the employment strategy as soon as possible.
It is not without reason that we also want, in the future, to use the Social Fund throughout the European Union to combat youth and long-term unemployment.
Unemployment is not a problem which is only confined to particular regions; it is a problem which extends across the Community and that is precisely why it would be wrong, if appropriations for the Structural Funds were reduced, to cut Social Fund appropriations outside the eligible areas by 40 %, as allowed for in Council plans.
<P>
If you cancel Objective 3 resources in this way, how do you expect people to continue to believe that the Social Fund is going to help to make the employment strategy, which we want so much, a reality across the European Union?
In fact, we all know from past experience that it was not least the Social Fund which time and again forced Member States and regions to adopt new and innovative methods, in order, with European money, to get people back to work or indeed to shield them from unemployment.
<P>
Let us take the example of preventive labour market policy, which is today one of the four pillars of our employment strategy.
In 1994, however, when the Social Fund introduced this prophylactic approach to labour market policy in the Member States for the first time, many Member States - and also the German Länder - fought it tooth and nail.
But its success speaks for itself, and it really does show once more the significance of European added value.
<P>
The same is true of vocational training in Italy.
Without the Social Fund, the relevant measures would perhaps still not exist today.
I am also thinking of the certification system for training courses which has been developed so successfully throughout Greece, and of the support provided by the Social Fund for the disabled, which has moved the United Kingdom from the bottom of the European league to the top in terms of integrating the disabled, or I might think of the school drop-out rate in Ireland, which has been reduced by almost half.
This is not just progress in terms of labour market policy; the Fund also works to create social change and makes Europe something people can experience in a very practical way in the place where they live, which also increases its acceptance.
<P>
In Portugal, they can tell you a thing or two about this.
For example, without the Social Fund, illiteracy here would not have fallen by anywhere near as much as it has done.
Or you only have to consider mainstreaming.
Here too, and this is long overdue, Europe is forging the way ahead, although - and I am under no illusions here - the path is certainly still a hazardous one.
That is why we must ensure that no Member State is able to avoid implementing specific support measures for women.
That applies equally to the four other spheres of intervention: measures to combat youth and long-term unemployment; social integration; general and professional training; and preventive labour market policy.
<P>
I will conclude, therefore, with this urgent plea to the Council: do not free the Member States from their obligation to take action in each of the five spheres of intervention of the Social Fund.
Cherry-picking does not give European added value; instead, it reinforces national single-track approaches.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cunha">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have now been discussing the Agenda 2000 proposals for 21 months but never before has our debate been so specifically focused on budgetary and financial matters.
The debate about the major choices facing Europe has now been overtaken by a debate about budgets and the Member States' 'give and take', in particular the question of how much the Union's most prosperous States should pay in and get back.
<P>
I think it is vital to assess whether one or more States are still contributing too much to the budget while other Member States, equally prosperous, are paying in too little.
But once that has been established the European Union must decide to reform its system of own resources in which the only fair basis for contributions is that of relative prosperity or gross national product.
We cannot afford a situation in which major European decisions have to depend on solutions being found to these budgetary matters and, above all, it would be tragic if it were the poorer Member States or regions that ended up paying for those decisions and the restoration of a financial balance.
<P>
On this score, I should like to emphasise three points.
The first is that the Structural Funds, including the Cohesion Fund, should be strengthened, especially in the Objective I regions, for which at least two thirds of the funding should be earmarked.
The figure of 0.46 % of GNP for the Structural Fund should be seen as a target but not a ceiling.
<P>
The second point is that the 0.13 % of GNP necessary for funding pre-accession measures for the new Member States must not be obtained by redirecting funds previously channelled into the weakest regions of the current 15 Member States of the European Union.
<P>
The third aspect that I would like to emphasise is that of all the reforms of the CAP that I have witnessed, none of them until this one has been a reform worked out on the hoof - in other words, any old solution, even one that is cobbled together, provided that it brings down farm spending to the level set by the Ministers of Finance.
<P>
Just as we were hoping for a new balance to be struck in the CAP to help producers and crops that so far have barely benefited from it, for stronger rural development benefiting agri-environmental and forestry measures and in particular increasing aid to the less favoured regions, what we now see on the negotiating table of the Agriculture Council are proposals for equal cuts in aid for everyone without the slightest suggestion that any attempt could be made to introduce the principle of fairness into the CAP.
As if all farmers had benefited equally from it in the past.
<P>
I hope that a solution will come out of the Berlin summit, one that will serve Europe.
After all, Europe has only made progress when it has been able to demonstrate solidarity and look beyond its ambitions.
If we are now going to start contemplating our navels and counting every penny to be paid in and taken out, it does not bode well for the future.
The Prime Minister of my country is always saying that Europe lacks political ambition and leadership.
How right he is!
But perhaps I should add that this is happening at a time when 13 of the 15 governments and 11 prime ministers are all Socialists.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Wynn">
Mr President, the last comments were about lacking vision - I just want to make a comment about losing sight of something: the interinstitutional agreement.
<P>
Whilst all our minds seem to be concentrated on Berlin, and quite rightly so, the present meeting of the Agricultural Council is a considerable distraction.
Among all this we have the on-going discussions between Parliament and the Council on the interinstitutional agreement.
Let me remind Members and the Council President that without an interinstitutional agreement there is no Agenda 2000.
Without an interinstitutional agreement we go back to Article 203 and Agenda 2000 is dead.
It is therefore imperative that both we and the Council find an amicable solution to getting an interinstitutional agreement.
<P>
The old process that we are talking about is one of compromise, as President Santer said.
We have problems, especially in agriculture.
Those problems are about expenditure and reform but the message that needs to be put across is that without reform of the CAP, as proposed by the Commission, we will not have enlargement.
Those Member States that are opposed to reform will have to ask themselves whether they are serious about enlargement or not.
Without reform of the CAP we simply weaken our position in the WTO at the next round of negotiations.
We should be pro-active and taking a lead. Without reform we will just see the United States in the key position and we will be reacting once again to everything the Americans say.
Without reform of the CAP we end up with food surpluses.
We are back to food mountains at great cost to EU tax payers - back to the bad old days - and none of us want to see that.
<P>
I need to make a comment to the President-in-Office which relates to what is going on with the Agricultural Council.
I hope they can come to a solution but if they cannot and it drags on, then quite frankly the General Affairs Council has to start taking decisions for agricultural ministers.
We cannot allow that item to jeopardise or weaken Agenda 2000.
<P>
On financial matters, we have the situation where Agenda 2000 is linked with agreements on future financing.
I have said for quite a long time that need not be the case.
It is obvious why it is the case but there is no need to link a new own resources system with Agenda 2000 and I hope that if that is a problem then we can get an agreement on Agenda 2000 and afterwards continue to look at future financing.
The options proposed by the Commission on own resources are worthy of long and further discussions.
The Council should not be rushed into decisions that will not solve deep-rooted problems of such financing and we should not let this procedure distract us from getting the right solution to Agenda 2000.
What we want from our side are those policies which will stimulate employment, which will build social cohesion and which will protect the environment - objectives we can all agree on.
They must not be jeopardised by narrow-minded nationalistic attitudes - and that goes for all the Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Mr President, the German Presidency's report and the way the Agenda 2000 negotiations stand - or perhaps I should say the state they are in - give cause for serious concern.
<P>
The political rhetoric and the financial perspectives are significantly out of kilter.
We are seeing a repeat, on a large scale, of the complaints made at the last part-session and, on a small scale, of those made during the Socrates debate.
The Commission comes along with an ambitious proposal: it proposes more tasks, more partners and higher quality. And then along comes the Council of savings club ministers and hardly any of it is possible any more!
<P>
If we take a look at the figures and the proposals on structural and agricultural reform, we are faced with the same dilemma.
Two weeks before Berlin, we are still a long way from the noble aims of which the Treaty itself speaks - solidarity, cohesion and the common agricultural policy.
For the current year 1999, for example, EUR 216 billion is budgeted for regional policy.
In the longer term, the Commission has requested EUR 240 billion and at present a whole series of Member States is offering EUR 190 billion.
That cannot add up!
<P>
The gap is almost wider still for the agricultural funds.
The President-in-Office spoke of austerity constraints, but obviously some see making savings as the true objective of agricultural reform.
That would be a catastrophe for rural areas.
<P>
Many issues also still need to be clarified in greater detail, in particular those associated with the phasing-out arrangements: how much money will there be here, and for how long?
Only sketchy information has been given about the Community initiatives, and we can only hope - and I am also directing this request to President Santer - that the detailed proposals will actually be presented before the end of March.
You see all of this adds to the importance we attach to a fundamental question.
On 1 May, the Treaty of Amsterdam will enter into force.
Parliament will then have full powers of codecision for the ERDF and the European Social Fund.
How are we supposed to exercise these if the texts are not available in good time?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Hatzidakis">
Mr President, in the debates in Council on Agenda 2000 it is clear that there is a certain indecision.
The reason for this is that there is a discrepancy between the objectives that are being put forward and the funds that are available to pay for them.
We agree that there must be a policy for farmers.
We agree that there must be a policy for economic and social cohesion.
We agree that there must be a policy for enlargement.
However, no one wants to pay to attain these objectives.
But there can be no policy without money and I want to be clear on this point.
Countries which contribute the most to the Community budget must know that they get a lot back in other areas, such as, for example, in increased exports to weaker Member States.
The Structural Funds were set up as a mechanism to counterbalance the effects of the single market.
Those who complain that they are paying too much must not forget that the budget of the whole of the European Union is currently equal to that of just one Member State, Spain.
<P>
I have two comments to make, firstly on agriculture and secondly on the Structural Funds.
<P>
It is absolutely clear that the common agricultural policy has created distortions, that agriculture needs to move in a new direction, and that the World Trade Organisation is bringing about a new reality.
We therefore need a new CAP which can help the really weak Member States.
These weaker Member States are the economically poorest countries in the European Union which will be badly affected by any partial renationalisation of the CAP.
Also weak are the small producers, on whom we must focus our attention.
Mediterranean products have been unfairly treated and we must not deal them any more harsh blows.
<P>
Regarding the Structural Funds, this House approved the financial package which the Commission initially introduced, which is why we are opposed to any attempts to further reduce it.
I shall reiterate three basic tenets expressed by the European Parliament back in November: firstly, expenditure on the Structural Funds and on the pre-accession funds must equal 0.46 % of Community GDP; secondly, Objective 1 must have allocated to it exactly two thirds of the resources of the Structural Funds; thirdly, the Cohesion Fund must continue to support all countries whose per capita GDP is less than 90 % of the Community average.
Indeed, this is provided for in the Treaties.
I want to point out that, especially with regard to the Structural Fund regulations, the agreement of the European Parliament is required.
It is crucial, therefore, that the Council and the European Council meeting in Berlin consider our proposals seriously.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to thank the groups and those Members who have spoken for making this debate a very constructive one.
Valuable comments and suggestions have been made and we will take these on board.
Overall, I think this debate has been encouraging in so far as we agree on the objectives and also on how they should be achieved, namely to actually conclude Agenda 2000 now so that we are once again free to devote our energies to the major tasks of which several speakers rightly reminded us today - the fight against unemployment in Europe, the fight for a better environment and the fight for greater social justice.
<P>
However, this is not what Agenda 2000 is about.
All those who are critical of the fact that there was no mention of this in the Council statement are forgetting that this Council statement concentrates - and indeed had to concentrate - on the Berlin summit.
Agenda 2000 is clearly defined and I warn against weighing it down with major new issues, some of which it is intended should be resolved at the Berlin summit and others at summits thereafter.
<P>
I note with due respect the criticism made of the way in which the negotiations are being conducted and the progress made so far.
I would permit myself to tell you, however - since some proverbs have already been cited - that there is also a very interesting German proverb which states that you should not praise the day before nightfall, and you should not criticise it either.
Those who are criticising the progress made in the negotiations are basing what they say on information which is passed out from confidential discussions and channelled to interested parties.
The presidency knows all about this.
We are very interested and sometimes also amused to see how events are reported in the individual capitals and in Brussels, obviously with the aim of making particular national interests appear in the right light and improving the starting position for representing those individual interests.
<P>
The presidency's motto in these matters is: a gentleman does not boast of his conquests!
We will make no further comment on this, but will simply put in the necessary work on an overall compromise.
Admittedly, there is a noticeable difference here between the way in which issues can be discussed in Parliament and how they are discussed in the Council.
That is due to their different roles.
Parliament can decide with majorities: in the Council, we need all 15 to agree.
That is why it makes no sense whatsoever for us, as the presidency, to adopt any dogmatic positions or make categorical demands, or at any point to insist that certain conditions should be met.
Anyone who does that will fail completely when they need the agreement of 15!
Please try to understand that.
I would be delighted if it were possible to say to the Heads of State and Government: 'My friends, this is not actually about how much money goes to particular regions of Portugal, Spain, Ireland or Italy; it is about the great European vision!
Forget the issue of who pays what and who gets what for once, and think instead of our great common goals!'
It would be nice if this were the case.
I do not know a single European Head of State or Government who would be willing to discuss this for even a minute.
It is a shame that Mr Cunha from Portugal is no longer here; I would like to advise him to say what he said in Lisbon and point out that it is not so important after all who pays what and who gets what.
It is actually about the great European vision!
<P>
I understand that; it is to do with our different roles.
Unfortunately, we cannot operate in this way in the Council.
As a prerequisite for resolving the issues on which we have to agree, we have to try to reach a consensus.
This consensus must encompass the financial perspective.
That includes both sides, the revenue side and the expenditure side.
It must encompass the reform of the agricultural policy.
I fully agree with all those who have said that there are many reasons why we need a reform here.
And it must encompass the future use of the Structural and Cohesion Funds, and of course the purpose of these funds is to put the principle of solidarity into practice within the European Union.
No one is calling this principle into question!
<P>
Those are the points on which we need to reach an agreement, and that creates the framework within which the individual policies can then develop and within which we tackle the problems.
<P>
One final word on net balances, an issue which was addressed several times.
Firstly, it is wrong to think that this is a German problem.
It was a group of states which, a long time ago, made this topic part of the discussions.
Incidentally, all the Member States recognise this.
When, if not in connection with a seven-year financial perspective, should this subject be discussed?
Now is the only time it actually can be discussed.
The German Presidency is not at all happy that the issue has to be discussed now when we ourselves hold the presidency.
I can tell you now, as a German politician, that we could have represented our German interests much more forcefully, much more effectively, and probably also with a great deal more success - we would have been able to secure a much better result - if we had not held the presidency at the present time.
<P>
At one point I heard the Presidency being accused of representing its own national interests, and I cannot take note of this without giving a wry smile.
The opposite is true.
The reality of the presidency can be described in a classic French expression which was coined many years ago: la présidence coûte cher !
That also applies to Germany; we know that very well.
<P>
We remain determined to conclude Agenda 2000.
The prospects of doing so are good, now that some key benchmark figures have already been agreed.
Parliament's support is important.
It will be particularly important after Berlin for there to be very close and trusting cooperation between the Council, the Commission and Parliament.
At this stage, I can only extend to you the offer of this close and trusting cooperation.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="President">
It is a great pleasure for me to welcome the delegation from the House of Representatives of Bosnia and Herzegovina chaired by its president, Halid Genja'c, and colleagues of this delegation representing all major political groups and three constituent ethnic groups of the country.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Bosnia and Herzegovina has been a special country for this Parliament and since the beginning of its mandate in 1994 we have followed carefully the events and tried to contribute to a just peace and the hope that multi-ethnic coexistence would be re-established.
<P>
May I wish you, on behalf of the European Parliament, all the best in your demanding work for a peaceful, flourishing and democratic Bosnia and Herzegovina where new generations will grow in the spirit of mutual understanding, tolerance and cooperations.
I should like to express my wish that the discussions you will have today at the first inter-parliamentary meeting with our delegation for relations with South-East Europe will be fruitful.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Situation in Kosovo
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="President">
The next item is the Council and Commission statements on the situation in Kosovo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="Verheugen">
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, the President-in-Office, Mr Verheugen, has provided you with a complete summary of the present situation in Kosovo.
There is no doubt that this is a crucial time and we hope that when the international community and the parties involved meet again on Monday in Paris, they will be able to sign an agreement, despite the news we have received of the recent clashes at the border with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
<P>
The Commission is also concerned at the recent news about the separation of men and women in the southern part of the region.
As the President-in-Office already mentioned, Mr Fischer and my colleague Commissioner van den Broek visited Belgrade and Pristina on Monday, which is why I am standing in for the Commissioner today. Their aim was to put pressure on the parties to sign the Rambouillet agreement and arrange an international military presence to guarantee its application.
The talks in Belgrade did not give rise to much optimism and the three delegations were warned that they should not underestimate the resolve of the international community.
A meeting was also held in Pristina with the political leaders, who all expressed their support for the outcome of the Rambouillet Conference.
The Commission hopes that the Kosovo Liberation Army will overcome its hesitation and sign the agreement.
Some members of the KLA are perhaps suspicious of the fact that they will have to hand over their weapons when the agreement comes into force under international military supervision. But they must realise that it would be a grave mistake to delay or to reject the agreement.
<P>
Under the agreement, Kosovo's autonomy must be established by promoting economic and social development in the region.
The European Commission is naturally prepared to fulfill its obligations in this respect, and once the agreement has been signed, reconstruction will be our main priority.
Measures have already been taken to assess the damage, and the results were analysed recently in Brussels with the international donor community. Although not all of Kosovo could be assessed, it is estimated that a minimum of EUR 350 million will be required for reconstruction work alone.
As soon as the agreement is signed, the Commission will organise a meeting of donors with a view to raising the funds needed to cover the costs of reconstruction.
The Commission itself will guarantee an adequate presence on the ground and it hopes to play a prominent and visible role in the reconstruction work.
At the same time, the development of civil society in all its dimensions must be encouraged, and this is an objective to which the European Union hopes to contribute along with other international organisations such as the OSCE.
<P>
This is therefore the Commission's position on this important issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of my group, I should like to fully endorse the picture presented and the views expressed by the presidency and the Commission on this matter.
Our biggest problem is, of course, that for peace we need partners, but that we still only have two opponents who are hardly prepared to become real partners.
It is also difficult to become a partner under pressure, but we have no alternative other than to exert this pressure on both the Serbian and the Kosovar-Albanian sides.
<P>
As far as the Serbian side is concerned, and there is no need to waste words in passingmoral judgement on Milosevic and other Serb leaders, I just have one concern - and I do not know whether the presidency would like to comment on this - which is that the actions, in themselves perfectly understandable, of the High Representative Carlos Westendorp with regard to Republika Srpska, by being taken at this particular time, just a few days before the Conference reconvenes in Rambouillet, might harden the resolve of the Serbian side.
<P>
I am thinking here of the decision made in Brcko, but even more of the decisions on staffing concerning Poplasen, which ultimately also led to Dodic's resignation, who is of course to some extent our 'ally' on the Serbian side in Republika Srpska.
That is a question I am asking myself.
I hope that this has been well coordinated and well thought out.
<P>
As far as the Kosovar-Albanian side is concerned, I should like once again to say loudly and clearly here that all of us who hold talks with liberation movements or resistance movements, whether it is the Kurds on the one hand or the Kosovar Albanians on the other, have a duty to insist that they adopt a peaceful, cooperative position, a position on the basis of which a compromise can be reached.
I believe - as the Commissioner has also said - that some things have already started to happen: on the KLA side too, forces which are more willing to compromise have come to the fore, and I still say that if these resistance movements want the solidarity and support of the international community, then they too must be prepared to cooperate and compromise.
<P>
The final point which I should like to underline clearly once again, and which I would ask to be taken into account in the position we adopt at the talks in Rambouillet, is as follows: without military back-up, the whole initiative does not make any sense, and it will be years - as we have of course also seen in Bosnia - before a real solution is reached here.
Please, stand firm where the military back-up for peace is concerned!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when we discussed Kosovo here four weeks ago, it was clear to those who know the facts that nothing tangible in terms of agreements would come out of Rambouillet.
The fear that Milosevic is above all playing for time has, of course, proved to be well founded.
The deadline's being put back three times was also only to be expected.
Milosevic knows our weaknesses, but he does not know how determined we are.
This is now also true of the hardliners on the Albanian side.
Despite Rambouillet and despite the agreement reached in October last year between Mr Holbrooke and Milosevic, Serb soldiers have, in the meantime, moved into Kosovo and are creating a gauntlet which has to be run to cross over into Macedonia and Albania.
There are 4 500 new heavily armed soldiers on the Macedonian border and 1 500 on the Albanian border.
This warlike activity is frightening the Albanians and of course putting them to flight, and we are standing by and watching, as is our wont.
We are not doing anything; we are thinking about reconstruction, but I think that first we need to make sure that there are no refugees before we think about reconstruction and go grovelling in Belgrade.
<P>
At the same time, the inglorious Lord Owen - of whom we all still have painful memories from the war in Bosnia - puts in an appearance and makes the abstruse proposal actually to offer Milosevic compensation for Kosovo by separating Republika Srpska from the State of Bosnia, which is recognised under international law, and allowing him to annex it.
As long as ideas of this kind lurk at the back of the mind of a good many negotiators, Milosevic will succeed in stalling us and keeping the source of the blaze, Kosovo, alight.
He will continue to drive the Kosovar Albanians out; he is of course experienced in ethnic cleansing.
And in the end there will simply be fewer Albanians in Kosovo, in whose minority rights no one will really be interested any more, still less in defending them.
<P>
That, then, is my realistic assessment of the situation and those are the reasons for my fears.
But against my better judgement, I am still hoping for an agreement in Rambouillet and I have done all I can to influence the Albanians.
Only it must be clear - as Mr Swoboda has already said - that there should be no agreement unless it includes military monitoring!
Unless this is the case, any talk of reconstruction is likewise to no avail.
I wish the negotiating parties, and above all the Europeans, who thank God are also sitting at the negotiating table, success with all my heart, because the implementation of the Dayton Agreement in Bosnia - and it has already been pointed out that this is, unfortunately, like trying to square the circle - would also be made easier if Milosevic were finally to consider his real duties as a Yugoslav politician and abandon his aim of a greater Serbia.
<P>
However, it would be better for everyone in the region, and in particular the Serbs, if Milosevic were at last forced, as indeed he should be, to answer for his war crimes in The Hague.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cars">
Mr President, many people in Europe, not least in my own country, are opposed to the idea of too far-reaching a process of Europeanisation.
They are made uneasy by the prospect of national self-esteem being replaced by a far stronger sense of European identity.
The developments in the Balkans show just how wrong they are, and how important it is to ensure that the process of Europeanisation makes rapid progress in every European country, without exception.
<P>
We all possess our own national historical heritage.
It helps us to retain our sense of identity in an ever-expanding world, whether we be Bavarians or Germans, Gascons or Frenchmen, Smålanders or Swedes.
In view of this we need a common European identity, based on a recognition of the freedom and equal worth of individuals - values that constitute Europe's most valuable contribution to the world community.
<P>
In our time, no area of Europe has had more ground to cover in this respect than the Balkan countries.
They still retain the ethos of national self-interest and intolerance which the European countries, thanks to a deeper level of cooperation, have managed to overcome, although the pace has sometimes been slow.
It is both right and essential that Parliament and the EU as a whole should concentrate their efforts on reaching an agreement that will put an end to the bloodshed in Kosovo and pave the way for a lasting peace.
As Liberals, we regard Rambouillet and the continuing negotiations as a step along that road.
There is no call for an international military operation in Kosovo.
<P>
However, our commitment in the Balkans should go considerably further.
We have to help the people to overcome their petty, narrow-minded nationalism so that each race can see itself in a broader context than as exclusively Orthodox Serb in the case of the Serbs, or Albanian Muslim in the case of the Kosovans.
<P>
When the guns fall silent and the killing stops, then we will have to face the real challenge, namely to spread a sense of being European throughout the Balkan countries, in order to create a society characterised by tolerance and a recognition of the freedom and equal worth of individuals, so that in the future it will be possible for the people of the Balkans to be part of the wider European community.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, I should like to make a few comments.
Firstly, it is our opinion that there can be no military solution to the problem in Kosovo.
Secondly, because of their unilateral nature, the threats made by NATO, the USA and the European Union are simply helping to reinforce the most extreme elements and are making it more difficult to find a political solution.
Thirdly, focusing attention on the acceptance of NATO troops by the new Yugoslavia underscores the priorities of NATO, which is pushing for military presence for its own geopolitical aims in the context of the new order of things.
Fourthly, the solution that is going to be reached, leaving open the question of the independence of Kosovo, threatens to open up a Pandora's box in the Balkan region and to embroil all the countries in that region.
Finally, is it not perhaps hypocritical for us to speak about the Kosovar Albanians, who indeed need our support, while ignoring the fact that thousands of Kurdish refugees are facing expulsion in Turkey and we say nothing about this?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gahrton">
Mr President, naturally the Greens are in favour of an international commitment to achieving a peaceful solution in Kosovo.
We also support the presence of a peacekeeping force, should one be required, on condition that it complies with international law and has a mandate from the UN.
However, it is clear that the really vital work will remain to be done once a peace treaty has been signed.
In such a situation, a European civil peace corps, like the one decided on by Parliament on the basis of my report, could play a major role.
There is also a need for a stability pact in the former Yugoslavia and south-east Europe generally.
<P>
I cannot help thinking of my own region, namely the Nordic countries, where during the last 200 years, in the wake of centuries of warfare, we have managed to find satisfactory ways of cooperating without damaging the sovereignty of the individual countries.
During the past 200 years, some new Scandinavian states have come into existence, and in all probability there will be more in the future, just as has come about in the former Yugoslavia.
The setting-up of new states need not pose a threat to freedom, provided there are stable and close cooperation procedures in place.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, I cannot help but detect a whiff of Munich in this whole European approach to the Kosovo issue. We continue to refuse to speak of the attackers and the attacked, placing the Kosovar Albanians and Mr Milosevic's regime on the same footing and believing that they must reach a compromise.
Yet we know very well that it is mainly Belgrade that is blocking progress. We know and must never forget that there have been thousands killed in Kosovo, that there are hundreds of thousands of refugees and that this tragedy was certainly not provoked by the so-called Kosovar extremists, but was planned by Mr Milosevic, as has been established, both politically and legally, in reports.
<P>
We hope that you will succeed in obtaining an agreement and that you will be able to implement it.
But we also have serious doubts since we know that as long as that man is in Belgrade, there will be no peace for the Kosovars, nor any democracy for the Serbs.
We will continue to be confronted with the threats of destabilisation, as we saw once again last week in Bosnia.
Therefore, the structure you are building with so much skill, patience and imagination is a structure that is not founded on any real principle of democracy or the rule of law. It is a structure that ultimately simply serves to shore up this tyrant in Belgrade who has massacred in Bosnia and who has massacred in Kosovo, and who will continue to do so because his power rests on massacres, on the negation of democracy and on the negation of the rule of law.
I have no illusions, but the Council must finally implement a common European policy and confront this problem of democracy in Belgrade and then clearly confront it in Kosovo too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, I should like to thank the President-in-Office of the Council for his statement.
I have to say, however, that I cannot agree with Mrs Pack's negative view of what has been achieved so far.
I believe there has been some considerable progress.
But I recognise the point she is making that, until we get final agreement, we actually have nothing.
Therefore the events of the next week or so are going to be crucial.
We must have an agreement.
<P>
I am not as concerned as Mrs Pack and other speakers have been that there has been delay in the agreement.
What we must try to get out of these negotiations is clearly an agreement that works and will be enforceable.
The price for that is a few weeks' delay. After all that has gone on it is probably a price that is worth paying.
But we have to keep to our principles here: firstly, we have to keep the contact group together and on board; we have to make sure there is full solidarity between EU Member States - any weakening by any one of the Member States will undermine the push for a final agreement; we have to recognise again that what we are talking about is autonomy for Kosovo while respecting the territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Also, we have to make it clear that we will not tolerate war crimes and other criminal activities and that we have the clear intention of bringing criminals to book once there is an agreement.
We are not prepared to let people get away with some of the activities they have got away with in the past.
We still very much need to push that message home in relation to Bosnia.
<P>
I have to say, in disagreement with at least one speaker, that I do not believe this agreement will work without a military presence.
We all have to recognise the sensitivity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to having foreign troops in its territory but, nonetheless, it will not work without a military presence.
But we must not commit a single fighting man until we are sure we have a peace agreement.
We must not endanger the lives of European or American troops without that agreement.
<P>
Similarly, the European Community must be prepared to spend not a single penny on reconstruction until we are sure we have an agreement.
When we are clear that we have agreement then we should push very hard to reconstruct Kosovo and, in particular, deal with the question of refugees and displaced persons.
If we really want peace then the European Union has to be very proactive once there is agreement. But we have to have an agreement first.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, I should particularly like to say that I fully agree with my friend, Mr Dupuis.
The real problem is Mr Milosevic, just as the problem in Iraq is Saddam Hussein.
To make peace, you need two people: to wage war, one is sufficient.
We should not forget that.
<P>
In our view, that means two things: firstly, we need credibility on our side, and we need to demonstrate our credibility when we talk about democracy.
In an international context, democracy is nothing other than peoples' right to self-determination, which is something people love to talk about, but which, once they have won a war, they quickly forget.
This has time and again proved to be a curse for humanity.
<P>
Secondly, we should not labour under any illusions, and here I agree with Mr Titley: without a military presence, there will be no peace here.
It is absolutely essential.
It should not be prolonged indefinitely, but it must be there, it must be perceptible, and it must actually ensure that the commitments or promises signed up to are kept.
We certainly do not want to shut out the Serbian people; Serbs are also Europeans and some day they too will have a right to belong to Europe, but that can only be the case under a genuinely civilised regime, and not under a totalitarian dictatorship, which is what Milosevic's system is.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wiersma">
Mr President, the tension over Kosovo has risen in the last few days.
It has come to be a kind of political cliff-hanger, and in a few days' time we shall see the start of a new phase in the talks process.
What will be the follow-up to the conclusions of Rambouillet?
That is the question which is naturally exercising people's minds both here and elsewhere.
The international clock is running, and which of the two parties will be the first to accept the Rambouillet conclusions?
What steps will be taken against those who do not accept them?
These are the most pressing questions at the moment.
<P>
The Kosovo Albanians appear to be close to accepting the conclusions, but Milosevic is still wrestling with the question of his sovereignty.
Can he agree to having military forces in his Federal Republic?
The Serbian presence in Kosovo has intensified, and that too is cause for concern.
What is Milosevic's aim here?
These are questions which will have to be answered in the next few days.
<P>
My hope is simply that the parties will accept the conclusions of Rambouillet.
They contain the germ of a solution for the longer term, even though no one will be happy with every aspect of them.
But it will not hurt anyone in the region to learn how to compromise.
That has always been my group's line in this conflict too.
Unilateral solutions lead to unilateral consequences, so they are not real solutions.
But if Rambouillet is step A, then step B has to be an international military presence.
And that certainly has to be a longer-term military presence.
How are we to organise that?
As a question, that is at least as interesting as the question of when Rambouillet will be concluded.
What role will the European Union play in that?
<P>
I think we have to seize the opportunity to debate how the Amsterdam Treaty is to be implemented and how the European Union can play a part in this kind of area in future.
That will doubtless require unanimity within the EU. And I hope unanimity will be maintained in the immediate future, because without it we shall not be able to play a meaningful role here.
<P>
We must also be prepared to enforce the Rambouillet agreement by military force if necessary, if the Serbs persist in rejecting it.
But ultimately a political solution must of course be preferably to a military one.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bianco">
Mr President, we too hope that the Rambouillet accords will be signed and will somehow bring peace to Kosovo.
Regrettably the first signs do not augur well, not only because of the troops being deployed around Kosovo by the Serbian Government, but also because of an extremely disquieting episode, namely the issuing of a warrant for the arrest of certain KLA representatives, three of whom have been negotiators at Rambouillet.
Clearly we cannot turn up with mere aspirations, but must have a proper policy demanding that the treaty be signed and not postponed indefinitely.
I disagree with Mr Titley, who believes that an agreement must be reached, even if it takes time: more time means more deaths and a further deterioration in the situation. The deal must therefore be clinched immediately, and it must be a tough one with peace as its goal.
<P>
One question which must be addressed is the need for the members of the contact group to speak with a single voice, and for there to be close cooperation between the European Union and the USA so as to maintain a united front.
We must not fall out of step, because Milosevic exploits any gaps to pursue his policy of procrastination in an effort to avoid the day of reckoning when harsh conclusions will be reached.
What is also needed here is a broader view of the Balkan problem.
The signing of an agreement cannot be the end of the matter: a more general plan is now needed to bring peace throughout the Balkans.
A conference should be convened to this end, and I believe that the Council, under the German Presidency, could begin working in this direction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stenzel">
Mr President, the Rambouillet peace process should be supported for one simple reason.
We have nothing better!
Nevertheless, we are forced to realise that it has not been possible to square the circle.
Milosevic is still refusing to allow a military intervention force in Kosovo, and the KLA is refusing to disarm and be satisfied with autonomy.
The Kosovars' weakness, their political fragmentation, is Milosevic's strength.
You cannot help thinking that both sides have simply used the break in the negotiations to arm themselves for the forthcoming spring offensive.
<P>
The flurry of political activity, on the part of both the European presidency and the United States, has done nothing to change this.
Once again, as has been the case so often before in the Balkans, this situation is exposing the weaknesses of the so-called international community.
NATO is, admittedly, still ready to give the order to go into action, but the credibility of the only western military alliance to remain intact has suffered in Kosovo, not only because of the jealousy which keeps on surfacing between the United States and France, but also, and above all, because of the European partners' hesitation to become involved in a cost-intensive military operation which might last for years.
We can only continue to note this lack of political will with regret, and call on the Europeans finally to make up their minds about what we call the common foreign and security policy!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Sarlis">
Mr President, I too would like to stress that the basic condition for a just solution to the problem in Kosovo is solidarity among Member States of the European Union.
I have to say, however, that reaching an agreement comes first and in this I agree with Mr Titley.
We must reach an agreement which will guarantee the integrity of the borders in the Balkans, a request that has been put forward by all the Balkan countries: Bulgaria, Albania, Greece and Romania. Only if a specific agreement can be reached on how to solve the problem of the autonomy of the region will we be able to say that military presence will have a positive impact.
<P>
At present, this region is full of memories.
Today in Greece we have French, English, German and Spanish people who are visiting the cemeteries of English, French, German, Bulgarian and Serb people who died in the First World War.
I would therefore like to stress the need to reach an agreement which, as I said, must guarantee current borders.
When this agreement has been reached, the armed forces which are currently massing in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia will be able to play a more constructive role.
<P>
In European terms, Kosovo is not another Iraq.
While we welcome the American presence in the region, nevertheless this issue is essentially a European Union issue, which is why we need solidarity among all Member States of the European Union in dealing with it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="President">
I have received seven motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 11.55 a.m. and resumed at 12 noon
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Moreau">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, I would ask that the reports by Mr Sarlis and Mr Swoboda be referred back to committee pursuant to Rule 129.
These two reports present the European Parliament with a heavy responsibility: promoting the liberalisation of international goods transport by rail.
<P>
The Commission directives, to which these reports refer, contain no more than technical provisions and do not recommend this solution.
In the Council, the governments of the Member States are divided on this issue.
Moreover, the railway workers, their unions and the European Trade Union Confederation expressed their opposition to such an approach through a European day of action and strikes, which was widely respected, and during talks with each of the two rapporteurs.
<P>
For all these reasons, I call on Parliament not to go down this road and to refer these two reports back to committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, I can oppose this both as rapporteur and on my own account.
I should like to make the following quite clear: firstly, rail freight has been declining for years, as has employment in the sector.
That is why it is absolutely essential and high time to reform the railways.
That is the idea behind my own and Mr Sarlis's reports.
<P>
Secondly, it is unfortunate that the Commission rejected some of our points yesterday.
That is why it is also high time to explain our point of view clearly to the Commission.
We are not calling for unlimited, broad-brush liberalisation; we are calling for a sensible approach towards giving the railways more of a European dimension.
We have to achieve this, and that is why I really do ask that we put this to the vote today.
We have discussed it at length in the committee; Mrs Moreau was the only one to vote against.
That is why it is important for us to vote today.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lienemann">
Mr President, I should like to express my support for Mrs Moreau's proposal.
<P>
The Treaty of Amsterdam includes the concept of general interest services.
In a field such as rail transport, it is clear that this concept must take precedence over a liberalisation of rail transport services.
Yet today we have no framework directive that defines what a general interest service actually is.
<P>
We believe it is impossible to liberalise this key sector or open it up to competition.
Indeed, it is a sector in which, as Mrs Moreau said, workers are very active in defending not just their jobs but also the general interest.
<P>
I believe it is premature to discuss this subject before we have a framework directive on general interest services.
Like Mrs Moreau, I would also ask that this report be referred back to committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Sarlis">
Mr President, first of all I have to say that I am against referral back to committee.
Today Parliament must vote on both of these reports.
The majority opinion of all the groups in this House is that the issue of the gradual liberalisation of rail transport must at last move forward.
I repeat that, at this stage, we are talking about gradual liberalisation only in respect of the transport of goods.
We have been debating this matter in the European Parliament since January 1998, when we adopted a special resolution in which we said that we wanted to go forward with gradual liberalisation.
The majority opinion, if not the unanimous opinion, in the Committee on Transport and Tourism led to the findings that we are putting before the House.
<P>
I must also say that since 1970 there has been a Commission directive which calls for partial liberalisation.
Nothing has been done in the 27 years since then, while we have liberalised sea transport, air transport and road transport.
We must now move forward and show the Council and the Commission what we can achieve.
<P>
Applause
<P>
(Parliament decided against referral back to committee)
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Souchet">
The Commission's report (COM(98)0326) makes it possible to analyse current or planned actions aimed at implementing the conclusions of the intermediate ministerial meeting on the integration of fisheries and environmental issues held in Bergen on 13 and 14 March 1997.
The scope of the report is limited to the North Sea.
<P>
The North Sea has a highly productive system in comparison to the Atlantic.
The total biomass of all the fish species present in the North Sea is estimated at approximately 10 million tonnes.
The annual fish catch is around 2.5 million tonnes.
It is estimated that the main species of predatory fish consume a similar quantity every year.
<P>
Commercially, the most important catches are sand eel (38 %), herring (13 %), Norway pout (10 %), sole, haddock, saithe, whiting (8 %), sprat (7 %), horse mackerel (4 %) and plaice (3 %).
<P>
The North Sea conference in Bergen established nine priorities: the reconstitution and maintenance of the reproductive biomass; a reduction in the capacity of the fishing fleet and/or fishing; the protection of juvenile fish, crustaceans and molluscs; the protection of species and habitats; protection against activities other than fishing; control and implementation; scientific, technological and economic consequences; information and participation; and greater integration of fisheries and environmental policies.
<P>
The scope of these conclusions is therefore particularly wide and may have consequences for Europe's fishermen as a whole, to the extent that they affect elements of the common fisheries policy, such as the TACs, quotas, the reduction in the capacity of the fishing fleet, net size and technical fishing measures.
<P>
All the countries involved are members of the European Union, with the exception of Norway.
We must therefore cooperate closely with Norway in order to make sure that no conflicting measures are adopted that might lead to unfair competition.
<P>
During the last part-session, we adopted an own-initiative report on the regionalisation of the CFP which introduced certain notions that we believed were open to criticism.
In fact, rather than seeing the North Sea as a regional entity, in terms of a production pool, the principle adopted was that of regionalisation based on territorial administrative regions.
The report on the Bergen conference that we are considering today clearly shows that the European Parliament's approach is unrealistic, especially if we include the zone's extension from 12 nautical miles to 24.
To my great surprise, this latter provision was adopted by certain French Members, despite the fact that it would have the effect of banning access by French fishermen to certain essential fishing areas to which they currently have access.
<P>
Piecyk report (A4-0074/99)
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Novo">
Mr President, it is a well-known fact that the construction projects relating to the trans-European transport network are virtually at a standstill as a result of a lack of political will, regardless of the many speeches of goodwill and good intentions.
That is why we are backing the amendment tabled by the rapporteur, who rejects the Commission's suggestion to revise and amend the guidelines by producing new White Papers.
<P>
We simply cannot accept the proposal that only those seaports with an annual goods turnover of at least 1.5 million tonnes can be considered as interconnection points for developing intermodal transport.
We are voting against this amendment as it will most likely be detrimental to the seaports in my country and elsewhere, condemning them to isolation and cutting them off from funding that would enable them to create intermodal systems and establish satisfactory links with the major transport networks. It would prevent them from developing on an equal footing with the others.
<P>
Proposals to extend those same criteria to seaports in the ultraperipheral regions are doubly unacceptable. They would affect, for example, the seaport of Ponta Delgada in the Azores.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Deprez">
The implementation of the single market is leading to a constant increase in mobility, especially in the transport of people and goods.
The needs of sustainable development and the Union's international commitments in this area make it essential to ensure that production of CO2 and other greenhouse gases falls.
These two factors are leading to the introduction of an integrated trans-European transport network, including an intermodal dimension which is set to develop.
<P>
Given the ever growing traffic jams that are increasingly suffocating our towns, this approach is ultimately likely to generate substantial savings, not only in terms of environmental costs but economic costs too.
<P>
I share your rapporteur's view that it is very prudent of the Commission to propose the inclusion of inland ports and intermodal terminals in addition to sea ports, as they form interconnection and transshipment points within the trans-European combined transport network.
<P>
Moreover, I fully agree that the motorway or road element providing the initial and/or final transport of goods and passengers within the trans-European combined transport network must be as short as possible.
<P>
In the interests of clarity and coherence, I also believe that Parliament should stand by its opinion that Community aid for the trans-European transport network must be allocated to port infrastructures but not extended to include superstructural investments.
The latter can be eligible for aid under the Cohesion Fund or the Structural Funds.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Girão Pereira">
I voted for the Piecyk report both for its intrinsic merit in that it clarifies the issue of the intermodal connections within Europe and, in particular, for Amendment No 13 referring to the intermodal links joining Spain and Portugal.
<P>
It seems to me both appropriate and timely to replace Essen project No 8, the Lisbon-Valladolid motorway, with the new definition to be found in this amendment.
That would provide central and northern Portugal with rail and port infrastructures as well as a complete road network once extensions have been made to the IP5 highway, which is scheduled for rapid conversion into a motorway, as planned in the annex.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Killilea">
The objective of this report is to clarify the situation of sea ports, inland ports and airports in the overall framework of the workings of trans-European transport networks.
For the internal market to operate efficiently and to ensure that all regions within the EU can compete on a competitive basis then the completion of the trans-European transport network must be made a priority for all national EU governments.
<P>
However, it is clear that European Community financing does not meet the requirements and challenges to complete trans-European transport networks despite the beneficial effect that such investments have in developing local and national economies.
It is clear that the development of such networks will create a higher number of jobs as well as put in place infrastructural projects which could improve the economic competitiveness and productivity of particular regional economies.
<P>
The European Commission commissioned a report on the issue of whether public/private sector partnerships should be given a role in the development of trans-European transport network projects within the European Union as envisaged by the Maastricht Treaty.
This report concluded that public/private partnerships would be an integral part of such developments.
The European Commission has now, quite rightly, invited Member States to identify specific projects which will be suitable for the public/private partnership approach.
Member States are invited to involve the private sector as soon as possible in the development of such infrastructural projects.
<P>
From an Irish perspective, I welcome on a broader level the initiative of the Irish Government which has sought to give private firms the opportunity to fund major public projects under the partnership approach within the workings of the Irish economy.
We must be realistic about the state of play of European Structural Fund receipts for Ireland after the conclusion of the next Community Support Framework.
In the year 2006, Ireland will be receiving only 20 % of its present allocation of EU structural funds.
The Irish Government must be innovative and proactive in devising new ways of compensating for the reduction of EU regional and cohesion fund monies.
<P>
I welcome the opportunity given to the private sector to have a tangible role in addressing how best public project initiatives and programmes which have previously been funded by EU monies can, in the future, be funded by the private sector.
<P>
Commission Neil Kinnock has already noted the role that the private sector can play in the transport sector.
Representatives of Irish and European businesses from the economic and social sectors which will be receiving a shortfall in EU structural funds should take the opportunities being afforded to them to see how best they can enter into partnership with the state for the development of their respective regions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Le Rachinel">
The situation in France is serious: our ports are less and less competitive, shipyards are closing and there are fewer and fewer seafarers.
<P>
The report by my colleague Mr Piecyk forgets that a port can only exist as part of an overall maritime chain, that is, repair, construction and trade itself.
Yet these three activities have been progressively separated to each die a slow death.
A good example of this is the independent port of Le Havre.
This is a jewel among French shipyards. It was where some of the greatest ships were built, such as the 'France' and the 'Club Med 2' - a superb cruise ship with five masts, 134 metres long, with sails measuring 2 000 m2 , and steered by computer - as well as oceanographic vessels, cable ships, ferries and, above all, liners.
<P>
But now that is all over.
Already dealt a blow in 1979 by the sale of the liner 'France', the town, with its 30 years of communist management and CGT co-management, has just lost its port which will be shutting down in two years' time.
On 9 November, the European Commission deemed illegal the FRF 1.8 thousand million in aid granted by the French Government to Le Havre's workshops and shipyards, demanding that it be returned in accordance with the rules of competition.
Anybody taking over the port would therefore have to pay this back. As you can imagine, there have been no takers.
<P>
After having destroyed our agriculture and our farmers, our public services, our textile industry, our mines and coal industry, as well as our merchant navy, Brussels has now turned to our ports and our shipbuilding industries.
Brussels is refusing to adopt a policy of European preference in the building and repair of ships flying a national flag.
Brussels is banning all state aid and subsidies aimed at bailing out companies.
Brussels is forcing any company that takes over a firm that has received aid to pay back all the public funds received.
Brussels is opening up our ports and shipyards to competition from those with cheaper labour costs.
Enough is enough; there is no doubt that this sector is going to die a slow and painful death.
<P>
We refuse to accept this.
That is why the National Front proposes a fundamental reform of the sector, a reform of the tax system for shipowners and investments in port infrastructures.
We must encourage maritime investment, either through direct aid or fiscal measures. We must protect the industrial know-how of our highly skilled workers and re-introduce Community preference for the use, construction and repair of boats flying a national flag - as the United States did long ago - while penalising by means of compensatory taxes those vessels that fail to respect these preferential measures.
With its moves towards free trade and deregulation, Brussels is trying to drown our seafarers, eliminate our workers and sink our ports.
We must resist such measures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Souchet">
The development of the trans-European transport network, as provided for by Decision 1692/96/EC, aims to set up a network of integrated multimodal infrastructures.
This is also an important area of cooperation between the Member States and the European Union.
<P>
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations naturally voted in favour of the Piecyk report, although we wondered about the length of the procedures: has the Committee on Transport not had the file since 4 March 1998?
<P>
If we are to improve the productivity of companies and permit the opening up of certain regions of the EU's Member States, we need to introduce effective, flexible and inexpensive logistical structures as quickly as possible.
We therefore regret the European Union's delay in this field which is essential for the economic activity of our regions.
<P>
We believe that the Commission's proposal is of note in terms of both its structure and the approach adopted.
<P>
In terms of structure, it is wise to include inland ports and intermodal terminals together with sea ports given that there is a close relationship between sea ports and the interconnection points which are situated inland, and this allows intermodal transport to develop.
<P>
In terms of the Commission's approach, it would seem necessary - while naturally respecting the principle of subsidiarity - to better integrate the interconnection points by including in the guidelines specific references to the interconnection points, by identifying them and by introducing new or revised specifications for projects of common interest.
<P>
Sarlis report (A4-0058/99)
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Novo">
Mr President, we have just voted against a European Parliament report on the liberalisation of the railways, an issue which, judging by what has happened in the UK, could have serious social and economic consequences for the European rail sector.
For the time being the report deals with the liberalisation of international goods transport, but there is no doubt that the aim is also to liberalise passenger transport, both domestic and international.
<P>
It opens up the possibility for any entity, person or group, not necessarily with previous experience of or links with the rail sector, to gain access to a business, regardless of their national origin and the Member State in which they are applying.
That business would enable them to use infrastructures built with state money and gain access to profitable parts of the rail network, while maintenance costs - in other words, the unprofitable aspect - would generally remain in state hands.
<P>
Instead of investing in improving the quality of public services in the various countries, linking up regions nationally and internationally - a vital task up to now and one that should continue - instead of accepting the need to modernise and rationalise the management of the railways in general in order to serve communities, instead of considering the very positive experience we have had of cooperation between public services, instead of improving the conditions of competition with other forms of transport, we are opting for unacceptable liberalisation, the consequences of which can only harm the sector as a whole.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Bébéar">
To complement the judicial process of removing frontiers and allowing the free movement of people and goods, in January 1998 we adopted the Commission's White Paper on rail transport in the European Union.
<P>
A number of key ideas were set out in the document.
The important thing at that time was to implement an ambitious and quality programme for national rail companies which were often in debt.
<P>
A year later, we are calling for the same thing: liberalisation of Europe's railways for international freight transport, then progressively for national goods transport and for international passengers.
The gradual extension we are calling for is getting off to a very timid start.
Revitalisation is more necessary now than ever before and the only way to achieve it is by extending the laws of the free market to this vital area of the economy.
<P>
Our networks are finding it very difficult to move to a European scale.
The interconnection of existing networks poses both material and legal problems.
The grand axes are not being extended and free access to rail infrastructures is not always fully applied in practice.
<P>
Our national rail companies - together with our respective governments - are finding it very difficult to distinguish between managing transport infrastructures and operating railways.
<P>
We therefore still need to plan new measures and to define additional approaches to complement the existing provisions.
The ones I see as most necessary are flexible management that is better adapted to customers and open competition in a free market.
<P>
I therefore approve this new Sarlis report because I do not believe that roads should be the only modern and competitive infrastructures.
Rail has a fundamental role to play, especially on the eve of enlargement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Bernardini">
After the White Paper entitled 'A strategy for revitalising the Community's railways', the European Commission is now proposing an 'infrastructure' package, that is, a package allowing us to modify existing directives.
What is its aim?
Essentially, it is designed to divide up the railway market and thereby speed up the move towards the liberalisation of goods transport.
<P>
We cannot accept this under the present circumstances.
Why seek at any price to redefine Directive 91/440 without even agreeing to first assess it?
Between 1985 and 1995, 500 000 jobs were lost in this sector.
How can we possibly believe that the Commission's proposal to liberalise the market will provide an effective solution for the railway sector?
We are not fierce opponents of the concept of liberalisation when it is well measured and well considered.
But in this case it is a matter of advocating blind competition, of opening up the lines to organisations other than the railway companies.
And what about passenger safety?
What are going to be the respective responsibilities of these newcomers and the railway companies?
<P>
The rail sector needs new impetus and we must encourage what is already taking place, namely, cooperation between national networks.
With the help of the reports submitted for our scrutiny, the Commission is giving a free hand to the implosion of this sector, and that is something we cannot accept.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Caudron">
Yesterday's debates on the liberalisation of the railways were particularly important.
While not denying the solid work done by Pavlos Sarlis and Hannes Swoboda, I strongly oppose the Commission's desire to impose a uniform liberal system on the railway sector.
<P>
It is not for us to question the forced march of the British towards the complete deregulation of their rail network, but the experience has clearly been a failure, from the point of view of both the consumers and the operators.
For the former, this privatisation has not led to the improvements previously heralded.
For the latter, the initial birth of several operators is now giving way to the reconcentration of the sector in the hands of a single company.
<P>
Although I accept that certain services cannot be run by the public sector alone, I believe that in the case of rail transport, only the public sector can absorb the costs of this operation which directly affects large numbers of people, falls within the scope of town and country planning and has many consequences for the environment.
When it comes to freight transport and the transport of certain sensitive goods in particular, the public sector is best placed to guarantee safety due to its status and its ethics.
<P>
Finally, the proposals submitted to us, which threaten to dismantle the very nature of universal service, forget two things.
The first is that the government will have to bear the cost of infrastructure investments, which means that it is the tax-payer who will initially pay.
The second is that if the operator is going to be able to satisfy its shareholders, it is going to have to make a profit.
We are therefore deluding ourselves if we believe that the consumer will see any reduction in fares.
On the contrary, he will often pay more as a result of higher fares.
These arguments may perhaps cause some people to smile.
But I believe that they cannot simply be brushed aside.
<P>
I shall therefore vote against these two reports and would call on the Commission to put forward new proposals that are more realistic.
There must be no more cursory deregulation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Deprez">
As it seeks to increase the share of the railway sector in the transport of goods and persons, the liberalisation of rail transport naturally relates to sustainable development and respect for the European Union's international commitments in terms of environmental protection.
<P>
As our rapporteur pointed out, the European Parliament's wish, as expressed in its resolution of 13 January 1998, is indeed to achieve the widest possible liberalisation of rail transport, even if this should take place in successive stages.
<P>
It is therefore very unfortunate that the Commission is making no proposals to this effect.
The liberalisation of rail transport principally rests on two pillars, which must be acted on as quickly as possible.
<P>
The first is the need to institutionally separate the business of operating rail services from that of maintaining railway infrastructures.
<P>
The second is the need to open up access to national networks under fair conditions and to grant the right of transit to new operators in order to allow them to face their competitors on an equal footing.
<P>
In this respect, our rapporteur's amendments go in the right direction and are perfectly in keeping with the route outlined by Parliament.
Liberalisation must not of course result in reduced safety for railway users.
On the contrary, the very highest levels of passenger safety must be achieved.
<P>
It is therefore essential - and on this point I totally agree with the rapporteur - that those who manage the rail infrastructures take responsibility for operating and supervising the safety systems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Donnay">
The challenges linked to developing the single market for rail transport warrant an in-depth analysis.
Today's debate is therefore very welcome.
<P>
There is indeed a very real need to revitalise rail transport in Europe, and goods transport in particular.
Among other things, rail transport can reduce the nuisance caused by road transport.
<P>
But ideology - I would not go so far as to say dogmatism or excess - must not result in a total disruption of the rail sector.
I am thinking in particular of the desire for liberalisation, as proposed or sought by the Commission.
<P>
I am aware of the extent to which the Commission is committed to the virtues of competition.
But in this instance, excessive development of intermodal competition would most certainly prove damaging to the rail sector as a whole.
That does not mean that nothing should be done, that the status quo is a solution.
On the contrary, we should prepare the rail sector to face its own future.
That is why the market may be opened up, but progressively and between equals who must bear the same responsibilities.
<P>
The provisions relating to authorised candidates, which provide simple intermediaries with the power to reserve capacities, are a threat to the railways.
They actually introduce discrimination between the players: rail undertakings would continue to bear investment costs, and often the debts of the past, while being relegated to the role of a sub-contractor vis-à-vis these new intermediaries, which would be free to select the most profitable market segments.
If the Member States want to allow companies other than rail undertakings to reserve rail capacities, then let them do so by means of their national legislation.
They do not need the authorisation of a directive.
<P>
I would like to end by reminding you that rail undertakings are not just commercial companies. They also fulfil a public service role and play an important part in town and country planning.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Fayot">
Everyone today agrees that for transporting people and goods over short and medium distances, the railway is an instrument of the future more than ever before.
That is why it must be developed, modernised and adapted commercially to stand up to the fierce competition from the road network.
<P>
The decline of railways over recent years, and goods transport in particular, is very evident.
Faced with this situation, European policy has been to liberalise the railways.
Since the early 1990s, a whole series of first generation directives have contributed to this.
Some of these have yet to be fully transposed into the legislation of all the Member States.
<P>
Before moving any further in this direction we must therefore take stock of the present situation and assess the effectiveness of the decisions taken to liberalise and internally reorganise public services.
<P>
Yet the Commission is already seeking to take liberalisation even further and to totally open up goods transport by rail to competition, when liberalisation has to date been limited to combined transport.
The Commission believes that logistics companies should also have access to railway infrastructures.
<P>
Railways must clearly be made more competitive in comparison to roads.
Their very survival depends on this.
However, to totally open up the railways to competition risks dismantling the public service, not to mention the fact that the system established by the directives to allocate rail infrastructure capacities is both costly and bureaucratic.
Those in charge must be independent of the railway company, and there must be a supervisory body to control all elements.
<P>
I therefore share the opinion of Mr Wibe, the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, when he states that 'The cost of increased administrative burden in the Member States could easily outweigh the benefits in terms of increased efficiency'.
<P>
It is for this reason that I am voting against the Sarlis and Swoboda reports.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Grossetête and Verwaerde">
We would like to express our satisfaction today with the two texts proposed by the Committee on Transport and Tourism concerning the 1991 directive on the development of the railways and the 1995 directives on the licensing of railway undertakings, and the allocation of railway infrastructure capacity and the charging of infrastructure fees.
The two rapporteurs should be congratulated on their excellent work.
<P>
These directives are a step in the right direction.
After having liberalised air transport and the gas and electricity market, the European Union could not ignore the railways for much longer.
Rail transport, which is very frequently used in Europe, has been experiencing a serious crisis for some years.
After having tried planned methods - nationalisation of railway undertakings, public status for employees, inflexibility within the market, significant deficits, and so on - which proved catastrophic in the Member States as a whole, the only way to now revitalise the railways is through liberalisation and a return to the market realities.
In this respect, some Member States have been able to react quicker than others and we must draw inspiration from the successful experiences in each of the Union's Member States.
<P>
Europe's consumers are demanding when it comes to both safety and also quality, particularly in terms of delays, prices, services, and so on.
Over recent years they have tended to move away from this form of transport.
Today we must give rail the means to regain a potentially large customer base.
<P>
This liberalisation must naturally be progressive and take place in stages, as our two rapporteurs have indicated.
The railways are a form of transport for the future for passengers and goods.
But there is more to it than that. Rail transport makes a major contribution to town and country planning and plays a very important role in rural and isolated regions, for example.
Moreover, in the fight against air pollution, rail - and the combined transport of goods in particular - is a political choice that we have always defended.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Lienemann">
I am opposed to opening up rail transport to competition and to the deregulation proposed by the Commission and the Council.
<P>
The Amsterdam Treaty refers to general interest services but there is in fact no directive that defines its framework or guarantees the logic of public service, namely, equal access by people and territories to rail transport infrastructures and services on the one hand, and the adjustment of costs that guarantees the right to transport and movement on the other.
In the absence of such a framework, liberalisation is dangerous even if it is gradual.
It will increase the inequalities between the regions and the people of Europe, dismantle public services and, in most cases, be accompanied by a deterioration of social conditions for the workers in question.
<P>
Europe's trade unions representing the rail transport sector were right to express their opposition to this plan.
Unfortunately, the areas that have already been liberalised have experienced a deterioration in the service to users, particularly the more modest of them.
<P>
I will be voting against the Sarlis and Swoboda reports and the related proposals for a directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Lindholm">
Some liberalisation of the rail sector has already taken place, but without any proper evaluation exercise having been carried out.
Nevertheless, we know that in many cases the experience has not been especially encouraging.
Before any further steps are taken, the long-term implications of directives that are now in force and the effects they have produced must be considered.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Porto">
Without questioning the philosophy of free enterprise in the use of rail infrastructures, we have to be realistic and realise that while agreeing in principle, it is vital to have attractive conditions for the exploitation of those services.
<P>
That being so, the sine qua non for those attractive conditions to exist must be modern infrastructures, and these can hardly be expected to exist in a country like mine where, for decades, nobody believed in trains and road transport won a huge advantage.
<P>
The railways have to be seen as a means of transport that is closely linked to others, since that is the only way to guarantee users satisfactory services and to ensure that all means of transport achieve maximum profitability.
For example, to take an issue in the news at the moment, it is inconceivable that a new airport is being built that will not be served directly by a major rail link, thus, incredibly, making access for over 10 million passengers a year possible only by road.
<P>
But what is at stake here is not only the existence of railway lines, however modern. It is equally vital to have a regular rail service, one that can only be provided by intercity rail links linking conurbations that have several million inhabitants.
Otherwise, in the case of a thinly populated hinterland near an airport, we inevitably fall into the vicious circle of laying on fewer trains because of the lack of demand (only or nearly only airport users), which then puts people off using the trains because they are so infrequent (after all, nobody wants to wait an hour for a train after a one and a half hour flight).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Reding">
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Schlechter">
We have discussed three proposals for moving towards a liberalised rail system.
<P>
Although I too believe that going back to the railway policies of the past is no longer an option, as a politician and trade unionist the various strategies for moving towards greater liberalisation fill me with fear for the future.
<P>
After all, the heritage of a hundred years is being broken into pieces here, and we do need to ask ourselves whether the Commission's policy - which always sees the liberalisation of the national and international economy as the only answer - is the right one, because where this policy leads is best illustrated by the example of a country with a highly developed rail system, such as Germany.
There is simply no end to the series of train accidents there; this shows that making savings in the wrong place can be rather expensive and, even worse, that the staffing cuts which the railway companies have been forced to make are being made at the expense of safety.
<P>
Although Luxembourg was one of the countries which had the most to lose from a decline in rail traffic, it has held on to its railways, modernised them and downsized, in the only operation of its kind in Europe, and yet at the same time care was taken to ensure that no social hardship was suffered.
And is all of this now supposed to have been in vain?
<P>
We are right to ask why directives such as Directive 91/440, which has not even been transposed in all the countries yet, should now be hastily amended and whipped through Parliament and the Council of Ministers, and why they have not been given a longer trial.
<P>
In general, it seems to me that the Commission has once again been too perfectionist.
What is the point of having separate accounts for freight and passenger transport?
Instead of simplifying matters, this is once again increasing bureaucracy.
<P>
It is true that there are proposals on the independent management of railway undertakings, on debt remission and the improved management of public finances, but at the same time the governments are reminded of their duty to guarantee access rights to international groupings for international rail transport.
<P>
On top of this, even at this early stage when the discussions have not even been concluded, the Commission is also being asked to take action on route pricing.
Does that mean that in the not too distant future, prices on routes through Luxembourg are to be calculated on the basis of the cheapest supplier?
If so, then some interesting pay negotiations are in store for the unions.
<P>
At present, the impact of the new measures seems impossible to assess.
But a desire to ensure optimal infrastructure use is not, on its own, sufficient to yield improvements.
<P>
The best example of this are the 'freeways', which were announced with great ceremony.
Large maps were unveiled showing 25 of these lines, only seven of which are in operation, however.
And that too is only because the smallest railway company, the Luxembourg one, brought all its diplomatic skill to bear in the 'bureau unique '.
The various railway companies have proved here by their exemplary cooperation that they can achieve something across borders.
<P>
Whether the Commission's interfering in this way will improve matters, I have my doubts.
In any case, I do welcome the fact that the majority of the European Parliament has spoken out in favour of a more moderate approach and is proposing that the new directives should be introduced progressively - and this in spite of the Commission's negative stance.
<P>
I shall therefore be voting against the Sarlis and Swoboda reports.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Theonas">
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Wibe">
I have voted against this report because I consider that the Commission's proposals would lead to over-regulation of the rail sector, which would in turn be detrimental to its commercial viability.
In my view, it is not possible to increase efficiency by force through a surfeit of minor regulations emanating from Brussels.
<P>
Swoboda report (A4-0059/99)
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Alavanos">
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Lindholm">
Development of the rail sector and greater cooperation are both desirable and necessary, particularly from an environmental point of view.
The ever-increasing volume of traffic on our roads brings with it an increase in the number of road traffic accidents and the human tragedies that ensue.
<P>
However, the Commission's proposals do not provide a solution to the problem. On the one hand, they represent further liberalisation and increased competition within the rail sector and, on the other, vice-like control and detailed regulation.
In my view, it is absurd for decisions on changes to train schedules, the drawing-up of discount schemes, reservation charges and so on to be taken at EU level.
<P>
The railways play a tremendously important role in large and sparsely populated countries such as Sweden.
For obvious reasons, certain sections of the railway network have never been profitable, but it is still essential for the traffic on them to be maintained if the main objective is to ensure that the whole country 'lives'.
The future of the rail sector must therefore be discussed thoroughly in the Member States themselves before any further directives are adopted at EU level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Lindqvist">
In view of the fact that transport networks cross borders, there is a need for cooperation in the framing of transport policy, which also includes rail transport.
<P>
However, this report is far too detailed, particularly when it descends to the level of timetables.
I have therefore voted against paragraph 21 in the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Wibe">
I have voted against this report because I consider that the Commission's proposals would lead to over-regulation of the rail sector, which would in turn be detrimental to its commercial viability.
In my view, it is not possible to increase efficiency by force through a surfeit of minor regulations emanating from Brussels.
<P>
Tamino report (A4-0101/99)
<SPEAKER ID=97 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Mr President, the Tamino report is extremely important in that it describes how the increased use of electrical appliances, computers and cellular phones has led to the presence of more sources of microwaves and electromagnetic fields in the environment.
How radiation from these appliances affects people's health in the short and long term is something we know very little about.
One might say that we are guinea pigs in our own development.
Nevertheless, we suspect that radiation can cause cancer, changes in the workings of the nervous and immune systems, cell activity and so on.
<P>
The conclusions reached by the Commission and the committee of experts are clearly at odds with a large number of scientific publications, which have been ignored in the Commission's proposal.
In its recommendation to the Member States, the Commission states that there is no convincing evidence to suggest that extremely low-level magnetic fields cause genetic damage and that they are therefore unlikely to lead to the onset of cancer.
In fact, it is not possible to make such an assertion when no one really knows the answers, and when there are others who take a different view.
In this case, the precautionary principle must be applied.
According to the World Health Organisation, it is not possible to guarantee that electromagnetic fields do not cause harm, and people are becoming increasingly concerned.
<P>
Italy, Luxembourg and Sweden all have stricter provisions than those proposed by the Commission.
We should be following this path too, until our knowledge is more complete.
Therefore, the precautionary principle must be applied.
We should lay down minimum safety distances from housing and workplaces for the siting of structures which generate electromagnetic fields.
<P>
I sincerely regret that we have not adopted all the amendments tabled by the Greens as well as by Mr Tamino, in particular those relating to safeguards and quality criteria for the long-term effects of electromagnetic radiation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Bonde and Sandbæk">
The Commission's recommendation for limiting the exposure of the public to electromagnetic fields is concerned with avoiding recognised acute effects of using such things as telephone equipment and electronic equipment, and the acute effect of the growing number of high-voltage transmission lines in residential areas.
Generally speaking, the June Movement is a great supporter of applying the precautionary principle.
However, we also think that the application of the precautionary principle should be critically assessed case by case.
And in this case, we have come to the conclusion that the European Parliament should resist the desire for very restrictive recommendations in this area.
<P>
In his work on the report, Mr Tamino wanted to take into account the possible long-term effects of magnetic fields.
This topic has attracted the interest of the general public for many years and has been the subject of intense research over the past 20 years.
However, it has not been scientifically proven that there are health effects, such as the development of cancer, in the long term.
At the moment, large-scale research projects are being carried out to assess the significance of electromagnetic fields in the development of cancers, for example.
We therefore believe that it is inappropriate to react to isolated studies, and that the EU should wait for the imminent completion of the WHO's major evaluation project, amongst others, before embarking on legislation dealing with possible long-term effects.
Research in this area, such as that carried out by the Anti-Cancer Association in Denmark, is very extensive, and on the basis of the results of this research, we unfortunately cannot support Mr Tamino's very restrictive amendments.
If the research results expected soon from the WHO and others provide supporting evidence, we would of course be glad to assist in legislation to protect people against possible long-term effects.
But until then, we will stand by the advice we have received from the Anti-Cancer Association.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Deprez">
Nobody in this House can reasonably dispute the fact that the health of our populations and the protection of consumers and the environment are major concerns which must guide our thoughts and our actions.
<P>
Nor can anyone claim that our societies could do without electrical energy and the electromagnetic fields it creates without suffering catastrophic results.
Our task is therefore to ensure that its use is nevertheless accompanied by the harmonising and preventive measures needed to protect our populations.
<P>
It is therefore essential that our decisions be accompanied by all the necessary scientific precautions.
<P>
I therefore share the views of our rapporteur.
Protection measures must be regularly updated and reassessed in the light of the increase in our scientific knowledge and the patterns of usage of energy transport systems and types of device likely to increase the exposure of consumers and the population to electromagnetic fields. This is not to impede technological progress, but to optimise the benefits by constantly reducing the risks.
<P>
Given the current absence of a single Europe-wide system for measuring the conformity of devices and the need to introduce a uniform control system which is not an obstacle to the single market, it is wise to call on the Commission to propose in the very near future a system to continuously review devices that generate magnetic fields which takes account of their relative intensity and the actual length of time they are used.
<P>
I will therefore support the proposal for a recommendation, as amended.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling">
We voted in favour of the Tamino report on restricting exposure to electromagnetic fields, both because we agree with what it says and because we wish to highlight the importance of laying down rules that will not result in Sweden having to make its own rules any less exacting.
The Commission's proposal gives rise to such a possibility, since it contains less stringent rules than those currently in force in Sweden; Italy and Luxembourg are in the same situation.
<P>
We should also like to say that we are most surprised that the Swedish Government, in the Council of Ministers, according to the minutes of 5 February, did not support Italy's demand for a tightening-up of the rules relating to both the short-term thermal effects and the long-term risks, for example of cancer, which largely corresponds with the Tamino report.
On the contrary, it seems that Sweden, in some instances, recommended a watering-down of the Commission's text.
We find this remarkable in the extreme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Lindqvist">
The report is extremely important from an environmental point of view, but it also contains a great deal of detail.
Nevertheless, I think that the environmental aspects should prevail, and I have therefore voted in favour of the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Manisco">
One of the most alarming aspects of this matter is the fact that the text produced by our rapporteur, Gianni Tamino, once again criticises the Commission's inability to respect the public.
Scientists tell us - albeit still without total certainty - how hazardous both high and low-frequency electromagnetic waves are to human health; and yet the Commission simply denies the existence of any such danger, thereby reneging on its duty pursuant to Article 130r of the Treaties to formulate policies to protect human health.
And yet the people of Volturno cannot sleep at night because of the repeaters located above their heads.
<P>
The Commission's main aim is to safeguard the profits of its industrial overlords, and public health is an optional extra!
<P>
How can it refuse to define limits to protect consumers?
Why not make it compulsory to label products, indicating the dangers deriving from electromagnetic waves and giving instructions for use?
For example, why not label hair-driers, explaining that it is safer to use them as far as possible from one's head?
Or microwave ovens, simply advising people to stand a few metres away while they are in operation?
Why not inform people that prolonged use of mobile phones could damage their brain cells?
The very thought that the profits of telecommunications companies might be dented is a deadly sin to you, the priests of the god Market.
We Italian Communists, on the other hand, consider public health to be paramount.
<P>
Needle report (A4-0082/99)
<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schleicher">
Mr President, the Amsterdam Treaty sets new standards for health policy in Europe.
The Commission has provided us with information on this.
Some aspects of the approach adopted in the Needle report are good, but in other places it oversteps the mark.
The fact that there are unsuccessful health policies in some Member States is no reason for shifting the responsibility to European level.
That is why I have voted against the Needle report.
We must use the little money we have in Europe for specific projects, and not distribute it here, there and everywhere.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Bébéar">
The Treaty of Amsterdam will reform many previously traditional procedures and, above all, in accordance with the new Article 152, it should make it easier to achieve a level of convergence in the health sector.
<P>
Community public health policy needs to be somewhat adapted in line with new priorities and new structures.
The serious 'mad cow' crisis unfortunately brought home to us the importance of improving the information distributed when it comes to promoting public health.
Collecting data on the health of the people of Europe is more useful today than it has ever been before.
Disseminating the subsequent analyses has become essential, not only for the general public but also for the professionals who need to make changes to their national health systems.
<P>
On that basis, we can promote and consolidate the activities of the Member States in the various fields and disseminate information on the best practices.
<P>
But it is not enough to merely provide information.
We must also react quicker to health threats.
Speed is a crucial factor in medicine and one which requires increased monitoring and the introduction of new forms of coordination within the Community.
This would involve many fields: rare diseases, food safety, blood safety, ecological threats, the side effects of medicinal products, etcetera.
<P>
We could also give more consideration to the unique medical situations in each of the Member States and implement appropriate policies, particularly for problems such as drug addiction, cardio-vascular diseases, nutritional problems, and so on.
<P>
I therefore approve the Needle report due to the way in which it has been able to turn to good account the beneficial effects of the Maastricht Treaty in the crucial field of public health.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Chanterie">
Health protection is a fundamental right recognised in the European Social Charter (Article 11) and an objective enshrined in the Treaty (Article 3).
<P>
Community action is therefore justified, in so far as cross-border aspects are concerned.
Just as water or air pollution has consequences which are not confined to one Member State or another, similarly viruses, bacteria, microbes and other pathogens are not discouraged by national borders.
Just as environmental policy has a cross-border dimension, public health policy has a European dimension.
<P>
The need then is to distinguish clearly between what should and what should not be covered by Community action.
The relevant articles here are Article 52 (formerly 129) on public health and Article 5 (formerly 39(b)) - plus a protocol and two declarations - on subsidiarity and proportionality.
Both talk of complementary Community action consisting on the one hand of policy measures and on the other hand of cooperation by Member States and with third countries or international organisations.
But Member States must fully discharge their 'responsibilities... for the organisation and delivery of health services and medical care'.
This means that the role of public health systems and the provision of medical services as such is not a European responsibility.
<P>
When the rapporteur calls in paragraph 6 for 'a prime objective of Community action to be focused on fostering equality in health', he is overstepping the boundaries not only of subsidiarity, but also the letter and spirit of the Treaty.
Firstly, there is no legal basis for that kind of measure.
Secondly, 'equality in health' is not a Treaty objective.
The Treaty speaks of 'ensuring a high level of health protection'.
The Treaty also says that Community action must be directed towards the improvement of public health and the prevention of human diseases, in particular the major health scourges.
So the stated aim is not maximum equality in public health, but as high a level of human health protection as is possible.
And that kind of aspiration is dangerous, because equality is attained not only by raising poor standards but also by lowering good ones.
<P>
I would therefore urge the rapporteur to withdraw the first part of paragraph 6 in order to avoid a split vote on this demand, which is meaningless in terms of the Treaty.
<P>
Of course, it could be said that a subsequent Treaty revision may address a problem of this kind.
But we are not talking today about a mandate for an intergovernmental conference.
The Commission says after all that its communication contains no new proposals for a new Community policy on public health.
In the communication it notes 'disturbing inequalities in health status between social classes', but makes no suggestions at all for remedying that state of affairs.
Understandably so, since the Commission does not have a leg to stand on - legally or politically - when it comes to preventing and combating social inequality in European health.
<P>
We must not be reactionary.
The Maastricht Treaty includes a separate title on public health, and the Court of Justice, with the Decker and Kohll judgments, has ruled on the Community dimension of certain social security services.
So there is some leverage in favour of a European health policy.
But we must not go too far and outrun or circumvent the Treaty.
Rather than making plans for an intergovernmental conference even before the Amsterdam Treaty has been ratified, we must first of all apply that Treaty in such a way that the European citizen above all benefits by it.
It is his taxes which are being spent, and it is his health which is at issue here.
<P>
People expect cross-border health hazards to be tackled effectively, and therefore at European level.
Cross-border health hazards have increased considerably as a result of trade and mobility - both recreational and occupational.
<P>
Food and food poisoning come from factors not only at home but also abroad.
Thus BSE, salmonella, antibiotics and hormones threaten to invade our food and our bodies too.
Health protection is therefore unquestionably an issue of consumer policy as well.
And consumer policy, like public health, is a title in the Treaty.
<P>
The Maastricht Treaty laid the basis for a European contribution to consumer and health protection.
The Amsterdam Treaty has broadened and adapted that basis.
So for the most part, we must make do with what we have.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="Deprez">
An effective health policy cannot reasonably be envisaged without taking a look at all the other policies implemented by the European Union and the Member States.
The Treaty of Amsterdam is therefore right in stating that a high level of health protection must be guaranteed when defining and implementing all the Community's policies and actions that are likely to affect health, and in subsequently defining the role of the Member States in organising and supplying health services and medical care.
<P>
This issue is so important that it may even be appropriate to set up a directorate-general specifically responsible for managing the various aspects of public health policy, including questions relating to resources and health expertise.
<P>
It is also an area in which the principle of subsidiarity must be fully applied.
There is therefore no question of the Union replacing the Member States in the field of health.
Its role must be to support and complement the action of the Member States.
<P>
That is why I am also of the opinion that in addition to the search for greater consistency with socio-economic policies and programmes, Community action in the field of health must also make it a priority to actively promote real equality between people in terms of free movement.
<P>
To achieve this objective it will be necessary to combat inequalities and fight for equal access to health care for all. We will also have to increase the scope for health professionals to improve their knowledge and practical skills, perhaps even by creating priority health areas.
In addition, we must provide the population with better information on the inherent risks of their lifestyle and diet, while actively preventing the causes of illnesses.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Lindholm">
With regard to public health, according to Article 152 of the Treaty, Community action should 'complement national policies'.
There clearly seems to be a danger that, in setting its sights so high, the Community believes that it should take over the Member States' responsibility, instead of merely complementing it.
A telling example of this is to be found in the proposal to appoint a Commissioner and establish a directorate-general with responsibility for health, which would encompass all aspects of public health policy.
<P>
It should be made abundantly clear that overall responsibility for people's health, including the political and economic aspects, rests with the various Member States.
The European Union should perform a complementary role and not try to usurp the Member States' responsibility.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Lindqvist">
In general terms, social policy should be a national responsibility.
However, health is often an aspect of both social and environmental issues.
This makes it hard to distinguish clearly between what constitutes a national question and what should be decided at European level.
<P>
I support the report in so far as it sets out to improve public health.
Cooperation between the Member States, and indeed worldwide, needs to be strengthened in order to improve the health of men, women and children.
Nevertheless, the relevant legislation and its implementation should in the first instance be dealt with at national level.
Minimum standards of care can be a way of resolving questions where a clear-cut decision is difficult, but those countries with higher standards should be allowed to keep them.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 12.50 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
EU Mediterranean policy
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0042/99 by Mr Colajanni, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the Commission communication: 'The role of the European Union in the peace process and its future assistance to the Middle East' (COM(97)0715 - C4-0114/98); -A4-0095/99 by Mr Sakellariou, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a recommendation to the Council on the European Union's Mediterranean policy.
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Colajanni">
Mr President, this House, which has always followed events in the Middle East with attention, dedication and passion, does not need to be told how critical the present situation is, not just because the peace process has been on hold for 18 months and because the painstakingly achieved Wye Plantation agreement has not been implemented, but also because of the continued building of new settlements and the non-completion of the corridor which is supposed to link the West Bank to Gaza, not to mention the matter of the airport, the port and the prisoners: the causes of contention are legion.
I would point out above all that the outcome of the Israeli elections will be crucial.
It is not up to us to tell that country what type of government to vote in; naturally we hope to see a victory for parties which desire peace or can put together a grand coalition that is not influenced by extremist groups.
<P>
Circumstances in the region as a whole are worrying: nothing has been settled in Lebanon or Syria, and nor is any headway being made on implementing the Barcelona agreement and process, because it is quite impossible to contemplate a massive programme of investment if there is no security for individuals.
The Palestinians are in an untenable situation.
Huge efforts have been made by the EU over the past few years, without which the Palestinian Authority could not have been formed; the Palestinian Authority owes its existence to the European Union.
Our assistance has been vital to the survival of the Palestinian Authority and also to the life of the Palestinian people, especially in Gaza, a tiny patch of land where a million people live as if in a sort of concentration camp.
Even though our assistance has been granted under extremely difficult and quite abnormal economic circumstances, it must continue.
Is it fair to demand that the Commission guarantee transparency and combat waste and fraud?
Much has been done in this regard, but it is unfair to ignore the fact that any action carried out in that region is hampered by security measures and other constraints which defy economic reason.
Unless we understand this, we cannot understand what has been achieved there.
<P>
I shall now turn to a particularly sensitive matter.
We must realise that we have both asked and obtained a great deal from the Palestinians: free and democratic elections which are a model for many free countries in the region; the nullification of the PLO Charter provision pledging to destroy Israel; an intensification of the fight against terrorism; a curbing of Hamas activity. We are rightly continuing to demand more democracy and lawfulness within the Palestinian Authority.
Now, however, we must ask one more thing of the Palestinians, and this is the key point of my resolution.
The date of 4 May is a landmark which could prove disastrous.
We must now ask the Palestinians to make one last effort, namely to turn back the clock, to postpone their unilateral declaration of independence.
But we must give them a good reason to do so, and I believe that a solemn political undertaking must be made by the guarantors, by which I mean the United States, European Union, Russia - in other words, the major Oslo powers.
We must issue a binding political statement confirming the aims of the Oslo accords and, above all, guaranteeing that the Palestinian people will retain their full right to self-determination beyond the deadline of 4 May 1999, which was set five years ago in Oslo.
<P>
I believe that the Palestinians understand the sensitivity of this situation and are awaiting a move from their main partners in dialogue and international guarantors.
Furthermore, in my opinion they realise that a unilateral declaration of independence on 4 May could provoke a reaction from the Israelis - as already announced - and that such a reaction would damage the peace process.
I believe they understand that such a step could bring victory at the Israeli elections for parties hostile to the peace process, and are therefore disposed to put back the date.
But an initiative is required from the EU, the USA and Russia, and this is the most useful thing that can be done at present for the Middle East peace process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Sakellariou">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, the Euro-Mediterranean partnership, which began so promisingly at the Barcelona Conference in November 1995, has today not yet really got underway, having been in existence unofficially for three and a half years.
I have presented two previous reports to the House on the Euro-Mediterranean partnership, which led to corresponding resolutions by the European Parliament on 11 October 1995, shortly before the Barcelona Conference, and on 13 March 1997, shortly before the Malta Conference.
I am pleased to say that in both cases the European Parliament voted by an overwhelming majority in favour of the proposals put forward, and I hope that this time too our position will be adopted by a similar majority.
<P>
What we have before us this time is a recommendation to the Council, which has deliberately been kept very short so as not to repeat the proposals of the two previous resolutions, which are already known and have been adopted.
I would like to draw your attention to four points, Mr President-in-Office, and I would ask you to comment on these.
<P>
Firstly, the deadlock caused by the Netanyahu government in the Middle East peace process has also had a very negative influence on the Barcelona process.
Mr Colajanni has just spoken about the Middle East peace process, so I do not need to explain this further.
If we wish to take the Euro-Mediterranean partnership forward we must also take on a more active role in the Middle East peace process.
I am not referring to our financial role, as in terms of payment we are top of the league.
I am referring to the political area of the negotiations, where our envoy, Miguel Angel Moratinos, must finally be allowed to sit at the negotiating table in the peace talks.
<P>
Secondly, we must involve the whole of the Mediterranean area in the partnership, leaving no gaps along its shores.
So I agree with my colleagues from the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Forum that Libya should also be invited to participate.
In my opinion, the recent developments in resolving the Lockerbie problem have created more favourable conditions which might allow Libya to be invited to the next conference.
<P>
The Balkan states, which were not able to be present from the beginning, should also be invited, at least as observers this first time.
Increasing the number of participants could prove to be a positive development by providing the conference with fresh momentum.
<P>
Thirdly, we need new impetus not only in terms of participants but also in terms of content.
In the area of security policy in particular, we could present old proposals in Stuttgart, such as confidence-building measures and a stability pact for the Mediterranean, and new proposals, for example arms limitation and disarmament agreements.
We could also breathe new life into the Barcelona process in the area of domestic policy by including immigration issues.
<P>
My final point concerns the indebtedness of the countries concerned.
We were prepared to commit a very considerable sum to this Mediterranean policy, but any investment or efforts here will be fruitless unless we can agree on a reasonable way to write off their debts beforehand.
I am thinking here of Chancellor Schröder's proposal at the G8 summit that the money repaid as debt write-off could at the same time be used and invested for the development of the countries in question.
<P>
If we try to take this approach, to give the process new momentum, Stuttgart could actually be a success.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Tomlinson">
Mr President, the politics of the Middle East have long been a matter of prime concern to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, and I wish to congratulate Mr Colajanni on his excellent report.
<P>
However, the concern in the House extends far beyond the Foreign Affairs Committee, and during the last year the Committee on Budgets has been heavily involved in the future regulations for financing the Middle East peace process and eventually, when Commissioner Marin himself became involved in this process, we saw the results of excellent cooperation between the Commissioner and the Committee on Budgets.
<P>
Equally, the Committee on Budgetary Control has long had a deep interest, a concern that arises from the fact that something in the order of 54 cents in the dollar of the Middle East peace process is financed by the European Union budget.
In a very difficult political situation it is nevertheless part of our responsibility in the Committee on Budgetary Control to ensure that the European taxpayer gets value for money, as well as the resources put there by the taxpayer having maximum political effect in the peace process.
To that end, inevitably the opinion of the Committee on Budgetary Control raises the critical points rather than the complimentary ones.
<P>
I should like here and now to say that we have been more than pleased with the cooperation we have had from Commissioner Marin, who has answered a very detailed series of questions, followed up by a very detailed set of supplementary questions on a number of the problems that arise in the Middle East from the implementation of the process and that we are very grateful for the cooperation we are seeing from the Commission for a small mission from the Committee on Budgetary Control that will visit the Middle East, particularly to see the value-for-money questions in the Occupied Territories.
It will obviously be at that time that we will make a final judgement on the value-for-money questions and that will be done in the context of the discharge procedure.
<P>
Meanwhile, we congratulate Mr Colajanni on his report, we raise the critical questions about the quality of expenditure and we congratulate Commissioner Marin personally on the way in which he has engaged himself with the Committee on Budgetary Control and with the delegation in trying to ensure that we report properly to Parliament in terms of discharge.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Samland">
Mr President, Mr Tomlinson has already mentioned the points that we have been discussing in great detail in recent weeks, particularly in connection with his report on the Palestinian issue and the new rules which we have fortunately been able to put together in a joint package with the Council and the Commission.
With the exception of the points that we had asked the Commission to change once again, we are satisfied with its proposal, which has now eliminated the problem areas that we raised in the debate.
<P>
Nevertheless, I would like to take this opportunity to mention two points once again.
Firstly, this is a programme that involves partners whose expenditure in the course of the year is very difficult to estimate at the beginning of the year.
It is not like the usual Community programmes, where we can calculate exactly what resources are needed.
As a result, there is a backlog of funds, in other words funds were earmarked which were subsequently not used and these are now left over.
<P>
However, what we need - and I know how difficult this is, as we also attempted to improve this procedure in cooperation with the Commission - is a more reliable procedure, including in terms of the anticipated expenditure in a particular financial year.
I would therefore ask the Commission to try to provide us with greater certainty in planning and implementation in the course of the year.
If you look at when the funds were used, you can see that a considerable percentage were not used until the last few weeks of the year.
However, in accordance with the Notenboom Procedure, October is the latest we can carry over funds not used in the current year.
We therefore need greater assurance from you in future: immediately after the summer break we need you to give us a summary of how much money is still expected to be spent, as we both know that last year we again had to forfeit funds because they were not going to be used in the few remaining weeks before Christmas.
<P>
I know that this is a big problem, especially for partners whom we simply have to deal with differently than we do within the Community; however, we will not be able to avoid this problem, and we do not want to weigh ourselves down with a huge burden for the future.
I would therefore urge that this should be taken into account in the report in future, and this is the purpose of the amendment by the Committee on Budgets.
We have also included it in our opinion on the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the presidency welcomes the fact that today the European Parliament is looking in depth at the Middle East and the role of the European Union in the Middle East peace process.
As you know, the European Union is a resolute supporter of the peace process in accordance with the Oslo and Madrid agreements.
<P>
In 1996 the European Union appointed the Spanish Ambassador, Mr Moratinos, as the EU's special envoy for the Middle East peace process.
Since then Mr Moratinos has dedicated himself with great energy and initiative to the aim of bringing the peace negotiations to a successful conclusion.
Every presidency has devoted considerable attention to this region.
<P>
From 10 to 14 February the German Foreign Minister, Mr Fischer, visited all the states in the region and the territories administered by the Palestinian Authority, where he took part in the talks on achieving progress in the implementation of the Wye River Memorandum.
I mention this here because the European Parliament's resolution could give the impression that the EU is not sufficiently represented in the peace process.
I would like to point out that so far the European Union has rightly decided to support the USA in its various committed attempts to achieve a peaceful solution in the Middle East, rather than to compete with it.
<P>
The USA has for a long time been a partner that is accepted by both sides, and we recognise and respect its role and its importance in the region.
We must remember that this is a difficult process, and that while progress has been made setbacks have also been encountered.
The Palestinians' right to self-determination conflicts with the Israelis' right to live within secure and recognised borders.
In view of the complex history of the conflict, tenacity and patience are of particular importance.
<P>
At this point I would mention that the European Union has already made a vital contribution to the progress of the Middle East peace process.
The EU has been most generous in its financial support for the Palestinian areas since 1993.
Not only has it made an important financial contribution, but by doing so it has also allowed the political agreements to be implemented.
<P>
The EU is aware that a number of problems have arisen here.
The negative economic development in these areas is of course disappointing and sobering, especially in view of the extraordinary efforts we have made.
It is genuinely alarming that the population's standard of living is lower today than in 1993.
I believe that the problems are certainly largely due to the deadlock in the peace process and the resulting shortcomings in the implementation of the economic agreements.
But the Israelis and Palestinians themselves also bear responsibility, and each must ensure that international aid is applied more effectively than before in their own regions.
<P>
We must not forget, however, that there are also very successful EU projects that have significantly improved living conditions.
Examples include the building programme for schools, water treatment plants in Bethlehem, Nablus and Hebron, and waste disposal in Gaza.
It is certainly no consolation to imagine the disastrous route that economic development in the Palestinian territories would have taken if aid from the EU and other donors had not been so generous.
One thing is certain: without this aid the territories administered by the Palestinian Authority would not have been viable and as a result the entire peace process would have been in jeopardy.
<P>
We should bear this in mind in future, since our disappointment at the economic development of the Palestinian territories must not undermine the EU's fundamental financial commitment.
Financial aid is political aid.
Without our support the peace process and, accordingly, the people in this area would not have stood a chance.
I therefore welcome the EU's offer of substantial aid for the period 1999-2003 at the donors' conference in Washington and most recently under the German Presidency in Frankfurt.
<P>
On that occasion, on 4 and 5 February in Frankfurt, details were given of how EU funding is to be more efficiently applied.
Reference was made not only to obstacles caused by Israeli bureaucracy but also to the difficulties within the Palestinian administration that were rightly addressed in your parliamentary report.
By taking over the joint presidency of the conference, the EU also illustrated its commitment effectively.
<P>
However, the EU's support for the Middle East peace process also has a further dimension: the Euro-Mediterranean partnership.
With the third follow-up conference of EU foreign ministers and their twelve Mediterranean partners under the Barcelona process in Stuttgart next month, the EU will be making a further specific contribution to regional integration and economic development in the Middle East.
We are hoping that this will provide further support for the peace process and open additional lines of communication and dialogue.
<P>
I would like to look at two further points contained in the European Parliament's motion for a resolution.
The first is the reference to the need to support Jordan.
The presidency is very much of this view, as economic and political stability in Jordan is a crucial factor in peace-keeping in the Middle East.
<P>
Our Foreign Minister, Mr Fischer, also spoke to the new King Abdullah during his trip to the Middle East and expressed the EU's wish that Jordanian policy should continue as before.
King Abdullah assured him of this.
It is very much in Europe's interest that security and stability in this important state should be maintained, and the EU should therefore help Jordan as far as possible.
The General Affairs Council of 22 February asked the Commission to examine how the EU can help, taking national contributions into account.
<P>
The second point concerns the lack of water resources in the Middle East.
We all know that this is one of the most serious problems in the region and that all states affected will sooner or later be forced to cooperate.
Ambassador Moratinos has already held various talks with Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority on this subject, and he has also set up a task force on water issues.
During his trip to the Middle East, Foreign Minister Fischer emphasised Europe's interest in finding a solution to the water problem.
Various Member States are involved here.
<P>
I can assure you that the European Union will continue to play an appropriate role in the Middle East peace process.
We will pursue our policy with commitment and patience, with great dedication and acuity, and in agreement with the United States.
I am sure that in the not-too-distant future the parties will achieve the peace in the Middle East that all sides would like to see.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, today we are discussing two documents which, both with Palestine and with Libya, are going to be of great importance for the future development of the European Union's Mediterranean policy.
I would like to thank Mr Sakellariou and Mr Colajanni for their reports, especially since both Members are particularly interested in these issues.
<P>
I am only going to give you a very brief political analysis because what the President-in-Office said corresponds exactly to the Commission's position.
I should therefore like to keep my analysis short, as I have little to add to what the President-in-Office said.
<P>
As regards what Mr Colajanni said, I agree with him that the Stuttgart Conference is very important and comes at a very delicate time politically.
As Mr Verheugen pointed out, the Commission and the special envoy, Mr Moratinos, accompanied the Presidency and we had the opportunity to witness the atmosphere there and the problems involved in trying to find an appropriate solution in a difficult political situation.
On the one hand, there is the deadline of 4 May that is laid down in the Oslo agreements; on the other hand, there are the Israeli elections, which are naturally going to play a key role in the peace process and in the implementation of the Wye Plantation agreements.
<P>
There are two positive points that I would like to mention.
We have worked tirelessly in recent months with the German Presidency - whom I would like to thank publicly - in order to conclude the association agreement with Egypt.
In principle, I believe that we will be able to complete these difficult negotiations before the Stuttgart Conference, thereby allowing this important country to finally have its own agreement.
<P>
I would like to make a point about the procedure in the light of what Parliament has recommended.
It is true that the ratification of the agreements is progressing very slowly at national level.
I would like to take a moment to talk about Mr Samland's proposals both for the programming and also for the programming of the joint agreements.
As you reach the end of your time in the European Parliament, Mr Samland - as I surely am too, since some people are trying to ensure that I leave before my time - I would like to tell you that the system of joint agreements is being changed.
If we do not amend that system at the next intergovernmental conference, Mr Colajanni, the average time needed to ratify the agreements at national level will continue to be between two and a half and three years.
That is not the Commission's fault.
The problem is that we have a cyclical programming system that needs to be reviewed, and we will have to find solutions for the future through calm and peaceful discussions with the European Parliament and with the Council.
I agree with you that there are some things that need to be changed as soon as possible and one of those, Mr Colajanni, is the system of ratifying joint agreements.
However, I have contacted some of the Member States by letter to try to speed up the process.
<P>
You raised a key point: how to resolve the disruption affecting the peace process and the Barcelona Conference.
We have talked about this on many occasions.
In my opinion, the solution will involve organising a meeting similar to that held in Palermo, and we are working with the presidency and have had many technical meetings on this issue. The Malta Conference could not succeed because it took place at the height of the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
But in Palermo, great efforts were made and it became evident that the political forum of the Barcelona committee had to be maintained at all costs. It is the only point of political reference we have in the Euro-Mediterranean sphere, given that the multilateral process and the regional process are not working at this point in time.
I am very hopeful and believe that we will be able to make significant progress in Stuttgart.
<P>
As regards the peace process in the Middle East, we fully agree with what the President said and with Mr Colajanni's philosophy.
We must make every effort to try to obtain an adequate solution for 4 May and a commitment on the part of the Israeli Government to quickly move the peace process forward.
In this respect, I have little to add to what was said by Mr Colajanni and by the President-in-Office, Mr Verheugen.
<P>
As far as assistance to the Palestinians is concerned, I would first of all like to point out, in relation to what both Mr Samland and Mr Tomlinson said, that the Commission has taken the fundamental step of following up the Tomlinson report by fixing the timetable for the next few years at the conference of donors in Washington and Frankfurt. I welcome the fact that distinguished members of the Committee on Budgetary Control are soon to visit the Territories.
But the problem lies in the difficulty of drawing up a financial programme in a situation where there are security problems, terrorist attacks, a lack of dialogue between the Israelis and the Palestinians, closures of the Territories, and obstacles to the distribution of goods. These are all problems that we are very well aware of and they make it difficult to prepare the financial programming.
<P>
That is where the special regulation in the Tomlinson report, approved by Parliament, comes into play.
As a result, I cannot promise the chairman of the Committee on Budgets that there will be 100 % funding for the financial programme.
That is impossible.
I cannot predict whether or not the Wye Plantation agreements will be implemented.
I do not think that Mr Samland can ask that of the Commission, of the Member States, or of this Parliament.
If the Wye Plantation agreements are implemented as they should be, we will be able to present the financial programme to the Council and to Parliament.
If the Wye Plantation agreements do not work, then that will be very difficult.
And this is something that I want to stress.
Nevertheless, we are going along with the reasoning put forward by Parliament.
<P>
Mr Verheugen made a very important point.
In February, at the meeting in Frankfurt, the Presidency and the Commission highlighted the two most significant problems of the last five years.
To ensure that the Palestinians enjoy economic development, two requirements must be met: there must be greater transparency in the Palestinian budget, and Israel must put an end to its restrictive policies.
If the Palestinian economy is not transparent, there is the risk of corruption, whereas an open and transparent Palestinian economy would make it more difficult for problems to arise.
However, in order to achieve this, Israel must accept the fact that a bilateral agreement has already been signed between the Palestinian Authority and the European Union. Indeed, the Commission has emphasised this point on many occasions.
It is a fundamental element of our cooperation and we must let the Israeli authorities know that it is a mistake to implement such restrictive economic policies.
<P>
Israel has every right to demand security and greater cooperation in the fight against terrorism. However, it is also evident, as highlighted in the Colajanni report and the Commission communication, that economic development in Palestine is also a key element in ensuring Israel's own security.
Israel will become much more secure as the Palestinian economy grows. If there is no development, there will be more poverty, a greater degree of marginalisation, further difficulties for the Palestinians, and a greater likelihood of extremist tendencies developing.
<P>
This is why we want to complete the financial programming for the next few years and, in conclusion, I would ask Parliament to understand one point in this respect.
The Commission is going to propose to Parliament and the Council that it should no longer be responsible for the Palestinian Authority's current expenditure.
I want you to understand this.
Over the last five years, in order to implement political decisions taken by the Council, for exceptional reasons, and to keep the Palestinian Authority active for political reasons, the Commission has had to finance current expenditure operations that were not included in the economic assistance programme.
That was a purely political decision and it must be seen as such.
<P>
We therefore do not want the Commission to deal with any more current expenditure.
But what will happen if the borders are closed in the next few years?
Are we going to let the Palestinian Authority fall?
No, we will not.
But what the Commission will propose is that in each instance a joint decision be taken by the European Parliament and the Council.
We believe that this is a reasonable solution.
However, Mr Tomlinson, when you present the report on the discharge, I would ask you not to forget that, for political reasons, the Commission has allocated current expenditure that, in principle, was not included in the economic development programme.
There is nothing to hide here and I am speaking very openly.
We do not intend to repeat this in the future.
Nevertheless, what I do want to state very emphatically is that you cannot accuse the Commission and Commissioner Marín - and I say this without any complex - of having acted wrongfully: the only thing I have done is to implement the political decisions of the Council and Parliament.
<P>
The issue of Jordan is an example of a typical problem of political compromise.
The old MEDA programme, which is being updated, included a special structural adjustment programme for Jordan.
The Council has stated that the Commission was asked to draw up a special programme for Jordan and that is the case.
Once again, Mr Tomlinson, Mr Colajanni, we will have to choose between the political option on the one hand, and financial rigour on the other.
And as far as Jordan is concerned, if we have to act politically, then let us do so.
<P>
As regards Libya, Mr Sakellariou, we have a political problem that must be solved at a political level by means of a political decision.
You are perfectly aware of that and, therefore, we will first of all have to find a solution according to the formula put forward by the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
It is, of course, only right that the Libyan dispute should be resolved.
It would also be a positive step if Libya were to participate in the Euro-Mediterranean Conference.
But we all know that there is a precondition.
If we can find an answer to the precondition, we will have resolved a political problem.
It would naturally be better if Libya's relations with the European Union were to return to normal.
But there is firstly a precondition to resolve.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="President">
Commissioner, you have spoken at some length, but I understand that you need to express your thoughts on your policy and on how this important problem has developed over the last few years. For this reason the Chair showed understanding, but it needed to show a great deal of understanding.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="Sakellariou">
Mr President, just this once I really want to talk about the Rules of Procedure.
Rule 46(3) of the Rules of Procedure gives Parliament the right to make recommendations to the Council in connection with Article J.7 of the EU Treaty.
This recommendation, which will be adopted by Parliament tomorrow, was addressed to the Council presidency, but the Council presidency has not discussed what was in the recommendation.
I thank the Vice-President of the Commission, Mr Marín, who did discuss the substance of the recommendation and the question of Libya.
However, the recommendation is addressed to the Council.
<P>
I would therefore like to ask, on behalf of Parliament, when the Council intends to reply to our recommendation, even if only to say 'no, thank you'.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="President">
Mr Sakellariou, I have listened very carefully to what you have said.
As regards the procedural matter you have raised, I have to tell you that Mr Verheugen, the President-in-Office, had informed us that it would not be possible for him to stay and so he has not heard your recommendation to give a reply on.
However, the Chair will try to obtain clarification from the Council so that we will have an answer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank Mr Colajanni and Mr Sakellariou for their very committed reports which really show the direction that Europe should take.
However, I would also like to thank Mr Tomlinson and Mr Samland, as I firmly believe that the links between foreign policy, the budget and budgetary control must be strengthened in future so that perhaps some of the things that have happened recently could be avoided.
Being involved in foreign affairs, I know how important financial resources are in conducting foreign policy, but as a Member of Parliament I also know that we in this House and also the public must be sure that the resources are used properly and efficiently.
<P>
I also wish to comment on a point raised by Commissioner Marín.
It was really very interesting, Commissioner.
You said that we must decide between policy and financial stringency.
Perhaps together we can find a way of combining the two, of taking very useful action in the political sphere and yet being at least efficient in financial terms.
You are right on one point: Parliament itself was probably not prepared to make the link between policy and financial stringency.
We, at least in my group, are fully behind what you proposed here yesterday.
We will support you in uniting policy and financial stringency.
<P>
I have two comments on what Mr Sakellariou proposed.
I support what he said about Libya.
I have myself visited Libya and spoken to those in charge, and I believe that many people there are ready and willing to become part of the international community once again.
The conditions you mentioned, Commissioner, will of course still apply.
Perhaps I could make one further point about the Colajanni report as I and others prepare for a trip to Syria and Lebanon.
I believe that we must do everything we can to encourage Israel to withdraw from Lebanon, in its own interest and in the interest of the peace process, so that a similar process can then be begun with Syria in relation to the Golan Heights.
<P>
Finally, I would call upon the Commission and the Council to approach 4 May 1999, an important historical date for the Palestinians, in such a way that it does not provoke renewed conflict but instead marks a further step towards peace.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="Izquierdo Rojo">
Mr President, I would like to make a point of order.
The President-in-Office has left when we are in the process of debating a recommendation to the Council. I think that that was very impolite behaviour before the House, particularly since it was not due to reasons beyond his control: he is currently attending an informal meeting in Room 100.
It was very disrespectful of him to leave the sitting, especially given the issue we are now debating.
I would therefore ask you, Mr President, to protest to the President-in-Office about such unaccustomed behaviour during a parliamentary debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="President">
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, as you will have heard, I noted the presence of the President-in-Office at the time when our rapporteurs were speaking.
I am very sorry but I do not want to make an issue out of this.
The President-in-Office was here up to and following the speech made by Mr Marín, but perhaps you were unaware of this.
It would have been better if he could have stayed longer, and I agree with you on this.
However, I will make a note of that aspect of your comments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Graziani">
Mr President, if I may say so, I too find it odd that the Council President merely listens to the Commission and the rapporteurs and then completely ignores the debate.
One often has the feeling when discussing Mediterranean affairs that the European Union treats them with a certain disdain, as though Libya, the Middle East and the Balkans are really rather a nuisance.
And yet this is both our most sensitive and most fascinating border.
Here, different cultures have been in contact for centuries, more often clashing than meshing, but also trading and establishing the principle of communicating vessels in important areas of culture, philosophy and mathematics, to mention but a few.
It was not possible in the past, and is even less so today, to define the Mediterranean countries merely as those whose shores are washed by that sea.
The concatenation of problems - one need only think of the Middle East and the Gulf - is such that these borders can no longer be drawn in the manner of the Romans, who wrote on their maps just beyond the southern shore of the Mediterranean: 'hic sunt leones ' - ' here be lions'.
<P>
The first fundamental mistake would therefore be for Europe to think that the Mediterranean area can be confined to countries which resemble it to a greater or lesser extent: the multifarious array of cultures and political systems cannot be narrowed down artificially.
Europe must foster cooperation with all the coastal states - obviously including Libya - and also, where problems do not stop at geographical borders, with their neighbours.
<P>
My first point, therefore, relates to the Mediterranean countries in their entirety.
My second is as important as it is insidious, and answers this question: is the problem of the Mediterranean a matter of joint economic development with Europe?
It is, but, if we think it is only or mainly that, we shall be making the second fundamental mistake: it is also a matter of joint civil development.
How?
By imposing a common denominator on the whole of Europe?
That would be the third fundamental mistake.
Allow me at this point to quote a highly authoritative speaker from the Islamic world, President Khatami of Iran, whom it would be absurd to ignore.
According to him, before a people can accept change and evolution, it must first be conscious of its own existence and historical identity, so as to have a point of departure.
This is just what the West has sometimes misunderstood when following its colonial and post-colonial inclinations.
<P>
Of course, it is not always easy. We are dealing with very different countries, but isolation will not solve problems which should instead be entrusted to the wisdom of politicians: Libya should teach us a lesson.
True fundamentalism must never make us forget that behind it lie problems on which we can legitimately comment: Islam, for example, is not necessarily intolerant in itself; intolerance is caused by social and economic problems when they are allowed to fester.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, the Middle East peace process is deadlocked and the parties are waiting for two things, the May elections in Israel and the declaration of an independent state of Palestine.
We must persuade the Palestinians to postpone that declaration.
Something has to be done here.
And I think we should commit ourselves to recognising that state if it is declared.
We should not forget that 4 May marks the end of the transitional phase of the Oslo Agreement, at which time the final outcome of the negotiations will become apparent.
<P>
It is clear that a postponement is important in order to stop extreme elements from gaining the upper hand in the Israeli elections.
The problems in Lebanon are big enough.
Europe must preach moderation and a willingness to compromise and must hope that the people and government of Israel can find the way to peace and dialogue.
This peace process is also extremely important to the Barcelona process, which is likewise deadlocked at present.
<P>
Aside from the peace process, the Union must invest in democracy and human rights.
Good governance is the basis for successful progress.
The Union can foster these processes by focusing its attention on civil society.
With luck, all the problems over the legal base for providing funds have been resolved.
The Union must also support the organising of a parallel meeting of NGOs during the Euro-Mediterranean summit in Stuttgart.
My group, the Liberals, endorses both reports because they take account of the fine detail and give the European Parliament a voice at a time of such significance in the region - for peace, security and a promising future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="President">
I want to make a general observation about small groups. A minute and a half is given to group representatives.
This is totally inadequate for colleagues to express more than a few thoughts and they have to rely on the forbearance of the Chair. For its part, the Chair is put in a difficult position and does not want to cut off speakers.
At some point this system must stop. It would be better if fewer colleagues spoke for a longer time to enable them to express their views.
It is impossible to give just a minute or a minute and a half.
It is not enough.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, all honour to the rapporteurs who in the last five years have placed passionate and carefully considered visions before us.
But great as this passion is to move the situation in the Middle East or Mediterranean area forward a little, we are still dependent on developments on the spot, such as elections in Israel and Algeria.
<P>
Moreover, the date of 4 May hangs over us like a sword of Damocles.
The rapporteur calls on the Palestinian Authority to desist from a declaration of independence.
If it happens, I fear it may have implications for the financial assistance we provide. That is already the subject of criticism, and we want better scrutiny of it.
<P>
It is clear too that we must ask the Israelis, after the elections, to make serious efforts to move the peace process forward.
In the run-up to the elections, positive noises have been heard, for example about a possible withdrawal from Lebanon.
The rapporteur speaks of unconditional withdrawal from Lebanon.
I cannot go along with that, since Israel can in no way be sure that Lebanon can control the fundamentalist military groups there.
Nor are things clear with regard to the deeply entrenched Syrian presence in Lebanon.
Withdrawal from Lebanon without any agreements with Syria is an invitation to violence.
<P>
So we must remain hopeful that a coherent solution will be found, so that part of the external threat to Israel is removed and realistic possibilities are created for further and more specific ties with the Palestinians.
Restoration of the peace process may help our policy on the Mediterranean, but it is not the only factor.
The Commissioner mentioned Egypt earlier.
After three years of talks, it is very important that we should now involve Egypt in the peace process.
It is a shame that the Council representative is no longer here.
I echo Commissioner Marín in urging the Council to bring in Egypt as an important country.
That will be a step forward.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, both the Colajanni report and the Sakellariou report take us forward in a very positive direction.
They were unanimously adopted by our committee and also have the support of our group.
<P>
I would like to make a comment on the Sakellariou report.
Mr Sakellariou quite rightly highlights four basic areas: finding a solution to the Middle East problem; increasing the number of participants at the conference to include Libya and the countries of the former Yugoslavia; content, and the debt issue.
However, I should like to ask whether, with the way things are developing at the moment, these are the only issues.
Perhaps there is a new, important issue - which indeed is not new, judging by the force with which it has emerged - in the Mediterranean area, which threatens to destabilise the whole of the Eastern Mediterranean.
Is it possible to move towards a Mediterranean zone of safety and cooperation without tackling the Kurdish question?
<P>
The Kurdish question affects Mediterranean countries, it affects Turkey and Syria, and it affects countries which, as Mr Graziani said, are extensions of the Mediterranean region, such as Iraq and Iran.
The Kurdish question is closely interwoven with, and is destabilising, relations in Mediterranean countries, such as the relations between Greece and Turkey, Turkish-Cypriot relations, or the wider relations in the Eastern Mediterranean region.
We cannot afford to ignore the Kurdish question and it must be integrated into issues relating to Mediterranean cooperation.
<P>
Do we want policies to combat terrorism and violence, and to tackle issues which the European Parliament has repeatedly and wholeheartedly condemned?
Do we want to take action at international level?
Do we want to promote political solutions instead of violence?
If this is indeed what we want, I think we must concern ourselves with how to integrate the Kurdish question into our deliberations on achieving peace and security in the Mediterranean region, to which the European Parliament hopes to contribute.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
Mr President, on behalf of the Green Group, I should like to begin by expressing our support for the reports by Mr Colajanni and Mr Sakellariou.
Both of them deal with issues - the Middle East peace process and the Euro-Mediterranean process following the Barcelona Declaration - which are currently deadlocked, as colleagues have pointed out.
We could certainly not disagree with what Mr Colajanni said about the outcome of the Wye Plantation agreement and the significant fact that the 'land for peace' principle has now been accepted.
We must however acknowledge that the current deadlock is largely due to the ambiguous attitude of the Israeli Government and the obstacles it is raising, and I believe that this must be emphasised by Parliament.
<P>
The Lebanon and Syria questions must be solved too, without a doubt, if there is to be peace in the Middle East.
Here I would recall Parliament's efforts to set up 'people to people' initiatives; I believe that a more effective response is required from the Commission.
<P>
As regards the deadlock in the aftermath of the Barcelona Declaration, we too should like to see all the countries concerned participating - not only Libya, but also the countries of the former Yugoslavia and Albania - and we should like Macedonia to have special observer status.
<P>
I would conclude by stressing that the present situation was caused largely by the European Union's current shortcomings in tackling common foreign and security policy problems.
Unless this state of affairs is rectified, the prospects are bleak indeed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Lassus Saint Geniès">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the two issues we are discussing this afternoon are in fact one and the same issue.
<P>
As is his custom, Mr Colajanni has produced an excellent report which is balanced, prudent and which searches for even the slightest sign of progress towards peace in order to defuse the many occasions for confrontation and obstacles which arise on a daily basis in Israeli-Palestinian relations.
<P>
Nevertheless, my group has serious reservations as regards the general position adopted.
It is very diplomatic and seems to take as read the Israeli Government's volte-face on the resolutions on the peace process, to which it is nevertheless committed.
The rapporteur proposes a further effort by the Palestinians, a degree of procrastination in order to delay any unilateral declaration of independence by the Palestinian Authority.
But we do not believe that diplomatic efforts are justified when the spirit of peace has been violated and Mr Netanyahu is seriously in the wrong on this point, most probably to the detriment of the long-term interests of the Israeli people.
<P>
The European Union will gain little by not daring to speak its mind.
It would be making a mistake in continuing to believe that the United States must to some extent be left to act alone on this issue, with the idea that this forces it to be more open to Palestinian proposals and to put up greater resistance to its own pro-Israeli lobbies than if the Union were to clearly state its position and bring pressure to bear.
<P>
In fact, as Mr Sakellariou and Commissioner Marín pointed out, the position we must adopt on this subject is largely determined by the position we must adopt in order to relaunch the whole process of Mediterranean cooperation.
The position we take will have a determining influence on the consolidation of peace at the gates of Europe.
<P>
Apart from the clauses on human rights and democracy, every option must be envisaged in a flexible frame of mind in order to genuinely relaunch the Barcelona process.
The solution to the economic and demographic difficulties of the countries in question will clarify, facilitate and anchor the gradual appeasement which time alone can bring to the eternal dispute between fraternal enemies which is undermining the Middle East.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Gollnisch">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there has been a stalemate in the Middle East peace process since the Wye Plantation agreements.
We know where the responsibilities lie: with the Israelis for their intransigence, and, for reasons which are all too evident, with the sole superpower, the United States, for the support it is giving to the Israeli policy.
For electoral reasons, the powerful support the Israeli policy finds in Washington and elsewhere will never be subject to any serious criticism on the part of American politicians, and particularly those who run the federal administration.
<P>
Finally, the responsibility also lies with the servile alignment of European policy with that of the United States, even when US policy is contrary to Europe's most obvious interests and even where we have the political and legal means to oppose it.
This is true, for example, with regard to Lebanon, whose political subjugation and continued occupation we continue to tolerate.
It is also the case in Iraq where the blockade and the bombings have cynically continued for years to the detriment of the civilian population, when there is clearly no security consideration to justify such a policy.
<P>
When are we finally going to use France and the United Kingdom's voting rights on the UN Security Council - which could even win the support of China and Russia - in order to put a stop to this scandal?
<P>
As regards our military interventions, if they are essential, why must they be carried out within the framework of NATO, which has no legal or political justification except to chain us to the decisions made in Washington?
<P>
We claim to be able to solve the problem of Albanian immigration in Kosovo yet we are incapable of solving immigration problems in Strasbourg, Hamburg, Brussels or Genoa.
Our inconsistencies in this field will benefit neither our interests nor peace in the Mediterranean.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, two minutes is really a very short time to speak as chairman of the Delegation for relations with Israel on our Mediterranean policy and, in that context, on peace in the Middle East.
So I must be brief and, after thanking our two rapporteurs, I would like to make five points.
<P>
Firstly, Europe is currently obsessed with its enlargement towards the East and Agenda 2000.
It should concern itself more with the south, and, as a result, its Mediterranean policy.
This is ultimately a question of survival, for Europe and thus for us.
<P>
Secondly, in this connection it is now time - behind the statements of principle and the agreements signed - to act, and act quickly.
There are too many long delays in ratifying agreements between Europe and southern countries followed by further overly long delays before concrete, quantifiable and, above all, visible actions are implemented in the field.
<P>
Thirdly, although we must continue to hold talks with everyone, in the case of Libya, Mr Sakellariou, we must first demand the extradition and trial of the terrorists who blew up aeroplanes and killed hundreds of innocent people.
The families of the victims demand this and are appealing to us in their suffering.
<P>
Fourthly, everyone agrees that Europe must be more active politically as regards the Middle East.
Indeed it must, but at the present time it must act without interfering in the forthcoming elections; otherwise, we will be acting contrary to our objectives.
<P>
Finally, Europe must take initiatives to avoid a unilateral declaration of independence by the Palestinians on 4 May, while supporting the principal of a Palestinian state.
This is a double requirement which anyone with good sense today recognises as a condition for relaunching the peace process immediately after the elections.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Lambrias">
Mr President, the Mediterranean policy of the European Union must be our most effective, high-minded and unanimous policy.
As all wise men have pointed out - it would be sufficient just to mention Braudel - the Mediterranean is the cradle of Europe from a historical, cultural and ethnological perspective. It is also of major significance in current geopolitical terms, because it connects the continent of Europe with the troubled region of the Middle East and also with the awakening giant that is Africa.
<P>
However, our Mediterranean policy is our most neglected, irresolute and ineffectual policy.
The events of 1989, with the overthrow of the autocratic regimes of the Eastern bloc, served to highlight the need for an enlarged Europe to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
We have come to realise, rather belatedly, that enlargement must be balanced against the need to meet the challenges thrown up by the South.
Not until the end of 1995, with the Barcelona Conference, did we attempt to open up prospects for cooperation, though with pre-defined commitments and an unlimited time scale.
<P>
As pointed out by Mr Sakellariou, the rapporteur, the fruits of this endeavour remain negligible.
In the ensuing three years, the Middle East peace process has not ended the drama in the region, nor has the human rights situation improved. Indeed, in many respects it has deteriorated.
Nor has the threat or the use of violence among partners ceased to be a political instrument. Also, as a look at the map is enough to convince anyone, the partner relationship is fragmented and ad hoc.
Many countries that border the Mediterranean remain outside the plan which, in order to be effective, must be cohesive and all-encompassing. Moreover, the lack of an honourable and realistic settlement of the immigrant problem is poisoning relations on all sides.
We must make a courageous and flexible effort. This effort needs to be coordinated, as we have bitter experience of aspirations that are disjointed.
The European Union must play a leading role in breaking the deadlock in the Middle East and this particular policy must fall in line with enlargement to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. If none of this happens, our Mediterranean policy will remain a cosmetic declaration and an excuse which fails to solve any of the burgeoning problems in the very region where Europe and European civilisation were born.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="André-Léonard">
Mr President, we support the two reports being discussed.
I will only refer to the Colajanni report which attempts, among other things, to redefine the role of the European Union in the Middle East peace process.
I find this report balanced but, given the ever-changing situation, its content is repeatedly being called into question.
<P>
Nevertheless, there are certain elements that do not change.
The Union's foreign policy in this particularly troubled region of the globe must no longer be limited to simply being the principal donor of economic and financial aid in the form of the vast sums made available to the Palestinian population.
These sums, however, have still not produced the desired effect: the substantial fall in the average earnings of the Palestinians is proof of this.
Europe must therefore cease being an economic giant and a political dwarf.
It is now more essential than ever to have a true European common security policy.
Only then will we be listened to and have a genuine role to play on the international stage.
<P>
The economic and political situation has deteriorated sharply over recent months and the Lebanese thorn is proving increasingly painful.
Given its complexity, the situation in the Middle East requires negotiated solutions involving the various parties.
We must remember that Lebanon is under Syrian supervision and that the south is occupied by Israeli troops.
The peace process must continue and we must avoid at all costs the useless sacrifice of human lives.
<P>
I should like to mention paragraph 29 of the resolution concerning the occupation of southern Lebanon which is now very much in the news. I believe that a unilateral Israeli withdrawal must be possible, provided it is coupled with guarantees for the Hebrew state.
In my view, we should therefore eliminate the term 'unconditional'.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Elmalan">
Mr President, the report by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy on the Middle East tends to place the Israeli Government and the Palestinians on the same footing in terms of responsibility for the current deadlock in the peace process.
This does not reflect the reality of the situation.
It is the Israeli Government which has gone back on its previous commitments.
<P>
I do not accept the way in which the report tries to organise pressure on the Palestinians to postpone their declaration of independence on 4 May 1999.
Should not the role of Parliament, and of the European Union, be to make every effort to ensure that the peace agreements are honoured, that is, all the peace agreements?
These explicitly set the date of 4 May 1999 for the declaration of Palestinian sovereignty.
<P>
Another problem remains in connection with the Mediterranean policy: the situation in Western Sahara.
Here, too, the peace plan is deadlocked.
The UN Secretary-General, who is personally committed to resolving the conflict, set a new deadline of 31 March 1999.
I would call on the Council to intervene speedily in order to ensure that the conditions established by the United Nations are respected by that date and that the Sahrawi people can express their right to self-determination and independence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Muscardini">
Mr President, the delayed entry into force of the five association agreements signed as part of the Barcelona process is deplorable and significant, as is the fact that - three years on from the Conference that took the name of the city where it was held - not all the Mediterranean countries have been invited to participate in the partnership process which was so loudly applauded in November 1995.
It seemed to be the dawn of a new age, a welcome opportunity to establish new relations and revive cooperation between Europe and the Mediterranean countries, particularly in the political, economic, financial and cultural spheres.
<P>
The delay is deplorable for two reasons: firstly Europe's lack of a common foreign policy, and secondly the stalled Middle East peace process.
Until such time as security can be guaranteed in Israel, peace will be nothing but wishful thinking.
It is vital to step up the EU's relations with Jordan, given the major role played by the late King Hussein in overcoming the stalemate in negotiations.
<P>
A Europe which is incapable of giving itself a political identity cannot claim to have the weight required to play a determining role, both in guaranteeing peace and in fostering cooperation and development.
And yet the EU has to play an increasingly important part in these processes.
Otherwise its role will simply be to beat the human rights drum: a noble role, without a doubt, but utterly useless in terms of influencing proceedings, unless our words are followed by deeds.
<P>
Two factors seem to me to be germane to a policy of economic revival and reform: firstly, debt cancellation for countries undertaking to reinvest the amounts involved in development projects; and, secondly, closer cooperation with SMEs andcraft undertakings.
It is not 'cathedrals in the desert' that will generate growth, but the organisation of a network of small businesses geared to making high-quality, typical and distinctive products.
Expanding the production base in the Mediterranean countries will help to combat illegal and clandestine immigration, which represents a running sore both for the immigrants and for the European host countries.
<P>
Mr President, let me finally turn to the German Presidency, which is hosting the Euro-Mediterranean Committee in Bonn on 19 March and Stuttgart on 14 April, to say that we hope these meetings will finally lead to tangible progress.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="Barón Crespo">
Mr President, allow me first of all to say that the Council's desire to concentrate all its efforts on foreign and security policy only highlights its disregard for Parliament.
It does not listen to us and I would like to thank Commissioner Marín as he has provided us with some of the answers we had hoped to receive from the Council.
<P>
I would very briefly like to say that we are dealing here with an extremely old problem, perhaps one of the oldest problems affecting humanity. But we are faced with a very specific timetable beginning with the Stuttgart Conference on 4 April.
A month later, there is the possible declaration of independence by the Palestinians, and then there are the Israeli elections.
I think that we need to take a very practical line in this dual debate, covering, as it does, two issues that are very closely linked. Although we have tried to take them in isolation at times in order to make progress, it is clear that the cornerstone of the Mediterranean process rests to a large extent on finding a successful solution to the peace process in the Middle East because that is the only multilateral forum that exists in the Mediterranean.
<P>
In my view, the European Union should promote something that the Presidency mentioned. Without being too specific, it is basically the fact that, clearly, there is a right that we must recognise.
Exercising that right is another matter, and that is an area where we can help. Indeed, we can also set an example.
We certainly have the ability to contribute, and I believe that we can actually do so: issues such as water and regional development spring to mind here. But, in my opinion, we also have the authority and the opportunity to establish that there is no fundamental inconsistency between a declaration of independence and allowing those who have their own identity and who might help find common ground in many areas to return to the negotiating table.
<P>
That is what we have done and I think that that is where our strength lies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Dimitrakopoulos">
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mr Colajanni on his excellent work and to thank Commissioner Marín for what he has said here today.
<P>
There is one very important point regarding the Colajanni report and that is paragraph 13, which refers to the need for an initiative on the part of the Council to make the new presence of the European Union in the Middle East more visible.
I very much regret, and indeed it is a great shame, that the Council is not present at this debate, as we are thereby being deprived of the right to obtain answers on a number of points which, unfortunately, lead to false reasoning regarding the content of this new initiative.
<P>
The Council is making a mistake by leaving it entirely up to the United States to formulate proposals for a solution to the Middle East problem.
The Council is mistaken if it thinks that the presence of a single representative, who is unaided and lacks the support of any form of infrastructure, can solve the problem.
The Council is wrong if it thinks that the presence of the European Union should be confined to trips and contacts and that it should not include recommendations on the specific issues and problems which make up the Middle East question.
<P>
We call on the President-in-Office to tell us: firstly, what the position of the European Union is on the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Golan Heights; secondly, what the opinion of the European Union is regarding a solution to the problem of Southern Lebanon and, thirdly, what will happen to the agreement between the European Union and Syria.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, in order for us to arrive at that point, the institutional presence of the Council in the Middle East needs to be re-examined.
This can only be achieved if a decision is finally reached to set up a joint task force comprising the Council, the Commission and, possibly, the European Parliament, which can tackle each of these problems in turn.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="Vallvé">
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to highlight once again the importance of the Mediterranean policy for the European Union.
<P>
We are currently undertaking enlargement negotiations with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
I would like to be sure that this dialogue with the Eastern European states will not prevent the European Union from concentrating on the problems in southern Europe and those affecting the Mediterranean countries.
<P>
In my opinion, this North-South dialogue must work in parallel with the policies being implemented by the European Union with a view to achieving a fair and necessary enlargement towards Central and Eastern Europe.
<P>
These issues were raised at the 1995 Barcelona Conference and the proposal was made to initiate dialogue between civil society in the north and south of the Mediterranean.
The Euro-Med Civil Forum held in Barcelona a few days after the Euro-Mediterranean Conference also examined these issues and established the foundations for discussion and collaboration between north and south.
<P>
Following that conference, a second conference was held in Naples, and similarly further Euro-Mediterranean Conferences were held in Malta and will this year be held in Stuttgart.
<P>
This dialogue must continue because otherwise Europe will not meet the conditions necessary to ensure that we have a peaceful and friendly future alongside our neighbours in the southern Mediterranean.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="Marset Campos">
Mr President, I would like to begin with a question of terminology that has me rather worried.
<P>
The report talks about the Middle East.
But I thought that for us, as Europeans, the area in question was the Near East.
It is the Middle East for the United States and that is of some importance as it means that European politics are, in fact, looked on as subordinate to US politics.
That is why I think it is worth making the distinction.
The Commission communication is a good one.
I would even go so far as to say that it is progressive since it presents figures and puts forward arguments relating to the political failings and how the situation of the Palestinians has deteriorated since the beginning of the peace process.
The conclusion to be drawn from this is very clear if we compare the European Union's contribution with that of the United States and the rest of the world.
<P>
The EU must play a greater role as a joint leader rather than sitting on the sidelines.
And in order to do so, the European Union must become an ethical point of reference for what is happening in the Near East.
We must therefore state clearly that if an international agreement provides the legal authority for the Palestinians to declare an independent state on 4 May, then the European Union must support such an international agreement with all the consequences it entails.
If we do not, we will constantly be defending the aggressor and exonerating it, while asking the victim to remain calm.
Clearly, we must do exactly the reverse.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Féret">
Mr President, the Colajanni report once again sheds light on a glaring reality, a treachery which many refuse to see: the evident determination of Israel to ignore the agreements concluded and to ignore the UN resolutions, which they do not care about.
<P>
The European Union has a duty to stand up to this.
The obligation to intervene, invented to support causes that were far less just, must be applied to the Middle East with determination and steadfastness.
It is time to ensure that Israel can no longer harm the Palestinian people as it has been doing for more than 50 years.
<P>
Europe cannot allow an imperialist and racist Israel on its borders to remain with impunity.
The Palestinians' aspiration of finally receiving the land promised to them a thousand times over is totally legitimate and the intention of the Palestinian Authority to declare on 4 May 1999 the independence of the territories that are still occupied, must be supported by the EU at a political, financial and, if necessary, military level so that a free Palestine can finally flourish.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Napoletano">
Mr President, here we are, on the eve of the Stuttgart conference, voicing criticism of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership.
I shall not dwell on the difficulties in the peace process, because the rapporteurs have already done so, or on the need for a more incisive EU role, because most of my colleagues have already done so.
I would rather refer to the limitations of the instruments in the Barcelona process.
I think we all now realise that multilateral relations and decentralised cooperation - which were perhaps the most worthwhile of the Barcelona instruments - are faltering, whereas bilateral relations between the EU and the Member States are suffering from all the problems linked to ratification dates which have been recalled by Mr Marín.
I for my part would invite the Council to react to five very detailed proposals contained in the Sakellariou report: human rights, encouraging active participation by civil society, enabling new states to participate politically in this process, debt and immigration.
Perhaps, if these proposals are taken up by the Council in Stuttgart, this very difficult and complex process will be revitalised.
I believe that if the Commission receives much clearer political input, it will be better able to extricate itself from the managerial problems which we all realise are extremely awkward.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Azzolini">
Mr President, the last contribution by Mrs Napoletano obliges me to alter my own, because otherwise I would add nothing new.
I wish to stress that her position is identical to mine.
Obviously, if we are in agreement from one side of this House to the other, it means that this approach, and this one alone, is the right one.
So I shall use my minute and a half - which, as the speaker before last said, is somewhat ludicrous given the important points needing to be made - to express a few thoughts to Mr Marín, but not without first thanking Mr Sakellariou and Mr Colajanni for their remarkable work, which thoroughly covers every aspect needing to be covered.
<P>
To continue this theme of thoroughness, I would just comment on one of these aspects: civil society.
Mr Vallvé mentioned it a moment ago.
After Barcelona, ideas and proposals were put forward concerning civil society, and it does not seem to me that they received due consideration.
Mr Marín, I agree with you that it is difficult to handle situations of such sensitivity and importance. It is also true, however, that where credible external bodies exist - and there are some in Europe and in the Mediterranean - then your hand should probably be strengthened from a managerial point of view.
<P>
And, finally, just one comment of substance: after Barcelona, Palermo, Malta and Naples, let us not be lured into making Mediterranean tourism policy the dynamo of growth.
That would be quite feasible, but let us confine ourselves to tackling more serious problems, namely those highlighted by Mrs Napoletano and myself.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sichrovsky">
Mr President, with this report and its one-sided view of the Middle East peace process the European Parliament is continuing a rather sad tradition.
While repeatedly denouncing supposed human rights violations in Israel, Parliament is treating human rights violations on the part of Arab dictatorships and the Palestinian administration with much greater caution.
<P>
We consider direct interference in the election to be unacceptable.
Israel is the only democracy in the region and the political strategy of the democratically-elected government should be respected.
After all, the peace process did not reach a state of deadlock because the wrong politicians are in power in Israel but because Arab terrorists refuse to end their campaign.
Critics of Israel have not yet learned very much when it comes to supporting Israel in the fight against terrorism, which costs the lives of hundreds of innocent people every year.
<P>
Finally, I would like to comment on a point made by one of the previous speakers, who described the Gaza Strip as a concentration camp.
This comparison with the Nationalist Socialist death camps is absolutely outrageous.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="Izquierdo Rojo">
Mr President, I believe that before the next Euro-Mediterranean Conference, the Council should give consideration to Mauritania's desire to participate fully in the Euro-Mediterranean process. Parliament has already done this itself at the Euro-Mediterranean Forum.
<P>
Mauritania is one of the five countries that together form the Arab Maghreb.
It is important to coordinate the Maghreb as a whole because of its social and economic development, and in Europe's history there are terrible examples of what has happened when a geopolitical Arab region has been divided.
<P>
Mauritania is also involved in NATO's Mediterranean dialogue.
This suggestion is far from being premature as Mauritania has been participating in the process since it first began.
As Commissioner Marín is aware, Mauritania has participated as an observer for ten years.
I think that that is too long to continue being an observer and that it is now time to provide Mauritania with the opportunity to take part.
<P>
The Euro-Mediterranean process is global in nature and includes countries such as Sweden, Finland, Portugal and Ireland.
Why, then, should we not include this ancient country from the Arab Maghreb?
<P>
In my opinion, this would be an excellent time to remind the Council that Parliament supports Mauritania's full participation in the Euro-Mediterranean process. This idea was approved and incorporated by Parliament in the Final Declaration of the Euro-Mediterranean Forum.
The Council is not present here as its representative preferred to attend an informal meeting.
As a result, I would ask you to forward this speech to the Council because if not, it will not be aware of this matter and the Stuttgart Conference is due to take place at the beginning of April.
I would therefore ask you to pass this on personally since the Council should have been represented here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Günther">
Mr President, Commissioner, I welcome the fact that these two reports are being discussed jointly here as the problems experienced in this region can only be solved by a joint effort on the part of all concerned.
<P>
However, when it comes to the Middle East peace process, we are repeatedly given the impression that Israel is considered to be largely responsible.
I also notice that these reports are tolerant towards shortcomings on the part of the Palestinians, but where similar shortcomings are detected on the other side they are accompanied by warnings or criticisms.
Some of the wording is also reminiscent of the resolutions on countries in Africa which waver between military dictatorships and one-party regimes and regularly have to be warned to observe the principles of democracy.
But Israel is more or less the only functioning democracy in the whole region and it is also a country that is particularly under threat.
<P>
When Members of this House always demand that the same concessions should be shown to the parties to the conflict, we wonder why the same tolerance is not shown towards Israel.
Why is Israel required to accept a separate Palestinian state instead of also expecting the Palestinians to appreciate that Israel is currently in a special situation and that allowance must be made for its sensitivity, especially after the repeated terrorist attacks?
Now, more than ever, patience is required, as it always is when a country is about to hold important elections.
This patience will certainly also be required when the deadline of 4 May, agreed in Oslo, expires.
We cannot then allow one side to create a fait accompli.
<P>
In my view it would not hurt us to be more pro-Israel in our advice.
It deserves it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Moretti">
Mr President, it is well known that the EU's Mediterranean policy needs to be strengthened and overhauled.
In the Middle East peace process, the United States is jointly responsible for the implementation of the accords, whereas the European Union remains on the sidelines of discussions concerning the political future of that region.
<P>
I hope that the Stuttgart conference will be an opportunity to launch the reform of a policy based on the principle of attentiveness in distinction, which means playing an active role in the Mediterranean Arab world without forgetting the unalterable historical and cultural differences which divide us.
<P>
The best guarantee of stability, especially in international politics, is a healthy, sensible realism.
That is why I see the need for a common immigration policy: a restrictive policy applying rigidly the principle of Community preference.
I believe in the effectiveness of well-organised cooperation, but I am suspicious of moves to integrate Mediterranean states into our Union which, I would remind you, is a community of European countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="De Esteban Martín">
Mr President, I shall focus on Mr Colajanni's report. I would like to congratulate him on his excellent work and on having prepared such a well-structured and comprehensive report.
<P>
I would like to concentrate mainly on the European Union's role in the Middle East peace process.
I must say once again that I am very concerned at the lack of progress that has been made recently in securing a final peace settlement that is acceptable to both sides.
In my opinion, the European Union must be very clear and must ensure that its position prevails. As the leading provider of economic assistance to the region, it can no longer allow itself to remain in the background when it comes to political questions as - and I would stress this point, Commissioner - the European Union is the biggest provider of per capita aid to Palestinians in the world.
<P>
As regards the EU's cooperation with the Middle East at a political level, we must continue to make every effort to help build autonomous and independent institutions for the Palestinian people.
Our aim must be to promote and structure a civil society in Palestine, as was mentioned earlier. We must also ensure that the aid we provide is used to train civil servants who will be the backbone of a new civil administration.
<P>
As far as economic assistance is concerned, the Union must be able to transform its aid into tangible and lasting results on the ground with a view to improving the welfare of the Palestinians and generating an economic fabric in the region that affords Palestine a certain degree of independence from other countries. This is particularly important, for example, in terms of ensuring that they have the ability to export their own products.
I agree with the rapporteur that it is essential to monitor the way in which the Palestinian authorities make use of the aid donated by means of auditing procedures, and this should mean that all expenditure and all measures taken are totally transparent.
<P>
In order to achieve all this, we need not only the Union's commitment, but also the participation of Israel in order to allow economic development in the region. In that way, both peoples will be able to coexist and respect each other, which is necessary for peace in the region.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, I just wanted to say that this has been an excellent debate.
I see that a large majority of the House is in favour of a certain position and its main points are very clear.
In accordance with the guidelines set out in the Sakellariou and Tomlinson reports, we will present the programming to the Council and to the European Parliament at the same time. It is convenient to have the Council's decision and Parliament's assent at the same time so that we can take an overall decision and resolve the many issues where improvement is still needed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Trans-European energy networks
<SPEAKER ID=149 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0087/99) by Mr Adam, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision amending Decision No 1254/96/EC laying down a series of guidelines for trans-European energy networks (COM(98)0542 - C4-0556/98-98/0284(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="Adam">
Mr President, as Members will be aware, the trans-European electricity and gas networks are an important part of our energy strategy and there is provision in the Community's budget to carry out studies as to how these can be best improved.
Colleagues should also note that there has been a slight change in the approach. Some of the money is now available for the actual construction of these networks.
<P>
The Commission has now come forward with a list of additional projects which are felt to be within the Community interest and therefore subject to the codecision procedure.
They are summarised on pages 8 and 9 of my report.
They are: the connection of isolated electricity networks, the development of internal electricity connections and various gas proposals.
Most of the proposals overall relate to gas, to gas interconnections and underground storage facilities.
One rather interesting thing about them is the way in which the islands and remote areas of the Community are increasingly considered for linkage to these networks.
Perhaps as an aside we might note that it gives an indication of the difficulties we have in exploiting renewable energies, which are often seen as the saviour of the remote areas: our main networks are continually pushing to the limits of Community territory.
<P>
Looking at the Commission proposals I am not aware of any particular problem with any of the projects.
Some of them have been up for discussion for quite some time.
Many of them take gas into areas of the Community which are not well supplied with it at the moment.
Of particular importance are the projects which develop gas supplies from Eastern Europe.
This is important in relation to our growing demand for fuel from that source.
<P>
We have tabled three amendments in committee.
They have been tabled in order to strengthen the links with offshore islands in the case of Greece and Spain.
We understand from the discussions in committee that these are not likely to cause any problem for the Commission or for the Council, so the procedures should not be held up because of this.
<P>
There is, however, an aspect of the overall problem which I would like to mention and which the committee feels is important.
Because this is a legislative text I cannot make reference in the resolution to anything other than the formalities that are laid down by Parliament. But the committee feels that we need to have a better link with the broader areas of policy as far as networks are concerned.
It is all very well providing the networks, but they affect competition policy.
There is some unease for instance in the electricity sector, and in the gas sector as well, that although we provide networks which in theory can work in two directions, all too often they only operate in one direction.
<P>
There is concern also that the ownership of electricity stations seems to be more easily bought in some countries than in others.
The way in which the liberalised market operates is certainly more liberal in some countries than in others, and it seems to me and the committee that in approving projects of this type we ought to have more of an assurance that they are in line with the Community's overall competition policy.
<P>
We also feel that we should be looking at how we can extend the electricity grids into Eastern Europe and as far as the former Soviet Union.
This is the way we ought to be going.
Not only do technical issues arise in this matter but there are also questions of competition and questions relating to environmental impact.
We hope that the Commission will look at the whole range of these areas, including oil pipelines - which are not technically part of the network agreement - and bring forward a communication on this subject in the near future.
We thought we would get gas from the Caspian area very readily. We know there are demands from Asia for that.
<P>
The committee welcomes the progress that is being made.
We look forward to the expansion and integration of these networks with the countries of Eastern Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sindal">
Mr President, thank you for allowing me to take part in the Energy Committee's debate.
There are two things to which I would like to draw attention.
The first is that there is an inherent conflict in opening the trans-European energy network to former Soviet states.
These states clearly want to be able to operate in a liberal market and earn money.
But when, as Parliament's representative, I discuss this with my colleagues in the Lithuanian Parliament, the disagreement is unmistakable.
They want to earn money and they want access to a liberal market on different terms from those we wish to see.
This is a conflict.
Should an Ignalina nuclear power station price-dump on the European market?
That is the question my colleagues put to our colleagues in the Lithuanian Parliament, the Seimas.
And the conflict will intensify later today when we discuss Mr Adam's second report.
There is an issue of interpretation here when the Lithuanian side maintains that the Copenhagen criteria contain nothing about energy.
It therefore becomes a debate in which energy is left out of the real negotiations.
And yet we must maintain the demands for closure, even if our colleagues in the Lithuanian Parliament cannot accept them.
At the same time, however, we must be realistic, because the funds we are making available and the financing we can offer is peanuts compared to what such an operation will cost.
<P>
I agree with Mr Adam - whom I should like to thank, by the way, for taking part in the meetings with our Lithuanian colleagues - but I stress that we need solutions which take into account the economies of the applicant countries.
It will not work otherwise.
I would like to emphasise once again the problem of granting access to a liberal market for some nuclear power stations which should in fact have been closed down a long time ago.
It creates a conflict in the political situation, in the political negotiations connected with accession.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 NAME="Estevan Bolea">
Mr President, I do not think that we can combine these reports.
That is why I have said that it is one thing to talk about trans-European energy networks for gas and electricity, and another thing to talk about the safety of nuclear power stations in Eastern Europe.
We should not combine the two things because, despite the fact that we are pressed for time, we will not manage to understand anything.
<P>
I would like to say to the Commissioner that, in my opinion, the ongoing activities of the Commission and the Member States in the field of energy are extremely important.
I particularly welcome the development of the gas and electricity networks as this is essential for the liberalisation of markets, to establish closer relations and to improve the standard of living in the countries involved.
<P>
I agree with all the points made by Mr Adam, which I will not repeat.
But I would like to point out that it is important to ensure that we have sufficient resources to extend the networks, and we will support all efforts to that effect.
The 1996 decision, which was reviewed in 1997, included 74 projects.
The 1999 revision has included a further 17 projects.
I would like to highlight one of those in particular, which has already been approved by the Council and which was based on an amendment by the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy concerning Spain. It involves strengthening internal connections, which, in turn, will also allow us to improve international exchanges.
<P>
So a great deal is being done, as I mentioned at the beginning, and perhaps some projects are moving too quickly.
However, all investment in electricity and gas networks will be important, perhaps particularly so in the electricity sector, Commissioner, because it is generally forgotten - or at least, this House tends to forget - that electricity cannot be stored and the service provided has to be immediate, in other words there must be immediate production to meet demand.
As a result, we have no option but to develop a system of widespread interconnections, to extend our networks and to also include, of course, the countries of Eastern Europe.
Some people say that we do not cooperate enough with the countries of Eastern Europe.
We should increase their possibilities of generating electricity.
We should help them and they should help us.
I would therefore like to thank you for all your efforts and hope that you continue with them. You will have our constant support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="Escolá Hernando">
Mr President, in the short time I have available, I would like to mention one of the key projects of the trans-European energy network.
<P>
I am referring to the project connecting the French and Spanish electricity networks with a high-tension line.
The line is practically finished and all that remains is to select the connection point to cross the Pyrenees.
And that is where the problem arises.
<P>
The project involves passing this 400 000 volt electric cable through a natural park, a bird reserve and one of the few virgin valleys in the Pyrenees.
Naturally, all the political parties in Aragon, the parliament, the government, the trade unions and the chambers of commerce, have directly opposed such a ridiculous plan.
As a result, this trans-European network project has been paralysed for years.
<P>
I would ask us to apply some common sense, in this case as in others, in order to combine essential energy projects with respect for the environment, sustainable development and, above all, the unanimous wish of those who may be affected, particularly when less traumatic solutions actually exist.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kronberger">
Mr President, on the subject of using nuclear energy to produce electricity, in recent years we have had two camps: the enthusiastic supporters and the resolute opponents.
Since the German Government's unambiguous rejection of nuclear power and the announcements by Belgium and Switzerland in recent weeks that they too will not use this technology, we are now faced with a completely new situation.
This technology no longer has a future.
<P>
In view of the fact that there is also enormous doubt concerning the economic viability of nuclear power stations, as established in the last few days by the Pemelin commission, Euratom loans for the construction of new reactors can no longer be justified.
For our own safety we must devote all our efforts to setting new parameters in energy supply.
Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz recognised this clearly.
Her amendments are a step in the right direction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="Papoutsis">
Mr President, I would first of all like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Adam, for his excellent report.
The list of projects of common interest was updated in 1997, when it became necessary to add projects to the list, chiefly to take account of the enlargement of the Community.
The majority of the amendments and additions that have been put forward by the Commission during the present phase are the result of the rapid development of the situation in Europe, mainly in the gas sector.
<P>
The projects that have been included in the Commission proposal have all been chosen on the basis of their contribution to the general objectives and on the basis of special criteria which determined the direction to be taken in the consultations we had with the industry. Moreover, they are fully in line with the intentions of the Member States, at least insofar as these have been expressed by the experts on energy matters with whom we had the opportunity of holding talks.
<P>
The Commission accepts all the amendments tabled by the European Parliament.
In particular, we accept the two amendments for the inclusion of projects concerning the electricity grids in Greece and Spain.
We fully agree that the additions to this list of plans for projects of common interest are wholly appropriate.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to dwell in particular on the case of Greece.
We are providing opportunities for the funding of studies and projects to link the islands to each other and also to the Greek mainland.
I think you will recognise the opportunities that are opening up, not only in respect of the energy balance but also for the use of renewable energy sources and, mainly, of solar and wind energy, which we have in abundance in Greece.
<P>
I also want to highlight the concern expressed in the excellent report produced by Mr Adam regarding the security and the external dimension of the energy networks.
In the coming months the European Parliament will present a document on the security of the Community energy supply.
I also want to emphasise that the general issue of the external dimension, especially the issue of connections with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, is a constant concern of the Commission.
Mr Sindal and Mr Adam had the opportunity to talk about this issue previously.
Our desire to keep the European Parliament fully informed on all these issues and on all the developments in the years to come remains steadfast.
<P>
Finally, the Commission hopes that the motion for a resolution we have before us will be adopted as soon as possible, so that it will be possible for these projects and especially the feasibility studies to get under way. The latter are necessary to show us to what extent the projects are sustainable and can be incorporated into the energy plans of the European Union.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me once again to thank Mr Adam for the excellent report he has put before us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner, for that clear and concise contribution.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Nuclear sector-related activities for third countries
<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0088/99) by Mr Adam, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the Commission communication on nuclear sector-related activities for the applicant countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the New Independent States (COM(98)0134 - C4-0314/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 NAME="Adam">
Mr President, since 1990 nuclear power has been an important issue for the European Union's relations with the Central and Eastern European countries and the newly independent states.
This importance is reinforced by the enlargement negotiations.
The European Parliament has recognised the sovereign right of states to determine their own energy policies, including the nuclear option.
<P>
The European Union has a significant presence in the nuclear activities of the Central and Eastern European countries and the newly independent states.
There has been undisputed progress in improving the operational safety of nuclear power stations, including the first generation reactors of the RBMK1000 and the VVER230 types.
These improvements in safety have been achieved particularly by the use of on-site assistance teams, supported by the PHARE and TACIS programmes.
These have resulted in a radical change in safety culture.
I would note that this change in safety culture and the increased operational safety cannot be measured in direct monetary terms.
The fact that these benefits cannot be readily measured, however, does not make them any less real.
<P>
It is becoming increasingly obvious that despite the massive investment of the European Union in the nuclear activities of the Eastern European countries, the European Union cannot dictate policy to other states.
This includes countries such as the newly independent states as well as those in the first and second wave applicant countries.
In the case of the Russian Federation, the constant referral to unsafe reactors and the pressure to close these reactors down is somewhat resented.
To the Russians there are no unsafe reactors; there are only first and second generation reactors.
The pressure to close down is seen as an unwarranted interference in domestic affairs.
<P>
We should note that all the reactors in the European Union, in Central and Eastern Europe, in Russia and the newly independent states operate to the standards set by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the nuclear conventions which are currently in force.
It is clear that the use of nuclear energy in these Eastern European countries will continue.
Many of them have established policies which aim for maximum energy independence and security of supply.
Many of them do not wish to be dependent on Russia for supplies of oil and gas.
We must also remember that there are perceived economic advantages to continuing to use existing nuclear stations rather than building new alternatives.
<P>
To add to the complications, some of these countries provide their neighbours with electricity.
This is true of Lithuania and Bulgaria.
Bulgaria exports to Turkey something like US $600 million of electricity every year - badly needed currency.
To press for closure in those circumstances raises considerable resentment.
Although the European Union has been very active in the nuclear sector, up to now there has been a clear failure of the European Union and G-7 policy.
Not one unsafe or first generation reactor has been closed as a result of current policy.
It is clear that the nuclear states of Eastern Europe will continue to pursue the nuclear option.
<P>
Two main factors are responsible for the failure of this policy: firstly, the ambiguity of the agreements and, secondly, the lack of provision for alternative electricity capacity.
I should also add that there is a lack of consideration of the perceived national security and economic needs of many of these countries.
<P>
Future activity must involve real cooperation and negotiation with the recipients of aid.
The European Union cannot take a heavy-handed, dictatorial position.
We cannot impose our will upon those countries.
We cannot tell them what they must do.
We have tried this and, I have noted, it does not work.
It is my profound belief that we can only advance through cooperation and negotiation.
This negotiation must include an agreed energy strategy for each country in which provision for alternative electricity supply must be a fundamental component.
<P>
Another essential component will be the revision of regulatory standards by the Western European regulatory authorities with the involvement of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the European Commission.
The ultimate aim of this increased cooperation will be the development of an acquis communautaire for the use of nuclear energy.
Nuclear safety standards, applicable throughout the European Union, the Central and Eastern European countries and the newly independent states must be the goal.
<P>
We urge the Commission to coordinate its own services much more effectively than it has in the past.
I hope it will accept that cooperation and not confrontation must underpin our relations with the applicant countries and the newly independent states in relation to nuclear activities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="van den Broek">
First of all, my thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Adam, for his first-rate and above all constructive report.
I would also like to express my appreciation of the intensive debate and positive exchanges of views held in the European Parliament on the difficult subject of nuclear safety.
The report we are looking at today paints a realistic picture of the scope of the problems and of the difficult task facing anyone working to improve nuclear safety in Central and Eastern Europe.
Unfortunately, as the report makes clear, change and improvement are not things which can be achieved in the very short term.
And there are reasons for this.
<P>
First of all, and I heard Mr Adam say the same, the partner countries with which we examine these problems are sovereign states. They set their own energy policy and their own nuclear policy as well.
Some of them depend very heavily on nuclear energy for their electricity supplies and for export revenue too.
Mr Adam has also made those points this afternoon.
<P>
A third obstacle is of course the extremely high cost of modernising, not to mention decommissioning, nuclear plants or individual reactors.
<P>
The strategy which has been much discussed, as it was in the report of the European Court of Auditors and the Commission, goes back to the G7 decision of 1992, which was really taken in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster.
A strategy for nuclear energy was devised at that time to serve as a basis for the Commission's activities in this field too.
The short-term imperatives were to find practical solutions to the most pressing safety problems which we had identified jointly with the IAEA, for example appointing independent and competent safety authorities and improving reactor safety in both Eastern Europe and the New Independent States.
For the longer term, emphasis was placed on sustainable improvements to safety, on the one hand by encouraging the decommissioning of the less safe reactors, replacing them with alternative energy sources and improving energy efficiency, and on the other hand by helping to modernise those reactors which could be made safe by modernisation.
As you know, that was not the case with all nuclear reactors.
Some of them simply had to be closed down.
<P>
As regards the most pressing safety problems, I am convinced that despite the criticisms which might be made and which have been made, the European Union's efforts have borne fruit and that the money - 800 million or so - was well spent.
A number of things have been achieved under the nuclear safety programmes.
To mention just a few: the independent regulatory authorities have been set up or strengthened and the legal framework needed to operate a nuclear safety policy is in place, both in Central Europe and the New Independent States, though the quality of the regulatory authorities varies from country to country.
<P>
Technical solutions have been sought to the most important and most serious design faults in nuclear facilities.
Exchange and transfer of know-how has led to progress in fostering a culture of nuclear safety in the region.
This has led to a more formal and regular dialogue between nuclear facility operators and the regulatory authorities, and also to an acceptance of the need to apply high safety standards to the building of new reactors.
<P>
I should also mention the substantial contribution which has been made towards improving operating practice in nuclear facilities and modernising them, in part by the supply of equipment and the promotion of greater awareness of the problem of waste management.
<P>
Lastly, we have helped, and are still helping, to resolve the problems presented by the Chernobyl facility; in addition to the 'shelter implementation plan', the Commission has helped significantly to implement the policy devised by the G7 to achieve closure of Chernobyl by the year 2000.
In a nutshell, the cost of our work to improve nuclear safety has been between EUR 750 and 850 million.
The mere cost of building the so-called sarcophagus around the Chernobyl reactor IV, the site of the explosion, is put at between EUR 600 and 800 million.
This shows the scale of the costs involved, and it has been calculated that the cost of all the modernising and decommissioning work required, just for the dangerous facilities in Central and Eastern Europe, is likely to be between four and five billion euros.
These are very large sums, so of course the 100 million a year which the Commission has spent on its activities is a relatively small amount.
<P>
Building on the G7 strategy, the Commission will continue its policy of helping the partner countries to modernise those reactors which can be modernised, but it will also continue working towards decommissioning those reactors which cannot be modernised because of fundamental technical or design faults inherent in that reactor type.
<P>
I should stress here that there is a difference in implementation of the policy between the applicant countries and the New Independent States of the former Soviet Union.
It is obvious that the prospect of Union membership gives us greater leverage over the nuclear policy of the applicant countries.
<P>
We need to realise that closing down rectors is only realistic if broader energy strategies are developed at the same time.
Mr Adam's report makes that point as well.
In line with the report's recommendation, the Commission will foster efforts to secure a strategy of this kind as part of the pre-accession strategy for the applicant countries, as well as under the partnership agreement with the countries of the former Soviet Union.
That is not new.
We have been working on this with these countries for quite some time now.
<P>
We are also holding talks with Lithuania, Bulgaria and shortly with Armenia. These are three countries in which we do not only want to implement these comprehensive energy strategies; they also have nuclear facilities which ought, on the basis of earlier agreements and notably the Nuclear Safety Account, to be closed down.
We know that these facilities generate much of the electricity in these countries, and we are well aware of the major economic interests which are at stake here if facilities close down, of the loss of important energy export opportunities and of the sacrifices which these countries will be required to make in this area.
This is why we are seeking, and have sought, to cooperate with the international financial organisations to draw up financing plans which can serve as a basis for international financial aid and the funding of alternative sources of energy.
<P>
And I should emphasis once again that I quite agree with Mr Adam that we must not seek to solve these problems with the countries concerned in a confrontational way.
Nevertheless, and we are attempting to get this message across to Lithuania and Bulgaria, we are dealing here with earlier decommissioning undertakings which these countries gave in the context of the Nuclear Safety Account, and we are keen to help them face up to the consequences of decommissioning and also to absorb those consequences.
<P>
The Commission has learned a great deal, not only from practical experience and internal audits, but also from the criticisms voiced in various reports of the European Parliament and the Court of Auditors.
The problems which the programme experienced in the initial phase are now behind us.
The Commission has drawn on its experience, and on your observations too, to make the necessary changes in the programme's management.
<P>
A propos of that, I should like to offer the following examples. Much of the delay in carrying out the programmes was due to the fact that the instruments available were not sufficiently well tailored to the specific requirements of this sector.
The new TACIS regulation should help to change this. It covers the period 2000 to 2006 and has three clear priorities for nuclear safety: to continue fostering the transfer of a culture of safety in the field of nuclear energy; to improve the management of spent fissile materials and nuclear waste, notably in the north-west of Russia; and to contribute to international measures aimed at improving nuclear safety, which is a fairly broad description but naturally has everything to do with further efforts to close down a number of nuclear facilities which are deemed unsafe.
<P>
We hope that Parliament will deliver its opinion on the new regulation in due course, so that it can indeed come into force on 1 January of next year.
I am more than happy to assure Parliament that we shall report periodically on progress under the PHARE and TACIS programmes on nuclear safety.
Lastly, it is our firm intention to improve the internal management of the aid programmes.
The Commission is currently debating a proposal for a nuclear safety task force within the Commission, aimed at better coordination of the ten directorates-general which are concerned to some extent with these issues within the Commission.
In the light of the discussions during the last part-session, and in order to give a clearer general and more detailed overview of what the Commission has done to date in the field of nuclear safety, we recently sent Parliament's Energy Committee and a number of other committees an 'aide-mémoire' setting out in detail the work already done and further plans for the immediate future.
I hope that this will in any event have helped to lay a strong foundation for further debate with the European Parliament on this important subject.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 NAME="Muscardini">
. (IT) Mr President, nuclear safety affects millions of people in the European Union and in the Eastern European countries.
The Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, which unanimously adopted my opinion on this report on 27 October 1998, considers that nuclear safety is a crucial element of the pre-accession strategy.
<P>
The Commission stated in Agenda 2000 that nuclear safety was a key objective, given the prospect of EU membership for a number of countries in Central and Eastern Europe. It subdivided nuclear installations into three categories: obsolete reactors of Soviet design which must be closed down definitively; ones which can be upgraded to acceptable levels of safety; and, lastly, the few reactors of Western design, which can remain in service provided that high safety standards are maintained in the long term.
<P>
It emerges from the Court of Auditors' special report that only ECU 300 million of the 850 m made available for the period 1990-1997 were spent by the CEECs on nuclear safety.
Crucial upgrading and restructuring work must therefore be carried out under PHARE and TACIS.
The safety standards of these power plants must be inspected by an independent authority recognised by the IAEA and the EU.
In view of the recommissioning of one of the Chernobyl nuclear reactors, the countries applying for EU membership and the countries formed by the collapse of the Soviet Union must provide Europe as a whole with safety guarantees, in full awareness of the economic and social implications of such statements.
<P>
I repeat that nuclear safety is a crucial element of the pre-accession strategy.
Unless guarantees are provided, accession could represent a risk to our collective safety.
It is therefore the hope of the Foreign Affairs Committee that all available financial resources will be used to mount programmes aimed at solving the question of nuclear safety in Europe once and for all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
I am also speaking directly on behalf of the Liberal Group and not just for the REX Committee, because otherwise I would not have three and a half minutes.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, my compliments to Mr Adam on his report.
It is in a way his swan song, I would say.
It is not easy to get everyone to adopt the same line on matters of nuclear energy, but I think in this case he has succeeded very well.
The Union's energy policy vis-à-vis the countries of Central and Eastern Europe is focused on the safe operation of the existing nuclear facilities.
Under the objectives of Agenda 2000, Soviet-designed reactors which cannot be modernised at reasonable cost must be decommissioned, because these reactors are unsafe.
But in fact not one reactor in Eastern Europe has been closed down since 1992.
Even the Chernobyl reactors I and II, although they have been inoperative for a number of years now, are still not regarded as having been decommissioned by the Ukrainian Government, despite all the resolutions passed by the European Parliament.
Sovereign states are entitled to determine the main lines of their energy policy, says the rapporteur.
But that does not mean that the Union has to stand quietly by and see our resolutions ignored.
If the Union puts money into Eastern Europe through aid programmes and loans, then we may be able to influence the strategy followed and give an advantage to certain forms of energy over others.
<P>
That is one of the few instruments the Union has for forcing unsafe nuclear facilities to close, and we should make use of such instruments.
The safety of existing facilities should also be used as an essential criterion for accession to the Union.
<P>
My second point concerns the Court of Auditors' report on measures taken by the European Union in the field of nuclear safety in Eastern Europe.
The Commissioner has outlined these for us in detail.
The members of the REX Committee were shocked by the report's conclusions.
We have said as much previously.
We appreciate that it is not easy for the Commission to operate in the former Eastern bloc, given the degree of red tape there and the complexity of the nuclear industry.
But precisely because of that, the Commission should have shown greater care in implementing these programmes.
Greater use should be made of the specialist know-how available on the spot in Eastern Europe.
<P>
That brings me to my final point, and I have a question for Commissioner van den Broek.
A few weeks ago, in response to a question of mine, your colleagues told the REX Committee and the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy that they were busy on an inventory of the millennium problem, checking the millennium compliance of the computers in the facilities in Central and Eastern Europe.
So when, Commissioner, can we expect a report here in Parliament on the millennium compliance of the nuclear facilities in Central and Eastern Europe?
I ask this because we are already almost a quarter of the way through 1999, and 1 January 2000 is the crucial date.
I would be glad to hear your answer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="van den Broek">
In reply to Mrs Plooij, we have made funds available to the IAEA, which is naturally far better qualified to conduct this inventory than we are.
You are actually asking the Commission to do something which we were unable to do in the past and will be unable to do in the future either.
We simply do not have the know-how or the people to prepare an inventory of this kind.
That is why we said we would support the IAEA in all the relevant work it did here, and that is exactly what we are doing.
I believe the IAEA is organising a forum on these issues, and I promise to report back to you on it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="President">
We shall adjourn the debate at this point for Question Time. It will be resumed this evening at 9 p.m.
<P>
Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz has a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bloch von Blottnitz">
Mr President, would you please be so good as to ask the Commission to be present this evening for the debate on this very important topic?
The Commission talked longer this afternoon than all the Members put together, and as a result it is not possible for us to continue the debate now.
I would ask you to urge the Commission to ensure that it is present this evening so that we can continue.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Question Time (Council)
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="President">
The next item is questions to the Council (B4-0144/99).
<P>
As they deal with the same subject, Questions Nos 1, 2 and 3 will be taken together.
<P>
<P>
Question No 1 by Richard Corbett (H-0115/99)
<P>
Subject: Cost to the taxpayer of the abolition of duty-free sales In reviewing the decision to phase out duty-free sales by July 1999, will the Council consider the loss to national exchequers of revenue arising from duty-free sales and the corresponding benefit of ending duty-free sales?
<P>
Is the Council aware that, for the UK alone, duty-free sales account for some GBP 1 billion per annum and that this represents a loss in terms of excise duty and VAT of at least an equal amount?
Is the Council aware that this represents a shortfall of about GBP 40 per taxpayer?
<P>
<P>
Question No 2 by Mark Watts (H-0135/99)
<P>
Subject: Duty-free salesThe Commission will present to the ECOFIN Council on 15 March 1999 its report on addressing the employment problems resulting from any abolition of intra-EU duty-free sales.
This fulfils part of the instructions from the Heads of State at the Vienna Summit.
<P>
If the Commission does not include the possibility of an extension to the transitional arrangements for duty-free sales in its report, will the Council Presidency ask the Commission to bring forward proposals for an extension, in order to meet the reference to a possible extension set out in the conclusions of the Vienna Summit?
<P>
<P>
Question No 3 by John Cushnahan (H-0179/99)
<P>
Subject: Duty-freeOn 17 February the Commission presented its Communication as a response to the EU leaders' request at the Vienna Summit.
In the document the Commission shows an aggregate job loss figure of 56 000 based on figures of direct job losses from 10 Member States and indirect job losses from a mere 7 states.
The document subsequently suggests that any potential job losses arising from duty-free abolition are not 'significant' and are not of a 'macro-economic level'.
Does the European Council share this view?
<P>
I should like to welcome Mr Verheugen and ask him to answer these Members' questions together.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, in accordance with the conclusions of the European Council in Vienna, in the course of this month the Council will be examining what problems may arise as a result of the abolition of duty-free sales in intra-Community travel by air and sea.
The Council will at the same time try to find appropriate ways to deal with this situation on the basis of Commission proposals.
<P>
Meanwhile, I can inform the honourable Members that the Council received a Commission communication on this issue on 19 February 1999.
The Council would however like to emphasise that when examining this communication it will take into account all relevant aspects of the conclusions of the Vienna Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 NAME="Corbett">
I should like to thank the President-in-Office for that answer.
When the Council reviews the decision on duty-free it will no doubt be looking at the problem raised, rightly, by several governments about the need to have a workable successor regime in place.
<P>
Does he agree that the review should also look at the cost to public finances if the duty-free regime were to be continued?
Duty-free is a tax break, and a costly tax break, largely for the benefit of the tobacco and alcohol industries.
Surely the President-in-Office can think of some better causes - if the finance ministers have extra money at their disposal - than a tax break for the tobacco industry and the alcohol industry.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Corbett, I can confirm that the Council will consider all relevant aspects when assessing this issue, as I said.
This includes not only the effects of the abolition of duty-free on the labour market and the economy as a whole, but of course also the consequences of revoking or changing a decision taken in the European Union.
So I can reassure you that all aspects will be taken into account, including the question of whether it is correct and justifiable from a social point of view to abolish a privilege that has until now been available to very ordinary people and is the only privilege available to this section of the population. Here I am referring in particular to people who do not have high incomes and usually do not have access to privileges of any kind, be they tax-related or others.
That will also be included in the full examination to be undertaken by the Council this month.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="Watts">
I should also like to thank the President-in-Office for his very full answer and, indeed, thank the German presidency for trying to review the whole sorry duty-free saga.
<P>
Would the German presidency explain the details of the German compromise, which we believe is currently under discussion in Council working groups?
It would help the House greatly if we could have details of the German compromise proposal tonight, before ECOFIN next week.
<P>
Secondly, would he comment on what the legal basis would be for the possibility of an extension to the transitional arrangements?
<P>
Finally, would he give a view on how, in view of the very tight timescale until the end of June this year and the fact that we have European Parliament elections in the intervening period, the Council and the Commission will be consulting this Parliament on their proposals - which we hope will be forthcoming from ECOFIN or from Berlin - on a extension to the duty-free regime?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Watts, the issue you mentioned has now been discussed twice by the Heads of State and Government.
So you can see how important it is in political terms.
Considerable time was devoted to the issue both in Vienna and at the Petersberg meeting in Bonn.
It is therefore certainly a central issue in European politics.
The Federal Chancellor did indeed put forward a German compromise proposal which involves examining whether a one-off three-year extension of the duty-free regime - that was the original proposal - would be possible.
We are currently investigating whether a legal basis exists for this.
I am not giving anything away if I say that an immediate reaction to this proposal was that we should perhaps also consider extending it for two and a half years or for three and a half years.
This has to do with holiday periods in Europe and is related to the timing of the decision.
We are currently looking into whether or not this is possible, and I cannot inform you of the outcome of this investigation as it has not yet been concluded.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 NAME="Cushnahan">
Mr President, it is unbelievable that the Commission rejected our claim about job losses and yet in its communication to the Council when seven Member States supplied complete data on direct and indirect job losses it concluded that about 50 000 jobs would be sacrificed on abolition.
<P>
I would like to remind the presidency that at the Bonn Summit the EU Heads of State and of Government quite rightly rejected the Commission's assertion that job losses could be protected by the application of Community funding and state subsidies and that a 30-month extension would be necessary to identify the problems associated with the post-duty-free regime and to put in place a workable solution to protect employees in that sector.
<P>
I would like to ask the Council to comment on the fact that a growing number of Member States have expressed serious concern regarding the success of the regime, and that the Commission's recent statement that there is unanimous agreement that the current legislation 'provides a clear, simple and easily enforceable solution' is totally misleading.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="Verheugen">
The Council, or rather in this case the presidency, is of course aware of the status of discussions in the Council bodies, and it is also aware of the views of the individual Member States.
I have to agree with you that we have a broad spectrum of different opinions, both on what course of action should be taken and on the consequences of the various possible decisions.
So there are some Member States who fear enormous negative consequences if we abolish duty-free, and there are others who say that these consequences will not arise.
There are others who say that there will certainly be consequences, but we must ensure that we come up with a way of softening the blow.
There is a broad spectrum here.
<P>
I believe it makes sense to gather all the facts first and analyse them, and to attempt to reach agreement, which is always very important. We must see whether the facts and figures form a common basis and, if so, we must use this common basis to find a solution.
You know what the legal situation is: there is a decision in force, and this would have to be revoked or replaced by another if we now wanted to take a different course of action.
This can only be done by unanimous assent.
The requirement of unanimity is to be taken particularly seriously in this context as it is a factor that will be relevant in assessing what is to be done.
This is also why the Federal Chancellor, in his capacity as Council President, made the compromise proposal I just described, as he recognised or believed it likely that unanimity probably cannot be achieved for an amended decision.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 NAME="Cassidy">
Mr President, I would like to thank the President-in-Office for his reply to the questions so far.
I am grateful to him for reminding us that any prolongation of duty-free would require unanimity and I sense that unanimity is not likely to be forthcoming.
<P>
May I also remind him that the job losses referred to are widely exaggerated.
The figure of 56 000 was referred to in Mr Cushnahan's question.
That appears nowhere in the Commission's study and it contrasts with the figure of 120 000 job losses put about by the duty-free lobby.
So, would the President-in-Office please give us an undertaking that he and the Federal Finance Minister and the Federal Chancellor will not be persuaded by the powerful lobbying of what Mr Corbett has referred to as the 'cigarette and alcohol' lobby?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Cassidy, if your question was whether I believe that I can persuade the German Finance Minister to do something, then my answer has to be that I do not know.
<P>
Laughter
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, it is quite obvious that there is a strong, powerful lobby on the side of those who are against abolishing duty-free, while there is no-one on the other side because it is made up of small groups and small businesses.
I wonder whether account will be taken of the consequences that will arise if duty-free is allowed to continue.
Will that not destroy many more jobs in small businesses that are not in the right place and do not have the opportunities available to all the other large firms?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr von Habsburg, I cannot disagree with what you said.
It is one of the aspects of a controversy that we could now almost describe as ideologically charged.
You noted this yourself very clearly in your question.
There are profoundly different views here, including on the structural impact.
I do not deny that by any means.
<P>
I do not believe I can tell you anything other than that it appears to be necessary, before a final decision is taken on whether to extend the transitional arrangements, to ensure that the economic and social consequences of these decisions are clearly identified, in detail and very precisely, so that the decision can be taken responsibly.
This must be examined for both options, and in my opinion the examination must include, as you suggested, the actual consequences of the continuation of duty-free on the SME-based retail sector, for example, in certain Member States and in the areas in question.
There is no doubt that this is necessary.
<P>
The question is very difficult to answer, Mr von Habsburg, because some people claim that the sales in question are impulse buys or purchases that are only made because they are available. They will not be substituted by purchases elsewhere.
I do not know if it is correct that pensioners will only buy butter and coffee on ships if they are slightly cheaper.
But these are all just theories, and we have market research and all sorts of things here, all of which must be examined.
I hope that the results will soon be available so that the issue can be resolved before it begins to seriously disrupt European politics.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 NAME="McIntosh">
Mr President, I would like to reassure Mr Cassidy that there will be many thousands of job losses, not least, regrettably, in my own constituency of North Essex and South Suffolk because of the airport at Stansted and the seaport at Harwich.
<P>
My question to the President is this: is he aware of how unbelievably complicated the scheme is going to be if the decision goes ahead to abolish duty-free sales from 1 July?
It will, in fact, mean that different prices for the same product will be charged depending on which airspace or which territorial waters the flight or the vessel is travelling through.
What does he propose?
I cannot believe he means this regime to be in place in the manner intended.
Surely there must be a temporary delay until such time as proper rules have been brought in; otherwise it will make complete nonsense of the application of the decision.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, Mrs McIntosh, I freely admit that any future rules will probably be complicated.
However, I do not envisage the complication you have just described, particularly not in air travel.
We board a plane in A and disembark in B, and if A and B are both within the European Community the problem does not arise, as in this case there can be no duty-free sales.
If B is outside the European Community this opportunity does exist; it is relatively simple.
If a ship travels from one EU country to another and in doing so crosses the waters of a third country, it may be somewhat more complicated, and I am not currently in a position to say how we should deal with this problem.
However, I do not see a problem for air travel.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 NAME="President">
As they deal with the same subject, Questions Nos 4 and 5 will be taken together.
<P>
<P>
Question No 4 by Paul Rübig (H-0116/99)
<P>
Subject: Increase in parliamentary powers of control through the next amendment of the Treaties Discussions in recent weeks have shown that both the EU's institutional order and the actual policies pursued call for a modern system of checks and balances.
The European Parliament has proved that it is willing and able, as the Community's only directly legitimised institution, to perform the control tasks demanded by its citizens.
<P>
The requirement that the Commission resign as a body if a vote of no-confidence is passed and the European Parliament's lack of authority to dismiss a Member of the Commission from office no longer seem in keeping with the times.
The need for individual political accountability requires an adjustment of the legislation concerned.
<P>
How does the Council's representative view the prospects for eliminating these shortcomings at the next intergovernmental conference on the amendment of the Treaties?
<P>
<P>
Question No 5 by Karl Habsburg-Lothringen (H-0194/99)
<P>
Subject: Responsibility of CommissionersBy what means is the Council planning to make provision for the individual responsibility of Commissioners?
When in its view will it be possible for Commissioners to be confirmed individually by the European Parliament and, where necessary, also to be called to account individually?
<P>
I give the floor to the President-in-Office to answer these questions by Mr Rübig and Mr Habsburg-Lothringen together.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 NAME="Verheugen">
The questions posed by both honourable Members contain proposals whose implementation would require an amendment of the Treaties.
Such possible amendments of the Treaties do not fall within the Council's field of competence.
In accordance with Article N of the Treaty on European Union, or Article 48 of the EU Treaty after the Amsterdam Treaty comes into force, the government of any Member State or the Commission may submit proposals for the amendment of the Treaties to the Council.
After consulting the European Parliament and, where appropriate, the Commission, the role of the Council is confined to delivering an opinion in favour of calling a conference of representatives of the governments of the Member States, which is then convened by the President of the Council.
Treaty amendments agreed jointly by the representatives of the governments of the Member States only enter into force after being ratified by all the Member States in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, at the next Council following the report by the Committee of Independent Experts - which has apparently been published in the Belgian press today - will the Council institute compulsory retirement proceedings for individual Commissioners in accordance with Article 160, or will the European Parliament have to pass a vote of no-confidence in the Commission as a whole, including the majority of Commissioners who do excellent work?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, Mr Rübig, I regret that I am not in a position to answer this hypothetical question.
The question is hypothetical because the Council presidency does not yet know the contents of the report, which is due to be published next week, and without knowing the content, structure and recommendations of this report it is absolutely impossible to comment today on whether and how the Council will deal with it and what conclusions it might draw.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, I will try not to ask a hypothetical question. Instead, I wish to ask about your personal views.
You cited the paragraphs that need to be changed.
Now I would ask you whether you really see the need for the Treaties to be amended in this way in view of recent events.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, I do not believe I am authorised to answer this question.
I have been asked about my personal views, but these are of absolutely no relevance to the European Parliament.
It is only what I can tell you about the opinion of the Council, in my capacity as President-in-Office, that is of relevance.
I regret that I cannot tell you my personal views.
I can only give you answers that must be agreed with all the Member States, and for this reason my answer to this question must be no, I cannot give you my personal views.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 NAME="Corbett">
Mr President, I hope the President-in-Office of the Council will indulge us in putting forward possibilities for the next IGC even if he is not yet in a position to react formally to them.
Surely one of the questions coming out of the recent events is whether the President of the Commission should have the right to dismiss individual members of the Commission.
In a national government, if a minister is guilty of serious misconduct or mismanagement but refuses to resign, then the leader of the government concerned can dismiss him or her.
In the European Commission, were that situation ever to arise, the President of the Commission does not have the possibility of asking that member to resign or leave the Commission.
Surely that would be the appropriate Treaty amendment to bring forward in the next IGC.
If the circumstances arose and then the President of the Commission did not use that power we could then censure the Commission as a whole.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Corbett, I will be very specific.
The presidency does not so far intend, in its proposal for the European Council in Cologne in June, to go beyond what was left over from Amsterdam.
To date, the position of the presidency has been that we must now make a procedural proposal on how these remaining issues are to be dealt with, in other words on how and when the next intergovernmental conference will take place and with what agenda.
The agenda we have hitherto envisaged includes the composition of the Commission, qualified majority voting in the Council and the weighting of votes in the Council.
The presidency does not currently intend to make any other proposals to the Council in Cologne.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
To Mr Rübig, I would first like to say that I do not believe Parliament fulfilled its responsibilities, because we should have sacked the whole Commission in January, but that is by the way.
To the President-in-Office, I would like to say that I do not think Mr Rübig was asking a hypothetical question.
The question can easily be answered, regardless of the outcome next month of the investigation into the Commission which is currently in progress.
We know the answer very well.
We cannot fire the whole Commission.
You must also be able to give that answer.
I seem to remember that in his speech Mr Fischer said the German Presidency was in favour of giving Parliament increased powers, which would in fact be equivalent to it becoming a real parliament and the Commission becoming a real government.
Have I understood correctly?
Is that really what Mr Fischer said in his speech here in Parliament?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 NAME="Verheugen">
Mrs Sandbæk, I can explain that very easily.
There are two separate issues which must be distinguished here. Firstly, there is a long-term process of change in the European institutions and in relations between them, with greater democratic legitimacy, improved democratic control and increased transparency.
This is the constitutional process - as I would like to call it - that is ongoing in Europe and with which we will be dealing for many years to come.
<P>
The decisions that have to be made at various stages must be seen as a separate issue because they are related to other decisions.
This is the case with the famous 'left-overs' that I mentioned, which are directly linked to the process of enlargement.
There was a general consensus in the EU that these remaining issues would have to be dealt with before the accession of the first new Member State.
The question of when this will happen is of great political importance, since the speed with which we act on this, or our failure to do so, will send out a signal to the states wishing to join the Union.
<P>
If we now say that we will deal with these remaining issues at the same time as the far-reaching constitutional matters, which you addressed and I touched upon, then it means that they will not be resolved for some considerable time, which will be too late for the states wishing to join the Union.
This is why we want to restrict ourselves in Cologne to saying how and when and to what extent we want to make the decisions that need to be taken in relation to enlargement, but also to start broader discussions on the issues that you mentioned.
Of course the question of strengthening the role of Parliament in the European Union is crucial here.
I would also point out that the rights of Parliament will already be increased considerably with the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty, which is scheduled for 1 June.
But we see that as an ongoing process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 NAME="Medina Ortega">
I am very concerned by Mr Rübig's supplementary question.
<P>
Mr Rübig referred to today's Belgian newspapers and asked the President-in-Office if the Council had any reaction to what appears in the Belgian newspapers today.
I am concerned because I have not read today's Belgian newspapers and I do not know what they say. I do not normally buy them here.
<P>
I would like to ask the President-in-Office if Belgian newspapers form part of Community law or if the President-in-Office intends to incorporate them into Community law at the next intergovernmental conference.
It is hard enough work for me to follow Community law through the Official Journal and if I also have to read the Belgian newspapers, I will have even more work to do.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Medina Ortega, the presidency will not make decisions on the basis of publications in the Belgian press, nor on the basis of publications in any other newspapers. Instead, it will base its decisions on documents.
We do not consider a document to be something that is written by a newspaper but something that we receive officially from a European body, from Parliament or from the Commission.
Newspapers play an important role in Europe.
They are essential in a Europe of freedom and democracy, but they are not an EU body.
It is also better both for them and for us that they do not become one.
So I can assure you that your fears are unfounded.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="President">
Thank you for making that clear, Mr Verheugen.
<P>
<P>
Question No 6 by Michael Hindley (H-0124/99)
<P>
Subject: Visa-free access for Hong Kong passport holders In the context of the EP report on Hong Kong, the European Parliament adopted a resolution urging the Member States to grant visa-free access to Hong Kong passport holders.
In response, the Commission noted that, pending the introduction of a common visa list, the Commission had no direct responsibility over EU visa policy but that it strongly supported Hong Kong's efforts to secure visa-free access for HKSAR passport holders.
Would the Council inform us what action has been taken in response to Parliament's resolution?
<P>
When will the question of visa-free access for HKSAR passport holders be considered by the Member States?
Furthermore, what are the attitudes of Member States on the subject?
<P>
Has any Member State indicated unwillingness to grant visa-free access to HKSAR passport holders?
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer this question tabled by Mr Hindley, which has been taken over here this evening by Mr Newens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Newens, I would like to say firstly that the visa system for Hong Kong residents continues to be governed by Regulation (EC) No 2317/95.
The regulation was declared invalid by the European Court of Justice, but its legal effects were expressly maintained.
As Hong Kong inhabitants are not included in the common list of nationalities requiring visas for entry to the European Union, under Article 2 of this regulation it is the Member States alone which decide the entry requirements.
On the basis of information supplied by the Member States, the Commission has drawn up a summary of current visa requirements for nationalities not included in the common list, which was published in the Official Journal of the European Communities on 3 April 1998, page 4 et seq .
According to this, only Ireland and the United Kingdom currently do not require a visa from holders of passports of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
The other Member States have announced that they will apply the same visa requirement rules that apply to China to residents of Hong Kong.
<P>
The Council intends, with the involvement of the European Parliament, to adopt an amended regulation on the common visa list, so that Hong Kong residents would no longer be subject to a common visa requirement in the EU Member States.
The Member States would continue to decide themselves what entry rules to apply to Hong Kong residents.
<P>
I hope you will understand that I cannot comment on the national visa policies of the Member States, nor, in particular, on what their future policies are likely to be.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 NAME="Newens">
My colleague, Mr Hindley, apologises for his inability to be present.
<P>
From what we have heard, a decision on Hong Kong is being held up.
Is it realistic to hold this up, when there is no threat of a large-scale influx of illegal immigrants, merely because there are fears as far as other countries are concerned?
In view of the fact that the Hong Kong authorities have made strenuous efforts to make their travel document difficult to forge and that there is the issue of reciprocity, from which European travellers to Hong Kong benefit, is there not a special case at this point to make progress on this issue, which would strengthen relations between the European Union and Hong Kong and, for that matter, between Europe and China?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Newens, we could spend a long time discussing whether the decision that has been taken is realistic or not, and whether the concerns or considerations that led to this decision are correct or not.
The fact is that it has been decided in this way.
The current rule will continue to apply, so visa-free access or visa requirements for Hong Kong residents entering the European Union will be decided at national level by the Member States.
It is the exclusive right of the Member States to decide what criteria they apply in reaching this decision, and they should most certainly use all the information available to them, including the information you mentioned regarding the problem of forgery and security.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 NAME="Cushnahan">
President-in-Office, I want to support the initiative of my colleague, Mr Hindley, and the remarks of my colleague, Mr Newens.
As Parliament's rapporteur on Hong Kong, I am fully behind what they are asking in the House today.
Bearing in mind the President-in-Office's comments about the exclusive right of Member States, would he not also accept that the policy of the European Union is support for the concept of one country, two systems?
Respecting the right of individual Member States, would the Council not coordinate a policy which grants visa-free access, which, in my view, is the total implementation of the concept of one country, two systems?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 NAME="Verheugen">
Yes, I have to answer that question in the affirmative.
On the whole, it is true that we should aspire to a common entry policy and, more generally, a common immigration policy within the European Union.
We have that for the Schengen Area, and I hope that it will be extended.
However, this does not change the situation that now exists in relation to Hong Kong.
The legal situation within the European Union is such that the issue of whether Hong Kong residents require a visa for entry to an EU Member State is a national one.
It is not something that can be decided at European level because the Member States are not currently willing to transfer the decision to European level.
We can only guess at the reasons for this, as I am sure you are aware.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 7 by Arthur Newens (H-0126/99)
<P>
Subject: The EU banana regime Would the Council make a statement about the latest developments in the dispute with the United States and other parties over the EU's banana regime?
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Newens's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on 4 March the Permanent Representatives Committee noted with approval the condemnation by Sir Leon Brittan, the Commissioner responsible for trade policy, of the unilateral measures taken by the United States on 3 March.
The Council supports the Commission in taking all possible measures within the framework of the WTO to protect EU interests, and is to discuss the developments further.
The Council has regularly discussed current developments in the banana dispute.
Between Council meetings there has been constant close cooperation with the Commission in the 113 Committee and in particular with the ambassadors in Brussels.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 NAME="Newens">
I would like to thank the President-in-Office for his reply which is in support of the position of the Commission.
However, does the Council accept that it will be regarded as an acid test whether the European Union is prepared to stand by poor producers in developing countries, in particular the Caribbean where they have no effective alternative means of livelihood, or give in to United States pressure on behalf of the large multinational companies who already control most of the market and have used their wealth to lobby major American parties?
Its attitude on this issue could be a precedent for other cases.
Can the President-in-Office therefore assure us that there will be no climb down whatsoever on this very vital issue?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Newens, I would like to inform you that the Council has always held the view, and still does today, that this problem can only be solved within the framework of the WTO.
The European Union has therefore asked a WTO panel to examine whether its banana regime complies with WTO rules, and the EU is prepared to accept and abide by the panel's decision.
Only when this decision is announced can the WTO arbitrators decide on the US request for authorisation to impose sanctions, for example.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, if the WTO panel does not decide in our favour, what will the consequences be for the firms that have had to pay the tariff sanctions?
Will you ensure that claims for compensation made by these firms against the US Government are pursued?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Rübig, I am not yet aware of any definite position on this issue.
As far as I know, no decision has yet been taken.
I will have to give you a written reply to this question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 8 by Nikitas Kaklamanis (H-0131/99)
<P>
Subject: 'Euro-tax', social dimension of the EU and environmental protection There are certain misgivings within the EU about the level of Member States' financial contributions to the Union budget.
<P>
Has the Council considered the possibility of imposing a 'Euro-tax' as a levy on the movement of speculative capital and on a number of luxury goods consumed by high-income groups in the Union?
<P>
Might such a 'Euro-tax' be an option for consideration when the EU's system of own resources is revised, with the resultant revenue being used as a source of funding for the social dimension of the EU and for environmental protection?
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Kaklamanis's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 NAME="Verheugen">
As you know, Mr Kaklamanis, the Council can only consider adopting new legislation on the basis of a proposal from the Commission.
No Commission proposal has yet been submitted to the Council on the issue you mentioned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Kaklamanis">
Mr President-in-Office, your reply related to the formal aspect of the matter, which I am well aware of, but my question was more on a political level.
You belong to a body to which 14 other governments belong, 13 of whom declare themselves to be Socialist governments.
They declare that they are Socialists, but in fact they are neo-Liberals.
A few days ago I read the election manifesto of the Party of European Socialists which talks of a social Europe.
Are you aware that this year budget spending on a social Europe has fallen?
Can you tell me what the political strategy of the Council is to find money for the social face of Europe and for the protection of the environment?
Can you tell me whether you intend to debate with the Commission the imposition of tax on speculative capital, so that, with this money, we can help to produce a social Europe and protect the environment?
Please do not answer me on the formal procedure, which I am already aware of.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Kaklamanis, I have to agree with you.
Because of the current political landscape in Europe - which I need not describe further as you have already done so - it has fortunately become possible to develop fresh momentum in the areas of social justice, employment policy and the environmental market economy.
A huge effort is being made in all these areas, and in all these areas the German Presidency is extremely active.
One example is the European Employment Pact that is to be adopted at the summit in Cologne.
Another is the development of a European charter of fundamental rights, in which special attention will be paid to social rights.
I could add many more to this list. My answer to your question is therefore emphatically yes: in European politics today we are seeing a clear trend towards focusing on social and environmental matters.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="President">
As the author is not present, Question No 9 lapses.
<P>
As they deal with the same subject, Questions Nos 10, 11 and 12 will be taken together.
<P>
<P>
Question No 10 by Mihail Papayannakis (H-0141/99)
<P>
Subject: Abduction of Öcalan After his futile attempts to find political asylum in any Member State of the European Union or to be tried by an international court (which was a desirable objective according to statements by the Italian and German Foreign Ministers reported in Agence Europe No. 73530), the PKK leader, A. Öcalan, fled to Kenya from where he was abducted and taken to Turkey.
<P>
Does the Council consider that Mr Öcalan's human rights have so far been respected, regardless of its views on his representativeness or his political opinions?
<P>
Does his abduction without his consent (statement by the Kenyan Foreign Minister of 16 February 1999) not constitute a violation of international law - and even an act of state terrorism - and what view does the Council take of such an act being perpetrated by a country which has applied for membership of the EU?
<P>
In the light of these events, can it be guaranteed that Mr Öcalan will remain alive and receive a trial worthy of a country governed by the rule of law?
<P>
<P>
Question No 11 by Alexandros Alavanos (H-0163/99)
<P>
Subject: The Öcalan case and the Kurdish problemIn the light of the latest developments in the Öcalan case and on the basis of its resolutions and decisions on applications for the granting of asylum (Council Resolution 20/6/1995, Agreement 97/C254/01), will the Council say how it judges the obstructive policies pursued by Member States of the European Union and their essential refusal to grant political asylum to the Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan?
Was it not incumbent upon the Council to adopt a clear position on this matter before Öcalan fell into the hands of Turkish 'justice'?
<P>
What pressure does the Council intend to exert on Turkey to ensure that the Kurdish leader receives a fair and public trial and that his life is spared?
What initiatives does it intend to take to convoke an international conference aimed at finding a solution to the Kurdish problem?
<P>
<P>
Question No 12 by Ioannis Theonas (H-0184/99)
<P>
Subject: Conditions of detention and threat to the physical and mental integrity and life of Abdullah ÖcalanSerious misgivings have been expressed about the conditions in which the Kurdish leader, Abdullah Öcalan, is being held in custody; it is also feared that his physical, mental and intellectual integrity, as well as his life, are under threat. It is alleged - and all the indications, such as the footage constantly broadcast in the Turkish media, confirm - that the authorities are keeping the Kurdish leader under the influence of psychoactive drugs in order to render him sluggish and dull his senses as a means of 'facilitating' the proceedings surrounding his case.
Recently, moreover, the Turkish authorities themselves announced that Mr Öcalan had serious heart problems, possibly as a result of the conditions under which he is held.
<P>
The Kurdish leader is being held in solitary confinement in the harshest of prisons, the conditions in which have been repeatedly condemned by all the international human rights organisations, following his 'arrest' and detention which took place in an atmosphere of hysteria.
The fact also that he is being subjected to legal proceedings while under the influence of psychoactive drugs which prevent him from acting and speaking freely, rendering him unrecognisable, is a blatant mockery of justice. Will the Council, therefore, say how it will react to this flagrant violation of the rights and dignity of the prisoner and what measures it will take to enable Abdullah Öcalan to be examined by independent medical experts in order to guarantee his physical and mental integrity throughout his detention and trial, safeguarding the right of the prisoner to his dignity and his life?
<P>
I give the floor to the President-in-Office to answer Questions Nos 10, 11 and 12 together.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, I would like, if I may, to answer the questions separately but in summary form.
I will firstly answer the various questions raised by Mr Papayannakis.
The Council would refer to the statement issued by the European Union on 22 February 1999, in which the European Union notes the assurances of the Turkish Government that Abdullah Öcalan will receive a fair trial.
The European Union expects this to include fair and proper treatment and a public and legal trial before an independent court, access to a legal adviser of his choice and the admission of international observers to the trial.
<P>
It is not currently possible for the Council to judge whether Öcalan's abduction from Kenya constitutes a violation of international law, as you stated in your question, or, as you also said, perhaps an act of state terrorism.
The Council does not have access to any clear and definite information concerning the way in which Abdullah Öcalan was brought to Turkey.
It is therefore not possible to assess this.
As to whether it can be guaranteed that Mr Öcalan will remain alive and receive a trial worthy of a country governed by the rule of law, I would refer you to the first part of my answer - the EU's demands in terms of the nature of the trial - and I would also point out that the EU has once again expressed its total rejection of the death penalty in the statement I mentioned earlier.
<P>
Moving on now to the question raised by Mr Alavanos, the first part of your question refers to the asylum problem.
I must point out that the implementation of asylum procedures falls within the competence of the individual Member States and the Council cannot comment on them.
In reply to your second question I would refer to the EU statement of 22 February 1999 which notes the Turkish Government's assurances that Abdullah Öcalan will receive a fair trial.
I must reiterate what I said in my answer to the first question concerning the demands being made of Turkey on this point, and I would also repeat what I said about the death penalty. I would add that the European Union expects Turkey to solve these problems by political means and with full respect for human rights and the rule of law in a democratic society.
<P>
In this context, the European Union welcomes all genuine efforts to combat terrorism and to approach political solutions in such a way as to allow the reconciliation of the people concerned and a solution to the conflict.
<P>
In reply to the question raised by Mr Theonas I would say that the Council has not received any information that Abdullah Öcalan's rights are being violated in the course of the investigation and legal proceedings.
According to a press release by the Council of Europe on 4 March 1999, a delegation from the anti-torture committee was allowed to visit the prisoner in private.
The Council has not been informed of the outcome of this visit.
In its statement of 22 February 1999, the European Union said that it expects the Turkish Government's assurances about a fair trial to include fair and proper treatment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 NAME="González Álvarez">
I would like to apologise for being late, but in this House we sometimes have to attend two meetings at the same time.
<P>
Let me begin by thanking the President-in-Office for the information he has provided. However, one issue has yet to be dealt with.
I would point out first of all that we are also opposed to terrorism.
One of the most serious problems affecting our country, Spain, is terrorism, although the situation there fortunately seems to be improving. So we too are opposed to terrorism.
However, a group of Members went to Turkey last week to visit Mr Öcalan's lawyers, whose lives are in danger. They learnt there that Mr Öcalan is not as well as he should be physically and that his personal safety is clearly not guaranteed.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office, how does the Council plan to develop the general conditions needed for a political solution to the Kurdish problem, a problem that is not going to end with Mr Öcalan?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs González.
I must tell you that, some years ago, a well-known Cuban singer had a hit with a song that could almost be applied in your case: it was about how to have two meetings at once without going mad.
So, be wise and only have one meeting at a time.
<P>
Mr Verheugen, I would ask you to respond to the supplementary question by Mrs González.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 NAME="Verheugen">
Mrs González Álvarez, I would like to divide my answer into two parts, discussing firstly the Öcalan case and secondly the broader question.
With regard to the Öcalan case, you may rest assured that the Council will keep a constant eye on this case and will comment or take action as developments require.
The Council will also take careful note of all information concerning the progress of the trial and the treatment of Öcalan, and will consider whether this information requires it to take action.
So I can assure you that this problem will be given regular and continued attention.
<P>
With regard to the broader issue, I have to point out that, as you know, Turkey has always rejected what it calls the internationalisation of the Kurdish problem.
Turkey also regards comments made on this subject as inadmissible interference in its internal affairs and has to date not been prepared to talk to the European Union or anyone else about the Kurdish issue.
You probably know better than I do that the official Turkish position is that the Kurdish issue does not exist.
<P>
I must therefore say that I see very, very few ways of exerting a positive influence on Turkey.
However, in terms of the position of the German Presidency - which has given greater prominence to Turkey's status as an EU applicant country than did previous German governments - I would like to make it very clear that the same requirements for membership of the European Union apply to Turkey as to all the others. This means that Turkey is not at an advantage because of its particularly important strategic position, and it is not at a disadvantage because of the fact that it is an Islamic country.
Turkey must meet precisely the same conditions as the others, which means that it must be a fully-developed democracy.
We must be certain that human rights are respected and we must be certain that everyone in the country enjoys the same rights.
I do not wish to use the term 'minorities' in relation to the Kurds, as in my opinion this is completely inappropriate in this context.
<P>
The issue here is full equality for all people living in a particular country.
This is something we can and must impress on Turkey in relation to its progress towards Europe.
If relations develop in such a way that it is possible to discuss a solution to the Kurdish problem in direct talks with Turkey, I have no doubt that we will be prepared to do so, but unfortunately such talks have simply not been possible so far.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pailler">
Mr President, my allotted time is really very short.
I would nevertheless like to ask the President-in-Office how she can be sure of the assurances and guarantees given by Turkey.
I was present at the trial of Leila Zana and the 16 other convicted members of parliament.
Leila Zana was sentenced to 16 years in prison.
In front of the international observers, including our group, as well as the international media that was present, Leila Zana, a small and frail woman but a great democrat and a great politician, was beaten - there is no other word for it - by the rifle butts of the soldiers who were there for the trial.
And this took place before our very eyes.
So I do not believe these verbal guarantees for one moment.
Equally, I do not believe that we will help achieve a peaceful solution to the Kurdish problem by continuing to sell arms to Turkey.
<P>
I should like to know what you base these assurances on. I would also like to know if it would be possible to introduce economic sanctions, especially having seen how pointless it was to believe that approving the customs union would help the country return to democracy.
There are many other things I would like to ask you, but unfortunately I have run out of time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 NAME="Verheugen">
Mrs Pailler, unfortunately I have to say that in such cases we cannot be sure that promises will actually be kept.
There are no guarantees.
I could give you dozens of examples of this from recent history, not only in Europe but in other parts of the world.
That is simply the problem we have when we are dealing with countries in which there are certain constitutional shortcomings, and we all consider this to be the case in Turkey.
<P>
So there are no guarantees.
However, what we can do of course is to judge the implications if, for example, Öcalan were not given unrestricted access to lawyers of his choice, or if international trial observers were not given full and unrestricted access.
Then we could form an opinion.
But I must add that even if that is done there is no absolute guarantee that a trial will really be conducted fairly and properly in all respects.
Unfortunately I have to say that there is no guarantee of this even in states where the rule of law is fully developed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Thank you, Mr President.
Unfortunately I am unable to thank the President-in-Office as well. I wonder whether he has seen the blood-curdling images of cruel torture, the repression suffered by the leader of an entire nation and the excessive pride with which these images were broadcast throughout the entire length and breadth of this planet by Turkish television and by all the media.
He says that the Council has no information.
Is this of no concern to the Council?
Does the Council believe that the state security court in Turkey will conduct a fair trial?
<P>
The President-in-Office has told us that there is no Kurdish problem, that there is no Kurdish nation, that there is no Kurdish minority, and this, simply because Turkey does not accept that there is!
Has Mr Milosevic been persuaded that the problem in Kosovo is an international problem, that NATO is threatening to drop bombs and that NATO forces are preparing to enter Kosovo?
Will the Council give us answers to these questions, convincing ones at least?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="Verheugen">
It is precisely because the Council is of course aware of the emotions that you have just described, in particular the video recordings and television footage, that is has made the statements and demands that I have repeated here today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 NAME="Marset Campos">
I was in Istanbul on Thursday and Friday and met Mr Öcalan's lawyers.
They informed me that they had no precise documentation relating to the charges. They also said that had only been granted one brief visit to Mr Öcalan and that he was expressionless and totally under the influence of drugs.
They have not been allowed to visit Mr Öcalan again and this all leads us to fear for his life, as has already been pointed out today.
<P>
Our trip there was a spontaneous one as Members of the European Parliament and it was very difficult for us.
I would like to ask the Council if it intends to send European Union lawyers to Turkey to attend the trial and to help ensure that the trial is in fact fair, as you quite rightly said.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="Verheugen">
As I mentioned earlier, the Council put forward this demand and also supports similar demands from the European public that international trial observers be admitted to the trial.
These are generally legal experts.
The question is whether the European Union as an institution should take part in observing the trial if it is given the opportunity; this question has not yet been discussed and must be decided in due course.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=218 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wurtz">
Mr President, I should like to ask the Council representative, as he did not answer Mr Theonas, what he has to say to those who believe that a policy of double standards is being applied, depending on whether it is the Kurds or the Kosovars.
In both cases, it is matter of stopping the repression and granting fundamental rights.
What do you say to those who believe that the European Union is applying double standards in these two cases?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="Verheugen">
As far as I know, the Council has to date made no comment on this; so far, it has never linked the Kosovo issue with that of the Kurds.
I do not intend to do so either.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 13 by Astrid Thors (H-0142/99)
<P>
Subject: Coordination between the EU and the Council of Europe as regards policies for mutual assistance in criminal matters The Member States are negotiating an EU Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters.
The Council of Europe is negotiating a Second Additional Protocol to the 1959 European Convention on Mutual Assistance.
The two drafts largely deal with the same issues but lack any kind of coordination.
Have the EU Member States done anything to ensure that the same judicial solutions would be reached within the two fora?
If not, what is the reason for pursuing different policies within the EU and the Council of Europe?
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I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mrs Thors's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="Verheugen">
The coordination of negotiations on an EU Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters and the Council of Europe's draft for a Second Additional Protocol to the 1959 European Convention on Mutual Assistance has been discussed in detail at EU level.
<P>
The working party on mutual assistance in criminal matters, which is drawing up the new EU convention, last examined the question of coordination at its meeting on 17 and 18 February 1999.
The need for coordination between the European Union and the Council of Europe has been discussed on several occasions at the regular meetings between the troika, the K.4 Committee and representatives of the Council of Europe.
Particular emphasis was placed on ensuring that their respective objectives in the area of mutual assistance are consistent and that overlaps between the legal instruments are avoided as far as possible.
<P>
One of the concrete results of this coordination process was that the Council Secretariat drew up a technical comparison of the EU draft and the Council of Europe's text.
This document has proved to be a useful aid in the current discussions, and is currently being revised.
Certain overlaps between the draft EU convention and the Council of Europe's draft protocol are unavoidable given that the objective of both new instruments is to improve rules for mutual assistance in criminal matters.
The EU convention will impose stricter mutual assistance obligations on the 15 Member States than the Council of Europe protocol, which can be applied to over 40 countries with very different legal systems.
This is true in particular of the rules concerning tapping into communications links.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
It is gratifying to hear that there has now been some coordination between the EU and the Council of Europe.
At the beginning of February, I happened to hear one of the Council's representatives, amongst others, say that there had been no coordination.
Consequently, I think the time has come for us to consider the principles that are to be applied in the new agreements on mutual assistance in criminal matters.
<P>
It looks as though supervision of the Internet and e-mail is one of the areas where there has been no coordination in either of the agreements.
It would appear that under one of the agreements, the Commission would like to compel the authorities to immediately hand out information about all e-mail correspondence.
Can that be right and is it consistent with European principles, given that no one has yet defined the infringements that will be looked out for or established a corresponding legal requirement?
However, it is good to hear that there has been some coordination on the basis of this initiative.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, unfortunately I cannot do so.
The question initially asked by Mrs Thors did not refer to this special problem, so the Council Secretariat could not provide me with any documentation on this matter.
I would very much like to answer your question but simply cannot do so; I must therefore ask you to accept a written answer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="Verheugen">
Article 11.1 of the Protocol on the Statute of the ESCB and of the ECB provides that no member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank shall engage in any occupation, whether gainful or not, unless exemption is exceptionally granted by the Governing Council.
The Protocol thus prevents the members of the Executive Board, in the interests of independence, from receiving remuneration for any activity other than as a member of the Executive Board.
However, this rule does not prevent the appointment of an experienced person who may perhaps have a pension from a previous job.
<P>
It is not up to the Council to lay down the terms and conditions of employment of the members of the Executive Board, which under Article 11.3 of the Protocol are the subject of contracts with the ECB and are fixed by the Governing Council on a proposal from a committee of six members, three of whom are appointed by the Council.
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<SPEAKER ID=226 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, the Council has not answered my question at all.
I asked if the Council knew, before the salaries of the members of the board of the European Central Bank were determined, whether they also received a pension in addition to that from the European Central Bank, and whether, besides Sirkka Hämäläinen, who is a member of the board, any other board member receives additional pay.
The Council must answer these questions, as these matters are its responsibility.
The European Central Bank and the national central banks which report to it are part of the EU scheme.
The same rules for personnel apply to them as to any other EU institution.
Under Article 232 of the Treaty, the Council must ensure that the rules of the Treaty and those relating to staff are implemented, and the Council must be responsible for ensuring that the rules that apply to the European Central Bank carry the same weight as those applying to other EU institutions.
I would like to ask the President-in-Office of the Council to answer my question.
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<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Seppänen, I did answer the question, although you were not happy with what I said.
I would draw your attention again to the relevant part of my answer.
I said that the provision that a member of the ECB Executive Board may not receive any other remuneration does not prevent the appointment of an experienced person who perhaps has a pension from a previous job. To clarify this I would say that, according to the Council's understanding of the legal position here, there is a difference between remuneration and a pension that someone receives for work done previously.
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<SPEAKER ID=228 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, like my colleague, Mr Seppänen, I am surprised that the representative of the Council is not answering certain questions.
I think it is important that the European Central Bank should operate transparently.
It may be relatively autonomous and independent when it comes to monetary policy, but it must have some rules on transparency and, inter alia , automatic ineligibility for certain posts and financial impartiality on the part of its senior officials, such as the members of the board.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office, you have not answered these questions.
Instead, you said there is no conflict in a situation where a person of experience receives a salary from the European Central Bank and a pension from some former position.
Is it not the case that, in the context of the European Central Bank system, this former agency, the Bank of Finland, and the European Central Bank are in fact part of the same organisation?
The representative of the Commission did not want to take a stand on this issue either.
Who will?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 NAME="Verheugen">
Mrs Hautala, I must also say to you that I answered the question precisely, indeed very precisely. It is not possible to answer it any more precisely.
I will say it once again.
There is a difference between an additional remuneration that a member of the ECB Executive Board might receive and a pension that a member of the ECB Executive Board receives from a previous job.
Legally, they are completely different.
In the Council's opinion, the rules are completely clear.
There is nothing to stop a member of the ECB Executive Board, who is paid by the ECB, from receiving a pension from a job he or she did previously.
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<SPEAKER ID=230 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Eriksson">
I should like to know why an exception has been made for the European Central Bank, since according to my understanding of the matter, it is not possible to receive at one and the same time a pension from another appointment and a full salary from either the Commission or the Council.
Consequently, I should like to know why an exception has been made in the case of the European Central Bank.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 NAME="Verheugen">
I must say quite honestly that I did not understand the question.
What am I supposed to say?
The honourable Member says that she does not understand something.
She has not asked me a question.
I can only repeat once again how the Council views the legal situation.
It is clear.
The question of whether it is possible to receive a salary as a member of the ECB Executive Board and to receive at the same time a pension from a previous job has been answered three times with a definite 'yes'.
That is the Council's understanding of the legal situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Verheugen.
You are asking to speak, Mrs Hautala, but I cannot give you the floor.
You know very well that Members can only speak once during Question Time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 16 by Maj Theorin (H-0146/99)
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Subject: Global solidarity 1.3 bn of the world's population are living in acute poverty, and the number is increasing.
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In 1997 the OECD countries' aid to developing countries fell to 0.22 % of GNP.
The indications are that it has continued to fall in 1998.
The flow of private capital from the industrialised to the under-developed countries also declined sharply in 1997 and 1998.
<P>
The United Nations' target is for the wealthy countries to set aside 0.7 % of their GNP for aid.
What does the Council intend to do within the OECD to ensure that this UN target is met?
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I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mrs Theorin's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, Mrs Theorin is quite right to point out that development aid from Member States represented in the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD has fallen as a percentage of GNP.
A comparison shows, however, that the figures for EU Member States, averaging 0.33 % of GNP, are much higher than the average figures for the DAC donor countries as a whole, where the corresponding figure is 0.22 % of GNP, whereas the contribution of such an important donor country as the USA is less than 0.09 % of GNP.
Some states are seeing a reverse of the negative trend.
<P>
With regard to the flow of private capital to the developing countries, the European Union is very much aware of the importance of private investment and developments in the private sector in general.
Directing private investment to developing countries can best be achieved by strengthening the private sector and creating conditions - particularly economic, legal, administrative and regulatory conditions - that promote investment.
This was also the view stated by the European Union recently at the ACP-EU Ministerial Negotiating Conference on 8 and 9 February 1999 in Dakar, and it was a view which our ACP partners entirely shared.
<P>
The Council is also devoting greater attention to the problem of poverty which the honourable Member mentioned.
It should be noted here that one of the fundamental points on which agreement was reached in Dakar was that the reduction and possible eventual elimination of poverty must be among the main objectives of the new partnership, along with sustainable development and the gradual integration of the ACP countries into the world economy.
<P>
With regard to Mrs Theorin's question concerning concrete measures to be taken at OECD level, I must point out that the Council, unlike the individual Member States and the European Commission, is not represented in the DAC and cannot therefore propose any concrete measures.
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<SPEAKER ID=235 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
Thank you for answering my question.
I was somewhat surprised to be told that some countries have been hiding behind the fact that the USA has given very little assistance to third world countries - that has been a well-known fact for some time.
Nevertheless, there are also some EU countries whose aid budget comes to considerably more than 0.33 %.
However, the goal of 0.7 %, established by the UN, serves as a useful target for all countries to aim at, regardless of whether they are in the Council or the OECD.
<P>
Since I first heard that poverty and its repercussions were being given the recognition they deserve - although it is not enough simply to recognise the problem - I have been wondering what measures the Council is proposing to take in order to deal adequately with the problems posed by poverty.
What exactly are we willing to do to help third world countries?
<P>
Private capital flows naturally play an important role, as do trade agreements.
I would remind the Council that the Trade Agreement with South Africa comes within that category, and I hope it will be signed on 22 March, thereby making it possible to provide assistance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 NAME="Verheugen">
Mrs Theorin, I fully agree with you that helping to combat world poverty must be a central aim of European Union policy.
Poverty is truly one of the most terrible scourges we are faced with today.
As we in Europe are in a better position than most people in the world, it is also in our own interest to ensure that large parts of the world do not decline into ever worsening poverty.
<P>
This ever widening social divide is bound to lead eventually to political and social conflict that may even end in violence.
Here our analysis is entirely in line with yours.
It is also something we need to get across to people in our own countries, that development cooperation costs money but is in the end an important investment in our own security, an investment that is at least as important as what we invest in our military security.
I fully agree with your basic views on this.
<P>
Mrs Theorin, you know what possibilities are available and what instruments we employ.
The development cooperation provided by the European Union itself is geared towards these objectives, and the same applies to the development cooperation of most Member States.
It applies to your country, my country and many others.
We are on the right track.
But I fully agree with you that a great deal more can be done and in particular that we must shed the notion that development cooperation consists of sending money somewhere in the belief that that will do.
<P>
It is indeed necessary to go for an integrated approach, and part of this involves integrating the developing countries' economies into the world economy, directing the flow of capital and investment to these countries using the measures available, and helping to build structures that are necessary and attractive for investment.
All of this is included in our policy. There is never anything that cannot be improved upon.
I am therefore grateful for any support we can find in terms of improving our policy's aims and the opportunities available.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 17 by María Izquierdo Rojo (H-0148/99)
<P>
Subject: Participation of Libya in the forthcoming Euro-Mediterranean Conference in Stuttgart Will the European Union make it possible for Libya to participate in the forthcoming Euro-Mediterranean Conference in Stuttgart?
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mrs Izquierdo Rojo's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 NAME="Verheugen">
This issue has already been discussed today, and the answer is that the Council has noted the Final Declarations of the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Forum of 27 and 28 October 1998 in Brussels, which included the recommendation that the participants of the Third Euro-Mediterranean Conference should take whatever measures are necessary to allow Libya to participate fully in the Barcelona process.
<P>
On this issue the Council confirms the position it has adopted since the beginning of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership, namely that the door is being kept open for Libya and that Libya may participate in the partnership as soon as it complies with the relevant resolutions of the United Nations Security Council.
The Council is following developments very closely.
It has noted the recent positive developments and encourages the continuation of others' efforts in this area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 NAME="Izquierdo Rojo">
I gather from the reply by the President-in-Office that we have now reached the stage where we can actually welcome Libya since, as he knows, there is already an agreement between the parties involved, as was announced by the Secretary-General of the United Nations a few days ago.
<P>
Therefore, if he is telling me that the door will be open as soon as there is an agreement and he knows, as I do, that there already is an agreement, surely we can take it as read that Libya will finally participate in the coming Euro-Mediterranean Conference in Stuttgart as a full member. This was requested by the Euro-Mediterranean Forum held in the European Parliament in November and I believe that it is a wise move.
<P>
If that is, in fact, the case, can I assume, too, that Mauritania will also be able to participate?
The Final Declaration here in the European Parliament also supported the idea of inviting Mauritania to become a full member.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, this afternoon Commissioner Marín said what needs to be said on the subject of Mauritania.
Mauritania does not currently pose a problem for us in this context.
As far as Libya is concerned, Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, I would be thankful if I could reach the same conclusion as you; I would be pleased if I could say that all the conditions we laid down had been met, so that Libya could take part in the Barcelona process.
However, I do not share your optimism.
The requirement is that the Security Council resolution must be implemented in full, and this will not be the case until the suspected assassins have been extradited.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Verheugen.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, exactly one and a half hours after the start of questions to the Council, that concludes Question Time.
<P>
Questions Nos 18 to 40 will receive written answers.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 7.05 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.
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<CHAPTER ID=11>
Nuclear sector-related activities for third countries (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=242 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the debate on nuclear sector-related activities for third countries.
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<SPEAKER ID=243 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Linkohr">
Madam President, the fewer of us there are, the more we need to keep to our speaking time, and I will do my best!
Firstly, I would like to thank Mr Adam very sincerely for his report.
The more I read through it, the more it strikes me just how excellent it is.
I urge Parliament to treat this subject very seriously and to read the Adam report in detail.
<P>
The message is clear: we need cooperation, not refusal.
Older reactors, especially first generation reactors, need to be decommissioned as quickly as possible, while modern plants need to be upgraded, and we particularly need to cooperate with the CEECs and the New Independent States to develop an all-embracing energy policy.
<P>
The more the eastern electricity network is connected to the western network, the more important this issue is becoming, as these countries will use their nuclear power stations to sell power to the West as a means of earning income.
So it is by no means irrelevant to ask how this power is produced.
What is more, the applicant countries - this is what I wanted to say during the debate just now - must also observe other environmental regulations.
Not only nuclear power stations but also large combustion plant, cars and every single factory will have to adhere to the EU's environmental legislation.
We cannot make any exceptions for nuclear power stations.
<P>
Nevertheless, there is one point that I would like to make, and I shall address this primarily to the Commission.
It is not just a question of telling each other here in this forum how important all this is - we also need to draw attention to deficiencies.
I was recently told about this by a German nuclear power station, Neckar-Westheim, which has been working with Zaporazhye for 10 years on improvements to valves.
As you will be aware - and if not, I am telling you now - an accident took place there on 20 April 1995 along the lines of the Harrisburg incident.
Similar incidents have also taken place at two other nuclear power stations in Russia.
They should have reacted pretty quickly - it was only a problem with valves, a simple technical matter. Yet it has taken four years, and up to now nothing has happened, although an application has been made.
Now there has to be an invitation to tender.
If your house was on fire, can you imagine getting quotes to see which fire brigade was the cheapest? Your house would have burnt down by the time they got there!
We need to apply different procedures in this case, and Gordon Adam is quite right in drawing attention to paragraph 20, which states very clearly what we should be doing.
That is why I am asking for swifter action before the whole thing packs up!
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<SPEAKER ID=244 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Madam President, we in the Liberal Group tabled an urgent resolution a few weeks ago, also signed by Mrs Plooij and Mr Frischenschlager, on the K2 and R4 nuclear power stations in Ukraine.
We have withdrawn this resolution now that the Adam report is on the agenda, but we would nevertheless like to say something about this issue.
<P>
I entirely agree with the rapporteur that optimum use must be made of the capacity of the safe power stations that are now ready or under construction, at least where this is the least expensive option.
I have read various reports that the K2 and R4 power stations in Ukraine are to be decommissioned using EBRD and Euratom money, but we feel very uneasy about this.
We originally asked for the Court of Auditors to produce a report on this use of Euratom funding, but Mrs Aelvoet has tabled two amendments that go even further, and we in our group intend to support her.
We think that Euratom and the EBRD should not be providing money to decommission these two power stations.
Furthermore, the ESPOO Convention requires Ukraine to keep its neighbours informed about its nuclear power stations, which it has not done.
Ukraine is not a signatory to the ESPOO Convention, but as Western European institutions we are perfectly entitled to insist that it should meet the ESPOO requirements, in order to guarantee that Ukraine's neighbours have some say in the future of its nuclear power stations.
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<SPEAKER ID=245 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pompidou">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in the context of building Europe, and also with enlargement in mind, we need to have an energy policy in keeping both with market trends and the real needs of consumers.
There is an ever-increasing role for the EU here.
<P>
This is the context of Gordon Adam's two reports, and he has prepared them with all the rigour and insight that we have come to expect from him.
The point at issue is to optimise electricity distribution throughout the whole of Europe, taking into consideration the ineluctable development of the market for gas, of which there are still substantial reserves.
The objective is not only to interconnect the electricity networks of central Europe and the EU, but also to facilitate natural gas imports from third countries.
The task before us now is to diversify sources of energy supply by continuing to use fossil fuels, whilst endeavouring to minimise CO2 emissions.
Given the rapid growth in energy demand, we need to develop a realistic percentage of renewables and at the same time exploit Europe's nuclear know-how.
<P>
Gordon Adam's second report is about improving nuclear safety in eastern Europe.
In this context, fuel reprocessing is just as important as operational safety.
Improved safety at traditional nuclear power stations is an objective of the PHARE and TACIS programmes, which new regulations have improved for the period 2000-2006.
We are not talking about a replacement for government strategy in third countries - this is about using dialogue and cooperation to achieve essential improvements in the safety and energy efficiency of their reactors.
It is particularly important to achieve better management of waste from civil power stations, as well as eliminating 50 tonnes of military plutonium in Russia.
The European Union cannot stand by and allow Russian military plutonium to accumulate as a result of implementing nuclear non-proliferation treaties.
<P>
An integrated energy policy bringing together national governments and the European Union is essential.
It should steer industry towards rational use of energy and greater use of renewables, including improvements in the nuclear energy sector as a whole, with a new generation of reactors and management of the fuel cycle, in particular the end of the cycle, in other words nuclear waste.
<P>
We need an ambitious yet pragmatic and responsible programme under which the European Union can use its powers to achieve both short-term and long-term benefits.
In the short term, we need to make rapid progress with the EPR, the European pressurised water reactor, which is both safer and more profitable, as it will reduce the cost per kWh by over 10 %.
Whilst by using MOX fuel nuclear waste can be eliminated in part, we still need to be making preparations for the long term now, and - at the same time - to initiate a study to evaluate the technology involved in hybrid reactors, such as the reactor recently proposed by Carlo Rubia.
However, work is also needed on high temperature reactors, which are notable both for their energy efficiency and for their capacity to eliminate 90 % of military plutonium.
<P>
Work needs to be done under the EU framework programme, in Member States and in third countries, to develop the necessary technology.
Improvements in nuclear safety and the elimination of waste, coupled with diversification of energy supplies, will enable us to meet the increase in demand throughout Europe and to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
This makes European energy policy a model for others to follow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bloch von Blottnitz">
Madam President, when you look at the Commission communication on nuclear sector related activities for CEEC and NIS states and at the Court of Auditors' report, you could be forgiven for thinking that they were about two totally different subjects.
Given that the Commission claims that its communication gives an overview of funding provided and successes to date, together with new guidelines on programme implementation, the document we are considering, with just 13 pages of text and 17 pages of annexes, really is an outrage.
Nebulous statements such as - and I am quoting now - ' the European Union has undertaken a great number of activities in the nuclear sector since 1990' and 'special programmes were created with considerable budgetary appropriations' are not what I would call an evaluation!
<P>
The passage in the communication about radioactive waste management is a real gem of vacuity.
Let me quote the following: 'The radioactive waste programme is giving many CEEC/NIS organisations and institutes a wide insight into western technology and safety culture, and this has helped to specify problems in this area and to better define concrete implementation projects'.
I think these gentlemen must have been peering into a very deep hole indeed!
What projects, what problems?
What form does the EU participation envisaged take?
Bearing in mind that we do not have a permanent storage solution anywhere in the EU, but just shift waste around from one country to another and then dump it at some interim storage facility, that really is rich!
<P>
Participation by eastern European countries in EU research programmes is portrayed as being highly successful, but we are not given any evidence of this alleged success.
Or do we call it a success story when despite the agreements entered into under the Nuclear Safety Account for the closure of high-risk reactors, all of these reactors are still operating?
The Commission and the Council have specifically stressed the importance of this agreement on closures, so I find it all the more amazing that the rapporteur has simply ignored this, instead of stepping up pressure on these states.
It is simply not acceptable for us to be using EU tax revenues to increase the danger, instead of minimising it!
<P>
The rapporteur's assumption that building new nuclear reactors increases pressure to close down older ones is spurious.
On the contrary, as history has shown, old reactors which should have been scrapped will continue to operate and export power until they blow up in our faces.
And what is more, the disposal problem has not been solved in these countries and the risks of proliferation are mounting.
We should not be using EU tax revenues to create new markets for EDF.
It is generally accepted that it is cheaper to build combined-cycle gas turbines and to encourage energy efficiency measures.
<P>
There is no evidence that the money spent so far has in any way had the desired effect, and it is high time that the Commission recognised this and changed its policy.
So, although Mr van den Broek has already left again, I would like to ask when we can expect a new communication based on the real facts.
And I would like to have an answer this evening!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graenitz">
Madam President, we have been looking at the issue of nuclear safety in the CEECs and the New Independent States for well over 10 years now, and a solution is still not in sight.
Not a single one of the reactors which are today euphemistically called first generation reactors has been closed to date, although there has been a substantial flow of EU funds to the CEEC and NIS countries and various agreements have been concluded. The aim of all this has been something which I believe everyone in this House wants: to close down these dangerous rust-heaps known as reactors as soon as possible, or, even better, yesterday!

<P>
I would like to thank Dr Adam for what I am sure was the very difficult task of preparing his report. In it, he says it is necessary to agree energy plans and strategies with the applicant countries, with the other Central and Eastern European countries and with the NIS, with the objective of closing down nuclear reactors ready for the scrap-heap, ceasing work on unsafe reactors already under construction, and at the same time meeting the energy requirements of these countries, which are at present to a very large extent covered by nuclear energy.
In drawing up such a strategy we will of course need to respect the sovereign right of these countries to decide at national level whether or not they wish to continue using nuclear energy. We will also need to involve regional and local authorities in this process as far as possible, and I believe that an energy plan of this kind will pave the way for renewables, making this an important opportunity for these countries.
<P>
Although there are to be various transitional arrangements for the applicant countries in the environmental field, there should be no transitional arrangements where nuclear safety is concerned!
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<SPEAKER ID=248 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Madam President, environmental protection measures will only have a significant impact on competitiveness where a company is directly competing with companies in regions where such measures are not in force.
If we apply the same principle to the nuclear power sector, this means that it is absolutely essential for nuclear safety standards in the applicant countries to be brought into line with those in the EU.
However, if in addition to closing down nuclear power stations, funds are to be made available for upgrading nuclear power stations still operating, these funds should come from the operators themselves, in keeping with the liberalisation of the electricity market and the polluter pays principle. The source of these funds should therefore be the proceeds of electricity sales and not subsidies or EU funds.
Otherwise, the market will be distorted to the advantage of nuclear power in applicant countries, which we mostly certainly do not want.
<P>
So it is only logical to demand that EU funds from the PHARE and TACIS programmes intended to improve nuclear safety in eastern Europe should not be used to finance upgrading, but rather that they should be used solely for supporting nuclear regulatory authorities in eastern Europe, for nuclear safeguards and to create a state-of-the-art regulatory regime.
I would ask the House to vote for my amendment on this subject, which has already been approved in committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Dybkjær">
Madam President, as all the other speakers here have pointed out, the safety of nuclear power stations is the most important issue when the EU is dealing with the nuclear power sector in the applicant countries and the New Independent States, and it is unacceptable to grant these countries transitional arrangements.
Safety requirements mean that some power stations will have to close. The reaction to this is often that new nuclear power stations will be built instead.
It is this response that is unacceptable.
We cannot export views that we ourselves no longer hold to other countries. And the truth is that the peoples of Europe do not want any new nuclear power stations.
Therefore, the most important thing in the Commission's communication is in fact that it emphasises the need to draw up energy plans for the whole energy sector, and not just the electricity sector, with particular emphasis on energy saving, developing alternative sources of energy and using energy efficiently.
All too often, we see that the answer to a growing demand for energy is simply more power stations.
What is needed is something else, and not least in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Trakatellis">
Madam President, because of the procedure for the accession of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the partnerships that have been formed with the New Independent States, the European Union has to take initiatives regarding nuclear safety.
In these regions, there are 50 plants with obsolete Soviet nuclear reactors which must be decommissioned, simply because they are extremely dangerous.
It is well known that the first generation RBMK and VVER 440/230 Soviet reactors are dangerous, since they are unable to withstand accidents.
Reactors such as these still exist and still operate in Bulgaria, Lithuania, Slovakia, Armenia and Russia, while those in the former German Democratic Republic have been closed down for good.
<P>
In particular, the Commission is called upon: firstly, to abide by the agreements to decommission first generation reactors, such as the Kozloduy reactor in Bulgaria, the Ignalina reactor in Lithuania and those in Slovakia; secondly, not to give financial assistance for first generation reactors; and, thirdly, not to grant Euratom loans to modernise later generation reactors, unless a guarantee can be given that agreements to decommission first generation reactors are pushed through, because these are a threat to the people of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=251 NAME="Papoutsis">
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr van den Broek had the opportunity today to speak on these matters.
<P>
I think that he fully covered the difficulties which have arisen and which are set out in the report by Mr Adam.
I should like in turn to assure you that the Commission will continue its attempts to achieve the maximum level of safety in respect of nuclear reactors.
As regards the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, we will of course incorporate the issue of nuclear safety within the framework of bilateral agreements, and above all within the framework of the attempt to prepare these countries for their adoption of the acquis communautaire and subsequently their accession to the European Union.
In other words, this will be an important aspect of the pre-accession strategy for the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
<P>
Finally, as regards the efforts of the Commission to decommission nuclear reactors in those cases and in those countries where safety problems have been identified, I wish to assure you that the Commission, regardless of the respective strategies of those countries, is continuing to stand firm on the agreements that have already been concluded with them.
For this reason, we are doing our utmost to coordinate the efforts made by EBRD and, of course, by Euratom, to provide the necessary loans for nuclear reactors.
<P>
Against this background, I wish to tell you that this morning, in Ukraine, a task force was put into operation with exactly this objective in mind, that is, to help the Ukraine Government to move swiftly towards reorganising its energy sector and to meet all the necessary conditions for these loans to be granted.
In the other countries, such as Bulgaria, and in other countries with which the Commission is collaborating, we are trying to use all the possibilities at our disposal to help these countries to achieve a complete reorganisation of the energy sector, so as to give them the opportunity to use other energy sources.
For this reason, we are attempting to move the banking sector towards helping to support such plans.
<P>
I should like once again to reassure the House that, in line with the principles supported by the European Parliament and restated in the report by Mr Adam, the Commission is continuing its efforts to ensure the safest possible operation of nuclear reactors.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
Mr Eisma, we really are so short of time that I would prefer not to take any further questions; otherwise we shall not get through our business for today, and we are already behind schedule.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Madam President, I very much regret that Commissioner van den Broek is not here for this part of the debate.
It is not true, as the Commissioner present says, that Mr van den Broek dealt with all our comments this morning; that would have been impossible.
The debate is still continuing, and we would have liked to have had an answer from the Commissioner responsible.
Perhaps the report could be passed on to Mr van den Broek.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=254 NAME="President">
That concludes this item.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Multiannual energy programmes
<SPEAKER ID=255 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0085/99 by Mr Robles Piquer, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision adopting a multiannual programme for the promotion of renewable energy sources in the Community (1998-2002) (ALTENER II) (COM(97)0550 - C4-0071/98-97/0370(SYN)); -A4-0084/99 by Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision adopting a multiannual programme for the promotion of energy efficiency (1998-2002) (COM(97)0550 - C4-0072/98-97/0371(SYN)); -A4-0086/99 by Mr Stockmann, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the communication from the Commission on energy efficiency in the European Community - towards a strategy for the rational use of energy (COM(98)0246 - C4-0316/98).
<SPEAKER ID=256 NAME="Robles Piquer">
Madam President, in 1916, Thomas Edison, who knew a thing or two about electricity, wrote the following: 'We should use the forces of nature to obtain our energy.
Light from the sun, wind and the tides are forms of this energy.
But no, we burn forests and coal as if we were burning the door to our house to keep us warm.
We live like savage invaders of the earth and not as if these resources were ours forever.'
<P>
In my mind, these dreadful words, written over 80 years ago in the middle of the First World War, are clearly an appropriate starting point for the debate on the three reports the European Commission is using to help fill the gap left by a lack of a Community energy policy. The Member States do not want this policy, even though the Members of this House and the Commission are in favour of it.
I am referring initially to the report by Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz and to the report by Mr Stockmann - the first on energy efficiency and the second on the rational use and saving of energy.
We will discuss these later.
<P>
My report, Madam President, is a report on the section of the new Framework Programme for Action in the Energy Sector that attempts to establish a multiannual programme for the promotion of renewable energy sources. If we look closely, we find that this is the key element of the whole programme.
In short, it is an attempt to strengthen, extend and improve the effects - I would say the positive effects - of the Altener programme, which has now become Altener II.
The programme covers activities that seek to naturally maintain the ecological balance, to respect the environment, and to ensure security of supply while reducing energy import dependence, as the percentage of such imports is growing rapidly in the European Union. Also, by exploiting these renewable energies, it seeks to reach a certain balance with the technological advances made and to create jobs.
<P>
There are forerunners to these reports and to this situation.
Firstly, there was Altener I, from 1993 to 1997, then the provisional form and the final version of Altener II that should take us up to the year 2002.
Let me also remind you of such important documents as the Green and White Papers from the Commission and, if I may make a slightly more personal reference in this case, the 1994 Madrid Conference. In a week's time we will reach the end of the first five-year period since this meeting was held.
I should like to remind you that the relevant authorities from Spain and many other countries were present, and also that my friend and, Commissioner, your predecessor, Commissioner Matutes, was present at that meeting and was actively involved. Mr Mandelis, now a minister and one of your fellow countrymen, was also present and, at the time, held the Presidency as it was the turn of the Greeks.
Both these men helped us in a very efficient manner.
<P>
We are talking here about wind energy, thermal and photovoltaic solar energy, biomass, small-scale hydroelectric schemes under 10 megawatts, geothermal energy and, perhaps in the future, harnessing energy from tides.
Recently, interest in all these forms has clearly increased, not decreased.
A few days ago, a pun in a major French daily paper said that wind energy had the wind in its sails.
Fortunately, t is not only wind energy that is doing so well, although this is the form that is experiencing greatest growth.
I believe that on this matter you must choose between three attitudes.
Either you believe that our efforts concerning these forms of energy are useless, or you think that these energies could replace conventional forms in the near future, or, and in my opinion this is the sensible position, you believe that we should slowly increase the percentage of energy consumption from renewable sources under the terms that have been laid out in all these documents. Of course, we still cannot describe such documents as satisfactory or definitive but they are an important first step.
Many countries are already aware of the fact that this situation is changing.
It would be difficult to list them here due to a lack of time but I will mention one simple figure: at this moment in time I can tell you that, in 1998, the amount of wind energy produced and consumed in the European Union increased by no less than a third in relation to 1997.
<P>
I should like to finish by saying that we must continue along these lines and that, as rapporteur, I recommend that we all vote in favour of my report as well as in favour of the other two.
In the case of my report and that of Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, we should vote in favour of the amendments already accepted by the Committee on Energy, Research and Technological Development.
I do not think that we need to include the others.
In conclusion, I should like to congratulate my two colleagues whose reports we are about to consider.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=257 NAME="Bloch von Blottnitz">
Madam President, together with the Altener programme, the SAVE programme is our only weapon for achieving the 8 % reduction targets to which we committed ourselves in the Kyoto Protocol.
This makes it all the more amazing and incomprehensible that we only intend to spend ECU 68.45 million on SAVE II over five years and ECU 281.1 million on Altener, also over five years, whilst in the same year we are throwing ECU 170 million at nuclear fusion for just one year!
There is also something else that I find puzzling: how is it that when the Commission was evaluating SAVE I it came to the very firm conclusion that only legislative measures would help us to achieve our objectives, yet such measures are quite absent from SAVE II?
I have also failed to find a clear list of what we actually want to achieve.
<P>
However, one thing is certain: in Germany, for example, equipment in permanent stand-by mode in homes and offices consumes the equivalent of the output of two 1 000 MW power stations. This is irrefutably stated in a study by our own Federal Environmental Agency.
Furthermore, no one denies that if we finally started using energy rationally this would be an innovation that would create jobs, give us a competitive edge and preserve the environment. And I am talking about baseload electricity, because you would be saving power morning, noon and night, as everyone knows and as everyone keeps saying.
We hear this day in, day out, like a hawker's sales patter, but no one is actually doing anything about it!
I find myself becoming suspicious that big industry just does not want this to happen - they simply do not want it!
If we could reduce baseload power consumption, and it would be quite a simple matter to save 30-40 % straight away by using electricity rationally, and we could also generate a lot using renewables, that would enable us to decommission a good many nuclear power stations only used for baseload.
<P>
This demonstrates how woolly this policy is, and how much waffle there is: there is more talk than action.
This policy will not enable us to achieve the reduction targets we are committed to, nor will it equip us with the sort of technology for the next millennium that would allow us to really boost our exports and achieve a presence on the world market, which in turn would allow us to create jobs and preserve our environment.
This meagre programme really is not enough to achieve all that.
If there is no money available, we should at least adopt legislative measures, quite apart from the fact that if we could finally agree on an EU-wide energy tax that would be a real success story.
There is no incentive to save with energy as cheap as it is now.
<P>
So I would like to ask the Commission when it finally intends to take some action - we have had endless discussions about this in the House, and we have repeatedly said that we need intelligent programmes for rational use.
We cannot just carry on using the same old Stone Age methods as if they were good enough for us.
We know something needs to happen, and we have the means to achieve it, and yet nothing is being done!
What can you hope to achieve in five years with ECU 68.1 million?
And that is supposed to include the EFTA countries as well!
<P>
Surely we cannot really intend to classify incineration of municipal waste as renewable energy, as proposed in the Altener II report.
What does that suggest?
Renewable energy means solar, biogas, hydro and wind energy, used rationally of course, the two things go hand-in-hand.
The Altener and SAVE programmes are like brother and sister, but we need to have the political will to act and not hold back.
The Commission has our full support on this.
Why is it not making progress in this area instead of letting the Council dictate to it all the time?
We all know that the Council does not want anything to happen.
I have already explained to you why no progress is being made - there are many other parties involved who have nothing to gain from savings in baseload!
<P>
That is why I am asking you today to make a little bit of progress in this field, Mr Papoutsis.
SAVE and Altener are token programmes with very good intentions, but we both know that you can achieve nothing with so little money, none of us can achieve anything!
We not only have our post-Kyoto commitments, we also have a duty to future generations.
So I hope that Parliament will accept my amendments to the legislative proposal, including the further 1.5 % annual saving that I have included, and not just the ridiculously low 1 % that the Commission has proposed!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=258 NAME="President">


I must apologise, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, I wielded my gavel after just three minutes, but I thought you were speaking as rapporteur and then I had the impression that it was no longer a rapporteur who was speaking, but someone who was presenting their own views, and that rather confused me.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=259 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bloch von Blottnitz">

What I have just said reflects exactly what the committee agreed, including the 1.5 %, it is all in the explanatory statement.
I have not invented anything new!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=260 NAME="Stockmann">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to congratulate my colleagues, and I think that we are all pulling in the same direction on this subject.
<P>
The issue of energy efficiency seems to have lost its importance in the public's eyes in recent years, as confirmed by the International Energy Agency.
This subject is regarded as irrelevant, quite simply because despite population growth and increasing energy consumption, there are sufficient fossil energy sources for the foreseeable future.
And I believe that another reason is that the market has gone quiet - it is not giving any price signals.
Quite the opposite in fact, crude-oil prices are lower than before the oil crises.
So who has any interest in improving efficiency?
Certainly not energy producers, consumers scarcely at all and industrial consumers only within limits.
It is we politicians who are most concerned, because we understand the link between energy consumption and CO2 emissions.
And that is why we have committed ourselves to reducing Europe's CO2 emissions as compared with 1990, as has already been highlighted at Kyoto and Buenos Aires under the Convention on Climate Change, the Framework Convention.
<P>
Another political motivating factor is that if we carry on in this way, the share of imports will rise from 50 % to 70 % by 2020, and with it our dependency on third countries.
Yet there are enormous opportunities available to us.
Of course, opinions differ on the extent of the technical and economic potential for energy savings over the next five years, but whether we aim for 18-20 % or higher, the potential is still very great indeed.
<P>
If we take our political role seriously, it becomes apparent that we need annual efficiency gains of at least 2.5 %, instead of just 0.6 % at present.
If we want to be consistent, these gains are necessary, and they are possible as well.
The Commission is calling for 1.6 %, but there is scope for more.
We can only achieve this if we agree upon a comprehensive strategy at European, national and regional level, and that is indeed what the Commission is proposing.
This strategy must require Member States to commit themselves to binding national overall targets, it must include guideline targets by energy type and economic sector, and we ourselves want reports at three-yearly intervals, starting in 2001.
<P>
That brings me to certain priority individual measures.
We need a directive on energy efficiency standards in public procurement.
We need guidelines for the renovation of existing buildings.
We should start with the European institutions themselves.
We need guidelines for the award of contracts for buildings maintenance and for new buildings.
And while we are on that subject - and this has already been mentioned - a consistent policy on renovating old buildings would also create new jobs.
<P>
Second, we need more targeted campaigns aimed at specific occupational groups and comprehensive labelling of all electrical consumer and capital goods.
A start has been made, but something more comprehensive is needed.
<P>
Third, we need to increase the use of combined heat and power, and we must be careful that this option does not lose out because of the liberalisation of the internal energy market.
An 18 % target is sensible and this also has the Commission's support.
<P>
We need a financing programme for energy service companies or ESCOs.
They have great potential for the future and could assist energy conservation.
<P>
Fourth, there is great potential for transport systems, leaving agriculture aside for the time being.
Concepts such as logistics and intermodal transport serve to demonstrate just how much could be done in this field.
Some initial steps have been taken under the fifth framework programme on research, but more needs to be done.
<P>
Fifth, stand-by losses need to be reduced. Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz has touched upon this already.
We expect the Commission to bring forward a communication on stand-by losses as soon as possible.
<P>
My sixth point is that we of course need an EU-wide energy tax.
We need to tackle this old chestnut yet again, and I hope that the next Parliament will do something about this at some point.
I hope there will be sufficient insight to achieve this.
I am all too well aware of what happened to the Cox report.
<P>
Even if no one is going to win any political medals by fighting for energy conservation, increasing energy efficiency is and will continue to be the cleanest and safest source of energy that we have, and we should be focusing on that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=261 NAME="Dybkjær">
Madam President, the Committee on the Environment has drawn up opinions on two areas within the multiannual framework programme for measures in the energy sector.
These are renewable energy and energy efficiency. From an environmental viewpoint, they are two sides of the same coin.
There is a need for both, because if the current trend continues, global demand for energy will double by the year 2020.
We therefore need good plans and programmes if we are to meet our Kyoto targets.
On the whole, it can be said that the Commission's proposal does not contain enough new thinking.
It focuses too much on conventional energy solutions rather than renewable energy ones; on centralised systems rather than decentralised ones; on traditional, economic tools rather than new thinking; on purely technical measures rather than an holistic approach.
That is just not enough, so it is wonderful to see the reports before us, which up to a point pull in the same direction as I have described.
<P>
There are a number of areas which I would like to highlight.
Firstly, the administration of the programmes.
There is a problem with these programmes like so many other EU programmes, which is that they are far too confusing for applicants, so many people have difficulty getting involved in them.
The reason I am emphasising this is because the second point - involving ordinary consumers - is absolutely essential if we are to achieve the results we wish to see.
Only through consumers can we get adequate local initiatives.
On the subject of local initiatives, I would also like to mention the organisation of the tariff systems, which have to be adapted to the decentralised structure and cannot simply take priority over a large number of major areas and ideas.
It is essential that the programmes are controlled at national level, where people have the greatest knowledge of their own environment.
It goes without saying that different conditions prevail in different areas.
Solar energy should be exploited where the sun shines and windmills should be placed where the wind blows, and the Member States themselves know that best.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=262 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Linkohr">
Madam President, the only thing you can say about these three reports is that they are acceptable, and we can vote for them - but that does not solve our problem.
We have already made a great many declarations of this kind in the House.
We always agree.
It is hard to think of another issue on which Parliament and the Commission see eye to eye to such an extent as on promoting renewables.
That is not the problem.
And yet I feel powerless when I look at the figures, which almost drive you to despair.
<P>
Let us take Mr Seppänen's report, for example.
Mr Seppänen quite rightly says that if you exclude hydro-electricity, renewable energy's share is only 1.3 %.
If you include hydro, it is 6 %.
We want to increase the renewables' share to 12 %, but there is little scope for a major increase in hydro - you cannot rape nature, there are limits.
The other aspect of renewable energy is biotechnology.
Hydro and biotechnology combined account for 95 % of renewable energy.
Hydro is chiefly found in the northern countries and in the Alpine regions of Austria and France and so forth, and biomass is found in the same countries, but you cannot extend these sources of energy at will, unless you are willing to pay the price.

<P>
Extending the use of biomass, on the other hand, is bound up with agricultural policy.
The fact is that a key omission from the proposals on agricultural policy in Agenda 2000 is a chapter on renewable energy.
That really should have been included.
I know that the Commission did some work on this, but in the end it was not incorporated, because the finance ministers did not of course want to pay for it: it would cost money.
That is the crux of the matter.
Fine, we want renewables, but we have to introduce them despite current market trends, because as a rule they are more costly than the cheap energy we currently have.
<P>
That is why Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz is quite right: nothing will happen without legislative measures.
The market will not achieve this by itself, otherwise this would have happened long ago. So we need prefinancing.
In the longer term renewables will pay for themselves, but at this stage we need to prefinance them, and I therefore think that our biggest problem is not the technology itself - of course we want better and better plants, that goes without saying - but prefinancing.
How can we mobilise private capital and public funds and persuade the banks to play a more active part in this field?
<P>
To my mind, that is the central issue with renewable energy.
We once had a debate about feeding in electricity from renewables here.
You will recall that the proposal I made at that time was rejected by a majority of Parliament.
Well, perhaps that was not such a disaster, perhaps there are better suggestions, but we have not heard them yet.
I would also like to ask Commissioner Papoutsis when a proposal along these lines will be brought forward, because at that point we were promised such a proposal before the end of the year.
It is now March and we still have not seen a proposal.
I grant you that this is a complicated field, and I do not envy you your task.
I tried it myself and had no luck in this House.
I wish you more luck, but we must do something.
Do something better than I proposed.
You will have my full support, but we must do something.
<P>
We cannot wait for the market to solve this.
There is also a link with energy prices.
According to the Commission documents, energy efficiency has been increased by just 0.6 % per annum over this decade, because energy prices are so low.
In the 1970s and 1980s the rate of increase was 2 %, because energy prices were high.
That is an economic fact, so we need to get a hold on this problem.
We have suggested energy taxation, which I know is not very palatable, but we need an honest debate about these issues, mere declarations are no longer enough.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=263 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ryynänen">
Madam President, the framework programme now under discussion combines all the elements of the EU energy policy and will hopefully help to coordinate the EU's work and make it more effective.
It is important that different sectors within the Commission move in the same direction, to conserve energy and exploit renewables.
Even to achieve the aims of the White Paper, not to speak of the still more challenging aim put forward by the committee, there has to be growth in the biomass sector in particular.
At present there are considerable amounts of biomass in certain regions, especially in northern areas of the EU, in the form of logging waste, for example, which remain totally unexploited.
However, these areas lead the world in developing the kind of logistics know-how for gathering this material, and growth in the industry is forecast.
<P>
I would like to emphasise two points.
Firstly, it will be vital, in my opinion, for us to be able to use the Structural Funds for projects relating to renewable energy in the future too, as there is a dearth of resources for other EU actions.
Secondly, I would like to stress, as others have, how important the issue of taxation on energy is.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=264 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Madam President, saving energy is the cleanest energy source. Some of those here today have also come to the same conclusion.
We should therefore have additional energy taxes at EU level.
To me that seems obvious, and I am waiting patiently for a proposal from the Commission and for the Council of Ministers to approve it.
Tough economic measures are required in order to promote renewable sources of energy, the efficient use of energy and, in particular, to ensure that the traditional, conventional, environmentally unfriendly, reactionary energy society becomes a thing of the past.
<P>
Many fine words have been uttered tonight on the desirability of promoting renewable sources of energy, but nothing ever actually happens.
Consequently, it is absolutely essential that we introduce tough economic measures to set us on the right track.
<P>
Both the Commission and the Council of Ministers, together with an unholy alliance here in Parliament, continue to support the nuclear power industry and refuse to recognise that the modern sources of energy are renewable ones - a rational use of energy - which mean more jobs, a cleaner environment and healthier long-term economic prospects.
So why are so many people opposed to such an outlook?
My generation and my political group most decidedly are not!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=265 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to say at the outset that I support Mr Robles Piquer's report on the promotion of renewable energy sources, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz's report on promoting energy efficiency, and Mr Stockmann's report on the rational use of energy.
All three reports demonstrate that Parliament has the will to make progress with a diversified energy policy which would encourage environmental protection.
<P>
As I see it, that is the direction we should be heading in today.
We need to encourage the development of energy sources which, although they at present only offer partial solutions to the various major challenges currently facing the European Union, nevertheless offer very real solutions.
The first challenge is of course the environment.
New energy sources, and in particular wind energy, hydro and solar energy, are clean sources of energy.
In this respect we need to remember the commitments that we entered into at Kyoto in 1997.
Furthermore, these new energy sources should also allow us to reduce our dependence on third countries for supplies of oil, gas and other energy sources.
Fifty per cent of our energy comes from outside the Union.
This percentage is due to rise to 70 % by 2020, which is not without its risks.
<P>
What is more, although technological developments have certainly reduced the prices of these new energy sources, this reduction is still not enough, and we must therefore finance RTD programmes in this field.
The recently launched fifth framework programme on research should enable us to do this.
<P>
In conclusion, Madam President, I would like to remind Members, at a point when unemployment has been called the main enemy of the European Union, that these energy sources will generate many new jobs.
That is a point that it was also important to mention this evening.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=266 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graenitz">
Madam President, Mr Stockmann sounded rather resigned when he said that the issue of energy efficiency is not exactly centre-stage in political debate at present.
However, I believe that energy efficiency is very much uppermost in the minds of people who are concerned about saving money.
I have many contacts and discussions with industrial leaders who say that energy efficiency - and this applies particularly to the basic goods sector - makes it possible to use less energy, and to cascade energy, that is to use it two or three times.
This does not just mean saving a great deal of money, but also making technological advances which ultimately mean that we develop new methods and that, as Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz said, we remain competitive on the world market and can create new jobs in new industries.
<P>
We have discussed the promotion of renewables in Parliament at length and in great detail, and I think that there is little new that I can add.
We need to invest in renewables if we want to achieve the Kyoto objectives to which the EU has committed itself.
I also expect, Commissioner, that during accession negotiations you will pursue a strategy of increased use of renewable energy sources, because the other countries have signed up to the European Union's Kyoto objectives and the first six applicants, which will already be Member States at the relevant point in time, will have to comply with these objectives in exactly the same way.
<P>
In addition to these reports, on which I congratulate the respective rapporteurs, we will also have to make further efforts.
Mr Linkohr has already mentioned that we are waiting for a proposal from the Commission on how renewables can be promoted now that the directive on feeding in renewables, which Mr Linkohr himself proposed, has failed to find majority support in Parliament.
We need a proposal along these lines because it is necessary, when bringing renewables onto the market, to create a certain buffer, and to offer some support until they become commercially viable.
We need to start by discussing energy taxation again, because the present situation is that the costs associated with energy production - and above all electricity generation at power stations with high emission levels - are spread equally, and not borne by those whose actions give rise to these costs. This cannot be allowed to continue if we wish to observe the polluter pays principle.
<P>
I hope that in future the sun will play a greater role in determining where our energy comes from than it does today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=267 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Rovsing">
Madam President, I am pleased to see that there is a large measure of agreement on the importance of developing new forms of energy among all of us here in Parliament and at the Commission.
That is why demonstration projects are incredibly important.
The good results we obtain in demonstration projects are made available not only to our Member States in the EU, but also to the applicant countries and the third world, where the fastest growth in energy consumption is taking place.
It is therefore amazing that so little money has been allocated to creating good, solid demonstration projects which can really show others the best way to do things.
The most capable countries, the most capable institutions and the most capable industries are the ones who will show us the direction in which to go.
We all know that today we are emitting twice as much CO2 as plants can break down.
And we know that the use of fossil fuels will double by the year 2020.
We are heading for a very difficult period, and we should be deeply concerned about how our climate will develop and what burden will be placed on our ecosystems.
<P>
I see increased research and the development of new technology as the only way forward.
In many places today, taxes aimed at modifying behaviour, or so-called 'green taxes', have simply become new taxes, thus creating a negative attitude towards them among the general public.
In the long run, only an increased awareness of the problems through information and education will lead to responsible use of our limited energy resources.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=268 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Robles Piquer">
Madam President, on behalf of my group, I should like to say that perhaps there is no real need to be as pessimistic as some of our colleagues have been.
I have just returned from northern Austria, where 30 % of energy already comes from renewable sources and where there are more solar panels than the whole of Spain, despite the fact that there is less sun.
At the same time as this meeting on solar energy was taking place in Wels, which followed on from the Madrid and Milan meetings, a major conference of the European Wind Energy Association was being held in Nice, which hundreds of people attended.
<P>
Moreover, as German magazines are reporting, we know that there is now something called the 'German, Spanish and Danish model'. This simply means that some governments are becoming aware of the issue and are beginning to grant significant amounts of aid to renewable energies.
For example, anyone who has read the latest Spanish Royal Decree from the end of December will know what I am talking about as there is now something called a 'feed in' system, to use our usual jargon, that redistributes the various renewable energy sources according to different scales.
And there are many countries that take wind energy very seriously, such as Holland, Sweden, Finland and Greece, a country that is also covered in solar panels.
A few days ago, I was in my home country where a day seminar on wind energy was being held, for the second time, in Santiago de Compostela.
This form of energy is experiencing tremendous growth in Navarre, for example, a region that already meets 20 % of its needs in this way.
<P>
The Commission now wishes to begin an experiment with 100 local authorities that hope to be fully supplied and served by some form of renewable energy. I believe that this so-called 'campaign for take-off' is proof of the fact that, in spite of everything, some governments are becoming aware of this issue and that binding legal provisions are beginning to emerge.
And of course, the joint action of the Commission and Parliament has played an important role in promoting these new forms of energy and I believe we should be proud of this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=269 NAME="Papoutsis">
Madam President, I would first of all like to congratulate the three rapporteurs, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, Mr Robles Piquer and Mr Stockmann, on their reports and on their excellent work.
<P>
All three reports are part of a broader Community initiative to achieve a cleaner and sustainable future energy supply.
The promotion of renewable energy sources and increased energy efficiency are the keystones of our policy to tackle environmental pollution and to reduce CO2 emissions.
<P>
As you know, the Altener and SAVE programmes will make up by far the largest part of the framework programme for energy, which has been adopted and is already in operation as regards the remaining programmes.
Following the adoption of the Altener and SAVE programmes within the next few months, the framework programme for energy will be able to operate as a unified whole and as an overall energy plan.
<P>
I should now like to talk about each of the reports in turn, starting with the report by Mr Robles Piquer on the Altener programme, which concerns renewable energy sources.
The Altener programme is a fundamental instrument for the implementation of the Community strategy and action plan for renewable energy sources, through which we aim to achieve our objectives.
Our aim is to double the share of renewable energy sources in the gross domestic consumption of energy in the European Union by 2010.
<P>
In the context of the Altener programme, the development of standards for the equipment needed in connection with renewable sources will continue, as will the development of strategies and the strengthening of those methods which will promote the market penetration of renewable energy sources.
New production activities will strengthen the contribution of Altener to the 'Campaign for take-off', which was announced in the White Paper on renewable energy sources.
In addition, thanks to the Altener programme, projects will be undertaken on a broad scale which will include technologies for renewable energy sources which are now ready to be implemented.
Participation in this programme will also be open to the countries belonging to the European Economic Area, as well as the countries involved in negotiations to accede to the European Union.
Before I move on to the amendments, I should like to thank Mr Robles Piquer, not only for his report, but also for his continuing support for the Community strategy on renewable energy sources over the last few years.
<P>
As regards the amendments, the Commission is able to accept 14 amendments as they stand.
These are Amendments Nos 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23 and 24.
In addition, the Commission is able to accept seven further amendments, but only after they have been specifically reworded to bring them into line with the White Paper.
These are Amendments Nos 2, 6, 11, 14, 16, 21 and 22.
<P>
Amendment No 3 refers to the putting in place of a Community plan of action which, however, has already been established.
We would prefer a reference to the implementation of the action plan which was formulated in the Commission proposal.
Amendment No 15 provides for a new programme objective 1a which is already covered by Objective 1, and also relates to the actions that are to be taken under Objective 2e.
As regards Amendment No 26, I believe that Parliament has in mind here the Commission's attitude that the committee procedure should not be changed.
Amendment No 12 cannot be accepted because it refers to indirect costs and competitiveness, whilst the internalisation of the profits from renewable energy sources and the different ways and means of improving the competitiveness of renewable energy sources have already been elaborated at some length in the White Paper.
In addition, the Commission is unable to accept Amendments Nos 27 and 28, because they go beyond the scope of this programme.
Nor can we accept Amendment No 29, since we feel that the organic part of urban waste is a renewable energy source.
Finally, we accept Amendment No 30 in principle, but we believe that this is already covered in the monitoring of progress of renewable energy sources which is provided for in Article 2.
<P>
Madam President, I should now like to move on to the equally important report by Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz on the SAVE programme, which refers to the rational use of energy.
I would like to thank the rapporteur warmly for the quality of her report.
<P>
We all agree that the contribution of the SAVE programme to the rational use of energy and to reducing CO2 emissions in the European Union is especially important.
The SAVE programme does not serve that objective alone; it also aims to secure the Community's energy supply.
The European Union will continue to import large amounts of primary energies.
The measures which aim to improve the way in which we use our energy sources would seem to have important implications for the lifetime of finite sources of mineral fuels, and will clearly reduce our dependency on imported energy.
The SAVE programme will continue to support energy labelling and also the development of standards of energy efficiency for appliances which consume energy.
We shall also continue to underpin the efforts of Member States to improve their energy efficiency, by exchanging information on the one hand, and by closely monitoring the performance of energy efficiency on the other.
<P>
A significant share of the budget will continue to be channelled towards setting up local and regional SAVE offices, and its effects will be multiplied in conjunction with investments from the Community Structural Funds.
The countries belonging to the European Economic Area as well as the countries involved in negotiations to accede to the European Union will continue to be able to participate in the programme, using their own financial resources.
At this point, I would like to express my agreement with the rapporteur, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, on the level of budgetary funding.
I agree with her entirely that, for renewable energy sources as a whole, and for the saving of energy and energy efficiency, we need more resources.
It is clear, however, that we are moving in an area of financial austerity and, unfortunately, the European Parliament and the Council have not allowed the appropriations for these particular objectives to be increased any further.
<P>
As regards the amendments, I would like to say that the Commission is able to accept five amendments exactly as they stand, and these are Amendments Nos 2, 3, 7, 10 and 16. We are also able to accept Amendment No 8, subject to it being reworded.
The Commission will put forward new legislative measures where these are fully justified at Community level and in cases where other means, such as self-regulating agreements with the industry, have not yet proved effective.
Moreover, initiatives by the Commission to take new legislative measures do not depend on the SAVE programme being adopted.
<P>
Amendments Nos 1, 6, 9 and part of No 11, which provide for the number of legislative initiatives from the Commission to be increased, are not appropriate in this specific context and, as such, cannot be accepted.
Amendments Nos 13, part of 15, 9 and 20, in which additional areas of study and pilot actions are proposed, substantially limit the scope of the programme and also the flexibility of the initiatives, and cannot therefore be accepted.
The part of Amendment No 15 which talks about improving energy efficiency by switching from one energy source to another cannot be accepted either, because it goes beyond the scope of the programme.
The Commission is unable to accept Amendment No 4, because an evaluation of the SAVE programme by independent assessors has shown that the programme has contributed to a large extent to improving energy efficiency in the Community.
Amendment No 5 and part of No 11 also cannot be accepted because the objective of 1.5 %, although desirable and although we could agree to it in principle, is nevertheless over-optimistic in practice.
Amendment No 18 cannot be accepted because it creates confusion between the SAVE and Altener programmes, and nor can Amendment No 12, because it too creates confusion between the SAVE programme and the fifth framework programme for research and technology.
We are also unable to accept Amendment No 21, because we feel that the call for complementarity with the programmes that are being developed in the Member States makes our action more effective.
By the same token, we do not accept Amendment No 22, because we consider it to be unnecessary.
We want the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, Cyprus and Malta to participate in the programme, but it is clear that funding their participation cannot be covered by the SAVE budget, because this would render the programme completely impossible to implement.
<P>
As regards the call made by Mr Linkohr for a directive on the use and promotion of renewable sources of energy within the framework of the internal market in electricity, I should like to assure you that we are continuing our efforts and our consultations both with the German Presidency and the European Parliament to achieve the best possible outcome which the Member States could accept immediately, and which could be adopted immediately by the Council.
I am bound to say that the Commission was prepared to put forward a directive.
However, following discussions with the presidency, with certain Member States and also with the European Parliament, we realised that our proposal was a more ambitious one than the Member States were able to accept at this particular time.
For this reason, we are proceeding apace with our efforts to devote all the time we have available to putting forward a proposal which could be accepted by the next Council of Energy Ministers.
<P>
Finally, I would like to deal with the equally important and comprehensive report by Mr Stockmann on the Commission communication on energy efficiency.
<P>
The importance of taking measures in the area of energy efficiency is set out using powerful and persuasive arguments, and the various actions are clearly defined.
<P>
I would like to stress that the Commission agrees to a large extent with the principles and the bases of the report by Mr Stockmann, and also with the measures he proposes.
There is also a complete convergence of opinion as regards the importance the report attaches to measures to disseminate information in the most effective way possible, to improve and bring into line with existing guidelines the standards and guidelines for public procurement, and to promote combined heat and power.
This is also true in respect of the priority given to energy efficiency guidelines which relate to the renovation of existing buildings and the awarding of contracts for buildings maintenance.
<P>
The measure proposed to promote energy service companies will be examined with particular care by the Commission's services, especially now that we have a new sphere of activity as we move towards the liberalisation of the market.
Against this background, your proposal could best be examined in the light of these new developments.
The Commission also agrees with Mr Stockmann regarding the regular evaluation of the Member States' plans for energy savings.
We must encourage Member States to promote national energy plans in this direction.
I would also like to point out that the possibilities for improving energy efficiency which are put forward in the report by Mr Stockmann are to some extent greater, and the objectives somewhat more ambitious, than the corresponding objectives contained in the Commission's communication.
These greater possibilities and ambitious objectives are, of course, very laudable, but the Commission feels that they will be difficult to achieve with the existing Community funds.
However, there is no doubt that they reflect the high priority given by the report to promoting action for energy efficiency.
<P>
Madam President, I would once again like to thank the three rapporteurs for their excellent reports, which were of considerable help to us when we held our discussions, and which have brought us one step closer to attaining our common objective, which is nothing more than a sustainable future energy supply.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=270 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bloch von Blottnitz">
Madam President, have I understood correctly? Is the Commissioner refusing to accept Amendments Nos 6 and 11?
If that is so, we might just as well go home now.
If we just have your ECU 68 million over five years and no legislative measures - because you do not seem to want to take those on board - we will not get anywhere at all.
That is quite obvious!
So when are you finally going to present some legislative measures, because without them this charade will go on forever.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=271 NAME="Papoutsis">
Madam President, indeed I do not accept those amendments, and for no other reason than that the legislative initiatives which must be taken by the Community and the legislative initiatives which must by taken by the Commission do not depend on the SAVE programme.
We must move forward in this direction in any event.
I do not accept them for that reason, and not because there is opposition to them in principle.
It is not necessary to include the legislative initiatives in the SAVE programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=272 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Papoutsis.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=13>
Bank charges
<SPEAKER ID=273 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions:
<P>
B4-0146/99 by Mr Hendrick and Mrs Randzio-Plath, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on bank charges; -B4-0149/99 by Mr Gasòliba i Böhm, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, on bank charges in the euro area; -B4-0150/99 by Mr de Lassus Saint Geniès, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on exchange rate costs in the euro area; -B4-0151/99 by Mr Wolf, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on bank charges following the introduction of the euro; -B4-0152/99 by Mr Gallagher, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, on bank charges in the European Union following the introduction of the euro; -B4-0153/99 by Mr Herman, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on bank charges following the introduction of the euro; -B4-0154/99 by Mrs González Álvarez, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on bank charges.
<SPEAKER ID=274 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, monetary union has been with us for over ten weeks, but consumers in the EU are still finding it difficult to see the day-to-day advantages of monetary union for them.
People travelling on business or as tourists who need to change their own national currency into another national currency - both of which after all simply represent the euro, which does not yet exist in the form of coins and banknotes - have discovered that the commissions charged on such transactions are still high, too high in fact. Their opinion is shared by the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs, following its hearing involving banks, buildings societies and consumer associations.
<P>
I would like to put the following question to the Commission: was it not a fundamental mistake to ignore the European Parliament's proposals during initial consultations about what should be covered by the euro regulation?
I have in mind not only the legal status of the euro and provisions on standards and international recognition of the euro, but also the issues of converting bank accounts, conversion costs and dual pricing. But above all, I have in mind the commission charged on exchange transactions.
It should be possible to apply yardsticks in all these areas so that savings on exchange rate hedge costs and other costs which previously applied to transactions in the European Union, and which no longer exist today, are passed on to our consumers, customers and travellers, as a kind of bonus.
<P>
What strikes me is that the fee structure in the various Member States is remarkably similar.
Yet in some Member States we now have commission rates of 6 %, and many people have reported different commission rates when exchanging from one national currency to another.
This applies to the French franc, for example. I have also heard, for instance, that it is more expensive to change German marks into Italian lire than into French francs.
<P>
I also have to say that both colleagues and members of the public have reported that there are banks and building societies which have ceased to offer exchange facilities, especially for certain currencies.
I have heard that there are even central banks which have stopped making no-fee exchange transactions.
The Commission needs to carry out a thorough investigation of all these issues to put a stop to these practices. And I mean an investigation by the Commission itself, not one under the aegis of the European banking associations.
<P>
It is simply unacceptable that the introduction of the euro has not created greater confidence in monetary union on the part of our consumers, but just the opposite, it is breeding a climate of mistrust.
It is high time that we had transparency.
We need to know how high costs and charges were before the introduction of the euro and how high they are now after its introduction.
We need an initiative from the Commission.
What is more, what effect is competition having in reducing costs and charges for exchange transactions?
It is scandalous that Italian banks have been given advance warning of an investigation!
And can anyone claim that the Commission's investigation of only eight banks in connection with a possible cartel agreement is adequate?
<P>
That is why I think it is really important for the Commission to launch an initiative or take some other measures, perhaps even in the form of legislation, on maximum charges.
The Commission's actions on cross-border transfers also really leave a great deal to be desired, given that there was a political undertaking to do more than just reduce the cost of cross-border transfers as from 15 August and to make such transfers more secure.
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As Members of the European Parliament were are deeply concerned about all these issues, and the public expects the Commission to take some action instead of dilly-dallying.
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<SPEAKER ID=275 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the banks claim that changing coins and notes from the euro zone costs them more for transport, insurance, staff and so on.
I find this hard to believe.
Why?
Because changing money within one and the same currency does not cost anything.
For example, I do not have to pay to change a BEF 10 000 note into ten BEF 1 000 notes.
<P>
Now, the exchange rates for the euro zone currencies have been fixed against each other and against the euro since the beginning of the year, which means that they form part of the euro and are thus part of one and the same currency.
So what is the difference?
The House has been calling for there to be no charge for changing national currencies into euros because it is a compulsory exchange.
We have not insisted on the same thing for exchanges between the euro zone currencies because these are voluntary.
<P>
What we need, in any event, is complete transparency, which should in itself lead to lower costs both for exchanges and for cross-border payments.
This must happen by 31 March this year, otherwise our group believes that we must consider introducing binding legislation so that the credibility of the euro is not undermined and consumers can enjoy the full benefits of monetary union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=276 NAME="Monti">
Madam President, even though not all the questioners are present for the discussion, the large number of oral questions on the subject of bank charges proves the importance and, if I may say so, the seriousness of this matter.
Allow me to begin by summarising the situation before dealing with some specific issues.
<P>
Since the Commission is being asked to take an initiative, I should like to explain the various initiatives already undertaken by it, all of them complementary with one another.
First of all, the Commission fully agrees that one of the main arguments used to convince the EU's citizens of the benefits of the single currency was the fact that the introduction of the euro would bring down costs for tourists and for businesses trading across borders.
We remain absolutely convinced by the soundness of this argument.
<P>
Prior to the introduction of the euro, as the honourable Members know, the Commission adopted Recommendation 98/286 on banking charges for conversion to the euro.
It provides that banks should not charge fees either for the conversion of accounts from the national currency of a Member State participating in the euro zone, for example from the French franc to the euro in France, or for the conversion of payments from the national currency into the European currency and vice versa.
By the same token, banks may not levy different charges for services denominated in euros: in particular, they may not levy charges higher than those applying to identical services denominated in the national currency unit.
<P>
Finally, for services such as the conversion of banknotes, the recommendation establishes rules on the transparency of the fees charged.
On 8 December 1998 the Commission published an initial assessment, revealing that banks throughout the euro zone were intending to abide by the recommendation.
It is true that the recommendation does not specify what constitutes an acceptable level of charges, but the volume of charges currently being levied on the services in question is undeniably a cause for serious concern.
As you know, we must distinguish between two types of operation: the conversion of euro zone banknotes and cross-border payments.
<P>
Let us begin with conversion transactions.
Prior to the introduction of the euro, as Mr Hendrick and Mrs Randzio-Plath stressed in their question, conversion charges - covering the exchange-rate risk and the costs of handling foreign banknotes - were partly concealed in the spread; clients therefore had the impression that they were paying less than was really the case.
Now that the conversion rates have been set officially, banks must indicate - separately from the conversion rate - every charge that is made.
The elimination of the exchange-rate risk, deemed to represent around 15 to 20 % of the charges levied, and greater competition resulting from transparency should lead to a reduction in conversion charges, which has already happened to some extent.
But this process must be accelerated.
<P>
The Commission has been monitoring recent developments in this field very carefully, and has taken a number of measures to ensure that the cost of converting banknotes in the euro zone really is competitive.
On 12 January 1999, I wrote to the European banking associations requesting the necessary information to compare the level of fees before and after the introduction of the euro.
On 5 February, the Commission - that is, Mr de Silguy, Mrs Bonino and myself - issued a statement to the press inviting all the banks to publicise the changes they had made, before and after the introduction of the euro, to the total level of charges for banknote conversion in the euro zone and for cross-border payments in the form of cheques, credit transfers and paper.
We asked the euro-zone banks to forward this information to the Commission by 31 March, via their European associations.
Similarly, the press release of 5 February invited users of financial services to inform the Commission - by e-mail or fax - of cases where the banks have failed to respect the legal framework of the euro or the Commission's recommendation on the transparency of bank charges.
<P>
My department has so far received some 200 messages.
These relate to the level of fees, or to the continued existence of fees, rather than a failure to respect the legal framework or the recommendation.
Mr Van Miert has since begun to investigate possible violations of the rules on competition, so as to ensure that there is competition between financial service providers in respect of exchange-rate fees and other bank charges.
This matter was specifically raised by Mr de Lassus Saint Geniès.
However I would also make it plain - to Mr Gallagher and Mrs González Álvarez in particular - that there is currently no intention of taking legislative measures in this area; after all, direct intervention in the establishment of banknote conversion costs in the euro zone would be incompatible with market principles and with contractual freedom.
That is the situation for the time being.
<P>
If I may, Madam President, I should now like to answer some of the specific questions raised by the honourable Members, implying that the present levels of charges for cross-border services indicates that the recommendation is being ignored.
As I have explained, the recommendation states that such charges must be transparent, without specifying an acceptable level.
Concern over the level of charges would rather seem to indicate the opposite, namely that the banks are abiding by the recommendation on transparency, which has raised awareness about the level of charges that were previously completely or partly hidden.
<P>
The honourable Members wonder, furthermore, whether or not the disappearance of the exchange-rate risk has affected the level of the charges made for such services.
We have received some partial data in response to our enquiry of 12 January; we publicised these on 29 January, but by 31 March we expect to have a complete picture of the situation on the basis of the requested information. We shall report back to Parliament accordingly.
<P>
Finally, as regards cross-border payments - a topic raised by Mr Gasòliba I Böhm - this is a matter of great importance, which will not disappear automatically with the introduction of euro banknotes in 2002.
In a single-currency area, it will be increasingly difficult for the public to understand why cross-border payments in euros should be more expensive than national payments.
Therefore this problem must be addressed as a matter of urgency.
It is not only politically important, but also commercially important to the banks that this matter should be explored rapidly, not least through investment in cross-border links between national retail payment systems, as pointed out by Mr Herman.
The Commission is determined to act as a catalyst for all these developments; and to Mr Wolf, who asked what other initiatives are planned, I can reply that this is one.
We are currently preparing a communication, to be published by May 1999, concerning the policy on payment systems in the economic and monetary union.
<P>
Last of all, as far as cross-border credit transfers are concerned, I would recall that the directive which Parliament helped to adopt dates from January 1997, and that in the Conciliation Committee a very late date had to be set for its entry into force: mid-August 1999.
The main reason was that this was demanded by one Member State, whereas the majority of Member States formally undertook to transpose the directive no later than the start date of the euro.
However, this has not happened in most Member States, and at the ECOFIN Council on 8 February, I pointed out to the Finance Ministers that this directive needs to be implemented as soon as possible; I am following this up in writing.
Therefore the Member States too bear considerable responsibility here.
I would add that, according to press reports over the past few days, the French Minister of Economics and Finance intends to embark on a dialogue with all the parties affected by euro-related bank charges. This is an encouraging sign.
Given the overall context which I have described and in which - as you see - the Commission is actively pursuing a cohesive set of measures, I can assure the honourable Members that we are especially grateful for Parliament's support, not least in the form of initiatives such as the hearing which Mrs Randzio-Plath recently organised on this issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=277 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Monti.
<P>
I would just say something on the procedure.
With oral questions to the Commission, the practice is always that the authors first introduce their questions, then the Commission answers, and then come the speakers for the political groups, who can once again state their position.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=278 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pérez Royo">
Madam President, I have listened carefully to Commissioner Monti's explanations and we must say that they are unsatisfactory.
They are unsatisfactory for several reasons.
The first of these is the fact that this is not an unexpected situation we are facing. This is not the first time the House has debated the matter.
We have already looked at this issue, and we have had plenty of advance warning.
More than one year before the final stage began, we had already discussed this issue - levying bank charges during the transitional stage of monetary union - many times in the House. On two occasions, Parliament reached a conclusion which it made clear to the Commission: in order to avoid unfair practices in this field, the Commission would have to use its power of initiative to prepare a regulatory instrument, a definitive regulation that would set specific limits and establish some discipline.
The Commission felt that this was not necessary, that a weaker instrument would suffice - a mere recommendation - and that we should trust in the effects of competition to control the situation.
<P>
However, the truth is that the situation is even more negative than the most pessimistic forecasts.
The general rule in terms of charges for exchanging euro area currencies is that the charge is at least 3 % and, in many cases, it is more than 3 %. Frankly, it is difficult to see how this figure can be taken as a real cost.
<P>
It is difficult to believe the claim made by some banks that the exchange rate risk component in former charges only accounted for 10 % of the charge.
Today, the Commissioner is telling us that it is between 15 % and 20 %.
This is unbelievable.
The majority of reasons banks use to continue charging handling costs, such as the cost of personnel, insurance, storage and so on, are reasons that would also be valid excuses for levying a charge for changing a 100 000 lira note into ten 10 000 lira notes.
Costs are also involved in these cases, they are also non-interest bearing assets and so on.
<P>
In the end, the result of such behaviour from banks will be that many people, many normal people, will come to the conclusion that the euro is not a single currency that has replaced the currencies of the 11 Member States participating in monetary union but that it is just one extra currency. It is another currency on top of their own currencies that still exist in practically the same conditions as before the euro was introduced.
<P>
The single currency is a reality for the stock exchange and for the financial markets but not for normal people, not for tourists who need to change their money to spend it in another country. Nor is it a reality for the emigrant who is sending money to his home country and who sees that the cost of transferring money has remained the same or, in some cases, has even risen.
It is as if the euro, the single currency, does not exist.
<P>
What is at stake here, Commissioner, is something extremely important: the credibility of the single currency, the credibility of the most important operation the Union has undertaken in a very long time.
This is what we are gambling with and, for this reason, we feel we should once again draw your attention to the possibility of revising the Commission's initial approach.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=279 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Garosci">
Madam President, like my colleague, I am dissatisfied.
Obviously I appreciate the Commissioner's commitment, but I would point out that I asked the Council an urgent question on this topic in January, which has still not been answered.
For over four years the Commission, Parliament and the Member States' finance ministers have been telling the public and businesses that there would be a change of scene in the Community as from the landmark date of 1 January 1999, in that the cost of moving currency - the number-one tool of unification - would disappear.
But none of this has happened!
It is more expensive to change a euro-zone currency now than it was in 1998.
I could go on about this at length, but now is not the time.
I have in my pocket a small example of what I am saying: like every conscientious MEP - and I am, moreover, vice-chairman of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs - I have one euro account in my own country, Italy, and another here at my workplace.
I paid a cheque drawn in euros into another euro bank account, and was asked to pay not only the normal cost of the banking transaction but also the cost of converting a foreign cheque.
So I called for the branch manager and asked him whether he knew, in that specific case, what the lira was.
To his answer that the lira is our national currency, I replied that, on 1 January, the lira - or franc, deutschmark or peseta - in fact became the national unit of the single currency.
<P>
Unless the banks start working towards a common currency rather than a national one, it will be hard for us to convince the public, business leaders and small traders to work in a market which - as you rightly say, Commissioner - must become not just a single market but an internal market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=280 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Madam President, Commissioner, it has been interesting to take part in today's debate.
I also wrote a letter to the Commission on this matter prior to the issue of electronic payments coming up for discussion.
<P>
Much has been said on the subject of exchange-rate charges and transfer costs.
It was interesting to note the Commission's repeated assurances that it would issue a communication in May, possibly devoted exclusively to payment systems.
Moreover, I think people are very surprised that we do not have an interoperable bank card or customer payment system.
I hope that on the one hand the Commission, by being vigilant with regard to competition, ensures that no one is excluded from the different payment or interoperable systems to be launched in the near future and, on the other, that it makes use of all the opportunities which are available.
<P>
I should also like to suggest that while we are deciding what needs to be done, we also look into the transaction costs incurred as a result of using a credit card in another country.
This is, of course, the only interoperable system which people can use when they are in another country.
It is very hard to understand why the cost of using a credit card outside one's own country, but in another euro country, should be so high.
I hope the Commission will give some thought to the matter.
In this context, charges of 4 % and above have been mentioned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=281 NAME="Gallagher">
Madam President, first of all I should like to say that one of the major arguments used to convince our EU citizens of the benefits of the single currency was the fact that the euro would reduce costs for travellers and for enterprises involved in cross-border trade.
It was widely anticipated that the elimination of exchange rate risks between the currencies of Member States within the euro zone would lead to a reduction in the costs involved in conversion transactions between these currencies.
Notwithstanding these arguments, charges for exchanging euro area currencies have remained relatively high, as have bank charges for cross-border transfers, despite the fact that all the currencies are now inextricably linked.
<P>
Parliament has consistently insisted that compulsory conversions between national currencies and the euro must be eliminated in every shape and form.
It is important that the EU institutions remain vigilant on this matter.
The Commission must continuously monitor, assess and publish the bank fees charged by the financial and banking sectors to ensure that no overcharging arises.
This data must take account of the structure of bank charges and must allow for direct comparisons between conversion costs before and after the introduction of the euro so that transparency can be maximised on this important issue.
<P>
The banking and financial sector in Europe should take it upon itself to draw up a code of conduct to ensure that the EU financial legislation governing these currencies is strictly enforced.
<P>
In conclusion, I welcome the fact that the European competition directorate is now investigating banks suspected of overcharging customers for transaction costs post- January 1999.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=282 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Madam President, I am delighted that you have called upon me to speak on behalf of the non-attached Members, but as there is no such group, I have the luxury of speaking on my own behalf, as anything else would not be logical.
I have started off very dangerously, as with only one minute's speaking time, you can only afford such a long introduction if you can refer to what someone else has already said.
In this case I am pleased to say that I fully agree with all Mrs Randzio-Plath's requests and would simply like to support them, in particular her call for the Commission to launch a real initiative and, as far as possible, to ensure transparency.
<P>
However, the vital point is not that the public are now paying excessively high charges, but the fact that this came as a surprise.
They had no idea what they were in for, and that is what is really wrong. The same members of the public who had to put up with major packages of cuts in order to meet the convergence criteria were persuaded to accept those criteria on the grounds that in future they would be able to travel within Euroland just as they had travelled within their own country in the past.
The fact is, that has not happened.
Charges still exist and in some cases they have even risen.
The public do not perhaps feel that they have been cheated - I do not want to exaggerate - but at the very least they feel let down.
This has done nothing to enhance the European Union's reputation in the eyes of the public in the various Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=283 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fayot">
Madam President, Commissioner, in Le Monde on Wednesday 10 March there was an article with the following headline: 'Euro still a virtual currency for consumers', with the sub-heading: 'Two months after its introduction, the European currency is still a marginal method of payment'.
<P>
I could not have put it better myself.
So two months after all the fanfares surrounding its introduction amidst hype unprecedented before 1 January 1999 - and we as Members of Parliament were party to that - not only has the euro not caught on with consumers, it has also stirred up various doubts and fears amongst them.
<P>
To my mind, this is a serious blow for the credibility of the new currency and for its acceptance by ordinary mortals.
Of course it was predictable that national currencies would not be replaced by the euro very quickly in day-to-day transactions within the Member States.
However, in view of the stability of the euro and a reduction in the cost of transfers, we might at least have expected an increase in cross-border transfers.
Not a bit of it!
If anything, charges have increased.
The banks have been quite frank in explaining that as they have lost their profit on the exchange-rate spread, they need to recoup their expenses in other ways, and the Commissioner seems to have gone along with this to some extent.
<P>
Let me give you two examples from my own country.
Since 1 January 1999, the Luxembourg post office has imposed a charge on every cross-border transfer - let there be no mistake, on every single cross-border transfer - amounting to a levy of LUF 80, whereas previously it had been free.
By way of a second example, a member of the public wrote to me reporting that he had paid LUF 200 in bank charges on a transfer of LUF 268 to Germany.
<P>
None of this will do anything to develop the single market in financial services for the consumer.
In its communication on financial services, the Commission explained that there were enormous differences between one country and another in all areas affecting the ordinary consumer.
I think that in the case of bank charges for converting the euro, the least we could have done would be to go for transparency. This would have involved explaining what these charges - which are now to be increased - consist of, why there is any need to increase them and what the sector's overall strategy is.
<P>
Ultimately, Commissioner, the question is whether we are to leave things to market forces or whether regulation is envisaged.
You have made it very plain that in your view there is no need for intervention, and that market forces should push down charges.
Nevertheless, let me leave you with the following thought: at a time when everything works through the banking system and the average citizen is increasingly dependent on that system, we need to guarantee universal service in banking as well - the right to banking at an acceptable price.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=284 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Metten">
Madam President, consumers feel taken in and politicians foolish now that the introduction of the euro has failed to produce much lower exchange rates and has even, in the case of exchanges of smaller amounts, resulted in higher charges.
The same applies for cross-border transfers.
We were a little less naive than the Commission about what the banks would do, so we called for legislation to regulate exchange costs, but this did not materialise.
Now the Commission is trying - too late, I fear - to restore its reputation by making dramatic attacks on the banks.
<P>
The banks are right when they claim in their defence that they still have costs to pay, but they should have explained all this earlier when they were still passing on those costs in the form of different buying and selling rates.
Now they are going to have to be a little more transparent about the costs involved, and if necessary we must introduce legislation to force them to do so.
<P>
Finally, it is unacceptable that the banks should not yet have developed a cheap and efficient system for cross-border consumer payments.
I find this completely baffling in a sector which claims that the customer comes first.
The development of such a system should be the top priority in my opinion, and it would also enable the banks to get at least some of their own back.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=285 NAME="Monti">
Madam President, I wish to thank all the speakers.
They provide me with the opportunity to identify one point on which I believe there is full agreement among us, namely, that the present situation is deeply unsatisfactory; and one point where there are partial divergences, namely, how to remedy that situation.
<P>
The present situation is indeed quite unsatisfactory.
The figures deriving from the first partial returns from the banking associations indicate that charges for exchanging banknotes have decreased in many cases by anything from 15 % to over 40 % depending on the amount and the currency being exchanged.
They also indicate, however - and this is the most unsatisfactory part of it - that the decreases have been less when small amounts - for example, less than the equivalent of EUR100 - are exchanged, and in some cases the charges for exchanging small amounts may have increased.
This is totally unacceptable.
<P>
The divergence arises where apparently some of you seem to believe that simply setting the level of the charges by a directive or a regulation would be both necessary and sufficient.
Here the Commission happens to have a different view.
Certainly we are not so naive as to believe that the unregulated play of the market will do the trick.
Obviously not.
What are we doing, since our purpose is not simply to complain loudly but to try to change the situation on the ground?
What we are trying to do is, one the one hand, to impose competition.
Hence the actions of the competition Commissioner to see whether agreements or cartels have been put in place.
The Commission has the power to eliminate them if that is the case.
<P>
We are also trying to impose transparency.
As we all know, transparency is a prerequisite for competition and we are using all possible weapons to impose transparency, such as asking banks and bank federations to convey their data; and also in the most immediate way by opening up e-mail sites and faxes available to consumers and citizens.
We should also avoid creating confusion.
For example, when the issue of the remittances of migrant workers is brought into the picture, then obviously this has to do, not with conversion charges, but with the good or bad functioning of cross-border credit transfers.
There the relevant instrument is the one on which legislation has already been enacted - the directive for cross-border credit transfers of early 1997.
As I indicated in my earlier intervention, there the problem is with a delay in transposition on the part of Member States - hence the actions vis-à-vis finance ministers.
It would be a great help, I would add, if Members of the European Parliament could also put pressure on their respective national authorities to speed up the implementation.
<P>
Finally, to indicate the complexity of the matter and the panoply of instruments through which the Commission - which is particularly active in this area - is addressing the problem, I should mention that we have proposed two draft directives on the issuance of electronic money.
It so happens that electronic money may be the first way in which citizens will be able to make cash payments in euros before 2002.
There were strong interests asking us to limit the ability to issue electronic money to banks.
We said No, because we want to create competition there too, for the benefit of the consumer.
So in our draft directive we made provision for other institutions to create electronic money - provided, of course, that they are submitted to an appropriate prudential framework.
Therefore, we all share the point of view that this is an extremely serious matter, of great relevance, as you all stress, to the credibility of the euro and, incidentally, of the financial system.
I am afraid it is not a problem concerning which somewhat simplistic solutions such as merely legislating would have the desired results.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=286 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Monti.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=14>
Leaf tobacco
<SPEAKER ID=287 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0067/99) by Mr Trakatellis, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) amending Regulation (EEC) No 2075/92 and fixing the premiums and guarantee thresholds for leaf tobacco by variety group and Member State for the 1999, 2000 and 2001 harvests (COM(98)0633 - C4-0682/98-98/0306(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=288 NAME="Trakatellis">
Madam President, the Commission proposal only partly addresses the restructuring of the common organisation of the market in tobacco.
<P>
There are four points in relation to which the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has made changes which we believe will be adopted.
<P>
The first point concerns the fact that, since 1995, there has been absolutely no readjustment of premiums, which has resulted in producers suffering a substantial reduction in income.
Our committee has proposed a 5 % increase in premiums, which exactly covers inflation in the European Union since 1995.
<P>
The second point concerns the transfer of certain varieties of tobacco from one category to a better one.
We believe that this is quite proper, except that these transfers must be possible and they must go ahead.
Let me give you a specific example from Italy, where out of approximately 15 000 tonnes, which is the guarantee threshold, it has been proposed to transfer between 3 000 and 3 500 tonnes from an inferior variety group to other groups. This can go ahead.
In Greece, on the other hand, out of approximately 15 000 tonnes, it has been proposed to transfer 14 800 tonnes, which is impossible within the time suggested.
This cannot go ahead for many reasons.
I would like to say, first of all, that if a producer were able to change his variety, why would he not do so?
For less tobacco production, he would receive the same money.
What our committee is proposing, therefore, after much study and debate, is that up to 25 % could be transferred, at least in the case of Greece.
<P>
The third point concerns the time needed for implementation.
We are already well into the 1999 period, and these transfers require study and a programme.
We propose that the framework should be implemented for 2000-2002, as this is logical and feasible.
<P>
The fourth point concerns the introduction of a national variety which is grown in the region of Pieria and bears the name of a town in Pieria: Katerini.
It has been proposed that this variety should be moved to another region of the European Union, in other words outside those regions which are provided for in the COM regulations.
We believe that this will have negative results, rather than the desired outcomes.
<P>
These are the four points in relation to which our committee has made changes which I believe must be accepted by the Commission.
<P>
There are some amendments which refer to the harmful effect of smoking on health and which say that funding must not be given and that tobacco production must be reduced.
However, what they do not say is that if production is reduced, imports of tobacco from outside the European Union will increase for years to come.
I feel, therefore, that this is an unreasonable proposal.
We seem to be unwilling to face reality. Perhaps the campaign against smoking should be waged from the point of view of consumption and not from the point of view of production.
I am a doctor and I do not smoke, but I find it illogical that we want to reduce production when we currently import tobacco and will import more in the future as a result. This will have damaging economic effects on the European Union and it will also lead to social unrest, because many tobacco producers will be left without work, not only in Greece but in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Germany - everywhere, in fact.
<P>
What the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development is proposing, therefore, is that these amendments should be rejected - and we have already rejected similar amendments in committee - because, as we have said, we believe that there must be economic and social support in the tobacco-producing sector.
This is the truth and the reality of the matter.
I propose that we fight to reduce smoking, in which case world production of tobacco will be reduced.
What we are in fact doing is punishing our own tobacco producers while rewarding tobacco producers in countries outside the Community and creating a major social problem in the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=289 NAME="Katiforis">
Madam President, the Commission proposal we are examining this evening focuses on issues relating to the fixing of premiums and guarantee thresholds for leaf tobacco.
By a decision of the Council of 22 June 1998, the additional funding which is allocated for cultivated tobacco in Austria, Belgium, Germany and France will increase by between 50 % and 65 % in relation to the 1992 harvest.
In addition, in order to maintain financial neutrality, the overall level of guarantee thresholds will fall by 0.95 % between 1999 and 2001.
Premiums are to be increased by 10 %, with a corresponding reduction in special subsidies allocated through producer organisations.
These proposals maintain financial neutrality, and therefore the Committee on Budgets raises no objection to them.
I would point out that the value of the premiums has fallen by 5 % in real terms in relation to 1995.
Consequently, an increase in the order of a further 5 % would be a logical readjustment. For this reason, I support the amendments tabled by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
<P>
I support the comments made by Mr Trakatellis on the difficulties and the fundamental inability of Greek producers to carry out tobacco transfers. Greek producers are small and medium-sized tobacco producers and it is impossible to replace the qualities they cultivate.
Essentially, in the infertile soil where the tobacco is grown, it is impossible for them to switch to better varieties in such a short time. That is why, Madam President, I believe that the Commission proposals regarding Greece do not fall within the spirit of the common organisation of the market in raw tobacco.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=290 NAME="Whitehead">
Madam President, I rise to speak for the chairman of my committee, Mr Collins, and the majority - indeed I believe every Member - of that committee who voted on the amendments we have tabled.
<P>
I fear I cannot speak with the mild good humour and the calm words of my chairman.
I get quite indignant when I hear my good friend, Mr Trakatellis say that of course we must wage a campaign against tobacco, but if we are going to kill 28 million people in Europe per year with tobacco, it may as well be with our own subsidised crops.
That surely should not be the answer.
<P>
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection believes that with tobacco responsible for as many deaths as it is, the hypocrisy here is, on the one hand, for the European Commission to be spending large sums of money on subsidising research into cancer but throwing away a similar amount on the subsidy - and now the renewed subsidy - of this crop.
The fact of the matter is that we have been, for 28 years, supporting tobacco growing within the Community and the financial dependency that goes with it.
The Environment Committee has asked for a gradual reduction in these quotas and premiums for raw tobacco.
We intended that, in the countries where the dependency was the greatest, to take effect by 2008 - in ten years - and in the northern countries, where, as we have just heard, there is a proposal to increase the sums available from 50 % to 65 % in relation to the 1992 harvest, we wanted that abolished within five years.
We are not getting that.
<P>
We are moving in the wrong direction and we are creating a health problem.
To my good friend Mr Trakatellis, who is himself a doctor, I ask if he could honestly deny that is the case?
Every time there is a case brought against the tobacco multinationals, every time damages are proved once again in one of these cases, we see the medical evidence laid bare.
We all understand that fact.
When I hear Trakatellis I am reminded of what the martyr Jan Huss said when he saw people piling up the faggots to burn him to death.
He said to an old peasant woman coming forward with her faggots: 'O sancta simplicitas '.
Those who argue for a greater subsidy for tobacco are saying that today.
I say to them: sancta simplicitas .
This is not the way to go.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=291 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Filippi">
Madam President, discussing tobacco is always very awkward, not so much because of the hour at which we have to do it, as because of the difficulty we MEPs have in understanding one another.
This is where the main obstacles lie.
As the representative of the Environment Committee said, there is a fundamental paradox here.
It is true that smoking is unhealthy, but it is equally true that the problem will not be solved by reducing or eliminating tobacco growing in Europe.
Either we take a radical position and have the courage to call for smoking to be banned, or else we try to cut the rhetoric.
The arguments are always the same: on occasion, I have had to support tobacco growers and defend the sponsorship of major sporting events, including the Formula 1 Grand Prix, even though tobacco advertising has been banned at these, and certain Member States' governments have challenged the legality of the measures we are adopting.
It was nevertheless decided to press ahead, without applying the principle of subsidiarity, bearing in mind that other sectors - such as textiles and clothing - had branding problems needing to be tackled gradually over time.
We are told at one and the same time that production should be switched and that milk quotas cannot be increased, that under the COM in wine vineyards cannot be replanted or extended, and so on in all the other farm sectors.
Let us call a spade a spade; let us not make impractical proposals. If we put forward workable ideas, with the necessary subsidies, then tobacco growers will be willing to go along with our initiatives - as long as they are feasible.
<P>
Let us cut the rhetoric of the Environment Committee's amendments. Let us support the Commission's proposal as amended by Mr Trakatellis, remaining consistent with the realistic approach we adopted previously, granting aid for quality improvements with a view to promoting tobacco that is less harmful than before, and investigating tangible - not rhetorical - ways of embarking on a process of crop substitution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=292 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Lambraki">
Madam President, the Commission proposal on the fixing of premiums and quotas for tobacco over the next three years centres around two main issues.
<P>
Firstly, it aims to abolish group V varieties almost totally and in a very short space of time and, secondly, it offers the possibility of transferring the Katerini variety and introducing it into Italy.
<P>
As regards the first issue, the Commission seems to be unaware of the particular conditions of production in the specific regions where these varieties are grown, since it is proposing the substitution of certain varieties, such as black tobacco, in soil where their cultivation is simply impossible.
Moreover, the very short space of time proposed by the Commission for this substitution will mean a deadlock for producers, whereby any idea of planning will be turned on its head.
<P>
As regards the second issue, the introduction of the Katerini variety into Italy will affect the operation of the market both in terms of prices and stocks, since it will have a negative impact on the balance of supply and demand, and in terms of the quality of this variety of tobacco, since the soil and climatic conditions of the new producer regions are totally different from the regions where it has been grown for the last 30 years.
Unfortunately, the Agriculture Commissioner has failed to bring me the study I had asked for, which was allegedly written by a Greek and which purported to show that these tobacco varieties could prosper and be productive in Italy.
I am still waiting for the name of the Greek who carried out this study, and this is the first time the Commission has taken account of a study and put forward a proposal based on one.
This has not happened before.
I am still waiting for Mr Fischler to give me the name and the relevant details.
<P>
I should like to thank the rapporteur for his own amendments and for those accepted by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
I believe that they greatly improve the Commission proposal.
These amendments aim to improve conditions for the production of tobacco, to set in motion a rational and feasible adjustment in terms of time towards improving the quality of tobacco and, finally, to maintain the level of income of many families on the continent of Europe who live in some of the poorest regions of the European Union, something which the author of the study never really took into consideration.
<P>
I would just like to say a word in conclusion.
As the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has been proposing amendments and talking about health matters for the last five years, it would be a good idea if it tabled an amendment to ban the use of butter, since butter damages the heart and increases the risk of heart disease. We should also ban the circulation of cars, because I doubt that there is a scientist who can say that smoking is more harmful than the pollution caused by cars and car manufacturers.
At some point the hypocrisy in this House has to stop.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=293 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Rosado Fernandes">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Trakatellis report is a moderate one.
It is a moderate report because it makes certain suggestions that, in my view, will help to adapt the tobacco market to the need to improve quality, give tobacco producers the time they need to change varieties and, at the same time, act as a preventive measure by promoting change to a given variety such as Caterini in the case of Italy.
<P>
I agree with Mr Trakatellis's proposals and also agree with the 5 % increase which is really just compensation for the successive devaluations that have taken place since 1995.
5 % is no big deal.
<P>
However, I would like to emphasise two aspects.
First of all, the lack of concern shown by the European Parliament, in my view, about fighting fraud in the tobacco sector.
I have no doubt whatsoever that if fraud in the tobacco sector - one of the major forms of fraud to be found in Europe - were really taken seriously, without crocodile tears or hypocrisy, the money recovered would be more than enough to pay for the many illnesses that the Committee on the Environment says affect smokers - since we know full well and have been amply warned that tobacco is harmful.
As far as I am concerned, the only thing I ask of a smoker is that they do not disturb me and blow their smoke over me.
<P>
I should also like to point out that tobacco is one of the most heavily taxed products.
In my country, it is taxed at 82 %.
I think that whoever takes the risk of smoking and becoming ill will already have paid for his hospital bed.
It may be in poor taste to say this but it is the truth.
As far as I am concerned I think everyone should be free to do as they wish as long as they do not inconvenience others.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=294 NAME="Hardstaff">
Madam President, I could not allow to go by default possibly my last opportunity in this Parliament to point out the nonsense of spending over ECU1 billion subsidising the growing of a product which kills and maims its consumers.
Only yesterday at the end of the debate on Mr Needle's report on European public health policy Commissioner Bangemann pointed out the contradiction of spending vastly more public money on supporting a product which undermines health than on public health programmes.
<P>
We are actually discussing here a Commission proposal to increase payments to tobacco producers in four of the richest countries in the European Union, allegedly because they produce better quality tobacco.
France, Germany, Belgium and Austria are not countries so poor or with soil so poor that no other crops can grow there.
There is absolutely no case on social grounds, such as could possibly be made for Greece or Spain, for public money to be used in this way.
<P>
I was a lone voice in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development on the date of the vote, supporting the amendments of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and very similar ones of my own, calling for the phasing out of subsidies for all tobacco.
Sadly, others who shared my view could not be present on that occasion.
I strongly support my colleague Mr Whitehead.
The proposals before us move completely in the wrong direction.
If European farmers want to grow tobacco it should be without public subsidy and the subsidies that exist should be phased out over a number of years with extra support to Objective 1 and Objective 5b areas during the transition.
Increaisng subsidies over three years to rich countries is totally indefensible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=295 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schierhuber">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, tobacco is a plant, and that has been evident in today's debate, during which opinions have been divided and which has been marked by repeated references to certain fundamental themes.
These references have chiefly come from Members not concerned with agriculture, who see the debate more in terms of social policy.
I would therefore like to thank the rapporteur very sincerely for all his efforts.
<P>
The importance of tobacco production in the agricultural sector of the European Union and of individual Member States varies widely.
I believe that for a number of reasons it would be unwise to abandon tobacco production in the EU without any compromises, as many people are demanding.
In many regions of Europe, tobacco growing is often the only viable form of agricultural production, and this applies particularly to a number of Objective 5(b) areas, including those in 'rich' countries such as Austria.
Many family farms working in difficult conditions are dependent on tobacco production, which represents their only source of income.
Switching to other agricultural products is often out of the question because of the climate.
I think we are all acutely aware of the social and economic pressure on the population of these regions.
<P>
My second point is that it is pretty unrealistic to expect that people would smoke less or even give up altogether if we completely stopped European tobacco production.
The result would just be that all our cigarettes and tobacco products would be imported from third countries.
I hope that you will not misunderstand me, as I attach great importance to a healthy lifestyle and I myself am a non-smoker.
Nevertheless I think that decisions about our own health should be left to the individual.
I think we should grant each person that much responsibility.
<P>
In this context, I would like to point out the need for an improvement in tobacco quality.
I would also like to stress that a voluntary halt to tobacco production in the EU should be possible, with financial support from the EU.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=296 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Santini">
Madam President, I feel as though I am at the races: whenever we discuss tobacco it is the same old Derby between Latins, Mediterraneans and Anglo-Saxons, as if the latter did not smoke.
It really is disconcerting that yet again, one year after we last met here to discuss the COM, we are sticking to our guns and saying the same things.
I was tempted to repeat the speech I made last year, just to check whether anyone was listening!
Mind you, I shall not stray very far from it.
<P>
In any event, while the Derby continues, some points have been scored by those wishing to abolish the cultivation of this crop in Europe.
The prices and premiums have been unchanged since 1995, meaning that they have already fallen by 5 % in real terms; the COM is being put into effect slowly - indeed, for the time being it merely represents additional costs; and the negative effects of the transition from the ecu to the euro are weighing most heavily of all on areas where tobacco is grown, in other words - let us not forget - in the most peripheral areas, those of Objective 1.
<P>
What is more, neither the COM proposal nor that of the Commission takes the slightest account of new elements which we attempted to introduce last year: for example the social proposals - recalled by several speakers - aimed at eliminating tobacco growing as a means of combating cancer, as if people would stop smoking because they could no longer find any European cigarettes on the market.
Clearly the big American multinationals would have a field day!
Well, in many respects the wrong approach is once again in evidence this evening.
Smokers will not stop smoking, and let us not forget it, but woe betide us if we halt tobacco growing: unemployment in Europe would rise, more or less, by another 1 380 000.
That would be extremely damaging, without a doubt.
<P>
All of this is proposed in some of the amendments put down by Mr Collins and others.
Mr Collins says 'stop growing tobacco and grow some other farm produce instead'. My reply to him is that this cannot be done everywhere, and that to ask other Europeans to do so is certainly not acceptable.
And my own question is this: given that alcohol is more lethal than tobacco, why don't you British stop producing whisky and start growing strawberries?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=297 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Keppelhoff-Wiechert">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, both the Commission proposal and the report before us are based on the premise that health should be sacrificed on the altar of structural policy.
As a non-smoker and farmer myself, I think it is important to recognise the double standards involved in the present form of tobacco subsidy.
I find it hard to believe that no other crop would thrive where tobacco is grown.
We need subsidies in that if we stop growing various tobacco varieties here, they would have to be bought in from outside the Community.
<P>
It is also clear that we need a change, an improvement in structural policy in the weak regions, in this case in Greece and Italy.
I accept that production cannot be stopped overnight in these countries, but I feel that we have been talking about this for far too long.
From my own national viewpoint, the Commission's proposals are acceptable. Although the guarantee thresholds have been reduced, this reduction at the same time makes it possible to increase the premium for the northern countries.
But overall, I believe that these subsidies should be rejected in their present form.
Why?
Because increasing subsidies does not persuade tobacco-growing countries to switch to other crops, but if anything encourages them to carry on as before, because ironically enough the cigarettes that are most damaging to health are those that receive the greatest subsidy.
<P>
The Commission's proposals are quite simply market-oriented.
The quotas for varieties with guaranteed markets and high market prices are being gradually increased, whilst the quotas for varieties with weaker markets and low market prices are being correspondingly reduced.
For 28 years now tobacco production has been receiving massive support without any sign of a change of course.
The varieties produced in the Community are of low quality, and producers should show more ambition and switch their production to higher-quality varieties.
<P>
To conclude, let me ask what lessons we should be learning.
First, I believe that tobacco subsidies should be abolished by 2008.
Second, during the transitional period, they should be reduced in a socially acceptable manner.
Third, as part of this reduction process, less harmful varieties should receive support and varieties which are particularly damaging to health should no longer be subsidised.
Fourth, we should provide financial support during the transition period while production is switched to other agricultural products.
These suggestions are not anti-smoker, they are aimed at enhancing quality and improving health, and I believe that they also offer a solution for farmers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=298 NAME="Monti">
Madam President, I wish to begin by complimenting the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, and in particular the rapporteur, Mr Trakatellis, on the quality and efficiency of their work on the proposal to complete the reform of the COM in leaf tobacco.
To tell the truth, we spent a long time discussing the committee's report and the proposal on the COM reform.
The European Parliament, the Council and the Commission all agree on the need to continue supporting tobacco growers, whilst at the same time offering them the appropriate incentives to improve product quality.
In keeping with the thrust of the report, the Commission is proposing to leave unchanged the premium levels and quota amounts, while considering a sizeable reduction in the quota for group V.
<P>
Having said that, I should like briefly to review the main issues raised in the amendments.
As regards those aimed at excluding the 1999 harvest - Amendments Nos 1 and 3 - the Commission cannot accept them, because the reform of the COM is to enter into force and apply from the 1999 harvest onwards.
Furthermore, the impact of the proposal on producers is limited, in that the guarantee thresholds are maintained for all variety groups with the exception of group V; for this group, the existing threshold is below 30 % for Greece and 22 % for Italy.
This deficit is being transferred to other groups on the grounds of poor quality and low market prices.
<P>
We cannot accept Amendments Nos 2 and 6, since the annual stability of the budget must be respected.
The amendments dealing with the adverse impact of monetary conversion - Nos 4 and 5 - are unacceptable because, in the Commission's view, the same rules must apply to the common organisation of the market in tobacco as to the other COMs.
<P>
Concerning the amendments on the guarantee thresholds - Nos 7, 8 and 9 - the Commission wishes to avoid disrupting the market in all group V varieties, for which market prices are poor and which face competition from cigarettes manufactured in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
Therefore, although we are prepared to examine the impact on the sector of the proposal to transfer amounts to other groups, we confirm our reservations concerning any reduction in group V.
<P>
We cannot accept Amendments Nos 10 and 13, as the additional sum for northern tobacco-growing Member States reflects the situation of their growers and so should not be changed.
<P>
Amendments Nos 11, 12, 14 and 15 deal with the mandatory disengagement of the Community.
I can reaffirm what the Commission proposed and Parliament agreed last time Mr Fischler discussed this matter here: the tobacco grown in the European Union covers only about a third of Community consumption, and therefore imports - currently accounting for two thirds of domestic consumption - could easily cover it entirely.
On the other hand, support for tobacco growers is vital in that they are concentrated in the least developed regions of the European Union, without any obvious agricultural or economic alternatives, as has been pointed out.
Moreover, the tobacco reform already makes provision for voluntary withdrawal from the sector, but we should not force farmers to leave the land.
Therefore the Commission cannot accept these amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=299 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Trakatellis">
Commissioner, you have lavished words of praise on the report, but I still do not understand which of the amendments voted for by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development you accept.
Why do you pay the report so many compliments if you do not accept a single amendment?
I should like to know which amendments you accept.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=300 NAME="Monti">
Mr Trakatellis, the report has an intrinsic value which transcends the individual amendments, clearly, and our words of appreciation related to the undertaking as a whole.
However, as I said, Amendments Nos 7, 8 and 9 are acceptable to the Commission.
As for the amendments on the guarantee thresholds, the Commission wishes to avoid disrupting the market in all group V varieties, for which market prices are poor and which face competition from cigarettes manufactured in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
Therefore, although we are prepared to examine the impact on the sector of the proposal to transfer amounts to other groups, we confirm our reservations concerning any reduction in group V.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=301 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Lambraki">
My apologies, Madam President, the interpretation may be to blame, but I did not understand Mr Monti's reply or his politeness.
We want an answer.
Which of the amendments does Mr Monti accept?
That was Mr Trakatellis's question.
Is it the first one, the second one, the third one, the fourth one, or none of them?
My impression is that he does not accept any of them, but he could at least tell us in a word, so that we do not leave the House without having understood.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=302 NAME="Monti">
Madam President, I am doing my best to convey the Commission's position in a field which, as you know, does not fall within my competence but that of Mr Fischler.
Amendments Nos 7, 8 and 9 are accepted, with a transfer - or rather a change - in Annex II, transferring amounts from group III to group I and to group II in France.
The Commission reserves the right to examine the other transfers covered in Amendments Nos 7, 8 and 9, namely those in Annex II aiming both to lessen the reduction in group V in Greece and to prevent the introduction of Katerini and similar varieties into Italy.
I hope I have been clearer now.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=303 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Monti.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=15>
Staff Regulations of the European Communities
<SPEAKER ID=304 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0098/99) by Mr Lehne, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) amending Regulation (EEC, Euratom, ECSC) No 259/68 laying down the Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Communities and the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants of the Communities (COM(98)0312 - C4-0332/98-98/0176(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=305 NAME="Lehne">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this really is a very important report.
In recent years Parliament has adopted various decisions, particularly in resolutions on budgetary matters, which have repeatedly stressed that this House would like to see a statute for parliamentary assistants to Members.
<P>
We all remember the report by the Court of Auditors which came before us a few months ago, and which was by no means uncritical - I am choosing my words carefully - of the remuneration of assistants.
I accordingly believe that it is high time that the issues of assistants' pay and their conditions of employment were sorted out one way or another.
However, and this is the important point, we need to approach this in a serious and rational manner.
Although the proposal that we are now considering has been presented by the European Commission, it was not actually prepared by the Commission, but by European Parliament officials. It was entrusted to the President of the Commission by the President of Parliament with a request to adopt it.
I have to say that I find this proposal unacceptable in the form we have before us.
<P>
The proposal essentially provides for the conditions of employment of other servants to be included in a new Article 78, the gist of which is that parliamentary assistants are categorised as other servants of the European Union, and furthermore that the details of the conditions of employment should be laid down in general administrative provisions to be enacted by Parliament itself.
That is the heart of the problem.
<P>
The legal basis of the Staff Regulations and the conditions of employment of other servants, that is to say the Merger Treaty, does not provide for an enabling regulation for Parliament.
For that reason I have always been critical of this Commission proposal, or rather the proposal prepared by Parliament's administration, because it does not deal with the question of implementing regulations.
Nor am I the only one of this opinion: in its judgment of 7 May 1992, the European Court of Justice made exactly the same point.
The Court of Justice then ruled, and I am quoting now, that: 'The general implementing provisions issued under the Staff Regulations may lay down criteria by which the administration should be guided in exercising its discretion or to clarify the meaning of unclear provisions of the Staff Regulations.
They may not, however, indirectly limit the scope of the Staff Regulations by restating in more precise terms an already clear provision of those regulations'.
In plain English, that means that implementing regulations may not conflict with the spirit of the Staff Regulations.
If they do, they are invalid and should be disregarded.
They do not have the same legal force as the Staff Regulations themselves.
<P>
On this basis, the European Court of Auditors stated the following in a report to the Council of Ministers, prepared at the request of the Council, in the form of an opinion on this Commission proposal: 'In the present case, general implementing provisions which preclude the application of normal unambiguous provisions of the Staff Regulations, particularly with regard to length of service, for a particular category of auxiliary staff, may be regarded as unlawful and their application could be challenged in an action against a particular case decision'.
In other words, the Court of Auditors totally agrees with your rapporteur and with the European Court of Justice that if we adopt the Commission proposal, the implementing regulations will be thrown back at us and in the end only the provisions of the Staff Regulations for officials and other servants will apply.
This will make it impossible to take account of the special conditions of employment of parliamentary assistants.
The result will then quite simply be - and I am estimating that there are 2 000 parliamentary assistants - 2 000 additional European Parliament officials.
I think that demonstrates a lack of responsibility and is contrary to the spirit of what we are trying to achieve here.
<P>
That is why I originally proposed to the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights that the legal basis should be changed, and that a statute for assistants should instead be prepared, which would have formed an annex to the Statute for Members of the European Parliament and which would have taken as its legal basis the provisions of Article 190 of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
For tactical reasons, the Legal Affairs Committee rejected this proposal so as keep the Council's decision making on the Statute for Members of the European Parliament and on the statute for assistants separate from each other.
<P>
However, this will mean that provisions that are supposed to be the subject of contracts between assistants, Members and of course Parliament's administration will then have to be incorporated in the statute itself, or to be precise in the Commission proposal itself.
This is what I proposed in a second report to the Legal Affairs Committee.
<P>
The only legally watertight alternative which might also be possible would be to dispense with a statute for assistants altogether and arrange instead for the Quaestors or the Bureau to decide in what circumstances a secretarial allowance could still be granted, and also to include issues such as social security obligations and an appropriate level of remuneration in these arrangements.
<P>
The Legal Affairs Committee was then faced with a very close vote.
My proposal initially attracted support, but the Commission draft ultimately won the day, so that the report which I am presenting on behalf of the Legal Committee contains various contradictions and I as rapporteur cannot support what was agreed in committee.
<P>
For this reason I have today tabled a number of amendments on behalf of my group which reflect the draft report which I originally presented to the Legal Affairs Committee, and I urge the House to adopt these.
I fear that if we were to adopt the Commission proposal in the form presented to us, it would not be acceptable to the Council of Ministers, in view of the Council's existing reservations in the light of the judgment of the European Court of Justice which I have quoted, and because of the second report of the Court of Auditors.
We would therefore be reaching a sort of token decision along these lines: Parliament wants a statute for assistants but is adopting an unrealistic text in the knowledge that the Council will ultimately reject it.
This would not help anyone, neither the assistants themselves nor the Members of Parliament.
<P>
For this simple reason I would urge the House to adopt the original draft report presented to the Legal Affairs Committee and not the Commission proposal.
If this fails and there is not a majority in favour of my proposal tomorrow, I will feel obliged, in the interests of achieving a worthwhile outcome, to request referral back to the Legal Affairs Committee, or, if there is absolutely no other way, to reject this version of the report, because I personally neither want nor feel able to take responsibility for something that I am convinced is wrong, and is to all intents and purposes a token gesture that cannot possibly solve the problems we face in this area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=306 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gebhardt">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I have to say that the rapporteur's sharp criticism of the Commission should not be taken to reflect the views of the committee.
I wanted to correct that impression immediately.
<P>
Our work on the statute for assistants to Members of the European Parliament has been difficult and has been made even more difficult by the strident background music which has accompanied it.
Nevertheless, we managed to find a way to give our assistants fair conditions of employment including social security arrangements, whilst preserving the autonomy of the European Parliament.
The Group of the Party of European Socialists smoothed the path with its proposals.
We should now adopt these proposals by a clear majority in the interests of our closest confidants.
<P>
The amendments tabled by my group include two additional elements.
Firstly, taking the Commission proposal as a basis, we have made provision to regulate the employment relationship between Members and their assistants.
This should secure the Council approval which we need.
The Council cannot have any objections if we call for general conditions of employment including recruitment, dismissal, remuneration and social security to be the subject of a contract.
Nor can it have any objections to a requirement that professional confidentiality and a ban on unauthorised second jobs including lobbying should form part of the contractual conditions of employment.
The prohibition of discrimination against citizens of third countries makes sense in view of the forthcoming enlargement of the Union, and the Council will certainly not reject the statute on those grounds.
<P>
The autonomy of Parliament to make decisions on its own affairs will be guaranteed by the second part of our proposal.
I have in mind the general implementing provisions that Parliament will adopt itself, which will lay down the details of contracts of employment on the basis of a proposal from the relevant committee.
This will also enable us to accommodate many of the rapporteur's proposals without the risk that the Council will object to a particular provision and will therefore drop the whole statute.
<P>
I would like to mention two points which I feel particularly strongly about.
The first one is short and simple.
Any statute that does not provide our assistants with the best social protection available, including sickness and pensions schemes, should go straight into the waste-paper bin.
It is not worth the paper it is written on.
<P>
The second point is also extremely important: our assistants' remuneration.
They must be paid fairly and in line with their performance.
After all, we are not rewarding certificates and diplomas, but the quality of the work done.
So we do not want a fixed scale based on certificates, professional qualifications and officials' grades.
What we need is a high degree of flexibility in drawing up contracts as employers, and also flexibility as regards remuneration.
<P>
There is also another point that we have already covered in connection with the Statute for Members of the European Parliament.
The contractually agreed remuneration should be transferred from the European Parliament direct to assistants' accounts.
This provides us with some degree of protection against the constant insinuations we have heard over the last few days that Members are a pack of thieves who exploit their assistants and use phantom posts to line their own pockets.
<P>
Thank you for your attention. I hope that on Thursday you will support my group and myself by voting to give our assistants social security and to preserve the European Parliament's autonomy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=307 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Madam President, I agree with all those who have said that the work carried out on this regulation has not been easy; indeed, it has been extremely difficult.
Parliament has not come out of it very well, and I should like to say that we regard the outcome of the votes in committee as unsatisfactory.
<P>
For our part, we believe that the Commission's proposal was a good starting-point, so we have tabled one or two minor amendments clarifying in which cases the rules proposed by the Commission will apply.
We maintain that it should be made clear which assistants will be covered, and we have introduced a time-limit.
A majority of the group is also willing to approve the system of remuneration proposed by the Commission.
<P>
In my view, it is very important that we should have a decision on this tomorrow.
We cannot allow it to be sent back to committee.
I find the rapporteur's suggestion that that is what should happen if his position is not accepted most undemocratic.
I would urge a majority of the House to vote in favour of the proposal, so as to allow the introduction of a satisfactory system before all the new assistants arrive to take up their positions in the newly-elected Parliament.
This lends urgency to the situation, and I would thank the Commission for everything it has done.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=308 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sierra González">
Mr President, the legal uncertainty that exists between assistants and parliamentary auxiliary staff, and the inequalities that such uncertainty engenders, clearly highlight the need for a regulation to put an end to this situation.
<P>
The report by Mr Lehne works towards this and has some positive aspects that deserve recognition, particularly all those that refer to conditions of employment, resolving disputes, and tax liability.
But in other respects, it may be that the situation we have now is fairer than that envisaged in the regulation. This would indeed be the case if some of the amendments tabled were approved, in particular the extensive and excessively detailed Amendment No 38 that covers everything relating to the grading of assistants, the corresponding remuneration systems and the unequal social security schemes.
<P>
The excessive attention to detail in this amendment leaves very little room for transitional situations.
I believe that we should opt for a more flexible approach than the one proposed in Mr Lehne's report, yet without ignoring assistants' rights and whilst fulfilling the obligation to provide contracts of employment with the relevant legal certainty. We acknowledge the rapporteur's worthy efforts but on certain aspects we do not agree with him.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=309 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ullmann">
Madam President, Commissioner, the way we are dealing with this extremely important issue, which concerns the people with whom we have our closest working relationships, does Parliament no credit at all.
So maybe it is not such a bad thing that we are now conducting this debate so close to the witching hour.
Let me be brief: on the fundamental issues I totally support our rapporteur and I am therefore pleased that he is tabling his own amendments again, and I call on the House to vote for these amendments in the interests of our assistants.
<P>
I also agree with the two previous speakers that we urgently need to adopt any text that puts a stop to the legal uncertainty under which our assistants currently have to work.
We cannot let things get to the point where our assistants feel obliged to take the European Parliament to the European Ombudsman because we are to blame for the continuing legal uncertainty they face.
I hope it does not come to that, and from what I have heard there is a good chance that it will not.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=310 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Buffetaut">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I wonder if it would not be more courteous if I were to face the interpreters' booths, as it seems that there are more people in the booths than in the Chamber itself.
<P>
Be that as it may, it unfortunately seems that Mr Lehne's initiative is necessary as regards both remuneration and social protection for our assistants.
However, one simple and fundamental principle underlying any social doctrine is that every person has the right to fair pay in return for their work.
It appears that that has not been the case and that Parliament, like the Commission, has been forced to come to terms with this.
Nevertheless, I feel that Mr Lehne's draft goes into far too much detail on contractual relations and that, to coin a phrase, it ultimately tries to 'statutify' the position of our assistants too much.
<P>
On the other hand, the Commission proposal has the advantage of a degree of flexibility and certainty, and it also has the advantage of having to some extent proved its worth in practice, mutatis mutandis , with the system for assistants to parliamentary groups, which is fairly similar to the Commission proposal.
<P>
In any case, it seems to me that the most important thing is that the choice of assistants - their qualifications, their skills and so on - should be a matter for individual Members of Parliament, who should be at liberty to select their own assistants and agree working arrangements with them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=311 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Barzanti">
Madam President, in our view it is time to close a very difficult chapter, although we are not unaware of the remaining difficulties.
Consequently, our line in tomorrow's vote will be to stress the crucial nature of the text being adopted: I mean to say that it is essential to lay down certain general provisions, on which to base specific rules governing various matters of a contractual nature. But these general provisions, based on what we regard as a positive Commission proposal, must clarify the situation once and for all.
Amendment No 31 in particular - which we recommend for adoption - is both necessary and important: assistants must enjoy equal treatment. They must be paid directly by Parliament, whilst obviously maintaining - or rather strengthening - their links with the Member or Members for whom they work.
In this way, transparency and propriety will be ensured.
<P>
Parliament must tackle this issue!
It should have done so long ago, and must now do so boldly.
The battle we are waging here is for transparency and propriety, not only for the sake of assistants but for Parliament itself and its working methods, to ensure dignity and guaranteed rights for all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=312 NAME="Monti">
Madam President, allow me to thank the rapporteur, Mr Lehne, and the members of the Committee on Legal Affairs for their in-depth examination of the situation of parliamentary assistants and for their proposed solutions to improve it.
<P>
The Commission drew up its proposal at the request of the President of Parliament and on the basis of a European Parliament Bureau decision.
The Commission drew on its right of initiative to determine a legal framework, albeit with respect for the prerogative of MEPs to establish autonomously the conditions and duration of recruitment and the level of remuneration of assistants.
<P>
Under the existing system, recruitment, pay and social insurance arrangements are agreed directly between an MEP's assistant and the Member appointing him or her.
This has led to a wide variety of types of contract, which do not reflect the need for certain basic standards of equal treatment for all assistants.
As was suggested by Parliament's Bureau, the most appropriate way of avoiding the present difficulties appears to be to confer on MEPs' assistants the status of auxiliary staff, while their duties remain subject to specific rules dictated by the particular nature of their role.
<P>
Consequently, Members will remain free to select their own assistants, whilst allowing them to enjoy all the conditions of service applying to other staff, with the exception of the derogations provided for in the proposal for a regulation concerning their conditions of recruitment and remuneration and the duration of their contract.
<P>
The legal basis laid down in the Commission proposal allows Members to confer on their assistants the status of auxiliary staff.
Once this legal basis has been adopted, the second step will be to define the specific parliamentary rules of procedure conferring on assistants conditions of service which are more suitable and equitable than the present ones.
<P>
For these reasons, and also in order to ensure that the regulation is adopted as rapidly as possible, the Commission does not intend to modify its proposal.
Amendments Nos 1, 4, 5 and 11 refer to the rules governing Members' expenses and allowances.
Since these would change the provisions relating to officials and other servants, the Commission cannot accept them.
The other amendments proposed in Mr Lehne's report aim to introduce into the regulation provisions which would have to be adopted by the Council, whereas the Commission would wish Parliament itself to adopt such provisions in its Rules of Procedure pursuant to Article 78a.
These amendments are therefore unacceptable to the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=313 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Monti.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
The sitting was closed at 0.10 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
1999 Annual Economic Report
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0102/99) by Mr Fourçans, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, 'The EU economy at the arrival of the euro: promoting growth, employment and stability' (1999 annual economic report) (COM(99)0007 - C4-0043/99).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="Fourçans">
Mr President, the aims of the report I am presenting today, on the basis of the Commission's report, are twofold. First, it aims to analyse the economic situation and then, more importantly, it aims to put forward some guidelines for economic policy which should serve as a basis for the famous broad outlines of economic policy.
<P>
First, I will look briefly at the economic situation.
It is no secret to anyone that growth is set to decrease in 1999, however it will still remain above 2 %.
So, it will slow down, but - it must be stressed - there will not be a recession.
The international crisis has, and will have, an impact on our economies, but the extent of the impact will vary according to country.
As a consequence, the internal measures that need to be taken must be adapted to the specific situations in the respective countries.
This means that the interdependency of countries needs more analysis, especially now that we have a single currency, at least in the euro zone.
And in this regard, Commissioner, although we think your report is good, it did not go far enough and should have gone into more detail on the interdependency of countries.
That will be a task for you and I next year, Commissioner.
<P>
What conclusions can be drawn from this situation in terms of economic policy?
Should we shift the emphasis away from budgetary consolidation, or even amend the stability pact?
Should interest rates be dropped to stimulate demand, as those to the left of you, in this room at least, Mr President, tend to favour?
Or should we pursue the strategy adopted over the past months and years, as those to your right seem to advocate, Mr President?
<P>
We believe that the second strategy is the best, as indicated by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy in its vote on 24 February.
This does not mean - and we must be clear on this - that a good policy mix is not needed or that macro-economic policy is of no importance, because they clearly are.
But to revert to old Keynesian recipes that have already shown their limitations would, in our view, be a mistake.
<P>
We agree with you, Commissioner, that we must continue to reduce budget deficits, especially in the three larger countries - Germany, France and Italy - which alone, it must be stressed, account for 75 % of GDP in the euro zone.
This policy must be implemented without increasing taxes and other levies; indeed, where possible, these should be reduced.
<P>
What is more, if public investment is to be increased, as we hope, at least in terms of human resources and research, it will be impossible to implement this policy without reorganising public spending.
Budgetary consolidation is also needed, firstly, to maintain low interest rates, which stimulate overall demand, and secondly, to maintain consumer and investor confidence, which also stimulate overall demand, and I would emphasise this for the ladies and gentlemen to the right of me in the House.
<P>
I would now like to look at monetary policy and the question of whether or not the ECB should lower interest rates.
As I said before, in 1999, there will be a slowing down, but there will not be a recession, which is something that must be borne in mind when considering this issue.
Are we experiencing deflation as some claim?
In my view, the statistics show that we are not.
The inflation rate appears to have stabilised at around 1 % and the price of raw materials and energy have dropped.
Who says that these decreases are going to last?
That said, we must be extremely vigilant and, if it ever looked like we were going to fall back into deflation, then the ECB should lower interest rates.
But we have not reached that stage yet.
<P>
To conclude this section on the policy mix, I should like to stress that wage negotiations must remain reasonable and workers' purchasing power should increase more or less in line with productivity gains.
And in this context, workers' purchasing power would increase, which, ladies and gentlemen, would also help to stimulate overall demand.
<P>
It is therefore evident that a sound macro-economic policy is needed to guarantee growth and employment, but it is only through far-reaching structural reforms that unemployment will decrease in the long term.
I will not go into this issue as it will be dealt with in more depth in the forthcoming report on the broad guidelines of economic policy.
In short, the labour market must be reformed, which means reducing labour costs, especially for the most impoverished, and making the market more flexible. The poorer sections of our society must also have the chance to integrate better.
We also need to reform the goods and services markets as well as the financial markets. Such reforms have to form part of coherent whole, in line with macro-economic policy, so that all measures benefit everyone.
<P>
So, ladies and gentlemen, this is the context of the report I am proposing.
It suggests a sound macro-economic policy and a sound policy mix accompanied by thorough and coherent structural reforms, all based on long-term rather than short-term projections, or on the fine tuning that one might use were it possible to regulate the economy like an atomic clock to within a millionth of a second.
We are well aware that the economy does not operate in this way and if we forget that, we might be seriously disillusioned.
I hope, ladies and gentlemen, that we do not become disillusioned in that way.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="Menrad">
Mr President, first of all let me congratulate Mr Fourçans on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs on a highly commendable report.
We are pleased that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has adopted some important points from our opinion.
In the context of a single monetary policy under an independent central bank, economic policies in the Member States will have to be more closely coordinated than ever before.
<P>
However, the call expressed in Amendment No 19 for the abolition of the stability pact does not reflect the views of our committee.
What we are calling for is a balanced policy, which implies a stable currency and effective budgetary consolidation as well as the need to ensure adequate purchasing power.
<P>
Like the Economic Affairs Committee, we are in favour of a productivity-based pay policy.
If pay restraint leads to increases in profits and investments, a word of gratitude is scant reward for the staff who have exercised such restraint.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs believes that they should be able to share in profits and capital through voluntary schemes.
As an antidote to unemployment, we also recommend the promotion of business start-ups and the provision of venture capital, especially for small and medium-sized businesses, the development of new services and greater adaptability on the part of companies; at the same time, steps must be taken throughout Europe to safeguard employee participation, to ensure that staff are informed and consulted about structural changes at an early stage, thereby guaranteeing them the opportunity to prepare themselves in good time.
<P>
What we ultimately need is an active, forward-looking employment policy, a modern form of vocational training for youngsters in Europe, improved opportunities for retraining, for lifelong learning and for research and development, investments in human capital by companies and Member States and through European programmes.
That will enhance both the social dimension and Europe's competitiveness in the world market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Hendrick">
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating Mr Fourçans on what I see as an improved attempt at presenting the Commission's annual economic report.
I say 'an improved attempt' because I see the report itself as being unimaginative - unimaginative in terms of how we can improve on projected growth figures; unimaginative in terms of recognising that we are constantly having to revise the growth figures and we do not really know what to do in terms of trying to increase employment, growth and investment in Europe; unimaginative because, whilst it accepts that we have relatively high unemployment in Europe, it does little other than to accept the fact that jobs are being created but are also being lost.
The level of unemployment in Europe at the moment is the same as when I was elected to this Parliament four-and-a-half years ago, and that speaks volumes.
<P>
We cannot blame the world situation for everything that is wrong with the European economy.
We accept that 20 % of the world is in recession; we accept that 10 % is close to recession.
But the benefits of the European Union and of the single market should mean that we can still create jobs satisfactorily despite what is happening outside the European Union borders.
<P>
The report itself states that EMU is itself a protection.
EMU has not been a protection.
In my view the single market on its own has been a protection.
The fact that most of our trade is internal has been a protection.
The convergence criteria have helped, of course, and we have managed to maintain some investment as a result of consolidated budgetary and fiscal policies.
But the euro is not here, it is on trial and it is not necessarily a solution to Europe's economic problems.
That is why I think this is a failing of the annual economic report because what we need to do is look at how we can generate policies to generate jobs.
<P>
The report itself states that the European economy is now used to functioning with an inadequate level of employment.
Try saying that to the thousands of people, certainly in my constituency, and the millions of people across the European Union who are unemployed.
'Inadequate' is not a satisfactory term.
We have a bad international situation and again the report mentions the prospects of the Union having an adequate policy mix.
Adequate and inadequate, in my view, are not particularly appropriate terms to use.
<P>
My concern, in terms of policy and responsibilities, is that the Commission has failed to use the annual economic report as a stimulus for action and as an input into the broad economic guidelines.
Stability and growth pacts are important but public investment should not be included in those figures.
We need more private investment, more jobs, more productivity and more sustained growth.
The ECB has a role but it is not just the ECB, it is the Council, the Commission and Parliament working together.
We need a coordinated response.
The annual economic report does not call for one.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García-Margallo y Marfil">
Mr President, it has often been said that the arrival of the euro is the most important event since the storming of the Winter Palace. This is true in many respects, and is all the more true in relation to what we are debating here today.
<P>
In this new world, the Member States' national policies are shaped by three sets of guidelines: the broad macro-economic guidelines, the guidelines on employment, in accordance with the Luxembourg process, and the reports on structural policy that were approved at Cardiff I and Cardiff II.
But these three sets of guidelines are formed, predetermined and limited by the basic principles that gave rise to the process of European integration.
There is the principle of the single market according to which the existence of a single currency permanently rules out the option of adjusting economies by devaluing currencies. There is the principle of a single centralised monetary policy which is managed by an independent Central Bank.
And lastly, there is the principle of a restrictive budgetary policy, where austerity is 'consecrated', to use the biblical term, as a virtue. Therefore, these guidelines are extremely important for Europe as a whole and for each one of the Member States involved, particularly as national policy is being questioned in some of the larger countries.
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Over the past few days we have heard statements from representatives of the German Government concluding that the crisis we are currently experiencing is a crisis of demand and a crisis of price stability. In their eyes, these are two important new ideas that rule out the possibility that structural reform might be the appropriate remedy, as had always been claimed in the past.
According to the German Government, this remedy harks back to old Keynesian recipes that we thought had been confined to memory following the 1973 crisis.
A drop in interest rates is being considered on the other side of the Rhine, as an attempt to influence the European Central Bank, and the stability pact itself is being called into question.
In our opinion, we must follow exactly the opposite policy and this will probably be the central debate in the European elections.
What the German Government is not telling us is that many of its internal problems are due to an increase in German salaries that exceeds productivity. They are also due to a certain contentment and somewhat of a return to the days of wine and roses in budgetary policy.
When stability has been achieved, the benefits are clear, at least in my country.
We must address the question of structural reform in order to solve the only problem that really interests us all: unemployment.
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<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Mr President, I agree with the point that Mr Hendrick made, which is that we have been sitting here in Parliament for four years now, and unemployment is just as high as when we arrived.
The White Paper on growth and competitiveness has been on the agenda many times and we have always said that it must be implemented, yet no progress has been made.
In fact we have gone backwards.
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I would like to highlight one of the aspects that other speakers have mentioned, which is the conservative attitude adopted by some countries.
If we think about the mobility of labour, for example, and the opportunities for firms to operate across borders, we have to say that more obstacles are being created than removed.
I recently found out that the German Government imposes extra taxes on workers from companies doing contract work there.
I think this is scandalous, and the Commission should put an end to these sorts of practices.
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Apart from that, the Member States are perfectly accustomed to using social security and taxation to make it unattractive for people to work in other countries.
If we look at countries like America, where the employment situation is much better than here, we can see that the mobility of labour contributes a great deal to the level of prosperity.
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Another subject I would like to raise is venture capital, which is something I have often talked about.
This week we approved a report on this issue without debate, but venture capital can give an enormous boost to small firms which are just starting up.
The insurance companies and pension funds have huge reserves, for example, but in my view these are not being used appropriately because we do not yet have the rules we need in this field.
I would urge that these issues should be given close attention in the context of the employment guidelines.
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<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="Gallagher">
Mr President, the approach adopted by the rapporteur to the Commission's 1999 annual economic report is comprehensive and also sensible.
The report covers a wide range of issues and makes some very important statements.
In particular, I want to welcome the recognition given to the Irish Government policy towards wage developments.
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The Commission states, and I quote: 'Member countries might learn from the positive experience of a number of Member States, especially Ireland and the Netherlands, where continued moderate wage increases over more than a decade have contributed importantly to improved unemployment outcomes.
Both of these countries have also in common that the appropriate wage behaviour was underpinned by tripartite consensus-based wage agreements and was accompanied by a reduction in the tax burden on labour.'
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My fear is that the Socialist-dominated governments of Europe are hell-bent on harmonising taxes, on raising tax levels and finding new ways of penalising industry and entrepreneurship.
We want lower taxes, not higher taxes, and we want an atmosphere conducive to economic investment and the creation of jobs.
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There is still an enormous and hugely costly infrastructure imbalance in my country.
Nowhere in my constituency on the periphery of Europe is there a semblance of M1-type motorways linking any of the regions.
This stifles economic and business growth and opportunity.
Nor have we any direct motorway link with continental Europe.
We do not want to penalise these people for using the structural funds wisely and openly.
Our infrastructural work is far from finished.
Regionalisation is essential for my country; anything less would set us back decades and run counter to Treaty objectives.
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I welcome President Santer's support for the cohesion fund.
The Agenda 2000 proposals fly in the face of Article 104c of the Treaty which the Commission's annual report itself highlights.
Under this article Member States in the euro area must avoid excessive government deficits, and that I support.
Under the stability and growth pact budget deficits must be limited to a maximum of 3 % of GDP in normal circumstances, with the possibility of sanctions, including fines, for Member States breaching this limit.
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I am pleased that cofinancing of the agricultural payments is a non-runner.
This would have led to renationalisation and the dismantling of CAP.
Slashing structural fund payments to Ireland, which we have used well, and should not be penalised for having used well, would immediately bring about huge pressure on the national budget and create deficits, leading to fines that would obviously exacerbate economic difficulties.
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I urge a re-think and a special case to be made for my country.
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<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Mr President, Commissioner, Parliament's examination of the annual economic report presented by the Commission should be an ideal moment for discussing the main economic policies, for assessing those already pursued and for defining options for the future on the basis of that assessment.
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It should also - when the circumstances so demand it - be a time for a serious reconsideration of the approach taken and, on this score, the Fourçans report offers some lucid diagnoses.
However, despite its technical merits, it is not a satisfactory report because it does nothing to throw light upon the approach or the guidelines that have been followed so far.
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We shall not dwell upon the already well-known points of disagreement between us concerning neo-liberalism and excessive budgetary restraint, but we should like to highlight another aspect: the way in which the labour market works continually against the workers' interests and treats them as though they were the cause of all our ills.
Slimming down enterprises - which means more unemployment - and wage restraint: the Fourçans report reflects the economic point of view here, neglecting the social aspects and thus merely making the situation worse.
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For our part, as well as sitting in the Committee on Economic Affairs where the report was seen as highly controversial and only passed by a wafer-thin majority, we have tabled amendments that we would like to see approved, not because they change the report or do anything radically to alter its macro-economic approach but because they would at least alleviate some of its harmful effects.
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In particular we must:
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try and find ways of reducing working hours without any loss of pay, as a way of fighting unemployment, -devise a budgetary policy that stimulates growth and employment, while guaranteeing support for SMEs in particular, -bear in mind the importance of the Structural Funds and the trans-European networks as a way of promoting state investment in infrastructure and improving the skills of the labour force, -introduce a tax on speculative capital movements, making an effective contribution to stability through monetary stabilisation machinery or funds, -last but not least, break with the dogma of the stability pact; it should be replaced by another approach or even a growth and employment pact.
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, oh yes, they want to continue as before without realising that we have already reached the outer limits of pure supply-side economics.
What basically needs to be strengthened is the demand element - purchasing power and domestic demand.
This implies that regional policy must be taken as the starting-point, and strengthening the regions really means creating genuine stability.
We cannot create stability by means of an export-led economy; we have been trying to do that, and it has not worked.
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What basically happens during a cyclical downturn is that our potential is underestimated.
And we do have potential: growth potential and employment potential in a whole range of new technological developments - in environmental technology and in the increasingly efficient use of energy.
Such potential is simply not being used because it is unconventional, because it is new.
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Secondly, there is a lack of courage to admit mistakes, to appreciate that international financial crises would be manageable, that action could be taken to prevent them and that they could be averted, if those involved in the formulation of external trade policy were to recognise that economic and social policy need to be coordinated.
That relates not only to the EU, but also to the policy of the IMF.
We can see it in the Albanian crisis, for example, and we have seen what happened in Bulgaria.
One of the root causes of such problems is that the IMF takes absolutely no account of important social criteria in countries undergoing transformation processes.
In this context, may I also say that we can certainly take decisive action to curb currency speculation, which is also a destabilising factor, by showing some long-overdue willingness to introduce the Tobin tax.
It is a stabilising tax, and the stability it created would not only benefit countries in other parts of the world but would also bring stability for us in turn.
For that reason, all I can say to you is that we must introduce another approach here, and at this time I can only appeal to you to incorporate our amendments into the report so that it will contain at least some new ideas and provide a new perspective, thereby clearly signalling to all observers that we really do want more jobs.
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<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Lassus Saint Geniès">
Madam President, Commissioner, the euro creates a de facto economic solidarity among eleven of our countries.
However, this does not mean it will eliminate as if by magic the considerable structural disparities that exist within the Union, making it particularly vulnerable to asymmetric shocks which could cause national self-interest and nationalist tendencies to flare up at any time.
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This is particularly evident when there is an uncertain global environment and repeated financial crises in most regions of the world.
The individual responses of our governments have been to try to counteract local economic vulnerabilities while broadly coordinating over recent years only their general economic and budgetary objectives.
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This is clearly not enough.
We now need to tackle, in a transparent manner, the comprehensive coordination of both social and fiscal objectives, since these two facets of the organisation of European society are the two major means of adjusting our activities.
They create sources of tension between our economies that can seriously exacerbate the impact of the asymmetric shocks that destroy our cohesion.
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However, in the context of these common social and fiscal objectives, there can be no question of limiting governments' ability to respond autonomously, just as large companies are nowadays well aware that giving their various units a considerable degree of autonomy makes them better able to respond to day-to-day developments.
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It is important to work steadily towards the long-term general coordination of social and fiscal objectives in order to bring vitality to European democracy, although these objectives are extremely difficult to meet as it is. However in addition to this, should we also develop a public investment programme, as the rapporteur suggests?
Since President Delors' proposals, which were put forward some time ago, this has been essential, particularly to improve the major infrastructures for transporting goods, people and information, which, in the future, will considerably help to structure, develop and define the European area.
But the most pressing need is still to strengthen risk investment funds.
Subject to these remarks, we will support the main thrust of the Fourçans report. However, we have to criticise the Commission's economic report for lacking vision.
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<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
Madam President, the annual economic report confirms that the introduction of the euro has come at a time when the economies of the Member States are far too divergent.
To deal with this problem, it is proposed that the EU should introduce a new culture for - or, in simpler terms - a harmonisation of, fiscal, monetary and wages policy and a reform of the labour market.
Public deficits are to be reduced without increasing taxes or other charges.
In fact, these are also to be reduced.
That means, for Denmark at least, that we would have to cut tax-financed welfare benefits.
This new so-called culture is very much in line with what the German Presidency says about the euro not being first and foremost an economic instrument, but rather a political instrument which transfers one of the most important areas of the nation state's self-determination to the Union.
The recommendations to reduce the budget deficit and to increase public investment are directly contradictory.
The Economic Council of the Labour Movement in Denmark has pointed out that it is precisely the reduction in the deficit that has halved investment in Denmark.
It is also clearly the reason for the record high level of unemployment in the EU.
The June Movement cannot abolish the euro, but we are voting against the report.
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<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Blot">
Madam President, the rapporteur rightly highlighted several points which are regularly censured by the single European thinking.
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For example, recitals C and F, on the asymmetric shocks that threaten the euro zone, highlight a genuine problem for the future.
In recital I, the rapporteur rightly denounces the persistently high unemployment rate, and in paragraphs 21 and 23 he criticises the public deficits and the heavy burdens of tax and other levies in Europe.
In paragraphs 28 and 41, he stresses the need to reduce labour costs through the reduction of taxes if we want unemployment to fall.
Paragraphs 44 and 49 mention possible deflation and slowing of growth and point out that growth forecasts in Europe have been revised and lowered.
In paragraph 48, he rightly calls for the study of varied economic policy scenarios to give a better understanding of how the economic situation is developing.
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We actually agree with all these assessments but regret that the rapporteur was not prepared -evidently for political reasons - to admit that the majority of the errors criticised in the economic analysis in fact stem from one ideology, the socialist ideology which currently dominates Western Europe.
This ideology is responsible, in particular, for the high taxes and other levies we pay, for public deficits and for unemployment.
All of this is, to a large extent, linked to the climate of despondency which is crushing the spirit of enterprise in Europe, quite the opposite of what is happening, for example, among our great American competitors.
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Therefore, the economic criticism in the Fourçans report must be accompanied by political criticism; without it, we will not find any better way of combating the continuing unemployment.
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<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Madam President, in the annual economic report, which should be seen in conjunction with the basic principles of the Union's economic policy, we have been focusing time and again since 1994 on the question of whether we are actually doing everything possible at European level to combat unemployment and to stimulate investment and growth.
We have to conclude that in the past, old recipes have always formed the basis of EU policy and that there is a real need for us to break new ground.
We need to break new ground if we are ever to achieve full employment and the sort of growth that will sustain such a level of employment.
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It is a fallacy to imagine that the causes of unemployment are purely structural, because one of our particular problems in the European Union is the way in which cyclically induced unemployment has very quickly hardened into structural unemployment.
That is why every effort must be made to kick-start the engine of growth, which is our only hope of reversing this unemployment spiral.
As an economic region, Europe has problems.
It must therefore launch a kind of action plan.
The annual economic report represents an excellent basis for that.
It would also do nothing but good if the Commission were to come round at long last to the idea of inviting independent experts to express their views on the state of the EU economy, as is done as a matter of course in many Member States, to give us more food for thought and thus enable us to develop even better proposals, because we certainly must develop proposals.

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The Commission is now rightly saying, as the European Parliament has said for the past two years, that the European Union will not be spared the effects of crises in other parts of the world like some tranquil island enjoying peace and stability in the midst of a storm-tossed sea.
On the contrary, we in the European Union must take action, and we can only take action if the various players are finally brought around the table with a view to creating favourable macro-economic conditions in the European Union and above all to coordinating their policies.
Policy coordination, after all, is part of the magic formula that has produced growth, investment and employment in the United States.
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The important thing for us now is to find out why the growth process is stagnating again, even though our inflation is at historically low rates and we are practically starting to pen its obituary.
We must ask ourselves why further economic development within a favourable supply-side framework has done little to stimulate the private sector and why investments are not being made.
That is really the central problem for us.
That is where we undoubtedly need coordination between the various players.
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Above all, I believe that, alongside our very responsible trade unions, we need a monetary policy which can begin at long last to serve the purpose assigned to it in Article 105, as amended by the Maastricht Treaty.
Only then will it be possible to pursue additional new paths and to implement successfully new infrastructure projects in the European Union.
We need to engage the help of everyone who operates in this field, not just the finance ministers.
We need those who formulate monetary policies, we need management and labour, and we also need a bold approach at long last from the Commission and the Council if we are to achieve the modernisation of our infrastructure policy and the creation of a public-private partnership to provide investments that will effectively generate employment.
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<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Christodoulou">
Madam President, the Commission's annual economic report is a valuable document which covers the European Union's economic activity in an international context. What the Fourçans report does, very well and effectively, is to look at the economy dynamically and to adopt some political positions, which is useful and also beneficial.
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I wish to make a remark about the comments on the introduction of the euro at the beginning of this year.
I was expecting a rather more in-depth analysis, but of course as the report was published on 20 January, it was not then possible for it to adopt a position.
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Nevertheless, Madam President, I believe we need to give this subject a good deal more thought. I think that we cannot treat monetary stability as an end in itself, although no one should ignore its importance.
Monetary stability is part of a more general policy, and experience has shown that whenever we adopt an economic policy - and, even more so, a monetary policy - which has a single objective, ignoring consequences elsewhere in the economy, the results are not very good.
The dynamic element is essential, therefore, and we must abandon the very sterile fixation with mechanistic approaches to economic phenomena and explore how a policy mix can reflect dynamic factors.
If we do not do this, I very much fear that we shall be vulnerable to the political sirens who advocate solutions which, flying in the face of experience, persist in tackling classic structural economic problems by anticyclical methods.
I do not believe that a reduction of a quarter of one per cent in the interest rate will be enough to alter the course of the economy in Europe.
I do not think that attempting to solve economic issues which are purely internal to one particular economy by trying to establish a corresponding scenario at European level is particularly constructive.
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That is why I think we need to see how the euro can be used as a proper instrument for economic growth.
We must not let it lose its value and, above all, we must not try to use it to solve other problems on a temporary basis, without reflecting on the long-term objective which, in the final analysis, is what we must all aim for. We all know that the problem of unemployment, which is the main problem in the European economy, cannot be solved by using ad hoc and purely short-term anticyclical measures: what we need is a very far-reaching structural approach.
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<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Goedbloed">
Madam President, Commissioner, I should like to thank the Commission for its very lucid report and Mr Fourçans for his comments on it.
I think that now that we are operating in the euro framework for the very first time, it is natural that we should discuss this issue at length, albeit under rather unusual circumstances.
Mr Hendrick pointed out that in the last few years the biggest problem facing us in the European Union, unemployment, has not improved.
This is hardly surprising, particularly when you realise that we have spent the last 18 months under Socialist presidencies.
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The ideas put forward by the current presidency, among others - Mr Lafontaine's calls for more government investment, a more Keynesian approach, and less focus on what we have agreed about the stability pact and other issues - leave us Liberals completely cold.
It is a fact, as we can see from the Commission's analysis and Mr Fourçans's comments on it, that those countries which in the last few years have made the best of their economic growth, taken structural measures and reduced their budget deficits have been successful both on the employment front and in reducing national debt, and have put themselves in a position to be successful in the future.
So we feel - and this is a question I would like to put to the Commissioner - that the measures under the convergence programmes of the three largest countries at the moment are not enough.
They are too optimistic.
If we are to discuss global economic guidelines shortly, the national governments - and perhaps the Commission could tell us how it intends to encourage them to do so - need to ensure that they come up with structural plans to make employers, workers and governments face up to their responsibilities and decide on a plan together, rather than having it imposed on them by the government.
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<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Svensson">
Madam President, there is a naive belief that the euro will deliver us from all our economic problems. It is time to awaken from these illusions.
We know that the euro is falling, the rate is too high. The euro is falling against the dollar; it is even down against the lowly Swedish krona, which is quite remarkable.
Financial investors are giving up the euro in favour of the dollar.
It is therefore necessary to stabilise the euro at a lower level.
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Why is all this happening?
To begin with, because the restrictions imposed on the Member States are preventing governments from pursuing an active economic policy and an assertive policy for growth and employment.
Secondly, because there is a power split where economic policy is concerned between a central bank which is entirely unaccountable and not subject to any democratic scrutiny on the one hand and the governments on the other.
This split is making it difficult to pursue a systematic and cohesive policy.
Thirdly, because the demands for harmonisation of the economic policies of different countries are mistaken.
As the economies and structures of the countries are different, they must be able to vary their policy if they are to achieve the same common objectives.
If on the other hand they are forced to pursue the same policy despite their differences, divergence will increase and in practice the result will be instability.
Convergence in policy is leading to inconsistency in the economy.
Variation in economic policy, on the other hand, can lead eventually to real convergence between economies.
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Experience has shown that all systems with fixed exchange rates, or large systems with the same currency, sooner or later get into a crisis.
That was what happened in 1931, and that was how it was in 1992.
What we need is monetary cooperation with flexible exchange rates which can fend off the adverse effects of economic change in an orderly, agreed manner.
We need that in combination with an active economic policy in the hands of the governments and effective control over movements of finance capital.
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<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Madam President, there is nothing new under the sun.
Even now that we have the euro, growth, employment and stability are still being quoted as the main aims of economic policy.
I entirely agree with this, but I was surprised to hear a very significant comment that is decidedly incompatible with it: that the structure and operation of the European economy have been fundamentally changed by the convergence process.
If that were true, then all this talk about the problem of high unemployment would not be necessary.
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Promoting employment was already the aim when the single market was created in 1992.
Nothing new there, then.
Nor can we expect EMU to solve the problem.
The generic approach of coordinating policies, which the Commission seems to regard as a magic economic cure-all, will not work.
The causes of unemployment are structural, and solutions must be found specifically at regional level.
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The current international financial crisis is showing up EMU's weak points, and it is striking that it is the three main EMU countries that are in trouble and are fighting for breath in the EMU strait-jacket.
Anyone who finds this surprising should read the Minutes from the May 1998 part-session, when it was already clear that France and Italy did not meet the EMU criteria in structural terms.
The Commission is right to call for structural reforms and wage restraint to continue, but it is rather too late in the day for that.
This too is nothing new.
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I broadly agree with the resolution as it stands, but we cannot accept any of the 22 amendments that have been tabled.
I hope that Parliament rejects them all.
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<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Formentini">
Madam President, the report we are discussing today is a very important one, because the actual issue here is to establish in advance what will subsequently be the approach of the Community, the union of our peoples, to future development.
There is no doubt that, after an initial period of euphoria, the introduction of the euro has caused us to think long and hard. And that process of reflection has also been prompted by the fact that the development we would have predicted has not materialised - the kind of development that would be part of the natural order of things among our peoples because of their distinctive traditions of activity.
But in order to reach this stage, we have had to adopt policies of restraint and they have had a negative impact on employment.
And so, from now on, the efforts of governments, economies and, consequently, the business community and the workforce must focus on relaunching the kind of process that will give us economic development and, as a result, boost employment.
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We Europeans take great pride in our traditions; we believe in the free market, but we feel that we must safeguard the special features of our economic system, which is not the kind of absolutely ruthless system that exercises freedom in a way that may sometimes have the effect of carelessly marginalising the more vulnerable within our society.
Ours is a tradition of development that respects the conditions within society and, therefore, the needs of all: it is a balanced form of development which may perhaps seem slower in the initial stages but produces the right outcome in the end.
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<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berès">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Annual Economic Report has evidently taken on greater significance since the creation of the euro zone.
It provides the means for defining action plans at European level as everyone is aware that significant growth is needed to solve the problem of unemployment.
However, exactly how a European growth policy should be implemented remains to be seen.
In this regard, I think that Mr Fourçans' report, which is a good report, should be completed with a number of amendments we wisely tabled.
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First, we need to develop both public and private investment. In short, we need to finally set in motion the grand plans we have spent so long talking about.
Perhaps we will have to review our original list and shift the emphasis on to new sectors such as communication technologies, low-cost housing and urban transport, which are factors that promote both growth and job creation.
Perhaps we will also have to consider structural reforms.
These are only possible if our economies are growing, so it is not enough to simply talk in terms of structural reforms to solve employment issues without also considering growth.
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In order for this growth to develop, we will clearly have to implement a new fiscal policy and Mr Fourçans' report quite rightly included some of our amendments on reduced VAT rates.
This is a step in the right direction as it will mean greater tax harmonisation beyond the present situation in the European Union, with respect for a particular code. If we were to introduce tax harmonisation solely to reduce national budgets' room for manoeuvre, we would not succeed in the fight against unemployment.
Taxation needs to be readjusted in favour of labour.
Monetary policy also needs to be redeveloped, as proposed in some of the amendments tabled by my group.
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We fully understand the present situation, in which the authority and the legitimacy of the Central Bank is being consolidated.
It is a new institution and, as such, needs time to make its mark, but at the same time we need to remain as consistent as possible with the Treaty.
Indeed, the Treaty states that once price stability has been achieved, monetary policy must be instrumental in achieving the other main aims of the Union, including, of course, employment.
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As far as tools are concerned, Madam President, I should just briefly like to reiterate the need for a coordinated approach to both the broad political and economic guidelines and the employment guidelines.
To achieve this, we need to take a closer look at the role played by social dialogue, while ensuring that the importance of coordination between the Councils and between the Union's various policies is not overlooked.
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The last point I should like to make is that we would have liked to have seen greater consideration given to the various possible economic scenarios in the Annual Economic Report this year.
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I hope that the House will accept some of the amendments we tabled, so that my group can accept Mr Fourçans' report.
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<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herman">
Mr President, faced with unemployment with a structural component of about 80 %, it seems logical to call for structural reforms, despite what Mrs Randzio-Plath might say to the contrary.
However, we must not be naive; the problem is essentially a political one.
In order to reach a position of power these days, it does not pay to advocate structural policy.
Those who have done so have all been ousted, while those who have come to power have promised easy solutions.
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This is what we are seeing today.
It is much easier to lower interest rates, increase public spending and neglect the more difficult issues such as training the workforce, reducing labour costs, etcetera.
So in spite of what Mr Katiforis might say, the disagreements among us are not of an economic or scientific nature.
We are still able to listen, we invite top experts along and all agree: the disagreements are not between economists, they are between politicians.
It is therefore much easier, politically speaking, to develop a macro-economic policy instead of a structural policy.
And that is where the disagreements begin.
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Mrs Randzio-Plath, who constantly refers to the success of the American economy, is doing exactly the opposite to what the Americans are doing, exactly the opposite.
She extolls the rationale of the Federal Bank.
But the Federal Bank has a federal budget that is in surplus and a market that is totally fluid.
Its labour costs are 25-30 % lower than ours yet she seems surprised to see that everything is going well in the United States but not in Europe.
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So let us be realistic and honest with ourselves.
Policies that succeed in combating unemployment are never popular and that is why they are not pursued in Europe.
It is as simple as that.
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Applause
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<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Trizza">
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pérez Royo">
Madam President, I must begin by saying that we do not agree with the proposals in the Commission's communication that presents the 1999 Annual Economic Report.
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The Commission's communication is the starting point for establishing the broad economic guidelines, but presents an analysis that we cannot support.
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The title of the communication is 'The EU economy at the arrival of the euro: promoting growth, employment and stability'.
I have tried to find where the stimuli for growth, employment and stability are in the communication.
There is indeed sufficient stimulus for stability, but you will not find stimuli for either growth or employment anywhere in the report.
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After two years of growth that, incidentally, was not excessively high, the European economy is currently on hold.
We can debate whether or not this represents the build-up to a recession or if it is simply a slowing down of the economy, but the figures are certainly worrying.
The three largest economies in the European Union, which account for 75 % of the gross domestic product in the euro area, are behaving as follows: the German economy experienced negative growth in the last quarter of last year; the Italian economy has experienced very slight growth of less than 1.5 % over the past two years; and the French economy is currently reviewing its growth forecasts for this year, although it is experiencing the highest growth rate of these three countries.
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There is therefore a real danger for the European economy and even, if I may say so, for the world economy.
With almost the whole world in recession, except for the United States and the European Union, a possible shutdown in the European engine would have catastrophic consequences for the economy and the global situation. And we have not even mentioned what effects a shutdown of the United States economy could have, which is also a possibility.
<P>
In this context, we can debate whether unemployment is structural or cyclical.
What is clear is that, at least in the short term and possibly in the medium term, if we do not have a policy that strongly stimulates growth, unemployment will remain at levels that are unacceptable in our societies.
<P>
So what does the Commission say on this subject?
Having carried out a most satisfactory analysis of stability, it tells us that the situation is promising from the point of view of monetary stability. It tells us that such positive effects could be encouraged by improving the policy mix, as the report states on page 39.
<P>
Yet later on, on page 67, there is a sentence which says that 'The output gap for the euro zone is still undisputedly negative, both because of the presence of spare productive capacity and the huge slack in the labour market'.
However, it goes on to say that 'as regards budgetary policy, a gradual structural reduction in budget deficits is expected to resume in 1999'.
Even at the risk of sounding Keynesian, we do not agree with this approach.
In fact, we support the opinion expressed in another report that has recently been published under the charge of Jean-Paul Fitoussi, the 'Rapport sur l'état de l'Union Européenne '. This report states the following: 'Nothing indicates that we are facing a situation of an excessive relaxation of budgetary policies.
Moreover, it would appear that excessively restrictive nature of monetary policy has been largely responsible for the increase in public deficit in the euro area in the 1980s and even in the early 1990s'.
<P>
It is in governments' interests to cooperate openly and in a more systematic manner within the Euro Council and to work on achieving the best possible harmony between the monetary and budgetary policies.
We hope to see decisive action within the Euro Council to stimulate growth, including by means of the budgetary policy. We are currently lacking such growth in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendes Bota">
Madam President, we must reverse this trend of psychological see-sawing with economic analyses and forecasts.
We switch too easily from Europhoria to Euro-scepticism and back.
We rush from consumer optimism to industry doubts.
Yes, we should be concerned.
Yes, we should be aware of the dangers of the economy sliding off the rails, whether they come from outside or inside the European Union.
But the message that we should be sending from the European Parliament to Europe's peoples and governments should not be a pessimistic one: it should ask them to be rigorous and demanding.
<P>
Despite everything, 1999 will be a year of economic growth in the European Union.
It might be 2 % or it might be 2.5 % but it will be growth and the real success will be in using that growth to create jobs.
We need to keep a clear head in order to strengthen the coordination of budgetary, wage and monetary policies.
We need the courage to avoid any temptation to stray from the narrow path that would jeopardise the fulfilment of the stability and growth pact, the credibility of which is the best guarantor of low long-term interest rates and controlled inflation.
We need to make a collective effort, involving both sides of industry to coordinate wage policies and involving the governments of the Member States to speed up the necessary structural reforms and to move beyond their existing stability programmes, in which the budgetary control targets are minimal but nonetheless tend towards a balanced budget, or even a surplus by the year 2002 at the latest.
<P>
Public investment in the 15 Member States of the European Union came to 3 % of GDP in 1991.
That percentage has been steadily sliding ever since, falling tono more than 2.1 % in 1998.
Giving a fresh boost to the trans-European networks and investing in education, training and the information society could help to reverse that trend.
At the same time, we must reduce the tax burden on labour and reduce budget deficits.
These are the types of news, recommendations and forecasts that we hope to see in the major economic guidelines promised for 30 March.
<P>
Growth, employment and stability are the buzzwords in political debate today.
Stability begins within Europe despite the financial crises on the sidelines in Russia, South-East Asia and Latin America and the overheating of the US economy.
It is time to remain calm in the midst of the storm.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Madam President, in his remarkable report, Mr Fourçans very clearly addresses the major issues of European economic policy.
He advocates a stability-based monetary policy and sound budgetary policy.
For that he has our approval.
<P>
We share his concern about the French, German and Italian budget deficits which were forecast for 1995 and which amounted to 2 % of GDP or more.
Given the economic power of those three countries, this could well have had serious consequences for their smaller partners in the event of a crisis.
I support many of the proposals in the report, but time permits me to highlight only three, namely the wish to channel more investments into research, education and training for reasons of competitiveness, the wish to restrict the consumption of non-renewable resources while developing new forms of sustainable technology, and lastly the need to reduce labour costs without endangering the funding of social security systems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Katiforis">
Madam President, first of all I would like to make the following comment regarding the American economy. In 1992, America was in a state of crisis, Mr Herman, and it did not recover from the crisis by relaxing regulations, since regulations in America were already rather loose, and there were no market controls which, you say, hamstring the European economy.
America emerged from the crisis of 1992 and gathered this momentum through the deficits created by Mr Reagan.
These are just a few facts which you cannot ignore if you want to be realistic.
As for the rest, of course our differences are political.
We want to pursue a policy to benefit workers, while you want to pursue a policy to benefit stockbrokers.
Which is more difficult - to come into conflict with workers or with stockbrokers?
Only time will tell.
Our work is far from easy, as you were insinuating, and we are not looking for easy solutions.
We have a radically different social and political agenda.
<P>
As regards the report, I would like to congratulate Mr Fourçans on the intellectual quality of his work, but unfortunately I cannot support his general position, which of course stems from his political approach.
For five years now, the Commission report has been following this method: it takes advantage of any slight, chance improvement in the economy to say to us: 'look, the policy we are implementing is working and Europe's economy is beginning to move forward'. Each time there is a setback, it is not our fault, it is the fault of others.
The fault lies with the crises in the third world, for which the third world is to blame.
Our own financial speculators, however, are blameless. Neither the Commission report nor Mr Fourçans has addressed the issue of the responsibility of our own financial speculators for the disasters in Asia, for which we will also have to foot the bill - indeed, we have already started to do so.
<P>
The average growth rate of the European economy has stuck at 1.9 %, which is 1 % lower than is needed to reduce unemployment.
This has been the case for some ten years now.
Investments remain static, although profit from capital has reached 1960 levels. Neither Mr Fourçans nor the Commission has taken the trouble to ask why.
<P>
Two years ago, the corresponding report to the one we are debating today stated that growth in Europe no longer depended on exports and instead was starting to depend on domestic demand and investments.
What are we seeing now?
As soon as an international economic crisis hits European exports, we are back in a recession.
Where is the internal dynamism you say we are starting to acquire?
We are taking a remarkable step and we refuse to accept that the policy the Commission is adopting has failed and that we must form a united front and totally reject it.
We have become like the Bourbons, Commissioner and Mr Fourçans, who never learned anything and never forgot anything.
And you know very well what the fate of the Bourbons was as a result of the stance which they adopted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ilaskivi">
Madam President, now that the European Central Bank has begun operations, all the EU financial machinery is in place to meet the challenges of future economic development.
There will be great scope for coordinated cooperation on the part of the ECB, the Commission and the various Councils, to try to ensure there is favourable development both for the EU as a whole and for the individual Member States.
<P>
It must be stressed that currency stability, whose importance the ECB strongly emphasises, cannot be the only objective of economic policy.
Steady growth and the avoidance of recession must be seen as being equally important, since they are the only way to safeguard high rates of employment, which are of vital importance to our citizens.
<P>
The ECB bases its policy predominantly on the regulation of the money supply.
It thus believes in the quantity theory of money.
This is associated with the doctrines of the early part of the century, not the thinking associated with a new millennium.
It is not right either that the Commission should be forever stressing the importance of meeting overrated convergence criteria which do not take account of Keynesian views on economic and budgetary policy.
A surplus should be used to curb overheating; when a recession threatens, we should be prepared enter into deficit to achieve recovery.
<P>
The budgetary deficit should be reviewed within the framework of the whole economic cycle.
The importance of this is particularly obvious now, when the public deficit forecast for the three largest Euroland countries for the current year is at least 2 %, making flexibility and scope for recovery almost non-existent.
Parliament should therefore monitor developments and, if necessary, speak up to advocate policies of growth, employment and recovery, as well as structural policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ettl">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, although the need to coordinate economic policies is emphasised at every available opportunity, practice has shown us that there is still a wide gap between analysing and evaluating the main indicators of the economic situation and initiating the necessary decisions.
An action plan is therefore becoming essential if we are to close that gap.
<P>
Even the present report by Mr Fourçans, the general thrust of which I welcome, still lacks the courage to draw the logical conclusions from its proposals and demand more and better coordination of economic and monetary policy.
An economic landscape that is overclouded by investment fatigue will not bring forth the necessary growth or the necessary crop of jobs.
<P>
In this context, let me say that fear is the only reason why we are now saving more, and worshipping the golden calf of budgetary consolidation - important though such consolidation may be - is surely a short-sighted and inadequate response.
This has nothing to do with Keynesianism, which is often misunderstood.
As long as we cannot conduct a coordinated economic policy based on sound arguments, a policy in which monetary policy also plays a key role, both inside and outside the European Union, it will prove difficult to promote employment, growth and stability.
<P>
A gratifying feature of the Fourçans report is the very responsible way in which it deals with the question of incomes and competition.
I believe this approach will guarantee that the present rather complex economic situation will not be exacerbated by an erosion of purchasing power.
That would stifle any additional growth, which is the last thing we want at this precise time.
Impetus is what we need now, fresh impetus and a bolder approach, for more employment and more growth.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Porto">
Madam President, the 1999 annual economic report, covering the first year of the introduction of the euro, duly mentions the progress that has been made in firmly rooting a culture of stability and an established framework of stability in the European Union.
The report - on which I must congratulate the Commissioner - also talks about a revolution in attitudes in all the Member States.
<P>
This has occurred because the nominal convergence demanded by the Maastricht Treaty for entering the euro - achieving an historically low level of inflation and interest rates and an improvement in the budgetary balance - did not jeopardise economic growth rates: 2.7 % in 1997 and 2.9 % in 1998. The result was an improvement in the employment situation compared with the previous 5-year period, with 5.1 million jobs created between 1996 and 2000 whereas 4.6 million were lost between 1991 and 1995.
<P>
This success was despite the background of considerable instability worldwide, especially in Asia, Russia and more recently in Latin America, with 20 % of the world economy in recession and 10 % nearing it.
<P>
This has led to a downward revision of the economic growth forecasts for 1999 but, given the overall results so far achieved, there can be no doubt that we are on target for economic and monetary union.
Rigorous and realistic policies are now called for, as is suggested in the Fourçans report, on which I congratulate our colleague.
<P>
Of the other aspects, I should like to pick out just one: the role of public investment is going to call for special attention without a doubt, especially since the requirements of the stability and growth pact mean that the budget deficit cannot be increased.
In paragraphs 25 and 26 of his report, the rapporteur stresses the desirability of performing 'an analysis with a view to a harmonised and consistent definition of public investment throughout the European Union' since 'rises therein may entail a reorganisation of public spending'.
Like other equally important - but perhaps less delicate - measures, such as making markets more flexible or training people, public investment is a difficult objective to achieve. That justifies the need for the European Union - and, in particular, the Commission and the Member States - to discuss practical measures that could be taken in order to rationalise the very notion of public investment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Metten">
Mr President, the annual economic report is an excellent opportunity for Parliament to have some input in the overall economic policy guidelines.
The main issue is deciding what policy mix to recommend for the Union and the Member States, traditionally involving budget policy, monetary policy and wage movements, since these are the main macro-economic factors that we in the Union can influence ourselves.
External factors play only a limited role, since external trade accounts for only 10 % of the Union's GNP.
<P>
So what policy mix is appropriate in the current situation?
Economic growth is declining and the Commission is already warning of a further readjustment downwards.
The official inflation figure has fallen below 1 %, which means that the real inflation figure, allowing for miscalculations, must be almost zero.
If price stability is under threat from anything, it is from deflation.
With the employment threshold at 2 to 2.5 % and growing, unemployment is unlikely to fall any further.
Something must be done to reverse the slowdown in growth. But what?
<P>
There is not yet much slack in the Member States' budgets, particularly in the bigger Member States that should really be making progress by now.
There is some scope in wage trends, but very little, since wages are still lagging behind productivity, which is really not necessary when Europe's businesses are so well off.
So wages could be a way of giving a much-needed boost to consumer spending, which is currently what is keeping the European economy afloat.
However, it is vital here that the ECB should lower interest rates further to make investment cheaper and encourage consumers to spend more and save less.
The present state of near-deflation means that this can be done, and in view of the slump in Europe's economy it needs to be done.
With such low inflation the interest rates are too high, and the ECB must carry out its duty to support the Union's economic policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Garosci">
Madam President, the presentation of the annual economic report always reminds me of the presentation of a list of grievances about what is not working properly in the European Union.
This year, however, the picture is very different.
We have an instrument, the euro, which is binding and compelling and is forcing us towards a new kind of cohesion as compared with the past.
We know that the autumn 1998 growth forecasts of all the Member States have been revised downwards, and we also know that France, Germany and Italy alone now account for three quarters of GDP in the euro zone.
If just one of those countries were to find themselves in crisis, the whole picture would be affected.
We are therefore faced with three new elements for which there are at least three responses.
The three new elements are: firstly, a new kind of homogeneity based on the euro, that is to say fiscal, taxation and banking harmonisation - and only last night, at midnight, we were discussing and criticising the banks which have yet to accept the euro - in order to continue the process of achieving budgetary stability in individual Member States.
Secondly, we have a new kind of sectoral division of the market, namely the development of the tertiary sector: we have to focus more on commerce, on tourism, the service sector and the craft sector.
And finally, we have a new market element: the big companies have their place, but it is in particular to the small and medium-sized enterprises that we have to look for the future.
<P>
The three responses are: economic but also social market evaluation, a realistic wages policy, particularly for young people looking for their first job and, finally, public investment that is targeted and dovetails with private investment.
To achieve that, I believe that the economic policy guidelines must be coordinated with employment strategy, and therefore the euro is - and remains at this historic moment in the construction of Europe - the main and most appropriate response.
It is certainly not itself the goal, but it is the means of achieving the goal and must always be considered a sound starting-point, as we intended, and a starting-point at any rate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we are speaking about an employment pact in the belief that jobs can be safeguarded if the representatives of employers and employees jointly formulate policy objectives.
We have to tread warily here, because it is the consumer alone who creates work and determines employment policy.
Consumers, in other words we, the people, decide what to buy; we choose the manufacturers of the products we want to buy and their regions of origin.
Fortunately, consumers are very objective.
They judge the value of the product on offer.
In that respect they are very critical.
When consumers go into a shop, they do not search the packaging of every product to find out where it was made; they base their choice on price, quality and customer service.
<P>
I believe we must focus far more sharply on the need to train our employees and our businesses to recognise the needs of the customer and to anticipate the customer's future needs.
What makes a good company is its dedication to identifying the future wishes of its customers.
To that end, such companies need an efficient government.
We must ensure that statutory charges are reduced, that the machinery of public administration operates more efficiently, that we replace redundant departments, by which I mean that we should restructure unproductive departments into genuine service organisations.
That is also a particularly important task for the European Union.
We must set a good example here.
I believe it is worth fighting hard to achieve that aim.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, before I begin, I should like to say to the rapporteur, Mr Fourçans, that I appreciate the quality and thoroughness of his work.
Although our opinions differ considerably as regards the best policy to pursue at both national and European level, I should like to pay homage to his intellectual honesty and stress the importance of some of his proposals.
<P>
Most of the serious reservations I have about his text naturally relate to what I would describe as an obsession with budget deficits.
Another point of contention, or obsession, relates to workers and their supposed lack of flexibility and adaptability.
This is hardly surprising: we have neither the same approach to unemployment nor the same concept of the role of workers in the economy.
<P>
However, there are many things on which we agree, in particular, something that concerns me here, namely, the need for public investment and the criticism of the bank charges incurred by people making payments in euros.
<P>
In relation to the first point, I broadly share the rapporteur's view that Europe needs to give more attention to matters relating to communication and its infrastructures.
I fully believe that society must take on its full responsibilities in terms of training and education in both the short and long term.
<P>
As regards the second point, I have already asked Commissioner Silguy and Commissioner Monti on several occasions about the issue of taxation.
In my view, the Commission needs to act promptly on this as it affects the euro's credibility at this intermediary stage.
<P>
To conclude, I think that the Fourçans report is very thorough.
It does not mask the differences between the left and the right and it is even very discrete about calling into question certain workers' rights.
Nonetheless, it puts forward some very interesting proposals that are worth discussing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Wogau">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by thanking our rapporteur, André Fourçans, and congratulating him on his report.
<P>
The report tells us that the main European economic indicators remain strong, that investments are achieving good returns, and that inflation and interest rates are at an all-time low.
At the same time, however, we note that previous growth forecasts are now having to be scaled down quite drastically.
We must investigate the reasons for this.
<P>
It is undeniable that the slowdown is partly due to external economic conditions. But they cannot be the only reason.
The very fact that our trade with the regions in crisis, such as Russia, Brazil and South-East Asia, accounts for a minimal percentage of the GNP of the European Union shows that this factor is not solely responsible for the slowdown.
The real reason for our low rate of growth - and I believe there is broad consensus on this - is a lack of investment.
Some people blame the European Central Bank and claim that the base rate is too high.
That, however, is an astonishing claim, given that both short-term and long-term interest rates have already fallen to unprecedentedly low levels.
<P>
Part of the responsibility for the sluggishness of economic growth in the European Union lies with the uncertainties in the economic policies pursued by some of the larger Member States, as a result of which business confidence is sapped and investments fail to materialise.
Companies will not invest if they have no means of knowing how high their tax and national insurance bills will be at the end of the year.
This is the first problem that the economic policy of the European Union will have to address.
The main reason for weak growth and the threat to jobs lies squarely in the realm of economic policy, and not with the Central Bank.
As an institution engaged in dialogue with the Central Bank, we must not let it be used as a scapegoat for the faults of others.
<P>
Another topic that is currently high on the economic agenda is the strength of the European currency.
What determines the strength of the euro, and what matters to the people of Europe, is not the drop in the value of the euro on the world market but its internal stability.
With an average inflation rate of 0.8 % in Euroland at the present time, we have price stability.
The rate of price increase in the United States, with which we tend to compare ourselves, is more than twice as high as it is here in the European Union.
But the reason for the decline of the euro against the US dollar lies primarily in the international finance markets' lack of confidence in the economic policies of our large Member States.
<P>
In the report before us, the majority of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy expresses its support for an economic policy based on the principles of welfare capitalism and its opposition to a dilution of the stability pact.
That is the only way to win back the confidence that has been squandered and to start fostering growth and employment once again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="de Silguy">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first of all like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Fourçans, on his thorough and precise report which analyses the majority, and perhaps all, of the elements of the multilateral monitoring process of which, I should like to remind you, the Annual Economic Report is the first stage.
<P>
I broadly agree with his oral presentation and I have listened with great interest to your debate, which, perhaps owing to the forthcoming elections, seemed to me to be more politically charged, with a more marked division than has been seen in recent months.
<P>
I want to ask you to look at the results, to be pragmatic.
When the present House was elected in 1994, it was following on from 1993, a year in which Europe had experienced a recession of 0.5 %, whereas in 1998, growth of 2.9 % was registered.
In 1994, deficits stood at 5.4 % and in 1998, they were 1.5 %.
Unemployment in 1994 stood at 11.1 %; in 1998, it was 10 %, so it has decreased in the European Union during the present legislature.
<P>
In response to your rapporteur, and if you do not mind me digressing somewhat from the notes that have been prepared for me, I should like to make several comments in the light of this extremely interesting and useful debate.
I should firstly like to comment on the state of the European economy, before looking at the various aspects of economic policy in Europe.
<P>
As regards the state of the European economy, I share the rapporteur's view that the European economy is affected by the world crisis. However, I personally felt that the overall tone in several of the speeches made was too pessimistic, for example, the speeches by Mr von Wogau and Mr Pérez Royo.
In my view, the situation now is far less worrying than it was a short time ago, even though there is still some uncertainty.
<P>
In fact, with regard to events abroad, the situation in Asia, and particularly in Korea and Thailand, has become far more stable, with any uncertainty in the region mainly in Japan.
Reforms of the Japanese financial and banking sectors have been announced and must now be carried out.
As regards Brazil, the situation is being closely monitored. Moreover, growth in America was higher than predicted in the last quarter of 1998.
This helps to support world trade.
And lastly, but perhaps most importantly, the introduction of the euro offers us a degree of monetary stability and protection at European level.
In this connection, I disagree with what Mr de Lassus Saint Geniès and Mr Blot said: it is thanks to the euro, and the euro alone, that the threat of asymmetric shocks in Europe is reduced because it strengthens economic and commercial integration.
<P>
Let us look briefly at the most recent indicators available.
Confidence in industry has once again fallen, but not as much as in the past, and in some countries the situation is even becoming more stable, as is the case, for example, in Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands and Finland.
<P>
The second indicator is the maintenance of a high level of consumer confidence after a considerable improvement in recent months.
There is also greater confidence in the construction industry.
Contrary to what Mr Hendrick and Mrs Boogerd-Quaak said, unemployment has not increased.
I have the latest figures here, which show that in 1994, as I said, the unemployment rate was over 11 %, in January 1998, it was 10 %, and in January 1999, it was 9.6 %.
In 1998, 1 700 000 net jobs were created in Europe, and although I admit that the employment situation is far from ideal, it has improved.
<P>
Growth for 1999 will be lower than we predicted a few months ago, but it should gradually improve during the second half of the year, largely thanks to private consumption.
It is true that the main areas of uncertainty today are to be found in Germany and Italy, particularly as regards investment.
And I agree with Mr von Wogau that confidence is the key to investment.
<P>
This situation therefore backs up the Commission's analysis.
Maintaining effective coordination between the various agents of the policy mix must enable operators to remain confident and allow us to pursue and develop growth that generates employment.
<P>
This brings me to my second set of remarks which focus on the broad guidelines and the content of the various policies.
International developments in recent months has generated a certain amount of uncertainty regarding our efforts to achieve our main aim, that is, a visible and long-term reduction in unemployment.
<P>
How can we sustain growth?
It is a question many of you have asked, including Mr Pérez and Mr Metten.
The Commission is of the opinion that the most important thing is to ensure that the Member States' economic policies are better coordinated in relation to the current situation.
This is true of all sections of the policy mix.
<P>
I shall begin with public finances as it is an issue that many of you have raised.
You are no doubt aware that the restructuring of public finances was suspended in 1998 because the nominal deficit, which was -2.1 % in 1998, compared with 1997 when it was -2.5 %, hides the fact that there was no reduction in the structural deficit. The majority of this was, of course, due to improved growth, which reached 2.9 % in 1998.
This is somewhat regrettable because we are not far from stabilising the situation once again.
There is still approximately a one-point deficit to recover before the situation balances out, and I should like to remind you that, by contrast, the deficit in Europe in 1993 was -6 %.
<P>
Mr Caudron, you will perhaps think that I, too, am obsessed with reducing public deficits, but I only have one obsession, that is, my obsession with growth and unemployment.
What is more, public deficits have never ever created jobs; if they had, we would have known about it and seen proof of it.
So we must not be mistaken about our main objective.
Automatic stabilising mechanisms should indeed be used but only if efforts to restructure budgets create the necessary room for manoeuvre and if the reduction of structural deficits is not compromised; otherwise, this would have negative effects.
<P>

Mr Ribeiro, we cannot abandon the stability and growth pact because no-one, and no minister, wants to challenge it, and rightly so in my opinion, because growth is not possible without stability.
This pact needs to be further developed, hence the approach adopted, in particular, to employment, the European employment pact, and the ideas put forward by the Commission in January 1996 on this matter, which now appear to be more pertinent.
<P>
The Commission believes - and regrets - that, while they are consistent with the aims of the stability and growth pact, the Member States' stability programmes are not ambitious enough. Here I am replying to Mr Goedbloed, because reduction in this respect is really the basic requirement of the stability pact.
So there is no additional room for manoeuvre, which means that our ability to react in the event of a dramatic change in economic trends might be severely limited.
<P>
The Commission will remain extremely vigilant as regards the implementation of the stability and convergence programmes and as regards respect for the commitments made by the Member States on budgetary issues.
In any event, what does budget relaxation actually mean?
It means a monetary policy that is more difficult to implement, higher interest rates and, in fact, more unemployment.
I think that I am responding to comments by Mrs Randzio-Plath here: this is why the Commission will monitor the situation and prevent a lax approach from developing, and this is something I can guarantee you.
<P>
The second issue that has been mentioned on many occasions today, for example by Mr Porto, is that of public investment.
Priority must first of all be given to private investment, because it is eight times greater than public investment and so needs to be encouraged and enhanced since, by its very nature, it supports growth.
<P>
As regards public investment, I would refer you to the Commission's communication of 2 December, which indicated that the level of public investment had fallen in relation to GDP.
At the start of the decade it stood at 3 % of GDP and it now stands at 2.1 % of GDP, which is unfortunate, even if the figures show that the situation varies from country to country.
As a result, we must encourage the reorganisation of public spending and the development of public investment since both stimulate growth.
<P>
I took note of several interesting comments - outlined by both Mrs Berès and Mr Caudron - regarding, in particular, investment in what I would term human capital.
It is clear that further public investment must not have an adverse effect on our competitiveness or lead to an excessive imbalance in public finances. Nor must it result in an increase in compulsory contributions.
This would penalise private investment, which is worth eight times more than public investment.
<P>
In any case, I should like to reassure Mr Hendrick on this point: the Commission takes account, and will take account, of the level of public investment when assessing the public deficit of each Member State, in accordance with Article 104c(3) of the Treaty, and as recommended by Mr Fourçans.
<P>
Wage trends constitute the third area of economic policy.
Over recent years, these have largely been behind the development of a significant number of economic policies, which is good for employment.
The social partners have shown a very responsible attitude and today, in general, wage trends still meet the objective of stability in all the countries in the euro zone.
I am aware that agreements have been signed in Germany, which have been mentioned in several speeches.
We must remain vigilant and ensure that these wage agreements fit the context of what the rapporteur calls a reasonable increase in purchasing power, that is, a context which also takes account of productivity by sector and region and which therefore does not penalise employment in the long term.
<P>
The debate in this House on structural reforms - our fourth topic of discussion - has been very lively.
It is true that these structural reforms are vital to overcome the traditional handicaps that hamper Europe's attempts to solve the problem of unemployment.
Mr Herman, you quoted the figure of 90 % for structural unemployment, which is perhaps too high.
In my view, if it represents two thirds of the total amount, it is already huge.
The Member States have made progress in this matter and it should not be underestimated, even though the efforts made to achieve it seem to be inconsistent as a whole.
<P>
In my mind, Mrs Berès, these reforms aim to guarantee a high level of social protection and must increase the number of jobs generated by growth.
In this connection, I think that it is essential to both improve the labour market and develop a more appropriate regulatory framework for companies.
I welcome the fact that some of you, particularly Mrs Boogerd-Quaak and Mr de Lassus, mentioned the problem of risk capital and its development in the context of improving the capital markets.
I think that this is a very positive element that will help us to take full advantage of the impact of the euro in terms of innovation and job creation. Here again, I would refer you to the recent Commission communication, which, unfortunately, for the time being, has not been given a specific format by the Council.
<P>
Finally, I would like to say a brief word about monetary policy, which is the responsibility of the European Central Bank.
It is a shame that Mrs Berès is not here, because I dare not, and wish not, to interfere in the development of this policy.
I just wanted to point out that price stability is today assured in the euro zone and that, for the moment, there is almost no inflation since it currently stands at around 1 %.
<P>
I shall therefore only make one comment on monetary policy.
It will be much easier for the ECB to implement the monetary policy in such a way so as to encourage growth, since the policy mix in the euro zone will not be knocked off balance by a relaxation in the budgetary policy.
In this respect, I also believe that we are making the task of the ECB easier by dispensing with declarations that are too public and sometimes untimely.
<P>
To conclude, I should like to stress that the introduction of the euro encourages the Commission to enhance the functional nature of the broad economic policy guidelines.
I congratulate you on your report, Mr Fourçans, and I congratulate the House on the debate today.
It is a first step in the right direction.
The running of the Union and the euro zone and the desire to define sound economic policies that focus on growth and employment are issues that need to be regularly debated.
That is why the Commission has always favoured, and still favours, close collaboration with this House on the current debate on economic policy.
<P>
I can therefore assure you that the Commission will carefully consider your comments on the Annual Economic Report, which it will take into account when drawing up its recommendation on the broad economic policy guidelines.
This recommendation will include specific recommendations for each Member State, and I hope that they will allow the Commission to get on with its work on this issue and refrain from systematically criticising the recommendations or trying to deprive them of all substance.
In fact, if we genuinely wish to coordinate economic policy, I believe that it is up to the Commission to state clearly and publicly the path it intends to follow.
After that, of course, it is the Council's job to make the final decision as it sees fit.
<P>
Therefore, having said all this, and after thanking you and congratulating you, all that remains is for me to invite you to attend the presentation of the recommendations on the broad guidelines on 30 March.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Madam President, may I ask the Commissioner to clarify whether he is at odds today with the annual economic report, because in the annual economic report he said that growth alone has created ten million jobs in the United States.
For that reason, I think he should reaffirm that growth is indeed a necessary weapon in the fight against unemployment, be it in the United States or Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="Hendrick">
Madam President, Commissioner de Silguy made a point of contradicting my statement that unemployment had not changed over the course of this Parliament by saying it had changed from 11 % to 10 %.
If Commissioner de Silguy considers 1 % over a period of nearly five years a success then, if this was a national parliament, perhaps many Members would be asking for his resignation.
As it is, the extenuating circumstances are that there has been a global recession, although Commissioner de Silguy very often claims that we have withstood this global recession almost 100 %.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Madam President, I would like to make the same point as Mr Hendrick.
I am supposed to have said that in my view unemployment has risen.
Of course I realise that it has fallen slightly, but it is by so little that I do not think we can go back to the Member States and tell people that very much has happened at all.
This is why I would strongly urge that we should use the employment guidelines to do the things that Parliament and the Commission have been calling for for years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="de Silguy">
Madam President, can I just briefly say first of all that I did not fully understand the question posed by Mrs Randzio-Plath.
I did not actually say that growth was not needed to combat unemployment, because it clearly is.
At no stage did I say otherwise.
However, what I did say - and this is something that was borne out and noted in all the economic analyses - was that growth alone will not be, and is not, enough in Europe to allow us to put an end to the problem of unemployment; it needs to be accompanied by structural measures.
<P>
Secondly, Mr Hendrick, I simply wanted to correct what I understood to be a simple technical error, namely, your claim that unemployment had increased.
I said that it had not increased, but that it had decreased, even though it only fell by 1 %, which is not enough.
That said, Europe is set to create more jobs in the 1995-2000 period, generally speaking, than were lost in the 1990-1994 period.
Therefore, what I am saying is that the trend is reversed, but there is still a long way to go before the scourge of unemployment is fully eradicated. This will only be possible through a combination of a sound and stable macro-economic policy that is focused on stability and growth, and a dynamic employment policy, which must be implemented in the context of general and consistent structural measures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
EU relations with Central Asia
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on:
<P>
the report (A4-0069/99) by Mr Truscott, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the communication from the Commission - Towards a European Union strategy for relations with the Independent States of Central Asia (COM(95)0206 - C4-0256/96); -the recommendation (A4-0071/99) by Mrs André-Léonard, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council and Commission Decision on the conclusion of the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States, of the one part, and the Republic of Uzbekistan, of the other part (7652/96 - COM(96)0254 - C4-0418/96-96/0151(AVC)).
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Truscott">
Madam President, I should first like to thank honourable Members for their cooperation, suggestions and amendments which have been gratefully received.
Since the five Central Asian Republics - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan became independent in 1991 with the breakup of the Soviet Union, the European Union has been engaged in the process of building bilateral relations with each of them.
<P>
The five states differ widely in terms of population, land area, resources and democratic developments.
The Commission communication on relations between the EU and the newly independent states of Central Asia published in October 1995 stated that the primary objective of the Union was to maintain the stability of the region which could best be done through the development of broadly-based democratic institutions, the reduction of sources of conflict and economic reform.
Given the length of time since this communication was produced perhaps now would be a good time for the Commission to update it.
<P>
Parliament was asked by the Council for its assent to the partnership and cooperation agreement with Kazakhstan in July 1995.
In the case of Kyrgyzstan it gave its assent in November 1995.
However, given the concern over the internal situation in Kazakhstan Parliament delayed its assent until 13 March 1997.
In the case of Uzbekistan the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy and the rapporteur Mrs André-Léonard decided that the situation was such that it was very clear that the country did not meet the general principles laid down in Article 2 of the PCA, i.e. respect for democracy, principles of international law and human rights.
<P>
Thirty months on and human rights and democratic institutions have been further undermined in Central Asia.
The recent presidential election in Kazakhstan was widely regarded as rigged and flawed.
In Uzbekistan, after a series of explosions in Tashkent on 16 February, the government has used this as an excuse to clamp down on opposition groups.
There has been particular concern for the safety and treatment of Mamadali Mukhmurdov and Munira Nasriddinova.
Since the main non-violent opposition parties, Erk (Freedom) and Birlik (Unity) have been closed down, the Committee for National Security (KNB) is also busy arresting and harassing dissidents.
<P>
In Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, despite the peace agreement signed in the latter country last year, there has been little or no improvement in the human rights situation, and even in Kyrgyzstan, where human rights are respected in many areas, there are still problems with citizens' limited ability to change the government, freedom of speech and the press, due process for the accused, religious freedom and ethnic discrimination.
<P>
On a positive note it is to be welcomed that both Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan have introduced moratoria on capital punishment.
I hope this will be extended to all Central Asian countries.
The Commission has given an undertaking that human rights issues will be regularly raised as a serious issue with the authorities of Central Asia and that the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy will be kept fully informed of developments in this sphere.
I trust that Commissioner van den Broek will keep this promise on his forthcoming visits to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and report back to committee on his impressions.
It is regrettable that Commissioner van den Broek could not be here today but I hope that he will keep the committee and Parliament fully informed.
<P>
Central Asia is an area of outstanding geo-strategic and economic importance to the European Union.
Its importance has been recognised since the days of the 'silk road' and during the era of the 'Great Game'.
The natural resources of Central Asia, especially gas and oil, are considerable.
US State Department estimates suggest that the Caspian contains up to 200 billion barrels of oil, enough to supply the world for eight years, and 7 000 billion cubic metres of natural gas, enough to supply Europe for 16 years.
Clearly the EU must be engaged with the countries of Central Asia and encourage them to shed their old Soviet era mentality.
<P>
The role of TACIS, in particular the democracy programme, TRACECA, INOGATE and WARMAP are to be welcomed.
But cross-border and democracy programmes, assisted by NGOs, should be given more support.
The legacy of environmental degradation, especially round the Aral Sea and the nuclear test ground of Semipalatinsk should also be tackled with an adequate response from the EU.
The region has suffered from both the Asian and rouble crises.
The Commission, Council and international financial institutions must consider measures to help protect the population of the region against severe economic hardship.
<P>
While the EU should encourage foreign investment in Central Asia, part of the solution lies in the region itself in terms of introducing assured legal rights for investors.
Currently the EU is the region's most important market outside the CIS.
If Central Asia is to develop its economic independence it will require foreign assistance in developing alternative gas and oil pipeline routes and new markets.
<P>
In conclusion, the EU should play its part in helping to build a democratic, prosperous and secure Central Asia in a region of fragile stability.
Central Asia may be far away but its future will affect us all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="André-Léonard">
When the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy appointed me rapporteur on the partnership agreement with Uzbekistan, I wanted to see the situation there for myself, so I went to Tashkent to meet political leaders and representatives of civil society and human rights organisations.
<P>
This country, which was part of the former Soviet Union and gained independence in 1991, has still not fully broken away from the practices of the former Communist regime, though of course efforts have been made to do so.
In December 1992, a new constitution was adopted, which makes Uzbekistan a pluralist democracy.
A constitutional court is currently in operation, the parliament is working quite well and an ombudsman has been appointed to ensure that human rights are respected.
The problem is that the ombudsman is directly dependent on parliament and is therefore under its charge.
<P>
In 1991, Islam Karimov was elected to power with more than 80 % of the votes cast, against just one other candidate.
The President's party, the People's Democratic Party, won a landslide victory in the parliamentary elections in December 1994, after several opposition parties had been banned.
And in March 1995, President Karimov was re-elected for a period of five years.
<P>
What I saw there did little to reassure me.
In fact, freedom of expression is non-existent, censorship is in force, the press is not independent and there are only four newspapers available, all of which are subject to government control.
The freedom of assembly, the freedom of association and the right to demonstrate are all forbidden, and opposition parties are banned.
Arbitrary arrests and detentions are a daily occurrence.
Torture is frequently carried out and the death penalty is still in force, although we have, of course, asked the Uzbek authorities to commute the death penalty to prison sentences.
<P>
My conclusion was that democracy only takes root slowly - even here - and that 70 years of communism and totalitarianism cannot simply be forgotten overnight.
That is why I asked the Committee on Foreign Affairs to postpone our agreement and give Uzbekistan two years in which to make progress in terms of respect for human rights.
Time has unfortunately not changed the situation and today we are receiving some alarming reports from human rights organisations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
<P>
The recent riots on 16 February demonstrated the violence those in power are capable of.
Three people are still in prison and have suffered serious violations to their integrity; no proof of their guilt has ever been furnished.
One of the prisoners, Mrs Akedova, is 60 years old and is the head of a human rights organisation.
<P>
However, I think that we should give Uzbekistan a chance, because this country, this region, needs our help, be it democratic, economic or environmental.
The country has substantial mineral and gas resources that are underexploited.
It is the world's fourth largest cotton producer, and yet, according to its leaders, 15 % of the population live in abject poverty and wages are almost as low as they are in the third world.
A great many TACIS projects have been set up, ranging from projects promoting democracy, transport, energy, telecommunications, education and the environment, to projects aimed at combating drug trafficking.
It must be noted that the volume of drugs from Afghanistan is huge, and that 40 % of the drugs that reach Europe come from this region.
<P>
I do not have enough time to elaborate on environmental issues here but I can tell you that I spent two hours flying over the Aral sea, or rather what is left of it. I witnessed the sheer scale of the ecological disaster there, which Europe has failed to gauge the importance of.
Pesticides that have been used for years in this area have destroyed everything and dried up the sea.
Infant mortality is 10 % higher in this region than in the rest of the country, as is maternal mortality.
Many of the people are disabled, miscarriages are so frequent that they are no longer accounted for, and diseases such as cancer are rife.
<P>
We rapidly need to take action in this part of Uzbekistan if we do not wish to bear a heavy responsibility for these stricken peoples.
These observations were what finally influenced my decision and what led to Commissioner van den Broek's commitment to suspend the partnership agreement should human rights violations continue, as provided for in Article 2 of the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement.
Mr van den Broek is to visit Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan himself at the end of the month. I hope that he will be able to act as Europe's spokesman and subsequently give an account of his trip to the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
<P>
Other elements have contributed to the proposal to conclude this partnership agreement, especially the very worrying regional context in Central Asia.
Mr Truscott already discussed this situation and I shall not go into it here.
The geostrategic situation of Uzbekistan, which shares a border with Afghanistan, and the fear that the Islamic fundamentalism of the Taliban will spread, finally convinced me to adopt this position.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, we must indeed be vigilant, but it is vital that, at the dawn of the third millennium, we continue in our historic duty to ensure respect for human rights all over the world. We must also share our knowledge and experience to enable regions to prosper, regions that have been deprived of fundamental freedoms for far too long and that have lapsed into an economic and democratic backwardness that needs to be overcome.
We must therefore have confidence in Uzbekistan, and hope that we will not be betrayed.
In any case, the Committee on Foreign Affairs will submit an annual report to the European Parliament on how the situation is developing in terms of democracy.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="President">
As you can tell from the applause, Mrs André-Léonard, rather more people were listening than it might have appeared.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, we shall adjourn the debate at this point; it will be resumed after the topical and urgent debate.
Before we move on to the votes, I have three points of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Perry">
Madam President, I apologise for having to raise this issue again.
It is one I have addressed before.
As Members entered this Chamber this morning some form of demonstration was taking place outside, with people who had labels attached to their clothing advising us to vote in a particular way.
I do not believe that any of them were Members on this occasion.
I offer no comment on the issue they are raising, but I believe Members of this Parliament should be able to come into the Chamber without encountering any form of demonstration outside its doors.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="President">
I entirely share your views, Mr Perry, as I think does a section of the House.
Here in Parliament, we have never cast our votes under pressure from anyone at all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Duhamel">
Madam President, I would like to make a point of order pursuant to Rule 109 on order in the House.
<P>
I should like to ask you, Madam President, whether you think that Rule 109(1) means that I cannot display a sign saying 'Stop treating us this way, give us a statute today', because you think it will disturb the sitting, or whether, on the contrary, this Rule does not mean that this is forbidden, because you think that a statute for assistants is essential for a social Europe and for the rights of all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="President">
I shall certainly not pass judgement on the substance of the matter, Mr Duhamel.
That is not something for the Chair to do.
On the other hand, it is up to me to judge whether what you do disturbs order in the House.
I would not think that to be the case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Falconer">
Madam President, unlike Mr Perry, I have no problem whatsoever with people demonstrating for their rights.
The only thing I would say to the assistants is that it may be worthwhile exposing certain Members who are not paying their assistants the proper wages which they should be entitled to receive.
We should expose people when they are bringing this Parliament into disrepute.
<P>
I would also wish to expose an institution that is bringing Parliament into disrepute.
The institution is Parliament itself.
I understand that people who work for us, such as the freelance interpreters, have not been paid since October.
I find that disgraceful!
And I hope every Member in this House finds that disgraceful.
If I were the shop steward, as I was in Rosyth dockyard, there would not be an interpreter in any of those booths today, until such time as that matter had been corrected.
<P>
I ask the Bureau to issue us with a clear, categorical statement as to why people who work for us are not being paid properly.
I would ask the Bureau to issue that statement prior to the part-session in April.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="President">
I can tell you that the Bureau is aware of this matter, Mr Falconer. You will be kept informed of the situation.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Madam President, you have just announced that you were going to put Amendment No 90 to a split vote.
Like all other Members, I have the definitive voting list here, in which this split vote is not mentioned.
I should like to know exactly when a request for this was made, and if it was not tabled before the deadline, why is it being introduced now?
As it was our group that originally requested a roll-call vote, I would not like the request for a split vote to be added to the request for a roll-call vote just because too many of the latter have been requested.
I should like a specific answer on this point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="President">
I will give you a very specific answer, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
As regards the request for a split vote, this was certainly made in good time, since I prepared for the votes last night - I could not do so this morning, as I was chairing a meeting on the Structural Funds - and this request for a split vote was already included in the papers prepared by our services.
<P>
As for the request for a roll-call vote, on the other hand, I have just been made aware of this.
But I shall turn a blind eye, and we will take this roll-call vote all the same.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Madam President, I should like to ask the other rapporteurs to reconsider how they intend to vote as we do not want to have an incoherent situation where the amendments and the explanatory statement do not make any sense.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="President">
Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, you know that here in Parliament we never go back on a vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
I am referring to the current vote but in relation to a vote that will take place later, namely the vote on Amendment No 98.
And I should like to warn this House that we must be careful when voting on Amendment No 98 so that we are not inconsistent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Corbett">
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Madam President, I am surprised that compromise amendments have been admitted at this stage in the debate.
The report was the subject of many committee meetings and it was even considered by the political groups before it was debated in the House.
Since the deadline for tabling amendments has passed, I object to the fact that we are putting Amendment No 182 to the vote because the request was tabled too late.
<P>
To go back to the question I just raised, regarding the request for a split vote, I should like to remind you that the deadline for tabling requests for split votes and separate votes was Tuesday evening and not yesterday evening.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="President">
I believe the deadline was in fact before last night.
I simply said that I had at least seen that it had been tabled yesterday evening.
<P>
I shall consult the House on putting this compromise amendment to the vote.
<P>
Parliament agreed to consider the compromise amendment
<P>
(Parliament adopted the decision)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="President">
My warmest congratulations to the three rapporteurs, who have done a truly wonderful job.
<P>
Loud applause
<P>
(Mr Gutiérrez Díaz rose to join Mr Corbett and Mrs Palacio, and the three rapporteurs exchanged congratulations)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Lehne">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we have taken a decision in this Chamber which I, as the rapporteur in this instance, believe we have no authority to take. We decided that questions relating to employment contracts concluded between parliamentary assistants and Members should be governed by general administrative provisions adopted by the European Parliament.
There is no legal basis for this decision in the European Treaties.
That is not only my opinion; it is also the opinion of the European Court of Auditors and is reflected in the decisions of the European Court of Justice which I cited yesterday.
Moreover, we have contradictions once again in our decision, contradictions which were contained in the report as adopted by the Committee on Legal Affairs and which we are carrying forward into the vote today.
<P>
So if we want to come up with a prudent solution, with a proposal which can be adopted by the Council too and which ultimately clarifies the contractual position between ourselves and our assistants in an effective manner, it is my view that the Legal Affairs Committee should re-examine this report.
On behalf of my group, I therefore request, pursuant to Rule 129, that the report be referred back to the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights. At the same time, I wish to intimate that, should this motion fail, my group will regrettably be compelled to vote against this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Cox">
Mr President, I wish to speak against.
There may be contradictions in what we voted.
Frequently we find that is the case.
But that does not exclude the possibility that we can make significant progress with the dossier.
<P>
This is a reform which is both necessary and overdue.
Many of our assistants are potentially vulnerable to exploitation.
Many of our assistants may lack proper social security and other cover.
This House has demanded urgency on a statute for its own Members; it must treat its own staff with no less urgent respect.
<P>
This House has demanded that another European institution should clean up its act.
It should demand no less of itself.
Let us proceed to a vote and let us vote for a statute.
<P>
Applause from the centre and the left
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, is there a speaker in favour of the request for referral back to committee?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ullmann">
Madam President, I am as well aware as Mr Lehne of the difficulties with the legal basis, but the reasons which Mr Cox has just cited for the urgency of this report and of the matter under discussion here make it imperative that we vote now.
The difficulties will have to be dealt with in the framework of the interinstitutional dialogue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Madam President, I would ask you to reprimand Mr Ullmann for seeking leave to speak when you asked for someone to speak in favour of the motion, and then saying something quite different.
Either we keep to the rules of the House or we do not!
<P>
Parliament rejected the request for referral back to committee
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Provan">
Madam President, I have been patiently waiting for the end of that vote before interrupting the proceedings of the House.
But there has been an interview taking place up in the Gallery with cameras and people who have been interviewed.
I believe that to be against the Rules of this House.
I do not think we should allow this Parliament to be devalued by the Rules not being applied.
I therefore ask you and the Bureau to investigate thoroughly what the ushers in the Gallery are actually supposed to do.
If there are rules they should be applied properly; and if people have special permission to take interviews up there, at least the House should be informed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="President">
I can assure you that the Bureau will look into this matter, Mr Provan.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR), Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling (V), Eriksson, Seppänen, Sjöstedt and Svensson (GUE/NGL), Bonde and Sandbæk (I-EDN)">
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, along with all the members of my group, I voted against Mrs Haug's report on the European Union's system of own resources.
It is regrettable that, on this important issue of the future financing of the Community budget, this House, as is often the case, allowed ideological and political criteria to take precedence over the fairness and transparency which should characterise the financing of the European Union.
<P>
In fact, the solution proposed by the Commission and by the Court of Auditors in its report concerning the assessment of the system of own resources was to continue the development of recent years and increase the GNP-based resource, which is the only genuine indicator of Member States' wealth.
<P>
However, the majority of Parliament advocated financial autonomy, for reasons solely linked to a determination to increase the European Parliament's powers.
This is incompatible with the need to rationalise the Community budget, the overall total of which can be, and must remain, subject to strict ceilings, as the Commission itself confirmed.
<P>
I naturally welcome the fact that the various paragraphs on cofinancing have been rejected.
This was the only area of expenditure subject to amendment.
As we have already said, the adoption of such a stance is incompatible with the aims of the Treaty, because agricultural expenditure is compulsory.
Moreover, no provision was made regarding the need to reduce other non-compulsory forms of expenditure.
Therefore, although we welcome the fact that the Committee on Budgets' proposal on this matter was rejected, we disagree with the overall tone of the report and were therefore unable to adopt it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Madam President, I should just like to briefly explain that after having drawn up a minority opinion on the Haug report, I voted in favour of it.
I simply wanted to point out that my argument was essentially based on whether agricultural cofinancing, as proposed by the Haug report, was compatible with the aims of the Treaty.
<P>
As this was rejected by Parliament, I was able to vote in favour of the report and I am delighted that my minority opinion in committee has become the majority opinion of the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Raschhofer">
Madam President, we reject both the principle of cofinancing and the introduction of a degressive approach to subsidies.
We are opposed to the idea of revising the European budget at the expense of our farmers.
Moreover, we are also vehemently opposed to the development of new ways of providing the EU with its own resources, because we do not wish to impose any additional burdens on the people of Europe.
It is also wrong to dispute the connection between the Cohesion Fund and the euro area.
No country that is ready for the euro is in need of these funds.
Solidarity cannot and must not be one-sided.
<P>
In general terms, the aim on the revenue side of the EU budget must be to create greater transparency and an equitable distribution of burdens.
Since the House has rejected the principle of cofinancing - a decision which we welcome - and since some parts of the report that reflect our views were adopted, while others were rejected, we abstained in the final vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Blak, Iversen, Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
Today the Danish Social Democrats voted against the report's proposal for cofinancing of the common agricultural policy through national budgets.
We are of the opinion that the support for agriculture in the EU should be phased out instead.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling">
A change in the EU budget is desirable and necessary for the future.
The EU budget is much too wide-ranging, which is clearly leading to considerable problems.
Not least among these are all the reports of fraud and irregularities, which are costing the EU taxpayers some 40 billion a year in Swedish money, i.e. a sum corresponding to double the Swedish membership contribution to the EU.
There must be changes here.
In the first instance, much of this has to do with the fact that no one has any sense of belonging to the EU, and that most only see the EU and its budget as a source of grants and subsidies.
<P>
We consider the proposal that the EU's biggest item of expenditure, the agricultural policy, should be financed jointly through the national budgets to be an important and correct step in the direction of reducing the total EU budget.
We believe that, as a result of this, the Member States are bound to become more involved in the EU's agricultural policy and to show greater concern over how appropriations under the agricultural policy are managed.
<P>
We oppose all the demands in the report that the EU should take on responsibility for fiscal policy and should direct the coordination of economic policy, especially against the background of arguments such as that of the Union having a role as a 'global political and economic actor of growing importance'.
The Member States, Europe and the world do not need and have nothing to gain from a superpower, whether it be an economic, political or military one.
<P>
We have strong objections to paragraphs 9 and 11, because they seek to give the Union clear responsibility for fiscal legislation, and moreover powers to raise and appropriate the taxes.
Fiscal policy and economic policy must be decided at national level, even though a certain degree of international cooperation is needed on some clearly specified taxes or duties.
But that is not the same thing as a fiscal policy decided by the EU, in which the EU takes control of the taxes raised.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Hyland">
It is timely that we are discussing this report when European Union leaders are engaged in tough and contentious negotiations on the future financing of the European Union itself.
While we are debating here today the issue of the rebate which the European Union gives the British Government on an annual basis, this matter should now be put into its overall context.
<P>
It is clear that some Member States of the EU, most notably the Netherlands, Austria and Germany, believe that they are contributing too much money to the European Union annual budget.
It is argued that the British Government secured too favourable a deal at Fontainebleau in 1984 with regard to the rebate which the European Union gives to it annually.
<P>
This is now a matter for negotiations between European Union leaders, the European Parliament and the European Commission.
A framework for the future financing of the European Union for the period 2000-2006 must be put in place.
One particular financial equation is certainly very clear.
The European Union annual budget will still be raised by means of a levy on individual Member States to the maximum of 1.27 % GDP.
Decisions have already been taken that the future financing of the enlargement of the European Union is to come from within the parameters of this 1.27 % budgetary allocation.
<P>
It is clear that a compromise is going to have to be found between those countries which are claiming that they contribute too much to the EU, as equally, those countries which have received favourable treatment from the European Union annual budget in recent years.
The British Government certainly falls into this category and as the negotiations progress to the Berlin summit on 25 March next it is clear that there is bound to have to be a relaxation of the rules governing the amount which the British Government receives via rebates from the EU each year.
<P>
With regard to the future financing of the European Union, one option which cannot be considered is the possible renationalising of the common agricultural policy itself.
Such a decision would have serious implications for Ireland because of our unique dependence on agriculture and the importance of family farming as an essential feature of the economic and social infrastructure of rural areas.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Martinez">
For the third time since the Luxembourg Treaty of 1970 and the Fontainebleau summit of 1984, we are faced with the problem of how to finance European integration.
The Member States agree with the assessment of the problem, but are extremely divided as to how it should be solved.
At the heart of the problem lies the complicity and injustice of the way in which Europe is presently financed; in other words, it rests on four supports with four forms of resource.
<P>
The injustice lies in how the burden is distributed.
Germany contributes more than it receives in return, as does France, which is why we talk in terms of 'net contributors'.
On the contrary, Spain, Ireland, Greece and Portugal benefit thanks to the Cohesion Fund.
<P>
However, the Member States' financial contributions are much more complex than that.
For example, Belgium and the Netherlands seem to pay a great deal because there are customs duties on imports through Antwerp and Rotterdam.
Belgium and the Netherlands therefore seem to pay a great deal but they do not really have to bear the cost of these customs duties.
<P>
What is more, each Member State's financial contribution is subject to the criterion used to make the calculations.
If we were to compare how much each inhabitant pays out of their income in terms of per capita GDP, the result is reversed.
People in the Netherlands who contribute to the Cohesion Fund make a greater individual sacrifice than people in northern Europe.
This just shows how complex the system really is.
An examination of exactly how the VAT-based or GNP-based resources are calculated, as well as the technical mechanism used to cap the British contribution, would reveal an even more unlikely complex situation.
<P>
This technical impenetrability hides many mistaken beliefs, in particular, the belief that the European Union is financed by its own resources, by taxes, through VAT, whereas in reality, it is still financed by state contributions.
It is also a mistake to think that enlargement towards the East and the extension of the EU's powers will be achieved with the same budget envelope of 1.27 % of GNP, as the Commission would have us believe.
<P>
Tomorrow's Europe will require ever more financial resources and will eventually be forced to tackle the problem of taxation.
This is where the disagreements arise in terms of the best solution to adopt.
Although the mistakenly good idea of cofinancing, which in fact would be a new resource created on the sly without being ratified by national parliaments, has been ruled out, fundamental differences on principles and techniques remain.
As regards principles, should the British idea of the 'juste retour ' be upheld?
Should we limit, out of simple common sense, the sacrifice imposed to prevent the despoliation of some countries, such as France?
<P>
Should we really move towards a 'single tax' with an ever-increasing GNP-based contribution, even though we know that a single tax is a grossly unjust tax?
Whichever resource or resources are chosen, should they be progressive as Spain advocates, or proportional?
Above all, as regards decision making, should the unanimous rule, which is the only way to guarantee security, be maintained or should we opt for majority voting, which we usually do when there are drifts involved?
The differences involving principles and techniques are inseparable.
<P>
Will Europe finance itself by making CO2 pay? Only the Greens believe that this is possible.
Will there be a European income tax?
These concepts are to be avoided.
We should instead stick to the present system, in other words, financing through state contributions, because we know that old taxes are the best and are the ones that will be respected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="des Places">
Like the majority of the French members of our group, we voted against the report as adopted by the House.
Once again, I regret the fact that many Members did not think things through rationally enough.
<P>
Although we succeeded in rejecting paragraph 13, which put forward the idea of cofinancing the CAP, albeit with a small majority, other parts of the resolution were not acceptable and, in our view, should not have been accepted.
<P>
Several paragraphs of the resolution stated that Parliament wanted control of the overall Community budget.
As a consequence, I think that those who voted in favour of this resolution are also in favour of eradicating the principle of compulsory expenditure.
In fact, since the Treaty of Rome, all agricultural expenditure under the Guarantee section of the EAGGF has been compulsory. In other words, Parliament is limited to giving an opinion on this type of expenditure and the Council is the only institution empowered to make decisions on it.
<P>
Since the beginning of this legislature, some have been critical of the fact that 48 % of the Community budget is allocated to one socio-professional category representing less than 5 % of the European population.
Experience shows that if the European Parliament were ever to gain full control of the agriculture budget, it would progressively reduce it in order to transfer funds to other areas and policies, forgetting that the CAP is the only fully integrated policy at Community level.
In terms of the European Union's GNP, I should like to remind you that the agriculture budget only represents 0.5 % of the Member States' GNP.
<P>
A second factor influenced my decision to reject this report.
Several sections of the text adopted by the House propose increasing the budget of the EU's institutions through the creation of additional forms of resource, without, however, increasing the overall fiscal burden on the people of the Member States of the European Union.
The question immediately arises as to how this will be possible, with the only plausible answer being to transfer funds from the Member States' budgets to the European budget.
<P>
In view of the enormous difficulties we are experiencing today in balancing the European budget with regard to all the constraints imposed by the convergence criteria linked to the introduction of the euro, I think that such a proposal is completely unrealistic.
The European Union's priority is to give precedence to its common policies.
It will not solve budget problems through cofinancing or by gradually reducing agricultural subsidies, but by providing these policies with the necessary budgetary allocations.
Not so long ago, before 1992, the CAP accounted for 70 % of the Community budget, and at the outset, it even accounted for almost the entire European budget.
<P>
European farmers have contributed financially to the introduction of the euro by doing away with the differences between the rate of the ecu and that of the green ecu.
Today, all we are doing is asking them to finance the EU's enlargement to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, while being fully aware that their future hangs in the balance. This is because the European Union only thinks in terms of concluding free trade agreements and dismantling what is left of the Community preference.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Porto">
The Haug report contains some very positive ideas, such as its condemnation of the principle of the 'just return' and the 'British correction' and the suggestion that VAT as a base should be fully replaced by GNP.
As can be seen from an interesting table to be found in the Valdevieso report, this would do a lot to help us escape from the current regressive trend, already reduced in 1997, because of the proportionately greater importance given to GNP among the current resources.
<P>
This is something to be borne in mind when we consider a suggested 'new' resource, a tax on carbon dioxide emissions.
Two other suggestions that could be implemented by the European Union are a tax on profits made from coin minting by the European Central Bank and a tax on short-term speculative investment (the Tobin tax).They are both very interesting, but need further consideration and, in any case, would make only small contributions to the budget.
<P>
Given that it would lead to greater revenue, fairly distributed and identifiable by the public (thereby strengthening the desirable notion of accountability), we cannot understand why progress is not being made, as a priority, on a tax linked to personal income.
<P>
Finally, with regard to the CAP, rather than renationalise it we should be making moves to reform it, lowering consumer prices, taking measures to restructure agriculture and give the less favoured farmers income support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Theorin">
There is a need to change and reform the EU's system of own resources.
However, I am opposed to the proposal contained in paragraph 8 of the resolution, because it will lead to increased supranationality.
I believe that in principle only the Council should continue to decide on the Union's own resources.
<P>
As regards the cofinancing of agricultural expenditure, I do not think that is an appropriate solution.
The agricultural policy currently pursued must be radically reformed, and we should reduce expenditure without delay. As we need to devise a general system, I reject the principle of cofinancing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="van Dam">
The current system of own resources has a number of shortcomings.
For example, the collection of the traditional own resources gives rise to a great deal of red tape, irregularities and fraud.
It is therefore entirely appropriate to carry out a detailed cost-benefit analysis of this source of own resources, as the rapporteur proposes.
Another important point is that the benefits and burdens of the EU budget are unfairly distributed among the Member States.
I am quite happy to support the rapporteur's proposals here, such as the introduction of cofinancing of agricultural expenditure by the Member States.
I also share his criticisms of the correction mechanism for the United Kingdom.
Five other Member States are now in more or less the same net contributor position as the UK, so there is no longer any legitimate reason for maintaining the correction mechanism just for one country.
However, I feel it is going too far to reject any correction mechanism on the revenue side of the EU budget out of hand.
I think a compensation mechanism which applied to all Member States could be a perfectly viable instrument for helping to remedy the unfair distribution of the financial burden among the Member States.
<P>

Although I support all these various proposals, I felt I could not vote for the Haug report, mainly because of the proposal for a fundamental review of the own resources system, eventually replacing the national contributions to the EU budget with European taxes.
This is designed to create a Union which is entirely financially independent of the national governments, and while this is very much in line with the supranational European model that many people in Parliament still want to see, it is completely at odds with the kind of Europe we support.
The European Union must remain a collaborative undertaking between national Member States, and this means that the national governments must continue to have influence over how it is financed.
<P>
An integral system of national contributions based on the level of affluence of each Member State (GNP), which is what Mr Fabre-Aubrespy calls for in his minority position, offers the best guarantee for a balanced and transparent financing system, with a cost-benefit ratio which is also in its favour.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Wibe">
I voted against this report mainly because of its outspoken demands for the Union to raise 'own resources'.
In concrete terms, this first step towards tax-raising powers for the Union also constitutes a major move towards a federal Europe.
<P>
Mrs Haug's proposals represent a decisive move away from the principle that every nation has the right in a democratic system to tax itself.
This is reason enough to vote against the report.
<P>
Monfils recommendation (A4-0106/99)
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Novo">
The creation of a Community action to support the organisation of the European Capital of Culture should not only cover the nomination arrangements but also make available resources making it easier to nominate cities that are less prosperous but undeniably of a high cultural standard, at both national and European level, for the title of European capital of culture.
<P>
We welcome the fact that recognition has been given to the need for the nominated cities 'to ensure the mobilisation and participation of large sections of the population', and also the recommendation that the nominated cities should be able and obliged to include surrounding regions in their programmes.
These are guidelines that we have always fought for, although they have not always been understood or accepted.
It is our hope and desire, therefore, that Oporto, due to be European Capital of Culture in 2001, can be a pioneer in putting these guidelines into practice even before they come into effect.
<P>
It is entirely justified that various cities from the same country should be able to apply jointly.
That would enable cities such as Tomar and Santarém, should they so wish, to apply to become cultural capitals, justifiably in their own right. It would enable them to present a stronger case.
<P>
Lehne report (A4-0098/99)
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Madam President, the Lehne report focuses on an extremely worthy objective, that of rendering the treatment of Members' auxiliary staff and assistants more transparent and fair.
<P>
Unfortunately, it exploits this good idea in that it harmonises, or begins to harmonise, a statute at European level, in which the European Parliament, in particular, would be the employer, even if the Member himself was naturally free to hire and fire his staff.
<P>
According to the rapporteur, this development would be based on a broad interpretation of the new Article 190(5) of the EC Treaty, as consolidated by the Amsterdam Treaty, which provides for the implementation of a standard European statute for the Members of this House.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations opposes this standardisation as, in our view, such a statute should remain under the remit of each country.
<P>
My group therefore also opposes the broad interpretation of Article 190(5), which seeks to extend this harmonisation to Members' assistants.
In our opinion, each Member of the European Parliament represents his country and should be remunerated or compensated by that country, and his assistants should be treated in the same way.
If this is not the case, we will soon have assistants that are fully integrated into the European regime and way of thinking, making spontaneous proposals to their Member on positions to advocate ever deeper integration since they will have become functionally incapable of thinking anything else.
<P>
I am very wary of the potential influence such a statute might have on an individual's behaviour.
This is why I think that the equity needed in the management of assistants must be established at national level.
What is more, the assistants of the Members of the European Parliament must be managed according to the same laws and practices and by the same services as the assistants of members of national parliaments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw, Palm, Sandberg-Fries and Theorin">
At present, Members can employ their staff according to the rules of either Belgian or home-country employment law, under terms of employment involving normal social security obligations.
The present system has led to considerable differences in conditions of employment as between staff from different political parties and Member States.
The majority of staff, including those employed by the Swedish Social Democrats, have conditions of employment geared to home-country rules, whereas other staff have neither a contract of employment nor trade union representation.
<P>
The lack of an acceptable personnel policy and failure to observe the rules of employment law which the Assistants' Association reports is a cause for concern.
Such abuses must not be allowed to happen.
We also do not think that assistants should be taxed according to Community law.
The conditions for a joint solution to be worked out are not yet present.
Although the Lehne report seeks to regulate working conditions for the staff of Members of the European Parliament, the details have not been sufficiently well thought through.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Blak, Iversen, Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
Today the Danish Social Democrats voted in favour of introducing decent conditions of employment for parliamentary assistants.
The situation at present is that 23 % of the assistants have no contract.
Unfortunately, there are examples of assistants being employed without any salary or social security.
We have therefore voted in favour of introducing binding rules for recruitment, dismissal, remuneration, social security and pensions, amongst other things.
We have voted in favour of introducing binding rules before the end of this parliamentary term.
We hope that the Council will also accept its responsibility, so that we can have proper conditions of employment for all the assistants as soon as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Blokland and van Dam">
The Commission proposal to extend the European Staff Regulations to cover MEPs' assistants goes much too far, in our view.
The Members themselves are responsible for ensuring that their secretarial allowance is spent properly, but unfortunately many of our colleagues offer their assistants too little security and pay them widely differing wages.
<P>
The rapporteur wants assistants working in Brussels to be covered by Community rules.
The income he proposes is less than in the Commission proposal, but it is still too high by national standards.
<P>
The Committee on Legal Affairs has created a rather obscure hybrid, with assistants being covered by the Staff Regulations but in a highly ambiguous manner, creating even more uncertainty for some of them.
<P>
The PSE Group amendments introduce some fine-tuning, but also take the staff budgets out of the Members' hands.
<P>
In our view, we must focus on combating unfair treatment, for example by introducing a code of conduct with minimum conditions of employment, limiting the duration of probation periods, etc.
Members must agree to abide by this code when they receive their secretarial allowance.
<P>
We were therefore unable to support the proposals in question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Bonde and Sandbæk">
We fully endorse the assistants' attempts to obtain decent recruitment, remuneration and working conditions.
It cannot be our intention, for example, that assistants can be dismissed at one day's notice or if they are called up for military service.
They too have a right to normal periods of notice.
We are opposed to unnecessary bureaucracy and believe quite unequivocally that national social security schemes can and should be respected.
Although the proposal before us is not perfect, we have still decided to vote in favour of the report, in order to put a stop to the black market in labour.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Buffetaut">
The European Parliament has just adopted, with several amendments, the Commission's proposal on a Council regulation on the situation of assistants.
The rejection of the amendments tabled by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and those put forward by the rapporteur have resulted in a simplified text.
In an attempt to rectify the wholly unacceptable situation experienced by some assistants as a result of the lack of moral rigour of some Members of this House, Mr Lehne proposed turning the Commission's text into an actual statute covering all provisions relating to grade, work and salary conditions, and so on.
Apart from the fact that this is a cumbersome procedure, which might frustrate the Council, the rapporteur's proposal had two drawbacks.
<P>
Firstly, by creating an excessively detailed structure, it distorts the nature of the contract between a Member and his assistant or assistants, by determining working methods and the framework of their daily relations.
Secondly, by amending the Commission's text, Parliament is prevented from amending this statute, if needed, without putting forward a proposal to the Commission which then has to be approved by the Council.
<P>
We are all politicians and the majority of our assistants are, through us, serving their own political beliefs. It is regrettable that, because some of us have perhaps forgotten that all work deserves a fair salary, proposals have been put forward to turn our assistants into civil servants, and Members into heads of department.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
Members of the European Parliament are elected by the people of the Member States and represent them in the EU.
They are not the EU's representatives in the Member States. Their salaries and taxation arrangements should therefore be governed by the rules that apply to national parliamentarians.
The assistants of Members of the European Parliament are assigned to the Members and should not be treated on the same footing as employees of the groups, who are directly subordinate to the federalist structure of the European Parliament.
Our assistants, both those who work in the home country and those based in Brussels, are covered by the national collective agreement and tax system.
<P>
In our opinion, this arrangement has worked extremely well.
Any attempt by Parliament to regulate conditions of employment in detail, to restrict the freedom of expression and informants' protection to which assistants are entitled and to introduce huge pay differentials is alien to us.
This does not mean that we favour the exploitation of staff which is practised by some MEPs.
But such matters should be resolved in some other way, without the disadvantages introduced by the proposed Council regulation to amend the Staff Regulations, the Lehne report and most of the amendments tabled for this part-session.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Lindqvist">
There is a need for conditions of service and contracts of employment that regulate the social and other entitlements of assistants.
Their employment should, like that of Members of Parliament themselves, be governed by the legislation of the home country or the legislation of the country in which the person is actually resident.
What is important is not that there should be common rules, but that the rules should be clear and unambiguous, and that the conditions should be acceptable to both the assistants and Members.
Assistants, like Members of the European Parliament, should not pay EU tax but should be taxed in their home countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Wibe">
I voted against the proposal for common conditions of employment for assistants, mainly because the proposal would mean that in future assistants would also pay the so-called EU tax, i.e. about 20 %.
I strongly object to this proposal, which would create a tax concession for those who work within the EU system.
Those who work for Swedish Members, for example, should pay either Swedish or Belgian tax in the normal way.
<P>
A tax concession for assistants is moreover a political precursor to measures by which Members would also be subject to the so-called EU tax.
<P>
European Council in Berlin
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Green">
Madam President, my group has been entirely opposed to the tabling of a resolution in advance of the Berlin summit.
This House has, over the last few months, spent hours and hours in detailed work, passed by this plenary, on the Agenda 2000 package.
It is completely inappropriate, in our view, that we should have a resolution adopted in literally a few minutes, by comparison, which in some places repeats and in places contradicts the work that went on for the Agenda 2000 package.
It was on that basis that we determined to vote against all the resolutions that were put forward in this House other than our own, which determined that we should adopt and abide by the Agenda 2000 package, as per our first reading.
That is the basis of our opposition.
I can only repeat our pleasure that the plenary rejected the resolutions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="McCarthy">
Madam President, as rapporteur for the general regulation on the reform of the structural funds I voted against the PPE resolution and the compromise resolution.
This resolution does not fully reflect the negotiating priorities agreed by the PPE and the PSE in the McCarthy/Hatzidakis resolution and, as such, can only give a partial and partisan view of Parliament's priorities.
<P>
It is, in my view, deplorable that the PPE seek to undermine our joint rapporteurship and negotiations with the German presidency.
Parliament has a commitment to continued investment in Objective II-type areas and has requested two additional Community initiatives for urban and industrial areas.
The PPE appear to have weakened their support for these areas and are abandoning them by omitting them from the priorities of the text.
<P>
They have sent a signal to Berlin that these areas and communities are not a political priority for them.
I could not support this text.
I hope that the communities from these areas will show their displeasure in the ballot box in June 1999.
<P>
Yet again the PPE have demonstrated their inability to sustain any support for the shambolic approach to Council resolutions and, in particular, Agenda 2000.
It is correct that Parliament voted down this compromise as it only sought to undermine agreements in Berlin.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Blokland and van Dam">
It is extremely important that the forthcoming European Council meeting in Berlin should cut the Gordian knot on Agenda 2000.
Reform of the agricultural and structural policies and new agreements on the financing of the Union are absolutely vital if the Central and Eastern European countries are to be able to join.
Broadly speaking, we agree with the joint resolution on this issue and therefore voted in favour of it, but we would still like to make the following points.
<P>
We can live with the Commission proposal to set aside 0.46 % of GNP per year for structural measures in the period 2000-2006, but only under two conditions.
<P>
Firstly, as with other expenditure headings, this must be an expenditure ceiling rather than a spending target.
The current privileged status of the Structural Funds tends to mean that the available budget has to be spent at all costs, which does nothing for efficiency and is financially irresponsible.
<P>
Secondly, the appropriations for structural aid for the applicant countries must be integrated into the EU programmes upon their accession without exceeding the expenditure ceiling of 0.46 % of GNP.
This means that clear priorities must be set.
The Agenda 2000 proposals are too focused on the acquired rights of the southern Member States, and we must realise that in future the poor regions are going to lie to the east.
<P>
We do not share the PPE and ARE Groups' objections to the Council's plans to nominate a new Commission president before the European elections in June, and we therefore did not vote for the amendments on the subject.
The Commission President is the most senior official in the European civil service.
Officials are not selected, they are appointed, and the appointment of the Commission President is first and foremost something the Member States must agree on among themselves.
The decisive factor here must be a candidate's personal qualities, not his political affiliations.
If the nomination is made dependent on the outcome of the European elections, then too much weight will be attached to the candidate's political background.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Blot">
The Berlin European Council, which will discuss enlargement to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, might be the opportunity to finally adopt a friendly attitude towards Belarus.
The accusations levelled against that country are unfounded and it is wrong to say that freedom of expression does not exist there.
Belarus is gradually developing a regime that gives greater precedence to progress and freedom, based on the present constitution.
Any step backwards would be a mistake.
<P>
The criticisms levelled against Belarus are reminiscent of those levelled against General de Gaulle by some Anglo-Saxon circles during the Fourth Republic.
On the pretext that he intended to create a new constitution through a referendum, he was accused of anti-republican fascism.
This type of accusation is absurd.
There is far more respect for human rights in Belarus than in pro-American countries such as Turkey, which benefits from an association agreement with the European Union.
<P>
We must stop making accusations that are inconsistent with the principle of friendship among peoples, something that is particularly essential in today's enlarged Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Caudron">
The Berlin summit, which will focus solely on Agenda 2000, is of particular importance for the future of the European Union.
Apart from the financial aspects of this reform, the principle of subsidiarity is at stake.
Like our President, José Maria Gil-Robles, I think that this reform must be viewed as a whole, so that we can give a clear political message to the people of the European Union and of the applicant countries.
<P>
As regards the more specific proposals put forward by the Commission, I have several comments to make.
<P>
First, as regards the CAP, I think that, on one hand, we need to guarantee a stable income for the whole of the agricultural sector, and on the other hand, we need to promote an agricultural model that is not connected to world markets and that is responsible for planned rural development that is accepted by all.
<P>
With regard to structural policies, I still support the idea that areas leaving Objective 1 should be given a transitional period in which to adjust.
Another challenge that the European Union must face relates to areas that are very densely populated.
We do not need to be reminded of the number of Europeans living in such areas to reaffirm the relevance of the URBAN programme and the need to maintain it, as the European Parliament has already mentioned.
<P>
Similarly, I also share the view that the Structural Funds must be consolidated as a tool for creating jobs and combating unemployment.
In this respect, I agree with the fact that the European Union must consider establishing a system of own resources that allows us to prepare for enlargement without undermining the principles of solidarity and cohesion, two of the most fundamental ideas behind European Union integration.
<P>
Finally, I agree with the ideas on human rights and balanced development, which must be major objectives for those countries wishing to join the European Union.
<P>
The Berlin summit is undoubtedly of particular importance and it forces our leaders to send out a strong message a few weeks before a deadline when our citizens will take full advantage of the opportunity to express their views on the Europe they are being offered.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Martinez">
The fact that the European Council will be held in Berlin is already a significant symbol of the new strategic order, as Germany is taking advantage of its presidency to defend its interests in the financing of the European budget, in enlargement towards the East and in the CAP.
France's interests are different in all three cases.
<P>
The industrialised and Atlanticist Germany would easily sacrifice the agricultural Europe, giving Washington a monopoly over the food weapon. France, on the other hand, would not.
<P>
Germany - which is the leading net contributor to the European budget, since it pays in more than it receives - would like to receive at least a financial return that is not extremely unjust, if not quite a 'juste retour ' as Margaret Thatcher demanded in 1984.
With regard to this budgetary issue, France, which has lost more than FRF 20 billion in a single year of financing the European budget, is sensitive to the excessive inequalities in each Member's financial contribution.
<P>
However, we must not forget that, although Germany makes a substantial contribution to the European budget, it has also made other states in the Union pay a considerable amount since its reunification. The high interest rates imposed by the Bundesbank to finance the five Länder of the former East Germany are one of the major causes of the recent economic recession and the fact that six million French people are unemployed.
France has paid a large part of the dowry for the marriage of the two parts of Germany.
<P>
Lastly, enlargement to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe is displacing the European Union's centre of gravity further towards the former Comecon area, where the currency was the Deutsche mark. This shows the extent to which we are under Germany's sphere of influence.
For France, the accession of the countries of Eastern Europe, where 25 % of the active population work in agriculture, is going further than the problems posed by the present CAP reform, which goes against our national interests.
In other words, the interests of the Franco-German partnership are not necessarily the same in terms of the independence of nuclear energy, the reform of the CAP, where we reject the idea of cofinancing as it would make us pay with giving us any power of decision, or the financing of the CAP, where no clear decisions have been taken on the principles involved.
<P>
Instead of talking about limits, ceilings or correction mechanisms, we really need to make a decision on the principles, that is, whether or not Europe should be financed by taxation or by contributions from the Member States.
If we opt for fiscal measures, what form should the tax take?
Should it be progressive, as Spain hopes, proportional to wealth, or a head tax?
<P>
In fact, in Berlin, Europe is at a junction where all roads meet: the roads from the East, the budgetary roads and the strategic roads.
The time has come for European integration to get rid of any ambiguities and the first of these is to decide if we are building a European Europe or a globalised Europe.
<P>
Since the beginning, the National Front has made its choice clear: it favours the Europe of realities and truths, the tangible Europe, and the Europe of states and nations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Porto">
In these times of lack of ambition and any sense of responsibility, we should rejoice at certain aspects of the resolution that we have just voted on in the European Parliament.
<P>
This is true of the point made in recital A that the Structural Fund and the Cohesion Fund are the main instruments of economic and social cohesion, while the importance of economic cohesion is also emphasised in paragraph 5.
<P>
Emphasis should also be laid on the statement in paragraph 4 that budgetary restraint needs to be reconciled with the guarantee of sufficient funds for the essential tasks of the European Union.
<P>
Another point to be emphasised is the approval in paragraph 6 of the proposal to earmark 0.46 % of the European Union's GNP every year for structural actions during the period 2000 to 2006.
<P>
Let us hope that these are not just good intentions since the most powerful leaders, focusing on Agenda 2000 instead of worrying about having enough resources to meet Europe's ambitions, are basically concerned with setting a sacrosanct limit of 1.27 % of GNP for the Union budget. What is more, in Agenda 2000 the Commission is proposing to transfer EUR 45 billion from the Structural Funds to actions preparing for the accession of the new Member States, leaving the current 15 Member States with EUR 10.2 billion less or, in other words, 0.39 % of GNP.
<P>
These are major points which should have been resolved or clarified.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 1.35 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
TOPICAL AND URGENT DEBATE
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>
B4-0272/99 by Mr Imbeni and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists; -B4-0295/99 by Mr Vinci and Mr Ripa di Meana, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left; -B4-0317/99 by Mr Santini and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party; on the disaster in Cermis (Italy) and the verdict of the United States court-martial.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Vecchi">
Madam President, on 3 February 1998, a US military aircraft that had been violating the rules of aviation caused the Cermis ski-lift disaster, with the deaths of 20 European citizens.
<P>
Just a little over a year later, the American court-martial at Camp Lejeune has delivered an absolutely scandalous verdict, clearing the pilot and refusing to try to identify responsibility elsewhere, even though the Italian judicial authorities have established, beyond all doubt, that there was a clear breach of the rules of aviation.
<P>
European Socialists are scandalised by this verdict, which makes no attempt to try to establish responsibility and prosecute and punish the guilty parties, and is offensive and hurtful to the families of the victims and all of those affected by the Cermis tragedy.
<P>
We are asking the US authorities to use all the procedures available to them to identify where responsibility for the tragedy lies, to punish severely those who are guilty and guarantee that relatives of the victims are fully compensated, both in terms of moral support and materially.
<P>
We therefore support the stance taken by the Italian Government, which has put these views and requests directly to the President of the United States.
<P>
However, events in Cermis also show us that we need to reconsider and act to change the rules contained in the 1951 London Convention, so that tragedies of this kind - which would certainly be more likely were there to be a general feeling of impunity - are prevented in the future, and to guarantee that there would, in any event, be no obstacles in the way of the investigations and judicial proceedings against elements of NATO armed forces that violate the laws of the countries in which they are stationed.
<P>
Finally, we are asking for joint action to be put in place to ensure that any form of military exercise within the territory of the Union takes place in conditions of complete safety for the civilian population.
<P>
Once again, I join with all who have extended their condolences to those who lost their loved ones in the Cermis tragedy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Santini">
Madam President, the few words I wish to say on this sensitive issue can be summed up by way of two premisses and three specific proposals.
<P>
My first premiss is that, in the Cermis incident, in which 20 people lost their lives, there was collective responsibility on the part of the NATO command in Aviano which has always authorised training flights, even over densely populated areas, because it has been too liberal in its interpretation of the 1951 London Convention.
<P>
My second premiss points the finger of blame at the pilot, Captain Ashby, who broke every rule of care by interpreting even more recklessly an already dangerous flight plan.
It has been said in his defence that the military maps did not show the ski-lift cable: that is unbelievable given, after all, that it has been there for more than 25 years and was reconstructed after an earlier incident, on 9 March 1976, in which 43 people lost their lives.
If the pilot was right, then in any event, the responsibility of those who failed to update such important maps ought to be established.
However, you do not have to be a pilot to find it difficult to imagine that when you enter a mountain gorge at 800 kilometres per hour, at an altitude of only 80 metres, it is still feasible to consult a map.
The inhabitants of the villages situated along the route of the ski-lift know a thing or two about this, and they testified that extremely low-flying aircraft were a common occurrence.
Again, according to their evidence, it seems that the Cermis cable, extending over 80 metres, was considered a challenge for the young Aviano pilots, almost a test of courage, a baptism of fire, swooping over people's heads.
Some, a very few, managed to fly under the cable, while others pulled the nose up at the last minute and cleared the cable.
Unfortunately Captain Ashby stopped half-way.
He severed the cable and caused the death of 20 people.
<P>
I believe there are three proposals to remedy this situation: firstly, we need to review and update the London Convention, particularly with regard to overflying; secondly, we need to recognise that the ordinary courts have to take precedence over the military courts in cases of this nature; and, thirdly, we have to put pressure on the US Government to speed up the process of compensating the victims' families.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="De Coene">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as Mr Vecchi, the person who tabled the resolution, has just said, the American court-martial has delivered its verdict and the pilot of the aircraft involved has been cleared.
It is not our intention to comment on the verdict as such, but we do have some serious questions about the system established under the London Convention.
We would point out that a legal system such as Italy's is perfectly capable of guaranteeing a proper trial, so why, in cases like this, can the airmen responsible not be tried by the regular courts in Italy rather than by special courts, such as the court-martial here?
<P>
Do not misunderstand us, this is not a call for a people's court, for emotional justice or for revenge, but for new international procedures so that responsibility for accidents or offences can be determined at the place where the events occurred.
<P>
The acquittal of the crewmen concerned also leaves a number of questions unanswered, which is why we expect the investigation at least to continue.
Why did the pilots not have the correct maps?
Why was the ski-lift not shown on those maps?
Why did the NATO authorities in charge not have information on the permitted flight altitude in the region?
Something or someone in this whole unsavoury business has to be responsible.
<P>
Finally, we want the promises and commitments given about compensation for the victims to be honoured, because here too justice must prevail.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the acquittal of the American pilot whose reckless behaviour a year ago caused the deaths of 20 European citizens, including five young people from my immediate neighbourhood, cries out for revenge.
Justice was clearly not done when, despite the incontrovertible evidence, the pilot was not only acquitted of involuntary manslaughter, but even the charges of dereliction of duty and reckless conduct were apparently not admissible.
When Parliament sent its condolences to the victims of this terrible accident last year, calls were already being made for a review of the London Convention, under which jurisdiction in the case of military offences lies with the country to which the military personnel in question belong.
The unacceptable verdict delivered by the court-martial shows once again just how necessary this review is.
<P>
There is also the question of whether recourse to the separate system of courts-martial is still justified in peacetime. Is it fair that a serviceman who commits an offence in the course of an operation which serves no military purpose and in which civilians are harmed should be tried by a separate legal structure made up almost exclusively of other servicemen, in other words colleagues?
The special circumstances such as a war which justify the existence of courts-martial did not apply in this case.
<P>
We all agree that actual responsibility must be determined and fair compensation must be paid without delay to the families of the victims.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
I wish to add my voice to what has been said by other honourable Members and express the indignation of the Green Group at a verdict which is not only an insult to those who lost their lives, but highlights a situation that is totally unacceptable.
Moreover, I have to say that we understand the reaction of the people of the Cermis region and the response of the victims' relatives.
I think that is right, and I also think it right that the victims' relatives should be compensated, even though compensation can never bring back those who lost their lives.
Setting all of that aside, I think we are right to ask how it is that, almost 50 years on from the London Convention, incidents of the kind we have seen can still happen.
<P>
I would remind the House that last year, on 19 February, when we were discussing the Cermis tragedy, I tabled a resolution in which I called for the London Convention to be reviewed.
I therefore believe that not only should we call for the inquiry to be reopened to establish whether there is responsibility at a higher level, we should also consider whether it is necessary to retain the NATO bases, as if we were colonies of some kind, or to react and ask for the current rules to be amended so that the national courts are finally given jurisdiction over criminal acts of this nature.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Madam President, the Cermis incident is without doubt a tragic episode, and the impression of US justice which Italy and the rest of Europe have been given has certainly left us with a bitter taste in the mouth. We feel that sense of bitterness first and foremost for the relatives of the victims, of course, but also for all those who have regarded the Atlantic Alliance in the same way as we have always viewed it: that is to say as an Alliance which has guaranteed our countries' security for 50 years.
<P>
I believe it is right that, after the Italian Parliament stated its view yesterday, we in the European Parliament should now be discussing the issue and taking an interest in seeing that justice is done, although much - too much - remains unclear about this incident, which is also protected by the provisions of the 1951 Convention.
I do not, however, believe it either right or helpful that we Europeans should be raising for debate, on the basis of these incidents alone, matters which could have been discussed elsewhere.
That seems to me, at any rate, to be a dangerous mix.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Vanhecke">
Madam President, I think that everyone here in the House can imagine what the families of those who died at Cavalese must be going through and, whatever our politics, would share their outrage today at the fact that a year after the disaster, the pilot responsible has been found not guilty by an American court-martial.
However, I think that we, as politicians, should not simply confine ourselves to a few non-committal words of moral support or criticism of the London Convention.
As the European Parliament, we must have the courage to face up to our political responsibility and say that this is about much more than just the guilt or innocence of one man, of one pilot.
<P>
Over the last few weeks, we have been forced to face the facts, facts that we might sometimes prefer not to know.
The facts show that the American troops stationed in Europe are actually above the law in the Member States, they can contravene laws and regulations with impunity, as we have seen, and will never be called to account before the European courts or the courts of the Member States.
We must ask ourselves whether this court-martial verdict, sadly, is not indicative of a certain American mentality today that clearly regards the American troops in Europe as a sort of army of occupation which, like all armies, is above the laws and regulations of the countries in which it is stationed.
<P>
We must therefore now not just demand compensation for the victims' families, although it goes without saying that they can never be compensated for their suffering, we must also condemn this totally unacceptable American attitude that can only be described as neo-colonial.
The countries of Europe are not America's vassals, they are not negro villages, and they must not be treated as such.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is surprising how justice goes out of the door when it is left to the country of origin of NATO troops, which is responsible for accidents or breaches of the law, to assign responsibility and exercise a remote - in both a physical and a moral sense - form of justice, from thousands of miles away.
<P>
The attitude taken by American pilots to Cermis hardly bears description: they were supposed to be carrying out military exercises, but in fact slaughtered defenceless people. Particularly unjustifiable, however, is the apathy of a court-martial that is incapable of guaranteeing that justice will be done, taking refuge behind international agreements, in this case the London Convention which dates back to 1951 and now needs, as a matter of urgency, to be brought into line with changing times and international political reality.
<P>
Equally unjustified, however, is the surge of anti-American feeling which is going so far as to challenge the basis of the international agreements with the United States, those same agreements which have protected Italy from the strategies and subversion of the Communist International.
<P>
The non-attached Members therefore wish to dissociate themselves from the protests coming from those who still hanker after the Warsaw Pact, and to affirm the importance of the partnership between the United States and Europe, and between the United States and the Italian Republic. Once again we are voicing our support for the establishment of a European security and defence policy which cooperates and works with the NATO structures and, if necessary, acts independently to defend the interests of the whole of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Formentini">
Madam President, I think it appropriate and right that this House should state its position on the Cermis tragedy - and not only on the incident itself, but above all on the verdict from the other side of the Atlantic which failed to condemn it.
We consider the expression 'concern', which is used in the resolution on which we are to vote, completely inappropriate.
I do not know what compromise led to that word being used, but I reject it.
There are two things we should be talking about here: about condemnation - condemnation of the action of those pilots who play at cowboys in the skies, risking the lives of others - and above all censure of the verdict of the American court-martial, which is failing to give our people, our nations, justice.
<P>
On behalf of the Padania bloc, which I represent in this House, and certain that I am speaking for the people, I therefore ask Parliament to be very firm in the stand it takes.
This Parliament is reaching the end of its mandate, but I think that we should begin to set an example for those who will come after us. This Europe of ours will either gain respect or regularly be walked over by people and states that want to be our friends, although we know that the essential basis for friendship, between both individuals and states, is mutual respect.
<P>
I am therefore asking for the wording of the resolution to be much more forceful than it is at present.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="de Silguy">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission's thoughts are primarily with the families of the victims of the tragedy in Cavalese. The Commission would like to express its deepest sympathy with them and it shares their pain and grief.
<P>
The Commission also shares your feelings regarding the conditions under which this accident took place and, like many of you, regarding the questions that remain unanswered.
Like Parliament, the Commission hopes that there will be swift and fair compensation for the families concerned.
Moreover, I note that President Clinton himself has recognized that the United States may have had some responsibility.
<P>
An acquittal has just been pronounced by the American Court-Martial.
This is the Court that has authority in this matter, under the provisions of the Treaty of London of 1951, which determines the courts that are empowered to rule on infringements committed by NATO troops abroad.
<P>
Any decision to amend this Treaty is the sole responsibility of the members of NATO.
The issue must therefore be dealt with within and by the appropriate institutions.
<P>
The Community does not have the authority to rule on issues concerning the security of military flights.
There is a directive, Directive 56 of 24 November 1994, which establishes the basic principles governing enquiries into accidents and incidents in civil aviation.
However, this directive does not apply to military aviation.
<P>
It is therefore up to the Member States to adopt any decisions which may be necessary on this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr de Silguy.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>
B4-0234/99 by Mr Moorhouse and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party; -B4-0275/99 by Mrs Berès and Mrs Jöns, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists; -B4-0279/99 by Mr Pasty and Mrs Carrère d'Encausse, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group; -B4-0288/99 by Mrs Schroedter and Mr Gahrton, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament; on support for the peace process in the Caucasus.


<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Madam President, we can think ourselves lucky that since the cease-fire in the Caucasus in 1994, things have remained relatively quiet, at least as far as the clatter of weapons is concerned.
But things have been far from quiet when it comes to human rights violations.
We have seen in Armenia, Azerbaijan and the Caucasus that human rights and democracy are still not being given a chance, and the negotiations for a peaceful solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict have still not produced positive results.
As I said, thank goodness there has been no real outbreak of violence yet.
At the moment the so-called Minsk group - the United States and France - is working to try to achieve something through the OSCE.
Let us hope that this resolution helps to publicise the problem of Nagorno-Karabakh once again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Berès">
Madam President, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the region of Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan experienced some difficult times.
Fortunately, there has been a cease-fire since 1994 which is opening the way for negotiation, and the Minsk Group is taking charge of this.
<P>
Today, we have on the table a proposal from this Group, which the OSCE has entrusted with finding a solution to this long-standing conflict.
I think that we should welcome this, as it respects two principles we all support: the inhabitants' right to self determination and the respect for borders as they are currently laid out.
Nevertheless, we cannot accept changes that would come about as a result of the use of arms.
This is one of the reasons why, once again, we feel that this proposal by the Minsk Group is headed in the right direction, insofar as it proposes a large degree of autonomy within the existing borders, and we feel that this is a fundamental point.
<P>
A window of opportunity is therefore opening for us to begin a process that could bring about a solution to this conflict.
We hope that all the parties will be capable of seizing this opportunity to put an end to the conflict and arrive at a situation whereby the people can live together peacefully within the existing borders.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Madam President, the conflict in Nagorno Karabakh, which my own eyes have witnessed, is a conflict with innumerable tragedies.
Since 1992 there have been countless refugees, and their children, who have only ever known a state of emergency, have been growing up in tents and covered wagons.
It is not only the hatred that is constantly growing, and the irreconcilability of two peoples who used to live side by side and to intermarry as a matter of course; there are also the diverse interests of various European powers which keep preventing a peaceful solution, as they did again only recently.
Nor has the European Union achieved anything with its partnership and cooperation agreements; it has not taken the opportunity to use them as an instrument in pursuit of a peace settlement.
What we most need to do now is to break down this hatred, because otherwise there can never be peace in the region, and that is why we must not rely entirely on political instruments but must concentrate above all on supporting the key players within society and make them the starting-point for a concerted reconciliation campaign.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jöns">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as has already been said, even after five years of cease-fire, there is still no sign of a lasting settlement of the conflict in Nagorno Karabakh.
There are still more than a million refugees, most of them living in inhuman conditions.
They have been driven from their native areas and have no prospects, while the continuing absence of a permanent peace settlement for this part of the Caucasus is disrupting the cooperation between Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia that this region so desperately needs, which is ultimately stifling the economic development of the entire region.
The European Parliament supports the untiring efforts of the Minsk Group to find a political solution that will lead to a stable peace in Transcaucasia.
<P>
We call on the OSCE to continue its efforts and to set up an observer team which would constantly monitor respect for human rights and democratic development in those countries.
Such a commission of observers would operate as a political early-warning system, so to speak.
For all the progress that has been made in developing democracy and strengthening human rights, there are still some real problems here, of which last year's presidential election is but one example.
The latest arrests in Azerbaijan are also a cause of great concern to us.
<P>
The European Union will continue to support the development of democracy in these young states.
In this context, we call on the Council to increase the allocation of economic aid to Transcaucasia but to link it, I need hardly add, to the process of establishing democracy.
There can only be economic stability, however, if the political conditions are right, in other words if Azerbaijan and Armenia make a determined effort to reach a political compromise on the future of Nagorno Karabakh.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="Lehideux">
Madam President, I am speaking on behalf of our colleague, Mr Francis Decourri&#x010D;re, who drafted one of the motions for a resolution.
We have had several opportunities to discuss the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, in terms of the human problems caused by the war and as regards our desire to help solve the conflict.
<P>
Since 1993, the OSCE has been trying to find a solution, to negotiate and to draw up a peace plan, but we all know that these negotiations have encountered many obstacles, and that in November, the peace plan proposed by the Minsk Group was rejected.
<P>
In this respect, we want to firmly reiterate our support for the peace process in the Caucasus and also our support for the peace plan presented by the Minsk Group.
The proposals in question are a good basis for negotiation to help find a peaceful solution to this conflict, and it is essential that negotiations are resumed so that an agreement can be reached as quickly as possible.
<P>
I would like to point out that, following the recent rejection by the Azerbaijani Government of the peace plan proposed by the Minsk Group, some political leaders in Azerbaijan itself warned the government against such a refusal and asked it to enter into direct negotiations with the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh and to propose a political solution that would grant self-government to the area and make it a free zone.
<P>
This is a new and positive element.
At the same time, the European Union must continue to make its aid to the region conditional on visible progress in terms of human rights.
During all information and observation missions, the OSCE must also pay special attention to the level of respect for human rights in the area in order to prevent an escalation of violence if any incidents do occur.
<P>
To conclude, I would like to say that the European Union must increase its aid and assistance to the NGOs in the area, which, through discussion and political education, are trying to promote mutual understanding of the history of the communities that live in the region.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Caucasus region - and in particular the three Transcaucasian republics - are of considerable importance for the countries of the European Union. It is our duty to monitor closely what is happening in these three republics and do everything we can to bring about peace in the region, which is of a much greater significance than is represented by its population alone.
<P>
It is therefore right for the Member States of the European Union to show concern for the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.
It is up to us to do everything we can to put an end to this conflict, to establish peace in the region, of course, but also to promote economic development.
Such economic development can only benefit from the resolution of the conflict.
<P>
The Delegation for relations with the Transcaucasian republics has had several opportunities to visit the country and it got the impression that both the Armenians and the Azeris sincerely want to see a solution.
This great expectation extends to Europe and to the European Parliament, which could help find a solution, as we have said ourselves.
<P>
The Minsk Group was given the task of drawing up a lasting peace plan.
The leaders of the countries involved - Azerbaijan and Armenia - have put forward proposals.
Armenia, in particular, has come up with proposals that are likely to restore peace in the region.
This is precisely the aim of the resolution in support of the peace process in the Caucasus region, which I personally signed on behalf of my group. We want to make a modest contribution to solving a problem which has been going on for several years and which urgently requires a solution.
<P>
I would like to add that, clearly, in co-signing this resolution, which relates to both Azerbaijan and Armenia, we are not forgetting the problems that both of these countries are facing.
We could not of course forget the tragedies that Armenia has experienced, nor its repeated demands, in particular, that the tragedy of the Armenian genocide be recognised. Nor are we forgetting that the human rights situation in Azerbaijan leaves a lot to be desired, and that we must make all efforts to improve it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="de Silguy">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Union is working to develop regional cooperation in the Caucasus region and it is supporting the efforts of the Minsk Group and of the OSCE, which is the most appropriate body to seek a peaceful solution to the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.
The peace plan presented by the three co-presidents is a good basis for negotiation to find a solution to this conflict.
<P>
In order to contribute to bringing the regional players together, the Union has set up technical assistance programmes through TACIS with the aim of developing cooperation between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The presidents of these two Caucasian countries have demonstrated their support for these initiatives.
They are contributing effectively to improving dialogue between the parties, which facilitates the search for common solutions to the regional problems.
<P>
In this context, the Armenian Prime Minister, Mr Darbinian, took part in the presidential transport summit which was organised last year in Azerbaijan with the support of the Community.
The Armenian and Azeri Prime Ministers also attended a conference in Brussels in February on the transport of oil and gas.
The Azeri, Armenian and Georgian Presidents have agreed to participate in a summit organised by the German Presidency in Luxembourg on 22 June to mark the entry into force of the partnership and cooperation agreements between the European Union and the Caucasian countries.
The main priority of these agreements is to support democracy and human rights, in line with Parliament's wishes.
<P>
Finally, the Commission notes Parliament's desire to strengthen the work of the 'democracy' aspect of the TACIS programme in the region.
However, up until now, it has only received a very limited number of projects from non-governmental organisations.
The Commission therefore believes that the very small number of NGOs established in Armenia and Azerbaijan means that, for the moment at least, it would be premature to increase the resources allocated to this programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr de Silguy.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>
Cuba
<P>



B4-0240/99 by Mr Bertens and Mr Gasòliba i Böhm, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party; -B4-0249/99 by Mrs van Bladel, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group; -B4-0258/99 by Mr Dupuis and Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance; -B4-0274/99 by Mr Linkohr and Mr Cabezón Alonso, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists; -B4-0298/99 by Mr Burenstam Linder and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party; -B4-0308/99 by Mr Sjöstedt and Mrs Pailler, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left; on the situation of human rights in Cuba;
<P>
Colombia
<P>

B4-0237/99 by Mr Bertens and Mrs Larive, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party; -B4-0251/99 by Mrs van Bladel, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group; -B4-0273/99 by Mrs Miranda de Lage, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists; -B4-0287/99 by Mr Kreissl-Dörfler and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament; -B4-0292/99 by Mrs Sornosa Martínez and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left; -B4-0296/99 by Mrs Lenz and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party; on human rights violations in Colombia;


<P>
Indonesia/East Timor
<P>
B4-0252/99 by Mr Janssen van Raay, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group; -B4-0264/99 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party; -B4-0268/99 by Mr Titley, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists; -B4-0306/99 by Mrs McKenna and Mr Telkämper, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament; -B4-0307/99 by Mr Ribeiro and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left; on the human rights situation in Indonesia, in particular on the Moluccan Islands and on East Timor;
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Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights
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B4-0238/99 by Mr Cars and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party; -B4-0248/99 by Mrs van Bladel, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group; -B4-0266/99 by Mr Barros Moura, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists; -B4-0281/99 by Mr Dupuis and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance; -B4-0291/99 by Mr Carnero González and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left; -B4-0300/99 by Mrs Lenz and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party; -B4-0303/99 by Mrs Aglietta and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament; on the EU's priorities for the 55th Session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights;

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Belarus
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B4-0239/99 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party; -B4-0289/99 by Mrs Schroedter and Mr Gahrton, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament; on the situation in Belarus;
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Russia
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B4-0280/99 by Mr Dupuis and Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance; -B4-0299/99 by Mr Lehne and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party; on respect for human rights in Russia.
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Cuba
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<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Madam President, the blessing given by the Pope during his visit has simply made Castro more determined than ever to go on with his evil practices, adopting new penal legislation and reimposing the death penalty.
It reminds me of when I was a little Catholic boy and the religious procession came through the village, all the curtains were open as the image of Christ and its two candles went by and things were absolutely still, you could have heard a pin drop.
Then as soon as it had passed, the curtains were shut again and people went back to drinking and beating their wives and committing all manner of sins until the next year.
Castro - and I should know, I lived there for four years - is no good.
He may be all right as an image of the 'last revolutionary', but we have had quite enough of all that.
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I think it is sad and in fact almost pathetic that we are still trying to get along with this caudillo , another word for dictator.
All he is doing is strengthening the American line on the boycott.
So Europe must not change its policy here.
We must carry on providing support for democratisation and renewal, and this is what our programmes must focus on, rather than some image of Che Guevara.
Now he was a real revolutionary, but unfortunately he died young and, as you know, Castro had a hand in that too.
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Our programmes and our political dialogue with Cuba must be actively pursued, and we must make it clear to this caudillo that unlike the Pope we are not to be trifled with.
The people of Cuba deserve democracy and the renewal of their country, even the gullible among them.
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<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Madam President, I am very pleased at what Mr Bertens said.
Despite all the human rights violations and the lack of political freedom in Cuba, Parliament - encouraged by the left-wing parties - has unfortunately always turned a blind eye and has thus allowed the situation to become entrenched.
The dissidents who have put up opposition have never once been honoured with the Sakharov Prize in five years.
It is enough to make you weep, and I think it is a very serious omission on our part.
What is more, our extremely selective approach has not helped the people of Cuba one little bit.
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Now, at long last, we have a resolution, albeit one which adopts an extremely mild tone.
It talks about help for constructive dialogue instead of sanctions, which is fine.
But a year or more after the Pope's visit, when there were such great hopes of improvement, the people of Cuba have less freedom than ever.
The opening-up of the economy has not helped the Cuban workers but party officials and a single Italian and Spanish investor.
It all reminds me of the way things went in the Batista era: prostitution, drinking, rich tourists - these are surely not what you would expect to find in a socialist revolutionary administration?
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As I see it, today's investors should have to sign contracts with the workers themselves and not with the government, because what happens is that firms investing there hand over all the wages to the government, which then creams off everything it wants and gives a few pence to the workers.
It is scandalous!
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No diplomats or journalists were allowed to be present at the trial of the dissidents.
The European Union said it was an oversight, but when the same thing happens in Turkey, the whole of Europe hits the roof.
What I mean is that we take a very selective view.
In the resolution we talk about observing human rights, but really, as Mr Bertens said, a great deal more than that needs to be done.
Never again must Fidel Castro be given the red carpet treatment anywhere in the world.
He should face the same fate as Öcalan or Pinochet: a trial.
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Should not the international community be speaking out against the arrival of 300 Cuban troops in Angola and Brazzaville, as reported in the Portuguese newspaper Diario de Noticias ?
They are there to help dictators cling to power and to bring oil and diamond revenue to Cuba.
This House has waited a long time to hold its trial.
The time has now finally come, but from the communication I received from the Cuban ambassador this morning, he clearly thinks it is all nonsense.
I do not.
I hope that our resolution brings hope to those in Cuba who support freedom.
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<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Madam President, last year, just as John Paul II was arriving in Cuba, the radical party was holding a demonstration in Rome against this visit and what it stood for.
Many people criticised this at the time, saying that we needed to have confidence in the process of democratisation, and that the signs of this process were apparently demonstrated by the Pope's visit.
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I think that Christmas was celebrated in Cuba, and that is about all.
When we see that this trial is dealing with the terrible and deplorable crime of having had contacts with the foreign press, we realise that this so-called democratisation is very far from being achieved.
From that point of view, this resolution does not go very far.
We should have affirmed more strongly that while human rights are not fully respected, this dialogue - this attempt to take a few small steps - is doomed to failure.
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<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Cabezón Alonso">
Madam President, this is not a resolution against the Cuban people.
The text that we are debating today, and which I should like to see approved, is a criticism of the corrupt and incomprehensible way in which the Cuban Government interprets freedoms, such as the freedom of expression, the freedom of assembly and the freedom of association.
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If there is no acknowledgement of the right to disagree and the right to political dissent, then there is no freedom.
For this reason, we must condemn the detention, arrest and imprisonment of Cuban dissidents and political opponents simply because they think differently to the current regime.
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Political dissent is a right, it can never be interpreted and judged as a crime of sedition or as a crime against national security.
In a free regime, such detentions would not have occurred.
Using the North American embargo as an excuse is too simplistic.
We have condemned - and I have condemned - the attitude of the United States administration as being mistaken, amongst other things. But their attitude cannot be used as a reason for detaining, imprisoning and sentencing all those who do not comply with the dictates of the single party, which in Cuba is the Communist Party.
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We fully and unreservedly support Vladimiro Roca, Félix Bonne, Marta Beatriz Roque and René Gómez Manzano, who were detained on 16 July 1997 after having written and distributed a text entitled 'The homeland is for us all' which went against official government positions.
We feel great solidarity with the Cuban political prisoners who have been imprisoned due to their political beliefs.
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I sincerely hope that condemning the Cuban regime in this way will not destroy the fragile framework for dialogue that is still alive between the European Union and Cuba.
The Cuban Government's mistakes are not the mistakes of the people, they are the mistakes of the ruling party.
Its political positions, its defensiveness and its negative attitude towards anything that involves a cultural, political, economic or social opening up cannot destroy all possible dialogue between Cuba and the European Union. These attitudes must not lead to the Cuban population being condemned, as they are the ones who will suffer the consequences if such dialogue is destroyed.
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<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
Madam President, the delegation of which I am chairman, the Delegation for relations with Cuba, has made extraordinary efforts to maintain our ability to hold talks with the Cuban authorities and with Cuban society as a whole.
Even without a cooperation agreement, this House has given its full support to Cuban society, and the European Union is the largest donor of humanitarian aid to Cuba in the world. In this way, the Union is demonstrating its awareness of the problems and shortages Cuba is suffering at this point in its history.
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In this same spirit, and as Mr Cabezón Alonso said a moment ago, we have spoken out as often as has been necessary to condemn the extraterritorial effects of the Helms-Burton Act.
And now we also have to speak out to defend human rights and democratic freedoms in Cuba because moderation becomes a vice when it means a lack of commitment.
This House has an irrevocable commitment to freedom that is, and must be, our ethical and aesthetic guiding light.
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I have already said in this House - quoting an illustrious colleague of mine - that the future cannot be imposed on individuals or peoples without their support and that there can be no individual dignity unless every man and woman is able to play a part in determining their future as a society.
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As a result, this House must show its solidarity with those who are suffering and be firm in its inevitable demands for freedom.
Therefore, my group is once again calling for the release of Vladimiro Roca, Félix Bonne, Marta Beatriz Roque, René Gómez Manzano, Jorge Luis García Pérez and all those who, having been deprived of their freedom, fight in Cuba for their freedom and dignity.
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<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
Madam President, there are several hundred political prisoners in Cuba.
Under the Cuban Penal Code, it is possible for opposition politicians to be found guilty of so-called crimes such as lack of respect and hostile propaganda.
Opposition politicians are sent into internal exile within the country, and there are many reports of police brutality.
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Altogether, restriction of democratic rights and freedom is extensive in Cuba.
This must be unequivocally condemned, which Parliament has done in its resolution.
Cuba is under intense pressure from the USA, through a long-standing economic blockade and other forms of aggression.
The blockade against Cuba must be lifted if the country is to engage in positive development.
However, the US aggression can never be an excuse for deficiencies in democracy and human rights in the country.
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There are many progressive elements in Cuban society, for example a level of social justice which for the region is advanced, and endeavours in the field of education and health care.
But clearly none of these things can compensate for any restriction of the democratic rights of the Cuban people.
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The Cuban people are fully entitled to choose a socialist model for their society.
The problem is that they are not allowed to choose, because political pluralism and fundamental democratic rights are lacking.
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<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Marset Campos">
Madam President, as has already been said, our group is naturally in favour of the respect for and promotion of human rights and freedoms, as well as the right of peoples to determine their future.
Therefore, when a nation such as Cuba has been suffering for so many years due to an embargo that is illegal in international terms and to a relentless pursuit by the United States, we begin to understand the suffocating situation of the Cuban Government. We begin to understand the defensive attitude it must adopt to be able to defend itself against these problems and shortages, particularly now with the Helms-Burton Act, which is also illegal in international terms.
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However, we believe it is important to help so that a process promoting human rights can resume, and so that democracy and freedom can be re-established, values that are clearly compatible with socialism.
The European Union can end this American siege and promote this alternative path, a path we believe to be satisfactory.
Integrating its economy and its cultural relations could bring normality to cultural and political life in Cuba. This is largely dependent on us as the United States is not prepared to help in this respect.
I therefore believe that now is the time to make a considerable effort to bring Cuba into the framework of economic, political and cultural relations.
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<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
Madam President, Cuba, as we know, is not the United States.
In contrast to the United States, Cuba has guaranteed schooling and free health care, as well as all the achievements that have freed it from its former dependence on the United States.
So why does the Cuban Government imitate one of the most appallingly undemocratic and totalitarian systems ever invented?
Why on earth do the Cubans not launch a campaign to prove themselves more democratic than the United States by respecting human rights and abolishing the death penalty?
The Cuban Government has done the exact opposite.
It has added to its list of capital offences.
No democrat or Socialist can approve of that, because it is a gross violation of the most fundamental of all human rights, namely the right to life.
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Societies are changing everywhere, and Cuba is no exception.
We should make it unmistakably clear to the Cuban Government and the Cuban people that we are prepared to develop our economic, social and cultural relations with Cuba, and that to this end we need to establish contacts with open-minded, creative and democratic Cubans and their organisations, whether within the ACP framework or on the basis of a bilateral agreement.
In order to accomplish this, we seek dialogue.
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We hope that the Cuban leadership will be far-sighted enough to pull together with us in this venture.
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Colombia
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<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Madam President, the situation in Colombia is still very worrying, despite the promising reports we received some months ago that President Pastrana had started a new peace offensive.
At the moment, however, it appears that paramilitary groups and as a result the guerrillas too have started carrying out attacks again.
We heard yesterday evening that three Americans have been brutally killed. When will the warring factions finally realise that there is nothing to be gained from this constant destruction?
I think the Union must continue to stand up for human rights, but it must do so in cooperation with President Pastrana.
We cannot be indifferent to the way in which the constitutional state of Colombia is being systematically destroyed.
We must try to persuade the United Nations and our own Union to convince others that peace and human rights go hand in hand.
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<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Miranda de Lage">
Madam President, I am going to appeal to the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces and to the insurgent forces because it is neither revolutionary nor heroic to assassinate defenceless voluntary workers, it is neither revolutionary nor heroic to kidnap civilians and it is neither revolutionary nor heroic to demand a ransom for anyone's life.
Any action taken against unarmed people cannot be considered heroic.
The course of history will not be changed by resorting to using violence against the weak.
The insurgent forces still have a chance of going down in Colombia's history as a factor in creating peace.
They have received political recognition - including at international level - but we must ask them to respect international humanitarian law. We must ask them to release all kidnapped civilians, some of whom are ill.
Do not harm yourselves even further with such reprehensible actions.
Do not demand justice whilst being unjust yourselves.
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We must also talk about the other form of violence: the terror caused by the paramilitaries.
It is easy to shoot those who are defending human rights, to shoot trade unionists or journalists committed to freedom or to shoot women and unarmed farmers.
In short, it is easy to shoot anyone who may seem slightly suspicious because they support democracy.
Paramilitary action represents evil, fascism and all the worst aspects of an intolerant and exclusive sociology. It claims to protect whilst killing and eliminating the best people in society.
There is no room for any form of consideration for paramilitary activity, other than its persecution, dismantling and condemnation.
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Peace in Colombia will not be easily achieved but it must be done.
The years of violence have affected several generations.
President Pastrana's offer must have our full support and must have sufficient international economic support so that it can meet the social demands that are really at the root of this violence.
War, Madam President, is much more costly than peace.
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<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Madam President, when President Pastrana took office last year, many of us hoped that the protection of human rights in Colombia would greatly improve.
Unfortunately that seems not to have happened, and so far it does not look as though the President has developed any action plan to increase respect for human rights.
Both the paramilitary forces and the guerilla groups continue to commit crimes.
There is systematic elimination of persons and groups campaigning for human rights in Colombia, for example social workers and trade union activists.
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Of course we demand that the archives of the state intelligence service should be searched under international supervision.
These archives contain large amounts of information on persons who are actively campaigning for human rights and democracy in the country.
Clearly, this must not be allowed to continue.
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Human rights must be defended and we must do all in our power to defend and support those people in Colombia who are campaigning for these rights.
I therefore expect the Council of Ministers to prepare a very forthright declaration on Colombia for the forthcoming UN meeting in Geneva.
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<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lenz">
Madam President, kidnappings and murders continue to entrench the culture of violence in Colombia, and how often have we had to say that here!
This time we have the cases of three US citizens whose bodies were discovered and a French geologist who died shortly before he was due to be released by his kidnappers.
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We have also repeatedly condemned the crimes committed by paramilitaries in addition to these murders and kidnappings, or even in connection with them.
I must say that it is sometimes difficult for us to understand how President Pastrana can continue his peace talks with the guerrilla organisations in the face of these atrocities, how he can go on negotiating with FARC in particular but also with the other main guerrilla organisation, the ELN.
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Such an approach may appear contradictory, but I believe it represents the only way forward, and we therefore vigorously support the President in his efforts to continue the peace negotiations and ultimately to conclude an agreement.
Nevertheless, we can only repeat time and again that human rights will not be respected and protected in the long term unless the rule of law is established.
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The European Parliament has also repeatedly stressed its endorsement of the demand made by the Colombian office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights that the safety of human rights activists should be guaranteed.
We believe this is an important issue, and we hope that the Council and the Commission will be helping to make that point to the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva.
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We call on the Colombian Government not to relax its efforts to combat violence but to continue them vigorously, because it is our sincere wish that the Colombian people should be freed at long last from this cycle of corruption, murder and violence, that peace should descend on the country and that these horrifying crimes should cease to be associated with the name of Colombia.
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<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="Howitt">
Madam President, this is the third time in four months that this Parliament has held a special debate on Colombia and we will continue until the gross violations of human rights come to an end.
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We call upon the UN Commission on Human Rights, when it meets in Geneva, to condemn the Colombian Government's failure both to disband paramilitary groups and to protect human rights defenders, both called for last year.
They have failed; UNHCR must now act accordingly.
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Let us never forget the human cost that this failure represents.
Terry Freitas had spent two years helping the Uwa indigenous people defend their territory from oil exploration by Occidental Petroleum.
He had been followed by people he believed to be paramilitaries and had received a message on his answer-phone: 'back off or die!'.
Evidence of complicity by the Colombian armed forces is that the military had forced him to sign a statement absolving them of responsibility for his safety.
Earlier this month, Terry and two colleagues were kidnapped by two hooded men with machine guns and later their bullet-ridden bodies were found dumped across the Venezuelan border - the murder of one 24-year-old who believed in the defence of human rights.
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Stop the paramilitaries, end the killings, respect human rights!
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Indonesia/East Timor
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<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Madam President, Indonesia is a complex country.
It covers a two-hour time zone and has 13 000 islands, many different races and many different languages.
For 350 years it was governed in a very centralised, colonial way by my country, and even then there were uprisings in Aceh, the Moluccas and Irian Jaya, just as there are now.
After independence, the constitution - the Pancasila - ensured that different races and religions could live freely and safely side by side.
The fall of Suharto and the economic crisis have now, unfortunately, brought all the various differences to the surface, as we are seeing in the clash between Muslims and Christians in the Moluccas.
I very much regret that it should be happening in the Moluccas, because we too abused and repressed the people there, some of whom are now living in the Netherlands.
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But Indonesia is on the road to a new era and a new order.
Forty-eight political parties have registered for the elections in June, and they deserve our support.
The resolution calls for a referendum under UN auspices on allowing East Timor the right to self-determination.
Let us hope that this is carried out, and that it goes smoothly.
I would point out that an independent East Timor could well open Pandora's box and encourage other Indonesian races to demand the same, which would present a major risk for the stability of the Asiatic region as a whole.
This too is something we cannot afford to ignore.
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Parliament has adopted some harsh resolutions against Indonesia, but I feel that recently there has been greater scope for constructive support for the steps that are being taken towards democracy, and I welcome this approach.

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<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Madam President, Mrs van Bladel said in a nutshell exactly what I wished to say.
Indonesia's complexity and the clashes and explosions - both literal and figurative - in the Moluccas and on the island of Ambon in particular have all shown how difficult things are likely to become if we allow the last pillar of strength that we have at the moment, President Habibie, to fall.
The underlying cause of the unrest in the Moluccas lies in the serious political and economic crisis that the country is going through.
It is extremely important that we should try to ensure that democratic elections are held as soon as possible, and we should certainly support them.
This enormous, great and beautiful country - the 'emerald belt' as it was called in our geography books - must not be allowed to become isolated, and we have to find some way to show it that we are not disowning it but embracing it.
Europe, and in particular the Netherlands, still bears a great responsibility from the past here.
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<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="Newens">
Mr President, this House has repeatedly condemned human rights abuses in many parts of Indonesia over the years and some appalling crimes have taken place in that beautiful country.
This resolution deals firstly with outrages which have been committed more recently on the Moluccan Islands.
Over 200 people have been killed there and their homes and those of others have been destroyed.
Nine thousand troops are deployed there and the people are very badly repressed.
This is taking place at the very time when we would have expected, because of the changes that have taken place in Indonesia, a movement in a different direction.
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This resolution again recalls the situation in East Timor, where appalling crimes have been committed.
The forthcoming election provides the opportunity for a change, and it is very important that we should give every support to those people in Indonesia who are trying to achieve a new departure.
We must also press very strongly for the referendum which is being talked about to go ahead to provide the people of East Timor with the right of self-determination.
It is quite appalling that those people have been denied that right.
Over the years a third of the population has been killed.
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The European Parliament has pressed persistently throughout those years for changes to take place, and that possibility now exists.
It is therefore extremely important that we should maintain our pressure for change at this particular juncture and I hope that once again we will give unanimous support for this motion.
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<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
Mr President, we are prepared to support the efforts to establish democracy in Indonesia.
I believe the entire House and the other EU institutions are also willing to lend material support to a peaceful democratisation process.
However, Indonesia will also have to show that it wants a peaceful process and that it is actively encouraging democracy, and in this respect there are two regions that we consider to be very important.
The first of these is East Timor.
The referendum in East Timor must be organised as quickly as possible; in actual fact, the independence of East Timor is historically inevitable.
The repression there has to be ended, and Mr Habibie knows that.
I believe we should act quickly to assist in the transition to independence.
Such assistance might, for example, take the form of training for East Timorese administrators in the European Union, in the Member States, with a view to the creation of an administrative infrastructure that would enable East Timor to manage its own affairs.
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The second region is the Moluccas, where we must ensure that an end is put to the conflicts which are raging at the present time and which are apparently being encouraged by the police.
On Ambon, we have a situation in which 85 % of the island's population are Christians.
We must prevent the outbreak of hostilities between religious groups, and in this respect a heavy burden of responsibility falls on the government in Jakarta to demilitarise the population by restraining the police and by using the police force to uphold law and order, rather than to fan the flames of conflict.
If that happens, I believe our only option is to call on the Commission to provide humanitarian aid in these conflict-torn areas and to support the campaign for democracy and the elections, and to do these things as quickly as possible in order to ensure that peace prevails throughout Indonesia.
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Applause
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UN Commission on human rights
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<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, some time ago we discussed the Bernard-Reymond report on China.
On that occasion my group, the Liberals, brought up the question of the UN Human Rights Commission.
A majority in the House did not want to discuss this subject and were also against taking it as an urgency.
When will we learn that we need to adopt or discuss resolutions that can genuinely be of some influence in good time?
The UN Commission meeting in Geneva starts in eleven days' time - how can we still hope to influence the Council's priorities in any way now?
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A new ice age has started in China, as everyone knows.
Dissidents are being rounded up in large numbers, Internet users arrested, and there is a crackdown on the formation of new political parties such as the Democratic Party.
The Union must behave honourably here.
Human rights dialogue must carry on as normal, but if it is to be effective, we must also be prepared to bring public, international pressure to bear: the carrot and stick approach.
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If this process is to be effective, the Council must itself table a resolution on China, lobby for it actively and stop countries from supporting a 'no action on China' motion.
When we see how China is using its influence towards Macedonia and is thus undermining the Contact Group's Balkan policy, I think we are entirely justified in using public pressure on China.
The Chinese will accept this, provided that they are taken seriously.
My group thinks it is a pity that we always have to fight so hard to say what we want to say about China.
But then, money makes the world go round, or at least so we think.
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<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, I think that the resolution drawn up this time for the UN session is a very good and balanced one.
I think it is very important that we should call for a millennium amnesty for political prisoners and for a ban on the use of children in warfare.
We are right this year not to have a list of countries that are failing to observe human rights, but instead to concentrate solely on China.
In this morning's Herald Tribune , there was a photo of the Dalai Lama in northern India, five years after the invasion of Tibet.
The point has to be made that the day after the China report was adopted in Parliament, dissidents were being rounded up and missiles were being aimed at Taiwan from southern China.
We have to give China a signal.
Not for ourselves or just to be a thorn in its side, but to guarantee stability in the region, because peace is, and will always be, important.
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<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="Newens">
Mr President, over recent years the European Parliament has established a record on human rights throughout the world of which we can be very proud.
It is, therefore, highly appropriate that we should put forward our priorities for the forthcoming 55th Session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
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Our motion recognises that poverty is a fundamental obstacle to the realisation of human rights.
Freedom of thought, speech, religion and all other political, religious and civic liberties are absolutely vital.
Economic rights and their close links to other rights must not, however, be overlooked, above all at a time when more than a thousand million people in our world are deprived of adequate food, pure water, proper clothing, reasonable shelter, education and health-care.
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The motion before this House calls for coordinated action to fight the scourge of racism and discrimination, which has led, even in recent years, to genocide or massacres like that in Rwanda.
The motion also calls for positive action to end the appalling discrimination against, and exploitation of, women and children.
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Everywhere we must work for the liberation of prisoners of conscience, the outlawing of torture and the ill-treatment of prisoners and an end to the barbaric institution of capital punishment, which should be seen to be utterly unacceptable in the world and the civilisation of today.
Therefore, we particularly call on the Council and the Commission to pursue issues raised by human rights resolutions in this Parliament and we hope very much that they will be reflected in the work of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
The achievement of full recognition of human rights in every country in the world is a challenge to us in our time.
I believe that by passing this resolution, we shall be reaffirming our intentions of carrying on the struggle to achieve that.
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<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, I think that this resolution is a good one for two reasons: firstly, because we succeeded in the compromise meeting in eliminating all the demands concerning rights such as the right to housing, the right to work, etcetera, that is, all those rights that cannot be claimed. And we managed to concentrate - quite rightly - on rights that can be claimed by proposing three initiatives to the Council in three different areas.
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The first point relates to the universal moratorium on executions. In this respect, we are calling for this session in Geneva to be the last at which a resolution is passed on the moratorium, and for this year's General Assembly to vote for the universal abolition of the death penalty.
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The second point involves taking an initiative in favour of the ratification of the international court for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.
Finally, the third point relates to China, which was mentioned by Mr Bertens and Mrs van Bladel.
We do not hold out a great deal of hope.
The policy on the People's Republic of China has been a disastrous policy not only for Mr Brittan, but also for Mr Jospin, Mr Dalema, Mr Schröder and many others.
It is a policy that is slowly edging towards despair.
Mrs van Bladel spoke about Tibet. On this matter, I am afraid that we must recognise that as in Kosovo, there are limits to the capacity for suffering and acceptance both of the Tibetan people and of all the people of China, and that we will once again arrive too late.
<P>
We are obviously calling on the Council quite seriously to reverse this policy and to finally place democracy and human rights at the heart of its concerns.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Mr President, we are debating an extraordinarily detailed resolution and we will vote on it later. I believe that it is perhaps one of the best texts on human rights that we have ever held in our hands in this Parliament.
<P>
But I believe that we now have to put to the Council something that is even more important than the very relevant issues in this resolution, such as the 'Millennium Amnesty', promoting the defence of those defending human rights - please forgive the repetition - making the rights of women and children a priority, abolishing the death penalty and pressing for the International Criminal Court to finally become a reality. We must ask that our involvement as the European Union and as member countries in the 55th Session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights serves mainly to defend two principles: the universality and the indivisibility of human rights.
<P>
We have just discussed some related issues.
For example, we cannot allow a government such as the Cuban Government to impose certain conditions on the respect for human rights, such as the lifting of the present embargo by the United States. We also cannot allow, for instance, the dictator in Equatorial Guinea to tell us that the human rights tradition in his country is different to the tradition here in Europe.
As a result, I believe that it is vital to defend those principles.
And in this era of globalisation, indivisibility also means linking political rights to social and economic rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lenz">
Mr President, I cannot but endorse the words of my colleagues here.
It is utterly impossible for me to contradict anything that has been said on this subject; what we really need to do today is to make a very forceful appeal to the Commission and the Council, not least in view of this meeting in Geneva. The fact is that, every year when this meeting comes round, it carries the hopes of people around the globe who want to hear our Member States loudly and clearly denouncing violations of human rights.
We therefore call on the Commission and the Council - especially the Commission, since it also serves as a coordinator for the Member States - to put our message across in no uncertain terms.
<P>
A great many countries have featured in the resolutions of the European Parliament in recent months.
Some of them have repeatedly been the subject of resolutions.
Colombia, which featured again today, is one example.
But I should also like to list a few others, such as Afghanistan, Algeria, Burma, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Iraq, Kosovo, Rwanda, the Sudan and Turkey, although I am aware that Kosovo is not a country but nevertheless a major problem.
<P>
The reason why we have not included this list in the resolution is that the names of far too many other countries occurred to us, and we could not list them all.
China, however, is mentioned. I cannot argue with that.
I should also have liked to see China on the agenda for Geneva, because we know that this touches a raw nerve with the Chinese and elicits a crystal-clear response.
We take that response very seriously too.
If the Chinese Government is serious about its dialogue with the European Union, it must not follow up these meetings with more waves of arrests, not to mention its position on the Tibetan question.
<P>
Other catchwords we should like to mention include repression and trafficking in women, child soldiers, religious intolerance and the death penalty.
<P>
Let me say once again to the Commission and the Council that we earnestly beg you to take firm action and to ensure that our Member States' diplomatic scruples do not cause them to dash the hopes of the watching world.
We have a huge responsibility here, and we want the Commission to make it clear that it demands compliance with democracy and human rights clauses.
Then the European Union would truly be setting an example.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ullmann">
Mr President, there are numerous indications that the history of human rights has entered a new era.
Immediately after the end of the Second World War, they were essentially a political manifesto.
Now, however, they have become a legal reality, and this, of course, gives rise to an entirely new set of problems.
We are discovering new aspects of human rights, the social dimension, and it has become apparent that the human dignity and human rights of women and children are particularly at risk.
We see the need to abolish the death penalty worldwide, we see the legal reality of human rights in the form of the new international court, and we appeal to the Council and the Commission to do everything in their power to ensure that progress is made in ratifying the constitution of the International Court of Human Rights.
<P>
But there is also a great danger that, precisely because human rights are now a legal reality, they will be ground down in the mills of foreign policy interests.
What can be done to prevent that?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that the European Union has a very, very important role to play in the transformation of foreign and security policy in the traditional sense into a 'peace policy', in other words a coordinated political approach that is governed by the overriding aim of establishing and preserving peace.
You all know how often Members of this House have called for a mechanism through which the European Union can speak with one voice so that this transformation can be effected.
<P>
This Parliament can already speak with one voice, as today's debate has shown, and it should use that voice to ensure that respect for human rights, which is now enshrined in international law, is enforced.
I therefore wish to re-emphasise what previous speakers have said and to appeal to the Council and the Commission to assist in promoting the achievement of this aim.
<P>
Belarus
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, the situation in Belarus is still very worrying.
President Lukashenko is still a dictator and is blocking any form of normal political and economic development.
The Union must support what opposition parties there are and must try to establish dialogue.
This seems about as likely as snow in summer, but the recent resolution of the 'embassy conflict' could indicate that President Lukashenko is beginning to realise that international isolation is not in his interest, and hopefully this will encourage him to make certain concessions.
If this happens, the Union must be prepared to provide assistance to support the process.
A dogmatic approach is not what is needed here.
We need to do everything we can to solve problems and improve the lives of the people.
We have had a whole series of dictators under review this afternoon, but President Lukashenko is the one nearest to us, and this may be our chance to convince him that he is a dictator and that he needs to change his ways.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, Belarus will soon be one of our neighbouring countries.
However, the situation there, Mr Bertens, is still marked by the absence of democracy.
Perhaps that does not apply to the embassy, but it applies to the population there, and all attempts by the opposition to re-establish fair interaction among the forces of democracy by peaceful and democratic means have been thwarted by the dictatorial rule of President Lukashenko, who simply keeps issuing decrees that criminalise opposition activities.
But the opposition MPs are not criminals.
That is the problem.
By criminalising their activities, Mr Lukashenko is prohibiting fair play, a prohibition that even extends to the forthcoming local elections.
That is why the opposition has refused to take part in these elections - not because it is against democracy, but because it insists that there should at least be a minimum catalogue of fair conditions.
One of these is freedom of the press.
It is truly calamitous that the Belarus people do not even have the opportunity to find out about alternatives to President Lukashenko, because he uses the press to such a great extent as an instrument of power, and I know that situation from personal experience.
That is why we must make every effort to ensure that changes are made in Belarus and in particular that freedom of the press is restored, because that is one of the main prerequisites of free elections and the democratic process.
<P>
In spite of everything, the Belarus people continue to yearn for democracy and personal freedom, which is why we are called upon to ensure that the agreement between the Council, the Commission and Parliament is upheld, and above all that it is implemented in such a way as to help that nation to satisfy its longing for democracy and does not subordinate this purpose to economic interests.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Erika">
Mr President, both of the previous speakers have highlighted the critical points.
Allow me to add a little to their comments.
We have tabled a joint resolution, and we are reaffirming that we want to welcome Belarus into the democratic world and that it is our wish that Belarus should be part of that world.
But the latest spate of arrests has naturally raised new difficulties and new problems, and as has so often been the case in Belarus, one step forward towards democracy has been followed by two steps back.
<P>

The President is now dreaming of a pan-Slavic union, and I can only hope that Russia does not seize upon that dream and that the Ukraine remains aloof and does not jump on the bandwagon either, otherwise the results would be devastating for all of us.
<P>
I must say, however, that the argument which is currently raging over the elections announced by the opposition for 16 May 1999 will certainly have devastating effects.
As my colleague Mrs Schroedter has already indicated, the European Union would do well to follow this process very carefully and to lend all the support it possibly can.
I am thinking here in particular of the assistance that the OSCE will need.
This also means, Commissioner, that financial support is required.
I know that Ambassador Wiek has approached the Commission to ask for funding so that the proper training can be guaranteed for those involved in the organisation of the forthcoming elections, and I ask you to look at the relevant documentation again and to do everything we in the European Union can to support this process; let us not use bureaucratic difficulties as an excuse for not delivering the necessary funds.
<P>
The situation this year is exceptionally critical.
The economic situation is unstable, the political situation is extremely unstable and as future neighbours, as my colleague rightly pointed out, we are called upon to do everything we can to help Belarus to find a decent path that will lead it to democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, I am delighted to be able to follow Mrs Mann, because her fine words express what I also intended to emphasise.
First of all, it is a fact that the people of Belarus are a very likeable people and also have cultural links with us somewhere along the line.
Secondly, Belarus perhaps offers the best evidence of the destructive nature of the regime which ruled that part of the world for 40 years.
When we criticise President Lukashenko here, we must not forget what school he was trained in and the education he received there.
Somehow we must even find it in ourselves to sympathise to a certain extent with this man, for he was led in this direction, and most of his wrath has so far been vented on foreigners.
<P>
I believe that Mrs Mann was right when she said we must do everything we can to assist the Belarus people and guide them slowly but surely to the path that leads to freedom and democracy, the path which I am certain they instinctively wish to follow.
Anyone who knows these people will appreciate that they need to be helped if they are to progress gradually towards those goals.
Kicking them in the shins, so to speak, will not induce them to move in that direction.
On the contrary, we must make every effort to form a peaceable and fruitful relationship with Belarus, quite irrespective of the fact that Belarus will continue to be of vital importance to us in the future, since we shall be sharing a common border.
We need only look at the map to realise how vitally important it will be for all of us, especially our Baltic friends, which is why we must do everything we can to guide Belarus, one step at a time, back into the fold of the civilised and democratic nations.
<P>
Russia
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lenz">
Mr President, Russia is never out of the headlines.
These usually tell of economic problems, the effects of which are reverberating through Europe.
Far less loudly heralded but no less intractable are certain other problems we hear about in Russia, problems that do not sit well with a country which has been campaigning very vigorously for membership of the Council of Europe, since they relate to actions which are incompatible with the Council of Europe's Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and with the provisions of the partnership agreement with the European Union.
<P>
Only this week, in what might almost be termed a live commentary, a delegation from the Congress of European Jews confirmed some of the facts from this list, for example the gradual resurgence of anti-Semitism, which has some political support, especially from the Communists.
Our resolution covers various other areas under the same heading, areas which cause us grave concern.
These are increased religious intolerance, the treatment of conscientious objectors and the lengthy delays in enacting legislation on this matter and the grim conditions in the armed forces, which led in 1998 to more than 1 000 suicides and unexplained deaths.
It is not only courageous mothers in Russia who are providing this information.
<P>
All of these, I am sorry to say, are vestiges of the Soviet empire that have not been swept away.
Our resolution should be understood as an expression of concern, a message of concern that we wish to send with our colleagues who are travelling to Moscow in the coming week for talks with representatives of the Duma and the authorities.
<P>
We in the European Union are especially anxious that Russia should be a strong partner, a country where democracy and the rule of law prevail.
That is absolutely imperative for this Europe of ours, because it would create solid common foundations for a peaceful and free Europe in the next century.
This is precisely how we want our message to be understood.
It undoubtedly expresses criticism, but it is intended to be constructive and to show the depth of our commitment to helping to improve conditions in Russia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, as Mrs Lenz said, this resolution speaks of anti-Semitism, and it does not condemn comments made by just anyone, but the views of Mr Zuganov, who is, in fact, the chairman of the Russian Communist Party, the main party in the Duma.
I think that our delegation that is to visit Moscow shortly should remember this and should ensure that the people there realise that the European Parliament knows about these statements and is fully aware of their seriousness.
<P>
Another issue is conscientious objection.
The European Parliament is somewhat concerned about the delays on the part of the Duma, which is again under the control of Mr Zuganov's party, the Communist Party, and which for four years has systematically blocked the adoption of a law on conscientious objection, a law which is nevertheless provided for in the Russian constitution.
Along with colleagues in my party, the Transnational Radical Party, in Russia, we are trying to get past this deadlock by launching a campaign, which I think Parliament should support, to bring an end to military conscription and to establish a professional army in the country, which would be a significant step in the right direction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, I believe we are at one in our criticism of the situation in Russia with regard to human rights and anti-Semitism.
On the other hand, Mrs Lenz, I would not oversimplify matters by blaming it all on the Soviet empire. After all, the Soviet era was not exactly preceded by a Golden Age of democracy and respect for human rights.
Repression, regrettably, has a long tradition in Russia and was to assume appalling and criminal dimensions during the Soviet era, especially under Stalin.
<P>
I can subscribe to the criticism of all political forces in Russia, including the Communist Party, which is unfortunately blocking progress on respect for human rights and bears its share of responsibility for the regrettable resurgence of anti-Semitism.
In view of the heinous crimes that have been committed by anti-Semitic regimes, there can be no tolerance on this point.
The Group of the Party of European Socialists therefore backs the delegation in its mission to convey this message in very clear terms during the forthcoming visit to Russia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, when we ratified the partnership and cooperation agreement with Russia, we criticised the fact that the human rights situation in Russia did not meet the criteria laid down in the human rights clause of the agreement, to which Commissioner van den Broek replied that the agreement provided an excellent basis for changing that situation.
That, however, was three years ago, and nothing has changed!
<P>
Conditions in Russian prisons do not accord with international standards, and nothing is being done to rectify that situation.
No progress is being made in the provision of alternatives to military service.
The maltreatment and humiliation of young people in the Russian army is driving many of them to suicide.
May I therefore ask the Commission to specify where it has intervened on the basis of the agreement.
Where has it applied pressure on the basis of the agreement?
When did it intervene during the WTO negotiations to remind the delegates that human rights were a priority issue?
I expect answers to those questions now!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 NAME="de Silguy">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am going to answer point by point, as is the custom with human rights issues.
I will therefore begin with Cuba.
<P>
The Commission shares Parliament's concerns regarding the development of the human rights situation in Cuba, and it is concerned about the adoption of a reform of the criminal code which considerably reinforces the repressive nature of the legislation.
The Commission is also worried about the outcome of the trial of four dissidents.
In consultation with the Member States, it will very shortly consider what position should be adopted in order to respond to these attacks on human rights.
Nevertheless, the Commission will continue with firm but vigilant dialogue with the Cuban authorities.
<P>
The Community cooperation policy, which - I would remind you - is a European policy is governed by the principles established in the common position of 8 December, which, as far as I am aware, is revised with each new presidency.
This policy is aimed at encouraging a peaceful transition to democracy, promoting human rights and supporting the economic development of the island.
In this respect, the activities funded by the Community that are planned for the 1999-2000 period mainly involve food aid, support for economic reforms and the development of civil society.
<P>
Finally, at the end of June 1998, the European Union granted Cuba observer status in the negotiations between the European Union and the ACP countries.
That is also dialogue.
Full and complete participation in those negotiations, including Cuba's accession to the future convention, depends on it making substantial progress in terms of human rights, the rule of law, what is known as 'good governance' in English, and political freedoms.
<P>
With regard to the second issue, Colombia, the Commission entirely shares Parliament's concerns about the development of the situation in the country.
The Commission is particularly concerned about the repeated violations of human rights committed in recent years by the guerillas and paramilitary forces.
Above all, it regrets the breakdown of the peace negotiations between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the FARC.
More than a thousand political murders are committed each year.
Over 300 people have been kidnapped and are still being held, including around 20 foreigners.
<P>
With regard to the case of the four members of the Colombian NGO, the IPC, Instituto popular de la capacitación, who were abducted by a paramilitary organisation, the AUC, the European troika approached the Colombian Vice-President and Mr Lemus, who is responsible for human rights, to demand their release, which has since taken place.
The Commission fully shares Parliament's desire to see dialogue swiftly resumed between the guerrillas and Mr Pastrana's government.
<P>
The European Union gave its support to the peace process in a declaration on 8 January.
A meeting between the government and the opposing armed movements is planned for 24 April.
Support for actions to promote human rights and help with the implementation of judicial reforms are a priority of the Commission in its work to help Colombia.
<P>
I must remind you, or perhaps inform you, of the figures: in 1998, the Commission set aside EUR 17 million for NGOs, along with EUR 2 million for human rights and EUR 12 million for ECHO to help displaced persons.
<P>
With regard to Indonesia, the Commission strongly condemns the violent and murderous events that are currently setting Muslims and Christians against each other in some parts of the Moluccan Islands.
The Commission supports the steps that have been taken on behalf of the Union to inform the Indonesian authorities of Europe's concerns about the development of inter-ethnic tension.
In particular, the Union has asked the Indonesian authorities to ensure that the police forces act with greater restraint in Ambon, where there were several deaths in January as a result of repression.
The Commission is monitoring the development of the situation as closely as possible.
<P>
The European Community Humanitarian Office, ECHO, sent a representative to the area who is working in close cooperation with the Commission representatives in Jakarta and the NGOs present in the region.
Through ECHO, the Commission is preparing to provide aid of around EUR 1 million for the people of the two communities that are victims of the conflict.
The implementation of this decision will be entrusted to the European NGOs present in Indonesia, in cooperation with the World Food Programme.
This will involve food as well as health and medical aid.
It will also provide basic necessities for the displaced people living in shelters.
<P>
The fact that elections are being held in June is also an important factor in resolving the current tensions between the communities.
The Commission will support them, while liaising with international organisations and other donors present in the area.
A programme worth EUR 7 million is currently being prepared for this purpose.
<P>
With regard to East Timor, which many of you mentioned, the Commission hopes that the discussions that are taking place under the auspices of the Secretariat of the United Nations will allow the people of East Timor to be consulted on the future of the region.
The Commission shares the concerns expressed by Parliament, which have just been repeated here, about the military situation and the arming of civilian militias. This could endanger a peace process which is still fragile.
The Commission supports the conclusions of the Vienna European Council, which call for the disarmament and dissolution of these militias and which also ask that a United Nations mission be sent to the area in order to ease the tension.
<P>
The fourth issue is the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
You are aware that the preparation of work for the Commission on Human Rights is carried out by the Council's 'Human Rights' group.
This group has already met several times for this purpose since the beginning of the year.
During the annual session of the Commission on Human Rights, which, I would remind you, lasts six weeks, experts from the Union meet every day in order to decide on the speeches to made by the presidency, on behalf of the Union, and the motions for resolutions to be presented by the Union.
The Commission participates systematically and actively in the work of the 'Human Rights' group, and in all the meetings of experts in Geneva.
I can reassure Mrs Lenz on this point.
<P>
Nevertheless, I have taken careful note of comments that have been made.
I am thinking, in particular, of what Mr Ullman said concerning the Commission's attitude.
I can assure you that the Commission is doing everything necessary, and will do all in its power, to convey your views to the Council.
You know, as I do, that it is the Commission's job to take a position on the wishes expressed by Parliament in its motions for resolutions.
<P>
More specifically, regarding China, which many of you mentioned, all the Member States of the European Union decided in 1998 not to table a resolution condemning the country.
On 22 March, the Foreign Affairs Council will decide what stance the Union will take in Geneva in 1999.
For this purpose, your resolution will be a useful source of information in those debates.
<P>
The fifth issue relates to Belarus.
The Commission is extremely concerned by the recent deterioration of the situation in Belarus.
In economic terms, the population has become poorer, a situation of hyperinflation has developed and serious social tensions have emerged.
In political terms, the disagreement over the application of the constitution has led to a deterioration in terms of fundamental liberties and has resulted in the arrests of several opponents.
The presidential decree adopted in January, which means that the activities of political parties and associations must be authorised by the administration, is undoubtedly a sign that the regime is becoming tougher.
<P>
The Commission is sincerely asking the Belarus authorities to establish an open, constructive, public and democratic dialogue with the people and with the opposition with a view to resolving the economic and constitutional problems affecting the country, and to make a real effort to move towards democracy.
In this respect, the Commission fully supports the work of the OSCE towards restoring the democratic operation of the institutions.
The Commission is closely following the development of the situation with regard to human rights and fundamental liberties.
Mr von Habsburg, I can assure you that we aim to support the Belarusian people in this process.
I can also reassure Mrs Erika Mann that we are considering how the Commission can play a useful role in the electoral process.
<P>
Finally, the last issue relates to Russia.
The Commission is concerned about the frequent anti-Semitic comments made by certain political figures who are members of the Duma.
On behalf of the European Union, the German Presidency has brought this issue to the attention of the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs and the leaders of the Communist Party and made them aware of its concerns.
The European Union has taken measures to promote tolerance and the advent of a civil society in Russia.
Notably, under the TACIS programme, it is currently involved in work to promote democracy which is aimed at creating an environment that will eradicate such demonstrations of racial hatred.
The Commission will continue to monitor the situation very closely and hopes that these anti-Semitic outbursts from another age on the part of certain members of the Russian Parliament will end.
<P>
With regard to human rights, and the death penalty in particular, you know that the Commission shares the European Parliament's concerns on this issue.
In this respect, it has been involved in an approach made to the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs by the troika to express its concerns about the possible re-introduction of the death penalty.
The Minister assured us that Russia intended to comply with the obligations arising from its entry to the Council of Europe, which, I would remind you, includes a moratorium on the death penalty.
<P>
Mrs Schroedter mentioned a problem concerning specific examples.
I think that in my perhaps general answer, I have answered these more specific questions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, may I say to Commissioner de Silguy that I naturally appreciated that it would be difficult for him to answer specific questions which lay beyond his own area of responsibility.
Let me therefore request, Commissioner, that you submit these questions to Mr van den Broek and ask him to provide me with a written reply to them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="de Silguy">
You have my word, I will do it this evening.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, a veto by one of the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council has blocked the extension of the mandate of the UN preventive deployment force in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia because that country has entered into diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
That is extremely serious, particularly bearing in mind the institutions to which this House belongs and the nature of the United Nations.
In both cases, in fact, we are dealing with organisations designed to overcome the kind of nationalistic tendencies which underlie the veto by the People's Republic of China.
And yet, the United Nations' force has played an important part in keeping the peace, not least by preventing the threat of the conflict in Kosovo spilling over into Macedonia.
<P>
The Community institutions must therefore take resolute action to get the veto lifted.
But at the same time, it is essential that we have, as of now, the ability to make a virtue of a vice: if the United Nations Security Council fails to take a positive decision, the European Union and its Member States would have to shoulder the responsibilities hitherto exercised by UNPREDEP, in conjunction with the other institutions, primarily NATO and the Western European Union.
That could act as an important incentive, albeit in very sad circumstances, encouraging us to put into effect the foreign and security policy that everyone claims to believe in, but which is all too rarely put into practice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, I regret the fact that this resolution limits itself to stating the obvious, as it is clear that neither the United States nor the European Union can give in to the veto, to the attempts of the People's Republic of China to blackmail us over the presence of troops to guarantee peace and security in Macedonia.
It is therefore clear that solutions will have to be found.
These are already being considered with a view to replacing, if necessary, the current formula with another formula that will not be met by a Chinese veto.
<P>
I also regret the fact that, since everyone is talking about stability in Macedonia, we have not dealt with the real issue of stability in Macedonia, in other words, its economic development, its democratic development and, above all, its swift entry into the European Union.
<P>
In this respect, the European Union is absent, which I find absolutely scandalous, and the Commission has set out an incomprehensible policy.
I hope that Mr de Silguy will also be able to mention this matter to his colleague Mr van den Broek this evening.
The Union's funds to Macedonia are being reduced by ECU 3 million.
Given the difficulties that Macedonia is facing, this is truly staggering.
Moreover, everything has been done, and is still being done, to convince the Macedonian authorities that they will only be able to ask to join the European Union after they have ratified the cooperation agreement and the association agreement.
They will therefore have to wait for decades before they can present a request for accession. This is wrong from both a legal and political point of view.
Therefore, we have launched a campaign directed at Mr Georgievski asking him to present a request for accession to the European Union immediately.
<P>
Here is a postcard with a lovely picture of the flag of the European Union, and, in the middle of that flag, the Macedonian flag, so that, in the coming months, Macedonia may be an official candidate for membership of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, perhaps not everyone will agree with me when I say that Macedonia, or FYROM, ought surely to have proceeded somewhat more adroitly and made a more judicious choice of tactics in its policy on diplomatic recognition, but that does not in any way justify the Chinese veto in the UN Security Council.
In fact, I cannot recall any recent use of the veto in the Security Council by a major power, be it Russia or, as in many cases, the United States, which was actually justified, but that is another matter, and there is little to be gained by debating it here.
<P>
I am entirely in favour of the aim of the resolution that the mandate of UNPREDEP should be extended if at all possible and that provision should be made for military protection of the Macedonian borders, which will not only afford protection to Macedonia itself but will also protect the observers in Kosovo.
<P>
As far as our aid to Macedonia is concerned, I should like to make one thing clear: we can probably never help enough, but the crux of the matter is that our aid should be used effectively, that the country itself should have the capacity to absorb the aid, and it is up to the government, of course, to create that capacity.
There have undoubtedly been some missed opportunities in the past.
The new government is doing its best on issues ranging from the Albanian question - on which, I am glad to say, some progress has been made - to the economic and social situation.
But, however much political continuity can be guaranteed, we should not raise any false hopes.
Whether Macedonia manages to find its way to Europe will depend primarily on its own efforts, and the way to Europe in the sense of the European Union will naturally be a long one, whenever the membership application may be submitted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
Mr President, the Green Group also considers China's veto of the extension of UNPREDEP's mandate in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia totally unacceptable, not least because it amounts to a kind of retaliation.
But this also reveals all the limitations of the Security Council in its current form and therefore the need for Europe, as a whole, to seek to change the current UN system.
However, given that the problems of Macedonia are real ones - and we have only to remember what is happening next door to that region, in Kosovo, to appreciate the importance of continuing with the UNPREDEP mandate - it is clear that we Greens also believe that, were it to prove necessary, the European Union should shoulder its own responsibilities.
<P>
The Green Group also considers it appropriate to extend the debate on Macedonia to Bosnia-Herzegovina, to deal with the problem of the Brcko corridor, and it has therefore tabled a number of amendments to that effect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the only republic of the former Yugoslavia to survive the demise of that state more or less without bloodshed and to achieve statehood without warfare was Macedonia.
There is absolutely no doubt that our preventive measures were instrumental in this.
We were there in the territory of the former Yugoslavia to prevent trouble, and we deployed UN forces on the border between Serbia and Macedonia - and now these preventive measures have been scrapped.
It is incomprehensible to me that a Chinese veto in the Security Council should jeopardise the safety of Macedonia.
There is surely something wrong if it is possible to veto preventive measures when they have finally been implemented and, what is more, to take such action for quite transparent reasons which could effectively be described as revenge for poor little Macedonia having had the temerity to recognise Taiwan.
We can all well imagine why it did so.
It hoped that recognition would bring it a great deal of investment and financial aid, which of course it could never obtain from China.
<P>
As you know, China and Russia have often used their veto in the Security Council to prevent us from providing military assistance to people and nations that are subject to persecution and aggression, as has been happening for a year and a half in Kosovo, and as was the case in Bosnia for a number of years.
Something is rotten in this UN Charter.
It ought to be designed in such a way that preventive measures, at least, cannot be vetoed, and it should naturally allow intervention to thwart the plans of a dictator and criminal, thereby protecting people and nations from such criminals, as in Bosnia and Kosovo.
<P>
In view of the crisis in the neighbouring country, in Kosovo, there is a real need to avoid any instability in Macedonia.
The UN forces known as UNPREDEP have helped to do that.
They have not only contributed by their presence but have also, as I discovered in my own conversations, helped to bring together the Albanian minority and the Macedonians in special discussion forums on specific subjects in order to promote harmony between the two ethnic communities.
<P>
Until the Security Council can finally decide to renew the UNPREDEP mandate, to which end we have included a special appeal to China in our resolution, the NATO forces deployed along the border to protect the OSCE observers in Kosovo will have to perform that function too in order to prevent insecurity from spilling over into Macedonia at the very time when the country is developing fruitful cooperation among the peoples within its territory.
I should also like to endorse the view of Mr Dupuis that we in the European Union should support these extremely promising steps towards fruitful cooperation by forging additional links with Macedonia, including the provision of financial aid.
The Macedonians have earned it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, a few days ago, the UNPREDEP forces were actually withdrawn on the basis of a veto by the People's Republic of China.
That has thrust us very suddenly into an extremely dangerous situation, because the situation was relatively stable until then.
I myself have been in Macedonia several times, and I know what these UNPREDEP forces on the border have achieved and how they have enabled the Macedonian Government, which is indeed of high quality, to launch a process of development that would have stood up to close scrutiny.
The Macedonians were criticised because they recognised Taiwan, but there is one thing we must not forget.
The nation we are discussing lives in indescribably wretched conditions, for which the border conflicts, incidentally, must take much of the blame.
And of course we must remember that the Greek blockade in the south and the Serbian blockade in the north have stifled economic growth, since the major trade routes all ran from north to south.
<P>
We must also recognise that sizeable loans have now been secured from Taiwan, because none could be expected from other sources.
A government simply cannot be criticised for adopting such a course of action.
That is why we must reflect on how we can guarantee Macedonian security again with forces from Europe, and in that context, I can only recommend that you look at the past.
It is time we began to take our lead from the Organisation of African Unity. They more or less sort out their own affairs.
We always ask the United Nations, instead of simply saying 'Europe for the Europeans!'
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="de Silguy">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the past, since 1992, in fact, UN forces have played an important role in stabilising the Balkans.
Like all the Members who have just spoken, the Commission therefore sincerely regrets the failure to extend the mandate of UN troops in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
<P>
Following the recognition of Taiwan by the FYROM, China decided, as you know, to exercise its veto in the Security Council against the extension of the mandate of UNPREDEP.
The presidency of the European Union tried to get the authorities in Peking and Skopje to reach a consensus, but these attempts were unsuccessful.
It is unfortunate that a bilateral disagreement should be behind this Security Council decision.
<P>
The Commission believes that an international presence is more necessary than ever in this part of the Balkans, following the withdrawal of UNPREDEP.
It is appealing for the participation of the WEU in a Petersberg-type mission in the area.
<P>
I apologise to Mr Dupuis for being unable to answer him either with regard to the level of aid or the request for accession.
I had prepared a response to the issue of the breakdown in diplomatic relations, but once again I promise to pass on his question to my colleague Commissioner van den Broek this evening.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following six motions for resolutions:
<P>



B4-0241/99 by Mr Frischenschlager, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the disastrous avalanches in the Alps; - B4-0242/99 by Mrs Stenzel, Mrs Grossetête, Mr Ebner, Mr Böge and Mr Habsburg-Lothringen, on behalf of the PPE Group, on disastrous avalanches in Austria, France and Italy; - B4-0255/99 by Mrs Leperre-Verrier, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the Alpine avalanches; - B4-0267/99 by Mr Swoboda and Mr Bösch, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the disastrous avalanches in the Alps; - B4-0277/99 by Mr Pasty, on behalf of the UPE Group, on the avalanches in the Alps; - B4-0304/99 by Mr Voggenhuber, on behalf of the V Group, on the disastrous avalanches.
<SPEAKER ID=165 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, rarely does this House deal with natural disasters, but there is no doubt that the disaster we are discussing today demands all our attention because of its enormity, its unpredictability and its scale.
It also demands our attention because it affects a region, the Alpine region, which should be particularly prized in the process of Community integration.
The Alpine area actually provides a culture that is unitary, broad, clear, specific and in harmony with itself, and which has for centuries been accustomed to being not a barrier but a link between Europe, north and south and east and west.
The national frontiers, which gradually became more rigid during the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century, then sought to some extent to break up the Alpine region; and the same is true of the national legislations which failed to take account of the special nature of the region and the special characteristics of what we might call the culture of the mountains.
<P>
That is why the avalanches which have struck various areas of this extremely important part of Europe should serve to draw our attention to these issues, which go far beyond the natural disaster, and stir us into planning for a range of measures - not only short-term and preventive measures, but ones that are designed to tackle this problem and this situation in a comprehensive way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this resolution on the situation following the avalanche disaster in the Alps is a matter of paramount concern to the Austrian delegation and its leader, Mrs Stenzel.
We are also grateful for the special gesture by the European Parliament in granting our request for a minute's silence in honour of the Galtür victims.
<P>
But we do not merely wish to express our general condolences in today's resolution.
There is more to it than that.
We have combined our expression of sympathy with a request for concrete financial assistance for the disaster area of Paznauntal in the Tirol and for all the other areas, such as those in Italy and France, which were hit by the avalanches.
<P>
We have received support from all the other groups.
This is a sign of solidarity that has been extended to us both inside and outside the House.
The regions that have sustained long-term economic damage are particularly grateful for this solidarity.
I therefore appeal to the Commission to associate itself with this gesture and to make every effort to ensure that help can be given to the stricken areas as quickly as possible.
Europe can demonstrate real solidarity here.
I earnestly beg you to do that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 NAME="Leperre-Verrier">
Mr President, with regard to these avalanches, we must offer support to the victims and their families and pay tribute to the rescue teams and to the local communities. However, the problem that we are faced with today is that of preventing such disasters from re-occurring.
<P>
It is true that we should not underestimate the work being done by the European Union, which, through the Interreg programme, is already funding work on mountain safety in cross-border regions.
I am thinking, in particular, of the experiments that have been carried out in the Mont Blanc massif.
Nevertheless, the European Union should take account of the specific nature of mountain regions and increase its aid to the regions that are affected as well as its involvement in preventive measures.
<P>
Although it is difficult to define with any certainty where the avalanches are going to strike, it is clear that the equipment used to detect avalanches has proved to be very effective, and mapping of the risk areas should therefore be refined.
<P>
I would also like to highlight other factors involved in the prevention of avalanches.
Firstly, given the deterioration of the mountain ecosystem, we should call on the Member States to be more vigilant when granting building permits.
In the same way, the development of mountain sports - both winter and summer sports - should lead to the organisation of genuine multilingual information campaigns in order to give a sense of responsibility to those participating in such sports.
<P>
My group has tabled several amendments on these two points.
I hope that you will support them because this is the sine qua non condition to ensure that the mountains are still the area of freedom we love so much, despite the fact that the European Union is not paying enough attention to them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, I believe that this debate today is not about political, party-political or personal point-scoring, but rather about a common wish to join together in expressing our solidarity with the victims.
Otherwise, Mr Rübig, we should have to ask why, when this matter is so close to Mrs Stenzel's heart, she is not here in person.
But that is not what this debate is about.
We are debating what we can do to help with resources from the European Union that are available now for the various areas, and we urge the Commission and its staff to do everything in their power to cut through the red tape and ensure that these funds can be injected quickly and used efficiently.
The areas concerned may not be in the poorest regions of this continent, but they are areas which need our solidarity in their present plight.
<P>
Of course there is every justification for asking a secondary question: could these disasters have been prevented?
What is the settlement structure and what is the planning policy in these areas where there may be a risk of avalanches?
I would not like to claim that building plans and settlement patterns in all our Alpine areas have been designed so as to avoid potential risks.
Many things which are done in the name of tourism or economic interests are not particularly prudent and could certainly have repercussions and lead to disasters, if the worst came to the worst.
Be that as it may, as far as I am aware there is no evidence at all, at least in many of the areas we are discussing today, that human error or political mistakes were at the root of these disasters.
And so it really only remains for me to ask the Commission to cut through the red tape and to help quickly wherever help is needed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="de Silguy">
Mr President, firstly, with regard to the distressing subject of avalanches, the Commission wishes to express its distress and to offer its heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims of these events.
<P>
In answer to the questions that have just been raised, I would point out that the Union has various tools to help prevent disasters and to deal with their effects.
Firstly, as far as prevention is concerned, the European Union can help the mountain regions, notably through afforestation programmes for agricultural land.
Objective 5b of the ERDF and the Structural Funds also allows us to implement forestry measures.
<P>
The Commission's proposals on the 'rural development' aspect of Agenda 2000 will further increase the possibilities for aid for afforestation and forestry improvement, if the Council agrees with the Commission's proposals.
In the context of these proposals, compensatory payments could be made in order to preserve and improve the ecological stability of forests in areas where they have a protective and environmental role that is in the public interest.
<P>
Within the framework of the 5b programmes in the Tyrol and Vorarlberg areas, the European Union is cofinancing the improvement of agricultural land, land management measures, planning and advice on the agricultural use of areas that are ecologically sensitive.
<P>
In relation to what Mrs Leperre-Verrier just said, the Commission also supports the idea to draw up forestry maps and forestry development plans.
<P>
Finally, and still on the issue of mapping, the ERDF can support cartographical studies of the mountainous areas that are at risk within the framework of transnational cooperation programmes.
Initiatives could also be cofinanced by Interreg, especially during its next programming period.
<P>
Therefore, the tools do exist, and I can assure you that the Commission will do all in its power and spare no efforts to put those tools to use, especially in areas that are at risk.
<P>
Secondly, moving on from prevention to dealing with the effects of avalanches, I would remind you that in 1997, Parliament blocked heading B4-3400, which was precisely aimed at providing emergency aid for the victims of disasters.
The budgetary line B4-3300, which relates to civil protection and environmental emergencies, does not provide for intervention to reconstruct damaged areas through economic aid or emergency aid.
<P>
Nevertheless, it is possible to re-focus the existing provisions on measures to re-establish the potential for agricultural and forestry production that was harmed within the existing financial envelopes.
It is also possible to transfer funds between the Länder.
<P>
Finally, in the framework of the Community action programme for civil protection, the Commission is prepared to examine - within the limits of its funding capacities - any proposals submitted by national or local authorities to improve their ability to act when disasters occur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed
<P>
The vote will be taken at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
That concludes the topical and urgent debate.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 5.20 p.m. and resumed at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=171 NAME="Evans">
Mr President, a point of order under Rules 119 and 120 concerning roll-call votes, in which I know you have a special interest.
At this morning's sitting we had any number of roll-call votes.
We are destined to have more again this evening and Members can look forward to a fairly healthy-sized volume of roll-call results in their pigeonholes tomorrow morning.
<P>
Rules 119 and 120 referring to roll-call votes state they shall be recorded in the Minutes.
Rule 133 states that the Minutes shall be distributed to the Members.
<P>
I wonder whether, in the interests of economy, efficiency, and certainly of modernisation, you could either rule as President or call for an investigation to see whether the word 'distribution' could be interpreted to mean 'distributed electronically', so that those Members who want to access the full list of recorded votes can do so through the computers or a certain number of copies can be made available to those Members, rather than going through the expensive and wasteful procedure of distributing hundreds of pages to everybody.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="President">
Thank you very much for that thought, Mr Evans.
I did in fact send a letter to the President of the European Parliament, and this very afternoon the Conference of Presidents debated the matter.
One of the issues I raised in the letter, which of course will be distributed, is the excessively large number of roll-call votes, which often reach 100 or more. This is of course my own opinion, and does not commit anyone else.
<P>
Apart from the waste of time, each of these cost the European taxpayer EUR 300 because, as you know, the results of the votes must be published the following day. They also have to be published in the Official Journal of the European Communities, and that costs a great deal of money.
An initial debate has taken place in the Conference of Presidents but I do not think I should expand on that now, since it is neither the time nor the place for a more general debate.
There is a problem and, of course, we note your recommendation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Konrad">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at first sight Mr Evans's proposal to save paper by not distributing the results of the spiralling number of roll-call votes may well appear very tempting. But let me make another suggestion.
Let us discuss in the relevant committees how we can get back to the original purpose of roll-call voting, which was to enable us to hold a special vote on particular issues of genuine importance.
I believe it is rather pointless to take a roll-call vote on every single phrase.
For that reason, I believe we should be well advised to review this procedure, and then the paper problem would automatically be solved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 NAME="President">
Mr Konrad, thank you very much for your comment.
I do not want to broaden the debate.
This is not the time, and we are not prepared for a debate without an opinion.
I think we should stop here so that we can continue with the votes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 NAME="Wijsenbeek">
<SPEAKER ID=176 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rehder">
Mr President, let me take up Mr Konrad's excellent suggestion at this point and ask the PPE Group to agree to this very sound proposal now and withdraw the flood of roll-call votes which they have requested on this report, so that we can indeed put this good idea into effect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=178 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
Mr President, I merely wanted to announce some sad news to the House.
The German Federal Minister of Finance, Oskar Lafontaine, has just resigned his posts as finance minister and party chairman.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, I wanted to vote in favour of that, but my machine was not working!
<P>
Laughter
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, I only wanted to say that it does not really befit the dignity of this House to greet a domestic political decision with applause.
We ought to bear in mind that such a decision is a matter for the Germans, for the German Federal Government. It is not the concern of this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 NAME="President">
Mr Swoboda, I do not want us to continue this discussion, but it goes without saying that the information that was given is of interest to the House, even though Parliament did not ask for it, since Mr Lafontaine is the current President-in-Office of the Council of Finance Ministers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Goepel">
Mr President, I must nevertheless take the liberty of contradicting Mr Swoboda on that point.
Negotiations are about to take place on the tough conditions presented by the Agriculture Council, and we all know that Mr Lafontaine is President-in-Office in the finance policy sector.
So to that extent, his resignation most definitely affects the European Parliament.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="Bonde and Sandbæk">
We have decided to abstain from voting on the Adam report on trans-European networks.
Trans-European networks are, on the face of it, a sensible arrangement which improves both security of supply and competition in the energy market.
However, there is another side to the coin which people should be aware of, namely that the various energy providers cannot supply on equal terms.
Small, environmentally friendly, decentralised combined power and heating stations, which are owned and run by local interests, cannot be expected to supply electricity at the same price as nuclear power stations and large, coal-fired power plants.
Renewable sources of energy are also uncompetitive because the external costs of the large plants are not included in their prices.
There is therefore a risk, as things stand at present, that a healthy, environmentally friendly development in the power supply industry could be destroyed by the trans-European networks.
The June Movement actively supports the development of environmentally friendly forms of energy, and believes that the Member States should have the opportunity to promote renewable energy with all the means at their disposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="Rovsing">
The extensive reprioritising and expansion of trans-European energy projects which the Commission is proposing is needed to ensure adaptation to the developments in technology and in the energy sector which have taken place since the guidelines were adopted.
Today the EU has an increased need for natural gas projects in particular, as well as for the widening of sources of supply which needs to be ensured.
The Commission's initiative is therefore to be welcomed.
<P>
Robles Piquer report (A4-0085/99)
<SPEAKER ID=185 NAME="Deprez">
If nothing is done, then energy requirements will have doubled in twenty years' time.
We can all imagine the disastrous consequences that such an increase in energy requirements would have for the environment if measures were not taken to considerably increase our use of efficient energy resources that are both renewable and less harmful to the biosphere.
<P>
We therefore need to meet the objectives set at the Kyoto Conference in December 1997.
In order to do this, it is essential to make practical use of the progress made in the field of renewable energy sources and to perfect those sources that have not yet reached the stage where they can be put on the market.
<P>
Strictly from an economic point of view, uncontrolled consumption of non-renewable energy sources in the long term is likely to threaten our security of supply and price stability.
Therefore, we also need to look at the sustainability of economic development when discussing renewable energy sources.
<P>
For many of our countries, intensive use of renewable energy sources is also likely to restore equilibrium to our balance of trade, which has been thrown off course by massive imports of traditional energy sources.
<P>
Finally, at a time when jobs are in short supply, we cannot ignore the fact that renewable energy sources have an employment potential that is two to five times greater than that of traditional energy sources.
I therefore give my unreserved support to the proposal for a Council decision, as amended.
<P>
Bloch von Blottnitz report (A4-0084/99)
<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="Deprez">
In Kyoto, the European Union committed itself to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 8 % compared to 1990 levels before 2012.
<P>
Given the fact that energy consumption in the Member States is set to increase by 50 % in the next 20 years, we need to make an extra special effort in terms of energy efficiency.
Sufficient resources should therefore be allocated for this purpose.
Our rapporteur is concerned about 'the low budget allocated to SAVE II' and says that, as a result, 'the programme's potential is being overestimated.'
<P>
In its opinion, the Committee on Budgets takes the same line.
It stresses that the Union's dependence on energy imports is increasing and goes on to highlight the importance of the SAVE programme, since its objective of saving energy 'will thus reduce this dependency'.
<P>
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection is of the same opinion.
It states the following: 'The Commission proposal on the promotion of energy efficiency is somewhat disappointing.
The measures it contains are far too weak if the targets set at Kyoto are to be anything more than empty words.'
<P>
It is unfortunate that the European Union is not providing itself with the resources needed to achieve its objectives. However, I will support this proposal since, above all, it does at least exist.
But we need the resources to implement the policy.
With this in mind, I would like to highlight another of the conclusions reached by the Committee on Budgets: 'Tax policy can also influence the achievement of these objectives and to this end an agreement should be reached on a common energy and CO2 tax at the first opportunity.'
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 NAME="Titley">
I will be voting in favour of this report today.
The European Union is one of the largest producers of greenhouse gases in the world.
We therefore have a responsibility, not just to ourselves but to the planet as a whole, to encourage greater energy efficiency and cut greenhouse emissions.
We must not fiddle while the earth chokes on our fumes.
<P>
The British Labour Government is leading the way.
Britain was instrumental in securing worldwide agreement to cut greenhouse emissions at the Kyoto Environment Conference in 1997.
Indeed, without the chairmanship skills of the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, the Conference would have produced more hot air than it prevented!
Moreover, yesterday, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, announced new green energy taxes on companies and lower taxes for smaller, more eco-friendly cars.
<P>
This is in sharp contrast to the Tories, who always promoted the Great Car Economy rather than greater control of emissions.
<P>
Britain is well on the way to meeting the commitments it made at the Kyoto Conference.
Britain, however, cannot tackle a global problem alone.
Other EU Member States, the United States and the rest of the industrialised world must also show similar commitment.
Only then will we be able to enter the 21st century confident that future generations will see the 22nd.
<P>
Trakatellis report (A4-0067/99)
<SPEAKER ID=188 NAME="Evans">
I am opposed to any form of subsidy for the tobacco industry.
I believe subsidies of this sort cannot be justified and should be stopped completely.
I have therefore cast my vote in accordance with this principle.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 NAME="Hardstaff">
I and other British Labour members voted against this report because it recommends increasing subsidies for growing tobacco, not in poor countries in regions totally dependent on growing tobacco, but in four of the richest countries in the European Union.
Tobacco-growing subsidies should be phased out, not increased, with support for growers in Objective 1 and 5b areas to assist change to other products.
<P>
Many thousands of European Union citizens die every year and millions suffer years of ill-health due to smoking-related illnesses, discovering too late that the dangers they were warned about in their teens become apparent when they suffer heart attacks and cancer in their 40s, 50s and 60s.
<P>
There is absolutely no justification for continuing to use taxpayers' money to support the growing of tobacco.
Increasing subsidies is completely unacceptable.
Money saved should be diverted into rural development programmes and health promotion programmes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 NAME="Holm">
I am wholly opposed to this report from Mr Trakatellis and the Agriculture Committee, because it wants subsidies for tobacco cultivation to continue in the EU.
I cannot support this, because I do not think that the EU should give money for tobacco cultivation.
On the one hand the support is unreasonably high, and on the other hand tobacco is harmful to health; tens of thousands of people in the EU countries die every year from tobacco smoking.
<P>
At the same time, the EU has programmes encouraging smokers to stop smoking. This contradictory policy must cease.
One cannot give the tobacco growers 10 billion in support at the same time as spending a few hundred million on programmes to encourage people to stop smoking.
<P>
I have instead chosen to support the amendments tabled by Mr Collins and others, calling for the EU's tobacco support to be phased out and to be discontinued completely after a few years.
I consider this to be both reasonable and possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="Lindqvist">
The entire system of support for tobacco must be abolished.
This must take place over a transitional period, however, so that the growers do not suffer economic problems and so that unemployment is not made even worse.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 NAME="Querbes">
I am voting in favour of the amendments proposed by the Trakatellis report on the regulation on leaf tobacco.
<P>
The amendments reaffirm the need to support European tobacco production which, I would like to point out, only represents 23 % of the volume of leaf tobacco consumed by the European processing industry.
<P>
The battle against smoking, which, in my view, is essential, should not involve the reduction or abolition of this production, as some of my colleagues have suggested.
It would be immediately replaced by production from countries outside the European Union, which already account for 95 % of world tobacco production.
<P>
Moreover, this report proposes a greater increase in premiums.
This is doubly justified, firstly, because of the losses that resulted from the withdrawal of the green ecu, for which there is no compensation as it is below 1.98 % - which represents a loss of ECU 1 million for French producers - and secondly, because of the losses suffered over the years when subsidies were not increased to account for inflation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 NAME="Souchet">
The Members belonging to the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations are aware of the importance of tobacco production for the economy of many rural regions.
This production requires a considerable workforce and allows many jobs to be preserved on relatively small farms.
<P>
We are therefore opposed to the amendments proposed by the chairman of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, which seek to eventually abolish the aid granted to the tobacco production industry.
We are all aware of the European Union's low level of self-sufficiency: it only provides 20 % of its own needs, which means that any reduction in aid will lead to a decline in European production to the benefit of tobacco imports from third countries, especially the United States.
<P>
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations voted in favour of Amendment No 5, which provides for full compensation for producers for the negative effects of currency conversions in the transition from the ecu to the euro.
In France, for example, we know that compensation aid and official prices have fallen by 1.9 % for all farmers in the transition to the euro.
This provision obviously requires additional budgetary resources but it preserves the principle of equality.
We regret that, although their income decreased during the 1997-1998 season, farmers were not treated fairly: the challenge of the single currency was more important to some people.
<P>
Amendments Nos 7, 8 and 9 aim to transfer the guarantee thresholds from group III (dark tobacco) to group II (Burley) and group I (Virginia).
Although this transfer does not affect the budget, it encourages production to move towards quality tobacco.
The level of nicotine in dark tobacco, in particular, is higher than that of the other types of tobacco which would benefit from the transfer.
<P>
To conclude, I would also like to make a stand against the principle of gradually reducing agricultural aid, as proposed by the Commission on the basis of a French initiative.
This phased reduction would represent 3 % per year as from 2002.
Taking account of the depreciation of the currency, that would mean that official prices and compensation aid would decrease by around 5 % every year.
Initially, the lowest performing producers will be forced to stop producing and the level of European production will therefore fall.
A uniform phased reduction of 3 % will primarily penalise the sectors of production which receive the most aid, such as tobacco growing.
It is a mistake to think that our producers' productivity gains could compensate for this decrease in compensation aid.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 NAME="Trizza">
The Commission proposal fails to take account of the real conditions and requirements of the COM in the tobacco sector, particularly as regards continued Community support for raw tobacco for social and economic reasons, the promotion of better quality tobacco for health and environmental reasons and the use of a flexible quota system.
Moreover, the Commission proposal does not basically provide for premiums for the tobacco varieties to be redefined, thereby confirming the gradual reduction in real producer income as a result of the failure to make adjustments based on inflation levels in the Community.
<P>
Therefore, I am calling for an increase in the premiums for all varieties of leaf tobacco for the 1999, 2000 and 2001 harvests.
<P>
Finally, I believe that it is necessary to revise the COM in the tobacco sector so as to protect and improve quality production by tailoring it to market requirements; those adjustments should be made in the light of the changes dictated by the reform of the CAP (Agenda 2000) and taking into account the prospects of European enlargement.
<P>
For the above reasons, the non-attached Members will be abstaining in the vote on the report, as we do not consider the content of the report to be a sufficient guarantee that the interests of Italian tobacco producers will be protected.
<P>
Trade dispute concerning bananas
<SPEAKER ID=195 NAME="Correia">
The European Union must react vigorously and oppose the arrogance of the United States of America, which has unilaterally announced that, as of the beginning of March, it will be imposing sanctions (100 % customs duties) on a whole list of European products, even though the final decision of the WTO's banana panel has yet to be announced.
<P>
By already imposing 100 % customs duties on imports, the USA is actively limiting the import of products, threatening the fragile economies of the less favoured countries and regions of the Union.
Europe must stop kow-towing to the USA.
We must have a trading policy commensurate with the European Union's importance in the world.
That is why we are calling on the Commission to use every means at its disposal to oblige the USA to comply with WTO rules.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 NAME="Ford">
I am voting in favour of the joint motion for a resolution on the US imposition of sanctions against EU companies as a consequence of the banana dispute.
<P>
I completely condemn the US's unilateral action and its failure to wait for the decision of the World Trade Organization (WTO) panel on 12 April 1999.
<P>
The US action will cost the EU euro 450m.
It will throw thousands out of work, devastating and blighting the future of all those families and communities in the interests of American multinationals, who appear to buy their influence through donations to American politicians, who are waging an economic war against some of the poorest communities in the Caribbean.
I ask President Clinton and the US Administration to think again and wait for the WTO to rule.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 NAME="Souchet">
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations supported the joint resolution explicitly asking the European Commission to use all the means at its disposal, within the framework of the WTO, to respond to the sanctions put in place by the United States in answer to the banana dispute, which contravene the rules of the multilateral organisation.
As the World Trade Organisation has just confirmed that these sanctions are illegal, the European Union has an urgent duty to respond resolutely to the American attacks.
It is now essential to make the American leaders understand that the European Union and its Member States have the will and the ability to respond harshly to such a direct attack on their interests and their rights.
The absence of a firm and credible reaction from the European Union in other matters has surely been a deciding factor in Washington's decision to opt for a test of strength.
<P>
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations regrets Commissioner Brittan's ambiguous and soft language in a context where the United States is testing our strength and where the European Union must therefore convince them now that it has a real capacity to cause trouble.
Yesterday, in this House, while giving the impression that he was adopting a firm position, the Commissioner basically left open the way for negotiations on a fresh modification of our COM for bananas.
This expectation is unfounded and particularly ill-timed.
As our new COM was drawn up in order to comply with WTO requirements, there is no reason for us to envisage any future adjustments.
Will the Commission not place a little trust in the WTO bodies responsible for resolving disputes?
<P>
While we support the joint resolution, our group would have liked it to have been more emphatic and, in particular, to have asked the Commission to consider introducing a great European 301: the Americans are retaining their instrument despite the fact that they are members of the WTO. Above all, we would have liked to ask the Commission to freeze all programmes and actions associated with the transatlantic partnership as it is clear that this partnership is currently being flouted through the aggressive and illegal attitude of the United States to the banana issue.
On the eve of the 'millennium round negotiations', it is paramount that the European Union and its Member States learn from this crisis and provide their international trade strategy with a new focus based on greater coherence and a greater determination in rejecting any unfair behaviour on the part of the United States.
<P>
Situation in Kosovo
<SPEAKER ID=198 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
<SPEAKER ID=199 NAME="Nordmann">
<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="Delcroix">
<SPEAKER ID=201 NAME="Deprez">
<SPEAKER ID=202 NAME="Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
<SPEAKER ID=203 NAME="Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
<SPEAKER ID=204 NAME="Trizza">
<SPEAKER ID=205 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
Mr President, the idea behind giving aid to improve the safety of nuclear power stations in the applicant countries has always been that they should be shut down completely in the long term.
The trouble is that this has not happened, and there is no sign that it will happen.
Having extended the lifetime of the nuclear power stations with the help of EU aid, the applicant countries now claim that the safety of their nuclear plants has become so good that there is no reason at all to close them down.
The Adam report has not taken this into account.
It does not link aid to the demand for closure in the long term. Nor does it spell out a clear policy for financing the form of energy which will replace the nuclear plants.
On top of that, the nuclear power industry in the West is also having its lifetime extended.
The order book was more or less empty, but with EU money a new and lucrative market has emerged.
The June Movement recognises the right of countries to choose and manage their own forms of energy, including nuclear power.
But under no circumstances will we be party to giving economic aid to maintain nuclear power as an energy source, at the expense of developing more environmentally friendly sources of energy.
The June Movement will indeed vote for a short-term improvement in reactor safety, if it is aimed at phasing out nuclear power.
The Greens' amendments provided for that, but since they were all rejected, we have voted against the Adam report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 NAME="Ahern">
Despite the decline of nuclear power in Europe, the EU continues to waste massive resources on promoting, researching and developing it, via the Euratom Treaty.
It was one of the three original treaties of the European Union, and still maintains the 'atoms for peace' lie in a legal constitutional form, so as to 'permit the advancement of the cause of peace' (recital 1) 'by creating the conditions necessary for the speedy establishment and growth of nuclear industries' (Article 1).
While the European Parliament has a major say on the EU Budget, it has, exceptionally, no real control over the activities which take place under the anachronistic and non-transparent Euratom Treaty.
<P>
The European nuclear industry, having been badly hit by Chernobyl, has turned that around into a business opportunity.
They have made millions of ecu working on nuclear safety projects in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, funded largely by the EU.
However, EU Court of Auditors Special Report No 25/98 on the PHARE-TACIS nuclear safety programmes recently showed that no real safety improvement has taken place, as we have claimed for years (and was shown in a Parliament STOA study commissioned at the initiative of the Greens), so that over 800 MECU have been largely wasted on producing reports.
<P>
And yet, the European Commission is currently considering three safety-related Euratom loans, for the completion of Khmelnitski 2 and Rovno 4 (k2/r4) in Ukraine as part of the Chernobyl closure agreement, for Kallinin unit 3 in Russia and for Kozloduy units 5 & 6 in Bulgaria, all Soviet designed reactors.
These projects neatly illustrate the sort of problems associated with EU enlargement negotiations as far as the safety of nuclear power plants is concerned.
Ukrainian President Kuchma has written that his country originally wanted gas-fired stations as part of the Chernobyl closure deal, but the G7, looking after the interests of their nuclear industries, forced Ukraine to accept the completion of these two VVER 1 000 MW reactors, whose construction had been abandoned after the collapse of the USSR, and which have not been that well preserved in their incomplete state.
<P>
The Least Cost Study on this project carried out by a panel led by Prof. John Surrey of SPRU at Sussex University showed that they were far from least cost, and yet the Commission and G7 continue to press the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to fund these reactors (190 MECU), alongside Euratom's 400 MECU, in breach of all rational procedures, technical and financial concerns.
Energy saving is clearly the least cost investment in Ukraine, where energy intensity is an order of magnitude higher than in the EU, a situation common to the former Eastern bloc states.
<P>
Kozloduy illustrates another crucial aspect of this problem.
Units 1-4 are of the more dangerous VVER 440-230 type, and should be closed forthwith.
Bulgaria made a closure agreement with the Nuclear Safety Account run by the EBRD for the G24 countries in return for finance, but the conditions attached had to be carried out by Bulgaria, allowing them to legitimately extend the closure dates by not meeting those conditions, which they have now done.
<P>
In both cases the interests of the Western nuclear industry takes precedence over everything else, something that must be changed during the rest of the enlargement negotiations - firm dates without escape clauses for the reactors are essential as a pre-condition for entry to the EU.
It is of course worth noting that there are equally dangerous nuclear installations in the EU, such as the UK Magnox reactors, which have no secondary containment, not to mention all of the unstable high-level waste and other dangerous materials associated with the UK and French reprocessing plants (something not found in Eastern Europe).
<P>
Nuclear power will leave a heritage of nuclear waste, for tens of thousands of generations to come.
But, a more subtle heritage is to be found in the permanently altered genetic stock of every living thing on the planet.
Atmospheric nuclear weapons testing was the first of many reckless activities to spread radio-isotopes all over the planet, which is why the military scientists made sure that radiations standards were set at an unreasonably high level, so as to avoid consequent claims against the weapons states that they had compromised the health of the human race.
This problem is still with us today, as the science is manipulated, prevented or simply neglected, which shows that despite the reductions in levels, they are still way too high, as was demonstrated in a Parliament workshop initiated by the Greens, the basis of a STOA study published on this matter.
What is worse, the Radiation Standards Directive (Euratom/96/29), which should protect the public and workers as from 2000, actually has features which facilitates the dilution and recycling of radioactive waste, so that consumer products might even contain these materials and no one would know.
A radical revision is urgently needed, before these materials are released.
And the new areas of radiation protection research need to be urgently pursued by the EU, such as Genomic Instability and DNA mini-satellite research, so that we find out the long-term effects of low-level exposure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="Fitzsimons">
Since 1999, nuclear power has been an important issue for the European Union's relations with the Central and Eastern European countries and the new independent states.
It is essential that in the new enlargement process nuclear safety is put at the heart of the negotiations.
Agenda 2000, the European Commission's Framework for the Development of the European Union, states that most of the power stations operating in the applicant countries are still using Soviet technology and do not meet international safety standards.
<P>
From an EU perspective, reactors are placed in three categories: reactors of Western design, reactors of Soviet design and unsafe reactors.
The European Commission must agree to an energy strategy for each of these countries under partnership and cooperation agreements in which provision is made for the closure of unsafe nuclear reactors at an agreed date.
<P>
While the initial assessment by the European Commission and the Agenda 2000 programme is not sufficiently detailed, the Mochovce plant in Slovakia which is still operating must be singled out for special attention.
If this plant is to meet international safety standards, together with other nuclear installations in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Bulgaria, modernisation programmes will take at least seven to ten years to ensure that the highest environmental and public health standards are met.
Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia also have to find solutions for the storage of the nuclear waste that they produce.
<P>
All these problems are broad in their implications for the European Union and we must ensure that no enlargement of EU takes place until we are sure that the nuclear plants operating in the applicant countries meet the highest international safety standards.
This is not going to be a particularly easy task.
For example, it is now fourteen years since the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl.
It is hard to believe that this nuclear plant is still a key supplier of energy needs for the people of Ukraine.
<P>
It is clear that Western finances will still be needed to close this nuclear plant down once and for all.
The overall cost involved in ensuring that no further environmental or public health affects arise from the plant is estimated at £1.7 billion.
This is designed to ensure that the two reactors which are still functioning at Chernobyl are safely closed down and defused.
<P>
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development will have a role in this process and I welcome the fact that they have contributed close to $ 200 million last year alone to help the Ukrainian Government to close down the Chernobyl Plant in the near future
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 NAME="Holm">
There is no doubt that growing numbers of people have a great sense of insecurity as regards nuclear power in the EU countries, in the Central and Eastern European countries and in the New Independent States alike.
Retrogressive nuclear policies are increasingly being abandoned, a process which has led amongst other things to decisions by Sweden and Germany to begin the phasing-out of nuclear power.
It would be more than desirable if the Central and Eastern European countries and the New Independent States did the same.
<P>
The report from Mr Adam and the Energy Committee contains several points which, in my opinion, tend in the opposite direction (encouragement instead of the phasing-out of nuclear power).
For example, the nuclear power industry in the EU countries is encouraged to continue its activities in the countries concerned.
I consider on the contrary that the EU must provide economic support to help those countries commit themselves to moving away from nuclear power.
In this context, the economically stronger EU countries must offer help.
<P>
I have misgivings with regard to the assistance programmes addressed by the report, in view of the problems which have arisen hitherto in the EU's assistance programmes, on which the Court of Auditors presented a report last year.
The problems seem to be very wide-ranging, and the money which the EU had set aside has not brought about any noticeable improvements.
This is a serious matter, and the EU should consider how support for the phasing-out of nuclear power and support for renewable energy and efficient use of energy should be formulated in order to produce tangible results.
<P>
Finally, in the vote I have supported all the amendments which we tabled in the Green Group and which are of great importance for the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 NAME="Rovsing">
Improving the safety of and eventually shutting down reactors in nuclear power stations in the applicant countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the New Independent States is a key element in the strategy for enlargement, because it touches on safety and public health in the whole of Europe.
There is an acute need for initiatives in a number of areas, both in terms of improving the safety of existing reactors and the construction of new power stations, as well as introducing safety standards and the monitoring of compliance with such standards by effective supervisory authorities.
<P>
I believe that our committee and rapporteur have succeeded in producing a very thorough report on nuclear safety in Central and Eastern Europe.
I am convinced that its conclusions will be able to serve as a significant contribution to the decisions to be made in this area in the years ahead.
<P>
Stockmann report (A4-0086/99)
<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="Deprez">
Everyone now agrees that achieving the objectives set in Kyoto with regard to the reduction of greenhouse gases will be beneficial from three angles: the economy, the environment and preserving health.
<P>
It is also clear that it will only be possible to achieve the Kyoto objectives if the European Union and the Member States use all the levers available to them in the context of a global strategy. We will be able to judge how effective this strategy is precisely by looking at quantifiable parameters.
<P>
With this dual perspective, we welcome the publication of the Commission's White Paper, 'An energy policy for the European Union'.
This document seems to represent a good foundation on which the Commission can build in order to establish the legal tool needed to effectively implement the global strategy.
<P>
It is therefore within this general framework that the Member States must clarify their objectives, according to the type of energy and the economic sector, and they must be monitored regularly by the Commission. Particular attention must be paid to the construction and transport sectors, where considerable energy savings can be made.
<P>
From this point of view, I think it is appropriate to also give priority to the new methods of transferring information. Developing such methods could possibly help solve the traffic jams that congest our cities and that are so costly, both in financial and economic terms, but also in terms of the environment and public health.
<P>
Fourçans report (A4-0102/99)
<SPEAKER ID=211 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR), Eriksson, Seppänen, Sjöstedt and Svensson (GUE/NGL), Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling (V), Bonde and Sandbæk (I-EDN)">
A natural consequence of the introduction of the euro is that the euro countries will be compelled to follow a uniform economic policy.
There is nothing surprising about that, but it explains, amongst other things, why we believe the euro is a political instrument for closer integration.
Individual Member States should insist on following their own economic policies, including their own policies on tax, VAT and employment.
The heart of state sovereignty is having independent instruments to manage the economy.
With the euro, the states have to give up this right and subordinate themselves to the interests of the Union, thereby undermining what is best for the individual state.
The EU should not meddle with the economic instruments of the Member States.
Monetary union and a central bank will not be able to survive in the long run unless they are controlled by a common government and a common parliament.
Therefore, monetary union must either be followed by a new leap towards political integration or perish.
<P>
In principle, we believe that voluntary coordination of economic policies and currency cooperation between the Member States could be an excellent idea, but this report does not prepare the way for voluntary coordination.
On the contrary, it maintains that the Member States should be committed to coordinating fiscal policy (paragraph 43).
The report calls for systematic coordination of the taxation of enterprises, capital and energy.
We do not think the EU should be deciding macro-economic goals and instruments, which are the essence of democracy in the Member States.
<P>
We are therefore voting against this report.
However, we do share the report's concerns about the global economic crisis.
We endorse the report's criticism of the EU's inability to fight European unemployment, which has admittedly fallen, but is still very high.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="Theonas">
The Commission regards the growth of the European economy over the past year as broadly positive, although it appears rather worried about the repercussions of the international economic and financial crisis. It acknowledges that these repercussions are already visible in the economy of the European Union, and forecasts a slowdown in growth for 1999.
The conclusion it has reached on what should happen is based on the well-known logic of unilateral austerity, further reducing financial deficits and the public debt, and strengthening anti-inflationary policy.
<P>
The Commission fails to mention that the stifling restrictions on national budgets will limit the scope for action in the event of the crisis deepening.
It fails to explain why, despite ever-increasing returns on investments, increased profits, reduced labour costs and low interest rates, there has been no stimulation of private investment.
<P>
The Commission and the report by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy both call for measures to reverse the downward trend in public investment.
But how will this come about, when the scope for action is extremely restricted as a result of the obligations deriving from the Treaty on European Union and the stability and growth pact?
Our fear is that this will lead to a reorganisation of budget infrastructure, resulting in further cuts in social spending.
<P>
We are particularly concerned by the attempt to bring about closer links between the procedure for approving general economic measures and the policy on employment.
While admitting that the EU and Member States have failed to tackle unemployment, the Commission is further subjecting wage policy and the other aspects of employment policy to the requirements of the Maastricht criteria and the stability and growth pact.
A typical example of its hypocrisy is that we were initially told that adding a chapter on employment to the Treaty would solve the problem.
Subsequently, we were told that the process to implement the relevant provisions was to begin.
Then we were told about special measures that were to be decided upon at the European Council meeting in Vienna. Now we are being told to wait for the European Employment Pact, but although this is now at the drafting stage, it merely covers the same ground as the German action plan on employment.
It is clear that the idea of greater convergence of the political choices made in terms of the general direction of economic policies and employment policies, as called for by the Commission and by the majority of those in the European Parliament, is resulting in more job opportunities in the sense of an increase in part-time and atypical forms of employment, as well as an undesirable restructuring of the social security system.
Moreover, the two reports that were published by the Commission on structural policies, known as Cardiff I and II, call for greater flexibility and for greater changes to be made in labour relations and in the labour market, which the Commission regards as the extra key ingredient in our macro-economic endeavours.
We are also seeing that almost all new jobs are part time, while the number of full-time jobs is falling.
<P>
The Commission has failed to state that it will take decisive initiatives at international level in order to limit the movement of capital for profit and to promote productive investment.
We call on the Commission to include in the next round of multilateral negotiations the problems created for international monetary and financial stability by the unchecked movements of capital, and to promote the adoption of measures such as the Tobin tax.
<P>
It is painfully evident to the people of Europe that the policy currently being followed will get us nowhere.
It is clear that there is no future for the deception perpetrated on the people of Europe through insipid debates about employability and entrepreneurship.
With increasing force and coordination, the people of Europe are demanding specific measures in favour of full-time, stable employment, budgets for the redistribution of income in favour of working people, an end to the scandalous impunity enjoyed by multinationals, a totally different policy in Europe, and that the Member States should pave the way for sweeping changes which will promote peace, progress and social prosperity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 NAME="President">
That concludes voting time.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
EU relations with Central Asia (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=214 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on the report by Mr Truscott and the recommendation by Mrs André-Léonard.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="André-Léonard">
Mr President, I would simply like to inform the House that this morning I said that some people had been arrested during the riots on 16 February, including Mrs Akedova, who is one of the leaders of a human rights association.
I have just received a quite alarming telegram informing me that one thousand arrests have been made since then.
<P>
As the Uzbek Ambassador is honouring us with his presence in the gallery, I would like him to be our messenger to Mr Karimov and to ask him for clemency for these one thousand people who have been arbitrarily arrested.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 NAME="Oddy">
Mr President, I should like to congratulate the two rapporteurs in this joint debate.
I have been a member of the Central Asian Delegation for the last two years and was privileged to visit Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan with the European Parliament Delegation in May 1997.
This is an exotic destination for Europeans with its image of the 'silk route'.
I was particularly struck by the warmth and friendship for Europeans expressed by the people we met.
<P>
We visited the Aral Sea and saw at first hand the environmental problems that exist.
We also learned of the economic problems of those landlocked countries and the difficulties of transition from Soviet domination to independence and the change to a market economy.
I have recently learned from the ambassadors at the last meeting that the problems have increased with the collapse of the Russian rouble.
<P>
However, I must point out that there are considerable human rights problems in Central Asia as was vividly expressed by Mr Truscott this morning, although the extent of the problems varies from country to country.
Consequently, although I give the interim agreements a cautious welcome I must ask that the Commission to remain vigilant on human rights and, whenever possible, continue to point out to the respective countries the need to observe human rights properly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="Tindemans">
I should like to congratulate Mr Truscott on his excellent work and on the way in which he has accommodated the various opinions which have been delivered.
I had the honour of drafting the opinion of the Committee on External Economic Relations, and he took full account of the recommendations I made, which can really be summed up in one proposal.
The Commission's proposals are very good, but we in the Committee on External Economic Relations would stress that they need to be incorporated into an overall policy, so that the infrastructure work, communications, pipelines, roads - everything that has been planned to help open up the countries of Central Asia and enable them to become part of a modern economy - will be dealt with all together rather than in isolation to create a genuine basis for their development.
This proposal was accepted without amendment.
The rapporteur said he was happy with it and the text before the House therefore takes due account of it.
I think this is an excellent example of cooperation between different committees and rapporteurs, for which I should like to thank Mr Truscott once again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=218 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Camisón Asensio">
As chairman of Parliament's delegation for relations with these Central Asian states, I would like to sincerely congratulate the two rapporteurs, Mrs André-Léonard and Mr Truscott, as I have witnessed the excellent and, above all, meticulous work they have carried out.
<P>
For my part, I have also seen that in some of these states, or in practically all of them, there is a clear lack of democracy and respect for human rights. If pressed, we can appreciate how difficult the transition to a free regime and a market economy can be.
But I have always defended the theory that the important thing is that these countries did not stop working towards these freedoms, rather they were heading in the right direction to a greater or lesser degree.
It would have been unfair to ask these countries to behave in the same way as our consolidated Western democracies.
There has been a certain lack of understanding and it is clear that the development we wished to see is indeed taking place.
It is perhaps slow, but it is happening nonetheless.
I am therefore delighted to see that, in the text of the recommendation on Uzbekistan, the rapporteur explicitly welcomes the efforts made by the authorities there to strengthen democracy and respect for human rights. I am also pleased that the report by Mr Truscott welcomes the progress that has been made towards establishing a functioning democracy along the terms set out in the CSCE documents.
<P>
Moreover, we must not forget that the guarantee of democracy also comes into play as soon as the corresponding partnership and cooperation agreements include a conditional clause linking such cooperation to democratic principles, human rights and the rules of the market economy.
As regards developing these principles, the government of Uzbekistan has stressed that it is willing to make progress in this field. And as proof of this, it cites the fact that offices of the OSCE, Human Rights Watch and the Uzbekistan National Centre for Human Rights have already been opened and that an ombudsman has been appointed.
<P>
What is more, an excessive delay in ratifying such an agreement could cause problems during the country's transition to democracy. And the importance of this country for Europe in terms of energy is very clear from a socioeconomic perspective.
<P>
Therefore, Mr President, we support the recommendation and the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, partnership agreements such as the ones we are discussing do have conditions attached.
The countries that sign up to them must be prepared to tread the right path towards democracy and human rights.
Ten years ago, no one knew where Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan or Kazakhstan were; perhaps if you had read the book 'The Courier of the Tsar' you might know where Central Asia began, but not where it ended.
This is why I think it is a good thing that now, ten years after the Wall came down and what we called the Russian bear disappeared, we politicians can blithely say 'these countries are going to do this and this'.
I therefore wholeheartedly endorse Mrs André-Léonard's report on the partnership agreement.
<P>
We also support the Commission communication on the whole of Central Asia.
The agreement on intensive human rights dialogue will be a way of both encouraging and checking up on the countries in question, which are to be actively monitored and advised.
Should they relapse, we can always suspend the agreement, although I would not recommend this.
We must be patient in view of their history and the ground they need to make up socially, for whatever reason.
Some of us may have known where Uzbekistan was, but I find it a liberating experience to be able to find out about this huge area of our planet in this way.
I should like to thank both rapporteurs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, may I say to my colleague Mr Bertens that we should not always judge others by our own standards.
We have an important responsibility, which arose, of course, when the Wall came down, for the East and for ensuring that its difficult transformation process leads to the development of democracy and stability.
For that reason, I am inclined to wonder about the real motive behind the interest of the European Union in close relations with the states of the East.
When I examine the Commission documents, the Council statement and even the Truscott report, I begin to doubt whether the issue is really the stable development of these countries or whether it is all about their natural resources.
Are we more interested in those countries' natural resources than in the future of their people?
<P>
That is why one of the key issues for me concerns the ways in which this partnership and cooperation agreement with Uzbekistan and comparable agreements with other states actually affect stability and the balanced social and economic development of these countries.
I have my doubts there as far as the exploitation of natural resources is concerned.
For that reason, I attach paramount importance to the human rights and democracy clause, because democracy is an absolutely categorical imperative if difficulties in the transformation process are to be properly overcome.
The population must be involved; employees must have a say.
For the second time today, I am led to wonder about the value of this human rights clause if there is no way of penalising violations of human rights, if such violations are simply condoned as before, and if the human rights clause cannot be used to guarantee the creation of genuinely democratic and stable structures in the country in question.
<P>
So here is the situation: we have no clear division of powers, we have problems with free and fair elections, we have huge problems with freedom of the press, the death penalty is still on the statute book, we have criminal trials against opposition newspapers, against journalists, against interest groups and against demonstrators.
That is the problem.
To my mind, the question we have to ask the Commission once again is whether this agreement is really the answer, or should we not actually be doing far, far more for these countries?
<P>
That is why I think it prudent for us, before we ratify this agreement, to reconsider which measures are actually in place to stabilise this region.
I should also like to remind the House that we also have an obligation under the Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.
We must ensure that the requirements of that Convention are satisfied before we can recognise these states as reliable partners.
The same clause is contained in the partnership and cooperation agreement.
We cannot rubber-stamp the agreement before the proper conditions are created.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, the new states of Central Asia are particularly fragile.
Their populations are not homogenous.
They cannot rely on state traditions as they are emerging states that up until now have only been Empire dependencies.
They are used as a channel by the drug rings, and they have to assert their existence in a highly dangerous international environment.
They are caught between Russia, which is the former dominant power and which still has a considerable interest in the area, Turkey, whose ambition is still to be the leader of a great, Turkish-speaking Central Asia, and Pakistan, which supports a plan for a great, fundamentalist Afghanistan, on the basis of the particularly dangerous tool of militant Islamism, just as Iran does.
<P>
We must of course be vigilant with regard to respect for human rights in all regions, but if we judge these countries solely by normal human rights standards, we are in danger of condemning ourselves to powerlessness and ineffectiveness, which other countries such as the United States know how to avoid.
We must be capable of looking beyond the rulers of the Soviet era who are still in place, the powerful mafias and the nomenklatura seeking to go on for ever.
<P>
We must also take account of the encouraging fact that, apart from the tragic events in Tajikstan, these countries are not ravaged by civil wars and there is a tradition of secularism which could form a barrier against the spread of Islam.
<P>
It is therefore better not to subject the implementation of partnership agreements with these countries to conditions that would deprive us of any form of influence.
We have seen that postponing the agreements is ineffective.
It would be more appropriate to provide ourselves with specific tools for action, which must be closely coordinated, under the auspices of the Council, with the Union's other instruments for external action and with the bilateral policies of the Member States.
That, Mr President, is the price of effectiveness.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, by ratifying the partnership and cooperation agreement between the EU and Uzbekistan, the European Parliament will send an encouraging signal to the Republic of Uzbekistan, which became an independent entity in 1991.
It is a country that is suffering from the effects of the Russian crisis as well as having felt the full impact of the fall in raw material prices, as is rightly noted in this report.
<P>
It must be recognised that the government of Uzbekistan has taken some steps to improve the human rights situation by admitting an observer from the OSCE and by appointing an ombudsman.
The continuing existence of the death penalty and the atrocious conditions in the country's prisons, however, show that there is still a huge gap between our expectations and the situation on the ground.
By conferring its approval, the European Parliament is also recognising the will of the government, which has at least been documented for the outside world, to improve the human rights situation in this part of Central Asia.
<P>
The fact that the Commission report calls for Parliament to be presented with an annual report on democracy and human rights and for the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy to be kept informed of developments is a sign that Uzbekistan has a long way to go before it can complete the process of democratisation and stabilisation.
<P>
We still have grounds for concern, not only on account of the ethnic tensions that keep flaring up between Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, but also because of the Ferghana Valley, which has to be regarded as a potential trouble spot.
The partition of the valley among three states after the collapse of the Soviet Union has fuelled ethnic conflicts.
The region is far from having overcome the destabilisation and general economic depression that resulted from the partition of this valley, which was one of the most fertile and densely populated in the region.
<P>
Another cause for concern is the fact that the Ferghana Valley, as well as being a tourist centre, is also a hotbed of drug trafficking and internationally organised crime and a breeding-ground for Islamic fundamentalism.
The brutal bombings on 16 January of this year illustrate how tense the situation remains.
Indeed, it was the most serious act of violence in Central Asia since Uzbekistan became independent.
The way in which it was carried out suggests very thorough organisation, although the Karemov government has been anxious to play down the incident.
We believe that stabilisation can only be achieved if the TACIS programmes are used in pursuit of specific targets and if the ethnic conflicts are defused.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="de Silguy">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the joint debate today highlights the particular importance that Parliament attaches to the issue of human rights in all the countries of Central Asia and particularly in Uzbekistan.
<P>
The Commission welcomes the decision by your rapporteur, Mrs André-Léonard, to ratify the cooperation and partnership agreement with Uzbekistan.
Continuing to veto this agreement would have penalised the country and would have had the involuntary yet negative effect of reducing the level of protection of human rights.
It would also have had a negative effect on the process of transition to democracy, as Mr Camisón Asensio has just pointed out.
<P>
Unlike the trade and cooperation agreement and the interim agreement that have been applied up until now to bilateral relations between the Union and Uzbekistan, this new partnership and cooperation agreement will enable us to directly tackle the issue of human rights through political dialogue.
This partnership agreement will provide a structural framework for political dialogue and will also cover economic, commercial and cultural matters.
<P>
In answer to your rapporteur, Mrs André-Léonard, I can confirm that Mr van den Broek is committed to discussing the issue of human rights at the various bilateral meetings, and particularly during his next visit to Tashkent at the end of March.
He will report back to you on this, as you requested this morning, Mrs André-Léonard.
<P>
Uzbekistan is currently experiencing difficult times, as Mr Rübig reminded us a moment ago.
From an economic point of view, the fall in the price of cotton - which is its main export in terms of raw materials - is largely responsible for the deterioration in its balance of trade.
From a political point of view, the wave of explosive attacks on Tashkent demonstrates the fragility and sensitivity of the situation on the ground.
<P>
Mr van den Broek immediately wrote to the President of Uzbekistan to offer his condolences to the families of the victims, but also to remind him that the legitimate search for the perpetrators of the attacks should be carried out with full respect for individual rights.
<P>
Mrs André Léonard, a moment ago, you mentioned that the Uzbek Ambassador was here to listen to your debates and I would like to welcome him this evening.
Allow me, on behalf of the Commission, to reiterate the appeal you made to him.
<P>
Despite these problems, the Uzbek Government is working to step up the economic reforms and to improve the protection of human rights.
The recent contacts that we have had with the authorities have highlighted their determination to continue along this path.
<P>
Secondly, I would like to comment on Mr Truscott's report.
This report relates to the 1995 Commission communication and also focuses on the issue of human rights.
In particular, it draws a comparison between all the Central Asian republics and the Commission shares your rapporteur's concerns.
<P>
However, I would like to point out that, as in the case of Uzbekistan, all the partnership and cooperation agreements provide the legal framework and, in my opinion, a basis and an appropriate structure to look at the issue of human rights with the countries concerned.
This is the reason behind the political dialogue, which, for the first time in the Union's bilateral relations with these countries, is officially laid down in each agreement.
Mr van den Broek will keep you closely informed of the development of the situation in the area, as Mr Truscott also requested this morning.
<P>
Furthermore, in relation to Uzbekistan, but also in relation to Kazakhstan and Kyrghyzstan, the 1998-1999 national TACIS programmes envisage projects that will facilitate the implementation of these partnership and cooperation agreements.
In this respect, the Commission has made it clear that the priority is to promote democracy within the society, including by helping with the preparation of elections.
<P>
Moreover, in the context of these partnership and cooperation agreements, a parliamentary cooperation committee will be set up for each country.
This will allow for direct discussions between the representatives of the parliaments of each of the Central Asian republics and the European Parliament.
In this way, Parliament will itself be able to bring up the issue of the protection of human rights in an appropriate context and increase its control over the bilateral relations between the Union and the Central Asian countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr de Silguy.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Community Customs Code
<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0080/99) by Mr Paasilinna, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Regulation (EC) amending Council Regulation (EEC) No 2913/92 establishing the Community Customs Code (COM(98)0226 - C4-0370/98-98/0134(COD)).
<P>
I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mr Paasilinna.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are here to discuss a Commission proposal to change the basic regulation governing the Community Customs Code.
The Commission's aim has been to simplify and rationalise the customs regulation, which is certainly justified, as it contains a total of 253 articles and innumerable subparagraphs and repeals at least 28 legal instruments in use before the regulation came into force.
This jungle of legislation has sprouted such an impenetrable thicket of clauses and paragraphs that presumably only a few people in the Union have a complete command of its content.
However the proposal still does not manage to any significant extent to fulfill the Commission's objectives to clarify the rules, which is unfortunate.
To keep legislation complicated and abstruse is to wield power: when people are unable to understand laws they must obey, power falls into the hands of those professionally equipped to interpret the law.
As Parliament will not now approve all the proposals, the matter will obviously be dealt with later by the Conciliation Committee, possibly while Finland holds the presidency.
<P>
The Customs Code has a significant impact on Community trade policy, especially agricultural policy, where traditional agricultural taxation has in fact become customs duty.
The Code likewise affects indirect taxation, because it is still used to apply VAT to products imported from third countries.
Furthermore, the rules affect Community anti-fraud policy in the context of the transit system, as security factors have now been included in the rules to be applied.
The Code is also a tool for compiling trade statistics, and it therefore affects statistics on foreign trade.
<P>
I have amended the Commission's proposal concerning the use of data-processing techniques for making customs declarations.
My amendment has been approved by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, and I hope that it will also be approved here in the House.
In my own country, as in many other Member States, it is important that the use of electronic customs declarations should be established once and for all, and accompanying documents should also not be submitted in paper form.
Using electronic media will speed up the work of the customs authorities and make it more effective.
One very serious problem in the European Union is that the customs authorities in the different Member States are still not in full, real-time contact with one another.
On the other hand, it would appear that our adversaries, that is to say the criminals, are quite capable of keeping in contact.
I would therefore ask the Commission what stage the computerisation of the customs declaration system has reached, to make it less likely to be breached than is the case today.
With customs clearance, as with electronic commerce, for example, the parallel churning out of hard-copy documentation is harming the electronic system and preventing its development as part of the move towards rationalisation, efficiency and sustainability.
<P>
I also did not agree with the Commission's proposal in relation to Article 5 on direct and indirect representation to customs agents.
According to estimates, this would mean that some twenty thousand customs agents would lose their jobs, and, furthermore, there would be less reliability and more fraud, especially in southern Member States.
The committee agreed with me on this.
<P>
I would ask you to look especially closely at Amendment No 13.
I still propose the addition of a new Article 1(21a), as supported by my group in my original proposal.
It relates to the ultimate origin of goods in relation to preferential status, and the question of bona fide operations.
In it I propose that if a certificate issued by the authorities of a non-member country proves to be incorrect, no tax penalty should be imposed solely on the importer acting in good faith.
My proposed amendment will make the situation easier for labour-intensive SMEs, especially, and will allow the risk to be distributed.
It was a close result, but the committee voted to grant extremely broad protection to the importer, with the consequence that the Community, to which revenue is due, would have to bear the whole risk rather than it being fairly distributed.
Now I have discovered that Mrs Peijs, who tabled Amendment No 9 which was approved by the committee, is withdrawing it, so we can now support this new article which I have just described and which is, I believe, a sufficiently good compromise between the Commission's proposal and Mrs Peijs's amendment.
If the Community loses resources as a result of criminal activity, it is obviously always the taxpayers in the Member States who will have to make good the shortfall in the end.
For this reason the Community must have the means to intervene in criminal operations or abuse on the part of exporters and the authorities in exporting countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="Ferrer">
Mr President, the Community Customs Code is instrumental in the Union's commercial policy and is an essential tool in completing the internal market and in protecting the EU's financial interests.
There is no doubt that we must continue to revise customs regulations and procedures and to adapt them to the new situations that arise. In this way, we will eliminate possible judicial or procedural gaps.
<P>
If there is a new situation that emphasises the need to amend the present Code, then it is without doubt the gradual growth of the Community's trade. This growth is due to the progressive opening up of the markets and developments in the information society.
These are changes that require the Code to be updated with a view to simplifying and streamlining it so that it is more in step with the new realities. Therefore, the Committee on External Economic Relations welcomes the Commission's proposal for amendment as it agrees with its philosophy.
<P>
However, its specific content is far removed from the measures proposed. The Commission realises that wanting to improve efficiency is not enough and that a better balance must also be guaranteed between the much-needed simplification and modernisation of procedures it proposes and the fight against fraud.
In fact, in the context of the gradual liberalisation of the markets and taking into account the system of preferences the Union has established with many third countries, and with the ACP countries in particular, it is all the more vital to have legal instruments available to help combat forgery and fraud. And we must also ensure that the rules of origin are applied, particularly where preferential and non-preferential rules are concerned.
<P>
At the same time, and in view of the abolition of customs barriers between Member States due to the completion of the internal market, it is all the more essential to establish effective control measures that guarantee the uniform application of customs procedures throughout the Community. In this way, we will avoid any gaps that might encourage fraud and crime.
<P>
However, the Commission's text does not contain any proposals that take these aspects into consideration, aspects that could be of the utmost importance.
To fill in the gaps, I have tabled two amendments, Amendment Nos 14 and 15, that include the conclusions of the opinion that the Committee on External Economic Relations approved unanimously. And I should like to bring these amendments to the attention of the House and the Commission and ask you to vote in favour of them.
<P>
In fact, what we are discussing here is allowing goods declarations to be submitted in electronic form. Nonetheless, we are still maintaining the obligation - and I do mean the obligation - for all goods declarations that are submitted electronically to be accompanied by the relevant supporting documents, which may also be submitted in electronic form.
In addition, we are discussing the idea that customs authorities must adopt control measures to guarantee the correct and uniform application of Community rules throughout the Union.
It is only in doing this that we will be able to implement genuinely effective control measures to combat all fraud and forgery.
<P>
In accepting these amendments, we will not only send out an unmistakeable signal from the Union on the fight against fraud; we will also help improve the competitiveness of businesses and, as a result, promote economic growth and job creation within the Community.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 NAME="Bardong">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to express my appreciation of Mr Paasilinna's report and my gratitude for the inclusion of many amendments that were proposed by the Committee on Budgetary Control.
In our opinion, the Commission is seeking to transfer too many legislative powers to the committee.
It is gratifying that both of our committees want to change that.
Having said that, I should like to focus the remainder of my remarks on one point, a point which, in my view and in the view of the Committee on Budgetary Control, relates to an extremely serious problem.
More than 50 % of all goods imported into the European Union are subject to what are known as preferential tariff arrangements.
Certificates of origin must be presented for all these goods.
There is undoubtedly a temptation to present false certificates with a view to paying as little customs duty as possible.
These manipulations do not only defraud the Union of budgetary resources; they are naturally perpetrated at the expense of honest producers and importers too.
When such manipulations occur, the Community Customs Code provides for the possibility of waiving the liability to customs duty if the exporter has been dealt with in good faith.
<P>
Two of the rapporteur's amendments - No 9 and No 13 - relate to this point.
The Committee on Budgetary Control, though grateful for the adoption of several of its own amendments, feels that these two amendments run directly counter to its interests.
They are formulated in excessively lax or generalised terms.
If they were adopted with this wording, all importers or exporters - whether Amendment No 9 only refers to exporters and Amendment No 13 only to importers - would be able to assert that they had acted in good faith.
That is too lax, it is too dangerous, especially since our fraud prevention unit UCLAF has to cover the entire European Union with only a small number of officials to investigate suspicious cases.
The risk of being convicted for a false declaration is too slight.
<P>
I would therefore ask the rapporteur to reconsider his Amendments Nos 9 and 13 and to withdraw them if possible, otherwise he will be opening the doors to fraud on an even grander scale.
<P>
Besides, we have information that the Council and the Commission are working on a more precise form of wording to define what good faith is and what may not be regarded as good faith.
The future blacklists may also be seen in connection with the certificates of origin.
I therefore strongly recommend that Amendments Nos 9 and 13 should be reconsidered and, if possible, withdrawn.
We cannot subscribe to them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in 1997 alone, a total of ECU 13.6 million was collected in customs duties.
That corresponds to 86.4 % of the Union's traditional own resources.
It is a well-known fact that customs duties constitute the only real tax revenue in the EU budget.
The current debate on net contributors and recipients underlines the importance of applying the Community customs system effectively and efficiently.
For that reason, we are very favourably disposed to the report before us.
It must also be said, however, that legal stipulations naturally have to apply in equal measure to import checks and export checks.
It is surely illogical to make a distinction.
<P>
The crux of the matter, however, concerns the liability for erroneous certification of the origin of a product.
The question is whether the European importer or the exporter from outside the EU is liable for the appearance on a certificate of origin of false information resulting from an error by the overseas authorities.
We believe that efforts should be made to introduce the proposed electronic procedures at an early date and to ensure that they are efficient and, above all, easy to set up, because to my mind the current proposal is too complicated.
A distinction should also be made between sensitive goods and normal or mixed cargoes, because detailed checks are most probably impracticable in such cases.
<P>
It is conceivable that these mistakes could be caused by errors made by the exporting companies or by the authorities of non-EU states, but they could also be the result of fraudulent transactions.
That is why care should be taken to design forgery-proof documents, to use rubber stamps with various unknown colours of ink, to introduce digital signatures and in particular to ensure that a note is made of the departure time of consignments and their destination, so that customs checks can reveal precisely when the goods left and where they were delivered and so that any discrepancies in the timings can be very efficiently investigated.
<P>
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, for its part, is proposing that importers should only be held liable if they are found to be personally responsible in whole or in part for the production of false certificates of origin.
If, however, the certificates of origin are falsified as a result of malpractice on the part of the exporter or the foreign authorities, any importer who has observed the rules must be excluded from liability.
If we had a sensible set of rules, we could rid the trading system of an enormous additional burden.
The importer must be able to rely on the authenticity of a certificate.
It is up to the politicians to organise the system accordingly.
It would be unreasonable to require importers to conduct their own investigations, particularly in cases where there is no reason to doubt the authenticity of the certificate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, with a proposal that is incomprehensible and totally without foundation, the Commission is seeking to amend Article 5 of the Community Customs Code in a way that we believe will be the death knell for a sector which is already suffering unemployment and underemployment.
<P>
It should be noted that in 1993, with the abolition of internal borders, this particular sector suffered job losses in excess of 80 or 85 %.
The Commission is now proposing to abolish the alternative possibility available to each Member State to make its own choice between direct or indirect customs representation, according to its financial needs.
This possibility was established several decades ago, it has stood the test of time, and it has been shown to function smoothly, since it gives each Member State the opportunity to take into account the particular aspects of its own customs area and to promote the proper, responsible, speedy and cost-effective handling of customs operations.
<P>
The duties of customs agents demand technical expertise and require an in-depth knowledge of customs legislation to enable customs agents to categorise goods according to their customs classification and to determine the level of duties and taxes.
Because of the criteria for entry into the profession and the personal qualities required - professional ability, reliability and presence of mind - customs agents are now on a par with those who work in the customs authority. They contribute to combating fraud and help to ensure a swift flow of traffic through the timely release of goods.
They also reduce the cost of storage and distribution of goods, to the benefit both of competitiveness and the smooth flow of external trade.
<P>
The Commission is invoking the argument of reduced competition and the infringement of the principle of freedom to provide services.
However, this is an unfounded argument, because on the one hand, customs agents are self-employed, they do not have a collective tariff, and they are in competition with each other. On the other hand, the users of customs services can either carry out the necessary formalities with the customs authorities themselves, or they can be represented by a method which, in accordance with national legislation, is not the sole prerogative of customs agents.
The arguments deployed by the Commission are fanciful, untenable and arbitrary.
There is not a single quantitative study to support its curious claims.
The report by Mr Paasilinna, whom I congratulate on his work, convincingly refutes the claims of the Commission.
We shall vote in favour of it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 NAME="Monti">
Mr President, I should like to congratulate the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and in particular the rapporteur, Mr Paasilinna.
The report shows that the customs union remains at the centre of the political debate: that should come as no surprise, because objectives such as the simplification of formalities, legal certainty for operators and safeguarding the Community's financial interests, on which everyone is agreed in theory, can still be viewed differently when it actually comes to applying them.
I must also say that the debate has in addition been fuelled by a major problem of an institutional nature, one that threatens to deprive the Community, in the immediate future at least, of the drive for reform which is needed in relation to specific policies and, more particularly, the customs union.
<P>
The Community Customs Code is one of the pillars - the most important of all - that will help secure uniform administrative action within the limits dictated by the principle of subsidiarity.
Views can differ on this.
As far as the Commission is concerned, achieving uniform administrative measures in relation to customs, to guarantee effectiveness and efficiency, frequently proves difficult, not only because of the limited resources available to the Commission but also, and above all, because the Member States remain sovereign with regard to the application of the Community rules. That is the result of an excessively rigid and formalistic interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity, as Parliament was able to see for itself in the debates on the Customs 2000 programme.
I must add that, as a result of this situation, the Commission is frequently the butt of criticism, which is understandable but sometimes rather unfair, because it is alleged to be incapable of securing adequate customs controls.
While it is true that expectations often exceed the possibilities open to the Commission, it should also at least be recognised that the Commission itself has to be given the instruments it needs to make the Customs Code into an effective framework, in particular by adopting implementing rules that are clear and effective, albeit in a very limited context.
Only in the light of that framework, Mr President, is it possible to understand some of the differences in opinion that are emerging as we assess what the outcome of the process of amending the Customs Code should be.
<P>
Turning now to our position on the amendments, on Amendment No 1, the Commission is able to accept only that the limits set in some Member States for direct representation to be used to meet customs formalities should be compatible with the objectives of a single market.
The Commission does, however, recognise that a period of transition may be needed; however, what I said a few moments ago means that we are unable to take on board Amendment No 11.
<P>
Amendment No 2 does not pose any problem, and nor does the first part of Amendment No 3.
However, there is one thing worrying the Commission: if it is left to the discretion of the Member States to decide whether the documents accompanying the customs declaration should be submitted to or merely kept at the disposal of the customs authorities, we may find administrative practice varying from one state to another.
That part of Amendment No 3 is therefore not acceptable; on the other hand, Amendment No 14, which shares the same objective, cannot be accepted because it is irrelevant.
In practice, the first part of that amendment reiterates what is contained in the current text of the code, and the second part is identical to the amendment put forward by the Commission.
<P>
Moving on to Amendments Nos 4 to 8 and 12, which are linked to the reform of the economic conditions under the customs regimes, the Commission is able to accept Amendments Nos 6 and 12, but cannot set aside its proposal, as required under Amendment No 4.
The Commission can, however, clarify the wording of its initial proposal.
Amendments Nos 5 and 7 are unacceptable because they would prevent the Commission from getting rid of a bureaucratic obstacle when examining the economic conditions.
Amendment No 8 fails to take account of the fact that the Commission has itself proposed deleting another provision: if both were deleted, we would be left with a clear legal vacuum; that amendment is therefore not acceptable.
<P>
Amendments Nos 9 and 13 concern the issue of the good faith of the economic operators.
The Commission has followed closely the work of the House in this area and generally agrees with its objective, that is to say to find a solution which helps the importer by apportioning more equitably the risk that a certificate may not be valid.
Amendment No 9 has been withdrawn, and the Commission would not, in any event, have been able to accept it.
However, Amendment No 13 seems to us a better indicator of how to find a more appropriate and balanced solution to the problem of the responsibility of economic operators.
In that sense, Amendment No 13 may be considered a positive contribution and, therefore, the Commission could accept it as the basis for a more extensive revision of Article 220.
We therefore intend presenting, in the revised proposal following the vote in the House, a new version of Article 220 to provide a better balance between the responsibilities of importers, exporters, third country authorities and the Community customs authorities responsible for assessing whether the parties have acted in good faith.
<P>
Again in relation to the responsibilities of economic operators, the Commission believes that reducing the period of limitation from three to two years would mark significant progress in enhancing legal certainty for honest operators.
Unfortunately, Amendment No 10 stands in the way of that.
Removal of that section of the Commission proposal is also likely to deprive us of the possibility of taking interim measures.
The Commission therefore feels unable to accept the amendment.
<P>
Turning, finally, to Amendment No 15, the Commission considers that the aim of that amendment, that is to say adequate controls, cannot be defined in theoretical terms in the Customs Code, but must be related to specific aspects, good faith for instance, or the risk element.
For that reason, the Commission does not consider the amendment acceptable and believes that it would be more relevant in relation to anti-fraud legislation.
<P>
In once again extending my thanks to Mr Paasilinna, I wish to take just a moment to respond to his question concerning the national information systems.
As you will be aware, the Commission has set up the Common Communication Network - Common Systems Interface, known as CCN-CSI, to enable the national systems to communicate with each other and with the systems set up by the Commission itself.
That platform will also be used in the context of the new information transit system which will come into operation at the end of this year between the five partners taking part in it, that is to say Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Switzerland.
<P>
Let me end by inviting those honourable Members who are interested to take part in a demonstration of the system on 31 March.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Monti.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=233 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I see that we have a large group of young Europeans in the gallery. I should like to welcome them and thank them for coming.
I should also like to say that this is where, from one day to the next, we do our modest work in the hope that, when they are a little older, they will find a Europe of peace, of people living peacefully together and a Europe of social justice.
Once again, welcome to Parliament.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Protection of inventions by utility model
<SPEAKER ID=234 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0096/99) by Mr Añoveros Trias de Bes, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive approximating the legal arrangements for the protection of inventions by utility model (COM(97)0691 - C4-0676/97-97/0356(COD)).
<P>
I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mr Añoveros Trias de Bes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 NAME="Añoveros Trias de Bes">
Mr President, legislation has been adopted in all areas of industrial property in the European Union except in the case of utility models.
The fact that utility models exist allows small technical advances that aid the human race to also benefit their creators, even though the level of invention does not warrant as much protection as under a patent.
The utility model is especially useful for both individual inventors and for small undertakings.
What is more, the existence of an instrument providing an alternative for minor inventions means that the level of invention required can be interpreted more strictly.
<P>
The Commission has opted for harmonisation and has put forward a proposal for a directive that valiantly tackles the delicate task of approximating twelve laws with many different points and introducing legislation in three countries that do not have this system.
This proposal adopts three of the classic requirements in the protection of inventions: novelty, level of invention and industrial advantage.
However, the requirement that utility models must include a practical or technical advantage has been overlooked, despite this being an essential and inevitable part of their nature.
This requirement clarifies the distinction between the utility model and the design or trademark with a view to preventing those who might infringe the utility model from sidestepping protection by means of superficial alterations to the designs that would enable them to copy technical innovations from its component parts.
<P>
We propose defining the utility model by reference to a structure, a mechanism or a configuration.
This means that the inventor only has to put forward a structure which has an industrial advantage, using a quick and simple procedure with minimum legal certainty.
This would also mean excluding substances and processes from protection, as the Economic and Social Committee has also proposed.
<P>
The lower level of legal certainty offered by the utility model compared to the patent is the price that has to be paid for the speed and lower cost of the utility model.
In our report, we suggest a series of measures to add to the Commission's proposal in order to improve the degree of legal certainty of the model without harming the speed and lower cost of obtaining this instrument.
<P>
The measures I propose are mainly contained in the amendments. And naturally, they go along the lines that, although the level of invention or the creative input is not the same as for a patent, a mere declaration of the level of invention from the applicant will not suffice.
Therefore, as a first step, we propose that the definition from the European Patents Convention be adopted but in a less strict form than required by the Convention.
<P>
Another measure is to introduce the opposition procedure to swiftly settle disputes concerning utility models.
We should also promote those involved to draw up a search report, which is compulsory in the event of legal proceedings being undertaken.
We must improve protection conditions and use them for reference. Further, as a last step, we believe that there should be an additional ground for revocation where the proprietor of the utility model was not entitled to obtain it.
This new ground revokes the registration and not the invention itself, which is valid and can be protected if the inventor or his successor submits the applications.
<P>
Therefore, Commissioner, in spite of my aim to add these measures, I agree with the Commission on many fundamental aspects.
We believe that a lower level of invention should be required in comparison to patents and that no formal verification of the substantive requirements should be necessary.
<P>
We have readily accepted the amendments by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs but I must also say - as I see my colleague Mrs Oddy is here - that I rejected her amendments, Amendments Nos 34 and 35, in committee.
However, they have now also been tabled by another colleague, Mrs Thors, and having studied them in detail, I intend to accept them.
<P>
Lastly, I should like to point out that the duration of a utility model is shorter than that of a patent.
We agree with a maximum protection period of ten years, which is the same as most countries. As a result, we propose that no renewal should be granted - if requested by the search report - as a deterrent against an excessive duration and, at the same time, as a way of strengthening legal certainty and improving information.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, at this time of night we are not here to debate complex issues but I should like to begin at the end.
And I am doing so because the rapporteur has now generously accepted the amendments that were tabled by Mrs Oddy, who is one of my colleagues in the Socialist Group and a member of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and that are now tabled by the Liberal Members, Mrs Thors and Mrs Riis-Jørgensen.
These two amendments refer to games and toys and it is a shame that the visitors who were here earlier have left because this affects them directly.
<P>
I say this as I believe that perhaps one of the innovations Parliament could introduce is to also allow games to be utility models and to be protected.
And I am disappointed that our visitors left - I think the President frightened them somewhat - as they would probably be able to help us and submit a utility model. Perhaps, in doing so, they could use the method the rapporteur is now proposing, although we will naturally have to find out what the Commission intends to do in this respect.
We have to find out what one-stop shopping is; it is a term we are used to in Spain but for different reasons. Here, we are talking about a different sort of one-stop shopping, but the idea is that if someone submits a utility model in an EU country, then this model should be recognised throughout the entire Community.
In this respect, the rapporteur is attempting to go slightly further than normal legislative work, because the Commission's Green Paper only talked of three stages: firstly, harmonisation; then mutual recognition by the Member States; and lastly, regulations.
We still have not reached the stage of a uniform Community regulation but we could take another small step towards this stage.
<P>
It would be very interesting to know what the Commission thinks of this.
I should like to ask Commissioner Monti if he believes that, in the short term and on the basis of the proposals Parliament is making here, the Commission could establish this one-stop shopping procedure in such a way so as to ensure that if an inventive young person discovers an interesting toy, he can go to one EU country alone and, using this one-stop shopping procedure, be assured that his game will be recognised throughout the Community.
<P>
My colleague, Mr Añoveros Trias de Bes, is a colleague in two senses of the word: both as a Member of this House and as a professor of international law.
And it is clear that he has done some extraordinary work and that this is an excellent analytical and well researched report.
At an academic symposium, I would probably argue with him over a few points, because there will always be reasons for disagreement, but I believe that he has done some exceptional analytical work.
For example, he has paid great attention to the definition of invention, and what invention involves.
This is an issue that could lead to a lengthy discussion, as could the definition of the utility model based on a structure or configuration but not on a substance or specific procedure.
However, at this time of night, these issues are probably of little interest to the Members and I only wish to say that the Socialist Group supports the amendments by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights as well as the two amendments tabled by the Liberal Group.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Medina Ortega.
I do not believe that I frightened our young European visitors with my warm words.
But you may well be right in that young people are very intuitive and they may have guessed that I am a paediatrician, which may be what frightened them off.
In any case, I did not intend to alarm them but to simply give them a warm welcome to this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 NAME="Buffetaut">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the utility model is a means of protection used in one form or another by most European countries, with the notable exception of Germany and France.
Given that these various certificates exist, it was indeed right to try to harmonise them.
We are therefore entirely in favour of the harmonisation of the legal provisions involved.
<P>
The rapporteur's proposal is of a very high standard, as is always the case with Mr Aoveros.
Nevertheless, I have certain questions surrounding what seem to be inaccuracies.
One example of this is Amendment No 10, which proposes a definition of invention that we believe to be somewhat broad and imprecise.
Also, the procedures for the one-stop shop should perhaps be clarified.
Is it a solely declarative procedure?
On what elements is mutual recognition based?
What linguistic rules will be applied?
<P>
The rapporteur envisages a 50 % reduction in taxes for SMEs, individuals and universities.
This is a very good measure, as the utility model must be economical, especially for SMEs.
I think that it would be particularly beneficial if all the taxes were so low that there was no need to reduce them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 NAME="Oddy">
Mr President, I welcome this report and congratulate the rapporteur on his work.
This proposed directive introduces the right to register a utility model.
This is a less-developed right than that which would qualify for a patent.
This right does not currently exist in all Member States.
For example, in the United Kingdom - my own country - this concept does not exist and consequently inventors can only register patents.
To register a patent, more research is needed, and higher standards of development.
<P>
The advantage of registering a utility model, as opposed to a patent, is that it is a quicker, cheaper and more simple procedure.
It is therefore to be welcomed.
<P>
I thank the rapporteur for accepting my amendment, tabled in committee, and now taken up by Mrs Thors, as this will assist the European toy industry and will be of great interest for Europe's younger citizens.
<P>
I have received some letters of concern from interested parties that the Commission proposal, as drafted, is a little too lax.
The rapporteur has addressed these concerns by introducing requirements for searches before litigation and before the life of the utility model can be extended beyond six years.
I support these proposals and again thank the rapporteur for his diligent work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 NAME="Monti">
I must congratulate Mr Añoveros Trias de Bes on the quality of his report.
I welcome the fact that the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizen's Rights has not queried the Commission approach to this dossier and that the features of utility models, as set out in the proposal for a directive, have been retained. These are: an inventive step lesser than required for trade marks, no preliminary examination of the conditions of merit, and a period of protection limited to ten years.
<P>
The Committee on Legal Affairs has adopted 33 amendments, and the Commission is able to accept 24 of them, but five of that number in part only.
We in fact think that these amendments clarify and better define some aspects of the proposal.
I am referring more particularly here to Amendments Nos 4 and 33, which provide for the directive to be monitored by the Commission.
That will allow us to assess the practical operation of the directive and to fill in any gaps three years after the directive has been incorporated by the Member States.
The Commission cannot, however, accept nine amendments, including Amendments Nos 1, 6 in part and 13 concerning the introduction of a one-stop shopping procedure.
<P>
I well understand what motivates these amendments, but introducing a procedure of that nature goes beyond the objective of this proposal for a directive, which is to align the national provisions on utility models which have a more direct impact on the operation of the single market.
Moreover, that sort of procedure would raise a number of problems at a legal and a practical level without resolving the problems of transfer, but would not appear to respond to any of the needs voiced by the relevant economic groups.
<P>
Amendment No 18, which provides for the introduction of an opposition procedure, also goes beyond the limits of the kind of harmonisation the directive is meant to achieve.
This is a procedural issue that must be left to the assessment of the Member States, in accordance with the principle of proportionality.
Moreover, no such proposal has ever been tabled in the discussions of the groups of experts in the Council.
However, Mr Medina Ortega, as in the case of the earlier amendments, the possibility of introducing an opposition procedure could be considered as part of the monitoring provided for in the directive itself.
<P>
Other amendments also raise problems: I am referring here to parts of Amendments Nos 2, 6 and 8 and the whole of Amendments Nos 23 and 24 which relate, directly or indirectly, to the scope of the directive.
These amendments are designed to exclude substances and processes from the scope of the directive.
I would draw your attention to the fact that excluding substances and processes from protection by utility model harks back to a now outdated view.
The consultation set under way with the 1995 Green Paper showed that most of the groups concerned were in favour of including substances and processes.
The three-dimensional requirement, which therefore excludes protection of substances and processes, is a step backwards in Member States' legislation.
Currently, only four Member States regard three-dimensional format as a condition of obtaining protection by utility model.
For those reasons, the Commission is unable to take on board these amendments.
<P>
Nor can we accept Amendment No 12, which provides for a reduction in fees for small and medium-sized enterprises.
I absolutely appreciate the concerns reflected in that amendment, but a provision of that nature cannot be included in a harmonising directive, as it would have financial implications for the Member States disproportionate to the aim of the directive.
It might be possible to introduce a recital mirroring the concept which underpins that amendment.
<P>
There are other amendments which the Commission is unable to accept: Amendment No 15 which provides, in addition to control a posteriori , control a priori of the exemptions, cannot be accepted because it calls into question the fact that there is no formal examination of the conditions of protection; nor can we accept part of Amendments Nos 6 and 10 or the whole of Amendment No 16, which put forward practical or technical advantage as an additional condition for obtaining protection.
That would introduce a new requirement, whereas technical or practical advantage must be considered as simply justifying inventive activity.
<P>
Nor are we able to accept Amendment No 30, which provides that applications for utility models are invalid if the owner was not entitled to the utility model, since the invention could no longer be considered to be new; rather than making it invalid, it would be appropriate to make provision, in cases of that kind, for the right to be transferred to the genuine inventor.
<P>
I should like to end by mentioning the amendments tabled during this part-session: the Commission can, in principle, accept Amendments Nos 34 and 35, both of which are designed to allow full and equal legal protection for games and toys by utility models: in particular, by deleting the word 'game' in Article 3(2)(c), Amendment No 34 will place games and toys on an equal footing for the purposes of protection by utility model; Amendment No 35 reflects the same need in its Article 6 which relates to the criteria for defining inventive activity.
But Amendment No 35, although, as I have said, acceptable in principle, needs to be worded differently in the Commission's view.
<P>
I think, Mr President, that if, as we had all hoped, our young Europeans had waited until now, they might perhaps have understood that we were discussing games and toys, albeit, I regret to say, in rather complicated technical terms.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Monti.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Social protection in Europe
<SPEAKER ID=242 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0099/99) by Mr Pronk, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the report from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: Social protection in Europe (1997) - Executive summary (COM(98)0243 - C4-0375/98).
<P>
I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mr Pronk.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 NAME="Pronk">
Mr President, I know that Mr Flynn cannot be here this evening because of an urgent appointment, although the report does, of course, come under his portfolio.
But I am very pleased that Commissioner Monti is here, because I must admit that his work in this field was part of the inspiration for our report.
There are certain parallels between the fields of social security and taxation, firstly because a substantial proportion of social security is paid for out of tax revenue, secondly because people often regard social security contributions as taxes, and thirdly, and most importantly, because under the Amsterdam Treaty both can only be changed by a unanimous decision.
So it is good to see the laborious but constant progress that the Commissioner has made in the field of taxation.
<P>
We welcome the Commission's report on social security.
The social security system was a response to the social question that arose at the end of the last century, and now, a century later, we can see that the problems associated with it have still not been resolved.
However, social security has proved to be an important instrument for adapting the 19th century market economy to the needs of social justice.
If we look at the figures we can see that, at 28.5 %, social security and social protection account for a considerable proportion of Europe's GDP.
Millions of people in the European Union depend on unemployment benefits, invalidity benefits, pensions and health-care schemes.
The Union's prosperity has also advanced thanks to this comprehensive system which provides help in times of difficulty, need and crisis.
<P>
The Council of Ministers delivered a recommendation in 1992 on the convergence of social protection objectives and policies, and I have therefore included a number of recommendations in my report to promote greater convergence.

I call on the Commission to put forward an action plan which should include the following: the criteria for a benchmarking process in the area of social security; secondly, a code of conduct for avoiding harmful competition via social security systems; thirdly, precise figures for the economic damage arising from the evasion of social security contributions; fourthly, proposals for minimum standards based on the Amsterdam Treaty for certain areas of social protection; and fifth, the determination of a poverty line in order to establish an acceptable minimum income.



<P>
There are two points I would like to enlarge on.
The first is the benchmarking process.
Following the example of the European employment strategy - another successful element in the European Union's social and economic policy - and the criteria for economic and monetary union, comparisons must be made between the Member States.
Benchmarking can help the Member States to make decisions in order to develop a sound and decent social protection system, particularly now when a number of factors are placing increasing pressure on the system, such as the growth in the number of people of retirement age and the number of one-person households.
Both of these groups tend to be very dependent on the social security system.
<P>
The second point I wish to enlarge on is the idea of producing figures on the economic damage arising from the evasion of social security contributions.
In my view, this is something that is often sidelined as unimportant and therefore negligible, and people tend to think that only small sums are involved.
Yet I have never seen any figures to prove this scientifically.
The evasion of contribution payments affects something else on which the European social model stands or falls, and that is solidarity.
<P>
Mr President, I do not have much time left, and social security is something we could talk about at length.
I know that there are a number of others who wish to speak in this debate.
I would like to thank everyone for enabling us to reach a consensus, and I hope that this report will be adopted.
Above all, I hope that the Commission will be able to use it to produce a policy for convergence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Weiler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me at the start of this debate to express my regret at the resignation a few hours ago of the German Finance Minister.
I am saying this in the context of the present discussion, because in Oskar Lafontaine we had found a comrade-in-arms, one of the few European politicians who was far-sighted enough to recognise and defend the European dimension at all times.
You especially, Commissioner Monti, will understand my response to this news, because Mr Lafontaine had begun to implement the proposal you made quite some time ago on the reduction of non-wage labour costs as a means of making labour a less expensive production factor.
<P>
Many aspects of social protection in Europe, of course, are still not given nearly enough consideration in terms of their European dimension in many Member States.
Politicians are still far happier to discuss them in the small provincial forum of national politics and fail to realise that the people of our countries, the workforce, have long come to expect European action too in this domain.
The Socialist Group supports Mr Pronk's report, partly because it provides good continuity from the first two reports which we adopted here in the Chamber and for which I had the pleasure of doing the preparatory work and formulating the conclusions.
<P>
I also find it right and proper that Mr Pronk has not endorsed everything the Commission has proposed, since there were certainly some points in the report of which we were highly critical in the committee.
I shall only mention one of the proposals which I believe is unacceptable in its present form: in connection with the need to cut health service costs, you have proposed more direct contributions by patients towards the cost of services.
I believe that would be a very one-sided perspective, and we shall naturally be unable to adopt everything as it stands.
<P>
Mr Pronk dealt with several areas in detail.
I intend to confine myself to a few points that seem to me to be very important, such as proposals on a flexible transition to retirement and consultation between management and labour on such matters.
In many Member States, employers have been far too ready to discard older workers by means of systematic early retirement.
That will certainly have to be made more flexible.
In addition, we shall have to pay more serious attention than has been given in the past to the need for women to be accorded equal rights within the social security system, and we have supplemented the report in that respect.
<P>
I also support Mr Pronk's proposals because, with his Dutch regard for consensus, if I may say that, he has adopted demands that we in the PSE Group made in various areas where we expect specific aims, specific measures and above all directives and action programmes from the Commission.
It is not enough, now that we have the third communication - fine and good and important though it may be - to produce more new communications.
We need quite specific legislative proposals, including proposals based on Articles 13 and 137 of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The Commission also has our support in the negotiations, in the struggle with the Council of Ministers.
They know that Parliament expects more than communications.
We also expect tangible qualitative progress.
<P>
What has been submitted in the framework of the dialogue between European management and labour is not enough for us either, not even the latest results, which still fall far short of the expectations of the European Parliament.
<P>
I should like to take up one final point made by Mr Pronk.
At the end of his speech, he referred to solidarity and to the evasion of welfare contributions in our systems.
We must not forget that employers are by far the main culprits when it comes to the evasion of welfare contributions, as any of us who have looked behind the scenes will know.
Public opinion, unfortunately, has a highly distorted view of this situation.
<P>
We all know about the economic benefits of the single market, which are becoming increasingly obvious.
But what we lack is social protection at the European level.
Social security is not a relic from the past but the model for the future, a model through which the people of Europe can begin once more to trust and accept the European institutions.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schiedermeier">
<SPEAKER ID=246 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Mr President, Commissioner, the Pronk report contains a whole raft of measures which we really need to take, and the convergence of social security and taxation is becoming a particularly important issue, partly as a result of the introduction of the euro.
But the actual situation in reality is quite different, with the Member States still creating obstacles to prevent people from working in other countries.
One current example is Germany, where there are tax obstacles that make it very difficult for foreign companies to take work in Germany.
The staff of such companies have to pay regular taxes, which I think is extremely strange, and it is something that Mr Lafontaine has failed to tackle.
My own country, the Netherlands, also knows a bit about this sort of thing.
<P>
The review of the taxation agreement between Belgium and the Netherlands places an enormous financial burden on Dutch frontier workers.
As long as we have these huge differences in tax and social security and we still get up to all kinds of tricks when it comes to recognising diplomas and certificates, a great many job opportunities will be lost in border areas, both now and in the future.
<P>
Another example is the lack of policy coordination on supplementary pensions, both on the question of deductibility and on tax on the eventual payments.
This is a major obstacle to the free movement of workers, and I am therefore very pleased that Commissioner Monti announced this week that he is to put forward a proposal very shortly to deal with these problems.
I have always welcomed his proposals in this field, and I hope that the Council will act upon them.
<P>
This morning in our discussion of the annual economic report for 1999, I called for greater international mobility of labour.
This will become increasingly important over the next few years, since EMU means that unemployment can no longer be tackled with monetary measures alone.
Labour mobility is needed as an adaptation mechanism for tackling regional unemployment in the Member States.
But we must not allow social security discrepancies to prevent this mobility from happening.
We therefore need to work together to achieve convergence in this field, both on social security and on taxation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 NAME="Hermange">
Mr President, this morning, a French newspaper ran the headline 'Social Europe stumbles'. Indeed, it is true that there is still a great deal to be done in the context of the single market and the single currency to ensure that social protection is not the variable used for adjustment to the detriment of workers, and that the Union's companies are not subjected to unfair competition through widespread social dumping.
<P>
However, it is true that if social Europe is stumbling, it is because we do not have sufficient legal bases.
This is the reason behind the determination of politicians such as Bartho Pronk, who is making every effort to bring about a social Europe, and his report today is proof of that.
<P>
In France, the President of the Republic pointed out in his speech to the national parliament that as well as a European civilisation, there is a European social model, which cannot be separated from European citizenship.
That is why we must constantly defend this European social model.
<P>
It is with this in mind that I completely support the rapporteur's objective of establishing a certain degree of social convergence in Europe, not through standardisation, but through increased cooperation between the Member States on social matters.
I also support Bartho Pronk's request for minimum European standards for certain social provisions, as well as a structured process of voluntary consultation at European level on the objectives and policies related to social protection, especially as regards the European employment strategy that was adopted at the Luxembourg summit.
<P>
I am convinced that adopting guidelines on social matters would genuinely encourage our governments to seek a productive and essential balance between solidarity and competitiveness.
<P>
As we have just celebrated Women's Day, I would like to emphasise an important element for the many women who work, that is, reconciling their family and professional lives.
Obviously, this not only affects women, but also children.
In this respect, the report calls on the Council to include specific objectives in the guidelines on social policy to develop child-care structures as well as facilities for relatives who require a certain level of care.
<P>
I would like us to be able to include this dimension of social protection in the social policy that is to be defined by Parliament.
I am aware that certain politicians are not in favour of this.
I would like to quote these words from a German socialist Minister, who was speaking about the Treaty of Amsterdam: 'So many difficult compromises have been hammered out that it is not very glamorous for a Prime Minister to go back home and tell his people that he has managed to negotiate measures on child policy'.
This is an outrageous thing to say, and in my view child policy is also part of the social protection we owe our citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=248 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to congratulate Mr Pronk on his report, and also the Committee for Employment and Social Affairs which, through its amendments, has made it a very good one.
A few aspects of social security and a social system founded on solidarity which are important, indeed crucial, to me are stated at the outset, namely that everyone must assume responsibility and contribute in a spirit of solidarity to basic social security.
Even though private supplementary insurance may be both right and important as an element in the adjustment of our social insurance systems, which are suffering under the strain of increasing numbers of elderly people in the population, it must not be allowed to undermine our common responsibility, with the result that we end up with different levels of health care - we hear shocking stories of such situations in countries like the USA.
We must instead safeguard the principle of common responsibility and maintain a social system based on solidarity.
<P>
Unemployment costs a great deal of money and puts severe stress on social expenditure.
For that reason, it is important as part of our social security to ensure that more jobs are created.
A factor involved here is the need to bring down tax on labour, which is something that Mr Pronk also takes up.
<P>
The internal market has of course increased the need for cooperation and coordination in the field of social security.
There is also a need for a code of conduct on illegal competition with inferior social provisions - what we are accustomed to call social dumping.
There is a need for minimum levels of security of employment, which should include the proliferation of atypical forms of employment which are now appearing.
We must however also remember that, when we speak of social convergence, it is a voluntary adjustment, a coordination of aims and strategies, which is required.
It is to a large extent a question of mutual recognition of social security provisions, employment insurance schemes, pension systems and so on, which is also important in the context of freedom of movement.
<P>
With the new proposal which the Commission has put forward, on which I have been asked to draw up Parliament's report, protection is also extended to citizens of third countries, frontier workers, students and so forth, which is entirely the right way to go.
<P>
Finally, the report takes up discrimination and social exclusion.
The resolve to devise a coherent plan to tackle this as soon as possible and to reduce the number of socially excluded and poor people in Europe is really something that we in the Green Group support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, a lot of very worthwhile points have been made about the Pronk report, and I agree with the calls for general solidarity and for a realistic and careful approach to a new society in which the concept of care has assumed a whole new dimension. All of these things must be included in the programme.
<P>
These days, the Member States are making very considerable efforts to provide social protection, but because society is changing and ageing, because so many women now have jobs outside the home, because there are one-parent families and so on, there are more and more new things that social protection does not cover.
I would urge that our view of the responsibilities in this field should not be too dogmatic, but that we should at least grant the same social rights which should also be available to those in unpaid work.
<P>
Commissioner, it is obvious that we need a European social pillar.
Cooperation between the Member States needs to be stepped up as a result of EMU and the European employment strategy.
There must be a social safety net for everyone.
We do not actually have much time left, because convergence on social protection is urgently needed.
I would call for entirely practical measures to be taken, as Mr Pronk does in his report and the Social Affairs Committee does as well.
The current differences in the cost of social protection distort competition between the Member States and thus threaten employment.
I would like to mention just one example of the many I could quote.
Renault's departure from Flanders has caused great bitterness.
We need minimum standards for social security and pay if we are to have a genuinely social Europe.
But this in itself is not a solution for countries with a very highly developed and expensive social security system based on general solidarity, which has a considerable effect on the cost of labour.
We do not want social security in such countries to disintegrate, but it is clear that an effective employment policy must remain the basis of the system throughout Europe.
<P>
There should not be employment in some countries with little social protection and unemployment in countries with a high level of social protection.
No, thank you. Convergence is what we need, and the sooner the better!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
Mr President, perhaps I take a rather different view from the rest of you, not so much on the matter itself as on the place where matters should be dealt with.
Questions of welfare, relationships between children and parents and between the generations, education, social security, and dental and medical care are, first and foremost, national issues.
There is no reason to harmonise them or to regulate them in detail at EU level.
On the other hand, there are sound reasons for the mutual recognition of different systems, so that people who move from one country to another can avail themselves of their social benefits in the new country.
In this area, there are many deficiencies and a great deal to be done.
<P>
The most important question at EU level in my view is employment.
But in that area the EU has failed!
When Sweden applied for membership 10 years ago, in 1990, we had unemployment running at 2.3 %.
Today the figure matches the EU average, 10 to 12 %.
There are immigrant areas in Sweden which, ten years ago, had an unemployment rate of 50 %; the current rate is 75 %, perhaps even 90 %.
I am not saying that it is the EU's or anyone else's fault, but I am saying that we have failed to solve the most serious social problem, which is hitting vulnerable groups unable to do much about that reality - children and unemployed people who have nothing to live on - particularly hard.
<P>
The EU has paid too much attention to the economy, markets, trade and competition.
It was important to do that, but there was not always the same concern to consider the consequences.
The project that overshadows everything is EMU, which has been very costly in terms of economy plans, cutbacks and increased unemployment.
We now have 18 million unemployed and 50 million people in poverty. That is far too many!
<P>
Apart from unemployment, social questions to which the EU should give priority are the major problems concerning the shaping of public opinion to combat discrimination against groups such as immigrants, women and the unemployed, trafficking in human beings and the fight against drugs.
In this area, there is any amount of work to be done.
Here too, the approach should be to give advice, direction and support to the Member States through common guidelines at EU level, but to leave the implementation of decisions to the national level.
<P>
EU cooperation in the social field should concentrate on the following four areas: jobs and unemployment, reducing exclusion and poverty, curbing discrimination and social dumping, and strengthening equality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=251 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Raschhofer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, throughout the Union, welfare systems and welfare reforms are at the top of the political agenda.
There are good reasons why political action is so obviously required in this area.
The introduction of the euro has undoubtedly had an impact on wage policies and hence on social protection in the various Member States.
At the same time, despite a high level of economic activity, Europe is struggling to cope with a vast army of unemployed.
This means that welfare systems have been subject to increasing demand, while the funds allocated to them have been increasingly restricted.
<P>
Our finance ministers, as you all know, have to operate with tight budgets, and increasing taxes would only harm Europe's international standing as a business location.
Against this background, the common aim of all the efforts to reform welfare systems must be to safeguard the effectiveness of the system in the long term, while structuring it in such a way - and let me stress this point - that it promotes economic growth and the creation of new jobs, instead of stifling them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 NAME="Monti">
Let me start by thanking Mr Pronk for his excellent report and for his generous words which I personally welcome for two reasons.
The objective, namely tax coordination to which he made reference, does not aim simply at improving the single market but has also a social objective in making tax systems more labour-friendly.
In the instruments there are indeed striking similarities between what has been devised to fight harmful tax competition and what the rapporteur is proposing in terms of a code of conduct for avoiding harmful competition via social security systems.
<P>
Mr Pronk has taken the opportunity arising from the publication of the report on social protection for 1997, presented by the Commission at the initiative and under the guidance of Commissioner Flynn to open up a debate in Parliament on the future challenges facing Europe's social protection systems.
This is valuable and also very timely, for reasons that I will come to.
<P>
I can state that the Commission welcomes the resolution that you are debating today.
You are giving the right message at the right time.
Europe is living through a period of change: change in the world of work, change in society and in family structures, technological change and a major demographic change.
All Member States face these changes to a greater or lesser extent.
We need new, innovative approaches if our social protection systems are to continue to perform their traditional and very important roles: income redistribution, building social cohesion, and providing security against social risks as they have done over the last fifty years.
<P>
In 1995 the Commission launched a debate on the future of social protection.
The aim was to trigger a process of joint reflection to look together for solutions and to learn from each other.
Not having been an initiator of this - it was Commissioner Flynn - I can say in retrospect, on a personal basis, that this was perhaps one of the very first examples of trying to achieve progress through comparison, through peer review, and similar processes, which I find very helpful.
<P>
In 1997 the Commission took stock of this debate in its communication: Modernising and Improving Social Protection.
The Commission's main message throughout this process has been that there is an urgent need to modernise social protection in the European Union.
Modernising means adapting systems to the new social and economic conditions in which they operate.
It does not mean abandoning the high ideals and important objectives which lie behind these systems.
It means changing methods and approaches where necessary in order to ensure that we can continue to give our citizens the high levels of social protection that they want.
At the same time we must ensure that our systems are sustainable.
<P>
The important of a high level of social protection was underlined in the reactions to the 1997 communication, in particular the resolution of the European Parliament, prepared by Mrs Weiler, and in the discussions on the European social policy forum.
The process of rapid social, economic and political change goes on.
At European level alone, since we launched our debate on modernising and improving social protection we can take note of the following: the Amsterdam Treaty has been adopted and will shortly come into force, incorporating a new chapter on employment and other relevant developments to do with social exclusion, non-discrimination and public health.
The European employment strategy has been successfully put into place and Member States have made a good start on implementation.
<P>
The single currency was introduced in January.
Enlargement negotiations have been launched with five countries in Central and Eastern Europe.
It is important to recognise that these developments will impact on both Member States' social protection systems and our ways of cooperating at European level.
<P>
The time is ripe to take the process of joint reflection on the future of our social protection systems a step further.
The proposals made in Parliament's resolution go in the right direction.
You clearly support what is a central theme in this process - the need to work together closely and the great benefits that can flow from doing so.
<P>
Social protection policy is a matter for which Member States have responsibility.
There are considerable differences between the systems of the 15 Member States.
Nevertheless we are facing common problems and challenges.
We have common objectives.
All of us have much to gain from a common reflection.
You also send a clear message to the Commission and the Member States to be ambitious in this process.
The Commission will keep these views very much in mind when we come back with our proposals on how to take forward these ideas on social protection.
We will be issuing a new and ambitious communication in the next few months.
Your resolution is a timely input in that regard that we value very much.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Monti.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=254 NAME="President">
Mr Schiedermeier has the floor on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=255 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schiedermeier">
Mr President, allow me to make a brief comment.
Many of our colleagues will take any opportunity to criticise the conduct of the Commission.
That is why I find it all the more regrettable that there are Members of the House who deliver their contributions to the debate and then immediately leave the Chamber without waiting for the reply from the Commissioner, who has been good enough to stay here until 9 p.m.
May I offer my personal apologies for the conduct of my colleagues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=256 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Schiedermeier.
Your comments will be recorded in the Minutes.
<P>
With that, ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of our agenda.
It has been a longer day than usual, which has meant extra work for all the services of the House, who deserve our particular thanks.
<P>
The sitting was closed at 9 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="Needle">
Mr President, I rise on the comment made by my colleague, Mr Evans, yesterday regarding the quantity of documentation we receive.
I feel he has made a very good point.
Given the amount of paper we have received this morning, if these votes are going to continue, will the President look into the provision of extra trunks for Members in future to allow us to get the results back to our offices in Brussels?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
I will ask the services to investigate that matter.
<P>
Parliament approved the Minutes
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Souchet">
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations fully supports this report and the amendments which were adopted in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
The Commission's proposal calls into question the Community Customs Code as defined in the original Regulation (EEC) No 2913/92.
<P>
I must stress the importance of the Community Customs Code for third countries, in particular the former CEECs.
This code serves as a reference and a model for many countries in urgent need of operational customs legislation enabling them to integrate into the world of international trade.
In terms of commercial policy, although the customs tariff is losing its importance as an instrument for the protection of certain industries, it is still used to support competition policy.
Anti-dumping and countervailing duties are applied in accordance with the rules and procedures of the Community Customs Code.
With regard to agricultural policy, the code's customs procedures are used to manage the export refund arrangements.
The new WTO rules depend on the code.
In terms of external trade statistics, the Single Administrative Document provided for in the Code Implementing Provisions remains the instrument on which the gathering of statistics is based.
<P>
Given this essential role of the Community Customs Code, our group cannot understand the Commission's proposal to eliminate or minimise the role of Member States in the procedure for implementing the Community Customs Code.
<P>
As an example, in the current regulation Member States may reserve the right, on their territory, to make customs declarations by direct or indirect representation in order to preserve the role of the customs agent.
In this new proposal, the Commission limits this right to the indirect representation procedure.
If this measure were adopted, the role of the customs agents would be significantly limited and a large number would disappear.
The new provisions therefore seem to favour negative changes with a reduction in customs control by Member States, the elimination of jobs for customs agents and therefore an increase in the opportunities for fraud and a reduction in the Community preference.
<P>
As for the customs procedures and the placing of goods under a customs procedure, the Commission is proposing a system of exceptions for all companies making declarations electronically.
The very principle of protection by Member States will be diminished because these electronic documents will eventually be sent directly to the Community institutions.
<P>
To conclude, from the two examples which I have just given, you will understand why our group is using its vote to oppose any change to the Community Customs Code which would lead to a reduction in Community preference and in the role of companies and national authorities in the customs process.
I am surprised that, under the pretext of administrative simplification, the Commission is proposing to weaken the principle of Community preference together with a de facto reduction in controls which risk leading to an increase in fraud, particularly on the eve of new negotiations within the World Trade Organisation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="van Dam">
The Paasilinna report makes at least one necessary change to the Commission proposal on the Community Customs Code.
In May 1998, the Council said that there should be limits to the commercial risk borne by importers in the EU, and it instructed the Commission to do something about it.
Strangely enough, the Commission has done nothing about it, or at least this is the impression given by the proposal it has put before Parliament and the Council.
<P>
We supported Amendment No 13, which makes what we regard as a very welcome change to Article 220(2).
We should like to see this phrase included in the text, since an importer that has acted 'in good faith' should not be liable for the consequences of fraud or administrative errors committed by the exporter or the customs authorities.
We would urge that this should be considered at a later stage in the decision-making process.
<P>
We do not think it is realistic to fear that changes to the Community Customs Code will mean that the European market is flooded with cheap products.
Finally, we feel that the European single market must not be a 'sealed fortress', particularly for less developed countries.
Looking after number one is a morally repugnant maxim to follow in external trade policy, and we must also take account of the problems which the developing countries are currently wrestling with.
<P>
Añoveros Trias de Bes report (A4-0096/99)
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We voted against the report, because we are opposed to the legislative model which has been used.
<P>
We think that Parliament should have opted instead for the principle proposed by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
According to that principle, there would be mutual recognition of national legislation, and harmonisation would only take place when provisions directly interfere with the functioning of the internal market.
<P>
André-Léonard recommendation (A4-0071/99)
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, I would like to explain why we abstained in the vote on Mrs André-Léonard's report, which was discussed together with Mr Truscott's report yesterday.
The simple reason is that we have a problem with human rights violations in Uzbekistan, which in our view are not compatible with the clause in the preamble stating that the protection of human rights and democratic principles are prerequisites for the Agreement.
That is why we abstained.
We want a close relationship, but we feel that this P.A. can only become effective if Uzbekistan genuinely succeeds in establishing a stable democracy.
Yesterday the Commission failed to convince us that this could be achieved solely by means of this economic agreement.
It was also at a loss to answer the questions we raised, and as a result we feel that this is not the right time to ratify this Agreement.
<P>
A further problem in our eyes, which is still not being taken into account in connection with the important question of whether to recognise Uzbekistan as a safe third country, is that there is no free access to the courts there, hence a basic condition for recognition is lacking.
This is part and parcel of the Agreement, but the basic conditions are not being met.
Therefore we were not able to agree to the ratification procedure at this point.
<P>
Truscott report (A4-0069/99)
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Souchet">
The discussions which we have just had on the partnership agreements with the new countries of Central Asia illustrate the major disadvantages of artificially separating the various elements of a foreign policy.
Commercial relations and human rights cannot be separated from the other aspects.
The Council must therefore be clearly invested as soon as possible with exclusive responsibility to ensure the coherence of all foreign policy actions of the European Union, whether these involve the CFSP, external commercial policy, human rights or aid.
<P>
I also note that we still have no way of assessing the efficiency of actions conducted within the TACIS programme.
A programme cannot be regarded as efficient simply because of a significant level of take-up of its appropriations.
This efficiency can be measured only through an analysis of results for which we are still waiting.
<P>
Pronk report (A4-0099/99)
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="Sjöstedt and Svensson">
The report deals with a range of social questions which do not fall within the EU's decision-making powers.
We consider that the EU's regulatory system in the social field should concentrate entirely on minimum measures designed to counteract social dumping.
Other aspects of social policy must be handled at national and local level.
<P>
This report goes considerably further in the quest for harmonisation and in making proposals in fields such as child care and pensions.
We therefore voted against the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="Theonas">
The unfaltering political choice of the European Union and Member States to further dismantle not only the social security system but also, in more general terms, the system of social protection which has reigned in Europe since the war as a result of the effective struggles of the workers' movement is becoming ever more apparent.
<P>
The Commission report on social protection in Europe calls on Member States to strengthen their efforts to promote gainful employment.
It regards the provision of medical and hospital care as a mere commercial commodity and insured people as consumers who must limit their demand. It proposes measures to modernise social protection and to adapt systems of social protection to changing circumstances by means of privatisation of health provision and pension cover.
<P>
The report of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, while it contains some positive findings and puts forward relevant measures, accepts in its entirety the new social protection framework. It addresses existing problems of the financing of systems of social protection from the standpoint of their impact on the competitiveness of the European economy, thereby lending support to those who call for a reduction in spending and for partial privatisation of social provision.
<P>
Regarding the assessment contained in the report that the strengthening of market mechanisms in the area of medical and hospital care must not result in a two-tier health service, we wish to say that privatising a part of medical and hospital care and strengthening market mechanisms in the sector will lead, de facto , to the creation of a two-tier health service.
Those with high levels of income will have no difficulty in paying high levels of contributions to private, profit-making schemes, while the overwhelming majority of working people will be restricted to minimum, low levels of provision.
The situation in Greece is typical, where we see that the NHS is being consciously downgraded and stripped bare, while the private sector is being shamefully strengthened.
<P>
We are categorically opposed to attempts - in the name of cost reduction - to further reduce the level of pension provision from state social security services and to reduce pensions which provide a minimum survival income, which will benefit private profit-making pension schemes to which those people will turn who want to improve on state subsistence pensions.
The recent announcement made by the President of IKA that the setting-up of a new supplementary insurance fund is being studied, which will function along purely private lines and which will be based on the principle of a direct link between the level of contributions and the level of provision, with the possible direct participation of private insurance capital, is giving rise to grave concerns.
<P>
We reject the new model of social protection which is being prepared.
We know that these choices are a direct consequence of the unpopular austerity policies imposed by the convergence criteria and the stability and growth pact and which exacerbate the problems of financing the state social security system and will eventually lead to its demise.
<P>
We believe that in the short term, the most fundamental way of addressing the problems of the state social protection system is to boost full-time, stable employment by promoting productive investment, especially in labour-intensive sectors. This can be achieved by providing support in terms of financial and tax incentives for SMEs which absorb the greatest share of overall employment, and by reducing working hours without reducing wages.
<P>
We also feel that there are solutions - other than the ones put forward - to the immediate financial problems of social security organisations, such as the strict enforcement of existing provisions of social security legislation regarding contributions, combating the evasion of social security contributions and undeclared work, taxing profit-making movements of capital, and the abolition of exemptions in the taxation of income from movable assets and derivatives.
<P>
Side by side with the working population, we are fighting to maintain and strengthen the state social security system of social protection, to broaden and improve the quality of provision in order to bring it in line with the objective of a high level of unified state social protection.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="Vanhecke">
This report is right when it says that with the euro, the Member States now have no monetary options for relieving economic pressures, so that competitiveness, even within the European Union, will be focused more than ever on wage costs, taxation and the cost of social protection.
<P>
This is just one of the enormous problems that the introduction of the euro has caused, problems that have been swept under the carpet for purely ideological reasons without any proper debate.
Nevertheless, I totally reject the idea of harmonising social security at European level.
<P>
In Belgium, we know what it means when two nations are required to share the same social security system.
The automatic financing mechanisms produce the very opposite of solidarity, a sort of organised robbery.
This may sound harsh, but it is true.
<P>
We are heading in this same direction at European level, only worse, because experience with the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund has taught us that local and national authorities are, by definition, not very careful with 'European' money.
So spare us this pressure for European harmonisation.
We need to understand that the greatest progress and the best forms of social security are achieved within clearly defined limits.
We can always create other forms of Community or extra-Community solidarity, but that is something else entirely.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Maritime cabotage, manning conditions on passenger craft
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Stenmarck">

Mr President, the rapporteur, Mrs McIntosh, who has produced a substantial and important piece of work in this report, unfortunately cannot be here today. She has therefore asked me to present the report.
<P>
I think that the basic consideration which one must focus on when dealing with a matter such as this is that the shipping industry in the EU is currently having a very difficult time.
It is up against increasingly harsh competition from other countries.
The ferry operators, for example, either immediately this summer or in a few years' time in the event of a postponement, are faced with the abolition of duty-free trading and hence the loss of a substantial portion of their revenue.
<P>
In its proposal, the Commission emphasises the importance of free access to shipping markets throughout the world, along with the need to raise quality standards and to maintain or increase competition.
The Commission can also show that considerable progress has been made in these areas.
At the same time, however, working conditions for seafarers in the Union have deteriorated and employment is showing a consistently downward trend.
All this is the result of flagging-out, manning reductions and cheaper labour from third countries.
These developments have hitherto hit the freight sector hardest, but could also spread to the passenger sector.
<P>
The Commission is concerned to devise a Community policy which will both remove the incentive for flagging-out and harmonise market conditions for seafarers.
Hence the Commission's first proposal under which the regulation on cabotage would be amended to provide for crews from third countries to be placed on an equal footing with seafarers from the Community.
<P>
The second proposal concerns the manning of vessels in regular passenger and ferry traffic.
On the matter of working conditions as well, the Commission is seeking equal treatment irrespective of whether the crew members are resident in a Member State or not.
<P>
There are grounds for misgivings as to some of the Commission's proposals.
First of all, the question is prompted whether the time is right, having regard to all the problems that shipping is already facing in the EU.
The proposed directives on cabotage have given rise to concern in the industry, since they amount to direct intervention on the labour market, which many see as running directly counter to free trade in goods and services.
<P>
One of the aims the Commission seeks to achieve is to create equal conditions for competitors within the EU.
In actual fact, working conditions vary greatly from one Member State to another. It is therefore also difficult to see the effect of the proposed measures.
<P>
The conclusion on this is that it is difficult for the moment to see any acceptable reason why the regulation on passenger traffic should be amended.
The present version expires in the year 2001.
It should be added that the Commission has itself already proposed voluntary changes; that happened, for example, in a report which was presented in 1995.
The rapporteur therefore proposes that we should not make any change in this part before the Commission has examined what effects the liberalisation of passenger and ferry traffic will have.
<P>
Amendment No 4 proposes that the economic and social consequences of the liberalisation of cabotage should be reviewed and a report submitted to the Council and Parliament at the latest by 1 January 2001.
On the basis of this report, the Commission should then present proposals on a definitive system.
<P>
As regards the directive on manning, efforts should be concentrated on areas other than those the Commission addresses.
If we want to increase the competitiveness of the entire industry, the first concern should be to promote training and know-how in the maritime sector, something the Transport Committee has taken up in other contexts too.
The rapporteur has developed this in Amendment No 8.
<P>
Let me conclude by just saying that the rapporteur takes a positive view of all the amendments proposed, with the exception of Amendment No 7.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="Simpson">
Mr President, earlier this week Parliament had an in-depth discussion about the future of Europe's railways, and today gives us the opportunity to do the same in regard to intra-European Union shipping.
<P>
I thank the rapporteur, Miss McIntosh, for her work.
I am sorry she cannot be with us here today - no doubt it is due to other commitments in another house.
I should also like to say that her initial ideas, based on Conservative Party dogma, were not relevant, nor indeed helpful.
However, she has changed her mind on that and we now have a more balanced, more pro-European report as a result.
<P>
This report deals with manning levels on intra-EU services and on cabotage. I am going to confine my remarks to the manning proposals, as it appears, sadly, that within the Council the cabotage issue is dead and buried.
<P>
Firstly, it must be said that these proposals deal with intra-EU and not deep-sea services.
Secondly, my Group believes that action has long been overdue because of the increase in use recently of non-EU seafarers to crew those vessels at wage rates and conditions of service well below accepted EU levels.
In short, EU shipowners have started to introduce flags of convenience in this sector, just as they have done previously on deep-sea operations.
<P>
The Commission should be congratulated on taking action early in the sector to ensure that, where third-country nationals are employed on intra-EU services, they are employed on the same conditions as our EU seafarers.
<P>
I shall be totally honest with the House this morning. I should like to see a directive which states that only EU seafarers must be used on intra-EU services.
However, I recognise that this is not possible, which is why our Group supports the principle of having the same conditions of service for those non-EU seafarers.
We cannot let our ferry operators, in particular, become cheap-labour, lower-standard employers.
If we do this, then we sign the final death warrant for European Union seafarers.
<P>
That is why this report is important; that is why it is important that the European Union and the European Parliament send a message very clearly and very loudly to European ferry operators: we will not tolerate non-EU seafarers being employed on lower wages and conditions than our own people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Hatzidakis">
Mr President, the Commission rightly points out that there is a problem in the Community maritime sector as regards the decline of the seafaring profession and unemployment in the sector.
This situation is mainly due to the introduction of flag changes, to austerity measures and to cheaper manpower from third countries.
The cargo services sector seems to have been hit the hardest by these changes, but it seems that passenger services and ferry services may also be affected.
That is why, in the two reports we are debating, a number of measures have been proposed which attempt to address the problem.
<P>
The intentions of the Commission are essentially well-meaning, but two objections need to be raised. First of all, given that the directives cover all vessels which belong to the European Union but which are registered outside the Community, and given that there are maritime areas between Member States which are regarded as international waters, many questions arise as to the compatibility of the directive with the international commitments of the European Union and its Member States and with international law and international conventions.
We need to be very careful on this score.
Secondly, although the aim of the directive is to protect employment, it is not at all certain that in the end we will achieve this goal. The difficulties that will be faced by the regular ferry services as a result of the abolition of duty-free cannot be overcome by unified conditions of employment.
The proposal may go some way to putting a stop to the use of cheap labour, but it will not protect the sustainability of the services or employment.
In the end, it may not help our own seafarers, which must be our fundamental objective.
Let us not forget that many shipping companies are companies with a broad popular base, and therefore the motivation behind our reasoning must be to strengthen the competitiveness of these companies, since only in this way will we be able to serve the interests of our seafarers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, I should like to begin by saying that although Mr Stenmarck has done an extremely good job of standing in for Mrs McIntosh, it seems a pity that she herself has not been able to present her last report in the House.
I agree with the rapporteur that maritime transport is indeed going through hard times, not just because it faces fierce competition, but also because it is a sector that has really dug its own grave by persisting in its old ways for far too long.
The abolition of duty-free has absolutely nothing to do with it, Mr Stenmarck, let us be quite clear on that point.
It is about time that all the fuss about duty-free stopped and the maritime sector got on with things like everybody else.
Duty-free still exists outside the Community, and that is bad enough.
<P>
So what is the problem?
The problem is a serious social one.
Contrary to what everyone thinks, ship's captains and officers are not really very well paid, and these days no one wants to spend a long time away from home without a break.
This is why there are no European crews any more, and it also means that the infrastructure is collapsing.
The nautical colleges are disappearing, which is jeopardising maritime safety.
We have seen many examples of this, such as in your own country, Mr President, where the only tug available was manned by Chinese and a Chinese restaurant owner had to be fetched to communicate with them.
Generally there are not enough European crews available and we have to do something about this.
We need to improve the social conditions for the entire crew, and in particular for the officers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, on the occasion of the debate on the amendment of Council Regulation No 3577/92, I would like to say that we think it essential to highlight the negative impact that the relaxation of cabotage has had on the employment of maritime workers in the Community.
<P>
For countries like Greece in particular, the relaxation of cabotage for passenger, cargo and ferry services in domestic waters is closely associated with sovereign rights and with the ability of the country to defend itself in the particularly sensitive area of the Aegean. It also exacerbates social problems such as procurement, the development of small and peripheral islands, and maintaining island populations.
Moreover, it is giving rise to significant concerns about the new, immediate and extremely serious threat of the prospect of thousands of job losses.
<P>
However, the Commission has failed to draw the necessary conclusions from the current implementation of the Council regulation on the relaxation of cabotage. Without first conducting a necessary and substantial impact study, it is proceeding to amend it, thereby further aggravating the situation.
With this proposal, the Commission is aiming to limit the competence of the host state to determining the required proportion of Community nationals in the crew, while all other matters relating to manning will be the responsibility of the flag state.
Vital issues such as the integrated structure and conditions of work and pay are to be decided on the basis of the flag state's legislation.
This will mean segregating the crew into those who are included in the integrated structure by being listed on the ship's register, and those who are not. It will also encourage practices of social dumping and will have a catastrophic impact on employment.
By way of example, in certain European countries hotel staff, chambermaids, cooks and so on are not included in the employment structure, and therefore, in the name of equal conditions of competition, shipowners in Greece are demanding that this should be extended to ships flying the Greek flag.
All issues relating to manning levels must be decided in a uniform manner by the host state.
Against this background, we support the report of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, which is calling for the proposals in question to be rejected.
We also support the request for a study to be carried out into the economic and social impact of the liberalisation of cabotage.
<P>
As regards the proposal for a directive on manning conditions, it is clear that all seafarers have a right to equal treatment, regardless of their nationality.
However, we are categorically opposed to the derogations put forward in the report, since these essentially allow for the circumvention of these provisions through the possibility of exemptions and waivers provided for in Article 3, which the report unfortunately accepts.
Moreover, we believe that equal treatment must include not just conditions of employment, but must also cover working and safety conditions, pay and the implementation of collective bargaining agreements for the whole of the crew.
Against this background, therefore, we must put an end to any derogations which are negotiated through bilateral agreements which are often concluded with third countries.
<P>
Although the report of the Committee on Transport and Tourism accepts the proposal, it does not call for the amendment of those articles which lead to its circumvention. Its assessment is based on the argument of non-intervention in the labour market, which does not dispel the concern about the trend of using cheap labour from third countries.
Specifying the conditions for the employment of third-country nationals, which must be the same as the conditions applying to residents of the Member State which is the flag state, does not however deal with the problem of undeclared, uninsured work.
The rapporteur has made a very laudable effort, but we cannot agree with her on this point.
Undermining the provisions will lead to undeclared work and to unemployment among Community seafarers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, the McIntosh report caused quite a stir in the Committee on Transport.
There seem to be substantial interests involved in the proposals.
In the first section on the conditions for cabotage within a Member State, it is proposed that each member of the crew should be paid the same, irrespective of origin.
This is designed to prevent social dumping, sailing with crews that are cheaper to employ than European workers.
However, I do not think this will cost many EU nationals their jobs, since 95 % of the crews on the vessels concerned are EU nationals anyway, mainly doing maritime work, whereas the non-EU nationals on the same vessels are mainly in non-maritime jobs.
So there is hardly any competition between the two groups.
<P>
This also means that the increase in costs for the shipowners applies only to a small number of workers.
The increase in labour costs as a result of this measure is almost completely offset by the income from duty-free.
I cannot see why people doing the same job should be paid different wages just because they are a different nationality, so there is every reason to agree with the Commission proposal.
<P>
The second proposal on manning conditions for ferry services between Member States extends the scope of these conditions to shipping companies established outside the European Union.
Under the relevant international conventions, only the port state can apply safety measures on board and more especially in the proximity of the vessel.
So as far as I can tell, the Commission proposal goes further than is actually possible at the moment.
<P>
In conclusion, I agree with the substance of the rapporteur's Amendment No 4, but I do not think that this directive is the right place to address this issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasio">
Mr President, the Commission deserves thanks for compiling its report, and thanks also go to the rapporteur for having brought out the importance and significance of the issue from the point of view of both employment and the future of shipping.
Every day an enormous number of people travel on passenger craft and ferries in the EU Member States, and their safety relies on professional expertise in the various tasks that are carried out on board by employees who can be entrusted with serious responsibilities.
An important factor here is that the pay and other working conditions of those employed in navigation should be in line with those of other occupations.
The Commission's proposals tackle that very issue, and the European Parliament today has the opportunity to make its own important contribution to the final decision to be taken.
Using an unskilled and underpaid workforce to gain a competitive edge in shipping is a threat both to EU employment policy and transport safety.
There are, however, calls far and wide to outlaw this improper competitive practice.
The issue now to be discussed shows the European Union's resolve to counter this negative development.
<P>
Safeguarding and improving employment is one of the most important obligations the European Union has taken upon itself; many would say it is the most important.
All the institutions have expressed the will to tackle this issue, but often the problem has been that it has been hard to find practical ways of achieving this aim at Union level.
There has been conflict when such great emphasis has been placed on the importance of the employment objectives, yet responsibility for employment is ultimately the responsibility of the Member States.
Now the matter to be resolved is a practical example of employment policy being put into practice at Union level, and, in addition, it includes a sizeable element devoted to the issue of safety.
<P>
We must ensure that the EU develops and enlarges as a community in which market forces play the role that befits them, that is, one that is in the service of the people, and not one that dominates everyone and everything.
As markets become globalised, the European Union will perhaps be the main player, able to influence the framework for imposing conditions on the market within the context of the democratic decision-making process.
We must, in our own work, see to it that the Union fulfills that task.
We need a market economy, but not a market dictatorship.
<P>
There is reason to hope that the Commission and all the legislative machinery that evolves out of its initiative in the future will create regulations allowing us to live and travel safely in a Europe where our citizens earn their livelihood under the protection of a modern system of collective bargaining.
With regard to that, I wish to emphasise the importance of the trade unions, whose job is especially important now in the maritime sector when it comes to increasing safety standards for the public.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, we in Finland have a saying that once the ships were made of wood and the sailors of iron, but now the ships are of iron and the sailors are made of wood.
This will be the case if cheap labour is able to be exploited freely in EU shipping.
As the previous speaker said, it is also a matter of safety.
There are very many examples of problems: ships capsize, as for example the Estonia did, in the Baltic Sea, and others catch fire.
In these situations we need staff who have language skills, who are knowledgeable when it comes to local conditions, and who can rescue people from disaster.
This is why we cannot have a situation where the safety of navigation is under threat all because of cheap labour.
All these rules are positive, in the same way as the continuation of duty-free shopping would serve this purpose in the Nordic countries.
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<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="Monti">
Mr President, I welcome Miss McIntosh's report which supports the adoption of the proposal for a Council directive on manning conditions for regular passenger and ferry services operating between Member States.
May I take this opportunity to congratulate the rapporteur, albeit in her absence, for her excellent work on such an important and complex subject.
<P>
The Commission can agree to two of the amendments proposed.
It can accept the substance of Amendment No 1, provided that it is put into an appropriate article on definitions, since it is in favour of excluding exclusively cargo services from the scope of the directive.
I would point out here that the Commission is currently carrying out a study of the directive's economic impact, as requested by various delegations in the Council.
The scope of the directive may therefore be defined in greater detail in the light of the results of the study, which will be submitted to the Council in April.
<P>
As far as Amendment No 5 is concerned, the Commission can accept it on condition that the deadline for submission of the report is given.
<P>
Let us now move on to the amendments which the Commission cannot accept.
Amendment No 2 cannot be accepted as employment contracts are by definition individual contracts and cannot therefore be included in the article in question, where they would be placed alongside universally applicable instruments.
<P>
Amendment No 3 cannot be accepted as the right to allow seafarers to reside permanently on board ships, or to prohibit them from so doing, is not a matter which is internationally regulated.
Just because he provides regular ferry services does not give a seafarer the right to reside in a Member State, and the Commission does not intend to interfere in an area which would cause problems regarding residence rights in the European Union. Of course this is without prejudice to any decisions which may be adopted under the second and third pillars.
<P>
Amendment No 4 cannot be accepted as the directive deals exclusively with the treatment of third-country seafarers working on regular passenger and ferry services between Member States, and is therefore not the appropriate context in which to make such a proposal.
In actual fact, the Commission is in the process of drawing up a communication to the Council and the European Parliament on the recruitment and training of seafarers in the European Union, which will assess what actions might be undertaken to encourage young people to enter the maritime professions and to promote quality training.
It will also examine how the education and training of seafarers are funded in the Member States.
<P>
As regards the proposal for a Council regulation, I note with regret that the rapporteur has departed from the Commission's proposal and has opted instead for an alternative text requiring the Commission to submit a proposal for a definitive system of manning rules by 1 January 2003.
Such a proposal would have to be based on the report on the economic and social impact of the liberalisation of island cabotage, which is to be submitted to the Council and Parliament by 1 January 2001.
The Commission cannot agree to such amendments.
<P>
On 17 June 1997, the Commission adopted a report which among other matters dealt with the economic and social impact of the liberalisation of island cabotage.
The report concluded that in such a labour-intensive sector as passenger and ferry services, a proposal allowing Member States to impose a compulsory quota of Community nationals in crews would be enough to properly safeguard the jobs of European Union seafarers and would also enable the internal market to operate on the basis of Community social provisions.
The report also concluded that in the cargo cabotage sector, which is linked up to international traffic and is less labour-intensive, there are not sufficient grounds to justify continuing to apply the host State's rules, as is the case at present.
In the proposed regulation an extra clause has been added which requires the host State to apply its own provisions on working conditions to third-country seafarers providing such services and employed on board ships flying its flag.
The European Parliament asks for the regulation not to be amended before the assessment of the impact of island cabotage is complete.
We should remember that as far as manning conditions are concerned, the provisions of the flag State normally apply to shipping companies; under the terms of the regulation in its present form, the host Member States can impose all their own rules on manning conditions, including rules on the minimum wage, qualifications required and social security for seafarers, as well as provisions on working time, rest periods, holidays and so on.
This amounts to a major and unjustified restriction of the freedom to provide services, as shipping companies from other Member States have to comply with the various requirements even when just carrying out a single cabotage operation.
Various companies have already written to the Commission voicing their concern about this.
On the basis of the legislation which is currently in force, it seems likely that the impact of liberalisation will be slight indeed.
<P>
The Commission feels that its own proposal offers a balanced solution which can effectively guarantee freedom to provide services as well as safeguarding Community seafarers' jobs on passenger services between the Member States of southern Europe, which is a highly labour-intensive sector.
At the same time, it enables the restrictions which would arise from the enforcement of all the host State's rules to be avoided.
<P>
In conclusion, I would like to thank Parliament for helping to ensure the swift adoption of the common position on these important measures, which will enable us to get rid of social dumping thanks to the application of Community employment rules to third-country nationals working on regular services, which as we have said are highly labour-intensive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
In successive votes, Parliament adopted two legislative resolutions
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
EU - India Enhanced Partnership
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="President">
The next item item is the report (A4-0066/99) by Mrs André-Léonard, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the Communication from the Commission on EU-India Enhanced Partnership (COM(96)0275 - C4-0407/96).
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<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="André-Léonard">
Mr President, 'We end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again.
The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us'.
These were the words of Nehru to the Constituent Assembly of the Indian Union on 14 August 1947, a few hours before the proclamation of India's independence.
He continued in words which are still relevant today: 'The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity'.
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For fifty years India has pursued these objectives with determination.
Although illiteracy, poverty and disease have not been eradicated since independence was proclaimed, enormous progress has been made.
In 1947, three-quarters of the population lived below the poverty line.
Life expectancy at birth was 32 years whereas now this has nearly doubled to 62 years.
Illiteracy affected 84 % of the population whereas now over half of the population can read.
The country depended on external aid for agricultural production whereas now, thanks to the green revolution of the 1960s, India is self-sufficient in terms of food.
The major famines are no more than a bad memory, even though much still remains to be done to save many children from malnutrition.
<P>
In terms of population growth, the most pessimistic experts who thought that India could not control this have been proven wrong.
However, the figures reveal a population of 970 million, compared with 350 million in 1947, and the World Bank estimates the number of Indians will reach 1.3 billion by 2025, thus exceeding the population of China.
The population issue must therefore be a social and economic priority.
<P>
Since the beginning of this decade, India has embraced liberalisation. It has offered enormous markets and hoped for foreign investors but these have not appeared due to a protectionist commercial policy which imposes hefty customs duties and quantitative restrictions.
Yet economic and commercial reforms have allowed India to increase its participation in the world economy.
<P>
Politically, India can be proud that it is the largest parliamentary democracy in the world.
A new government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerged from the last elections in March 1998.
On entering office, Prime Minister Attal Vajpayee announced his declared intention to make India a nuclear power.
By conducting several tests in May last year, the Hindu nationalists of the BJP have tried to implement an independent nuclear policy, breaking with the previous policy of not exercising its nuclear option which had been maintained for nearly a quarter of a century.
The people were perhaps surprised but not so the international observers.
<P>
These events had the effect of suspending the progress of my report for several months.
The final text calls on India to sign and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
We also consider it essential to restart the dialogue between India and Pakistan in order to come to a peaceful solution on the question of Kashmir. We are also calling for the continuation of dialogue on disarmament in these two countries.
<P>
The proposed partnership agreement is part of a new generation of agreements aimed at redefining the external action of the European Union.
India was one of the first countries to establish relations with the Union and since 1973 three agreements have been signed, initially defining commercial relations and then establishing an institutional framework for economic cooperation and development.
The present partnership will go much further. It proposes an intensified political dialogue between the two parties, the abolition of barriers to investment and trade and measures promoting cultural contacts and a permanent dialogue with civil society.
Other elements in the partnership's agenda include the preservation of biodiversity and the fight against drugs and money-laundering.
<P>
My report also concentrates on development aid which represents 95 % of the European aid granted to India.
The abolition of child labour is also one of the priorities and, where this cannot be avoided, a voluntary code of conduct for companies is recommended.
As the victims of age-old prejudice, women suffer every form of exploitation.
Furthermore, India is one of the few countries in the world where there are more men than women.
This is why the budget for basic health care has been increased.
Education for girls is of crucial importance since the figures show that educated women are at less risk from maternal and infant mortality.
<P>
Too many clichés abound. To associate India with shantytowns, extreme poverty and nothing else is too simplistic.
We hope that the EU-India dialogue will allow India to assume its rightful place on the world stage and that it will allow our Asia strategy to be revised so that it is not solely targeted at China.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, along with China, India is one of the biggest and most important states on the Asian continent.
I therefore welcome the fact that the rapporteur has done such an excellent job of promoting stronger partnership with India.
It is a rising economic power attracting private investment, and it is somewhere where my own country, the Netherlands, for example, has a good deal of its administrative work done by local companies because of their technical know-how and because the wage levels are lower.
Nevertheless, India with its large population still needs a great deal of development aid.
The interesting thing about India is that it is a subcontinent with an impressive culture, and it is this culture which, in the context of development cooperation, has prevented it from simply putting itself in the hands of the donor countries, as has happened with Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, for example.
India is still in charge of policy in this field, which is a good thing to see.
Unfortunately, this mentality is also something of an obstacle, particularly for the further liberalisation of its trade system.
Strengthening links with India through top-level dialogue, as the Commission is proposing, could encourage movement in the right direction here, enabling this country with its established democracy to play a major role in the WTO.
All things considered, India has suffered less than expected from the economic crisis in Asia.
The Financial Times reported this week that the Indian telephone company has reduced call rates by 10 %, and by even more for international calls.
I think this is remarkable.
<P>
However, there are still some rather worrying developments, as the rapporteur said: child labour, increasing religious tensions, partly caused by Hindu nationalists, the conflict in Kashmir and, of course, the developments on the nuclear front.
Developments in neighbouring China are also worrying, but India could one day act as a counterbalance between the ASEAN countries, China and Japan, which would be a good thing.
The recent meeting between India and Pakistan was also a welcome development.
All of these issues can be put on the agenda if there is a stronger partnership between India and the EU.
<P>
As a former journalist, vice-chairman of the Subcommittee on Human Rights and member of the friendship association with India, I would like to take this opportunity to highlight the case of a missing Indian journalist, Ram Singh.
India promised in 1997 to provide information on this man, but up to now we have heard nothing.
I hope that the Indian diplomats here can do so.
My group supports the partnership and we congratulate the rapporteur.
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<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Mr President, in my opinion India is a country which has possibilities for the future.
I am pleased that the EU is willing to continue and strengthen the partnership we have had for a long time and which, let us hope, will continue for a long time to come.
<P>
Many think that India is a strange country which is difficult to get to know.
And so it is, if we see it through Western eyes.
But that is not how we should see it; we should look at India from within and with different eyes.
Then we shall discover that India is a unique country.
I for one, on many of my journeys, have experienced incredible sympathy and generosity, which seem to know no bounds.
<P>
However, apart from the positive aspects, there are also many development problems in India.
We must of course endeavour to help India in every possible way to take the right road, not because we want to control the country, but because we do not want it to make the same mistakes as many countries in Europe have done.
<P>
I would like to comment on a few points here - I will not go through them all since Mrs André-Léonard has already raised many important points, which I of course entirely support.
One of the comments I wish to make concerns regional cooperation in India and with countries around India.
Regional cooperation is indeed of very great importance for the entire region, where India as the largest country clearly has a special position. None of these countries can isolate itself entirely.
If a solution is to be found to many of the problems present in the region, problems with Pakistan and the Kashmir question for example, regional cooperation is of the utmost importance.
I also think that India increasingly realises and understands that.
Increased intergovernmental cooperation is therefore a precondition for the region to achieve positive development in terms of peace, the environment and balancing out economic and social differences in the region.
<P>
As regards the nuclear tests, we all had a great shock when we heard that India, immediately followed by Pakistan, had carried out test explosions.
It sounded to me very much like the most stupid thing which India had done for a long time.
This is definitely not the way to secure cooperation and trust.
Nor does it square with the picture of India I have acquired and of the country I have got to know over many years.
My group and I of course condemn these nuclear tests.
Clearly we urge India to sign and ratify the nuclear test ban and non-proliferation treaties, and of course also the ban on anti-personnel mines, as soon as possible.
<P>
The Kashmir question is also important.
Here we come back to regional cooperation, which I believe can play a major role.
We hope of course that a peaceful solution can be found.
Progress has also been made in recent times.
The Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan recently met in Pakistan to discuss the question.
It was the first time in a great many years that an Indian Prime Minister had set foot in Pakistan.
We have also tabled an amendment to the André-Léonard report on this, which I hope you can support.
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We have discussed freedom of religion in Parliament many times, most recently during the February part-session.
Regrettably, a very long list can be compiled of attacks and violence against religious minorities in India.
Unfortunately, there are repeated occurrences, despite the fact that the Indian Constitution guarantees religious freedom.
There are of course also a number of provisions to protect human rights.
<P>
When we speak of human rights, we must not forget that India still has the death penalty, which is unworthy of a democracy.
I therefore truly hope that India will abolish this sanction as soon as possible.
<P>
India has also still not signed the Convention on torture.
It is of course important too that this should be done as soon as possible.
We get repeated reports, from Amnesty International among others, that torture is going on in India. Serious cases of torture have also occurred in the police.
I hope that India can sign this convention and that it will endeavour to solve these problems as soon as possible.
<P>
We in the Green Group have tabled an amendment precisely on this human rights issue, mainly in regard to the many unsolved cases which have arisen in relation to Kashmir; it is estimated that there have been over 800 unsolved cases since 1990.
Of course this is to impress upon India that it must make progress in resolving this matter.
<P>
When it comes to the environment, the problem is that India has nuclear power.
These nuclear power stations were obtained from the Soviet Union, which does not give any guarantee for the future.
I therefore hope that we can have greater cooperation on renewable energy resources so that nuclear power can be phased out in India, just as we want to phase it out in the EU countries.
Renewable energy resources show very great potential in India, especially where wind and solar energy are concerned.
<P>
Finally, we in the Green Group will of course support this partnership and will vote for the excellent André-Léonard report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Sir Leon Brittan always tells us that there is no alternative to his policy of kowtowing and exaggerated politeness on the red carpets of Beijing.
He claims that there is no alternative to this policy which is based on sacrificing democracy, the rule of law and the freedom of the Tibetans, the Mongols and the inhabitants of Turkestan. He says that there is no alternative to the negation of human rights and to the Chinese gulags.
<P>
Yet we now have an alternative as indicated in this report by Mrs André-Léonard which is heading in the right direction.
For India is the alternative for the European Union and its Asia policy.
A true strategic partnership should be established with this great country of a billion inhabitants, compared with 1.2 billion in China.
India is the largest democracy in the world and a country which, under the government of Mr Vajpayee, has not changed considerably since the government of Mr Rao.
Substantial economic reforms have been initiated and just as substantial economic progress has been made. The country is opening up to the world market, albeit still too slowly, and is strengthening its relations with the rest of the world.
<P>
So should we continue to follow Sir Leon when he tell us that there is no alternative?
Or should we, the Commission, the Council and this House, make an effort to establish a programme which will allow us to rapidly instigate a strategic relationship with this country?
<P>
We still have a long way to go.
The Commission delegation in Delhi is totally inadequate.
This House does not even have an ad hoc delegation with India, although it does have one with the Chinese Communist empire. There is also no annual EU-India summit.
This House, and the Council and the Commission in particular, need a genuine strategy and measures which will allow us to be suitably equipped to meet this major challenge of ensuring India's progress towards increased democracy.
<P>
In my opinion, and certain Members have broached this problem, we must not look for excuses or pay attention to the problem of the nuclear tests in India.
India is quite rightly equipping itself with the means to protect itself, just as we did faced with the Soviet empire.
Why should we be so tolerant of the nuclear strike force of the Chinese Communist empire and yet make such a fuss because India, whose problem is not really with Pakistan but with the neighbouring Communist empire, equips itself with a deterrent power.
When the situation changed for us with the collapse of the Soviet empire and the lessening of the threat, we were able to start to disarm.
<P>
I believe that India, faced with such a country, has the legitimate right to equip itself with the means to protect itself.
<P>
I must congratulate Mrs André-Léonard on her report which contains some positive elements.
The ball is now in the Commission's and Council's court to establish a strategic timetable with the Indian Parliament and the Indian Government so that India can become our favoured partner in Asia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, with regard to this interesting report by Mrs André-Léonard, I am amazed at the lack of priority which this House tends to give to the issue of our relations with India, the largest democracy in the world.
This is particularly true when you compare, for example, the emphasis given to our relations with China. The refusal to discuss this report at the end of the sitting seems rather cavalier given that this is such an important subject.
<P>
This report paints a fairly full picture of India's current situation. This young democratic country has for some years been experiencing a sustained rate of growth and yet, in practice, the democracy seems to be built on extremely inegalitarian social structures.
The persistence of a caste system which the public authorities have not managed to challenge is at the root of an unfair distribution of benefits from the country's growth.
The recent violations of human rights, in particular the violation of religious freedom to the detriment of the Christian communities, as in neighbouring Pakistan, are also worrying and may not have been sufficiently stressed by our rapporteur.
Furthermore, the economic development of India is still based too much on industries which use underpaid and exploited labour, in particular child labour.
<P>
The external commercial policy of the European Union must help to correct these problems by providing the instruments needed to promote fair trade.
It must encourage the overall level of production standards in India to be raised and must seek to reduce as much as possible the unscrupulous trade in products which are only competitive because of unacceptable social and health conditions.
A policy restricted to establishing codes of conduct would be doomed to ineffectiveness.
Europe's action within the WTO must pursue the same objectives.
<P>
The rapporteur's recommendations on the necessary diversification of our aid programmes, on their decentralisation, on improved capillary action and on the extension of micro-loans seem relevant because they are well suited to the social and geographic structures of India.
If applied, they should help to improve the effectiveness of these structures.
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<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, India is a country where nearly everything is on such a large scale as to make it a problematic as well as an important and promising partner for the European Union.
This report clearly addresses the priority areas, the acute problems and those that are more deeply rooted.
A great deal has already been said, and quite rightly, about the nuclear tests, but I nevertheless believe that the development of the partnership has to depend upon the decisions made in this area.
It is also important for India to sign the Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel mines.
<P>
I feel it is particularly important for the EU, both in its overall partnership policy and in its relations with India, to be significantly involved in the fight against the exploitation of children.
The contradictions between legislation in this field and the way it is implemented in India are far too great.
It is also quite staggering that such technologically gifted people - I am thinking here of the software sector, for example - allow their children to be socially and sexually exploited to such a dreadful extent.
Campaigns run by the central government have failed due to the resistance of organised crime and corruption and the lack of flanking measures.
The extreme suffering caused to children forced into prostitution, particularly those from Nepal, is quite simply unacceptable.
<P>
I therefore feel that the proposal in paragraph 44, based on an initiative taken by President Clinton, is a constructive approach which may give some practical substance to European concern about the exploitation of children.
Firms would have to agree voluntarily to comply with certain minimum criteria in return for a fixed payment or bonus.
Implementing and policing this would certainly require some degree of political will and administrative expenditure, but it would be a definite signal and would hold out the prospect of achieving progress.
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<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="Hardstaff">
Mr President, I want to start by speaking from a specifically British viewpoint on India.
One of the arguments that was always put against British membership of the European Union was that it would mean that we would be turning our backs on the Commonwealth and that Europe was an inward-looking small club of rich nations that did not care about the rest of the world.
I always argued very strongly against that viewpoint in the 60s and 70s and argued that one of the great advantages of British membership of the European Union was precisely that it would bring the Commonwealth countries into a relationship with the rest of Europe, with all the advantages that could bring.
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The report that we have before us today is a very good example of what precisely has happened.
Not only has the Commonwealth benefited by being brought into the Lomé Convention but also individual partnerships have been formed, such as the one we are discussing today.
<P>
I should like to congratulate Mrs André-Léonard very strongly on her excellent report which sets out very comprehensively the many social and political issues which face India.
We know there are problems.
The subcontinent of India has enormous potential but, as has been pointed out, many problems and tensions to be tackled particularly in its relationships with its immediate neighbours.
<P>
The European Union, as has been shown by this particular resolution, can engage very constructively with India, which is the biggest democracy in the world and which, for all its problems, remains a very strong and vibrant democracy after over 50 years of independence.
I would like to thank all the colleagues who have participated in this debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Günther">
Mr President, Commissioner, Mrs André-Léonard, I too would like to thank you for the very thorough piece of work you have submitted to us.
The rapporteur quite rightly points out that India is an established democracy, and indeed one hardly dares imagine what the whole region would look like without this stabilising factor.
<P>
Nonetheless, the report hands out rather too much good advice for my liking.
Of course we should, for instance, condemn the attacks by religious fanatics, but this is what the Indian government does anyway, and we should not forget that leading Indian politicians have fallen victim to such fanatics.
We should therefore and above all look at supporting India in a very positive way.
<P>
I would like to make two further points.
Firstly, one of the proposed amendments quite rightly calls for the delegation in India to be reinforced.
That is however just one side of the story.
Cooperation between the Commission and the delegation would also need to improve, as it is not acceptable for aid-workers on the spot to be kept waiting for nine months before they get the first instalment of funding for their projects and to have to borrow money from other projects and other aid organisations until European Union resources are finally made available.
In instances of cofinancing it is particularly difficult to explain to a partner why they should provide their contribution whilst those on the European side drag their feet.
<P>
Secondly, I very much welcome the fact that some of the previous speakers also called for improved cooperation in the high-tech sector, for this is indeed the technology of the future for India, but if we do this I think we should nonetheless refrain from asking the Commission to draw up a code of conduct; I feel this is not a job for the Commission but for other organisations to do.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Thomas">
Mr President, we are seeing on a daily basis that India, the largest democracy in the world, is making considerable progress in strengthening its political, economic and social structures.
As documented in our new external strategy from 1995, we in Europe have a vital interest in fostering close relations based on shared values, fair partnership, economic cooperation with direct effects on jobs, and support for human rights.
<P>
In meetings I had over there, including in my capacity as vice-chairman of the European Parliament's SAARC Delegation, I was able to see for myself the quality of the reforms.
It is remarkable how stable India has remained in the midst of Asia's economic crisis thanks to its economic strength and innovative capacity.
The restructuring of the banking system and financial services and the expansion of the South Asia free trade area will be further important developments.
Nonetheless, as Mrs André-Léonard has already stated in her well-balanced report, our dialogue should not deal solely with economic matters.
Respect for human rights is an essential basis for all European Union agreements.
<P>
The fight against child labour can only be won if state authorities get actively involved, if a minimum income is guaranteed, if parents do their bit to ensure that their children are not reduced to the status of cheap and willing drudges.
Children must be able to attend school to get the education and training that will give them a future.
Village cooperative societies, micro-loans for women and NGO initiatives such as rugmark need our support.
Companies too must make their contribution by means of voluntary agreements to safeguard social standards.
The democracy so close to our hearts means respecting other religious persuasions as well.
There is no room for totalitarian philosophies.
Establishments in which people practise their religion must be protected against physical violence and threat just as ethnic minorities should be.
The words of Prime Minister Vajpayee need to be acted upon further.
<P>
The partnership between the largest state of the SAARC community and the European Union should be of high quality, built up through exchanges of young people, information and of course high tech, networks and a whole range of other experiences, involving political parties and parliaments as well.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="Monti">
Mr President, on behalf of the Commission and in particular of Vice-President Marín, I wish to warmly thank Parliament for having persevered with the work on the Commission's communication of June 1996 on an enhanced partnership with India, despite all the difficulties encountered.
I should like to particularly congratulate Mrs André-Léonard, who never tired in her efforts to bring this project to a positive conclusion.
I also thank her colleagues, Mr Rocard and Mr Malerba and the many honourable Members who have contributed through their questions, contributions in debate, observations and proposals for amendments, to assuring that the final outcome is both comprehensive and of high quality.
<P>
We are all aware of the unfortunate events of May last year, when India took the world by surprise and decided to reconduct nuclear tests after almost a quarter of a century.
There was a need for the European Union, especially the European Parliament, to observe closely events as they evolved and incorporate them fully into the analysis of our relations with India.
This has delayed the completion of the report.
<P>
In our view, all the institutions of the European Union reacted to these events in a balanced manner.
The message to both India and Pakistan was firm and simple, namely, that for the European Union, the principle of nuclear non-proliferation is non-negotiable.
This is, again, made very clear in the text of the resolution before us.
While emphasising principles, there is no alternative to pursuing the immediate priority objectives: lowering tensions and preventing an arms race on the subcontinent.
In the long term we must make every effort to reintegrate India and Pakistan into the non-proliferation system.
<P>
In the case of India in particular there is no alternative to dialogue.
India is the second most populous country on this globe, with a proud and tested democratic tradition.
Democracy has enabled India to preserve its unity, despite an ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity that is even more varied than in our European Union.
Sanctions would likely have fed frustrations, reinforced the radical sectors in Indian society and shut out the country even further from international efforts towards building a global security system.
<P>
The report rightly emphasises the legitimacy of India's aspirations to be recognised as a global player.
Few developing, even developed, countries could stand the strain of preserving a comparable democratic routine in the face of challenges as daunting as India's.
The nuclear tests have certainly given India worldwide attention, but for the wrong reasons.
Indeed, they may well have set back India's global aspirations.
On the other hand, there are aspects of global concern which cannot be tackled successfully without a contribution by the giant India.
I will not list them here as they are so clearly identified in the report.
<P>
The current level and depths of our political relations with India still do not reflect the fact that the European Union is India's most important and only growing export market, its first source of investment and technology and also its principal aid donor.
However, in high-level meetings, as in our daily contacts with our partners, we are confronted with the fact that the European Union is little understood in India and its role hardly acknowledged.
This applies to all levels of Indian society, including the government.
<P>
In order to put our political relationship with India on a footing that reflects not only the importance of our economic relations but also the status of both the EU and India as global players, it is imperative that we work on increasing our visibility in India.
I, therefore, welcome your support towards setting up a press and information unit in the Commission's delegation in New Delhi, as is already the case in other major capitals.
Already we seem to be gaining some ground in this aspect.
Our decision to maintain dialogue following the nuclear tests and to expand dialogue into new areas is contributing to enhancing our profile.
The euro has received, and continues to receive, extensive coverage in the Indian media.
I, therefore, very much welcome the proposal contained in the resolution that the European Parliament take on a more active role in maintaining regular dialogue with its Indian counterpart and that Parliament be given the resources to do so effectively.
<P>
India is not only a democracy in name but also a living and vibrant democratic body politic with a free and fiercely competitive press which has the largest combined circulation worldwide.
<P>
Indians are proud of their traditions and especially sensitive about their democratic credentials.
We must take into account these sensitivities when adopting declarations, especially when exhorting India on the issue of minority rights and human rights in general.
<P>
This does not imply that dialogue with India on matters relating to human rights is not possible.
It is not only possible, but also highly desirable.
The Commission does not, and never has, side-stepped its responsibilities in this field.
The Commission is convinced that dialogue at all levels, including an intensified dialogue between India's civil society and the EU and its respective institutions, which must also include Parliament, is the only way forward.
However, we are not convinced that public declarations would not have the opposite effect; namely, make such dialogue more difficult, at least in the short term.
<P>
Last January the 10th EC/India Joint Commission Meeting was held in Brussels.
On this occasion we formally launched the high-level economic dialogue between India and the EU.
We are convinced that this is the way forward to building confidence and trust.
<P>
The vote on the House's report on an enhanced EU/India partnership is very timely.
I should like to thank the House for its tremendous effort.
It is reassuring to know that we have the support of Parliament in this extraordinary venture of building our relationship with this great country.
<P>
Finally, I was interested in the interventions of those, including Mr Dupuis, who strongly underlined the need to institute an annual EU/India summit.
We believe this proposal deserves serious consideration in a constructive spirit.
I believe this reflection should build on, in particular, two sets of elements: on the one hand, the already existing mechanisms which have been set up including an annual ministerial meeting at Troika-level, senior officials meeting, strategy planners meeting, consultations in the margins of multilateral fora and a series of working groups.
Despite the hiatus imposed by the nuclear tests, we have been working hard to make these mechanisms fully operational.
The second context in which the idea of an annual EU/India summit should be considered is the evolution in the structures concerning common security and foreign policy that the Amsterdam Treaty is about to bring into force very soon.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
Before we move on to the vote, Mr Wibe has asked for the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wibe">
Mr President, according to Rule 112(2), at least one third of Members must be present in plenary sitting if there is to be a quorum. That means 209 Members.
When I look around, I think I can estimate the number of Members present at about 60 to 70. I doubt whether there are more than 100 Members present in the House.
The rest have gone home.
I have been an MEP for four years. We have never on any Friday fulfilled the conditions for a quorum.
<P>
We have before us an important agreement.
I think that we should show to the world's largest democracy, India, the respect that we are at least a quorum when we take a decision on this agreement.
I therefore call for a count to establish whether there are 209 Members in the Chamber or not.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="President">
Mr Wibe, in accordance with the same Rule that you mentioned, Rule 112 - of which you only mentioned part - in order to request the President to establish if a quorum is present, you must have the support of at least 29 Members.
<P>
The President noted that the request for the quorum to be established did not have the support required by the Rules
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="President">
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, there will be no discussion on this matter.
This item is now closed.
You may have the floor, but only if it is on a different matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, I should just like to make one comment.
I would point out to Mr Wibe that even yesterday when there were some very important votes to be taken, there were not even 29 members of his group present.
So if you are going to make this kind of comment, you need to be sure that you have some people from your own political family to support you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="President">
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, you have shaken my good faith in you, since I had already told you that there would be no discussion on this matter.
The Chair has the last word, and you did not let me have it, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
In any event, we are not going to debate this issue any further.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
Parliament adopted the resolution
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I should also like to join you in congratulating Mrs André-Léonard and in thanking her for her work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Lindqvist">
The EU must make every effort to shape its cooperation with India in such a way that the country's nuclear weapons do not come to be used and that there is no proliferation of fissile materials for nuclear power and nuclear arms.
<P>
The EU must also impose stringent demands on India to investigate and process the unsolved disappearances which have occurred in Kashmir, and must demand an end to the violation of human rights.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Macro-financial assistance to Bosnia and Herzegovina
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0097/99) by Mr Schwaiger, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council Decision providing macro-financial assistance to Bosnia and Herzegovina (COM(98)0652 - C4-0704/98-98/0311(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Schwaiger">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, here in Strasbourg last Wednesday we had the chance to talk to representatives of the various parties in the elected national parliament of Bosnia-Herzegovina for the first time in our Delegation for South-East Europe, led by our most energetic chairman Doris Pack.
<P>
This political dialogue showed us that we can take it as read that we and the Members of Parliament of Bosnia-Herzegovina are determined to work together and that they place a great deal of trust in us as representatives of the European Parliament and the European Union as a whole.
We should do justice to this trust and be guided by it in the work we do in the European Parliament, focusing our policies on peace, reconciliation and reconstruction and continuing to implement them consistently.
<P>
Over the last few days Bosnia-Herzegovina has been hitting the international headlines, and not just because the decision about the status of the city of Brcko has finally been taken.
From now on all sections of the population are to be covered by a single municipal and district administration, so as to put a stop to all the conflicts and blockades.
The Office of the High Representative has taken on an important role here, organising cooperation, ensuring that refugees return home and promoting peaceful coexistence in this region of Brcko.
<P>
In addition to this, the High Representative has done what was necessary and removed the President of Republika Srpska, Mr Poplasen, from office, thereby preventing the destructive forces associated with Milosevic from holding up the reconstruction work started there.
The international community is therefore utterly determined to continue with the reconstruction of Bosnia-Herzegovina and its constituent parts, in other words its entities, and to put a stop to those who oppose the Dayton peace process.
<P>
The macro-financial assistance for Bosnia-Herzegovina which we are discussing today is an important element in the European Union's efforts to do its bit for the reconstruction of Bosnia-Herzegovina and to help the country to help itself.
The aim of the financial assistance is to support the economic reform and reconstruction programme for Bosnia-Herzegovina, as agreed with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, by means of firm pledges of financing.
Back in March 1998 the IMF and the World Bank outlined a macro-economic programme for Bosnia-Herzegovina.
After our ECOFIN Council in April 1998 also agreed to this EU financial assistance, the Commission stated at the fourth Donors' Conference - supported by myself as the representative of the European Parliament - that it was in principle willing to provide Bosnia-Herzegovina with macro-financial assistance amounting to around 50 % of that given by the entire international community.
Out of this, EUR 30 million is to be given in loans and EUR 30 million in the form of grants.
<P>
With this proposed financial assistance the European Union hopes to support the implementation of an economic reform programme comprising a series of both macro-economic and institutional commitments, concerning both the common institutions of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the institutions of the two entities.
Although lasting peace is gaining ground in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the country's structures are still fragile and still depend on international support.
The most urgently needed structural reforms at this stage are banking reforms, enterprise privatisation and restructuring, reform of the healthcare and pensions system, the introduction of a simplified system of customs tariffs and the liberalisation of foreign currency transactions and trade.
<P>
Most importantly of all, Bosnia-Herzegovina must earn revenue of its own, particularly revenue from customs duties.
However, corruption in the tax administration, an upsurge in organised crime and a plethora of cases of fraud mean that the organs of State - government, parliament and the judiciary - and spending controls do not yet work properly.
The amendments proposed by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, which I am now tabling, support the Commission in this action and I would ask for your approval of this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Hardstaff">
Mr President, on behalf of the Party of European Socialists I should like to congratulate Mr Schwaiger on his excellent, very clear report.
It sums up very comprehensively the extremely delicate situation which still prevails in Bosnia and Herzegovina and ways in which the European Union can assist in maintaining what is still a very fragile peace and help to move forward towards the creation of democracy and peaceful cooperation between its different ethnic groups, which we all want to see.
<P>
The EUR 60 m of aid being discussed here is a comparatively small sum but, as the rapporteur points out, Bosnia and Herzegovina has been receiving very large sums of money in the wake of the disastrous civil war and financial assistance on that scale is unlikely to continue.
It is therefore essential that this money is very carefully targeted and monitored to ensure that it is used to bring about the necessary reforms to enable the country to become self-sustaining.
<P>
Better infrastructure, efficiently functioning public administration supporting democratic structures and the continued transition to a market economy are vital to achieve this.
The PES supports all the amendments to the Commission proposals which will serve to strengthen the monitoring of the use of the money in a country where fraud, corruption and organized crime are, sadly, still part of the legacy of the civil war.
All of us in Europe have an interest in helping to improve security, employment and living standards and resettling refugees and displaced persons in a part of our continent.
<P>
It is a moral as well as financial imperative to ensure that this macro-financial assistance is targeted as effectively as possible to achieve these aims in partnership with the IMF and the World Bank.
The PES welcomes the full involvement of the European Parliament in this process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Hardstaff.
<P>
And now ladies and gentlemen, for five minutes and on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists - I am sorry, I must ask Parliament's services to rectify what I have just said, since although I am sure that Mr von Habsburg could speak on behalf of any of us, in this case, he is in fact speaking on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party. Mr von Habsburg, you have the floor for five minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="von Habsburg">
Thank you very much, Mr President, for honouring me by saying that I was a member of your party.
Our friendship is so strong that no party barriers come between us.
<P>
Mr President, Mr Schwaiger has once again done some excellent work here and has addressed a great many problems.
Perhaps I could look at what might be termed the political side, since this is, after all, one of the trickiest issues.
By the way, this is the best proof we could have that Friday sittings are worth attending.
Thinking back to all the nonsense that was talked on previous days, I must say that this subject is substantially more important than most of the others that have been discussed.
<P>
Let us be clear about one point: the problem of Bosnia is perhaps the most difficult of all for us to deal with, as the crisis there could not be predicted.
It was a sudden event which swept over the country, catching it unawares and directly exposing it to an attack from outside, from Serbia.
There were further difficulties besides, as demonstrated by events in Brcko, where a problem was once again left unresolved.
It is all very well to say that Brcko should be turned into a neutral zone. However, this is not what had been clearly promised, which was that the wishes of the population would be followed.
In that case Brcko would obviously have joined the Federation of Bosnia rather than becoming neutral territory, although that would still have been better than handing it straight over to the Serbs, since there are scarcely any Serbs in Brcko.
The majority of people there were Muslims and Croats, who certainly had no wish to live under Serbian rule.
<P>
We should also consider that even the dismissal of Mr Poplasen from his post as President of Republika Srpska has yet again shown that the clean-up operation so vitally necessary if there is to be cooperation has not yet taken place in Republika Srpska.
The fact that Mr Karadzic's cronies continue in power to a certain extent poisons the whole situation.
Therefore our task, first and foremost, is to help the present, legitimate government.
This also means, of course, helping this legitimate government by setting a good example ourselves.
It was most regrettable that a number of the worst cases of corruption in the Commission were related to this very area, and perhaps not enough has yet been done to clear up these cases.
We are a long way, after all, from putting the Commission's house in order and it is high time, given the situation, for this to be done.
<P>
When all is said and done, it has to be acknowledged that many of the problems listed here, such as corruption, fraud and crime, actually stem from Republika Srpska and again and again spill over into the territory of the Federation.
The latter, which I have frequently visited, enjoys quite a high degree of law and order.
It is Republika Srpska which spreads disorder and which is still under totalitarian leadership, whereas the present government in Bosnia, as well as Muslims, Croats and even Serbs, genuinely believe in democracy. Yes, such a thing is possible!
The problem is that we have never given them enough support.
We could have worked very well with these Serbs, had we decided not to play games over and over again with Karadzic, Vladic and company, whatever their names are.
<P>
This is an absolutely fundamental political problem.
We shall have to call upon our Union to pursue a clear and unambivalent policy not just towards Republika Srpska within Bosnia, but also in Serbia itself.
There is one point we must grasp, which is that as long as Milosevic is in power there will be no peace, just as there would never have been peace in Germany had Hitler been allowed to continue in power!
They are after all broadly similar characters.
We must finally resolve to give effective support to those forces existing in Serbia - we have seen them here ourselves on occasion.
Only then will we have peace.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
Mr President, I will first pay tribute to the rapporteur for what is a good report.
I do not do that as a matter of routine but only when it is justified, which is the case here.
I readily concur with Mr von Habsburg's description of the political situation in these countries - he knows it much better than I do.
<P>
It is thus a question of creating democracy in a country which must now rebuild after war and terror have ravaged its people both physically and socially for so long.
It is a question of creating political reforms for democracy, stability, a market economy and sustainable growth.
It is a question of creating living conditions for the people who live in these areas, and who must both cope with their own everyday lives and deal with displaced persons and returning refugees.
<P>
After all the crises we have now had in the Commission, with fraud and mismanagement of resources, which have been discussed in this Chamber many times, not least in connection with matters involving reconstruction programmes, it is immensely important, indeed a condition, that resources for these programmes should actually be used for the intended purpose and that we achieve the results sought by the programme.
This demands proper control of how the money is spent.
Since, in the wake of the war, crime and disorder are also rife in the receiving countries, with fraud and corruption as part of everyday life, it is even more important that the money we commit is not subject to mismanagement on the donor's side.
It is immensely important, from the point of view of trust towards us as politicians and parliamentarians, that matters now proceed according to acceptable rules.
<P>
It is also important to cooperate with other lenders and funding agencies, such as the IMF and the European Investment Bank, and to involve the new institutions, the banking system, the central bank and so forth in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
<P>
Reporting on and monitoring of activities is also absolutely crucial, so that we who are now appropriating funds can ascertain what happens and correct any errors.
It is also a good idea to have a clear deadline for when reports and so on are to be presented.
<P>
This is a good proposal. It can also be a good reform - everything depends on how it is set up, implemented and controlled.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, even in the peaceful states of Central and Eastern Europe we see that economic and financial assistance have no effect without the rule of law and good governance.
But this is particularly the case in a country destroyed by war, where the war may have ended but peace has not yet been achieved.
There is crime and corruption everywhere, even in our own countries, but of course it is far worse in a country whose future is something not many people believe in and who therefore feel that they need to feather their own nests quickly before everything falls apart.
<P>
Through statements like those made by Lord Owen, who said that Republika Srpska might be annexed to Serbia after all, we are supporting crime and mismanagement.
This destroys confidence that the country of Bosnia-Herzegovina will continue to exist in the future, and that is dangerous because it could bring all our economic and financial efforts to nothing.
I therefore hold the view that we need political stability, and this primarily involves the return of displaced people and refugees.
<P>
I regret that so far the Commission and the Council have not been able to give me any statistics on how many displaced people and refugees have returned to each entity, so that we could make a scientific comparison of how many have returned to the Muslim Croat Federation and how many, or rather how few, have been able to go back to Republika Srpska - virtually none in the latter case.
If we had figures available we would see what the ratio was.
Therefore I urgently request that such data be provided to help us assess the situation.
<P>
As far as Brcko is concerned, neutrality is certainly better than annexing it to Serbia against the will of the people, but this neutrality can only be a transitional solution.
It must be internationally guaranteed.
It brings back fateful memories of the Baltic Corridor before the Second World War.
We have to recognise that true peace is still a long way off for this country.
Step by step we must try to bolster stability, but we should also realise that it will take years, maybe even decades, for normal conditions to be restored.
<P>
I therefore welcome the Schwaiger report for its practical and critical attitude and also for its endeavours to help people in specific ways and to consolidate administration and the rule of law, without which there will be fresh waves of refugees, and the return of refugees and all the reconstruction work we have done, of which many are justifiably so proud, will immediately come under threat if the highly fragile peace there is destroyed.
Dayton was just a first step, and a thoroughly inadequate agreement at that, and we need to make considerable improvements to it here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Monti">
Mr President, the Commission congratulates the rapporteur, Mr Schwaiger, for the excellent report which Parliament is to vote on today, and thanks him for the support he has given to the Commission's proposal.
<P>
The Commission is proposing macro-financial assistance for Bosnia-Herzegovina amounting to a total of EUR 60 million, consisting of a loan of up to EUR 30 m and a non-repayable component of up to EUR 30 m.
The granting of a non-repayable component is due to the country's level of development and will require a special decision from the budgetary authority.
To make sure that this assistance is provided in good time, without having to wait for the legal basis to be adopted, the Commission will ask the budgetary authority to consider this decision as a matter of urgency, in line with the strategy pursued by the international donor community and by the European Union in particular after the constitution of the State of Bosnia-Herzegovina following the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement in December 1995.
The operation is designed to be a one-off addition to the measures provided for under the PHARE And OBNOVA programmes.
The specific objective of the operation proposed is to support efforts to bring about macro-economic stability and structural reform in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in the context of the programme agreed with the International Monetary Fund.
Furthermore, at the last meeting of the Peace Implementation Council, held on 15-16 December in Madrid, ministers recognised that economic reforms, together with the strengthening of the common institutions, are fundamental priorities if the autonomous development of Bosnia-Herzegovina is to be safeguarded.
<P>
Since the authorities in Bosnia-Herzegovina concluded a stand-by agreement with the IMF in May 1998, some progress has been made on fundamental economic reforms.
A common currency, the convertible marka, has been adopted, a common state budget has been passed, and budgetary spending by both entities has been strictly kept within the constraints of the revenue available.
<P>
On 1 January 1999, a single customs code, consistent with European Union rules, came into force, and progress has been made in harmonising the trade regimes of both entities.
In addition, a World Bank programme to improve the management of public finances has been completed.
Nonetheless, a hefty package of work still remains to be done.
Gross domestic product per capita is estimated at well below pre-war levels.
Overall unemployment is estimated at between 35 and 40 %.
Bosnia-Herzegovina's external financial situation is still shaky and not enough progress has been made in fundamental sectors such as privatisation, the reform of the banking and payments system and tax reform.
<P>
To conclude, Mr President, I should like to make a number of comments on the rapporteur's proposed amendments.
The Commission supports Amendments Nos 1, 4 and 5.
It also shares the concerns expressed in many of the amendments rejected, but at the same time it considers it important to safeguard the effective implementation of the assistance, the integrity of the aims pursued and the exceptional nature of this financial instrument.
The implementation procedures have proved their worth in many similar operations managed by the Commission.
Making the procedures unduly burdensome could jeopardise the efficacy of the operation.
<P>
I would like to emphasise that the Commission intends to guarantee that the macro-financial assistance complements and is entirely consistent with other forms of Community assistance to Bosnia-Herzegovina.
In particular, it intends to make full use of the advice of CAFAO, the Tax and Customs Assistance Office funded by the European Union, and will give priority to the implementation of measures recommended by the Office to combat fraud and corruption.
I would also point out, whilst on this subject, that the macro-financial assistance provided in the form of a non-repayable grant and a loan will be paid into an account at the Central Bank, in order to increase its currency reserves and boost the balance of payments.
It would be extremely difficult for funds to be embezzled or misused under these circumstances, given also that the use of official reserves is subject to constant supervision by the IMF.
<P>
The Commission notes Parliament's desire to be informed of the conditions laid down for granting this assistance in good time, and it will therefore forward a report on this as soon as possible, as is provided for in any case in the proposal.
Nevertheless, in order to negotiate these conditions, which are an essential part of the operation, a certain degree of flexibility is needed and we must comply with any confidentiality requirements which the authorities in the country might impose regarding the substance and timetable of the reforms.
The Commission is however prepared to answer any questions Parliament sees fit to ask during the operation and after it has been completed.
<P>
In the Commission's eyes it is vital to safeguard the objectives of an operation which is designed to support macro-economic stability and economic reforms, and to this end the implementation of the assistance needs to be well coordinated with the international financial institutions present in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Nevertheless, given the exceptional circumstances prevailing in this area, the Commission will remain in close contact with the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina, as it already does anyway.
<P>
Finally, as in other Community operations of a financial nature, the principles of sound and efficient management and rigorous budgetary control will of course be complied with.
The Commission will support these principles before the Council, to make sure that they are properly applied in the final decision.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Schwaiger">
Mr President, Commissioner, I take it from what you have said that you will accept and incorporate all the proposals made by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, which are now the European Parliament's proposals.
I just have one question regarding Amendment No 11 to Article 5(1)(new): does this also refer to informing the European Parliament before the second tranche of financial assistance is released?
We feel it would make sense to draw up a short interim report and only to proceed further once you have informed us and we have been able to assure you of our further support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Monti">
Mr President, as I have already said, the Commission supports Amendments Nos 1, 4 and 5, and I have also stressed that the Commission shares the concerns voiced in many of the amendments which it has rejected but the spirit of which it will bear in mind.
As for the amendment Mr Schwaiger is referring to, that is No 11, the Commission does not feel it can accept it as such but intends to take account of it in a Commission statement to the Council of Ministers, which will of course be made in public.
The reason why we are unwilling to accept the amendment as such is that the procedure proposed could present risks for the efficiency of the operation.
Nonetheless, given the exceptional political and social circumstances prevailing in Bosnia-Herzegovina at the present time, the Commission will keep the competent bodies of both Parliament and the Council regularly informed of developments, including the actual execution of the assistance programme, which I think the honourable Member particularly emphasised.
That is all I can tell you about this matter for the moment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
Parliament adopted the legislative resolution
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="President">
Parliament has now come to the end of its agenda.
The Minutes of today's sitting will be submitted to the House for its approval at the beginning of its next sitting.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, you are aware of how much I value the fact that you all work with me to help things run smoothly and to carry out the good and fruitful work we do at these Friday morning sittings.
In all seriousness, allow me to say how I feel and to express my gratitude, on behalf of the House, to all those who collaborate with us, since this has been a week of very intense work.
<P>
This week we approved the amendments to be made to the Rules of Procedure by a vast majority.
These amendments will not enter into force until all the Member States have approved the amendments made to the Treaties in Amsterdam.
This means that, as we are coming to the end of this parliamentary term, we have almost completely prepared the Rules of Procedure of this House for its next term.
I must say that I felt as if we were planting a tree, that we had stopped concentrating on our day-to-day work for a few moments so that we could also take a responsible look at the future.
<P>
I hope - and I am sure, as you all are - that this tree will bear fruit and will shelter the Members who, as representatives of the people of Europe, will hold these seats in the next parliamentary term.
<P>
Before I close the sitting, Mr Rübig wishes to speak on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, I just wanted to express my thanks to the French authorities for providing such exemplary cover for the demonstrations by the Kurds and the farmers and for giving full consideration to the security of this House.
Many thanks to the French authorities!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, I do not wish to thank the French authorities.
I have had two groups of visitors who were subjected to a great deal of extremely annoying red tape.
They were searched and made to pay fines.
What my groups suffered this morning gives a very poor impression of Europe and I believe that the French authorities should respect the Schengen area and not be so overzealous.
They really are working to rule.
I must protest at the way in which groups of visitors who come here to Strasbourg are treated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I would propose that we do not begin a debate on this question.
The speeches by Mr Rübig and Mrs Lulling will be recorded in the Minutes.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="President">
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
<P>
The sitting was closed at 11.35 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 12 March 1999.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
The Minutes of the sitting of Friday, 12 March 1999 have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Mr President, I would remind the House of the recent death of Yehudi Menuhin in Berlin on 12 March.
Berlin was the scene of his rise to fame and it was to Berlin that he returned in 1945 to promote dialogue with the German people.
He was the first Jewish person to do so.
Yehudi Menuhin made a conscious decision to become a European.
He supported those who fought for freedom in the Soviet Union and was the first to put forward in the Knesset the notion of an Israeli-Palestinian confederation. He conducted the peace concert in Sarajevo, and worked to ensure that culture and the development of culture featured in our Treaties.
He also cooperated with Parliament and with the Commission to develop the MUS-Europe programme. To date, this programme has enabled over 3 000 children from underprivileged and marginalised areas of the European Union to learn music, mime and movement, as part of education for tolerance.
<P>
Mr President, I think we owe something to this self-professed European and British citizen. I am not calling for a minute's silence simply because I believe Yehudi Menuhin himself would have wished our debates to continue as planned.
I appreciate that today is a difficult day, but I do feel that the House should pay tribute to the memory of Yehudi Menuhin.
<P>
Loud applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Barón.
I think the applause indicates that the House supports your views, and they will be passed on as appropriate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, I should like to inform you that a few days ago in the rue Wirtz, a woman was raped and then murdered, and I support your efforts to secure the establishment of a police station, which is urgently needed and would be greatly welcomed by those who live and work in the surrounding area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
Mr Rübig, I have already sent two or three letters to the relevant Belgian authorities, but I will make further representations to them following your request.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="Falconer">
Mr President, I refer to the Minutes of the last plenary session in Strasbourg.
On Thursday I asked if we could have some information regarding the ongoing dispute about the interpreters and the payment of their wages.
I understand that today we shall be discussing the wages of other personnel but I think we should be looking into the matter of the interpreters.
Madam Fontaine promised that a note would be circulated explaining the current situation.
Can you advise me if that note is now on its way?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
Thank you for reminding me of this issue, Mr Falconer.
It was dealt with at the last meeting of the Bureau, and a note explaining the situation will be distributed to Members immediately.
The Bureau instructed the Secretary-General to act on Parliament's behalf and to bring all possible pressure to bear in the search for a solution to the problem, in the hope that it will be resolved as soon as possible.
<P>
The Minutes were approved
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Order of business
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
The draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents pursuant to Rule 95 of the Rules of Procedure has been distributed.
<P>
Pursuant to Rule 97 of the Rules of Procedure, and in view of the events which took place last week, I propose the following amendments to the agenda for the sittings to be held today and tomorrow.
I should inform the House that these changes have already been included in a corrigendum to the agenda, but they need to be formally adopted.
<P>
The President read out the amendments to the agenda
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, you have just mentioned as an item on the agenda, incorporating the corrigendum that we have received, the statement by the Council following the resignation of the Commission.
I do not think that this wording represents what actually happened last week, which was the resignation - albeit collective - of the members of the Commission.
This is what was stated in the letter that Mr Santer sent to Gerhard Schröder, which, I would point out, was signed by all the Commissioners individually.
<P>
I think we should not give the public the wrong impression, particularly by leading it to believe that the motion of censure was adopted.
There would indeed have been a collective resignation if the motion of censure which I and 69 of my colleagues tabled had been adopted, but this is not what happened.
The agenda should therefore refer to the individual resignation of the members of the Commission, so as to prevent any misunderstanding among the public.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, I do not think there is any problem about saying in the agenda 'the resignation of all the members of the Commission'.
It is not just one or two members who have resigned, but all of them.
They announced this in one single document, which they all signed, so I think we can quite easily call this the resignation of all the members of the Commission.
I cannot see any problem in leaving this item as it stands.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Theato">
Mr President, tomorrow's agenda includes the De Giovanni report on scrutiny of the exercise of the Commission's powers.
The Committee on Budgetary Control has asked me to recommend to the House that this report be referred back to the Committee on Institutional Affairs, since the Committee on Budgetary Control urgently needs to discuss this matter further, particularly in the light of what is in the Wise Men's report and in terms of access to information and the supply of information.
I would ask you to take a vote on whether this report can be removed from the agenda and referred back to the Institutional Affairs Committee.
I have already spoken to the chairman, and we agree that the events of the last few days have made some additional work necessary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
Mrs Theato, referral back to committee must be requested by a political group or by 29 Members.
Does any group wish to take over this request?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Mr President, you will recall that I asked at the last part-session for the groups and committees to be given another opportunity to peruse this rather insubstantial document and to see whether it represents the best solution.
For that reason, my group is naturally in favour of referring the report back to committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="De Giovanni">
Mr President, I should like to speak in favour of this proposal because, under these new circumstances, it makes a good deal of sense to reopen the discussion of an agreement which had its merits but could of course be further improved with the new Commission.
I can therefore say, on behalf of my group, that we are fully behind this idea.
<P>
Parliament approved the request for referral back to committee
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Robles Piquer">
Mr President, I believe I speak for many other Members as I put the following question, which I hope the Commission can respond to.
Following the resignation of all the members of the Commission, we have repeatedly read that the Commission will continue to deal with current business, but will not for instance take legislative decisions. This is perfectly understandable.
<P>
My question is as follows: does the debate on Agenda 2000 count as current business? According to statements made by President Schröder and others, this will be a key issue at the European Council to be held in Berlin the day after tomorrow.
The Commission is very well acquainted with everything involved in this debate and I should like to know if, despite its great significance, the Commission feels it counts as current business.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
I suggest that we do not debate this question now.
It would seem best to ask the Council itself to reply when it takes the floor shortly. I can also make available to you a legal report prepared by Parliament covering this very contingency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, I have heard that the Commission and the Council Presidency will be here today and tomorrow.
Today, tomorrow, or at the very latest the day after tomorrow, a decision will be taken on a crucial issue, military intervention in Kosovo, the repercussions of which for peace in general and in the Balkans in particular are anyone's guess. Perhaps you could therefore take it upon yourself to ask these two institutions to make a statement informing Parliament what the position of the European Union is and what their own position is, and to hear the opinion of this House.
Mr President, we have a historic duty ...
<P>
The President cut the speaker off
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="President">
Mr Ephremidis, this is not the time to hold a debate on Kosovo.
There are other opportunities for that.
It is not possible at the moment.
<P>
The order of business was thus established
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Statement by the Commission
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="President">
Mr Santer, you have the floor to make your statement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="Santer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are currently going through one of the most difficult periods in the construction of Europe.
These are very distressing times for me and for the other members of the Commission, both professionally and personally.
We assisted the Committee of Independent Experts in its work, and we acted swiftly and without hesitation by resigning as soon as we knew its conclusions.
It was a very painful decision, but it was necessary to preserve the institution of the Commission and the European Union as a whole.
<P>
We must now ensure that the right lessons are learnt from this crisis, which must be the catalyst for deep-rooted and permanent reform in the European institutions.
I hope that it will pave the way for a more transparent, responsible and democratic Europe, a Europe that applies the most rigorous ethical standards.
This is what the people and the taxpayers of Europe expect of us.
<P>
I have said that the Commission intends to leave office as soon as possible, and this naturally depends on when the Member States and Parliament decide to appoint and approve our successors.
Until then we shall endeavour to provide a smooth transition.
We will not take any new political initiatives, but we will deal with matters already in hand and any urgent business, and we will meet our institutional and legal obligations.
I think it is in the interests of all the institutions that interinstitutional relations should not be affected.
<P>
As for the report by the independent experts, I said at the outset that their work had our support and that we would act on their conclusions.
We have kept our word, but I have to say that my colleagues and I were dismayed that such general and sweeping conclusions were drawn from the cases examined.
<P>
As many Members of this House have recognised, we have done more than any Commission before us to try to improve the Commission's working methods.
When I took office four years ago, I started work straight away on modernising the administrative tradition at the Commission, and many of these reforms are now in place.
I regret that the turbulence of the last few weeks has prevented greater attention from being focused on the reforms that we had already launched.
Perhaps it is a law of history that crises occur when things are getting better, not when they are getting worse.
<P>
We now need to move on and learn from past mistakes.
The experts' report talks at length about 'responsibility', an essential concept for any modern civil service which is responsible to those it serves.
I am convinced that our reforms are starting to bring about change, and the next Commission needs to go even further.
The concept is one that applies equally to all the institutions, and it also implies that the funding the Commission is allocated must be commensurate with the tasks it is given.
No matter what the political pressure, the Commission must not take on any new tasks if it does not have the financial and human resources to carry them out.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I wish my successor, who I hope will be appointed very quickly, every success in his difficult task, and I hope the European Parliament will give him its full support in the greater interest of the Union.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Santer.
Through its applause, the House has shown how much it has appreciated the dignity with which you have acted throughout this period.
Thank you.
<P>
Mixed reactions
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Council statement following the resignation of the Commission
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="President">
The next item is the Council statement following the resignation of the Commission, followed by a debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="Fischer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, coming at a time when Europe faces difficult decisions concerning its future development, the resignation of the European Commission is a severe test of our resilience, but it is also perhaps a salutary shock.
<P>
First of all, our thanks and recognition are due to the European Parliament.
It has vigorously exercised its parliamentary right of scrutiny, which is only right and fitting.
Without the dedicated work of many of your staff from all the political groups, the beneficial process that is now taking place would never have happened.
The people of our Member States rightly expect the institutions of the European Union to use the revenue from their taxes in a responsible manner.
<P>
But let me add in the clearest possible terms that the members of the Commission and their staff also merit our respect and thanks.
They deserve respect for having accepted political responsibility for the circumstances described in the independent experts' report; and the Commission and its staff also deserve our thanks for the work they have done over the last few years to deepen and broaden European union.
Strategic decisions were taken during their tenure, such as the introduction of the euro and the start of the present enlargement process, decisions in which the Commission played a vital part.
<P>
Not least among its achievements is Agenda 2000.
The Commission must complete the work it has started on this initiative while it is still in office, which I hope will be done within a few days.
Europe, the presidency and all of us here must be able to depend on a fully operational Commission in the coming days.
The resignation of the Commission has highlighted the slow but steady development of a European public opinion and the strengthening of parliamentary democracy as a component of the Union.
It is my belief that the principles of democracy have stood this test, and I welcome that from the bottom of my heart.
<P>
Applause
<P>
But the deplorable errors that have now been uncovered must not bring the entire institution into disrepute.
Since the European Communities were founded more than 40 years ago, the Commission has been the key institution in the unceasing advance of European integration.
It has to represent the common good of all 15 Member States in an impartial way and must also continue to be the driving force and initiator of new developments in the realm of European policy.
If we wish to achieve the aims of the Union - and there is surely no doubt of that - we cannot afford to discredit an institution which is unparalleled in the history of our nation states.
<P>
The European Union needs a strong Commission with authority to act, and needs it quickly.
What is now required is the total radical reform that President Santer has already initiated.
That too must be explicitly recognised.
The MAP 2000 programme for better organisation and personnel management and the SEM 2000 programme, designed to improve financial control, are steps in the right direction.
<P>
The Commission's internal inspectorate, UCLAF, must become an independent control body.
Where do we go from here?
It is absolutely crucial that the European Union should demonstrate its effectiveness at this difficult juncture.
As far as the special meeting of the European Council in Berlin is concerned, this means that the German Presidency must do everything it can to broker a political deal on the Agenda 2000 package.
Success in Berlin is now more crucial than ever.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Let me add that this will be one of the most decisive weeks Europe has faced; not only do we have the Berlin meeting this week, but the crisis in Kosovo has regrettably come to a head.
And we have had the resignation of the Commission.
The accumulation of these three crises also shows how much we in Europe - our nations, the Commission, the European Council and Parliament - have to do at the present time; we have a huge burden of responsibility to shoulder if we are to overcome these crises together.
The results of the round of visits undertaken by Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, as well as yesterday's discussions in the General Affairs Council, have convinced us that all the Member States ardently desire success in Berlin.
The resignation of the Commission is neither a political nor a legal obstacle to the achievement of the success to which we all aspire.
In accordance with the Treaty, the Commission will continue to perform its official duties until it is replaced by a new Commission.
That arrangement is an essential means of ensuring a stable transition.
<P>
I am confident that Berlin will be a success and that Agenda 2000 can be formally adopted before the end of the present legislative term.
The way has been prepared by regular contacts between the European Parliament, the presidency and the Commission for progress briefings.
The European Council in Berlin will also have to deal, of course, with the consequences of the Commission's resignation.
<P>
Without wishing to anticipate the discussions of the Heads of State and Government, which will certainly not be easy, I think we can already say that the decisions which need to be taken to appoint a new Commission will have to be reached in a difficult political and legal context, at a time of transition from the situation created by Maastricht to the new Amsterdam regime with the accompanying constitutional issues, coupled with the fact hat we are dealing with all these matters for the first time.
<P>
The Council presidency has a great deal of sympathy with your President's proposal, which is supported by all political groups, that the procedure to nominate a candidate for the office of President of the European Commission should be initiated as soon as possible.
According to that proposal, the European Parliament could approve the nomination of a new Commission President at its part-session in April, and then in May - which is a very ambitious target - it could approve the nomination of the new Commission.
<P>
Applause
<P>
This in turn raises another specific problem, which concerns the length of time for which the Commission is to be appointed, given the fact that its appointment coincides with the transition from the present Parliament to the one which will be elected this summer and which, I am informed, is due to convene on 20 July. The sovereign decision of the new Parliament cannot and must not be pre-empted.
<P>
The decisions that have to be taken are of enormous political importance.
Let me assure you that it is the concern of the Council presidency to arrive at a speedy and constructive solution in close coordination with the European Parliament, the Member States of the European Union and the Commission which is in office.
<P>
In Berlin, the Heads of State and Government will deal in detail with the question of the next steps to be taken and - if possible - may even move on to talk about specific individuals.
The presidency will try to secure a political agreement among the Heads of State and Government on a candidate who could be nominated in time for your part-session in April.
<P>
Besides requiring us to resolve the burning issues of the moment, the latest developments also give us cause to devote more thought to the future working methods and composition of the bodies of the Union in general, especially in the light of the forthcoming enlargement of the European Union.
The protocol on the bodies of the Union which is annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam, as well as the relevant conclusions of the European Council summits in Luxembourg, Cardiff and Vienna, have established the framework for our reflections.
<P>
In preparation for the Cologne meeting of the European Council, the presidency will shortly present proposals as to how and when we should address the institutional questions which were not settled by the Treaty of Amsterdam and which have to be resolved before enlargement takes place.
However, we may have to go even further than that.
After all, it is absolutely essential to keep developing the democratic control that this House has exercised so efficiently.
Public confidence in the institution must be fully restored, and that is precisely what the present crisis offers us the opportunity to do.
The developments we have witnessed must never be repeated, otherwise the ideal of European unification would be seriously prejudiced.
<P>
In adopting reforms, we must also consider the relative power of the various bodies and their role within the constitutional fabric of the Union.
The Commission, with its exclusive power to initiate legislation, is an important instrument of European lawmaking, for which the Council together with this House are ultimately responsible.
The Commission is also empowered by the Treaty and secondary legislation to perform executive functions.
Greater care must be taken in the forthcoming reform process to ensure that the Commission is not constantly being entrusted with new tasks without being given the material, human and financial resources it requires in order to perform them.
<P>
Applause
<P>
I hope that all of us will also make this clear to our populations at home during the European election campaign, because in this domain - at least in Germany - I encounter a certain ambivalence between, on the one hand, a proclaimed willingness to transfer more funds to Europe, which is essential for the European Union to go on assuming new responsibilities if it cannot raise its own revenue, and, on the other hand, the domestic discussion which then ensues.
I believe that if we are serious about European unification, the conclusion to be drawn from this crisis is that the new Commission must be given the funds it needs to guarantee the orderly management of our affairs.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Every future reform must focus on strengthening the democratic control and legitimation of the executive and legislative branches of the European tier of government.
That is not only dictated by the constitutional traditions of all the Member States; it is also an absolute prerequisite for a viable Union.
The present crisis also presents an opportunity to accelerate the reform process and, or so I hope, to make the reforms more incisive than was initially envisaged.
We must, and indeed we can, seize that opportunity together for the sake of Europe.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="Green">
Mr President, the events of the past week have revealed, perhaps for the first time ever, an expression of 'pan-European public opinion'.
And if we ever needed a demonstration of the suspicion with which, sadly, the public across virtually all our Member States view the European Union institutions, we saw it in the collective sigh of relief and even, unfortunately, celebration which could be heard after the resignation of the European Commission.
<P>
It is important to state at the outset that the resignation of the Commission last Monday was not because the experts had found the twenty Commissioners guilty of personal fraud.
In fact, the opposite was the case.
They explicitly cleared the twenty of such accusations and allegations.
As far as nepotism is concerned, it found only one Commissioner overwhelmingly guilty of favouritism with regard to work which was not within the European remit of the Commissioner.
It criticised certainly two others for poor judgement in employing friends or relatives whilst acknowledging that the correct procedures for recruitment had been followed, and the work they had been engaged in had been of a European nature.
<P>
We should also be clear that accusations which were being bandied about in this House in December and January against other Commissioners, were overwhelmingly and largely dismissed.
It is important that this House is grown up enough to recognise that fact.
<P>
However, the report was decisive in its conclusions regarding the loss of control of management by this European Commission; and it was right and proper that in the light of the conclusions the College took the decision to resign.
<P>
My group now expects the independent group of experts to complete the second part of its report on the structure of the European Commission.
I give notice that I am concerned about voices I hear arguing that the group of experts have now done their job and should stand down.
I want to caution against those voices.
I am suspicious of their motives and their backing.
I believe that it could be very convenient for some if the independent group of experts were to be prevented from delving in the required detail into the workings of different Directorate-Generals.
I therefore ask this House to make sure that the group is given the space to work and that the Secretary-General of the European Commission be asked to ensure that his officials at every level cooperate to the maximum to facilitate the report.
<P>
In my group's view the second report must contain a more widely-ranging review of the Commission's culture, practices and procedures.
We want it to deal, amongst other issues, with how financial contracts are awarded and the procedures for contracts for interim or temporary staff to implement programmes, and to follow up allegations of fraud, mismanagement and nepotism involving staff.
The group of experts is not in danger of removing or, in fact, countermanding in some way the powers of this House.
To believe that, is to demonstrate a lack of confidence in our work.
<P>
This report and the one which will follow, is about something quite different.
It is a procedure and process that is not unknown in any of our countries, in order to look from time to time at the culture which permeates administrations and executives in each country.
Now is time to look to the future.
<P>
The European Commission is not in the habit of resigning.
This is, after all, the first time in our forty-two year history that such a thing has happened.
If we are to demonstrate that the European Union can be different; if we are to respond to the opportunity of this moment, then we must call on the Heads of State and Government meeting in Berlin on Wednesday this week to designate immediately their nominee for President of the Commission.
It is quite unthinkable that the European Commission, having resigned, should quietly continue with 'business as usual' until the end of their mandate.
<P>
We want not just the President of the Commission replaced, but a new Commission in place with speed, properly ratified by this Parliament, using the powers which will be given to us in the incoming Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
Given this background, the European Council should put forward an experienced, competent candidate committed to in-depth reform, with a clear vision as to where he or she is going, with a programme to get there and credentials which are beyond reproach.
What is clear, is that the new President of the Commission must assume not just the political responsibility for the Commission, but the political leadership as well.
<P>
This Parliament must also recognise the exceptional nature of this moment.
We must not allow ourselves to engage in a constitutional or institutional debate about dry procedures and put up bureaucratic obstruction to change, and rapid change at that.
The impact on European public opinion, if the European Council and the European Parliament were to come together to put in place a new Commission able to demonstrate its commitment to serving the people of Europe, would be instrumental in rejuvenating the vision of Europe.
<P>
Colleagues, our responsibility now is to address three principles to the Council.
Firstly, we want immediate action to show we have grasped the moment; and we hope that the Council will accept the opportunity which the European Parliament has provided through the work of the independent group of experts.
The first principle is immediate action.
The second principle must be to insist on the use of the Amsterdam Treaty, whether it is formally in being or not as the way in which this Parliament will use our powers to ratify the new Commission; and our third principle should be for a strong candidate for the European Commission President, for a timetable for the new Commission to be in place and a strong and clear programme of reform.
Those are the principles at which we should be looking in our deliberations over the next two days.
I am sure those are the principles which the people of the European Union want to see as a result of the crisis that currently engulfs us.
If we do that, working together, I believe that we have an opportunity now to demonstrate a new sort of future, a new sort of Europe for the next millennium.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my comments are directed primarily at the President-in-Office of the Council.
It is clear, as you say, that the European Parliament has payed a significant role in this crisis.
The Committee of Wise Men recognised that fact as well.
Parliament has been taking vigorous action for over a year now on the basis of the Court of Auditors' reports.
The same cannot be said of the Council.
The report of the Wise Men says in as many words that the Council has been conspicuous by its silence in this whole affair.
<P>
It is therefore useful to recap on the facts.
More than a year ago, in March 1998, Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control voted, on the basis of Mr Elles's report, to defer granting a discharge in respect of the 1996 budget and asked the Commission to take the necessary measures towards the middle of September.
In October 1998, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the independence, role and statute of the anti-fraud office which was to succeed UCLAF.
The Commission was not yet able last December to comply with the European Parliament's demands.
The PPE Group then brought forward a programme of action, to be implemented within twelve months, which would modernise the Commission by 1 January 2000.
We called for an independent anti-fraud office, changes to the Staff Regulations and a code of conduct for Commissioners and senior officials, we called for the members of the Commission to be individually politically responsible, and we asked for Commissioners to make a declaration of their interests.
The Socialist Group did not ask these vital questions.
They voted in favour of the discharge.
They subsequently tabled a motion of rejection which was in effect a vote of confidence.
<P>
Sustained applause from the right
<P>
In January 1999, we called on Mrs Cresson to accept her political responsibilities and resign.
This too was rejected, and the Committee of Wise Men was then set up.
I admit that a majority of my group did not vote in favour of that.
But, and please take note, the Committee of Wise Men agreed with the findings of the Committee on Budgetary Control, added to them and vindicated the positions which we as the PPE Group had adopted.
<P>
Happily the Commissioners do not stand accused either of fraud or of lining their own pockets, but there is the fateful passage in the Wise Men's report, paragraph 9.9.2..
The Commissioners' argument that they were not aware of problems which were well known and known even at the highest level in their departments is tantamount to an admission that the political executive is no longer in control of the administration it is supposed to head.
Much of the responsibility for this loss of control lies primarily with the Commissioners individually and the Commission as a whole.
Things that had been going on for years unbeknown to many people have now been brought to light by this report of the Committee of Wise Men.
<P>
The present Commission is also having to take responsibility for the previous one.
The report of the Wise Men details it all: in 1990, tourism; from 1992 onwards, the programmes for the Mediterranean region, humanitarian aid, training under the Leonardo da Vinci programmes and security.
The Committee of the Wise Men says that the supervisory bodies are a mess, that the procedure takes too long and that staff policy has been a machine running out of control.
<P>
I wish to pay tribute publicly here, ladies and gentlemen, to the personal integrity of the Commission President, Jacques Santer.
I wish to acknowledge that the political achievements of this Commission are impressive: the single currency, employment, preparations for enlargement and the preparation of Agenda 2000.
I wish to state that the reforms which Mr Santer has proposed, for instance the codes of conduct, were impressive reforms.
But the main thrust of the Wise Men's report has made praise impossible, which is why we must now express appreciation of the fact that you have accepted the political consequences of this Wise Men's report.
<P>
Where do we go from here?
For the benefit of Mrs Green, I would say that we are willing to let the Committee of Wise Men continue with their work until April, but on condition that we are able to assess that work at our last part-session in May.
We shall be discussing this shortly in the Conference of Presidents.
<P>
Secondly, and here again I address myself to the President-in-Office of the Council, the Commission itself said in a statement of 17 March: 'we urge the Member States to appoint a new Commission without delay'.
We are asking you to appoint the new Commission President in Berlin and to ensure that a new Commission is in any event in place before the European elections.
Whichever Treaty you care to apply, Maastricht or Amsterdam, this Commission will remain in office until the beginning of January 2000.
After that and, I hope, after the European elections, a fresh decision will have to be taken by the conference of the European Union governments.
<P>
We want a start to be made on the reforms straight away.
We have no illusions.
These reforms will take years, but we have to start on them right away.
We want to see the new intergovernmental conference you have announced looking also at the question of the individual political responsibility of members of the Commission.
And we want the measures we have been calling for since last year and in the discussions chaired by Mrs Theato, with James Elles as rapporteur, to be implemented at last.
It will take time, but the time has come when we have to rebuild confidence.
<P>
We need a strong Commission.
It is the guardian of the Treaties.
We need a Commission which is accountable, accountable to Parliament.
We need a Commission which more than ever, as the Treaty says, is independent, transparent and above all pursues the general interest of the Union.
A great many people, even some in this House, keep saying that all this is good for their country.
Who talks about the general interest, the bien commun of the European Union, this European Union which is now in deep crisis?
This crisis can also be a challenge, a challenge not only for the new Commission, but for all of us.
Let us try to make a true challenge out of this crisis and breathe new life into the European Union.
<P>
Applause from the PPE Group
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Cox">
Mr President, this has been a week without precedent with the resignation en masse of the European Commission.
That resignation follows the damning report by the Committee of Independent Experts of the Commission as an administration that in too many instances was out of control and a system where too few people were prepared to accept personal accountability and responsibility for their conduct of public affairs.
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I believe that Mr Jacques Santer is a decent man.
His Commission included a number of positive and strategic achievements.
The launch of the Euro, the conclusion of the Amsterdam Treaty, the preparation of Agenda 2000, the opening up of enlargement negotiations.
In part, the Santer Commission, ironically, has become a victim of its own willingness to examine fraud and corruption within the Commission.
In part, it has been a victim of the chaotic, undermanaged and sometimes unmanaged growth of responsibilities during the Delors years.
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Ultimately, however, this Commission was the author of its own demise.
Over the past twelve months, in relation to the conduct of affairs with this House, Jacques Santer, unerringly if unwittingly, led his Commission to last week's crisis-in-the-making.
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At every critical point during that period, he has caused the Commission to offer to this House solutions that, had they been offered at the outset of each stage, might have worked.
In the end, and always at that stage, they proved too little and too late.
For his own political misjudgements, Jacques Santer has paid the ultimate political price and with him his colleagues have resigned.
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If this has been a difficult week for the European Commission, it has been a good week for European democracy.
For the Parliament, this entire debate has represented a coming of age, a new maturity in understanding our democratic rights and our capacity and our duty to act in the public interest when we assert them.
The system of governance in the European Union needs to be subject to more democratic control and public accountability.
We believe we have crossed a new and irreversible threshold in that process.
I might add that threshold is one we would never have crossed if we had followed the soft advice of a false sense of confidence commended by some to this House last December.
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For its part, the European Parliament will no longer be prepared to be presumed to be the junior partner in European decision-making.
It is not that the Parliament should be first among equals, but from now on it must be an equal among equals.
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We find ourselves now in the process of creating a new, minimum and acceptable European norm for the management of public affairs and Community institutions which does not permit cultural exceptionalism.
Hiring one's dentist to do work of dubious, if any, European value is not acceptable.
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Now, Mr President, I hope you will allow an English-speaker to talk to you in French to suggest that the language of Molière might be enriched by a new and typically European concept, that of 'berthelisme ', which means having a fictitious job paid for out of European taxpayers' money.
The members of the Académie française could immortalise this word by putting it in the dictionary.
Purists could never accuse it of being franglais, not that I would ever dare to offer such an insult to the members of the Académie .
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Last week saw the downfall of a Commission in which some members had already made a start along the road to 'berthelisation ', and in future we will always be ready to condemn any Commission that again succumbs to the Berthelot syndrome.
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Berthelisme , of course, Mr President, is not confined to the corridors of power of the European Commission.
The European Parliament must profit from this occasion to clean up its own act.
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We are vulnerable on the matter of top staff appointments.
We remain vulnerable on the question of Members' travel allowances until the system is radically overhauled.
We are not yet as transparent as we could be or ought to be on our individual group and collective expenditures financed by public purse.
We cannot demand in this institution, of other institutions, what we would not demand of ourselves.
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The creation of new European norms of behaviour in office must apply with no less force and conviction to the European Parliament than they will to any future European Commission.
The ELDR Group notes the implicit criticism of the Council in its role as one of the two arms of the budgetary authority for failing to give due and proper consideration to critical reports prepared by the European Court of Auditors on tourism policy on the MED and the ECHO Programmes.
This failure by the Council to assume political responsibility should caution a certain modesty among those in some of our capital cities who seem prone to see the failings revealed in recent days as almost uniquely the creation of the European Commission.
In this regard, we note with concern the relative ease with which the Council granted discharge for 1996; and we note with profound regret that on the very day of the publication of the expert committee report, the Council granted discharge, prematurely in our view, for 1997.
It is not an inspiring example of responsibility in action.
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Where should we go to from here, is now the essential question.
The ELDR believes that the Santer-led caretaker Commission has lost its political and moral authority to act and so it must go immediately and be replaced by an interim Commission for the balance of its unexpired term.
The appointment of the new millennium Commission, due to take place in January next, we believe, properly is a matter for the new Parliament with a new mandate, with new political balances and with new powers under Amsterdam.
The current treaties already provide a way; and if the Council wishes to add to that the spirit of Amsterdam, then we can proceed to an interim Commission appointment through that means.
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But let me make it clear that the renomination of Mr Jacques Santer or Madame Edith Cresson or some others to the interim Commission would not be acceptable to the ELDR Group in the light of recent events.
Such nominations would risk provoking even deeper crises.
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For our part, the Liberal group has consistently argued the merits of individual accountability within collegiality.
To this end, we do not tar all the outgoing Commission with the same brush.
We are prepared to judge each on his or her individual merit in the belief that not all were personally responsible for the ineptitude or incompetence of some.
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Let me say to the President-in-Office that I would like to take this opportunity on behalf of my Group to wish the Berlin Council well, and to say that we hope you will achieve the objectives of Agenda 2000 which are now more essential than ever.
But let me also say in concluding that when we come to appoint an interim and future European Commission, my Group, which has been to the forefront in criticising the current Commission, wishes to make it abundantly clear, that our wish is for a strong, independent political Commission; and any attempt to weaken this in the future is one that we would resist in Parliamentary terms.
The Commission needs reform and Union needs a strong, independent, politically reformed Commission.
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<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the serious problems identified in some areas of management at the Commission and highlighted in the report by the Committee of Independent Experts have led to the collective resignation of the entire Commission in line with the spirit of the Treaties.
It was a responsible and courageous decision.
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Although the Santer Commission can be proud of its undeniable success in preparing for the introduction of the single currency and guiding it through on schedule, its unprecedented resignation has created a serious institutional crisis involving far more than just the question marks over certain Commissioners or European civil servants.
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Most of the facts which were identified as having led to the completely unjustified failings highlighted in the report originated under the previous Commission administration, which has gone unpunished.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would urge you to reread the chapter in the report on the Security Office, which was set up in 1990 and was directly answerable to the Commission President at the time.
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In more general terms, it is regrettable that all - and I mean all - the Union institutions succumbed to a sort of bulimia, which meant that a number of areas of activity were considerably extended: regional structural aid, external actions, the MED, PHARE and TACIS programmes, emergency humanitarian aid, reconstruction programmes for the former Yugoslavia, upgrading of nuclear power stations in Eastern Europe, and so on - I am sorry to say that this list is not exhaustive - without the structures and administrative procedures being adapted to deal with these new responsibilities and without any kind of financial control worthy of the name.
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Responsibility for this failure lies not just with the Commission, but also with Parliament and the Council, which not only agreed to the increase in the Commission's activities, but were often the ones that called for them to be increased in the first place.
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How can we get out of this institutional crisis?
First and foremost, we need to speed up the process of reforming the institutions, a problem that was unfortunately overlooked when the Amsterdam Treaty was negotiated.
These reforms are also a prerequisite for enlargement, and we need to establish a strict timetable and a target date, perhaps 1 January 2002.
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Secondly, we must take the opportunity offered by the appointment of a new President and a new Commission to refocus the Commission's work on its main fields of responsibility as defined in the Treaties, while respecting the principle of subsidiarity.
It would also be desirable to arrange for its management responsibilities to be transferred to the Member States and the partner states with which the Union has concluded association agreements, giving the Community bodies greater supervisory powers rather than direct administrative responsibilities.
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Finally, the new Commission President must undertake a programme of action to achieve these aims, which he must present for Parliament's approval.
Working at the head of a new team, he must clean up the Commission and put his house in order, cutting out any dead wood and concluding any disciplinary and criminal proceedings arising from the cases of fraud or corruption which have been uncovered.
There are currently 28 directorates-general and offices, not counting the decentralised agencies.
This is far too many, and the number needs to be considerably reduced, since it is nothing more than a feudal system.
What we need to do now is not to create more new European civil service posts, but simply to reorganise the management procedures and make them more efficient.
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The root-and-branch reform recommended by the Committee of Experts and the Court of Auditors must be implemented immediately.
Firstly, effective and independent financial controls should be introduced to apply the Financial Regulation strictly, using reliable audit mechanisms.
Secondly, an interinstitutional body - Parliament, the Commission and the Council - should be established to follow up the Court of Auditors' recommendations, which condemn the misuse of Community funding.
Thirdly, a procedure for the award of contracts must be introduced which is totally transparent and is addressed to genuine professionals.
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To eliminate the temptation of corruption, which can occur all too often, the staff working in this field must be rotated on a regular basis, contrary to what has happened up to now.
Fourthly, recruitment procedures must be reformed to prevent made-to-measure competitions which make nepotism and cronyism all too easy.
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All of these measures should be introduced as quickly as possible.
However, the Treaty of Amsterdam, which is scheduled to come into force on 1 May, changes Parliament's confirmation procedures, so it would be better not to pre-empt matters before then.
It would also be politically preferable for it to be the Parliament elected in June that applied these new powers, so we might need to consider bringing forward the date of the constitutive sitting in July.
Finally, it is up to the Council and Parliament, the Union's two political institutions, to act in close cooperation to ensure that the European Union that emerges from this crisis has stronger structures and greater legitimacy for its activities.
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We rely on the governments not to shirk their political responsibility once again, but to reform all the European institutions to make them more democratic and efficient, so that we can meet the challenges of enlargement and globalisation that are currently the main driving force behind the political construction of Europe.
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Applause from the UPE Group
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<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Puerta">
Mr President, it is abundantly clear that the European Union is currently experiencing the most serious institutional crisis of its history.
The Commission itself is primarily responsible for the events which have taken place, but the governments of the Member States must bear a share of the blame as they have failed to allocate adequate resources to the Commission since the end of 1994. The Council should shoulder some responsibility for what happened too.
It has been conspicuous by its absence throughout the present crisis.
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The Commission failed to meet the objective its President outlined when he assumed office and declared it was important to act less but to do so more effectively.
If this crisis heralds the birth of truly European public opinion and helps to strengthen transparency, it will have served as a step in the right direction - a step towards making the European Union more democratic.
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The European Parliament has emerged from the crisis with a greater sense of authority as a body that represents all the people of Europe.
Successive treaties have increased its legislative powers and on this occasion, Parliament has clearly asserted its role as a monitoring body. In so doing, however, it has acquired additional responsibility which it must exercise wisely in the future.
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The Committee of Independent Experts has identified some irregularities for which it holds certain Commissioners responsible.
Indeed, politically, the Commission as a whole is deemed responsible. Although we recognise the discrepancy between the objectives and the resources allocated to achieve them, lack of political direction and mismanagement - which had already been brought into the open during the mad cow crisis - can never be justified.
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We appreciate the sense of responsibility displayed by the European Commission in resigning.
Those of us who in the past have strongly criticised its handling of affairs must not now whip up public opinion against it. We must respect the individuals involved and the decisions they have taken.
Nevertheless, we need to look to the future.
Public opinion will not tolerate things carrying on in the same old way. If the people of Europe cannot trust the institutions that represent the European venture, they will no longer support it.
The problem cannot be reduced to the search for some kind of superman or outstanding politician. People are certainly important, but so too are the methods, programme and objectives.
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The Commission's role in the European institutional balance is crucial. It defends the common interest, and it must continue to fulfil it.
We therefore need a competent and responsible Commission.
The next Commission must improve its decision-making processes. It should be borne in mind that successful implementation of policies is not merely an administrative task, but very much a political one.
In the eyes of the people, the Commission should embody the values of transparency and responsibility.
It must also make available to Parliament all the information it requires to fulfil its monitoring role, and this is a prerequisite for mutual trust and effective cooperation.
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I should now like to address the President-in-Office of the Council directly.
The Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left very much hopes that a new Commission will be appointed at the earliest opportunity, in response to the wishes of the people of Europe and to enable us to meet the challenges of the next few months. Chief amongst these is the creation of employment and the promotion of the principle of internal solidarity within the framework of Agenda 2000.
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Our group has called for a new Commission to be appointed immediately.
We therefore agree with Mr Fischer that the procedure and timetable for doing so should be decided at the Berlin European Council.
We also call for early approval of a statute for Members of the European Parliament in the interests of transparency for all, not least for ourselves as Members of the European Parliament.
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Mr President-in-Office, we trust you will choose wisely.
We shall not approve the nomination of a President without a programme or a Commission without clear objectives.
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<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, for over a year, Parliament has been calling for transparency and above all financial transparency.
For over a year, Parliament has had to fight in order to extract from the Commission the information to which it is entitled under the Treaty.
Our experience was that we got the information in dribs and drabs, too late, and very often it was incomplete.
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Looking back over this parliamentary term, it is clear that of all the European institutions it is the European Parliament which has done most to expose real and fundamental problems of mismanagement, fraud and nepotism.
Parliament has been prepared to be confrontational over this, and rightly so.
If we had yielded last December to the Commission's threats or had gone along with the Socialist Group in approving the 1996 accounts, we would not be at the point we have reached today, a point it was absolutely essential that we should reach.
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The report of the independent experts fundamentally bears out what the Committee on Budgetary Control had uncovered in a number of reports.
It bears out critical reports by the European Court of Auditors.
And it vindicates Paul Van Buitenen, the official who was immediately suspended by the Commission and subjected to particularly fierce attacks.
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Applause from the Green Group
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The essence of the problem raised in the report, however, is that there is no real - as opposed to mythical - ' collegiate' responsibility for the actions of the Commission members as a group.
That focal problem must now be addressed.
So I find it unfortunate that the Commission's initial reactions last week were very much ones of defence and denial.
Parliament has had similar experiences in recent years.
We therefore find ourselves in a difficult situation, a time of crisis, but one from which the European institutions may emerge strengthened.
I think I can see the first signs of that.
This is the very first time I have seen a debate surfacing everywhere in the 15 countries of the European Union in which ordinary people are discussing how they view the Commission, how they view Parliament and what they expect of the Council, and this is something which is new and particularly important for the future.
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We therefore think it is indeed vital for the Council to name a new Commission President as soon as possible, who can appear before Parliament ahead of the elections with a new team.
The new President must be a strong European figure with vision and managerial qualities, so that reforms can be carried out in what remains of 1999.
We believe those reforms must include the following: a clear body of control mechanisms, a bridging of the deep divide between political control and the actual implementation of programmes, a good set of Staff Regulations giving officials the right to speak out freely, and the development of a culture of open debate amongst the institutions and with the European public.
Lastly, we think it crucial that Mr Van Buitenen should be reinstated.
He has played his proper part as a European official.
Mr Cox is of course right in saying that Parliament too must continue cleaning up its own act.
But we must focus here on our remit of exercising scrutiny over the institutions, and in that respect it is our duty to exercise full scrutiny over the executive, the Commission.
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Applause from the Green Group
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<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lalumière">
Mr President, my speech is mainly addressed to the President-in-Office of the Council, since he is now the only officer on board - indeed, almost the only officer left - after the resignation of the Commission and the departure of Jacques Santer, to whom I would like to pay tribute.
Unfortunately, Joschka Fischer has already left, pressed for time, no doubt.
I have to say that he is facing an uphill task, since he is going to have to make progress on Agenda 2000 by ensuring that the Berlin summit is a success, while at the same time seeing to the appointment of a new Commission.
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On this last point, there is a very clear conflict of interests between Parliament's desire to keep the power vacuum that we have had for the last week to a minimum and our concern, in selecting the new Commission, to follow the highly detailed procedures that allow Parliament to exercise its prerogatives in full, in other words the procedures provided for in the Amsterdam Treaty, which inevitably take a long time.
There is also a conflict between the desire to change all the outgoing Commission in order to make a completely fresh start and the concern to ensure continuity in the main policy areas at a particularly busy and delicate time, which would obviously be easier if some Commissioners could remain in charge of certain issues.
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In addition to these conflicts of interest, there are also the very different feelings that we ourselves have about all this.
Our group feels that it is very important that Parliament played its political role, sometimes rather hesitantly, admittedly, but it did so all the same, and it has emerged in a stronger position.
It has been progress for democracy.
At the same time, however, we need strong European institutions and in particular a strong Commission.
So we need to find some sort of middle way between laxity, negligence and wastefulness on the one hand and systematic, destructive criticism on the other.
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Reform is needed for this, and all the institutions must make an effort here: the future Commission, of course, the future Parliament, naturally, and the Council of Ministers, because the Council of Ministers bears a great deal of the responsibility for the problems which have been identified.
It was mainly the Council which gave the Commission so many more tasks but without the funding to be able to carry them out, and it has seriously neglected its supervisory responsibilities.
Here again, as the President-in-Office has just said, we are going to have to get round the contradiction of wanting to do more without spending more.
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I wish the Presidency-in-Office the best of luck, since it will now have to shoulder the burden of getting the institutions out of the first political crisis to hit the European Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
Mr President, the Europe of Nations Group would like to thank the Wise Men, because they are not looking for scapegoats but are instead indicting the system.
The problem is the culture of secrecy.
The Wise Men are very precise in their conclusion: they have not found a single person who has shown the slightest sense of accountability.
That is a severe judgement on all the members of the Commission.
None of them should therefore be able to be reappointed now.
We propose a temporary Commission composed of independent persons who are not themselves tainted.
We would like to see an investigation of the charges against the current Commission and the apparatus of officials.
There must be accountability, especially for those who have helped to withhold information.
If it transpires that there are members of the Commission who are on record as having been strongly opposed to the adoption of the accounts and other regrettable decisions, then they could be considered for reappointment in January.
But now, after first deciding to stand shoulder to shoulder and accept collective responsibility, the members of the Commission cannot turn round and say that they no longer share this collective responsibility which they recently took upon themselves.
All of the Commission must go and not come back.
The Wise Men should continue their work and extend it to the other institutions, including Parliament.
There are now 1 000 committees, 10 000 laws - with even more amendments - and 100 000 projects.
The temporary clean-up Commission should examine these committees, rules and projects to see what can be handed back to the Member States.
A new Commission will be no more able to manage what the old one could not manage.
We are all indicted in the Wise Men's report, especially those who have voted in favour of the many new areas of responsibility.
The solution is not new faces, but an extensive clean-up.
Those who have engaged in fraud and covered up fraud will be held to account, and Mr Van Buitenen should return to his job and have his salary paid.
The solution is a leaner form of cooperation with complete openness: a lean and open Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Muscardini">
Madam President, if the Commissioners who so badly abused the confidence placed in them had resigned, we would not now be witnessing its members jockeying for position; but probably those Commissioners refrained from resigning at the suggestion of their own coteries.
Indeed, it now seems clear that the Council of Ministers is seeking to discredit the entire Commission rather than to highlight the shortcomings of individuals.
The internal feuding has died down and given way to a common aim: to nominate a new Commission which will remain in office for some six years and to appoint the President of the Commission, thereby depriving the future European Parliament of its new power - conferred on it by the Amsterdam Treaty - of appointing the new Commission President.
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An institutional confrontation is taking place.
The Council of Ministers wishes to tie the hands of the Commission; it wishes to strip Parliament of the role so painstakingly acquired over so many years.
The result could be to recreate that democratic deficit which once again seems to suit the governments, in that they are working for their own partisan interests and against political union. We reiterate our protest about this.
We all know that, without political union, economic union will remain wishful thinking, useful only to powerful lobbies but remote from - if not detrimental to - the needs of the European people.
An institutional war is therefore under way, to prevent the Commission and Parliament from cooperating constructively with one another and to place Europe's future in a strait-jacket designed by the Council of Ministers.
But a political war is being waged too: the majority in the next Parliament, which ought to appoint the Commission President, might in fact be different from that in the Council, which represents 13 left-wing governments out of 15.
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Alleanza Nazionale resents the fact that this crisis could have been foreseen and avoided; we would draw attention to the potentially negative impact on the turnout at the elections if the appointment of the new Commissioners is not marked by transparency and propriety; and we urge that, if the decision is to nominate a new Commission rather than to extend the mandate of the existing one - replacing the disgraced Commissioners - then its term of office should be limited, expiring on 31 December, since Parliament has political responsibility for appointing the new President.
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Any other procedure would deal a blow to democracy and an insult to the European people.
But let us also remember that there was already talk a few months ago of the Council of Ministers wishing to proclaim the new Commission before the elections: even then, therefore, there was a clear intent to deprive Parliament of its powers and steer the elections in a particular political direction.
This is scandalous and undemocratic!
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<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="Verheugen">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, when several crises coincide, as is happening at the present time, a President of the Council really ought to possess the capacity to be in two places at the same time.
Perhaps we should go ahead and adopt that now as one of our future reforms.
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Mr Fischer was unable to stay here with us, because he had to return to Bonn for a special meeting of the Federal Cabinet on the Kosovo crisis. I convey his apologies to you.
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The presidency sees the resolution of the Commission crisis in which we are now immersed as a joint responsibility of Parliament, the Council and the Member States.
That is why I am pleased that a broad consensus has emerged in the course of this debate here in the House, as well as a great deal of concurrence between the opinions expressed here and the view of the Council.
We want a quick and convincing solution - a solution that is likely to restore and strengthen public confidence in the European institutions.
That is why we do not seek an interim arrangement; we want to have a clear idea of what awaits us in the coming years.
We have to know now where the good ship Europe is headed and whose hand will be on the wheel.
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I agree with all of you who have said we need a Commission that will set about the task of internal reform of our work and our institution with great energy and vigour.
The new Commission will have to meet very high standards.
For that reason, we must take great care to ensure that the proposals which we in the Member States and the Council make are consistent with those standards.
We want to take the first decisions in Berlin.
What I believe we can certainly achieve is a procedural agreement, in other words on what we actually want to decide and when we intend to make those decisions.
The presidency is thinking along the lines of following up the Berlin summit with an informal special summit at which the principal player would be selected.
If more can be achieved in Berlin, so much the better.
But that cannot be guaranteed, because we have to unite 15 Member States behind a common stance.
You know how difficult that is.
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Let me emphasise how important it is that the rights of Parliament are properly respected throughout this decision-making process.
This means that, whenever the new Commission President and the new Commission are nominated, the rights of Parliament under the Amsterdam Treaty must be upheld.
Any other solution is unfair to Parliament and, for that matter, to the new President of the Commission, if we are thinking of making a decision now that will last until 2005.
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I see a very important message and a valuable token of your support in paragraph 9 of your joint resolution, which categorically states that our present problems must not serve as a excuse for deferring or avoiding important substantive decisions.
The priorities are quite clear: in three days' time, in Berlin on Thursday, we must bring Agenda 2000 to a conclusion, and we must ensure that the Commission crisis is quickly overcome.
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We also agree that the reform process in the European Union must include all the institutions.
I have no wish to dismiss the possibility of the Council examining how it can organise its work more effectively and reflecting on the mistakes it might have made.
Indeed, I believe it is necessary for us to do that.
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I should like to refer to another point that was discussed here.
One of the reforms we shall have to tackle is the Members' Statute.
This has no direct bearing on the Commission, but it is another very important point under the general heading of institutional reforms.
Let me assure you that the presidency vigorously supports Parliament's aim of adopting the Statute before the end of the present legislative term.
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That is the only sensible way forward.
I should like to appeal to you, ladies and gentlemen, to exert influence on the political decision-makers in your own countries so that we can obtain the broad support we require in the Council; unfortunately, we do not yet enjoy that support, but there are signs of progress.
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<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Görlach">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is pleasing to hear what we have just heard from the President-in-Office.
However, I have to say, Mr Verheugen, that well-intentioned statements from the Council are part of the tradition of this House.
You will understand the importance we attach to checking whether such pledges are actually honoured at some time in the future.
But I believe that what you said between the lines, as it were, is correct, and I agree with you there: we should not really be talking in terms of a crisis in the European Union.
In our own countries, when a government loses its majority and the confidence of the national parliament, that is a crisis for the government, but it is not a crisis of state.
It is possible, of course, for government crises to develop into state crises, and the crisis between the institutions here - particularly within the Commission - could develop into a crisis of the European Union, but that is what we all intend to prevent.
What we have heard today from the Council presidency sounds hopeful, in so far as it indicates that nothing in the institutional relationships between Parliament and the Commission and between Parliament and the Council will ever be the same again.
Our relationships will be realigned.
The two other institutions will appreciate our desire to shift the balance in favour of Parliament - not because we are out to sap the strength and usurp the powers of the other institutions, but because Parliament has grown in strength through its own activity.
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It has certainly not been easy.
If I think back a few weeks and months - to January, for example - I remember that all the political groups, especially the main ones, were riven from top to bottom over one issue or another.
The fact that this is no longer the case is due to the minimum consensus we reached in January, to the fact that Parliament itself appointed an impartial committee.
I very much hope that, when the committee of five experts has presented its second report and we sit down to deal with it, such an intermediate step will no longer be necessary.
Parliament must be able to do that under its own steam if it takes itself seriously.
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But if that is the case, then I believe it is also self-evident that the general institutional reform which needs to be undertaken - since there can be no enlargement before the institutions are reformed - will be carried out as a genuine joint task, just as we must jointly appoint the new Commission.
In particular, the next revision conference on the expansion of the Treaties, especially as regards the reform of the institutions, can no longer be a conventional intergovernmental conference.
It will have to be a conference of the European institutions, and above all of Parliament and the Council.
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<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Theato">
Madam President, this is certainly the first time that the European Union has been in this situation, and I hope it will be the last.
Following the scathing report from the Committee of Wise Men, the resignation of the Commission was a necessity, but it could have come sooner. We could have had a different outcome if the Commission had taken advantage of the stay of execution we granted it when the budget discharge was deferred.
Had that happened, we should not be in this situation today.
Parliament could also have brought this whole matter - which has been described here as both a crisis and an opportunity - to a head two months earlier if it had made full use of its powers and passed a vote of no confidence.
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Secondly, it emerges clearly from the Wise Men's report that the European Parliament and its Committee on Budgetary Control acted correctly. They exercised their powers of scrutiny.
They brought the problems to light.
And now the consequence of this is that we must initiate the action set out in the Elles report. We must look to the future, introducing and implementing appropriate reforms.
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A third point I take from the report is that the information Parliament was receiving from the Commission was inadequate; it was misleading and even fraudulent.
This will have to be investigated.
We have a right to information.
We are a controlling body, and it is up to us to determine what we need to inspect and which oral and written information we require for that purpose.
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What do we do now?
We must look forward, because for us in the European Parliament, elections are looming.
But the public image of Europe is also on the line.
So although we must get to the roots of the present problem, it clearly makes no sense to indulge in a surfeit of retrospection and soul-searching.
The first thing we need is the rapid appointment of a new Commission.
I believe it has to be an interim Commission, one which will take the action that needs to be taken, so that the year 2000 will see the installation of a competent, efficient and trusted Commission.
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Fourthly, the institutional gap between the administration and the Commissioners in terms of accountability must be closed as quickly as possible.
This was one of the most damning criticisms of the Commission.
I am not in favour of any further reports by the Wise Men; the real priority now is to implement with all possible haste the programme of work we have drafted, so that by the year 2000 we shall truly have eliminated all the abuses which have come to light here.
It is important to look ahead and to create more democracy.
I believe the citizens of Europe understand that we in the European Parliament have begun to grow into our role as the taxpayers' watchdog and the people's advocate.
That is the path we should continue to follow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Madam President, it is remarkable how much progress the European Community has made in a couple of months.
What was unthinkable even a few months ago has now been achieved.
Individual responsibility on the part of Commissioners will be a fact in the future and the President-in-Office should be complimented on having recognised this fact.
Of course, we need to continue collective responsibility to the extent that the Commission, as a legislature, should not be under the pressure of individual governments.
But we need individual accountability as many speakers have said.
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We are not only at the end of a road, we are at a new beginning.
This requires real vision on the part of the Council, Parliament and the Commission.
We need a new balance.
I should like to ask the President-in-Office a question on this point.
I listened carefully to him when he said that we did not need an interim Commission.
I would draw his attention to the fact that paragraph 7 of our resolution speaks both of a Commission until the year 2000 and a new Commission.
There is a certain ambiguity in the language of the Council.
The President-in-Office says that we need to work with the Treaty of Amsterdam - I hope he speaks on behalf of all 15 Member States - which means that this Parliament will co-decide who is going to be the new President.
I hope it is realised that there cannot simply be one candidate.
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Secondly, we want action quickly.
All speakers have emphasised this point.
Can we appoint a new Commission during the first week in May when this Parliament is ending its work?
I hope that is the case.
If it is not, we would impinge on the rights of the new Parliament which is sovereign and should give legitimacy to the Commission for the next five years.
How can that be ensured?
The President-in-Office needs to reply to that point.
If we do not have a new Commission with the full assent of Parliament, it means that the new Commission will only work until September or maybe October this year.
If that is the case, it will be a total contradiction of what we are saying, namely that we need a new Commission as quickly as possible, and that includes the point made by President Santer.
This fundamental point should be emphasised because the ambiguity may lead to a misunderstanding.
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My final point is that we should not look at the form but the substance.
The substance of change, namely putting into action the reform programme of Commissioner Santer, is essential.
He was right to emphasise that many of these things have already started.
It now comes down to the question of implementation and this needs some experienced Commissioners who are already there.
We need a clean-up Commission until the end of this year and I hope the President-in-Office will read carefully the joint resolution by many groups which says that we must have action first and real reform later.
This ambiguity needs clarification.
Otherwise this debate will yield only half a result.
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<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Brinkhorst.
I have no doubt that the Council has heard you and will be considering the question you have put to it.
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<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Rosado Fernandes">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, I come from a country, Portugal, which has always believed in strong men.
I personally have greater faith in strong institutions - strong institutions made up of strong men, of course.
In fact, the problem of a weak country, like a weak Europe, is that it does not have strong institutions.
And the reason they are not strong is the current Zeitgeist : an extreme centre under which everyone is equal, the parties are all stealing each others' clothes, we all speak the same language and there is no ideology to speak of.
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An example of this was the motion of censure submitted by the Socialist Group, which was really all things to all men, and of course sowed confusion amongst Members.
In the end a different motion emerged, similar to the one at the time of the BSE debate, and the result was inevitable.
It has been like the dénouement of a bad Aristotelian play, because there has been no deus ex machina , just intrigue leading to the calamity and the final outcome we are now witnessing.
I am of course happy for one crisis to lead to another, as this is the only way strong men will come forward who can decide what Europe needs to do.
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<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Moreau">
Madam President, the Commission is paying the price for having such an untransparent and secretive style of management.
Its resignation is a sign of crisis and indicates the failure of a Europe cut off from its citizens, turning its back on social needs and thumbing its nose at democracy.
The Commission and the Council must learn their lesson from this by radically changing some of their practices.
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The Commission has long felt itself to be above any form of control and has refused to give Parliament the explanations it has demanded for the serious irregularities identified over a number of years.
Its behaviour has often been obstinate and arrogant.
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It has been obstinate in following an ultra-liberal line which the public has increasingly rejected and in pursuing policies which Parliament and the Council have strongly contested, such as the liberalisation of postal services and trade relations with the USA.
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It has been arrogant in the way it has justified these policies and its undemocratic management style, though this is certainly not intended as a criticism of the work of the European civil servants, for whom we have the greatest respect.
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The irregularities which have been identified must never happen again, and this means that both the methods and the approach need to be changed.
The Commission and the Council must stop seeing the fight against employment as a matter for discussion rather than action.
The current emphasis on financial profitability and price stability must give way to policies promoting jobs and growth with binding targets, and the task of the ECB must be revised accordingly.
Europe needs a breath of fresh air to bring it greater transparency and democracy.
The relations between the European institutions and their respective responsibilities need to be clarified, and the Council must face up to its responsibilities, which has not always been the case.
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I myself think that having a stronger Commission would not solve any of our problems, quite the reverse.
What does need to be stronger is Parliament's monitoring of the Commission and its initiative-taking and evaluating role, in conjunction with the national parliaments.
We also need to have more widespread democratic debates on European issues throughout the Union.
It is high time that the public in the European Union became involved in the building of Europe, so that they can impose transparency, democracy, a spirit of responsibility, ethical standards - all in all, respect for themselves as citizens.
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<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that the Commission, rather than the whole of Europe, was embroiled in a profound crisis - of that there is no doubt - and that the crisis had already gone on too long.
To that extent, the resignation of the Commission is only logical; it is a salutary shock that clears the way for the rebirth of credibility.
The soul of Europe is embodied in its people, who rely on their representatives to continue the work of unification democratically and efficiently to the best of their knowledge and judgement - in a word, responsibly.
The Commission that has just resigned, however, had lost the confidence of Parliament and the people.
That is why the first and foremost requirement is the earliest possible appointment of a new Commission, headed by a strong European personality, a Commission that is determined to serve until the year 2004.
The ball is in the Council's court, and it must come up quickly with the necessary proposals.
I believe this has to take place before the elections to demonstrate to the public that we can get things done.
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At the same time, I am well aware that, before the elections, parliamentary assent is still governed by the Maastricht rules, but it is the spirit of Amsterdam that will determine the political implications of our assent.
That is why the new President of the Commission must be granted the right to demand the resignation of individual Commissioners who transgress.
But the need for reform applies to every institution.
The constitutional fabric of Europe, the balance between the institutions, the need for greater powers of legal redress for the citizens of the Union - all of these things have been on the agenda since at least the last intergovernmental conference in Amsterdam.
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For that reason, Mr Verheugen, I should like to propose that, when you give the starting signal for the next intergovernmental conference under your presidency, you involve the European Parliament from the outset and ensure that we are not left standing outside the gates again when the chips are down.
This crisis is simply crying out for the establishment of a new relationship between the Council and Parliament.
Grasp that opportunity now!
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<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
As you know, Madam President, I am a relatively new Member of the House.
When I first came here, I was full of admiration for the Members of the European Parliament and especially the Committee on Budgetary Control, which had carried out very rigorous and very clear analyses of what was going wrong in Parliament.
I admired Parliament and was proud to be a part of it, because it pushed for real action to be taken.
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We could, then, have reached a decision back in the autumn.
At the end of the year, we were ready and already felt that a motion of censure was appropriate.
We tabled one, and in the end almost half the Members of Parliament voted in favour of it at the start of this year.
Some Members, a majority, thought that we ought to secure more evidence from a committee of independent experts, and we got it.
The Commission then accepted its responsibilities, and we think that is a good thing.
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Throughout all this, however, the Council has remained deaf and blind.
Even after the Commission resigned, it barely troubled to investigate in a number of Member States what the charges were and what the new Commission's remit ought to be.
There is, after all, no question of the present Commission, which has just resigned, staying put.
That is not an option.
In any event, we want the incoming Commission to discharge its responsibilities fully and clean out these Augean stables.
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It will need to be a strong Commission.
It is of no great interest to me whether it is a short-term or a long-term Commission.
What matters is that the rights of the European Parliament, in other words the rights of our citizens, should be fully respected, now under the Maastricht Treaty and soon under the Amsterdam Treaty, and not before time.
The main thing is for the Council to appreciate that the Commission must be flanked by a strong and democratically elected Parliament; respect for Parliament must ensure that the Council gives us a Commission which we can fully endorse and with which we can cooperate, so that we never again have a recurrence of what we have seen here in the last few months.
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<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Madam President, it is always tempting to rewrite history, but the facts always tend to remain obstinately the facts, and the fact is that the European Parliament has by no means always played the role it should have done in the events since August which have now led to the resignation of the Commission.
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Let me remind you that last December and January it was Mrs Green, on behalf of the Socialist Group, who said that anyone who felt able to tell the public, the Commission and Parliament that they had no confidence in the Commission's financial abilities had no place in this House, and it was Mr Martens, the chairman of the PPE Group, who said that his group still had every confidence in the President of the Commission, and if a majority in Parliament voted against the Commission it would be an out-and-out disaster.
Mr Cox and Mrs Lalumière said that they personally would be voting in favour of granting the discharge.

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The report by the Committee of Independent Experts, which is an excellent one, merely repeats what Mrs Wemheuer and Mr De Luca wrote in their report on tourism, what Mr Fabra Vallés wrote in his report on the MED programmes and in his work on ECHO, and what Mr Elles himself said in his report on the discharge.
The Committee has a good deal more to say, a point which it has made itself, and the statements we hear each day from its members would seem to indicate that they should be given further work to do here.
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This is why the Committee should be asked to produce a second report, and why it should also give its opinion on how Parliament operates, so that everything is out in the open and no one can say that Parliament too is afraid to confront its own style of management.
We need a temporary committee to implement the remedial measures in the same way that the Committee of Experts diagnosed the problems.
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<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Le Pen">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, our colleague Jean-Claude Martinez was the first person to condemn the Commission's mismanagement, serious errors and lies during the BSE scandal in 1990.
We have had to wait another nine years before the Commission was forced to resign.
The report by the Committee of Independent Experts of 15 March, which among other things criticised the Commission for having lost control of the administration it is supposed to manage, was absolutely scathing.
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This mafia-style political mismanagement in the Commission, which goes back to the time of Jacques Delors, is partly explained by the fact that it is directly responsible for the management of considerable sums of Community funding, and that civil service work is delegated to external consultants or subcontractors selected on the basis of questionable criteria without any sort of advertising or transparency.
Claude Perry, the director of Perry-Lux, admitted that out of 5 000 or 6 000 external experts working for the Commission, several hundred were in fictitious jobs and were receiving a daily allowance of BFR 2 860, as was the case with Euro-Conseil.
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The Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties meant that the Commission took on a great deal more work and Community programmes, all of which threatened to make individuals and businesses alike feel increasingly smothered.
In this Orwellian world with its supranational and totalitarian administration, it became difficult, according to the Committee of Experts, to find anyone with even the slightest sense of responsibility.
This lack of responsibility enabled the Commissioners, and in particular the Socialist Mrs Cresson, to turn a blind eye or to cover up fraud, malpractice and nepotism.
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Instead of the heavy punishment that Europe's taxpayers, having seen their money squandered, are entitled to expect, the Commission is proposing to pay the 20 Commissioners in question 60 % of their salary for three years, in other words a minimum of 60 000 francs per month.
The voters and taxpayers are going to love that idea.
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This is why there is a justified upsurge of feeling against these anonymous officials who are trying to deprive us of our sovereignty, identity and freedom.
When they vote for my list on 13 June in France, the public will be showing their political maturity and spirit of national resistance.
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<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Madam President, I think it is important to keep things in perspective as we confront the present situation.
The European Commission has resigned following the publication of a report prepared by a Committee of Independent Experts, which both Parliament and the Commission had agreed in advance to abide by.
Clearly, the Committee of Independent Experts is not endowed with divine right but it has drawn up a report and we must respond to its findings.
The report did not find individual Commissioners guilty of fraud or misconduct. It arrived instead at the overall conclusion that the Commission had not been operating satisfactorily, that certain procedures were not appropriate and that the Commission was collectively responsible for this state of affairs.
Accepting collective responsibility, the Commission then resigned.
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What should not happen is what we witnessed in the House this afternoon, when certain party leaders or leaders of political groups took advantage of the situation to attack other political groups for purely electoral reasons.
There is no excuse for such behaviour.
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To use a biblical reference, I would invite whoever is free from sin to cast the first stone.
As things stand at the moment, the fact is that it has been shown that the Commission was not operating satisfactorily, and as a result we need to appoint a new Commission.
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A constitutional procedure must now be embarked upon.
The Treaties do provide for replacement of the Commission, yet Parliament finds itself in a difficult position as its term of office expires in June of this year. Consequently, unless Council nominations are received very soon, this Parliament will be unable to approve the new Commission.
The task would have to be delegated to the new incoming Parliament.
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A word of warning is also called for, however. Our eagerness to monitor and scrutinise the Community's public accounts must not be allowed to hinder the Community's executive role.
In other words, if the Committee of Independent Experts continues its work for an indefinite period of time and investigates every aspect of the Commission's activity, Parliament might well become a very powerful institution and a very effective one where monitoring is concerned, but there is a danger that this would hamper the normal running of the Commission.
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I believe there is a need for caution in following up the findings of the Committee of Independent Experts.
My feeling is that rather than concentrating on further monitoring, we should come up with fresh ideas to ensure that the new Commission is properly structured.
As previous speakers have already made clear, we hope in any case that the Council will set the course, prepare the programme and indicate what we can do in the few remaining months of our term of office. Parliament will then be in a position to judge whether or not it is in a position to fulfil the constitutional role laid down for it in the Treaties.
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Nevertheless, I think we should pay tribute to the former Commission, which is still in place in a caretaker capacity. We should pay tribute to the dignity of its members and to the dignified manner in which the Commission decided to resign, choosing not to continue in office.
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<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Galeote Quecedo">
Madam President, following on from the views expressed by my colleague, I believe that the public's verdict on how we discharged our responsibilities during the present crisis will soon be made crystal clear at the ballot box. I am very satisfied with the active - and on occasion decisive - part played by my delegation.
I am also very well aware of the implications for the whole process of putting forward a motion of censure with the contradictory aim of bolstering confidence in the Commission. Further, minutes before its crucial meeting following the publication of the much-heralded report, a de facto motion of censure was threatened, should the entire European Commission not have resigned.
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Returning to the present crisis, my view is, firstly, that a solution should be found as quickly as possible.
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Secondly, it is vital for the Berlin European Council to set out clearly the timetable and procedure to be followed.
We should trust the wise judgment of the Berlin European Council.
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Finally, I feel that we should make all efforts to implement the Treaty of Amsterdam as it seeks to enhance the status of the European Commission.
Above all, we need to maintain a sense of perspective.
What our fellow citizens really want to know is how we are going to tackle unemployment more effectively, how we are going to continue supporting the agricultural sector, how we are going to put our economies back on track, how we are going to promote the development of our infrastructure and how, indeed, we are going to ensure that solidarity remains a pillar of our Union.
These must also be our priorities.
Consequently, every effort should be made to remain focused on what must still be the main objective of the Berlin European Council.
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<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Madam President, firstly may I say that I find it a pity that no one is left from the Commission.
But anyway, after the report it was inevitable that the Commission should resign.
To my mind, it would have been far better for democratic and political developments in Europe if Parliament had had the courage to send the Commission packing in January.
Parliament has really hidden behind the skirts of the Wise Men and has thus let a political opportunity slip.
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As regards the report of the Wise Men, I think the conclusion that the Commission has totally failed in its duty is a little too black and white.
This Commission prepared admirably for the euro and for Agenda 2000.
Nor do I like the ease with which accusations are made against individuals and their families, without any proof.
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For the man in the street, it is not easy to distinguish between improprieties in Parliament and in the Commission.
That is why clear measures are needed to show people, amongst other things, how the official machinery actually works, for the very specific reason that people have a strong aversion to officials, technocrats and their bureaucracy.
So independent financial scrutiny is required.
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I agree with Mr Brinkhorst that action is needed.
But we must not get carried away by the emotions of the crisis and take hasty decisions which we may later regret.
We need a strategic approach to secure democracy in Europe.
I think that only a new Parliament can install a new Commission.
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<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Miranda">
Madam President, as we see it, the Commission's resignation was the only conceivable outcome, particularly in the light of the report by the Committee of Independent Experts, which basically clarified and confirmed the reasons that led many of us to vote for the motion of censure - which some people claimed was a vote of confidence - back in January.
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Which means that, one way or another, we have now lost nearly three months.
But the issue we are discussing today is the replacement of the Commissioners, and in that context we consider it essential that the Commission should be replaced as speedily as possible so as to reflect all the political and legal consequences of the Commission's resignation.
Nevertheless, this speed should not prevent very serious reflection about the immediate and fundamental causes underlying this resignation.
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It is not enough for us just to change individuals - it is also crucial to change both working methods and policies.
As we see it, these two aspects are the main reason for the Commission's resignation.
On the one hand, there is a lack of transparency, with absurdly secretive management of instruments and public funds, which inevitably leads to irregularities, favouritism and fraud.
But there is also the obvious insularity and remoteness of the Commission from the public because of the misguided policies that have been implemented and in particular because of their impact on our societies.
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Because of all this it has become necessary not only to change people, but also to find appropriate ways of changing our working methods and policies.
It will be essential in future to provide for greater and more effective control of the Commission, in view of the concentration of both legislative and executive powers in that body.
Indeed, the issue that we now have to tackle is not whether or not to strengthen the Commission, but above all how to keep a check on its activities.
The next European Council will have to take all these aspects into consideration, and if possible, it will have to draw up a precise and realistic timetable in conjunction with Parliament so that these issues can be analysed and a new Commission appointed without delay.
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Lastly, I would like to mention that financial matters also feature on the agenda of the Berlin Council.
It is particularly important for the Council to achieve a satisfactory outcome on both the Commission issue and Agenda 2000 - for it to be a success, the Council cannot accept just any solutions to these two important problems.
This should be its chief concern.
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<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Madam President, those of us who have been taking steps here during the past two months to ensure that the Commission should be held accountable have won our case.
We have demonstrated that we, the elected representatives, will not put up with nepotism and fraud under any circumstances, and so the Commission has at last been forced to resign.
Obviously a new Commission should be appointed as quickly as possible so that work can be resumed.
The guiding principle behind this undertaking must be to 'clean up' inside the Commission and create the conditions for a climate of openness and transparency - more valuable assets than ink and paper.
That is really the whole point of the exercise.
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The Committee of Independent Experts, in its report, highlights one aspect in particular: that the Commission has lost control over a large number of projects.
Consequently, this raises the question of whether the Commission has its fingers in too many pies.
Is it not time to apply the subsidiarity principle and delegate competence in some fields to the Member States, for example in terms of cofinancing under the common agricultural policy?
The EU cannot deal with everything and the Commission is unable to fulfil the tasks allotted to it by the Member States, as the last Commission clearly demonstrated.
I am not in favour of a strong Commission, but of a strong parliamentary system of government, which means that the European Parliament should have more influence and the Commission less.
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<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Hudghton">
Madam President, the report by the special committee has shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is an urgent need for reform within the Commission.
It has brought to light a culture of complacency towards irregular practices at the very highest level.
This evidence might not have come to light had this Parliament not demanded urgent action in January.
The report and its aftermath gives us an historic opportunity to force a seismic change in the relationship between the Commission and Parliament, to tackle the democratic deficit in the European Union and overhaul the system of scrutiny.
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The Commission not only needs to be brought under democratic accountability, I want to see MEPs given tough new powers to tackle mismanagement, fraud and nepotism.
Now that they have resigned there should be no question of some Commissioners returning to their posts.
Having volunteered to accept their collective responsibility and resign it would be incomprehensible to the citizens of Europe if the same individuals were to be reinstated.
This Union's institutions, with Parliament playing a major role, must ensure that a new Commission is put in place soon, charged with the responsibility of ensuring that a complete reassessment of Commission management and structure is initiated and that the new Parliament after June must have its opportunity to judge those who are nominated to the Commission from 2000 onwards.
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<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Madam President, I will start by reminding the Council presidency of what paragraph 9.4.12 of the Committee of Wise Men's report says.
I quote: 'the external auditor (the Court of Auditors) produced reports which were clear and to the point (for example in 1992 and 1996 on tourism and in 1996 on MED and ECHO). However, only one of the two arms of the budgetary authority (Parliament) gave them proper consideration'.
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Manifestly, then, the second arm of the budgetary authority - the Council - has been seriously deficient here.
The fact that on the very day the Wise Men's report came out, the ECOFIN Council made its recommendation that Parliament should grant a discharge for 1997 is, in my view, an illustration of how slack the Council is.
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The Council will be taking great risks if it seeks to reappoint Commissioners who are currently in office.
We think that the new caretaker Commission should not include any members of the present Commission, because the committee's work is not yet complete.
All manner of new frauds and other irregularities may yet come to light.
Waiting for the committee to complete its findings will take too long.
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The new caretaker Commission must take office as soon as possible.
The Council has a heavy responsibility here.
If it does not do its stuff quickly, the present Commission will still be around until the end of 1999.
That is totally unacceptable.
We have to have a caretaker Commission before the elections.
People have to be able to see that something is being done.
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Mrs Cresson must go right away.
On this too the Commission has to face up to its responsibilities, and Article 159 of the Treaty states that the Council or the Commission President can apply to the Court of Justice to have members of the Commission compulsorily retired.
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Mr Santer too has forfeited too much credibility as Commission President in recent months and weeks to be able to remain in office.
His job must be taken over immediately by the Vice-President.
We agree with what Mr Cox said on that.
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Mr Van Buitenen must be reinstated without delay.
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<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Le Gallou">
Madam President, whatever impression the Commission's dramatic resignation may have given, what is at issue is not the weakness of the men and women involved, but the lack of principle of the institution itself.
There is no doubt that the Commission is unprincipled because it is neither one thing nor the other - half government executive, half administrative commission - and because all it does is to build a gilded cage around people, trapping them with increasingly interfering regulations and directives gilded with subsidies and patronage.
Corruption is not the result of human weakness, it lies at the very heart of the European system, since what the Commission - and the European Parliament, incidentally - mainly does is to transform the wishes of numerous lobbies and interest groups into legislation.
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The Commission acts as a screen for the irresponsibility of the Council and the national governments.
This is why, together with Bruno Mégret, the Members from the Front national - mouvement national do not see the point of simply plastering over the cracks, and we call for the Commission to be abolished altogether and replaced by just a secretariat at the Council of Ministers.
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<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Colajanni">
Madam President, I should like to begin by taking up something said by Mr Martens, whom I normally hold in high esteem but whose reconstruction of this crisis I find unconvincing.
I would remind him that the last crisis revolved around fraud.
That, in our view, was an insufficiently sound point of departure.
The Wise Men's report has proved us right: the current crisis revolves around structural political problems.
This is what lies behind the crisis in the Commission, and we pro-Europeans believe that this could be a healthy crisis, bringing about a real reform of that institution.
We are a thousand miles away from last time, when the issue was fraud.
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Having said that, I believe it is in the interest of Parliament and of all pro-Europeans - I repeat the term - to go into the elections with a new Commission, thereby proving that the European institutions are capable of moving rapidly.
It is therefore very important, now that the Parliament and Commission have acted, that the Council should do likewise.
Our role was to call for swift action, beginning in Berlin, and here I welcome the very clear statement from the Council President, Mr Fischer, who said this afternoon that Parliament could approve a candidate for President in April, and in May the new Commission.
This means that the Heads of State need to reach an agreement before the April part-session of Parliament.
That schedule suits us perfectly.
We hope it can be adhered to, because it should minimise criticism of the European institutions and enable the Commission to confront the burning political issues rapidly.
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We wish to see swift action and a strong political solution, in other words a solution lasting more than just a few months.
Furthermore, if possible - and we do think it possible, since it is a matter of political will - the Amsterdam procedure should be followed from the outset because, if the Commission is to be a strong one, it must first of all last for a reasonable period of time - not just until the end of the year - and secondly its President must have the enhanced powers conferred on him by the Amsterdam Treaty.
This must happen, and all it takes is political will.
Finally, the presidency must have various tasks: not only to administer the complex structure of the EU Commission, but also to reform it from within.
Parliament has made a number of suggestions in this respect.
My own suggestion to the Council is that it should explore in more depth the proposals on reform of the Commission which have been put forward by Parliament in various forums.
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We are convinced that all the European institutions are in need of reform in the run-up to enlargement, and that this crisis has occurred in the Commission because it is the nerve-centre and therefore the body most exposed to the repercussions of past enlargements and the increase in the EU's workload.
But the other institutions, the Council and Parliament, are likewise in need of reform.
I therefore believe that the initial step being taken - reforming the Commission and progressing towards a more democratic European Union - is the start of an important journey for the Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="Elles">
Madam President, there is a well-known saying: 'Victory has a thousand fathers, defeat is an orphan'.
Everyone is in favour of reform today, outbidding each other.
This was not the case a few months ago.
Most Socialists - apart from some notable exceptions - voted against allegations of mismanagement and the need for urgent reform of the Commission in December.
Let us not try to re-write history.
May history note that the real vanguard for change - as Mr Martens noted earlier - were those who voted in favour of refusing to sign the 1996 discharge.
Without this act of defiance nothing would have happened and we would have gone on as before.
<P>
Secondly, the Wise Men's Report has totally vindicated the findings of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Mr Van Buitenen should now be reinstated.
Furthermore, the enthusiasm of some colleagues, particularly Mrs Green, to take the conclusions of outside experts in a report probably drafted by the same people who have drafted our own reports in the Committee on Budgetary Control would seem to indicate that she takes outside experts' opinions more seriously than those of colleagues.
<P>
Thirdly, when we come to appoint a new Commission, whatever its make-up may be, its real emphasis must be the reform of the Commission, continuing the programme for codes of conduct, the reform of the statutes and the screening report of the resources which are needed.
Lastly, what we are moving to is a discussion between Parliament and the Council.
The real question is: Do we want to have the rule of the few or the rule of the many?
As Pericles, in his funeral oration in the Thucydides version of The Peloponnesian War , said: 'If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences; if no social standing, advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; ' At the same time he said: 'Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighbouring states.
We are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves.
Its administration favours the many instead of the few.
This is why it is called a democracy.'
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Escolá Hernando">
Madam President, I am sure we are all aware that the present situation is without precedent in the history of the Union.
Times such as these are a test of the strength of the European Union, and reveal whether it is built on solid foundations or whether it is merely a house of cards.
It is therefore incumbent on us to face this crisis squarely.
<P>
Replacing the present Commission with another is not the only problem.
What is on the table at the moment should certainly result in reform of the working methods of a single institution. Crucially however, it should also result in reform of all the institutions themselves, that is, Parliament, the Commission and the Council.
If it does not, we shall have squandered a unique opportunity.
<P>
Parliament has every right to be proud of how it has assumed its responsibility and demonstrated its maturity.
The resignation of the Commission ought to serve as a catalyst for the much-needed institutional reform.
It is to be hoped that the Council will now rise to the occasion, give priority to the interests of Europe as a whole, dismiss the vested interests of individual Member States and seek a satisfactory way out of this crisis. We shall then be able to congratulate ourselves on having achieved a more robust, transparent and democratic Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Formentini">
Madam President, first of all, I am disappointed that this House is meeting today and tomorrow, rather than on the scheduled dates.
Our conduct here smacks of submission to the requirements of the national governments.
Although this might happen in national parliaments, it certainly would not in regional parliaments, where the sense of democracy is more pronounced.
Such conduct gives us scant hope that Parliament really will exercise its rightful monitoring role.
Let us acknowledge that, thanks to an initiative taken by a number of us - and then clumsily hijacked by the majority - we managed to expose an affair which reveals that, however well-equipped bureaucracies, technocracies may be, they are often prone to shortcomings which then lead to such improprieties as have now resulted in the individual resignations of several Commissioners.
<P>
I think that we shall have to be far more vigilant in future and, most importantly, I take exception to the fact that some invoke the Amsterdam Treaty, seeking, that is, to use a new instrument, prematurely, to handle an old affair, belatedly.
I should never wish to take away any of the new Parliament's powers, and I therefore urge that the new Parliament should be the one to decide on the Commission, so as not to have to live with a Commission on which it has had no say.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Duhamel">
Madam President, 'Shakespeare in Love' has won and Europe is ecstatic.
You know the quotation from Hamlet: 'though this is madness, yet there is method in it' - it would be a good idea for Mr Santer to study William Shakespeare.
But this is not madness, it is a revolution for the present and for the future.
<P>
It is a revolution for the present because of the three things that brought it about.
First there was the event itself: 16 March 1999 will go down in history as the day on which the Commission resigned.
<P>
Then there was the de facto censure imposed by the European Parliament.
In 1979 we had universal suffrage, and in 1999 we faced up to our responsibility.
The construction of democracy is complete.
<P>
Then there was the reason that caused the revolution: Parliament's criticism of the general lack of supervision.
There have been no cases of individual fraud, it should be pointed out - we know this for a fact and anyone who says otherwise is lying.
In Brussels, at the eye of the storm, people understood what was going on, but the public was alarmed by the lies they read in the Murdoch press and heard from the French populists, nationalists from all parties and populists in all the media.
We have even heard some of them here today.
People are being taken in just to win readers or votes and to bring Europe down.
It is up to us to tell them the truth.
<P>
It is a revolution for the present because of the lesson it has taught us, because Europe has given a lesson in democracy.
In the Member States there are a good many parliaments and governments that should take inspiration from us to break free and to show greater responsibility.
<P>
But it is also a lesson for the future and a revolution, in three ways, for tomorrow.
First of all, everyone wants a strong Commission and everyone agrees that we need it, even the UPE Group.
Jacques Chirac and Lionel Jospin agree on it, which is good.
Jospin and Schröder agree on it, which is essential.
Schröder, Jospin and Blair agree on it, which was unhoped for.
Yesterday Major blocked everything, but today Blair together with France, Germany and the other Member States are all calling for Prodi.
What a turn-about for the United Kingdom and for Europe!
<P>
The second aspect of the revolution for the future is new controls, new regulations, and new cultures.
We have created the single currency, now we need to create common ethical standards for government in Europe.
The third and final aspect involves elections plus responsibility. Our citizens elect us and we approve the Commission and monitor it.
European democracy has just been born, and it is up to us to ensure that it grows up properly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Brok">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, for months we have been issuing warnings to the Commission at meetings and in personal conversations.
They were not heeded, and the result is plain to see.
We must recognise that times have changed, because the European Union now has the democratic strength to put its own house in order.
I believe it is good news for the people of Europe that the system is democratic enough to ensure that an administrative apparatus cannot commit misdemeanours with impunity.
<P>
But we must also recognise that this problem is not really about particular individuals.
There were many honourable people in the last Commission, and we must not forget that.
We must realise that this is primarily a structural problem; it is about a lack of efficiency within the European institutions.
Unless we change the structures within the Commission, we shall be back in this same situation two years from now, because replacing the individuals at the top is only part of the answer.
<P>
For that reason, we need to adopt certain procedures in connection with the installation of the new Commission.
On the one hand, it is surely the case that the European public needs to see the right signals from us before the elections.
On the other hand, there must be enough time to ensure that the procedure for appointing the Commission affords the opportunity for a radical reorganisation of that institution, and a good new President will use that procedure and the support of Parliament to gain the upper hand over the apparatus.
Since the new Commission will want to remain in office for the next five years, we must also take account of our successors in Parliament, who will have to cohabit with and accept the Commission and who will also have to legitimise that same Commission in the future.
<P>
I believe a compromise will take clear shape on this basis, and I think the Council presidency will be able to offer us a time-frame within which both requirements can be satisfied, so that we can manage the reorganisation and thereby create a better Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Raschhofer">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it was the Wise Men's report that achieved what this Parliament could not achieve, namely to hold the Commission to account.
That is a shameful admission.
All those who did not support the motion of censure have been made to think again by the Wise Men's report.
It is a fact that the 140 pages of the report contain nothing new.
Be that as it may, the Wise Men did produce one pearl of wisdom when they stated that the Commission as a whole had lost control of its finances and its officials; with that statement, they placed the real problem at the door of the Commissioners, thereby revealing the limits of administrative powers.
<P>
The resignation of the Commission was no heroic deed, but rather a case of the Commissioners jumping before they were pushed.
The loss of confidence in this Commission is so calamitous that the only option for us is the quickest possible replacement of the entire team, but let me stress that merely replacing individuals is not enough.
Real reforms are needed, not just tinkering.
On the one hand the structures of the Commission must be thoroughly reviewed, and on the other hand there is an urgent need for an extension of the powers of scrutiny vested in this House.
The fact that this debate is taking place is the real achievement of the Committee of Wise Men, because what is ultimately at stake here is the right of citizens to be governed democratically and to scrutinise the actions of those who govern them, and that right must not be allowed to fall by the wayside.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Donnelly, Alan">
Mr President, even though the Christian Democrats are late converts to the idea of a Committee of Experts which they opposed in January, we in the Socialist Group welcome the fact that they now support the establishment of the Committee of Experts and we look forward to its second report which will be published within the next couple of months.
I want to focus my contribution this afternoon on that report.
<P>
However, by way of comment, I would just like to say that the reforms we are looking for in the European Union institutions, as the previous speaker said, do not end with looking at the 20 Commissioners.
That has been the focus for the last few months but what we need to do now is to find the causes of the widespread problems in the Commission and, more importantly, we want the Committee of Experts to recommend remedies.
Therefore, I hope that the Committee of Experts when it meets during the course of the next few weeks and when it conducts its detailed investigations into the operation of the Commission, will look in some detail at the structural problems within the Commission.
<P>
This is not just a question of political leadership.
It is associated with the processes for personnel and financial management.
It is about the whole management structure of the Commission; the relationship between the staff and their directors; the relationship between the directors and the directors-general; the relationship between the directors-general and the Commissioners and their cabinets.
So it is extremely important that this second report, which we must now focus upon, looks at the necessary root-and-branch reform.
I hope that at the end of tomorrow's vote, the resolution we pass will set out very clearly that we want the Committee of Experts to bring forward those recommendations.
We do not want a generalised polemic from the Committee of Experts; we want specific recommendations about what it has discovered not only in relation to the last four and a half years but about procedures that, as we know, have gone on in the European Union civil service for many years.
<P>
The challenge is how we act upon that.
The critical thing for the Socialist Group is that we want a new President of the Commission in office as quickly as possible and we want that President to take the report of the Committee of Experts and to make sure that every step is implemented, not just in relation to the 20 Commissioners, not just in relation to the culture of the College of Commissioners, but for directors-general, directors and every level of responsibility and management within the Commission.
If we do not do that the whole exercise of the last few months will have been a waste of time and we will have made no further progress in what is after all a major event for the public in the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Tillich">
Mr President, may I say to Mr Donnelly that the President-in-Office told us we had made use of our democratic right and had done our duty.
Had the Commission been prepared to give us access to all the relevant information when the scandal first broke, we should not have needed the Committee of Wise Men, and we are every bit as capable as the Wise Men of producing the second report if we obtain the necessary information from the Commission.
<P>
Let me address a brief remark to the Commission and its President. It is not as if the crisis had already begun when the reforms started to bite.
On the contrary, Leonardo did not appear on the scene until 1998, and the problems surrounding Mrs Cresson have only come to our attention in the last few months.
That is why this is so disastrous, as is the fact that all the financial transactions which were undertaken by the Commission and which are now being criticised in the Wise Men's report were given the go-ahead by Financial Control.
<P>
Lastly, may I say just a few words on the Wise Men's report and on our activity here in Parliament.
Does it surprise anyone that the Socialist Group gagged those of its members who were against giving a discharge in respect of the 1996 budget?
Does it surprise anyone that the Socialist Group voted against Mr Bösch, the rapporteur on the Anti-Fraud Office, OLAF, who is one of their own members, and does it surprise anyone that the coordinator of the Socialist Group in the Committee on Budgetary Control resigned her post in protest at the policy of her group leader?
Against this background, it was probably only to be expected that the head of the group would table a motion of censure with the intention of withdrawing it again.
If the Socialist Group had behaved as consistently back in January as they now claim to have done, we might have had a new Commission up and running by now and could have spared ourselves the crisis we have all been discussing today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Vanhecke">
Mr President, I am afraid all this is what Shakespeare calls 'much ado about nothing', and so I do not think we have the basis for a new beginning or a clean slate.
The problem of the European Commission, after all, affects all the Community institutions without exception: fraud, nepotism, profligate spending, lack of transparency over subsidies, inflated salaries.
Who in Parliament would dare to claim that the Commission alone suffers or has suffered from these ills?
<P>
The fact is that the European institutions without exception, so Parliament as well, are too far removed from their people for normal democratic scrutiny to be possible.
So the scandal over the Commission should above all lead to greater respect for the subsidiarity principle, drastic curtailing of the European policy of subsidies and hand-outs, and above all a greater exercise of scrutiny by the Member States and Member State governments.
Until this happens, I fear that nothing much will improve.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Roubatis">
Mr President, I am surprised and saddened at the petty political way in which some colleagues are seeking to profit from what is an extremely serious situation.
We are in fact facing a crisis in the institutions of the European Union, and we must face it head on.
The resignation of the Commission was a demonstration of the political and personal sensitivity of all its members.
However, it also demonstrated that the institutions we have established function and that we need to develop them.
<P>
The European Parliament has displayed commendable composure and maturity in the face of this crisis.
But the time has now come for our leaders to take some bold decisions which will work positively towards strengthening the institutions of the European Union.
Some opponents of the European idea may have wanted to use this institutional crisis to strike at the very heart of what has brought us all here today.
<P>
Decisions are difficult.
However, vacuums and deadlocks are dangerous.
The Community's Heads of State and Government must make prompt decisions and come up with an unequivocal solution.
The President-in-Office has taken a positive step by declaring that the name of the new Commission President will be put forward by April.
I do not think this is enough.
Swift decisions also need to be taken regarding the other members of the Commission.
Whatever constitutional issues may be outstanding could be settled and, in accordance with the Amsterdam Treaty, the Council and the European Parliament could work to implement the necessary reforms.
We have the opportunity to restore the confidence that is needed in the institutions of the European Union.
I think we owe this to the people of Europe, and we owe it to the idea of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Castagnetti">
Mr President, the crisis that is buffeting Europe is both a serious and a healthy one: serious because without a doubt it represents an unprecedentedly difficult moment, but healthy because - as others have said - from now on the topic of institutional reform can no longer be avoided. It must be tackled head on, prior to enlargement, and must open the door to economic governance in the Europe of the euro.
This Europe has given itself institutions such as the European Central Bank to manage monetary policy; now it also requires authoritative political governance, authoritative political institutions.
We are all in favour of autonomy for the Central Bank, but this should mean autonomy vis-à-vis another, much-needed, political body.
This issue can no longer be ducked.
<P>
However, what has happened is also healthy because it has at last raised the question of transparency.
Each of us appreciates from our own experience the urgent need for transparency in the activities of the Commission.
Anyone who has had connections with that institution, such as applying to participate in a programme, has experience of inadequate information and inadequately substantiated decisions.
It is likewise healthy in that the Wise Men have established a sort of moral case-law, telling politicians to refrain from doing not just what is forbidden, but also what is inadvisable. This lesson in moral case-law could also usefully be learned by the various countries' national political leaders, if the public is to feel at ease with politics and its institutions.
One must not do what is inadvisable.
<P>
I too look forward to a rapid solution to the crisis and an authoritative Commission presidency, and I too would stress that - if the presidency is to be strong and authoritative - it cannot be a short-term one but must have sufficient time to plan its work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Marinho">
Mr President, no one wanted this crisis yet no one did anything to prevent it. Nevertheless, because of the regenerative and creative effect it will have, it should herald a new era in the life of our institutions and make them fit to serve a more ambitious European Union - a more transparent and democratic Union, and, of course, a more political one.
But it should also be more responsible about the way it operates and controls its affairs, ridding itself of negligence and demagoguery and avoiding a scapegoat culture.
<P>
We are experiencing real growing pains, with dwindling institutional resources required to cope with ever greater burdens.
So it is not surprising that there is a sharp dividing line between collective and individual responsibility, and between Community and governmental responsibility.
Nowadays, we cannot even rely on the legal certainty of legislative texts for either the past or the future.
<P>
Mr President, that is why the institutions can only find a way out, a direction, a guideline, in political terms.
Which means that it is up to the political powers that be, and in particular the Council and Parliament at present, to act swiftly to resolve this crisis.
But acting swiftly does not mean acting with undue haste. It means that the Council should nominate a candidate to be President of the Commission within a reasonable deadline, and that this President should benefit from the democratic legitimacy bestowed by Parliament, which is absolutely essential for a strong Commission.
And by strong, I also mean stable, and with a political future.
Committees are not the way to achieve the necessary reform of the institutions and to imbue them with a fresh sense of drive.
Parliament will be more than willing to swiftly resolve a crisis which, if it drags on, will only give ammunition to the European Union's enemies and weaken it economically.
To do this, Parliament's demands will have to be heeded, but it is willing to reach political agreement with the Council on a solution.
<P>
Mr President, the epicentre of this crisis is not Brussels - its origins lie in every single capital of the fifteen Member States.
It is now incumbent on the Council, and in particular the German Presidency, to put its cards on the table and acknowledge its responsibility.
We will be waiting here to listen to its proposals.
Fortunately, according to what the President-in-Office of the Council has told us today, it seems that the Council is on the right track and is adopting a common sense approach.
Let us hope so!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, in this debate on the resignation of the Commission and the forthcoming summit in Berlin, I would like to start by thanking the good Commissioners for all the work they have done in recent years.
It is a pity things had to come to such a pass and that a call in January from this Parliament, and from a large proportion of my group's members, to dismiss those Commissioners who were under fire was not acted upon.
If that had happened in January, both the Commission and Parliament would have emerged stronger from this conflict.
Now the good Commissioners have been swept aside together with the bad ones.
That really is a shame.
And I cast a critical glance at our Socialist friends, because if they had helped us in January with that resolution, all the things which have happened would not have done so.
<P>
We endorse the departure of the entire Commission as something which is inevitable.
We hope to see a new Commission very soon, starting with a new Commission President.
But we believe it has to be a caretaker Commission, because a truly definitive Commission can only be appointed once the elections are out of the way.
That seems to me to be the normal democratic rule.
In our Member States too we do not appoint governments first and then hold elections; we do it the other way round.
<P>
As regards the President, it would actually be nice if Parliament could nominate a candidate.
There are, as I understand it, three of them: Mr Prodi, Mr Solana and Mr Kok.
I would be happy with any of them, but my own personal preference would be for Mr Prodi, the man we know best.
He has my vote.
Anyone who can steer Italy's bureaucracy and its economy along the right track can cope with Brussels.
So as far as I am concerned, Mr Prodi would be a most welcome choice.
<P>
One last remark on Agenda 2000, because this too will be discussed in Berlin.
I very much hope that changes will be made to agricultural policy, because the way it is shaping up is not good.
I hope that changes will be made to the Structural Funds.
I hope above all that the Netherlands will score better on Agenda 2000 than it has done so far, because the current Dutch Government can probably prepare itself rather better than it has been doing.
As far as that is concerned, we wait eagerly to see if the results are better than they look like being.
We await the debate on Agenda 2000 and the advent of a new Commission with equal interest.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="d'Ancona">
Mr President, the view of the Dutch members of the Group of the Party of European Socialists is that the Commission's decision to resign was the only one possible in the light of the Committee of Wise Men's report.
So that is rather different from what Mrs Maij-Weggen said just now, from dismissing two Commissioners on grounds of alleged fraud and saying that their resignation had to be seen as the preliminary outcome of a trial.
It is more important for Parliament now to be pulling together to establish a new position vis-à-vis the Council than for her to be claiming which group was the instigator of the trial.
<P>
This new position, this new culture, must be reflected in the implementation of the code of conduct, the development of individual responsibility for Commissioners, a revision of the Staff Regulations, and the Members' Statute.
This new attitude from the Commission in its way of working and its dealings with Parliament can be summed up as the end of arrogance.
That is undoubtedly a gain for Parliament, provided it is not replaced by arrogance on the Council's part.
Perhaps the Council will find it hard to work under pressure of time.
But it is of the utmost importance to have a new Commission as soon as possible, in advance of the elections to a new European Parliament.
<P>
It will have to draw up an ambitious programme, to be evaluated by the House. The current Parliament can inform the new Commission of the reforms that are required.
A new Commission will have to commit itself to these.
With the heralding of the Commission's new term of office in the year 2000, Parliament can then monitor the Commission's performance as it carries out this programme.
<P>
So we want a new Commission for five and a half years, with a six-month probationary period.
A good Commission does not need to fear a review of this kind by Parliament, because in any normal democratic national parliament, ministers are subjected to constant scrutiny.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Christodoulou">
Mr President, anyone who takes the time to analyse the events of the past year will see that many things have been the subject of debate in this House.
There have without doubt been injustices on an individual level, since many of those who have been forced to resign should not have done so.
Nor is there any doubt that this whole sequence of events was used to further petty political aims in various quarters.
The fact is that these events are now in the past, they are over and done with, and we must now focus our attention on the lessons to be learned from these developments and on how to use them for the good of the European Union and the world in general.
<P>
I believe that acknowledging that the European Parliament has a far more important role to play than the other institutional bodies have been willing to accept is a fundamental and crucial point.
From now on, the European Parliament must fulfil the expectations of the people of Europe as regards the ways in which it should tackle these issues. Others have lessons to learn as well.
The Council of Ministers for instance, was in a great hurry to grant discharge, without examining the real facts.
And if the Commission had acted differently in certain circumstances, we would not have ended up where we are today.
However, the basic lesson we must take away from all this is that we must be responsible towards those who are going to vote for us in the very near future.
<P>
Here too, Mr President, the Council of Ministers must take responsibility.
If it does not make the right decision to allow the institutions of the European Union to act properly and in a cooperative way during this crucial period, and if we remain in a state of partial governance for any longer than is necessary, I fear that we will not have learned the lessons we need to have learned from this crisis and all our efforts will have gone to waste.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lööw">
Madam President, at this stage in the debate, virtually everything has already been said.
Most of those present have observed that while the events of the past week are not something to rejoice over, they served to bring matters to a head and have cleared the air both as regards relations between Parliament and the Commission and in restoring people's confidence in the Union in the long term.
<P>
I think we can now clearly see that we needed the time between January and March to prepare the report, which provides us with a quite different basis from the one we had in January for making constructive improvements in the future.
I am impressed by the speed and efficiency with which the committee of experts has carried out its work.
<P>
There has been some criticism of the fact that the task was given to outside experts instead of being carried out by Parliament itself.
However, I believe that our situation is too politicised to allow us to carry out such an investigation.
I also honestly believe that there are times when it is appropriate to resort to an outside opinion.
It is a necessary step, albeit a difficult one to take, since it is hard to see how to resolve the problems when one is deeply involved in the work and the procedures.
<P>
Let us now hope that this report really does become a blueprint for a thorough-going reform of the Commission's working practices and, perhaps even more importantly, that the call for openness and transparency which has constantly been reiterated over the past few weeks and which has frequently been made by the European Parliament now becomes a reality.
As recently as last January, we came up with a very constructive proposal on this subject.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Mr President, a new era starts here today.
I am tempted to paraphrase the famous words that Goethe said on the night after Valmy: for the European institutions a new era is beginning and a different culture is required.
And that culture is the culture of democracy.
<P>
Can we live up to this culture?
I think we are all facing a collective challenge here.
First, the Commission, which has long been a rather other-worldly institution supported by a choir of faithful followers.
Now it is to become an ordinary governmental organisation monitored by representatives of the people.
It might be rather annoying for it, but that is the way it is.
<P>
Parliament too is facing a challenge.
Parliament has become a major player in the institutional game, but as the French say, 'noblesse oblige ': this new responsibility brings new duties with it.
Can we be a strict partner to the Commission, giving it the strength that is so vital to both our institutions, or will we be interfering usurpers, grasping for power that is not ours?
We have to act responsibly.
<P>
This new challenge is also something the Council is facing.
First of all it must ensure, as the other arm of the budgetary authority along with ourselves, that the Commission is given the administrative resources with which to act.
We hope to see this in Category 5 of the financial perspective.
It must also abide by all the rules of the democratic processes.
<P>
Finally, the challenge also affects the Member States.
The biggest omission from the Amsterdam Treaty was the reform of the Commission.
Now we need to choose a proper Commission that operates according to either the corporate model or a more presidential one.
The timetable must be respected and we must meet these challenges together, or else everyone will be the loser.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the resignation of the Commission was justified and necessary on the basis of the Wise Men's report, and I am pleased to see so many of my honourable colleagues coming out in support of this report and its outcome, even though they originally opposed the appointment of the Committee of Wise Men.
But we all live and learn.
<P>
Secondly, the Wise Men's report was hard, but it was not unfair, because I believe that the less say the public have in how their money is spent, the stricter must be the criteria governing the administration of financial transactions.
Thirdly, the European Commission had to resign, because it was too weak in many respects in relation to the Council.
On the other hand, it often made a point of showing its muscle to Parliament.
Fourthly, we need a strong Commission with a strong President.
Only that sort of Commission will be a worthy and fitting partner for Parliament.
But being strong also means being open, transparent and certainly not secretive.
<P>
Point five: we need a new balance between the collegiate nature of the Commission and individual responsibility.
The public must be aware of the collective responsibility borne by the whole Commission, but also of every individual Commissioner's accountability.
Point six: some people are talking about the Commission crisis as if it were a crisis of the entire European Union, but the EU must stand the test, and it will, especially if it responds quickly, and I hope that the presidency can impose itself at the Council meeting in Berlin.
<P>
Point seven: we need a new team, not just a new President.
The Commission must be visibly renewed with new faces.
Point eight: some people see the incapacity and the mistakes of the Commission as an opportunity and a summons to weaken the Commission and even the EU.
That is the wrong way to react, and I deplore such an attitude.
Point nine: we have achieved a great deal in this Union, and indeed with the Commission that has now resigned, but I believe that a common economic area and a common currency are not enough.
And so point ten is that we must continue on the road leading to environmental and social union, on the road leading to political union, and we need a Commission and a Commission President who will not shirk any of their responsibility for the pursuit of these goals.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="McCartin">
Mr President, it is important, as people have already pointed out in this debate, that this is a crisis in the Commission.
It is not a crisis of the European Union.
Therefore, at this time our citizens need the reassurance that can only come from the Council of Ministers and Parliament and the administrative people carrying on with the important tasks that have to be done, such as the completion of Agenda 2000, regulation of the euro and reassuring the citizens of Europe that there is nothing in the present crisis that has not been provided for in the Treaties and that cannot be handled.
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There are many people in Parliament who are taking pride and satisfaction in the role that Parliament has played in all this.
However, to my mind, Parliament has stumbled along rather than charted out a very careful strategy in all that has happened.
Firstly, the Committee on Budgetary Control, by a narrow majority, agreed to grant discharge.
Parliament refused discharge but later it voted a motion of confidence in the Commission and its President.
The leader of the Socialist Group voted to give discharge and also voted confidence in the Commission.
Mr Cox, leader of the Liberal Group, voted to grant discharge.
So we should remember that it was not entirely clear from the very start where we were going.
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The Committee of Inquiry came up with its findings and it seems that it is these findings, which contained nothing new, which led to the resignation of the Commission.
The Committee of Inquiry made its point clearer than Parliament has ever been able to do, so the public was able to read in a very clear way where the failings were.
I believe that the consequences have been disproportionate to the failure of the Commission as a college.
The failures of the Commission have been there for a long time.
The failures have been obvious in that we gave them too many tasks and we did not give them the resources to discharge these tasks.
I regret that one or two Commissioners did not shoulder their responsibilities but I regret that so many good people, including the President Mr Santer, who have done so much important work and achieved so much success have appeared in the eyes of Europe to be discredited when in fact they are people of honour who have done a good job.
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<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Desama">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a great deal has been said about the resignation of the Commission being an institutional and political crisis.
I would call it more of a growth crisis.
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When Jacques Delors was President of the Commission, it burst strongly onto the political stage in various areas of European policy, most of them incorporated in the Maastricht Treaty: the single market, economic and monetary union and European citizenship.
It had abandoned its traditional role, but we failed to learn any real lessons from this.
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Nor did the Member States, which missed the opportunity provided by the Amsterdam Treaty because they were unable to get to grips with the problems of reforming the Union institutions.
Parliament too was sometimes too timid in its approach to the Amsterdam Treaty and failed to keep the required distance.
Finally, and above all, the Commission more than any of the other institutions was in the best position to see just how far its organisation and operation had become completely obsolete in terms of the tasks it was expected to perform, and which it agreed and asked to carry out.
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So now the line which the new President and the new Commission have to take is clear.
They must behave in practice, even though they are not yet able to do so by right, as a proper European government, with all the transparency and efficient organisation and management that this implies.
As Mr Bourlanges said, the technocrat culture must give way to a culture of democracy.
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I think this is where the Socialist Group is to be congratulated, since it was our patient strategy which lanced the boil that was sapping the institutions.
Instead of going in for politicking, squabbling and settling scores, we pushed Parliament into making a political gesture, and if the European Union emerges the stronger for it, then it will be thanks to the actions of our group.
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<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="McMillan-Scott">
Mr President, can I first of all make an observation on behalf of many Members about the gross discourtesy of the Commission in not being present for this debate.
To its credit the Council is at least represented by Coreper.
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I am probably the least surprised person about the findings of the Committee of Wise Men, because, as many colleagues know, since 1990 I have been pursuing a fraud in DG XXIII.
This has been amplified by the report but there is nothing new in it.
My view is that the report by our colleague Mrs Wemheuer from the Socialist bench who has not spoken tonight and who resigned in protest at the position of the Socialist Group before Christmas from the Committee on Budgetary Control did indeed examine the institutional questions which were supposed to be examined by the Committee of Wise Men.
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Paragraph 1 of the resolution passed by the Parliament in January actually required the Committee of Wise Men to examine the way in which the European Commission systematically covers up fraud, mismanagement and corruption; and that is not in the report, especially if I may say so in relation to the saga on tourism.
All we have actually seen is a delay of three months from the report by Mr Elles, which was sent back to ommittee in December despite the Socialist wishes.
That contained a number of reforms which could have been put into place even then. Mr Van Buitenen's testimony on 9 December was widely circulated in the Parliament and had all the information needed by the Parliament to move to a motion of censure, possibly of individual Commissioners, at the time.
So the crisis that has developed over the last three months must be laid very firmly at the feet of Mrs Green.
I described her as the most confused woman in Europe and still believe that is the best description of her.
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So the report we have seen debated this evening is Van Buitenen II.
There is very little new in it, and I would simply say to the Council that the Wise Men's report, if it recommends a fundamental change of the Staff Regulations and the way in which the Commission itself operates, will have achieved something.
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May I just point out to the House that at no stage in the last eighteen months has any Member State made any request through Coreper or otherwise for the reform of the institutions.
It is high time they did.
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<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
Mr President, the conclusions of the Wise Men's report are quite clear.
The Commission has lost political control of its administration.
That is in fact the most frightening conclusion of the report.
It means that staff in the Commission can just go on in the same way, without any control or overall political guidelines.
In such a climate, corruption, nepotism and irregularities can thrive.
Fortunately, the next Wise Men's report will be a shake-up of the civil service culture at the Commission, and that is where the biggest battles will be fought.
We need a comprehensive staff reform, which in my view should include an end to jobs for life and introduce fixed-term contracts instead.
Of course, there should not be any witch-hunt against officials in the Commission as such.
Many of them work diligently and well, but it should be possible to get rid of the rotten apples.
It will be a tough battle.
The staff organisations will fight tooth and nail when they see their unrivalled privileges disappearing.
The Wise Men's report places a collective responsibility on the Commissioners. They have at last accepted that responsibility and resigned en masse.
We can see that, because they are not here this evening.
Parliament would have dismissed the whole Commission if they had not resigned of their own accord.
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The Danish Social Democrat delegation is therefore unanimous in not voting for the restoration of a Commission which is almost identical to the one we have just dismissed.
It is not a question of personalities, although one person tried to make it so.
It is a question of principles, and we would like to call upon our colleagues to set aside national party political considerations. New blood is what is needed.
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Finally, I would like to reprimand the Council.
There must now be an end to the politics of the 15 rubber stamps.
The national governments have shown no responsibility at all in this matter.
Year after year, they have approved the accounts without batting an eyelid, so perhaps we should consider sacking the Council next time round.
And I would like to say to my friend Mr McMillan-Scott that I think it is a common trick to malign Mrs Green when she is not present, but that is typical of what the Conservatives in England stand for.
They are a common crew!
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<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stenzel">
Mr President, the crisis which has been brewing for months in the European Commission and which has now culminated in the resignation of the Commissioners has sent out a clearly visible and long overdue signal.
Brussels has its own Watergate, and conclusions now have to be drawn so that the crisis of confidence between the European Parliament and the Commission, between the public and the European Union in general, can be overcome.
The Commission crisis is not confined to that institution alone.
On the contrary, it is a crisis of the European Union.
To dispel it, we need short-term measures and lasting reforms.
One of the short-term requirements is the nomination of a new President of the Commission by the Member States, in Berlin if at all possible, and the Commissioners who were explicitly criticised in the Wise Men's report must not be part of a future Commission.
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Among the lasting reforms are the earliest possible establishment by the Council of a procedure that will make it possible to call individual Commissioners to account in the event of misconduct, mismanagement and fraud.
The unavoidable tasks facing the European Union are completely divorced from present-day political reality.
The Treaty of Amsterdam already provides for considerable improvements in this respect.
These alone, however, will not suffice.
A procedure for calling individual Commissioners to account must be laid down at or before the next intergovernmental conference.
A sustained improvement is also required in the fight against fraud.
Eighty per cent of all EU fraud takes place in the individual Member States.
If that scandalous situation is to be remedied, we need more than just an independent Anti-Fraud Office; the European Court of Auditors must also be given wider powers.
It must be able to investigate cases of fraud at the scene of the crime, in cooperation with regional and national authorities and supreme courts.
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Parliament's right of scrutiny must on no account be diluted.
The Wise Men's report was useful, but it should be completed by 20 April, and above all it should carry out an investigation at the level of officials. It is unacceptable for this Commission to operate on the principle that Commissioners may come and go but mandarins are forever.
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<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Mr President, the European Commission resigned because the Committee of Independent Experts which investigated its activities found that it had been mismanaged.
President Santer made what was absolutely the right decision and accepted full responsibility.
This process has shown that it was immensely important to have set up this independent committee, as it is only because of their work that we have been able to get to grips with the real problems.
Without it we would have merely swept matters under the carpet, as it were, having had two or three token resignations from Commission members.
Reading this report now, it seems unlikely that we would have had sufficient justification for dismissing everyone.
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We have to bear in mind, however, that we will need to cooperate extremely closely with the Council in the future.
The new Commission must be appointed quickly, and it was very good to hear the President-in-Office of the Council say that the principles of the Treaty of Amsterdam would be respected in this connection.
Nevertheless, while we ponder these images of power, we must remember that the most important matter on the agenda at the forthcoming Berlin summit is the approval of Agenda 2000, and in the light of the current situation it is vital that Berlin should be a success.
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Certain speakers here have proposed that the new Commission might include members of the current one.
I believe this has to be examined on the basis of what we want from the Commission.
The aim must be to improve the Commission's work and management culture, and we must have Commissioners who can do this.
The current situation should be exploited thoroughly. We need time and energy to bring about reform, and capable people to manage it.
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<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Reding">
Mr President, Jacques Santer has shown great political courage.
By resigning along with all the rest of the Commission, he has shown that he accepts full responsibility, and I admire his honesty.
However, I also regret the fact that a Commission which has done excellent work throughout its term of office should have been forced to resign.
If Mrs Cresson had resigned of her own accord last January as she should have done, when her dubious practices were already widely known, we would not be in a political crisis in Europe today.
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I hope that the kind of national tricks that Mrs Cresson got up to will no longer be possible in the new Commission, a new and strong Commission which I hope will have the endorsement of the newly elected Parliament in June.
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I would also like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Jacques Santer and most of his Commission, which has launched some historic projects: the euro, enlargement, Agenda 2000.
He was also determined to carry out fundamental reforms to make the fight against corruption more effective.
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It is through the irony of history that the Santer Commission has become the first victim of its own reforms.
Let us hope that the measures it has taken will enable its successor to be more transparent, democratic and effective.
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<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Malone">
President, I am really appalled at the remark of the Tories and their leader this evening but I am not surprised.
It just confirms what I have always thought about them.
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This report, however, gives us an opportunity for a fresh start.
By 'us' I mean all the institutions of the European Union.
Reform of the Commission is the start.
The Council of Ministers and the national governments also need to examine themselves critically and ask if they have always acted in the best interests of our Union.
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The Council of Ministers will make very important decisions this week which we know will have a long-lasting effect on the future success and credibility of the European Union.
Let us hope that they make these decisions in the same spirit of openness and accountability and respect for democracy that they rightly demand of the Commission.
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The Commission has been found guilty of malpractice.
I would suggest that the way to remedy this would be firstly that all appointments and contracts be openly advertised, decided independently and scrutinised by the Parliament.
The Commission staff should cease empire-building and behave collectively for the good of the Community.
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The practice of there being a de facto national quota for senior staff appointments in the Commission must end.
The Commissioners should be entitled to appoint a personal cabinet but this should be done with complete transparency.
Each Commissioner should have to justify the appointments by publishing details of the individual's qualification for the job to an independent assessor.
Each cabinet member should be absolutely required to leave office with the Commissioner.
No more parachuting into important Commission staff positions.
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With regard to the role of national governments, these and other reforms are badly needed.
The public must be made aware that it is often the practice of governments and the Council of Ministers to blame the Commission when things go wrong.
As has been pointed out here, most EU funding is actually administered by national governments and there is considerable evidence of fraud and malpractice in this area.
It is the responsibility of governments to address that.
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And finally, President, I would say that with regard to the role of the Council of Ministers, we know that they meet in private.
They are one of the few remaining governing bodies anywhere in Europe where decisions are taken behind closed doors, and this must stop.
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<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cunha">
Mr President, the uncompromising final paragraph of the conclusions of the report is undoubtedly controversial. According to this paragraph, despite the dilution of political responsibility observed during the inquiry, the Commissioners should accept this responsibility as a body.
Faced with this conclusion, the Commission had no alternative but to resign, which it has done with its dignity intact.
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This crisis has come at the worst possible time, with the European Union in the final stage of the Agenda 2000 negotiations, the outcome of which will to a large extent determine our collective future, and in particular the future of the cohesion countries, including my own, and of the applicant countries from Eastern Europe and of our farmers.
The frenetic demands made by certain political forces to get rid of this Commission makes me suspect that it would suit them to have a weak Commission, because a weak Commission would in theory be easier to bend to their minimalist views on the future of the European Union.
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I believe that it would be more reasonable to keep this Commission on in a caretaker capacity, as it is familiar with the dossiers being negotiated and could therefore guarantee more rapid, effective and well-balanced negotiations.
Nevertheless, we are open to other reasonable solutions.
The important thing is that the pace and the balance of the negotiations on Agenda 2000 should not be affected and that the strategic interests of the Union should not be jeopardised.
I also want to emphasise that I am against a second report by the committee.
We need a strong Commission in which political responsibility outweighs bureaucracy.
We need Parliament to actively pursue its budgetary control functions and we need a body that will fight effectively against fraud.
If what we have now is not adequate, then we need to carry out whatever reforms are necessary.
But we cannot perpetuate exceptional arrangements.
It is time for the institutions to act and to accept their political responsibilities.
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<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fayot">
Mr President, I should like to begin by paying tribute to my fellow-countryman, Jacques Santer, who is not in my party but whom I respect for the important political work he has done as President of the Commission.
I would like to underline his political successes, but also the circumstances that led to his downfall, for which his own political group, the PPE, bears considerable responsibility.
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As everyone here has said, we need the swift appointment of a strong new Commission that can carry out root-and-branch reforms.
However, while I naturally agree with this in principle, I would also stress that we shall be in an entirely new situation.
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The new Commission is to be approved by Parliament, which will also vote in the new Commission President on the basis of the Commission's programme.
There is to be a new relationship between Parliament and the Commission, and it will be the Commission and its programme that Parliament will be approving for its term in office.
So in approving the Commission, Parliament will be bound by a sort of contract for the term of office, and it will have to be disciplined and show political maturity.
There will have to be a stable majority if the Commission's proposals are to be implemented, and Parliament will no longer be able to make do with the kind of fluid majorities that expose it to the risk of blackmail, particularly from eurosceptic or anti-European groups.
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The parliamentary democracy that is now being introduced in Europe also requires Parliament to be legitimised by its electors, and this is why I do not agree that it should be the old Parliament that approves the new Commission.
It should be the new Parliament elected on 13 June.
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<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Burenstam Linder">
Mr President, the Social Democrats must bear a large part of the responsibility for the institutional crisis in which the EU now finds itself.
Last December, they voted not to hold the Commission responsible for its administration.
That decision, together with the attitude it reflected and which preceded the vote, meant that the Commission felt under no obligation to carry out reforms at an early stage, thereby possibly avoiding the present situation.
In January, the Social Democrats also lent support to the Commission by voting against the censure motion.
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In our present situation, we need a new Commission whose mandate will last until the year 2000 to take over before the European elections in June.
Any other solution would not be understood by the voters.
The Commission also needs to play a central role in taking initiatives and in ensuring that the Treaty is respected.
With so many important issues on the agenda, it is essential that the policy-making work continues.
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Whatever the different governments may say, the new Commission's mandate should last only until the end of the year.
The newly elected European Parliament should approve the appointment of the President of the Commission and the Commissioners for the period 2000 to 2004.
The result of its vote should be respected, in accordance with the Treaty.
Several factors serve to complicate both the process and the timetable: the Commission has to be appointed in two stages; the present Parliament's remaining mandate is so short; and two different Treaties have to be applied.
The importance of the role of the European Parliament in this process stands out clearly.
The Council of Ministers has not instigated any administrative reforms.
However, if what Parliament says is to carry any weight, it is essential that no criticism can be levelled against its own position.
It is fortunate that Parliament, on various occasions, has carried out major changes in its own working practices.
A new proposal for a Statute for Members of the European Parliament has been submitted to the Council of Ministers for approval.
This issue also needs to be settled before the European elections.
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<SPEAKER ID=83 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, the resignation of the Commission in the wake of the report published by the Committee of Wise Men was the right decision.
Since March 1998 Parliament's Group of the European People's Party has systematically highlighted failings in the work of the Commission.
The results of the report which led to the resignation simply repeat in black and white the findings of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
It would have been reasonable to expect those Commissioners charged with negligence, mismanagement and nepotism to have known when to resign themselves, in the light of information obtained earlier, especially as Parliament does not have the power to dismiss individual Commissioners.
In the future we will need to analyse the make-up of the institution and examine the functions of Commission officials.
Continuing the work of the Committee of Wise Men, is, however, not the solution.
Parliament now has the means to monitor the Commission's activities.
It is Parliament's task to ensure that the positive reforms now under way in the Commission are carried out and that any problems that emerge are promptly dealt with.
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The situation is an awkward one at the moment as far as the Union is concerned.
A temporary Commission must therefore be swiftly appointed, so that the Union is capable of operating as soon as the new Parliament commences work after the elections in June.
Naturally, a temporary Commission would only operate until the end of the year, when the new Parliament will carefully consider the choice of Commissioners for the next five-year term.
We do not need a Commission made up of failed politicians or those who have been put on the shelf in their own countries.
In considering the choice of Commissioners we have to take account of the candidates' ability to manage the affairs of the Union and to bear both individual and collective responsibility for their decisions.
Parliament has now brought about a huge change in policy and it must be ready to take the responsibility for seeing the reforms through to the end.
We are now altering the course of the Union, making for a more transparent and democratic people's Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Matikainen-Kallström.
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I have received eight motions for resolutions to wind up the debate, pursuant to Rule 37(2).
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The debate is closed.
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The vote will take place tomorrow at 3 p.m.
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The sitting was suspended at 8.35 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.
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<CHAPTER ID=6>
EAEC accession to KEDO, EU-DPRK relations
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on:
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the report (A4-0104/99) by Mr Tindemans, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the agreement on terms and conditions of the accession of the European Atomic Energy Community to the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organisation (KEDO) (C4-0483/97); -the oral questions by Mr Spencer, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, to the Council (B4-0147/99) and the Commission (B4-0148/99), on the European Union's relations with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.As the President said at the beginning of the sitting, the Council has indicated that it is unable to be present because of work connected with the preparations for the European Council meeting in Berlin.
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<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Tindemans">
Mr President, as the House will appreciate, we are dealing here with a very serious matter, namely KEDO and relations with North Korea, a country which is totally isolated at present and which is in the grip of acute food shortages.
So this is a most serious debate.
I shall confine myself to three points.
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Firstly, KEDO itself.
We have already held one debate in Parliament to discuss an initial tranche of funding.
KEDO came into being as a result of a project to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons in North Korea and draw North Korea more closely into the international community.
In 1993, there was a fear that North Korea might obtain nuclear materials from its Soviet-type nuclear facilities, graphite moderator reactors, with a view to putting them to military use.
This fear was further intensified by the North Korean threat to leave the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
An agreement was concluded with the United States whereby North Korea would freeze its nuclear programme and possibly close down its nuclear facilities, in exchange for the building of two light water reactors and in the meantime receiving supplies of heavy fuel oil.
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So KEDO was a US initiative, although South Korea and Japan helped to carry it out.
It may seem odd to seek non-proliferation by building two new nuclear facilities.
But these facilities, light water reactors, are not only safer to operate but also harder to use for military purposes.
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The European Union was then launching its new strategy for Asia, to develop better relations between Europe and Asia.
Membership of KEDO was therefore consistent with this policy and was intended to improve security in north-east Asia.
It would also show solidarity with our Asian allies and might also bring economic benefits to European industry through the US involvement, since European firms would be eligible for KEDO contracts.
<P>
The foreign policy aspects of joining KEDO are therefore significant.
Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee devoted 18 months and lengthy discussions to preparing a report which was as complete and accurate as possible.
It also worked with the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Research.
The other committees directly concerned by this report favour joining KEDO and think that Parliament should do its job and make that accession possible, including in financial terms.
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I must take this opportunity of saying straight away that we were able to work extremely well with the Committee on Research and Technology and the Committee on Budgets, with Mr Ford and Mr Brinkhorst.
It was a delight, and often when the three of us consulted, we were all in agreement on the conclusions.
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There was one problem.
The Council decided that the accession agreement would be concluded under Euratom.
The treaty on which Euratom is based does not contain any obligation to inform or consult the European Parliament.
The Council and Commission undertook to do that on a voluntary basis.
But European membership of KEDO will mean expenditure using funds from the budget. The three committees and the House as a whole realised this, and so there was a chance that this spending might not be approved unless agreement could be reached to involve Parliament in future international agreements concluded under the Euratom Treaty.
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Well, Mr President, thanks to contacts and an exchange of letters, we have already reached agreement on the first tranche which I mentioned.
But now what do we find?
We, the three rapporteurs plus an official, visited North Korea from 5 to 14 December.
On 15 December a new agreement was signed by Euratom, that is to say with the involvement of the European institutions, an agreement with Canada.
I am no troublemaker.
I do not want to stir things up unnecessarily, but this is totally unacceptable for a directly elected Parliament which has responsibilities and which has to answer to its voters.
We cannot agree to the conclusion of something like this, since we shall be required to pay for it, since we shall have to authorise the expenditure for it.
We cannot accept that unless we are properly informed and consulted.
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There has been a flurry of activity over this in the last few days, but I shall not dwell on that.
In the Foreign Affairs Committee, Commissioner Brittan made a statement which gave us the impression that we were moving towards an agreement.
We have now seen a letter this afternoon to the President of Parliament, signed by Sir Leon Brittan, telling us how the Commission plans to handle such matters in the future.
I am pleased to say at this point that we are quite happy with this letter.
We are also reassured by what Sir Leon said in the committee about how some paragraphs are to be interpreted, so we are able today to commend the entire KEDO dossier to the House.
<P>
But there is one more point I would like to make.
When we were in North Korea we had some quite fascinating encounters, we three rapporteurs and the official accompanying us.
Clearly we were going ask for meetings with the leading figures, and we got them.
We talked, sometimes at considerable length, with the president of the National Assembly, the foreign minister, the deputy foreign minister, the energy minister, the spokesman-general for the army, and so on.
We got a fair impression of how things are.
As I said, there are acute food shortages in this country.
It is totally isolated.
We came to the conclusion that humanitarian aid has to continue and that cooperation with the authorities there must improve, so that the help we offer can be more effective.
We naturally came to the conclusion that we must do everything possible to prevent proliferation, to coax the country out of its isolation and into the family of nations, and that KEDO can help to achieve that.
We think the Koreans would be prepared, if invited by the House, to meet with Members of Parliament here, and with the specialist committees.
We advocate this in the motion for a resolution we have tabled.
And we think that better diplomatic contacts may produce results.
Of the 15 Member States of the European Union, only Sweden has an embassy - just Sweden, none of the others.
Might the Koreans not open a liaison office here?
Might we not strengthen our diplomatic presence there, with the European Union taking an initiative to that end?
We advocate both these things.
But I will say no more on that particular subject.
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My third point concerns the two questions asked by Mr Spencer.
Perhaps I can just quote them.
They are as follows: in the light of the recent establishment of a political dialogue with North Korea, will the Council state its views on the possibility and desirability of further developing relations between the European Union and its Member States and North Korea?
How does the Council assess the current security situation in north-east Asia?
What discussions on this situation have been held, or are likely to be held, with the Republic of Korea, Japan and the United States?
<P>
His second question was: 'in the light of the recent establishment of a political dialogue with North Korea, will the Commission state its views on the possibility and desirability of further developing relations between the European Union and its Member States and North Korea?
How does the Commission assess the current security situation in north-east Asia?
What discussions on this situation have been held, or are likely to be held, with the Republic of Korea, Japan and the United States?
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<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Mr President, I am speaking in two capacities - for the Liberal Group and also for the Committee on Budgets.
It is quite ironic that on the same day that we are debating the consequences of the resignation of the Commission, we should also be discussing the question of KEDO.
The Committee on Budgets, in a sense, has been the auxiliary committee.
For us it was very clear when the Council decided unilaterally at the end of February 1996 that KEDO would be supported by financial resources entered in the budget, that the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, which had not been not consulted, should give its opinion.
That story has taken quite some time and still at the present time there is a reserve in the European Union budget.
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The fundamental reason has to do with the debate which we had earlier today.
It has to do with democracy and accountability.
Therefore, it has to do with the question of whether in the future we will have the possibility in this Parliament of discussing the very fundamental question - as all normal national parliaments do.
The Euratom Treaty is 40 years old.
It provides very extensive powers to the Commission and the Council. It provides no powers to Parliament.
So, when the Commission chose to enter into the agreement, it chose Article 101 of the Euratom Treaty and this Treaty does not provide even for consultation with or information to Parliament.
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It is on those grounds - and I say this unabashedly - that the Committee on Budgets decided to put the resources in reserve until the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy were adequately involved.
We have been acting on behalf of these two committees.
In substance it is very clear that it is not the Committee on Budgets that will decide whether or not we should enter into an agreement on energy cooperation with North Korea.
It is against that background that we are pleased to hear that the Commission recognises that the times are changing.
We look forward to hearing Sir Leon Brittan, on behalf of the Commission, reading out the results of the discussions we have had and which I hope will lead to a situation where we will have more accountability on Euratom matters in the future.
<P>
It is again very ironic that on a day like this the Council is not even represented at political level and it shows that maybe the next battle for democracy will not be with the Commission but with the Council.
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Speaking on behalf of the Liberal Group, we welcome the fact that the European Union has a strategic energy and foreign policy involvement in North-East Asia.
We also welcome the very active involvement of Sir Leon Brittan on behalf of the Commission.
It is against that background that we were deeply disappointed that it was not possible to find an adequate institutional arrangement for this particular point earlier.
The Liberal Group fully supports Mr Tindemanns' view that it is not only with South Korea but also with North Korea that a new relationship should be developed.
<P>
I would like to ask one question of Sir Leon.
This morning in the International Herald Tribune there was a strong plea for a new approach to North Korea.
Apparently the Japanese are more reserved than the South Koreans.
We should strongly support the 'sunshine' policy of President Kim Dae Jung who has suffered more than anyone in South Korea from the tensions which have existed for more than 40 years between South and North Korea.
It is against that background that we would like to give our support to a KEDO agreement and also to new relations between Western Europe and North Korea.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, like Mr Brinkhorst I am also speaking in two capacities, firstly on behalf of the committee, and secondly on behalf of the Socialist Group.
Firstly, I should like to congratulate my two companions in this long endeavour: Mr Brinkhorst and Mr Tindemanns.
We started this process on 21 November 1997.
If I had known I was going to spend so long with them I would have checked with more care who they were going to be.
However, I could not have picked two better companions.
We spent a whole week together in North Korea and ten and a half hours in meetings with the deputy foreign minister.
This would have produced any personality clashes there might have been.
<P>
Equally, I should like to thank Sir Leon Brittan for all his efforts to try to reach an agreement between the Commission and the European Parliament.
It has been a long, hard road.
I will not go into the detail because the points have been raised by the two previous speakers.
We now have an agreement that I think Parliament can accept on the basis of the letter which has been sent today.
I am deeply disappointed that the Council of Ministers, which apparently accepted an oral question for debate on relations with the DPRK, has failed to send anybody to participate in the debate.
Perhaps they have been delayed and I should be glad to hear from you, Mr President, if that is the case.
I presume we are expected to work out the Council's view on these matters by some form of telepathy.
<P>
KEDO, as you have been told, is a project to build two light water reactors to substitute for Russian design Chernobyl-style reactors that were under construction in the DPRK and which have the ability to produce weapons-grade plutonium.
To try and resolve that problem we have the US-DPRK Framework Agreement of 1995.
The European Union was asked to contribute to that and this is what this comes from.
The Research Committee's view was one of critical support.
We have a series of concerns.
Firstly, a financial hole it still exists.
Japan's contribution of US$1 billion and the Republic of Korea's 60 % and the European Union's US$85m do not make up the full cost of the project.
It is unclear how the gap is going to be bridged.
<P>
Secondly, we are concerned about how the United States is delivering the promised heavy fuel oil which is meant to act as a bridge until these two nuclear reactors come on line.
It is being fitfully delivered.
North Korea is a deeply suspicious country.
We in the European Union might understand that the checks and balances of the US constitution mean that President Clinton cannot always clearly deliver on his promises but we can hardly be surprised that the North Koreans take a different view when, in the coldest month of the year and when energy is most needed, there was a failure to deliver heavy fuel oil to the Sonbong oil-fired power plant.
<P>
Thirdly, we are concerned about the fact that KEDO is a bat without a ball.
There is no money being put forward to connect the two nuclear power stations into the North Korean grid system.
This is only going to cost $100m or $200m, comparatively small beer compared to what is being spent on the KEDO project as a whole, but, clearly, if you do not have the bat and the ball, you cannot play the game.
Fourthly, we are concerned about the lack of clarity on the allocation of these enormously large contracts and whether European industry is going to get a fair opportunity to bid.
Despite these reservations the Research Committee voted in favour of the programme.
We believe that, overall, it serves our best interests as a Parliament and as a European Union in demonstrating our role in East Asia.
<P>
This debate is not only about Mr Tindemann's KEDO report.
It also refers to two oral questions to the Council and the Commission with respect to future relations with the DPRK.
We have been supplying humanitarian aid for some years following a series of natural disasters - flood, drought and tidal waves - that tipped what was a barely sufficient North Korea firmly into the red as far as food production was concerned.
<P>
There is severe malnutrition in North Korea.
A recent World Food Programme report indicated that 16 % of children between the ages of 1 and 6 are so badly malnourished that they suffer from permanent brain damage; 45 % of children are so badly nourished that they will be permanently stunted.
So, 300 000 to 400 000 0-6-year olds are permanently brain-damaged and 1 000 000 0-6-year olds are permanently stunted.
Therefore, I welcome the new agreement to supply further food aid of something over ECU 30m and to target children under 12 and lactating mothers.
<P>
I welcome the agreement by the North Koreans on monitoring.
After the events of last week it is vital for us in Parliament to be assured that the Commission is spending the money in the appropriate ways.
I welcome also the assistance on agriculture - new techniques and maybe even new crops.
I am disappointed, however, that nothing is being done in the non-nuclear energy sector.
While I was there on the delegation I visited a coalmine and a thermal power station.
Firstly, there was no power so the coalminers had to be evacuated.
No coal would therefore be produced over an eight-hour shift and the power station only had three days' supply.
Both were extremely primitive and I speak as someone whose family were coalminers in the United Kingdom in the 1950s.
Compared to the cost of KEDO, one-tenth of 1 % of the KEDO project would boost productivity in the coalmining industry - it has been estimated - by something like 25 %, and modernise elements of coal-fired power production.
<P>
On the political side I welcome the result of the Council's low level political dialogue with the DPRK and support the idea of a second meeting when the time is right.
I welcome the Commission's communication on Korea calling for critical engagement.
All I ask is that we move quickly.
The situation is critical.
We should not miss an opportunity.
I know the North Koreans have asked for a liaison office to be opened in Brussels.
I hope we can agree that can happen, subject to reciprocity in Pyongyang, and that subject to the necessary agreements we can move on to more developed relations.
<P>
Finally, I welcome the paragraph in the report that asks for a delegation to come here from the DPRK's Parliament.
We will have hard and difficult negotiations with them but the dialogue has to start somewhere.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Brittan">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, may I say first of all that I am pleased that the general issue regarding Parliament's role in Euratom agreements has been settled and I can assure you that the Commission services will implement the practical arrangements we have arrived at.
Before setting those out, I want to say that I very much agree with what Mr Tindemanns said about the role of KEDO as part of our Asian strategy and being an important contribution to it.
We will come to North Korea in a moment but we have to look at our policy with regard to the region as one which has to be integrated, comprehensive and positive.
As far as the problems we have had with Euratom agreements, I am grateful for what has been said about my own role in resolving them.
I can assure you that I absolutely agree with Mr Brinkhorst that times have changed and we have to reflect that in what we are doing.
<P>
The measures the Commission intends to take are set out in a letter that I have sent to the President of the European Parliament today.
That letter states first that at the beginning of each year, the Commission will provide a list of all the relevant Euratom agreements under Article 101(2) which are under negotiation or for which negotiations are to be launched in the coming year.
This list will be regularly updated and forwarded to Parliament under the necessary conditions of confidentiality.
Secondly, the Commission will provide oral information on request to the relevant parliamentary committee on the conduct of the negotiations under the necessary conditions of confidentiality.
<P>
Thirdly, the Commission will forward the proposals for conclusion of the relevant Euratom agreements to the Parliament at the same time as they are forwarded to the Council for approval.
That is a significant procedural innovation since it provides a guarantee to Parliament that it will be informed before the Council has taken a position on the conclusion of these agreements.
Thus Parliament will have the opportunity to make its views known before a decision is taken to conclude the agreement in line with the commitments made in our earlier exchange of letters.
<P>
I should add that the time it takes for the Council to reach a decision on conclusion is generally fairly lengthy.
That leaves ample time for Parliament to express its view if it so wishes.
In those cases where the Council may wish to take a particularly rapid decision, the Commission will duly inform the Parliament of this possibility.
Fourthly, by way of a letter, information will be provided on the relevant agreements under Article 101(2) Euratom which are currently either under negotiation or for which a decision or conclusion has not yet been taken.
The agreements referred to represent all agreements covered by Article 101(2) Euratom which are under negotiation or for which negotiations are to be launched in the coming year.
<P>
Finally, in order to ensure that there is no further misunderstanding between the Commission and Parliament, the Commission will also convey separately to the Parliament all relevant texts and agreements which should have been covered by our understanding during the latter half of last year and the beginning of this year. That is what the letter says.
<P>
With respect to the report on the KEDO Accession Agreement it is a well-presented and interesting document which addresses the fundamental aspects of the KEDO initiative.
The visit of the parliamentary delegation to North Korea was regarded in a very positive way by the international community and I am grateful for the degree of attention Parliament has given to KEDO.
I particularly endorse the conclusion which states that Parliament considers that the European Union should play a role in reducing the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation, increasing nuclear safety and encouraging the development of better relations between the DPRK and its neighbours and that membership of KEDO will enable it the better to play that role.
<P>
We are fully playing that role in the implementation of the Accession Agreement.
We attend all KEDO board meetings and negotiating meetings with North Korea.
The EU has staff in KEDO, including at director level, is following the procurement aspects - and here I can assure Mr Ford that we have every intention of ensuring that Europe gets a fair crack of the whip - and Europe has the chairmanship of the important International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group.
We are paying our financial contribution which helps to ensure that the DPRK respects its non-proliferation pledges and we were pleased to note that the DPRK is now going to allow access to the so-called underground facility so as to allay international concerns.
Security aspects are fundamental to peace and stability on the peninsular and the KEDO project is contributing to reconciliation between the two Korean governments.
Indeed, it is a unique example of South and North Koreans working together.
<P>
KEDO itself is a special organisation where we are cooperating actively with our American, Japanese and South Korean partners to help improve security in North-East Asia.
North Korea is also aware of our involvement not only through KEDO but also via the political dialogue which I shall refer to in answer to the question and by the European Union food aid programme.
Indeed, it is the case that the Commission negotiators have recently reached an ad referendum agreement with their DPRK counterparts on conditions for a new EUR30m aid programme for 1999.
So we are contributing to a process of engagement with North Korea, seeking to encourage it to become a more responsible member of the international community.
<P>
We have to be realistic.
There is an important, difficult and ongoing task to ensure security in North-East Asia and underpin the global non-proliferation regime.
KEDO is a key part of that task and we will continue to remain in close contact with Parliament in the implementation of our participation in it.
We will have to start preparing soon for the future of our participation in KEDO because the current agreement expires at the end of the year 2000 and we will be in close contact with Parliament following the procedures I referred to earlier.
So I am very gratified to see that Parliament's opinion records approval of the Accession Agreement which will allow the release of the funds for the 1999 financial contribution.
It is true that broader financial problems remain but the first thing we have to do is to play our part.
<P>
Turning to the question from Mr Spencer on the broader issue of relations with North Korea, I welcome the visit that was paid by the Members of the European Parliament to North Korea and I am glad that it was a successful bonding exercise.
The negotiations I have had with the Members of the Parliament to deal with the KEDO problem have been a similar bonding exercise and I thank all concerned.
There is no doubt at all, as far as relations with North Korea are concerned, that a crisis in the Korean Peninsular would have far-reaching consequences in North-East Asia and beyond and we have a responsibility, commensurate with our new role in seeking to be involved politically in that part of Asia, to do what we can to avoid it.
<P>
President Kim Dae Jung has strongly advocated greater international engagement as a way of handling the problem and I can certainly assure you that we fully support, as Mr Brinkhorst has urged us to do, President Kim's 'sunshine' policy.
America too is conducting a wide-ranging review of its policy under former Defense Secretary Perry.
We have been pursuing a policy of limited engagement illustrated by the food aid and other assistance programmes, as well as by KEDO.
We are currently discussing how that policy may now be taken further forward.
An important factor will of course be the policies which the DPRK itself pursues in key areas such as security issues, relations with neighbouring countries, human rights and so on.
We also have to take account of the need to support our key partners in their dealings with the DPRK.
The EU regularly exchanges views with our dialogue partners, including the United States, the Republic of Korea and Japan with regard to the situation on the Korean Peninsular.
The idea that was put forward for further development in the energy sector is certainly one that we want to consider.
Possibilities are being considered, including a study into alternative energy sources and/or the coal sector rehabilitation.
<P>
On the political side we obviously have to tread warily but not so warily that we do not make progress.
That is the course we shall pursue and I am grateful to Parliament for its support for it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in his own inimitable way, the Commissioner has not only set out the problems but has also provided us with avenues to explore.
We are grateful to you, Commissioner, for your letter, which - at the last minute, if I may say so - enabled us to reach our decision on the KEDO project.
It might have come a little earlier, but we are pleased that you found the right approach along with our Three Musketeers.
These really are three committed Musketeers, who care about the interests of the people in North Korea and about this issue.
On behalf of my group I should like to offer my sincere thanks to Mr Tindemans, to Mr Brinkhorst and also to Glyn Ford.
<P>
Although you, as a practised diplomat, tread warily but with undoubted success along the path of rapprochement and cooperation with other countries, you will permit me, as a Member of Parliament who need not be quite so diplomatic, to point out that the KEDO project, like others, must ultimately be judged by the conduct of the government of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in terms of its military activities and its humanitarian inactivity.
I do believe that the North Korean Government must finally provide conclusive evidence that its military activities do not pose a threat, particularly to its neighbouring states, and that they are not designed to pose a threat.
<P>
We call for access by independent inspectors to nuclear facilities, especially the underground facilities.
We also really ought to expect the North Korean Government to declare at long last that it will not undertake any more test launches without giving prior notice.
After all, Japan could not fail to perceive the totally unexpected test launch of a missile over Japanese territory as a threat.
I believe we must surely agree that a country such as North Korea which is looking for support from the international community must naturally conduct itself in such a way that it is not seen to threaten or act in a hostile manner towards other states.
So much for the military aspect.
<P>
As far as the humanitarian side is concerned, we are pleased to note, Sir Leon, that you have made progress on the question of providing food supplies for the population.
But to be honest, I distrust any statistics released by the North Korean Government on the extent of the famine in North Korea.
I certainly believe it to be essential that we keep in touch with the aid agencies on the ground, because I do not think that even this project can come anywhere near providing the volume of aid that is needed - and Mr Ford has given us some figures.
The fact that North Korea has money for military actions but no money to buy food for its people is a contradiction that we cannot tolerate if we care at all for the people of North Korea.
In that respect, I believe we should keep a very watchful eye on that situation, and we should expect the North Koreans to tell us the truth here and to assist us in ferrying supplies to the population, especially in the remote parts of the country.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, you may not be surprised to learn that I cannot see this whole situation in such a rosy glow as it has been presented here, especially by Sir Leon Brittan.
We know each other only too well, of course, from the Committee on External Economic Relations.
The few good points to be found in the KEDO programme, namely the desire to arrive at an alternative form of energy and to make a contribution to North Korea in terms of promoting reconciliation or improving people's living standards, are swamped by a whole series of points which Mr Tindemans presents in detail in his explanatory statement.
Mr Ford has also told us what is really happening over there in North Korea.
I cannot help wondering whether we should not be trying to solve quite different problems there at the present time, rather than helping to build two light water reactors.
How is North Korea ever supposed to repay the debts it is incurring in this domain?
<P>
If we reply to this question by claiming that we need to have a foot in the door, economically speaking, and to profit from projects and contracts, then I have to say that this is surely a very mercenary approach; to put it more bluntly, we have taken a policy that is supposed to provide a country with a helping hand in its pursuit of development and have succeeded once again in turning such a policy on its head in spectacular fashion.
We are building a new white elephant under the guise of development aid.
That is surely not designed to provide long-term assistance.
Reactors are to be sited somewhere in the landscape, and there is not even any certainty as to how the energy is to be transmitted from there.
And what about the disposal of the nuclear waste?
That, of course, is another question you have yet to resolve.
<P>
You may find that amusing, Sir Leon.
But as an aid worker who has worked long enough in the shanty towns of this world, I have to tell you that this sort of solution is certainly not one that springs to my mind.
<P>
Let me conclude by stating the obvious, namely that the way Parliament has been treated throughout the period of the KEDO negotiations has been anything but brilliant.
If you are now presenting us with a letter, Sir Leon, the content of which I can certainly endorse - well, I have to say that it may have come late, but at least it has come.
However, we are being given sight of this at a very, very late stage in the proceedings.
I know that you are always keen to inform Parliament and that you do that and come to our meetings.
But in terms of substance - and let me make this very clear - we are usually sold short, because our questions often receive extremely flowery answers.
That is something we very often experience in the Committee on External Economic Relations.
Be that as it may, I have some different ideas of what would help these countries.
For that reason, even though much of the content of the report may be right and proper, I regret that we shall have to vote against it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, I have a suggestion to make.
It would be a better idea to announce when the Council is present rather than when it is absent, since this is becoming the exception rather than the rule.
It is also going to make it difficult for Mr Brinkhorst to cross swords with the Council if it is never here.
It is a little late to be realising that instead of crossing swords with the Commission, we should have focused our energies on trying to get the Council out.
But it is too late now, the damage is done.
<P>
Another thing: regarding the procedures for the vote tomorrow, I regret that we were not able to table amendments in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy and had to table them directly in the plenary.
It is going to add to our workload today, and it is also not in accordance with the Rules.
<P>
As for the substance of what has been said, I am absolutely dumbstruck.
This will come as no surprise to someone like Sir Leon Brittan, who is more of a dreamer than a realist.
When I hear people talking here this evening about crises and food shortages, I honestly wonder whether they really appreciate the scale of what is happening in North Korea.
And yet the figures speak for themselves: two to three million people have died over the last four years.
This has nothing to do with food shortages - it is a genuine famine, an out-and-out disaster, and it is not a natural disaster but a structural one caused by an insane, criminal and psychopathic regime which is worse than the worst regime in the Soviet Union or Ceaucescu's Romania.
<P>
We are talking here very earnestly about a nuclear programme, and our Green colleagues are right on this, in part: should we really be allocating hundreds of millions of euros to build nuclear power stations over there, even if they are less likely to be used for military purposes, when other solutions could easily be found?
We are not asking for anything in return.
We are providing food aid, and we are not asking for any reforms, although we know perfectly well that the agricultural production system is structurally quite incapable of meeting North Korea's needs.
I find this totally incomprehensible.
This agreement will be supporting a regime that is completely and utterly insane.
<P>
Clearly we will be voting against this report, but that is not enough.
Perhaps when Sir Leon Brittan stops being such a dreamer and becomes more realistic he might think about the possibility of investing a few million euros in providing the North Koreans with information, instead of letting them starve to death without any knowledge of what is happening in the rest of the world.
I think there are some fairly obvious things we could be doing instead of sitting back and watching Pyongyang fire off missiles and waste what little energy the country has left on totally insane plans.
It is a mad regime and it must be brought down.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Mr President, I understand the Council is not present.
Is that correct?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="President">
I repeat what the President said at the start of the sitting: the Council has announced - albeit with regret - that it is unable to attend because of duties connected with the preparation of the European Council meeting in Berlin.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Brinkhorst">
I understand what you are saying, Mr President but I rise on Rule 40 which says that when questions to the Council have been placed on the agenda in time, that is to say three weeks before - and as far as questions of foreign policy is concerned this time limit does not even apply - they will be answered.
I am speaking here in place of Mr Wijsenbeek who, as we all know, is a recognised expert on the Rules.
<P>
We are in a dilemma.
The oral question plus the report are part of a package.
The Council is not present tonight but we are also sitting tomorrow and I move that we suspend this item now so that before we vote tomorrow we have the reply from the Council.
That is the logical thing to do.
This Parliament is by now taken seriously by the Commission but apparently not by the Council.
Could I have a ruling from you on this point, Mr President?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="President">
Mr Brinkhorst, we have come to the end of this debate.
I understand your comment, which has been noted, but the discussion is over.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Mr President, you cannot say that the debate is over if one of the two institutions to which we addressed our questions has not even replied.
It seems to me that it should be up to the President to ask the Council to give a reply.
If you rule that we will not suspend the debate until tomorrow morning - and I understand that is implicit in what you are saying, though I would question it - could you a least say that the Council will reply in writing to the specific questions put by Mr Spencer on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy and that we will have that reply tomorrow before the vote?
It makes nonsense of a debate if there should be two institutions present.
Sir Leon has given a full reply but the President-in-Office of the Council is totally absent.
Can you reply to that point?
My group's attitude will be very much determined by your reply.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="President">
Mr Brinkhorst, we shall ask the Council for a written reply, but I cannot tell you whether or not we shall have it by tomorrow morning.
<P>
I would now ask Sir Leon Brittan whether he wishes to comment further.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Brittan">
Mr President, I just wanted to say a word about some of the points raised by the last three speakers, and I will be brief.
<P>
I entirely agree with Mr Jarzembowski that it is essential that North Korean military activity must not present a threat.
He has spoken in a very clear way.
I would agree with and endorse it, and what we are doing is designed to deal with the security issue as much as anything else.
It is indeed put forward explicitly as a way to engage the North Koreans and discourage them from the worst form of military threat that there could be - namely, a nuclear threat.
It has to be seen in that context.
<P>
Mr Kreissl-Dörfler suggest that we really should be focussing on other problems.
All I can say is that you have to ask yourself - and I would address this to Mr Dupuis as well - the extent to which we are able to do so with a country like North Korea.
The fact of the matter is that the gravest threat that it presents to its neighbours is a security one and that in preventing that by the KEDO Programme or diminishing the risk of it in the KEDO Programme, we are actually making a contribution without which it would not be possible to think about any other sort of measures; and I would say to Mr Dupuis that the idea that a regime which has the horrific characteristics that he has described is one that is going allow our propaganda to enter, is frankly an unrealistic one.
<P>
I will say however to him that the new aid programme, in fact, is conditional.
We have paid particular attention to securing adequate commitments from the DPRK on the monitoring procedures and on a reform policy for agricultural rehabilitation products with increased incentives for farmers, devolution of decision-making, revolving credit facilities and so on.
In those circumstances, I really do think that, faced by what was hitherto regarded as an impenetrable regime, we have made substantial efforts both to engage them in the process of the reform and to reduce the security threat that they would otherwise present to their neighbours and the rest of the world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="President">
Thank you, Sir Leon.
<P>
As I have said, we shall ask for a reply from the Council, which is represented by two officials here in the Chamber.
<P>
I have received a motion for a resolution tabled pursuant to Rule 40(5).
<P>
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 3 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Emigration from Iraq and neighbouring region
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0079/99) by Mrs Terrón i Cusí, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the influx of migrants from Iraq and the neighbouring region: EU action plan adopted by the Council on 26 January 1998 (5573/98 - C4-0124/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Terrón i Cusí">
Mr President, as you have just stated, tonight we are going to debate an action plan on the influx of immigrants from Iraq and the neighbouring regions.
This report was adopted on 26 June 1998, though Parliament was consulted only a few months ago, when the action plan had already been under way for almost a year.
The Committee on Civil Liberties and I would have welcomed the opportunity to prepare a report on the measures proposed in this action plan at an appropriate time, and we felt that it was somewhat ridiculous to be called on to do so a year after the plan had been implemented.
<P>
In my capacity as rapporteur, I therefore wished to take advantage of the opportunity provided by consultation and present a political report on this plan and its implementation. Parliament should not be criticised for failing to put forward its opinion at a more appropriate moment as it was consulted at an impossible time.
As we prepared the report, we put certain questions to the Council which, in our view, were crucial.
We asked the Council how many people were involved and about the extent of the immigration.
We asked about the result of the proposed measures, which had already been in force on the ground for almost a year, and we also enquired about the impact of the action plan on illegal immigration and on the criminal activities of those who traffic in people. We also wanted to know how many people had sought asylum and been processed since the action plan had been implemented.
<P>
I appreciate that such information can be hard to obtain.
Nevertheless, I most earnestly hope that someone somewhere is in possession of it by now, though the Committee on Civil Liberties and Parliament most certainly are not.
We have not managed to find out anything.
No information has been made available to us, and we received no response to the questions we asked.
<P>
Notwithstanding this state of affairs, I attempted to analyse all the various aspects of the Council's proposal.
It should be said in the Council's defence that this action plan represents an attempt to adopt a global approach to a problem which Parliament had already highlighted in a resolution on this issue dated 15 January 1998.
<P>
Certain aspects of the action plan have given me particular cause for concern.
Firstly, I am unhappy that very different situations are being jumbled up together and dealt with in the same way under the plan.
When we refer euphemistically to 'immigrants from Iraq and the neighbouring regions', we also include a Kurdish area torn apart by a political conflict which has resulted in strong repression.
We are therefore dealing here with a displaced population seeking protection in more peaceful areas.
The action plan refers to this in passing, along with actions aimed at other population groups which are indeed part of the same flow of migrants but for very different reasons.
Mixed in with these we find actions directed against trafficking in people.
We are in favour of measures against trafficking in people, but we believe that each of these specific issues should be tackled with the appropriate measures. A distinction should be made between asylum seekers, those who are fleeing a conflict, and the activities of those who traffic in people.
Although the composition of this flow of migrants is undoubtedly varied, we do not believe that this is a valid excuse for failing to make the necessary distinctions.
<P>
In this context, we are also rather concerned about Turkey's part in the action plan.
Given its geographical location, Turkey is bound to be the first country to receive these displaced people.
It is essential, however, that their human dignity be respected.
Turkey should allow the UNHCR to organise the initial reception process, particularly since, for refugees from northern Iraq and especially those from Kurdistan, Turkey is part of the problem and cannot therefore be considered a safe third country for these people.
Respect for human rights and for the rights of minorities in Turkey must take precedence over cooperation and aid in this respect.
<P>
Finally, Members of the Council - I trust you are present in the House today, because if you are not, what we are engaged in is fairly pointless - could you please enlighten us as to what exactly an action plan is meant to be?
We have no idea.
We know all about joint actions within the framework of the CFSP, we know all about other procedures, but an action plan is something new, and we would like to be informed of the basis on which this decision was taken.
It seems to us that the decision lacked a sound legal basis.
We therefore call on the Commission to present a new proposal in three months' time, and for Parliament to be consulted before the Council takes a decision. We would also like information regarding the budget allocation for all this.
We sincerely hope that such information does exist and that it will be made available to Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Lambrias">
Mr President, once again the Council of Ministers is addressing itself to the European Parliament rather late in the day.
It is requesting Parliament's opinion on an action plan, as the rapporteur has said, after this was adopted by the Council in January 1998 without prior consultation, as required by Article K.6 of the Treaty.
Is the content of the action plan so insignificant that this oversight can be forgiven?
<P>
Quite the opposite.
The problem that has to be solved is an enormous, complex and extremely difficult one.
It has arisen in the most sensitive and inflammable region bordering on our continent.
It is a running sore that is getting worse and spreading to many countries where streams of refugees are taking shelter.
It is putting our humanitarianism and our civilisation to the test. The swarms of refugees and dispossessed persons, be they Kurds from Iraq or, for all kinds of reasons, outcasts from neighbouring countries, are being caught in the nets of those who trade in illegal immigrants and falling into lawlessness and poverty.
Every day we learn of appalling events, the victims of which include women and children.
<P>
In her comprehensive and very thorough report, the rapporteur rightly calls for a new proposal to be submitted within three months and for consultations with the European Parliament to take place.
Only in this way can Member States participate in this action according to the letter of the law.
The Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs is unanimously agreed, and the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy has delivered a unanimous opinion.
However, the rapporteur does not fail to point out the weaknesses, the naivety and the omissions that characterise this plan, which has been adopted in fits and starts.
Nor does she deny that illegal immigration must be tackled with great severity, but this severe approach must not be indiscriminately merciless.
It is hypocritical of us to ignore the fact that, in this way, the notion of asylum is discredited, when rejection or repatriation is often tantamount to a death sentence.
<P>
The fact that a central, governing role is being entrusted to Turkey, which has just such a past, with its violation of human rights, the state of its penal institutions and, in general terms, its inability to function in a proper judicial way, is simply a joke in very bad taste.
The fact that it is being entrusted with such a role by the Council in respect of a problem which Turkey itself is trying to eliminate through military operations can only be seen as a very poor joke.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wiebenga">
Mr President, looking at the European Union's action plan of January last, we see a great many sound measures, but also signs of panic.
Measures were of course needed to cope with the exodus from Kurdistan and so on, but all those measures ought to have been taken much earlier.
One might say that the Council had been fast asleep for years, and by the time it woke up the Kurdish migrants were already in Italy.
<P>
My first question is this: what has actually come of all the measures taken under that action plan?
We have no clear picture of them.
We think that Parliament really ought to be properly briefed on this.
On the subject of briefing, another sign of panic on the part of the Council last year was that Parliament as a whole was not properly involved in the decision-making process.
The rapporteur, Mrs Terrón, made this point and it is outrageous.
That is tough talk, I know, and I mean it.
We as Parliament should have given our opinion on these matters.
<P>
Last week saw the resignation of the Commission, but I think that the Council, in matters falling under the third pillar, has possibly treated Parliament even worse.
So there is work to be done here.
It means, as paragraph 1 of the resolution says, that there must within three months be a good overview and a proper new proposal on which Parliament is consulted.
The European Commission has to provide that.
I trust it will be able to do so.
<P>
This is also relevant to relations with Turkey.
They continue to be difficult, of course.
The ELDR Group believes that the dialogue with Turkey must continue on issues such as the acceptance of Kurdish migrants in the region and the improving of human rights generally. On these matters too, both the European Commission and the Council must keep Parliament properly informed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ceyhun">
Mr President, at this precise moment, when the subject of the Kurds is very much on the agenda throughout Europe, the measures proposed by the rapporteur, Mrs Terrón i Cusí, are urgent necessities.
Her criticism of the action plan is warranted too.
The European Union can use its policy as a means of ensuring that the people of that region are able to focus their lives on their homeland and to live on their native soil where they feel at home.
As long as we in the European Union cannot eliminate the root causes of these refugee movements, as long as there is no peace in the region and as long as the political repression of minorities is common practice, we need an efficiently administered asylum procedure as proposed by the rapporteur.
<P>
My group also supports your proposals on dealing with Turkey as the country of initial reception for refugees from Iraq.
It is very important to us that the organisation and implementation of this initial reception in Turkey should be entrusted to the UNHCR alone.
We also subscribe to Mrs Terrón i Cusí's view that the Commission must present a new proposal, on which the opinion of the European Parliament must be heard, before the Council takes its decision.
That would be an exemplary procedure and would befit the serious nature of the matter under discussion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, this action plan shows once again that the mechanisms and procedures of the third pillar are not working and that European policy is reactive, not proactive, and devoid of vision.
It is important to devise a policy for the long term.
The plan designed for large numbers of refugees is largely rendered inappropriate by the decline in the number of refugees.
This may mean that the policy has worked.
But we do not have the information which would allow us to assess its effectiveness.
<P>
There is an urgent need for transparency and clarity in the assessment criteria.
Consulting the European Parliament on the action plan was the first step.
This policy must also be viewed in its foreign policy context.
In this region where there is conflict, oppression and a flouting of human rights, we have to be very careful about sending back refugees.
Sending Kurds back to Turkey at present is inappropriate, to say the least.
Nor is Iraq's record one which justifies sending refugees back.
We must be careful not to close our borders before we have conducted thorough analyses.
It is vital for us to look at the deeper causes and resolve the problems on the spot.
Let us hope that we can do so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Gradin">
Mr President, in her report, Mrs Terrón y Cusí criticises the EU's action plan on the influx of migrants from Iraq and the neighbouring region.
The report is critical both of the contents of the action plan and of the fact that the European Parliament became involved in this plan only after it had been adopted.
On the question of form, I can understand the reason for her criticism.
Parliament should have been able to have its say before such an important document was approved.
At the same time, the implementation of the action plan is now the subject of a review.
<P>
As you probably know, the Council has set up a special high-level group to prepare action plans for Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Somalia, Morocco and Albania and the surrounding area.
In addition, the Council has asked the high-level group to review the implementation of the action plan on Iraq.
The document which the rapporteur has laid before us is therefore extremely valuable.
<P>
The task of the high-level group is to formulate proposals as to who should be eligible to take advantage of the possibilities offered by the EU under all three pillars.
The reasons are obvious: the situation differs from one country to another, so our migration policy should be adapted to suit the actual situation in each case.
Naturally, the more political instruments we have at our disposal, the more flexible we can be.
It also means making use of the whole range of possibilities offered by the Union, and Parliament's views are therefore also very welcome.
<P>
As regards the financing of the project in Turkey, the Commission still firmly believes that it is only feasible if we receive guarantees that human rights are being respected.
Furthermore, it is also our confirmed opinion that the UNHCR should be involved in any attempt to start up an asylum project in Turkey.
<P>
In the report, the Commission is urged to introduce measures to speed up the asylum process.
The House may be pleased to learn that on 3 March the Commission, at my suggestion, approved a working document which includes proposals relating to that very issue.
The purpose of the document is to initiate a wide-ranging discussion with Parliament, the Member States and voluntary organisations on the framing of future asylum procedures in Europe.
It starts by advocating a speeding-up of the asylum process, but without undermining the right of people to have their requests for asylum considered in a thorough and objective way.
I passed this working document on to the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs on the day it was approved.
The Commission intends to put forward a formal proposal after the Amsterdam Treaty has entered into force.
I assume that before then the Commission will be informed of Parliament's views.
<P>
In her report, Mrs Terrón y Cusí also mentions the need to help asylum-seekers and refugees to return to their countries of origin.
I should therefore like to recall that, in December 1998, I put forward a proposal to establish a legal basis for a budget line covering asylum provision and repatriation.
Naturally, I am very disappointed that the discussions relating to our proposals for temporary protection and burden-sharing have not made more progress in the Council of Ministers.
<P>
I am still convinced that vigorous efforts are required to deal with the widespread smuggling of human beings that is going on all over Europe.
Two protocols to the United Nations Convention on international organised crime are currently under discussion.
The first is intended to step up the campaign against the smuggling of different types of migrants; the second to prevent and punish, above all, the smuggling of women and children.
We have a unique opportunity to reach a common position in the Council of Ministers when the negotiations are resumed.
We should therefore decide quickly on a European set of principles, so that we can defend what we consider to be an effective strategy in that area.
The issue is now under discussion in the Council of Ministers.
For that reason, today's debate is of great interest as regards the further implementation of the action plan.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Terrón i Cusí">
I gather that the Council is not present and that none of the questions put to it will be answered.
I would ask you, Mr President, to inform the Council that, as rapporteur, I find its attitude unacceptable and humiliating.
I am grateful to Mrs Gradin for the explanations she has provided, and I agree entirely with her.
Mrs Gradin has always adopted a positive attitude towards Parliament and I truly appreciate it.
Her attitude contrasts sharply with that of certain people who have not even deigned to be present today, as we discuss a plan of action that has been in force for a year and three months, and on which we have belatedly been invited to express an opinion.
Mr President, I would ask you once again to convey my personal indignation to the Council and also my hope that answers to the questions put to it may eventually be forthcoming.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="President">
We shall certainly make that request.
As I pointed out a few moments ago, the President announced at the start of the sitting that the Council would not be present.
In actual fact - and this also applies to the previous debate - Rule 40 clearly stipulates that the institution to which a question is addressed has to give a reply.
This is an unusual situation, and we shall therefore ensure that Parliament makes a specific request to the Council.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 3 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Application of Community law
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0092/99) by Mrs Sierra González, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the fifteenth annual report on monitoring the application of Community law (1997) (COM(98)0317 - C4-0377/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Sierra González">
Mr President, the Commission's annual reports on monitoring the application of Community law have two main functions: to provide information on how the Commission is monitoring the transposition of directives by the Member States; and to provide an account of the use made by the Commission of its discretionary power as guardian of the Treaties to initiate non-compliance procedures.
<P>
Concerning the first of these objectives, it has to be said that the Commission has made a significant effort in terms of the transposition of directives, particularly the directives relating to the internal market.
As a result, the number of directives transposed into national law increased in all the Member States in 1997, and the results were particularly significant in some countries, such as Finland, Denmark and Sweden.
<P>
Nevertheless, we must also point out that the national transposition measures taken have not always resulted in the correct transposition of the directives into national law. Moreover, the majority of Member States did not adopt the national measures needed to transpose the directives until after the deadline for doing so.
<P>
With regard to the second objective concerning non-compliance, considerable progress has been made following the entry into force on 1 January 1997 of a new instrument - the voluntary notification procedure - which seeks to facilitate the swift and uncontentious processing of disputes on the basis of transparency and mutual trust. The introduction of this new procedure coincided with the proposal made by the Commission to the Court of Justice to the effect that once non-compliance has been established, a daily fine should be imposed until compliance is achieved, and this has led to substantial progress.
The threat of such a fine has had a particularly dissuasive effect.
<P>
Much still remains to be done, however, as regards the implementation of decisions arrived at.
Delays in their implementation have created a lack of trust in such decisions.
In fact, 87 decisions handed down by the Court in accordance with Article 169 have yet to be implemented. Nevertheless, this represents an improvement on the previous year, as in 1996, 98 decisions were still awaiting implementation.
Moreover, 34 decisions relating to Article 171 have still to be implemented.
Not only do such delays in the implementation of the rulings detract from the credibility of the decisions taken by the Court of Justice, but they also have a deleterious effect on the image of all the institutions, making them appear inefficient.
<P>
Turning to other areas, an overall reduction in the number of infringement proceedings in progress has also been recorded, following the reform of the procedure to shorten the period of time between lodging a complaint or recording a case of non-compliance and the first decision on the basis. The number of infringement proceedings initiated concerning environmental issues and discrimination on the grounds of nationality has nevertheless increased in relative terms.
<P>
Despite the progress made - which certainly deserves recognition - much remains to be done concerning certain specific features of the procedures, such as the strict observance of the terms of any injunction and of the time allowed to evaluate a complaint or a petition, and giving plaintiffs the opportunity to have access to legal arguments which could affect the final decision on a complaint so as to facilitate possible appeals.
All these issues will have to given serious consideration in the near future, in the interests of legal efficiency and of the transparency of proceedings as well as to guarantee the credibility of non-compliance procedures in the eyes of the public.
<P>
To this end also, we will have to encourage more detailed knowledge of Community issues among the legal profession and the general public. Subsidising training programmes and simplifying regulations would help in this respect.
<P>
In conclusion, I would simply like to say that it is unfortunate that this annual report has not followed up the recommendations made in the previous report, namely, extending the scope of the report to include new material relating to the implementation of international agreements the Community is party to, petitions and the transposition of social policy directives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Anastassopoulos">
Mr President, this report by Mrs Sierra González is characterised by new proposals and new improvements, involving the simplification of Community law, better transposition of Community law into the national laws of the Member States, and easier access to Community law for the people of Europe.
The fact that the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has unanimously approved this text is proof of its more general acceptance, for which the rapporteur deserves our congratulations.
<P>
As rapporteur, I monitored the implementation of Community law in 1994, and since then I have not ceased to stress how important I believe it is to familiarise jurists with Community law.
My amendment, which was incorporated into the motion for a resolution, calls once again on Member States and universities to make such study compulsory.
The Schuman action plan to teach Community law to lawyers is an important move in the same general direction.
<P>
On the eve of the new enlargement of the European Union, the procedures to successfully incorporate derived law into the national laws of the applicant countries are of almost self-evident importance.
This is the basis of my other amendment, also incorporated into the motion for a resolution, which calls on the Commission to provide all possible technical support.
<P>
For the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, there is of course the PHARE programme, but Cyprus and Malta, with which we hope negotiations will begin shortly, are not covered.
The report now before us is the last in this fourth parliamentary term on the annual monitoring of the application of Community law, and it gives us the opportunity to point out the improvements made over those years thanks to the pressure brought to bear by the European Parliament, which has the power of codecision following the Treaty of Maastricht and is therefore a co-legislator.
<P>
The progress made in incorporating Community law into national law has been quite spectacular, and the implementation by the Commission of Articles 169 and 171 of the Treaty, with the imposition of penalties, has, as Mrs Sierra González has pointed out, compelled Member States to respect the decisions of the European Court far more than used to be the case.
<P>
In a few weeks, the Amsterdam Treaty will enter into force.
The European Parliament will gain significant new powers of codecision, as well as powers in other areas.
I would like to express my firm belief that this change will make a significant contribution to ensuring that European Community law moves closer to the people of Europe, and that there will be more transparency in the decisions of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, I am pleased to see that the rapporteur, in paragraphs 9 to 15, adopts the same approach to Community law as last year's report, as well as the Larive report on business communications.
We should like to see the procedures speeded up, for example by having regular three-monthly Commission meetings on these issues, a six-month time-limit, and so on.
I hope that the new incoming Commission will adhere to any undertakings in this respect so as to ensure that the reforms can be effectively applied.
<P>
We were also pleased to hear the rapporteur mention that there should be more rapid access to the reasoned opinions of the Court of Justice; my colleague Mr Wijsenbeek is still waiting for an opinion on his case from the ECJ.
<P>
Much attention has also been focused on the clarity of Community law.
We know that Parliament approved the guidelines set out in Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi's proposal for better Community legislation.
Unfortunately, I have to say that the comments of the language experts relating to these guidelines have not been particularly encouraging: no language experts have actually been consulted.
At the same time, we know that the English translation service is forging ahead with its attempt to 'fight the fog'.
The Liberals have tried to focus attention on these efforts, but unfortunately we have still not succeeded in getting everyone to understand that Parliament should put pressure on the other translation services to make them see matters in the same way.
The written language should be made more user-friendly.
It is not we who draft the legislation who have to understand it, but the people who actually apply it.
This would also allow us to make considerable administrative savings.
<P>
I hope and firmly believe that the Finnish Presidency will make this a matter of priority in the autumn, thereby enabling us to promote a better understanding of Community law.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, it is difficult to say anything new when discussing a report such as the one before us today which enjoys such broad consensus. Not only has it been approved unanimously, but it goes forward without a single amendment.
I should like to congratulate the rapporteur and express my support for what Mr Anastassopoulos has just said.
<P>
However, a moment's reflection is called for.
The Commission's annual report concerns the issue of monitoring the application of Community law.
So, it primarily relates to monitoring and thus the way in which the Commission exercises the monitoring powers entrusted to it in the Treaty as guardian of the Treaties.
These powers - I am referring in particular to Article 169 and Article 171 of the EC Treaty - have been increased and strengthened.
And yet as other speakers have already pointed out, we need to increase the transparency of this procedure, particularly as regards the administrative procedure, which takes place within the Commission behind closed doors.
The Commission is currently under review and amongst other challenges it is being urged to devise a clearer and more transparent procedure with a timetable we are all aware of.
<P>
But what is at issue here is monitoring application.
Application means knowledge, knowledge means understanding and understanding means clarity first and foremost.
Community law lacks clarity.
Mr Anastassopoulos referred to a representative from a country in Eastern Europe, and I remember him saying to me: 'Mrs Palacio, you require us to incorporate the acquis communautaire , but you are constantly changing it'.
We have had experience of this recently in the Committee on Legal Affairs.
We were dealing with a matter relating to consolidation.
From the start of the consolidation initiative to the time when Parliament began its report, two directives which should theoretically have been consolidated were amended twice.
This is a typical example of the lack of visibility, the complicated web of rules which has such a negative effect on Community law in general.
This is what Declaration No 19 of the Treaty of Amsterdam relates to.
<P>
Another declaration to mention in this respect is Declaration No 39 annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam on the quality of drafting.
Legislation is being drawn up in 11 languages, embodying legal institutions drawn from different legal traditions.
All this needs to be harmonised, so we must make a special effort to ensure that the end product can be understood by everyone, as Mrs Thors says.
Crucially, it needs to be understood by the experts.
Initiatives such as the Grotius and Schuman programmes should receive every support, because if Community law is to be correctly applied, the experts, the judges, the lawyers and, more generally, all the courts must to be the first to apply it correctly.
<P>
However, I should like to conclude on a positive note.
I believe that as Mr Anastassopoulos has pointed out, this review of the application of Community law, the application of the articles on monitoring in the Treaty and, in general, knowledge of Community law have all improved since 1994.
We must maintain our efforts in this direction as a great deal still remains to be done.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="Brittan">
Mr. President, I have to compliment Mrs Sierra González on her admirable report.
Monitoring the application of Community law is an essential part of what we are doing in Europe.
The task of the Commission is to be a guardian of the Treaty.
We have to make sure that the citizens affected enjoy the benefits that Europe provides, and I am grateful for Parliament's support in this difficult, unending task.
<P>
The Fifteenth Annual Report for 1997 shows that we have taken several important steps in ensuring respect for Community law; and Mrs Sierra González, in her speech today, has referred to a number of them.
<P>
We have substantially improved our working methods.
Good examples are the efforts to speed up the handling of cases and to encourage the transparency of our actions and all that has been done in close cooperation with the Ombudsman.
<P>
To enforce effectively Community law, we have used all the instruments that we have.
Cooperation and peer pressures are often an effective tool to increase transposition and correct implementation of Community law.
That is demonstrated by the successes of the single-market action plan and the bilateral meetings on directives with Member States.
<P>
I would also agree with Mrs Sierra González that producing simple and clear legislation is one of the best ways to avoid problems later.
Mrs Thors was right to talk about the importance of having user-friendly language.
I also agree with Mr Anastassopoulos and others who spoke about the importance of teaching law so that those who are lawyers understand what the Community law is all about.
<P>
That having been said, there are occasions when we have to use our powers under Article 169 of the Treaty to launch infringement proceedings; and we, of course, do so.
We are currently handling more than 3, 200 such cases.
<P>
Our reforms have improved the working of the proceedings, and that is very important for citizens who are at the origin of nearly 50 % of the cases.
We are handling cases much faster than a few years ago, and the main reasons for that are that we now decide letters of formal notice, recent opinions and referrals to the Court on a more regular basis.
Cases are now decided on a bi-weekly basis.
<P>
In the past, the system was more rigid and did not allow one to come to a decision as soon as the case was ready for action.
Secondly, decisions are implemented more rapidly.
In the past, it could take several months to send a 169 letter.
Today, the formal notice will often reach the Member State a week after the decision.
And finally, we enforce deadlines for reply or compliance much more strictly although, of course, the rights of defence of the Member State have to be respected.
<P>
We use all opportunities to solve infringement problems as quickly as possible.
Only 10 % of the cases go to Court, and reference has been made to the penalty system which now exists, and requests from between 7, 000 and 260, 000 euros per day have been put forward by the Commission.
It is all for the benefit of our citizens so it is quite right and normal that we should inform them of all the steps of an infringement proceeding which concerns them.
Here the European Ombudsman as well as the Parliament have played an important and instructive role.
Information on respect of Community law in general must also be more widespread, and I welcome the support of the Parliament to increase transparency in this area still further.
<P>
To conclude, respect for Community law is essential to bring Europe closer to its citizens.
We are using all the powers we have to prevent, and if necessary, pursue infringements by Member States.
That is what our citizens are entitled to expect, and that is what they are getting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="President">
Thank you, Sir Leon.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 3 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Common system of VAT (standard rate)
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0129/99) by Mr Secchi, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Directive amending, with regard to the level of the standard rate, Directive 77/388/EEC on the common system of value added tax (COM(98)0693 - C4-0711/98-98/0331(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="Secchi">
Mr President, you have given the title of this proposal for a directive, on which the Council has asked Parliament to follow urgent procedure. It involves extending the existing system for the current year and, at the same time, establishing a band - between 15 and 25 % - within which the standard rate must fall.
<P>
Colleagues are well aware of the recent developments - significant ones - concerning taxation: there have been various proposals to coordinate the Member States' taxation systems with a view to abolishing harmful fiscal competition and, on the other hand, allowing healthy fiscal competition to take full effect.
However, alongside this much-needed coordination - which, as I said, has already occurred to some extent - other measures, by their very nature, require fully-fledged harmonisation to allow the internal market to operate smoothly.
In the action plan for the single market presented at the Amsterdam European Council almost two years ago, the Commission pointed to the need to work towards a common system of taxation in the area of VAT, which would eventually replace the current transitional system, while at the same time modernising and simplifying it.
<P>
A three-stage approach has been agreed: this will involve measures to correct the distortions in the present VAT system, modernising the current system by extending it to new leading-edge services and, of crucial importance, establishing the definitive VAT system by adopting the 'country of origin' principle.
This approach will allow existing procedures to be simplified and will reduce red tape for national administrations and firms, while helping to resolve the serious problem of fraud in the Community.
It should also bring benefits for citizens and consumers, because greater transparency and competition between the systems of the various Member States will bring about convergence towards more acceptable levels of taxation.
<P>
But since, as a result of delays, we are still awaiting the definitive system, a directive such as the one now before us is required for the current year, 1999.
Basically, the proposed directive extends the present system for one year and sets a band - between 15 and 25 % - within which the standard rate must fall.
I believe that we are bound to accept this request, even though it is already belated, given that we are now at the end of March.
<P>
While coming out in favour of the Commission's proposal, Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs wishes to take this opportunity to emphasise the urgent need to adopt the definitive VAT system.
The committee has put forward an amendment on this point, stressing that in one sense this is the final extension, and at the same time calling for the definitive system to enter into force on 1 January next year.
A second amendment, which I have tabled on behalf of my group, reformulates this concept as a recital, adding that the present system - the one providing the transition to the definitive system, as it were - has a whole series of drawbacks, including the ones briefly listed in my explanatory statement.
<P>
I hope that these amendments will be taken up by Parliament and viewed by the Commission as an incentive to proceed towards the definitive system, which is talked about so much but seems to be some kind of remote and increasingly unattainable dream.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I agree with many of the points the rapporteur, Mr Secchi, makes in his well-informed report.
The Commission's proposal which forms the background to his report deals with the harmonisation of value added tax in the Member States and is an attempt to make up for the delay in reform.
This is an important issue, which is being hampered by the fact that Union's decision-making machine is not working.
The rapporteur is quite rightly firm about extending the period of transition currently in force.
The reform of the VAT system must be brought to a conclusion.
<P>
The Commission's proposal is largely a technical one, but the subject in itself is mainly political.
The relationship in principle between indirect and direct taxation and the idea of goods and services as a source of indirect taxation are linked to the question of social fairness.
Switching the focus of taxation to indirect taxes hampers progressive taxation, and it is through progressive taxation that the income gap will narrow.
While the Union is involved in the process of harmonising tax policy we should not ignore this important social tool.
<P>
However, what we are discussing here is indirect taxation.
At least as far as food is concerned, the harmonisation of VAT in the Union would ease the situation in Finland, for example, where the VAT rate on food is, at 17 %, currently about 10 % higher than the EU average.
Lowering the VAT rate on food would improve prospects for employment through support to the food industry.
Consumers would gradually turn their attention more to processed foods.
It is also a question of social fairness.
The smaller a person's income, the more indirect taxation takes, in relative terms, from that income.
Lightening the tax burden on food would make an immediate difference to how much money people had in their pocket.
<P>
Furthermore, the level of VAT in the production of services is one of the key issues of tax policy.
From the point of view of employment, high levels of taxation on services and consumption have hindered growth and, consequently, prospects for employment.
It is a sort of phenomenon of suffocation. We therefore have to lighten the VAT burden on the labour-intensive service industries.
However, a certain degree of harmonisation of the standard VAT rate is inevitable.
We can make a virtue of this inevitability, though, by tying the lightening of the tax burden to policy on employment and growth.
Easing the VAT burden on food and services would therefore lend support to this policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendes Bota">
Mr President, this is a very late hour and a quite improper one at which to be discussing such a serious matter. But we are not just here to keep Mr Secchi company while he presents his report on the common system of value added tax.
It is not only the hour that is late: this amendment to Directive 77/388 was supposed to come into effect on 1 January this year and to remain in force until the end of the year.
The Council has also been tardy in taking all the decisions necessary for the changeover to the definitive VAT system, which is supposed to come into force as from 1 January 2000.
<P>
That is why we are here at this late hour, to support the rapporteur in stressing the urgent need for universal adoption of the country of origin principle, to cut down on red tape, to facilitate commercial activity, to combat tax evasion and to reform indirect taxation with a view to total transparency.
Although the single market is operational, it has still not been completed, and here and in other areas there are signs of distortion of competition.
The introduction of the single currency and the disappearance of exchange rate competition between the various Member States has exacerbated the market disturbances caused by tax competition.
Whether you call it tax coordination or tax harmonisation, there is a set of measures that needs to be jointly adopted for all fifteen tax systems in the EU.
<P>
We are talking here today quite simply about defining a band of between 15 % and 25 % as the range for the normal minimum and maximum VAT rates to be applied by Member States.
However, the scope for applying reduced rates will have to be reviewed in the near future, because of the distortions in competition it causes between certain geographical areas and between certain products and services, whether it be between Belgium and Austria or between Portugal and Spain.
VAT, which is an intrinsically neutral tax, has ended up being a factor influencing company locations and trade flows.
This harmonisation of rates and this changeover from the transitional system to the definitive system demands courage and sacrifices of all the Member States if we are to achieve closer alignment of national tax systems, even if this is phased in under a timetable.
Unless we can end fiscal chauvinism, the single market and economic and monetary union themselves will remain weak and incomplete.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, the question we are discussing today may seem dry and technical, but appearances are deceptive.
This is all about whether the Union can summon up the strength to discuss or regulate properly the conditions of competition in the single market and to eliminate the opportunities for both tax evasion and distortion of competition that exist in the realm of value added tax under the recipient-country principle.
That is indeed a crucial requirement.
I can fully endorse what the previous speakers have said on that point.
This is really the political point of the Secchi report.
I do not think we should labour under the illusion that it will be easy to meet this target of 1 January 2000.
But it is right for us as a Parliament to put this demand on the bargaining table again.
That way, there is a chance that at least the fundamental principle will have been accepted by the target date.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Blot">
Mr President, there are some perfectly legitimate aims in this report such as the simplification of the VAT system, which is designed to prevent fiscal distortion between Member States and to simplify procedures by adopting the country-of-origin principle.
Anything along those lines is certainly welcome.
<P>
However, some of the underlying ideas are much more worrying.
First of all, the determination to constantly regulate and increasingly limit the Member States' scope for independent action is tantamount to reducing the fiscal sovereignty of the various nations that make up the European Union.
In our opinion, this amounts to a body-blow for fiscal democracy, in that decisions taken at the level closest to the public are becoming increasingly subordinated to decisions taken at more remote levels.
<P>
Secondly, following the introduction of the euro, we should certainly be concerned about the possibility of short-term asymmetric shocks, since the Member States have fewer and fewer options open to them for regulating their economies.
In the event of inflation, for example, if all taxation is harmonised, each country can no longer have its own monetary policy or apply its own fiscal policy.
All that is left is wages and incomes policy, and that really represents excessive state control.
<P>
The choices that have been made keep VAT rates extremely high, with the standard rate planned at 15 to 25 %.
Why not under 15 %?
The VAT differential between the European Union, the United States and Japan is still huge, and is probably one of the things that is to blame for Europe's unemployment rate, which is much higher than in the other two countries.
<P>
This is why although this report is extremely good in the context of the current approach, we are not happy with it and we reject its recommendations on principle.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="Brittan">
Mr President, the European Parliament and the amendments which it has proposed reaffirm its support for the movement towards a new common VAT system.
The Commission entirely supports the stated objectives.
Nevertheless, the adoption of a final VAT system by the Council between now and December 1999, I am afraid, does not appear to be realistic.
Indeed, in its programme the Commission had sketched the broad outline of the VAT system envisaged for the future as well as a timetable based on a gradual approach for the presentation of specific proposals.
This programme proposed three main headings: modernisation, the simplification of the current system and the change of the place of taxation.
The Commission has already submitted several proposals, currently on the Council table, which cover simplification and the modernisation of the current arrangement specifically with a view to meeting operators' immediate expectations, that is to say, the transposition of the recommendations for the Slim II exercise.
<P>
These proposals are essential to progress towards the final VAT regime.
Indeed, the passage from non-harmonisation to complete harmonisation, if it is to take place at all, can only be achieved in stages; and the proposal on the standard rate falls within this context.
The Council, however, does not show any readiness to follow the Commission's proposals, preferring to maintain the status quo , which does not go in the desired direction of greater alignment of VAT rates.
Nevertheless, the Commission's view is that general simplification of the current VAT system cannot be achieved without radically amending the current complex rules especially those relating to the place of taxation.
<P>
Consequently, the improvements to the current VAT system constitute an essential phase for the passage to a new system which envisages a single place of taxation, the only way of ensuring the radical simplification of the VAT system demanded by European businesses.
<P>
I am afraid that at the moment the proposals currently on the table of the Council, with a view to simplifying the system and to ensure more uniform application of the tax, are at an impasse while the European Parliament of course has supported then unconditionally.
<P>
I would like to thank you therefore for the support that you have given to this proposal and more particularly, the objective being pursued by the Commission, that of the definitive VAT system.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="President">
Thank you, Sir Leon.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 3 p.m.
<P>
The sitting was closed at 10.55 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Liability for defective products
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0068/99), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council (12872/1/98 - C4-0016/99-97/0244(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Council Directive 85/374/EEC on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States concerning liability for defective products (Rapporteur: Mrs Roth-Behrendt).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="Roth-Behrendt">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, you have just heard from the President that today we are considering the second reading on product liability. Let me trace its history.
All of us in this Parliament - unanimously, I believe - said here in November 1997, following the BSE affair - and the way it dealt with BSE has been one of Parliament's major successes - that product liability needs to be amended so that in future we can deal with the damage caused by BSE.
Thereupon the Commission made a proposal that integrates and includes primary agricultural products. That was a welcome development.
However, Mr Monti, it was the least you could do.
I have always told you in the past that you pursed your lips but did not whistle!
I criticise you for that.
Were you not at present a member of the Commission but still, shall we say, working in a different capacity, then I would say to you today that what you have done seems almost to date from the stone age.
So I will not say it.
<P>
In the Committee on the Environment we have now added eight amendments for the second reading of the common position.
Eight amendments is not very many.
As rapporteur, I have tried to be very moderate and have only tabled those amendments that obtained a majority at the first reading and that, in my view, could also bring about a compromise in other parts of the House.
There are of course people in this House and outside it who say: we do not want any amendments. Let us accept this proposal as it stands!
We should accept the Commission proposal, the common position, as it stands.
My reply to these people and to the Members who said this at first reading is that Parliament should be consistent.
<P>
Given that we said we need changes in connection with BSE, then if we are to be logical we must also cover the case of people who have contracted the new form, the new variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
We all know that the incubation period can last from 10 to 20 years.
So, in order to be consistent, the Committee on the Environment has extended the period of enforcement of the rights conferred upon the injured person to 20 years in the case of a hidden defect - which is all we are talking about here - instead of 10 years.
Anyone who contracted Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease would never be able to claim damages because that person or the family may not find out about the disease for more than 10 years after it had been contracted.
<P>
We have also raised the amount of the total liability for damage from ECU 70 million to ECU 140 million and have left this up to the Member States.
That is not so very drastic either and it should be possible to reach a compromise on it in this House.
<P>
Some of you, including Mr Monti, have said that this legislation is being reviewed in any case. After all, a green paper is due by 1 January 2000.
But even when the Commission was still more able to act than it is now, I doubted whether you could produce that green paper on time.
Now I am convinced and we all know that it cannot be done by 1 January 2000.
You yourself said, on behalf of the Commission, that you would not be embarking on any new projects, which certainly also means no new legislation.
The first thing a new Commission does will not be to produce a green paper.
Even if we got a green paper, it would take two or three, or even four or five years for the legislation to come along.
Surely that cannot be what we want! Nor could we accept it.
<P>
Let me now address a few of the Members, and I am looking in particular at the PPE Group, because Mrs Grossetête, who like myself is a member of the Committee on the Environment, said at first reading that people do not want this in the first place and that I would be upsetting all manner of things with this amendment.
In fact it was particularly with the PPE Group in mind that I totally dropped the question of the reversal of the burden of proof, for example, and questions relating to the burden of proof.
So my request to you, Mrs Grossetête, is to reconsider your position on these two amendments on the expiry date and the amount of liability for damage; for let me tell you that people definitely want us to attend to their personal, their very personal welfare, and not just before the European elections but quite generally!
<P>
That is what we have tried to do in the Committee on the Environment, which is responsible for consumer protection and health policy.
We have tried to do so by tabling eight amendments, some of which were taken over from the members of the PPE Group and concern the definition and revision of the legislation.
By means of these amendments we have extended the expiry date and changed the amount of liability for damage.
None of this will bankrupt anyone in the European Union.
There will however be potential damage, and not just in the case of contaminated stored blood which can cause AIDS; that is something I am not discussing at all, I am sticking to primary products here.
In cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob, we are giving the public security.
I would hope that these amendments will never be needed because nobody will fall ill.
But if that should be the case after all, then the people of the European Union are entitled to expect us to create a proper legal basis for product liability and for their claims to damages.
<P>
I think we are doing no more and no less here with these amendments.
I do not believe we are being over-ambitious or over-demanding.
I ask you to support these amendments at second reading so that we can endeavour to achieve a sensible solution in the codecision procedure with the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Grossetête">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we very much welcome the fact that the Commission has decided to extend the scope of Directive 85/374/EEC to primary agricultural products, as requested by the European Parliament following the BSE crisis.
<P>
However, I must say straightaway to Mrs Roth-Behrendt that we cannot support her proposals because she has taken advantage of this opportunity to amend the content of the directive.
Her proposals not only change the definition given to primary agricultural products, they also introduce the concept of psychological damage, scrap the lower threshold and remove the financial ceiling.
Finally, and this is particularly serious in my view, they extend the period of limitation from 10 to 20 years for damage resulting from a hidden defect.
The fact is that when there is damage as a result of a hidden defect, it is generally discovered at the point when the damage occurs.
<P>
I will now turn to the problem of the poor farmers.
It has already proved very hard to tell them that their products will fall within the scope of this directive.
Our farmers are very concerned about the future and the CAP reform, yet we are now asking them to accept liability which they cannot do in the manner proposed by Mrs Roth-Behrendt.
In any case, the directive provides for the possibility of the people involved in the production process being jointly and severally liable, so when a problem occurs, such as BSE which Mrs Roth-Behrendt mentioned, liability is already incurred.
If we approve Mrs Roth-Behrendt's proposals, you can just imagine the insurance cover which farmers would have to take out and which could become exorbitant.
<P>
You are no doubt wondering where the consumer stands in all this.
My answer is to wait for the Green Paper which the Commission has undertaken to prepare for the year 2000 after consultations with producers, distributors, consumers, farmers and insurers.
The balance of a directive cannot be changed without taking time to carry out a preliminary study, even where consumer protection is involved, and as I have explained, consumers are already protected by the fact that any producer whose product has caused damage bears liability.
<P>
Mrs Roth-Behrendt's good intentions are really just pandering to people's prejudices, because her desire to protect consumers without a proper preliminary study means that farmers are going to be overwhelmed and the courts flooded.
This is why, regrettably, we cannot support Mrs Roth-Behrendt's proposals.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Madam President, it is very important for consumers to be able to hold producers liable.
Only with clear legislation and proper information can consumers be full players in the market who decide for themselves which products are sold and which they want to buy.
Liability will ensure that producers are careful about how they produce.
The aim is to preclude all risks to consumer health as a result of product defects.
If the producer has not been careful enough, the consumer is then guaranteed his rights.
<P>
BSE played a major part in the genesis of this report.
It acted as a catalyst to ensure that agricultural products are now also covered by the rules on liability for defective products.
Carelessness has led to the deaths of a number of people from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. If there had been clear rules on liability, the chances of that happening would have been far smaller.
<P>
Mrs Roth-Behrendt made one emphatic point at first reading.
She wanted all unsafe products covered by the rules.
In principle I agree, and I think that she showed courage at first reading.
But I did not support her on it.
I think that such an important and problematic subject calls for a detailed discussion and balanced decisions.
I did not think it right to decide on that as an incidental point in a different report.
<P>
My group and I wholeheartedly support the amendments which Mrs Roth-Behrendt has tabled now at second reading.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Madam President, it beggars belief that the common position takes no account at all of the views which the European Parliament expressed at first reading.
I do not accept the Commission's excuse that the directive in question needs to be extensively revised in the context of Agenda 2000.
The Council too has failed to take the European Parliament seriously in totally ignoring the proposed amendments.
<P>
The rapporteur is quite right in retabling the amendments in question.
The acute nature of the BSE crisis showed that liability for defective products needs to be widened as quickly as possible.
The change should also include the closing of other loopholes which exist at present, so that the work does not have to be done twice.
Parliament's aims do indeed go further than the Commission's.
To my mind, that is not in itself a reason to reject these amendments, especially since the President of Parliament has declared the amendments to be admissible.
<P>
I regard the raising of the ceiling from EUR 70 to 140 million as important.
It is not acceptable for a consumer who buys a defective product to be denied compensation because he is not the first, but the umpteenth person to make a claim.
And I find it only fair that if damage or loss sustained as a result of a defective product occurs only after ten years, the deadline for claims should be extended to 20 years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Raschhofer">
Madam President, since 1985 we have had a directive regulating compensation for people who have suffered damage from defective products.
With the current proposal, the Commission is intending to increase consumer protection in regard to the safety of food and primary agricultural products.
In this extremely sensitive area, the directive is to be extended so that it also covers agricultural raw materials, which were excluded until now.
Amendments Nos 1 and 2 must certainly be supported, because they ensure that those who produce genetically modified seeds can also be held responsible for any consequences.
Farmers must not be held liable for damage for which the large undertakings are responsible.
<P>
Unfortunately, the Commission proposal was also used as an opportunity to table certain amendments that seriously impinge on national civil law and have no real basis.
That is why we cannot endorse the extension of the directive to cover agricultural products.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graenitz">
Madam President, let me begin by thanking the rapporteur for her proposals and for taking the opportunity to put forward proposals by Parliament that go beyond what the Commission proposed.
I believe that even at the time it proposed these legislative changes we could have expected the Commission to make further-reaching proposals, instead of spending years discussing something that should have been done a long time ago.
<P>
We are now told we will be getting a green paper next year, but I cannot imagine that we will have completed the legislation before the year 2002.
Let me just point out that so far there has been no follow-up at all to the green paper on the future of food legislation which we voted on a year ago and concerning which everyone fully endorsed Parliament's proposals. That is to say, no law was proposed to implement what we decided at the time.
<P>
I do not find it acceptable to let time pass and do nothing in an area that is so important to every citizen of the European Union.
In fact I am very surprised to find that my colleagues on the other side of the House have suddenly forgotten a great many of the things we once decided here unanimously and jointly a year and a half ago in the wake of the BSE decision.
<P>
There is another matter to which I would draw attention. If we include liability for primary agricultural products in the directive on liability, then in my view we really will have to complete the chain.
In fact I tabled an amendment on the subject at first reading, which was accepted.
I do not think we should hold the farmers alone liable, without enabling them to go back to the producers of their primary products.
That is essential.
Perhaps it is not so much a chain as a circle that we have to close here, to ensure that in the end every producer is responsible for what he puts on the market, but that he also assumes this responsibility over a fairly long period of time especially for products which we know can cause illnesses that cannot be detected after one year or even after 10 years.
<P>
I really would ask colleagues to consider that if we grasp this opportunity we should be pleased about it.
We are taking speedier action on European legislation this time and we should not hang about and expose ourselves to the criticism that we are leaving the consumers out in the cold!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Whitehead">
Madam President, I endorse emphatically what my colleague Mrs Graenitz said, both in congratulating the rapporteur and speaking to those elements in these amendments which seem to me to be profoundly important.
I refer in particular to Amendments Nos 5 and 6.
Mrs Roth-Behrendt, like me, had to listen to much of the evidence about BSE, about the extraordinary nature of this disease and how it finally transferred itself to humankind.
<P>
If we are looking now at the terms of liability and the extent of the financial recompense that may be necessary, it is no longer good enough to say that the hidden defects in a particular product, particularly one derived from foodstuffs or medicines, will necessarily appear within ten years.
<P>
I have come to this debate today almost directly from a meeting with the relations of people who have lost children to new variant CJD, the human form of BSE.
Not all of them got it from infected foodstuffs by the direct route.
Some got it from growth hormones.
People look back to thalidomide and think that the dangers of a given product emerge very quickly, in birth defects or something of that kind.
We now understand much more clearly that this is not the case and that very often the defects in a particular product begin to manifest themselves over the lifetime of the individual concerned.
Unless we have the opportunity which these amendments provide for action to be taken within the normal processes over a longer period of time, we run the risk that the manufacturers of products may escape liability without expensive legal proceedings intended once again to change the law.
<P>
Mrs Roth-Behrendt's amendments also provide for a process of review from the year 2000 onwards and that too is eminently correct.
I would simply congratulate the rapporteur again and apologise for not being here to hear her speech.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Bru Purón">
Madam President, I fully support Mrs Roth-Behrendt's report. I believe she has carried out very useful work on both the subjective and the objective and circumstantial aspects of the directive.
As regards the subjective aspects, the notions of producer and product have been broadened. The latter now includes products derived from agriculture and cattle breeding as well as manufactured goods.
Intermediate products are covered in addition to end products. The great importance of precursors has already been mentioned this morning, and genetically modified material which has not been properly inspected ought to be added in the future.
It is wise to extend the time period, as symptoms may take more than 10 years to appear in the case of bovine spongiform encephalitis and other known diseases.
<P>
I feel it is extremely important to include the mental consequences of these diseases as well as the physical ones. Given our experiences with rape oil and methylated spirit, we in Spain are very conscious of how dreadful the mental consequences can be.
<P>
As far as compensation is concerned, the sum of EUR 70 million referred to earlier seems insignificant set against the whole economy of the Union. I feel it is quite right to increase it to at least EUR 140 million.
<P>
Finally, I should like Parliament to follow up the good idea of partially reversing the burden of proof in this field.
It should be borne in mind that producers often build up a particular atmosphere or context to make consumption of their product appear natural and normal. In such circumstances, it should not be up to the consumer alone to produce the evidence, when there is general awareness that the disease has resulted from dangerous methods of production.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this report is extremely important in economic terms.
We have very grave reservations, especially concerning Amendment No 4, which drops the retention provision, and Amendment No 5, which extends the expiry date to 20 years.
I wonder whether we should not reconsider them.
<P>
The case of Amendments Nos 1 and 2 is different.
They define the raw materials of agricultural and forestry products.
I know that the Council working group discussed whether a definition should not be set out at least in the recitals.
The line then taken was that a producer who genetically modifies seeds would in any case have to be regarded as the producer of a raw material and it was not considered necessary to clarify this further.
I think that is quite wrong.
I believe it is absolutely essential to endorse these two amendments.
They would ensure that farmers who use genetically modified products can have recourse to the producers of the genetically modified seeds.
<P>
That could not be done under the proposal as it stands now.
Farmers, any small farmer, could be held liable for damage caused by genetically modified products - a quite inconceivable and unthinkable situation! - while those responsible for the genetic modifications, large companies like Monsanto and Novartis, would not be in any way liable.
That cannot be in our interest!
So I urge you most sincerely to endorse these two amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="Roth-Behrendt">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I have been in this Parliament long enough to not really believe that a debate of this kind can actually change people's minds, and yet I will still try to do so; I am not referring to you, Mr Monti, you are no longer our partner.
The Council will be our partner in the codecision procedure, but I am looking to the other side of the House.
I am addressing you, Mrs Grossetête, because we have discussed this matter directly in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and here in the Chamber too.
<P>
You said I was amending the content of the directive too much.
You referred to the definition.
That is precisely where I am protecting the farmers, as your colleagues have just said.
Mrs Flemming has just said it again too.
These are amendments that I have taken over and that came from your group and my group and I am assuming that you will have to endorse Amendments Nos 1 and 2, particularly if you want to support the farmers.
Moreover, I would ask you again to look very closely at Amendments Nos 5 and 6, the question of extending the expiry date for hidden defects and of increasing the total liability amount.
With regard to the question of extending the expiry date for hidden defects, in the past few weeks 10 people have contracted the new variant of CJD, 10 people!
These people have been infected with the disease at some point in the last few years, in the last 15, 18 or 20 years, we do not know exactly when.
It was a hidden defect and the people who have been injured have to prove this themselves.
The injured person is responsible for proving it!
You can imagine how often he would succeed in doing so, and yet we want to offer that chance. I am convinced we must do so.
<P>
At the same time, some Members said that increasing the liability amount we allow the Member States from EUR 70 million to EUR 140 million is something we leave up to the Member States and is still not an enormous total amount.
Mrs Grossetête, you said something that worried me a little but to which I would also respond.
You said that farmers fear the future in any case.
But what we are doing is precisely to protect the farmers!
Just consider this: a farmer may buy animal fodder in all good conscience and feed it to his animals in the conviction that it contains no animal protein because it is not labelled as such, these are still not labelled.
Yet it does contain animal protein and his animals contract BSE and damage occurs. Then it is not he who is responsible but the supplier of the animal fodder!
What we are doing is precisely to protect the farmer with the amendments on hidden defects.
<P>
So I would ask you again to take a look at Amendments Nos 5 and 6 and at least to try to support them, in addition to Nos 1 and 2, so that we can perhaps fight together for an even better solution during the conciliation procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Monti">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, following the European Parliament's recommendations on BSE, or more specifically the recommendation to extend - by the end of September 1997 - the no-fault liability regime provided for in Directive 85/374 to primary agricultural products and game, the Commission presented its proposal on 1 October 1997.
The 1985 directive establishes the right for any victim to be compensated for injury caused by a defective product, without having to prove the fault of the producer.
In extending this right to the agricultural sector, the Commission is reverting to its original proposal of 1976.
<P>
At Parliament's first reading, in November 1998, a majority came out in support of this principle.
The Council was likewise in favour of it, adopting the Commission proposal unanimously.
Unfortunately, there is nevertheless a risk that the aim shared by all three institutions - namely to extend the regime to the farm sector - might not be achieved, should Parliament and the Council disagree on the timing of a thorough review of the 1985 basic directive, going beyond the limited aim I have just described.
Indeed, by resubmitting the amendments adopted at first reading, your committee responsible is encouraging you to amend the common position.
As I said, the Council unanimously approved the Commission's text, ruling out any possibility of reviewing the 1985 directive on this occasion.
<P>
In the Commission's view, this is an important and very urgent matter.
It is crucial that an agreement should be reached on the basis of the common position, thereby extending the rules on civil liability to the agricultural sector.
Therefore the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 3 to 7, relating to mental injuries, exemption, the time-limit for claims, the maximum amount, and amendment of the directive in the year 2000.
The other three amendments, relating exclusively to primary agricultural products - Amendments Nos 1 and 2 on liability for injury caused by intermediate products and the means of production, and No 8 on the obligation to present an impact study in the year 2000 - are superfluous in view of the interpretation generally given to Articles 2, 3 and 21 of the 1985 directive.
<P>
Madam President, as the Commission stated last November, the best time and the best way to engage in a review of the 1985 directive is when discussing the report on the application of the directive, which the Commission must present to Parliament and the Council in 2000.
That report will be preceded by wide-ranging consultations, open to all the sectors concerned, in the form of a green paper to be presented as soon as this proposal has been adopted.
This is the fastest way of producing a proposal for an amendment taking full account of the importance of the directive to the socio-economic fabric and encompassing all the elements relevant to a review of the 1985 directive.
I therefore hope that the European Parliament will support this approach, without altering the Council's common position, thereby not only enabling its own recommendation of 19 February 1997 to be carried out, but also bringing forward the start of consultations leading to the year 2000 report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Monti.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 3 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Global governance and UN reform
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0077/99) by Mr De Melo, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the challenges of global governance and the reform of the United Nations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="De Melo">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, over the final years of this century we have witnessed an increasing trend towards globalisation in politics, not only on security issues but also on economic and social matters and environmental protection.
If we are to deal with all these issues at global level it is vital to have a world organisation capable of formulating rules governing universal conduct that will be respected and complied with once they have been accepted.
Although the scope of its activities is limited, such an organisation has already existed for so long that it is part of modern history, and the role it has played, its conduct and the actions it has taken deserve general praise.
One slight criticism of this organisation is perhaps that it has failed to widen its range of powers and the scope of its activities, which have virtually become set in stone.
I am, of course, referring to the United Nations Organisation, which is to be applauded for the pivotal role it has played in solving many world conflicts and problems over the last 50 years.
<P>
For these reasons, which I think are hard to contest, I am convinced that the United Nations Organisation is the right platform for centralising the efforts of the international community to rise to the challenges of globalisation.
But to do this, the UN needs to have at its disposal the means required for effective management of political issues at world level, starting with the changes needed in the philosophy and logic of international relations.
<P>
First, in the field of peace and security the UN needs to be given effective means of action and these actions should be legitimised by a clear right and duty to intervene.
The creation of the International Criminal Court has been a great step forward, in that it establishes the international criminal responsibility of the individual.
The Security Council, whose composition reflects the outcome of the last world war, needs to be reformed to reflect the world's current geopolitical balance.
A parliamentary dimension needs to be introduced into the UN system, so as to give the organisation more weight in its relations with parliaments throughout the world.
<P>
Second, economic globalisation and the liberalisation of trade and financial markets have brought about a shift in decision-making centres from the political authorities towards economic power.
This means that in most cases crucial decisions for the world economy are being taken by a small number of globalised companies unrestrained by any democratic scrutiny, often with negative social and environmental consequences. For this reason it is becoming necessary to steer globalisation on a more controlled course.
Let me say it again: a more controlled course for economic globalisation is needed.
Mutual recognition of cultures, an ethical approach and fairness in international negotiations are essential in restoring a balance between political power and economics.
To ensure international observance of these principles, it would be advisable to create a Global Security Council that would coordinate and monitor not only security issues as such, but also problems of economic development, social justice and environmental protection.
<P>
Third, the UN and all its member countries should be obliged to make the principle of the universality of human rights and of duties, freedoms, solidarity and justice an essential condition of any pact between the institutions and the states.
We should also reiterate our support for the creation of the World Environment Agency, and for the reaffirmation and consolidation of environmental protection policy in international relations that this would entail.
<P>
For the reasons that I have presented briefly here and have developed at greater length in my report, together with the generally helpful amendments tabled by honourable Members, I ask you to vote for this resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Vecchi">
Madam President, the European Parliament must basically answer two questions during today's debate: firstly, is it possible to introduce into a world marked by globalisation strong elements of governance over the most important international processes?
And secondly, is the United Nations Organisation the appropriate forum in which to develop this desire and capacity for governance?
We answer both of these questions in the affirmative.
Yes, it is not only necessary but also possible to deal democratically with the major problems and challenges facing humanity: security, poverty, the environment and so on.
Yes, the UN is the principal international forum in which to explore and shape the necessary responses.
The UN should not of course be viewed as a monolithic body.
Its tasks must be set out clearly, and the necessary synergies must be developed with the Member States, with regional organisations - first and foremost the European Union - and with other international institutions.
At the same time, the UN is in urgent need of a number of organisational and operational reforms.
Among the ones which we outline, I would stress those relating to the composition and functions of the Security Council, the establishment of a global 'economic security council' and the streamlining of the structures of the specialised agencies.
<P>
Matters such as the worldwide challenges of human development and the fight against poverty and marginalisation must receive particular attention at the UN.
To this end, we are convinced that - contrary to what has happened until now - the work of bodies like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund must be brought into line with the aims of the United Nations.
<P>
The opinion which I have drawn up on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation contains all our detailed proposals in this context.
Much will depend, however, on the EU Member States adopting a coherent approach at the UN over the next few years.
This will be the acid test of an effective European common foreign and security policy.
<P>
I should like to end by complimenting the rapporteur, Mr De Melo, on his excellent work on this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Madam President, first and foremost I should like to congratulate Mr De Melo on this excellent report which tackles the fundamental issue of wise global governance. His report is certainly timely as the concept of globalisation features prominently in all statements and studies attempting to explain what is going on in the world.
Indeed, globalisation must not be allowed to get out of control as we are currently witnessing, particularly in the financial sector. Instead, faced with a global reality that is increasingly leading to a single entity, it is incumbent upon us to create a framework of appropriate legal and security arrangements.
Hence, a report such as the one before us today is not simply a theoretical study, but is extremely relevant.
<P>
It is worth pointing out that there is uncertainty concerning the European Union's responsibility in terms of the future of the UN.
The 15 Member States currently contribute 38 % of the UN's operational budget, and our payments are up to date.
The problem is that we are contributing as 15 individual states and not as a single entity, so our contribution does not carry enough weight.
The same is true of our contribution to all the buffer and peace-keeping troops and to mediation efforts, that is, what are known as the' Petersberg missions' in European jargon. The Member States of the European Union make a vital contribution to these.
Our involvement in development aid should also be highlighted.
<P>
Unfortunately, our efforts are not adequately promoted.
This state of affairs is particularly regrettable since the European Union is a regional organisation based on the principles of peace and cooperation. As such, it has an automatic vocation to establish links and to promote the United Nations.
<P>
I should like to highlight certain issues that the Socialist Group's amendments focused on.
I think that more work on these issues is called for. We must continue with our efforts as we approach the new legislature, particularly since now that the cold war has ended, when its operations were very much restricted, the UN is being called upon to undertake a wide range of missions and is swamped with requests, though it lacks the resources to deal with them all.
This may put us in mind of a problem we are experiencing much closer to home at the moment.
<P>
Clear criteria on the creation of an Economic Security Council are therefore needed, as is a common European position on the composition of such a council. There is currently no consensus or basic agreement on this issue, not even amongst the Member States.
<P>
Secondly, our involvement in peace and security missions and in the establishment of the International Criminal Court certainly deserve a mention. So too does the ongoing search for dialogue with the United States, which in my view is fundamental in ensuring the future of the UN.
As things stand at present, we have reached an impasse in our dealings with our main ally.
<P>
Sustained efforts are also required to develop the economic order following Bretton Woods. This will mean agreeing on solutions and modifications to the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation, thus defining their future role.
Their relationship with the International Labour Office should also be clarified.
Environmental considerations must feature prominently in this process, particularly sustainable development, as it is one of the distinguishing features of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Spencer">
Madam President, my group welcomes this excellent and important report and congratulates the rapporteur.
Some two weeks ago I was in New York talking about this report to the secretariat and I was distressed to learn that the whole process of UN reform, which was supposed to culminate in the year 2000 at the Millennial Assembly, is blocked.
The European Union must play its role in unblocking this process of reform with considerable urgency.
<P>
Secondly, I want to stress what has already been said by other speakers, that we need to be holistic about the way in which this reorganisation is carried forward.
It is not just the United Nations institutions, it is also the Bretton Woods Institutions which, at a time of financial dislocation and global environmental challenge, all require a consistent policy to be developed so that they interact better with each other.
That became very apparent last week in Geneva at the WTO High Level Seminar on Trade, Environment and Development which was Sir Leon Brittan's initiative.
It became very clear by the conclusion of that seminar that the chances for a successful Millennial Round of the WTO will depend on a parallel reform and enhancement of the other global institutions.
<P>
I would like to draw attention to one particular idea in the report which is valuable in terms of the legitimacy of these institutions of global governance.
That legitimacy can only flow from parliamentarians.
I do not believe that the time is yet right for a full Parliamentary Assembly at global level.
We know our own problems in running a Parliament even in a coherent single continent such as our own.
But I endorse the idea of parliamentary Oversight Committees composed of the chairmen of the specialist committees of the planet's parliaments.
Meetings of all the chairmen of the foreign affairs committees, or all the chairmen of the trade committees relating to the World Trade Organisation, or all the chairmen of environment committees relating directly to the World Environment Organisation or to UNEP could be creative.
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I conclude by saying that we are facing the critical decade from the year 2000 to 2010 for the survival of our species.
There can be no better way to mark the Millennium than to equip humanity with the global institutions which it needs to pass on its heritage to its children.
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<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Madam President, internationalisation and globalisation are proceeding apace.
Unlike some others my group has no problem with this, but good management of the world order does require an effective world body.
We have that world body in the form of the United Nations.
But the UN is still not being given the resources and procedures and indeed the respect it needs in order to be effective and I am glad that Mr De Melo has spelled that out in his report, for which we thank him.
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The loss of credibility which the UN has suffered in matters of peace and security must be remedied quickly.
And what does quickly mean?
There has to be an end to decision-making methods which tend to end in deadlock.
In specific terms that means, for example, a rapid reaction force.
The UN must be able to react quickly in the event of a humanitarian disaster.
That can be easy enough.
The process of decision-making simply has to be adjusted in order to make it possible.
There is no place here for vetoes.
<P>
And finally, the UN has to be properly financed.
It is scandalous, I am sure you will agree, that the USA has for so long failed to meet its financial obligations, and international pressure must be brought to bear on each and every country which is behind with its contributions to make it pay its dues.
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<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, the United Nations is an institution that was established in the wake of the catastrophes of the Second World War and, with all its weaknesses and deficiencies, contributed to the extent its powers allowed to bipolarisation and the cold war period. However, it also contributed to security and, if you like, to the avoidance of greater confrontations and conflicts.
<P>
But since the 1990s, a fundamental question has arisen: does the United Nations really exist?
Does it now play any substantial role in ensuring international security and peace?
This question is becoming an increasingly topical one.
In the space of a few minutes, or a few hours, there may be military intervention in Kosovo, in the Republic of Yugoslavia.
Where is the UN?
When did the UN meet?
What has Kofi Annan said?
We are hearing from Mr Solana, Madeleine Albright and Mr Holbrooke.
But where is Kofi Annan?
Why does he say nothing?
Is it possible for the UN, in a climate of total monopolisation in which the European Union is totally submissive and compliant, to play any special role?
<P>
Having said this, I would like to stress that, of course, the proposals from Mr De Melo are very positive and interesting and should be promoted.
However, I do not think we will find an answer simply by putting in place a network of measures, unless the major powers in the world today, such as the European Union above all, abandon their childish dependency, unless they acquire a sense of independence and self-belief, unless they move forward and take on a substantial role and call into question this suffocating monopoly that is being established by the United States.
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The UN is absent from Kosovo and from Kurdistan; the UN is closing its eyes to the intervention in Yugoslavia and to the total indifference to the rights of the Kurds. The UN is maintaining this unacceptable policy of two steps forward and one step back, and in this way it is impossible for the UN to move forward.
All this hinges to a great extent on the European Union today.
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<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Madam President, Mr De Melo has produced an excellent report, and I congratulate him on behalf of the Green Group.
At present a sort of global constitution is taking shape, though, unfortunately, it is all happening very undemocratically.
We have often seen cases where national parliaments accept these agreements, and because they take so long to debate, the details can no longer be examined at such a late stage, and so important issues are decided among governments in what are ultimately secret negotiations.
I believe that the European Parliament is one of the best forums for voicing opinions, one where we have had the courage to take a position on these agreements, such as the one on the World Trade Organisation.
Furthermore, I have the impression that national parliaments do not always have the courage to exercise whatever rights they have with regard to their governments, when agreements are being negotiated.
Perhaps the situation would improve if we were to have something like parliamentary meetings for international organisations, like the World Trade Organisation.
These would most certainly have the important task of guaranteeing improvements in communication as well as transparency and openness.
We should be aiming at a sort of global federalism, in which some of the decisions are taken globally as openly and democratically as possible.
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<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Madam President, this excellent report by Mr De Melo needs to be amended in certain areas, particularly with regard to the Security Council issue.
I agree with other Members, such as Mr Barón Crespo, who have suggested that we have taken a step backwards.
Whereas in the previous report we asked for the European Union to be represented on the Security Council, this point does not appear in this report.
In my opinion, the Security Council question is central but for different reasons from those put forward by my friend, Mr Alavanos.
I feel that the Security Council is currently demonstrating the limits of the United Nations.
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With regard to Guatemala, we saw how China blocked the peace process because of the veto which it holds on the Security Council.
The same thing recently occurred with regard to Macedonia where, again because of China, the peacekeeping force had to change its mandate.
Now with Kosovo, Russia is bringing strong pressure to bear because of its right of veto.
This has very serious implications for the continuation and possible strengthening of the United Nations system.
<P>
We are now increasingly being forced to rely on American leadership and, unfortunately, the absence of European leadership in order to undertake peacekeeping operations outside the United Nations, such as those that are probably about to take place in Kosovo.
This is highly regrettable and demonstrates the need to change the way the Security Council operates.
The veto system leads to a complete stalemate, and I am sorry that Mr De Melo did not stress this point more in his report.
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<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Imbeni">
Madam President, I am grateful to Mr De Melo for his excellent work, following on from that of our former colleague Mr Trivelli, who produced an extremely important resolution on the United Nations in 1993.
The debate in this House has reverberated with the echo of a protest, heard throughout the world in recent years, concerning the tragedies in Africa, Bosnia and elsewhere.
Much has been said about the failure, the impotence of the UN, almost as though the United Nations were some kind of club of associates, without assessing the crucial role played by the most important associates, these of course being the United States and certain other countries.
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What, then, is the problem?
It is, as Mr De Melo quite rightly says in his report, that the reform carried out must be in keeping with the major changes which have occurred in modern times.
We can no longer think of the United Nations in the way we did during the cold war, when the Soviet Union still existed and there were still dictatorships in South Africa and South America.
We must reinvent the UN, and this new UN must play a role in the most significant fields: the historical, traditional one of conflict prevention, the increasingly relevant one of championing human rights, that of preventing economic and financial turbulence, and that of coordinating measures against old and new forms of crime.
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In this light the question of reforming the Security Council, already referred to here, is a truly enormous one.
We shall have to be rather more bold.
One of the most important associates of the future must be one which is currently divided into 15: the European Union.
As Mr De Melo suggests in his resolution, we must seek to ensure that this reform of the Security Council is implemented as soon as possible.
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<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Mr President, we find ourselves at a transitional stage in the development of a new world order, first envisaged at the end of the cold war. Progress during this stage appears to consist of taking one step forward and two steps back.
Previous speakers have pointed out that the transition is characterised by two main features. In political terms it is marked by a tendency towards single polarity, and in socio-economic terms - which are also political in their broadest sense - by the acceleration of globalisation.
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I agree with my colleague Mr Vecchi that the question here is whether or not we are in a position to control this process of globalisation.
In my view, we can, and we should ensure that we do so. International procedures must be democratised and socialised.
They must be controlled, thus promoting the interests of efficiency as well as the interests of justice.
Greater efficiency will facilitate conflict prevention and better handling of crises.
It should prevent further financial crises like the one we are currently experiencing, and do away with the north-south divide. We must remember that the gap between the rich and poor countries of the world is actually increasing at the moment.
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You may wonder how all this could be achieved.
I envisage specific courses of action. First, we must strengthen and develop international law.
It does exist in theory but is often ignored. Suitable instruments are required if international law is to be properly implemented, beginning with the United Nations.
I agree with Mr De Melo that despite all the criticism levelled against it, the UN's usefulness cannot be disputed.
Its inefficiency should not be blamed on the UN itself. It is really due to a lack of political will on the part of its members, to a failure to implement and observe its charter, to the fact that it has not been granted genuine decision-making powers or adequate resources, and to the absence of real democracy.
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The UN should not be done away with.
It must be reformed, strengthened and developed and the European Union has a major role to play in this respect. European public opinion demands it, because who will take the lead if the European Union fails to do so?
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<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Mr President, to my mind this report on the challenges of global governance and the reform of the United Nations deserves support, and I should also like to offer my congratulations to the rapporteur.
As I see it, his aim is to identify a way of changing direction and establishing some kind of balance between the leading players and civil society.
If global decisions are to have legitimacy, then of course they must be representative.
Consequently, civil society should also participate in laying the foundations that underpin the decisions taken at global level.
If one looks at the financial crises that are occurring all over the world, the widening gap between rich and poor and the growing number of environmental problems, there is good reason to take heed.
It is high time we did so and showed more sympathy towards the establishment of global links between such things as investment and development.
<P>
Before an agreement such as the MAI comes into existence, it should be compared with the evaluations which have been made and the decisions which have been taken, as set out at the major UN conferences.
One hundred and fifty Nordic organisations have taken the initiative and said that if talks are to continue on an MAI agreement in the WTO, they must take place under the auspices of the UN in order to give them legitimacy.
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I also think that it was appropriate to single out the USA in the report. It is really shameful that this country has not paid its contributions for so long.
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Promoting peace and security is, of course, the UN's most important function.
I should just like to add that, in my view, NATO should delay its bombing campaign so as to allow the issue to be discussed by the UN Security Council.
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<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="Howitt">
President, speaking on Mr De Melo's excellent report, I commend to you my own amendments from the Development Committee in support of the UN's work in relation to indigenous people, Amendment No 13; the UN High Commission for Refugees, Amendment No 23; and our call to revive the UN Centre for Transnational Corporations, Amendment No 24.
However, I want to restrict my speaking time specifically to support the proposal for the creation of a UN Economic Security Council.
<P>
Mr Camdessus, Head of the IMF, is on record as saying that the UN is just one of the four pillars of the world system.
This view sees the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO handling the serious economic business whilst relegating social affairs alone to the UN.
No wonder that the World Bank and IMF have evolved in a way contrary to their founding objectives to reduce poverty.
They have imposed structural adjustment programmes in response to the third world debt crisis of the 1980s, which have actually had the effect of increasing unemployment and eroding social welfare provision for the poor.
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The only answer is to integrate the Bretton Woods agencies effectively in the UN system, to make them more directly accountable to all the nations of the world irrespective of ability to pay, to spread the principle of poverty reduction from the UN's development programme into economic decision-making worldwide.
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<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, the United Nations has been, remains and, we all hope, will continue to be the only framework within which disputes are peacefully resolved and peace maintained.
It has had this role for more than 50 years, since the catastrophe of the Second World War.
Of course it has had - and still has - weaknesses and shortcomings, and it may have more to come.
Let us look for the causes.
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There have been powers, in particular the United States and those close to it, and NATO itself, which have undermined its authority, bypassed it, disowned it and taken initiatives that run counter to what the United Nations should have said. We are now moving towards the brink of an explosive situation, with unforeseeable repercussions not just in Yugoslavia and the Balkans.
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Consequently, I would have liked the report by Mr De Melo, which correctly recognises the unique nature of the United Nations, to stress the need for the UN to arm itself against these attempts to undermine its authority and to take initiatives, to put forward ideas and proposals, to strengthen itself further so that it can assume its role.
As regards the issue of the veto which applies in the Security Council, I too would be in favour of abandoning it, but this would simply be jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire. If this were to happen, the UN would become, in institutional terms, the puppet of the United States, of a bloc of questionable interests which would manipulate the Security Council for its own benefit and to the disadvantage of the people.
<P>
One final point: I am concerned about the role of the International Criminal Court.
I am afraid that, under the slogans of 'terrorism' or 'crimes against humanity' - and I repeat that these are just slogans - it may be used as a tool to suppress and quell what are clearly national liberation movements.
Just look at the way the Kurdish movement is being treated, and the fact that it may even end up being punished before international courts!
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<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, in discussing the De Melo report, we need to distinguish between two issues: one is reform of the United Nations, which could be a matter of adapting its ageing structures to changed requirements and to geopolitical transformations on the various continents; the other is Europe's continuing inability to speak with one voice and act with the necessary diplomatic force.
Here the UN could be the ideal terrain on which to build an EU common foreign policy to consolidate all of our economic successes to date.
<P>
As for the specific reforms required, the UN Security Council needs to be updated along democratic and non-élitist lines; moreover, this subject already appears as item 59 on the agenda of the General Assembly.
Many countries are hoping for such a reform, so much so that, from its original complement of 30 members, the 'Coffee Group' has grown to 49, and even the Durban summit of the 113 non-aligned countries rejected by a large majority the temptation to abandon recourse to Article 108 of the UN Charter, pursuant to which the vote on the reform principles requires a two-thirds majority of the Member States.
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Reform is of course a lengthy and complex business which cannot be summarised in a minute and a half.
We now have the single currency; the next step has to be the common foreign policy, and the United Nations could be the basis on which to work towards this important goal.
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<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, I too must compliment Mr De Melo and all the other Members who have worked on this report, which is comprehensive and so very much geared to the future.
It comes at a time when we are all looking to the challenges of globalisation.
A time too when many people can see the negative aspects but cannot agree on solutions.
We must ensure that the great potential advantages of globalisation are realised, and that this works to the benefit of all countries.
<P>
Like you, I believe that the solutions have to be found within an improved multilateral forum.
In this context, a leading role is marked out for the United Nations, but also for the international financial organisations and for the World Trade Organisation.
<P>
Our Member State governments must ensure that the reforms currently under way are indeed continued.
The many important aspects you mention in your report, such as human rights but also economic, social and security aspects, must be integrated into general policy.
The numerous international organisations must seek to coordinate their measures and approaches closely.
We believe that the UN millennium summit scheduled for the autumn of 2000 will provide an excellent opportunity for acknowledging the challenges of world management and defining more precisely the role of the United Nations for the twenty-first century.
<P>
It is also our sincere hope that the enlarging European Union will play an important part in this whole debate and will contribute its experience of problems and opportunities in integrating these various aspects of policy into general policy on a multinational basis.
But if the Union is to be a credible voice in this debate, as this House has remarked on numerous occasions, it must also have a more powerful, more consistent and more easily recognisable common foreign and security policy.
The necessary institutional measures must be taken and the necessary instruments put in place.
We very much hope that this will be done shortly.
<P>
May I add a brief footnote on the institutional provisions at the end of the resolution now before the House, although I appreciate that these are directed mainly at the Member States.
The EU memorandum is an integral part of the statement which the President of the European Council makes each year to the UN General Assembly.
It is a very broad summary of recent EU policy and measures and it covers a broad range of issues and geographical areas.
As such, it is a very useful reference document.
However, because it covers such a diversity of issues, I do not think it is well suited to serve as the basis for joint action within the meaning of Article 13 of the Amsterdam Treaty.
Joint actions of this kind can be devised for more precisely defined subjects and should be less descriptive in nature.
And that was the comment made yesterday at the General Affairs Council when we looked again at joint action by the EU in its relations with Russia, to be approved in Cologne.
<P>
As regards the request that the Commission should report on the Union's position concerning the specific points in your resolution in the context of forthcoming UN assemblies and other relevant gatherings, the Commission will certainly, as usual, continue submitting communications to the Council and Parliament in advance of important international events which require a position of consensus from the Union.
The Commission will naturally also continue to keep the relevant committees of the European Parliament informed of any significant developments in the foreign and security policy of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 3 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Guidelines for the draft general budget for 2000
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0109/99 by Mr Bourlanges, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the guidelines for the 2000 budget procedure: Section III - Commission; -A4-0120/99 by Mrs Müller, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the guidelines for the 2000 budget procedure: Section I - European Parliament, Annex: OmbudsmanSection II - CouncilSection IV - Court of JusticeSection V - Court of AuditorsSection VI - Economic and Social Committee and Committee of the Regions and Joint Organisational Structure.
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="Bourlanges">
Mr President, we are just now concluding the three-way discussions with the Commission and Council, or at least what remains of them, and I feel as if I am reporting on a state of limbo, as Cardinal de Bernis would say, given the current situation of extreme uncertainty.
<P>
On the one hand institutional uncertainty is at a peak given that this Parliament is to be dissolved on 13 June.
From July therefore the budget procedure will continue potentially with a rather different Parliament and speakers who will not necessarily be the same.
Uncertainty has also been created by the resignation of the Commission which will therefore have to prepare its preliminary draft budget in a state of political weightlessness.
I must thank Commissioner Liikanen for respecting his obligations.
As he is here I hope that he will speak, even though he has resigned, because the Commission is still responsible for preparing the preliminary draft budget.
It is therefore right that he should speak.
<P>
There is also very great uncertainty about the institutional conditions.
We do not know whether there will be any financial perspectives.
We do not know whether there will be an agreement on Agenda 2000.
We do not know whether there will be an agreement between Parliament and the Council on the overall management of the systems.
In other words, we do not know whether the next budget will be an annual budget based on Article 203 or a budget under the future financial perspectives.
<P>
In this context, it is very difficult to establish satisfactory and precise priorities for Parliament.
We have stressed two key issues: rigour and the concentration of priorities.
We want a rigorous budget on several levels and we want a concentrated budget.
<P>
In Category 3, which is of particular interest to us, we are stressing the need to concentrate efforts on decentralised information measures, the reception of refugees and the financing of Eurodac.
We want the 'greening' of the budget to be extended to new areas.
We also want the Commission to use this budget to prepare the ground for extending the powers of the European Union in the fields of public health and consumer protection.
Finally, with regard to the research programme, we want a balance to be achieved between the system's funding requirements, the need to keep within the overall budgets agreed and the provision of sufficient margins in the area of internal policies. The Fifth Framework Programme for Research must not dominate all the other spending under Category 3.
<P>
In Category 4, we are happy to concentrate aid on the poorest countries, as requested by the committee responsible.
This is our aim in terms of priorities.
However, yet again everything needs to be clarified.
The crux of our message is the rigour which we want to apply.
We consider that considerable efforts need to be made with regard to management.
<P>
Firstly, in Category 1, the management of the agricultural appropriations needs to be more rigorous, without ignoring the principle of adequate funding.
In Category 2, it must be possible, by reforming the nomenclature of certain funds, for expenditure to be managed not according to the distribution of administrative services, but according to the objectives of the Structural Funds. We therefore call for the nomenclature to be reformed accordingly.
Above all, effort is required in Category 5.
<P>
There is a problem of management here.
We want to see the gradual dismantling of the Technical Assistance Offices.
We also want the staff requirements for the work involved to be reassessed.
In particular, before 30 June, we want the Commission to come clean and clearly indicate how many staff it needs to perform its tasks.
We must have a clear answer here in order to identify the Commission's precise requirements so that the budgetary authority can decide and weigh up, in full possession of the facts, the tasks to be completed and the resources to be provided.
This is the message of rigour and clarification that we want to press home.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="Müller">
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="Ferber">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in his very good introduction our general rapporteur on the 2000 budget, my friend Jean-Louis Bourlanges, drew attention to the institutional problems, especially in the area that particularly interests me as rapporteur for the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
To put it quite simply, we want to see adherence to the results of the legislative process for the fifth framework programme of research and the full assertion of Parliament's rights.
We fought for that during the conciliation procedure.
The negotiations were tough.
It was a question of what is known as the guillotine clause, which concerns the effects of the financial perspective on the overall financial framework of the fifth framework programme of research.
Here we managed to assert Parliament's rights in full, and of course we will also insist during the coming budgetary deliberations that Parliament is fully involved.
<P>
In the field of energy, we are yet again seeking to ensure that the responsibility the European Union has assumed in regard, for instance, to reducing greenhouse gases, is also covered in budgetary terms.
Declarations are one thing, their political implementation, their reflection in budget headings, are another, and that is what we must do.
By adopting a framework energy programme we have created the necessary legal conditions, and of course what we want is for this to be adequately reflected in the budget.
Those, in a few words, are the wishes of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy for the 2000 budget and I hope Members will find their way to supporting them during the further procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="Carlotti">
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Bourlanges has included in his motion for a resolution a number of important principles, in particular the principle that the 2000 budget must safeguard a policy of sustained development and cooperation.
This is actually the very essence of the European Union's identity which has solidarity as its central theme, and it will also help to put the European Union in a stronger position in the world.
<P>
The Committee on Development and Cooperation unanimously wishes to point out to the Commission that the prospects of enlargement and the Structural Fund and CAP reforms must on no account be allowed to result in the European Union abandoning or disengaging itself from this field.
The priority given by the Commission to countries geographically close to the Union must not lead to a reduction in appropriations for the ACP countries.
The Development Committee regards the reduction of poverty as a priority, which is why a larger proportion of spending under Category 4 needs to be allocated to the poorest countries.
<P>
The aim here is an ambitious one as it involves halving the number of people living in extreme poverty by 2015.
In this respect, we would urge the Member States to comply in full with the United Nations' recommendations to increase their development policy contributions to at least 0.7 % of their GNP.
<P>
We therefore reaffirm our desire to see the EDF incorporated into the budget and to see unused appropriations reallocated to low-income countries, for example through the PHARE, TACIS or MEDA programmes.
We want to see adequate humanitarian aid and we will also continue to fight for certain thematic lines such as the environment, tropical forests, equal opportunities, anti-personnel mines, and so on.
<P>
With regard to regeneration and reconstruction, the lack of coherence and the scattering of resources caused by allocating appropriations by geographical region should prompt us to reorganise the budget lines.
Finally, we fully support the work of the NGOs and hope that line B7-6000 will be given adequate payment appropriations.
We will seek to ensure that the small NGOs are not penalised in relation to the large NGOs in any new arrangements which the Commission might make.
<P>
Finally, I wholeheartedly endorse the comments made by the rapporteur on Category 5 regarding the staff shortages in the Commission in particular.
I must emphasise that the problem is particularly crucial with regard to DG VIII and ECHO.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="Wynn">
Mr President, I am speaking on behalf of our Group on both reports.
First of all, can I turn to Mrs Müller's report and thank her for the work that she has done.
We do not always vote for her text or her amendments; but she knows that like most groups in the Budgets Committee, we are aiming for the same objectives.
We just have different ways of getting there.
<P>
Can I say that the rapporteur's sentiments and the sentiments of the committee are summed up in the first paragraph of her report, paragraph 1, where she calls on the institutions and committees - and I stress the words 'institutions' and 'committees' not 'organs' as Mrs Müller's amendment seeks - to produce a strategy to enhance efficiency by improving transparency, motivation, mobility and further training.
That is what we are looking for from guidelines.
Some of the other comments were not necessary, and that is why we voted against quite a few paragraphs within this report.
<P>
I have to be critical of the fact that Mrs Müller as rapporteur has tabled eight amendments.
This is not a prerogative of the rapporteur who is the servant of the committee.
She should be presenting the committee's report to Parliament and not tabling amendments in the name of her group.
<P>
All the amendments she has tabled fall into two categories. There are those which have already been defeated in the Budgets Committee which, of course, we will vote against because we voted against them before and there are some entirely new ones.
The fact that we have had no debate on these new ones, once again means that we will vote against them in the plenary.
I would hate to think that these amendments were being tabled just as a political ploy or for a press release, because they call for the citizens of the Quartier Leopold to be able to use the facilities within the Parliament such as the shops.
Now, I would hate to think that we were going to be criticised for not supporting the people who live around here.
Apart from that, they are not guidelines and should not be in this report.
<P>
I turn to Mr Bourlanges' report and thank him for the work that he has done.
It is not the text we would have written but we will be voting for it, as he knows.
Paragraph 2, as he said in his speech, sets out Parliament's priorities, especially in relation to job creation. That has to be at the forefront of all our minds.
But there is also a reference to the 'BATs'.
This is an issue which will not go away and which will be at the forefront of everyone's conversations and strategy for the 2000 Budget and beyond.
But, of course, if we achieve what we are seeking with the elimination of the 'BATs' where the Commission can do the work, then Council and ourselves have to recognise the possible consequences of such a move.
<P>
That brings us on to Category 5.
If Category 5 does not grow by 1.5 %, then 4, 000 jobs will be lost between the Year 2000 and 2006.
We still have the problem of 850 unfilled vacancies within the Commission.
That is why the Interinstitutional Agreement is so important and the work of Mr Colom I Naval and the other people on the trialogue which met this morning.
It is so important that we get an agreement.
<P>
We vote on this report before Berlin, and we assume that there will be agreement in the Council on Agenda 2000 and between the Council and Parliament on the Interinstitutional Agreement.
If not, then the Recital C and paragraph 1 of the Bourlanges' report will certainly have to be taken note of.
It is not unlike the situation in 1994, I have to say, or for the 1994 Budget, where we went right through to December before we knew what the final situation would be.
Let us hope that we can get this concluded well before December.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="Müller">
Mr President, Terence Wynn has made a few points of criticism about my position and my actions.
So I would like to put him right.
Firstly, all the amendments I am tabling are amendments that were considered in committee.
The new one on public access to a supermarket was not tabled in my name; it was tabled by a member of my group.
Secondly, the press conference I held was given together with Jean-Louis Bourlanges in order to present the report and in the Committee on Budgets we decided the precise amount relating to the supermarket by a majority. That means I only told the press something that formed the basis of the outcome of the vote in the Committee on Budgets.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="President">
That was not a point of order, Mrs Müller.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="Elles">
Mr. President, our rapporteurs have always given us excellent introductions from the Committee on Budgets.
Mr Bourlanges has rightly underlined the uncertainty which we face in this budgetary procedure.
I must admit, having been on the Budgets Committee since 1984, that we have become used to uncertainty in our budgetary matters We reject budgets; we go on to twelfths; we have a whole range of negotiations with the Council, but actually somehow through all this period we managed to keep the show on the rails.
I am certain our rapporteur will do that in these difficult circumstances, particularly as we have never had to be guided without having a European Commission in place.
I welcome the fact that the Commission, although not in office, has taken the trouble to be with us and will no doubt be speaking in this debate.
<P>
I have two comments in speaking on behalf of my Group for the European Parliament Budget and then for the Commission Budget.
I would like to say to Mr Wynn that we will be supporting most of the amendments that Mrs Müller has put on the Agenda.
These have been discussed in committee.
We felt that they were reasonable and therefore they deserve our support.
In particular, I regret that the Council is not here today because I would have liked to find out from them the chances of having the statute for Members and for assistants which are mentioned in the report and on which we need decisions by the European Council as soon as possible.
<P>
Turning to the budget of the Commission, it is clear that we have once again a rigorous budget in front of us.
The Commission, the Council and ourselves have had rigorous budgets for the last few years. This will be no exception.
Indeed, the priorities too will be fairly similar to those which have been put in the draft budget of the Commission.
The real issue of this 2000 Budget though will be on the administrative expenditure and the follow-up to the Wise Men's Report.
What are the resources which will be needed?
What are the real needs?
What are the programmes that the Commission is going to be running?
This is a debate we will no doubt have later in the year, but at this stage I would like to conclude that so far as our Group is concerned, we will be looking at this particular aspect of the budget in a much more critical way than any other.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Mr Chairman we live in the age between the ages as Reinhold Niebuhr said, and other colleagues have made that point very clearly.
It is very welcome that two experienced colleagues like Mr Bourlanges and Mrs Müller will be guiding this Parliament and the next Parliament through the difficult period of the Budget.
<P>
I have two specific comments.
First of all, the coming period will be less concentrated on new monies as was the case in the past and more on the management of existing money.
It is, therefore, very important in this period of uncertainty that the Parliament itself indicates that it is fully aware of its central responsibility on this point.
Over the last five years we in Parliament have made enormous progress in the quality of implementation and the involvement of other committees than the Budget Committee.
The other committees' involvement is essential for the future if we are going to meet our responsibilities.
<P>
A better institutional balance is, of course, absolutely essential.
It is perhaps again ironic that today, the day before Agenda 2000 is being discussed and also the whole financial structure, the Council is absent.
We must continue, and I hope that the new Parliament will pursue this point.
Essentially, we need an interinstitutional agreement but not at any price.
Therefore, the open situation which Mr Bourlanges indicated - that perhaps we may have a budget according to Article 203 - needs to be underlined.
<P>
As far as Mrs Müller's report is concerned, the essential point is the activity-based budgeting, as she indicated.
I welcome that Commissioner Liikanen underlined that earlier.
We must highlight the contradiction in the Council today.
On the one hand the Council wants cuts and, as Mr Wynn has said, this may lead to enormous cuts in personnel.
On the other hand, we see from the Committee of Wise Men, the essential contradiction that if we leave things to BATs we will have problems of management.
That contradiction will be focussed on by the Parliament throughout the coming period.
I hope and trust that Mrs Müller will be a good guide for this process.
<P>
Mr Chairman, since it is probably my last budgetary debate here I would like to say how much I hope that the new Parliament will continue to make progress under the good guidance of our two colleagues who have been appointed for the Year 2000.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as the 2000 budget procedure begins, I have to say that I am deeply concerned about the total uncertainty that surrounds the current situation.
We still do not know whether the Interinstitutional Agreement will be renewed and whether new financial perspectives will be established for the 2000-2006 period.
What is more, as has just been made clear, the rapporteur himself does not know the answers to these questions.
To paraphrase Sacha Guitry, I would say that the Council is hesitating, the Commission is dead and the rapporteur does not seem particularly courageous.
<P>
What causes me particular concern is the more or less stated aim of the majority of the Council delegations whose primary and perhaps only concern is to pay as little as possible to Europe. This means a budget of zero growth or financial stagnation in Europe.
<P>
In the absence of an agreement on the new financial perspectives, it is clear, as the excellent Mr Bourlanges has described in detail, that the financial framework for the 2000 budget must be established by adjusting the ceilings for the various headings, pursuant to Article 25 of the Interinstitutional Agreement of 29 October 1993.
This means that the budgetary authority must comply with the amounts already earmarked for the pilot schemes and preparatory actions.
<P>
In other words, the 2000 budget must be another austerity budget, maintaining budgetary discipline while at the same time guaranteeing that the necessary resources will be available to implement the European Union's policies, as pointed out by the rapporteur, in accordance with Article F(3) of the EU Treaty.
Therefore, whatever the current difficulties, it is right and even advisable that the joint budgetary authority should prepare a responsible, rigorous and effective budget for the year 2000 in line with the EU's political commitments and according to the spirit and letter of the Interinstitutional Agreement.
<P>
Unfortunately I do not believe that the Council understands this, and if we enthusiastically approve the guidelines defined by Mr Bourlanges, we are just as vigorously denouncing the lack of political responsibility and Community solidarity shown to date by certain Council delegations.
I was particularly shocked by the content of 'La Tribune ', published yesterday in Le Figaro and written by Ms Hewitt, a British junior minister, which was quite simply a call for the CAP to be dismantled through renationalisation.
<P>
Although at this stage the Council's priorities for the 2000 budget have not been identified - these particularly depend on the results of the Agenda 2000 negotiations - it seems clear that the aim of most of the delegations is to ensure that Community expenditure does not develop more than national expenditure.
We seem to suffer permanently from the Fontainebleau syndrome.
<P>
This concept is clearly out of step with the EU's development plans, and we would be entering a very difficult procedure with an uncertain outcome if we tried to prevent an abstinence budget being imposed which ignored the objective requirements of the EU's policies and was entirely subject to the electoral whims of the finance ministers.
<P>
We are realistic and we accept rigour but, unlike the Council, we want to see progress combined with respect for rigour and for the political commitments made by the Heads of State and Government and also for the agreements to which the Council itself has signed up.
To forget all that would be to forget Europe itself.
Finally, with regard to Mrs Müller's excellent report which is less affected by uncertainty, our group will support this as amended in committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Since I cannot split myself in two, I now have to give my position on Jean-Louis Bourlanges's report.
The strategic approach to restructuring this budget must focus on internal and foreign policies because they account for a large share of compulsory expenditure and multiannual programmes.
So I very much welcome our joint call for an increase in the share of development policies in the Community budget.
But we must bear in mind that the development impact of each euro must be enhanced with a view to sustainability, and here I mean both ecological and economic sustainability.
<P>
More emphasis must now be laid on good governance as a condition for granting any aid that goes beyond emergency aid.
We must look more closely at the macro-economic impact of our food aid and put the interests of the agricultural budget in second place.
I would remind you of our debate on aid for Russia.
And as the World Bank notes in its report on 'Assessing Aid', development aid should where possible be multilateral, which means it should also be shifted from the Member States to the Union.
But if we are to remain credible, we should also say where we are prepared to economise, which in my view should primarily be in relation to the disputed KEDO project.
But we must also radically rethink the export promotion programmes, not just with a view to creating European added value but also against the backdrop of the question of whether this should be an object of common European action in the first place.
<P>
How willing are we in fact to be serious about what we have been demanding for days, namely concentration on the essentials?
I very much hope that with the dialogue on Jean-Louis Bourlanges's report and priorities we will be able to take a major step forward in regard to development policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this debate is taking place in a very difficult context, which is at the forefront of all our minds.
From this point of view I wish to compliment the Commissioner, Mr Liikanen, on both his presence and his work.
He has cooperated very constructively with the Committee on Budgets in the past few years, even though we as a Parliament must examine our collective conscience - something we have not done sufficiently, judging by what has happened in recent weeks.
In this sense, the Bourlanges report gives the thumbs down to one of the guiding principles of this House, the Budgets Committee and our whole mind-set in recent years: the belief that the number of measures and activities could continue to rise, while promising public opinion zero growth, and that everything could be constantly improved on the basis of the same statutory internal and personnel resources.
For the first time now, these guidelines do not stress that principle which, in my opinion, was one of the causes - perhaps the main one - of so many negative developments. I therefore welcome a new approach which ought to guide us in future years and which the Council President, Mr Fischer, stressed very responsibly yesterday.
<P>
Finally, I would just say one word on the Müller report: in the committee we adopted a well-balanced and coherent report.
This is the line which our group will pursue, by supporting the report as it emerged from the committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
On the Bourlanges report, Mr President, one of the biggest problems as regards the year 2000 budgetary procedure is the enormous scale of monies still unspent.
To tackle this as quickly as possible, the rapporteur is suggesting that 50 % of the payment appropriations should be included in the budget for 2000.
If we add the expected 'fresh funds', this will give us a budget of EUR 95 billion.
<P>
Leaving aside the question of whether the Council is likely to welcome so big a budget, I do not think this is the answer.
How is it, I would ask the rapporteur, that payments can fall so far short of commitments?
You mention the restrictive budgetary policy in recent years.
But is that the real reason?
In recent years, the budgetary authority has saddled the Commission with a mountain of commitments. Is it not rather the case that the Commission's services are unable to manage it all?
Given the findings of the Committee of Wise Men, I fear that it may be.
So a forced increase in payment appropriations for the year 2000 is not the right way.
It is asking for trouble.
<P>
The solution should instead be sought through sensible self-restraint.
The commitment appropriations must be matched to the Commission's capacity for implementing them.
Europe must confine itself to policy areas where acting together as a Union is beneficial.
Programmes which cannot be managed efficiently must be scrapped, and quickly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Samland">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, either the 2000 budget is the first budget under a new financial perspective or it is based on Article 203 of the Treaty on European Union.
We will find out in the course of tomorrow and the day after.
We had a trilogue this morning and discussed the question of the minimum requirements for the trend of categories 3, 4, 5 and 7 that we will set as the condition for a possible interinstitutional agreement.
In that respect, we must always view what Mr Bourlanges has just said against the background of the 'both-and-also' or 'either/or' alternative.
<P>
If we chose the 'either/or' alternative and did not have an institutional agreement, then as we made quite clear in the trilogue this morning, in economic terms we would have more money available than we would if we did conclude an interinstitutional agreement.
The situation is quite clear: only if the national budgets constantly showed a deficit of 0.9 % and growth remained below 1.5 %, only then would we have a situation where the expenditure arising from half the ceiling rate was lower than the expenditure under a financial perspective yet to be agreed.
I am addressing these words more to the Council, which is not here, than to Members, for the Council should know exactly what the financial resources in categories 3, 4 and 5 will look like when it decides the question tomorrow and the day after.
<P>
There is another point I want to make in this connection.
I believe Mrs Müller has already raised it.
Should what the Council is currently discussing in relation to staff costs and administrative costs become the basis of the budget for 2000 and the following years, the freezing of the budget would mean that the European Union would have to lose 3 880 posts in all.
These would be distributed between Parliament - a loss of 420 posts, the Commission - a loss of 3 000 posts, the Court of Justice - a loss of 182 posts, the Court of Auditors - a loss of 58 posts, and the Committee of the Regions and the Economic and Social Committee - a loss of another 220 posts.
Just to make it clear: if you talk about freezing the administrative budget, that will cost 3 880 posts.
<P>
So we cannot on the one hand say that we want steady growth in these programmes and on the other hand say that we will freeze or even reduce administrative costs.
Lest there be any misunderstanding, I do not mean that we should say that we want to increase the costs and employ more staff; instead, I am saying that freezing money would mean losing jobs rather than creating additional ones.
For this reason Parliament will be called upon to create the corresponding appropriations in this area also.
<P>
I also want to say something about the backlog.
The backlog this year is partly because in connection with Community expenditure the public is concentrating increasingly on payments and less on commitments.
But our budget is split into two components, namely the commitments we enter into and the payments which are then graded accordingly.
The reason these resources were not paid out does not lie with the Commission, as the previous speaker said; it is a problem connected with the Member States or the non-Member States, namely the Central and Eastern European countries, for it is they that correct or regulate the flow of resources into the Structural Funds, into research policy or foreign policy programmes through their activities.
Whether intentional or not, a backlog has occurred here accounting for more than 40 billion.
We cannot reduce that simply by saying we will dump it onto the budget, for then - and you are quite right here - we would find ourselves in the situation of having growth rates for the 2000 budget that were beyond good and evil but had nothing to do with the actual trend of expenditure but only with the burdens of the past that we are dragging along behind us and that we now have to slough off.
That is why we are in favour of Mr Bourlanges's proposal to divide this into two parts rather than having it in a single budget, in order to distinguish between growth and the burden of the past that we have to deal with.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Hatzidakis">
Mr President, it is clear that today's debate is taking place during a very critical period for the European Union.
In two days' time, we shall have the debate and the decisions of the European Council on Agenda 2000 and the financial perspective.
I hope these decisions will be taken, because as you know, there has been indecision for quite some time now.
Personally, I am one of those who believe that policy cannot be made without money, but such a view has now sunk to the status of heresy in the European Union.
Be that as it may, speaking as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Regional Policy on the budget for 2000, I would like to recall the three basic points made by the committee in respect of the new budget.
<P>
Firstly, we draw attention to the need to guarantee sufficient payment appropriations, so as to avoid liquidity problems for the programmes being carried out under the Structural Funds, and this should be done in relation to Agenda 2000 and the new structural programmes.
<P>
Secondly, we are asking for outstanding commitment appropriations under Category 2 for 1998 to be incorporated into the 2000 budget, so as to comply with the Edinburgh agreements.
<P>
Thirdly, the committee calls on the Commission to show some degree of flexibility when extending the programmes being carried out under the Structural Funds, where this is justified, which will allow the Delors 2 package to be implemented effectively and in full.
<P>
In the motion for a resolution, there are two paragraphs concerning Category 2, paragraphs 12 and 13, which are extremely important and which raise crucial technical issues. However, we in the Committee on Regional Policy believe that the motion lacks the proper political direction and the necessary political vision that we wish to see for the Structural Funds in 2000.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Virrankoski">
Mr President, the two rapporteurs have produced reports on the guidelines for next year's budget, both of which form a good basis for further discussion.
I would sincerely like to thank Mrs Müller and Mr Bourlanges accordingly.
I would like to focus on just two questions.
The EU Staff Regulations must be revised and the responsibilities of officials clarified.
The observations which the Committee of Independent Experts, the so-called Committee of Wise Men, made regarding personal lack of responsibility must be taken seriously, and there must be an end to all this hiding behind one another's backs amongst the authorities in the EU.
The increase in the number of staff employed must be strictly controlled, and this is a point on which I disagree with the Committee of Wise Men.
We can achieve much more with staffing levels as they are at present, as long as the Staff Regulations are flexible about the sensible use of resources.
Along with the review of the Staff Regulations we should also clarify how financial administration is monitored.
Administrative responsibility for the justification and approval of expenditure must be delegated.
We have to emphasise the importance of the responsibility for how revenue is used.
Only in this way can the importance of personal responsibility be underlined and payment settlements be speeded up.
As it is, I support strict budget policy, which is in line with government budget policy in the Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Dührkop Dührkop">
Mr President, I must first thank Mr Bourlanges for his work on the guidelines for the budget for 2000.
Parliament generally gives its approval at this time of the year and makes a start on the annual budgetary procedure.
I am sure the House agrees that on this occasion the guidelines are being produced against a background of almost complete uncertainty. Indeed, if the debate could be postponed until Friday we might be in a better position to make specific decisions.
Nevertheless, the guidelines are not usually concerned primarily with figures but rather with setting the priorities of the House with regard to the budget.
<P>
I should now like to focus on two specific aspects of the guidelines for the budget for 2000.
To start with, I must draw attention to a matter of grave concern which Mr Samland, the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, has already mentioned, but which is worth highlighting again.
It is nothing new, as it was discussed previously in connection with the budget for 1999, and it involves the relationship between commitments and payment appropriations. This is specifically mentioned in the Interinstitutional Agreement, which refers to an equitable balance between commitments and payment appropriations.
<P>
Nevertheless, in recent financial years, as Mr Samland also pointed out, payment appropriations have not been increased in line with commitments in order to ensure that the budget has been strictly controlled, although this has not been the case.
We are now faced with what has become known as 'the burden of the future', that is, the burden acquired during the current year plus, in some cases, a backlog of credit to be cleared. By the end of 1999, this could amount to more than 200 % of the commitments undertaken.
<P>
I congratulate the rapporteur on putting forward a proposal to deal with the situation.
Nevertheless, I wish to make it quite clear to the Member States that the time for making false economies is over. This considerable backlog must be at the forefront of our minds as we prepare the budget for 2000.
<P>
Secondly, I am sure the House agrees that the budget must be rigorous, Mr Bourlanges. However, I do not agree that rigour is an end in itself, and I never will.
Rather, rigour must be a response to sound and efficient administration, whilst also guaranteeing the resources required to implement the Union's policies, as stated in the Treaty.
<P>
Allow me to repeat what I said earlier: the average European expects the Union to find a way of meeting our expectations. It is not merely a case of balancing income and expenditure.
Through the Member States, the people of Europe have transferred certain competences to the Union. They have even surrendered some of their sovereignty to ensure that the Union is in a better position to respond to their needs.
<P>
My own view is that the Union's budget is on quite a different level from that of the Member States.
It complements a Member State's budget, but should not be compared to it.
This certainly does not mean that the European Parliament will fail to act and cooperate responsibly during the financial year in order to smooth the path of the euro for the Member States. What it must mean, however, is that the Union's policies respond to the wishes of the people of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Bourlanges">
Mr President, before the Commissioner speaks I must quickly clarify two or three points.
Firstly, I totally agree with Mrs Dührkop Dührkop that rigour does not mean austerity.
Rigour indicates a desire to match resources to objectives.
This is not actually the main priority, but when it comes to priorities we should not forget that we are currently discussing a budget in which one third of the legal bases are uncertain.
<P>
Secondly, as I did not have time to say this earlier, I too must quickly emphasise the importance of the payment arrears problem.
Several speakers have mentioned this, including the chairman of the Committee on Budgets.
I must also stress the desire of this House to see this issue resolved, but not to the detriment of future commitments and real payments corresponding to real commitments.
<P>
My third observation concerns the technical assistance offices, the TAOs.
I only had time to say that we favoured their gradual dismantling, but I must clarify that this does not mean their total dismantling.
We realise that certain TAOs are necessary because they carry out temporary or technical work.
What we do not want are the TAOs which only serve to make up for the Commission's staff shortages.
We therefore want many of the TAOs to be dismantled but not all of them, just those which are not operating correctly.
<P>
Thank you, Mr President, for allowing me to clarify these three points.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, when the Commission resigned it decided to continue to carry out its essential legal functions and obligations.
The budget is a legal obligation for the Commission.
If no Commission is nominated within a certain period then this Commission must present a budget to Parliament.
<P>
On that basis, I shall make a few comments on what the rapporteur and some other speakers have said.
Firstly, the Commission is very happy about the rapporteur's idea of bringing the other parliamentary committees closer to the budgetary procedure.
It is very important to increase control of the quality and the sectors in the budget.
So, it is good that the committees responsible for a certain area have direct discussions with the Budgets Committee.
Secondly, the Commission is also happy that Parliament has confirmed its commitment to the procedure of the amending letter on agriculture between institutions.
This has been one of the major innovations during this parliamentary period and it is important that it continues in the future.
<P>
Thirdly, the Commission agrees with the preoccupation of the rapporteur as far as the famous RAL, reste à liquider , the backlog, is concerned.
It is very important that it will be directly presented in next year's budget.
It will show what comes out of that budget, what payments have not been made and which are due to commitments in the past.
We will follow in our budgetary presentation the wish of the rapporteur.
<P>
Fourthly, on BATs, I was going to say much the same as Mr Bourlanges.
We should not simply say that all technical offices are out.
That would easily lead to a situation that very temporary technical tasks had to be done by the permanent European administration.
That could be very expensive and very impractical.
It is, of course, very clear that the whole review of the budget question, which was started last year when the first decisions of the Commission were taken and where the preparation for the vademecum for BATs continues, is of major importance.
I hope this vademecum can be presented to Parliament by the new Commission as one of its first acts.
We are making the technical preparations.
<P>
As to the resources, the broad exercise which the Commission is embarking on should be coming to an end by the spring.
It is continuing in the services and I hope that in the context of the budgetary procedure we can give more information about its results.
<P>
On activity-based budgeting, I must say that the profound reform of the budgetary procedure so that we can always treat the operational and administrative requirement at the same time is activity-based budgeting.
This idea was launched by the Commission this year and the Commission decision was taken on the basis that the budget for 2001 will be based on activity-based budgeting.
It will mean transparency. It will mean a procedure for operations so that all the requirements are attainable.
<P>
Finally, as you all know, the Berlin summit is starting tomorrow.
There are big questions to be decided but I will only comment on one of these, which we have already mentioned a few times. It is the question of administrative expenditure.
The Commission proposal aimed at stabilisation of the staff at the levels of one year ago.
The Council majority position has been the stabilisation of administrative expenditure which would lead to a reduction of 4 000 civil servants in all institutions with 3 000 in the Commission.
We cannot accept this.
The Commission has presented proposals for a reasonable reinforcement of the staff in the financial perspectives.
Every 1 000 officials will cost EUR 100m in the financial perspectives.
<P>
We heard yesterday that the presidency was more open than previously to this idea but it is very important that the Commission and Parliament work together to get such an interinstitutional agreement that reasonable but strictly controlled staff increases can be guaranteed for the forthcoming period.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Bourlanges">
Mr President, I just want to thank Mr Liikanen for his words and for the excellent cooperation we have always had with him.
In my opinion he is a really first-rate Commissioner with whom it has always been a pleasure to work in an atmosphere of warmth and great personal trust.
I felt this should be said.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Bourlanges.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 3 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Police cooperation
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="Stewart-Clark">
Mr President, firstly let me say that I am disappointed that I do not see the Council here but I am extremely glad to see Mrs Gradin.
The first of these drafts - headed No 130 - looks to the creation of a committee of senior police officers at a senior level within the framework of Article K3 of the Treaty of European Union.
While such a committee is undoubtedly necessary, since there has been virtually no forum until now where such persons can meet, it does not really achieve the objective of real cooperation in the field of law enforcement at operational level.
Consequently, my main amendments to this draft wish to see the creation of a multi-disciplinary group which comprises heads of police, customs and other law enforcement agencies, for example top civil servants in interior ministries.
<P>
Secondly, we think it is important that Europol should be given a more specific role.
The text implies a half-hearted involvement of this body.
Consequently, my amendments beef up the role of Europol by calling for its involvement in discussions, planning and implementation measures.
Thirdly, after consultation with, amongst others, the German presidency and the British Home Office, I have been more specific about some of the tasks which this new committee should carry out.
These include establishing mixed inspection operations at the external borders and the setting up of an effective information exchange and early warning system.
<P>
The second of these two drafts - No 129 - wishes to see the deployment of large numbers of police on recognised routes.
In this case we have included the vital element of intelligence and changed the text to read 'if necessary the deployment of large numbers'.
Here I just want to say that it really is important that we make use of intelligence resources and not simply put larger numbers of police and customs on the biggest routes.
Large criminal organisations are sufficiently intelligent themselves to know where the police have their resources.
Therefore, we have to counter that by improving our own intelligence resources.
<P>
Secondly, we do not like the words 'to ensure maximum possible police success, especially in the form of arrests'. We have substituted the words 'tracking down criminals and their organisations and bringing them to justice'.
Police and customs success should not be measured just by arrests but by success in bringing criminal organisations to justice.
It is my hope that the Council, the Commission and ourselves will be able to get together to make certain that these modifications take place in what are two thoroughly worthwhile initiatives which this Parliament has been able to improve upon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schmid">
Mr President, the proposals before the House on closer police cooperation in Europe are good ones.
That applies, firstly, to the idea that when the Council group on police cooperation meets, those who actually do the work must also be involved, namely the police officers.
Secondly, I agree with the proposal that the police should carry out operations on recognised routes.
This approach has already been tested successfully in the cooperation between the Schengen states.
It works.
The experience that has been collected - I have spoken to a police officer who is organising something of the kind - justifies introducing this as an instrument of police cooperation in the European Union.
<P>
Sir Jack has tabled amendments that we welcome.
We also do so because we know these proposals are based on talks with experts.
<P>
In particular, we endorse all his proposals concerning the joint action on police cooperation and agree with him that it should cover not just the police but also those working in customs and other relevant authorities.
<P>
Mr President, we have a problem with the German translation.
The phrase 'law enforcement agency', whose meaning is clear in English, has been translated into German as 'Vollstreckungsteam ' and 'Vollstreckungseinrichtung '.
They mean something quite different in German.
In German, Vollstreckung relates to the execution of death sentences or orders to pay.
It means something quite different.
So we have tabled an amendment to rectify this.
<P>
I fear we have a similar problem with Sir Jack's proposal about operations on routes.
The English phrase is 'the best and most sophisticated intelligence'.
All I can say is that he is right.
This was translated into German as 'die besten nachrichtendienstlichen Instrumente '.
In German that means including the secret services.
There are Member States, including mine, in which the secret service is strictly separate from the police.
So we emphasise that the English version is the authoritative one.
Then we can endorse the proposals.
<P>
I offer the remaining seconds of my speaking time to any one of the speakers to follow!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendes Bota">
Mr President, Sir Jack Stewart-Clark's report is short, to the point and effective.
If only the authorities entrusted with enforcing the law in a spirit of liberty, security and justice could be as swift, direct and effective in fighting both organised and spontaneous crime, which unfortunately are constantly on the increase.
Nevertheless, cooperation between the police and customs authorities has become a key factor in the success of this fight.
We therefore support the rapporteur's recommendation that a European-level multi-disciplinary group should be set up, with the power to make decisions on improving exchanges of information and on harmonising technical communications systems between the various national authorities.
<P>
We need to ensure that investigations at the external borders of the EU are effective and to investigate the main routes used for illegal activities.
It is therefore essential to beef up Europol's role, and that is the aim of the amendments we have proposed.
Although Europol has only really existed since October last year, following the protracted process of ratifying the 1995 Europol Convention, the Treaty of Amsterdam gives it a specific role.
It is not a European police force, but an instrument which the police authorities of the Member States must not fail to exploit to the full.
This process of police cooperation has proved its worth through the intergovernmental Schengen agreement, which has acted as a genuine test-bed.
This success obviously owes a great deal to the possibility of deploying large numbers of police officers when necessary, as recommended in the Enfopol no 129 draft, but as the rapporteur has quite rightly said, the success of these cooperative actions on crime should be measured in qualitative terms and not just by the number of arrests made.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Rosado Fernandes">
Mr President, in bullfighting there is something we call the ' espontâneo' , when someone from outside spontaneously jumps into the bullring to join in.
I could not resist the temptation to jump in myself and give my opinion on Sir Jack Stewart-Clark's report, as what shines through this report is the special attitude of someone who wants not just a police force, but a top-rate force.
In fact, the class of crime itself has risen over the years.
Crimes are no longer committed by men with gold teeth or with only one hand.
They are committed by the sort of people we invite to dinner, who have the same education as us, who went to the same universities, and even by people from excellent families.
Crime has nowadays become more refined, so I believe that the multi-disciplinary force proposed in the report is an extremely commendable idea.
The people who devise crimes have now become so sophisticated that we really need criminal science to beat them.
So it is not just a question of cops and robbers any more, crime has taken on an extra dimension because of the globalisation that has changed the world we live in.
<P>
I therefore welcome Sir Jack Stewart-Clark's proposals, as I think that they are in line with what we need to create a sophisticated, multi-disciplinary Europol, with high-calibre people, graduates and so forth.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
Mr President, cooperation between the police forces in the different countries, as well as between police and customs, is a welcome development in combating crime.
Much of Europol's work also contributes towards achieving the same end.
On the other hand, it is important to ensure that police cooperation stops short of effectively placing national police forces under EU command or making them subject to supranational decisions.
In the long run, as Europol continues to develop, there is also a risk of duplicating the work of Interpol.
It is essential that Europol should complement Interpol, rather than replace it.
<P>
I should like to comment on one particular point in the report, namely Amendment No 11 on the transmission of personal data.
The amendment is commendable in every way and highlights the importance of adhering to the relevant Council of Europe convention.
However, I am doubtful as to whether it goes far enough.
In my view, Europol currently has a number of serious shortcomings.
<P>
Article 10(1) of the Europol Convention and its implementing provisions allow considerable scope for compiling records on persons convicted or suspected of having committed a crime.
It is possible to record a great deal of sensitive personal data.
I therefore believe that it is essential to exert tighter control and that there should be an effective supervisory body when the register comes into operation, so as to avoid similar problems to those experienced with the SIS register under the Schengen Agreement.
In practice, the register should be more strictly controlled and better supervised.
It is already having a detrimental effect both in terms of integration and combating crime.
In my view, it should be a basic requirement that registration applies only to those people who have been convicted or are suspected of having committed a crime.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Blot">
Mr President, with regard to the first text, Amendment No 4 to Article 2 haphazardly introduces all kinds of multinational inspections which do not correspond to any operational requirements but are rather for purposes of political show.
I therefore believe that this amendment should not be included.
<P>
With regard to the second text which concerns fuller monitoring of the routes used by criminals, I am astonished to see just how politically correct and unoriginal the amendments proposed by the rapporteur are.
Amendment No 1 in the French version deletes illegal immigration and Amendment No 4 omits the expression 'police authorities'.
You are living in cloud-cuckoo-land if you think that by deleting these words you can eliminate what is happening in reality.
<P>
We must therefore act rationally and reject amendments that spring from a superstitious fear of the aspects of reality which are perhaps distasteful to the rapporteur.
Illegal immigration is a real problem.
Police authorities are a necessity in any civilised society.
I would also add that frank words are a step forward, not a step back.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, the great challenge for police cooperation in Europe in the future will not be the harmonisation of legislation, but the creation of practical cooperation at grassroots level among all European states.
Without a common approach and shared resources the various early warning systems in place to prevent criminal activity will never function satisfactorily.
Europol must be granted significant powers and a clear role in both the coordination of checks taking place on the Union's external border and in the development of the information exchange and early warning systems used by the authorities.
<P>
It is important that, with the aid of Europol, we should be able to establish permanent cooperation in police and customs matters between officials in the Central and Eastern European countries that have applied for EU membership and those in the Union.
One of the greatest concerns and hopes of the citizens of the EU, with regard to the enlargement of the Union, is that the single market should be kept secure with more being done to make the task of combatting international crime more effective.
For this reason, one of the strategies prior to membership should be to focus to a greater degree than is currently the case on training the police and customs authorities in the former Communist bloc.
Applicant countries must forge lasting links with cooperation agencies that operate under the auspices of Europol, such as police and customs officers' work groups, well in advance of EU membership.
<P>
The extraordinary summit meeting scheduled to take place in Tampere during the Finnish Presidency will be devoted to the internal security of the Union, including action to combat drug trafficking, which is rife in the single market.
At Tampere there must also be broader debate on the future challenges facing police cooperation in the Union, with special focus on the problems stemming from the enlargement process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Gradin">
Mr President, Sir Jack Stewart-Clark has compiled an excellent report on these two joint actions.
The presidency intends to strengthen European cooperation and coordination in order to combat organised crime, an aim which the Commission wholeheartedly supports.
For a long time now, we have been aware of the need to improve both the system for exchanging information and the cooperation in passing on intelligence about criminals within the Union.
Schengen cooperation has already set us on the right road, and now it is up to the Union to exploit its achievements fully.
In our view, there is also a need for clearer guidelines for carrying out joint operations, as well as for education and training activities.
<P>
We also note with satisfaction that Europol has been given an important role in both joint actions, particularly in relation to the development of strategies to uncover the routes used by smugglers.
We regard this as a very constructive step.
The Commission and the Member States will consider together the most effective ways of implementing the two joint actions.
In particular, I am considering the possibilities for allocating project support through the Oisin and Falcone programmes.
<P>
Finally, the Commission is able to support the amendments tabled by the rapporteur and the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
In our view, they help to make the significance of both instruments substantially clearer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Gradin.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 3 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Leonardo da Vinci programme
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0108/99), on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the common position adopted by the Council (13380/2/98 - C4-0001/99-98/0196(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Decision establishing the second phase of the Community vocational training action programme 'Leonardo da Vinci' (Rapporteur: Mrs Waddington).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Waddington">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as you know, the Leonardo Programme has been at the centre of the crisis in the Commission.
It has attracted attention, not because of its aims and purpose to be the flagship for the European Union's vocational training policy, but because it has become associated with mismanagement, fraud, secrecy and nepotism.
My task as rapporteur has been to help prepare a new programme, Leonardo II.
My primary concern has been to ensure the new Leonardo Programme, which is due to begin on 1 January 2000, is of real benefit to the citizens of the European Union; that it makes a contribution to modernising vocational training systems through encouraging mobility, transnational cooperation and dissemination of good practice.
<P>
The Leonardo Programme should be a laboratory of innovation that encourages and enables a wide-range of partners and trainees to gain access to new opportunities and new ideas.
So, my main focus has been on the beneficiaries.
It is significant that this Parliament has demonstrated its commitment to its beneficiaries of the programme by continuing to work to investigate, to consult and to propose improvements to Leonardo II despite the crisis in the Commission.
<P>
The Commission, or certain parts of it, have let us down and have let the beneficiaries down by not ensuring the efficient and proper administration of the current Leonardo Programme, but I believe that we, as Members of this Parliament, have a mandate to increase opportunity by improving the programmes that are funded by the European Union.
I am therefore recommending two amendments to the Parliament after considering the Audit Report and that of the Wise People.
<P>
Neither the Socialist Group nor the PPE on the Social Affairs Committee want to see a system perpetuated which allows a contractor to misuse Community resources and then declare itself bankrupt.
We are therefore calling for the accountable Commission services to undertake the administrative work for Leonardo II. That is why I have agreed to support Amendment No 34 which could be described as being either Old Labour or New Conservatism or indeed a new third way.
<P>
I now turn to the details of the other amendments agreed by the Employment and Social Affairs Committee.
Firstly, I am pleased to say that the Council has agreed to many of Parliament's amendments which were determined at first-reading stage.
In addition, I understand that the presidency are supporting the spirit or the letter of several of the amendments that have been retabled for this second reading by the Social Affairs and Employment Committee.
<P>
The amendments which have been retabled cover complementarity between Leonardo II, the European Social Fund and the Employment Guidelines.
They give greater priority to life-long learning as opposed to exclusively concentrating on youth training. They give greater emphasis to access and systems of access to support those vulnerable to exclusion and discrimination including disabled people, and they extend the range of partners to include nongovernmental organisations and SMEs.
<P>
The re-tabled amendments also aim to improve evaluation and monitoring systems and streamline and improve the management and decision-making procedures.
In brief, I am aiming at defining Leonardo II as the programme which is concerned with developing vocational training systems for all, an inclusive approach which helps influence and develop training opportunities across the European Union and will link in with the European Social Fund and the Employment Guidelines.
<P>
The aim of these amendments is to prepare for a new programme which is not associated with fraud, but with an increase of opportunity, rigour and transparency.
I am also aware of the importance of agreeing these proposals today to ensure there is proper time for preparation for the new programme, and that it starts on time on 1 January 2000.
This timetable would not be achieved if we waited until the Amsterdam Treaty comes into force in May.
So just as the Leonardo I Programme has been central in illustrating the shortcomings of the Commission structures, this new programme, Leonardo II, and our decisions today will illustrate a new beginning and a determination by this Parliament to continue to work for employment and training opportunities for Europe's citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Velzen, Wim">
Mr President, Mrs Waddington, who has done a splendid job with this report, focused in her presentation on the content of Leonardo, and rightly so.
I shall focus on the management of it.
The lack of decent management for Leonardo may be seen as one of the root causes of the crisis in which we find ourselves at the moment.
So it would be foolish not to spend some time on it in today's sitting.
<P>
However, it would be wrong to look at the conclusions to be drawn from the work of the technical assistance offices only in terms of what should happen with Leonardo in the future, since technical assistance offices are a general phenomenon seen in all the directorates-general.
So it seems right and proper to me to draw general conclusions.
In effect, those conclusions have already been drawn in the report of the Wise Men, where it says that the Commission should never delegate essential political responsibilities to individuals and that any contracts concluded must contain strict provisions to ensure that the general interest is served at all times and not the interest of the private company.
It also says that the authorities must exercise such tight scrutiny that there can be no question of the external advisors being over-dependent.
Mrs Waddington made that point too.
<P>
These are lessons which we think the Commission has to learn, but it would be laughable to talk only of lessons for the Commission.
There are lessons here for the European Parliament and the Council too, because one of the lessons to be clearly learned is that budgetary policy is one of the reasons for the crisis.
Many things have been called for by Parliament, but there are few resources structured into the budget.
I think we have to draw these conclusions clearly in the budget debate and especially in the second reading in September, and that means finding solutions to the problems of the past and it means a bigger budget for recruiting in-house expertise.
That is not to say that I am suggesting a permanent ban on the use of technical assistance offices.
If they meet the criteria, they can certainly help to ease the load temporarily.
<P>
Lastly, we find ourselves in a very strange position.
Mrs Waddington has dealt mostly with the Council, since the Commission is not functioning for the moment.
So a special responsibility rests with the Council.
Normally, unanimity is needed in the Council to reject an amendment by Parliament if it is acceptable to the Commission.
That situation does not exist at present.
It means that the Council could overrule the agreement between Mrs Waddington and the German Presidency.
I think that this situation provides grounds for obliging the Council to stand by the agreement it has concluded and thus prevent a unanimous vote in the Council to reject the agreement concluded with Parliament.
That is a particular aspect which I think deserves special attention, not only in connection with this subject of our debate but with subsequent ones as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Thomas">
Mr President, since our debate on the second phase of the Leonardo da Vinci programme on 5 November last year, much has changed.
What remains the same is the objective.
We want to supplement Member States' European vocational training actions and achieve complementarity between them.
With a view to making them more effective, we are seeking to network them with other training programmes such as Socrates and Youth, as also with Community initiatives and the Structural Funds.
<P>
Vocational training makes an ideal contribution to innovation, to creating new jobs and to achieving long-term competitiveness on world markets.
However, there are two preconditions: firstly, integrated systems and, secondly, adequate funding.
<P>
Various key concepts remain topical, such as promoting a higher level of vocational training, integrated in our lifelong learning strategy, equal opportunities for men and women, the removal of all forms of discrimination, qualified access to further training and paying special attention to re-training, to the reintegration of marginalised, disabled and older workers and the constructive dialogue with non-governmental organisations.
It also remains most important substantially to boost the resources for Leonardo, as we have called for.
Nobody would seriously question that need, given the new scope, the new duration and the new, much expanded field of application of the programme.
<P>
What has, however, changed drastically, is how the programme is implemented, for one of the reasons for the European Commission's resignation early last week was the mismanagement of Leonardo.
The ad hoc committee of inquiry, which is known as the Committee of Wise Men, confirmed in full the findings of the European Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control.
It found a large number of irregularities which, it said, 'must be considered an incitement to corruption'.
The tender procedures were not evaluated on a neutral basis.
Instead, organisations that had close links with the clients were given preference as contractors or contracting partners.
Think of the times interested parties have complained to us, the responsible Members of the European Parliament, about a number of dubious decisions!
Mrs Cresson omitted to inform the President of the Commission or the European Parliament of them.
As the Wise Men's Report also says, and I quote: 'It is elementary 'common sense' that the Commission should have supported the Parliament's decision-making process.'
Facts were indeed kept from us that could have served as background on how to structure the successor programme.
<P>
I call on Sue Waddington, who has once again done an excellent and detailed job, to support the PPE Group's amendments.
<P>
We want the Commission, when it implements Leonardo, not to turn to outside bodies but to restructure, Mr Liikanen, and turn to staff from its own ranks.
It must remain responsible, must not leave the right to act to others and must undertake to monitor actions and resources carefully.
The tasks of national administrative authorities - and this is our second amendment - must also be performed by internal staff and not by third parties.
<P>
On the basis of these amendments the Commission should manage to create transparency and ensure precise supervision of tasks and expenditure.
This new departure is worth it for the sake of the vocational future of hundreds of thousands of young Europeans!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, technically speaking this is a good programme.
The previous Leonardo programme was technically a good one too, and ten times oversubscribed.
So there is great interest in this programme amongst the people of Europe.
Mrs Waddington has done an excellent job, but that is not the problem.
The problem for me is that we are here today as if nothing had happened, as if there were no Committee of Wise Men's report and as if there were no lessons for us to learn from it.
I do not think it would be a wise move to approve this programme today.
We still do not know what the European Council intends to do about the future of the European Commission, how quickly solutions will be found to the problems which have arisen, so that they can be consigned to the past.
We are again proposing to increase the budget for Leonardo in due course, and I too am in favour of doing that, but on the other hand we still have no guarantee at all that the problems which have arisen will be resolved adequately.
So when it comes to the vote, I shall ask for a postponement until April.
That is perfectly feasible, because Coreper is meeting on 14 April and there will be time to vote before then.
In that event, we shall at least be sure that the European Council takes the crisis seriously and is keen to resolve it.
<P>
I am amazed to find that there is little support for this idea amongst other honourable Members.
I cannot understand that, because if we do not vote for a postponement, we shall lose the leverage we have at this time.
And my group will face the difficulty of having to choose whether to vote or not.
I shall then have to look for a list, and I am not all that keen to surrender my chance to vote.
So perhaps we can think of some other means of putting pressure on the Council.
But the preferable course and the best political signal we can give is to postpone the vote.
I would once again urge the House to follow this course. Otherwise we shall be doing just the same in political terms as we have always done before.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Guinebertière">
Mr President, I am pleased that the administration of the Leonardo da Vinci programme has come in for very detailed scrutiny.
The most troubling aspect of the findings has been the wasted money which has not been used for training.
We know that the programmes are always the subject of trade-offs or rather tussles between the Council and Parliament over the budgets agreed.
If we start using the money correctly, we will reap the rewards in effectiveness.
<P>
The programme has nevertheless been satisfactory.
Its purpose is not in doubt but it needs to change, particularly with regard to its priority target groups.
If Europe is accused of creating unemployment, it must provide solutions such as the Leonardo programme, which is designed to improve the employability of people and create more companies.
<P>
The fact remains that the Council and Commission are wrong not to have accepted the amendments giving priority access to this programme for disabled people and allowing special access for the most disadvantaged.
The complementary nature of this programme with regard to the ESF has also not been accepted.
<P>
Why seven years for the programme?
Surely this is too long.
What purpose will interim evaluations serve if the programme is fixed for so long?
Finally, I am sorry to see that once again the common position does not give much room to the social partners in the administration of the programme.
In Europe, Leonardo da Vinci is the symbol of creativity and ingenuity.
These virtues cannot be said to have inspired the Council and Commission.
<P>
This is why our citizens do not believe in the added value of Europe and this is to be regretted.
We must ensure that Parliament provides the stimulus for the Commission and Council to take the people into account.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, I think we really do now have a classic example of the problems involved in the European programmes.
A good, indeed an essential programme, is simply not a carte blanche for mismanagement.
During the last discussion we also said that in the interests of Leonardo II it was urgently necessary that Mrs Cresson put her house in order.
The situation has turned out to be rather more acute in the meantime, but the house is being put in order.
In that respect, we are seeing progress.
<P>
Leonardo II has made it possible to create the European dimension of vocational training, to give access to lifelong learning, not just as a slogan for those who lack qualifications but as an opportunity.
Here Parliament has a special responsibility to bring about progress through dialogue with the Council.
<P>
Of course we have to consider how we can effectively resolve the question of public accountability for the use of public monies.
We will not be able simply to fall back on old models of public administration.
They are no longer appropriate.
We need modern models that also use the instruments of contract awarding.
But that cannot mean handing over the money to industry or to mafia-like structures and letting them manage it themselves.
That is bound to lead to the results we have seen.
We must put an end to that.
We need to return to public accountability.
That is the central task to which the Council and Parliament must now apply themselves together and which the new Commission must resolve.
I hope the caretaker Commission will take supportive action towards this aim.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, this Leonardo programme is important but has been badly managed.
The mismanagement and irregularities which came to light made me keen to go to the courts, for fear of a cover-up otherwise.
Happily that did not happen.
On the contrary, things came to a head in the crisis and we now know for certain that this Augean stable at any rate is going to be cleaned out.
But we are still not totally reassured, and I would ask the Commission to be especially careful, because there is currently the risk of a real foul-up and people are hiding behind the fact that the cases, the dossiers, have been sealed by the courts.
<P>
At present there is no follow-up to the Leonardo programme, and that is not a good thing.
The programme is in danger of grinding to a halt because even the applications are not being processed.
But the situation can be saved if qualified staff from the former TAOs are put on to the job at once.
The argument that the dossiers are sealed does not stand up, since there are duplicates of all files which can be used, provided there is sensible and urgent liaison by the Commission, the trustee and the investigating magistrate.
<P>
In future the practice of TAOs must be avoided as far as possible, if not banned altogether, if only to prevent the operation by these TAOs - under the noses of our own Social Affairs Committee - of a staff policy which is totally at odds with any form of social legislation in the Member States.
I would therefore ask the Commission, the Council and Parliament to sit down together and insist that the dossiers are processed, so that a programme which all of us here think is so important can indeed continue in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papakyriazis">
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Pronk">
Mr President, I too agree that this programme is very important, and my sincere thanks to Mrs Waddington for all the hard work she has put in on it.
In a European jobs market, I think it is most important for people to gain experience of working in other Member States, and that is what this programme makes possible.
That is obvious, from the degree to which it is oversubscribed.
<P>
I shall touch on the question of the TAOs, because this is what has exercised us most of late.
I totally agree with what Wim van Velzen and Thomas Mann said on the subject.
But I think there is something else going on here.
The Commissioner told the Committee on Budgets that anyone opposed to the TAOs was in fact 'old Labour'.
I felt very strongly, as someone whose grandfather in the Netherlands stood on the Malieveld to prevent a socialist revolution from breaking out in the Netherlands, about being described as 'old Labour', when there are major questions to be asked about these TAOs.
I agree with those who say, and also as Wim van Velzen said, that TAOs are all right in certain cases, but in very restricted cases, in my view.
In general, we have a problem with what might be called the core business of government.
That was the problem here.
When a firm goes under, you then realise the difficulties we face.
Everything stops, because a Belgian judge has to decide on something which is in fact a European case. I do not think that is right.
How would people feel if, for example, the whole administration of Finland's social security system was contracted out to Sweden, and the Swedish firm then went bust?
I think it might create a few problems in Finland.
I believe we should be mindful of this.
In creating a TAO we are exceeding the Union's legal powers, so if a business fails you have to consider how far the Union's interests may be harmed.
<P>
Another point which is of course very relevant is the question of social security contributions.
In ten or so cases, these have either been underpaid or not paid at all.
The Commission has not exercised adequate scrutiny here.
Vis-à-vis the Belgian authorities, TAOs often claim to be part of the EU apparatus, which is not the case because they are subject to Belgian law.
That gives rise to a very disagreeable situation.
So I think that in this programme certainly, which spawned the whole concept of the TAO, we must not allow TAOs.
We cannot afford to.
The Council cannot afford to, at least not if it really is intent on cleaning up its act.
We cannot afford it, and we must find budgetary solutions to remedy the situation, otherwise things will be impossible.
We cannot allow just one TAO to remain.
If we do, we lose all credibility, and for that reason we have tabled an amendment.
That amendment resolves the matter, I would say, and this TAO will then in any event be reduced to what it is.
In this case, the TAO is NBG - it is a bad thing, and we must not forget that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR).">
Madam President, this is a praiseworthy report which should promote access to education, employment and experience, combat discrimination and enhance equality of opportunity and the integration of handicapped people into the labour market and working life.
It has particular significance for small and medium-sized businesses and industrial and manufacturing enterprises.
It is essential that the labour market partners are included in the cooperation process from the outset in order to reinforce employability, since the whole point of education is to have a job at the end.
Together we must each play our part in reducing unemployment and increasing employment opportunities in Europe.
It is one of our major tasks.
<P>
However, a totally different system of control and evaluation and of keeping Parliament regularly informed needs to be introduced, as well as openness and transparency, in order to improve the programme's credibility.
I think that in reality it would be somewhat challenging to deal on the same day with both the departure of the Commission and the Leonardo da Vinci programme, which was in fact one of the main reasons for its resignation because of the fraud, nepotism and mismanagement associated with the programme.
It would seem sensible to postpone a vote until the problems arising from the financial mismanagement of previous projects has been investigated.
I hope that others will also realise that this is important, not least in terms of the way in which our work in Parliament is perceived.
In any event, our group will stress this aspect before a decision is taken.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Liikanen">
Madam President, I am here in exceptional circumstances so I will be very brief.
Firstly, the Commission can accept 30 of the 33 amendments tabled to the Waddington report.
The amendments which the Commission cannot accept are Nos 12 and 21.
With regard to Amendment No 26, which is the major amendment concerning the technical assistance offices, I will set out the Commission's reservations in written form.
<P>
We had discussions earlier in this Chamber on that very point when we talked about budgetary priorities for the year 2000.
The position of the rapporteur then was that one should not on principle abolish all technical assistance offices but should guarantee that they do not exercise public sector tasks.
We have been working on the general rules of that area and I would just like to say that it is clear that the ways the technical assistance offices have been used have been too vague and they have exercised two different tasks.
<P>
We need to arrive at a situation where the task given to the technical assistance offices could be clearly defined: the rules for unprofessional conduct, the rules on the correct management of funds and - last, but not least, the very important important made by Mr Pronk - that there should be an external authorised auditor on every technical assistance office to guarantee that all national legislation is being fulfilled.
This would create a different basis for their function.
But I do not want to go into detail on this discussions. We must come back to that in other contexts.
<P>
However, it is clear that in the short and medium-term we need some solutions for those tasks which are temporary and short-term and which must be done quickly.
For the European public administration we must transfer those which have the element of decision-making, where political power, so to speak, is being held.
I will give the details on that position to Mrs Waddington later.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Liikanen.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 3 p.m.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 12.10 p.m. and resumed at 3.05 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I should like to welcome the recipient of the Nobel Prize for literature, Mr José Saramago, who is present with us in the official gallery.
<P>
Loud applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, on a point of order.
I know that we all complain of a lack of interest in the work of Parliament but that is partly our own responsibility.
At 8 50 p.m. last night a member of the Japanese mission attempted to gain entry to Parliament to listen to the debate on Mr Tindemans' report on KEDO.
He was told by our security staff that the session was over.
As I was here between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. with a large number of Members of Parliament, maybe we could give our security staff not only a calendar of part-sessions but also a timetable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="President">
We will immediately look into that and take the necessary measures to avoid a similar situation occurring in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Duhamel">
Mr President, I have just learnt from Reuters that weapons have been seized in Brussels from a car belonging to Mr Le Pen. To be exact, a pump-action shotgun, tear-gas grenades and a handgun were found in his car.
I should like to know what the Chair can do in order to ensure that the prestige of Parliament is not damaged by events of this gravity.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="President">
Mr Duhamel, I believe that Mr Martinez is going to explain why these weapons were there, assuming that this is true.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Mr President, you are right to say 'assuming that this is true'.
On a previous occasion Mr Duhamel informed you that a president of the Chilean Senate who was a Pinochet supporter was present, to which you replied that he was not representing Pinochet.
The same applies today.
The weapon in question is a spray-type tear-gas grenade which can be bought in any supermarket.
This is Mr Duhamel's 'riot gun' or whatever he called it.
<P>
So what is the situation?
I gave you a letter about this at about 11.30 this morning, Mr President.
Our colleague and group chairman, Mr Le Pen, enjoys official protection provided by the French Ministry of the Interior. This protection stops at the Franco-Belgian border, since there still is a Franco-Belgian border, which means that the official agents of the French Socialist Ministry of the Interior cannot continue on to Brussels.
<P>
For the journey from the border to Brussels, Mr Le Pen has his own official bodyguard and a chauffeur to protect him.
The official bodyguard is officially permitted to carry firearms just like all bodyguards.
And that is what this is all about.
There were no rockets, missile launchers, booby-trapped cars or any trafficking of Serbian or Albanian weapons.
It was simply a small tear-gas grenade and the firearms carried by an official bodyguard.
<P>
This being the case, the arrival of spring together with the climate changes must have affected Mr Duhamel's brain, unless he has been eating British beef.
This was all it was, Mr President, that Mr Duhamel got so worked up about.
<P>
Applause, calls of approval, beating on tables by Members
<P>
As there are no terrorists, no weapons and no rockets, there is no crime.
My letter to you, Mr President, basically asks you to ensure that the immunities enjoyed by MEPs are respected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="President">
Very well, I think everyone has got the message.
Anyone wanting more details can ask me for a copy of your letter.
The matter is therefore closed, and I will not allow anyone else to speak on this.
We should not be discussing questions in this House which are a matter of Belgian law and order.
There will be no personal statements.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, I am not going to talk about arms, but another kind of terrorism.
We have had a splendid building constructed here, the Parliament building, with smoking and non-smoking areas clearly demarcated.
I am not against smokers: they may smoke in peace to their hearts' content, but I wish they would respect those who do not smoke and keep well clear of the non-smoking areas, allowing us to enjoy a smokeless environment.
<P>
Applause
<P>
I hope the President will bring this to people's attention in the corridors, coffee shops and restaurants.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="President">
In principle, these measures already exist. One should expect 'no smoking' notices to be complied with, but reminders will be issued if necessary.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="President">
In the absence of written opposition, the resolution contained in this report is deemed adopted and will be published in the Minutes of today's sitting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I am wondering whether our own amendment is admissible.
The French version already contains the words I wish to add: 'the members of the Commission'.
Is the French text or the English text the authentic one?
If it is the English text, I maintain the amendment, because I do not think it includes this reference.
Otherwise, I think the amendment should be withdrawn.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="President">
It is the English version, and we shall put your amendment to the vote.
<P>
Before the vote on Amendment No 14
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I feel that Amendment No 3, which appears in the voting list after paragraph 9, serves the same purpose but goes further.
I think it should be put to the vote before Amendment No 14.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="President">
Your amendment is included in the vote, but later on.
This one comes after paragraph 2 and the other after paragraph 9, I believe.
So I shall put it to the vote afterwards.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Elles">
Mr President, in this case Mr Fabre-Aubrespy is right.
It deals with the case of Mr Van Buitenen.
Amendment No 3 goes further. It should be voted first.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="President">
I have no objection if that is the case.
<P>
Before the vote on Amendment No 19
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Just a word, Mr President, about Amendment No 19.
This is a very important amendment which simply requests that the Committee of Experts, of which we quite rightly have such a high opinion, should consider Parliament's administrative and financial operation.
At a time when the public at large is watching what is going on ...
<P>
The President cut the speaker off
<P>
On Amendment No 12
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stenzel">
Mr President, I would like to withdraw the first part of my amendment, paragraph 5a, since I see that this aspect of the Commissioners' individual accountability is also covered by Article 5; but I will maintain paragraph 5b, demanding of the Council that a procedure be laid down as soon as possible which enables individual Commissioners to be called to account.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="President">
The author of an amendment can withdraw it and, if no one takes it over, it stands withdrawn.
The first part of Amendment No 12, paragraph 5a, has therefore been withdrawn.
<P>
We shall now vote on paragraph 5b of Amendment No 12.
<P>
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I wished to say that I was taking over this amendment but proposing a modified oral version to the House.
This version is extremely simple and reads as follows: 'insists that members of the Commission who have resigned under no circumstances be allowed to be members of the new Commission'.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="President">
An oral amendment can only be put to the vote if there is no opposition from the House.
I think there is clearly opposition to this vote, so I cannot accept the amendment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="President">
Are there 12 Members who are opposed to this oral amendment by Mr Fabre-Aubrespy being put to the vote?
That is the case, so I cannot put it to the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="President">
Will you take over the amendment as it stands, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
I have seen what has happened in public and before the whole Parliament, and I am quite happy.
<P>
On Amendment No 1
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Green">
Mr President, with regard to the next amendment - Amendment No 1 - could I ask Mr Cox if he is prepared to accept an oral amendment.
I have no problem with the principle he is trying to introduce, namely that we should have a new Commission by the end of this Parliament.
However, I think that allows us a bit longer than 5 May, should we need it.
I would be obliged, if he were willing to accept as an oral amendment: 'for a vote of approval by 5 May or at the latest by the end of the life of this Parliament'.
This would allow us a bit more flexibility.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Cox">
Mr President, this is like a TV quiz show - I am getting different advice from each side.
I am happy as long as we indicate a preference in timing while being realistic enough to realise that we do not control all the possibilities.
We would like the Council to assist us with the earliest possible time but if they fail to approve the Commission by 5 May, then at least we should have as a fallback that we can approve the Commission within the life of the Parliament.
I would like to keep the date and I can accept the fallback as an addition to the text, if that meets with the approval of the House.
<P>
More than 12 Members were opposed to the oral addition to Amendment No 1
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, the text of the resolution we have just adopted will be available this afternoon in all the languages.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have just adopted the resolution calling for the summit to appoint a new Commission.
We are now being asked to vote on what should happen about the Leonardo report, a report by Mrs Waddington which in itself has nothing wrong with it.
Mrs Waddington has done an excellent job, but my group thinks that voting on this report at the present time sends out a very bad signal, as if nothing were amiss, when we do not know if the Council is going to shoulder its responsibilities and come up with the right proposals at the forthcoming summit.
It is technically possible to postpone this vote until April.
My group very much favours doing that, and commends that course of action to the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="President">
Mrs Boogerd-Quaak, if I have understood correctly, you are asking for this vote to be postponed pursuant to Rule 131.
I shall therefore call one speaker in favour and one against, but first give the floor to the rapporteur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Waddington">
Mr President, I would like to say that I am opposed to the proposal from Mrs Boogerd-Quaak to refer this back.
There are no matters for us to consider within the committee and we want to send a strong message today to the Council and the Commission for the new programme.
It is vital that both the Council and the Commission have the time to introduce the new programme on 1 January 2000.
Preparations must be carried out now and since there are no disagreements amongst us, we believe that the vote should be taken this afternoon.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we must learn to distinguish between European programmes and their poor management by the Commission.
Mrs Cresson did not have carte blanche to do what she did and say: it is a good programme so I can do what I want.
But conversely, we must not now jeopardise a good programme by postponing it because of poor management.
We should really distinguish between the two, which is why we should vote today.
<P>
Applause
<P>
(Parliament rejected the request)
<P>
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Tindemans">
Ladies and gentlemen, the Foreign Affairs Committee has tabled three amendments to its own motion for a resolution, in order to take account of what Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan said here yesterday evening in the debate about the European Parliament's involvement in international agreements concluded under the Euratom Treaty.
The Foreign Affairs Committee is tabling three amendments and has decided to delete paragraphs 4 and 5 of the draft text which proposed blocking funds for KEDO.
As rapporteur, and in agreement with the draftsmen for the Committees on Research and Budgets, I would therefore ask the House to adopt Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 3 and reject paragraphs 4 and 5.
<P>
Parliament adopted the resolution
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Last night during the debate on the oral question the Council was absent.
I asked on behalf of those present whether the presidency could reply to the question before the vote today.
Has the Council replied?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="President">
I am told that we have in fact received a reply, Mr Brinkhorst, so your intervention has produced results.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Mr President, could you please have that circulated to Members?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="President">
We shall obviously circulate this reply, if it has indeed been received.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Tindemans">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to say a word or two about the amendments tabled by the Group of the European Radical Alliance to the motion for a resolution on relations between the European Union and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
We were unaware of these amendments yesterday evening when we debated this, so I was not able to give any verdict or comments then.
The motion for a resolution on which we have to vote in a moment was introduced by the Foreign Affairs Committee as a complement to its report on KEDO and with the express aim of making a justified attempt to dispel suspicion in this most isolated state of North Korea and to bring it closer into the international community.
The three rapporteurs for the Committees on Foreign Affairs, Budgets and Research were involved in this.
We were eager for contacts and meetings and to see how these might be brought about, how we might find ways of perhaps creating mutual trust, including contacts between our two parliaments.
We had to forge links which would make dialogue possible.
As convinced democrats, we naturally found many things to criticise, and the amendments tabled by the ARE Group are clearly based on criticism.
But I have to say that the motion for a resolution did not set out primarily to be critical.
We were very much aware that if we could not establish better links with North Korea, if we could not persuade North Korea to join the international community, we would have to expect a humanitarian and perhaps even a security disaster of enormous proportions.
The motion for a resolution was drawn up very carefully by the Foreign Affairs Committee and with input too from the draftsmen, Mr Ford and Mr Brinkhorst.
So I would urge you not to adopt the amendments tabled by the ARE Group and to maintain the motion for a resolution tabled by the Foreign Affairs Committee unchanged and in its entirety.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, as far as the procedure is concerned, I must say that it would really be the last straw if we could not vote on these amendments.
We were not able to table amendments in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and it seems we cannot table amendments in the plenary either. I think this is really too much.
<P>
In substance, Mr Tindemans is advocating trust.
We hold the opposite view, since no trust can be placed in a psychopathic regime.
This regime needs to be placed under international supervision, and this should be done straight away!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Dupuis.
In any event, I would confirm that these amendments will be put to the vote.
There is no problem with the procedure.
<P>
Parliament adopted the resolution
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="Terrón i Cusí">
Mr President, I simply wish to say that I would like to withdraw the ends of two of the amendments tabled by my own group, in the interests of preserving the consensus that prevailed throughout the drafting of this report.
From Amendment No 1, I should like to delete the end, after 'draws attention to Turkish incursions into the area'. And from Amendment No 4, I also wish to delete the end, that is, the part following the sentence: 'Calls on the Member States, the Council and the Commission to renew their efforts to formulate a common foreign policy, in view of the challenge posed by the repression of the Kurdish people'.
I would like this revised wording to go forward to the vote.
<P>
In addition, I should like to join my colleague Mr Brinkhorst in regretting the Council's absence during yesterday's debate on this report.
This is a Council document which was only referred to the Committee on Civil Liberties for consultation a year after it had been approved.
Moreover, the fact that we do not even know at this stage whether or not the Council has acknowledged receipt of this report seems quite unacceptable.
I should also like to know if the protest I made yesterday and my request for a response have been forwarded to the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Terrón i Cusí.
<P>
Parliament adopted the resolution
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, firstly, the Commission - the guardian of the Treaties - sank into the mire, as described in the report of the five Wise Men.
Secondly, this happened because the Commission was a slave to and served the interests of big multinational monopolies.
And thirdly, it functioned and acted without being under any strict, specific, objective or joint form of control.
<P>
In the current quest to replace Mr Santer's team with another, and for the distribution of interests and responsibilities to take place, unless these two conditions are met - control and the creation of independence, releasing this Commission from the grip of interests - we will have the same outcomes. And I fear that the time will come when this Parliament will say: 'We have lost everything.
We have lost the battle and we have lost our honour.'
<P>
We will not be able to say what King Francis said in the sixteenth century: 'Everything was lost in the battle, save our honour'.
We will not be able to say that.
Even the honour of the European Union will be lost.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, I regretfully had to abstain in this vote and I would like to explain why.
Basically I was very much in favour, but there were two points I could not accept.
The first is that this resolution leaves the road open for this so-called Committee of Experts, which has indeed done well here, to go on working for ever.
It is quite simply a mistake on the part of Parliament to bring in outsiders instead of assigning these tasks to the Committee on Budgetary Control.
That is the first reason.
The second is that I find the resolution far too weak.
We could have taken a much more vigorous and definite approach since this was after all an affair in which Parliament has finally shown a bit of muscle, which could have been reflected more strongly in this resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, as I was not given the floor yesterday in the debate, I would like first of all to say how very much I regret that, following the Committee of Independent Experts' report with its rather arbitrary conclusions and the ill-considered and irresponsible reactions of some people in this Parliament, some of the public have been led to believe that the process of European construction is just a sordid business of fraud, waste and irresponsibility.
<P>
Fortunately, this is not the case, and I very much want to pay tribute to the four years of work done by the Santer Commission, which carried out all of the political programme that Mr Santer presented to Parliament.
Moreover, we cannot deny that it was Mr Santer's Commission that took decisions and measures designed to clean up the Delors heritage of administrative and other anomalies.
The Santer Commission does not deserve to be described by the independent experts as irresponsible when it comes to supervising its own administration.
<P>
I particularly regret that it was a female Commissioner who failed to act as a decent politician and face the consequences of her actions and her evident favouritism in time by resigning.
She has set a bad example which is detrimental to all women involved in politics in Europe.
<P>
Finally, I did not vote against the resolution.
I abstained, because it does salvage something by calling for a reasonable timetable for appointing a new Commission.
Nonetheless, I was not able to vote in favour because there is a lack of balance in paragraph 2 with its overly positive assessment of the extremely arbitrary conclusions reached by the Committee of Experts, which unfortunately has been asked to continue its work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, I too voted for the resolution.
Nevertheless, I do not think Parliament has exactly covered itself with glory.
It would have been better had we had the courage in January to call on Parliament to take matters further towards their logical conclusion.
I believe that in future we must not just call for the restructuring of the Commission but also become more self-confident vis-à-vis the Commission ourselves.
Let me give an example: in my opinion the way in which the Commission fobs us off with our written questions is quite appalling!
Some of what it puts in its answers is ridiculous and I really wish that the President of the Commission, but also the Bureau of Parliament, would make it clear to the Commission that we expect proper answers and indeed answers which stand up in law against the Commission.
We do not want information we already know!
<P>
Secondly, I would really like to see a rigorous investigation into whether there really was any indirect party funding.
I hope these reports will be made public before the European elections so that we can give the taxpayers the opportunity to make it clear who they are choosing.
In short, I believe that Parliament should not just accept the way it is treated by the Commission, which is why I emphatically ask the Bureau to seek to ensure that in future questions to the Commission are answered in more precise and exact terms.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, the title of the resolution should be amended to take account of Amendment No 16, which was adopted.
It should refer to the resignation of the members of the Commission.
<P>
As to the substance, I would point out that most Members of Parliament have failed to learn the lessons of recent events both in relation to the replacement of members of the Commission and the Committee of Experts.
Concerning the replacement of the members of the Commission, it was a mistake to reject our Amendment No 20, which recommended that none of the Commissioners should be reappointed.
The Committee of Experts' report is actually very clear.
It condemned the collective responsibility of the Commissioners themselves and also of the Commission as an institution, both the present Commission and the preceding one.
<P>
By adopting paragraph 7 of the resolution, most Members of Parliament have shown that they have not learned from this report and, above all, from the many statements made by the experts since then.
Things should have been sorted out once and for all, and a special interim Commission brought in, made up of management experts, with the task of providing a remedy, just as the independent experts provided a diagnosis.
<P>
With regard to the Committee of Experts, it was wrong to give it until 1 September to produce a report.
We have tied down the next term of office; we have refused to let the committee look into the way Parliament works.
Once again, the powers of the European Parliament have been whittled away.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, I abstained in the vote on this resolution, largely for one reason: I too consider it a bad thing that this resolution virtually extends the mandate of the Committee of Independent Experts.
It has indeed done good work, but I voted against this Committee of Experts at the last vote too because I am convinced that there is no legal basis for that committee.
This has been confirmed by various opinions, for instance that of Siegbert Alber, a former Member of Parliament who is now Advocate-General at the Court of Justice.
He too took a clear stance and said there is no legal basis for this so-called Committee of Wise Men.
That is why I could not vote in favour.
<P>
But I must also say that there were some very good things in this resolution, not just that it calls on the Council to lay down a procedure which enables individual Commissioners to be called to account but also the fact that it reproaches the Council for failing to assume its responsibilities to some extent, for it should already have taken a position on several occasions, which it did not do; in the end it was mainly thanks to the work of the Committee on Budgetary Control and this Parliament that we saw any movement at all here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Palm">
Mr President, this is the first time I have given an oral explanation of vote, so I hope I am doing it correctly.
As regards this resolution, I decided to abstain in the individual votes and to vote in favour of the resolution at the end, since pressure of time has made it hard for me to keep abreast of the numerous changes.
So I decided to abstain in the individual votes, but obviously I believe that issues such as protection for informants, openness and so on, which are included in the resolution, are important.
Consequently, I decided to vote in favour in the final vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Palm.
You can see that you have done it very well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="Banotti">
I have always believed that a strong Commission was vital in protecting the interests of smaller countries.
It is important for the future of the European Union that we have a strong Commission at the centre of our political life.
<P>
The history of the past 25 years has amply demonstrated that Irish interests have been supported both fairly and generously by successive Commissions.
Notwithstanding the events of the recent past I still believe this.
Inevitably the interim Commission will be perceived as a lame duck - but sometimes lame ducks can surprise us.
We expect the Berlin Council to appoint a new President so that a new Commission can be established as soon as possible.
<P>
Many governments will decide to reappoint the sitting Commissioners for pragmatic reasons.
The interim Commission must make reform of the Institutions a top priority.
<P>
It is equally important that we recognise that the really serious evidence of fraud is confined to the individual Member States and a large share of it is specifically in the administration of the common agricultural policy, as the Beef Tribunal in Dublin has clearly established.
<P>
In future we must have a strong, reformed and independent Commission capable of preventing fraud and giving Europe the political impulsion it clearly needs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="Berthu">
We did not vote for Parliament's resolution following the Commission's resignation, as we felt that it was rather hypocritical: on the one hand, it calls for the accountability of the Commission and the democratic dimension of the Union to be strengthened (paragraph 4), yet on the other hand it requests that the independent experts' second report on fraud should not be submitted until September 1999.
The idea is to avoid embarrassing issues being displayed for all to see during the campaign for the European elections.
Is this really the democratic behaviour called for in the resolution?
<P>
In any event, we challenge the majority position of this House, which claims that the solution to the crisis lies in giving the European Parliament greater powers.
This is nothing but a political hijacking exercise orchestrated by the federalists.
In substance, this supposed remedy would not cure anything; in fact it would do quite the opposite.
<P>
Before clamouring for increased power for Brussels, we should first ask why fraud has occurred.
We would then see that European federalism, which is all of a sudden being proposed as a cure-all, has from its earliest days been the very cause of the wrong we are condemning.
<P>
In reality, fraud has developed because an ivory tower has been built in Brussels, cut off from the people, with vast sums of money passing through it and with direct supervision by the Member States still not allowed.
<P>
Of course, according to the Treaties, the European Parliament does have control over the Community budget.
But despite all the obvious irregularities this had never really worked.
Now it has at least been put into practice once, thanks to the diligence of the Europe of Nations Group.
So much the better.
But this welcome development proves neither that the European Parliament is the best instrument of budgetary control, nor (in fact, even less so) that it fulfils the fundamental conditions for becoming the high assembly of a federal Europe, sweeping away the main powers of the national parliaments at a stroke.
<P>
This Parliament is not the best instrument of budgetary control because in fact it is hand in glove with the institution it is supposed to supervise, namely the Commission.
The European Parliament dreams only of extending its power, and to achieve this dream, it knows that it needs to extend the sphere of Community activity, which is what the Commission spends most of its time doing as well.
The two institutions are hence allies pursuing the same goal.
And throughout its whole existence, the European Parliament has never condemned the most flagrant irregularities committed by the Commission, including recently - just a few months before the current scandal blew up - the commitment of expenditure without any legal basis at all.
It eventually took the tireless work since last January of a few MEPs, unintentionally put at an advantage by the blunders of the federalist group chairmen, to trigger an event which Parliament for the most part did not actually want to happen at all: the Commission's resignation.
<P>
We now know very well that because of their very structure the European Parliament and the Commission play into each other's hands, and that control can only come from outside, from the Council and the national parliaments, whose powers should be increased.
It seems hard to believe that France pays an annual contribution to the Union, yet its MPs do not have the right to say 'no' when the budget is put to the vote or to check for themselves what becomes of taxpayers' money.
Until these obvious points are understood, all that will happen is that spurious controls will be introduced in Brussels and wrongdoing will continue.
<P>
Furthermore, the European Parliament does not fulfil any of the conditions required for it to become the high assembly of a federal Europe.
We should not lose sight of the fact that Europe is not a nation, but an association of nations, and that this essential character provided the justification for its unique institutions, where national sovereignties play a pivotal role and must continue to do so.
In particular, the European Parliament, a specialised assembly, may be of use in carrying out specialised tasks, but never in the general exercise of sovereignty.
It does not represent a European people.
In practical terms, in budgetary matters for example, we cannot see the French agreeing that their taxes should be decided by a majority of Germans and Spaniards.
Nonetheless, these are supposed to be the 'European people', the vital bedrock of 'European democracy'.
<P>
Therefore, if we wish to put a stop to fraud and mismanagement in the European institutions, we should not hide our heads in the clouds.
We should not make the even greater mistake of suggesting that extra powers be transferred to Brussels in the guise of democracy, an artificial democracy which would soon bring renewed disillusionment.
The 'off-the-peg' federalist ideas which have blocked all proper solutions over the past few years should not be allowed to get a new lease of life in a different form, after the collapse of the Commission.
<P>
On the contrary, during the campaign for the forthcoming European elections, we should advocate the only effective solutions: reestablishing the Member States' control over Brussels, subordinating the Commission to the Council and giving the national parliaments the right to see how their citizens' money is being spent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="Blokland and van Dam">
We broadly support the joint resolution on the events surrounding the Commission's resignation, and we voted in favour of it.
We too take the view that a caretaker Commission must be appointed as quickly as possible for the remainder of the outgoing Commission's term.
We cannot have this Commission which has resigned remaining in office for a further nine months.
That would do nothing for the Union's authority and credibility.
<P>
However, we would have liked to see a number of points in the joint resolution which were not in fact there.
For that reason, we tabled a resolution of our own and did not put our names to the joint motion.
A major aspect which is not dealt with is whether or not members of the outgoing Commission should be appointed to the caretaker Commission.
We do not think that the new caretaker Commission should include any members of the present Commission, because the work of the committee of experts is not yet finished.
All kinds of new cases of fraud may yet come to light.
If the committee's further investigations show that certain Commissioners are free of all blame, we have no objection to them returning to office in the next Commission term from 2000 to 2005.
<P>
Another aspect not clearly spelled out in the joint resolution is the remit of the caretaker Commission.
The next nine months must be dominated by a radical clean-up of the administrative and financial systems and the improving and modernising of the financial management.
The caretaker Commission must do no more than that.
There is no need at all for it to implement all manner of lofty plans for the further building of Europe, accompanied by a further extension of the Commission's remit, and certainly not in the next few months.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="Blot">
Recital D and paragraph 4 of the resolution call for a strong Commission, which is paradoxical given the malfunctioning noted by the Committee of Independent Experts that led to the resignation of the Commission.
<P>
It was precisely because the Commission felt strong, in fact too strong, that it allowed itself to make major management errors, even going so far as to withhold 'important documents from Parliament', according to recital B of the resolution.
<P>
Because of an error stemming from the Treaties establishing the European Union, the Commission has far too great a role to play.
This institution, which through the very way in which it is appointed is the least democratic in the Union, should go back to playing the role which is normally given to an administration: carrying out the orders of the highest political authority, the European Council.
<P>
The founding fathers of Europe created the Commission following the model of the ECSC's High Authority, because they did not have faith in democracy.
<P>
We should turn the current crisis to our benefit and let good sense prevail.
In a democratic system, the Commission must be the Council's executive and nothing more than that.
The Treaties should be revised to this end.
The pressure of circumstances is certain to force us to do this in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="Ferrer">
In accepting its political responsibility and offering its collective resignation, the Commission has made a gesture we should appreciate. We should also express our appreciation of the political work undertaken by the Commission during its term of office.
It now falls to the Council to accept its political responsibility, as Parliament did in December by refusing to grant discharge for 1996, and appointing a Committee of Independent Experts to investigate irregularities which had come to light.
It is essential for the Council to resolve the institutional crisis resulting from the resignation as quickly as possible.
The potential dangers of the crisis do not lie in the resignation itself, nor even in the reasons for it, but in what could follow, depending on how the Council chooses to deal with the situation.
<P>
On the pretext of the mismanagement and lack of financial control revealed in the report by the Committee of Experts, the Council could be tempted to put forward a President lacking in political standing. It could also use this opportunity to weaken the Commission and restrict its competence.
If the Council does react like this, nothing will have been gained from the crisis and it will have negative consequences for the future of the European Union, which would be particularly unfortunate given the crucial stage we are currently at. That is why I voted in favour of the resolution on the resignation of the Commission.
The resolution sets out the course the Council should follow as it seeks to appoint a new Commission. It also clearly expresses Parliament's conviction that this crisis must serve to strengthen the political and democratic nature of the European Union.
And this calls for a stronger Commission.
A strong and effective Commission is most certainly needed and it must be appointed according to the provisions laid down in the Treaty of Amsterdam, that is to say, it must enjoy democratic credibility. Only then will the new Commission be able to assume the role of guarantor of the common interest of the European Union allocated to it in the Treaties, and become the driving force behind the European integration, taking us closer to the global Europe we are striving for.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="Filippi">
I voted in favour of the joint resolution on the resignation of the Commission since I agreed with it in its entirety, especially paragraph 8 calling for an ambitious and thoroughgoing programme of radical reform, which obviously presupposes an authoritative Commission, beginning with its President.
Paragraph 7 should be interpreted in this light too, from the perspective of a Parliament which, while recalling the need to respect the Treaties scrupulously, calls at the same time for a rapid decision and a convincing solution.
<P>
I therefore hope that the Council of Ministers in Berlin, taking up these suggestions, will reach agreement on the designation of a Commission President who will measure up to the task of providing a competent and representative government for the Union, so as to find a lasting solution which will guarantee a period of stability and reform.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="Hautala">
The Commission must now consider carefully what administrative reform, as insisted on by the European Parliament, really means in practice.
The Treaty of Amsterdam requires the Commission to draft a new regulation concerning public accessibility to European Union documents.
This must not be left to one side; indeed, in the light of the events of recent weeks, it is even more important that the Commission should produce its proposal promptly.
The regulation must carry guarantees that the people of the European Union should be entitled to the maximum possible access to the documentation of all the institutions of the Union.
<P>
On a recommendation by the Green Group, the European Parliament today resolved that there should be a substantially larger number of women members in the new Commission.
At present a quarter of the members of the Commission are women, which cannot be regarded as satisfactory if we consider the new provisions in the Treaty of Amsterdam that emphasise the importance of equality.
<P>
It is important that the new Parliament in June should have a real chance to participate in the appointments process for the Commission, and that it should have a free hand in helping to choose a Commission that it favours for the next five-year term.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="Holm, Lindholm and Schörling">
In view of the contents of the experts' report and the findings of the Committee on Budgetary Control and the Court of Auditors, the resignation of the Commission was inevitable.
The question now is what conclusions we should draw.
<P>
In our opinion, the Commission has failed on two counts: it has been found guilty of nepotism and of mismanagement.
On the grounds of nepotism, the Commission had no alternative but to resign, and in the light of the mismanagement, the Commission's future role needs to be reviewed.
In future, the number of tasks assigned to the Commission should be reduced.
Part of the Commission's present work could be carried out more effectively by the Member States themselves.
The Commission should not concern itself with detailed regulation in areas where it lacks the necessary national authority.
<P>
Consequently, we do not support the resolution when it calls for a strong Commission for the European Union.
In spite of this, however, we have decided to vote in favour of the resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 NAME="Martinez">
From 1989 to 1996, for years, in full knowledge of the facts, the Commission allowed the movement of contaminated meal and cattle infected with a terrible disease which may be transmissible to man: bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
This negligence, which endangered the health and lives of millions of Europeans, has not been punished.
The European Commission has not been censured.
<P>
On the other hand, today, a report by five people representing no-one but themselves, yet nonetheless elevated to the status of 'wise men', led to the resignation of the European Commission on 15 March 1999.
The reasons are well known and have been known to everyone for years: nepotism, serious irregularities, 'fraud', 'lack of control of the bureaucratic administration' and other oligarchical excesses, which have been condemned here by Jean-Marie Le Pen's Front National members for the last three legislative periods.
<P>
The lessons of this resignation are as follows:
<P>
Firstly, Parliament has now confirmed, after years of fighting in the budgetary arena to establish its power, that it is becoming the main institution of European integration.
<P>
Secondly, as they have been toppled by a report by five experts appointed by the dozen members of the European Parliament's Conference of Presidents, it would seem that the twenty members of the Commission have come up against a structure even more oligarchical than their own.
It is certainly true that in cases of government by the few, there is always a smaller inner circle of decision-makers.
<P>
Furthermore, it has been made clear that sovereign tasks, such as aid to Eastern Europe or the southern Mediterranean, cannot be entrusted to private companies and profit-making agencies, which is unfortunately what the Commission has been doing since the days of Jacques Delors.
<P>
The ultra-liberals, always quick to demand the dismantling of nation states and their public administrations, have provided proof here that the State in the French tradition offers far more guarantees of morality than the private American-style administration.
<P>
The two most heavily implicated Commissioners were Socialists, which simply confirms at Community level the iniquities of González, Mitterand, Craxi, Roland Dumas, Augusta's Belgian Socialists and other corrupt forms of socialism seen in social democrat governments at national level.
<P>
Finally, today's resignation, and above all the reasons for it, confirms the fact that the European Commission cannot be the government of Europe.
It is a high-level administrative secretariat which should be brought back within the strict limits laid down in the Treaties.
<P>
European power should be wielded by the intergovernmental structure formed by the Council of Ministers, supervised by Parliament as the representative of the people.
<P>
Lehne report (A4-0112/99)
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We voted against the Lehne report.
The EU is coming increasingly to regard refugees and asylum-seekers as a threat to national security.
In general terms, the number of countries whose citizens are required to have visas to visit the EU is growing.
In addition, more vigorous action is being taken against asylum-seekers with false identity papers.
We are increasingly turning away refugees on those grounds alone.
'Shedding' one's identity is not a simple matter, but something one is forced to do when different escape routes are being blocked.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="Hager">
The non-attached Members endorse both the joint action on the improved exchange of information to combat counterfeit travel documents and the joint action to introduce a minimum standard for the equipment used by the responsible authorities.
We welcome both measures because we are aware of their importance in combating illegal immigration.
Given, however, that the rapporteur only wants the joint actions to apply for a limited period and at the same time calls for Commission initiatives to prepare for the possibilities introduced by the Amsterdam Treaty, the non-attached Members voted against the report in the final vote.
<P>
Evans report (A4-0122/99)
<SPEAKER ID=136 NAME="Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We voted against the Evans report on a European Student Card.
<P>
In Sweden we have a student identity pass which works very well and is issued, free of charge, to all high school and university students.
The card is self-financed and is distributed by local student unions.
Cards are also available from international non-profit-making organisations, such as the ISIC pass.
<P>
The Left Party fails to see why a common university pass would be any better than the existing European and international student cards, and would stress the importance of ensuring that the EU does not curb the vitality and enterprise of the student movement and other non-profit-making organisations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="Palm, Theorin and Wibe">
One of the issues raised in the report is how to make it easier for students to avail themselves of student discounts.
The rapporteur believes that the Commission should carry out a feasibility study into whether this can best be achieved by introducing a common student card or by a European logo on existing cards.
We agree with the content of the report and its conclusions.
Regardless of the method chosen, we nevertheless feel that it is important to extend the system to students outside the Member States.
<P>
Furthermore, we would point out that we do not support some of the reasons given for introducing a student card in the future.
The report states that a student card might turn out to be a good way of creating a common identity for European students.
Basically, we are sceptical of any policy that aims to create an identity for people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="Titley">
Mr. President, I am voting in favour of this report today.
One of the major triumphs of European cooperation since the 1950s has been the opportunities it has created for young people to travel, work and study anywhere in the EU.
Travel to Manchester airport on any day and you will see hundreds of young people putting the free movement of people into practice.
The excellent University of Salford in my own constituency has also taken full advantage of the opportunities offered by Europe by developing exchange programmes with partner institutions across the EU.
A European Student Card would make it even easier for students from the North West to forge ever closer unions of their own with their continental colleagues.
<P>
The Labour Government is determined to ensure that student cards will be needed by as many people as possible in the future.
If Britain is to become a high-skill, high-wage economy, then higher education must be opened up to as broad a cross-section of society as possible.
That is why the Labour Government has created the University for Industry, which plans to offer 1 million courses a year by 2004.
This high-tech university will promote life-long learning and make higher education accessible to those who might not normally have the opportunity.
<P>
This is all in stark contrast to the Tories, who always preferred to put tax-payers' money into private schools for the few rather than universities for the many.
<P>
Roth-Behrendt recommendation (A4-0068/99)
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="Bonde and Sandbæk">
Out of consideration for consumers, the June Movement is voting in favour of the Committee on the Environment's amendments aimed at protecting consumers in the area of product liability.
However, we do not wish to hide the fact that we have grave misgivings about the approach which has been adopted.
The June Movement does not want the right of initiative to be transferred from the Commission to the European Parliament, but would instead like to see it vested in the national parliaments.
<P>
Waddington recommendation (A4-0108/99)
<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Raschhofer">
Mr President, let me too begin by saying that I sometimes find the voting goes too fast.
I did ask for the floor during the vote, but unfortunately the President did not notice.
That is why I want to say right away that I mistakenly voted against Amendment No 19 by the I-EDN Group on the joint resolution on the resignation of the Commission and the appointment of a new Commission, although I had in fact intended to vote for it.
<P>
But let me turn now to my oral explanation of vote.
Even at first reading of this report, we voted for the new Leonardo II programme.
We did so because the principle of lifelong learning must of course be supported and must be implemented by means of practical measures.
<P>
A particularly positive aspect of this report are the amendments to the accompanying measures.
The introduction of concrete spheres of responsibility and the possibility of employing temporary staff are first steps in the right direction.
We firmly support these amendments, and this is also why we voted for this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR)">
<SPEAKER ID=142 NAME="Deprez">
The operational implementation of the third pillar, to combat all forms of international organised crime, is vital if public opinion is to support European integration, of which the single market is one of the essential elements.
<P>
The single market means the free movement of people, goods and services.
Under no circumstances can it mean the free movement of traffickers and criminals.
It is clear that our fellow citizens will reject the idea of Europe if, rightly or wrongly, they hold the single market responsible for what they experience as growing insecurity.
<P>
Moreover, I fully agree with the rapporteur that in addition to setting up a committee of senior police officers we should also establish a multi-disciplinary group made up of heads of police, customs and other law enforcement authorities so as to bring about genuine operational cooperation as swiftly as possible.
Of course, a member of Europol should be invited to the meetings of this multi-disciplinary group and should play an active role in it.
<P>
Furthermore, I also endorse what the rapporteur says when he points out that police performance should not be measured in numbers of arrests but in success in bringing criminal organisations to justice.
<P>
While I therefore lend my support to the draft joint action as amended, I would stress that inspection operations carried out by mixed teams should not be limited to the Union's external borders (including ports and airports) but should also take place right inside the territory as often as is necessary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR)">
The report contains many commendable proposals for the introduction of an effective system for exchanging information and an early warning system for identifying criminal activities.
However, police forces should not be placed under a common EU command.
Cooperation with Interpol should be strengthened in order to prevent any duplication of activities.
Only people who have been convicted or suspected of committing a crime should be entered in the personal data register, in order to prevent a 'register breakdown' and any possible loss of integrity, as happened in the case of Schengen's SIS register.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="Palm, Theorin and Wibe">
We are deeply critical of the common European police union known as Europol.
Europol's expansion has taken place in secret and has not been subject to any kind of democratic control.
This is most alarming, particularly since it will undoubtedly be given executive powers.
For instance, proposals have been put forward aimed at giving Europol a leading role in cross-border investigations.
<P>
A secret register of wanted persons in which criminals, victims of crime and witnesses will be registered and which will include information about political views, race, sexual tendencies and religious affiliation is to be set up.
Groundless rumours and pure gossip about people who are not even suspected of a crime may be recorded, which constitutes a threat to personal integrity and diminishes the legal rights of individuals.
<P>
In our view, Interpol and its 171 member countries are perfectly capable of coordinating international policing activities.
It is absolutely vital for these to be under democratic control.
<P>
Bourlanges report (A4-0109/99)
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
I have two comments on the procedure and two on the substance, Mr President.
On the procedural side, apart from the fact that we are discussing this report here in Brussels rather than in Strasbourg, where budgetary matters should be discussed, I would point out that in recital B of the report adopted by a majority in Parliament, we welcome the conclusions of the informal European Council in Berlin, which actually takes place tomorrow and the day after.
I am afraid this reflects not just a straightforward timetabling error but also the fact that very often we pre-empt what goes on between the institutions.
This proves that the way the European Union works leaves something to be desired.
<P>
On the substance, I am astounded by what is said in paragraph 2 of the report, on the one hand, and then in paragraph 3, on the other.
In paragraph 2, we say that the budget for the year 2000 should safeguard the prerogatives of the European Parliament.
This is an unfortunate illustration of the fact that very often most of the Members of the European Parliament think in terms of conflicts of competences and powers, far more than they consider straightforward budgetary arguments or the interests of the taxpayers in Member States.
<P>
Nor are these interests taken into account when we point out in paragraph 3 that the European Parliament has observed budgetary discipline over the last three years, because it adopted a budget below the level of the preliminary draft budget.
And when we say that we have, together with the Council, recognised the need for rigour, we are forgetting that on each occasion we have increased the Council's budget.
The rigour is not, therefore, equally distributed between the two institutions.
<P>
It would be advisable, for example, not to carry over unused appropriations which, as indicated in paragraph 10, amount to 243 %, 142 % and 110 % of commitments.
Genuine rigour should be exercised in the European Union - an effort required of the Member States as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="Palm, Theorin and Wibe">
There is an obvious need for a coordinated asylum policy, particularly in conflict areas and where decisions about UN refugee quotas and their distribution are being taken.
However, we think it is important to point out that we do not approve of areas of national competence, such as asylum and immigration policy, being surreptitiously transferred to Community level by claiming that some of them now come under the third pillar.
We are highly critical of the whole of paragraph 15, and consequently the reference to the implementation of the Eurodac system.
<P>
Tindemans report (A4-0104/99)
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, it was in fact with great regret that I voted against some of the amendments tabled by my friends in the ARE Group because in principle they were certainly right.
In justification I would therefore say that we studied this question at length in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
<P>
For we are in fact looking at two things here. On the one hand we are looking at external security, for which we must now be prepared to give something.
For if we leave the North Koreans to get on alone with their nuclear development, something dreadful will come out of it.
So we have to try to become involved here and exert control.
<P>
As for the second point, there is something we must realise: there is unimaginable misery in North Korea.
Mr Tindemans has just been there and has reported back to us.
It is quite atrocious, almost worse than ever seen before.
We must find ways of providing humanitarian assistance.
I believe that is necessary in spite of all our reservations and in spite of our abhorrence of the North Korean regime.
We should be prepared to help a little and see if we can alleviate even to some small extent the dreadful misery of what are in other respects really very decent people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Iversen">
On the Tindemans report, like Mr von Habsburg, I should like to point out that North Korea is suffering from a serious food shortage.
I am pleased that this is mentioned in the report, even if that is not where the emphasis lies.
One has to ask oneself if we have got our priorities right when we choose one-sidedly to support energy development and do not at the same time at least help the starving people of North Korea.
Not so very long ago, the Union decided to provide food aid for Russia.
We supported that as well.
An official request from North Korea for the same kind of help has been pending before the Commission since the summer of 1997.
Hitherto, the Commission has said that surplus stocks of beef and veal were not earmarked for food aid and that it is not the right kind of aid from a nutritional point of view.
However, I must say that I find it totally incomprehensible that we are investing huge sums of money through Euratom for power supplies while leaving meat to sit and rot in surplus stores, when we could in fact be helping starving people in North Korea.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR), Holm, Lindholm and Schörling (V)">
In our view, there is absolutely no reason for the EU to be party to an agreement with the Korean Peninsular Energy Development Organisation (KEDO) which includes, amongst other things, the construction of two light water reactors and the supply of heavy fuel oil and coal in and to North Korea.
There is an imminent risk of North Korea continuing its nuclear weapons programme at an underground facility at Kumchagri where they have the technology and knowledge to separate plutonium from the new light water reactors.
There is also a strong possibility that they are continuing to develop rocket technology, as has happened in the past, with sales to third countries and the launching of missiles.
<P>
Considering the serious economic situation and the food crisis in North Korea, the focus of assistance should obviously be humanitarian support and building up the resources to meet, amongst other things, their basic energy requirements.
In this context, it is clear that their antiquated and centralised nuclear power capability is a totally unsuitable future energy source.
If we are to help them, then it must be in the development of renewable sources of energy on a decentralised basis.
<P>
There is a risk that the KEDO Agreement will lead to nuclear proliferation.
The European Parliament should therefore not be party to the agreement.
Consequently, we voted against the report in the final vote.
<P>
Terrón i Cusí report (A4-0079/99)
<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="Andersson, Lööw, Palm, Sandberg-Fries and Theorin">
In the light of the massive inflows of migrants from Iraq and the neighbouring region, we believe that the situation demands attention, and we therefore welcome Mrs Terrón I Cusí's report.
However, in this explanation of vote we should like to make a point which we regard as important.
The wording in paragraph 16 to the effect that refugees should be 'looked after in a culturally similar country as far as possible' is unfortunate, as it might be taken to mean that refugees are not welcome in other countries with different cultures.
In our view, refugees should clearly have the same opportunities to seek asylum, regardless of their own or another country's specific cultural orientation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR)">
The refugee situation in Iran, Iraq and Turkey is both large-scale and disturbing in the extreme.
At recurrent intervals, the Kurds living in Baghdad have been ordered to leave and forced to flee to Iran, and these are mostly women and children.
Many of the men have been imprisoned by Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.
<P>
In Turkey, the government and army are waging a war of aggression against the Kurds in the south-eastern part of the country.
Imprisonments, disappearances, executions and torture are an everyday feature of Turkish warfare, with thousands of villages burned down and millions of refugees made homeless.
The EU has a special responsibility because of the customs union it has signed with Turkey, whereby the Turkish Government gave its word that it would strengthen democracy and respect freedom of expression and human rights.
This it has not done.
On the contrary, the situation has deteriorated and the flow of refugees increased.
<P>
A solution must be found to end the appalling crisis that mainly affects the Kurds in Iran, Iraq and Turkey.
The Council of Ministers should organise an international peace conference, to be attended by representatives of the UN, the OSCE, the EU, the USA, the governments of the countries concerned and the Kurdish parties and organisations.
A major goal of the conference should be to secure greater Kurdish regional autonomy in the area, guarantees of democratic rights for Kurdish people, and the recognition of their Kurdish identity and culture.
<P>
De Melo report (A4-0077/99)
<SPEAKER ID=152 NAME="Deprez">
The globalisation of trade and the resulting internationalisation of large and ever stronger companies, ceaselessly striving for greater competitiveness and constantly increasing profits, leads to a considerable transfer of power away from legitimate governments to major economic, and to an even greater extent financial, decision-makers.
Although this phenomenon was previously restricted to what we used to call, not without contempt, banana republics, over the last twenty years or so it has tended to spread to our own Member States.
<P>
It is therefore urgently necessary to establish an international political counterweight in order to restore a proper balance of power between economics and politics, a balance which today is heavily weighted in favour of the former.
An in-depth reform of the United Nations system would really make sense here, without affecting the primary duty of the Security Council, which is still to keep the peace between nations.
It is hardly an exaggeration to say that, like the European Union, the Security Council lacks a head and an arm.
<P>
On an economic and social level everyone agrees that we need a mechanism for coordinating the international institutions.
In the same vein, it would be desirable to set up a global agency for the environment and sustainable development, bringing together the various United Nations agencies which deal with these issues that are so vital for the future of mankind.
<P>
In all cases, the activities of the international institutions should be made more transparent and legitimate.
This is why I particularly support the idea of introducing a parliamentary dimension into the United Nations system.
<P>
The report we are voting on today is ambitious.
It is just as ambitious as the founding fathers of the European Union were when they reached the conclusion that there was no other solution but to unite the peoples of Europe if they wanted to stop them waging war on each other.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="Palm, Theorin and Wibe">
The United Nations is the principal body for promoting peace and security in the world.
It is also unique in that it has an almost universal membership - virtually every country in the world belongs to it.
In our view, the UN should have effective diplomatic instruments at its disposal and be capable of exercising preventive diplomacy and giving early warnings in respect of potential conflicts.
On the other hand, we do not think the UN should have at its disposal a rapid action force with military capability, and so we cannot support paragraph 8 and Amendment No 3.
We also have reservations concerning paragraph 29, which contains a proposal to amend the UN's Charter so as to enable it to intervene in national conflicts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="President">
Thank you.
<P>
Parliament has now come to the end of its agenda.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="President">
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
<P>
The sitting was closed at 4.40 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Tuesday, 23 March 1999.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Statement by the President
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, a terrible fire broke out in the Mont Blanc tunnel on 24 March killing at least 40 people, some of whom have yet to be identified.
The scale of this tragedy caused great dismay not only in France and Italy, but throughout the European Union.
Although it occurred some weeks ago, I am sure I am speaking for all of us in expressing our sorrow at these deaths and our sympathy for the victims' families.
We hope that the investigations being carried out will prevent such tragedies from occurring in the future.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Agenda
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
The next item is the order of business.
<P>
The final version of the draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents pursuant to Rule 95 of the Rules of Procedure has been distributed. The following amendments have been proposed.
<P>
Monday and Tuesday: no changes
<P>
Wednesday:
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President">

At the request of Mrs Bonino, who has to return to Brussels to prepare for humanitarian measures relating to Kosovo, I am proposing that we take the report by Mr Böge and Mrs Roth-Behrendt on the BSE follow-up before the report by Mr Herman on the functioning of the institutions.
<P>
If this debate is not concluded before Question Time, it will be continued immediately afterwards, before the suspension of the sitting.
<P>
If there are no objections, we shall take that to be approved.
Are there any comments?
<P>
Parliament approved the proposal
<P>
The Group of the Party of European Socialists is asking for the report by Mrs Myller, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, on accession strategies for environment, to be brought forward from Friday to Wednesday and included in the joint debate on the seven reports by the Foreign Affairs Committee on accession applications.
<P>
Mrs Green has the floor to present this request.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="Green">
Mr President, it seems entirely logical that this report, which is dealing with the enlargement of the European Union, should be taken with the pre-accession reports on Wednesday.
We would ask that it is brought forward and taken at the same time
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Green.
<P>
Does anyone wish to speak in favour of or against this request?
That does not seem to be the case.
<P>
I put to the vote the request by the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
<P>
Parliament approved the request
<P>
Thursday:
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
The Group of the European People's Party is asking for the joint debate on financial services - the reports by Mr Crowley on collective investment in transferable securities and Mr Fayot on a framework for action for financial services - to be brought forward from Friday to Thursday morning.
I would remind the House that the first item on Thursday morning is the joint debate on the two annual reports by the Committee on Petitions, in which the European Ombudsman will be taking part.
The reports by Mr Crowley and Mr Fayot can in any event only be taken after that debate.
<P>
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten has the floor to present this request on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, I have just been able to have a word with the rapporteur, and as I understand it, we shall be very happy if the Crowley report and the Fayot report can be voted on in May.
So we have no changes to make to the agenda, assuming we can agree on that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
Our services tell me that there is no difficulty with that.
The agenda for Thursday therefore remains unchanged, and the request by the Group of the European People's Party is withdrawn.
<P>
Friday: no changes
<P>
The order of business was adopted thus amended
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
Mr Ephremidis has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, as you have now come to the end of the amendments to the agenda, I am struck by the fact - and I think it will come as some surprise to the public that is following the debates of this Parliament - that, though the issues on the agenda are important and interesting, we are nevertheless facing a war in Yugoslavia!
This is a war which threatens to spread to the whole of the Balkans and goodness knows where else.
Perhaps therefore, on your own initiative and on that of this Parliament, we should debate this issue in the presence of the Council and the Commission, since it concerns the present and the future of the people in the Balkans and in Europe.
War!
Has the penny not dropped that people are being slaughtered, that a major disaster is unfolding?
I am not concerned about where the responsibility lies.
We will find this out in due course and we will discuss it in good faith.
What are we going to do to stop this threat against the people of the Balkans and of Europe?
<P>
Mr President, I feel very strongly about this issue, because people of my age have lived through such events. But I also feel strongly because of the position the country I represent finds itself in.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
Mr Ephremidis, we all enjoy your speeches but what you are requesting is already included in the agenda.
On Wednesday afternoon, a debate will be held on the situation in Kosovo, following the statements by the Council and the Commission on this issue.
This will naturally incorporate the corresponding resolutions, which are to be tabled this afternoon.
Parliament has therefore already taken the situation into consideration.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Civil liberties
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on:
<P>
the report (A4-0133/99) by Mr Bontempi, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the draft action plan of the Council and Commission on how best to implement the provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam on an area of freedom, security and justice (13844/98 - C4-0692/98-98/0923(CNS)); -the proposal for a recommendation (A4-0064/99) by Mr Nassauer, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on Europol: reinforcing parliamentary controls and extending powers; -the report (A4-0091/99) by Mr Wiebenga, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on criminal procedures in the European Union (Corpus Juris); -the report (A4-0141/99) by Mr Schmid, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the draft joint action, adopted by the Council on the basis of Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union, to combat child pornography on the Internet (10850/5/98 - C4-0674/98-98/0917(CNS)); -the report (A4-0185/99) by Mrs d'Ancona, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the report, including key elements of a post-1999 EU drugs strategy, from the Council to the European Council on activities on drugs and drugs-related issues under the UK Presidency (7930/2/98 - C4-0409/98).The rapporteurs will have the floor in the order in which their reports have been announced.
Mr Bontempi is therefore the first speaker.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="Bontempi">
Mr President, today's sitting is an important one, not only for our committee, which has been working on these matters for months, but above all - I hope - for the European people.
This thorough groundwork - resulting in the reports which I hope the House will adopt - for the extraordinary meeting of the European Council in Tampere, which is to lay down the guidelines for future EU policy on security and justice, is a most important contribution.
<P>
Everyone realises that the greatest innovation of the Amsterdam Treaty - due to enter into force a few days from now, on 1 May - is the 'area of freedom, security and justice', a brand new concept which constitutes a major step forward for the Union, following the establishment of a single currency and the attempts to launch a policy on employment.
Indeed, to involve the Union in fulfilling such fundamental requirements as freedom, security and justice is, firstly, to recognise the close linkage between these three requirements, none of which can be fulfilled without the other two - after all, freedom is only meaningful in a secure environment, based on a reliable legal system - and, secondly, to regard the Union as the appropriate framework for the protection and furtherance of such values, irrespective of individual legal traditions or practices.
<P>
The other merit of this new and innovative part of the Treaty is that it is fundamentally, explicitly and clearly based on protection, promotion and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms.
By expressly recalling these principles and, what is more, setting out a procedure for calling to order Member States which fail to respect them, the Fifteen have finally laid the foundations for a European public order, for which the European Convention on Human Rights is the handbook and the area of freedom, security and justice the most obvious expression.
<P>
Therefore, we really are facing a significant turning-point in the life of the Union. Our concern, owing to the pitfalls dotted throughout the Treaty itself in the numerous clauses and the usual complex structure, is that in order to achieve the anticipated results in this field, all the institutions will have to engage in a fully-fledged war, or perhaps battle.
I say this because our task is complicated by the surviving distinction between the first and third pillars and of unanimous voting within the Council, plus the weakness of parliamentary control both nationally and in the EU.
<P>
This report has already been discussed at a conference with the national parliaments, with representatives of governments and of European civil society, and a broad measure of consensus has, I believe, been achieved.
The report is the result of intense cooperation among the political groups; I should especially like to draw attention to the amendments on which we shall be voting tomorrow, almost all of them making significant improvements, put forward by Mrs Palacio on behalf of the PPE Group.
I think we were right to work together in this way, since much is expected of us and we must uphold certain principles: solidarity - the Member States must cooperate in this field, since only by doing so and by overcoming national apathy and egoism will we achieve our aim; a commitment to transparency, which must apply to the conduct of all parties, including the Council; and, in a clear break with tradition, a commitment to full participation in the decision-making process. Only recently, Parliament's role - a key role in the democratic process but also a factor of efficiency - was still being ignored.
<P>
I would say in conclusion that this report represents a call for guarantees and effectiveness.
The Council has to understand that, when it comes to sensitive matters concerning citizenship and legality, unless there is ample cooperation not only with the European Parliament but also with national parliaments and civil society, it will be hard to make our existing array of virtual laws comprehensible and meaningful to the people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Nassauer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Europol will finally begin its work on 1 July, by which time approximately four years will have passed since the legal basis for a European Police Office was laid down in the Maastricht Treaty.
For Europol these have been four difficult years during which its establishment has been delayed and obstructed, not least because of so-called national sovereignty.
And I fear that these four years of national sovereignty have served no purpose whatsoever.
The fact that Europol could not begin its work, however, has undoubtedly given organised crime in Europe a further advantage.
For this reason we want Europol not only to be able to begin work on 1 July but also to be able to work effectively from this date.
The European Parliament supports the work that is due to begin on 1 July.
<P>
Even in its first report the European Parliament was cautiously in favour of extending Europol's powers.
We proposed considering giving it operational powers.
This does not mean a European FBI that could take responsibility for prosecution, nor does it mean armed and uniformed Europol officers arresting criminals.
None of this is part of Europol's tasks.
What we mean is that Europol should have the power to coordinate cross-border investigations responsibly and the accompanying right to issue instructions to national police authorities.
This is the cautious path that the European Parliament has chosen.
<P>
We are calling for this not because we are blindly demanding policing rights for Europe but because these demands are in line with policing needs.
If organised crime is planned, organised and carried out centrally, it makes sense that we should equip ourselves with a prosecution authority that also plans and acts centrally.
This is why we need Europol.
Any police authorities which have the right to encroach on citizens' rights need parliamentary controls.
<P>
Europol is currently a purely intergovernmental organisation, and as a result the European Parliament has no powers of supervision.
Under the Treaty we are to be given only occasional and limited information, but we cannot exercise controls.
Monitoring Europol is therefore clearly the task of the national parliaments, and I can only call upon our counterparts in the national parliaments to do their duty here. This is also appropriate as things stand at present.
In the area of data processing Europol has only very limited rights of intervention, but there are now almost universal demands that Europol's rights be extended.
The Treaty of Amsterdam, which will enter into force in only a matter of days, points in this direction.
The President-in-Office surprised us here only a few weeks ago when he called for Europol to have operational powers to take action.
If that is the case we must certainly review the issue of parliamentary control.
<P>
The idea of Europol being controlled by 15 national parliaments in The Hague is totally unrealistic.
We also do not want some parliament to be constantly looking over Europol's shoulder in The Hague to see what it is doing, as this would also be nonsense.
However, parliamentary control means that this police unit must be placed under the responsibility of a political body that in turn must be answerable to parliament.
This is what parliamentary control means.
So if Europol acquires new powers - as we hope - we need a Commissioner who is responsible for Europol, and the task of monitoring this body must be transferred to the European Parliament.
Only on this condition, rather than in any event, do we call for new rights for Europol.
In other words, we call for these rights only if parliamentary control is possible.
That is what we are insisting on in this report.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Wiebenga">
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Schmid">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for many people the Internet has allowed access to a wealth of stored information.
In social terms it could almost be described as a revolution, one in which participation in knowledge is made generally accessible.
The Internet is therefore something positive and cannot be blamed simply because, like other instruments of communication, it is misused for the purpose of criminal activities.
No one would dream of saying that the telephone is something bad just because criminals also use it.
<P>
One of the criminal activities found on the Internet is the trade in and exchange of child pornography material.
The alarming thing about child pornography is not the fact that it is pornography, in other words that it involves images of naked people involved in sexual acts.
When this takes place among adults it is not a criminal offence.
I find it disgusting but there are people who do like it.
The reason child pornography has been made a criminal offence is that it involves the portrayal of real live children being sexually abused.
That is what is disturbing about it.
In the interest of children, therefore, prosecution must continue to be possible.
<P>
Of course trading and exchanging child pornography material existed in the past, before the Internet was introduced.
It is nothing new.
But it was difficult for individuals to find a supplier since things that are against the law cannot be advertised publicly.
What is new is the possibility, via the Internet, to supply and trade worldwide, and to do so under conditions that make prosecution considerably more difficult.
<P>
It is therefore right that the Member States have proposed joint action, on the basis of Article K.3 of the Maastricht Treaty, to combat child pornography on the Internet more effectively.
However, the proposal is full of phrases talking about having to look into things or referring to possible courses of action.
Hardly any concrete or binding decisions are taken. This reminds me of the remark attributed to the Austrian Emperor Franz Josef, who is believed to have once said 'Gentlemen, something must be done, but nothing must be changed!'
This is a good description of the present Council proposal.
The Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs has therefore tried, by means of amendments, to make the non-binding phrases in the text binding so that there is some point to all of this.
<P>
Secondly, there are two places where we are trying to make it possible to prosecute such acts on the Internet.
Two problems arise in dealing with the prosecution of child pornography.
The first is that there is no uniform protective age for children, which makes it incredibly difficult in the case of cross-border investigations.
<P>
The second is that such material is very often put on the Internet using anonymous electronic mail, so that the image that appears in a news group cannot be traced back to the individual responsible.
We are therefore calling for anonymous e-mail to be prohibited or at least largely restricted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="d'Ancona">
A few comments, Mr President, to add to my report on the Council report on a post-1999 European Union drugs strategy.
I will start on a positive note.
For the first time, we have seen the Committee on Civil Liberties able to approve a report on drugs virtually unanimously - it was unanimous really, but for one abstention.
That says something about the fact that, by virtue of having listened to one another over the years, we have at least made a start on taking ideology out of the debate on drugs.
I think that is a good thing.
In this instance it was rather easier, because as rapporteur I did not have to talk about a completely new drugs policy, but was able simply to give a verdict on the strategy first mooted under the UK Presidency.
My committee was unanimous in agreeing with that verdict.
<P>
To start with, we thought that under Article K.6 of the EU Treaty and given the codecision procedure, we should have been consulted beforehand.
We thought too that the Council should have drawn on Parliament's various pronouncements on dugs.
We have already adopted so many reports on drugs over the years that the Council should have looked at them.
There is not really any sign that they did so.
We thought too that account should have been taken of the findings of an evaluation study, because we now have the excellent monitoring centre for drugs.
How can you draw up a new strategy if you have no idea what the effects were of the old strategy followed between 1995 and 1999?
So we were highly critical on that count.
<P>
Stranger still is the fact that the Commission will be unveiling its 2000-2005 action plan on drugs any day now, when we in Parliament do not know exactly what the relationship is between the Council's plan and that of the Commission.
From what I have heard, the Commission plan is in any event more ambitious than that of the Council.
I hope that will prove to be the case; it is the impression I have formed from one thing and another.
<P>
These criticisms have of course prompted us to make a number of recommendations.
We think there has to be better coordination of policy on drugs, and our committee has adopted an amendment to the effect that in the near future we want to see a Commissioner given responsibility for coordinating drugs policy within the Commission.
I think the current Commissioner will also have had a hard time of it, given that the responsibility was spread so widely.
Both for us and the Commission, it would have been better if just one Commissioner, Mrs Gradin for example, had been the Commissioner responsible for coordinating policy on drugs.
<P>
A second recommendation I would mention is that we feel strongly that better use should be made of the European monitoring centre.
I find it absurd that the Council does not draw on research findings.
And it would be a good idea, now that the Council and the Commission - perhaps both of them - are drawing up a new and coordinated strategy, if meanwhile we were to build in fixed reference points, reference points which will allow us to see later whether the strategy has worked well, in which respects it did not work well or worked poorly.
<P>
We have also advocated better and more intelligent use of the UNDCP in providing substitute crops, not by destroying drug harvests in third world countries, but by adopting an integrated approach to development which offers a real alternative to poor people in those countries.
There are some good examples of this.
<P>
Lastly, we have done our best, myself as rapporteur but above all the committee as a whole, to strike a balance between prevention and information, reducing the risks to health and the opportunities provided by a coordinated approach on justice.
In accepting amendments, I am keen to preserve that balance.
So I shall not comment on whether or not I like some of the amendments.
I think the balance we have struck needs to be preserved in the plenary too - a balance which will be established in practice if the Member States can pool their practical experience as far as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Voggenhuber">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the rapporteur, Mr Bontempi, talked today about weak points in the implementation of the Treaty of Amsterdam which affect the implementation of the Schengen Agreement.
The Committee on Institutional Affairs, on whose behalf I am speaking here today, sees these as much more than weak points. In fact, it sees them as critical developments for civil rights, the rule of law and the role of Parliament in the area of internal security.
I believe it is important to draw the attention of the House to this today.
<P>
Our criticism applies even to the way in which Parliament is being consulted, which is unfortunately nothing new.
The Commission shows little intention of involving Parliament in any serious way in this vital issue.
In a letter of 9 December 1998 we were asked to deliver an opinion, but the Council of Justice Ministers had already adopted the action plan on 3 December.
Here consultation becomes a farce, and the inclusion of Parliament nothing other than a pretence.
<P>
Our second criticism concerns the Treaty of Amsterdam itself, which says little or nothing about the institutional framework in which the freedom of movement for persons is to be realised.
On the implementation of the Schengen Agreement there is merely a protocol.
The crucial question of whether the Schengen acquis should be incorporated in the first or third pillar, in accordance with Article 4 or Article 6, has not been settled.
This has serious implications for the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and for Parliament's right of codecision after five years, and there are also serious implications for the budget.
The whole question of the legal status of Schengen has not even been settled yet.
As the preparations show today, the Council seems to have no desire to choose the democratic, constitutional method, with the full involvement of the Court of Justice and the European Parliament.
I believe these are not weak points but truly dangerous developments for the rule of law and for democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, my colleague Luigi Florio was to speak as the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights but as he is not here, I shall speak instead.
<P>
I am going to be somewhat more positive than my colleague Mr Voggenhuber and I am also going to mention a point that was raised by Mr Bontempi. Indeed, I would like to thank Mr Bontempi, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs, for his cooperation, and in a moment I will also have the opportunity of thanking him on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party.
<P>
Mr Bontempi said that what we are dealing with is a very complex structure.
What this actually means is that we have to incorporate Title IV on visas, asylum and the free movement of persons; a substantial part of what remains under the third pillar; the Schengen acquis through the relevant protocol; and the special protocols.
It could not be any more complex.
<P>
This is the major challenge we must face if - as Mr Bontempi also pointed out - we want the European Union to change for the better and become a Union that represents guarantees and efficiency, citizenship and lawfulness.
We are ready to meet that challenge.
<P>
The Committee on Legal Affairs stressed the importance of the following issues, which are also covered in Mr Bontempi's report: the right to a fair trial with all assurances, the guarantee of access to justice - which should include granting aid where those involved cannot afford to go to court - and the presumption of innocence as a fundamental principle of European law.
<P>
The Committee on Legal Affairs also highlighted an issue that has been mentioned in other reports: the need to monitor jurisdiction.
It is possible that during this very complex process, we may pay less attention to monitoring jurisdiction. We must therefore ensure that such a measure is taken and we must also demand that Parliament be given the right to exercise democratic control.
<P>
If we do not exercise democratic control and monitor jurisdiction, we will never get past the stage where Europe is simply a market and we will be unable to rise to the challenge we are now facing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="Elliott">
Mr President, we have a group of five reports and I should like to congratulate all the rapporteurs.
They have all done a very good job in producing reports which make an important contribution to this issue.
<P>
I should like first of all to focus on the justice and home affairs area which is covered by Mr Bontempi's and Mr Wiebenga's reports.
They make a valuable contribution by stressing the need for the European Union to achieve a greater degree of harmonisation and of cooperation in this area.
It is an area that has been sadly neglected compared with the great strides which the Union has made in harmonisation in the fields of economic and financial policy, agriculture, transport, the environment, etc.
This area of justice and home affairs and freedom has lagged far behind.
It is not that we want every country to adopt the same legal and judicial system - that would be absurd.
Indeed, even within certain regions of existing Member States there are long-standing differences in the way that the law is administered and operated.
<P>
We need much greater cooperation.
We are facing a situation where we have a proliferation of organised crime on an international basis.
The criminals do not worry about issues of subsidiarity and frontier controls and whether the niceties of national law versus European law are properly abided by - they operate in whatever way makes them the biggest profit and achieves their objectives.
Unless we are able to establish a proper system of international cooperation in this area then we will not be able to deal effectively with these issues.
<P>
This is also important in order to protect the rights of individuals.
There is a tremendous disparity in criminal and indeed in civil law.
There are many activities which are criminal in some countries but not in others.
Sentencing policy varies widely.
This is becoming more and more important as greater numbers of our citizens and residents of the European Union are working, living and carrying out their activities in other Member States.
<P>
It is unacceptable that somebody should have fewer legal rights if they are charged with an offence in a country other than their own than they would in their own country.
Furthermore, problems have arisen of people being held for long periods without trial because of bureaucratic delays caused by translation problems and because of the lack of proper legal aid.
These matters must be tackled and resolved, and the reports suggest some very important and useful ways in which that can be done.
<P>
Mr Nassauer's report on Europol has the balance right.
We must have effective collaboration between national police forces, and the Europol Convention provides for the proper and effective exchange of information to enable the police forces of our Member States to cooperate and to act more effectively by proper interchange of information, ideas and practices.
Without this, police forces operating in the sphere of law and order will be working with one hand tied behind their backs compared with the criminal organisations.
<P>
One thing Parliament has always stressed from the very inception of Europol is that any international police organisation - perhaps in the course of time with operational powers, however limited they may be - can only be allowed to exist if there is a proper system of democratic control and accountability - just as we would expect proper democratic accountability by our own national police forces.
We must respect the principle that policing can take place only with the consent of the communities being served.
Police forces that see themselves as some kind of external force coming in to impose rules and operations which are not acceptable to the community at large will fail.
We need good effective policing with the consent of the communities.
<P>
Finally, Mrs d'Ancona's report on the complex and vexed area of drugs balances very difficult issues: the question of not condoning the use of dangerous drugs but, at the same time, recognising that a purely punitive approach to this issue will never succeed and that there must be proper emphasis on education, health matters and so on.
It is a good balanced approach to this issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cederschiöld">
Mr President, I should like to begin by touching briefly on Mr Wiebenga's report on criminal procedures (Corpus Juris).
It is an excellent report which deals with a particularly sensitive and neglected area.
The report should be seen as a step on the road towards increased coordination of criminal law in the EU, which is something that is desirable.
At the same time, certain differences in the Member States' legal systems must be respected in any coordination process.
It is emphasised in the report that national legal traditions should be respected, thereby enabling the Corpus Juris project to proceed on a realistic basis.
<P>
This debate also includes Mr Bontempi's report concerning an action plan on an area of freedom, security and justice, and I have nothing but good to say about it.
It includes all our main prerequisites from a legal point of view.
<P>
I should now like to move on to Mrs d'Ancona's more controversial report on the EU's strategies in the battle against drugs.
I am pleased that we have succeeded in persuading the Social Democrats to agree that the drugs issue is sufficiently important to be discussed in plenary, so that our citizens are kept informed.
The report specifically reflects the idea that it really is a battle against drugs - and that means all drugs.
Such an approach ought to underlie the strategy which the Commission is drawing up.
The very long drawn-out and intensive discussions on drugs which have taken place during the present term have shown where the boundaries of cooperation lie in this area.
The committee has scored a notable success in that the report makes no further mention of prescribing heroin as a means of combating drug abuse.
But nor is prescribing methadone for drug addicts a satisfactory way of helping them to overcome their dependency.
We therefore regard the development of less addictive alternatives to methadone as a hopeful sign which should resolve the remaining political difficulties in terms of the way in which the majority in the House views the drugs issue.
The ultimate objective is, of course, the total eradication of all dependency on drugs and pharmaceutical preparations.
<P>
The approach of the PPE Group has been successful.
Mrs d'Ancona, the rapporteur, has been very willing to cooperate and listen to our point of view.
I should therefore like to praise, in particular, her perceptiveness as regards the appropriate approach to take in the area of drugs.
The report before us today is significantly more balanced than previous proposals.
The debate in Parliament has played an important role.
To begin with, we adopted a very different position from everyone else, but now we have arrived at a common European approach.
Those of us who come from the Nordic countries have succeeded in gaining sympathy for some of the basic common principles we apply in combating drugs-related problems in our countries.
The report conveys a clear message about the actions required to reduce supply and demand.
My long-term goal is a drugs-free society, and I believe that the fight against drugs in Europe in the future will be underpinned by the same three basic elements that we in Sweden have for so long held to be essential in the battle against drugs, namely prevention, repression and rehabilitation.
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<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Frischenschlager">
Mr President, firstly we must thank all the rapporteurs for their work, as these reports deal with an area at the very heart of European values, namely the principle of the rule of law.
I believe it is very important that we remind ourselves that social mobility and the integration of the people of Europe must be accompanied by harmonisation of the law.
In my opinion, therefore, it is not a disadvantage but in fact important that we should bring our civil law and in particular our criminal law into line in response to the fact that we in Europe are living increasingly close together.
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I also consider it important that we place great emphasis on legal culture not being lost in practice.
This applies in particular to future members in Central and Eastern Europe.
We are already seeing in the accession talks and preparations that it is very difficult there to identify, support or promote a legal culture that allows people to live together in a common economic and legal framework and in an area of freedom and democracy.
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With regard to fundamental rights, I would say the following.
Mr Nassauer referred to Europol.
It is very important for us to have effective policing instruments, but they must be accompanied by judicial and parliamentary monitoring instruments.
In my view it is not enough that only the national parliaments should fulfil this role.
The European Court of Justice and in future also the European Parliament should have a very crucial monitoring function here.
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My last point concerns the right of asylum.
It is very important for Europe to be open and we must ensure that asylum does not fall by the wayside.
We must also ensure that the burden is shared fairly within the European Community.
The right of asylum must be considered as a sacred European value.
We will not tolerate anything less.
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<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="Andrews">
Mr President, today's debate is timely as the 50th Eurobarometer report which has just been published clearly shows that concerns about unemployment are only just higher than the citizens' desire for action against drugs and crime.
I want to say straight away that I do not support the resolution calling for the appointment of an independent European public prosecutor.
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However, it must be safe for European citizens to walk in their neighbourhoods.
It must be safe to do business in Europe without fear of financial fraud.
It must be safe for children to attend school without fear of being lured into drugs.
It must be safe for children to use the information highway and not be abused by deviants using the Internet for pornographic purposes.
Paedophilia on the Internet must be prosecuted.
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The European Union, in line with the commitment entered into in the Amsterdam Treaty, must become an area of freedom, security and justice where citizens enjoy a high level of safety.
Next October governments will hold a special meeting to consider the establishment of a European area of freedom, security and justice.
They must put forward a common strategy which recognises and responds to the clearly established demands of our European citizens for action against drugs and crime.
Organised crime operates at a professional level.
It has enormous resources and access to the latest technology, which it can use to subvert democracy and for the purposes of money laundering and fraud.
It is essential that police cooperation in connection with Europol be extended to new areas such as counterfeiting Euro notes and coins.
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I believe that convicted drug barons should be given a minimum forty-year jail sentence in view of the fact that the European Union does not have the death penalty.
The European Union must be equally professional and use all its combined forces to tackle these crime barons throughout the European Union.
As far as possible serious crime must carry penalties which result in long jail terms.
In my own constituency in Dublin only this weekend I have seen a family who have lost two young women during the last year as a result of drug abuse.
It must be one of the priorities of the European Union to tackle drugs.
There is no point in people coming into this House and talking about liberal proposals when you look around and see young people dying from drug abuse, while the people who import and sell these drugs are getting away scot-free.
We must give every cooperation to Europol and do everything we can to prevent this drug abuse.
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<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ceyhun">
Mr President, as the rapporteur, Mr Nassauer, has already said, parliamentary supervision of Europol's police activities of is one of the most important tasks of this House, particularly for us as politicians concerned with home affairs.
For this reason we in the Green Group in the European Parliament consider it to be very important that Europol, as an intergovernmental organisation, does not acquire any additional powers that would be inconceivable for our national police authorities and that violate the rights of EU citizens.
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An example is the Protocol on the privileges and immunities of Europol.
Of course we are in favour of Europol as a European authority that is necessary for the internal security of the European Union and plays a crucial role in cooperation between national police authorities.
But we are in favour of a European authority that can be democratically controlled.
Police activity needs to be supervised above all in areas where it interferes with civil rights, especially fundamental rights.
For this reason we are not satisfied with the current supervision of Europol that is supposedly carried out by the national parliaments.
Mr Nassauer has made some good proposals, which we welcome.
But they are not sufficient.
In our opinion it is very important that parliamentary supervision of Europol's police activities should be carried out by the European Parliament, but there are unfortunately still no proposals that would allow us to exercise genuine control.
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<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="Pradier">
Mr President, Commissioner, we naturally support the majority of the points made in each of these reports, that is, the reports by Mr Wiebenga, Mr Nassauer and Mr Schmid.
I would like to take a moment to look at the report by Mr Bontempi as, in my view, it is extremely important and it covers almost all the areas that still require work in this process of European integration.
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Firstly, as regards the communitarisation of judicial and police cooperation, all the points highlighted are of fundamental importance. These include reducing the length of asylum procedures, establishing conditions and procedures for issuing visas, moving towards a uniform visa, defining a statute for legal immigrants, and effectively combating illegal immigration.
We are also very much in favour of the free movement of legal immigrants between the Member States.
We will finally be able to guarantee that all decisions are taken impartially and, above all, that those most directly affected can have complete peace of mind.
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As far as police cooperation is concerned, the development of Europol and the use of databases are vital. It is also essential to eventually incorporate the Schengen information system into Europol's activities.
<P>
However, many countries are still reluctant to allow the judicial authorities of one Member State to operate in the territory of another Member State.
We need to resolve this issue and move towards a general harmonisation of our laws on most offences and crimes.
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In terms of creating an area of freedom, security and justice, we believe that freedom is the most important aspect, and we will have to integrate the Schengen acquis into our own operations.
Two key objectives must be retained.
The first will involve dealing with the crisis we are experiencing in Europe today, that is, the incidences of mass immigration, by collectively offering temporary protection on a large scale to those who are the victims of persecution.
In any event, the right of asylum must be based, now and in the future, on the fundamental legislation we already have, in other words the Geneva Convention and the other protocols.
Finally, as far as security is concerned, we need to combat organised crime and eradicate the living conditions that have given rise to violence in our cities and hooliganism.
<P>
I would like to say a brief word about the report by Mrs d'Ancona on the use of illegal substances.
It is interesting to note that it in no way calls into question the policy pursued up to now in relation to the use of these substances, which has yet to produce any convincing results, and that is the least we might say about it.
The collective progress made have not been taken into account and no consideration given to the assessment of the experiments currently under way.
A certain degree of caution and a conservative attitude were adopted and resulted in an agreement on the lowest common denominator.
Realism has, however, now prevailed in favour of a multisectoral approach.
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<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Seillier">
Mr President, the report by our colleague Mr Schmid raises some very valid points and puts forward some excellent ideas, particularly the proposal to prohibit the sending of anonymous e-mail.
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However, in my opinion, this report has one fundamental flaw: it makes a distinction between pornography that is supposed to be acceptable and child pornography, which is the only type that is supposed to be reprehensible.
I refuse to accept this.
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First of all, it claims that the problem of identifying the age of a child is extremely delicate and that there is no solution. However, ladies and gentlemen, it is pornography itself - just like racism and other evils we quite rightly condemn - that must be looked on as an attack on human dignity and respect, which form one of the cornerstones of our democracies.
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Otherwise, how are we going to arrest those involved in child pornography who are so unbalanced as to end up actually committing the act because of having constantly watched pornographic tapes involving adults?
There is a certain lack of realism here and I have great difficulty in making any sense of it.
<P>
As regards the report by our colleague Mrs d'Ancona, again I am not going to look at this matter in terms of its many economic problems and the distinction between the crackdown on traffickers, which must be ruthless, and the approach focusing basically on young people, since it is a very delicate issue as far as they are concerned.
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Instead, I will look at an aspect that, to my mind, is vital and that does not receive enough attention.
We are told that we must look at the issue from the supply side and this is certainly true.
But why do young people use drugs?
How have we failed?
Adults throughout Europe must examine their consciences, be they parents, teachers, social leaders or, in fact, any adults that come into contact with young people, in other words all of us. We must ask ourselves why we have not managed to provide our young people with reasons to live, with the desire to live, and with the moral strength to face the difficulties we all encounter throughout our lives.
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Life on earth has always been very difficult.
There is a basic problem here that should lead us to work together and on that level. In conclusion, I would like to draw your attention to a particular point: we are constantly talking about language teaching, but from an increasingly utilitarian point of view.
Instead, if we made literature, the great literature of all our European countries, accessible to young people once again, it would perhaps set them on the right track and prevent them from getting involved in drugs and other such behaviour.
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<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Mr President, the prospect of Europol as an effective instrument to combat organised crime has been held out for longer than I have been in this House.
Yet it has still not been set up.
The preparatory work has not yet progressed far enough to allow it to become fully operational in The Hague.
Of course we are all interested in a functional Europol as an appropriate weapon against organised crime.
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It is generally recognised that we need an effective instrument in the fight against crime that is increasing particularly in qualitative terms.
However, instead of vehemently demanding that the preparatory work be concluded, today we are discussing a development that goes too far and, in our opinion, in the wrong direction.
The security aspect does not require Europol officers to be given the right to issue instructions to national officers, not does it require the setting-up of a central European body.
For these reasons we reject the report.
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<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, I am speaking on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party and I think that at this stage we need to take a clear look at the situation.
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The European conscience is clearly experiencing a significant and undoubtedly serious crisis at the moment.
Public opinion has developed in our Member States to the point where people now want much more than the plan that limited European integration to the completion of the single market.
I do not think there is any doubt today that the people of Europe hope and believe that rather than being just a common market, Europe is a project for civilization.
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I did not want to have to mention the recent situation in Kosovo and the need for Europe to assert itself on the international stage, but I think that it is unavoidable.
However, for Europe to assert itself in this way, we must ensure that Europe is clearly defined and consolidated internally: it cannot be just a market.
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The democratic process in the Member States is extremely demanding and we, as representatives of the people, must be aware that through our work, with this Bontempi report and with the four reports that are also being debated today, we must take the Treaty of Amsterdam to its legal limit.
The Treaty of Amsterdam is clearly our legal framework, but we must take it as far as we can in terms of the legal scope it offers. And, where this is not sufficient, we must make a clear commitment to change the Treaty in order to meet what has become an obvious demand from the people.
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The Tampere summit is therefore very important, since the Member States are going to tackle all these issues at the very highest level.
The report by Mr Bontempi is significant because it defines what we are actually hoping for in terms of the area of freedom, security and justice that is currently proposed by the Treaty.
The Tampere summit is going to put this all into practice, and the Bontempi report sets out certain fundamental ideas here.
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I would naturally like to thank Mr Bontempi for his kind words about me.
I must say that I had the benefit of the fullest cooperation during my work on this document and I am as proud as he is of the final result, which I hope will receive the support of the majority of the House tomorrow.
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We believe that we must clearly define the fundamental rights we want to have and determine at what legal level we want them to be established.
We want to put an end to discrimination and we hope that a sense of European citizenship can be developed. We also feel that issues such as the free movement of persons, visas and immigration - and I am not going to go back over the events that are taking place at the moment - all need to be resolved as soon as possible if we want to make any progress on the objective set out in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
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Further, we must improve the public's access to justice.
They must feel that they are protected by all the legal systems throughout Europe, rather than believing that, as far as justice is concerned, there is no difference between being involved in a legal dispute with a French citizen than with a citizen of any other country in the world, as someone in Spain once said to me.
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Finally, we must change our working methods and the way in which the institutions cooperate.
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These are the main issues covered in the Bontempi report.
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In conclusion, I would like to thank the rapporteurs of the other reports, which relate to the three cornerstones of freedom, security and justice, and I would stress how important they are.
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<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="Nordmann">
Mr President, there is something unusual about this joint debate on several reports.
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The very way in which the reports are divided gives the impression that the challenges we face are fragmented. Yet there is no doubt that we are dealing with the very crux of European integration and the European project to build a community of citizens.
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Mr Bontempi's report leaves me with the impression of a form of European citizenship that evolves progressively, almost in stages, through the positive step of establishing a number of freedoms, but also - and we have already seen this in the progress made on the free movement of persons - by creating a new category: the Community citizen who is no longer a complete foreigner in any of our countries.
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The idea of fragmentation is heightened when we see that certain concepts are ignored, particularly the concept of secularism. This is at the heart of European citizenship as defined by the Treaty of Amsterdam through fundamental rights that transcend any division into categories, beliefs, dogmas, ethnic groups or religions.
In Europe, we are building an area of freedom and citizenship which goes further than that and which is much more important.
That is precisely what the founding fathers of republican secularism hoped to do: they wanted to tear our people away from concentrating on their separate identities and to instead focus their attention on the universal nature of rights.
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In conclusion, I would just like to say that it is unfortunate that this basic dimension of secularism is not dealt with in detail in such an important debate.
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<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindholm">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am scared.
Where is all this leading?
According to the reports we are debating, the EU should extend its legal competence to include, amongst other things, an EU statute which would legitimise its activities and create a European identity.
The powers of the Court of Justice should be increased.
There should be greater harmonisation of civil and criminal law and in defining criminal activities.
Europol is a European police force and, as such, should be given operational powers and the ability to issue instructions to national police authorities.
The establishment of a European public prosecutor is also seen as desirable, and the reports go further still.
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I should like to say that these sensitive issues, which concern the very essence of each Member State - in other words national sovereignty - and which are the subject of constitutional law in the different countries, have not been debated properly by the people.
It would create havoc if one were to ride roughshod in this way over both the people and national parliaments.
Why have we not got the courage here in Parliament to speak plainly, to hold debates, to send out signals that a majority in this House would like to create a 'United States of Europe' and then to debate the issue with the people and the national parliaments - even though I myself am naturally against such a development.
<P>
As regards Mrs d'Ancona's report on drugs, from a Swedish viewpoint it is a slight improvement on many of the others we have discussed.
Nevertheless, I have tabled four amendments which I hope the House and the Commission will support, in particular Amendment No 2.
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<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, the purpose of these reports is to give an interpretation of how cooperation in the European Union between police and justice authorities ought to function.
Mr Nassauer rightly points to Europol's lack of accountability.
I believe the answer to this lies with the national parliaments and the Council.
Broadening Europol and giving it police powers amongst other things seems to me a very bad idea, in view of the problems we have at present with scrutiny and accountability.
<P>
Turning to Mr Wiebenga's very clear report, the creation of an open Europe without internal borders has indeed prompted the need for partial harmonisation of our criminal laws.
The report itself rightly says that we do not want a European penal code.
Less logically, however, the rapporteur advocates a European public prosecutor's office.
A solution which goes as far as that is not at all necessary.
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I can be brief as regards the Schmid report: I wholeheartedly endorse it.
I have a good deal of difficulty, however, with the report by Mr Bontempi.
In a torrent of words, he covers all manner of widely divergent issues.
He stridently asserts that public opinion is outraged by the absence of European legislation in all manner of areas and the supposed dismantling of national legal systems.
The fact that he quotes this as a cause of organised crime and social problems is truly appalling.
There is no pressing public demand for something like European citizenship.
For freedom, security and justice, yes.
The way that is achieved is of little interest to most people.
To say that it can only be achieved through European policy is simply daft.
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Another example is a Union charter of human rights.
The point of this completely escapes me, unless you want a European constitution as the first step towards a European state.
There is much more I could mention, but suffice it to say that I shall not be voting for this text, which is one-sided, in some parts strident and in any case muddled.
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<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, the Austrian Emperor's remark quoted by Mr Schmid is a very appropriate description of the draft joint action by the Council to combat child pornography.
The amendments tabled are therefore a significant improvement.
The increasing and totally unrestricted distribution of contemptible paedophile images and activities via the Internet is turning modern information technology from a blessing for humanity into a curse.
Professional crime in the area of child abuse and misuse of the Internet can only be combated successfully if the EU takes joint action and if the Member States in particular cooperate more closely with each other and with third countries.
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However, for this is it necessary to harmonise certain concepts in criminal law such as age limits, otherwise totally absurd situations can arise.
For example, a German national sentenced in Belgium to five years in prison for child abuse is currently living freely in Germany and cannot be extradited because the crime he committed in Belgium is not an offence in Germany because the age limits in the two countries are different.
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<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Andersson">
Mr President, I should like to concentrate on the d'Ancona report, and I will begin by thanking the rapporteur.
We have had many debates here on drugs, some of which have been extremely intensive and emotional.
I must say that the d'Ancona report is a great improvement on the reports we have discussed before.
In my view, it prepares the ground for an objective discussion on a future drugs policy.
It does not mean, however, that in future there will be agreement on all the details.
I do not think that will be possible, since we all come from different countries with different traditions.
In my opinion, for example, we sometimes set too much store by 'harm reduction', while I would prefer the emphasis to be placed on timely intervention and preventive actions.
However, I have to acknowledge that I agree with nearly all the rapporteur's views, for example that one of the Commissioners should be given the task of trying to find alternatives to imprisonment, which has already been shown to be an unsatisfactory solution to drugs-related problems. I also think that we should carry out an evaluation of the methods currently used to deal with the problems - we know that some methods are better than others, but there has been no proper evaluation.
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Finally, I think we should be proud of one particular matter where the joint efforts of Parliament and the Commission have met with success during this period, namely in combating synthetic drugs.
If we have achieved anything through our common efforts during this parliamentary term, then it is to have begun this very important task of combating synthetic drugs.
I should like to thank my colleagues in both Parliament and the Commission for that.
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<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pirker">
Mr President, what we are really doing today is holding a security debate in two blocks.
In the first block I would like to look at the problem of drugs.
There is a simple reason for this: currently more than 5 million young people in the European Union are taking synthetic drugs.
Overall, it is clear from all the reports that drug consumption and the trade in drugs are unfortunately increasing spectacularly.
We need effective anti-drugs strategies in the European Union, but our problem here is that because we try to do so many different things as part of our strategies people do not always really know what is going on.
The anti-drugs strategies come under three pillars; we have several action plans and a variety of reports on the drugs problem.
We urgently need to adopt a single position and recognisable strategies.
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I would like to address a number of points which I believe are essential.
Firstly, we should send out a signal by trying where possible not to talk about drugs strategies but about anti-drugs strategies.
This also applies to all reports on the subject.
Secondly, we must support what we have decided here in the long term, in other words in future there must still be no liberalisation or legalisation of the production, sale or consumption of drugs.
The future of the European Union must not be one where hashish is sold in tobacconists and heroin is given on prescription.
This must never become a reality for us.
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Thirdly, we must remove ideology from our drugs debate.
We need pragmatic, effective solutions ranging from prevention through repression to support for addicts. However, I think that we should concentrate our prevention efforts on schools, because there we can reach all the young people of the European Union.
I would propose yet again that we should promote voluntary measures, and the Commissioner has also kindly promised support here.
So schools in Europe should be declared drug-free zones on a voluntary basis.
Cooperation with the chemicals industry, for example in combating precursors, should be improved and increased.
With regard to repression, the aim must be to extend Europol, support the police, promote judicial cooperation and generally to introduce help for addicts.
<P>
Finally, Europe must be seen in all its strategies to be a Community of security.
I have no fears in this respect when I look at reports such as those by Mr Nassauer and Mr Wiebenga.
These call for strong measures and I am hoping for further strong measures at the Tampere summit.
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<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
Mr President, this can be said quite simply.
The idea of introducing a common European public prosecutor should be scrapped.
We should not have a common European criminal law or public prosecutor.
We can fight crime just as effectively with the existing instruments, including Europol and the convention on extradition and mutual judicial assistance.
We can easily strengthen cooperation between Member States on investigations and the pursuit of justice, without necessarily having completely uniform rules and a European public prosecutor.
We should not harmonise for the sake of harmonising, and in fact the differences between the criminal laws of the Member States are not so great that they cannot be overcome by using existing intergovernmental instruments.
We can easily ensure effective investigations without handing them over to supranational authorities.
Europol is a good example of the fact that this is possible, and Europol should remain intergovernmental.
It must not develop into a European police authority with operational powers.
The Nassauer report proposes that Europol should be put under the direction and control of the Commission, with strengthened supervisory powers for the European Parliament.
That is a very bad idea.
Formally speaking, parliamentary supervision of Europol is well placed in the hands of the national parliaments, although one might doubt that they themselves are aware of it, so it is perhaps a good idea to also report to the European Parliament, which takes its supervisory role seriously.
Control of personal information is well placed with the national registration authorities.
Europol is a form of intergovernmental cooperation and, fortunately, the Amsterdam Treaty excludes any proposal to make police cooperation supranational.
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<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, we all agree that supervision by Parliament of what takes place under the third pillar is important. I only know that this has been very difficult to achieve, especially when we only have 'soft' rights to exercise control.
I have often been extremely irritated by the fact that we look at recommendations which have been dealt with by a Council working group, but it turns out that our first chance to discover what they really mean comes at the implementation stage.
I feel that the same issues will come up again in relation to telephone tapping.
In this respect, the Council's attitude is very important; our rights should be respected, and we should be given enough time to be able to have our say.
<P>
One such recommendation, which is now on the point of being implemented, concerns reversing the burden of proof in respect of the seizure of property that has been criminally appropriated.
I am concerned that the rules which apply here are rather 'soft' and can be used in a way that infringes people's rights.
Even in my own country, Finland, the recommendation is in the process of being implemented.
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Mr Bontempi, the rapporteur, would also like us to explore the possibility of having a European 'Charter' on human rights, to be drawn up by the Union.
The German Presidency has also mentioned such a possibility.
I would say to you: let us investigate this by all means, but we should proceed with caution.
I do not believe we need any new instruments, but instead should implement those we have more effectively.
I should like to see the European Social Charter become part of the acquis communautaire , as well as the existence of effective mechanisms for following up on this.
<P>
Finally, like everyone else here, I hope that the extraordinary summit in Tampere in Finland is a success and that we come up with concrete decisions.
We do not need lengthy action programmes, but we do need concrete and balanced measures that will be of benefit to ordinary decent people.
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<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, when the Treaty of Amsterdam becomes effective next month the Union will have a lot more scope than at present to act to ensure the single market can work effectively.
This is a good thing, but the problem is that the Member States have not up till now had a clear enough vision of how cooperation under the third pillar might be more effectively developed.
For example, there is an inexcusably wide difference in standards among the Member States when it comes to surveillance of the Union's external borders.
<P>
The problems that are rife in the single market, such as drug trafficking, the growing availability of illegal drugs and trafficking in human beings, and the contributory cause of all such problems, which is the less than perfect way surveillance is carried out on the Union's external borders, all call for Europol to play an even greater role in the future than is provided for in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Europol cannot be allowed to remain just a bureaucratic central agency.
<P>
If cooperation between the police and the customs authorities cannot be made closer, the future is hardly rosy for the single market, especially as the Union's future enlargement to the east will in any case mean extra pressures and totally new challenges with regard to the surveillance of the Union's external borders and our efforts to combat organised crime.
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<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="Gradin">
Mr President, tonight's debate has shown how much still remains to be done in the area of justice and home affairs.
The new Treaty will soon enter into force, providing us with an ambitious goal to work towards, namely to preserve and at the same time to develop Europe as an area of freedom, security and justice.
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The combined concepts of freedom, security and justice provide a clear and simple indication of the direction for our future work.
Cooperation should relate to the conditions governing people's everyday lives.
At the same time, there is the difficulty that so many different spheres of activity are involved.
Our goals therefore have to be tailor-made to fit each individual area of cooperation.
It is a delicate task which I hope will be one of the main topics for debate at the Tampere summit in the autumn.
<P>
The Bontempi report makes an important contribution here.
It serves to confirm that we have to become accustomed to thinking of Europe as a common judicial area.
In particular, I welcome the fact that Mr Bontempi, in his report, has stressed the rights of the individual.
<P>
The new Treaty brings advantages in a number of different areas.
Schengen, for instance, becomes one of the Union's areas of cooperation, hopefully making the free movement of persons a complete reality at last for the people of Europe.
Freedom within Europe cannot be reserved exclusively for European citizens.
It must extend to absolutely everyone who lives in or lawfully visits our countries.
This is an important message with potentially far-reaching implications for all future cooperation.
I hope that Parliament takes the same view.
<P>
Furthermore, freedom implies more than just being able to move around freely.
Freedom also means being entitled to live in a society where there is effective intervention against those who consider themselves to be above the law.
The European idea therefore continues to be that all the Member States should have confidence in each other's ability to deal effectively with serious organised crime, for example.
That is largely what Europol is about.
Its mandate is a broad one, and we have created the long-awaited instruments for combating organised crime.
Mr Nassauer, in his report, points out that Europol's operational powers need to be extended, and quickly.
I agree that in the long term, Europol should be given powers that would make collaboration between police and customs authorities in the Member States as effective as possible.
The Amsterdam Treaty offers precisely this possibility.
<P>
Hitherto, it has been a question of Europol exploiting its current mandate to the full.
The organisation's credibility depends to a large extent on the added value which the police and customs authorities in the Member States see in their cooperation activities.
The benefit derived from Europol stands in direct proportion to the number of crimes solved, in which context it can be said that the support provided by Europol has taken the work forward.
Another issue concerns how the organisation is to be supervised in the future, and in this respect the different Member States have different experiences.
When a new Treaty comes to be drawn up, this aspect should without doubt be one of the main issues.
<P>
When we talk about fighting crime, we are also talking about judicial cooperation.
When the work of the police and customs has been completed, it is time for the prosecution services, the lawyers and the courts to play their part and the differences in criminal law in the various Member States then become relevant.
What is regarded as a criminal offence in one country is not necessarily regarded as such in another.
For instance, there are variations in what constitutes organised crime, or in the definition of a child in terms of sexual exploitation.
Moreover, there is not enough cooperation between the courts.
Among numerous examples, fraud is an important area in which the situation has been exploited by those engaged in organised crime.
I therefore agree with Mr Wiebenga that we must find a solution to the problem.
Quite simply, we have to plug all the loopholes that exist.
In my view, we should first of all try to agree on the types of crime that should be regarded as the most serious in all the Member States.
Corruption, trafficking in persons, drugs smuggling, rape, the sexual exploitation of children and terrorism are examples of crimes which should carry uniformly harsh penalties.
In this respect, the Amsterdam Treaty provides a chance to agree at least on a set of minimum rules.
<P>
It is also essential that these rules operate in an internationally organised judicial environment.
It is a question of ensuring that our judicial authorities work effectively together, in spite of the differences that exist.
This would make legal systems more genuinely accessible to people, irrespective of which Member State they happen to be in.
<P>
The Wiebenga report on criminal procedures (Corpus Juris) puts forward a model that would enable the different judicial systems within the European Union to work together more effectively. Central to the report is the protection of the Community's financial interests.
The report proposes, amongst other things, a far-reaching harmonisation of criminal law in this area.
It also contains a proposal for the establishment of a European public prosecutor to deal with crimes affecting Community financial interests.
The Corpus Juris model is certainly ambitious, and many would say unrealistic. For my part, however, I think it is too early to dismiss Corpus Juris.
Instead, we should await the results of the follow-up study.
I agree with the rapporteur that in any event there is good reason to strengthen cooperation between the prosecution services and examining magistrates within the Union.
<P>
In the last few months, we have been shocked by the number of instances of child pornography on the Internet.
Boys as well as girls have been subject to exploitation of the most heinous kind.
Our concern for these children should lead us to take forceful action against such crimes.
It is also, however, a question of cleaning up the Internet.
We must as far as possible rid this unique communication and information network of all child pornography.
The Schmid report describes the difficulties involved.
It is not enough simply to increase resources and step up police cooperation.
There also has to be cooperation at a deeper level between the authorities and the information services industry.
What is required is the rapid dissemination of experiences and technical knowledge to enable the child porn homepages to be filtered out.
<P>
The joint action put forward in the autumn of 1998 deals precisely with improving this type of cooperation, and stresses in particular the importance of working with the industry and the public authorities.
Furthermore, the Member States agree to review what special requirements the Internet service providers should be obliged to meet.
We should also be seeking to ensure that Community programmes such as STOP and the action plan on Internet abuse are properly used to increase cooperation as part of our common efforts.
<P>
I agree with Mr Schmid when he says we could go further.
In the first place, I think that trading in child pornography should be made a criminal offence in all the Member States and that there should be a Union-wide age definition of a 'child', although I am aware that this is easier said than done.
At the same time, I also know that there is a sense of justice throughout Europe which demands vigorous action to end all aspects of child exploitation.
The present climate should be highly conducive to moving the boundaries here.
<P>
Finally, I should like to say a word about the d'Ancona report and the battle against drugs.
The Union's current action plan on drugs comes to an end this year.
The European Council has therefore asked the Commission to prepare a new action plan.
The work was begun during the winter and is now more or less complete.
In spite of the present circumstances, I hope to be able to bring forward the proposal.
<P>
In her report, Mrs d'Ancona places particular emphasis on the importance of preventive measures.
The same aspect is also one of the main themes of the Commission's proposal.
It is also wholly in keeping with the guidelines approved during the UN's special session on drugs last summer.
We also attach considerable importance to what we call an integrated and global strategy.
Isolated efforts are not enough, no matter how well executed they are.
Everything that is done in this area must hang together and form a coherent whole.
For instance, the ground must be prepared by preliminary work so that legal action can be taken against drugs-related crime and drug abuse.
A repressive approach should always be accompanied by a strong social commitment.
It is therefore clear that measures adopted at national level should take account of the possible effects which they may have on the global community as a whole.
<P>
Drugs-related issues have become a priority.
People also expect clear signals from the Union as to how we plan to meet the challenges that lie ahead of us.
It is therefore vital that there should be a wholehearted commitment on the part of Europe and all its institutions.
I know that Mrs d'Ancona is also satisfied with the interinstitutional cooperation which has been established during the past year between Parliament, the Commission and the Council in the battle against drugs.
In her report, she also highlights the need for effective cooperation, as well as coordinated measures.
I am wholly in agreement, and I sincerely hope that the cooperation which we have succeeded in establishing will be further developed during the coming years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
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The joint debate is closed.
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The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
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<CHAPTER ID=5>
Migration, right of asylum and integration of refugees
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>

A4-0143/99 by Mrs Reding, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the strategy paper on the European Union's migration and asylum policy (9809/2/98 - C4-0051/99-99/0905(CNS)); -A4-0138/99 by Mr Pirker, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, onI.the proposal for a Council Act drawing up a Protocol to the Convention concerning the establishment of 'Eurodac' for the comparison of fingerprints of applicants for asylumII.the draft Protocol, drawn up on the basis of Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union, to the Convention concerning the establishment of 'Eurodac' for the comparison of fingerprints of applicants for asylum (12298/98 - C4-0673/98-98/0916(CNS)); -A4-0115/99 by Mrs Zimmermann, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, onI.the proposal for a Council Decision establishing a Community action programme to promote the integration of refugees (COM(98)0731 - C4-0049/99-98/0356(CNS))II.the proposal for a Council Decision on a joint action adopted by the Council on the basis of Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union establishing measures to provide practical support in relation to the reception and the voluntary repatriation of refugees, displaced persons and asylum applicants (COM(98)0733 - C4-0050/99-98/0357(CNS)); -A4-0118/99 by Mrs Terrón i Cusí, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the draft joint action adopted by the Council on the basis of Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union on the creation of an early warning system for the transmission of information on illegal immigration and facilitator networks (5001/99 - C4-0046/99-99/0909(CNS)).
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="Reding">
Mr President, these past few weeks have surely opened the eyes of those who did not understand before.
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The tragedy of hundreds of thousands of people being forced to flee Kosovo has clearly shown that migration policy in general - and asylum policy in particular - can no longer be tackled by countries on their own.
Europeans will only be able to confront this serious problem by working together.
However, it is not enough to make erudite and solemn declarations.
These must be backed up by actions and specific political measures.
And that is where the shoe pinches.
<P>
As far as the Maastricht Treaty is concerned, which has only been slightly modified by the Treaty of Amsterdam, political initiatives concerning migration and asylum policy are the responsibility of the various governments.
Yet this intergovernmental policy does not work.
More than twenty conventions or joint actions have been adopted but they have yet to be ratified.
They are thus ineffective and of little use.
<P>
What is even more serious is that the Council has still not reached any agreement on the text that would have greatly assisted us in the Kosovan crisis, in other words the 'joint action on the temporary protection of persons displaced by conflicts'.
Politics will not be able to work effectively in Europe if we continue in this way.
<P>
With regard to migration and asylum policy, the main obstacle is Europe's inability to take decisions at Community level with a qualified majority.
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I therefore welcome the fact that the Austrian Presidency reopened this debate by presenting a strategic document on the Union's migration and asylum policy.
It is in the light of this future policy - which we hope will win support at the extraordinary summit in Tampere - that Parliament is setting out its ideas on this issue.
<P>
To begin with, we do not want migration and asylum to be confused.
The right to request political asylum is a fundamental right based on the Geneva Convention; it cannot be violated.
Instead, we must harmonise reception conditions, streamline and speed up the procedures for processing applications, and increase solidarity between the Member States in terms of sharing refugees and the burden imposed by the massive numbers arriving.
Nonetheless, irrespective of what we do, the right to request political asylum is a fundamental human right that cannot under any circumstances be violated.
As regards migration for the purposes of seeking employment, we must support all efforts aimed at ensuring that legal immigrants are fully integrated into our society, to which they make a positive contribution.
<P>
However, illegal immigration is a completely different matter and must be combated effectively, particularly where criminal activities are involved.
Illegal immigration networks and trafficking in human beings are new areas where serious organised crime is taking hold.
European countries will only be able to prevent this most inhumane form of crime by pooling the resources they have to combat this phenomenon effectively.
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Ladies and gentlemen, the migration and asylum policy is an issue for the future.
If we do not tackle the problem together and propose effective solutions, we may well fail.
The European Parliament does not want to see any such failure.
It is therefore proposing an effective and workable action plan and it expects the governments to take action and put it into practice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Pirker">
Mr President, Commissioner, my report deals with the 'Eurodac' system, which is designed to enable us to take the fingerprints of applicants for asylum and to compare them.
The aims are threefold. Firstly, it should put us in a position to combat abuse effectively.
We have established that there is an increasing number of multiple applications.
What is taking place here is social abuse.
We have also established that more and more criminals are applying for asylum in order to avoid the effects of legislation relating to aliens.
What we have also discovered is that more and more illegal immigrants apply for asylum if they are apprehended after entering a country illegally.
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The second aim, after combating abuse, is to achieve an indirect sharing of the burden.
It is in line with the Dublin Convention that people who are seeking refuge apply for asylum in the first country they have entered, and these countries are then required to examine the application for asylum.
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The third, very important, aim is that the true refugees, the real victims of persecution, must be granted maximum assistance as quickly as possible by ensuring fewer applications for asylum, faster processing of asylum procedures and effective use of the money available for the real asylum seekers.
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What led to the drafting of this report?
The first document was the Eurodac Convention.
As we know, the document was complete and there was agreement in the Council, but it was not signed and as a result of course it has not been ratified.
Despite this we have racked our brains over how to extend the system to include taking the fingerprints of illegal immigrants who are apprehended at the border or in the country, to compare them and to establish whether an application for asylum has already been made; this would also allow us to effectively implement the Dublin Convention.
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The Protocol and the Convention have resulted in Parliament being asked to deliver an opinion in a relatively short period of time, even though they were not ratified and even though it was established in the Council that once the Amsterdam Treaty has entered into force the Commission and the Council are expecting to come up with a new regulation anyway.
Parliament discussed this in committee and unanimously decided that it should nevertheless deliver an opinion, quite simply so that the Commission could also include Parliament's ideas in its proposal under the Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
The report which I subsequently presented has been debated twice, and when it was put to the vote on 16 March, the situation changed as a result of a U-turn by the PSE, the Greens and others.
Suddenly a report was no longer needed and the draft was rejected.
As rapporteur, I note the result in committee, even if I do not share its view, since my opinion is what was previously agreed unanimously by the entire committee, namely that Eurodac is necessary to combat current problems.
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I should like - not as rapporteur but as a Member of this House and of the Group of the European People's Party - to make a brief comment about this.
What happened here at the end of the debate was a pathetic spectacle because the Socialist Group and others on the left simply caved in. They were not prepared to send out a signal that asylum abuse must be combated at all costs and that Parliament must exercise its authority to put forward proposals to the Commission that strengthen our position in the areas of asylum applications, the proper processing of applications and combating abuse.
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Finally, I would appeal to the common sense of the House to support the Council proposal at tomorrow's vote and to send out a strong signal in favour of an indirect sharing of the burden and combating abuse.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Zimmermann">
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Terrón i Cusí">
Mr President, I am speaking as rapporteur and as draftsman of an opinion, but in relation to two different reports.
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I would first of all like to talk about the Council's draft Joint Action on the creation of an early warning system for the transmission of information on illegal immigration and facilitator networks.
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In our view, this basically consists of extending to the 'enlargement countries' the decision taken in 1992 on the creation of the Centre for Information, Discussion and Exchange on the Crossing of Frontiers and Immigration and concentrating its activities on rapidly detecting cases of supposedly massive immigration.
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Parliament criticised the creation of this Centre for Information in 1992.
It was decided at that stage that CIREFI was to be involved in the issues of illegal immigration and the smuggling of humans.
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This proposal requires the 'enlargement countries' to cooperate where possible. However, in my view, it also raises quite a few doubts, just as the creation of the Centre did at the time.
Firstly, it is difficult to understand why the Commission is not involved in this work, particularly as we approach the ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
This new communication also raises doubts in that respect, yet that is not the only thing that leads me to question its effectiveness and its purpose.
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First of all, what kind of information do we hope to gather and how do we hope to gather it? Are we not aware of what is going on around us?
I would be surprised if that were the case.
In my view, nothing was as easy to foresee as the humanitarian crisis we are seeing on our television screens; nothing was as easy to foresee as the crisis that Europe is now experiencing in Kosovo. Equally, few things are as easy to foresee as the fact that in the months ahead, the Straits of Gibraltar and the Mediterranean will once again claim many people who, taking advantage of the good weather, will try to get across in tiny boats and vessels that are in terrible condition.
We do not need warnings to advise us of that.
<P>
In any event, we know that illegal immigration causes great concern and Parliament hopes to act responsibly. As I said before, we are surprised at the lack of cooperation with the Commission.
The Commission has the help of Eurostat and in the near future will be able to rely on the Schengen information system or the European information system. In my opinion, these elements would be perfectly adequate and we should not duplicate remits, duties or structures.
<P>
Because of all these doubts surrounding the future of this draft action and the Centre itself, I seriously considered rejecting this proposal.
However, as was mentioned earlier, we are aware of the dramatic problems that the illegal trafficking of persons generates in Europe.
We are therefore calling on the Council to put forward a new proposal for a regulation, in the light of the Treaty of Amsterdam, within the next year. We are also asking it to include the Mediterranean region and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe as an area for action under the scope of this new proposed regulation.
<P>
I will now go on to look at the opinion I drew up and the report presented by Mrs Reding on the strategy paper on migration and asylum policy.
<P>
I would like to begin by thanking the rapporteur very sincerely for her work and her ability to move such a controversial report forward in such a short time.
I am sure all the Members of this House would like to thank her for enabling us to give our opinion on this issue at such an appropriate time and before we complete our work here.
<P>
I welcome the Council's document, particularly as it gives fresh impetus to a fundamental debate within the European institutions and between our institutions and the people of the Union.
<P>
On behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, I would like to point out that our immigration policy and the treatment of 'legal' immigrants in the European Union are going to become increasingly vital issues in our relations with third countries.
An example of this is the talks we are currently holding with the Mediterranean countries on the conclusion of association agreements.
I therefore believe that we should manage migratory flows not only on the basis of our internal policy, but also by taking account of the Union's actions in other areas, such as the common foreign policy or our development policies.
<P>
In my view, dialogue with third countries, combined with measures aimed at development, is the most important element here. Indeed, such measures involve immigrants as they send a large proportion of their income to their families and this constitutes a significant amount of aid for both the families and the countries themselves.
I must stress that dialogue is more important than joint action and more important than repressive measures or measures imposing our requirements on other countries. Dialogue is essential, a fact which is highlighted in the document.
<P>
There were certain elements that I was less satisfied with, and I am speaking now more on behalf of my group than on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Firstly, although we are pleased with this document, we would have been much happier - as I said in relation to the previous issue - if the Council had provided a strong impetus by approving the documents already on the table, which were presented by the Commission in recent months, not to mention years.
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I am referring here to the convention for the protection of displaced persons, which was mentioned earlier and which we desperately need.
I am also referring to the convention on rules for the admission of third-country nationals.
We would have preferred to receive a clear signal of support and approval for these measure, rather than an analysis of the issues, despite the fact that this in itself is to be welcomed.
<P>
As we are seeing, we need an asylum policy and we need an immigration policy.
I would like to take the few moments I have left to ask the Group of the European People's Party to act in line with the House's vote on the convention on rules for the admission of third-country nationals, and, in relation to the debate initiated here by the Council, to vote in favour of the amendment calling for the rights of third-country nationals residing legally in the Union to be regulated.
To my mind, this issue is of vital importance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="Zimmermann">
Mr President, as rapporteur for the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights my task was to deal with the legal issues raised by the additional protocol to the Eurodac Convention.
The first difficulty here was that we do not know the Council's reaction to the opinion delivered by the European Parliament on this Convention.
After all, the extensive data protection measures that we called for are at least as important for the additional protocol.
<P>
In my opinion the second problem continues to be whether solely illegal entry or solely illegal residence is sufficient to justify such an encroachment on a person's individual rights.
On this point my view is quite different from that of Mr Pirker, who spoke earlier.
After all, the person's fingerprints are not just taken and compared but also stored for years to come.
Is this really necessary?
In any event, the Committee on Legal Affairs cannot decide this because in my view it is a moral question.
On the whole, it must be said that the Council has made significant efforts to draft a text that guarantees that stored fingerprints should be used to enforce the Dublin Convention, although in my opinion it has not gone far enough.
<P>
We must clearly vote against an extension of the Eurodac database, as called for by the rapporteur.
That is why we voted against it in the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs and spoke out against the adoption of this report.
We did not 'cave in', as the rapporteur said; however, we did express our opinion that we are not convinced that we can just treat people in this way.
In my view a Europe in which all the data relating to a particular person can be retrieved at any time is not our Europe, nor does it correspond to my vision of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="d'Ancona">
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="De Esteban Martín">
Mr President, in this joint debate, the Community action programme to promote the integration of refugees - for which Mrs Zimmermann is rapporteur - has assumed particular importance in view of the current situation.
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The European Parliament had the foresight in 1997 to create a number of new lines in the budget which give the European Union the scope to implement specific measures in this area.
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It is important to highlight the fact that the action plan will help us to coordinate Community initiatives and those of the Member States.
In my view, this coordination is vital for the successful development of the action plan and we must therefore ensure that the various administrations involved collaborate in a clear and effective manner.
The way the Commission has organised the pilot projects carried out in the last two years has not been particularly satisfactory, since the Member States have not been properly informed about the development of the projects and nothing has been done to help them to participate.
Therefore, Commissioner, we must rectify these mistakes and try to make the most of the results of the measures taken earlier.
In this respect, it might be useful to assess the results achieved through the earlier projects with a view to preventing any similar mistakes in the future.
<P>
Moreover, given that the programme also aims to promote transnational cooperation, raise public awareness, and so on, it is important when trying to make the most of future actions to take other EU initiatives into account, such as those that come under the European Social Fund, the action plan to combat racism, or other programmes such as 'Youth for Europe', which could also have repercussions on issues concerning refugees.
We will thus be able to avoid a duplication and therefore dilution of any efforts made.
<P>
As regards the joint action on voluntary repatriation, it is important to ensure that the aid is not used for this purpose alone, but is also used to improve the refugee reception centres in the Member States. In addition to improving the buildings, we must also allocate funds to train those working in the centres so that they can properly receive the refugees and provide them with the help they need for their future integration.
<P>
On another matter, and without going into an in-depth analysis of the legal basis for the approval of the action plan - Article 235 - I simply want to point out that it might possibly have been better to wait until the Treaty of Amsterdam comes into force and to adopt these measures under the framework of Community action to promote social integration, in accordance with the new Article 137 of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
<P>
Nevertheless, Mr President, Commissioner, we are very much in favour of the adoption of these proposals and we hope that they can be implemented as soon as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wiebenga">
Mr President, this debate is overshadowed by the war in Kosovo.
For two years, the European Parliament and the Commission had been pressing the Council of Ministers for decisions on how to cope with refugees and how the financial burden should be shared in the event of major human disasters of the kind now happening in Kosovo.
The European Union ought to have learned from its experience with the half a million refugees from Bosnia.
The relevant legislative proposal, a form of joint action, was accepted last year by the European Parliament, but the Council of Ministers has done nothing about it.
We have no system for the acceptance of refugees, although we do have a very small refugee fund of EUR 15 million or so.
But on the other hand, virtually no financial provision has been made for emergency aid.
All this is a sorry state of affairs.
<P>
Last week's decision of the Council of Justice Ministers about what to do with displaced persons from Kosovo said essentially that they should be taken in, in other words accepted in the Balkan region.
That is in itself a good decision.
I refer you, for example, to paragraph 26 of Mrs Reding's excellent report.
We must endeavour to make it possible for these people to go back to Kosovo as soon as possible, to their own homes, because ethnic cleansing cannot be accepted as a fait accompli .
<P>
The Austrian Presidency's strategy paper is a good starting-point for a new European policy on migration and asylum.
But it should be the last paper.
What we need now is legislation.
Mrs d'Ancona has said this already.
The previous paper, and it was not a Council one but a European Commission one - Commissioner Flynn issued it in 1994 - was virtually ignored.
The debates on it, if I can mention merely one example, talked of the migration monitoring centre.
This was a monitoring centre, a unit of the European Union, which was to have the remit of monitoring conditions in refugees' countries of origin.
Nothing has come of it.
And now, and I am looking here at Mrs Terrón i Cusí's report, we are talking about an early warning system for illegal immigration, controlled by the Council of Ministers.
That is not a good idea, because a monitoring centre for migration of the kind discussed earlier ought to come under the responsibility of the Commission, and should have a broader remit.
<P>
We need a European policy on asylum for the future, and we need it fast.
The Tampere summit will be too late to help the Kosovars.
But the Heads of Government should seize the chance to break the years of deadlock over the devising of a policy such as this, a uniform European policy on asylum, just as they did last year over monetary policy and as they did recently in Berlin over financial policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Pailler">
Mr President, it is difficult not to be shocked and moved by the flood of Kosovar refugees fleeing the barbaric acts of the Serbian militias. Yet it is also difficult to ignore the hesitation and ambiguity of the Member States about accepting these refugees and their catastrophic inability to predict these obvious expulsions.
They are hesitant to commit and share out the funds needed to accept the refugees, yet the high cost of the weapons used has never been challenged.
They are ambiguous about the status of these refugees since certain Member States are only proposing to grant them territorial asylum with reduced rights, rather than strictly applying the Geneva Convention.
<P>
Such ambiguity is also evident in the presidency's strategic document on immigration and asylum.
The initial document from the Austrian Presidency created such an outcry that the German Presidency modified it.
It clearly removed or watered down the most controversial aspects, but retained its fundamental approach, emphasising repressive action as well as the methods of preventing migratory flows into the European Union.
Unfortunately, this document sticks very closely to the policy that is currently being followed in many Member States, a policy that is increasingly restrictive and repressive towards immigrants.
<P>
The immigration policy is considered first of all from a security viewpoint, with the construction of what amounts to a judicial and police barricade prohibiting access to the European area.
Immigration is all too often wrongly linked to the rise in unemployment, a notion that has unfortunately been repeated here in the House.
During a recent debate on a draft convention from the Commission, this House justified applying the Community preference - which is terrible in itself - and national preference in the field of employment.
My group strongly condemns such moves and also opposes quotas on immigration.
These quotas are based on neocolonial attitudes and their only aim is to select immigrants according to the European economy's needs, both intellectually and in terms of manpower.
I will continue to stress, here and elsewhere, that there is no correlation between immigration and the rate of unemployment, and studies by the OECD have demonstrated this.
We must put an end to this strategy of finding scapegoats and rid ourselves of our obsession with security.
<P>
The process of regulating the status of illegal immigrants that is applied in certain Member States does exactly the opposite of this strategy, but we must not stop there.
That is why my group is proposing in an amendment that the Member States should regulate the status of illegal immigrants, while respecting human rights and the relevant international conventions.
I would call on our governments to ratify and implement all the international conventions, particularly the United Nations International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and their Families and the 1992 Council of Europe Convention on the Participation of Foreigners in Public Life at Local Level.
The provisions of these conventions should be included in the future Community policy on immigration and asylum provided for in the Treaty of Amsterdam, instead of this arsenal of administrative controls that simply increase in the number of files to be dealt with.
<P>
In recent times, the right of asylum has become more and more restricted.
In fact, in France, in 1997, 83 % of applications for asylum were rejected. These included applications from Algerian victims of terrorism and from Kurds who were the victims of oppression that was as severe as that now experienced by the people of Kosovo.
The presidency's strategic document does nothing to alter this trend.
<P>
Along with other Members of this House, I have therefore signed the appeal backed by the High Commissioner for Refugees stating that it is unacceptable to allow Europe to enjoy the benefits of its economic and financial environment yet ignore the distress beyond its borders.
<P>
In conclusion, I would like to mention the analysis by the president of the European Union Migrants Forum, as it is also an appeal to all elected representatives and governments.
In his view, those seeking asylum, refugees and migrants all form part of European society both now and in the future.
Treating them as possible aggressors to be discouraged from approaching our prosperous Europe means that only the well-off will be allowed into this very private club.
And as far as the poor are concerned, be they nationals or those from other countries who have already arrived, all they have to do is wait and their turn will come.
Indeed, in his opinion, they will soon be looked on more as intruders who should not have any rights and who deserve only hand-outs. Our struggle is therefore a struggle on behalf of our entire democratic society.
We are not only fighting for ourselves and for all those who have had the misfortune to be born with the wrong papers; we are also fighting to strengthen the democratic foundations of our societies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Andrews">
Mr President, this report takes on an even wider significance following the tragic events in Yugoslavia and Kosovo, right in the heart of Europe.
<P>
I wish to refer in particular to the proposals on the fingerprinting of illegal immigrants.
This is the thin edge of the wedge.
It is Orwellian in its theory and probably, if it is ever put into practice, something even George Orwell would not have thought of.
Instead of tattooing them, the modern-day Europe is going to identify those who make us feel uncomfortable by fingerprinting.
After immigrants, we take on the gypsies, then citizens we do not like the look of.
Immigrants and those we feel uncomfortable with in society are branded, as criminals are today.
I strongly oppose this proposal.
<P>
I admit there is no easy solution.
If there was, it would have been found by now.
Issues of high politics are caught up in issues of human rights.
There is an overwhelming and immediate need to protect and care for the victims of war, to stop the genocide and to find a solution acceptable to all sides, including respect for and understanding of the needs of neighbouring countries.
Top priority continues to be the need to protect and to care for the refugees.
Families have been separated and sent to different countries.
Refugees have died in holding pens in modern-day Europe, without sanitation or proper services.
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The UNHCR has been very slow to react, to say the very least.
We have to act, as the interior ministers did last week, when they suggested that long-term admission of Kosovars to countries outside the region would consolidate their displacement from their homes.
We have to be certain that the wrong signals are not sent to the Serbian regime, that it is possible for the Kosovars to return home eventually to safety.
<P>
We welcomed the launching of the general debate last year on a consistent approach to the questions of migration and asylum.
The strategy paper, which has been under consideration in the Council, has enabled a serious analysis of the many aspects of migration and asylum to be undertaken so that constructive solutions can be found.
<P>
In the light of the present crisis we also welcome the fact that the strategy paper developed last year examined the possibility of making a single member of the Commission responsible for all matters relating to migration policy.
This could be a significant advance given that at present several members of the outgoing Commission are responsible for different areas, which range from the legal aspects of migration, humanitarian aid and the free movement of persons to the foreign policy aspects of migration.
<P>
A number of the points set out in today's reports overlap as, for example, the services and reception facilities to be provided for asylum seekers and refugees.
<P>
Finally, I wish to pay tribute to the Commissioner.
It may be my last opportunity to do so publicly.
She has been a great asset to the Community and a great source of support on issues that have very often been discussed in the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
I wish to pay tribute to Mrs Gradin and wish her every success, whether she comes back or not.
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<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ceyhun">
Mr President, my group supports the reports by Mrs Zimmermann and Mrs Reding.
Even in the last few days it has become clear once again how urgently we need a European policy on refugees and immigration.
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The atrocities, the expulsion and the genocide in Kosovo and the sometimes unpleasant way in which some Member States are dealing with the displaced persons who need our support illustrate once again that we need a harmonised policy on refugees and asylum, but one that must be humane in accordance with the Geneva Convention.
The harmonised minimum level for certain services and reception facilities must apply to all EU Member States.
We cannot have a situation in which some countries, like my country, Germany, bear a far heavier burden than others.
This also applies to the area of migrant labour.
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Mrs Reding's report contains some very welcome demands for a differentiated approach involving three groups: refugees, migrant labour and the victims of smuggling networks.
I would like to thank Mrs Reding on behalf of my group for presenting such a differentiated report.
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With regard to what Mr Pirker said, it is not true that we did not or do not want a report on Eurodac.
We wanted a report but not the one that Mr Pirker has given us.
We would have liked to have discussed and adopted a critical report, which is what our voters elected us to do and expect of us. When it comes to civil rights and avoiding the same old arguments we have a huge responsibility, even here in the House.
That is why we rejected his report: because it was not appropriate for this House.
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<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Pradier">
Mr President, the report by Mrs Reding is both courageous and intelligent and I am pleased to pay tribute to her today.
I must point out that it follows on from the strategic document presented by the Austrian Presidency.
This initially led to some controversy but it also opened a debate that has proved to be quite fruitful.
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The report analyses four key problems.
The first relates to the right of asylum, its unique characteristics and all the other rights that correspond to it.
The second involves immigrant labour and the mobility of the labour force.
The third point highlights the problem of the illegal immigration networks, whilst the fourth deals with the statute for legal immigrants.
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Until now, a certain vagueness surrounded all these concepts, a sense of confusion, which, helped along by ideology - even passion - and demagogy, led to very serious problems.
I need look no further for proof of this than the words of our colleague Mr Pirker, who just accused the left of caving in to its own supporters.
I must point out to him that the immigrant supporters are not necessarily the best we can find.
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Secondly, as far as the right of asylum is concerned, it is important to stress that everyone has the right to request asylum and that the Geneva Conventions - the conventions themselves and the additional protocols - which are the founding texts, represent a frame of reference that cannot be violated.
We need to think very carefully about the proposed replacements, which the report very clearly rejects.
<P>
The report also stresses that there should be minimum standards for the services and reception facilities to which asylum seekers are entitled. It highlights, too, that we need to respect the conventions, speed up procedures and, above all, guarantee the rights of those seeking asylum until a final decision has been taken by the judicial authorities to proceed with deportation.
Finally, we should pay tribute to the genuine efforts being made to reconcile the judicial proceedings and regulations involved with the human dimension.
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After the ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Commission will be able to take legislative initiatives.
If the Commission continues along the same path it has followed until now - and perhaps we should pay tribute to the Commission today, particularly as we do not do so very often at the moment - it should be aware that it will find in Parliament, be it this Parliament or its successor, a reliable and faithful ally.
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<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="Lindeperg">
Mr President, Parliament previously expressed its support for the Eurodac Convention. We were told at the time that it was designed to make it easier to apply the Dublin Convention by offering security both to those seeking asylum, who would be assured that they could apply for asylum in a Member State, and also to the countries themselves, since the system enabled us to prevent multiple applications.
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However, the reasons given by the Council today, to which the rapporteur has just given his support, for extending Eurodac to include certain categories of illegal immigrants through a protocol are far from convincing. We feel that the risk of abuse here is quite considerable.
Our group therefore hopes that the protocol will be rejected, just as the entire committee hoped that it would be rejected.
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Unfortunately, I do not have time to talk about the excellent reports by Mrs Terrón and Mrs Zimmermann, but I would like to take a moment to look at the report by Mrs Reding.
I must congratulate her because, although dealing with a very sensitive and controversial subject, she has succeeded in finding compromises on most issues and they are likely to be supported by the vast majority here.
At the same time, she has also managed to maintain the fundamental points and principles that I and my group fully supported and that she herself has just explained very clearly.
<P>
We were somewhat concerned about certain aspects of the strategic document presented by the Austrian Presidency and, in our view, it was vital that the report should set out these concerns very clearly.
The first of these relates to the necessary distinction between the problem of asylum and that of immigration.
The implications of this are very important, particularly as regards access to the territory of Europe and, thus, access to the procedure put in place for the many people applying for asylum who, for reasons that are very easy to understand, do not have the relevant documents.
We must not liken these people to illegal immigrants; that would be like riding roughshod over the principle that asylum seekers should not be expelled or returned.
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I am also pleased that the report is very clear on the fact that we must ensure the full and complete application of the Geneva Convention and refuse to accept any attempt to renegotiate it.
The gaps in the Convention need to be filled, particularly through the creation of a statute on complementary protection, but under no circumstances must we replace the Convention itself. Furthermore, we strongly oppose a policy based on an 'institutional offer' at the discretion of each Member State.
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Another important point is our request for a broad interpretation of the Geneva Convention, particularly as regards taking account of persecution by third parties.
Parliament has often expressed its view on this issue, yet there has not been the slightest shift in the Council's position or in the measures taken by the Member States.
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Finally, the tragic events we are currently witnessing prove that it was vital to express our disapproval of the fact that the joint actions proposed by the Commission on the temporary protection of displaced persons have been blocked in the Council, and many of the speakers here have mentioned this.
Commissioner Gradin had hoped to learn from the experience of the Bosnian tragedy, and quite rightly so.
Unfortunately, the Council's procrastination has meant that the system she is proposing cannot be implemented to help tackle the tragedy in Kosovo, and this does Europe no credit.
Although the refugees from Kosovo are apparently covered by the Geneva Convention, such massive immigration flows clearly prevent us from considering each case individually in a short period of time and using the normal processes. Temporary protection would undoubtedly be the appropriate instrument in such cases, but without permanently ruling out the possibility of invoking the Geneva Convention.
<P>
I therefore welcome the report by Mrs Reding.
However, I would point out that, despite its merits, we are unfortunately left to wonder how effective it will be, as until now the Council has not paid a great deal of attention to the very many consistent recommendations Parliament has made.
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<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Nassauer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is increasingly apparent that the Austrian strategy paper on asylum and immigration in Europe has become the basis for an extremely productive and, above all, necessary discussion.
It is necessary because asylum and immigration will be communitised with the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Even if they are dependent on unanimous Council decisions for the next five years, they will still be removed from the jurisdiction of the Member States and transferred to the Community.
This means that in the areas of asylum and immigration we must force ourselves to think in Community terms, and that is the task of this Parliament.
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I would like to focus on one point here. I believe that we in Europe and here in the European Parliament must answer one question very clearly, a question that is fundamental to this whole discussion: generally speaking, do we in Europe want to take in immigrants or not?
And here I am not talking about political refugees.
There is absolutely no question that these are to be taken in, a point which cannot seriously be disputed by anyone.
I am not talking either about civil war refugees, other quota refugees or family reunification.
I am discussing only the basic issue of whether we in Europe wish to take in immigrants, as we are occasionally asked to do.
Here I would say, ladies and gentlemen, that Europe is not an immigration area like the United States was in the last century and possibly still is today, or like Australia, New Zealand, Canada or any other countries which desperately sought people to fill up their space.
We are not in that situation: on the contrary, we have 20 million unemployed.
As a result of this we have no choice but to restrict immigration.
I would like to emphasise once again that I am not talking about asylum and related issues but only about immigration, and particularly illegal immigration.
In my view it is irresponsible to reject the Eurodac Convention when we consider that 80 % of illegal immigrants are victims of trafficking networks that cynically exploit the misery and suffering of these people.
One of the things that is needed in order to put a stop to their activities is the signing of the Eurodac Convention.
Those who reject is are playing straight into the hands of the smuggling networks by voting against it.
Please consider this.
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On the subject of asylum we are essentially in agreement.
Everyone here is in favour of granting asylum to the victims of political persecution.
We now need to settle the matter of the procedure.
Should all asylum seekers in Europe have an individual procedure or must we resign ourselves to considering institutional guarantees?
I believe that speedy processing is particularly in the interest of applicants for asylum.
For this reason we must open up this second possibility.
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<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, Commissioner, I took great pleasure in listening to Mrs Reding presenting her report.
I must say that there is nothing I would have put differently, especially when I have in my hand two pages of conclusions reached during the meeting of justice and foreign affairs ministers in Luxembourg last week.
One might ask oneself whether this is really the outcome of a conference attended by 15 ministers: an expression of thanks to Albania and a statement to the effect that we are prepared to provide protection for refugees from the Kosovo region.
Is this the level of solidarity we are able to display in Europe?
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We are capable of action when 2 000 Kurds are knocking at our doors, but not when hundreds of thousands of people are suffering.
We have a collective responsibility for the tens of thousands of people who have vanished and for those who will probably die of starvation.
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It is now up to all those countries that have talked about a European identity and the importance of solidarity to do something in the present situation.
I also have to say that today I am ashamed of being Finnish.
We have a prime minister who might very well not have seen on television over Easter or even be aware of the anxiety and suffering in Kosovo.
I apologise for being Finnish, but I am nevertheless pleased that our government has at last done something, since that is what people want.
Our solidarity is being put to the test.
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We must hold our ground in the European Parliament. In particular, we must stand firm over the proposal relating to a European fund for refugees and for increased Community resources directed at those in need.
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<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
Mr President, so far the EU's policy on refugees has consisted solely of restrictive measures.
The Dublin Convention and Eurodac should also be viewed in the same light.
In practical terms, moreover, the Schengen Agreement has played a major role in generally making it more difficult for asylum seekers to persuade the EU authorities to look into their reasons for requesting asylum.
EU policy bears the stamp of repression and police involvement, which in turn explains - or very largely explains - the growing influx of illegal immigrants and refugees.
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What is required instead is, above all, a shared responsibility throughout the whole of Europe, and not just in the EU, for those who need protection.
We also need rules based on the UN Convention on the status of refugees to ensure that they are well treated.
In addition, there should be a means of guaranteeing the rights of those who are legally resident within the EU, for example their right to be able to move around freely within the Union.
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Eurodac is central to the system devised under the Dublin Convention for applying the principle of the first country of asylum.
This principle has numerous shortcomings, as does Eurodac itself.
The principle of the first country of asylum is currently being applied, in spite of the fact that the Member States acknowledge that differences exist between asylum seekers.
The principle is irrational and may well lead to arbitrary decisions being made.
Secondly, there is also an obvious danger of the Eurodac register expanding and being abused.
And thirdly, fingerprinting infringes the integrity of the person and should only be done where it is genuinely necessary.
Today's proposal on Eurodac should therefore be rejected in its present form.
<P>
I should also like to say a few words about the Reding report concerning the strategy paper on migration and asylum policy.
Last year, the Austrian Presidency put forward an exceptionally cynical proposal regarding the EU's future asylum policy.
It constituted what amounts to a frontal attack on the foundations of a humane asylum policy.
Consequently, I welcome the fact that, on a number of important points, Mrs Reding disagrees with the proposal, particularly in her defence of the Geneva Convention and the role of the UNHCR.
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<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the increasingly restrictive measures that we have been discussing and unfortunately adopting for years are always claimed by the Right in this House not to be restricting refugee policy but merely combating abuse.
It was against this background that we created a regulation concerning third countries which is clearly contrary to the Geneva Convention but also does not do anything to combat abuse.
It was against this background that we removed persecution by non-state violence from the grounds for recognising refugee status.
It was against this background that the Austrian Presidency's strategy paper on refugees ultimately came into being, which represents a clear attack on the Geneva Convention.
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But even if these Members really were only concerned with abuse and not, as Mr Nassauer said, with the actual refugees, then today we have come to the moment of truth, Mr Pirker, Mr Nassauer: today 200 000 people are fleeing Kosovo, and they are being denied refugee status in violation of the Geneva Convention.
Why do you not stand up and demand that the Geneva Convention, which clearly provides protection for people who are persecuted for ethnic reasons, be observed?
Then stand up and demand that the Geneva Convention be observed and that these people be granted refugee status!
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<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Lancker">
Mr President, I too must compliment Viviane Reding on a particularly humane and balanced report, but I am sure she will not take it amiss if I say here that it is particularly cynical for the European Parliament to be discussing today a strategy paper from the presidency on asylum and migration policy, at a time when hundreds of thousands of people are being driven out of Kosovo, deported, are stuck in the mud in refugee camps, locked up even, or being driven back into Kosovo.
It is cynical to be talking of a strategy which should result in a common approach of the Union at the autumn summit in Tampere, when the Council meeting in Luxembourg could not even agree a joint strategy for the admission of refugees in one of the biggest humanitarian disasters which Europe has even seen.
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I find it shameful that the European Union, which is wealthy and prosperous, merely salves its conscience by giving a few tens of millions of euros in aid to the region.
In all honesty, Commissioner, I cannot understand either the stance expressed by Mrs Bonino on behalf of the Commission that she was against settling refugees in the European Union.
Of course it is good to keep people in their own area, always provided it can be done in decent conditions.
But the television pictures and the reports from humanitarian organisations have shown us clearly that this is not possible, that the countries bordering on Kosovo are, moreover, too poor and too unstable to be able to cope with this influx appropriately.
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The political reluctance shown by some Member States of the Union is disgraceful too.
Nevertheless, this strategy document says quite clearly that the European Commission's proposals for acceptance of refugees, which have been on the table for two years already, as Mr Wiebenga rightly pointed out, must be approved as speedily as possible.
So I think this debate should prompt us to urge the Council once again - and forcefully - to conclude an agreement without delay on collective action on refugees and on a statute giving them guaranteed rights and protection.
If the 15 cannot manage this, Commissioner, I am convinced that those Member States which do wish to cooperate will have to conclude an agreement on how to deal with refugees - a kind of humanitarian Schengen, if I can call it that.
I am not at all pro-Schengen, but in this case it seems to me to be absolutely the right course.
<P>
Finally, I should like to raise another point which is terribly important both in Mrs Reding's report and in the crisis in Kosovo.
I refer to the reuniting of families.
Every day on television we see the tragedy of families which have become separated, of children, men and women who cannot find each other.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights gives everyone the right to live in a family.
That right must be upheld for refugees and displaced persons too.
That right must be guaranteed by the Union for refugees from Kosovo and for any other asylum seeker or refugee.
I think we urgently need to revise and add to the Dublin agreement on this point.
The yawning gap which divides the few good proposals contained in the strategy paper and European dithering in this area - I have no other word for it - shows that it will really take a miracle if we are to achieve anything specific at Tampere.
I hope the Commission will show perseverance and I hope Parliament will continue to be involved in preparing policy, because the Council gives the impression of having to protect Europe against the refugees, rather than wanting to protect the refugees themselves.
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<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Hernández Mollar">
Mr President, Viviane Reding has drawn up an excellent report and we must point out that she was particularly sensitive with those of us who participated in the debate and very receptive to all our contributions.
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When talking about immigration, in my view, there are two key elements: solidarity and the human dimension of the problem.
Solidarity is important because every human being, irrespective of nationality, sex or religion, has the right to a decent life and to sufficient resources to enable him to survive.
We cannot understand immigration if we are only concerned about our own borders, our own welfare or our own geostrategic interests.
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The human dimension also requires considerable efforts on the part of the Member States if it is to be reconciled with the legislation needed to regulate the entry and exit of third-country nationals or a period of residence in our countries by those who are seeking work, refuge or asylum from persecution in their own countries. We must finally introduce a common policy to regulate the administrative and judicial procedures involved.
This policy must allow us to pursue and sentence those who exploit human beings. It must also help us to ensure that the most fundamental rights of any immigrants in our countries, be they legal or illegal, will be respected, even in instances where they have to be expelled or returned to their country of origin.
<P>
I would like to draw your attention to the fact that this is not only the responsibility of the European Union.
It is also up to the countries from which the immigrants come to strive to make the most of the human and material resources they have available, that is, both their own resources and those provided by the European Union in the form of assistance. They must also become more democratic and guarantee respect for their citizens' rights.
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<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, the dramatic events we are living through pose two equally dramatic questions.
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Can the European Union be regarded as a place of freedom, security and justice?
Can it follow a progressive policy on asylum and refugees?
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Two very recent traumatic experiences probably provide a negative answer.
Firstly, the barbarous bombardments by NATO of Yugoslavia, which are creating hundreds of thousands of refugees and threatening to destabilise the whole of the Balkans. Secondly, the three-month-long wanderings of Mr Öcalan throughout Europe, who not only did not find asylum but was essentially handed over to his persecutors with the help of procedures that were suspect and illegal.
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We cannot debate in the European Parliament as if these things had not happened.
The policy of the European Union towards the major migration crisis we are witnessing is a policy of containment. It is a policy of war and one which, as the presidency's strategy paper on migration and asylum policy points out, calls for actions that could have a good chance of success, but only if they are not carried out exclusively on a political level and only if they comprise as broad a spectrum of actions as possible, which may even include war, as indeed we are witnessing at the moment.
This policy even goes so far as to call into question the Geneva Convention relating to the status of refugees, regarding it as outdated, and calls for a complementary system of protection which, to all intents and purposes, will be based on mechanisms such as Schengen and Europol.
In other words, what we have is the logic of militarism and of the police state.
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Mr President, we denounce this policy as inhuman and hypocritical, as a policy which in the end will not protect the paradise that is Europe, but which, sooner or later, will lead it into adventures that will damage not only the people of Europe and democracy but, above all, peace in Europe and throughout the world.
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<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, first let me congratulate the four rapporteurs involved in this joint debate on migration, asylum and refugees: Mrs Zimmermann, Mrs Terrón i Cusi, Mrs Reding and Mr Pirker.

It is impossible for me in three minutes to discuss adequately the details of these four complex reports, ranging from early warning systems for illegal immigration to integration of refugees, from migration policy to fingerprinting applicants for asylum.
Instead I will try to touch on a number of principles which I believe should be the basis for the policy that we pursue in all of these areas.
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First let me say that the European Union must have the ability to make choices as to the immigration policy it wishes to pursue.
With a borderless Europe these choices can only be made together, rather than separately.
Our current policy limits immigration to a few cases of family reunion, plus some German and Greeks from the former Soviet Union who are entering their own countries.
Provided that, in the future, such policies are arrived at in a non-racist way, by open and democratic debate, then I can support them.
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Secondly, we need to make it clear that asylum seekers and refugees are not immigrants.
Sometimes this is an issue that is confused.
Our responsibility with regard to their applications for asylum or for refugee status go further than with respect to immigration.
It is inhuman for us to send people back to face torture, physical abuse and death.
Of course some individuals will try to abuse the system - just like Members of the European Parliament! - I do not see that refugees and asylum seekers are any different.
I have no problem, therefore, in supporting measures to prevent multiple applications.
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My problem is a different one: I will not repeat my colleagues' comments, particularly those from the Socialist Group, on what is happening in Kosovo but I will reiterate a point I made in an earlier debate.
Some years ago Member States of the European Union were refusing applications for asylum from those courageous individuals in Serbia who had refused to be conscripted to join in ethnic cleansing.
That crime may well have contributed to the larger crimes being carried out against the Kosovo Albanians while we speak.
The refusal rate is not a measure of need, but a measure of failure of will and courage by Member States who are refusing to recognise that the level of valid applications may well be substantially above the level of those currently granted either permanent or temporary leave to remain.
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Thirdly and finally, within the Union we have four million black Europeans and 12 to 14 million third country nationals.
We have a responsibility to ensure not only that all citizens have the same rights and same duties within the European Union but so do all residents.
It is only then that we can build the kind of Europe that I would like to see.
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<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, it is not easy to round off this debate as the most important issues have already been discussed repeatedly.
In the previous debate, I said that we are at a stage where European public opinion is very much aware that it wants Europe to be more than just a market; it wants Europe to be a project for civilization.
And the best way of seeing exactly what we want Europe to be is by looking at how we present ourselves, how we present our internal environment to those who knock on our door, be they immigrants, those seeking asylum or refuge, or displaced persons.
That is why today's reports are so important.
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I would like to stress one aspect that has already been mentioned, but that, in my view, has perhaps not received the attention it deserves, namely, the legal framework.
Parliament often tends to be proactive here.
I believe that the legal framework is our safeguard and our responsibility. It represents the defence of the weakest, in other words those who, in this case, are seeking asylum.
It is Parliament's responsibility to defend it as far as possible.
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As I said before, we must interpret the Treaty of Amsterdam as broadly and as boldly as we can, yet we must not go beyond its framework. If that is not sufficient, then we must hold an intergovernmental conference to revise the Treaty.
What we do not want to see in this process of European integration that we all desire is a violation of the Treaty, through the back door and by means of concrete measures.
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Two specific questions remain in relation to the reports.
As far as the Eurodac report is concerned, we are now waiting to see what approach the Commission regulation takes under the new legal bases. We must also recognise that at this stage the political focus of the document is incomplete.
It does not contain all of Parliament's beliefs and wishes, nor, I am sure, does it include all that the Commission hopes for.
This must be resolved so that it does not appear as if this is our position on Eurodac.
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As regards Mrs Reding's report, which is very important, extremely interesting and comprehensive, I would merely like to take these last 30 seconds to highlight the issue of respect for the legal framework, which I have already mentioned.
Mrs Reding has reached an interesting compromise between our desire to stretch the Treaty to its limits and ensuring that we do not go too far and allow it to snap.
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<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Mr President, I find the debate unrealistic and rather hypocritical.
What is real is the challenge presented by hundreds of thousands of refugees from Kosovo.
What is real, Madam Commissioner, is the scandalous meeting held by the Council of Ministers, at which it recently decided not to bear the costs of relieving the refugees' suffering, and to place the burden on neighbouring countries. However, these countries are unable to assume this burden, either economically, politically or socially.
The destabilisation of these countries is beginning to unfold, and when this happens the Council and, I imagine, the Commission too, will not have the legal basis to help there either.
<P>
They told us hypocritically that they want the refugees to stay in the area, so as not to send the wrong political message to Mr Milosevic.
Just hark at that!
In other words, the messages sent by the missiles and the bombs are not enough?
Will the refugees become messages too?
Shame!
Or are our leaders anticipating a swift solution to the crisis?
Judging by the credibility of their forecasts thus far... What can I say!
Dark vistas are opening up for the refugees and for the neighbouring countries!
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This debate, Madam Commissioner, could become less unrealistic if both Parliament and the Commission found a way to call on the Council urgently on whatever legal basis to immediately re-examine its position, which is unacceptable and befitting of Pontius Pilate.
As for the rest, dealing with this at intergovernmental level and within the Community, and all the things that have been quite correctly said here, we can examine them in the future.
The present is here and it is posing a multitude of threats.
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<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Gradin">
Mr President, one of last year's most important initiatives was the Austrian proposal concerning immigration and asylum policy, which triggered a much-needed debate both in the Council of Ministers and in this House.
Mrs Reding also attaches great importance to the initiative in her report.
I share her view that immigration and asylum should be treated as separate issues and, furthermore, this was one of the aspects I raised when the Austrian Presidency submitted its first draft.
I also agree with the rapporteur that immigration should not be regarded as a problem; it can be an asset, and is a natural part of the life of the international community.
It is something we must learn to understand, accept and deal with.
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At the present time, the rules on immigration vary from one country to another.
The Commission has therefore submitted a proposal for closer approximation of the rules.
Amongst other things, we have raised the issue of the fundamental rights of immigrants, particularly as regards their access to the European labour market.
Naturally, I am hoping for strong support from the Council of Ministers, as well as from Parliament.
For my own part, the situation of immigrants in the community is the most crucial element.
As Mr Ford has said, this concerns the living conditions of some ten million people who have been residing legally in our Member States for many years.
Some clear political signals are therefore required.
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In addition, the battle against illegal immigration must be stepped up.
So long as immigration is subject to regulation, people will try to circumvent the mechanisms of control.
This has led to the existence of a large-scale market in the smuggling of human beings.
It also lies behind the proposal for a system for rapidly exchanging information on illegal immigration, which Mrs Terrón i Cusí deals with in her report.
I regard this proposal as an important part of our efforts to effectively tackle the cynical practice of trafficking in women for sexual purposes which is taking place throughout Europe.
It is especially important that such a system should also include all the Central and Eastern European countries.
During the past year, we have seen far too many women from those countries, who are being exploited in this way, on the streets and in the brothels of our capital cities.
Ever since I first arrived in Brussels, I have been striving to get this issue onto the EU's agenda.
The problem is that we have only a limited knowledge of the details of people smuggling, and in particular of what is actually taking place in the countries of origin.
A system for exchanging information such as that described in the resolution would represent a considerable step forward.
We need to be able to find out more quickly, for example, when new illegal smuggling organisations are discovered in the countries of origin.
Our knowledge of smuggling tactics and methods, as well as the routes used, also needs to be improved.
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From the report, it is clear that Mrs Terrón i Cusí would prefer the Commission to be responsible for managing an information system of this kind.
I appreciate her confidence.
The Commission's role in the area of migration policy will be increased in the next few years with the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty.
In the short term, however, it is essential to ensure that the work continues as quickly as possible.
<P>
The 1951 Geneva Convention provides a sound basis for a common refugee policy.
At the same time, the convention will soon be celebrating its half century.
The world has changed in the intervening years, and the refugee situation with it.
Many of those who need protection today do not fulfil the criteria established during the cold war era.
Moreover, we are increasingly being confronted by refugee crises on a massive scale which flare up quickly.
Other, supplementary instruments are therefore now required.
The need for protection should always take precedence over formal rules.
The refugee crisis which we are now witnessing in Kosovo is merely the latest tragic example.
<P>
On countless occasions during the past four and a half years, I have called in vain for Europe to equip itself with new asylum instruments to supplement the Geneva Convention in precisely this kind of situation.
Moreover, I have launched several initiatives to bring such instruments into existence: one on temporary protection, another on burden sharing, and a third that would increase the effectiveness of the asylum process.
I appreciate the support which I have had from this House for the last initiative.
On the other hand, the Council of Ministers withdrew its support when the members saw its actual implications.
Nor have we made much progress on temporary shelter or burden sharing.
<P>
I am convinced that Europe will continue to shoulder its responsibilities as regards the crisis in Kosovo.
Last week's special ministerial meeting also gave a clear indication in this respect.
Already, a massive effort is under way to help the whole region to cope with the hundreds of thousands of refugees who now find themselves in Albania, FYROM and Montenegro.
Moreover, further help is on the way, both from the Member States and the Commission.
The Member States have also, in different ways, expressed their willingness to receive refugees in their own countries if no other alternative is available.
At the same time, it is worrying that we have not learned anything from our costly experiences in the war in Bosnia.
The war in Kosovo has shown yet again that Europe must equip itself with a coordinated refugee policy.
<P>
Another important aspect concerns the integration of refugees into the community.
Mrs Zimmermann, in her report, lays great stress on an integrated approach.
I totally agree with that.
The Commission has submitted two separate proposals: one to encourage the reception and repatriation of asylum seekers and refugees and another on integration.
The rapporteur questions this approach.
I share her basic viewpoint, but since the Amsterdam Treaty has not yet entered into force, there was no practicable alternative.
<P>
I might also mention that the German Presidency, in its conclusions resulting from last week's ministerial meeting, decided that the Commission should revise the section relating to the reception and repatriation of asylum seekers and refugees in order to make use of the EU's release of EUR 15 million for the refugee crisis in Kosovo.
I have already approved the original proposal, and I have the support of my colleagues for tomorrow's meeting of the Commission.
I also assume that I have the support of the Council of Ministers, as well as of this House.
We should also hold a joint discussion, at the earliest opportunity, on whether this amount is in fact proportionate to the level of need.
<P>
For the rest, I note that as regards the proceedings of the committee, Mrs Zimmermann takes the view that they should be as simple as possible.
I wholeheartedly agree with that.
<P>
Finally, let me say a few words about the Pirker report and Eurodac, the European system for the comparison of fingerprints.
It is very important to have such a system in place.
It is a precondition for the application, as envisaged, of the principle of the first country of asylum and the provisions of the Dublin Convention.
As you know, the Council of Ministers has now finalised the wording of Eurodac and asked the Commission to revise the proposal so that it is in accordance with the terms of the new Treaty.
The intention is therefore to wait until the Amsterdam Treaty enters into force, and in this way to strengthen both the democratic and legislative control.
<P>
All the issues we deal with in the area of justice and home affairs affect European citizens in their daily lives.
In a sense, it is paradoxical that internal European cooperation, which has the greatest impact on people's lives, is something they know least about.
The introduction of more openness and transparency in our working methods would be a way of changing this.
Another way would be to ensure that we can arrive at some concrete decisions on certain key migration issues.
People should be able to see that what we are doing is having some effect.
A good deal of political will is also needed if we are to make the right decisions during the coming year.
I therefore regret that the requirement for unanimity will continue for the next five years.
It is certainly true that cooperation in this area is still a sensitive issue, particularly with regard to immigration policy.
Therefore, a very important task for the coming years is to ensure that there is sufficient confidence in the EU's efforts in that area to allow the introduction of qualified majority voting to become a possibility.
<P>
Furthermore, we must give the concepts of freedom, security and justice enshrined in the Amsterdam Treaty a clear and precise meaning.
The Tampere summit in the autumn will therefore be a milestone.
Parliament also has a very important mission to perform.
Clear signals must be given on the direction which European immigration and asylum policy needs to take.
I also think that the two debates we have had tonight have been valuable in illustrating how important that is.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Electronic interchange of data between administrations (IDA)
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following two recommendations for second reading, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy:
<P>

A4-0131/99, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Decision on a series of guidelines, including the identification of projects of common interest, for trans-European networks for the electronic interchange of data between administrations (IDA) (13490/2/98 - C4-0017/99-97/0340(COD)) (Rapporteur: Mrs Read) and-A4-0130/99, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a Council Decision adopting a series of actions and measures in order to ensure interoperability of and access to trans-European networks for the electronic Interchange of Data between Administrations (IDA) (13491/2/98 - C4-0012/99-97/0341(SYN)) (Rapporteur: Mrs Read).
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Read">
Mr President, this piece of work has a very long title for a project which is about the benefits of electronic transmission of data between administrations within the European Union.
It really is a success story, showing the citizens of the European Union how decisions taken on their behalf and the implementation of those decisions can be made much more transparent and readily identifiable.
Two or three projects are always quoted and are worth repeating: one is the work of the Medicines Evaluation Agency in London; another is the project about helping people in the European Union find information about job vacancies right the way across the European Union; and the third is a scheme concerning early contra-indications of toxic substances and drugs that can be dangerous to young people in particular.
<P>
The projects had their early teething troubles.
At this stage I wish to pay tribute to the work of the Commission officials with whom I have had many discussions; between us we have put a great deal of effort into addressing many of these problems.
However, the work I am presenting to you here this evening is about ensuring that some of the early difficulties and the unnecessary duplication of efforts and compatibility problems are well on the way to solution.
<P>
There are also some issues concerning implementation.
I wish to stress that it is very important not only that each particular scheme has the benefit of electronic means of exchange of data but also that the methodology involved in each project can be transferred in its turn to other projects and is not just a one-off.
<P>
I hope that the comparatively small number of amendments from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy will meet with your approval.
I have no hesitation in commending both reports to you.
I should also like to draw attention to the updates in the reports produced by the IDA team, which provide a very valuable reference base of examples of how the work of the European Union institutions is bringing real benefits to the citizens of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="President">
We have an unusual problem this evening in that we are running very much ahead of ourselves.
Mrs Peijs is not here yet.
The Commissioner due to respond was Mr Monti who, I understand, is still somewhere above the earth in an aeroplane.
However, Mrs Gradin is going to manfully stand in.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Gradin">
Mr President, I shall try to be Commissioner Monti for a few minutes.
<P>
In December 1997 the Commission presented its proposals for a second phase of the IDA programme.
Those two proposals have the objective to establish interoperable telematic networks in support of interinstitutional communication and the implementation of Community policies and activities.
<P>
In this second phase of the IDA programme, the Commission proposes to shift the focus from building infrastructure to coordination and support, with special regard to improving cost efficiency.
Thus, for instance, IDA projects will now benefit from generic telematic services acquired from the market.
These ideas have been fully endorsed by both the European Parliament and the Council in the first reading.
<P>
The Commission has already expressed its satisfaction that the Council has incorporated a majority of Parliament's amendments in the first reading.
Moreover, the Commission accepted both common positions and recommended their rapid adoption.
<P>
In this second reading the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy proposes two amendments to the decision on guidelines and one amendment to the decision on interoperability measures.
These are based on amendments that the Council declined in the first reading.
However, the Commission believes that the formulation now proposed by the European Parliament not only would refine the political priorities of the IDA programme and increase its transparency but also could be expected to remove the objections raised by the Council in the first reading.
I am therefore pleased to announce that the Commission accepts all three amendments proposed by the European Parliament in the second reading.
<P>
Let me thank you once again and in particular the rapporteur, Mrs Read, for the constructive attitude with which Parliament has received these proposals of the Commission.
I am confident that, with your support, political agreement with the Council will soon be achieved and we will be able to resume this important task without delay.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
The sitting was suspended from 8.30 p.m. until 9.15 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Liability for payment of VAT
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="President">
I should first like to inform the House that Mr Monti has probably already landed and is likely to arrive at any moment.
We have resumed an extra 15 minutes later to enable him to take part in the debate.
<P>
The next item is the report (A4-0174/99) by Mr Harrison, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 77/388/EEC as regards the determination of the person liable for payment of value added tax (COM(98)0660 - C4-0705/98-98/0312(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Harrison">
Madam President, the purpose of the Commission proposal to amend the 1997 Directive determining the person liable for payment of VAT is to simplify the current very complicated system.
It is raised under the SLIM proposals, whose object is to make access to the single European market easier, especially for SMEs.
The underlying principle guiding the Commission proposal is to identify the person responsible for VAT, where companies are operating in more than one EU state, as the person who performs the taxable transaction, irrespective of whether he or she is established within the country where the transaction takes place.
<P>
It should further be noted that the proposal is interim in nature.
The Commission still fully intends to move to a definitive system of VAT collection and liability based on the principle of a single place of taxation.
Also, attached to this proposal, is the separate, but very welcome, idea of tackling the problem of VAT tax avoidance related to the supply of continuous products like gas or electricity.
Here it is proposed that tax should be charged on an annual basis where there are no pre-established successive statements of account.
So far, so good, but this is where the problems begin.
<P>
This delay of the definitive VAT regime is regrettable in itself but even more frustrating for the SMEs, which we want to be active participants in the single market, is the introduction of an interim system which seems as confusing as its predecessor.
That is why I have asked the Commission, to no avail, to quantify the problem and, in addition, to set out a strategy and timetable for this interim regime before the definitive system is introduced.
Why is the Commission so reluctant to do this?
<P>
Secondly, as rapporteur, I am alarmed to learn from the Commission details of their consultation with the small business community on the proposal.
Why, for instance, did the Commission consult SMEs from only seven Member States?
Furthermore, was the Commission not concerned to learn that one in three SMEs thought the present proposal might lengthen, not slash, VAT red tape.
Perhaps the Commission might reply to these points this evening, if it arrives on time.
<P>
Thirdly, the reverse charges system which keeps intact the principle of fraction payments should not in itself be over-used or abused.
Nevertheless, the abundance of exceptions allowed seems to deny the principle of simplifying, not complicating, the interim system.
Incidentally, I have still not received an explanation from the Commission why lawyers, consultancy bureaus and agents concerned with the transport of goods qualify as exceptions able to use the reverse charges system.
Why these and not others?
I think we should be told.
<P>
Fourthly, the mutual assistance facility provided to SMEs to help them pole-vault over some of the recognised barriers to the market has itself been found to be unused and hence ineffective.
What has the Commission to say about this?
Fifthly, I should like the Commission to clarify its position vis-à-vis NGOs which persistently lose valuable income because they are penalised by a system that frequently leaves them high and dry with irrecoverable VAT.
<P>
Finally, is the Commission prepared to deal with the outrageous practice whereby SMEs operating in Belgium and in other Member States are obliged in fulfilling current requirements for identifying their VAT tax responsibilities, to lodge financial guarantees with local banks, thereby absorbing valuable resources which cause mortal cash flow problems and which inhibit many such SMEs from entering the market
<P>
I would like to pause here and thank my colleague Mr Rübig for his two amendments which I accept.
They are aimed at helping the SME sector although I realise that we are adding to the exceptions I have already talked about.
<P>
This Commission proposal seeks to help business succeed in the single market.
Its aspiration is fine but its application is suspect.
I hope the Commission can reassure Parliament on all the concerns I have raised tonight in my report and I hope the Commissioner who has been unable to listen to the arguments I have set out - it seems rather purposeless when he is not here - will be able to respond to those specific points.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Secchi">
Madam President, I should like to begin by saying that our group broadly shares the arguments put forward by the rapporteur, to whom we are grateful for his work in this important field.
We particularly welcome all the measures which facilitate the work of SMEs, in keeping with the SLIM exercise which lies behind some of the proposals now before us.
We also welcome the pressure being brought to bear for a re-examination of the question of NGOs, so as to devise rules better suited to their activities, rather than imposing on them a seemingly unjustifiable fiscal regime subjecting them to irrecoverable VAT.
<P>
Our group came out against Amendment No 7, and I should now like to explain why.
In our opinion, the wording of this amendment is somewhat complicated: it covers various bodies, such as NGOs, which should have been handled separately.
We also have our doubts about the call for a general strategy to improve the present transitional VAT regime while awaiting the definitive system.
<P>
In other words, we are afraid that - although several references are made to the definitive system, which we wish to see introduced as soon as possible - to lay down rules facilitating the transition without establishing a precise timetable is in fact a kind of pretext for postponing again and again a decision which should be taken as soon as possible.
The House, and Mr Harrison in particular, will recall that my own report on this subject called for a specific deadline: admittedly it was a little over-ambitious, but it was at least specific.
Unfortunately, the House rejected that proposal by just a few votes, most notably those of Mr Harrison and his group.
<P>
In conclusion, our group will vote in favour of all the amendments, albeit with two recommendations: firstly, that the Commission should take up our line of reasoning, Amendment No 7 in particular, so as to streamline and clarify the text; secondly, that our request for a swift transition to the definitive VAT system should be reflected somehow, by setting a deadline or by giving strong arguments for the continued postponement.
Amendments Nos 8 and 9, with which we agree - because there could be simpler ways of providing guarantees than those envisaged - would, for instance, become redundant if the definitive system were introduced.
<P>
Finally, we can endorse all Mr Harrison's arguments during this interim phase; let us vow to move ahead as rapidly as possible, and then many of these problems will cease to exist.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Gallagher">
Madam President, I want to congratulate Mr Harrison on the presentation of his report.
The present system of VAT is so designed that the tax receipt is directly collected by the Member States on whose territory the consumption of the goods or services sold is deemed to take place.
In order to ensure this direct allocation of the tax, complex rules have been laid down.
Traders who wish to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the advent of the single market on 1 January 1993 usually perceive the need to fulfil tax obligations in several Member States as a barrier to the free movement of goods and services.
<P>
The internal market could not operate in a productive manner unless more user-friendly rules were implemented at national and European level in the area of tax collection.
In May 1997 the Commission proposed that VAT collection be included in the second phase of the SLIM programme.
Following this recommendation the Commission undertook to introduce legislation to simplify tax representation.
A panel of experts was also employed to advise the European Union on these various tax matters.
<P>
I welcome the efforts being made by the Union to simplify the tax regime in the area of VAT.
The Sixth VAT Directive allows traders who carry out taxable transactions in a given country to be the person liable to pay tax to the appropriate authorities.
However, the main features of the present legislation, as regards the determination of the persons liable for the payment of tax, are extremely complex and there is a wide difference in its actual proposed applications due to the many different tax options which are available to the Member States in addressing this issue.
<P>
In conclusion, I support the broad thrust of these measures but there is clearly more work to be done in simplifying the area of tax across the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that this report by Mr Harrison is an important step that will allow us to further simplify VAT legislation by means of the rules governing the legislation on VAT representation and on mutual assistance on recovery.
I feel that these points are of particular importance for small and medium-sized enterprises.
We already know that the VAT system has many different legal bases in the European Union.
In my opinion Amendment No 6 is a typical example of how the system can be simplified, for instance in the case of goods installed, so that simplifications can also be made in this area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="President">
Unfortunately, Mr Monti has not yet arrived.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Taxation of energy products
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="President">
The next item is the second report (A4-0171/99) by Mr Cox, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Directive on restructuring the Community framework for the taxation of energy products (COM(97)0030 - C4-0155/97-97/0111(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Cox">
Madam President, I regret that Commissioner Monti is not here, not because I want to make a pedantic point about his absence, but rather because I would have liked to say this to him personally and have it put on the record in the House.
But even in his absence I am happy to do so.
He is one of a number of Commissioners in the present caretaker college whose resignation because of circumstances not to do with himself I deeply regret.
He has performed his European public function commendably and I would like to put that on the record.
I do not know whether in the future he is likely to be renominated or redesignated but in any event he is one of the many innocent victims of the fall-out of recent events and I would like to record that on my own behalf.
<P>
For those colleagues who are here I have little to add to what I said several weeks ago.
In substance the report before us is based on the Commission's proposal, which is itself a useful proposal.
In terms of Parliament's approach to it I hope we vote 'yes' to new taxes, but 'no' to more taxes.
In other words we want to see the tax base expand through the energy tax, but we want to state clearly and politically to the Commission and to the Council that we would like to see offsets of this new expanded energy tax base being recycled into lowering the tax wedge, the tax cost and labour.
That is the reason we support this; it is not the only reason but a major reason.
<P>
To those who look at structural unemployment problems in the European Union and who condemn the high levels of unemployment but who refuse to contemplate, through their votes in this House, a broadening of the tax base in areas such as energy, I would say: could they please tell us on the record where will we find the alternative resources to address the tax crisis in a number of states to do with structural problems and unemployment.
<P>
My second general point: this proposal should not be exaggerated.
It is modest but useful.
However, in my opinion and in the opinion of the majority in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs it is riddled with too many exceptions.
We support the Monti proposal but we want a greener Monti proposal.
We support some exceptions but we want the emphasis on green exceptions.
<P>
With regard to tax rates, as before we propose not a complex system of coming back on the question every so many years, but an accelerator principle to be subject to review potentially every five years.
We recognise that in some firms and sectors the energy cost may be very high as a proportion of total cost and for such firms and such sectors we need a mechanism to recognise and address the competitive handicap.
We believe that competitive handicap can be addressed by allowing Member States some degree of discretion, but in my view it should be subject to Commission review.
There is an amendment tomorrow to that effect, specifying how the Commission might review requests from sectors and Member States who plead a special case, and that amendment should be adopted, because this should not be used as a carte blanche simply to ignore the tax.
<P>
In summary, we support a new energy and eco-tax system but we do not support more taxes per se .
In other words, we demand fiscal neutrality.
We insist that the price of introducing this is that we lower labour taxes.
We want a simpler and more certain tax- based definition.
We want a more predictable base-deepening formula through an accelerator principle to determine the evolution of tax rates, given the new tax base.
We want competitive handicap to be recognised and addressed but only where that is genuine and not simply a carte blanche to ignore the tax altogether.
If that happens - and I hope it will happen in the vote - then I will recommend to colleagues that this is a report worth supporting.
Last time out, Madam President, we narrowly missed getting a majority.
That arose partly through a misunderstanding of some of the detail.
I hope there will be no misunderstandings tomorrow and indeed that some of the sceptics might re-read the report in substance and realise it is the way of the future.
I therefore commend the report to the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="President">
Mr Monti has just arrived.
<P>
I can only tell you, Commissioner, that Mr Cox has just had some very kind words to say about you, but perhaps you will be able to read them afterwards in our verbatim report of proceedings!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Estevan Bolea">
Madam President, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, I would like to say that, in general, we agree with the three objectives put forward by the Commission in this directive: harmonising taxes, reducing emissions by increasing costs, and using this revenue to reduce social charges.
<P>
However, this is not very well planned, Mr Cox. Do you know what kind of a reduction we would see in the emission of pollutants, particularly CO2 , if we were to increase prices, as you propose?
We would not even see a reduction of 1 %.
We are making too great a fuss over something that will provide very few results.
<P>
Furthermore, we are currently trying to lower the price of electricity and gas through the liberalisation of the markets because energy in Europe is expensive and it is very difficult for us to compete with Japan and the United States.
<P>
We are trying to do everything at once but this is not the time for that.
We must do one thing at a time.
<P>
In any case, the amendments you are proposing will produce an increase in charges.
Nevertheless, according to the economic studies carried out by the Commission's advisers, 150 000 jobs would be created and a 1 % reduction in CO2 emissions achieved.
It is true that the macroeconomic effects would be minor - neither inflation nor the deficit would rise a great deal - but at the moment our countries are all committed to their stability programmes.
In other words, I do not believe that your report is very timely, although this does not mean that I do not think that it is a good report.
I do not feel that this is the right time for it, nor is it the right time for the Commission's proposal.
<P>
I am sorry to say that our group will not be supporting your amendments, Mr Cox.
Indeed, if this report is voted through, it will be quite unrealistic since it achieves very little.
In any event, you and I can be assured that progress will be made in this area in the future. But perhaps this is not the right time for it or the right time to introduce new taxes.
You say 'no new taxes' and you are right.
But this should also apply to energy, since it is already very highly taxed in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Spencer">
Madam President, Mr Cox's report was good and is now better.
It deserves our support, as does Commissioner Monti.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Areitio Toledo">
<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Virrankoski">
Madam President, Mr Cox has collaborated in producing a report which creates a sound basis for a review of energy taxation, for which I thank him sincerely.
Obviously, our group supports its chairman's report.
Energy taxation is one of the best and most effective controls which society can use to reduce emissions and try to protect and improve the environment.
<P>
The main argument in the report is that Member States should be left some leeway when it comes to applying taxation, so long as the single market is not affected.
This has to be regarded as only right, as does the principle that renewable energy sources should not come within the scope of the directive.
The argument that there should be continued support for the production of combined electricity and heating is extremely important and most welcome.
<P>
The rapporteur, Patrick Cox, has already simplified and clarified the Commission's proposal, but in my opinion it could have been simplified still further.
The minimum levels of taxation mentioned in Articles 7 and 8 could even be harmonised.
Levels of taxation for fuels used for production and those used for heating are now so close to one another that they could be harmonised.
<P>
I would like to emphasise the importance of two details here. Firstly, peat should in future become recognised incontrovertibly as a renewable biomass.
A marsh will produce roughly the same amount of peat in a year as a forest does wood pulp per unit area.
Thus, peat is unquestionably a renewable source of energy.
It is important to make this point, as peat is and will be of tremendous importance in the Nordic countries and Ireland too, for example.
The second point is this.
The tax on aircraft fuel should be left for individual countries to decide themselves.
There are big differences in air traffic density among the Member States.
Internal air traffic in small countries is insignificant, but in the large Member States, such as Finland, it is extremely important.
For this reason, a harmonised taxation system would not treat different Member States fairly.
Taking these observations into account, I believe the report is excellent and I give it my wholehearted support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we welcome this report as a small step in the right direction.
It is clear to all of us that a great deal still remains to be done before we can finally achieve a breakthrough in the area of energy taxation.
But it is essential for us that the second stage of ecological tax reform in Germany is not slowed down by Brussels and that in the medium-term we can finally reach a stage where there are pioneer states that can lead the way in the European Union.
We are particularly pleased that there are exceptions that are 'green' and that involve not only energy-intensive operations but also - and this must be clear to everyone - environmentally friendly renewable energies that can be exempted from energy taxation.
The fact that nuclear energy is also to be taxed pleases us greatly, as otherwise we would have an imbalance in the energy taxation proposal.
<P>
We are pleased that our amendment received a majority in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy because it is crucial for us that local public transport can be exempted.
For there is one thing that we must not forget: this energy taxation has a purpose, which is to help the environment and help to meet the commitment that we undertook to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
This is what all these various possibilities are designed to do.
What we need now is for the Council of Ministers to reach agreement as soon as possible.
In this context I am pleased to inform you that the German Minister for the Environment, Mr Trittin, is endeavouring, during his visits to the Member States, to ensure that we reach agreement on this issue as soon as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Madam President, it is most regrettable that the Cox report is only now coming before the plenary again after being postponed for two months.
On the other hand, I am glad that Mr Cox's report has not lost too much of its force in the intervening period.
It still offers a clear alternative to the hybrid Commission proposal.
A large number of counter-productive derogations have been scrapped, and I shall be glad to support the Cox report.
<P>
The Council must now make up its mind.
Either it sticks to the international agreements on limiting CO2 emissions and reducing environmental pollution or it opts for the unclear situation of the status quo, with further damage to our climate system as a result.
I am in favour of abolishing the exemption from tax for civil aviation fuel.
If the European Union unilaterally introduced a tax, however, this might lead to considerable distortion of aircraft movements.
I think an excellent alternative would be an overflying tax as advocated earlier, in conjunction with air traffic control services.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in international competition we need a sensible form of energy taxation.
In my opinion there are several reasons why the issue of energy taxation is one of the most forward-looking debates in the European Union and beyond.
Positively speaking, it mainly involves a system of incentives to encourage an economical and efficient use of our resources.
But we must proceed with restraint to ensure that the baby - and therefore the economy - is not thrown out with the bathwater.
After all, we are not against the introduction of harmonised energy taxation in principle.
However, with it we must guarantee a level playing field in terms of competition.
My country, for example, has taken a leading role in this area.
<P>
Accordingly, the general introduction of upper limits on taxation for energy-intensive firms, as provided in Article 15 of the Commission proposal, makes a great deal of sense.
We should not forget that such firms have already in the past updated their technical equipment and brought their energy consumption closer to minimum levels.
In this case higher energy tax cannot achieve any further saving.
We can prevent the increased costs that this would entail and thus support the competitiveness of our companies and of Europe as a location for business.
For this reason we should also think about discontinuing the optional exemption of energy products that are not used as fuel and of energy products that are used to produce electricity and heat, as provided in Article 13.
<P>
In any case, those Member States whose energy taxation rates are above the minimum level should at least be given the opportunity to adjust their taxation levels accordingly.
A flexible system of upper limits could make it possible to find reasonable solutions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Monti">
I should like, first of all, to present my apologies to you, Madam President, as well as to all Members of Parliament in the Chamber at this time, in particular to Mr Harrison and Mr Cox, the two rapporteurs.
Although I had planned my flight with plenty of time to spare, that proved insufficient.
I apologise for this.
<P>
I would like to thank Mr Cox for what I understand have been very generous words on his part.
I would also like to thank Mr Spencer.
<P>
Mr Cox, the report you have drafted and the conclusions you have drawn are extremely interesting and important.
I am very pleased that you support the reasoning behind this proposal and the manner in which that reasoning is translated into action.
The Commission has put a proposal to the Council, the main thrust of which is the need to modernise the Community system for the taxation of mineral oils and to extend its scope to all energy products.
This is necessary to improve the functioning of the single market by reducing the tax-induced distortions that exist at present.
<P>
The Commission has also used the proposal to meet its obligation to review minimum rates of taxation on mineral oils and, at the same time, to respond to the ECOFIN Council request to come forward with new proposals following the deadlock in the negotiations on the CO2 energy tax.
I need hardly add that in this context there is growing concern about the environmental effects of the combustion of fossil fuels. This has been highlighted by the recent adoption by the Council of emission targets for the Union in response to the Kyoto Protocol.
The achievement of these targets will not be easy and fiscal measures are one of the concrete tools which can be utilised to assist in the task.
<P>
The Commission can accept Amendments Nos 2, 3, 11, 12, 13, 23, 32, 33 and parts of Amendment No 25.
However, the suggestion that we should move straight to the second stage of minimum rates from January 2000 and increase these annually by the rate of inflation plus 2 % for five years cannot be accepted.
<P>
So far as deletion of the initial stage of the minimum levels of taxation is concerned, it is true that the operative date of 1 January 1998 belongs to the past.
However, discussions in the Council have shown that even the proposed minimum levels are causing difficulties for a number of Member States.
Any increase in these levels is therefore not acceptable.
<P>
The same applies to the suggestion that minimum tax levels should be increased annually by inflation plus 2 % for a period of five years.
The Commission proposal restricts the increase to the rate of inflation in order to assist Member States who would be required to impose substantial increases in tax simply to attain the proposed minimum levels.
To require them in addition to impose further increases in excess of inflation is unacceptable.
<P>
The removal of most of the proposed compulsory and optional exemptions and reductions relating to products which are not currently taxed cannot be accepted.
These exemptions and reductions have been formulated for a number of reasons.
Some exist in current legislation; others are necessary to reflect Community obligations under international agreements and a further group is considered necessary to protect the competitiveness of Community enterprises.
<P>
Finally, I should just add a word or two on Mr Harrison's report.
<P>
This exercise in simplification, which recently led the Commission to present a proposal for a directive on the right to deduct, is a top priority for us.
This proposed directive constitutes one more step in that direction; in essence, its aim is to prevent national administrations in future from obliging non-resident traders to appoint a tax representative.
I am pleased to note that Mr Harrison's report backs this approach and welcomes the Commission's proposal.
However, the amendments do not strike me as acceptable; but I assure you that the Commission shares the rapporteur's view that the adoption of the definitive system will constitute the final and most important simplification for traders.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Monti.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Heating systems for passenger compartments
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0170/99) by Mrs Billingham, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Council Directive 78/548/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to heating systems for the passenger compartment of motor vehicles (COM(98)0526 - C4-0552/98-98/0277(COD)).

<P>
Since the rapporteur is not present, Mr Rübig is the first speaker.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, you will all remember the discussion that we have had several times in this Chamber in the course of the last year.
Parliament developed a completely new approach to technical legislation in the context of the debates on the EU bus construction directive and the Murphy report.
The European legislator would draw up the political framework, then the users and experts, particularly from the field of standardisation, would sort out the details in working groups.
In this way we would achieve a greater degree of agreement and acceptance among those concerned.
We take the key concept of simplifying legislation very seriously.
<P>
The present proposal could also be implemented using this system.
The text might then read as follows: 'Interior heating systems for cars must be such that they can be operated safely; they must be covered sufficiently to prevent passengers from being burned, and finally they should emit few harmful chemicals'.
A technical working group could then have developed the details from these principles.
In this context I am keenly awaiting the Council's common position on the bus directive, as I am sure that through codecision we will not only find a solution to this dossier but we will be able to set the course for the future.
<P>
With regard to Parliament's report it remains to be said that we fully support Mrs Billingham's amendments.
Moreover, we consider efficiency tests for heaters to be both necessary and important as the quality of fitted heaters must be quantifiable, for example whether the engine coolant can be brought to operating temperature before the engine is started.
Amendment No 10 also deals with the passenger safety aspect.
If the heater is to be installed in the passenger compartment it should be securely compartmented off.
We do not wish to restrict ourselves to a single type of design for this, however, and for this reason, in Amendment No 12, we advocate a general heat-resistant material.
I would like to express my thanks for the cooperation that was achieved with the experts and the rapporteur, and I look forward with anticipation to tomorrow's vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Monti">
Madam President, first of all I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Billingham, for her in-depth examination of our proposal and her excellent report.
The aim of the proposal amending Council Directive 78/548/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to heating systems for the passenger compartment of motor vehicles is to broaden the scope of the directive, extending it from cars alone to all vehicle categories.
Furthermore it contains new provisions on combustion heaters, to ensure that such systems comply with strict safety and environmental protection standards compatible with modern technology.
<P>
The Commission can accept Amendments Nos 1 to 6 and Nos 8, 9 and 11.
Amendments Nos 1 to 3 and Nos 5, 6 and 8 basically clarify the original proposal, whereas Nos 4, 9 and 11 relate to specific safety aspects of combustion heaters.
The Commission too is keen to lay down adequate safety provisions and therefore welcomes these amendments.
<P>
However, the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 7, 10 and 12.
No 7 commits the Commission to drawing up proposals for testing the efficiency of combustion heaters by 1 October 2001.
The Commission believes that it will be market operators who guarantee a high level of efficiency in this field, and that legislative action is therefore unnecessary.
What is more, the conformity of combustion heaters with the provisions of the directive will ensure that high levels of safety and environmental protection are maintained, in line with modern technology.
If any specific problems or technological innovations change this situation in the future, the Commission will be informed by the national type-approval authorities in the appropriate working groups and will adopt the necessary measures.
Moreover, as regards the date of entry into force, 1 October 2001 seems a somewhat unrealistic deadline for new legislative initiatives.
<P>
Amendments Nos 10 and 12 offer an alternative to the positioning of combustion heaters in the passenger compartment of coaches and minibuses.
The Commission proposal permits the installation of heating systems in the passenger compartment as long as a hermetically sealed casing is used which is fireproof even if it overheats.
The wording of these amendments guarantees a level of safety which is equivalent to, if not lower than, that envisaged in the directive; in particular, they do not explicitly guarantee the same safety level in relation to the risk of fire.
<P>
In conclusion, the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 1 to 6 and Nos 8, 9 and 11, but is obliged to reject Amendments Nos 7, 10 and 12.
The Commission intends to pursue its useful dialogue with the European Parliament in the conviction that a constructive solution can be found.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Monti.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
The sitting was closed at 10.04 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="Balfe">
Mr President, my attendance is not recorded even though, as you know, I was here because I sat in the Bureau with you for two hours.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
That will be corrected, Mr Balfe.
<P>
The Minutes were approved
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Hardstaff">
Mr President, I want to draw to your attention the fact that the agriculture debates will be starting in a few minutes. The amendments to two of the reports are still not available in English.
I asked for the amendments yesterday evening.
One set had appeared by this morning - to the Fantuzzi report - but there are still no copies in English of the amendments to the Jové Peres and Happart reports.
It really is not good enough to expect us to debate when we do not have the amendments in our own language.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Mrs Hardstaff, I have been informed by my services that there was a technical problem.
The translations will be circulated as soon as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valdivielso de Cué">
Mr President, I merely wish to refer to the problems concerning the accessibility of the airports around Strasbourg.
Along with many other Members, I am often unable to arrive on time at the start of a sitting. This is because although the city of Strasbourg provides us with a free transfer service, the operators try to make up large groups of passengers, and at times we have had to wait one and a half or two hours for a sufficient number of travellers to arrive.
I am grateful to the city of Strasbourg for the service it provides for us free of charge but I do feel, however, that the previous arrangements should be reinstated to ensure a more flexible service.
We have been informed of budget cuts, and I appreciate that cost is an important consideration. Nevertheless, if we are truly serious about saving money, we should only come to Strasbourg once or twice a year and meet in Brussels the rest of the time as it is much cheaper.
We all enjoy coming to Strasbourg, but we would like to see a return to the previous standard of services.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Thank you very much.
I think we are all mindful of what you have just told us.
We will continue our representations to the French authorities and we shall see if there is some way in which we can improve things, since I am aware of the problems that you face.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Corrie">
Mr President, yesterday morning I left home at 8.10.
Having arrived at the airport and boarded the plane, I was told my flight had been cancelled.
We arrived here last night at 10.40. That is 14 hours of travelling to get to this place.
Quite frankly, if Air France cannot provide a better service to Strasbourg airport then a lot of British Members are just not going to turn up in Strasbourg.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
Mr Corrie, I would not be adding very much if I said that you have all our sympathy, but that does not change anything.
Yesterday evening, we heard a similar story in the Bureau from Mr Collins, a Vice-President.
Unfortunately, there are problems.
However, I do not want to continue this discussion now.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, I would like the European Parliament to take note of the fact that last night a missile fired by NATO hit a passenger train in Yugoslavia, claiming dozens of victims, both dead and wounded.
It is not yet certain - at least I do not know - whether there were Greek journalists on that train who were travelling within Yugoslavia.
I believe that this catastrophic act perpetrated against the people of Yugoslavia and against a civilian means of transport is a clear violation of human rights and may even be regarded as a crime against humanity. I think that the European Parliament must denounce these actions and this disaster that is taking place in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
Mr Theonas, a debate will take place tomorrow in the presence of the Council and the Commission on the situation in Kosovo and all these problems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Duhamel">
Mr President, I want to raise a point of order.
Although the preceding points of order may all seem rather disparate, in actual fact they are not.
<P>
With regard to the transport problems, I must remind you that we are allies and so, in this case, Air France should not be criticised because the problems are due to air traffic having been disrupted by the military flights over Serbia and Kosovo.
Those who like criticising France may gain satisfaction from doing so but they are quite simply mistaken.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
Thank you very much for those explanations, Mr Duhamel. I think we have dealt with enough problems that are outside the agenda, and we must now proceed with our agenda.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Agriculture
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Happart">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am today presenting my final report to this House as I will be standing down at the elections on 13 June.
<P>
I will be returning to southern Belgium to continue my work of promoting European construction in other ways.
We need Europe and our children even more so.
<P>
Before the 1992 reform of the common agricultural policy, the report on agricultural prices was one of the most sought-after and most prestigious reports.
Although this has now lost its attraction, the prices for agricultural products still form the bulk of farmers' income, providing between 60 % and 80 % depending on the types of product.
<P>
My intention with these proposals to adjust agricultural prices is to send a clear message to the European farming community. I want to assure them that this House intends to defend their legitimate interests at a particularly difficult time when doubt is creeping in among farmers, particularly the younger ones.
<P>
We are increasingly telling our farmers about the necessary enlargement of the European Union and they are not against this.
Some have already set up in the new areas, mainly in Poland.
However, they do not want the farming community to have to foot the bill for this enlargement.
They are prepared to make the necessary effort and sacrifices as citizens of Europe, like everyone else, but only to a fair and equal degree.
<P>
This is why I am talking about adjustment and not increase. Is it a crime to compensate for the loss of 1.9 % due to the changeover from the green ecu to the euro?
Is it a crime to include farmers when compensating for the inflation rate of 1.9 % given that other European workers are justifiably benefiting from this compensation? For example, I am very happy for the German steel workers who have obtained a 4 % wage increase.
<P>
The European Parliament must ignore the Council of Ministers and the national governments which only want to recover the unspent amounts in order to help balance their domestic budgets.
In addition, the richest of these governments want this money in order to partially renationalise their agriculture, with blatant disregard for farmers in the poorest Member States.
<P>
If the Council had at least had the courage to refinance the Structural Funds by transferring the budget allocations, farmers could have been bailed out.
What hope can we give and what jobs can we offer for the future to the 200 000 farmers leaving the profession every year in Europe?
Between 500 and 600 farmers are leaving farming every day, with this figure reaching over 3 000 per week in certain areas.
The desertification of the countryside due to the farmers' exodus is killing the rural environment.
<P>
If we cannot save the rural society of the poorest regions today, what will we do tomorrow when the USA, having imposed on us its dollar bananas and hormonised meat, forces us to abandon these areas in the name of the World Trade Organisation?
<P>
I do not want a society 'made in the USA' for my children, where money is more important than people.
I want the opposite.
<P>
If we do not adjust these prices and provide the necessary refinancing of the Structural Funds, we will destroy the individuality of European agriculture where diversity goes hand in hand with quality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Jové Peres">
Mr President, the Commission's proposal amounts to minor modifications of the COM in fresh fruit and vegetables and the processing of citrus fruits.
<P>
Where fresh fruit and vegetables are concerned, it is proposed to meet the cost of selecting and packing products to be distributed free of charge from the Community budget.
<P>
Clearly, if what is involved is providing an alternative to the withdrawal and distribution of products, free distribution should not become burdensome to the producer organisations.
<P>
In addition, the Commission has proposed authorising members of producer organisations to sell part of their produce outside the commercial circuits of the producer organisation to which they belong.
<P>
As a result of the 1996 reform, most of the instruments designed to regulate the market were replaced by producer organisations' operating funds.
The producer organisations play a central role in the COM and it is essential to avoid any modification of the regulations which might weaken them.
<P>
The Commission has proposed making it easier for members of recognised producer organisations to sell a limited part of their produce direct to the consumer.
We might wonder how a producer organisation can regard as a right the abandonment of its main purpose - marketing its members' produce.
<P>
To date, direct sales have been severely restricted and can only take place on the producer's farm.
This approach could have a negative effect on the main role of producer organisations - marketing their members' produce.
<P>
Although current regulations ought to be sufficiently flexible to adapt to local situations, there is no justification for jeopardising the general system in order to comply with local practice which is far removed from areas where the bulk of the Community's production of fruit and vegetables is concentrated.
In such cases, it would seem wiser to resort to subsidiarity and to allow each Member State to regulate local practice as appropriate.
<P>
However, to avoid undermining the main purpose of producer organisations, any exemption should be accompanied by a tightening of the limits on the amount of its members' produce that can be marketed outside the producer organisation so as to offset the producer organisation's loss of marketable production.
<P>
Concerning the production of citrus fruits for processing, the present system leads to serious delays in the receipt of aid. In the case of citrus fruits processed at the start of the season, aid sometimes arrives twelve months later.
The anticipatory scheme only partly compensates for these delays and some producer organisations are likely to be tempted to stop handing over their production for processing and to opt instead for the withdrawal arrangements.
The Commission has come up with an appropriate proposal to resolve this problem.
<P>
Aid has been granted for the processing of citrus fruits since 1976, and in the intervening period it has proved necessary to correct and prevent interference between the withdrawal scheme and the processing scheme.
Great care should be taken when setting the conditions for aid to processing in order to prevent withdrawal from becoming a more attractive option than processing.
<P>
The Commission's proposal does not resolve the imbalance between the thresholds set for the processing of citrus fruits and production reality.
This situation could result in the processing of citrus fruits becoming less profitable than withdrawal.
An increase in withdrawals would have a negative effect on the environment and public opinion would be much more strongly opposed to it than it would be to aid to processing.
<P>
The lack of balance between the commitment appropriations and the actual payments highlights the imbalance between the instruments for the common organisation of the market in fruit and vegetables.
Following reform of the COM in fruit and vegetables, a surplus in commitment appropriations of ECU 400 million over payments was recorded. Yet the thresholds set for processed citrus fruits have resulted in chronic inadequacies in budget allocations.
It is therefore proposed to increase the threshold to the average quantities processed in the last four years. An additional expenditure of ECU 64 million would be involved.
This figure falls well within the financial margin of expenditure not incurred for withdrawals.
<P>
Another cause of destabilisation of the system is the lack of a penalty limit.
A 20 % limit on penalties should be set. In this connection, it is worth remembering that such a system existed in the past and is indeed still applied to other regulated produce subject to thresholds.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Fantuzzi">
Mr President, I wholeheartedly welcome this proposal for a regulation on measures to promote agricultural products in third countries.
It is a sign that, despite all the difficulties and uncertainties over reform of the CAP following the agreements reached in Berlin, some important and innovative moves are afoot.
It is also a sign that agricultural products are in need nowadays not so much of policies to defend and protect them but of aggressive, innovative policies to promote them judiciously on third countries' markets.
<P>
All too often - not least in this House - we have heard talk of globalisation as though it merely meant net losses for European agriculture. This initiative puts us back on the right track: globalisation also offers unique opportunities for European agriculture.
After all, there is growing demand in the world for high-quality farm produce and food, and the EU has the highest standards of food, safety and quality in the world. Therefore we should not stand on the sidelines hoping for the best, but should equip ourselves with the appropriate instruments and strategies to be competitive and to make the most of this growth in demand around the world for high-quality agri-food products.
<P>
Flooding world markets with low added-value commodities is the wrong approach, since it will be increasingly difficult to compete on such commodities with countries whose costs are lower than our own; furthermore, as we are aware, the WTO has placed both volume and value-based ceilings on export refunds; and lastly, we know that the new Millennium Round talks are to begin soon and should not have too many illusions.
<P>
What is more, Commissioner, we might get into hot water over these issues and make our presence felt rather late in the day.
I see from the budget of the US Department of Agriculture that, in the three years from 1996 to 1999, over USD 150 million per year was spent on policies to support the internationalisation of agriculture.
Of course, some promotional work has already been done in the EU - geared likewise to non-European countries - in the general context of promotion activities, the most outstanding in recent years being support for the IOOC initiative to promote olive oil on world markets.
<P>
I should like to conclude with four points.
The first is that this should be an opportunity to bring together and integrate all the promotional measures, not just those geared to external markets, but also those relating to the European internal market.
Too many fragmentary initiatives have been devised with different motives, timing and procedures, and this opportunity should be taken to put them all into some kind of order.
<P>
The second is that a budget increase is required.
If this initiative is to be a serious one, it cannot be restricted to EUR 15 million - a derisory sum - and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has proposed that, for 2000 to 2003, the funding should be boosted from EUR 30 m to 50 m.
By the same token, the funding for all the promotional activities scheduled under Agenda 2000, limited to EUR 100 m from now until 2006, may be inadequate.
<P>
My third point is that a more long-term view is needed.
It is no accident that we have proposed extending from two to three years the period for revising the list of products to fall under the promotional measures and the duration of the programmes, in order to lend greater certainty and effectiveness to the measures.
My fourth and final point is that the basic principle behind this regulation should be adhered to, namely subsidiarity and complementarity, in order that initiatives are not imposed from Brussels in a clean sweep but that they complement, blend with and in turn stimulate similar measures devised by the national authorities and by producers' associations, so that all the players involved in European agriculture and in its future challenges are following the same approach.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Miranda de Lage">
Mr President, Commissioner, in the explanatory statement of the opinion I am privileged to present to you today, the REX Committee has indicated that, in its view, the Commission's proposal is very important and represents a great opportunity.
The reform of the common agricultural policy in the framework of Agenda 2000 ought indeed to include a package of external measures providing for the development of actions to promote and provide information on agricultural products in third countries.
<P>
Such actions must be aimed at increasing the competitiveness of European products on the world markets, and to this end, it is essential to promote their image.
Information and publicity ought to result in good outlets for quality Community products with regulated designations of origin, particularly when countries with stringent quality requirements are targeted. These countries usually have high purchasing power.
<P>
The present initiative is particularly timely as the results of the campaign to promote olive oil and fibre flax, to which Mr Fantuzzi also referred, are already available. Sales of these products outside the Community have increased thanks to ad hoc methods of promotion.
The proposal, which has been amended by the Committee on Agriculture, lists a whole range of possible actions. Nevertheless, the best publicity will always be the quality, safety, hygiene, labelling and respect for the environment that are characteristic of Community products.
<P>
The REX Committee is certainly in favour of this proposal and believes that it merits consideration.
Nevertheless, as Mr Fantuzzi also pointed out, there are some grounds for concern as to whether such an ambitious project can be adequately financed through the annual sum of only EUR 15 million allocated to it until the year 2003.
In view of the large sums allocated to the CAP, there could well be scope for an increase in funding. If wisely managed, this would enable our exports to grow in an increasingly globalised international trading environment.
<P>
I shall conclude, Mr President, by reiterating that the REX Committee supports this proposal. The committee is particularly in favour of the principle on which the proposal is based, namely, strengthening the Union's commercial policy through the promotion of agricultural products in third countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Colino Salamanca">
Mr President, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, I should like to put an oral question concerning the present state of the market for garlic.
<P>
This is certainly not a new situation. It is a recurring problem, but I feel it is important to draw attention to it, particularly as unofficial imports of garlic from third countries are directly responsible for the collapse of the garlic market.
<P>
I should reiterate that this is not a new situation, and the reason for putting this question now is that in accordance with Regulation No 1137/98 of 29 May, the period in which import licences may be granted for a maximum of 12 000 tonnes of garlic from China is due to expire on 31 May.
According to the figures I have available, total imports for 1998 total approximately 50 000 tonnes, though average imports for the European Union in the period 1990-1997 were only of the order of 40 000 tonnes.
<P>
It is surprising to find references to countries such as Malaysia - which did not export any garlic to the European Union in 1993 - Jordan and India suddenly appearing.
The figures of 7 300 tonnes, 6 167 tonnes and almost 1 000 tonnes respectively for 1998 are quoted, over and above the nominal 12 000 tonnes from China.
This immediately gives rise to suspicions that triangular operations may be taking place involving garlic of Chinese origin which arrives here following deals with third countries.
As a result, the quota and safeguard procedures are becoming meaningless. The situation has been further aggravated by the failure to insist on certificates of origin for imported garlic and by the failure to apply the appropriate tariff codes correctly to differentiate between green garlic with undeveloped cloves and garlic to be sold dried or partly dried.
<P>
It seems that the Commission needs to be reminded that this particular crop is of great social significance in certain areas: it is produced mainly in regions with structural problems - Objective 1 regions. It should also be borne in mind that in addition to adopting the set of measures applied to date, there is a need for further measures, and the possibility of aid to rural development could be floated.
What is at issue is a fall in production in areas such as Castile-La Mancha, Castile-Leon and Andalusia, which are all Objective 1 regions. Their economic activity revolves around this product as it represents the only means of making a living in these areas.
<P>
Documents produced by the Commission reveal that it is aware of the problem. For instance, Regulation No 1197 states that, since 1993, the Commission has noted a significant increase in imports of garlic from China relative to previous years.
As far as I am aware, the cost of producing garlic in the European Union is of the order of 220 pesetas per kilo whereas Chinese garlic is priced at around 135 pesetas per kilo. Clearly, the ensuing fall in the price of garlic could cause a significant upheaval in the Community market.
Indeed, this is already happening.
<P>
In Regulation No 544, the Commission states that following the introduction of a safeguard clause relating to the import of garlic from China, a significant increase in imports of garlic from certain third countries with no tradition of exporting garlic to the Community has suddenly taken place over the last few years.
The Commission itself has suggested that this raises doubts as to the true origin of the garlic imported from these third countries.
Imports of garlic of dubious origin have continued to increase.
<P>
In the light of this data provided by the Commission itself and since the market is collapsing, it is essential to put pressure on the Commission to take action to remedy the situation.
Given that the Commission is aware of the situation and that it is also aware that the measures taken so far are inadequate - as the state of the market proves - it is simply not acceptable that no further measures are being taken.
The garlic producers have raised the possibility of setting a maximum world trading quota, and of even setting a deterrent tariff barrier for quantities above this maximum world trading quota.
<P>
I realise that these issues will be dealt with during future negotiations.
We would, however, urge the Commission to remain vigilant and to introduce appropriate measures to prevent the annual drop in producers' incomes. I should emphasise once again that their income has been falling year on year since 1993.
<P>
Finally, I should like to take advantage of this opportunity to express my support for the reports by Mr Jové and Mr Fantuzzi, particularly as regards the processing of citrus fruits and aid for the promotion of agricultural products in third countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would ask you to bear with me if what I have to say takes some time, but I do now have to comment on four different reports.
I should like to start straight away with the price proposals for the 1999/2000 marketing year.
<P>
The proposals which the Commission has made are in line with the same stability policy which has already been pursued in preceding price packages.
They are primarily intended to guarantee the rollover which is necessary for legal reasons.
The reform will in any case mean that in future, far fewer market management parameters will need to be set on an annual basis.
Under these circumstances, the Commission is proposing not to increase the amounts.
I believe that we should confine ourselves strictly to measures which do not run counter to the overall strategy agreed in Berlin.
At this point, I should also like to thank Mr Happart very much for his report, along with the members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the members of the other committees who were actively involved in the preparatory work for this report.
<P>
With your permission, I will now turn to the amendments.
I will begin with those which seek to increase all the prices and aids so as to take account of the inflation rate of 1.9 % and the introduction of the euro.
This concerns the following groups of amendments: firstly, Amendments Nos 13, 16, 23, 33, 38 and 42 on the rate of inflation; then Amendments Nos 14, 17, 24, 34 and 39 on the introduction of the euro; and finally, Amendments Nos 15, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, 27 to 31, 36 and 41 on raising prices.
The Commission cannot agree to these amendments, because they would run directly counter to the need to improve the competitiveness of Community produce, both in the internal market and on the world markets.
<P>
Secondly, this would involve additional expenditure of EUR 463 million for the year 2000.
If that is applied to the forthcoming financial framework from 2000 to 2006, the additional costs come to over EUR 3 billion.
Finally, this would also mean that we would be unable to honour our international commitments in full, that is those on reducing internal support.
<P>
Incidentally, Council Regulation No 2799/98 on the new agri-monetary arrangements provides in any case that if there is proven loss of income as a result of the introduction of the euro, then compensatory payments may be granted, provided that the conditions specified are met.
<P>
On Amendment No 1 on compulsory set-aside, which amounts to keeping the set-aside rate as it currently stands for the coming years, I should like to point out that part of the Berlin compromise is that a basic set-aside rate of 10 % should apply for the whole of the period from 2000 to 2006.
<P>
Amendment No 2 concerns flax and hemp and aims to promote the use of these agricultural products for non-food purposes.
I understand the reasons behind this amendment. But I cannot agree to it, because this issue needs to be considered in a wider context.
It will also need to be taken into account when the future set-aside rate and the options for rural development measures are discussed.
<P>
Amendments Nos 4 and 5 seek to introduce new measures to manage pigmeat production.
I should simply like to draw your attention here to the fact that subsidising the pig sector at the present time will only compound the problem, because farmers will be less willing to reduce the size of their herds.
Implementing a proposal of this kind would also be very costly.
Incidentally, I might also point out here that in the management committee we have repeatedly invited the Member States to make structural proposals.
We have discussed all the variants which have been mentioned here. The Member States did not find a single one of these attractive, and stated on the contrary that appropriate market management was a sufficient measure.
<P>
I now come to the amendments relating to the wine sector.
Amendments Nos 3 and 32 on the granting of permanent abandonment premiums in respect of wine-growing areas and extending the deadline for submitting applications for premiums for the 1999/2000 marketing year from 31 December 1999 to 31 March 2000 do not cause any difficulties.
However, the Commission is unable to accept the remaining amendments on the wine sector for the following reasons.
<P>
Firstly, this will either pre-empt the reform - which has been agreed at political level - or might even go against it.
Secondly, as regards the ban on planting new areas under vines, I might point out that this was extended in the last price package until 31 August 2000, and that in 1998 an additional 10 000 hectares of planting rights had to be granted for both the 1998/99 and 1999/2000 marketing years.
The Commission cannot agree to the other Amendments Nos 26 and 31 on the monthly reimbursement of storage costs for sugar, simply because the proposed reduction is indisputably due to the fall in interest rates.
In the light of the new timetable for the reform of the common organisation of the markets in the milk sector, Amendment No 35 is unjustified.
<P>
Finally, as regards the three amendments on the beef and veal sector, Amendments Nos 37, 40 and 41, I would point out that they are unnecessary in view of the proposals to reform this sector.
In conclusion, I would ask you to bear in mind that while we are waiting for Agenda 2000 to be implemented, we should on no account lose sight of the fact that underlying these price proposals are efforts to achieve greater simplification and stability which are reinforced by the broad consensus in this debate.
<P>
Since the report Mr Happart has presented today is his last, I wish to thank him very much and, Mr Happart, you can take this assurance with you for your continued political career: for as long as I work here, I will not allow the Americans to dominate European agriculture, but like you will fight for us to retain our independence in Europe!
<P>
I now turn to the report on a number of adjustments to the common organisation of the market in fruit and vegetables.
As you know, this is only the second marketing year that this new market organisation has been in force, and you also know that in any case it is intended to carry out a general review of the way this market organisation is operating next year.
This being the case, I think it is too early for us to make more far-reaching changes than the ones proposed at this stage.
During the recent negotiations on the price package, however, the Commission did agree to make a few minor adjustments so as to improve the way in which the market organisation operates.
That alone is therefore the aim of these proposals.
<P>
I should like to thank Mr Jové Peres for his report, in which he also registers a large degree of support for the Commission's proposals.
Like him, I too believe that it is necessary to strengthen the producer organisations, on which the major burden of market management clearly falls.
Mr Peres also refers to a number of problems which we will have to deal with during the forthcoming review.
The Commission therefore believes that many of the proposed amendments are premature and would not appear to be feasible without a detailed analysis.
This applies to Amendments Nos 1, 3, 4 and 6 to 9.
I can assure Parliament, however, that the Commission will pay careful attention to these points when it reviews the market organisation next year.
The Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 2 and 5, because the producer organisations need to have the financial and technical capability to monitor their products appropriately.
<P>
That brings me to Mr Fantuzzi's report.
Here too, my particular thanks go to the rapporteur, but also to the members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the other committees which have given their opinions on this proposal.
I am glad that the proposal has met with broad support.
The aim of the proposal is to create an operational instrument which will increase the international competitiveness of European agricultural products.
We must certainly not - and here I agree with Mr Fantuzzi - stand by and watch while our most important competitors in the new markets - such as those in south-east Asia and Latin America - pursue an active policy of export promotion, when we have nothing even remotely equivalent to set against it.
We will therefore have to make considerable efforts in this field in the future and develop a wide range of information and promotional measures so as to consolidate our position in these markets, particularly because European products are as a rule highly processed and that can only mean that jobs are also at stake here.
<P>
The Commission will observe the principles of subsidiarity and complementarity and will essentially confine itself to acting as a link or as a catalyst and ensuring European added value.
<P>
Of course, we can only take action within our limited budget, and we should also make use of the best available know-how from outside.
This approach therefore requires the Member States - both the private and the public sector - to be heavily involved in terms of making cofinancing available and providing the necessary support for managing and monitoring the measures.
<P>
I should like to say the following on the proposed amendments: firstly, as far as the criteria for selecting the eligible products are concerned - this concerns Amendments Nos 1, 5, 6 and 9 - we believe that these amendments are superfluous because the Commission proposal already covers these points in a more general way.
According to the Commission proposal, the products which can be selected are those which are intended for direct consumption or processing.
In just the same way, organic products or products made using other specific production methods may be selected, as can processed foodstuffs, provided that the information and promotional measures are of sufficient benefit and are in the European interest.
<P>
As regards the nature and content of the measures to be supported, I can accept Amendment No 7.
The more precise statement of the target groups at which the measures should be directed, analysed in Amendment No 8, does not, however, seem to me to be necessary.
As far as your proposed adjustments to the procedure for drawing up the list of products and the question of how long this should remain valid are concerned - this relates to Amendments Nos 10, 11 and 14 - this might pose problems if we still want our policy to be sufficiently flexible and if we also want to keep it up to date at all times.
<P>
I actually think it would be better to consult the Standing Group on the Promotion of Agricultural Products - as it is called - from the very outset, if time allows, and also for the lists we draw up to remain valid for no longer than two years.
Introducing such rigid rules, as proposed in the amendments, could prevent our policy from having the best possible effect.
<P>
Your proposal only to work with those organisations which represent exclusively the Member States of the European Union or to which at least two Member States belong is not one I can accept, because we also attach great importance to working with international organisations, which of course have to show an appropriate European dimension.
You only have to think of the work of the Olive Oil Council.
As regards the obligation to consult the relevant management committee rather than simply to inform it, I am willing to examine this proposal in more detail.
I have to reject the remaining points, however, because our experience has shown that programmes should not run for longer than three years, and because when we implement this scheme we want to adopt a bottom-up approach.
In addition, the professional organisations have to obtain the prior agreement of the national authorities before they submit their proposals to the Commission.
<P>
Obviously, the proposer organisations may also appoint bodies to be responsible for implementing the planned measures.
It must be clear, however, that these bodies must be selected on the basis of an invitation to tender at Community level.
I cannot accept Amendments Nos 3, 4, 15, 19 and 24 on the tendering procedure, because the Commission believes that external support facilities must be selected on the basis of an invitation to tender, so as to ensure maximum transparency of Community interests.
<P>
We also think that the Member States should have sole responsibility for monitoring and making payments, in so far as measures are to be prefinanced by them.
On your request to show more flexibility when determining the part of the funding to be paid by the Member States and in certain cases not to require any financial contribution at all - this is expressed in Amendments Nos 22 and 21 - I should like to say that I think that the Commission proposal is more balanced here in terms of the financial contributions of the three parties involved, namely the Community, the Member State and the proposer organisation.
<P>
On the proposal to increase the appropriations, as contained in Amendment No 22, I should like to say that a substantial increase would not be acceptable at the present time because the sums spent on export refunds are in no way linked to the promotion policy, since the proposal we are discussing primarily concerns quality products and products displaying high added value.
But obviously here the ultimate decision rests with the budgetary authority.
<P>
I now turn to the comments made by Mr Colino Salamanca concerning imports of garlic from third countries.
The Commission is currently investigating the possibilities open to it within the WTO for resolving the problems in the garlic sector and is also preparing to introduce a new system which provides for an appropriately high rate of duty on all garlic imports, with the exception of imports falling within the proposed tariff quotas.
<P>
In accordance with GATT rules, quotas would have to be set on the basis of average imports from third countries over a previous three-year period and allow for an appropriate annual increase.
A draft recommendation for a Council decision authorising the Commission to hold negotiations with the third countries concerned about this change in the bound rate of duty is currently being prepared.
In the meantime, as an initial measure, the safeguard clause, which exists in principle and which we have applied in recent years, is being further extended.
Proposals have already been made on this.
<P>
I discussed both these possibilities in detail with representatives of the garlic industry a few weeks ago, and in principle they also gave the green light here and signalled their agreement.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="President">
Mr Fischler, I have to say that I let you speak for 22 minutes. However, I believe this is justified when Commissioners have to reply to a number of reports which deal with many aspects of a subject, and because many important events have taken place in this area in recent times, not least in view of the interim agreement reached by the ministers and the decisions taken at the summit.
<P>
I would like to ask the House to let me depart from the standard practice of the Chair, so as to add my comments to what Mr Fischler has said on the departure of Mr Happart. For many years, Mr Happart has been one of the more lively elements in the European Parliament.
Those of us who have followed his activities will feel very sad that he will not be with us next time.
We wish him every success in his career and in his new political endeavours.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rehder">
Mr President, if I may, Commissioner, I will echo your words of farewell to Mr Happart.
The fact is - and this is one of our colleague's attributes - that those who swim against the tide sometimes introduce rather more oxygen into the water.
That is what Mr Happart has done throughout his long and successful career here.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, where expenditure is concerned, soundness, financial stability and continuity are of great importance, and in recent years - we can almost go back to the beginning of the European Union - they have not always been valued as much as we in the European Parliament, as representatives of the taxpayer, would have liked.
One of the major successes of the Berlin summit was, for the first time in fact, to move this self-evident truth to centre stage.
That is a success.
However, there is another side, a darker side, to almost every success, and in this case the politicians in the Member States are not yet aware of it.
To be cautious about this, I should like to express it as follows: alongside this stability, social justice and solidarity with the weaker members of society must of course also be key features of this policy, not only at European level but also right down to each individual locality.
One of the things which disappoints my group and me personally is that at the present time there is still no instrument - and this could have been decided on in Berlin - through which greater justice and a higher degree of solidarity with smaller and weaker farmers might be achieved.
It is painful to observe that there is currently no instrument to prevent the old principle from applying whereby price increases mean that more is given to the rich, while all that remains for the poor are the crumbs which fall from the table.
In fact, it is not so much pricing as extending the second pillar of the integrated policy in rural areas which can be one of the ways of really providing help, and not least an opportunity of moving into a different sector for those who are evidently exposed to risk as businessmen and farmers.
This opportunity must also be open to their successors.
That is our social democratic creed; that is what we believe to be essential.
<P>
Although you also complimented Mr Jové Peres, Commissioner, I do have to say that his proposals are somewhat premature.
Of course, Parliament often points the way ahead and some people - yourself excluded perhaps - then go down that road rather hesitantly.
I hope, however, that the ideas which Mr Jové Peres has presented here today will actually also be translated into practical policy in the future.
What this is really about - and in this respect all these reports belong together - is gradually dismantling this rigid market segment, this regulation down to every last detail, and going back to a free social market economy in the European Union.
That is why it is obviously necessary to use our common sense to refocus the marketing initiatives undertaken very successfully by many producer groups in many countries of the European Union and to make it possible for them to sell anything they have that still needs to be sold.
Only here too there is another side to the coin: it will not do for farmers to sell potatoes to the producer group when times are hard, and for them to distribute the potatoes on the open market when times are good and they can obtain a good price.
That would mark the end of this help, this effective help of marketing.
<P>
Of course this is also about marketing.
Mr Fantuzzi's report also contains proposals to give greater support to marketing in the European Union.
It is quite astonishing that when it comes to marketing, the economic giant of the European Union is still in its infancy and is faced with the task of trying, with a very small budget, to emulate the marketing pioneers and giants.
<P>
We need a robust marketing campaign here.
Unfortunately, good things cost money.
We need to build on what we have at regional level.
The economic giant, the EU, has to be a marketing giant as well!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cunha">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am not going to talk about the CAP reform negotiated in Berlin until tomorrow, in the debate on the summit's conclusions.
I just want to say that I share the Commission's disappointment about this reform, expressed at its first plenary meeting after the Berlin summit.
<P>
As mentioned at this meeting, the annual price packages were in the past the main instrument for defining agricultural policy.
It is since the 1992 reform that the price packages have gradually ceased to be this policy-defining instrument. This is due to Commissioner Fischler who, since the start of his term of office, has consistently advocated the desirability of the common agricultural policy being increasingly defined by medium-term horizons.
We now have this reform for 1999 before us in which, once again, agricultural policy is defined according to a medium-term horizon, in this case of seven years.
<P>
However, in the future the price packages will basically be used to adjust agricultural policy measures during the medium-term horizon.
With regard to this 1999-2000 price package, it is clear to everyone that this has no role to play in defining agricultural policy. It is only a bridge between the past and the future, a transitional measure preserving the status quo until the new CAP is applied at the beginning of next year.
<P>
If we are to have any sense of responsibility, there is therefore no point in proposing new measures, in particular price increases, when the Agriculture Council has just unanimously reduced these same prices within Agenda 2000.
If the European Parliament were now to approve these measures, quite frankly it would lose its credibility.
The PPE Group cannot therefore support the amendments tabled by Mr Happart nor those tabled by other Members in this respect.
<P>
However, I must congratulate Mr Happart on some of his analyses which are apposite, particularly with regard to the pigmeat sector.
I also want to thank him for all his work and cooperation with us during his time in this House. I wish him every personal and political success in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Olsson">
Mr President, first of all I should like to join in thanking Mr Happart.
I think he has been a good friend to agriculture and the countryside and many others share my view, even if I do not always see eye to eye with him.
Instead, I support the Liberals on this issue, in other words the Commission's proposal for the most part rather than the amendments.
<P>
Since the Berlin summit, the immediate future for farmers in terms of agricultural policy looks brighter than the Commission had previously envisaged.
However, there are a few points I should like to raise.
In making savings, agriculture should not be the target of any economies that are required as a condition for eastward enlargement.
The countryside, agriculture and other neglected areas should never have to pay for enlargement; it should fall to those sectors which can best afford it.
For the same reason, there should be no renationalisation of agriculture.
Until there is a fully functioning global market, the CAP needs to be safeguarded.
And there is a strong likelihood that it will be some time before the market functions reliably.
<P>
I also agree with Mr Fischler's comments to the effect that European agriculture should not become Americanised.
However, we should be aware that in the slightly longer term, the significance of the market and competition will increase.
As a result, European agriculture will have to become more efficient in terms of quantity and possibly even more so as regards quality.
In this context, I should like to say that what emerges from Mr Fantuzzi's report about endeavouring to increase sales is constructive.
Agriculture should be something that Europe can rely on, and we should be able to feel confident about its capacity to provide food products that will be profitable in the long run.
<P>
Finally, we must give the right signals to farmers.
We should lose no time in initiating a discussion on a more far-reaching reform of our agriculture and rural policies, not on the grounds of enlargement, but because it is needed.
It is time to make changes which will last well beyond the year 2006.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Querbes">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, our debate on the agricultural reports and the question for oral answer cannot be kept separate from the conclusions of the Berlin agreement on CAP reform and from our assessment of this agreement.
In one sense this agreement is positive as, due to the mobilisation of farmers and the rural world, the Heads of State and Government refused to apply the extreme ultraliberal measures prepared by the Commission.
However, on the whole, the European leaders did not abandon the logic of allowing agricultural prices to fall, as imposed by the major European and international economic and financial operators.
<P>
This logic can be seen in the Commission's regulation on prices for agricultural products. This regulation does not even guarantee that prices will be maintained in line with inflation or will compensate for the abandonment of the green ecu.
It also does not correct the imbalances occurring between products and between producers. This logic of allowing prices to fall can also be seen in the lack of determination and means to defend products such as garlic which is the victim of practices which contravene our regulations.
Yet this is a vital product for employment in the European production areas.
<P>
We therefore need a policy to promote our agricultural products, provided that this has adequate financial resources, unlike the current proposals.
It does not take a genius to predict that the logic of allowing agricultural prices to fall, as adopted in Berlin, will perpetuate a system of production which destroys employment, food quality and the environment.
<P>
However, the introduction of some negative measures in the CAP reform is to be staggered, which gives farmers, rural dwellers and the people of Europe time to demand that the CAP be genuinely reoriented in the direction defined by this House.
This is even more of a possibility as we move towards the European elections which will give the people the chance to take part in the debate and decisions.
I believe there is still work to be done on the CAP reform and the content of this policy can and must be reformed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Rosado Fernandes">
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Happart's stance is perfectly normal. He has always defended production and naturally does not always submit to the limitations imposed by financial policy.
Obviously, this view of general stability may seem outrageous and blasphemous but I understand and support it.
<P>
There is no doubt that the 1992 reform, which was based on historical production rates, created a sharp difference in aid throughout Europe, particularly between rich Europe and poor Europe.
There is no doubt that the 'compensation aid', which will now be called 'direct aid', does not compensate for the fall in prices.
There is no doubt that farmers are earning less, except in the case of industrialised agriculture.
I do not therefore feel that Mr Happart's proposal is so outrageous or so blasphemous.
It is a normal proposal from someone who is trying to defend producers as well as consumers.
My group therefore supports the proposal.
<P>
What Mr Jové Peres says in his report is extremely important. It is particularly essential to maintain the balance between producer organisations and producers and to guarantee that the latter can remain faithful to their organisations without this constituting a kind of controlled economy in which they are forced, like slaves, to sell to poorly managed organisations.
The main problem facing us is how to ensure the proper management of these organisations and, at the same time, meet the needs of producers.
<P>
I cannot agree more on the subject of withdrawal.
This often provides a large profit because it is frequently implemented fraudulently in that payment is made for products to be withdrawn which are then sold on external markets.
I have seen this happen!
<P>
The promotion of products as indicated in the Fantuzzi report is extremely important.
We have been asking for this for ages and it clearly seems ridiculous that Europe has not taken a more aggressive stance given the gradual loss of our international markets. For example, Portugal has lost the olive oil market in Brazil to products of terrible quality against which we can easily compete.
<P>
Finally, garlic is a normal problem.
We believe that, in view of the organised crime and laundering which the Commission has allowed in recent years, in this case strict control would solve the problem.
There is a desire to control what we import.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Mr President, I have a question for Commissioner Fischler: you said to Mr Happart that his proposals would run counter to the Berlin strategy.
Are you paying him a compliment, or can it be that you are happy with Berlin?
I am becoming rather confused, because in his report Mr Happart did in fact pin his hopes on Agenda 2000 being implemented.
It seems to me that the hopes which Mr Happart expressed in his report have not been realised.
In this report on prices, he is still referring to the 1992 reform, and you are well aware - and have said so yourself in your documents and reports on Agenda 2000 - that the 1992 reform led to cases of severe injustice and showed a serious failure to take due account of employment and the environment.
<P>
You know that most of the money goes to well-situated production areas and not to less-favoured areas.
You know that most of the money goes to larger holdings and that some large holdings have the premiums paid straight into a time deposit account, because the prices and their advanced stage of rationalisation mean that they can manage without them.
You know that there are premiums in the maize sector which have no environmental conditions attached.
You know that pasture land is also one of the economically marginalised areas.
None of this was rectified in Berlin.
That is why I really must take it as a compliment when you say that it runs counter to Berlin.
We should actually start work straight away on developing a new strategy for safeguarding agriculture, not least on the regional market.
<P>
Time does not allow me to say any more on this, but you are familiar with my views.
I should also like to comment on sales promotion.
Here I believe, Commissioner Fischler, that we must not allow sales promotion to become export subsidies by the back door; this must be genuine sales promotion.
I think that the internal market should also be taken into account here, which means making money available on both sides.
<P>
You said that you were against regulating the pig market, Mr Fischler.
I fully agree with you that we should not intervene here, but if intervention is not wanted here, then why are we keeping it in the other markets?
If it works so well there, then we should have it in the pig market too.
I see that you are not pleased. That makes me very happy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Barthet-Mayer">
Mr President, I must also congratulate Mr Happart. His work has always been efficient and consistent and he has also sometimes acted as a necessary irritant to this House.
<P>
With regard to his report, the Commission's proposal to leave agricultural prices unchanged for the next season has come at a time when agricultural income has fallen considerably in certain Member States, which the Commission acknowledges.
We therefore clearly understand the rapporteur's amendments which aim to adjust prices in line with the rate of inflation and in particular to compensate for the negative effects of a new agri-monetary system resulting from the changeover to the euro.
<P>
I fully understood the Commissioner's position just now.
However, we will support the rapporteur's proposal on two express conditions.
Firstly, the price adjustment must apply to all agricultural products and not just cereals, sugar and beet, butter and skimmed-milk powder and adult bovine animals.
Secondly, the increase resulting from this proposal must benefit the 80 % of farmers who are the most disadvantaged.
This is the aim of my amendment to the recitals which I have tabled on behalf of my group.
<P>
With regard to Mr Fantuzzi's report, this proposal is much more important than it seems at first sight.
In view of the changes in the world agricultural trade, it is clearly imperative that the European Union implements a common action policy to promote and provide information on its products in third countries.
In order to sell our products, and to sell them well, as shown by the specific case of olive oil, Europe must be united and must develop its own model of agriculture. Its products must focus on quality, the protection of the environment and the maintenance of land and farmers.
Given that our main commercial competitor - the United States of America - spends approximately EUR 140 million per year on promotion, not to mention indirect aid, the Commission's proposal to allocate EUR 15 million to the promotion of agricultural products is derisory.
This is why we support the rapporteur's proposal to increase this figure to EUR 50 million between now and 2003.
<P>
In line with the positions which I have always defended with my group and with other Members in order to make our European model of agriculture consistent and real, it is vital that the amendments are supported as they are intended, first of all, to make the professional organisations and the Commission jointly responsible for implementing this promotion policy. Secondly, they are intended to monitor the use of funds by providing for post-evaluation audits of spending in relation to objectives in order to judge their effectiveness and to reorient these funds if necessary.
Thirdly and finally, they aim to include within this approach aid for the promotion of quality products, for example those originating from organic farming.
<P>
Finally, our group supports the report by Mr Jové Peres.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="des Places">
Mr President, Commissioner, a few days ago the Agriculture Committee decided that Mr Happart's draft report on agricultural prices could not be adopted as it was.
A few moments ago, Commissioner Fischler rejected outright all the amendments which could potentially alter the Berlin agreements. It should be remembered that these agreements were reached without the European Parliament giving an opinion on them.
<P>
There is therefore nothing left for me to do but congratulate Mr Happart on having been willing and courageous enough to realistically attempt to defend the profitability of agricultural holdings.
This is why, on behalf of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, I participated in the tabling of amendments on an across-the-board increase in institutional prices and aid of 1.9 %. The aim of these amendments is to compensate for the effects of inflation and of the green ecu being abolished from 1 January 1999.
<P>
I did in fact table these amendments last year when I was rapporteur on the price package.
Like Mr Happart, I thought that the dual effect of inflation and the abolition of the green ecu would cause an unacceptable fall in prices for farmers given that we were also imposing constraints on them in terms of the environment, animal welfare, traceability and so on.
The fall in prices and in agricultural compensation will end up forcing farmers towards greater intensification when all they want to do is balance their budgets.
<P>
In addition to these two sets of amendments, I have tabled amendments with Mr Chesa on wine-growing.
In anticipation of a future reform of COM 1, it is essential to set up the mechanisms specified in this in order to prevent any breakdown.
These amendments involve extending the duration of planting rights, allowing planting in advance and providing for new planting rights in order to respond to market changes.
<P>
I deeply regret this situation which will unfortunately prevent a balance being achieved in European agriculture and between each Member State.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Mr President, as everyone else has already congratulated Mr Happart, I will refrain from doing so as well. Rather than concentrating on the issue of prices, on which we all agree with Mr Happart's struggle, I wish to focus on an issue which I feel is symbolic in this joint discussion.
This issue is garlic. It is symbolic not just because it is a product like olive oil or wine which is subject to replanting rights and not just because it is representative of an era of civilisation, but also because it serves to demonstrate, like honey and other products, what European construction is really about.
<P>
This is a well-known issue. We produce garlic in Europe, in the Cuenca region of Castile in Spain and in the Drôme and Gers regions of France.
This is quality garlic whose cultivation is ecological in two respects.
Firstly it requires little water and secondly it can be grown in problem areas thereby helping to ensure that people remain in these areas. Our producers should therefore be protected by customs duties and controls.
However, in addition to traditional imports from Egypt, Argentina and the United States, we also receive imports from China which has a quota of twelve thousand tonnes. Yet in reality thirty thousand tonnes are imported from China via countries involved in garlic fraud such as, dare I say, Malaysia - which sends us hundreds of tonnes without growing any itself - India, Jordan and a whole range of other third countries.
<P>
Both the official and illegal Chinese garlic leaves China at 10 centimes per kilo.
It arrives in Europe at 4.50 francs per kilo which is 0.70 euro, whereas our producers can only produce it for 10 francs per kilo which is approximately 1.5 euro.
This garlic is then offered to consumers at 3 euro or 20 francs per kilo.
In other words, our producers are facing unfair competition from garlic produced at half the cost, quite obviously by prisoners in labour camps.
<P>
What is the Commission doing while all this is going on?
It is considering referring the matter to the World Trade Organisation following on from its success in the banana dispute.
No controls are being applied at the frontiers even though the Italians have shown that these can intercept the immigrant or, dare I say it, fraudulent garlic.
The Netherlands and the United Kingdom, who are involved in these illegal imports, are being allowed to continue. Customs duties are not being imposed whereas the United States applies 376 % customs duties to imported garlic.
<P>
Like the honey adulterated with sugar cane, beet or corn syrups and many other imports, we are allowing adulterated garlic to be imported which can be up to two years old, thus leading to germination problems.
We are allowing our producers to be destroyed, as with the banana producers in Guadeloupe, the Canary Islands, Martinique and Madeira and our wine producers.
Prices are falling and inflation is being ignored.
This is what European construction is really about, Mr President and Commissioner.
Once again, the circle of stars on the European Union flag is blinding us to a world trade involving leniency and fraud. This really is internationalism.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Iversen">
Mr President, I would like to begin by expressing my disappointment at the outcome of the Berlin summit.
It is difficult to discuss these matters without also seeing them in the light of what actually happened in Berlin.
Compared with the Commission's proposal, which we supported, Berlin was in fact a disaster for European agriculture.
Things we have been working on for a number of years were not completed, and prices were not cut sufficiently.
I am unhappy about that.
I agree with those who have expressed regret that Mr Happart will no longer be here, but I would also like to tell Mr Happart that unfortunately I disagree with him - as he is well aware - about this price proposal.
It is clear that the idea behind the report was to ensure the best possible terms for farmers.
But I believe we have to recognise the fact that we should have brought our agricultural prices down to a level which reflects the world market price, and so we will have to find other methods to compensate for the social distortion which may result.
<P>
Next I would like to say a few words about Mr Fantuzzi's report on measures to promote our agricultural products in third countries.
This is an important area in connection with both Agenda 2000 and the forthcoming WTO negotiations.
We are sympathetic towards the Commission's move, but we believe that the favouritism shown to the olive oil sector is untenable in relation to all the other products which we would also like to sell on the world market.
To use 40 % of the budget on this sector is perhaps a little excessive.
However, we cannot endorse the proposal on national cofinancing.
I do not in fact consider it appropriate to have national cofinancing, because it entails a risk of differential treatment between countries and increases the trend towards a repatriation of common policies.
That is why I believe that general promotional measures should be financed in full by the Union, and far more funding should be allocated for this than has been proposed by the Commission.
We also support the rapporteur on this point.
It is important for us to have an effective instrument to promote exports and react to US measures in this area. A fact which has also been pointed out by others in this debate is that the USA spends far more money on promoting exports than the Commission is planning to do here.
<P>
However, where more specific sales promotions are concerned, I think that the private companies and producer organisations involved should also participate in the financing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Arias Cañete">
Mr President, Commissioner, I should like to congratulate Mr Jové. True to his record, he has once again presented us with a report which is not only technically accurate and thorough but also well balanced from a political point of view.
<P>
The changes to Regulation No 2200/96 establishing the COM of the fruit and vegetable sector may initially appear minor, yet certain aspects of them do give cause for concern.
<P>
A central feature of the COM as it was set up in 1996 was the key role of the producer organisations in terms of both marketing their members' produce and regulating the markets financing withdrawal operations.
<P>
The Commission is now proposing to allow members of producer organisations to sell part of their produce outside the commercial circuits of the producer organisations to which they belong.
<P>
We agree with the rapporteur that such authorisation - doubtless intended to ensure the survival of traditional practices - should not have a negative effect on the operation of the producer organisations. This is particularly critical when allowing direct sales both on the farm and elsewhere.
Producers can directly access commercial circuits outside those of the producer organisation.
<P>
Parliament does not object to a certain amount of flexibility, but we must ensure that the main role of the producer organisations is not eroded.
I therefore welcome the differentiated quantitative limits set by the rapporteur depending on whether the sales take place on the farm or elsewhere.
I feel that these measures will ensure that the bulk of production continues to be marketed through the producer organisations. Exceptions will remain exceptions and will not become a general rule that weakens the system.
<P>
As regards the modifications to Regulation No 2202/96 providing for aid to citrus fruit producers, the measures introduced by the Commission are indeed sorely needed to compensate for the delay in the receipt of aid. The Commission is therefore to be congratulated on dealing with the situation.
Unfortunately, the Commission has failed to address the major shortcoming of the COM: the imbalance between the thresholds set for the processing of citrus fruits and production reality. This has resulted in significant increases in withdrawals given the heavy penalties incurred for exceeding the thresholds.
<P>
The rapporteur has suggested increasing the thresholds to the average amount processed during recent years.
The financial implications are reasonable and could be covered under the COM's financial statement.
He has also suggested setting a 20 % limit on penalties. This could help to stabilise the future of the processing industry by preventing the producers from breaking their contracts and directing their produce to withdrawal which would naturally have a negative effect on the environment and the common dimension of the COM.
<P>
Commissioner, if Mr Jové's proposals prove to be reasonable and well balanced, and if there are no technical objections, there is no sense in waiting for an eventual reform of the COM. Instead, the proposals should be implemented immediately, taking advantage of the fact that these regulations are currently being reviewed.
<P>
In my view, what is important is not where ideas come from but whether they are fundamentally sound. On this occasion, Mr Jové has presented us with significant alternatives which could easily be implemented in view of their low cost and sound technical basis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Novo">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the average income of farmers in Portugal has continually and systematically shrunk in recent years, particularly between 1996 and 1998.
The official statistics prove that farmers now earn just over half of what they earned three years ago.
This is the concrete and dramatic effect of the famous 1992 CAP reform on the weakest farming sector in the European Union.
<P>
This situation should have been corrected by the European Council in Berlin but unfortunately was not, with the incredible acquiescence and even approval of the Portuguese Government.
As a result of the Berlin agreement, prices will continue to fall, the weakest Mediterranean products and farmers will continue to be discriminated against and the smallest farmers in Portugal will continue to receive the scraps of the financial transfers allocated to Portugal. This means that less than 10 % of the cake will continue to be distributed to more than 90 % of those actually working the land.
<P>
As a result of the Berlin agreement, the big food industries, the large European farmers and the main cereal crops will continue to be favoured and to receive the lion's share of the Community's agriculture budget.
The Berlin agreement is simply continuing the 1992 CAP reform which was not altered at the end of March when it should have been.
<P>
In this context, the Commission is trying to bring forward the Berlin decisions and is proposing further price reductions for next season.
We therefore feel it is useful to support the attempt by the rapporteur - who we congratulate - to block these reduction proposals, although we consider that the fair and across-the-board increase which he is proposing, despite applying to all sectors, will still not solve the existing discriminations.
<P>
I must briefly mention the pigmeat sector.
It is clear that one of the reasons for the grave crisis which has affected and which is continuing to affect this sector has been the Commission's refusal to establish market regulation and intervention mechanisms. These would over time have prevented the accumulation of such large surpluses.
The Commission should draw the respective and requisite conclusions from this and accordingly not insist on, or even abandon, its proposals to abolish market intervention mechanisms in other agricultural sectors.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Poisson">
Commissioner, the price package for 1999/2000 is being fixed at a decisive time for the future of European agriculture when farmers' income is continuing to shrink.
In 1997 and 1998, their income fell by 6.5 % overall.
The fall in market prices which began in 1998 is continuing in 1999 and the prospects on the world market remain uncertain in some sectors.
The abolition of the green rates and the introduction of the euro on 1 January 1999 have resulted in a fall of 1 % to 2 % in the agricultural conversion rates in each Member State.
<P>
It is now clear that the Commission's proposal on the price package is still paltry and gives farmers little room for manoeuvre.
We must clearly reaffirm the benefits of agriculture in terms of the economy, self-sufficiency in food production, which is its primary function, and occupation of the land.
We must maintain a prosperous and successful agricultural sector and, in particular, we must prevent the disappearance of certain categories of farmers due to falling income.
We must not allow agriculture to be taken over by bureaucracy due to an increase in public aid as this would restrict farmers' freedom of action.
<P>
Dare we say that European agriculture has a cost which cannot be reduced any further without calling into question our model of agriculture.
Furthermore, European consumers benefit from this model because they are assured of quality products and a regular market supply.
We have also been able to develop the products from our land and the products from organic farming.
Our agri-food industry also represents a high value added.
In twenty years, the price of a metric quintal of wheat has fallen by 40 % whereas production costs have increased by 20 % and more in certain sectors.
<P>
It is therefore not difficult to understand why European farmers are worried about their futures.
The European Union's role is not to sacrifice its agriculture on the altar of enlargement or Americanisation but to allow our farmers to carry out their work and to have a standard of living equal to the average in Europe.
<P>
This is why I will support Mr Happart's amendments. I also wish him every success in his new work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="Nicholson">
Mr President, I welcome this opportunity this morning to speak on the situation regarding agriculture within the European Union and the effects of present policy and of the recent decisions at the Berlin Summit.
<P>
To some extent prices have very little effect on the farmer's actual future, because while we sit and talk about prices and say there will be no inflationary aspects, in the final analysis it is the actual income to the farmer that is important.
If we look at statistics throughout Europe over the last two to three years, we can see that actual income to the farmer on the ground has dramatically dropped.
Every year the income drops.
The question we have to ask ourselves is how long can this continue?
How long can agriculture sustain itself in this position?
<P>
The other question we have to ask is: will there be any future for the industry if young people do not continue to enter agriculture?
That is the long-term challenge.
If we do not have young people coming into agriculture - young farmers beginning at the bottom of the ladder to work their way up - then in the longer term agriculture has no future, long-term or short-term.
To some extent what we are involved in at the moment in Europe is short-term policies that have no long-term vision.
We require long-term vision for the future, for the future of agriculture.
<P>
There are also areas within European agriculture that are not covered by any regime, such as the situation in the pig industry and the situation in the poultry industry.
<P>
We are allowing imports to come from third countries outside the European Union; we are allowing food to be imported into Europe that would not come near European standards.
At the same time we are laying down standards, we are telling our farmers how they should produce food.
We are tying farmers' hands behind their backs.
Frozen chickens are being imported from Brazil and from the Far East.
I challenge the Commission here today to tell us whether these chickens are being examined and whether they meet the same standards as we have?
Our processors are being put at risk.
This is why there is high unemployment.
Our processors are being put out of business.
<P>
I challenge the Commission here today. Let us look at ourselves, let us not ask our farmers in Europe to produce food to a standard that others in the rest of the world cannot match.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Raschhofer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the difficulties facing European agriculture are sufficiently well known.
They are of course being discussed at this very moment.
Small-scale farmers have problems competing directly with factory farms overseas.
I am favourably disposed towards the idea of selling more quality products from European agriculture on the world markets by means of the measures proposed in the Fantuzzi report.
However, as with all support policies, two points need to be taken into account here.
<P>
Firstly, we must ensure that no new bureaucratic bodies are created.
There is already a proliferation of forums and committees.
I am therefore critical of the proposal to arrange our own trade visits.
It begs the question of whether associations already in existence might not be able to perform this task.
<P>
Secondly, the financial burden and the risk must not be borne predominantly by the public sector.
Only if the operators also bear a considerable proportion of the costs will sensible projects be implemented without public money being wasted.
That is why the amendment stating that the Community should pay 60 % of the costs in each case rather than a maximum of 50 % is not acceptable.
Overall, I believe that the measures will unlock new sales potential for our farmers. I therefore support the Commission proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="Hardstaff">
Mr President, I should like to start by saying that 15 minutes ago there were still no amendments in English to two of the reports despite your assurances at 9 o'clock that there would be some within a couple of minutes.
<P>
I turn now to the price package.
I am afraid I cannot support the rapporteur's amendments calling for price increases across the board.
Yes, many farmers are struggling at the moment, but large, richer farmers, though profits are down, are very far from the breadline.
The extra expenditure is not justified overall and these amendments go against the whole thrust of the CAP reforms agreed in Berlin.
<P>
More appropriate would be temporary special measures to assist particular sectors to survive through short-term difficulties.
Mr Fantuzzi's report on the marketing of EU produce to third countries, mirroring similar schemes within the EU, is one such instance which could assist.
<P>
I wish to welcome the proposals on fruit and vegetables, in particular the move to allow up to 20 % of produce to be sold directly to consumers at the farm gate or through farmers' markets.
In the UK in particular, the large supermarket chains are gaining ever greater control of producers, insisting from a semi-monopoly position that their suppliers conform exactly to their requirements.
There has been a reaction against this.
We have seen the growth of farmers' markets and the demand from consumers for less standardised fruit and vegetables in terms of size, seeking rather flavour and freshness at prices which provide a good deal for both producer and consumer.
I therefore particularly welcome this proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Funk">
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="President">
The debate is suspended at this point; it will be resumed this afternoon.
<P>
We shall now hear a statement by the nominee for President of the Commission, Mr Romano Prodi.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Statement by Mr Prodi, nominee for President of the Commission
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="President">
The next item is the statement by Mr Prodi, nominee for President of the Commission, followed by a debate between the political groups, without a final resolution.
<P>
I therefore give the floor to the nominee for President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, whom I would also welcome to the House.
<P>
Mr Prodi, you have the floor.
<P>
Loud applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Prodi">
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Prodi.
<P>
I give the floor to Mrs Green.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Green">
Mr President, on behalf of my Group, I wish to welcome Mr Prodi here today.
His nomination by the European Council came swiftly and decisively in the wake of the resignation of the present Commission, and my Group welcomed the speed with which the Council responded.
We had urged the Heads of Government in Berlin to act quickly to end the uncertainty and confusion which followed the unprecedented resignation of the 20 present Commissioners.
We welcomed the Council's clear understanding of the political nature of the moment and of the opportunity it offered to create a new relationship between the European Union institutions and its citizens.
It could not have acted more quickly and, it has to be said, that it acted with uncharacteristic speed.
<P>
Mr Prodi's statement to us here this morning is the beginning of our ratification process of the new Commission.
My Group wants the new European Commission to come into office as soon as possible.
It must be said that the timetable which the European Council has set us is not an easy one.
Given the European elections in June, given the imminent introduction of the Amsterdam Treaty and given the convergence of general elections in two of our Member States on the same day as the European elections, the timetable presents us with a logistic headache of monumental proportions.
However, we must find a way around the problems.
<P>
All of us in this House want to see the present Commission leave office as soon as possible.
To be fair to them, they too have expressed a desire to leave as soon as possible.
They remain in office only as a caretaker Commission, as the Treaty obliges them to do.
It is a situation unloved by them and grossly unsatisfactory to us.
<P>
To carry out our role now with regard to the next Commission, we may have to put our own parliamentary calendar and personal diaries under considerable strain.
So be it.
<P>
The conclusions of the Berlin Summit asked this Parliament to deal with the nomination of Mr Prodi and the new Parliament to deal with the ratification of the entire new Commission.
We insist, however, that the ratification of the next President of the Commission must be done rigorously, seriously and properly by this Parliament.
I welcome very much Mr Prodi's consent to come here today and begin that process in that spirit.
The role of this Parliament in recent events has been fundamental.
It is important that we now demonstrate our maturity and see the process through to its conclusion.
<P>
My Group believes that now, together with the Council and a reforming Commission, we can set up a structure and decision-making process which is more appropriate, more in tune with modern governance.
First and foremost, we want a strong Commission.
The new Commission must have clear direction, a firm political leadership which is open, it must practise genuine transparency and partnership with the European Parliament and not just pay lip-service to those values.
<P>
None of us here underestimate the problems and challenges of creating such a European Commission.
However, I want to make clear to Mr Prodi today, on behalf of my Group, that if the next Commission makes a genuine attempt to reform with the courage and vigour which he has expressed this morning, then it will receive the support of my Group.
<P>
My Group will not play toy-town politics with this process.
We would not do it in January of this year and we will not do it now.
<P>
Mixed reactions
<P>
Some in this House welcomed Mr Prodi to Parliament; some in this House seem determined to play solely national electoral politics with this issue, ignoring the importance of the moment for Europe, for its policies and for its people.
<P>
Mixed reactions
<P>
Those concerned for the evolution of this House as the real democratic voice of Europe's people will work together to enhance its role and its rights, which is what our citizens are waiting and watching for.
My experience during the last few weeks campaigning in Britain has been that, for the first time ever, people know that the European Parliament exists as a force to be reckoned with - not just the subject of myths about curly cucumbers and curved bananas - but a body which has delivered objective evidence through the report of the Committee of Independent Experts and then acted on it.
My Group takes considerable pride in our role over recent months.
<P>
Mixed reactions
<P>
We believe that we have acted in the best traditions of parliamentarians: responsible, exercising leadership and acting with integrity.
<P>
Mixed reactions
<P>
Mr Prodi, you have come to this House today as the Council's designated candidate.
You come with excellent credentials as a good European and a proven track record of personal integrity, the authority of having held the highest office of the land in one of the largest Member States of the European Union and one of the founding states at that.
You have demonstrated your ability to put together a reforming government and develop a consensus with all sectors of Italian society, to ensure that Italy was able and ready to enter the first wave of the single currency.
In this you have confounded the sceptics.
<P>
Hopes in this Parliament of just what you could achieve with those formidable skills as President of the European Commission are high.
I believe, therefore, that when you come to this Parliament next month, we would like to hear some clear idea of the direction you will take on two fronts.
It must be said that you began that statement in a very clear and very strong way here this morning, and we very much welcome that.
<P>
Firstly, given the trauma which led to the collapse of the present Commission, we expect to hear a clear commitment - not just to implementing the programme of reforms already agreed by this Parliament and the current Commission in January and the subsequent agreement on the independent investigatory body OLAF - but to further and deeper reforms of substance, in particular (and I was glad to hear you mention it) with regard to the acceptance of political and personal responsibility for work done by officials at whatever level in the European Commission.
We also expect that you will give due account to the second report of the Committee of Independent Experts and work with us in Parliament to examine, assess and implement the necessary reforms.
<P>
Secondly, for my Group, the real substance of the programme of the European Commission is political.
We understand that, if your appointment is ratified, you will not be able to present a full political programme until you have negotiated with the governments on their nominations to the Commission under the new rights given to the President of the Commission by the Amsterdam Treaty.
We understand from various interviews which you have given, that you intend to use those rights to the full.
We would not only support you in doing so but would also encourage you to do so.
<P>
The new Commission must act like a college and not like 20 fiefdoms and the moulding of such a Commission will lie in the hands of the new President of the Commission.
<P>
However, for my Group the political content of the programme which will be produced by the new Commission is crucial.
Last week when you visited my Group, I presented you with our objectives for the next five years in the form of our manifesto for the European elections.
From this you will see that our agenda is for jobs, training for jobs, protection of the environment, the fight against social exclusion, the need to protect the health and safety of our citizens in a world now having to deal with issues like BSE and genetically modified foods, the struggle against cross-border crime, working together for a stronger Europe in the world and carrying out the necessary reforms to ensure that we can enlarge the Union at the earliest possible moment.
<P>
We will judge the European Commission to be established in the coming weeks on both its political programme and its programme for reform.
I for one welcome your human and intelligent development of your thinking here this morning - economic, cultural, social, based on peace.
I think all of us here very much welcome that.
<P>
Finally, I wish to touch on the issue you raised at the end of your speech.
Many in my Group feel a strong democratic affinity with the proposals of Jacques Delors that we move in the future to a position where the President of the European Commission should derive his or her credibility from the electoral process.
For this to happen there has to be agreement between the Council and Parliament on the process.
The sensitive balance between Member States and the institutions of the Union cannot be jeopardised by precipitous action which could damage the process of European integration, in which respect for differing political cultures and democratic practices are paramount.
In this respect, you, Mr Prodi, have already been unanimously nominated for the office of President of the European Commission by all the Heads of State and Government in the European Union.
You do not come to this nomination through any defining electoral process.
However, one of your great strengths is that you bring with you a great experience of success at consensus building.
It is in that context that my Group very much welcomes the statement you made today that, whilst, of course, you will engage with those with whom you are politically aligned - as we and the Commissioners have always done - we welcome your clear statement this morning that you will not stand as a candidate to this House.
<P>
We might have expected that, with just over three weeks of the life of this Parliament left to go, we might be on the gentle slope towards an election.
Usually parliaments ease their way out or drift away as legislation peters out and parliamentary life comes to an end.
In the last week of the last parliamentary term, in 1994, we had to mobilise all outgoing Members to vote on the enlargement of the Union.
On this occasion not only do we have Agenda 2000 but also we have to face the consequences of a resigned Commission and a new President of the European Commission.
This is a serious process.
Mr Prodi, the programme you develop after this debate and your discussion tomorrow evening with the European Council represent an important step in the development of European democracy.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
Mr President, president-designate Romano Prodi was nominated by the European Union Heads of Government just as NATO began its bombing of Yugoslavia.
Because of the very complicated timetable, it will be months before the European Union gets a new executive.
This is why Parliament has pressed for it to happen as speedily as possible, and we shall support any measure which expedites the process.
<P>
Mr Prodi, we are very pleased by your appointment as new president of the European Commission.
After your investiture by Parliament in May you will, in the parlance of the House, be the formateur , the co-formateur , of the new Commission.
We are strongly and unequivocally in favour of your candidacy and, I should add, we attach no political strings.
We are convinced that you possess the political and professional skills to overcome the deep crisis in which the Commission finds itself.
And this crisis must prompt us to carry out some historic reforms.
<P>
You must reform the Commission and its services.
As the present Commission too has said, there has to be a new European political and administrative culture.
The problems began ten years ago, as the report of the independent experts shows us, with chapter and verse - from 1990 onwards tourism, from 1992 onwards the programmes for the Mediterranean area, humanitarian aid, the security services.
The Wise Men tell us that the supervisory bodies within the Commission are a mess and that procedures take too long.
Staff policy is a machine running out of control.
<P>
More than a year ago, in March 1998, our colleagues in the Committee on Budgetary Control, at the instigation of James Elles, called for measures to be taken by the middle of September 1998.
In October 1998, Parliament called for an independent anti-fraud office to succeed UCLAF.
We did not obtain satisfaction in December last year.
Our group put forward an action programme to modernise the Commission by 1 January 2000, with codes of conduct for Commissioners, on relations between Commissioners and their private offices and services, and codes of conduct for officials, with a reform of the Staff Regulations involving transparency and good faith in the recruitment of officials and clear rules and restrictions on outside appointments.
Clear rules too for budgetary management, more specifically regarding technical assistance offices, and reform of the Financial Regulation.
All this awaits you, especially once the second report by the Wise Men comes out this September.
<P>
But numerous political challenges also await you, very clearly formulated in documents of this Parliament, reports by our colleagues Mr Herman and Mr Brok.
Fernand Herman's report will be debated this week.
It concerns institutional reforms, not least in the Commission, which can be carried out without amending the Treaty: reducing the number of portfolios and a rational make-up of the Commission, a proper balance between collective and individual responsibility.
As you know, this is a central problem.
Mrs Cresson, who was not prepared to accept her own personal political responsibility, dragged the entire Commission down with her.
<P>
Applause
<P>
The PPE and we as the PPE Group have said that we can no longer work with her.
My question to you is this: where do you stand on this relationship between collective and individual responsibility?
We are in favour of interinstitutional cooperation.
In 1994, I took the initiative as PPE Group president to call for reform of the modus vivendi governing the relationship between the Commission and the European Parliament.
This modus vivendi needs to be revised and expanded again.
New agreements have been reached and it needs, I think, to be approved and accepted before the new Commission takes up its duties.
<P>
Mr Brok spoke in his report, with the resolution that was adopted on 13 January, of the consequences of the Commission President's investiture and the independence of members of the Commission.
This report is particularly instructive and informative, not least on the subject of the procedure to be followed now for the investiture of the Commission under the Amsterdam Treaty.
It advocates independence for the members of the Commission, and that the European Commission must remain the guardian of the Treaties and work for the general interest.
The report also calls for a political balance in the membership of the Commission.
I would add: a new Commission comprising both men and women.
This report urges, and I too urge, that this new Commission should have the support of a clear majority of the new Parliament, because one of the lessons of recent events and the recent crisis is that if the Commission does not have the backing of a large majority of the new Parliament, we are in for a period of guerrilla warfare.
And that is the last thing we need between Commission and Parliament.
<P>
But you, Mr Prodi, will be able to demonstrate your political leadership once your appointment has been ratified by Parliament, in the appointment of the new Commissioners.
I hope that your legitimate authority as president will be a factor in their approval, in the giving of your agreement.
Once you have approved the new Commissioners, on the basis of your legitimate authority as president, duly ratified by Parliament, then and only then will hearings be held here in Parliament.
We may wish to speed up the procedure, but it is not acceptable for the Member State governments to have three months in which to nominate their Commissioners and for Parliament to have just three days in which to hold the hearings.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Mr Prodi, we are very impressed by what you have said.
You have said in your statements to the press, but to Parliament too, that you want to impart new momentum to the European Union, that political union is a major objective of yours.
Above all, you have said that you attach importance to further democratisation and transparency and to cooperation with the European Parliament.
<P>
I think that once the period of bureaucracy is over, not to mention fraud or nepotism, a very important new task and new responsibility will be to ensure that the Commissioners put in an appearance in this House and in our committees.
Like Michel Rocard and many others, I am a member of the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
How often have we been able to hold a political debate in this committee?
How often have we had to make do with talks with officials?
There has to be someone with political responsibility there.
Happily there were exceptions to the rule even in the present Commission, Commissioners who cooperated actively, but this has to be the norm for the whole of the new Commission and then we can impart a new momentum to the institutions, to your new Commission and to Parliament.
<P>
This is the hope I express on behalf of my group, given the prospects you have offered for a new momentum.
Not just for the Europe of markets, of banks, but for Europe with its cultural and spiritual dimension.
This is what you advocate.
We are convinced that you will realise these prospects and this is why we were so positive in welcoming your nomination by the Member States' Heads of Government.
<P>
I am one of the people who, as prime minister, took part in the negotiations on the single market and the Maastricht Treaty.
We laid the foundations at that time for a new relationship between the institutions.
We hoped to achieve a true government which would be answerable and accountable to Parliament, and would work together with Parliament.
I venture to hope that you will bring this about, with your new Commission, with people who are aware of this aim and eager to play this pre-eminently political role.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Cox">
Mr President, as I listened to Mrs Green's speech I felt the need to apply a brief reality check to it and to the procedures of this House.
Is this the Pauline Green who, in December, recommended that we vote confidence without even thinking?
<P>
Applause
<P>
Is this the Pauline Green who, in January, defended collegiality?
Is this the Pauline Green today who promotes individual accountability?
I salute her for being one of the few genuine revolutionaries in this House since, on this issue, she has never stopped spinning.
<P>
Sustained applause
<P>
I should like to say to Mr Prodi how welcome he is here today.
He is a European of the first rank.
The ELDR Group looks forward to deepening our engagement and dialogue with him, and to a very productive period for the future.
But is not for this Parliament, in this mandate, to appoint the president of the Millennium Commission.
That is the moral, political and legal responsibility of the next mandate.
Recent events have established, through the work of this House, the need to establish ethical and normative rules for the conduct of European affairs.
But this is also representative of a significant maturing in the European democratic process, with major institutional and constitutional implications.
This House will no longer be the junior partner.
We do not need to be first among equals, but we assert the right to be treated as an equal among equals.
That is why I welcome the presence of Mr Prodi at this early stage and the dialogue we start.
<P>
I should like to say to you, Mr Prodi, directly on behalf of my group, not as advice nor as an instruction but as a suggestion that you might like to think about, that you should seek in the coming days - and especially tomorrow in your dialogue with the European Council - to assert your own independence, not just of the needs of this House, but of some of the parameters of the Council itself.
I believe you are your own man. You should assert that from the outset.
<P>
I believe you should explain to the Council that it is not appropriate that we should, in a procedure in May, elect you as the legitimate head of what would be an illegitimate Commission.
I believe you should not launch your project in such a sea of political and institutional ambiguity.
I would like to think that in May we could give you a political mandate to act as formateur, to go from this House in May to begin to explore in substance, as formateur with a political mandate, what you might do.
It would be most unfortunate if you should start in a procedure where you are legitimate in the context of a Commission as college - I speak not of individuals but of a college - which itself is discredited.
<P>
In the context of being your own man it is also correct that you should consider getting your project right rather than getting it early.
What you are dealing with is vitally important for all of us.
I note your political discretion in saying you will step down from running in the European Parliament election.
That discretion is your choice and I respect it.
But I would say to you: be engaged in that election; maintain your political conviction; and fight the cause with those colleagues whose list you will not now head.
In doing that you will establish that you, Romano Prodi, come to us not as a bureaucrat, not as a technician, but as someone dedicated to European politics, as a politician, and that as a politician you will lead a strong, independent political Commission.
If you decide to be your own man, to be political, then you will do us all a great favour.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are today beginning the process, itself completely new, of appointing a new Commission. This will have the task of completing the term of office of the previous Commission which was forced to resign en masse in order to avoid a motion of censure.
<P>
There are two consequences of this unusual situation.
Firstly, a new College must be established as quickly as possible. This is because it is detrimental to leave in office for too long a weakened body which under the Treaties can only deal with current business, the limits of which are rather vague.
The various governments must appoint their Commissioners as quickly as possible so that the European Parliament can, in accordance with the Amsterdam Treaty, confirm the appointment of the new College. This could take place, in the best-case scenario, during an extension of the constitutive sitting after the June elections.
<P>
Secondly, it would not be right for the process to appoint the new Commission, whose term of office will end at the end of the year, to overlap with the process initiated to establish the Commission which must be appointed to complete a normal term of five years from the year 2000.
This overlap would have the major disadvantage of obscuring the deep-seated reasons currently prompting us to establish a new team, namely the need for large-scale and profound internal reform of the structures, procedures and working methods of the Commission.
<P>
This is perhaps not an exciting task for the nominee for President but it meets an immediate and unavoidable need.
The actions of the European Parliament which led to the resignation of the Santer team would seem senseless if this priority of sorting out the Commission institution was not fully understood by the new College.
<P>
This matter requires in-depth examination.
The Commission must refocus solely on those powers expressly conferred on it by the Treaties, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity reaffirmed by the Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
The Commission must once again become what it was originally, namely an administration with a mission, responsible for making proposals to the political authorities of the Council and Parliament and for explaining their choices. It must not represent the beginning of a European government invested with many poorly fulfilled management tasks.
The management of common policies must be extensively decentralised. This requires both substantial reinforcement of the control bodies and the establishment of a central anti-fraud office which is independent and has the resources needed to fulfil its mission.
<P>
In light of the conclusions to be announced by the Committee of Independent Experts, which should be available in September, the Commission must establish real internal financial control. It must also introduce professional and totally transparent procedures for awarding public contracts together with procedures for recruiting and managing staff which finally put an end to the nepotism and favouritism which recently have unfairly stained the reputation of an administration whose powers and availability are otherwise acknowledged.
Finally, a shake-up is required together with the pruning of any dead wood following the disciplinary and legal proceedings which are now in progress.
<P>
This is what we expect from you, Mr Prodi, in the coming months.
Your vision of the future of European construction is all very interesting but you must, as a priority, return to working order the institution for which you will be required to assume responsibility when your appointment has been confirmed by the European Parliament.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Puerta">
Mr President, our group - the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left - would like to thank Mr Romano Prodi for his presence in the House today.
<P>
In our view, the political implications are clear.
Mr Prodi does not wish to be simply the Council's nominee for President or the governments' President. Rather, he wishes to become the President of the people of Europe through a close relationship with the European Parliament.
<P>
The new President will be appointed at a critical stage in the construction of Europe.
Over and above the institutional crisis, we are faced with a crisis in the wider Europe.
As Mr Prodi himself pointed out, war has come to Yugoslavia 42 years after the signing of the Treaty of Rome and 10 years after the end of the cold war.
Human rights are being infringed in the Balkans, most particularly in Kosovo.
NATO has initiated military intervention.
Yet the European institutions and a sense of European identity have been absent.
<P>
Could we ever envisage managing the euro if the European Central Bank were not fully operational?
How then can we expect European policies to operate effectively under what is merely a caretaker Commission and with Parliament almost at the end of its fourth term since 1979?
<P>
There is plenty of scope for debate on whether we should be aiming at more Europe or less Europe.
Personally, I am in favour of more Europe.
However, I think we all agree that we would like the existing European powers to be imbued with greater democracy, and hope that the sectoral policies will be managed more efficiently.
That is our message to the nominee and I am sure there is consensus on this.
<P>
As far as we are concerned, this new era in the history of the European Commission must be defined by four conditions or characteristics: a sound democratic basis, transparency, the Commissioners' individual and collective political responsibility to Parliament, and effectiveness in fulfilling objectives.
<P>
In this respect, I am referring to political responsibility to a Parliament that has come of age, and this should be made abundantly clear.
Parliament is now a mature institution and will soon be embarking on its fifth term. It certainly has not transferred its powers and responsibilities to any committee of experts.
It simply asked for a report to be prepared to clarify certain situations.
<P>
I do not intend to concentrate on the responsible attitude my group has shown throughout this crisis. After all, as the old Latin saying goes, excusatio non petita, accusatio manifesta .
I would merely remind the House of the events and our response to them.
<P>
In conclusion, I should like to make it clear to Mr Prodi that we are keeping an open mind on his investiture.
We are of course already aware of his record in Italian and European politics, and we shall doubtless learn more about it. Nevertheless, our vote will be based on the programmes and objectives he presents at the investiture sitting, on the credibility of his desire for change and of the necessary proposals for reform, and on his political strategy for dealing with the difficult challenges facing European society.
<P>
We are concerned about the timetable for his appointment and the appointment of the Commission, and would like to set out our position on two issues.
Our group hopes for a swift procedure and a clear presentation of the Commissioners in line with the Treaty of Amsterdam.
We are no longer concerned about Mr Prodi's possible candidature in the Italian elections.
He has clarified the situation very well and in a responsible manner.
<P>
Mr President, I shall finish by pointing out that in view of the serious problems concerning enlargement and our social and economic policies, our group feels that what we need is not just a President of the institutions, but a President of all the people of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, Mr Prodi, your achievements in Italy unquestionably make you a most worthy candidate, because you have done things there which no one thought possible and in the European Union you will face tasks which are every bit as difficult, if not more so.
Vaclav Havel once said 'what use are the most beautiful of buildings if they serve no purpose?'
You have made statements in recent weeks to the effect that the European Union needs a purpose.
But what does that mean exactly?
We think that what matters most is that you should make the Union, which is currently so remote from its people and has fallen into such disrepute as a result of mismanagement and fraud, into a democratic and transparent Union which demonstrates that it can take responsibility and is willing to answer to the people and to the elected Parliament.
Your appointment has been swift, and that is a good thing.
But the problem is that the whole of the outgoing Commission, which no longer has the confidence of Parliament and which has truly been discredited, will be staying put until September.
This, ladies and gentlemen, gives rise to a situation which is politically untenable for us and unworthy of the European Parliament.
At a time when the Union needs to be forceful, when we have a major political catastrophe in Yugoslavia and beyond, we have a lame-duck Commission.
So we are urging you, Mr Prodi, to make every effort to come before Parliament with a capable and forceful Commission as swiftly as possible.
<P>
We consider it most important that you should put forward sound proposals for reform of the European Commission which will enable it to exercise collective responsibility in a real and proper way and will also determine the individual responsibility of Commissioners and the responsibility of directors-general, because things have to change in this respect as well.
We should have liked to hear in your statement a reference to the need for radical adjustments to the European Union's economic policy, because belief in unqualified growth ignores the absolute need to restructure our economies to take account of environmental imperatives.
We trust you will take on board Parliament's proposal that more women should be appointed as European Commissioners, that they should be able to play their proper part in developing further something which is a part of our acquis communautaire in this context.
<P>
Lastly, we find it splendid that you have said here today that you will not be standing in the elections.
This is a political decision, worthy of a good European.
In conclusion, we would say that we are looking for a strong Commission, but a strong Commission which is happy to be accountable to a strong Parliament.
Only then can we have a new basis for trust.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lalumière">
Mr President, Mr President-designate, your presence here today is a very positive sign in the spirit of the Amsterdam Treaty which will shortly enter into force. Our group thanks you for coming here.
<P>
During your meetings with the Members of this House, you must have realised the expectations and I would say the high hopes resting on the new Commission, in terms of both the interim Commission and, later on, the permanent Commission to be established in January 2000.
Naturally, these hopes primarily concern the new Commission President whose role will be absolutely vital.
<P>
We are hoping for and indeed we demand a strong Commission. This firstly requires a strong President.
The current crisis and the resignation of the outgoing Commission under pressure from Parliament have primarily been caused by the Commission's gradual loss of authority.
Even though important work has been achieved over the last five years, for example with the single currency, this loss of authority is serious because the European Union needs a politically strong Commission.
The Commission must be strong faced with the national governments, all the more so if the number of countries increases following enlargement.
It must be strong faced with Parliament, as one of the elements of this strength is precisely its political responsibility before this House.
It must be strong faced with public opinion because the Commission, whether it likes it or not, is the very personification of the European Union.
<P>
Although this political strength is our main demand for the future Commission, we also have other demands, particularly regarding the internal working of this Commission.
<P>
Even though there are other deep-rooted causes for this situation, as I have just mentioned, the immediate cause of the crisis which prompted the outgoing Commission to resign was the problems in the organisation and working of the College of Commissioners and also in the organisation and working of the services under the authority of the Commissioners.
<P>
Questions must also be asked about the increasing number of powers entrusted to the Commission.
This increase in the number of tasks seems paradoxically to have weakened its prestige and certainly has not helped, which speaks volumes.
<P>
Mr President-designate, your work, I should say your mission, will be immense.
You have already shown in Italy that you are capable of taking it on.
I have also noted everything you have just said in your introductory speech and your concern that the democratic link between the members of the Commission and universal suffrage should be reinforced.
<P>
On behalf of my group, I hope that you will be courageous and enjoy every success!
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
Mr President, the Europe of Nations Group would also like to congratulate Mr Prodi on his nomination.
We regard you, Mr Prodi, as a centralist and super-federalist in favour of a United States of Europe, and we are therefore going to vote against your appointment.
We regard you as Jacques Delors the Second.
The Europe of Nations Group promises you critical and constructive opposition.
We shall be critical every time you propose a step in the direction of more Union.
We shall be constructive every time there is even the slightest chance of having greater openness in the corridors of the Commission.
What we need now is not a new Commission, but a spring clean by independent individuals who can dispense with any Commission work which is not transnational in nature and introduce complete openness for what remains.
We need a modern law on public administration, with decentralised responsibility and consequences for those who do not fulfil their responsibilities.
There should be an end to 50 years of secrecy and privilege.
Officials who came to Parliament with revelations of fraud should be reinstated on full pay, and those who obstruct investigations should be fired.
It is scandalous that the current Commission, after its resignation, has decided that Mr Van Buitenen is not allowed to help the Belgian police to investigate any of the matters which led to the Commission's downfall.
Officials at the Commission should be servants of democracy in our countries and not new overlords.
To personal friendship and political enmity: 'Benvenuto, Signor Prodi! '
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Muscardini">
Mr President, Mr Prodi, Alleanza Nazionale endorses the formal commitments which you are to make concerning institutional reform in the Union - which the Amsterdam Treaty unfortunately deals with in insufficient detail - and the launch of political union.
<P>
If ever proof were needed, the tragic events in Kosovo and NATO's military intervention there demonstrate the pressing need for the European Union to adopt a common foreign and defence policy, without which it is as though Europe did not exist.
Developments over the past few days have confirmed the absence of Europe as an independent entity.
What we are experiencing now proves conclusively, as never before, the urgent need for a European political identity and a recognisable presence on the international stage, with due regard for the alliances to which we belong.
<P>
The European Council stated a long time ago that it would nominate the new Commission President before the elections.
What displeases us is that your decisions on the Italian front might have been influenced by the European left, which is seeking, somewhat surreptitiously, to prevent you from standing at the elections.
But in our opinion - turning now to Europe - a sound democratic foundation for the next Commission should enable the political groups to propose to the European Parliament their candidates for Commission President, rather than always having to react to proposals from the governments.
Therefore, Mr Prodi, we look forward to the 'age of reform and change' which you announced in your speech, but the reforms should be real ones and not just vague proposals: a political union to reinforce the economic union, so as to have a foreign policy, to address ourselves to the Mediterranean, as you said, but also to deal with immigration and crime, as well as humanitarian aid - and here I include the agricultural products which Europe is still throwing away or not producing, to the great detriment of our economy. GATT must be overhauled too, since despite our good relations with the United States, we cannot be held to ransom over the safeguarding of our manufactured products and our production system, while being compelled to import - duty-free - products from third countries which obviously result from dumping practices.
<P>
So, Mr Prodi, one aspect of planning the future is to demand explicit social clauses of the countries to which the EU gives aid: third countries, or indeed fourth countries, including the republics of the former Soviet Union. In this way, enlargement will not just mean a rise in poverty and unemployment, but will be based on a revival of Europe's economy driven by quality production; obviously, since we cannot compete on price, we must do so on quality.
The idea, then, is that the Commission and Parliament should plan the future together, reminding the Council that it cannot take all the decisions; otherwise the European people will feel that they count for nothing.
<P>
That is how to begin planning the future!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President-designate, you expressed a wish for a strong Europe.
I fear that your attitude will only contribute to the ultimate disappearance of the European Union.
<P>
You start by accepting that the provisions of the Treaty are not being correctly applied.
Article 159 requires new Commissioners to be appointed as quickly as possible.
It also requires the European Parliament to approve one Commission, which will be in place for six months, before a new Parliament approves another Commission which will remain in office for five years.
<P>
You are also preparing yourself to take on the responsibilities of the Commission President without learning the lessons from what has just happened.
The Commission - and you are surrounded by outgoing Commissioners - was challenged initially by a majority in this House which refused to grant discharge for 1996.
The accounts for 1996 have therefore not been closed.
Whatever Mrs Green may say about 'toy-town politics' - and actually this is just what she has been playing at throughout this year - the whole College of Commissioners, and not just one particular Commissioner, was censured by 232 votes.
The Committee of Experts was extremely severe in its report and comments, stating that none of the Commissioners should be reappointed.
<P>
If you really want a strong Europe, you must therefore be responsible for ensuring that a new Commission is established very quickly. This Commission must implement a shake-up, it must provide a cure as far-reaching as the diagnosis and it must permanently change its working methods, without which the whole European Union will die.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Le Pen">
Mr President, we may hear flights of rhetoric, but they can also turn into futile debates.
And now there are also flights of bombers, carrying your lethal weapons.
<P>
I must formally protest about the policy of war being conducted in Europe, supported by the European Union on the orders of the Americans!
<P>
Exclamations
<P>
This criminal policy of aggression against Serbia and its small heroic population is a violation of the UN Charter and also of the NATO Treaty. It is also a violation by France of its Constitution!
<P>
The continued bombardment of economic targets and civilian populations is one of the most cowardly and unpardonable acts in 50 years!
May God ensure that you do not turn out to be the sorcerer's apprentices allowing a third world war to break out!
<P>
Mixed reactions
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="President">
I give the floor to Mrs Green under Rule 108.
I would remind her that she has the floor to rebut any remarks that have been made about her person in the course of the debate or opinions that have been attributed to her, or to correcting observations that she herself has made.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Green">
Mr President, I wish to make a personal statement as my name has been mentioned.
<P>
I want to say that for a British parliamentarian the cut and thrust of party politics which we heard here this morning is actually like manna from heaven and say to those who are shouting at me I actually thrive on it.
I note that the level of personal abuse towards me from the right of this House has risen as the right's political fortunes have fallen all across the European Union.
<P>
Mixed reactions
<P>
I can accept that, and the European public are aware that it was the European People's Party which split from top to bottom in March on the motion of censure in this House, with a majority voting the Socialist position.
<P>
Mixed reactions
<P>
Their shouting and abuse is designed to obscure that fact.
Mr Martens is fond of telling us in this House that in March his party asked for the resignation of Mrs Cresson.
He forgets to tell the House that he, and his party, also asked for the resignation of other Commissioners who were found not to be guilty by the Independent Group of Experts.
<P>
Finally, may I say to Mr Cox that his statement was in line with the cheap opportunism for which his political family is famous.
<P>
Mixed reactions
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="President">
I shall give the floor to Mr Martens on the same basis, but I would ask for an end to these constant personal references, which will turn this into a never-ending issue.
You have the same right, Mr Martens, and you have the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
Mr President, Mrs Green has the unfortunate habit of turning a political remark into a personal one.
<P>
Applause
<P>
I would just add that in January of this year she tabled a motion of no confidence, saying that the Socialist Group would vote against.
That was the start of the crisis, and if she is criticised for that political misjudgement she should not take it as a personal comment.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="President">
As was previously agreed, Mr Prodi will reply to all these speeches during the forthcoming investiture debate.
I do not think we should interrupt the sitting.
We ought really to move straight on to the votes, because as things stand at the moment, we are due to deal with 200 votes today, a further 300 tomorrow, and we are already running a quarter of an hour late.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directive 92/117/EEC concerning measures for protection against specified zoonoses and specific zoonotic agents in animals and products of animal origin in order to prevent outbreaks of food-borne infections and intoxications(COM(99)0004 - C4-0068/99-99/0003(COD))Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development">
<P>
Parliament approved the Commission proposal
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Billingham">
Mr President, I would like to speak to Amendment No 12.
However, before I do that, I would like to apologise to the House.
Last night my report was called and I was not here.
I set off yesterday mid-afternoon from London City Airport.
Seventeen hours later I arrived here.
To add insult to injury my suitcase was lost.
So I was deprived of my opportunity to speak to this worthwhile report which makes motoring safer for all citizens of Europe.
I am very much aware of Mr Rübig's amendment, I approve of it and I recommend to the House that we vote in favour.
It is an improvement on the amendment voted through EMAC.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="President">
I must say you are looking very glamorous this morning.
One would not have known your suitcase had not arrived.
<P>
Laughter
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="d'Ancona">
A word or two if I may, Mr President.
We noted here at yesterday's sitting that it was the first time, in point of fact, that a report on drugs had been able to command broad support, but also that the balance should not be disturbed.
I myself have tabled an amendment, and it transpired in the debate that this might give rise to difficulties.
I would ask you to remove the word 'uncontrolled' from the last line of Amendment No 9, or to agree to a split vote in which people can vote for or against this word.
But I would prefer you to delete the word 'uncontrolled'.
<P>
Parliament adopted the resolution
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Elliott">
Mr President, we have received a document today from the services telling us what Members should do to prepare themselves for the move to the new IPE IV building.
The majority of Members have never seen the inside of the IPE IV building, though I am told that lots of people who are not Members have been taken around.
I wonder whether during the next plenary part-session arrangements could be made for those Members who would like to have a preview of the building, to be able to do so?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="President">
I do not see any difficulty with that.
I suggest that you contact the security service if you wish to be escorted round the building.
The problem until now is that work has been continuing in the building.
I would also suggest that perhaps we could organise groups of Members to go round.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Wolf">
The objective of the IDA programme is to enable and to encourage administrations to exchange data electronically throughout the European Union.
Under the first IDA decision, several sectorial projects were implemented or initiated.
However, some compatibility problems remain.
The new proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision on a series of guidelines, including the identification of projects of common interest, for trans-European networks for the electronic Interchange of Data between Administrations (A4-0131/99) and on adopting a series of actions and measures in order to ensure interoperability of and access to trans-European networks for the electronic Interchange of Data between Administrations (A4-0130/99) focus on the sharing of common concepts, tools and generic services among the different networks and applications.
<P>
The common position of the Council endorses in full or in principle most of the EP's amendments from first reading.
The only remaining controversial points have been tabled again by the rapporteur, Mrs Read.
These ask for establishing as the aim of the Directive to 'provide benefits to the persons of the European Union' (instead of citizens in the common position) and to present not only to the Council, but also to the Parliament the Commission's evaluation of telematics.
<P>
I congratulate Mrs Read once again on the constant high quality of the work she has been doing in the field of defining a new regulatory framework for the most important aspects of the information society which we have the common task to share now and in the immediate future.
<P>
Bontempi report (A-0133/99)
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw and Sandberg-Fries">
The development of the EU into an area of freedom, security and justice is extremely important for the people of Europe, and we therefore welcome the Bontempi report.
However, we believe that the proposals it contains to give Europol operational powers and to establish a European public prosecutor are incompatible with what has already been laid down in this area.
Europol should merely complement and assist national police forces and not be able to take direct action against our citizens.
As regards the establishment of a European public prosecutor, we are opposed to such a move because there is no supranational cooperation on matters of criminal law.
Cooperation in this area should continue to be intergovernmental.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Blak, Iversen and Kirsten Jensen">
The Danish Social Democrats have abstained from voting on the Bontempi report.
The report is a broad survey of the various instruments aimed at ensuring the establishment of an area of freedom, security and justice.
The Danish Social Democrats are in favour of ensuring the basic rights for people living in the EU.
However, there are several demands in the report which we oppose.
These include the introduction of a 'Corpus Juris', harmonising the basic provisions of procedural law in the Member States and operational powers for Europol.
We have therefore abstained from voting on the report as a whole.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Caudron">
I welcome this report with great satisfaction.
It provides a fair analysis of the action plan of the Council and Commission on implementing an area of freedom, security and justice.
This plan responds to the demand of the Cardiff European Council and is part of a clear and ambitious approach to engage the Union in reforms which will bring it closer to the people of Europe.
<P>
An area of this kind clearly can only be constructed gradually.
The Schengen Agreement, the Maastricht Treaty and, of course, the Amsterdam Treaty have been important steps in this construction process.
I am also pleased to see that a new Title headed 'Visas, asylum, immigration and other policies related to free movement of persons' has been inserted in the Treaty establishing the European Community. This will allow consistency to be increased in the key areas directly affecting the people of Europe.
However, I must indicate my disagreement with the retention of the exemption clause benefiting the United Kingdom, Denmark and Ireland.
Everyone is well aware of the exorbitant cost in terms of consistency of an overly flexible Europe.
<P>
The challenges of creating such an area are extremely great.
The rapporteur rightly asserts that this area must be one of the Union's priorities.
I support this idea because we must meet the expectations of our people who aspire to live securely within the borders of the European Union.
The response to this legitimate demand requires improved border controls and the prevention of crime.
<P>
Being secure also implies knowing that you can assert your rights by having recourse to justice.
We all know, myself in particular, that cross-border disputes sometime pose inextricable problems.
We must therefore act to simplify access to the courts and to facilitate cooperation between the judicial authorities of each Member State.
<P>
Finally, one of the basic points is to draw up a Charter of fundamental rights.
Such a text will clearly identify the rights which the people may assert within the European Union.
This will ensure that the famous concept of European citizenship, which for many remains an empty shell, will finally take shape.
The level of these rights must be as high as possible.
The Court of Justice of the European Communities must act as guarantor of these rights.
It is absolutely unacceptable that the latter's jurisdiction is limited on such matters.
<P>
I hope that the debate which will take place on this subject in October 1999 in Finland will be productive because there are still gaps despite the positive advances.
The role of the European Parliament must go beyond simple consultation and the unanimity rule must be replaced by the qualified majority rule.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR), Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson (GUE/NGL), Gahrton, Holm and Lindholm (V), Bonde, Lis Jensen, Krarup and Sandbæk (I-EDN)">
We are voting against Mr Bontempi's report on the provisions on establishing an area of freedom, security and justice, because we believe the report puts the European federal state at the top of the EU's list of priorities.
<P>
The report emphasises its support for the so-called 'Corpus Juris' proposal, which is aimed at introducing a European public prosecutor who would be in charge of legal proceedings. At the same time, it stresses that minimum rules should be established for what constitutes a criminal offence and what penalties should be applied.
If these efforts come to fruition, it would mean the establishment not only of a political area but also a judicial area in the EU, where Member States would be obliged to harmonise their different legal traditions and different moral views about what constitutes a criminal offence.
In doing so, we believe that EU cooperation is taking a major step towards the establishment of a federal state.
No one knows what implications the proposals in the report carry with them, but it is clear that the proposed encroachment on national sovereignty is in conflict with the derogations provided for individual Member States with regard to the police and the judiciary, for example.
<P>
The EU's efforts to establish an area of freedom, security and justice are aimed at safeguarding the legal rights of individuals.
We do not believe that legal rights and public confidence in the judicial and political systems will be strengthened by undermining the various judicial cultures of individual Member States and by transferring competence to a system which does not have substantial support among the peoples of the Member States.
The provisions in the field of justice and home affairs should therefore be a matter for national governments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Palm, Theorin and Wibe">
For several reasons, we are unable to vote in favour of this report.
<P>
According to the rapporteur, the combating of crime should be addressed at EU level and Europol should be given operational powers.
First and foremost, we believe it is unnecessary to set up another organisation when Interpol, incorporating as it does some 150 member countries, exists and functions very well.
Moreover, the structure of Europol is undemocratic and it is our firm belief that, as a result, people's personal integrity will be threatened and their right to legal security replaced by a lack of judicial protection.
<P>
In our view, harmonisation of the Member States' policies in the area of visa, immigration and asylum policy is undesirable.
Furthermore, as long as people actually seek asylum in specific countries, any such harmonisation is very hard to justify.
<P>
The rapporteur would like to see a harmonisation of international private law.
That would be undesirable, since judgments, particularly in family law, currently vary so widely in the individual Member States.
Moreover, it is unnecessary when the most important aspect from a commercial point of view, namely the provisions of international private law which govern contracts, are already regulated by the Rome Convention.
The same also applies to the report's stated aim of facilitating recognition by the courts.
Many of the points are already regulated by the Brussels and Lugano Conventions respectively, as well as another convention on family law that is in the process of being drawn up.
We have come to the conclusion that the rapporteur seems to favour harmonisation purely for its own sake.
<P>
As regards the harmonisation of legal procedures, the functioning of the courts is an important part of the national legal culture which also differs markedly from one Member State to another.
<P>
In the area of criminal law, it is worth noting that the crimes which are to be targeted for harmonisation are very broadly defined.
It is worth recalling that in Germany and France, for example, it is an offence to deny so-called historical truths, something which is in direct conflict with Sweden's right to freedom of expression.
Criminal law is the State's ultimate instrument of enforcement, and it is most important that decisions on what it should include and how it should be practised are genuinely democratic.
It is not worth taking the risk of forcing countries to redefine criminal law solely on the grounds that it will be possible to punish some types of crime more effectively.
<P>
Finally, there is an express wish to abolish the dual criminality requirement for extradition, in other words that extradition can only take place if the offence committed is punishable in both countries.
This requirement exists in order to guard against a particular view being taken of what actually constitutes an offence.
In view of the major differences that exist between the Member States in this respect, the requirement should remain.
<P>
Schmid report (A-0141/99)
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw, Palm, Sandberg-Fries and Theorin">
We think this is an excellent report.
On one point, however, we see things somewhat differently.
We believe that the definition of a child as laid down in the international conventions, namely anyone under the age of 18, should be adhered to.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Blak, Iversen and Kirsten Jensen">
The Danish Social Democrats have voted in favour of a joint action to combat child pornography on the Internet.
The fight against crime on the Internet is transnational by nature, and there is therefore a need for international and European cooperation in this area.
So this joint action, including practical cooperation which also involves Internet service providers, should begin as soon as possible.
However, we do not support the call for harmonisation of the age of consent in the Member States.
Setting the age of consent is the responsibility of the Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Caudron">
No further proof is required of the urgent need to start relentlessly combating the child pornography networks which are invading the Internet.
This is why I support Mr Schmid's report.
<P>
Although Internet users and service providers clearly have a role to play in this fight for human dignity, we cannot rely on them alone.
I therefore believe that certain individual or collective initiatives must be welcomed.
Thanks to this cooperation with the competent authorities, many examples of these abhorrent dealings have been stopped from causing harm.
<P>
However, in my opinion it is essential to pool our human and material resources through Europol in order to make the fight against these crimes more effective.
<P>
In this respect, I share the rapporteur's opinion about the description of this child pornography as this is indeed a crime against which the Member States must act accordingly.
<P>
However, although the European Union is taking an important step in this fight, it is essential that we establish a strong initiative with regard to third countries so that these networks cannot gain a foothold in any other countries.
<P>
Finally, it is imperative to include the site 'hosts' so that the effect of the actions undertaken in this area can be increased, while ensuring that the main feature of the world wide web, namely freedom, is maintained. Yet this freedom cannot under any circumstances become synonymous with irresponsibility and anonymity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Ford">
I will be supporting this report.
Some argue that the Internet should be completely uncensored.
I disagree.
Although I take a permissive view of what should be allowed, certain images and demands are beyond the pale.
<P>
Paedophilia is one limit; others, for example, are incitement to racial hatred and so-called 'snuff' movies which show real examples of torture and killing.
<P>
It has been argued that control of Internet content is very difficult.
That may be true, but so is preventing murder and we make that illegal.
More recently Parliament's Scientific and Technological Options Assessment (STOA) unit prepared a report on technical aspects of Internet control which revealed that it may be simpler than originally thought.
For example a feature of paedophilia and pornography is large areas of flesh tone.
<P>
We may therefore have the means.
All that is lacking may be to find the will.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Martin, David W.">
I will vote for the Schmid report as I believe one of the most disturbing consequences of the development of the Internet is the apparent freedom it gives to distributors of child pornography.
<P>
Tackling child pornography requires the cooperation of Internet users who should be encouraged to inform law enforcement authorities if they discover or suspect that an Internet site is being used for the distribution of child pornography.
<P>
As the Internet is no respecter of national frontiers cooperation between Member States to tackle this reprehensible practice is vital.
<P>
In every Member State the production, processing, supply, distribution and possession of child pornography must be made a criminal offence and Europol should immediately be informed of cases of child pornography.
This is a welcome step in the right direction of improved European cooperation aimed at stamping out this disturbing trade.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Titley">
I wholeheartedly support this report and will be voting in favour.
While the Internet is a wondrous tool of huge potential benefit to mankind, it also has its darker side.
The freedom and easy access offered by the Internet, that make it of such great use in business and education, also make it the ideal tool for those who wish to disseminate horrific material such as child pornography.
<P>
The Labour Government is determined to do all in its power to stamp out this vile trade.
We will build upon the work of the 1996 Stockholm Conference and the 1999 UNESCO Conference on the sexual exploitation of children.
We will also support this report's recommendations and strive for closer cooperation between national police forces, including exchanging information 24 hours a day.
In addition, we will cooperate with our European partners to develop Internet filters to stem the distribution of child pornography.
<P>
The Labour Government will not rest until the perpetrators of this evil business are stopped and brought to justice.
<P>
Reding report (A-0143/99)
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, the CDU and the CSU were obliged to vote against the Reding report, because it was rendered unacceptable by amendments from the left.
We regret that the important issues of asylum seekers and refugees from civil war are linked time and again to various ideological demands: see Amendment No 12 on voting rights and so forth.
This makes it more difficult for us to help in real emergencies.
The hypocrisy of those who vote in favour of amendments of this kind is intolerable, since it is precisely they who are then not prepared in cases such as that of the Kosovo refugees and displaced persons to take in their share of displaced persons.
Take France, for example: Mr Jospin has not taken in anyone from Kosovo.
In Bavaria, we have already created the capacity for 7 000 people.
<P>
This is about us providing real and practical help and not continuing to overburden this important subject with our own ideological and unrealistic desires.
If this continues to happen and there is a real emergency, we will remain inflexible, we will not be able to help, and we will provoke unwelcome public opinion.
That is why I call on the left of the House finally to reach a consensus on these issues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Berthu">
The strategy paper presented by the Austrian Presidency on the European Union's migration and asylum policy provides a worrying assessment.
It states that 'Neither the potential will to emigrate nor actual emigration from the main regions of origin has decreased in the past five years (rather the opposite). Furthermore, neither the control activities at the external borders of Schengen and the Union nor the Member States' laws on aliens and asylum stop illegal migration.'
The paper also very rightly notes the changes which have occurred in the types of migratory movement. In previous decades, these movements largely resulted from the bipolarity between the Western and Communist worlds whereas they are now mainly caused by conflicts between ethnic groups, which are followed by exoduses, or the precarious living conditions in many countries.
<P>
As a result, the Council's strategy paper calls for a review of objectives and the 'Europeanisation' of instruments.
In particular it makes the following proposals: reduction of migratory pressure at source by intervening in the main countries of origin of immigrants; reduction of illegal immigration by reinforcing controls and stepping up the fight against illegal immigration networks; definition of an overall concept of control of legal entry to the Member States, specifically in the country of departure, in the transit states and in the country of final destination, and finally, greater recourse to quantitative control methods (quotas) for new immigration, including the reunification of families.
<P>
In view of these objectives, we can only be concerned about the proposal for a new refugee protection system which in many cases risks forming an additional magnet.
<P>
Unfortunately, in the Reding report the European Parliament has tried to reduce or completely alter the force of these proposals. This clearly demonstrates the problems which we would face if an attempt was made to establish a somewhat restrictive immigration policy in codecision with Parliament.
<P>
It is specifically in the second chapter, involving the institutional instruments of the policies to be conducted, that the Austrian Presidency's document seems most lacking.
It goes without saying that the migration problem is affecting all the European countries and that it would be preferable to define a European response.
However, this response would only make sense if it was more stringent than the current policy.
Specifically, the European institutional system, as provided for by the Amsterdam Treaty, with the Commission's monopoly on initiative and the codecision of the European Parliament, risks producing a laxer response.
We are therefore overwhelmed with contradictions.
<P>
In addition, the definition of a European policy should not mean abolishing all national independence in decision-making.
Otherwise, we risk removing responsibility from the Member States and once again achieving a result which is contrary to that intended.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations therefore believes that this policy must be maintained in a context where decisions are taken unanimously, with a safeguard clause to be used at the discretion of the Member States thus allowing rapid corrections if necessary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson (GUE/NGL), Bonde and Sandbaek (I-EDN)">
We voted in favour of the report, because it sets out a number of basic humane principles which should be incorporated in any refugee policy.
This is particularly important, since the Council's strategy is still heavily marked by repression and a reluctance to accept responsibility.
<P>
The report also calls for a degree of harmonisation and supranationalism which we have voted against.
<P>
Pirker report (A-0138/99)
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, what has been proposed here is a very dangerous situation in which immigrants and asylum seekers are being treated like criminals in that they are to be fingerprinted.
In normal circumstances it is only criminals or suspected criminals that are fingerprinted.
The idea that people as young as 14 are to be fingerprinted is completely unacceptable.
It just goes to show the attitude that the EU has towards asylum seekers and refugees: automatically the first thing they are classified as is criminals.
This whole thing has been pushed through in the guise of protecting asylum seekers and refugees, but it clearly is not.
It is just going to endanger them, threaten them much further and put them in an extremely vulnerable situation.
At the end of the day, they are being treated like criminals.
We cannot accept that.
We have to look at how we treat asylum seekers and refugees, especially in the current situation where there is a lot of anxiety about what is happening in the former Yugoslavia and the number of refugees there.
<P>
Are we going to treat people who are unfortunate enough to be seeking asylum or fleeing persecution as criminals?
I do not think we should.
<P>
Zimmermann report (A-0115/99)
<SPEAKER ID=83 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Le Gallou">
Mr President, Europe cannot take all the misery of the world on its shoulders.
This is what the former French Prime Minister, Mr Rocard, once said about France.
All the world's refugees cannot come to Europe.
If they must be accommodated somewhere, they should be placed in countries with which they have the closest ethnic, cultural or religious links.
<P>
If the Kosovar Albanians have to be accommodated, they should go to Albania or Turkey. They should not be placed in western Europe whose economic and social advantages attract anyone and everyone, thus leading to migratory influxes which are as harmful to the host country as to the country of origin.
The European nature of the Union must be preserved in terms of its people, its culture and its religion. To achieve this, we must fix and adhere to an objective of zero immigration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Caudron">
This debate today is unfortunately very topical.
Even as I am speaking, thousands of Kosovars are being brutally deported from their country, having been hounded from their homes, and are now packed into emergency refugee camps waiting to possibly return to their country.
Some of them, particularly those in Macedonia, are being forced to board planes for unknown destinations.
We, the Member States of the European Union, must welcome these refugees as required. This means that we must allow them every dignity and subsequently do everything in our power to ensure that they can quickly return to their country.
<P>
It is in this context that we are discussing the proposed Joint Action today.
I fully support its objectives which are to improve reception conditions for displaced persons and asylum seekers and to facilitate the voluntary return of refugees.
<P>
We must improve the reception conditions in material terms but also in human terms because these people are more often than not in a state of utter psychological turmoil.
<P>
I do not need to say any more for you have all seen the terrible pictures broadcast constantly on television screens around the world, except on Serbian television of course!
<P>
Reception is only the first stage.
We must also facilitate the return of these people to their country and ensure their reintegration.
<P>
However, I must point out a shortcoming, the gravity of which is underlined by the events in the Balkans.
The Commission has omitted to include an essential aspect which the European Parliament put forward, namely emergency aid in cases of sudden influxes of refugees from a region affected by a severe crisis.
<P>
Finally, I must highlight Parliament's commitment to refugees and its ability to anticipate events.
For the 1999 financial year, this House proposed creating a European Refugee Fund.
From the year 2000 this Fund should finance the whole refugee policy.
And also from this date these matters will come under the competence of the Community, which can only be welcomed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Martin, David">
With the Kosovo crisis raging a new urgency is given to the two Council proposals to deal with the situation of refugees.
<P>
These two proposals are being made under the 'third pillar' and will need to be revisited when the Treaty of Amsterdam is in force.
<P>
The first measure is intended to support and develop existing measures at local, regional, national and EU levels to make refugees independent and prevent them from becoming socially marginalised.
<P>
The second measure is a proposal for joint action supporting the reception and voluntary repatriation of refugees, displaced persons and asylum applicants.
The action aims to improve reception conditions for asylum seekers and displaced persons and to facilitate their voluntary return and reintegration in their countries of origin.
<P>
The amendments suggested by Mrs Zimmerman are welcome and on the whole strengthen the proposals.
In particular, the establishment of a European Refugee Fund and support for reception centres in Member States are important initiatives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Palm, Theorin and Wibe">
We think this report provides a constructive basis for a rational discussion of the problems experienced by the Member States in their respective asylum policies.
Nevertheless, we should like to point out that we are highly critical of the common asylum policy as outlined in the report.
In our view, asylum policy should be a national responsibility as long as asylum is sought in individual countries, which it probably will be for some time to come.
<P>
As a result, we are also doubtful about the common fund described in the report.
Obviously the Union should assist countries with heavy economic burdens, but we do not approve when it says that 'all aspects of refugee policy' should be financed out of the European refugee fund.
<P>
Harrison report (A-0174/99)
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Palm, Theorin and Wibe">
This report certainly contains an interesting argument on the subject of VAT and how it can be applied, but we do not think that this is the right place for such a discussion.
Taxation, including VAT, is a matter of national competence.
<P>
Second Cox report (A-0171/99)
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Bonde and Sandbæk">
In general, we support the use of environmental taxes as a means of bringing about improvements in the environment.
However, we only support a common EU environmental tax as long as it focuses on the environment and as long as the proceeds are returned to the Member States.
We cannot support the EU regulating these national economic instruments solely in order to promote trade and the internal market.
We have therefore voted for individual parts of the report, but have abstained from voting on the report as a whole.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We voted against the report in the final vote for the following reasons.
<P>
The report contains a number of environmentally friendly proposals to which we have already given our support.
<P>
However, the report is based on a system of so-called tax trade-offs that are designed to reduce countries' tax bases, drain national insurance systems and make social redistribution harder.
<P>
On the whole the report is - and here we quote the Environment Committee - more 'brown than green'.
<P>
There is no reference in the report to nuclear power and its problems.
<P>
The implication of the report is that there would be interference in tax policy, which would impinge on the role of national parliaments to represent the people's right to decide on their own taxes.
It goes far beyond the strict principle of minimum rates of taxation.
It would give the power of taxation to institutions which lack democratic legitimacy and over whose policies the people have no control.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Lukas">
We are voting in favour of the Cox report because these ecotaxes are a logical political measure which make sense under certain conditions.
However, some important steps first need to be taken:
<P>
a fundamental tax reform with a general reduction in overall tax revenue; - targeted measures; - a clear promotion of renewable sources of energy.The ecotaxes, conceived as a policy instrument, should under no circumstances degenerate into a means of tapping new sources of revenue.
That is also why we reject Amendment No 6.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Porto">
The proposal for a Directive on the taxation of energy products has returned before this House and I must again congratulate Mr Cox on the further simplification and rationalisation which he has tried to achieve. However, I must reiterate the concerns expressed previously and incorporated into the amendments for which I was jointly responsible.
The rejection of these amendments is the reason why I and my group voted against this report.
<P>
Regardless of the fact that a tax which alters the production functions cannot be regarded as neutral, it is important in terms of this neutrality to ask whether this is just one attainable objective or the ultimate objective to be attained.
It is actually more important to achieve a more prosperous economy offering employment opportunities. This is a priority objective and we must determine whether this will be damaged by excessive taxation of energy.
<P>
In any case, as one of the primary concerns must be not to distort competition between production sectors and means of transport, we must avoid unjustifiably penalising some and not others.
The labour costs of each one must of course be taken into account but this cannot be the only circumstance considered, in case we unfairly let off other sectors and methods of transport which are equally noisy and polluting.
<P>
Finally, you will understand if I again express unanswered concerns about social justice and economic cohesion.
It is not acceptable to aggravate the situations of families with more modest resources who must spend higher percentages of their incomes on energy. Also, the situation of peripheral countries must not be worsened by forcing these to incur higher transport costs, particularly where this involves means of transport which are necessarily large energy consumers - as in the case of road transport - for which realistic alternatives cannot immediately be found.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Souchet">
The proposals before us are partly a response to the requirement to review the minimum rates of excise duty on hydrocarbons laid down in Article 10 of Directive 92/82/EEC. They are also a result of the Council's request, following the deadlock in negotiations on the CO2 /energy tax, to put forward new proposals in the field of taxation of energy products.
<P>
The aim of any tax should be that it is simple to understand, easy to collect, predictable and difficult to evade.
This is why we are in favour of the polluter pays principle.
<P>
However, the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations shares with all sectors of economic activity a deep concern at the introduction of new taxes on energy products or the increase of the present taxes.
We consider that the establishment of a Community framework for the taxation of energy products, with the Member States having the opportunity to act in a flexible manner in their application of indirect taxes, may provide an appropriate escape route from the dilemma into which the failure of the CO2 /energy tax has led the Union. This may also be a way of achieving the internal energy market and may provide a necessary response to the undertakings given in Kyoto.
<P>
Taxation actually partly determines the price of energy products.
It may therefore act as an incentive to optimise energy consumption by increasing energy efficiency and by reducing the emission of pollutants into the air and the overall generation of waste.
<P>
We consider that a comprehensive ecologically-based tax reform may provide a real weapon for combating unemployment in the Member States, provided that an environmental clause is introduced into the WTO rules as we expressly requested during the last GATT negotiations.
Otherwise, we will end up creating discriminatory measures which penalise our own companies.
The increase in tax yield from energy consumption, if correctly compensated for by a reduction in labour costs on companies, may have a positive effect on employment. This of course depends on production tools in the industrial energy-consuming sectors not being relocated, as was seen for example in France during the 1970s in the horticulture sector.
<P>
This is why our group voted in favour of the amendments promoting simple taxation, including the various dispensation principles, but rejected all the amendments which would systematically increase the taxation of energy products.
Some amendments actually envisaged introducing a systematic coefficient of increase for all energy products, without taking into account the international constraints applicable within the WTO.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Wolf">
<SPEAKER ID=94 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, the European Police Office or Europol was set up with a purely intergovernmental status and under the control of the national parliaments. Its purpose is to gather information on international crime and exchange this between the Member States of the European Union.
<P>
This is an extremely important task which deserves to be pursued very energetically, with the sole concern being its effectiveness in practice.
However, the European Parliament is clearly not satisfied with this.
As is apparent from the Nassauer report which we have just discussed, this House wants to take Europol and make it into an example of a supranational administration.
This House is essentially asking for Europol to be converted into a European police unit with operational powers in the Member States and powers of command over the national police forces.
<P>
Would this federal super-police force actually contribute anything more to the fight against crime?
The Nassauer report does not demonstrate this and indeed does not even consider this question.
You would almost think that this was of no importance.
The report's main objective is instead to advance the federalist cause.
We therefore gradually learn that the supranational Europol should take orders from a European public prosecutor's office, itself under the responsibility of the European Commission, which would be accountable in this respect only to the European Parliament.
<P>
This is all very well in theory.
However, in practice it is clear that once again serious work and the progress which really could be achieved will be sacrificed to totally futile ideological quarrels. These will end up blocking all progress as the countries and parties square up to each other.
We witnessed this during the many years of preparation of the Europol Convention.
<P>
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations prefers serious work.
We want Europol to develop within the intergovernmental framework because it will be more effective to rely on the national authorities to improve the exchange of information.
We also want to really make the system democratic by placing it under the control of an interparliamentary monitoring committee. This would consist of representatives from the national parliaments who would be responsible for reporting to their respective houses.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw and Sandberg-Fries">
The development of the EU into an area of freedom, security and justice is extremely important for the people of Europe, and we therefore welcome the Nassauer report.
However, we believe that the proposals it contains to give Europol operational powers and to establish a European public prosecutor are incompatible with what has already been laid down in this area.
Europol should merely complement and assist national police forces and not be able to take direct action against our citizens.
As regards the establishment of a European public prosecutor, we are opposed to such a move because there is no supranational cooperation on matters of criminal law.
Cooperation in this area should continue to be intergovernmental.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Blak, Iversen and Kirsten Jensen">
The Danish Social Democrats have voted against an extension of Europol's powers.
We do not support turning Europol into a supranational institution.
We are not in favour of developing Europol in the direction of a European police force with operational powers. Nor are we in favour of setting up a European judicial authority to direct Europol.
Europol should not develop into a European police authority, but should continue to be a form of intergovernmental cooperation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Caudron">
The report by our colleague follows on logically from our work on the fight against crime.
As an elected representative of a cross-border region, I read Mr Nassauer's report with great interest.
<P>
In view of the development of criminal networks, we must rapidly adapt our weapons against these. This is why Europol must be able to adapt accordingly.
However, it has a credibility problem with the people.
<P>
Like the rapporteur, I hope that Europol can become a genuine police force with cross-border operational powers.
There are many cases which should prompt us to consider and accelerate this development in order to establish a unit which is capable of actively combating this scourge.
<P>
In this respect, the European Union must have jurisdiction in order to conduct the investigations needed to combat crime.
This House has already given its opinion on these matters on many occasions.
It is now up to the Commission and our governments to take steps to ensure that crime is fought effectively.
We have no time to lose on this.
<P>
As the aim of bringing Europe closer to the people seems to be the stated desire of an increasing number of politicians, this must now be put into practice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Hager">
By this means, I wished to emphasise once again that I clearly see that the lack of parliamentary supervision of Europol is a problem, and that any steps to resolve this have my full support.
I have of course also voted in favour of these points.
<P>
However, I think that the approach adopted in the report, of putting Europol under the supervision of a Commissioner and thus under the supervision of the European Parliament, is the wrong one.
I certainly cannot agree to Europol having higher status than national officers either: this is unacceptable.
For these reasons, I voted against the report in the final vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR)">
More extensive parliamentary controls over Europol, with frequent reporting, a greater obligation to keep Parliament informed and the incorporation of Europol's budget into the Community budget will reinforce democratic control over Europol.
Turning Europol into a European police unit with operational powers goes altogether too far along the road towards a supranational EU police force.
Cross-border police cooperation should take place through collaboration and the exchange of information between national police authorities, as well as through Interpol.
There is no need for another parallel organisation when Interpol exists already.
<P>
Wiebenga report (A-0091/99)
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, the whole idea of corpus juris is something that has not been discussed in public.
There have been no public discussions on it; there have been no discussions in national parliaments.
This has all taken place in secret, behind closed doors.
What is most amazing is the silence of the British Members of this House.
For Britain and Ireland the whole legal system is under serious threat.
The proposal is to harmonise the EU criminal legal system on the continental inquisitorial model.
<P>
The British and Irish systems are very different.
I cannot understand why no British Member in this House has raised the question of what is going on here.
The British and Irish systems are very much based on the presumption of innocence, trial by one's peers, as in the Magna Carta .
The issue of habeas corpus is also in danger here - the guarantee of safety while somebody is in custody.
<P>
My main point is the whole lack of debate on this issue, the fact that all this is taking place in secret.
It has been pushed through behind closed doors so that Members of this Parliament are not even aware of what are the real consequences of corpus juris .
They should look at what is going on.
The British Members should look at whether they want to get rid of their own system and bring in this EU criminal legal system which will be based on the continental inquisitorial model.
I do not think the British or Irish public want this kind of system.
If they do, at the very least people should have the right to discuss what kind of system is being brought in.
<P>
Going back to what the last speaker said, there is a major rush on here to harmonise everything within Europe, to actually set up a European police force.
The next thing will be a European army.
We are harmonising the legal systems, whether for better or worse, without proper public debate, without public accountability.
This whole institution lacks any kind of democratic control or democratic accountability.
The people of Europe have had no say whatsoever in the direction Europe is taking.
Something has to be done about it.
People in the Member States have to know the decisions that have been taken on their behalf which may not, in the long-term, be in their interests.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw and Sandberg-Fries">
The development of the EU into an area of freedom, security and justice is extremely important for the people of Europe, and we therefore welcome the Wiebenga report.
However, we believe that the proposals it contains to give Europol operational powers and to establish a European public prosecutor are incompatible with what has already been laid down in this area.
Europol should merely complement and assist national police forces and not be able to take direct action against our citizens.
As regards the establishment of a European public prosecutor, we are opposed to such a move because there is no supranational cooperation on matters of criminal law.
Cooperation in this area should continue to be intergovernmental.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Blak, Iversen and Kirsten Jensen">
The Danish Social Democrats have voted against the introduction of a common European public prosecutor.
We should not have a common European criminal law or public prosecutor.
We can fight crime just as effectively with the existing instruments, including Europol and the conventions on extradition and mutual judicial assistance.
We should not harmonise for the sake of harmonising.
And in fact the differences between the criminal laws of the Member States are not so great that they cannot be overcome by using existing intergovernmental instruments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Hager">
Efforts to successfully combat international crime are right and proper.
Any obstruction of effective prosecution by an individual Member State must be prevented, so that public safety can be guaranteed.
However, this does not justify the creation of a supranational authority which would intrude heavily on the authority of the individual Member States and thus flagrantly impair their sovereignty.
Effective prosecution can only be guaranteed by the authorities on the spot.
<P>
For these reasons, although I voted in favour of the report, I voted against the proposed appointment of a European public prosecutor in the final vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR)">
Cooperation to combat organised crime is an important task for the EU.
The areas involved are smuggling, terrorism, trafficking in persons, offences against children, drug trafficking and money laundering, as well as arms trafficking, crimes against the environment and crimes committed via the Internet and e-mail.
<P>
Cooperation should, however, be intergovernmental.
No good reason exists for seeking to establish a new Corpus Juris to integrate criminal and civil law at Community level, as proposed in the report.
On the contrary, it might well be detrimental to respect for the national legal systems which have become established over the centuries. The latter have grown and matured in the course of a continuing dialogue with the people, something which could not happen at EU level.
<P>
The report contains a proposal for a European public prosecutor with the power to open investigations at EU level.
However, the ability to tackle organised crime does not depend on the existence of common EU legislation.
Information, coordination and knowledge of each other's activities are aspects which should be given priority instead.
On the basis of the above, I voted against this report.
<P>
d'Ancona report (A-0185/99)
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw, Palm, Sandberg-Fries and Theorin">
The report from the Council to the European Council on activities on drugs and drugs-related issues under the UK Presidency is, generally speaking, a constructive one.
The contents of the report reveal that the proponents of decriminalisation are now on the defensive.
<P>
The drugs debate is now being conducted in an objective way here in Parliament, in spite of the differences that exist between the approaches taken by Members from countries which have different drugs policies.
We think we have contributed towards achieving this progress.
It means that in future the EU will be able to work in a more constructive manner.
This is a vital achievement, since the problems posed by drugs are still enormous both in Europe and the world in general.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="Angelilli">
I can certainly endorse some of Mrs d'Ancona's criticisms of the Council document on the post-1999 EU drugs strategy.
I definitely share the rapporteur's demand that Commission and Council forces should be joined in a single document so that there is greater clarity and, above all, better coordination leading to more effective and rational action on drugs.
<P>
I also endorse her criticism of the Council's attitude to Parliament: consultation did indeed take place at a very late stage.
<P>
Finally, I can also go along with her comments concerning the need to promote prevention and information activities, to contribute to crop substitution and to ensure more effective coordination between the police and customs to combat drug trafficking.
<P>
However, I certainly cannot endorse Mrs d'Ancona's habitual pragmatic approach to the problem of drugs.
This pragmatic approach consists of resigning oneself to the fact that drug abuse is a social phenomenon which is virtually impossible to eradicate: according to the rapporteur, it can be contained and fought only by means of a damage-limitation exercise; in plain language, through the legalisation of soft drugs and the controlled administration of hard drugs.
To the rapporteur, this is the only way of de-ideologising the drugs debate.
<P>
I cannot share her reasoning: ideology and politics have nothing to do with a drugs strategy; all that really does count is the value of and respect for life.
<P>
For these reasons, since I am convinced that a drugs strategy cannot ultimately be based on the approach set out by Mrs d'Ancona, I am voting against the motion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Buffetaut">
Voting on a report by Mrs d'Ancona on drugs and drug addiction has become something of an institution in this House.
However, all the texts which she has presented through a unanimous Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs have had an inexorable tendency to be devoid of any proposals. They are simply mediums for general requests.
<P>
However, by their very existence and the enterprise of those supporting them, these reports are still a constant means of pressure in favour of more libertarian measures.
Mrs d'Ancona would like to ensure 'a de-ideologising of the drugs debate in Europe'.
But what is the ideology of those who maintain that respect for human dignity requires us to ban anything which may harm us or of those who believe it is enough to control the use of drugs to limit their potential risks to health?
<P>
It is certainly essential to allow and develop cooperation between all those who, in one way or another, through either prevention or repression, are involved in the fight against this scourge of our societies. However, cooperation must also especially be encouraged with those who are victims of drugs and with their families.
In this general context, it is not right to trivialise drug addiction as an insignificant activity of no consequence.
At a time when restrictions on smoking are rightly increasing and when authorised alcohol levels for driving are being reduced, is it appropriate to provide a contrary example of irresponsible liberalisation, particularly when drug addiction causes greater harm to people?
<P>
We voted against this report and not just because, in the words of the supporters of decriminalisation, it contains nothing of interest. We feel it constitutes another step in this policy of gradual rather than rapid progress which has been rejected by a glimmer of common sense among a majority in this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="President">
That concludes Voting Time.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 1.42 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Agriculture (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on agriculture.
<P>
Mr Jové Peres has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Jové Peres">
Mr President, I will try to be very brief and will confine myself to the oral question to the Commission on imports of garlic.
<P>
The Commission's response on imports of garlic is quite a surprise, ladies and gentlemen.
The problem does not lie in differences of analysis.
For once, everyone seems to be in agreement.
<P>
The problem is one of pace.
The problem itself was identified as far back as 1993, but the solution was inadequate.
<P>
Clearly, when the safeguard clause was applied to garlic from China, it was already possible to predict that a number of traders would set up triangular arrangements, nationalising the Chinese garlic in Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam, Iran, Malaysia, Jordan, India, or any other country.
<P>
Such a system is easy to conceive and is also viable, given how slack certain Member States usually are when it comes to carrying out customs checks.
<P>
Triangular trade has therefore continued to expand, and garlic production in the Community is moving ever closer to extinction.
In Spain alone, 15 000 farms and more than three and a half million direct jobs are at risk.
<P>
Furthermore, production is highly concentrated in certain geographical areas.
The social and economic consequences of the present situation will therefore be very serious.
<P>
Can this state of affairs really be due to administrative slowness?
Can rural development measures really compensate for such shortcomings?
It is therefore surprising that the Commission has stated that there is no time to implement an effective system this season because the procedure to establish a global quota and change tariffs in the World Trade Organisation has not been initiated.
<P>
There has, in fact, been ample time to initiate it and if it has not yet been set up then emergency action must be taken until it is. Such action must involve applying retaliatory measures to countries taking part in the triangular trade and compensating Community producers for loss of income.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, I shall confine myself to the Fantuzzi report.
The promotion fund for agricultural products is seen by many as a substitute for export refunds.
Now these refunds have been cut, we have to look to promotional activities, so the reasoning goes.
This reasoning conceals a major risk, because it seems the Union is going to conduct its export policy along the same lines.
<P>
This was an export policy which was certainly advantageous to Europe's farmers, but which had numerous disadvantages as well.
It was a policy whereby the European Union dumped its internal market surpluses on the world market at the expense of the developing countries.
We must abandon this export policy driven by quantity.
There must be information campaigns to promote a clear emphasis on quality.
Only products which pay proper attention to food safety, animal welfare and the environment should be considered for subsidy.
Developing countries must be given the chance to develop their own agricultural potential.
Subsidising the export of European products to these countries would seriously hamper that process, and I am against it.
<P>
Nor must we equate promotional activities with export subsidies in terms of financing.
The aim of export subsidies is to keep agricultural prices high throughout the Union.
That works to the advantage of all Europe's farmers.
So it is obvious that Europe should finance that.
The same logic does not apply to sales promotion.
Advertising is only effective if it goes together with a speciality or trademark.
If the products concerned are made principally responsible for financing, that creates a new link between costs and benefits.
European subsidies should at most play a supplementary role.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Santini">
Mr President, I should like to make a few brief, general points on the debate which began this morning and is continuing this afternoon, and which will perhaps be - if not the last - then one of the last on general agricultural matters to be held in the Commissioner's presence.
The policy on prices has become well established over recent years.
Let us hope that future crises and our commitments to the CEECs will not oblige us to downsize even further, and that other events do not compound two negative trends which have been noticeable in the past few years: not only the falling incomes of European farmers, but above all the drop in their numbers. Thirty years ago, farmers represented some 25 % of the workforce in Europe; now they have shrunk to around 5 %.
What particularly concerns us, moreover, is that full-time farmers are steadily being replaced by part-timers, who cannot guarantee proper levels of professionalism.
I am referring here to Mr Fantuzzi's report on quality: clearly, non-professional farmers cannot guarantee top quality, and this will have an effect on product promotion strategies both within the Union and in third countries.
<P>
I agree with the offensive strategy proposed by the rapporteur.
We should not wait for a disaster like BSE before promoting the consumption of European beef - safe beef, naturally - just as we should not have waited for globalisation, and hence the influx onto the EU market of wines from around the world, before deciding to promote European wine and explain to everyone that it is not harmful, especially as long as one does not over-indulge.
What is more, as with all of life's pleasures - 'wine, tobacco and women are a man's downfall', as the Italian proverb goes - everything should be done in moderation.
And so it is a matter of educating consumers: moderation, quality and teaching people how to drink - and, above all, how much to drink.
<P>
Finally, I agree that the funding is excessively limited, ludicrously so, for a promotion campaign such as this, given the present cost of advertising.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Sturdy">
Mr President, I certainly hope that it will not be the last time that I am speaking here on agriculture to Mr Fischler as a member of the Commission, because over the years he has done an extremely good job.
<P>
I very much agree with the price package that has come out of the Commission - it is very similar to a lot of the proposals I put forward two years ago when I was the rapporteur on that particular price package.
<P>
I am concerned that we are making a singular mistake today if we think that the price package and the Berlin Summit are not intertwined.
Agriculture is not about a short-term gain and short-term positions: it means planning for five or ten years.
I work on a ten-year rotation; plans have to be made far further ahead than for any short-term positions.
I totally disagree with Mr Rehder when he said that the Berlin Summit had been a great success.
It has been a total disaster for agriculture!
It was a total misconception, it was done in a hurry, without thinking about the future of agriculture.
That is why it is very important that we keep the discussions flowing and work for the benefit of agriculture.
<P>
I wish to come back to a point the Commissioner made in his speech.
He said very poignantly that we were not going to allow the Americans to dominate European agriculture.
I was delighted to hear it.
However, we are signatories to the WTO.
Are we going to accept WTO regulations, even though it may mean somewhat expensive payments or having to take imports which we do not want?
Perhaps the Commissioner could clarify that.
<P>
Finally, Mr Funk mentioned co-financing.
I hope that co-financing is forgotten about forever.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Keppelhoff-Wiechert">
Mr President, Commissioner, given the time, I should like to confine my comments to the Peres report.
Amending and correcting the regulation on the common organisation of the market in fruit and vegetables is extremely important.
In my view, serious questions need to be asked about the waiver from the obligation to supply producer organisations for products which are marketed directly by the producer.
This method of selling by means of direct marketing has traditionally had a very special status in Germany, which I myself have strongly supported for many years.
<P>
You said this morning, Commissioner, that this is the second marketing year that the new regime for fruit and vegetables has been in force.
Unfortunately, however, I have discovered that the Commission only takes the waiver in the market organisation to mean sales on the producer's holding.
What is the position for sales in the field, at the roadside or at the weekly market?
This extremely restrictive interpretation is the result of a letter from Mr Legrand of the Commission.
You are nodding; it seems then that there have been more recent developments.
That would certainly be welcome.
The proportion of goods permitted to be marketed directly is supposed to remain unchanged at 20 % of the produce of each Member State.
In this context, one of the issues we discussed in the Agriculture Committee was how it is proposed to check up on this.
Is it not the case that implementing this system in agricultural holdings will actually be extremely difficult?
If you consider agricultural practice, for example at asparagus or strawberry time, you might be forgiven for thinking that a certain amount of idealism is at work here.
I do not believe that the rule of the game should be direct sales when demand is high and the producer organisation when demand is slack.
But the monitoring of the whole scheme seems to me to have been too theoretically conceived.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, Commissioner, I will confine my comments to the Fantuzzi report. We should not forget that it was under the Luxembourg Presidency in December 1997 that the Council acknowledged the need to continue developing the current model of European agriculture while strengthening its competitiveness, particularly on the markets of third countries.
<P>
The proposal now before us is a result of that desire and also of the wishes of the Agriculture Ministers.
<P>
This proposal is laudable and should therefore be approved. However, it is unfortunately too timid and too paltry, if I may say so, in terms of the financial resources of EUR 15 million.
Moreover, the promotional instrument proposed should be simplified and rationalised. This instrument really must take advantage of the experience and know-how of the existing professional structures in order to encourage and implement promotional and publicity measures on agricultural products and processed products which can be exported or sold through new outlets in third countries.
<P>
With regard to the financing, I agree with our rapporteur who has rightly pointed out that the United States annually devotes nearly ten times more than the modest appropriations indicated by the Commission for promotion on the markets of third countries.
The Community should also be able to fully finance measures such as participation at events, fairs, exhibitions and so on.
The financial participation of the Commission should also be rather more substantial, as we have proposed.
<P>
In view of the problems which may arise when, on the basis of an open or restricted invitation to tender, the Commission chooses the body responsible for implementing the promotional measures, it would be safer and more transparent for the organisation proposing the programmes and measures to be responsible for implementing these and for choosing the necessary service providers.
I proposed amendments to this end which were approved by the Agriculture Committee and which I hope the Commission will accept.
<P>
Finally, I must insist on the strengthening of the consultation procedures of the Management Committees and the Standing Group on the Promotion of Agricultural Products.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Redondo Jiménez">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as you are all aware, garlic production in the European Union is concentrated in specific regions where this crop has great social and economic importance. It involves more than 15 000 farms and some three and a half million direct jobs.
Garlic is being imported on a massive scale from Asian and Middle Eastern countries, some of which do not even produce it.
The amounts involved exceed the maximum overall quota of 33 600 tonnes. Moreover, imported garlic appears in European Union markets after crossing borders at which officials are not always conscientious as regards properly enforcing the correct procedures relating to quotas and quality.
<P>
This amounts to a clear departure from the arrangements for commercial traffic envisaged in Article 115 of the Treaty.
We therefore call on the Member States to provide the customs entry points with the human and material resources needed to undertake correct tariff classification, carry out phytosanitary inspections and check the origin of products. Further, we urge the Commission to demand that Member States be conscientious over border formalities.
<P>
We also call on the European Commission to broaden the scope of Regulation No 544/97 introducing certificates of origin for garlic imported from certain third countries, and to apply retaliatory trade measures to those countries involved in fraudulent deals. According to Article 115 of the Treaty, such measures aim to prevent distortion in the movement of goods under the framework of the common commercial policy.
In addition, a dissuasive customs tariff for imports over and above the set limit should be put in place. Measures to compensate garlic producers for loss of income should also be considered in order to tide them over until the other measures previously requested come into effect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have already had the opportunity today to explain the Commission's position in some detail.
There is therefore no need for me to repeat myself now.
I should simply like to thank very much all those who spoke in the debate for their constructive contributions and to respond briefly to three specific questions which have been asked in the meantime.
<P>
Firstly, as far as garlic is concerned, I said that we want to work on two fronts here.
We want to make use of the existing safeguard clause again, and to activate this for a further period.
In this respect, I was asked how this will be monitored.
It is quite clear that the task of monitoring falls on the Member States.
We have already alerted the Member States several times to the fact that their customs authorities, in particular, must make it known that there is a risk of garlic being imported illegally from certain countries.
The countries are also sufficiently well known.
In addition, we have introduced our own certificates to make monitoring easier.
We are aware, however, that these measures - at least in the way they have been implemented so far - are not sufficient to achieve satisfactory results.
That is precisely why we are also prepared to go a step further.
We will be tabling a proposal for a negotiating mandate so that we can negotiate a suitable mechanism for fixing quotas in the WTO.
<P>
On the second question - raised by Mr Sturdy - about the WTO, Europe's position and how it proposes to act, all I can say to you today is the following: although this Commission is only an acting Commission at the present time, I believe that it is necessary and important - and I have therefore issued instructions to this effect to the services responsible - for us to develop a negotiating strategy based on the agreements reached as part of Agenda 2000 as soon as possible, so that we will then be in a position in the second half of the year to liaise with other countries about this forthcoming WTO round.
You can safely assume that part of our strategy will be to take measures to strengthen Europe's position.
<P>
I can reassure Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert: the object of our proposal for an amendment is precisely no longer to include only sales on the producer's holding - when they take place on the holding - but to treat sales at weekly markets and all the other direct sales measures you mentioned in just the same way as direct sales on the producer's holding, that is to say as an exception and thus as part of the 25 % rule.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
I have received three motions for resolutions to wind up the debate, tabled pursuant to Rule 40(5).
<P>
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Informing and consulting employees
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="Ghilardotti">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the information, consultation and participation of workers has been a key subject of debate in Europe ever since the first social action programme was adopted by the Council in 1974.
Since then the Commission has launched several initiatives, but these have often met with resistance.
In a context of continuous change, the adaptability of employees is of crucial importance and forms an integral part of the employment strategy adopted by the Luxembourg European Council.
<P>
Almost all the EU Member States have a legal framework - be it statutory or contractual - to ensure that employees are informed and consulted.
It has to be said, however, that the current state of affairs - with its limitations and flaws - has proved not to give workers sufficient information and opportunities to be consulted on issues that really matter for the decisions of the undertaking.
Consequently, the purpose of this initiative is to complete the existing national and Community framework, thereby helping - by improving the legislation - to prepare for change, ensure that restructuring takes place under reasonable circumstances and give employment the priority it now deserves.
The proposed framework is therefore aimed at remedying the gaps and countering the shortcomings of the existing national and Community legislation currently in force.
<P>
The objectives are: to ensure the existence of the right to regular information and consultation of employees on economic and strategic developments in the undertaking and on the decisions which affect them; to consolidate the social dialogue and relations of trust within the undertaking in order to assist risk anticipation, develop the flexibility of work organisation within a framework of security, enhance employees' awareness of the need to adapt and encourage them to participate in measures and operations designed to boost their employability; to include the situation and anticipated development of employment within the undertaking among the subjects of information and consultation; to ensure that workers are informed and consulted prior to decisions which are likely to lead to substantial changes in work organisation or in contractual relations; and to ensure the effectiveness of these procedures by introducing specific penalties for those who seriously violate their obligations in this field.
<P>
I should like to congratulate the Commission on its initiative.
There is no doubt that, with a single currency and a large single market, with increasingly interdependent economies and fiscal policies which, albeit belatedly, are starting to be coordinated, social policies are bound to become increasingly supranational in scale, so as to preserve and further promote our social model, which is recognised by a large number of authoritative sources as one of the decisive factors in our competitiveness.
<P>
In particular, this proposal will ensure minimum standards for information and consultation to be applied throughout the Community, by harmonising the fundamental rights of employees and helping to strengthen the European social dimension.
It is therefore deplorable that the negotiations between the social partners at European level for an agreement in accordance with Article 4(2) of the Social Protocol have failed, in particular because of one side's total unwillingness to negotiate.
The Commission was quite right to fully exercise its right of initiative as sanctioned by the Treaty.
<P>
The European Parliament, through my report, is proposing certain amendments.
Here I wish to thank all those colleagues who have tabled amendments, thereby contributing significantly to the committee's work.
Our amendments - on which we must hear the views of the Commission and which I hope the Council, in adopting its position, will regard as the European Parliament's firm wishes - are designed in particular to specify the means of implementing and defining information and consultation, especially as regards the point in time when information must be communicated, in other words planning, so as to enable employees to anticipate change, extending the content of information and consultation to other subjects which directly involve the rights of employees and their future; to extend the scope of this directive, proposing that it should include the public sector, and that the Member States should consider the possibility of including SMEs; and to ensure that minimum requirements are laid down at Community level from which it is not possible to derogate except to the benefit of employees.
<P>
In conclusion, I am absolutely convinced that if the period of profound change which we are currently experiencing is to have a positive outcome, both in terms of increased competitiveness on the part of undertakings and of greater civil and social harmony, a major readiness for dialogue is required.
This proposal, improved and strengthened by the report now under discussion, is an innovative means of promoting social dialogue, by informing and consulting employees, so as to guarantee stability and respect for the laws of the Europe we are striving to build.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="Oddy">
Mr President, Mrs Ghilardotti has done some excellent work on an important subject.
This is a plank in the Commission's overall plan, to have information and consultation of workers and should be considered along with the directives on consultation in collective redundancies, consultation in transfer of undertakings, the European Company Statute and the European Works Council directives.
<P>
The Committee on Legal Affairs has supported me and we have put forward a number of amendments.
There are concerns in some quarters that there is a problem with subsidiarity in this draft proposal but I believe that the reports I have already mentioned show that it is entirely appropriate for the Commission to act in this area.
<P>
More particularly it fills a gap in employment legislation which was vividly exposed by the closure of the Renault plant at Vilvoorde and I congratulate the Commission - I should say acting Commission - for plugging this serious gap.
My own country has some misgivings about the need for this legislation, but I would suggest that Her Majesty's Government visit some of the factories in my own constituency.
All the factories that I have visited in the last few years in the West Midlands have information boards where they show productivity levels, productivity targets, health and safety information, etc.
All sensible employers I know see informing and consulting workers as a top priority for increasing productivity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Weiler">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I should first like to thank Mrs Ghilardotti for her report, which we support in every respect.
I should, however, also like to thank the Commission for presenting a report here which has made it very easy for us to endorse its conclusions on this issue.
This directive constitutes a further building block in a social Europe, coming after our adoption of the European works councils and - I hope - shortly before the European Company and worker participation legislation is adopted.
<P>
However, it also constitutes a counterweight to capital in Europe.
I believe that this is very important and sensible, particularly at the present time, so that the public realise that Europe does not adopt laws in a vacuum.
I agree with Ms Oddy's assertion that of course this will not lead to national rules being abandoned.
Those Member States which believe that employee involvement gives them increased and more extensive consultation rights will obviously keep their own rules.
If you take a closer look, however, you will see that in many countries - including Germany - there are sectors in which employees are still unable to participate in decision making.
The specific issue which I should like to address here is the size of the company.
There is inadequate provision for small and medium-sized enterprises, including in Germany.
That is why we would have preferred the company size threshold to have been set at 20 employees.
<P>
I am mentioning this here quite specifically and hope that the PPE Group can, after all, decide to go along with our proposals.
Similarly, I also hope that you, Mr Menrad, and the other members of the PPE Group will vote against excluding certain media companies and charitable organisations from the information and consultation obligations in connection with the provision on the protection of certain interests, and will endorse our proposal.
The view expressed by one media company in a letter to us - that the human rights and fundamental rights associated with the freedom of the press will be violated if we do not vote for it - is one which I find absolutely absurd.
<P>
In my opinion, there is a pressing need for there also to be worker involvement in media companies.
I do not share Mrs Ghilardotti's misgivings about UNICE.
I think that perhaps it is even a good thing that UNICE declined to negotiate.
As a result, we have a reasonable proposal from the Commission which, particularly in terms of sanctions, contains much more far-reaching measures which we all support and which would certainly not have emerged from a social dialogue.
Finally, I should like to express my hope and voice my request that the German Presidency and the Council as a whole should support this important building block in a social Europe as soon as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Menrad">
Commissioner, a central tenet of Christian social doctrine and of the PPE Group's statement of principles is partnership; that includes participation and joint decision making, as well as informing and consulting employees.
It was on this basis that our group made an important contribution here in Parliament in 1994 to the directive on European works councils, which was adopted almost unanimously.
Since then, it is true to say that European works councils have been a real success story and that with the agreement of employers, employees and unions they are increasingly widespread.
One of the aims of the EWC is to pass on information received from central management to the local employees' representatives in good time - across borders - so that they can do their job.
The system only works if national laws give the local employees' representatives adequate rights.
Amongst other things, this directive seeks to ensure that this is the case by setting minimum standards - minimum standards for information and consultation, not for participation in decision making.
<P>
Mrs Ghilardotti has produced a good and very thorough report, on which I would congratulate her.
In the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, she accepted a compromise solution on thresholds of 50 employees. That is acceptable, Mrs Weiler, and it is what the Commission and the Legal Affairs Committee had in mind.
We are against total deletion of the provision on the protection of certain interest groups, as the report demands.
However, in our amendments we propose a solution along the same lines as the works councils directive, which provides for this protection but severely restricts it.
Quite simply, this is also about gaining broader support.
It is particularly important - especially for small and medium-sized companies - for the Member States to provide for waivers if passing on information does considerable damage to the company.
A release from these responsibilities must not be arbitrary, however, and that is why objective criteria need to be laid down and provision made if necessary for the granting of official or judicial authorisation.
A framework for national rules on information and consultation which is structured in this way and which respects subsidiarity, Mrs Ghilardotti, is something we want to vote for.
It is an important step towards building the social dimension and towards creating a proper partnership in the European Union and - you are right - it also has economic advantages.
It is precisely at a time of rapid change and in a global economy that a lack of information engenders mistrust and ultimately fear, leading to a breakdown in relations.
Information means transparency, which creates trust and avoids losses in European companies due to friction.
Employers and employees are equal winners here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Mr President, on behalf of a considerable majority of my group, I welcome the Commission's proposals.
I would remind you of the debates we had here on Vilvoorde and the Renault affair, for example, when we found that our rules on information and codetermination were not strong enough, and certainly not as far as penalties were concerned.
This proposal is a major step forward in terms of informing and consulting employees at European level.
The majority of my group will be voting for the compromise reached, namely that the legislation should apply to firms employing more than 50 people.
<P>
I must reiterate how important it is to have information and consultation.
Many firms which do this well take great care over how they treat their workers.
And it makes for a level playing field that consultation and codetermination requirements of this kind should apply Europe-wide.
It is, furthermore, a sign of the times.
The rapporteur speaks tellingly in her report of the need to strengthen the social dialogue and promote mutual trust.
And I think it can be seen as an example to the rest of the world, because we know that Japan and the USA lag behind us on this.
<P>
From my own experience in the Netherlands, I know that works councils have often acquitted themselves better, when firms close down, than the management which was accountable to investors.
I think we need to realise - certainly those who are still reluctant, and I am looking at my colleagues in my own group here - that this is an area which offers great opportunities for modern-day entrepreneurship.
So I think we should wholeheartedly endorse this proposal, together with some of the amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Mr President, this issue of the framework for informing and consulting employees is controversial.
It would be even more controversial if participation in the decision-making process, which this House has already asserted in various resolutions as being the right of employees, were added to information and consultation.
<P>
In accordance with its well-established practice, the Commission was in favour of the social partners establishing these rules themselves.
However, UNICE, the employers' organisation at Community level, believes this issue falls within the principle of subsidiarity.
There were therefore no negotiations because the Commission was forced to present its proposal for a directive outside the social dialogue.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy was charged with drawing up an opinion on this report.
This task fell to me and my intention was to help make real progress in the direction previously taken by the European Parliament.
Most members of this committee did not believe this to be the way forward and actually adopted UNICE's position.
No opinion was approved and the procedural page of the report states that the committee 'decided not to deliver an opinion'.
This is to be regretted because this opinion would have contributed to the resolution which Parliament is going to adopt, whether my formulation was used or another one subject to more general agreement.
This is why I congratulate Mrs Ghilardotti on her work and her report.
If you will allow me, Mr President, I must say something briefly on another report on this area which came before this House today and which, due to Rule 52, was not debated or voted on.
I am referring to the report on the organisation of work which must be regarded as a minor issue as it was rushed through Parliament.
How our priorities are distorted!
We voted on the monitoring of marine biotoxins and roll-over stability, which are technical reports whose importance I do not deny, but we passed over the report on 'modernising the organisation of work - a positive approach to change'. Yet there are those who want the information, consultation and participation of employees to come under the principle of subsidiarity.
And then we complain about the public's lack of interest in the European Parliament!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, there is a gap in the EWC directive; that became only too clear during the strike at Vilvoorde, as previous speakers have already pointed out.
Clarification is needed on what information requirements actually exist.
This is provided in the important and very fine piece of work produced by Mrs Ghilardotti.
Of course compromises have had to be made.
We particularly regret one of them: it is absurd enough as it is to bring company size into play where obligations to provide information are concerned, and then on top of that, 50 is far too high a figure.
We have therefore given Parliament another opportunity to go further and have tabled an amendment proposing 20 as the threshold, well aware that actually this figure is absurd as well.
<P>
As far as the protection of certain interest groups is concerned, we really have to say once again that this is a problem in any case because, for example, the freedom of the press is not the freedom of the newspaper owner, but the freedom of journalists.
In churches too, church members have freedoms and these also need to be protected.
But when it comes to information rights, this cannot have anything to do with the protection of certain interest groups.
In German law, protection is provided for certain interest groups in joint decision making.
There is some confusion here.
If UNICE is now complaining that it is being ignored, then it ought to have cooperated constructively!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Angelilli">
Mr President, I agree with Mrs Ghilardotti that there is a need for increased information and greater involvement of employees within companies, especially medium and large-sized ones, not least so as to avoid outright social injustices such as in the case of Renault.
Allow me nevertheless to make one or two points.
I believe in particular that it is only right to try to reconcile this legitimate expectation of information and consultation with the actual requirements of companies, above all small ones.
In an economic climate as difficult and unstable as that of Europe at the moment, it would be inadvisable to burden companies with further legal and administrative obligations.
I would point out that, at least in Italy's case, it is only large companies which, when experiencing a crisis, quite rightly and properly receive support from the State, whereas small firms, although they too are a precious resource for the Union, do not enjoy any such privilege.
All too often, the heads of small firms have to face the uncertainties of the market all alone, shouldering all the risks without any protection or public assistance.
I would therefore point out that prior consultation of employees would be meaningful only if it were one aspect of a genuine system of participation.
What I mean is that, in a company which practises forms of participation - profit sharing or share ownership - prior consultation on company decisions is conceivable. In this case, there is a give-and-take relationship between employer and employees: joint decision making but also joint risk taking; the profits are shared but so are the responsibilities.
<P>
To conclude, this proposal for a Council directive, and Mrs Ghilardotti's position in particular, introduces further elements of rigidity which the labour market - above all with regard to small businesses and micro-firms - can well do without, in my opinion.
Such elements of rigidity would certainly not encourage job creation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Damião">
Mr President, this report and the directive itself represent a very significant point in the progress of industrial relations.
However, they are still less than the participation measures recommended some time ago, in particular by the studies of the European Foundation. This body carried out a major survey in 1991 and defined the following three models of participation: participation as a productive force, participation as a democratic force and participation as a set of positive forces.
<P>
Participation is actually the main objective which we must pursue but it is just one point which Mrs Ghilardotti has made more effective, broader and more efficient.
I must draw the Commission's attention to the fact that, in countries such as Italy, Portugal, Spain and Greece, only 5 % of managers allow consultation and information on subjects which are not exclusively related to health and safety in the workplace.
<P>
We are therefore a long way from the European citizenship and democracy which we want for everyone. Political democracy is currently kept outside the company walls.
We must hope that we can successfully implement this Commission initiative and the report which are intended to give people more freedom and make companies more productive while ensuring a greater human quality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Hatzidakis">
Mr President, I am not against minimum requirements and a common framework for informing and consulting workers.
I think that Mrs Ghilardotti has made a good effort in this direction, but I feel that, carried away by her - albeit very good - intentions, she has gone somewhat over the top.
I think that if we adopt the report as it is at the moment we may end up achieving the opposite to what we all want, which is the protection of workers.
Discouraging enterprises from making investments will, in the end, be detrimental to workers.
<P>
I hold this view because we have different legislative approaches in the various Member States. Whilst in some Member States, such as Germany and Austria, what is being stipulated here is more or less already incorporated into their law, in other Member States a sudden change in legislation and a change of standards may have an adverse effect on the economy and on the labour market.
Indeed, a positive step was taken when the original idea to implement the directive in enterprises with 20 workers was abandoned and 50 was introduced as the threshold.
Nevertheless, there are still some things in the report I regard as negative and I would like to highlight a few as illustrative examples.
<P>
Firstly, the Commission proposal provides for derogations, for example for certain specific organisations with religious and charitable aims.
Amendment No 15 rescinds Article 2(2), which permits such derogations.
I feel this is a mistake. These are specific cases and therefore special provisions are required to guarantee information and consultation and the proper functioning of these organisations.
<P>
Secondly, Amendment No 24 (new) provides for final decisions to be postponed to allow consultations to continue so as to avoid adverse consequences for workers.
In this way, companies will be unable to take decisions, possibly for long periods of time, and thus their survival may be compromised.
<P>
Thirdly, Amendment No 26 offers workers the possibility of requesting the assistance of experts.
Experts should not take part in information and consultation meetings, since they may disclose important information to third parties, and the protection provided in Article 5 is inadequate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Riis-Jørgensen">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I personally am going to vote against this report.
The proposal is a blatant example of a lack of respect for the principle of subsidiarity.
Firstly, there are no cross-border aspects to the proposal and, secondly, the matter is already regulated in most Member States, including my own country, Denmark, through cooperation agreements.
This question should be regulated nationally and between the social partners.
This would take account of both the principle of subsidiarity and the national differences and traditions in Europe.
There is therefore no need for more EU rules in this area.
It should be up to individual countries to establish national rules or set up agreements, as we have done in my own country.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Andersson">
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking the rapporteur for what is an excellent report.
I should also like to thank the Commission for its proposal.
There can be no doubt that this directive is needed, as developments during recent years have shown.
I think it is obvious that employees should be regarded as a resource.
It is therefore essential that they should have a right to consultation and information.
However, I do not think the proposal goes far enough.
In my view, 50 employees is far too high a figure - even 20 is too high.
I believe that every single employee should have the right to consultation and information.
<P>
However, I shall vote in favour of the proposal, since it establishes minimum rules.
Countries which already have better systems - like my own country, Sweden - should be able to retain them.
Therefore, all things considered, I regard this proposal as a successful step in a process whereby all employees will have the right to consultation and information in the future.
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<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schiedermeier">
Mr President, unfortunately, the principle that if you wait for long enough the outcome will be good does not always apply in European social policy.
Many important decisions certainly take a long time, but then are not as good as we social affairs politicians would like them to be.
The question of informing, consulting and participating has been under discussion at European level since 1974.
All the Commission initiatives were defeated in the Council, because until the Maastricht Treaty came into force, unanimity was necessary for them to be adopted.
The framework directive on the working environment was the first to include the field of information and consultation.
Then in 1994, it became possible to adopt the EWC.
Nevertheless, constant change and increased cross-border activities mean that there is an urgent need for action to be taken on this issue.
<P>
As a result of limitations and shortcomings, workers have not been given sufficient information and opportunities to be consulted on issues that really matter for undertakings.
Admittedly - and this is true - legislation does exist at national level.
Unfortunately, this is increasingly ineffective in cases involving cross-border activities.
That is why a minimum social standard is absolutely essential in this case too.
This is nothing more than that.
In this way, subsidiarity is fully guaranteed.
After lengthy discussions in the committee, we agreed on the threshold of 50 employees.
In smaller companies, business developments are clearer and information harder to conceal.
<P>
The protection of certain interest groups has remained an open question.
The PPE Group supports it here as it did in the case of the EWC, and we are still hoping for the PSE Group's agreement.
However, we all agree that the minimum requirements must be adhered to, as must be the case for all minimum social standards.
The right to have expert support must definitely be guaranteed, in the context of subsidiarity, because without it workers could be taken for a ride.
After 25 years, I am looking forward to this directive for the benefit of workers finally being adopted.
The idea behind this directive is also that European companies are different from American and Japanese ones, and work best if a consensus is achieved between the companies and their employees by means of information and consultation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
Mr President, I could have done without this proposal for a directive.
Unfortunately, this point of view has not gained much support in Parliament.
In Denmark, both employers and workers believe the proposal could be a time bomb under the special Danish negotiating model whereby information and consultation are regulated in agreements on works councils between the social partners.
During the committee procedure, I proposed an amendment which would have allowed Member States to refrain from implementing the directive if the social partners agreed that adequate schemes already existed.
Unfortunately, it was not adopted.
I would not like Member States which do not have adequate schemes for informing and consulting workers to be able to evade the directive.
That is why it is needed.
On the contrary, I am in favour of solidarity among workers in the EU, but at the same time I want a Member State such as Denmark - where over a period of more than 100 years the social partners have developed a successful model for information and consultation through collective agreements, in a spirit of cooperation and dialogue - to be allowed to retain such a system. Conversely, we should not prevent others from being raised to the level that we enjoy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Carlsson">
Mr President, I should like to see the European Parliament reject this report.
We should demonstrate that we respect the subsidiarity principle.
To incorporate the contents into European legislation might run directly counter to our desired objectives.
<P>
The proposal for a directive is at odds with the different traditions that exist in the Member States.
It is an old-fashioned idea that the unions should acquire more influence through the EU.
This should be replaced by a modern approach - which obviously means influence and participation on the part of workers - in every organisation that wishes to be competitive and dynamic.
The necessary frameworks are best devised within individual workplaces and would only be hindered by the bureaucratic superstructure of a labour market policy, for which some people would now like to use European cooperation.
<P>
Our role in a Europe in which human resources are being misused through high unemployment should be to create the right conditions for new jobs.
The introduction of more rules and restrictions would mean fewer new jobs and less growth, development and prosperity.
In other words, there would be many fewer workplaces in which there was consultation and information.
I should not like to be a party to that, and I am glad that many of those present in the House today have said the same thing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Garosci">
Mr President, ever since the Community institutions first became involved in building Europe, especially social Europe, the information and consultation of employees has been a topic of substance, dating right back to the first Council documents in 1974.
Today we are dealing once again, perhaps in an almost final version, with this fundamental matter of how to involve the basic elements of companies - in other words those who work in them, those who invest their labour to help them grow and remain competitive on the market.
<P>
Many important considerations are set out in the rapporteur's text, for which we thank her.
In particular, it is vital to include the public sector, provided of course that the Member States create mechanisms to encourage social dialogue.
Clearly, social dialogue is especially desirable for SMEs, which appear to be excluded from this document, although - as we all know - they account for 90 % of companies in the Community.
Therefore, in agreement with the Member States - and this is crucial - we must ensure the maximum involvement of employees in small firms, or rather micro-firms, those with up to ten employees, which currently form a majority in certain economic sectors and offer the greatest potential.
The report has of course amended the initial proposal by ruling out a number of derogations on non-profit-making companies.
We agree on this aspect, as long as it is properly applied within the Member States.
<P>
In conclusion, in this age of globalisation, it would be unthinkable not to step up - and indeed to maximise - the involvement of employees in Community undertakings, because obviously business success or failure ultimately depends on them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 NAME="Flynn">
Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking Mrs Ghilardotti and all the other rapporteurs for their work on this particular Commission proposal.
I also wish to thank those Members who have taken the time to make valuable contributions to this debate.
I should like to express my personal satisfaction and gratitude for your support for this very important initiative of the Commission.
<P>
It is, in our view, an important proposal, which, once adopted, could add an indispensable missing element to Community European labour law.
Having listened to what has been said here - and I have read the draft opinion - I believe you are willing and ready to play a decisive role in the negotiations leading up to the adoption of this proposed directive.
Once adopted, it will complete and make more coherent the acquis communautaire in the field of employee involvement and make a decisive contribution to building the social dimension of the internal market.
In a way Ms Oddy is right: it will fill a gap that needs to be filled in European labour law.
<P>
Nevertheless, it is a controversial proposal, which is illustrated by the reservations which employers and some Member States have expressed.
We are aware of the difficulty of the debate and that is another reason why I am particularly pleased with your position of clear support for the initiative, while having to be prudent about the caretaker Commission at the moment and what it can do with this proposal just at this time.
So while the Council has not even started discussions on the text, and taking into account the absolute need to preserve the political viability of the proposal - notably within the Council - it is wiser at this time, and particularly at this stage, to act with some caution.
<P>
I fully understand all of your requests at this time.
Most, if not all, of the issues they raise were the subject of intense debate within the Commission in the period leading up to the adoption of the proposal.
In the end the Commission reached a delicate balance between the different points of view and divergent interests on what is regarded as a very sensitive issue.
It would be inappropriate to depart from this balance at this stage, at least as regards the proposed amendments relating to the four main sensitive issues of the proposal: the thresholds, the definitions of information and consultation, the extent to which the social partners may derogate from the directive's provisions and the question of sanctions.
<P>
I am sure that all your proposals on these central issues are going to be very much at stake in the discussions between the European Parliament and the Council leading up to the adoption of the proposal.
The Commission will play the role attributed to it by the Treaty in the course of the codecision procedure while facilitating the approximation of the positions of both parties and, in the end, ensuring consensus.
So you will understand my caution when reacting today to some of your amendments, even if some of them could certainly be envisaged by the Commission in the future, in the light of the developments that will take place in the Council.
<P>
In spite of my caution, I should like to be as positive as possible today.
Some proposed amendments can clearly be accepted by the Commission immediately, and they certainly improve the text.
This is the case for Amendments Nos 1, 17, 8, 10, the first and the third elements of Amendment No 13, and Nos 19 and 35.
<P>
A second category of amendments concern more substantial issues.
Nevertheless, I believe I can express my support for them as they are reasonable and do not seem to affect the delicate balance of the text.
This is the case of Amendments Nos 4 and 15, Nos 6 and 32 - they are related to the non-aggression clause - No 16 on the level of information and consultation, No 22 - the illustrative list of issues subject to information and consultation - and the first part of No 33, concerning the application of the principle of the directive to the public sector, which is referred to, although the proposed formula needs to be reworked somewhat.
<P>
While Amendment No 34 is wholly consistent with our approach of involving the social partners, we could not envisage that change to the basic formula used for the implementation of Community legislation.
I could, however, accept a recital based on this amendment.
As for the other amendments, in the light of the circumstances I have mentioned, the Commission feels it will be difficult to accept them.
In any case, as I have mentioned before, they will be very much present in the future institutional debates on this important proposal and so the debate on these central issues is far from being closed.
<P>
I must say to Mrs Weiler that it really is about minimum standards.
It is very important for the European social model.
As Mrs Ghilardotti said, in a way, it is all about mutual confidence between employers and employees.
I regard this particular proposal as a key piece of European labour law.
Even though I shall be watching it from afar, I will be extremely interested in the adoption of this particular piece of European legislation.
It will do an amazing amount of good for employers and employees in the development of the European social model.
I thank you for your support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Working time
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0184/99 by Mr Chanterie, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 93/104/EC of 23 November 1993 concerning certain aspects of the organisation of working time to cover sectors and activities excluded from that Directive (COM(98)0662 - C4-0715/98-98/0318(SYN)); -A4-0187/99 by Mr McMahon, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, onI.the proposal for a Council Directive concerning the organisation of working time for mobile workers performing road transport activities and for self-employed drivers (COM(98)0662 - C4-0716/98-98/0319(SYN))II.the proposal for a Council Directive concerning the enforcement of seafarers' hours of work on board ships using Community ports (COM(98)0662 - C4-0717/98-98/0321(SYN))III.the proposal for a Council Directive concerning the Agreement on the organisation of working time of seafarers concluded by the European Community Shipowners' Association (ECSA) and the Federation of Transport Workers' Unions in the European Union (FST) (COM(98)0662 - C4-0718/98).
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="Chanterie">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is perhaps useful to start by saying that European legislation on working time is a matter of safety and health at work, and as such it is a right to which workers are entitled.
It was enshrined in a directive in 1993 and upheld in 1996 by the European Court of Justice.
But a number of sectors and activities have so far not been covered by this directive, namely a number of transport sectors, sea fishing and other activities at sea, and doctors in training.
We are required today to look at the legislative proposals to bring these excluded sectors within the scope of the directive.
The Commission has opted for a twin-track approach, on the one hand amending the existing horizontal directive and on the other hand putting forward three specific vertical directives for the transport sector, EU seafarers and seafarers aboard vessels entering EU ports.
<P>
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has followed this dual approach, with Mr McMahon's report on sectoral legislation and my own report on adaptation of the existing directive.
Broadly speaking, the committee favours bringing all the excluded sectors and activities within the scope of the directive.
That will require, amongst other things, a revision of Article 17 on derogations so that better account can be taken of the specific features of each of these sectors and activities.
<P>
For these reasons, I stand by my original proposal that the exclusion of seafarers should be reversed.
Like transport workers, seafarers can make use of the derogations provided for in the directive.
And maritime transport, like road transport, can have recourse to a separate directive.
There is in any case a European agreement between shipowners and unions.
So why exclude them further?
That is not defensible in either legal or political terms.
One may even wonder if it is still defensible to single out another occupational group, the armed forces in peacetime.
I think, Commissioner, that we need answers to these questions when the directive is revised in the near future.
<P>
The second point of debate was Sunday as a day of rest.
The 1993 directive provided for this, but the 1996 judgment of the Court of Justice declared it invalid.
It is not Sunday as a day of rest as such which is being abandoned, but Sunday rest as an element of worker health and safety protection.
So Sunday as a day of rest ought not really to be abandoned. What we need is a different legal basis to justify Sunday as a day of rest.
The European Parliament adopted a position on this in its resolution of 12 December 1996. That resolution calls on the Member States and the social partners too to acknowledge the special character of Sunday as a day of rest.
<P>
You backed that resolution, Commissioner, and you also confirmed it in a letter to me dated 8 January 1999.
In seeking a solution, I would point to the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty and in particular Article 151(4), which together with Article 128(1) of the Maastricht Treaty provides a suitable legal basis.
<P>
A few words now on doctors in training.
I think one of the most important merits of this legislation we are now enacting is that it brings to an end the inhuman working conditions, and various abuses, which a junior doctor has to endure.
It is most important to patients too, since it has often become apparent that junior doctors who have been on duty or gone without sleep for 60, 70 or 80 hours on the trot are often not best placed to make the right judgements when emergency intervention is required.
<P>
The European Commission's suggestion is to allow a temporary exemption, making the limit not 48 but 54 hours, for a period of seven years.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs arrived at a compromise, to accept the extension from 48 to 54 hours but for just four years, not seven.
<P>
As we know, the United Kingdom would like to go further than that, with a derogation for 15 years, but that takes us well into the 21st century, and I think we might ask whether members of the British Government would be happy to be treated in those conditions or not.
They might prefer to go to a different hospital.
In other words, we have to discuss and vote on all these things today and tomorrow.
I believe that this, together with the Ghilardotti report, is one of the most significant pieces of social legislation we shall have produced by the end of this parliamentary term.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="McMahon">
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating the Commission on bringing forward legislation for the excluded sector.
We have in front of us today a comprehensive package of proposals to protect about five million workers in road, rail and sea transport, as well as junior hospital doctors in training and offshore oil workers who are not covered under the original working time directive.
<P>
The debate today is the first step in this Parliament, following the new Amsterdam Treaty, to ensure that minimum standards of working time are established for all workers throughout Europe.
This is not an easy task.
To match minimum health and safety standards and at the same time to have some operational flexibility, which may be necessary in certain circumstances given the nature of these sectors, is not going to be easy.
We can be encouraged by the fact that the social partners reached an agreement in the rail industry and in maritime transport.
<P>
I particularly welcome the seafarers agreement, given that it was a European social model, which formed the basis of our own wider agreement in the ILO Convention 180.
Unfortunately, when we come to the road sector, the social partners were unable to reach an agreement.
But they held important negotiations and they have learned valuable lessons.
<P>
In drafting my report, which deals with the various transport sectors, my paramount concern has been the need to protect workers against the adverse effects on their health and safety of working excessively long hours.
The report is also about ensuring safe and competitive transport systems in the interests of the general public.
If we fail to deal with the regulation of working time in the transport sector, we run the risk not only of endangering the health and safety of the workers but at the same time of distorting competition within the internal market.
This is particularly true in the road transport sector, where 78 % of transport companies are small businesses operating with less than five vehicles.
It therefore makes sense to adopt European-wide rules on working time, which will operate alongside a tachograph and will ensure a level playing-field in road transport.
<P>
I fully support, therefore, the Commission's proposal to extend the working time rules to all mobile workers in road transport, including self-employed drivers.
These rules would protect road haulage workers, who are subcontracted out and end up becoming self-employed without any choice and without any health and safety protection.
Not only will the Commission's legislation protect workers in the transport industry but it will improve road safety in the interests of road users and passenger safety.
Up to 45 000 people are killed each year on the roads within the European Union and 18 % of all these fatal accidents involve either trucks or coaches, often as a result of driver fatigue.
Only by providing adequate rest breaks, restrictions on hours and working patterns for mobile workers can safety be ensured.
<P>
I have consistently argued in this report that too many derogations to the maximum working week, to rest periods or night work for mobile workers, would endanger health and safety standards.
I am inclined to argue that the possibility to derogate from the 48-hour working week up to a maximum of 60 hours is, in itself, a substantial derogation and that no further derogations beyond that should be allowed.
However, following a compromise we reached in committee, I have agreed that derogations can exist for weekly working time and rest periods, provided that this is negotiated and agreed by the social partners and the workers are offered compensatory rest.
<P>
I would like briefly to address the situation of taxi drivers under these proposals.
I fully support the Commission's proposal that taxi drivers should come under the scope of this proposed legislation in the interests of health and safety and fair competition.
The Commission has been rather unfairly attacked on this.
I do not believe that by introducing special categories of workers, we can fulfil our aims of providing basic level protection for all workers in the transport industry.
<P>
Turning very briefly to Mr Chanterie's report I would like to congratulate him on his work and thank him for the discussions that we have had.
I am particularly concerned about two areas.
One is the offshore oil industry, which he has touched upon, where there are traditionally very hazardous hours for health and safety - we saw what happened with Piper Alpha.
Some arguments have been put forward for the oil industry to annualise working time.
Obviously this will have to be as a result of negotiation.
<P>
Finally, on the question of share-fishermen.
I welcome a clearer definition of what is a share-fisherman.
I look forward to the Commission's proposals for a forthcoming directive on the whole issue of working time and fishermen.
This is another area where there are very serious dangers and risks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="Simpson">
Mr President, I should like to say at the outset how happy I am to be speaking on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism on this report as it is the transport sector that this legislation will have the greatest impact upon.
<P>
Back in 1993 the working time directive excluded some six million workers.
Over 80 % of these were in transport jobs.
We said at the time that in particular the exclusion of these non-mobile workers was unfair and illogical.
We are pleased now that this anomaly will be put right with this proposal.
<P>
The European Parliament has always appreciated the problems that existed within the various mobile sectors, but it has always been a priority for the Transport Committee to ensure that a way forward is found to eventually bring them under the scope of the directive.
<P>
We are delighted, on the whole, that the social partners, working with the Commission, have managed to come up with proposals that will put an end to excessively long hours that are dangerous to the health and safety of the workers themselves and to the travelling public as a whole.
As far as the Transport Committee is concerned, our bottom line is safety.
Safety has always been our guiding principle.
<P>
In the rail and maritime sector, agreement was reached.
We welcome those agreements.
Unfortunately in the road sector there was no agreement between the social partners.
We congratulate the Commission on taking an initiative to bring forward legislative proposals.
I would also welcome here the trade unions' readiness to negotiate on working time for flight crews in civil aviation, within the joint civil aviation authority.
I really hope that an agreement can be reached there.
<P>
This issue is very dear to our hearts.
It is the implementation and the monitoring of the legislation that now becomes important.
It is all very well having good legislation, but making sure that it is adhered to is key.
We want to see proper controls and all sections of public transport involved and included.
<P>
As draftsman of the opinion of the Transport Committee I would like to thank Mr McMahon for his cooperation and say that this has been a very good example of cross-committee joint work on legislation that will make a very great deal of difference to the health and safety of our citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Velzen, Wim">
Mr President, my group is naturally delighted that we are able today to look at two reports which in effect deal with cornerstones of social policy.
It is remarkable too that all this is possible in the final months of the term of office of Messrs Chanterie, McMahon, van Velzen and Flynn.
In my opinion, they will be sorely missed in future.
But what pleases us most is that we now have an end to the situation in which whole sectors are arbitrarily excluded altogether from normal directives, whereby it is claimed that workers in those sectors are so special that they can be expected to work extremely long hours and with particularly short or ridiculous rest periods.
<P>
I do accept that there are sectors in which exceptional circumstances obtain. We said to begin with that these were so special that they had to be excluded, but now we are saying that they must in principle be included and that if an exemption is granted, it can be granted only on the basis of an agreement between the social partners in the sector concerned.
And that sits very well with Fiorella Ghilardotti's report.
We have had people lobbying us, because take it from me, a great many lobbyists have been very busy.
People have lobbied us saying that this will not work, because they do not have a social dialogue.
We see the requirement that an agreement can only be accepted if it is based on social dialogue as a kind of incentive for people in those particular Member States to revive the social dialogue.
<P>
Lastly, I think that after this debate we ought to have a further discussion, involving amongst others the Socialists and Christian Democrats, because there are a number of amendments which I think are very risky, in that grey area between self-employed and employed taxi drivers, for example.
I am particularly afraid that there may be no parallelism between the circumstances of employers and employees, so that employees are forced into 'sham' self-employment.
I would like a little more debate on that, because to my mind some of the PPE Group's amendments present a dangerous opening.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schiedermeier">
Mr President, first of all I should like to thank the two rapporteurs.
This is a difficult subject and they have both done a fine job.
So thank you very much, Mr Chanterie and Mr McMahon!
<P>
I can only agree with Mr van Velzen.
We cannot exclude sectors from legislation of this kind just because they are problematic.
One reason for this is the health of the workers.
When I consider the demanding jobs done by mobile workers and self-employed drivers, I cannot see any difference between employees and self-employed drivers in terms of danger to health.
I believe that protection needs to be provided for both groups.
Of course this also applies to seafarers on board ships, offshore workers and in particular doctors, who certainly do not have an easy job.
That is one reason, the workers' health.
The other is of course safety, and unfortunately this also affects those who do not work in these sectors.
You see, if an overtired lorry driver runs into my car, although I am driving properly, that is certainly not exactly good for me.
If a ship carrying oil - and this is something we have experienced - runs aground because the master is asleep, this puts the whole environment at risk.
It is therefore very easy to see the wider implications of the safety issue.
I think that for this reason alone, this is very, very important.
<P>
Mr van Velzen, I think that we should actually make renewed efforts within the two large groups - and perhaps with all the others who are willing to cooperate - to reach compromises on the amendments.
I would see this as particularly important in these two areas.
I also hope that we find a reasonable solution to the Sunday rest issue, one which the Commission is also able to endorse, without the European Court of Justice raising difficulties once again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Mr President, we are dealing here with sectors which have been excluded for a long time. The occupational groups concerned have in recent years asked us on many occasions, as Members of the European Parliament, to bring about a solution to their situation.
I am thinking for example of aircrews, seafarers and doctors too, as mentioned by Mr Chanterie.
My group will be supporting an overwhelming majority of the proposals and also some of the amendments.
Our main concern here will be on the one hand the safety and protection of the personnel in question, but on the other hand the safety of society, which is also a factor here.
Some speakers have already referred to this.
From that point of view, I have also argued in my group that you cannot make a distinction between the self-employed - people who work for themselves - and the rest, because if he is overtired, a payroll employee is no less of a danger than a self-employed person.
In virtually all the sectors we are dealing with here, there are two sides to the coin: not only the safety of the personnel in question, because otherwise you could say that employers should look after safety themselves, but also the safety of the rest of society, because there are always going to be sectors in which damage can be caused to the rest of society.
So for us that is good reason to have the same legislation applying to both categories of people and to support that element.
<P>
Let me add a brief remark on the subject of doctors in the United Kingdom.
I find it bizarre that the United Kingdom continues to squabble over this, and given that we have so many UK Socialists in the House, I should like to ask whether, now that the colour of the government has paled somewhat, its position might not change?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Moreau">
Mr President, firstly I must underline the importance of the working time issue for the excluded sectors, in particular road transport, as this involves both social justice and road safety.
<P>
In view of the dramatic accident in the Mont Blanc tunnel which has plunged both France and Italy into mourning, we need more than ever to develop sustainable means of transport, offering maximum safety guarantees and fully respecting the environment. These means include rail, inland waterway and sea transport.
<P>
Everyone here agrees on this need which must be translated into acts containing provisions to improve road safety in particular.
This would specifically involve combating the social dumping practised by the road transport sector whereby drivers have to work shocking hours under conditions which are outrageous in the present day.
This should be the main aim of the reports presented today.
<P>
The inclusion of self-employed drivers and a better definition of working time are steps in the right direction, as also is the assertion by Mr Chanterie of the importance of Sunday rest.
But that is not all that is needed.
Accepting a 48-hour working week when 35 hours is being considered in many countries is a major departure and we must not go beyond this.
Allowing the possibility of a working week of 60 hours, provided that the average of 48 hours is respected over a four-month reference period, constitutes a blank cheque for all kinds of abuse.
Remember that accidents increase after 55 hours' work.
<P>
On the subject of night work, the two-month reference period is also too long.
For effective control, the reference period should not exceed one month for day work and one week for night work.
The trade unions are firm in their demands for this.
<P>
My amendments specify these requirements and they also demand a break after four and a half hours' work.
Why not when the highway code recommends that car drivers should take a break every two hours?
<P>
Finally, I must mention something which is purely linguistic. It concerns the translation into French of the term 'standby'.
This is given in the report as 'période d'attente '. I propose that this should be replaced by 'période de grande interruption ' which corresponds more accurately to the spirit of the proposal.
<P>
To conclude, we are dealing here with an issue which is of great significance.
We must firmly establish the objective of a labour-oriented Europe which can really improve the situation of the employees concerned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="Crowley">
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate the two rapporteurs on their work and also the draftsmen from the various committees for their assistance on what is a very difficult area to legislate on.
While I welcome the general commitment towards ensuring the health and safety of workers and also guaranteeing that there is cohesion across the Member States with regard to the minimum protection that will be available, I fear for certain sectors.
In particular, when we mention imposing similar restrictions on self-employed people we are in danger of becoming too much of a nanny state where we try to control everything and regulate what everyone does.
Allowance should be made for the self-employed running their own businesses, who should not be confined in the same way as other people.
<P>
However, be that as it may, the matter of transport in particular impacts very much on the general public.
Because of the dangers which are present because of lack of proper controls and rest periods for people involved in the transport sector, it is essential that we have common regulation across the European Union.
<P>
The only criticism I have of that section of the reports is that I do not feel there is enough flexibility built in to ensure that the so-called standby or waiting period is taken into consideration.
Having read the report and the amendments I am still not fully convinced that the distinction is clear enough between the standby duties and the waiting time.
<P>
Secondly, with regard to the question of junior doctors in training, it was unfortunate that when the original working time directive was proposed by the Commission, this sector was excluded.
Junior doctors play a critical role in patient care.
There are instances where junior doctors in training are working 120 hours a week.
Some of them are working straight shifts of 36 and 37 hours without any rest period or sleep.
It is impossible for any human being to perform properly under those circumstances but, more importantly, it is more difficult for a doctor to make proper clinical judgments with regard to the treatment of patients while working under those conditions.
So I welcome the proposals put forward by Mr Chanterie to try to bring some regulation and flexibility into that sector.
<P>
Finally, I should like to pay tribute to the Commissioner himself.
It may be the last opportunity I have to do this in this House.
When he started off in this job many years ago, he came forward with many legislative proposals which many people in this Parliament said were pie in the sky and would never be achieved.
I hope this Parliament, the media and the public will recognise his tremendous record in not only completing his legislative programme but bringing Parliament along in support when people said it could not be done.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, I think that we should start with the concept of flexibility.
It is true that in a complex situation, we need rules which vary slightly and which are adaptable.
But at the same time, we need clear minimum standards which ensure that the quality of the work, the safety of third parties and also the safety of the employees themselves are not at risk.
I do not think that there should be room for any flexibility here, and nor do I see how anyone, regardless of the type of contract they have - whether they are a franchise-holder or an independent trader or whatever - can suddenly be exempted from these minimum requirements, which concern their own and other people's safety.
<P>
Having said that, I must also welcome the compromise reached here, because it is a first step towards bringing these sectors - whose exclusion, when we have an internal market and when these very activities are expanding, was unjustified from the outset - back into a system of statutory regulation.
They are complex, and therefore need rules which vary slightly.
In this context, we need to give much more recognition to the role played by the social partners in terms of implementation, and I think that experience shows that all those who are involved in the practicalities of implementing rules of this kind on the ground - which means experts, which means the two sides of industry, as the British call them - should be given a tangible role in the implementation process.
<P>
Basically, this is what has happened. In this respect, I think that the two reports are on the right track.
I have one further comment on Sunday rest: I do not see why it should not be possible - in our modern flexible world of production - for us to agree on a time of rest.
That too is an important part of social cohesion and communication and ought to be attainable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 NAME="Hudghton">
Mr President, the main principles underlying the directive on working time are important and are indeed worthy of this Parliament's support.
The stated objectives are fairness to all workers in their conditions of employment, as well as recognising issues of health and safety that are able to be addressed by at least some of the Commission's proposals and some of the rapporteur's opinions.
However, measures designed to achieve desirable objectives, I would contend, must be practical and be capable of recognising the special nature of certain sectors and the unique working conditions and practices therein.
<P>
I represent, for example, offshore workers in two very different industries: in fishing and in oil.
On the one hand share-fishermen, who work for themselves, resent the possible imposition of yet more restrictions on their working practices.
Yet, on the other hand, I know from many letters from constituents on this subject that hundreds of offshore workers in the North Sea oil and gas industry would welcome being brought under the working time directive.
<P>
However, I am concerned that, as things stand, its implementation may not have much direct and positive impact on those it is really designed to target.
For example, I am concerned that many offshore contract labourers would still not be entitled to paid annual leave because of the shift rotas which they work.
It would be an irony if the working time directive was imposed upon fishermen who do not need or want it but fails to benefit oil workers who do.
<P>
We must make sure that our policy is flexible enough to target the real problems.
We must ensure that our proposals are workable and acceptable to those most directly affected by them.
<P>
I am aware that Mrs Bonino's officials are exploring possible ways of taking account of the special needs of the fishing industry.
I certainly hope that a satisfactory solution to that will be found with the support, I hope, of Mr Flynn.
Here in Parliament we have a chance to show that we are responsive to the real needs of sectors such as offshore workers and to prove that we are not a remote and inflexible bureaucracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Raschhofer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission proposal now before us is based on the 1993 working time directive and concerns the sectors and activities which were excluded from it.
We know from the background to the process of adopting that directive that it met with considerable resistance in the Council.
This change is intended to bring the sectors which were excluded - some of them without good reason - within the scope of the directive.
Of course, like previous speakers, I am concerned about protecting the health and safety of both employees and the others who are affected.
At the same time, this begs the question of whether having extended and all-embracing rules at European level is compatible with the principle of subsidiarity.
This week we shall also be discussing the need to modernise the organisation of work.
Working time is an essential part of this.
<P>
We know from statistics how much working time varies across our European countries, and that it is dependent on factors such as production technology and particular cultural features.
European legislation applying to all sectors and to the whole of Europe should not stand in the way of these traditions.
I also have a comment on Sunday rest: in my opinion, Sunday rest is particularly important in today's restless world, especially for family life, social occasions, keeping up traditions and for clubs and organisations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank the rapporteur for an excellent and well-informed report.
There are many objectives behind the regulation of working time, and recently a lot has been said about the effect on employment of reduced working time.
The subject is also linked to the idea of promoting health and safety, as has been mentioned here, and in many Member States we have seen that it is this area that has been affected most by experiments in reducing working time, in spite of the fact that the purpose was often to increase employment.
The need to promote workers' mental and physical capacity for work through the regulation of working time still exists.
Seen from this viewpoint too, Mr McMahon is largely right to support the Commission's directives, as he does in his report.
<P>
There are good reasons for extending the health and safety protection accorded to employees to include self-employed drivers, not just for the sake of the drivers in question, but for the sake of the other drivers on the road.
I myself dozed off at the wheel of a lorry in Finnish Lapland.
Finland is the size of Germany and is Europe's most sparsely populated country, and a long road, a tired driver, and the fact that it was dark was a disastrous combination as far as I was concerned.
Conditions are different among the Member States of the Union, and we also need to take account of the problem of night work. In Finland, for example, which is a big country, good, efficient services depend on a long-distance transport network.
I therefore propose a qualification, but otherwise I am happy to endorse the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Pronk">
Mr President, first of all my compliments to the rapporteurs, Mr McMahon and Mr Chanterie, for all the hard work they have put in on this directive.
The working time directive is one of the most complex, but also one of the most important directives in the area of safety and health.
Nothing is more of a factor in stress and poor performance than excessively long hours of work.
The 1993 directive on the organisation of working time was therefore a major achievement.
<P>
The UK Government got nowhere when it claimed that working time was not a health and safety issue.
That position was rejected by both the Court and the Council.
What was strange was that so many sectors were taken out of the scope of the 1993 directive.
We in Parliament accepted that, but we did insist that equivalent systems should be introduced in the sectors that were excluded.
In some sectors, the social partners have concluded agreements. These we can accept and transpose into legislation.
<P>
In a number of other sectors, the Commission has had to resolve impasses, for example over doctors in training.
Problems arose over these, to which satisfactory solutions have been found in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
<P>
Two problems still remain.
One concerns off-shore operations, and the other Sunday working, which was mentioned in the old directive.
The Court has declared the sentence on Sunday working in the current text to be inapplicable.
The sentence read as follows: 'The (minimum) rest period referred to in the first subparagraph shall in principle include Sunday'.
This sentence relates to the principle that it is possible to limit Sunday working.
That is an important value in our in some respects totally unregulated society.
The Commission is totally ignoring this.
It wants quite simply to delete the sentence, although the Court judgment does not inherently indicate that this is necessary.
The Commission would do well to reconsider.
This is a very important question of principle which has to be resolved in the light of the Amsterdam Treaty.
We do not want to discard the article but reshape it.
Consequently, we are not in favour of Article 1(b) of the Commission's proposal and will request a separate vote on it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR).">
Mr President, this working time directive concerns employees' working conditions, which is an important issue.
A directive of this type should be based on agreements between the social partners as to what constitute reasonable working conditions, both for employees and firms.
If it is to be applied in the right way, it is vital that it should have strong support from the social partners.
With particular reference to my own country, Sweden, we make a point of ensuring that such support exists, so that rules of this kind have some meaning.
<P>
The directive also concerns other important issues, namely protection of workers' health and safety, as well as of the surrounding environment; it is important to ensure that transport does not endanger either people or the environment.
In this respect, the directive is of value.
Its scope has now been extended to cover a further five to six million people, which means that it is even more important to ensure that the rules are both practical and constructive.
<P>
There are one or two points that I should like to emphasise.
Firstly, that it really is a question of minimum standards.
Every Member State should therefore have the right to draw up tougher rules in the interests of both the environment and safety: that much is crucial.
Secondly, regulation should be on the conservative side, rather than too detailed.
Instead, those with practical experience should be allowed to interpret the minor details, in order to avoid being hemmed in by petty restrictions.
<P>
Having made these few comments, I would in general support the proposal.
In my view, it is a step along the road to a safer and healthier Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="Gallagher">
Mr President, I want to congratulate Mr McMahon on the presentation of a very fine report.
<P>
I will confine my remarks to the fishing and maritime sector.
The fishing industry in my country and in Europe generally is not like any other commercial and economic activity.
It is a peculiar industry with its own special characteristics and needs and European legislation should be tailored at national level to suit the unique circumstances.
I have represented the fishing industry's interests in Ireland, both at local and national level, for many years and at European level for the past five years.
<P>
While I support the broad thrust of the working time directive for many sectors of social and economic life, I believe that more specific legislation is needed so as to guarantee the exemption of the fishing industry from the demands of this working time directive.
<P>
I fully agree with the rapporteur when he states that the specific derogation for share-fishermen's needs to be adequately defined.
I agree with this proposition, but the European Union must at all times take cognisance of the special nature of the industry and of fishing villages throughout the length and breadth of the Union.
<P>
The proposals in the maritime sector also include the European Commission's recommendation on the ratification of the ILO Convention on seafarers' hours of work and the manning of ships.
The agreement reached between the social partners largely reflects the content of the Convention with regard to the minimum hours of rest, as well as introducing new provisions on health assessments and annual leave.
<P>
With regard to the verification of working hours, the European Commission has annexed a model format regarding hours of work and rest for seafarers and has suggested that the Member States should harmonise their legislation in this manner.
Any changes which are going to be brought about in this regard can only be done in agreement with the fishing industry in Ireland and in Europe.
<P>
In conclusion I wish to congratulate Commissioner Flynn on his persistence in having the original directive accepted despite the many obstacles at Member State level.
I would now ask him to begin to consider Parliament's view, the Committee on Fisheries' view, in relation to the unique circumstances of the fishing industry.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Sainjon">
Mr President, Directive 93/104/EC establishing the general rules on working time excluded several sectors including the transport sector. In this sector, the rights of employees are more often than not disregarded.
It was under pressure from Parliament and also to plug this gap that the Commission adopted a White Paper on excluded sectors and activities.
<P>
In its opinion on this report, the Committee on Transport and Tourism advocated extending the directive to non-mobile workers and including other aspects such as annual leave and rest periods for mobile workers.
The reference period for these workers is quite naturally the whole year and I do believe that our discussions must remain within this framework. This is because this is a very specific sector which carries serious risks in terms of both working conditions and health and safety.
For this reason, I believe that talking about annualising working time should not be regarded as outrageous, as long as this provides a clearer view of the real situation in this profession and provided that we can perhaps tackle its shortcomings more effectively.
Working time could be reduced by taking the average weekly working time, calculated over the year, and prohibiting anything over 48 hours per week.
<P>
However, on a more general level, by this I mean taking into account mobile and non-mobile workers, the basic question is as follows: has the directive changed the life and work organisation of European employees?
Clearly the current answer is no.
Once again we have a fairly vague framework which does not define strict enough limits.
As a result, our labour-oriented Europe solely consists of a minimum framework and although harmonisation favours a limited number of European citizens, it represents a backward step for the majority.
While Europe as a force for labour remains restricted by this framework, it will never become sufficiently visible to the public, just like the monetary side of Europe today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lienemann">
Mr President, like Mr Sainjon I believe both that this directive is long overdue and that its content does not match the hopes of employees in this sector.
It is overdue because the road transport market in the Community was fully deregulated over a year ago and the social dumping which was already very apparent in this sector is simply increasing.
It is inadequate because it does not provide any significant progress overall in terms of either public safety or the working conditions of employees or self-employed workers in this sector.
<P>
The figure of 48 hours proposed as the maximum working week is more than what was specified in Regulation 3820/85 establishing the organisation of road transport.
In order to be consistent with this regulation we would have to consider a maximum working week of 46 hours.
Yet it is clear that this figure of 46 hours is well in excess of the target of 35 hours and is by no means a massive reduction in working time, which seems to be one of the main areas of progress to be prepared and achieved in this century; this will also leave gaps in terms of public safety.
<P>
Even worse are the exceptions, or rather the exception, provided for by the directive and involving the maximum working week of 60 hours.
You can imagine the effect that this will have on public safety and the living conditions of drivers.
This exception is not acceptable.
However, in order to improve the directive, even though we condemn the principle behind this exception, I would ask you to support Mrs Moreau's proposals.
She believes that this time should be less than 60 hours - I would remind you that the authorised driving time is 56 hours - and in particular that this should be calculated over a period limited to 28 days. This corresponds to the time which can be monitored and appears more reasonable than a period of four months during which abuses will be easy to perpetrate.
<P>
To conclude, this directive is inadequate despite the small hesitant steps which I must welcome, specifically the similar treatment of self-employed workers and employees. Although this is a start, it largely does not match the hopes of this Parliament and of employees in this sector.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Grosch">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have not always been able to take it for granted that Parliament and the Commission would regard rules on working time as part of protecting health and safety in all sectors.
Thanks to the two reports we are debating today, this does at least seem to be clear now.
I should therefore like to thank both the Commission and the two rapporteurs for their work, and in addition express my hope that the same opinion will prevail in the Council.
<P>
I am speaking here on behalf of the PPE members of the Committee on Transport when I say that it is good that road transport - a sector with over five million employees - is not going to be excluded any longer; in my view, it is simply obvious that this should be the case.
In road transport in particular, there is a direct correlation between working time and the numbers of accidents.
I should like to stress once again how important it is for this to be implemented quickly, but also for compliance with all the measures to be enforced in all the Member States.
Even though there is strong competition in the transport sector, it should not come at the expense of health or public safety.
<P>
The two directives are being dealt with and adopted in parallel.
This shows that we intend to be consistent.
It seems to me that it is important - as the rapporteurs also emphasise - for these directives to establish minimum requirements, and thus for certain countries which might have stricter criteria on safety not to interpret the directives as a licence to dismantle them.
Although these directives certainly resolve the working time problem to a large extent, let me nevertheless draw your attention to a particular problem, that of local transport.
Local transport covers the carriage of passengers by both road and rail.
To my mind, given that many countries already have appropriate rules in this sector, the derogation in Article 7 of Directive 98/319 ought to be maintained, or this sector should quite simply be incorporated into the 1993 directive.
I believe that this is what both the Commission and the employees and employers in this sector would wish to see.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="Watson">
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteurs and in particular Mr McMahon, to whose report my remarks are particularly addressed.
I welcome the attempt to provide greater regulation and I regret that agreement could not be found with the social partners on road transport.
However, I think there is a problem with the Commission proposals to which the rapporteur pays insufficient attention.
That is that coach and bus drivers are effectively being categorised as road hauliers though they carry out very different tasks, requiring very different working hours.
This leads to problems in two areas.
<P>
The first is safety.
These proposals are designed to ensure a high level of social protection for workers as well as a high degree of safety for passengers.
No one would disagree with that.
But the Commission statistics are slightly misleading.
They tell us that 18 % of fatal accidents involve trucks or coaches and yet buses and coaches are actually one of the safer forms of road transport.
Indeed, in the United Kingdom, only 2.2 % of fatal road accidents involve buses or coaches.
It seems to me that the extra costs that these proposals will put on small businesses - in particular small coach companies - will lead to reduction of investment in safer and newer vehicles, which will hit the industry and perhaps undermine passenger safety.
<P>
My second point concerns service.
I am sure that Mr McMahon, like myself, regrets the destruction of the UK railways by the Conservative Governments and the way in which the road industry therefore developed.
But the fact is that in rural areas, such as the one I represent, bus services are becoming increasingly rare.
People rely on buses and coaches and the extra costs and lack of flexibility in using existing staff which these proposals would bring will have a knock-on effect which will lead to cutbacks in services.
<P>
In conclusion, I propose that we ought to be looking at classifying road passenger transport with rail transport for the purposes of such regulation.
This would allow services to be enhanced with no cost in terms of passenger safety.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 NAME="Jackson">
Mr President, earlier today Mrs Green, the Socialist Group leader, said that our agenda is for jobs - really?
If that is true, then we wait to see the Socialist vote against these two reports because these proposals would cost jobs.
My own group has put down some very helpful amendments to them, but, as amended by our rapporteurs, these show old-style, old-Labour, Euro-social-engineering at its worst: inflexible, authoritarian and unrealistic.
<P>
Everyone knows that the sectors originally excluded from the working time directive were left out because of the difficulty of including the workers they cover.
Nevertheless, the Commission has put the proposals forward.
In my view, Parliament's contribution might have been to try to help find a way of combining protection of workers with a flexibility that enables Europe to retain its competitiveness.
The contribution of our two rapporteurs is to make things worse.
Mr Chanterie confirms that he wants to include share-fishermen in the working time directive, cutting their working week, their ability to work as they wish and ultimately cutting their opportunity of making a likelihood.
What sort of message is that to the fishermen in the south-west of England who are having a hard time making any living at the moment?
<P>
Mr McMahon hammers the taxi drivers of Europe by insisting in his amendment that the 48-hour week they are compelled to work within must include standby time, that is, time when they are not earning anything.
He also insists that all self-employed drivers must have a tachograph.
<P>
Mr McMahon and Mr Chanterie should listen to the words of a taxi driver - Mrs Wendy Smith - who has written to me from Sidmouth in Devon.
She says: this directive would destroy private hire completely and I am afraid no-one is going to work under these conditions; there is a lot to consider before destroying the taxi service, but perhaps they are only interested in dictatorship.
<P>
How embarrassing it must be for Britain's Labour Government to read the McMahon report!
We have asked in vain what the British Government thinks about it.
Here, at last, they are faced with the consequences of Mr Blair's handiwork in signing up to European social policy and whatever he may say, such laws will be adopted by qualified majority.
Get out of that Mr Blair!
I urge colleagues to vote against these damaging reports.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="Flynn">
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating the two rapporteurs on two excellent reports.
The Commission and Parliament have been working together for over six years now to ensure that workers currently excluded from the working time directive have appropriate protection.
<P>
I shall begin with Mr Chanterie's report.
There is complete agreement between the rapporteur and the Commission on the objectives to be achieved.
There are, however, a considerable number of amendments which have been tabled by the rapporteurs and other Members.
Most of these are acceptable to the Commission.
They are Amendments Nos 1 to 8, 10, 11, 13 and 16.
In particular, I welcome Amendment No 11, which provides a useful definition of share-fishermen.
I also welcome the support from the rapporteur for the Commission's proposal in respect of the annual leave as far as share-fishermen are concerned.
I have much sympathy with the arguments put forward in favour of most of the other amendments but none of them represent a fundamental opposition to the Commission's approach but rather a difference of emphasis in certain ways.
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I completely agree, for example, that no sector or activity should be excluded from Community legislation on working time.
The only difference between the Commission and the rapporteur in relation to seafarers is the way in which this is to be achieved.
The Commission proposed, at the express wish of the social partners in the maritime sector, that only the directive implementing the agreement between the social partners should apply to the workers concerned, but only these workers are excluded from the general directive.
There can be no gaps here.
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In the case of Sunday rest, the situation is rather different.
The provision in the working time directive that the weekly rest period should in principle include Sunday was deleted by the European Court of Justice.
The Commission's proposal merely recognises that, it does not seek to alter it.
I know that the rapporteur would like to reinsert that provision, and I understand his reasons for doing so.
However, whatever the merits of the case, I suggest that this is not the time to do it.
The sole purpose of this proposal is to protect workers in the sectors and activities currently excluded and it has taken over five years to get this far.
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I do not want to open up the debate on other issues as we would then lose sight of our prime objective.
I cannot, therefore, accept this part of Amendment No 9.
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The most controversial area is the issue of doctors in training.
Here the Commission proposed a transitional period of seven years for the application of the maximum of 48 hours on average, under certain conditions.
In the Council a number of Member States are seeking longer limits on the basis of the time needed to provide basic university education to sufficient numbers of would-be doctors.
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While I would dearly love to support Parliament's Amendment No 15 on this point, I believe that the Commission's proposal is more realistic.
While the health of doctors and patients is paramount, we must take into account the effect of a radical change on the provision of health-care services.
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Another issue in this report concerns the annual limit on working time.
Again I can understand the amendment proposed but our proposal seeks to establish minimum provisions which can be applied right across the board.
In certain circumstances, in particular in the sea-fishing and transport industries, the calculation of the limit on an annual basis is justified and Amendments Nos 17 and 20 are too restrictive, while Amendment No 18 does not really add value to the proposal.
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Finally, Amendment No 19, which seeks to expand the definition of mobile workers to include rail workers, is not acceptable.
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I turn now to Mr McMahon, our other rapporteur.
I should like to mention first of all the maritime proposals.
I am very pleased that the rapporteur accepts the Commission's proposals, subject to the two directives being implemented simultaneously, with the ratification of ILO Convention 180 and the Protocol of Convention 147.
This is entirely consistent with the Commission's approach.
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On road transport, I welcome the broad support in the report for the initiative on working time in this sector and, in particular, for the inclusion of the self-employed.
Clearly this is not just a health and safety issue for road-transport workers, it is also a matter of public safety, as Mr Crowley said.
In addition, there is an obvious need to combat distortions in competition in a highly competitive sector, which Mr McMahon referred to.
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I am very happy to say that the Commission can accept those amendments which clarify the text.
They are Amendments Nos 4 to 7, 11, 14 and 15 and the first half of Nos 1 and 16 and the second half of No 8.
The Commission accepts in principle the need to insert a definition of a self-employed driver, as proposed in Amendment No 10, but intends to cover a wider scope in its definition.
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In order to maintain the integrity of our proposal, we must reject Amendment No 25, which seeks to exclude urban passenger transport from the scope of the directive.
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As regards the derogations, we are prepared to accept part of the compromise Amendment No 12, which relates to Article 7(2) of our proposal.
We have found a general lack of support for the existing proposed derogation of up to 12 months, not only in the Council but also in the industry itself.
As a result, we are prepared to delete this derogation.
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There are elements that the Commission cannot accept.
Parliament is aware that the Commission's stance on derogation is generally to maintain a balance between flexibility in work organisation and a minimum level of social protection.
It was on this very issue that the original negotiations foundered.
While I appreciate the emphasis given by Parliament to collective agreements or derogations in Amendment No 12, nevertheless the Commission considers that Member States should be offered the opportunity to provide clear rules through national legislation as in the general working time directive.
This amendment is therefore not acceptable.
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In addition, the Commission is still convinced that, to facilitate the organisation of work in the urban transport sector in general, the derogation offered in Article 7(3) should be retained and so we cannot agree with Amendment No 13.
The same argument obliges us to reject Amendments Nos 22, 24 and 27 to 30.
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There are other amendments which the Commission cannot accept as they fall outside the remit of the proposal, thus Amendment No 19 and the regulation of contracts between transport agencies relate to contract law.
As to Amendment No 18, on establishing a common range of penalties, it is difficult to see how Member States acting individually can establish a common range while detailed prescription by the Community in this sensitive area would be inappropriate.
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Similarly, we must reject the second half of Amendment No 16 which is over-prescriptive.
Certain other amendments would not clarify the text.
Amendment No 17 adds a non-regression clause which is already in Article 11(3) and the Commission text reflects what is set out in the general working time directive.
Amendments Nos 21 and 23 would potentially cause some confusion.
As the rapporteur has accepted the Commission position on the location of the maximum weekly working time provision, in Article 3, the part of our Amendment No 1 which proposes to change recital 16 should also be deleted.
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Amendments Nos 2 and 20 include a clarification on emergency mobile workers and as the primary function of these workers is not road transport, the Commission considers that they come under the general working time directive and therefore we cannot accept these amendments.
Amendment No 3 and the first part of amendment No 8 include standby duty within the definition of working time for the self-employed.
The Commission considers that standby duty, as defined in the proposal, is purely an aspect of an employee's duties.
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Finally, as regards Amendment No 9 on night work, in recognition of the diversity of geographical locations and legislative arrangements within the Member States, the Commission considers the proportion of annual working time which determines whether workers may be classified as night workers should be left to the Member States in consultation with the social partners rather than applying a rigid 48 days.
That is to say, the amendment would conflict with the general working time directive.
I hope I have clarified the Commission's position on this difficult proposal.
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I am grateful to Parliament for the broad support it has given to the Commission proposals and for the speed with which it has dealt with them.
I know that this view is shared by my colleague Mr Kinnock and that as a result the Council, under the German presidency, will be able to adopt the directive putting into effect the seafarers' agreement and to reach a common position on the other three points.
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Finally, I should like to say to Mr Hudghton that share-fishermen are covered except for paid holidays.
To Pat the Cope Gallagher I would say that the Committee on Fisheries agreed to all these matters and we are pleased to have that support.
The question about the 48 hours, the reference period of one year, the holidays - unless we are dealing with share-fishermen - the question of medical assessment and adequate rest will be defined in a further directive which has been promised.
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My final word is to Mr Crowley.
I thank you for your kind words.
I would suggest to you and to the House that the social agenda has advanced quite a lot over the past number of years.
That has been achieved by a lot of determination by certain individuals, the support of good people in cabinet services and the great support I received here from the European Parliament.
I am grateful for your comments.
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<SPEAKER ID=160 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
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The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
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<CHAPTER ID=8>
Democracy, rule of law, human rights and fundamental rights
<SPEAKER ID=161 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on:
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the recommendation for second reading (A4-0135/99), on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the common position adopted by the Council (5240/1/99 - C4-0036/99-97/0191(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Regulation laying down the requirements for the implementation of development cooperation operations which contribute to the general objective of developing and consolidating democracy and the rule of law and to that of respecting human rights and fundamental freedoms (Rapporteur: Mr Torres Couto); -the report (A4-0153/99) by Mr Galeote Quecedo, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) laying down the requirements for the implementation of Community operations, other than those of development cooperation, which, within the framework of Community cooperation policy, contribute to the general objective of developing and consolidating democracy and the rule of law and to that of respecting human rights and fundamental freedoms in third countries (9582/98 - C4-0508/98-98/0813(CNS)).
<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="Torres Couto">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are today debating an extremely important subject for cooperation and development at European level. This debate concerns a recommendation for second reading, which I am presenting, on the general objectives of developing and consolidating democracy and the rule of law and of respecting human rights and fundamental freedoms in developing countries.
The report by Mr Galeote Quecedo on the same subject but applying to third countries is also being considered in this debate.
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With regard to the Council's common position, I must mention the following issues.
The Council's common position does incorporate - sometimes only in part or with changes - a number of the amendments made by Parliament at first reading on the basis of the report by its Committee on Development and Cooperation.
However, I note with regret that the majority of the most important amendments proposed by Parliament have not at this stage been adopted by the Council.
This applies in particular to the amendments relating to budgetary aspects, those linked to comitology - which, it must be stressed, are of key importance for Parliament - and those seeking to strengthen the procedures for informing Parliament and to give the draft regulation an unlimited duration.
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Just as important as the amendments promoting democracy, the rule of law, human rights and fundamental freedoms are those aimed at extending the scope and objectives of the draft regulation to cooperation operations for promoting the proper management of public affairs.
This is a vital aspect which has nevertheless not been accepted by the Council, and Parliament should take a determined stance on this because it is fundamental for development and healthy cooperation with developing countries.
Regrettably, without any controls we must acknowledge that aid from the European Union is frequently lost due to corruption, warmongering and inappropriate management of the resources which we provide to developing countries.
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Our cooperation has to be aimed at eradicating the hunger, poverty, misery and illness which are increasing at an alarming rate in most developing countries. This aid must not be used for more armoured cars, more weapons of destruction, more mines and more potential wars which simply decimate the defenceless civilian populations, thereby constantly attacking the human rights which we are trying to defend.
Consequently, this premise must form a cornerstone of the EU's policy for cooperation and development with the developing countries.
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I must also underline that the reasons which led the Committee on Development and Cooperation and the European Parliament to table their amendments at first reading are still as relevant and topical.
In these circumstances, I take the view that all the amendments not accepted by the Council should be retabled at second reading.
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I must also draw your attention to the importance of an amendment which I am tabling together with Mr Galeote Quecedo and Mrs van Bladel.
This concerns the adoption by the Commission of measures needed to establish a code of conduct for partners involved in actions governed by this regulation.
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I must also make a final political point on the following issue. The Community action for promoting human rights and democratic principles must respect the principle of the universality and indivisibility of human rights as these form the key elements of the international system for protecting human rights and the basis of European construction.
In this respect, the European Union cannot have different levels of action and different measures according to whether the context is Kosovo, Africa or East Timor.
We must end the hypocrisy which is rife and the idea that the economic interests at stake must prevail.
I would highlight and strongly protest at the position of the German Presidency which is heavily involved in the military action in Kosovo.
When international public opinion is told about the Indonesian Government which is carrying out terrible massacres in East Timor and is continuing to attack the basic rights of the Timorese population, it should also be told that the German Presidency, which is fighting Milosevic in Kosovo, is in favour of President Habibie in Indonesia. The German Presidency is stressing and supporting what it calls good governance and the process of democratisation which is being implemented in Indonesia.
It is this type of duplicitous position and these double standards which frequently discredit the Union and ensure that international public opinion does not always understand the value of our measures and policies.
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<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="Galeote Quecedo">
Mr President, today sees the culmination of a procedure which turned out to be longer and more complex than expected, due to the need to break down the Commission's initial proposal into two texts according to the various geographical areas where Community cooperation action regarding human rights and the development of the rule of law and democracy might be called for.
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Nevertheless, in our capacity as rapporteurs for the two reports we set ourselves the task of processing both texts in as coordinated a manner as possible. In this way, we hoped to achieve one of Parliament's key aims since the beginning: ensuring that when the two regulations were presented to the House, they would prove identical in content and would have the same aims and objectives, despite being officially divided into two separate regulatory texts.
In this connection, it is important to mention that the texts we are considering today are the result of a broad consensus.
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Taken as a whole, the operations we are studying today already have obvious quantitative significance.
Since 1991, Parliament has been attempting to make this more evident by grouping together all the articles of the Communities' budget referring to the promotion of human rights and democratic principles in a single budget line, B7-70.
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These operations are much more significant from a political point of view, however. They involve a genuine European philosophy of support for the development and consolidation of the rule of law, the defence of democratic values and respect for the rights and freedoms of all people.
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Our main aim has been to strengthen a range of principles and criteria that are considered to be of fundamental importance for the promotion of a coherent, systematic and effective policy in this area. In brief, we have sought to guarantee appropriate planning and programming of operations to establish the Community's priorities in these matters.
We have also sought to strengthen the identity and visibility of Community actions, to establish well-regulated, clear and uniform procedures for all those involved, and to ensure that the actions have a real and sustainable impact on the societies in which they are undertaken. Further, we have worked to facilitate better monitoring, to guarantee that the best possible use is made of the resources devoted to this end, and to ensure that our actions are coordinated as closely as possible with the Member States' policies and initiatives in these areas.
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There is no need to dwell on the details of the significant procedural components of the regulation.
It is suffice to say that every effort has been made to ensure that the procedures are as transparent and effective as possible and that they are adequately monitored.
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I do however think that special attention should be paid to the changes proposed in order to introduce coordination instruments at all levels. In particular, I believe that the suggestions included in the proposal concerning cooperation with the Member States of the Union are most relevant.
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Lastly, I would like to refer specifically to the various proposals contained in the reports that have been approved in committee and that relate to the European Parliaments's role in the development of programmes concerning human rights and democracy. In my view, Parliament's role as outlined in the initial version of the proposal is clearly inadequate.
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Of course, the proposal I am discussing today includes a range of significant amendments designed to ensure a valid role for Parliament in those procedures.
To this end, specific measures have been introduced, including the plan to set deadlines for the Commission to complete its assessments and submit the results to Parliament.
Commission communications are to be forwarded to the European Parliament, not just to the Member States.
The Commission is to present an annual report to Parliament and this must include details of the implementation of the programmes for the previous financial year and of the programming and selection of the programmes for the current year. It must be submitted to Parliament in good time to allow Parliament to hold a full annual debate during the first half of the year and before it considers the relevant budget item in the general debate on the annual budget.
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If these measures are incorporated into the text, they will provide for a substantial increase in Parliament's control. Nevertheless, administration will not be affected and will remain the exclusive responsibility of the European Commission.
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Ladies and gentlemen, I trust that all these proposals and suggestions enabled us to attain the objectives we set ourselves, not only in terms of studying and debating this particular regulation but also as regards the long-term aim of this House, which, for years, has been striving to enhance and regulate Community cooperation aimed at promoting human rights and political freedoms.
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I trust, too, that these arrangements, as presented to us today, will help us to establish new and more effective channels of cooperation with those who are engaged in a daily struggle to this end.
Finally, I hope that all this will eventually result in the improvement of the Community's procedures for managing and making use of resources.
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<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="Virrankoski">
Mr President, Mr Galeote Quecedo has produced an excellent report on the proposal for a Council regulation concerning strengthening the legal base for aid to promote democracy, the rule of law, and the reinforcement of human rights.
The report relates to a Commission initiative which the Council divided into two some time ago.
The other proposal for a regulation is on the agenda for second reading under the cooperation procedure and is the subject of a report by Mr Torres Couto.
Mr Torres Couto's report mainly concerns developing countries, and this report by Mr Galeote Quecedo relates to other countries.
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The Committee on Budgets drafted similar opinions for both reports, with comments on funding frameworks, technical support and comitology.
When the budget for 1998 was being debated, Parliament agreed that an advisory working party on human rights should be set up.
Its purpose was to coordinate action annually, and it would comprise MEPs and representatives of the Commission and Council.
We have had good results with a similar working party, inter alia within the framework of the MEDA programme.
This working party would be treated in the same way as committees made up of Member States' representatives.
The establishment of the working party was already proposed in Parliament's opinion as set out in Mr Torres Couto's report, but this was rejected by the Council, so the rapporteur is now proposing it again, and I support this.
Unfortunately, the report we are now discussing by Mr Galeote Quecedo does not include these provisions concerning the working party, so Amendments 38 and 39 have been tabled on behalf of the Committee on Budgets.
I support these amendments and I hope Parliament will adopt them, as they are consistent with the position Parliament has so often adopted in the past.
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<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="Torres Couto">
Mr President, thanks to the generosity of your predecessor I had five and a half minutes to present my proposal for second reading on this subject. So that my time now is not wasted, I will reiterate some points which I aimed to stress in my draft opinion on this matter and which, in essence, Mr Galeote Quecedo has already highlighted extremely well in his speech.
Due to the coordination between the two committees and between the two rapporteurs, with all the political groups participating extensively in the work of the two committees - I had personal experience of this in the Committee on Development and Cooperation - it was actually possible to determine a whole range of proposals. These aim to reinforce the coordination, efficiency, transparency, rigour and control of the implementation of an instrument which is fundamental to the future development of the countries with which the European Union is aiming to strengthen its links, namely the developing countries and third countries.
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This work therefore resulted in a combined effort and was carried out with a great sense of responsibility.
We were even able to accept a range of very important proposals put forward by other political groups.
For example, I must highlight the importance of the proposals put forward by Mr Telkämper on behalf of the Green Group involving measures to combat racism, xenophobia and sexism. I must also emphasise the proposals submitted by Members from the Group of the European People's Party supporting initiatives to abolish the death penalty.
Mention should also be made of the important role assigned by both documents to reinforcing the participation of new partners who may be able to act constructively in this area. In particular this participation of new partners will not be subject to any discrimination and in fact, on the contrary, will respect full and total pluralism in political, religious and social terms.
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After a long process of negotiation on this subject, both in Council and in Parliament, I therefore believe that we have arrived at a final text which is highly encouraging for this House.
Saying this, I must once again take the opportunity to congratulate Mr Galeote Quecedo on his excellent work. In particular he has made himself available so that we could work together constantly in order to combine our efforts and produce a document which would merit not only the widest approval of this House but also the acceptance of the Commission and Council.
I must thank the political groups, in particular the Group of the European People's Party, the UPE Group and the Green Group, which have all contributed in a decisive manner to the vast improvement of these documents.
Congratulations, Mr Galeote Quecedo.
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<SPEAKER ID=166 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fernández Martín">
Mr President, I have here the text of the speech I made on this report by Mr Torres Couto in December of last year.
It would not be very sensible of me to read out again what I said at the time, but believe me when I say that it would be highly relevant to what we are discussing today.
This is actually a good example of how the heavy burden of procedures prevents our parliamentary work from being as versatile and flexible as we would like.
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I certainly hope that today's debate will be the last on this important matter. It is worth remembering that this is the fourth occasion on which we have debated the issue in scarcely four months, that is, since last December.
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Mr Torres Couto's report has been debated at first and second reading. Mr Galeote's report has been debated too.
A further debate on my own report on the same issue took place in January. As was only to be expected, all the speakers tended to rehearse the same or similar arguments.
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I should point out that I did not discuss this previously prepared speech with Mr Galeote. However, in his own recent speech, Mr Galeote quite justifiably expressed his regret at the duplication of effort involved in a dual processing procedure for what ought really to be a single regulation for Community actions to finance cooperation and actions promoting human rights and democratic values in third countries and in developing countries.
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Mr Torres Couto has also said today how much he regrets having to table exactly the same amendments today. The Commission had already stated that it accepted and supported these amendments, but in the end it was not prepared to include them in the regulation.
Most of these amendments are also identical to those tabled by Mr Galeote.
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However, we are continuing to call for a new framework for the Union's relations with the countries we are cooperating with. We wish to facilitate more effective and transparent actions in support of the rule of law and human rights which aim to prevent corruption and to enable civil society to play a greater role in the countries benefiting from European funds allocated to development and cooperation.
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I am convinced that this is not a good example of how to carry out a task efficiently.
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My parliamentary group has been active within the Committee on Development and Cooperation and has tabled amendments.
We supported Mr Torres Couto's report and I should like to reiterate my group's support for it today. Nevertheless, I am most unhappy with the procedural arrangements.
I am particularly concerned because, in actual fact, this does nothing to enhance our reputation.
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<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the opinion of the Liberal Group, Mr Torres Couto has without doubt taken great pains in his report to sum up relations between the EU and the developing countries in respect of human rights, consolidation of the rule of law and the close links which must exist between development cooperation on the one hand and, on the other, development which is not merely economic but also - and perhaps above all - human, cultural, ethical and civil.
This is why the work done so far by Mr Torres Couto and the Committee on Development and Cooperation is so important.
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I should also like to speak in support of the amendments tabled, which restate the position of the European Parliament.
Development cooperation must not only be geared to introducing that often general but important formula - the rule of law.
Something more, something better is needed: a good administration, a fair legal order and proper judicial authorities - as referred to in the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, drawn up by the Council of Europe in whose building we are meeting - so that the general aim of assisting in the establishment of human rights does not amount to a rhetorical exercise.
Europe's great merit is to have turned principles into reality.
This must apply likewise to the developing countries.
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<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
Mr President, I can return Mr Torres Couto's compliment.
I think that a fine report has been produced here, thanks to some good cooperation in Parliament.
For our group, in any event, it was very gratifying to see how well we worked together.
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This is an important report. It is about upholding or actually creating fundamental freedoms and democracy in order to promote respect for human rights.
We can see how important this is in Europe at the moment: once again a war is being waged here.
I think that a democratic state with the participation of the people is the only way in which peace can be created in the long term, as we have seen over the last 50 years in Europe.
In the southern hemisphere, authoritarian regimes abound, as do aristocracies and regimes in which the people play no part.
In this respect, it is right and necessary for us to support efforts to encourage a transition to democracy and respect for human rights there.
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That is why we can support this report more or less in full.
We have not gone along with you on one point, Amendment No 1, the reason being that we did not want 'proper management of public affairs' to be included - not because we are against it, but because the funding for this whole programme is so minimal that we need to focus our efforts.
We need to focus on respect for human rights and promoting fundamental freedoms.
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Three other amendments which you accepted were important to us, the first of which is to Article 2.
Until now, the phrase on everyone's lips has been combating racism.
Fifty per cent of the world's work is done by women. Women are particularly oppressed in these countries.
The inclusion of the phrase on opposing a policy of sexism is important, and the Council really should accept it too, as it should accept this whole Parliament report.
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Finally, I have two further points: it is important to support smaller non-governmental organisations and smaller state-run bodies, because they are the ones which have a multiplier effect.
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My last point is that supplies and payments in kind from the countries to ...
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The President cut the speaker off
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<SPEAKER ID=169 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, I believe that these reports are very important.
We would be well-advised to ensure that they are adopted quickly, indeed very quickly, so that we finally have a regulation on the human rights policy.
This policy is one of the most important conducted by the Union over the years but its bases have unfortunately been rather shaky. This, it should be said, has been due to the accumulated delays in regulating this issue, caused particularly by the Council.
We must now seize this opportunity to reinitiate this policy on solid bases.
We are currently well aware of the problems of many NGOs and of many people fighting for this cause and the EU would therefore be honoured to contribute to their financing.
However, we can also see the difficulties posed in implementing these projects, particularly due to all the problems of which we are well aware.
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In this respect, I listened closely to Mr Virrankoski's speech. I have been assessing for some months and even years this idea of involving Parliament in administration or, in any case, in decision-making on projects.
Thankfully, we are sparing ourselves this prospect.
This House has a duty which it has fulfilled more than ever in recent months. In particular it has complained about all the structures, all the TAOs and all the artificial creations which could hinder the action of the Commission in order to ensure that one body implements, a parliament scrutinises and a court of auditors or another institution audits and so on.
We must not mix these tasks up but should keep them as they are.
I am against the two amendments.
I hope that my colleagues will follow the rapporteur's opinion.
I believe that what matters is being sensible and respecting the work of others.
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<SPEAKER ID=170 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lenz">
Mr President, the two very thorough - and fortunately also well coordinated - reports by Mr Galeote Quecedo and Mr Torres Couto are an attempt by the European Parliament to adopt a position on the measures which are so important to us and which are intended, within the framework of Community policy, to contribute to developing and consolidating democracy and the rule of law and to respecting human rights and fundamental freedoms.
When this was first discussed, we said that we would have liked the measures on developing countries and third countries to be adopted on the same basis, so that the same article of the Treaty could be used as a legal base.
But the Council insisted on different procedures: Article 130w for developing countries and Article 235 for third countries.
Of course, this has more to do with the balance of power between the institutions than with a rational consideration of legal bases.
This is comparable with the way in which portfolios are distributed in the Commission, which is illogical as far as human rights are concerned and is done instead on the basis of Commissioners' responsibilities.
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The cooperation which is urgently needed in these areas in both cases ultimately needs a solid foundation, however.
That is why we also support this.
This policy is becoming an increasingly significant part of Community policies - that has already been said here - and needs legal protection, as we know of course from the unfortunate experiences of recent months.
However, promoting the rule of law, democracy, human rights and fundamental freedoms is a need which we have already made a prerequisite - or wish to do so in the future - in the democracy programmes under PHARE, TACIS and MEDA, and also when granting financial aid to developing countries.
We have introduced this into many cooperation agreements in the form of so-called democracy and human rights clauses.
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Our definition of human rights has not been dictated by Europe, but is based on conventions and definitions as they appear in texts ranging from the UN Charter to European Conventions.
It is therefore not something which we have invented.
It has helped us to have a period of stability and peace in the European Union, and this is what we want other countries to have as well.
We also wish to have a solid basis for cooperation with the NGOs.
The many examples mentioned in the report are precisely what we want to support.
We therefore very much support the proposal to set up an advisory committee. We have already requested this in Parliament on more than one occasion.
Certainly, there must be a clear division of responsibilities, but of course advising does not necessarily mean deciding.
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The Council has rejected a whole series of amendments.
The European Parliament should insist on these amendments if it wishes to strengthen its own role in the future.
It is and remains the spokesperson for its own message and for the people who are hoping to see this become a dimension of their own countries' policies.
I am pleased to note once again that our views are so similar where human rights, the principles of democracy and the rule of law are concerned.
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<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lehideux">
Mr President, the general principles in these two reports are broadly accepted by this House.
They quite rightly encourage the Union to link these cooperation and development agreements with the improvement of respect for human rights, the consolidation of democracy and the proper management of public affairs by our partners.
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I must stress this last point. Furthermore, I agree with the rapporteurs who are again proposing amendments which extend the draft regulations to measures to promote the proper management of public affairs.
These amendments, previously adopted at first reading by Parliament, were not incorporated into the Council's common position. This is to be regretted.
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Having said this, the Union must demonstrate humility and caution in these matters.
Our partners may from time to time ask us for explanations about how judgments are passed on the internal situation of a particular country.
The Union cannot give the impression that it preaches at everyone else but is not itself always irreproachable.
The development in the right direction of the internal situation of certain countries is, in my opinion, more important than the excellence of a situation at a given moment.
I therefore feel that, when passing judgment, we must take account of each country's history right from its beginnings, rather than simply noting the situation at the specific time when we make these judgments.
After all, true democracy has only recently been achieved in some European countries.
<P>
I can cite two examples in this respect.
The first one relates to Togo.
In my opinion, the intellectual and political development of this country must be assisted by the Union which should, in order to do this properly and appropriately, resume in full its cooperation with this country.
You will remember that this cooperation was suspended some years ago.
<P>
My second example is Cuba which we discussed a few weeks ago with Mr Galeote Quecedo. This country has been accepted within the ACP countries as an observer.
The current developments in Cuba seem to me to be problematic and must be subject to the utmost rigour on our part.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="Flynn">
First of all, I should like to say that my colleague, Mr van den Broek, cannot be with us today.
He is with the presidency on a troika mission to Kiev and he sends his regrets to the House.
I would like to thank Parliament for its considerable efforts as regards both the time taken and the quality of its work in the process of adopting the future legal basis for the appropriations of the European initiative for democracy and human rights, an initiative launched in 1994 at your instigation.
<P>
In particular I would like to thank the two committees and the rapporteurs.
The amendments that were discussed in December are logically enough retained in the reports that are before us today.
Please excuse me, therefore, for having to repeat some of the comments made at that time, even though the scope of the debate has broadened to include programmes for countries outside the developing world.
<P>
The Commission is ready to accept most of the amendments as long as they do not call into question institutional roles.
It supports proposals that are in harmony with its initial proposal dealing with the setting up of an advisory committee, doing away with the restrictions on the duration of the regulation's application and the abolition of the financial reference amount.
<P>
The Commission also shares the rapporteur's concern about the need to make provision to keep Parliament informed of the work of the committee and about emergency operations.
However the Commission is hesitant about the idea of publicising the committee's discussions as it does not take account of the need for confidentiality inherent in project selection.
The Commission's position is also qualified when it comes to the series of amendments calling for clarifications or adjustments, especially on the subject of strengthening of programmes, annual evaluations and the relative importance accorded to recipients' experience.
<P>
The Commission cannot support the references made to the interinstitutional working party.
This would directly infringe on its management and implementation powers and could well render the regulations inoperable.
Looking ahead, Parliament will have to decide on the committee structure by which it will take account of the human rights issues.
I know there has been much heartsearching as to the best way to handle these issues.
Whatever solution is adopted you can rest assured that the Commission will continue to look to Parliament as a key interlocutor, not only in its formal role as a Community institution, but also because of its wealth of experience in this field and the deep personal commitment that has been exemplified by so many of its Members.
<P>
This cooperation will give ample opportunity for the representatives of civil society to be heard too, for the Commission appreciates that policy in this field cannot be made in the absence of a true dialogue with civil society as a whole.
<P>
I should like to touch on two further issues specifically related to management of the European initiative for democracy and human rights.
Firstly, in November, Commissioner van den Broek discussed with this Parliament the need for technical assistance to help in managing the budget headings covered by the European initiative for democracy and human rights.
Since then the 1999 budget has been adopted with specific provision for the financing of such assistance from within these budget headings, unlike 1998 when it was not possible to conclude a contract.
This will now be possible in 1999.
The preparatory work for the conclusion of the contract has been finalised, though the Commission has yet to take a formal decision.
It has been decided that there should be a contract to cover the services related to the budget headings managed by DG IA, including the needs of the RELEX common services and DG IA itself, and those related to the running of an enhanced programme of micro-projects led by the delegations.
As soon as a Commission decision is taken a contract will be concluded, thus ending this gap in support for the initiative.
<P>
Secondly, the initiative for democracy and human rights will operate this year through two main windows, apart from activities such as joint programmes with the Council of Europe which are concluded directly by the Commission.
The first main window is the micro-projects programme which has been extended to cover each of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, former Yugoslavia, and the former Soviet Union and Mongolia.
This window provides for extensive support to local NGOs and is to be managed at a local level without need to refer to Brussels for each financing decision.
<P>
This scheme has already been praised in the past and its extension in 1999 is the cornerstone of a strategy of keeping NGOs closely involved in the democratisation programme despite the limitations on managerial programme support which have militated in favour of larger projects.
<P>
The second window is a call for proposals to be issued any day now which will cover not only all the budget headings managed by DG IA but also those concerning ACP countries, including special programmes for Nigeria and for Southern Africa.
The decision to run the budget headings together is part of an ongoing process of unifying the approach to human rights support right across the world.
The call for proposals has already elicited the interest of NGOs which look to these budget headings as an important source of support for their activities.
<P>
I should like to make one comment to the rapporteur, Mr Torres Couto, concerning a remark, which I may have misunderstood, as I cannot accept a criticism that you may have made.
There is evidence, both from the Court of Auditors' reports and from the independent evaluation of PHARE and TACIS democracy, that there is no mismanagement and fraud in this programme.
The funds made available by this budget sometimes have been spent more slowly that we would have wanted.
That is your point as well.
But they were, in fact, well spent.
This is an important thing that, on behalf of the Commission, I should say to the House.
<P>
To sum up, we are at the closing stages and soon we can look forward to the legal and financial framework that puts an end to the uncertainty that has surrounded this particular initiative.
I should like to thank Parliament and the rapporteurs once again for their hard work in bringing about the adoption of these two very necessary regulations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Pollution from large combustion plants
<SPEAKER ID=174 NAME="President">
I would now propose, contrary to our usual practice, that we begin with the opinion drawn up by Mrs Estevan Bolea, to whom I now give the floor for two minutes, during which our rapporteur will no doubt join us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 NAME="Estevan Bolea">
Mr President, this directive is very significant because there are so many large combustion plants in Europe, and particularly since hundreds of thousands of additional megawatts will be generated between now and the year 2010, according to the statistics compiled by the Commission and the electricity companies.
The investment will therefore be substantial.
<P>
We do agree in principle that we must continue to reduce emissions and improve air quality.
Nevertheless, Commissioner, we must also bear in mind the proportionality principle and the Batneec concept: the use of best available technology not entailing excessive cost.
<P>
Commissioner, I do believe we should take measures which are genuinely necessary, but only those which are necessary at the moment. Others could perhaps be taken later.
The gas and electricity markets have been liberalised.
Great efforts are being made by all the companies involved.
The directive now under review came into force ten years ago. Much good work has been done on desulphurisation and denitrification and improved technology has been introduced.
<P>
The levels proposed by Parliament's Committee on the Environment are particularly demanding.
It might be possible to attain them where natural gas is used, but it will be very difficult to do so in the case of coal and residual fuel.
The point I would like to emphasise, however, is that it does not make sense to set these levels because there is no need to do so.
<P>
The problem of acidification needs to be dealt with, but not all countries are affected.
The Spanish delegation will therefore oppose most of these amendments, given that gradual progress will be made in the future.
At present, these amendments do not make much sense.
<P>
The wisest course of action might be for the Commission to issue a directive or a recommendation on negotiable permitted emission limits or to apply the 'bubble' concept used in the United States. The Commission could also introduce negotiated agreements which can work and not just insist on setting strict levels which are not met, as you must certainly be aware, Commissioner.
For as a result, all environmental legislation does for Europe is to generate intense frustration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, the purpose of revising the directive we are looking at today is to cut the level of emissions from large combustion plants.
The measures proposed form part of a European strategy for combating acidification.
It remains unclear as yet when work will begin on a directive on national emission limit values for sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, ammonia and volatile organic compounds.
The large combustion plants directive is directly relevant to the question of emission levels.
The forthcoming emission limit values will be a policy package allowing Member States the freedom to decide for themselves how they achieve the required cuts in emission levels.
<P>
I really agree with everyone else that things ought to have been done in a different order - first the limit values and then this directive.
But in any event, given that there is still a good deal of wrangling going on over the other directive and because we set a period of ten years in the 1988 directive, we now have to do something.
And I know a little about this directive on large combustion plants.
In the mid-1980s, as a member of the Dutch Parliament, I asked our environment minister to take action in the Netherlands and in Europe in the light of the proposed rules on them.
<P>
I have the feeling that if I were now to show this Commission proposal to Japanese and American industry, it would produce the reaction 'no wonder you will never manage to establish a proper industry for the environment.'
I would point out that the requirements for new plants, and indeed also for old plants, which can remain operational up to the year 2014, are considerably tighter in a number of Member States than those which the Commission is now proposing to us.
As rapporteur, with the backing of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, I therefore amended those requirements.
When I was called this morning by a spokesman for Scottish industry, for example, asking if this directive had implications for Scotland, I told him yes, not only for Scotland but for the whole of the United Kingdom and Spain as well.
I am confident that the United Kingdom will not wish to go on living in the stone age, but that there too something will have to be done for the environment, for the natural world and indeed for human health.
I am confident that the British too will wish to act, and the transitional period I am proposing will be the best way of tackling the problem of existing combustion plants.
<P>
When I look at what goes on in Germany with brown coal, for example, and knowing that mines producing brown coal are essentially far dirtier than ordinary coal mines, I have the feeling - and I say this for my Spanish colleague's benefit - that requirements for these could and should be far stricter than those now being proposed.
I do not understand it.
<P>
The Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy asked me if I had considered carefully the technical basis of my proposal.
Yes, I did.
As we were drafting this directive, I came across the Dutch Government's 1997 order which contains requirements for large combustion plants which are considerably stricter than the ones before us today.
So I had a frame of reference, a yardstick.
The new Dutch requirements, those in Germany, in some of the Scandinavian countries and in Austria too are far stricter.
I wonder why we should not have the same.
<P>
I would add one more element and that is liberalisation.
I am all in favour of liberalising electricity supply markets.
I always have been, but in that case you have to be confident, when setting the price per kilowatt hour, that differences in environmental quality will not be so great that pollution limits in one Member State and pollution tolerance in another Member State are ultimately a barrier to liberalisation.
So from the point of view of liberalisation as well, I think we have to seek requirements which are as far as possible the same.
I would urge my Spanish colleagues to think again.
<P>
My colleagues from the Socialist Group have tabled amendments to the effect that the requirements which I propose to apply in respect of existing plants by the year 2005 should be postponed to the year 2010.
I most strongly advise against that course.
Why?
Because it would further weaken our negotiating position vis-à-vis the Council.
I am familiar with David Bowe's argument, who urges the rapporteur and Parliament to be careful not to be too tough, because then the Council might attack us and might change the legal base.
In response to these colleagues, I would say that if the Council wants to act and wants to change this result of codecision, it has to do that by unanimity, and unanimity means that Parliament and the European Court of Justice also have to have their say.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 NAME="Bowe">
Mr President, I should first of all like to welcome the work done by the rapporteur and her report.
It is certainly a very impressive report and it is one which the Socialists will be happy to support for the most part.
It will bring about substantial improvements in the emissions from very large combustion plants, usually burning coal or oil, which make such a substantial contribution to the amounts of sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxides that go into the air, which cause acid rain and which have health effects upon human beings, such as asthma.
<P>
This is not just a question of controlling these plants by one particular means - there are other means to controls these plants as well.
There is pollution control - and I was the rapporteur some years ago, on measures which are now being implemented to control emissions.
There are also the negotiations on the national emissions ceilings limits which we are expecting the Commission to bring forward as quickly as possible.
These two together will exert an effective and proper control.
<P>
Parliament's report and the amendments tabled tend to extend the scope of the directive and make the limits with which both existing and future plants must comply more stringent.
I do not think it is a particular problem for new plants to comply with these regulations though I recognise that there are problems for some of the older plants.
It is therefore our suggestion that a little more time is given to them, a reasonable timescale in which the necessary investment can be made so that these plants can comply.
<P>
As regards extensions to the scope elsewhere, I would draw the Commissioner's attention to the deletion of some of the exemptions, with regard to offshore plant and with regard to some of the large gas turbines used in mobile machinery etc. where, again, the emissions are significant and need to be addressed, recognising of course the particular circumstances that exist in those cases.
<P>
I am very conscious of the issue already mentioned by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, that if we try too hard to set very tight limits, many Member States fear that we will be dictating their energy policy to them, which, of course, is not our right as a Parliament.
For that reason we have to recognise that and recognise that we have to give a degree of flexibility within this proposal.
Coupling this proposal with the national emissions ceilings limits and with IPPC we can do that.
The whole thing has to be taken in that context.
<P>
Finally, I believe that we will get a result, after second reading, where we have substantial improvements in emissions from these plants, where we have substantial improvements in the environment and in the air quality around these plants.
I recommend this proposal to the House.
<P>
One last comment.
I have visited large combustion plants in two or three different states in the Union, particularly in my own, the UK.
I have not seen anything that is stone-age and I would invite Mrs Oomen-Ruijten to visit, perhaps, the Drax power station in Yorkshire.
She will see that it is her knowledge of the industry which is prehistoric and not the plant that is operating.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Virgin">
Mr President, first of all I should like to congratulate Mrs Oomen-Ruijten on an excellent report.
Some time ago, Parliament approved another report concerning future strategies for dealing with the acidification of soil and water.
One of its objectives was to resolve the problem of acidification by 2015, when emissions were to have reached a level that nature could accommodate.
The Commission agreed with the line taken by Parliament.
To achieve that objective, however, we have to tighten up the requirements, for example as regards combustion.
This report, with the stricter measures proposed by Parliament, is a step in the right direction.
Furthermore, the Commission has carried out extensive studies into the effects of combustion emissions.
Of course, it is not just their effect on the environment that is a major cause for concern; people's health is also at risk.
<P>
A comparative study of coal combustion with flue gas cleaning and nuclear power, carried out over a ten-year period, shows that 20 000 lives have been saved as a result of reduced emission levels achieved by using nuclear power in the EU.
The proposal concerning the premature phasing-out of nuclear power therefore has some very serious implications for both the environment and people's health.
<P>
I am also convinced that the use of economic instruments, for example taxes on sulphur and nitrogen emissions, could serve to improve developments and in practice tighten up our existing requirements.
Taxes of this kind have been a great success in Sweden.
Trading of emission rights might also be worth investigating, since this practice can have a beneficial effect on the environment at a low cost.
<P>
The burning of fossil fuels also produces large amounts of carbon dioxide which contributes to the greenhouse effect - possibly the most serious problem.
In any event, it is a sign that we should cut back on the burning of fossil fuels as much as possible.
This is also an area in which the trading of emission rights provides a means of achieving some stability in our efforts to reach the requirements laid down in the Kyoto Protocol.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gahrton">
Mr President, acidification still presents a serious threat to Europe's forests.
In Germany, 67 % of the forests are exposed to acid emissions containing sulphur dioxide and nitrogen compounds which exceed the critical level.
In France, 22 % of forest areas are affected.
There are of course other countries whose forests are relatively unaffected, for example Spain, where the corresponding figure is only 1 %.
But at the same time, emissions from Spain contribute to the acidification of an area five times the size of its own forest areas.
Moreover, nine EU countries are net contributors to the acidification of areas outside their own borders, while five countries - Germany, France, Austria, Sweden and Finland - contaminate in this way an area smaller than that of their own forests.
<P>
These figures show that emissions from large combustion plants create a problem which should be a priority for common, supranational regulation.
It is therefore a good thing that the Commission has submitted this directive, even though it is not nearly strict enough.
Parliament's proposal on the other hand, in the shape of the Oomen-Ruijten report, comes significantly closer to what is required from both an objective and an environmental point of view.
For the most part, the Greens can therefore endorse the Oomen-Ruijten report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Estevan Bolea">
I really must take the floor because Mr Gahrton has made a number of unfounded statements in the short time he had available.
<P>
The problem of emissions does not affect Spain, as one third of its energy is hydroelectric and another third nuclear.
I would advise you to do some research, Mr Gahrton, and not to talk any more nonsense.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, large combustion plants account in total for 63 % of sulphur dioxide and 21 % of nitrogen oxide emissions in the European Union.
SO2 and NOx are the principal causes of acid rain and they are hazardous to health.
So it is very important that emissions of these substances should be reduced as a result of this proposal.
I am therefore pleased that the European Commission is also applying the directive to gas turbines.
However, there must not be derogations for off-shore platforms.
<P>
Given that existing technology allows SO2 emissions to be cut to 100 mg per cubic metre, a general emission limit value of 200 mg per cubic metre certainly warrants support from Parliament.
Standards for NOx emissions can also be tightened up.
An essential point made in the report is that existing large combustion plants too must ultimately comply with the emission limits, since these plants as a whole are responsible for much of the pollutant emissions.
Otherwise, the measures will not have any substantially discernible effects in terms of cleaner and healthier air.
<P>
Lastly, very dirty fuels must not be given an advantage in the form of higher emission limits.
Rigorous standards apply to waste incinerators, but the emissions caused by the burning of fossil fuels may also impair air quality, and consequently public health.
This proposal represents a major advance, and I am grateful to Mrs Oomen-Ruijten for her hard work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Hulthén">
Mr President, on the way here, most people presumably came along the corridor where an exhibition of pictures from my home region is on display.
One can see images of nature with water, animals and snow.
It looks clean and healthy.
Unfortunately, most of what you see is pretty much dead as a result of acidification and pollution imported from afar - from countries and regions which shall be nameless, but which are certainly very much aware of the fact that within their borders they have large combustion plants which are making these beautiful images virtually lifeless, in spite of appearances.
<P>
The Oomen-Ruijten report is therefore particularly relevant for my home region, for the survival of both animals and plants, as well as for the streams and everything else that is touched by acidification.
I am therefore pleased to note that the majority in the Environment Committee has actually had the good sense to support the rapporteur's proposals to tighten up the requirements contained in the directive.
I would refer in particular to the proposal that the directive should be extended to cover existing plants, an aspect which the Council obviously has not been able to tackle adequately.
<P>
The existing plants are responsible for a considerable proportion of the emissions.
Should the Oomen-Ruijten proposal be adopted, it would mean a reduction in sulphur dioxide emissions of 1 to 1.5 million tonnes a year.
That is equivalent to between 10 and 15 times Sweden's total output of sulphur emissions.
By comparison, the United Kingdom spews out 2 million tonnes every year.
<P>
It would therefore be virtual madness to wait for a further five years until these combustion plants stop of their own accord.
Of course there are objections: the proposal would cost money - but the technology is there.
We know that it would be expensive for all of us, because we all have these plants.
But the benefits would be incalculable.
I only hope that more people in the House can be persuaded to think about saving more lives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, when we recommend new limit values for combustion plant emissions, we have to examine emissions as a whole, and pay special attention to the impact of regulations on the generation of greenhouse gases.
There is a proposal in Amendment 19 for longer time limits when abatement equipment malfunctions or breaks down.
The twenty-four hours proposed by the Commission is by no means enough for equipment to cool down, to discover what the problem is, for the repairs to be carried out, and for the equipment to be started up again.
This is especially true if problems happen to arise at a time when the plant is being manned by fewer people than is normal, such as at night, on public holidays or at the weekend.
If the time limit is not changed an efficient, modern power plant will have to be closed down temporarily virtually whenever there is a problem, and replaced with plant that cannot match it in terms of its ability to protect air quality.
This cannot be in the spirit of the proposal for a directive.
<P>
At Community level we want to promote both the increased use of biofuels and combined heat and power production, to minimise greenhouse emissions.
To attain these goals higher emission limits should be permitted for biofuels, as the proposal prescribes, and the air protection requirements for small combustion plants must be technically and economically reasonable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Mr President, many speakers here have said that we still have a lot to do before our air quality objectives are achieved, although they are objectives we are committed to both as a Community and individually as Member States.
We therefore have to do everything we possibly can, and one indication that we can do more than the Commission has been prepared to is this report on large combustion plants which has been produced by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
<P>
I believe the most important aspect of the report is that it includes old plants - those which came into use before 1987 - in its provisions concerning harmonised legislation and limit values.
Without this, this directive would be fairly hollow, as these plants have a long lifespan, and if we did not extend the directive to include old plants, the effects on emissions into the air would be nil.
I therefore wholeheartedly support the proposal that old plants should be included.
<P>
But we also have to make sure that these rules are extended to the applicant countries, as we cannot allow any sort of freeloading in this area.
Obviously, resources have to be allocated to achieve this goal.
I also believe we must improve methods for exploiting biofuels and for combined heat and power production, but, as far as biofuels are concerned, I believe it is essential that they should be subject to the same limit values as apply to other fuels.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 NAME="Pollack">
Mr President, a technical directive being is amended and there are many aspects being addressed by different speakers.
Problems concerning older plants obviously depend on which energy source is used by which Member State, and these vary enormously.
We know that existing large combustion plants are responsible for about two-thirds of the EU sulphur dioxide pollution and nearly a quarter of nitrogen oxides, and these have very serious effects on health and the environment.
Therefore this revision is urgently needed.
I very much favour trying to move to more cogeneration, as other Members have mentioned.
<P>
However, as rapporteur on air quality, I wish to concentrate on two main aspects.
The first is covered in Amendment No 1 which links what has been done in this directive to the still-awaited long-term ozone strategy.
The aim of this must be to bring harmful emissions from these plants in line and to below the level of critical loads.
If we fail in this, we are doubly failing, both in protecting the environment and in protecting public health.
Although we do not yet have the ozone strategy because of the paralysis in the Commission, we know that sooner or later the emissions limit values will have to come in line with it.
We need to make it plain to the new Commission, when it is sworn in, that the ozone strategy and the national emissions ceiling, that Mr Bowe mentioned, are urgently needed.
<P>
My second point relates to Amendment No 15, which argues for greater public information.
This is the same approach we took in the daughter directives on air pollution.
Some people do not seem to like public information very much but the people who live near these large combustion plants need to be fully aware of whether their health is at risk from increased air pollution.
<P>
I commend them to the House and trust that they will have the support both of the Commission and, more importantly, of the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Linkohr">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to thank the rapporteur, and not least for the courage she has shown here to withstand conflict, because of course we do have conflicts on this question.
It is certainly true that because of the liberalisation of the internal electricity market we also need to harmonise environmental legislation.
That is an important step forward.
Hopefully it will be the first of many!
<P>
Paradoxically, however, harmonisation in turn results in distortion of competition.
I will explain this using the example of NOx emissions.
Let us assume that NOx emissions are equal to 200 mg/m3 .
In the case of large plants, technological improvements can definitely be made.
I understand that.
But for coal, and in particular lignite, this means an increase in the price of electricity of between one and two German pfennigs.
That is not a negligible amount. These producers might well be forced out of the market as a result.
This will mean the end of the competitive advantage - or the fair terms of competition - which they have enjoyed hitherto.
Incidentally, producers of nuclear energy will be pleased about this, since nuclear energy will not be affected and will thus be relatively cheaper.
Anyone who advocates it will certainly be pleased.
<P>
If we want to have fair terms of competition, however, we must at least bear this in mind.
In Germany, the rule is 200 mg/m3 .
When it was introduced, it required considerable investment; it was fairly expensive.
People can live with that.
If we now want to bring it down to 100 - and from a technical point of view, this is no problem for gas - it will mean a corresponding increase in price.
In terms of competition, this means being forced out of the market.
What will happen then?
Then the regions concerned will receive regional aid from the European Union or the nation state.
The taxpayer will pay for it in the form of regional aid.
That cannot be the intention!
<P>
I believe, therefore, that we need to strike a balance here.
I do not say this lightly, because of course I know that clean air is always better than dirtier air.
But 200 mg/m3 is, I believe, a perfectly appropriate value, and we should stick to it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schleicher">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to express my particular thanks to the rapporteur, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, a member of my group, for presenting the report and for her careful work.
For many Members, including some in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, the limit values put forward by the rapporteur for reducing emissions of certain pollutants from large combustion plants up to the year 2005 went too far.
We are hearing similar arguments in the discussion on car exhaust gases.
It is my impression that the technology is available to achieve these values.
Of course, it requires a considerable financial effort.
That is also why it is so important for us to promote, through the LIFE programme, the development of and scope for using modern technology which is able to achieve these aims and these limit values.
Who else, if not the European Parliament, would already be fighting to push through ambitious targets to reduce air pollution?
Up to now, it has been thanks entirely to the European Parliament that values and aims have been achieved which were frequently presented as being unattainable in the time available.
<P>
Mr Linkohr, you are familiar with the car debate.
Ladies and gentlemen, please do not forget that the Amsterdam Treaty enters into force on 1 May 1999.
Then we will also be consulted on this proposal under the codecision procedure, and will therefore have the possibility of pushing through not only what are admittedly quite ambitious demands for limit values for both sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, but also demands to include old plants, which have hitherto been ignored and which present a particularly urgent problem.
I would ask you to bear in mind that this is the first reading.
We shall then see how the Council responds, and in the second reading we will have to discuss where we go from there.
In my view, we should already be making proposals which are technically feasible, and then later we will have to calculate what goals we can achieve.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
There is one comment which I cannot leave hanging in the air, Mr President.
I have to repudiate the caricature which Mr Linkohr made of my proposal concerning NOx , on the basis of solid information which he too might perhaps obtain from RWE in Germany, because RWE checked my NOx figures and what I wrote down are figures ...
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 NAME="President">
I am sorry, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, but I have to cut you off.
I interrupted Mrs Estevan Bolea just now for the same reason: these are neither points of order nor questions to the Commission.
I can only allow Members to speak to make personal statements, and provided they are such, which I doubt to be the case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking in particular the Committee on the Environment and the rapporteur, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, for the very detailed consideration the proposal has received, in spite of the fact that we are discussing a very technical proposal.
As many speakers have emphasised here this evening, large combustion plants account for a substantial proportion of the emissions of sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxides in the EU.
Precisely because of the extent of these emissions, and because they are transnational, it is necessary to have solutions at EU level, and it is also vital to ensure that EU legislation is brought up to date.
That is why this proposal was one of the elements of the Community's pollution strategy, which several speakers have also referred to.
<P>
In many areas, the Commission is able to support what are constructive amendments.
The European Parliament is right to refer to the aim of the Community's pollution strategy, so the Commission is able to accept Amendment No 1.
I share the view expressed by both Mr Bowe and Mrs Pollack that we need the two proposals which were ready to be presented and which will now have to wait until a new Commission has reached a decision on them.
<P>
The Commission understands very well the European Parliament's interest in allowing economic instruments to be considered as a means of reducing emissions of sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxides, as expressed in Amendment No 3.
We shall be able to consider the possible use of such instruments against the background of the development of the proposal for energy taxes, so I shall not say any more on that subject.
We have discussed it several times.
<P>
The Commission supports the European Parliament's wish that technological development should continue to have an impact on large combustion plants, and is able to accept Amendment No 5 in principle.
How the committee's aims can best be met in this respect must be considered against the background of how the directive on integrated pollution prevention and control is implemented in this sector.
The Commission also agrees that information about the environmental impact of large combustion plants should be readily available.
From this point of view, the Commission is able to accept Amendment No 15, which Mrs Pollack in particular referred to, in so far as it can be achieved through the register of polluting emissions which is under development.
<P>
The Commission is still working on a proposal for a directive on national emission ceilings, which I mentioned before.
It is a vital part of the Commission's strategy for combating acidification and tropospheric ozone and for the protection of human health.
This will set national limits for emissions of a number of pollutants.
They will be cost-effective at EU level, and will be determined on the basis of the relationship between the emissions and their environmental impact.
This will give Member States the opportunity to achieve the required reductions in emissions in the most cost-effective way, while at the same time the EU's environmental targets will be met. Consequently, the current proposal only covers new plants which receive operating licences after 1 January 2000.
Against this background, the Commission does not consider it appropriate to extend the scope of the proposal to also cover existing plants.
This affects a number of amendments, and I shall list the ones we cannot accept. These are Amendments Nos 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 to 18, 20 and 21.
<P>
The proposed emission limit values are intended as ambitious minimum requirements to be met throughout the Community, which is something Mrs Oomen-Ruijten and Mr Bowe touched on in their speeches.
We have therefore chosen to set what are ambitious minimum requirements which must be met throughout the Community.
They are approximately twice as tough as the requirements contained in existing EU legislation.
Even tougher emission limit values can be used if they are justified by local circumstances or are necessary to meet national emission ceilings.
Therefore, the Commission does not consider it appropriate to accept Amendments Nos 7, 9, 11 and 13, although it has noted the European Parliament's wish to see tougher minimum requirements at EU level.
I am quite sure this is a question we will return to later in the procedure.
Amendments Nos 2, 4, 6, 19, 22 and 23 cannot be accepted for technical and other reasons.
<P>
In conclusion, I would like to express my satisfaction with the report.
The European Parliament has shown a very constructive approach which can form a sound basis for discussions as the legislative procedure progresses.
We are convinced that through its attitude, the European Parliament will help to bring us closer to the goals we are all aiming for, which are to combat acidification and tropospheric ozone and to improve public health.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Waste incineration
<SPEAKER ID=192 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0183/99) by Mr Blokland, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Directive on the incineration of waste (COM(98)0558 - C4-0668/98-98/0289(SYN)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, the report now before us deals with the directive on waste incineration and is important for two reasons: firstly for the health of people living close to waste incinerators, electricity generating plants and cement kilns; and secondly for air quality in the European Union as a whole.
The main culprits are the pollutant substances sulphur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, small particulates, dioxins and furans.
When fully implemented, the European Commission proposal will cut dioxin emissions from 2 400 g to 10 g per year.
The new Commission proposal is a good one, but can be improved in one or two respects.
<P>
The Commission's proposal for the incineration of municipal waste covers both hazardous and non-hazardous waste.
Given that there is still a Commission proposal pending to amend the directive on the incineration of hazardous waste, it makes sense to combine the two directives.
The clear advantage is consistent emission standards, because the distinction between hazardous and non-hazardous waste is based primarily on criteria applying to the collection, storage, transportation, management and processing of waste materials prior to incineration.
During incineration, 'non-hazardous' waste may be transformed into hazardous substances which pollute the air.
By and large, these are the same compounds as those generated during the incineration of hazardous waste, in other words what goes out of the plant is more important than what goes in.
Clear rules are needed for what goes out, in the form of emission limits.
<P>
Combining the two directives will not lead to a different regime for incineration from what we have at present.
It will not be the case that hazardous waste previously incinerated only in specialist plants can suddenly be incinerated in just any plant.
Certain hazardous wastes have to be incinerated at a temperature of 1 100ºC to prevent the formation of dioxins.
Keeping these directives separate will be of no benefit at all to the environment.
On the contrary, if we do not combine the directives, this may lead to less rigorous standards for hazardous wastes than for municipal waste.
Amendments Nos 7, 9, 15, 18, 19, 56 and 61 are needed to make the new directive applicable to hazardous waste as well.
These amendments are derived from Directive 94/67/EC on the incineration of hazardous waste.
<P>
The Environment Committee urges the European Commission to do its utmost to persuade the Council to adopt the common position on a single directive in June.
Care must also be taken over emissions where waste is co-incinerated.
Ultimately, the same emission standards must apply to any plant which burns waste.
The committee takes the view that electricity generating plants and cement kilns should be able to co-incinerate waste, provided they meet the relevant emission standards.
The new Commission proposal lays down sound rules for the co-incineration of municipal waste in cement kilns.
The same rules must apply to hazardous waste burned in them.
This means that cement kilns will for a time be subject to standards which are less strict.
<P>
The necessary investment for cement kiln fume cleaning can be funded by the large profit generated by taking in hazardous waste and savings on fuel costs.
Given that NOx emissions must be kept as low as possible, many plants will need a NOx reduction unit.
These units use ammonia to remove the NOx .
This process needs to be tightly controlled to prevent ammonia being released into the atmosphere.
The Environment Committee is therefore proposing a standard for ammonia in Amendments Nos 24, 36, 38 and 41.
<P>
Lastly, I hear reports that there are still a lot of incinerators which do not comply with the 1989 directives, particularly French combustion plants.
These plants thus need to invest in order to meet the new requirements of this directive.
One advantage is that these plants only need to make the investment once, in other words it can all be done at one fell swoop.
I would urge the Commission and the European Environment Agency to be strict in monitoring compliance with the current and future directives.
<P>
To sum up, Mr President, Commissioner, in order to ensure better health for people living close to incineration plants and also to ensure better air quality throughout the European Union, it is necessary to have one directive for the incineration of hazardous and municipal waste, which provides tighter rules on co-incineration and applies realistic standards to the emission of pollutant substances.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Jensen, Kirsten">
Mr President, waste is not an aim of production, although the amount of waste produced might well give that impression.
We dump waste and we incinerate it, neither of which is good for the environment.
I would like to thank Mr Blokland for the excellent work he has done on the report and the firm stance he has taken for the good of the environment.
It is clear that pollution has a great effect on human health.
One example is dioxins, which are a typical emission from incineration.
Many women in Europe have high concentrations of dioxins in their breast milk.
There is also some concern that dioxins interfere with hormones.
This proposal on incineration brings the hope of a higher level of protection through a fall in dioxin emissions.
<P>
The report by the Committee on the Environment combines two directives - on incineration of municipal waste and incineration of hazardous waste.
The idea of combining these directives is that the incineration of waste can create a pollution problem regardless of the type of waste being incinerated.
In addition, there was a risk that Europe could have had tougher limit values for the incineration of municipal waste than for hazardous waste, if we had allowed the Commission's division of the areas to continue as presented to us.
There could perhaps also be a risk of cheating in the classification of waste.
The Commission's proposal on municipal waste mentions kinds of waste which to the best of my belief are hazardous, such as waste oil and hospital waste.
<P>
Emissions from waste incineration, such as sulphur, nitrous oxides, dioxins and soot, should be treated in the same way, regardless of what is being incinerated.
There has been a great deal of concern about co-incineration and the cement industry, and as a compromise we have chosen to maintain the three categories: dedicated incinerators, co-incineration and cement kilns.
But the point is that they should all comply with tighter emission standards.
We will not allow a loophole for a kind of waste tourism which could undermine the economy of the dedicated incinerators.
So co-incineration, including in the cement industry, must comply with the requirements for tough emission values.
<P>
Let me stress that we are still in favour of treating different kinds of waste differently.
That is why critics who say that the combining of these two directives will lead to less protection for the environment are mistaken.
You only have to read the text to see that different demands are made within the framework of the directive.
<P>
The Commission should also follow up the waste strategy which has been adopted, where we stress the importance of recycling and reuse.
If there was a requirement for the pre-sorting of waste through waste management plans, we could save raw materials and have less air pollution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Florenz">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I wish to thank the rapporteur for his dedicated work.
In 1994, I had the good fortune to be rapporteur for the directive on the incineration of hazardous waste.
At that time, we proposed some extremely strict limit values, as I still believe we should be doing today.
Results now show that of the 15 Member States of the European Union, 13 have not incorporated the strict values decided upon at that time into national law.
Two countries have transposed them, with the result that these countries and these companies have invested a great deal of money and will probably have to do so once again if we reach different conclusions today.
I therefore believe that it is absolutely right to set strict values, but that we have to do this seriously, and that obviously the concerns about health, which I fully share, must also be taken into account.
<P>
I do not, however, consider it to be a particularly good thing that some countries and therefore some incineration plant operators abide by the rules and obey the laws in Europe and have spent a great deal of money, for example in France, but in my own country too - and I would be happy to show you this, Mr Blokland, after all you do not live so far away - while others have done nothing at all, and I do not see why, with these new values, some of which you want to halve, these others should now be able to save themselves the cost of the first investment.
That is a competition policy which I cannot support.
I therefore believe that we should adopt a cautious but strict approach here.
That is why I am very much in favour of the best available technology being used. But Mr Blokland should please define the 'best available technology' in Europe for me.
It will not do for some to define it in one way, and others in a different way.
<P>
That is also why I have criticised the issue of measuring methods.
If we prescribe figures here, then we must also prescribe how we measure, when we measure and where we measure.
Here too, there are enormous differences in Europe.
Co-incineration is a good thing, if it is carried out properly - I support it.
But different values must apply here, because there are two combustion components: on the one hand the combustion of oil or waste, and on the other hand that of ores.
There must be a rule for this.
The old mixed formula was not too bad.
The present Commission proposal is more stringent, and I support it because it makes sense.
<P>
If we go along with Mr Blokland's proposals, I believe that in the long term the sensible process of co-incineration in cement kilns will be banned, and that does not make any sense at all, precisely from the point of view of environment policy, because they will still have to use gas or coal, and you want to ban that too.
Proper co-incineration in accordance with strict standards is therefore the right way forward.
In this context, I would like to see not only standards but also measuring procedures, because we do not have any of these in Europe.
In this respect, we are back in a federalist system where everyone does what they want.
That is precisely the point which I should like you to bear in mind, Mr Blokland, and which I would ask you to reconsider.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Mr President, the prediction is that in the year 2000 we shall burn 50 million tonnes of waste.
That is of course an enormous quantity.
So we shall need a lot more incineration plants.
Incineration must not be the ultimate aim.
As we all know, the priorities are first to prevent waste and then reprocess or recycle it, and only then to incinerate it.
But the bottom line is that we shall have 50 million tonnes of waste to deal with in the year 2000.
I think the Commission proposal makes sense, but above all, we as Liberals welcome Mr Blokland's proposals to tighten things up.
I have two comments to make.
<P>
I agree with the rapporteur that the two incineration directives should be combined, that is to say non-hazardous waste and waste which may be hazardous must be combined, but only of course on condition that Amendments Nos 7, 15 and 18 are adopted, and I hope the European Commission will respond positively to those amendments.
If they are adopted, existing legal loopholes will be closed once these two directives are combined.
<P>
Lastly, I turn to the cement industry.
Everyone has been talking about the cement industry.
Everyone has been busy visiting cement kilns.
At the moment, the cement industry processes a lot of waste, hazardous waste.
It is highly profitable for cement kilns to co-incinerate waste.
And I agree with Mr Blokland that this additional income and the savings on fuel costs can be put to good use to fund cleaner working methods.
The cement industry too must comply with the strict emission standards.
I do not think derogations are appropriate, especially in view of the fact which Mr Florenz mentioned just now, that this standard of 500 mg NOx per cubic metre is already met in the Netherlands, Austria and Germany.
Why not encourage the other countries to emulate these three countries which have already met the standard?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cabrol">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the incineration of waste has already been the subject of various European directives, the most recent of which is Directive 94/67/EC, which deals in particular with the incineration of hazardous waste.
<P>
The proposal for a Council directive concerns the incineration of waste that is not covered by this directive, that is, non-hazardous waste, such as urban waste and certain other types of hazardous waste that are excluded from the scope of the previous directive.
<P>
We shall not dwell at length on the numerous amendments that were tabled, but we would like to protest strongly against those tabled by the rapporteur which seek to merge the two directives on hazardous and non-hazardous waste into one.
The rapporteur bases this proposal on two arguments.
The first of these is the desire to ensure an administrative simplification of the texts, and therefore have one directive instead of two.
As Mr Florenz said, the directive on hazardous waste has not yet actually been transposed into the legislation of all the Member States, and in amending it, by merging it to some extent, we would ensure more confusion rather than simplification.
<P>
The second argument put forward is that the limit values, the quantities of emissions from residues, are very similar.
In actual fact, it is not just the limit values that are important.
The handling, management and treatment of both categories of waste - hazardous and non-hazardous waste - vary a great deal.
A genuine waste treatment policy requires selective sorting and treatment, rather than an anachronistic and anarchic mixing of waste.
If waste were to be mixed in this way, it would result in hazardous waste being incinerated in incinerators used for household refuse.
This is all the more likely since some Member States have equipped themselves with oversized incinerators for household refuse, and they would be tempted to make use of this extra capacity by filling the incinerators with hazardous waste.
Such a course of action would be unacceptable, because it would represent a serious risk to the health of the people living in the vicinity and to the area that surrounds the incinerators.
<P>
The text presented by the rapporteur is quite vague about the need for and the specific nature of the controls for incoming waste, as well as the specific nature of its reception and storage, staff training, and so on. This is to say nothing of the difficulties for manufacturers of monitoring the treatment of their waste and clarifying their responsibilities.
<P>
I should like to finish by saying that the proposal to merge the directives on hazardous and non-hazardous products contained in the rapporteur's text seems to be completely unreasonable and a source of grave danger.
We should also like to point out that if we fail to distinguish between the specific nature of co-incineration plants, co-incineration would be banned, which would be catastrophic for the industries involved and the fossil fuels saved as a result of using this waste as fuel.
<P>
Finally, we are against certain amendments that call for controls that are too stringent with regard to emission standards.
These measures would require significant and costly investments but would not have any real benefits for the environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lannoye">
Mr President, on behalf of my group, I should like to thank the rapporteur who has produced an excellent piece of work.
We have complete respect for the political line he is proposing with regard to both co-incineration and linking the two directives.
However, we believe that some of our amendments that have been rejected by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection are essential and I should like to say a few words about them.
<P>
Firstly, I would like to mention the problem of discharges into the aquatic environment.
It is abnormal not to demand zero discharges into the aquatic environment.
The European Commission already proposed such a measure in its draft directive on the incineration of hazardous waste in 1992.
That being the case, we might wonder about the reasons for a backwards step in this area and the fact that the main political groups in this House have not supported our proposal.
In fact, all the evidence points to the need for such a stringent measure.
I would point out in particular that when Mr White's report on the framework directive on water was adopted a few months ago, we agreed to eventually - and by 2020 at the latest - make a zero rate the requirement for discharges of any dangerous substance into the aquatic environment.
An initial step would consist of adopting a measure to that effect for plants which cause as much concern as incineration plants.
<P>
The second aspect I should like to mention is the problem of dioxin.
We know that dioxins represent the main problem posed by incinerators, whether they are used for hazardous waste or household waste.
Less than a year ago, the WHO published new recommendations on the acceptable daily limit values of substances that can be ingested by human beings.
This means that 10 picograms per kilo of body weight would be reduced to a minimum of 1 picogram - that is, ten times less - and a maximum of 4 picograms.
I would point out that in many European countries, and particularly in my own country, Belgium, these limits have already been exceeded.
<P>
We therefore take the view that for new plants we must aim from the outset for dioxin emission limits that are below the detection limit.
Naturally, this requires some improvements to be made to the older plants, but we need to set ourselves a target of zero dioxin emissions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pinel">
Mr President, it is clear that incineration capacity requirements are constantly increasing, but it is wrong to automatically present the burial of waste as an anti-ecological concept.
In fact, there is no such thing as beneficial incineration and harmful discharges.
<P>
Incineration which is not controlled properly is just as dangerous - and even more so - for our health and for the environment as the random dumping of waste.
An example of this is PVC, which is completely inert when it is buried, but which releases highly toxic by-products of chlorine when it is burned. It also contains dioxins and a long list of molecules whose effects on the human body we are not even fully aware of.
<P>
Finally, one thing is clear.
By its very nature and for reasons of profitability, incineration conflicts with recycling.
In order to function properly, whether it be technically or financially, it needs to burn more and more fuel.
This is obviously not the way to combat the use of excess packaging or save raw materials.
<P>
Conversely, technical burial is entirely in keeping with a genuine recycling policy, all the more so because there are not many possible sites and they can therefore only be used for a limited period of time.
<P>
On the other hand, we do not look on energy recovered from incineration as recycled energy.
It is a matter of making the end waste products viable, and nothing more than that.
For example, the energy conserved when recycling a plastic bottle is ten times greater than the energy saved when incinerating the same plastic bottle.
<P>
Mr Blokland's report is an excellent piece of work, and we shall be voting in favour of it, but incineration must remain first and foremost a method of processing final waste, once all the possible operations for sorting and recycling it have been carried out.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="President">
We shall suspend the debate at this point.
It will be resumed at 9 p.m.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 7 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Waste incineration (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=201 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report (A4-0183/99) by Mr Blokland, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Directive on the incineration of waste (COM(98)0558 - C4-0668/98-98/0289(SYN)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Virgin">
Madam President, I agree wholeheartedly with Mr Blokland that the incineration of waste should be carried out in such a way that emission levels generally correspond to those we deem acceptable in the burning of biofuels and fossil fuels.
If incineration can be carried out with strict emission requirements and the efficient use of energy, then the incineration of waste represents a satisfactory means of disposal.
We are using a resource that is virtually comparable with a biofuel, and thereby helping to combat global warming.
And compared with the dumping of waste, we can also help to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gas methane.
<P>
As is pointed out in the report, it is obviously very much better to sort and recycle or reuse waste.
However, it is important for there to be careful studies of what is best for the environment, since research of this kind often shows that, in spite of everything, incineration can be the best alternative.
<P>
In Sweden, the manufacture of pulp has traditionally used wood residues for burning in the manufacturing process.
In my opinion, this particular use should be exempted from the rules governing the incineration of waste.
It forms part of an industrial process for which such rules are not really appropriate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, firstly my compliments to Mr Blokland on his excellent report.
I have just one minute's speaking time, so I will confine myself to one specific point, namely the requirements which a new incineration plant has to meet.
I think it is important that new incineration plants must be kept a minimum distance away from densely populated areas, and I have tabled an amendment suggesting a minimum of two kilometres.
<P>
In my own country we face the proposed plant at Drogenbos near Brussels.
The limits for particulates and cadmium have already been exceeded, and still the government has given the green light to construction of what will be a new source of pollution.
The Commission has already brought an action against Belgium for infringement of the directive on environmental impact assessment.
My country's policy on incineration plants is anything but exemplary.
Proceedings are also under way on irregularities in the implementation of existing directives on incinerators.
<P>
I would like to use this debate as an opportunity of asking the Commissioner firstly how these infringements are being dealt with, but above all how things stand with the complaints about Drogenbos.
I should be grateful if the Commissioner could provide some answers to these questions today or, failing that, as swiftly as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 NAME="Collins, Gerard">
Madam President, I do not support the integration of the two directives - namely on municipal waste, waste oil, solvents and clinical waste, as well as other non-hazardous waste - into one composite European piece of legislation.
Agreeing to the integration of the two directives would amount to allowing hazardous waste to be burnt in plants intended for household waste, and vice versa.
<P>
For more than 20 years European policy in respect of waste management has been based on the principle of treating hazardous industrial waste and household and similar waste in a different way.
Each category of waste should be subject to treatment which is specific to it.
From an Irish perspective, we generate over 42 million tonnes of waste each year.
In the light of Ireland's strong economic growth, we must ensure that resources are invested in alternative waste-management schemes.
<P>
The future of waste disposal must not and cannot lie in the continued search for more landfill up and down the length and breadth of our country.
Investment in a clean environment in my country will in the medium to long term justify any additional expenditure incurred and the European Union will support any innovative measures in this regard.
<P>
The Irish Government is presently putting together a national development plan outlining our economic and social investment priorities for the seven-year period post-1999.
Included in this plan must be a comprehensive and integrated proposal that deals with the issue of eliminating the use of landfill sites in Ireland in the medium to long term.
The facts speak for themselves in this regard: only 8 % of all municipal waste is recycled in my country.
This figure is simply too low.
The cost of disposal of this waste would drain the resources of our local authorities in terms of landfill sites, transport and manpower, and there is also the loss to the economy of the valuable materials which were dumped.
For example, it is estimated that over 70 million polyester bottles are sold in Ireland each year and the improper disposal of even a very small proportion of these could make a significant contribution to environmental litter.
Recycling rates for polyester bottles of up to 70 % have been achieved in Germany and the Netherlands to date.
Recycling saves on energy, raw materials, waste-disposal costs, import bills and the need for landfill sites.
As a people we need to develop a recycling mentality, which is now commonplace in all the European Union Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 NAME="McKenna">
Madam President, it is very regrettable that the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has voted to allow even higher levels of dioxins than the Commission had proposed, when you consider that dioxins are one of the most toxic substances known to man.
In a number of cases, women who live near incinerators were told not to breast-feed their babies because of the amount of dioxins in their breast milk.
It is an extremely dangerous situation that we have here.
The Greens want to see a lot of improvement on this report before it is accepted.
<P>
The last speaker is a member of a political party in Ireland that is in government.
They have done nothing about the waste problem in Ireland.
Until now they have landfilled massive amounts of waste; basically, pushed it away so that it would not be seen.
Now they are talking about incineration.
It is clear that incineration of waste is not the solution.
They are not coming up with ways of reducing the amount of waste: separating, reusing, recycling.
Incineration means you have to encourage waste production to make it viable.
It does not mean that you get rid of waste.
You are incinerating it but it does not vanish into thin air without any consequences.
You have serious dioxin emissions.
You also have extremely toxic ash left afterwards.
<P>
The Irish Government really needs to get its act together.
Incineration is not the way to deal with our waste, as landfill was not the way in the past.
We have to look at the real options of dealing with waste: reduction, reuse, recycle.
Unless the Irish Government does that it is only going to encourage more production of waste to keep the incinerators viable.
That is not acceptable to the public in Ireland.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kronberger">
Madam President, the discussion about the incineration of waste and hazardous waste has shown once again how far our society still is from recognising the principle that the polluter should pay for environmental damage.
On the one hand, we have endless discussions about the competitive disadvantages that result for industry, particularly for the disposal industry.
On the other hand, it is exceptionally difficult to revise the limit values for highly toxic substances downwards.
Yet some countries, including Austria, have proved that it can be done.
<P>
Mr Blokland's excellent report is certainly a corrective to the Commission's draft.
In future, however, we will have no choice but to get involved in the basic discussion on the design of all production processes from the manufacture of a product to its final disposal.
The closest attention must be paid to ensuring that any products and resulting compounds whose disposal can have serious consequences, particularly illnesses, cannot be produced or put on the market in the first place.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graenitz">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am actually against waste incineration because I believe that it does not solve the problem, it merely shifts it elsewhere, and in the end the volume of waste may be reduced a little but does not disappear.
I would nevertheless like to congratulate Mr Blokland on his report and particularly on the patience he has shown, given that both these reports were in committee for a long time. I also believe that we still need waste incineration plants because we are still a long way from a circulation economy in which everything that is produced can be recycled or buried underground.
If we need such plants we must ensure that they affect our health as little as possible and that they protect the environment as much as possible.
For this reason I also believe that it is necessary to have more stringent limit values for emissions and to bring the limit values for the various types of incineration closer into line with each other.
<P>
I do not believe that we can expect someone living near a co-incineration plant to put up with different air quality than someone living near a municipal incineration plant or someone who does not live near an incineration plant.
So we must look to improve the values here.
I tried in committee to take a step in this direction by means of a number of amendments.
I would also like to comment on the combining of the two directives, which I believe is right and for which I would like to express my support.
In my view the fact that the same limit values apply for the incineration of hazardous and non-hazardous waste is not a step backwards in environmental terms; on the contrary, I believe that it makes the values for municipal waste incineration plants more stringent.
I also believe that it may make it possible to change the way in which hazardous waste is transported in small countries such as mine, where waste from Bregenz, which is closer to Paris than to Vienna, has to be brought to Vienna.
I would welcome that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Porto">
Madam President, the initiative now before us concerns a subject which raises particular passions in Portugal. We have with reason seen a very negative reaction in our country to the attempt by the Portuguese Government to allow two major national cement companies to co-incinerate toxic waste.
<P>
No one can be unaware of the need to solve the current problem. However, this cannot be solved at any price as it is essential to have a process which is 100 % safe and correct, both technically and legally.
<P>
To a certain extent which the rapporteur, Mr Blokland, is trying to determine, we must aim first of all to prevent, reuse and recycle waste, as other Members have said.
<P>
The problem is that some waste still needs to be incinerated and the use of existing installations is only permitted if there is an absolute guarantee that human health is not at risk.
This safeguard must be particularly borne in mind in the case of cement kilns. This is why we are fully supporting Amendment No 36 which rightly requires more than the Commission's proposal in Annex II.1.1.
<P>
It is also not acceptable, as underlined by the rapporteur, that some countries have less stringent regulations and therefore attract waste from other countries.
This is currently the situation with the cement works in Belgium which attract waste from Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany. This would have been the case with Portugal in relation to Spain if the Portuguese Government's initiative to encourage the national cement works to also burn the waste of their neighbouring country had gone ahead.
<P>
The following amendments, for example, must also be applauded: Amendment No 25 which deletes the provision that continuous measuring may be authorised instead of periodic measurements, and Amendment No 30 which specifies a more stringent requirement in Article 12 on the provision of information to the public on possible damage.
However, having said this, we must be particularly careful to ensure compliance with competition rules, perhaps by using rules with this specific aim, so that highly profitable contracts are not awarded without the necessary transparency, as has happened before.
<P>
If there is any doubt about the danger of co-incineration - its effects are difficult to identify and only perhaps become apparent in the long term - we must ensure that the waste is incinerated in special incinerators, away from any population centres, as has just been said.
Although these incinerators are expensive, their price is justified. They could be set up as joint ventures between neighbouring countries in order to share the costs.
This must happen in the Iberian Peninsula, in view of the scope provided by Portugal and Spain.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lienemann">
Madam President, the French Socialists are completely in favour of making standards more stringent and, in particular, of substantially improving the standards provided for in both directives to combat dioxin levels.
<P>
But we are totally opposed to merging the directives on hazardous waste and household refuse.
This is a matter of principle.
The protection of the environment is based on the precautionary principle.
However, mixing the two categories of waste creates great confusion, prevents hazardous waste from being traceable, and makes it very difficult to monitor and carry out controls, and we know that the processes for certain types of hazardous waste are highly specialised. In addition, it leads to serious risks for the quality of the environment and safety.
Indeed, in Europe we have already witnessed the catastrophic effects of mixing hazardous waste and household refuse in this way.
<P>
The second reason why we are against merging these two directives is that we do not believe that the protection of the environment has been the prevailing concern, but rather an economic interest.
The overcapacity of the kilns for household refuse in some countries tends to encourage these countries to allow household refuse to be mixed with hazardous waste.
We might therefore end up in a situation where hazardous waste will be processed as cheaply as possible, under conditions where it is not properly controlled, and where the transfer of waste within the European Union increases with all the risks that this entails.
<P>
To sum up, it seems to me that this is a step backwards in relation to the precautionary principle and the Union's environmental practice.
While we congratulate Mr Blokland on persevering in his efforts to convince Members, we cannot agree to the merger of the two directives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schleicher">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we must thank Mr Blokland particularly for the enormous work he has done, as we have now been working on the issue of waste incineration for one and a half years in committee to ensure that it is dealt with carefully.
<P>
I believe we all agree that there must be stringent guidelines for limit values for waste incineration.
However, a number of amendments pursue very ambitious objectives that I cannot support, as we must realise that they involve huge costs.
That would in turn create a new incentive - with record cases of avoidance and criminal offences - because waste disposal would then be extremely expensive.
<P>
I would like to comment further on the issue of the different types of waste.
In this area too we have witnessed significant abuse in the past because we did not have a uniform definition of waste, and because of the different definitions we were constantly faced with cases of avoidance.
In this respect I must say that in my view the idea of combining the two directives into one is not bad because it is much easier to work with one law than to have to comply with two different laws, and because it different rules and different interpretations.
In other words, I am in favour of a single directive but I am not in favour of all the strict guidelines that have been suggested, as these are not feasible.
On the other hand, it is high time that we had a clear policy on waste disposal, and I believe that we have created a good basis for this.
I am keen to see the outcome of tomorrow's vote, and I am also interested to know the Commissioner's views on the various amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Madam President, I strongly support Mr Blokland's report. I have just one observation to make.
Parliament has, quite rightly, presented its own addition to the Commission's proposal, stating that the directive should seek to impact on the common aim and hierarchical structure for European policy on waste: waste prevention, recycling and reuse, and its exploitation as an energy source.
However, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has approved the suggestion that untreated wood should not come within the scope of this directive, from which people might get the idea that it is only 'virgin' wood that is being referred to, but we would not even be able to burn or exploit sawdust or chips.
In my opinion, however, this is good quality biofuel, and there should be no sort of restriction on its use.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="Howitt">
Madam President, let me be clear: I support new regulation on incinerators tonight, not simply to protect people living nearby from suffering from the cancers and the birth defects which British and Japanese research have demonstrated, but to shift the economic balance towards recycling and reuse.
<P>
In Basildon, Braintree, Chelmsford, Colchester, Epping Forest and Rochford, our county council in Essex currently plans eight new major waste facilities, including incinerators, over-providing by some six times local waste generated, according to Friends of the Earth.
This is lunacy!
It consigns Essex to remain the waste-tip for London, it underestimates the potential for recycling by half, it threatens areas of natural beauty close to people's homes and to schools and sites of historic interest.
It is predicated on landfill at full capacity in ten years, whereas district councils project some thirty.
Like every major incinerator proposal it sends up in smoke not just the waste but the prospect of small recycling centres and the jobs with which they are associated.
<P>
In France the Ministry of Environment surveyed incinerator emissions last year and closed a number of its facilities.
Denmark too is switching from incineration to recycling.
America estimates that the greenhouse effect of a one per cent increase in recycling is equivalent to taking one million cars off the road.
Europe can and should follow suit.
Tonight's resolution, by regulating the incinerator, relegates it to the option of last resort, and gives hope to 10 000 individual people who have submitted objections in Essex.
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<SPEAKER ID=213 NAME="Bowe">
Madam President, I very much welcome the report and thank Mr Blokland for the work he has done.
<P>
I have been quite amazed by the amount of time this Parliament has spent over the years on the issue of waste incineration.
I go back to the times when we looked at this directive in the first place.
But in the end we have come up with something which is equitable, sensible and just.
We are going to impose tighter Commission limits on municipal waste because we recognise that when it is burned it is as dangerous as hazardous waste.
<P>
We are going to continue to ensure that there are additional requirements upon dangerous or hazardous waste disposal because it poses risks over and above that posed by municipal waste in terms of handling and other controls.
<P>
We must also take care to ensure that where co-incineration is proposed, it is used correctly and not abused or used covertly.
We must accept that there are some forms of hazardous waste that can be well disposed of in cement kilns and that is where it should go, but under the strictest of controls.
<P>
We must ensure that co-incineration does not undermine the economics of the industry and essentially stop the working, or close down the working, of dedicated hazardous waste incinerators whose use is absolutely essential for some forms of waste.
<P>
I would again like to thank Mr Blokland for the work he has done.
The Socialist Group will be supporting the vast majority of his amendments.
The combination of the two texts make sense.
We look forward to a successful second reading in Parliament after the elections.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Madam President, as a Socialist and Frenchman, I should just like to mention the great interest we have taken in the study of waste incineration and in the need to improve the standards in this area.
We also believe that it would be worthwhile if Europe provided more assistance to the countries or local authorities that have been making great efforts over the last few years to reduce the dangerous nature of incineration.
For this reason, we cannot support the co-incineration of household and hazardous or industrial waste.
We feel that there are still too many uncertainties and that we must continue to carry out studies in this area. Otherwise, some of our local authorities might end up with catastrophes if household and industrial waste are mixed in incinerators destined solely for household waste.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Madam President, the Commission would like to take this opportunity to thank the Committee on the Environment and in particular its rapporteur, Mr Blokland, for the efforts they have made and for the attention to detail with which the committee, and especially the rapporteur, have dealt with this very technical proposal.
The Commission has worked hard to be able to present a balanced proposal which can achieve a high level of protection for the environment and human health, while at the same time taking into account the special needs of incineration plants and co-incineration.
The combining of the two directives on incineration has been a very important point in the debate here this evening, and the report also quite rightly focuses on that.
From the Commission's point of view, the combining is a good thing because it satisfies the general demand for streamlined EU legislation.
I can therefore also say that I do not agree with the comments made by Mr Cabrol and Mrs Lienemann here today.
Neither the Commission's proposal nor Directive 94/67 contains any provision which prevents co-incineration of hazardous and non-hazardous waste.
<P>
We are therefore able to accept the amendments which Mr Blokland and Mr Eisma in particular underlined as important for their positions.
These are Amendments Nos 7, 9, 15, 18, 19, 24, 50, 56, 60 and 61, which we accept either in part, in principle or in full.
In addition to what the report says about the combining of Directive 94/67 and the Commission's proposal, we consider it necessary to introduce a transition period for existing plants for the incineration of hazardous waste, in accordance with Article 14 of Directive 94/67.
Parliament's Amendments Nos 8, 14, 23 and 55, which are aimed at including certain questions of waste management, are unacceptable on grounds of principle.
The aim of the Commission's proposal is to set emission limit values and operating conditions for all waste which is incinerated or co-incinerated, and not to interfere with the rules on waste management.
However, it is important that the recitals draw attention to the fact that incineration is only one of the ways in which waste can be treated.
The same applies to some of the comments which have been made here this evening, in other words that the Community has both specific and general rules for waste treatment.
We are therefore unable to accept Amendment No 1 for reasons of principle.
<P>
The Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 12, 16, 17, 21 and 22, which seek to introduce provisions on quality standards for air and water.
For this we already have legislation either in existence or under preparation, such as the IPPC directive or the proposal for a framework directive on water.
The proposed amendments would simply duplicate or encroach on these documents.
<P>
Then there are Amendments Nos 36, 37 and 43, which are aimed at changing the emission limit values which the Commission has proposed for co-incineration.
This is unacceptable, because the values the Commission has proposed are based on cost-benefit analyses and take into account the special characteristics of the various processes.
The Commission believes that the Member States and the operators concerned should have a certain amount of flexibility with regard to the recovery of heat.
It would not be realistic to demand that the heat produced by incineration should always be recovered.
This would be impossible for incineration plants in remote areas, for example.
Therefore we do not accept Amendments Nos 13 and 20.
<P>
We can accept in part, in principle or in full Amendments Nos 4, 10, 19, 24, 28, 33, 35, 56, 59 and 64, which we think clarify the Commission's intentions and otherwise improve the quality of the document.
For technical reasons, we have to reject a number of other amendments, including Amendments Nos 3, 6, 11, 25, 26, 30, 31, 32, 34, 38 to 41, 44 to 49, 51 to 54, 57, 58, 62, 63 and 65 to 71.
I received a specific question from Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens about Drogenbos.
I can say that three months ago we sent a letter of formal notice concerning the EIA directive. We have sought a reply to this letter and in the course of this week, during which the matter will be discussed in the Commission, we shall be proposing an additional letter of formal notice because the Flemish authorities issued planning permission after we had sent our letter.
<P>
Let me therefore conclude by saying that the Commission thinks that the proposal being dealt with here today, strengthened by the inclusion of those of Parliament's amendments which I have said that we accept, forms an effective and balanced basis for the control of incineration plants and co-incineration.
I am very pleased with the role which Parliament and the rapporteur, Mr Blokland, have played by taking the initiative to propose that certain existing legal requirements should be integrated into the Commission's proposal, thereby taking account of the general need for more streamlined legislation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Bjerregaard.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Financial instrument for the environment
<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0180/99) by Mrs Lienemann, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) concerning the financial instrument for the environment (LIFE) (COM(98)0720 - C4-0074/99-98/0336(SYN)).
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<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="Lienemann">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, LIFE is the only financial instrument the European Union has to intervene directly in the field of the environment.
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LIFE has been extremely successful because it is one of the Community programmes which give rise to many projects. In fact, there are many more projects than can be supported by the payment appropriations, and 98 % - even 100 % - of the appropriations are used.
This instrument is original in that it benefits the guiding principles of environmental policy.
The programme comprises three main components: LIFE-Nature, LIFE-Environment, and LIFE-Third Countries.
The breakdown of the appropriations is as follows: 47 % for LIFE-Nature, 47 % for LIFE-Environment, and 6 % for LIFE-Third Countries.
<P>
LIFE-Nature mainly accompanies the Community policies that are connected with the protection of the biotope, the conservation of wild species, the implementation of European directives - particularly the directive which protects migratory birds - or the Natura 2000 directive, and the protection of the natural habitats of different species of fauna and flora.
<P>
LIFE-Environment is geared more towards what could be termed urban ecology and industrial practices, particularly practices and technologies which are said to be 'clean'.
The actions implemented within this framework cover a wide range of areas from water policy to air pollution control.
LIFE-Third Countries provided an opportunity for applicant countries, enabling them to prepare to implement European environmental standards.
<P>
This new programme encompasses various objectives.
It is not a matter of radically changing its content; it is a matter of revising the corresponding regulation. The analysis of these programmes is very positive with regard to their impact and importance.
Yet, along with the conclusions of the experts, it reveals that we need to give more consideration to the results, make greater use of the programme as an accompanying instrument when drawing up our rules and European policies, and, more generally, increase the total appropriations allocated to accompanying measures. These would include increasing awareness of the instrument and good practices, exchanging information and experience, and producing a summary report.
That is why, generally speaking, the regulation states that the appropriations set aside for accompanying measures should be increased from 3 % to 5 %.
<P>
The regulation itself seeks to redefine the priorities, bring them together and make them clearer for those involved.
As a result, LIFE's broad guidelines in each of the sectors have been somewhat tightened up.
However, it has been proposed that guidelines should be introduced to help the authors of the projects make the specific priorities in each of the areas clearer.
<P>
LIFE is being implemented by the Commission's services with the help of a management committee made up of Council representatives and with the help of experts.
Given the numerous debates Parliament has had on the implementation of the budget for European programmes, I would stress that no technical assistance office was invoked in connection with this programme.
These are technical experts who support the Commission's services, and I think we all should be very pleased with the methodical and rigorous approach adopted by the Commission in this respect.
<P>
In short, our report and the proposals by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection to some extent accompany the Commission's broad guidelines.
I hope that our amendments will be supported by the Commissioner and I should perhaps emphasise two points.
The first is the hope that a more explicit reference will be made to sustainable development, and not just environmental policy.
This is clearly an important change of concept, since it introduces a social dimension, that of human development.
Secondly, we would like to see special attention paid to the issue of job creation.
We sincerely hope that the new environmental practices and technologies will help generate employment.
We would like LIFE to give greater consideration to the social impact involved, and to employment in particular.
<P>
Finally, as regards budget allocations, which is a sensitive issue and always leads to heated debate, Mrs Marinucci, the rapporteur for LIFE II, had proposed to the House a sum of ECU 800 million over a period of four years, and we supported her on this.
I am more modest than she was, since I am suggesting a sum of ECU 850 million over five years, which is a little less than what she wanted for each year, but a little more than what the Council had granted the programme.
<P>
I therefore hope that Parliament will support this proposal. Some people will think it is a little modest, since more is required for certain amendments, and others will perhaps think it is too ambitious in view of the Union's budgetary requirements.
However, I feel that it is a happy medium which could earn the broad support of Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="van Dam">
Madam President, to start with I must compliment the Commission on the way in which it has drawn on the outside evaluation of the LIFE-II programme in drawing up this proposal for LIFE-III.
The result is obvious: a high-quality proposal.
<P>
As draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on External Economic Relations, I have limited my opinion to the external effects of the LIFE programme.
The committee would have liked to see a slight shift in favour of the non-Union countries taking part in this programme.
Unfortunately, the rapporteur Mrs Lienemann was not prepared to agree to that in the Environment Committee.
In any case, I hope that the budget for third countries will be spent in full.
<P>
Our committee also asked for due account to be taken of cross-border aspects.
I see that reflected in a variety of amendments, mainly by the rapporteur.
I am in favour of guarantees to protect the natural environment, because I have seen the destructive effects of other cross-border projects.
There is one such project in the Dutch province of Limburg.
The cross-border consideration must not be an overriding criterion.
LIFE must be first and foremost an instrument of funding for the environment.
<P>
I would like to add a footnote to one or two amendments tabled by the rapporteur for the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
I do not think that the resources will be used in the best way possible if all her amendments are adopted.
I am surprised that the Environment Committee has agreed to some additions which seek to use this instrument to create jobs.
<P>
I also have my doubts about the concept of sustainable development.
At first sight this seems a very environmentally friendly concept, but it is being used here as a means of achieving economic advantage through LIFE on the sly.
That is wrong.
The purpose of LIFE is and continues to be the conservation of the environment and the natural world.
If the economy and the environment are fighting for priority, nature and the environment have to come out on top.
I would therefore urge the House to vote against the 'economic' amendments such as Amendments Nos 1, 4, 8, 15 and 25.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schleicher">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the environment programme 'LIFE' is the European Union's most important instrument for the financing of environmental projects.
It is thanks only to the action of the European Parliament that we now have access to considerable funding from the European budget, at any rate ECU 613 million for the next five years.
Important though the goals are that were proposed by the European Commission for LIFE-Environment, I feel that it is urgently necessary, in view of the problems that exist and the priorities repeatedly called for by the European Parliament, to mention the objectives of air and water pollution too.
If these were not included the result would be that projects based on these objectives would receive practically no funding over the next five years.
In the light of the discussion in the House on climatic disasters and water pollution, this must not be the case.
<P>
There is a link here with a request which our group made as early as five years ago, that only those projects that are really new in terms of the current state of technological progress should be assisted, the problem being that currently, in certain regions of the Community, projects can be funded that are at a level of technological development already commonplace in other regions.
This should not become common practice in future in view of the scarce resources available.
<P>
My group considers all projects funded by LIFE to be extremely important, of course, but we also fully support the objectives proposed by the Commission, such as the 'starter' and 'co-op' measures.
However, I also considered it important in this context to promote measures for the targeted conversion and development of areas and their land use, which are necessary to protect species and biotopes.
These are the subject of another four amendments tabled by our group, and I would be grateful if they could be supported.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Madam President, I did not agree with Mrs Lienemann's comments on the Blokland report, but I do entirely agree with what she says as rapporteur on LIFE-III.
Shortly, in the year 2000, we shall have a LIFE-III.
That will give Europe the chance to present itself with a new face as regards the environment and nature, but it will come at a price.
Mrs Lienemann quoted a sum of EUR 850 million over five years.
We are happy with that, but as a minimum.
We shall certainly not be prepared to agree to anything less, because the current figure of EUR 450 m is decidedly inadequate.
If you think about enlargement, we shall need a very great deal more money for LIFE-III if the new Member States are to take part as well.
Just compare that sum with all the billions we spend on agriculture and structural policy.
It makes this financial instrument for the environment look very meagre indeed.
<P>
I also find it a great pity that my own country, the Netherlands, is quite progressive on environmental matters generally, but wants to cut the amount of money spent on LIFE-III.
Certainly if we consider that Natura 2000 already needs three to five billion euros a year, this sum of EUR 50 or 60 million a year which is currently available would appear to be well below the sum required.
<P>
If Europe truly wishes to look kindly on nature and the environment, it must be prepared to pay for it.
I therefore appeal not only to the Dutch Government but also to the Council.
Sadly the Council representative is not here with us. I nevertheless call on the Council to agree to an increase in the budget for LIFE-III.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Madam President, the rapporteur and other speakers have reminded us that LIFE is the only instrument devoted exclusively to the environment.
As stated in one of the amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment, it should contribute to sustainable development and to the inclusion of environmental policies in other Union policies. It should also facilitate the updating and implementation of environmental legislation.
<P>
In addition, LIFE needs special funding.
The Committee on Budgets welcomes the fact that no specific proposal has been put forward concerning the LIFE programme. Although it recognises that the programmes are effective, it is pleased that no specific proposal has been made.
<P>
We have tabled and supported a number of amendments aimed at a specific financial proposal, bearing the Environment Agency's second report very much in mind. As the rapporteur has rightly pointed out, this report warns us of the recent reduction in biodiversity within Europe.
<P>
We also agree wholeheartedly with the Committee on the Environment's view that priority should be given to cross-border projects, to innovative projects and to projects generating employment.
We believe that the LIFE instrument can contribute to job creation in the field of the environment.
Reports on the LIFE I, LIFE II and LIFE III projects should be presented in 2002 as this will give the necessary impetus to a future LIFE IV.
<P>
Although the rapporteur does suggest changes, the distribution of funds across the three thematic components, LIFE-Nature, LIFE-Environment and LIFE-Third Countries is of secondary importance.
What is crucial is to have an appropriate sum available to enable a start to be made.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kronberger">
Madam President, in principle the LIFE programme is extremely welcome from an environmental point of view.
The most important prerequisite for success is sufficient funding.
But we have just seen from the case of Altener II that environmental programmes are the first to come under threat where cuts are made in funding.
Almost every type of environmental initiative also creates jobs.
The involvement of the applicant countries in the LIFE programme is of enormous importance.
But we must not forget that these countries do not always have the necessary determination to improve the overall environmental situation.
The European Union should therefore signal to these countries that their own efforts in the whole area of environmental protection are an essential condition for closer relations and, finally, accession to the European Union.
<P>
In these countries there is the danger that environmental dumping is practised both in industry and in energy production.
The improvement in the dissemination of information on LIFE projects and the associated increase in budget appropriations from 3 % to 5 % are also to be welcomed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldi">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the LIFE programme is the Union's main financial instrument for promoting action in the environmental sector.
It was launched by the Commission in 1992 and will reach the end of its second implementation phase on 31 December of this year.
The regulation under discussion will cover the administration of the third phase of the programme for the next five-year period 2000-2004, and funding of EUR 613 million has been made available.
LIFE consists of three thematic components, as the rapporteur has reminded us: LIFE-Nature on the conservation of natural habitats, flora and fauna, helping to activate the Nature 2000 Network; LIFE-Environment for the incorporation of environmental considerations into other policies and to implement and update environmental policy locally; and LIFE-Third Countries for technical assistance to the Mediterranean and Baltic countries, to create the necessary administrative structures and draw up environmental policies and action programmes.
<P>
This new proposal for a Council regulation is important because it focuses on priorities such as: firstly, helping local authorities to integrate environmental considerations into land-use planning; secondly, promoting sustainable development and incorporating environmental aspects into industrial activities; and thirdly, distributing financial resources for the protection of nature, for other actions and for actions in regions bordering on the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas.
<P>
As far as third countries are concerned, it is particularly important to pay greater attention to the means and funds at their disposal, given that - as we all know - programmes drawn up by us, here in Europe, cannot be put into practice unless other countries' governments are able to cofinance them.
<P>
I nevertheless believe that the third phase of the LIFE programme should be extended from five to seven years, with a proportionate increase in funding.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Madam President, I would first of all like to thank the Committee on the Environment and its rapporteur, Mrs Lienemann, for the attention they have given to the proposal concerning a third phase of the financial instrument for the environment, LIFE.
The report and the comments which have been presented here this evening are in line with the Commission's primary objectives, and many of the amendments emphasise the most important features of LIFE.
I should also like to express my thanks for the comments made on the administration of the scheme in DG XI, and I am grateful to Mr van Dam for what he said concerning the evaluation which lies behind the proposal we are discussing here this evening.
<P>
Between 1992 and 1998, LIFE had considerable success in NGOs, businesses, local authorities and third countries.
8 500 proposals were received, of which almost a third met the requirements.
Around 1 300 projects have been cofinanced, with a total EC contribution of EUR 643 million.
I would like to take this opportunity to stress that in budgetary terms, LIFE has proved to be an extremely effective tool.
All the available resources have been used on valuable projects.
As mentioned in the Commission's report pursuant to Article 7(3), LIFE could use more resources, up to and even above the reference amount which is indicated for LIFE II.
It is therefore important for us to do everything possible to ensure adequate funding for the LIFE scheme.
It is also important that LIFE is not penalised if financial restrictions should become necessary in future, as many of the speakers have mentioned here this evening.
<P>
It is of course tempting to go into various details of the proposal, but I shall refrain from doing so and instead content myself with saying that I am pleased that the views of the Committee on the Environment and the proposed amendments are largely in line with the objectives.
The Commission can therefore also accept 31 of the 47 amendments either in principle, in part or in full.
I am interested to see that the Committee on the Environment is in favour of increasing the LIFE budget even beyond the amount the Commission has included in the financial statement for the proposed regulation.
But as you know, the Commission does not accept the inclusion of reference budgets in the actual texts of regulations relating to financial programmes.
Amendments Nos 33, 46 and 47 are therefore unacceptable.
And the Commission is also unable to accept Amendment No 12 on a supplementary budget for the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
As such, this question concerns all the Community instruments which are available to applicant countries, and can only be dealt with in the context of Association Agreements.
<P>
As far as the committee procedure is concerned, for the time being the Commission is keeping to the 1987 decision.
Changes can be made at a later stage, when a final decision has been reached about the new comitology proposal, and we are therefore rejecting Amendment No 37.
Some of the amendments are aimed at extending the scope of LIFE-Nature and LIFE-Environment.
This would run counter to the wish to concentrate the proposals on those areas where LIFE has the greatest added value.
For this reason, we are rejecting Amendments Nos 39, 40 and 41.
Amendment No 42 would entail a radical change in the purpose of preparatory projects, which is to develop new measures in the area of the environment, so we do not accept this amendment.
<P>
Then there are a number of amendments requiring various reports to be submitted to Parliament.
The Commission is prepared to give Parliament all the information necessary for the effective supervision of the programme, but this should not entail a large increase in the number of reports which have to be submitted to Parliament.
That would in fact entail a further burden on the limited human resources.
So we do not agree with Amendments Nos 31, 19 and 32.
I would like to stress that the human resources for the administration of the LIFE scheme are limited.
The administration of projects in third countries could become difficult in the coming years unless more resources are made available, and we would of course see it as an advantage if more resources were to be provided.
We expect increasing participation by the countries of Central and Eastern Europe in LIFE-Nature and LIFE-Environment.
If we were to take on additional administrative tasks, it would mean that we would have to limit the resources that are needed for proper administration of the scheme, and the Commission cannot accept that, particularly not at this time when we have had so many discussions with Parliament about precisely this problem.
For technical reasons, we therefore do not accept Amendments Nos 13, 14, 36 and 45.
<P>
Finally, I would like to stress that I am pleased with Mrs Lienemann's report.
Most of the amendments help to strengthen the LIFE strategy.
I am convinced that the Community has benefited from the LIFE projects already carried out, and with the new regulation this potential will be able to be realised in full in the years from 2000 to 2004.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Bjerregaard.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=13>
Community Eco-Management and audit scheme
<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0139/99) by Mr Valverde López, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Regulation allowing voluntary participation by organisations in a Community eco-management and audit scheme (COM(98)0622 - C4-0683/98-98/0303(SYN)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 NAME="Valverde López">

Madam President, I must first congratulate the European Commission on its proposal for revision of the regulation governing the environmental audit, first approved in 1993. This reflects satisfactory progress in terms of the Commission's work.
<P>
This new proposal has been made after five years of working with these arrangements and assessing their effectiveness in the various Member States. In my role as rapporteur, I support the broad principles of the proposal.
<P>

I should like to take this opportunity of conveying to Mrs Graenitz, rapporteur for the Socialist Group, how much I appreciated her determination to work together and reach a joint position on many amendments. She has also tabled interesting amendments that I have been very pleased to support.
<P>
The amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment relate mainly to deepening and broadening the scope for implementation.
This is certainly necessary and it was provided for in the previous regulation.
Pilot projects undertaken in various Member States in non-industrial fields have proved very successful. Here, I could mention, for example, the pilot project carried out in the field of tourism in Spain, or to those carried out by certain public administrations in the field of transport, the universities and so on.
<P>
Some amendments are aimed at making the reports on environmental audits more attractive to organisations, while others are intended to avoid overlap with ISO standards.
Our regulation must be more advanced and far-reaching than international standards, despite being based along largely the same principles.
<P>
An attempt has also been made to provide greater facilities for small organisations, along the lines of the European Commission's proposals. In addition, we propose greater decentralisation of the system at regional level and even at local level.
<P>
In another context, we stress the need to standardise the public assessment report that organisations have to produce, and to ensure that its content and transparency are improved. This is something we already referred to in the 1993 report.
We would also like to see the auditor's role strengthened.
In this connection, we have come up against a problem. It involves an issue of interpretation which has surprised us.
<P>
We felt that according to the spirit and the letter of the regulation, environmental auditors had to be natural persons.
This involves certain requirements as far as training and experience are concerned, and calls of course for professional people with the relevant qualifications who are accustomed to discharging the responsibilities associated with the liberal professions in relation to penal, civil, administrative and professional matters.
To our great surprise, however, it appears that some Member States have a different interpretation of the concept of an auditor, applying it to legal entities.
I believe that this would be to misinterpret the report.
I further urge you to investigate the application of this report by the various Member States and ascertain if any departure from the spirit of the report has taken place.
<P>
We should also be sending out two political messages, Madam President.
<P>
According to the Commission's assessment report, certain countries have not yet managed to get their verification structure up and running. The countries in question may as well be named: they are Greece and Portugal.
I feel that a direct approach to the authorities in these countries is called for, offering them support if necessary. The aim must be to ensure that the regulation concerning assessment of the environmental impact of organisations is applied in all Member States.
<P>
In other countries, very few organisations have become involved. The most notable examples are Belgium, France and Italy.
It is surprising that so few organisations have taken advantage of this regulation.
In my view, actions aimed at promotion, cooperation, and encouragement are called for, and more information should perhaps be made available to organisations.
<P>
I am sure you will agree with me, Commissioner, as to the nature of the second political message which needs to be sent out at the moment. In the course of the enlargement negotiations with the countries of Eastern Europe, we must bear in mind the transitional aid to be provided to those countries to enable them to take advantage of this opportunity and to carry out self assessment.
<P>
Thank you for your patience, Madam President.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graenitz">
Madam President, I would firstly like to reciprocate the thanks and praise expressed by the rapporteur.
It was very pleasant working with him, and I hope that we can be very pleased with the result.
I also hope, Commissioner, that you will be able to accept a number of amendments agreed by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and that Parliament will also vote for these amendments tomorrow.
<P>
The Treaty of Amsterdam requires that environmental policy should be incorporated into all areas and that sustainable development should genuinely be achieved in the European Union, and I believe that we need a lot of instruments to be able to implement this.
The improved version of EMAS is one of those instruments which puts companies in particular in a 'win situation', allowing them to protect the environment and reduce costs.
In my view we must publicise this opportunity much more.
My small country has the highest percentage of EMAS-certified organisations.
I have inspected some of these and was really able to see the enthusiasm with which the staff, the managers and the owners or shareholders support EMAS, as it is not only the environment that it benefits.
<P>
The changes mentioned by Mr Valverde López will certainly make the programme more attractive.
Member States will have to recognise the input already made by the companies which led the way in environmental legislation, and opportunities may have to be created in awarding public contracts.
<P>
However, there was one point on which I did not agree with the rapporteur, but which my group considers to be very important along with worker participation, and that is the point about best available technology.
This Parliament has defined best available technology very precisely for industry and has also - rightly, in my opinion - excluded SMEs from this.
But if we want EMAS to become widespread and other sectors to become EMAS-certified as industrial companies or very large institutions, we must apply best available technology differently.
Why do we always think only of industry?
A hotel business has best available technology for sewage.
A transport company has best available technology for its logistics.
In order to achieve the goals of sustainable development and the Kyoto objectives, I think we need to make further progress in this area.
I very much hope that this amendment by my group - requesting that we include best available technology in this EMAS law - will be adopted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schnellhardt">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I felt rather helpless as I had dropped my glasses.
The aim of European environmental policy to guarantee sustainable development with a high level of environmental protection should be achieved not only with the conventional instruments of regulatory law.
The statement in the fifth environmental action programme that industry is not just part of the environmental problem but must also be part of the solution to the problem, continues to be relevant today, and an alternative to environmental regulatory law is the environmental audit scheme that we are now discussing.
The voluntary implementation - I emphasise this particularly - of eco-management and audit schemes allows companies to meet the requirements of environmental protection in a flexible way.
<P>
As we have already heard several times today, the current regulation has proved itself, in particular in industrial firms, and we have also established - here I must contradict you slightly - that 75 % of companies participating in the environmental audit are from Germany.
I too have visited the firms - a Commission list - and I can tell you that I too have seen the efforts that the people there have made, but under the simple conditions presently contained in the environmental audit scheme.
<P>
If we now include services I find this very positive.
But I think we must also recognise another problem, which is that we have to motivate small and medium-sized enterprises to agree to implement these requirements.
In doing so we must ensure that the demands we make are not beyond the capabilities of small and medium-sized enterprises, otherwise there is the danger that - as SMEs have always told me - they will then not participate in the environmental audit programme, they will implement only ISO 14001, and they will not have an environmental audit.
So once again we would have adopted an excellent decision here in Parliament but it would not actually be put into practice.
<P>
I believe the debate in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection showed this too.
I have seen how our desire to involve interested parties is put into practice, in a company that produces environmental technology.
When we say that the available technology should apply, in my view this is a concept which has no place whatsoever in legislation, Mrs Graenitz, as it changes every week and would have to be constantly redefined.
It cannot be defined once and for all.
There is no end to technology.
It continues to develop and it is not necessary the best thing.
<P>
I appeal to you once again: let us try to change these proposals a little more, as we need widespread participation.
We will not achieve this with the current version, I warn you!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Riis-Jørgensen">
Madam President, I would like to thank Mr López for an excellent report on a very complicated subject.
I think it is important, as Mr Schnellhardt also emphasised, for us to ensure that EMAS is a useful tool for our businesses here in Europe.
We should make sure that good environmental intentions do not make EMAS indigestible for small and medium-sized businesses.
It must be understood that participation in the EMAS scheme is voluntary.
It should not be misused in an attempt to impose tougher environmental legislation on businesses.
It is important that this scheme is as flexible and unbureaucratic as possible.
Otherwise we will not be able to persuade small and medium-sized businesses to participate in it under any circumstances.
<P>
Now, if I may, I would like to comment on some amendments.
To begin with, there are Amendments Nos 24, 28 and 29.
I hope very much that my colleagues - and the Commission too - will welcome them.
I would also like to draw attention to Amendment No 23.
We in the Liberal Group are opposed to this proposal, because it would allow the use of the EMAS logo on products and packaging.
I think that this would undermine the work we have done in the past and are in the process of doing in the area of labelling, and would be of no benefit to consumers or business.
I heard my Austrian colleague talk about best available technology, or BAT.
We in the Liberal Group have asked for split votes on the amendments dealing with this concept, because we cannot support the inclusion of BAT in EMAS.
If BAT is included in this legislation, it will only make the scheme even more unacceptable for businesses.
At the moment, the Commission is only preparing BAT advice for those businesses and sectors which will have statutory IPPC approval, and even this advice will not be ready before 2004, so we are opposed to this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Madam President, we support Mr Valverde López's proposal concerning revision of the regulation allowing voluntary participation by organisations in this eco-management and audit scheme.
Unfortunately, the scheme is not yet sufficiently widespread. We also support his proposal to broaden the objectives as regards using cleaner technology, avoiding environmental pollution by organisations, preventing environmental accidents and replacing substances, products or means of transport which cause pollution.
<P>
As part of the process of drawing up an environmental declaration like this, we feel that information should be made available to everyone, and that worker participation should be facilitated.
In our view, the proposal concerning the future participation of consumers and clients in the work of companies who adopt these measures is of fundamental importance. So, too, is the need to make the results of the assessments widely available together with information on the organisations participating in these projects.
<P>
As the rapporteur suggests, it would also be helpful to introduce tax concessions for these organisations, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises for whom the use of the best technologies can be a problem. In addition, these small and medium-sized enterprises should have preferential access to finance.
After all, according to Eurostat, most of the jobs in Europe - more than 85 % - are generated by small and medium-sized enterprises.
<P>
We feel very strongly that if we encourage small and medium-sized enterprises to participate in the scheme, we shall also be encouraging job creation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schleicher">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the present amendment aims to make the eco-audit, which is voluntary and will also remain voluntary in future, more attractive to businesses.
I believe we all agree with this objective.
After initially grave reservations, the eco-audit has now become a real hit with industry in those areas where it is used, and I can say on behalf of Germany that the figures speak for themselves: in absolute terms, Germany has the highest number of participating companies, even if it is only 1 % of all companies.
Austria is in first place per capita of population, but then Austria is smaller, which is perhaps what has caused the misunderstanding referred to earlier.
<P>
Denmark and Sweden are next, with considerably lower figures.
However, there are a number of Member States in which the eco-audit is almost non-existent, as the rapporteur pointed out.
It is therefore very important to provide incentives to encourage an increasing number of companies, particularly the many small and medium-sized firms, to introduce the eco-audit; I think we all agree on this.
This is particularly important because, as Mr Schnellhardt already said, the international ISO standard 14001 means a certain level of competition which could be undermined as a result.
<P>
A number of our amendments, also tabled by our group, were accepted by a majority in committee.
I must say, however, that a number of amendments were also accepted in committee which in our view run counter to the objectives and are indeed at odds with the whole purpose of the exercise.
If we now suddenly lay down standards it is no longer a voluntary system but one in which the companies are to be given incentives to achieve more in the relevant areas than the legislation requires.
That is the incentive.
But if I now lay down fixed standards, then it is no longer a voluntary eco-audit but one that is difficult for some companies to achieve.
I must say quite honestly, on behalf of a number of colleagues and myself, that if the amendments that run counter to the objectives are adopted, we cannot vote for the report.
We want the audit to remain voluntary and incentives to be increased; we also want the administration to be reduced, in other words no further conditions to be imposed but instead to improve management.
I come from Bavaria and I can say that German companies have carried out most eco-audits because the incentives have really worked here.
I wish this were also the case in other Member States too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Estevan Bolea">
Madam President, I should like to tell the Commissioner that the regulation has been greatly improved, as Mr Valverde has already said.
This second version is very much better, particularly Annex VII which is new and which concerns the initial assessment.
In the light of my considerable experience in this sector, I feel that the initial assessment is the key to setting up a management system successfully.
I would say it stands for 80 %, yet it in the past it did not exist.
<P>
Nevertheless, ladies and gentlemen, I think you have failed to take into account how industry actually operates.
Hundreds of organisations have adopted ISO standard 14001, along with others the world over, and they have been registered.
A few - a very few - are registered with the EMAS scheme.
But why so few?
Even the 2 000 registered in Germany represent only a tiny percentage of the large organisations.
This is because the system is terribly complex.
In my opinion, Commissioner, the entire verification procedure should be simplified.
Why are there many verifiers in Germany?
The reason is that they are natural persons. As Mr Valverde has said, what happens in a great many other countries is that the accrediting bodies will only accredit insurance companies or standardisation companies and that makes the complex procedure even more difficult.
<P>
I trust the new version will help to improve this situation.
Nevertheless, I suspect that most organisations will continue to be certificated under ISO 14001, and environmental audits under ISO 14010 and 14011, because it is so much more practical and useful to do so. In fact, it comes to the same, because ISO 14001 constitutes 80 % of the EMAS scheme.
The remainder is made up by the verification the Commissioner is called upon to simplify.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Madam President, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Committee on the Environment and especially its rapporteur, Mr Valverde López, for the effort which has been made to ensure the rapid progress of this proposal revising the existing EMAS scheme.
We are talking - as has been emphasised - about a voluntary market instrument aimed at improving the contribution which businesses make to the environment.
But I shall not repeat the proposal.
There have been many excellent speeches about it, so instead I will concentrate on the 65 amendments which have been tabled.
The Commission finds 20 of these amendments acceptable in full or in part.
We are able to accept Amendment No 1, the first part of No 4 and the second part of No 26, because we believe they help make the Commission's proposal more attractive to business.
Then there is the second part of Amendments No 18 and Amendment No 51, which also strengthen the credibility of EMAS and can therefore be supported.
<P>
The comparability and conformity of the scheme between Member States is also of great importance, and for that reason Amendments Nos 34 and 43, which demonstrate Parliament's support, can be accepted.
Other key principles in the proposal are intelligibility, clarity, transparency and subsidiarity.
The rapporteur, Mr Valverde López, touched on the problem of making the scheme sufficiently well known, and intelligibility, clarity, transparency and subsidiarity are all important in this respect.
The Commission can therefore support Amendments Nos 5, 8, 11, 20, 21, 24, 27, 42, 45, 48 and 61 in principle, because in the main we think that they reinforce these aspects.
<P>
We are unable to accept the other amendments.
As far as the most important of these are concerned, I shall now discuss some of the reasons why the Commission cannot accept them.
Because EMAS is a voluntary instrument, it is important for it to have a logical structure and to be intelligible. For this reason, we cannot accept Amendments Nos 7, 12, 13, 14, 36, 41, 44, 53, 54, 59, 64 and 65 because they repeat elements which are already covered by the text, especially in Annex I A. Support and incentives for organisations taking part in EMAS are included in the proposal and improved by the amendments we are accepting, as I have just mentioned.
Amendments which lower the requirements for SMEs are not acceptable.
The proposal has been framed in such a way that it can be applied by businesses of any size.
The attitude of SMEs themselves is that they do not want a lower level scheme because they fear it would be of less value in the market-place.
For this reason, we do not support Amendments Nos 2, 52 and 56.
<P>
The added value for the environment of the EMAS scheme compared with ISO 14001 is an important aspect of the proposal, as has also been mentioned in the debate.
The Commission therefore does not support Amendments Nos 16, 17, 52 and 63, because they weaken the transparency and control of information concerning environmental outcomes by reducing the validation frequency.
An important element of the proposal is that it extends the scope of the EMAS scheme to cover all business sectors.
The Commission is therefore unable to accept amendments relating only to a single sector, such as Amendments Nos 7, 12 and 25, which require organisations to apply best available technology, and I can understand why opinions have been divided on this in Parliament.
<P>
As the directives on public tendering now stand, the first part of Amendment No 26 and Amendment No 30 are not acceptable.
However, I personally have some sympathy for the thinking behind these amendments, and future developments in this area could lead us to take the matter up again.
<P>
The Commission is convinced that in its improved version, with the addition of those amendments from Parliament which have been accepted today, this document provides an effective and balanced instrument for improving the environmental impact of economic activities throughout the Union, and with those comments, Madam President, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Valverde López, and the Committee on the Environment for their work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Bjerregaard.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Thursday at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=14>
Pollution-related illnesses
<SPEAKER ID=237 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0167/99) by Mr Cabrol, on behalf of Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council Decision adopting a programme of Community action on pollution-related diseases in the context of the framework for action in the field of public health (1999-2001) (3603/99 - C4-0125/99-97/0153(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 NAME="Cabrol">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to begin by briefly outlining the background to this matter.
During its sitting of 11 March 1998, Parliament delivered its opinion at first reading on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision adopting a programme of Community action on pollution-related illnesses.
I would point out that the purpose of this programme is not to take direct action to combat the emission of pollutants, but to review existing knowledge by collecting all available data on pollution-related diseases and to list the pollutants concerned with a view to planning preventive action.
The programme is aimed at the Member States, which must collect the data, and at the people of the European Union so as to enable them to protect themselves as well as they can from pollution.
<P>
At the end of first reading, Parliament tabled a number of amendments which the Council considered before presenting a common position.
The President of Parliament announced that he had received this at the sitting of 18 June 1998 and, on the whole, the Council's common position seemed satisfactory.
Nevertheless, Parliament adopted 14 amendments to that text.
By letter of 18 December 1998, the Council announced that it could not approve all of Parliament's amendments.
Therefore, the President of the Council, in agreement with the President of Parliament, convened a meeting of the Conciliation Committee to be held on 4 February 1999.
<P>
The conciliation procedure was relatively difficult because the Council did not show any particular interest in the programme.
Nevertheless, following three sets of tripartite talks with the Austrian and German Presidencies, Parliament's delegation was satisfied with many of its amendments, which we shall group together according to their objectives.
As regards the three amendments on strengthening the follow-up of the programme, two were accepted, guaranteeing the programme's continual assessment, the drawing-up of a Commission report during the final year of the programme, along with actions being planned for the future.
<P>
The extension of the scope of the programme through a policy of prevention and increasing awareness of the risks was also accepted, as was the issue of complementarity with other health programmes, and an annual report on this subject must be provided by the Commission.
Moreover, the Council approved the principle of public information, admittedly by means of professionals, but it included some very important points, such as the risk of pollution on foodstuffs.
The conduct of epidemiological studies was approved and, finally, certain parts of the Council's text which were incomprehensible were clarified.
<P>
As regards comitology, a compromise made the recital more acceptable and easier to understand.
Unfortunately, a number of amendments were not accepted, in particular, the amendment on the prevention programme for pollution-related allergies. More importantly, Parliament's delegation noted that the Council was unwilling to give way on the budget for the programme.
We had asked for ECU 7 million instead of ECU 3.9 million.
It became evident that, in view of the negotiations on Agenda 2000, several Council delegations had been instructed not to make any concessions on the budget.
Whilst regretting this situation, Parliament's delegation accepted the amount specified in the common position, subject to a joint declaration by the three institutions relating to the Commission proposal for the adoption of a new framework programme in the field of public health after the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The declaration reads as follows: 'The European Parliament, the Council and the Commission declare that, among the priority issues to be addressed within the framework of the future programme on public health, they will pay particular attention to rare diseases and pollution-related diseases and will duly take account of the budgetary implications.'
<P>
In conclusion, our delegation welcomes the outcome of the conciliation procedure on this programme, which, along with that on rare diseases, is the latest in a series of public health programmes.
As a result, we recommend that Parliament adopt the legislative decision in accordance with the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Liese">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like, also on behalf of my group, to express my thanks and appreciation to the rapporteur, Mr Cabrol, for leading the negotiations.
I believe this subject - the link between pollution and health - is an important one.
It is also an issue which greatly concerns the people of Europe, and I do not believe that it is simply a question of exaggerated fears.
<P>
Pollution has repercussions for health, and we must focus more closely on this.
This programme can make only a modest contribution, however.
It cannot solve the problem of pollution-related illnesses; it can merely develop strategies or help to develop strategies.
For this reason, our group, unlike the Commission and the Group of the Party of European Socialists, agreed from the beginning that we immediately need an integrated programme that includes all aspects of public health and also this programme.
At first reading we were therefore against a five-year period and in favour of a three-year period.
However, we did not agree that funds should be cut in the way that was unfortunately proposed and ultimately implemented by the Council of Ministers, as with slightly greater resources we could have done more in the first three years, including preparing for a comprehensive health programme.
<P>
I regret especially that the specific measures such as in the area of allergies were deleted from the annex, and my group and I regret in particular the fact that self-help groups were no longer expressly mentioned, as I believe that we would have genuine added value if the European Union supported self-help groups and exchanges between them, but this is unfortunately no longer referred to in the programme.
However, I would call upon the Commission, within the scope offered by the programme, to support those self-help groups which are committed to pollution-related illnesses and to combating these illnesses.
<P>
It is very important to me and to my group that this programme should not merely produce figures that are put to one side and forgotten, as it is all very well to collate data at European level but none of this is of any use if we do not take concrete action.
The Commission and the Council of Ministers have in the past been too hesitant.
For example, in terms of car exhaust emissions Parliament had to force through the introduction of strict standards and ensure that the ozone problem was really approached effectively in Europe.
<P>
I believe that we must also take health aspects into account as part of the CO2 question, as illnesses that have to date existed only in the tropics will appear in Europe as a result of global warming, and there will also be other problems.
We must also take concrete action in the area of consumer health protection if this programme is to serve any purpose.
We must include the recommendations that are developed from this in our legislation in other areas too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=15>
Rare diseases
<SPEAKER ID=241 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0166/99) by Mr Viceconte, on behalf of Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council Decision adopting a programme of Community action on rare diseases in the context of the framework for action in the field of public health (1999-2003) (3602/99 - C4-0124/99-97/0146(COD)).
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Parodi, who is deputising for the rapporteur, Mr Viceconte.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 NAME="Parodi">
Mr President, in the Conciliation Committee on 4 February, Parliament and the Council reached an agreement on the programme of action relating to rare diseases, for which Mr Viceconte is rapporteur and which the European Parliament discussed at first reading on 11 March last year and at second reading on 8 October.
It is a five-year Community programme, running from 1 January 1999 to 31 December 2003, and its main aim is to improve information on rare diseases which affect fewer than five in 10 000 people in the EU but are all the more dangerous for this very reason.
<P>
Parliament and the Council reached an agreement in the Conciliation Committee on 4 February, especially in respect of the establishment of a European database on rare diseases and access to it, encouragement and support for professionals with a view to improving the early diagnosis, identification and prevention of rare diseases, transnational cooperation among voluntary bodies, networking of groups of people directly or indirectly concerned and coordination at Community level, EU support for the monitoring of rare diseases in the Member States, training and refresher courses for professionals, and the promotion of networks of experts interested in a rapid response to the phenomenon of clusters.
<P>
Allow me to stress certain key points.
The first is that the action programme has to do with information, in particular the establishment of a coherent and complementary European information network on rare diseases and access to it through existing databases.
The establishment of a European network is vital.
Early diagnosis is of the essence, and there is currently no Europe-wide database; only France, with its Orphanet system, has a database on rare diseases.
<P>
A second priority measure is training and refresher courses for professionals so as to improve early diagnosis, identification, intervention and prevention.
Another element is the promotion of transnational cooperation and the networking of groups of people directly or indirectly affected by these rare diseases or groups of volunteers and health professionals, as well as coordination at Community level to ensure continuity and transnational cooperation.
<P>
Another significant point concerns Community support for the monitoring of rare diseases in the Member States and early warning systems relating to clusters, as well as networking and training for experts involved in handling these diseases and in responding rapidly.
<P>
This programme, along with the one on pollution-related diseases, for which Mr Cabrol is rapporteur and which is likewise to be put to the vote tomorrow, forms part of the Community's activities in the public health sector: a sector in need of expansion - as we have been stressing for some time - bearing in mind that we are not targeting major health scourges here but the few sufferers who are dying because no one pays them any attention.
<P>
We therefore believe that it is only right to implement these measures.
Unfortunately, the funding of EUR 6.5 million approved for the five-year period 1999-2003 is quite insufficient.
One need only think that the National Organization for Rare Diseases, in the United States, has earmarked a substantial USD 3.2 million over the past three years, and that France alone has spent FRF 3 million on the primary operating system for the Orphanet database.
Nevertheless, this is one step on the way to a more incisive and effective Community health policy, which the new provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty should help us to achieve.
<P>
This report leads to a conclusion.
Allow me to say, even if I am slightly overrunning my allotted time - but after 15 years, this might perhaps be the last time I speak in this House, which is of great significance to me - that health must not be included in other sectors.
The European Parliament must have the courage of its convictions and discuss health as a sector in its own right, because it is not true that diseases are on the decline.
I believe that we are facing a very difficult future; only if all 15 countries sing in harmony can we safeguard health, which is the prime asset of each and every one of us.
Without health, we cannot even engage in politics.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
Mr President, I too think that to conclude the European Parliament's activities on health policy with two programmes - this one on rare diseases and the one on pollution-related diseases - demonstrates the importance we attach to health policy.
We must highlight the problem of rare diseases in particular, because it is a typical issue which can only be tackled on an international and transnational scale.
EU-wide cooperation is therefore crucial, and that is why we consider this programme so significant.
We were therefore satisfied to note, at conciliation, that there was agreement on most of Parliament's amendments.
<P>
We nevertheless regret the fact that the funding for the programme remains greatly inadequate, and we hope that the joint statement by Parliament, the Council and the Commission - indicating that this programme and the one on pollution-related diseases must be given more scope, including in budgetary terms - will be followed up properly by the next Parliament and the next Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 NAME="Flynn">
First of all I should like to thank all those who have contributed: Professor Cabrol, Mr Parodi, Mr Liese and Mr Tamino.
I thank them for their contributions and their continued support for the development of public health in the Union.
<P>
I welcome the joint texts adopted by the Conciliation Committee on 4 February 1999 on the rare diseases and pollution-related diseases programmes.
The points of difference between Parliament and the Council have now finally, as Professor Cabrol has indicated, been ironed out.
I hope that the role played by my services and the action that I myself took in assisting with these compromise texts was useful and that we have finally brought matters to a conclusion.
<P>
I know that Parliament has not been very happy that the budgetary resources for both programmes were so limited.
In the context of the current budgetary perspectives it would, however, have been difficult to achieve much more in this respect.
Nevertheless, on the basis of the proposed joint declaration of Parliament, the Council and the Commission, we are now in a position where it is possible to anticipate that these issues can be more fully addressed in the context of a new framework programme on public health.
I hope that the joint texts and the common declaration will be confirmed here today.
I can confirm the commitment of the Commission to the declarations agreed at conciliation.
<P>
Let me emphasise from the Commission's side that we attach very great importance to both these programmes even if, in their duration and scope, they essentially constitute really just a first step in the right direction.
I very much hope that the European Parliament can approve both programmes here today and that we can move quickly to put them into effect.
<P>
Mr Liese made two points: one was concerning the self-help groups.
I would like to assure him that it is our intention that in the future framework of understanding we hope to be in a better position and have a real capacity to do something to assist the self-help groups.
<P>
I would also like to indicate that Article 152 of the Amsterdam Treaty puts an obligation on us to take account of other Community policies in the development of our health programmes.
<P>
Finally, to you, Mr Parodi.
It may be your last contribution to the development of our public health programmes, but you have made a significant contribution.
The point you made about the United States being ahead of us in these matters is well taken.
But I would like you to agree with me that perhaps we now have here the possibility of a first good step to try and catch up.
When the new framework is put in place it will bring us on-line.
I would hope that in your retirement you will recognise that you have made a considerable contribution to the development of these programmes.
<P>
I would like to say a special word of thanks to Professor Cabrol for his continued dedication and commitment to these matters throughout my time here with the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
The sitting was closed at 10.50 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Agenda
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="Howitt">
Mr President, on a point of order under Rule 41 and Annex II of the Rules of Procedure.
I received a letter yesterday saying that my Question No 41, concerning the plight of a Kosovan refugee, would not be taken at Question Time to the Council tonight as it is dealt with under Item 144 on the agenda.
I think this is a genuine error.
The question concerns the specific immigration status of a specific Kosovan refugee and the failure to provide visas for him from embassies in other EU states.
Clearly this will not be dealt with in a general discussion about Kosovo.
I would ask your services to look at this and ensure that this question at least receives a written answer so that this man does not have his job threatened and is not forced to go back to Kosovo where he would be in danger of losing his life.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
Mr Howitt, you know that paragraph 2 of Annex II (A) - Guidelines - says 'A question shall be inadmissible if the agenda already provides for the subject to be discussed with the participation of the institution concerned'.
It is precisely not to have a general discussion disturbed by particular points by another channel.
In any case, you can put that question next time or in any other form.
I can admit it today when we have a general debate on Kosovo where any of the groups can take up your question. It is cannot be treated separately in Question Time.
I am sorry, I cannot offer any other solution.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Outcome of extraordinary European Council in Berlin of 24/25 March 1999
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
The next item is the report of the European Council and the statement by the Commission on the results of the extraordinary European Council meeting of 24 and 25 March 1999 in Berlin.
<P>
I should like to welcome Chancellor Schröder, on what is his first visit to the House.
<P>
I have received seven motions for resolutions to wind up this debate, tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2).
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Schröder">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, three weeks ago today, at about this time, the European Council held its extraordinary meeting in Berlin.
Even as we arrived in Berlin, there were growing fears that it would not prove possible to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in Kosovo.
During the days before the Berlin Council, the attacks by the Serbian security forces ...
<P>
Mixed reactions
<P>
... against the Albanian ethnic majority had increased massively.
President Milosevic used the weeks after Rambouillet and Paris to embark on the systematic expulsion of Albanians from Kosovo.
The community of states could not just stand by and watch.
<P>
Loud applause
<P>
The Kosovar Albanians quite rightly expect human rights, the rights to freedom, to their homeland and to inviolability, to apply unconditionally to them too.
The European community of values would become an empty phrase if we Europeans allowed the principles on which the European Union is founded to be trampled underfoot in a place just one hour's flight away from here, that is to say, in the middle of our continent.
<P>
Applause
<P>
These principles are democracy, justice and the rule of law, freedom and solidarity with the weaker members of society.
Since the evening of 24 March, the allied air force has been attacking targets in Yugoslavia.
That same evening the European Council in Berlin gave its unanimous support to the actions of the North Atlantic Alliance.
<P>
To put it quite plainly: anyone who violates human rights as brutally as President Milosevic has done must expect a resolute response from us.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Anyone who with cold-blooded calculation bases his rule on the misery, the persecution and the murder of part of an ethnic minority must know that the western community of values is prepared to take the ultimate step to prevent an even worse scenario and also to enforce the fundamental values that are its values.
It was not with a light heart but only after real and careful consideration of all the arguments that we decided to use military force.
I am firmly convinced that there was no alternative to this decision in view of the increasingly tense situation in Kosovo.
<P>
The combination of the Kosovo crisis, the resignation of the Commission and Agenda 2000 probably represent the biggest challenges any European Council has ever had to tackle.
Each of these tasks in itself would have taken up an entire European summit under normal circumstances.
In Berlin we managed to tackle all three challenges at the same time.
Berlin - and this must be emphasised - demonstrated more impressively perhaps than any European Council meeting before it that the European Union is capable of action.
We are convinced that is the message of the Berlin summit.
Europe is without any question living up to its responsibilities.
The European Union will not be divided.
The signal of the Berlin summit is this: we Europeans speak with one voice.
<P>
We managed to adopt Agenda 2000 on the summit morning of 26 March.
With the Berlin package we have found a compromise under which all parties concerned have to make concessions.
It is a compromise that is sensible and that we can all live with.
That is why it is, in my view, a good and fair agreement.
<P>
In Berlin, we nominated Mr Romano Prodi for the office of President of the Commission.
With your assent, ladies and gentlemen, by the summer we will again have a fully functioning Commission under undisputedly competent leadership.
I am also happy to be able to confirm to you that Berlin has finally paved the way for a trade and cooperation agreement with South Africa.
<P>
Applause
<P>
I know that many Members of this House are very committed in their support for the new South Africa.
I personally was also very pleased that after all these years of negotiations we finally achieved this breakthrough towards the end of President Mandela's term of office.
<P>
The Berlin package on Agenda 2000 creates a viable foundation for European Union action in the coming years and sends out a clear signal to the people of Europe, to the markets, and also to the applicant countries.
It signals that the Member States of the European Union were prepared to put their common responsibility above their own national interests.
I need not, at this point, discuss the Berlin agreement in detail once more. But let me emphasise that two principles did and still do take precedence: stability of expenditure on the one hand and solidarity with the weaker on the other.
We agreed in Berlin that we would also exercise stringent budgetary discipline in Europe in future.
At the same time we want to and will maintain cohesion between the Member States, as provided in the Treaty.
<P>
You all know that the Member States' original positions on many aspects of Agenda 2000 still diverged very widely up to the time of the summit.
I will remember that night in Berlin as one of the most difficult and lengthiest negotiations I have ever had to conduct.
As German Chancellor, I left no doubt in Berlin that my country would be prepared to subordinate its rightful national interests to a reasonable overall solution.
This approach based on European responsibility paved the way to an adequate solution.
In the end all the partners were more interested in achieving European added value than in asserting their potential own interests in individual cases.
This made it possible to reach a compromise that paves the European Union's way into the 21st century.
<P>
The European Parliament - that is to say, you - were closely and constructively involved in the preliminary work on Agenda 2000 up to the summit, sometimes under great pressure of deadlines.
I would like to express my very real gratitude to you for this commitment and the accompanying flexibility and willingness to seek joint solutions, and at the same time to ask you: please do all you can to bring the ongoing legislative procedures to a speedy conclusion as quickly as possible.
The implementation of the Berlin package is not just the condition for further steps in the enlargement process.
The uninterrupted continuation of structural aid after the end of the year would also be at risk if we did not cooperate rapidly.
Against this background, I hope it will prove possible to adopt the necessary legal acts quickly.
<P>
Our citizens, the people of Europe, want integration.
Our common Europe has long since become a reality in terms of good neighbourliness, of countless cultural, economic and social links.
At the same time the people of Europe are rightly urging us to make the European institutions capable of action now and in the future.
They have no sympathy for any inefficiency in transposing Community policies and expect all concerned to show the highest personal integrity.
Following the mass resignation of the Commission under Mr Jacques Santer, the European Union risked facing a serious institutional crisis.
By rapidly nominating Mr Romano Prodi on the very first morning of the Berlin summit, the European Council made an important contribution to preventing the looming crisis.
That too is a major and lasting success of the Berlin summit.
While I was still in Berlin, I informed the President of the European Parliament of this nomination, in my capacity of President of the European Council.
I also took that opportunity to point out that he must certainly be appointed under the procedure provided to that effect in the Amsterdam Treaty.
Today I would ask you to deliver your vote on the future President of the Commission in good time, so that the entire Commission can be appointed before the end of this summer following the selection of members of the college by the President-designate and the Member State governments.
<P>
The European Parliament has clearly gained in stature over the past months.
I am confident that the people of Europe will reward this by a high level of participation in the elections on 10-13 June.
<P>
This afternoon, the EU Heads of State and Government will be holding an informal meeting in Brussels.
It will begin with an in-depth discussion of current progress on the Kosovo issue.
I will be returning to that at the end of my statement.
During the second part of the meeting, we will start discussing the Commission's future working procedures with Mr Romano Prodi.
We are firmly convinced that the European Union needs a strong Commission that really can live up to the requirements of efficiency, transparency and - quite crucially - closeness to the people.
That is why we will ask Mr Prodi, the Commission President-designate, to draw up a programme, on the basis also of discussions with the European Parliament and the Member States, which clearly defines the Commission's changed working procedures.
Some of the improvements here will require a revision of the Treaty.
To that end we should use the opportunity of the intergovernmental conference that is in any case scheduled to resolve the institutional questions that remained outstanding in Amsterdam.
I will suggest to my colleagues that they should adopt the timetable for this intergovernmental conference, which if possible should take place by next year, at the European Council in Cologne.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, in retrospect the last few years will prove to have been good years for the European Union, for European policy.
The introduction of the euro was a major step towards integration.
<P>
Applause
<P>
The countries involved took a sovereign political decision to pass on a national responsibility for a central aspect of their economic policy to a European institution.
Among other things, the Amsterdam Treaty laid the foundation stone for a common justice and home affairs policy and for a common and viable foreign and security policy for the Union.
The European Parliament acquired much-improved codecision rights. The enlargement process was set in motion and we have opened accession negotiations with the best-prepared applicants, in the awareness also that European integration can succeed only if Europe does not stop at the borders of what used to be the iron curtain.
All of this, as also the adoption of Agenda 2000 in Berlin, was also achieved thanks to the outgoing Commission under Mr Jacques Santer.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Whatever criticism there has been, and however well-founded it may have been, I want to repeat my warm thanks to Mr Jacques Santer and the college at this point!
<P>
Applause
<P>
Once again we are facing major tasks.
They can only be mastered by a strong Commission that is able to act.
In the person of Mr Romano Prodi the Heads of State and Government have appointed a candidate for the office of President of the Commission who, I am firmly convinced, fulfils all the requirements for mastering these tasks together with us and with you.
Even before the Kosovo situation began to worsen, we knew that the EU's common foreign and security policy needs to be further strengthened.
The Amsterdam Treaty that will enter into force on 1 May brings definite improvements in that direction.
At the European Council in Cologne we intend to appoint the future high representative for the common foreign and security policy.
We need to definitely intensify cooperation in the field of security and defence policy.
With the adoption of a cross-pillar common strategy on Russia, we want to send out an unmistakeable signal that the European Union wants to further expand its relations with Russia and will do so.
<P>
Applause
<P>
We have achieved a quality of cooperation with Russia which we for our part will certainly not call in question again.
We welcome the Russian endeavours, in the current crisis, to exert a positive influence on Belgrade.
I am in close contact with President Yeltsin and Prime Minister Primakov.
Russia - I am convinced - is a central factor of stability in Europe and we must ensure that it is and remains in a position to advance along the road to reform on which it has embarked.
Here the European Union remains prepared to cooperate. Indeed, where at all possible, it would like to intensify this cooperation.
As I have learned from talks I have held, this is also recognised in Russia itself.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, we need tangible improvements in EU cooperation in the field of justice and home affairs.
Here too the Amsterdam Treaty opens up new opportunities and potential, which we want to grasp courageously.
A first test of this will be whether we manage to treat the Kosovar refugees who come into the European Union generously and on a basis of solidarity.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Combating mass unemployment has to be a central concern of the European Union.
We must find ways of maintaining social cohesion and the European social model even under the conditions of the global competition of the 21st century.
Important work was done in preparation for the launch of the euro in the field of economic policy.
But we should not focus on a one-sided, purely doctrinal stability policy.
In the long term we would not be able to convey it to our citizens in political terms.
In Cologne we therefore want to supplement the stability and growth pact, which we continue to uphold, with a European employment pact.
<P>
Applause
<P>
One important task for the future remains enlarging the European Union to the east and the south.
Unless the Union is open to new Member States, in the long term European integration would remain a half-baked project and would fail for lack of a political rationale.
<P>
But, ladies and gentlemen, there is also a lesson to be learnt from the Kosovo crisis in relation to the applicant countries.
Some of them have now found stability in their external and security policy within NATO.
But what they want and what they need is for this stability also to be backed up by economic stability.
That is the reason they want to join the EU, and quite sensibly so.
In relation to the existing Member States, it should be said that they too have a very real interest in enlargement.
The lesson of Yugoslavia is that peace on this continent is only possible if economic and social development can and does advance throughout Europe.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Under the German Presidency we have made headway with the ongoing accession negotiations.
The European Council in Berlin sent out a message to the applicant countries once again confirming that the enlargement process will resolutely go ahead.
<P>
With the adoption of Agenda 2000 we have created a further condition for achieving that.
The aim of the intergovernmental conference on key institutional questions, to which I referred earlier, is to ensure that the European Union definitively removes the last possible barrier to the accession of new Member States.
Then it will be up to the applicant states to fulfil the requirements of the acquis communautaire .
We will continue in future to support them in this with all our strength.
I want to put it clearly on the record that the progress made so far by the applicant countries is impressive and really does give grounds for hope.
<P>
To conclude what I have to say, let me come back again to the situation in Kosovo.
You will be discussing the development of the conflict today, which I very much welcome.
Europe must speak with a strong voice in times such as this and the words must be spoken not just by members of the governments and national parliaments.
As an expression of the new Europe, Parliament too must take a definite position, in favour of peace, stability and respect for human rights in Yugoslavia.
<P>
The dreadful developments in Kosovo are not an internal Yugoslav problem.
They affect us all!
Good neighbourliness and justice do not end at national frontiers.
We bear common responsibility for our continent.
There cannot and must not be any excuse whatsoever for a cynical policy of driving out, indeed of deporting hundreds of thousands of people.
<P>
Applause
<P>
One million people have had to leave their houses and homes or were driven out by Serbian security forces, 500 000 of them since March alone.
There are more than 300 000 refugees from Kosovo in Albania.
The small country of Macedonia is also in an extremely difficult position.
That is why the EU Member States launched a large-scale aid operation jointly with other states.
We want to alleviate the plight of the refugees and we want to show solidarity with the neighbouring states.
That is why the Council decided last Thursday to earmark EUR 150 million for humanitarian aid to the refugees.
<P>
We will support the main host countries, Albania and Macedonia, together with the Yugoslav Republic of Montenegro, with another EUR 100 million.
<P>
Heckling: So will we!
<P>
Very good!
The Council has also requested the Commission to submit proposals on further tightening the European Union's relations with Macedonia, looking even to a potential association agreement.
The extremist Belgrade leadership bears sole responsibility for the situation that has arisen.
The decision to put a lasting and verifiable end to the operations of the military and security forces and to allow the refugees to return is in its hands.
Mere cease-fire declarations, which are not meant seriously and which we know from the wars in Croatia and in Bosnia-Herzegovina to be lies, are not enough.
<P>
Belgrade must immediately take verifiable steps to resolve the conflict.
In addition to a genuine cease-fire, that means the withdrawal of all Yugoslav forces from Kosovo, including the infamous bands of paramilitaries, the return of the refugees and the deployment of international troops to protect the refugees and the population.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, who will be a guest at the informal meeting of Heads of State and Government this evening in Brussels, also supports this demand.
It is now up to the Yugoslav side to accept the demands of the international community unconditionally and to implement them at once.
That and that alone would open the way to a political settlement of the conflict.
<P>
The western alliance is not just fighting in the Balkans to prevent suffering and to secure justice and the rule of law in the Balkans.
The credibility and validity of the European model of civilisation are also at stake.
The Belgrade regime is waging war against its own population.
That is why the democratic and constitutional societies of Europe had to oppose the totalitarian regime in Belgrade.
The 'European integration' model of the future is confronted with a hermetic concept of ethnic nationalism, which leaves no room for minorities and different opinions.
You could say, if you like, that the 21st century is confronting the 19th century.
<P>
Thinking further ahead, there can therefore only be one future for the states and peoples of the region.
If we want to help democracy to become established there on a lasting basis and win over the people of the region - and here I definitely include the people of Yugoslavia - for the European model, we have to offer them a European prospect.
<P>
Applause
<P>
By that I do not mean early accession to the European Union, which would in any case place too heavy a burden on these countries.
I am thinking far more of a comprehensive regional strategy, of a kind of stability pact for the Balkan region.
The aim of that kind of strategy is to pave the way to establishing links with the European Union, with the single market and with the European community of values.
The German Presidency has submitted a proposal to that effect.
<P>
It is our task to determine, through resolute action, under what auspices Europe will end this bloody century of national egoism and inflated ideology.
It is our duty to bring about the definitive, irreversible advance of democracy, human rights and cross-frontier cooperation throughout Europe.
Wherever the plight of the people in this region requires it, we will be generous and give real proof of our solidarity with the weak.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, let us tackle this task together, in the name of Europe, in the name of its people and in the name of its values!
Many thanks for your attention!
<P>
Sustained applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="Santer">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, on 14 July 1997, I presented Agenda 2000 to this House, one of the largest packages of reforms in the history of the Union.
On that occasion, I stated that it represented an historic opportunity to strengthen the Union and prepare for enlargement.
<P>
Today, I am extremely pleased that the Berlin European Council was able to successfully meet this challenge.
This outcome would not have been possible without strong independent institutions that are capable of taking action.
Of course, the negotiations on Agenda 2000 have been complex and difficult.
We had to continue with the agricultural reforms launched in 1992 and maintain the essential elements of economic and social cohesion, whilst taking enlargement and the financial constraints into account.
<P>
A year ago, negotiations began on the basis of legislative proposals put forward by the Commission, and these negotiations developed satisfactorily under the British and Austrian Presidencies. The negotiations were completed in Berlin thanks to the German Chancellor and I should like to pay tribute to him on behalf of the Commission.
<P>
Of course, the work is not yet finished.
There is still some legislative work to be completed before the end of your parliamentary term.
We must also negotiate the interinstitutional agreement, to which you quite rightly attach so much importance.
But the Berlin agreement has created the political bases needed to complete a package of measures that I would describe as 'ambitious'.
I am well aware that there will be disappointment over some points here and there but, overall, there is every reason to welcome an agreement that falls within the guidelines followed by the Commission since 1997.
<P>
As far as agriculture is concerned, we needed to preserve competitiveness and the exporting role of this increasingly multifunctional sector while developing rural areas.
It is common knowledge that the Commission would have liked to have gone a little further down the path of reform.
Nonetheless, I believe that Agenda 2000 was a real step forward.
<P>
As regards the common organisation of markets, the idea of price reductions with partial compensation has been upheld.
Our proposals for rural development have been adopted as they stand.
The issue here is to adjust the scale of such development.
These reforms will allow us to strengthen agriculture whilst remaining within a rigorous financial framework for the whole of the new period.
They will also smooth the way for enlargement and for an agreement within the World Trade Organisation.
<P>
As regards the second major category of expenditure, namely structural operations, our objective was to preserve economic and social cohesion whilst achieving greater concentration of available resources.
The Commission felt it was crucial to maintain the levels of aid that were achieved in 1999 for the most affected regions and social groups.
We succeeded in doing this.
<P>
Secondly, we had to resolve certain specific problems.
Rather than distorting the objective criteria for allocating resources, the European Council decided to set aside a small proportion of the budget within the overall budget to deal with such cases in the appropriate manner.
The main principles behind the proposed reforms were therefore also maintained, although this has indeed led to a somewhat tedious listing of ad hoc solutions.
<P>
Thirdly, the Agenda 2000 communication, proposed by the Commission, set out to provide the Union with the means it needed to create the appropriate conditions for lasting growth that generated employment.
To this end, the Commission wished to strengthen heading 3 on internal policies.
The amount decided on in Berlin is at the bottom end of the bracket proposed by the presidency.
I have often drawn the Council's attention to the importance this House attaches to heading 3, and I am sure that you will succeed in raising our ambitions during the negotiations on the interinstitutional agreement.
<P>
The last element as far as expenditure is concerned is administrative expenditure.
In Agenda 2000, the Commission had already begun to consider its own reform.
In this context, the issue of balancing political objectives and administrative resources is of the utmost importance.
As far as heading 5 is concerned, even though the amounts decided on in Berlin are at the top end of the bracket proposed by the presidency, they will barely allow staffing levels in the institutions to remain constant.
This is unsatisfactory.
Here, again, the negotiations on the interinstitutional agreement will allow Parliament to try to change this approach.
<P>
Mr President, the Union will not continue to develop with the current 15 Member States alone.
Intensive preparations are underway to enlarge the Union to include our friends and neighbours.
In Agenda 2000, the Commission had suggested setting aside a considerable part of the financial package for the pre-accession process and future enlargement.
I see that our proposals, the equivalent of a real Marshall Plan, have been adopted in their entirety in this package, and we are talking here of a sum of EUR 80 billion.
<P>
We had to combine the two objectives of deepening and widening the Union within a strict, efficient and equitable financial framework.
The Berlin agreement must now lead to an interinstitutional agreement that will help guarantee budgetary discipline within ceilings established by rigorous but realistic financial perspectives.
As far as the Union is concerned, commitments will stabilise in 2006 at a level lower than that forecast for the year 2000, and this will involve considerable efforts to reduce expenditure.
By stabilising the expenditure for 15 countries, we will create the necessary margins within the own resources ceilings that will allow us to welcome new members between 2000 and 2006.
<P>
That, ladies and gentlemen, is also solidarity.
We have finally been able to reach an agreement on own resources that will lead to a more equitable system.
Partially replacing the VAT resource with the GNP-based resource will ensure that Member State's contributions are more in line with their ability to contribute.
The change in the financing of the British rebate will remove some of the burden from the countries with the greatest budgetary imbalances, without introducing new corrective mechanisms.
Before the end of the new financial perspective, the Commission will have the opportunity to once again examine the own resources system, including the effects of enlargement and the question of new autonomous own resources, something that is close to Parliament's heart.
<P>
Mr President, the agreement reached in Berlin on Agenda 2000 is a success and it is a success for the Union.
I am counting on Parliament to provide the few corrections needed.
Once again, the Union has shown that it can find solutions to enable Europe to progress.
I am not hiding my personal satisfaction at having been able to contribute, along with my colleagues in the Commission, to such a positive outcome.
We have thus come to the end of the cycle of important deadlines that I presented to you on 17 January 1995.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the President-in-Office has just described the situation in Kosovo in detail so I will only add a few words.
We are clearly very worried about the events in Kosovo.
I will not go back over the origins of this situation except to point out that it is entirely the product of the Belgrade government's refusal to accept any negotiated settlement.
The representatives of the international community, and of Europe in particular, stepped up their efforts to find a peaceful and just solution for Kosovo, a solution that was just for all, for those of Albanian origin and for the Serb nation.
<P>
Those efforts failed and the current military action hopes to use force to ensure that the principles and values forming Europe's raison d'être are respected.
To take no action would be to accept this situation and Europe and its partners will not accept murders, will not accept deportations and will not accept terror and hatred amongst peoples.
Europe and its partners, allied in this difficult military action, have clearly laid down their demands.
The international community is now taking action to make the leaders in Belgrade put an end to the suppression, allow the return of refugees and accept the presence of an international force.
In time, stability in the Balkans will have to be the subject of a far-reaching initiative, which was already outlined by the presidency at the last General Affairs Council.
The Commission will fully support such an initiative.
<P>
For the time being, Europe is faced with a humanitarian crisis of tragic proportions.
The neighbouring regions of Montenegro, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Albania are affected most.
We must also give consideration to the displaced persons within Kosovo.
The Commission immediately attempted to make use of Community resources to respond to the most pressing needs.
As always, we are working in close cooperation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
<P>
Furthermore, you will be aware that, during a special meeting, the Commission adopted two far-reaching initiatives which it has forwarded to the European Parliament and to the Council.
The first requirement was to prepare to mobilise additional resources for humanitarian aid.
A request has been passed on to the budgetary authority for EUR 150 million to be transferred from the emergency reserve in the ECHO budget line.
With these EUR 150 million, the Community will have released EUR 180 million from the 1999 budget for humanitarian aid for the refugees in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Albania and Montenegro.
<P>
In addition, the Commission believes that we should provide assistance to the neighbouring regions of Kosovo that are taking in refugees. These regions are, first and foremost, Albania, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Montenegro, but other areas could also be eligible if they take in a high number of refugees.
We are fully aware that massive flows of refugees into a country places heavy demands on its budget.
<P>
The Commission therefore plans to allocate up to EUR 100 million to help finance costs directly involved in taking in refugees: providing security for them, administrative costs, additional transport costs, electricity, water supplies, and so on.
A mission from the Commission is currently in the region to analyse what is needed.
I must point out that this aid will only be granted if the beneficiaries fulfil the international obligations incumbent upon them, particularly under the Geneva Convention.
<P>
This specific aid to third countries is fully in line with the decision taken to provide particular assistance for the refugees entering Kosovo's neighbouring regions on a temporary basis.
However, in this respect, I must mention that there is the possibility that the Member States may decide to take in refugees on a temporary basis, in response to appeals from the UNHCR.
To enable the Community budget to support these Member States, the Commission has amended its proposal for a joint action to allow us to make use of the European Refugee Fund. This will allow us to draw on the European Refugee Fund, a fund which, I would remind you, holds EUR 15 million.
This amendment takes account of the new situation created by the war in Kosovo.
Parliament has supported it and we are now waiting for the Council to give its opinion.
<P>
For all of these operations, we need Parliament's full cooperation.
As far as humanitarian aid is concerned, there are no difficulties in using the emergency reserve.
As regards the aid of EUR 100 million designed to finance the cost of taking in refugees in Kosovo's neighbouring regions, the situation has proved to be rather more complex.
The Commission's main aim in this case is to rapidly mobilise these funds.
<P>
I should also like to draw your attention to another important point that I must mention, namely, the additional staff the Commission will require for these new operations.
I believe that Parliament is well aware that the Commission must have the necessary resources to perform its tasks under favourable conditions.
We can no longer continue to say that the cavalry is coming.
<P>
The Commission will need additional personnel in Brussels and in its delegations to deal with these new operations and with the subsequent restructuring needs.
What is more, it will need technical and administrative assistance on site.
As a result, in the very short term, the Commission will have to continue to redeploy its staff, but that will not be enough.
We will need extra staff in the next financial year, for both this sector and others.
The current situation once again highlights the fact that the Commission must have additional staff to perform the tasks required of it.
<P>
The communication that was forwarded to you last week mentions this lack of financial and human resources, and I am counting on Parliament and on the Council to take these constraints into consideration.
Each institution must contribute and help Europe respond to this crisis in an efficient and responsible manner.
I believe that your debates on these two central issues - financial requirements and human resources - must reach the obvious conclusion.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hänsch">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin on a personal note.
I am happy to be the first speaker for my group to welcome the German Chancellor as President-in-Office of the European Council to the European Parliament; everyone will understand that as a Social Democrat I am particularly glad to do so, especially following the statement you have just made, Mr President-in-Office of the Council!
<P>
Applause
<P>
Rarely has a presidency of the Council had to take such important decisions as you have in the first three months of this presidency's term of office, and whatever people may think of particular aspects of the decisions, one thing has become clear: our European Union has proved its ability to act, for which we thank you.
<P>
Under your presidency the European Council nominated a candidate for the post of President of the Commission in the space of one hour, a process that dragged on over more than two summit conferences five years ago.
That is certainly worth something in this Union.
We will now ensure that we approve Mr Prodi's appointment during this electoral term of Parliament - i.e. in May - and that we vote on the entire Commission by early September at the latest.
I think that tallies with your timetable.
<P>
For the rest, the resignation of the Commission was not an institutional crisis, quite the contrary.
I see it as a step towards European normality.
Surely it is normal for Parliament to control and sanction, and surely it is and will remain normal in future too for the EU bodies to assume political responsibility for inadequacies and mistakes.
<P>
Applause
<P>
The fact that this has now happened for the first time also deserves our respect.
What we need now is a radical reform of the administrative structure and the administrative culture in Brussels, and that is not a task just for the new Commission but also for you in the Council and for us in Parliament.
We want not a weaker but a stronger Commission.
The new Commission must be able to become what it must become, namely a European government.
<P>
It we transfer tasks to the Commission, we must also ensure that it is given the funds for the staff it needs in order to fulfil these tasks.
Looking at the financial agreement reached in Berlin, I do not have the impression that the Council has fully realised that yet.
In fact we here in Parliament have not fully realised yet either that the Commission has to be given the funds to enable it actually to assume the responsibilities we are transferring to it.
<P>
Applause
<P>
The Berlin decisions on Agenda 2000 are a compromise, which is only normal, yet in some respects it is a difficult one to accept because some of the compromises that were and had to be reached between national interests will in fact be to the detriment and at the expense of Europe.
Over the next few weeks Parliament will subject them to critical and detailed analysis and you may be sure that we will find quite a few things to quibble about in these compromises.
I will not go into that in detail now.
Let me just say this: the agricultural reform was watered down.
You will have to improve on it in a very short time, not just because the reform does not go far enough to cope with enlargement but also in view of the next round of WTO negotiations.
<P>
Secondly, a new financial perspective requires an interinstitutional agreement.
We do not want to undo the Berlin financial package, but we want to organise some parts of it in such a way as to make them more consistent with our demands and priorities, e.g. the measures to combat long-term unemployment and support an active labour market.
We want an interinstitutional agreement on the financial perspective, we really do want it, but not at any price.
After all, this is an agreement, not a dictate.
Nevertheless and overall, with Agenda 2000 you have set in motion the greatest reform of EU policies that the EU has ever undertaken.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office of the European Council: we will do our utmost to obtain the necessary majorities for Agenda 2000 in Parliament and to adopt it before the end of this electoral term.
We know that it makes up only a part of the reforms needed to make the EU fit for enlargement, which is why I welcome your announcement today that you will determine the timetable for the necessary institutional reforms in Cologne in June.
We firmly support you in your intention to conclude this reform process before the first Eastern European country joins the European Union.
<P>
There is something else we expect of your presidency of the Council.
The European Union managed to conclude a pact on stabilising the common currency, which was a good thing. But now it must also manage to conclude a pact on employment, which is an equally good thing.
That is why we support your intentions for the Cologne summit.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Turning to Kosovo: this is a difficult subject for all of us, particularly in my group.
We welcome the united support shown by the European Council in Berlin for NATO's military action.
That was another test of the common foreign and security policy, for it showed that Europe is a community of values, not just an economic community.
A large majority of my group supports the Member States' position on military action.
We regard this action as inevitable, but over and above the limits and necessity of military action, I would like to highlight two or three points.
It is true that we have to restrain the criminal Milosevic and his bands of soldiers and murderers.
At the end of this bloody century, nationalism and racism must no longer be given a chance in Europe, not anywhere in Europe!
<P>
International law builds on national sovereignty and territorial integrity.
These are important values, but no state in Europe may take national sovereignty and territorial integrity as a licence to oppress, displace or commit genocide.
<P>
Applause
<P>
That is why, over and above the military action that has now become necessary, we need to develop international law further, and we invite you to play your part in doing so.
The people of the Balkans will only find peace within a European perspective.
We welcome your initiative in calling for a Balkan conference to discuss political, economic and social reconstruction in this stricken region.
We firmly support the proposals you made here today.
<P>
Let me also say here: we thank the troops from the Member States committed to NATO.
We thank them for risking their lives to put an end to the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.
<P>
Applause
<P>
We also thank the men and women from non-governmental organisations who are endeavouring, again at the price of great sacrifices, to make the situation of the refugees and displaced persons in this region a little more bearable.
They too deserve our thanks.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Mr President-in-Office of the European Council, you took over the presidency during one of the most difficult times the European Union has ever had to go through.
We wish you success, because that is also our success, the success of our European Union.
In the difficult task still ahead of you, we, the European Parliament, and in particular my group, will always be a critical, sometimes perhaps even a highly critical, but always a reliable partner.
Many thanks.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Brok">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, I am convinced that my group too supports you, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, in the pursuit of human rights and in the action to protect the people in Kosovo.
We know what a heavy responsibility has to be shouldered at a time such as this.
And here we certainly must be in a position really to define the aim of the war and to bring the operation to a conclusion.
Mrs Doris Pack will be discussing that in more detail.
<P>
But I believe this should also be a warning to us that we must at last embark on a viable European foreign, security and defence policy.
<P>
Applause
<P>
During the remainder of your term of office until the end of June, it is your task, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, to implement the appropriate provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam in relation to key issues.
It should not be left to the technocrats.
Instead, this potential should be put to real political use, so as to give us a greater ability to act and enable us in future to pursue the kind of foreign policy that will not allow a situation such as that in Kosovo to arise in the first place, that will not mean having to resort to armed force.
<P>
Applause
<P>
On Berlin, I believe that a number of mistakes were made not in Berlin but before Berlin.
I agree with you that the choice of Mr Romano Prodi was a good choice.
But if the presidency of the Council had cooperated with Parliament on this matter earlier on, in January this year, then we might not have got into this situation at all.
<P>
Applause
<P>
When I think back to some of the statements made in December last year I am tempted to measure the outcome of the negotiations on Agenda 2000 against what you yourself considered necessary at the time from a German perspective.
However, I speak here not as a German representative but on behalf of my group.
That is something else you had to learn as President-in-Office of the Council: that these are two different things!
<P>
Laughter
<P>
I agree that we should not undo the Agenda 2000 package.
But the European Parliament attaches great value to obtaining margins of manoeuvre in relation to other policies, margins of manoeuvre in foreign and security policy, margins of manoeuvre that would, for instance, also relate to enlargement.
After all, the uncertainty in relation to agricultural policy has given rise to new concerns among the applicant countries about time-scales.
We should make it clear that these uncertainties inherent in Agenda 2000 will not mean any delays in enlargement.
Kosovo teaches us that we should use every means available to push enlargement ahead as quickly as possible.
I believe it is our political responsibility to do so.
<P>
Applause
<P>
You will have to prepare the Cologne summit.
This concerns the intergovernmental conference.
We eagerly wait to see what kind of mandate is defined and in what way the European Parliament will be involved in that intergovernmental conference.
We would like to be involved in the same way as the Commission.
<P>
For the rest, it would have been a good step in that direction if the President of the European Parliament had also taken part in today's informal summit. He was not invited!
<P>
Applause
<P>
I also think it would be a good idea to make use of the possibilities offered by the Amsterdam Treaty in relation to justice and home affairs.
In the light of Kosovo, we should move rapidly towards the possibility of majority decisions on questions of asylum and immigration policy.
That could be achieved by a simple Council decision and it should be done in order to create a genuine ability to act in this area.
<P>
I think it is right for the Cologne summit to attach great importance to employment policy.
But we should ensure that the discussions are substantive.
We should make it clear who really can actively pursue employment policy in Europe.
If an employment pact is concluded that has no real substance but that gives the impression that Europe can resolve this problem, and if it then turns out that it cannot resolve the problem because it does not have the necessary instruments, that will damage Europe.
European employment policy must not be used as an alibi for the failure of national employment policies!
We will put great emphasis on that when we evaluate the Cologne summit.
<P>
Loud applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, today you will meet the newly nominated President, Mr Romano Prodi.
We hope that you will confirm what you said earlier, that we need a strong European Commission.
Of course there should be a new administrative and new political culture, but we need a strong Commission.
I would like to thank President Santer, despite all the difficulties we have had, for what he has done in the past couple of years.
<P>
The European Parliament also needs to be fully involved, in the coming period.
We have certain queries about the intermediate period.
It cannot be that the Council takes three months, while Parliament only has two or three days to play its part in the nomination of the President.
<P>
The Agenda 2000 package has, as you have indicated, been agreed under extraordinarily difficult circumstances: bombardments by NATO as a result of the crisis in Kosovo, resignation of the Commission.
We welcome the fact that you have kept the European Union together in a very difficult phase.
The alternative would have been the hopelessness and helplessness of the European Union. That is not an acceptable alternative.
But at the same time, we know that the price of the package which has been agreed has been very high.
We have seen the presence of eleven individual Member States of the European Union rather than the presence of the European Union as a whole.
That price has been an unacceptable reduction of the financial margins in areas which are essential for the innovation and renewal of the European Union.
As Mr Prodi said here yesterday, we need a start in a new direction.
The financial basis for the European Union to do so has been significantly eroded.
<P>
As others have said, the European Parliament wants an interinstitutional agreement, but not at any price.
In this respect I would like to underline that Parliament, in the last few years, has been a very efficient and useful partner.
But you need to understand that it is essential that we achieve flexibility in the margins for the future.
It is against that background that I make a personal appeal to you, Mr President, to seek some elements of innovation so that we have flexibility and some margins.
Otherwise, Parliament will remain a rubber stamp, in budgetary terms, for the next seven years.
Let me give you two examples.
<P>
One is what you said about Kosovo.
Yes, indeed, Parliament's Committee on Budgets agreed yesterday on the EUR 250m.
At the same time it means that we have exhausted the total margin that you decided in Berlin for external affairs.
This shows, therefore, that the financial structure of the Union is still not right.
<P>
It is against that background that we would like to move in the direction of a draft budget which gives the Commission the opportunity to move towards more positive financial gains.
I hope that you will find room for more flexibility than is the case at the present time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Puerta">
Mr President, the Berlin summit was held against the difficult backdrop of a profound institutional crisis in the European Union, with the Commission's resignation, and a serious crisis in the Balkans.
As regards Agenda 2000, in spite of the agreement reached in the early hours of 26 March, the image portrayed by the Heads of State and Government was one of confrontation and a lack of vision for the future.
In Berlin, each of them stubbornly defended their own interests, but no one furthered the common interest of the Union.
<P>
The European Council has still not provided the resources needed.
We cannot consider major objectives with a budget that, in the best case scenario, will only represent 1.27 % of the Community gross domestic product.
If the budget is not increased, we cannot coordinate economic policies, stimulate job creation or strengthen solidarity.
<P>
We are disappointed with some of the Berlin conclusions.
The allocations for structural policies and for internal policies break with the upwards trend that began in 1988 and that was reinforced in 1993.
In addition, the resources needed for the enlargement of the European Union are not guaranteed, and enlargement is now in danger of being postponed.
In quantitative terms, the EUR 240 000 million proposed in Agenda 2000 for structural policies has been reduced to EUR 213 000. There is also a gradual decrease in the percentage of GDP set aside for cohesion policies, from 0.46 % at the moment to 0.42 % in 2006.
<P>
As far as the common agricultural policy is concerned, the compromise reached in Berlin continues with the 1992 reform. One of the consequences of this reform was the disappearance of many farms and the subsequent loss of jobs.
Corrective mechanisms should have been introduced in Berlin but this did not happen.
We are especially concerned for small family farms, as the fall in prices, which is only partially compensated for by income aid, will mainly affect small and medium-sized farms.
We are also very disappointed that a fair modulation system to provide greater benefits for small producers was not adopted. This could have helped rectify the current situation, where 80 % of aid goes to 20 % of the farmers.
<P>
As regards the institutional crisis, we welcome the rapid nomination of Mr Romano Prodi as a candidate for President of the Commission, in accordance with the Amsterdam Treaty. However, we note that there was no dialogue or agreement with the European Parliament on establishing a timetable of investiture for the new Commission, which would allow us, as a matter of urgency, to resolve this temporary situation and, at the same time, strengthen the democratic legitimacy of this institution.
<P>
As regards the war in the Balkans, which we will discuss later, I should like to point out, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, that the 15 Member States only approved the NATO military intervention in Yugoslavia once it had already begun. It is clear that the underlying reasons for NATO's intervention are the Milosevic Government's constant suppression of the Kosovar Albanian population, after having taken away Kosovo's autonomy, its disregard for human rights and its refusal to commit to an agreement in Rambouillet.
But this harsh and sustained military intervention, which has no mandate from the United Nations, sets a disturbing precedent for the biased use of discretion in international law. Moreover, this military action is now having the opposite effect to its stated objectives: the Serb people are showing greater support for Milosevic as a reaction to the NATO bombings and to the innocent civilian victims it leaves in its wake.
The bombings are destroying the country's infrastructures and, at the same time, having a negative effect on the situation of the Kosovar Albanians, who are being expelled from their country in an unprecedented example of ethnic cleansing. There is also the serious problem of relations with the Russian Federation becoming increasingly tense and the danger of widespread destabilisation in the Balkans.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office, I regret that I have to end this speech, but I would like to conclude by stating that it is very unfortunate that the European Union and its institutions have become subordinate to the decisions of a military organisation and relinquished their political responsibility in Europe for so many years.
If we do not wish to have to act this way in the future, we must try to prevent such situations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="Collins, Gerard">
Mr President, I want to offer my warmest welcome to Chancellor Schroeder who is here on behalf of the German presidency.
I thank him very sincerely for what I consider to be one of the finest statements I have heard in Parliament from a President-in-Office for a considerable period of time.
I thank him for what he said in relation to the crisis in Kosovo. Parliament, by its applause, has shown its satisfaction with that statement.
I would also sincerely thank him for the Berlin Resolution in this area.
<P>
I know the President-in-Office is having a meeting this afternoon with Heads of State and Government and it is important that during this discussion he convey to his colleagues that it is of the utmost urgency that the relief effort to help Kosovar Albanians continues and that the European Union play a leading role in the humanitarian aid mission.
Financial resources must be made available to ensure that the relief programmes continue and that appropriate medicinal and food supplies reach the refugees in need.
<P>
We would have hoped that as this millennium ends we would have left the spectre of war in Europe behind us.
Sadly, the totalitarian despot, Mr Milosevic, is fuelling the flames of genocide and compounding the misery of the Kosovar Albanians.
I very much hold the view that there should be no escape for Mr Milosevic and that at some stage he must face the charges of war crimes in a court of law.
<P>
I have one negative point to say to Chancellor Schroeder.
I believe that you are genuine in your expression of appreciation of the role of the European Parliament.
But your credibility is somewhat questioned by the fact that our President, Mr Gil-Robles, is not invited to the meeting this afternoon.
I regret that. It is a mistake that has happened somewhere along the line and even at this late stage I feel you should reconsider it.
It is a bad mistake and gives a wrong signal.
<P>
I would like to say a special word of thanks and appreciation to Mr Santer for the magnificent work he has done for the European Union for the last four-and-a-half years.
I thank him very sincerely for what he has contributed, and also his colleagues in the Commission.
I very much regret that he is the victim of circumstances at this particular time.
You have my full respect, President Santer, and my appreciation for what you have done for Europe during your term of office.
<P>
The Berlin Summit of 25 March was a good summit.
It achieved a lot in terms of finalising the overall financial parameters for spending within the EU for the seven-year period after 1999.
Ever since the Agenda 2000 proposals for reform of the Union policies were first published in March 1998 it was always felt in some quarters that it would be difficult to find an agreement that was balanced and even-handed across all the territories of the European Union.
The German presidency can take solace from the fact that the spending parameters for the budget for the Union for the period 2000-2006 commands the confidence and the good will of all the Member States of the European Union.
<P>
The budget totals of £506bn will put in place various programmes to lay the foundation for the impending enlargement of the European Union itself.
Equally, it will ensure that the common agricultural policy will be properly financed and that many social and regional aid schemes will continue for the poorer Member States of the Union after 1999.
<P>
I should like to deal with some aspects of the common agricultural policy for the moment.
It was suggested in a document entitled 'The future financing of the European Union', issued by the Commission before Christmas, that possibly 25 % of the CAP should be financed by the national exchequers of individual Member States.
This would have been a regressive step for the European Union to have taken.
It would have been a very divisive move because one of the successful aspects of the CAP is the fact that it is administered in a uniform manner across all the territories of the European Union.
Renationalising part of the CAP could only have led to the ultimate disintegration and fragmentation of the common agricultural policy itself.
<P>
Finally, I should like to say to Chancellor Schroeder: you got off to a reasonably weak start in your presidency; you have made tremendous progress in recent times.
There are still a lot of important items on the agenda for completion by the end of your presidency.
I congratulate you on the progress you are making to date.
You are two-thirds of the way to the winning post.
We want to see you put in greater effort between now and the end of June.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Mr President, Mr President-in Office of the Council, the war in Kosovo puts everything that is happening in Europe, including the Berlin summit, in relative terms.
Suddenly every peaceful compromise is worth more than was originally assumed.
But every peaceful compromise is only worth what it brings us in terms of security in the next seven years of the reform and enlargement of the European Union.
From that point of view, the Berlin summit with all its decisions was a total success.
I would like to make three comments from a budgetary point of view.
<P>
One: the financial package is to be welcomed because you managed to reserve the appropriations for the applicant countries on a definitive basis.
My group was particularly concerned about that.
The EU of 15 has cut back, especially in the structural field, which meant that Berlin sent out a clear and reliable signal to the applicants for accession.
<P>
Two: I criticise the financial package because in my view it unfortunately failed to take the decisive step towards redirecting agricultural policy.
This is a heavy burden and calls for a review earlier than planned.
The Franco-German engine simply does not run on milk.
We all know that.
After the elections and under the new Commission, this subject must undoubtedly come back on the agenda.
<P>
Three: from Parliament's point of view the financial package is not acceptable where it relates to internal and external policy, to administrative expenditure and to the flexibility we want to see.
The terrible events in Kosovo show us that foreign policy tasks in particular will increase over the next few years, that we need more than fine words here if we are to organise a genuine common foreign and security policy initiative in Europe.
<P>
But I am assuming that we will be able to use the margin for manoeuvre that is still available during the trilogue, and I ask you to support us here.
At the same time I join Mr Collins in asking you to reconsider your decision, so that Mr Gil-Robles can after all take part in the special meeting this afternoon as representative of the European Parliament.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lalumière">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, the extraordinary summit in Berlin was, in fact, extraordinary in more than one respect.
<P>
The summit took place with the dreadful tragedy of Kosovo as a backdrop.
It followed on from the first political crisis in the European Union with the Commission's resignation. It also had to take decisions on Agenda 2000's major guidelines, particularly the budget guidelines, for the beginning of the new millennium.
<P>
You succeeded, Chancellor, in obtaining results on all the points you had to address.
What is more, Germany was able to look above and beyond its own interests and surpassed itself in playing its role as president of the whole Union.
Being firm believers in Europe, we sincerely thank you for this.
It is good for Germany's image and good for the whole of Europe.
<P>
Of course, the final compromise is not completely satisfactory.
As regards budgetary issues, we are still concerned about the capping of resources as, with enlargement and the aid to Kosovo, expenditure is bound to increase.
We would at least have liked to have seen the introduction of an automatic review clause for the financial perspectives on the occasion of each enlargement.
<P>
As regards the common agricultural policy, we fear that the timid compromise that was eventually adopted barely equips us to face the future WTO negotiations.
As far as the Structural Funds are concerned, it would have been better if the Union's measures on economic and social cohesion had been more in line with the Commission's more generous proposals.
<P>
However, despite these reservations, we are, in fact, pleased that the Berlin summit was able to make progress on the main issues.
<P>
You acted very quickly in terms of nominating the President of the Commission.
We hope that the rest of the process will be carried out in an efficient manner and without rushing; the main concern must be to rapidly provide the European Union with a new, reformed Commission that can play a true political role.
<P>
This leaves Kosovo, the most important issue.
The Berlin summit obviously could not resolve this tragedy, but what was said in Berlin, and what you have just said this morning, is along the right lines.
I am thinking here, in particular, of the political role that Russia could, and should, play.
I am thinking of the fact that you have called on our countries to immediately take in displaced people and refugees, albeit on a temporary basis.
I am also thinking of the idea of some form of stability pact for the Balkans to help relieve the people of their misery and their isolation.
<P>
Your idea is a good one.
And when you tell us that Europe should speak with a louder voice and that Europe must respect the values that form the cornerstone of European integration, Mr President-in-Office, we can but approve your ideas and hope that everyone will listen to you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
Mr President, Chancellor Schröder, Shakespeare said: 'To be, or not to be - that is the question'.
The Council is now saying that the Commission can both be and not be at the same time.
The Europe of Nations Group and the June Movement demand that the Commission should actually resign and be replaced by a clean-up team, which can carry out a clear-out and clean-up operation before a new Commission is selected.
We urge the national parliaments themselves to select the person who is to represent their country in the European Commission.
It should not be Prodi or a majority in this Chamber that decides who should be the Danish member within the Commission.
The Danish member should not be the EU's agent with regard to the Danes, but the Danish electorate's representative in the EU, and besides: 1 000 committees, 10 000 different laws and 100 000 projects are far too much to be controlled from Brussels.
Cut away the fat!
Put the EU on a diet, and give greater freedom to democracy in our countries!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Parigi">
Mr President-in-Office, the Italian democratic right, Alleanza Nazionale, hopes that the President of this House can attend the meeting you have convened for this afternoon and expresses its full support for NATO initiatives in the former Yugoslavia.
May we just point out that had NATO strategists studied the odd history book over the last ten years they would have discovered that ethnic cleansing is habitual practice for some populations in the Balkans, to which 350 thousand Italians fell victim fifty-five years ago when they were expelled at gunpoint from the Adriatic coast where they had always lived.
<P>
Agenda 2000 might have seemed a catalogue of pipe dreams when it made its appearance on the European stage, even though it was tough in tackling the thorniest problems facing the Community.
Now that it has been rewritten by the heads of government in Berlin, it looks to us more like a catalogue of disappointments, as it is marked by so many uncertainties and contradictions, reflecting even more than before the uncertainties and contradictions of individual States, which, led for the most part by left-wing governments, have transferred into Agenda 2000 their now painfully obvious lack of ideas.
<P>
Attempts to strike a balance on the agriculture front produced a series of settlements reminiscent of a collection for charity which, once again, penalise a massive sector of the agricultural economy in the south of Europe.
Agenda 2000 lacks the courage to tackle the pressing problem of unemployment with decisive measures, given the continued failure to appreciate properly the importance of small and medium-sized enterprises as well as the acute problem of the entire European Union's technological backwardness compared to the United States.
<P>
The fact that Agenda 2000 does not put forward an enlightened and strategically valid vision of enlargement is shown, a posteriori, by the failure of the European Union itself to come up with a foreign policy on the Balkans region, whose history and future are wholly European, leaving aside the madness of the Communist - I repeat, Communist - Milosevic.
And the lack of ideas on the part of the mainly left-wing governments in Europe is proven by the fact that their leaders, meeting in Milan recently, decided to take up Clinton's proposals on jobs and the economy, thereby demonstrating a worrying degree of scientific, ideological and cultural subservience.
If we continue down this road, the day will come when the news will arrive from the United States that a fellow called Christopher Columbus, having left the Hudson Bay with three caravels, has discovered Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Madam President, I should first like to congratulate the President-in-Office for the tremendous work carried out at the Berlin summit.
In my previous speeches, I said to the President-in-Office that he had a difficult task, but the German Presidency has truly shown its mettle and demonstrated its ability to see this task through to the end.
In doing so, however, it is natural that Parliament should have some reservations about the content of the budget agreements.
<P>
There has been a considerable reduction in the resources available from the European Community.
I realise that this was one of the objectives of the German Presidency, but it conflicts with the European Parliament's objectives. And as the President of the Commission pointed out, it is clear that a new interinstitutional agreement will be needed as the Berlin agreements are developed, an agreement that takes account of Parliament's opinions.
These opinions refer to certain aspects that have been pointed out, for example, the flexibility we need.
What will happen when a crisis develops that calls for additional budgetary resources, such as the crisis that has recently unfolded in Kosovo?
<P>
There is a significant reduction of the chapters that can be used in the fight against unemployment. There are also reductions in internal policies, external actions and the Community's own administration.
If we work on the premise that there is currently a shortfall in the Community administration, precisely because the Commission was not given the resources it needed, we must ask ourselves if the resources now available for administration are sufficient to allow the Commission to function.
<P>
But there are also other sectors; specifically, there is no provision for a review clause relating to enlargement.
We are aware that the Central and Eastern European countries have enormous needs, and we must think about whether or not we can cover these needs with our current resources.
Indeed, I believe that we will need additional resources for enlargement if we wish it to be completed before the end of the new financial perspective, that is to say, before 2006.
<P>
In the agricultural field, we have not yet concluded a far-reaching reform that will help us to maintain the competitiveness of our agriculture and allow us to improve the quality of life in rural areas. Nor will it be possible to complete such a reform as it does not address the fact that those who live in the countryside are still ranked as second class citizens.
<P>
But perhaps the area where the biggest cuts have been made is that of structural policies.
The Commission - and Commissioner Wulf-Mathies is here now - had made very strict provision for structural policies. These policies have been reduced on the basis of criteria that can perhaps be explained but that will make it more difficult to pursue cohesion policies within the European Union.
In other words, there are a range of regions and countries which have a lower level of development, which have to compete under very difficult conditions to meet the objectives of the stability pact and which will experience problems doing so.
One amendment that could be very damaging is the plan to do away with the exemption for outermost regions from the 75 % requirement for Objective 1 status.
If this exemption disappears, the outermost regions will presumably be treated in the same way as mainland regions, irrespective of the enormous difficulties they face.
<P>
On a different matter, Madam President, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I should like to thank the German Presidency, the Council, and the governments of the Member States for the decisive action they have taken on the Kosovo crisis.
We are applying new international humanitarian law, international humanitarian law that was born in 1945 with the United Nations Charter and with the Nuremberg trials.
We clearly cannot allow a Head of State and Government to inflict suffering on a population like the suffering Mr Milosevic is forcing upon a section of the Yugoslav population, the Kosovar Albanians.
<P>
I believe that, at the moment, the Member States of the European Union are acting as representatives of the whole of humanity, within the framework of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
And we in the European Parliament, or at least in the Socialist Group, support such measures and hope that they can bring about a prompt solution to the problem, perhaps by means of an initiative similar to the one recently taken by the Secretary-General of the United Nations. This solution should mean the withdrawal of Milosevic's troops from Kosovo, the Kosovar population should be allowed to return to the area under international protection and, eventually, reconstruction and economic recovery should begin in the region.
<P>
It is true that there is little time left for the German Presidency, but the European Parliament hopes that the presidency will continue to support NATO's peacemaking efforts and support the Kosovar Albanian population.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fontaine">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union that you are currently leading, Mr President-in-Office, had set itself the ambitious objective - that was too ambitious perhaps - of redefining the Community budget for the next six years. This had to be done with the prospect of an enlarged Europe on the horizon and in an extremely unsettled global context.
<P>
The spirit of the European Union could have been broken by a barrier of national interests. Failure would have spelt political disaster only three months after the launch of the euro and two months before the European elections.
But, above all, it would have spelt disaster had it occurred in the midst of the Kosovo tragedy. There will only be a positive outcome to this tragedy if there are no rifts in the solidarity uniting the 15 Member States.
<P>
We now see that the Community's main interest won through.
As you said, Europe was able to speak with a single voice. Europe demonstrated its ability to take action, the essential elements have been preserved and we must congratulate you on this.
This is important as the strength of the Union resides in its ability to unite to manage the overall balances needed to make the market function, since the aims of the market are not purely economic ones but also social and even humanist ones.
<P>
Since I chaired our negotiating delegation with the Council on the Structural Funds, I should like to speak on that specific point this morning.
Throughout our meetings, we appreciated Minister Verheugen's frankness, warmth and ability to listen.
Today, we feel that, on the whole, our opinions were listened to.
The Berlin agreement incorporates part of the guidelines that Parliament held dear and we support the three main themes adopted by the Council in this field: concentration, simplification and effectiveness.
However, there are a number of issues that have not been fully resolved.
My colleagues, Mr Arias Cañete, our rapporteurs and, earlier on, Mr Medina Ortega, spoke on these issues. We must continue the dialogue with the Council so that together we can successfully resolve these issues before the end of the present parliamentary term.
However, to achieve this, the negotiations on the financial perspective and on the new interinstitutional agreement must lead to compromises that Parliament can accept.
<P>
Rest assured, Mr President-in-Office, that the European Parliament will be flexible, but it also expects the Council to fully recognise the democratic role played by our institution.
That is why we are in favour of the plan to allow the President of the European Parliament to attend the informal Council meeting that will take place this afternoon.
<P>
The Heads of State and Government were able to make a unanimous decision to nominate Mr Prodi as President of the new Commission and, I hope, are awaiting Parliament's approval. I have no doubt that this will be an important factor in the success of this reform, which is essential for the success of the Union, a Union that views enlargement as an absolute political necessity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Neyts-Uyttebroeck">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, my group and I applauded the statements of the Council President, Chancellor Schröder, because we wholeheartedly endorse his impassioned insistence that we should fight to overcome national egoism, resolutely preach and uphold the European model of culture and civilisation and reject all forms of ethnic nationalism.
And we can appreciate that the Chancellor is very pleased with the outcome of the Berlin summit.
Agreements were reached there on some difficult and sensitive issues.
The substance of those agreements, regrettably, does not match up to the high-flown rhetoric which the Council President employs.
<P>
Let me give you just one example.
The Council President tells us that it has been decided to release a sum of EUR 150 million for the refugees from Kosovo.
We welcome that.
But how starkly that contrasts with conclusion 45 of the Berlin summit, which is that under the heading 'Particular situations (2000-2006)', EUR 5 200 million and more are to be dished out to the Member States themselves to cover events of this kind.
More than EUR 5 200 million for the governments to distribute to their people, whilst a mere 150 million are available for the refugees, when the Council was unable last week to agree a unanimous position on how to accept refugees, and when in the financial perspective the amount of appropriations for the emergency aid reserve has been cut to virtually nothing for the whole of the period 2000-2006.
The harsh reality of the mathematical exercises in Berlin gives the lie to the fine words spoken there.
Discrepancies of this kind are likely to make Europe's people lose all faith in the Union.
<P>
As regards the European Commission and its president-designate, my group likewise believes that the Council has not fully discharged its responsibilities.
We welcome the agreement to designate Romano Prodi as president-in-waiting.
But we also note that the Council, by not making any changes to the membership of the Commission, is placing Parliament before a major dilemma.
We cannot agree to Mrs Cresson continuing to serve as a Commissioner.
My group will not work with her, and we advise her not to show her face here again.
We regard Romano Prodi - whom we respect and of whom we expect much - as the formateur of the new Commission, and Parliament will be required to give its views on that new Commission after the elections.
Any other interpretation would, after all, lead to constitutional difficulties.
I should be glad to know if the Council shares this view.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Moreau">
Madam President, the people of Europe, who have suffered so much themselves as a result of war, are extremely worried about the events in Kosovo.
As the air strikes are only making matters worse, we must pull out all the stops to find a political solution that, alone, is capable of bringing an end to the atrocities of the Milosevic regime and to the suffering of the Kosovar people, and that will also combat nationalism.
<P>
As regards the Berlin conclusions, you mentioned, Chancellor, that the Berlin Council had reached a good compromise.
My feelings are slightly more mixed.
Even though it allowed us to make some progress, the agreement contains some shortfalls and presents risks for the future.
Of course, the harshest options were rejected, but nothing has been settled for the future.
Consequently, in agricultural matters, the price reductions were not as severe as the Commission had requested, but they are nonetheless significant and, more importantly, they are only partially compensated for. These cuts will have a negative impact on agricultural incomes, particularly for small and medium-sized farmers as the idea of putting a ceiling on assistance has been rejected.
What is more, the agreement does not put us in the best position to resist American pressure in the next round of WTO negotiations.
<P>
I am delighted that the principle of financial solidarity has been retained and that the idea of cofinancing has been rejected. I am also delighted that we are moving towards a fairer financing system.
However, in spite of some options put forward, by the Commission in particular, the Council has avoided the issue of seeking new own resources.
Why not introduce taxation on financial transactions? This would guarantee greater justice since those who benefit most from the single market would also help finance European integration.
<P>
Lastly, to conclude, I welcome the positive political signals from the Council on South Africa and Palestine.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Kaklamanis">
Ladies and gentlemen, the President-in-Office, Chancellor Schröder, has today explained his position to us. However, he has failed to understand that the entity he should be representing - Europe - unfortunately does not exist.
In place of the Europe of our dreams, we now have a protectorate of the United States.
This is the harsh, unpleasant and galling truth.
<P>
He said that there were three main issues of concern.
<P>
Firstly, as regards the crisis in the Commission, the selection of Mr Prodi as its President is a very positive step.
However, Mr Prodi must understand that he cannot be President of the Commission and, at the same time, a party leader in Italy.
<P>
Secondly, Chancellor, Agenda 2000 will sink without trace before it sets off on its maiden voyage if its budget remains frozen at 1.27 %.
<P>
Thirdly, we cannot enlarge the European family, combat unemployment, and implement a policy for growth through words alone.
<P>
I was surprised to hear you say, with reference to Kosovo, that European civilisation has made it necessary to bomb Yugoslavia.
Do you really believe that you are bombing Mr Milosevic, at whose door lie so many mistakes?
Unfortunately, Mr Milosevic has gained strength because of the bombing.
However, churches, cemeteries, civilian trains and hospitals are being bombed, and these attacks have absolutely nothing to do with European civilisation and history.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, the Berlin summit is a text-book example of how dangerous it is for the Community when national interests take precedence and joint progress takes second place.
But this time things still went well.
The summit did not produce a reform but at least it produced a package which will allow the Union to get through the next few years.
The summit did in fact produce one important signal for the future of Europe.
It fixed a binding, early date for enlargement.
That sent out a necessary signal to the applicant countries and their people.
It spurred them on in their reform process.
<P>
Peace is an expensive asset.
That is why I can only repeat that Europe's future lies in overcoming attempts to draw new frontiers and the domination of national interests.
But at the same time the Berlin summit drew up a timetable for institutional reform, so that the Union can become capable of enlargement in the first place.
I hope the Council will then recognise that Parliament has equal rights and finally accord it more powers and the right of initiative.
That is the precondition for overcoming the blockage of unanimous decisions.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, just imagine if you had to hand out 20 or 25 presents to ensure that everyone agreed.
<P>
More rights for Parliament means closeness to the people and democracy for the European Union.
That is the future: a Europe that is all of a piece, that is social, ecological and democratic.
That is what we want and that is what we must achieve!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Escolá Hernando">
Madam President, if I had to sum up the Berlin agreement in one sentence as far as Agenda 2000 is concerned, I would say that the Berlin summit has been a victory for those who want less Europe as the outcome of the summit indeed means that we will have less Europe.
<P>
The agreement reached by the European Council is the result of negotiations that concentrated on the defence of national interests rather than on the defence of the process of European integration.
<P>
Our government advocated a speculative, short-term policy in Berlin and this House must now make all efforts to change this approach and return to a more pro-European one.
<P>
The spirit of the Berlin summit will not help us meet the challenges we now have to face.
Enlargement of the Union, reform of the institutions and cohesion and solidarity policies will remain mere ideas unless they are backed up by an appropriate budgetary policy and federalist spirit. This spirit is what has allowed the European Union to progress in the past but it was completely lacking in Berlin.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Madam President, the Berlin European Council only appeared to reach an agreement on the Union's financial framework for the 2000-2006 period.
<P>
In truth, this is a superficial compromise, which probably only hopes to survive the European elections without any hitches, and to wait until the real problems emerge in the future.
<P>
As far as the Structural Funds are concerned, the plan to maintain the overall levels of allocations and cohesion expenditure will undoubtedly soon lead to a sharp drop in the share awarded to countries such as France. This will become apparent when the details of how this works in practice come to light.
Similarly, maintaining the appropriations for agriculture is a purely aesthetic step, as this will only be achieved if the EAGGF-Guidance Section is transferred to the agricultural guideline. In reality, other expenditure will decrease sharply in the context of a reduction in the Community preference system.
<P>
These guidelines have not yet been clearly understood by the public nor, indeed, by many French national elected representatives.
Yet they are not even enough to guarantee a sustainable balance in terms of the financial perspective.
Moreover, only earlier today, the President of the Commission was already calling for additional administrative appropriations.
The Council is so aware of this that, in its conclusions, it calls on the Commission to undertake a general review of the own resources system and to include the question of creating new autonomous own resources. In other words, if we are being frank, the Council is talking of creating European taxes.
It seems clear that the European Union is preparing to fill the holes by creating new compulsory levies.
<P>
We would be most interested to know whether the French Liberals approve of the Berlin conclusions in this respect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Raschhofer">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, the Berlin summit took place under difficult institutional and international conditions, which meant that less time could be devoted to the Agenda 2000 reform package than would have been generally necessary.
Against the background of the Kosovo conflict, every other policy area simply becomes relatively less urgent.
<P>
On Agenda 2000: expenditure was stabilised in the structural field, although this meant fairly major shifts in the definition of financial priorities within the structural measures, such as the increase of cohesion resources by as much as EUR 3 billion.
At any rate, for the new Objective 2, which is intended among other things to promote rural development, the support has been cut by 5 %.
I cannot help thinking that the support could have been concentrated on the neediest regions, considering that more than EUR 4 bn of financial treats were distributed all over Europe.
<P>
Yet the Berlin conclusions do represent a response to the further financing of the existing Community of 15 and of an enlarged Europe.
On the one hand the Council calls on the Commission to take energetic action to create new, autonomous own resources.
Elsewhere it equally clearly lays down that the financial perspective needs to be adjusted, incidentally by a qualified Council majority.
That also explains the statements by your colleague Mr Wemheuer and by President Santer of the Commission, who both said that the current agreement would soon have be followed by another reform.
So I do not share the view of some Members of this House that the adoption of Agenda 2000 really is a great success.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Members of the Commission, a war is going on in Kosovo and between NATO and Yugoslavia.
Whatever our view of its legality, it is a fact.
War is not normally the time for taking a nuanced view, for heightened sensibilities, for a sensible mixture of reason and emotion.
Yet that is what we must do today, for even in times of war we must not only think of peace but also work to achieve it.
In that sense I welcome what you, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, said here, because you have expressed that same feeling.
<P>
Military action became necessary.
I am not happy about it, many of us are not happy about it, but we would be even less happy if we had to watch the massacres continue without trying to put a stop to them.
Many of us would have preferred to see this action take place under the umbrella of the United Nations.
But unfortunately the attitude of Russia and China prevented that.
Yet I want to state clearly on behalf of my group: we still believe that on principle such actions must be carried out by the United Nations and we must do all we can to reform the United Nations in such a way as to make that possible in future.
But that also means that as you said, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, sovereignty must give way to the principle of respect for human rights.
We know that sovereignty has been an important objective over the course of history.
But our experience in Europe has shown us that there are higher values than total and absolute respect for national sovereignty.
We must get that message across.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the military action has clear humanitarian objectives and we very strongly urge you to adhere to those objectives.
It is not a people that we want to defeat, it is the regime, it is Milosevic and his bands of soldiers, as Mr Hänsch called them.
Unfortunately - and that is an inevitable consequence - at the moment the situation is that the Serbs have closed ranks even more.
Even the opposition, the few who were opposed, and above all the intellectual opposition and the critics in Serbia, do not understand NATO's action and are actually rallying round Milosevic.
We must do all in our power to make it clear that we are differentiating between a regime that has brought disaster upon its own people, and a people we want to have in Europe like all the other peoples of this continent and all the other peoples of the Balkans.
We must do our utmost to ensure that there are as few civilian victims as possible in the wake of the military actions.
That has to be our aim, and not just for reasons of humanity but precisely in order to differentiate between the regime and the people.
<P>
Much has already been done for the refugees.
Perhaps some of it was done rather too late, but there is no sense in lamenting that now.
We will have to do all we can to help the refugees and to support the great, indeed the immense willingness of the people of Europe and of many non-governmental organisations to provide aid.
We may say that people today are hard-hearted, but Kosovo and the reaction of the people in Europe show that many also have a very soft, humanitarian heart, and we have to turn that to good use.
I am especially grateful to Mrs Bonino for her very vigorous support here.
<P>
Let me say quite plainly that first and foremost we should provide assistance in situ .
We must not grant Milosevic the great victory of finally emptying Kosovo of all Albanians and preventing the Albanian inhabitants who are scattered throughout Europe from returning home again.
We must prevent him from achieving that aim, but above all we must also help the neighbouring countries who are doing outstanding work in a situation that is not easy, for the situation is not easy for Albania, or for Macedonia or for Rome.
We must help them to pursue a humanitarian refugee policy.
<P>
One final point, Mr President-in-Office of the Council: you clearly pointed the way into the future, whether in the form of a Balkan conference or whatever we call it.
We must begin with a kind of Marshall Plan or stability pact.
That costs money.
But the war and the crises and unrest cost more money and above all they also cost many human lives.
You also said that we must contrast the 21st century with the 19th century.
I agree with you.
The 19th century was a century in which not only did the Balkan peoples come to grief over their nationalism, it was a century when the European powers exploited the Balkan peoples in order to assert their own interests.
Now it is not a question of playing off one Balkan country, i.e. the people of one country, against another one.
What we must do is bring the people closer together, laboriously bring them together and also show them that it is possible to coexist, as we do in western Europe despite the wars we have had.
Even if many people say that the Kosovar Albanians will never be able to coexist with the Serbs - they must coexist, they must coexist on the same continent, in the same region, and it is up to Europe to learn from its own mistakes in the past, to make up for its own past mistakes and lead the people of the Balkans into a peaceful, a non-nationalistic Europe.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, on behalf of my group I want to express our full support for the joint action by the EU and NATO states, whose sole purpose is to put a stop to the genocide in Kosovo.
The plight of the Kosovar Albanians finally sunk in last year.
Finally, every political means was applied, but they had no prospect of succeeding against the Belgrade butcher.
Bosnia could have taught us that.
<P>
I do understand, however, that democracies are finding it hard to use military force, since they were not constantly updated on Milosevic's reign of terror in Kosovo.
Milosevic has no interest whatsoever in the people living in his own country.
He has no respect for mankind!
That is shown by the mass graves in Croatia and Bosnia.
It is shown by the deportations in Kosovo, by the countless acts of rape and the cruel murder of many Albanians.
Over all the years of the apartheid regime, Milosevic's governors had already committed countless murders and acts of torture.
I myself found evidence of many of these atrocities in Kosovo between 1991 and 1998 and repeatedly denounced them, at a time when all the western politicians were simply looking the other way.
<P>
Milosevic does not care about the welfare of his Serbian citizens either, who have been the economic and psychological victims of his policy for many years.
Unfortunately, however, the bomb attacks on Serbia have led a good number of Serbian citizens to mistakenly rally round Milosevic.
Milosevic has always used nationalism as a means of maintaining himself in power.
But nationalism dumbs people down and leads them astray, as we have seen on several occasions during this century.
<P>
Milosevic did not in fact set in motion his devilish machinery to wipe out a whole people at the moment when NATO started bombing.
Unfortunately these bombing raids were the only logical response to his atrocities.
Continued inaction would have made the west more guilty before history than this targeted bombing which, we hope, has a definite political aim.
But the political solution must on no account be the partition of Kosovo.
If we accepted that we would ourselves be creating a potential flashpoint there for the next hundred years.
Since 1990 I have been trying in vain here to make the Council and the Commission aware of Milosevic's planned strategy.
The sanu memorandum of 1985 drawn up by the Serbian Academy of Sciences spells out that strategy.
It also states that Kosovo will be partitioned if he cannot be contained, a partition into the wealthy north with its rich mineral resources, what is known as 'the cradle of the Serbians', and the poor south, whose existence would sooner or later destroy the state of Macedonia and thus create serious difficulties throughout the region.
<P>
In my view, the only solution at this point is an autonomous Kosovo, in which the citizens are returned home under the protection of international troops.
The further political future of Kosovo depends very much on a change in the Belgrade regime and the democratisation of Serbia.
The leading figures round Milosevic and Milosevic himself must also be brought before the Hague tribunal.
On behalf of my group I support all the diplomatic efforts made by the presidency of the Council.
But there is one other thing I would ask of you, Mr President-in-Office of the Council.
I beseech you to make even greater efforts to enable Mr Ibrahim Rugova, our Sakharov prize-winner, and his family, to leave the country.
<P>
Applause
<P>
After abandoning him for years by its pacifist tolerance of the apartheid regime, the west now owes it to him to at least ensure that he and his family receive exit visas.
I cordially ask you to do this for humanitarian reasons!
<P>
Loud applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Haarder">
Madam President, I agree with Mrs Pack.
I would like to say something about the Commission and the problems there have been, and about the criticism that has been levelled.
I would like to emphasise that the Council itself bears a huge responsibility for the fact that things went so wrong.
It is the Council which, time after time, has approved accounts which should not have been approved.
It was the Council which, only this March, disregarded Parliament and approved the accounts for 1997, on the very day when the report from the five experts made it clear that the accounts should not have been approved and that Parliament was right.
It is incomprehensible that the Council was unwilling to learn from Parliament's persistent criticism, which was so often voiced here in this Chamber by my party colleague, Eva Kjer Hansen, amongst others.
<P>
It is the Council which is now largely responsible for the profoundly obsolete and rigid Staff Regulations.
It is the Council which failed to give its backing when Commissioner Liikanen's much-needed proposals on staff reforms were stopped by obdurate trade unions a year ago.
It is the Council which now has the opportunity to insist that these proposals are carried out to the letter, together with the SEM 2000 and MAP 2000 reform plans, which are sorely needed.
It is the Council which must now insist on flexibility, delegation, more fixed-term posts and easier ways to get rid of substandard employees.
It is only the Council which can abolish the national and geographic quotas in the recruitment policy, so that in future we can recruit the best candidate in every situation.
It is the Council which has buried the Commission in far too many large and small programmes with no way of controlling them.
It is the Council which must ensure that the principle of subsidiarity becomes more than just idle talk.
It is the Council which must implement cost-cutting and streamlining measures to facilitate enlargement to include Central and Eastern Europe, while keeping expenditure under the 1.25 % ceiling.
Instead of this, unfortunately, the Council ended up diluting the sorely needed agricultural reforms, on which there had usually been a consensus at ministerial level.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office, I hope that you take all this along with you to your - hopefully fruitful - meeting this afternoon with the new President of the Commission.
In conclusion, I would like to thank you for your resolute stance on the question of Kosovo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Novo">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, the speech made yesterday in Berlin by the Commission President designate seemed to confirm that there is no intention of changing the neo-liberal course set for building Europe.
It is a fact that the Berlin Council accepted the constraints imposed by the Stability Pact and did not alter them, and that the resources it approved were an inadequate response to Community policies and to the challenges of cohesion and of future enlargement.
The Berlin Council maintained unacceptable exceptions to the own resources system, yet at the same time failed to agree on any penalty for speculative movements of capital.
The rejection of agricultural cofinancing cannot blind us to the fact that imbalances and privileges for richer and more powerful countries have been preserved in the CAP.
As for regional policy, the overall reduction in the Cohesion Fund will mean a cut of at least 18 billion escudos per annum for Portugal, which is incidentally one of the cohesion countries.
And if this reduction leads to more restrictive conditions, structural resources could be even more limited.
<P>
In contrast to the pompous declarations and triumphs announced in Berlin concerning internal consumption, the lack of solidarity and the indifference towards cohesion confirmed in Berlin will lead to greater stagnation, higher unemployment, and poorer jobs and social welfare in the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, may I say that in my view you made a respectable statement which was fine-tuned and showed great courteousness towards Parliament.
Yet I am still not entirely satisfied with the Berlin conclusions.
Agricultural policy is not necessarily your political field, but what you produced in this respect was not a huge success.
You said in your statement that a clear signal must be sent out to the markets.
That signal is being sent out in the wrong direction.
Adherence to intervention signals to the Central and Eastern European states that they should abandon their markets and aim at intervention.
That is the wrong direction to take.
<P>
You also spoke, in a different connection, about solidarity with the weak.
But there are weak groups in agriculture too, and the absence of a degressive system and the graduated system have done nothing for the smaller farmers; instead the smaller undertakings will now suffer from the price reduction and the fact that they are not fully compensated.
I do not want to hear any more from you, the Chancellor, about how efficient the large undertakings are, for it is into the large, rationalised undertakings that EU funds are flowing, which makes it easy for them to operate.
The smaller undertakings have adjusted to the market.
That is where the real achievement lies, and they should have been supported.
I admit that provision is made for this under the second pillar.
That is the only glimmer of light in the agricultural field.
<P>
Thirdly, on budgetary discipline: to save is not in itself a quality.
I hope you agree with me there.
There should have been a more definite restructuring here, the kind of modulation of agricultural funding proposed by the Commission.
In fact I would like to praise Mr Fischler here.
What the Commission proposed would also have sent out a signal to the smaller undertakings, who adjust to the market.
That institution must now remain able to act.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, please urge the intergovernmental conference to include agricultural policy in the codecision procedure.
It is urgently necessary for Parliament to obtain the right to specific and substantive codecision powers in this area too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Madam President, recent events in Kosovo and concerning the Commission meant that the agenda for the Berlin summit was not as originally planned.
But it did include the long-scheduled items on Agenda 2000.
It is a good thing that decisions have been taken, at any rate, although it has to be said that the Council is storing up a good deal of trouble for itself.
Hence it is a bad thing that reforms in the milk products sector are not to take effect until 2005.
This means that the Union will certainly not be ready, in respect of this sector, to allow new Member States to join from Central and Eastern Europe.
The Council did, however, manage to agree a thrifty budget covering several years for the immediate future.
These financial perspectives offer hopes of an interinstitutional agreement between the Council, the Commission and Parliament.
<P>
The speed with which the Council has chosen Mr Prodi as president-designate of the European Commission has our approval.
But it is just the first step.
I therefore repeat my insistence, for the benefit of the Council, that the new European Commission must be able to get down to work as quickly as possible and before the European elections.
<P>
I cannot understand what was said about the Middle East.
Mr Arafat's announced intention to declare a Palestinian state looked more like a means of political pressure than a realistic plan.
European support for that Palestinian state could mean the wrong kind of pressure being exerted on the peace talks.
What exactly is the intention here with this Palestinian state?
<P>
NATO intervention in Kosovo was and is inevitable.
The Dutch Members in my group unreservedly support the EU position on Kosovo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Madam President, Chancellor, Mr Santer, I must say that we are delighted to see you once again, Mr Santer.
We were harsh on you because, given the honesty we demanded of your Commission, none of the governments of the 15 Member States should remain in office. As regards the corruption you were accused of, it was probably the quiet Socialist corruption of the 1980s.
We saw examples of this in Mr González's government, Mr Craxi's government and Mr Mitterrand's governments, with the exception, perhaps, of the government of our colleague Mr Rocard. We also saw examples of this in Belgium with Mr van den Broek, head of the Socialist Party, who will head the list in Flanders despite the Agusta affair.
Moreover, to the best of our knowledge, Mrs Cresson's shoes did not cost EUR 2 000.
Perhaps your biggest mistake was to take on the legacy of your predecessor, Mr Jacques Delors, in the BSE affair. Mr Delors is a democrat who, throughout his whole political career, has never stood as a candidate in a single election, except in a local election in Clichy.
<P>
Chancellor, in Berlin, a symbolic town whose name nonetheless makes one shiver and brings to mind certain images, it was decided that for the first time Mr Cohn-Bendit's army would return to the scenes where there are still some survivors who remember previous wars.
In Serbia, six streets in Belgrade carry the name of French generals from the First and Second World Wars, when the Serbs fought heroically against the Axis powers. This was at a time when there were real deportees and camps that, I believe, were called concentration camps.
In Serbia, as in Iraq, Europe is missing its chance to establish an independent foreign policy.
If we want to become a major power, with a single currency and a euro that must compete with the dollar, if we want our GDP to rocket, we should sort out the European family affairs in Serbia, in the bosom of the European family, without bringing in a sheriff from outside, and without creating, in particular, as a finishing touch, an Islamic crescent that encompasses Kosovo, Albania, and perhaps Bosnia.
In Berlin, Mr Prodi was nominated: he is the leader of the Olive Tree Coalition and it is somewhat ironic to think of the olive tree at a time when we are starting a war.
Mr Schröder, you combine German traits with British humour.
<P>
Incidentally, we also discussed technical issues in Berlin. We first discussed the CAP and reached a modest little compromise, especially at France's expense.
Expenditure is being frozen and prices cut by 20 % instead of 30 % for meat, and by 15 % instead of 20 % for cereals. These reductions are only compensated for in part and, above all, we are preparing to fall into line with the United States in the world trade negotiations, as we did in 1992.
Europe is a continent for those who fall into line and it is only natural that we should bomb Yugoslavia, a country which symbolises non-alignment.
Germany also lost out over the Structural Funds...
<P>
Exclamations from various quarters
<P>
There was also financial arbitration in Berlin.
Mr Schröder, you are too well briefed not to know that we will be forced to create a European tax ...
<P>
The President urged the speaker to conclude
<P>
Madam President, I have been constantly interrupted.
<P>
We will be forced to create a European income tax or corporation tax unless the Greens force us to adopt a tax on CO2 , due to all the pollution caused by bombing refineries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Madam President, in the appalling human catastrophe that is Kosovo, and especially with the refugee situation as desperate as it is, the European Union must be able to relieve the situation of the refugees, or rather those who have been driven out of their country.
Furthermore, when other options fail relocation of the refugees outside the region and within the EU area must be an option on humanitarian grounds.
The EU must adopt a position where it can actively encourage the start of talks for a just peace settlement, and we must also try to involve Russia in the negotiations.
Everything that can be done must be done to alleviate this human suffering.
<P>
The extraordinary European Council at Berlin was held, at least to some extent, in very special circumstances.
The Community lacked clear leadership as a result of the resignation of the Commission the previous month.
The Member States, and above all Germany as the holder of the presidency, are to be congratulated on getting decisions through at Berlin, despite the difficulties.
This is because there was real effort to reach decisions: nothing was left to chance.
The basic attitude was that the talks should be conducted well, before any solutions were found.
<P>
However, many of us have problems in approving the substance of Agenda 2000, or at least we have comments to make.
The agricultural solution that pleased many Member States has simply swept serious problems under the carpet.
In any case, it has to be said, especially as far as agriculture is concerned, that new solutions still need to be found before enlargement takes place, and the WTO talks are not succeeding either, with the present brief.
One thing we welcome in the agricultural solution is the better integration of issues relating to the environment, and in that regard the Commission was very successful in laying the groundwork for further action.
Good too was the fact that at long last agricultural conditions in the Nordic countries were taken into account to a reasonable extent, and that at least some success was achieved in limiting the seemingly unstoppable flow of money spent on agriculture.
<P>
However, we fared better, in broad terms, on regional and structural policy.
What is most important is that the scheme should be simplified and made more efficient.
Now Parliament has to ensure that the problems which are still on the table are discussed in cooperation so that Parliament can debate the whole of Agenda 2000 as one package in May.
This will be a special challenge for the success of enlargement and for the European Union to be able to continue working effectively.
If I had to pick out some of the problems with regional and structural policy, one disappointment is obviously the fact that Objective 3, the employment initiative, is lagging behind the others, while we here in Parliament have always maintained that solving the problems of employment is a priority task for the European Union.
Now we must focus our attention on highlighting the issue of unemployment in Objectives 2 and 3 to a much greater and more significant extent than is the case now.
<P>
The timetable for appointing the Commission must be established without delay, but at the same time we must ensure that we adhere to the objectives Parliament has for reforming it.
<P>
I wish the German Presidency luck as it draws to an end.
I hope that the developments launched so successfully in Berlin will manage to stay the course.
Once more I would like to congratulate everyone on the fact that the Agenda 2000 package was approved at Berlin.
This will offer plenty of scope for the future Finnish Presidency to succeed in the face of its immense challenges.
The Finnish Government may have already been elected as I speak.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
Madam President, in the last ten years, Milosevic's regime has been guilty of large-scale repression and a series of wars.
The latest and worst is the current crisis in Kosovo, but it does not end there.
Attempts to destabilise Macedonia and Montenegro are already under way, and Albania has meantime come under fire.
<P>
The expulsion of ethnic minorities and the mass killings in Kosovo show the contempt in which the Milosevic regime holds human values - a contempt which some are emphasising by provocatively toying with a target, something that merely illustrates their disdain for the humanitarian values of the NATO governments, which as we know are seeking to get as many civilian victims as possible out of harm's way.
<P>
You cannot really talk to a regime like that any more.
It does not share the values of which the Council President, the Federal Chancellor, spoke just now.
This regime needs to be replaced, as a wise Serbian bishop of the orthodox church said here in this building a few months ago: there will never be a solution in Serbia and Kosovo unless Serbia becomes a state governed by the rule of law.
If it does, you may be sure that minority rights and human rights will be upheld.
<P>
Meanwhile, almost a million refugees are wandering around in Kosovo and the adjoining countries.
Help is urgently needed, and we therefore agree with the Commission's policy of giving urgent assistance to Albania and Macedonia.
The efforts being made by various Member States are of course laudable and vital, but Parliament would really prefer a policy for the European Union as a whole.
Good European Union facilities for accepting refugees as close as possible to their original homes can make it easier to coordinate aid and avoid problems over how the cost should be shared.
That will also protect the Union against the futile attitude of financial nitpicking shown by a number of governments in Berlin.
<P>
The Commission certainly needs enough qualified personnel to do all this.
We agree with Mr Santer's call for them.
It is right and proper, and our belief, that extra resources should be found for Macedonia, a country of which we have already been asking too much for too long.
Political support for Montenegro is also appropriate, since it is inhabited by Serbs who retain a policy of openness towards Europe.
We should be mindful of that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berès">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to say to the President-in-Office that his success in Berlin relates mainly to Agenda 2000, as this is what was on your agenda.
<P>
The success of the Berlin summit is the result of compromise between Member States that allowed us to reform the Union's common policies.
We welcome this, even if, relatively speaking, we are far from achieving the ambitious objective originally declared by Mr Jacques Santer.
We have put the Union back on its feet but we have not necessarily given it all the assets it needs to conclude the enlargement negotiations.
And we are all aware that there will be other dates to set.
<P>
Your success is due to the fact that you rejected non-Community measures that would have transformed the European Union into an à la carte free-for-all.
You have avoided this by rejecting cofinancing. Cofinancing would have sent out a bad signal as it would mean dismantling the Union's only real integrated policy at the very moment when the enlargement negotiations are underway.
<P>
Your success is also due to the fact that you rejected a system of levelling-down which would have been at odds with all the mechanisms aimed at ensuring Community solidarity.
Perhaps more could have been done as regards the existing measures aimed at ensuring a fair return.
<P>
I will only say one thing about agriculture, and that is that it is unfortunate that the phased reduction of aid was not as well accepted in the agreement. I feel that this would have contributed to more balanced, more equitable agriculture where we provide greater assistance to those in greatest need.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office, you mentioned the issue of institutional reform.
With the appointment of Mr Prodi, the reforming of the Commission is now under way, and we welcome that.
This Commission must practise greater collective responsibility in performing its duties.
It cannot operate using feudal systems, baronies and reserved domains.
<P>
We must also coordinate the Union's external actions.
How can we implement a common foreign and security policy when five separate Commissioners are responsible for these areas?
<P>
These are matters of great urgency.
But the whole package of institutional reforms is also a matter of great urgency, because the Union is in need of such reforms and because it is a precondition to the next enlargements, as you quite rightly emphasised this morning.
We support this.
<P>
And then there is Kosovo.
In this crisis, in this war, the Union's voice must be strong because it is vital in Europe.
We all agree on our objective, namely the end of ethnic cleansing.
Non-discrimination is enshrined in our Treaties and in our laws.
We must ensure that it is respected within our borders, but also outside them.
<P>
To put it simply, we know that peace will not be obtained at any cost.
We have committed our troops.
We had to do so.
Now we must also work on involving the United Nations and Russia in the search for a solution.
We need a protected humanitarian area, complete with intervention forces.
We need a conference of the Balkans leading to a European Union of the Balkans and your stability pact must contribute to this.
We also need to think about the consequences of a European defence identity and strong proposals to reform the United Nations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, I believe that the majority of our colleagues feel that the European Council worked hard in Berlin.
<P>
You had a busy agenda in front of you and you cleared the ground.
First of all, you made a start on solving the institutional problem posed by the Commission's resignation by appointing Mr Prodi.
You left the common agricultural policy intact, rather than reforming it.
You took significant decisions on the Kosovo crisis and you began work on the financial perspective, outlining choices that, on the whole, we approve.
<P>
I therefore believe that the European Council has done its job and we must thank you for this, Chancellor.
<P>
I should like to say a few words on the financial perspective, as I believe it poses a problem.
In Berlin, the European Council made two choices.
It chose rigour, which we approve of, and it rejected flexibility, which worries us.
You chose rigour and we understand why, even though such rigour may sometimes be deceptive.
For example, as regards agriculture, the overall budget is less than the total specific commitments that were agreed on.
Also, category 5 does not allow us to meet the requirements for further staff, which were becoming increasingly apparent, as the President of the Commission, Mr Santer, quite rightly highlighted.
<P>
This House accepts that you have opted for budgetary rigour and we have always supported this approach, but above all, and in spite of everything, you rejected flexibility and that is important.

Without flexibility, we cannot be rigorous, because if we look at category 4, we see that expenditure on Kosovo will far exceed the amount under this heading.
<P>
Without wishing to take an aggressive stance, we must remember, Chancellor, that Parliament has the legal and institutional resources to re-establish the margin of flexibility we believe is necessary. And we will do so if, in the next few days, you do not take some steps towards giving us the flexibility that we believe is extremely valuable, as valuable as you believe rigour to be.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Willockx">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this debate on the German Presidency is taking place at a tragic time, as has already been said.
Once again in Europe, we are seeing the terrible consequences which fanatical nationalism, racism and fascism can lead to.
<P>
History is repeating itself.
Mr President-in-Office, the German Presidency commands respect in this difficult period.
However, you have to cope with the most important problem in the functioning of the European institutions, namely the unanimity required for making decisions in crucial areas.
This applies not only to the common foreign and security policy; it applies also to the foreign ministers, who were actually unable, shamefully, to come up with a humanitarian response last week in the tragic circumstances we are witnessing today.
<P>
As regards the Berlin summit itself, Mr President-in-Office, you deserve praise for unquestionably securing an overall agreement.
In some respects, you secured a good agreement. In other respects, we believe it was a bad one.
You secured a good agreement concerning Commission President Prodi, who already showed us in the House yesterday that he is made of the right stuff.
You secured a bad agreement, in our view, on Europe's budget.
On the one hand as regards revenues: the decision, the compromise on own resources to my mind means giving in to the Member States who have for years argued for the principle of the juste retour .
We have called in Parliament for greater transparency and fewer rebates.
We have got less transparency and more rebates.
That is most regrettable.
Nor have we obtained any satisfaction on the interinstitutional agreement, either in qualitative or quantitative terms.
Parliament's rapporteur, Mr Colom i Naval, is always a moderate man.
He said very sharply last week that the proposals currently on the table for an interinstitutional agreement are a kind of provocation.
So I think it will take a great deal of hard work to reach an agreement.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office, I cannot deny that your statement this morning impressed me greatly.
We fully support your resolute approach to the Cologne summit.
We hope you will secure a clear timetable there for new institutional 'deepening', which is vital if Europe is to have credibility.
We hope too that you will be successful in achieving a European Employment Pact with which we can persuade people to have renewed faith in the future of Europe.
In other words, Cologne has to produce more of substance than Berlin.
We are confident that you will work energetically to ensure that it does.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Arias Cañete">
Mr President-in-Office, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, after analysing the conclusions of the Berlin European Council, and given the objective difficulties involved in concluding Agenda 2000, we must congratulate the German Presidency on having been able to reach an agreement that many felt was little short of impossible.
<P>
But our congratulations must also be extended to the whole college of Commissioners for their excellent preparatory work on Agenda 2000 and for their sincere dedication throughout the whole procedure.
<P>
From the point of view of regional policy, the European Parliament has stated quite clearly that the Union should set aside a minimum of 0.46 % of Community GDP for cohesion policies. It must be set at this level if we wish to have sufficient critical mass available to reduce regional disparities at a satisfactory pace, as highlighted in both the triannual report and the sixth periodic report on the social and economic situation and development of the regions of the European Union.
<P>
The regrettable debate on net budget balances and excessive contributions to the Community budget has led to substantial financial reductions in the Commission's proposals for cohesion policies, which were already modest in themselves. This debate ignores the fact that the balanced development of the whole Community territory leads to extremely favourable trade balances for the wealthiest Member States.
<P>
But it is fair to say that, although expenditure is being reduced, the principle of concentration was left intact. By allocating more than two thirds of the Structural Funds to Objective 1 regions, work on cohesion will remain at levels that are the same as or higher than those of the previous programming period.
<P>
We must also welcome the fact that Objective 3 now has a horizontal character and the fact that the Cohesion Fund has been maintained, thereby ending a fruitless and meaningless debate.
<P>
But in this respect, as Mr Bourlanges claimed, we are concerned that we have still to establish the financial perspectives needed to provide a multiannual financial framework for long-term policies such as regional polices.
<P>
If the Council were to show a certain degree of flexibility, this would add the finishing touch to the Berlin agreement and would enable us to conclude the interinstitutional agreement. This agreement is vital if we are to guarantee the stability of Community finances in the coming century.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="Schröder">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, first, of course, thank you very much for your praise of our work.
It is a pleasure not just to be criticised for hard work but occasionally - in this Parliament at least - also to hear words of praise.
<P>
Naturally I shall begin by responding to the critical comments that have been made.
And I am happy to do so.
But let me say at the outset that I am pleased there has been agreement on the Kosovo issue here in Parliament, barring a very few critical voices.
I have taken careful note of Parliament's strong reactions to the human rights violations in Kosovo and of its resolute support - or at least the support of a very large majority of Members - for the western position.
<P>
In evaluating the situation, let me go back to what one Member of your Parliament, Mrs Pack, had to say.
In my view she gave a very accurate analysis and accurate description of the risks that could arise if the international community does not continue to take resolute action with a view to reaching a political solution to the Kosovo crisis through a mixture of military measures and, of course, political activities.
It must be clear to all that we must not confuse cause and effect.
The cause of the conflict is Milosevic's criminal policy and the sole purpose of the effect we want to achieve by, for example, the military measures, is to protect the people in Kosovo and to reach a political solution.
Let me emphatically underline what was said here.
Our intention is not to punish anyone but to achieve the designated objective of bringing an end to a humanitarian disaster that is expanding and accelerating, so as to prevent even more people from dying.
<P>
Applause
<P>
I am glad to be able to say that the Council and Parliament are entirely at one on this!
<P>
Secondly, regarding the critical comments on the Berlin results, I fully understand what Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, for instance, said about agricultural policy and the fact that we did not manage to achieve all our objectives, not even those which, looked at in isolation, can be regarded as extremely sensible, such as stabilising smaller undertakings even more than proved possible.
That is partly because the different Member States have different interests and want to assert them.
Of course the agricultural part, like the part relating to the Structural and Cohesion Funds and like the financing part, is in fact a compromise, with all the strengths but also the weaknesses of any compromise.
To reassure you, let me say to you, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, that if I had been able to act on my own, I would have responded more closely to your wishes!
But that was not possible, as everyone will easily understand - nor indeed was it at all desirable.
<P>
Laughter
<P>
Secondly, regarding the Structural and Cohesion Funds, I noted that we did not match up to some of your expectations.
Nor could we, for some Member States are mainly contributors to these funds - and I do not just mean Germany, do not misunderstand me here - while others profit from both funds.
<P>
That quite naturally creates opposing interests, that can only be reconciled through compromise.
I believe that in regard to the size and shape of the two funds, it has become clear that all in all we have found a sensible compromise.
As far as Parliament's interests are concerned, there will after all still be negotiations about flexibility and other similar demands that have been made.
I believe these negotiations will be conducted in an equally determined and purposeful manner.
At any rate, that is what the Council wants, as in the case of the negotiations that have now been concluded on preparing for the necessary legal acts.
Here I am optimistic that we will manage to achieve the sensible measure of flexibility that Parliament wants.
<P>
Applause
<P>
I can only underline what has been said about further-reaching aims.
Of course what we must now do is to get the institutional reform underway, and not least because besides the financial architecture, institutional reform is one of the real conditions for the success of the enlargement process.
Only if we manage really to achieve the institutional reforms in parallel with the accession negotiations will we be able to keep to the scheduled timetable for accession.
Without institutional reforms, the greater Europe, one that does not stop at the eastern border of Germany, would become ungovernable.
I believe that the Members of this Parliament know that, but the Council knows it too.
This is indeed one of the very major tasks, and although it cannot be achieved during our presidency we can at least get it underway.
<P>
On the two other major objectives referred to in this debate, namely to draw up the common foreign and security policy, to safeguard it institutionally and to appoint a genuinely important and significant personality to represent and conduct this common foreign policy, in Cologne we want to decide on the person to be appointed and of course make progress in substantive terms.
Here too we feel we are being held accountable to Parliament, and quite rightly so.
We really do want to work on this.
It must be equally clear - and here I am especially addressing the critics of European employment policy - that European employment policy, the employment pact we want to forge, must not be seen as a substitute for national employment policies.
It would be quite wrong to perceive it as such; rather, it should be seen as usefully supplementing national policies.
That is the aim we are pursuing.
<P>
If we could manage to direct the Member States' considerable resources more towards this objective through coordinated national budgetary policies, and if, on top of that, we could also manage to direct European resources towards this objective, then I believe we really would be doing something to combat unemployment, especially youth unemployment, in Europe.
We would also be making an immense contribution towards anchoring the idea of Europe more firmly in the minds of our young people than some of us may have managed in the past.
That is what we want to discuss and set in motion in Cologne.
<P>
On the question of relations with Parliament, let me offer a concluding remark. Like any head of government controlled and elected by Parliament, I naturally respect the Members of Parliament.
But as a government we are self-assured enough to indeed accept and recognize the rights of the MEPs but also to point out that it is still up to us to legitimise policies, such as expenditure policy, so long as there are no radical changes.
We have to explain to people why and how much they are to pay out and what for.
That form of legitimation also gives us a certain self-assurance.
I look forward to a constructive dialogue with Members of Parliament, with Parliament itself, in which no-one gives any special treatment to anyone else but both sides know that Europe can prosper only if the institutions are able and become even more able to work together.
<P>
In this regard I have one more point to make.
It is a question of the ceterum censeo that has been mentioned in many statements, the ceterum censeo about inviting the President to today's informal meeting.
We have on occasion issued such an invitation, and we will do so again.
The reason for our decision today is quite simple.
Firstly, I will be seeing the President and talking to him very soon, and secondly we really convened this informal summit in order to talk with Mr Prodi.
Parliament has already had talks with Mr Prodi, so an invitation did not seem necessary.
Moreover, it was clear that against the background of developments, in this situation the Heads of State and Government cannot meet without discussing Kosovo.
We have exactly an hour and a half for this.
That is the reason why we did not invite the President of your Parliament, it is not because of any reservations about the President and even less about Parliament - and we will certainly not make a habit of this.
Even if indeed you cannot agree, at least I would ask you to understand and to believe me when I say it was neither a question of disrespect nor of rudeness, but simply a question of time.
<P>
I hope I have managed to answer some of the objections.
I thank the Members of this Parliament and the President for giving me an opportunity to speak here.
It was an honour.
And I also thank you for letting me reply to your statements.
I wish you much success in your work and much success for all of us who are in and for Europe.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="President">
Thank you for what you have said today, Mr President-in-Office.
I wish you success in the negotiations at the informal summit meeting this afternoon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Hatzidakis">
Madam President, it is well known that before the Berlin agreement on Agenda 2000 was concluded, there was a great deal of indecision, indecison which has dogged the European Union since Maastricht.
<P>
In my view, this is because euroscepticism has given way to europhobia among our political leaders.
The result is that the European Union is not equipping itself with the necessary political and economic resources to achieve its aims, on paper at least.
This indecision has been borne out by the crisis in Kosovo, where the ineffectual implementation of the common foreign and security policy has been unable to prevent the crisis from escalating and has once again allowed the United States to become the major force in our region.
<P>
On issues relating to Agenda 2000, there were also discrepancies between our words and our actions.
Of course, we are glad that some form of compromise was reached.
However, that compromise led to an economic package that is substantially smaller than that proposed by the Commission and Parliament.
<P>
As far as the Structural Funds are concerned, we welcome the fact that the solutions that were chosen - which relate to the partnership principle, the performance efficiency reserve, and so on - do not differ from the proposals put forward by Parliament.
As regards the economic support given to the four poorest countries, it was decided that it would be best to maintain per capita expenditure at 1999 levels.
This may satisfy Spain, Portugal and Ireland.
However, I cannot understand why this solution satisfied my country, Greece, when it is well known that it is the poorest country and the only country which comes under Objective 1 in its entirety. Nor can I understand why it accepted the increase from 55 % to 62 % in Spain's share of the Cohesion Fund, and the reduction of its own share from 18 % to 17 %.
But, as Kipling would say, that is another story.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Madam President, Berlin was worth the journey, as we have heard here today several times.
But it will take a lot more work before the objectives set out by the Berlin European Council have an impact on the ground.
That applies in particular to the important issue for the future, 'enlargement', which has rightly been addressed repeatedly here today.
The slogan here runs: rather than drawing away in fear we must move towards one another.
In an exemplary joint effort, the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament have made the Interreg Community initiative stand as a signal for cooperation beyond the existing external border of the EU.
Many thanks, Commissioner!
<P>
Now we must ensure that European legal texts and European aid money lead to constructive cooperation between the people on either side of the EU border.
In my own country, Austria, as also in other Member States bordering on the applicant countries, we have an opportunity to turn the idea of European cooperation into reality with concrete projects.
Let us do so!
We also have this kind of very concrete cooperation between the European institutions and the European people in my own country at present, on a different European issue, the question of the refugees in and from Kosovo.
<P>
In Austria the people themselves, vigorously supported by the media, by radio, TV and the press, have sent out their own very personal European signal in the form of an exemplary action called 'Neighbour in Need'.
In the space of a few days the people - first and foremost it is the ordinary people, who find it hard enough to live on their incomes as it is - have already donated more than 100 million Austrian schillings.
That is tangible proof of the European solidarity that we, the political office-holders in Europe, all too often call for in word alone.
We, the Council and Parliament as the European budgetary authority, should take a leaf from their book.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cunha">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the agreement reached in Berlin on Agenda 2000 guarantees that the European Union will function in the short term, but it does not secure its long- and medium-term future.
<P>
The first reason for this is that the courage needed to alter the status quo of Community policies and their distributive effects was lacking.
The second is that financing the enlargement of the Union means there will be no growth in structural and cohesion policies and there will be delay in financial and agricultural reforms.
Thirdly, no provision has been made for any special mechanism to assist the adjustment of weaker and more vulnerable economies to enlargement - my own country, for example.
Fourthly, the status quo has essentially been maintained for the CAP, which means that it will continue to treat the farmers of the European Union unequally. Furthermore, the CAP will not facilitate negotiations at the next WTO round in three years' time, at which we will come under enormous external pressure to make further reforms.
<P>
Lastly, with respect to Portugal, I feel that the agreement on the Structural Funds would not have been a bad one were we not in the process of enlarging the European Union.
As Portugal is the country which has most to lose from enlargement and we have been offered no compensation whatsoever, it was a bad agreement.
And the reform of the CAP was even worse, as the most backward agricultural economy in the European Union has not even been granted the right to increase its area of irrigated land, not just to accommodate the major Alqueva project but also more generally. It is impossible to carry out any modernisation in a region like ours without increasing irrigation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Goepel">
Madam President, the basic agreement reached in Berlin about the agricultural part of Agenda 2000 contradicts the statement by the Commission that it wants to make European agriculture more competitive and therefore viable.
The partial adoption by the Council of the Commission's price cutting proposals in the milk, cereals and beef and veal sector will bring these prices closer to the world market level, but the proposed compensatory payments go no way near to covering the income losses.
Now we are told the milk market reform is only to begin in the year 2005, in three phases, and that the quota system is to expire in 2008.
We welcome the idea of optional set-aside.
That is something we called for.
In the case of cereals too, the agreements will initially run only until the year 2002, when adjustments are to be made if necessary.
Further price cuts of 5 % are under discussion, but on the basis that then the compensation could be raised again from EUR 63 to EUR 66 a tonne.
But obviously nobody noticed that this hit the oilseed farmers particularly hard.
After the compromise reached by the agriculture ministers, they were sure of obtaining EUR 66, but now it will only be 63.
On the other hand we welcome the fact that set-aside is still fixed at 10 % until the year 2006.
In regard to beef and veal, the Agenda decisions resolve neither the surplus nor the income problem.
The mother-cow breeders have won, the traditional bull-fatteners have lost.
That is the simple outcome of the Agenda, my dear President-in-Office of the Council!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Garriga Polledo">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this resolution and, on a general level, the strategy chosen by the Committee on Budgets is an irresponsible course of action that is in danger of leading to real budgetary conflict.
<P>
The financial agreement concluded in Berlin is today an important success that could not be repeated under the present circumstances. For this reason, some of us fully support it despite the fact that, although it is a good agreement, it does not fully satisfy everyone.
<P>
In order to fulfill a legitimate wish, some of us are also prepared to oppose an increase in the budgetary powers of this House if it means jeopardising the Structural and Cohesion Funds.
<P>
The political message in this resolution threatens rejection of the Berlin financial perspective. It also leads to a risky annual budgetary procedure that does not guarantee allocations for the Structural and Cohesion Funds.
In financial terms, our opinion differs from that of the Council by only 0.38 % of the total approved in Berlin for the next seven years.
<P>
As President Santer pointed out, an agreement is around the corner and must be reached without any further delay and by June at the latest.
<P>
The real problem is that there is a political trend in this House that favours an annual budgetary procedure without financial categories and, consequently, without fixed year on year amounts for structural policy.
<P>
We can begin to understand this way of thinking even though we are against it, but we cannot understand how those who opt for this path are those who have a duty to defend a European model of economic and social cohesion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 1442/88 on the granting, for the 1988/89 to 1998/99 wine years, of permanent abandonment premiums in respect of wine-growing areas (COM(99)0083 - C4-0161/99-99/0053(CNS)) (Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development)">
<P>
Proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 2597/97 laying down supplementary rules for the common organisation of the markets in the milk and milk products sector with regard to milk for human consumption (COM(99)0063 - C4-0175/99-99/0048(CNS)) (Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development)
<P>
ECB recommendation for a Council Regulation concerning the limits and conditions for capital increases of the European Central Bank (BCE(98)0011 - C4-0103/99-99/0802(CNS)) (Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy)
<P>
Proposal for a Council Decision concerning the Community position within the Association Council on the association of the Czech Republic to Community programmes in the field of research, technological development and demonstration (1998-2002) and to programmes for research and training activities (1998-2002) (COM(99)0046 - C4-0115/99-99/0040(CNS)) (Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy)
<P>
Proposal for a Council Decision concerning the Community position within the Association Council on the association of Estonia to Community programmes in the field of research, technological development and demonstration (1998-2002) (COM(99)0046 - C4-0116/99-99/0041(CNS)) (Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy)
<P>
Proposal for a Council Decision concerning the Community position within the Association Council on the association of Hungary to Community programmes in the field of research, technological development and demonstration (1998-2002) and to programmes for research and training activities (1998-2002) (COM(99)0046 - C4-0117/99-99/0042(CNS)) (Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy)
<P>
Proposal for a Council Decision concerning the Community position within the Association Council on the association of Latvia to Community programmes in the field of research, technological development and demonstration (1998-2002) and to programmes for research and training activities (1998-2002) (COM(99)0046 - C4-0118/99-99/0043(CNS)) (Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy)
<P>
Proposal for a Council Decision concerning the Community position within the Association Council on the association of Lithuania to Community programmes in the field of research, technological development and demonstration (1998-2002) (COM(99)0046 - C4-0119/99-99/0044(CNS)) (Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy)
<P>
Proposal for a Council Decision concerning the Community position within the Association Council on the association of Poland to Community programmes in the field of research, technological development and demonstration (1998-2002) (COM(99)0046 - C4-0120/99-99/0045(CNS)) (Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy)
<P>
Proposal for a Council Decision concerning the Community position within the Association Council on the association of Slovenia to Community programmes in the field of research, technological development and demonstration (1998-2002) and to programmes for research and training activities (1998-2002) (COM(99)0046 - C4-0121/99-99/0046(CNS)) (Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy)
<P>
Proposal for a Council Decision concluding the Additional Protocol to the EEC/Cyprus Association Agreement to associate Cyprus to the Fifth Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration (1998-2002) (COM(99)0057 - C4-0140/99-99/0049(CNS)) (Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy)
<P>
Proposal for a Council Decision concerning the Community position within the Association Council on the association of the Republic of Bulgaria to Community programmes in the field of research, technological development and demonstration (1998-2002) and to programmes for research and training activities (1998-2002) (COM(99)0084 - C4-0143/99-99/0060(CNS)) (Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy)
<P>
Proposal for a Council Decision concerning the Community position within the Association Council on the association of the Republic of Romania to Community programmes in the field of research, technological development and demonstration (1998-2002) and to programmes for research and training activities (1998-2002) (COM(99)0084 - C4-0144/99-99/0061(CNS)) (Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy)
<P>
Proposal for a Council Decision concerning the Community position within the Association Council on the association of the Slovak Republic to Community programmes in the field of research, technological development and demonstration (1998-2002) and to programmes for research and training (1998-2002) (COM(99)0084 - C4-0145/99-99/0062(CNS)) (Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy)
<P>
Proposal for a Council Decision concluding the Agreement amending the Agreement for Scientific and Technical Cooperation between the European Community and Australia (COM(99)0024 - C4-0142/99-99/0009(CNS)) (Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy)
<P>
Proposal for a Council Regulation on the common organisation of the markets in the sugar sector (codified version) (COM(98)0794 - C4-0147/99-98/0370(CNS)) (Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights)
<P>
Proposal for a Council Decision on the conclusion of the protocol on specially protected areas and biological diversity in the Mediterranean, and on accepting the annexes to the said protocol (Barcelona Convention) (COM(99)0030 - C4-0166/99-99/0019(CNS)) (Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection)
<P>
Proposal for a Council Decision on the acceptance of amendments to the Convention for the protection of the Mediterranean sea against pollution and the protocol for the prevention of pollution by dumping from ships and aircraft (Barcelona Convention) (COM(99)0029 - C4-0170/99-99/0023(CNS)) (Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection)
<P>
Proposal for a Council Decision on accepting the amendments to the protocol for the protection of the Mediterranean sea against pollution from land-based sources (Barcelona Convention) (COM(99)0028 - C4-0173/99-99/0021(CNS)) (Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection)
<P>
In successive votes, Parliament approved the various Commission proposals
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="President">
We shall send an usher straight away if this gentleman does not hear what we are saying.
<P>
I see that he has heard, and I can assure you that we shall check on his credentials.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="Balfe">
Madam President, may I draw attention to the fact that the photographer is still sitting up there.
A hussier went to him but he has refused to move.
I would ask that he be removed and identified and that consideration be given to withdrawing or at least doing something with the pass.
It is not acceptable for telephoto-lens photographers to be sitting up there refusing to move.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="President">
That had not escaped me, Mr Balfe.
I was keeping an eye on the gallery, and I had the same concerns as you.
I would ask this gentleman to leave.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Madam President, I just wanted to propose that we should congratulate the President of the sitting for beating all the speed records for the votes.
I think that along with Mr Martin you are in pole position, but the competition is open to anyone.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Madam President, I voted against the resolution on the Berlin European Council due to the adoption of an amendment which bore absolutely no relation to the Berlin summit and its results, stating that Parliament would refuse to cooperate with a Commissioner, in this case Mrs Cresson.
I think that we have had many opportunities in the House to discuss, comment on and vote on texts concerning issues such as the Committee of Independent Experts and the Commission's resignation.
<P>
However, tabling an amendment at the last minute, whether on the Berlin European Council, agricultural prices or any other subject, discredits our institution; it does not reflect well on us and I feel it is an unjustified attitude that was badly thought out and was not called for.
I repeat: I voted against the resolution, and I am proud of it.
The Commission has resigned and we have given a political judgement on the issue, at all levels.
I think that the approach that I have condemned is damaging to the image that Parliament had projected in the last few months.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Madam President, all the implications of the Berlin European Council of 24 and 25 March have undoubtedly not yet been perceived by the people of the Union, who, as usual, will gradually discover the consequences of these agreements.
<P>
Let us take the case of agricultural policy: Commissioner Fischler described the measures that were adopted as the most radical reform in the entire history of the CAP, one that is so major that it surpasses the in-depth changes that took place in 1992.
This radical reform, that is to say integration into the global market and the reduction of farmer's incomes, is in reality a collection of specific technical measures, and for someone who is not an expert it is difficult to grasp its general thrust.
<P>
We think that this lack of clarity is all the more serious given the fact that the decisions that were taken are going to be used in order to determine many subsequent policy guidelines. For example, the Council mentions in its conclusions that - and I quote - ' the decisions adopted regarding the reform of the CAP within the framework of Agenda 2000 will constitute essential elements in defining the Commission's negotiating mandate for the future multilateral trade negotiations at the WTO.'
<P>
Therefore, without realising it, we seem to have already decided on the European Union's negotiating position for future international negotiations.
This procedure, which is certainly the norm in Brussels, is quite unbelievable compared with the usual methods adopted by democratic countries, to the extent that - and I would like to highlight this point - national parliaments have so far not been invited to ratify these agreements at all.
<P>
The irony of history seems even greater when we know that a short time before the Berlin European Council, a public hearing organised by this House had concluded that there was a lack of debate and democratic control with regard to multilateral trade negotiations.
<P>
This is exactly the situation that the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has been condemning for a long time, and which led to disastrous results at the Uruguay Round.
It is essential that the same method is not used again in the future.
This is why we demand that the Berlin conclusions should be rejected on this point, and that the Council's and the Commission's mandate for the next WTO negotiations should be the subject of an in-depth public debate and a formal vote in the national parliaments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berès">
Madam President, I can tell that the PPE is in the middle of a campaign, including when it comes to the interests of this House!
When Mr Martens said yesterday that the resignation of Edith Cresson alone would have solved the crisis, I think he was evidently campaigning.
<P>
Parliament is making a legal mistake by adopting the amendment on the Berlin European Council resolution.
We have accepted something which is absurd.
The Commission has resigned, collectively, because it is collectively responsible.
Politically, however, this is significant.
Mr Martens prefers not to see what is happening or to read the report from the Committee of Independent Experts, according to which there was clearly collective responsibility for the errors that were made.
<P>
I think that we ourselves have demonstrated the maturity of this Parliament and helped bring the truth to light, and that we have enabled the Commission to regain its credibility and allowed democracy to progress.
I welcome this, but I deplore the way that Parliament has voted, which does not do it credit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Madam President, to add to the excellent reasons set out by my colleague Georges Berthu that encouraged us to vote against the Berlin summit resolution, I would like to put forward a few points regarding paragraph 2, that is the appointment of the new Commission.
<P>
What a contradiction on the part of Parliament, which, once again, is openly surrendering before even giving battle.
I remember those people who asked for the immediate replacement of the Commission that had resigned.
These are the same people who are now satisfied with a Commission that would be put in place from January 2000, and on whose appointment the European Parliament may be consulted.
<P>
In the same sitting, we voted for Amendment No 2, which is disgraceful and was tabled at the last minute by the PPE Group and the ELDR Group, objecting to Mrs Cresson retaining her post and declaring that we will not cooperate with her as long as she remains in office.
Meanwhile, we rejected Amendments Nos 16 and 17, which demanded that the Commission be replaced and asked that the Commissioners should not be candidates at the European elections.
Parliament did not take anything that was said in the report from the Committee of Independent Experts to implicate the Commission as a collegiate body.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="Burenstam Linder, Carlsson, Cederschiöld, Stenmarck and Virgin">
Unemployment in Europe cannot be brought down using the methods of the Swedish Labour Board at EU level.
We therefore voted against paragraph 4 of the resolution.
We would rather see deregulation of the labour market and lower taxes on labour; not more of the kind of active labour market policy that has failed to deliver results in Sweden.
<P>
There is certainly no reason to centralise an expanded Swedish-style approach at supranational level.
Circumstances vary from one Member State to another and, where there is a desire for a labour market policy approach, individual countries should ideally decide for themselves.
Another reason for voting against paragraph 4 was that it violates the subsidiarity principle.
<P>
We need to be seen to be exercising major restraint on the expenditure front; it is therefore to be welcomed that the agreements reached in the Council of Ministers are based on prudential management of taxpayers' money.
Any additional resources that can be then be released should be mobilised to facilitate the EU's eastward enlargement.
New growth markets are developing in the applicant countries; these will create new and worthwhile job opportunities for the Union's current members. Fostering such markets will contribute much more to the employment situation than could ever be achieved through an active labour market policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="McCarthy">
I have voted in favour of the Berlin Summit resolution to give my support in particular to the German presidency's achievement in getting agreement for the structural fund package in Agenda 2000.
<P>
I am pleased that the Council has taken on board several recommendations made in my report on the general framework regulation.
A key achievement was the follow-up commitment to the Cardiff Summit to continue to support the Northern Ireland peace process with the Special Peace Initiative.
<P>
One outstanding issue remains to be solved with the Council in conciliation before assent is given, namely Parliament's request for additional Community initiatives, URBAN and Crisis.
Parliament is, of course, willing to seek a compromise in this area, but is must reflect Parliament's priorities in the Community initiative field.
Let me again underline our intention to achieve our political priorities, to fulfil our responsibilities to communities in our regions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="Malone">
I regret that the European Council did not accede to Parliament's request to reinstate the URBAN initiative.
This initiative has proved to be a useful weapon in tackling urban deprivation.
The retention of LEADER for promoting rural development should be counterbalanced by the retention of URBAN.
<P>
The retention of URBAN would be especially important for cities like my own - Dublin - which is likely to see a considerable reduction in the Structural Funds available because of its loss of Objective 1 status.
<P>
I had been campaigning for retention of URBAN as it could provide the basic funding for my proposal that there be a fund specifically ringfenced for the development of deprived urban areas.
These areas are both absolutely and relatively disadvantaged as they are side by side with areas of considerable affluence.
<P>
I hope that tonight's conciliation results in URBAN being reinstated.
I want to ensure that the general Structural Funds are used to a significant extent to address the problem of urban deprivation.
I would ask that the rules governing ESF and ERDF be changed in order to direct more of these funds to areas of acute deprivation and I would also ask that the regional aid guidelines be amended to allow for state aids to be paid at a higher rate to those urban areas which are suffering acute disadvantages.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="Martin, David">
I will be voting for the joint resolution on the Berlin Summit as I welcome the European Council's prompt nomination and recommendation for President-Designate of the European Commission.
<P>
The result achieved in Berlin with regard to the structural funds has demonstrated the importance that the European Council has attached to both the continuation and reform of economic and social assistance within the Union.
Most welcome is the 300 million euros in funding guaranteed for use within the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.
The Highlands and Islands have made good use of the funds provided under the existing Objective 1 programme but continue to be disadvantaged by peripheral and sparsity of population.
The continuation of funding will help the region overcome these disadvantages.
<P>
The only disappointing aspect of the summit was the limited reform of the common agricultural policy.
Far more radical reform is required.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="Souchet">
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Raschhofer">
Madam President, I rise to speak on the Happart report.
We agree with the price proposals in the report because for legal reasons they are vital to protecting farm incomes.
But I want to point out that the package is not sufficient to protect farmers' ability to survive, as agricultural prices are staying the same, while the general price level is rising constantly as a result of inflation.
That brings down farm incomes - in Austria it brought them down by 1.7 % in 1997 - while raising incomes in, for example, industry.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Konrad">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I voted against the report because I believe that we basically still need another discussion about agricultural policy in this House.
I would like to see more market.
<P>
When you think that according to OECD statistics, one third of all farm revenue in industrialised countries comes not from the market but from state support for agriculture and in the European Union as much as 40 % of farm revenue comes from the taxpayer's pocket, from state support, then in my view that means we must urgently review this sector.
That also applies to price supports and subsidies, such as for sugar, where we pay twice if not three times the world market price and then regulate matters again with quotas for individual undertakings.
<P>
I believe we need more market in farming.
I would have liked to see that reflected here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw and Sandberg-Fries">
We take it that the agreements reached by the Council of Ministers in Berlin on the common agricultural policy form the basis for the implementation work now being carried out by the Commission.
There is consequently no need in our view for Parliament to complicate the situation further by coming forward with proposals for joint action.
Under these circumstances, we decided to support our group's position, even though we still maintain our previous criticism of the CAP.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Blak, Iversen, Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted against the Happart report because it paves the way for a rise in the prices of agricultural products.
We cannot support price increases at a time when a reform package has only just been adopted which lowers the prices.
This simply does not make sense.
We should instead be reducing the prices, especially in the sugar and sugar beet sector, where there is no common organisation of the market.
The artificially high prices of our agricultural goods must gradually be reduced so that they reach the same level as the world market prices.
This is an essential prerequisite for the enlargement process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Ephremidis">
The text we are holding in our hands is the negative summation and dangerous outcome of what was forecast in Agenda 2000 and what is already being implemented through the specific regulations governing most agricultural products. These regulations establish strict prices and quotas, which cannot be changed if the regulations themselves are not changed.
All the rest is just a veneer of negotiations and debates; what we are actually talking about is simply the timing of a death that has already been prophesied.
<P>
The Commission proposals simply apply the term 'reduction' across the board for all agricultural products.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development examined these proposals and rejected all the amendments that called for price increases. What we are left with are dangerous proposals, without any balance between the human factor, production and the land, and without any link between prices and products.
These proposals aim to further reduce the agricultural population and to bring down prices and production costs in the interests of competition. Not only will they give rise to new imbalances in production; they will also directly threaten the quality of products, the environmental balance, agricultural employment, the social balance and social cohesion.
<P>
As the rapporteur himself points out, the 1992 review of the common agricultural policy led to a decline in the markets and to a reduction in farmers' incomes. It even managed to wipe out small and medium-sized family farms, chiefly in the Mediterranean regions of the Community.
This resulted in a drastic reduction in the number of farms and in the level of jobs in agriculture, thereby increasing unemployment in agricultural regions and dangerously accelerating the depopulation of the countryside.
The average income resulting from agricultural activity throughout the EU fell by 3.9 % in relation to 1997.
Your aim is to reduce it even further, hence the new proposals for agricultural prices, true to the spirit and letter of Agenda 2000. These proposals not only prolong the current situation by means of 'technical adjustments', and address the problem of farmers' incomes in a technocratic way; they also push ahead with the further decreases in incomes with the avowed ulterior objective of reducing the agricultural workforce and driving farmers out of the farming profession.
<P>
The measures implemented in this sector prove that the declarations of interest in protecting and promoting the countryside are sanctimonious and hypocritical.
Prices and subsidies have been frozen or drastically reduced for the eleventh successive year.
Institutionalised intervention is being cut back or abolished, leaving the small and medium-sized farmers at the mercy of commercial middlemen and multinationals. In addition, subsidies are vanishing into thin air to pay crippling co-responsibility fines.
The unconcealed injustice that is being perpetrated against small and medium-sized family producers is continuing and even increasing.
Moreover, large farms, which absorb 80 % of Community support, are still being subsidised in a provocative and even more intensified manner.
And finally, the policies being implemented serve the God of large-scale interests. These declarations of interest in the protecting and promoting the countryside are exactly on a par with those made on humanitarian aid and on the protection of the Kosovar Albanians under the hailstorm of murderous bombs.
<P>
Step by step, a new feudalism is appearing with new tenant farmers. The feudal method is being revived through co-responsibility fines, so-called co-resourcing, and so on.
This debate has the wrong title.
It is not about establishing prices but about detailing disgraceful acts against small and medium-sized farmers, against producers in the south, against consumers and against the fabric of society and environmental stability.
<P>
You say you are bombing Yugoslavia for 'humanitarian reasons'.
Are you exterminating farmers for 'environmental reasons'?
It appears that their sweat and toil are polluting the 'healthy environment' of 'globalisation' and of 'competition', and that you want to return them to the purgatory of the 'new order of things'.
<P>
But the farmers have demonstrated that they do not intend to accept, much less serve, such designs. They have proved this through their struggles, through their rallies, through the mass pan-European rally that was recently held in Brussels with the participation of the 15 Member States, and through the rallies in the enlargement countries, such as Poland.
You will reap what you sow.
You will be forced to defend yourselves at a people's Nuremberg on account of your anti-farming and peace-shattering policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Souchet">
The report by our colleague Mr Happart is the last report on the agricultural prices of the current CAP.
Once again, the majority of Parliament has voted against the amendments requesting that depreciation of the currency be taken into account when establishing price levels and compensatory aid.
Farmers' income is penalised by this depreciation of the currency.
What social group would accept a stabilisation of its income, meaning a decrease in real terms?
<P>
The launch of the euro on 1 January of this year also had negative effects on European farmers' incomes due to the pure and simple abolition of the green ecu.
The combined effect of inflation and the abolition of the green ecu is going to give rise to a drop of around 4 % in institutional prices and compensatory aid in the next marketing year.
<P>
When we are discussing agriculture in general we hear a great many calls for rural development, the traceability and health and safety of products, respect for the environment and animal welfare, etcetera.
Now, when we are voting on the economic factors that enable us to fix farmers' income, all we do is regularly reduce it.
Faced with the problem of the reduction in aid and prices, the only option available to our farmers is to turn to intensification, either by expanding their farms, or by setting up off-land production.
How can we fail to see that it is contradictory to set high environmental, health or animal welfare standards, while at the same time regularly reducing the principle of Community preference?
In order to have European production costs and European constraints, we must have European prices.
This should be the plan of action for professional and political leaders who want to safeguard European agriculture.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Titley">
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Konrad">
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schierhuber">
Madam President, I welcome the intention to introduce measures to promote and provide information on agricultural products in third countries because I consider these instruments absolutely necessary if we want to continue to withstand international competition.
The EU must pursue an active export policy that goes beyond the use of export refunds and can have a positive impact on the sales of agricultural products over and above the existing export refunds.
Given the importance of this regulation, let me point out that the funding allocated and the financing procedures must be adequate.
There should be a special budget to ensure that this export policy instrument has a real impact.
Since I consider it important to ensure that the measures can be applied in practice, I have vehemently opposed the introduction of a new management committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Souchet">
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Caudron">
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw, Palm, Sandberg-Fries, Theorin and Wibe">
We applaud this report on the proposal for a Council Directive establishing a general framework for informing and consulting employees in the European Community.
Thanks to the directive, one of the most significant employee rights will be consolidated.
This is vital both for strengthening the social dialogue and for increasing mutual trust within companies.
<P>
As to the scope of the directive, we would have preferred not to see a requirement for 'at least 50 employees'.
There are no grounds, in our view, for any such threshold; instead, emphasis should be placed on the right of all employees to be informed and consulted.
As the directive does no more than set minimum standards, however, we feel that we can go along with the proposed threshold. Member States remain free to apply provisions that they believe would suit them better.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Blak, Iversen, Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats have abstained from voting on the proposal for a directive on information and consultation.
We cannot vote in favour of the proposal because there is a danger that, in its present form, it will interfere with Denmark's special bargaining model, whereby information and consultation are regulated in agreements on cooperation committees concluded between the social partners.
<P>
We have not voted against, however, because the question of informing and consulting employees is part of the EU's social dimension, which must not be opposed in the interests of solidarity with those workers in the EU and the new Member States who do not yet have efficient systems for informing and consulting employees.
We therefore hope that the Council will find a solution which satisfies both the need of workers for a high level of information and consultation throughout the EU and the need for Member States to be able to maintain systems which are already functioning efficiently.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Cars">
I voted against this report in the final vote because I believe that responsibility for the issues it covers lies with the Member States. It is the subsidiarity principle which should apply here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Caudron">
I must express my very great satisfaction with regard to the proposal for a Council directive and Mrs Ghilardotti's report.
<P>
What is at the heart of this proposal are workers' legitimate rights to be informed and particularly to be consulted with regard to decisions on the management and organisation of the firm for which they are working.
The discrepancy between this right and reality is actually very great, and workers are too often treated as mere pawns who can be used as the economic climate dictates.
<P>
Nevertheless, in Europe there is a real will among workers to make their voice heard and to have a role to play in the running of their firm.
This is a characteristic of our European social model, and we must protect it at all costs.
Legislative measures must reflect workers' demands.
The Commission proposal aims to do this.
Its objective is to ensure minimum standards of consultation and information.
Even if it is only the 'union minimum', as in the French expression, we need to see it as only a first stage in a more long-term strategy of strengthening the role of workers.
<P>
Competitiveness and social dialogue are not in conflict with each other - quite the contrary!
I fully subscribe to the opinion that the necessary restructuring will be much better received, even if it involves job losses or retraining, if management have been able to explain their approach and to listen to comments from employees.
These measures must be applied in as many firms as possible.
The threshold of at least 50 employees is satisfactory.
Nevertheless, this should not exempt small businesses from taking into account the opinions of their staff.
We will have to work on defining incentive mechanisms in order to promote this type of dialogue.
<P>
It is obvious that with this aim of extending the scope of these measures, we cannot accept the derogations proposed by the Commission for companies that pursue political, ideological or religious aims.
We obviously need to define appropriate penalties so that these measures can be correctly applied.
<P>
Along the same line of thinking, Mrs Ghilardotti rightly reaffirmed that we would no longer tolerate employee representatives being penalised as a result of their duties, and I will not disagree with her.
<P>
If we want to prevent Europe from remaining simply an unidentified social object for workers, we must arm ourselves with the means of guaranteeing their basic rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Haarder, Kjer Hansen and Riis-Jørgensen">
We are voting against the report on informing and consulting employees in national enterprises.
The proposal is a striking example of lack of respect for the principle of subsidiarity.
In the first place, there is no cross-border aspect to the proposal and, secondly, this matter has already been regulated in the majority of Member States, including Denmark, through cooperation agreements.
This matter must be regulated nationally and between the social partners.
Such an approach will take into account the subsidiarity principle and the national differences and traditions within the EU.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR), Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling (V)">
The number of companies closing down operations or relocating has increased.
Sweden has lost businesses because EU aid has been delivered in more advantageous ways in other countries.
That is not how EU support was intended to function.
Shutdowns and relocation have an impact on companies' workforces.
It is important that individuals affected by such decisions can be informed at an early stage.
<P>
Such matters are dealt with under collective agreements and legislation in the various Member States. In Sweden, we have the Co-determination at Work Act.
<P>
The proposed directive seeks to introduce a consultation framework under which management can inform labour of major changes in company strategy.
There are grounds for asking whether this is an area which the EU should be regulating.
As the directive is designed to bring in minimum requirements, however, the Member States - or the two sides of industry - are free to maintain or introduce rules which call for more extensive provision of information.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Rübig">
I voted against the report because the legal basis conflicts with it.
<P>
Report as a whole: against.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Theonas">
Any proposal or measure that strengthens the information, control and role of workers within a company will have our full support, despite the fact that we are aware of the limitations of such legislative interventions in the day-to-day reality of the system in which we live.
<P>
From this standpoint, we agree that we need to establish an obligatory and effective legislative instrument that will provide for the swiftest and broadest possible information and consultation of employees on issues relating to the progress and prospects of the company, employment, labour relations and, more generally, all the issues and planned decisions that directly affect the interests of workers and, consequently, their lives and prosperity.
<P>
However, we are categorically opposed to the direction these procedures are taking within the Commission. It regards information and consultation as tools to make it easier to ensure the compliance of workers, or, as mentioned in the explanatory statement of the proposal for a directive, as a prerequisite for the success of procedures to restructure companies and adapt them to the new conditions created by the globalisation of the economy, especially through the development of new ways of organising work.
<P>
In our view, the process of informing, consulting and involving workers must be considered as one of the ways in which they can strengthen their role and influence, with a view to effectively promoting and supporting their interests. Naturally, they should not become merely participants in decisions that are taken in their absence.
The way in which these mechanisms are developed will clearly depend on the workers themselves and, to a large extent, the orientation and quality of their representatives.
Furthermore, employers are strongly opposed to the text proposed by the Commission - which is somewhat unambitious and limited - and also to the many amendments tabled in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and here in the House with a view to rendering it devoid of content. This is proof that, if they function correctly, these mechanisms may contribute effectively to defending workers' interests.
<P>
We do not believe that this directive will be effective if it only covers 3 % of companies, as the Commission itself admits.
In our view, the implementation threshold for this directive must be lowered to five employees so that it will cover small SMEs, which form the overwhelming majority of companies. This is something that has already entered into force in some national legislations under pressure from the labour movement.
<P>
The limitations that are being proposed in the name of the confidential character of information and the protection of privacy are unacceptable. If enforced, such limitations will lead to a substantial infringement of the right to be informed and consulted.
The provisions for the timing and extent of the information and consultation process must be especially stringent. This process must take place in good time, before a decision is taken, so that there is sufficient time for workers to act, and it must include any changes that may affect their labour and security rights.
We are referring, in particular, to plans for reorganisation, amalgamation and cooperation, investments, relocation, closures of all or part of a company or establishment, and changes in labour relations, as well as more general issues, such as the strategy, position and development of the company.
<P>
It is constructive that the report by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs attempts to make significant improvements to the Commission text.
These improvements hope to extend the scope of the directive, the content of information and the degree of consultation. They also hope to prevent Member States from restricting the scope of the directive to large companies, that is, those employing more than 100 workers, and to increase the protection of workers' representatives.
However, above and beyond this, it is extremely important to retain the provision in the Commission proposal that relates to the lack of legal consequences of the decisions taken by an employer in violation of the obligation to inform and consult. Therefore, we must not adopt the amendments which seek to do away with this provision.
Otherwise, the directive would become devoid of content.
Nonetheless, this matter of the lack of legal consequences must relate to the entire decision that is taken where the obligation to inform and consult is not met, and not just to the section involving labour relations and agreements. This would help us to prevent any violations of the directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Thors">
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Konrad">
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Caudron">
The principal merit of these reports, presented by our colleagues Mr Chanterie and Mr McMahon, is that they bring the issue of reducing working hours back into our field of discussion, even though we are not concerned today with debating the benefits of this approach in the battle against unemployment.
<P>
This being the case, the proposals presented to us are entirely aimed at considerably improving the situation for those professions that have so far been excluded from the various measures that already exist.
From this point of view, I agree with Raphaël Chanterie's proposal that the period necessary for the Member States to conform to the new provisions of the directive should be limited to four years.
<P>
Also, like Hugh McMahon, I must support the idea of including self-employed drivers in the directive on working time for road transport.
Too many examples demonstrate that excessive periods at the wheel dramatically increase the risk of road accidents.
<P>
I also note with satisfaction that the report takes into account the considerable growth in subcontracting, which allows too much freedom with regard to the legislation in force.
<P>
Finally, I dare to hope that the demands made concerning the monitoring of working and driving hours will be effectively implemented by the Member States, but I have some concerns in this respect.
<P>
I have regularly questioned the Commissioners on working time in the road transport sector and on the employment conditions of certain shipping companies. So in future I will see to it that these new directives are effectively applied.
<P>
The economic Europe is on the way to becoming a reality.
While our fellow citizens have understood that there are certain obligations linked to this stage, the time has now come to build a citizens' Europe in which social matters must have an important place.
Without this, the very idea of Europe will be questioned!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Theonas">
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Fayot">
Everyone is aware that road transport is one of the sectors in which the social Europe does not exist.
In the absence of an agreement between employers and workers, it is therefore positive for that social Europe that the Commission has taken on its responsibilities and proposed the directive that we are discussing today.
<P>
Along with workers' unions, the rapporteur and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs have approved the main principles of the Commission text and improved it with regard to certain social aspects:
<P>
the 48-hour week will be the minimum standard for all drivers in the EU, - working time can be up to 60 hours as long as the average of 48 hours remains the reference period, - the directive will also cover self-employed drivers and working time will be the same for employees and for self-employed drivers.Other provisions clarify and categorise road transport work, for example by giving a more restrictive definition of night work.
<P>
In general, we should hope that the Transport Council will reach an agreement so that road safety and the social welfare of drivers will be guaranteed and social dumping will finally be fought effectively in a sector in which the social Europe has been only too slow in arriving.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Lis Jensen and Krarup">
This report sets out to extend the 1993 working time directive to include further groups of employees.
The principles behind the 1993 directive and the present proposal are the same.
The 1993 directive has caused many problems for the Danish trade union movement.
In the first place, the EU directive does not, in general terms, contain any improvement in the legal position of Danish workers compared with the agreements that exist at present.
Moreover, the Danish authorities have required that the directive should be implemented by incorporating it into the agreements.
In our opinion, this is absurd and this kind of thing - coupled with other (increasing) instances of EU interference in Danish agreements - has the effect of undermining free negotiations.
<P>
We fully appreciate that the proposal can, in some respects, be regarded as progress in those EU countries whose trade unions lack the strength to demand improvements through agreements.
But based on our experiences in Denmark - and because the EU must respect free negotiations - we cannot vote in favour of this proposal to extend the EU's regulatory power.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Ryynänen, Thors, Väyrynen and Virrankoski">
We voted against Hugh McMahon's report on working time in the transport industry, as we cannot accept the notion that self-employed drivers should be included in the proposal for the regulation of working time.
This would mean an immensely awkward reworking of arrangements in the case of Finland, and would seriously affect the feasibility of small business transport systems.
For the same reason we cannot accept the restrictions contained in the report on night work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Schlechter">
<SPEAKER ID=86 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Madam President, we voted for the report because the integration of the two directives on incinerating hazardous and non-hazardous waste is to be welcomed.
However, we very much regretted that Parliament did not adopt the Greens' amendment aimed at a zero-emission limit value for dioxin in water.
We know that dioxin is the most dangerous chemical mankind has ever produced.
Following new scientific findings, the WHO has also drawn attention to this problem of the maximum permissible level for humans and reduced its limit values.
<P>
So I cannot understand why Parliament has not followed an early Commission proposal.
I regard this high level of dioxin pollution as a kind of Waterloo in health terms.
I think it is totally irresponsible for Parliament not to accept these proposals, for this in fact means it has bowed to the pressure from industry.
In the case of a substance as dangerous as the Seveso poison dioxin, I find that difficult to understand.
<P>
It would have been important for Parliament, which accepted the reduction of dioxin emissions into the air and the reduction of the values, to also agree to the values for water.
It is quite incomprehensible why the values accepted for dioxin in water are five times as high as those for the air.
After all, water is the most essential means of survival and it is not impossible for drainage water to enter the ground water and for the emissions in the air to precipitate into the water.
That is why I very much regret that Parliament did not agree to halve the emissions of hazardous substances into the water or even opt for a zero emission level.
We had suggested a late date, namely the year 2020.
This would have been feasible in technical terms.
Unfortunately we did not manage to give priority to consumer protection.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Grossetête">
I must express my surprise concerning the strategy defended by Mr Blokland and by the European Commission, which aims to fuse the Commission's proposal for a directive on the incineration of non-hazardous waste and Directive 94/67/EC on the incineration of so-called hazardous waste.
This plan to integrate the directives is worrying from several points of view.
<P>
First and foremost, Directive 94/67/EC, in accordance with Articles 13 and 18 of this directive, will be applied to existing incineration facilities for hazardous waste from 1 July 2000.
This means that those sites have planned investments with the aim of fully complying with the standards set out in the text by that date at the latest.
Those standards now have to be considered as obsolete, just when they are about to be applied throughout the Community.
Let us be serious: economic operators need a minimum degree of consistency and legal security.
<P>
Secondly, this fusion, on the legitimate pretext of simplifying Community legislation and making it clearer, actually ends up reducing the level of environmental protection by encouraging the mixing of hazardous and non-hazardous waste in the same facility.
This would undoubtedly mean that the incinerators that are currently under-supplied in some Member States could be used to their full capacity.
However, investment errors should not be corrected at the cost of reducing the security standards on hazardous waste.
<P>
It is essential that we maintain a very clear distinction between these two types of waste, as the fact that they are so different in nature and in their level of toxicity means that we need to define their specific technical characteristics.
This should be taken into account at each stage of waste management: when it is being collected, received, handled in the facilities and treated, and when disposing of residues and so on.
In fact, if we respect the principle of treating different types of waste separately, the proposed aim of simplifying legislation loses much of its interest.
<P>
However, we must support the idea of reducing the economic distortions that result from the differences between the standards for emissions into the atmosphere and discharges into water, but that should not be done to the detriment of the progress that had been made as a result of Directive 94/67/EC on hazardous waste.
<P>
Parliament adopted the integration of the directives, and I therefore voted against the modified proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="des Places">
We voted against all the amendments that involved merging Directive 94/67/EC on hazardous waste and the proposal for a directive on non-hazardous waste.
The approach proposed by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection presents several risks.
<P>
There is a danger that the rules that apply to the incineration of hazardous waste will be relaxed by implicitly allowing it to be incinerated in facilities intended for non-hazardous waste.
<P>
With regard to the application of the directive on non-hazardous waste, merging these two texts runs the risk of causing a delay in the adoption of new emission limit values as defined in Directive 94/67/EC.
<P>
With regard to monitoring, there may be a fear that the preliminary monitoring procedures specific to the incineration or co-incineration of hazardous waste will be removed.
Even if fully applied by producers of special waste, these monitoring procedures cannot be incorporated into the procedures that are carried out when receiving non-hazardous waste at non-hazardous waste incineration facilities.
<P>
With regard to the balance of incineration lines, this integration of the two directives threatens to favour certain incineration lines to the detriment of others, through ill-adapted limit values, whereas we need to pursue all four incineration lines: the specialised incineration of non-hazardous waste, the specialised incineration of hazardous waste, co-incineration (incineration in a cement kiln) and incineration by adapted combustion plants.
We must take care not to give priority to one incineration line over another, given that the environmental and energy balance responds to recognised needs.
<P>
Last but by no means least, there is a risk of an excessive rise in treatment costs, bringing no significant environmental benefit, with limit values being fixed for pollutants that are not specific to the waste being incinerated (sulphur dioxide or nitrogen oxide for example), which should be adapted both according to the type of facility and to its capacity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Theonas">
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Souchet">
In order to be coherent and effective, any environmental strategy must be carried out by means of a legislative approach combined with economic and fiscal instruments, and must be supported by adequate financial instruments.
<P>
LIFE is the only Community financial instrument aimed entirely at supporting an environmental policy covering the whole of the European Union and including environmental cooperation with neighbouring countries.
Due to the type of projects that it funds, LIFE is distinguished from the other instruments for research and development and support of structural investments that also contribute to protecting the environment.
<P>
The proposal for a regulation that we are to vote on today presents the third phase of LIFE, incorporating three thematic components:
<P>
LIFE-Nature, which is based on the cofinancing of nature protection projects that can contribute to preserving and regenerating natural habitats and species (budget heading B4-3200).
<P>
LIFE-Environment, which is based on the cofinancing of new environmental measures, demonstration projects and preparatory projects aimed at integrating an environmental dimension into land-use development and planning projects and industrial production activities, with a view to improving waste management and reducing the effects that products have on the environment (budget heading B4-3201).
<P>
LIFE-Third Countries, which is based on the cofinancing of technical assistance programmes focused on creating capacity for the administrative structures that are required in the environmental sector and that are necessary for developing an environmental policy, and action programmes in neighbouring third countries other than countries that are candidates for accession (budget heading B7-810).
<P>
The members of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations voted for the amendments that favour the setting up and application of the LIFE programme.
However, we wish to stress that measures undertaken with the support of LIFE must take account of Community environment policy.
We therefore voted against the amendment which made the development of this policy conditional on the results of the LIFE programme.
If this was the case, the financial resources that are envisaged in the programme would be entirely insufficient, particularly with regard to the enlargement of the European Union to include the CEECs.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 1.50 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Situation in Kosovo
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="President">
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the situation in Kosovo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, since Kosovo is daily and nightly on our minds, I do not mind being taken by surprise in having to make some introductory remarks, bearing in mind that this morning the German presidency and the President of the Commission also devoted time to this very important issue.
I am sure it goes for both the Council and the Commission when I say that we are very much aware of the seriousness of the situation, of the human tragedy that is developing, and that nothing must hinder us from examining and thinking continuously how to bring this appalling situation to a politically satisfactory solution.
<P>
Obviously that is not an easy thing to do.
We should be pleased that the Western Alliance, including the European Union - and Russia to a large extent - have managed to maintain a common attitude towards what is seen as a barbarism which should no longer belong on our continent.
It is therefore of the utmost importance that this Union is preserved.
The Commission, for its part, has supported the presidency in every effort and initiative, trying to show that while it is not our opinion that military solutions should be used to resolve this tragedy, they are at least preventing President Milosevic from imposing a military solution and exploiting his military might against the Albanians in Kosovo.
That will not be accepted.
<P>
In the past weeks the German presidency has been working very hard with the other European, American and Russian partners to try to see how the military track on the one hand could be accompanied by political initiatives on the other.
The House will be aware that there was an important meeting in Oslo yesterday between Secretary-of-State Albright and the Russian Foreign Minister Ivanov, in an attempt to reach an agreement on a plan that is also being discussed today by our Heads of Government with the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
This provides for an attempt to achieve unity on a Security Council resolution which would make clear to Mr Milosevic that what is expected from him in the first place is to take measures to allow the safe return of refugees - we should perhaps speak of deportees - to Kosovo.
This would be achieved by him withdrawing his troops and paramilitary services, to give the necessary guarantees for the security of these people, based on his acceptance of an international military presence on the ground.
<P>
Mrs Bonino and I have been trying to give active support to those countries which neighbour Kosovo and which are the most heavily affected by the massive influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees.
Therefore, we were very pleased to note the concerted support from the Council of Foreign Ministers who on Monday pledged EUR 250m to those countries.
EUR 150m would come from ECHO, to be spent mostly as usual through non-governmental organisations where obviously UNHCR plays an important role.
The other EUR 100m would enable the governments which are mainly dealing with the refugee problem to take certain measures to prevent destabilisation in their countries as a result of this unexpected massive influx.
We are thinking of Albania in the first place but also of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and we are also trying to reach those in Montenegro who are dealing with the massive influx of tens of thousands of displaced persons.
<P>
I hope we will be able to present final proposals to Parliament soon.
I have already been in touch with the chairman of the Committee on Budgets to try to arrange for the allocation of 100 million, which has to be found in the budget without damaging other important on-going programmes that, in fact, often benefit the same countries that we want to help with the additional EUR 100m.
<P>
This will not be the last time that we discuss this issue: it is an on-going process.
I can only conclude my introductory remarks by saying that we all hope very much that Milosevic will come to his senses.
It is not the outside world that is imposing a military solution on him, it is the outside world that is heavily and, we feel convincingly, protesting against the atrocities, the ethnic cleansing and the deportations that are taking place against the people of Kosovo.
Where we can alleviate their plight, we will spare no effort.
As Mrs Bonino is here, I take it that she will comment more particularly on the humanitarian efforts.
These are my introductory remarks.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in addition to what Chancellor Schröder has already said today as President-in-Office of the European Council, I would like to stress that in the current serious crisis in and around Kosovo the European Union has demonstrated a high level of solidarity and ability to act.
It has shown solidarity in terms of its political evaluation of what is happening there - which, as you all know, has not always been the case - and an ability to act in relation to the aid that has to be provided for the people concerned, to the stabilisation measures that must be taken for the countries in the region and to consolidating the principle of the primacy of politics over war.
After all, when weapons speak we must not simply put politics to one side; instead we must always continue to pursue the road of politics.
We must be clear that political initiatives can contribute to putting an end to the use of arms.
<P>
Mrs Bonino and I were in Tirana and in Skopje exactly two weeks ago.
Mrs Bonino will no doubt be reporting on that later.
I just want to say that for both of us this journey was something totally outside the normal political routine.
I for my part - and I am quite sure this goes for Mrs Bonino too - was shaken to the core by what I witnessed there, and I have seen many such things in the past - the victims of torture in South Africa, the victims of famine in Somalia, the victims of expulsion in Africa - but I have never seen such a massive, such a brutal, such a systematic violation of human rights as there, and this is happening in the middle of Europe, on our doorstep!
So I believe it is essential that we adhere to the aim of putting a stop to this inhuman action.
It can no longer be tolerated in Europe at the end of this century!
<P>
Applause
<P>
At the same time, we have to exercise our political imagination to seek a solution to the problem.
The German Presidency is putting all its energy into endeavouring to do so at this time.
I am very happy to be able to tell you that broad international agreement is emerging on a process that looks something like this: the Yugoslav Government will be offered a 24-hour ceasefire as soon as it begins to withdraw its troops and paramilitary units.
That ceasefire will be extended if this withdrawal continues; and once the withdrawal is complete and the other conditions have been met, we can begin to implement a peace settlement, one that is still on the basis of what was negotiated in Rambouillet.
<P>
But that only answers the immediate question of what we will do when the shooting stops.
The longer-term question is this: how can we develop a policy that guarantees stability and peace for the entire region in the long term?
Here we have put forward for discussion the idea of a stability pact for the entire region.
This must certainly be looked at as a medium and long-term process, at the end of which we do not envisage a new order in the sense of re-drawing borders or even persuading people to leave their home; at the end of it we want to see a political strategy that enables the peoples of the region to cooperate and to co-exist peacefully.
<P>
In the present situation it is crucial that the European Union and the international community leave no doubt about their resolve.
That is why we must adhere to the conditions we set for ending the military action.
These conditions are such that Milosevic can quite easily fulfil them.
It is up to him and him alone to ensure that his country is not destroyed even further and that the lives of the people of his country are not put at risk.
<P>
Let me also state again quite firmly: the international community is not at war with Serbia or with the Serbian people.
It is not a question of gaining territory, ruling over people, obtaining spheres of influence.
Nor is it a question of raw materials or oil or anything of the kind; it is a matter of fundamental human rights and nothing else!
It is a matter of ensuring that the declaration of human rights is not a hollow phrase in Europe but that ...
<P>
Heckling
<P>
There is no point in you interrupting because I do not understand you.
I do not understand your language.
There is no point.
I do not understand it!
<P>
It is a matter of making it clear that we are also prepared to make sacrifices for the sake of our common convictions and to most resolutely oppose the activities of those who are trying by criminal means to destroy all the progress we have achieved in European civilisation!
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, yesterday was Holocaust Day in Israel.
That anniversary is a stark reminder of our commitment to the principle of 'never again!', which was the founding principle of the European Union.
We must never again turn a blind eye to genocide, we must never again tolerate ethnic cleansing, we must never again appease a brutal dictatorship.
The message has to go from this Chamber and from the international community that the Milosevic campaign of ethnic hatred, which began ten years ago, must end where it began - in Kosovo!
We must say to him that on the verge of the next millennium he cannot use events which took place in 1389 to justify mass murder today.
We will not let him drag us back to the barbarity of the Middle Ages.
<P>
Heckling
<P>
I congratulate the German presidency on the firmness of its resolve and leadership in this conflict.
We all know the immense difficulties this has presented for Germany, and I recognise and pay tribute to the courage of the German Chancellor and Foreign Minister in particular.
I also congratulate the Commission on the speed of its response to the humanitarian crisis, despite the difficulties it is having to face at the moment.
<P>
The Socialist Group has consistently argued that military action was a last resort because of the very dangers of military action which we are seeing at the moment.
However, once every possible opportunity for negotiation was exhausted - and every possible opportunity was exhausted - then military action was inevitable and should be supported by this House.
<P>
That military action must continue until Kosovar Albanians are able to return to their homes in peace.
We must not give Milosevic any sort of victory or allow him to play any more games with the international community.
We must increase our resolve to deal with the displaced people.
They are not refugees: they have been driven from their homes.
<P>
We must also learn our lessons from these events.
It is quite clear that we need to have a European defence identity and, therefore, the St Malo initiative must be followed up rapidly.
<P>
It is equally clear that Europe does not have the resources for a European defence identity: we cannot mount a campaign without American and NATO support.
So if we really believe in peace-making and peace-keeping, Member States must be prepared to have a defence budget commensurate with our ambitions.
It is not enough to talk!
We have to put our money where our mouths are!
<P>
The final lesson we must learn: a lot of attention is focused on the importance of Russia and America.
This whole tragedy has underlined the importance of one other country in Europe, and that is Turkey.
Turkey is clearly crucial to the peace and stability of this continent.
It is beholden on the European Union to take seriously its responsibilities for Turkey and ensure that Turkey feels part of the European family.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Lambrias">
Mr President, it will take a long time to correctly assess the position taken by Europe in the tragedy of Kosovo, and it will not be done before the deafening bombing and the lamentations of the refugees have stopped ringing in our ears.
<P>
The warmongers will continue to shadow-box to ensure the effectiveness of aerial attacks, which have been going on with catastrophic ferocity for three weeks.
Ordinary people, however, are questioning the major role once again given to the Americans by Europe through NATO.
<P>
We must not forget that entire decades passed before Mr McNamara acknowledged that the massive intervention in Vietnam was a criminal error.
Nor should we forget that, more recently, just as Mr Milosevic is now being called 'the butcher of Kosovo', Saddam Hussein was called 'the butcher of Baghdad'. Despite the massive operation in the Gulf, he is still alive and continues to rule, whilst children in Iraq are dying of hunger and disease.
<P>
Now that the standoffs and dramas have reached a climax, there is no room for dispassionate responses.
There is, however, grave concern about the disastrous dangerous consequences that the failure to come up with a political solution might have.
There is concern that the whole of the Balkans risks becoming destabilised if ground operations are initiated, and unless the inviolability of existing borders is guaranteed. There is concern about a resurgence of cold war tensions and about the fact that the role of the United Nations as the guardian of peace and international legitimacy is in danger of being undermined.
<P>
Mr President, let us hope that this afternoon the Brussels Council will assume its real responsibilities, albeit belatedly, and that it will safeguard not the credibility of NATO, but peace in Europe and cooperation among all its peoples.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
Mr President, I just wanted to say that I respect Mr Lambrias's opinion. But he did not express the opinion of the Group of the European People's Party.
I expressed it this morning in the presence of the President-in-Office of the Council.
<P>
Applause
<P>
I want to make that clear. And it must be recorded in the Minutes!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="President">
I already guessed what you were going to say, Mrs Pack, but this is a problem which should have been resolved earlier, within the group.
Mr Lambrias asked to speak on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party.
This is not the President's problem; this particular case is an issue for the political group.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="La Malfa">
Mr President, during this year many of us have met Mr Ibrahim Rugova.
On his frequent visits to European capitals and to Brussels, Mr Rugova told us several times, and with growing anguish, that a tragedy was unfolding in Kosovo and that Milosevic's violence would push the Kosovar population, and especially its young people, to armed struggle.
<P>
Unfortunately we did not take heed of those dire warnings.
Perhaps we wanted to, but we did not succeed.
The time required to reach intergovernmental agreements - the UN is a case in point but so are European mechanisms - is very long, which means that our decisions are dictated by procedures instead of by the true necessities of history and by the facts.
<P>
NATO's intervention was long overdue and I congratulate our colleagues from the EPP Group for clearly rejecting this statement, which I cannot imagine represents the opinion of our colleagues.
NATO's intervention did not cause ethnic cleansing. It simply revealed its extent.
It did not provoke Mr Milosevic. It has simply shown that Milosevic is a war criminal.
<P>
We respect the voices of those who would honestly not like to see weapons used.
We respect the voice of Catholic leaders such as the Pope; but if we do not use force against Milosevic, violence will continue and spread.
We need a union of minds and determination.
This is the reason why the ELDR Group would have preferred the European Parliament to have considered the utilisation of ground troops if needed.
For the rest, we fully agree with the joint statement and with what Chancellor Schroeder said this morning.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Pasty">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the crisis in Kosovo, which is completely dominating European current affairs, to the extent that it makes the other subjects being debated seem absurd, should be looked at from three points of view: the military aspect, the humanitarian aspect and the political and diplomatic aspect.
<P>
The political and diplomatic failure of the Rambouillet Conference, which did not succeed in obtaining the agreement of all the parties in the conflict, unfortunately reversed the order of priorities, and it is now the outcome of the military phase that will dictate what will happen next.
This outcome obviously depends solely on the behaviour of Slobodan Milosevic, who should not for one moment be in any doubt as to the determination of the NATO allies; they will only put an end to military action when the safety of all the inhabitants of Kosovo is guaranteed within the borders of the Federation of Yugoslavia, and when all the refugees, who are victims of ethnic cleansing, can return to their country.
This non-negotiable demand has just been pointed out in a most timely manner by the United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan.
It is supported by the large majority of public opinion in Europe.
<P>
By blindly refusing to face this reality, the dictator, a former Yugoslav communist, is adopting a suicidal attitude with regard to both himself and the entire Serbian population, whose sincere patriotism, which commands respect, is being abused.
While continuing their military pressure, NATO and the allies have to deal with an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.
The flood of refugees is overwhelming the capacity of Kosovo's neighbouring countries to accept them, and threatens to politically destabilise them.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which is entangled in its own bureaucracy and perhaps paralysed by its inability to quickly mobilise the necessary resources, has proved to be inadequate, but the mobilisation of NGOs and the International Red Cross has been entirely remarkable.
<P>
In the face of the immense scale and the urgency of need, it is essential that humanitarian intervention is coordinated.
It seems that the issue of accepting the most vulnerable refugees - women, children and the sick - in Europe and across the Atlantic, is being dealt with in a much calmer manner than was initially the case.
This should not of course be interpreted as a de facto acceptance of the ethnic cleansing that Slobodan Milosevic has planned for Kosovo, but it is undoubtedly necessary in order to relieve the pressure on Albania, as it is obvious that the completely safe return of those who have been expelled from Kosovo cannot take place immediately.
<P>
The definitive end to the crisis has to come through a political and diplomatic solution.
Russia appears to be an essential partner in seeking this lasting solution to the crisis in Kosovo.
It has already made considerable diplomatic efforts to make the Yugoslav dictator listen to reason, and will have an essential role to play in negotiating and guaranteeing peace, particularly by participating in a peace-keeping force which will act under a United Nations mandate.
<P>
Within Kosovo, Ibrahim Rugova, to whom the European Parliament awarded the Sakharov Prize a few months ago, has an essential role to play.
In order to ensure that he is not used as a tool by the Yugoslav dictator - who is currently holding him hostage - we must demand that he regain his freedom of movement so that he can meet with the authorities directly affected by the conflict, and Parliament should take the initiative to invite him to come and speak to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
<P>
It is essential that the European Union, which has been unable to prevent conflict, either in Kosovo or in Bosnia - despite the fact that these conflicts were clearly predictable - should draw all the lessons that it can from these failures, and should finally provide itself with a truly credible common foreign and security policy.
While the European Union has enabled the enemies of the past to be reconciled, in the future it should serve as a model for the Balkans and we should affirm loud and clear that there is plenty of room for a democratic and peaceful Serbia, which includes Kosovo, in a united Europe.
This is the message of hope that we must convey to our Serbian friends, who are currently being abused by a shameless dictator who is leading their nation towards a collective suicide, and not towards the glorious destiny with which he has dazzled them in order to serve his personal criminal ambitions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wurtz">
Mr President, in my view it is right and also encouraging that Europeans are mobilising in their millions in response to the humanitarian tragedy that has been forced on the Kosovars.
<P>
Europe must bring aid to the refugees, offer asylum to those who request it, affirm their right to return, work to reestablish them and ensure their safety by means of a European peace-keeping force. We must also demand substantial autonomy for Kosovo and convene a European conference for peace, security and reconstruction in the Balkans.
These are our proposals, some of which date back a long time.
<P>
I would like to express here today my complete condemnation of Milosevic's policy.
I think that the ethnic cleansing and the forced exodus of the people is an abomination and a crime.
Whether the Serbs are the perpetrators, as in Bosnia in the past and now in Kosovo, or whether they are the victims, as in the recent case of the people of Krajina in Croatia, I am among those who believe that sovereignty is a very important element in international relations, but that it does not mean that a power can do absolutely anything to its people or to a minority.
<P>
That is not what we disagree on.
The source of our disagreement lies in making war the habitual means of resolving problems, with no regard for the severe humanitarian, material and political consequences.
It lies in the refusal to see that the bombing has entirely the opposite effect to the objectives that were officially laid down for it.
It lies in the acceptance of the dubious and irresponsible game that some western countries are playing with the KLA.
It lies in the rejection of the UN and the cavalier exclusion of partners such as Russia, all of which we can now see are essential for ending this crisis.
All these strategical errors bear a mark, the mark of NATO and the American leaders, on the eve of the Washington summit that is aimed at fixing their hegemony over Europe in the post cold war period.
<P>
This is why I am convinced that Europe has allowed itself to be caught up in this affair, and that it is in its interests to do everything possible to free itself from this tragic deadlock.
In this respect, I am following the current European diplomatic initiatives with a great deal of interest and attention.
<P>
That is the way forward.
We should be aware that all of the organisations in Yugoslavian civil society that are fighting courageously for human rights, for autonomy for Kosovo and against the power of Milosevic, have recently launched a joint appeal which says that NATO's military intervention has undermined all the results that they had achieved and has endangered the very survival of civil society in their country.
<P>
We should also be capable of listening to the voices that are being raised, from the Christian Democrat vice-president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE to Monsignor Botazzi, from Helmut Schmidt to Mario Soares, from top political leaders in Sweden, Austria, Germany, Italy and France, to many figures from European progressive movements, calling for the bombing to be stopped and for a full-scale political battle to be undertaken in order to achieve a fair and lasting peace at the heart of our continent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, in times of war, the dominant reality is one of fronts, organised and maintained as coherent blocs.
Any dissonant noises are treachery and have to be silenced.
The room for debate contracts, and in wartime too, the absence of debate is very dangerous.
We should not delude ourselves that all the valid and humane arguments are contained in a single analysis and a single approach.
<P>
Who can claim here that the NATO raids, without a mandate from the UN, do not give rise to problems as far as international law and international relations are concerned?
Who can say that shutting out the UN here does not create a vacuum, because the UN has not given the green light to action but nor has it condemned the raids?
Often in a vacuum of this kind, nothing happens for a long time or another factor intervenes, in this case NATO, with both humanitarian and military strategy objectives.
I recommend that everyone should read Mr Brzezinski in today's Süddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung , who sets out these ideas very clearly.
<P>
Who can be sure that the criminal treatment meted out to the Kosovo population, which started long before the NATO bombings of course, will suddenly and miraculously stop?
But who can deny that the raids have dramatically increased the persecution and deportation of the Kosovars?
Above all, who can forget that the scale of this mass exodus and expulsion has been totally underestimated and that the measures to cope with the refugees have been badly organised?
Who can fail to see that if the destructive bombing continues, this will in the long term affect not only the regime but also and primarily the population and their day-to-day living conditions?
<P>
But most important of all is what we should do now, namely concentrate on political initiatives.
We must move away from military targets and look to political objectives.
The Greens are therefore happy that the German Presidency and Joschka Fischer are working so hard to secure a peace plan.
It is our firm conviction that a lasting political solution cannot be found without involving the UN and Russia.
We believe that the Council must create the conditions in which a limited halt to the bombing can open the way to preparation of a cease-fire, naturally with conditions attached, conditions which Kofi Annan has indicated.
<P>
I am eternally grateful to Europe's citizens for their generous readiness to take in Kosovar refugees.
Their decision, born of high moral standards, is a clear signal to their government leaders that the EU governments should emulate those same standards, rather than falling woefully short of them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, I think that in the past few days we can finally say that the spirit of Munich is not quite so heavy in the air in this House.
That was not the case a month ago.
Finally, following developments that have taken place, we are facing up to the situation and we are not, as Mrs Alvoet said, pretending not to see that the problem with the UN was not created by Kosovo and that it existed before that situation arose.
We are aware of the power of veto within the Security Council, and we know that some countries are constantly using it in order to block any initiative on the part of the international community.
There was no alternative, Mrs Alvoet, to NATO intervention.
I agree that it is unfortunate, but that is how it is.
<P>
I would like to say to Mr Pasty that I find him very optimistic.
To say that Mr Milosevic is suicidal is to give him too much credit and it is a refusal to understand that his policy is a scientific one, which he is continuing to carry out and for which is entirely responsible.
<P>
I have a lot of doubts and am very sceptical about the German plan.
It will be used by Mr Milosevic to gradually withdraw his troops as far as he pleases, resulting in a situation that we have been rejecting since August: the partitioning of Kosovo. It will be a partitioning in which he will be the winner, and which will enable him to annex 40 % or 50 % of Kosovan territory, where there happen to be a few monasteries, but more importantly where there are much richer areas, such as mines.
He will annex this section, and from that moment on he will refuse to withdraw, and the international community, tired from long weeks of intervention, will sign up to Milosevic's victory, as it did at Dayton.
Just as he was given 50 % of Bosnian territory at Dayton, this will give him 50 % of Kosovan territory, obviously completely cleared of any Kosovar presence.
<P>
This is the danger that we are facing.
I think that it should be very much on our minds.
We are aware of Mr Milosevic's intellectual and criminal resources.
We know that he is capable of anything.
He has proved this once again.
There was no need for him to prove it again for me, but I think that it was necessary for some of my colleagues in order to make them finally open their eyes.
I think that we should continue to keep our eyes wide open and, while we are waiting, work to ensure that he is found guilty before the Tribunal in The Hague, because he has long ceased to be a person with whom political negotiations are possible.
It is high time that the international community realised that.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, NATO has launched, on its own authority and bypassing the United Nations, military action aimed at putting an end to an unacceptable policy of ethnic cleansing.
What we are now seeing is that this action has undoubtedly contributed to accelerating and magnifying the ethnic cleansing.
We are seeing that the initial strikes, which according to Mr Vedrine and Mr Cook were only to last a few days, have rapidly become a full-scale war against a European nation whose economic infrastructure we are systematically seeking to destroy, and whose civilian population is inevitably being bombed. Meanwhile, we have no idea where this escalating situation should lead if the Yugoslav authorities do not give in to force.
<P>
The initial objective that was given for the bombing was to obtain by force what we had felt we were unable to achieve through negotiation: the implementation of the Rambouillet plan, a substantial degree of autonomy for Kosovo, with respect for Yugoslav sovereignty and monitored by a substantial NATO force.
The antagonism between the Serbs and the ethnic Albanians has now reached a level where it is almost beyond remedy, which means that the future coexistence of these people within the framework set out in the Rambouillet plan no longer seems to be a realistic prospect.
<P>
In the face of these shifts and this deadlock, we all now feel that there is no solution to the escalating military situation and that we should not listen to the irresponsible warmongers who are calling for a ground operation and/or the arming of KLA militias.
We all feel that bypassing the UN and excluding Russia were mistakes and that we urgently need to bring them both back into play.
We are all aware of the need to take each and every opportunity to reopen dialogue with a view to finding a political solution.
We now need to give priority to everything that will enable us to move from the process of war to that of peace, everything that will enable the refugees to return to their land in safety as soon as possible.
We will have to rebuild what has been destroyed.
<P>
The peace plan drawn up by the current presidency, which you have just presented to us, Mr President, finally and happily breaks away from the mounting military action.
It shows us a course that will not under any circumstances be that of increasing military action, which is something we should make every effort to resist.
Mr President, before resentment builds up which could create a deep divide in Europe, we now need to put as much of our energy into seeking peace as we did into starting the war.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Antony">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in 1991, here in this House and in front of Mr Delors and Mr Mitterrand, who were supporters of Milosevic's Communist Yugoslavia, I defended the Croatians' and the Slovenians' right to independence.
At the time, Milosevic's red army was shelling Dubrovnic and massacring at Vukovar, while this House remained indifferent.
For five years, with the Chrétienté-Solidarité movement I helped more than 300 Croatian children in Bosnia to be kept alive.
I am even more ready to express my total and equal solidarity with the Serbian children who have been subjected to the ultimate in technological barbarity.
<P>
Kosovo is not Croatia.
For the Serbs, it is not only a province, but the birthplace of their nation.
NATO is not bombing Milosevic's regime, but the entire land, all the people, the entire future of an ancient European and Christian nation.
One day historians will have to explain why, up until now, NATO has only engaged in this war.
NATO, which was formed in 1949 to protect Europe from Soviet imperialism, did not intervene on behalf of the people of Berlin in 1953, the Hungarians in 1956 or the Czechs in 1968.
NATO is in fact solely the tool of the United States, which did not mobilise against the genocide in Tibet or Cambodia, or against the massacres in Lebanon.
Today the genocide of Christians in Timor and Sudan is continuing with complete impunity.
And NATO cares little about the situation of the Kurds in Turkey or the Kabyles in Algeria, where the habitual slaughter of women and children by the National Liberation Front is continuing.
<P>
So why this war against Serbia?
For the Kosovars?
Come on!
They are also the victims of Clinton's folly in supporting the KLA, which, we should not forget, is a Communist and terrorist organisation like the Kurdish PKK.
NATO intervention is not a cure that is worse than the disease, it is a disease that is much worse than the disease.
By bombing Serbia, in contempt of its sovereignty and of the rules of the UN, NATO is establishing the law of the jungle.
By using the most obscene tricks of misinforming and brainwashing our people, it is also violating the rules of war.
We are waging war against the Serbs, but we are denying them the moral right to defend themselves, and to take prisoners.
It has even been said that, in the interests of democracy, they should have to put their television and radio at the disposal of their aggressors.
Such claims and such contempt for the enemy have never before been seen throughout history.
That does not give credit to our era.
The Serbs are the baddies.
The Serbs have the audacity not to recognise that the bombing is good for them, as the strikes are only a form of surgery.
We want to cure them, and the swines are protesting!
The Serbs are wicked, all of them.
NATO has the enamelled whiteness of the teeth and clear conscience of Clinton the humanist.
<P>
However, enough of the sarcasm: Clinton, the cold-blooded murderer of hundreds of thousands of children in Iraq, is once again a criminal.
His crimes are crimes against humanity.
Let us hope that his war, which you are slavishly supporting, will not lead, through a tragic chain of events, to the third world war and the end of mankind.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="President">
Mrs Müller, can you tell under which Rule you are asking for the floor?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
I refer to the Rule in the Rules of Procedure under which you must call to order a Member of this House who calls the President of the United States a murderer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, you will not achieve your aims by shouting while another Member is speaking.
When some colleagues were speaking a short time ago, Mr Le Pen made some comments on what was said by the President-in-Office and Commissioner van den Broek.
I reprimanded him, but I think that it was wrong to do this, just as it is wrong for others to raise their voices while Mr Antony takes the floor.
There is no point whatsoever in doing this.
We know what kind of ideas are expressed in this House.
Let us respect them, even if we do not agree with them at all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Mr President, I should like to begin by paying tribute to a Serbian democrat, the journalist Slavko Curuvija, who paid for the defence of democracy with his life last Sunday. He was assassinated after having stated publicly that Milosevic could not guarantee peace but could only generate a crisis.
We also have a duty to pay tribute to the Serbs who are fighting for peace and freedom in their own country and who are risking their lives to do so.
<P>
Having said this, Mr President, I am only going to say two things at this stage.
Firstly, this morning, Chancellor Schröder quite rightly said that the European Union must be a community of values and not simply an economic community and market.
And the values that we are defending now are the values of respect for human rights and respect for life - the most fundamental value - that are being systematically violated in Kosovo as we speak. This is something that we have seen repeatedly in the tragic process of the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia, for years in Slavonia and Bosnia and now in Kosovo.
And perhaps we will see it tomorrow in Montenegro.
<P>
This is indeed something that Europeans cannot tolerate.
We must therefore strongly support our Commission - particularly at the moment - as it is doing a good job.
We must also emphasise that not only is military action underway but we are also seriously suggesting that a global solution for the Balkan problem be drawn up, as Chancellor Schröder mentioned again today. This would allow us to incorporate the process that has enabled Western Europeans to overcome so many centuries of barbarity and confrontation.
<P>
As a result, Mr President, it is vital that we support this plan, and that we give it our full support so that those who have been expelled can return home.
This cannot be achieved through resolutions alone; it requires intervention forces.
I should also like to point out that, at a time when the Amsterdam Treaty is about to enter into force, these missions are defined as Union missions under the so-called 'Petersberg missions'.
We must put them into practice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Soulier">
Just this once I thank you, Mrs Bonino and Mr van den Broek, for your prompt intervention.
<P>
I would just like to point out that four months ago, a man wearing a funny scarf was here among us receiving the Sakharov Prize for freedom of spirit.
We owe protection to this man, because otherwise there will be no point in awarding this prize, which is a sort of Nobel Prize for spirit, each December.
<P>
I must highlight here today the peculiar situation that this man is in.
He is considered to be a pacifist.
He has fired no shots.
He has not mounted an uprising, something for which some of his compatriots might even resent him.
Mr Milosevic, who has protested his sincerity through some of our colleagues present here today, and is unable to accuse him of anything, says that he is now protecting him in Pristina from Serbs that may make attempts on his life.
<P>
The European Parliament must intervene.
First of all, as I proposed in the resolution, we must invite Mr Rugova to come back to speak to us in Brussels or Strasbourg and tell us what has been happening to him, mainly because he feels bitter.
As Mrs Renata Flottau said, he is having trouble understanding the silence of all those who have paid court to him over the years, awarded him their prizes, been photographed with him in order to attract media attention, and are now powerlessly watching as the Serb dictator humiliates him.
<P>
I am afraid that he will be thinking of us, and I would like to make a proposal.
It is true that our regulations are strict.
The European Parliament has not declared war.
It is free, and Members are free to speak.
A few days ago I wrote to the Serbian chargé d'affaires in Brussels to tell him that in my capacity as chairman of the Subcommittee on Human Rights, but for the moment without authorisation, I am prepared, along with other colleagues, to go to Belgrade or Pristina.
The European Parliament must consider sending a delegation - which can be quickly arranged - to go and meet Mr Rugova in Pristina and to bring him back here.
I would like to say the following to Mr Milosevic: 'As you can accuse him of nothing, here is the symbolic opportunity to show that you are preparing to return to peace.
Hand Rugova over to us.'
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Spencer">
Mr President, I agree with what Mr Soulier has just said.
But I rise on a different point of order, to ask if you can tell us what has happened to the German presidency.
I would have thought that in a continent at war the least courtesy the presidency could have shown us would be to stay here until the end of the debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="President">
I am unable to answer your question, Mr Spencer.
According to my information, the Council presidency was going to attend the debate until the end.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, I agree with what the Council President has said today about Kosovo, and also with what the Commissioner said.
But let us be honest.
The West is now paying for its half-hearted attitude in the early 1990s over the need for a military response to the atrocities in the Balkans.
Recognising the independent states, with the exception of Bosnia, was in itself to some extent an acceptance of the ethnic discrimination which at the same time we find so repugnant.
In Kosovo, it is about to happen all over again.
Little has been learned from the disintegration of Yugoslavia.
Little has been done for the Serbian opposition, and little has been done for Mr Rugova.
We awarded Rugova the Sakharov Prize, but part of Parliament was busy giving encouragement to the KLA.
<P>
I am a fervent supporter of NATO.
But the cynically technological NATO briefings hide the fact that we have become locked into a process whose consequences we cannot fully predict.
Hence these questions of mine.
How can we stop Milosevic from dragging down Montenegro, Macedonia and Albania to destruction with him?
How can NATO extricate itself without using ground forces?
The genie of an independent Kosovo has escaped from the bottle.
The unilateral agreements reached at Rambouillet have been overtaken by events.
How is the Council going to prevent the formation of a greater Albania?
These questions are important.
In the meantime, our duty is to take in the refugees and to be generous in making good the damage, including damage to Serbia once Milosevic has gone.
<P>
Lastly, I totally agree with Mr Soulier.
I hope that Russian diplomacy will help us to resolve the difficulties and bring Rugova here, so that we can discuss his strategy with him face to face and incorporate it into the stability pact which the Council has drawn up.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, it both saddens and angers me to have to say that, as of today, the European Parliament has become just as guilty as all those inhuman and hypocritical leaders in the United States and Europe who are using war in an attempt to salvage their lost credibility.
<P>
The joint resolution we have before us brings shame on the European Parliament simply by having been tabled.
If we vote in favour of it, it will be a disgrace for years to come.
If the European Parliament wants to play its part, it should simply cry out in agony on behalf of the people of Europe: stop the war now!
Respect peace!
Leave the leaders of Yugoslavia and the legitimate leaders of the Kosovar Albanians to solve their own problems.
They have demonstrated that they can.
Get out of their way!
Otherwise, why not call on the Turkish army, as Mr Titley suggested, to interrupt its 'charitable' work slaughtering Kurds in Kurdistan to go to Kosovo and salvage the human rights that you are defending.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cohn-Bendit">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when someone says that he does not want war, I believe everyone applauds him.
When someone says that he hates war, everyone applauds him.
But when someone does not say that he hates ethnic cleansing, that he rejects ethnic cleansing, then there is a problem.
Some people say that the Serbs and the Kosovars should sort out their own problems; well, Milosevic has been dealing with the Kosovars' problems for ten years, and has been saying what he wants to do for ten years.
In his speech in 1989 at the Field of Blackbirds, he explained everything.
When I was young I was taught that I should read books.
We have read what Hitler wrote, and he did what he had written.
We have read and heard what Milosevic wrote at the Field of Blackbirds: he did what he had said and what he had written.
He wanted to purify Kosovo so that the Serbs could regain it, and that is the current situation.
In that situation, there have been attempts at negotiation, and there have been mistakes.
Everyone has made mistakes.
Rugova has led a peaceful resistance, and we awarded him a prize.
That did not work.
It is an awful situation, and the bombing has not heightened the ethnic cleansing: it was going on before the bombing started.
<P>
I am now proud of the German Government.
I am proud of the German Minister for Foreign Affairs, who is currently trying to find a diplomatic and political solution to this conflict.
However, a political and diplomatic solution and an end to the war must never mean the continuation of ethnic cleansing.
We did not build Europe on the ashes of the Second World War to experience the tragedy of war now - and it is an unbelievable tragedy; I would never have thought that my son would see another war in Europe.
We do not have the right to sit back and allow ethnic cleansing out of cowardice.
Selection and deportation were Hitler's weapons.
We want the Serbs and Serbia to join Europe and stay in it, but not with ethnic cleansing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="President">
Mr Spencer, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to inform you that the President-in-Office is engaged in an informal trilogue with our Vice-President Mrs Fontaine on the subject of the Structural Funds, and will be back here at 5.30 p.m. to answer questions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, so far the NATO bombing has unfortunately not stopped the ethnic cleansing, quite the contrary.
Kosovars have been driven out of their country in dramatic circumstances or are actually refugees within it.
They are the victims of a totalitarian, ethnocentric nationalism which we deplore.
But at the same time, I cannot condemn the NATO action, because I am aware that Europe stood by impotently for ten years, as Mr Cohn-Bendit has just said, whilst the former Yugoslavia fell apart, and when Milosevic revoked Kosovo's status as an autonomous region ten years ago, those familiar with the area predicted what would happen in the next few years.
We did nothing at that time.
<P>
But we must go back to a political framework, an acceptable international legal framework, which therefore has to involve the United Nations, the OSCE and the Russians too.
We want the Kosovars to be able to return to Kosovo quickly, but without a political solution this will have to be done under military protection, as advocated in our joint resolution.
<P>
But we should be sorry if this were to be military protection under NATO rules alone.
We agree with those who advocate a European perspective for the peoples of Eastern and Southern Europe, so that respect for human rights and international law can stand together in peace and development.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Muscardini">
Mr President, we hope that the next Commission and the next Parliament, working more closely together, will remind the Council, whose absence today is justified, that it is just one of three Community institutions and not the most important one either.
<P>
The Members of this House are not, I believe, right-wingers or left-wingers, warmongers or pacifists; we are, I very much hope, just men and women seeking to point out that international law does not exist if human rights are not respected first.
And therefore we cannot but be divided into two categories: those who are in good faith and those who are in bad faith, with those who fight for principles realising that force sometimes needs to be used to defend them, since force or war are not good or evil in themselves but necessary attitudes and decisions when it comes to fighting for human lives and dignity.
<P>
In any case we should note how Rambouillet has once again demonstrated the lack of European political union.
If political union had been achieved a few years back, perhaps we would not have ended up with the tragedy we are witnessing today.
If Europe had not just been represented at Rambouillet by four powerful nations but had been present as a political union, and if, prior to Rambouillet and at least since '92, Europe as a political union had sent a strong message - a strong and clear message - to Milosevic, maybe we would not have experienced all the wars, destruction and tragedy that we have seen.
But things carried on as they did because of the choices made by certain governments and political forces: European union does not exist and all we can do is wait for NATO to represent what we ourselves are not in a position to represent.
Let us hope that in the future Europe is able to achieve a political content and work towards a stability pact for the Balkans, that it is able to provide the deportees with the certainty they require in order to return home, in other words hope for the future, and that it is able to show solidarity with those who are hard at work - for example in neighbouring regions such as Puglia - in practical terms as well as in words.
<P>
We should give a vote of thanks to Commissioner Bonino and the Arcobaleno organisation, together with a clear message from ancient Rome: 'Parcere victis, debellare superbos '.
And Milosevic must be defeated, otherwise the warmongers and the arrogant will continue to trample on the rights of those acting in good faith and defenceless citizens.
<P>
Could I conclude with a request, Mr President: if this Parliament were to convene an extraordinary sitting so that we could all meet at the border between Albania and Kosovo, this might be a good signal to send out at the end of a parliamentary term which has not brought political union but at least has established, between ourselves as Members of Parliament, a common will to be close to the people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="President">
Thank you for your suggestion, but I would like to add that we should go there unarmed, otherwise we would run the risk of becoming involved in the conflict ourselves.
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<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Vecchi">
Mr President, what we have been witnessing in Kosovo over the past few weeks is the greatest tragedy to cast a bloody shadow over Europe since the end of the Second World War.
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In this desperate and devastating situation for the Balkans it is more vital than ever before for politics to start playing its full role once again, or at least to try to do so.
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In the meeting of the European Council taking place over the next few hours it may be confirmed that both the European Union and the United Nations are to return to the political arena.
The fact that the heads of government of the Member States are meeting with the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, seems to be a prelude to a European initiative - as was moreover announced here by the Council - which might, if there are positive signs from the Yugoslav side, enable a return to be made to the negotiating table.
<P>
However, there is no doubt that the fundamental condition for any suspension of the Allied bombing of Serbia is an immediate cessation of all military activity in Kosovo by the Yugoslav side, the withdrawal of Serb forces from the region and an end to the repression and expulsion of the Kosovar population.
And on these issues and principles all European countries must maintain the strongest and firmest possible unity.
In the hours to come we shall see the details of the proposals put forward by Europe and by the United Nations.
Everything will depend, quite clearly, on the Yugoslav response.
<P>
It is important to stress that whilst a strong and united front among the European countries and NATO is vital, the option of a political solution should remain open.
The NATO military initiatives in themselves are not a solution to the problem: they have been and still are the only way to try and stop activities which to all intents and purposes are now genocide as far as the Albanian-speaking population of Kosovo is concerned.
<P>
It is clear from the events of the past few days that the process of creating an effective European common foreign and security policy needs to move much more swiftly and that the Union should avail itself of all the political and practical instruments it needs to defend peace, security and respect for human rights, both on its own borders and in other parts of the world.
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In order to outline a solution to the complex problem of the Balkans it is furthermore vital for the Union to work out a strategy, a plan, to build up a long-term political and economic stabilisation process for the region, including through stronger relations with the Union itself.
<P>
Perhaps today we are all paying the price for not having held out prospects of European integration for the region of the Balkans as well.
At the same time there is an even clearer and more pressing need for the whole of Europe, including Russia, to work together across the board, as it were, in order to build a future of peace, progress and stability throughout the continent
<P>
Alongside the political and diplomatic initiatives, humanitarian assistance for the refugees and the victims of Yugoslav repression needs to be coordinated and reinforced.
There is a considerable awareness of this need throughout Europe.
The Arcobaleno mission launched by the Italian Government has met with the approval and active support of most of the public and civil society in our country, which is springing into action in a remarkable way.
<P>
We believe that - above and beyond what has been done up until now, and this is already a great deal - the Council, the Commission, the Member States' governments and the whole of the international community should step up and fine-tune their efforts to help the people of the region.
Today this is the acid test for the present and future construction of Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bianco">
Mr President, there is no question here of our determination in the struggle against Milosevic, which of course must remain undiminished - since we know that any weakness may be exploited by the Serbian dictator - but the problem facing us is how to deal with a situation of military intervention which seems to have no way out, as the bombing cannot go on for ever, nor can it be the last word in an action that is intended to lead to peace.
The reasons for the intervention, to defeat the madness of a dictator who has come up with a barbarous and inhuman plan, are justifiable, but if the bombs do not resolve the matter, I feel that - unless Mr Dupuis is suggesting sending in ground forces, which up to now has been ruled out - political logic calls for negotiations, since we want to avoid the option of a war which is won or lost.
<P>
As Mr Verheugen said, we did not intend to wage war on Serbia, all we have in mind is to return people to the land from which they have been expelled.
We must therefore make every effort to ensure that Kofi Annan and the UN are successful in their endeavours, that Russia is involved and that Rugova can become a partner in the discussions.
<P>
May I now make one final point, Mr President.
We are defending those who run the risk of becoming a wandering and dispossessed people.
There are urgent needs, and while we should be grateful to Commissioner Bonino and Commissioner van den Broek for the work they have done, this is just a drop in the ocean and the situation is explosive.
In Italy, as Mr Vecchi told us, LIT 30 billion have been collected from the public and EUR 150 million is available: we would like to know what is the precise extent of the existing needs.
What also interests us, and this was accepted by the Council, by the current presidency in fact, is the request made in the other Assembly for a stability pact.
This is the objective to follow, because rather than winning a war, we want to make peace win the day.
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<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Marset Campos">
Mr President, as Members of Parliament, we have a duty to promote and defend international law as the best means of defending human rights.
As a result, I am wondering why no cases against Milosevic were brought before the Criminal Court in The Hague prior to 24 March.
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The United Left brought a case against Pinochet, which is currently being examined, and if we had documents and witnesses, we would also bring one against Milosevic.
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According to Articles 1, 3, and 5 of UN Resolution 3314/29 of 14 December 1974, NATO's attacks and Solana's decision can be considered a war crime.
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The best humanitarian aid we can provide for the Kosovar Albanians we are defending is to finally bring peace.
The European Union must raise the voice of dialogue, of negotiation and of politics in the face of American violence. Consequently, we must promote peace alongside the UN and the OSCE.
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<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Carrère d'Encausse">
Mr President, war has returned to our continent for the first time in fifty years and we do not know how long it will last or how it will end, but wars always come to an end.
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Given the time that I have, I will not talk about the causes, aims or responsibilities of war.
I would simply like to take a look into the future, beyond the war, at the European landscape that will be the framework for the peace that is built, and at the aims of peace.
That part of the continent in which the war is taking place has fallen prey to demons that we thought no longer existed.
The Pandora's box from which they come reveals some terrible contents.
First of all there is the suffering of all those affected by the war: the Albanians who have been driven from their homes, but also the Serbs, who we should be careful not to confuse with Milosevic; they tremble at the bombs and watch in terror as their country's economy is destroyed.
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Another demon is that of the division of Europe.
It is back.
Hopes for a united continent are dying.
They have given way to the old situation, with on the one side a strong and united Europe - our Europe - which is capable of deciding its own fate, and on the other side another Europe that has to suffer a fate that it is not yet able to choose.
There are many signs of this division.
The Ukraine has decided to become a nuclear power once again.
The plan for a union between Russia, Belarus and Yugoslavia, even though it is a plan that has no future, sends a clear message.
In the face of the Europe of the Fifteen, Slavonic Europe is seeking to organise itself.
What a defeat for us all!
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Yet another demon is nationalism, which is never really dead, but which is gaining new impetus and spreading.
Let us not forget that not long ago, the majority of Serbs saw Milosevic as a dictator.
Now those same Serbs are rallying around him, purely as a result of a nationalist reflex.
The resurgence of nationalism is also reflected in a new attachment to ethnic and religious differences.
What a regression!
However, after the war, the Serbs and the Albanians will have to learn to live together again and, with time, forget their hatred.
No peace-keeping force will achieve this result.
The people will be the ones to decide.
In the East, a very serious consequence of this war is that those who were part of the totalitarian system have regained their prestige, to the detriment of those who wanted democracy and reform.
Courage will be needed now in Russia, to curb this tendency, and in Belarus, to continue to oppose Lukashenko.
There are other examples too.
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Ultimately, it is not only Serbia which has been destabilised, but the entire Balkan region, where there is increasing doubt amongst public opinion about the legitimacy of the borders and the possibility of living in peace with different peoples.
There needs to be an immediate response to this unstable situation in Europe, which is the framework for future peace.
First of all, we urgently need to move back towards political solutions.
War is never an end in itself.
It is a tool used in exceptional circumstances for political relations between states.
<P>
Secondly, we must not delay in bringing back into the debate two entities that have been wrongly excluded: the United Nations, a symbol of law, and Russia, which still has a great deal of influence in the Balkans and indeed in other countries in the region that could be useful in providing troops for a peace-keeping force that Milosevic would find harder to reject than he does NATO.
Have we tried that?
<P>
Finally, the Europe of the Fifteen must take the initiative, on its continent, to find a channel for negotiation and to curb the general destabilisation of the Balkans.
The future of our Europe, that of the continent and of the people who live in it, depends on it.
Time is marching on: we must hurry!
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<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gahrton">
Mr President, some parties to this debate are claiming that the peace movement, in calling for a cessation of the bombing, is effectively playing Milosevic's game; we are allegedly advocating Munich-style appeasement and are bereft of alternative strategies.
That is quite incorrect.
We totally condemn the criminal policy of ethnic cleansing being pursued by the Yugoslav regime and believe that Milosevic should stand trial before the courts.
The world community has a duty to intervene in defence of human rights.
The solution to this situation should be based on the right of the Kosovo Albanians to return home to an undivided and autonomous Kosovo under UN or OSCE protection, as part of a stability pact for southern Europe.
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Our view is that the NATO bombardments are wrong and have visibly failed.
Room must therefore be made for non-violent alternatives.
Finding these will take time and demand patience.
Nelson Mandela negotiated for years.
The Dalai Lama - after 40 years in exile - calls not for aerial bombing, but for the possibility to negotiate with a regime which this Parliament has condemned for its breaches of human rights.
Why did we abandon the pacifist Rugova in order to support a guerrilla movement about which we know precious little?
I fully agree with Mr Soulier on this.
<P>
Let us look at what NATO has on offer. Three weeks into the bombing, it is proposing to deploy 300 new warplanes, mobilise reservists and persist with the military campaign.
That is what NATO has on offer. According to the International Peace Bureau, NATO 'has so far done nothing but accelerate the repression, unite the Serbian nation around Milosevic and alienate the Russians'.
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What is more, the UN has been made to look foolish.
I quote from The Guardian of 2 April, in which Sweden's former prime minister, Ingvar Carlsson - in an article written jointly with his co-chairman on the UN's Commission on Global Governance, Shridath Ramphal - asked: 'What if in a virtuous rage China invades Taiwan?'
Dangerous precedents have been set and it behoves us all to be aware.
<P>
But let us imagine for one moment that NATO is serious in its intent; that all the allegations of cynicism are misguided; and that people mean what they say when they wax lyrical about peace.
Surely it would still make sense to acknowledge that the outcome in the field demonstrates that thebombing has failed and must be stopped - unless the idea is to prove that the operation was a success, even though the patient died.
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<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sichrovsky">
Mr President, 'war', it says today in a German daily, 'is always the result of a policy that has not achieved its aim'.
That is why the generals should only intervene after the politicians have failed.
But what does a military leadership do if it has been instructed to win a war without waging a war?
At present the necessary military action by NATO has been taken on the responsibility of a group of politicians who once upon a time loudly proclaimed themselves pacifists and opponents of war in the peace movements and are now ordering a war without wanting to dirty their hands.
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There is clearly a wide gap between instructions and means here.
If peace is to be achieved by political means then the military have to withdraw.
If it is to be achieved by military means the politicians must withdraw.
At present the two areas of responsibility are being confused in an unprofessional manner and two half-measures certainly do not make a whole.
In addition to the aggressor, those who are incapable of intervening at the right moment with the right methods also bear responsibility for the plight of the people.
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<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wiersma">
Mr President, I speak on behalf of my group and I will begin with what is most important.
We endorse the NATO action on Kosovo.
Military action was sadly unavoidable in the light of Milosevic's response.
That action is necessary if the Albanians are to have any future in Kosovo.
The European Parliament must leave no room at all for doubt today about where it stands on this.
Of course, the starting-point remains the search for a political solution, but it has to be on the basis of Rambouillet, with an international military presence on the ground and the refugees able to return to an autonomous and democratic Kosovo.
Given all that has happened since Rambouillet, that looks very much like an international protectorate.
So be it, then.
But that means troops.
To my mind, these should as far as possible be European, including the Russians.
The conflict is after all a European one.
Essential requirements will be a robust mandate and an effective command structure.
The EU is not NATO.
As far as military operations go, the EU is a minor player, and a degree of modesty is appropriate.
All efforts to forge a European security policy have so far remained wishful thinking.
For the second time, the European Union is playing a subordinate role, despite the Amsterdam Treaty.
But that is not to say that the EU has no role.
The EU is politically behind the NATO action, as the German Chancellor has reaffirmed this morning.
The EU must give a lead in accepting refugees, in the region to begin with and later outside it.
Albania and Macedonia need help.
The EU must take on the responsibility for rebuilding Kosovo, as it did in Bosnia.
The EU must be forward-looking and not allow a third Balkan conflict to happen, because there is still a good deal of material for conflict, even after Kosovo.
Stability in the region must not be seen purely as a military concern.
Investment in cooperation, socio-economic development and the quality of democratic society are equally important.
This, ideally, is the substance of a stability pact for the southern Balkans, in which the European Union, under the Amsterdam Treaty, should give a lead, for example by the pursuit of a common strategy.
An approach or stability pact of this kind must also hold out the prospect of increasing close cooperation with the EU, because that kind of cooperation, of integration, is and remains the best instrument for peace which Europe has to offer.
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<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, I have listened very carefully indeed to this discussion.
People keep saying things that no longer bear any relation to reality.
They say we must return to the negotiating table.
Think how long we went on negotiating, without any result except that the situation became ever worse.
We must finally look at the situation realistically and realise that if we want to be credible we have to take a credible democratic stance.
That means realising that people are not there for countries, but countries for people.
So if we expect the Kosovars to return under the rule of those who drove them out of their homes and murdered their families, we are asking something humanly impossible.
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We should finally be totally realistic and pragmatic.
People keep saying that ground troops could perhaps be deployed.
I think that is a big mistake because European ground troops have often failed in their aims in this region.
But the Kosovars are in their home country.
I myself saw in Croatia - and I was often in Croatia during the time of the war - that the Croats were successful when they had more or less the same weapons as the Serbs.
They chased them out, for people who are defending their own territory are far stronger than the aggressors who always come with a bad conscience.
<P>
Finally, let me say something encouraging. People keeping asking what will then become of the Serbs.
First of all, Milosevic is not Serbia.
The Serbs are not Milosevic, just as the Germans were not Hitler.
But we must finally realise that we cannot make peace with Milosevic because he will only start to commit his crimes all over again.
Secondly, we must do our utmost to ensure that the policy pursued here is based on realism and not on illusion.
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<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, I would like to devote a minute of my speaking time to a minute's silence for the 10 victims from the train that was bombed by NATO planes. Some of them were children and all of them were innocent Serbs, killed during the Orthodox Easter.
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The House observed a minute's silence
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<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="Spencer">
Mr President, if the Germany presidency were present I would say to it that horror in this situation is not enough.
We need to learn the lessons of the last few months.
Some four months ago in this Chamber I said that Europe would fight and that Europe would be right and that the key thing was to persuade Mr Milosevic of our intentions that we would fight.
And fight not just in the air.
That is the cosmetic dishonesty of limited involvement.
That is the arrogant assumption that you can have victory without risk, or power without bodybags.
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By telling Mr Milosevic that we would not fight on the ground, we invited the vicious and predicted Serbian response on the killing ground of Kosovo.
One million people are this week paying the price for the hard lesson which has to be learnt by all of us and primarily by Third Way governments - whether in this continent or in America - who have to learn the lesson that in the case of peace and war there is no Third Way.
It is no good Mr Bianco saying this is not a war to the Serbs. It certainly feels like a war to the Serbs.
<P>
So I say to the Council that if you want Mr Milosevic to negotiate the peaceful admission of international troops; you will first have to persuade him that, in the last analysis, we are prepared to use troops to enter Kosovo aggressively.
You cannot have one without the other when you are dealing with Mr Milosevic.
<P>
Rambouillet is dead.
In the long term we will have to look at an independent Kosovo, but that will have to be an independent Kosovo, in a new Balkans, in a new Europe that incorporates a democratic Serbia.
That is the thinking you have only just begun to take on board at the Council. I beg you to accelerate that process.
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<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Ripa di Meana">
It has been claimed, Mr President, that the war in Kosovo is a just war, and the principle of humanitarian intervention has been invoked.
To ensure that this principle, which is still somewhat hazy today, does not lead to an arbitrary and selective act of force, it should be incorporated into international law and should depend upon one institution: the United Nations.
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However, the principle has been used by a military alliance, an expression of brute force.
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After three weeks of war, the humanitarian situation has deteriorated appallingly in Kosovo, where apart from the ethnic cleansing pursued by Milosevic, there has been a constant hail of NATO's depleted uranium missiles, DUs.
When they return, the Kosovar people will have to protect themselves from the land's radioactivity for centuries.
<P>
So much for setting a civilised example, Chancellor Schröder!
Ethical war is born of the ethical State.
<P>
Europe should stop and think!
Europe has been the cradle of law throughout history, and it should jettison the military option, an aberration which flouts international law and its governing principle of national sovereignty, before all this leads to a backlash against our own states.
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<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
Mr President, there can be no equivocation: ethnic cleansing and enormous injustice against the Albanian population are totally unacceptable.
Nor should there be any doubt as to the EU's desire to take responsibility in both humanitarian and economic terms for the huge outpouring of refugees.
And it goes without saying that the standards the world has set for human rights must hold sway over the claims of nation states to sovereignty.
The demands of international law cannot, however, be put aside.
If such laws are wrong, they need to be changed, not broken.
<P>
What is so worrying is that Europe has stumbled into a war which has produced a million refugees, yet there is no evidence of any policy to extricate ourselves from the crisis.
A colonel who has been witnessing the collapse of Yugoslavia over many years made the following point: 'Either people were plain stupid when they decided to launch this war, or they were extraodinarily cynical in believing that the flood of refugees and the attendant human tragedy were a price worth paying.'
<P>
The prime task for the EU now is to work for a political solution; to put a end to ethnic cleansing; to support the refugees; to stop the bloodbath; and to create real opportunities for the refugees to return.
It is not enough for the EU to be welcoming Kofi Annan's offer to mediate and bring an end to this conflict; it should be giving him its active support.
<P>
The EU has a duty to establish the UN as the paramount body for overseeing the rule of law in the international community.
The EU must now call for a peace-keeping force under UN auspices, involving Russian peace-keeping troops, so that ethnic Albanians can return to their homeland.
The EU must see to it that the UN special tribunal on Yugoslavia swiftly undertakes investigations into war crimes that have been committed. Equally, countries need to be encouraged to ratify the agreement setting up the International Criminal Court, so that we have an instrument to deal with war crimes in the future.
<P>
It cannot be the EU's task to sanction NATO's military initiative.
The Union's task is to devise constructive solutions - politically, diplomatically and economically - to this and other conflicts.
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<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
Mr President, of course the main responsibility for this conflict lies with the Serbian Government.
There is no excuse for the campaign of terror being waged against the Albanian population of Kosovo, Milosevic has led his country from catastrophe to catastrophe.
However, this does not mean that NATO's bombardments are a solution, or are likely to herald a positive outcome.
<P>
NATO has manifestly succeeded in starting a war which it does not know how to end.
What more graphic illustration could we have than the hesitation over sending in ground troops?
Existing levels of ethnic cleansing were, moreover, stepped up when NATO began to bomb, not to mention the fact that NATO's bombardments play into the hands of the most insalubrious political forces - not only in Serbia, but to some extent in Russia too.
<P>
If we want a solution, there is one option only.
The UN must be brought in, and there must be a cease-fire, followed by negotiations and a political solution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Terrón i Cusí">
Mr President, I should like to use these two minutes to talk about an issue linked exclusively to the crisis in Kosovo: the humanitarian crisis suffered by hundreds of refugees in the area today.
<P>
Firstly, I should like to express my gratitude to the Commission, to Mrs Bonino, to the NGOs and to the humanitarian aid associations, and I would like to acknowledge the important work they are doing.
<P>
But at the same time, I ask myself one question: how long will the European Union continue to see this type of situation as an emergency, as something that has just happened without us knowing why, as if there had been an earthquake?
<P>
Nothing was more predictable than the humanitarian crisis in the Balkans, yet we continue to act and react as if a hurricane had lashed the area or as if an earthquake had destroyed the heart of one of our countries.
I believe that this is a very serious problem
<P>
Yesterday, the House held a debate on new reports on justice and home affairs; one of them involved the integration of refugees and another related to the strategic paper on the European Union's migration and asylum policy.
<P>
I remember past debates, much older debates, on a Commission proposal for a joint action concerning the temporary protection of displaced persons. It dates back to 1997 and was presented by Mrs Gradin.
It was not adopted and this instrument is not available to us, an instrument that would today allow us to deal with this situation in a very different way.
<P>
Why have we not ratified the Amsterdam Treaty?
We have a very solid argument to put to our people: ladies and gentlemen, we do not have a legal instrument and we do not have the budgetary instruments we need to handle this situation because the Amsterdam Treaty will not be adopted until May.
<P>
I hope that this will make us think, I hope that these measures will be implemented and I hope that the next time we realise that we will have to face a situation such as this, we will be in better shape to deal with it than we are now.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="Malone">
Mr President, like everyone else I am very concerned about the media reports today in particular that General Mladic and various other people have now been given free rein to impose further terror on Kosovo.
For many years these people have moved freely in Bosnia, despite the presence of SFOR troops and have remained free, despite the serious allegations made against them.
<P>
What must also concern us is the escalation of the conflict beyond Kosovo and into Albania.
The Serbs must stop their incursions into Albania now.
I was particularly struck by the sincerity of the presentation made to us by the German presidency, and indeed by Commissioner van den Broek.
I welcome the three-phase peace plan proposed here.
<P>
The involvement of the United Nations in the conflict would be a welcome step forward.
I look forward to further details of this plan and hope that it can form the basis for meaningful negotiations.
<P>
We are all very concerned by media reports coming from Kosovo, especially of rape being used as a weapon of war.
It is a despicable repeat of the most heinous crimes committed during previous conflicts this decade in Yugoslavia.
<P>
President Milosevic has a ten-year record of terror and manipulation.
He has shown repeatedly that he can play on ethnic fears and has presided over an expansionary regime based on terror.
The solution to this horrific 20-day bombing campaign will obviously involve negotiation.
We cannot ignore the reports of great human rights abuses.
We want peace - yes, but not at any cost.
I will give the rest of my time to silence, as indeed did my colleague beside me.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="Newens">
Mr President, the appalling treatment meted out to the Albanian population of Kosovo must be totally denounced and implacably opposed, but withdrawal of the peace monitors and the launching of the NATO bombing offensive was not the way to do this.
Bombing has not stopped the killing, but increased it.
It has not put an end to the catastrophic humanitarian situation, but intensified it.
It has not advanced a political solution, but retarded it.
It has consolidated Serb opinion behind Milosevic and weakened the opposition.
<P>
The idea that NATO bombing was justified outside the United Nations because two permanent members of the Security Council would have blocked it is a body blow to the UN and a most dangerous precedent.
The bombing needs to be stopped.
The proposals put forward for a settlement on the basis of the United Nations Security Council resolutions including a United Nations peacekeeping force with Russians should be wholeheartedly supported.
Above all, an immediate cease-fire is required, to concentrate on the terrible plight of those displaced and their return home.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Iversen">
Mr President, the abiding images of the systematic ethnic cleansing in Kosovo are yet more sad proof of the fact that we are living in the bloodiest century in world history.
During the peace talks in Rambouillet on the outskirts of Paris, it gradually became absolutely clear that the people representing Yugoslavia's President Milosevic at the negotiating table were only there for show.
At the same time they were able, under cover of the peace talks, to continue with the cleansing of the Kosovar Albanians.
The cleansing continued during the negotiations in Rambouillet.
At that time 60 000 Kosovar Albanians were in flight, and over the past year several hundred thousand have already been forced to flee.
NATO therefore answered Milosevic by employing the means that we had said would be used if the talks did not produce a result, namely military force.
Milosevic was not unaware that this could be the consequence.
He simply did not believe that the West would use the means that we are now using to tell him that talks have taken place - and plenty of talks have taken place, but Milosevic would not negotiate.
Now he should negotiate, but the bombing will continue until he comes to the negotiating table.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="Donner">
Mr President, the example of Bosnia has shown that there is no peace- keeping without peace enforcement.
This is a simple fact of life.
This means, in concrete terms, that we must have military personnel, guns, artillery and other equipment in Kosovo - and for a long time - as in Bosnia.
No SFOR military personnel have been killed in Bosnia in combat, only in traffic accidents: the threat of using arms has been sufficient.
<P>
The whole concept of peace-keeping has to be changed and reformulated.
This is the lesson learnt from an operation that was ill-conceived from the beginning but which eventually will end in giving Kosovo freedom under the threat of arms.
No other action is possible in these sad circumstances.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="Howitt">
Mr President, in this most serious of debates about the war in Kosovo, I thank you for having exceptionally allowed me to speak out in favour of one single refugee, resident in my constituency in Essex, who fears he will be forced to return home to the midst of the conflict.
This man has legal immigration status in Britain but has helped himself by attaining a job, one which itself involves foreign travel in other EU States.
Yet the delays in issuing the necessary visas from the Member State embassies in London currently threaten his employment on which, in turn, his immigration status depends.
<P>
When the whole of Europe is turning its eyes to the hundreds of thousands of refugees on the borders of Kosovo, it may seem strange to raise this one case.
But our humanitarian concern must extend to each and every individual refugee as long as their safety is threatened, wherever they may be.
<P>
Given that my parliamentary question is referred to this debate, will Mrs Bonino in her reply, and the representative from the Council taking note, commit themselves to investigate this individual case and the anomalies in European immigration procedures between Member States which threaten his status.
Do not send this man back to a war or to possible death.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="Bonino">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think that this debate has shown that with the exception of one political group, this House is unanimous in condemning the method of mass deportation used - and not just recently either - by Milosevic.
I also feel that views have differed slightly about what should be done.
<P>
We all want peace, except perhaps Milosevic.
And this is something we should keep in mind: if there is anyone who has pursued an ultra-nationalistic plan for ten years, which history shows to be a losing battle but which is bloody and cruel and has cost the lives of millions of Croats and Bosnians, that person is Milosevic, who has pursued, caused and used war for ten years.
So, we want peace but he does not, and it is important to say so.
The problem is how to force this man to accept a solution, a reasonable solution, after ten years have gone by.
I believe that after ten years the use of force was the only option.
And I say this as a person who believes in non-violence as well as in my capacity as a Member of the Commission.
But there is more to it than that.
For ten years now - I repeat, ten years - there have been negotiations with Milosevic, plus conferences, counter-conferences, partial agreements and full agreements, but they have never led anywhere; each agreement has just prepared us for the next massacre.
<P>
I believe that we are seeing a sort of collective amnesia in our countries.
Is it possible that names such as Osiev, Vukovar, Srebrenica, Bihac or Sarajevo no longer mean anything to anyone?
<P>
Applause
<P>
Could it be that all this never happened?
Or that we have forgotten all about it?
Am I mistaken or were you not the very people who wanted to face up to the disgrace of Sarajevo, saying, 'Never again should we witness the cowardice and shameful behaviour which allowed the events of Sarajevo to happen'?
<P>
For once, ladies and gentlemen, what is at stake is not oil, or diamonds, or even territorial conquests, for once what is at stake is the right of an entire people to live in their homes, in peace and dignity, and for once when force is used we discover all of a sudden that this is not acceptable.
What is the point?
Yet another Rambouillet?
This is the question I think we should ask, and above all the answer that should be given.
I hope that we can end up with a serious conference, a situation in which commitments entered into will not just be taken seriously but be verified and verifiable as well.
I do not want us to fall into the umpteenth trap of a half-way agreement, which might even prepare the ground for a massacre in Montenegro.
<P>
Applause
<P>
There is one point I wish to stress during this debate, and that is that today we are witnessing the break-up and annihilation of Kosovo and of an entire people.
And all this did not start on 24 March, ladies and gentlemen; back in August - perhaps we were all on holiday, or had our minds on other things at the time - there were already 400 000 displaced persons in Kosovo, forced to wander across the mountains. It was these people who were then being kept inside the country and whom in the last few weeks Milosevic has fired off like human bombs at Albania and Macedonia.
Let us hope he does not decide to fire them off at Montenegro.
<P>
I would also like to stress that, even from a humanitarian angle, there is no aid organisation with the remit, the resources and sufficient preparation to deal with a human bomb of 500 000 people in a few days.
I should like particularly to emphasise that the Commission may have resigned, it may be corrupt or whatever else you care to say about it, but perhaps you should try to understand the unusual institutional situation in which we have had to work, and I think we have nonetheless faced up to this situation and done what it was in our power to do.
Let me repeat that at present there is no aid agency which could deal with 500 000 people in just a few days.
<P>
There are two further concerns of a humanitarian nature that I should like to voice. First of all, what in happening inside Kosovo, where the Kosovar population is without assistance, without protection and without witnesses either?
The second concern relates to Montenegro.
If a hundred thousand deportees are forced into Montenegro, this will clearly lead to disastrous instability there as well.
<P>
Could I very briefly mention three points on the humanitarian front.
In the first place, this crisis shows us that in complex situations such as Hurricane Mitch in Central America it is sometimes impossible for aid workers to cope without the assistance of military structures.
Of course, it would have been more appropriate to use the WEU.
Fair enough, but for the moment it seems to me that the WEU is more of a virtual organisation than anything else, so I understand why Mrs Ogata wrote to NATO asking for technical resources at least to help with transport and setting up the camps and so on.
We should bear this point in mind because, as in the case of Hurricane Mitch, in this situation there are times when it is absolutely vital to use military structures for civilian purposes, even if just for logistical reasons.
Secondly, my colleague Mr van den Broek has already spoken of the need to give support to the countries receiving this enormous influx of refugees.
We will of course ask Mrs Gradin to monitor the individual case that was mentioned.
Finally, could I make one last exhortation: I do hope that all the efforts to show solidarity, including activities involving the general public, are made in a disciplined and coordinated way.
There is a risk of bottlenecks developing and of the limited port and airport facilities getting clogged up.
Furthermore, it is better to purchase supplies on the spot, hence money is better than food parcels.
This is a very important message which we hope you will pass on.
<P>
Lastly, I would like to thank the Member States, starting with Italy which reacted swiftly and immediately, but not forgetting the other Member States which are making absolutely tremendous efforts to help.
As you know, the part of the budget containing the available reserves amounts to EUR 150 million; bilateral cooperation and donations from Member States now amount to EUR 170 million.
We should make sure that these sums are used in a coordinated and complementary manner.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, I hope above all else that this institution is able to stand firm, to withstand the test of time and to get across a sense of leadership to the public, so that a distinction is made between the attackers and the attacked, the aggressors and the innocent victims, including Serbs.
I would like to point out that humanitarian assistance is also being provided to the Serbs, via the Red Cross; there is no discrimination as far as we are concerned.
I trust that together we will be able to face this tough and complex battle, fought so that national sovereignty should not mean ownership and so that the rights of the individual may be advanced.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="Morris">
Mr President, we have heard that depleted uranium weapons munitions are being used in the conflict.
Depleted uranium is radioactive and highly toxic.
Of course, it knows no frontiers when the wind decides to blow.
Could we have a report from the Commission rather urgently, as well as from the Council of Ministers, of an investigation into whether or not we are using depleted uranium bombs.
At the end of the day there is no time limit on the contamination of the environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Bonino.
<P>
I have received eight motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2).
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Second bi-annual BSE follow-up report
<SPEAKER ID=142 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0083/99) by Mr Böge, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, and Mrs Roth-Behrendt, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions 'Second bi-annual BSE follow-up report' (COM(98)0598 - C4-0686/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="Böge">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are talking about BSE, three letters which in the past, before the European Parliament reappraised the matter, stood for a bizarre mixture of mismanagement, misjudgement and sloppiness both in the Commission and in several Member States.
In the light of new and disturbing figures in some Member States, we could almost regard this as a never-ending story.
But let us not panic!
Many of the problems we have still not dealt with today are in fact a burden from the past, from the time before 1996.
With all that we are discussing today, we must not forget that we have achieved a great deal in recent years thanks to the work done in the Committee of Inquiry into BSE and in the Follow-up Committee, in that a large number of the European Parliament's recommendations put forward by the Committee of Inquiry into BSE were implemented.
I firmly believe that the course we embarked on jointly with the Commission and its departments was successful.
On the one hand, it restored confidence in the ability of the European institutions to cooperate internally; on the other hand, it gave the European consumer new confidence in the European institutions' ability to act.
<P>
In this connection I would like to give warm thanks to the Commissioner, Mrs Bonino, as also to Mr Reichenbach, Director-General, and to the Deputy Director-General from DG VI, Mr Heine, for what they managed to achieve, building on a situation that had arisen as a result of past mistakes.
I believe they have all made a major contribution to creating new confidence in this area of European activity.
<P>
In the final analysis we have achieved positive results for the future and improved the quality of preventive consumer protection, over and above the BSE issue.
We now have a new quality to the case-law of the European Court of Justice.
I believe that the restructuring of the Commission services, the new legislative initiatives and also the discussion concerning the transparency of the scientific debate are important measures that need to be put into effect in future not only in the European Union but also at international level.
I am thinking here of the hormone or BST debate.
<P>
One of our headaches remains that some Member States are not always willing and able to transpose Community law.
Further-reaching initiatives are needed here from the next intergovernmental conference, to ensure that if Member States delay and infringe the Treaties the Commission can take more rapid action, can initiate infringement proceedings more rapidly and can also impose sanctions more rapidly where there is a danger of this happening.
That is of the utmost importance!
<P>
Let me also say a few final words in regard to the discussion about the tests. I believe that the current evaluation of the tests under discussion today is such that as things stand at present they can offer no absolute guarantee of the certain presence or absence of BSE.
So we must take a considered approach here too and must not be tempted to overreact.
<P>
In short I believe we have pointed the way to firmly establishing preventive consumer protection in the European Union.
The Commission has done its homework very well.
Let us all take the BSE crisis as a warning for the future!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Böge.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 NAME="Roth-Behrendt">
Mr President, we have been discussing this subject here in Parliament for roughly two and a half years.
We are now nearing the completion of the work.
Of course some questions and problems remain unresolved, but I do not want to go into that in my statement today at the close of the debate.
I think it is important to ask what lessons should be drawn from the BSE crisis and what lessons should be drawn for the European Union's future policy.
How can we prevent this kind of thing from ever happening again?
I would be interested to know: can this kind of disaster happen again, yes or no?
That is what we really need to know today.
<P>
Has our perception - by which I mean the perception of Parliament, of this Commission and of a new Commission - and has the style of our policy now changed radically in relation to what they were three, five or even 15 years ago?
Of course absolute transparency is important here.
For instance, scientific advice, scientific checks, tests, inspections and controls must be carried out and accepted as a matter of course, even if the results may be inconvenient.
It is also important, as Mr Böge just said, to make preventive consumer protection and the precautionary principle the first principle in all other policy areas.
That may often be inconvenient, as indeed it was in the past.
It may be inconvenient for agricultural policy.
It may also be inconvenient for economic policy or foreign trade; it creates an enormous disturbance in these policy areas!
<P>
But only if the Commission and the European Parliament uphold and opt for the precautionary principle in cases of doubt will we prevent something like BSE from happening again.
In relation to the negotiations with the World Trade Organisation that logically means giving precedence to the precautionary principle over the smooth running of world trade.
<P>
We will very soon be facing the acid test here, with the question of whether we will in future allow growth hormones in meat from the United States in the European Union.
Will the Commission go on taking a tough line here, be hard as nails?
It remains to be seen!
During the work on BSE Mrs Bonino took a very steadfast and positive approach.
We appreciated that, and Mr Böge has just acknowledged it too.
<P>
For me as also for my group, the criterion for a new Commission must be whether consumer protection and preventive health protection are given precedence over the smooth running of trade policy.
I am convinced that only then can we give a vote of confidence to a new Commission for only then can we hope never to experience another disaster like BSE.
<P>
We will find out in the next few months whether that will be the case.
We will see what names are put forward for the new Commission and what approach the president-designate of the Commission takes.
In his statement to the European Parliament yesterday Mr Prodi never once used the words consumer protection, precautionary principle or anything of that kind.
We hope they are on his mind if not on his lips!
But we do not know.
We will find out in the future.
But I am convinced that we ourselves here in the European Parliament would all be making a mistake if we supported him or a new Commission that did not say very plainly whether in a situation where there is reason for doubt it will decide in favour of trade or in favour of agriculture.
We too must carry out our tasks, which is why we have always questioned the Commission.
<P>
Our task in future will be carefully to examine and question this new Commission which - whoever its members are - will not yet be in office. We must ask it how it will decide in a given situation.
If we are being serious here, we must only give this Commission a vote of confidence if the answers are satisfactory.
Then perhaps we will have some slight hope that preventive consumer protection will really play an important part in the Commission's discussions, to ensure that nothing like BSE ever happens again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="Whitehead">
Mr President, I should like to congratulate the joint rapporteurs, commend this report and incidentally say that I believe it is a justification for the contact committee which we maintained for a period of time, as well as the two main committees which endorse what has been said by the rapporteurs.
<P>
BSE was a tragedy for Britain and also for Europe. It remains so.
After suffering as we have, in our country, we are alarmed to see the disease still rampant in some other European countries.
We have had 2.5 million cattle slaughtered in Britain; we have had to submit about 2 000 pages of documentation on how the disease has been combated, although not yet eradicated, in our country.
We live daily with the problem of the victims of new variant CJD, to which the rapporteurs refer.
<P>
And yet we now have a situation in which, as they say, 13 Member States are facing infringement procedures by the Commission.
This is a scandalous state of affairs.
It is incumbent upon Parliament to make certain that the safety precautions which we have been forced to take are now common practice throughout the European Union as a whole.
Parliament needs to be backing the Commission in putting pressure on the Council in this regard.
The attitude of the Council over the last two years has not been satisfactory.
Danger for one is danger for all. Safety for all depends on danger for none.
When we look at the situation in Europe at the moment it is simply not satisfactory.
<P>
Mrs Roth-Behrendt said that the precautionary principle has to be the right approach.
I agree.
The precautionary principle is no frivolous luxury; it is an absolute necessity.
Parliament should say so, loud and clear, to the Council of Ministers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Trakatellis">
Mr President, this report is a continuation of Parliament's attempt to implement its recommendations in the wake of BSE.
Our work also involves monitoring the situation that is unfolding in the European Union as a result of public health protection policy.
<P>
We recognise, of course, that a certain amount of progress has been made in implementing measures to restructure and staff the Commission services, and to separate the legislative work from the operation of the advisory, scientific and supervisory committees and services.
In this way, the independence of the scientific committees has been strengthened, a better assessment of the facts has been achieved, and the transparency of the work on BSE has been maximised.
Many Member States have been slow to carry out checks and inspections, and we believe that these checks must be stepped up.
At the same time, cooperation and the exchange of information between the Commission and the Member States must be strengthened.
<P>
It is absolutely crucial that a legislative framework be set up to control animal feed and to combat epizootic diseases. We also need a more rational analysis of the use of antibiotics and growth promoters in animal feedingstuffs.
<P>
We must point out that there has been considerable delay in terms of the incorporation of Community provisions into the Member States' legislation. Moreover, in addition to specific responsibilities and acts of negligence, this matter of epizootics has revealed institutional gaps in the functioning of the European institutions, particularly the fact that Parliament cannot have complete control.
This is why we are asking for the codecision procedure to be introduced throughout the entire agricultural policy.
Through the Amsterdam Treaty, animal and plant health measures have already been put in place, and we are asking for them to be extended to the agricultural policy as a whole.
<P>
Mr President, I believe that health is one of the greatest gifts of human life. Protecting the health of the European public is one of the highest priorities of the European Union, and it must therefore play a vital role in the development of Europe.
<P>
I would like to thank the two rapporteurs, Mr Böge and Mrs Roth-Behrendt, for the excellent work they have done.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Kofoed">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to thank the two rapporteurs, who have produced a well-balanced report which provides an excellent description of the situation.
They say that 'it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good', and this also applies here, because BSE was in fact the reason why we had the clear-out in the Commission.
BSE was the reason why we managed to expose some major shortcomings within the Commission and became aware that the Commission was not fulfilling its obligations.
I feel that we have achieved remarkable results, and I would like to thank the Commission for having followed the committee's recommendations.
The allocation of responsibility within the Commission was not satisfactory, but it has improved.
We have also succeeded in reaching a consensus about the need to keep the Scientific Committee separate from other bodies.
This, I feel, is extremely important.
We have succeeded in making the Scientific Committee more independent, even of parliamentary control.
A scientific committee must be detached, so that the scientists are not exposed to political pressure when they are asked to deliver opinions.
It is extremely important that the scientific basis should be in order, so that the right decisions can be reached.
<P>
Finally, I would like to say that BSE is, fortunately, on the way out.
We are fairly clear about when it will disappear completely.
There will continue to be a few cases.
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is also on the way out, I believe.
So what can we learn from all this?
The steps that have been taken appear to be effective, and I therefore believe that we can avoid getting into such a situation again.
We now have an apparatus which works.
We can, in my opinion, be reasonably satisfied.
We cannot give consumers a 100 per cent guarantee.
But we are now better equipped to deal with such problems than we have been in the past.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Novo">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as you know, the BSE situation in Portugal has resulted in a decision to block exports of Portuguese beef.
Factors that have contributed to this decision include irresponsible behaviour in the more distant past and, more recently, incompetence on the part of people in positions of responsibility.
Nevertheless, the European Parliament must agree to political proposals that will help to resolve the situation in each and every Member State.
<P>
We are therefore tabling an amendment calling for still closer cooperation between the Portuguese Government and the Commission, which will make it possible to eradicate the disease and lift the embargo within the timetable envisaged.
To this end, we have also tabled a further amendment calling for the creation of mechanisms to limit the damage suffered by Portuguese producers.
BSE must be wiped out and the European Parliament and the public throughout the European Union must be armed with all the facts.
This is exactly what a third amendment we have drafted aims to achieve.
I would like to compliment Mr Böge and Mrs Roth-Behrendt on their work and to express the hope that all these amendments can be accepted.
The report will then be more politically balanced and fair.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, I would like to thank the draftsmen of this report as well as the Commission and in particular Commissioner Bonino for the excellent cooperation we have managed to establish in this area, since thanks to Parliament's action and the constructive rather than destructive response to it we have identified the problem and tried over the years to resolve it in the best possible way.
<P>
We have separated out the sectors and made major progress.
Today we acknowledge - and we are right to make a point of this - that the action the Commission is taking has not yet managed to overcome the resistance of the Member States.
The fact that 13 out of 15 countries are not fully implementing the recommendations which they should implement goes to show that we need to carry on working with the Commission to achieve this objective, so that respecting and safeguarding consumers really does become Union policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="des Places">
Mr President, if we consider the negligence of some people, this was a difficult task, as the eradication that everyone wanted is far from being achieved in certain Member States, and consumers and breeders are concerned, even if they do not say so explicitly.
<P>
For this reason I wish to congratulate my colleagues Mrs Roth-Behrendt and Mr Böge on the quality of their recommendation and to explain to them the content of the main amendments that I have tabled.
<P>
With regard to paragraph 24, we think that it is important that we specify that the precautionary principle should also be applied to dealing with carcasses, animals and health-related seizures in abattoirs.
The European Parliament needs to make a statement on this point in order to guarantee health and safety, both for cattle and also, in short, for the consumer.
<P>
Concerning paragraph 26 on the Green Paper 'The General Principles of Food Law in the European Union', this problem needs to be dealt with on a general level, particularly by taking an interest in other fields such as animal and human food and also plant protection.
All decisions should be made on the basis of scientific evidence, but also following risk assessment, at Community level.
The principle of health and safety for the European consumer is a general one and is not restricted to particular sectors.
We should not forget this.
<P>
Finally, with regard to paragraph 29 on the use of antibiotics in meat production, it is true that this can lead to increased resistance to antibiotics in consumers.
Resistance to antibiotics is not solely linked to their use in meat production.
We welcome the withdrawal of authorisation for four antibiotics as animal feed additives, but I hope that in order to effectively protect public health, additional measures will be taken in the light of the results of the studies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graenitz">
Mr President, I too want to join in the thanks to the two rapporteurs, Mr Böge and Mrs Roth-Behrendt, and to Mrs Bonino and her staff.

Thanks to the work of the Committee of Inquiry into BSE and the restructuring and changes made by the Commission, we have now anticipated what will soon enter into force under the Treaty of Amsterdam, namely preventive health and consumer protection. That is a very important foundation on which to build sustainable development of the Union.
<P>
I believe that we must continue to follow up the question of the precautionary principle which we have now anchored in our legislation and that we will also have to incorporate the principles of transparency and of separation of powers, which we now have in the Union, in international treaties and agreements too. In that way we can achieve preventive health and consumer protection not only for the people in our Union but also in relation to products from other countries that end up in the Union.
I think Parliament must call on the Commission to show this same transparency in the preparations for the negotiations on these international treaties.
So we need more information: what is the nature of these preparations, who is making them, what are the ultimate objectives, how can they be achieved or have they already been realised?
<P>
There is a further point I find most regrettable.
As rapporteur for the Green Paper on the future of food legislation I had also expected a stronger thrust in that direction.
I hope we will still manage to achieve modern food legislation prior to enlargement of the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schierhuber">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today I want to give very special thanks to Mr Böge and Mrs Roth-Behrendt for their truly thorough work in the Committee of Inquiry into BSE and afterwards too.
The BSE scandal plunged the entire European Union into a deep crisis.
It was demonstrated to us quite plainly that even for the people of today, there are limits that have to be respected.
Nature has its laws and it is only within that framework that we can and may proceed if we want to make progress for the benefit of mankind.
Unfortunately we have still not come to the end of the crisis into which that irresponsible behaviour plunged us, and it will probably take decades before we know its true scale.
<P>
Today I will not fail to express my respect for the Commission under President Jacques Santer for having the courage and the staying-power to uncover, in the face of resistance in the Member States, the scandalous abuses whose origins after all reach back to the mid-1980s.
Even though the scandal has long since been exposed and has now almost disappeared from the media, I would nevertheless point out that we must not forget the BSE tragedy.
So it will be most important to ensure that the next Commission constantly presents its activities before Parliament.
Especially when public health is at issue, we must not take any risks.
As elected representatives it is our duty to stand up for the people.
Let me say very frankly, Commissioner, that I am deeply disturbed because I believe that we can still not gauge today how many new cases of BSE and also of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease we will encounter in the coming years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="Nicholson">
Mr President, I should like to congratulate both rapporteurs. From the beginning of the BSE crisis they have both been extremely constructive in the way they have brought forward their reports and in their analysis of the problem.
BSE, unfortunately, is still with us and we must recognise this.
We must also recognise that grave damage has been done to consumer confidence and that must be restored.
We are well on the way to doing so but we must continue to work at it.
<P>
Throughout the whole Union we must face up to the reality that if we had been feeding our animals in the right and proper way the BSE crisis would never have occurred in the first place.
In my own constituency of Northern Ireland we have now imposed extremely strict controls.
These are expensive and have had to be paid for by the hard-pressed beef farmers in my constituency and, to be perfectly honest, they question some of these controls.
However, at the end of the day, they are prepared to live with them because they know they are restoring confidence.
<P>
While we have strict controls within the European Union, these controls do not apply to the food that is entering the European Union from other countries whether from the United States or anywhere else.
Until we tackle that problem and meet it head on, I have to say to the Commissioner that the farmers of Europe will not have confidence in the European Union to meet the challenge that is facing us now.
It is the next challenge we have to face up to and we must do it.
An inspection is taking place in the United Kingdom at the moment and I hope it will result in a data-based scheme.
<P>
In winding up, Mr Böge said that we had been given a warning for the future.
Let all of us in this House today remember what we have come through in the last few years with regard to BSE and let us take his warning on board and act on it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Mr President, the debate here in Parliament on the BSE crisis, which is still troubling Europe, has been a good example of how Parliament has been unquestionably capable of tackling an issue that is worrying the citizens of Europe.
The rapporteur deserves thanks for a lively report, as has been mentioned several times.
As soon as Parliament became aware of the crisis, a temporary committee of enquiry was set up, and as a result of its findings, the Commission was obliged to thoroughly re-examine Community policy on food production with reference to food safety and consumer protection.
<P>
It is important that the European Parliament continues to take an active part in monitoring the effects of decisions taken, as well as ensuring that Member States are implementing them correctly.
I believe, however, we should distinguish between those Member States in which there is no apparent risk with regard to the disease, and those in which there is.
Measures in countries in which there is no risk should be less drastic than in those countries where the risk exists.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Otila">
Mr President, in its agricultural policy, the European Union emphasises the importance of environmentally friendly production methods and better quality of produce.
The Agenda 2000 package, however, does not give sufficient weight to environmental considerations.
The BSE crisis, cases of swine fever, and resistant strains of salmonella indicate all too alarmingly that the basis for a Union agricultural policy is breaking up.
We have to pay far more attention to matters of agricultural production and food production.
Consumers must have greater certainty that products are safe.
We cannot afford to be arrogant here.
<P>
There is still precious little scientific knowledge about BSE.
Research into its long-term effects has been arduous and slow.
We cannot jump to hasty conclusions one way or the other.
Mad cow disease was in the headlines about five years ago.
One wonders whether more could have been achieved in the area of research at that time.
Have the resources set aside for the control of BSE been used in the best possible way?
<P>
Ignorance as to what causes BSE and its effects on humans is costing the EU dear.
Overall, the BSE crisis has cost the Union many billions of euros.
It is still not clear what action it is wise and necessary to take, and the extent to which that action should be targeted.
We must be able to impose different measures in different countries relating to high risk items such as cattle and sheep brains and meat on the bone.
<P>
The BSE crisis has not yet been beaten, and we need to ensure there is consumer confidence in European agricultural produce.
The Commission has implemented many of the recommendations made with regard to BSE in order to promote consumer health and protection.
The present situation is hardly satisfactory, however.
Too many new cases have once again emerged this spring.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Santini">
Mr President, Commissioner, as I am speaking on this issue probably for the last time during the term of this Parliament, I shall not hide from you that I have a vague feeling of disquiet.
I feel almost as if I am abandoning a child who has not yet fully recovered from an illness in the middle of the street and wondering who will take care of him from now on.
Will the next Parliament, as I very much hope, contain two real heavyweights like Mr Böge and Mrs Roth-Behrendt to replace the two of them?
Mrs Roth-Behrendt is not here, but I trust the term 'heavyweight' does not offend her.
They are two heavyweights who have stood firm even when the issue in question was no longer quite so topical and it would have been easier to let it drop rather than carry on attending countless meetings.
<P>
I am wondering about this because even though the two committees, the Committee of Inquiry and the Follow-up Committee, have provided answers to many of the queries we raised, there are still further questions which remain.
For example, I wonder who will from now on bring the required pressure to bear on researchers and on the world of science, which still has to provide many answers to our queries.
Furthermore, will controls and inspections continue in the United Kingdom, both on the epidemiological front and in the ports where some not entirely healthy foodstuffs may still be found?
Even though the guide for consumers has been corrected and revised in the latest edition, I am wondering whether it will be adequate to help the target readership to understand what they should be doing.
<P>
I would like to put one further question to the House and to the spectres who will fill it during the next parliamentary term.
Who will still protect the consumers?
Will others be as resolute as ourselves in defending their rights?
The families affected by new variant Creutzfeld-Jacob's disease have received some compensation, but we should not forget the dire prediction of one professor, who said, 'Take care, the incubation period lasts for 15 years!'
So we should not let the matter drop in this respect either.
<P>
Finally, the second bi-annual report states that almost everything has been done.
Among the points missing is the follow-up to the Green Paper on food law.
One more question, who will take the lead here?
I wish them the best of luck!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 NAME="Corrie">
Mr President, I also thank the rapporteurs.
I must declare an interest in this debate as I am a beef and sheep farmer in Scotland.
As most of my income used to come from exporting live pedigree cattle, I have a financial interest in the lifting of the export ban on beef from the United Kingdom.
As a farmer I have watched the devastation BSE has caused, not just to British farmers but also to all the ancillary industries, such as transport, auction marts, abattoirs and downstream industries.
British agriculture is now experiencing a crisis in all sectors.
<P>
While I welcome the report in that it gives us a chance to review the situation, there are a number of points I wish to comment on.
Firstly, it is a great tragedy that BSE was treated as a British, and not a European, problem from the start.
As tens of thousands of tonnes of contaminated feed were exported to mainland Europe, there was bound to be a European-wide problem.
<P>
I am delighted the Commission is taking such a tough line on food safety throughout the beef industry in Europe as a whole, as this is the only way to protect public confidence.
It is a pity that some nation states do not feel as strongly.
<P>
Being closely involved in the industry, I can assure Members that a huge effort has been made to make British beef safe.
While we still have a few cases of BSE in some herds - mostly dairy - due to consumption of contaminated feed, most beef herds have never had any cases - and that includes my own - yet we all suffer.
The paperwork and record-keeping is now in place to give complete traceability from birth to the finished cut of meat in the shops.
It is a huge burden of extra work for farmers, but well worth it to get the market opened up.
The market and abattoirs are weighed down with inspectors at every level and the cost of inspections is now about 75 % of total costs to ensure that the rules are followed.
<P>
The British ban on meat on the bone is stupid and unnecessary and should be lifted.
However, I welcome this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="President">
On behalf of the President, I would like to thank Mrs Roth-Behrendt for giving up her speaking time to allow us more time to finish the debate.
Commissioner Bonino now has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 NAME="Bonino">
Mr President, I will give a very short and rather more political answer.
First of all, I would like to thank the rapporteurs, and then I would point out that this is sort of our last debate, the last debate for this Parliament and perhaps also for this Commission, and in a way I shall miss it.
I shall miss it because above and beyond what we have achieved together - and the report sets this out clearly - I believe we have developed a working method (although this has not been easy for you, I imagine, nor for me either, I am sure you will grant me that) which makes each side's responsibility clear, thereby avoiding institutional confusion and seeking cooperation despite our differences.
<P>
Leaving aside specific points, I think this is the most important thing that we have learned together.
And I believe that the future Parliament and the future Commission should safeguard this method they have inherited in relations between the two institutions, with regard both to transparency and to scientific excellence.
Some dossiers - apart from BSE where problems remain to be resolved as Mr Santini and Mr Imbeni pointed out - deal with complex subjects such as hormones for example, which Mrs Roth-Behrendt mentioned, or genetically modified products: in short, on the food safety front there are complex dossiers for whoever comes along.
<P>
The last point I should like to stress is the precautionary principle.
I believe that first and foremost it is important to get this established at European level and then to promote it later at international level.
We hope to get a consensus on 19 April for the precautionary principle to be included in the procedural manual for the Codex Alimentarius.
If we succeed I think this will not just be an important milestone for the Union but will help in asserting this principle at international level.
<P>
This is the legacy, one might say, that you are leaving for the future Parliament and that we are leaving for the future Commission.
I do sincerely hope that whatever specific problems there may be, this working method becomes a shared resource.
Perhaps just for once I may do something I never do and thank the Commission departments and my own office which, with you, have shown great patience and also, I believe, considerable tenacity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 NAME="President">
Many thanks, Mrs Bonino.
<P>
I would also like to say, on behalf of the President, that we have always followed what you have said at the rostrum with great interest.
We would like to reciprocate your kind words about the European Parliament and to offer you our best wishes in your personal political career and to wish you every happiness in the future.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Question Time (Council)
<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="President">
The next item is questions to the Council (B4-0157/99).
<P>
Let me welcome the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Verheugen, and I should also like to point out from the start that Mr Verheugen has to leave the House at 6.50 p.m. to make his journey back.
It would therefore be a good idea if we were to focus our questions so that we can ask as many as possible and so that Mr Verheugen can answer them.
In any event, we have already agreed that at the next part-session there will be ten extra minutes to make up for the ten minutes we shall miss today because he has to leave at 6.50 p.m. for reasons outside his control.
I have now informed the House of this fact.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 1 by Patricia McKenna (H-0222/99)
<P>
Subject: European central banking and monetary system Can the Council indicate how it is proposed that new 'Euro' currency will be regularly issued after the Member State currencies are replaced, and whether it will be by 'Euro' bond issues to the commercial banks only, in effect incurring new debt in the system, or as free issue 'Euro' currency, incurring no debt, or some combination of both, especially as a major declared intent of the system and associated convergence criteria and Stability Pact is debt reduction?
<P>
Can the Council inform Parliament as to which EU Member State central banks are fully privately owned, which ones are partly so, and which are fully publicly owned?
Can it say if it regards it as proper that either party or fully privately owned central banks should be constituent parts of the European System of Central Banks, and even part owners of the European Central Bank, both established by the European Union Treaties, giving private financial interests some measure of control over the European monetary system, something potentially not conducive to the declared aim of monetary stability?
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mrs McKenna's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, according to the recommendations of the Madrid European Council in December 1995, as from 1 January 1999 the participant states issue new, negotiable public debts in euros.
At the same time they convert the major part of their outstanding public debts into euros, pursuant to Council Regulation No 974/98 of 3 May 1998.
During the transitional period from 1 January 1999 to 31 December 2001, private issuers can convert outstanding bonds into euros in accordance with that Council regulation.
They can issue new bonds in euros.
At the end of the transitional period, all new bonds issued by public and private issuers will be issued in euros or in foreign currencies.
All outstanding debts issued in national currencies that then no longer exist can only be serviced and paid in euros from the year 2002.
<P>
Pursuant to Council Decision 317/98 of 3 May 1998, the central bank legislations of those Member States participating in European monetary union must comply with the EU Treaty provisions and ensure that the central banks of those Member States that take part in European monetary union are totally independent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="McKenna">
When we talk about the whole question of issuing currency without debt, the argument that has been given is basically that it causes inflation.
Commercial banks multiply the money supply issued by at least 10 to 15 times, and this is the reason that states get into debt, i.e. so that banks can make these huge profits.
Considering that this whole project was supposed to ensure a reduction or elimination of debt, I do not think that is going to do it - do you agree?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, Mrs McKenna, I do not agree.
The level of private debt and the level of public debt are two entirely different indicators of economic development.
The level of public debt tends to be a more critical indicator while the level of private debt can reflect increasing investment activity.
You must clearly distinguish between the two.
But what we must concern ourselves with in this context is quite simply the question of from when these bonds will be issued in euros.
I have answered that question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
I have a supplementary question.
As you know, I come from Sweden.
The Council is probably aware of the current debate as to whether we should join the single currency. I frequently find myself at all kinds of meetings where this issue is discussed.
<P>
One question keeps on coming up - and it is one I cannot answer.
Perhaps you can assist.
There is always someone who wants to know what happens if a country wishes to abandon the single currency.
If a feeling develops that the social and economic impact is proving negative, is there any legal possibility of leaving the single currency and reinstating a country's national currency and central bank?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Sjöstedt, that is an interesting question.
I will answer it in political rather than legal terms.
What you suggest in your question is not possible.
There is no provision for it in the Treaty.
Anyone who has joined the common currency cannot get out.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 2 by Alexandros Alavanos (H-0224/99)
<P>
Subject: Implementation of the Philoxenia programme Parliament, the Commission and the Economic and Social Committee have already approved the adoption of the multiannual programme to promote European tourism entitled 'Philoxenia'.
Given the importance of tourism for job creation and the dissemination of European culture and in view of the fact that the Council of Ministers for Tourism is constantly deferring adoption of the programme, will the Council say when the final adoption of the programme can be expected?
Can it assure Parliament and the Commission that it will be possible to implement the programme as soon as possible and will it say whether there are any problems within the Council in connection with its final adoption?
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Alavanos's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="Verheugen">
Unfortunately I have to tell you that this subject has been discussed on a number of occasions within the Council and that unfortunately the fundamental differences of opinion could not be resolved, although the Austrian Presidency went to great trouble to do so.
Some delegations expressed reservations even though the presidency had proposed reducing the programme's long-term budget.
Regrettably, I cannot even foresee at this moment whether or when the Council can adopt the Commission proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
The President-in-Office has disappointed me with his answer, since he said in his reply that he could not think when the debate on the report would take place.
I would like to ask him the following questions.
<P>
Firstly, is there still a possibility that this endorsement will be given during the German Presidency?
<P>
Secondly, with regard to the topical issue of tourism, has the Council considered the impact the Yugoslavian crisis in Kosovo will have on tourism in many regions of the Balkans, possibly including Northern Greece, if this crisis is not resolved soon?
Has the Council considered the possibility of introducing measures to support the tourist industry?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Alavanos, I understand your disappointment, but all the presidency can tell you is what the Member States are prepared to do and in this case the situation is that a number of Member States have very fundamental reservations about this programme to promote European tourism; they do not want it at all.
There are other Member States which do not want it in this form.
No consensus is emerging on this issue in the Council, which is why I am very sorry indeed to have to tell you that I do not see the slightest chance of this matter being concluded during the German Presidency, at least not with a positive outcome.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 3 by Nikitas Kaklamanis (H-0227/99)
<P>
Subject: Statements by Ecevit following the arrest of Öcalan The Turkish Prime Minister, Mr B. Ecevit (who in 1974 gave the order to attack the Republic of Cyprus, a UN Member State currently applying for membership of the EU) announced to Turkish and foreign journalists immediately after the arrest of the PKK leader, Abdullah Öcalan, that Turkey would not accept advice from any European country in connection with the trial of Öcalan.
<P>
What is the EU Presidency's position on this statement by the Prime Minister of a country which continues to ban the Kurdish Democratic Party from taking part in elections and is responsible for unprecedented crimes against the peoples living on its territory?
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Kaklamanis's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Kaklamanis, in its statement of 22 February this year, the European Union took note of the Turkish Government's assurance that Abdullah Öcalan would be given a fair trial.
The European Union expects that to mean fair and correct treatment and also a public and constitutional trial before an independent court, access to the legal adviser of his choice and admission of international observers to the trial.
<P>
The European Union once again emphasises its firm rejection of the death penalty.
At the same time the European Union reaffirms its condemnation of all forms of terrorism.
The legitimate fight against terrorism must be conducted on a basis of full respect for human rights, the rule of law and democratic standards.
Regarding the exclusion of the Kurdish Democratic Party from the elections, I am sure the honourable Member is aware that on 8 March 1999 the Turkish Constitutional Court unanimously rejected the public prosecutor's application for a temporary injunction to ban this party from participating.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Kaklamanis">
Mr President-in-Office, this morning I heard Chancellor Schröder say that NATO's attacks were being carried out in the name of human rights and on behalf of the Albanian minority in Yugoslavia. You cannot allow human rights to be served up on an ad hoc basis or 'à la carte '.
Yesterday, the Turkish newspapers wrote that international observers have not been allowed, and will not be allowed, to attend the trial of Mr Öcalan. I would therefore like you to answer the following questions.
If this is in fact the case, what will the Council do in relation to Turkey, which is linked by an association agreement with the European Union? Secondly, I am surprised that you are not aware that there is a more recent decision which forbids the ADEP Party from taking part in the elections, thereby depriving 20 million Kurds of their human right to express themselves politically in the elections.
What does the Council intend to do about this?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Kaklamanis, the Council is employing every political and diplomatic means to make it clear to the Turkish Government what European human rights standards mean and that it expects Turkey to observe European human rights standards in every individual case and in every situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
I would like to put a couple of questions to the President-in-Office.
<P>
Firstly, with the experience both he and Parliament have, does he seriously believe that the current regime in Turkey will hold a fair trial based on the principles of the rule of law?
If so, on what does he base this confidence?
<P>
Secondly, why does he immediately 'latch on' to the terrorist issue, regardless of whether this exists or not?
Perhaps this is a way out for Turkey, a pretext for Turkey to treat Mr Öcalan as it wishes, or whoever else it arrests?
Is he setting himself up as the counsel for the defence of the Turkish authorities and providing it with just such an alibi?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Kaklamanis, it is not a question of what I believe.
Nor is it a question of what the Council believes the Turkish Government will do.
It is a question of us using our powers of influence to attain our common goal, in this case a fair and constitutional trial.
I have already told you that we are using these powers of influence, almost on a daily basis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 4 by Maj Theorin (H-0228/99)
<P>
Subject: Western Sahara Like other colonised nations, the people of Western Sahara are entitled to self-determination and independence, but Morocco, which for nearly 24 years has occupied Western Sahara in breach of the UN Charter and international law, stands in the way.
It has hampered, delayed and blocked the UN peace plan. Nevertheless, the EU is giving Morocco substantial economic aid.
<P>
How does the Council reconcile EU aid to Morocco with the latter's occupation of Western Sahara?
How does the Council intend to further the implementation of the UN peace plan?
<P>
I give the floor to the President-in-Office to answer Mrs Theorin's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 NAME="Verheugen">
Mrs Theorin, the Council is already closely involved in the United Nations' ongoing activities relating to the referendum on self-determination for the region of Western Sahara in the years 1999 and 2000.
Developments have been followed closely by the Member States and through the activities in the United Nations.
In the framework of the common foreign and security policy, the initiatives of the UN Secretary-General have been considered repeatedly and on a regular basis, in particular in the CFSP working group responsible.
<P>
On 29 December 1998 the presidency made a statement on behalf of the European Union, unreservedly supporting the United Nations' efforts to find a fair and lasting solution.
That is why the European Union noted with great interest the following decisions by the Moroccan Government.
Firstly, it decided to formalise the status of the UNHCR in the region concerned.
That should now make it possible to resume the pre-registration activities in the Tindouf camps.
We hope discussions will now begin with the UNHCR on the draft protocol on the return of the refugees.
<P>
Secondly, the agreement on the status of the MINURSO troops is to be signed.
This decision will permit the orderly and prompt deployment of the forces needed to implement the planned solution while at the same time simplifying the everyday implementation of MINURSO operations.
From the European Union's point of view there is therefore no reason to reconsider the EU aid to Morocco because of developments in Western Sahara.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
Thank you very much for that answer.
Negotiations between the UN and Morocco actually began yesterday, I believe.
It would be interesting to hear whether the Council has any information on what has been happening on that front.
<P>
The fundamental point to bear in mind is the length of time we have all been waiting for this referendum to get off the ground; the pressure on Morocco has been kept up for a long time now.
Even though we are providing financial assistance, it would be interesting to hear whether the EU Council of Ministers is ready to lean on the Moroccan Government in an effort to prevent it from once again taking a decision on a referendum, only to postpone implementation.
<P>
Around 160 000 people are living in various refugee camps, with almost as many soldiers to guard them.
It therefore makes sense to ensure that this process is initiated in a right and proper way.
I am keen to hear what the Council is willing to undertake.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="Verheugen">
Mrs Theorin, the Council entirely agrees with the political intentions you have just expressed.
We too want to see this conflict finally resolved by means of the referendum, followed by free elections.
To this end the Council has itself embarked on a number of activities and has supported others. And it will continue to do so.
We will continue to exert the necessary political pressure in order to achieve our common objective, and we will always examine developments in the light of new decisions.
So if new developments force us to change our position and to take new decisions, we shall do so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pailler">
Mr President, I think that we are going to have to ask the Council to draw up a treaty explaining its diplomatic influence, its intentions and its means of exerting pressure, whether it is regarding Turkey or Morocco, as none of this seems very clear.
<P>
The original question made some clear requests.
Economic aid is a means of exerting pressure that we can understand, if you tell us that you want to use it, but you say that you do not.
So what other means of pressure do you propose?
Also, after all this vagueness - we are now seeing it with regard to Kosovo - the Council tells us that everything has been tried from a diplomatic point of view.
<P>
We have a few reasons to doubt this.
What is your influence?
We would really like to know.
It is like the situation with Turkey: how do you manage to gain assurances and influence, by what means?
We think that economic means are appropriate, but if there are other means you could explain them to us.
After all, they are not state secrets.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="Verheugen">
I hope I have misunderstood the honourable Member.
But I almost had the feeling she wanted to have me say that military means could be used against Morocco in order to achieve the desired objective.
I hope that was a misunderstanding and that she did not mean to insinuate that.
After all, the situation is quite different.
We have a number of means of exerting pressure on Morocco, and we are doing so.
Morocco is involved in processes of dialogue and consultation on a regular basis.
Morocco has associate status, Morocco is part of the Barcelona process.
Indeed tomorrow the Mediterranean Conference, Barcelona II, is opening in Stuttgart, and of course these questions will be on the agenda.
As I said, we are employing every political and diplomatic means available to us.
<P>
The Council does not currently consider that the use of other instruments is appropriate.
I have already said that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President-in-Office, we may perhaps be tiresome in demonstrating so much concern for one of our unresolved problems, but you must understand that there have been cases in the past where it was better to be safe than sorry.
<P>
As you are well aware, Mr Baker's special envoy mediated between the Sahrawi people and the Moroccans with some success, although it is a shame that an American acted as mediator rather than a European.
Nonetheless, we have been informed that Mr Charles Dunbar, Mr Baker's special representative, has thrown in the towel. He has stated that he cannot tolerate the fact that Morocco constantly opposes the United Nation's proposals to speed up the referendum on Western Sahara's autonomy and to guarantee a fair referendum.
<P>
And to stress the question, do you not believe that it would be better if, rather than just supporting the referendum, the European Union were to make use of its positive influence on Morocco and call for a fair referendum - which the Sahrawi people are anxiously awaiting - in the next six months, which will be a crucial period?
It is a shame that we have to labour this point, but it would be far worse if, in December, we had to regret the European Union's lack of influence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="President">
Mrs González, I too am sorry that I have to insist that you keep to the time laid down.
You have exceeded the 30 seconds of time I allocated to you.
I would therefore ask that you all try to keep to time; this will benefit us, as we will be able to get through more questions.
<P>
Mr Verheugen, you have the floor to answer the question by Mrs González Álvarez.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 NAME="Verheugen">
Mrs González Álvarez, you are certainly not being a nuisance.
Believe me, I take this problem just as seriously as you do.
But you now want to hold a political debate with me.
I cannot hold a political debate with you because I can only present the Council's current position.
I have already done so.
Let me repeat: we agree on the objectives to be achieved, the operational implementation comes under the United Nations.
The European Union is supporting these objectives by the means available to it and if developments show that the political instruments employed to date are inadequate, we will have to discuss other instruments.
But at the moment the Council sees no need for this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 NAME="President">
As they deal with the same subject, Questions Nos 5 to 8 will be taken together.
<P>
<P>
Question No 5 by Francisca Bennasar Tous (H-0235/99)
<P>
Subject: Island regions in the new context of the Amsterdam Treaty Article 158 of the Amsterdam Treaty sets out the Community's aim of reducing the backwardness of the least favoured regions or islands, and Declaration 30 annexed to the said Treaty recognises that 'island regions suffer from structural handicaps linked to their island status, the permanence of which impairs their economic and social development'.
Bearing in mind that the additional costs involved in transporting people, goods and energy constitute one of the basic reasons for which island regions are unable to compete on the single market on an equal footing, and that Article 154 (ex Article 129B) refers explicitly to the need to link island regions with the central regions of the Community, what specific measures does the Council intend to take in order to ensure that island regions are properly integrated into the internal market on an equal footing?
<P>
<P>
Question No 6 by Roy Perry (H-0241/99)
<P>
Subject: Interreg for islandsDoes the Council intend to support calls for a specific strand on inter-island cooperation being included in the Interreg programme as requested by Parliament amendments at first reading to the Varela Suanzes-Carpegna report on the European Regional Development Fund?
<P>
<P>
Question No 7 by Vincenzo Viola (H-0246/99)
<P>
Subject: Integrated programme for EU island regionsIn the light of Articles 154 and 158 of the EC Treaty as amended by the Treaty of Amsterdam, and Declaration 30 annexed to the latter Treaty, Commission DG XVII has drawn up a communication on the use of renewable energy in the EU's island regions.
At an earlier stage, DG XII commissioned a study on research and technological development in island regions, and DG XI drafted a code of practice for island waste management.
To date, and in spite of the explicit call by the EP, the plans concerned have not found practical expression in an integrated programme to aid the EU's island regions, home to 14 million citizens of 12 Member States, to enable them to compete on equal terms with mainland regions, which do not start out with the same intrinsic geographical handicap.
<P>
What measures will the Council take, not least in connection with Structural Fund reform and the Interreg Community initiative, with a view to giving effect to the provisions which it has itself laid down in the Treaty of Amsterdam?
<P>
<P>
Question No 8 by Konstantinos Hatzidakis (H-0260/99)
<P>
Subject: Measures in support of the island regions of the UnionArticle 158 of the Amsterdam Treaty states that one of the Union's commitments is to take measures to reduce the backwardness of the least favoured regions or islands.
Furthermore, Declaration No. 30 annexed to the Amsterdam Treaty recognises that the islands suffer from structural handicaps arising from their particular status as islands and calls on the Union to take account of those handicaps and, where necessary, to take specific measures in order to integrate those regions better into the internal market on fair conditions.
Will the Council, therefore, say what preparatory measures it has taken to translate the provisions of Article 158 and Declaration No. 30 into practical projects and programmes once the Amsterdam Treaty has entered into force?
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer these four questions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 NAME="Verheugen">
Let me tell the honourable Members that the Council is aware of the particular problems facing the islands and has always attached special importance to political strategies to promote the integration of the islands into the common market.
One of the main aims of the reform of the Structural and Cohesion Funds in the framework of Agenda 2000 is to concentrate aid on the particularly needy and the poorest regions.
In this regard the Council recognises that the task of regional policy is to develop all the existing potential in order to make up for structural imbalances and backwardness and to speed up economic and social change in the disadvantaged regions, including the islands.
So we will continue to support the island regions in the next aid programme period too.
Negotiations are currently still underway with the European Parliament on the exact formulation of the regulation on the European Regional Fund, which is especially important here, in the framework of the informal conciliation and legislative procedure.
I have just come from a conciliation procedure on the subject and can describe the situation as it evolved just three-quarters of an hour ago.
It looks as though agreement could be reached relatively quickly between Parliament and the Council on the outstanding questions.
<P>
Let me also point out that the Commission recently stated that special attention must also be given to including the island regions in the measures under the Interreg C Community initiative. Without prejudice to the further procedure, I think that too seems useful.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Bennasar Tous">
This is the first time that we have been able to discuss island regions with the Council.
Article 158 of the Amsterdam Treaty, which forms the basis of the cohesion policy, was wrongly translated in some of the Union's official languages.
The only logical meaning of this article, thanks to the addenda introduced by the Amsterdam Council, is to consider all island regions of the Union as least favoured regions due to their geographical handicap, which is the reason for additional costs in the transport or energy sectors, for example.
<P>
However, the Council has interpreted this article restrictively in its regulation on the ERDF by talking of least favoured islands.
This definition is unclear.
Is it based on criteria linked to economics, geography and remoteness?
And, first and foremost, I should like to say that it is an erroneous definition as it is at odds with Declaration 30 that is annexed to the Treaty and also goes against common sense itself.
<P>
Why should a reference to least favoured islands have been included in the Amsterdam Treaty when, in fact, they were already included among the least favoured regions in the former article?
Would it perhaps be because the Council wishes to add a new category of regions, namely all the island regions, to the least-favoured regions of the European Union?
<P>
In the new regulations for the Structural Funds, why does the Council now not wish to adopt the position it held in Amsterdam in defence of the island regions?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="Verheugen">
Mrs Bennasar Tous, the Council firmly rejects your interpretation of the Amsterdam Treaty.
It takes a different view, and it will adhere to that view.
Its policy is that the criterion of need must of course be applied in evaluating whether island regions are eligible for aid.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 NAME="Perry">
I should like to press the President-in-Office on that point.
The Commission guidelines for Interreg definitely state that particular attention needs to be paid to ultra-peripheral and insular regions.
I represent the Isle of Wight, off the south coast of England, undoubtedly a border region, and it has a GDP of 64 % of the European average.
Can I go back to the Isle of Wight and tell the people that the new Interreg proposals will help islands like theirs?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Perry, I am grateful for that information and will pass it on to the Commission.
It is not my job nor is it the Council's job to decide what regions of Europe receive aid under what criteria.
That is up to the Commission.
But let me point out to you that a region that attains less than 75 % of the average level of prosperity in Europe is eligible for aid from the Structural Funds, indeed under Objective 1.
Please discuss that with the Commission as it is not in the Council's remit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Hatzidakis">
Mr President-in-Office, we were discussing this a short while ago in private, but now we must say the same, or similar, things in public.
<P>
As you are not an islander, I feel I must point out that islands are not just places for holidays, with sunshine and the sea.
They are regions which, especially in winter, face special problems of isolation.
This is a constant disadvantage for islands and affects them in many ways.
<P>
The point I want to make is that there are many Members in this Parliament who are concerned about these issues. You previously heard the debate in the advisory committee where I expressed the views of the European Parliament.
Particular attention must be paid to islands, and what was decided in Amsterdam must be translated into practical action.
Interreg is the first opportunity we have had to promote the interests of ultra-peripheral and insular regions, and we would therefore like a commitment on the part of the Council.
<P>
Mr President, I would like to finish by asking the President-in-Office if a specific strategy for islands is being prepared in the Council.
I imagine that the answer will be a negative one but I hope that something will be done in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Hatzidakis, what the Berlin Council decided in relation to Agenda 2000 applies.
Agenda 2000 takes account - excellently, in my view - of the interests and needs of the island regions.
Indeed, at the moment we are jointly involved in transposing the Berlin decisions into regulations and it is the Council's view that this takes full account of the needs arising for the island regions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President-in-Office, my question refers to a special type of island, that is, those included amongst the outermost regions covered by paragraph 2 of Article 299 of the new Amsterdam Treaty, which have been granted special status. However, it is a question that Mr Verheugen will probably not even have to consult his notes to answer as I believe that he was present at the evening session of the Berlin European Council.
<P>
In Agenda 2000, the Commission of the European Communities stated that these outermost regions were to remain exempt from the condition that the per capita GDP must be less than 75 % of the Community average to warrant Objective 1 status.
<P>
On the same night, the President of the Spanish Government confirmed that this objective had been achieved, but then, on checking the text, we see that this is not the case.
I would like to know if the President-in-Office remembers what agreement was actually reached that night and what the situation of the outermost regions is following the agreement by the Berlin European Council, in other words, if they are included as Objective 1 regions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Medina Ortega, you overestimate my powers of recall.
I do not want to tell you anything that is untrue.
I will have to take a look at the Berlin Protocol, for I have no recollection at all of the discussion to which you have just referred.
All I can tell you is that what I said also applies to the ultra-peripheral regions, as these are all islands of course.
If they fulfil the criterion of need, they will receive aid.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 9 by Roberto Speciale (H-0236/99)
<P>
Subject: Trade in human beings in Sudan Recent reports in an Italian national daily newspaper have highlighted the existence of trade in human beings in Sudan, especially in the south of the country, including minors from the Dinka and Nuba tribes in particular.
<P>
Is the Council aware of this situation?
<P>
If so, has it contacted the Sudanese authorities to verify these reports and express the European Union's total opposition to such practices?
<P>
What reprisals mights the European Community take in order to end this trade (beginning with the suspension of all aid and cooperation programmes)?
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Speciale's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, the Council is aware that abductions, cases of slavery, slave trading and other serious human rights violations of the kind take place in Sudan.
As early as 14 April 1998, the European Council made a statement on the human rights situation in Sudan, pointing out that serious human rights violations are still being committed there.
The EU calls for unconditional respect for human rights in all parts of Sudan and urges that human rights observers be stationed in Sudan.
Moreover, the EU calls for international observers to be given unrestricted access to regions in which abductions, cases of slavery, slave trading or similar human rights violations are reported.
The European Union submitted a draft resolution to the 55th Human Rights Commission in Geneva which specifically refers to the problem of slavery.
The EU will continue in future to raise human rights questions with the Sudanese Government with the aim of changing the Sudanese Government's attitude to slavery too.
The European Union has already suspended its economic cooperation with Sudan, with the exception of humanitarian aid.
The suspension of humanitarian aid would only harm the civilian population and is therefore not being considered as a possible means of exerting pressure on the Sudanese Government.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Speciale">
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Verheugen for his reply, with which I am satisfied.
I am very glad that the Council is aware of the situation and wants to intervene.
I hope that there will be definite results and a change of attitude on the part of Sudan's government, but I do of course understand that this is not in our hands, though to some extent it may depend on our determination.
<P>
I know that peace negotiations on the internal situation in Sudan should be getting under way in Nairobi in the next few days, and I am wondering, Mr President- in-Office, if this issue could not be raised at these negotiations as well, so that Sudan feels the pressure brought to bear by the international community.
In any case I would like to thank you for your answer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Speciale, I note that we agree entirely on the political objective.
As to your specific question whether human rights issues can be included in the discussions due to begin in Nairobi, I cannot answer it off the cuff.
Please understand that first I will have to find out about the substance of these negotiations, and then I will be happy to give you a written answer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 10 by Jonas Sjöstedt (H-0238/99)
<P>
Subject: Amsterdam Treaty In the Council's estimation, when will it be possible for the Amsterdam Treaty to enter into force?
What are the remaining obstacles?
In what way will the association of Norway and Iceland with the Schengen agreement be affected by the Amsterdam Treaty?
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Sjöstedt's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 NAME="Verheugen">
The final instrument of ratification was deposited on 30 March 1999 and the Amsterdam Treaty will therefore enter into force on 1 May 1999 pursuant to Article 14.
Pursuant to Article 6 of the Protocol integrating the Schengen acquis into the framework of the European Union, the Republic of Iceland and the Kingdom of Norway shall be associated with the implementation of the Schengen acquis and its further development on the basis of the agreement signed in Luxembourg on 19 December 1996.
Appropriate procedures shall be agreed to that effect in an agreement to be concluded with Norway and Sweden by the Council, acting by the unanimity of the 13 members mentioned in Article 1 of the Schengen Protocol.
<P>
Together with the Commission, the Presidency-in-Office of the Council conducted negotiations with Norway and Iceland on the basis of the guidelines adopted by the Council.
The Council was informed of the outcome of the negotiations; the association agreement is to be concluded as soon as possible after the Amsterdam Treaty enters into force.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
<SPEAKER ID=205 NAME="Verheugen">
Subject to checking the matter, because of course there is no way I can have this information, let me tell you that the work is far from completion.
The problem is that, as you perhaps know, one Member State has strong reservations on principle about this whole question. We are currently making very serious efforts to persuade this Member State to withdraw its reservations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office. As you know, this morning Chancellor Schröder announced a new intergovernmental conference, which is to end again next year.
I just want to ask whether this intergovernmental conference is to be given a mandate even before the Amsterdam Treaty enters into force and which specific parts of the Amsterdam Treaty will be renegotiable there.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="Verheugen">
No, the mandate will be given at the meeting in Cologne in the first week of June and no parts of the Amsterdam Treaty are open to renegotiation.
One of the topics that will be discussed there is the famous left-overs of Amsterdam, but this is only one of the subjects, as others are also on the agenda.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Andersson">
I simply have a question on the agreement due to be reached with Norway and Iceland in the run-up to Schengen's incorporation into the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Will Parliament be consulted on this agreement?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 NAME="Verheugen">
The rules of the Amsterdam Treaty apply here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 11 by Peter Truscott (H-0242/99)
<P>
Subject: The situation in Jammu and Kashmir Can the Council comment on future prospects for peace in Jammu and Kashmir?
Does the Council have any plans to offer its good offices to act as an intermediary between India and Pakistan to help resolve the Jammu and Kashmir issue?
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to reply to Mr Truscott.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 NAME="Verheugen">
For some time now the European Union has been concerned about the tense situation in Kashmir, which is a threat to peace and stability in the region.
For this reason it is observing developments there with particular attention.
The EU takes the view that the dialogue between India and Pakistan is the key to resolving the Kashmir conflict that is so seriously affecting relations between the two countries.
The Union has therefore repeatedly appealed to both parties to do their utmost to seek a negotiated settlement of all outstanding issues between the two countries, and in particular the Jammu and Kashmir issues.
<P>
The summit meeting that was recently held in Lahore between the prime ministers of India and Pakistan gives reason to hope that both sides are seriously endeavouring to establish good-neighbourly relations, which could also improve the prospects for peace in Jammu and Kashmir.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="Truscott">
The Council will be aware that on 11 April India test-fired a medium- range ballistic missile, the Agni 2, which has a range of 2, 000 km and is capable of delivering a nuclear warhead.
In view of this serious development and the possibility of creating further instability in the region, will the Council redouble its diplomatic efforts to bring about a settlement in Jammu and Kashmir?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 NAME="Verheugen">
I can answer this question in the affirmative.
The Council is extremely concerned about the arms build-up in the region and the question you have just addressed will be discussed in the Political Committee in the very near future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 NAME="President">
As the author is not present, Question No 12 lapses.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 13 by Ulla Sandbæk (H-0243/99)
<P>
Subject: The euro and Mr Joschka Fischer's remarks of 12 January 1999 The President of the Council told Parliament that the introduction of the euro entailed great opportunities and equally great risks. The risk would arise if this bold step were not followed up by the EU, as a logical consequence, with further equally bold steps towards complete integration.
<P>
Will the President of the Council give details of the further steps towards integration he considers to be necessary, and why?
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mrs Sandbæk's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 NAME="Verheugen">
The conclusions reached by the European Council in its meeting in Vienna in December 1998 emphasise, inter alia , that the euro will strengthen Europe's ability to promote employment, growth and stability and that the introduction of the single currency will increase the need for economic coordination.
The European Council stressed in particular that economic policy coordination needs to be deepened and strengthened in order to ensure the success of economic and monetary union and to support sustainable, employment-promoting growth.
<P>
It took the view that the existing economic challenges demand an effective and coordinated response that encompasses budgetary, monetary and structural policy.
Finally, the European Council requested the ECOFIN Council to report to it in Helsinki on the functioning of economic policy coordination in the third stage of economic and monetary union.
<P>
The basic principles of the economic policy of the Member States and the Community for 1998/99 underline in a similar manner that the Member States' economic policies, especially their financial and their monetary policy which now comes under the sole responsibility of the Community, together with the structural reforms, should be consistent with each other and mutually supportive. The aim here is to achieve low inflation, accompanied by sustainable and employment-promoting growth.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
You have explained that it is the financial policy and the monetary policy that must be coordinated, but can you specify the particular areas of economic policy in which it is planned to promote integration in connection with EMU?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="Verheugen">
The Council believes in the need for closer coordination in all macroeconomic fields, which means financial, budgetary and fiscal policy, together with economic policy in the narrower sense.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="Martin, David">
I am sure the President-in-Office is correct in saying that a single currency requires the deepening of our economic cooperation.
However, would he agree with me that the United States is clearly a single market and has a single currency but it has not found it necessary to harmonise taxes?
So, to make a success of the euro, it is not necessary to harmonise direct or indirect taxation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 NAME="Verheugen">
I take note of that and would point out that I did not refer to 'harmonisation' of taxes but to 'coordination'.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="President">
Thank you for that semantic clarification, Mr Verheugen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 14 by José Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra (H-0245/99)
<P>
Subject: Rio Summit Taking advantage of its institutional position, Parliament has been encouraging relations between the Union and the countries of Latin America. Over the past few years it has approved increases under the principal budget headings used to finance cooperation with the latter region.
It has regularly attended both formal and informal summits of Union Heads of State or Government and meetings of the San José and Rio Group Ministerial Conferences.
<P>
Bearing the above points in mind, what arrangements has the Council Presidency-in-Office made to enable Parliament to take part in the forthcoming Summit of Heads of State or Government of the European Union and the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, due to be held in Rio de Janeiro in June of this year?
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Salafranca's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="Verheugen">
This question came up at the trilogue today.
It is a question that is discussed at almost every trilogue between the Council, Parliament and the Commission, and the result is always the same.
The decision on the possible participation of Members of the European Parliament in the Summit of Heads of State and Government of the European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean, due to be held in Rio de Janeiro at the end of June 1999, will be guided by the procedure the Council decided on 30 October 1998.
The Austrian Presidency explained this procedure to the European Parliament in the trilogue on 16 December 1998 and, as I said, it was also discussed at today's trilogue.
<P>
This procedure dates back to the discussion of the question during the Strasbourg trilogue on 17 July 1998 between representatives of Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
Accordingly, the Council will examine the request addressed to it by the President of the European Parliament on 11 March 1999, in other words it will consider whether Members of the European Parliament can participate on an individual basis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
Clearly, when I drew up this written question, I could not have known that it was to be discussed in this morning's tripartite dialogue.
<P>
This is now a recurring question as I put it to the presidency's representative at the Conference of Delegation Chairmen.
However, I should like to know if the German Presidency supports the idea of Parliament attending the summit since its feelings on the role Parliament should play in the process of European integration appear to differ from those expressed by Chancellor Schröder this morning. Parliament has already attended the Rio and San José Group Conferences and I should like to know if the Council believes that Parliament should have an active role, as is only natural.
This is an important matter; we cannot be sure that no budget decisions that affect, or may affect, Parliament's responsibilities will be taken during the forthcoming summit.
What does the presidency think? Would it support Parliament's active presence at the summit?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="Verheugen">
As I said, the question of the European Parliament's participation in the Rio Conference will be considered on the basis of the principles decided by the Council.
The presidency cannot do otherwise; it has to adhere to the principles decided by the Council.
It cannot give any undertakings beyond that.
It does not have the power to do so.
If anyone wants to go beyond that, then this question will have to be addressed during the process of institutional reform that is about to get underway.
But let me say on behalf of the presidency that as a matter of principle we should be very careful not to confuse the different tasks, responsibilities and levels within the European Union.
It must always remain clear which European Union institution is acting on the basis of which responsibility, so as to ensure the necessary transparency vis--vis the people.
The Council is against anything that would tend to confuse or blur the different responsibilities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 15 by Robin Teverson (H-0248/99)
<P>
Subject: Voting rights in Gibraltar The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that residents of Gibraltar must have the right to vote in the European elections.
In order to bring this about, there will have to be a unanimous agreement in Council, and ratification by Member States, to amend the current law under which United Kingdom residents, but not Gibraltarians, have the right to vote in European elections.
<P>
Given this ruling, what plans does the Council have to amend the Treaty to allow the people of Gibraltar to vote?
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Teverson's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="Verheugen">
This a very sensitive issue.
The Council would be very pleased if both states finally managed to reach agreement on it.
The Council has not yet considered the possible consequences of that ruling.
It attaches the utmost importance to the right to vote in elections to the European Parliament and, in this respect, to the implementation of the principle of elections by direct universal suffrage laid down in Article 138 of the EC Treaty.
<P>
Any change to the act introducing the election by direct universal suffrage of the Members of the European Parliament would mean that the Council had to decide the appropriate provisions unanimously, with the assent of the European Parliament, and recommend to the Member States that they adopt them in line with their constitutional rules.
The Council would be most interested to hear the European Parliament's position on the subject.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 NAME="Teverson">
Mr President, I would not disagree at all that this is a sensitive issue.
But it is also one of principle, not just of theoretical principle but of one that has been tested in the European Court of Human Rights, as my question points out.
It was a judgment made, not by a small majority of judges in that body, but by a vote of 15 to 2, a very large majority, in favour of the principle that in terms of human rights, citizens of Gibraltar should be able to vote in European elections.
So although I am disappointed that the President-in-Office of the Council looks for agreement between the two Member States, surely this is an area where the Council, out of concern for human rights and following the ruling of an institution not in the EU, but one which it respects and is included in part of the Amsterdam Treaty, should take positive steps?
Will the Council take those positive steps to correct this lack of human rights?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Teverson, in view of the problems connected with all questions relating to Gibraltar, I am not in a position to give you the Council's position in response to supplementary questions.
Each individual case and the subject of each supplementary question has to be discussed with the Member States.
I will have to answer this question in writing.
The same applies to any other supplementaries, because I am not authorised simply to express opinions here.
I will have to answer any further questions in writing because they call for intensive consultations with the countries concerned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President-in-Office, this is not the first time this question is being discussed here in the European Parliament either.
It has often come up during Question Time.
Questions of this kind have been put very often and I must tell you quite honestly that your reply, namely that you could not provide any further information in response to further supplementaries, is very unsatisfactory as far as Parliament is concerned.
Let me perhaps point out the following and ask you to take it further or even to provide some information if possible.
We must always look at Gibraltar in terms of two different legal systems, because after all we know that Gibraltar's existing borders do not correspond to its historical borders. That is to say, there is a part of Gibraltar that is undoubtedly part of Great Britain and another part, the northern part, which is, if you like, Spanish territory under British administration.
So would it not be possible, for example, at least to grant the right to vote to those people who live in the Spanish territory that comes under British administration?
Surely at least that should be possible!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Habsburg-Lothringen, this is the first time the question about this ruling has been raised and it is also the first time it has been considered.
If you were asking whether you can draw my attention to a certain situation, then my answer is yes, you may.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
We are not going to give the problem of Gibraltar all the in-depth attention it deserves here and now. Gibraltar is a colony belonging to a Member State but is within the boundaries of another fellow Member State of the European Union.
This is something of an anachronism at the dawn of the 21st century.
<P>
But I should like to ask a very specific question that does not refer to a philosophical idea but simply to whether or not the presidency considers the European Community to be a Community of law. Are the legal rules, in this case the Treaties, only seen as valid rules because we are forced to abide by them?
And if the Treaties state that progress on this subject must be on the basis of a unanimous decision, the Council will have to uphold the legal rules we have drawn up for ourselves and which the Council has set out in the Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
Does the Council believe that the legal rules in the Treaties are only valid because we must abide by them?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra, you have raised such a major question of principle that I really must answer it.
Of course the Council takes the view that the European Union is a community based on law and that it must adhere strictly to its own standards and values.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 NAME="President">
As the author is not present, Question No 16 lapses.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 17 by Vassilis Ephremidis (H-0254/99)
<P>
Subject: Subject-matter of informal Council meeting of EU Internal Affairs Ministers According to journalist sources, immediately after the secret service abduction of Öcalan, an informal extraordinary meeting of EU Internal Affairs Ministers was held in unprecedented secrecy close to the German capital, with the participation of the Swiss Internal Affairs Minister, the aim of which was to coordinate action to break up the PKK's logistical set-up, to establish codes for cooperation and the reciprocal provision of information between the secret services and to 'combat' the Kurds' communications network in Europe, mainly through the MED-TV television channel and the newspaper 'Özgür Politika'.
<P>
What were the reasons for convening this extraordinary informal meeting?
Why the secrecy, what were the conclusions and what decisions were taken?
What role is Europol to play and what other national, international or European enforcement agencies are involved in implementing those decisions? Do those decisions concern Kurdish organisations only or other organisations and movements operating in EU Member States?
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Ephremidis's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 NAME="Verheugen">
Because of the incidents following the arrest of Abdullah Öcalan, the German Minister for the Interior convened a conference on 23 February 1999 in which the internal affairs ministers of several Member States of the European Union and of Switzerland as well as representatives from the Commission and the Council Secretariat took part.
<P>
The purpose of that meeting, of which the media were informed, was to evaluate these incidents in the participating states.
In particular, the exchange of information covered the nature of the rallies organised by the PKK and the number of people who took part in the demonstrations in the various countries.
No decisions were taken, since this was not a meeting of the Council of the European Union.
It was simply agreed to improve the exchange of information with a view to any future such incidents.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Why all the secrecy?
Why was this meeting of the Ministers for the Interior kept secret?
Where is the transparency that is supposed to be pervading the European Union 'grazing'?
Why must this be hidden from the people of the European Union, from the people it wants to get close to?
Mr President, there is no answer to this.
<P>
What did they decide?
What did they discuss?
Were the discussions only about the PKK?
Did they put it on trial, did they pass sentence on it and did they place it under special supervision?
Or were the discussions about other organisations that are active within the European Union?
Are we perhaps at the beginning of, or already witnessing, the same measures that Hitler and the Gestapo implemented against the Communists, the Jews, followed by the Social Democrats and finally all Democrats?
Is the European Union perhaps being submerged by a wave of McCarthyism?
Is that why you are hiding all this from us, so that you can take decisions in secret, and so that you can outlaw demonstrations against the war and other demonstrations, just as the Belgian Government did in Brussels recently?
<P>
Mr President, I should like an answer.
Perhaps the President-in-Office is once again demonstrating his powerlessness. If that is the case, we are extremely dissatisfied that a President-in-Office who is incapable of giving an answer is appearing before us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 NAME="Verheugen">
I must say that I am more than a little astonished at this statement - for it was not a question - by the honourable Member.
It is the case in all Member States of the European Union and in all constitutional states that those responsible for internal security naturally do not hold sensitive talks, relating for instance to intelligence gathering, in public.
There would be no point at all in this kind of meeting if the details were made public.
I do not believe the situation is any different in any Member State of the European Union.
<P>
But I am happy to respond to your call for transparency and mention at least one point that was discussed and where there is no particular need for confidentiality.
It is that the conference expressed regret that Greece did not immediately inform its European Union partners when Öcalan was arrested by Kenyan security forces and taken to Turkey.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, indeed we know that the MED-TV channel and the newspaper Özgür Politika provide very in-depth information.
And we know the subject matter.
Does the Council in fact plan also to use these channels to provide information to the Kurds who live in our countries?
<P>
My second question is this: what means are currently being applied to integrate the Kurds in Europe?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Rübig, I cannot see the connection between your question and the original question so I will have to answer your question in writing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Verheugen.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, this will be our last question.
I have already informed you that, because of his travelling arrangements, Mr Verheugen has to leave us at 6.50 p.m.
We have two minutes left. I therefore hope that we can deal with this question in these two minutes, with Mr Verheugen's customary brevity and Mrs Eriksson's help.
Mrs Eriksson has taken this question over from Mr Seppänen, in accordance with the Rules.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 18 by Esko Seppänen, which has been taken over by Mrs Eriksson (H-0256/99)
<P>
Subject: EU Staff Regulations What is the Council's view on the question whether the same person may legally receive both a salary and a pension from an EU institution?
If this should prove to be illegal, what does the Council propose to do pursuant to Article 232 of the Treaty in the event of such a case arising?
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Question No 18.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, the Council is not aware of any such case of receiving two types of income, nor has the Commission presented any proposal to the Council with a view to changing the ban on cumulating benefits as laid down in the Staff Regulations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Eriksson">
This is a matter Mr Seppänen has raised with the Council before.
We are talking here about a senior figure in the Central Bank being allowed to retire on a hefty pension while still being paid a salary. From the point of view of ordinary Finns, the person in question would be in receipt of an unacceptably large amount of money.
Hence our curiosity as to whether the intention is to go along with the situation and authorise such an exception to the rules in the case of this particular individual.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 NAME="Verheugen">
Mrs Eriksson, I thought I knew what this was about; in a sense this subject is like an old acquaintance. May I point out that this question was dealt with in depth during a recent Question Time and that I answered in detail in relation to the particular case you have in mind.
My assessment at that time of the situation and the legal position remains unchanged.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Verheugen.
<P>
Since we have now come to the end of the time set aside for questions to the Council, Questions Nos 19 to 44 will receive written answers.
<P>
Our thanks again to Mr Verheugen for attending.
<P>
That concludes questions to the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 NAME="President">
Mr Ephremidis has the floor on a point of order.
<P>
Mr Ephremidis, let us see if we understand one another.
We have reached the end of Question Time and I have said goodbye to Mr Verheugen. Now, as you have asked for the floor on a point of order, you must address the President, since it the President who deals with such matters.
You have the floor for a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=248 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
As a send-off to the departing representative of the Council, I would like to say that he has committed an act of parliamentary cowardice.
He has accused my country of being responsible for the capture of Mr Öcalan.
He can discuss this issue in the Council with representatives of the Greek Government.
However, he cannot come here and level such a despicable accusation.
I repeat: it is an act of parliamentary and political cowardice, and I doubt whether Parliament can accept such heinous acts from representatives of the Council.
That is why I asked you to let me speak, and not so that I could speak for a second time on the same issue.
I am very well aware of the Rules of Procedure and I also learned from you just now that I cannot table a second supplementary question.
Let the President-in-Office take up with the competent ministers the issue of Mr Öcalan and the role his country played in delivering him into the hands of the Turkish executioners.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Ephremidis.
Your words are on record and have therefore already been noted.
<P>
Mr Papayannakis, is this on a point of order?
Well then, go ahead, let us have it!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Mr President, as you are aware, Rule 42 of the Rules of Procedure makes provision for priority questions, which must be answered within three weeks.
I know the Rule by heart and you know it better than I do.
<P>
I am holding in my hands a written priority question which I tabled on 7 January 1999.
It was tabled properly and in accordance with all the Rules, but I have not received an answer.
I want to lodge a complaint.
It is a question to the Council - naturally the Council, which is here, is not listening to us - but I should have received an answer.
Who must I go to in order to get justice, as we say in Greece?
I would like an answer, Mr President, because if I do not get one I will also complain in writing to the President.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=251 NAME="President">
Mr Papayannakis, if you have not received an answer, you should do what you have done and ask here in the House why your question was not answered.
Following your request, I will immediately look into the reasons why you did not receive an answer within the time specified in the Rules.
You have therefore taken the steps you need to take and asked the President in the House why your question was not answered. In turn, the President must give you an answer on what has happened to your question.
Consequently, I should be grateful if you would remind me exactly which question it was, what it was about and the date on which it was submitted, so that I can investigate accordingly.
<P>
Mr Rübig has the floor on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, I just want to warmly welcome to the European Parliament the Upper Austrian visitors from the union of private sector employees.
Thank you for your understanding.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 NAME="President">
You have done that, and it will be noted in the Minutes.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 6.55 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Functioning of institutions
<SPEAKER ID=254 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0158/99) by Mr Herman, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on improvements in the functioning of the institutions without modification of the Treaty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=255 NAME="Herman">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the last report I will be presenting to Parliament no doubt comes at a very unfortunate time of day, but at a very good time of the year.
Why?
Because it was just yesterday that Mr Prodi who - on this point at least - seems to have the backing of just about everyone, said that the European institutions must be thoroughly reformed.
Well, so that Mr Prodi will not be alone in proposing these reforms, we have decided to help him and to submit to him a few ideas and guidelines which, thanks to the broad consensus within our committee, we have been able to propose to you.
<P>
It is not always necessary to amend the Treaties in order to improve the operation of the institutions.
Experience shows that in the past we succeeded in perfecting and improving the operation of our institutions by means of institutional agreements or internal reforms.
But as a rule each institution looks to its own affairs.
We have rather broken this taboo by agreeing on this occasion to look at other institutions than our own.
As we know, there is scope for Parliament to improve its operation too, and in fact it has a lot of work to do in this respect. However, in the light of recent developments we must look particularly closely at the workings of the Commission.
<P>
Mr Bourlanges has already produced a report on the Council, adopted by the House not very long ago, which includes a series of suggestions designed to improve its functioning.
So we will not come back to this, but will concern ourselves solely with the Commission and Parliament.
<P>
As far as the Commission is concerned, there is nothing new about the malfunctionings which have recently come to light.
Their causes are both long-standing and deep-rooted.
In particular, anything to do with staff recruitment, promotion and motivation has been affected by a growing renationalisation and politicisation which have produced an adverse effect on the functioning of a civil service that must be impartial and neutral.
This phenomenon is well-attested and has given rise to the present difficulties.
<P>
As we know, the Commission was initially conceived primarily in order to set up a legislative framework with a view to achieving harmonisation and not to manage programmes.
The Commission's culture, structure and tradition were therefore somewhat ill-suited to the tasks with which it was subsequently charged and for which it was not granted the necessary resources, either by the Council or - if I may say so - by Parliament.
I also believe the Commission made the mistake of accepting these missions.
This is one of the reasons for the malfunctionings.
The other is of course the role of the cabinets, which has become important.
The increasing role of the cabinets no doubt explains why, as the wise men confirmed, certain Commissioners - I am not saying all of them - lost control over their administrations.
<P>
As regards the Commission's internal structure, the number of directorates-general has been increased in order to give employment to a growing number of Commissioners. If we continue in this direction, as the number of Commissioners is to increase from 20 to 30, we will again be creating the same number of directorates-general.
This increase is not in the interests of internal coherence or homogeneous responsibilities and will produce disastrous results. We have already seen this with external relations, which are the responsibility of four directorates-general.
<P>
As far as Parliament is concerned, our proposals are clearly rather more delicate, as they are competing with those of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure and require a consensus within this House, which is not always easy to obtain.
But most of our proposals concern the Commission and take into account the diagnosis I have just offered, which I believe to be widely shared.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=256 NAME="Pronk">
Mr President, I am speaking here as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
We limited ourselves to just one subject about which we feel very strongly, namely the agencies.
I must first extend my warmest thanks to the rapporteur for the way in which he also looked at these agencies in his report.
They are a subject that is sometimes overlooked, but both the committees of experts dealing with them and the Committee on Budgets have often expressed their amazement at what goes on.
<P>
What is happening with these agencies?
As the rapporteur says, they fulfil an important role.
They are neatly shared out among the various states. As the rapporteur rightly says, there are no current Member States which do not have agencies and we are convinced that new agencies will be found for the new Member States.
<P>
A second problem with the agencies is, I believe, that they are always able to obtain more staff than the Commission itself.
What is the reason for this?
The Committee on Budgets, Parliament the Council and the Commission itself like to give the impression that the agencies are not taking on extra staff.
But the host countries want their agencies to be rather more extensive than was initially planned, so they want them to have extra staff.
This means that the agencies can take on certain tasks that the Commission is no longer able deal with.
How can this be solved?
By as much uniformity as possible - not total uniformity, as we stated in our report and as the rapporteur accepted, but in any event enough uniformity to meet the same criteria.
<P>
These agencies must be closely monitored because if present trends continue we will reach the point where more people paid by the Union are employed by the agencies than by the Commission itself.
I am very pleased that the rapporteur has sought to act on our report in this way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=257 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schäfer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, never before in the history of European integration have so many important decisions been made and so many dramatic events taken place in such a short time as since 1 January.
They range from the successful launch of the single currency and the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam to the resignation of the Commission and the ongoing accession process for 10 countries.
All this has now been overshadowed by the armed conflict in Kosovo, in which the European Union and its Member States are involved.
Never before has the EU been faced with greater challenges to its capacity for action and enlargement.
That is why the Herman report contains both criticisms of the Commission's structures and self-criticism of our own procedures.
<P>
The most important points are these: within the Commission there need to be clear portfolios and Commissioners and Deputy Commissioners, similar to Ministers and Ministers of State in national governments.
We need to strike a balance in this way between the principle of collective responsibility and the particular responsibilities of individual members of the Commission.
After all, transparency is of paramount importance.
The new Commission headed by Romano Prodi as its President will take a giant step towards European government, and it is vital that it should.
<P>
Second, the European Parliament must concentrate on its prime tasks, which are legislation, legislation, and legislation again, together with the selection and scrutiny of the Commission and decision-making on the budget.
It should be possible to present and explain all these activities to the public.
Today, we are learning from our past mistakes and preparing ourselves for new activities.
That is the yardstick the public will apply, and public opinion should be our own yardstick.
<P>
At this point, because this is Mr Herman's last report, I would like to thank him on behalf of the Socialist Group for his twenty years of work, and in particular for his commitment, for his creativity and for everything he has achieved in the institutional field.
The House is today considering the last report of - if I may take the liberty - a great European.
We do not belong to the same political family, but we essentially have the same aims and the same principles, and I believe that we also have many of the same dreams.
On behalf of my group, I would to express my esteem for Fernand Herman's life's work.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=258 NAME="Spaak">
Mr President, Mr Herman, I should first of all like to congratulate you on your excellent report and on the way you have been receptive to suggestions from your colleagues.
Your experience as a rapporteur and your very remarkable contribution to the European Union's progress mean that this report will be an essential discussion document for the next Committee on Institutional Affairs.
As Mr Schäfer has just pointed out, throughout your career you have indeed made a genuine contribution to the progress of the European Union.
<P>
The ELDR Group's first amendment is designed to strengthen paragraph 32 of the text by allowing the European Parliament to exercise its supervisory role to the full.
As a result - and this is perhaps one of the things on which we were not in agreement, Mr Herman - it would no longer be necessary to refer to committees of wise men, one of the members of which has in any case shown little wisdom by making political statements which are scarcely in keeping with his position.
<P>
The second amendment, tabled in committee by Mr Corbett but not accepted by either the PSE or the PPE and subsequently rejected in committee, is designed to give the Commission President the power to replace a Commissioner when circumstances justify it.
We believe this proposal to be in keeping with Declaration No 32, annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam, and that the President would be granted this responsibility in circumstances such as the present, thereby avoiding a great deal of trouble.
<P>
For the rest, Mr Herman - and as you yourself pointed out - your conclusions are fortunately very much in line with what Mr Prodi said yesterday about his plans for the Commission when he talked about strengthening the role of the President, efficiency, transparency and individual and collective responsibility.
<P>
I too would urge the European Parliament to take a long hard look at itself and to get down as soon as possible to the task of studying how it can become a more transparent organisation with, for example, fewer hegemonic pacts between the two major groups to the detriment of the openness we all advocate.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=259 NAME="Vanhecke">
Mr President, there is a wonderful saying in Dutch that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I hope that this will be borne in mind by all those who believe the democratic deficit, the lack of supervision, the careless management and, last but not least, the rumoured profiteering at European level can be reduced by pumping in more powers and more resources.
<P>
I believe the opposite must be the case.
Experience teaches us that political administrations can only be effectively controlled and, more importantly, can only exercise effective self-control when they are as close as possible to the people.
In my opinion this must be the first application of the principle of subsidiarity which everyone here supports, or at least pays lip service to.
<P>
If we really want to improve the workings of the European Union and of all the European institutions we must apply the principle of subsidiarity in all areas both actively and consistently.
In short, we can improve Europe through less Eurocratic powers and meddling, less Eurocratic red tape and less bureaucracy.
That, at least in my opinion, is the basic way to cure institutions which are all, without exception - and it would be laughable for Parliament now to point the finger solely at the Commission - tainted with the image of being interfering, money guzzling and unproductive institutions, and I fear to a large extent justifiably so.
<P>
The report we now have before us contains many interesting proposals, but is nevertheless a typical example of the most blind Eurofederalist thinking, since it is concerned solely with treating the symptoms.
To end with another saying, the proposed measures amount to no more than putting sticking plaster over the wounds.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=260 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Barros Moura">
Mr President, please allow me to first congratulate, if he is listening, my colleague and friend Mr Herman on all his work and, in particular, on what I believe to be a very important report, most of whose proposals I endorse.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=261 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Barros Moura">
Mr President, this report demonstrates that it is possible, if the political will exists, and without modifying the existing Treaty, to reform the way the Commission functions so as to make it a genuine vehicle for political impetus in building Europe and an institution independent of governments and vested interests. We can also change the way the European Parliament operates so as to make it the centre of political life in the European Union, in its role as a body directly elected by the public.
<P>
I believe that this is the general and positive thrust of all these proposals.
However, I have some reservations about certain particular aspects.
I believe it is necessary to identify real portfolios for Commissioners, but I cannot understand why they should be reduced just when the Commission's powers are being widened.
Above all, I cannot accept the notion of creating two categories, that is senior and junior Commissioners on the model of full Ministers and Ministers of State, just when people are saying that the distribution of portfolios between Commissioners should not be a way of drawing a hierarchical distinction between small and large states.
I am delighted that the rapporteur has accepted my proposal on that latter point, as this is an aspect I disagree with.
<P>
On the other hand, I feel that Mr Herman, perhaps because he is Belgian, is too centralist, or rather that he wants to concentrate the departments in Brussels and seems to rather distrust the EU agencies.
I take the opposite view and believe that the agencies, which should be rationalised, are an effective way of bringing the public and the European Union closer together.
<P>
Lastly, let me say this: the European Parliament will only reform itself - and I am at liberty to say this because I am not standing for re-election either - if it does away with the absurd practice of voting in the plenary instead of discussing policy, which is what people expect from their elected representatives.
It is my belief that Mr Herman's proposals go in the right direction, as long as our successors have the political will to put a stop to this paralysing rotation between the two main groups and are capable of holding a political debate, or in other words to give a voice to the citizens of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=262 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Neyts-Uyttebroeck">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to pay tribute to our colleague Fernand Herman, because this is the last report he will be presenting and it is one which reflects his commitment to European thinking and the European ideal.
He has given the very best of himself to the European Union and I should like to expressly thank him for this.
<P>
Mr President, the resolution on improving the functioning of the institutions without amending the Treaty is one of the building blocks which the European Parliament is putting into place in order to equip the European Union for the future.
As has been said, it relates to the Commission, the agencies and Parliament itself.
Both Mr Prodi, the candidate for Commission President, and the Council presidency will be able to put it to good use in preparing for the next intergovernmental conference which was announced this morning.
I hope that the Commission's Secretariat-General and directors-general will act on the recommendations, but I am not so sure that this will be the case, as their decision not to reappoint Mr Van Buitenen to his former position makes us fear the worst.
<P>
For its part, Parliament has responded to Mr Herman's requests by approving the changes to the rules on voting and amendments. It will also be deciding on reducing the number of committees during this part-session.
If in future Parliament is more careful about assigning more and more tasks to the Commission, then it will be functioning in the spirit of Mr Herman's proposal, to whom I should like to once again pay tribute.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=263 NAME="Izquierdo Rojo">
Mr President, this brilliant report by Mr Herman has been drawn up with great rigour, clarity and courage; it responds to our aim to improve the functioning of the institutions.
<P>
I believe that this report should form the foundation on which any subsequent work is based.
The timetable ahead of us is unavoidable and it does not help the situation as the crisis in the Commission is still revealing serious problems and deficiencies requiring solutions.
<P>
The new Treaty will enter into force in the next few weeks and the second report by the Group of Experts will not be completed for some months.
Therefore, this report clearly cannot include every last detail of the improvements that will be required.
But it has certainly tackled one issue: the serious problem facing the Commission in terms of the imbalance between, on the one hand, its responsibilities, its duties and the management of the programmes it is entrusted with, and on the other hand the resources it has available.
This very serious problem had not been highlighted in any parliamentary report. But Mr Herman has tackled it very well and has put forward possible solutions.
He may not have included all of the solutions required, but the ones he has mentioned will undoubtedly be necessary and they represent a very effective basis for the future.
<P>
In my view, Mr Herman, the paragraphs relating to the need to simplify Parliament's voting procedures are extremely important.
I hope that they will be taken into account for everyone's benefit.
<P>
Thank you very much, and congratulations to Mr Herman.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=264 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Mr President, I too have a minute this evening to tell our friend and colleague Fernand Herman, as is so often the case when he makes proposals about the European institutions, that I very largely agree with him and his ideas.
<P>
We do indeed need more transparency, democracy and rigour for all our European institutions.
For the Commission, first of all, about which a great deal is being said and a great many promises being made.
All I will say is that I will wait until I see the merchandise before I pass judgement.
But also for Parliament, which needs to concentrate more on getting to the heart of problems and stop trying to be all things to all men, which can sometimes look like pretend democracy.
<P>
Finally and most importantly, we need transparency, democracy and rigour for the Council if one day it hopes to become a real government. But here I am perhaps straying beyond the Herman report and even the Bourlanges report and entering the realms of the future intergovernmental conference which I believe I heard announced this morning by the President-in-Office.
If that is the case and it is confirmed, I very much welcome it.
<P>
Once again, congratulations to Mr Herman, and our best wishes go with you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=265 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, may I for my part congratulate Mr Herman on behalf of the Commission on his detailed and very creative report on what has most certainly become a crucial problem, namely the functioning of the institutions.
Evidently the Commission need not comment further on this report and indeed may not comment on it as this is the task of the new President of a new Commission who will undoubtedly be very pleased to draw on the wealth of experience on which it is based. I am referring here to the experience of Mr Herman, who I believe is bidding farewell to the European Parliament with this report and this political testament.
May I take this opportunity to thank him very sincerely on behalf of the Commission for his exceptionally energetic and creative work, including in cooperation with the Commission.
We have always been very pleased with the way we have been able to cooperate closely and constructively with him.
<P>
I believe that, as a rule, it is always a good thing to keep a keen eye on the functioning of the institutions, and especially when there are changes to the Treaty, as is now the case with Amsterdam.
In these exceptional circumstances, following the crisis which the institutions in general and the Commission in particular have experienced, it is of the utmost importance for the Commission's management function to be once again thoroughly scrutinised.
I am speaking here from my own experience, but I am also very pleased to be able to refer to what this Commission - my colleagues and President Santer in particular - have set in train in order to improve that very area of the Commission's functioning.
<P>
I should also like to express the hope that the reforms within the Commission will strengthen rather than change, let alone upset, the existing institutional balance.
I also hope that in future the Commission will continue to be the driving force it has traditionally sought to be, particularly for promoting further integration within the European Union.
<P>
Mr Herman will also approve when I take this opportunity today to wish the incoming president and his new team every success in reinvigorating the European Commission and restoring it to the sort of role that the people of the European Union also expect it to have. I would also add that even the present Commission clearly realises that the current crisis may also have its positive side in terms of strengthening the quality and substance of democracy in our institutions.
So in this sense we can also accept the positive side to this crisis.
<P>
I should like to end here, Mr President, as, I repeat, in the present exceptional political circumstances it is unrealistic for the Commission to comment on this report.
But I can say to Mr Herman that I have read the report and recognise in it a great deal which we at the Commission have also been getting to grips with in recent years.
I am convinced that the new Commission will benefit from many of these recommendations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=266 NAME="Herman">
Mr President, I really must take this opportunity to express my thanks for the tributes and compliments I have received.
We in this House are the most fervent defenders of the Commission's role and it is because we want to defend this role that we are critical in some respects when it appears to stray from the right path.
<P>
I should like to say to all my colleagues how much I have been moved by their expressions of esteem and appreciation for my report. I would also immediately add that the report is the result of a joint effort and does not just reflect my concerns alone.
I have been fortunate, in the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, in having many people who have supported me and made it possible for me to do this work.
I should like now to return their expressions of thanks and say how deeply moved I have been by them.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=267 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Herman, for the valuable report which you have presented to us which I am sure will be appreciated by all your colleagues.
<P>
I would also like to say a word of thanks and appreciation to Commissioner van den Broek and express a personal view that if there were more people like him in the Commission we would have a far better Commission.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Applications for EU membership
<SPEAKER ID=268 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0149/99 by Mr Donner, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the regular report from the Commission on Estonia's progress towards accession (COM(98)0705 - C4-0110/99); -A4-0154/99 by Mr von Habsburg, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the regular report from the Commission on Hungary's progress towards accession (COM(98)0700 - C4-0113/99); -A4-0151/99 by Mr Speciale, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the regular report from the Commission on Slovenia's progress towards accession (COM(98)0709 - C4-0112/99); -A4-0157/99 by Mr Carnero González, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the regular report from the Commission on the Czech Republic's progress towards accession (COM(98)0708 - C4-0111/99); -A4-0148/99 by Mrs Hoff, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the regular report from the Commission on Poland's progress towards accession (COM(98)0701 - C4-0109/99); -A4-0159/99 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the regular report from the Commission on Cyprus's progress towards accession (COM(98)0710 - C4-0108/99); -A4-0165/99 by Mrs Malone, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the report updating the Commission's opinion on Malta's application for membership (COM(99)0069 - C4-0163/99); -A4-0123/99 by Mrs Myller, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions and the Candidate Countries in Central and Eastern Europe on Accession Strategies for Environment: Meeting the Challenge of Englargement with the Candidate Countries in Central and Eastern Europe (COM(98)0294 - C4-0380/98).


<SPEAKER ID=269 NAME="Donner">
Mr President, as this is probably the last time that I will address Parliament, I will use my mother tongue, which is Swedish.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=270 NAME="Donner">
Mr President, Estonia has progressed well along the road to membership.
No precise date or even year can be established for accession, since several countries - among them Latvia and Lithuania - will most probably be included in the process this year. In practice, this will mean a new intergovernmental conference.
My own guess is that we are looking at 2004 or 2005.
The problem is that an unduly long negotiating process could have a negative impact on public opinion in the applicant countries, and hence in Estonia.
<P>
The undoubted progress made by Estonia must not be allowed to obscure the lingering legacy, so difficult to overcome, of war and Soviet occupation.
Sooner or later - sooner better than later - the country should be capable of solving its minority problems and creating a society where all people, regardless of the language they speak, subscribe loyally to the principles of democracy and the rule of law.
Loyalty is not built on citizenship alone, but also on common values.
The majority of foreign citizens and stateless individuals in Estonia were born there and, more likely than not, have no intention to leave.
Despite legislative improvements, particularly with regard to children born in and after 1992, Estonia's political 'establishment' appears to be maintaining what in my view is a conservative stance on citizenship.
But Estonia is destined to become - and to remain - a multicultural and multilingual society.
<P>
Last year, foreign investment in Estonia reached higher levels, particularly in the banking sector.
Nonetheless the balance of trade is still negative, although the economy in the capital, Tallinn, is largely based on tourists from Finland.
Subsidised food imports from the EU have increased the difficulties faced by Estonian farmers.
There is a very big economic gap between rich and poor, and between Tallinn and the provinces.
Social transfers - to the unemployed, for example - are minimal.
<P>
Once there are open borders and an open labour market, a number of Estonians will seek work in nearby EU countries.
However, this whole process is necessary if there is to be any reduction in the gap between rich and poor people, and between rich and poor countries.
<P>
Let me now comment briefly on the security problems faced by Estonia as a neighbour of Russia.
People in my country, Finland, felt in 1995 that membership of the European Union would - by definition - tie us in to a community capable of providing and guaranteeing security.
NATO's role and military capacity were not underestimated, but there was no express call for membership.
Estonia has followed a different path in seeking also to join NATO.
The country is in the grip of an illusion, in my view.
Given the current situation in the Balkans, would Estonia or Finland - both sharing land borders with Russia - have gained from being members of NATO, a NATO which thus far has failed to come forward with any kind of convincing policy on the Kosovo tragedy?
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As part of the EU debate on the Northern Dimension, it is perfectly feasible to devise a comprehensive and realistic programme encompassing the applicant Baltic countries, as well as parts of Russia, Scandinavia and the Arctic region.
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Apart from EU membership, the best guarantee for Estonia's future is peaceful cooperation with Russia. One day, Russia will perhaps overcome its enormous economic difficulties and appreciate that good neighbourly relations benefit all sides.
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Interpreted in this way, Estonia's considerable progress since it regained its freedom is to Russia's advantage too.
And an enlarged Union, taking in the Baltic countries, will be a source of strength, as the German Presidency has understood.
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<SPEAKER ID=271 NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, again and again, discussions on enlargement involve references to all manner of things which quite simply do not reflect the real world.
Over the last few years I have travelled a great deal around Central and Eastern Europe, virtually once a month.
So I know that one thing is fundamentally important: progress can only be achieved if peace is guaranteed.
In other words, guaranteed peace and political stability are essential for progress.
Economic progress will then follow automatically.
In these countries it is evident that priority has to be given to political affairs and to security, and only then can progress in other fields be tackled.
This point is particularly important at a time when the countries lined up for enlargement are having to contend with a conflagration at their borders - the war in Kosovo.
So we should always remember that in politics we must always be prepared for the worst.
If it does not happen, we can offer up thanks.
But at least we are prepared, whereas things are bound to go amiss if we are taken by surprise.
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So in these dangerous times enlargement is one of our best guarantees of peace, if not to say the only guarantee of peace which in the long run will give these peoples what they want.
Above all, if you travel through these countries - and I do not think that Mr Donner will contradict me here - and if you learn to understand their peoples, you cannot fail to see that peace is their first priority.
But peace cannot be achieved by simply praying for it; it requires decisions and a clear policy.
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Of course, people here have various reservations.
For example, people sometimes tell us that the cost of enlargement is too high.
The fact is that the only person who really understands the finances of the European Union, the President of the Court of Auditors, Mr Friedmann, recently attended a meeting of our pan-European working party here in the European Parliament, and during his presentation he told us that the cost of enlargement is greatly overestimated, because no one ever takes account of the cost of non-enlargement.
But that is enormous too.
People also tell us - and there are enough demagogues around, including some present in this House - that millions of job-seekers would flood in after enlargement.
These people have no experience.
The advantage in being 85 years old - excuse me, 86 - is that you can say that you have seen everything and the opposite of everything!
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I remember very well how much whingeing there was at the time Spain was granted membership.
The Spanish were going to come pouring in.
And then two years later someone said to me: 'For heaven's sake, what has happened to all our Spanish workers?'.
The answer was, of course, that once Spain's economy took off, they preferred to work in the sun in Andalusia than in the foggy Ruhr!
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We should never lose sight of this experience.
An important point is that we should not tar everyone with the same brush.
We have to judge each of these states according to its own particular characteristics and its own developments.
It is also fair to assume that whoever takes the lead will carry the others along it its wake.
But if we always set our sights according to the slowest, we will not make much progress.
That applies to every country these days.
As the rapporteur for Hungary, I shall take the liberty of saying that Hungary is one of the really important countries.
It is the leading country today because it has always made progress on two fronts: first, the wonderful thing about the Hungarian Parliament is that when it comes to making a decision about the country itself, there are no party politicians - just patriots.
They put on a united front.
Second, they understand that when they are abroad they have to represent their country.
They can squabble afterwards - and we can be grateful that in Hungary we have a language that no one else understands, so no one knows what is being said there anyway!
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The same applies to the other countries on the list.
I would particularly like to say something about the Baltic states in this context: it is wonderful that Estonia is to be granted membership, but we should not forget about Latvia and Lithuania in the process.
They form a whole.
I would especially like to stress that we should not forget that at the time of the Second World War, because of one country - Germany, of course - Europe abandoned these Baltic peoples to their fate.
So we have a moral obligation to accept the Baltic states as soon as possible.
The same also applies to the other applicant countries at the front of the pack, and it also applies to those straggling behind, who are vital for our security.
I have in mind Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria and last but not least Croatia, as Croatia is one of the countries that has developed most quickly.
It is working the hardest, even though it receives practically no help at all from us, and so we must support it.
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All the peoples of Europe have a right to join Europe, even the Serbs, who we have talked so much about.
I am firmly in favour of the Serbs being granted membership once they have got rid of Milosevic and have a democratic government.
In any case, we should be acting in the interests of all these peoples for one good reason: European integration is the only concrete idea for achieving peace and prosperity.
This has to be at the heart of our future policy.
Therefore, Mr President, I have one last request: we need to make haste!
We should not delay because historic opportunities can pass by all too quickly.
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Applause
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<SPEAKER ID=272 NAME="Speciale">
Mr President, I should like to talk about the subject of my report, which is Slovenia.
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Slovenia, as is well known, is a country with a sound economy and fulfils the political and democratic criteria laid down.
Perhaps, out of all the countries which have asked to join, it is starting off on the best footing, even when its size is taken into account.
The European Commission, however, has expressed a critical view of this first stage, considering that progress, particularly in transposing Community legislation, has been slower and more uncertain than it should have been.
The Slovene authorities have accepted this critical assessment and have indicated that they intend to react positively to it.
To this end, over the last few weeks, the government has submitted a national programme for the adoption of the acquis communautaire and a raft of very important legislation on VAT, excise duties and the right to purchase property.
The entry into force of the Europe Agreement may now provide a solid basis for the ongoing negotiations.
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This new commitment on the part of the Slovene authorities requires continuity and momentum - I think this is the crucial factor - so that a more positive stage can begin and negotiations proceed more swiftly.
There are of course many issues which are as yet unresolved, in this country as in the others, starting with changes to the administrative and judicial structures and the reforms required to put commitments into practice.
The Commission and the European Parliament should encourage and assist Slovenia in its efforts in a spirit of friendship and therefore with a critical and attentive eye.
This is the role we should play, rather than acting as lawyers.
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Although the vast majority of the political movements in Slovenia still claim to be in favour of joining the European Union, this does not always mean that any joint momentum is achieved: the people do not seem to be fully involved in working towards this aim, as is shown by the information campaign, which gives the impression - rather significantly, I feel - that it has just got off the ground and is a touch feeble.
We were absolutely stunned when the head of the campaign told us that its aim was not actually to convince people that joining the European Union was basically a positive development for Slovenia.
One does wonder in that case what aim the campaign is pursuing and what the point of it is.
We should therefore not be surprised to see that in the opinion polls the percentage of those in favour of accession to the European Union is declining, though still a majority.
In a situation like this, misgivings, distrust and isolationist tendencies may increase rather than diminish, and may also have a bearing on conflicts between parties and political representatives, creating a sense of detachment and a degree of insecurity.
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This situation has been reflected recently by a number of events which have led to a certain amount of concern even in the Slovenian press.
In what I feel to be an anomalous and controversial legal case, the Constitutional Court decided to suspend local elections in the municipality of Koper, that is Capodistria.
The mayor of the city appealed to the Court of Human Rights, thus highlighting a very sensitive issue.
I only recently found out from the newspapers that for criticising this decision in the EU-Slovenia Joint Parliamentary Committee a sitting MP has been the subject of a procedure which is wholly incompatible with parliamentary and democratic traditions.
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In short, I am not voicing these concerns in order to stress them unduly.
I think that these episodes are merely temporary aberrations which can be put right by the political forces and the authorities in Slovenia.
I believe that Slovenia enjoys all the right conditions and has the capacity to do very well.
I think that the positive facts continue to outweigh the negative ones, and it is precisely because of this that we should ask a lot of the government and the parliament.
In Slovenia there are major political forces, a civil society, and human, cultural and economic resources which are more than sufficient to turn this country into an example for many.
I have tried to do my job as your rapporteur with all this in mind and to this end the work of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy has been very useful to me, as have the amendments which were tabled.
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In conclusion, Mr President, although Slovenia is a small country, it occupies a very important and sensitive geographical position, between the north and south and the east and west of Europe.
In cultural and political terms Slovenia can enrich the European Union and be enriched by it as well.
If this is what it wants, it has to be determined about it.
Throughout the region of the Balkans there is a need for stability, development and processes of integration which transcend national identity, and Slovenia can make a significant contribution here.
I think that the next Parliament should continue to consider accession and enlargement of the European Union as priority objectives and if possible not just have evening debates on the subject.
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<SPEAKER ID=273 NAME="Carnero González">
Mr President, first of all, I would like to say that the people of the Czech Republic support their country's application for membership of the European Union almost unanimously.
Indeed, despite the recent political and institutional changes in the Czech Republic, there has never been any discussion between the politicians there about this key objective.
Moreover, the authorities in Prague have demonstrated great tenacity and conviction in their efforts to become a member of the Atlantic Alliance and this is further proof, if any were needed, of the country's political determination to form part of the different continental structures, whatever they may be.
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It is also extremely important to stress that the values that form the basis of the community of Europe have been clearly and perfectly assimilated by the Czech Republic.
This community of Europe clearly does not only represent an economic process; it also hopes to become a political area where the interests of all the different people of Europe can develop in harmony.
It is important to emphasise the fact that Prague has accepted the principles on which the common foreign and security policy is based. In fact, it was the Czech Government that took the initiative of strengthening political cooperation between all the applicant countries.
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There is no doubt that the process of accession is a long and gradual process of adapting to the acquis communautaire .
And, as is the case with many of the applicant countries, the Czech Republic still has a great deal to do, as the Commission's regular report rightly points out.
This 'screening' document cannot be looked upon as a set of grades and marks; instead, it should be seen as an incentive to ensure that the correct measures are taken to benefit the Czech Republic and its application for membership of the European Union.
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I would like to mention one concern I have had since the beginning of my work as rapporteur, which is the situation of the Roma minority in the Czech Republic.
It is true that the Prague Government has restructured the Interministerial Commission on the Affairs of the Roma Community and appointed Mr Petr Uhl as the government representative for human rights issues.
However, the problem of the social and cultural integration of the Roma ethnic minority has yet to be resolved.
This is undoubtedly an issue that will require a global solution and it is therefore vital to improve cultural relations throughout Czech society. But it is up to the Prague Government to take the necessary legislative measures to promote this integration.
The authorities cannot renounce their responsibility and society will naturally expect the authorities to face up to it.
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Another important element is the rise in unemployment in the Czech Republic. According to the Commission this is due, for the most part, to a slowdown in economic activity and the effects of the process of industrial and economic restructuring in the country.
The European Commission must continue to help the Czech Government to minimise the social impact of adapting to the acquis communautaire , if possible.
I fully support the German Presidency's initiative to extend the PHARE programme to include support for the social dimension of the applicant countries' economies.
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I do not want to end without making two remarks.
We all share the aim of enabling the applicant countries to join the European Union, but to do this properly we must also be consistent ourselves.
To that end, I would point out once again that institutional reform is essential to prepare the Union for enlargement and, secondly, that it is vital for the Union to have the resources required to face the challenge of enlargement.
I believe that, on this last issue, the Berlin summit did not exactly set the best example as regards the decisions that should have been taken. Nonetheless, we do, in fact, still have some time left to remedy the situation.
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<SPEAKER ID=274 NAME="Hoff">
Mr President, Commissioner, this afternoon's debate on the conflict in Serbia and the expulsions in Kosovo has made it even clearer why enlarging the European Union to include the Central and Eastern European countries is, apart from any other considerations, the most important means of guaranteeing peace and must remain so in future.
We Europeans can only ensure lasting peace in Europe and in the world by working together with our neighbours to the east.
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I say this in the knowledge that Poland has been a member of NATO since mid-March.
As the largest central European applicant country, Poland is making good progress with the accession process at a technical level, and we can therefore reasonably assume that by the end of this year a complete overview of the entire accession process situation will be available.
As I see it, that would probably then be the right time to discuss and perhaps reach agreement on a possible timetable for the rest of the run-up to accession.
The Polish Government - the Sejm and the Senate - are anxious to achieve this, and we should not close our minds to this possibility, indeed we should call on the Commission to prepare an appropriate draft with the Polish authorities.
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In the Commission's progress report published in November 1998, Poland is described as a country that is enjoying stable social and political conditions and making progress in developing an efficient market economy.
According to the economic data, and if you accept the economic forecasts, Poland is still one of the strongest economies amongst the central European countries, with growth rates over 5 %, unemployment and inflation below 10 % and income increasing by 4.5 %.
Government debt is 48 % and the budget deficit in 1997 was 2.7 %.
These are in line with the Maastricht criteria.
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As only 6.4 % of foreign trade is carried on with the Russian Federation, as opposed to 64 % with the European Union, Poland has remained relatively untouched by the latest Russian crisis.
Nevertheless, despite this positive economic development there will be problems in the sectors in need of restructuring, that is the coal and steel industry; about 210 000 employees are affected by this restructuring.
The environmental pollution associated with these industries will also give rise to problems.
Although the extent of environmental pollution would be reduced by the restructuring of the coal and steel industry and reductions in capacity, substantial investment will still be required.
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At present Poland is channelling about 1.7 % of its gross domestic product into improving the quality of its natural resources.
The environment currently accounts for 10 % of all corporate investment.
Another area in which great efforts are needed is agriculture.
As you know, one wage-earner in four works in this sector, which nevertheless generates just 6 % of gross domestic product.
However, most farms produce for their own needs rather than for the market.
The agricultural sector, comprising over two million farms, each covering an average area of no more than eight hectares, will therefore represent a serious social and regional problem.
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Coal, steel and farming are therefore areas in which great efforts will have to be made in the future.
But there are also areas where there have already been successful reforms: the reform of central, regional and local government, in which the number of voivodeships has been reduced, health care reform to introduce medical insurance, and reform of the pension system.
The reform of the educational system is due to take effect in September of this year.
Overall, this is a positive Commission report, which shows that Poland is developing well.
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Allow me to return briefly to the point I made at the beginning.
Ten years after the historical changes of 1989 we must do everything in our power to make this crucial progress with the accession process.
This applies to both sides: the European Union and the applicant countries in Central and Eastern Europe.
We must build on Agenda 2000 to make enlargement feasible, and the applicants must become fit for accession.
We cannot risk the enthusiasm for membership in the CEECs being allowed to wane.
The fifth direct elections to the European Parliament in mid-June and an information campaign planned by the Polish Government provide a good opportunity to enlighten the public about the significance and the aims of the forthcoming EU enlargement and of membership.
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In addition to the major social and economic impact, we need more than ever to highlight the overarching factor of securing peace throughout Europe.
This will enable the existing and future EU Member States to make a significant contribution to the goals of political union.
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Applause
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<SPEAKER ID=275 NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, Commissioner, last week Cyprus was in the news in connection with the violence in Kosovo in a rather peculiar way.
Mr Denktash, the leader of Northern Cyprus, offered Muslim refugees 100 000 homes in the ghost town of Magusta.
Nicosia reacted by sending Mr Kyprianou to Milosevic in order to try, as he said, to obtain the release of three US soldiers by invoking centuries-old relations.
The reason I am saying this is so that people can see how Cyprus could move just as easily in the direction of chaos as order.
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We know that the lingering conflict began a quarter of a century ago, and that it has certain things in common with what is now taking place in the Balkans.
We see reminders every day of where this can lead.
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After all the diplomatic efforts by the United Nations, the United States and the European Union, I honestly have to say that it seems unlikely to me that we will see the stability and security on the island of Cyprus which Mr Habsburg predicts.
Membership of the European Union may perhaps lead to a solution to the division of Cyprus, or its occupation as I prefer to describe it.
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Unfortunately, accession negotiations between Cyprus and the Union have so far not exactly proved successful.
The latest condition laid down by Mr Denktash is that his republic must be recognised while, rather more strangely, Nicosia must immediately abandon its European aspirations.
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Mr President, the negotiations between the two communities are going wrong.
For a while I thought that something was actually going right, when the President of Cyprus, Mr Clerides, said that he would not be deploying S 300 missiles, which I understand had come second-hand from Russia.
The security situation on Cyprus might well have justified their deployment, but it would also have had the effect of jeopardising security still further.
I have not seen any gesture at all from Northern Cyprus of course, nor from Turkey either.
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A solution is not made any more likely by a number of Member States including my own country, the Netherlands, coming out with statements more or less opposing membership for Cyprus as long as partition remains.
This removes the catalyst effect of the accession process and gives Turkey what amounts to a veto on the Union's decision to include Cyprus as a member.
This is certainly not going to encourage Turkey to withdraw from Cyprus after a quarter of a century, especially as now, according to the Commission's progress report, Cyprus is doing well.
Telecommunications and information technology are the only areas in which Cyprus is requesting transition periods.
There are scarcely any problems with the other main areas which have been screened to date.
The figures for the Republic of Cyprus are 50 % higher than the economic and financial indicators for Northern Cyprus.
Relations between Cyprus and the European Union are drawing closer and within a few years the 1973 association agreement will become a customs union.
Yet the process still needs to be speeded up, and we might consider some kind of PHARE fund action for Cyprus.
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Mr President, as a final point I should like to ask the Commission to allocate the remaining EUR 17 million under the present protocol to the pre-accession strategy.
A financial injection may bring accession nearer and, as I have endeavoured to explain, accession will increase stability in the region.
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I will end, Mr President, on a very simple domestic point.
In the Dutch text there is a very unfortunate mistake or printing error.
The last reference in paragraph 2 on the substantial progress achieved in adopting the acquis communautaire is 'justitie en buitenlandse zaken '.
I have seen in the English and French texts that the reference is clearly to 'internal affairs'.
The Dutch text should therefore read 'binnenlandse zaken '.
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<SPEAKER ID=276 NAME="Malone">
Mr President, I am really delighted, in this plenary part- session of Parliament, to again be addressing you on the subject of Malta's accession to the European Union.
Everyone here will be familiar with the history of this particular application.
When it last came before us, in my report in 1995, Parliament gave a very favourable recommendation.
Since then there has been a change of government in 1996 and the decision was taken to suspend the application and to look instead for a strengthened association agreement.
The situation changed again in September 1998 with the elections and change of government, so the application has been reactivated and is before us again this evening.
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Although the application remained frozen for those two years, Malta remains in a very strong position.
It has stable democratic structures and the economic indicators are quite close to our Community average.
Although the Maltese authorities have introduced VAT, much new legislation is still required to bring Maltese law into line with the EU situation.
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These reservations aside, I am very glad to be able to say that on this occasion also I recommend a very positive assessment of the Maltese application.
In particular I welcome the fact that the Commission has recommended that the screening of Maltese legislation should begin as soon as possible, with a view to starting negotiations at the end of this year.
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I do, however, regret that the Council and the Commission were quite slow in making progress here.
Especially, I found, there was reticence on the part of the Council, in that it asked the Commission for a new opinion, an update of the 1993 opinion.
It said it wanted to measure this again against the Copenhagen criteria.
So there was much delay there but we did eventually receive that opinion from the Commission, in February of this year, at the stage when the negotiations were well under way with the first wave countries.
I regret that delay.
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With regard to the various amendments that we have received, on Amendment No 1 I will be looking tomorrow for a split vote.
I can certainly recommend to the House that the application must take Maltese opinion fully into account.
Indeed anybody who follows the Maltese media will know that it is the intention of the Maltese Government to hold a referendum on the issue.
So I would agree with that particular section of Amendment No 1.
However, I could not take on board the second part because to me it would be an undue interference in the internal affairs of the Maltese people.
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I can certainly recommend Amendment No 2 and I will leave it to the judgment of the House as to how we should vote on Amendment No 3.
I feel, however, that we should be consistent here with other accession reports.
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Finally, I call on the Cologne European Council to take the decision to begin negotiations on Malta's accession by the end of this year.
The Commission should draw up an accession partnership and provide for a programme of financial assistance for the pre-accession period to help the Maltese authorities to bridge the economic gap that remains between Malta and the European Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=277 NAME="Myller">
Mr President, I am delighted that my report on the environmental effects of enlargement was included in this Parliamentary debate dealing with the subject of applications for EU membership.
It confirms the importance of one of the main themes of my report, namely that environmental issues must be a priority in negotiations for membership and that environmental questions must, in accordance with the principle of transparency, be an integral part of the whole negotiations process.
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The forthcoming round of negotiations on accession will be very different from the previous one in terms of the emphasis given to environmental matters.
The last countries to join the European Union were Austria, Sweden and Finland, at the beginning of 1995.
Environmental legislation in these countries was in many ways even further developed than the legislation in the EU.
The situation is now quite different, and the lack of environmental legislation in the applicant countries is one of the biggest barriers to accession.
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Under the Treaty of Amsterdam we all now have obligations, furthermore, to integrate environmental policy into all areas of EU decision-making, and Member States' compliance with these obligations is to be examined at future EU summits.
As the accession talks proceed we must take stock of what progress the applicant countries are also making in this area.
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There are enormous environmental problems in the ten applicant countries of Central and Eastern Europe, and there are only meagre resources available to deal with them.
However, the condition of the environment has been steadily improving since 1989, and there are large areas, for example, of unspoiled nature in these countries.
As far as the diversity of the natural environment is concerned, too, the situation in these countries is either first-rate or at least a considerable improvement on that in many of the current Member States.
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Accelerated economic growth on the one hand creates scope for improving the environment, but, on the other, will pollute the environment at an ever greater rate unless environmental legislation is tightened up at the same time.
Furthermore, new investment in production must take account of the latest technology and should be undertaken now while these countries are negotiating their membership.
In fact the greatest efforts to improve the environment must be made prior to accession.
At the same time we must ensure that the resources made available for the applicant countries, inter alia under Agenda 2000, are put to best use in these countries.
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However, the responsibility for the EU budget is not equally shared: the greatest financial responsibility lies with the applicant countries themselves.
EU funding through ISPA and PHARE can at best only act as a catalyst.
The aim must be for these schemes to generate two to four times the funding set aside for investment in the environment.
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The environmental problems in the applicant countries arise from long-standing shortcomings and neglect, particularly in the areas of water and waste management as well as emissions into the atmosphere from industry, energy production, and the present rapid growth in traffic.
They also all face major problems in the areas of nuclear safety and the storage of nuclear waste.
Solving this problem will also require a huge financial input, and the international investment banks also need to be involved here.
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On the whole, however, it has to be said that eastward enlargement will have a positive impact on the environment of Europe, when accession results in the tightening up of environmental standards in the applicant countries, economic growth is placed on a sustainable footing, and the countries concerned are able to comply with international agreements on environmental issues.
In order for this to be achieved, we must negotiate with each applicant country a realistic timetable based on the individual situation of the country in question, and the focal point of that timetable should be prior to accession.
Transitional periods in respect of environmental legislation may be permitted only in exceptional circumstances and if the applicant countries themselves request it and also commit to a timetable for implementation.
Nevertheless, transitional periods must not be allowed to exceed five years.
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<SPEAKER ID=278 NAME="Spencer">
Mr President, if you were to look down from space at our continent you would not see the European Union, applicant states and non-applicant states.
All you would see is one crowded, complex, interdependent Cape of Eurasia.
That is a salutary thought for all of us as we contemplate the challenges of enlargement.
Our pollution is a common heritage which we all have.
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I am particularly struck if you look at Europe in terms of its river systems rather than its political structures.
I recall vividly the impact on myself of learning, during a floating symposium on the Black Sea last year, that a very high percentage of the pollution which is killing the Black Sea stems not from the riparian states but from run-off from Austria and Germany of nitrogen and agricultural chemicals, pushed on to the land in the heart of Europe as a consequence of some of our malfunctioning environmental policies in the common agricultural policy and having a consequence hundreds and hundreds of miles away across the continent.
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As we examine the environmental consequences and challenges of enlargement, we will not seek to enforce on those states which seek to join us in the applicant process the same kind of environmentally disastrous projects which we have often adopted in our own ignorance inside the Union over the last 40 years.
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I would like to make just one other point.
Despite my concern about the environment, I am an optimist and along with the author of the report I believe that much can be achieved in the environment in the process of enlargement.
I am suspicious of those who would use the challenges of environment as an argument for delay in enlargement.
In my view there is much that can be done.
This is a solvable problem but we have to do it conscious that we do it as one continent linked environmentally and ecologically.
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<SPEAKER ID=279 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
Mr President, enlargement is of course a huge challenge for the European Union. A major and pressing task lies ahead of us.
Enlargement requires comprehensive change; this applies to the applicant countries - in this case Hungary - and to the European Union.
Among other measures, we need a fundamental overhaul of the EU's agricultural policy, which currently absorbs half its budget.
<P>
The applicant countries too will have to make adjustments in order to fulfil the Copenhagen criteria.
Democracy and human rights must be consolidated, for example. In the case of a country such as Hungary, attention to its minorities - and their protection - will be important.
The quicker the process unfolds the better, of course, but we can hardly set a date for the conclusion of negotiations.
<P>
All applicant countries, including Hungary, need to strengthen their anti-corruption strategies.
It is vital that both the Commission and the Hungarian Government take account of the social costs of the economic and financial restructuring process.
The price of getting fit for EU accession should not be paid by the least advantaged, with increased unemployment, a growing divide between people or the marginalisation of various ethnic groups.
The negotiating process leading to EU accession needs to embrace the whole of society.
It is therefore essential for the Hungarian Government to maintain an ongoing dialogue with both the opposition and the two sides of industry.
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<SPEAKER ID=280 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Poettering">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party and also very much on my own behalf I would like to express the very sincere respect, esteem and gratitude that we owe to Otto von Habsburg.
His speech here today is typical of the speeches he has made in the European Parliament over the last 20 years, since 1979.
I remember very clearly when he talked of the former Soviet Union as being the last colonial empire on earth, with its annexation of the three Baltic states - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Mr von Habsburg, many people smiled when you said that, but I was always convinced that you were right.
You had a vision that these states should be liberated, and today that vision is becoming a reality.
They are now free to join the European Union, and you are an example of the fact that is visionaries who are the true realists.
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We are discussing Estonia, Hungary, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Cyprus and Malta.
But, as Otto von Habsburg has said, we should cast our net wider, towards Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia, and also towards Bulgaria and Romania.
We in the PPE Group see the accession and negotiation as a single process, and we are convinced that we have to prove ourselves, and that the accession of all these countries associated with us by Europe agreements must soon become a reality.
Of course, certain requirements have to be met.
These countries need to speed up their reforms and actively pursue them.
We are delighted to see that they are making great progress.
<P>
We need to encourage these countries and should not give them any discouraging signals.
Because if we did discourage them, the reform process and the momentum in these countries would founder, which would be bad both for these countries and for the European Union.
That is why we are telling these countries that they are welcome, that the people of these countries are welcome in the European Union, because they want to join our community and adopt its set of values.
That is why we are calling for the Helsinki Council at the end of this year to start accession negotiations with Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, and of course also, as we are requesting, with Malta.
<P>
The Baltic states have suffered a great deal of pain in the course of this century, as Otto von Habsburg has already mentioned.
As they have not been admitted to NATO yet, they are seeking security within the European Union.
If we look at Kosovo today, we cannot fail to recognise that it is our duty to admit in particular the Baltic states into the European Union as quickly as possible.
<P>
We need to make headway with the internal reform of the European Union.
There is clearly a need for institutional reform if we want to remain effective.
We also need to take certain practical steps.
We have proposed for example that MPs from the applicant countries could attend meetings of our parliamentary committees as observers when accession issues are on the agenda.
But in turn, we also have our own requirements.
For example, we are calling on the Czech Republic to repeal laws and decrees still in force from 1945 and 1946 in cases where they refer to the expulsion of individual ethnic groups from the former Czechoslovakia.
<P>
We are faced with a great challenge.
Back in 1989, we would not have dared to dream that we could be discussing such problems in 1999.
But we are discussing them, and that is why we must now do whatever is necessary to ensure that this vision, which is edging closer to fulfilment, actually does become a reality in the foreseeable future, so that we can welcome the people of central Europe into the European Union and the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=281 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Frischenschlager">
Ladies and gentlemen, I too would like to support Otto von Habsburg, who said that we should make haste if we are not to miss a historic opportunity.
And I believe that this is very important.
When I visit the applicant counties, I am struck by their failure to understand our hesitation. For example, they cannot grasp why we are not full of enthusiasm once a date has been set for possible accession, 2002 in the case of Hungary.
Of course, it is evident that meeting the criteria is essential for accession.
And it is clear that they are making good progress in many areas, the economy for example, and also with the democratic and political criteria.
Amazingly enough, the same cannot be said of other areas, such as administrative reform and above all legal reform.
Sometimes it is not easy to explain to them that to have an effective legal culture prevailing within the judicial system and in the courts is simply essential for a properly functioning internal market, just as democracy is of course a requirement for political union.
We must use great powers of persuasion here.
On the other hand, we need to be extraordinarily careful about the kind of criticisms we make, so that they do not have the opposite of the desired effect.
As it is, we often have the impression that not only do they not want to hear such criticism at all - and who does? - but that it even wounds their national pride and is counterproductive.
<P>
However, there is no doubt at all about one point: we have to make it perfectly clear that we have every interest in these accessions taking place as quickly as possible once the criteria have been met.
We should not transfer our difficulties to them and behave as if we were afraid of their economy and their people.
That is the heart of the matter, and that is why we must make sure that these accessions happen as soon as possible once the criteria have been fulfilled. We need to make that crystal clear in all our discussions.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=282 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Posada González">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I rise to make some general comments on enlarging the Union to include new countries with which we are conducting membership negotiations.
<P>
I am certainly in favour of enlargement to include these new countries.
However, I am afraid that given the financial outlook and the fact that these countries are less wealthy than the existing members of the Union, there is a danger that certain regions, such as Galicia and Portugal, will become even more peripheral and marginalised because of reductions in the Structural Funds. This will make it difficult to achieve the economic and social cohesion Europe needs.
<P>
During the last parliamentary term I voted in favour of EU enlargement to include three rich countries - Austria, Finland and Sweden.
The less wealthy countries now knocking at our door certainly deserve to belong to our community of economic and social interests.
We should therefore cooperate in their development so that we can continue along the path of eastward enlargement, extending the route to Santiago de Compostela onward to Moscow and the Urals, a dream that could come true in 20 or 30 years' time.
<P>
I am also sure that these countries will be a perfect bridge for developing our relations with Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
Generally speaking, the various rapporteurs from the Committee on Foreign Affairs have emphasised the difficulties that have to be overcome, have expressed their pleasure at the progress already made, and have insisted that reforms should be supported by accompanying measures designed to mitigate their consequences.
It is for this reason that in countries like Poland there will be a particular need for thoroughgoing social, administrative and health reforms.
Reforms of this kind will certainly have a special impact on more vulnerable people, especially pensioners.
<P>
With particular reference to Malta, I am pleased at the Commission's recommendation that a critical examination of Maltese legislation should start immediately, so that negotiations with this country can begin before the end of this year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=283 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Hulthén">
Mr President, I should like to use these two minutes to underline the importance of the Myller report, which deals with the environment and the kind of environmental strategy required in the context of enlargement.
Mrs Myller's report is excellent; her commitment to the issues is visible in every line.
The environmental dimension is one of the main challenges of enlargement.
<P>
Perhaps I might draw particular attention to two elements.
The countries of Central and Eastern Europe seeking to join the Union are a true learning resource from our point of view.
They certainly have an ecological head start in the agricultural sector. Their economic situation has meant that they have adopted farming practices somewhat different from those that we are used to in the EU.
And I feel that we should be doing our utmost to support the most environmentally friendly forms of agriculture possible.
<P>
Secondly, rather than promoting the private car, we should be backing the well-established and extensive public transport systems which exist in many of the CEECs.
<P>
We should also remember that it is not simply a matter of legislating from on high; local organisations need to be involved in what is going on. I am thinking of both the voluntary sector and bodies such as Urban Forum.
The latter is active within the Union and needs to extend its outreach into Central and Eastern Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=284 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Hulthén.
You had been allocated speaking time of a minute and a half, but I signalled to you that you could continue with your speech.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=285 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Tindemans">
Mr President, after the excellent introductory remarks on the problem of enlargement by our colleague Otto von Habsburg, I should simply like to make a few points in connection with Slovenia further to the excellent report by Mr Speciale.
<P>
We can all too easily forget that Slovenia used to belong to the Yugoslav Federation.
Like Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, it broke free and now would like very much to join the European Union.
It has become a sovereign state and is, to use a Dutch expression, small but tough.
<P>
Psychologically the country would not appear to have any difficulty in becoming a part of the European landscape.
Of all the applicant countries, Slovenia comes closest to fulfilling the conditions for full European Union membership.
It will therefore be of great symbolic value if an agreement can be reached on this quite quickly.
It could also serve as an example for the other candidates.
What more must they do?
Yet this report already refers to the next annual report.
<P>
So it looks as if it will be some time yet before we can talk of positive results.
If I remember correctly, the conditions for entry were the acquis communautaire , Maastricht and the desire to promote the further development of Europe, a market economy and human rights.
My question is this: In the negotiations, what are we asking applicants to do about the common foreign and security policy?
I believe that we now have an excellent opportunity for the Fifteen to decide a number of basic principles on this subject which consequently must also be accepted by newcomers.
Now or never it must become clear just how serious we are about this common policy.
<P>
And how is the problem of solidarity discussed?
What does convergence of opinions mean in the context of the negotiations?
What is Slovenia's position?
I would also add: How do they view subsidiarity?
Should we not be helping them to combat inflation, including by practical measures, and thereby boost the economy as quickly as possible?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=286 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ryynänen">
Mr President, the European Union's enlargement to the east will be an enormous challenge from the point of view of our common environment.
If successful, enlargement will place countries that have sought membership on a strong footing for economic growth based on sustainable development.
This, however, will not come about automatically: we will have to get to grips with enormous problems in trying to achieve as much as possible with relatively few resources for development.
For that reason we need to establish priorities, exploit the applicant countries' own resources, and implement tailor-made solutions.
It will be a process that requires capacity for change and adaptability according to circumstances.
I would like to express my full support for the ideas set out by Mrs Myller, which reveal a sound and realistic grasp of the problem.
A list should be drawn up of the most important points to focus on in environmental legislation, and the implementation of those points would serve as objective indicators.
I would like to emphasise the importance of how investment in sustainable development is implemented in practice and monitored.
Introducing environmental legislation into the administrations of the applicant countries will be an immense challenge, and for that reason the EU must provide the necessary support through training programmes and exchanges of information.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=287 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, before I begin I beg your indulgence to join with Mr Poettering in paying tribute to the work of Mr von Habsburg in this House.
As coordinator of the Socialist Group I should like to thank him for his help and advice over the time I have been coordinator, and for the quality of his work in committee.
I am the last speaker of the Socialists and my job, therefore, is not to speak about individual countries, but to sum up the general debates.
<P>
However, I would like to begin by quoting directly from the Czech application to the European Union.
In the preamble to that application the Czechs say: 'The construction of Europe has always been a matter of enlightened imagination, political courage, assiduous work, criticism, sober realism, solidarity and the art of cooperation, accommodation and compromise'.
I do not think we could find a better commentary on the process that we are currently undergoing.
<P>
We should be clear that if the challenge of the 1980s for the European Union was the creation of a single market, and the challenge of the 1990s was the creation of a single currency, the challenge for the opening years of the next millennium will be to enlarge the European Union so as to deepen it and also to create a zone of stability throughout the continent.
This is our opportunity to reunite Europe, to build a whole continent built on the principles of peace, stability and prosperity.
If we doubt the value of those characteristics we only have to look at the former Yugoslavia.
Indeed the dream that should drive us is the dream of reuniting Europe.
The nightmare that should spur our actions is what is happening in former Yugoslavia.
Those are the alternatives which confront us.
<P>
To go back to the Czech application, they talk of sober realism. That has to be, without a doubt, a major motivating force.
It is a difficult process.
Let us not in any way underestimate the difficulties.
We have our own difficulties which have already been outlined in the debate today about Agenda 2000. But the applicant countries themselves must go through a process of economic reform and keep that process on course.
<P>
In particular we must ensure that there is effective competition policy in all the applicant countries and that there is proper respect for intellectual property which will underpin inward investment, which is so important for them all.
We have to ensure that their administrations are modernised.
<P>
As I have said many times in these debates, in my view the biggest weakness of these countries is the administration and the judicial system and the lack of modernisation and investment.
They must all take action against corruption because, as we know ourselves, corruption will undermine the political process.
There can be no fudges whatsoever during that process.
We have to be honest and realistic.
We have to show solidarity and understanding for the difficulties these countries are going through.
We have to ensure that we can take care of the social consequences of those reforms.
<P>
But the applicant countries must also understand that none of them is as yet in the European Union.
They will all be judged on their own merits.
They must continue the processes which they have been going through and show patience whilst they are going through the negotiations.
<P>
What is also needed, as the Czechs pointed out, is enlightened imagination and political courage.
All problems can be resolved in politics if the will is there.
Let us show that imagination and courage so that we can enlarge the European Union before the next European elections in 2004.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=288 NAME="Cushnahan">
Mr President, firstly I should like to congratulate the rapporteurs.
However, despite my strong commitment to the process of enlargement, I acknowledge that we face real dilemmas during the process.
On the one hand we have a political and, indeed, a moral obligation to honour the Treaty by admitting new members in accordance with it.
On the other hand, we must be careful that the arrival of new members is not detrimental to the future workings of the Treaties.
The jargon of the Union sums up the problem. Is it to be deepening before widening or widening before deepening?
<P>
We took a risk at the last enlargement by admitting three new members before any significant institutional reforms were in place to deal with the consequences of expanded membership.
That risk was heightened by the presence in two of those countries of very significant anti-EU minorities which, if they became majorities, could, under our present inadequate institutional arrangements, have stifled the very workings of the Communities.
That risk, which I hope has disappeared, cannot be taken again even if it means postponing enlargement.
An enlarged unreformed community has a permanently increased exposure to disagreements which could stultify progress to our ultimate goal of a United States of Europe.
As an aside, I venture to suggest that this is the secret ambition of some of the supporters of early enlargement.
<P>
There is now a new reason for hastening slowly on enlargement.
The euro has had a successful birth and is established as a world currency but it is still an infant.
Its continued health is an essential prerequisite, not just for the economic health of the Union and the Member States but to their economic viability.
There can be no enlargement unless the applicant states are fit to join the single currency, posing no threat to its integrity and status, and are willing to join so as to avoid making the present two-tier Union even worse.
Hopefully, all existing Member States will have seen the light and be participants in the single currency before enlargement so that the applicants will have no choice on this issue.
<P>
Enlargement in the right circumstances will guarantee the benefits of the Treaties for new members.
Enlargement in the wrong circumstances will certainly halt progress and will probably reverse it.
We must get it right and I am confident that we can.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=289 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bianco">
Mr President, I shall confine myself to expressing the simple wish that we can make up for lost time and that Malta can join the European Union soon.
This is therefore an appeal to overcome all the hesitations and uncertainties which up to now have characterised the attitude of the Council and the Commission.
Above and beyond the size of the country, which is of course limited in terms of territory and population, Malta's importance lies in the fact that it can help us launch and consolidate our policy in the Mediterranean area, which is one of the fronts on which tomorrow's Europe will compete.
We should bear in mind that new scenarios do arise and that overcoming the negative attitude, so to speak, on the part of Libya is a major factor in consolidating the situation.
<P>
Therefore, from the forthcoming Cologne Council onwards, Malta should be considered in a positive light.
I think all the right factors are there: the attitudes of the previous labour government have been overtaken by the determination of the current one, and the main macroeconomic indicators are good, as was acknowledged by the rapporteur herself, Mrs Malone.
I hope things will move quickly, Commissioner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=290 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Burenstam Linder">
Mr President, as Mr Donner has indicated, many positive things can be said about Estonia's progress and the pace of reform there. The same applies to Latvia and Lithuania.
I was delighted at the result of the Estonian elections on 7 March. The winning parties were those who are most unequivocally working for EU membership and they have now formed a government.
It is particularly gratifying that Mart Laar has been appointed as the new prime minister. Over the period between 1992 and 1994, he led the government which steered Estonia along what has proved to be such a successful course of reform.
<P>
25 March this year was the 50th anniversary of the day on which 20 000 Estonian citizens were subjected to mass deportation from Estonia by Soviet occupation forces.
That tragedy was not played out on our TV screens as happens with today's atrocities, so there is all the more reason for us to remember those people.
<P>
Even before enlargement takes place, the current Member States of the Union are benefiting considerably from the reforms and efforts undertaken by the applicant countries to meet the requirements which have been laid down.
And we should be reminding voters of that when the elections take place in June.
The switch-over to a market economy in these countries has created new markets and jobs for us, and a high level of stability has enabled them to weather the Russian crisis better than might otherwise have been the case. As a result, we have been spared the need to intervene with a programme of assistance.
First and foremost, however, their commitment to conflict-resolution and human rights has meant that we have not had to endure 'Kosovo crises' on our doorstep.
This is the new dimension of the EU as a peace-promoting enterprise.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=291 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Dimitrakopoulos">
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the enlargement of the European Union is, without doubt, the most important challenge facing the European Union as it moves into the twenty-first century.
<P>
One of the essential prerequisites for its success is maintaining a geographical balance when admitting applicant countries.
Seen in this light, the accession of Cyprus takes on special significance.
The fact that accession negotiations in this particular case have begun and are progressing normally is to be welcomed.
These negotiations must continue until they have been successfully concluded.
Impeding the negotiations, and linking their outcome to a resolution of the political and military issues that have afflicted the island for 25 years, as certain Member States of the European Union have unfortunately attempted to do, are diplomatic errors which go against the philosophy of the European Union and enlargement and jeopardise its successful completion.
<P>
The report by Mr Bertens, whom I congratulate on his excellent work, is a major step in the right direction and we must therefore vote in favour of it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=292 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Virgin">
Mr President, Mrs Myller has produced a sound and interesting report on the environmental strategies to be implemented in the run-up to the accession of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
This is an important text, which fits in well with the commitment the European Parliament has consistently demonstrated towards environmental issues.
<P>
The report does, however, contain a number of points which I cannot support.
It is stated, for example, that the ongoing privatisation processes in the applicant countries could jeopardise the status of conservation areas and the future of biological diversity.
My view is quite the opposite. I believe that this privatisation thrust is essential to the interests of sound environmental policy.
The countries of Central and Eastern Europe have a sorry history of totalitarianism, which left them with a legacy of severe environmental problems.
It is now up to individual countries and the EU to embark on joint efforts in the interests of a better environment.
<P>
People care for the things they own.
It is therefore paramount that legislation should safeguard the right of ownership.
If someone pollutes my land, then I must have an incontrovertible right to claim compensation of some kind from the polluter.
That is what the hallowed 'polluter pays' principle is all about.
<P>
Mrs Myller also says in her report that increasingly intensive farming and forestry endanger the environment, as does road building.
I disagree with her analysis.
All human activity brings with it alterations to the environment.
Such change need not necessarily be damaging, although human endeavour does sometimes impact negatively on the world around us.
That is precisely why we need to set clear boundaries, but it does not mean that we should categorically condemn certain things.
Normal agricultural and forestry activity does not in itself jeopardise the environment.
It is therefore inappropriate to urge the applicant countries to abstain from the kind of farming and forestry practices that we view as normal.
But it is essential that they comply with the environmental legislation we ourselves have agreed upon.
<P>
By way of conclusion, let me highlight the huge environmental policy benefits associated with enlargement; the result will be a better environment for the whole of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=293 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Günther">
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to say a few words about Malta.
First, I would like to thank everyone who has helped to ensure that Malta is once again being considered alongside the other applicant countries, as envisaged at the Corfu and Essen Councils.
I would also like to thank you in particular, Commissioner van den Broek, for the firm support you have offered ever since the present Maltese Government reactivated their country's application for membership.
<P>
However, I have a few questions for the Commission on this.
My first question is about the Task Force for the Accession Negotiations, which includes a special unit for each country.
When will the unit responsible for Malta start work?
<P>
My second question is about the fourth financial protocol.
According to this protocol the 1999 budget provides EUR 5 million each for Malta and Cyprus.
But with the help of the Commission and before the recent elections in Malta, it had been agreed that the financial protocol for Malta would be extended by a further year.
Now, several million euros are not available, because they were not included in the budget.
Do you see any chance, perhaps by using the Notenboom procedure or some other method, of implementing this extended financial protocol now?
<P>
My third comment is on the report before us. I am very sorry that the rapporteur did not consider it necessary to be present for this debate.
I am referring to the amendments tabled on the report.
It seems to me that Amendment No 1, which takes the Maltese authorities and administration up on their promise to respect the vote in favour of membership of the European Union, is aimed at the wrong people.
After all, with Norway we saw that it was ultimately the public who decided what would happen, without anyone making the authorities responsible beforehand.
Overall, I am very grateful that we have had this debate here today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=294 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, I should like to thank the rapporteurs and others who have spoken this evening on the important subject of European Union enlargement.
May I begin by again stressing, and this goes for all those responsible for preparing for enlargement within the Commission, that we are very much aware of the European Union's historic and unique opportunity to extend peace and stability to large areas of this continent.
I therefore fully agree with Mr von Habsburg and all those who have reiterated his message this evening that precisely during these weeks and months of conflict in Kosovo we are particularly aware of what it means to be able to live in peace and freedom and without repression within this community of values.
We must therefore help all those who aspire to join this community during the difficult and complex integration process.
<P>
I am therefore grateful to have the opportunity today to reflect on the state of progress in this process, which by the very nature of things cannot be completed overnight.
In any event I want to reassure all the honourable Members, as I have the applicant countries themselves, that as far as we are concerned the current so-called institutional crisis, which naturally affects the Commission's work, must not and shall not result in any delay in the enlargement process.
All the preparations and our work on them will continue undiminished, as will the negotiations with the individual countries.
<P>
Last December we discussed at length the situation in the applicant countries with which formal negotiations have not yet begun.
Today we turn our attention to the other six.
<P>
I should like to begin by saying that we are using all the pre-accession instruments at our disposal in order to help these applicant countries with their preparations.
The Commission will be drawing up further progress reports in the autumn, but we also intend to adapt, or rather adjust, the accession partnerships on the basis of the recorded progress and development in October this year, in other words before the Helsinki summit.
At this point we can already report that all 10 Europe Agreements have entered into force and that the pre-accession support agreed at the European Council in Berlin will double the financial aid granted to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
Under the PHARE twinnings programme we expect around 100 experts from the current EU Member States to be in place in these applicant countries by the end of the year, and as far as we are concerned this figure of 100 needs to be doubled in the year 2000.
These experts will be expected to transfer their knowledge about implementing the acquis communautaire to the main ministries in the applicant countries.
Officials will then be seconded for longer periods in the field of agriculture, justice, home affairs, finance and the environment.
<P>
Every applicant country has also approved a national programme for the adoption of the acquis communautaire which specifies the required personnel, budget and institutional resources.
These countries are also being asked to make further adjustments to their programmes by the early summer in order to bring them into line with the latest developments.
<P>
Before I say anything about each of the six countries individually, I should perhaps say a word about Malta, which clearly finds itself in a rather special position as a result of the interruption in its membership application.
Last December I was able to inform you that Malta's application had been reactivated.
As a result, the Council asked us to revise its 1993 opinion and we announced this on 17 February.
The conclusion reached in this opinion was essentially that while there were no problems in respect to the political criteria for Malta, additional or structural economic reforms were still needed, while the two-year break in Malta's membership preparations had resulted in a delay in adopting the acquis communautaire .
The Commission believes the recommended screening should begin as soon as possible, as indeed will be the case, so that, as we say in the report, accession negotiations can begin at the end of this year. This may, as I hope, provide an impetus for the Helsinki summit in December.
But at the end of the day it is the summit itself which must decide when to start negotiations.
<P>
In any event, we are fully prepared.
I can also reassure Mrs Günther that we have already taken steps to ensure that the task force negotiations can be enlarged at any time should the formal negotiations with Malta actually begin.
I can also tell Mr Bertens, and on this occasion Mrs Malone too, that we will also be considering to what extent, for Cyprus as well as Malta, the present financial protocol can be converted into a financial instrument which is comparable to that for the other applicant countries.
We are working on this at the moment and will return to it as quickly as possible.
<P>
The negotiations are a complicated process in themselves, but I am delighted to be able to report that at the end of last year seven out of a total of 31 negotiating chapters had already been addressed.
Faced with the need to determine their negotiating positions, the applicant countries succeeded in dramatically improving their internal organisation and coordination in a relatively short period of time.
The questions we put to them about their ability to adopt the acquis communautaire provided an extra stimulus for their preparations in this crucial area.
I am saying this in reply to Mr Titley who made a comment about this.
<P>
The Commission for one also certainly plans to keep up the pace at which these chapters are addressed, which means that it should be possible to address another eight by the summer.
The German Presidency itself has also announced this.
This means that by around the middle of this year half of all the negotiating chapters will have been addressed, and if the pace can be maintained around three quarters will have been addressed by the end of the year.
This says a great deal about the efforts made by both the applicant countries and the Commission presidency.
This is a pace we want to sustain.
<P>
You know that the issues involved here are political criteria, economic criteria, the acquis communautaire and administrative capacity.
Before I comment on individual countries I should like to make a number of general points about these four important criteria which, as you know, were agreed in Copenhagen in 1993.
Our evaluations set out in last year's November reports were based on an in-depth investigation of how democracy in these applicant countries works in practice.
It was with great pleasure, not to say enthusiasm, that we were able to conclude that all things considered these are now well-established democracies.
<P>
There are still a number of important aspects concerning the rule of law and democracy which still need attention and where further progress is necessary.
I am thinking here of minorities, a particularly pertinent subject at this time, and also the need to strengthen the judiciary for example.
In many countries, not only the applicant countries but in Member States too, there are major delays in the judicial process, usually because of staff shortages in the judiciary.
<P>
Now for a general comment on the economic criteria. All the countries with which we are negotiating have made considerable progress in moving towards a market economy, with particularly marked economic progress in countries such as Estonia, Hungary and Poland, which have made constant efforts to implement reforms since the opinions were published.
In the report we also made no secret of the fact that Slovenia and the Czech Republic had made less progress and that they really needed to speed up the process.
We told these countries this, which they accepted and they are now taking the necessary measures.
<P>
Next to the matter of the pace of adapting to the acquis communautaire . The question is not only whether the countries are able to adopt the legislation but also whether they are able to implement it in practice?
In this respect I believe the performance of the applicant countries remains very varied.
In November we concluded that Hungary and Estonia had generally maintained a good adaptation rate, and that Poland had made major progress in a number of areas while falling behind in others.
On this point too we had to conclude that the Czech Republic and Slovenia were lagging somewhat behind.
<P>
In the interests of the mutual trust which is also vital for European Union membership, it is crucially important for applicant countries to have the necessary administrative and judicial capacity.
They cannot afford to neglect this area in their negotiations.
This is also why we have devoted so much effort to the twinning operation under which experts from the Member States can be made available to the governments of applicant countries for longer periods.
<P>
I will now quickly comment on each of the six countries individually.
Poland, for example, has achieved excellent results in meeting the political criteria by introducing a new Penal Code and Code of Criminal Procedure and by appointing a commissioner for the protection of civil rights.
On the economic front, I would also inform Mrs Hoff that Poland achieved high annual growth over the past year, coupled with falling unemployment and inflation, a strong currency and an increase in direct foreign investments.
A major effort was also made for the economic restructuring of the social security system, the iron and steel sector and the coal sector.
<P>
Less progress was made in adapting to the acquis communautaire , particularly in the environmental field, and the legislative work needs to be speeded up together with efforts to attract investment to the environment sector.
There have been delays in passing important laws on certification and conformity assessment, which has created problems - which is why I mention it - in terms of access to the Polish market.
As for Poland's most noted sector, namely agriculture, which Mrs Hoff also mentioned, I fully agree with her analysis that it is necessary to continue with reforms, especially in the field of rural development and improving veterinary and plant health facilities.
On the other hand, I would praise Poland for the enormous work that has gone into the restructuring programme for the iron and steel industry. Nevertheless, greater efforts must be made in order to further clarify the entire privatisation strategy of the two largest companies and to set a clear timetable for privatisation and restructuring.
<P>
I agree with Mrs Hoff's recommendation to continue with PHARE support for social measures to accompany restructuring in the iron and steel sector.
This will therefore also be taken into account in this year's PHARE programme.
There is a huge employment problem involved here.
<P>
Next the Czech Republic, which I talked about earlier.
Only limited progress has been made in the overall process of adaptation and the implementation of the short-term priorities for the accession partnership.
Mr Carnero Gonzalez's report lists a number of priority areas in which the Czech Republic must step up its pre-accession measures, such as adapting its legislation to the acquis communautaire in general, as well as reforming the apparatus of government and the judicial system, privatising state banks, policy on state support, protecting the environment and the further integration of the gypsy minority, the latter a point raised by Mr Gonzalez.
<P>
The new government's programme includes many priorities which do indeed correspond to the accession partnership, but we hope that the government will also succeed in transforming these priorities into concrete results.
<P>
I can be quite brief on the subject of Hungary. There has been major progress in a number of areas, in particular the approval of a general reform package for the judicial system and the completion of the structural economic reforms.
Another very favourable development is the strengthening of Hungary's government apparatus by increasing the number of staff - something the Commission is naturally very jealous of - and organising training programmes for the medium term.
<P>
In some areas, such as environmental protection, the process of harmonising legislation is rather slow and regional development planning is also only in its earliest stages.
Additional efforts are needed in setting up an effective service for controlling state aid, an important subject in itself.
<P>
I will now turn to Estonia, where there has been clear progress.
This is a real front-runner, with developments in the area of citizenship legislation particularly welcome.
We know the political efforts this has required.
We also hope, and I make no secret of the fact that I have some concerns about this, that Estonia will reexamine the language law and the law on parliamentary and local council elections which were passed following the publication of our last report. Our first impressions are that these laws could be at odds with international standards in this area.
The Commission would be happy to work with Estonia to find solutions to this and shares Mr Donner's view that more measures are required to ensure the integration of non-Estonian speakers.
Although it is no exception in this respect, Estonia must also make more effort to strengthen its administrative capacity.
<P>
Now Slovenia, which stands second to last in the line of negotiating countries. November's progress report made it clear that Slovenia had not made sufficient progress on harmonisation in general.
We discussed this at length with the Slovenian Government during a visit to Ljubljana, and I am confident that efforts will be made to catch up, as I agree with those who spoke about Slovenia, Mr Tindemans among others, that this is a country that has everything it takes for rapid and smooth integration.
In this sense Slovenia's performance has been disappointing, at least as things stood in November.
But I repeat, I hope the government will be able to catch up.
Slovenia knows exactly what is needed and what must be done, and we now need to give it the political encouragement to achieve this.
<P>
Finally, last but not least, Cyprus. Let me begin by saying that we much appreciate, and in a sense were reassured by - I say this to Mr Bertens - the fact that President Clerides had the wisdom to avoid creating tension on the island by reconsidering the decision to deploy defensive missiles.
This certainly helped the island's stability.
I should also like to take this opportunity to express the hope that we will see new political initiatives which will restart the UN process on the island's partition and dialogue between President Clerides and Mr Denktash.
As I told Mr Dimitrakopoulos, I believe that in the meantime preparations for Cyprus to join the Union should continue unabated.
President Clerides has made a generous offer to the Turkish Cypriot community to participate in the delegation to the accession negotiations.
We also hope for better times in this respect.
<P>
I should like to say the following on the subject of economic developments. Since the 1993 opinion on Cyprus it still remains to be confirmed that the economy has the basic capacity to adapt to the challenges of enlargement.
In this respect more attention needs to be paid to restructuring the internal financial sector to enable it to stand up to the pressure of competition as a result of the liberalisation of capital movements.
The necessary progress has been made in adopting the acquis communautaire , particularly in the context of the customs union, but considerable further efforts are required in the area of the internal market and more particularly in the area of tax and finance.
Maritime transport, telecommunications, justice and home affairs are also points which require particular attention in the case of Cyprus.
As regards Mr Bertens' request that we should come up with a proposal for a financial mechanism, I repeat what I said earlier on the subject of Malta, namely that we are working on replacing the financial protocol.
This is a subject to which we will be returning.
<P>
Mr President, I will end here.
I would, however, just like to say a few words about Mrs Myller's interesting and well thought-out report.
In May 1998 the Commission adopted a communication on accession strategy in the environmental field.
The need for such a strategy stems directly from the Agenda 2000 proposals in which it is recognised that adopting the environmental acquis will be a huge task for the CEECs and one which can only be achieved in the longer term and at a very high cost. There was talk at the time of figures between EUR 100 and 120 billion.
The communication looks at some of the practical questions which are relevant for drawing up national strategies allowing the CEECs to adopt the acquis communautaire without allocating funds from the pre-accession instruments.
Two of the main points in the communication concern the efforts the CEECs must make, which are both considerable and expensive.
It is, however, important to recognise that they not only serve environmental interests, but are also justifiable on economic grounds.
The Union's financial assistance provides just a very small part of the necessary resources, which is why a targeted, effective and strategic approach to the accession process is absolutely essential.
<P>
Mr President, I have attempted to sketch, although perhaps at too great a length, the current state of affairs, as this Commission, or at least this college of Commissioners, will probably no longer be responsible for producing the next report.
In any event I should like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank Parliament, and in particular the rapporteurs and all those who showed great interest in or were involved in the debate on the enlargement process, for the encouragement they have always given the Commission to take new initiatives in order to maintain the tempo of the enlargement process.
<P>
I should like to end by saying to the enlargement countries themselves that our philosophy was and still is that each of the enlargement countries should be considered on its own merits and progress, even if this can result in a certain differentiation. It is therefore extremely important to make it clear that the enlargement family remains a family, even if at any given moment one may have made more progress than another.
All-inclusiveness is a basic principle and point of departure for all those involved in this enlargement process and will remain so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=295 NAME="President">
Thank you for that interesting and highly detailed statement, Mr van den Broek.
<P>
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Agreements and concerted practices
<SPEAKER ID=296 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0137/99) by Mrs Thyssen, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on
<P>
I.the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation No 19/65/EEC on the application of Article 85(3) of the Treaty to certain categories of agreements and concerted practices (COM(98)0546 - C4-0627/98-98/0287(CNS))II.the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) amending Regulation No 17: First Regulation implementing Articles 85 and 86 of the Treaty (COM(98)0546 - C4-0628/98-98/0288(CNS)).The first speaker is the rapporteur, Mrs Thyssen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=297 NAME="Thyssen">
Mr President, the report I am about to present was approved by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy by just one vote short of unanimity.
It concerns competition policy and two proposals in connection with vertical agreements.
One proposal for an amendment concerns the first Council regulation on the application of Articles 85 and 86 of the Treaty.
This is the famous Regulation No 17/62 which empowers the Commission to grant individual exemptions.
The other concerns an amendment to Regulation No 19/65 which determines the Commission's powers to grant block exemptions.
It seems that the system of block exemptions, which the Commission has used for more than 30 years, is no longer flexible enough to meet the needs of rapidly changing distribution structures.
There is also increasing recognition of the risk that agreements between undertakings with a dominant market position, even if they comply with the legal conditions for block exemption, may still have a distorting effect on competition.
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In 1997 the Commission set out these and other findings and published a Green Paper on vertical agreements.
Parliament also took the opportunity to give its opinion on this occasion.
While we recognised the need for a change of policy we did not unconditionally share the Commission's view that market share should be an essential differentiating criterion.
With the current proposals, the Commission is introducing an initial specific amendment phase.
The Commission wishes in future to introduce a single block exemption regulation for all categories of agreements on the resale of goods and services, intermediate goods and industrial property rights.
<P>
For this, the scope of Regulation No 19/65 must first be extended.
The Commission also wants to drop the excessively strict legal conditions in the area of contractual content.
Furthermore, it wants to grant the national competition authorities the power to withdraw the benefit of block exemption in their territory.
If all this is to be achieved within a consistent legal framework, the scope of Regulation No 17/62 also needs to be adapted, which the Commission also proposes to do. Finally, the Commission wants it to be possible for agreements which are not individually notified, but which nevertheless qualify for exemption, to be exempt with retroactive effect from the date on which they were concluded.
These then are the proposals.
<P>
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy is in broad agreement with the Commission when it says that the proposed amendments will bring competition policy more in line with economic reality in future.
But we also have certain objections.
First of all, I must say that, contrary to what the Commission maintains, not all economic sectors welcome the proposed policy change.
This is certainly true of the brewing sector and of filling station contracts.
These are sectors with special rules which have shown their practical value. The beer supply contracts, for example, are currently perfectly satisfactory for the catering sector, large and small breweries, wholesalers and also the consumer.
Yet the Commission claims that there are insufficient economic and legal arguments for maintaining special rules for them.
My first question to the Commission is therefore: What compelling reasons does the Commission have for replacing an effective system which everyone is pleased with in this sector and which does not distort competition?
<P>
Secondly, I should like to hear from the Commission how the general block exemption will relate to the duration of contracts and in particular whether contracts linked to long-term investments will be able to run for periods as long as at present?
<P>
Thirdly, I have a question about the transitional period for current agreements and wonder whether agreements made under the present system can be fully implemented under this system or whether the new system applies to them and, if so, from when?
<P>
Fourthly, I should like public confirmation of the Commission's undertaking to inform Parliament and to give it the time to draw up a report on the planned block exemption regulation and guidelines before the Commission makes any final decision.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, I am curious to know what the Commission's position is on Amendment No 9 relating to the professional secrecy of in-house counsel and what position it intends to take on the automobile distribution sector when the block exemption regulation for this sector expires in 2002.
I thank the Commissioner in advance for a clear reply on this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=298 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are today debating one part of the overall package of reforms in European competition law.
Mirroring the trend in the United States since the end of the last century, the European Union's anti-trust authority has become the spearhead of the EU.
We need rules to safeguard the free market and to provide protection against monopolistic situations.
Only competition can guarantee the lowest possible price for the consumer, quality, free access to the market, and, of course, innovation and jobs.
<P>
Commissioner, you quite rightly referred several times to the support which Parliament has offered up to now in its contacts with the relevant departments.
The Commission can also count on Parliament playing a constructive part in future work on the reform of competition law.
This of course includes a detailed analysis of the present communication which deals with vertical restraints on distribution.
As a matter of principle, it is of course right to frame practical block exemption regulations. Let me say it again, practical.
It is probably easier to assess the internal market situation by judging the impact of vertical agreements than by applying strict formal criteria, particularly as small economic operators would then benefit from simplified formalities.
And we would be well advised to convince all sectors of the need for such a reform.
<P>
The rapporteur, Marianne Thyssen, quite rightly points out that there is absolutely no obstacle either to exceptions being made or to sector-specific approaches being adopted for those sectors in which the existing arrangements work to the total satisfaction of economic operators.
Some distributional restraints reflect an economic requirement, for example because of the scale of investment or the consequent rate of return.
At any rate, changes in sensitive areas should involve appropriate transitional periods.
In my country alone, assets measurable in billions are dependent on this approach.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=299 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, Commissioner, it is certainly laudable that the Commission, and above all the Commissioner responsible, Mr Van Miert - who is not with us today but to whom I should like to say that he for one clearly cannot be accused of having lost control of his administration - is seeking to ensure that the Treaty is properly applied in order to avoid any distortion of competition in the single market.
<P>
Nevertheless, we must guard against being over-zealous by questioning something that has been shown to work effectively, especially if this review of competition policy on vertical restrictions threatens to jeopardise a whole sector which, thanks to its exclusive distribution contracts, and beer contracts in particular, has functioned perfectly well thus far, to the satisfaction of the breweries on the one hand and the cafés, restaurants and hotels on the other.
As our rapporteur, Mrs Thyssen, very clearly highlighted, the breweries invest in the buildings and equipment of their clients safe in the knowledge that they can then sell their perishable products there.
The owners of cafés, restaurants and hotels benefit from these investments which they are unable to finance or finance in advance themselves.
What is the harm in that?
<P>
The Commission must understand, and give us the assurance, that any reform must ensure that a brewery operator can conclude beer delivery contracts for at least 10 years, given the considerable volume of investments in this sector and the relatively long period before they yield a return.
<P>
In sectors such as beer, and also hydrocarbons, where the present approach is satisfactory to economic operators, either an exception must be made to the general rule or a sector-specific approach adopted.
There can be no question of giving the Commission carte blanche in this field.
<P>
This is why we want to hear from the Commission that it will accept Parliament's argument and review its position.
In a small country such as mine, Mr President, a new regulation on market thresholds could simply drive our breweries out of business.
This must not be allowed to happen and the Commission must understand this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=300 NAME="van den Broek">
The approval of the Green Paper in January 1997 marked the start of the Commission's review of its competition policy in relation to distribution agreements.
Since then we have received support for this review in the course of what has been a very open dialogue with Parliament.
This support for one of the most important European competition policy reforms is clearly of great importance.
The two proposals for Council regulations on the agenda today represent a second step in this process and should make it possible for the Commission to adopt new measures with regard to distribution agreements.
I thank the rapporteur, Mrs Thyssen, for the support she has given the Commission's proposals in her report.
<P>
Once the Council has approved the Council regulation, the Commission will draw up a proposal for a block regulation covering all vertical agreements below a certain market threshold.
At the same time it will propose draft directives for those agreements not covered by the block exemption.
The European Parliament will be informed of both proposals before the Commission adopts the final texts.
The Commission supports a number of the amendments that have been tabled.
Let me tell you which amendments the Commission has difficulty with and cannot support.
The Commission cannot accept Amendment No 2 on Regulation No 19/65 or Amendment No 1 on Regulation No 17.
It is not the case that small and medium-sized enterprises in the beer and petrol sector may suffer adverse effects as a result of the policy review.
SMEs in all sectors will benefit from the deregulation while the use of market share thresholds will ensure that dominant companies are unable to block off the market to new entrants.
<P>
This is why a number of breweries and beer wholesalers support the policy review whereas some dominant players are opposed.
There are a number of beer markets where market dominance seems to be a problem, which only highlights the need to treat this sector just like any other.
However, the directives will take into account the specific situation of long-term investments in these and other sectors.
For the same reason the Commission is unable to support Amendment No 3 on Regulation No 19/65.
There should also be no need to stress that sector-specific regulations remain possible as these are always possible.
<P>
The Commission also has objections to Amendments Nos 3 and 4 concerning the principle of legal privilege for in-house counsel.
The law protects the confidentiality of written communication between an independent counsel and a company, therefore rendering it impossible for the Commission to use such documents as proof in applying European rules of competition.
This protection is usually known as legal privilege.
On the other hand, documents received or written by in-house counsel for the enterprise for which he works are not protected.
The proposed amendments propose extending the principle of legal privilege to include in-house counsel.
The Commission recognises the importance of this question but is unable to support the amendments, for three main reasons.
<P>
First of all, this question lies beyond the scope of the present policy review which is concerned with competition policy as it relates to vertical agreements.
The Commission's wide-ranging consultation in connection with its Green Paper did not include the question of legal privilege for in-house counsel.
Accepting these amendments would mean changing the subject of the present legislative procedure and would result in a decision without prior consultation with all the parties involved.
<P>
Secondly, we are at present busy considering an extensive reform of Regulation No 17, including a review of the Commission's powers of investigation.
If any changes need to be made to the principle of legal privilege, it should be done in this framework.
<P>
Thirdly, we do not believe that now is the time to resolve the question of legal privilege for in-house counsel.
The proposed extension of this principle requires a new European status for in-house counsel, based on comparable rules on professional ethics and discipline.
It will take some time to do this.
<P>
Mr President, Mrs Thyssen has now supplemented her report with five or six questions, the first of which I propose to answer now, but I would ask Mrs Thyssen if she would be prepared to accept a written reply to the other questions tomorrow.
I have noted them down here but in order to save time I should like to give a written reply.
<P>
As to Mrs Lulling's question about the compelling reasons for changing the rules for the beer sector, the answer is that the present block exemption authorises market monopoly.
No distinction is made as to whether a brewery controls 5 %, 30 % or 90 % of the cafés.
That is not good policy as it does not protect competition.
The present block exemption is also unnecessarily detailed in its formal requirements, resulting in unnecessary legal uncertainty.
A good example of this is the British market.
If there is no market monopoly then people have no reason to fear new regulations.
This concludes my reply.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=301 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, I have one more question, or rather a request for clarification.
I would have been interested to know, and this has already been touched upon, how geographical catchment areas are to be defined for economic operators.
How do you define local, regional, national and pan-European?
It seems to me that this is an essential criterion for exemption, so perhaps we could have a written answer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=302 NAME="van den Broek">
I should also like to give a written reply to this question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=303 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, I do not agree with the Commissioner's reply either, but I know that Mr van den Broek is not responsible, but Mr Van Miert.
It is not possible to set thresholds in a small country such as mine where a small brewery can dominate, but in a very limited market, whereas a major brewery such as 'Bitburger', which is just next door to us and which is in a much stronger position and has a much bigger turnover, is not considered to be dominant because Germany is huge in comparison with the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
It will be the death of our breweries, and this must not be allowed to happen.
We will also discuss this with Mr Van Miert.
I do not want to attack Mr van den Broek.
It is not his sector, but we cannot accept answers like that.
It is not being responsible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=304 NAME="Thyssen">
Mr President, I will be brief.
Of course I am prepared to accept written answers to my questions, but there is one question to which I should have liked to receive an oral reply because I believe it is important for this to be given in public.
The question is whether the Commission will give an undertaking that its services responsible for competition policy will come to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy before the general block exemption regulation is finally adopted and before the guidelines are decided, and whether the Commission is ready to present the proposals to Parliament and we will have the chance to draw up another report on this.
I feel that this is important if we are to consider the specific points raised by my colleagues in greater detail.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=305 NAME="van den Broek">
On what Mrs Lulling said, it does indeed seem advisable, as she herself suggested, to take this point up with Commissioner Van Miert.
I would of course like to give her a satisfactory answer now, but she has recognised that at the present time this is not really expected of me.
<P>
In reply to Mrs Thyssen, I would say that I thought I had answered her first question in my speech.
From what I have gathered here, this block exemption is under a certain time pressure at the moment, so any consultation must take place within a very short period.
The present block exemptions expire at the end of the year.
<P>
Finally, I should like to say that where Mrs Thyssen talks about consultation, if I heard correctly, I myself thought Mr Van Miert was thinking more about providing information, though of course information can also lead to an exchange of views.
This is simply how I see it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=306 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Thyssen">
Mr President, this is simply to say that in any event we plan to work very hard and fast during the coming parliamentary term with those Members of Parliament who are returned, or who very much hope to return.
But we would very much like the opportunity to have an exchange of views on this issue before any final decision is taken.
It was in this spirit that I drew up my report.
In faithful cooperation with the Commission's services I limited myself to the legal aspects on the agenda, precisely because we had received an undertaking that we would be able to return to the details later.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=307 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Thyssen.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
Mr van den Broek has asked for the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=308 NAME="van den Broek">
I have a somewhat unusual request to do with the subject of enlargement which preceded the present item on the agenda.
It was Mr Speciale, the rapporteur on Slovenia, who drew my attention to my mistake. I referred to a number of areas in which Slovenia had fallen behind in preparations for accession, but I failed to mention the following positive points which I would like to be added to the report on the previous subject if this is possible.
The words are as follows: since the publication of the interim report, however, more progress has been made, in other words more progress in the preparations for enlargement.
A number of important laws have been passed, including in the areas of VAT, excise, company law and the bank act. A government programme has also been approved for 82 priority laws in connection with the acquis communautaire which will be enacted before the end of this year by means of shortened parliamentary procedures.
Mr President, I would very much appreciate it if the rapporteur can be borne out on that point, and I also offer my apologies to Mr Speciale for this omission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=309 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr van den Broek.
Your comments will be noted in the Minutes.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, we have now come to the end of our agenda for this night sitting, and I should like to thank the House's services for their invaluable assistance during what has been a long and busy day.
<P>
The sitting was closed at 11.50 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Janssen van Raay">
On Rules 2, 5 and 119 of the Rules of Procedure.
I am here, but I refuse to take part in the roll-call votes in protest at the fact that the Quaestors have failed to take a decision for the appeal proceedings before the Court in Luxembourg, which I requested in writing last August, on Mr Chamier's decision unlawfully to reduce my general parliamentary allowances.
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<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Your comments will be included in the Minutes of the sitting.
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<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, yesterday the war in Yugoslavia claimed its greatest number of victims.
Seventy innocent Albanian-speaking citizens of Yugoslavia, among them women and children, were killed by NATO bombs.
I do not know if we should pay our respects to them.
You can decide.
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<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
It seems to me that the House has extended and is daily extending its sympathy to the victims - to all the victims - of the conflict.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="Balfe">
Mr President, on a point of order.
I have a rather mundane and minor point.
Could my name be added to those who were present?
You will see that I was present because I voted in all of the roll-call votes, but I am not on the list.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
It will be done, Mr Balfe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="McMahon">
Mr President, I have a rather mundane point as well.
Yesterday, during the vote on my report and Mr Chanterie's report, Mr Collins reported to the House that there was a photographer in the balcony photographing individual Members' papers and voting lists.
I would like to know what the outcome of these investigations were, particularly given the amount of lobbying which I received concerning my report.
I wonder whether representatives of the oil companies or the bus companies are trying to get a squint at what the Socialist voting lists were.
Could the Bureau let us know the outcome of their investigations into this please?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
As you know, Mr McMahon, after Mr Collins pointed out what was happening, Parliament's officials ejected the photographer.
We are of course able to provide the information you asked for and you can even have it in writing if you like.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, yesterday morning, during the vote on the resolution on the Berlin summit, Parliament adopted two amendments: Amendments Nos 18 and 19.
I would like to ask that, before they are approved and forwarded to the institutions to which they are addressed, you have the competent services check that there is in fact a link between a resolution on the Berlin summit and Amendments Nos 18 and 19 which the House adopted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
I imagine that you mean Parliament's legal service.
I shall do as you request.
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<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Bru Purón">
Mr President, on my return to Parliament I have noted that it is particularly difficult to move through the corridors, especially when voting is about to take place.
Of course, I am not suggesting that a one-way system be introduced or that Members walk about with a bell, but I do think that the great many visitors to this Parliament should let Members through who obviously wish to get to the Hemicycle on time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
You are right that this is a problem.
We need to strike a balance between the old days when we had to ask people to come and visit us and the current situation where we have so many visitors because the European Parliament has grown in importance, including as a result of our own work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="Chichester">
Mr President, I was given to understand that the President was going to be in the chair this morning at this time and I hope he is not unavoidably detained.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="President">
I do not know what problems you can be referring to, Mr Chichester; at any rate, it has long been scheduled that I would be in the Chair at the start of this sitting.
I do not know where you have your information from.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Chichester">
I had an appointment to see the President this morning at 9.30.
He advised me that he was unable to keep that appointment because he was going to be taking the chair at that time.
So I was just expressing anxiety and concern that he is not able to be here in the chair.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
Well, look at that: you mentioned the President and here he is!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Konrad">
Mr President, the Quaestors have informed Members that we shall be in our offices for the last time in May before the removal takes place.
Now I have just discovered this morning that groups of visitors are already being shown round the new buildings.
As a Member of Parliament, I must say that I have the distinct feeling that we have been left in the dark here, because we have had no opportunity for a preview of the new buildings, let alone examples of our offices.
I regard that as a great mistake, and I ask that we find a means of rectifying that situation as quickly as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="President">
I think I may prove you wrong on that point, Mr Konrad.
All the groups have had the chance to let individual Members visit the new building: they did this at different times and in different ways, but the opportunity was provided.
As you know, there are some problems with the completion of the building and the timing of our move.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bianco">
Mr President, I should like to raise a slightly different matter.
Rumour has it that there is every likelihood that the Statute for Members will be adopted by Parliament at the next part-session.
Now I think that, if that does indeed happen, it would be the last opportunity and could create difficulties if the Members' Statute were not respected in the individual countries.
It might perhaps be helpful if the President were to send a note to the various national governments and parliaments, pointing out the problem that could arise, in other words a discrepancy between the decisions of the European Parliament and any decisions on incompatibility which might be different from the ones which we have taken.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="President">
As you know, this is an issue that is being looked at carefully by the President-in-Office of the Council.
I am sure that the President of Parliament will provide all honourable Members with up-to-date information on it, and that will also enable us to consider the possible implications which you mention.
<P>
The Minutes were approved
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
1998 annual reports
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0119/99 by Mrs De Esteban Martín, on behalf of the Committee on Petitions, on the annual report on the activities of the European Ombudsman in 1998 (C4-0138/99); -A4-0117/99 by Mr Newman, on behalf of the Committee on Petitions, on the deliberations of the Committee on Petitions during the parliamentary year 1998-1999.Before we embark on this joint debate, the European Ombudsman - whom I once again welcome to the House - will present his annual activity report and also his special report.
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Söderman, the European Ombudsman.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="Söderman">
Mr President, let me begin by saying how grateful I am for the opportunity to address the European Parliament concerning my annual report for 1998.
This is the fourth annual report of the European Ombudsman and the last to be presented during this legislature.
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When the annual report for 1997 was dealt with by Parliament, some critical voices suggested that the Ombudsman had success in only a small number of cases.
This view was reached on the basis of all the complaints received, including those which were outside the mandate.
I do not believe that this way of judging the results of an Ombudsman is really fair.
There is not much to be done about a complaint which is outside the mandate other than to advise the complainant or transfer the complaint to a competent body.
We have done that in almost 80 % of such cases so that citizens do not usually leave us empty-handed.
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In many cases these complaints could be dealt with effectively by an Ombudsman or a similar body at national level.
We therefore try consistently to promote the idea that these non-judicial bodies be encouraged and assisted in dealing with complaints from European citizens concerning Community law.
Although there have been calls to broaden the mandate of the European Ombudsman to deal also with complaints against national authorities, especially in cases concerning freedom of movement, I still believe it is preferable to create an effective system of cooperation with the national ombudsmen and similar bodies.
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During 1998 the Ombudsman's office received 1372 new complaints, compared with 1181 in 1997 and 842 in 1996.
We also closed 185 enquiries with a reasoned decision as compared to 101 in 1997.
In 45 % of these cases the institution settled the matter, a friendly solution was found or the case was closed with a critical remark.
In 1997 and 1996 the figures were 40 % and 35 %.
During 1998 no maladministration was found in 52 % of the cases in which an inquiry was carried out.
A finding of no maladministration is not always a negative result for the complainant.
The institution or body has to explain its behaviour to the complainant and, in some cases, even manages to convince the complainant that it has acted correctly.
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Today is the right moment to try to summarise what we have achieved together so far in cooperation with the Committee on Petitions and the European Parliament.
Firstly, we have achieved a practice of cooperation in dealing with complaints and petitions which has been described in the annual reports of both bodies.
Furthermore, we have developed a fruitful dialogue through the committee's reports on the annual reports of the Ombudsman, beginning with the first report by Mrs Ahern, through the reports of Mr Papakyriazis, Mr Newman and, this year, Mrs De Esteban Martín.
For example, the call in the Papakyriazis report for a clear definition of the term 'maladministration' led me to offer a definition in the annual report for 1997.
Following Mr Newman's report, the European Parliament adopted a resolution welcoming the definition.
The practice of smooth and efficient dealings with the Ombudsman's reports in the European Parliament has now been properly and formally established by bringing Parliament's Rules of Procedure in line with the Statute of the Ombudsman and by expressly providing for the competent committee - the Committee on Petitions - to deal with both the Ombudsman's annual and possible special reports.
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Secondly, an own-initiative inquiry into public access to documents, supported by the committee through the report by Mrs Thors and by the European Parliament, has led all the Community institutions and bodies concerned to adopt rules on public access to documents, except for the Court of Justice.
We have recently written to the European Central Bank to enquire if it has already adopted rules on public access to documents.
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Thirdly, I should like to refer to the idea of a code of good administrative behaviour, which was first mentioned in the Perry report on the Committee on Petitions' own activities for 1996-1997 and supported in the Newman report on the Ombudsman's annual report for 1997.
It appears likely that such a code will soon become a reality, as the European Commission has adopted the draft in its first reading before the Commissioners resigned.
The new Commission may of course even improve the draft before adopting it.
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Fourthly, we have managed to improve the administrative procedure the European Commission uses in its role as the guardian of the Treaty when dealing with complaints or petitions from European citizens.
The procedure has become more open and effective as a result.
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I should also like to say a few words about the recent revelations and accusations about fraud and corruption in the European administration, in particular within the European Commission.
An open administration makes most cases of fraud and corruption very difficult to carry out and extremely easy to detect.
A closed administration, on the other hand, that conducts its business through secret meetings and the holding of secret files and documents creates precisely the murky circumstances that enable fraud and corruption to flourish.
So openness is an effective tool in preventing and fighting fraud and corruption.
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In the present administrative practice, there is still an old-fashioned principle of exaggerated hierarchy.
This principle, when applied, leads to a lack of motivation amongst those staff who really interact with the citizens.
It makes all kinds of malpractice easier because the properly-acting staff cannot speak about their concerns over the activities of the institution.
If civil servants cannot speak and write about their daily work without the consent of their superiors, this does not encourage a motivated and sound atmosphere in the workplace.
So more transparency and less old-fashioned hierarchy would give more motivation to the staff and spare the EU administration many of its troubles.
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In improving transparency, it is essential that the new regulation on public access to documents under the Amsterdam Treaty be adopted as soon as it is possible to do so.
It must contain modern and comprehensive principles in this domain.
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It is also essential that the Statute of the European Ombudsman contain a clear provision to give the Ombudsman the right to inspect all necessary files and documents, if unnecessary and time-consuming disputes with the institutions are to be avoided.
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I am pleased that the Committee on Petitions supports my initiative in this respect in the De Esteban report.
I hope that this position will be confirmed by the European Parliament.
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I should like to use this opportunity to thank all the Community institutions and bodies for another year of constructive cooperation.
I wish especially to address the Commission and its member responsible, Mrs Gradin, and thank her for her commitment to an open administration.
My thanks are due also to the chairman of the Committee on Petitions, Mr Fontana, and all the members of the committee for their supportive attitude in their contacts with the Ombudsman's office.
Special thanks go to Mrs De Esteban for her professional and competent work in drafting the report now before you.
Thank you for your attention.
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Applause
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<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Söderman.
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I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mrs De Esteban Martín.
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<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="De Esteban Martín">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should firstly like to congratulate the Ombudsman's office and its services on the transparency and speed with which it has provided details of its activities not only to Parliament and the Committee on Petitions but also directly to citizens and associations in the Member States.
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This House has always defended the institution of the Ombudsman as guarantor of the protection of citizens' rights in cases of possible maladministration on the part of Community institutions and bodies. It has also always defended the need to enhance the relations between these institutions and the public.
However, protecting the rights of Community citizens would not be enough if closer collaboration and cooperation were not fostered between Parliament, through the Committee on Petitions, as the committee responsible, and the Ombudsman.
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It is no coincidence that the defence of citizens' rights is the chief aim of both institutions. This collaboration should therefore continue to guarantee these rights and the democratic work carried out by the Union in order to enhance the credibility of our administration.
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The institution of the Ombudsman constitutes one of the most important elements for European citizenship. It is also important in improving the democratic control of the Community administration, democratic control that can be seen as the task of this House, as the body which directly represents the people of this Community.
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Turning to the annual report presented by the Ombudsman, we must highlight the rise in the number of complaints submitted, a development the Ombudsman himself mentioned.
A total of 1 372 complaints were lodged this year, 191 more than last year, which goes to show how important the Ombudsman is in the eyes of the public in terms of rectifying the alleged irregularities that may occur in the administration of the European Union.
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Over the years, Parliament has noted the increasing interest the public has taken in the European institutions and how the decisions taken here affect their daily lives.
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Making administration more transparent and accessible to the public is one of the main aims of all the national administrations in the Member States.
Therefore, the Community administration should not aim at anything less and should endeavor to make such accessibility a reality.
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This House has adopted various reports on the transparency and simplification of Community law which have brought us closer to achieving this aim.
An important step that needs to be taken to create harmony between the Community institutions and our citizens is to actually draw up a code of good administrative behaviour to increase the level of trust between officials and the public and to ensure that the code is accessible and easily understood by all.
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However, we must be aware that this code should not overlook the specific nature of each of the Community institutions.
For example, I believe that within the European Parliament, given the nature of the institution, such a code should be negotiated with all the political groups.
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With this same aim of promoting collaboration between the institutions and the public, it is important to highlight the involvement of citizens in the preliminary infringement proceedings provided for in Article 169 of the Treaty.
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Similarly, I think that it is vital for the Ombudsman's work to ensure that his statute is amended, as I mention in the report, in order to allow him as effective access as possible to the documents related to the inquiries he is involved in.
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I believe that the work carried out by the Ombudsman in the field of information and communication serves as a good example for other European institutions, especially as regards the use of new communication technologies, for example, the use of the Internet to make the institution more accessible to the public.
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However, and this is something that the report also refers to, we need to make greater efforts to provide citizens with proper information on their rights so that no one is prevented from exercising his rights through ignorance of how to proceed.
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This information should be provided by the Community institutions through the press and the audiovisual media. In this way, we would avoid, among other things, a situation whereby more than 69 % of the complaints submitted to the Ombudsman in recent years have been beyond his remit, for example, the many complaints every year about restrictions on the freedom of movement.
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In this connection, I should like to acknowledge the efforts of the Ombudsman in his relations with national and regional ombudsmen.
Such collaboration will clearly enhance the role played by these authorities and might lead to a system whereby those matters that one authority is not empowered to deal with may be passed on to the relevant body elsewhere, which will be able to resolve them more effectively.
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In order to achieve all of the aims that we have outlined, the office of the European Ombudsman must respond effectively to our citizens, which is why the report congratulates Mr Söderman on the commitment he has shown in trying to ensure that his secretariat functions properly.
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Although his efforts are appreciated, it is clear that for the secretariat to function properly, we must firstly have sufficient financial resources and we must also draw up a statute for the officials that work for the Ombudsman.
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Applause
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<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="Newman">
Mr President, the right to petition is an important aspect of European citizenship.
The right to petition can be exercised by all residents of the European Union, not just EU citizens, and by organisations based in the European Union.
Petitions are admissible if they come within the fields of activity of the European Community.
This definition is wide enough for the Committee on Petitions to apply common sense and political judgment in deciding whether a petition is admissible or not.
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During the past five years of this mandate 10 million people from all 15 European Union Member States have signed over 6 500 petitions.
These fall into two broad categories: those raising individual problems and those raising broader policy questions.
The areas most concerned are social security and pension problems often arising out of worker migration, free movement of persons, recognition of qualifications, taxation including VAT, environmental issues and animal welfare issues.
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However, the Committee on Petitions has only administrative and secretarial support.
It does not have an investigatory staff.
Therefore, our investigations into the grievances of petitioners rely on officials of the Commission and the Member States' representations to the European Union.
The Commission officials cooperate greatly in our work and we thank them for this. Nevertheless, for those minority of petitions which find fault with the Commission, it is obviously not good practice that we are so reliant on the Commission staff.
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As for Member State governments - who do not seem to be represented today - through their representations to the European Union or collectively as the Council, their cooperation with the committee is usually only the minimum level possible and they are not prepared to send officials to the committee to argue the merits of petitions with committee members.
Member States need to be more positive and to reply fully and promptly to requests for information and action addressed to them by the Commission concerning petitions.
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Naturally during our meetings the committee members have and do exercise the most vital role in questioning and urging on the Commission officials and in the decisions we make.
In fact, if it appears that petitioners are being unfairly treated or fobbed off we take up the cudgels on their behalf.
In a number of cases every year a petition leads to the opening of formal infringement proceedings under Article 169 of the Treaty against Member States not implementing European Union law correctly, to the detriment of our citizens.
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The analysis of the infringement procedures since 1996 shows a minimum of 97 total cases linked to petitions out of 535 cases relating to direct complaints for which the Commission sent letters of formal notice thus initiating infringement proceedings.
These figures indicate that petitions play an important role in the detection and handling of infringement cases.
In its annual report on the application of Community law, the Commission should clearly identify the cases where infringement procedures under Article 169 were initiated through petitions.
This is underestimated at the moment.
The Member States must improve the action taken in cases in which infringements are reported.
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The European Parliament's information brochure for the public on the right to petition states that petitions often reveal practices in a Member State which are contrary to the letter or the spirit of Community legislation.
In some cases the involvement of the Community authorities has prompted the national authorities to apply Community law more correctly.
As a result of petitions the European Parliament has had a positive effect on the daily lives of citizens and has been able to act to find a solution to actual cases involving matters within the Community remit.
This brochure needs circulating much more widely than at present.
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I should like to finish by saying that, as the only MEP with continuous full and active membership of the European Parliament's Committee on Petitions since its formation twelve-and-a-half years ago in January 1987, I hope that MEPs elected to the new Parliament will ensure that they continue to take seriously the right of European citizens and residents to petition the European Parliament.
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As this is likely to be my final speech to the European Parliament meeting in plenary session, I want to thank all those people whom I have worked with over 15 years' membership of the European Parliament and, in particular, the good people of Greater Manchester Central who under the fine individual constituency system I have had the honour to represent since 1984.
I thank you and them.
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Applause
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<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="President">
Mr Newman, I am sure all colleagues would want to thank you for the work you have done in this Parliament and, in particular, I am well aware of the vast amount of work you have done in the Committee on Petitions.
The first time I came to this Parliament I had the opportunity to meet with you in that committee and we had the opportunity to work together for our citizens, which has always been your main interest.
This House thanks you for your work.
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<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schmidbauer">
Mr President, I heartily endorse your words of gratitude to Mr Newman.
As he told us, he has been a member of the Committee on Petitions since it was created in January 1987.
I entered Parliament in March of the same year, and ever since then I have been a member of the Committee on Petitions, where I have been able to observe his efforts and his achievements on behalf of the European people.
I should like to express my sincere thanks to him for that and for this annual report.
May I also thank Mrs De Esteban Martín for her report on the Ombudsman's annual report.
Both of them, like Mr Söderman himself, have presented reports which show very comprehensively that dialogue with the people is an indispensable element of European democracy and will remain so.
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What this means for us is that the Committee on Petitions is the interface between the European people and their Parliament when it comes to enforcing Community law.
Regrettably, that fact is all too often disregarded by national, regional and local authorities, whether out of unawareness or because of a combination of bureaucratic power and national self-seeking.
By acting as that link, we have been able to assist in some cases, for example in securing recognition of academic or professional qualifications and provision of welfare benefits, as well as in solving petitioners' specific problems.
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So that this direct contact with the citizens of the Union continues to be guaranteed in future, we in the committee are unanimous in advocating the preservation of a separate Committee on Petitions.
In order to overcome the general information deficit among the people of Europe as regards their rights, we call on the relevant administrative departments of Parliament and the Commission to establish telephone advice centres in the Member States, and in particular to go on developing the whole sphere of information and communication technology with all the opportunities it offers.
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Our cooperation with the Ombudsman has always been extremely fruitful.
For that I should like to reiterate my sincere thanks to Mr Söderman who, in his wrangling with European administrative bodies, has never been deterred by the initial placatory answers he has received from administrators but has insisted on a satisfactory response.
His initiatives and enquiries have brought greater transparency and openness to the European bureaucracy.
Indeed, the draft code of conduct for good administrative practice which the Commission presented in January was developed as a result of his own initiative, together with that of Mr Perry.
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We therefore call for the Ombudsman to be given access to all documentation in the pursuit of his enquiries and for all civil servants to provide him with the information he needs, rather than having to refer him to their superiors; these measures must be implemented so that the Ombudsman can work without unnecessary obstacles.
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I am convinced that cooperation between the Committee on Petitions, with its scope for intervention, and the Ombudsman, with his wide remit, will become an increasingly important factor in the promotion of democracy and the enforcement of citizens' rights in the European Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="Perry">
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, Mr Ombudsman, it is a pleasure to be able to agree with everyone today in saying that the office of the European Ombudsman has so far proved to be a very important feature of EU life. Having an Ombudsman facilitates openness and transparency in the Union.
Perhaps I might mention a few of the many successful initiatives taken.
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First of all, we had the own-initiative report on public access to documents; as a result, virtually all the institutions now have some kind of code of conduct.
Secondly, the Central Bank has been approached with a request for access to its documents.
Thirdly, Council of Ministers documents will in future be deemed to include presidency papers.
Fourthly, the absence of an inventory of documents within the Commission has been branded maladministration.
And fifth, the Council has now drawn up a list of measures adopted under the third pillar.
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Once a functioning Commission is in place, we should soon see a new regulation on public access to documents. Some very significant parameters have already been established by the measures and initiatives to which I have referred.
It is unfortunate that the whole process of the Commission's resignation has noticeably slowed down this work.
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It is also a pity that the decisions taken so far by the Council on public access to third pillar documents have proved relatively insignificant in their impact.
What are we, the public, set to gain from learning about regulatory texts that have already been adopted and are available over the Internet?
We also need to know about future plans.
Over recent days, much attention has rightly been focused on the 'Enfopoldo' document. This comprises a draft version of a text designed to regulate the interception of communications via the new media, together with a draft convention on mutual assistance between the Member States in respect of criminal cases.
The whole exercise has been shrouded in secrecy; the Council's new pledges have been of scant value in this particular instance.
It is not enough to keep us informed of when third pillar meetings are being held and what measures have actually been taken.
We also need access to information on matters pending, and we should be given details of initiatives coming from the working groups, the presidency and the Member States.
The debate on the Austrian 'strategy document' also pinpointed shortcomings in the Council's arrangements for transparency.
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As for police and judicial cooperation under the third pillar, many measures touch on the fundamental rights of ordinary citizens.
I therefore look forward to the time when, with the backing of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Ombudsman will be able to envisage overseeing a body such as Europol.
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We were told yesterday that the German Presidency intends to come forward soon with a timetable for the intergovernmental conference.
This will be an opportunity for reviewing the status of the Ombudsman. His role must be strengthened in the manner called for in the De Esteban Martín report.

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Equally, we need to ensure continuation of the good cooperation observed in the past between the Committee on Petitions and the Ombudsman. The latter will need to forge cooperation with ombudsmen or equivalent bodies in the Member States, in this way facilitating the fight against breaches of civil liberties in the actual application of Community law.
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Finally, let me say a few words about the vote that will be taking place today on the future of the Committee on Petitions.
This committee must be allowed to continue its work, but I hope that the Commission will be able to provide comparable assurances on the processing of petitions to those it has given with regard to complaints under Article 169 of the Treaty.
I am particularly gratified that Commissioner Monti - who takes a special interest in this article - is with us today and has undertaken to speed up the procedures governing complaints.
Sadly, it would appear that the Commission has been listening to the Member States and is slowing down the processing of complaints within the Commission.
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I also feel strongly that the newly constituted Committee on Petitions should exercise scrutiny over internal administration, although I concede that the current committee worked very hard indeed to speed up the handling of petitions.
But it still takes far too long for a complaint to reach the Committee on Petitions at the moment.
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In conclusion, may I join the chorus of speakers who have expressed their heartfelt thanks to our former chairman, Mr Newman. He has done an excellent job in demonstrating the importance of this committee.
And as he pointed out, 10 million citizens have availed themselves of its existence during the life of this Parliament.
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<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, I shall probably not use all of the five minutes allocated because I am not used to having such a long time to speak and usually have to keep my speeches brief.
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I should like to begin by expressing my delight that the proposal put forward by the Conference of Presidents, which will be put to the vote at midday, includes - among its 17 remaining committees - the Committee on Petitions in its own right and not as secondary to another committee.
In my view, the Committee on Petitions is vital for the citizens of Europe.
I fully agree with the rapporteur, Mr Newman, that this committee is constitutional in nature and should be maintained within Parliament's future committee structure.
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A short time ago, Mr Newman himself headed a delegation from the Committee on Petitions - a delegation that included our colleagues Laura de Esteban and Barbara Schmidbauer - on a visit to the Doñana park. This visit was aimed precisely at allaying the fears of the local population that had been expressed in a great many petitions submitted to the Committee on Petitions, fears relating to the Doñana national park, which is a biosphere reserve.
While we were there we had the opportunity to meet not only representatives of the institutions involved - who explained the problems the area was experiencing - but also the ecological groups and members of the public who had expressed their concern at what was happening.
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I am therefore of the opinion that bringing the European institutions closer to the citizens' concerns sets an excellent example and it should continue indefinitely.
In my view, this is one of the lessons to be learned from the work both of the Committee on Petitions and Mr Newman, who we were delighted to accompany to the Doñana area.
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I refer to this issue precisely because my relationship with the Committee on Petitions is based on the work I carry out within the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
Most petitions received by the Committee on Petitions relate to social security, the internal market or the environment.
The fact that so many petitions are received in relation to the environment clearly proves the extent to which the people and the non-governmental organisations - who submit the complaints - are concerned about preserving the natural environment.
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What problems arise in dealing with these petitions?
The rapporteur and other Members have already referred to the problem of how slow the process is.
In environmental issues, and I do not know if this is true of other areas, such slow progress can have irreversible effects.
When a complaint is made that a road is going to be built in a natural area and decisions on it are not taken immediately, the road might still go ahead although the final decision may rule that it is illegal.
As a result, the fact that the process is so slow becomes much more evident in this field.
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Therefore, a more effective method of dealing with petitions perhaps needs to be found between the Committee on Petitions, the European Commission and the Member States during the next parliamentary term. Perhaps we will have to ensure that the Member States comply with the demands of Parliament and the European Commission immediately rather than confusing the issue still further by taking far too long to deal with matters since this might have negative effects.
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If this does not happen, the public will feel increasingly frustrated about the concerns they express to the Committee on Petitions regarding the various problems that exist.
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The successful coordination that has been developed between the European Ombudsman and the Committee on Petitions must also be welcomed.
Both the Committee on Petitions and the Ombudsman should have their own independent budget to be used reasonably and sufficient staff, as these are two institutions that genuinely uphold the rights of European citizens.
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I also think that we need to develop and draw up a code of good administrative behaviour which would help the Committee on Petitions and the European Ombudsman in their work and thus help make European integration more meaningful for the people of Europe.
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Mr President, I believe that brings me to the end of what I wanted to say and, as you can see, I still have a minute left to speak.
I find it is impossible to speak for five minutes when I am used to only speaking for one.
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<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ullmann">
Mr President, Ombudsman, Commissioner, it seldom happens that the quality of a rapporteur's work is quite so pleasing as the content of this report.
The European Ombudsman's annual report for 1998 shows that his institution has now become one of the best-functioning and most effective in the European Union.
This applies particularly in terms of closeness to the people, which as we all know is one of the fundamental principles of the European Union.
Mrs De Esteban Martín highlights this point so convincingly in her report that one can only hope it will be very widely read, particularly by those who would be responsible for fulfilling Professor Söderman's requests for his office to have its own budget and for the change of status he has suggested, developments that would enable him to continue his work.
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Against the background of the Commission's resignation, the call made by the Ombudsman for a code of good administrative practice to which citizens would have recourse is extremely topical.
Foremost among the responsible parties I referred to is the European Parliament, since the European Ombudsman is commissioned by Parliament.
One of the duties of the Committee on Petitions is to discharge that responsibility.
How can it do that if it is not adequately equipped for its work?
The Committee on Petitions has already approached the parliamentary administration on this point, although its plea did not elicit much of a response.
Every Member of this House should look at the annexes to Mr Newman's report in particular, which bring home the absurdity of the proposition that the work of the Committee on Petitions could be divided up among other committees.
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I am sorry to say that I must close by asking certain bodies in this House how they feel about the rights of their constituents when they seek to diminish the status of the basic right of petition by abolishing the Committee on Petitions, or when they try to change the name of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and call it the Committee on Legal Affairs and Consumers' Rights.
The people of the Union are citizens first and foremost, then consumers, and any rights they have as consumers surely only exist by virtue of their civil rights.
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Allow me, Mr President, to thank Mr Newman, not only for his instructive and authoritative report but also for the work he has done in this important committee.
I was only on that committee for a short time, but I was able to experience at first hand all those things for which my honourable colleagues have been expressing their gratitude.
Thank you, Mr Newman.
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<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, we too would like to congratulate the Ombudsman and the chairman of the Committee on Petitions, of which I am a member and which I value most highly because it deals with citizens' rights.
We are here to protect those rights because we act on the public's behalf, and it is becoming increasingly necessary for us to be able to hear what they themselves have to say.
The institution of the Ombudsman is answerable to Parliament, which I think is a good thing because it helps him to be independent, a position which he exploits to the full, as we have seen from the report he has presented to Parliament today.
I welcome the fact that he called so strongly for an open administration, and I could not help thinking that officials in various Member States have the right to speak, but this still seems to be taboo here in the European institutions, as we have seen with Mr Van Buitenen.
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The facts have borne this man out, yet the Commission still feels it necessary to continue with disciplinary proceedings against him, and he has been removed from his post in the financial control department where he had done some excellent work.
It was precisely as a result of his work that we in Parliament were able to act and, together with the Committee on Budgetary Control and later the Committee of Independent Experts, arrived at such damning conclusions.
I would therefore strongly urge that we should use all our influence to ensure that Mr Van Buitenen is reinstated.
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I think the Ombudsman certainly made his point in calling for openness and information, and I would like to conclude by urging a change of direction, so that Europe comes to stand not for a bureaucracy behind closed doors, but for democracy and transparency.
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<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Striby">
Mr President, Ombudsman, as is the case every year, the debate on the reports concerning the work of the Committee on Petitions and of the Ombudsman is an opportunity to remind people of how important these two bodies are in terms of establishing trust between the Community institutions and the people of the Member States.
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Recent experience has highlighted, as well as reminding those who had forgotten, that remoteness and a lack of transparency lead to irresponsible behaviour and fraud.
The common good needs to be constantly enhanced by daily realities.
Without this, it risks becoming the confused expression of individual interests.
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By their very nature, the Community institutions are the furthest removed from daily life.
Officials who are lost in the interminable corridors of their offices in Brussels try to draw up uniform rules in all areas that are to be applied to all the different national traditions.
In the worst cases, these texts merely add rules with no European dimension to existing national legislation.
It is therefore not surprising that the implementation of all these absurd Community rules might generate an increasing number of difficulties that form the basis of the appeals lodged to the Committee on Petitions and the Ombudsman.
Both bodies should certainly be granted the necessary resources to function properly. However, is it not more urgent to reform the process of European integration so as to prevent these drifts and the complaints they generate?
Artificial empires always end up collapsing because all too often they forget about the people that are involved.
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Despite their good points, in the future, the Committee on Petitions and the Ombudsman will not be enough to offset the lack of consistency and excesses of a technocratic machine.
This machine will inevitably lead to a rise in the number of problems and complaints from the citizens, who might find it hard to understand why these rules are not useful, realistic or applicable.
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<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papakyriazis">
Mr President, speaking here today, just 58 days away from the elections, and in the dying days of this European Parliament, I feel that the joint debate on the Committee on Petitions and on the European Ombudsman is of special significance and, as a review of the entire five-year term, will serve as a de facto pointer towards the coming elections.
This joint debate will also pass on a heritage to the next European Parliament as it takes over from the current one.
I therefore believe that it is a special honour for us all to take part in today's debate.
It is a joint debate because the Committee on Petitions and the European Ombudsman function jointly.
The operation of these bodies is joint yet distinct, complementary but without their powers overlapping and becoming confused, and with absolute respect for the independence of the European Ombudsman.
<P>
I would like to thank our rapporteurs, Mrs De Esteban Martín and Mr Newman, for their reports which, as always in this committee, are the end product of the collective contribution and work of all its members.
<P>
Mrs De Esteban Martín, I would like to make just one small parenthesis here and thank Mr Newman warmly for the help he has given to all of us through his example, but especially for the help he has given to ensure the smooth operation of this committee, and not just for the 15 years he has served the European Parliament.
<P>
I am very glad that today - and it is perhaps not a coincidence - we will soon be called upon to vote on the continuation of the work of the Committee on Petitions.
I have the feeling that the Committee on Petitions has come out of this period of questioning rebaptised, and precisely because the European Parliament has realised the extent of its contribution.
<P>
Mr Söderman, Mr Perry has referred to your appointment and I will add to what he said by saying that I had the pleasure and the good fortune to vote for you as Ombudsman.
I am delighted that my choice has been vindicated.
I think that Mr Söderman, as someone who has represented the institution, has offered a new creation, a new body, to Europe and to the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="Banotti">
Mr President, I propose to speak about the annex to Mr Newman's report on my work as President's mediator for transnationally abducted children. But first of all I would like to pay tribute to Mr Newman.
He has been a veritable 'British bulldog' in that committee, continually raising his voice in the name of the citizens of the Community.
We will definitely miss you Eddy.
<P>
I had also hoped that I would have a chance to personally thank President Gil-Robles because he has been a continual support to me in my work as mediator for abducted children, and also to thank Mr Söderman for his excellent work as European Ombudsman.
<P>
You will note in the report that in the past year I have dealt with 29 petitions as mediator.
When we receive a petition about abducted children we immediately make contact with the petitioner.
Abducted children are always an emergency and have to be dealt with as such.
They cannot wait to go through the long process of administration.
<P>
Good law exists to deal with the problem of transnationally abducted children. But it is not always implemented in a proper way.
Because of that, I have had an increasingly heavy work load in relation to this issue.
The Council of Ministers should make a point of discussing this as soon as possible so that we can establish some kind of ground rules to respond to the problem.
It is an increasing problem.
<P>
The Hague Convention is meant to do one thing, and one thing only.
It is not a custody hearing on children. It is a piece of legislation that requires children to be returned to the country where they habitually reside, for discussions and decisions about their custody to be worked out.
There is considerable international ignorance about family law and what happens in the event of marital breakdown and children being taken back to a country where they do not normally live.
<P>
We continue to have very serious problems with countries that have not signed the Hague Convention and where there are still a number of abduction cases.
Our big problem lies primarily with countries that have religious courts - but not exclusively.
Many European states do not implement the Hague Convention either in spirit or, indeed, in law.
We have recently had a very significant success concerning a French mother and a German father.
We are very happy with the decision by the German courts. But all too often these cases are heard in front of judges who are either ignorant of or badly informed about the law relating to child abduction.
<P>
We need special courts that will deal with these issues as quickly as possible to prevent the inevitable trauma, particularly to the children, but also to both parents.
Most of these cases are dealt with by national central authorities.
Inevitably I get the cases that have not worked out that way.
All our countries need the Hague Convention.
<P>
In addition to my work in the committee I have also participated, on behalf of Parliament, in a great many international conferences.
An increasing amount of concern is being expressed in all the Member States about the increase in the incidence of child abduction.
I would like to thank Parliament for its assistance in this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
Madam President, I should like to say a few words about the annual report by the Ombudsman and the report by Mrs De Esteban Martín, although I need say very little about the latter.
It is a good report and, overall, I agree with everything it says.
<P>
The office of the Ombudsman is manifestly playing an increasingly important role.
The Ombudsman has a very positive effect on the whole EU system.
I myself have been in contact with him and have met many other people who have approached his office.
They generally seemed happy with the arrangements and their reception, including the manner in which their concerns were dealt with and the speed of response.
Top marks must surely go to a structure which manages to make people feel that they and their complaints have been taken seriously and that they can now take matters forward.
Bearing in mind that quite a number of people experience a sense of powerlessness in the face of the EU institutions, the way in which they are treated matters. And now they have a place to which they can turn.
The Ombudsman's prime merit is - and has always been - to promote greater openness and transparency in the Union as a whole. Let us not underestimate that.
<P>
Turning to the crisis within the Commission, several factors come into play. The situation has in fact been developing for quite some time.
The nub of the problem - and the reason why the Commission had to resign - was of course mismanagement of the Union's finances. There was also a partial loss of control over expenditure.
Yet there is another element which should not be discounted, namely the lack of openness and the particular administrative culture which have predominated hitherto in the Commission.
Many ordinary citizens feel the Commission to be a powerful institution, but one which is closed, insensitive - and sometimes simply arrogant.
When they approach the institution directly, people find it hard to obtain answers and information.
This perception - justified or otherwise - helps to explain attitudes towards the Commission.
An institution which leaves such an impression on people is no longer up to date; change is required.
The idea of a code of good administrative practice is therefore to be welcomed. This initiative should go some way towards remedying and improving the situation.
<P>
The Staff Regulations also need amendment, that much is clear.
EU staff should not need to fear reprisals for drawing attention to mismanagement or exercising criticism. They must be able to have their say - publicly, where necessary.
Otherwise they are operating in a very unsavoury environment.
A change of culture, accompanied by new rules on openness and public access to documents, should bring about a real transformation in the way the administration is run.
<P>
Top of the agenda now should be a strengthening of the office of the Ombudsman.
Two aspects require particular attention, beginning with the financial parameters.
If the office is to be able to handle properly all the complaints that are coming in, it needs long-term planning and an adequately resourced budget.
Secondly, it is self-evident that the Ombudsman must have access to all the documents he needs.
This is essential if a good job of work is to be done.
An immediate increase in resources is therefore necessary.
<P>
As an MEP, I myself am critical of much of what goes on in the EU.
In the case of the Ombudsman, however, I have no criticism to make whatsoever. Instead, I should like to thank Jacob Söderman and his team for the excellent work they do.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Madam President, Mr Ombudsman, Commissioner, I am one of those who feel that the Ombudsman is the European Union's best institution.
He has certainly been responsible for positive developments in the Union's institutional structures, and it is important that he should be given greater powers.
The report mentions freedom of movement. I myself recently met an Irish dentist who had problems practising in Greece.
All such questions should be raised when discussing the Ombudsman's powers.
<P>
The situation regarding public access to documents has improved in the European Union mainly as a result of the efforts of the Ombudsman and the courts.
The legislative bodies have not done very much on the subject as yet, and I fear the Commission's work on the future regulation on transparency has slowed down somewhat.
I should like to ask Commissioner Monti how work is proceeding on the transparency regulation based on the Treaty of Amsterdam, because that will also be an absolutely essential ingredient in solving the institutional crisis caused by the resignation of the Commission.
<P>
Good administration will be essential in solving this crisis.
I have noted to my satisfaction the Ombudsman's positive attitude towards civil servants' freedom to write and say what they wish.
It is vital that the Staff Regulations are interpreted accurately, and changed so that civil servants have a real obligation to highlight any shortcomings they identify in the work of an institution or in their own department.
<P>
Furthermore, producing document registers for all institutions is a very important innovation.
I would point out that the European Parliament must also be a part of this programme of revision and embark on a course of good administration itself.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
Madam President, I completely agree with Mr Söderman that if the EU had had a culture of open administration, whereby the public could inspect the files of its officials once they have been finalised, we would be able to avoid a great deal of fraud and many irregularities.
Officials who know that their files may be scrutinised by the public at any time are sure to be more inclined to administer them correctly.
The EU does not have such a culture of openness, and this is also reflected in the Ombudsman's annual report, which incidentally is well set out, clear and meticulous.
This is gratifying, since we are after all talking about consolidating an institution which is still very new, but already well known and valued.
Nevertheless, there has been insufficient political will to give the Ombudsman proper working conditions.
Incredible as it may sound, it is evident from the annual report that even he, who is supposed to be the public's guarantor with regard to the EU administration, simply does not have full access to Commission and Council documents.
It is therefore clearly necessary to amend Article 3(2) of the Ombudsman's Statute, so that he has full and unimpeded access to all the relevant documents.
To have a provision whereby the Community institutions can refuse to give the Ombudsman access to documents either by pleading duly substantiated grounds of secrecy, or because officials and other employees are speaking on behalf of and in accordance with instructions from their administrations, is not just unnecessary, it is extremely inappropriate.
It is high time for a revision of the legal basis which underlies the Ombudsman's work.
Otherwise, the institution is giving the people of the EU a completely false sense of the guarantee of due process of law.
It is therefore particularly important to support paragraph 6 in Mrs De Esteban's motion for a resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="Monti">
Madam President, Mr Söderman, ladies and gentlemen, under the Treaty on European Union, it is Parliament and not the Commission to whom the European Ombudsman's report is addressed.
Let me nonetheless say a few words on behalf of the Commission.
<P>
The Commission firmly believes that the creation of the European Ombudsman is of real benefit in terms of European citizenship and that it is a fundamental right of all Europe's citizens that the European institutions should be properly administered and operate in a manner that is both transparent and fair.
<P>
In 1998, the Commission was once again the main subject of the investigations carried out by the Ombudsman.
The Commission was happy to try and give satisfactory answers to all of the questions and endeavoured, as far as possible, to meet the deadlines that were set.
The supervision that citizens are able to exercise over the operation of our administration, through the Ombudsman, is bound to encourage us to work better, to correct our mistakes and to increase the transparency of our work.
That then is why I am in agreement with the excellent report by Mrs De Esteban Martín, who calls on all of the institutions to do more to alert the European public, by all possible means, to the opportunities they have of enforcing their own rights, and in particular of course to the possibility of approaching the Ombudsman.
<P>
Another point made by the House, by the Committee on Petitions and by the Ombudsman himself concerns the code of good administrative behaviour aimed at the institutions and the European bodies.
The Commission has reached agreement on the principle underlying that code, has set about drafting it, in consultation with the Ombudsman, and has taken an initial decision on this.
However, it intends making the code one of three elements of a wide-ranging reform of all its internal and external practices, which has yet to be completed for reasons of which the House is very much aware.
Furthermore, improving the relationship between citizens and the administration also implies substantially enhancing transparency and giving the public easier access to documentation.
<P>
The Commission agrees that transparency does not simply mean that documents should, wherever possible, be accessible to the public but also that any refusal to provide such documents must be justified on the basis of rules previously laid down.
As Mrs Hautala pointed out, the Treaty of Amsterdam established that concept of transparency by according citizens a genuine right of access to the documents of Parliament, the Commission and the Council.
Article 255 requires the Commission to draft a legislative proposal on the general principles and the limits governing the exercise of that right, so we shall soon be tabling the relevant proposal and the House will then have the opportunity to state its view through the codecision process.
<P>
On a similar but separate issue, the Commission shares the rapporteur's view that the Ombudsman should have as wide an access as possible to the practices and documents of the institutions which he needs in order to carry out his investigations.
That is crucial both to the work of the Ombudsman himself and to enable the people of Europe to have confidence in him.
As to changing the rules and conditions governing the work of the Ombudsman, in relation either to that point or the taking of evidence from officials, it is clearly up to the House to take the initiative here in accordance with Article 138e. It will then be for the Commission - the next Commission, clearly - to give its opinion.
<P>
The Commission also agrees with the importance that the rapporteur and the Ombudsman himself attach to increasing public confidence in the European institutions, in particular where citizens complain about situations which they do not believe to be compatible with European legislation.
That is why, as a follow-up to the Ombudsman's own-initiative inquiry into infringement proceedings, the Commission has undertaken to provide, at the point at which it informs the complainant that it intends closing the file - if that is what it intends to do - a statement giving the reasons why it does not consider that Community law has been infringed.
But giving the public real rights in proceedings under Article 169 will clearly involve an amendment to the Treaty.
<P>
I should like to thank Mr Söderman for his excellent work and for the helpful cooperation he has made possible with the Commission.
In addition to investigating the cases referred to you, Mr Söderman, you have taken the initiative to draw up a range of proposals on transparency and citizens' rights.
There has already been mention in the Chamber of your involvement in questions concerning the role of the public in Article 169 proceedings, the drafting of a code of good behaviour for officials, and access to the documents of the institutions and the bodies which you supervise.
I should just like to draw attention once again to your efforts to introduce greater transparency into the procedures for competitions and to change the age limits.
In both these areas, thanks to the cooperation between yourself, Parliament and the Commission, considerable progress has been made towards improving the relationship between the public and the institutions.
<P>
I should like, Madam President, to say a few words about Mr Newman's report.
The balance-sheet which Parliament draws up every year on the processing of the petitions submitted by the public provides a valuable opportunity for reflection.
This relationship between our citizens and the institutions has, for the Commission, been one of the main themes of its review of the institutions.
<P>
The right of petition marks an important breakthrough in terms of the political rights of our citizens, and I think it useful to point out once again, as did the rapporteur, that this right is fully recognised in the Treaty on European Union.
<P>
Processing petitions rapidly and effectively is another important way of increasing public confidence in the institutions.
When a member of the public sends a petition to the European Parliament, not only is he criticising something which he believes constitutes improper application of Community law, he is at the same time expressing his confidence in Parliament and the other institutions, relying on them to right the wrong.
As the life of this Parliament draws to a close, the Commission therefore attaches great importance to bringing the processing of petitions up to date, so that, at the last two meetings of the Committee on Petitions, chaired by Mr Fontana, it is possible to consider the bulk of the cases still pending.
<P>
Close examination of the whole range of petitions submitted reveals another interesting factor.
The Committee on Petitions must in fact be considered the main parliamentary platform for our citizens, the barometer, the gauge of their real concerns.
This year, the rapporteur has rightly stressed the important role of the Committee on Petitions in monitoring infringement proceedings.
As we realise, of course, proceedings under Article 169 are instituted as a result of many petitions from members of the public.
<P>
As far as proceedings under Article 169 are concerned, as Mrs Thors will be well aware, the Commission has been making and will certainly continue to make great efforts to ensure that the procedure is swift and transparent.
<P>
The European Parliament has played an important role in another sector too: I am thinking here of the code of conduct to ensure that the administration behaves properly in its relations with the public.
Mr Perry, the rapporteur for the Committee on Petitions for 1996, had already pressed for that code and the Ombudsman made a similar request.
As I mentioned, the Commission has taken an initial decision on this.
<P>
The point on which I wish to conclude, and to which I attach the greatest importance, is that a healthy relationship between the public and the institutions must be founded on transparency: on transparency in a very broad sense, requiring above all that the public should be well informed of their rights.
In that connection, I wish to express my thanks to the House for the support it has always given the Commission in launching the Citizens First information campaign, which has enabled the public to be informed of their rights as never before.
<P>
Lastly, Madam President, allow me to thank Mrs Banotti for her work as a mediator for the President for transnationally abducted children.
This work is based broadly on the petitions submitted and I should like to express the Commission's gratitude for the excellent work by Mrs Banotti.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Monti, and my thanks also to the mediator, Mrs Banotti.
<P>
I think the House is very appreciative of what you have just said about Mrs Banotti, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Customs 2000
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0136/99) by Mrs Peijs, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision amending the Decision of 19 December 1996 adopting an action programme for customs in the Community (Customs 2000) (COM(98)0644 - C4-0639/98-98/0314(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Peijs">
Madam President, last November, the Commission put forward a proposal to extend the current Customs 2000 programme by two years.
In September 1997, it wanted to allocate the programme an extra ECU 35 million, but Parliament rejected this - a codecision procedure was not required just for a budget increase.
But there seemed to be more involved than just a budget problem: there were problems with the introduction of a computerised transit system which struck at the very heart of the work of the customs authorities.
Deadlines were missed and the contractors failed to deliver the required quality of products.
<P>
Parliament launched its own investigation and found that drastic policy changes needed to be made.
The report on the discharge for 1996 which ultimately led to the fall of the Commission highlighted the problems with the computer system, and since then the Commission has cleaned up its act.
A new design for the computerised transit system has been put forward which is more practical and realistic and less ambitious.
Parliament is quite happy with the progress the Commission is making at the moment.
<P>
In its current proposal, the Commission is proposing the following: to bring all customs operations, staff training and informatics projects under one budget heading; to set up another committee of representatives of the Member States to get the Member States more involved in the programme; and thirdly, to open the programme up to associated countries.
<P>
Parliament has a number of problems with this proposal.
Firstly, we cannot accept the Commission's original proposals about the new committee.
In addition to the existing Customs Policy Committee made up of the directors-general of the customs administrations in the Member States, the Commission wants to set up a new committee to implement the programme.
Parliament wishes to have only one committee.
A possible solution could be found if the Policy Committee delegated the implementation of the programme to a second committee - so there would be two levels of the same committee - but the directors-general remained responsible for it.
This would be sure to increase the involvement of the Member States, which is, after all, what the Commission wants.
<P>
In addition to my own amendments, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy accepted many of the amendments put forward by the draftsmen of opinions, Mr Bardong and Mr Brinkhorst, on making the implementation of the programme more transparent for Parliament and for industry.
The Commission has a great deal to gain from involving market operators more in the programme.
It is often forgotten that they have a lot of in-house expertise and could make the Commission's work a good deal easier.
Express delivery firms, for example, have been working for years with computer systems covering the entire globe.
<P>
We recently saw a demonstration of the new computer system and it looked very promising.
But of course it still needs to prove its usefulness in practice, linked up to terminals in 3 000 customs offices and the firms that are to use it.
<P>
In one of the amendments, I have said that Parliament wishes to be kept informed of any delays that might arise in the development of the new computer system, and I would urge the Commissioner to take this very seriously.
<P>
There is also a financial problem in the Council.
The Commission thinks it will need EUR 142 million for the programme up to the year 2002.
Before the Berlin summit, Germany and the Netherlands in particular expressed doubts about the level of funding but without really justifying their hesitation, and Germany and the Netherlands are vitally important to the running of Europe's customs services.
You cannot send a parcel from Rotterdam, Europe's biggest port, to anywhere in Europe without it passing through German territory.
Hopefully both countries were sufficiently reassured about the funding at the Berlin summit.
I will come back to this in a moment and then we can perhaps reach a solution fairly quickly.
<P>
We will be voting for all the amendments, Madam President.
Amendment No 5 is the only one that is out of the ordinary, and it is very topical after the Berlin summit.
It concerns a point of principle for Europe and was tabled by Mr Brinkhorst as the draftsman of an opinion.
As a Dutch citizen, I find his position difficult to accept, but as rapporteur I have to say that he is 100 % correct.
It is not true that a growing proportion of the European Union's already very limited own resources are disappearing into the pockets of the Member States.
The Court of Auditors has established that the 10 % deduction as reimbursement of the collection costs is already excessive.
This figure has now been increased to 25 %.
It is thus basically a subsidy in disguise and is to be rejected on principle.
When they themselves are not affected, the Member States always reject this kind of thing anyway, except for now.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Brinkhorst">
The common customs tariff is one of the most concrete signs of the common identity of the European Union.
There are about 120 000 officials in the Member States' administrations.
The European Commission has about 120 - one thousandth of that figure - which once again shows how ludicrous it is to claim that we are working with an over-centralised bureaucracy in Brussels.
<P>
Against that background the Customs 2000 programme is absolutely essential to demonstrate that we are more than simply a group of individual countries working in a general area.
Failing a common administration, Customs 2000 is an extremely important management tool for harmonised rules, automation and so on.
It is significant that Member States sometimes find it difficult to improve on the Customs 2000 programme's efficiency.
I refer to the transit inquiry which has given it a boost.
<P>
Speaking on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, I am very pleased with the cooperation with Mrs Peijs, the rapporteur, and very pleased that she has taken over our amendments.
These amendments try to improve the action against fraud and she has pointed to the most important one, the question of how to relate collection costs to performance criteria.
Indeed, after the European Council, 25 % is going back into the pockets of the Member States. But the idea of common performance criteria remains absolutely essential and it is against that background I would ask the Commissioner what impact he believes the European Council has on the attitude of the common customs authorities and whether they will now become even more relaxed than before.
<P>
It is also against that background that the Committee on Budgets' amendments to harmonise the Common Customs Committee, to have one overall committee to operate the common customs tariff, have been adopted.
We must simplify, we must harmonise.
This is the direction that has been taken by Commissioner Monti, whom I welcome here again today, carrying out what I suppose will be one of his last official duties, because he has supported this idea and I am very happy that he will also be able to defend it before the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Bardong">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Member States truly dug deep into the pockets of the European Union at the Berlin summit, helping themselves to customs revenue.
With effect from the year 2001, they want to hold back 25 % of this revenue rather than 10 % as at present, even though these are traditionally the EU's own resources.
I consider that unwarranted, especially since the Member States are not contributing much to the creation of a Community customs service.
But we need the common customs tariff and the rest to lay the foundations of such a service.
Even though Parliament, in the conciliation procedure, may have dropped its earlier demand for the development of a common customs administration, that nevertheless remains our goal.
<P>
During the discussions, the recurring question was whether the Member States even merit the 10 % they retain for administrative expenditure, in other words whether the figure of 10 % is at all justifiable.
Today we have to consider an amendment based on the firm belief that this percentage is too high.
Moreover, an amendment has also been tabled which calls on the Commission to submit performance criteria that can be used to monitor the levying of customs duties by the Member States.
<P>
From the conciliation proceedings on the first Customs 2000 proposal, this lack of commitment on the part of the Member States has been plain to see.
The Commission was not exactly able to record much progress either in its interim report of July 1998.
Coordination with the Member States and development of the risk-assessment system remain inadequate.
Although the Commission praised itself in the report, a contrasting picture had emerged from the Court of Auditors' report of 1997.
It does have to be said that, coming six years after the entry into force of the single market and 29 years after the entry into force of the customs union, this is hugely disappointing.
The Committee on Budgetary Control is not satisfied with this state of affairs.
However, we have refrained from tabling any further amendments so that some long overdue progress can be achieved.
The adverse effects of irregularities, delays and fraud in this field are considerable and have made a very noticeable difference to revenue levels.
This is certainly not a time when the Member States of the European Union could afford to make such sizeable concessions in terms of their own resources.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendes Bota">
Madam President, we cannot achieve an internal market with wide-ranging freedom of movement and fair competition between economic agents within the territory of the European Union if we still have 15 inconsistent and disconnected customs systems.
How can we hope to combat tax fraud and organised crime or to protect the financial and budgetary interests of the EU if there is still no link between the various customs computer systems, despite the possibilities offered by the Customs 2000 programme or the IDA programme for computerisation of customs activities?
<P>
Six years after completing the single market, we have to agree that the results are disappointing.
There is a lack of cooperation between Member States.
The customs authorities in many countries are still in the age of paper and manual processing, having totally failed to make the technological transition to the demands of modern society.
The rapporteur's acquiescence in proposing that finalising computerisation of the Transit system should be delayed until 30 June 2003 reflects very badly on the apparent value of the results obtained up to now in this area.
<P>
These delays sit ill alongside the explosion in trade that the world will see in coming years, with a risk that the Union's resources will be badly hit because they have been robbed of a significant part of their most important own resources: customs duties and agricultural levies.
How can we explain the lack of effective and consistent training of officials in the different customs administrations, although the Matthaeus programme came into force over six years ago?
When we talk about customs processing what comes to mind is a negative image of red tape, inefficiency and unnecessary duplication.
So we cannot support the Commission's proposal to set up yet another committee, which would overlap with the work of the Customs Policy Committee.
We have had enough duplication already!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="Monti">

Madam President, I am very grateful to the rapporteur, Mrs Peijs, for her contribution to and support for this Commission proposal amending the Customs 2000 programme.
The rapporteur, Mr Brinkhorst and Mr Bardong, among others, have explained very clearly the scope and importance of the proposal, and I shall therefore leave it at that and simply set out the Commission's position on the amendments.
<P>
Let me first say that the Commission is able to accept a substantial number of amendments - namely Amendments Nos 2, 4, 6, 7, 10, 12 to 17 and 19 - and I shall say no more about them.
As far as Amendment No 1 is concerned, the Commission takes the view that a general provision, in the form of a code of conduct, exists already.
The proposal does not therefore seem to be the proper place for that provision.
<P>
Turning to Amendment No 3, the first part of the text is acceptable, except for the final sentence reading: 'whereas this will result in a four-year delay compared to the initial target date'.
Not only does the Commission fully understand Parliament's concern about the delay in applying the computerised transit system, it has already had occasion to explain what it is doing in practical terms to bring the project rapidly to completion, and I am grateful to Mrs Peijs, Mr Kellett-Bowman and Mr Herman, who did us the honour of attending an initial practical demonstration of the system on 31 March.
The last sentence of Amendment No 3 is, however, inappropriate in a legal text.
Nevertheless, I can assure you that both I and my staff are making constant efforts to ensure that the work is done as quickly as possible.
<P>
Amendment No 5 refers to Amendment No 16.
The final part of the text, which concerns the performance of the Member States, the performance criteria, is acceptable, and I regard it as very important.
Although the Commission understands the reason for the change, the first part of the text, which takes up a broader issue concerning own resources, would fit better within the framework of the legislation on own resources than in this proposal.
Moreover, the text goes beyond the scope of the article to which it refers, Amendment No 16.
<P>
We are able to accept the substance of Amendment No 8 to the extent that the committee in question takes over the work of the Customs Policy Committee, and I shall return to that in a moment.
<P>
Amendment No 9 is acceptable on the point of transparency in relation to Parliament and the customs authorities.
However, it goes without saying that there has to be a degree of confidentiality in regard to economic operators, particularly for legal reasons bound up with combating fraud.
<P>
Amendment No 11 is in principle acceptable to the Commission, provided that the committee that is set up to administer the Customs 2000 programme takes over the current responsibilities of the Customs Policy Committee.
That committee was in fact set up on the basis of Article 3 of the initial version of the Customs 2000 programme as an instrument of partnership between the Commission and the Member States.
This amendment has also to be viewed in connection with Amendment No 18, and here the Commission believes it can accept the first paragraph, but it must be inserted where it most makes sense, in the text of Article 3 of the initial Customs 2000 proposal.
Article 3, to which Amendment No 11 relates, concerns the application of the programme and the partnership between the Commission and the Member States.
We therefore think it appropriate to combine the two proposed texts.
<P>
We cannot accept the second paragraph of Amendment No 18.
As far as the first sentence of the text goes, given the wide range of issues up for discussion in the context of Customs 2000, the Commission prefers to leave it to the Member States to decide whether to take part with more than one representative, so as to be able to discuss specific issues.
That, moreover, is the approach consistently taken in relation to comitology, which cannot require Member States with different administrative practices to adopt a single organisational model.
In any event, as far as expenditure is concerned, Community funding will be provided for a single delegate.
<P>
The Commission is unable to accept the second part of the text, because the current rules relating to comitology do not allow the applicant countries to attend the meetings.
That point should, however, be viewed in the context of Article 19 of the new proposal which provides for the Customs 2000 programme to be opened up to the applicant states generally.
The specific rules governing the opening-up of the programme will be adopted within the framework of the relevant association councils, and those decisions will also cover participation in the meetings by the applicant countries.
The final paragraph of Amendment No 18 is not acceptable: as I said earlier, the confidential nature of some of the issues to be discussed means that the Commission cannot agree to the committee's meetings being held in public.
<P>
Finally, the second paragraph of Amendment No 20 is not compatible with the general principles adopted by the Commission, the Council and Parliament in their declaration of 6 March 1995 on including financial provisions in legal instruments, and the paragraph cannot therefore be taken on board.
<P>
That, Madam President, summarises the Commission's view at this stage in the legislative procedure.
Let me once again thank the committees, the rapporteurs and Parliament in general for the substantial and constructive work that has been done in this very specific area, which is extremely important, both symbolically and practically, to the operation of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Peijs">
We would be prepared to accept some of the objections raised by the Commissioner were it not for the fact that we are to take the vote in ten minutes and it is physically impossible to make any changes.
We have already had very detailed discussions on this issue and I think we can manage without a conciliation procedure, because some of the objections are so minor that I hardly think my colleagues in the House will argue against them.
We will take them into account in the hope of producing something that is generally acceptable apart from one or two basic points, and those will keep.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Transport infrastructure charging
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0111/99) by Mrs Schmidbauer, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the Commission White Paper entitled 'Fair Payment for Infrastructure Use: A phased approach to a common transport infrastructure charging framework in the EU' (COM(98)0466 - C4-0514/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Schmidbauer">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, last September the Commission presented us with a White Paper with the rather unwieldy title 'Fair payment for infrastructure use: a phased approach to a common transport infrastructure charging framework in the EU'.
Behind that cumbersome title, however, is a proposed new European transport system in which mileage travelled would be charged with the aid of electronic data transfer, a system that would guarantee sustainable mobility.
<P>
The subject is not new.
Back in 1997, we voted on the report relating to the Commission Green Paper on this same matter; I was the rapporteur on that occasion too.
And now it is time to develop specific legal mechanisms.
One reason why the European transport system is threatened with collapse is that we have the fundamental problem of distortions of competition in the transport markets.
The cost of a journey is not met by the party who causes the journey to be made, but by the general public.
Distortions of competition between modes of transport and between individual EU Member States are the result.
At the present time there are nine different charging systems in Europe for the use of the rail infrastructure, with subsidisation ranging between zero and 100 %.
Road tax and road-pricing systems vary enormously.
There are differences of up to EUR 3 000 a year between national rates of road tax, for example.
Moreover, charges are seldom levied as and when they are incurred. They generally bear no relation to the environmental costs or to other external costs.
<P>
At the moment, therefore, users have no incentive to alter their transport habits in any way.
In the White Paper, the Commission proposes that the user should pay all the internal and external costs that he or she incurs.
Charges are to be levied on the same basis in every Member State, namely on the basis of so-called marginal social cost.
The marginal social cost comprises the average variable infrastructure costs plus the external costs.
<P>
My report endorses the Commission approach.
We must move in the proposed direction if we want to achieve a better distribution of the volume of traffic among the various modes of transport.
The target date of 2004 and the establishment of committees containing government experts makes the implementation of this approach appear realistic, especially since it does not involve grafting a ready-made system onto any national structure but rather the joint development of solutions with the 15 Member States.
<P>
In my report, I also suggest the possibility of reinforcing the charging system based on marginal social cost with measures in the realm of transport-related taxes, by which I mean coordinating these taxes on a European scale, lowering them where necessary.
That would give us an acceptable graduated pricing system.
In its White Paper, the Commission only took account of commercial transport and did not include private cars in the charging system.
I believe, however, that the 'user pays' principle can only be effectively applied to transport if all those who contribute to the problems are expected to contribute to their solution.
Traffic jams, accidents and environmental pollution, of course, are caused just as much by private cars as by commercial vehicles.
<P>
In this context I should like the Commission to examine, as a matter of urgency, whether private cars could not perhaps be included in the charging framework.
At the same time, it is important to conduct information campaigns to make it clear to the public that this is all about introducing an environmentally friendly and sustainable transport system and is not another scheme designed to fleece motorists.
<P>
Heckling
<P>
No, that is not the case.
That is why it is quite unhelpful when the public are deliberately misled, even by Members of this Parliament.
At the beginning of this week, Mr Ferber issued a press statement with the heading 'Pure highway robbery!'
I consider that sort of thing to be irresponsible, because either that statement was a deliberate distortion of the truth or Mr Ferber has read neither the White Paper nor the report on which we voted in committee.
<P>
Let me close by saying that we cannot accept the amendments tabled by the PPE Group through Mr Jarzembowski, because they are virtually tantamount to total rejection of the White Paper.
<P>
The other groups cooperated very constructively in the preparation of this report, and I should like to thank them for that.
Our cooperation with Commissioner Kinnock and Directorate-General VII was also very fruitful.
I am grateful for that, and at the same time I would ask the Commission to make a determined effort to implement the White Paper, so that this approach, which my group and I support, can be put into practice, for I am firmly convinced that this White Paper will pave the way for sustainable mobility in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="Simpson">
Madam President, firstly I should like to congratulate our rapporteur Mrs Schmidbauer on her important report.
I know she has worked very hard over many months on this difficult subject.
Whilst this report is not legislative, it is, in transport policy terms, the culmination of much work covering many aspects and will without doubt give the green light to a legislative proposal in the future.
<P>
Mrs Schmidbauer's report is to be welcomed because it deals with developing a phased approach towards a common transport infrastructure charging framework within the European Union, as well as a gradual harmonisation of charging principles in all major transport modes.
My group also welcomes the principles outlined by Mrs Schmidbauer that users of infrastructure should pay the cost, including environmental, and the cost of other external impacts imposed at the point of use.
<P>
This is a complex issue, especially where the subject of road pricing is concerned. But Members would do well to remember that many Member States already have road pricing schemes in place and others are looking to introduce them.
Therefore, there is a need to try to bring some structure and harmonisation to the whole system.
The rapporteur has not only worked hard on this report but she has also recognised the complexity of the issue, the sensitivities that exist around this subject, and has produced a very carefully worded report that deserves the support of the whole of the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
Madam President, I shall follow the lead of my honourable colleague Brian Simpson and thank Mrs Schmidbauer for her cooperative approach to the preparation of this report.
Regrettably she has arrived at the wrong conclusions, as I must now explain on behalf of my group.
We in the Group of the European People's Party must reject the Commission's strategy of introducing a uniform system of charging for all modes of transport on the basis of so-called marginal social cost.
The fact is that the system of marginal social cost proposed by Neil Kinnock, the Socialist Commissioner for Transport, clearly emerged as an objectively unsuitable method of infrastructure charging when the Committee on Transport and Tourism consulted with scientists and transport specialists on 17 February 1999.
On the one hand it takes insufficient account of the construction, capital and maintenance costs for the transport infrastructure, while on the other hand it indiscriminately imposes a blanket charge to cover so-called external costs such as the cost of environmental pollution, traffic jams and accidents.
<P>
We are prepared to discuss external costs.
That is why we in Parliament called on the Commission back in January 1997 to provide us with scientifically demonstrable assessments of external costs and how they can best be recouped; these assessments were to be presented for each individual mode of transport.
The Commission, however, chose to shirk that responsibility.
It has not substantiated the external costs or outlined any procedures to us, but has come up with a new magic formula and now wants to do everything on the basis of marginal social cost.
But this magic formula, as the hearing with the scientists and experts showed, is unsuitable.
In other words, this whole approach is built on sand.
<P>
A second reason why the Commission approach should be rejected is that it is designed to be quite systematically devised and implemented in three steps, thereby deliberately preserving the distortions of competition between modes of transport and between companies in the various Member States.
This means that existing distortions will not be eliminated, even though they actually ought to have disappeared by 1 January 1993, the date when the single market was supposed to take effect.
In practice, however, we still have completely different oil duties, road taxes and so forth.
That distorts competition, and the aim of the Commission's approach is to preserve this disparity for several years to come.
We reject that.
<P>
The recommendation of the Red and Green majority in the Committee on Transport and Tourism, Mrs Schmidbauer, is nothing short of reckless, going further than even the Commission has ever gone by calling for the inclusion of private cars in this new special system on the basis of Community law and not, as is customary in such cases, on the basis of national legislation.
<P>
Mrs Schmidbauer, my colleague Mr Ferber was absolutely right.
This system, if you think it through to its logical conclusion, means purely and simply that private cars would also be liable for road tolls in Germany.
I do not believe the Austrian system is worth copying.
In my opinion, on the basis of all the studies that have been conducted in this field, it is crystal clear that private motorists, through the excise duty on their petrol and through road tax, are already paying the tolls with which it is intended to burden them.
By broadening this system, Mrs Schmidbauer, we should quite simply be giving Member States the opportunity to impose even higher charges on private motorists.
<P>
It also says in your report that, besides private cars being incorporated into the new charging system, an even heavier financial burden should be placed on motorists in sensitive areas - these include mountainous regions, but they also include all the major cities, such as Paris, Hamburg and Frankfurt. Your approach cannot work; if it were implemented, it would only induce many Member States, as Mr Ferber said, simply to fleece the motorist once again.
We reject that.
<P>
Applause from the PPE Group
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Madam President, I am hearing a lot of electioneering here from both sides, both from Mrs Schmidbauer and from Mr Jarzembowski.
It is quite clear that this White Paper is vitally important for the creation of an internal market and a system in which costs are switched from fixed costs to variable costs.
This is something we are all in favour of.
<P>
Mrs Schmidbauer rightly said that we must be careful that this does not lead to another separate cost increase.
I put this down in an amendment, so I can only agree with her.
She is absolutely right when she says that we need to involve private cars in some way.
Of course we must.
Traffic congestion is reaching critical levels, so it is extremely important that we should treat the little room left on the roads as a market commodity.
That is the best way to go about it.
There can be no objection to this from a Liberal point of view, although all sorts of people are taking a stand on the issue in my country.
If there is no alternative, so they would have us believe, you must not charge extra for using the roads.
But that is not true.
You should make a charge.
On the other hand, we should not make a charge if it is not necessary.
<P>
Finally, it is extremely important that we should make this a European system, which is currently by no means the case.
Each Member State is busy reinventing the wheel.
I would point out in passing that the example of Norway, which many people have mentioned because of the excellent way in which it has organised access to Oslo, Trondheim and Bergen, is not really all that good.
There is a lot of abuse and fraud and the situation is extremely chaotic, so it is exactly the sort of bad example we should not follow.
We must not sit back and wait for the compatibility that I described in a working document for the Transport Committee to be achieved, because it would take us at least ten years and this could be used as an excuse to charge what it actually costs to use the roads.
<P>
I very much welcome Mrs Schmidbauer's report.
We in the Liberal Group would like to make just one further improvement, which is really no more than dotting the I's and confirming what the rapporteur has already said.
We agree with her that if the PPE Group's amendments are approved they would destroy the whole purpose of the report.
However, this is not to say that there are not some extremely good elements in those amendments, which we will be happy to accept.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="President">
We shall suspend the debate at this point for voting time. It will be resumed at 3 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
I would like to speak on a point of order, Mr President.
At the moment there is a group of more than 100 visitors blocking the corridors of Parliament.
I do not think that this is in line with our Rules of Procedure.
I should like to add that this group has been singing religious songs on the ground floor for quite a while, which has somewhat shocked the layman in me.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="President">
Mr Caudron, I shall ask the services immediately to make it easier for Members to enter the Chamber.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hänsch">
Mr President, in this list that we have here, some committees are not included, although we know that they all have to do with the budget.
What we are essentially proposing is that no selection of committees should take place and that instead, with your permission and the cooperation of the House, we could perhaps move an oral amendment to include all committees that have anything to do with the budget.
I believe this would be only fair to the committees that are not listed here.
Can we agree on that?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="President">
As there is no objection, Amendment No 40 will be put to the vote, with the clarifications provided by Mr Hänsch.
<P>
After the vote on Amendment No 5
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herman">
Mr President, I may be mistaken, but I was under the impression that to amend such allocations an absolute majority was needed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="President">
You are generally one of the experts on the practices of the House, Mr Herman, but on this occasion I am afraid you are mistaken.
A simple majority is sufficient.
<P>
Before the vote on Amendment No 1
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, I would like to table a minor oral amendment. Overall responsibility for the new anti-discrimination Article 13 is to remain with the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, but as the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs also has jurisdiction here, I wish to table an oral amendment stating that, from the point of view of the Committee on Women's Rights, a small change of focus, in other words an addition, is required: measures etc other than those mentioned in VIII and XVI.
I trust the chairman of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, Mr Hughes, will have no objection.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="President">
Are there any objections to us considering the amendment proposed by Mrs Hautala?
<P>
More than 13 Members rose to express their opposition
<P>
After the vote on Amendment No 11
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I think you were somewhat hasty in answering the question that our colleague Mr Herman posed earlier.
<P>
I should indeed like to believe that our practice leads to the annex being adopted by a single majority, but I do not think that this complies with the Rules.
<P>
Rule 135 states that the powers of committees are to be recorded in an annex, but it does not in any way rule out the use of an absolute majority. What is more, as this text defines the powers of the parliamentary committees, it would be something of a paradox if, as has recently been the case, the composition of a relevant committee in a key area - in this case immunities - were to be determined by a difference of just a few votes.
<P>
I would therefore like us to look at this matter more closely, as it seems to me that an absolute majority is needed, given that it relates to an amendment of a core element of our Rules of Procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="President">
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, I have listened very carefully to your comments.
It is a view to which we can give due consideration. However, I have to tell you that I answered very quickly in order to gain time, and also because I had looked into this question before entering the Chamber.
Besides this Rule, there is also the tradition in this House that such questions are always decided in the way we currently decide them.
If you think there is another issue, we can look at that.
However, at this time, I have no reason to change this practice and the way we implement this Rule.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, you are completely right and, in my view, you are applying the Rules of Procedure correctly.
<P>
I should like to point out to Mr Fabre-Aubrespy that he has a strange way of interpreting the Rules of Procedure.
In cases where an absolute majority suits him but a simple majority would suffice, he protests; then, where the Rules of Procedure provide for an absolute majority, as in the case of the discharge, he wants a simple majority.
We cannot evidently have Rules of Procedure to suit everyone, according to their particular interests.
<P>
On Amendment No 74
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Günther">
Mr President, I should like to move that in paragraph 1(c) of Amendment No 74, after the reference to 'humanitarian aid, emergency aid and food aid', we add the words 'in developing countries', so that the text would then read '... humanitarian aid, emergency aid and food aid in developing countries'.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="President">
Mrs Günther, I can see no objection from the House and so I will put the amendment to the vote with that addendum.
<P>
Before the vote on Amendment No 9
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, Mrs Hautala, who chairs the Committee on Women's Rights, was trying to move an oral amendment to Amendments Nos 1 and 2 in order to specify which forms of sex discrimination fell within the remit of committees I and VIII.
It goes without saying that these committees cannot be responsible for those forms of discrimination that are a matter for the Committee on Women's Rights.
Unfortunately, a number of colleagues have intervened to prevent the adoption of this reasonable motion.
I believe that my honourable colleagues were unable to grasp what was at stake here.
<P>
Laughter
<P>
You did not see me, although I was asking to speak in order to make that clear to you before you all took the floor.
Since we are now voting about the Committee on Women's Rights, let me spell out that Amendments Nos 1 and 2, which relate to the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs and to the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, naturally cannot and do not in any way imply that these committees should be responsible for the forms of sex discrimination that fall within the remit of the Committee on Women's Rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="President">
Mrs Lulling, the House did not agree to putting Mrs Hautala's amendment to the vote.
If you wish to table another amendment rather than criticise the Members for not accepting Mrs Hautala's amendment, you have every right to do so.
<P>
Before the vote on Amendments Nos 23 and 24
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gutiérrez Díaz">
Mr President, as a former chairman of the Committee on Regional Policy and an active member of that committee, allow me to draw your attention to this amendment.
As you are all aware, it is not a matter of making radical changes, rather, as we understand it, of putting things in their place.
In other words, according to the initial proposal, this committee would be called the 'Committee on Transport, Regional Policy and Tourism'.
We propose - and this seems quite natural - that it firstly be called the 'Committee on Regional Policy', without detracting from the importance of the other two areas.
This gives it a more global dimension, which is why I am asking you to vote in favour of this amendment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Colino Salamanca">
Mr President, I am the first signatory to this amendment.
I simply want to say that one of the main aims of the Union is to promote economic and social progress by strengthening economic and social cohesion, among other policies.
In this respect, we recently voted in favour of bringing Community regional policy and economic and social cohesion under the remit of this committee.
Here we are dealing with a horizontal policy as opposed to a sectoral policy and, what is more, one of the tasks recently assigned to this committee is 'relations with regional and local authorities and with the Committee of the Regions'.
Parliament, in my opinion, needs to demonstrate the priority it gives to relations with regional and local authorities, which represent the intermediate levels of any power and any institutional political structure. In short, we share our elective nature them.
I am therefore calling on the House to vote in favour of keeping the Committee on Regional Policy as the first name of this committee.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is not a question of whether we are in favour of social cohesion. We are all in favour of social cohesion.
It is a matter of the Rules of Procedure and what they prescribe.
We have just unanimously adopted the catalogue of responsibilities: number one is transport, and number two is regional policy.
It makes no sense to reverse that decision ten minutes after taking it.
<P>
What is even more important is the fact that the wise ladies and gentlemen of this House have justified the amalgamation of the committees by saying that no major legislation would be necessary in the field of regional policy for the next two years.
All of this substantiates the case for leaving things in the proposed order: transport, regional policy and tourism.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Green">
Mr President, given this debate - and it is clearly a very important one - maybe a compromise would be to put tourism first.
<P>
Laughter
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bazin">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I just want to make a brief remark.
As usual, when a debate becomes so intense, the great principles put forward to fuel such debate actually have nothing to do with the basic reason for it.
Here we have two committees, one for regional action and one for transport, which are due to merge. As a consequence, each is seeking to impose the name of the original committee.
There is nothing else at stake in this debate.
<P>
That said, I should simply like to draw the attention of the House to the fact that, following the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty, almost all our powers relating to transport will come under the codecision procedure, which seems reason enough to retain the name of the 'Committee on Transport' as the first name.
<P>
Parliament adopted the decision
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I should just like to ask you to submit the question I posed earlier to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
I simply wanted to point out that my question was not motivated by personal interest.
There are some amendments that were adopted without an absolute majority that I favoured.
My question relates solely to Article 142 of the Treaty that states that 'the European Parliament shall adopt its Rules of Procedure, acting by a majority of its Members'.
I therefore think that given this vital issue, it would be appropriate to refer this matter to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, so that it can decide whether or not the annex relating to the powers of the committees can be adopted with a single majority.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="President">
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, you have already asked that question and I have told you that I will look into it.
You do not need to ask it again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Green">
Mr President, everybody who has been engaged in this whole issue over the last year understands the enormous pressure under which we have put the services of Parliament in the last few days.
Personally, on behalf of my Group, I should like to extend our thanks to your services for the enormous help they have given us in ensuring that this vote went as smoothly as it did.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
I endorse what Mrs Green said about Parliament's services.
On the subject of the majority required, however, I think it is essential that Parliament should know what majority it needs to take decisions.
I think you were right, Mr President: this was not about rules but about powers, so I think a simple majority was enough here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
First of all, Mr President, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy is quite right, it is a majority of Members that is required to amend the Rules of Procedure.
Secondly, I do not entirely agree with Mrs Green that this vote has gone smoothly.
We have now spent more than an hour on just one report, and there are another 19 to go.
This means we will need another 19 hours.
Would you perhaps allow someone to replace you so that we can get on a little more quickly?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, I should firstly like to congratulate you on the way in which you confidently chair these votes and I hope you continue to do so.
As the chairman, Mr Martens, said, we have been discussing this issue for some time.
Annexes are annexes and the Rules of Procedure are the Rules of Procedure.
I therefore believe that you are acting appropriately.
We do not need the Committee on the Rules of Procedure to tell us that the annex is not part of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="President">
All the microphones have stopped working.
<P>
I shall suspend the sitting for a few moments so that they can be repaired.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 12.45 p.m. and resumed at 1 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="President">
Because of the time, I would like to propose to the House that, following on from the report by Mr Valverde López, we proceed to the vote on Kosovo, so that the House can express its opinion on this very important issue.
<P>
Parliament agreed to this proposal
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Duhamel">
Mr President, with all due respect, we cannot call for a check to be made every time the PPE Group is in a minority of 50 or 100 votes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="President">
I have noted your comment, Mr Duhamel, but you have to bear in mind that if Members ask for an electronic check, the President is obliged to take one, whoever asks for it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Killilea">
Mr President, I would like you to take account of the fact that there are many Members who will have to leave for an early flight.
The technical breakdown in the system should not be held against them when it comes to counting time spent voting in this House.
<P>
Parliament adopted the legislative resolution
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pinel">
Mr President, 80 refugees have just been killed as the result of an indiscriminate air attack by NATO.
We must stop these strikes that are no more surgical than they were in Iraq.
I think it is high time we reconsidered our policy on the former Yugoslavia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="President">
We are not going to start a debate now, Mr Pinel.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Castagnetti">
Mr President, I just wanted to say that although I shall remain in the Chamber, I shall be taking part in the final vote on the resolution only and will give an explanation of vote in accordance with Rule 122.
<P>
On Amendment No 7
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Aelvoet">
<SPEAKER ID=92 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Mr President, I should very much like to support paragraph 5 with a view to protecting the refugees.
But may I ask the groups that have tabled this motion to explain what can be done to ensure that the creation of militarily protected humanitarian corridors to Albania and Macedonia does not usher in the partition of Kosovo.
That is the problem I have with paragraph 5.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=94 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is not a further oral amendment but was agreed during the coordinators' negotiations.
It relates to no less a person than Dr Ibrahim Rugova, who holds the Sakharov Prize of the European Parliament.
That must be added. We really did forget that.
It is not an oral amendment that we are free to reject, but was actually agreed by all those who were present.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, I should like to remind Parliament that Mr Demaçi was also awarded the Sakharov Prize, so we should invite them both and mention them both; otherwise, it is not worth doing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
At this precise moment we are speaking about Ibrahim Rugova, who is in serious danger and to whom our prize was awarded four months ago, and not about Mr Demaçi!
<P>
Loud applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, I should like to make it absolutely clear that in our discussions on the compromise resolution we spoke specifically about Mr Rugova as the Sakharov laureate and about no one else.
That was the agreement.
<P>
Applause
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Cars">
I voted in favour of the proposal but would certainly have preferred if the committee now named 'Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities' had been named 'Committee on Mainstreaming and Gender Equality'.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Hager">
Although I voted in favour of most of the individual provisions, I should like to take this opportunity to make it clear that I do not really approve in general terms of redistributing the responsibilities of our committees.
Fundamentally different matters should continue to be dealt with by separate committees.
When it came to the final vote, I therefore voted against the proposal tabled by the Conference of Presidents.
<P>
d'Aboville report (A4-0181/99)
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="McKenna">
The Greens voted against the proposed fisheries agreement with the Seychelles, as we have voted against other fisheries agreements, not because we are opposed to fisheries agreements in principle, but because we feel that the approach of the EU needs to be reformed.
<P>
Agreements must be negotiated on a more equitable basis, so that both the EU and the third country derive equivalent benefits.
Among the improvements which are needed is a regional approach to fisheries management, which would involve all the coastal states and distant water fishing nations which fish for tuna in the Indian Ocean.
The recently-created Indian Ocean Tuna Commission is a step in the right direction but has not yet begun to assume its management role.
The UN Fish Stocks Agreement, which will apply to the tuna and other highly migratory fish stocks, sets out other conditions, including a detailed description of the precautionary approach.
This is completely lacking in the Seychelles agreement (we also urge the Member States to speedily ratify this convention - thus far only Italy has done so).
The EU must also assume greater responsibility for the activities of its vessels.
While this agreement will involve a satellite monitoring system, which is a welcome improvement, such systems by themselves are no guarantee that fishermen will respect the rules.
There are important questions of access to the resulting data in real time by the Seychelles.
Finally, tuna fishing can involve considerable incidental catch of non-target fish species, and the EU needs to develop techniques of tuna fishing which do not result in so much discarding.
<P>
Concerning the Liberal amendment, which would serve to eliminate the effective subsidy that these agreements provided to fishermen, the Greens supported it as we feel that distant water fleets should not be so heavily subsidised, especially when there are so many problems with the terms of the agreements under which they operate.
<P>
Valverde López report (A4-0139/99)
<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schleicher">
Mr President, with the Valverde López report on the Commission proposal, Parliament is essentially aiming for a more practicable eco-management and audit scheme.
Many of the amendments are designed to improve the scheme.
There are, however, nine amendments which run directly counter to this aim, and they have been endorsed by a majority of this Parliament.
It was because of those amendments that I and the other members of the Bavarian Christian Social Union, as well as a number of other Members, did not vote for the report.
I merely wanted to put that on record.
<P>
Joint resolution on Kosovo
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, I voted against this resolution because I feel Parliament is extremely reluctant to criticise NATO and NATO's actions.
I believe that NATO has basically ignored international law in the action it has taken and that proper efforts were not made to find a peaceful solution.
This is not a humanitarian effort, especially when you see what happened last night, when civilians were killed as a result of NATO activity.
<P>
Also, Parliament was reluctant to address the fact that NATO is hitting civilian targets in Yugoslavia and the fact that it is using cluster-bombs and depleted uranium in its ammunition.
These issues have to be raised.
We have to look at respect for all human life.
All human life is valuable.
We cannot put one human life above another.
<P>
Today in Parliament we voted against supporting the German peace proposal that has been put forward.
I also think the British are blocking this proposal.
If we can find a peaceful solution, nobody should be pushing for the right to war and to bomb.
Two wrongs do not make a right.
Parliament has a duty to express its discontent at some of the actions of NATO, in particular the bombing of civilian targets and the use of weapons that are considered by some people as weapons of mass destruction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, there are many extremely good points in this resolution.
Nevertheless, I abstained because of the adoption of the Greens' amendment which sought to tie us down to a solution whereby Kosovo would be autonomous within the Yugoslav borders.
Several weeks and months ago, such formulas could certainly have provided a basis for discussion.
But they have now been overtaken by developments.
Unless the Milosevic regime is removed, such a solution can never be an option.
And even if it were removed, the prospects for such a solution would still be slim.
It is impossible to force people to live in the same place, in the same state, as the murderers of their families.
That is why I believe that this approach is totally divorced from reality.
We should not have committed ourselves to a specific solution.
<P>
What is good is that the House has unreservedly supported the military action by NATO, which is necessary, appropriate and justified, as well as the aim of bolstering Serbia's neighbours.
One thing, however, seems to be missing from the resolution: it is high time we also sent a strong signal to Croatia, which is a major stabilising factor in the region but has been the victim of what amounts to blinkered disregard on our part.
I earnestly appeal for the conclusion of a trade and cooperation agreement with Croatia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ceyhun">
Mr President, as a member of the Greens who supported the compromise motion today, I merely wanted to express my respect for all the members of NATO currently engaged in the fight for human rights in the states bordering on Kosovo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Avgerinos, Karamanou, Katiforis, Klironomos, Kokkola, Lambraki, Panagopoulos, Papakyriazis, Roubatis and Tsatsos">
We, the MEPs of PASOK, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement of Greece, are voting against the European Parliament resolution on Kosovo because we feel it has nothing positive to offer towards finding a solution to the problem.
<P>
We denounce in the strongest possible terms the policy of ethnic cleansing and the violation of human rights that is being carried out by the Milosevic regime.
We express our solidarity, without exception, with all the populations of the region who are suffering the trials and tribulations of a senseless war.
<P>
However, we are equally opposed to the logic of the continued and increased use of violence, which not only will not lead to a solution but, on the contrary, stands in the way of resolving the problem.
Furthermore, it is clear that not only have the bombardments not prevented ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, they have helped to create a huge wave of refugees and have contributed to the overall destabilisation of the area.
It is doubtful whether the military action has thus far had any positive outcome, and it is therefore imperative that a political solution to the problem should be found as quickly as possible.
<P>
The leading role in this effort must be assumed by the European Union which, together with the United Nations Secretary-General and the United Nations Security Council, must take the necessary actions to resolve the deadlock.
We also believe that a basic condition to finding a solution to the problem is to respect existing borders and the territorial integrity of the states in the region. Only in this way can we prevent a new Balkan crisis.
<P>
In addition to finding a political solution to the problem, we regard it as expedient that a new political, economic and humanitarian initiative should be undertaken immediately in relation to the Balkans.
Finally, in the present tragic circumstances, it is imperative that an international conference should be convened for the purpose of improving the coordination of humanitarian aid.
<P>
The MEPs of PASOK represent a country which is suffering the direct consequences of the war and which, from the outset of the crisis, has steadfastly come to the aid of the Kosovar Albanians who have been forced to abandon their homes.
<P>
We believe that, as the new century dawns, we, as Europeans, must not allow this tragic situation to continue.
The time has come for Europe to take specific initiatives to find a political solution to the problem for the good of all the people in the area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="Barros Moura">
Milosevic is an intolerable national-communist dictator, which is a particular form of fascism that has grown out of the fall of communism without the emergence of a sustainable democracy.
His policy of repression, separation, persecution and ethnic cleansing is contrary to all the humanitarian principles, ethical conditions and fundamental liberties which underpin democracy in Europe.
<P>
The EU's highly regrettable inability to present a united front, using its own resources, including military resources, is demonstrated by the antecedents of the present conflict: the break-up of the former Yugoslavia; unilateral recognition of Croatia and Slovenia; 'ethnic cleansing' and atrocities by Serbs against Croats and Bosnians and then by Croats against Serbs and so forth; and Milosevic's success in staying in power.
But this intervention by NATO, which was decided without full UN backing and has inadequate means to achieve the declared objectives of neutralising the Serbian military's capacity to continue with so-called 'ethnic cleansing', has not only failed to resolve the issue, it has also aggravated all the problems.
Furthermore, the doctrine of the 'right to humanitarian intervention' - which is making headway but has not been recognised by the United Nations - cannot be imposed by force by a powerful and sophisticated military machine destroying not only military targets but also all the economic infrastructure of a country.
At the same time, the creation of a new international legal order with appropriate means for 'humanitarian intervention' is coming up against the implacable opposition of the major powers, including the United States, with regard to reforming the UN, and the opposition of the United States, Russia, France and China to the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.
<P>
At the same time, the NATO offensive, instead of isolating the dictator Milosevic and his regime, is in fact having the undesirable effect of building up nationalist unity around him against foreign intervention.
To make things worse, this is also having the effect of humiliating Russia, which is a dangerous mistake.
<P>
If the public felt sure that there would only be missile and air-based attacks, but no ground-based military forces involving the risk of casualties, it would be able to support the bombing for a certain period as a means of condemning Milosevic's unjust and abominable regime and his atrocities against the Kosovars.
However, even leaving aside the question of dual standards - why not intervene in Turkey, Indonesia, Chechnya, and so on? - this is not the right approach to solving problems of this kind.
<P>
Apart from extricating ourselves from this situation without damaging the authority of NATO and the EU, and without condoning the atrocities committed by Milosevic, which call for a diplomatic solution involving the UN and Russia, we above all need to stabilise the entire region.
That is why I have to say that - as has already been demonstrated - the solution was not to enlarge NATO eastwards, but rather to enlarge the EU and adopt a policy of association and economic support which would promote economic and political integration and combat irredentist nationalism.
What is the logic of fighting ETA, Corsican terrorists and the IRA and then supporting the KLA?
The EU needs to be able to apply to the Balkans, and to the CEECs in general, the same approach that within its borders has prevented war between Germany and France and has guaranteed peace for over half a century: economic and political integration.
That is the issue.
<P>
In addition, but no less important, the decision to launch military attacks with predominantly American forces simply highlights the United States' hegemony and the subordinate role of the EU, which if it continues down this road will never have a common foreign and security policy or common defence.
Accepting this US hegemony represents a serious attack on the European Union, the consolidation of the euro, and the possibility of the EU being on an equal footing with the US within the World Trade Organisation, as demonstrated by the 'banana war' at present.
Instead of this foolish policy, what we need is to lay the foundations for a partnership of equals with the US, which implies the EU being politically autonomous in its dealings with the US.
<P>
For all these reasons, I voted against the compromise resolution adopted on Kosovo, and in particular against the immensely hypocritical recital H - which blames the UN for the fact that NATO violated the United Nations Charter - and against paragraph 2, which tries to legitimise the bombing by pretending that it has nothing to do with us. I did this although I approve of the specific points condemning the Milosevic regime and those on aid for refugees and measures designed to stabilise the region.
I also voted against despite several positive amendments tabled by the Greens and by Mrs Theorin.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Berthu">
I did not vote in favour of the European Parliament's resolution on Kosovo because it reflects a sense of self-satisfaction and complete failure to question our actions, which, in my view, does not reflect the seriousness of the situation.
<P>
Without going over the past, to see who started what, I should personally like to take four lessons from the situation for tomorrow's Europe.
<P>
First, I do not know whether the idea of a multi-ethnic Kosovo ever had any basis in reality, but I am sure that any such idea is dead today, wiped out by NATO's bombing campaign.
It is difficult to imagine how the Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo will be able to live together in the near future.
I do not therefore see how it will be possible to prevent the province from being divided. After all, this will only make us resort to the oldest solution in the world for restoring peace: placing borders between peoples.
<P>
Second, tomorrow's Europe must show respect for national sovereignty.
Some may indeed claim that as a system sovereignty is flawed, but the fact is that throughout history it has proved the only system capable of preventing chaos and arbitrary power that are even greater than those that can be attributed, where possible, to a particular form of sovereignty.
Europe, which has a tendency to forget such things, will rediscover this with some bitterness.
Incidentally, we will remember that the Serb regime, however much it might be criticised, had never attacked any of its neighbours or any of our allies, unlike the Iraqi regime.
<P>
Third, if Europe wants to impose the rule of law, it must respect it too.
Let us not forget that NATO intervened in the situation without a mandate from the United Nations Security Council, and that the French Parliament was presented with a fait accompli. These procedures may prove too tedious for some but they would undoubtedly have slowed the process down and enabled more dialogue to take place.
They would have also made people realise that in this case the bombings were a simplistic response. They were also a costly response in moral, human and financial terms as well as in terms of the collateral damage that we ourselves will suffer - on top of everything else - without even having come up with a viable solution.
<P>
Lastly, we must express our doubts concerning the very principle of a European defence which would involve institutionalising, in military terms, all the operations involving all the Member States.
In fact, this is what has just happened to a certain extent with the intervention in Yugoslavia.
Have the results of this intervention been so successful that we feel that this approach should become the rule?
I do not think so. Rather, each people must retain its free will out of respect for the sovereignty and rule of law that I referred to earlier.
If Europe is attacked, then a collective response will take place automatically.
However, if it is not attacked, why should countries allow themselves to become recruited in advance into battles they would not have chosen?
<P>
We need to forge alliances and foster cooperation that will generate a joint defence but certainly not a united common defence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Castagnetti">
I have abstained on the joint resolution on Kosovo because I have from the outset been opposed to the decision on NATO military intervention, which I believe to be a mistake that could have been avoided.
At Rambouillet in fact, according for example to what was said by a number of influential participants, the kind of political circumstances were established that would have allowed other, in my view effective measures which could have prevented the deaths of so many innocent people and the distressing deportation of hundreds of thousands of Kosovars, the victims of Milosevic's crazed nationalism.
<P>
I fully understand that there is a political duty and a duty on the institutions to intervene as matters now stand, and for that reason, while confirming my own position on the conflict, I now support any initiative designed to seek a positive solution from a political, moral and legal standpoint, focusing particularly on the role that the UN, the EU, NATO and Russia can and must fulfil.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="Caudron">
I am not and never have been a lover of war and possess nothing of a warmonger in me.
For me, war always represents a failure of the spirit, of human spirit and intelligence.
<P>
However, I know, and should like to point out, that we have to know how to wage war when the 'interlocutor/enemy' only understands force and especially if we want to quickly provide diplomacy with the greatest possibility of succeeding.
<P>
Let us never forget that diplomacy actually means using dialogue to persuade one of the sides in a conflict to agree to give up some its initial aims, demands and even rights.
The side concerned will only agree to do so if it thinks it might be the target of an attack in the event of a negotiated refusal of this agreement on its part.
<P>
This is why, in the case of Serbia and Kosovo, after 10 years of negotiations that were punctuated by human rights violations, rapes, massacres, destruction and deportation - which were always instigated by Milosevic - there was unfortunately no alternative to the use of force to put an end to these crimes.
<P>
As a consequence, I approve of NATO's military action.
I also approve of the governmental, non-governmental and European humanitarian activities.
I naturally hope that a European diplomatic solution can be found with the support of the United States and Russia, but it must not allow the principles of democracy and human rights to be abandoned.
<P>
It is in this way, and this way alone, that we will be able to guarantee a lasting and just peace.
<P>
I should like to end by congratulating the German Presidency on the action it has taken in this crisis, and finally, I should also like to congratulate Emma Bonino, the European Commissioner, on her personal and courageous commitment and her humanitarian passion.
The speech she gave at the end of the debate on Wednesday afternoon was one of the high points of the day.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Delcroix">
In the light of such intolerable and inhuman acts, our resolution covers the most essential points.
However, it should not prevent us from questioning the absence of a genuine 'common foreign and security policy' (CFSP) in Europe, which is becoming more regrettable by the day. Nor should it stop us from questioning, in particular, our inability to support the democrats who fought against the barbarous policies of Radovan Karadzic in the past and who are fighting against those of Slobodan Milosevic today.
<P>
In spite of all of its promises, Europe did not provide financial and moral support for the democrats in Belgrade when they most needed it, when they were fighting against Milosevic's domestic and foreign policy, and today they are forced to remain silent and hidden.
I am very dismayed to see that at a time when all political parties, with the exception of the extreme right, recognise the new virtues of international law in Pinochet's arrest, we have continued to hold talks with Milosevic, who has more blood on his hands and more 'crimes against humanity' on his conscience.
It is understandable why the International Criminal Court set up in The Hague is unable to judge all the crimes committed in our time after the event has taken place.
But was it necessary to overlook Milosevic's crimes so soon when the Dayton agreements on Bosnia were signed in 1995?
<P>
Can we negotiate with Milosevic today when the International Criminal Court has itself just accused him - although not publicly - of crimes against humanity?
It is because the Hague Court is dealing with the crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia that Karadzic is out of the running and forced into hiding.
I was shocked by the publicity-grabbing handshakes between Mr Primakov and Mgr Tauron, the Vatican envoy, with the criminal Milosevic, while thousands of Kosovars were being expelled from their homes and expatriated by force.
<P>
Our resolution makes five or six references to Milosevic, but does not say a single word about Ibrahim Rugova, the head of the Democratic League of Kosovo, winner of the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize in 1998 and one of the Rambouillet negotiators.
On three occasions Yugoslav television cameras have shown him in the process of 'negotiating' with Milosevic.
On seeing these pictures, everyone wondered what freedom Rugova enjoyed, while 'protected' by the Serb police, in a country that has been emptied of its inhabitants.
I should like to have seen our resolution invite Rugova to Brussels or Berlin so that he could freely put across his point of view on the present situation and the solutions he envisages.
<P>
I am also concerned about the situation which, through our inaction, is developing on the border between Albania and Kosovo, where the KLA and the Serb army are engaged in repeated clashes which risk spilling over into the countries surrounding Kosovo and eventually into the entire Balkan region.
Can NATO retain its credibility if, on the one hand, it bombs Serb military and economic infrastructures, and on the other hand, lets one of the sides in the conflict recruit freely?
NATO cannot play a leading role in the conflict and, according to Le Monde newspaper, be a partner to the KLA, which supplies it with information concerning the Serb positions to be destroyed, be a new international police force with a duty to intervene, and be a humanitarian body.
It needs to decides what it wants to be and stick to that decision.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Grossetête, Jean-Pierre and Verwaerde">
We should like to voice our indignation today in light of the agony, the misfortune and the suffering of the people of Kosovo, who are victims of the criminal acts that have been planned by the Milosevic regime for some time.
<P>
Of course, we did not seize the opportunity offered by the fall of the Berlin Wall to begin to build a wider political and democratic Europe.
Of course, we must regret the failures of the diplomatic efforts made in Rambouillet and in Paris.
However, with the best will in the world, we cannot change the past.
<P>
We support the values on which the intervention was based.
We support the rights of humans against the rights of a barbaric and totalitarian state which is forcing a terrorised population into exile, destroying houses, and threatening and killing women and children. We support freedom and hope that the criminals will be punished.
That is why we give our unreserved support to the courageous decision taken by the European Heads of State and Government.
<P>
We nonetheless regret that a European presence on the ground was not planned at the same time as the air offensive and that large-scale humanitarian action was not envisaged to cope with the floods of destitute refugees thrown out onto the streets.
It is now vital to implement measures to support Albania, to devise the best way of contributing to the reconstruction of Kosovo, and to provide more general development aid for the rest of the Balkans.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Hory">
I voted against the motion for a resolution on the situation in Kosovo because it negates international law, and that is both an historical blunder and a serious political error.
<P>
Never has a state that is a signatory to the United Nations Charter experienced an act of aggression by the international community such as the one perpetrated for eight years against Yugoslavia at the instigation of the United States and Germany.
A flood of unprecedented media propaganda has undeniably created a completely false impression of the Balkan crisis.
<P>
Instead of integrating the former Yugoslavia into the Union and thus promoting its process of political democratisation and economic progress, the European Union, with the European Parliament leading the way, has encouraged its break-up and created - at least indirectly - the conditions for the wars in Croatia and Bosnia in the past and in Serbia today.
<P>
We have made Bosnia's borders sacred and prevented the Bosnian Serbs from establishing links once again with Serbia.
Now we are waging war on Serbia to allow the Kosovar Albanians to establish links once again with Albania.
Make of this what you will.
<P>
We wanted international society to be subject to the rule of law, and now, in the most humiliating fashion, we are giving our consent to a strike by the Americans who have received no mandate from the United Nations.
<P>
By playing with international borders - Yugoslavia's since 1991, and Macedonia's and Albania's in the future - by disregarding the lessons of the past, by pretending to ignore Russia's role in the region, by seeking a military knock-out instead of a political solution, and by trying, in particular, to cut the Serbian people off from Europe, which they have done so much for, we will undoubtedly provoke the very conflagration we claim we want to avoid.
When the time comes, those who are consciously involved in this undertaking will have to face up to their responsibilities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Novo">
A majority of Members of the House seem to have little interest in the fact that the NATO bombing and military offensive in Yugoslavia are continuing, causing the destruction of a country and the death of an indiscriminate number of people, both Serbs and Kosovars, men and women, young and old, as was the case when more then a hundred refugees perished. They simply express regret at the loss of human life and the 'collateral damage'.
<P>
This majority does not seem to be interested in re-establishing peace to pave the way for political negotiations or an immediate end to military aggression against a sovereign state.
No, this majority prefers to justify NATO's intervention, the subservience of the EU and its Member States in the face of American strategic interests and a lack of respect for order, for international rights and for the United Nations Charter. These Members prefer to defend the escalation of the war and the approval of a political approach which is bound to jeopardise negotiated solutions and the resolution of key issues concerning autonomous regions and their ethnic minorities.
<P>
This majority seems to be blind to the fact that NATO's military aggression is the cause of the dramatic deterioration in the humanitarian situation in the Balkans, that it is putting the political future of that region at risk and seriously endangering world peace. They prefer to insist on agreements which have never been accepted by the negotiators, but have simply been imposed by NATO and are jeopardising sovereignty, borders and ancestral facts.
<P>
The resolution adopted by Parliament today will go down in the political history of this House as the centrepiece of a total failure of political memory, typical of the political hysteria now being generated by media manipulation in the interests of those who gain from war and aggression, and ignoring the values of peace, justice and the sovereignty of nations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="Olsson (ELDR), Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson (GUE/NGL)">
We intended to vote in favour of Amendment No 19 - we were in fact among those who tabled it - and to abstain on paragraph 5.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="Papayannakis">
I will not be voting in favour of the motion, which is being put forward as a compromise and which is essentially a one-sided and, on a good many points, an inaccurate analysis of the situation. The opinions and proposals it contains do very little to help find a peaceful, political and viable solution to the crisis or even to the particularly tragic problem of refugees.
<P>
Furthermore, the motion for a resolution claims that the UN and the Security Council 'could not' (!) be involved in the NATO decision to carry out aerial sorties, whilst it is clear that this decision was taken in violation of the principles of the UN which, in this case, was irreparably shamed and humiliated.
The claim that this treatment of the UN occurred because two Members of the Security Council blocked NATO activities (as they have the right to do under the UN charter) is a monument to high-handedness and a dangerous example of a totalitarian notion: that the UN is useful only when it agrees with NATO.
<P>
Given this background, any reference to the idea of an 'international community' is superfluous and unacceptable. Reference to an Atlantic community suffices.
It is verging on the ridiculous for the motion for a resolution (paragraph 3) to call for the implementation of UN resolutions or (paragraph 4) to welcome the 'initiative taken by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan', without making a single reference to the content of this initiative!
<P>
The motion for a resolution calls for priority to be given to human rights over national sovereignty concerns.
Who will interpret this just principle and who will implement it?
Will it be NATO, with the same lack of credibility and the same self-interest with which it interpreted and 'implemented' the principles of the UN?
Perhaps it will be done by each state according to its own intermittent needs and aspirations?
These are the dangerous posturings of hair-brained advisors who, in drafting the motion for a resolution, have trivialised any serious effort to construct a real international order and community that is capable of implementing such principles in a credible and viable way, without selective interventions and the irrational use of violence.
For NATO interventions and the preferences of the authors of the motion for a resolution are indeed selective. If they were not, upon reading the motion for a resolution, fear and terror would have enveloped Turkey, Indonesia, Latin America and Africa.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="Ripa di Meana">
I am voting against the resolution of the majority in the European Parliament who support the war in Yugoslavia.
Taking a terrifyingly superficial approach and showing a lack of historical understanding and disregard for detail, the European Union governments have taken our countries into this war from which we cannot now withdraw.
<P>
It is most distressing that, dancing to the tune of the national governments, the European Parliament too should be acquiescing in this highly dangerous enterprise.
<P>
The war unleashed by NATO cannot rely on justification.
There is no legal justification for it.
International rules have been ignored and the international institutions have been sidelined.
And so this is ethical warfare.
If the intention was to invent the principle of selective humanitarian intervention, why strike at Milosevic for ethnic cleansing but ignore the Kurdish question in Turkey and open the door to disturbing scenarios in Europe's trouble spots: Corsica, Ireland and the Basque country?
<P>
We now have a 'humanitarian' war, the effect of which has simply been to achieve anti-humanitarian objectives by encouraging the campaign of ethnic cleansing and the slaughter of defenceless civilians in Serbia and Kosovo.
<P>
' Collateral damage' - that is the language NATO uses to describe the loss of civilian life: for centuries to come, the Balkans will have to endure this so-called collateral damage, given that the depleted uranium contained in NATO weapons has already contaminated Yugoslav territory, thereby automatically preventing the Kosovars from returning to their country unless they want to risk sickness, deformity and death from radioactive contamination.
<P>
From that point of view, no European country is safe: if the wind gets up, the ultra-fine uranium powder will be transported to Italy, Germany, Hungary and the whole of Europe, with the same deadly effects that occurred in Saudi Arabia as a result of the pollution caused in Iraq during the Gulf War.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="Souchet">
The war that NATO is waging against Serbia is a failure.
<P>
Some claim that it amounts to a failure on the part of 'Europe' and it would certainly appear that unleashing a war under NATO command suggests an 'absence of Europe'.
These people solely lay the blame for the situation on 'American imperialism' which they believe has forced the allies into action and is set to keep them under its iron rule.
<P>
Indeed, US military intervention is not without its ulterior motives.
We are well aware of Washington's desire to establish the Alliance's credibility following the disappearance of the common enemy that gave rise to it.
What is more, the way in which the Americans behaved at the Rambouillet talks gives the impression that they did not do everything possible to help the parties reach an agreement.
<P>
However, to merely focus on this issue would be to forget the fact that NATO's military action against Yugoslavia is first of all the result of a unanimous European will, which was apparent at the Berlin summit and which was welcomed and hailed by federalists as the veritable birth of the CFSP.
<P>
Waging war under the guise of NATO does not therefore reveal an absence of European policy, but rather a flawed European policy.
<P>
It is not an isolated action.
This political error is entrenched in a rationale that goes back to the choices made by an entire generation of European leaders following the fall of the Berlin Wall.
They chose a small western Europe that is rigid and inaccessible, and whose characteristics were defined by the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties. They rejected the idea of a wider, flexible and welcoming Europe that could hope to include all those countries in Central and Eastern Europe that had just regained their sovereignty after decades of totalitarianism.
<P>
Instead of inventing a Europe with variable geometry that offered new opportunities to all of the continent's states to coexist through cooperation, these European leaders stubbornly pursued the Monnet method, with its established dogma, without realising that it was no longer the most appropriate way of uniting the very diverse countries of the new European continent.
<P>
As regards the Union, there has been considerable reluctance to admit that we needed to seriously reconsider the objectives and methods of European integration.
The 'Monnet method' has been adhered to in the belief that our economies must be united in order to allow us to imperceptibly abandon our political sovereignty.
When applied to the countries of Eastern Europe, this boils down to postponing indefinitely their membership of the club.
All we have done is merely offer the countries of Central and Eastern Europe a waiting room and a timetable for admission which is constantly pushed further into the distance like a mirage, leading to exclusion, discrimination, frustration and humiliation.
The promotion of this outmoded notion of Europe has discouraged, weakened and marginalised the leaders in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, who have emerged as a result of dissidence, and the reformers who now look to us for answers. It has also restored prestige in men who have emerged from totalitarian regimes, of which Milosevic is the archetype.
<P>
The failure to create the permanent forum for a wider Europe, that would have enabled us to immediately engage in open cooperation with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe on such key issues as security and foreign policy, shows that our continent is once again becoming divided.
<P>
The war in Yugoslavia is the tragic symbol of this new division in Europe: it embodies it and accentuates it.
We are actually seeing a Slavonic Europe seeking to organise itself without us, a Ukraine that has decided to become a nuclear power after it initially decided against doing so, and a Yugoslavia that has adopted a draft Slavonic union with Russia and Belarus.
We are also seeing Serbs rallying round Milosevic in the name of their violated homeland - in spite of the fact that most of them once rejected him - and the manifestation of an orthodox sense of solidarity in their disapproval of the Atlantic military action.
<P>
Today the fruits of NATO's military intervention are particularly bitter.
The Slavonic and orthodox worlds are moving further away, whereas they should constitute a vital component of the continental Europe we must build today.
The legitimacy of borders is being called into question.
The Balkans are at each other's throats and we are seeing two Europes re-emerge.
<P>
We must put an end to this spiral of destabilisation at all costs and as quickly as possible.
This does not simply mean stopping the bombs that give rise to hatred; we also have to develop a new concept of Europe, one that is applicable to the whole of the continent.
This should involve a family of nations called on to live side by side in a spirit of trust, with their identities restored and recognised, and with mutual respect.
This vital redefinition of our concept of Europe will be the best possible preventive policy.
<P>
Despite containing a number of useful recommendations, the motion for a resolution tabled by various groups does not look at the situation in this context, although it is essential.
Indeed, by proposing in recital J to weaken and exclude the notion of national sovereignty which, however flawed it may be, still constitutes the fundamental regulatory principle of our international community, it introduces an element that would only have extremely destabilising and disturbing consequences for international life.
That is why we were unable to vote in favour of the resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="Spiers">
I supported Amendment No 3 and believe that there is a strong case for deploying ground troops to protect Kosovo.
I believe it is also necessary to consider establishing an independent Kosovo.
<P>
However, although I have supported firm action against the Milosevic government for more than seven years, I am concerned that innocent casualties should be kept to a minimum.
I therefore voted for Amendment No 10, expressing concern about the use by NATO of weapons with depleted uranium.
These continue to have horrific consequences in Iraq, with some reports suggesting a 70 % increase in Iraq's rate of cancer and malignant births.
<P>
Paragraph 13 calls on the EU 'to step up efforts to provide information as to the populations of Serbia and Montenegro'.
If more efforts had been made in this direction when Milosevic first started his aggressive policies, the Serbian opposition to Milosevic would have been strengthened and many lives might have been saved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="Theorin and Wibe">
Ethnic cleansing and massive acts of cruelty against the Albanian people can never be accepted.
It is essential that internationally accepted standards of human rights take precedence over national sovereignty.
That will entail changes in international law. Some of this change must come about within the United Nations, but the permanent members of the Security Council have yet to address such an option.
The international community itself must function in full compliance with the provisions of international law.
We cannot therefore support a motion advocating endorsement of the NATO bombardments.
This would create a precedent, with serious consequences for the future.
<P>
Europe has stumbled into a war which has produced a million refugees, and there is no evidence of any policy to extricate ourselves from the crisis.
The EU's prime agenda now must be to work for a political solution; to put a end to ethnic cleansing; to support the refugees; to stop the bloodbath; and to provide realistic possibilities for the refugees to return.
It is not enough for the EU to be welcoming Kofi Annan's offer to mediate and bring an end to this conflict.
The EU also has a duty to reinstate the UN as the paramount body for overseeing the rule of law in the international community.
<P>
The Union should call for a peace-keeping force under UN auspices, involving Russian peace-keeping troops, so that the ethnic Albanians can return to their homeland.
<P>
Swift ratification is needed of the agreement setting up the International Criminal Court, so that we have an instrument to deal actively with war crimes in the future.
<P>
The EU's remit cannot be to sanction NATO's military initiatives, on which no elected parliament has taken a position.
The EU's duty is to devise constructive solutions - politically, diplomatically and economically - to this and other conflicts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="Trizza">
I wish to stress the urgent need for NATO intervention in the region, to safeguard the fundamental rights of the people of Kosovo, and to point out that this tragedy could have been avoided had the European Union long since been a genuine united political entity as well as an economic and monetary union.
<P>
If at the beginning of the Balkans crisis, dating back to the early 1990s, Europe had acted with common accord and with the courage to take unequivocal decisions as Yugoslavia began to break up, if even recently Europe had presented a unified and united front at the recent Rambouillet summit, we would not perhaps have witnessed the massacres and ethnic cleansing currently under way.
<P>
I would further ask for the European Parliament to sponsor an initiative to show solidarity, including financial solidarity, with the people of Apulia, who have not only generously taken in and continue taking in tens of thousands of Albanian and Kosovar refugees, but are paying the high price of the war given the logistical difficulties they face as a result of the closure of the region's airports and the impact on the whole of Apulia's tourist industry as tourists cancel their reservations and decide not to visit the region.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="President">
That concludes voting time.
The remaining votes will take place after the votes on topical and urgent subjects.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 1.45 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Transport infrastructure charging (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the report (A4-0111/99) by Mrs Schmidbauer, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the White Paper on fair payment for infrastructure use: a phased approach to a common transport infrastructure charging framework in the EU (COM(98)0466 - C4-0514/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Donnay">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, no one will deny that the development of transport has a considerable impact on the environment.
All countries are faced with the problems of nuisance, pollution or even congestion in city centres, so the desire to internalise the external costs incurred by the various forms of transport is perfectly justified.
That is why we support the Commission's document. However, since it deals with a key issue that has potentially far-reaching consequences, it needs to be approached carefully and pragmatically.
We are all aware of the importance of transport, particularly in terms of economic development.
Yet we must also guard against any excesses in this area.
I would like to state that we disagree with two points in Mrs Schmidbauer's report, namely, the proposal to include car traffic in the charging system and the taxation of kerosene.
<P>
As to the first point, I am not convinced of the relevance of this proposal, at least in terms of the charging system that is suggested in the Commission document.
I do not believe that the problems caused by car traffic relate to the White Paper, as it focuses more specifically on public transport, be it passenger or goods transport.
I also think that it would be better to deal with car traffic in a specific context.
<P>
As far as my second point is concerned, I believe that we should not be too hasty in legislating on the taxation of kerosene.
Instead, we should wait until the international agreement on air transport has been concluded so that it can be taken into consideration in all future legislation.
I feel that it would be best to leave things at that for now and to keep to the Commission's proposals.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Lagendijk">
Mr President, I generally refrain from using my precious time to congratulate the rapporteur because this has really just become a habit, but I should like to do so on this occasion, despite the fact that she has unfortunately left the Chamber, because I am extremely pleased with her report.
In my view this is an extremely important proposal from the Commission, and Mrs Schmidbauer has written a very good report on it.
<P>
There are two important points here as far as my group is concerned.
First, the principle.
As everyone knows, the Greens have for many years been strongly in favour of passing on the costs of using infrastructure to the consumers, because transport is currently too cheap and places too great a burden on the environment.
There are also practical reasons why I am pleased to see this proposal, despite the fact that, as Mrs Schmidbauer's report points out, there is clearly too little money being invested in infrastructure.
Overall spending is falling precisely when more money is needed, particularly in our view for investment in rail infrastructure.
This is why it is only right and proper that the users of the existing infrastructure should help to pay for extending it.
Of course, there are all sorts of practical problems involved and there is naturally opposition to the idea, as we have seen in the Netherlands, especially if it is not made clear that the investment and charges are needed to keep densely populated areas livable and accessible.
<P>
We have two other minor comments on this report.
The first concerns paragraph 15, which states that private car traffic must be involved in the proposals as far as possible.
In my view this is too weak, since it is actually absolutely necessary.
Private car traffic is responsible for a good deal of the marginal costs involved, and I think it is unfair that goods transport alone should be made to pay the price.
<P>
Finally, paragraph 10 of the report proposes to offset the costs involved by reducing other taxes on transport.
I do not think this is the right approach.
I still think that transport is too cheap and that hauling goods backwards and forwards across Europe is still made too attractive.
We should be trying to make a fresh start here by doing more than just passing on the capital costs of infrastructure, for example, even in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, in economic dealings, the customer usually has to pay a price for the goods or services he obtains.
There is nothing wrong with this, and it is a rule that I think the whole of society accepts.
But when it comes to using infrastructure, the link is often not obvious enough.
The total costs of transport and the prices charged in many cases bear no relation to each other, and the Commission proposal is a laudable attempt to improve this situation.
<P>
However, it is very questionable whether the proposed method of charging - the marginal social costs - will cover all the costs involved.
The Commission is obviously trying to be fairly straightforward here.
A number of Members have stressed that the introduction of a system of charges must not be allowed to lead to higher costs for the transport user.
I would not go as far as this.
The 'user pays' principle must come first, even if this means increasing prices.
We must ensure that the costs are borne by the transport end-users, not just by the operators.
<P>
If certain users are excluded from the system of charges, this will inevitably mean that the total costs cannot be completely covered.
I therefore entirely agree with Amendment No 7 by Mr Lagendijk.
<P>
The proposed charging method must produce a situation where the forms of transport that are least harmful to the environment have a greater share of the whole transport market, and it must therefore be possible to apply an amended version of the 'user pays' principle.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Stenmarck">
Mr President, it is an acknowledged fact that external costs are increasing dramatically in the transport sector.
Apportioning these costs to the respective transport modes therefore makes good sense.
Most relevant in this regard are the costs of accidents, where we have seen steep rises within the different modes over recent decades.
A variety of costs can be identified when considering the causes of environmental deterioration.
We need to assess the impact of noise, for example, and of ground, air and water pollution. The problems are growing in these areas.
Difficulties begin in earnest when it comes to evaluating such costs.
<P>
Major differences exist at present between the EU Member States; both the White Paper and the report highlight this.
Vehicle tax can be as high as EUR 3 000 per annum, for example. There are nine different charging systems for rail transport, with the level of cost coverage ranging from zero to 100 %.
Not least for reasons of competition, it would be desirable for the Union to have a common approach to cost coverage for all the different modes of transport.
<P>
Everyone would surely agree on the need to seek a fair basis for calculating Eurovignette charges, motorway tolls and so on.
What is more, in the light of developments over recent years, we now have greater scope to introduce uniform technical systems - applicable in all the Member States - for example using telematics.
Such possibilities were simply not available on the same scale in the past.
<P>
This all sounds very positive, of course.
And there is undoubtedly good reason to try to harmonise rules and provisions within the transport sector, not least in order to ensure that the single market operates better in future than it does today.
We need to strive for fair competition between all modes of transport, with a level playing field in terms of competition between the Member States.
The EU can see to some of this, but a great deal - possibly the major part - lies in the hands of the Member States themselves.
<P>
Some countries - my own included - levy considerably higher taxes and charges than others in several areas.
Until people take this fact on board, we are never going to have fair conditions of competition.
<P>
The proposal endorsed by a majority of the Committee on Transport and Tourism could well trigger a further increase in the costs affecting the transport sector.
Private cars could lose out badly, and certainly will do if the rapporteur's line is followed.
This is quite unacceptable.
The PPE Group has tabled a number of amendments to counter such effects, but so far we have received no support.
Unless such support is forthcoming today, I can see no way of backing the committee's proposal as it has been presented.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendes Bota">
Mr President, my colleague Manuel Porto could not be here this afternoon and I wish to speak on his behalf.
We welcome this further initiative by the Commission and Barbara Schmidbauer's report on sharing the costs of transport infrastructure.
<P>
This is a field where there is clearly no doubt about the jurisdiction of the European Union, particularly in relation to the distortions that occur when different criteria are applied from one country to another, no matter whether this happens close to or far from borders, as in some countries users pay for infrastructure through fuel taxes and tolls, and in others it is financed from the public purse.
<P>
It is hard to find fault with the philosophy of also recovering external transport costs.
As these are very high for road transport, including noise, atmospheric pollution and accidents, as demonstrated in the diagrams presented by the rapporteur, there is every justification for making users pay more. In fact this amounts to extending existing practice, whereby road users - via fuel and vehicle taxes and tolls - pay twice the amount spent on roads, whereas railway users pay 56 % and users of inland waterways pay 18 % of the relevant expenditure.
<P>
Apart from this being fair, it also meets the desirable objective of providing an incentive for shifting demand towards modes of transport with lower external cost factors.
However, to avoid the risk of the public being unfairly penalised, it is essential to encourage immediate improvements in such types of transport. In my country, for example, this applies to tracks for high-speed trains within the country and links to other European countries.
<P>
Furthermore, it is important to ensure proper distribution of the costs of each mode of transport and route, in a way that is fair and does not distort competition.
So we totally support the rapporteur's call for private car use to be properly taken into account when distributing the costs of road transport.
It is also important not to end up with the same situation as in my country, where virtually identical motorways and bridges are subject to widely varying tolls - or none at all - depending on the political clout of the region they serve.
<P>
In this context it is particularly shocking that as a result tolls are being scrapped in metropolitan areas populated by people with higher incomes and where it should be important to discourage the use of private vehicles, whilst they are being maintained in less privileged areas, where there are no demonstrations or electoral backlash, and are raised every year.
<P>
Automatic charging systems like the one on the 'Via Verde ' in Portugal avoid potential problems with tailbacks.
Another point is that for perfectly understandable social reasons, it would be possible to set an upper limit on monthly payments for anyone who needs to use this infrastructure on a daily basis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, on behalf of Mr Neil Kinnock I am pleased to react to this report and start by welcoming the support offered in the report and also acknowledging the concerns expressed.
I feel certain that we will be able to address these concerns as we implement the principles and develop concrete proposals.
On behalf of Mr Kinnock I should like to thank wholeheartedly Mrs Schmidbauer for her very constructive report and her support for the Commission's approach in the White Paper.
<P>
Let me make a few comments about the points of concern.
Firstly, yes, the timetable for implementation is ambitious but we are well on the way, with the Eurovignette agreement near conclusion, railway directives before the Council, the port-cost survey with Member States, airport-charging proposals, aviation charges under review, the Committee of Government Experts having met and commissioned the high-level group to report on cost-estimation methods.
Indeed, we are almost ahead of schedule!
<P>
Whilst we are still using more specific directives, the Commission will, of course, ensure that no inconsistencies or perverse effects result from this approach.
<P>
The White Paper also stresses the need for balanced implementation, in particular between road and rail sectors.
It is for this reason that the railway package provides explicitly for subsidies to railways where there are unpaid external costs in competing modes, such as roads.
It is a good example of how the Commission is avoiding inconsistencies in the implementation process by clearly identifying a problem and offering a practical solution.
<P>
The White Paper addressed equity and distributional issues as well as the problems faced in peripheral areas.
Much of this discussion applies equally to enlargement issues and candidate countries, and I feel sure that we will be able to consider these aspects when we further develop our proposals.
<P>
Member States are encouraged to incorporate the principles of the White Paper within their own charging schemes for private car transport in harmony with any EU-wide developments.
Whilst some Community legislation applies to private car users - such as fuel duties, excise duties, VAT - our current approach to charging is focused on commercial traffic, because that is a problem which can be addressed successfully only by a Community regulatory framework, safeguarding the functioning of the internal transport market while, at the same time, fully integrating environmental objectives.
<P>
Private car use raises a host of regional and local issues which, in accordance with the subsidiarity principle, call for a somewhat different type of approach, which we have been developing primarily through the action programme for the citizens' network.
<P>
I am convinced that at this stage of Community policy-making the differentiated approach will be both the most effective and will rightly respect the legitimate roles of transport policy-makers at other political levels.
<P>
Finally, I should like to thank you for the support the report offers.
We all know that this area, pricing issues - be they in road, rail, aviation or maritime sectors - is fraught with obstacles and progress, especially at the political level, can be painfully slow.
To have the support of Parliament on such subjects is therefore particularly welcome.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken this evening at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Maximum authorised dimensions and weights in international traffic
<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="President">
The next item is the second report (A4-0114/99) by Mr van Dam, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Directive amending Council Directive 96/53/EC, laying down for certain road vehicles circulating within the Community the maximum authorised dimensions in national and international traffic and the maximum authorised weights in international traffic (COM(98)0414 - C4-0486/98-98/0227(SYN)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, Commissioner, on the way here this morning, various colleagues said to me 'this is your big day'.
Normally it is indeed a pleasure when you have a report on the agenda, but no rapporteur likes to have the mixed feelings that I am experiencing at the moment because of the annoying stalemate in which we find ourselves.
<P>
Two months ago, we had another debate on combined transport here in the Chamber.
The vote which followed confirmed that the European Parliament could not agree to the Commission's proposal to exempt combined transport from the generally accepted 40-tonne weight limit.
As a result, the proposal was referred back to the Committee on Transport.
<P>
Shortly afterwards there were consultations between members of the Transport Committee and representatives of the Commission, and after a subsequent discussion in the committee I concluded that the majority were still in favour of maintaining the position adopted two months ago.
<P>
Formally speaking this is the correct line to take, since the Commission has not come up with any new or amended proposals since Parliament rejected its original one.
So in formal terms, there is no reason for Parliament to revise its position of two months ago.
<P>
However, as rapporteur I can tell you that the Commission has not just been sitting on its hands.
Both in its consultations with Parliament's representatives and at the Transport Committee meeting, it indicated that it was prepared to re-examine those sections on which Parliament had insurmountable objections.
Because of the limited time available, it has not been able to produce any proposals on paper, but it has become clear that the Commission is favourably disposed and appears prepared to take Parliament's objections on board and amend the current proposal accordingly.
<P>
According to my information, there is also almost unanimous support in the Council for increasing the maximum weight.
Only the United Kingdom appears to oppose this, but if there is an exemption for islands it should be able to benefit from this in view of its island status.
<P>
Given the present circumstances, it is difficult for me to vote for or against the resolution by the Transport Committee.
I would not vote against because the situation has changed since two months ago, but I also would not vote in favour because the Commission's approach deserves a better response than for Parliament simply to dig in its heels.
I have to say, therefore, that I find it difficult to understand the hard line that some of my colleagues are pursuing.
<P>
In my view, there is no doubt that we can find a way out of this impasse through negotiation, but as rapporteur I had no choice but to represent the view of the majority in the Committee on Transport.
I would urge them to keep an open mind on the Council's position and the Commission's amendments, and I am confident that this issue can be brought to a successful conclusion which is acceptable to all parties at the start of the new parliamentary term.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Piecyk">
Mr President, first of all, I believe we have to thank Mr van Dam for stepping into the breach here and taking on the thankless task of continuing this report.
Unfortunately, I believe - and I am not the first to say this - that we have the classic case here in which a principle that we welcome and support, namely combined transport, in other words the effort to shift traffic away from the roads and onto the railways and waterways, has been dealt a severe blow by a single inappropriate measure.
That was the criticism last time and, sad to say, nothing has changed.
<P>
I do not think it makes any sense to create a rule which virtually makes every ban on Sunday and night haulage negotiable.
Nor does it make any more sense to allow a 44-tonne weight limit without any other restrictions at all.
We have criticised this several times.
We rejected it here in Parliament.
The Council, for its part, did not take up Parliament's proposal on the inclusion of tax incentives to promote combined transport.
<P>
The fact is that we rejected this on the last occasion.
The Commission has had the opportunity to make changes, as Mr van Dam rightly said, because it is after all the initiator of the legislative process and can revise its own proposals.
We in Parliament made our position perfectly clear.
We said we rejected this blanket solution and asked the Commission to come back with concrete proposals involving tighter rules.
And I have to say to the Commissioner, even if he is not here at the moment, that sending a letter to the committee is not a proposal.
It is not enough!
I shall make no bones about this: a letter does not suffice as notice of intent.
<P>
That is why we await a more concrete set of proposals from the Commission.
I believe Parliament is disposed to support the principle of combined transport. But if no proposals are forthcoming, we can do nothing.
For that reason, we can only endorse the concluding words of the report: '... rejects the Commission proposal and calls on the Commission to withdraw its proposal'.
That is the position.
There is nothing else we can do at the present time.
<P>
The Commission may be slightly incapacitated because of the current situation, but we hope that it will be able, as soon as possible after the start of the next legislative term, to present some reasonable proposals that we can discuss.
That would enable us to see this business through quite quickly, and there will be no need for us to make full use of our speaking time, because this issue practically generates its own momentum.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, the van Dam report, previously the Wijsenbeek report, is running the risk of becoming another Tolman report on isoglucose, in other words an institutional first.
First of all, Parliament and the Commission originally had diametrically opposite views on this issue, and I have to say that when I was rapporteur, I entirely agreed with the Commission.
Now we have to find a solution.
If it is held over until after the elections, it will come under the codecision procedure.
But what is doubly remarkable is that under a heading which does not exist in the Treaties, a current affairs issue on which Parliament and the Commission have opposing views, Mr Kinnock, should have come before the Council unamended.
If it were not for the fact that there was no question at all of unanimity in the Council, not even unanimity minus one, then the Council might well have agreed with the Commission and might have accepted the decision, despite Parliament's very different views.
<P>
I therefore feel it is time to try to find some common solutions calmly, quietly and through consultation.
As Mr Piecyk said, we agree that combined transport needs to be promoted and that greater use must be made of the inland waterways and railways.
It seems that all we disagree on are those few tonnes, although we all know how much discussion there has been on excess weight and how many exceptions have been agreed over the weekend.
We have to find a middle ground here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, I am by no means an expert on road transport, but I have to say that I agree with the previous speaker, Mr Wijsenbeek, because I have heard some terrible complaints from people who are not just professionally involved with road transport but work with it every day.
How can Europe claim to champion the free movement of goods when the axle weights of lorries are different in the Netherlands, Belgium and France?
The permitted weight per axle is different again, so that a lorry travelling through three European countries will either be breaking the law somewhere or else running itself into the ground financially.
Moreover, if it has unloaded half its load, it will no longer be complying with the requirements that it met when it started out.
Not to mention the rules on Sunday and holiday driving, which are also completely different.
<P>
I live in a country where the volume of freight transport is extremely heavy.
I know that lorries are allowed to drive around quite happily in Belgium, for example, whereas the same might not be true in neighbouring countries.
I ask you, is this what Europe is all about?
Is this all we have to show for our much-vaunted cooperation and coordination?
I have to say that European hauliers have quite enough to worry about when you think that, for example, Portuguese haulage companies drive goods round our countries at prices that are far below the average which our hauliers have to pay their workers.
The same could be said of British haulage companies.
So as you will gather, I support all calls for genuine coordination and I will find it hard to justify myself to voters in the forthcoming elections who confront me with issues such as this to which I cannot give a proper answer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="van den Broek">
Even though, the political circumstances being what they are, the present Commission is only supposed to be dealing with current affairs, in this particular case I am dealing with something 'in transit' on behalf of Mr Kinnock.
The discussions that have taken place with the rapporteur and other Members since the debate on the van Dam report, previously the Wijsenbeek report, at the February part-session have convinced me, or rather Mr Kinnock, that we all agree on the need to make combined transport more attractive and competitive.
We want to encourage a shift from road transport to other forms of transport that are more sustainable, safer and more energy-efficient, while at the same time giving transport users more choice.
As an important element of these joint efforts, the Commission is proposing to enable transport operators in the Community to use a maximum lorry weight of 44 tonnes, but only for road transport which forms part of a combined transport operation and only for the relatively short road legs of the combined transport journey.
<P>

Of course, this is not the only way to make this potentially important transport sector more competitive, but I want to make a significant contribution by improving the conditions under which the road legs of combined transport journeys are carried out, not least by reducing the often unreasonably high costs involved.
<P>
If we could reduce the costs by 10 % for heavy goods transport, it would be an important incentive for potential combined transport users.
Experience in a number of Member States has shown this to be the case.
Seven of the Member States already allow a weight of 44 tonnes or more for all road transport, while others allow 44 tonnes for part of a combined transport operation.
As honourable Members are undoubtedly aware, the Member States can prescribe a maximum weight of 44 tonnes for three-axle vehicles forming part of a five- or six-axle combination to prevent such vehicles from causing too much damage to the roads.
<P>
Clearly, this proposal is not intended to give road transport an unfair advantage, quite the reverse.
It is specifically designed to influence the behaviour of road transport operators by persuading them to use other forms of transport.
The net result will be that a greater volume of goods will be transported by rail, inland waterway and short-haul transport.
As Mr Kinnock pointed out to Mr van Dam in his letter of 11 March, he genuinely believes that we need to translate the consensus we have achieved on the need to promote combined transport into specific, practical measures.
In our view we need at this stage, as someone said earlier, to consider more restrictive weight rules for island Member States than those originally proposed by the Commission, for the obvious reason that their links with the rest of the market are not just by road.
<P>
In addition, it also makes sense to examine ways of determining whether a road journey genuinely forms part of a combined transport operation.
On behalf of Mr Kinnock let me say - including to Mr Wijsenbeek - that I hope we can find universally acceptable solutions on the basis of compromise proposals.
<P>
Finally, I should like to thank the Committee on Transport and Tourism and the rapporteur, Mr van Dam, for all their efforts on this very complicated subject.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken this evening at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Electronic money and its use
<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="Thors">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this report deals as you know with electronic money.
Obviously, it is not easy for us to tell today how much this type of money will be used in the future.
<P>
Today we basically have two ways of paying electronically: using 'smart' cards, onto which we can 'load' money; or by 'loading' money onto our computers via various programs and systems which enable us to pay over the Internet.
<P>
It is worth pointing out that these two methods of payment have failed to take off in the manner predicted a few years ago.
I hope that we will soon be bold enough to make the necessary great leap forward.
<P>
Along with many others, I believe that the euro will open up fantastic prospects once it actually exists in physical form.
And using the methods I have been describing, we can in practice already make use of the euro now. From the point of view of ordinary people, this lends reality to the new currency.
<P>
Of course, European legislation will be required in this area.
Harmonisation is necessary in view of the single market and the fact that, to a large extent, we live in a common currency area.
There is no contradiction here with the subsidiarity principle.
<P>
The apple of discord when discussing this directive has been whether the holding and issuing of electronic money should be limited to banks.
We know that certain Member States sought such a restriction, whereas others did not want there to be any rules at all.
I am pleased to see that a large majority in Parliaments Committee on Legal Affairs does not wish to see a restriction on the right to issue.
That is the correct approach, in my view; in this way, we can promote the development of new means of payment.
Many operators - among them telecommunications companies - are currently bringing new means of payment onto the market.
This will mean new possibilities for consumers, and the resulting competition should benefit everyone.
<P>
This directive deals mainly with how the issuers of electronic money are to be supervised and how we can ensure that they are fully viable and liquid.
The Committee on Legal Affairs does not have many amendments to put forward here.
We did however note with disappointment that the consumer aspects have not been covered in this directive.
Parliament has observed on many occasions that consumer concerns have been ignored when the Commission has submitted proposals on financial services.
We would seriously urge the Commission actively to monitor the situation with regard to consumer protection and to keep an eye on how the recommendations on the security and reliability of such means of payment are being followed. As soon as possible, we need to see the appropriate measures put in place to protect consumers.
It is unfortunately likely to be necessary to introduce further rules governing liability in respect of abuse and breaches of the law in connection with electronic money.
A horizontal directive, focusing on more general gaps in regulation in the sector, should be able to remedy the situation, .
<P>
The Committee on Legal Affairs was broadly united in supporting the proposal that consumers should be entitled to redeem electronic money.
I hope that the Commission can go along with this.
<P>
If such money is to become a feature of our everyday lives, we must of course be able to spend it.
One way of achieving this is by ensuring that different payment devices and systems can handle all the various cards and programs.
That is what is meant by the high-sounding term 'interoperability'. This can only be achieved if sound business conditions are applied.
I myself remain convinced that the sector itself will soon launch a series of measures of its own.
The duty of the public authorities is to guarantee the creation of open systems.
The Commission can exercise oversight here under its competition powers.
We also want the Commission to make sure that any standards produced for this sector do not exclude certain operators.
My group cannot, however, support the proposals in Amendments Nos 12 and 13, which call for separate directives in order to safeguard interoperability.
<P>
May I also point out that we have tabled a number of technical amendments which we hope will clarify the scope of the directive, making it easier in future to amend the legislation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="Torres Marques">
Mr President, Commissioner, I would first like to say that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy is pleased with the two directives that have been presented to us, as we believe that extending the provisions to non-bank issuers of electronic money is a good way of stimulating competition in this area whilst improving the quality of service offered and the prices charged to consumers.
<P>
I would also like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Thors, on her report and to welcome the fact that the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has taken on board nearly all the proposals of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs in its report.
This means that I do not have to repeat many of the points the committee made, as they have already been dealt with, and I will therefore use my speaking time to stress some of the problems we face, which are a matter of great concern to us.
<P>
Firstly, there is the problem of interoperability.
We think it is extremely important to have an interoperable system of using electronic money between different countries, but this interoperability involves having a card that everyone accepts.
Mrs Thors and I have been informed that the CIP very recently reached agreement on a card, but we were also told, during a hearing that we organised, that it could take 18 months before this type of card comes into use.
<P>
Well, Commissioner, we on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs think that the various forms of electronic money are of vital importance for implementing the euro as quickly as possible before the coins and notes come into circulation. This could be either in the form of virtual money stored on computers for electronic commerce or in the form of interoperable cards.
This 18 month lead-time will yet again delay an opportunity for the public to use the euro, which seems rather worrying to us.
<P>
We also find it rather worrying that each country has its own inter-bank system so that there is no internal market in banking systems. Similarly, we are concerned that payments effected within the internal market are treated as international payments, with all the costs that implies.
We have therefore made some proposals on this subject, namely Amendments Nos 12 and 13, which Mrs Thors has already referred to.
We have tabled these amendments because we consider it essential, Commissioner, for the Commission to bring forward draft directives on this subject, so that there is a set of regulations which everyone recognises and which provides a guarantee for every citizen in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="Oddy">
Mr President, I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Thors, for her excellent report on an important subject.
<P>
This report should be seen in conjuction with Mr Ullmann's report on electronic signatures and my own report, which will come up next month, on electronic commerce.
The Internet and methods of working electronically are a way forward for the world and the European Union.
This is a growth area and should create a large number of jobs.
At a briefing yesterday, Commissioner Flynn said there were around 100 000 job vacancies in the European Union in this area.
It is important that we get sensible rules that will encourage growth of the Internet and electronic commerce.
<P>
Electronic money is not used very much at present, but I am sure that it will become very important in the future.
The basis of Mrs Thors' report will encourage this growth.
We need to ensure that we establish rules at European level that encourage the use of computers and do not stifle economic development.
<P>
I thank the rapporteur.
I shall be supporting her report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, this issue always seems to create confusion.
Because the electronic world is unfamiliar, we imagine that this is all about some sort of virtual money.
There is no such thing.
What we are really dealing with here is a new way of undertaking and recording credit transactions.
Like the assignat in revolutionary France, which marked the introduction of credit money, electronic money has brought new forms of fraud and new ways for governments to circumvent budgetary restrictions.
We really must find common rules.
It is perhaps important to point out that this must not be taken as a pretext for returning to a type of situation in which private trading houses control the money supply.
<P>
In the high middle ages, one of the main instruments that was used to promote economic development throughout Europe and to overcome the problems connected with private money was the introduction of silver coinage, guaranteed by the monarch.
By the same token, I believe there are three demands to be made, and indeed they are made in the report: universality must mean interoperability, redeemability and free use.
Money can be made from the related financial services.
All of this must be organised in the euro framework; it must not be based on the harsh terrain within which the banking and financial services sector still operates.
<P>
If that condition is met, important avenues will open up here, and they must be pursued.
But we do need to cast off the Klondike mentality which sees electronic operations as the key to a great financial boom, just as the assignat was expected to be.
The outward token of credit is not a collateral loan.
Merely promising to honour a loan is not honouring the promise, which is something that has to take place in the future.
That is why the whole area of the prudential supervision of issuing companies is actually a key element without which the realm of electronic money cannot develop in an accountable way.
I should also like to remind the House of our urgent need to act in the field of banking supervision too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 NAME="Monti">
Mr President, let me begin by thanking the rapporteurs, Mrs Thors on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and Mr Torres Marques on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
They have made an extremely valuable contribution to the review of these proposals.
<P>
I must stress that the issuance of electronic money is just one element in the far broader context of electronic commerce systems and, within those systems, electronic payments themselves.
The Commission thinks it right to tackle the horizontal issues common to this broader context with horizontal instruments and measures, rather than applying restricted solutions limited to just one service.
<P>
The proposals for directives that we are discussing in fact relate to a specific aspect which has its own special features, requiring a targeted legislative response.
By this I mean the problem - and it alone is the problem - of the minimum prudential rules which, by ensuring that electronic currency institutions are stable and sound, will open the way to mutual recognition of authorisations and controls, and hence genuine free movement of operators and services.
You will know that traditional credit institutions are already themselves authorised to issue electronic money, in accordance with the whole array of banking directives, and this new service of theirs may therefore make use of the European passport.
<P>
These two proposals are designed to open up to other operators, within a neutral competitive framework, the new market for the issuance of electronic money, taking into account both the concern to see proper competition develop in the sector and the situation as it currently exists in a number of Member States.
<P>
The report from the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights is largely positive in its assessment of the two proposals and includes amendments which improve their clarity.
It is a view that I welcome and for which I am grateful.
But I do not think that two other different issues - which I consider to be extremely sensitive - can usefully be tackled in this directive, namely the concerns voiced in the report in relation to interoperability and redemption of the stored money.
<P>
As I have said, the Commission is already looking at these important issues within a broader framework and has undertaken to deal with them appropriately, including, among other things, all the expectations relating to bearer protection.
And so although we are today unable to accept the amendments in this area, this is only because the Commission does not consider the two proposals under discussion to be the appropriate context.
Nonetheless, we agree with the analyses of the problems that will have to be resolved in the appropriate context and manner.
<P>
Let me mention briefly the individual amendments.
The Commission is able to accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 14, 20, 21 and 22 to the proposal for a directive on the electronic money institutions.
<P>
Amendment No 3 asks the Commission to draw up a specific directive on the contractual relationship between issuers and bearers of electronic money.
As the House will be aware, in 1997 the Commission adopted a recommendation in this regard and we are now looking at its application: it would therefore be premature to undertake to adopt a proposal for a directive at this juncture, as the situation cannot be properly assessed until the current review is completed.
That is why we are unable to accept the amendment.
<P>
Amendments Nos 4 to 13, with the exception of Amendment No 10, concern the problems linked to the payments system, in particular the existence and administration of inter-bank systems, interoperability and access to them.
As I have said, these issues are being dealt with horizontally, within a more comprehensive framework, as part of other work in which the Commission is engaged, and we therefore cannot agree to these amendments.
<P>
Similar considerations apply to Amendments Nos 10, 18 and 19 to the proposal for a directive on the electronic money institutions, and Amendments Nos 1 and 2 to the other directive.
They relate to the problem of redeeming stored electronic money.
This problem is also being tackled as part of the review of the application of the recommendation on the relationship between issuers and bearers.
Furthermore, the Commission has already undertaken to monitor consistently all the problems concerning bearer protection in relation to electronic money, and these problems naturally extend further than the issue of redemption alone.
I must repeat that the Commission is very sensitive to these aspects and open to many of the solutions set out in the amendments, but we do not believe the approach and the legislative instrument used to be appropriate, and therefore feel that we cannot accept these amendments.
<P>
The Commission also agrees with what is proposed in Amendment No 15, but has to enter a reservation with regard to its exact wording and the order of the individual paragraphs.
Amendment No 16 is also acceptable, but it is helpful to place the adverb 'only' before 'references', so as to avoid creating confusion with references contained in other instruments.
That, I believe is the intention of the author of the amendment.
Clearly, the Commission accepts Amendment No 17 in that same perspective.
It also accepts Amendment No 23, except for the second paragraph; this cannot technically be deleted because in the event of derogation from the first and second banking directives, neither the competent authorities nor the own funds would any longer be defined.
<P>
Let me conclude, Mr President, by again expressing my sincere thanks for the broadly favourable report that has been presented and for having been given this opportunity of explaining the Commission's views on the amendments which we are unable to accept but which it will, I hope, be possible to reconsider in the light of what I have said.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Monti.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Financial services framework for action
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0175/99) by Mr Fayot, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication from the Commission 'Financial services: building a framework for action' (COM(98)0625 - C4-0688/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 NAME="Fayot">
Mr President, Commissioner, Europe is working towards the creation of a single market in financial services.
It is a process that was given political impetus by the Heads of State and Government at the Cardiff and Vienna summits and which should lead, at the Cologne summit, to a report detailing the measures needed to implement a single financial market.
<P>
I hope that Commissioner Monti will continue to participate in this process for the remainder of the Commission's term of office as he has the authority and know-how to see it through.
He has headed a high-level group of representatives of the finance ministers which assisted the Commission's deliberations on the matter and which has just completed its work.
We hope that this method will bear fruit at Member State level.
<P>
Thanks to Parliament's report, together with the consultations the Commission held with experts, Mr Monti is in a position to put forward a series of measures at the Cologne summit.
In spite of the restrictions the resigning Commission has imposed in terms of new legislative initiatives, I feel that the work undertaken in this area over quite some time now should be brought to a conclusion at this European Council.
<P>
The present Commission communication is entitled 'Building a framework for action' and it is extremely useful for examining all the issues relating to financial services.
I should like to begin by saying a few words on the theoretical background to the communication.
The document states that a financial market, a genuinely single financial market, would automatically mean better optimisation of resources leading to lower cost capital for industry.
Such increased efficiency would appear to lead to stronger growth and therefore to the creation of jobs.
However, I remain somewhat sceptical about all of this.
Mergers and economies of scale in this sector, the trend for the creation of mega banks and conglomerates, technological developments that lead to improved productivity, and the consequent pressures on employment or on the actors working at a regional level all have their own particular logic which is not necessarily akin to the general interest or the employment objectives.
<P>
The communication outlines the measures that are needed in the area of the single market and financial services.
If we really want to make progress, we must establish political priorities, though it is clearly not easy to make clear choices.
So, for example, I believe that we need to rebalance the current strategy that places the emphasis on the supply side, through a strategy that has a more demand-driven approach.
In fact, consumer organisations have shown, for instance, that existing European legislation in this field concentrates on the supply side, whereas demand, which benefits consumers and small businesses, plays a minor role.
<P>
It is striking to note in this connection that, contrary to all expectations, the advent of the euro has not improved the supply of transnational financial services, but has instead made it more expensive.
Whereas trade and cross-border consumption are on the increase, the general feeling is that this increase has not been mirrored in the area of financial services. Nor have these services adapted to the new context.
They either remain entrenched behind their national and sectoral logic, or appear to consider the sector of little interest. What is more, this logic may simply be the logic of easy profit, rather than one that takes account of the nature of the services in the general interest that the bank should provide for a range of consumers.
<P>
The retail market undoubtedly merits special attention.
Instead of enabling consumers to benefit from competition, the present situation is marked by huge price differences in credit cards, mortgages and other services and the communication contains detailed information on this.
However, the wholesale market needs as much impetus and supervision from the Community as the retail market.
Pension funds and risk capital markets are good examples of this.
In its report, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs highlights the importance of liquid and efficient European venture capital markets for start-ups and innovative companies in the high-technology industries.
Nonetheless, at the moment, almost all the Member States are trying to develop their own venture capital markets, yet none of them have achieved the necessary critical mass to allow such markets to really take off.
<P>
We would also stress the need to create a single market in pension funds.
Whatever the attitude towards this type of social security, it is true that the aging of the population creates considerable demand that financial services will have to meet.
And this sector will only be able to evolve within a large internal market.
To achieve this, the funds collected must be invested in diversified and internationalised portfolios, the principle of freedom of choice must be respected and we must also prevent all types of discrimination on a national level, be it of a fiscal or procedural nature.
<P>
More generally speaking, the Commission is proposing eight points for action concerning the wholesale markets. These initiatives will form a major legislative body of new legislation and revisions of existing outdated legislation or ineffective regulatory apparatus.
It would be interesting to learn what the high-level group thought on this issue.
Are we, for example, to replace the 11 banking directives, the eight directives on investment services, the 21 directives on insurance as well as the interpretive texts, and if so, what are we to replace them with?
Are we heading towards the creation of a single body of legislation for financial services, or are we going to continue, as we have done in the past, to pile essential texts on top of one another, according to developments in the market and in financial services?
<P>
One of the very sensitive issues in this sector relates to supervision and prudential supervision, which is still currently based on the frontiers of a country and the home-rule.
The debate on supervision in home countries as opposed to supervision in host countries has, until now, prevented any major shift towards either European supervisory systems or a European body for supervision.
However, the increasing pace of electronic banking, distance selling and electronic commerce will render the differences between home and host rules obsolete.
At present, the speed with which capital movements take place defies the ability of national authorities to supervise them.
We must therefore think in terms of new form of international cooperation and therefore consider, for example, defining a European Union rule and making it the basis of the new rules and new prudential supervision within the Union.
I am well aware, Mr President, that, given the present situation, this presents some prospects for the medium, and even the long, term.
<P>
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs is very concerned about the high levels of consumer protection that exist in relation to the retail market.
This is why we are proposing to study the appointment of a European Union ombudsman for financial services provided in the retail markets, independent of any Community or national institution and of any particular interests.
There are many arguments in favour of the creation of such an institution.
No genuine cross-border appeal and redress procedure currently exists.
Pan-European products are going to be developed.
National appeal and redress procedures are very varied and are often difficult to understand.
I should just like to add that there is a need for legislation on financial middlemen in the area of consumer and housing credit and insurance in order to protect consumers in cross-border markets.
I regret that the committee did not support me on this point which is, in my view, a very precise and important requirement of European consumers.
<P>
Mr President, our political task is clear. The Commission must present an action plan on financial services to the ECOFIN Council, which must then submit this plan to the approval of the Cologne European Council.
I might add that, once their blessing has been given at the highest level, the Commission and the Council will have to act promptly.
I can assure you that Parliament will not delay the decisions needed to set up this single market in financial services, which, to a greater or lesser degree, we all hope will become a reality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="Herman">
Mr President, we broadly agree with what the rapporteur has just said.
<P>
First, we believe that a Commission, even a resigning Commission, must continue the work it has undertaken since such work forms an integral part of the management of daily business. This might seem quite daring in relation to some of the definitions in national public law, but bearing in mind both the urgency and the pressure applied by the Council to complete the work within the deadlines - we have timetables to adhere to - we must see it through to completion.
We are therefore particularly pleased with the request put forward in this respect since we have here in the House a Commissioner who has shown himself to be an expert in these matters and who has demonstrated his ability to listen to Parliament's requests. Moreover, he is someone who holds considerable sway with the governments and with the ECOFIN Council in particular.
<P>
I therefore think that the conditions are right for this work to continue, and if I might add a personal wish, I hope that Mr Prodi will include Mr Monti in his new team; both the Commission and Parliament would benefit from this.
<P>
Let us look at several retail problems.
I do not exactly share Mr Fayot's doubts as regards the significance of the single market, though it is true that it is not providing us with much proof of its purpose at present.
This is simply because there is still great diversity in terms of the various national legislation and very little harmonisation.
For example, we have 38 different securities markets.
<P>
In my view, the key element in all of this is prudential supervision.
Much can be said and done in this respect at European level because securitisation has completely changed the nature of prudential supervision.
Before, there were only banks, where it was easy to find the appropriate recommendation, sanction, etcetera.
But it is a different story when it comes to securities that can travel across the world, because this creates systematic risks that our current organisation does not allow us to compensate for.
This is all the more reason, therefore, for creating a form of European prudential supervision that is more effective than our own systems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Katiforis">
Mr President, I in turn would once again like to thank the Commissioner for carrying on with the work he had already embarked upon in this extremely important area of the drafting and renewal of financial services legislation.
I am especially pleased that, despite the shock waves that have reverberated through the Commission recently - even though the Commissioner himself is above suspicion in this affair - he has not stopped promoting this extremely useful work in the area of financial services.
<P>
I also want to agree for once with what Mr Hermann said on the subject of the usefulness of the major stock exchanges. One of the things we are expecting from the single currency is the unification of the securities market in Europe.
This will put it on a par with the American money market. In this way we will be able to draw from it the necessary investment to increase the activity of the European economy and to create jobs.
<P>
Of course, there are some very real dangers associated with the major stock exchanges, some of which have quite rightly been pointed out by our rapporteur, whom I would like to commend on his work.
We should add to these the danger of systemic shock, which is caused by excessive 'leveraging' and may even lead to the collapse of the stock exchanges.
<P>
Mr President, I would like to end by announcing in this part-session that last week a historic event took place in this area.
The Canadian Parliament, the first in the world to do so, took the decision to introduce a tax on speculative capital, the famous Tobin tax.
I think that this is something we must begin to address in the fullness of time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 NAME="Monti">
Mr President, I must begin by congratulating the rapporteur, Mr Fayot, for the extraordinary work he has done in this complex report.
I am also grateful to Mr Fayot, Mr Herman and Mr Katiforis for their kind words: needless to say, I am greatly touched by them.
<P>
The Commission welcomes the fact that the report expresses general support for the framework for action.
It sets out what we believe needs to be done.
The Fayot report largely mirrors our own views and I am grateful for the support that has been expressed, particularly in relation to the urgent need to fill a number of existing gaps in the law, for example in relation to integrated pension schemes.
<P>
The Commission is in complete agreement with the rapporteur that, despite the substantial progress which has been made towards the completion of the single market in financial services, cross-border sales of financial products on a retail basis to individual consumers remain the exception rather than the rule within the European Union, and there are still large variations in price between the Member States.
<P>
I take a slightly different line from Mr Fayot, in terms of explaining the situation at least, in that I believe that we have to look here both at the economy of supply and the economy of demand, which are closely linked.
In any event, I believe that the concerns he voices have to be fully shared.
<P>
Union policy ought to be based on a pragmatic approach tailored to three key sectors: firstly, it is essential that those who purchase financial services are provided with clear and comprehensible information; and secondly, the appeal procedures are vital to consumer confidence.
In that context, the rapporteur suggests that we consider the arguments in favour of setting up an EU ombudsman for financial services; I would suggest that we go further along that path and consider more widely the forms of redress which are currently available to users of financial services throughout the Union.
Thirdly, harmonisation and mutual recognition are intrinsically linked.
If all the Member States have the same basic level of protection, it will become easier to accept and grant mutual recognition for protection accorded in other states.
<P>
The rapporteur suggests setting up a system of integrated retail payments.
There is already in operation a fully effective and integrated infrastructure for wholesale and inter-bank transactions, but developments in the infrastructures for small-scale cross-border payments have not kept pace with this.
<P>
I agree with the rapporteur that it is absolutely necessary to reinforce the efforts being made by the financial institutions and the national administrations to overcome these obstacles.
But it is not possible to create by statute a single retail financial area in which basic banking transactions are economic and effective, as in the national systems; however, the framework for action illustrates how progress can be achieved in that process.
<P>
As far as the prudential rules are concerned, and the rapporteur suggests that the Commission should submit a report on the effectiveness of those currently in force, I believe that the recent upheaval and the way in which the European Union has, on the whole, coped with it, demonstrate that the prudential rules are basically effective.
I therefore prefer to focus on how to integrate and improve them, rather than on what I might describe as a backward-looking report.
<P>
The pace of change in the markets and the financial intermediaries has revealed the possible limits of a sectoral approach, and that tendency becomes more marked with the process of global financial integration.
I agree with the rapporteur that, as far as the regulatory and supervisory authorities are concerned, these developments represent new challenges that can be met through effective cooperation and coordination between the regulatory and supervisory authorities, with a clear division of supervisory responsibilities and sound financial regulations to manage the global institutional and system risk.
I would stress that, as far as the possibility of better supervision of financial services at European Union level is concerned, our attention ought to focus on the large financial groupings.
<P>
Finally, how can the Commission, Parliament and the Council take forward this process?
The framework for action is addressed to the European Parliament, which will have a key role in the process of modernising the financial services sector, on the basis of the results obtained by the group in which the representatives of the finance ministries are taking part and Parliament's own report.
We are now working towards the ECOFIN Council of 25 May, and I have to say that your words have given us great and valuable encouragement to press on with this work.
<P>
I wish finally to say that as regards the amendments tabled at the end by Mr Fayot, I am in agreement, with three exceptions, namely Amendments Nos 2, 5 and 7. I have already explained to the rapporteur why I have some doubts about them.
I will also add a word of explanation about Amendment No 11.
<P>
I should like to end by making the point that, as regards the large number of directives in the sector - and Mr Fayot is right about that - the bulk of the existing directives are in fact directives amending earlier directives, so that rather than there being 22 banking directives in force, there are actually only six.
But we are working to codify those six directives into a single directive and, to give you an idea, to reduce the mass of banking legislation in the European Union from 360 to 80 pages.
We are trying to do the same in relation to insurance and securities.
<P>
Finally, I must agree with the point made by Mr Herman, to whom I once again extend my thanks, about ensuring security, a view which I share.
We shall be tabling proposals that reflect the broader aspect of the capital markets, and following closely the work under way in Basle.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Monti.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
The Daphne programme
<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=151 NAME="Colombo Svevo">
Mr President, Commissioner, let me first apologise on behalf of the rapporteur, Mrs Bennasar Tous, who is unable to take part in the debate on this report, which she drafted, as are many colleagues who took part in the discussion in committee and are currently otherwise engaged, attending an international conference in Paris.
I am sorry that Mrs Bennasar Tous is unable to be here because we should have liked - or at least I personally should have liked - to have sincerely thanked her in person for the work she has done: she has managed to win support for the programme by maintaining a balance - and this is no easy matter - between the spirit and political significance of the programme and the constraints imposed by a legal base which we, unfortunately, regard as very restrictive in terms of the objectives of the programme itself.
<P>
The report that is being presented today is one in which the members of the Committee on Women's Rights take some pride, because it is based on broad consensus and cooperation between all its members.
Of course, the change the Council made to the legal base - at a time when the first draft of the report was actually ready - has significantly complicated our work, from both a procedural and a substantive point of view.
That was a source of concern, because you have to bear in mind that after three years' work, on the one hand, the Daphne programme required a strong and secure legal base before 1 January 2000, but we could not let the legal base proposed to us undermine the political approach on which the programme had been based.
<P>
The report that we have drawn up and the amendments that we are putting to you reflect the debate following which the House adopted, in March of this year, a resolution on violence against women.
We therefore consider the amendments to be an integral part of the programme itself.
<P>
Most importantly, we have the concept of public health, to which we have given a broad interpretation in line with the World Health Organisation - health as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being - and in accordance also with the case-law of the Court of Justice. And then we have the actual concept of violence, which specifically covers the elements cited: violence is not only violence against the mental and physical integrity of those on whom it is inflicted, it is also a serious social ill that is damaging to all - the victim, the aggressor and the public.
That is the second point.
<P>
Still within the ambit of that legal base - which, as I keep saying, seems to us excessively rigid and strict - violence is above all, and we are resolute on this, a violation of human rights, and that is why action to deter violence must be based on a multi-disciplinary approach.
We cannot therefore leave aside some rights, we cannot permit abuse and violence within the family but not trafficking, and our amendments seek to include violence in all its forms.
<P>
The Daphne programme has proved a source of great added value in combating these problems, particularly because it has successfully involved the NGOs, getting them to work with the institutions.
We must stress that there has to be linkage and coordination between the different programmes that relate to these issues, particularly the STOP and Daphne programmes.
<P>
As you see, we have tried to devise a broad strategy because a Europe that is able to create a single market and a single currency must be able to find ways and means of jointly tackling a problem of this magnitude.
We have a five-year programme, and we therefore have the opportunity - and this is also a challenge - to assess the most effective methods and to prepare medium- and long-term measures.
<P>
This is the aim of Daphne: to seek to obtain cooperation between all the parties involved, from the communications media to the local, regional and national authorities and the international organisations.
We take some comfort from the fact that the programme will come into being under the auspices of the Treaty of Amsterdam, and that the new Article 152 on public health will enable the European Community to take wider-ranging and more dynamic action and, we hope, action that has greater synergy in preventing and combating disease, but also in preventing violence.
The statistics given in the report make us shudder.
<P>
I must stress that we have to be resolute in asking the Commission and the Council to accept the substance of the amendments in order to ensure that the spirit of the programme is maintained.
My thanks, in particular, to the Commissioner who is here with us and to Commissioner Gradin for their help and for the initiative which they have shown on this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Colombo Svevo.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, I should just like to correct a piece of information which I gave you earlier.
I had a note regarding Mr Fayot's report which said that the vote would take place this afternoon, but I have since been informed that it will take place at the May part-session.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="Van Lancker">
Mr President, I am speaking on behalf of Mrs Zimmermann who is unfortunately not able to be with us today.
I should like to begin by thanking the deputy rapporteur, Mrs Colombo Svevo, for all her hard work and for her willingness to accept the amendments and suggestions put forward by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
<P>
For many years now, Parliament has played a prominent role in combating violence, through the various reports it has produced and its initiative to launch a campaign to combat violence against women, as well as through special budget lines which enable us to support some very useful initiatives by the many NGOs working in this field.
We were therefore delighted to see that the Commission is now planning a multiannual programme called Daphne.
However, I have to say, Commissioner, that the change in the legal basis made by the Council working party, which we have been forced to accept rather reluctantly and with a great deal of scepticism, has dampened much of our enthusiasm and threatens to undermine Daphne's chances of success, because as Mrs Colombo Svevo just said, violence against children and women is not just a health risk, it is an out-and-out violation of their basic human rights.
It is an obstacle to equality, to development and to peace, and it cannot just be tackled by looking after the victims.
It must also be prevented and combated among those who inflict it.
<P>
Combating violence is a particularly complex issue, requiring cooperation with the police and judicial authorities, possible changes to legislation, and information and awareness-raising not just among the public, but also among the official services involved.
Women's refuges are needed, and special facilities to provide help for the victims.
There are so many things involved that a multidisciplinary approach is absolutely essential.
<P>
This was the thinking behind the amendments that our committee tabled, and we would like to thank the rapporteur once again for accepting so many of them.
The only advantage, if I might say so, of the new legal basis is the fact that Parliament decides under the codecision procedure.
I hope that the Council will take our message on board and accommodate our wishes as much as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Van Lancker.
<P>
We shall suspend the debate on the report by Mrs Bennasar Tous at this point, since it is time for the topical and urgent debate.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
TOPICAL AND URGENT DEBATE
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>
B4-0380/99 by Mr Pasty, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group-B4-0381/99 by Mr Wijsenbeek and Mr Fassa, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party-B4-0396/99 by Mr Florio and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party-B4-0401/99 by Mr Simpson, Mr Cot and Mr Bontempi, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists-B4-0406/99 by Mrs Moreau and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left-B4-0414/99 by Mrs Leperre-Verrier and Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance-B4-0417/99 by Mr Cohn-Bendit and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliamenton the Mont Blanc tunnel accident.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cot">
Mr President, with one minute to speak on the Mont Blanc tragedy, I shall not mention the human errors, which are a matter for the courts.
Instead, I want to talk about political responsibility, because that concerns all of us.
<P>
There has been a tenfold increase in traffic through the road tunnels under the Alps over the last fifteen years.
That traffic is good business.
The operating companies have made a fortune out of it without necessarily investing in safety, or even in elementary staff training.
The local authorities and finance ministers have encouraged that tendency, only too happy to collect extra takings on the cheap.
Of course, there were alternative solutions, such as the Lyons-Turin piggyback project, which was one of the Delors plan's infrastructure projects.
<P>
That stated priority which we are rediscovering today was never a real priority at top level.
More spectacular, more symbolic projects, near here, were preferred.
But most of all, the road lobby was on the alert, even opposing the safety measures the French Minister for Transport has taken recently, because they would have lost articulated lorries precious hours on the London-Milan or Amsterdam-Milan route, and we all know time is money.
Safety has no price.
Yes, it has a price, but obviously it is too high - until tragedy strikes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Querbes">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, I want to express our horror at the extent of the disaster in the Mont Blanc tunnel which has taken the lives of 41 people.
I want to send our condolences to the victims and their families and pay tribute to the courage of the rescue services.
<P>
But in a parliament, we have to do more than bear witness to disaster. We must help find answers.
How could it have happened? How might such a tragedy have been prevented?
The figures are revealing.
In the last thirty years, the heavy goods traffic through the Mont Blanc tunnel has grown eight times as fast as private car traffic.
One sixth of Italian exports go through that tunnel.
And there is a Commission report which predicts that the traffic between Italy and France will double in the next ten years.
<P>
Has anyone really thought about the safety consequences of this staggering increase?
Is safety one of the Commission's priorities when it puts pressure on countries like Switzerland to dismantle their road transport restrictions, or when it imposes competition and liberalisation to the detriment of rail transport, even though it is safer and more environmentally friendly?
<P>
On the contrary, in my view, the tragedy in the Mont Blanc tunnel calls for two types of measures.
Safety diagnostic equipment must be installed in all tunnels immediately, safety measures must be introduced and the level of HGV traffic limited while waiting for the conclusions of the inquiry.
But in the medium and long term, will the Commission propose firm measures to increase safety by acting on the conditions and modes of transport of goods, as proposed in the joint resolution?
<P>
Beyond that resolution, I want to stress four points.
The first is the maintenance of restrictions on HGV traffic and their harmonisation on the basis of the most widespread current restrictions.
The second is the more vigorous action to reduce working and driving time for HGV drivers. Thirdly, we must give priority to freight transport by rail in mountain areas and high-risk areas, and fourthly, we need determined action for cooperation between rail companies to harmonise standards, materials and staff training.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, we are right to express our sorrow today, but it must lead to specific regulations for greater transport safety.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Leperre-Verrier">
Mr President, it has taken forty deaths in the Mont Blanc tunnel in horrific circumstances for the European authorities to recognise the consequences of the uncontrolled development of road transport in mountain areas.
That has not been for lack of pointing them out though, including in this House, but sometimes it is hard for reason to prevail where Alpine transit is involved.
<P>
A rapid and effective response is needed immediately to compensate the families of the victims and give them moral and material support. Moreover, the flow of traffic now converging on the Fréjus tunnel as a result of the closure of the Mont Blanc tunnel must be channelled.
The issue must also be looked at as a whole. Obviously, the results of the inquiry will clarify the circumstances of the tragedy and the French Government deserves to be congratulated for having acted promptly and made the initial results of the inquiry public.
All the same, it is essential to identify responsibilities and strengthen safety measures in all road tunnels, not just the Fréjus tunnel.
<P>
But we must go further because, whether we like it or not, sending columns of forty-tonners up to heights of over 1 200 metres is an aberration.
Piggyback is the obvious answer to the unavoidable need to cross the Alps. It is clearly an expensive answer, but it is justified by its human and environmental benefits.
Local representatives and associations for the protection of the area and its inhabitants did not wait for disaster to strike to promote cross-border cooperation and sound the alarm.
We should have listened to them sooner.
Many victims would have been spared.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
Mr President, as conveyed in the joint resolution, the Green Group wishes to express its sincere condolences to the families of the victims.
We firmly believe that this is not the time to draw conclusions, given that investigations are under way, but there are certainly a number of points which can be made.
<P>
The first is that the tunnel did not have a lateral safety tunnel and therefore did not meet the necessary safety standards for people travelling through it.
<P>
We can also say that the rescue systems were not adequate, and warnings to that effect had already been given, at the beginning of this year, by the Haute-Savoie fire service.
<P>
My third point is that, in the context of the original decision to build the tunnel to guarantee transit through the Alps, the huge increase in the number of heavy goods vehicles using the tunnel means that the structure does not have sufficient capacity.
Consequently, we have to point out once again that the priority for European Union transport policy has to be to move the bulk of heavy goods from road to rail.
Only in that context will it be appropriate to identify safety criteria, for both road and rail tunnels.
<P>
We have seen that rail tunnels have safety problems too.
The Channel Tunnel has on several occasions run into great difficulty, despite being extremely modern.
I believe that general policy on long tunnels has to be reviewed.
Our whole approach to safety needs to be reviewed.
It has to be a priority of the European Union to invest adequately to guarantee road safety.
In that context, we believe that policy on tunnels must be properly reviewed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Florio">
Mr President, my group fully concurs with this document drawn up in conjunction with honourable Members from all political groups.
I wish to stress that, amongst other things, the document calls on the Commission to draw up European legislation - currently sadly lacking - to guarantee high safety standards in road and rail tunnels, and on the Council to adopt without further delay a directive on the control of commercial vehicles.
<P>
It also worth pointing out that the resolution further calls for closer cross-border cooperation between the civil protection units; points to cooperation with the Swiss authorities as the best way of tackling, in the short term, the problems caused by the closure of the Mont Blanc tunnel; and calls upon all the Member States to assess the need to equip with a safety tunnel, allowing rapid evacuation in the event of an accident, those tunnels which currently do not have one, as was tragically the case in this incident.
<P>
But I wish also to stress, ladies and gentlemen, that the Commission needs to make available a programme of aid for the Italian and French people who are bound to suffer greatly as a result of the closure of the Mont Blanc tunnel, both as a result of excessive traffic on other roads which are really going to be overloaded and as a result of a decline in traffic and tourism as a result of the tunnel's closure.
<P>
I also think it important that Commissioner Kinnock should carry out an on-the-spot inspection, both at Mont Blanc and in Fréjus, to see for himself the gravity of the situation.
It is in any event crucial that, provided safety conditions have been met, the tunnel should reopen as soon as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, on behalf of my group, I should like to express our deep regret at what happened and extend our sympathies to the victims.
However, I have to say that I was extremely saddened by what the previous two speakers said.
Everyone is calling for us to get traffic off the roads and onto the railways, and what happens?
Nothing.
Italy and Austria in particular are creating nothing but obstacles and have not lifted a finger to do any of the work that needs to be done.
This means that far too many heavy-goods lorries are having to go by road and through the tunnels.
Now we are asking Switzerland to help.
It has already started work on the Lutschberg project and the Gotthard tunnel, and now we are going to have to accept its charity.
But we should have started the work ourselves.
You cannot say that we have to get the traffic off the roads and then simply do nothing, opposing any new infrastructure and any liberalisation of the railways.
This is no way for the Greens to go into the elections.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Malerba">
Mr President, I must first extend my condolences to the victims of the accident and express my admiration for the courage of the rescue services. I want then to make a point which complements what Mr Florio has already said, and is again at the centre of the concerns of the local institutions and economic operators in the regions of Savoie and Valle d'Aosta.
In particular, the Valle d'Aosta is experiencing a huge rise in the number of hotel bookings cancelled since the closure of the tunnel, and so there is also an economic factor, linked to the tourism which is extremely important for the region and which needs to be taken into account.
<P>
I expect representatives of the affected regions to meet in the coming weeks to assess, not least in the light of our debate, what new measures can be taken both to bring traffic back on to the roads and as regards the issue of tourism.
I should like to ask the Commission to consider, in relation to those aspects which fall within its jurisdiction of course, the issues linked to tourism which is vital to the region.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in addition to what has already been said, the Mont Blanc tragedy means that we have to clarify the implementation of European Union programmes.
<P>
The European Union came into being on the basis of the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital.
The free movement of goods must, specifically because it is free movement, also and above all be safe.
We therefore have to take all necessary, useful and appropriate measures, and we deplore that this was not done.
<P>
Similarly, we so often speak of transfrontier areas, we have programmes for frontier zones and we are concerned to create a Europe of the regions.
Plainly, we cannot tolerate accidents of this kind, which are totally incompatible with the approach being taken by the European Union.
By liberalising the movement of persons, the European Union has allowed them to move more frequently; the European Union must implement and secure the implementation of programmes to ensure that movement is both free and, I repeat, safe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, we must first pay our respects to the victims and extend our condolences to their families.
<P>
The publication of an initial expert report on the tragedy of the Mont Blanc tunnel has added an element of farce to a tragedy which has cost more than 40 people their lives - and more bodies may yet be recovered - and which has inflamed the debate on the responsibilities that the French and Italian authorities are trying to offload on one another, making absurd and pretentious excuses.
<P>
So far, no one has been able to tell us what has happened to the video cassettes which record movement through the tunnel and which have yet to be found.
No one has been able to tell us whether it is true that the lorry that entered the tunnel from the French side was already on fire as it entered the tunnel, and we waste time trying to establish a tiny difference of a minute or two between the time it took the French and Italians to intervene.
We read that the Italian authorities had calculated that the wind was that day blowing from Italy in the direction of France and therefore prevented cold air intake.
We read that the French authorities are condemning the dearth of Italian rescue services at the entry to the tunnel and the fact that, in the event of an accident, the rescue services actually had to come from Aosta.
<P>
We say, enough is enough!.
We repeat that safety in the transport sector has to be a priority of European transport policy and we are therefore asking, as in a question put to the Commission, that the Commission itself should soon - indeed as a matter of urgency - provide for a directive on compulsory safety systems for road tunnels. We would further stress that it is similarly important to have a directive laying down roadside procedures and inspections of roadworthiness for commercial vehicles circulating on Europe's roads.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Grossetête">
Mr President, some tragedies are avoidable and the Mont Blanc tunnel tragedy was surely one of them.
The courts will naturally determine the causes.
<P>
As well as sympathising with the families of the victims, I want to express my support for the local councillors of the Chamonix valley and the Mayor of Chamonix who, sadly, has witnessed several tragedies in the last few months.
I know that councillors in the Chamonix valley have repeatedly spoken out against the thousands of lorries that travel through that narrow valley and that tunnel, which evidently was not built for such heavy traffic.
<P>
We must learn the lessons of this avoidable tragedy and we must put pressure not only on you, Commissioner, but on the Council too, in order to ensure that a proper road-rail policy is at last developed for goods transport, for both difficult sectors and all national territory.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Santini">
Mr President, although I am the last to speak, I too wish to express my sympathy with the families and, of course, the hope that an inquiry will shed light on where responsibility for this accident lies.
But we need to look to the future, and I have two, or in fact three proposals to put forward.
<P>
My first proposal calls for the application of the rules on the transport of hazardous goods, the subject of debate on more than one occasion during the life of this parliament, in the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
My second proposal is to further encourage the shift of hazardous goods from road to rail - hackneyed words, but this approach has never been adequately implemented - and therefore to provide new incentives for combined transport.
<P>
Switzerland has been mentioned.
We all agree that we should ask Switzerland for a provisional agreement to try to resolve these problems of the Alpine passes, but we must also bear in mind the characteristics of the Swiss road system, a veritable Gruyère with the 17 kilometre long St Gotthard pass which is three metres narrower than the Mont Blanc tunnel.
We hope that this solution too will secure adequate safety conditions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Donnay">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first, like previous speakers, and on behalf of the UPE Group, I want to express my sorrow, compassion and solidarity to the families of the victims of the Mont Blanc tragedy.
I would also like to salute the courage and commitment of the rescue services who had to work in particularly difficult circumstances.
<P>
The accident of 24 March was a cruel reminder of the problem of transport safety.
The issue is one of the European Union's priorities, and we must welcome that fact.
But in light of the conclusions of the inquiry the French authorities have initiated, we will have to implement certain specific measures, particularly those measures involving the safety of major transport equipment and transport infrastructures.
<P>
That is why we are asking the Commission to draw up a report based on the committee of inquiry's conclusions, together with proposals aimed, in particular, at harmonising safety equipment.
<P>
This tragedy is another illustration, if one were needed, of the vital need to control the flow of road traffic - especially heavy goods vehicles - promote rail transport and establish operating rules to ensure maximum safety within a properly diversified European transport market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, I too should like to begin by offering my sincere sympathies to the families of the victims of this terrible accident and expressing my admiration and praise for the courage shown by the emergency services afterwards.
They too lost colleagues in the fire.
Until we know exactly what happened and what the causes of the accident were, there would appear to be little point in talking about how we can prevent such a disaster from happening again in the future.
The Commission therefore intends to wait for the results of the investigation and then to consider what measures could be taken at European level to improve safety in tunnels.
<P>
However, I should like to take this opportunity to bring the European Parliament up to date on what the Commission is currently doing to help to limit hazards in tunnels more generally.
As part of its programme of legislation on EU type-approval for motor vehicles, the Commission has launched extensive legislation on vehicle standards, including minimum requirements for vehicle flammability.
<P>
The directorate-general for transport, DG VII, is also currently cofunding a study with the OECD on the risks of transporting dangerous substances by road through tunnels.
We had already decided to organise research into tunnel safety under the fifth framework programme of research and development, and we had specifically planned to fund improvements to the Mont Blanc tunnel as part of the trans-European networks.
The project, totalling EUR 3.7 million, was to improve the accident signalling equipment in the Mont Blanc tunnel and the control room.
<P>
The closure of this important artery will naturally cause a certain amount of disruption and congestion, but the impact will not be the same for car drivers and lorry drivers, since lorry drivers are bound to be more seriously affected.

Around 700 000 lorries passed through the Mont Blanc tunnel every year, and alternative routes or alternative forms of transport are now going to have to be found.
<P>
The natural alternative to the Mont Blanc tunnel is the Fréjus tunnel to the south.
Despite new restrictions to increase safety, the Commission expects the Fréjus tunnel to be able to take most of the freight traffic from the Mont Blanc tunnel.
Lorries can also use the border crossings between France and Italy which are situated further south, while lorries under 28 tonnes have unlimited possibilities for travelling through Switzerland.
Those are the road alternatives.
<P>
Another alternative would be to use a different form of transport for freight.
Rail and combined transport must use the closure of the Mont Blanc tunnel as an opportunity to show what they are made of.
Rail transport must now show what it can do with its existing rolling stock and infrastructure.
At the moment, it is not clear what extra freight capacity the railways can offer on the Alpine routes, but the Commission expects them to take advantage of the commercial opportunities.
<P>
Finally, the Commission acknowledges that lessons must be learnt from this disaster in order to minimise the risks of anything similar happening in future.
However, we will not be bounced into taking hasty decisions which are supposed to make transport safer.
As far as the effects of the closure of the Mont Blanc tunnel are concerned, we will do everything it is in our limited power to do to try to ensure that traffic is not too severely disrupted.
We feel it is too early to start predicting traffic chaos, and we would urge everyone to keep calm and to monitor the situation to see whether road and rail transport cannot solve the problems themselves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr van den Broek.
<P>
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>
B4-0383/99 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party-B4-0395/99 by Mrs Maij-Weggen and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party-B4-0397/99 by Mr Barros Moura and Mr Marinho, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists-B4-0405/99 by Mr Miranda and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left-B4-0413/99 by Mr Dupuis and Mrs Maes, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance-B4-0415/99 by Mrs Hautala, Mr Telkämper and Mrs McKenna, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliamenton the situation in Indonesia and East Timor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, Commissioner, just when everyone has finally realised where East Timor is, the largest Islamic country in the world, Indonesia, is falling apart - we only need to think of Ambon, Madura, Aceh and Kalimantan.
The state of Indonesia is about to become one huge battlefield.
The forthcoming elections in June/July are of vital importance, and I think that if they are organised properly, they could form the basis for a different sort of federal Indonesia, all being well.
This is why I think the European Union and, of course, the United Nations must do everything they can to help in the only way they can, to ensure that the elections are indeed democratic.
All it will cost is a little money and effort.
For goodness' sake, do not let this huge country, the 'emerald belt' as we call it in Dutch, become just a patch of rust in the Pacific.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, the situation in Indonesia is getting worse from week to week, which is not a good omen for the elections on 7 June.
Although the problems are concentrated in the Moluccan Archipelago and East Timor, there is also unrest in other regions like Irian Jaya, Kalimantan and North Sumatra.
The Indonesian Government's approach in recent years of distributing the inhabitants of Java over the whole of Indonesia as a sort of dominant group now appears to be having disastrous effects.
The Javanese people are not to blame for this, of course, but they have become pawns in a project with a dual agenda: combating poverty among the Javanese and weakening the identity of certain island groups.
<P>
In the midst of all this, there are also the enormous problems in Timor, which are getting worse again and have even led to massacres in Liquiça.
This is extremely disappointing, because agreements had been reached on improving the situation there.
We call on the Commission to bring pressure to bear on Indonesia to ensure that the situation does improve, and we would strongly urge the Commission to help to ensure that the elections there run smoothly and that the minority groups on the smaller islands are also treated fairly in those elections.
Indonesia deserves this.
As Mr Bertens said, it is a huge and beautiful country, and it would indeed be a shame if it fell apart completely and if human rights and democracy came to be discredited once and for all there.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Torres Marques">
Mr President, we are all greatly concerned about the situation in Indonesia and its effects, especially on East Timor.
As the elections set for 7 June draw nearer, and as we move towards a critical stage in the negotiations on the future of East Timor being held between the governments of Indonesia and Portugal under the aegis of the United Nations, we are seeing attacks on supporters of the Nobel Peace Prize winner D. Ximenes Belo, and on civilians praying in a church. We are witnessing attacks on the entire population, which is experiencing an enormous wave of panic because of a proliferation of military brigades doing nothing to defend them and instead attacking them.
All this is happening at a time when Xanana Gusmão has still not been given complete freedom, which this House has repeatedly demanded. For all these reasons, we urge the European Parliament to approve a resolution drawing the attention of the Indonesian authorities to the need to restore legality, to the need to halt these massacres, to the need for the armed forces to defend rather than attack the public, to the need to free Xanana Gusmão, and to the need for the United Nations to continue to support Portugal's efforts to restore peace in East Timor and throughout Indonesia.
<P>
This is a pivotal area for world stability and I therefore believe that we should vote in favour of a resolution which once again sends a message of support from the European Parliament to the people of East Timor, who have suffered so much from genocide.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, apart from Indonesia's complicated geographical structure, it is also struggling with the economic crisis, its debt burden, inflation and falling exports, all at a time when the country is preparing for the elections.
I would not go so far as to say, like Mr Bertens, that the country is threatening to fall apart, but the risk is there.
The situation appears to be calm on Java, while on Aceh the government and the army have restored order and, importantly, have punished those responsible.
Unfortunately, there are still occasional confrontations between the people there.
<P>
The most recent developments on Timor are extremely regrettable, but there is perhaps also some evidence of progress, with attempts now being made to set up a commission involving all of Timor's leaders - even Xanana Gusmão has been invited.
Of course, the militias on the island must be made to hand over their weapons and the negotiations between Portugal and Indonesia must continue.
There must also be an investigation into the massacre.
Forty-eight political parties are now preparing for the elections, and most of them include political tendencies with the following characteristics: Islamic, nationalist, liberal, supporters of central planning, maintainers of the status quo.
It is an extremely complicated country where simple black-and-white solutions do not work.
Fortunately, if my information is correct, the electoral commission has adopted an independent position.
I know that the Commission and the Council have already earmarked a great deal of money to support the elections, but I am amazed that, although Parliament has been calling year in year out for democracy in Indonesia and the opposition groups there are now asking for Parliament to send observers, the Bureau has decided against doing so.
Mr President, would you urge Parliament and the Bureau to reverse this decision?
I think it is incomprehensible, and it undermines the credibility of this debate here in the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
I agree with the previous speakers. We too signed up to this resolution because we think that at this particular point, we need to remind people of the importance of negotiation as a way of finding a solution to the problems in East Timor.
With the increasing bloodshed there, the negotiations are threatening to be swept away by a tide of military and paramilitary violence.
The Indonesian Government must be urged to end support for the paramilitary organisations, to limit the military presence, to restore the rule of law and to bring those responsible to justice and ensure that they are punished.
<P>
We think that Indonesia is right to be proud of its self-determination, but in view of the diversity of the people living in this archipelago, we should also expect the same respect to be afforded to all those living in and around Indonesia and in particular to East Timor, which Indonesia has always unlawfully occupied.
I would specifically like to support Mrs van Bladel's request that we should send observers.
We have often seen violence increase before elections, and we have also seen that the presence of foreign observers can help to calm the situation.
It is not too late for us to do something about it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Lagendijk">
Mr President, sadly, as previous speakers have said, the events which have taken place on East Timor are no accident.
There are plenty of other places in Indonesia where fighting has flared up and irregularities have occurred, often or almost always along ethnic or religious divides, unfortunately.
Last week, I happened to talk to someone who had just come back from Ambon.
The story he told was sadly all too familiar: systematic human rights violations, terrible murders and large numbers of displaced people.
And precisely because this is a worldwide phenomenon as we reach the end of the 20th century, with small-scale, interethnic, interreligious conflicts in Europe, Asia and Africa, we need to keep on putting this subject on our agenda here in the European Parliament, however frustrating, however often it may be and however little it may help in the short term.
<P>
Fortunately the European Union can do more, and here I would like to add my voice to those of Mrs van Bladel and Mrs Maes.
I understood that the EU had made money available to send some 60 observers to the Indonesian elections.
What I would like to know is what kind of observers they will be and whether the Indonesian Government has already agreed to have them, since it has already shown that it does not think much of observers, wherever they are from.
If not, what does the European Union plan to do to ensure that these observers, who I would stress are extremely important, are there for the elections in June?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendes Bota">
Mr President, the Liquiçá massacre is just the latest bloody episode in which the victims are the people of East Timor.
On 6 and 7 April, 25 civilian victims of the armed militia known as the 'Meraputi' were killed with the active connivance of the mobile brigade of Indonesia's elite police squad.
<P>
We are demanding an international inquiry.
We are demanding that those responsible for these criminal acts should be held to account.
We cannot accept that this violence should be used as a pretext for postponing the meetings between Portugal and Indonesia under the aegis of the UN to draw up a text giving this territory autonomous status.
The UN cannot turn its back, it must have a force on the ground to guarantee peace and to ensure that these discussions take place.
We denounce the cynicism of the Indonesian regime, which while pledging that it is defending human rights is simultaneously arming the militias which are slaughtering the people.
We are accordingly sending a message of solidarity to Xanana Gusmão, the man who in 1992 was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment. Although he is at present under house arrest, he is being threatened with a return to prison, to total incarceration, simply because he called on the people of East Timor to defend themselves.
We are accordingly sending a message which expresses our indignation at these events, a message of solidarity with Xanana Gusmão and with the people of East Timor, and we call upon the UN and other international bodies to intervene.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Blot">
Mr President, I am glad Parliament is looking at the situation in East Timor, a Portuguese territory which was invaded by Indonesia in 1975 and unilaterally annexed by that country in 1979.
<P>
Personally, I agree with the joint resolution on the whole, and I shall vote for it.
But there is no point in pretending that a resolution from our Parliament, however forceful and well-intentioned, is going to improve the fate of the Timorese.
This small Catholic people is the target of an actual attempt at genocide by the Indonesian Government.
Tragically, the massacre of 25 worshippers in a Liquiça church is only a drop in the ocean of blood from the atrocities committed.
Over 24 years, 200 000 Timorese, or a third of the population, have already been exterminated.
Jakarta seems to want to wipe this small, courageous Catholic people off the map for resisting being engulfed by an Indonesia of 150 million Muslims.
<P>
Like the Turkish Government in Cyprus, the Indonesian Government is also trying to replace the Catholics with a Muslim population by sending in tens of thousands of colonists.
Just as in other countries where a government asserts that it is Islamic - Sudan, Turkey, Syrian-occupied Lebanon - Christians are persecuted, marginalised, treated as second-class citizens, or even massacred.
<P>
But the fact is, East Timor holds no interest, beyond good intentions, for the powers that govern us from Washington and Brussels.
Indonesia can violate the sovereignty of Portugal and the right of peoples to self-determination, and perpetuate a kind of genocide, yet apparently all that arouses is purely verbal indignation.
Disregarding the principle of sovereignty, and at the risk of starting a third world war, the powers that be prefer to bomb the Serbs, who are trying to save their national and religious identity in their own province of Kosovo, the cradle of their nation.
<P>
This is clearly a question of double standards.
We are indignant at this so-called new world order imposing the law of the jungle: weak towards the powerful and ruthless towards the weak.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, the Commission agrees with the honourable Member that the situation in Indonesia has certainly deteriorated in terms of the interethnic and interreligious conflicts that were mentioned.
In its statement of 7 April on the subject, the Council added that the Indonesian Government has taken a number of clearly very welcome steps to do with the elections, new laws on the political parties and certain economic measures that have been announced to stabilise the economic situation.
A number of social programmes have also been set up to deal with the current crisis, and announcements have been made about improving the human rights situation in Indonesia.
All of this is set out in the Council's statement of 7 April.
<P>
At the same time, the Commission also decided on 31 March that it should make available EUR 7 million for the forthcoming elections in Indonesia.
Of that sum, EUR 5 million are to be spent through the NGOs on election training and information, and EUR 2 million on sending 60 observers from the Member States for two weeks as part of a broader election observation programme organised by the United Nations.
The United Nations itself is to send 30 observers for a longer period of two months, and Indonesia has already agreed that they should be present.
<P>
With regard to East Timor, the Commission shares the House's concern at the recent increase in violence and we support the statement of 12 April by the presidency.
We also support the Member States' initiative to set up a peace and reconciliation committee to help to restore calm on East Timor.
We feel that the recent series of incidents clearly calls for a United Nations presence in the area, and we would therefore strongly urge that the International Committee of the Red Cross and other humanitarian organisations should be given free access to East Timor.
<P>
The Commission welcomes the Indonesian Government's new policy of recognising that direct elections need to be held on Timor in order to determine how far the conditions for independence currently being discussed in New York are acceptable.
We would point out that the efforts of the United Nations Secretary-General to find a just, comprehensive and internationally acceptable solution must also be given international support.
<P>
The Commission reiterates that, needless to say, it supports the current discussions on East Timor, which we also feel offer the only opportunity of finding a peaceful, just and lasting solution that takes account of the East Timorese people's right to self-determination and the interests of all the parties concerned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr van den Broek.
<P>
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>
B4-0375/99 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party-B4-0384/99 by Mrs Maij-Weggen, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party-B4-0389/99 by Mr Pasty and Mrs van Bladel, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group-B4-0399/99 by Mr Colajanni, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists-B4-0410/99 by Mr Dupuis and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance-B4-0416/99 by Mr Telkämper and Mrs McKenna, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliamenton Burma;
<P>
B4-0374/99 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, and Mr Bourlanges and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party-B4-0390/99 by Mr Pasty and Mrs van Bladel, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group-B4-0400/99 by Mr Harrison, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists-B4-0407/99 by Mr Vinci and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left-B4-0422/99 by Mr Telkämper and Mrs McKenna, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliamenton Cambodia;
<P>
B4-0382/99 by Mr Fassa and Mrs André-Léonard, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party-B4-0394/99 by Mr Pasty, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group-B4-0409/99 by Mr Hory and Mr Castagnède, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance-B4-0420/99 by Mrs Aelvoet and Mr Telkämper, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliamenton Niger;
<P>
B4-0391/99 by Mrs Banotti and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party-B4-0398/99 by Mrs Malone, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists-B4-0421/99 by Mrs McKenna and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliamenton the murder of Rosemary Nelson.
<P>
Burma
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, it is frustrating to see how the authorities in Burma miss every chance they have to show good will.
Their refusal to grant an entry visa to Michael Aris, the terminally ill husband of Aung San Suu Kyi, showed their lack of respect, and the completely unnecessary suffering that this caused Aung San is typical of the way the government behaves.
If it carries on like this, there is no prospect of an end to Burma's isolation - on the contrary, it can only get worse.
<P>
Unfortunately, we are once again having to call on the Burmese Government to respect the basic rights of the Burmese people in general, and we are again having to condemn the forced displacement of whole villages and the use of forced labour.
No crisis gives any government the right to violate the rights of its people, and the Burmese Government must understand that its leaders will be held personally responsible for the suffering that they cause.
<P>
The international community does not forget, and at some point Burma's present leaders are going to have to stand trial for the crimes they are currently committing.
The application of international criminal law in practice will ensure that everyone's basic rights are protected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, this is the umpteenth time that we have had Burma on our agenda - I think this is the eighth resolution on the subject, and its people are still suffering under the conditions that the military government has imposed on them.
This time it has hit the headlines by refusing to allow Aung San Suu Kyi's husband, who was seriously ill, to come to Burma.

It goes without saying that Aung San Suu Kyi herself could not go to England, because she would not then have been allowed to return.
But it is disgraceful that a couple who have been married for 25 years should be refused the chance to be together at a time when one of them is dying.
<P>
In addition, the Karen villages along the border are once again coming under attack.
I was in Thailand last year to visit some of the refugee camps, and now I hear that large numbers of people are again coming over the border to these camps, which are already overflowing.
<P>
Some positive steps are also being taken.
A group of 285 MPs has been formed which hopes to convene the Burmese Parliament itself. Would it not be a good idea for the European Union to lend its support, so that the parliament, which is currently dissolved, is able to work through different channels on a constitution that could finally bring about a fundamental change in Burma's situation?
<P>
It is a situation that we have been forced to sit and watch for years now.
It is one of the most badly governed countries in the world.
The European Union needs to adopt a much harder line than it does at present, and I would urge the Commission to do so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Vecchi">
Mr President, in recent weeks, the Burmese regime has committed yet another appalling act: the Sakharov laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been denied freedom of movement, was not even able to see her own husband before his death.
She and the whole of her country have for many years now been deprived of every fundamental freedom, respect for the most basic of human rights and any glimpse of democracy.
We also know that any opposition is severely repressed and that repression is particularly severe in relation to the ethnic minorities.
Forced labour and indeed slavery are widespread in the country.
<P>
The problem is that the military clique in power has so far been unmoved by and insensitive to any internal or international pressure.
I have to say that, if we talk of defence and promotion of human rights as a fundamental element in the European identity and its international image, then Burma today is certainly one of the key litmus tests, and I believe that one of the best ways in which we can extend our sincere condolences to Aung San Suu Kyi is principally by adding to the initiatives we are taking against the Burmese regime, increasing its international isolation at both a political and diplomatic and an economic and commercial level.
<P>
Furthermore, so long as human rights are not guaranteed and the democratic process that the majority of the Burmese people want is not resumed, it will be impossible to have normal or indeed any kind of relations with that country.
<P>
At the same time I believe that, in relation to Burma, we shall have to establish, alongside the measures to isolate it, a political strategy, a strategy to promote change, the kind of change the Burmese people also long for.
We must therefore move beyond fine words and adopt a specific strategy that is shared and applied by all the countries of the Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=186 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am not going to hold forth about the regime in Burma - which I think we all agree on - as Mr Bertens, Mrs Maij-Weggen and Mr Vecchi have just described it.

<P>
The Union has held a very clear position on Burma, with the Commission - especially Commissioner Marín - the Council, rather exceptionally, and obviously our Parliament, all in agreement. So I think what we need to discuss is the question raised by Mr Vecchi.
Is Burma really isolated? I do not think so, because if it really were isolated, the sanctions we have put in place would have had some effect.
The truth is that Burma is getting very strong backing. In particular - and I am sorry Commissioner Brittan is not here - Burma is strongly supported by China, on both an economic and a military level, and that is why it is able to continue with the repression and prevent any democratic development.
<P>
So we must do the same for Burma as for North Korea, another country which finds favour with Commissioner Brittan, by putting pressure on China to urge the Burmese and North Korean Governments to bring about change at last.
Further support for Burma comes from our worldwide prohibitionist approach to drugs.
We know that Burma is one of the major producers of drugs and it has the resources to be able to do without the support of Western countries because it has money - plenty of money - from the drugs trade.
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<SPEAKER ID=187 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
Mr President, as in recent motions for resolutions and debates, all we can do again this time is to condemn once again the continued violations of the human rights of various sections of the population in Burma.
All we can really do is repeat ourselves.
Regrettably, an already grim situation has been made even worse by the sad news of the death of Dr Michael Aris, the husband of Aung San Suu Kyi.
The couple were forced to live apart, because she was unable to visit him and he was not permitted to visit her.
I believe their private grief is a microcosmic illustration of the repression and cruelty practised by the Burmese regime.
<P>
We must encourage the Commission to use its influence, particularly with Burma's neighbours, to isolate Burma with a view to securing the resignation of the present government and halting the maltreatment of villagers, who are taken away for forced labour or whose entire villages are resettled.
We must encourage and exhort the Council to discontinue any cooperation with the ASEAN states in which Burma is involved, not to integrate Burma into any cooperative ventures in the region and to prevail upon Germany, as the holder of the Council presidency, not to issue any entry visas.
We have imposed a ban here, and all the Member States of the Union should enforce it.
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<SPEAKER ID=188 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, the previous speakers have already dealt in sufficient detail with the entirely unacceptable circumstances surrounding the refusal of the Burmese Government to let Dr Michael Aris enter the country before he died, and they have also spoken about China's support for that barbaric regime.
For this reason, I should like to focus your attention more sharply on the ethnic cleansing that is taking place in Burma.
The fact that we have adopted a resolution on Kosovo this very day lends special significance to this point, in my opinion.
<P>
In our resolution we are especially critical of conditions in the Karen villages this time.
But at the same time we must not overlook the fact that this is all part of a larger plan, as Amnesty International, for example, exposed very graphically in London last year.
We showed how, in the previous two years, some 300 000 members of the Shan people had been forcibly resettled and how the Mon, Akha and Lahu peoples were being driven out into neighbouring countries.
In the light of this fact, it is only right and proper for us to rethink our policy on visas, as proposed in paragraph 9, and to ban Burma from attending EU-ASEAN and ASEM meetings until genuine improvements are observed in the human rights situation.
<P>
Cambodia
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Neyts-Uyttebroeck">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, last summer I myself saw just how deeply traumatised the people of Cambodia still are.
As King Sihanouk told me, 'mon peuple est toujours très malade '.
The tragedy continues, 20 years on, because there has been no investigation or trial whatsoever.
The Cambodian Government could not carry out such an investigation or trial even if it wanted to.
In August 1998, work was still being done on drawing up a civil code and a penal code, and the American and European experts were still arguing with each other and amongst themselves in an attempt to impose their views on these various forms of law.
There is a complete absence of any judicial apparatus in Cambodia, and this is why my group wants an international UN tribunal to investigate the genocide and punish those responsible.
We want the European Union to help Cambodia to become a constitutional state.
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<SPEAKER ID=190 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, the term 'killing fields' immediately makes you think of Cambodia and the genocide which took place there from 1975 onwards.
It is sad to see that a quarter of a century later they are only just beginning to try to obtain justice for the victims, and even this is threatening to fail because the present political leaders want to hide their involvement in the genocide.
I myself would prefer to see the country taking its own responsibility for sorting out its terrible past, but now that it seems that the facts are about to be swept under the carpet, my group feels that an ad hoc tribunal on the genocide in Cambodia would offer a better guarantee of justice for the Cambodians.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="Harrison">
Mr President, the failure to prosecute Khmer Rouge leader Ta Mok before an independent international tribunal is extremely worrying but also instructive.
Worrying, because a domestic trial in Cambodia is unlikely to bring out the full facts of the crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge in the years of the killing fields in the late 1970s.
Worrying too, lest Hun Sen unwarrantedly uses international aid for domestic treason law to move against some of his current political opponents.
Instructive, however, in clarifying the need for the international community to set up a permanent international criminal tribunal which can deal with the all-too-frequent acts of genocide which besmirch us all.
But a tribunal which will also act as an inhibition to practitioners of evil, whether they manifest themselves in Indo-China or in former Yugoslavia.
<P>
The rule of law is a paramount strut of a civil society.
Sadly, in nearby Malaysia the jailing this week of Anwar Ibrahim illustrates how far we still have to go to ensure that the law is used to enshrine and support the concept of human rights.
Anwar Ibrahim's black eye on arrest is a reproach to the rule of law in Malaysia and to all of us who cherish the primacy of human rights in the conduct of human affairs.
Anwar Ibrahim should be released immediately if Mahathir's failing Malaysia is to be restored to health and prosperity in the eyes of the watching world community.
<P>
Mr President, I call upon you to issue a note of protest to Dr Mahathir concerning the flawed political trial practised on Anwar Ibrahim, a note of protest in accordance with the many critical resolutions passed by this Parliament concerning Malaysia.
I hope you are able to do that on behalf of this Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
Mr President, this Parliament, like all democratic institutions, must send out a signal and a warning to the international community that violations of human rights are unacceptable and that history does not forget them.
The massacre in Cambodia must not be consigned to history, and its perpetrators must be called to account.
That is why it is right to set up an international ad hoc tribunal here.
It is right because Cambodia itself is apparently unable to set up a tribunal, since the Cambodian State does not possess the necessary structures.
<P>
The establishment of a framework of civil law is a challenge to the Commission to show how it can help.
We have issued that challenge on several occasions, and I believe Europe has a considerable amount of assistance to lend.
That also applies in the context of our work with all the nations of ASEAN.
It also applies to Malaysia.
The previous speaker dealt in some detail with the case of Anwar Ibrahim.
We cannot tolerate unlawful detention in that case either, and we call on the Commission and the Council to make the appropriate approaches in Malaysia.
Otherwise we should have to take measures to freeze our diplomatic relations.
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<SPEAKER ID=193 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Mr President, it is inconceivable that the most serious crimes against humanity since the Second World War should not be the subject of appropriate criminal sanctions.
<P>
That is why Parliament must make three demands. First, there must be a tribunal, because a culture of political indignation and exploitation can hardly be expected to end just where required by considerations of political opportunism.
<P>
Secondly, the tribunal must be international, not just because at one time, before he rejected the idea, Mr Hun Sen demanded that, but because we cannot allow the Khmer Rouge trial to become entangled in political and legal score-settling in a country where democracy is still being established.
<P>
Thirdly, it is essential that it should not be Ta Mok alone, but all the leaders of the death organisation, Angkar, who are brought to book.
We cannot allow one scapegoat to pay on behalf of everyone, even if that scapegoat is a butcher.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, anyone who has read a book on the recent history of Cambodia or who has had the good fortune, in inverted commas, to travel round the country must find it incredible that there is still no sign whatsoever of an international tribunal to try the perpetrators of the 'killing fields' and the slaughter that Mr Bourlanges rightly called one of the worst crimes since the Second World War.
Nor is there any sign even of an investigation into it all.
I am seriously concerned about the impasse that has been reached here.
The present Cambodian Government must not allow the Khmer Rouge leaders to go unpunished for whatever reasons it may have - patriotism, perhaps.
I also think that an international Cambodia tribunal might still be able to bring some influence to bear and could send a signal to the government in Burma and other governments in South-East Asia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the case of Ta Mok confronts us with a legal problem that is both fascinating and tragic.
We would be deluding ourselves if we were to think that a Cambodian court could give an unprejudiced ruling on the crimes he committed against humanity or, more generally, the crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge.
<P>
It is desirable that an ad hoc tribunal should be set up, but there will always be the suspicion that this is a special court that has already predetermined, so to speak, the tenor of its judgment and has not given the accused the guarantees that even a defendant like Ta Mok deserves.
Consequently, there is only one solution: a permanent international court, a natural court with jurisdiction to try all crimes against humanity, regardless of who commits them, or where and when they are committed.
<P>
Niger
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
<SPEAKER ID=197 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, on 6 April 1994, the shooting down of President Habyarimana's plane marked the start of the terrible genocide in Rwanda.
Now yet another president who had come to power through a coup d'état has been assassinated, murdered by his own military bodyguard who then himself seized power.
The parliament has been dissolved and the army has seized almost total power for itself.
Naturally, we need to keep a very close eye on this situation, which was why I mentioned the events of five years ago in Rwanda.
Yet again a country which already had enormous problems has been thrown into turmoil.
In these circumstances, it would be irresponsible to enter into any form of cooperation with those in power.
If we want to provide humanitarian aid, we must send it through reliable NGOs and hope that our intentions are carried out.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Mr President, what a terrible shame that, once again, conflict in an African country has been resolved in the worst possible way.
Niger is now in a very tense situation in the wake of the coup d'état and the murder of its President on 9 April.
The results of the recently held local and regional elections have been declared invalid and, following the dissolution of the National Assembly, the military have taken over legislative and executive authority.
Let us trust that this is not the end of the process of evolution towards more democracy.
Some hope still remains, since the opposition has stated that it will allow the military nine months to hand back power to a civilian government.
<P>
All we as Members of the European Parliament can do is to call upon the Commission to cease cooperation under the Lomé Convention and to implore Niger's self-appointed leadership to abide by the constitution, return power to a civilian government, and respect human rights and civil liberties.
That is the one and only road to freedom and stability in the country.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Vecchi">
Mr President, the coup d'état in Niger and the assassination of President Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara has plunged another African state into the abyss of a military coup and blocked an albeit partial process of institutional reconstruction.
<P>
Admittedly, the system of countries such as Niger is barely compatible with the fragile processes of democratisation, and this has been demonstrated in recent months with the annulment of the regional, provincial and local elections in which the opposition held the day.
The military cliques which have perpetrated the coup and are wielding power arbitrarily must be stopped.
What now has to be done is to restore the institutions and set in train a genuine process to bring democracy to the country and, to that end, we too agree that official cooperation under the Lomé Convention must be blocked until the process of establishing democracy has been resumed.
But this situation also shows that there has to be a qualitative improvement in the policy adopted towards the African countries, so that the promotion of human rights, democratisation and conflict prevention - the only conditions that will ensure development - become essential elements of cooperation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lehideux">
Mr President, I think all of us are entirely in agreement in our analysis of the events which have just taken place in Niger and the need to restore the rule of law and a functioning democracy to that country as quickly as possible, after the coup d'état and the assassination of President Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara.
<P>
Having said that, Mr President, I have to announce that my group will not be voting for the four amendments to this resolution, not because we do not share their concerns or agree with the content, but because we think another time should be found to express in a general manner Parliament's feelings on the issues raised.
We want to see today's resolution concentrate exclusively on the problem of Niger.
That is important. These are very recent events and we want to respond to them by dealing only with this one issue in the resolution.
So I repeat, we will not be voting for the amendments.
<P>
Murder of Rosemary Nelson
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 NAME="Malone">
Mr President, one of the saddest things I have seen in recent times was Rosemary Nelson's children following the hearse to the graveyard last month after this human-rights lawyer was brutally murdered in Northern Ireland.
<P>
I want to echo the concerns of many people in Ireland and the international community about the circumstances surrounding this murder.
The UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the International Commission of Jurists and, last night, US Congressmen have all expressed their worries over the case.
<P>
If we in the European Union are to be taken seriously in promoting high standards of human rights in the world, we must make sure that our own house is in order.
We have to ensure that lawyers, who are an essential part of any effective and credible system of justice, are allowed to conduct their professional duties without any hindrances or fear of intimidation or worse.
The murder of Rosemary Nelson, and the earlier killing of Patrick Finucane, provide clear evidence that this minimum requirement for justice is not guaranteed in Northern Ireland.
<P>
I would draw your attention in particular to recitals D and F of the resolution - which time does not allow me to read out - and I would ask you to read them carefully.
In these circumstances I think an investigation by the RUC would lack credibility.
Indeed, the RUC has more or less admitted so much by asking British and American police officials to supervise the investigation.
It would be better all round if the investigations were to be conducted in a completely independent manner so that it could be seen to be objective and impartial by all sections of the community.
<P>
I would ask Members to support the resolution and our call for a full, independent, international judicial inquiry into all the circumstances surrounding this case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 NAME="Banotti">
Mr President, the murder of Rosemary Nelson sent a shiver through the whole of Ireland.
The only merciful thing was that neither her husband nor her children were in the car when it blew up savagely within sight and sound of her own home and the school where her little daughter was playing in the playground.
<P>
Regrettably, in many parts of the world, but also in Northern Ireland, the lawyers and judges have found themselves in the front line where the trouble is most intense and the murder of Rosemary Nelson brings home to us once again the danger that many of these professionals put themselves into when defending one of their clients' most basic human rights.
<P>
The call for an independent inquiry circles around the fact that there is considerable belief that an inquiry by the RUC into the death of Mrs Nelson will not be as rigorous as it should be because of the evidence that suggested that she feared very much for her life and for quite a long time believed that her life was in serious danger.
Tragically, she was proved right.
I hope that colleagues will support this resolution and vote with us on it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ullmann">
Mr Chairman, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of my group, and in particular of my two Irish party colleagues, I wish to express our twofold sense of shock.
First of all we are shocked by the cold-blooded murder of a woman who was personally and professionally devoted to the defence of human rights, and secondly we are shocked by the fact that particular elements, not in a distant part of the world but in the heart of a country of the European Union, are using terrorist violence to undermine an emergent peace process.
But our task here is not only to express our shock but also to state our unequivocal demands.
Firstly, we demand an enquiry by the prosecuting authorities into the background to this murder.
In addition, like those who have spoken before me, I call for an international enquiry by the competent staff of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 NAME="Miller">
Mr President, like many colleagues who have already spoken, I utterly condemn the murder of Rosemary Nelson.
Like many Members of this House I also witnessed the scenes of the wreckage of her car and of her family at the funeral.
I can assure you that we utterly condemn the acts of violence that brought about those scenes and no effort will be spared in bringing the perpetrators of this heinous crime to justice.
<P>
However, I believe there is an effective and credible investigation taking place.
Mr Port who is in charge of the investigation has been given a total and unlimited remit and the freedom to add resources or change resources as he so desires.
Mr Port has worked with the UN in Yugoslavia and in Rwanda as an investigation coordinator and Director of Investigations in the UN Tribunal for Rwanda.
If he so desires he may use independent investigators.
<P>
The FBI Legal Attaché has said that in their professional judgment the best chance of detecting those responsible lies in RUC involvement in the investigation because of its knowledge on the ground and local intelligence.
Without the involvement of the RUC any investigation would be severely hampered.
It is necessary for us to cooperate in order to identify and prosecute those responsible for this crime.
<P>
As the ongoing investigation into Mrs Nelson is still under way it would be unhelpful to prejudice that investigation by calling at this stage for any new inquiry.
I hope colleagues in Parliament today will appreciate the delicate and sensitive nature of this investigation and the fact that the ongoing peace process must not be jeopardised.
Let the investigation finish its work before looking to additional or further inquiries which at this stage can only complicate matters.
<P>
The signal that has to go out from this Chamber, however, is that no matter what political colour you are you cannot get away with these acts of violence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 NAME="Cushnahan">
Mr President, the murder of Rosemary Nelson was a brutal and cowardly deed.
It was an attack on the justice system, it was an attack on democracy and it was a deliberate attempt to undermine the Good Friday Agreement.
It is regrettable, but it must be said that there are legitimate concerns about the role of the security forces.
Those that enforce the rule of law must always operate within the law.
<P>
But let me say this: this resolution should not be misconstrued as a blanket condemnation of the RUC.
The people of Northern Ireland have a lot to thank the RUC for.
They have given their lives to buy time for politicians to solve the political problems of Northern Ireland.
They have been at the coalface of terrorism from both Loyalist and Republican thugs.
The overwhelming majority of its members are fine men trying to impartially enforce the rule of law.
When we condemn this particular action we should remember that there are Loyalist and Republican thugs who are deliberately attempting to undermine an agreement which was overwhelmingly endorsed by the people of Ireland, both north and south, and we will not let them do that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gutiérrez Díaz">
Mr President, before we come to the end of the debate on human rights, allow me to express my delight at the decision taken by the British Home Secretary to go ahead with the extradition proceedings against General Pinochet, in line with the wishes of the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, the Commission is entirely in agreement with the House on the continuing serious human rights violations in Burma, which are to be on the agenda for the forthcoming General Affairs Council on 26 April.
A decision will probably be taken to extend the existing measures against Burma, including visa restrictions, for a further six months.
As you know, the initial decision on this was taken a year ago; it was extended six months ago and is now to be extended again, for the simple reason that the situation has not improved.
<P>
Secondly, discussions are currently taking place in the United Nations Human Rights Commission on drawing up a new resolution against Burma.
Thirdly, I would point out that, in addition to the fact that the Council regularly devotes attention to the Burma problem, the EU-ASEAN conference in Berlin which was scheduled for a month or six weeks ago had to be cancelled, because agreement could not be reached on whether Burma should participate and because ASEAN rejected the special arrangement proposed by the Council in order to be able to discuss the human rights issue with the Burmese.
<P>
We will have to see how we can continue to demonstrate our rejection of the human rights situation in Burma and help to bring about improvements there, without allowing the situation to blight our entire relationship with ASEAN.
<P>
Moving on briefly to Cambodia, the EU troika has made diplomatic approaches to the prime minister, who has said that he personally accepts the basic principle that the Khmer Rouge leaders must take genuine responsibility for the crimes they committed.
The Commission therefore welcomed the recent statement by Prime Minister Hun Sen in which he agreed to allow foreign judges and prosecutors to play a central role in the trial of the imprisoned Khmer Rouge leader Ta Mok in Cambodia in order to guarantee that the trial meets international standards.
<P>
With regard to Niger, it goes without saying that we strongly condemn the recent coup d'état there, and the Commission is pressing the military authorities to restore the rule of law as quickly as possible.
The Commission is currently considering what measures to take following recent events, as the House suggested, and one possibility is that we will propose to the Council that development cooperation should be partially suspended in accordance with Article 366a of the Lomé Convention, with which you are familiar.
<P>
At this early stage, the Commission still intends to suspend all new projects and programmes that are currently in preparation, together with existing projects, until the country is returned to lawful rule.
Humanitarian aid and measures to help the poorest sections of the population are naturally not included here.
<P>
Finally, like this House, the Commission was horrified to learn of the cowardly murder of Rosemary Nelson.
On behalf of the Commission, I should like to take this opportunity to express our deepest sympathies to her family.
We feel that the most important thing we can do is to honour her memory, to continue to support the peace process and to refuse to allow terrorism to gain the upper hand in Northern Ireland.
We also hope that those guilty of this cowardly murder will be tracked down and brought to justice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 NAME="Morris">
Mr President, it is good to see Indonesia and East Timor on the agenda. But I wonder whether the Commission could prevail upon the British Government not to supply arms to the Indonesian Government, or arms-related materials.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 NAME="President.">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
I am sure the Commissioner will have taken note of the question raised by Mr Morris.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
VOTES (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="Deprez">
The impressive number of transit operations taking place annually in the European Union and the size of the sums involved are in themselves sufficient to demonstrate the urgency of computerising the Community transit procedure and at the same time ensuring maximum transparency throughout the European customs policy.
<P>
But this important issue is not just about the proper functioning of the internal market or the distribution of resources between the Member States and the Community. We are concerned with combating international fraud and organised crime as effectively as possible.
<P>
From this point of view, the four-year delay in finalising computerisation is very worrying, because it comes on top of other delays, which can be ascribed fundamentally to the intergovernmental nature of the third pillar.
<P>
Once again we are forced to recognise that Parliament's ambitious aim has met with opposition from the Member States, some of which insist on rejecting the logical consequences of the advent of the single market.
<P>
Nonetheless, everyone would gain from optimising the Commission's action, which would allow us to rationalise the instruments and resources involved.
From this point of view, I firmly support their incorporation into a single decision-making centre and a single budget line.
<P>
Similarly, as the rapporteur says, it is imperative for the computerisation of Community transit to come into full operation by 2003.
<P>
So on that basis, I shall vote for the proposal for a decision as amended.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 NAME="Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We voted against this report for the following reasons:
<P>
1.Customs services are a fundamental part of the legal system of a country.
Direction of customs administrations by the EU would violate national sovereignty and must never be allowed to happen.2.Previous EU decisions have weakened border controls between the Member States in such a way as to encourage lawbreaking and the movement of smuggled goods.
This demonstrates the importance of making nationally based appraisals of the strength of customs authorities.3.The report is an insult to the Member States, since it seeks to establish practices which have been rejected by the Council.4.It is perfectly feasible for cooperation between customs administrations in different countries to be organised on an intergovernmental basis.- van Dam report (A4-0114/99)
<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="Caudron">
I support the position of the Committee on Transport and Tourism on the proposal to permit a maximum vehicle weight of 44 tonnes for heavy goods vehicles.
I want to back that conviction with three arguments.
<P>
First, like Rijk van Dam, I do not think that the existing infrastructures in many EU countries are ready to cope with such an increase in loads.
The result would be major additional highway maintenance costs, which local communities would have to bear, while all they would get in return would be a few jobs.
The weakness of our infrastructures is very real and risks deteriorating with enlargement.
We know that the cost of enlargement will have to include the modernisation of transport links.
<P>
Secondly, I reject the proposal on road safety grounds, even at the risk of shocking certain professionals in the field.
The involvement of heavy goods vehicles in the most lethal accidents is undeniable, because, in addition to excessively difficult working conditions, weight is also an aggravating factor, all the more so as it is often combined with excessive speed.
Allowing heavy goods vehicles of up to 44 tonnes on the roads would actually increase the risks.
<P>
Thirdly and finally, if such vehicles are authorised, emissions of pollutants will be increased because extra power will be needed to pull these trailers. That contradicts the express wishes of both our governments and Parliament in terms of environmental policy.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, those are the reasons for my hostility towards this authorisation and why I voted against the Commission's proposals.
<P>
Thors report (A4-0156/99)
<SPEAKER ID=213 NAME="Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We have abstained because we feel that the report is inadequate and unclear on a number of counts.
<P>
The right to issue electronic money should be restricted to banks only, with supervision by national auditors.
Funds must be protected in the event of bankruptcy or similar occurrences, and customers' rights should be enshrined in a special statute.
<P>
Thyssen report (A4-0137/99)
<SPEAKER ID=214 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Konrad">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I voted against the Thyssen report, because it is detrimental in many respects to certain business sectors and of course to people starting up in business.
Examples of these disadvantages are that an agreement with a brewery could no longer consist of the brewery financing the establishment of a restaurant or public house, subject to the proprietor signing a ten-year supply contract.
This, I believe, is a blow to people starting up in the licensed trade and to the trade itself, because these supply arrangements have been standard practice and have served as a stepping-stone to success.
<P>
The same applies to the oil industry, which builds service stations and at the same time concludes supply agreements with the service station operators for ten years or more.
On the basis of this report, all such arrangements will become more difficult or impossible in future.
That is why I voted against it.
I believe it is inconsistent with our aim of promoting business start-ups and the creation of jobs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We voted against this report, since we believe the Commission's standpoint to be correct.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, I naturally voted for the Thyssen report, but I must express my disappointment at the opinion delivered by the Commission on our amendments just before midnight last night, when three of us were still here.
<P>
Admittedly, Commissioner van den Broek, who is not himself responsible for competition policy, could only read out what the Commission services, or more precisely Mr Van Miert's department, had written for him.
I must therefore strongly warn the Commission against rejecting our Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 3 to both of the draft regulations.
These amendments are a sign of our political will to ensure that small breweries such as those in my country are not driven to the wall because they are no longer allowed to conclude the sort of supply contracts that exist at the present time.
These contracts have been operating to the satisfaction of the breweries on the one hand and of landlords, restaurateurs and hoteliers on the other.
<P>
For this sector, as for service stations, there must be either an exception to the general rule or a sector-by-sector approach within the general regulatory framework.
<P>
It is also unacceptable that in smaller markets, such as the Luxembourg market, breweries exceeding a market share of, say, 40 % would be ineligible for such exemptions.
<P>
Since the Luxembourg breweries can quickly reach that sort of threshold in our small market, such a rule would lead to the crazy situation in which a major German brewery, such as Bitburger, which produces vastly greater quantities of beer than the largest brewery in Luxembourg, could still conclude contracts for the supply of beer to public houses in Luxembourg, because the total amount it supplied would be well within the limit of 40 % of the huge German beer market to which Bitburger would be subject.
The Luxembourg brewery, however, could no longer do that, which would spell the end for it. That must be avoided at all costs.
<P>
If there must be reference markets, they cannot be restricted to mini-markets such as Luxembourg but must be defined on a regional or European scale.
I hope that the Commission, and Mr Van Miert in particular, will rethink this matter very thoroughly.
<P>
Resolution on imports of garlic
<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="Iversen, Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted against the motion on tightening up the regulations governing garlic imports from third countries.
The motion paves the way for comprehensive protection of European garlic producers.
Amongst other things, it is proposed to introduce a deterrent tariff and to revise the rates of duty if quantities are imported which exceed the established quota, which it is proposed should be reduced.
We in the EU have entered into trade agreements with China and other countries on garlic imports, and the motion will be detrimental to our trading partners in third countries.
We are embarking on a liberalisation of our trade in agricultural products, and we should therefore be seeking to open up trade rather than restricting it.
For this reason, we are unable to support the motion.
<P>
Herman report (A4-0158/99)
<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="Berthu">
Mr Herman's report on improvements in the functioning of the institutions without modification of the Treaties complements another report we passed last year on practical action to reduce the democratic deficit in running economic and monetary union.
In reality, as a little hindsight makes clear, that was just empty posturing to get people to accept a monetary system with very little democracy to recommend it.
<P>
This second part, which the European Parliament has just voted on today, is essentially about reforming the Commission.
The timing is doubly bad.
It is bad first of all because, as stated in the explanatory statement, it concentrates on the aim of reinforcing the independence of the Commission, when recent experience, with the resignation of that institution for maladministration, suggests that, on the contrary, its independence should be reduced and the controls over it strengthened.
<P>
The timing of the report is also bad because, by definition, it is only proposing reforms that can be implemented without modifying the Treaty, whereas Chancellor Schröder explained to us yesterday that there can be no remedy for the crisis unless the Treaty is modified.
That is certainly our opinion and we were happy to hear that the new intergovernmental conference, to be launched at the Cologne Council in June, will have that mission included in its mandate.
<P>
There will clearly be different views about the necessary reforms.
The view of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations is that the first thing to do is to stop thinking of the Commission as a superior body, as the guardian of the European public interest.
It must become merely the executive arm of the Council.
We must also stop manufacturing a European civil service cut off from the nations and virtually endogamous, both literally and figuratively.
It should be much more open to national civil services and should be based on exchanges of personnel with the Member States.
<P>
That kind of permanent interaction will be very fruitful in bringing Europe closer to the people.
We must stop thinking that the European public interest is something imposed on the nations from on high.
On the contrary, it is the result of the free expression of their needs and open dialogue between their representatives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="Delcroix">
After a report by the same rapporteur on the policies of the European Union in May 1998, we adopted a resolution on improving the functioning of the European institutions.
In a way, this text represents the balance not dealt with earlier, either in the first report or in the reports by Mr Brok, Mrs Lööw and Mr Bourlanges.
<P>
As regards the European Parliament, I support the rapporteur in asking for our work to concentrate on the essential tasks, for greater professionalism on the part of Members and for improved information to the public.
We should pay particular attention to this last point.
Improving the way we welcome visitors, who will be coming in increasing numbers, and improving access to documents are two measures that speak for themselves.
I especially like the idea of an open centre, easily accessible and without security controls, where those interested would find documents, audio-visual materials, CD-ROMS, and so on.
Perhaps an extension of the Bureau pour la Belgique could be envisaged.
<P>
I also hope a formula can be found whereby the people of the Quartier Léopold , who are fighting to prevent their environment becoming a bureaucratic desert, can have a special relationship with Parliament and feel at home.
It will be a big step forward when the area between Parliament and the station, the famous 'dalle ', is finally landscaped in a more welcoming and friendly way. That means releasing the necessary resources, which will require closer cooperation between the Espace Léopold society, Parliament - in its moral role - and the relevant Belgian authorities.
<P>
A few years ago, I told a journalist that I was astonished not to see more of his colleagues covering Parliament's important work.
He replied that they go where the power is - the Council first and foremost.
Fortunately, the Treaty of Amsterdam, which enters into force on 1 May, will increase our power a little, notably as regards the investiture of the Commission.
I hope that we will become more visible.
But it is up to us to become more transparent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 NAME="Deprez">
The importance of this debate needs no emphasis.
Despite some progress, the Treaty of Amsterdam has basically failed to come up to the expectations of all those who hoped that the European Union was something other than a huge market.
<P>
The rapporteur is right to emphasise, in line with the Commission, that another intergovernmental conference is necessary and urgent to provide acceptable solutions to the various institutional problems which have existed for a fair number of years now.
<P>
But we cannot stand idly by, waiting for another IGC to start.
Events remind us every day of the political holes in the construction of Europe and the Union's inability to tackle alone most of the great challenges it faces.
So, as of now, we must make maximum use of the opportunities provided by the Treaty of Amsterdam to deepen European integration and reform the Union's institutions.
<P>
In the present context, I want to stress that, whichever way you look at it, the workforce has hardly expanded in terms of a European civil service - I am referring in particular to the Commission - and has not followed the exponential curve of the tasks that have been entrusted to it since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
<P>
Here, it is worth thinking about the role of the Council and its pursuit of objectives that are sometimes contradictory.
At the same time, there are grounds for concern about the possible harmful consequences of widespread use by the Commission of temporary staff seconded from national civil services or from industry.
I am in no way casting doubt on the competence of these temporary workers, or suggesting that they may not be good Europeans.
And I can appreciate the desire for flexibility and acquiring new methods and skills.
But, like our rapporteur, I am afraid that there might be conflicts of loyalty between the vital independence of the Commission and national and sectoral interests which may lead to ambiguity in terms of a worker's status.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="Iversen">
The Commission has resigned, a new treaty is about to come into force and there will be European elections in due course - things are happening in Europe.
It is time for a clear-out.
Too much has been allowed to go on for too long.
This applies to the blurring of the lines of responsibility within the Commission, an out-of-date staff policy and a European Parliament which was not taken seriously because it was lacking in real power.
At present, the public's confidence in the EU is at a low ebb.
That is logical in the wake of recent events.
<P>
The debate which we are about to have should, in my view, be used constructively to improve the cooperation between the institutions.
And there is a great deal that can be improved.
We shall insist on the staff policy being one of the key priorities in the clear-out.
But I must emphasise that interest also needs to be shown by the Council in order to carry this through.
If we can get the cooperation between our institutions to function properly, then the public will also gain greater confidence in us.
<P>
The Amsterdam Treaty gives the European Parliament the opportunity to acquire greater supervisory powers than it has had in the past.
This will find expression in relation to the environment, amongst other areas.
But not within agriculture.
This is unfortunate, because what is it that makes it unnecessary to monitor agriculture, especially when one considers that more than 40 % of the budget is spent on it?
We must insist that the European Parliament's stance on agricultural matters is taken more seriously.
If control is not exercised by Parliament, then there is no control.
The events of last month have set an extremely important process in motion, which will reinforce the cooperation between the institutions.
Through the Amsterdam Treaty, the European Parliament is acquiring even more influence.
We must now also be even better at using that influence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR)">
This report covers many of the problems currently afflicting the EU institutions.
<P>
The report by the Committee of Independent Experts on shortcomings in the way the Commission operates reaches two main conclusions: there is too much power and too little supervision.
Space could have been found in this report to address that state of affairs, without departing from the original remit.
Too much power, poor levels of supervision and transparency, the absence of an inventory of documents received - these are some of the deficiencies in the EU institutions today, and this is especially true from the perspective of the general public.
<P>
The Council's deliberations on new legislation - legal texts - should be accessible to the public, as is the case with legislation before national parliaments.
Both the Commission's proposals and the Council's decisions should be public and available to all.
<P>
Another element in the necessary reform process is greater decentralisation, with the EU concentrating on major issues and liberating itself from a welter of detailed business.
We also need increased cooperation between the European Parliament and national parliaments; together, they could jointly exercise a greater degree of supervision.
This is a dimension that should have been dealt with more extensively in the report.
<P>
Böge and Roth-Behrendt report (A4-0083/99)
<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="Caudron">
I do not need to remind you of the decisive role that Parliament played in the mad cow crisis.
It was Parliament that raised the alarm in 1996 by setting up a temporary committee of inquiry which revealed the deficiencies in the way the Commission and certain Member States were handling the problem.
<P>
Progress has been made since then, as the report we are voting on today shows.
Like the rapporteurs, I am glad the Commission has implemented most of the European Parliament's recommendations.
The transformation of the scientific committees represents very significant progress.
In fact, the experts are guaranteed increased independence and greater transparency in their work.
Moreover, the European Commission and the Food and Veterinary Office have markedly improved the effectiveness of the inspections and controls.
The initiation of infringement proceedings against Member States for inadequate application or non-application of Community legislation has accelerated.
<P>
So there has been real progress, and that message must be loud and clear.
<P>
But we cannot start celebrating yet.
The disease has far from disappeared, as shown by the increase in cases in Portugal.
And we must not lose sight of the fact that there is a long incubation period for CJD.
So caution is essential.
Parliament must continue to monitor the situation and put pressure on the European Commission.
There are still differences, as mentioned in the report by Mr Böge and Mrs Roth-Behrendt, and they mainly relate to the two key elements of the right to compensation and sanctions.
<P>
The Member States must shoulder their responsibilities.
It is absolutely intolerable to find that some of them have refused to cooperate with European Commission staff.
It is all the more unacceptable because human lives are at risk.
The precautionary principle must be applied everywhere because it is one of the most effective ways of protecting consumers.
This concerns each and every one of us.
Analysis of this report shows that the crisis goes beyond the BSE issue.
Everything comes back to the institutional crisis we have just experienced, with the resignation of the European Commission.
In fact, the various reports by the temporary committees of inquiry underlined not only the Commission's lack of transparency and coordination, but also the shortage of human resources.
These deficiencies were further highlighted in the report by the Group of Independent Experts which led to the present situation.
All this must be brought to an end at the next IGC and we must no longer shrink from reforms which are indispensable to the smooth running of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="Happart">
Since the BSE follow-up committee was stood down, deaths from CJD have continued to accelerate alarmingly, with ten recorded in the last quarter of 1998. Deaths are still being recorded in the United Kingdom and, with an incubation period of 5 to 30 years, many cases of new variant CJD caused by BSE have still to emerge.
<P>
The European Parliament and the Commission still differ strongly on certain points, including financial compensation and counselling for the victims and their families.
<P>
To this day, the disciplinary measures called for by the follow-up committee, that is, the administrative measures against the British Government for non-appearance, have remained without effect.
<P>
I am also very concerned about the significant increase in cases of BSE in Belgium, Portugal and the United Kingdom.
<P>
Finally, the financial assistance to victims of CJD is, in my view, utterly inadequate, not to mention insulting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="Souchet">
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has tabled six amendments relating specifically to the precautionary principle, extending the principle of food safety to genetically modified organisms, phytosanitary products and growth hormones, and banning the use of meat taken from abattoirs or cattle carcasses for the manufacture of animal meal.
<P>
While the BSE crisis has certainly made it possible to change decision-making procedures within the Commission, my group wants those procedures to go further than the mad cow affair, so that the precautionary principle is managed as well as possible and so that the scientific committees cannot be subjected to political or economic pressure through the Commission's experts.
<P>
European breeders have made remarkable efforts to improve product traceability and restore consumer confidence in the quality of the products they eat.
Our farmers simply cannot understand why imports from third countries of genetically modified agricultural products to be used for animal feed are allowed, when we are unsure of the long-term effects of GMOs on the quality of meat.
Why has the Commission accepted imports of genetically modified maize or soya?
<P>
The United States is threatening the European Union with a WTO panel on 13 May because we refuse to import meat treated with hormones.
What position will the European Union take in the WTO negotiations due to start at the end of this year?
Personally, listening to Mr Prodi, I am worried. He seems more concerned about signing up to the Commission's traditional power bulimia, than about clarifying how the Commission will apply the precautionary principle and the principle of fair trade - on which the next President of the Commission is silent - when it represent the interests of the Member States in those crucial trade negotiations.
The European Union must approach these negotiations with real determination to defend the precautionary principle and the social, environmental and animal welfare standards necessary for healthy and lasting trade which respects all our economies and all our consumers.
<P>
Donner report (A4-0149/99)
<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="Bonde and Sandbæk">
We have today voted in favour of the Donner report on Estonia.
First of all, we wish to express our support for enlargement and, secondly, we share the concern that has been expressed about the large Russian minority in this country.
We welcome the amendments to the Citizenship Act.
However, we find it hard to be enthusiastic at the so-called 'progress' which has been made in transposing Community legislation, and in particular we feel that the lack of flexibility that has been shown by the EU is beneath contempt.
<P>
The report states that there is concern that the support for accession will be weakened if the process is not maintained.
We are convinced that balanced information about both the advantages and the disadvantages of membership should be freely available to all Estonian citizens, and we likewise hope that a referendum will be held to decide on the country's membership of the EU.
<P>
von Habsburg report (A4-0154/99)
<SPEAKER ID=227 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, I was basically happy to accept everything in the report, along with the amendments.
However, I should like to comment on one point which goes somewhat beyond the Hungarian question.
When we talk to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, we are all too inclined to assume a schoolmasterly pose and lecture them about things that we should do better to put right in our own backyard.
<P>
It is exceedingly hypocritical of us to reproach them continually about corruption, for example, when our own Community is notoriously plagued by recurrent widespread corruption on a grand scale.
These countries undoubtedly have serious problems, since they have emerged, after all, from foreign occupation and dictatorship, which has invariably led to a certain breakdown of a nation's moral fibre; under these circumstances, I believe it is absolutely hypocritical of us to wag our finger at them.
<P>
All I wished to say was that I have voted in favour, because I am keen to see these countries' early accession to the Union.
The point I have made is for future reference, so to speak.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 NAME="Bonde and Sandbæk">
We have today voted in favour of the von Habsburg report on Hungary.
First of all, we wish to express our support for enlargement and, secondly, we appreciate the steps that have been taken to improve the circumstances of the gypsies.
However, we find it hard to be enthusiastic at the so-called 'progress' which has been made in transposing Community legislation, and in particular we feel that the lack of flexibility that has been shown by the EU is beneath contempt.
The report urges the government to continue the regular dialogue with the opposition and the social partners in order to create a favourable political climate for Hungary's integration into the EU.
We are convinced that balanced information about both the advantages and the disadvantages of membership should be freely available to all Hungarian citizens, and we likewise hope that a referendum will be held to decide on the country's membership of the EU.
<P>
Speciale report (A4-0151/99)
<SPEAKER ID=229 NAME="Bonde and Sandbæk">
We have today voted in favour of the Speciale report on Slovenia, since we wish to express our full support for enlargement.
However, we find it hard to regret that little 'progress' has been made in transposing Community law, and in particular we feel that the lack of flexibility that has been shown by the EU is beneath contempt.
The report calls for the implementation of an appropriate information campaign to enable the public to understand what accession really means and play their part accordingly, thereby helping to overcoming certain misgivings about accession.
We are convinced that balanced information about both the advantages and the disadvantages of membership should be freely available to all the citizens of Slovenia, and we likewise hope that a referendum will be held to decide on the country's membership of the EU.
<P>
Carnero González report (A4-0157/99)
<SPEAKER ID=230 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I gladly voted for Mr Carnero González's report.
One reason is that he himself has adopted a very sound approach, focusing very sharply on the rule of law, the legal system and minority questions.
But I am also very pleased about the adoption of Amendment No 8 - the Nassauer and Poettering amendment - in which the European Parliament calls unequivocally for the repeal of the so-called Benes Decrees.
I have no doubt that we want to forge ahead with enlargement.
But if we wish to extend our legal community, we must insist emphatically on the preservation of its character as a community in which the rule of law prevails.
When unlawful decrees are brought into such a community, it is like introducing a virus into a computer system.
It endangers the whole system.
That is why unlawful decrees must be repealed prior to accession.
We have taken a major step in that direction today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 NAME="Bonde and Sandbæk">
We have today voted in favour of the Carnero González report on the Czech Republic, since we wish to express our full support for enlargement.
We hope that the Czech Republic will improve the circumstances of the country's gypsies as quickly as possible.
However, we find it hard to regret the lack of 'progress' in transposing Community law, and in particular we feel that the lack of flexibility that has been shown by the EU is beneath contempt.
The report stresses the importance of a national consensus on the question of EU membership.
However, we believe that balanced information about both the advantages and the disadvantages of membership should be freely available to all Czech citizens, and we likewise hope that a referendum will be held to decide on the country's membership of the EU.
<P>
Hoff report (A4-0148/99)
<SPEAKER ID=232 NAME="Bonde and Sandbæk">
We have today voted in favour of the Hoff report on Poland, since we wish to express our full support for enlargement.
However, we find it hard to welcome the rapid 'progress' which has been made in transposing Community law, and in particular we feel that the lack of flexibility that has been shown by the EU is beneath contempt.
Furthermore, the report welcomes the government's planned information campaign about EU membership, and the hope is expressed that it will be possible to communicate a pro-European attitude to the public.
It is also evident from the report that not all Poles are enthusiastic about the EU - witness the demonstrations by farmers.
We would like to urge the government to make balanced information about both the advantages and the disadvantages of membership freely available to all Polish citizens, and we likewise hope that it will keep its promise to hold a referendum on the country's membership of the EU.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 NAME="Caudron">
Of all the applicant countries, Poland is perhaps the one with the fewest problems.
It is the largest and most populous of the applicant countries and expressed its legitimate wish to join the European Union in 1994, although negotiations did not really begin until four years later.
<P>
Since then, and especially since 1997, when parliamentary elections were held and the new constitution came into force, Poland has demonstrated its commitment to reform.
The government has constantly expressed, in word and deed, its intention to create the conditions for membership of the European Union in its country by 2002.
It is on the right path and that is to be welcomed.
<P>
Politically, the country satisfies the criteria for a democratic state.
Its institutions are solidly established and guarantee the rule of law, respect for human rights and respect for and protection of minorities.
That is an essential factor, but it has to be combined with other criteria, notably the economic dimension.
<P>
Economically, Poland has one of the strongest economies in Central and Eastern Europe.
Its growth rate is over 5 %, inflation and unemployment are falling, and the budget deficit and government debt are in line with the Maastricht criteria.
However, despite the positive economic trend and significant structural reforms - reform of the administration, the health service, the pension system - there are still backlogs to be compensated for in various areas: the internal market, the lack of a system to oversee state aid, and the privatisation of the major public companies.
Agriculture and the environment present particular problems and thorough reforms are essential.
<P>
Mrs Hoff advocates global structural change.
I support the idea that agriculture should be seen as part of a rural development strategy.
The changes should create jobs and respect the environment and to achieve this, Poland must increase investment in these areas.
<P>
We are making demands on the Polish people, but we also have duties towards them.
The restructuring that must precede membership has a social cost which we must bear in mind.
The European Community must ensure that accompanying measures minimise the impact of these reforms on people's living conditions.
<P>
I will end on a positive note, by reaffirming my view that it is perfectly natural for Poland to join the European Union, just as it was natural for it to join NATO last month.
<P>
Bertens report (A4-0159/99)
<SPEAKER ID=234 NAME="Bonde and Sandbæk">
We have today voted in favour of the Bertens report on Cyprus, since we wish to express our full support for enlargement.
We also share the report's views about the partition of the island.
However, we find it hard to approve of the rapid 'progress' which has been made in transposing Community law, and in particular we feel that the lack of flexibility that has been shown by the EU is beneath contempt.
We would like to urge the government to make balanced information about both the advantages and the disadvantages of membership freely available to all Cypriot citizens, and we likewise hope that it will hold a referendum on the country's membership of the EU.
<P>
Malone report (A4-0165/99)
<SPEAKER ID=235 NAME="Bonde and Sandbæk">
We have today voted in favour of the Malone report on Malta, since we wish to express our full support for enlargement.
We welcome the Maltese Government's pledge to hold a referendum once the negotiations have been concluded.
We hope that the government will ensure that the planned information campaign is balanced, so that we get information about both the advantages and the disadvantages of membership which is freely available to all Maltese citizens.
<P>
Myller report (A4-0123/99)
<SPEAKER ID=236 NAME="Martin, David">
I shall be voting in favour of the recommendations in the report on the effects of enlargement of the European Union on the environment.
The present environmental problems in the applicant countries are a result of high emissions into the atmosphere from industrial activities, energy production and traffic as well as under-funding and neglect of water and waste management.
To prevent the present Member States being affected by this, environmental issues must play an important role in preparing the Central and Eastern European countries for membership of the Union.
Before joining they must be able to demonstrate that they are able to abide by both EU environmental legislation and international treaties.
<P>
The EU must also ensure that it does not encourage the further decimation of the large expanses of untouched environmental beauty in the applicant countries.
Whilst funding should of course be made available to modernise and attract industry to this region, it should not be at the expense of the environment of either applicant or present Member States.
<P>
However, there shall be environmental benefits as a result of a successful application by these countries.
The large areas of sparsely populated land so characteristic of many of these nations shall undoubtedly bring new areas of environmental beauty and diversity into the Union and these should be promoted and developed through financial assistance from the EU.
At all times it should be remembered that the Amsterdam Treaty lays down that environmental protection requirements must play a part in the definition and implementation of Community policies.
<P>
De Esteban Martín report (A4-0119/99)
<SPEAKER ID=237 NAME="Caudron">
I share the rapporteur's satisfaction with Mr Söderman's work over the past year and the outstanding clarity and conciseness of his report.
I think the Ombudsman has recognised the importance of his role in a European Union that hopes to move closer to the people.
<P>
How can European citizenship be envisaged if the Community institutions can act in a discretionary or even arbitrary way towards the people they administer and not be held to account?
That unacceptable situation only ended in 1995 with the appointment of the European Ombudsman.
At last the complaints from European citizens about maladministration by the Community institutions would be heard.
At last there would be a minimum of dialogue and transparency in the functioning of what is often regarded as the 'Brussels bureaucracy'.
<P>
Successive annual reports, and especially the 1998 report, have illustrated the progress made.
First, there has been progress as regards the amount of cases dealt with.
The number of complaints is up by 200 on the previous year.
This means that people are becoming more aware of the Ombudsman and no longer hesitate to express their concerns and indeed their anger.
They want to make themselves heard and have their rights respected.
And we must welcome that.
But honesty and realism force me to put a damper on this.
There are 370 million people in Europe and there were only 1 372 complaints in 1998.
<P>
We therefore need an information campaign.
There is no lack of new forms of communication.
On similar lines, I support the Ombudsman's suggestion that all remedies open to individuals should be clearly mentioned in the EC Treaty, including the right to complain to their national ombudsmen.
And here the excellent cooperation developed between the latter and the European Ombudsman should be highlighted.
Cooperation is also a watchword of the relations between the European Parliament's Committee on Petitions and the European Ombudsman.
Their networking will definitely result in effectiveness.
And this will all benefit the people of Europe.
<P>
While the balance sheet is largely positive, improvements still need to be made, in particular as regards the status of the Ombudsman in terms of his investigative role.
It really is vital for him to have access to all the relevant documents he needs, which is not the case today.
The adoption of a code of good administrative behaviour for the European institutions would also provide a guarantee for the public, who would be able to consult it freely.
More generally, what emerges from the European Ombudsman's report is that the confidence of Europeans depends on transparency, dialogue and clear legal rules allowing them to defend their rights.
These are the necessary conditions for developing a sense of belonging to a project which often seems remote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 NAME="Deprez">
The increase in complaints lodged with the European Ombudsman about alleged cases of maladministration by the institutions or bodies of the European Union can be interpreted in two ways.
<P>
One is pessimistic.
As a recent news report saw it, the whole of the European civil service is stigmatised by the extent of malfunction that was disclosed.
The other is optimistic.
We can draw a positive conclusion from the growing number of complaints.
It can be seen as proof that the public is taking a new interest in the construction of Europe.
<P>
This paradoxical approach - drawing a positive conclusion from a decidedly negative fact - must clearly not deter us from taking an interest in the cases of maladministration condemned by the Ombudsman and his response to appeals from the European public.
<P>
Everyone will agree that it is not enough for European citizens to recognise the increased role played by the European Union in their daily lives; they also need to experience it and analyse it as something positive.
<P>
So I am delighted to hear our rapporteur applaud the quality of the work done by the European Ombudsman.
<P>
Transparency will also build lasting support on the part of the European public for European integration.
That is why the rapporteur has my full support when she defends the general principle of access to all the documents needed to examine a case.
Nonetheless, I agree that confidentiality is sometimes indispensable.
<P>
But secrecy should be the exception, not the rule.
<P>
Newman report (A4-0117/99)
<SPEAKER ID=239 NAME="Deprez">
The Committee on Petitions does remarkable work, from both a quantitative and a qualitative point of view.
<P>
There have been 6 500 petitions with 10 million signatures during this parliamentary term, which works out at an average of almost four petitions and 5 000 signatures every twenty-four hours, including Sundays and holidays.
Those figures surely make us wonder.
<P>
They are bound to make us ask questions, as elected representatives, about the real nature of our relations and the relations of the European institutions with the public.
<P>
It is certainly true that, apart from the specific questions it raises about the relationship between the elected and the electors as this century draws to a close, the right of petition is one of the best ways for Parliament to exercise control over the Commission and the Council - as well as the Member States - on behalf of the people of Europe.
<P>
The right of petition is therefore one way to make our fellow citizens more firmly and deeply attached to the construction of Europe.
Perhaps that explains the Commission's excellent cooperation with the Committee on Petitions, and the Council's persistent reluctance to participate in the joint effort.
<P>
We must clearly condemn the Council's obvious lack of response to public opinion, and ensure that everyone faces up to their responsibilities.
<P>
To conclude, in view of the enormous volume of work involved in dealing with the petitions received, I fully support a thorough review of the Committee on Petitions' working methods, because it is easy to understand why it is puzzling over how best to fulfil its role.
<P>
Schmidbauer report (A4-0111/99)
<SPEAKER ID=240 NAME="Delcroix">
Our rapporteur, Mrs Barbara Schmidbauer, has not shrunk from her task in this pre-election period, when criticising road transport and its cost does not appeal to all voters.
I congratulate her on that, just as I congratulate her on having established that the measures suggested by the Commission should not make transport more expensive, but should permit more effective use of infrastructures and greater respect for the environment.
<P>
But I want to add 'safer use' to that 'effective use', thinking of the current increase in the number of road and rail tunnels and the serious accidents that have occurred in the last few years.
The accident in the Channel Tunnel - where there is a modern alarm system - could have caused heavy loss of life.
It was pure chance that the burning carriage stopped near an access door to the second tunnel, so the people were able to escape.
The Mont Blanc accident has cost the lives of forty people and nobody knows when the tunnel will be open to traffic again.
<P>
We must take on board all the conclusions of the inquiries in progress and take the necessary decisions.
But I feel that one principle should be adopted right away, covering all safety aspects in tunnels.
The service responsible for safety must be genuinely independent of the company operating the tunnel and the company must apply all the recommendations made by the safety service.
This principle will have financial implications, but safety, in other words, the lives of those who use the tunnels, naturally comes at a price.
In the final analysis, perhaps the authority to control safety should be exclusively a matter for the government.
<P>
I have one final comment. Of the 35 million tonnes of goods that travel between Italy and France each year, 10 million tonnes are carried by rail.
The Chamonix valley is a notorious HGV corridor with traffic growing exponentially, along with the nuisance and the risks this entails.
That is the measure of the absurdity of an 'all by road' policy based on profit at any price.
I have therefore paid tribute to the courage of the rapporteur who, despite the infrastructure costs, firmly stresses the advantages of the rail alternative in terms of safety and the environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 NAME="Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling">
We support the principle of creating fair competition between different modes of transport.
The main point is of course to ensure that lorries and passenger cars pay all the costs involved, including environmental ones. Air transport also needs to be taxed more heavily.
This is necessary if we are to encourage the use of environmentally friendly modes of transport; currently, these are at a disadvantage.
<P>
We are, however, opposed to a number of the proposals in both the Commission's White Paper and the report.
Of prime concern to us are the proposals on a uniform system of charging for the whole of the EU.
Bearing in mind the subsidiarity principle, we feel strongly and unequivocally that the EU should not go beyond setting minimum charges; it is up to the Member State concerned to manage its own rates. The Union should on no account be granted the right to levy taxes.
We firmly reject any kind of detailed regulation by the EU.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 NAME="Schlechter">
Mrs Schmidbauer has invested a great deal of work in her report.
Indeed, it is even fair to say that, as far as the Commission White Paper is concerned, it is a good report.
<P>
And, to be perfectly honest, even I have to recognise that the White Paper provides some interesting food for thought.
<P>
I too am all for fair competition between individual modes of transport and for fair and efficient pricing of transport services.
I too am in favour of shifting more transport operations from the roads to the railways and waterways, but I am opposed to making cars, lorries and buses the sole scapegoats for every possible problem and even for some impossible ones.
And that is the thrust of the White Paper and, I am sorry to say, of the parliamentary report as well.
<P>
When we speak of fair competition, we cannot ignore the fact that railway wages are higher and jobs are virtually guaranteed for life - conditions that will probably never obtain in the private sector.
Given the present craze for liberalisation, are there plans to change this and, if so, in what way?
<P>
The White Paper is talking facts when it says that external costs throughout the EU are assessed by the Commission at an annual figure of EUR 250 billion.
<P>
There is talk of marginal social cost, although we never quite discover precisely what is meant by that, of taxes on diesel and of uniform charging systems being introduced throughout Europe with the aid of electronic data transfer.
<P>
However, the rapporteur goes too far when she calls for the inclusion of private non-commercial vehicles in the charging system as a means of distributing the costs among all users of the road network.
Is this designed to ensure that in future only the rich will be able to drive cars and that the bulk of the population will stay at home?
<P>
To the rapporteur's credit, however, she insists that the proposed measures must not result in more expensive transport and that, if price rises are inevitable, the burden on road users should be reduced in some other way.
<P>
In this context, it would have been interesting to learn from the Commission how much each Member State collects in road tax and in excise duty on petrol, diesel and so on, and how much of that is systematically ploughed back into the construction and maintenance of the road network.
<P>
Even if every possible and impossible means is already being used to master the perennially increasing volume of traffic, care must be taken to avoid burdening users and operators of rail, road, air and water transport with a procession of new taxes, and that is the bottom line.
<P>
We would do well to remember how great the outcry was in Germany when there was talk of increasing the price of a litre of petrol to the equivalent of 100 Belgian francs.
I have the impression that the policy set out in the White Paper is designed to achieve that same objective by a different route.
<P>
Europe needs a good transport system and so does the business world, and at the end of the day, someone will always have to pay.
And that someone just happens to be the citizen.
I also note that the Commission is acting as though it were unaware that a great deal of environmental innovation has taken place in the field of transport.
<P>
European transport companies, whether they operate trains, road vehicles, aircraft or ships, are the most modern in the world.
To keep burdening them with new taxes would drive them to the brink of unprofitability.
At one of the hearings on the White Paper, I could scarcely believe my ears when one of the invited experts said we should have to think about taxing aviation fuel at four ecus per litre for the sake of the environment: Concorde prices as the everyday norm, but who is supposed to pay them?
<P>
I shall be voting against Mrs Schmidbauer's report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 NAME="President">
That concludes voting time.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=13>
The Daphne programme (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=244 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report (A4-0188/99) by Mrs Bennasar Tous on the Daphne programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 NAME="Waddington">
Madam President, I should like to congratulate, in her absence, the rapporteur, Mrs Bennasar Tous, on her report.
I wish to extend those congratulations to all the members of the Committee on Women's Rights and all Members who have contributed to the formulation of the programme and the plan of action to combat violence against women and children.
I warmly thank the two Commissioners, Mrs Gradin and Mr Flynn, for their support and persistence.
<P>
Now we have a legal base for the programme, a budget and a plan for a European awareness campaign against violence against women.
After all the struggles, delays and financial and legal barriers placed in our way by those who did not see the significance of this issue, we are now on a fairly firm footing and I hope we can begin to address this very serious issue.
<P>
The new legal base, which was not really what we wanted, relies on the European Union's competence on health and it must not restrict the scope of the Daphne programme.
<P>
Violence against women and children occurs in many different public and private situations and has many causes and effects.
Trafficking, domestic violence, sexual abuse and mutilation, rape, sexual harassment at work: all are forms of gender-based violence.
<P>
The Daphne programme is designed to give added value to the work of NGOs dealing with prevention, supporting the victims, reintegrating the survivors and dealing with the perpetrators.
All these fields of work will benefit from better research and dissemination, which the Daphne programme can fund.
<P>
Part of the Daphne report contains information about the European campaign to raise awareness of the issue of violence against women, and this was launched in Cologne under the German presidency last month.
That conference attracted a large number of non-governmental organisations and stimulated a great deal of creative thinking.
<P>
Mrs Bennasar's amendments, which were supported by the Committee on Women's Rights, give more weight to the involvement of NGOs in the execution of the Daphne programme.
The Commission should welcome this, and I look forward to hearing its response to those proposals.
The Commission should also welcome the great involvement of Members of this Parliament, which she proposes.
<P>
I have examined very closely the current guidelines for the applicants for Daphne funding.
I can see a real need for improvement: they are complex and confusing.
The NGOs and MEPs could, indeed would, suggest a far clearer approach - a more user-friendly set of guidelines - which would therefore be far more relevant and effective in meeting the objectives.
<P>
This is a small programme and a small campaign in budgetary terms. However, the violence it aims to combat is a major problem in Europe and beyond.
Our research has already indicated that one woman in four experiences violence during her lifetime and 90 % of the perpetrators are men.
At least 50 % of these acts of violence are carried out by the victim's husband or partner.
There is a real need to challenge this culture and to make violence against women unacceptable.
Such violence cannot be seen as an act of love: it is an act of dominance and intimidation.
<P>
We are working towards equality between men and women and respect for human rights, both within Europe and beyond it.
The level of violence the research has already illustrated demonstrates that we still have a very long way to go.
We believe that the Daphne programme is very badly needed and trust that it will shortly be provided with more resources and a more open and democratic system for decision-making.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ryynänen">
Madam President, Commissioner, the Daphne programme, which is designed to combat violence against children, young people and women, addresses an urgent problem, and it therefore deserves all our support and the proper scope for action.
It is difficult to understand why some Member States want to limit the scope of the programme, making it hard to take proper account of its multi-dimensional nature.
Violence in all its forms, but especially violence against children, is a gross infringement of human rights, and not just a matter of public health.
The aim of the programme must therefore remain the prevention of all kinds of violence and the protection of the victims of violence, which includes cases of sexual abuse and abandonment.
<P>
Of course, the most important thing would be to get to a position where we can to take preventive action and work as effectively as possible.
We need training, education and advice facilities, as well as broad networks of support to cope with risk situations.
Advertising campaigns, information exchange programmes, and, obviously, research into violence will be important tools in reducing the incidence of violence.
We must have derived benefit from the Daphne initiative, as a new year five-year programme is being put together which will promote cooperation among voluntary organisations and the local authorities.
The organisations need support to set up various networks, to improve the dissemination of information, to forge partnerships, and to promote reciprocal information exchange.
I would especially like to stress the importance of the Daphne programme for defending the rights of children and protecting them from sexual exploitation in particular.
For this we need the simultaneous efforts of parents, teachers and the whole immediate community to work towards preventive child protection.
<P>
I believe it is also very important to extend this programme gradually to other countries, especially the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, as violence in its various forms has a transnational dimension, for example in the sex trade and child pornography on the Internet.
Cooperation to safeguard fundamental human rights, and thus also the rights of children, is vital, and has to work effectively between the applicant countries and the current Member States.
The law in these applicant countries also has to ensure that basic rights are safeguarded in a way that is clear to all and which makes it possible to deal effectively with infringements of human rights in the form of violence.
<P>
Otherwise, I would hope that issues of children's rights will be one of the priorities on the EU agenda, as only then will we be able to protect our future and status as a community of civilised states.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Daskalaki">
Madam President, first of all I would like to congratulate Mrs Bennasar Tous, albeit in her absence, and I would also like to congratulate Mrs Colombo Svevo who so capably presented the issue here this morning.
Chiefly, however, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on this extremely important contribution to the Commission proposal on the Daphne programme, and on the way she has handled such an important issue.
As has already been said, we have discussed it at some length in the Committee on Women's Rights and there has been general agreement on its proposals.
<P>
The rapporteur welcomes the proposal put forward by the Commission, but she has tabled major amendments, with which - and I would like to stress this - my group concurs.
In particular, we agree with the reservations she has expressed on the change of the legal base of the action programme.
The use of Article 235 of the Treaty instead of Article 129 may lead to the exclusion from the Daphne programme of all issues relating to violence, sexual exploitation and the trade in women and children, on the grounds that these issues do not have a bearing on public health.
We are glad that there is some form of legal base but we have some problems with this particular legal base.
<P>
We also agree with the rapporteur asking the Commission to place the plans that are adopted into some order of priority, with a view to using the available resources in the most effective way possible.
Here we are talking about plans of prevention, programmes for the rehabilitation of children, young people and women who are in danger, and provisions relating to the perpetrators of these criminal acts, especially the young.
Attention must also be focused on legitimate practices and on the means of protecting the interests of children, young people and women who have fallen victim to violence.
<P>
We support the request for the presence, on the advisory committee, of a representative of the European Parliament and a representative of the NGOs. We also support the request for the submission of an annual rather than a triennial report on the progress that has been made.
<P>
We also agree that we must call on the applicant countries to take part in the programme, and that there must be better dissemination of information, especially to the media and to the public at whom the programme is directed.
<P>
Finally, I would like to stress that we too are asking for a new report to be submitted to take into account the above amendments, and also that all forms of violence and sexual exploitation perpetrated against women and children continue to be covered, including trafficking in slaves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=248 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Madam President, I am delighted that there is going to be this Daphne programme and I hope that we will be able to put it to good use, because violence against women and children is one of the unacceptable sides of our society and it is constantly on the increase.
My arrival at the European Parliament coincided with a conference which Parliament organised on violence against children and child abuse, and I resolved to investigate this issue in depth here in the House.
In particular, I would urge you to consider ways of supporting those trying to combat paedophile and prostitution networks on the Internet.
<P>
Madam President, Commissioner, we are dealing here with a problem that is going from bad to worse.
This week in Parliament, we voted on what I thought was a very good report on Internet crime.
But let me tell you how things are in reality.
In reality, there is an awful lot to think about.
In each case, the children concerned have been the victims of a real crime.
The number of victims is increasing, as is the number of potential criminals, because unfortunately victims themselves sometimes go on to commit crimes if they are unable to find ways of dealing with their trauma.
<P>
One of the main problems - and one which the police also share - is that the NGOs working on combating the pornography and paedophile networks on the Internet often have to search among thousands and thousands of pieces of data.
The report therefore rightly calls for help to be given to projects that are designed to track down victims, such as those who have been abducted and forced into prostitution, and who may be identified from the photographs offered for sale on the Internet by certain criminals.
<P>
This is why I would urge that considerable scope should be offered to the NGOs working in these areas, but we must also not forget the scant resources that our judicial authorities often have to work with, not to mention the lack of European-level coordination.
I therefore think that the report is right to ask whether Europol should be given the resources to play an effective role in combating this sort of violence.
What I said about children also applies to combating violence against women, because young refugees are also often forced into prostitution and become the victims of the same kind of violence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Madam President, Commissioner, on International Women's Day, Commissioner Gradin issued a challenge to men to do something about violence against women by saying that violence against women was a men's problem.
I find it striking that her words have found little support here in this debate.
<P>
If the Commissioner meant that men are responsible for a considerable proportion of the violence against women, I have to agree.
Saying that the two sexes are like chalk and cheese, however, is a distortion of reality.
I certainly do not mean to deny that the problem exists.
My main objection to the proposal is the level at which it is tackled.
Violence is a problem that occurs in small groups, so a national or local approach is needed.
<P>
I firmly believe that the Bible has a great deal to teach us about interpersonal relationships, and feel I have to point out that mankind, both men and women, is made in God's image.
This belief can do much to help harmonious human relations, and anyone who is violent to those around him is simply denying this biblical truth.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Blot">
Mr President, the idea of adopting a programme designed to prevent violence against children, adolescents and women is a generous and noble idea which everyone can of course support.
This programme, which takes its name from the Greek myth of Daphne, provides for a number of administrative actions and procedures that we approve of.
But the rapporteur does not really seem to have investigated the causes and the sources of violence in European societies today.
That violence is growing steadily.
In France, for example, the number of crimes and offences rose from 200 000 in 1948 to 4 200 000 in 1998.
Of course, not all these crimes and offences are against women and children, but there is undeniably a general upward trend in violence in that area too.
That trend coincides with the collapse of the traditional framework in which people's lives were once rooted.
<P>
In fact, for 50 years, society has become more urban, the family framework has been crumbling, and moral and religious landmarks have very often collapsed.
Emancipated from such civilising frameworks, the individual who thinks he is free may be tempted to use violence against others with complete impunity.
An administrative and financial programme like the one presented to us here, while not without merit, is not going to resolve this problem, which is in fact the challenge of a new barbarism.
That is all the more true because, by always insisting on rights and never on duties, the ideology of human rights produces the opposite of its intentions - justification for excesses of all kinds.
<P>
Ancient wisdom recognised that man was always tempted by excesses resulting in violence.
For example, Plato demonstrated that the human spirit has three components: the rational, the emotional and the instinctive.
If education fails to achieve an alliance between reason and emotion to keep instincts in check, they are unleashed and the door is opened to all kinds of violence.
That ancient teaching is still valid.
That is why mere palliatives cannot be enough.
We must also combat the deep-rooted causes of the rise in violence in general, and in violence towards women and children in particular.
This presupposes that the media will cease to cultivate violence systematically and that moral education will once again become a major requirement.
<P>
Under the Third Republic in France, there was a consensus about this civic and moral education.
This was broken down by the incursion of lax ideas on education.
Man is not naturally good, he needs to feel the weight of civilising disciplines.
As illustrated by the great Greek dramatist, Aeschylus, in the tragedy 'The Eumenides', a society which fails to punish crime will open the door to growing criminality.
<P>
We need better teaching of ethics and more repressive courts, but people also need to be able to put down roots in small communities rather than in sprawling cities.
Modern techniques mean that planning can allow people to live in human-sized districts and villages where everyone knows each other. There would then be spontaneous social control, which is more effective than repression through the courts or administrative support to victims.
We should be aiming towards such a policy of re-rooting people in human-sized communities.
Some of the sources of violence could then be eradicated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=251 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Lancker">
Madam President, when I presented the opinion of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs on behalf of my colleague Mrs Zimmermann, I said that Parliament was delighted with this initiative by the Commission, and I would ask Commissioner Liikanen to pass on our thanks to his two colleagues.
However, I also made it clear that we are extremely concerned about the change in the legal basis, which as I said at the time is certainly going to make things difficult and has considerably dampened our enthusiasm, because violence against women and children, Commissioner, is not just a health risk.
It is a fundamental attack on human rights.
<P>
Combating violence is a very complex problem.
It is not just about helping the victims, but also about preventing and combating violence among those who inflict it.
It also requires cooperation between the judicial authorities and the police.
It is therefore by definition multidisciplinary.
What I am trying to say is that it would be completely unacceptable if the change in the legal basis meant that we only ended up with some new health programme for women and children rather than structural measures.
<P>
I also wholeheartedly support the attempts by the Committees on Women's Rights and Internal Affairs to make various adjustments to the Commission's amended proposal.
I would like to draw attention to a number of points which I think are important here.
<P>
First there is the World Health Organisation's definition of health, which is very important in that it goes further than just risk prevention.
It refers to people's quality of life, making the challenge even broader: equal opportunities for different people and different groups in society, and above all the right to life, the right to dignity, the right to freedom and integrity that everyone should enjoy.
This is a clear reference to human rights, which is an area where this programme could be a little broader and where it should reinstate some of its original proposals.
<P>
I would therefore like to appeal to the Commission and to my fellow Members to continue to urge the Council representatives to adopt a broad interpretation and a broad scope for the Daphne programme.
I would like to hear what the Commissioner thinks about this.
<P>
Commissioner, the signals coming out of the Council still show that it is obstinately refusing to take this message on board.
In particular, its plan to allocate Daphne only a mini-budget, even less than Parliament had proposed and the Commission had agreed to, makes me very anxious about what the Council really intends for this programme.
I suspect that the Council is really planning to use it only for micro-projects - a bit of awareness-raising and a few information campaigns - which stands in stark contrast to the very clearly stated ambitions that we have for it.
If we do not broaden the scope and provide Daphne with the money it needs, it will remain a white elephant.
Yet the public has enormous expectations here.
So the European Parliament, as the co-legislator in a codecision procedure, cannot accept this, and I hope the Council will listen to what we are saying.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Madam President, violence is a dominant feature of contemporary society and an enigma of our open society, a society that has lost its values and is taking on new idols and new symbols, confounding those traditional values which have always formed the basis of our civil life.
And so we should not be surprised when television and other means of communication transmit to us images of violence and when our children feed on these images and base their world and ideals on them.
<P>
We who are responsible for their education and, as politicians, have to be the most reliable interpreters of what it is that our people want, are under an obligation to condemn the sources of this violence and identify the most effective ways of combating it.
In point of fact, this Community of ours is committed to combating violence, by stressing the principle of the right to life, to security, to freedom and to physical and mental integrity through a whole array of programmes, not least those which we are today trying to bring to completion.
The Daphne programme combats violence against women, minors and children; it is a programme which has combated violence within the family, through ill-treatment and sexual abuse of children and partners, and the kind of violence we see in daily life, in the form of rape, sexual violence and molestation, harassment at the workplace and so on, a true battle of values and civilisation. This programme does not shy away from the truth, does not provide simple solutions, but incorporates a number of interacting factors: education, custom, issues of economic independence and employment, legal and jurisdictional issues, services to help victims, and health matters.
<P>
But the regulation, the legal definition of the means of redress, as defined in Article 52 of the Treaty of Amsterdam - which is the legal basis of the programme - is restricted to combating violence.
Therefore, an area to which we believe it would have been more consistent to have applied Article 235 of the Treaty has been encompassed under the heading of 'public health', even though in the final analysis Article 235 allows for powers of action that are not specifically provided for, where Community action proves necessary to achieve one of the Community's objectives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Junker">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is sadly true that many aspects of the world in which we live are far from perfect; one of its sordid aspects is that of violence against women, children and young people, and this is a problem we have to tackle relentlessly.
For that reason, the German Presidency has made the problem one of its priority issues.
A meeting on the subject has already taken place.
The Bundesrat , the chamber of the German Parliament in which the federal states are represented, has expressed its regret that 1999 was not declared to be an official year of action on violence against women, which would have been an important means of reinforcing this message.
<P>
Violence-prevention strategies must incorporate different approaches, depending on whether the violence in question is domestic or non-domestic.
That distinction is not adequately covered in the Commission proposal, and so it is essential to add amendments that refer explicitly to sexual abuse, sexual exploitation and traffic in human beings and to support all the other amendments on the table.
<P>
These additions are necessary for two reasons: firstly, it must be made clear that the definition of violence goes beyond the use of physical force.
Sexual abuse, for instance, does not always entail the use of physical force, especially when the victims are young children, but can involve all sorts of intimidation and threats which leave no physical trace.
This does not make its effects any less drastic; on the contrary, they are often far, far worse.
<P>
One of the most humiliating experiences of sexually abused women and children is not to be believed unless they can furnish proof in the form of physical injuries.
Sexual exploitation is one of the most despicable manifestations of the sex industry, about which a word should be said at this point.
More money is now made from trafficking in women than from drug trafficking.
Traffickers in women run a far lower risk of prosecution than dealers in drugs or weapons, because there is often a lack of evidence that would stand up in court.
Traffic in women is a 'growth industry', not least because of the more open borders with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, from where most of the victims in our Member States are drawn.
<P>
The desperate economic situation in their own countries forces many women to clutch at any straw, which makes them easy prey for the traffickers.
The fact that the enormity of this affront to humanity is no longer a taboo subject, but is being discussed more and more openly and has even been the subject of official action programmes is to be warmly welcomed.
These efforts have our unreserved support, and in that context we surely owe a debt of gratitude to Commissioner Anita Gradin as well.
I need only remind you of the conference which was held in Vienna and attracted widespread public attention.
<P>
We need comprehensive measures to prevent trafficking, to educate the public and to protect the victims, as well as cooperation and coordination with the judiciary, the police, the competent authorities and, last but not least, with the non-governmental organisations that operate in this field; this cooperation and coordination must take place within each Member State, between the Member States and with the relevant countries outside the European Union.
<P>
The suitability of the chosen legal basis, which has rightly attracted severe criticism here, is open to question.
But there is no disputing the fact that violence against women, children and young people ultimately damages their health and - very importantly - their psychological constitution.
Reducing the problem to a mere health issue would amount to an intolerable trivialisation.
Let it be clearly understood that violence against women, children and young people must be outlawed and punished as serious violations of human rights, with no ifs or buts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=254 NAME="Liikanen">
Madam President, The Commission would like to thank Mrs Bennasar Tous and the Committee on Women's Rights for the report.
It gives strong support to the Commission's initiative and underlines in an admirable way the need and urgency for the Daphne programme to be adopted well before the end of the year.
The Commission also appreciates the important role the European Parliament plays in putting the fight against violence on the agenda of the European Union.
<P>
The main objective of the proposed five-year Daphne programme is to support and encourage NGOs and voluntary organisations to work together to protect children, young persons and women from all kinds of violence.
This is to be achieved through the setting up of networks, exchange of information and best practices and the raising of public awareness.
Preventive action, including how to prevent violent behaviour by men towards women, will be among the priorities.
The programme is building on the experiences of the Daphne initiative which has been running since 1997.
<P>
The Commission shares the report's assessment of the programme.
It is an important tool in the fight against violence.
The multiannual character of the programme will allow for the planning of initiatives on a longer-term basis.
The progressive extension to the acceding countries, as has been mentioned by a number of parliamentarians, and the EFTA countries, is vital, given the trans-national dimension of many forms of violence.
The programme will also help to develop the NGOs' potential in a number of fields.
<P>
Mrs Bennasar Tous proposes a number of constructive amendments and additions to the Commission's proposal.
The Commission is happy to accept most of them.
The Commission also agrees on the need for a careful choice of projects.
One objective should be to ensure a balance between different areas and target groups.
The proposed advisory committee will play an important role in assisting the Commission in this respect.
<P>
The rapporteur and a number of honourable Members deplore the fact that the Commission decided to change the legal base for the proposal from Article 235 to Article 129.
It was a difficult decision for the Commission.
Nobody should doubt that the Commission would have preferred to stick to the original proposal but there was a considerable risk of blockage in the Council.
Several Member States were openly opposed to the use of Article 235 and we have to bear in mind that there is no value in an unacceptable Daphne programme.
<P>
A question was also raised about the extension of the programme.
The Commission assumes that a change to Article 129, public health, will not limit the scope of the programme.
The context in which we work to combat violence and in which women and children suffer is indeed in the whole context of human rights.
However, the impact of violence amounts to injury, or risk of injury, to the victim's physical, mental and psychological health.
Furthermore, the Daphne programme is, as the rapporteur underlines, victim-based.
Its aim is to prevent all forms of violence and to protect all victims and potential victims of violence, irrespective of whether the violence takes the form of trafficking, sexual abuse, the abandonment of children or any other form.
<P>
When the Daphne programme is adopted it will provide a new impetus for the fight against violence.
It is now important to have it adopted swiftly and, at any rate, well before the end of the year.
The Commission appreciates the European Parliament's strong support for this objective.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=255 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Liikanen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=256 NAME="Colombo Svevo">
Madam President, I wish to make just one comment.
First of all, I should like to thank the Commission because, if I have understood properly, it agrees with our proposals.
Does that then mean that most or all of the amendments have the Commission's approval?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=257 NAME="Liikanen">
The Commission is prepared to accept 16 of the amendments, 10 with some rewording and cannot accept 10 of the amendments.
If you want me to specify which one by one I can do it today or tomorrow as you wish.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=258 NAME="Colombo Svevo">
Commissioner, our amendments follow a gradual progression: some raise problems of subsidiarity, others procedural problems - and on that, I think, we will be able to reach agreement - but there are also some fundamental amendments.
I would like to remind you of them, and you will then be able to give your assessment.
I am thinking, for instance, of Amendments Nos 7, 27, 29 and 35, third indent, which we regard as part of the essential substance of the programme and which I believe the Commission ought also to accept.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=259 NAME="President">
I think the Commissioner has already said which amendments are being accepted.
No, that is clearly not the case.
Can you tell us which amendments are being accepted by the Commission?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=260 NAME="Liikanen">
The Commission is prepared to accept - with rewording - Amendment Nos 29 and 35 but it is not able to accept Amendment No 7.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=261 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Liikanen.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
The sitting was closed at 7.45 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herman">
Mr President, page 9 of the Minutes refers to three consecutive speeches: those made by myself, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy and Mr Wijsenbeek on the important decision to vote by simple majority on the amendments to the responsibilities of the parliamentary committees.
However, the responsibilities of these committees are part of the Rules of Procedure, and any amendment to the Rules requires an absolute majority.
<P>
I am aware that there is a precedent to this, and that it is on the basis of this that the President decided to dismiss the matter.
However, I should like to point out that - so as not to continue with any bad habits - the Committee on the Rules of Procedure should at least be given the opportunity to discuss the matter. In my view, it would be improper - or would at least be a biased interpretation - to allow a simple majority to amend the responsibilities of the parliamentary committees, or for that matter to remove the essence of those committees where this relative majority would not assume the Chair.
<P>
It is therefore possible that we are acting in an improper manner here, and the Rules are made to protect minorities.
Therefore, I believe that it would be worth referring the matter to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, rather than simply dismissing this objection which I believe to be fundamental.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Mr Herman, you know that one of my criteria has always been that in the event of a discussion on the substance of a matter, the Chair must take a decision on the immediate situation and then, if necessary, refer it to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure.
I shall therefore refer this matter, which has been raised by yourself and other Members, to the committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schmidbauer">
Mr President, we voted yesterday on my report concerning the Commission White Paper on infrastructure charges.
I see that the parliamentary services, probably for stylistic reasons, have changed the text on which we voted in paragraph 1.
In my report, which was adopted by the committee without any amendment to paragraph 1, I called for the introduction of a uniform charging system for all modes of transport, 'based inter alia on marginal social cost'.
The wording represented a deliberate attempt to keep open the option of incorporating other factors.
Now some language freak has changed this into 'on the basis of marginal social cost', which conveys an entirely different message.
I must insist that the original wording be put back into the report, both in the German version and in any translations that have been altered.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Schmidbauer.
Parliament's services will check on that and we shall keep the original translation that was adopted, since that is the will of the House.
<P>
The Minutes were approved
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Statement by the President
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
In the vote held yesterday morning on the proposal for a decision on the number, powers and responsibilities of parliamentary committees, Parliament adopted two contradictory amendments relating to the responsibility for the legal protection of consumers, namely Amendment No 31 by the Group of the Party of European Socialists and Amendment No 60 by the Group of the European People's Party.
<P>
The Rules do not allow two committees to be responsible for the same matter.
Therefore, in order to ensure that the text approved is consistent, responsibility for the legal protection of consumers should be given to the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
<P>
I have consequently given the necessary instructions to the relevant services.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Yesterday I received a motion of censure on the Commission, which resigned collectively on 16 March 1999.
<P>
If approved, the motion would require the Commission to resign as a body, pursuant to Article 144, second paragraph, of the EC Treaty.
<P>
However, in accordance with the legal principles 'nulla quia absurdum ' and 'ad impossibilia nemo tenetur ', I cannot admit a motion of censure on a body which has already resigned.
<P>
I have therefore declared the motion inadmissible.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I do not know how you can take such decisions.
I must admit that I am surprised at the way in which we automatically look for legal arguments in order to oppose a particular group of Members.
<P>
In this case, a tenth of the Members of Parliament are involved, that is, 66 Members from all the political groups: 5 from the PSE Group, 8 from the PPE Group, 4 from the ELDR Group, 6 from the UPE Group, 6 from the GUE/NGL Group, 9 from the Green Group, 3 from the ARE Group, 15 from the I-EDN Group, and 10 Non-attached Members.
This is therefore not something that has been initiated by any particular Member, but by a tenth of the Members of Parliament.
<P>
This matter had been referred to the Legal Service on 6 April.
In a memorandum of 7 April, which was sent to Mr Priestley, our legal expert concluded that a motion of censure against the Commission could be declared admissible in order to clarify the Commission's legal situation and to further limit its powers, despite the fact that this would provide very little added value in legal terms.
<P>
The resigning Commission will remain in office until at least the end of September or the start of October.
It retains all its powers because it has resigned in the context of Article 159.
Thus, Mrs Bonino, a resigning Commissioner, visited the headquarters of NATO, an international organisation, to meet its Secretary-General for the first time.
Was such a decision taken in the context of a Commission which is dealing with current business?
<P>
We cannot therefore accept a situation where the Commission retains all its powers for more than six months following its resignation but yet you yourself are unable to exercise your fundamental right to assert control over it, particularly through the motion of censure.
<P>
This is why I feel that the decision you are taking, Mr President, is extremely serious in light of the present situation - although that is not so serious - and in terms of its implications for the future of this House and the future of democracy in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="Green">
Mr President, I think Mr Fabre-Aubrespy misunderstands the whole issue because the fact is that, even if his motion of censure were to be passed by this House, the same Commission would continue, as it is legally obliged to under the Treaty, until we replace it.
Mr President, you are acting absolutely properly in maintaining the dignity of this House.
I, like you, believe that this is the right decision and as far as I am concerned I do not believe in mutilating dead bodies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think that we need to look at this question in the context of the Treaty.
We have the opinion of Parliament's legal adviser, amongst other things on the matter of current affairs, and that opinion contains some important points on the question now at issue.
The legal adviser says of the Commission's current position:
<P>
'It appears that a collective resignation of all the Members of the Commission because they no longer have the confidence of Parliament is best provided for in Article 144 of the Treaty, which relates to a motion of censure tabled by Parliament.
The motion of censure is an expression of the principle of parliamentary confidence. This was strengthened in the Maastricht Treaty through rules ensuring that the parliamentary term and the Commission's period in office run in parallel, and by allowing Parliament to approve the appointment of the Commission and its President.
That being the case, even if a direct comparison with the motion of censure does not appear to be indicated, the desire to seek solutions that are in keeping with this principle of parliamentary confidence seems to conform to the spirit of the Treaty.
It follows that the Commission's situation at present is similar to that referred to in Article 144 of the Treaty.'
<P>
So your decision, Mr President, is absolutely correct and entirely in accordance with the Treaty.
The motion of censure is therefore inadmissible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
I am going to give the floor to Mr Kerr, who also signed the motion of censure, and we shall then take the final decision.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Kerr">
Mr President, it may well be that your lawyers have found a way round the political obligations of this Parliament. But the point surely is a moral one.
This Commission resigned more than two months ago, yet it is still in office, it is still drawing its salaries, it is still making decisions and it is still not making decisions.
Europe is in a crisis, and this Parliament has an obligation to say to them: get an interim Commission appointed quickly.
It they do not, I recommend all Members to reject Mr Prodi in May as a sign of objection to this situation.
We are going to hold elections in two months time.
The citizens of Europe do not understand why a Commission, which resigned two months ago, is going to continue for another nine months.
It is a disgrace and we should say so!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Kerr.
I think that we have had enough debate on this issue and I would like to tell those responsible for the motion of censure that I consider it to be inadmissible.
<P>
The reports by the Legal Service must be studied carefully, but they are not binding on the President in terms of how the Rules are to be interpreted.
The President is responsible for all interpretations of the Rules of Procedure and only the Committee on the Rules of Procedure can alter any interpretation by the President.
I can assure you that, in taking this decision, I have given every consideration to my responsibilities now and for the future.
<P>
The aim of the motion of censure, under parliamentary law, is to demonstrate that an executive has lost the confidence of the majority of Parliament or, if the motion is rejected, that it still has that confidence.
It is clear that in this case the possible rejection of a motion of censure could in no way have the effect of restoring confidence in the executive, and it would serve no purpose.
<P>
This procedure therefore seems somewhat ridiculous, and we must always reject any form of ridiculous interpretation concerning one of our Rules, particularly in the case of a motion of censure, which is a highly political instrument.
<P>
I respect all the signatories to the motion, as I respect all the Members of this House, but it is our responsibility to use the appropriate channels in this matter, that is the Court of Justice or the relevant resolutions, since the Rules allow us to express our wishes in many forms.
<P>
A motion of censure is not the appropriate channel, and this House is not responsible for the fact that the Commission is going to continue in office for many months.
We have offered to cooperate with the Council in order to replace the Commission as soon as possible.
We could not have done anything further, and it is not our responsibility if the Council has decided that for various reasons it still cannot appoint a new Commission.
<P>
We have done what we can until now, and indeed we must continue to acknowledge our responsibilities.
<P>
The matter is therefore settled.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, you have raised the subject of the text we adopted and Amendments Nos 60 and 61, which you now say are contradictory.
I do not think they are.
In any case, our group specifically tabled an amendment to relieve the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights of its responsibility for the legal protection of consumers.
So I think on that point I cannot agree with your interpretation, Mr President.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Collins, Kenneth">
Mr President, . I have two roles: firstly as the original author of the document which sought to change committee structures and, secondly, as chairman of the committee responsible at the moment for consumer policy.
At the end of the Conference of Presidents' meeting yesterday, I spoke with Mr Rømer and other officials.
The position is that the legal protection of consumers will be the responsibility of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
However, consumer rights as such, and consumer policy in so far as it affects, for example, food safety and the like, will continue to be the responsibility of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
That is the clarified explanation and, as far as I am aware, that is the situation that was accepted by senior officials in Parliament.
I think that is perfectly reasonable.
The point is that we really had to adopt Annex VI, to avoid the conflicts of competence which have sometimes caused so much trouble in the last five or ten years, and the explanation I have just given avoids such conflicts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="President">
Amendment No 60 states that the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection is responsible for consumers' rights, which remains, and their legal protection, which must be deleted.
Why?
Because Amendment No 31 states that the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights is responsible for consumers' legal protection.
There is a clear contradiction.
The legal protection of consumers' rights should remain the responsibility of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, and consumers' rights should remain the responsibility of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, as Mr Collins has just explained.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, I cannot follow the sequence of events here.
I also have the impression that I was mistranslated into English.
What was the first vote on yesterday?
The first vote was on the responsibilities of the Committee on Legal Affairs.
Then our amendment was adopted making the Committee on Consumer Protection responsible for the legal protection of consumers.
If this is the case, then the interpretation you have given us is wrong.
We deliberately chose to transfer responsibility for the legal protection of consumers to the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
Mr President, I think you need to find out what we voted on first.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mombaur">
Mr President, I believe our honourable colleague Mrs Oomen-Ruijten is mistaken this time.
Although she rightly reports that our group adopted an amendment, I must point out that the same amendment was rejected here in the Chamber yesterday.
This means that the President's interpretation is correct.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="President">
I am going to ask Parliament's services to check which vote was taken first.
As far as I am aware, the amendment by the Group of the Party of European Socialists was voted on initially.
The PPE Group's amendment could therefore not have been adopted, as it would have contradicted the result of a previous amendment.
The system we use allows us to clarify the matter, with the result that the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection will continue to have the responsibilities that correspond to it, just as the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights will continue to have the responsibilities it ought to have.
In my view, therefore, this is the only possible outcome, given what has happened.
We have no option but to keep things as they are.
This matter is thus settled.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Theato">
Mr President, I did try to raise this earlier on the Minutes, but my request was apparently not spotted.
I only wish to draw attention to the two amendments tabled by our group on the question of carry-overs, where the texts are incompatible in their present form.
They were rejected.
These amendments are based on the current Rules of Procedure, and we have now adopted a resolution that is at odds with the existing Rules of Procedure, according to which the Committee on Budgets is responsible for transfers of appropriations from the reserve, while all other carry-overs - and I am generalising somewhat here - are the responsibility of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
May I ask you to check that, because we undoubtedly have a contradiction here.
That is why I tabled these amendments on behalf of my group.
I cannot tell you the numbers of the two amendments offhand, but that can easily be checked.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Theato.
I did not give you the floor because I did not wish to confuse two different issues.
<P>
Parliament's services will check this, and we shall then take the relevant decision in the light of their findings.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Provan">
Mr President, I would like to refer back to the matter of the responsibilities of committees.
It is very important that Parliament is clear about the different responsibilities of committees.
Otherwise, the general public's understanding of the European Community will become more confused.
They will see the Parliament adopt different positions in different committees.
Therefore, clarification of responsibilities is vital.
<P>
I respect the decision you have made and I understand very clearly what Mr Collins said.
But in the future we have to make sure that this Parliament, if it is going to change the responsibilities of a committee, does it by a clear majority.
If there is no provision for this at present, the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities should look at it, as Mr Herman has already suggested.
There should be a clear majority in the House for a change of responsibilities, not just a small margin, especially when, as at present, we have said two different things in two different amendments.
<P>
I urge the House to recommend to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure that an overall majority is needed to change the responsibilities of committees.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="President">
Mr Provan, as I said, I am going to forward the question immediately to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
It is important that more time is taken with future changes.
This confusion has arisen because our services have to work to a very short timetable, political needs often taking precedence over proper preparation for the part-session, and this leads to difficult working conditions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fontaine">
Mr President, I was not in the Chair at the time.
However, I must admit that I do not fully understand what we have been discussing for some time now, because I see that Amendment No 31 was adopted and Amendment No 60 was rejected.
<P>
So how can there be a contradiction?
There is no contradiction.
Perhaps there is a mistake in the Minutes, although it says that Amendments Nos 60 and 61 were rejected and Amendment No 31 by the Socialist Group was adopted.
There is therefore no contradiction because Amendment No 31 was adopted and Amendment No 60 was rejected.
<P>
I have the impression that this discussion is futile, though no harm has been done as it was interesting nonetheless.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="President">
Thank you.
That backs up the decision we have taken.
I will however check, because if Amendment No 60 was rejected, there should be no confusion.
<P>
I am acting on the basis of the information received from DG II.
Of course, a mistake may have been made after the vote was held, and I am extremely grateful to you for having pointed this out.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Mr President, I can confirm what Mrs Fontaine has just said.
I myself raised a point of order yesterday after the second vote to say that we should have declared that amendment null and void, and that it should not have been put to the vote since it contradicted the first amendment.
The President of the sitting said to me at the time that that was of no importance since the amendment had just been rejected.
<P>
Therefore, I can confirm - and I am also surprised - that no reference is made in the Minutes to the point of order I raised.
I had not realised this, but you will be able to check it with the tape.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="President">
The situation is becoming more and more surreal.
<P>
Laughter
<P>
We shall check the Minutes and proceed accordingly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, I wish to return to the question of the motion of censure.
You terminated discussion of the matter before all the facts were presented.
<P>
Protests
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="President">
There have been two speakers in favour and two against on a subject which is, ultimately, the sole responsibility of the President.
The discussion is now closed.
I cannot give the floor to any further speakers on this question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I suggest we move on from this surrealism and return to the relaxed state of mind we usually enjoy on Fridays.
So let us all relax as we move on to the vote on the Bennasar Tous report.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="President">

I would congratulate Mrs Bennasar Tous and ask Mrs Colombo Svevo, who deputised for her in yesterday's debate, to pass on our compliments to the rapporteur.

<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="Delcroix">
The European Commission amended its first proposal so that it could have as a basis Article 129 of the EC Treaty - public health and the codecision procedure - instead of Article 235.
<P>
The amended proposal now includes some of the amendments by the Committee on Women's Rights that appeared in the initial report.
Moreover, Mrs Anita Gradin, a Member of the Commission, said in the House that choosing Article 129 would not limit the scope of the programme.
I am pleased about that, because this is a serious and urgent matter.
<P>
It is urgent, in particular, because violence affects one in five women across Europe and 50 % of women that are murdered are killed by their husband or partner.
Violence in general, and this type of violence in particular, is unacceptable and is a violation of human rights.
Europe must move quickly in this area.
The UN Commission on the Status of Women included this issue in its agenda for March 1999.
I had personally informed the Belgian representative in that Commission of the European programme, Daphne, and of the work carried out by our Committee on Women's Rights.
She reminded me that at a preparatory conference held in Vienna in 1998, the UN Commission on the Status of Women had listened, in particular, to European women talking about the pain, suffering, abuse and coercion they were subjected to during the tragic nationalist conflict in the former Yugoslavia.
<P>
The European Parliament must continue its work on the Daphne programme and, in fact, it introduced a specific line of credit for the programme's launch.
Above all, it must ensure that the problem of violence against children, young persons and women is not reduced to a mere health problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="Deprez">
At the end of the 20th century, the various forms of violence against children, young persons and women have increasingly become a matter of concern.
No one denies this any more.
And at least we are starting to show our outrage about it.
<P>
From this perspective, I agree with the draftsman of the opinion that it is important to pay close attention to this particular form of violence, that is, sexual abuse and exploitation of these members of society.
<P>
Moreover, it is imperative that the necessary measures to support and reintegrate victims are complemented by other measures that aim specifically to prevent crime, including actions aimed at offenders.
<P>
Public information on the criminal nature of these offences and strict criminal proceedings must replace the silence and leniency that all too often still accompany such crimes in our nonetheless developed societies.
<P>
More generally, I should like to say that all the measures proposed in this Community action programme can and must be supported in order to combat this genuine scourge of violence in all its forms.
However, I should like to point out once again that they will not be enough to stamp it out singlehandedly.
<P>
I would like to remind you that insecurity and impoverishment form a particularly good breeding ground for all types of violence.
It is therefore vital for this Community action programme to fit into a general context which also maintains a strong social security system and allows for economic growth that creates sustainable employment.
<P>
Given these considerations, I support the action programme as amended.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="Martin, David">
I will be voting for the Bennasar Tous report - Daphne - as I believe that violence against women, young persons and children, is an important issue that needs to be addressed.
<P>
Throughout all the Member State this is an issue that affects one in four women but is often overlooked or viewed as a taboo.
Often projects addressing this issue only receive short-term funding.
However, in order to achieve objectives and to ensure an impact is made, a long-term funding programme is required.
<P>
The European programme draws its inspiration from the 'Zero Tolerance' campaign that Edinburgh Council ran in my constituency in the mid-1990s.
The 1997 Daphne programme was heavily oversubscribed with less than 10 % of applications receiving funding.
Since then the budget has been increased but still falls short of the amount needed.
<P>
Therefore, I consider this report to be a welcome step towards reducing violence against women and children.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Senior citizens in the 21st century
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0160/99) by Mr McMahon and Mr Schiedermeier, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on senior citizens in the 21st century - a new lease of life.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="McMahon">
Mr President, this is a joint report by my colleague, Mr Schiedermeier, and myself.
Indeed, on the subject of Italy, which we will be discussing, I remember a few years ago we went to Italy with the Social Affairs Committee.
The Secretariat did not know who was doyen d'age , the oldest Member.
They thought it was Mr Schiedermeier because he had white hair.
In actual fact, when they checked the records, I was a few weeks older than him, so it should have been me.
So it was quite interesting that we were both approaching our 60th year.
<P>
This report is the result of the conference which we held on the elderly in October. It put forward the views of the elderly citizens of the Community, what they might like to see for the future, and what kind of recommendations we would make for the United Nations Year of the Elderly.
The elderly - senior citizens, or 'grey panthers', as they are called in the United States; 'grey power' in the UK - represent a very important part of the Community.
I see many of the 'golden oldies' or 'grey oldies' around me this morning: on my left, Mr Schiedermeier, on my right Mr Falconer.
They have changed their usual political positions.
<P>
The conference came up with some recommendations which we have put to the Commission.
The Commission is bringing forward a communication on problems of the elderly.
We are not just talking about people beyond the age of retirement, we are talking about people from 60 years of age to 75.
There are 75 million people over the age of 60 in the European Union.
This will increase.
Demographic trends are going to create a time-bomb for the decision-makers of the future.
We must be able to respond to this.
Ageing is high on the EU's political agenda.
I am quite sure that in the next few weeks, when our colleagues go to the hustings, they will be besieged by many of the Community's senior citizens, asking what the European Parliament is going to do for them.
Over 42 % of voters in the EU are over 50 years of age.
So, if we have 75 million people over the age of 60 and 42 % of the voters are over 50 years of age, obviously the issues of senior citizens and the elderly are going to be important in campaigning.
<P>
The over-50s represent 33 % of the whole population of the EU; one-third of the EU is over 50.
Article 13 of the Amsterdam Treaty outlaws discrimination on the grounds of age, sex, gender, disability, sexual orientation, etc.
It now gives the Commission a legal peg to introduce measures for the elderly and senior citizens.
At the moment the Commission is constrained by the existing legal bases.
But the Amsterdam Treaty now gives the Commission the opportunity to deal with discrimination on the grounds of race or age.
We look forward to seeing what will come out of the employment guidelines which the Commission agreed at the conference in Luxembourg and some of the discussions about the European Social Fund and older workers.
There are tremendous possibilities there.
Fifty-one percent of all men seeking work are in the 50-64 age group.
There will probably be some Members, like myself, who are in a similar position after 13 June.
The percentage for women is the same: 51 % of women who are seeking work are in the 50-64 age group.
<P>
Employment is a very serious issue for this age group.
It is time that we, in the institutions, put our own house in order and deal with the ageism that we practice in some of our recruitment policies.
<P>
So what can we do about this, now having stated the problem?
The Amsterdam Treaty is one area where we can do something.
Health is another area.
I would hope that the Commission will bring forward an action programme on health for elderly people and for the whole Community under Article 137.
<P>
The elderly are not a homogeneous group.
We must not treat them just as elderly and lock them away in a cupboard or parcel them off and say 'that is elderly'.
We must try to pull the Union and its citizens together and have genuine solidarity.
We must not just limit our measures to older people themselves.
<P>
So these are some of the measures we are putting forward.
I would like to thank Mr Schiedermeier for his cooperation.
I thank the staff of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment.
As this is my swan song as rapporteur for this mandate, I must say I have enjoyed my experience this year.
<P>
Loud applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="President">
Mr McMahon, I am quite sure that 'Loud applause ' will appear in the verbatim report of proceedings following your speech, since this report has earned many fans.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, I will now give the floor to Mr Schiedermeier as joint rapporteur, and since Mr McMahon said that you are a few months older than him, you will have five and a half minutes instead of five minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Schiedermeier">
The history of the conference on the elderly and their prospects for the 21st century demonstrates the gulf between words and action where senior citizens are concerned.
On the one hand there is the catalogue - one and a half pages long - of previous findings, meetings, resolutions, petitions and reports, and on the other hand it took almost a year between the decision to hold a conference, which was adopted on 16 October 1997, and the conference itself on 1 and 2 October 1998.
We rapporteurs faced many initial difficulties.
The President of the European Parliament, for example, refused us the use of the plenary chamber, so that we had to squeeze into our group meeting rooms.
Moreover, interpreting facilities were originally offered for only three target languages, to name only one of many other obstacles.
<P>
The European Senior Citizens' Parliament that was held in Luxembourg, Mrs Lulling, from 22 to 24 November 1993 was attended by 508 senior citizens as well as 50 Members of the European Parliament and 15 representatives of institutions.
Our senior citizens' conference was authorised for 131 participants and two MEPs, namely the rapporteurs.
The report is being presented and discussed here today - on a Friday, which is known to be the day with the lowest turnout of Members.
In the face of all this evidence, who still dares to speak of the growing recognition accorded to senior citizens?
Not I, to be sure!
Everyone talks about demographic development.
As Mr McMahon said, 75 million people in the European Union are over 60 years of age.
That represents more than 20 % of the population, and this is tending to rise because of the steady increase in life expectancy.
<P>
Unfortunately, few observers are aware of the heterogeneous nature of the community of senior citizens.
There are huge differences in terms of prosperity, social status and physical capacity.
Many people, thank God, reach retirement age in full possession of their mental and physical faculties today and remain fit up to a ripe old age.
<P>
Let me turn to the obvious problems.
Unemployment has already been mentioned.
It affects a disproportionately large number of older people.
What is more, the unemployment statistics do not include those who have taken early retirement or who, for some other reason, are not counted among the active population. In other words, unemployment among the older age groups is far higher than the figures would suggest.
And then there is the ostracism and victimisation that occur in workplaces.
Attempts are made to root out older colleagues from the group or company boardroom and the shop floor.
Add to these the regular discrimination which is a fact of everyday life.
<P>
It is astonishing that society does not really recognise its own failure to harness the experience and potential of older generations.
Far more importance should be attached to making room for senior citizens, especially in the voluntary sector but also in the workplace.
On the basis of their own experience, they could impart a great deal of useful information and advice to junior staff.
As far as material wealth is concerned, the fact that poverty is still rife among the elderly, and especially among elderly women, is undisputed.
There is still a great deal to be done here.
<P>
But there are smart people out there, especially younger people, who are now saying that they want to terminate their social contract with the older generation.
I asked some of them, 'So do you also want to renounce the benefits that the elderly have obtained for you?
Do you intend never to use a motorway again?
Are you willing to give up free university study?
Do you intend to stop using the hospitals and clinics we have provided?'
That silenced them.
Additional voluntary pensions must not diminish the existing solidarity pact between the generations.
That is very important to me.
<P>
Management and labour, government bodies, the Member States and the European Union must adopt the appropriate countermeasures in their respective areas of responsibility; in other words, they must not seek to centralise their responsibilities in this sector but must pursue a coordinated and, where appropriate, a cooperative policy on senior citizens in the EU.
First and foremost, there is a need to initiate and encourage a new approach to the elderly within society, and I consider it very important that this approach should serve to prevent discrimination against older employees and the elderly in general.
Unless society changes its thinking, not even legally enforceable rights will do any good.
In our report we have presented a long list of instruments through which our aims for senior citizens can be achieved.
A number of useful points emerged from the preparatory phase before the conference when the Group of the European People's Party, the Senior Citizens' Union and numerous experts in the field shared their experiences.
<P>
I should like to thank my group, especially my colleagues Ria Oomen-Ruijten and Bartho Pronk, my assistant Mrs Stein and the staff of the group delegation in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, as well as the group secretariat.
All of their efforts in this matter went far beyond the call of duty.
<P>
Finally, let me express my sincere thanks to Mr McMahon of the Group of the Party of European Socialists for our close and harmonious cooperation over the past year and a half, during which we became friends.
A sorrow shared is a sorrow halved.
The sad thing we both learned was that performance and experience in senior citizens count for nothing.
Our parties, especially the heads of our parties, have blocked our bids to stand for re-election, and so we share the same fate.
For all that may be said to the contrary, fulsome praise and discrimination are never far apart for the elderly, in politics as elsewhere.
There is still much to be done for senior citizens.
Please let us set about it.
This was also my last report to the House, Mr President, and I thank you for your patience.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schmidbauer">
Mr President, let me begin by thanking the two rapporteurs for this excellent and very comprehensive report.
I shall not spend any time enumerating the really good initiatives and options it contains, because we can all read that for ourselves.
The title 'Senior citizens in the 21st century' strikes me as being very ambitious as well as presenting an obligation.
It challenges us in Parliament, along with the Commission and the Council, to develop a far-sighted policy for the over-60s in the European Union, of whom there are already 75 million.
Most people over the age of 60 are in full possession of their mental and physical powers.
I would go along with Mr Schiedermeier and Mr McMahon on that.
There is still a huge amount of discrimination everywhere, and I believe these people have no desire to be treated as basket cases; all they rightly ask of policymakers and society is a level playing field and a social safety net.
<P>
Now that we have the Treaty of Amsterdam and its Article 13 on the suppression of discrimination, including age discrimination, we have a legal basis for common European action.
We did adopt a senior citizens' programme a few years ago, but it was blocked in the Council by the Conservative Governments of Britain and Germany on the flimsy grounds that there was no reliable legal basis and that it was ultimately a matter for national governments to pursue such a policy.
But this meant that there was no accompanying activity of any description at European level, and that the information links which were already established between senior citizens' organisations in the European Union were no longer financed, which resulted in some of them fading into oblivion.
<P>
We could truly have made more progress by now, and I hope that we shall advance in future on the basis of this report.
My wish for all the people of Europe is that both the senior and the junior citizens of the Union will be able to live together in solidarity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, since I am no longer the youngest of 626 Members, as I was when I first entered the House in October 1965, this report on the outlook for senior citizens in the 21st century is of particular interest to me, not least in my capacity as president of a national and a major European women's organisation in which the older members are the most active and which, like many other organisations, would no longer be viable without the voluntary work of their older members, since the younger ones are so overburdened with professional and family commitments that it is well-nigh impossible to recruit them for voluntary activities.
<P>
What our two rapporteurs have proposed in the 30 paragraphs of the resolution and in the introductory recitals is naturally music to our ears.
It is sheer balm on the wounds of many elderly people, especially women, to discover that their special problems have not been forgotten, and my heartfelt thanks go to the rapporteurs for that.
You are so right to emphasise that the older people in our countries possess a rich treasury of experience, knowledge, education and values that we cannot afford to cast aside, that a general rethinking of conventional attitudes and stereotypes is necessary, and that society must adopt a new approach with a view to combating the many different forms of discrimination and social exclusion to which older people are subjected both at work and in the social arena.
<P>
They call for research and better practice in the care of age-related diseases.
In this connection, I should not like to miss the opportunity to point out the urgent need for better information regarding the fact that moderate and regular consumption of wine is the best way of preventing age-related diseases such as Alzheimer's, for which we now have scientific evidence.
<P>
Applause
<P>
It would, however, be necessary for the northern Member States such as your own, Commissioner Liikanen, to reduce their unduly high excise duties on wine so as to enable all citizens of the Union, be they young or old, to enjoy that particular form of preventive medicine.
<P>
With regard to the pension rights of the elderly, and especially of women, I should like to refer to two initiatives I have taken here, both of which resulted in unanimously adopted parliamentary reports.
The first relates to the splitting of pension rights acquired during married life in favour of women who have given up their careers to look after their families and who, in the event of divorce after 20 or more years of marriage, are particularly liable to fall below the poverty line.
We also called for a Commission initiative in this area, but nothing has happened.
<P>
The second initiative related to the social security of those who assist their self-employed spouses.
Here too, we called for an improvement of the 1986 directive on the equal treatment of self-employed persons and their assisting spouses.
Once again, nothing has happened.
<P>
Mr President, allow me to say one more thing.
I should like to refer to a paragraph in the resolution, the one concerning the participation of older people in decision-making processes, including the political process, since there are naturally those elements who take pride in presenting the list of candidates with the lowest average age.
It is surely ironic that our two rapporteurs have fallen victim to that very tendency and have not been selected as candidates in the forthcoming elections.
What makes that all the more regrettable in my eyes is the high regard we have had for their work here, since it is undoubtedly discrimination against the ever-increasing number of elderly people to omit such competent and sprightly colleagues from the party lists.
That was just something I felt I had to say here, Mr President.
Although I should be delighted if I were re-elected to the European Parliament, I should find it most regrettable if I were to be returned as the oldest Member!
<P>
Laughter and applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Lulling.
After the sitting, when I see you in the corridor, I will have to ask you to tell me how much wine you drink each day, what kind of wine you drink, and in particular how much it costs, including tax.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR).">
Mr President, I too would like to thank the two rapporteurs, who have illustrated the point that 'you are as young as you feel'.
The situation today is different from what it was 20 or 30 years ago, in that many older people in society are now in better health.
We therefore need to galvanise public opinion so as to ensure that people's later years are seen as a pleasant phase of life, and this means providing information and support, as well as consolidating national legislation.
We see discrimination against senior citizens; older people have problems with their sight and hearing; they can find themselves more affected by unemployment than other groups; and they run the risk of social exclusion. All this illustrates the need to work ceaselessly to mobilise public awareness in a bid to prevent certain groups in society from being marginalised.
<P>
My view is that policy for senior citizens should be dealt with primarily at national level; it is to national legislation that we should turn.
In Sweden, the Swedish Parliament sets the general parameters, but responsibility for social and health care for the elderly lies further down the line, with the regional and local bodies operating at the grass roots.
We need to ensure that this continues to be the case.
There is no need for actual legislation at EU level, although benefit could be drawn from information, consultation and exchanges of experience, as well as from practical work, research and the sharing of results into Alzheimer's disease or other health problems which affect senior citizens.
<P>
Social legislation is perhaps the most important instrument available to a country, since its effects are felt by people in their everyday lives.
We cannot therefore afford to make concessions in this area; the whole issue must continue to be dealt with at regional and local level.
<P>
I am not too happy about the manner in which the report calls on the Member States to implement measures affecting areas such as pensions, health care, housing and jobs.
The points made are not incorrect, but it is in reality up to the national authorities, not the EU, to take decisions on these matters.
We in the European Parliament are quite entitled to our views, but rather than 'calling' for action, we would perhaps be better advised to 'recommend' or 'suggest'.
<P>
There is however one area where we do have considerable scope for improving the lives of senior citizens in very practical ways, and I am thinking here of how we can use the machinery of European cooperation to ensure mutual recognition of acquired social rights such as sickness pay and pensions.
Senior citizens often have entitlements of this kind and we are in a position to exercise considerable influence here, given that there are major shortcomings in the system when people move from one country to another.
<P>
Let me end by reiterating my fundamental point.
It is all very well to encourage public awareness, to hold conferences on issues affecting senior citizens and to run campaigns focusing on their concerns. When it comes to legislation and its implementation, however, action must be taken nationally, regionally and locally.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Lindqvist.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, I shall now give the floor to Mrs Ilivitzky, who will speak on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left for a maximum of six minutes.
<P>

Mrs Ilivitzky has replaced Mrs Ojala, and this will be the first time she has spoken in the House.
Let me therefore welcome her here on behalf of you all.
Tervetuloa rouva Ilivitzky .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ilivitzky">
Mr President, thank you for welcoming me in Finnish.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is indeed the first speech I have made in Parliament, and I am very happy to have the opportunity to speak on such an important matter.
The extent and seriousness of the problems facing older people have up till now been paid too little attention in the European Union.
Our rapporteur, Hugh McMahon, and Edgar Schiedermeier have worked hard, not only in producing this report, but also in organising a conference on the elderly, the outcome of which forms the main basis for this report.
I would like to congratulate the rapporteurs on their success in taking all the essential aspects of this matter into account: the status of older people on the labour market, their special training needs, and questions of income and services.
In addition, I think their basic position is the right one.
Senior citizens are to be seen as a resource that society should exploit more and not as a problem we have to solve at minimum expense.
<P>
As the average age of the European labour force rises all the time, it is vital that people should be able to work until they are of pensionable age.
This will require changes at work both in attitudes and in the organisation of work.
Work must adapt to people's skills and abilities, rather than insisting that people adapt to the demands of work.
Older people have much of the sort of knowledge and skill which could be put to better use, as long as they are willing to participate.
However, it is more difficult for them than it is for young people to adapt to a very fast pace of working.
In many workplaces problems have been caused by pressure, when an attempt is made to achieve the same results with a reduced workforce of lower-paid employees.
In my opinion, the public sector should set an example to employers and be capable of thinking in the longer term.
It is of no benefit to society if older workers are forced into early retirement, when they might still be able to work if conditions were more suitable.
<P>
One of the greatest problems older people have on the labour market is their poor level of training.
In all European countries those over the age of 45 have clearly received poorer levels of training than those below that age.
The difference in my country, Finland, is the greatest among all the OECD countries.
Unless older workers can be trained up for new jobs, we face the threat of age discrimination on the labour market while many sectors are suffering from labour shortages.
Training for older people has to be tailored to their needs.
It has to take account of their poor basic levels of training, which in turn often give rise to poor motivation when it comes to training.
For that reason, training must be closely linked with practical work.
<P>
Ageing, as with many human phenomena, affects men and women in different ways: it is by no means a gender-neutral phenomenon.
I am very pleased that the rapporteur took account of the special problems of older women.
Age discrimination on the labour market affects women quite a lot earlier than it does men.
A woman of 40 is often too old, in the opinion of the employer.
<P>
The financial inequality that exists between men and women becomes even more noticeable when the age of retirement is reached.
In all countries women's pensions are substantially smaller than men's.
This is a result of both women's lower rates of pay, which thus cause them to suffer doubly, and the fact that women's careers are often short and fragmented as a result of family care obligations.
For this reason, it is very important for women that all people of pensionable age be guaranteed an adequate basic pension, supplemented by an employer's pension scheme.
<P>
Although retirement schemes naturally differ from country to country, I believe there should be a statutory minimum income at Union level, which Member States should guarantee citizens who are unable to work or for whom there is no work available.
Numerous voluntary organisations have proposed that, next time the Treaty is revised, it should incorporate a list of citizens' basic rights, including their right to a basic income.
Thank you for allowing me to speak here, and I can see that you have listened very attentively to me.
I would like to thank you all for that too!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, the title of this report sounds very promising, but I think the biggest setback for senior citizens at the moment - and I count myself as one of them - has been the resignation of the Commission, which has meant that Commissioner Monti's plans for a directive to liberalise the European market in pension funds has had to be shelved for the time being.
Much as I admire the rapporteurs, in my view the report focuses too much on the idea of a dependent older generation, which I find a rather patronising attitude.
I know people in their 80s and 90s who have lived through two world wars and are still completely independent.
<P>
Of course I also realise that there is a category of older people who are more needy, but they are a national responsibility.
The rapporteurs refer three times in their report to discrimination against older women.
This is rather too much, and is undoubtedly the result of pressure from Parliament's Committee on Women's Rights, as well as being a bit of a nod in the direction of the substantial numbers of women voters.
I am a senior citizen, an older woman, and there are many like me who do not need patronising.
We want to be free to take our pensions with us to other countries, and we want no age discrimination.
We also want to be protected against tax disadvantages if we continue to work after our pension has started, both in our own countries and in all the Member States of the Union.
<P>
The report also fails to consider the potential wealth of knowledge that those over 65 possess and the trend on the labour market to keep more and more people in this category involved in the employment process.
In some countries, the underlying aim is for these people to continue to pay contributions so that there is enough money to pay pensions to the growing numbers of older people.
Seventy-five million people over the age of 60 do not just want a sense of belonging to society, they also particularly want realistic legislation within the EU single market.
I am not saying that this report is pointless, but it concentrates too much on the welfare side and certainly does not live up to the title of 'Senior citizens in the 21st century: a new lease of life'.
That aspect is not covered at all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Mr President, we have heard how the segment of society comprising senior citizens is growing fast in the EU and in Europe as a whole.
Seventy-five million people alive today are 60 years old or more, and that is one fifth of the total population.
In the year 2000, over 20 million people will be in their eighties.
That truly is a demographic revolution.
<P>
This report is therefore very timely and I would congratulate the two rapporteurs.
I also very much appreciated the conference held in Brussels in October and entitled 'Senior citizens in the 21st century - a new lease of life'. I personally found this one of the most rewarding events I have attended during my time as a Member of the European Parliament.
Some very exciting issues were raised. And - as one who has crossed the threshold into her fifties - it gave me fresh hope to meet all those stimulating and inspired older people.
My guests from Sweden were also full of praise for the conference.
<P>
From my point of view, the most important elements in this text are contained in recitals D and E. Here the point is made that, just because a person has reached pensionable age, he or she does not have to stop leading an active life.
On the contrary, many people take on new commitments and projects after retirement, not to mention all those who only manage to fulfil their working dreams after they stop work proper.
We need to review our traditional attitudes towards senior citizens and rethink the roles we expect them to play in society.
This applies particularly to the world of work.
<P>
Paragraph 7 contains a series of ideas as to how our vision of the labour market and senior citizens can be rendered more flexible and up to date. There is a reference to promoting innovative forms of transition between work and retirement, for example a whole new model of part-time working for older persons.
<P>
The notion of a flexible retirement age is fundamental.
Senior citizens organisations in Sweden have been calling for this, as has my own party, the Greens.
Many people simply cannot carry on working until they are 65, whilst others can continue until they are 70 or more, and are happy to do so.
What is required, therefore, is a flexible retirement age and a new attitude towards older people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Blot">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, both rapporteurs are of course right to emphasise the importance of a policy for senior citizens in Europe, especially in view of the development of the population pyramid.
<P>
They address economic and social issues in their report and, in particular, the problem of access to the labour market.
I believe that this particular issue could remain in the realms of wishful thinking: present growth rates will continue and the already high level of unemployment - which affects the younger generations in particular - will persist in the future.
We would therefore require economic conditions that are very different from those that exist today to enable older people to have access to the labour market, in addition to abolishing discriminatory legislation in this respect.
<P>
The cultural issues were not neglected by the rapporteurs and rightly so.
Paragraph 28, in particular, stresses the need to project a better image of the elderly in our society.
In this connection, I must say that we have regressed somewhat in comparison with ancient societies. Ancient Greece, to which we owe the best part of our civilisation, rightly valued the experience and wisdom of the elderly.
We therefore have to tackle a genuine ideology of underestimating the value of the past.
<P>
This ideology of underestimating the value of the past and thus the value of older people too, basically dates back to the Romanticism of the last century, and it is a cultural obstacle that we will have to overcome.
Nowadays, we think that everything new is therefore better.
This is of course perfectly true in terms of science and technology, where knowledge is cumulative.
But it is not necessarily the case with regard to ethics, aesthetics, human beings, in general terms, and institutions.
<P>
In the past, Solon, the great Greek lawmaker, who did not hesitate to innovate in his field either, always used to say: 'A man when he grows old may learn many things - for he can no more learn much than he can run much; youth is the time for extraordinary toil'.
There is no doubt that, depending on the areas we are dealing with, being new is not necessarily always best, and in that respect, there is probably a significant cultural change to be made within our ancient European societies.
<P>
Finally, it is unfortunate that the report makes no reference to the demographic aspects, despite the fact that the rapporteurs discuss this right at the start of their report. Nothing will be possible, particularly on a financial level, if we do not correct the population pyramid in Europe, which reveals a real tragedy.
If we look at this pyramid and our low birth rate we can see that there are more deaths than births.
If we want to guarantee pensions, it is particularly vital to implement a broad family policy, which is not an issue here. I would possibly go so far as to say that we should adopt a pro-birth policy, even if this term is looked down on nowadays.
<P>
Therefore, and in spite of all these omissions, I support the analyses carried out by our two rapporteurs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Staudinger, one of our mayors from Upper Austria, once made a remark to the effect that senior citizens are an important political factor with a bright future.
I believe that sums up this issue very neatly.
One in four of the European population is directly involved, and it is our concern to focus on the self-esteem of this section of the population, so that they can assume their role and their responsibility in society as we would wish them to do.
<P>
When it comes to the working world, I believe we must ensure that we find models of best practice, that we ask ourselves how we can help to integrate older people into the labour force and help them to feel comfortable in their working environment.
There are many models in Europe that are worth considering. We also favour flexible working hours to take account of the needs of older employees in particular.
<P>
We in Parliament have been staunch advocates of the European Bus and have expressed the view that getting on and off public transport must be made easier, or indeed possible, for elderly people.
Too little attention is paid to that, and we shall press hard for this demand from Parliament to be met.
One of our aims in the field of research policy is to ensure that increased biotechnological research is conducted with a view to improving the health of all people, including the very elderly.
The European Parliament has managed to ensure that an extra billion euros will henceforth be earmarked for research.
I believe that is something to be proud of, something that will benefit our older citizens too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, I am speaking here from a unique position as the only Member of this House who was born before the First World War and who, moreover, was elected to this Parliament long after reaching pensionable age; since then I have enjoyed 20 wonderful years of life and work here.
<P>
Applause
<P>
It is from that perspective that I should like to say just a few words. There can be no doubt that far too little is said in our countries about the problem of older people and that there is sometimes an excessively strong inclination to indulge in a certain glorification of youth.
That is certainly warranted as a means of helping younger people to break through into public life.
But we build and maintain structures that make it well-nigh impossible for youth to have its head.
The electoral system in our democracies is organised in such a way that young people find it extremely difficult to assert themselves. If there were a system whereby we really voted for candidates in small constituencies rather than parties - and such a system, I regret to say, has even been abandoned in Britain now - young people, and old people too, could assert themselves.
That would be real democracy.
What is being established today is not genuine democracy but rather a 'partiocracy', in which party officials, through their power of selection, effectively have the right to decide where democracy begins and ends.
In this connection, I should like to point out that one of our key demands is that the elderly should finally be given the greater freedom to which they have long aspired.
<P>
In the economic sector we are always talking about the free market, and rightly so.
But for the elderly there is no such thing.
Although people's pension rights are recognised when they reach retirement age, at which point they are 'brought down a peg' in terms of social status, there is no recognition of the other rights they have acquired at earlier points in their lives.
Surely people cannot be compelled to consent to the loss of these rights in order to avoid having to give up what they want to do.
There happen to be elderly people who are very glad that they can go on working.
In such cases we hear talk of keeping young people out of a job.
That is not true.
In my opinion there is only one country where this has been properly understood, namely Switzerland, strange as it may seem.
In Switzerland, in the Swiss Parliament for example, there are many pensioners who bring the benefits of a lifetime of experience to their work.
That is something on which we should insist, namely genuine freedom of choice for the elderly.
Such freedom of choice would also help us to achieve some degree of control over the demographic pyramid to which some speakers have rightly referred, for the pyramid needs a broader base, and the breadth of that base is also restricted in our part of the world.
<P>
The main thing is to safeguard the freedom of the elderly.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a child born today will have an average life expectancy of 100 years or more.
While it was still commonplace a hundred years ago for people to die at the age of 40, we are now averaging a life span of 80 years.
A child born today is likely to reach 100 or more.
One of the dreams of mankind has thus been fulfilled.
We can live a second life, as people have always wanted to do, and it fills me with anger and rage when I read or hear talk of the ageing or indeed the senilisation of Europe.
<P>
To the honourable lady from the Green Group, may I say that you have cut me to the quick.
You used that very word, or at least that is how it was translated.
When it comes to people who grow old because God has given them the genes to do so, let us please beware of speaking in terms of the onset of European senility.
And there is something else that angers me.
There is such a thing as human rights, of which this House is a vigorous advocate.
So how do we reconcile that stance with a situation in which people at the age of 60 or 65, and sometimes even 55, are forced to give up their occupations, to stop working.
Work is a very, very important aspect of human existence.
There will undoubtedly be people who are weary of their work or who have performed demanding and strenuous work over the years and want to retire, but surely the law cannot say to a person 'Thou shalt not work' merely because he or she has reached the age of 60, 65 and sometimes only 55.
I see that as a violation of human rights, and Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam will be a good basis for the discussion of this issue.
I very much regret that Mr Schiedermeier and Mr McMahon have to leave us.
Had they produced their report sooner, they would most probably have made it impossible for their parties to force them out.
<P>
Applause
<P>
My party and Austria are very progressive.
I have been selected to stand again for election to this Parliament because I am an old woman, because I am in my 66th year, and I look forward to being granted the privilege of spending the next few years here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking the rapporteurs, Mr McMahon and Mr Schiedermeier, for an excellent report, and the honourable Members too, for a very enthusiastic debate.
The report is clearly the result of much hard work.
In October Parliament organised a conference that was attended by more than a hundred representatives from senior citizens' organisations in all the Member States.
In addition to the discussions that were held at the conference, there were written proposals from many organisations, all having an impact on the subject matter of this report.
<P>
I am pleased that the Commission was able to work with Parliament in arranging the conference and to participate in the debate that took place there.
With this sort of cooperation it is not at all surprising that the ideas expressed in the report are very much in tune with those of the Commission.
It is highly satisfactory that the report emphasises the enormous potential that older people offer and the need to put this potential to good use.
<P>
As we know, the citizens of Europe are now living long, healthy and active lives, which is of enormous benefit to European societies.
We now face the challenge of adapting our society in such a way that, as our citizens age, we preserve a decent standard of living and quality of life for everyone in an active and healthy society.
This can be achieved, but, as the report's title suggests, we need to look at the issue from a new angle.
<P>
The report makes particular mention of the number of unemployed older people, and employment is a most important area to work on.
I agree with the rapporteurs that the European Employment Strategy and the European Social Fund provide a great deal of scope.
The report mentions the importance of continuing training, and greater attention must be paid to the needs of older workers in relation to the principle of lifelong training, as contained in the European Employment Strategy and set out in the Commission's proposal.
<P>
I also agree with the points made in the report regarding equality.
One deals with the question of guaranteeing an adequate level of income for elderly people. Older women are often considerably worse off than men.
The Commission has started examining how social security systems can be adapted to demographic developments in European societies, and the income levels of older people are also being discussed.
<P>
Another important subject relating to social security which is raised in the report is the effect of an ageing society on healthcare.
On this point I can tell you that the Commission is already funding a study on this very issue, which we hope will be completed within the year.
<P>
I see the report calls for the Commission to present its Communication on Ageing in the first half of 1999.
I can assure Parliament that the communication has already been drafted.
We are doing our utmost, in the present circumstances, to ensure that it is presented as soon as possible.
The report also proposes that the Commission should be called upon to submit proposals in connection with the new provisions in the Treaty of Amsterdam on combating discrimination and social marginalisation.
The report also calls for improved health protection for older people, both in a general sense and with regard to Alzheimer's disease.
These are obviously important issues, and I am certain that the new Commission will take account of this report when drafting proposals in these areas.
<P>
I should like once more to thank Parliament for this report.
It is an import contribution from Parliament in 1999, the year that has been proclaimed the UN International Year of Older Persons.
It will also help to preserve a model of European society for the current generation and for generations to come.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Liikanen.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
Parliament adopted the resolution
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I should like to congratulate Mr Schiedermeier and Mr McMahon - or Mr McMahon and Mr Schiedermeier - on their excellent work, not only on this report but throughout this parliamentary term.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We did not vote in favour of this report. We see no need to develop a common policy for senior citizens at EU level.
Such issues should be dealt with primarily at national and regional level.
<P>
The report's coordination proposals go much too far for our liking on several counts.
However, we do believe that the EU has an important role to play in making it possible for pensions to be transferred and recognised across national borders.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Starch
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="President">
The next item is the oral question with debate (B4-0155/99) by Mr Colino Salamanca and Mr Garot, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, to the Commission, on vegetable protein supplies and the situation in the European starch industry.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Garot">
Mr President, Parliament's Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development intends to refer to the Commission the matter of the European Union's deficit in vegetable proteins added to animal feedingstuffs and what is at stake strategically for biotechnologies in the European Union as a result of this situation.
Several of my colleagues are due to take the floor after me this morning and will clarify the subject.
<P>
I must point out right away that it is estimated that the European Union fails to provide around 70 % of its internal consumption of these proteins. This therefore means that we are very dependent on US imports.
I would remind you that this situation is the result of the concession made to the United States when the Treaty of Rome was signed on duty-free soya imports into the Community.
The situation has deteriorated with the Blair House agreement, which sets a quota for the production of oleaginous protein crops in Europe, and it could become even worse during the 2000-2006 period.
<P>
On the one hand, the provisions of Agenda 2000 will probably lead farmers to reduce their production of oleaginous protein crops in favour of cereals unless, of course, wise steps are taken to promote crops in the non-food agricultural production sector. On the other hand, production capacities for amino acids, particularly synthetic lysine, are decreasing in Europe.
In fact, we should be aware that European manufacturers are increasingly choosing to invest in the United States.
<P>
I should like to emphasise this point, because the synthetic lysine produced in Europe is important in that it enables us to use the maximum amount of cereals in feedingstuffs, whilst working towards reducing our own protein deficit.
However, we have to recognise in this connection that the redistribution of the cards between Europe and the United States with regard to lysine production is a matter of concern.
For example, the cover rate of the US market has increased from 0 % to about 165 %, whereas the cover rate of the European lysine market decreased from 84 % in 1991 to 54 % in 1997, and is predicted to fall to around 38 % in 2002 if present trends continue.
However, since it is likely that the maize used for starch production will continue to be sold in the United States at a lower price than that of Community cereals, it seems logical not only to preserve the present system of refunds which compensates for the disadvantage in relation to the United States, but to greatly reinforce the system.
<P>
That is why the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development would like the Commission to answer the following questions.
How will the European Union reduce its dependence on protein imports and use the agricultural potential available in the 15 Member States?
How will the present level of refunds be adjusted to take account of the use of cereal derivatives and the relaunch of intra-Community lysine production?
How does the Commission intend to promote on a more global level the expansion of the starch and biotechnology industries that could open up agriculture to new markets?
The answers to these questions are of particular importance for us at the moment since the WTO negotiations are soon to begin.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, the Commission maintains an active policy to reduce the Community's dependence on imports of vegetable proteins and to increase the use of grain in cattle fodder.
The Community agricultural policy reform, begun in 1992, has led to a substantial annual increase in the consumption of grain in cattle fodder of around 20 million tonnes and a significant reduction in the importation of cattle fodder and, in particular, vegetable proteins.
In Agenda 2000 the Commission proposed to extend the 1992 reform for the specific purpose of boosting Europe's agricultural competitiveness both in the single market and in external markets.
The 15 % drop in the price of grain and the additional direct aid for protein crops should do much to achieve this aim.
<P>
The Commission has always been keen to ensure that the starch and starch-processing industries in Europe, and especially the biotechnology sector that uses starch and its derivatives as raw materials, remain competitive.
Generally speaking, starch-based industries have maintained a healthy position and have developed steadily.
Protection from imports is assured with the application of appropriate customs duties.
Exports, meanwhile, are enhanced by means of export subsidies, which make it possible to export a diverse range of products in their original state, or sometimes as highly processed starch products.
Within the Community, sales of starch and its derivatives are promoted by means of production subsidies when such products are used in the sectors of industry which have no protection from imports, such as the chemical and pharmaceutical industry and the paper industry.
These systems of aid mean that a significant and constantly increasing volume of products emanating from the starch industry and the starch processing industry reach markets in countries outside the Community as well.
<P>
With the Agenda 2000 programme, the Commission will continue to use tools to control these markets as long as there remains a significant difference between the global market price and that prevailing in the Union's single market.
These measures should guarantee that industries that use starch, and the biotechnology sector in particular, will remain competitive in the global markets.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Liikanen.
<P>
Before we continue with the debate, I would inform the House that I have received five motions for resolutions to wind up the debate, tabled pursuant to Rule 40(5).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rehder">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the ink has scarcely dried on the documents recording the results of the Agenda 2000 discussions in Berlin, and already we have to start examining the impact of this Agenda 2000 on all areas of activity.
I believe that the examination of the impact on this industry, occupying what might still be called a small niche in the market, is rather important, which is why we owe a debt of gratitude to Mr Garot for putting his finger on the wound straight away and calling on the Commission to take the lead and do something positive.
<P>
The Commissioner has just spoken of deepening and strengthening.
The nature of his address, though complimentary in tone, was that of a declamatory statement of intent.
We naturally want more than verbal declarations of deepening commitment; we also want assistance on a massive scale, which is why it is gratifying that the Commissioner responsible for financial policy is sitting in our midst.
This massive assistance, of course, must include financial resources; however, the Socialists in the European Parliament do not place all their trust in public funding, but naturally rely on the free and socially controlled market too.
That is why it is necessary that this market niche, this environmentally acceptable niche, should be established at long last as another supporting leg, as an additional source of income, for the agricultural sector.
This additional supporting leg also has the merit of not entailing any further surplus production, but actually creates a means of promoting our market policies by replacing surplus production with alternative crops which may also serve as a substitute for mineral oil, for example.
<P>
What we want to do in the European Union is to take this product out of its niche as a set-aside option, to increase production and to place starch on an even footing with other agricultural products.
But since we are part of a world market, we also have an interest in ensuring that, at the WTO negotiations which are due to begin in Seattle on 30 November, barriers to free trade are properly removed and that the European Union obtains the same sort of level playing field on which to operate in this market as it does in the other major markets.
That demands a great deal of work, Commissioner.
Not only do we need money; we need decisive action too.
I know that our tasks at the WTO negotiations have been made far more complex and numerous by the results of the agricultural talks at the Berlin summit, some of which were far from satisfactory, but I assume that the Commission and the other representatives of the European Union are capable of robust defence of our interests in this area as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Sonneveld">
Mr President, this oral question deals with the links between a number of important EU agricultural products, the high-tech sector that uses them and the supply of vegetable protein fodder.
The Blair House agreement also covered protein-rich fodder in the form of processed oilseed extract, and was so restrictive that it held back the further development of the oilseed crop sector in the EU.
In Agenda 2000, the Commission tried to overcome this problem by giving oilseed the same hectare premium as grain, a decision confirmed at the Berlin summit.
This meant that the premiums have been decoupled for an entire group of agricultural crops: grain and oilseed.
<P>
I would like to ask the Commission whether we can now tell the United States - entirely in keeping with our current method of transatlantic communication on agricultural matters - that this aid has now been decoupled just as it has in the US, and that therefore the one million tonne oilseed extract restriction no longer applies.
I am assuming that we do not need to wait for a full WTO millennium round agreement to regulate this.
<P>
However, will the cure not be worse than the disease for the future of the EU oilseed sector, and will the lower hectare premium not prove a strong disincentive to grow oilseed?
Now that the Berlin summit has confirmed that a non-food agricultural policy is to be pursued more energetically in future, does the Commission plan to do more to promote the use of biodiesel and biolubricants?
<P>
Next there is the issue of the relative price of cereals in the EU compared with the price on the world market.
The EU starch industry is complaining that its products are becoming increasingly expensive in the EU compared with competitors who obtain their supplies of cereals on the world market.
Will the industry's position be helped by a further 15 % reduction in the price of cereals?
When it proposed this price reduction, the Commission claimed that it would improve the EU's competitive position, and this should also, and perhaps in particular, apply to the starch sector.
Or will the sector simply have to learn to live with a price difference between cereals on the world market and in the EU because the EU currently has a shortage?
In any event, the EU's starch consumers are calling for an incentive to be given to secure the use of EU starch in future.
<P>
On the subject of the price of cereals on the world market, I would like to ask the Commission whether prices for this product do not tend to be forced up by the application of marketing payments as in the United States.
In the European Union's recent study of US agricultural support policy, very little was said about this, whereas the current American farm bill has used marketing payments for almost all agricultural products as a very efficient way of increasing competitiveness.
Are we not overlooking a very important support instrument here?
<P>
I would also just like to mention the balance between potato starch and cereal starch.
I assume that the agreement reached in Berlin on this is being ratified, and I would like to ask the Commission whether the implementing regulation has been drawn up, because I think it is extremely important for the existing balance between the potato starch and cereal starch regimes to continue by maintaining the existing system of balancing premiums for the potato starch sector.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Mulder">
Mr President, I should like to begin where Mr Sonneveld left off.
My group too feels that is it particularly important for the balancing premium between potato starch and cereal starch to be maintained.
It is vital that potato production should be maintained in various parts of Europe, and particularly in the north of the Netherlands, otherwise there would be a huge economic slump which would cost us even more money to resolve.
So it certainly needs to be maintained.
<P>
I would also like to express my support for the industrial use of agricultural products for non-food purposes.
I am pleased that Commissioner Liikanen is here at the moment, because I would like to make a suggestion that will cost nothing at all, which I am sure he will be delighted to hear.
What if we made it compulsory in certain ecologically sensitive areas, for example in Finnish waters, to use products that can be made from agricultural products, such as plastics that can be made from starch and biolubricants that can be made from protein-rich products in the south of Europe?
This would create an enormous new market for these products and we would probably need to spend less on subsidies.
I admit that these products might be a little dearer than the conventional ones, but the environmental benefits are so great that I think the Commission should come up with some definite proposals to give these products greater access to the European market.
<P>
I also wanted to ask something about the situation after Berlin.
We all know that the Blair House agreement was not very advantageous for us.
How confident is the Commission that the current proposals are compatible, in other words that we can grow as much as we want and the Blair House restriction no longer applies?
Or are we going to have another trade dispute with the US in the WTO?
I hope not, and I would like to hear what the Commission has to say on this point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the development of the European chemical industry that uses carbohydrates derived from agriculture - particularly starch - has been taking place for a few years against the background of a particularly difficult economic situation.
<P>
The origins of this delicate situation lie in the significant differences between the European Union and the world market in terms of the conditions of supply of agricultural raw materials.
However, along with the starch industry in particular, the industry's use of non-food agricultural products in the cereals balance is very significant. Moreover, the industry is one of the cornerstones of the future development of biotechnology industries.
<P>
Admittedly, compensation in the form of a production refund was introduced in 1986 - as Commissioner Liikanen mentioned earlier - in order to remedy the situation.
However, when this system is applied, it unfortunately only partially compensates for the disadvantage, thereby weakening the position of European industry not only on the world market, but on our own market as well.
<P>
The disparities in glucose production costs for industry between the US and the European Union can frequently amount to between 30 % and 100 % of the cost price. It is impossible to overcome this through technological advances or greater productivity, particularly since the majority of European manufacturers are also at a disadvantage because of their size.
<P>
This situation raises the burning issue of European industry's durability.
In the last few years, several production units have closed their doors in Germany and Italy.
In order to respond to greater demand, capacity is currently increasing but mainly outside the European Union, whether it be in the United States or in the newly industrialised countries, such as China, India or Brazil.
<P>
The European market is increasingly supplied from industrial areas outside the European Union.
You only have to look at Eurostat's statistics to see this.
The depreciation of world prices means that the European Union can no longer maintain its trading position on the world market.
<P>
These converging trends demonstrate how unattractive Europe is. The main cause of this is the cost of starch raw materials and this comes on top of the other disadvantages affecting the industry, which I just mentioned.
<P>
We must therefore make two demands at European level.
The first is that the production refunds should be calculated on the basis of world maize prices, and not wheat prices, since the starch industry is based on the maize industry. Secondly, as our colleagues Mr Sonneveld and Mr Mulder just mentioned, we must also ensure that we maintain a certain balance between potato starch and the starch produced from cereals.
Above all, we want the European Union to demonstrate an aggressive attitude at the international conferences in Vienna on the WTO.
<P>
If we make some concessions to the Americans - as we now apparently should - particularly on the issue of wheat gluten, which is a sector where they are attacking us, and where we have not yet referred the matter to the WTO, we can harbour legitimate concerns.
This battle must be won at the future WTO negotiations; it is essential for the future of our biotechnology industries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Barthet-Mayer">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, following the recent conclusions on Agenda 2000, it is possible to think that the balance of the European budget always bends under the weight of excessive agricultural subsidies. These are linked, in particular, to the production of surpluses that have to be taken off the market, put into storage and processed.
In short, agriculture and its surpluses are to blame for all evils.
<P>
Yet when we analyse Eurostat's statistical data and the annual situation of European agriculture, we see that - contrary to all expectations - the European Union is not self-sufficient with regard to certain types of agricultural products.
This is the case for sheepmeat, which is the only resource of many dry regions in the south of Europe.
We only provide 80 % of our consumption requirements.
We are still short of tobacco, wood, non-processed citrus fruits and certain types of fruit and vegetables.
But most importantly, as a recent study by the Directorate-General for Research revealed, we only produce 30 % of the protein-rich products required to produce feedingstuffs, mainly for pigs and poultry.
<P>
Imagine what will happen if there is an American embargo, like the once we witnessed in 1973.
This would prove to be catastrophic for the European Union within a few weeks.
Cereal stocks would continue to provide energy feedingstuffs, but we would soon have a shortage of vegetable proteins, which have been essential since the BSE crisis.
Yet at the same time, the starch industry, which is the basis for the production of numerous industrial compounds, including amino acids such as lysine, is being penalised by overly high prices in Europe for these raw materials.
<P>
It is now time for the Commission to go beyond making speeches and to deal specifically with these issues.
For a start, we must maintain and improve the current system of refunds for the use of cereal derivatives.
But we must also implement a genuine policy on non-food agricultural production in order to produce the raw materials required for the organic compound and biofuel industries, particularly by promoting the use of set-aside land.
Moreover, we simply need to make use of the possibilities that exist in the regulations on cereals and oleaginous protein products in order to make our livestock production sector self-sufficient in feedingstuffs once again.
<P>
Furthermore, we strongly urge the Commission to include all aspects of the problem - which was very well presented by Mr Garot - in the preparatory work for the WTO negotiations. We do have some weapons we can use, provided that there is the political will to use them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Funk">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to express my sincere thanks to Mr Garot for taking this initiative and enabling us to deal with this resolution here and now.
I believe this resolution has to address four problem areas and that each of them is actually very important in its own right.
First of all there is the question of the competitiveness of the European starch industry, and then there are the Berlin decisions on oilseeds and protein plants, which as we now know are entirely inadequate and completely incapable of overcoming the prevailing deficit in these markets and therefore of little use to us in their present form.
<P>
Thirdly, it is crucial that the Commission should pursue and develop a more active policy in the realm of non-food crops, because we have simply ground to a halt somewhere along the line.
We have conducted a great many experiments.
We have developed organic oils for use in protected water-collection areas, at places such as Lake Constance and other popular tourist destinations where the use of conventional mineral oils would cause severe pollution.
But progress is not being made.
The process of introducing these products into the market is stagnating.
Our policies have been based on the principle of pushing forward a little and then retreating a little.
That will have to change, otherwise nothing good will come of our efforts.
<P>
Lastly, it is also about competition between grain and potato starch production, for they each have different production costs, which means that harmonisation is required.
In short, Commissioner, the issue is this: instead of financing surpluses, we must invest in markets that still operate efficiently.
The work on the Agenda 2000 decisions must begin now.
They provide a rough framework that cannot give us any cause for satisfaction.
But of course it is ultimately the responsibility of Parliament and the Commission to develop that framework and above all to grasp the opportunities that these markets still offer, opportunities that are no longer available in the realm of mass production, where we have lost the initiative.
We must look for our opportunities in areas where we can help the environment, and we are not doing nearly enough in that respect.
That is why it is imperative to take this action.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, I have just three comments to make on this debate.
<P>
Firstly, there is no doubt that industries producing specific products, such as lysine, are confronted with increased imports, particularly from the United States where production capacity is expanding more rapidly.
This situation, and the investments possibly made outside Europe, is not to be attributed to the common agricultural policy.
The system of export and production refunds compensates for the difference in the price of the raw material on the world market and the EU market.
<P>
Other factors, external to agriculture, are involved, such as labour and energy costs, regulations on the environment, the proximity of markets, and so on.
Economy of scale can also bring comparative advantages, and this can be seen clearly in the United States, which has very large manufacturing units that are sometimes integrated into the starch industry.
<P>
Further, several comments have implied that the level of aid is not sufficient.
The Commission cannot allow levels that are insufficient.
The present refund rate - effective since the Management Committee's decision yesterday - is ECU 60 per tonne, that is, approximately 30 % of the value of the raw material.
This means that the difference between the world price and the Community price is compensated for.
<P>
Finally, many general questions have been raised in connection with the common agricultural policy, as well as in connection with the WTO negotiations.
I shall refer these questions to my colleagues, Mr Fischler and Mr Brittan, who will thus provide you with answers to them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Liikanen.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
Joint motion for a resolution on vegetable protein supplies and the situation in the European starch industry
<P>
Parliament adopted the resolution
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We voted against this resolution, since it seeks to backtrack on sections of the CAP reform package which has been agreed.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Venice
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions to the Commission:
<P>
B4-0156/99 by Mrs Estevan Bolea, Mr Malerba, Mr Ligabue, Mr Danesin and Mr Castagnetti, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party-B4-0158/99 by Mr Ripa di Meana, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left-B4-0160/99 by Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Allianceon the crisis situation in Venice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Estevan Bolea">
Mr President, last November, a group of Members from Parliament's Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy visited Venice.
As usual, we were fascinated by the city's immense beauty, but we were also very concerned - and still are - about its enormous and ever-increasing problems.
<P>
Venice is an artificial environment created by man in the middle of a lagoon, yet it suffers from flooding due to 'high water'. This problem is becoming more and more serious and is essentially what has led to an exodus from Venice.
This is what concerned me most, because a city that is truly losing its population will end up as a beautiful but dead museum, a still life.
<P>
In 1951, Venice had a population of 171 000; today, it has less than 60 000 inhabitants, and a large proportion of these - 25 % - are elderly people.
Moreover, there are over 10 000 empty dwellings, which are not cared for and which are falling down.
<P>
Therefore, something will have to be done to keep Venice as it should be.
<P>
Venice is a part of man's heritage.
It belongs first of all to the people of Venice, to those living in the Veneto region, and to all of Italy, which is such an artistic country.
It would be hard to imagine the world's museums without the Italian artists who have filled them with such beautiful works of art.
And that is exactly what Venice is.
<P>
However, it is also true that very special measures are required.
Technological measures, that is, the measures for which the necessary technology exists, are the ones that have essentially caught the attention of Parliament's Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
We must put an end to the floods that occur in Venice as a result of the growing phenomenon of 'high water'.
We cannot prevent 'high water' - it is a natural phenomenon - but we do have the ability to introduce mobile dikes and build an underground subway, and this has all been looked at.
The vaporetto is the only form of transport in Venice and it creates serious problems for the environment.
<P>
As a result, we are asking the European Union, the Commission and, in particular, the Italian Government to take several measures.
<P>
Firstly, we ask that resources be set aside for an intensive renovation of Venice under Objective 2 of the Structural Funds so that people can continue to live there.
If this does not happen, Venice will disappear.
Without people, there is nothing to protect and nothing to do.
<P>
Secondly, we ask that tax concessions be granted to those companies that are brave enough to continue operating and producing in Venice at higher costs than other businesses. We also want the Commission to put an end to the sanctions it has imposed because the Italian Government has granted such concessions.
<P>
Venezia vuole vivere e deve vivere!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Liikanen">
Madam President, at the end of January, the Italian authorities submitted to the Commission a series of observations containing a formal position on the initiation of a procedure, under the reference C 81/97, following a notice published in the Official Journal of the European Communities on 18 February 1998.
This procedure concerned state aid granted in the form of relief on social security contributions.
In December last year, the Italian authorities asked in a letter from the Italian Permanent Representative that the deadline stipulated for their reply should be extended to 15 January 1999.
The Vuole Vivere group, made up of businesses in Venice and Chioggia, submitted its observations, which were communicated to the Italian Government.
These are now being examined by the Commission's services and will be taken into account in its final decision.
We intend to make a decision on this issue by the end of May.
<P>
With regard to Venice being included in the scope of derogations under Article 92(3)(c), I would point out that it is up to a Member State to indicate those areas which the state wishes to include in its regional list.
The Commission then investigates the proposals.
The Italian authorities, however, only proposed a part of Venice as an area to come under Article 92(3)(c).
By a decision taken by the Commission on 30 June 1997, it was agreed that this area qualified for aid.
<P>
As for Venice's inclusion in Objective 2, it might be pointed out that a Commission proposal on the implementation of the new Structural Fund Objective 2 over the period 2000-2006 provides for shared responsibility between the Commission and the Member States in determining which areas qualify for aid.
As the Council has approved the regulation containing the general rules on Structural Funds, it is incumbent on each Member State to inform the Commission of those areas it regards as being in difficult circumstances, as long as they meet the requirements laid down in the regulations concerned.
The Commission confirms those areas that qualify for inclusion in Objective 2 on the basis of these proposals and in close cooperation with the Member State in question.
<P>
The problem of high water - acqua alta - in Venice calls for solutions that take account of the special features of the lagoon ecosystem.
It is the task of the Italian authorities to find a suitable solution to this problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Liikanen.
<P>
I have received five motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2).
<P>
The vote will take place at the end of the debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Malerba">
Madam President, as Mrs Estevan Bolea has said, Venice is an artistic and cultural heritage site which belongs to the world: this is known to all of us and has been officially recognised by UNESCO.
I am sure that all Members are familiar with Venice and that some never tire of visiting it.
As we are all aware, the Venice lagoon represents a very particular hydrogeological environment: its equilibrium is fragile and was damaged in the 1960s and 1970s by industrial development along the coast.
<P>
The phenomenon of 'high water' which, when it occurs, floods the historic centre to a depth of roughly half a metre, is now happening about ten times a year and causing growing inconvenience to the inhabitants and, even more so, to the economic activities of Venezia Laguna, the island part of the city.
<P>
Venice is dying, it is said, not so much because it is sinking into the water - fortunately a very slow phenomenon - but because the population is declining, a very rapid phenomenon.
Businesses which are not linked to tourism and produce high added value employment are relocating to the mainland to avoid the further inconvenience of Venice's severe transport problems.
Yet Venezia Laguna did - and to a certain extent still does - have a tradition of non-pollutant, high-tech industry and services.
<P>
Unfortunately, it is clear that the only way to keep these businesses where they are is by granting direct fiscal and economic incentives to firms operating in Venezia Laguna.
This policy has been pursued by the Italian Government, with varying degrees of success, but it now appears that this approach is coming in for criticism from the Commission.
<P>
I was pleased to hear that Mr Liikanen allows the Member State to have the last word, as it were, concerning this policy, but I fear the axe of DG IV - responsible for competition - which is normally reserved for state aid.
<P>
The city authorities discussed this with us when our delegation visited them.
I do not think we should become involved in the experts' debate on specific ways of solving the high water problem, but I do believe that Venice should be thought of as an area with particular problems, in need of aid and assistance to preserve a viable economic existence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it seems odd in a way that this House should be debating something as obvious as protecting the city of Venice.
As many others have said, the city is a world heritage site located at the heart of an extremely fragile man-made ecosystem.
I should like to dwell for just a moment on this first point.
The rulers of Venice in former times succeeded in creating a virtually unique model of development.
They devoted incredible energy, hundreds of years ago, to protecting an unstable ecosystem.
They began by developing trade, and then they transformed the city of Venice into a major international cultural centre which saw the inception of the modern publishing industry, for example, and always enjoyed far greater civil and political liberties than the neighbouring countries.
<P>
The fact that Europe's political leaders should now be addressing themselves to this issue, and considering how to overcome obstacles in this area, is therefore quite disconcerting in some ways.
Community rules are designed to assist development, not to curb it.
Community rules must not be applied unthinkingly across the board, as though the European Union were synonymous with uniformity.
It is glaringly obvious that state aid granted to Venice is unlike state aid granted to any other EU region: it serves to safeguard our heritage, which we did not create but inherited. And because we inherited it, we are duty-bound to hand it down to future generations.
<P>
Mistakes have been made, not least in terms of industrial development, partly by the Italian Government: the Porto Marghera petrochemical plant has almost certainly destabilised the delicate equilibrium of the lagoon. But as the Commission President-designate, Mr Prodi, said here, we want Europe to be at the leading edge of business development.
If this is so, we must ensure that Venice is one of the centres driving this new entrepreneurship.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the magnificent heritage that Venice represents is struggling with depopulation and mass tourism and is regularly under threat from flooding.
The entire lagoon is heavily polluted, and the industrial hinterland on the mainland is mainly made up of huge chemical works which place an enormous burden on the environment.
The Greens feel that a coordinated approach is needed to tackle these problems, both at national and international levels.
We need to promote economic development that spares the lagoon and the historic buildings.
This is why we are in favour of converting the petrochemical plants in Marghera to be more environmentally friendly, and we also wholeheartedly support the Italian Government's decision to review the MOSE project for a sort of mobile protection for the city.
<P>
I should like to draw attention here to an amendment by Mr Dell'Alba calling for the Italian Government to review this decision.
That would be sending out a completely negative signal and would simply be maintaining an approach which does not come anywhere near the heart of the problem.
I would therefore urge you most strongly not to support this amendment.
<P>

We want Venice to become a place of innovative and sustainable urban development, and the Commission has come up with some good proposals for measures to promote sustainable urban development in the EU.
The main elements here are tax incentives for housing restoration, with special conditions for highly sensitive locations such as Venice, of course; tax incentives for small and medium-sized firms providing employment without polluting the environment; sustainable tourism models, perhaps with rules on limiting access in certain peak periods; and measures to support the local economy based on the sustainable use of natural resources and the city's historic heritage.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Santini">
Madam President, many foreign colleagues from various countries are concerned about Venice and trying to help.
This is the most telling proof of the fact that, as confirmed by UNESCO, Venice is a world heritage site.
<P>
Venice clearly does belong to humanity as a whole, since when wandering through its streets and over its bridges, eight out of every ten people one comes across are tourists, and seven of those eight are foreigners.
Well, these tourists make Venice their own, using its services and damaging its structures, often for just a single day, meaning that the Venetians themselves gain precious little.
It is only right, therefore, that this tide of humanity should begin to concern itself with protecting these assets and with the associated costs.
What can be done, apart from levying indirect taxes on a few day-to-day consumer goods?
At least three measures would be feasible at Community level - if I may put forward some concrete ideas - and it would be up to the Commission and the Member State, Italy, to devise the appropriate legal and economic instruments.
<P>
First of all, an ad hoc project could be included in the LIFE budget line for the high water problem; the problem is not a new one but is causing increasing damage to Venice.
Secondly, Venice should be placed squarely within the future Objective 2, which deals with urban decline.
Thirdly, in agreement with the Italian Government, a derogation should be allowed under Article 92 of the Treaty, referring to state aid, so as to grant tax concessions and incentives to all businesses which start up - or plan to do so in the future - and to keep alive initiatives liable to guarantee employment, but above all to safeguard the life and soul of Venice.
<P>
I have heard talk of schemes to transform Venice into a new model of residential settlement: there is no need. It is simply a matter of refurbishing the 10 000 abandoned dwellings which are crumbling into the lagoon.
That should provide work for everyone!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Santini.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
Joint motion for a resolution on the crisis in Venice
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Madam President, I just wanted to say that my group had intended to vote in favour, but because of Mr Dell'Alba's amendment which we specifically objected to, we naturally felt obliged to vote against in the end.
<P>
Parliament adopted the resolution
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="President">
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
<P>
The sitting was closed at 11.20 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 16 April 1999.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Tribute
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry to have to tell you that our former colleague and Vice-President Hans Peters died last week.
Along with many other Members present here today, I remember his sterling work on Parliament's Committee on Social Affairs. This was just one of the ways in which he expressed his strong commitment to social and trade union affairs which led him to become a Member of this House.
<P>
Many of us will also recall the special interest he took in matters concerning premises as a member of the specialist group of Parliament's Bureau.
<P>
He gave his all to the House for many years. In accordance with our tradition, therefore, I feel it is appropriate to ask you to observe a minute's silence in memory of our colleague.
<P>
Parliament observed a minute's silence
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
The Minutes of the sitting of Friday, 16 April 1999 have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Maes">
) Mr President, as we begin this part-session, I wish to protest at the fact that I was not allowed to organise a seminar on the peace process in the Basque country to which all parties which signed the Lizzara declaration were invited.
I and all those invited were banished to the visitors' centre.
I think the President of Parliament, who did everything possible to keep this seminar from being held on our premises, has not acted as a president of Parliament here, but as a party-political ally of Mr Aznar, and I deplore that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Mrs Maes, a room was made available for you to meet with the people you decided to invite.
It was a visitors' room, and this arrangement was made precisely because you anticipated a large number of visitors and had informed our services accordingly.
All that happened was that the usual arrangements for meetings of this nature were made.
Nobody prevented you from meeting together, and you did in fact hold a press conference with the visitors who attended. You were treated like any other Member in a similar situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="Corbett">
Mr President, today is the first day on which you will be applying our new Rules of Procedure.
I hope that this will facilitate and indeed speed up the work of the House, notably during voting time.
<P>
However, one of the new Rules is less important within the House than outside it.
I refer to Rule 9(3), which concerns former Members of this House.
Up to now we have had two categories of former Member: simple former Members and honorary Members.
Some of those so-called honorary Members have used that title in a way that leads the public to believe that they are still Members of this House.
That is why this rule was amended: to abolish this distinction between different categories of former Member.
In other words, the system of honorary Members will no longer exist.
<P>
As this is particularly important before an election campaign, in which some honorary Members are deliberately using the title in order to create the impression that they are still Members of this House, I would urge you to write as soon as possible to all those who still have this title to inform them of the new rule and the new situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
You know, as you are one of the authors of the new Rules, that Rule 9(3) states that questions concerning the rights and privileges of former Members are to be laid down by decision of the Bureau.
That is the only option.
Neither the Bureau nor the text of the Rules mention whether it is necessary to abolish the status of honorary Members.
The Bureau decided some years ago that no more honorary Members would be created.
Anyone who has been a Member of this House - honorary or not - has the same rights and privileges as have been laid down by the Bureau.
In practice, it would be impossible to write to all honorary Members to inform them that they are no longer honorary Members.
That is not in the Rules and the Bureau has not taken that decision.
If you want the Bureau to consider the matter again, I will take note and put it on the Bureau's agenda so that it can take a decision.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Evans">
Mr President, on Friday of last week a bomb exploded in a crowded part of central London.
Three people were killed and many more have horrendous injuries which, in many cases, will leave them scarred and disabled for the rest of their lives.
This attack was the third such attack in recent weeks.
Vicious nailbombs were deliberately planted in crowded areas frequented and populated by London's minority communities, people who can normally live quite contentedly and happily within the vibrant, mixed, multicultural city that is London.
<P>
I am sure all colleagues will join me in condemning this sort of outrageous attack, whether it be perpetrated by racists, the far right, or whoever, and that we will all campaign for an end to such indiscriminate violence, especially in the weeks ahead leading up to the European elections.
Furthermore, Mr President, I would be glad if you could send a message of sympathy to the injured and the bereaved on behalf of the European Parliament.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
I will do that and I will note that the House has unanimously supported your words.
This terrible case demonstrates that racism and xenophobia must be fought continuously.
It is not enough to designate one year to fight it.
It recurs year after year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lienemann">
Mr President, we have just found out about the Council of Ministers' decision to allow staff of the Schengen group working in the Council to become European public officials.
Such a decision, as you are aware, has repercussions for Parliament since, according to the principles behind the Interinstitutional Agreement, a European official who works for the Council can, at one time or another, become a parliamentary official.
I also think that it is outrageous that officials can be recruited without first having sat a competition, as is common practice.
You know how sensitive the public is as far as the rules are concerned, and with reason.
I would therefore like to know, Mr President, how you intend to make the Council reverse its decision and ensure that these and other officials abide by the correct rules regarding recruitment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
What I can do, Mrs Lienemann, is first of all to obtain some information and ask the Council what has actually happened and what are the reasons for this decision.
Whatever the case, it will be up to the groups in this Parliament, the new Parliament, to take any steps that are necessary to ensure that the rules are respected.
In the meantime, what I shall do is to ask the Council exactly what decisions have been taken, and for what reasons.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Eriksson">
Mr President, I should like to add something to what you said before we began to discuss the Minutes, namely that we must fight against racism and discrimination of all kinds every moment of every day, and not just now and again.
Here in the House, we nearly always adopt a pro-human rights position precisely against discrimination on the grounds of race, sex, religion or sexual orientation.
<P>
Against this background, I should like to request an extremely good explanation - and I really do mean a very good explanation - from the President and the College of Quaestors as to why on Wednesday a decision was taken not to go ahead with the exhibition which I had earlier arranged to be held here, and which had previously been given the green light.
This concerns the Swedish exhibition, Ecce homo , which is about sexual orientation and the discrimination to which it can give rise.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
Mrs Eriksson, you will appreciate that exhibitions held in this House cannot run counter to the feelings of groups within the House.
The artistic committee felt that in the circumstances the exhibition should not take place, and the Quaestors took the decision not to authorise it.
That therefore is the relevant decision.
<P>
Respecting the rights of minorities is one thing. Allowing minorities to impose their feelings or their attitudes on other people who may or may not be in a minority but who do not share their views is quite another.
What is at issue is respect for freedom, which has nothing to do with respecting the rights of minorities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Kokkola">
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="President">
Mrs Kokkola, Kosovo is in fact included on the agenda.
The topical and urgent debate is the best context for any remarks a majority of the House believes to be necessary.
I think that is the only way to proceed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, as we are about to adopt the Minutes, I should like to say that in my view we should reject Part II as it appears on page 6.
You in fact declared inadmissible a motion of censure tabled by 66 Members from all the political groups and in so doing you have called into question one of their basic rights.
It seems to me that the decision was based on an incorrect legal basis and on the pretext of a political argument - that is, the possible rejection of the motion of censure - whereas the notion of inadmissibility is only of course applied on the basis of legal considerations.
<P>
The decision was taken and, as everyone knows, the Commission is continuing about its business as though nothing has happened since 14 January.
What is more, it is a particularly risky decision to have taken as regards the future because it means that any Commission threatened with a motion of censure could resign in order to take the initiative and, as a consequence, prevent such a motion from having any effect.
It is because of these three factors that I am opposed to this part of the Minutes since it is such an important issue for the future.
I should like this particular part to be put to the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, the process of approving the Minutes is designed to establish whether or not the Minutes are an accurate reflection of what took place.
It is not a means of going back over the decisions which were taken, especially a decision which was not put to the vote, even if it was supported by a large majority in the House.
However, this decision was not put to the vote because it was not necessary.
It is quite clear that if it were possible to go back over decisions by changing the Minutes, we should no longer be respecting the Rules of Procedure.
You will appreciate that I am not going to put this decision to the vote.
<P>
Exclamation of 'Bravo, Mr President'
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Svensson">
Mr President, taking up your reply to Mrs Eriksson, in which you explained the reason for not showing the exhibition Ecce homo here in Parliament, I now wonder how it came about that there was room for an exhibition by the Italian lobby group which preaches against abortion and against a woman's right to have an abortion?
Was that not a way of offending a very large group of people?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="President">
Let me make it clear that it was possible for the other exhibition to be held because it complied with the rules of the House.
When the Quaestors say that an exhibition cannot be held because it deals with a contentious subject, there are two possible courses of action: the Bureau can be asked to change the rules on exhibitions, or it can be asked not to do so.
As long as the rules in question remain in force, they must be observed.
The Quaestors have interpreted them correctly.
This does not justify reversing their decision.
<P>
The Minutes were approved
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Membership of political groups
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="President">
I would inform the House that Mr Charles de Gaulle has been dismissed from the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations and that from 19 April 1999 he has been sitting with the non-attached Members.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Duhamel">
I would like to make a point of order, Mr President, regarding order in the House.
Can the European Parliament not call for 'de Gaulle' to change names out of respect for the honour of Europe?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="President">
That is not a point of order, Mr Duhamel, and your comments are not in keeping with the dignity of the House.
The political decisions of each Member are a matter for himself, his conscience and his electors.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Janssen van Raay">
On a point of order, Mr President, concerning Rules 2, 5 and 119.
At the eleventh hour, the Quaestors have taken an appealable decision in response to my letter of August last year.
I am now lodging an appeal before the Court of First Instance in Luxembourg on the question of principle, namely who is it who determines the distribution of work of the elected Members of this Parliament: we ourselves or the Bureau, with all manner of financial penalties?
If I win, and I shall win, fellow Members of the House will get back the fines they have wrongfully been charged.
As for the Kai Islands, I shall come back to those tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="President">
They will no doubt appreciate that, Mr Janssen van Raay.
<P>
Mr Bru Púron has asked for the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Bru Purón">
Mr President, a group of former members of the militia who fought for the Republic during the Spanish Civil War are present in the gallery today.
They have travelled to Strasbourg despite their age and I think they deserve a welcome.
<P>
Loud applause
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Agenda
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="President">
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has asked for the report by Mrs Miranda de Lage on the cooperation agreement between the European Community and the United Mexican States to be withdrawn from the agenda.
<P>
Mr van Dam has the floor to present this request.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, The last item on the final draft agenda for Wednesday is Mrs Miranda de Lage's recommendation on the partnership agreement with Mexico.
I propose that we remove this item from the agenda, since the agreement in question is still being negotiated.
<P>
When it approved the interim agreement with Mexico exactly a year ago, Parliament expressly stipulated that the general agreement could not be approved until the results of the negotiations with Mexico were forthcoming.
Well, these negotiations are still under way.
Considerable progress is still needed in a number of areas, such as human rights and nature conservation.
<P>
So if we approve the partnership agreement now, we shall be giving a blank cheque to the negotiators and abnegating the responsibilities of Parliament.
<P>
It is in any case less than clear why we need to deal with the agreement during this parliamentary term.
Parliament will be able to reach a far more balanced verdict on it in the next one.
<P>
I therefore propose to the House that we do not deal with the agreement with Mexico this week.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="Hindley">
Mr President, I should like to make three brief points against postponement.
<P>
First of all, there is a very strong case against agreeing to the EU/Mexico agreement on human rights grounds.
However, there is an even stronger argument in favour of voting in favour.
The House should hear and debate that argument and actually take a decision on it.
Postponing the argument achieves nothing whatsoever.
This has been under negotiation for five years.
We gain nothing by delay.
It is a responsibility which I would like to see this Parliament discharge.
If it is postponed, the matter will be left over to a newly-elected Parliament which will be relatively unfamiliar with the subject.
<P>
The second point is: I understand that many Members of this Parliament, including myself, are under pressure from non-governmental organisations to postpone this.
Let me say as a friend, admirer and respecter of many NGOs - and I rely greatly on their advice - that were we to postpone, we would in fact be handing to NGOs the right of eventual affirmation or veto of this agreement.
Nothing new will come out.
That would be an abrogation of our responsibilities.
We stood for elections and we won elections.
It is for us to decide politically whether this should go ahead or not.
<P>
My final point is in answer to Mr van Dam's contention that it is a blank cheque.
It is not a blank cheque.
If we agree to the Miranda report - and I am arguing in favour of agreeing as well as not postponing - that will set up the very framework in which human rights issues can be mentioned.
It will set up the political dialogue which will allow us to judge human rights and that dialogue must - I repeat - be decided at the political level, and so should the vote.
Therefore I am not in favour of postponing this vote any further.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="President">
I put to the vote the request from the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations.
<P>
Parliament rejected the request
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, if I understand correctly, it has just been announced that the resolution on the Cologne summit is to be postponed.
So I have a problem.
We have a problem.
We have received the resolutions from all the groups.
We have also set a time for discussing them, tomorrow at 11 a.m.
I do not know why this proposal has been made all of a sudden.
I know the Socialist Group has tabled a very brief text with just a few paragraphs and perhaps the other texts may prompt a few changes to that, but I really do not see why something we should have got done last week is now being put off all of a sudden until Tuesday.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="President">
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, the only thing which has been done is to extend the deadline for tabling amendments until tomorrow, Tuesday, at 12 noon.
We have not changed the decision or the voting.
All that has been done is to extend the deadline for tabling amendments, something on which there is normally a consensus in favour, although that may not always be the case.
<P>
The President read out the changes to the agenda for Thursday
<P>
(The order of business was adopted thus amended)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Request for waiver of immunity (Mr Féret)
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0210/99) by Mr Wijsenbeek, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on the request for the waiver of Mr Féret's parliamentary immunity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, this is the last report I am presenting at my last part-session after 15 years in the House.
It is the ninth report of this parliamentary term, but I shall not bore you with statistics; sadly, it is not a very agreeable task, and I am concerned here not with legislation or promoting European unity, but with a question of parliamentary immunity.
<P>
Nevertheless, there are one or two general remarks to be made on this.
But let me start with the specific case in question.
It concerns one of our colleagues who is accused of failing to meet his obligations under Belgium's far too complicated social security laws, specifically with regard to his assistant.
All members of the House must, of course, comply with statutory obligations in respect of their assistants who are employed in Belgium.
But the Member concerned rejects the charge and has even proved to us that he wrote letters to the Belgian social security administration confirming his intent to meet those obligations, but without ever receiving a reply.
The events took place in 1995, and only in 1999 is the Kingdom of Belgium asking us to waive the Member's parliamentary immunity.
<P>
Those are the facts.
We should add the remarkable fact that in Belgium, someone who is the subject of litigation cannot take part in elections, and that gave us pause for thought, especially as we had ourselves had sight of the proof supplied by the Member concerned.
<P>
We subsequently asked the Kingdom of Belgium for further information and simply got a confirmation of the request for a waiver of immunity that was received in the first instance; more significantly, it later became clear to us that this was merely a request aimed at ensuring that the statute of limitations could not apply.
As a result, Mr President, in accordance with our case-law, in accordance with our fixed rule that parliamentary immunity protects not just the individual Member but the whole of this House and Parliament, we believe that the right course of action is to ask you not to waive parliamentary immunity in this case - and all the more so in that we believe, to quote my illustrious predecessors Georges Donnez and Jean Defraigne, that there may be a hint of fumus persecutionis here.
<P>
I will end this contribution with a comment of a general nature.
Very soon, a uniform statute for all Members of this House will be coming into force.
But that uniform statute is missing one thing, and this concerns parliamentary immunity.
There are still nationality-based differences as a result of the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities, and that contravenes Article 6 of the Treaty.
The fact is that all our Members enjoy immunity in their own countries on the terms enjoyed by members of their national parliaments, whereas we ought to be treated the same and to have a uniform statute.
To give you an example: for French Members, the rule is that all political activities are covered by immunity, including those taking place outside Parliament.
For the British and Dutch, there is no immunity at all in their own countries, except for what is said at plenary sessions of Parliament.
It is high time our successors and the next committee responsible for the Rules of Procedure put forward a proposal to amend the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities so that all of us in this House are exactly the same.
That is something I have striven to achieve over the years, and I do so again in this case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Wijsenbeek.
Parliament as a whole can testify to the time and effort you have devoted to the House for so many years. We also admire your total dedication to your work.
It falls to me, as President, to thank you on behalf of the House for the dedication, effort and good judgement you have shown throughout your work among us. I am not saying this as a formality, but with genuine appreciation.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, I should like to echo your remarks in saying that we will miss Mr Wijsenbeek.
Some of it will be a good miss, but most of it will be a bad miss in that Mr Wijsenbeek was one of the more interesting Members of this House.
On behalf of the Socialist Group I should like to say that we will be supporting the Wijsenbeek report on the waiver of immunity of Mr Daniel Féret.
In doing that we express our disappointment about the Belgian authorities who, after making serious allegations about one of our colleagues, and the conduct of his office and the payment of his assistant, failed, in my view at least, to supply adequate documentation.
Mr Féret and I have sharply different political opinions.
Frankly I hope he is defeated in the Belgian elections but I cannot allow him to be banned from standing on the basis of these allegations against him which have not, as yet, been substantiated.
On that basis we will be supporting the report to maintain his immunity and in consequence to allow him to stand for election.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Ford.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Request for waiver of immunity (Mr Moniz)
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0262/99) by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on the request for the waiver of Mr Moniz's parliamentary immunity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, I shall carry on from where Mr Wijsenbeek left off. I would also like to reiterate what previous speakers have already said: Mr Wijsenbeek will be sorely missed in this House.
<P>
The issues raised by the waiver of immunity we are concerned with today are actually only part of a more general problem: the fact that this House still does not have a single statute for its Members.
This shortcoming is a historical legacy and does not make sense nowadays.
The arrangements relating to privileges and immunities date from 1965 and therefore go back to a time when this Parliament was simply a parliamentary assembly. Its role as a representative of citizens of Europe was then only a dream.
But that is no longer the case. At this stage, it simply does not make sense that there are so many differences between the various representatives.
The fact is that, following the Maastricht Treaty and, in particular, the Treaty of Amsterdam, the people of Europe are beginning to forge a distinctive identity and to ask that their representatives be governed by common arrangements in every aspect of their work. This is particularly true of course where the waiver of parliamentary immunity is concerned.
<P>
The second point to be borne in mind concerns immunity. Immunity is not a privilege.
It is there to safeguard the House and is therefore a matter of public order.
In the particular case of Mr Moniz which I am dealing with today, Mr Moniz specifically requested that his parliamentary immunity be waived.
This was taken into consideration in the resolution by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure. The committee voted unanimously for immunity to be waived, not because Mr Moniz wished to appear before the judicial authorities, but because all the necessary conditions had been met.
In this instance, the conditions take us back to the 1976 Act, to the provision made for privileges and immunities in primary legislation and from there to the Portuguese constitution and indeed to Portuguese procedural law.
<P>
In this case, waiving parliamentary immunity does not present any difficulties as the allegations against Mr Moniz have nothing to do with his parliamentary activities. It should also be pointed out that proceedings now under way prove that there is no doubt whatsoever as to the validity of the allegations.
However, the fact that the allegations are well-founded does not of course mean that Mr Moniz is guilty; that is for the courts to decide.
Like the rest of us, Mr Moniz must realise that representing the people of Europe means being in the same position as any ordinary citizen as far as responsibilities are concerned. Only when the role of representative is itself at issue is there a need for certain provisions to guard against possible abuse of the legal proceedings which would be to the detriment of the institution, of Parliament and of the people.
<P>
Consequently, the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities voted unanimously this afternoon to waive Mr Moniz's immunity. He will now be able to appear before the judicial authorities as was his wish.
<P>
Turning to other matters, Mr President, it might seem to make little sense for the House to rule on waiving the immunity of a colleague when he has already told us that he did not intend to stand in the elections and when the House is in the last few weeks of its term.
But I must speak as the spokesperson for the resolution by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure and say that this is in line with the message the committee has been reiterating down through the years, namely that this Parliament is not dissolving. From the first to the last day of its term, Parliament must continue to rule on any issues that arise and to deal with any problems.
That is why we have approved this resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Palacio.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Annex V of the Rules of Procedure
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0216/99) by Mr Fayot, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on the modification of Annex V of the Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="Fayot">
Mr President, as this is the last report to be drawn up by the now defunct Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, I should like to say a few words.
I should also naturally like to take this opportunity to thank my colleagues, especially all those who have been members of this committee for a long time and in this respect, special mention must of course be made of Mr Wijsenbeek.
I should also like to thank the committee's secretariat for the excellent work it has continuously carried out to ensure that the Rules of Procedure meet the needs of Parliament's work.
<P>
From the next parliamentary term, the work of this Committee, of this defunct Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, will be divided between the two larger committees of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and the Committee on Institutional Affairs.
In other words, the work it has carried out is clearly of some considerable importance as from now on it will be dealt with by two committees of greater standing.
<P>
The present report, Mr President, centres on Annex V of the Rules of Procedure and, in particular, the discharge procedure.
You will be aware that it was a letter from Mrs Theato, the chairman of the Committee on Budgetary Control, that prompted the committee to consider Annex V. The letter inquired as to whether Article 5 of Annex V, which states that an absolute majority must refuse discharge, complied with the provisions of the Treaty.
Last December we had lengthy discussions on the matter as well as on the issue of whether or not the proposal for a decision could be amended.
At that time we adopted an interpretation, which was also adopted in the House, and also stated our intention to reconsider the whole of Annex V.
<P>
This is what we have done within the framework of this report and I should like to point out that it is the result of close collaboration with the Committee on Budgetary Control.
I should particularly like to thank its chairman, Mrs Theato, who unfortunately cannot be with us today.
I should also of course like to thank the draftsman of the opinion of the committee, Mrs Kjer Hansen, and all the members of the committee, who did some excellent work, because this directly involved the way in which their procedures are carried out.
<P>
Many amendments were tabled to my draft report, although all of them were along the same lines.
There was no fundamental disagreement as to which procedure to adopt.
The key point was to do away with Article 5 and the absolute majority, to put the refusal to grant discharge on an equal footing with the granting of discharge, and to set out the procedure to be followed in cases where the decision was postponed.
I should therefore like to highlight the fact that the new Article 3, the procedure for refusing or granting discharge, is the subject of three proposals.
<P>
First, there is a proposal for a decision concerning the granting or refusal of discharge by, of course, a simple majority.
There is a second proposal for a decision that provides for the closure of accounts.
This is an important new element which would allow us to separate, on the one hand, the closure of accounts - a type of simple technical procedure, if you like, to check whether the accounts have been kept as they should - and on the other hand, the discussion or opinion of Parliament on the Commission's management of the budget.
Lastly, there is a third proposal, a motion for a resolution, in which Parliament sets out its observations regarding the Commission's budgetary management.
Only this motion for a resolution can be amended, according to the Rules of Procedure, if it is accepted by the House, as we are proposing.
<P>
Finally, we have also set out a very specific procedure to be followed in the event of the decision being postponed, in order to highlight the need to develop the procedure further rather than simply leaving it as it is.
A final article provides for its consideration by the House.
The two amendments that have been tabled do not therefore significantly change the as set out by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, and, as a result, they do not alter the general philosophy behind it.
<P>
Mr President, I hope that this new annex will facilitate the work of the Committee on Budgetary Control and Parliament.
In my view, relations between Parliament and the Commission as regards budgetary management will be developed and enhanced as a consequence and I hope that the new Rules of Procedure will further enhance Parliament's work in monitoring the Commission's budgetary management.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Corbett">
Madam President, I wish to begin by congratulating Mr Fayot on not just his report but also his chairmanship of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities over these last few years.
It has been a truly excellent chairmanship.
<P>
I should like to reassure him that the committee is not being taken over by the Committee on Institutional Affairs: it is merging with that committee to create a new constitutional committee, which will be a very important committee in this House.
<P>
The issue we have before us arises because the Treaties themselves are not clear on what should happen if Parliament does not give discharge.
We ourselves, as a parliament, interpreted the right to give discharge to mean that we also had a right to refuse discharge.
That interpretation is shared by the other institutions and has been the practice for a number of years.
<P>
However, the Treaty is silent on what should happen if Parliament refuses discharge.
We as a parliament for many years interpreted the situation to be such that if Parliament were to refuse discharge, then the Commission concerned, if it was still in office, should take the necessary consequences and resign - it should have to go.
In other words, refusal of discharge was tantamount in itself to a sort of motion of censure on the Commission.
The Commission itself, through Commissioner Tugendhat, when he was budget Commissioner, appeared to accept that interpretation.
That is why we have put in Annex V of our Rules that we needed not just a simple majority but also a special majority of Members of the House - an absolute majority - to refuse discharge, because otherwise the refusal of discharge could have been a backdoor way to censure the Commission by a smaller majority than that normally required under the Treaty.
It was therefore to protect the Treaty that we put this special majority requirement in our Rules.
<P>
All this, however, was undermined by the events of last December, when some Members of this House - some Groups indeed - wished to refuse discharge but keep the Commission.
That was contradictory, and Parliament was obliged to address the issue through a separate motion of censure on the Commission, thereby destroying the direct link between refusal of discharge and the consequence of the departure of the Commission.
<P>
A further problem appeared in that at that time there was probably neither a majority in the House to grant discharge nor an absolute majority to refuse discharge, and Parliament was therefore a prisoner between these two differing majority requirements in its Rules of Procedure.
It is for that reason that it was necessary then to review the Rules.
The Rules Committee has done that; we have based ourselves largely on the opinion given by the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Where we have not done that, my Group has tabled two amendments which will rectify that situation and, indeed, get rid of a contradiction which we believe exists in the report at present.
This will therefore revert us to a simple majority both to grant and to refuse discharge.
The consequence though is that refusal to grant discharge from now on is simply a reprimand on the Commission, not a way of censuring the Commission.
If Parliament were to refuse discharge, it would then have to debate separately what the consequences should be if the Commission itself did not draw any consequences.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Madam President, the Rules of Procedure are intended to enable decisions on issues of substance to be made and if possible to make this process easier, not to make it more difficult or even obstruct it.
Unfortunately, this has not always been the case, and both the chairman of the Rules Committee, Mr Fayot, and Mr Corbett specifically referred just now to the particular circumstances in this instance.
We remember that in the 1996 discharge procedure, inconsistencies and provisions which were contrary to the Treaty came to light; this was because Annex V laid down a larger majority for not granting discharge than the Treaty itself prescribes in Article 141 of the EC Treaty.
That was the main problem!
Mr Corbett has in fact pointed out that there was support in Parliament for making something more of this relatively clear provision in the Treaty than it actually stated and still does state.
That also contributed to the problems we experienced during the 1996 discharge which have already been mentioned.
<P>
As a result of this situation, the chairman of the Committee on Budgetary Control, acting on the instructions of the committee, made a request in this House on 15 January 1999 for the Rules Committee to clarify precisely what the Treaty itself provides for, that is to say for the direct link between refusal of discharge and a possible censure procedure to be removed.
That has now happened.
We ought - and here I fully agree with Mr Corbett - to thank very much the chairman of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, Mr Fayot, for dealing with the matter brought to his committee by the Committee on Budgetary Control very swiftly and for being so willing to cooperate.
We should also like to thank Mr Fayot for his work in the committee as a whole, and the fact that this committee will cease to exist in its current form - and this is the final point on which I agree with Mr Corbett - should not be seen as reflecting an unfavourable assessment of the work of the committee and especially not the work of its chairman; this is actually happening because in future we want important matters which relate to each other to be dealt with together.
Seen in this light, a considerable amount of the work of the Committee on Budgetary Control will be in good hands in the future Constitutional Affairs Committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Kjer Hansen">
Madam President, this report does not solve the problem of what consequences there should be for the Commission if Parliament does not give a discharge.
That question is one to be dealt with under the Treaty, but we are getting some clear internal guidelines about what procedures we can use in Parliament.
I am pleased that we shall no longer spend hours and hours discussing the procedural options, but are now getting some clear rules.
I would therefore like to thank my colleagues, and especially Mr Fayot, for their very constructive cooperation in connection with the amendment of the Rules of Procedure, and I would especially like to express my gratitude for the understanding and sympathy shown to the views I have presented.
<P>
It is important that we now have agreement between the Rules of Procedure, the Treaty and the Financial Regulation.
I think it is crucial that it is clearly stated that we have three options.
We can choose to give a discharge, we can choose not to give a discharge, or we can postpone reaching a decision on the matter.
The rules will now also include a very important distinction between a technical postponement and a political postponement, where the reason must be clearly stated, as well as a clear distinction between the technical closing of the accounts and a political decision on whether or not we can adopt the accounts.
<P>
One thing which is clear is that in December we chose to activate the rules concerning Parliament's role as the discharging authority.
And as a follow-up to the extensive discussions which accompanied that, it is crucial that we now have some clear rules on how we should act in a similar situation to the one we saw before.
I therefore think the Fayot report is a good proposal for what our rules should be.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Madam President, when the most elementary rules of logic are disregarded in politics, it is rarely out of ignorance of these rules but because there is some interest in doing so.
That is why the question I am asking myself today is this: why was it in Parliament's interests to block its own supervisory powers?
Might it not be the case that in the past - and I hope only in the past - it was more in the interests of the large groups in this House to protect the Commission than to call it to account and strengthen their own Parliament?
<P>
According to the Treaties, Parliament takes the decision on discharge by a simple majority.
However, Parliament divided this decision into two procedures.
Accordingly, the vote to grant discharge was by a simple majority, but the vote to refuse discharge was by an absolute majority.
Hence the comical and completely absurd situation of a majority of this Parliament not voting in favour of granting discharge to the Commission, and the same Commission still not being refused discharge.
This is an absolutely ridiculous state of affairs, which I can only put down to huge self-interest, and I hope that the large coalitions which put protecting the Commission before Parliament's right of control have learnt from the events of the past months and will be more loyal to Parliament than their Commissioners in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Madam President, as the chairman, Mr Fayot, mentioned earlier, this report was the result of excellent collaboration between the Commission on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities and the Committee on Budgetary Control.
<P>
The final text contains some positive points, but several other points leave us feeling somewhat dissatisfied.
With regard to the more positive points, I should like to highlight the fact that we did not make a limited ad hoc amendment within the framework of the 1996 financial year; instead we set out a reform that will be valid for years to come.
<P>
I should also like to point out that we have kept to our decision to refuse discharge, contrary to what had been expected. Any other decision would have been paradoxical to say the least in view of everything that has happened since December.
We have the option of refusing discharge outright.
Such refusal does not necessarily lead to a motion of censure, although it should logically lead Parliament to look at the need for one. What is more, we have done away with the anomaly in the Rules of Procedure whereby a refusal must be voted for by an absolute majority of the Members of Parliament.
<P>
We do not entirely agree with some of the points adopted, for example, the fact that the President can inform the Commission of the reasons behind a refusal of discharge simply by letter, as this seems a rather secretive way of going about things.
However, it would of course be necessary to eventually set out the reasons why Parliament might refuse to grant discharge.
<P>
Our second point of contention relates to the role played by the Committee on Budgetary Control, which is in the process of losing the option it has had until now of giving its opinion on the amendments before they are put to the vote in the House.
In my view, this responsibility was a positive element and I regret that it has been amended.
<P>
Similarly, instead of saying that the amendments are inadmissible, the report should be referred back to the committee responsible if they are adopted.
These are the points in the report on which we disagree.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Liikanen">
Madam President, the Commission has no intention whatsoever of interfering in Parliament's internal rules.
However, on the basis of the opinion of its Legal Service, the Commission should just like to make a comment of a legal and institutional nature.
<P>
The discharge procedure is governed by Article 206 of the Treaty and the decision to grant discharge was designed as a means of support to the initial financial nature based on the report by the Court of Auditors, despite the fact that over the years this has taken on a political dimension.
<P>
The decision to grant discharge is a single act that cannot be divided up into a political decision on the discharge and a decision to close the accounts, which is to be taken at the same time. Such a division would change the institutional balance and require the Treaties to be revised.
<P>
However, if discharge is refused, the accounts for that financial year need to be closed.
This would therefore entail Parliament taking a decision to close the accounts, by default, and would mean that the actual procedures followed for the budget for 1982, 1992 and 1996 would be laid down formally.
The Commission, for its part, will consider the legal feasibility of including such an option within the framework of the reform of the financial regulation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Liikanen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Madam President, please excuse me.
The screens in the offices were in fact showing 'Wijsenbeek report' with me speaking on that report, a mistake I tried to put right.
I realise my error and I shall insert a statement in the Minutes.
I just wanted to say that I missed the debate on the Fayot report because it was wrongly indicated that another debate was taking place.
<P>
I shall submit an explanation of vote.
Thank you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
General economic policy guidelines - European Employment Pact
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0222/99 by Mr Fourçans, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission recommendation for the broad guidelines of the economic policies of the Member States and the Community (drawn up pursuant to Article 103(2) of the Treaty establishing the European Community) (COM(99)0143 - C4-0208/99); -A4-0239/99 by Mr Menrad, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the European Parliament's contribution on the European Employment Pact and on the Commission's communication on Community policies in support of employment.
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Fourçans">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report I am presenting this afternoon follows on from the Annual Economic Report we adopted on 11 March.
Today's report on the BEPG (broad economic policy guidelines) places greater emphasis on the economic strategy and the structural reforms needed according to the specific situation in each Member State.
<P>
Commissioner, our text comprises two main sections, in line with the Commission's proposals: the macro-economic section and the structural section.
<P>
First, I would like to look at the macro-economic section.
Although a slow-down in growth has been predicted for 1999, we are not talking about a recession, which means that there is no reason to change the overall economic strategy in Europe.
In other words, we need to develop our strategy along the lines of a good policy mix where salary increases correspond to productivity gains with a view to promoting growth and employment.
<P>
More specifically, budget deficits must continue to decrease and the necessary adjustments must be introduced according to the speed with which this reduction occurs.
This means that automatic stabilisers should have a part to play, but I would stress that they must not jeopardise any reduction achieved in public deficits which is absolutely vital for growth and employment today and, above all, in the future.
<P>
If this is to be achieved, such a reduction should be mirrored, where possible, by a reduction in taxes and other levies, or at least by their stabilisation.
This approach requires greater control over state expenditure and improved effectiveness and quality in terms of public expenditure.
<P>
As regards monetary policy, we should of course like to emphasise the importance of the ECB's independence, which is essential for it to best fulfil its role in the area of price stability and guarantee the conditions that encourage growth and employment.
Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, it should indeed be independent, but not at the expense of the vital democratic accountability that we in the European Parliament must vigilantly ensure.
<P>
The second section of our proposal relates to structural reform.
If unemployment is to be significantly and permanently reduced, growth is undoubtedly important, but it will only be achieved by way of thorough, consistent reforms that are adapted to suit the specific characteristics of each of our Member States, as advocated by the Commission.
What is more, such reforms need to be carried out over a period of time in a consistent and determined manner.
<P>
What do these reforms involve?
I shall not go into details here but I would simply like to tell you about the general ideas.
Improving the workings of the single market and the European markets in general is one of the key aspects.
In order to achieve this, Commissioners, there needs to be greater integration in terms of the financial markets.
Moreover, the markets in goods and services also need to be opened up as they provide the greatest number of jobs.
The level of participation in the labour markets must also be increased and we must render them more flexible by adapting the social welfare systems and reducing labour costs, particularly for workers with less skills.
<P>
Lastly, ladies and gentlemen, we must continue to liberalise the telecommunications, energy and transport sectors and guarantee better financing for SMEs. We also need to reform the social welfare and tax systems as well as the education and professional training systems.
<P>
So, ladies and gentlemen, this is the direction in which European economic policy should be moving.
No doubt you will say that it is an ambitious programme, and I agree.
But the public must be told the truth, especially in this pre-election period. They should be made aware that this type of reform is needed if unemployment is to be genuinely tackled and that the sooner it is implemented, the sooner we can begin to reap the fruits of our labour.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="Menrad">
Madam President, this report from the Employment Committee was originally supposed to deal mainly with a Commission communication on Article 127 of the Treaty of Amsterdam, that is to say with the mainstreaming of employment policies at Community level.
The committee decided also to include the European Employment Pact planned for the Cologne summit.
This became the main subject of the committee's report when publication of the communication was delayed by the Commission's resignation.
The communication did subsequently appear, however, on the very day after the vote on my draft report had been taken in the Social Affairs Committee.
It is now sensible to include it in Parliament's report together with several amendments, such as Amendments Nos 1, 2, 5 and 6.
<P>
We were also under pressure of time with our opinion on the Fourçans report on the Commission's recommendation on the broad economic policy guidelines, which it is also my task to deliver.
We should like to thank Mr Fourçans for his very fine work and also for the fact that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has taken on board some important points made in the opinion of the Social Affairs Committee.
His report explains how the recommendation is exceptional in two respects.
Firstly, these are the first broad economic policy guidelines since the introduction of the euro on 1 January 1999.
And secondly, for the first time, job creation is seen as the most important aim of economic policy.
We recommend the adoption of the Fourçans report.
<P>
Now let us return to the Employment Pact. The comment made by the chairman of the special summit on employment held in Luxembourg in 1997, Jean-Claude Juncker, also applies to the Cologne summit: it must not be a literary convention.
He was referring to the many declarations made at previous summits which were not binding.
In fact, a whole series of worthwhile, practical initiatives were decided on in Luxembourg and that is why we do not, thankfully, need to start from scratch.
<P>
We believe that the European Council in Cologne has to make a tangible improvement on Luxembourg.
To sustain a high level of employment, a longer-term strategy for tapping society's potential in terms of creativity, innovation, pioneering spirit and willingness to invest and perform needs to be developed, in accordance with the employment guidelines.
Institutional reforms to promote dynamic competition and flexibility have to be coordinated with the need to maintain - but also to modernise - social security systems.
<P>
Specifically, the Employment Committee's report calls for the following: an increase in the number of unemployed people to benefit from an active support measure such as vocational training or job-creation measures, compared with the proposals in the guidelines; the autonomy of the European Central Bank and the two sides of industry; and further efforts to consolidate public finances.
We specifically declare our support for the stability pact; respecting it makes it possible for interest rates to be lowered and thus to stimulate investment.
<P>
From this point of view, we recommend a wage policy geared to productivity.
If profits and investment in new jobs are increased as a result of wage restraint, then it is not enough to fob the employees off with a simple thank you for that restraint.
The Social Affairs Committee believes that there should be voluntary schemes allowing them to participate in both profits and capital.
In return for a moderate wage agreement, employers might also increase their investment in human capital or recruit more workers and trainees.
<P>
In addition, we call for intelligent working models and the reduction of overtime, for flexibility instead of a unilateral reduction in working time with full pay, an easing of the tax burden on labour, the convergence of corporate taxes to prevent the relocation of undertakings solely on tax grounds, and finally regular meetings of the political decision-makers with the two sides of industry and the European Central Bank so that common strategies can be agreed.
<P>
In the committee, we also discussed the issue of whether special employment programmes for specific groups - such as young people or the long-term unemployed - ought to be implemented and financed at European level, on top of the national action plans and measures carried out by the Member States under the Structural Funds. This would be wrong.
Subsidised employment programmes costing billions would be completely wrong - they are neither the right response to structural unemployment nor should they be financed at European level.
On the other hand, greater cooperation when formulating national policies - through rigorous application of the employment policy guidelines and action plans and improved monitoring - means European added value, which, together with the stabilising effect of a hard common currency in the European internal market, will in the medium term also contribute to there being more jobs and less jobless, which is an important precondition for the social dimension of the European Union.
<P>
With this in mind, I ask you to vote in favour of this report.
I will close by telling you that colleagues from all the groups supported me in the committee by making constructive criticism and tabling constructive amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herman">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Fourçans report is important not only because it fully endorses the Commission's recommendations, but also because it plays a clear part in the political debate that has caused a great stir among European circles, including within this Parliament. The debate focuses on whether or not the introduction of the euro has given rise to the need to relax the budgetary and monetary discipline that led to the historic decision of May 1998, with a view to promoting a more tentative form of economic activity.
<P>
The position adopted by the Commission and by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy in this connection is qualified: while price stability is guaranteed and maintained, we can be more flexible as regards monetary policy, provided of course that budgetary discipline is maintained and continued. In fact, productive private investment has deliberately had to slow down for years precisely because of the enormous debt accumulated and the substantial sums given to finance both this debt and our deficits.
<P>
One of the advantages of this report is that it has prevented us from giving in to the temptation that entraps many a politician on the eve of an election, namely giving into the people's demands.
However, the people are calling for fewer sacrifices and more handouts, which is naturally incompatible with the demands of budgetary discipline.
<P>
Placing the emphasis on macro-economic resources is much more attractive.
Changing interest rates and extending public deficits are far more popular initiatives than the unwelcome measures of restoring the balance of social security, increasing the flexibility of the labour market and reducing labour costs for the least skilled.
<P>
We should therefore welcome the fact that on the eve of the elections, Parliament, like the Commission, has been able to tackle the demands of the economy and managed quite honourably to resist the pressures of public opinion, the media and other pressure groups.
This is why, Madam President, we welcome this report and will vote for it enthusiastically.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Goedbloed">
Madam President, my compliments to Mr Fourçans on his lucid report, which looks like receiving broad support in the House.
In recent months, we have on occasions had a robust discussion on which way to go: should we have an expansive policy as advocated by the Social Democrat group, along the lines of what Mr Lafontaine would like, or should we stick to the rules that we agreed?
I think it is a good thing - and it is presented in a balanced way in the report - that we have opted for that line, namely to stick to the rules.
A measure of support is now developing among the Social Democrats too for implementing these kinds of structural measures, which are so important for ensuring the internal stability of the euro: low inflation, which brings lower costs and which also enables more jobs to be created through the structural measures.
<P>
That is important not only for getting people into work, but also for those who are drawing their pensions.
We shall have to guarantee this stability in future, and on the other hand we must ensure that there is greater flexibility.
If we can stabilise our financial position - which is up to the Member States, and in that regard I am extremely happy with the Commission's response here, which Mr Fourçans emphasises in his report - in such a way that more jobs can also be created in the future, then we shall amongst other things strengthen our competitive position vis-à-vis the United States.
In short, then: let us have more people in work in the Union and better provision for those taking part in the work process in these Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Moreau">
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Madam President, if the euro is a complete success it will improve competitiveness in the European Union, but, on the other hand, I would point out that structural unemployment threatens this competitiveness.
This is very much a question of the simplest jobs having disappeared in our society, with differences in pay growing so enormous that some people are paid huge amounts of money for what they do, while others would in fact be more productive, in the traditional sense of the word, if they were not in the labour market at all. But that is in no way an acceptable state of affairs, either for society or from the human dignity point of view.
Member States should make low incomes free of tax and lower the rate of taxation across the board since at present, for example, it is deterring people from even accepting temporary employment.
Part-time workers and those engaged in atypical work should qualify for welfare and a pension if we wish to take responsibility for people who have to resort to atypical employment more and more.
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<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Madam President, I have a few comments on Mr Fourçans' excellent report.
<P>
Budgetary discipline remains a good idea in all the Member States.
Without good budgetary planning, it is very tempting to resort to a broad monetary policy to ease the pain.
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Popular support in the Member States for a tight financial and economic policy is an unpredictable factor.
It is worrying that in some Member States, EMU discipline rests on one-off measures and not on structural change.
The analysis commissioned from the Netherlands Economic Institute makes it clear that the main problem-cases in terms of EMU, and the ones which need more careful attention, are Portugal, Italy and France.
Can the Commission and the Council guarantee that they will receive it?
<P>
In future, most countries will face a funding problem due to the fact of an ageing population.
By no means all the Member States have yet begun to address this problem.
Systems for financing retirement benefits, pensions and health care will need to be radically revised.
<P>
Italy, Belgium, Portugal and Spain are Member States which remain sensitive to fluctuations in the rate of interest on their national debt.
These countries need to modify the scheduling of their national debt and make sound progress on reducing their budget deficit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Randzio-Plath">
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Blot">
Madam President, this report contains a number of interesting admissions, for example, recital F states that there is a constant growth differential with the United States and in recital J, I read that fiscal pressure is generally high in the Member States, which is scarcely favourable to consumption, growth or employment. In paragraph 4, the rapporteur rightly acknowledges the modest performance of the European Union in terms of growth and employment and in paragraph 16 he notes that public investment is not always given the priority it should enjoy compared to operation expenditure.
In paragraph 23, the rapporteur states that vigilance is required in view of the prospects of possible deflation.
<P>
This is all well and good, but these observations do not lead the rapporteur to question any of the dogmas on which European economic integration is based.
<P>
Let us take the example of the euro.
The introduction of the euro prevents Member States from implementing monetary policies to regulate their situation.
In the event of an asymmetric shock, which the report does not mention, those states that would be most affected, for example, by inflation, would no longer be able to fight it through a differential monetary policy.
However, fiscal policy could naturally still be used, while wage policy or the unemployment rate could always be used as adjustment variables.
<P>
However, calls for tax coordination, which is unfortunately advocated by the rapporteur in paragraph 34, mean that this second means of adjustment would no longer be open to the Member States. So unemployment is left as a regulatory instrument or pressure on wages, and why not indeed?

The problem however is that, quite frankly, no one is prepared to acknowledge this for obvious electoral reasons, as this would make the euro and its creators unpopular.
<P>
The rapporteur, speaking on behalf of a committee dominated by the PSE Group and the PPE Group, could not of course express any point of view other than that of those two groups, and so could not denounce the fact that the Socialist policies implemented in 13 of the 15 Member States would put Europe at a competitive disadvantage in the global market.
<P>
The combination of the global free trade movement and the increase in social and fiscal burdens, which are a result of these Socialist policies, partly explains Europe's low growth rate, particularly in comparison to the United States.
There can be no social progress without economic growth, but there can be no growth where the spirit of enterprise is scorned by egalitarianism and bureaucratisation.
<P>
Socialism is thus backfiring on the people because of its poor economic management and its dogmatic cosmopolitanism.
The broad guidelines of a European policy should move away from state control and cosmopolitanism as these are the two things that essentially benefit the dominant American economy.
Moreover, I regret the fact that the rapporteur did not consider it appropriate to mention the effects of the United States domination of the European economy.
<P>
Lastly, it is unfortunate that the self-censorship that has prevailed in this report - which was unavoidable as there was undoubtedly no alternative - forced the rapporteur to limit his work to purely technical aspects, although it was often very thorough, without tackling the fundamental political issues facing our economies, which will one day have to be tackled before our people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Lancker">
Madam President, on behalf of the Socialist Group, I have to say that we are especially glad, at this late stage, to be able to give our views and have a discussion on the European Employment Pact.
Whilst Amsterdam and Luxembourg placed jobs fair and square on the European agenda, it is obvious that the Luxembourg process alone will not be enough to bring about a drastic reduction in unemployment in Europe.
What we really lack is a strategy, a macro-economic European strategy and a structural employment policy which hang together, enabling us to focus our full attention on the right goals.
<P>
We therefore welcome the German Presidency's proposal to make headway on a European Employment Pact.
Indeed, the European Parliament itself has always insisted that a pact on employment is required, since the stability pact urgently needs something to counterbalance it.
But in all honesty, the provisional version of this Employment Pact looks a touch anaemic.
It will not be an umpteenth rehash of fine words as a policy mix or a revamp of social security, served up with a dash of Luxembourg sauce, that gives the European Union a decent policy on jobs.
And quite frankly, the economic guidelines now before us simply continue to swear by an increasingly tight policy of cutbacks for many Member States, and the belief that flexible wage structures, a deregulated labour market and reductions in social protection will create jobs is definitely not my idea of what a European Employment Pact ought to be.
It is more of an American-style cocktail which does nothing new to stimulate growth and merely makes for more social inequality and more uncertainty.
<P>
Europe's Socialists and Social Democrats, inspired by Antoni Gutiérres, made proposals of their own for a pact on jobs at a congress in Milan, and I am delighted to see that both Martine Aubry and Dominique Strauss-Kahn have adopted large parts of these.
The message is very clear, Commissioner.
Certainly the European Pact must not be an empty vessel, but nor must it be a neo-liberal recipe book.
It must contain concrete measures and must get all those involved to make clear commitments - the European Central Bank, the social partners, the ECOFIN Council and the Social Affairs Council.
The key elements which we believe must feature in a pact of this kind include first and foremost a European strategy for growth.
The current growth forecast of 2 % looks set to create even more unemployment.
The special action programme agreed in Amsterdam was a good decision, but far too modest.
So the European Investment Bank and the Fund must free up new resources and the Member States must also be enabled, through their own budgetary policies, to give their economies a shot in the arm, not by making the stability pact more rigorous but by interpreting it more flexibly.
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Secondly, we need a fiscal policy which is an incentive, rather than a disincentive, to employment.
The decision on VAT on labour-intensive services is all very well, but in the meantime we still have the Monti proposals, the Primarolo proposals as our staple fare, if I can put it like that.
This log-jam urgently needs to be cleared; we have to revive our European fiscal agenda.
<P>
Thirdly, the guidelines on employment must be strengthened and given specific shape.
One specific commitment might be this: if all the Member States did as well on jobs as the top three scorers, we could get not 150 million but 180 million people into work.
And in any event, we urgently need to restore the link between work and social protection.
<P>
Lastly, we need more coordination, more coordination between the guidelines on employment and the economic guidelines, not so much as regards timing but as regards substance.
We cannot go on having economic guidelines which preach budgetary discipline and at the same time guidelines on employment which are subordinate to them.
We shall never get a serious strategy for growth that way.
It is this that the Cologne summit needs to understand, and I hope that somebody will listen.
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<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langen">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we have heard Mrs Van Lancker say that she does not want a neo-liberal recipe book; in response, I can only say that nor do we want the employment policy guidelines to become a Socialist book of fairytales.
I should like to thank Mr Fourçans and Commissioner de Silguy very much for explaining their economic policy guidelines so clearly both here and in the documents.
I know that they have been the subject of much controversy for many years.
Today we have the euro, and today no one is disputing the fact that their proposals are right nor that Mr Menrad's report, which covers the employment policy side, is a very good report, which can be debated here alongside the Fourçans report.
<P>
Listening to Mrs Randzio-Plath, I do wonder whether she has actually already given up on the stability and growth pact.
After all, she has repeatedly stressed these points in the committee as well.
I think it is absolutely essential for the three most important aspects to be respected, that is the stability and growth pact, a wage policy geared to productivity, and the need for structural reform.
In recent weeks and months, we have discussed what economic and financial strategy is right for the euro zone time and again.
Article 105 of the EU Treaty leaves no room for ambiguity here.
As far as the European Central Bank's tasks are concerned, economic policy is clearly secondary to price stability.
Should we step up coordination of economic policy?
Yes, that is also laid down in the Treaty.
Should a conventional interventionist economic policy à la Keynes be pursued to control the economy?
No!
<P>
Chronic unemployment in Europe will not be eliminated by means of a European employment programme or by the Member States in the European economic and monetary union having a uniform economic policy, but by means of structural reform.
There can be no doubt that the stability pact was right, is right and will continue to be right. I see that Mr Diller, Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Finance, is with us.
Your former boss, Mr Lafontaine, came up against a brick wall in Europe with his ideas on this subject, did he not?
Basically, he failed.
<P>
It is true that monetary policy should not be obstructive to economic and financial policy.
Of course it is also true that if there are stable interest rates, stable prices and low interest rates, Member States will have considerably more scope to eliminate chronic unemployment than they had before.
It is therefore necessary not to ease budgetary discipline; to do so would not be prudent, as Mr Herman has emphasised.
On the reform measures, several colleagues have mentioned flexible labour markets.
Mrs Van Lancker spoke about the pension system.
I think that Germany, which has a pension system funded by contributions, will actually experience serious difficulties in the long term, and that in one generation it will simply not be possible to build up a fund system to run alongside the contributions system.
Very wide-ranging structural reforms are therefore required, which must prevent problems also being caused by the State placing too great a burden on GNP, unduly high taxes and social and benefits policies making excessive demands.
<P>
If coordinating economic policy triggers a process of learning and competition, with people asking 'How do the other countries actually go about this?' then this will achieve more than illusionary spending programmes.
Competition between the countries in the euro zone will call many traditional systems into question.
I believe that this is right and proper!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Madam President, we have two good reports here, but what counts most for us is a strong economy which really does something for jobs.
We have the internal market and we have EMU, but Europe needs more.
I should like to focus today on unrestricted fiscal competition.
With help from the Commissioner, we have achieved some progress here, but the Council is not doing enough.
It is the Council which is dragging its feet on a number of very important issues, for example switching labour costs into environmental and energy taxes, and now it seems that this dossier too is being blocked.
It is precisely these areas which offer great opportunities.
At my instigation, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs produced a report on production levies and green taxes, and this shows that the introduction of this kind of taxation at European level could have a major impact on jobs.
I would urge the Commission to read this report by Parliament's research departments.
<P>
Worker mobility continues to be hampered by the fact that earned income is taxed twice by virtue of the different treatment given to allowances and taxation in the Member States.
I therefore think that with regard to social security and pensions, it is very important to pursue convergence between the Member States.
I am not advocating the imposition of European legislation 'from the top down', but efforts towards convergence can certainly be made 'from the bottom up', and that will most definitely be needed if we are to secure the financial future of our ageing populations.
I would make the point once again that a huge demographic shock awaits us, and that the European Union needs to coordinate its policy for coping with this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Christodoulou">
Mr President, the Commission report on current general trends is a qualitative improvement and places special emphasis on employment by stressing the need for real structural changes.
Furthermore, in addition to these general trends, it mentions each specific country in turn - acknowledging that each country has its own peculiarities - addresses the issue of the growth of its economy and puts forward the necessary reforms.
<P>
This change was necessary, and I would like to point out that it is in keeping with the flexible interpretation and orientation of the criteria contained in the Treaty and which I have time and again supported.
The very existence of economic and monetary union demonstrates that this is not just a formality. On the contrary, it addresses economic and monetary issues in a dynamic way and calls for the coordination not only of the monetary but also the economic and social policies of the Member States of the European Union.
<P>
We must bear in mind that this flexibility must also extend to the structural framework.
If general economic policies are not coordinated, monetary policy will be ineffective and will not have the desired validity to enable the currency of the European Union to play its true role.
In these circumstances, therefore, we must avoid any potential split within the European Union and we must aim to incorporate all Member States into EMU as quickly as possible.
Only in this way will it be possible to achieve the more effective, comprehensive, coordinated reforms that the Commission is calling for.
And only in this way will we be able to have real economic and monetary union, as envisaged in the Maastricht Treaty.
<P>
I therefore welcome the statement made by the Commission on this issue, which seems to open the way for a more rational and more effective economic approach, the main characteristics of which are quite rightly highlighted, discussed and enhanced by our rapporteur, Mr Fourçans in his excellent piece of work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Mr President, this joint debate on the broad economic policy guidelines and the European Employment Pact is to be welcomed.
You could say that this represents progress towards examining or at least debating the view that unemployment can only be combated with economic policies aimed at job creation.
Well, you could say that.
<P>
But this afternoon's debate will not only pass by virtually unnoticed, it will be regarded as the unprepared introduction to a week full of events which would engulf any debate, let alone one on economic guidelines and employment.
<P>
We expect something to come out of Cologne. There must be a joint debate on economics and unemployment.
In particular, the summit participants must be receptive to the marches which will take place against mass unemployment, precarious employment, social exclusion and the other forms referred to in the Menrad report. They must not dodge this issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Raschhofer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a sound economic policy, which gives companies breathing space, is the best way to create more jobs.
Last year it was possible to bring unemployment down to 10 %.
This pleasing, though by no means adequate trend cannot, however, as claimed in many quarters, be attributed to the employment policy measures taken by the Union.
The realisation that the efforts made by the Union hitherto, including the NAPs, have been insufficient and have had little success is another reason why this Employment Pact is necessary.
<P>
If we wish to take a positive view of these reports, then we can say that we have recognised the problems and have ideas about how to tackle them.
But ideas and an awareness of the problem alone will not create a single job.
The will and the ideas are there, but there is a big gap when it comes to implementing the measures.
There are only limited ways in which the Union itself can create jobs.
This is the task of the nation states and companies, in particular the SMEs on which we must focus all our attention.
<P>
Creating one new job costs around ATS 1 million in my national currency.
Since 1989, therefore, the appropriations in the Structural Funds alone could have created six million jobs!
But these jobs are nowhere to be seen, declared the President of the Court of Auditors, Mr Friedmann.
The Employment Pact ...
<P>
The President cut the speaker off
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Weiler">
Ladies and gentlemen, it is astonishing - or perhaps it is not - that today's debate is in fact being used as a platform for expounding different views on both economic policy and social and employment policy.
It may not be quite so astonishing, because unfortunately the election campaign has of course already started; were this not the case, then perhaps the speeches would have turned out somewhat differently.
Mr Menrad has tabled a good and reasonable report which my group can also support, provided our amendments are accepted.
He is right that we do not need to start from scratch with everything.
We have experience at national level in a few Member States, but at European level, formulating the Employment Pact and implementing it is new territory.
The national action plans were also new territory, and unlike the previous speaker, I strongly believe that the Luxembourg guidelines and the national action plans have contributed to the fall in unemployment.
Of course more needs to be done; no one is disputing that, and it is mentioned in both reports.
<P>
Although I am largely in agreement with you, Mr Menrad, I should like to mention a few further points on which our views differ, and nor do I think that the German Government has such a narrow view on this as you described, Mr Langen.
We obviously welcomed the stability pact, but an additional stability policy which strangles public budgets, robbing them of all political room for manoeuvre and making it impossible for them to create the necessary basic conditions in education, research and training, is no good to anyone.
That is not the kind of stability pact that we had in mind.
Nor is it sufficient - and Mrs Van Lancker is right here - for the ESF to be our only source of funding for employment policy; in any event, that is another matter which will have to be dealt with in the next parliamentary term.
<P>
Finally, I should like to give the German Presidency, which will be presenting the Employment Pact in Cologne, something to think about: please bear in mind that as a parliament, we obviously expect to be involved in this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Carlsson">
Mr President, I have said before in this House that inequality and injustice in Europe divide those who have work from those who stand no chance of feeling any sense of participation, earning their own living or developing their potential.
<P>
We are now discussing reports by three of my colleagues in the PPE Group.
I should like to congratulate them on a constructive outcome.
We should allow Mr Fourçans' prescription for a sound economic policy to form the basis of the medicine the European labour market needs.
Mrs Thyssen's contribution, which concentrates on labour-intensive services, is unfortunately still required.
There is clear proof that high taxes are discouraging an above-board, expanded market in services.
<P>
The information, white collar and services sectors are underdeveloped in Europe compared with the USA, for example. In point of fact, this is the area in which tomorrow's jobs lie, which we cannot afford to tax out of existence.
Consequently, extensive structural reforms are also needed in the different European markets.
The common market should be realised and exploited to its full potential.
Monetary union increases pressure on competition but, properly handled, it can also increase European competitiveness and prosperity.
<P>
My thanks also go to the Commission, in particular to the present Commissioners, who have tirelessly focused on the lack of dynamism, the need for change and, in particular, on the role of national governments and parliaments in undertaking measures to reduce fiscal pressure, stabilise public finances and improve the labour market and training methods in the different Member States.
<P>
Let us use the European Union to create the right conditions for entrepreneurship, growth and new jobs - not to regulate the jobs we need out of existence or to sit here and believe that we can redistribute and 'talk up' the new jobs and tomorrow's opportunities in this Europe of ours.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Svensson">
Mr President, both the Commission's recommendation and Mr Fourçans' report are based on an essentially fallacious idea, namely that of a uniform economic policy.
We all know that the structure of the economy differs widely in the various Member States.
When countries have such different structures, as is the case in the Union, imposing the same economic principles results in disagreement and conflict.
If one wishes to achieve harmonisation, however, the policy should instead take account of national differences and be adapted to the national structures.
<P>
The Union should finally stop allowing itself to be guided by abstract theories on harmonisation which bear no relation at all to hard and fast reality!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lienemann">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is somewhat surprising that the European Union, on the one hand, is engaged in a well organised debate on the broad economic policy guidelines, with all the known constraints and a rigorous stability pact, and on the other hand, has an employment policy with only vaguely defined guidelines. And this is in spite of constant assertions that employment is the biggest issue facing Europe and Europeans.
<P>
We should firstly like to see the European institutions fall into step and bring the two facets of economic policy and employment policy together.
However, it is clear that if we do not get out of the rut we are in, there will not be sufficient growth to reduce unemployment.
The European memorandum proposed by the French and Italian Ministers for Employment explicitly urges the European Union to set itself a 3 % growth limit for the next few years.
However, this will not be possible without tough decisions.
So what type of decisions can we expect?
<P>
First, we will need a policy to boost major initiatives as advocated by Jacques Delors.
Frequent reference is made to this type of proposal but no specific financial and operational commitments are ever really made.
<P>
Second, if growth is to receive a boost, internal demand must be supported.
I should like to remind you that growth in the United States is heavily reliant on internal demand.
There is certainly no miracle for achieving this: if internal demand is to recover, wages firstly need to be supported.
Therefore, the policy of wage moderation, which has all too often prevailed, needs to be reversed.
Furthermore, productivity gains and wage increases must go hand in hand.
Consumer tax must be reduced, and we believe that VAT should also be lowered, particularly in those sectors that create a high number of jobs.
<P>
Lastly, public investment must be given a fresh impetus, for example, in the major initiatives mentioned earlier and also in research.
These grand declarations that welcome the reduction in state aid to companies still give cause for concern because there is an unwillingness to accept at the same time that the majority of these large privatised companies no longer invest in vital research or in research and development and as a consequence stunt our technological development.
<P>
To conclude, the issue of employment does not boil down to the issue of growth, however essential it might be.
Since the dawn of civilisation we have worked less to produce more and I do not see why this secular movement should stop.
It is time for a new stage in terms of a reduction in working time, which should provide the opportunity to better distribute the wealth produced.
Europe may indeed suffer from high unemployment, but it has never been as wealthy.
The problem is that this wealth is poorly distributed.
We therefore need to create a fairer tax system, as harmonisation is not enough. There should be greater tax on capital and less tax on labour.
We need to invest in the future through public investment in major initiatives and research.
Working time must be reduced and alongside this reduction we must train our workforce.
The national employment plans are very positive from this point of view.
<P>
Our opinion, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, is that it we have not achieved the right balance.
Today we have 13 Socialist-led governments whose electorates, like the peoples of Europe, expect them to implement a policy that not only helps employment but also creates a social model that is not based on insecurity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Metten">
Mr President, the advent of the euro has also changed the general guidelines for economic policy.
Independence is no longer an option, now that eleven countries of the European Union form one monetary zone with a single central bank and a single monetary policy.
The economic policy mix urgently needs to be decided now at European level.
And it will be.
The question is simply whether or not political considerations will play a sufficiently active part in that.
Against the background of the need for an active European policy mix, I am perplexed by the Commission's proposal for general economic policy guidelines.
Instead of moving us forward, the Commission is pushing us back.
Why?
<P>
Whilst the European policy mix has hitherto consisted of recommendations for national budgetary policy, the monetary policy of central banks and the wage policy operated by the social partners, the birth of the euro has evidently prompted the Commission to stop giving monetary policy any active role in the overall European policy mix.
It is as if governments and the social partners could determine economic policy on their own and as if the ECB did not also have a role in supporting economic policy.
There is a history to this debate, and I put it to you that the Commission is setting itself up here as a kind of secretariat for conservative forces within the ECB which argue that the ECB's second duty under Article 105 of the Treaty, namely to support economic policy - without prejudice to the maintenance of price stability - can be discharged simply by maintaining a sufficient degree of price stability.
I would refer you to the policy strategy outlined in the ECB's first monthly report.
Happily, however, ECB President Duisenberg made it clear at last Monday's latest parliamentary hearing that the interest cut of 8 April was precisely an attempt to help kick-start the Union economy, in other words he acknowledged in so many words that monetary policy too has an economic function.
So I think it is a big mistake - fortunately identified as such in the Fourçans report - to reduce the policy mix to nothing more than tasks to be performed by government and the social partners.
No, that is not on.
You have to return, Commissioner de Silguy, to a policy mix in which monetary policy also plays its part in influencing economic policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="de Silguy">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should firstly like to point out that I intend to focus on issues relating to the broad economic policy guidelines, or BEPG, and Mr Mario Monti will deal with the other report, that is, the Menrad report on the European Employment Pact.
<P>
I should firstly like to congratulate Mr Fourçans on his excellent report and on the excellent work he has accomplished within such a short space of time, something I should also like to congratulate you on.
The BEPG constitute both a vital and key instrument for the effective coordination of economic policies in Europe.
This, Mrs Lienemann, certainly puts employment at the top of the priorities of the European governments, but it is also high among the priorities of the Commission and, of course, this House.
The Ecofin Council will examine the BEPG on 10 May, before they are ratified by the Heads of State and Government in Cologne at the beginning of June.
<P>
Mr Metten, I have already given a detailed presentation of the Commission's recommendation to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and, bearing in mind the limited time available this evening, I should like to concentrate my speech on responding to your rapporteur's questions and comments and to the other points that have been raised this evening.
To make things easier, my comments shall focus on two areas: the present economic situation and the implementation of the broad economic policy guidelines.
<P>
First, the economic situation in Europe is improving, albeit slowly.
In spite of the uncertainties recently reflected in public opinion polls, the present outlook is favourable and the economic essentials of the European Union are becoming healthier.
Proof of this lies in the positive outlook for consumption and household confidence.
<P>
The slow-down in world growth only has a limited and temporary impact on growth in Europe.
Growth in Europe is set to speed up during the year to reach an annual rate of between 2.5 % and 3 % by the end of 1999.
Recent monetary developments, Mr Metten, are boosting the confidence of economic agents and should have positive repercussions, particularly for private investment. However, as you are well aware, I never comment on the decisions taken by the European Central Bank, so as to avoid being accused of undermining the sacrosanct principle of independence.
<P>
The employment situation is improving, although it is certainly not improving fast enough, Mrs Moreau.


I listened carefully to what you said, Mrs Van Lancker, and looking at the figures, I see that employment is set to increase by 0.8 % in 1999 and by 0.8 % in the year 2000.
It increased by 1.1 % in 1998.
The projected increase is very small, but it is proof that Europe's unemployment curve has been reversed and that our growth is generating more jobs.
Of course, this is still not enough and that is precisely why the broad economic policy guidelines have been presented: they enable us to put forward an economic strategy that has been pursued for several years and that has been adapted, and as your rapporteur pointed out, there is no reason why we should change the present economic strategy. Instead, we should follow the same course and step up the action taken to support growth and combat unemployment.
<P>
The Commission welcomes the support that your rapporteur has given to the strategy advocated in the recommendation on the broad economic policy guidelines for 1999.
I shall not go back over this.
There is just one point regarding structural reform that I should like to highlight so as to demonstrate the Commission's willingness to assess the liberalisation of the telecommunications, transport and energy sectors.
An analysis of these network industries will soon be published and the Commission has no objection to the use of best practices in national legislation where company rules are concerned.
<P>
My second set of comments relates to the implementation of the broad economic policy guidelines.
Mr Metten, far from being a mere secretariat of the Council, the Commission this year put forward recommendations for each country.
In doing so, it aims to ensure that the broad guidelines are a sufficient test to demonstrate Member States' willingness to specifically coordinate economic policies, Mrs Lienemann, by using the instruments they have established for this purpose.
I should like to add, for Mr Christodoulou's benefit, that the broad guidelines apply to all 15 Member States, even though some of the provisions of the Treaty are limited specifically to the euro zone.
<P>
In my view, this coordination mainly involves two aspects.
Although Mrs Boogerd-Quaak brought up another issue, that of the ageing of the population, I should just like to mention two aspects very briefly.
The first of these is the budgetary policy.
I would like to know whether or not the Member States are prepared to accept the specific country-by-country objectives laid down by the Commission.
In other words, I want to know if some of them are prepared to take regulatory measures to face up to the current developments highlighted by the Commission's recent forecasts.
These are the real issues the Member States must debate because they lie at the very heart of the process of strengthening budgetary coordination.
<P>
The second issue of concern is employment.
The Commission's recommendation on the broad guidelines sets out national objectives for structural reform for each Member State. This is something that, as I remember, was mentioned by both Mrs Moreau and Mrs Randzio-Plath, whether in relation to the labour market or a more active employment policy.
Are the Member States prepared to accept the objectives recommended by the Commission without toning them down?
Here again I ask the question.
In Dresden, the finance ministers were responsible for drawing up a European Employment Pact.
Mr Mario Monti will answer you on that point and I shall not go into it any further. I just wanted to emphasise the fact that following the example of your rapporteur, the German Presidency suggested in this regard that we should promote macro-economic dialogue among all the elements of the policy mix.
This is why the Commission is proposing that the social partners present a common position to the Cologne European Council and is also recommending that in the future an annual meeting be held with the social partners before the spring European Council which adopts the broad economic policy guidelines.
<P>
Furthermore, within the framework of improving the integration of employment in the economic policy, your rapporteur suggests that we should do away with the present separation of the broad guidelines and the guidelines for employment.
I think you are right and it is worth asking whether it would not be better in fact to guarantee greater complementarity between the two elements, including in terms of the timetables involved.
This is something the Commission is considering.
<P>
I shall end by saying that, in relation to the implementation of the broad economic policy guidelines, the Commission sincerely hopes that, contrary to what happened last year, Member States are able, in this first year of the euro, to agree on a specific, limited content for these guidelines, which is operational and which is not toned down, particularly as regards the recommendations for each country in the area of employment policy.
<P>
To conclude, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to stress that the Commission gladly supports your proposal to systematically carry out an annual assessment of the way in which the broad guidelines are implemented by the Member States from spring 2000, on the basis of these country-by-country recommendations.
This would undoubtedly help us to strengthen a genuine European economic policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Monti">
Mr President, on behalf of my colleague Mr Flynn, I would like to start by congratulating Mr Menrad for his report and by thanking the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs for its rapid work on the draft resolution.
We fully share the views expressed on the European Employment Pact.
In addition, Mr Menrad has stressed the need to mainstream employment in Community policies. This is fully in line with the communication adopted by the Commission on this subject on 21 April.
By reiterating Parliament's support for the Luxembourg process and correctly insisting on the support which the European Social Fund must give to the European employment strategy, the report and resolution have given timely messages.
<P>
Let us be clear about what we are seeking from the European Employment Pact.
As requested by the Vienna European Council such a pact should establish a dialogue involving all the actors with responsibility for designing policies which impact on economic growth and employment creation.
This dialogue should fully respect the autonomy of the various actors and take place at different levels as suggested in the draft resolution before Parliament today.
As regards macro-economic policy, there should be an exchange of views between the relevant actors on each element in the macro-economic policy mix, fiscal policy, wage trends and monetary policy, so that each can fully support the growth and employment process.
<P>
As the Amsterdam Treaty and its Article 127 enter into force, there should be an assessment of the impact of all relevant policies on employment.
In our recent communication on this issue, the Commission outlined how a range of policies can promote a high level of employment and how policies are increasingly being directed towards this objective.
The Communication deals, for example, with ways of encouraging and supporting investment in capital and human resources in order to strengthen the European Union economy.
It examines how structural reforms can make markets work better and thus help achieve sustainable growth and employment.
It refers to the modernisation of social protection and of taxation systems in order to improve work incentives and opportunities for entering or returning to the labour market.
We are pleased to find that all these points are referred to in the draft resolution.
<P>
Further practical steps will be needed to assess how the various Community policies can contribute more to the employment objective and, where necessary, be refocused to ensure that they do just that.
It is vital that the Employment Pact should consolidate the key role of the Luxembourg process.
What is important now is to strengthen the employment guidelines so that they deliver their full potential as a powerful instrument for labour market reform.
We have the right to expect that the national action plans presently being drafted by the Member States will be more ambitious than last year.
And as we come to evaluate the impact of the national action plans later this year, two years after Luxembourg, we will be in a better position to assess whether the strategy is working or whether more effort is required in certain areas.
<P>
You are right to stress that the European Social Fund must play a key role in support of the European employment strategy.
We understand therefore very well why the draft resolution suggests a return to the Commission's proposal for the funding of Objective 3 activities in 2000-2006.
However, we cannot forget the broader budgetary context.
We are not unhappy with the way in which the European Social Fund and the employment strategy have been treated in the Berlin settlement.
<P>
Let me now turn to your discussion on the link between the employment guidelines and the broad economic policy guidelines.
In Vienna the European Council called for greater synergy between the two processes and the Commission responded to this request with its latest broad economic policy guidelines and its Article 127 communication.
However, do not forget that the Luxembourg process is still very new.
The Member States have created new working arrangements to implement their national action plans and to report on them.
We are learning together to work a process of peer pressure and open evaluation.
It should be allowed to gain momentum: a change in timetable at this early stage could be disruptive.
<P>
It is clear that our approach to employment must cover macro-economic, as well as micro-economic, policies and must address problems which arise not just in labour markets but also in the product and capital markets.
The creation of such a comprehensive approach and a dialogue between all the actors involved is the core of the proposed employment pact.
These are issues of substance not timetabling.
We hope the pact will be a step towards a better integration of macro-economic, employment and structural policies.
<P>
I should like to conclude with two or three remarks on points which I found particularly interesting in the course of the debate.
Several speakers - such as Mr Blokland and Mr Langen - drew attention to the ageing population problem.
Under Commissioner Flynn's initiatives, the Commission has looked into the problem of the future of social security and, I am glad to say that, at the further and recent instigation of both the German presidency and the European Parliament, we will come forward very soon with a communication on pension funds, drawing the conclusions from the Green Paper exercise.
<P>
A number of speakers - including Mrs Randzio-Plath, Mrs Boogerd-Quaak and Mrs Van Lancker - touched upon the taxation aspects.
Let me simply say that in spite of the inevitable difficulties due to the unanimity rule, it is undeniable that now, under the strong urging of the German presidency and with the support of this Parliament, progress is being made in the implementation of the strategy against harmful tax competition and a number of objectives have been set for the Helsinki European Council.
<P>
As far as the more specific proposal, dear to many of you, about the reduced VAT rate on labour-intensive services is concerned, I am glad to note that today under the German presidency the first meeting of a Council working group on this subject took place, and later this evening we shall be debating the Thyssen report on this very topic.
<P>
Lastly, Mr Blot, I do not share your fear that fiscal coordination, following monetary union, might eliminate one of the two remaining options for implementing a policy against the famous asymmetric shocks.
I think you can rest assured since the notion of fiscal harmonisation, as proposed by the Commission and unanimously adopted by the Ecofin Council and as supported, among others, by the rapporteur, Mr Fourçans, is certainly not an advanced notion of harmonisation.
I would instead call on you to consider the problem in the following terms: if there were no coordination of fiscal policies, given the present level of market integration, the Member States would increasingly lose their sovereignty to anonymous markets and they would therefore have less and less opportunities to implement an effective fiscal policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Metten">
Mr President, it is interesting that the Commission is speaking through the mouths of two Commissioners.
It is a pity that they contradict each other.
Commission de Silguy defended monetary policy not being an element of the policy mix, while Commissioner Monti referred to monetary policy as an important element of the policy mix.
Can I have an explanation from the Commission?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="de Silguy">
In my view, there is no contradiction.
The Commission only has one position regarding the broad economic policy guidelines, which it set out in a recommendation that it adopted unanimously.
I should like to remind you that this recommendation on the policy mix defends a balance of budgetary policy, wage increases and structural policy.
With regard to monetary policy, if this year's presentation seems different compared to last year's, it is due to the fact that, unlike last year, we now have an independent European Central Bank and the Commission does not think it appropriate to interfere in this principle of independence.
Having said that, the Commission reserves the right, both this year and next, to carry out all the analyses and make all the comments it deems necessary to guarantee that the policy mix is as balanced and relevant as possible in order to ensure sustainable growth that does not cause inflation and that creates jobs in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Monti">
Mr Metten, I would simply like to confirm exactly what Commissioner de Silguy said.
In the text that I read out on behalf of Commissioner Flynn I see no contradiction whatsoever with the position expressed by the Commissioner responsible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Fraud Investigation Office
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0240/99) by Mr Bösch, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the amended proposal for a Council Regulation concerning investigations conducted by the Fraud Prevention Office (COM(99)0140 - C4-0180/99-98/0329(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Bösch">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have always been convinced that in the end the European Union and its institutions would emerge from the crisis of the past weeks and months stronger.
By setting up OLAF, the new European Fraud Investigation Office, we shall make a visible contribution to this.
I think it is a good sign that the legal base for OLAF will be one of the first texts to be adopted under the new procedures of the Amsterdam Treaty.
This would certainly not have been possible had not all those involved - the Council, Parliament and, after initial hesitations, the Commission - collaborated on this project in a very constructive spirit.
My thanks therefore go to all those who have been and still are members of the high-level group of representatives of our three institutions at both technical and political level.
In my capacity as Parliament's rapporteur, I should like to mention three of the participants by name and express my sincere thanks to them: my committee chairman, Mrs Theato; a courageous friend from my group, Mrs Wemheuer; and my tireless assistant, Mr Schönberger.
<P>
I now turn to the proposal itself. We have put together a package consisting of three components.
The first component is the Commission decision to establish OLAF, an office which, although located organisationally within the Commission, is guaranteed to be independent of the Commission and to be free to take its own decisions when conducting investigations and enquiries.
The Commission adopted this decision last week.
The second component is the Council and Parliament regulation laying down how the investigations are to be conducted and what should happen with the results.
This regulation is the centrepiece of the package.
It covers external investigations in the Member States and internal investigations within all the EU institutions.
<P>
Briefly, these are the most important points which we wish to incorporate in it: firstly, the Director of OLAF has a free hand in the investigative work.
In this context, he may not accept instructions from any party.
He may open investigations at the request of a Member State or an institution, but may also do so on his own initiative, and he has the right to lodge complaints with the European Court of Justice if he finds that his independence is compromised.
We included this point on the express recommendation of the Court of Auditors, whose opinion has incidentally been of great assistance to us in eliminating any remaining inconsistencies from the texts.
<P>
Secondly, the Director is under a specific obligation to inform and call in the competent national judicial authorities if Office staff working on internal investigations come across facts which might relate to matters open to criminal charges.
OLAF is not therefore about replacing or circumventing national public prosecutors and judges.
Nor is OLAF a way of setting up an EU police force by the back door.
What it is about is carrying out administrative investigations - if you like, preliminary investigations - which should allow the police and public prosecutor to do their job.
<P>
Thirdly, OLAF will be subject to monitoring by independent, external experts.
The German version of the text rather unfortunately still refers to a scrutiny committee.
The English version captures the meaning much better.
It uses the term supervisory committee.
Here we particularly have in mind experienced experts in criminal law or high-ranking civil servants from the relevant bodies in the Member States such as the Guardia di finanza or the British Serious Fraud Office.
It is not intended that this committee should interfere in the Director's everyday work, but that it should ensure, by carrying out ex post controls, that no mistakes are made.
All of this and more - on which I cannot enter into detail in the short time available - is therefore part of the regulation.
<P>
I now turn to the third component, the institutional agreement between the Council, Parliament and the Commission on internal investigations.
This is the subject of another report, which was adopted by the Committee on Budgetary Control today, shortly before the beginning of this debate, and which will be put to the vote along with the report on the regulation this Thursday.
All of the other Union bodies, institutions and agencies are specifically invited and requested also to enter into this agreement.
This is necessary for OLAF to be able to conduct investigations within them.
In addition, it is stipulated that officials and other EU employees are obliged to inform their superiors - and, if they think it necessary, OLAF - directly and without delay of any facts which might allow cases of fraud, corruption or similar crimes to be closed.
<P>
It is not only the staff but also the members of the institutions and bodies who will cooperate fully with OLAF.
At this stage there can be no exceptions, as this would cause us to lose credibility.
However, neither can our independence as Members of Parliament be threatened.
It is precisely with our parliamentary immunity in mind that a number of sensitive issues remain to be clarified.
This was not part of the negotiations and nor could it be.
It is no longer possible for this Parliament to make any over-hasty decisions on this either; it will be a matter for the newly elected Members.
<P>
Finally there are several points which, although they are also to be decided by the newly elected Parliament, are matters on which we ought to make progress in the high-level group over the next few weeks, and if possible by the ECOFIN Council on 25 May. We need a proposal for the five members of the supervisory committee to which everyone can agree; we need a job description for the Director of OLAF so that the job advertisement can be published; and, as our colleagues in the Committee on Budgets have already recommended in their opinion, we need an establishment plan for OLAF so that a supplementary budget can be agreed on that basis.
This has to happen very quickly, and it is also the decisive test of our credibility.
OLAF must actually be up and running by the end of the year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
Mr President, most of us are growing rather tired of hearing about corruption and fraud involving EU funds.
Hopefully, the forthcoming election campaign will also deal with other important political issues, but the battle over the major reforms should be fought now, while the political will is still present.
We have succeeded in reaching an agreement on OLAF, and would like to take this opportunity to commend the rapporteur, Mr Bösch, for his outstanding work in the negotiations with the Council and the Commission.
We have achieved a really good result.
The new proposal is far better than the original.
The Office will now be located in the Commission for organisational purposes, but it will be entirely independent as far as carrying out investigations is concerned.
Its independence will be guaranteed by the fact that the Commission will not have powers to direct the Office.
The Office will also have powers to investigate irregularities and fraud in other EU institutions.
The Commission is not the only place where there are problems.
The Office will have full access to all relevant information, and it will be able to carry out investigations on its own initiative.
With this proposal, we will hopefully get the best of all worlds.
We will get an Office which is independent, and at the same time gain an extra benefit by locating the Office within the Commission.
If the Office is part of the Commission, we will have access to confidential information which it would otherwise not have been possible to obtain.
We will not have an Office which is hoodwinked, as we have been in Parliament for years.
If we had instead chosen a solution which involved setting up an entirely new Office outside the Commission, it would have required a change in the Treaty.
We cannot wait for that.
It is vital that we have the Office now, and not in two years' time or never.
<P>
By adopting this proposal, we will set up the legal framework.
But that is far from enough.
Money must now be made available in the budget for staff.
We in Parliament have asked for a staff of 300, which is definitely not too many.
The Office must have the resources to operate effectively.
Otherwise we would reproduce the problems which result from leaving such an important task to the Commission without allocating the necessary resources.
When Parliament meets again in the autumn, we shall ensure that sufficient funds are earmarked in the budget.
We have a huge task here.
The whole question of what the Office needs cannot be left to the Commission.
The tripartite committee should be involved in the discussion, and I would therefore like to propose a meeting of the tripartite committee after 25 May, when the proposal will also have been adopted by the Council.
We can then quickly discuss the appointment of the Supervisory Committee, and then we can elect a Director.
Then we can get the Office up and running as quick as possible.
That is what we need.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Theato">
Mr President, it will be remembered that one of the touchstones for being able to grant discharge to the Commission for 1996 was the creation of an operationally independent fraud prevention office.
Parliament laid down some important ground rules for an office of this kind when it adopted the report of the Committee on Budgetary Control, the Bösch report, by a large majority in October 1998 and requested a proposal for a regulation along those lines from the Commission.
As I see it - and I am not exaggerating - if the Commission had made a reasonable proposal to improve fraud prevention at the beginning of December, then it might have been spared the refusal of discharge shortly before Christmas and thus all that followed.
<P>
Unfortunately, it was the middle of March before an amended Commission proposal which met Parliament's demands was tabled.
Happily, in this proposal the Commission abandoned the unreasonable idea of entrusting the responsibility for irregularities and fraud to an external agency with, would you believe it, 48 officials, that is one official to protect an average of EUR 2 billion.
Since then, progress has been extremely quick.
If Parliament, the Council and the Commission continue to cooperate as well as they have done in recent weeks, then we will even be able to adopt all the legislation for an independent fraud prevention office before the European elections.
<P>
I should particularly like to highlight the constructive role played by Commissioners Anita Gradin, Karel Van Miert and Mario Monti, but I also wish specifically to commend the Council presidency, our rapporteur Mr Bösch and the secretariats of the three institutions for the huge amount of work which they have done.
The Committee on Budgetary Control has done its homework; it has unanimously reached a common position in agreement with the German Presidency, and has just this minute approved the accompanying interinstitutional agreement.
If Parliament and the Council keep to this line, then OLAF will be able to enter into force in June.
The rapporteur has already described its responsibilities.
I should just like to emphasise its operational independence once again - from an institutional point of view, the responsibility still lies with the Commission; we had to do this to find a speedy solution.
<P>
It is also important that the Director has access to the judicial authorities in the case of matters which may be open to criminal charges.
However, there is another snag here.
Our experiences with the national judicial authorities have not been very encouraging up until now.
To my knowledge, for example, final verdicts have not so far been reached in any of the 27 internal cases of fraud which UCLAF has investigated since 1994.
In conclusion, I think that our aims in creating OLAF are to make a constructive contribution to better protecting the interests of the EU against abuse, to make prevention a priority, and to recover money which has gone missing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Kjer Hansen">
Mr President, the new UCLAF - OLAF - is intended to put an end to irregularities, nepotism, corruption and fraud in the EU.
As far as I am concerned, it is therefore vital that the new Office is free to investigate any matter it wishes and that it has complete independence in deciding whether or not the matter should subsequently be handed over to the judicial authorities, the national courts.
I think it is crucial for us now to have an investigation office which can investigate circumstances in all the EU institutions.
That should certainly give it enough to do.
When I say all the EU institutions, that should also include the European Investment Bank, for example. With the accusations which have recently been made, I would expect the Bank itself to have an interest in uncovering everything that is going on there.
But the European Parliament should also offer its assistance, and there may be examples of tasks which it would be interesting to have investigated, such as the problems surrounding our premises, where there are still a large number of unanswered questions.
I therefore believe, Mr President, that the new office, OLAF, is a significant improvement of the situation in the EU.
It gives us a good chance to clear things up and to ensure openness and transparency in all the institutions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Rosado Fernandes">
Mr President, Commissioner, looking at the West's crisis of values, clearly all that was needed for many fraud-related problems to be eliminated was for the Christian commandment of 'thou shalt not steal' to be observed.
Fraud and theft are now a way of life and are turning into a scientific study. Organised crime is now a fashionable and studied crime, occurring in the best circles, and its sole goal is theft.
<P>
Organisations must therefore be created which are fully prepared and independent. They must have the necessary financial and human resources and be able to act independently.
But is acting independently actually the ideal given that the legal systems of many Member States are in crisis? For it is frequently the legal system itself, influenced by the executive - since Montesquieu's separation of powers is fast disappearing - which fails to condemn totally blatant cases of fraud in which billions are at stake.
Anyone, like us, who participated in the Action Committee on BSE and the Committee of Inquiry into Community Transit can say that the ideal of a Europe without borders has indeed been created, but without borders and without control.
It is clear that this is a temptation and a paradise for organised crime.
<P>
I hope that the solutions put forward by Mr Bösch are supported by the political will which is needed to ensure their total success.
However, the cooperation of the Member States is fundamental because they are as guilty as the Commission and we should not forget this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Mr President, for all of us who have worked to put things in order and find out how taxpayers' money is being spent, it is a step forward to see the emergence of OLAF.
Its predecessor, UCLAF, has not been in existence for very long, but the major shortcoming of this has already become apparent, namely that in political terms it is under the control of the Commission.
It is of the utmost importance that OLAF really is independent and has the task of investigating all the European institutions, which is quite an extensive mandate but one which I believe we in Parliament will ensure it actually carries out.
It is naturally also important for there to be unrestricted access to all material, so that a proper investigation can be conducted.
This is necessary in order to combat the fraudulent use of the EU's own resources.
<P>
I should like to thank Mr Bösch for working so assiduously on this report, as well as the Commission for withdrawing its first blueprint for OLAF and making a constructive contribution to finding the solution we shall be dealing with this week.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Sarlis">
Mr President, I would like to begin by adding my voice in praise of the effort to establish OLAF, and I have to say that today's sitting is something of a celebration, since those of us who worked on the Committee on Budgetary Control are witnessing the accomplishment of an undertaking on which so much time and effort has been spent, and in which so many issues hung in the balance.
<P>
I must first of all pay tribute to the rapporteur, Mr Bösch, who managed to stick to his guns, despite the opposition from within his own group, the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
In the same vein, I have to say that the Group of the European People's Party, as represented on the Committee on Budgetary Control, was fully behind the rapporteur, put up a good fight, and came away victorious.
Furthermore, what took place, such as our refusal to grant discharge, may be the crowning achievement of the efforts of this Parliament, whose term comes to an end this week.
We will all be remembered for the effort we made to clean up the economy of the Community, and the establishment of OLAF will have a prominent place at the heart of this endeavour.
<P>
Having said that, I in turn hope that this office will prosper, and for this to happen the old confrontations between the Commission, Parliament and the Council are of no import. But we must all tend this plant which is just beginning to take root, so that it can bear fruit for the good of the European Union, its economic and, above all, its fiscal policies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Bontempi">
Mr President, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, I should have spoken earlier but as I was otherwise engaged I would like to thank the Presidency for giving me the opportunity to take the floor now.
In my brief comments I am particularly keen to highlight the important role played by Mr Bösch who - even at times when it was not all that easy to make any headway with this idea - has always been very consistent in maintaining the need for an independent body, given the serious nature of the events which have occurred and the difficulties of tackling them.
<P>
I would also like to draw your attention to the many years of work done by the committee and by Mr Theato in order to establish a role for Parliament enabling legality and transparency to be improved.
The cooperation provided by the Committee on Civil Liberties and the reports we have produced have also played a part here.
On this report too, although we only played a minor role, we wanted to draw up an opinion which was consistent and in harmony with all the work done over the years.
<P>
We set out a short to medium-term solution, but we also - on the basis of Article 280 - mentioned a possible later development.
In fact I believe that the political legacy we have acquired - the independence of the Office - is one which should first be put into practice and then adapted and improved later.
<P>
We know that only an Office which is independent in its internal and external investigations can allow us adequately to combat the developments which have threatened to overwhelm our institutions.
I would add, however, that it is also highly important to monitor the Office's organisational capacity.
Woe betide us if a bureaucratic mentality were to destroy what should be a fresh new development: it is a new departure in institutional terms and this should also be the case when it comes to getting results.
<P>
May I conclude, Mr President, by giving my particular congratulations to the colleagues to whom we are most indebted for this work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Diller">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on 15 March 1999, under my chairmanship, the Council of Economic and Finance Ministers adopted a clear position: no leniency, zero tolerance of fraud and corruption in the Community.
Abuse of the money which belongs to the people of the Union damages the Community's reputation; headlines about it weaken public support for integration and push the Union's successes into the background.
<P>
That is why the creation of the new Fraud Investigation Office is a great opportunity for the Community and an important objective of our presidency.
The Council, Parliament and the Commission can hereby demonstrate their will and ability to protect Community resources effectively.
If we succeed in setting up the Office by 1 June this year, as planned, then this will be an important sign, and the fact that this is just a few days before the European Parliament elections will lend it a particular significance.
<P>
I believe that we have managed - in close cooperation with the European Parliament - to produce a workable blueprint.
I should like to single out three aspects of this.
Firstly, the proposal you have before you ensures that the Office will take effective action wherever the interests of the Community are at stake.
The Office has not only been tasked with external control - and this is undoubtedly important, because it is the Member States which administer around 80 % of Community aid - it will also be an independent guardian of Community interests within the bodies and institutions of the Community.
Many speakers have already pointed out the significance of this.
<P>
Secondly, even though the Office is being set up within the Commission, its operational independence is guaranteed.
The Director of the Office may not seek or accept instructions from anyone.
Decisions on opening, conducting and evaluating investigations are his personal responsibility.
The Commission can only appoint the Director in agreement with the European Parliament and the Council.
A committee of external, independent individuals will supervise and protect the Director's autonomous running of the Office.
<P>
Thirdly, although public interest is currently focused on uncovering suspected irregularities, prevention is of not inconsiderable importance.
That is another reason why the blueprint for OLAF is a good start, because the Office is called upon to collaborate on the overall strategy for fraud prevention and will also make its experience available for preventive initiatives.
<P>
With your permission, I will also say a few words on the timetable. The Office is meant to be created by 1 June.
Adoption by ECOFIN is planned for 25 May.
Afterwards the regulation will be signed by both the President of the European Parliament and the President-in-Office of the Council.
The accompanying agreement will be signed by the Presidents of the three bodies - Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
The other bodies and institutions are requested to enter into the agreement.
<P>
Finally, I should like to highlight the trusting and constructive cooperation we have enjoyed with the European Parliament delegation, in particular Mrs Theato and the rapporteur, Mr Bösch, and with Commissioner Gradin.
For all those who have worked on OLAF this has been an encouraging experience, which also bodes well for future cooperation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Gradin">
Mr President, Mr Bösch's report and the Commission decision to establish a European fraud prevention office marks the end of a long process starting back in 1995.
Since then, we have come a long way when it comes to strengthening the tools in the fight against irregularities, fraud and corruption.
The European tax-payer has every right to expect us to protect their money and to administer it in an efficient way.
<P>
I am fully committed to meet this demand.
To me it is also a matter of credibility of our institutions.
I believe that the establishment of the OLAF responds to both these objectives.
The decision to establish this office is built on a constructive political dialogue between our two institutions and the Council.
<P>
Before I comment on Mr Bösch's report, I want to put the fight against fraud into its right perspective.
When I took office in 1995 the staff working in the anti-fraud area were still spread around several services of the Commission, with only around sixty staff working in UCLAF.
Since then, UCLAF's operational capacity has been considerably strengthened and the staff put under one roof.
<P>
Today, UCLAF has 141 staff to deal with around 1000 cases where there is suspicion of irregularities, fraud and corruption.
The number of cases under investigation has risen continuously.
This is, of course, regrettable but it is also a sign that we are getting better in our work to fight fraud.
<P>
During the course of last year much attention focused on the 27 internal investigations in the Commission.
It is often forgotten that the great majority of UCLAF investigations relate to external cases in the Member States.
I do not mention this to diminish the internal problem in the Commission: just one single internal case is one too many.
<P>
UCLAF works in close cooperation with Member States.
For instance, in the course of 1998 the total number of cases dealt with by the Member States and UCLAF was almost 5000 cases covering around EUR 1 billion.
This cooperation is particularly important since there is a growing number of fraud cases that cut across borders, as well as growing involvement of international organised crime.
<P>
The strengthening of UCLAF and its capacity to fight fraud stems from a number of internal Commission decisions.
As long ago as 1995 I took the initiative to bring together all the anti-fraud activities under the UCLAF umbrella.
This was followed up in 1997 with a decision to strengthen the independence of UCLAF by, among other things, giving the director the same status as the independent financial controller.
<P>
A new decision in 1998 transformed the office into a taskforce.
At the same time, units were added to UCLAF to deal with fraud in third countries, corruption inside the institutions, and the legal and judicial cooperation with Member States.
In July 1998 the Commission decided to further clarify, strengthen and make more transparent the UCLAF mandate.
The primary aims were to underline the obligations of staff to cooperate in investigations and at the same time to protect the rights of the individual.
<P>
Initiatives have also been taken to improve information about the work of UCLAF.
In early 1998 the Chair of the Committee on Budgetary Control, Mrs Theato, and I, agreed on a procedure to inform the committee in camera on ongoing UCLAF investigations as well as internal audit reports from the financial controller.
It is in fact UCLAF who brought information as regards suspicion of fraud to the committee's attention and not, as is often believed, journalists having conducted their own investigations.
One could therefore say that we, too, have been whistle-blowers.
<P>
Despite all these efforts it became increasingly clear during 1998 that one further step was necessary.
This is why I responded positively in July last year in the Committee on Budgetary Control to further increase UCLAF's independence.
As a consequence the Commission put forward a proposal to externalise UCLAF's investigation functions.
One of several important aspects to me was that this would avoid the situation where colleagues would investigate colleagues.
<P>
However, the proposal to externalise UCLAF was not acceptable to the Council and the European Parliament.
To find a solution a high-level working group was set up at the political level, with participation from Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
Commissioners van Miert, Monti and I participated as the Commission representatives.
In this context I wish to stress that I found this interinstitutional way to find a compromise very constructive.
The Commission moved quickly to approve the first result of the work in the high-level group in March.
<P>
I shall not venture into a detailed account of how work progressed.
It is sufficient to note that the Commission has a adopted a decision to establish OLAF.
I wish to remind you that the establishment of the new office with the Commission will require resources, as Mr Blak also said.
The Office will need extra staff and expenditure is bound to increase in light of the broadened scope of operations.
A request for these additional resources must therefore be expected in the rectifying letter to the budget to be presented later this year to the new Parliament.
I trust that the budget authorities will receive this request positively.
<P>
Last Wednesday the Commission also took note of the amendments proposed by Parliament in the Bösch report.
I am very pleased to inform you that the Commission can accept all the amendments in this report.
The Commission has also approved the draft interinstitutional agreement which will enable the office to conduct internal administrative investigations in Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
<P>
I would very much like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Bösch, and other Members of the high-level group: Mrs Theato, Lord Tomlinson, Mr Blak and Mr Grosch.
My thanks also include the Council presidency which has participated in the group with the same positive spirit.
I believe that this joint process has proven highly effective.
It could set an example for the way our institutions could work together in other areas in the future.
I hope that Parliament, in its vote on the Bösch report on Thursday will recognise the important efforts made and the added possibility the OLAF will bring to the joint fight against fraud.
This would clear the way for the ECOFIN Council on 25 May to take the necessary decisions for OLAF to come into force on 1 June 1999.
<P>
I have always had the interests of the tax-payers foremost in mind.
With this initiative we are sending a clear signal that all three institutions share this concern. With a new OLAF we will have a tool in place that will strengthen our fight against fraud and corruption considerably.
It is a great achievement for the Union and its citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Thursday at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Discharge
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Diller">
Mr President, so that the Minutes are correct, I should like to point out that the last letter of my name is an 'r' and not an 'n'.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as you know, I have already had the opportunity of presenting the Council's views on the 1997 discharge procedure to your Budgetary Control Committee on 19 April.
The Council recommendation to give discharge to the Commission in respect of the implementation of the 1997 budget is being made in spite of the fact that the Commission has already resigned.
As we know, the immediate cause of its resignation was the report of the Committee of Independent Experts on the responsibility of the Commission and individual members of the Commission for cases of fraud, mismanagement and nepotism which had occurred over a number of years.
<P>
I should like to state explicitly before Parliament that combating fraud is a matter of great concern to the Council.
The comments accompanying our recommendation to give discharge to the Commission in respect of the implementation of the 1997 budget make this crystal clear and leave no room for doubt.
In Vienna, the European Council reaffirmed that it attaches great importance to the efficient fight against fraud, corruption and other criminal activity affecting the European Union's financial interests.
It expressed the wish that the Council - together with the other institutions - should successfully complete its examination of the proposals on the table before the Cologne European Council in June.
<P>
I should like to confirm that our presidency is trying to have the so-called OLAF regulation - which we have in fact just been debating - adopted by the ECOFIN Council on 25 May, and is doing so in extremely close cooperation with you, the Parliament.
This cooperation - and this has been highlighted by all the speakers - has further intensified in recent weeks because this is a problem of which the general public is aware and it needs to be resolved swiftly.
<P>
There is no doubt that the Council, like Parliament and the Commission, is making every effort to combat fraud, including in particular outside the context of the discharge procedure.
If I may, I will now return to the actual reason for my being here, the discharge for 1997.
It is true that the Court of Auditors' report contains a whole host of negative comments on the implementation of the budget - some of which I will be addressing shortly - but it would be over-simplistic to lay the entire blame for the shortcomings which have arisen at the door of the Commission.
They are partly the result of structural deficiencies to which the Member States have also contributed.
<P>
In making our recommendation, however, we also wish to acknowledge the efforts which the Commission has made so successfully in many sectors to tighten up financial management.
In the midst of all the criticism, this should not be forgotten.
Nevertheless, I should like to address a few points where there are particular grounds for criticism.
<P>
Firstly, I should like to stress how important it is to ensure that the internal organisation of the Commission is conducive to the efficient management of programmes.
For this to be the case, clear objectives need to be set which allow the efficiency of Community actions to be assessed accurately.
The Council is also very concerned about the fact that appropriations for general information measures and measures to provide the public with information about the European Union are still being utilised without a legal base.
<P>
In addition, the Council is unhappy that there are still numerous irregularities associated with payments made under the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund and for structural measures.
Nor is it justifiable that, contrary to the Financial Regulation - and I stress, contrary to the Financial Regulation - it is common practice in the field of research in particular to pay advances before the number of participants or the costs of the activities concerned are known.
Finally, it is regrettable that only a small proportion of the payment appropriations for external aid - and in particular for the priority programmes - has been used.
<P>
As far as the statement of assurance is concerned, the Council is deeply concerned that the Court of Auditors still has not been able to make a statement of this kind because a large number of mistakes are still being made with the implementation of payments.
Hardly any improvements can be noted on the previous financial year.
Having made these criticisms, I should also like to make a few more positive remarks.
The amendments made to the Financial Regulation in November 1998 have enabled financial control to be modernised, in particular as far as the release of unutilised appropriations is concerned.
But like the European Court of Justice - and probably also Parliament - the Council attaches great importance to the Financial Regulation being thoroughly modernised and completely recast.
We urgently request the Commission to table proposals to this effect.
<P>
I should also like to draw attention to the measures taken under the SEM 2000 initiative, thanks to which it has been possible to tighten up financial management considerably.
As the rapporteur for the 1997 discharge procedure, Mr Brinkhorst, emphasises, administrative cooperation both between the Commission and the Member States and among the Member States themselves needs to be stepped up further, given that a large proportion of the budget is implemented by the Member States.
Of course, this does not alter the fact that the Commission bears the responsibility for implementing the budget.
When it examined the 1997 annual report of the Court of Auditors, the Council also took into consideration all 25 special reports drawn up during 1998.
On some of them it jointly adopted specific conclusions, which have been included in the recommendation.
<P>
Finally, I should like to emphasise that the budgetary authority and the Member States need to ensure that taxpayers' money is not only accounted for properly but also used as efficiently as possible.
The Council is firmly resolved to work towards further improving the financial management of the Community.
This is a long-term task for all those who are responsible for managing Community funds.
<P>
In conclusion, I should like to mention a few points which played a part in the discussion with your Budgetary Control Committee, Mrs Theato.
It was suggested that we should hold a trilogue, or at least a dialogue, with you before the Council adopts its recommendation to grant discharge.
I am sorry, but we are rather hesitant about this suggestion.
We believe that the Council should first carry out the task which it is assigned in the Treaty of scrutinising the documents, and that only afterwards should we discuss the results with you.
<P>
We do agree with you, however, that the questions which have been raised need to be taken into account during the forthcoming reform of the Financial Regulation.
Your suggestion to further step up cooperation between national financial experts and between them and the Commission is something which we view favourably.
<P>
I am sure that further suggestions will now be made in the debate which I will then be able to pass on to the Council. Thank you for your attention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Elles">
Mr President, I rise to conclude what has been a historic discharge process where nothing has gone according to plan.
I hope that we will be able to conclude our deliberations on this report this week.
In doing so, I should like to make a few procedural and substantive points and then some concluding remarks.
<P>
On procedure, I would like to thank those colleagues in the Committee on Budget Control who have contributed towards this whole discharge process.
This discharge is, after all, one of many, and I happen to be the general rapporteur.
In December last year the majority of this House refused to grant discharge and it was referred back because there were problems in procedure which have now been sorted out by changing our rules to be in line with those of the Treaty.
We should now therefore move to a decision on this item.
<P>
We have seen during this process that some people have disapproved of having a discharge which was a political process.
I understand that particular problem.
I understand less those who have caused problems in this discharge process because it has been dealing with problems of substance.
Most of us now realise that it was the right time for this Parliament to refuse to grant discharge because that triggered all the rest of the events which happened in the months afterwards.
Yet today we see an amendment by the Socialist Group refusing to follow this definitive decision to grant discharge because it still seems to want to continue this process.
Have they learned nothing from this whole procedure?
We should close it down today.
<P>
Moving to substantive items in the report which I submitted and which should now be an annex to this resolution, there were three major items which we highlighted, all of which have been confirmed by the report of the Committee of the Wise Men.
Firstly, lack of democratic accountability and access to information.
Secondly, real concern - and it is interesting to read it now after these months have past - about irregularities with Commissioners, and one in particular who, by her inability to resign, caused the resignation of all.
Perhaps the central feature was the weakness in management structure which was made very clear in paragraph 19 of this attached document which says: 'Weakness in management organisation led to operational distortions in implementing policies'.
Who knows, perhaps acting President Santer could have saved the Commission if earlier he had stopped running programmes for which he did not have staff.
<P>
Let me look also at one other substantive item in the original report of the 1996 discharge: the reform programme, which the acting President Santer took on board on 11 January in his reform programme of the Commission.
What has happened to these items now: the codes of conduct we asked for, the revision of the Statute, the nomination of A1 and A2 posts so as to make sure we have high quality at the top of the Commission and the screening report?
All these things seem to have come into some murky area somewhere because one or two of the resolutions we have passed recently have failed to be specific on the requests we are putting to the Commission.
<P>
I would like to see these things at least clarified, perhaps by the Commissioner, so that the new Parliament will be able to dispose of these documents.
<P>
Looking ahead, there are two conclusions I would draw from this.
Firstly, so far as the Commission is concerned, we have a number of ideas which have been part of this reform process.
Fortunately, in the report on the 1997 discharge, which my friend and colleague, Mr Brinkhorst, will be introducing shortly, we shall see a number of those ideas presented.
Secondly, I hope that this document will be available to the new Parliament and the acting Commission, and its new President designate, Mr Prodi, so that parliamentarians in a new Parliament have the information they need to ensure the nomination of commissioners is done effectively.
<P>
We do not want to leave the feeling in the Commission with this whole 1996 discharge that we do not rate highly the vast majority of the Commission officials.
I used to be one myself.
I am perfectly well aware of the high quality of people there, but we want to make sure that it is always high quality.
We should not condemn the whole system just because of one bad apple.
<P>
Lastly, it has actually been Parliament above all who has campaigned on this process.
It is not, I am afraid, the Council.
It granted discharges.
It was Parliament coming of age, and it will have to be proven in the new Parliament that we are capable of meeting our responsibilities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Mr President, it is clear that the conclusions of this report for 1997 are very specific and very clear, namely, a postponement of discharge on institutional grounds.
<P>
I should like to thank all colleagues.
The Committee on Budgetary Control wanted to go further.
It did not want - in terms of the 1996 discharge - to waste time.
This is not possible.
We should go beyond that.
And it is against that background that the Budget Control Committee voted the document which you find as an annex.
In a sense it is the history after 1996.
It is also the political nature of this report to put the discharge procedure in a broader perspective.
<P>
As the President-in-Office of the Council just indicated, there are a number of novel features which should be taken into account in future.
We should not just criticise the past, we should look to the future.
That is the significance of this particular annex, on the discharge procedure itself, on the information to be given in future.
There are comments on what has led to the situation just described by my colleague, Mr Elles, a new staffing policy, questions on the BATs, the Committee of Experts' report and also some guidelines for the Commission reform.
That is why the report consists of more than simply the statement that we should refuse a discharge at this particular time.
<P>
I am very pleased with the comment of the President-in-Office of the Council because part of this report is also oriented towards the new partnership between the Commission and the Member States as well as the cooperation between the Member States themselves.
I welcome the statement by the Council that it will not fall on deaf ears.
As the Council executes about 95 % of the budget it is necessary that more action should be taken.
I hope the time will come when, like in the Committee on Budgets, we will work much more closely together with the Council on budget control.
We find some specific recommendations on that particular point.
<P>
The Annex basically has three purposes.
Our purpose is to state from the point of view of Parliament where we stand at the present time.
It is also an account of what happened after the 1996 procedure.
<P>
Secondly, as Mr Elles has already said, it provides an indication - though we should never seek to govern beyond our grave, certainly not a rapporteur who is leaving this Parliament - to the new Parliament about the kind of issues which can be used to judge the new Commission during the hearings.
That is an important point in itself.
It is not binding but it is an indication.
For that reason it is a contribution from the Committee on Budgetary Control and will not be voted by Parliament as such.
<P>
Thirdly, we want to be a constructive Parliament.
As Parliament acquires more responsibility and power it should also be a partner, not only in criticising, but also in helping the Commission to carry out its tasks independently but with accountability.
It is therefore also an element of the work programme for the future Commission which we hope will be taken on board.
<P>
Let me clear up one misunderstanding.
I had the opportunity of discussing this with Commissioner Liikanen at an earlier stage but I would also like to say it in public.
It cannot be the role of the Court of Auditors to replace the Commission, nor Parliament.
Some requests to the Court of Auditors to participate in certain studies should not be seen as taking away the responsibility of action by the Commission or by Parliament.
But the Court of Auditors has played a very important and useful role in this process between Parliament, the Commission and the Council.
<P>
It is against that background that I would like finally to say that it would be useful if the Council itself reviewed its procedures as regards interaction between the Court of Auditors and the national bodies.
I hear too often that national courts of auditors have a different role, that they cannot fulfil a function within the Community system.
As we move into a new phase, a new situation where it is not the Commission or the Member States, but the Commission and the Member States, I would call on the President of the Council to study this particular issue of activities between the Court of Auditors and the national auditing bodies in future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Fabra Vallés">
Mr President, we shall now move on to the discharge of the so-called 'other sections', starting with the first section: Parliament and the Ombudsman.
<P>
In respect of Parliament and the document before us, the large number of cancelled appropriations is striking.
I should like to make it clear that the reason for this was the delay affecting the D-3 building in Brussels and IPE 4 in Strasbourg.
Since we are reviewing 1997, which is in the past, I should like to emphasise for everyone's peace of mind that there was a steady improvement in the number of appropriations cancelled in subsequent years.
<P>
As regards aid to democratically elected parliaments in Central and Eastern Europe, 30 % of initial appropriations were not used.
This, too, may seem surprising, but the reasons for this state of affairs and possible improvements are clear.
<P>
We would like to take the opportunity provided by the 1997 discharge document to draw attention to the fact that the necessary resources should be made available to the Committee on Budgetary Control to allow it to monitor the appropriations granted to the political groups and the expenses incurred by the secretarial services.
<P>
In addition, it is worth emphasising that we are continuing to call for a regulation on the legal status of the political parties in Europe.
<P>
Nevertheless, we request that discharge for 1997 be granted where Parliament is concerned.
<P>
Moving on to the Ombudsman, the 82.1 % implementation rate is of note. I do not wish to imply that this is due to a shortage of staff.
The department in question is constantly requesting additional staff, but it is certainly worth emphasising that this is a new institution; after all, we are still referring to 1997. It is clear that the budget allocated to the Ombudsman is being used more and more effectively as the years go on.
Discharge should also be granted in the case of the Ombudsman.
<P>
In the case of the Court of Justice, it is important to mention the advantages resulting from the leasing arrangements concerning the annexes to the Palais. As regards the earlier payments of ECU 50 million, I would like to remind you of a concern we had at the time in relation to the commitments made to Parliament by the Luxembourg Government.
Back in 1997, we were not certain if these commitments would be fulfilled.
We really did not know what problems could arise. However, in the light of events in 1997 and later, we must now thank the Luxembourg Government for the excellent work it carried out.
We propose that discharge also be granted to the Court of Justice.
<P>
Turning to the Court of Auditors, I would simply like to say that in 1997 the usual problems of budgetary inadequacy were satisfactorily resolved, and almost without effort. This was due to the favourable movement in the conversion rate between the euro - then the ecu - and Luxembourg's currency.
Similarly, we are in favour of granting discharge to the Court of Auditors.
<P>
As far as the Committee of the Regions is concerned, it should be pointed out that budgetary forecasting needs to be improved. In particular, the haphazard programming of activities should be tackled because it means we are constantly being called on to make significant transfers.
Nevertheless, we are in favour of granting discharge to the Committee of the Regions.
<P>
Finally, there is the Economic and Social Committee, the only area where we do have a problem. As you are aware, discharge for the Economic and Social Committee is still pending, awaiting a report by UCLAF.
Discharge for the Economic and Social Committee is therefore conditional on the findings of the report on its activities which UCLAF - the fraud prevention unit - is due to present.
We therefore propose that discharge for the Economic and Social Committee be postponed.
<P>
Since this is a joint debate, I do not wish to conclude without stating that my delegation - my delegation and I myself - have already made our position on the 1996 budget discharge quite clear. Further, the resignation of the Commission cannot now be used as an excuse to disregard the commitments made by Mr Santer.
These commitments should be honoured by the incoming President, Mr Prodi.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Blak">
Mr President, I am going to talk about the ECSC accounts, and I would like to say that this has developed into a success story.
When I took over the accounts, we had a mass of problems.
We were swamped with the usual stories.
Everything was in chaos.
Who can forget the interest subsidy which ran for ten years, and which we could not end because of foot-dragging? There was a mass of corruption.
There was the case of the purchase of apartments when the Commission moved into fine premises in Paris.
In brief, there was a great deal of confusion, and there was disorder and chaos.
Then we took matters in hand and we sorted them out.
I am glad to say that we in the committee have decided today that we are pleased to give a discharge in this area.
When I look back I think of how, for example, we stood on the verge of possibly losing billions in connection with the Channel Tunnel.
This appears to have been resolved, and now it is a success story.
In Denmark, we had a case concerning the Great Belt bridge, where the loan was rather too large.
There were a few billion to play with, but that case too was sorted out.
All this is thanks to positive cooperation, and because we were able to obtain information and because we could talk with an excellent Commissioner.
I would like to commend Mr Liikanen.
It was possible to talk to him.
Every time there was a problem, we went to him and we always got the problem solved.
<P>
So there has been good cooperation in connection with the accounts of the European Coal and Steel Community.
But there have been problems in another area, the granting and uptake of loans in Europe, which I have been concerned with as part of Mr Brinkhorst's report.
Here we see some obstinate people who talk down to us - I shall refrain from mentioning the name of the President of the European Investment Bank.
Year after year, we have pointed out that we have a right to come and inspect the Bank.
'It is not your concern', he says. 'We have some small private shareholders, and out of consideration for them you cannot enter, and in any case everything is going well with us.'
In my capacity as rapporteur, I have received a piece of paper which says that the Bank has in fact lost billions on failed investments and that the money is hidden in the accounts or has been offset.
That is unacceptable.
It led to me recommending that we should not give a discharge for the 1997 accounts.
We are sick and tired of lies from people who sit and hide things from Europe's taxpayers.
We will simply not put up with it.
Last year, we had problems with the accounts and I refused to give a discharge.
The committee supported me.
Then we reached an agreement whereby the Commission intervened and made it possible for us to reach a sensible solution, enabling us to monitor the taxpayers' money.
More than 80 % of the funds in the various institutions in the European Investment Fund is our money.
So what did they do when we gave a discharge?
They short-changed us, so to speak, and backed out of the agreement, in spite of the fact that we had goodness knows how many meetings and spent goodness knows how much time setting it up.
That cannot be allowed to go on.
Let us give a clear signal from this House to Sir Brian Unwin: we are no longer prepared to listen to lies about how everything is perfect.
This is going to be cleared up now.
We want to know how DKK 4 to 5 billion can disappear in the accounts.
It is quite simply an outrageous scandal.
It may well be as they say that the money is not lost because it may return, because they have not sold bonds.
We do not want to hear such stories.
We simply have to say quite bluntly that it is over.
They cannot have the accounts approved if there is no audit whereby we can go in and check up on the Community's money. So let us end our cooperation with them.
It cannot be right that we have to pay for everything which they sit and play with, and that they can then play with the profits afterwards.
We have no wish to see examples of how bond purchases, amongst many other things, are placed with various friends in various places for far less than can be got back.
This is a real scandal.
If the Commission can be brought down for as little as it was, these people should have been thrown out long ago so that they never have any chance of returning.
So here we need to have a powerful Commission which can really go in and check, and we need some people who are willing to cooperate, as Mr Liikanen has cooperated with us, so that we can get this cleared up.
<P>
I would also like to say that I was moved to tears when I heard the Council speak about all the things they would like to do.
But why do you rubber-stamp the accounts every single year and say that you are making recommendations?
You have never applied the brakes.
I think the Council should take a look at this area, and the new Commission should get to grips with these things.
There really is something to get to grips with here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Kellett-Bowman">
Mr President, this is the fifteenth time I have moved the discharges, first for Dublin and Berlin, and now Thessaloniki.
I have to admit that not all the debates have been as exciting and as exhilarating as this one.
However, these two first-generation agencies are a good example of how control can be exerted by Parliament.
The Committee on Budgetary Control is very much helped by the European Court of Auditors - and I should like to thank them for their two special reports on these two agencies.
I should also like to thank the Council which has latterly - and I emphasise latterly because in the early years this did not happen - been putting forward considered recommendations to Parliament to grant discharge.
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One also has to admit that these agencies are small and therefore easier to control, but the cooperation on control really does work.
Far from resenting control, the agencies welcome the European Parliament's involvement.
It would help, though, if the second-generation agencies could be treated in the same way.
Again, I appeal to the Council because Parliament, together with the Commission, has put forward considered amendments to the statutes which would make the situation of the new agencies the same as the old.
<P>
The reports are not long because there is no point in finding fault where faults do not exist.
The European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions had a memorandum of understanding with the Agency for Health and Safety to avoid overlapping, because one of the things Parliament insists upon is that the work of these agencies should not overlap.
<P>
I welcome their attempts to reduce mission expenditure.
It is rather funny because if you look back a year or two you will find that the Court of Auditors was criticising officials from Dublin who used the weekend as part of their mission - obviously people like to have a trip home at the same time.
But now they want the members of the agency to use the special pex tickets which are only available over weekends because a Saturday night has to be involved.
It is just a change of opinion within the Court.
<P>
I am very happy to recommend discharge for the European Foundation in Dublin.
<P>
I now turn to CEDEFOP which has finally got over that tragic move from Berlin to Thessaloniki.
I am not attacking Thessaloniki in any way; the fact is that if the Council look up the minutes, they will find it was a mistake to consign CEDEFOP to Thessaloniki in the first place, and the poor Commission and Parliament have been trying to pick up the pieces.
However, the new building should be ready for occupation in July.
I wish them well in their new building.
I can see that the various staffing arrangements are now properly in place and I understand that out of all the staffing of the centre only two A grades remain to be filled. I have no hesitation at all in recommending discharge also for CEDEFOP.
<P>
Mr President, I look forward to the day - and I do not think it will be long ahead - when the Court of Auditors is able to give these two agencies a certificate of assurance for 'keeping their noses clean' so to speak and for getting good reports from the Court.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Sarlis">
Mr President, this Parliament will go down in history not so much as the Parliament which brought about the collective resignation of the Commission, but as the Parliament which brought about structural changes, which are already underway, to the organisation and operation of the Commission, the foremost institution charged with pushing forward European integration.
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Appended to the motion for a resolution which you will be invited to vote on tomorrow, ladies and gentlemen, is a working document which enumerates the points that need to be clarified by the Commission, to enable the Parliament that will be voted in following the June elections to grant the discharge for 1997.
<P>
This working document is being held in trust by Parliament to be handed on to the new Parliament.
I would like to raise one of the points mentioned in this working document, which concerns the famous Regulation 3245/81. This was a joke regulation in the sense that it was adopted, it entered into force, was published in the Official Journal of the European Communities, but it was never implemented in practice.
This regulation provides for the establishment of a European Association for Cooperation to take on the work of a Belgian private law foundation.
It was never implemented but, despite this, for a number of years it was referred to in Community budgets as the legal base for capital to be made available from the Community budget to fund the activities of this Belgian private law foundation.
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As a result, I hope and I believe - or rather, I am sure - that the structural changes that are currently being made to the organisation and operation of the Commission will make it easy for the next Parliament, which will have the backing of the Commission and will not have to put up with what we have had to put up with over the last three years, to provide explanations and come up with solutions.
I wish it all the best.
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<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Günther">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, although the Committee on Development and Cooperation has to grant discharge for the European Development Fund each year, it does not have any influence on how this fund is used because it has not so far been integrated into the budget.
Governments have repeatedly signalled, before taking up the Council presidency, that they might be able to support integrating it into the budget.
Later, however, numerous reasons have been found for postponing this decision after all.
One of the committee's specific criticisms of the 1997 budget is that large amounts are transferred from one Development Fund to the next.
The suggestion is therefore being made to simplify the management of appropriations.
<P>
With regard to the appropriations for cofinancing, the committee also criticises the fact that individual projects take too long to complete and that the supply of funds in particular often causes huge problems for the non-governmental organisations.
The Court of Auditors and the Development Committee are waiting rather anxiously to see whether the new structures which the Commission is now introducing will prove to be effective here.
That is why the Committee on Development and Cooperation requests that a report should be submitted to it next March on experiences with the new structures.
The committee also takes the view that the response to the procedural shortcomings criticised by the Court of Auditors should be for a minimum degree of competition to be required, in particular in the tendering and award procedures.
<P>
Nevertheless, the committee agrees with granting discharge for the 1997 Development Fund.
Development cooperation is not one of the areas which voters immediately see as an essential part of European policy.
We are therefore all the more dependent on financial resources being used transparently and in a way which people can understand.
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<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Tappin">
Mr President, speaking as the coordinator for the Socialist Group, I want to address my remarks to three of the reports before us today.
<P>
I shall begin with discharge 1996.
My Group can see no reason not to grant discharge for the 1996 budget.
In the course of the discharge proceedings and in the light of the Court of Auditors' report, we asked a series of very searching questions of the Commission.
I am sure that colleagues here are aware that the Commission came back with a series of responses to those questions which, to my Group, were satisfactory enough for us to grant discharge.
The five questions put down were answered.
<P>
It must be said that from our side we believe that the rapporteur is playing petty party politics with the whole question of discharge for 1996.
It has taken a great deal of effort to persuade the rapporteur to bring forward a report closing the accounts for 1996 so that we can proceed with the 1997 discharge.
<P>
We do not agree with the wording in paragraph 1, and we wish to delete the word 'definitive' from that paragraph because no vote was ever taken in Parliament on the question of the 1996 discharge, which was recommended by the Committee on Budgetary Control to this House.
The report was withdrawn and referred back to committee in the light of other events.
If no vote was taken, we cannot have a definitive report.
If one good thing has come out of the 1996 report, it has been the access which the Committee on Budgetary Control has had to persons and papers.
If we are to continue to be an effective Budgetary Control Committee, this must continue in an unfettered way.
<P>
On a more pleasing note, let me move on to my second set of remarks on the 1997 budget.
My Group will support the report put forward by Mr Brinkhorst, the rapporteur, to postpone discharge.
We agree entirely with the reasons for postponement; that is there is no Commission in place to receive that discharge.
In the committee, we have had a long series of discussions on the substantive questions we want both the DGs and the new Commission to address. These are reflected in the working document.
<P>
I should like to commend Mr Brinkhorst on the detailed work he has put into this.
I hope that when the Commission comes back to us in the new Parliament it will take on board and use as a blueprint those questions which are asked in the working document, especially on staffing policies, TAOs, Leonardo and the way in which PHARE and TACIS is operated.
This is so critical for us to function as a parliament.
<P>
On the comment that Mr Brinkhorst makes on the question of the decentralised agencies - which Mr Kellett-Bowman has picked up - it is essential that the Council address that question, which both Parliament and the Commission have agreement on.
<P>
This brings me to the report by Mr Kellett-Bowman.
Again, my friend, and I should like to say colleague, has produced two excellent reports on Dublin and Thessalonika.
He says he has drawn up 15 reports in his time.
This may well be the last report that Mr Kellett-Bowman draws up on the decentralised agencies.
<P>
I wish to put on public record the high esteem in which I hold him as co-rapporteur on the Committee on Budgets for the satellite agencies.
He has taught me and has been an excellent colleague, very thoughtful, critical and precise.
As a lasting memorial to his work, I should like to see the Council now, in recognition of the work he has done, agree to the changes in the statutes for the second generation agencies - changes on the own-resources question, changes on financial control and changes on discharge that will allow Parliament to carry out its responsibilities properly.
Let that be a lasting testament to his work.
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<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Theato">
Mr President, this evening we have a veritable marathon of a debate to complete on discharge reports.
Six reports are on the agenda.
I will not comment on all of them, but will turn to the first, Mr Elles's report, which is not actually a discharge report because it proposes closing the accounts for 1996, and I believe that this is right.
We need to find a way to bring this process to an end, although I do believe that discharge was not given here, because if we look at the result of December's vote, it is clear that the points made previously in support of the decision, the positive decision put forward by the Committee on Budgetary Control, were rejected by the plenary.
That means that no discharge was granted.
Our Rules of Procedure were awry.
Now they have been amended, and there is no need for these matters to arise again.
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We have a precedent for not granting discharge, the 1982 budget, for which the accounts were subsequently closed in 1985.
That is how we should proceed here; we should, however, also bear in mind all the consequences which this has had politically.
That is why it does not make any sense from a political point of view to grant discharge at this stage, because we do not have a Commission in office any more.
It has resigned.
Nevertheless, there will be no need for us to condemn everything that the Commission has done and neither do we wish to do so.
Nor have we ever implied that Commissioners were guilty of being directly involved in criminal activities.
No, but we have established that there is a need for restructuring and that new areas need to undergo a series of reforms which will make us in the European Union fit for the next millennium.
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In this respect, this crisis, which began with the discharge or refusal of discharge for 1996 and the continuation for 1997 - for which we are not recommending discharge either this week, but postponement of discharge - was a necessary crisis, if we think of the positive lessons which we have learnt from it, and which we would have liked to pass on to this Commission, Mr Liikanen.
But that is not how it has turned out.
We all know what has happened.
<P>
In both reports, Mr Elles's report, and here I am also bringing in our rapporteur for 1997, Mr Brinkhorst, two points really do need to be emphasised: we have not voted on conditions for giving discharge; we have annexed working documents. This is an unusual procedure, but I believe that it was the right approach to take, and these documents contain the suggestions - and indeed the demands - which we are passing on to the future Commission.
I hope that the new Parliament and the new Commission will make use of them.
<P>
With your permission, I will just add a word to our rapporteur, Mr Fabra Vallés.
He has produced a very accurate report for the other institutions.
I do think, however, and here I also have the support of the rapporteur, that we must carry out the same controls here and apply standards in our own House which are just as tough as the ones we have imposed on the Commission.
That is why the Council and the Commission, but also Parliament, must abide by the decisions we adopted in the Tsatsos report, for example on party financing, and we must also act properly where filling posts and promotions are concerned.
We owe this to everyone.
<P>
Thank you, Mr President, for giving me the floor once more, and I should also like to thank all the other rapporteurs, whose reports should go through smoothly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Virrankoski">
Mr President, we are now discussing six reports dealing with the subject of the discharge.
I would like to thank the rapporteurs for their excellent work.
Four reports propose that the discharge should be granted, one that it should be postponed, and one that it should be refused.
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The discharge process for the budget this year has become an immense political task.
So it was too last autumn and winter, in connection with the 1996 budget, which led to the Commission's resignation.
Although the process has led to many improvements and positive settlements and solutions, there is a danger that the assessment and discharge process will become inappropriately broad in scope, since the EU's instruments state that Parliament must give a discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget.
The wording stipulates that giving discharge is the aim, with any obstacles being removed beforehand.
Discharge is thus the object of the exercise.
<P>
Discharge as a vote of confidence in the Commission is, however, too broad an interpretation, in my opinion, and there are two reasons for avoiding this.
Although discharge, as it reflects the rules on accounting, is required be granted, Parliament must always be able to intervene in the work of the Commission if it so wishes.
Giving discharge cannot be allowed to act as a barrier to intervention.
Furthermore, in the present situation we can see a backlog starting to build up, with the discharge processes relating to several separate years remaining uncompleted.
Good administration needs to be clear and systematic, and that applies to Parliament also.
The decision on discharge must not be too ponderous or broad in scope, and it should not lead to a situation in which no one dares to give discharge.
<P>
With these observations I wish to say that the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party supports Mr Brinkhorst's report as it stands and without amendments.
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<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in examining the report by our colleague Mr Brinkhorst on the postponement of discharge for the 1997 financial year, we are not aiming to dwell on the serious grievances that have swamped the Commission in recent years and forced it to resign.
We are now at the end of a very eventful and stormy period during which the Commission tarnished its image and lost its credibility.
<P>
And yet we must continue, and to continue means to look to the future and take stock of the task in hand so that where there has been defeat, failure and negativity, tomorrow there will be success, transparency and confidence.
Contrary to what the Council has done lightly and thoughtlessly, we will not grant discharge to the Commission today since, as Laurens Jan Brinkhorst so well explained, discharge will not be granted to a resigning Commission that can no longer advise the European Parliament on future guidelines.
Postponement is therefore the most appropriate solution technically speaking and in political terms it constitutes something of a peace gesture towards the new Commission. However, it does not dismiss the need for us to remain as vigilant as possible or the need to act with a certain resolve.
<P>
The future message we should like to give to the new Commission involves what we no longer want at any cost and what we do want at all costs. We no longer want a weak Commission that is non-existent politically speaking and that is incapable of controlling and managing its administration.
We do not want a Commission where the Commissioners are transformed into shepherds that follow their flocks. We do not want a Commission where some officials, who perhaps head an agency with a particular status, turn out to be true petty tyrants of the organisation, imposing their wishes and desires on their Commissioner, who then admits his ignorance of and lack of interest in the issue even when it concerns an amendment to the Community budget adopted by the European Parliament whose implementation does not present any budgetary difficulties or problems relating to the legal basis.
<P>
We had the misfortune to experience such a Commission and it is precisely what we do not want to see repeated.
I have reread President Santer's speech and I remember that during his investiture in January 1995 he committed himself, in front of this very House, to a genuine culture of financial management.
In the light of recent events, it is all too easy to see the irony in that today.
<P>
It is clear that nothing has been done.
The Commission's only reaction has been to take several subsequent measures aimed at filling in the gaps and appeasing Parliament, but nothing has been drawn up or thought out and no ideas have been formed.
There have been no reforms; the Commission has simply limited itself to promises, preferring rhetoric over action.
The truth is that the Commission was able to identify the problem of the financial mismanagement of European Union policies, but it was unable to come up with any solutions that it could turn into specific actions.
The example of SEM 2000 and the installation of the new ROLEX system to manage all external contracts are good examples of this.
<P>
Another example of inefficiency, this time in the area of Community transport, is the computerisation of transit procedures which has met with many delays.
A final example is that of the technical assistance offices which, as everyone knows, have caused many problems in recent years.
However, in spite of the European Parliament's insistence, the Commission still appears to be continuing to entrust the TAOs with the preparation of invitations to tender and the lists of projects to be retained.
The Commission is not to decide on the projects to be retained, but is to ratify the list drawn up by the private consultants, which, in my view, is unacceptable.
<P>
So, in short, this is what we do not wish to see repeated.
On the other hand, we do want a Commission that takes full responsibility for its actions and choices, that is transparent in its institutional dialogue and that takes on the role of monitoring the operational policies that the services are responsible for implementing.
Since the Court of Auditors has been drawing up the Statement of Assurance concerning activities financed from the general budget of the European Union, the statement has been negative.
However, we hope that a new Commission that is politically consistent and responsible will enable the Court of Auditors to finally draw up a positive Statement of Assurance for the first time.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as everyone knows, we must not be too quick to criticise those who are coming to our aid.
Let us hope that the new Commission will be able to learn from recent events so that it can successfully complete its mandate and so that today's failure opens the way to tomorrow's success.
We are eagerly awaiting Mr Romano Prodi's arrival in the hope that something good will come of something bad.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Miranda">
Mr President, I have two brief comments to make. The first one concerns the granting of discharge for 1997 for the Commission and for the Economic and Social Committee.
It does seem natural to me that this be carried over to the next parliamentary term. However, as rapporteur on the discharge for the Economic and Social Committee for the 1996 financial year, I must stress that discharge cannot be granted until UCLAF has delivered its conclusions on the irregularities detected.
There is no doubt that efforts have been made to correct these irregularities, even to the extent of altering certain working methods, but this does not justify ruling out UCLAF's intervention.
Parliament considered at the time that this intervention was essential for granting the discharge and the Council itself has also recently repeated that this is necessary.
<P>
The failure to complete the 1996 discharge clearly means that the 1997 discharge is being delayed.
I will not go into the discharge procedure for 1996 and the Commission, as I feel that the facts of the matter and the responsibilities assumed speak for themselves.
Moreover, parliamentary history will do the rest.
However, I do want to underline my dissatisfaction with the final solution which some are insisting on recommending in order to complete the procedure. It seems to me that this is completely at odds with the facts and the incomparable importance this procedure has assumed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Mr President, I should like to concentrate on the Elles report concerning the accounts for 1996.
From our group's point of view, it is clear that we cannot close the Commission's accounts, since there are still some unresolved cases concerning which the Greens have tabled three amendments.
It is of course still the case that a sum of nearly EUR 40 000 was paid to a visiting scholar in breach of the Commission's conditions, and this must naturally be looked into.
<P>
Certain unclear points in the Commission's accounts therefore have to be explained before the accounts can be closed.
We have thus tabled Amendment No 1, in which we give the alternative wording: 'takes note of the following data established by the Commission in order to close the accounts for the financial year 1996'.
However, we cannot close the accounts.
<P>
I am surprised to see that the Socialists are tabling an amendment which would do away with paragraph 1 of the Elles report, which is the vital one, stating that we recall our definitive decision not to grant discharge to the Commission in respect of the 1996 financial year.
It should be clear to everyone that this paragraph must remain.
<P>
As regards the Brinkhorst report, the same thing applies, namely that discharge cannot be given until a great deal of missing information is supplied by the Commission.
The Greens have tabled a number of amendments relating to this report as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, since the post-war years an insidious practice has grown up in Italy, resulting in even illustrious lawyers justifying the distinction that is made between the constitution as written and the constitution as applied in practice.
Following a philosophy which can be traced back in particular to the culture of the Communist Party and to an idea of the sociology-inspired left, it is said that, although written texts exist, they can be amended if so desired by the majority or by a dominant group in politics or public opinion.
This is still considered acceptable: written texts can hence be spirited away because at the end of the day theory takes second place to practice.
<P>
In countries with an Anglo-Saxon legal system, where there is no constitution, it seems to me that the rule of law is the cardinal principle which governs these countries, and indeed governs them much better and has protected them from the type of vision which at any point allows the majority to decide whatever it likes: there are laws, there are texts but that does not matter, you can say something completely different as long as this is what the majority wants.
And this is indeed the principle which in many countries has led to totalitarianism, intolerance and 'people's democracies'.
Liberals, who have always taken the rule of law as the cornerstone of their political action, have always based their arguments on the principle that there can be no objection to the texts themselves.
<P>
Now, in our regulatory texts, leaving aside the amendment of the regulation we will be voting on tomorrow, the way in which the budget discharge procedure is regulated is set out in black and white for all to see; one may disagree with it but that is the way it is: if a text is tabled in this House and the proposal to which it refers is rejected, the proposal is referred back to the committee responsible.
It is extremely serious that this Parliament's final act should be to vote on a text which says something erroneous, or rather states - and in a forum which one might expect to respect the rule of law - that after referring back to committee, in other words rejecting, the proposal by Mr Elles, the rapporteur on the 1996 discharge procedure, that discharge should be granted to the Commission - actually meaning that the European Parliament would not grant discharge - we are today voting on a text which says something entirely wrong.
On a political level, there may have been the resignations and there may therefore be a majority as far as the form is concerned but that is an entirely separate argument.
I will fight and vote against asserting something which quite simply is not the case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, the latest Elles report marks the end of an eventful discharge procedure, a procedure that needs to be transparent so that the order of events is not forgotten.
<P>
More than a year ago, on 31 March 1998, the European Parliament decided to postpone the decision to grant the Commission discharge for the financial year 1996.
We must not forget that following on from this, at the beginning of December, the Group of the Party of European Socialists and the Committee on Budgetary Control decided nevertheless to recommend to the House that it grant discharge for the Commission.
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On 17 December 1998, the majority of the House fortunately allowed common sense to prevail and refused to grant discharge.
Given the seriousness of the irregularities and the examples of mismanagement, we immediately sought to take appropriate action and proposed that a motion of censure should be tabled.
The motion was then tabled on 11 January by 70 Members from all the political groups, who at that time were heavily criticised with no right of reply, and I am thinking, in particular, of the chairman of the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
However, 232 Members decided to match their words with actions by supporting the motion of censure against the Commission.
<P>
Then, a committee of 'wise men' was set up as part of a manoeuvre that was designed to overturn their decision.
This committee naturally confirmed what the majority of Members had suspected.
We welcome today's calls by our colleague James Elles for the situation to be clarified once and for all and for the discharge to be refused outright while the accounts are adopted.
We expect Parliament to support him and to do so openly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bösch">
Mr President, I should like to say a few words on the postponement of the discharge for 1997, not least in view of what we have just been discussing, namely that where OLAF is concerned, we have actually found a basis on which the institutions can work together, which is obviously also a good indication of the political will to cooperate that exists.
We have of course also drawn up a number of special documents on this discharge, in other words on Mr Brinkhorst's report, and I have to say that I am rather irritated that we have not received any response at all from the current Commission to documents which will soon be three months old.
<P>
I know that this Commission has only been an acting Commission for some time.
However, I am assuming that individual Commissioners might perhaps also wish to belong to the next Commission.
I think that precisely from the point of view of political understanding, it is very important to realise that Parliament cannot be treated like this!
Of course, we do not always expect results of investigations down to the last detail, but we do still have unfinished business to complete.
The chairman of the Budgetary Control Committee, Mrs Theato, has already referred today, for example, to the fact that we still have to accept that the cases which were submitted to us of officials being involved in instances of fraud have not yet been presented in a form which we can understand.
<P>
As far as the ECHO case is concerned, we have to take it that this affair could assume even greater proportions, but there is not even any information available on the events relating to 1997 - and it is the 1997 financial year that we are dealing with here.
The same applies to the points which we have touched on concerning agriculture which various other colleagues are also working on.
<P>
We have made a great deal of effort with the new anti-fraud authority.
Of course this has involved the application of a little friendly pressure, in particular on the part of the Council presidency and our own House, to make the Commission finally understand that it cannot simply deny facts which are on the table.
Otherwise we will have to deal with these matters in another forum, and that would be before the European public.
I do not wish to threaten anyone, but we have to state clearly what we as a Parliament expect of the Commission in terms of accountability, in particular if any of its Members also wish to be in the next Commission!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Tillich">
Mr President, the 1996 and 1997 discharge procedures changed the way the institutions work together in the field of budgetary control - before, we only had cooperation of this sort with the budget.
<P>
I said in the debate on the 1996 discharge back in December that I was actually disappointed by our arrogance - as reflected in the Treaties - in not even allowing for the possibility of discharge being refused.
Mrs Theato pointed this out, and the Rules Committee of this House has now rectified the situation at last.
Now, of course, I should also like to invite the Council to continue its work, so that it too will finally meet the conditions.
<P>
Our group has been consistent in its position; it is also thanks to the stubborn and tough stance deliberately adopted by our rapporteur, Mr Elles, that ultimately the whole House has gone along with this approach, and today we have a success for which we in principle have only one person to thank, the rapporteur, Mr Elles, with his report on the 1996 budget discharge.
<P>
Discharge will not be granted for 1996, the accounts will be closed, and discharge can only be given for 1997 if - as you have just quite rightly said, Mr Bösch - the deficiencies are ironed out; the fact that they have not been has of course just been criticised by us both.
A working paper and work programme have already been included in the Elles report; no one has yet reacted to them.
There was a report from the Committee of Wise Men, and this in fact only confirmed what we had already established ourselves.
<P>
Now we are in a state of uncertainty which will drag on until September if the Committee of Wise Men presents a second report, and I do not believe that anyone in this House is happy about being in limbo in this way.
But to avoid overburdening the 1998 discharge procedure with these problems as well, the 1997 discharge procedure has to be brought to a conclusion.
If it is not, we shall never be finished with this matter and I will probably be affected by this personally in the 1998 budgetary procedure.
That is why I wish to invite the Commission - whoever wishes to take the responsibility for this - finally to take the measures which we have demanded.
<P>
I am already worried, Mrs Cresson; your work with Leonardo concerned the 1998 financial year.
At the time, we were accused of confusing 1996 and 1998.
No, the problem is that this came to light in 1998, and I should like to ask you, Mr Liikanen, to tell your colleagues that at that time, in the summer, we sat upstairs on the seventh floor - things were really pleasant and friendly then - and made you an offer: be open, admit your mistakes, show us where the faults lie, and we will be prepared to compromise.
That did not happen, and now you will have to find a way of dealing with the severity with which you are now being treated.
But this is also significant for the 1997 and 1998 discharges.
<P>
I now turn to the House itself.
Since the very member of the Socialist Group who has been the most cooperative towards us is sitting here, I will actually avoid criticising the Socialist Group; otherwise I would have said that the dilemma facing us today is in fact the fault of the Socialist Group.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Kjer Hansen">
<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, I have closely examined the report by the Committee of Wise Men which suggests that both the Members of the Commission and its officials lack a sense of accountability.
A sense of accountability, according to the report, is a pre-condition of democracy.
The report states how abuse was not investigated in the Commission, or, if it was, it was investigated too late and too long.
Furthermore, the penalties were too lenient.
The same is true of the conclusions on the matter now in hand, which was the basis for refusing discharge.
The Commission resigned, but from the point of view of the Commission this resignation was very obviously an advantageous decision.
I read in the 'European Voice' that on their resignation, the Commissioners would receive a three year severance package.
If they had been dismissed such an arrangement would not have been made.
Commissioner Van Miert had thus suggested that they should resign as one body, thus guaranteeing the implementation of the severance package.
In my opinion, it is wrong and unfair that they should be rewarded so well for the work they have done so badly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Theato">
Mr President, I realise that our rapporteur, Mr Wynn, was not here to present the reports on the discharge for 1996 and 1997.
The reports were adopted in committee without any amendments.
They were finalised in committee and can therefore also be put on the agenda for tomorrow's vote.
I should like to mention this here for the sake of the procedure, because an opinion was delivered on the subject by Mrs Günther which likewise dealt with the development budget for 1996 and 1997.
According to the procedure, we therefore ought to include this on the voting list for tomorrow.
I should like to ask you to see to this, because as I have said, the rapporteur was not present.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Theato.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Mr President, I am sorry I am late, but there are other meetings taking place at the same time and it simply is not possible to be in two places at once!
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, throughout the debate about reforming the Commission, I have supported clear principles, and today these same principles once again form the basis of the amendments I have tabled to the Elles, Brinkhorst and Fabra Vallés reports.
<P>
Firstly, responsibility must be seen to be accepted.
That is why the accounts for the 1996 financial year cannot be closed straight away, for example while there has been no reimbursement in areas where nepotism has been established.
<P>
Secondly, the greater the transparency, the less need there is for controls.
As long as the Commission still does not respect Parliament's right to have access to information, the institutions cannot trust each other, and nor will they win the increased trust of the general public.
That also applies to a Commission which has resigned.
<P>
Thirdly, Parliament's criticism of the Commission will only be credible in the eyes of the general public if it adopts the same critical attitude towards itself.
As long as documents in connection with proceedings against SEL are withheld from me and the Committee on Budgetary Control, discharge should not be granted for Parliament either.
I hope I have made it clear that where discharge is concerned, my group is guided by its own principles, which indeed apply to both the Commission and Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, firstly I should like to reply to Mr Elles' questions concerning the preparation of the different documents which were based on the programme which Mr Santer presented in January and which was referred to in many of the discharge reports.
The preparatory work on the code was very far advanced by mid-March.
The code of conduct for officials was ready in the Commission but it went to negotiations with the staff organisations.
It is available from the Commission.
Also, the first drafts of the code of conduct between the cabinets and services have been drawn up and, as far as the nominations are concerned, that was under way.
At the same time, the Commission has taken a decision to freeze all nominations of A1 and A2 level until the new Commission is in place.
A decision was taken to freeze all the nominations until the code of conduct was accepted.
<P>
Secondly, as far as the Staff Regulations reform is concerned, there was the famous David Williamson report which was presented last autumn.
The technical consensus-seeking negotiations with the staff organisation have started and also the first political consensus-seeking sessions have taken place.
The position of the Commission was that the Williamson reform serves as a good basis except in one area.
The Commission would like to have more open options for disciplinary procedures.
There was a clear opinion that more independent disciplinary procedures should be envisaged.
At the moment disciplinary procedures are always internal.
They are based on joint opinions.
There has also been a strong opinion that outside, independent, experienced people with experience in judicial procedures should be involved.
That part has been most open.
<P>
All this work has been done and now it is for the next Commission to take the political initiatives.
It will help the new Commission that this preparatory work has been done and the new Commission can make a political choice on the codes of conduct.
If the Committee on Budgetary Control in the meetings in June wants to hear about these preparations I will be available on a personal basis.
It has been understood by the Commission that to take clear and strictly political decisions which tie the hands of the new Commission at a time when the Commission has resigned is a question which must be considered on a case-by-case basis.
<P>
For the rest, the Commission takes note that the discharge procedure for 1996 is about to reach its conclusion on the institutional legal side which is being discussed here today.
I refer to discussions which we had earlier here on the basis of the Fayot report.
As to the discharge reports for 1997, the Commission takes note of the fact that the Committee on Budgetary Control has proposed postponement of the discharge on institutional grounds connected with the Commission's resignation.
On the guidelines contained in the working document annexed to the motion for resolution, it will therefore be for the next Commission to take the appropriate initiatives.
Mr Bösch put a question here but the Commission has replied to those issues.
I am sure that Mr Brinkhorst can confirm that we have had a great number of discussions and meetings.
We have also sent documents to the Committee on Budgetary Control even though it is difficult for the Commission to make a political commitment for the next Commission.
That is excluded.
However, if you want to clarify things, I am available as are other Commissioners as along as we are in office.
Our responsibility is to work, but undertaking a commitment to changes of a political character is for the next Commission.
<P>
I would also stress that the guidelines presented by the rapporteur are part of a major reform movement.
The Commission has started reforms of SEM 2000, sound financial management.
I disagree to an extent with Mr Giansily.
There have been achievements as well as failures.
It is very important to analyse what went well and what went badly in order to progress further with reforms.
In the area of the structural funds the new regulations are clearer.
The eligibilities for different funds have been agreed.
The possibility to use financial correction is there.
There have been issues where Parliament and Commission have agreed and there has been progress.
<P>
But there has been a problem, I can admit that when we have taken decisions at political level which are clear and in the right direction, the ability of the Commission to implement the decisions in all its services in the same way has been weak.
They have been implemented in some services but not in all.
That is the issue the new Commission must pay a lot of attention to.
It is important to take the right decisions but it is equally important to have a system to guarantee that all will be implemented to the very end.
<P>
In the MAP 2000 area there have been improvements in decentralisation towards the separate DGs and cutting down the red tape so that all the officials could be directly responsible.
Much remains to be done.
And the design of the Commission for tomorrow is being prepared for the next Commission.
It is very important that the new President has all the elements on the table when he takes his decisions on the portfolios and, in that context, on the structure of the services.
<P>
I agree with three major conclusions of the rapporteur.
One is that there must be an improved partnership/management of Community actions.
It is very important that the Commission and Member States act together and that the rules and responsibilities are clear and are shared and that we know how to correct things if they go badly.
We have already made an effort and I am sure we can continue.
I was happy to note that the rapporteurs of the Committee on Budgetary Control were at the sessions with the Member States last time.
Both sides found it very useful.
<P>
Secondly, the issue of decentralisation and devolution of Commission action especially in the field of external programmes is extremely important but we need very strict rules for the delegation of the management of Community policies and that must always be actively pursued.
In that context there has been an area where the problems were bigger than expected.
For those who came into this House in 1995, I am referring to the area of the external offices which were performing many tasks for the Union.
Thanks to cooperation with Parliament we have been able to agree now the budgetary framework so that there must always be budgetary commentary.
As you know we have drafted a vademecum on the issues which can be given to external sources and on what rules must be respected.
But it is very clear that this work must continue.
That has also been discussed in the reports by Mr Elles, Mr Brinkhorst and Mr Bourlanges.
<P>
The third area which is very important is the global reform of financial regulations.
There also the first communication has been done.
Mr Dell'Alba was the rapporteur.
Discussion continues.
We are waiting for the financial decision of the Court of Auditors.
It is extremely important to try to put all these small reforms in one clear global financial regulation where the roles and responsibilities of each player in the implementation of the budget within the Commission, namely the authorising officer, the financial controller and the accounting officer, will be clearly defined.
That is extremely important.
<P>
Finally, it has been a painful year and obviously this will be the last time we have an open debate on the issue.
It is extremely important that all of us who care about the future of the Union, care about the good execution of the Community budget, care about the value of the taxpayers' money try to utilise all this to achieve deeper reform which has clear objectives and a strong capacity of implementation which can lead to results.
I say that only because I know that in the House there are also people who are very worried and rather disconcerted because of this public debate.
It is not the fault of any of us but we must take that into account.
We hope that the painful experience of this Commission can be used by the next Commission so that it will strengthen and not weaken the process for reform.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
Mr Elles has a brief comment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="Elles">
Mr President, I would like to clarify one point in the Commissioner's response to this debate.
I thank him for the information he gave us on a number of these codes of conduct.
However, there is one report which I referred to in my speech which relates to paragraph 7 of the January resolution.
In the absence of any Socialist member of the Committee on Budgetary Control, I think I should do it on everyone's behalf.
It says: 'Looks forward to the report of the President of the Commission preparing for the Cologne Summit of the internal reform of the Commission.
We plan to hold a major debate in this May session'.
Could I ask the Commissioner to provide this report when it is available to the new Parliament so that we will have all the information at our disposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="Liikanen">
I know that a lot of work has been done, in these exceptional circumstances, by the services and the Cabinet of the President.
I will talk to him about the issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
List of legislative proposals pending
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0255/99) by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the implications of the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam (list of legislative proposals pending as at 1 May 1999, indicating new legal bases and any changes in legislative procedure following the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam) (C4-0134/99 - SEC(99)0581 - C4-0219/99).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, Commissioner, I was just thinking that this is the last report I shall give as rapporteur in this parliamentary term.
I was also thinking that few parliamentarians can have been lucky enough to cut their political teeth on the directive on voting rights for citizens of the Union resident in a Member State other than their own, and to draw their career to a close with this report on the implications of the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam for legislative proposals pending. Indeed, the start of my parliamentary career was also the first time I appeared in an institutionalised political forum.
<P>
That said, and with a certain nostalgia for the other reports I have presented and the many times I have spoken in the House over the years, I shall move on to the issue we are concerned with today.
Commissioner, I must first say on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs that we have taken note of the document you have presented to us. I hope Parliament will confirm this tomorrow but we accept, share and understand its content, despite the pressures of time imposed by the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
It is an excellent working document and I naturally agree with the philosophy behind it, which is clear and which specifies the essential details.
<P>
Nevertheless, Mr President, Commissioner, Parliament can go no further.
It will be for the incoming Parliament to consider the validity of the legal bases in each case, pursuant to our Rules of Procedure.
<P>
This report goes beyond merely listing the changes the Commission has noted and which it suggests other institutions consider, though these should be borne in mind.
Procedural changes affecting more than a hundred acts are noted. Eighty of these involve transfers from the cooperation procedure to the codecision procedure in areas such as transport, the environment and social affairs.
Changes in the legal bases are also recorded, notably concerning matters covered under the old Article 43 - agriculture - and which now come under the title covering public health.
Finally, there are very significant changes concerning the policy, content, aim, inspiration and underlying political principles behind issues moving from the third to the first pillar in the area of justice and home affairs. The integration of the social protocol into the Treaty itself constitutes another important change.
<P>
Faced with what is undoubtedly a complex situation, one thing is clear: there is no transitional law, there are no transitional provisions within the Treaty of Amsterdam.
We are therefore called upon to come up with an integrated and constructive interpretation based on the principles underlying the Treaty.
As far as Parliament is concerned, this interpretation is based on three points.
We must exercise our responsibility towards the people preserving the powers granted to Parliament under the Treaty, and we must guard these powers, just as we should when they are granted to other institutions. The new consultations relating to the Committee of the Regions or the Economic and Social Committee are good examples of this.
<P>
In this connection, Parliament will not bow to any other institution's interpretation of procedural matters. Such matters must be considered - as the Commission's report rightly points out - on the basis that the act adopted will be adopted in accordance with the Treaty of Amsterdam, and that this is the procedure that must be followed.
Moving on from here, we are bound by another important principle which is also related to the responsibility we have to the people and which I mentioned earlier. I am referring to the principle of preserving the acts, the principle of being as effective as possible and of providing the best and fastest response to the people.
Therefore, whenever possible, we shall confirm and ratify procedural arrangements to ensure that each act is adopted and comes into effect at the earliest opportunity.
<P>
Consequently, as a general principle, Mr President, we should be unyielding on general principles but as flexible as possible on specific applications.
<P>
In conclusion, what we are confronted with is a change that summarises Parliament's philosophy very well indeed. As Commissioner Oreja is on record as saying, this is a change which from 1 May will equip the European Union with a more efficient instrument, one which is more open to dialogue with the people, more democratic and more outward-looking.
I believe that this report responds to these ideas.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="Oreja">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I must congratulate Mrs Ana de Palacio.
She herself referred to her first and last speeches, but I would like to emphasise that between them Mrs Palacio has applied herself to her work intelligently, competently and with great energy.
All of us as individuals and all the institutions have most certainly benefited from her contribution over the last five years.
<P>
Turning to the report before us today, the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam did of course mean that we had to resolve a number of procedural issues concerning legislative proceedings pending.
Matters have not been helped by the fact that the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam coincided with the final part-session of this Parliament. Nevertheless, we are convinced that the loyal cooperation between the institutions will enable us to find a solution to any problems which may arise.
<P>
As you are all aware, on 1 May the Commission forwarded to Parliament and the Council a communication detailing the consequences of the entry into force of the Treaty for all proposals already submitted and not yet adopted.
Eighty proposals previously subject to the cooperation procedure will now have to be considered and adopted under the codecision procedure.
For some 20 proposals, Parliament's involvement changes from a simple ruling to codecision. Further, the legal bases of 27 proposals have been modified.
<P>
Parliament has already made its views on a number of these proposals clear, and the Commission has incorporated some or all of these into its amended proposals.
We believe it is very important to ensure that the people of Europe do not feel that the Community's decision-making powers have been constrained as a result of the entry into force of the Treaty or because of the parliamentary elections.
It is therefore essential to carry on with the legislative work as usual.
<P>

Mrs Palacio's report suggests a procedure confirming the one that was chosen by the European Parliament after Maastricht. It involves Parliament's confirmation of the legislative procedures already under way whose legal bases or procedures have been amended pursuant to the Treaty of Amsterdam.
It is worth mentioning that some cases call for swift action, particularly the three concerning approval of the conclusions of the negotiations on Agenda 2000.
<P>
I certainly appreciate the goodwill Parliament has shown in dealing with all urgent pending matters - especially those relating to Agenda 2000 - at this part-session despite the pressures of time.
<P>
Finally, I should like to refer to the proposals pending concerning justice and home affairs and affected by the fact that under the Treaty of Amsterdam such matters have now become a responsibility of the Community.
In these cases, the Commission will formally table new proposals. The content of these will naturally be retained, but the most appropriate legal instrument will be used, be it a regulation or a directive.
As for the two agreements on the forwarding of acts and the recognition of decisions in marital matters and parental responsibility, these will be forwarded to the Council and to Parliament immediately. They are due to be adopted by the Commission tomorrow in accordance with the Treaty.
<P>
In conclusion, I should like to emphasise that in view of the institutional calendar and the political circumstances which have resulted in the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam coinciding with the advent of a new Parliament and a new Commission, it will be for the incoming members of both these institutions to pursue dialogue on this issue with the Council.
Thank you very much and congratulations once again, Mrs Palacio.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=13>
Dispute between the EU and the USA
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="President">
The next item is the statement by the Commission on the WTO dispute settlement procedure for the dispute between the European Union and the United States.
<P>
I should like to welcome the Commissioner, Sir Leon Brittan.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="Brittan">
<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Erika">
Commissioner Brittan, once again you have made the position very clear, and indeed you have also dealt with the various trade disputes in which we have been engaged with the United States for quite a number of months, if not for years in some cases.
Several points give me cause for some concern.
Without further ado, I should like to turn to the first of these.
All these cases, these trade disputes, in which we are at present engaged with the United States or with Canada, are in principle test cases, in which the boundaries set by the World Trade Organisation are being scrutinised to see how much independence and autonomy countries actually have to determine their own policies in particular fields, whether it is consumer protection, whether it is health care, whether it is a question of how policies with respect to developing countries can be implemented - as in the banana case - or whether it is about standards.
These are all key questions, and we have a World Trade Organisation which has marked out a framework within which we have to act as a trading partner.
In principle and by and large we are happy, but we know that there are definite borderline situations and cases which are being tested out by means of complaints or rulings.
This is the situation in which we find ourselves.
<P>
My second concern is that there are two conflicting models here, and the hormones case illustrates this perfectly: the famous American model, if I may call it that, with a different system of health care, and the European model, in which welfare is given greater prominence.
<P>
What bothers me is how we are going to be able to work together in the future and how in the new trade round we are going to be able on the one hand to agree on more common standards, while on the other hand guaranteeing a greater degree of independence and autonomy in the self-determination of regions and countries.
That will not be very easy; indeed we have already discussed in the committee several times how this is to be achieved.
This hormone case will be the test case for the European Union.
This will far surpass everything we experienced in the banana dispute, because here consumers will of course be very sensitive, and they want policies which guarantee the highest possible standards of health care and health protection.
<P>
At the moment, I am very unsure of how we can react in the light of the answer which you have given.
On no account should we rule out any option, and on no account - this is my group's opinion and other colleagues will also be mentioning this - should we make any concessions at this stage.
On no account should we make a political statement committing ourselves to anything before we have the final results of the scientific investigations.
Only then should we reopen discussions - involving Parliament, the Council and the Commission - on what our next move ought to be.
At the present time, I would consider a statement of any kind to be premature.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kittelmann">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, at a time of great agitation, whether the source of this is the Kosovo conflict or a different conflict altogether, we are again obliged to debate a subject in the European Parliament which has already occupied all of us for too long, the trade dispute with the USA. The United States is insisting on one point of view, firstly with bananas - an issue which has most likely been resolved in its favour - and now with hormones, where it is extremely difficult to draw the picture in such a way that it will attract the sympathy of those outside the European Union, because the trade disputes we are talking about here only involve 2 % of our joint trade.
<P>
But it is precisely because of this that I should like, on this occasion, to make a clear appeal to the United States.
Although we know about the need for innovation, what really matters to us Europeans is not neglecting our traditional roots.
I am thinking here, for example, of banana growing in some Member States and protecting our consumers, to whom we are accountable as elected Members, and we need to further consolidate that level of protection.
<P>
In doing so, we also take the liberty of setting different priorities from those of our American colleagues in Congress.
However, I do think it is essential also to appeal to the Commission and the Council.
Sir Leon, our experience of working with you over the last few years has been extremely positive, because during the transatlantic trade disputes you have worked very closely with the European Parliament.
I should like to thank you very much for that, but you alone are not the Commission and the Council.
I should therefore, on behalf of my group, also like to ask that any efforts to resolve the trade disputes by extending the procedure before the WTO, so as to delay the result, should be vigorously opposed.
I must remind all of us of what we have done frequently in the past.
The European Union and the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia each have one vote in the WTO, but hundreds of developing countries, who are waiting in the WTO and hoping that their interests will also be taken into consideration, must not be sidelined by ongoing disputes between the European Union and the USA, because there are other fundamental problems too.
<P>
I also ask that we Europeans do not only think about playing for time in order to delay the process of rectifying the underlying injustices.
As the general rapporteur of the European Parliament, I should also like to warn that behaviour of this kind - playing with WTO rules mainly for political motives - might weaken the standing of the WTO both in the eyes of the USA and in the eyes of our own voters.
<P>
I should also like to call on the Socialist Group to support the PPE Group's line on this issue.
We are all experiencing all kinds of political difficulties as a result of the banana ruling and the hormone case.
Nevertheless, in spite of these difficulties, we should not lose sight of the essential features of the legal solution, which is actually a workable one.
The WTO banana ruling requires us to produce a clear regime for our own producers and ACP producers, as far as providing adequate market access for all third countries is concerned.
I would also plead for a solution to be found as quickly as possible, because the legitimate imposition of punitive tariffs by the USA has put other sectors of the economy under considerable pressure and jobs are at risk in Europe as a result.
As regards assessing and authorising hormone-treated beef from the USA, I would ask you to bear in mind that the reason we set up a multilateral legal framework was precisely to protect weaker states.
Thanks to the WTO and because we are not giving in to market power, we have a legal procedure for raising legitimate concerns.
But if no hard scientific evidence can be produced, then obviously no import ban can be imposed.
The first in a series of reports assessing the health risks of hormone-treated meat has, however, come out today.
The first point to emerge from this is that it is not completely safe to consume this meat.
But we should avoid having a transatlantic - or indeed a European - philosophical war about individual reports and should wait calmly for the final verdict of the scientific community.
It is noticeable that comments made in the interim are based more on emotion than on the facts.
<P>
Today we have tried to combine the various opinions held in the European Parliament in one joint motion, to allow Europe to speak with one voice on this important matter.
I would therefore ask you to vote in favour of this motion for a resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Mulder">
Mr President, the main point for my group is that we have concluded an agreement under the terms of the WTO and must abide by the legal rulings which have been given.
I agree with what the Commissioner said about the consequences to be drawn.
<P>
Far more problematic is the question of animal hormones.
In the first place, I think it has to be absolutely certain that there is no threat to human health.
The second point I would raise is that of consideration for animals.
Can these hormones be fed to animals without doing them harm?
I think European views on this are very different from those in the United States, and this too is something we must raise in the forthcoming talks.
<P>
The second question I would ask of the Commissioner is this: what happens if we permit US meat containing hormones, provided it is labelled?
Can we then legitimately forbid European producers to use animal hormones?
What will the upshot of that be?
<P>
Lastly, Parliament has made numerous pronouncements already on the whole question of policy regarding the quality of farm products.
Parliament unanimously adopted a resolution last October which broadly sets out what a policy of quality for European farm products might comprise.
I suggest that this be taken into consideration in future discussions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herzog">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the recent disputes with the United States lead me to two conclusions.
The first is the need to foster dialogue with the Americans, as well as with other regions of the world, because we need now, and will need in the future, to form new alliances. The second is the need for greater vigilance on the part of the European Union in the WTO negotiations, bearing in mind their growing importance.
This is of course a collective problem that also involves the European Parliament.
<P>
In my view, in the banana affair, which you dealt with so well, the European Union must pursue its action against unilateral legislation before the WTO.
With regard to hormone-treated beef, there are fundamental issues at stake, such as food safety and the choice of agricultural model.
The interim report and the concerns voiced in the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue considerably consolidate our position on the matter and, as Erika Mann mentioned, it is important not to make any concessions at this stage.
If there is any compensation, it must be of a temporary nature.
And as regards labelling, any change in approach would, at present, seriously weaken our position.
<P>
Above all, Commissioner, bearing in mind the problems posed by the old WTO agreements on these types of products, I should like to know if you would consider reopening the WTO file on two counts. First, we need a better definition of the precautionary principle with, in particular, a reversal of the need to furnish proof where doubts arise.
Second, we need a better definition of expertise, because the Codex Alimentarius cannot be considered to be an unequivocal legitimate reference.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Thank you Mr President. With all due respect, Sir Leon, we have to discuss this now, and when you say that there is no reason for consumers to panic because we have the ban, then I have to say that we are on the brink of lifting the ban and, as Mrs Mann said, this is undoubtedly about the different ways of life in America and Europe.
However, it is also about the huge interests of hormone producers and users here in Europe, Mr Kittelmann, as is apparent from your speech and the softly-softly manner in which it was made.
In fact, we now have exactly what you wanted: no emotion, but the scientific proof - and, as requested, this is qualitative not quantitative - that the use of hormones is harmful, that they pose a risk to health, that they are carcinogenic and that they cause puberty to begin prematurely in girls; I am just translating what it says here.
This is what we have repeatedly stated and pointed out in the past: the use of sex hormones disturbs the hormonal balance in children at this particularly sensitive time.
<P>
Sir Leon, consumer protection must take priority here, and this is not a legal issue; the legal issue should take second place to consumer protection and preventing the public from harm.
Neither, Mr Mulder, is it about not complying with WTO rules and negotiated agreements.
We want very much to comply with them, but we need to have some input into them and we need to develop them further where dispute settlement is concerned, as well as in the social and environmental fields and in the fields of health and culture.
<P>
Sir Leon, we have seen that when dubious substances of this kind are used, the floodgates are opened, including for illegal use.
In fact we can see it now with the samples which the Commission has taken that banned hormones are being used in the USA, and that it is not true that the meat which comes here is hormone-free.
That means that if we were to lift this hormone ban, we would have to authorise the use of hormones here, with all their adverse consequences.
Side-effects might be acceptable where medicines are concerned, Sir Leon, but with food there should be no such side-effects, and here the burden of proof needs to be reversed so that those who wish to produce and use these substances have to prove that they are harmless.
That is what we should say in the WTO negotiations, and we should raise the issue of our European way of life and ensure that we are able to keep it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, in this trade war concerning bananas and hormones there is a sting in the tail which, as we all know, affects European businesses and economic sectors which have nothing to do with the sectors involved in the dispute.
This is part of the American philosophy of taking the offensive, to which it would be a good idea to respond, using the same instruments of course, but we cannot continue to ignore the price being paid as a result by some economic sectors and I would also point out, Sir Leon, by some countries more than others.
I have never been an ardent nationalist but there is no doubt that if we look at the statistics - and you must know them better than we do - we can see that Italy and some of Italy's economic sectors have been hardest hit by the punitive duties imposed as part of the American retaliation.
For example, the battery and accumulator industry is incurring extremely heavy losses, amounting to millions and millions of dollars, as a result of the 100 % duty rates imposed under the terms of this war.
<P>
The proposal we would therefore make, and I know that this is being studied by DG I, is to set up a compensation fund, to propose to the budget authority that in order to give you and our common trade policy some weapons with which to fight, it should put into the budget a fund, a reserve which could provide compensation for European businesses that are the innocent victims of this fair and necessary common trade policy.
This is the suggestion which I should like the House to approve, but at the same time I would like to support the studies you are carrying out with a view to making a practical proposal, so that the new financial perspective and the new budget also contain a pm entry, a specific reference to this extra weapon for our common trade policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth-Behrendt">
Madam President, Commissioner - for the moment - I listened carefully to what you had to say.
Your speech surprised me; no, actually it did not surprise me.
But in fact it did surprise me, because there are only two explanations for it.
Either you cannot read, or you had a preconceived opinion and wanted this opinion to be confirmed, and that is why you do not like the scientific reports.
<P>
Let us consider where we stand today.
You said that it was a legal and economic issue.
Is it a legal issue?
The WTO Appellate Body has told us to prove that there is a health risk.
Has it not been proven?
The danger is proven, so where does that leave us today?
Mrs Mann said that we were not actually sure how we should react, and Mr Kittelmann said that any action we took had to be legal and actually workable.
Mr Kittelmann, I look forward with great interest to seeing how you explain to your voters at the elections to the parliament in Berlin what is legal and actually workable.
It was 20 years ago, Sir Leon, when colleagues of yours did this in your country, the United Kingdom, and look where that got us with BSE.
You are well on the way to continuing that process with the government of the United Kingdom, should you believe that you have their support.
<P>
Let us just consider where we are.
We have six hormones.
The scientific reports say that all of them pose a risk to health and that one of them both causes cancer and aggravates it, and you dare to say in all seriousness, Sir Leon, that now there should be greater transparency.
Is that what you have in your Directorate-General and in your private office?
I would love to know.
There should be greater transparency, we need new analyses: which ones then?
Ones which support and match what you actually want?
And you say that we need new scientific data. Which data would that be, Sir Leon?
I know that really you were in favour of the labelling option.
Anyone who can read, see and hear knows that.
But you also know what the labelling option means.
A piece of meat can perhaps be labelled, but nothing which derives from it can be, not minced meat and nothing, nothing, nothing more!
You, the Commission, repeatedly told us this, did you not, when we were in favour of comprehensive labelling and wanted that in Parliament.
Anyone who is in favour of labelling now is saying loud and clear: we actually accept health risks, we do not take any notice of them, and we accept that people will be at risk, including children who have not reached puberty - Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf made that point.
Mr Kittelmann, go out onto the streets in Berlin and say: 'but it does say on the label that it is highly dangerous for children during puberty and for everyone else as well; and if people already have cancer it encourages more tumours to form, and in addition it can be carcinogenic'.
Go on, why not?
I could not hope for more in the election campaign!
<P>
Now just tell me one thing, Sir Leon. You will not be in office for much longer, and that is why I do not actually need to hold too intensive a discussion with you.
Whom are you actually representing here?
Are you representing the USA, or are you representing the European Union?
If so, whom in the European Union?
Certainly not consumers, because if so you would be aware that one of the basic principles of European Union legislation is that only safe, completely harmless products are allowed onto the market, and even then they are labelled.
You see, a label is not a warning notice, Sir Leon; a label provides consumers with information, but the assumption is that the products are safe.
That is not the case here, and what you are doing at the moment is what I would normally describe as reckless, but it is irresponsible, and I will make it clear in public what the Christian Democrats here in this House stand for!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Ferrer">
Madam President, I shall concentrate on the crisis triggered by the banana sector, particularly because it seems logical for this sector to be the one most affected by the crisis.
What does not seem as logical is that yet again the textile sector - among many others - is suffering the consequences of a crisis that has nothing to do with it. Indeed, following the decision by the WTO arbitration body, export tariffs for this sector will be increased by 100 %.
Cotton bed linen and cashmere goods are particularly badly hit, as are other sectors, specifically those on the list that accompanies the World Trade Organisations's ruling. For the companies involved, the consequences will be very serious indeed.
As you are aware, Commissioner, the textile sector is going through a particularly difficult time as it is being forced to compete with massive imports of cheap goods from Turkey and Asia. As a result, its plight is causing great concern.
<P>
Furthermore, not all the Member States of the European Union are affected by the measures mentioned. This constitutes a serious distortion of the rules of competition within the single market and it will lead to even further negative consequences for those companies affected by the high tariffs the United States is imposing in its sanctions.
<P>
Consequently, for these sectors which are now the victims of the banana war, it is essential to settle the dispute as soon as possible.
I have therefore been very encouraged by what you said, and by the details of the initiatives and actions you mentioned that are aimed at finding a solution at the earliest opportunity. In addition, I am in favour of setting up a compensation fund to assist companies affected by the sanctions.
Without assistance, many of these companies will soon be in a critical situation and could even fold. The resulting job losses would be particularly unfortunate at a time when the Union is trying to promote policies designed to increase employment opportunities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Iversen">
Madam President, there is a high level of awareness among consumers.
This means that we cannot simply decide anything we like.
It also means that consumers expect food to be of decent quality, but above all, consumers expect and demand that food should not be damaging to health.
The situation may not be all that good here, but it is still better than in many other places.
What we are seeing today is a dispute between two continents.
As has already been said, this dispute concerns, amongst other things, meat treated with hormones, and in this case it is quite clear, as has been emphasised here, that we should put consumer interests first.
Labelling is not an option at all, because it is not the job of consumers to act as guinea pigs for industry's new ideas. You must not gamble with people's health.
I therefore also regret the fact that labelling is one of the options the Commission has mentioned in its statement.
<P>
The problem is that it is very difficult to turn the WTO into the champion of consumer interests.
But it is also true that faith in free trade has proved to be misguided.
There is no reason to expect free trade to solve every problem.
Free trade cannot be the driving force for the environment and consumer interests, quite simply because the two areas require a political consideration which the market cannot give.
We therefore need to get some more politics into the WTO.
And the EU will be among those insisting on the right to defend public health against the free market.
<P>
In the long term we will also have to require the Commission, when negotiating these WTO agreements, to put consumer interests and environmental considerations before concern for the sacred free market.
You need to understand that in the Commission. It is not good enough to consider only the free market, because then consumers lose out, as we have seen in this case.
Things cannot be left to the market alone.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="President">
Before I give the floor to Sir Leon, Mr Kittelmann has asked to speak on a point of order or to make a personal statement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kittelmann">
Madam President, on a point of order, I should like it to be noted that what I actually said, word for word, which provoked Mrs Roth-Behrendt's attack was: 'we should avoid having a transatlantic - or indeed a European - philosophical war about individual reports and should wait calmly for the final verdict of the scientific community before we act.'
Your speech was emotional, Mrs Roth-Behrendt, above all the personal attacks on Sir Leon Brittan, which were melodramatic and unjustified; they were beneath you, and more in keeping with an election campaign which you wished to fight in Berlin.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="President">
That was indeed not a point of order, but a personal statement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Madam President, if Mr Kittelmann is finding it difficult to understand his own statements and remarks, perhaps I should make my speech again.
Otherwise, I fear he will not know my point of view.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="Brittan">
Madam President, I will do my best.
Let me begin with the banana issue, which is of great importance to a number of people.
I listened with great interest to what was said, for example by Mr Dell'Alba and Mrs Ferrer.
We are trying to resolve the question by coming up, after consultation with all the people who have a legitimate interest in it, with proposals, which we hope will be acceptable to all, to deal with the problem by amending our regime.
If that happens, by definition the sanctions will end and that is the quickest way of getting them to end.
But people cannot be forced to reach agreement and, therefore, we have to envisage the possibility of not reaching a comprehensive agreement.
We then have to do our best, after having heard what everybody has to say, to make changes which meet the rules and satisfy as many people as possible, if not everybody.
That of course we can do.
But in those circumstances we will be able to say to the United States that the sanctions are not justified.
The only way of compelling the United States to remove the sanctions is through the WTO and, therefore, I can assure Mr Herzog that we will continue with the 301 case in the WTO as well.
<P>
As for the question of compensation, there are considerable difficulties as to whether it is possible to give it and there are certain disadvantages which, if mentioned, would only give aid and succour to our opponents on this issue.
I would not wish to do that publicly but I can well understand the deep concern.
This morning in Brussels, before coming here, I held a meeting with representatives of the European textile industry and I understand exactly how serious the situation is for them and for other people who are at the receiving end.
Therefore, we will continue very hard and are committed to putting four proposals to the Council by the end of the month, with agreement or in the absence of agreement from our trading partners.
<P>
Let me now turn to hormones.
I must admit that I thought Mrs Roth-Behrendt got the wrong end of the stick in her comments as far as I was concerned, as well as what she said about Mr Kittelmann, which was without justification.
As far as I am concerned, there is no question at all, as her tone if not her words suggested, of ignoring the interests of the consumer or wishing to put people's health at risk.
I fear that her interpretation to the contrary bore a whiff of the electoral campaign rather than the exercise of pure reason, because the point I made was a very simple one: as long as the ban exists, there can be no risk to health because meat with hormones is not allowed into the European Union.
As nobody at the moment has a proposal to lift the ban - you certainly did not hear any such proposal from me. There is absolutely nothing more which anybody can do to protect European health than to stop something coming in.
You cannot do more than that; you cannot have a double ban.
So what are now faced with is how best to handle the situation we have as a result of these reports.
<P>
At this point I should like to comment on some of the broader questions which Mrs Mann and Mr Kittelmann raised.
We have to ask ourselves: is there a fundamental conflict, as Mr Iversen seemed to suggest, between trade and consumer protection?
The answer is no!
It is absolutely clear that the WTO rules permit you to ban dangerous products. They do not permit you to ban products because you say they are dangerous, you must have a reason.
It goes further than that: you do not have to be able to prove that the products are dangerous, you must have respectable evidence, even if it does not necessarily represent the majority or dominant view of the scientific community.
<P>
When the WTO looked at our hormone ban - which of course existed long before the WTO came into existence - it came to the conclusion that the process by which we had arrived at that ban was not a risk assessment which met the standards that could reasonably be asked for before a ban was put in place.
It is exactly for that reason that we have begun a new risk assessment, and we have the interim results of it, which, as I understand it, are partly derived from the re-examination of published literature on the basis of the criteria set out by the appellate body and partly derived from the interim conclusions of some of the seventeen new studies we have commissioned.
It is an interim report: the final report comes at the end of the year.
<P>
The question we have to ask ourselves is: how do we handle this situation as far as the WTO is concerned?
It is no use saying that we have our report and that proves it, because it does not remove the threat of sanctions.
You have heard the people from the countries affected by the banana sanctions.
I can tell you that the possibility of sanctions from the United States on this is much more serious, and therefore it is acting very much in the interests of European consumers, European individuals and European employment to say that it is sensible that these findings should be put into the public domain as fully as possible.
It has not happened yet.
I hope it will happen more fully very soon.
There should be serious discussion amongst scientists on both sides of the Atlantic, because I do not believe that the United States is careless about the health of its citizens: it is as yet unpersuaded that there is a risk and, if we have evidence, it is right to put it to the United States as well as to everybody else.
<P>
The question then is: at what point do we do this and how do we handle it?
That is something which bears further consideration.
There is no fundamental conflict between consumer protection and trade.
The WTO as it stands allows for that balance in a proper way.
I am not saying that it is perfect - I would not say that to Mrs Mann and Mr Kittelmann at all.
We have to consider exactly in the coming trade round how to improve the rules and make them clearer.
I agree with Mr Herzog that one of the things we have to do is to produce a better definition of what the precautionary principle really means.
I hope that it is possible for Parliament then to consider these issues on the basis of what has happened, knowing that there is no question of any precipitate action which could conceivably endanger the health of the European citizen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
I have received eight motions for resolutions to wind up this debate.
<P>
The vote on these will take place on Wednesday at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=14>
Reduction of VAT on labour-intensive services
<SPEAKER ID=142 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0207/99) by Mrs Thyssen, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 77/388/EEC as regards the possibility of applying on an experimental basis a reduced VAT rate on labour-intensive services (COM(99)0062 - C4-0169/99-99/0056(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="Thyssen">
Madam President, Commissioner, the report which it is my privilege to present this evening concerns the Commission proposal to amend the sixth VAT directive in order to allow Member States, by way of an experiment, to apply a reduced rate of VAT to labour-intensive services.
<P>
The proposal has a long history.
As long ago as 1991, we and Parliament first asked for labour-intensive services, or at least some of them, to be included in Annex H to this directive.
Regrettably, the Commission never shared our enthusiasm.
It took us quite a few hours of negotiations to persuade the Commission to have a study conducted on the impact on jobs which a measure of this kind might produce.
In the end, we had to wait for an edict from the European Council in Vienna before the Commission came up with a concrete proposal.
<P>
The question now is what Parliament thinks of the proposal currently before us.
Well, Commissioner, we endorse your proposal.
Some professional bodies admittedly regret the fact that this is just an experiment of limited duration and not a definitive measure.
We understand their disappointment, but we say that half a loaf is better than no bread, and if we cannot convince people with arguments then we will do it with figures, which this experiment will undoubtedly supply.
<P>
Precisely because this was an experiment, the majority of the Economic Affairs Committee was happy to accept the general criteria and the fact that the scope of the experiment would not be limited to closely defined sectors.
Naturally, we are all happy to say where our priorities lie, especially in the run-up to the elections.
We can focus on the environment, services to families, parts of sectors we include within the social economy, and so on. All these things are laudable initiatives, but it is better not to make any choices here for the moment.
That way, the Member States can tailor their experiments to those sectors where they expect to reap the most benefit.
The broader the scope of the experiment, the more results it will yield and the greater the chances of sound final measures which will create more jobs on a sustainable basis. That, ultimately, was what we were after.
<P>
We have adopted seven amendments in the Economic Affairs Committee, Commissioner.
We are sure that they clarify and improve the proposal.
There are no great questions of principle, except in one respect, that of the authorisation procedure.
Neither the Social Affairs Committee nor the Economic Affairs Committee can see why the Commission should not authorise Member States to launch an experiment.
The Commission is after all the executive.
Perhaps the Council wants to keep hold of the reins itself, and it still has the final say on fiscal matters.
So we conceded that, but it is too much for us to accept that the Council can only grant authorisation on the basis of unanimity.
That makes the procedure unnecessarily cumbersome.
It will inhibit the ease with which the measure can be implemented.
It may lead to use of the veto and obstructionist tactics.
We find that unacceptable, hence our Amendment No 4.
If the Council wishes to act itself, then very well, but let it be by a qualified majority.
There are no legal arguments why this should not be acceptable.
<P>
I should be glad to hear what you think about this, Commissioner, and what the timescale for it might be in the Council.
Lastly, I should like to take the opportunity of this, my last report of the current parliamentary term, to thank you for the willing cooperation we have always received from you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="van Velzen, Wim">
Madam President, I do not think I have ever spoken in Parliament as late as this.
I am happy to say it is the very last time!
<P>
It takes the shine off things a little to have to deal with a proposal which I have always strongly advocated in these kinds of circumstances, and in a 'like it or lump it' situation.
We are so glad to have it at last that one is wary of being overcritical of it.
But some criticisms do need to be voiced, not least about the length of time it took to get this proposal.
In fact, one might best describe the speed of the process as that of a snail hitting the brakes just before a bend in the road.
The approach of both the Commission and the Council was one of extreme caution.
I think this was mainly so in the Council, where there seemed to be an exaggerated fear of competition but also that the measure might succeed.
It happened to me several times in discussions, especially with German representatives, that they said: 'Imagine, if this works in the Netherlands, we shall of course be forced by social pressure at home to implement it there as well.
Just think what may happen.
If it is successful in creating jobs, it may cause a problem in Germany.'
I never understood that, and I do not feel at all guilty about it.
What irritates me most is that it was precisely those Member States which are always harping on about subsidiarity which placed most difficulties in the way of other Member States which said 'look here, it is not the only way, but it is one we want to try in order to create more jobs'.
<P>
When I put forward the proposal for a 'social' rate of VAT, as part of preparations for the Luxembourg summit - and I was not the first to do so, because an option had already been put to Members of the House previously - I believed that I was acting in the spirit of the Delors White Paper, which had already pointed out that we in Europe had saddled ourselves with a system which made labour extremely expensive, very expensive in connection with our profligate use of energy, raw materials and the totally free movement of capital.
To my mind, that is still the central theme and problem in the Union.
And I would say, as we address this subject, that Member States have still not done anywhere near enough here.
'Social' VAT is certainly not the complete answer.
It is just a small part of the answer.
But it may offer a solution in the area of services at local and regional level.
<P>
The Commission once produced an interesting 'employment rate report' in which it compared the rate of employment in the Union with that of the USA.
One of the surprising conclusions was that we did not really lag behind the USA in any area except one, and that was services, services from the lowest to the highest level.
I believe that a reduction in VAT precisely in the service sector at local and regional level could be beneficial, and at any rate increase the employment rate.
Supply and demand can be matched here.
Care of the elderly, jobs for the handicapped, environmental projects and so on - I do not want to impose my choices here any more than Mrs Thyssen, and I leave it to Member States to choose the opportunities offered by the proposal to see what suits their needs and capabilities best.
<P>
Like Mrs Thyssen, I too have a few comments on the amendments we have tabled.
Like her, I find it totally unacceptable that the Council should have to decide by unanimity on specific authorisation to a Member State to apply this reduced rate of VAT.
It means that those Member States which have been obstructive right from the start will be given the ultimate means of being obstructive all over again.
I think the Commission has to be consistent here and say that a qualified majority is the only logical legal principle to be applied in approving the system.
I am keen to hear the Commissioner's response.
<P>
Lastly, I was surprised and disappointed to see that the Commission has not kept the machinery for evaluation under its own control, but is in fact transferring this to the Member States and with it the initiative for new proposals.
I think - and I appreciate the difficult position it is in at the moment - that the Commission is not really functioning properly here vis-à-vis recalcitrant Member States, but it will have to be very careful for the future.
If the Commission surrenders the initiative for making new proposals, as it is doing in this proposal, it really is destroying its whole raison d'être , destroying a guiding principle in the Union, namely the right of initiative.
That right rests not with the Council but with the Commission, and that is how it should remain.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Peijs">
Madam President, things on the employment front in the European Union are looking a little better.
The rate of unemployment recently dipped below 10 %, but naturally we are not dancing in the streets because it is still far too high.
<P>
Parliament had to put pressure on the Council and the Commission for a long time to get where we are today.
But I am glad that we are now able to debate a specific proposal here in the House.
We have not yet, however, got as far as approving the proposal.
As Mr van Velzen and Mrs Thyssen said, there is a major obstacle.
That is the rule that Member State proposals to apply a reduced rate of VAT are required to have the unanimous assent of the Council, even though VAT is no longer the basis for Member States' contributions to the European Union, so the argument always put forward previously that that basis would be weakened is no longer valid.
<P>
That makes no sense these days.
I can imagine that one might ask a neighbouring country: 'Is it a problem for you if my shoe repairer is subject to a reduced rate of VAT?'
But why should Finland be able to stop shoe repairers in the Netherlands from being granted a reduced rate of VAT?
I really cannot see any sense in that.
I cannot imagine anyone taking his shoes from the Netherlands to Finland to be mended.
So I really think this is a reversal of everything which Parliament has worked to secure.
I think we shall soon see all the Member States opposing every specific proposal, and I find that very disappointing.
<P>
Some Member States have already put forward little lists of demands, the Netherlands amongst them.
Can the Commissioner say to what extent there is agreement on some of the specific proposals in these lists?
For example, the renovation of buildings and shops and certain urban areas is being mentioned.
I think a reduced rate of VAT might prevent whole urban areas from falling into decay.
Renovation is not mentioned on the Dutch list.
Is there any consistency in all these proposals, or is it just up to each Member State to say what it wants?
<P>
I wholeheartedly endorse the rapporteur's approach.
Take for example her ideas on evaluating the experiments.
The rapporteur wants the specific results of the scheme to be evaluated, including prices, for instance.
What we do not want, of course, is to see a reduced rate of VAT bringing not greater demand and more jobs, but simply higher profit margins.
<P>
I should like to thank the Commissioner for the excellent cooperation we have enjoyed in recent years.
I hope he will show a little flexibility over the amendments this evening.
Some of them are very important.
He will have another chance to make his point in the Commission on the subject of the Member States.
That would be a fine way of rounding off the last five years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Liberal Group, I welcome this Commission proposal.
Various speakers have already pointed this evening to the number of times we have pressed here in the House for VAT on labour-intensive services to be reduced.
We realise it is not the instrument of choice for creating jobs.
But reducing the rate of VAT will make these services less expensive and enable them to be taken out of the black economy.
Whilst the Commission is not convinced that the measure will or may create jobs, research carried out by the Netherlands Economic and Social Institute for SMEs found that it could possibly create 66 000 jobs.
That is no mean number!
I hope the experiment being launched here will prove helpful in creating jobs.
We must not be afraid of negative repercussions on the budget, because look at what a lowering of VAT did for the ornamental plant growers: in my country, sales rose, earning an extra 340 million for the Treasury.
But if we are to create jobs, the Member States must above all take structural measures; we have to reduce labour costs, make employment more flexible and encourage part-time working, and in these respects we see that there is still a long way to go.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Madam President, it is good to see the Council, after what has been a protracted debate, now allowing the experimental application of a reduced rate of VAT to labour-intensive locally based services.
<P>
In the Netherlands, for example, the number of shoe repairers was decimated between 1992 and 1998 as a result of the high rate of VAT on their work.
Because it was so expensive to mend shoes, consumers tended to throw them away and buy new ones.
The extra burden associated with this on the environment may perhaps be reduced if the VAT directive is amended.
The number of jobs in this sector may also increase again.
<P>
I am grateful to the rapporteur for spelling out these effects in Amendments Nos 1 and 2.
It is also a good thing to reduce incentives to the 'black economy'.
In evaluating this experiment, due consideration must be given to these aspects.
I support the amendments which have been tabled, and I hope that the Council and the Commission will do so too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 NAME="Monti">
Madam President, first and foremost I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Thyssen, and express my own words of appreciation for the cooperation we have enjoyed over the years.
<P>
In making this proposal, the Commission is responding to a request made by the European Council in Vienna in December 1998.
It is certainly true that Parliament had for a long time been asking the Commission to move in this direction.
But the Commission did not just get down to work in February 1999: we should recall that back in September 1997 it drew up a communication for the European Employment Council in Luxembourg in which this idea was put forward.
It is nonetheless true that Parliament, much earlier on, had been asking us to do this.
Why didn't we do it before?
For a political reason of substance: we wanted to avoid short-cuts in tax policy subsidising employment.
<P>
Mr van Velzen is right in saying that this idea of a reduced VAT rate may be one instrument but is not the main instrument.
Various Members have pointed out that the best ways of using taxation to boost employment are the energy tax and tax coordination enabling capital taxation to be increased slightly and labour taxes to be reduced slightly.
<P>
Why did the Commission take until September 1997 to come up with this idea of a reduced VAT rate, which Parliament had been requesting for so long?
Because only in September 1997 did we become convinced that quite good progress was being made in key areas.
The package of measures against harmful fiscal competition was very close to completion, and was signed by the Member States in December 1997; discussions on the proposal on the taxation of energy products were well under way.
At this point we were sure that this proposal for a reduced rate of VAT would be a useful extra factor and not a short-cut enabling Member States to dodge their prime obligation.
<P>
That was just to explain to you why we acted rather later than you had hoped but nonetheless in line, I believe, with the overall requirement.
<P>
I will not spend a long time describing the proposal; I am glad that as a whole it has been appreciated and supported.
I can assure you that the Commission, following these reports and on the basis of available data, will make an overall assessment and if necessary submit appropriate follow-up proposals after the trial period.
<P>
I note with satisfaction that the Thyssen report broadly supports the approach proposed by the Commission.
In substance, the main amendments tabled aim to do the following: stress the directive's favourable effect on the employment of unskilled or semi-skilled workers, the environment and also the reduction of undeclared work; stipulate that the Council, acting by a qualified majority, may decide whether to authorise the application of a reduced rate; and require the Commission to draw up an overall evaluation report, accompanied if necessary by appropriate proposals.
<P>
I can assure you that the Commission would for the most part endorse these objectives.
However, it is my duty to draw your attention to the fact that authorisation to apply a reduced rate is a measure concerning harmonisation of legislation on value added tax, which is covered by Article 93 of the Amsterdam Treaty, the former Article 99.
Under these circumstances I feel it is impossible to depart from the rule that the decision should be taken by the Council acting unanimously.
Apart from that, it is obvious that the Commission hopes that the measure will have the positive effects mentioned.
<P>
Finally, I should emphasise that if, as I assume, we all want this proposal to be adopted soon by the Council so as to keep to the timetable called for by Mrs Thyssen, involving entry into force on 1 January 2000, I am unable to accept the amendments proposed.
<P>
Mrs Peijs encouraged me to be flexible.
In this case in point, I take flexibility to mean achieving results as quickly as possible and therefore, paradoxically, I shall take her request to mean that I should not accept the amendments, which would just slow the procedure down.
<P>
I should also like to inform you that, thanks to the German Presidency, today in the Council the working party examining this proposal met for the first time and I think there are grounds for reasonable optimism.
<P>
Finally, Madam President, this proposal, which I hope will prove very good for jobs, will also help to dispel certain doubts about the tax coordination work done by the Commission and the European Union.
<P>
Here we have a situation in which Brussels does not want to claim more powers but to restore powers to the Member States, letting them make the decisions; here we have a case in which coordination of taxation does not mean higher taxes but lower ones, and in which the primary aim is employment.
I hope that the Member States will want to use this subsidiarity we are granting them, without hiding, as Mr van Velzen fears, behind an obstacle conveniently put in their way by the European Union in order not to be exposed to the full weight of decisions made under their own responsibility.
<P>
Thank you for the support you have given us this evening.
Madam President, I too would like to thank Parliament and the Members who have taken the floor this evening for the staunch support they are giving to our endeavours to coordinate taxation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Monti.
<P>
The rapporteur wishes to speak, and I now give her the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="Thyssen">
Madam President, I am grateful to the Commissioner for answering our questions.
I gather from your reply that you do not share our view and do not accept the amendment in which we are seeking to have the authorisation procedure dealt with by a majority in the Council, rather than by unanimity.
But unfortunately I have to say that your legal arguments have not convinced me.
I assume that there are political reasons involved here, but there are no legal reasons.
This is an implementing measure, and not a general measure.
Legislation must of course be approved unanimously by the Council, under the terms of the Treaty.
But I am afraid that is not so when it comes to implementing specific measures.
There is a great difference between the two things.
If that is the opinion of your legal service, and that is what the Commission officials told our Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, then we are not at all convinced, and it might be no bad thing to look at this again from the legal standpoint.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Thyssen.
<P>
Before Commissioner Monti replies, I should like to give the floor to Mr van Velzen, so that Mr Monti can answer both speakers together.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Velzen, Wim">
To begin with, I entirely share Mrs Thyssen's opinion that the legal basis for that argument is completely flawed.
And then I have a specific question for the Commissioner.
Can he be sure that those countries which have been difficult from the outset will not use their ability to block matters within the Council if unanimity is required in order to give permission to a particular Member State?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="Monti">
Madam President, I do indeed appreciate the point raised by Mrs Thyssen and Mr van Velzen.
In our view, had we not provided for unanimity we would have had difficulties of principle much greater than those we will have anyway in getting this proposal through the Council.
I would point out that, for example, even the derogations under Article 27, which are basically implementing measures rather than new legislation, require unanimity; I would point out the major difficulties we are encountering with the VAT Committee, whose whole purpose is to deal with implementing provisions and yet the Member States are holding out against a rule being passed by a qualified majority.
To some extent therefore I can of course share your hope, which is my hope as well, of political realism being applied to an issue which affects employment, a matter of considerable urgency.
I had to make a sacrifice when deciding to follow the path we have taken.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Monti.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
The next sitting will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
The sitting was closed at 11.20 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Janssen van Raay">
One last word on the Minutes, concerning the Kai Islands, the eastern part of the Moluccan archipelago, Ambon itself, Ujung Pandang on Sulawesi, where Christian minorities have little or no protection against armed gangs.
The Moluccans urgently need help.
The case I am bringing, which you my colleagues endorsed in the run-up to Luxembourg, concerns financial penalties and roll-call voting.
My main point is that it is for Members, not the administration, to decide Parliament's priorities.
If I win my case, then all the fines wrongfully collected will have to be refunded, and you wished my colleagues luck with that yesterday, Mr President, for which I am grateful.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
We take note of that and it will be checked.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Wynn">
Mr President, under Item 19 of the Minutes on the discharge, it mentions that I had a report on the EDF but when you look at the speakers' list you will see that I did not speak.
Trying to be in two places at the same time is not an easy job.
As coordinator for the Socialist Group I was still in the Committee on Budgets discussing the interinstitutional agreement.
Therefore, I would like to apologise to Parliament for not being here to present my report and also to thank Mrs Theato for moving it during the debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Tindemans">
Mr President, I have just got here only to find that my voting card is missing from the machine.
<P>
I would point out that I am in the right place, as ever.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
I think you will be able to obtain a replacement card without delay, Mr Tindemans.
In any event, we shall check whether there is anyone voting with a card in your name.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Theato">
Mr President, Item 18 of the Minutes - the debate on the European Fraud Investigation Office - is mentioned only very briefly; neither the Council president nor the Members who spoke are mentioned.
This is really not normal practice.
It only says that Members spoke, but it might be quite helpful if we knew who.
Perhaps this can be added.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
We shall check that and put it right.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lehne">
Mr President, I also have a point to make concerning the Minutes.
In Item 8 (Documents received), point (ab) mentions a draft decision by the European Parliament on the Members' Statute; it also gives a C-number.
I would like to ask what this actually refers to.
I do not remember this draft being presented yesterday.
Does it refer to Parliament's decision in December or does it refer to this Council paper that has no legal value?
I would like an answer here.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
Mr Lehne, the services have explained that this is a technical error which only affects certain language versions. For instance, it does not appear in the English text.
So no Council text exists.
All we have is a draft document for negotiation drawn up prior to the entry into force of the Treaty. It is therefore obvious that no official Council text exists, and nothing has been sent anywhere at all.
What we are due to discuss is Mr Rothley's report on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs.
The technical error will be corrected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Kokkola">
Mr President, I would like to make a correction to the Minutes, as they have not been worded correctly.
<P>
First of all, I did not talk about the missile which hit the bus yesterday. I did not know about that when I spoke.
I was speaking about the missile which killed sixty people. The main point, however, is that I only talked about extending our condolences and sympathy to the relatives, in other words the humanitarian aspect.
It says in the Minutes that I asked for an official complaint to be made to NATO.
I asked no such thing. I would like that to be corrected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
Of course errors have to be corrected, Mrs Kokkola.
The text will be checked.
It seems that bombing errors can even affect the Minutes.
<P>
The Minutes were approved
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Decision on urgent procedure
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
Mr Colino has the floor to give the opinion of the Committee on Agriculture, which is the committee responsible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="Colino Salamanca">
Mr President, this issue was dealt with at the latest meeting of the Committee on Agriculture.
It is indeed linked to Agenda 2000 but in our view the Council's request for urgent procedure is not justified, as the system is only due to come into force in the year 2000. There will therefore be plenty of time for the new Parliament to consider it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Colino.
<P>
Does anyone wish to speak in favour of the Council's proposal?
Mr Mulder has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Mulder">
Mr President, I would prefer us to deal with this proposal now, firstly because we shall be covering all the other proposals under Agenda 2000 this week, so we might as well deal with this one as well.
Secondly, the proposal is neutral in budgetary terms - it has no financial implications.
So I think we would be better to cover everything to do with Agenda 2000 this week, and I shall therefore be voting in favour of that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Mulder.
<P>
As no one else wishes to speak, I put the request for urgent procedure to the vote.
<P>
Parliament agreed to urgent procedure
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="President">
Since urgent procedure has been approved, this item will be entered on the agenda for Friday, and the deadline for tabling amendments is tomorrow, Wednesday, at 10 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Statement by Mr Prodi, nominee for President of the Commission
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="President">
The next item is the statement by Mr Prodi, nominee for President of the Commission.
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Prodi.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Prodi">
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the appointment of a new European Commission has always been an act of great consequence in European politics.
This time, however, the process is taking place under particularly unusual conditions.
Firstly, following the resignation of the previous Commission, we need to remedy negative developments and irregularities and regain the confidence that has been lost.
Secondly, we need to act quickly to put an end to the crisis and return to normality.
Thirdly, for the first time since it entered into force a few days ago on 1 May, the provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam are now applicable.
<P>
The opportunities for deep-seated reform that are presented by this new beginning can only be exploited fully if the three institutions involved - the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission - work closely together on a basis of trust.
The conditions for this are in place, as we will see today.
<P>
The nomination procedure is underway and could be concluded before the summer break.
The nomination of Romano Prodi at the extraordinary European Council in Berlin was the first step, and in doing so the Heads of State and Government showed the European Union's ability to act and its determination to resolve the crisis quickly and convincingly.
They agreed on a figure who meets the requirements of this difficult office as almost no other could.
Romano Prodi is a European of conviction, a proven and successful economic and political reformer, and an experienced politician in administrative matters. He also brings to the post the necessary close relationship with the people and, after hearing his speech, I would say that he is a candidate who combines vision, a sense of reality, pragmatism and a clear awareness of what is needed.
He is also a candidate who should live up to the expectations of this House.
<P>
If you, the Members of the European Parliament, follow the proposal of the Heads of State and Government and vote in favour of Mr Prodi's appointment in Thursday's vote, the next step will be for the governments to name, in agreement with the President-designate, the people they intend to nominate as members of the Commission.
The resulting proposal for the whole College will then be presented to the newly-elected Parliament as soon as it assembles.
<P>
It is important to the German Presidency that all Member States apply the very strictest standards when it comes to forming the new Commission.
We want a reforming Commission, a Commission made up of Europeans of conviction and convincing Europeans; we want a Commission made up of men and women who are distinguished by their ability, experience, leadership skills and personal integrity.
I am sure that we all hope the necessary hearings can be concluded in time for us to secure Parliament's approval in July and proceed with the formal appointment.
<P>
All those involved - Parliament, Council and Commission - have a common interest in ensuring that the new Commission is formed and the appointments confirmed quickly.
For this reason I firmly believe that, if we wish to do so, we can keep to the timetable that I have outlined.
The people of Europe expect this of us.
<P>
It was intended from the outset - and this was confirmed by the Heads of State and Government in Berlin - that the new provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam would be applied to the appointment procedure.
The Treaty has now entered into force and this means above all that the future Commission President and the European Parliament have a greater role in the appointment of the Commission.
The intention was to strengthen the overall position of the Commission President and to underline this by giving Parliament a separate vote on the appointment.
The current situation underlines the importance of the reforms introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam, which make the whole procedure more transparent and legitimate.
We should not lose sight of this aspect in applying the provisions.
<P>
The formation of the new Commission gives us the opportunity now to tackle the problems which played a part in the crisis and ultimately the resignation of the current Commission.
The first priority will be the internal reforms which the Commission must undertake and - there are already very specific documents on this - rapidly implement by itself.
Romano Prodi presented some of his own ideas to the Heads of State and Government at their informal meeting in Brussels on 14 April, and this exchange of views is to be continued at the European Council in Cologne on 3 and 4 June.
In this context the programme of reform presented by President Santer - ' The Commission of Tomorrow', including the components MAP 2000 and SEM 2000 - is of particular importance.
<P>
These proposals aim to modernise administration and personnel policy, solve the problems in the area of the budget, financial control and fraud prevention, and also to reform financial management by means of more efficient financial control.
All in all, we need to establish clear political priorities, to bring Commission structures into line with future tasks, and we need greater decentralisation, including in terms of the administration of appropriations. We also need to rationalise and improve the efficiency of the Commission's work, and I believe that this should include adopting codes of conduct for Commissioners and officials.
The Council and the European Parliament must also help to remedy negative developments and irregularities.
<P>
If we want a Commission that has strength, the ability to act and integrity, we must also provide it with the resources it needs to deal with its new tasks, for example in the area of enlargement or humanitarian missions.
<P>
Applause
<P>
We must also think about the reforms we would need in order to amend the Treaties.
The EC Treaty provides only for the possibility of a collective motion of censure against the Commission by the European Parliament.
Our most recent experiences have shown us that the possibility of dismissing individual Commissioners - whether on the initiative of the Commission President, Parliament or the Council - should certainly now be examined in cooperation with the other institutions.
<P>
Applause
<P>
National regulations could serve as a basis here.
<P>
The events surrounding the resignation of the Commission have shown that a truly European public is beginning to develop.
The people of Europe have a new-found need to know what is happening in Brussels and here in Strasbourg, and certainly to follow it more closely.
The public is now paying greater attention to all things European, things which were hitherto regarded as being the preserve of experts on Europe.
I consider this to be a positive development.
<P>
In this context more questions are being asked about the democratic legitimacy and control of the European institutions.
There are various reasons for this. The EU has gradually grown in importance and its spheres of activity have expanded; furthermore, many more decisions are being made which directly affect the public and their lives.
These decisions increasingly involve majority voting, so that individual Member States can be bound against their will.
However, some of the decision-making procedures are very complicated and difficult to understand.
The institutional balance between Parliament, Council and Commission that is provided for in the Treaties has in practice shifted to some degree.
So the question is how we can strengthen democratic control in practice, guarantee legitimacy and increase transparency.
<P>
I have already mentioned the reforms that could and must be carried out in the Commission.
As far as the European Parliament is concerned, its supervisory rights are increased by the Treaty of Amsterdam.
It is granted important new rights and powers in the areas of legislation, CFSP financing and the appointment of the Commission.
However, the European Parliament still needs to be strengthened further.
<P>
Applause
<P>
The more capable of action the Union becomes, the stronger the democratic legitimacy of its actions and decisions must be.
<P>
Applause
<P>
This means that whenever the Council passes legislation by a majority vote - and we want to make majority voting the rule - the European Parliament must have an equal say and equal weight in the decision-making.
<P>
Applause
<P>
The European Union is currently facing some enormous challenges: the implementation of the Treaty of Amsterdam, enlargement negotiations, the expansion of the euro zone, the WTO round of negotiations, improvement of common policy in the field of justice and home affairs, and in particular strengthening the Union's profile in foreign affairs.
In order to cope with these tasks we need a strong Commission that is capable of action and has integrity; we must now work together to ensure that the conditions for this are in place.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Green">
Mr President, I and the House have listened extremely carefully this morning to Mr Prodi's opening statement.
I thank him very much for the thoughtful and intelligent approach he took to the opening of this debate.
That we are here today looking at the ratification of a new President of the Commission, six months before it was due according to the timetable, is a reflection of the changing roles and expectations of the European Union.
<P>
We have seen the EU dealing in areas and working on issues which now affect the lives of the citizens of the European Union in a very direct way: the launching of the euro, soon not to be just a tool for banks and institutions but also the coins and notes in the pockets of our citizens and, this week, the coming into being of the Amsterdam Treaty with its changing emphasis towards policies that affect people and in particular job creation.
When you are talking about jobs and the money in people's pockets, you are talking about issues that very clearly affect the lives of every citizen of the European Union.
<P>
It is no coincidence therefore that there has been a greater concentration on the systems of governance in the European Union.
These systems were found wanting and they have failed in the last few weeks.
We need to see demonstrable change.
The next Commission must reflect a new approach to structure and responsibility, not for the sake of form.
We are not just looking for a Commission that looks different or pays lip service to difference.
We want a European Commission that is different and will deliver policies for people.
<P>
We expect that Commission to be different, to reflect the real work to be done.
If I may say so, we do not want a Commission with structures and portfolios that simply reflect a division of the spoils between twenty Commissioners for whom the President must find a role and must find a job in order to make them look as if they are all important.
We want a serious attempt to create a dynamic approach to delivering policies for the people of the Union.
<P>
After today, Mr Prodi, you and what you will do will be scrutinised as never before.
What appointments you make to your office, the multinational nature or flavour or otherwise of your staff, the gender balance, all these will assume an importance quite disproportionate to their actual significance.
Your ability to demonstrate that you have had a role that befits the President of the Commission in deciding who should be in your Commission and what their portfolios should be - all these things will give your presidency and your Commission its opening strengths and, indeed, could well give them its opening weaknesses.
<P>
I was glad that today you concentrated very much on the broader approach to your political thinking and programme for the European Union.
In your last intervention in this House - which we all recognised was a very preliminary one, indeed you said so yourself - you made a largely economic presentation.
Today you have looked at a much broader scope of policies with which you will be seeking to deal.
We have had a flavour of some of your ideas, for instance on foreign and security policy, on home and justice affairs.
I very much welcome your thinking in these areas.
<P>
Your emphasis on the competence of Commissioners and their ability and willingness to act as a team is very much to be welcomed.
Your emphasis on structuring the portfolios on the basis of delivering policies and your undertaking on transparency and openness are also very welcome.
Of course I do not need to say that we have had such commitments before but we take you at your word that you are serious about these.
<P>
I have a criticism and I would appreciate your comments in your concluding statement.
Your speech today talked very little of people.
You mentioned employment but you did not talk much about the need for the fight against social exclusion, the struggle for a fair and just Europe for all our citizens, the need to support Member States in the eradication of poverty, in particular amongst the young and the old in our societies, the need for equal opportunities for men and women, for black and white citizens of the European Union.
<P>
Mr Prodi, your humanity was clear in your speech.
Your commitment to peace on this continent is to be commended.
I would have liked to hear a bit more about your belief in a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural Europe.
I hope you can reassure us of this in your conclusion.
By way of conclusion, for me, as a Londoner, this weekend the importance of support for a Europe of fairness and justice for all our citizens, the need for us to be committed to the fight against intolerance, racism and hatred, against those concepts, was brought very graphically and tragically to our minds.
<P>
This European Union is about a vision for the future.
The big issue for our continent, for our economy, is also about people.
If you are able to combine these elements successfully with a new Commission structure and ethos, you will have our support.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Prodi, on behalf of our group I should like to reiterate what I said on 13 April.
We strongly and unequivocally endorse your candidacy for President of the Commission.
We are convinced that you possess the political and professional skills to overcome the deep crisis in which the Commission finds itself.
And this crisis must prompt us to carry out historic reforms.
You have to reform the Commission, its cabinets and its administration.
The problems started ten years ago, so the report of the Wise Men tells us.
So as the present Commission has said, a new European political and administrative culture is required.
But political reforms are needed too, which have been very clearly set out in a number of reports and documents of this Parliament.
<P>
For example, the Herman report on institutional reforms which can be carried out without amendment of the Treaty mentions reducing the number of portfolios and sharing them out rationally within the Commission, and striking the correct balance between the collective and individual responsibility of the Commission members.
I should be glad to hear your comments on that in your reply.
Our group is very much in favour of interinstitutional cooperation.
In 1994 as group chairman, I took the initiative in favour of changing the modus vivendi between the Commission and the European Parliament.
Mr Oreja gave us vigorous support on that.
I think this modus vivendi needs to be revised and expanded once again.
New agreements have been concluded, and the new arrangement should be adopted under optimum conditions and approved before the new Commission takes up its duties.
<P>
In another report, by Elmar Brok, Parliament argues that members of the Commission should possess appropriate expertise and above all be independent.
The Commission must remain the guardian of the Treaties and serve the common interest.
Our group wants to see a politically balanced Commission, with men and women, which enjoys broad majority support in Parliament.
After your ratification by Parliament, Mr Prodi, you will be able to demonstrate your political leadership in the appointment of the new Commissioners.
We hope that your legitimate authority as President will be a factor in securing their approval.
<P>
President Prodi, we are impressed by what you have said.
You wish to give new momentum to the European Union.
Political union is one of your major objectives, together with further democratisation, transparency and cooperation with Parliament.
But I think that since we have the new Commission President here with us, we also need to talk about a number of fundamental avenues of policy which you will also have to confront and where you too will be required to shoulder your responsibilities.
We cannot ignore the role and responsibility which the European Union should undertake in helping to end the European tragedy going on in Kosovo, where the most basic of values are being denied - basic values, human values with which we are so quick to identify.
A logic of war is being created there, based on discrimination, on crimes against humanity, on the desire for vengeance, on intolerance.
It is an important fact, Mr Prodi, that where Europe - as embodied in the European Union, in European countries and regions - is not present, where there is no solidarity within the European Union, war in Europe is still possible.
<P>
So we need more Europe, and a European policy which produces tangible benefits throughout the European continent.
We must make it clear to people in the Balkans that peace and reconstruction are only possible in the context of the European Union.
The spirit of Community solidarity made it possible for Europe to have states based on the rule of law, dialogue, democratic institutions and recognition for minorities, and that spirit may also put an end to a conflict which has plagued the peoples of south-eastern Europe for decades.
<P>
How can these peoples, so desperately hard hit by the war, regain hope and trust?
We must show vision and generosity to lay the foundation for reconstruction and development in the Balkans in the spirit of the Marshall Plan, which in 1947 gave our countries the strength to reorganise themselves and recover.
<P>
The second major area in which you have to deliver is the Union's ability to pursue a true foreign and security policy.
Naturally the Council has supreme responsibility here, and when I think back to Maastricht, Mr President-in-Office, it has shown supreme negligence.
What has been achieved in the last seven years?
The Council will of course take an important decision in Cologne when it appoints Mr or Mrs CFSP.
But the lessons we have to learn from current events go much further than that.
<P>
There is an imbalance of power between the USA and Europe when it comes to the strategic decisions taken by NATO.
But the recent NATO summit opened up a new prospect.
The Amsterdam Treaty confirmed the longer-term objective of a European defence arrangement.
Regrettably, it has to be said that we are still a long way from that reality.
We do not have any common weapons manufacturing capability.
We have no sharing of operational duties.
We have no integrated fighting forces and command structure.
In short, we do not have the military capability of the USA.
<P>
Where is the European peace corps in the Kosovo conflict?
What is the Western European Union doing?
Where are our spy satellites to provide the requisite intelligence?
The answer to these questions is a resounding silence.
There is a European vacuum. And nature, as we learned at school, abhors a vacuum.
<P>
There is a third major policy direction which you will have to address, and you referred to it just now.
The future construction of Europe: now that we have the euro, you want to give political union a chance.
In this House there have been majority or consensus votes in favour of a constitution establishing clear relationships between the Union, the Member States and the rights of European citizens.
I think the institutional dynamic also has to be revived, these clear lines have to be drawn, if an enlarged Union is to be workable.
Will you revive the institutional dynamic, will you create that new chance?
Are you amenable to suggestions from Parliament and its Committee on Institutional Affairs for shaping a Community approach rather than a purely intergovernmental one, which has made its limitations obvious?
Parliament has suggested that the Commission, in consultation with the European Parliament and, for example, on the basis of opinions prepared by leading experts and in consultation with the national parliaments, might make it possible to revive this institutional dynamic.
<P>
In your first address on 13 April and again now, you have argued for a Europe not just of markets and banks, but a Europe which includes its cultural and spiritual dimension.
Hearing you just now listing the various programmes for employment, training, consumers and the environment, I think there is a wide range of areas being addressed.
Mr Prodi, are you - I am sure you are - in favour of the European Union as a social market economy?
You also spoke of those people, to whom Mrs Green referred, who are being excluded.
Equal opportunities for men and women, for black and white, for people of any colour on the basis of the human dignity of each individual - that is the distinguishing feature of the European Union, its human face.
You are undoubtedly in favour of that, and you will undoubtedly seek with your new Commission to further that, just as you will undoubtedly bring about political union and give Europe the means, the capacity, to play a proper role in Europe and the world through its common foreign and defence policy.
That will make you a great President of a great Commission, working together with a new Parliament which will undoubtedly be keen to work with you towards achieving those ends.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="Cox">
I should like first of all to thank Mr Prodi for elaborating today at much greater length on a number of the priorities which he wishes to emphasise for the next Commission.
The full definition of the Prodi project properly should await the new parliamentary mandate and the nomination of the new Commission.
<P>
I wish however today to make some remarks on the policy side arising from what Mr Prodi has said.
I take note of that fact that as he talked about Europe's profile in the world he referred to enlargement and mentioned that enlargement will move the epicentre of the European Union towards the east.
I would like, on behalf of the Liberal Democrat Group, to place a somewhat greater emphasis on the urgency of achieving as early as possible an enlargement towards the east.
<P>
May I say to Mr Prodi that some weeks ago at a Liberal International Congress in Brussels we were addressed by the Hungarian Prime Minister, Mr Viktor Orban.
He reminded us of the words of another politician from Eastern Europe, saying that since 1989 they have been told in Central and Eastern Europe that enlargement is always just five years away.
We must draw a line under that and we must make sure that during the lifetime of the next Parliament and during the mandate of the Prodi Commission we actually bring about the reality of the first enlargement to the East.
For my group that would be a serious and significant priority.
<P>
To do that of course requires greater urgency in modernising the democracy of the Union.
That greater urgency has been recognised in the Council suggestion that we should have an intergovernmental conference beginning next year, something which we subscribe to.
I would like to say to Mr Prodi that we, in our group, believe that as part of his European vocation for a new millennium and for the new enlarged Europe - he should perhaps reflect on the desirability of introducing into the debate the concept of a constitution for Europe.
The aim here is not to finalise a project which is always evolving, but to help clarify for citizens in a meaningful way the whole complex of the documents we have produced in treaty form, the kinds of priorities that we have for the Union and the limits - because some of course also worry about the excesses of the Union.
I certainly would commend to you that you examine the question of bringing forward as part of your project a constitution for Europe in the new millennium.
<P>
In respect of the formation of the Commission itself, I should say that you have my group's full support.
As you leave this House to go to the various capitals and form the Commission, we have a number of priorities we would like to see in respect of balance.
It has been mentioned before that we expect to see gender balance.
I would also emphasise that we expect to see political balance, that is a balance of political philosophies and views and also a certain balance that reflects the role of the main political forces in this Parliament.
This is important.
<P>
You said here today that you intend to have more team work.
That is essential.
One of your chosen mechanisms to achieve enhanced coordination will be through the Commission Vice-Presidents.You have not said how many vice-presidents you anticipate.
Perhaps you could be more specific or perhaps that is premature, but I would say this to you, the greater the number of vice-presidents, the greater the onus to ensure for the sake of balance that some would come from smaller States.
<P>
I do not wish, Mr Prodi, to anticipate the hearings of Parliament but I do have a question: in the event that Parliament decided that one ro more of the nominee Commissioners was not acceptable, what would you propose to do, given the powers you have under the Treaty of Amsterdam?
We urge you, both in choice of your Commissioners and in such an eventuality, to use your fullest powers under that Treaty and to demonstrate that indeed you are your own man.
<P>
In the time that remains to me I should like to turn to Mr Verheugen and to the Council.
If I understood correctly, Mr Verheugen, you urged us to complete this procedure of nominating and putting in place the new Commission by the end of July.
I respect politically why you say that but it shows scant regard and little understanding for the due process in this Parliament.
I want to treat this with urgency but also with due gravity and it would turn this House into a rubber stamp and nothing more if we were rushed into it prematurely by the end of July.
Worse than that, if we got it wrong in July, we might want a second bite of the cherry next January and act more vigorously then than need be.
<P>
Let us get right rather than get it early.
If there is a problem now with an interim Commission that has lost its moral and political authority to act, the problem arises, in my view, because of the failure of the Council to listen to Parliament and to appoint an effective interim Commission.
That is not a failure of this House.
It is a failure of the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="Puerta">
Mr President, in accordance with the Treaty of Amsterdam, Parliament is now able to exercise the great responsibility of voting to approve the appointment of the President of the Commission for the first time.
In this vote, Members will vote as representatives of the people of Europe, free from any pressure from national governments. The Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left will make its decision on the basis of the commitments made by the candidate regarding his general political outlook and a clear programme of reform for the Commission itself.
<P>
The recent institutional crisis and the verdicts reached by Parliament itself or through the Group of Independent Experts must still be fresh in our minds.
We need to move forward to a completely new stage characterised by transparency and efficiency in the work of the Commission and in its relations with Parliament. Collective responsibility must not override the Commissioners' individual responsibility.
The incoming President's role in the appointment of the Commission is therefore crucial.
Our group calls on him to play his part in the selection of Commissioners to the full so as to ensure substantial renewal of the College of Commissioners. We need men and women whose career has equipped them to cope with the major political challenges facing the Union and with reforming the Commission itself.
<P>
As far as the broad outlines of the candidate's programme are concerned, we feel bound to express the anxieties raised within our group by some of the statements he made today and on 13 April.
We are concerned about the emphasis he placed on competitiveness and the flexibility of labour to the detriment of policies fostering economic and social cohesion.
The Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left urges the incoming President to set out and develop economic and social policies aimed at creating employment. We also urge him to combat social exclusion and poverty by promoting public services across the European Union.
I realise that in the present climate it is quite unfashionable to speak up for public services, but we on the left feel it is essential to do so.
In our view, this should be accompanied by a gradual reduction in working time without a reduction in salary. Action against social dumping and financial speculation is also needed.
To sum up, monetarist ideology must not be allowed to dominate to the detriment of our citizens' social and political rights.
<P>
In our view, other key features of a progressive policy are the integration of environmental protection into all Community policies and the review of the ceiling for own resources in the Agenda 2000 financial perspective. Preservation of the Union's internal solidarity through its Structural Funds and Cohesion Fund should also be part of such a policy.
<P>
Finally, we also believe that the Commission must make a great effort to prepare an Intergovernmental Conference to achieve the institutional reforms required prior to enlargement.
In this connection, the Commission and its President must, with Parliament's support, boost the Council's scant political will to define a common foreign and security policy for Europe which is not subservient to the United States. It must serve to guarantee human rights in the Balkans and the world over, and ensure that international law is adhered to.
<P>
In the few seconds remaining, I feel obliged to express my amazement at the reference made to the definition of a constitution for Europe. I have been a member of the Committee on Institutional Affairs for eight years.
A draft constitution for Europe was withdrawn during the previous term, before the elections.
It was only a draft or an outline and was never made public. There were absolutely no further developments for the next five years.
Throughout those five years the subject of a constitution for Europe was taboo. Yet now the spokespersons for the major groups are referring to the drafting of such a document as a key part of the Commission's work.
Actions speak louder than words.
I urge you all to take responsibility for your statements in the House today in favour of a constitution for Europe before European public opinion. The people need to be aware of their rights and responsibilities over and above the squabbling and the vested interests of the Member States.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President-designate, we are delighted to welcome you for a second time to this House. However, you are only just at the beginning of a series of hurdles which must be overcome in the next eight months.
You will have to demonstrate great stamina and skill to stay the course.
Although the confirmation of your appointment tomorrow by the European Parliament is not in question, and will doubtless be approved by a very large majority, you will have to face a much more difficult test in September. This is when, in front of a largely new Parliament, you will have to present all your Commissioners and an action plan for which not just you personally but the new Commission collectively must take responsibility.
<P>
The whole process will then begin again at the end of the year as, having completed the term of office of the outgoing Commission, you will again have to ask for the confidence of the European Council and the European Parliament for a five-year term. Of course, this term may be interrupted at any time by a motion of censure vote which is clearly now no longer just a theoretical concept.
Suffice it to say that your task will not be particularly easy.
To avoid tripping over the successive hurdles which you will have to overcome, you must bear in mind that your legitimacy as President of the Commission is delegated and will be exercised under the constant political scrutiny of the Council and Parliament, themselves directly and politically responsible to the people of Europe.
<P>
From now on, the institutional balance between the Commission, Parliament and the Council is of prime importance and the function and role of each institution must be clearly specified.
Your main task, Mr Prodi, will be to ensure that the Commission exercises all the powers conferred on it by the Treaties, but does not encroach on the decision-making powers of Parliament and the Council.
In particular, you must resist the pressures which may come from the Council or Parliament to extend your field of action to areas not specifically indicated by the Treaties and which, as has recently been observed, you do not have the administrative or financial resources to tackle.
<P>
You will be responsible for ensuring that the work of the College is restricted to the powers granted by the Treaties, which are already quite considerable.
Together with the Court of Justice, the Commission is actually the guardian of the Treaties. However, this function would be better served if its definition were improved in respect of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, which are not currently sufficiently clear or definite.
The same applies for the monopoly of initiative.
This point will have to be clarified during the institutional reform which must take place before any further enlargement.
The Commission's implementing powers, particularly in the area of competition and state aid, are considerable and must be exercised independently but also with absolute transparency.
<P>
In terms of commercial or financial negotiations, it is essential that the European Union speaks with one voice. But this voice must be authorised.
The aims of the negotiation must be clearly specified in the negotiating mandate given by the Council, with the agreement of Parliament, whose representatives must be kept well informed of the progress of these negotiations, as is the case with the members of the US Congress.
If our partners realise that the European Union is expressing the will of the people of Europe, this can only serve to strengthen the EU's negotiating position.
This has not always been the case in the past and the trade dispute on banana imports from ACP countries has left a bitter taste in our mouths.
<P>
Mr President-designate, your success will be measured by your ability to ensure that the Commission reassumes the role assigned to it by the founders of the European Union.
It should be an independent body whose task is to find the largest common denominator - and not the smallest - to ensure that European unification advances only in those areas where it is necessary and essential. In this respect, the institutional balance must be preserved: decision-making powers must remain with the Council and Parliament, which alone are politically responsible to the people.
<P>
The UPE Group wishes you every success in this difficult task, Mr Prodi.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr Prodi, ladies and gentlemen, the resignation of the outgoing Commission showed above all that a more democratic balance of power was needed between Parliament, the Commission and the Council.
Without a strong Commission, Parliament cannot hope for any major reform of the institutions, which has been put off for years.
The Greens are confident, Mr Prodi, of receiving your pledge here that you will make every effort at the intergovernmental conference to ensure that Parliament evolves into a true parliament with full powers of legislative codecision which extend to agriculture and compulsory expenditure, and with full powers of scrutiny over the implementation of policy.
<P>
We are poised at a historic crossroads.
Either Parliament continues to grow and the building of Europe becomes a true democratic project, or it remains a collection of bureaucratic nuts and bolts with no legitimacy, and that would be fatal.
It is not just a question of more power for Parliament; our peoples have to be involved more actively in this process and must know and feel themselves to be citizens of the Union.
As you know, Mr Prodi, Parliament wants a convincing reform of the Commission.
We need a transparent Commission, with ready public access to documents, and that requires swift implementation of Article 255 of the Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
The individual responsibility of Commissioners remains a central factor in the relationship between the Commission and Parliament.
The Amsterdam Treaty gives you the opportunity to intervene if there are problems with the work of individual Commissioners.
We also expect you to put together the right Commission, so that through you we too can have an influence if there are problems with the performance of individual Commissioners.
What you said about the need for the big countries to have a Commissioner from the majority as well as from the opposition is being misused in Germany, for example, in order to sideline the Green partner in the coalition.
If the new Commission only includes representatives of the largest partner in the government and the largest opposition partner, there will be little political innovation in the Commission.
We want you, Mr Prodi, to argue for political diversity in the new Commission.
<P>
The Greens have listened carefully to your speech today, which sits well with the letter you sent us and which says more about sustainable development, the environment and consumer protection than your first speech did.
We shall hold you to all of that.
In April, you distanced yourself clearly from the American model and came out in favour of the European one, but you said very little about what that meant in practice.
For us, it should emphatically mean that not everything is governed by the logic of the market.
<P>
If you seek to liberalise services without securing a universal service, that may give rise to problems.
In the past, investment aid has been provided for purposes of rationalisation.
We believe that innovation should be the focus of future aid, for example for SMEs, with a view to preserving and creating jobs.
<P>
Lastly, it is our fervent hope that, given the necessary weight, you will urgently work for an initiative on the Balkans and see that the timetable for enlargement is politically reassessed in the light of what is going on there at present.
In this spirit and in the expectation that you will take our concerns on board, my group is planning to support your candidacy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lalumière">
Mr President-designate, listening to you just now made me think of the very high hopes resting on your appointment.
This is taking place at a very special moment, namely the final part-session of the Parliament elected in 1994.
This coincidence, which was not planned, is giving this debate and the subsequent vote a rather dramatic nature as, to a certain extent, it represents the political legacy of the first European Parliament that had the ability to apply enough pressure on the outgoing Commission to force it to resign.
<P>
Our expectations of you are high, Mr Prodi, and they involve so many and such a variety of issues that you will no doubt find us very demanding, although your introductory speeches have already highlighted many of these points.
<P>
As the recent crisis has revealed the problems within the Commission, your first task will be to put your house in order. This is the work of a leader.
You will therefore undoubtedly have to improve the coordination of the Commissioners' responsibilities, redefine the tasks to be accomplished by eliminating some and developing others, and reform the management methods, the procedures for awarding contracts, the use of consultants and so on.
<P>
This is a long way from high politics, which is not possible, however, without a good administration.
There is no doubt that in the past the Commission has too easily forgotten this sound principle.
In particular, Mr Prodi, in terms of practical politics, Parliament expects enough vision and inspiration from you to meet the challenges facing Europe.
In saying this, I am not just thinking of the programmes planned for future years, such as the implementation of Agenda 2000 or the institutional reforms the Union needs in order to complete the Amsterdam Treaty, but also the problems which go beyond these elements.
Now more than ever the Union needs to rediscover and reaffirm the meaning of its very existence and its true priorities.
<P>
Employment is therefore not a run-of-the-mill requirement but a major priority which must take precedence over others.
I am pleased that you yourself recently proposed that the central banks should depart from their customary financial practices and draw on their reserves to revive the economy at all costs.
We must find a new balance between the social and political Europe and the economic and monetary Europe, and we must counterbalance liberalism to some degree.
<P>
Similarly, in view of the war in Kosovo and the fragility of Europe revealed by this war, we firmly hope that the European Union can stop considering the future of our continent - including Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and the Mediterranean - in such a cautious manner to the extent that this approach becomes constrained and ultimately foolhardy.
This combination of nationalism and violence will form the backdrop to your actions in the next five years.
In view of these threats, we would ask you to reaffirm the fundamental values of Europe and to give the EU a clear foreign and security policy and firm social priorities.
In short, we need inspiration born of justice and fairness.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
Mr President, the Europe of Nations Group cautions against appointing Mr Prodi as President of the Commission.
We have no need of a new President at present.
What we do need is a clear-out by strong personalities who do not have ambitions to continue when the clear-out has been completed.
Firstly, we should remove the present Commission, because the Commissioners have been deemed to be collectively irresponsible.
They themselves rejected individual accountability and asked to be held collectively to account.
That is what the Committee of Experts did.
Now they must step down, and Parliament should ensure that before they do so, they do not extend contracts with their friends or have certain people promoted or move employees from their own cabinets to the administration.
Secondly, we should call the officials responsible to account.
The Committee of Experts should name everyone who has helped to obstruct the uncovering of dubious deals.
Those who have contributed to corruption and fraud must be subjected to disciplinary proceedings.
Those who have covered things up must be suspended, because it has to be worse to cover up corruption than to provide information about corruption, as Mr van Buitenen did, with suspension and salary deductions as a result.
<P>
We must then adopt a modern law on public administration and openness.
All appointments should be made on the basis of applications and qualifications, not as political appointments.
All employees should know that future promotion is a question of effort, not of friendships and contacts.
The best person for the job should be promoted.
Anyone who occupies a managerial position must be more capable than those beneath him.
We cannot have a situation where the more capable are passed over for promotion and then lose motivation and console themselves with privileges.
<P>
The Commission should be decentralised, so that the staff are given responsibility and authority to live up to.
Let us put an end to the concentration of power in the hands of a few, without any possibility of them taking responsibility.
Let us put an end to complicated procedures where a decision has to be endorsed twenty times and it is impossible afterwards to say who is really responsible.
There should also be a reform for officials, including fixed-term contracts and the introduction of ordinary northern European civil service salaries for new recruits.
Privileges can be phased out.
The first step could be to remove the automatic cost of living adjustment.
It will not be popular, but who is going to defend the fact that the first consequence of moving a task to Brussels is that those who are going to carry it out will receive a trebled salary, diplomatic status with freedom from prosecution, access to business lunches and duty-free spirits?
The salaries of Commissioners should also be reduced before appointments are made.
A Commissioner should be paid the same as a minister in the country he represents, and should pay tax so that at least in that respect he loses his status as an expatriate eurocrat.
Removal costs should be reimbursed on the basis of invoices, not in the form of two months' extra salary.
It should be possible for Parliament to inspect the travel and entertainment budget.
The three years of redundancy pay with a subsequent pension should only be paid if the Commissioner does not obtain other employment.
We must at last have a reform that produces openness, whereby documents in the Commission will at least also be available to Parliament as soon as the Commission has delivered them to a committee, an undertaking, a country, a journalist or another external party.
<P>
We have drawn up a proposal on openness which we look forward to discussing with Mr Prodi at our public group meeting this evening at 7 p.m. in meeting room 2 here in the Palais building.
Like every modern business, the Union must focus on what it can do better than others, or in other words leave alone tasks which others can do better or more cheaply, concentrate on cross-border cooperation and allow other matters to return to the Member States.
This rationalisation must be carried out before the appointment of the new Commission, so there are many general reasons for postponing the approval of Mr Prodi, but my group also has a political reason: Mr Prodi wishes to see a United States of Europe.
We would rather unite Europe in a Europe of the democracies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Muscardini">
Mr Prodi, we regret that your timely speech comes at a moment of what I might call procedural confusion in both this House and the Council of Ministers.
I welcome this morning's offer by the Council to cooperate with the Commission and Parliament.
We would have appreciated an equally cooperative spirit in recent months, for example when it was a matter of the Members' Statute or the technical and procedural aspects of electing the Commission President.
<P>
But if the Council has finally realised that it is one of the three components of Europe and must show due respect to the Parliament and Commission, we are pleased with this new discovery and hope that our future work will benefit.
We, for our part, are convinced that the Commission President must have a strong Commission - as Professor Prodi stated this morning - a Commission whose relations with Parliament are transparent and based on timetables which are always respected, enabling us to work and make progress together, rather than engaging in confrontation.
<P>
At the next part-session in July, therefore, Mr Prodi must present us with a schedule of the commitments to which he has so appropriately referred this morning; otherwise enlargement, which is now on the horizon, would prove impossible.
You touched on many important points, Mr President, but allow me to recall that - in the opinion of Alleanza Nazionale - more attention should perhaps be paid to Mediterranean policy, especially since you yourself have stated that a Europe looking to the east obviously cannot pay sufficient attention to the serious problems of the Mediterranean. That goes without saying.
<P>
You referred to the euro. Although you are an economist and this must sound very familiar to you, I would point out that if, before creating a common monetary policy, we had had the intelligence to create an economic policy, then perhaps the euro would not now be weaker than the dollar on markets around the world.
If we had created an economic policy, we would have laid down the foundations, or guidelines, for Europe's economic future and might have reduced unemployment by a few percentage points, thereby restoring the confidence which the people are beginning to lose.
<P>
In conclusion, Mr President, we are enthusiastic about your proposals and prepared to work with you, as a Parliament and as a political group, as long as your commitments are not only clear but also clearly timetabled, and as long as they are not merely declarations of intent at the start of your term of office but a definite path for us to follow together.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Colajanni">
Mr President, I welcome the Council President's announcement that the final vote on the entire Commission is to be brought forward.
This is without doubt an important matter: as Parliament has stressed several times, the Commission must be in a position to address itself to the outstanding issues as soon as possible.
<P>
In contrast with previous occasions, I also welcome the preparatory work done by Mr Prodi, the nominee for President, with regard to reform of the Commission.
He has indicated important changes in respect of teamwork, responsibility and transparency, with a view to tackling and solving satisfactorily the crisis affecting the Commission.
I would stress that, irrespective of the crisis in recent months, there has been a blurring of the Commission's political role over the past few years.
Indeed, the crisis of the past few months could make us forget that the EU needs a politically strong Commission. This, Mr Prodi, is what the European Parliament expects you to achieve.
<P>
You can be sure that, if you embark on this road, you will receive strong support from the European Parliament.
We are opposed to any reduction in the Commission's political role, and we regard the political balance between Commission, Parliament and Council as a cornerstone of European democracy. Naturally, this attempt to redefine the European Union's overall prospects also affects the responsibilities of Parliament and the Council - and we shall discuss this point among others with the new Commission.
As far as you yourself are concerned, it is a matter of political leadership to make the Commission a strong partner in dialogue on the major unanswered questions determining the EU's development and identity. These political matters are also of great institutional relevance, as was stressed for example by Mr Martens, who pointed out that the reform of the relationship between the institutions will be a key theme in the years ahead.
<P>
This is not an abstract issue; it relates to the way in which we tackle the main items on our agenda, such as enlargement, institutional reform as such, and the creation of a common foreign policy and defence structure which - as shown by the events in Kosovo - Europe desperately needs, since it is proving incapable of tackling independently crises such as the one under way in that region.
<P>
Then there is the important matter of efforts to galvanise Europe's economy - you made several references to this in your speech - and to introduce a new but vital element of balance: a social dimension.
Parliament, the Commission and the Council have been debating this matter for years.
Attempts have sometimes been made to strike a balance between these two aspects: for example, the Delors White Paper sought to bring them together, to balance them.
Perhaps much of this is no longer topical, but the problem of harmonising these two elements is one of the main political problems confronting not only the Commission but also Parliament and the EU in the years to come.
<P>
I do not wish to dwell on this.
The Commission will of course have its own political opinions here and will compare notes with Parliament and the Council.
There have in the past been differences over strategy, which have subsequently been settled and have enriched the political debate between our institutions.
<P>
This also applies to the Balkans.
Mr President, I welcome your determination to put together rapidly the elements of an overall proposal for that region, so as to create a stable relationship offering a way out of existing and potential conflicts which - as you say - can be averted and resolved in the context of a close relationship with the European Union.
This also applies to the Serbian people, who will free themselves of Milosevic as soon as they are offered the alternative of relations with Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Castagnetti">
Mr Prodi, there is broad-based satisfaction in this House over your nomination.
You will realise from this morning's debate that we also expect a good deal of you, since we know you to be a man of great initiatives and ideals, but one who is at the same time extremely practical.
Both of these attributes are needed to head the European Commission.
<P>
These expectations are further fuelled by the boldness of your pro-European spirit and philosophy, which have emerged from your two speeches before this House. I hope - and I am quite sure - that they will be satisfied.
<P>
We expect you to be proactive in exercising your prerogatives as President of the Commission, not only as guardian of the Treaties and of the acquis communautaire , but we also expect a bold initiative to carry forward the completion of the institutional structure, so as to give the Europe of the euro a real personality, identity and strength.
<P>
One obvious item of unfinished institutional and political business, which is a challenge for the next parliamentary term and might well be proposed to our successors, is an undertaking to complete the building of Europe.
The constitutional dialectic between the EU and its Member States over the next five years will probably be dominated by this challenge.
<P>
The President of the European Central Bank, Wim Duisenberg, has said repeatedly: 'You have entrusted me with the task of safeguarding the value of the euro and guaranteeing price stability.
If you leave me alone to pursue these objectives, I assure you that the consequence will be an increase in unemployment in Europe, because the instruments available to me will undoubtedly lead to new social problems.
Hurry up and equip yourselves with institutions to run the economy: the European Central Bank on its own cannot tackle problems which are not of its making.'
<P>
We have taken the first tentative steps towards harmonising our economic policies: Mr Monti's blueprint for fiscal policy harmonisation has yet to be approved; the subject of a European employment pact is to come up at the forthcoming European Council in Cologne.
Specific conclusions are required here too, after Mr Junker's initiative at the Luxembourg European Council, and after the Aznar and Blair proposals relying on labour market flexibility.
Mr Strauss-Kahn made an interesting proposal just the other day.
It is interesting because he is a Socialist and because he is French: he is a Socialist, and asserts that the problem of unemployment can only be addressed by setting a 3 % growth target; he is French, and asserts that we must begin to regard the Euro 11 Council as the first step towards a European economic government.
<P>
Economic policy must be harmonised at European level.
'The impossible status quo' was the title of the document of the Florence Group.
Well, Europe cannot stand still; if it stood still, it could go into reverse.
Although we now have the euro, much remains to be done and we must press on.
If the markets notice that the pace of politics is slackening, they will adapt by relaxing their sense of responsibility.
This is already happening - it is what has happened since the introduction of the euro: we sense a slowdown in political responsibility and initiative.
<P>
We are now feeling the effects on Europe's economic equilibrium of the economic slowdown in France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, countries which account for 80 % of our GDP.
<P>
Unfortunately, everything is a matter of urgency for the EU.
Another major challenge is the war in Kosovo.
This morning we have at last heard some encouraging news from the United States, after the meeting between Mr Chernomyrdin and Mr Clinton: there now appears to be a glimmer of hope.
<P>
Europe, as such, has played no role whatsoever in this affair and is also demonstrating severe limitations in assisting the refugees, that is for sure.
Not only NATO but also many countries, as well as Europe - which previously had always excelled at providing humanitarian aid - are incapable of meeting the challenges resulting from this war.
Europe has still not activated the analysis unit for active conflict prevention policies - even though this House approved a proposal to that effect - and must regain its dignity, ambition and responsibility by taking an initiative.
We detected such ambition in your speech, Mr President.
<P>
Agenda 2000 undoubtedly goes in the right direction: that of integrating countries which have been knocking at Europe's door for ten years.
But if Yugoslavia is both the reality and the metaphor illustrating the difficulty - even now - of ensuring the coexistence of different ethnic groups, then we must acknowledge - as you have done - that true coexistence can only be achieved in the bosom of Europe, and not by creating small statelets which are increasingly inward-looking and ethnically homogeneous.
Therefore, confronted as we are by an international crisis which calls into question our certainty at the end of the Second World War - that war would never again be possible in Europe - we must set ourselves new, inevitably ambitious political aims if we really do wish to rediscover the soul of Europe to which you have often referred.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Ripa di Meana">
Mr Prodi, you were nominated by the European Council within hours of NATO attacking Yugoslavia on the instructions of not only the United States President but also many EU heads of government - your electorate.
Many of us had therefore been hoping that - not least to dispel the dark and unjust initial coincidence affecting your new term of office - after 40 days of war in Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia and Voivodina, you would have found the right words today to appeal for an immediate cease-fire and some words of solidarity for all the innocent victims, on all sides, and then made some practical proposals for the reconstruction of the areas destroyed and for an early return of the refugees: the search for a European soul, Mr Prodi, as you once put it in this House.
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You chose a different option, however: you chose to define the war as 'painful but necessary'.
As to the future, you merely referred to a general and - at present - vague international conference on the Balkans, skirting the pressing and highly urgent problems, and even evoking the unfortunate image of the 'common sword of Europe', an expression loathed by Jacques Delors.
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On environmental issues, you stated that the harmonisation of ecological taxes and of the Member States' environmental rules and regulations would be a priority.
I would remind you that, according to the report from the European Environmental Agency a few months ago, eleven of the top twelve environmental problems have either worsened or remained the same within the European Union since 1995.
It is not enough to mention the environmental troubles of Europe's cities, as you have done, without tackling the underlying cause: the disproportionate increase in private transport, partly fuelled by incentives to the car industry, and the simultaneous decline of public transport.
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Finally, Mr Prodi, I would ask you to clarify the disturbing passage in your speech of 13 April where you called for investment in research and development in the 'life sciences'.
What do you mean by this: to push forward genetic engineering on an industrial scale, thereby bringing about eugenics?
I would very much appreciate a clear answer.
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<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="Gallagher">
Mr President, at the outset I want to congratulate Mr Prodi on his appointment by the European Council as President-designate of the Commission, and I am quite certain that recommendation will be ratified overwhelmingly by the European Parliament this week.
I want to take the opportunity of wishing Mr Prodi well in his new and, indeed, highly responsible position.
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You, Mr Prodi, will be assuming the presidency of the Commission at a very challenging time for the European Union.
Tough decisions and policy directions will have to be worked out by the Commission and this must be done in consultation with the European Parliament and the European Council.
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I would say at the outset that Parliament must recognise that if the European Commission is to oversee its duties in an effective manner, that may require more staffing resources in the future.
We have to be assured that, as the process for the enlargement of the Union takes place, the Commission is appropriately staffed to deal with the challenges that lie ahead for it and, indeed, the European Union.
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The Union is built on a consensual approach.
That has been the main foundation for the success of the European Economic Community and now the European Union over the last 40 years.
It is important when tough decisions are taken that all 15 Member States of the Union are fully involved in such a process.
It has been clearly proven that there is complete consensus across the length and breadth of Europe that balanced political programmes should be put in place.
The Single Act, which heralded the need to complete the internal market where there would be free movement of goods, persons, services and capital, has been a notable success.
The Maastricht Treaty put in place the European currency and has also proved to be an innovative act of political foresight on behalf of the Union itself.
It is very clear that, as EMU takes a hold within the Union, the reduced cost of doing business and the elimination of transaction costs will ensure that European Union businesses become more competitive.
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This leads me to my next point: as the internal market and EMU become established, it is imperative that the poor regions of the Union secure appropriate regional, social, agricultural, fishery and cohesion funds so as to guarantee that they can compete on a level playing field with all other Member States of the Union.
We do not and cannot afford to put in place a two-tier European Union where wealthier Member States are put in one bracket and poorer Member States in another.
We need to upgrade the standard of living in many parts of the Union.
My own constituency of Connacht-Ulster in the west of Ireland and the border counties has a strong case for long-term regional and social funds during the next Community support framework and thereafter.
Long-term strategies must be put in place to ensure that the poorer and peripheral regions of my country are helped to become competitive in terms of the attraction of business, as well as the improvement of their respective transport and water-treatment services.
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It is also clear that a framework must be put in place to permit new Member States from Eastern and Central Europe to join the European Union.
It is important that these countries endeavour to comply with as much of the European body of law in the form of directives and regulations as possible.
This is known as the implementation of the EU acquis and is also important in the context of giving opportunities to Irish and European businesses to start up their operations in these countries.
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In conclusion, the addition of an extra 70 million people to the Union must be viewed positively.
This is good news for the broadening of the trade relations with all Member States of the Union itself.
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<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, Mr President-designate of the Commission, speaking as the chairman of Parliament's Committee on Women's Rights, I would like to remind you of the statement that was made on 23 March, in which Parliament said that there should be a considerably higher proportion of women in the Commission than is the case at present.
However, you have not made any significant comment with regard to this request.
Now you have the opportunity to do so, as not only is the European Parliament in its entirety here today, but also many of its political groups, which have discussed this important issue on a previous occasion.
As the Treaty of Amsterdam has now entered into force it is incumbent on all the institutions to ensure that the issue of equality between men and women is an integral part of their programme.
This must also be visible inter alia in the composition of the Commission.
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It has come to my attention that there is in existence an unofficial list of candidates for membership of the Commission, and that on this list there are only three women.
This is a completely unacceptable state of affairs.
There are five women in the present Commission, and it would certainly be a massive leap backwards if we were not to aim for a larger number of female Members of the Commission.
I would like to point out that the Member States with small populations do not have any kind of prerogative in this matter, but we must insist that small Member States, with just one Commission Member, should recognise that women too are experienced and qualified, and that there are female candidates to be found.
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Mr Prodi, you are required to discuss this issue with the Member States, and I would ask you now whether or not you intend to raise the matter with the Heads of State and Government?
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<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="President">
Mrs Hautala, could you also let us see the unofficial list which is in your possession?
In that way we could perhaps join you in worrying about it!
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<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hänsch">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Prodi, yours is a difficult task, but at the same time you have it easy: it is difficult because of the challenges with which the European Union will be faced in the next five years, and easy because Parliament, the Council and the European public have never before shown such strong support for a new beginning in the Commission.
You want to bring the administration under political control, and you have our support for this.
But please let your administration know that the balance has shifted between Parliament and the administration in Brussels, and that the administration must act accordingly in future.
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In the eyes of the European public the new Commission will be a European government.
Perhaps the Treaty does not quite say so, but you need to want to be a sort of European government.
In your statement you mentioned almost all the key words for the next five years: agriculture and towns, competition and social affairs, youth, the elderly, public limited companies, small and medium-sized enterprises, consumer protection and liberalisation, enlargement and relations with the USA.
However, Mr Prodi, I would have liked to see rather less pointillism and rather more constructivism in the picture you painted of the new Commission's work.
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Finally, Mr Prodi, in tomorrow's vote we shall be endorsing both yourself as an individual and your political work to date.
This will strengthen your future political authority.
We expect you to use this political authority in forming the new Commission and in your political leadership of the new Commission over the next five years.
Tomorrow you will be given a preliminary vote of confidence - including from my group - but you should not be under the impression that you can rely on this confidence for five years.
You will have to build this trust yourself through your work.
We are prepared to help you because we believe it will serve Europe.
We wish you every success.
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<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Brok">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the candidate designated by the European Council for the office of Commission President, Mr Prodi, will come into office in a situation unknown to any of his predecessors.
No one has been nominated Commission President in a crisis of this kind, and no one before him became Commission President with direct democratic legitimation from a directly-elected Parliament.
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I believe that both these factors will enable him to meet the considerable challenges which he and the future Commission will face.
Like Klaus Hänsch, I too would like to say that as a result of your great achievements, Mr Prodi, you will have our vote of confidence and our hopes will rest on you.
During your period of office you will have to achieve two things at the same time. You will have to ensure the consolidation of the European Union, whose tasks and size have increased dramatically in recent years and decades and, where necessary, you will have to put the Union's house in order to ensure that it is viable and able to function even if nothing new is added.
At the same time you are expected to have vision.
These are two things that are seldom compatible but because of the historical situation they must both be achieved: consolidation and vision.
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I believe that in the knowledge of what happened with the former Commission you will undertake the necessary institutional reforms; furthermore, you will tackle the issues of personal accountability, internal controls and financial control, increased efficiency and the related right of control of the European Parliament over the Commission.
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In the coming weeks and months we will certainly have to devise ways to organise the interaction between the Commission and Parliament as its supervisory body, with the relevant reporting and the provision of information to Parliament's committees.
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However, it is not only the radical structural reform of the Commission, for which Parliament has put forward concrete proposals, that is at issue; we also have to recognise that the European Parliament must be reorganised in the same way in order to do justice to its tasks.
We too still have work to do if we are to deal properly with our new rights and the extra rights that Mr Verheugen rightly called for the European Parliament to be given.
We are also all aware that because of its lack of transparency the third main institution, the Council, is a significant obstacle to acceptance among the public.
We will only be able to promote the European Union in the eyes of the people if it proves itself to be efficient, transparent and democratic at the same time.
These three factors are required if we are to be accepted by the public.
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Mr Prodi, as I listened closely to your comments on economic policy, I heard a name that is not often mentioned by politicians and economists these days: Ludwig Erhard.
You focused on the market and said that its opportunities must be used to the full because this is the best way to achieve growth and employment. However, you also talked about the fair framework conditions and rules that are necessary because the market cannot achieve this itself.
You also said that because of this certain basic conditions must be created in the area of environmental policy, social policy, consumer policy, and safeguarding competition through controls on competition and on financial aid, so that the single market can function as a single market for the whole of Europe and not in small sections.
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But I have another particular problem with this, and in my view we need to solve a legitimation issue here.
We have to acknowledge that economic and monetary union is a Community operation.
Yet when I see how the finance ministers deal with it and in particular when I look at the role of the 'Euro 11', I realise that decisions are increasingly slipping into the intergovernmental sphere and that there is little democratic legitimation there for important decisions concerning economic and monetary policy which run parallel to the independence of the European Central Bank.
I believe that there is a lot of work yet to be done in institutional terms between Council, Commission and Parliament to prevent this from slipping out of the Community sphere, with the result that the finance ministers become the new masters of Europe.
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As regards vision, you commented on the need for foreign representation and on our ability to use enlargement to extend the peace that we have achieved within the Union to the whole of Europe, including the Balkans, for example.
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The enlargement of the European Union is certainly one of the fundamental tasks that you will be faced with during your period of office, but an institutional round table is needed on this.
In my view it should be organised very quickly and it must set the scene for enlargement, for example by extending majority voting and later - but not too late, and quickly - not as a condition for enlargement but in the progression towards the goal of a constitution and a constitutional treaty.
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Mr Prodi, you demonstrate the fact that we are, in my view, returning to a Europe of values.
The European Union must not be seen by the people only as a single market, it must be a Europe of common values and a common culture.
Our culture gives us more in common than it does to divide us, but all our talk at the moment is about what divides us.
We should talk about what we have in common!
What distinguishes us in our values and our cultures is not something divisive but a plus, a diversity and an additional wealth.
If in this discussion of the fundamental issue of values we can present the kind of Europe once called for in this House by Václav Havel, then we will once again be in a position to find favour with our citizens, who want more than just a single market.
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<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
Mr President, I welcome Mr Prodi's commitment, in his speeches both last month and today, to carrying out the necessary reforms so as to renew and strengthen the European institutions, in particular his commitment to an increasingly transparent, collegial and efficient Commission, as well as to a greater role for Parliament and to an extension of majority voting in the Council.
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However, Mr Prodi, I remain confused about your approach to the economy and the environment.
Your words convey the idea that development amounts to continuous growth, without any attention to the natural limits of resources. Infinite growth is a dangerous utopia believed in by economists, which cannot be borne out in reality.
Admittedly, you have today called for an ecological tax to confront challenges such as climate change - and I am very glad - and you have spoken of sustainable growth, but is there not an obvious contradiction between these assertions and your excessive confidence in the results to be achieved from complete trade liberalisation under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation?
Rather than bringing about liberalisation, these agreements have concentrated the market in the hands of a few multinationals which have imposed a system of monopolistic control; the clauses on environmental, health and ethical safeguards as well as protection for the weakest peoples in the world have not been implemented since the GATT agreements.
One need only think of the confrontation between the United States and Europe over trade in the furs of animals captured by cruel methods, over trade in bananas and hormone-treated meat, and above all over genetically modified organisms, particularly since the collapse of the Cartagena summit on bio-security due to US intransigence.
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Finally, although I welcome your proposal for stability in south-east Europe and an international conference on the Balkans to bring about peace in Europe, I must say that armed intervention has never led to peace; at the very most, it has stopped the fighting but without removing the causes.
This is where Europe has failed.
In the past it failed to act, but in acting now it has failed to prevent the conflict; and I cannot forget that one of the Italian Government's last decisions when you were Prime Minister, on 12 October 1998, was to make Italian airbases available to NATO in the event of a war in Kosovo.
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I nevertheless wish you all the best for your work. I hope that you will manage to meet the challenges of building Europe whilst taking account of issues such as the environment, health and peace, to which the European people are fully entitled.
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<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Raschhofer">
Mr President, every decade has its visions.
In the 1980s Europe's vision was the completion of the internal market, in the 1990s it is monetary union.
The forthcoming phase must be geared towards consolidation and improving and strengthening what has been achieved; it must be a period of root and branch and reform, as Tony Blair put it.
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The root refers to the Commissioners; you are personally involved in their selection and in their quality and success, and you are responsible for them.
Renewing the structures, making the procedures more efficient and introducing transparent controls will be difficult enough.
The new Commission must be genuinely new in terms of people, thinking and action.
You and we owe this to the people of Europe.
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The branches refer to the organisation as a whole.
It must be clear who is in charge of the administration.
The report by the Committee of Independent Experts should help you in this, and Parliament's assistance is assured.
It is not enough to try to make the overburdened bureaucracy more efficient.
New approaches are needed by increasingly involving the Member States; subsidiarity also relieves the burden on Brussels in implementing European tasks and increases everyone's sense of responsibility - a sense of responsibility that has hitherto not existed.
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In your first statement you asked not to be judged on your past but on the visions and ideas that you bring to Europe.
We will hold you to that.
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<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, I was very impressed by Mr Prodi's statement. In my view, he certainly possesses the qualities needed to become a great President of the Commission.
As far as Parliament is concerned, I am sure Mr Prodi will pass with distinction.
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Nevertheless, this Parliament represents the people of Europe. I myself speak for the Spanish Socialist delegation in the European Parliament.
Those of us who hail from the south of Europe hope that under Mr Prodi, more account will be taken of certain issues which tended to be sidelined by the previous Commission, that is, those issues concerning relations with the southern flank of Europe. Europe has certainly shifted northwards and eastwards in recent years.
This followed the fall of the Berlin wall and enlargement to include countries in central and northern Europe. Plans for further enlargement towards the countries of Central and Eastern Europe are now under way.
There is more to Europe than a single direction however, and we also need to bear in mind the concerns felt along the southern shores of the Mediterranean.
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The major conflict we are confronted with at the moment is of course in the Balkans, which are at the crossroads between Central and Eastern Europe and southern Europe.
They represent a fault line running across Europe which may well give rise to further problems.
We must therefore also give consideration to Mediterranean Europe, along with Europe's involvement in the Maghreb and the Mashreq, the Middle East and even those countries in southern Africa awaiting our cooperation, the ACP countries and the countries of Latin America.
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Focusing on a different aspect, I feel that the results of the Berlin European Council have been unduly influenced by economic and technocratic considerations to the detriment perhaps of more fundamental political considerations. In particular, no progress has been made towards improving conditions in rural areas and the agricultural policy is still beset by difficulties.
The lack of a European policy for social and economic cohesion is certainly causing problems too. Furthermore, the present relationship between the more developed and the less developed countries and regions has to change.
If it does not, there is a risk that we shall find ourselves in a two-speed Europe with regard to economic and social conditions. As Professor Prodi is well aware, the more developed countries and regions seem to be consolidating their economic progress whereas the less developed areas seem destined to remain firmly fixed in their disadvantaged position.
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As I see it, the economic and technocratic considerations which dominated at the Berlin European Council must be counterbalanced by a Community economic policy which takes into account all the interests of each and every one of the regions and countries of the European Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Duhamel">
Mr President, Mr Prodi, ladies and gentlemen, May 1999 will go down in history as one of Europe's best and worst months politically speaking.
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It is one of the worst because of the awful events of this spring with the war in Kosovo, the crimes, the deportations and the political weaknesses of our Union which neither we nor you must forget.
Fortunately, France and Europe are leading the humanitarian action to remedy and alleviate the worst effects, having failed to avoid these.
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It is one of the best because your appointment, Mr Prodi, gives us hope and a renewed determination.
Clearly this is because of who you are, as many of us have already said and written, but also and particularly because of the conditions of your arrival.
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You are fortunate in that you will be the first Commission President to be appointed as a result of the principle of responsibility.
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Modern democracy aims to be like a temple with foundations of human rights and two pillars of universal suffrage and the principle of responsibility.
I am pleased to have heard the word responsibility said so many times this morning.
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And just look at our Europe.
It is celebrating fifty years of the Council of Europe whose foundations are so dear to so many of us.
Look at our European Community celebrating twenty years of its Parliament being elected by the people.
Look at our European Union celebrating the birth of political responsibility, which has come about in rather a strange way as we all know.
Thanks to this Parliament, and within it the European Socialists led by Mrs Green, the previous Commission was overturned.
Some of its Members did their work well while others did not, but overall it failed politically.
Parliament told it so and it resigned.
That was the revolution in mid-March.
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The embryonic European public opinion then called you, Mr Prodi, into its emerging arena and the Heads of State and Government listened to that opinion.
This can be regarded as progress.
You will allow me as a man of the left to remind you that these Heads of State and Government are also from the left and that the first duty of a left-wing democrat is to listen to the people.
Your speech this morning on full economic liberalisation offends us as Socialists.
But we realise that it stems from your need for consensus and that that is the situation we are in.
We will therefore vote in favour of your appointment.
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In mid-June the electors will vote in another election for a new Parliament, a new majority and a new Commission.
European democracy is moving forward.
This is why in welcoming you, Mr Prodi, it is our democracy which we are honouring, but without forgetting our responsibilities.
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Antonio Gramsci spoke of pessimism of the mind and optimism of the heart when he was faced with fascism.
You could and you must repeat this phrase today so that our confidence in you will be renewed and our Europe will be renewed.
Then we can build that democratic temple and be true to our ideal.
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<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="President">
I am grateful to Mr Duhamel for his kindness in quoting an Italian who, in turn, took that quotation from a great French man of letters.
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<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="McNally">
Mr President, Mr President-designate, at the last full part-session of the European Parliament, we are facing a worried electorate in a continent at war.
You will be facing a more assertive and more confident European Parliament which has expectations of you.
It has expectations of your managerial ability, your communication skills, your strength and your integrity.
On managerial skills, you have to inculcate a culture of reform to thousands of people.
You have to make reality the codes of conduct which have appeared very late.
You have to lead a team of Commissioners and you have to master details of administration.
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We want from you management by walking about.
We want you to do spot checks and to be responsive to detailed criticisms.
We need from you communication of a vision and clarity of ideas, but they have to be acceptable ideas.
Tax harmonisation is not an acceptable idea for example to my delegation so you cannot promulgate ideas which are not politically acceptable.
We need you to be able to communicate with us and with the citizens of the European Union.
Above all, we require of you strength and integrity.
You have to be able to give adequate answers to the sort of hostile newspaper articles which are in the United Kingdom's press today, for example.
That we expect of you.
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In return we will support you as critical friends.
We have decided to change our rules to make it clear to everyone that we will monitor expenditure in every spending committee.
The price of your failure would be awful.
It would be the destruction of the European ideal.
But the reward for your success, which is what we expect and what we will help you with, will be a new confirmation of the wisdom of working together in international cooperation in the European Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fayot">
Mr President, the new Commission's policy cannot be all things to all men.
It cannot be excessively liberal and yet be social and ecological at the same time.
You are therefore being called upon to produce a new outline in order to create a new European social and ecological model.
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Europe is currently receiving bad press among workers.
Public services are being dismantled and universal service is not a remedy.
Many workers are unemployed due to liberalisation and globalisation.
Although wealth is constantly increasing, poverty and exclusion, unemployment and precarious employment are growing.
You will be required, Mr Prodi, to put an end to this scandal and see to it that the European Union becomes a Europe for all.
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The reformist approach you are setting out will require a majority in favour of progress.
You will no doubt obtain a very large majority within this House and I hope that this majority will remain stable after the elections.
In this respect, I must remind this House and the Commission of the fact that the Amsterdam Treaty gives the European Parliament new rights and also new duties. In my opinion, one of these is the duty of stability.
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I believe that the vote for Mr Prodi and the vote for the new College will establish a pact of confidence between Parliament and the Commission that should last for five years.
Parliament, which cannot be sanctioned in this institutional system, cannot constantly change the majority or use the motion of censure, except in cases of extreme political danger.
In addition, a pact of confidence commits the Commission to being serious-minded about political planning.
Each year, in order to establish the budget and work programme, we must examine the state of progress of the political programme which we will approve with the new College.
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To conclude, Parliament and the Commission must commit themselves to achieving a new level of quality in their political work.
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<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Tsatsos">
Mr President-delegate, your appointment will be one of the crowning moments in the institutional relationship between the European Parliament and the Commission.
The Greek Socialist MEPs hope you will be appointed.
However, the appointment of the President of the Commission is not just a passing event.
It creates a relationship of mutual trust and cooperation between the Commission and those who represent the people of Europe.
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Mr President, the people of Europe have unfortunately become mistrustful.
Past wrongdoings have undermined the credibility of the European Union.
Democracy's response to this has been to institute transparency.
But transparency will never function simply because it is written into the Treaties.
It will function if the Commission wants it to and if Parliament permanently demands it.
Strict monitoring by Parliament is not an act of aggression, it is an act to safeguard the good reputation of the institutions.
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I hope with all my heart and, following your speech today, we believe that a new, valuable and constructive period is opening up in the relations between the Commission and Parliament.
Once Parliament has confirmed your appointment and endorsed your Commission, we hope that this period will be one of transparency, democracy, human rights and, above all, a time of peace.
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On the subject of peace, Mr President, I think we all need to understand that, on whatever battlefield the dead may fall, they are all equal.
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<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sindal">
Mr Prodi, you are the second President of the Commission I will be involved in selecting.
That gives me some experience.
I must admit that after the first two meetings we had together, I was not entirely happy, but now I can say that I was very pleased with the speech you gave here in Parliament today.
I am glad that the environment, consumers and employment were included in your speech.
I am glad that you stress the fact that it can be beneficial to cooperate.
However, there is one thing I am not happy with, and that is the high priority given to the liberalisation of trade within the WTO.
I agree, Mr Prodi, that we should strengthen the role of the Commission within the WTO, but I would warn against jeopardising the social dimension and against holding consumers and the environment to ransom.
It is extremely important for us also to consider the third world, the poor countries, and to make the WTO work in that context.
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The other thing I would like to mention today is your task of reforming the Commission's work and working methods - the new business culture.
I am happy with what we have heard today.
I hope that the institutions, in other words the Council, Parliament and the Commission, can cooperate on this in future.
I have one question: do you share my view that a new start is synonymous with having new Commissioners in all positions?
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<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lööw">
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Prodi for saying so early in his introductory address that he is going to devote a great deal of thought to the issue of transparency and openness.
I should like to stress that in point of fact Parliament has taken many concrete decisions on what the concept of openness and transparency involves.
I am firmly convinced that Parliament will not retreat from the position it has already adopted.
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In my view, it is to some extent a question of turning the principle of possibly being open when forced to be so into one of seeking to be as open as possible from the start.
Moreover, it is not just a matter of providing information about the institutions' own situation, but of supplying documents and answering the questions which people ask.
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I believe that it will require a much sturdier framework and more rigorous staff training.
Consequently, it will demand a great deal of effort; it is not enough simply to say that we would like greater openness.
However, I am holding fast to Mr Prodi's commitment in this respect and I also hope that he understands that a great deal of effort will be needed as well, in order to achieve results.
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<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, Mr Prodi, you have been given an almost incredible amount of praise and recognition, and I am sure you not take it amiss if I introduce a negative note to this whole affair.
I will say first of all that the Austrian Social Democrats will also support you.
But I will say quite openly that this is not out of total conviction but on the basis of your achievements to date and as an initial vote of confidence.
It is obvious that you could not provide answers to several questions at this stage.
What bothers me a little - and this is the point I would like to focus on - is the fact that you placed too much emphasis on the market and too little on the social aspects.
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As a tribute to our President, I would like to deal with this using Gramsci terminology.
Hegemony - in this case the hegemony of the market - disturbs me both as an economist and as a supporter of the market economy, as we in Europe have developed a model of the social market economy that is concerned particularly with reducing and preventing unemployment.
I admit, Mr Prodi, that you have stated clearly today for the first time, as far as I know, that you also want to combat and prevent the causes and sources of unemployment.
But that is still a little too weak for me - it still lacks substance.
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I will say it clearly once again: we must strengthen market forces. But we must also be aware that the market can only function in our model if there is as little unemployment as possible and as few social weaknesses as possible in our society, as otherwise the people of Europe will not come along with us.
In this respect I welcome you now as our new Commission President and hope that you will be able to restore this balance.

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<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Desama">
Mr President, Mr Prodi, I agree with Mr Swoboda's negative outlook and I want to emphasise it somewhat.
I have listened to you three times today, each time with as much pleasure, but I noted on all three occasions that you did not mention once the concept of Europe as a social union. This concerns me.
You naturally spoke about employment but you said nothing about European social dialogue.
Nor did you mention the need to establish the basic range of fundamental social rights, without which we will see relocations through fiscal dumping.
And although you again announced that the Commission would be developing the liberalisation of the market in goods and services, I heard nothing about public services and the services of general economic interest which now clearly appear in Article 7d of the Amsterdam Treaty.
You really must reassure us in this respect if you want your Commission to be in full working order.
Do not forget your left wing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Marinho">
Mr Prodi, you say that you are a man of conviction, with which we agree, and that your beliefs are based on European integration.
Like you, we are also proud of the enormous effort which was needed to bring certain countries, in particular yours and mine, into the leading group of the European Union and into the euro.
<P>
However, the subject today is the future.
You mentioned this, particularly with regard to your plans for a new, transparent and efficient Commission organisation.
I am not sure if it is positive or negative that you spoke more about the practical side than the theoretical side. This contrasted with the rest of your speech which was more philosophical, emphatic and profound than pragmatic.
<P>
I must therefore ask you to clarify certain points.
Do you consider that the current institutional framework in which the Commission lies, formed by the principle of parity and equality between Member States, is an essential and historic principle of the Union or do you adhere to the more contemporary arguments which press for prompt and urgent reform?
Specifically, should the institutional reform of the Commission, particularly with regard to the number of Commissioners, be carried out in the context of the Treaty in force or are you in favour of an early revision?
This is an issue which cannot be avoided even though it is very delicate.
The impression you gave us is that you did not want to talk about it, which is a shame because clarity in these matters is essential to allow us to accept the rest of your commendable reform proposals.
It is not just a question of 'putting the house in order'; it is also absolutely essential to reinforce its foundations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Mr President, I wish to address just one issue. It is an important matter from the point of view of Parliament that you, Mr President-designate of the Commission, should, in the performance of your duties, make a credible commitment to the reforms that Parliament has called for from the next Commission, and that when you are involved in the selection process with governments, you insist on commitment to those reforms on the part of every Member of the Commission, both separately and jointly.
I believe it should also be mentioned that those Members of the present Commission who have performed their duties well, and who are committed to the reforms, will also be needed in the next Commission, as, otherwise, the reforms will not be introduced sufficiently promptly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Prodi">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am extremely grateful to you for this debate, which has been thorough and wide-ranging. As has been pointed out, you have expressed your confidence in me and your expectations of me, which I very much appreciate and for which I feel very responsible.
The debate has also quite rightly revealed that your confidence is conditional, based on my word, because that is all I can offer for the time being.
<P>
Therefore, all that remains for me to say here and now is that I am, quite frankly, very aware of how difficult a time this is and how great your confidence in me is, but also of the fact that I am being put to the test by you and will be even more so by the next Parliament, before which I shall have to return with the full Commission team. On behalf of the Commission team, I shall have to give a hard and fast guarantee of the promises and commitments which I have made during the debates on 13 April and today.
Obviously, an act of government is embodied in a government; it cannot simply be summarised in a programme.
I therefore just wish to tell you that I feel responsible for the major tasks which you have outlined for the Commission: I fully share your desire that the Commission should return to, or rather should finally assume, its role as stipulated in the Treaties - that of taking initiatives and making policy proposals - and should do so with great clarity.
<P>
Clarity has always been an issue.
I would remind you that clarity depends on a definition of responsibilities, and I undertake to work hard in this area, which was one of the main causes of the recent crisis: clarity concerning the Commission's collective political responsibility, but also that of the individual Commissioners who are in charge of portfolios and responsible for managing them, as well as the key administrative responsibility for running the Directorates-General.
This is a problem of fundamental importance, which I wished to tackle head-on by defining the function of the Cabinets - one of the difficulties which has led in the past to tension and misunderstanding.
<P>
Next, I am grateful to you for having reminded me of the delicate relationship which will exist between the Commission and the Council, on the one hand, and between the Commission and Parliament on the other.
It is a much stronger Parliament, a Parliament which has acquired strength, as happens at times of major institutional growth.
I shall therefore have to be transparent, clear and absolutely beyond reproach in my dealings with Parliament; I realise this.
<P>
There has also been some difficulty concerning the timing of the investiture.
Mr Verheugen, on behalf of the Council, has stressed the need for a rapid investiture procedure. Mr Cox, however, has stressed that a high-profile parliamentary debate should be held to endorse the new Commission.
I believe that both these demands are of great importance; all I can say is that I shall be ready with the entire new team of Commissioners on the day when the new Parliament takes office.
I can - and must - make this undertaking to you, so as not to hold up the investiture by a single hour.
Naturally, I hope that this will take place rapidly. I repeat, however, that I realise the debate will have to be detailed and thorough in every respect.
<P>
Today's debate has raised another considerable, deep-rooted problem to which I believe we shall have to return in coming years.
I have been accused of having too much confidence in the market and too little in social Europe.
Let us be quite clear: if we put these two terms in contradiction with each other, we shall ruin commercial Europe as well as social Europe.
Let us remember that, if we are to give hope to the third world, for which we bear enormous responsibility - indeed, we cannot forget that Europe is the largest economic body in the world; I repeat, the largest economic body in the world - then clearly we must also guarantee a world economic order.
The opening-up of trade over the past few years has led to growth in certain countries which were totally outside the world economy before, and has consequently led - I understand this, and it has emerged in the debate - to serious problems in certain European sectors and certain European countries.
But let us not forget that, if we fail to meet this challenge, we will badly disappoint the third world and will fail in our duty to this earth, which has become so complex.
This, I assure you, does not detract from - indeed it enhances - the importance of the social dialogue: it becomes all the more important to look after those who are marginalised, the poorest members of society.
But we cannot discuss these matters behind closed doors, or as a continent which erects borders, albeit one that has been enlarged. We must do so by meeting the challenge which, in this case, is also a responsibility.
<P>
You may think I am saying this to receive your endorsement or backing.
That is not true!
I, for my part, am firmly convinced in economic terms that the European edifice must be supported by twin pillars.
If we really do close our doors, then from the point of view of both peace and development in this world of ours, we shall cause the most serious problems.
I am well aware that this opening-up means that change must be much faster than it was in the past, and that change leads to disruption.
The task of the Commission and Parliament, together with the Council, is to move forward in this direction, to assume responsibility for change, because there could obviously be a strong temptation now to close our doors and fall back on conservative positions.
That is why we have all devoted ourselves to this major task of introducing progressive reforms.
I have outlined a few points here; I have referred to transparency, organisational change, changed relations between the Commission and Parliament, and a change in the structure of administrative relations.
<P>
Obviously this is a gradual process.
Anyone who reproaches me for not having come here with a complete edifice is absolutely right.
The type of procedure, the type of work which we are building is progressive.
Apart from anything else, even though the responsibility will be mine, I shall have to take account of the second report of the Wise Men, to be published in September, just as I have taken account in my thinking so far of their first report, although I repeat that I shall be responsible for the decisions.
These documents are vital in shaping our ideas, in organising our thoughts.
<P>
That is why our working relations must be continuous, well balanced and strong; that is why, as I have often said, the composition of the Commission must be well balanced, not only politically but also between men and women.
I wish to say in this respect that there is no list of Commissioners, not even a provisional one.
I have said clearly to the Heads of State and Government, with whom I am establishing an ongoing dialogue to put together a fine Commission: 'let us not name any names until after the elections!'
First of all out of respect for certain countries which have their own internal acceptance procedures; secondly, because we must begin by setting out our work programmes and intentions, and then we can build the Commission.
I think it would be utterly wrong to proceed in the opposite fashion.
Therefore we shall name names after the elections; all those already mentioned are mere rumours, which count for nothing.
That is why, as I have said, I am preparing the ground now: once election-time comes the government will be formed, in time to be presented to Parliament at its first sitting.
That is my plan.
<P>
I should like to touch on a few more points, ones which I think you raised with particular emphasis and passion during the debate.
<P>
I shall not speak about defence.
Some of you took what I said negatively, as though I were attaching priority to the sword rather than to the budget or the currency.
The facts, though, are very plain: it is difficult to build a new, serviceable edifice without giving it a defensive structure.
It will take time: I am aware of the Commission's limitations, I am aware of its powers. I am aware of all of this, but we must make it an objective on a par with foreign policy.
<P>
Finally, the fight against poverty and marginalisation and the problem of growth.
Once again, let us not try to build the future using outdated economic concepts.
It is absolutely untrue that the new model of growth will inevitably be harmful to sustainable development and the environment.
New growth is totally different from that of the past.
The fact is that Europe has not been able to embark with sufficient speed on the road to new growth, which involves above all the following new sectors: software, telecommunications and also, harking back to my last speech, what I referred to as the 'life sciences'.
These encompass major sectors, ranging from pharmaceuticals to fine chemistry to health appliances: sectors in which Europe is extremely weak and has huge scope for job creation and for harnessing intelligence.
I would however recall that, in this field more than any other, ethical problems must never come second to economic ones.
Let that be clear!
This applies not only here; we must make a total, general commitment to this effect because it is part of our overall objectives.
<P>
Lastly, I referred a moment ago to our obligations to the outside world.
I have not spoken of these this morning because I did so last time; I regard the two speeches as twin episodes in a single chapter which we must write together.
That is why I did not specifically go into the problem of the Mediterranean this morning, but dwelt above all on the Balkans.
I would however stress that our responsibility towards the Mediterranean countries is immense.
It is immense because the situation confronting us is becoming increasingly difficult and almost untenable socially, economically and especially in regard to the organisation of government structures.
No one else can perform this role, and we cannot possibly refuse it now.
I merely wished to recall these points over and above what I said in my previous speech, in view of your objections and suggestions, for which I am most grateful.
<P>
I wish to close with another very brief remark concerning Kosovo.
Our task here is increasingly enormous.
Let us remember that the political, social and economic reconstruction of the Balkans will to a large extent, if not exclusively, fall to Europe.
Let us remember that we must provide an institutional framework enabling these peoples to feel secure and allowing them not only to maintain their own structures but also to step up their relations with Europe, so as to have their own prospects for the future.
<P>
To conclude, I thank you and I hope that our discussions will continue to be constructive.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sindal">
Mr President, I asked a question about whether by a 'new start', Mr Prodi meant that there should also be an entirely new Commission, in other words that there should be no reappointment of any of the old Commissioners.
I did not receive an answer to my question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Prodi">
If I have understood correctly, I am being asked whether or not the new Commission will include any Commissioners from the old one.
There is nothing to prevent that; it depends on the capability and the ethical and professional conduct of a Commissioner.
I see no reason for any prohibition here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Prodi.
<P>
I have received a motion for a resolution tabled pursuant to Rule 32.
<P>
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12 noon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="President">
Mr Ephremidis would like to speak on the Balkans, but the debate on Kosovo is to take place this afternoon; I think he will have an opportunity to comment then.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the votes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="President">
Mr Ephremidis, you have been in this House long enough to know that Members are not allowed to speak if the President does not give them the floor.
<P>
Mr Imbeni did not give you the floor.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, we shall now proceed to a long list of votes which contains a new element.
These are the first votes that will take place under the new Rules of Procedure which we adopted during the last part-session.
<P>
I have to say that a study we carried out today of the votes that will take place showed that the modifications introduced by Richard Corbett, Ana Palacio and Vice-President Gutiérrez Díaz are important and change a good many things.
I think that voting has been simplified considerably.
Many old ways of doing things have also been changed, and I would like to ask you for your support and understanding.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="President">
I would point out to the House that, as a departure from our usual procedure, if the report by Mr Fayot is adopted, it will come into force immediately and not from the next part-session, so that it can be implemented for the next proposals that will be put to the vote.
<P>
For it to be adopted, it requires an absolute majority of 314 votes.
<P>
Parliament adopted the decision
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herman">
Mr President, could you please explain why in the last part-session a simple majority was sufficient to amend the annexes, whereas today an absolute majority is needed to amend an annex?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="President">
Mr Herman, there is a difference between the provisions in the annex to the Rules of Procedure which refer to discharge and those in the annex to the Rules of Procedure which relate to other votes.
<P>
The former require a reinforced majority whereas the latter do not.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I had asked to speak before this amendment was put to the vote as I am not sure that it was admissible.
We have just adopted an amendment to Article 5 of Annex V to the Rules of Procedure which states, with regard to both the granting and refusal of discharge, that the proposal for a decision on granting discharge may not be the subject of amendments. You said that this would take effect immediately.
However, this amendment actually concerned the paragraph on the proposal for a decision.
I must therefore say that when we are rushing through texts, we should at least take a minimum amount of care to ensure that they are respected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="President">
You have raised a point that we shall consider afterwards, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
In any event, the amendment was not adopted.
We shall look at it again.
We are not infallible - only the Pope is infallible, not us.
But since the amendment was not adopted, there is no problem.
<P>
Parliament adopted the resolution
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Blak, Iversen, Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Souchet">
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Palm">
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Heinisch">
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, I deeply regretted the haste with which the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection voted for compromise amendments to Mr Lannoye's report on the proposal for a directive on honey. This simply weakened the report.
These compromise amendments will not have the effect we are seeking, which is to limit the negative consequences on consumers and European honey producers of a directive which does not adequately protect the quality of good European honeys against imported honeys. Moreover, this situation is an open invitation to fraud.
<P>
Unfortunately, it was no longer possible to amend these compromise amendments as I would have liked. Therefore, as I cannot resign myself to voting for texts which do not guarantee that the consumer will be able to easily distinguish between imported honey and quality honey produced in the Community, I abstained.
The remainder of the report is not bad, although mixtures of honeys where part originates from outside the Community should also be marked 'imported honey'.
<P>
Finally, I must state that in order to improve honey production and marketing, as referred to in my report on an ad hoc regulation and for which we have obtained EUR 15 million per year - although I had asked for EUR 65 million - stringent requirements are needed on the quality, control and labelling of honey.
I regret that the Commission and the Council did not follow Parliament's lead as it unanimously approved my two reports on European apiculture and the improvement of honey production and marketing.
I am hopeful that during the next parliamentary term we will be heard, as my struggle on behalf of honey producers and their high-quality products in Europe and the Community will continue inside or outside Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="President">
Mrs Lulling, I gave you twice the time to which you were entitled since this is one of our last sittings. I am bound to give some small privileges - and they are of no great consequence - to colleagues who have been conspicuous by their presence in the Chamber!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw, Palm, Sandberg-Fries, Theorin and Wibe">
We regret that this directive, which aims to bring in common rules on ingredients, will involve serious disadvantages for the Swedish jam market.
Sweden has traditionally followed a different jam-making process from the European one, using more fruit and less sugar.
The proposal that has now been approved means that jam with a much higher sugar content will dominate the Swedish market, which is regrettable.
<P>
We have therefore decided not to participate in the decision.
Moreover, we take the view that decisions on products such as these should be taken in a different context, rather than by the generally hard-pressed European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Cars">
Since I do not think it is necessary to have a uniform EU definition of jam and marmalade, I do not feel that I should vote for the Lannoye report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Ryynänen and Thors">
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Féret">
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I abstained during the final vote on Mr Fayot's report on the amendment of Annex V to the Rules of Procedure.
In my opinion, the provisions adopted respond to a particular situation. They aim to solve the problem relating to the 1996 financial year, and it is never advisable to amend general texts to solve a particular problem.
However, I also have two formal comments to make.
<P>
The first follows on from the comments made earlier by Mr Herman in relation to the fact that you decided that the amendments to Annex V to the Rules of Procedure would be adopted by an absolute majority.
You were right in that respect since this is in accordance with the Treaty, which specifies that the Rules of Procedure shall be adopted by an absolute majority of the Members of Parliament.
You - and by you I really mean the President's office in general - should actually have applied the same conditions to the adoption of the amendment to the other annex in the last part-session concerning the responsibilities of the parliamentary committees.
There is no difference in the nature of these annexes.
It is solely for the sake of convenience that these texts have been made into annexes to the Rules of Procedure because they would take up too much room in the main body of the Rules.
However, in both cases the provisions are important and must be adopted under the same conditions as the main text itself.
<P>
My second comment concerns the immediate entry into force of the Rules.
We decided on this even though the committee's amendments were not adopted.
We therefore voted on the Elles report without knowing exactly what we were voting on.
In future, if we want to apply something quickly, we should allow at least one day in order to obtain the final adopted text. We should not vote without knowing exactly what we are voting on.
The Rules of Procedure allow quicker application than that normally anticipated, namely in the part-session following their adoption, but immediate entry into force does not seem appropriate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Lukas">
My reason for rejecting Amendment No 4 was that I could accept it if it read as follows:
<P>
' The Council may unanimously decide exceptionally to authorise a qualified majority decision by which a Member State, acting on a proposal from the Commission ...'
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Souchet">
Further to the Vienna European Council of 11 and 12 December 1998, the Commission has just forwarded to Parliament a proposal to amend Directive 77/388/EEC as regards the possibility of applying on an experimental basis a reduced VAT rate on labour-intensive services.
<P>
In this proposal, the Commission is seeking to add a new paragraph 6 to Article 28 of the directive. This paragraph provides for a procedure enabling the Council, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission, to authorise any Member State to apply a reduced rate for the period from 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2002 to certain local labour-intensive services that meet specific requirements.
<P>
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has indicated on several occasions that it believes that there is a direct link between a lower VAT rate and higher employment.
This proposal to amend the directive is therefore heading in the right direction by offering Member States a positive option, which they will certainly use in a fairly general manner.
<P>
However, the I-EDN Group voted against Amendment No 4 by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, which was adopted by 423 votes to 61.
This amendment specifies that the Council should act by qualified majority and not unanimously.
Yet according to the Treaty, all tax provisions governed by Community law must be adopted by the Council acting unanimously.
Once again the supporters of a federal Europe are trying to go one step further by removing one of the Council's prerogatives to the benefit of the Commission.
If qualified majority voting were adopted for taxation, as desired by the vast majority of Members, a whole chunk of national sovereignty would be swept away.
This would seriously impinge on the right of each Member State to fix and collect tax.
<P>
We all know that Parliament has frequently indicated its backing for the introduction of a European tax. In this case, with its shrewd support for a text allowing Member States to reduce VAT, it is trying to alter the legal basis of the Treaties by changing the procedure in the Council for adopting the Commission's tax proposals.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hory">
Mr President, I must apologise for referring at such a late stage to the Minutes of yesterday's sitting.
I have actually only just discovered that I was marked as absent whereas I was definitely here.
Not having voted using the electronic system, I cannot prove this formally.
However, I did move a motion for a resolution, and its inclusion in the list of topical and urgent subjects was opposed.
I asked to speak in support of this motion and that was noted by Mr von Wogau and Mr Priestley.
Unfortunately, the President at the time could not give me the floor but I was definitely here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="President">
Very well, that will be noted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, a shadow not predicted by the official experts is being cast over the broad economic policy guidelines for the coming year: a slow-down in European growth of approximately 2 % combined with a continued high level of unemployment of approximately 10 % on average throughout Europe. By contrast, the United States of America is growing twice as fast and its unemployment rate is half the European level.
At the same time, and fairly logically, the euro has been falling against the dollar since it was launched at the beginning of the year.
<P>
This situation quite clearly contrasts with the promise accompanying monetary unification that a new era of growth and employment would begin in Europe.
Of course, you could say that the euro has only really been in use for four months and that it is therefore too early to come to any definite conclusions about this.
However, this statement is not actually true because the bilateral parities between the European currencies were fixed just over a year ago, on 1 May 1998, and the objective of rigidly pegging the currencies to each other has prevailed for several years.
Neither the euro nor the European management in general can therefore be easily exonerated of all responsibility.
<P>
We are particularly conscious that growth is weaker in the countries at the centre of the euro system which contribute to the Structural Funds and stronger in the more peripheral countries or those which benefit from European aid.
In essence, the question is whether or not the decline in the centre of the Union is weighing on Europe as a whole and whether or not European growth, which has thus been weakened by the Brussels management, is wreaking revenge by weakening the euro.
<P>
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations wants the recovery of European growth to be assisted, firstly by reducing the compulsory levies for the Structural Funds, and secondly by relaxing the rigid management of the euro.
We believe that a certain amount of currency flexibility must be restored and that the euro must be adapted to the specific situation in each country. This could be achieved by allowing the national currencies to remain, together with the euro, after 1 January 2002, with the euro then becoming a simple common currency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Martin, David">
I will vote for the Fourçans report on the broad guidelines of the economic policies of the Member States and the Community.
<P>
The report is right to emphasise the need to establish closer coordination between broad economic policy guidelines and the employment policy guidelines, taking into account the need for a coherent strategy for employment, growth, stability and economic reforms and for improved procedure with regard to their content, their timing and the relationship between the Council committees involved.
<P>
The rapporteur also has my support in calling for public/private investment to obtain a modern transport and communications infrastructure in the Union and I support his call to the Commission and the Council to find the appropriate financing mechanism - such as an expanded role for the EIB.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We voted against the report for the following reasons:
<P>
1.The idea of a common economic policy is flawed in principle.
The Member States' individual economic structures make it necessary to have a policy which takes account of national differences.
Real convergence requires different policies.
Formal convergence, on the other hand, results in conflicting policy outcomes.2.A common economic policy, controlled by the Union, constitutes a serious breach of national independence and encroaches on the role of national parliaments, whose prerogative in terms of economic policy is an essential part of democracy.3.In the report and the accompanying statement, the policy which is advocated represents biased theoretical ideas and a particular brand of political theory.
It runs counter to many of the approaches and observations endorsed by modern economic science.
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Mendes Bota">
<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
The Menrad report - and it is appropriate here that Mr Berthu has just spoken about the economic situation - is attempting to revisit the issue of European employment policy in the run-up to the European Employment Pact which is sure to be concluded in Cologne.
The great disaster, however, is that it now seems unlikely that the content of the Pact will really be any different under this new spirit of cooperation, since the employment guidelines are still those agreed in Luxembourg in all their ambiguity.
The essential features of economic policy are this time extremely vague and unclear, with the result that for the time being we have no choice but to carry on as we are, which is extremely difficult in view of the number of problems we face.
The market reforms that are to form the third component consist of a mixture - not yet clearly defined - of deregulation ideas and necessary framework definitions for fair competition in the internal market.
<P>
So much as we welcome the fact that the European Union is preparing to create the conditions for a European 'polder' model in economic and employment policy, we must nevertheless warn against it if the structure is not also linked to the content. The aim must be to change the direction of economic policy and move to a policy that actually gives priority to long-term, sustainable employment, a policy that returns to the idea of the redistribution of labour, a policy that places the need to develop sustainability, meet the Rio commitments and achieve solidarity in dealing with and stabilising the European environment back at the forefront of European economic policy instead of regarding it as a type of aggregate micro-policy imposed by the large companies.
This is what has happened in the last twenty years, with the all-too-familiar negative results that the whole of Europe is suffering from today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Sandberg-Fries and Theorin">
The European Council in Vienna recommended a policy geared to growth and employment, integrating the macro-economic and economic policy dimensions.
We believe that the current high level of unemployment constitutes a threat to the European welfare model.
The fact that, year after year, millions of people are out of work is detrimental to the credibility of both society and democracy.
<P>
The Menrad report on the European Parliament's contribution to the European Employment Pact is an important contribution to the strengthening of employment in Europe.
We therefore welcome the report, with certain reservations.
The report recommends exploring the possibility of an agreement between the labour market partners on a basic wage.
In our view, this is not the right way to combat such things as social dumping. We believe that the focus should be on other measures instead, for example minimum standards in the area covered by employment law.
<P>
The report also puts forward further demands, such as a relieving of the tax burden on companies' incomes and investments and a reduction in payroll taxes.
In principle, we are opposed to such measures.
We think it is extremely important to promote a climate in which companies can flourish, but that this is a national responsibility and one on which each Member State should adopt its own position.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Blak, Iversen, Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of a report on the European Employment Pact.
We are very positive towards giving priority to employment issues in economic policy, and therefore warmly welcome the Employment Pact.
<P>
However, there are some paragraphs in the report which we cannot support.
It calls, amongst other things, for the introduction of an agreement-based basic wage at European level.
That is a bad idea.
Wages are not a European concern.
It also calls for a convergence of corporate taxes.
We do not support the harmonisation of corporate taxes.
However, we are strong supporters of the introduction of a minimum level of corporate tax at European level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Martin, David">
Solving unemployment is the greatest challenge facing the European Union today.
It cannot be accepted that 18 million Europeans are unable to find work.
<P>
The European Employment Pact will not of itself solve this problem but it can make a contribution and it is a welcome recognition by the Member States that more can be achieved through cooperation than by individual countries acting alone.
<P>
I particularly welcome the rapporteur's call for priority to be given to SMEs, strengthening R&D, encouraging environmental protection, the involvement of the third sector, improvements in education and training and the promotion of social inclusion.
<P>
While the rapporteur is realistic in stating that 'special employment programmes for specific groups (young people, women, long-term unemployed, the disabled) cannot be predominantly financed at the EU level', I hope, nevertheless, that the Union will make a commitment to supporting these groups.
<P>
I will vote for this report and trust the Cologne Council will give its contents serious consideration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Skinner">
The European Parliamentary Labour Party believes that the following paragraphs in the above report are a matter of subsidiarity and, therefore, cannot support them:
<P>
Paragraph 13 - European-wide minimum wage; -Paragraph 14 - Convergence of corporation tax.
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Theonas">
<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, I must firstly congratulate the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations on being the group with the most representatives in the House at the moment.
This being the case, they will be able to hear me - because I am actually partly in agreement with my friend Hervé Fabre-Aubrespy - when I say that this has occurred previously in the House. However, the immediate entry into force in the next minute of an act which has yet to be recorded in the Minutes is something completely new and is in accordance with the spirit in which we voted on the Elles report.
<P>
I made a speech yesterday which I must reiterate today and I am pleased to have a small French audience for this.
Actually though, I use the word small, but I should say large as you are the largest number to listen to me.
My colleagues will remember a French left-wing politician saying that you are legally wrong because you are politically in a minority.
This was actually said by one of our colleagues.
With your approval, Mr Elles has slipped through the idea that when there is a majority, the rules, regulations and so on can be easily disregarded.
<P>
We have therefore approved a text against which I fought as hard as I could.
And I will continue to fight against this and I undertake to do so everywhere, both inside and outside this House and before the Court of Justice. This is because I cannot accept being a member of a parliament which votes for what is wrong and which therefore, in terms of the law, is making, passing and using laws which are wrong.
The text which we have approved is totally wrong.
We had said that we would not grant discharge to the Commission but this was not true.
However, I have made this my undertaking and it explains why I voted against the text. I will try in every possible way to ensure that the rule of law remains our standard, despite Mr Elles and despite others.
I will try to ensure that these concepts promoted by a faded left are not imposed on others.
In my opinion, the rule of law cannot be separated from democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="President">
You will of course appreciate, as we do, that the House decides in all its wisdom.
I cannot call that into question.
The House decides in its wisdom on every occasion, and that is all there is to say.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I do not intend to continue the dialogue which you initiated just now on my speech. Instead I am going to give the expected explanation of vote on the Elles report.
We approved this report particularly because of its first paragraph - please stay Mr Dell'Alba, just for a few more moments - and although I agree that this paragraph is not entirely realistic, its political significance is very clear in our opinion.
<P>
For the first time, a majority of the Members of this House said very clearly that discharge could not be granted to the Commission in respect of the 1996 financial year.
For the first time, it was clear that we would refuse to grant discharge when, on 17 December, we rejected a motion in favour of granting discharge tabled by the Socialist Group which had been adopted in extremis by a very small majority in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
We have also adopted and annexed to our report the reasons for the decision of 17 December 1998. These reasons involved a condemnation of the Commission and should have led at the time to a majority in Parliament censuring the Commission, as we ourselves proposed.
<P>
Today we have witnessed not only some flights of fancy on the subject of paragraph 1 but also an extraordinary amendment by the Socialist Group attempting to delete this paragraph.
I believe that this amendment tabled by the Socialist Group demonstrates the hypocrisy which some have been attempting to lead us towards since 17 December.
The Socialist Group proposed that we should not say that we had refused discharge and it proposed that we should not annex to our report the comments of 17 December.
If we had adopted the Socialist Group's amendment, as 212 of our colleagues unfortunately did, there would have been no mention of the refusal of discharge and these comments which, I must repeat, condemned the Commission, would have had no legal value.
This is why I welcome the adoption of the Elles report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Deprez">
The political consequences of the debate surrounding Parliament's refusal to grant discharge to the Commission in respect of the 1996 financial year are widely known.
<P>
For the first time in its existence, the Commission has had to resign en bloc due to the overwhelming evidence of its mismanagement.
Much more could still be said or repeated on this issue.
But to a certain extent, the Council and Parliament must also accept some responsibility for this crisis.
<P>
Faced with the new challenges caused, in particular, by the collapse of the Berlin wall and the globalisation of the economy, neither the Council nor Parliament stopped to consider all the logical consequences, particularly in terms of hiring staff, before increasing the Commission's workload.
<P>
The new Parliament and the new Commission will have to take over where we have left off in order to identify at a more leisurely pace, and hopefully in close cooperation, all the necessary conclusions and consequences.
<P>
Having said this, I agree with the rapporteur that it is technically important for the time being to note the accounts of the EC budget for the 1996 financial year in order to proceed with work on the accounts of later years.
<P>
We must once again bring to the attention of the public that this simple noting of the accounts cannot in any way be regarded as calling into question Parliament's refusal to grant discharge to the Commission for the 1996 accounts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Lukas">
<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
I voted in favour of the Brinkhorst report postponing the discharge.
It would be paradoxical for Parliament to approve this discharge before the end of its term when not all the information is available, when the second report by the Committee of Independent Experts is expected in the autumn and when the conditions for us to definitively approve this discharge are not therefore satisfied.
<P>
However, I must underline the extraordinary nature of the vote in this House.
Three amendments - Amendments Nos 2, 3 and 7 - tabled not by us but by the Green Group were rejected by a very large majority, with roughly 400 against and 115 for.
Amendment No 2 recalled that, under Article 276 of the Treaty, the Commission must submit any necessary information to the European Parliament at its request.
This amendment was rejected as the House considered that this duty of information required the Commission to submit to Parliament in full all the documents it deemed necessary to exercise this responsibility.
So this amendment was rejected.
Amendment No 3 recalled what happened with the ECHO dossier.
Amendment No 7 simply recalled what happened with regard to the external staff hired by different companies.
<P>
The 112 or 115 Members who voted in favour of these amendments are a credit to this House because they were expressing the belief that Parliament is entitled to scrutinise both the Commission and its implementation of the Community budget. They were also stating that the Commission must respect the Treaties by submitting the necessary information to Parliament.
<P>
Those who voted against these amendments have not enhanced Parliament's image.
They have clearly shown the hypocrisy of our situation over the last six months.
If there had not been five independent people, appointed by Parliament, to deliver their very clear judgment on the workings of the Commission, we would still have the same Commission which would not have resigned and would not have been censured.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Deprez">
<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
We did not vote in favour of what the Elles report proposed because it fails to mention many issues regarding Parliament's budget.
<P>
I intend to talk about the amendments which were not adopted, in particular Amendment No 3 and Amendment No 7.
<P>
In Amendment No 3 we asked the Secretary-General to provide the Committee on Budgetary Control with a report on the reasons and circumstances which led to the decision to divide up the Directorate-General for Personnel, the Budget and Finance, on the effects of this decision and on the efficiency of the budget management and staff policy.
This amendment was tabled by the Green Group.
<P>
In Amendment No 7, the same group noted that Parliament had withdrawn a complaint on the financial claims and it wanted to know the consequences of this.
Amendment No 9 recalled the conditions which should have led us to postpone the granting of discharge.
<P>
Around 100 Members voted for these amendments.
Just as Parliament must monitor the correct implementation of the Community budget, it must also check that its own budget is correctly implemented by the Secretary-General and all the officials whose honesty and qualities are not in question.
It must therefore check that everything has been correctly implemented.
<P>
Clearly we have questions about the 1997 financial year.
We should have postponed our decision and I regret that we did not.
This is why we could not vote for the report by our colleague Mr Fabra Vallés.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Deprez">
Clearly the storm which swept away the Commission in the first part of this year has worried many people.
It would be even more damaging to the credibility of the European institutions if such a storm were to affect Parliament.
This just shows the importance we must place on examining the accounts of this House.
<P>
In this period of deep doubt among the public, we must be even more careful not to allow room for the suspicions which are always so quick to appear and multiply.
<P>
The Court of Auditors can and must help us in this task.
It is, to a certain extent, the external guarantor of our institution's credibility.
<P>
This is why, like the rapporteur, I wish to stress that the Court of Auditors may at any time investigate the extent to which Parliament's use of its appropriations from the budget conforms with the rules in force.
<P>
The rapporteur has also highlighted certain failures that must be corrected immediately, particularly in terms of staff management and the commitment of investment appropriations.
<P>
On a more general note, I support the rapporteur in all his conclusions, including the need to postpone the decision to grant discharge to the Economic and Social Committee for the 1997 financial year.
Given the seriousness of the conclusions of the Court of Auditors' annual report on the previous financial year, it is not acceptable that the Economic and Social Committee has considered it inappropriate to refer the matter to UCLAF, as demanded insistently by Parliament, in order to enable the extent of any administrative involvement or responsibility to be fully determined.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Lukas">
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Deprez">
Together with the rapporteur, we welcome the progress made in setting up new budgetary and accounting tools which will ensure greater transparency within the Dublin Foundation. We also welcome the signature of a cooperation agreement between this Foundation and the European Agency for Health and Safety in Bilbao in order to prevent needless waste and overlap while developing all possible cooperation.
<P>
In this case, it seems that the combined attention of our rapporteur and the Court of Auditors is finding a real will within the Foundation to respond to the remarks made.
We are therefore hopeful that the Foundation will endeavour to respond as positively as our rapporteur seems to suggest to the remaining questions and to those which have just been raised on mission expenses and study contracts during the examination of the discharge procedure for the 1997 financial year.
<P>
With regard to Cedefop, we are pleased to hear from the rapporteur that the difficulties connected with the move from Berlin to Thessaloniki seem to have come to an end.
It goes without saying in this respect that inexperience in a new environment could not justify for very long the failure to comply with normal tendering and selection procedures.
In any case, we welcome the fact that the generally optimistic conclusions of our rapporteur at the very least allow us to hope that there will be further progress for the next financial year in the management of both the Foundation and Cedefop.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="President">
That concludes voting time.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 1.30 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Situation in Kosovo
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="President">
The next item is the Council and Commission statements on the situation in Kosovo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Fischer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, from a humanitarian point of view the situation in Kosovo is still, in our opinion, an out-and-out disaster.
Estimates of the number of displaced persons within Kosovo are now up to 850 000, according to NATO.
Interviews with displaced persons by the OSCE's KVM representatives and the United Nations, and also national interviews such as by the German armed forces in the camps, paint a shocking picture of mass executions, rape, plundering and the systematic destruction of Kosovar Albanian houses and property.
This weekend saw a new round of expulsions on a large scale, particularly from Prizren, where there is a danger of the whole town being expelled under threat of the most horrific acts of violence.
<P>
With regard to the situation in Albania and Macedonia, it is quite obvious that the expulsion of the Kosovar Albanian population by means of the most brutal violence in order to dictate the ethnic and demographic composition of the population of Kosovo is not only a criminal war objective but also pursues a second criminal aim: that of destabilising the neighbouring countries and thus the entire region.
According to UNHCR figures, a total of 670 000 displaced persons from Kosovo are now in the countries bordering on it; of these approximately 400 000 are now in Albania, 200 000 in Macedonia, and approximately 60 000 in Montenegro.
On Saturday a further influx of over 10 000 people arrived in Albania and a slightly smaller number arrived in Macedonia.
Above all, the situation is particularly unstable in political terms.
Macedonia is a multi-ethnic state in which the composition of the population has direct political consequences.
<P>
EU aid, both bilateral and Community aid, plays an important role in coping with the refugee crisis.
What is important here is not just material assistance but also the reception of refugees by the Member States.
We now have such a disastrous situation in Albania and Macedonia that there is no longer any question about whether the people should remain in the region or be taken in by third countries.
In view of the humanitarian disaster triggered by Milosevic and his inhumane policies, both are needed.
I would therefore appeal to you, the European Parliament, Members of this House, to call upon your countries either to start taking refugees or to increase their quotas where possible.
Macedonia in particular needs urgent help here.
We also have a political interest in ensuring that Macedonia remains stable.
We must not allow Milosevic's strategy of destabilising neighbouring countries to succeed.
<P>
As for the further political process, we are actively pursuing the strategy of maintaining pressure on Belgrade, pressure that should ensure the implementation of the five point plan which the European Union was the first international organisation to agree, and which was subsequently adopted by NATO and also by the UN Secretary-General as a basis for his own position. These points are: the return of all displaced persons, the return of all refugees, acceptance of an international peace-keeping force to ensure a secure environment for the return of refugees, on the basis of a UN Chapter VII resolution with a NATO core and a high level of NATO participation, but also with the participation of Russia, Ukraine and neutral countries, and the simultaneous withdrawal of military and paramilitary forces and of the special police force of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Serbia.
This forms the core of what NATO and the Western allies are currently fighting for.
Any agreement that did not include the return of displaced persons would mean that Milosevic had imposed his will.
The displaced persons will not return as long as the murderers in the region are still in charge.
That is absolutely certain.
For this reason it will be up to an international peace-keeping force to ensure their safe return.
<P>
It is also clear that it is very much in the interest of all the countries bordering on Kosovo, of all neighbouring countries, whether directly or indirectly affected, that lasting stability should be restored in the southern Balkans.
This is why, in contrast to what we did after Dayton when a cease-fire had already been achieved, we must make urgent preparations for a conference to find solutions in order to achieve a stability pact for the southern Balkans.
We - the West, the European Union - must use this stability pact to bring this region of Europe closer to our Europe of integration.
We must not forget that this is a part of Europe that will pose huge security problems for the future of Europe if we do not take this bold step.
<P>
The war in Kosovo makes one thing clear, and here I would like to quote the last speech made by François Mitterrand in this House: nationalism means war, that is Europe's experience.
The idea of a Europe of integration was formed to fight this nationalist Europe with its dreadful experiences.
I cannot emphasise this too strongly, and this is why we must give a long-term commitment to bring this region of the southern Balkans closer to our Europe of integration.
<P>
All neighbouring countries, all countries bordering on Kosovo, with the exception of Milosevic, want three things: they want internal democracy, and they want to secure this by means of external security within NATO and by means of economic development within the European Union.
We must try to meet these expectations by developing a type of stability pact incorporating three elements. The most important will be to guarantee the inviolability of borders.
I would also like at this stage to make a preliminary remark: rather than making abstract academic decisions about where borders should be, who can and cannot live with whom, it is more important that we implement rules - under the rule of law - and reject the rule of violence and weapons.
These rules must be guaranteed at international level. They include the inviolability of borders by means of violence, the guarantee of security and of autonomy for minorities, not only on paper but in reality.
They also include the security of all states in the region, the same security for all under international guarantee.
This is the first element: stability and security in the region.
<P>
The second is economic development.
The first element will be guaranteed principally by NATO, the second by the European Union.
The third element is democracy, the development of civil society and democratic institutions, and here the OSCE and the United Nations will be called upon.
In general, therefore, we want to reach a lasting solution after a cease-fire has been achieved; but this means that we are not fighting against Serbia.
We are not fighting against the legitimate interests of the Serbian people. Instead, what we want, on the basis of democracy and on the basis of the legitimate rights of the Serbian people, is for Serbia to return to Europe and then to develop towards our Europe of integration.
We consider this to be a long-term solution and a self-evident basis for it.
In our view Serbia is part of it.
<P>
I say this as someone who, in German domestic politics, particularly in the period 1991-1992, regretted the collapse of Yugoslavia, in which Mr Milosevic played an essential part and considered himself to be a friend of Serbia.
In my view the tragic thing about this - if we look at it from the point of view of Serbia's history and Serbian interests - is that Milosevic is going to destroy Serbia.
He will go down in the history of his people as the destroyer of Serbia, and he is only finding out what others in the past found out who put the term 'greater' in front of the name of their nation.
As soon as nationalism is associated with the term 'greater', it becomes bloody and aggressive, and at this point it generally leads to the self-destruction of the nation if it is allowed to proceed.
From the point of view of Serbia's legitimate interests, he will be seen as the destroyer of Serbian interests.
He will not create a Greater Serbia but a rump Serbia, if he is allowed to proceed.
This is yet another reason why we need to stand up to him.
<P>
The five points formulated by the European Union, NATO and the UN Secretary-General do not mean all-out war against Serbia; instead they allow security and stability for everyone in Kosovo while at the same time guaranteeing security and stability in the region and allowing these to blossom.
These five points must represent a minimum guarantee.
They are not five points that endanger Serbia's legitimate interests.
<P>
The political process has taken on new momentum following the NATO summit.
It is also clear that the notion that NATO - be it only for a limited area, but one that goes beyond Europe - could be an alternative to the United Nations has proved to be a fallacy, as I always believed.
On the contrary, it is clear that as a regional security organisation NATO is ideally suited to preventing wars in Europe.
<P>
NATO must continue in future to regard this as its primary task, although this must also involve a strengthening of the European pillar, which is something we will have to discuss later.
The war in Kosovo makes one thing clear to all of us, and I would like here to come back to François Mitterrand, but I could also quote Helmut Kohl, who said: Europe is about war and peace, it is not just about the economy, market regulations and intervention prices, important though all these may be.
<P>
It is ultimately about war and peace.
Strengthening Europe's individual responsibility will be one of the consequences that we all have to face.
<P>
Applause
<P>
But at the same time it shows how important it is that Europe and its partners understand the need for closer cooperation.
Yet this also means that Europe itself must take joint action, and it was difficult enough to enforce the necessary sanctions in the European Union.
I would like to emphasise this once again, and I am pleased that we have finally succeeded not only in stepping up EU sanctions against Yugoslavia but in upholding the EU oil embargo.
<P>
As I said, the political process took on new momentum after Washington as a result of the strength of the Western alliance.
Russia has become more involved, which we very much welcome.
The UN Secretary-General was invited to the special summit of Heads of State and Government, and he too has become increasingly involved, which we also welcome emphatically, and I am delighted to be able to give you the latest news that following yesterday's meeting of the Political Directors of the G8 in Bonn, who were able to agree on a common basis, we will now be holding a G8 ministerial meeting on Kosovo in Bonn on Thursday.
<P>
I see this as an important step towards drafting a Chapter VII resolution in the Security Council, and I would like to take this opportunity to call upon the permanent members of the Security Council to take on an active role in drafting such a resolution.
Involving Russia means above all that Russia will stop blocking decisions in the Security Council so that we can arrive at a Chapter VII resolution clearly based on international law and a decision of the Security Council as the sole holder of power in the international political system.
I think that on this basis there will be considerable movement, particularly in Belgrade.
<P>
Many issues remain open.
The crucial point, I must emphasise once again, is still the international peace-keeping force.
Any cease-fire solution that does not settle this beyond doubt will not in my opinion be capable of bringing about an actual cease-fire, because the return of refugees must be linked to a robust peace-keeping force with a strong NATO involvement, but also including Russia, neutral countries and others.
Without this security guarantee the refugees and displaced persons will not return, and the result would be that Milosevic had won and that we would live in a Europe that was no longer our Europe, a Europe which this Parliament - the Parliament of a Europe of integration - really represents.
<P>
This, let me stress once again, was really the crucial point which also caused Rambouillet to fail, and it is the crucial point for future negotiations.
Once this is settled, of course, everything will then head in the direction of a stability pact, and I have already discussed the rest.
What we will need here is therefore a strong UN mandate with a substantial NATO component.
This is absolutely vital.
I hope that we will be able to achieve a substantial breakthrough in the course of this month.
I believe that the G8 meeting on Thursday may represent a crucial step forward.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, the deportation and ethnic cleansing mean that the exodus continues.
This crime against humanity requires a determined and unified response.
We owe that not only to the victims but also to ourselves if we want to stand for a Europe with full respect for basic values.
<P>
We also regret the unintended civilian casualties of the air strikes, but we feel morally obliged to continue to support the objective of stopping the greater evil, that is, the racist policy of Milosevic and those around him.
We are grateful for the multiple diplomatic efforts by the EU, its presidency, the United States and also Russia.
We hope Russia will agree with the need for a credible international peacekeeping force in Kosovo within the framework of a political settlement.
I fully subscribe to what Minister Fischer said about the essence of agreeing to that, while drawing on the lessons learnt in Bosnia and the Kosovo verification mission.
<P>
If that agreement could be reached with Russia, it would considerably increase the pressure on Milosevic, possibly through a United Nations Security Council resolution.
<P>
In the meantime, the Commission remains active in helping to alleviate the consequences of the tragedy by different means.
Firstly, of course, by humanitarian assistance for the refugees and the international organisations that take care of them.
At the end of this debate Mrs Bonino will make the necessary comments.
Furthermore, by assisting the governments of the countries of the region most affected by the massive influx of refugees.
Also by planning, together with the World Bank, the acceleration of assistance to the neighbouring countries which are bearing a heavy economic burden because of the crisis.
By preparing for rehabilitation and reconstruction after a political and diplomatic situation has been achieved, which would also include participation by the EU in a temporary administration of Kosovo, pending final definition of its status.
Last but not least, in trying to prepare for the upgrading of the EU's political and economic relations with all the countries in the western Balkans via stabilisation and association agreements, as an important element and pillar of the stability pact of which the presidency has spoken, aiming at security, democracy and economic development, with, at the same time, the further perspective of joining the European and Euro-Atlantic structures.
<P>
All of this means a comprehensive, massive and costly effort, in addition to the military one borne by our Member States, in order to provide the billions of euros which will be needed to fund all these efforts by the international community.
The price for a durable and just peace and stability in the Balkans will be high but, at the same time, is imperative both in terms of finance and human resources.
That is why I take this opportunity, on behalf of the Commission, to call on Parliament and the Council to provide the Commission in due course with the instruments and funds needed to meet our share of this tremendous challenge which we will have to face together.
We look forward to the discussions in the General Affairs Council, scheduled for the end of this month, to fill in certain elements of these big projects which are aimed at contributing substantially to a more durable and stable western Balkans in the next century.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="Morris">
Mr President, on a point of order.
I have written time and time again to the significant people, that is, the President of the European Parliament, the President of the Commission, NATO and Mr Clinton.
I have written to Mr Blair asking one very clear question.
None of them have even acknowledged any of my correspondence.
My question is: are depleted uranium weapons being used in Kosovo?
Are the weapons we are using spreading uranium oxide in that area?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="President">
Mr Morris, I regret to say that is not a point of order.
You have every opportunity of participating through your group in the normal way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, Mr Morris certainly deserves an answer to his question.
But allow me first of all, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, to express my group's full support for the line you have taken here today.
My group firmly believes that the United Nations must be involved or brought back into the process.
I was also very pleased, Mr President-in-Office, to hear the remarks you made concerning the fundamental relationship between NATO and the UN.
<P>
Some people believe that NATO could become the new world or regional police force, and perhaps see a basis for this in the text of NATO's Washington declaration.
We believe, however, that only the United Nations can play the role of world police and we must do everything we can to reform the United Nations - since reforms are needed - so that it can really play this role well.
<P>
Secondly, as already mentioned, the United Nations must play a crucial role in the peace process that now needs to begin.
I support you on this point too, Mr President-in-Office.
It must and can only play this role if it can act effectively.
For this reason Milosevic's 'offer' to admit an unarmed United Nations force must of course be rejected.
We have already had the experience of sending armed troops into Bosnia, where Milosevic or certain Serbian troops managed to make the United Nations look ridiculous because they had to stand by and watch massacres taking place.
We need the United Nations forces to be deployed effectively.
<P>
Furthermore, even in this House some people have said that we could maintain or achieve peace in Europe without Russia, perhaps even if Russia were snubbed.
This is not possible, nor would it make sense.
I therefore agree fully with the view which you expressed, Mr President-in-Office, and also the Commissioner. We must bring Russia back on board and we must succeed in persuading Russia to return to a cooperative approach.
This is absolutely crucial, not just in the Balkans but in general for the peace process in Europe.
<P>
The third point concerns the refugees.
Winter comes more quickly than we think.
If the expulsions continue there will be a massive problem.
I do not know whether everyone is well prepared, whether coordination between the individual institutions functions properly.
But if we do not want to have another disaster - with the accommodation of refugees next winter - we must do everything you said and we must further improve coordination.
I am pleased that Germany has increased its quota.
It may be necessary to further increase the quotas for all countries, although the principle must continue to be to help the refugees in the region if possible.
However, the burden with which particularly Macedonia (FYROM) and to some extent Albania have to cope should not be disproportionate.
<P>
My final point concerns the regional approach.
I believe that the regional approach we have been taking is no longer sufficient, and we must find a new one.
Development in Croatia is linked to that in Bosnia, Bosnia to Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia to Albania, Albania to Macedonia.
They must all - in my opinion at least - be brought together in a type of Balkan federation, but this can only work if the European Union offers strong political and economic incentives.
These can only work if Slovenia is also involved, and Slovenia has already requested privileges in its economic relations with these countries.
Bulgaria and Greece in particular should also be invited to help to implement this regional approach.
I believe in the regional approach, but ours was too weak, with too few positive incentives for these countries to cooperate.
This must change, and it must do so in the direction described by the Commissioner.
Clear support is required from this House.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office, you quoted Mitterrand as saying 'Nationalism is war!'.
Our reply must be: 'Europe is peace!'.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Trakatellis">
Mr President, I have received a letter from your office which states that the question I addressed to the Council, which was to be discussed tomorrow, will not be discussed. The reason given was that today there would be a debate on Kosovo, during which this question, which relates to the environment in Kosovo, which has effectively been destroyed, would be brought up.
I did not recognise, in the issues dealt with by the honourable President-in-Office, anything vaguely relating to this question.
Perhaps the questions will be discussed ...
<P>
The President cut the speaker off
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="President">
Mr Trakatellis, that is not a point of order.
There is a clearly organised way of participating in debates of this nature.
You go through your group the same as every other Member and you get speaking time if you want to participate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, we cannot go into detail on all the issues that concern us in every debate on Kosovo.
We have been discussing Kosovo constantly in this House since 1989.
Unlike all the governments, we in this Parliament correctly assessed the explosive nature of the Kosovo conflict from the beginning.
Now we are having to use military means to solve the problem.
What annoys me about the whole story is that we are only now talking about economic sanctions and possibly implementing them.
Surely it is not possible that 15 states could reach agreement on military means before agreeing on sanctions affecting the economy.
I find this truly regrettable.
<P>
Of course it is also very difficult for our citizens to understand why, with all our military efforts, we have not been able to stop the expulsions carried out by Milosevic.
It is also regrettable that we too, with our bombing, are killing people in this war.
Yet we in the European People's Party take the view that NATO must undertake further military attacks in order to make the aggressor give way.
Time will tell whether this will succeed.
<P>
We welcome all diplomatic measures attempting, alongside the bombing, to bring about a political solution.
We welcome the fact that Russia is coming on board.
We welcome all UN measures and we call upon the President-in-Office, following our experiences in Bosnia and in Kosovo, to take steps to finally update the 1949 UN Charter in line with current circumstances.
<P>
Unfortunately, thousands of new refugees are being driven into neighbouring countries every day by Milosevic's henchmen, having been displaced within Kosovo itself, and women are being raped and men executed.
Assistance for refugees in the region must be much better coordinated than hitherto so that care is not duplicated for some while people in some areas receive no assistance.
<P>
It is important to have well-organised reception facilities for refugees in the region, but unfortunately it will also be necessary for a while to accommodate refugees outside the region.
I believe that this House should appeal for a fair sharing of the burden in the EU states.
It is not acceptable that Germany, for example, should once again take in the highest number and is now even preparing to take in more.
I welcome this of course, but it sends the wrong signal to your colleagues in the other states who are refusing to take in refugees, under the flimsy pretext that it would be better to provide care for them in their own region.
<P>
We are in favour of as much as possible being done in the region, but there are constraints after all, and therefore I appeal to the President-in-Office, along with the German Minister for the Interior, to ensure greater justice and more burden sharing.
<P>
I would like to take this opportunity to point out once again that dividing up Kosovo will not solve this problem.
The problem can only be solved if Kosovo is preserved and Macedonia and Albania are not further destabilised by it, as Milosevic wishes to do.
We support everything the President-in-Office said in this context.
You have our full support if you continue to work towards stabilising the region.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cars">
Mr President, the EU and NATO have agreed on some of the basic requirements for a political solution to the Kosovo crisis.
The vast majority of the European Parliament has given its wholehearted support to those conditions.
But there is growing uncertainty about whether the objectives can be achieved by continued bombing alone.
Those of us who are concerned about this hope that we are wrong.
But if we accept that neither further bombing nor economic sanctions will produce results, what will the EU and NATO do then?
Will we come to accept - possibly on the basis of Russian mediation - a peace which does not fulfil the stated requirements, does not guarantee Kosovo's borders and territorial integrity, does not make it possible for Kosovar refugees and displaced persons to return in safety to Kosovo, and which enables Milosevic to present himself to the Serbs as a victor?
<P>
What other alternative is there?
Well, there is an alternative, namely to force Milosevic out of Kosovo through the deployment of ground troops.
The Liberals would like to see the EU and NATO preparing for such an action.
A realistic expectation as to the likelihood of such an action taking place might in itself be sufficient.
To refuse to even prepare is to give Milosevic hope that there is, or may be, a better alternative for him.
Let us deprive him of that hope!
<P>
As regards a long-term solution for Kosovo, we must have a clear answer to the question: to whom do we owe more?
Is it to those who have oppressed, driven out, raped and murdered the Kosovar people, or to those who have suffered all of this?
For the Liberal Group, the answer to this question is quite clear.
<P>
The requirements which we are entitled to impose on the Kosovars are that they should respect the Serbs who live or would like to live in Kosovo.
We also have a right to demand that Kosovo never acts in a way which constitutes a threat to the security and territorial integrity of Macedonia, Montenegro or Bosnia.
Our long-term objective must be - through the rapid development of cooperation with the Balkan countries and an open door to the EU - to achieve in the Balkans what we have achieved in the European Union, namely to safeguard democracy, to build an economy which gives the people prosperity, and to bridge the borders between the countries in a way that diminishes the significance of national identity, so that when it comes to our opportunities in life, it is not so important whether we are German, Portuguese, Greek, Dutch or Swedish.
Peace and tranquillity in the Balkans is a precondition for entry into Europe, and for the Balkan people too to have the chance to acquire a European identity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wurtz">
Mr President, our previous debate on Kosovo on 14 April clarified the positions of the political groups on this tragedy.
There was a broad and comprehensive condemnation of the criminal practices, referred to as 'ethnic cleansing', for which Mr Milosevic's government is responsible.
We expressed solidarity with the refugees and confirmed their right to return to their country and the need to ensure that this right was respected through the presence of an international force in a truly autonomous Kosovo. Finally, there was also broad agreement on the idea of a conference on the Balkans.
However, we were opposed to the use of bombing as the means to resolve this terrible crisis.
<P>
Three long weeks have passed since then.
The humanitarian tragedy which the military intervention was intended to prevent is at its peak.
The operations which were to be short-lived are increasing day by day.
The strikes which were intended to hit only strategic targets are killing more and more innocent civilians, traumatising the ordinary people and destroying the economic and cultural foundations of a whole society.
<P>
The destabilisation of the region which NATO's plans were intended to prevent is now becoming a reality in Montenegro, Macedonia and Albania, while concern is increasing in Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and beyond.
Old splits in Europe which we were trying to close are getting wider before our very eyes.
Under these conditions, the only military victory possible would risk being a Pyrrhic victory, far removed from the fair and lasting peace we are currently seeking.
<P>
I therefore believe that we must warn the European leaders against two things. Firstly, the end cannot justify the means as the one contradicts the other.
Secondly, the intended objectives must remain the same as those set out at the beginning.
From this point of view, the serious revelations about the military aspect of Rambouillet are worrying.
These require clear explanations which I would ask the President-in-Office to provide. We should leave Mr Brzezinski and his kind to think that the stakes in this war infinitely exceed Kosovo and actually affect the credibility of NATO and the American leadership.
<P>
On the other hand, we should pay attention to the increasingly numerous, louder and weightier voices in Europe, ranging from Oskar Lafontaine to the 180 members of the Italian Parliament of the Democratic Left-Christian Democrat majority, whose vision of Europe means that, like us, they are also calling for the bombing to stop.
Opportunities are arising now to begin a process to find political solutions.
The G8 and the Security Council meeting that Mr Joschka Fischer has just mentioned is perhaps an example of these opportunities.
I urgently call on Europe to seize these opportunities and face up to its responsibilities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
With increasing sophistication, Mr President, the ultimate video game of the 21st century is being played in the skies above the Balkans.
It is a war in the skies which has bombed the people on the ground back into the 1930s.
On day 40 of the bombing, the idea that a few bombs would bring Milosevic to his knees looks to be a non-starter.
NATO has lost sight of the proportions involved; the means are no longer proportionate to the end, and too many civilian targets are being hit.
<P>
But I think it is nonsense to say that the United States has dragged us into this venture.
No member country of the Alliance is being forced to take part: all the NATO partners share the responsibility.
NATO may lose this war, which would be a disaster for unity within the EU.
At the same time, however, it is precisely this war which has currently revived the ideal of political unity amongst the greater European family.
<P>
To sum up, the bombing is not achieving its aim.
To my mind, the EU embargo will not do very much.
It is a paper tiger.
Milosevic is playing for time.
Serbian leaders such as Draskovic and Djindjic are openly looking for the route to the EU.
We need to be practical in the immediate future. We should support the Chernomyrdin initiative, spare Montenegro from the bombing to some extent where possible, preserve the demographic balance in Macedonia by taking in Kosovar refugees in the EU, so that the conflict cannot escalate further in the region, and block arms supplies to the KLA, as Italy has done.
<P>
As for the longer term, the Council President has put forward an ambitious scenario for the region this afternoon, centred on democracy, security and stabilisation.
The EU will have to play a greater part in this in due course; we have at the very least a moral duty to do that.
When the bombing and the shooting stops, people will have to go on living together in the Balkans, and it will take well-armed ground forces - and I repeat, because my country has some experience of this - it will take well-armed ground troops to guarantee the peace in Kosovo.
<P>
On the eve of the European elections in June, a particularly difficult task awaits us as parliamentarians. We must prepare our voters for those ground troops to be sent to Kosovo and to remain in the region for a long time.
But we must do it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Cohn-Bendit">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are currently experiencing two wars which do not entirely coincide.
In one war we have terrible pictures, even if they are mostly only pictures from Serbian television, of destruction, of a war conducted by air and with bombs.
But there is a second war in Kosovo, and of this we have no pictures.
We have refugees, deportees, turning up in Albania and Macedonia, but we do not see, we do not know what is happening in Kosovo.
It is a black hole.
The problem that we all have is that we want everything at once, in the longstanding tradition of some of our groups.
We want the war in Kosovo to end immediately, and we want the bombing to stop.
But there are some things we do not know.
We are putting our faith in Russia, which is right.
We are putting our faith in Kofi Annan, which is right.
We do not know how we can end these two wars together, in other words how to stop the massacres and the deportation in Kosovo so that the bombing of Serbia can stop.
<P>
The worst thing is the helplessness that we are trying to overcome diplomatically by means of the policy of peace that the EU and by the German Presidency are trying to pursue, a policy that is good.
How can we put up a struggle for these people, how do we gain the time to end these two wars together?
We all have good advice.
We all know how it should be done, so much so that hardly any Members are present for this debate.
We MEPs are always the best at giving good moral advice, but when it comes to seriously looking into a problem we have other things to do.
This is a situation that should certainly give us cause for thought.
I believe there is no alternative to the military intervention, and I say this because I know how terrible it is.
But I also believe that we must seize every opportunity to create diplomatic opportunities to bring the war in Kosovo to an end.
Otherwise, we have to say that there can be no solution that not does not involve allowing refugees and deportees from Kosovo to return to their country, with military support if necessary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, Mr Fischer, I do not believe that we have got there; what is lacking, in my view, is a real political offensive against the Milosevic regime, and there is no action on that front.
<P>
As called for by this House, I think that we have first of all to set about bombarding the Serb people with information and radio and television broadcasts, so that we finally bring home to them the true nature of the Yugoslav regime.
<P>
My second point - and the House finally approved this at its last part-session - is that Milosevic should be indicted as a war criminal.
We must set about explaining to Mrs Arbour - and this is something the Council should be doing - that if Hitler had not been indicted, on the grounds that it was impossible to establish who had responsibility for any given concentration camp, it would not have been possible to demonstrate the chain of command linking Berlin and Auschwitz.
That, I think, would have been unacceptable to everyone.
<P>
Today, even though a million people have been deported, there are apparently no grounds for indicting Milosevic.
That is a complete disgrace.
I believe that the Council, the Commission and the Parliament should exert increased pressure on Mrs Arbour, who has said that come June she may be sitting on the Canadian supreme court.
That, I think, is quite unacceptable.
<P>
There is a third point concerning the physical integrity of the dictator Milosevic.
That is a problem that we must tackle immediately: we cannot wait to see his corpse before we begin discussing what ought to have been done.
<P>
We have to know where Milosevic has been getting his support throughout this whole period; who has been helping him in the United States and Europe; who are the people who have been helping him for ten years, enabling him to prosecute this dreadful and criminal policy first in Bosnia and Croatia and now in Kosovo.
We have to draw up charges against Milosevic, and so great pressure must be put on Mrs Arbour to persuade her finally to explain what she intends to do at the first opportunity; there has to be a huge information campaign, and Yugoslavia must be brought into Europe, something that we have been calling for for more than 20 years, Mr Fischer, bearing in mind that in 1981 Marco Pannella called in this House for the then Yugoslavia to be integrated into the European Union.
We must now recover lost ground and integrate all of the countries into the European Union immediately, using an ad hoc formula, but immediately.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, everyone is deeply affected by the suffering of the Kosovar Albanians.
However, we must not hide from the growing disquiet among the public about the systematic bombardment of a European country and its capital and about the growing number of civilian victims our bombs have every day.
We must not now add to the initial errors of judgement which led to the Rambouillet process being interrupted prematurely, the Security Council being bypassed, Russia being marginalised and the effect of the bombing on the Serbian people being misjudged.
<P>
We therefore believe that the military action and the simplistic propaganda must come to an end as quickly as possible. All our energy must be devoted to returning to the search for a political solution.
We must not ignore any serious opportunity to do this in order to achieve lasting and therefore realistic solutions which take account of all the causes of the conflict.
<P>
To achieve this stability pact for the Balkans, whose positive prospects you have outlined Mr Fischer, Europe must have the courage to stop the escalation of military action if it is truly concerned about and has a sense of independence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Gollnisch">
Mr President, the offensive currently being conducted against Serbia is quite clearly contrary to international law and is also politically reprehensible.
It is flouting with impunity the human rights which those who initiated this attack are constantly talking about and it may degenerate to the detriment of European and perhaps world security.
<P>
This offensive is clearly contrary to international law. To start with, conventional international law states that a war can be engaged only after having been declared.
This was not the case here. From now on the United States Government will not show us the archive footage of the Roosevelt speech after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour.
You must remember the quotation - ' a date which will live in infamy' - and all because the American Secretary of State, who knew perfectly well what was happening, hung about for a few hours in the anteroom of the Japanese Ambassador who had just informed him of the declaration of war. His sole purpose in doing this, in American and international public opinion, was to profit from the resulting indignation.
The American Government is today reserving this indignation for itself.
There have been many other infamies and many have been committed on the initiative of the US Government.
<P>
This offensive is also clearly contrary to the United Nations Charter which explicitly states that the use of force, except in the case of legitimate defence, is subject to the authorisation of the Security Council. This requirement was cast aside with incredible cynicism and in defiance of this basic international law.
The Security Council's authorisation was not requested because we knew that it would not have been granted.
<P>
This offensive is also contrary to the NATO Charter, that is, the North Atlantic Treaty. NATO was a purely defensive alliance to begin with and has been converted for this particular conflict into an offensive alliance which is intervening outside its geographical sphere of action, since Yugoslavia has never fallen within the ambit of NATO.
These are the violations of the laws involved.
<P>
But political morality is under attack too.
By encouraging the secession of the Kosovar Albanians, who have not always been innocent themselves of violent acts, we are consequently justifying just what we are condemning and in particular the actions of Milosevic's government. If the Albanian claims to Kosovo are founded on the basis of the rights of an ethnic majority, then Milosevic had good grounds in claiming for Serbia the annexation of Croatian Krajina, populated in the main by Serbs, or the annexation of part of Bosnia, also partly populated by Serbs.
We have to choose one way or the other.
If ethnic rights are to form the basis, then clearly everyone must have their share of the cake and an international conference will be needed to redefine the borders. On the other hand, and this is my opinion, if we insist on respect for the international borders as a fundamental principle of security in international relations, then this principle cannot be just cast aside.
<P>
Finally, in terms of human rights, we are right to feel sorry for the fate of the unfortunate refugees but the number of refugees has increased massively since the intervention and the comprehensive bombing, or if their numbers were as high as was claimed before the NATO intervention, how is it that no plans were made to accommodate them?
We are clearly being brainwashed.
This issue is being dominated by lies and one-sided propaganda, as we have seen in other cases.
The US Government is really imposing its protectorate on Europe.
No doubt Mr Clinton is also using this bloody video game to make people forget about the sexual shenanigans in the White House.
As a man, a politician and an officer, I am ashamed today to be European.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, in view of the last speech it is worth reminding this House that ethnic cleansing has gone on in Kosovo for ten years and that refugees were being driven out of their homes long before the NATO bombing.
It seems to me the worst sort of appeasement to say that if the international community has not acted in one case it should not act in any other.
<P>
I would begin by once again congratulating the President-in-Office for his firmness over this issue of Kosovo and the clarity with which he has led the European Union during his time in office.
I have been a Member of this Chamber for ten years and we seem to have spent most of those ten years debating events in former Yugoslavia.
We have had endless resolutions, endless debates, all of which have been trying to hide our helplessness in confronting what was going on in Yugoslavia.
What we have to be firm on is that we are not going to spend the next ten years debating the same.
It has to stop now.
The 10th anniversary of the beginning of it all, with the removal of autonomy from Kosovo, has to be the year in which it finishes.
<P>
Some veterans from the Spanish Civil War were in the public gallery yesterday. That reminded me of the slogan of the Spanish Civil War, the defence of Madrid: no pasarán - they shall not pass.
And that must be the message that comes from this House in this debate and from the European Union.
Whether they are living in London or Pristina, minorities must not have to live in fear of their lives or fear of random violence which seeks to destroy their homes and their livelihoods.
We must be absolutely clear on that.
We must stand firm against the sort of sick minds who feed on fear and hatred of minorities, whether they are planting nail bombs in London or engaging in mass murder in Kosovo.
There should be absolutely no ambiguity about our message.
We must not let Milosevic win.
That means that we must have a proper enforceable peace.
<P>
The Socialist Group has always made it clear that we believe that Russia should be fully involved and I fully support its latest peace mission.
But we must not mistake a waved piece of paper for a proper peace.
We have made that mistake in the past.
There must be no more games from Milosevic.
There must be an enforceable peace based on an international force which has NATO as its core.
There should be no retreat from that position whatsoever.
We must in future learn from what has happened in Bosnia where there is still no peace but only an absence of war.
<P>
We must learn from the mistakes we have made to ensure that we can get effective international cooperation in putting the whole of the region back together again.
The greatest fear has to be long-term destabilisation, not just in Montenegro, not just in Macedonia, but further abroad, including the effect on Greece and Italy for example.
There has to be a long-term plan but I would remind the Council that the stability pact was something Parliament called for two years ago.
I would hope that in light of the Amsterdam Treaty coming into effect, the Council and the Commission start listening a bit more carefully to Parliament.
On many of the issues about former Yugoslavia we have led the Council and the Commission.
So it is time to start listening to us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
Mr President, the killings and ethnic cleansing are continuing in Kosovo.
As we know, the operation is a protracted one and has been thoroughly prepared.
Those ultimately responsible can no longer be negotiated with.
If we are to apply the classic criteria for a just war, then only the removal of Milosevic's racist dictatorship will do.
Only then will the means used be proportionate to the improvement of the situation in the Balkans which is to be achieved.
It will have to be in this way, perhaps with a security pact of the kind the minister referred to, that the conditions are created throughout the Balkans for the rule of law and democracy to be established and for all sources of aggression of the kind currently embodied by the Milosevic regime to be eradicated.
In the meantime, the states bordering on Yugoslavia - Albania, Macedonia, but also Bulgaria, Romania, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia - must be helped to survive the damage they have suffered through the actions of Serbia.
They are expected to uphold the boycott and embargoes.
The EU itself has not suffered much as a result of these, but these other poor countries certainly have done.
<P>
We welcome the financial and macro-economic aid given by the World Bank and the IMF, but the EU will have to change its own economic and trade policy, because humanitarian aid can never make up for the loss of export opportunities and the blocking of transport links with the Union.
The European Union needs to look very quickly at how far it can provide an alternative market for its friends in the Balkans, and act accordingly.
In this context, we welcome the proposals to conclude a special kind of association agreement with the two countries most affected, Albania and Macedonia.
<P>
The Union must also offer help in upgrading the communications infrastructure in the countries concerned to create good alternatives to transit through Serbia.
<P>
I should like wholeheartedly to endorse the excellent words of Mr Fischer, because I think we have to send a very clear message here in terms of the Council's attitude.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, anyone who visits Belgrade is overcome by feelings of rage and indignation at the destruction and death caused by NATO bombardments. Yet at the same time they are filled with wonder at the strength and courage of the Serbian people and they are moved by the form and content of the demonstrations carried out by the people, who have turned themselves into a human shield in order to protect the bridges of Belgrade.
<P>
Firstly, the fact that logic has been turned on its head by NATO propaganda cannot cover up the crimes against humanity that are being committed in the name of this war.
This war is aggressive and illegal.
<P>
Secondly, the destruction of the infrastructure of the Yugoslavian economy is an act of genocide.
Bridges, water, electricity, the basics of human life, are being destroyed.
The use of the technology of war is a crime against public health and the environment, and is causing an ecological disaster.
<P>
Mr President, there is a just political solution.
Follow it!
You can follow it and provide a real solution.
Stop this dirty war!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gahrton">
Mr President, it is now six weeks since NATO's aerial bombardment of Yugoslavia was begun, with the aim of saving the Kosovo Albanians from the barbaric treatment inflicted on them by the Milosevic regime.
The outflow of refugees is continuing.
In Kosovo, hundreds of thousands of Albanians are being held hostage, abused and raped by Serb soldiers.
In the words of the Albanian writer, Ismaïl Kadaré, in today's Le Monde , the situation is on the point of becoming 'Le triomphe du crime ' - a victory for crime.
Is it possible to imagine a greater fiasco in terms of a rescue mission, however well-intentioned it was in the beginning?
<P>
Many people are now beginning to despair, and some are clutching at the idea of using ground troops as a last resort.
In this case, I think they should read the interview given in Die Zeit by General Eisele, the German UN general, in which he says that it is not simply that this could turn into a long drawn-out war, but that it will drag on for four or five months before the first rescue force is able to intervene in Kosovo.
One has to understand that military means have their limitations.
Perhaps it is as the Hungarian writer György Konrád wrote the other day in the Frankfurter Allgemeine , that Europeans have learned from history, but they have learned the wrong things.
They have learned absolutely nothing from the 1989 lesson in non-violence.
Dictators fall sooner or later.
The most effective way is not necessarily to start a war against them.
Milosevic will also fall - there is no doubt about that.
There is a Serbian opposition which is making itself visible today in an article in Libération .
<P>
We must try non-violent methods, we must stop the war, and we must not allow it to result in the militarisation of the EU.
Instead, let us turn the recommendation on a civil peace corps - as proposed by the Greens and recently approved by Parliament - into a reality.
That would be a constructive contribution by the EU to establishing peace in Kosovo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Schifone">
Mr President, there clearly could be no question of our taking refuge behind conventions of international law or purely formal issues, faced with this terrible tragedy in which the whole population of Kosovo have literally been massacred and uprooted from their country as a result of the appalling ethnic cleansing carried out by the tyrant Milosevic, and NATO has consequently had to intervene - of necessity, though nobody likes it and nobody wanted it.
The Kosovar people were being massacred and we had to intervene.
As a civilised society, the European Union could not shirk that obligation or avoid that need.
In the circumstances, however, we have to point to the inadequacy of the measures taken and the precarious nature of political intervention by the European Union in the past.
That perhaps is the source of this sense of great bitterness.
Nonetheless, we must now look to the future and identify the solutions that will bring an end to this war, but it will not end unless an area of security and peace is created in Kosovo.
<P>
I was in Tirana from 21 to 23 April, and I realised there the need to make the presence of the European Parliament felt, as we do not so far appear to have arranged for an official presence in the region, although that would have been the right thing to do.
I met many political representatives of the government and the opposition: the President of the Parliament, Mr Ginuisynis, the Minister for European Integration, Mr Lakori, who is calling for an association between Albania and the European Union, and the opposition leader, Mr Berisha.
All of them, both government and opposition, are calling for NATO to put in ground troops, because they understand - and this may be the realistic view - that Albania will not long be able to withstand the pressure, the presence of 350 000 refugees, equivalent to six million refugees arriving in Italy from one day to the next.
<P>
The situation is extremely serious and only armed intervention - unless Milosevic gives way beforehand on the conditions laid down by NATO and the European Union - can in some way relieve the situation and create a safe area, paving the way to the zone of peace and security we have talked about.
<P>
I would also take this opportunity to remind the House that normal conditions of democracy have yet to be established in Albania itself.
The European Parliament must act immediately to restore the kind of democratic conditions that apply in our countries, because representatives and militants of the opposition party are still in prison and some members of the Albanian Parliament have been deprived of their parliamentary immunity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wiersma">
<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Graziani">
Mr President, I think that in relation to the war in Kosovo, the time has come to turn to reason and for cool-headed reflection.
<P>
Reason is not always convenient - indeed, it is inconvenient - but anyone willing to disregard it does so at his peril.
Reason would have dictated, for example, that when this whole business started - and perhaps we can say this with hindsight - there would have been an assessment made of the relationship between the political objectives and the political effects of the air strikes and the entirely worthy goal we set ourselves of putting an end to ethnic cleansing.
<P>
Unfortunately, the scenario today is an unpalatable one.
<P>
A perceptive journalist wrote this morning in an Italian newspaper that NATO is in a bad way and Milosevic in a worse one.
We have arrived at a turning-point in this situation where there has to be a change of tactics.
Something new is needed, because the air strikes are no longer having an effect: either the attacks continue against the same targets that have been attacked up to now, or attacks are launched on the cities.
Out-and-out war is not an option, it simply does not exist: above all, the United States Congress will not accept it.
So what else can we do?
Milosevic is in an ugly predicament as well, but he has the backing of his own people's nationalism.
Now let us be quite clear about this: in the days of fascism, the Italian people were not all anti-fascists either.
Nationalism did exist, and it was a powerful force.
Hence the need to take account of it in the current situation.
<P>
What needs to be done?
We need to see what cards Milosevic has in his hand, and for that to be achievable, the air strikes have to be suspended.
The stronger, the more reasonable party must act to suspend the air attacks to let us see what cards each side holds, to get negotiation back on track and to reach a solution to the problem, naturally taking account of the rights of the refugees, guaranteed by a military force, to return to Kosovo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Novo">
Mr President, forty days after NATO violated international law, the consequences are clear.
The human drama has developed into a disaster, the victims of the hypocritical collateral accidents are increasing, the Rambouillet pretext has disappeared and the autonomy of Kosovo and ethnic rights have not been reestablished. This means that none of the arguments put forward by NATO for this offensive have been validated and none of its initial objectives have been achieved.
Around the world, and despite its widespread manipulation, public opinion is making itself heard and is calling for UN intervention and a political solution allowing the return of the refugees and respect for the current borders.
However, the Americans and the subordinate European governments are talking about ground offensives and responding with the so-called 'total war' in which everything is regarded as a strategic target. They are also supporting and rearming a movement which everyone regarded as a terrorist and fundamentalist organisation until recently.
<P>
European integration, the origins of which also lie in war in Europe, as I well remember, is now in a situation where Community institutions are defending and excusing NATO and its armed interventions.
Meanwhile, this same NATO is altering its strategic basis in order to turn itself into a world police force, without the governments showing any willingness to explain this to the public and without this House being able to discuss this.
Basically, ladies and gentlemen, this is regrettable and sad.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Imbeni">
Mr President, my message is simply this: speaking of the military dictator, General Pinochet, Allende said that Pinochet had might but not right on his side.
It may well be that ten years from now, Milosevic's view of us will be that we were right but we lacked the might.
We have in fact decided to combine might and right, but we took the decision ten years too late.
Had we in Europe had this discussion on the integration of the Balkans ten years ago, we might not have had on our conscience the 200 000 dead of the war in Bosnia and Milosevic's war against Croatia and so on.
And we have made a mistake, because in the whole of the argument he puts forward - with which I do not for a moment agree - Mr Gollnisch makes just one point that is true.
We should have catered for the dreadful tragedy of the exodus and deportation, but at the moment we are floundering in the dark, with no coordination, with a great deal of goodwill, certainly, but with no scientific approach to humanitarian intervention.
<P>
We were slow to react and we failed to react in the right way, and the issue facing us today - and Mr Dupuis said as much - is that we must realise that the time has come to mount a huge information campaign directed at the Serb population, so that they too understand that right and might are on our side and not on the side of Milosevic.
The Serb people have to believe that too, otherwise our initiative will fail.
<P>
Right and might are on our side then, and I therefore say to you, Mr Fischer, that we can and must be far-sighted in our strategy and more flexible in our tactics.
If I may make a point which is intended in a friendly and not an antagonistic way, we Europeans are a little more skilful than the Americans in that we take a more far-sighted strategic approach and a more flexible tactical approach.
So we ought to be able to turn this vision of ours to good account, and then what you said earlier - that 'May could be a month of hope' - could also provide a more reassuring message for our future and, above all, for the future of peace and justice in the Balkans.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, I would like particularly to express my warmest thanks to Mr Fischer for his clear words and his clear stance in what is a very difficult situation.
I should like to look in greater detail at two points which unfortunately were not given much attention in the discussion but are in my view essential.
We are constantly talking about having to send ground troops into Kosovo.
This is a reasonable idea in itself, but it is not appropriate for this region.
We already know from experience - and I am perhaps old enough to have been involved in these experiences - that foreign troops simply do not succeed.
On the other hand, I have witnessed the liberation of Krajina in Croatia, for example.
There the Croats had weapons and were able to sweep the Serbs aside immediately.
It has been proved again and again that people who are defending their own land are superior to the aggressors.
We must recognise this.
There is the KLA, there are the Albanian forces, and we must give them weapons so that they can meet the mobs coming out of Serbia on an equal footing.
We will be astonished at how quickly the ground fighting will come to an end.
<P>
The second point is that at the beginning we made a huge psychological error by repeatedly saying that the Kosovars must remain with Serbia, must remain in Yugoslavia.
Ladies and gentlemen, we keep forgetting the fact that the state is there for the people, the people are not there for the state.
So the people should have the right to self-determination, and we should grant this right to the inhabitants of Kosovo, who for decades have undergone indescribable suffering at the hands of the Serbian Government in Belgrade.
Milosevic is only the product of an old policy that goes back to before the Second World War.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Mr President, it is clear that the offensive against Yugoslavia has not succeeded in halting the deportations or preventing the exodus of Kosovar Albanians. Nor has it made Mr Milosevic relent.
But it has succeeded in causing great concern by endangering the whole of the region, and in humiliating the UN and, of course, the political unity of Europe. It is clear that this was one of the intentions of American nationalism, while our leaders in Europe connive out of regional fears or aspirations, brushing aside the opportunity to proceed collectively and autonomously.
<P>
Mr President, these offensives will destroy Serbia and will severely harm the Serbian people, killing and wounding many of them.
Could the presidency give us an account of the victims?
It appears that the Kosovar Albanians, together with the Serbs and those living in neighbouring countries, will be the first victims of the pollution caused by the depleted uranium contained in the war-heads that are being used in the region.
Could the presidency comment on the use of this substance, on the pollution that is envisaged as a result, and on how long this pollution will last?
How can the presidency guarantee the return of the refugees to a land that is so polluted?
Or perhaps it has already tacitly ruled out the return of the refugees?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">



Mr President, Europe finds itself embroiled in war: a war into which it stumbled without having any real exit strategy; a war with an obvious risk of spreading; a war which it was planned to win in a couple of days, but which after five weeks has not abated; a war which was launched to rescue people suffering ethnic cleansing and which has resulted in a million refugees; a war which has turned resistance to Milosevic into support for him.
It is time to ask ourselves whether it was a good way to attain our objective.
<P>
Ethnic cleansing and injustice can never be tolerated.
It is time to put an end to Milosevic's reign of terror, but it is also time to put an end to the NATO bombing.
It is time to put forward a political solution to what is a political problem.
As a former prime minister of Sweden, Olof Palme, once said: 'One cannot establish democracy by bombing the villages one should be preserving'.
The EU has political, diplomatic and economic means at its disposal, and it should make use of them in the Balkans.
It is time for the EU to make an active contribution to establishing the right conditions for a political solution to the war in Kosovo.
It is time for the UN to resume its rightful role and for the EU to call for a UN peacekeeping force in Kosovo, so that the refugees can return in safety.
<P>
The EU countries should draw up a large-scale Marshall plan for the Balkan region, to rebuild the devastated communities and to counteract the hatred, which will otherwise provide a breeding-ground for future conflicts for generations to come.
The war has taught us that the EU needs to develop without delay an instrument for conflict resolution, peacekeeping, mediation, reconciliation and confidence building.
If we cannot find methods for resolving conflicts peacefully, without being forced to use military means, then the whole idea behind the EU will crumble away.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lenz">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I can certainly endorse much of what has been said here this afternoon, but by no means all of it.
Who among us is not following these events with growing concern?
Have we not for years defended human rights in every sitting here in the European Parliament?
I will do the same here today for the last time.
<P>
We have been fairly vocal in defending human rights, sometimes for small groups of people.
Here we are concerned with hundreds of thousands of people whose rights are being repeatedly violated - I do not need to give all the details again here - and this is happening in a part of Europe that was formerly very popular among tourists.
<P>
In my view there are two very different aspects to the NATO response.
For the first time a regional alliance of nations is emerging to defend these people's human rights, to restore stability to a part of Europe that has for eight years seen one set of violations lead to another, and always for the same reasons.
The UN, however, failed completely as it was not able to apply either its Charter or international law in practice; instead, a lot of what it said remained merely empty words, and it did not manage to prevent the conflicts for which it was actually created.
<P>
Anyone who lived through the Second World War, as I did, knows what it is like to experience bombs and see burning houses and victims of war at close quarters.
We would not wish it on anyone, and certainly not on the Serbian people and Serbian children whose leader's madness has driven them to ruin in the same way as it has hundreds of thousands of others.
No one has anything against the Serbian people.
Each one of us would protect Serbian children in the same way as we would Kosovar or Albanian children.
We must at long last speak out to condemn this madness.
<P>
We must realise that we cannot only summon the UN when we need it.
Parliament will make every effort to ensure that this region is rebuilt when the time comes, and I also see this commitment in Emma Bonino, in Mr van den Broek and in others with whom we have worked for a long time.
Every opportunity for negotiation must be used, but only when the madness has been ended and we really can provide these people with a home, protection and peace.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Rocard">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioners, I will spare you the high-flown sentiments and I also hope to spare you any naivety.
<P>
Faced with the monstrous nature of the crime committed by Milosevic, which is already ethnocide and may also be genocide, I agree with those who firmly believe that we had to do something.
I support the majority in this Parliament which has warmly approved the military intervention.
<P>
Similarly, I do not believe for one moment that Mr Milosevic's brutal nature could allow him to be receptive to a measure such as a unilateral halt to our action in order to restart political talks.
I feel it is dangerous even to consider this.
<P>
However, the result of our action is worrying.
Serbia is certainly being weakened, but not really Milosevic.
The ethnic cleansing in Kosovo is getting worse.
Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro have become weaker and the prospects are not good.
Now that this war has been started, we must win it.
<P>
I am not going to talk about the future.
Many opinions have been expressed here today, some of which I agree with, but not all.
What interests me is 'how'.
Minister, Mr President-in-Office, how was this offensive prepared?
Was the European Union, or at least the Member States involved, consulted about the plan of attack?
Did the EU comment on the chances of success of this plan and on the existence or otherwise of any other plan?
Did the Council you are presiding over discuss the option of supplementing the air strikes with a ground offensive, which anyone can see is essential strategically?
Did the Council of Ministers at that point seek to develop the means to establish a common strategic debate so that the elements of this action specific to Europe could be proposed to the Alliance Council?
And finally Mr Fischer, at this point in time, can you tell us if the Council is aware of the urgent need to develop within the Alliance a capacity for analysis and defence specific to Europe?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gröner">
Mr President, for too long the international community has allowed Milosevic to do as he pleases, without trying all possible sanctions such as an oil embargo.
Even in the early 1990s we heard reports of the use of mass rape as a weapon of war in Croatia and in the war in Bosnia.
Today we are once again hearing from international aid organisations that women are being deliberately picked out of groups of refugees and dragged off by force, to be returned next morning half dead and highly traumatised or never to be seen again.
<P>
This violence against women, this wave of torture and rape motivated by nationalism, intensifies the spiral of violence, hatred and revenge that is destroying all hope of a peaceful multi-ethnic Kosovo.
Women are falling victim to war criminals because they are women, and the EU must recognise this as grounds for asylum.
In my view, however, it is the height of cynicism that in this situation the Vatican allows women to use contraception but labels abortion as murder.
<P>
Some of our Heads of State and Government and, Mr Fischer, your colleagues should blush with shame when we see where refugees have been taken in and where they have not.
Four EU Member States have not taken in any refugees.
The Union must increase humanitarian aid and immediately review the NATO strategy.
We must stop the bombing and we must, with Russian involvement, return to the negotiating table with a negotiating position.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="d'Ancona">
Mr President, I should like to devote my speaking time to an aspect which is relevant to the work of my committee, namely refugee policy.
Mrs Gröner spoke of this earlier.
But calling it a policy is going a little too far.
Of the more than 600 000 Kosovars who have fled and been driven out of house and home, fewer than 18 000 have so far been taken in by the Member States of the Union.
Of these, Germany has taken nearly 10 000, which means that the rest of the Member States between them have not yet managed even 8 000 Kosovars.
Just imagine, in the space of a few weeks in the poorest areas in Europe, 600 000 people have had to be housed in camps, and even private homes as well.
That figure of 600 000 is twice the number of people that we in our wealthy countries consider each year for asylum, because asylum seekers number only 300 000 or so a year.
<P>
We all share the responsibility for this flood of refugees.
In the course of the last few weeks, out of solidarity and humanity, we should have devised a policy for absorbing these refugees and dividing them up fairly between the Member States.
I see it as proof of the Council's impotence that it was unable to take a decision of that kind, and to some extent I see this as a refusal to put your money where your mouth is.
At any rate, this House must galvanise the Council into action.
The problem of refugees and human misery cannot be solved by throwing ECU 250 million at it.
What we want to see is a temporary haven for substantial numbers of them in our Member States, together with every possible material assistance to the countries in the region, not least after the crisis is over.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="Bonino">
Mr President, this is I think the second or third time we have discussed this issue.
Let me begin with you, Mr Rocard.
I do not know what level of information the Member States of the Union or those who sit on the North Atlantic Council have.
What I can say is that, at a humanitarian level at least, the Commission, like all the humanitarian agencies, was not given information by those Member States which belong to both the European Union and the North Atlantic Council.
No one was briefed or informed of any plans or given any information.
I actually believe that, from the humanitarian point of view, the problem is one of coordination.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is right and proper that individuals, including the individual Member States, should be generous, but this does make coordination more or less impossible.
It is very difficult, even for the UNHCR, successfully to organise hundreds of NGOs, funded by private donations, as well as the structures of the 15 Member States that have quite rightly been spurred into action, besides the other donors from the United States, together with the Canadians, the Norwegians, the Japanese and so on.
It is, I can assure you, easy to talk about the role of coordination, but more difficult to carry it out, and one reason for this is that, understandably, everyone feels the need for a visible political presence, and we can all agree on that.
In the final analysis, there is clearly some divergence of interests.
<P>
How then are we to avoid duplicating aid when practically no one knows what the Member States are doing?
How can we avoid the kind of mistakes that arise when generosity is not matched by experience?
It is, for example, difficult to inform, warn or prevent someone from setting up camps where they are not able to be maintained because, in the rush, nobody consults.
What I am trying to convey to you here is that there has not to this day been any limitation on funding or on humanitarian projects.
There has been a serious lack of coordination, of discipline, and a failure to set priorities.
And so it seems to me that the task of the UNHCR - our task therefore - is not of the easiest.
<P>
A second question that has been put to me, and this is something on which we are working, is the more important issue of providing shelter.
It is true that what we mostly see are the camps with their dreadful conditions, but honourable Members should realise that the great majority of the deportees have been taken in by extremely poor Albanian or Macedonian families, as we all know, and that one of the major efforts we are making is to provide aid to those families, specifically to prevent social tensions and to ensure that the refugees do not find themselves on the street after enjoying a month's generous hospitality, thereby creating social problems.
<P>
Another activity in which we are very much involved is, more particularly, preparing for the worst-case scenario, namely the advent of winter.
For some of the refugees at least, we are restoring brick-built housing and community centres to enable us to evacuate as soon as possible the vast majority of deportees who are living under canvas and to provide them with more acceptable health and sanitary conditions, or at least better climatic conditions.
<P>
I must also draw your attention to three other risk factors that have to be borne in mind: the first is Macedonia, because of the political problem there.
However, although I appreciate the political problem which the Macedonian Government has, I do not think its attitude to the deportees at the frontier is acceptable - and nor would it be acceptable in any circumstances.
While I understand its difficulties, it is not acceptable that anyone should violate the humanitarian conventions.
<P>
The second issue is that of Montenegro.
The House should not forget that there are in Montenegro 70 000 deportees who are human time bombs.
These are not the kind of refugees we are used to, they are actually deportees, human time bombs to be used if, when and where Milosevic so decides.
And if he decides to dispatch a human time bomb made up of a hundred thousand people against Montenegro, we will really see a problem of political destabilisation.
<P>
Another point that we should keep in mind concerns Bosnia, which was already in a difficult situation and has taken in 50 000 refugees, in this case Serbs.
<P>
The third issue on which we are working relates to the Serb evacuees on Serbian territory, for whom we have made provision by taking specific measures.
I shall be returning to the region in the next few days, but I would ask for your help in conveying this message: the crucial element now in humanitarian aid is to set priorities and to be disciplined and coordinated; failing that, I am afraid that, despite the great generosity coming from all sides, the result will be total disarray.
<P>
There are two further, perhaps rather more political points that I would make.
Ladies and gentlemen, I believe that when our forebears opted for the European Community, they did so for two reasons: that there should never again be war between us, and that there should never be another Auschwitz.
Today we have to choose between those two eventualities, because it has not been possible to rule out both.
We hear the call for a political solution.
But what have we been doing with Milosevic over the past ten years if not seeking a political solution?
In my humble opinion, we have gone too far: from one conference to the next, from one diplomatic meeting to the next, from one meeting in Geneva to the next.
But I would venture to say better late than never.
It probably is late - too late, I agree - but just think of the case-file from Osiek to Vukovar, Srebrenica to Sarajevo, Bihac to Tuzla and so many other shameful crimes, to which we failed to respond.
<P>
We simply cannot say that since we do not intervene everywhere, we should not intervene in our own backyard either.
I think it is quite clear where the responsibilities lie here, at least as regards the European Union, for resolving not so much problems far afield as those in our own backyard.
If we do not even have the courage for that, if we believe that Europe means having a single currency, a bit of agriculture and - why not? - a spot of fishing, but do not share these principles, and by that I mean the rejection of ethnic cleansing in Europe at least, then it becomes meaningless to call ourselves Europeans.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 NAME="Fischer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to pick up where Commissioner Bonino left off.
If we look at the debate - and in this respect it resembles all the other debates we have heard in recent weeks - we can see that there are a lot of good individual arguments that we have all thought of from time to time.
But if we try to find an alternative way of looking at things we find that we have not heard an alternative. a political solution has been called for.
Yes, but a political solution is not an end in itself.
The question should be: what must a political solution achieve? a political solution must achieve an end to violence.
<P>
Applause
<P>
a political solution must bring about the return of those who have been displaced and it must in particular ensure that we do not have another ten years of nationalist madness in the Balkans with hundreds of thousands of more deaths.
<P>
Applause
<P>
a political solution is not an end in itself, so we must talk about the substance of our policy.
The only thing I can add there is to offer Mr Milosevic a peace corps. He would like that.
He would immediately support that, particularly now.
And why?
Because then he would have what he wanted.
Mr Milosevic is not the man to be influenced by a peace corps.
I am very strongly in favour of a peace corps, I am very much in favour of a Europe in which violence has no place.
But how are we to respond to someone who has used the most merciless violence not just once, not twice, not three times, but for ten years?
<P>
Applause
<P>
In my view this is not just a moral issue.
It is a question of European security and of the future of Europe.
I would accept the criticism if we had acted rashly in resorting to force, but there are at least 200 000 people lying in mass graves because we acted too late.
Think of Bosnia!
Are our memories so short?
Mr Karadzic was in Geneva and signed treaties that just an hour later were no longer valid in Bosnia.
This did not happen once, or ten times, it happened umpteen times.
What must it take?
This is a question we must ask ourselves.
Of course we all ask ourselves this question constantly - I can at least say this for the German Government, but surely all the governments involved feel the same - when it is our responsibility.
But some statements I have heard have confused cause and effect.
<P>
Applause
<P>
We must not confuse cause and effect here!
The cause is Milosevic's policy.
He is not a nationalist but a cynic.
His aim is to obtain power.
This is why he is using the aggressive tactics of Serb nationalism.
He has unleashed the tiger and is trying to ride it, and if we allow him to continue he will not only bring disaster to an entire region of Europe, but he will also cost more innocent lives.
The brutal expulsion and exodus we are now witnessing are on a scale that we would not have thought possible.
<P>
Emma Bonino rightly said that these are human bombs, in other words the expulsion is being used doubly cynically as brutal tactics against neighbouring countries.
Europe cannot accept this. a political solution that involved accepting this would be completely wrong.
It would be the opposite of what we want.
<P>
Applause
<P>
We are trying to implement a political solution that uses force on the basis of respect for human rights, common security and the return of all refugees, on the basis of the international community.
This is the type of political solution we are trying to achieve.
But this presupposes firstly that Belgrade is left in no doubt about the resolve of the international community, and secondly that it understands that a military solution holds no prospects for Serbia and also none for Milosevic personally.
<P>
I consider it imperative that we achieve a political solution and a cease-fire on this basis.
I consider it to be not only necessary but crucial that we develop proposals that can be discussed or considered and that have a clear content that can be implemented.
On the other hand, it must be clear that cause and effect cannot be confused, and I would like to emphasise this.
Milosevic is responsible for this war, which I hope will be the last round of violence.
If we do not put a halt to his actions Montenegro will follow, then Sandjak will follow, then Vojvodina and then sooner or later we will have the same war again in a new round, this time in Macedonia.
I have no doubts on this score.
Therefore, of all the good arguments I have heard, the only possible alternative is a political solution that renounces the use of force, respects human rights and ensures the return of refugees.
Belgrade must take this on board.
Milosevic must take this step.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office.
<P>
I have received seven motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2).
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Thursday at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
CFSP
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on:
<P>
the report (A4-0242/99) by Mr Spencer, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the role of the Union in the world: implementation of the common foreign and security policy for 1998; -the report (A4-0219/99) by Mr Spencer, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, containing a proposal for a European Parliament recommendation to the Council on the common strategy towards the Russian Federation; -the statement by the Council on the appointment of the High Representative for the common foreign and security policy.
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="Spencer">
Mr President, I hope that the President-in-Office is going to announce the decision to appoint the High Representative at the Council meeting in Cologne.
Under our Rules of Procedure we will invite the successful candidate to speak to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy on 21 June so that we may put a recommendation of approval to the July plenary.
<P>
We take the view that the High Representative must be a figure of substance, not a creature of Council in-fighting.
The relationship which the successful candidate forms with Parliament and the Commission is, in our view, central to the coherence of foreign policy.
<P>
The year 1998 was the year when our hopes of coherence in foreign policy were tested by reality.
The last twelve months have seen the establishment of the euro and we deserve a foreign policy that matches the expectations in the rest of the world raised by our new monetary union.
1998 was the year of the pregnancy of our new foreign policy structures under the Treaty of Amsterdam.
We deserve a foreign policy structure that provides the telephone number that Henry Kissinger asked for a generation ago.
1998 was the year in which we first engaged with the reality of Europe's defence.
We deserve a foreign policy that is backed by clarity and coherence in our defence structure, most particularly as regards the Western European Union.
<P>
My report details the use of the Union's instruments around the world.
It is a story familiar from recent years; a story of imperfect institutions struggling to grapple with an unstable world.
We want to see a strong High Representative, a strong policy planning and early warning unit, a strong Commission structure with a coherent team of Commissioners dealing with external relations.
We want a CFSP that is adequately financed, that is academically and intellectually credible, using to the full the successful crisis prevention network.
<P>
Europe is a power in the world.
It must find a common voice; a common voice for use not just in our near abroad.
Our embarrassed silences on Iran, Iraq or the Indian sub-continent are products of black spots in our vision, reflecting fifty years of building Europe brick by domestic brick rather than according to a global vision of our place in the world of diplomacy.
<P>
Our foreign policy has human rights and dignity at its core.
How could it be otherwise with our own shared heritage of horror and civil war?
Painful though it may be to contemplate, there is no other explanation for a Union that is prepared to wage war, not for oil, not for power, but to oppose the evil of ethnic cleansing in the heart of Europe.
<P>
Of all the instruments at our disposal the common strategies should be the most powerful.
From the highest level they are supposed to guide Europe's footsteps in the world.
Rightly we set out to define our relationship with Russia, our neighbour in the common European house, as a first step.
To forge a new instrument in the heat of a crisis with our most important neighbour is perhaps excessively courageous.
I am not convinced that the text that the Council is currently considering is yet good enough.
To prepare it in a hurry without the help of the High Representative and without either the reality or the structure of consultation with Parliament is, in my view, hubris.
It is the folly of the magic circle of national diplomats in Brussels who continue to believe that yesterday's working methods are adequate for tomorrow's challenges.
Far from seeking to send a negative message to Moscow by proposing in paragraph 4 that the Council delay the adoption of the common strategy until the Helsinki Summit, we were seeking to ensure that the urgent did not drive out the important.
It is exactly because we want a strong document that we offered the suggestion of delay.
I accept however that there are those in Russia, outside the government, who are not committed to a positive relationship and who might deliberately misinterpret our motives.
I am therefore happy to recommend to the House the adoption of Amendment No 2 from the Socialist Group.
<P>
War shines a harsh light on all our evasions, on all our half-truths, on all our institutional improvisations.
<P>
Europe and our relations with Russia and with America will not be the same after the war.
If that harsh light challenges us to define our views of the world, it does the same for America.
My report has severe things to say about the conduct of American foreign policy, not least its co-option by commercial interests.
Washington, it seems to me, is currently torn between a view of itself as the centre of a unipolar world of American hegemony and the more realistic recognition that it is a super-power that operates most effectively when it exercises its power in tandem with Europe.
<P>
Nowhere, Mr President, are the new realities more apparent than in the Balkans.
It is in the Balkans that Europe will be tested in the next five years.
It is central to our relationship with Russia, it is central to NATO's credibility, it is central to Europe's role inside NATO.
<P>
In recent weeks I have twice been in Europe's south-east.
And beyond the horror of stories from the refugee camps I retain a clear sense of the suspicion with which our activities are viewed in the Balkans.
This suspicion is not just the product of an understandable fear of proximity to war with a dangerous and unpredictable local bully.
It is not only a justifiable fear about the economic consequences of a war which isolates and disrupts.
It is a deeper fear of betrayal and deceit from the West.
<P>
I believe passionately that we need a coherent European initiative in the Balkans using all our instruments.
I cheerfully admit to rechristening the Centre for European Policy Studies' proposals 'the Prodi plan', a plan for reconstruction, openness, development and integration with Europe.
<P>
I salute Professor Prodi's foresight in saying weeks ago that Europe's relations with the Balkans should be seen as part of the enlargement of the Union, rather than as foreign policy.
But to succeed, such a plan will require a sea change in our mutual relations.
We must stop seeing the Balkans as the repository of all that we are most frightened of in ourselves.
They must learn to trust the Union and to trust themselves as fully European.
<P>
Much is made of the difference of the Balkans and particularly of the differences of religious heritage with the Orthodox Church.
We have to make a real effort to understand our joint destiny as Europeans.
<P>
It is a commonplace of European rhetoric that we are formed by our inheritance from Greece and Rome.
But it is an accident of Western European educational history that we define this in terms of Ancient Greece and Imperial Rome.
The western intellectual tradition often forgets that there were two Romes.
We forget at our peril that Constantinople was, for centuries, the original European city of culture when the ancestors of today's Council of Ministers were camping in the ruins of a former glory.
Surely the time has now come to declare Diocletian's division of the empire redundant and to accept that Sofia, Skopje and Sarajevo, that Budapest, Bucharest and Belgrade are all heir to the same civilisation.
<P>
If an apology needs to be made about Western Europe's behaviour in the Crusades, it should relate not to the conquest of Jerusalem, but to the sacking of Constantinople by Frankish knights.
The lack of trust in Western Europe goes that far back into our history and it urgently needs to be remedied.
<P>
The Danube in my view must become a symbol of our unity rather than a blocked artery in the body of Europe.
I commend to this House, and to the President-in-Office, the initiative of His All Holiness the Patriarch of Constantinople in mounting the religion, science and environment symposium in September, in which representatives of all five of the great religions of the region - Orthodox and Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim will sail from Regensberg to the Black Sea in the interests both of environment and of reconciliation.
There is a role here, both for Pope and Patriarch.
The war with Serbia must be the last of Europe's civil wars.
The cocktail of religious bigotry and nationalism must be put aside on the Danube, as it was 50 years ago on the Rhine.
<P>
These weeks, however dangerous, are rich with possibility.
This is the moment when Europe grows up in its external relations.
These are the weeks when we have to accept that Europe's role requires responsibilities as well as rhetoric, that we are charged with the difficult, as well as the detailed.
These are the weeks when we have to learn to be ourselves, rather than merely an element in other people's strategy.
These are the weeks when we assert that we are Europe, all of Europe.
<P>
Mr President, I commend my reports to the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="Fischer">
<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, I should like to begin by taking the opportunity of wishing Mr Spencer well in the future and expressing the hope that his considerable abilities can be put to good use.
It has certainly been interesting working with him for the last two and a half years, if only because I never knew what he would be getting up to next.
<P>
To return to the debate, I have to say that there have been times in the last few years when I have felt that the initials CFSP have not stood for common foreign and security policy but for coreless, fudge and sclerotic posturing.
There has been a lack of direction and decision quite frequently.
Some of that is understandable: we are operating in the most sensitive area of national sovereignty; it has been difficult to bring together nation states with different interests and practices and clearly we have had to walk before we could run.
As Mr Spencer said, if we can achieve the euro, we ought to be able to achieve a genuine foreign and security policy.
Certainly Kosovo has shown the inadequateness of our response and we need to use that as an example to spur us on further.
<P>
We have been, in many ways, guilty of complacency: we say often that the justification of the European Union is to get rid of wars within Europe's borders and forget what is happening just outside Europe's borders and our responsibility for that.
<P>
Clearly we must change.
The policy planning unit is going to be very important, but it must link in with other organisations, like the conflict prevention network, which Parliament was instrumental in setting up.
<P>
We need coherent long-term thinking that will allow foreign policy issues to run through both pillar 1 and pillar 2 issues.
I should like to see us focus on the longer-term strategic questions, such as the role of water supply in conflict prevention.
Obviously the High Representative will be very important but what is crucial is that this appointment should not be a fudge and that we appoint somebody who we know can do the job and whom the Council is prepared to allow to do the job.
That High Representative must work with the other institutions, the Commission and Parliament.
Indeed, I would like to see these institutions working much closer together throughout the CFSP.
As I said in the previous debate, in particular I should like to see the Council listening more to Parliament.
We have put together some coherent and important positions, particularly in our recommendations.
We should like to believe that the Council is listening and responding to them.
Parliament, for its part, must stop demanding the impossible.
We cannot take action in every area of the world: we have to prioritise.
There can be no morality without practicality.
<P>
We must remember the greatest contribution we can make to peace and stability is the enlargement of the European Union.
That should be our main focus in the next parliament.
<P>
Clearly we also need a European defence identity but we should remember that the fifteen Member States spend two-thirds of what the Americans spend on equipment and yet we have a fraction of the equipment they use.
We must have more coordination on not only defence policy but also defence procurement and we must look to restructure our defence industries.
We must have military thinking which reflects the new realities, as has happened in the United Kingdom with the defence review.
We must have clarification of the position of the WEU and the role it is going to take in the European defence identity, and that must happen in Cologne.
<P>
Finally, we must consider whether or not we need to increase defence expenditure if we are to meet our ambitions for the CFSP.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Dimitrakopoulos">
Mr President, I would first of all like to congratulate Mr Spencer on his excellent report and to say that this report comes at a very important moment in the history of the European Union.
At least three crises - those of Kosovo, Russia and the Middle East - demonstrate that the superpower that is Europe could have handled these issues much better.
<P>
The Spencer report goes some way to answering the major question that is tormenting all of us: 'why did this happen?'
By way of an answer it proposes, in essence, what should happen, that is, to redefine the parameters within which European foreign policy is conceived and implemented.
This is both a conceptual and an institutional undertaking, which does not stop with the establishment of institutions, or the appointment of 'foreign policy' representatives.
It is an issue relating to the conditions under which the foreign policy representatives, or those mediators who are appointed by the European Union, will work.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office, I address you in the light of the Council summit meeting in Cologne, and I say to you that, in Cologne, you will have in your hands a historic opportunity to establish the conditions and the prerequisites to enable the new Intergovernmental Conference to do for foreign policy what the Treaties of Maastricht and Amsterdam did for the economy; a European foreign policy which, as you more than anyone else are aware of because of your background, cannot stop at diplomatic processes, but must contain answers to challenges such as the economy, the environment and culture.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, as the previous speaker said, our annual debate on the Union's role in the world is taking place at a special point in time.
A war is raging in Europe, a war with military input from the Member States. And a few days ago, the Amsterdam Treaty entered into force.
That may perhaps give a new impetus to foreign policy.
So I shall not concentrate so much on looking back at our common policy over the past year, but will try to look forward.
One of the biggest changes in foreign policy will be the new instrument of common strategies.
At first sight, the plan does not look all that remarkable, but it is a first step towards real majority voting in this area in the Council.
The effect of this majority decision making will be to reduce the power of national parliaments, and that must be counterbalanced by an increase in influence for the European Parliament.
<P>
Only Union actions which draw their democratic legitimacy from the common foreign and security policy will be able to count on support from the people of Europe.
For these reasons, a future High Representative will need to appear before Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy to seek its endorsement.
Only in this way, I believe, can a close link be forged between this representative and the European Parliament.
<P>
A word or two now on Europe's identity in the field of security.
The current war in Kosovo has shown once again the desperate need for the EU to have its own capability for military crisis management, as so often advocated in this House.
In this area too, the Union must be able to act more independently of the USA if need be.
So the WEU really must be merged into the Union without further delay.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, this is my last speech to the House on a report, and I am especially pleased that it is a report by my friend and colleague Tom Spencer.
My thanks to him for the leadership he has sought to give, and has given, to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
My compliments and good wishes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, we are living in difficult times in Europe.
The Social Democrats and Greens in Germany, which holds the Presidency of the Council, are bombing the Yugoslavians, that is to say, the Slavs, with no formal declaration of war.
There are still more Slavs in Russia.
In the prevailing circumstances, Mr Spencer's report is well-balanced and carefully thought out, serving the cause of peace and cooperation, and serving also to maintain talks among the parties involved.
<P>
It touches on some issues that have been largely overlooked.
It is by no means self-evident that Russia must be helped.
The EUR 400 million in food aid granted by the EU is a big mistake, as it is counterproductive and destroying markets.
In addition, no decision has been taken on the basis on which debts are to be waived, and it what way this should be dealt with.
The IMF is not rescuing Russia, but American and German banks, and it is therefore responsible for yet more disorder in Russia.
Its country's central bank cannot receive currency loans; its own reserves are located in Jersey.
Thus I welcome Mr Spencer's report, as it avoids setting out the sort of political conditions that Parliament usually does, but approaches the issue in a balanced way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, I should like to welcome the President-in-Office.
Ladies and gentlemen, reconciliation with Russia is the most crucial peace strategy for our continent.
In this respect the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia without a UN mandate represents the most criminal violation of this principle.
The Western community has cast aside the peace principle in view of the massive human rights violations and ethnic expulsions in Kosovo.
However, in my opinion it is a mistake whose consequences will set us back for a long time in our attempt to develop a common security strategy in Europe.
The end never justifies the means as the results for our continent cannot yet be predicted.
I would like to touch on a few of these.
<P>
Firstly, every bomb makes the return to the negotiating table more difficult.
I see only one way out: Russia must be given an increasingly central role in the political solution.
Attempts have been made, but Russia's offers to negotiate have to date been rejected and in the end it has not been given this role after all.
Secondly, the Washington option of taking military action without a UN mandate and against international practice forces Russia to define its own zones of influence and to assert its right to do the same here.
We need think only of the many conflicts in North Caucasia and Transcaucasia and the dangers that have re-emerged there too.
<P>
Thirdly, the ABM Treaty and the ratification of START 2 are likely to be indefinitely postponed, and with them goes our desire for worldwide disarmament which ties up so many financial and material resources.
Therefore it is important that we develop a common strategy, and that we do so as the first act under the new opportunities offered by a common foreign and security policy.
But it must not be used as an alibi.
I would also say that unless there is interinstitutional change in terms of involving the European Parliament's democratic right of control, then we will have less power of influence over foreign policy than we have had up to now.
This is why we need interinstitutional change.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, out of friendship for Mr Spencer I will say that Mr Fischer's speech confirms that this House is now being more cautious than the Council in its proposals to reform the common foreign and security policy.
I believe that the Kosovo crisis is evidence for those who refused to acknowledge it of our need for a ministry and minister for foreign affairs and a ministry and minister for defence and security. It is high time for Europe to equip itself with the necessary tools to achieve this objective within ten or fifteen years, as it was able to do ten or fifteen years ago with economic and monetary union.
It is time to work, to start working, as Emma Bonino said, towards defining a diplomatic and military union.
<P>
Unfortunately, the amendments tabled by my group in this respect were not accepted by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy and I hope that they may be accepted in the House.
I believe that one tool which we urgently need is a European peacekeeping and peacemaking corps.
Again Kosovo is evidence of this.
We need to start considering foreign policy from a Community perspective.
Why not do this with regard to thirty or forty countries in the Pacific or in certain parts of Asia where no Member States are present?
<P>
Another important issue which is very similar to Kosovo and which Mrs Schroedter mentioned very briefly is Transcaucasia.
I believe that Georgia is a central point for the EU and provides a door to Central Asia.
The process allowing Georgia to become a member of the European Union must be accelerated.
The cooperation agreement must be signed immediately and an association agreement must be rapidly concluded.
<P>
As highlighted again by Kosovo, we must equip ourselves with an information tool for all the people living under dictatorial regimes, in the manner of the American 'Voice of America'.
We must have a 'Voice of Europe' to fight against dictators before these tragedies occur, as in Kosovo.
I hope that later my colleagues will fully endorse Mr Spencer's report, which is an excellent text.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, I would first like to thank Mr Spencer for his report and also in general for his work in committee.
As I come from a town on the Danube I would like to thank him for his statement today and for emphasising the importance of this strip of Europe that has very often been an area of crisis and war but could also be an area of peace and cooperation, linking western and central Europe with the Balkans and also with Russia, Ukraine and finally also Turkey, as he mentioned.
<P>
It is on the one hand a positive sign for Europe that the crises and political conflicts are not inside but on the edge of the European Union.
But this is no cause for satisfaction, as we need to devote extra-special attention to achieving peace on our borders.
<P>
The President-in-Office was the first in today's debate to ask what has happened to the political solutions. I would like to ask the further question: where were the crisis prevention measures in recent years?
Crisis prevention is not a miracle weapon, if I can use the term 'weapon' here.
But bombs are not a miracle weapon either!
Nor are ground troops, as we know.
We must bear all these instruments in mind, but if we are building a common foreign and security policy here I would urge that we begin primarily where we should begin, which is with crisis prevention.
This is an important task which we must bear in mind particularly in the near future, and to which this Parliament must also contribute accordingly.
<P>
One final comment, again about the work done by Mr Spencer over the last few years.
Being an enthusiastic parliamentarian he has often brought us into confrontation with the Commission and the Council, whether we wanted to or not.
What is important is that he lent weight to Parliament and its Members.
I would ask the Commission and the Council to take note of the fact that we parliamentarians are capable of more than simply holding debates such as these, which are not always very interesting or exciting, and that the Council and the Commission should in future involve Parliament more in the drafting and also in the implementation of policy.
Then the policies of the European Union are sure to be even more efficient than they will be under the new High Representative.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Lambrias">
Mr President, the shameful war in Yugoslavia and the cataclysmic turmoil in the Balkans lend dramatic currency to the report by Mr Spencer.
With composure our rapporteur has attempted to elaborate a strategy for our relations with the former world super power, Russia, and he has succeeded.
<P>
However, in my opinion it is essential that, in the pain and confusion that surrounds us, we send a clear message and that we acknowledge the role that Russia can and must play without delay in order to avert the visible dangers: the military entanglements; the broader destabilisation of the region; the revival of cold-war rivalries.
<P>
Unfortunately, however, while the relentless bombardments continue, disinformation on both sides is rife and self-criticism is in short supply.
Even the call for a political solution, which Kofi Annan sought following his meeting with President Yeltsin, is scoffed at by those who fear that the military credibility of NATO will be compromised and that the Clinton policy on Kosovo will be discredited, if logic is brought to bear on self-sustaining acts of stupidity.
<P>
The stance taken by Mr Prodi this morning, and what the President-in-Office has said just now concerning the importance that the Russian Federation will have in the immediate future for the success of the major policies of the European Union, such as enlargement and the CFSP, are encouraging.
However, we must not wait for the new President to assume his or her duties before we call for immediate and feasible solutions to the explosive problems of today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Väyrynen">
Mr President, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy considered two very important and closely related reports at the same time.
One was by Mrs Piha, on the Union's northern dimension, and the other was Mr Spencer's report on the Union's strategy with respect to Russia.
The committee was unable to create a link between the two reports, since the one on the strategy with respect to Russia only mentions the northern dimension in passing.
The report on the northern dimension declines, for its part, to take a position on Russia, as that was seen to be more relevant to the report on Russia.
<P>
The northern dimension must be seen as an essential part of both the EU's external relations and the decision-making process that impacts on its internal development.
In external relations the northern dimension will be responsible for the creation of a separate common strategy, in which relations with Russia will have a key position.
In developing the Russian strategy further the aim will be for the instruments already available to the Union, and especially the TACIS programme, to effectively implement jointly established goals.
<P>
In its EU policy, Russia must also be able to broaden its pan-European network of contacts.
The EU has to develop its institutions so that it can broaden its scope to cover the whole of Europe.
This will require internal differentiation on the part of the Union, and its development as a confederation of states, rather than as a federation.
The Union, in principle, must also be open to Russian membership, although this seems a long way off at present.
<P>
The Liberal Group approves the report on the strategy with respect to Russia as it stands, but we wish to remove the proposal to postpone decisions on it.
The strategy must be put into effect without delay, and its implementation has to get under way in as effective a way as possible.
My congratulations go to Mr Spencer for an excellent report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Posada González">
Mr President, the Russian Federation is struggling with enormous social, economic and political problems.
The standard of living of its people has continued to fall, insecurity and the influence of various mafias have increased alarmingly and the country is heading towards disintegration.
<P>
For these reasons and also because we must continue to improve our relations with Russia in light of the serious crisis in Kosovo, we support the decision taken on 26 April by the Council to adopt a proposal for a common strategy towards Russia.
This common strategy sets out the need for democracy, the rule of law in public institutions and the integration of Russia into a European social and economic area as well as the common challenges which are facing the European continent.
However, it will be necessary to improve the judicial system, the public administration, the police forces and the regional authorities through training, support for reforms, the reinforcement of relations between the European and Russian political systems and support for the NGOs and for an independent press.
<P>
On a social and economic level, there are various areas of action: restructuring businesses, public finances, the banking system or access to international financial markets, standards and certification, competition policy, access to the market, cooperation on technology and the development of agricultural reform and social dialogue.
The reforms of the PHARE and TACIS programmes should be aimed at making the best use of the impetus for cooperation with European business sectors.
<P>
In terms of stability and security, joint initiatives must be proposed to Russia on foreign policy, through contacts made by the High Representative for the CFSP, and on increasing Russian participation when the EU uses the Western European Union for operations commonly known as 'Petersberg tasks'. Also, joint initiatives are needed to strengthen cooperation in order to prevent and resolve conflicts within the OSCE and United Nations and also in respect of disarmament control.
Other challenges include the protection of the environment, nuclear safety and the fight against organised crime through regional or transborder actions.
<P>
We feel that a stable, democratic and prosperous Russia, firmly anchored in a united Europe, is essential for ensuring lasting peace on the European continent.
Our support for the current and future democratically elected Russian authorities must continue.
We also believe that this common strategy towards Russia must be adopted at the next meeting of the European Council in Cologne.
We will therefore vote in favour of this and will not support any postponement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Krehl">
Thank you, Mr President.
I very much welcome the fact that the Council firstly wants to adopt a common strategy with Russia.
According to the Treaty of Amsterdam a common strategy requires the consultation of the European Parliament.
In view of Parliament's schedule the Council feels that consultation is not possible if the common strategy is to be decided at the June summit, as the final draft of the document will not be available until 17 May.
It is therefore particularly important that we make it clear to the Council that the procedure of a report with recommendations to the Council on a common strategy is a one-off solution because of the elections.
In all future common strategies Parliament will insist on being consulted by the Council.
<P>
I should like to look at a few issues of substance, although it is difficult to make recommendations about a text that we do not have before us.
I would like to emphasise one point in particular: I would oppose the rapporteur's endeavours to postpone the common strategy on our relations with Russia, which is of the utmost importance at this present juncture, as the strategy goes far beyond bilateral relations with this country.
Both the Member States and the Commission have stated clearly that any delay in adopting the strategy could be misinterpreted by the Russians, and I believe that it is in all our interests to avoid any increase in tension between the European Union and Russia in the current complicated international situation.
Russia's efforts to solve the conflict in the Balkans serve only to further underline the importance of this country for Europe's security structure, and I very much support the President-in-Office's desire to adopt this strategy as quickly as possible.
<P>
The European Union's policy towards the Russian Federation has not always been exemplary to date, but I would hope that the combination of a comprehensive strategy and the new TACIS regulation that is due to enter into force in the year 2000 will lead to a significant improvement in decision-making and implementation in the European Union's policy on Russia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lehne">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to endorse what Mrs Krehl said.
I too consider it to be a mistake to postpone the issue of our relations with Russia and what form the strategy should take.
I believe in fact that, particularly in view of current events, it is absolutely essential that we not only maintain the line of communication with Moscow but develop it further.
It has been said several times today in the various debates that without Russia a European security structure and a flourishing Europe would be inconceivable.
<P>
It is also the case that on visits to Russia and in talks with Russian colleagues we are repeatedly asked about the European Union's strategy towards Russia.
In fact - at least this is the impression I get - this strategy has up to now been inadequate.
We have had the partnership agreement, but what should come after that and how it should be developed are questions that have so far not been given sufficient attention.
I believe these questions must be answered so that we can tackle the issue methodically and in accordance with our objectives.
<P>
When we are in Moscow our Russian partners often end up by asking whether we can imagine Russia perhaps one day even becoming a member of the European Union.
I always reply that I cannot imagine it today but that I cannot say whether I might be able to imagine it in 30, 40 or 50 years' time.
Our strategy need not go this far but I believe that at least the framework conditions for the development of this thriving cooperation must certainly be established immediately so that the Russians also know where they stand.
<P>
In addition, the work from the partnership agreement must also be developed further, of course.
Russia itself continues to have a great many serious problems.
I can only say that it is also our duty as the European Union and as a party in negotiation with them to do our best to make it easier for them to tackle and resolve many of these home-made problems.
Wherever we can lend support we should do so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, it is highly significant that the whole foreign policy discussion has centred around Russia.
Russia is indeed the most important problem in our foreign policy.
But this has been the case for a long time in our history.
Unfortunately, I sometimes have the impression that many of our leading politicians who talk about this have not read history or, if they have read it, have not understood it.
We need a realistic relationship with Russia that should not be determined by fear but a policy that knows what the facts are and takes them on board.
<P>
Enrico Berlinguer once made a very true comment, which was that we should take what the Russians tell us seriously.
We do not take it seriously.
We have not taken on board that this is an imperialistic power with whom we have to coexist, but we must recognise that it is an imperialistic power and that attempts to make the poacher turn gamekeeper, as it were, sometimes go astray.
We must pursue a realistic policy that is based to a large extent on the fact that Russia today, at a time of worldwide decolonisation, is the last great colonial empire on earth.
Russia will join Europe one day, but I am convinced that this will only be possible when it has been decolonised, since we do not want to be dragged into any new colonial wars with the countries of the Far East, which is a very real danger.
<P>
Anyone who has dealt with China - and I would hope that our politicians will devote more attention to China - knows what its plans are.
China is a power that also has commitments in Siberia; every day 5 000 Chinese cross the Amur border illegally.
These are the things we need to think about. I am grateful to Mr Spencer for his report; I would only ask that we keep to the situation in reality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="Truscott">
Mr President, there is no doubt that the CFSP must be strengthened, particularly in the areas of early warning, conflict prevention and the development of the European security and defence identity.
<P>
The recent Washington Summit and the future Cologne Council have further focused attention on how we can promote human rights and secure peace in Europe in the next millennium.
Ever closer partnership with the Russian Federation will be essential to achieve these aims.
<P>
May I say at this point that the central conclusion of Mr Spencer's report on Russia, namely that we must postpone agreement on a common strategy beyond the Cologne Summit in June, is - and I think many agree here - diplomatic lunacy.
What sort of signal would this give Russia at a time when we look to Moscow to play a positive role in assisting with peace talks on Kosovo.
Such a delay in fostering closer political and economic ties with Russia would merely be a gift to anti-western, communist and nationalist forces in Russia, as has been mentioned during the debate.
<P>
But the rapporteur is correct in calling for the common strategy to have real substance and the means for implementing it.
The economic, environmental and social situation in Russia is dire, but Russia must also do more to help itself by reforming the economy and banking sector, collecting taxes and overhauling the legal system.
<P>
The European Union and international financial institutions should play their part in assisting an effective reform programme.
But there must be political will on the Russian side to eliminate the 'robber baron' style of capitalism which has developed since 1991.
<P>
With the resurgence of nationalism in Russia and the growing social deprivation of the majority of the Russian people, it is both our duty and in our interest for Europe to work with Russia to enhance democracy, security and prosperity for all our citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sindal">
Mr President, 1 May was the day on which the Amsterdam Treaty and the common foreign and security policy became a reality.
It is my belief that if we had had this foreign policy in place several years ago, we would not have experienced the crises in Bosnia and Croatia - far less the war in Serbia.
The prevention of crises is, as our colleagues have mentioned, extremely important.
I therefore believe that we should be careful not to put the cart before the horse, talking more about technical options such as bombs and armed conflict than about crisis resolution.
So I say: crisis prevention first, military hardware second.
<P>
It is vitally important that we achieve agreement as far as the analysis is concerned, and that those in charge of the common foreign and security policy cooperate closely with the Member States.
The new institution, 'Mr or Mrs Foreign Policy, ' should be primarily preventative and cooperate with the OSCE, the UN and so on.
It may be regrettable that it did not succeed in the Balkans and that intervention was necessary, but that is something we must be prepared for when human rights are so grossly violated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, it is good that the issues of the northern dimension are seen in the report as being an essential part of policy on Russia.
The northern dimension, however, should have been accorded greater substance, such as the creation of free trade zones for northwestern Russia, which would help it to develop.
However, the report talks about an economic and social crisis as if that were the heart of the matter. It is merely the result of a political crisis.
That is the core issue. That is why the world's richest country, in terms of natural resources, has become poverty-stricken.
<P>
First and foremost, Russia needs a credible, stable political system.
Shameless, large-scale corruption on the part of politicians and dubious businessmen has destroyed the credibility of the administration in the eyes of its own nation.
Furthermore, loans from the west have been transferred to private tax havens, which must not be tolerated.
Prime Minister Primakov has vowed to address the problem of fraud.
We are waiting for the Russian Government to ask Interpol for help in sorting out accounts and finance.
Loans from western financial institutions must be made conditional on the eradication of corruption at high levels.
Besides, it does not cost anything, or at least no extra loans are required.
In fact, corruption rots the whole system from top to bottom, and it stifles many of the reforms.
That is a lot more important than adhering to every detail in the budget.
<P>
The report also rather passes over the fact that the nation has descended into poverty because a small elite has been clinging onto the nation's wealth.
This has had the unfortunate result that life expectancy has fallen by ten years in ten years.
We need a strategy that will tackle the essential issues.
In addition, the banking system and the criminal chains associated with it must be changed, reformed and straightened out.
We should nevertheless bear in mind that Russia has an educated population and a splendid culture which will challenge the individualism and materialism of the west.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Mr President, I should like to comment on the review of foreign policy presented by Mr Spencer, the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy. I feel that this review underlines the extent to which the Union's foreign interests depend on its internal strength and are closely linked to it.
It is not enough therefore for us to wring our hands and regret that we have not yet consolidated our common foreign and security policy. Instead, we need to use all the means at our disposal to ensure that this foreign and security policy - and also our defence policy - is in line with our interests and responsibilities.
<P>
I should like to draw attention to two important considerations.
The first relates to the speech made by Mr Fischer, the President-in-Office of the Council. We are entering a new stage that will be characterised by the Council's appointment of the High Representative for the CFSP.
Only this morning we heard Mr Prodi, the President-designate of the Commission, talk about reorganising the Commission and suggest that it would be useful to appoint Vice-Presidents and restructure departments. In my view, we need to do more than simply appoint a High Representative for the CFSP.
As things stand at the moment in the Commission, five Commissioners are involved with issues of this nature and rationalisation would certainly be helpful. It should also be borne in mind that we need to move forwards towards a defence policy.
Personally, I am very much in favour of integrating the WEU into the European Union. Such a common defence policy would enable us to cope with the challenges we are currently faced with.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 NAME="van den Broek">
<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="Spencer">
Mr President, I am aware of the bad parliamentary habit of writing one's speeches in advance and then making them without listening to the rest of the debate.
Indeed I have even been guilty of that myself on occasion.
So could I say very gently to Mr Truscott and other colleagues that if they had listened to my speech at the beginning, by accepting Amendment No 2 on the Russian recommendation - which is a Socialist Group amendment - it deletes the reference to 'delay' in the adoption of the common strategy with Russia and replaces it with what I feel is a very valid statement of what that recommendation should contain.
I want to make it absolutely clear to the House that I am completely comfortable with my report on the recommendation as I trust it will be amended tomorrow.
<P>
As I am on my feet I should like to thank colleagues for their overly generous remarks towards me.
I return the compliment to the Commissioner.
Commissioner van den Broek comes from a country with a powerful parliamentary tradition which he has embodied.
He did the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy of Parliament the courtesy of engaging in intelligent debate.
It is that intelligent debate which is the lifeblood of properly formulated foreign policy.
I hope that in the next and all future Parliaments the Council will learn from his example.
The High Representatives may be part of the mouthpiece of the Council but it is good debate between all three institutions which holds out the best hope for the future.
Thank you very much indeed, Commissioner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 NAME="Truscott">
Mr President, I did indeed listen to Mr Spencer's speech from my office.
I would like to congratulate him for his U-turn on Russia during the course of the debate.
I am glad to see that Mr Spencer is upholding the fine traditions of ideological inconsistency which we see all too often in the Conservative Party in Britain today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Statute for MEPs
<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0267/99) by Mr Rothley, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the draft European Parliament Decision regarding a Statute for Members of the European Parliament (7528/2/99 - C4-0217/99-00/0823(COS)).
<P>
I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mr Rothley.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="Rothley">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on 3 December the European Parliament adopted by a qualified majority a draft Statute that was moderate, balanced, clearly reasonable, simple and practical and certainly also had a certain intellectual charm.
By a qualified majority!
To date we have not had any response from the Council to the draft.
The Council can accept or reject it, but if it rejects it it must give its reasons so that we can verify whether they are legitimate.
Instead the Council has put forward its own draft which is not acceptable to Parliament.
<P>
For example, it has established a permanent inequality by giving Member States the right to subject the incomes of Members of Parliament to national taxation.
The three Scandinavian Member States and the United Kingdom have now made use of this option, and France may do the same.
It may no longer be on the agenda for the German Presidency, however, as it can no longer approve it.
<P>
Now we not only have the new draft from the Council, but attempts are also being made in this House to adopt a different text tomorrow, with a motion from the Liberal Group.
How politically stupid does one have to be to change a text that Parliament has adopted by a qualified majority before we have even negotiated with the Council on it?
The Council will probably say: if we wait for another three or four months Parliament might adopt another new text and another one again another three months after that.
I have to say that the potential for self-destruction in this Parliament is enormous!
Every new text is simply weakening Parliament's position.
<P>
Furthermore, how can you expect your colleagues to vote on a constitution that is supposed to solve all their existential problems without having had the chance to discuss them in committee and without the groups even having had the chance to discuss them!
Do you expect us to be able to vote on such a text?
That is ridiculous.
<P>
Mr Wijsenbeek, we discussed my original text in this House very thoroughly and in great detail, and the result was a qualified majority.
This was a huge step forward, and now you want to turn it around!
I do not know what your reasons are, but they are not very important.
The European Parliament should not decide on a constitutional text in haste.
And Parliament would be well advised only to adopt such a text if there is a broad consensus on it in the House.
<P>
Furthermore, there will be no Statute this week.
The Council is not aware of any forthcoming negotiations.
When are they to take place?
They will never take place!
How can we expect governments that have already said that they will use the opt-out clause to agree tomorrow to allow us equality?
This is nonsense.
We really are clutching at straws here.
There will be no Statute this week.
It is as simple as that.
<P>
I therefore believe that it makes more sense to follow the recommendation of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and to say that we confirm Parliament's resolution of 3 December 1998.
We are of course prepared to negotiate with the Council, and we should have concluded the negotiations by the end of October.
The Statute can enter into force on 1 November, 1 December or 1 January.
So why not?
There is absolutely no problem with this.
But today - and I will conclude here - we must say a clear no to all attempts to change Parliament's text of 3 December 1998.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, a great many accusations could be levelled against Members of the European Parliament, but they could never be accused of putting their own interests first, because on the occasion of a debate on their own rights, privileges, interests and immunities, the House is practically deserted, as you can see.
Our own interests are clearly not a matter of great priority for us as Members of the European Parliament.
<P>
I have to say however that I do not share the apocalyptic vision presented by my colleague and good friend Willi Rothley on what has happened to relations between Parliament and the Council.
According to Article 190(5) of the Treaty, 'the European Parliament shall, after seeking an opinion from the Commission and with the approval of the Council acting unanimously, lay down the regulations and general conditions governing the performance of the duties of its Members'.
<P>
I believe that the Council - and the governments - have demonstrated their goodwill towards Parliament. Firstly, they agreed to something we felt it would be difficult to achieve: the inclusion of this very article in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
We in Parliament had requested it, but we expected the Council - or the governments - to disagree. Secondly, Parliament's proposal on the matter received a prompt reply.
In other words, the Council studied the matter very quickly and presented us with its opinion.
<P>
The adoption procedure referred to in Article 190 is not the assent procedure.
The assent procedure is used in connection with international treaties, because once the text of the treaty has been agreed, it cannot be changed by Parliament.
Parliament cannot amend an international treaty, and that is why we have the assent procedure.
<P>
What we are dealing with here is an adoption procedure.
The Council has to give its unanimous approval to what Parliament presents.
Parliament then makes the final decision.
I do feel however that the Council has shown goodwill in this case. The Council has put forward an alternative text which it would be prepared to accept.
In so doing, the Council has suggested a way of ensuring unanimity amongst its members.
<P>
In addition, we have the impression that the Council is not totally entrenched in its position.
Some of the proposals in the Council's text are unreasonable, such as the references to national taxation.
It would obviously be incompatible with Community rules for Member States to obtain additional funds by taxing Members of the European Parliament. It would amount to a kind of additional Cohesion Fund.
Nevertheless, the Liberal Group have tabled an amendment that many Members are prepared to support.
It is based on the text presented by the Council with the opposite aim in mind. In our view, the text of the amendment stands a good chance of being approved by the Council.
<P>
In essence, what is at issue is a principle established by the case-law of the Court of Justice: the principle of loyal collaboration between the institutions. Parliament makes a proposal which requires Council authorisation.
The Council lays down the conditions for authorisation and Parliament has the chance to study and discuss them again. There is therefore no need to overreact.
I believe that the stability and definition of the legal basis are of great importance for Parliament and its Members.
Parliament and the Council should therefore continue to work together to this end. We should not entertain the thought of confrontation without any compromise solution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, Parliament and the Council are of one mind.
We agree that uniform arrangements for Members of the European Parliament are necessary, that they must be in place soon and that they must be suitable, although we do have certain reservations as to their suitability.
Nevertheless, I share Mr Medina Ortega's view that it should be possible to resolve our difficulties in the near future.
<P>
In the first place, I should like to make it quite clear that there is no difference of opinion in Parliament regarding the basic salary for Members of the European Parliament, a matter which has provoked much interest amongst the general public.
Parliament and the Council are agreed on this.
<P>
Where we differ is on the interpretation of the Treaty, on how we understand European law.
I shall quote a few examples. Firstly, we cannot accept different arrangements for Members from different Member States.
Parliament is no longer simply an assembly composed of representatives from national governments without any power to act for itself. This change must be appreciated by everyone, and the Statute appreciates it.
Parliament has been representing the people of Europe for a good many years now. We are therefore seeking a uniform statute which takes account of the present situation, as provided for in the Treaty.
<P>
Mr Medina referred to the law of treaties.
Reserve is a standard cutting tool used in public international law. Reserve is also the tool chosen by the Council to rush through what amounts to de-communitarisation, differentiation and discrimination between Members of the European Parliament.
We are fundamentally opposed to the method chosen. Clearly, we are required to reach an agreement, so if the method has to be retained, it should be subject to a time restriction and covered by transitional arrangements with a clearly defined time limit.
This is the only way to a solution, because I think this is the most important point.
Of course we would like to see a statute in place but not if that meant sacrificing its very essence: equal treatment for all Members of the European Parliament.
<P>
We must also uphold Parliament's rights. It is not a case of defending them against attack, but of upholding them for the benefit of all, because the Treaty requires a particular interinstitutional balance and none other.
Given that the Treaty lays down an extremely unusual procedure insofar as it is for Parliament to devise a text and for the Council to approve it, we ought not suddenly and surreptitiously to disrupt that balance.
Let us agree to start with what we have before us, discuss matters and reach an agreement as soon as possible.
Nevertheless, it is essential for each party to be quite clear as to its role under the Treaty.
<P>
This is not the only difficulty we have at present. There are areas where the actual role of Member of Parliament is unacceptable to us.
I could quote the clear example of the pension scheme, which is neither logical nor acceptable. Parliament has now come of age and the Statute should therefore allow it room for manoeuvre on clearly defined issues such as its own rights.
This is the idea behind the basic text and the annexes.
Provision would therefore be made for all the necessary arrangements relating to the implementation of this Statute in a different way from that laid down in Article 190(5). This article is cumbersome and calls for unanimity in the Council.
It could almost be said that a number of mechanisms are unreasonable and lacking in proportion. Greater flexibility is called for so that specific points can be changed to suit the real situation.
<P>
Mr President, I have every confidence that a solution will soon be found.
As I conclude my final speech of this parliamentary term, replying to Mr Rothley on behalf of the European People's Party, I am put in mind of a splendid speech made in the Spanish constituent assembly which drafted our 1812 constitution. One member of that assembly said to another that he would defend his own arguments steadfastly and passionately whilst remaining loyal to his opponent.
Mr Rothley is worthy of the same treatment. Thank you, Mr Rothley, for your work on this report and on all the others for which you have been rapporteur before this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, I have to say that Mr Rothley has been consistent.
Throughout the whole procedure, he has endeavoured to put a stop to it.
If the Liberals had not forced the pace of the discussions in the Legal Affairs Committee, there would have been no report on 3 December.
Mr Rothley did not think there would be.
If we had not driven it home in all the capital cities of the Member States that we should speed up the deliberations in the Council, then I do not think this would have materialised.
But the position adopted by Mr Rothley has been consistent.
<P>
I am quite sure that if we do not reach a decision now, reform will be brushed aside in the future, and we shall not achieve what we would like to do, namely to get rid of the lack of clarity surrounding pay and allowances before the June elections.
<P>
My sense of legal justice is deeply offended by the way in which the law is being used as a shield by so many people against what they do not want to face, or in order to avoid saying what is really at issue.
There is an old expression: the end justifies the means.
<P>
I think it is rather strange that after many rounds of negotiations with the Council, it is then suddenly announced, just before the finishing post, that it is not possible to alter Parliament's position.
That is illogical and we cannot accept it.
We Liberals have been prepared to accept, for the most part, the position of the Council.
My view is that we would then have a unique legitimacy.
Unlike many other parliaments, we would have rules governing our salaries which are laid down in conjunction with another democratic body.
We would be able to combine the best of the Member States' traditions.
<P>
It is vital that we now have a system where the rules governing what is acceptable in terms of expenses are clear, and we must have greater transparency when dealing with resources.
<P>
It is true that the Liberals are the first to have tabled an amendment which aims to ensure a compromise, and which I hope can be adopted by the House tomorrow and accepted by the Council.
Most of the points in the amendment refer to aspects that have already been approved by Parliament.
Finally, I should like to put a question to the rapporteur: what is there in our compromise proposal that he is unable to approve?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sierra González">
Mr President, it is difficult to contain certain feelings of indignation when discussing the Statute for Members and all it involves. This indignation is due to the atmosphere in which the debates have been held, under pressure from the claims made by some in the media which resulted in the debate becoming rather unbalanced.
<P>
As we are all aware, these circumstances combined to create unnecessary tension. This was not at all helpful as we sought to achieve our aim: establishing a unified legal status for all Members.
<P>
At this juncture we find that the pressures which had a negative influence on discussion of the report have been considerably aggravated by the imminence of the elections.
Nevertheless, we must keep two points very much in mind.
The first is formal in nature: as the rapporteur stated, the Council has infringed Article 190(5) of the Treaty.
Secondly, the Statute must be adopted during this parliamentary term.
Further, its adoption must entail collaboration between both institutions, Parliament and the Council.
It is certainly not acceptable for the Council to present a proposal to Parliament expecting it to be approved.
Such an approach calls Parliament's independence into question.
Nevertheless, Parliament and the Council must find a way of cooperating with a view to adopting the Statute.
<P>
Outright rejection of the Council's proposal does not seem wise if we are to move ahead with the Statute according to the agreed timetable.
Therefore, although I agree with the rapporteur's criticisms of the form and content of the proposal, I am in favour of urgent collaboration and negotiation between Parliament and the Council so that work on the Statute can be concluded and the Statute adopted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Lagendijk">
Mr President, the Council has put forward its own proposal and the European Parliament is now about to get on its high horse over it.
Why?
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights is saying that the Council must not put forward its own proposal and has to support Parliament's proposal.
But how is it possible, I would then ask Mr Rothley, that you have spent three months negotiating with this selfsame Council in the knowledge that the Council, which has to reach a decision by unanimity, would very probably put forward amendments?
I find that a particularly feeble argument.
<P>
The gist of what those opposed to this are saying is really that Parliament should defy the Council and not allow it to walk all over us.
You know my group.
We are usually in favour, but not now, not on this matter.
The danger is that Parliament will lose sight of everything except procedural mistakes and problems over the implementation of certain parts.
Those exist, it is true.
But supporting the Rothley report will mean that the European Parliament shows itself to be both touchy and short-sighted.
There is no solution which pleases everyone completely, but I think that we should settle for half a loaf rather than no bread.
That means giving and taking.
My group is willing to do that.
Together with the Liberal Group, we have tabled an amendment which makes changes to the Council proposal.
It contains things which I do not agree with, in all honesty - and that goes for the majority of my group as well.
But we are very keen to do absolutely everything possible to reach a solution this week and to adopt a statute this week.
<P>
If we do not manage it, if we do not get a statute this week or in the very near future, I wish all Members of the House good luck as they confront a public opinion which will justifiably wonder whether there is anyone at all in the European Parliament who has the slightest sense of responsibility.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in Italy we have a saying that the hunter should beware lest he himself ends up the hunted.
And that is exactly what happened to the European Parliament when it gave responsibility for this issue to Mr Rothley, whose intellectual honesty I would never question but whose strategy - as you know - I find very unsound.
<P>
We wanted to have our voice heard and we are now in fact having to square up to a Council which, needless to say, within the space of 48 hours, is presenting us with its own version, the way it, the Council, wants to deal with Members of this House, including allowances, mission expenses and so on.
Before we know where we are, the Council will also be deciding on the level of pay to which we are entitled, whether or not we should sign up and at what level.
And that is all because this suicidal - and I do mean suicidal - strategy of seeking to fit in with the Council's approach was adopted.
<P>
We ought to have demanded the right to give ourselves a statute - that ought to have been the strategy! - a statute with a capital 'S', covering incompatibility, Members' privileges and status, but not our financial arrangements, which are an internal matter.
But we went for a different strategy: we decided that the Rothley line was the one to follow, and here we are today with Mr Rothley himself complaining that the whole thing is unacceptable.
<P>
But the damage has been done and clearly, yet again, the Council has us cornered.
All of us, from the Greens to the Liberals and the rest, fretting over three newspaper articles, will tomorrow be compelled to accept the Council text.
I hope that we do not accept it; I hope, ladies and gentlemen, that although we all want a statute, we reiterate tomorrow what we said on 3 December.
I do not see why what was acceptable on 3 December, when some of those principles were affirmed, should not be voted for tomorrow.
<P>
Let us perhaps proceed to the vote, but let us give the text on the Members' Statute real substance, or the opportunity will be lost to us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
Mr President, at the meeting of the Conference of Presidents this afternoon, we agreed to try to arrange the voting so that there was a clear vote showing who wanted to clean things up and who did not.
The secretaries-general will now meet tomorrow morning to organise the voting.
<P>
My starting-point in the Europe of Nations group is that we will vote in favour of the Council's draft Statute, even though in principle we are strong opponents of turning Members of Parliament into EU officials.
A common statute turns us into the EU's representatives in the Member States instead of the countries' representatives in the EU.
In principle, we want to be paid the same as members of the national parliaments and to pay tax like the members of the public who vote for us.
If we nonetheless feel able to vote for the Council's proposal, it is because in practice a majority of those here in Parliament want to continue claiming EUR 1 000 for a journey costing EUR 400, for example, and we give higher priority to cleaning up travel payments than to our objection in principle to common salaries and conditions of employment, and here we would particularly emphasise the fact there will be the possibility of taxing EU salaries nationally.
<P>
In the circumstances, the proposal which the Council has arrived at is a good one, and we recommend the Council to reach corresponding rules for the appointment of the new Commission and new civil servants in the institutions.
The counter-argument that there should be equal pay for equal work is not feasible when it comes to international cooperation.
The Council's members would then have the same salary, staff at the EU countries' embassies would have a uniform salary and experts would have the same, regardless of whether they represent agricultural organisations from a poor or a rich country.
Equal pay is a nice principle, but the countries are not yet the same, and at the moment it is more important to get rid of Parliament's wastefulness.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Vanhecke">
Mr President, Mr Rothley's report rightly points to a number of shortcomings, imperfections and even errors in the draft Statute for Members of the European Parliament which the Council of Ministers has put before us.
I agree with some of the rapporteur's criticisms.
But nevertheless, we shall be throwing the baby out with the bath water if we approve this report tomorrow.
We must after all have the courage to speak the truth.
The imperfect Statute which the Council has submitted, and it can certainly be improved, is at any rate better, a great deal better, than what we have at present.
More to the point, it is precisely because Parliament has never succeeded in putting its own house in order that we were firstly, and rightly, held to account by public opinion and secondly, equally rightly, that we are being treated like children by the Council of Ministers.
It is totally inappropriate to invoke the subsidiarity principle in this report for our own ends, when we never apply that same subsidiarity principle when the interests of the people in our Member States are at stake.
<P>
In short, I entirely agree with the minority opinion of Mr Fabre-Aubrespy which is appended to the report.
I would add that I am against the Europeanisation of our mandate, because I am in this Chamber to represent Flanders and not some kind of European superstate, because I am opposed to the tax advantages inherent in that Euro-statute, and I therefore remain in favour of a national tax regime which taxes us in exactly the same way as our voters.
There is still a good deal wrong with this Statute, I believe.
Unless the amendments make major and fundamental changes to the Rothley report, we shall in principle be voting against tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Barzanti">
Mr President, there are four basic reasons why the text as adjusted by the Council is not acceptable, in my view.
In the first place, it seriously prejudices and curtails Parliament's autonomy, just when the Treaty of Amsterdam accords us prime responsibility - albeit within the framework of an appropriate interinstitutional agreement in which the Commission and the Council participate in full - for drawing up our Members' Statute, along with clear rules governing their material conditions of work.
What we have here is not the kind of cooperation the Treaty requires, not comments on the text, but a whole new text, and we are being asked to take it or leave it.
<P>
Secondly, the text does not achieve the fundamental objective of equal treatment based on what are effectively equivalent allowances: the possibility of double taxation, at European and national level, is an outrage.
<P>
Thirdly, it rigidly determines a range of figures, rejecting a system of equal, flexible and evolving parameters, thereby penalising future Members of this House in particular.
<P>
Fourthly and lastly, it lays down in detail administrative procedures which cover even secretarial expenditure, and the effect is to create detailed and unduly bureaucratic rules; this impinges on Parliament's own area of responsibility for adopting measures which the House should be drawing up independently, through its own internal bodies.
<P>
I therefore agree with the position taken by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights that the discussion should be continued in a constructive way and a text rapidly established which is satisfactory to all.
<P>
We all agree on the objectives that we wish to achieve.
But it would be absurd to approve, in the form of a miracle amendment, a statute that has neither been properly discussed nor examined in great enough detail.
<P>
I would remind the House that, along with the Statute, there are other crucial issues on the agenda.
Ineligibility and incompatibility, for instance, the limit on the number of times Members may stand for re-election, reducing the number of Members and resolving conflicts of interest.
We have to take a stand against attempts to conceal what is effectively lobbyism, against the growing trend towards professional parliamentarians which is increasingly detracting from the function of democratic representation.
Max Weber pointed out in a classic of its kind many years ago that even independent people will in general want to live for politics, stressing that, were this not the case, all parliaments would be left with no more than paid party officials representing specific interests.
<P>
I hope that, however we may vote, we each have a proper sense of our own dignity and take pride in the fact that a statute will be helpful and useful if it enables every representative of the people to enjoy real independence and freedom.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lehne">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, what the Council has presented us with in the last week is in my view a double distortion of the content of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Article 190(5) states quite clearly that Parliament lays down a statute and the Council approves it.
If a codecision procedure in the sense of Article 189(b) had been intended, the founding fathers of the Amsterdam Treaty would have written that the Article 189(b) procedure applied.
But they did not do so. They expressly stated, with good reason, that the Article 190(5) procedure applies, in which Parliament lays down a specific text and the Council approves it.
<P>
But what the Council has now done is to present us with a completely new text.
The only element that is the same is Article 1(1).
The other 14 pages are different.
With the best will in the world this cannot be described as an assent procedure.
Added to this is the fact that the Council has doubly violated the spirit and meaning of the Treaty because it has violated the Treaty's intention to establish equal treatment of MEPs by introducing a special tax to align MEPs' incomes with the national parliaments, and it restores this inequality by the back door, as it were.
This is a double violation of the provisions of the Treaty.
In my opinion we cannot as a result approve the Council's proposal.
<P>
Furthermore, I consider it unacceptable for a freely elected Member of Parliament, a freely elected Parliament, to be treated like an employee of the Council and to have to engage in collective bargaining with it.
This is particularly unacceptable as we adopted a very even and well-balanced paper on this in the December part-session, making MEPs' parliamentary allowances in future lower than those of the Members of Parliament of the three largest EU Member States in terms of population.
For the Germans this means giving up almost DM 1 500 per month, to put it in concrete terms.
I consider this to be very balanced.
<P>
Moreover, many of the provisions in the Council draft are impractical and unusable.
Without going into detail, as time is short, I shall say quite bluntly that I feel some of the points, particularly those on medical cover and the calculation of pension rights, are malicious.
The text presented here by the Liberals as an amendment is in my view already inadmissible because it changes the whole text and therefore contravenes Rule 125 of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
The Treaty of Amsterdam entered into force on 1 May, and Parliament has gained significantly more power as a result.
If we were to approve the Council proposal and the Liberal amendment and not the paper drafted in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights under Mr Rothley, then we would be depriving ourselves of power again on a crucial issue that affects us directly.
I cannot imagine that the House will do this at tomorrow's vote.
Therefore we support the Rothley report.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Haarder">
Mr President, I would like to say to both the rapporteur and the Council of Ministers: settle your differences now, and stop being so self-important!
It is now or never.
Either we adopt a modified version of the Council's proposal or we will still be squabbling about this in five years' time.
That does not bear thinking about.
It would destroy Parliament's reputation and spoil the pleasure of our work.
<P>
To my protesting colleagues in the large groups, I would say: you have held this up for long enough with all your explanations and legal hair-splitting, which I have sat on two committees and listened to.
Now try to be a bit constructive!
To the Council of Ministers, I would say: stop wasting time on trivialities.
The proposal which the Council of Ministers put forward was far too concerned with wanting to 'make it better'.
We Liberals are able to accept the Council's proposal, but we are proposing some modifications so that we can achieve majority support for it here in Parliament.
If it still goes wrong, the voters will have to give their verdict in June.
<P>
Finally, in spite of everything I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Rothley, for accepting my proposal to allow countries with high rates of income tax to impose an additional tax on top of the EU tax.
I wish he had shown the same consideration and flexibility with regard to the wishes of other countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Mr President, instead of this process having come to an end, Parliament now finds itself at a dead end.
This is because some people were more concerned about responding to pressure from the press than about moving towards greater transparency regardless of external pressures, some of which hardly seem appropriate.
<P>
I must firstly set the scene. Following the extensive internal debate in April 1997, we indicated at a press conference the need to reform the allowance system and to have a common approach guaranteeing maximum transparency and greater control of all expenses.
We said that in some cases travel allowances should be used to compensate for other expenses and that only journeys actually made should be reimbursed, with an amount corresponding to what these really cost. The distance and time of journeys were to be taken into account using a scale for the subsistence allowance applied through a new and appropriate instrument.
Members were not to have equal remuneration but this would be linked to the salaries of members of parliament in their Member States of origin. These guidelines were defined by Mr Miranda in the Péry group and by myself in the Martin group, in which we participated in the best spirit of cooperation and in which at least some, if not all, of these guidelines were accepted.
<P>
And now we have reached this point.
The Council document is a compromise which, on the one hand contains unacceptable basic conditions, and on the other hand concentrates on inappropriate details which are contradictory and also unacceptable.
<P>
How can we escape from this impasse?
If Parliament, on the eve of the elections, does not accept the Council's proposal, some will say that we rejected a laboriously constructed statute which had a moralising aim.
However, if we accept this, other people - and sometimes the same ones - will say that we approved a statute from which we will gain huge benefits.
As the saying goes, you are 'damned if you do and damned if you don't'.
<P>
More than representing merely a step towards federalism with a single salary, a Community tax, Members being treated in the same way as officials and other agents of the Community and a pension fund, I would say as a Quaestor that the Council's proposal is at the very least alarming.
To make this compulsory would result in an excessively controlling bureaucracy of which Article 9(6) is an almost ridiculous example.
<P>
Our only regret is that we have come to this point and so, as we would do in any case, we will vote in line with the position we accepted previously.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Is Parliament prepared to cultivate its own garden, Mr President?
There was a majority in favour of that last December, and the Council has taken things forward on that basis.
That is not to say that I welcome the Council's proposal.
Getting rid of the once-only chance to choose for Members who are re-elected may perhaps make for greater clarity, but it seriously undermines the basis of the system.
<P>
The possibility of national taxation on top of European tax is a logical consequence of subsidiarity.
But the European tax of up to 40 % does not allow the offsetting of items such as relief on mortgage interest.
<P>
The average of the 15 current Member States is a socially acceptable level of remuneration.
The fact that many European officials receive more suggests above all that the pay scales for officials should be reviewed.
Unfortunately, the rules on the end-of-service allowance are not at all generous.
For example, a Member who has served two full terms will cease to receive any income after ten months.
The Member States are responsible for providing an adequate transitional arrangement.
<P>
To sum up, the Council proposal deserves the benefit of the doubt.
Parliament would be showing itself in a very poor light if it rejected this chance of a serious and responsible system of remuneration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gebhardt">
Mr President, I am speaking on my own behalf, like Mr Medina Ortega, as we will not form a group opinion until this evening.
I do not wish to dwell on details as we will discuss these in any case in due course.
Today we are concerned with the fundamental issues.
We are concerned with the European Parliament and the self-image of the only legitimate, freely and directly elected body of the European Union.
The Members of this Parliament are subject only to their consciences and to the will of the people of Europe.
We do not need anyone to tell us what to do, not a group chairman, nor a Conference of Presidents, and certainly not the Council.
<P>
The people of Europe are concerned with much more urgent problems than a statute for MEPs.
If we are to be able to solve the really significant problems as a Parliament we must not allow ourselves to become puppets on such a minor issue as this Statute.
This is exactly what the Council is trying to do.
It is simply not fulfilling its Treaty obligations and is ignoring the decision approved by Parliament on 3 December 1998 by an overwhelming majority.
Instead of this we are being given a mass of detailed rules that are incomplete, inconsistent, amateurish and highly dangerous for democracy.
I have to say that I am extremely concerned about this.
<P>
We must not allowed ourselves to be restricted by financial dependency or to be given a binding mandate.
If we do not succeed in safeguarding individual MEPs' freedom of decision we cannot claim to be able to accomplish anything for the people of Europe.
<P>
So let us continue along the right path that has been outlined for us by our rapporteur Willy Rothley, a path which Parliament has already agreed on.
It is only by doing this that we can retain our standing with the electorate and continue to hope for their trust.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, I do not agree with Mr Rothley, because to start with it is completely incorrect - as he well knows - to say that we can adopt a statute in October or November.
Time is pressing.
We shall not be part of it, neither he nor myself, but Parliament is about to face the electorate and you simply cannot afford to say: 'ah yes, this Statute which has taken so much work, that can wait a while, the voters will trust us'.
<P>
Mr Rothley is wrong to say that there is no need to talk about this any further this week.
He knows full well that Coreper is meeting again tomorrow.
If we do not take this chance of reversing an illegal situation of discrimination on grounds of nationality, which is at odds with Article 6 of the Treaty and which we ourselves have allowed to persist here for years, we shall not get the chance again, but we can discuss it here openly and honestly with the Council.
Consequently, the Liberal Group has put forward a proposal on the basis of Mr Rothley's proposals, brought into line in some respects with the Council's proposal, and I hope that we shall get a majority vote in favour of it tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="De Coene">
Mr President, Mr Rothley, ladies and gentlemen, I would be happy to believe the rapporteur, if some of his supporters were not a little suspect.
Because the fact is that I am struck by one thing, Mr Rothley, namely that when we voted on your text, some people were completely and utterly opposed to it.
Today, they are in favour of putting it on ice.
So I think we must not be naive here.
<P>
It may be that your legal reasons and arguments are valid, but I have the feeling that some of your supporters have a hidden agenda and do not really want some of these privileges to be called into question, because so many strange arguments are being used.
They say that what the Council is suggesting creates inequality.
Let us be honest, we have inequality here today.
Today there are MEPs who are earning four times more or four times less.
Even our European Parliament text contained inequalities, because we worked out a transitional arrangement for the salary for a parliamentary term, and we worked out the same thing for the supplementary pension.
There too, there were two systems.
So the question is this: is the Council proposal a fair basis on which to negotiate in the immediate future and reach agreement before the new term starts, or is it not?
<P>
There are some in the Socialist Group who think it is, and that we should negotiate on that basis: not just because of the media, not just because of public opinion, not just because of the voters, but because we need to set things to rights in our own House and to prove, when we speak for the peoples of Europe, for our democratic voters, that we do have some small degree of affinity with ordinary people and that we are putting a stop to a number of practices as quickly as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Mr President, I believe that we must insist today that there has to be a common statute for MEPs, and that this issue must be addressed this week.
It is an issue that can no longer be pushed aside.
Regretfully, it has to be said that the Council was slow in dealing with this matter.
Parliament approved it more than six months ago, and the criticism voiced here that Parliament has had too little time to become acquainted with the document that the Council drafted, is to some extent justified.
But it is vital that the Statute should be approved before the new Parliament commences its term of office.
<P>
We need to have talks with the Council, and I agree that these talks will be worthwhile in order to achieve results and settle a few fairly minor details that are seen as problematic.
The agreement, however, should contain a solution for harmonised rates of pay and scope for national taxation, so that the extra tax generated can benefit each Member State.
We should also abandon the system of flat rate travel expenses and adhere to one of bona fide costs incurred, but one that includes expenses incurred through travel in one's home country.
I believe this is also a matter of fairness.
MEPs must also be prepared to have their overheads and office costs expense claims checked to ensure that resources have been used according to what has been agreed, as the Council proposes.
<P>
In any case. I cannot approve the position that the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has adopted, as it only means postponing the issue.
A solution has to be reached now.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 NAME="Oreja">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have followed this afternoon's debate in the House with great interest. For my part I shall merely stress the importance of reaching agreement on the Statute for Members at the earliest opportunity.
<P>
As you are aware, we have participated in the relevant procedures agreed at the Vienna European Council last December.
In March, we provisionally issued the ruling called for in Article 190(5) of the Treaty. The ruling was formally confirmed by the Commission and forwarded to Parliament when the Treaty came into force.
<P>
We appreciate that a number of exceptions or a transitional period may prove unavoidable for reasons of political expediency.
We are prepared to accept these in the interests of an agreement provided that the number of exceptions is kept as low as possible and that they serve to pave the way to a single and uniform statute. Above all, they must lead to the implementation of a system of equal payment for all Members of the European Parliament as soon as possible.
<P>
What we are certainly opposed to is any solution involving a review of the European Communities' protocol on privileges and immunities.
This issue has been taken into account.
We have also made every effort to guarantee that the cost to the Community budget of implementation of the Statute is taken into consideration in the financial perspective.
I believe that the text of the Interinstitutional Agreement reflects the progress made in this direction.
<P>
We trust that a solution acceptable to Parliament and to the Council will be reached in the near future. Nevertheless, we understand that Parliament has to decide if the Council's present position is acceptable in full or in part and we hope agreement will soon be possible.
<P>
Before concluding I must convey to Mr Rothley how much I have valued his work over the years.
I have no wish to express an opinion on Mr Rothley's views on the issue before us today. I do however want to say that as a Commissioner and in previous years as a Member of this House, I have always valued the power of his arguments and the strength of his convictions, whether or not I have agreed with them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 7.02 p.m. and resumed at 8 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Statement by the President
<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I first have an announcement to make. In the votes this afternoon, Parliament confirmed its opinions given on Commission proposals subject to a change of procedure following the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty.
In this context, the Council has informed me that the following common positions which it had adopted on these proposals remain unchanged.
This concerns: Agenda 2000 - European Social Fund; Agenda 2000 - Community support for trans-European networks; Agenda 2000 - European Regional Development Fund; protection of workers in explosive atmospheres; and finally, charging of heavy goods vehicles.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Budget estimates for the European Parliament and the European Ombudsman for 2000
<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0227/99) by Mrs Müller, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the estimates of revenue and expenditure of Parliament and the estimates of revenue and expenditure of the Ombudsman for the financial year 2000.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 NAME="Müller">
Madam President, I would like to ask for your help.
I can see nobody at all here from Parliament's administration, and Mr Wynn and Mr Samland are already all too familiar with what I have to say.
In view of this, I am really not prepared to speak here.
Perhaps you could advise me what to do.
I could hand in my speech in writing, and then we would save five minutes and you could move straight on.
But I do not think this is the right way to proceed.
Of course everyone is in group meetings discussing the Statute, and that is where I should be now too.
So please tell me what I should do.
However, I feel that it would be beneath my dignity - and this is of course not intended as a criticism of those who are present - to complete the procedure in this way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="President">
I can quite appreciate what you say, and this is something that unfortunately happens to us very often.
We had just finished in the groups, and then we quickly came running along here.
I hope our colleagues will also be with us soon.
We shall try to get them here without delay.
I would ask you not to submit your speech in writing, since we do have Mr Wynn, Mr Samland and others with us in the Chamber.
I should like to hear your speech, Mrs Müller, I really would.
So please do make it!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 NAME="Müller">
I am very fond of you all, but perhaps you could request once again that somebody from Parliament's administration should be present, because what I have to say is of course primarily aimed at them.
Having my target audience absent really makes this rather difficult.
So, I shall just grind out my speech, like it or not.
<P>
Madam President, acting Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, yesterday evening and this morning we discussed the reforms that a new Commission needs to tackle as a matter of urgency.
We formulated conditions that both individual Commissioners and the Commission collectively should fulfil, not just in terms of substance, but also as regards procedure.
I hope and indeed I am confident that the vitality of this debate will also infect this House.
The European Parliament's preliminary draft estimates for the year 2000 provide us with an opportunity to do this, and as rapporteur I would like to make a brief introduction to the debate - assuming there will be one, that is.
I believe that the influence wielded by political institutions is not just a matter of legal clauses and treaty articles.
As parliamentarians we are particularly aware that political subject matter is only as good as the scope for communicating it through the process of public debate.
So we will have to ensure that the new powers conferred on us by the Treaty of Amsterdam a few days ago are underpinned by our collective credibility.
That is our true political capital.
The first of the two central themes that I would like to see governing the future administrative development of the House is therefore 'greater trust based on greater transparency'.
<P>
I am firmly convinced that adopting the Statute for Members of the European Parliament would be a crucial step in this direction.
In the expectation that a decision to this effect will be taken this year, the Budgets Committee has therefore included an amount of EUR 60 million in the reserve and has created a staff reserve to cover the additional administrative requirements expected.
This means we can finally dispense with special pots of money such as the two special pension funds for Members, which have repeatedly been the subject of public criticism of Parliament.
Furthermore, it is worth remembering at this point that the amount originally earmarked for setting up a supermarket, EUR 3.8 million, is no longer included in the preliminary estimates.
Another relevant point in this context is that the repayment period for the new buildings has now been definitively set at 10 years instead of 15, so that the interest burden over the whole period has been reduced by some EUR 60 million, thus avoiding the need for a hidden loan from future budgets.
I feel that this sends the right signals if we are to regain the confidence of the electorate.
The target of not spending more than 20 % of the entire administrative expenditure category for the Parliament is one which we ourselves have observed for years, and the Budgets Committee believes, as do I, that this target must definitely be respected.
A one-off overshoot is only tolerable if the Statute for Members is budgetised, but it should be partly reduced towards the previous level in the coming year and return to that level in 2001.
<P>
At the same time, improvements in Parliament's administrative efficiency are both necessary and achievable.
If we are to exploit the scope for greater efficiency, we need less bureaucracy and more decentralisation - in short an improvement in motivation by delegating more responsibility, including to those at middle management level.
So it is now a question of actively implementing - both in the House and within the groups - the budgetisation system on which the Budgets Committee has already held a hearing.
I am delighted that the administration has assured us that the additional tasks it will have to take on because of the Amsterdam Treaty coming into force and preparations for enlargement will be totally covered by the existing staff complement.
We can do this only in cooperation with the staff, and we would not want it any other way.
That is why the Budgets Committee has fundamentally signed up to the new staff policy, the centrepiece of which is promotion on the basis of sustained merit, with an average promotion cycle of five years.
<P>
For the coming budget year, this means that the decision taken to completely clear the promotion backlog will lead to upgradings for 26.5 % of staff with scope for promotion.
Furthermore, this system will help to put a stop to the practice of party-political or nationally motivated promotions through several grades at a time.
<P>
I would like to conclude by addressing several systemic problems that I have encountered under the budget procedure to date.
A problem that I have come across in relation to ad personam promotions is that I as rapporteur am supposed to approve individual promotions which I assume are justified, but for which I cannot really take responsibility.
I therefore propose that there should be a system for ad personam promotions, for example by means of an annual budget including all long-term costs.
Another problem, as I see it, is that the short period which rapporteurs have to acquaint themselves with the subject matter is scarcely adequate to grasp the complex interrelated issues within the administration.
From a purely informational point of view, the annual reporting process is too weak in relation to the administration.
And one last point: I am firmly convinced - and I have to say that my views have moved on in this respect - that we need more efficient simultaneous self-regulation by the House itself, particularly in relation to the Bureau.
This includes both budgetary and staff policy debates and a new system of Bureau rulings and political control of this.
But the golden rule for Parliament is still 'greater trust leads to greater transparency'.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 NAME="Wynn">
Madam President, I thank Mrs Müller for her contribution.
I am glad she did not just put it in writing.
As the Socialist coordinator let me say that the group will be supporting the report as it stands with the amendment from the Committee on Budgets which was voted on last night concerning the extra upgradings for the ad personams .
Having said that, I have discharged my duty as the coordinator.
<P>
As there are so few people here and whilst very few people are concerned about the debate, I shall concentrate on two points on which I will speak in a personal capacity.
The first is on paragraph 1 where we mention the need for a Members' statute and an assistants' statute.
Our group wants a Members' statute and an assistants' statute.
I want a Members' statute.
I am fed up with everybody thinking I am some sort of crook.
I want the clarification to be such that my expenses are paid from Parliament, are audited, are accounted and that no one can point the finger at me.
<P>
Because I have that attitude when we look at what is being called for, nothing will happen until we get the statutes.
It is pretty obvious from the discussions I have heard over the last two days that the Members' Statute will be an ongoing discussion for the next few weeks, if not the next few months.
Having said that, we could actually take two courses of action which would help us considerably and would be a sign of good faith to the Council to show that we are serious.
There is nothing to stop this Parliament as from 20 July having assistants paid directly by Parliament, rather than being paid by the Members.
We could do that.
We could have the safeguards on redundancy payments and we could have the safeguards on pension contributions from Parliament rather than Members being responsible for it.
<P>
On the other proposal which the Council has been asking for, namely the audits of our general office allowances, there is no reason why on 20 July, if we do not have an agreement on the Members' Statute we should not say there will be an annual audit of the general office allowance which must be submitted to Parliament, carried out by bona fide auditors and must be submitted to Parliament for Members to receive their annual allowance.
We could do those two things without the Members' Statute.
<P>
On the final paragraphs where we talk about the cost of the buildings and the total budgetary amounts, we are almost up to EUR 1 billion for Parliament's budget.
If you look at those figures that works out at about EUR 1.5m for each Member.
When the press sees that figure I am sure it will make a lot of it.
But of course we cannot be compared to national parliaments.
They do not have interpretation and translation costs.
National parliaments do not work in three places of work.
National parliaments are not buying their buildings like we are or renting a variety of buildings.
So that figure can be somewhat misleading.
<P>
The one thing about these figures is that we have to look for prudence.
We cannot just call on the other institutions to tighten their belts.
We have to look at every available opportunity to save money.
One of my pet hobby-horses is the two sessions we are now bound to have in October in Strasbourg.
Much as I love Strasbourg, coming here twice in October for two five-day sessions is a waste of our time and energy.
There is no reason why we could not have two sessions in Strasbourg - one being of three days and one of two days within the same week.
If we did that we would save a considerable amount of money.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fabra Vallés">
Madam President, I should like to thank Edith Müller who, despite the low turnout, personally presented her report.
It is a good report in my view and its content is entirely relevant. Reports are always better received if they are presented by the rapporteurs themselves, and even more so in Edith's case.
<P>
As I said, Madam President, this is a good document which I shall broadly support. What is more, the report's content seems entirely logical, given that a Parliament that intends to take on bigger responsibilities certainly needs to grow in terms of telecommunications, computing and personnel.
At present, only the Council seems to believe it is possible to broaden and deepen the European Union by making budget cuts.
<P>
Perhaps the most striking aspect of the report is the issue of promotions, particularly since it talks about 490 promotions when in recent years there have been an average of 150.
However, what we need to do here is to listen, just as we have listened, to the administration and to look at how it has changed and how staff policy will change further still, that is, how staff are managed in this House.
I therefore think that this new system of promotions based on sustained merit and not solely on the availability of a particular job will be of benefit to Parliament.
I therefore fully support this idea.
<P>
With regard to promotions, and more specifically paragraph 2, which contains a reference to them, Mr Filippi and myself intend to table an amendment which, further to accepting the 490 promotions, also supports those permanent and temporary jobs that have already been accepted, as well as the three ad personam promotions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Virrankoski">
Madam President, Mrs Müller has produced an excellent report as a basis for next year's budget, and I would like to thank her sincerely.
I would just like to raise one issue, which relates to the European Ombudsman's budget.
This is a new institution, which was created only in 1995.
However, it has proved to be both a much-needed and viable arrangement.
The problem is simply a lack of resources.
The number of staff employed in this office, in proportion to the number of cases they have to deal with, is considerably smaller than that in their counterparts in the Member States.
The problem is made even worse by the fact that the staff required need to be exceptionally well qualified, and for that reason they are difficult to recruit.
<P>
Up till now, Parliament has reacted reasonably favourably to the proposals of the Ombudsman, Jacob Söderman, for addressing the most urgent staffing problems.
This has to be acknowledged, although our reactions have been helped along by the fact that the funding required has not been on a very large scale.
However, improvements should be allowed to continue.
Now that the new interinstitutional agreement has been reached, financial resources are quite limited, but nevertheless the number of staff working in this institution should be increased.
I hope that there can be a systematic increase in resources made available to the European Ombudsman in the budget proper, as that is the way we can best promote the public's confidence in the work of the EU generally.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="Samland">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, well, those of you who are still here, I think that as we are amongst experts, there are only a few key points to make about the budget for Parliament for the year 2000.
First, we are deciding on a budget which takes us into the next millennium.
This will be the first year of the new millennium, and a new Parliament will of course have to implement this budget.
We will also have a new Commission.
And this budget may also be based on a new interinstitutional agreement.
That brings us to the first and most important point.
<P>
If we do not accept the interinstitutional agreement this Thursday, that is if we cannot summon up 314 votes for it, then the additional EUR 155 million provided for Category 5 will not be available.
That would mean that the additional 20 % which would in turn be available to the European Parliament from the EUR 155 million would not after all be available.
As a consequence, with continuing expenditure we would exceed the 20 % ceiling.
In other words, we would not be able to keep expenditure within the 20 % limit.
This is simply one more argument for Members to vote in favour on Thursday, if we do not want also to cut back our activities.
<P>
Second, we have taken a very major step in staff policy.
The Secretary-General is sitting next to you, Madam President, and my comments now are addressed to him.
The decision we have taken in committee and recommended to Parliament involves promoting around 20 % of all staff with scope for promotion.
This is an enormous step, and as I said at the beginning of this debate, I cannot help feeling - as we were in a situation of deadlock - that there is always a wave of promotions in the year when one Parliament steps down and the next is elected.
<P>
During the discussion that we had with him during the conciliation procedure and also in the committee itself, the Secretary-General assured us that this was the start of a new staff policy, under which quality and not the passport you hold would be the key to promotion.
I have no way of monitoring this, but I would urge those Members who return to the House to watch very carefully that the measure that we have agreed to as a concession continues to be observed over the next few years.
I am confident that the Secretary-General will continue to adhere to the undertaking he has given us in future, with the new Parliament.
<P>
I particularly welcome the fact that by virtue of a Bureau decision we have upgraded the 60 posts for ushers, including those here in the Chamber, from Category D to Category C, in four stages.
This follows on consistently from the steps we have already taken in recent years. I would also like to be very explicit about the buildings - these comments are addressed to you, Madam President, and to the Bureau.
We have expressed our willingness to retrospectively implement the ad personam promotions resulting from Mrs Müller's amendment, on condition that the Bureau respects its undertaking to finance the buildings within a ten-year period.
<P>
The corrected Berlin decision means that all the prerequisites for this are in place.
I am asking you too to respect this promise - just as we have done one our side - by honouring the ad personam promotions.
<P>
I would like to make one final and very personal comment.
I believe that a parliament that wishes to be equal to the tasks demanded of it, and this applies all the more so following the Treaty of Amsterdam, needs to have an employment structure for assistants that allows it to do full justice to these tasks.
Over the last ten years, since 1989, I have been one of the people who have secured a more than 100 % increase in the flat-rate allowance for assistants.
I stand by this, as I believe that good and well qualified academic assistants are essential if a Member who takes his work seriously is to carry out his duties to the full.
I would therefore recommend that the new Parliament should return to this subject, as things have been at a standstill for two years now while we have been dealing with other issues, but we must come back to this point if our assistants are to work well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Laurila">
Madam President, firstly I would like to thank Mrs Müller for an excellent report, the contents of which I entirely endorse.
Considering that the European Parliament aspires to purge the European Union of abuses as a responsible wielder of budgetary power, I personally have problems with the fact that the European Parliament is promoting 490 of its officials in the year 2000.
That number is three times what it was for this year, for example.
It would be easy to put things in black and white and state that I cannot approve of these promotions.
When, however, I listened to the report of Mr Priestley, Secretary-General of the European Parliament, in the Committee on Budgets, I had to admit that things were the same as ever: knowledge breeds problems.
<P>
I myself know that over the period 1995-1996, when I worked here in Parliament, the practice and bases for promotion were not always fair.
For that reason, I believe that we have to be able to correct distortions in staff promotion, especially as Mr Priestley has assured us that this will be a one-off occasion used to correct distortions and that in the future we will follow established practice and fully comply with the rules that promotion is to be based solely on qualifications and ability, rules which maintain the principle of transparency.
<P>
Our role in the European Parliament is to keep to a tight budget for ourselves as well.
Our role is to ensure that there is transparency.
I hope that Mr Priestley will find a way to keep MEPs informed about progress made in positive administrative reforms.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Laurila.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Preliminary draft general budget - year 2000
<SPEAKER ID=194 NAME="President">
The next item is the presentation by the Commission of the preliminary draft general budget for the financial year 2000.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 NAME="Liikanen">
I am in a bit of a difficult position because the audience is more limited here today than it was in the Committee on Budgets yesterday and all the people that are here listened to me yesterday on the same item.
So I will be brief.
<P>
With the adoption of the preliminary draft budget for the year 2000 the Commission has launched the budget procedure for the budget authority.
But as the question of the new interinstitutional agreement is as yet undecided: it is to be discussed tomorrow and voted on Thursday, and the preliminary draft budget will have to be completed in the autumn.
This can be done by means of an amending letter.
As the chairman of the Budget Committee mentioned yesterday, in the Budget Committee there is a problem with timing: how to guarantee that both arms of the budget authority can deal properly with the amending letter.
That must be discussed in this Commission and with the new President, to find a convenient way.
<P>
The Commission envisages a budget for the year 2000 which will require, overall, less commitment of appropriations than the 1999 budget.
This is mainly due to a slight decline in agricultural spending and because of the new financial framework for structural funds.
The payment rates will, however, grow substantially due to the backlog, in particular for structural funds but also for research and external relations.
<P>
For agriculture, if the interinstitutional agreement is accepted, it means that the new budget structure makes it possible to distinguish clearly between, on the one hand, the traditional market expenditure on income support which will be obligatory and, on the other hand, the new rural development expenditure which would be non-obligatory expenditure.
We must say today that, on the basis of the current estimates, the ceiling on market expenditure adopted in Berlin provides a new and immediately effective element of budget discipline.
<P>
With regard to structural expenditure, BDP for the year 2000 is based on the decisions of Berlin.
We understand that with certain modifications Parliament is about to follow them.
At first glance the budget appears to indicate a radical reduction - 16 % - in commitments from 1999.
But the fact is that rebudgeting in 1999 and the transfer of rural structural expenditure to Category I distorts the picture.
All things considered, the reduction of structural commitments is more modest, closer to 6 %.
<P>
At the moment BDP does not provide for the Community initiative URBAN, but the decisions on this matter will be incorporated into the budget proposal at a later stage in the procedure.
The margin for manoeuvre for internal policies is more limited than Agenda 2000 had hoped for but if the interinstitutional agreement is accepted, it will provide a welcome extra breathing space.
The Commission has proposed continuing the efforts of recent years to focus the internal policies on growth and employment-related expenditure, in particular research and technical development, trans-European networks, education and training, and on the small- and medium-sized enterprises, which has been a parliamentary initiative.
<P>
The budget proposal for 2000 has been prepared in full application of the 1998 agreement on the legal bases.
It distinguishes autonomous pilot and preparatory actions and thus provides a reliable base for the decisions of the budgetary authority and for uncontested execution of the 2000 budget.
<P>
As to the external expenditure, there is a marked increase in the total amounts because of the new and reinforced pre-accession assistance.
We must note that the situation in the Balkans may require a substantial addition of financial resources from the Community budget.
The institutions have already, for that reason, agreed to review the situation in the light of developments.
If necessary there is the possibility of revising the financial perspectives, and that has been declared by the Council also.
<P>
Finally, administrative expenditure, which was discussed for Parliament a while ago: given the growth in pension expenditure the ceiling set in Berlin is just about sufficient to finance the status quo in terms of personnel.
This has always been made clear by the Commission.
The preliminary draft budget therefore had to postpone the question of possible new staff and its pre-allocation until the margins which will possibly become available under the new institutional agreement have become clear and until the new Commission has had a chance to define its requirements.
Of course all the necessary preparatory work will be done by this Commission.
But we find it appropriate that, after the vote of confidence, the new Commission should allocate resources.
<P>
The question of staff policy will be a key question in the autumn.
I agree that the Community institutions require adequate human resources to be able to execute their new tasks properly.
There are certainly bottlenecks, in particular in financial management, which will be overcome most quickly with new posts.
But still, let us not forget that human resources will always be scarce and measures of redeployment, retraining and flexibility will lose none of their importance for the future.
<P>
Further work is required by Parliament, particularly as it debates and votes on Agenda 2000, and by the next Commission and Parliament to complete the Community budget for the year 2000.
But today's BDP already gives the first hint that the new financial framework will work for the Union, that a balance has been found between the rigour prevailing throughout Europe and the financial requirements for the key policies of the Union.
But very much depends on decisions this week.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Madam President, Commissioner, we have listened to you very carefully.
Your PDB reflects what you have been able to achieve; it is not entirely to our satisfaction, but we shall not make things difficult for you.
<P>
The exercise is in effect an academic one.
You are making a proposal in a context which there is no reason to suppose will be the right one.
You quite logically acted on the conclusions reached in Berlin.
So if there is an interinstitutional agreement you will have additional margins, and if not, the position will be entirely different.
So we have here a text which is more or less academic.
You have not sought to hide the fact from us, and we appreciate that.
<P>
Regarding Category 1 expenditure, the funds are in fact adequate overall, although you are already a little short on sub-ceiling 1 'Organisation of the markets', and you are counting on all this being dealt with by some kind of favourable outturn.
But our resources are already limited.
<P>
As regards Category 2, there are a number of things which cause us some concern.
The reduction in commitments, which you mentioned, seems to us to make sense and we are not worried by that.
There is in fact a rebudgeting of earlier commitments which will not happen, since we are at the end of the programme.
There will, however, be massive appropriations for payment which we shall have to find.
Efforts will be needed to limit, address and settle what we call in French the 'RAL ', the balance to be cleared.
<P>
When it comes to Category 3, internal policies, we are quite frankly unhappy.
The proposals you put forward are broadly negative, and we simply see that whatever the scenario adopted, we shall have additional margins.
<P>
The figures for Category 4 are, as you say, totally unrealistic since this is a draft budget which takes no account of Kosovo.
And Kosovo will be a factor in our finances.
The same applies to Category 5. You cannot plan ahead meaningfully, you have neither the means nor the willingness to do so.
You cannot anticipate the administrative reforms which will be carried out in the months ahead.
<P>
In other words, this is a starting-point which will need a good deal of work on our part and yours before it becomes a true budget.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 NAME="Samland">
Madam President, I rise to make just one point, but an important one.
It relates to an issue that the Commissioner touched upon rather tangentially.
I have in mind the issue of adjusting expenditure in line with a decision that may be taken this week.
If we accept the interinstitutional agreement on Thursday, Parliament is then free on the basis of that agreement to implement appropriations from Category 1 to Category 4 at first reading.
However, we cannot do this for Category 5, where we need a letter of amendment from the Commission.
<P>
As I indicated during the discussion with Mr Prodi this afternoon, the present timetable Parliament has set for appointing the new Commission, which involves the Commission being appointed by the earliest in mid-September, means that there are only two weeks left to submit this letter of amendment.
Whatever happens, we ought to have it before the European Parliament's first reading, as otherwise we will be at the mercy of the Council when it comes to making additional appropriations available in Category 5, because if the letter is not submitted until after Parliament's first reading, an amendment will only be permissible if both parts of the budget authority, that is the Council and the Parliament, agree to it.
<P>
I would therefore ask the Commissioner and the officials responsible for this to start work on the preparatory process now.
Mr Prodi also gave an undertaking to this effect in the meeting with the committee chairman, so that an appropriate letter of amendment can be presented within this time frame, allowing Parliament to take it at first reading.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 NAME="President">
Thank you for that comment, Mr Samland.
I think the Commissioner has taken it on board, and the Bureau will ensure that the point is passed on once again.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Charging of heavy goods vehicles
<SPEAKER ID=199 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0245/99), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the common position adopted by the Council (13651/3/98 - C4-0037/99-96/0182(COD)) with a view to adopting a Council Directive on the charging of heavy goods vehicles for the use of certain infrastructures (Rapporteur: Mr Jarzembowski).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="Jarzembowski">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I beg for your attention on certain legal and factual issues.
Perhaps the Secretary-General could remain with us - we need a lawyer.
Mr Secretary-General, I would be grateful if you just stay here for a minute, because this is important.
<P>
Madam President, I believe that a vote tomorrow on my report would be erroneous in law, illegal and impossible.
I would like to give my reasons for this statement and to call on Parliament and the Bureau to use their authority to postpone tomorrow's vote on my report.
My justification for this is as follows. We considered these issues in the Committee on Transport and Tourism last week, but the situation has changed now that the Treaty of Amsterdam has come into force.
This morning we quite rightly resumed the procedure during first reading and we repeated Parliament's position from the previous first reading.
The committee services have now published a report numbered A-0000, which is a corrected version of my report A-0245, which is on the agenda.
So this is a new report which I have not even been able to read properly yet, because the procedural page includes explanations in French, and I assume that you should be able to read your own report in your own language.
And what does the procedural page say, as far as I can make out?
It says that the Council has confirmed its common position.
First of all, I consider that to be illegal, because according to the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Council should have consulted the Committee of the Regions.
I do not know how it did that in just a few seconds, because we only had the first reading at 12.00 noon and I think this is a result of earlier this morning, before we had the first reading.
That is the first legal error!
Secondly, in the procedural page of a report that I have never signed, it says that today, during the sitting on 4 May, the President of the European Parliament has confirmed the common position and has referred the common position to the Committee on Transport and Tourism as the committee responsible.
However, the Committee on Transport has not met since 12.00 noon today, nor is a meeting scheduled for tomorrow morning.
So I do not know how it is possible to complete the second reading of a report in the Committee on Transport in a procedurally correct manner, if this report is to be voted on tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
Madam President, the report on the agenda is not therefore valid, as it is has been drawn up in accordance with Maastricht.
The report that I have now been given has a zero number instead of an agenda number, it is not even in my own language, and it refers the report, the common position that is, to the Committee on Transport, which is not meeting.
The explanation given by some administrative services to the effect that we knew this last week and anticipated it, and that we considered last week what we wished to do, may be all very interesting from a legal theory point of view, but it is not acceptable for us to have a first reading today, for a report to be referred to the Committee on Transport when it is not meeting, and for the administration to amend my report from last week and to say that it is a second reading report.
Well, you clever lawyers, I informed the Sittings Service about this yesterday, so that they could consider it in good time. In my opinion, the report cannot be voted on tomorrow and it must be officially deleted from the agenda.
I attach particularly great importance to this because we are looking at a report on road user charges, and the European Court of Justice declared the first directive to be void because of a legal error, namely inadequate consultation of Parliament, and declared that it would only remain in effect until the renewed decision-making process had been completed.
I would regard it as being highly inappropriate if Parliament were tomorrow to adopt a proposal for a directive that was once again defective because of a legal error.
I call upon the administration to check this very carefully, and I must insist that, as is quite right, it should be Parliament, its Members and committees that decide, and not some officials who take it upon themselves to do this by altering the procedural page.
<P>
I do take this very seriously, Madam President, and I hope that your staff, when they examine this objectively, will come to the conclusion tomorrow that the report - whatever report that is, whatever number it has, I mean report A-0245, which is on the agenda and has a definite subject matter - well, I would consider it as highly questionable for a report to be rewritten by officials and suddenly put on the agenda.
That cannot be right!
In my view the Council common position, as the President has said, and no matter how defective it may be because of failure to consult the committee, is now with the Committee on Transport, and that committee is not meeting this week.
<P>
Now let me turn to the actual content of the report, as we must after all say something about that.
I regard the decision taken by the majority last week to approve the common position as being a crass error.
I would like to illustrate this with one or two arguments.
In my second reading report, we simply reiterated the reservations we had at the first reading.
These were swept aside by the Socialists, because Austrian Members and their Swiss friends want to sew up the EU/Switzerland convention come what may, and have therefore brushed aside any reservations.
That is simply not acceptable, and I shall give you two reasons why.
I think it is highly questionable for the Commission to declare, in a political agreement, if the common position gets through, that we should withdraw our complaint against Austria regarding excessive toll charges as a matter of political agreement.
I still believe that the current Commission and Neil Kinnock are subject to the law, and that if the Commission has justifiably made a complaint, this complaint cannot be withdrawn as a result of political chicanery and by way of a political deal. I say that because I believe that the Commission should be bound by the law and not by political trickery.
Secondly, I believe that the level of toll charges agreed by the Council is quite simply intolerably low.
I have never understood the Socialists, who are calling for a great hike in road user charges in principle, but whose demands fall short of the level Parliament judged to be correct by a large majority in 1997, which was higher than the Council has proposed now.
I regard this as grovelling before the Council, which has effectively said 'you can like it or lump it!'.
According to Maastricht we have the right of codecision and of approving the common position in this case.
As Christian Democrats, we cannot consent to withdrawing from the codecision procedure at the expense of our road haulage companies and at the expense of the environment.
So I hope that we can still achieve a reasonable form of consultation at second reading.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Madam President, Commissioner, I am sorry that our last transport policy debate before the elections is taking place in such unsatisfactory circumstances. But, Mr Jarzembowski, this is pure cynicism on your part.
You have consistently tried everything to prevent a system being adopted and have done everything to prevent external costs, for example, being included in toll charges or road user charges. And now you, of all people, are suddenly pretending that this agreement would be far too low and would not help the environmental situation.
<P>
Secondly, there are the legal arguments.
Although I am a trained lawyer, I am not a European Parliament lawyer.
I would not be so presumptuous.
Nevertheless, Mr Jarzembowski, it was your proposal - your specific proposal at the last meeting of the committee - that we should vote on the second reading, and that we should confirm the first reading again for formal reasons so that we could take a decision on this subject today. You yourself, Mr Jarzembowski, said that we should take a decision and proposed this procedure.
You have said today that parliamentarians should take this decision, and not officials.
It was the parliamentarians who made it!
Even if the officials have perhaps made incorrect allocations here and there, it is the parliamentarians who have made the decision here, on the basis of your proposal.
<P>
But let me get to the heart of the matter, because that is what I am really interested in.
The central issue is that in recent years transport policy proposals have been blocked, for two reasons.
First, because we have been unable to reach a solution on the Eurovignette, because of opposition from members of your party, not because they argued that the result would be too low, but because they were fundamentally opposed to it, as they were against making progress on European Union transport policy.
The second reason was that Switzerland opted for a solution which although it might be understandable from its own point of view, was not a solution that sat well alongside European integration.
<P>
That is why it was right that there have been negotiations on this, and with negotiations you always find that you cannot achieve the ideal solution, as otherwise there would be no compromise and no consensus, but at least you reach a consensus, even if not all interests are reconciled.
However, in this case we have managed to achieve a consensus with Switzerland which opens up that country and which fits in well with European integration, including transport policy issues, and which at the same time makes it clear that the principles of an environmentally friendly transport policy can be realised with the introduction of the Eurovignette and by diverting transport from road to rail.
<P>
Madam President, I would particularly like to think Commissioner Kinnock very sincerely for all his understanding and patience when taking part in negotiations here and in always keeping to the law.
But he has also got a good political head on his shoulders, thank goodness, because we need Commissioners who can think in political terms, whilst respecting the law, and who want to make progress.
<P>
Commissioner Kinnock has achieved progress, and on behalf of my group I would particularly like to thank him on the occasion of this last transport policy debate.
We do not know if he will continue to be the Commissioner for transport policy.
He has some splendid achievements to his credit in recent years, in this field as well as in others, and that should not go unrecorded.
We have complained enough about Commissioners here, but we can also give praise where praise is due.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sindal">
Mr Jarzembowski, I have a word of advice for you.
It is a Danish proverb which I hope can be translated. It says: 'people who ride oxen get there too'.
By this, I mean that what we are in the process of doing will still turn out well in the end.
You are very concerned about certain principles in this matter.
I can understand that.
On the other hand, there is always room for improvements.
You should not feel victimised by the Socialists in this case.
On the contrary, there is cooperation here, but the important point is to get something on the table and to make it stick, so that it has real meaning.
From that point, we can take things further.
Even this proposal can be improved.
In fact, I do not understand the squabbling we have had which Mr Swoboda touched on.
It is irritating that we should be talking about it on the last evening, during the debate on the last transport item.
We have been through many good items together, such as the 'port state' and 'short-sea' issues, so I would urge you to support this decision.
We are working towards environmentally friendly transport, and it can still be improved.
That is why I have asked for speaking time this evening. It is in order to appeal to you personally, because I believe we have misunderstood each other on this matter.
<P>
Madam President, may I also be permitted to thank Mr Kinnock, and I am sure we shall see him for many years to come in this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
Madam President, I wish to begin by thanking Members of this honourable House for the kind things they have said, and also to say to Mr Jarzembowski that he will know that I completely respect the thoroughness and effectiveness of his work even when, on odd occasions, I am not in total agreement with his conclusions.
Tonight we have in the House three very fastidious, excellent Members of Parliament and even though Members will know my political pedigree, and it diverges from that of Mr Jarzembowski, nothing could take away the affection and respect I have for him and his work.
<P>
On the procedural points, which he makes with force and sincerity, I know he will forgive me if I do not get engaged in these arguments because the expertise and, indeed, the responsibility for dealing with the issues lies elsewhere.
I should like, therefore, to concentrate on the substance of this issue, which, as both Mr Sindal and Mr Swoboda have said, is a matter of critical importance, so far as I am concerned, and so far as the development of the common transport policy is concerned.
As Mr Jarzembowski reminded us, it is nearly four years since the European Court annulled the first and only directive on road charging.
It is nearly three years since the Commission submitted its proposal to replace that annulled directive, and nearly two years since Mr Jarzembowski's first report was debated here at first reading.
We have grown old together with this measure.
In the time since then, a great deal of work has been put into trying to achieve the present state of progress in all the Community institutions.
I am very grateful for the commitment that has been shown in dealing with the second reading of the Eurovignette proposal, particularly in this Parliament.
<P>
This new piece of legislation is both necessary and significant.
It will fulfil the Community's legal obligation to adopt a new directive to replace the annulled directive and, most important as far as I am concerned, it is a vital step towards a common framework for differentiated charging systems in the whole of the European Union.
Naturally the legislation, as Mr Swoboda says, is the product of a compromise that reconciles a variety of concerns and interests.
Honourable Members may take some satisfaction from the fact that, whilst it differs in a number of points from the Commission's original proposal, the directive, as it turns out, is closer to the opinion of Parliament in several respects.
For example, the compromise does not contain an explicit provision to include external costs in existing charges, although it allows, and in some cases requires, differentiation of existing charges in order to reflect environmental and other effects.
I know there is not unanimous enthusiasm for that principle but it is certainly one that I would seek to uphold.
<P>
The Commission feels that this directive as it now exists represents a useful first move towards fair and efficient pricing in road truck haulage, and we welcome the willingness of Parliament and the Council to make that advance while, at the same time, we continue to emphasise the need for further work on quantifying external costs for all modes.
As honourable Members will recall, that was also specified in Mrs Schmidbauer's very good report on the Commission's White Paper on fair payment for infrastructure use, and we are currently embarked on that task of quantifying the externalities with the help, obviously, of an expert group.
When the results of that work are available, they will provide another component for use in the ongoing consideration of the internalisation of external costs, which will, I know, be an increasingly important subject of attention in the next Parliament.
<P>
Meanwhile, as the House will know, the main features of the common position reached on the current directive are the setting of minimum vehicle tax rates at the levels of the existing directive and without differentiation according to Euroclass, the maintenance of certain transitional measures on vehicle taxes, the establishment of maximum rates of user charges with a differentiated structure as proposed by the Council, the provision for an enabling power so that toll rates can be differentiated according to the emission class of the vehicle and the time of day when the road is used, provision for Austria to apply an infrastructure cost-related toll on the motorway section between Kufstein and Brenner, and provision for a 50 % reduction in user charges for vehicles registered in Greece.
<P>
As the House will know, the Commission proposed Article 75 as the legal base for this measure since we maintain that it is appropriate for developing the common transport policy even when legislation contains some elements relating to fiscal provisions.
The Council disagreed and it added Article 99 of the Treaty as a legal base as a result of ministers' view that the provisions on annual vehicle taxes in Chapter 2 make it a substantial fiscal measure.
I am sure this will bring the citizens of Europe cheering out on to the streets.
<P>
The Council's common position is an acceptable balance between what is needed and what is feasible.
It maintains progress in the common transport policy and it is consistent with the purposes pursued by at least the substantial majority in this House over several years.
<P>
All of us have some cause to be encouraged by the fact that a long and sometimes arduous legislative process has been concluded successfully.
I want to express particular thanks to Members from all parts of the House, especially in the Committee on Transport and Tourism, for the valuable contributions that they and Parliament in general have made to achieving that success.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 NAME="Jarzembowski">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, my dear Neil, it is a great honour for me, as we reach the conclusion of the transport debates over recent years, once again to express my group's appreciation for the excellent cooperation we have achieved.
We may have different political views, but we have always had trust in each other.
I believe that it is important for there to be trust between the institutions and for each to recognise the competence of the others.
We have always done that.
I would therefore like to thank you once again, and to say farewell, whatever office you may hold next time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote is scheduled for tomorrow.
We shall establish beforehand whether it takes place at 12 noon.
You commented on this at the beginning of the debate.
I shall ensure that we decide on the basis of legal advice whether we vote tomorrow.
If so, the vote will take place at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Distance marketing of financial services
<SPEAKER ID=206 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0190/99) by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive concerning the distance marketing of consumer financial services and amending Council Directive 90/619/EEC and Directives 97/7/EC and 98/27/EC (COM(98)0468 - C4-0647/98-98/0245(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Madam President, it is quite some time ago that I was rapporteur on the general directive, the parent directive if you like, on distance selling to consumers.
Financial services were a subject for distance marketing then as well.
But the objections voiced at the time by the financial sector meant that we did not in the end get any uniform rules for the distance marketing of financial services.
If I worked in financial services, I might now scratch my head and wonder if it might not have been better then to lobby in a different direction.
<P>
After lengthy pressure from Parliament, the Commission has now come up with an amendment to the general directive of 1997.
I would acknowledge that the proposal now before us contains a number of provisions which take particular account of the specific nature of financial services.
I should like to make one or two comments on this proposal, and I have to say that your rapporteur is not happy with the way in which the vote on the proposal went in the Legal Affairs Committee and in the Committee on Consumer Protection.
It would be unprecedented for the rapporteur to refrain from expressing a point of view.
<P>
I am happy, however, with the amendments tabled by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, for which Mrs Kestelijn was draftsman.
Let us consider the proposal.
In it, the Commission is opting for a maximum of harmonisation.
Right from the start, I fully endorsed this idea of maximum harmonisation.
If we want the single market to work as well as it possibly can, then in the fast-developing area of new media like the Internet and e-mail, all consumers must be entitled to the same high level of protection in every Member State, irrespective of where a purchase is made.
To my mind, the often cross-border nature of financial provision means that this is absolutely essential.
<P>
For these reasons, a number of amendments were adopted in the Committee on the Environment which cause me considerable difficulty.
I will also look at one or two other points, for example the question of the reflection period.
When I drafted my report, I had numerous discussions with the financial services sector and with consumer organisations.
I very quickly realised that the so-called reflection period, Article 3 of the proposal, was not at all welcomed.
If the provider has to hold a price for 14 days, that means unacceptably high financial risks which are certainly not in the consumer's interest either.
So the sector is very much in favour of scrapping the reflection period.
The amendments now place the emphasis on providing information, and that too is consistent with the parent directive.
<P>
A number of amendments have been tabled, and overall my view as rapporteur is that Amendment No 47, tabled by my group, is actually the best one.
The right of withdrawal, Article 4 of the Commission proposal, is subject to a number of very complicated conditions.
In the interests of consumer protection and legal soundness, I think it is necessary to have a general right of withdrawal.
But in order not to disadvantage the financial sector too much, the duration of that right must not be too long.
The period of 14 days which I see the PPE Group is suggesting seems to me to get the balance right.
<P>
A third point is the derogation proposed for notaries public.
The Commission proposal also seeks to protect the consumer against entering too hastily into agreements concluded by distance marketing.
But if a notary assists in the conclusion of an agreement, I do not think you can claim that the consumer is being steamrollered here.
So I do think that agreements concluded with the assistance of a notary can be exempted.
<P>
Then there is the problem of unsolicited communications.
Communications to the consumer which he has not requested have to be controlled.
The Commission does not really make a choice here.
I am making a choice, and I favour the so-called 'opt-out' system.
Looking at the whole thing, I am bound to say that this should work.
When we looked at the parent directive, I was all for having financial services included at any cost, but now I think that this has to be done in a proper manner.
I hope that if things are not looking too good after the first reading, then in the second reading at least the consistent logic of your rapporteur will win the day in the plenary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 NAME="Berger">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, a key theme in the debates in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has of course been whether we should go for the principle of maximum harmonisation proposed by the Commission or whether we should stick to minimum harmonisation for the time being.
In the end, a majority was in favour of the minimum harmonisation approach.
We agreed that it might be sensible to switch to maximum harmonisation in the foreseeable future.
However, the starting point for this principle should not be the financial services directive itself. Instead, the directive on distance marketing of goods should be included in this right from the beginning.
There is an urgent need to bring the two distance marketing directives into line with the directive on electronic commerce, as soon as we know what form it will finally take.
<P>
Despite the need for such adjustments in the future, we should point the way now towards the healthy development of distance marketing of financial services in Europe - healthy for service providers and healthy for consumers.
I therefore welcome the fact that the committee responsible shares my view that we should not have a reflection period, which is an absurdity in legal and practical terms, but that a general right of withdrawal should be introduced instead.
However, what I do not agree with is the length of the withdrawal period, which is now 30 days in the committee's report.
I feel that this is far too long and will above all make financial services more expensive for consumers.
I think that 14 days as from the time when the customer has full knowledge of the contractual terms and conditions is adequate.
<P>
Furthermore, the list of exceptions to the right of withdrawal still needs to be added to. In particular, it should take account of mortgages and the contracts already mentioned by the rapporteur, 'contracts which have come into being with full notarial advice given to the consumer'.
<P>
Nor do I share the scepticism and anxiety about electronic communication which is evident in some amendments.
A consumer who does not want to make use of it will not have to, and can continue to have personal contact with his bank and insurance company.
But we should not make things too difficult for those people who do want to use these new facilities, by demanding that everything is duplicated on paper, for example.
That is not the way to develop the enormous potential of distance marketing of financial services for business and for the consumer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, I should first of all like to point to the numerous advantages which the distance marketing of financial services can offer.
Using the Internet, the provider can offer his services to clients across national borders without extra cost, and the consumer, without moving from his chair, can compare the services of different providers in both his own country and in others.
Convinced of these benefits of distance selling, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs voted by 42 to 2 in favour of the following position.
<P>
Above all, we are in favour of total harmonisation.
If we want a real single market for financial services, consumers and providers must be guaranteed the same rights everywhere in the Union.
We feel that a formal cooling-off period puts unnecessary pressure on the consumer to make a decision within 14 days.
It is enough for the provider to state clearly how long his offer will remain open.
<P>
The committee also favours a conditional period of 14 days during which the contract may be cancelled.
And lastly, we believe that the consumer should be provided, at the time of the negotiation, with all the information he needs to evaluate the offer.
We do not think it is a good thing to hand over the completed contract at this stage.
This position closely reflects the original, balanced report of Mrs Oomen, who has indeed done an excellent job.
<P>
While the Environment Committee has approved a number of proposals aimed at significantly tightening up consumer protection, I do not believe that this goal will be achieved with a minimum directive, a 30-day cancellation period and the exchange at the time of negotiation of a full and legally complex contract plus a summary.
Proposals of this kind will merely discourage people from buying and selling services via the Internet, by fax and by post.
Moreover, we wish to ensure that the consumer who makes a bank transfer or concludes a contract of insurance face to face and not by remote methods is not at any time less protected.
On behalf of my group, I am therefore retabling a number of proposals by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, in a slightly amended form, and I would commend these to the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="Whitehead">
Mr President, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, which Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens has just referred to, stressed very strongly the need for consumer protection.
In the great debate that occupies us tonight between minimum and maximum harmonisation, those who are arguing, as the Environment Committee did, for minimum harmonisation, are doing so not because they wish to stall the proceedings of the Internet but because they do not want to see in individual Member States consumer protection significantly diminished, as it might be, by the levels of information provided in the directive as it stands.
<P>
It seems to me, therefore, that the onus is on those who wish to see maximum harmonisation to put this case not merely in terms of what is good for the market and the single market but in terms of how the levels of information and protection can be raised in the subsequent stages of discussion of this proposed directive before it comes back for second reading.
<P>
We are all open to persuasion on that issue but we simply do not believe at the moment that the case has been made.
I have to say that to my own Member State government and to others who have taken that view.
We believe that consumer protection is critical.
It is not some ancillary add-on element in this.
I would say to those who argue on behalf of the expanded single market and its dynamism, look at the facts.
A recent survey in the UK showed that 81 % of those surveyed never intended to use the Internet at all for commercial transactions.
50 % of those surveyed believed that they would be defrauded if they used the Internet.
When you have that level of suspicion you have to address the point.
<P>
I believe that the amendments tabled by the Environment Committee have done precisely that.
We have seen that the stress lies not with the reflection period - and it is right to scrap that - but with an unconditional right of withdrawal.
We have tried to set terms and conditions within which that right of withdrawal is to be exercised.
We have said not to the whiz kid consumer but to the marginal consumer who is nervous of the Internet that they can have a valid copy of the contract provided to them in a medium they can understand and which appears to them to have a measure of permanence.
<P>
Most of all, we have said that where some other elements have come in, they have to be addressed and recognised, and the way to do this is to do it piecemeal.
To look at the problems that are raised, for example, by the distant selling of car insurance.
Having listened to those who sell car insurance over the telephone, Amendment No 38 takes into account the fact that such a transaction must take place before the formal exchange of the durable contract.
We accept that.
We accept that there may be a problem with mortgages.
But that is not to say that mortgages should be excluded from the directive, merely that one has to look at this problem again and see how it can be embraced within the overall context of the directive.
<P>
Mrs Oomen-Ruitjen talked about notaries.
They may, in translation, be a rather more solid profession than lawyers are in my country.
It is said that one of the three great lies in the language is the phrase: 'I am a lawyer and I am here to help you'.
The idea that in all circumstances the fact that you have a lawyer sitting by you guarantees you the normal minimum of consumer protection does not seem to be a satisfactory point to raise.
<P>
Once again we want to go here as far as we can for the absolute in consumer protection and information.
We do that essentially because we accept that the Internet is an amazingly exciting form of bringing about new transactions - expanding commerce, industry and jobs within the Community - but never at the expense of individual consumers in any Member State in the Union and as far as possible protecting those not merely within the boundaries of the Union but beyond it as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Carlsson">
Mr President, monetary union will provide new opportunities for increased cross-border trade, which should definitely be encouraged.
New technologies also contribute towards increasing consumer choice.
Similarly, accessibility stimulates competition, thereby making our markets more efficient.
This report is an important one, since it reinforces the internal market in financial services.
<P>
Unfortunately, the proposal now before us means that the directive is more regulatory and creates more difficulties, rather than making matters simpler for the market players.
We in the PPE Group therefore wish to reject the amendments tabled by the committee responsible.
Instead, I would endorse the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, which is based on the Commission's original proposal.
<P>
It is important to protect consumers, but the legislators should not be allowed to forget altogether that unduly complex legislation raises prices for consumers and hinders trade between people in the market.
The extra costs which this directive may create, if it becomes too complex and bureaucratic, will in the end always be imposed on the consumer.
Consequently, I wish that the Environment Committee had listened more attentively to Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, who - as usual where these issues are concerned - has weighed up the implications very carefully.
<P>
As regards electronic commerce, I believe that the new technologies which offer us new sales and distribution channels really will revolutionise the markets.
So we cannot afford to be cautious, even to the point of being hostile towards the new technologies.
Instead, we should do everything possible to make it easy for them, since there really could be a consumer revolution that would drive down prices and provide alternatives.
I therefore despair when I see the niggardly attitude displayed by some people towards the new ways of doing business.
In my view, it is precisely in this sector that the European Union should be strengthening its competitiveness by accepting the new methods rather than obstructing them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="Hyland">
Mr President, the aim of the proposal is to facilitate the sale by telephone, fax and Internet of financial services such as banking, insurance, investment and mortgages while at the same time protecting the consumer from fraud, high-pressure salesmanship and certain unsolicited sales communications.
I support the main thrust of this directive as we must strike a balance between promoting commercial enterprise and protecting European consumers at all times.
<P>
I have no hesitation in saying that promotional campaigns by banks and other lending agencies are contributing in a major way to inflationary house prices, thus putting housing outside the affordability of young people wishing to set up their first home.
This is something which the European Central Bank, in cooperation with the central bank in each Member State, should urgently examine.
<P>
The main provisions of this directive include the following: the consumer will have a 14-day period before concluding a contract which will give that person time to compare various proposals and study the contract in detail before giving a final agreement; the consumer will have a 14-day withdrawal period, 30 days for mortgage loans, life insurance and pensions, to renounce the contract without penalties and without giving reasons.
This right may be exercised in only two cases: if the contract was signed before the consumer knew the contractual terms and conditions and if he was subject to unfair pressure during the reflection period.
There is also a limitation of the suppliers' rights to payment if the consumer decides to withdraw after the beginning of the service payment.
There will also be the implementation of an out-of-court complaints and redress procedure to settle disputes between the consumer and the supplier.
There will be a ban on enforced sales, that is, the distant supply of unsolicited services.
<P>
I certainly agree with some of the amendments tabled by the rapporteur, including the need for setting a deadline of seven working days for the supplier to return monies that have been received from the consumer.
I believe that if this directive is to be effective it must be implemented sooner rather than later.
An amendment has been tabled calling for the directive to be transposed into national law by 13 June 2001, instead of the Commission's own proposal of 2002.
<P>
I support this as a policy objective because one of the criticisms of European legislation in general is that it is just not implemented in time.
Greater effort must be made by the European Commission, Parliament and the Council to implement European Union directives and regulations in as streamlined a manner as possible.
<P>
In conclusion, I also welcome the fact that the Amsterdam Treaty was enacted three days ago and the European Commission has been given enhanced powers to bring forward legislation in the field of consumer affairs with particular emphasis on the protection of human health.
I look forward to working closely with the Commission in ensuring that more EU regulations and directives on this subject are implemented in the near future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, thanks to the single market and new electronic communications, it has become somewhat easier to buy and sell things in Europe using remote methods.
For the consumer, sound guarantees and clearly agreed withdrawal rights are extremely important here.
In some Member States, consumer safeguards are very good.
In others, there is greater reliance on self-regulation by the market.
The subsidiarity principle requires us to see how these two approaches can best be combined.
We can do that by setting minimum European standards and protecting the consumer in such a way that he is perfectly happy to buy financial services using remote methods.
<P>
The radical metamorphosis which the Oomen-Ruijten report underwent in the Environment Committee is therefore quite proper.
The maximum harmonisation presented initially by the rapporteur is not consistent with previous legislative proposals of the European Union.
Directive 97/1 on general distance selling opts for minimum harmonisation.
Under that directive, Member States are free to go further in safeguarding the consumer.
If we now opt for maximum harmonisation, we shall be creating contradictory legislation.
<P>
Lastly, I should like to point out a small inaccuracy in Amendment No 18.
Directive 97/1 does not deal with the selling of financial services, but with distance selling.
Perhaps we can check which directive is in fact being referred to in Amendment No 18.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Bru Purón">
Mr President, I support the report by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, even though our admired rapporteur does not fully agree with its content. However, I also have a number of comments to make regarding several of the points raised because everything is open to debate and can be improved upon.
I shall refer to three amendments.
<P>
I shall firstly refer to Amendment No 21 to Article 3.
The right of reflection in my view should be abolished where there is sufficient information. What is more, the reference to the principle of good faith in commercial transactions is a timely one that can be related to the oldest and most unique example of good faith in civil law.
However, the article contains a somewhat bland, if not dangerous, reference to minors. This is because minors are obviously protected by civil law not only in the part of the transaction based on honesty and good faith, but also because in civil law any transaction will be declared null and void if minors are not old enough according to the category of goods and transactions in question.
<P>
With regard to the other amendment, the famous Amendment No 22 to Article 4 on the right of withdrawal, I am also in favour of extending the 30-day withdrawal period for some contracts, for instance the high-risk contracts such as life insurance and pensions.
The reference to mortgage contracts must also be qualified because, here again, we must bear in mind that 11 or 12 of the Member States give better mortgage credit protection through deeds and registration at a land registry, so it must be stressed that this text refers to a precontractual phase.
According to the majority of Member States' legislation, there can be no contract without deeds and registration.
Therefore, given that here the form is ad substantiam , it is not possible to talk in terms of mortgages, contracts or even credit.
<P>
Lastly, I welcome the reference made to credit cards, because they have certainly been the subject of widespread abuse. In my view, the amendment relating to them, Amendment No 25, should be stringently applied since they are commonly abused through the use of the card number alone without a signature.
We must therefore be very strict on this point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, since it is difficult to introduce new ideas at this stage of the debate, perhaps the best thing would be to sum up what has been said so far.
Market globalisation and the spread of new communication and information technologies have undoubtedly given rise to the economic and social changes that are revolutionising the way in which markets serve consumers; they have also transformed the consumers' expectations.
<P>
We therefore need to urgently adapt our Community policies to these changes, particularly those changes that affect marketing methods. It is true that we should make greater use of the methods on offer through the Internet for carrying out commercial transactions and accessing financial services, a sector where consumers are currently proving to be more reluctant.
Mr Whitehead provided us with some interesting figures, and there is no doubt that the use of the Internet in this type of transaction should become even more widespread. What is more, Mr Whitehead, the expression 'never, never, never at the expense of the consumer' certainly rings true.
<P>
Here, however, I should like to tell the Commission about a recent piece of work that refers to the future policies and that is quite excellent. It states that in order for consumers to play their new role in Community policies to the full, they must understand the interdependency of their interests and other interests that also need to be protected.
In other words, in making people aware of their rights, they must also acknowledge their responsibilities.
This stems from the fact that we live in a Community of law in which Community responsibilities are conferred.
As a result, we would be doing the consumer a disservice if, through a sectoral directive, we began to disrupt the balance of the highly complex relations between Community law and the Member States' law, and the principle of subsidiarity has been mentioned in this respect.
<P>
Mr Bru Purón referred to something that he knows a great deal about as a notary, namely mortgage credit.
To follow on from what he said, it seems to me that we must bear in mind that the European Union currently has several systems of legal traffic concerning property and registration, or advertising registration it might be said.
However, without doubt, one of the characteristics that must be maintained, for example in Spain, is the binding nature of the constitution and mortgage registration which cannot be subject to any right of withdrawal.
<P>
We must remember, however, that the rules governing mortgage credit are subject to the power of the courts where the asset is located. In this connection, we must give consideration to Article 16(1) of the 1998 Brussels Convention, which Community law must clearly respect, and indeed, this is something Mr Whitehead should respect for the benefit of consumers' interests.
<P>
Here, I must digress a little as you seem deeply mistrustful of lawyers, and I disagree entirely with you.
I would therefore like to stress that the European building is a legal structure, a structure in law, and if we do not rely on lawyers and, in general, those who work with the law to bridge the gap between the rules and social reality, European integration will fail.
<P>
In short, Mr President, Community law must be respected.
I personally would prefer a medium degree of harmonisation, or even basic ideas on harmonisation, which will improve and be complemented with time, rather than maximum harmonisation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 NAME="Bonino">
Mr President, from listening to the rapporteur and all the speakers I have seen how important this directive is.
This is very positive, because we have come a long way and, as you will all remember, not everybody was convinced that there was a need for a directive on financial services.
The people who are concerned with the consumers' interests will remember the distance selling debate in this House and whatever divisions still exist - and there is still time and room to find some convergence - we have made good progress in establishing some basic rights for consumers.
<P>
I just wish to refer briefly to the three main points I noted during the debate.
Firstly, the most controversial one: the level of harmonisation.
There are amendments which introduce an approach of limited harmonisation of the provision introduced by this directive, leaving Member States scope for maintaining or introducing more stringent provisions.
So there are amendments which call for minimum harmonisation.
<P>
The Commission has proposed that the provisions of the directive should be fully harmonised.
This is set out clearly in recital 9 so, from this point of view, Amendment No 57 can be considered superfluous but, nevertheless, it reiterates the point.
The reasoning was that financial services, due to their immaterial character - there is nothing to wrap up in paper - are perfectly suited for distance marketing.
Adding to this the cross-border perspective of the introduction of the euro, it seemed particularly important to establish a common framework for marketing through these techniques.
This would be to the benefit of both business and consumers.
I repeat the principle: we strongly believe that the right of consumers must be seen in perspective in relation to the rights of other sectors.
But our proposal seems to us to be to the benefit of both business and consumers because both parties would know which rules apply and both parties can be confident that the same marketing rules apply, no matter where the services come from.
That is a very important point for confidence-building, which can be profitable for both consumers and business.
In view of this argument, the Commission has concluded that at this stage it will maintain its proposal for full harmonisation.
<P>
I shall just refer to two other points which have been raised in the debate.
One is information in advance and the other the general right of withdrawal.
As far as information in advance is concerned, the amendments concern information to consumers in advance of concluding a contract and the amendments reject the concept of a right of reflection based on a draft contract as introduced by the proposal for a directive.
The Commission can accept the principle established in Amendment No 21 of providing to the consumers in advance of the conclusion of a contract additional or summarising information as a cover of the full contractual terms and conditions.
However, this principle must take into account the interaction between this horizontal directive and the vertical directives on financial services that include provision of information.
Consequently, the Commission cannot simply take over the amendments as drafted.
In particular, we must stress that the principle of information in advance must be applied so that information offered provides added value to the information provision already foreseen in the vertical directives.
Otherwise it is useless.
<P>
Secondly it must avoid overlaps with the existing information provision and, finally, it must be clear beyond doubt which provisions apply or prevail in case of similarities between provisions in this directive and provisions in the vertical directive.
So Amendment No 61, which introduces a right to waive the right to obtain information in advance means the Commission, must reject Article 11 as it establishes that consumers may not waive the rights conferred on them by the directive.
<P>
Finally, on the general right of withdrawal.
If we reject the right of reflection, that leads naturally to putting the emphasis on a general right of withdrawal as provided for in these amendments.
The guiding principle of this amendment is to align this proposal with the rules of the general directive.
Again, the Commission accepts the principle but it needs to review the implementation.
<P>
I just wish to mention two questions which remain open at this stage: the duration as well as the scope and extent of any exemption.
I will not elaborate in detail.
I have already spoken too much about the amendments.
At this stage the Commission wanted to give some ideas and reflection on the three major items you have been debating and certainly we will be looking forward to the final result of the vote on this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=13>
Sale of consumer goods and associated guarantees
<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0224/99) by Mrs Kuhn, on behalf of the Parliament Delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Comittee for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the sale of consumer goods and associated guarantees (C4-0042/99 - C4-0171/99-96/0161(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="Kuhn">
Mr President, I would like to thank both the presidency and Mrs Bonino and her colleagues very sincerely for the fact that we reached an agreement in the trialogue that was accepted by both the Council and by Parliament's delegation.
On 17 December 1998 Parliament adopted 14 amendments to the common position of the Council.
During the conciliation procedure, 12 amendments were adopted verbatim or in a form close to the original, which I regard as a positive result.
In line with the compromise achieved, the deadline for transposition of the directive into national law is now to be 1 January 2002 at the latest, rather than in three year's time.
It was particularly important for Parliament's delegation that this amendment was accepted, as it will be at that point that the majority of the EU public will handling the euro as cash for the first time, and it is likely that price transparency will lead to more cross-border purchases within the internal market.
<P>
Minimum harmonisation of the law on guarantees will save the consumer unnecessary aggravation.
It was also accepted that a product produced or manufactured in accordance with a purchaser's requirements, and for which the purchaser supplied the necessary materials, comes under the directive.
An exception to this is when any lack of conformity that arises is due to the materials supplied.
If a consumer instals a product himself and a lack of conformity arises as a result of incorrect installation instructions intended for the consumer, this is also covered by the law on guarantees.
The guarantee directive will be included in the list of actions for restraint to protect the interest of the consumers, and in order to make purchases within the internal market simpler for the consumer, a recommendation will be made to manufacturers whose goods are sold in several Member States that they should provide consumers with a list including at least one contact address in each country where the goods are marketed.
<P>
This is only a recommendation, as to my regret Parliament did not want to go any further, but perhaps many manufacturers of consumer durables will in time see this as an opportunity giving them better prospects for marketing their products throughout the internal market.
In order to avoid difficulties of interpretation to the detriment of consumers, it was once again made clear in the result of the conciliation that if a product is restored free of charge to the contractually stipulated condition, any costs incurred, such as delivery, labour and materials costs, will be borne by the seller.
<P>
That gives you a brief overview of the most important results of the Conciliation Committee.
If you vote in favour of this conciliation result, and I presume that you will, consumers in many Member States will be given better legal guarantees for consumer goods, and you can rely on it that this guarantee will ensure a minimum level of protection in each Member State.
It applies to all consumer goods whether new or second-hand; the legal guarantee is valid for two years, but for second-hand goods, it is up to Member States to decide whether purchasers and sellers can agree on a guarantee period of one year.
<P>
However, in order to avoid misunderstandings, it should at least be made clear to the public that a product is only considered to be non-conforming if the lack of conformity was present at the time of purchase.
The burden of proof is reversed within the first six months after purchase, which means that it is assumed that a lack of conformity was already present on delivery, unless the seller can prove damage by the consumer or unless the type of product or lack of conformity rules out such an assumption.
<P>
Parliament has supplemented the term 'lack of conformity' in a helpful way.
A defective product is defined as being non-conforming, and published statements by the manufacturers or distributors in advertising or on the label are included in this definition.
We welcome this definition, because it is often advertising that leads purchasers to buy.
The first remedy in the case of non-conforming goods is the right to repair without charge or a replacement product, as far as this is economically viable and feasible.
<P>
If a repair or a replacement product are out of the question as a remedy, the purchaser still has the option of an appropriate price reduction or the termination of the contract.
By virtue of this hierarchy of remedy options, Parliament has struck a reasonable balance between the interests of consumers and sellers.
The directive provides for clear conditions, which is also important for commercial guarantees, that is to say guarantees voluntarily provided by manufacturers or sellers.
In order to ensure that consumers are not misled, guarantees must contain precise and transparent information, including a statement that a given guarantee does not affect the statutory rights of the consumer.
<P>
Unfortunately, I believe that the directive has at least one weak point.
The common position allows Member States to introduce a two-month time limit for lodging a complaint, in other words the consumer must report the lack of conformity within two months of discovery.
Even if only one Member State were to introduce this time limit, this would run counter to the philosophy of the directive, which is to achieve minimum harmonisation.
Unfortunately, at second reading Parliament could not achieve the majority needed to delete this provision.
Nevertheless, as we stand at the end of the end of this Parliament's legislative term, we have once again succeeded in giving Europe's citizens more rights as consumers, and I would like to thank all the Members of Parliament, the Commission and the Council for achieving this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 NAME="Whitehead">
Mr President, it may be appropriate in my few minutes to pay tribute to the rapporteur and with her to the Commissioner who is also with us in this last but one consumer debate of this Parliament, and, indeed, to the processes of co-decision, which we have implemented and which have perhaps meant more in this field than almost any other.
This has been a significant success for Parliament and also for both the Commission and the Member States in Council.
<P>
I wish I could say that these procedures always go so swiftly but in this case we have a model where many of the reservations that were stated at the outset, many of the fears of commercial interests, many of the fears of parliamentarians, were set at rest by the way in which these procedures went.
As a result we now have a situation in which there is adequate protection for the consumer both when dealing with the issue of goods that may turn out to be faulty even if those are in part manufactured by the consumers themselves.
<P>
We have successfully addressed the issue of second-hand goods which many feared could not effectively come into this directive.
We have shown that 'where there's a will, there's a way'.
You can show that although second-hand goods are, by definition, different from those that are purchased new, a different period of reflection and remedy suffices.
The whole mechanism of the hierarchy of remedies can and will work effectively and beautifully here.
<P>
So I am very pleased with this.
I should like to thank Commissioner Bonino for all here help, not just in this but in many other ways in this five years.
My last words should be to Mrs Kuhn.
This is her last report in her last Parliament.
In my opinion she has been a model comrade and a model colleague, diligent, direct, dedicated.
I wish we had more like here and I wish those outside knew the work that really goes on in the interstices of this Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="Fitzsimons">
Mr President, like Mr Whitehead, I am pleased to arise in support of Mrs Kuhn.
This is a very good consumers' report.
It is as well to remember that in June 1996 the Commission submitted a proposal for a directive of guarantees for consumer goods and after-sales services.
The intention of the proposal was to create minimum harmonisation of a statutory provision within individual Member States concerning the need for legal guarantees, all of which Mr Whitehead so eloquently referred to.
<P>
The simple aim of the proposal is to ensure that wherever consumers shop in the European Union, they will enjoy minium levels of guarantees and will be able to seek redress in their home countries.
The directive ensures that Member States must transpose international law by January 2002 and this will create a common set of minimum rules entitling the consumer to redress.
These are free repairs, replacement, price reduction or the cancellation of the contract in the event of defective purchases.
At the insistence of this Parliament, free repairs or replacements will also include postage, labour and materials.
This is excellent work done by this Parliament.
We have also ensured that compensation for the incorrect installation of goods, for example wardrobes will also apply for the protection of consumers who have been misled by faulty instructions.
<P>
It will be recommended to the producers of consumer goods to attach to their product a list giving at least one contact address in every Member State where the product is marketed.
The idea is that cross-border shoppers can contact this address if they have problems.
Member States will be able to create mediation bodies to handle consumer complaints irrespective of whether they are national or cross-border.
<P>
There is also a strong recommendation to provide consumers with manufacturers' contact addresses where goods are sold in several Member States.
This is important because so many people travel not only across Europe but across the world.
So, as a member of the Consumer Protection Committee, I have at all times, along with Mrs Kuhn and Mr Whitehead, supported measures that will ensure that the needs and concerns of consumers are given real and appropriate protection by means of European legislation.
<P>
In conclusion, the four-year consumer protection programme for 1999-2003 is worth over £91m and if requests are made for further increases in this budget, I am confident that Parliament would support such recommendations in the future.
I would like to be associated with Mr Whitehead's remarks in relation to Mrs Kuhn.
I compliment her on her dedication and commitment in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection down the years and I wish her every joy and good health in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 NAME="Bonino">
Mr President, I do not take the floor to repeat the content of this piece of legislation but to commend the good work of Parliament, the Commission and the Council.
If we look at the timing I am particularly pleased that I am speaking on the final point of this directive at the last part-session of our Parliament - which for me is also the last session, at least on consumer matters.
<P>
The Commission introduced this piece of legislation in June 1996.
It was transmitted to Parliament in August 1996.
In the meantime some points have changed.
However, at the end of the day we managed to come forward with a good piece of legislation which will produce better protection for consumers.
<P>
So, as I said, I will not repeat the points of the legislation but I will congratulate in particular the work of Mrs Kuhn and all other colleagues in Parliament.
For once I will also praise the work of the Commission service.
When I introduced this directive I told them it would never be approved.
In fact, in the three years we have been able to work together in such a way that finally this directive is approved.
This is a good legacy for the next Parliament and the next Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=14>
Civil protection
<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0124/99) by Mrs González Álvarez, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Decision establishing a Community action programme in the field of civil protection (COM(98)0768 - C4-0072/99-98/0354(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, no one doubts the need for a new programme of Community action in the field of civil protection, in this instance to 2004, in spite of the House's lack of enthusiasm for such a programme.
<P>
In 1998, the so-called 'natural' disasters that occurred - although I do not believe that they are always natural - caused 50 000 deaths and losses amounting to ESP 12.4 billion as a result of floods, fires, hurricanes, such as hurricane Mitch, and environmental disasters, such as the problem in Doñana, which has yet to be resolved and which is still causing difficulties. In all of these disasters, civil protection organisations play a vital role, especially if these organisations operate well, if their members are highly trained and if they also form part of a Community cooperation network.
<P>
The amendments that the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection approved by a substantial majority have developed several aspects of the Commission's proposal which we believe to be important.
<P>
a)Greater and more effective cooperation between the Member States is needed as there is insufficient cooperation at present.b)The Community must help ensure that there is a better and more intelligent relationship between the protection of persons and goods and nature, which in the future may make it possible to prevent disasters that can be prevented, as many of them can.c)Special mention must be made of the isolated and outermost regions and the difficulties they experience because of their geographical situation, terrain and social conditions.
Last week our group met in Madeira where we had the opportunity to visit several isolated communities.
Given the difficulties the people there have in exporting their agricultural produce and the difficulties the Members experienced in travelling there, I cannot see how, in the event of a disaster, for example, these people could possibly cope without adequate resources.
Some colleagues who had come over from the Azores could not even travel directly to Madeira.
Instead they first had to travel 1 300 kilometres from the Azores to Lisbon and then a further 900 kilometres from Lisbon to Madeira. They therefore had to travel an enormous distance to participate in the group's work which, on this occasion, centred on ways of tackling the problems facing the outermost regions.
It is therefore vital to pay more attention to the problems these regions suffer.d)The importance of training is to be highlighted to help citizens protect themselves, even in the event of an environmental emergency.
I cannot forget some of the environmental emergencies experienced in my country and also throughout the rest of Europe.e)We would stress the need to step up efforts at national, supra-regional, regional and local level in the area of prevention, cooperation and the exchange of experiences.f)We also propose that we should detect and analyse the causes behind these disasters and publish these findings so that they can be used as the basis for prevention.We have adopted the amendment tabled by the Committee on Budgets and are thus ratifying the European Parliament's position on the committee needed to implement the programme, which should be a consultative body. This amendment proposes that the committee should be more transparent and participative.
We therefore do not agree with Amendment No 24, tabled by Mr Schnellhardt, which proposes that this committee should be of a different nature, even though it does defend the Member States, including my own.
We believe that we must continue to defend the European Parliament's policy regarding these committees.
<P>
We also agree with the vital role that non-governmental organisations have to play.
<P>
The Committee on the Environment has accepted the amendments tabled by the Committee on Budgets on cooperation with the countries participating in the PHARE, TACIS and MEDA programmes, that is, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean, although as rapporteur I had my doubts.
We are not against such cooperation, but we are concerned that a small budget of EUR 2 million also has to cover cooperation projects with these countries.
Nonetheless, these amendments by the Committee on Budgets were approved by the Committee on the Environment and I must defend them here.
<P>
The Committee on Budgets is also concerned that 25 % of the cost of this programme is taken up by administrative expenditure.
However, the draftsman of the opinion - who is not present - does acknowledge that this might be due to the cost of experts, networking, analysis and training.
In other words, it is not surprising that administrative costs are so high, although they should be reduced where possible.
<P>
In short, although this programme does not generate much enthusiasm, Commissioner - as I said at the beginning - I believe that it is important.
I am aware of the work people are carrying out, sometimes on a voluntary basis, in civil organisations, especially in the regions, and I believe that if we work to ensure that these organisations continue to operate, we will be able to help prevent or mitigate the effects of some disasters.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="President">
Since there are no colleagues taking part in the debate, the Chair would like to congratulate you on your report and say that the lack of interest is probably due to a consensus rather than any dislike of the subject.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, I agree entirely with your remarks. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and especially its rapporteur, Mrs González Álvarez, for the work which has been done and also for the interest she has shown during the consideration of this proposal.
As you know, and as has also been mentioned, the purpose of this proposal is to ensure the continuation of the current action programme in the field of civil protection, which is based on the Council Decision of 1998 which expires on 31 December 1999.
I also think that this programme, which is aimed at supporting and supplementing the efforts of the Member States in the area of civil protection, is an important one, and it is important to make it as effective as possible.
<P>
Twenty-three amendments have been tabled, of which the Commission is able to accept 14.
We believe that they help to improve the text and also to clarify it.
Some of the amendments emphasise the gaining of experience, which forms part of the basic principles of the programme. Some call for greater involvement of the public and NGOs, and then there are some which strengthen the environmental aspects.
We are therefore able to accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 18 and 22.
Finally there is Amendment No 23, which is acceptable in part, and Amendment No 19, which is acceptable in principle.
Amendment No 19 and parts of Amendment No 23 are aimed at increasing the involvement of NGOs in civil protection, which is something I naturally agree with, and so I also accept this in principle because it gives NGOs the opportunity to participate in the exchange of expertise.
<P>
Then there are a number of amendments which we are not so happy with.
These are Amendments Nos 6, 7, 8, 12, 13, 16, 17, 20, 21 and 24.
I recognise that some of them attempt to improve cooperation with countries participating in the PHARE, TACIS and MEDA programmes.
That is of course an objective which commands a great deal of sympathy, but where civil protection is concerned, such cooperation is organised outside our action programme.
At the moment, two projects are being carried out under PHARE and MEDA, and a third, which may be financed through TACIS, is in preparation.
<P>
I would also like to draw attention to the second part of Amendment No 20, because there it says that, if isolated regions are involved, the maximum financial contribution for pilot projects should be up to 100 %, instead of the 50 % proposed by the Commission.
It is our firm belief that responsible budget management also requires joint financial responsibility on the part of the participants in the project, and so we cannot accept the amendment.
<P>
Mrs González Álvarez also mentioned the question of the comments by the Committee on Budgets on the proportion of administrative costs in relation to the total operating budget, and Mrs González Álvarez made some very sensible remarks on that.
In my department, we are currently in the process of examining this question, and it is of course important to ensure that these administrative costs are kept to a minimum when the programme is implemented.
<P>
Finally, I hope that through its cooperation, Parliament will help to ensure that the proposal now before the House is adopted quickly, so as to ensure continuity between the Community's current action programme and the proposed programme, which is due to enter into force on 1 January 2000.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=15>
Pollution by agricultural tractors
<SPEAKER ID=229 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0128/99) by Mr Fitzsimons, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on action to be taken against the emission of gaseous and particulate pollutants by engines intended to power agricultural or forestry tractors and amending Council Directive 74/150/EEC (COM(98)0472 - C4-0512/98-98/0247(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 NAME="Fitzsimons">
Mr President, in the interests of brevity, and because of the heavy volume of plenary business we have dealt with this evening and the lateness of the hour, I propose to confine myself to a few pertinent remarks on my report, which was drawn up on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
It basically deals with agriculture and forestry pollution by agricultural and forestry tractors.
<P>
As we all know to our cost, road traffic is increasing and with it air pollution.
On a daily basis a potentially lethal cocktail of carbon monoxide, unburned hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides and particulates assault our nostrils and our respiratory systems.
So the European Union has come up with measures to curb road vehicle emissions.
These are being refined and added to as technical and scientific knowledge advances.
However, further studies have emerged which establish very clearly that emissions generated by off-road mobile machinery and by agricultural or forestry tractors also add significantly to air pollution.
So this proposal for a directive on action to be taken against pollutants from engines for tractors follows the lines of the 1997 directive on emissions from engines in off-road mobile machinery.
The proposed directive aims to help both the industry and the user, so it is certainly not anti-user or anti-farmer in any way.
It seeks to offer a compromise between having uniform requirements on the one hand and facilitating European Union access to world markets by aligning European Union industrial specifications to the broader requirements set out in the 1995 United Nations Regulation of the Economic Committee for Europe.
<P>
I would ask you to support this report.
It basically endorses the Commission's position in the draft proposals.
I apologise to the Commissioners for bringing them in at this late hour of the night.
<P>
I should like to thank the members of the Environment Committee for the support they have already given to my report in committee.
As ever their comments were constructive and helpful.
The Environment Committee has made its presence felt in the increasingly important area of environmental legislation and I know we will continue to do so.
I hope my report on pollution by agricultural and forestry tractors, with Parliament's support, will make a further positive contribution to a cleaner and safer environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schleicher">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, traffic is still an important source of air pollution.
There are already European regulations with limit values for gaseous and particulate pollutants and corresponding test requirements and type-approval procedures for private motor vehicles, heavy goods vehicles and off-road mobile machinery.
Nevertheless, since 1996 the European Parliament has also been calling for legal specifications for agricultural and forestry tractors.
It certainly amounts to a success that we are discussing this today, as this regime will make an important contribution to environmental protection, and will also facilitate trade in tractors between the EU Member States, as well as making it easier for European manufacturers to access third country markets because of the equivalence that will be achieved between Community legislation and the technical requirements of UN/ECE Regulation No 96.
Our group wishes to thank Mr Fitzsimons for his report on this very complicated and technical proposal and supports the amendments he has tabled.
<P>
Finally, I have a question for the officiating Commissioner, as Council Directive 77/537 relating to emissions from agricultural and forestry tractors remains in force.
This, however, uses a different reference fuel for emissions testing than the directive before us.
Could you therefore confirm that this discrepancy still exists and above all whether it is not in fact necessary to bring the 1977 directive into line with the new legislation on fuel quality?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, I would first like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Fitzsimons, not only for his work on the report itself but also for the very precise presentation he has made this evening.
We set limit values for emissions from the engines of mobile machinery and equipment in general back in March 1998, and our objective now is to lay down limit values for agricultural tractors as well.
This would apply by extension to the test requirements for reducing emissions, enabling us to achieve equivalence with other legislation already in force.
<P>
Parliament has tabled five amendments.
We can accept Amendments Nos 1 and 3, but not Amendment No 2, which suggests that the Commission should present a further proposal in 2002 tightening the limit values.
We regard that as both unnecessary and unacceptable, as the limit values enshrined in this directive would only just have been transposed by the Member States at that point.
It should also be borne in mind that the timetable for implementing the limit values in this directive is intended to run parallel with the timetable for the directive on mobile machinery and equipment, that is in 2004.
<P>
Furthermore, if we are to tighten up limit values, we must take account of available technology and above all of the cost/benefit principle recognised by Parliament, which forms part of all our proposals for environmental measures.
That means that we cannot just pluck a statement out of thin air and say that we will tighten these up further.
<P>
Amendment No 4 is also unacceptable.
It concerns bringing requirements into line with technical progress under Framework Directive 74/150.
That directive is at present being totally reworked.
I do not therefore feel that it is right now to make and accept proposals for amendments in individual directives.
Amendment No 5 is also unacceptable to us.
Nor does it make sense any more, as the present Commission proposal very precisely adopts both Stage 1 and Stage 2 of Directive 97/68 on emissions from the engines of mobile machinery and equipment.
So this amendment has really become superfluous.
<P>
As to the question that Mrs Schleicher asked, I do not know who it was directed at, but I am here as an acting Commissioner.
I am not an officiating Commissioner, that is quite wrong!
Since its resignation the Commission has continued to be fully active in all its rights and duties, and that applies to me also.
So I am not sure if your question was meant for me, but I will assume it is.
There are two sides to this question: first, the issue of type-approval, concerning what such regulations on fuels apply to, and second, the issue of checking whether these regulations are observed in practice.
We consider that the Member States have applied type-approval in accordance with good practice up to now, and we will have to find a reasonable system of checking practice in future.
Of course we may also have to take other fuels into account, as these fuel values are applied in practice.
Type-approval may mean coming up with other fuel values.
You will see from all this that the Commission is not officiating, but that it is very much present in spirit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=16>
Foodstuffs for particular nutritional uses
<SPEAKER ID=234 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0225/99) by Mrs Sandbæk, on behalf of the Parliament Delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to foodstuffs intended for particular nutritional uses (3607/99 - C4-0154/99-94/0076(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 NAME="Sandbæk">
Mr President, as you know, the European Council meeting in Edinburgh called for a simplification of EU legislation.
That has only happened to a very small extent.
But it is at any rate welcome that the Council has reduced the original list of nine categories of foodstuffs intended for particular nutritional uses to five specific directives.
The list should have been just four, because in its opinion at first reading, Parliament quite rightly found that there were no grounds for drawing up a specific directive on foods for sportsmen.
For us to be able to define a food as intended for a particular nutritional use, it should fulfil particular nutritional needs for certain categories of persons who cannot eat ordinary food, either because there is something wrong with their digestion or metabolism, or because in a particular physiological condition they can derive particular benefit from the controlled intake of certain substances in their food.
Infants and young children are one category, but sportsmen hardly fit into this definition.
And there is a fear that ordinary foods with special characteristics which are particularly suitable for sportsmen, such as pasta and various drinks, will be brought into the specific directive. This would create confusion for consumers and directly work against the simplification of rules which the directive is intended to encourage.
The interests of industry appear to have weighed more heavily than those of consumers when the Council insisted on this entirely superfluous directive.
The opposite should of course have been the case, so that consideration for consumers was the decisive factor.
<P>
In this respect, I am pleased that the Council has put on hold the question of a specific directive on foods for diabetics.
My colleagues in Parliament wanted this directive, but I think that in this case we should listen to the diabetics' organisations, which have expressed the unanimous opinion that the marketing of and easy access to diabetic products creates a false demand among diabetics.
In fact, diabetic products have no place in the modern treatment of diabetes.
They contain a high level of harmful fats, have inadequate labelling and typically cost up to 400 % more than ordinary foods, which is a completely unnecessary and unreasonable burden to put on diabetics.
What is needed is sensible information and a proper and, most importantly, individually worked-out diet.
The result of the Council's compromise, which is to obtain an opinion from the Scientific Committee for Food, will hopefully be that no directive is drawn up.
<P>
And so to the specific directive on baby foods, which is the reason why the adoption of the framework directive is taking so long.
I would first and foremost like to congratulate Mrs Breyer for proposing and insisting on the amendment requiring baby food products to be pesticide-free in order to be covered by the directive.
I must admit that at the second reading of the framework directive, I agreed with the Council that the framework directive was not the right place for the specific directive's provisions on pesticide levels in baby food, although I of course agreed entirely with Mrs Breyer that baby food should be pesticide-free.
Nonetheless, thanks to Mrs Breyer's amendment, Parliament has succeeded in putting pressure on both the Commission and the Food Committee.
The long conciliation procedure we have been through has had a decisive influence on the fact that the maximum level for pesticides in baby food has been set at 0.01 mg/kg, which means in practice pesticide-free baby food, because it is not possible to measure any lower levels.
In practice, if the provisions of the directive are to be met, it will only be possible to use organic products in baby food.
Hopefully, the next step will be for the EU therefore also to improve the opportunities for organic farmers to produce the necessary products in a competitive way, which is something Agenda 2000 unfortunately does not do.
<P>
The handling of some of the specific directives which have already been issued has been rather problematic.
The directive on baby food is a welcome exception.
It should lead us in Parliament to realise that directives of a technical nature may also have a political content which cannot be left to a committee of experts.
I hope that on Thursday, Parliament will adopt the Aglietta report on the procedures for the exercise of implementing powers conferred on the Commission, so that the baby food success story can be followed by many others.
In any event, adopting this directive in accordance with the Conciliation Committee's joint text will be a good start.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 NAME="Liese">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there remain a great many important issues to be discussed this week in Parliament: the nomination of the new Commission President, Mr Prodi, Agenda 2000 and many more besides.
The framework directive on dietetic foods does not appear to be the most important issue here, as is evident, moreover, by the number of Members present.
However, I believe that there are some important points which need to be addressed here.
Mrs Sandbæk has already addressed the particularly contentious issue of pesticides in baby foods; this issue concerns the health of babies and small children.
I believe that the public would not understand it if Europe agreed to reduce this issue to its lowest common denominator; what is important here is the precautionary principle.
As Members of Parliament, we have always insisted on this precautionary principle and stated that pesticides have no business being in baby foods, and we have also made this clear by means of an amendment.
I am very satisfied with the outcome of the conciliation procedure - as is my group - since this principle was adopted in the course of the conciliation procedure, obviously not as part of the conciliation procedure, but politically as part of the negotiations.
<P>
I should like to reiterate clearly that as Members of Parliament we have relied on scientific opinion whatever the issue, such as the opinions expressed by ESPEGAM, for example, which has clearly stated that as long as there is no ADI for infants, an extremely strict value of virtually zero needs to be set.
I should like to thank the Commission which - I want to get this right - has resigned, but which is still in office. It has not been an easy time.
I think that, exceptionally, Mr Bangemann can also be singled out on this issue for having supported the campaign for consumer protection.
I regret the fact that he initially experienced so much resistance within the Commission, particularly from Mrs Bonino, who should in fact have supported consumer protection.
However, a happy outcome is worth waiting for.
We have obtained a good result, and we shall be able to give our assent tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, we shall also be giving our assent tomorrow.
I was very pleased that Mrs Sandbæk also reiterated that it was the amendment tabled by the Greens which provided that baby foods should in future be pesticide-free.
I think that this is a great victory for consumer protection, and it contributes in a significant way to making agricultural policy more environmentally friendly.
We have proved with this decision that we can succeed in making the highest standards, namely the no-trace limit value already in force in Germany - a standard for the whole of the EU.
We can now only hope that the manufacturers of baby foods in the EU make the necessary adjustments quickly, since it is clear that baby foods must be free of all poisonous substances.
Harmonisation in this area really cannot be reduced to the lowest common denominator; instead, we must demonstrate the highest degree of precaution and duty of care towards the youngest members of our society.
<P>
However, we hope that this will now also be the starting point for an initiative against the ADI concept for all foodstuffs, particularly those for school children and young people, since it in fact refers to the recommended intake of pesticides for an adult.
It is not only babies who absorb on average much more per kilo of body weight, but also school children and young people.
I now think that we must start to reconsider the whole ADI concept, and we must build on this success in an attempt to extend it in future to school children and young people, since it has been proven that even the minutest quantities of pesticide can result in serious illness, particularly among children.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, I should firstly also like to express my thanks to the rapporteur.
We had been instructed by the European Council to reduce the number of acts governing dietetic foods.
We have not managed to do this now because we have two more, but at least we have achieved a certain degree of clarification.
I am being quite frank with you when I say - and you already know this from previous debates - that I would have preferred it if we could at least have done without the directive on foods for sportsmen; this is more likely to result in misinformation in any case, especially as it will be very difficult to obtain clear provisions for the different types of sport because the foodstuffs that can be recommended or are important for a certain type of sport vary considerably from sport to sport.
But I do not believe that it would be right to reject the outcome of conciliation on this issue or on account of this issue.
<P>
On the question of pesticide residues in baby foods, the Commission has taken a very clear position which corresponds exactly to the one we eventually adopted on this.
The only difference was whether this should be laid down in the specific directive or the framework directive.
Nonetheless, we agreed on the general and practical issues.
Admittedly, there was discussion within the Commission, but such discussions take place often anyway.
After all, it is also a fact that not all Commissioners can be of the same opinion from the start.
However, we managed to agree that special consideration of the precautionary principle is appropriate for babies and toddlers.
That is to say, the very low level of pesticide residues will apply - this has been proposed by us, and will be adopted - even though the results of scientific research are not available yet in all cases or for all pesticides.
We have therefore abandoned our usual position on this point, although we will still keep to it in the future, unless really strong grounds exist for proceeding only on the basis of the precautionary principle without scientific findings. This means that we will still aim to base our legislative measures on scientific findings.
I still consider this to be the correct approach; otherwise, we would be in a state of confusion which would not be helpful to consumers either, since it results in arbitrary action which is also not the way to help consumers.
<P>
I should therefore like to reiterate - this holds true for the present Commission and I hope it will also hold true for the next one - that if we cease to base our decisions on the results of scientific research, then we will open the floodgates to all types of decisions being taken, and we will basically no longer be able to explain why a decision has been taken.
The precautionary principle, whereby the results of scientific research can be ignored, or results can be achieved without them, is clearly an exception to the rule in this case. The Commission has also supported this, but we cannot make it the norm.
I would point this out to Mrs Breyer.
She is starting now with school children.
Then come those reaching the age of puberty, for whom it is particularly important not to be exposed to any danger whatsoever.
Then come those in their twenties who suffer from not being able to go to discos any more, and then those up to the age of forty.
Then, for those aged over forty, the dilemma is the same as for babies.
They have to be protected against everything.
Mrs Breyer, the Commission will not support you on this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=17>
New codecision procedure
<SPEAKER ID=240 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0206/99) by Mr Manzella, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on the joint declaration on practical arrangements for the new codecision procedure (Article 251 EC).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 NAME="Corbett">
Mr President, I wish to begin by presenting the apologies of the rapporteur who could not be with us tonight.
It is quite well known now that the Amsterdam Treaty extends the codecision procedure from some 15 articles to 38 articles under the Treaty, so that most non-agricultural legislation will be subject to codecision.
This actually changes the legislative authority of the European Union into a real bicameral legislative authority.
<P>
The Treaty of Amsterdam also changes the procedure itself, and that is less well known, to provide for absolute equality between Parliament and the Council throughout the procedure.
Something that was first thought of by yourself, Mr President, when you worked on the Martin reports.
I had the privilege of working with you in those days on that.
The first drafts were made of a possible future codecision procedure, always envisaging equality between Parliament and the Council.
<P>
Now we have that for most legislation.
That is very important.
It means that to be adopted European legislation now has to pass two hurdles, two tests as to the quality and the acceptability of such legislation.
It must be acceptable to a majority of the elected governments sitting in the Council and a majority of the directly elected MEPs in Parliament.
<P>
Parliament brings greater diversity to the examination of European legislation.
After all, in Parliament you have not just government ministers coming from their national capitals but also elected representatives from all the regions of all the Member States, from governing and opposition parties in their full diversity and plurality.
Imagine for one moment the European system without the European Parliament.
It would be totally dominated by diplomats, technocrats and bureaucrats, with ministers occasionally flying into Brussels to try and keep track of what is happening.
The fact that you have at the heart of the decision-taking system a body of full-time representatives in that full diversity that they represent, knocking on doors, making phone calls, asking awkward questions, probing, questioning, going through matters in detail and going back to their regions to talk about it with interest groups, trade unions, employers, consumer groups and local governments in their regions.
That is what brings full pluralism, diversity, openness and democracy to the European system.
Recognising that now by giving Parliament equal status with the Council in the codecision procedure, is a tremendous step forward for the European Union.
<P>
The changes which were made to the old procedure are threefold: the elimination of the so-called negative version of the third reading, whereby if there was no agreement in conciliation the Council could go ahead and adopt its own text and challenge Parliament to reject that by an absolute majority within six weeks.
That unbalanced the procedure in favour of the Council, even if it was rarely used - the Council only tried it once, we rejected it and the Council never tried it again.
Nonetheless, it was an unhealthy part of the procedure.
That goes with Amsterdam - full equality, therefore.
<P>
Simple rejection by Parliament when we are opposed to a text instead of a two-phased rejection is now possible under the Amsterdam Treaty - simpler, easier and puts Parliament in a stronger position.
<P>
Thirdly, the possibility for first-reading agreements.
These changes, as I said, put us in a position of equality but they also necessitated a revision of the 1993 agreement on the operation of the procedure.
I am very pleased - and I must congratulate Vice-Presidents Imbeni, Fontaine and Verde, Ken Collins, De Giovanni and the rapporteur whom I am replacing, on the text they have negotiated with the other institutions.
It is a good text: practical and flexible.
It goes beyond the 1993 text, which was limited to conciliation: it covers the whole codecision procedure in full.
Let us not forget that most codecisions result in agreement without needing the Conciliation Committee, so it is very important that has been brought into the text.
<P>
It recognises the practice that the negotiations do not take place 15 plus 15 but in a smaller group: the committee chair and rapporteur with the Council President and the Commission, then reporting back to the full Conciliation Committee.
It allows for first-reading agreements and it tries to draw the Council into a dialogue with us in the first reading, as we have recently done in our new Rules of Procedure as well to encourage that sort of dialogue at an early stage.
<P>
Finally, but above all, right the way through the text it recognises the equality of Parliament and the Council: the committee is to be chaired jointly; it will meet alternately on Council premises and on Parliament premises; texts have to be signed jointly by the two chairmen; letters have to be signed by the two chairmen; even the juridical linguistic review by the staff will now be jointly between Parliament and the Council.
All this recognises the equality of the two institutions and, as I said earlier, sets up this new era where we are two parts of a bicameral legislative authority at European level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 NAME="Frischenschlager">
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Corbett is not only due credit for having done such an excellent job in taking over from the original rapporteur; he has also described in great detail the practical developments and progress made on the codecision procedure, which forms the basis of this report.
I do not want to go into this now, though I would like to take the opportunity to point out one thing: however much we have progressed as a result of Amsterdam on the practical aspects of parliamentarianism, we must nevertheless not overlook the fact that important elements which constitute genuine parliamentary government are still absent in the European Union.
<P>
I am thinking of the third pillar, which is particularly important for human rights and the nation state, and on which there is admittedly a timetable due to the Treaty, but the political discussion about giving Parliament greater powers in the third pillar is in fact lacking.
Moreover, it should be mentioned that our Member States still consider it unreasonable to subject agricultural policy to a decision by Parliament, particularly in the area of the budget, and our power of codecision is still very much underdeveloped when it comes to amending the Treaty.
I just wanted to mention these points because they are important to me.
We want a strong European Union with a strong Commission and Parliament, since this is what guarantees a democratic European Union.
A powerful European Union can only be a democratic one, and we must therefore continue our efforts to give Parliament greater powers in the European Union and not give up on this.
This should also be mentioned briefly on this occasion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 NAME="Oreja">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think it is fortunate, as Mr Corbett pointed out earlier, that this sitting is being chaired by Mr Martin as he is a great expert on institutional issues.
All of us that have worked with him over the years have benefited from his experience and I personally have benefited from that wonderful report he presented during the parliamentary term that began in 1989. This is why I should like to pay homage to him now.
I should also like to congratulate Mr Manzella and Mr Corbett as well as the negotiators from the three institutions on their excellent work and on having been able to strike a balance between a dynamic application of the provisions and the obligation to fully respect the Treaty.
<P>
The working methods formally approved and adopted by the Commission seem particularly useful for several reasons.
First, they offer the institutions the opportunity to conclude any legislative codecision procedure at first reading, as provided for in the Treaty, provided they have reached an agreement, as is only logical.
It is precisely during this first stage that the institutions can fully exercise their powers.
<P>
Second, the Commission participates fully throughout the procedure and, in particular, can play an important role as mediator during the conciliation phase.
In my view, its responsibility in this area should be enhanced in the future.
<P>
And lastly, I believe that the key to success in developing the legislative procedure lies in close and flexible interinstitutional cooperation.
Moreover, with the application of the new Treaty, this agreement marks the end of what could be termed a test or trial period for the codecision procedure and Parliament's role as a co-legislator.
The success of the codecision procedure in the first years of its application was a clear signal to the last Intergovernmental Conference that it should be extended to cover almost all the main legislative activities.
<P>
Codecision has now become the general rule and Parliament's role as a co-legislator has been consolidated.
I think we should be pleased in this respect because democracy has, in fact, been strengthened as a result.
<P>
As regards the codecision procedure in the Amsterdam Treaty, we should firstly look at the possibility of concluding the legislative procedure at first reading in a positive light.
This should speed up legislative decision-making and, as a consequence, enable us to advance along the road mapped out by the institutions following the Single European Act.
In spite of the exceptions which still exist, the duration of the Union's legislative procedures is quite reasonable, generally speaking, particularly if we compare it to national procedures.
Sometimes the European Parliament works even faster.
<P>
Secondly, as regards conciliation, it is important to emphasise that the procedures have been streamlined.
Should Parliament and the Council fail to reach agreement, the draft lapses.
This confirms the European Parliament's responsibility and prevents totally futile disputes between the two institutions.
<P>
Furthermore, in practice we can see that the clause that provided the Council with a last attempt to overcome the European Parliament's opposition has never been seriously used.
In this way, we also wanted to put an end to the lack of confidence surrounding the European Parliament's decision-making abilities, which centred mainly on bureaucracy.
<P>
Finally, the end of small-scale conciliation is absolutely vital to the process of simplification.
Similarly, the possibility of inviting the European Parliament to hold a debate before finally rejecting a proposal is no longer essential given that the political debate among the political groups and the institutions can begin at first reading.
<P>
I nonetheless believe that a key element of the reform is the extension of the range of issues that come under the codecision procedure.
I do not know if such an extension is sufficient or incomplete, and I feel it may be necessary to go further in certain areas.
What is vital in my view is to accept the Commission's proposal that states that no legislative act can be adopted in the Community without the European Parliament's approval.
The new Treaty confirms that, in principle, the areas in which codecision is not the general rule are exceptions to the system.
<P>
So the future Parliament is faced with a legislative task that entails greater responsibility.
At the same time, the political debate is being stepped up and this should increase the public's confidence in the institutions, which is essential at this moment in time.
<P>
The Commission approved the text of the joint declaration in its meeting of 9 March and the Council approved it last week. It is now Parliament's turn to add its support so as to enable the three Presidents to confirm the agreement of their institutions in a joint declaration at a signing ceremony this week.
<P>
Therefore, on behalf of the Commission, I would ask you to agree to this declaration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
I must say that the symmetry of the committee chairman, the rapporteur and the secretariat all being involved ten years later in this debate has a certain appeal to me.
On behalf of the House I should like to place on record my thanks to you for the work you have done both as a Member of this House and as Commissioner.
It has been much appreciated.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
The sitting was closed at 11.44 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="Valdivielso de Cué">
Mr President, I would like to make a point regarding a letter I received from the President's office on 20 April in response to a request for information on the procedures followed in relation to the petition forwarded by the spokesman for the Areeta residents' united platform in the province of Álava. I was born there and still live there, which is why I am very interested in this matter.
This document was included in the European Parliament's list of documents received on 12 April and I was informed that it was to be officially announced at the beginning of Parliament's sitting on 3 May, that is, the day before yesterday.
<P>
I have checked the Minutes from Monday and Tuesday, but this document does not appear in either of them.
Some might say that this is not an important issue, but such matters are very sensitive in communities that are undergoing restructuring. The town involved has spent the last four years campaigning to have the area's sewage treatment plant moved two or three kilometres away in order to get rid of the bad smell.
It is a sensitive petition and I feel that the correct procedures should have been followed.
I would ask the President to kindly ensure that this reasonable and just petition is advanced as soon as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Valdivielso.
We shall check on all the details of the matter you have raised.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Trakatellis">
Mr President, I received a letter from your office which said that, as there was to be a debate on Kosovo yesterday afternoon, the questions to the Council that I and other colleagues had tabled for this afternoon would not be discussed.
<P>
Firstly, we did not manage to get speaking time from our group to present the question during yesterday's debate.-Secondly, as you will see from the Minutes, the issues we were asking about were not covered during yesterday's debate either by the Foreign Minister, Mr Fischer, or by Commissioner van den Broek.Our question concerned the environmental impact, and the impact on public health, of the bombardments taking place in Kosovo. I would be very grateful if my question and the questions of my colleagues, which are of course related, could be discussed this afternoon in the Council, as originally planned.
Thank you very much, Mr President. I hope my request will be granted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Mr Trakatellis, according to paragraph 2 of Annex II, Part A, a question shall be inadmissible if the agenda already provides for the subject to be discussed with the participation of the institution concerned, in this case the Council.
The issue of Kosovo is included as one of the subjects in the topical and urgent debate. As a result, we cannot accept any questions relating to Kosovo during this sitting, as has been the case in other sittings, for the simple reason that the Rules do not allow it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, as you know, Members of this Parliament have, over the years, been extremely critical of any kind of censorship, in particular cultural censorship.
They have also been very strongly supportive of gay rights.
I should like to know why an exhibition by a lesbian artist was banned from this Parliament.
This is a very crude form of censorship, there is no justification for it and I should like to know what part you played in banning this exhibition.
At the end of the 20th century to ban an exhibition by a gay artist is completely unacceptable and no Member of this Parliament should endorse that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Mrs McKenna, I already explained to you on Monday that this decision was taken by the Quaestors, who followed the recommendation of the services responsible.
The decision had nothing to do with whether or not the artist was a lesbian - I do not know if she is or not - but with the fact that it was felt that the content of the exhibition would have been offensive to some Members and some of the people passing through Parliament.
That is why we refused to host it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Morris">
Mr President, going back to the same question regarding the possible use of depleted uranium in Serbia and Kosovo, a specific question was asked to go on the agenda of Question Time, a specific question, not a general point as we had yesterday from the President-in-Office of the Council.
The question regarding the use of depleted uranium oxide in Kosovo or Serbia was not addressed.
Therefore, can you reassure us that we will be given the opportunity to receive some answer on this very vital question?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
You know perfectly well that these have to be written questions.
What I can do is have an oral question in this session because we have the subject of Kosovo on the agenda.
You could have asked the Members who spoke in the name of your group to raise the question.
If they do not deem it necessary to do so I cannot make any other arrangements.
<P>
The Minutes were approved
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Statement by the President of the European Parliament on the occasionof the conclusion of Parliament's fourth term of office
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, this week's part-session is the last in our term of office and my last as President of this House.
It is therefore time to give credit where it is due: to you, ladies and gentlemen, and, through you, to all the people of the European Union whom I have endeavoured to serve during the last two and a half years.
<P>
In the letter I sent to you in December 1996 asking for your vote, I spoke of five challenges the Union, and therefore its Parliament, would have to face: five major challenges to be met in two and a half years.
<P>
The first was the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Conference, which was underway at the time and from which Parliament emerged a winner, with greater powers and in a stronger position to serve the people of Europe better.
<P>
Secondly, we had to begin the negotiations on enlargement.
Parliament has promoted these negotiations energetically and is continuing to pay careful attention to them. We hope to ensure that all the applicant countries are included in the process, with the only differences arising from the rate at which each country adapts.
<P>
Our third aim was to launch the euro.
We participated actively and constructively in this process, ensuring that the transition to the new currency did not take place at the expense of consumers. We also wanted to guarantee that the new directives for the European Central Bank were given the necessary preparation and independence, and that this House, which represents all Europeans, received adequate information on monetary policy.
<P>
Fourthly, the financial perspectives and Agenda 2000 had to be reviewed. We contributed to this decisively through proposals and amendments aimed at maintaining and improving our common acquis .
In my view, the coordination of the work of the many committees involved and the cooperation with the Council and the Commission have been of the highest order.
<P>
Our final objective was to prepare our institution for the coming European elections. These elections are not a matter of electing the poor relative of the Community institutions but of electing a Parliament that the people see for the first time as a Parliament that has great power and the ability to exercise that power.
<P>
The balance between the European institutions has, in fact, changed to become what was intended in the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties: the appointment of the Commission and its political activities are no longer dependent on the confidence of the Council alone, they also depend - and this is crucial - on the confidence of Parliament.
This confidence is not something that can be earned once and for all. The Commission must maintain this confidence right through its term of office and it must answer to Parliament when necessary, providing - without any reservations or reluctance - all the information the House needs to enable it to carry out its supervisory role.
<P>
For years, there have been calls for more democratic European institutions.
We must not lose our nerve or seek a return to the previous balance between the institutions: that is of no use any longer.
Democracy means having to be the channel for the European public's growing demand for information, and to welcome or condemn what is being done in each case.
This, rather than anything else, is what Parliament has done.
<P>
In my letter of nomination, I also talked about internal reforms and the uniform Statute for Members.
Many reforms have been adopted in the last few years in relation to the way in which our House works:
<P>
we have improved our standards and financial organisation; -we have completely changed the top levels of Parliament's administration and introduced new systems of promotion and mobility at all levels; -we have increased the number of women in senior posts, although we have not yet reached the levels I would have liked; -we have regulated the transparency of administrative decisions, at the request of the Ombudsman; -we have brought together and clarified the existing rules so that, from now on, both Members and officials will be aware of their rights and obligations, according to clear rules that prevent arbitrary behaviour or favouritism.We also managed to find a satisfactory solution to the technical and financial problems surrounding our buildings in Brussels, thereby completing the efforts of my predecessors to provide Members with more functional and compact facilities.
I hope that the same can happen with the building in Strasbourg and that work on that can begin during the next term of office.
This recent stability in terms of real estate policy has allowed us to provide Members with new computer programmes and resources that make it easier for them to have direct contact with the people.
<P>
As regards the Statute for Members, I want to make it very clear that this is an ambition of Parliament and is in no way a discipline imposed by the Council, as some people claim. That is why I wanted to remind you that it was included in my letter.
It was Parliament that asked for the legal basis for the Statute to be included in the Treaty of Amsterdam, and this request was met.
It was also Parliament that presented the Council with a very comprehensive text, even before the Treaty entered into force, covering all the aspects of our situation as transparently as possible, even those aspects where it has always been our responsibility to take decisions.
<P>
We must welcome the fact that the Council has joined in with this movement - which is in my view unstoppable - and has made great efforts to reach a consensus among its members. But some parts of the text proposed need to be corrected in terms of their form or substance so as to ensure that fundamental principles are not violated.
I am thinking here of the principle of fiscal equality among all Members: temporary exceptions may be permitted but never permanent ones. I am also thinking of the respect for Members' pension rights in relation to the years they have worked both within and outside Parliament and of other points of detail that I do not need to go into now.
<P>
In any event, it is clear that we will continue to call for a uniform statute, we have gone ahead and adopted measures to control our allowances and travelling expenses and significantly reduce them without waiting for the Statute to be introduced.
Few institutions or bodies - national or otherwise - within this Union are capable of taking such decisions on their own initiative, as we have done.
<P>
The basic aim of all these reforms was, and is - and the people should be aware of this - to increase the efficiency and transparency of Parliament. We hope to pass on to the incoming Members a House that is ready to face up to its institutional role and the challenge presented by greater awareness on the part of our fellow citizens.
<P>
All in all, the results over the last two and a half years have been positive.
However, there have been both successes and failures along the way.
It would be remiss of me to overlook our most distressing failure: our inability to ensure that our repeated warnings about the approaching tragedy in Kosovo were heeded.
Now we are having to watch with horror as the black clouds of hatred we warned of rain down persecution, blood and violence.
We are having to watch how the absence of adequate instruments to implement peace there has left us powerless to prevent an act of genocide.
<P>
We can, however, throw ourselves into helping the victims.
This is what we are doing and we will have to continue our humanitarian work for a very long time.
But it is not enough.
We must now begin to pave the way for peace and to collaborate with the countries in the region to build a stable system of cooperation between them and promote development so that they can join our Union as soon as possible, a Union that is based on respect for differences and on the integration of its wealth and its cultural and human diversity.
<P>
It is a Union where there can be no room for exclusive attitudes or racism and xenophobia. These evils always have a tendency to sprout new shoots, and we can never let up in the fight against them because, given the slightest opportunity, they can so easily turn into violence, suffering and death.
Parliament has been - and will undoubtedly continue to be - one of the most active participants in this struggle.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, I began with a personal assessment and have ended up with a collective assessment of achievements that have come about as a result of your work, your determination and your sound judgement, as well as the active and loyal cooperation of all the staff of the Secretariat who provide the House with their services, the freelance workers, the parliamentary assistants and everyone else involved.
I would ask you to give them a round of applause to express our recognition of their work and our gratitude.
<P>
Applause
<P>
I think that we should give special recognition to our colleagues who are now moving on to new pastures in their political or personal lives.
This House owes a great deal to their dedication and intelligence.
They have helped build a more democratic Europe that is closer to the people and we should thank them for that.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, I have had the privilege of presiding over the work of this House in the firm belief that the best way of reducing the democratic deficit in the Union is by promoting this Parliament and raising awareness of it among the people of Europe.
There can be no real democracy where there is no real parliament, nor can there be a real parliament if it does not cause the executive a certain amount of anxiety and inconvenience.
<P>
As a result, there have been many moments of tension and many difficult negotiations throughout the last two and a half years.
I have tried to face these with determination and with total dedication and effort, and without flinching when it has been necessary to defend Parliament's decisions and actions.
On no occasion did I wonder whether or not other institutions would be pleased with the way I was defending Parliament; I simply looked on it as my duty.
When I was young, I was taught that that was the only way to act in politics with dignity, and I have tried not to forget that.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, I will finish as I began over two years ago, by thanking you for your support and also for your criticism.
I consider myself to be a democrat and I therefore take such criticism as it is meant: as help rather than an insult.
In my view, it is wise to listen to critics and ignore flatterers.
<P>
I have been moved by the passion of Europe, which has allowed the utopia of fifty years ago to become, for the most part, a reality.
We must continue to develop Europe with this same passion and increasing unity, prosperity, freedom and solidarity.
Thank you very much.
<P>
Loud applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
Mr President, I should like to thank you for this assessment which you have presented to Parliament.
I believe we can safely say, as you emphasised, that in the course of this term the House has developed into a genuine Parliament.
The major achievement of your presidency is undoubtedly the Treaty of Amsterdam.
It is thanks to your efforts, perseverance and credible convictions, coupled with the efforts of many Members, that Parliament won the right to genuine codecision in the legislative process.
Everyone in this House knows that this would never have been achieved without your efforts.
The European Parliament, our Parliament, has developed into a political institution whose voice within the European Union cannot be ignored and which has exercised its political and budgetary control with great authority and great independence.
I consider this to be an exceptionally important development which also constitutes a democratic counterbalance to the European Union's other two political institutions.
<P>
You carried through the parliamentary reforms which were initiated by your predecessor Klaus Hänsch, encountering many difficulties in the process.
In many ways this was not an easy task, especially as the Council did not always fully understand the importance and complexity of the reforms and because - I believe - it was not sufficiently aware, particularly in the most recent period, that we could not allow certain principles of a free Parliament to be violated.
The reforms have not actually been completed, which must have caused you some disappointment.
But much more importantly than all of this I believe that you have acted out of your genuine belief in Europe rather than any kind of pragmatic Realpolitik.
The European enterprise to bring peace, reconciliation and solidarity to the people of Europe is more than an ideal for you: it is your life's work.
I should also like to add a personal element here.
This conviction has been passed on from father to son.
I shall never forget the time when, in the early 1970s, as the young chairman of my party, I attended a meeting with your father in a cinema in Madrid. Few people were present and the circumstances were not easy, but under your father's leadership we were even then able to clearly communicate the ideals and conviction of our beliefs, of the Christian Democratic values and principles and above all our belief in a federal Europe.
You also embody these same principles.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, there have been two Presidents during this parliamentary term, neither of whom, I believe, have held government office, but who worked and grew in stature here in Parliament.
These two figures represented us with credibility and force before the Council.
As prime minister of my country I noticed how the Presidents of Parliament were sometimes only allowed to attend the European Council for a few minutes.
Fortunately this is no longer the case.
Both of you, Klaus Hänsch and José Maria Gil-Robles, represented and defended our Parliament in a very credible manner and achieved some outstanding results.
I should therefore like to thank you both personally.
We remain true to the ideal.
We will continue to work towards it, albeit in very different circumstances.
My sincere thanks for all you have achieved.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Green">
Mr President, on behalf of the Socialist Group, I should like to join with Mr Martens in paying tribute to your work, to your profile and to your commitment as President of this Parliament over the last two and a half years.
You have presided over one of the most extraordinary periods in the history of the European Union and the life of this Parliament, as you yourself said in your speech: going from the intergovernmental conference, through the introduction of the euro and indeed through the unexpected ratification process of the new Commission - that though we had not quite timetabled or expected it - has also been dealt with.
<P>
The last six months have been the most tumultuous six months of the life of this Parliament.
You, Mr President, have ensured that Parliament's role in this entire period has been clear and has been effective.
<P>
I want to pay, in just a few words, particular tribute to your sensitivity and your human qualities, if I may.
You have been accessible to Members of this Parliament.
You opened your doors in a new and innovative way to backbenchers, as President of the House. That has been very much welcomed and respected by Members here.
<P>
You have always been accessible, certainly to me, as leader of my group, when I have needed to talk or to see you, your door, or indeed your telephone, has always been accessible to me.
I thank you personally for that.
It has helped on occasion, as you know, to sort out or to ease certain issues and events through the life of this Parliament.
I thank you on behalf of my group for that.
<P>
You are leaving the presidency at the end of what I have already described as a tumultuous six months.
Parliament's prestige is enhanced at the end of this period.
It is a coincidence, but perhaps a fortunate one, that this very week when we are in the last week of the life of this House, we are also in the first week of the life of the Amsterdam Treaty.
It is fitting that it should be like that and we will notice the change to the rules that were made to bring in the Amsterdam Treaty.
Yesterday, for instance, during the vote, 39 reports were dealt with in one and a half hours which is probably something of a record.
<P>
I thank you, Mr President, for your role and the work you have done and would just like to join Mr Martens in saying that you are indeed a thoughtful, deeply committed and heartfelt European.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Cox">
Mr President, on behalf of the ELDR Group I too want to be associated with the words of thanks to you for your term of office.
It has been - indeed, even as we finish it - and remains an extraordinary and eventful term.
It represents a term when European democracy itself, when parliamentary democracy has reached a new level of maturity.
In some ways, as we enter, in terms of direct mandates, our twenty-first year we have now achieved this new age of maturity.
I believe, with your help, particularly when we have dealt with many of the sensitive political controversies of recent months and the Conference of Presidents, we have been able to hold together, with the stresses and strains and points of emphasis that groups may wish to bring to debates, a coherent parliamentary view.
That is in no small measure a result of your role in the Chair.
<P>
I am aware also, of the extent to which, in your many years of service in this House, you personally were committed to issues of institutional reform.
Therefore it must be an issue of great personal satisfaction that, having given so much of your particular attention to institutional matters, you should preside over this last session under the new Treaty of Amsterdam.
<P>
I can confirm in the several months that I have had the privilege of leading my own group the courtesy which you have shown to me - which I acknowledge here today - and also confirm the extraordinary openness with which you do your business.
You are a frank and decent man to deal with.
I deeply appreciate the openness you have shown to me when I have needed your advice and assistance.
May your future go well.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="Puerta">
Mr President, I am very pleased to be able to speak at the end of our term of office, which is beginning to seem like the end of the academic year, when students finish their university classes and pleasantly say goodbye to each other, remembering certain students and teachers, and there is a generally friendly atmosphere.
I am glad there are days like this when the heart rules.
<P>
I must admit that I completely forgot about this formal sitting. As a result, what I am saying to the House on a personal level has not gone through any political filter, and at the moment I have to say that I would vote for both you and Mr Hänsch again.
This does not always happen.
<P>
My group asked for a political assessment and, despite all the criticisms we have made, the work of the various political groups throughout this term of office has been very valuable.
<P>
I would like to stress three aspects of your work.
The first is your efficiency, which meant that you had to make yourself available at all times.
The second aspect is your complete independence from possible pressure from governments and parties, and this is vital.
You gave priority to your role as President of Parliament.
Undoubtedly, there were ups and downs, but I will not go into them here.
However, it is not easy to fulfill the institutional role to which you were elected with complete independence every day, Mr President, and I thank you for this.
I am a member of a medium-sized group - it is certainly not small, since 34 Members constitute a medium to large group - and I have to say that we have never noticed any discrimination.
You have treated all the groups in exactly the same way, according, of course, to our degree of support among the people.
<P>
As far as Parliament is concerned, I think it is fair to say that the dominant feature of our term of office has been that we have left behind our short trousers. Being a man I am using the example of short trousers, though of course I do not mean to be in any way sexist.
We are now an adult Parliament.
We no longer need to set out Parliament's responsibilities over and over again.
<P>
The public are aware that this is a Parliament of truth.
They are more aware of that than they are of the Treaty of Amsterdam, since, as a Spanish journalist said, the Treaty is colourless, odourless and bland.
The Treaty of Amsterdam does not attract much attention, although we are very much aware of it in Parliament because of our legislative work.
<P>
The fact that we have now become a mature and adult Parliament is very important for democracy, as democracy cannot work on the basis of good intentions or personal contributions alone, as we all know. It requires institutions that go further than human beings, that ensure that the work of Members who are not returning will be continued by other Members.
That is the greatest merit of the institutions of democracy.
<P>
Parliament has often been critical of and hard on the Commission.
Mr Santer is here today and I would like to express my own personal gratitude to him.
We must thank Mr Santer for accepting Parliament's role.
And here I am also thinking about the future, when one day the Council too - the omnipotent Council - will have to come before Parliament to face up to its political responsibilities and account for certain decisions.
When that happens, Parliament will have fully come of age to the benefit of the people of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, once again I will have to represent our group because I am the only coordinator here present.
And I am happy to do so. But let me say in advance that I come from Schleswig-Holstein and am also a Green, both of which make it difficult for me - unlike Mr Puerta who is so extremely good at it - to utter the usual words of praise.
It is not the custom where I come from, nor is it the custom in my party!
<P>
Mr President, I think I can assure you that we all have great respect for you.
We really have been most impressed by your composure, your ability to handle differences and opposed views, and I personally have learnt to value not just your sense of fairness but also your awareness of the growing tasks facing this House, for during this legislative term this House has grown at least a head taller.
And perhaps we have got over the problem of the short trousers - you know an incident occurred during the Conference of Presidents, at which I appeared in short trousers.
Everyone survived that with great composure too - after all, it was very hot!
<P>
Parliament really has gained in stature and weight now.
We have achieved that under your presidency, Mr Gil-Robles.
<P>
Heckling
<P>
I have not gained weight!
That is a misinterpretation.
<P>
Laughter
<P>
We have gained in political weight.
I do not think anyone here in the House can mistake that.
You, Mr President, have been active in your office and really stood up for the equal rights of all Members; you took active and successful steps to ensure that we now obtain a common European statute instead of a medley of national statutes.
One instead of 15, surely that is a qualitative step forward!
In that regard, and I do not think it is only my group that believes this, your term of office really was successful and you have done this Parliament great services.
Muchas gracias, Señor Presidente !
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Collins, Gerard">
Mr President, it is with the utmost pleasure, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, that I say a very sincere word of thanks to you for the very able leadership which you have given Parliament over the last two-and-a-half years.
I do not wish to repeat what has been said by colleagues who have already spoken but it has been a very great two-and-a-half years.
We will always remember Amsterdam; we will always remember the European single currency.
We will also recognise and appreciate in the future the stronger and greater links that you have established with the applicant countries, helping to foster democratic and parliamentary values there.
We will always remember you as a person who has shown very great leadership at all times and someone who was open, friendly and accessible to Members of Parliament.
That is important.
But above and beyond that it is recognised that you are a man of strong conviction with many natural human qualities; a person of great energy and determination and a person who has always been positive and even-handed; a person who is encouraging and indeed, a person who can be very firm and authoritative when that sort of authority needs to be shown, as we have witnessed on occasion.
<P>
As well, we will always remember you as a person with a good sense of humour.
That has helped on occasions, particularly at meetings of the Bureau when we were getting bogged down on sensitive matters and you never failed to see the wood for the trees.
You always got us out at the end of the day.
<P>
I thank you very sincerely for what you did in relation to bringing a greater degree of openness and transparency to the workings of this Parliament.
This was essential.
There was no way out of it; we had to face reality.
You certainly played your part, following on from the very fine work done by your predecessor Mr Hänsch in ensuring that we could, at this particular time, be in a position to face the electorate in a way that we could withstand the criticisms and cynicisms that were going to be directed at us.
<P>
I hope we can continue down that path despite the one or two problems that are there.
In this regard I would say a special word of thanks and appreciation to the German presidency for the great work they did on the Statute and bringing us to where we are today.
But for you, Mr President, for the presidency and Parliament helping, we would not be where we are.
We still have that last furlong to travel.
I hope that we get there.
<P>
I believe you had a very successful term of office, Mr President.
I thank you for it.
You put tremendous effort into it.
Parliament has responded to your leadership.
Parliament is undoubtedly becoming more and more, as a result of your leadership, meaningful to the ordinary citizens of the Member States.
That is something we must continue to achieve right up to the end.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Duhamel">
Mr President, I want to make a point of order that is a matter of form and will take only a moment.
I have not been a Member long enough to know what Rule allows the French Socialists to join in the praise for your work on behalf of us all.
But I felt I should do so, on the basis of whatever Rule Mr Fabre-Aubrespy would have found had he been here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Duhamel.
Thank you to everyone for these kind words, which I truly appreciate.
I shall continue to work in Parliament as a Member, and I can assure you that I shall continue to do so gladly with all of you, in the same spirit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
Mr President, a word of thanks is most certainly also due from your ever-devoted, critical and constructive opposition.
I too would like to say Gracias, Presidente on behalf of the Europe of Nations Group, and to acknowledge the fact that something happens to our Presidents when they are first elected.
They suddenly change from being political opponents into cooperative, humorous, agreeable and impartial colleagues, and we really do have a very good, cooperative community within the bodies that control Parliament.
And you are no exception in this respect.
You have continued the work of Mr Hänsch, and I would very much like to thank you for that.
<P>
I suppose that I can now be counted as one of the veterans of the House, and I can recall how at one time the political group chairmen would lead the way when it came to wasting expenses and being driven around in limousines with chauffeurs paid for by Parliament, while in the meantime travel refunds were being drawn from the Members' cash office for the same trips.
That was not so many years ago, but now we have the opportunity to take stock, as it were, and to thank you for having helped, together with Mr Hänsch, to clean up this kind of waste.
Since 1994, the President of Parliament has been at the forefront of the clean-up operation.
We must thank Mr Hänsch, because he set this work in motion, and Mr Gil-Robles, since he continued it.
But there was also a time when this House was a 'Mickey Mouse parliament' which acted most irresponsibly in financial matters.
Thirty-eight times we have tabled a motion proposing that travel expenses should be based on receipts submitted.
Hopefully this will now happen, but we must first get through an exercise this afternoon.
Now all of the group chairmen are leading the way in the battle against abuse, whereas previously they were the leading abusers.
So in this area at least, a change has taken place, but unfortunately the political group chairmen are still in the minority in this House.
We shall see evidence of that this afternoon.
Hopefully, the chairmen will get a majority behind them in the Parliament that emerges after 10 June, so that a clean-up can finally take place with regard to travel expenses, because we are certainly not there yet.
The proposal which has been adopted in the Bureau means that for my journey from Copenhagen to Strasbourg, I get EUR 450 more in travel expenses than I received before the cost-cutting measures were set in motion.
So there is still some way to go.
<P>
And so, Mr President, I would very much like to thank you for having also played a part in the campaign for greater openness within the EU.
Over the past five years, a consensus has been created within Parliament with a view to working towards greater openness.
And Parliament has decided by a large majority that all documents must be public unless we decide by a two thirds majority to prohibit access to them.
There is a consensus on this stance in Parliament, but unfortunately this is not yet the case within the Commission and the Council.
Under the Amsterdam Treaty, we are now contending with Commission proposals which do not mean a greater degree of openness, but perhaps if anything less openness.
<P>
Finally, I would like to thank Mr Santer and Mr Oreja, because after 20 years' work we have succeeded in getting the Commission's internal telephone directory officially issued, with a covering letter stating that within a few months everyone else will also be able to get hold of it, once the prototype has become a real telephone directory.
And so, after 45 years with a secret telephone directory, it will in a few months also be possible for the general public to track down the person in the Commission who, for example, is responsible for issuing telephone directories.
<P>
Thank you, Mr President, for your helpful collaboration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, you began with a personal account and then you went on to a collective overview. Please allow me to make a point of order.
I hope you will indulge me because of my age and also because I am coming to the end of my term of office and will not return.
<P>
In your collective overview which, in my view, was given in accordance with the Rules of Procedure, which you have always strictly abided by and respected, thereby setting us an example to follow, you should have included the fact that this Parliament is coming to the end of its term of office and that it was unable to prevent war taking place on European soil.
<P>
In the debate that took place yesterday Parliament was unable to put a stop to the many war crimes and crimes against humanity that are taking place. Instead, the resolutions, the debate and the reports by the Council and the Commission turned the debate into a whitewash of these crimes!
This is not a good precedent for the next Parliament.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
European Council of 3/4 June in Cologne - Institutional reform
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on:
<P>
the statements by the Council and the Commission on the preparation of the European Council meeting in Cologne on 3 and 4 June; -the oral questions to the Council (B4-0334/99) and the Commission (B4-0335/99) by Mr De Giovanni, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on the forthcoming institutional reform.
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too want to begin by thanking you, Mr President, on behalf of the Council.
It is, of course, a little difficult for the Council to thank the President of Parliament; for if it praises him too much, that is supposed to mean it has done something wrong, which is why I would like to say that you are the Council's partner, an uncomfortable partner, conciliating on real issues but quite unyielding when it comes to representing Parliament's rights.
But we have cooperated well and successfully, for which I give you very warm thanks.
Let me also say quite specifically on behalf of the Council that this Parliament took a qualitative leap forward during this term of office.
That is thanks to you, Mr President, and to your predecessor, my friend and political companion Klaus Hänsch.
<P>
After all, it is not just that Parliament has acquired more rights and is asserting them.
More importantly, it has become much more firmly anchored in European public opinion than any previous European Parliament, and that is the crucial difference.
This Parliament is seen as a genuine parliament, and from the Council's point of view I can only say that it is taken seriously as such, indeed more and more so.
Mr President, I wish you all the best, both personally and politically.
<P>
I now come to the matter in hand.
The phase of European development ahead of us is determined by the fact that once again we have to set a number of important signals.
In Berlin we wanted to secure the financial bases of the Union up to the year 2006 with Agenda 2000, with particular reference to the tasks relating to enlargement.
Here I want to give particular thanks to Parliament for its constructive approach to this question over the past weeks.
<P>
After Berlin sought to protect the Union's financial ability to act, the Cologne summit will now endeavour also to protect and strengthen its political ability to act in the long term.
The Treaty of Amsterdam entered into force a few days ago, a historic breakthrough.
The Treaty provides the European Union with a wider range of instruments but at the same time raises new questions to which we shall have to find answers in Cologne.
However, our activities are overshadowed by an issue that dominates all others, the conflict in Kosovo and the accompanying human tragedies.
That was debated here in depth yesterday afternoon, so I need not go into it again in detail.
I just want to establish again that against the background of developments in the Balkans, over the past weeks the European Union has demonstrated its unity and resolve, from the joint declaration by the Heads of State and Government of 24 March to the General Affairs Council's decision last week to toughen the sanctions.
<P>
The Council continues to maintain that on the threshold of the 21st century Europe cannot allow the numerically largest ethnic group in Kosovo to be collectively deprived of its rights and subjected to severe, systematic human rights violations.
We must ensure that hundreds of thousands of refugees and displaced persons can return to their homes.
No ruler should be able to claim that persecution and murder are a matter of internal policy.
That is the lesson of the 20th century.
We must also repeat that for us this Kosovo conflict is not just a matter of humanitarian objectives and humanitarian questions.
It is also a matter of the general European perspective of our policy of integration and of the long-term security and stability of Europe as a whole.
<P>
If Milosevic achieves his aim of a Kosovo no longer inhabited by Albanians, that will create a source of crisis in a region that is in any case not very stable and could lead to numerous new conflicts.
The aim of stabilising south-eastern Europe will become remote and there will be no prospect at all of integrating that part of Europe. Europe would remain incomplete.
That is why it was so important to look beyond the military objective and set out a political plan for pacifying the entire region.
<P>
The German Presidency of the Council took the initiative and made the necessary proposals.
The Heads of State and Government supported the German proposals at their meeting on 14 April in Brussels.
Last week the Council decided to begin preparing a stability pact for south-eastern Europe, an initiative that the entire international community now firmly welcomes.
Together with the international organisations and the neighbouring states concerned, we will hold the first working meeting on 27 May and will hold the first conference of foreign ministers on 11 June.
<P>
It is against this backdrop that the European Council will be meeting in Cologne on 3 and 4 June.
While the Council will have to take a serious look at current developments in Kosovo, it must not ignore the other central issues relating to its political ability to act.
<P>
Cologne will look at the following major issues: firstly, the European Employment Pact; secondly, the timetable for the forthcoming institutional reform; thirdly, the European charter of basic rights; fourthly, the common strategy towards Russia; and fifthly, the further development of the European security and defence policy.
<P>
Let me say a few words on these points.
Unemployment is the most urgent social problem of the present time.
Thanks to the Employment Pact, which we hope to adopt in Cologne, we want to give the people of Europe a sign that the European Union is looking at their concerns.
The pact is to become the expression of an active labour market policy that seeks more than before to avoid unemployment, in other words that looks above all at reducing youth and long-term unemployment and at ending the discrimination against women on the labour market.
We want to interlink the national and European level measures to promote employment more closely and link them to a coordinated monetary, financial and wages policy as also to economic structural changes.
<P>
A working paper submitted by the German Presidency was discussed for the first time and positively received at the informal ECOFIN Council in Dresden in mid-April.
The idea of also involving the social partners and the European Central Bank in the future dialogue on fiscal, wages and monetary policy found strong support.
<P>
Another important item on the Cologne agenda will be institutional reforms.
In accordance with the request of the Vienna European Council, it will have to be decided in Cologne how and when to tackle the institutional questions not resolved by the Amsterdam Treaty and that have to be resolved prior to enlargement.
The Presidency of the Council will shortly be submitting concrete proposals on the subject with a view to Cologne.
At present we are still at the stage of intensive consultations with the Member States.
Insofar as Treaty changes are required to resolve these questions, they will have to be agreed in the framework of a conference of Member State government representatives.
Pursuant to the provisions of the Treaty, a formal hearing of the European Parliament will also be necessary before such a conference is convened.
<P>
But initially Cologne will be concerned only with the further procedural steps, with laying down the procedures, the timetable and the agenda for the intergovernmental conference.
The Amsterdam protocol on the institutions with a view to enlargement of the European Union, together with the declarations on the subject, provide the framework for the intergovernmental conference, but we might indeed have to go further.
The developments early this year that led to the resignation of the Commission and to a discussion about reforms certainly give reason to examine the relations between the European Parliament, the Council and the European Commission in this regard.
I think it is most important to build on the democratic control that the House has exercised so effectively here.
We must fully restore confidence in the institutions; we must not have a repeat of the institutional crisis we have just gone through.
<P>
In the view of the presidency, it is essential to further strengthen the European Parliament.
The more able the European Union becomes to act, the more its actions and decisions must have democratic legitimacy.
That also means, for instance, that in all cases where the Council adopts legislative acts by majority vote - and we want to make majority decisions the rule - the European Parliament must have equal codecision powers on an equal footing.
<P>
The careful preparation of the intergovernmental conference will be vital to its successful conclusion.
Here we will be able to draw on the comprehensive preliminary work that was carried out during the intergovernmental conference on the Amsterdam Treaty.
Given this time-frame, the intergovernmental conference could be convened as early as the beginning of next year and brought to a conclusion in the course of the year 2000.
That is an ambitious aim, but I believe that a short and clearly circumscribed intergovernmental conference could send out an important signal about the European Union's ability to enlarge and about the effectiveness of its institutions.
<P>
Irrespective of whether the institutional questions left over from Amsterdam are resolved, we will have to look in the medium or long term at the question of the constitution of Europe.
The German Foreign Minister, Mr Fischler, pointed out here in Parliament that following Maastricht and Amsterdam the question of a European constitution is now more serious than it once was.
We know that the Amsterdam Treaty only entered into force a few days ago and we must begin by gathering experience from it, because even now the comprehensive debate on the future development and form of the European Union is showing more and more clearly that in addition to the European Parliament the national parliaments and the broadest possible spectrum of social groups must also be involved.
<P>
The German proposal to draw up a European charter of basic rights also belongs in this context.
Our initial aim for Cologne is to be asked to draw up a charter of this kind.
At the given moment we will have to consider whether and how this kind of European charter of basic rights can take precedence over the European treaties.
We need to tell the people of Europe that their basic rights apply in the same way at European level as at national level.
The first talks on this charter of basic rights have now begun and I am sure that we will manage to agree on the further procedure in Cologne.
<P>
Formulating this kind of charter of basic rights would be a typical task for Members of Parliament - they are best able to do so and it is what they must do - and we will certainly take account of that aspect in our proposal concerning the practical form that charter of basic rights should assume.
<P>
The Amsterdam Treaty has markedly enhanced the Union's ability to act in foreign policy.
Even if the Union is already demonstrating great solidarity now - as in the Kosovo crisis -we still need to develop the common foreign and security policy further.
If ever there was a need for a common European foreign and security policy, then it must be now, and it is time for all doubting Thomases to hold their tongue.
We need it; Europe can no longer accept the fact that it has become an economic world power and yet does not even have the political power to resolve its regional problems.
<P>
One way of achieving this is through the CFSP High Representative to be appointed in Cologne, as provided by the Amsterdam Treaty.
Another is the common strategy towards Russia that we want to adopt for the first time in Cologne and which we will be able to implement on the basis of majority decisions.
This common strategy towards Russia is a pilot project; it will very much determine the face of future common strategies.
Work has already begun on further common strategies, but they will not yet be ready for decision-taking by the time of Cologne.
<P>
We also need a European security and defence policy if we are to implement a common foreign and security policy.
Here it is clear that collective defence in Europe will remain the task of NATO; but the European Union must also develop its own military crisis-management capability for cases where the European Union or WEU believes there is a need for action but in which our North American partners do not wish to or cannot be involved.
Tony Blair's initiative in Pörtschach and the Franco-British meeting in St Malo gave fresh impetus to this question.
<P>
After the creation of the single market and economic and monetary union, the formulation of a European security and defence identity has now become central to the European integration process.
Without it that process would remain incomplete.
During our dual presidency of the EU and WEU, we are resolutely endeavouring to make use of this new dynamic.
We intend to draw up a report on means of further developing the European security and defence identity by the time of the Cologne European Council.
That report will form the basis of a new European Council decision in Cologne that concretely defines the further procedure in this important policy area.
Among others it will cover the question of possibly integrating the WEU in the EU, pursuant to Article 17 of the Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
As you can see, even without the additional challenges facing the Union as a result of the crisis in Kosovo and the resignation of the Commission, there is a wide range of tasks to be dealt with in Cologne.
As you know, however, situations of crisis can also release forces and produce their own dynamism; the German Presidency remains confident that it can match up to its responsibility to develop the European Union into a pan-European and at the same time global community that has the ability to act.
It hopes that here it can continue to count on the support of the European Parliament.
Thank you for your attention.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="Santer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Cologne European Council comes at a decisive moment for the European Union.
The entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty on 1 May marks a further step forward.
A newly elected Parliament will take up office in a few weeks' time. There is also to be a new Commission.
Later this morning you will be voting on the appointment of the future President, Romano Prodi.
The new President will need the support of the European Parliament to make a success of his term of office.
All these factors need to be capitalised on to give European integration a fresh boost.
Lessons need to be drawn from the past with a view to preparing for the future.
Now is the time to prepare the ground for the institutional changes ahead.
<P>
Before discussing this and replying to Mr De Giovanni, I would first like to briefly run through the other issues due to come up for discussion at the Cologne European Council in a month's time.
<P>
The situation in Kosovo will of course be discussed.
The European Union will obviously be called upon to play a major role here. First, there will be the reconstruction phase where the Commission will have a coordinating role alongside the World Bank, for which it will need adequate support and resources.
The Union will then have to devote itself to defining a genuine strategy for stability in the Balkans, and Cologne will be an important step along the way.
<P>
Cologne is also where the first common strategy under the Amsterdam Treaty is due to be adopted. As you are aware, this common strategy concerns Russia.
This is no easy task, if only because the Council and the Commission do not, in the end, have all that much time available, but we are making good progress.
This is all the more significant in the context of the Kosovo crisis.
It is more important than ever to maintain and develop constructive and close political, economic and commercial dialogue with Russia.
The Kosovo crisis is also a stark reminder of the need for a proper European defence identity.
Following the progress made at the Atlantic Alliance summit in Washington, the European Union will need to adopt a solid stance.
<P>
As regards the economy, the prospects for growth in 1999 are not looking quite so good. But there are some positive signs.
Consumer confidence, which has remained high, is gradually taking a hold on businesses, whilst the drop in the European Central Bank's key interest rates is also grounds for optimism.
It is nonetheless clear that alongside the requisite budget consolidation, Europe will also need to speed up the structural reforms of the employment, goods, services and capital markets. It was with this in mind that the Commission recently adopted its recommendation on the broad economic policy guidelines.
This comprises specific country-by-country recommendations, including economic reform issues. I hope these recommendations will be discussed openly and thoroughly this year.
The coordination of economic policies should not just be left on the drawing board.
<P>
The Commission will also be reporting on the development of the trans-European networks and hopes that the European Investment Bank will make its contribution, as it did at the Amsterdam European Council in 1997.
<P>
Moreover, the European Council will discuss a report by the Ministers of Finance on the structure of international finance. The crises in Asia and Russia highlighted the need for reforms in this area.
Progress was made during the discussions at the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund in Washington just over a week ago. However, I would have liked to have seen Europe genuinely speaking with a single voice.
<P>
Let us consider, for example, debt relief for the poorest nations: why should each of the European G7 countries have to come up with its own relief plan?
Why should we leave it to our partners, in particular the Americans, to organise the Community's external representation for the euro, rather than acting on the decision taken at the Vienna European Council?
<P>
Cologne is set to be interesting from the employment point of view.
The Luxembourg process has taken root and is starting to produce results in terms of national employment policies that are more systematic, integrated and far-reaching. At the instigation of the German Presidency, we will be taking a further step towards the European Employment Pact which I called for back in January 1996.
To help the discussions, the Commission will be sending the European Council a communication on the best way of integrating the objective of higher employment into the formulation and implementation of Community policies and measures.
<P>
Cologne will also see the forthcoming institutional reform begin to take shape.
It is not, of course, for me to speculate what submissions Romano Prodi and the new Commission will want to make to prepare the ground for institutional reform, or what they will wish the reform to involve.
I would, however, remind you that even when it was putting Agenda 2000 together, the Commission called for the questions first raised at Amsterdam to be settled and said that a more far-reaching reform should follow.
<P>
Any delay in strengthening the institutions and the way they operate can only jeopardise the actual enlargement of the Union. The new reform must prepare the institutions for enlargement.
But it must also supply solutions to certain problems in the working of the institutions which have come to light in the last few months. So the institutions need overhauling, that much is certain.
But the overhaul must focus on the priorities, rather than just drawing up shopping lists, knowing, as we do, that we must not project the alarming image of Europe as a building site which is never completed. There is no doubt that the job needs to be done in stages; but we certainly cannot have a state of never-ending construction work.
<P>
I would add that there is no point in dreaming up new reforms if the political will to implement what already exists is lacking.
We must build on what we have already achieved. I am thinking, for instance, of the justice and home affairs section of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
And I would call on the public and the institutions to take a close look at how intentions are converted into procedures and working methods.
<P>
Looking beyond the institutional reforms which must be put in place, I would like to plead for a consistent approach.
We cannot call for new European programmes, condemn the use of technical assistance offices and refuse to provide more human resources all at the same time.
We cannot make high-sounding declarations about the principle of subsidiarity on the one hand, and constantly demand fresh initiatives from the Commission on the other.
We cannot expect the Commission to act as a strong political driving force and at the same time give the impression of wanting to turn it into a mere secretariat for the Council or the European Parliament.
<P>
Applause from certain quarters
<P>
Some issues have already been identified: weighting the votes in the Council and reducing the number of Members of the Commission.
But we will have to go further than that if we are to carry out a thorough reform of the Treaty provisions that govern the composition of the institutions and the way they work.
Whatever happens, such a reform must include bringing in qualified majority voting as standard practice, as the President-in-Office just mentioned.
Thought also needs to be given to extending the codecision procedure.
<P>
Should we go further?
Certainly.
For example, the thorny matter of collective responsibility and the individual accountability of Commissioners needs to be addressed.
The principle that policy decisions are taken collectively is, it seems to me, as vital now as it ever was, for the very legitimacy of the Commission and the European institutional system. But that should not lead to a failure of individual accountability in certain situations where decisions are not and cannot be taken collectively.
This contradiction - which is only apparent - will be resolved by the judicious exercise of the new powers enjoyed by the President of the Commission.
<P>
The Cologne European Council will therefore have to take stands on some major issues.
Be it employment, Kosovo, enlargement or the working of the institutions, the European Union must learn to speak with one voice: one voice for the 15 Member States and one voice for the institutions, too.
This does not mean that they must always follow the same line. It means that they must work together, that a constructive approach must be taken to enhancing and strengthening the Europe of the future in the eyes of our fellow citizens and to giving it the place it deserves in the international arena.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="De Giovanni">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, first, as chairman of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, starting my last public speech, I too would like to thank the President of our Parliament very much for the work we have been able to do together. I sincerely want to pay tribute to him for that, and now I will go straight on to the issue of institutional reform.
<P>
Institutional reform is on the table again and that is greatly to the credit of the German Presidency, I have to say, right from the President-in-Office's speech to Parliament in January.
<P>
Two fundamental issues have been raised: the need to hold an intergovernmental conference very early in the year 2000, with a method and timetable to be discussed, and the issue of the constitution, which Mr Verheugen has taken up, as I was delighted to discover this morning.
Why do I consider it important, indeed essential, for institutional negotiations to reopen?
Because there is a need for more Europe, there is a need for Europe to have a role in the world. The historical and political context demonstrates that, and without reformed institutions and a strong political will the need for Europe cannot actually be met.
And then, as the President-in-Office said this morning, the institutional balances are out of kilter and need to be redefined.
The Council did well to appoint Romano Prodi as President so quickly, but we all know - and now President Santer has said so - there is still the problem of defining a stronger political role for the Commission.
In short, there are institutional balances to be restored.
<P>
The agenda for the intergovernmental conference must certainly cover 'the Amsterdam triangle' as it is called in Community jargon.
It must certainly include qualified majority voting, which is not in fact a technical issue, as we all know, but a highly political issue calling into question the sovereignty of the nation states. And the agenda must certainly touch on the composition of the Commission and the way the votes are weighted.
We know all that.
But we need something else as well, because, as people have highlighted, the background to the intergovernmental conference in 2000 will be complex and difficult, so foreign policy and, above all, the area of freedom, security and justice are issues which must be raised again.
<P>
In our resolution we raise the problem of the method.
We do not introduce fundamental points like Article N, naturally, but we say that changes need to be made at the preparatory stage, because the intergovernmental method has proved inadequate, which is why we need to prepare differently if the intergovernmental conference is to be a success.
We are pressing, as we did before in the November 1997 Méndez de Vigo and Tsatsos resolution, for a Commission document to underpin interinstitutional coordination involving civil society and national and regional parliaments.
To put it as briefly as I can, what we need is a highly authoritative document on the intergovernmental conference table, because preparing for the intergovernmental conference in a different way may guarantee safer results in terms of reform.
That is the point!
We do not include Article N in the discussion, we do not discuss the need for final unanimity, but we do say we must prepare for this conference in a different way.
Why?
Because Europe demands it, because Europe needs strong institutions!
<P>
Let me make one final reference to the issue of the constitution.
I am, I repeat, delighted that the President-in-Office returned to this subject this morning.
We know the problem today is not to write a constitution, as we have done in the past and as we have demonstrated that we are capable of doing. We know there are two problems today.
First, there is the need to simplify the principles in the Treaty to present clear rules, principles and values to the public, so that they know what we mean when we talk about Europe and Europe's constitution. Secondly, there is the area of freedom, security and justice, where flesh and blood people live and move.
Those people need legal and jurisdictional guarantees. That is why we talk about including fundamental rights in the Treaty - Mr Verheugen reminded us of that again this morning - and I believe we can build a political Europe and a people's Europe at the same time on that basis because the two either move forward together or do not move forward at all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr De Giovanni.
Given that this is your last speech, I would like to thank you, on behalf of Parliament, for all the work you have done and for your dedication and determination.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="Gollnisch">
Mr President, I would like thank you for letting me speak and ask if these statements by the Council and the Commission are to be followed by motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37 of our Rules of Procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="President">
Yes indeed, and they will be put to the vote tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="Gollnisch">
So they shall be put to the vote tomorrow.
This means that a special decision was taken as an exception to Rule 37(4), which states that they should normally be put to the vote on the same day.
<P>
I just wanted to verify that point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="President">
Yes, that has been decided.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, before I begin, I would like to add my voice to the statements already made by some of my colleagues, on behalf of the political groups, congratulating you on your work.
In this case, because of the personal relationship I have had with the President for a long time, I would also like to congratulate him on having carried out his work so successfully.
<P>
I also wanted to take this opportunity to say goodbye to Mr Santer as President of the Commission, as I believe that this is the last debate he is going to attend.
I would congratulate him, too, on his work while in office.
<P>
The German Presidency has done a great deal of work since it took over.
Contrary to expectations it managed to conclude the Agenda 2000 package, which seemed extremely difficult, and now it has just informed us about the fairly ambitious programme for the Cologne European Council, on which I must congratulate it.
In his speech, the President of the Commission set out five very clear points that represent genuine requirements of the Union.
<P>
The first requirement is the European Employment Pact.
The German Presidency is right to give priority to this proposal as, in spite of other issues, there is no doubt that the main everyday problem for Europeans is employment.
The only question mark is whether or not the European Union will have sufficient resources in the years ahead to implement an employment policy of its own given that the financial perspective for the 2000-2006 period has been reduced and practically all Community policies have had to face cutbacks.
<P>
We are naturally very pleased with the specific reference to an intergovernmental conference in the year 2000, which my colleague Mr De Giovanni has already mentioned.
The question of institutional reform was clearly left unresolved at Amsterdam. If it is not resolved, enlargement will be impossible.
Allowing all the countries applying for membership of the Union to join under the present conditions would require significant changes to the structure of the EU.
This intergovernmental conference will face a difficult task, but I would still like to thank the German Presidency for having addressed the issue so clearly.
<P>
Of course, the European Union's Achilles' heel is still the common foreign and security policy, and the German Presidency has stressed the need to develop Article 17 of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The first step towards creating a European defence identity - which is proving essential - is to incorporate the Western European Union into the EU system.
Another important element is the appointment of a prominent figure to be responsible for implementing this policy, in other words the CFSP High Representative.
We must point out that, from Parliament's point of view, it would have been better to leave this in the hands of the Commission, rather than trying to turn the Commission into a form of secretariat for the Council, as President Santer mentioned.
<P>
Finally, I would like to end by congratulating the German Presidency - and Mr Verheugen in particular - on the excellent work that has been done since the beginning of the year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Brok">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, we have been given an introduction here to the difficult questions facing the Cologne summit, which have to be resolved in our common interest.
I am particularly grateful for the fact that so much emphasis has been put on the concept of the common foreign, security and defence policy, for Kosovo shows us how necessary it is that we achieve results in terms both of prevention and of the EU's ability to act.
If the German Presidency intends to make appropriate use of its dual presidency of the European Union and of the WEU, that is to be welcomed.
But it is also important to use the potential offered by the Treaty of Amsterdam in regard to implementing the common foreign and security policy for the genuine good of the Community and not to continue following the old methods.
<P>
Belatedly, although not too late, Russia is also being brought into the process again.
A common Russia strategy, which would establish a balance on this continent and help bring about solutions, is welcome.
But here we must not forget that in view of the many disputes we are currently facing in, for example, the field of trade, we should also improve relations with the United States.
Mr Verheugen, I would therefore cordially request you to ensure that the US-EU summit in Bonn on 19 June is also used to strengthen the partnership and cooperation between the USA and Europe, to improve its shape and also to involve the parliaments in the appropriate way.
<P>
Given the problems of unemployment, the Employment Pact is a most important subject.
However, we will be looking very carefully at the outcome of the summit and examine the distribution of tasks in terms of the role of the national states in employment policy and the European role, so as to avoid giving the mistaken impression that Europe is responsible in the wrong area.
We will also make sure we do not have a repeat at European level of the Lafontaine policy mix between monetary, financial and wage policy.
I do not know what you meant by saying the European Central Bank should be involved here like the social partners and I hope I misunderstood you.
The European Central Bank must play an entirely independent role and cannot be a component of a strategy put together by the governments.
<P>
Let me make a final remark.
Mr Méndez de Vigo will have more to say about this.
The institutional reform must be achieved in cooperation with the European Parliament, which must certainly have a better role to play at the intergovernmental conference than it did in Amsterdam, where it remained rather on the sidelines.
I hope the German Presidency of the Council will manage to ensure that.
We must make the European Union capable of enlargement by extending majority decision-making.
If in a second stage constitutional and other such questions are discussed, then it must be made clear that this will not delay the enlargement timetable.
But we should keep these questions on the agenda and I can only congratulate you on the idea that we should formulate a strategy for drawing up a charter of basic rights.
If that could be achieved in cooperation with the European Parliament and the national parliaments, it would do a great deal for the people and for the identity of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="Spaak">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, during the 1998 congress in The Hague, the European Movement expressed its regret that the Union now seems condemned to progress in a vast conceptual vacuum and appears to lack any political perspective at a time when it is setting off on the two greatest adventures of its history: the launch of the single currency and enlargement.
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Since 1998, another major challenge has appeared: the war in Kosovo.
We must oppose all attacks on people's rights at the borders of Europe.
But I must remind you that it is not the European idea that is at issue here.
In his speech yesterday morning, Mr Prodi explained to us the fundamental values on which that is based.
What is at issue, and what should be looked at seriously by the Cologne Council, is the fact that the political leaders of certain Member States have, for far too long now, tended to hang on to the outdated remains of their national sovereignty, particularly in terms of foreign policy.
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The tragedy in Kosovo, which has been on the cards for almost ten years, is a terrible illustration of this.
As a result, the European Parliament's compromise text stresses the importance of appointing the High Representative for the CFSP in Cologne. It also stresses that this High Representative must be supported by the policy planning and early warning unit and must also have the ability, through his or her personality, to play an important role.
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The Liberal Group is particularly pleased that emphasis has been placed on the urgent need to strengthen institutional relations with the Western European Union, which should eventually have its own defence and prevention force.
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I would now like to congratulate the chairman, Mr De Giovanni, on the text of his resolution, which, I am convinced, will serve as a reference point for the next Parliament. I must say that it was a great privilege to work with him.
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To my mind, there are two key issues that should be considered in Cologne. The first of these is the timetable.
The timetable approved by the Committee on Institutional Affairs puts emphasis on the conclusion of the work of the next IGC before the first enlargement.
Only a requirement such as this will allow the applicant countries to embark on a political project, in full knowledge of the facts, where the acquis communautaire cannot be called into question.
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The second issue is the method.
The method used to prepare the ground for the Treaty of Amsterdam proved to have various weaknesses.
We will therefore have to change our method. In other words, we will have to give the Commission the role it deserves, that of the driving force behind the next reform.
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Mr Prodi's ambition in relation to the political authority he plans to exercise, along with his colleagues and the European Parliament, augurs well for the future; he is a committed European and we wish him every success. We would also like to thank Mr Santer for the work he has done during his time in office.
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<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cardona">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, I have very carefully read and listened to the motion for a resolution tabled by Mr De Giovanni. I must take this opportunity to congratulate and thank him for his impartiality, conscientiousness and fairmindedness both in general and also as chairman of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, in which I have participated in recent years.
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I wish to highlight a few of the most important aspects of this motion and the corresponding discussions. These relate to the idea which has prevailed and which still prevails of a European constitution, the establishment of or the desire to establish a specific constituent authority at Community level and a certain and perhaps corrective interpretation of the former Article N of the Treaty.
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I have read, listened and reflected.
I always taught my pupils that the law and politics must respond to the concerns of the people.
At this point in time, it is apparent to me that the people of the European Union are concerned about war, misery, social exclusion, unemployment, drug trafficking and crime in general.
As far as I have heard, they are not calling for a European constitution, unless they believe that a European constitution will solve everyone's problems.
However, I do not share this belief.
For me, a European constitution enshrining rights and duties which are not in themselves feasible and cannot be complied with is of little help with the problems currently on the minds of the people of Europe.
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I also have my doubts about the European specific constituent authority.
I too believe that the constituent authority comes from the people but I also believe and would argue at the moment that we do not have a European people.
This does not mean, however, that this will not develop in the future and perhaps this should develop. Our borders are therefore not currently defined.
So I consider, or I at least share the belief, that institutional reforms must be implemented.
However, these must not assume the form of a constant building site. In particular, they must take account of the people, respond to their concerns and always include them.
To conclude, if the people are not included, the building may collapse at any moment.
And what I do not want to see, because I am a firm believer in Europe, is Europe collapsing due to any of these pitfalls.
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<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="Puerta">
Madam President, in the light of the structural unemployment in Europe, it is easy to understand the importance of the Cologne European Council.
To govern is to make choices, and there are various choices available.
My group feels that, given the choices set out in, for instance, the manifesto of the British and Spanish Prime Ministers, Tony Blair and José María Aznar, advocating further deregulation and greater flexibility, we would opt instead for a Franco-Italian proposal, based on relaunching active employment policies and public investment.
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The Cologne European Council must be more than just a combination of good intentions, a catalogue of unconnected actions or the sum of the national employment policies.
The public would not accept this, nor would it be credible.
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As far as the institutional timetable is concerned, we fully agree that institutional reform is now vital and that we must define the stages leading up to an intergovernmental conference. We can also tell the Council that Parliament has worked for many years to establish a genuine inventory of fundamental rights.
We are in the best position to help.
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As regards the war in Yugoslavia, in the Balkans, and particularly in Kosovo, we must state loudly and clearly that we totally condemn the activities of the Milosevic regime in Kosovo and that it is time to consider a political solution.
In Yugoslavia or in Serbia, there are a million innocent people, a million good people who can help us stop the bombing, the widespread destruction of infrastructure and the collateral damage, and help us find a political solution in the wake of the punishment meted out not only to the Milosevic regime, but also to the population in general.
The German Presidency should be particularly sensitive to this.
I would never blame the German people for the sins of the regime it had to suffer under Hitler's dictatorship, and I feel that the same should apply in Yugoslavia.
In this way, I hope that we can overcome the problems we face and come to an agreement on achieving peace for Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Madam President, Presidents, ladies and gentlemen, as we have learned here in Parliament, in the alternation of presidencies what is important is not so much which country is in office or the abilities of its leading representatives as the underlying dynamic of the state of the Union.
And I really must say at this solemn moment that there is great cause for concern here.
Every person of sense now knows that the neo-liberal counter-reform has failed.
And yet we go on here as though nothing had happened and at best we keep setting up new corporative consultation mechanisms.
That is a good thing, but it is not the change of course that we need and without that change of course we will not satisfy the expectations of the peoples of Europe, who after all have been voting out the representatives of the neo-liberal counter-reform since 1995/96.
Why do we not have the courage, the strength and the imagination to bring about this change of course?
In this context, as a member of the Greens I particularly regret the resignation of my old friend Oskar Lafontaine.
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Instead of seeing a clear change of course in European policy in year one of the euro and a move towards a new type of economic development that can also resolve the problem of mass unemployment, we are given a European employment pact that falls far short of what the Santer initiative once contained, that falls far short of what the original proposals that came from the presidency's German Ministry of Finance contained.
It is not a question of whether the bottle is half full or half empty; it is a question of whether there will be a bottle at all or whether all that is fashioned in Cologne is a paper bottle that cannot be filled with anything.
This is a fight we will now have to engage in, to ensure that we have a bottle that we can then fill.
So I ask colleagues for their solidarity and openly welcome the European marches against mass unemployment which will bring these demands into the open again in Cologne; I hope that will help jolt the summit into action.
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<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="Dell'Alba">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Cologne summit has some very important work to do and also has the important task of appointing the High Representative for the CFSP.
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From that perspective, it is unfortunate - and I am continuing to stress this point - that it is still being held on the dates it was originally planned for.
If we had not had the crisis that shook the Commission, we would have found ourselves in a situation where, in spite of Parliament's requests, the European Council would have taken all the decisions without giving any consideration to the views of the voters who will be going to the polls between 10 and 13 June.
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I have two requests to put to the Council.
In relation to our foreign policy and our policy towards the United Nations, the European Union must make progress and speak out on two key issues: the ratification of the Statute of the permanent Criminal Court and the moratorium on capital executions, which was requested through a vote by the United Nations Commission in Geneva.
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If the Union and the presidency were to highlight these two issues in the European Council to indicate the path to be followed and the choice to be made by the Union in the months ahead, we would be making a firm commitment in two areas which, in my view, will be critical as the third millennium approaches.
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As far as institutional reform is concerned, I must thank Biagio De Giovanni, the chairman of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, for his proposals. These are to be taken into account during the next parliamentary term and by the current and future presidency.
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The Group of the European Radical Alliance added an amendment which I hope will be voted through so as to add an official and formal note to the European Parliament's right to ratify any proposal for reform.
I hope that this amendment will be accepted during the vote, which is to be held shortly.
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<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="Berthu">
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office, the European Union is currently facing an institutional crisis following the collective resignation of the Commission. Yet the lesson the Council seems to want to draw from all this is that we should actually move towards more federalism, more of a superstate and more power for the Commission.
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The Heads of State and Government have already sought to appoint a more political President of the Commission, who will be responsible for exploiting all the federalist opportunities provided by the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The President-designate, Mr Romano Prodi, seems to have decided, in fact, to make this a very political role.
In his speech yesterday, he spoke of his political responsibility, of the Commissioners' ability to provide political direction, of his role of political guidance and of the need for him to take an important political initiative.
In short, the nominated President of the Commission is already tending to take the position of a head of state, with an extra dose of ultra-liberal and free trade attitudes that should worry even the traditional Liberals.
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The European Parliament will naturally encourage this development of government, initially through the resolution it is undoubtedly about to adopt, which hopes to make the Commission the driving force behind institutional reforms.
However, before taking any decisions, it would be wiser to wait for the second report by the Committee of Experts, which will no doubt give us an interesting insight into the workings of the institutions. The European Parliament has cautiously postponed the publication of this report until after the European elections.
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The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations feels that the real lesson to be learned from all this is that we should restore the primacy of national democracies with a view to bringing Europe closer to the people.
In this respect, the draft Statute for Members of the European Parliament - which the Council has just approved - sends out a signal in the wrong direction.
In our view, it is totally unacceptable for the Members of this House to be paid out of the Community budget rather than by their own countries.
An elected representative must be paid by those he represents and no one else. Otherwise, we would be institutionalising a dangerous mechanism against the people; it would represent - if I may say so, Madam President - an insidious coup d'état .
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<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Muscardini">
Madam President, the Treaty of Amsterdam, which can be dubbed the treaty of lost opportunity, only came into force a few days ago and already it needs to have chapters on the institutional issues not resolved in Amsterdam incorporated into it to complete it.
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The European Council in Cologne must remedy these omissions and do the groundwork for the reform of the Commission, the extension of qualified majority voting and the reweighting of the votes within the Council.
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We are against any solution which reduces the powers of the Commission.
It must retain its independence and its power to make proposals.
These are both indispensable conditions for the fulfilment of its autonomous functions, in the general interest of the European Union.
The exercise of these prerogatives prevents the Commission from becoming a sort of Council secretariat and hence dwindling to a level inappropriate to the political role it ought to play.
It would also be improper and inappropriate for that role to dwindle into a bureaucratic one, without taking account of the need to extend the principle of subsidiarity whenever the opportunity arises.
But even if all these concerns were addressed in preparation for the summit of Heads of State and Government, that would not represent an adequate response to the gravity of the Kosovo crisis and would not make up for the notable absence of Europe from that particular trouble spot in the current affairs of the continent.
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If it wants to be equal to the role it ought to be playing, Europe has got to make up its mind finally to endow itself with a means of determining its own common foreign and security policy. A signal along those lines must go out from Cologne.
A decision must be taken to make a start on political union. Our determination to take that route must be made clear, and it must be made clear that the European Union is going to be an active player in international relations and in dealing with crises, because it intends to equip itself with all the instruments it needs to guarantee its sovereignty and autonomy.
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We need a new Treaty now and, more importantly, we need to give the starting signal and define the exact ground to be covered, and these signals must come from Cologne, especially as, with the unfortunate experience of Kosovo, public opinion is proving more sensitive than before to the role Europe can play.
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Another unresolved issue, which affects the Union's ability to take action, is the lack of a common economic policy.
The single market is prey to tensions and repercussions.
A strong employment policy linked to development requires a coherent economic policy.
There must be a definite signal marking the start of an irreversible stage which will lead to the solution the Union needs to operate effectively.
The real economy of our countries needs new impetus to expand.
That impetus will not come from stock exchange indicators. At worst, they disproportionately swell the financial bubble which dominates real economies like an incubus.
Here too Cologne must give the signal in order to define an economic policy which finally sets out the objectives to be achieved, such as a different relationship with the global market organisation, the relaunch of quality as the hallmark of the European product, and lower taxes on businesses.
We must ensure that Amsterdam is remembered as an opportunity regained rather than lost.
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<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Görlach">
Madam President, Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, the statement by the President-in-Office of the Council about Cologne is, as always with presidencies of the Council - and especially the German Presidency - very ambitious.
But it is not enough just to wish the presidency of the Council and the Council as a whole good luck in achieving the objectives of the Cologne summit.
Parliament should also make it clear that we have our own ideas on the central subjects of that summit and that we want the intended measures to produce a successful outcome.
So I want to concentrate on two points.
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The first is the institutional reforms and the preparations for the intergovernmental conference.
It will not surprise you, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, if I do not take the same line as my colleague Mr Elmar Brok.
If the institutions are to cooperate successfully but also if we are to secure what is eventually achieved in the intergovernmental conference for the long term and implement it successfully, then the European Parliament must be involved more closely in this conference than it was in past conferences - and I am deliberately not using the term intergovernmental conference, however much that has become common parlance - in this conference of the Member States.
I know the will is there.
And it is not just a matter of form either, nor of our wish for recognition.
It is simply a question of normal procedures among democratic institutions of which more account should be taken in future.
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When you discuss the institutional reforms do remember that it is not just a question of figures but also of ensuring that the matter of Parliament's lack of power in relation to cooperation with the Council and the Commission - here I am addressing the inadequate codecision procedures - really is included in the agenda of this conference.
In addressing this, I am also addressing in very concrete terms an area which greatly concerns this Parliament, the Council and the Commission and which continues to account for nearly half the entire EU budget.
I am referring specifically to the common agricultural policy.
We cannot accept that Parliament has no codecision right in this sector that accounts for half the budget.
We really must fill this democratic gap.
That is a most important point!
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My second point concerns the common foreign and security policy.
We urgently need it.
It is clear to see and everybody will understand that Parliament is not very happy with the creation of a Mr or Mrs CFSP because this does not really fit into the kind of structures we have all built up in our Member States.
But I do not want to quarrel about that now.
I would like to see progress made in the common foreign and security policy.
And that is also the view of my group.
So we say: 'OK, do it, and do it quickly!'
For sadly there is a bitter lesson we have had to learn: one cause of all that has already happened in the Balkans and that is also happening now lies in the absence of a really effective EU common foreign and security policy.
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Applause
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<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="Méndez de Vigo">
Mr President-in-Office, in the speech by President Santer - which was an excellent speech and I would like to congratulate him on it - and the speeches by my other colleagues in the House, you will find a rare unanimity.
Parliament is in favour of institutional reform and supports the presidency in its efforts to that end.
We need it for the simple reason that it was not tackled in Amsterdam.
We also need it because Parliament is in favour of enlargement and we do not want enlargement to be delayed any further because the institutions have not been reformed.
We are therefore going to support all the initiatives the German Presidency takes to implement this reform as soon as possible.
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My colleague Mr Brok has already spoken about the content and I would like to speak about the method.
I believe that, through the resolution last November which Mr De Giovanni mentioned, Parliament proposed something that is as original as it is simple: the idea of using the Community method, the method we are accustomed to, in order to prepare the reform of the institutions.
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We certainly do not wish to take the place of the governments, who will have to take the decisions.
What we want to do is to help make things easier for them. So, with the approval in due course of President Santer - for which I would like to pay tribute to him - we believe that one good possibility would be for the European Commission to prepare a draft, to discuss it with Parliament and to also include the national parliaments in the discussion - for a discussion is all it would be.
Eventually, we would be able to present the governments with a proposal, which we hope would receive as much support as possible.
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In my view, if the Commission is in agreement, if the European Parliament is in agreement and if the national parliaments have been involved, this document would have tremendous legitimacy, and the governments and any President-in-Office would be able to accept a discussion paper.
I would point out once again that you would have the last word.
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I think that this is a good possibility, Mr President-in-Office, and I would ask you to give it your consideration in Cologne.
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<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Elmalan">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, you told us, Mr Santer, that Cologne would be interesting from an employment point of view and that we would be another step closer to the European Employment Pact.
This is what we hope to see. When it was announced, our group welcomed the new approach set out in Luxembourg and in Pörtschach.
These summits were actually marked by a change of tone and confirmed that our priority was the fight against unemployment.
However, our hopes were not to be fulfilled with the subsequent Vienna summit.
We had to content ourselves with statements; no specific measures were adopted.
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We hope that the Cologne summit will come up to the expectations of the people of Europe and will result in specific actions.
In light of the preparatory work, we are hopeful, since certain governments are proposing active employment policies and measures to relaunch investment.
However, the statements by Mr Prodi and other governments, which advocate competition, liberalisation, and the flexibility of work, are also casting a shadow over this hope.
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As the Secretary-General of the ESC recently pointed out, we must do away with a certain dogmatism and use stability to foster growth and employment.
Our group is putting forward innovative proposals to support this growth and generate employment.
We propose to replace the stability pact with a genuine growth pact. Its main priorities would be to relaunch profitable investment, to continue lowering interest rates selectively to promote employment, to work to reduce working hours without cutting wages, to put a stop to the process of liberalisation and deregulation, and to establish a minimum wage in every Member State.
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The German Presidency has rightly emphasised fiscal policy and its interaction with our economic and budget policies.
In this area too, we must be innovative by combating fiscal dumping and taxing financial transactions.
The social movement is becoming increasingly important at European level, and together with this movement we will work to ensure that these proposals contribute to a social and democratic Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Mr President, NATO's war against Yugoslavia has failed in its declared objective.
It has not managed to put an end to the crimes against the people of Kosovo but instead has dramatically worsened their plight.
But this failed NATO objective, the humanitarian crisis, was the only justification for violating international law and conducting this war of aggression.
No end justifies the means.
That realisation is one of the foundations of our civilisation.
The ultima ratio has proved irrational.
All those who do not now restore the rule of law and end this war bear responsibility for the terrible violence, for the civilian victims, for the destruction of the basic means of livelihood and civilian infrastructure in Serbia, for the use of forbidden weapons.
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<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, I want to address two points: employment policy and the announced intergovernmental conference.
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Let me first take this opportunity to thank both the President-in-Office of the Council and the President of the Commission for constantly bringing up and resolutely following up the question of employment policy, even though the Santer plan was not followed up to the same extent and came to nought in the Council.
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So I welcome the proposal once again to conclude a European employment pact in Cologne, especially after the preliminary discussions during the Austrian Presidency.
For I think it would be very dangerous if the grave crises of today - such as Kosovo - led us to forget that we have a social crisis within the European Union.
The President-in-Office of the Council rightly said that unemployment is the most urgent social problem of our time.
I was painfully aware that the candidate for the presidency of the EU Commission failed to address this problem in equally clear and unambiguous terms yesterday.
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Let me also emphasise strongly that we need closer cooperation between the European countries and between monetary, financial and wage policy.
It is an illusion to think - and I do not think anyone would pretend it was possible - that national or regional employment policy could be replaced by an EU-wide policy.
What approach the European Central Bank takes, what kind of interest-rate and monetary policy it formulates, what kind of infrastructure is built up, whether it would not finally be possible to strengthen the European infrastructure in particular, all these things have a major impact on competitiveness, on unemployment and on the employment situation in Europe.
In my view we must not desist here but must make greater efforts to coordinate these policies.
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Let me make a brief comment on the second point, the intergovernmental conference.
I want to say quite openly and plainly that I am sceptical about the notion that the European Union can be reformed simply by holding a kind of intergovernmental conference.
What the President-in-Office of the Council said here today in fact backs up this scepticism, for he said that far more comprehensive reforms will have to be undertaken.
But can the representatives of governments whose powers, means of action and influence are being taken away and transferred to the European level put together a genuine reform package by themselves?
After all Amsterdam did not just fail because of the ill will of individuals, it also failed for structural reasons, because of the way these matters are approached.
I believe we need a parliamentary constituent assembly in which this Parliament and the national parliaments cooperate at least as equal partners, as a complement to the intergovernmental conference, otherwise we will end up with another failed intergovernmental conference.
I think it is essential also to involve this Parliament more closely in this process.
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<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, holding a European summit so soon before the European elections brings both dangers and opportunities.
The biggest danger is that once again not one important decision will be taken and the people of Europe will turn away in despair from the spectacle of European cooperation within Europe, which is all too frequently hesitant and deficient.
The biggest opportunity is that a number of issues will be resolved and confidence in European cooperation restored and strengthened.
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A breakthrough would be both useful and necessary on three points.
The common defence and foreign policy has always been a non-starter, partly because a number of Member States have sought to retain primacy.
The drama in Kosovo and the moral and military response to it have brought the Union together for the first time in this field.
It would bring us nothing but credit if we could sustain this unity and defend this European cooperation on the basis of values such as democracy and human and minority rights.
I would strongly urge the Council to do this.
It is also just as urgent to get rid of the destructive unanimity requirement in the Council.
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A second step forward should be to establish better standards and values for a social Europe.
We want a Europe which not only embraces economic and monetary cooperation but which is also concerned about unemployment, combating poverty and caring for the disabled and the elderly. In short, a Europe that seeks not only to earn money but also to be of service to a society in which humane standards carry weight.
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A third breakthrough is necessary in the field of the internal democracy and transparency of the European institutions.
After the European summit in Cologne we must choose once and for all to have a Europe in which the European Parliament exercises control over all legislation and the entire budget and in which the European Commission is required to guarantee maximum transparency and management which is free from fraud.
The loopholes in the Treaty of Amsterdam in this field must be closed as soon as possible.
That is the kind of Europe we want, Mr President, a safe, social and democratic Europe which is free from fraud.
If the Cologne summit can provide an impetus for this then as far as I am concerned it will have been a success.
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<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Mr President, Mr President-designate of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, employment issues have been accorded the importance they deserve in European Union policy, and at the Cologne summit Germany will be making efforts to push through the European employment agreement.
In this regard the Amsterdam Treaty articles concerning employment can be said to be gaining substance.
In pushing through the European strategy on employment it is vital to get to grips with measures that can provide added value for national efforts.
It is especially important to ensure that Europe is competitive while still complying with agreements that have been made.
The superiority of European labour market practice must be made plainly visible through our ability to maintain growth and levels of employment by means of a system of open dialogue among the labour market organisations.
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The people of Europe have been concerned, alarmed and puzzled that another war seems to be developing in the Balkans, where small children and the elderly are the ones who are suffering.
The Cologne summit must succeed in creating a credible single foreign and security policy.
High level representation alone is not enough; adequate tools for action are needed.
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The European Union must take more overall responsibility in order to ensure that the situation in the Balkans grows more stable and allows different groups to coexist.
We must also immediately embark on an active programme of cooperation with Russia, just as Germany, as holder of the presidency, has done to its credit.
The present and future holders of the presidency must create an agenda for advancing the strategy on Russia.
One important ingredient in this programme is the approval and practical application of the recommended measures to be taken within the context of the northern dimension.
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<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Tindemans">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to devote my last speech in the European Parliament to the common foreign and security policy.
EU enlargement and the events in central Europe oblige us to make a realistic assessment of the possibilities that such a policy offers.
There is clearly movement within the European Union: Pörtschach, Saint Malo, Bremen, Berlin.
Cologne could be a historic summit.
Both Chancellor Schröder and Minister Verheugen have made optimistic statements.
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There is a new awareness of the principles which must form the basis of global policy.
Europe must now determine its future responsibilities.
The principle of equal partnership with the United States must be better defined.
Strategies must be agreed.
There is a lot that can be decided now, without having to amend the Treaties.
A different timetable must be adopted than the one proposed by the Committee on Institutional Affairs.
The Western European Union should be fully integrated into the European Union in 2002, for example.
In the meantime, someone can already be appointed to be responsible for the common foreign and security policy, together with his or her deputy.
The Defence Ministers must be granted a responsible role, and we must determine the proper role for the Political Committee.
We must make it easier to increase cooperation in the field of foreign policy and security.
Self-planning and analysis can start immediately.
In the light of Pörtschach it is very important to determine exactly what the 'European pillar' involves.
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It is now time to give real substance to the European defence identity. My hope is that the European Council will understand what is now at stake and make Cologne a success.
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<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schäfer">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, it is a very good thing that the German Presidency is to give the starting signal for another intergovernmental conference at the EU summit in Cologne.
We must make progress with the democratisation of the EU.
The core elements of this are as follows: majority voting as the rule, a new weighting of votes in the Council, structural changes in the Commission and the European Parliament's right of assent on all treaty changes.
The distinction between compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure could also be done away with.
But if our end is to be democratisation, it must also be the means.
That is why we have to apply the Community method to future reforms, which means that the Commission must make the first proposals; it is essential, I repeat essential, for the European Parliament to be distinctly more involved!
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With the Amsterdam Treaty, Agenda 2000 and the euro, the EU has acquired a new quality; with the military operations in Kosovo its face has changed.
All this also brings us up against the question of the constitution we now have and the constitution that we need.
It is clear that however much we appreciate the presidents and grandees who presided over the beginning of European integration and the Community treaties, today we must give priority to basic rights and declare confidently that we, the citizens of Europe, are building a Europe of freedom, peace and solidarity.
Human dignity, justice and the social welfare state are both the means and the end.
The Biagio De Giovanni resolution sets out a guideline for the years to come.
The German Government deserves our support for its commitment.
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<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bianco">
Mr President, the next few years will determine the new strategy, the new shape of the map of Europe.
<P>
The question is whether we succeed in having a policy which includes the whole continent or whether, through possibly unenlightened choices, we stir up old divisions, create new clashes and open up a kind of trench across the heart of Europe.
<P>
Mr President, the Balkan question must be dealt with, that is certain.
But to do that it is vital to get Russia firmly involved in the right way.
Finally that has been understood.
We ourselves cannot settle these sorts of separation issues.
The response must be loud and clear.
I support the programme you have presented: the European constitution and the new Charter that it must include.
The problems of unemployment must be confronted with renewed vigour.
<P>
I think it is very important that we have spoken with one voice. It is vital for European policy that we speak with one voice.
But we also need to speak with the right voice.
And the right voice cannot be just the voice of war, it must be a diplomatic voice and a political voice too, capable of finding the space to resolve the problems.
<P>
We are not at war with Serbia, but we are trying to make Serbia respect fundamental human rights, and we need to be able to take advantage of every means available to us.
There is an opening at the moment.
The European Union must keep talking and move things even further forward.
<P>
Mr President, I support the proposal for peace and stability.
Its aims coincide with our established position.
I want to thank President Santer because, if Parliament is to grow strong, it must also be responsible.
Too much presumption can sometimes lead to conflicts which cause imbalances.
That is why we need a European constitution and that is why we need a high level response, which should come from the Cologne summit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Barros Moura">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my feeling is that, in addition to enlargement, the European Union is now needs to give specific political responses to a series of problems on which our future really depends. These responses must be understood by the people or, to put it another way, they must be 'user-friendly' for the men and women of Europe.
At the top of the list is the need for effective coordination of economic policies and for an employment pact. This requires the political will to use the opportunities created by the euro for this purpose.
We need a security and justice policy which meets the expectations and requirements to defend the freedoms of the people.
In particular, in view of the Balkan issue, we clearly need, but are genuinely lacking, a common foreign and security policy.
<P>
I agree with those who have said that if the political will existed, the current Treaties could allow us to achieve a great deal.
The political will to use the current Treaties in this way has been lacking and I fear that when the 'cold war' ends, there are some who may lose the desire for political integration which is at the root of our achievements and of peace in Europe.
<P>
I congratulate the German Presidency of the Council for its decision to hold the Intergovernmental Conference although it may find that this should take place using a Community procedure.
The institutional reforms or the desire to limit the IGC to the three reforms from Amsterdam, including the weighting of votes and the number of Commissioners, are restrictive.
I fear that this is hiding the idea of a return to an intergovernmental Europe with a 'governing body' consisting of the large Member States. I am saying this straight out as I feel that this is the essence of many speeches.
I believe that if we can bring to the fore the idea of a constitutional and citizenship pact, this must primarily imply a reinforced political will for political integration to overcome nationalism.
Note that I am saying this at a time when war has reignited in the Balkans. Our way forward must be through integration because, as Mitterrand said here in this House, 'nationalism is war'.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your contributions to this debate, which I regard as on the whole giving strong encouragement to the German Presidency's programme for the Cologne summit which I have presented.
Let me very briefly give my position on four questions that many Members have raised here.
<P>
The first is the question of the basic perspective, the basic strategy.
Quite contrary to some fears expressed here, it would seem that Europe is coming closer together in face of the crisis and that the processes of integration are acquiring a new dynamic, both internally and in terms of the area covered, quite simply because, as I have said once before in this Parliament, the European alternatives are becoming clearer than ever before in this time of crisis, namely the alternative represented by this Parliament, which is an integrated Europe, a Europe based on peace, stability and prosperity, and on the other side the old picture of Europe that we see in the Balkan wars: nationalism resulting in war, expulsion and misery.
When we look at these alternatives we see that there is a very distinct trend throughout Europe towards European integration.
We must exploit and strengthen that trend.
Let me give a small example. The fact that last week the Council called on the Commission urgently to submit a proposal to conclude association negotiations with Albania and Macedonia means that we are actually 10 to 20 years ahead of time, for under normal circumstances this could not have been envisaged until at least ten years' hence.
It is the political circumstances that are forcing us to rethink our strategy and really make use of the dynamic that has now been created.
<P>
The second question concerns the Employment Pact.
Let me say that in terms of substance it is not an employment policy action plan.
That remains within the remit of the responsible national leaders.
The Federal Republic of Germany, for instance, has already submitted its national plan and is trying to implement it; it has earmarked DM 2 billion for a special plan to create 100 000 training places and jobs for unemployed young people.
That is what we expect of the Member States.
What the European Employment Pact can achieve is a commitment to ends and also to means, and above all macro-economic coordination.
We should not underestimate the importance of that coordination, for it did not work adequately in the past.
In this context, the macro-economic dialogue between the institutions on the one hand and with the social partners and the European Central Bank on the other represents a new and important element.
It is not a question of in any way diminishing the Central Bank's independence, but it obviously must be included in any dialogue on macro-economic coordination.
After all, it has very crucial instruments available to it and surely it is better for people to sit down together and talk to each other - and the European Central Bank can evaluate the real expectations in Europe - than to engage in public quarrels and battles that cannot produce any practical results.
<P>
My second point in this connection is that of course we must optimise the financial resources and instruments available to the European Union and in particular to the Commission with a view to creating employment.
As I understood President Santer, the report he intends to submit is aimed at achieving precisely that objective.
<P>
My third point concerns the institutional reforms.
I would not like to see any misunderstanding arise here.
What the German Presidency is envisaging is the beginning of a medium and long-term process whose end we cannot even foresee, just as we cannot even foresee its scale.
Embedded within this process are concrete steps that we can see clearly and that we should take as soon as possible, rather than embarking on some huge reform project that encompasses everything, an intergovernmental conference on a scale never seen before; that would lead to the kind of failure never seen before either.
The rational course is to decide step by step what can be decided, while always remembering that we are engaged in a more broadly-based process that will basically be a process of social discussion, a process of parliamentary discussion.
<P>
The first two steps are, therefore, as I have said: firstly, to tackle the famous leftovers of Amsterdam and examine the question whether our present situation as regards relations between the institutions will force us to make further changes to the Treaty, and secondly, the charter of basic rights, which, as I said, will have to be formulated by the parliaments.
<P>
My last point goes back to what Mr Tindemans and others have said.
I am extremely grateful to Mr Tindemans for speaking so plainly, for his urgent appeal that we finally do what we should have done long ago.
The German Presidency has undertaken to do a great deal here.
It wants Europe to do more than just speak, but to act, to take a real leap forward now, to actually use the instruments at our disposal, for in the end they are all there.
They are all there in the Amsterdam Treaty.
They are all there in the various institutions concerned with security in Europe.
We just have to put it all together and fashion it into a meaningful whole.
It is a question of political will and nothing else.
It is not a question of not having the necessary means or legal bases.
It is simply a question of political will.
I cannot foresee today whether the Heads of State and Government will muster this strong political will to take the necessary step and open up the new dimension of integration that we urgently need. But I promise you that we will make every effort to achieve this.
And all in all I am optimistic, because the situation we now find ourselves in truly does force us to draw the conclusions that should have been drawn a long time ago.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="President">
I have received eight motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) and Rule 40(5) of the Rules of Procedure on the European Council meeting in Cologne and the oral questions on institutional reform.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Agenda 2000
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Colom i Naval">
Mr President, I would like to make a point of order.
Parliament's services have informed us that this joint debate on Agenda 2000 will begin with statements by the Council and the Commission, which will then be followed first by the speeches by the groups rather than the speeches by the rapporteurs.
I would like to know if this is correct, and if so, can you tell me on what basis this decision was taken, as it is a totally abnormal procedure?
In fact, in my 14 years in this House, I cannot remember a time when the groups spoke before the rapporteurs on any budget report.
I would like to know if my information is correct and what procedure we are going to follow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="President">
The decision on this matter was taken at the Conference of Presidents and it is binding on us so we will proceed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Berlin Agenda 2000 package, which accounts for a volume of more than EUR 680 billion, probably contains the most comprehensive reform of EU policies in the history of the Union.
It includes a solid financial framework up to the year 2006, substantial reforms to the common agricultural policy and to structural policy, as well as changes to the own resources decision that take greater account of the Member States' financial situation and help distribute the burden more fairly.
<P>
Agenda 2000 was concluded in accordance with the timetable fixed by the European Council in Cardiff, which demonstrated that the European Union is able to act under increasingly difficult conditions.
This prompt agreement paves the way to enlargement eastward.
It is also an important precondition for the seamless continuation of structural policy as from 1 January 2000.
Let me briefly repeat the key elements of the reform.
On the common agricultural policy: the Berlin package contains the widest-reaching reform ever of the common agricultural policy.
The gradual approximation of support prices to the world market price level, flanked by direct payments, prepares our undertakings for the further liberalisation of world trade that is taking place now.
Among the key elements of the reform package are the further development of the rural development policy, including improved support for environmentally compatible farming methods.
<P>
On structural policy: the distinct tightening up of structural policy through internal concentration, which means fewer objectives and fewer Community initiatives, and through concentrating the range of supports will increase efficiency.
The structural resources will be concentrated on the genuinely needy regions, especially by giving clear priority to Objective 1 regions and by continuing the Cohesion Fund.
An additional priority will be to combat unemployment.
To that end, the Objective 3 funds, intended to support employment measures, will be increased substantially.
For the years 2000 to 2006, a total of EUR 24 billion will be made available.
<P>
On the financing system: the European Council has recognised that there are still budgetary imbalances in the financing of the Union and has provided for changes to the existing own resources system in order to take more account of the Member States' ability to pay and thus make their contributions fairer.
In the Council's view, it is particularly important that in spite of these comprehensive reforms it proved possible to stabilise expenditure.
The ceiling of EU expenditure remains 1.27 % of the European Union's gross national product, and we will continue to remain below this ceiling.
<P>
In the year 2006, expenditure will account for 1.13 % of the EU's gross national product.
That is equivalent to the 1999 value.
The resources allocated to enlargement up to the year 2006 are included in this figure, in this 1.13 %.
The expenditure for the EU of 15 members is to be EUR 686 billion up to 2006 and will be kept constant in real terms, which means that for the first time we will now also be achieving at European level what the Member States have already achieved, namely strict budgetary discipline, strict expenditure discipline and keeping budgetary increases in line with economic requirements.
<P>
In real terms, agricultural expenditure will be restricted to an average of EUR 40.5 billion a year for market measures plus about EUR 13 billion for rural development over the period 2000 to 2006.
That means that agricultural expenditure will be stabilised at the 1999 level.
The Agenda 2000 reform package represents a major step towards enlargement.
In agricultural policy, by placing more emphasis on the world market and the environment, we will now be giving agriculture in the accession countries a good basis for agricultural policy planning.
That will make it easier for them to integrate in the European single market.
<P>
A sum of about EUR 22 billion is being made available for pre-accession aid, together with a further EUR 58 billion for enlargement-related expenditure, which means that over the financing period a total of EUR 80 billion is available for enlargement, although it can only be spent if enlargement actually takes place.
These resources cannot be transferred for other purposes.
<P>
As regards financial precautions, as I have already pointed out we are still below the own resources ceiling, which means we have a quite considerable financial margin of 0.14 % of the EU gross national product to provide for unforeseen expenditure.
What is crucial now is for the political decisions to be implemented rapidly by the adoption of the necessary legal acts, i.e. the prompt conclusion of the legislative procedure.
<P>
I want to stress that we are all responsible for the success of this historic reform package.
It is now up to the European Parliament to decide on Agenda 2000.
Let me point out that the conciliation procedure agreed between the Austrian Presidency and Parliament has proved to be extremely successful and useful.
Parliament was kept fully informed on a regular basis of the progress of work on Agenda 2000 and the Commission and the Council took account of Parliament's views in their deliberations.
There was not just an exchange of ideas but a genuine process of mutual influence, which I felt was extremely important and which also went a very long way to meet Parliament's view of itself as an institution with a genuine say.
<P>
So I am confident that the European Parliament will take a responsible approach in exercising its rights to participate in the decisions on the regulations on the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund.
Let me point out again that the presidency has made considerable efforts to achieve a result that pleases and satisfies all parties concerned, not just Parliament but the Member States too.
If you will allow me, I will make a personal comment now - after all this is probably also my last appearance in the European Parliament. It is interesting to note that an agenda such as Agenda 2000 is of course also a fight between the Member States for the money available for distribution.
Indeed a very large sum of money has to be distributed.
That is why it was not really surprising to find that prior to the Cologne summit there was criticism from various sides about the presidency's strategy, about the way the negotiations were conducted; but since the Berlin summit, the situation has been assessed quite differently.
<P>
All the European capitals have voiced unanimous praise and agreement, which shows that we have achieved what we wanted to achieve.
Nobody won in Berlin, and nobody lost either.
Everyone made their contribution to the compromise and everyone gained something from this compromise.
In that respect I think I am entitled to say that it was a successful summit.
<P>
I would like to thank all the committee members, the chairmen of the committees involved and Parliament's rapporteurs for their good cooperation over the past months.
I do not think I need at this point give a detailed list of the many amendments proposed by Parliament and which the Council accepted.
You know all that.
<P>
But I would like to mention the most recent example of the Council's willingness to compromise with Parliament, namely the fact that the URBAN Community initiative is now being continued thanks to Parliament's pressure.
We also managed to find a compromise solution on the question of the financing of URBAN.
Moreover, the Council stated that it was prepared to negotiate at a given time about making up to EUR 200 million available from the budget's flexibility reserve to offset the cost of innovative measures.
That is a good example of the successful cooperation between the Council and Parliament.
<P>
I also had a strong personal commitment to the success of this agenda, which is why I appeal to you to approve the package before you.
I believe that both sides, the Council and Parliament, have done as much as they could.
There are still some wishes that have not been satisfied, nobody disputes that.
We, I, the presidency, still have some wishes that were not satisfied.
But we must never forget that this kind of negotiated result simply represents what 15 Member States can do together at a given time, and given that we were 15, we could do no more.
We could perhaps have achieved more had we been 14, or 13 or 12, but not with 15 Member States.
What we have before us is what the 15 can achieve at this point in time.
Parliament can do more, I know that, but when you take your decision please do not forget that the Member States are firmly convinced that they have reached the limits of what they can do.
<P>
It is also necessary in the interest of the people, of the citizens of Europe, for the necessary regulations to be adopted and for there to be no delays.
Many European regions have to adjust to the changes resulting from Agenda 2000.
We should not ask them to accept a period of insecurity and uncertainty.
Thank you for your attention!
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, Agenda 2000 is being adopted against the background of the Kosovo crisis.
Nothing could make it clearer how important it is to safeguard and deepen European integration.
As European history has shown, it takes far more than the absence of war for societies to develop peacefully in the long term.
Democracy, respect for human rights, tolerance, security and economic and social stability form the basis of the success of the EU and the personal welfare of each individual.
<P>
The humanitarian disaster in Kosovo makes enlargement eastward and the democratic and economic stabilisation of the Balkans even more urgent, in the interests not only of the people in Central and Eastern Europe but also of our own security.
Against this background, we cannot overestimate the importance of financially safeguarding the enlargement process through Agenda 2000 and of the positive signal the Community is thereby giving the states applying for accession.
But we must do more than this, which is why it is right and necessary that over and above Agenda 2000 the Council has also declared itself willing to cover the additional resources needed for the Balkans by, if necessary, reviewing the financial perspective.
<P>
So far Europe has been able to develop a social system that broadly guarantees democracy, cultural diversity, competitiveness and solidarity.
The various pillars - the single market, economic and monetary union and promoting economic and social cohesion - have helped achieve that.
Agenda 2000 safeguards these pillars and allows us to further develop the European system for the future.
<P>
The adoption by the European Parliament of Agenda 2000 will conclude a two-year process of intensive discussions and negotiations.
By in a sense anticipating Amsterdam, if I may put it that way, the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament have proved through a process of increasingly close coordination and positive give and take that it is possible to achieve results that will help the EU as a whole to make progress.
It makes no difference that this is a genuine compromise, meaning that not everyone could obtain all they wanted, and that it is a compromise that produces more satisfactory results in some areas than in others.
<P>
Let me thank the presidencies involved, and in particular the presidency of the Council and Chancellor Schröder, for the fact that they managed, by persevering with the negotiations, to bring about agreement between the Member States.
That was a success for Europe during a difficult time.
And let me thank Parliament not just for the numerous improvements to the original proposals but above all for its constructive approach and the great flexibility it displayed, which made it possible to reach agreement so quickly.
<P>
I have already said that not everything has been resolved in an equally satisfactory manner.
Mr Fischler will talk about this in detail later in relation to agricultural policy.
The Commission regrets that it did not prove possible in Berlin to adopt at least those reforms that the agriculture ministers had already decided.
The watering down of the reforms in the cereals and milk sector raises a number of questions.
The review clause in the cereals sector shows that the Heads of State and Government have not even excluded the possibility, perhaps indeed the necessity, of further improvements.
<P>
With the postponement of the milk reform to the end of the 2000-2006 period, the costs of the reform were merely postponed to the next financing period, without removing the market imbalances.
But one positive aspect I would like to emphasise is that the Council has adopted the Commission's proposals on the second pillar, on the consolidation of rural development policy, almost unchanged.
That not only underpins sustainable development in the rural regions but also gives the European Parliament a new power of codecision on agricultural matters, for in future this expenditure will be shown as non-compulsory.
So that too satisfies a major demand by Parliament.
The division of the traditional agricultural guideline into two sub-headings that this calls for will in fact require stricter budgetary discipline in the organisations of the markets.
But overall, the agricultural reform is an important step towards a competitive agriculture in Europe.
<P>
The second major pillar of Agenda 2000 is the reform of regional and cohesion policy.
It is a sign of the close cooperation between all concerned that this reform strengthens the policy of social and economic cohesion in the European Union.
<P>
Even if the financial resources for the next funding period remain a little below what the Commission originally proposed, one major success is that the level of Community solidarity with the poorest and structurally weakest regions of the Union is being maintained without any cutbacks and that the Cohesion Fund is being continued.
In this context I think it is important to point out that the Structural Funds, with their declining expenditure profile, make an important contribution to consolidating the budget, although Community solidarity with the structurally weakest regions remains fixed at the highest level of the last funding period, namely at the level of 1999.
That was only possible because this time the principle of concentration really could be applied successfully.
The structurally weakest Objective 1 regions will receive not just two thirds but this time as much as 70 % of all Structural Funds resources.
<P>
The criteria relating to eligibility for aid and to the level of that aid are not just objective and transparent, they are also being observed strictly and without exception and I believe that is an important point which will also be significant for the future.
<P>
In regard to implementation and management, we will in future look to decentralisation, a clear distribution of tasks and responsibilities, building up partnership at all levels and substantially improving monitoring, control and evaluation.
Since the European Court of Auditors and Parliament's Committee on Budgets have taken a very positive view of these aspects of the Commission's proposal, I am confident that this has created the conditions for better control in future than in the past by the Commission, the European Parliament and the Court of Auditors of the financial settlement and efficiency of the resources allocated.
<P>
But above all, the principle of concentration means concentration on the Union's political priorities.
So all the Structural Funds will now concentrate on creating secure jobs for the future, which means employment-intensive growth, strengthening the competitiveness and innovative power of the regions, sustainable development and promoting skills and equal opportunities.
That applies in particular to the European Social Fund, which Mr Flynn will be discussing in more detail later on.
<P>
As an instrument of labour market policy and of the development of human resources, it will also form the core of the European employment strategy, an active labour market policy.
Equal access to the employment market for all, lifelong learning, the adaptability of workers and undertakings and positive actions in favour of women are key elements here.
We cannot have an effective structural policy unless we establish closer partnership.
Here the Commission fully agrees with the European Parliament and I am sure that Parliament will ensure in future too that adequate attention is paid to this in the everyday implementation of the Structural Funds reform.
<P>
Partnership between the Commission and Parliament also includes the code of conduct that we have agreed.
Parliament has also succeeded in its call for all the structural measures for fisheries to be brought together under Category 2 and for unified horizontal planning.
At the last minute, as Mr Verheugen pointed out, it even proved possible to strengthen the urban dimension of the Structural Funds through the fourth Community initiative, URBAN, called for by Parliament.
<P>
Agenda 2000 is also the necessary condition for the enlargement process.
With its pre-accession aid and the gradual inclusion of the Central and Eastern European countries, the agenda is mobilising a package of EUR 80 billion for economic development in Central and Eastern Europe.
Here it is drawing on proven instruments to reduce infrastructure weaknesses in transport and the environment and it will try to ensure that these instruments are effectively linked to the existing PHARE and Interreg instruments.
<P>
It is important to the implementation of the Agenda 2000 package for the new interinstitutional agreement to establish a solid, seven-year financial framework.
Agreement was reached on the following points during the negotiations.
By limiting expenditure, the EU is contributing to budgetary consolidation on a Europe-wide basis.
At the same time, the financing of Community policy is guaranteed in the medium term.
<P>
Moreover, the financial distribution system is fairer.
I know that not all Members are convinced of the merits of the proposed interinstitutional agreement.
That is why I would stress that it is also in Parliament's interest that the implementation of Agenda 2000 is not jeopardised by annual budgetary conflicts.
Mr Liikanen will be confirming this when he gives his views later.
<P>
At any rate the Commission believes that it is very much thanks to the European Parliament that the necessary budgetary discipline will not create a burden for the poorest members of the Community, that at the same time this expenditure discipline enables us to tie up an important enlargement package and that we have achieved additional margins for manoeuvre in internal policy areas and in regard to administrative tasks, which will enable us on the one hand to underpin the emerging economic and employment upswing and on the other to put the administration in a position really to shoulder the additional new tasks.
In light of the debates we have had here in past months, I believe that is an important common aim.
<P>
The Agenda 2000 reforms encompass EU policy areas that directly concern the people of Europe.
These proposals open up new personal prospects for many people.
It is your privilege, by the adoption of the legislative proposals on Agenda 2000, to lay an important foundation stone not just for fulfilling the expectations of our people but also for the Europe of the future.
That is why I hope they will find broad support and on behalf of the entire Commission let me say that I am grateful for the excellent cooperation with the European Parliament on the Agenda 2000 package.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="President">
Thank you Commissioner Wulf-Mathies.
<P>
The debate will be resumed at 3 p.m. this afternoon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="President">
Mr Skinner has the floor on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Skinner">
Mr President, yesterday the Council's representatives agreed to an effective ban across the European Union on white asbestos and yet there are some concerns that there will be unnecessary delays in the signature of this particular document, which Parliament has played a very positive role in bringing to the fore.
Could we use your good offices to ensure that we encourage the Commission to take the steps needed to avoid any unnecessary delays?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="President">
Thank you very much.
I will do that.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="President">
My congratulations to the President-designate.
<P>
Standing ovation
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="President">
At the request of Mr Cox, I should like to welcome Mr Dedaj, chairman of the Liberal Party of Kosovo and Vice-President of the Kosovo Parliament, who is present with us in the official gallery.
<P>
Loud and sustained applause
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
VOTES (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Fayot">
Mr President, I do not think you can suspect me of wanting to prevent us from having a statute for Members by using procedural tricks.
However, as chairman of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, I would like to say that I do not consider Amendments Nos 2 and 25 to be admissible, pursuant to Rule 125 of our Rules of Procedure.
In my view, these two amendments aim to replace at least two, if not three, paragraphs of the resolution presented to us and, as a result, I do not believe that they are admissible.
<P>
I would also like to say that Parliament is not doing itself any great favours by seeking to push its Rules of Procedure to their limits in order to fulfil political objectives.
Having said that, I am completely in favour of a statute for Members of the European Parliament and believe that it should be introduced as soon as possible, but not by means of a violation of Parliament's procedures and of our Rules of Procedure.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="President">
Yes, Mr Fayot, we have examined these amendments very carefully.
They do not replace the text in its entirety, but only part of the text.
<P>
Mixed reactions
<P>
That is why, after consulting the services responsible, we decided that they were admissible.
Moreover, the Legal Affairs Committee, which had some doubts, held a vote in a very similar case on one of the proposed texts, which was rejected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Rothley">
Mr President, I agree with Mr Fayot: it is irresponsible to adopt a text for a statute that could not be examined in the committees!
<P>
Applause
<P>
I also want to raise another point of order.
I have the official voting list at hand.
I see that on paragraph 1 you want to begin with Amendment No 2.
Let me point out that my group tabled an Amendment No 27 to delete paragraph 1.
There can hardly be an amendment that departs further from the text than one that deletes a paragraph.
So I would ask you to begin by voting on Amendment No 27.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="President">
Mr Rothley, although the services responsible inform me that the other amendments depart further from the text, I agree with you that an amendment seeking to delete a paragraph is always the one that departs furthest from the text.
So everyone will naturally know what they will have to vote on later.
This is not a matter of judging votes in advance; we are trying to comply with the Rules of Procedure.
And in my view, an amendment that seeks to delete a paragraph always departs further from the text than an amendment that seeks to replace it.
As a result, as the rapporteur said, we will vote firstly on Amendment No 27, which seeks to delete the paragraph from the rapporteur's resolution.
I am very sorry, but I must comply with the Rules.
We are therefore going to begin with the vote on Amendment No 27.
Unfortunately, ladies and gentlemen, we have a very long vote ahead of us and we must get through it peacefully.
We are not going to open a debate on the Rules now.
Once again, I am sorry, but we must proceed with the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Martinez">
Mr President, I would simply like to make a point of order pursuant to Rules 4 and 125.
<P>
The French Members from the National Front are present in the House.
However, we will not take part in the vote on the amendments for a fundamental legal reason: we are national Members representing 15 different nations, not a single European nation.
Moreover, to accept a statute for Members of the European Parliament would be to change our status from being a matter of international law to being a matter of internal constitutional law.
We do not want that, which is why we will not take part in the vote.
<P>
Mixed reactions
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="President">
Very well, that is your right.
We note the fact that you are present, but not taking part in the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Lehideux">
Mr President, I am somewhat surprised that Members are forced to act as if they are in a fairground to be able to speak in Parliament. However, apart from that, I would simply like to say that this is the first time that I have seen in a House such as ours a situation where two opposing views are set out, one by the services responsible and the other by the chairman of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure - who is elected by his peers - and where that of the relevant services has prevailed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="President">
No, Mr Lehideux, it is not the services, but the President who interprets the Rules of Procedure, and so the decision is entirely mine and my responsibility.
That is the decision which has been taken.
As always, I accept responsibility for the decisions which I take, be they right or wrong.
<P>
Parliament adopted the resolution
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, after the votes on the Rothley report on the Statute for Members, I can only confirm that the opinion delivered by the Commission pursuant to Article 190(5) of the Amsterdam Treaty stands unchanged.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="van Putten">
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="President">
I have an announcement to make.
Those Members who are obliged to leave the sitting are asked to leave their card in the appropriate voting terminal.
<P>
Since I have to make this announcement and this is the last voting time over which I shall preside, I should like to take the opportunity to say how much I have appreciated your cooperation, and to give my best wishes to the House.
<P>
The House rose to applaud Mrs Fontaine
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Berès">
Madam President, perhaps we will have to invite Mr Romano Prodi to attend our explanations of vote, but I imagine that this situation will not arise again during the next Parliament.
<P>
I simply want to tell him, on behalf of the French Socialists, that we voted in favour of his appointment today by a large majority.
However, I would like to remind him that we are committed to a Europe of the heart, a Europe of solidarity, and not a Europe of markets alone.
We have already experimented with the formulas of a lesser role for the state and the blind belief that the rules of competition or liberalisation generate employment.
We no longer believe in them.
We know that to create jobs again we will need further growth and growth that will actually generate employment.
And we would call on Mr Prodi to present us with proposals in that direction.
Equally, in terms of a social Europe, our people would not understand why no progress was being made.
<P>
I would like to make one final comment, Madam President.
At a time when a war is breaking out in our continent, we do not understand how religious diversity is not respected.
As far as we are concerned, the principle of secularism is a founding principle of our Union.
Non-discrimination as regards religion has been enshrined in our Treaty.
We will judge Mr Prodi on his respect for this commitment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Lienemann">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I voted against the appointment of Mr Romano Prodi.
His speech before Parliament was marked by the most traditional form of liberalism; it was dull and lacking in any vision for the future.
There is nothing in his statements that refers clearly to the need to defend and update the European social model.
There is nothing about the need for a new pact that balances the forces of labour and the holders of capital.
There is nothing about the redistribution of wealth.
<P>
The social Europe does not concern him.
But it does concern millions of Europeans.
He is not proposing any serious strategy to promote employment, preferring to suggest that we simply follow the same monetarist macro-economic policy we have been following for years, a policy that has proved ineffective in terms of establishing sustainable growth and significantly reducing unemployment.
<P>
He made a long plea regarding the need to continue with deregulation and the liberalisation of all sectors of the economy.
I did not hear him defending general interest services or public services.
In short, his commitments have very little to do with the hopes and expectations of the people, who have demonstrated their desire for change and elected Socialist or Social Democrat governments in most of our countries.
Mr Prodi is telling them that tomorrow will be just like yesterday.
We cannot accept that.
<P>
I was also surprised to see Mr Prodi making an explicit reference to Christian values as a form of heritage that should be defended in Europe.
Of course, I am not raising any objections to these values, nor am I denying Mr Prodi his freedom of conscience, but I support the principle of secularism - which rightly guarantees this fundamental liberty everywhere and for everyone - and I therefore expect a President of the Commission to uphold this principle. But I have my doubts about that.
<P>
Mr Prodi has the right to be a Christian Democrat, but I expect the European Union, where most of the governments are left-wing, to be led by someone who is likely to embody these ideals and these policies.
That does not seem to be the case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Ripa di Meana">
Madam President, I have no confidence in President-designate Romano Prodi because he has justified NATO's war by calling it 'necessary'. This is a war in Europe initiated and conducted in violation of every principle of international law, in contempt of the United Nations.
The Treaty establishing the Atlantic Alliance states that it is a defensive organisation, but NATO's war in Yugoslavia actually perverts the nature of that vocation.
<P>
So a dark and bloody conflict has broken out on our continent, and now no one is in any position to predict the outcome or calculate the consequences for the future of our European peoples.
<P>
By calling for an the immediate end to the ethnic massacres and the bombing, in the name of the 'European soul', President-designate Romano Prodi could have taken an influential and balanced role, decisive for the future work of the Commission.
He did not do so, he identified himself with the interventionists, and lost a precious and long-awaited opportunity.
<P>
Applause from the left
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Barros Moura">
I voted in favour of the nominee for President this time round, whereas in July 1994 I voted against Mr Santer.
Unfortunately, I was not mistaken then, as events have now demonstrated.
<P>
I hope that the political will indicated by Mr Prodi to reestablish the balance between the institutions will bear fruit so that the Commission can reassume its essential political driving role as a body independent of the national governments and private interests.
To do this, the European Parliament must also fulfil its role in order to avoid the return to an intergovernmental Europe with a 'governing body' consisting of the large Member States.
<P>
However, I must indicate my extreme surprise and condemnation of the way in which Mr Prodi, on page 11 of the verbatim report of proceedings, characterised the European consciousness, which is at the root of the integration achieved in the last 50 years.
He described this as being exclusively 'erede della cultura umanística e della cultura cristiana ' meaning that it has its origins in humanism and Christianity.
This characterisation diminishes the origins of European civilisation by specifically disregarding the contribution of the Jewish and Muslim cultures.
The use of the term 'cristiana ' or 'Christian' is not only an unacceptable falsification of history but also, given the current events in Europe, an unpardonable political error.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Bernardini">
Our House is today giving its opinion on the appointment of Mr Prodi as President of the European Commission.
I must vote against this appointment and withhold my vote of confidence.
<P>
Mr Prodi, you appeared as the saviour of a foundering institution, as the person who could provide the charisma needed for the job.
But your obviously strong personality cannot be separated from the objective of your politics.
Moreover, having listened to your comments and to your programme, I am extremely concerned.
<P>
Since the beginning of my term in office, I have fought to change the prevailing philosophy within the Brussels executive.
I have fought to ensure that the liberal Europe, the Europe of markets, gave way to a social Europe.
<P>
After listening to you yesterday, I am disappointed that not a single reference was made to the social Europe.
There was not a word about the concept of public services; instead, we listened to a eulogy to economic liberalism.
<P>
Mr Prodi, you refuse to distinguish between the market-based Europe and the social Europe.
But you must be aware that our people cannot support the European idea if the only option available is a market where the role of the individual is obsolete.
<P>
You will have the difficult task of establishing Europe in a new millennium, and I cannot get used to the idea that the twenty-first century might represent a negation of the social Europe.
<P>
You succeeded in the formidable task of enabling your country to join the euro.
I hoped that, with your appointment, you would establish the proper social dimension that Europe requires.
I did not hear this in your speech and you have disappointed me.
I therefore cannot give you a free hand to carry out this role.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Blak">
I have today voted against the approval of Romano Prodi as the new President of the Commission.
<P>
Mr Prodi has not been sufficiently convincing in his acknowledgement of the need for a social Europe.
All we have heard is that tired old tune about full liberalisation and more growth being the solution to Europe's problems.
He has not voiced the desire to make active use of the new provisions in the Amsterdam Treaty with regard to the environment or employment.
Mr Prodi's future plans for the development of Europe also go too far in a federal direction.
Amongst other things, he is seeking to extend European cooperation in the fields of defence and foreign affairs.
His ambitions in the sphere of equal opportunities have unfortunately also been non-existent.
Mr Prodi has not outlined any plans for greater equality between men and women either within the college of Commissioners or in the Directorates-General.
<P>
Romano Prodi's ambitions in the human and social sectors are therefore too slight to persuade me to vote in favour of his nomination.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Féret">
At the time, I voted in favour of the appointment of Jacques Santer as President of the Commission, in the knowledge that he had been prime minister of a small country, like my own, but one that had been much less affected by extra-European immigration, by unemployment and by taxation. I warned him about accepting the best and the worst in terms of the heads of the various departments; unfortunately, the worst prevailed.

<P>
Mr Prodi's speech could not have been more disappointing.
He talked to us for a long time about the Europe of money.
He did not say a word about the Europe of people.
He did not provide us with any hope that we might be able to put an end to the new world order imposed by the Yankees.
There was no condemnation, or even regret, in relation to the unacceptable military attack against a European nation by a NATO that is blindly killing women and children.
<P>
I cannot in all conscience put my trust in a politician who has joined the camp of the enemies of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ilivitzky">
I abstained in the election of the President of the Commission, as I could not see how I could give my support to Mr Prodi.
His appearance in the European Parliament was not enough to reassure me that he would be the right person to lead the Commission during the next five-year term.
Mr Prodi's bottom line is the formation of a Federal Europe, which is difficult for me to accept.
<P>
Most worrying of all when Mr Prodi was here in Parliament were his ideas on employment, the regulation of the labour market and the public sector.
He repeatedly stressed the need to deregulate the labour market and to increase the practice of bilateral agreements between employers and workers.
He considered the public sector to be too large in scale and called for rationalisation and cost-cutting measures. Meanwhile, he had nothing more than pious messages of hope for increased employment.
<P>
Mr Prodi sets great store by a common defence policy for Europe.
He failed to give adequate guarantees that non-aligned EU Member States would be able to remain outside the military alliance.
<P>
Nevertheless, I did not consider I could vote against his appointment, as that would mean a serious delay in appointing the new Commission.
With the situation as it is, it is important that the new Commission should begin work as soon as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Lage and Marinho">
Mr Prodi did not at first sight seem to have all the qualities required for a necessarily strong and active leadership of the European Union.
Due to their style and beliefs, other people were better qualified to preside over the Commission.
However, his experience in Italian politics, his acknowledged personal and political integrity and his capacity for establishing dialogue and unity are basic virtues which can breathe life into the European project.
<P>
Through his speeches in Parliament, he has gradually outlined his beliefs on Europe. These contain many positive aspects, particularly the desire to guarantee the independence of the Commission and to carry out a root-and-branch reform of its administrative practices.
We would also highlight the importance which Mr Prodi has placed on Mediterranean policies, which he regards as being just as important as enlargement to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, his will to help make the European economy more dynamic and reduce unemployment and, essentially for us, the defence of economic and social cohesion.
We note, however, that the social side was virtually totally absent from his speeches, which is worrying.
Overall, there are reasons why we have high expectations of the new Commission President and this is why we are voting in favour of his appointment.
We now hope that our expectations can be reinforced and that Mr Prodi can be the President the Commission needs following the period of weakness we have seen with Mr Santer.
<P>
The Portuguese Socialists support a strong Commission which is capable of mobilising the will of the European people and which respects these people and their legitimate interests, particularly in small countries such as Portugal.
We also demand an independent Commission which, within the structure of the Community institutions, can contribute to achieving a balance between all the Member States, whether small or large and whether in the south or north of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Lindeperg">
I had decided to vote in favour of the appointment of Mr Prodi as President of the European Commission. I was satisfied with both the speed and efficiency with which the Council had taken its decision and with the standing in European terms of a man who, with great panache and know-how, had led a left-wing Italian Government under difficult conditions and had led Italy into EMU.
<P>
However, his speech yesterday worried me and I have now decided to abstain.
Parliament, and in particular my group, the Socialist Group, has often highlighted the need to balance the economic and monetary pillar with a social pillar and a firm commitment to a political Europe.
<P>
What I listened to yesterday was a liberal credo that leads me to fear greatly that this new balance is not on the agenda of the next Commission.
Moreover, my secular view of public life was shattered.
<P>
That is why I am abstaining. I hope that my fears will not be justified and, in any event, that the vigilance of the next Parliament and its commitment to a social Europe will ensure that they are unfounded.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR), Bonde, Lis Jensen, Krarup and Sandbæk (I-EDN)">
We have voted against the appointment of Romano Prodi as President of the Commission for the following reasons.
<P>
Romano Prodi has indicated that he is in favour of the EU developing on federal lines into a kind of United States of Europe.
He has repeatedly stressed the need for a common defence and hence the militarisation of the EU.
In his address and in answers to questions, it is noticeable that he has often compared the EU to the USA, with a view to establishing a 'balance over the Atlantic'.
We are opposed to the development of an 'EU state' and believe that European cooperation should, for the most part, be based on intergovernmental cooperation between independent nations.
<P>
The appointment of the President of the Commission and the Commission provides us with a good opportunity to carry out reforms which would reinforce democracy in Europe.
The EU should have a modern administration and transparent legislation along the lines of the Nordic model. This would mean open Council meetings and public access to official records, whereby everyone would be entitled to examine public documents and records in all the EU institutions and to speak out freely, in other words to be able to inform the media and those outside the EU institutions about mistakes and wrong-doing in the administration.
<P>
Moreover, reforms to increase openness should be extended to the system of appointments in the EU institutions.
An appointment should only be made following an application and on the basis of qualifications, not political patronage.
All employees should be aware that proficiency and merit, not friendship and connections, are the requirements for being appointed.
<P>
The Commission should be decentralised in order to allow staff to exercise responsibility and authority.
The concentration of responsibility in the hands of a minority should be broken.
Staff reforms should be carried out in order to weed out EU privileges.
It is indefensible that an employee in the EU earns three times as much for doing the same job as he or she would in a Member State, and enjoys diplomatic status with immunity from punishment and other fringe benefits.
<P>
The salary of the President of the Commission should also have been reduced before an appointment was made.
Commissioners should receive the same salary as ministers in the country which they represent.
Moving expenses should be paid on the basis of an estimate and not in the form of two months' additional salary of around SEK 360 000.
<P>
The EU should concentrate on the big issues, distinguish between what is trivial and what is important, and carry out genuine decentralising reforms which would result in matters that should not be dealt with at EU level being handed back to the Member States.
All these reform proposals should be implemented, but no such promise has been given.
<P>
Our vision is one of free European people in a democratic and diverse Europe.
We do not want a United States of Europe, but a Europe of nations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Mutin">
After listening to Mr Prodi's speech before Parliament, we cannot have any doubts as to his desire to clean up and improve the functioning of the Commission, but equally, we do not have any doubts as to his desire to continue to build a liberal Europe where no consideration is given to the role of workers. He did not say a word about social dialogue, about public services or about the need to establish the core of fundamental social rights we require to prevent relocations through fiscal dumping.
The fact that Mr Prodi was actually nominated by 11 Socialist or Social Democrat governments proves that the social Europe is not the priority and that the liberal approach has not been discarded.
<P>
Nonetheless, I am convinced that the rights of the people of Europe will only improve if we build a strong, political Europe based on the principle of secularism.
To achieve this, we must reopen the divide between the right and the left, turn Parliament into a truly political body and stop looking for consensus, as the governments did when nominating Mr Prodi.
That is why I am opposed to his nomination as head of the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Pailler">
I was foolish enough to believe that the future President of the Commission, Mr Romano Prodi, would send us an ambitious message to enable us to emerge from the institutional and political crisis that led to the resignation of the Commission, against the backdrop of the war in Kosovo.
<P>
Unfortunately, apart from some general statements and the promise of rigorous and transparent management, his speech gave me greater cause for concern than for anything else.
<P>
After Jacques Delors and the very liberal Commissioner, Mr Bangemann, he in turn is conforming to the myth of the overriding power of the Internet and information highways and is promising us paradise through the fact that 'we can bridge the gap between us and the United States'.
<P>
To respond to these global challenges, we must inevitably 'reform the welfare model' and 'review ... the rules governing labour markets and professional markets to lower the barriers preventing access and ... make the employment situation more responsive to economic growth'.
<P>
Naturally, as Mr Prodi goes on to tell us, this will only happen if we can 'make public administrations lighter of touch'.
In spite of the first stinging failure of the MAI, Mr Prodi himself is taking up Commissioner Brittan's ideology: 'The EU should continue along the path of multilateral liberalisation within the World Trade Organisation.
Our aim is to prevent all attempts at protectionism ...'.
Following the example of the United States, will the future Commission look on our social and environmental clauses as protectionist?
It is vital to include them in our trade mechanisms to ensure that globalisation is based on cooperation and solidarity with the poorest regions and countries.
<P>
But the final blow to a progressive European project is perhaps his idea of European culture: he seems to consider this in terms of the past and believes it to be our only heritage.
For the future, he turns to 'the power of American culture', which 'in the broad sense and as expressed in symbolic form by the media is actually believed by some to be capable of acting as a single point of reference for a Europe in quest of its soul.
There is nothing discreditable about such a supposition ...'
In other words, just a few months before the WTO negotiations, Mr Prodi's Europe is surrendering before having even waged the political war.
<P>
The liberal European hymn sung by Romano Prodi is based on the flexibility and adaptability of work, mistrust of public services and allegiance to American culture.
<P>
As a result, I voted against his appointment as President of the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Papakyriazis">
The European Parliament's endorsement of Mr Prodi as President of the Commission, which I was very happy to vote in favour of, opens up a new era for the European Union at what is a turning point for Europe and the world as a whole.
In conjunction with the European elections on 13 June 1999, the European Union needs to confirm its unswerving dedication to the principles of democracy, solidarity, justice, transparency, stability and peace.
<P>
The people of Europe - of the 15 Member States and the applicant countries of Eastern Europe and Cyprus - hope and demand that the European Union becomes a real political and social union, with the required authority and validity to play a leading world role as we approach the millennium.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Spiers">
I voted to approve Mr Prodi's nomination, but with reservations.
<P>
The overriding priority of the incoming Commission President should be to ensure good management and financial control within the Commission.
It should not be to increase European integration or to build a federal Europe.
To coin a phrase, the European Union should do less, better.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Theorin">
Although I voted for Mr Prodi as President of the Commission, I do not accept the strongly federalist views regarding a common defence and a common system of taxation that were put forward by Mr Prodi in his policy statement.
Sweden joined on the basis of intergovernmental cooperation, it did not join a federation.
In my view, Mr Prodi does not represent traditional social democratic policy either, which I would have preferred.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Valverde López">
Parliament can have no objection to the general content of the speech by Mr Prodi on his intentions.
Nonetheless, some general ideas need to be explained in detail so as to avoid ambiguities in the institutions' interpretation of them.
I fully agree that we need to define the political and administrative responsibilities of the European Commission.
The Commission should review its files, where it would find questions and motions for resolutions that I tabled proposing that rules for legislative procedures and for administrative justice be drawn up in order to define responsibilities and provide our citizens with legal certainty.
In the doctrinal tradition of national democracies, the responsibilities of the government and the administration are clearly defined.
<P>
Another fundamental issue is that of preserving the overall responsibility of the College of Commissioners.
The individual responsibilities of the Commissioners can and must be defined, yet we must not entirely discard the principle of collective responsibility.
To accept the individual condemnation of a Commissioner would mean the death of the independence of the European Commission.
I have also on various occasions defended the need for the Commissioners to meticulously respect their ethical commitment to maintain the necessary independence from their governments.
The Commissioners must oversee the EU's common interest; they must not use their post first and foremost to defend their country of origin.
Nationalist statements by Commissioners should be dealt with by the President, who should ask them to leave the Commission.
In the same way, the Commissioners' private offices must have a supranational structure, as I have maintained for years.
<P>
The Commission must also resist the destructive urge to try to represent the main political trend in the European Parliament, even though some prominent figures may promote it.
This would disrupt the nature of the institutions.
The European Parliament has no reason to support the European Commission because of its political stance.
Compared to national parliaments, the great asset and advantage of the European Parliament is that we are all part of the opposition here.
No political group is obliged to keep the Commission in office.
The legislative arm must have complete freedom to monitor the executive arm.
In addition to this, the Commission should not in any way relinquish its power to initiate legislation.
<P>
Mr Prodi, I am a committed federalist, and I have every confidence that your future activities will continue to enhance the unique nature of the EU institutions and prevent it from being interfered with.
<P>
Rothley report (A4-0267/99)
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Cox">
Madam President, obviously in this House we are parliamentarians and democrats.
As a democrat I have to accept the result of the vote on the Rothley report even if I do not agree with it.
As a parliamentarian I have to accept that we use procedures sometimes as a way of either promoting or shielding ourselves from particular votes.
<P>
I want to express my deep sense of disappointment that yesterday, at an early stage, when my group presented to other group presidents the possibility of trying to find a reasonable way forward, whereby the Council would meet tonight and then, tomorrow, we could decide on the issue in a more definitive way, some colleagues used procedures in this House to block that possibility.
<P>
I express in particular my grave disappointment at Amendment No 27 in the name of Mrs Green and Mr Cot, who removed Article 1 from the Rothley report and ipso facto removed from it the possibility of the Liberal amendment.
That amendment genuinely sought to address many of the fears that Members had expressed as deficiencies in the Council's response.
For example, it put MEPs on an equal footing with national parliamentary representatives in the matter of various allowances and expenses.
It included clauses on the acquired rights, the so-called 'grandfather clause'.
It included options for early retirement, which many Members said they wanted.
It included the full protection of the acquired pension rights, the existing pension rights of Members, and other elements as well.
In all of that it was a genuine attempt to recognise that the Rothley report simpliciter of last December clearly will not win unanimous approval of the Council; that the Council's text of last week clearly will not win the support of this House.
And this via media which we sought to bring forward - and as democrats we have to accept the win or loss - was blown out of the water by a procedure which disgusts me.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Green">
Madam President, clearly, as Mr Cox has mentioned, the amendment tabled in my name on behalf of the Socialist Group was tabled by the Socialist Group.
As the leader, I had my name on it, but for the record, I voted against it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Cox">
Madam President, I was not aware of that.
I thank Mrs Green for that explanation.
Personally, I had understood that was her position.
I thank her for clarifying it.
I still remain disgusted by the procedure but I would wish, at least, to place on the record my appreciation of what Mrs Green has just said.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Green">
Madam President, I should like to put on record my disgust as well at what has happened.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Berthu">
Madam President, the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations did not agree with the draft uniform Statute for Members of the European Parliament adopted by our House on 3 December 1998.
We believed at the time, and we still believe, that the Members of the European Parliament represent their respective nations and that they should continue to have the status of national representatives.
<P>
Since 3 December, the Council has examined Parliament's draft and has unfortunately approved its key principles.
In its view, the Members of the European Parliament should from now on be paid out of the Community budget and not by their countries of origin.
Moreover, they should pay income tax to the Communities, under the same conditions as those that apply to European officials.
Only a temporary derogation is provided for to maintain the national system of taxation for those countries which request it explicitly.
<P>
This amended draft is equally unacceptable.
It is totally incredible that the Members of the European Parliament might be paid by someone other than the people they represent.
It is equally incredible that they might be subject to a tax system that is different from that of their fellow citizens, particularly if this is also a less severe tax system, as would be the case here.
This reform is obviously designed to draw Members away from defending their people in order to encourage them to defend the supranational system that will support them.
<P>
It is somewhat difficult to understand the deep-rooted motives of the Council when it accepts a text that is so opposed to the interests of the Member States, unless it, too, agrees tacitly to the establishment of a European superstate.
This interpretation unfortunately seems to be correct, as it is backed up by many other indications.
Once again, we see that the governments are playing a double game and establishing - by indirect methods - a system that the people would not accept if they were consulted in full knowledge of the facts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Madam President, I wish to make a personal statement.
I voted against Mr Rothley's proposal because I am sorry we did not accept the Council document, which meant that we missed a major opportunity finally to obtain a statute at the end of this legislative term.
You all know how difficult it will be to make progress on a statute during the new term.
It will be wellnigh impossible.
I fear that Parliament's action has merely relegated the Statute to a kind of shunting yard.
I thought it was right for us finally to get some movement into the Statute, and the words 'equal pay for all' apply just as much to the Council; its members also do the same work but have different salaries.
There are hundreds of journalists who do the same work for different pay.
<P>
I regarded the compromise as viable even if - which is not, of course, a good thing - it would have meant that Swedish, Danish and British Members were taxed under their national rules.
But I got the impression that was not the issue at all; rather it was to go on relegating the Statute for Members to the shunting yard.
I very much regretted that.
That is why I voted against Mr Rothley's proposal and would have liked to vote for the Council proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="McKenna">
Madam President, like Mrs Breyer, I would like to say this is a missed opportunity.
Although many people have expressed their disgust, I do not know how we are going to go back to the electorate and justify that basically things are remaining the same.
The Liberal and Green amendment was deliberately sabotaged by people who do not want to see the system changed.
Although I would have had major problems with the idea of an EU tax system - it is not something I could support - or that our salaries would be increased, we need to deal with the way in which expenses are dished out in this Parliament.
What is wrong with having a system whereby you have to account for what you spend?
We now have to go out in June to look for votes from the electorate.
The one thing that everybody is focused on is how the repayment system works in this Parliament.
We have to look for change.
Today was a prime opportunity. We missed that because of political manoeuvring within Parliament.
It is going to very difficult for us to justify our position.
That is why I voted against the Rothley report.
I would have had major problems with a salary increase or with the idea of an EU-wide tax system.
That is the thin edge of the wedge.
I do not agree with a harmonised tax system or with - as Mr Berthu said - many of the harmonisations that are going on within the EU.
<P>
I voted against Prodi basically because he is a complete federalist and also in favour of the militarising of the EU which I do not approve of.
That is why I had to vote against him.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Donnelly, Brendan">
Madam President, I do not normally give explanations of vote but on this occasion I shall, because this may have been one of the last actions in this present Parliament, and I want to avoid any possible misunderstanding about what is perhaps an ambiguous vote.
I did vote against the Rothley report because I take the view that, with all its faults, we should have accepted the proposed Statute for Members that came from the Council.
<P>
I take that view with some regret because Mr Rothley is a very distinguished Member of this Parliament who has contributed a great deal to its work.
In general I am always very sympathetic to the idea that Parliament should defend its rights and its position vis-à-vis other institutions.
But on this occasion, particularly in view of the coming election, I took the view that it was better for us to get this matter behind us.
I have always taken the view that Parliament must rigorously and ruthlessly defend its constitutional and legal rights.
When, however, it is a question of its own personal rights, the rights of its Members - particularly the financial rights of its Members - Parliament would be well advised to tread more softly.
There is a difference between the two.
If I had to be asked what Parliament needs, I do not think it is more formal powers, I think it is to come closer to the minds, hearts and spirits of the electorate.
I am afraid the postponement of the Statute may stand in the way of that.
<P>
I know that you, Madam President, have a different view.
I am sorry, on this last occasion, to have to differ.
I have always had great respect, both political and personal, for you.
But unlike many who voted against the Rothley report I did so because I believe the European Parliament should be more powerful, more influential, should play a larger role in the European Union.
It was my view that by voting against the Rothley report I could serve that political goal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Madam President, as far as procedure is concerned, I would like to inform Mr Cox and Mrs Green - although they have left - that on 3 December, I had tabled an amendment similar to the global amendments, which have been the subject of long debate, and that that amendment had been declared inadmissible at the time, perhaps because I had tabled it.
<P>
On a personal note, regarding the Rothley report, I would like to say that the truth has been revealed.
The majority of Members of this House - 376 Members - have shown that in actual fact they did not want the system for reimbursing travel expenses to be changed.
That is what is at issue here.
<P>
The resolution adopted on 3 December stated that thanks to the Treaty of Amsterdam, for the first time in its history the European Parliament was in a position to adopt itself a single statute for Members, and that this statute should enter into force as soon as the ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam provided a legal basis for its adoption. This gave the impression that we were prepared to adopt a statute.
<P>
However, given the rejection today of our Amendment No 18, which stated that we would do our utmost to ensure that this statute entered into force at the beginning of the next parliamentary term, Parliament is showing its true colours, and on the very day and in the very week when a new system for the reimbursement of travel expenses is being adopted, a system which is supposedly based on expenses actually incurred but is actually somewhat similar to a lump-sum system.
<P>
That is why we voted against the Rothley report.
Parliament does not want to be open and transparent about the way in which its Members are paid, and that is particularly scandalous in terms of public opinion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw, Palm and Sandberg-Fries">
The current system of reimbursement is absurd, particularly with regard to travel expenses.
We need to bring about a change and find a solution in order to deal with the absurdity of the situation, but also because there are other important issues, besides the salaries of its own Members, which the European Parliament ought to be concentrating on.
<P>
We support the compromise which the Council reached in April.
We should like to have a uniform statute giving all Members the same salary, but with the possibility of taxation at national level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Blak, Iversen, Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats support the Council's amended draft Statute for Members, because the European Parliament needs to put its own house in order before the elections.
It is not possible to wait and negotiate with the Council.
We have endorsed a proposed compromise which brings us slightly nearer to our objective, in the hope of at least avoiding the whole matter being rejected outright.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Donnelly, Alan">
The European Parliamentary Labour Party has pushed for reform of all the EU's institutions.
We have pressed for more transparency in the Council.
We have been at the forefront of the work to ensure openness and better management in the Commission and we now come to put our own house - Parliament - in order.
<P>
The EPLP has consistently campaigned for a coherent and transparent system in which MEPs could operate.
<P>
We have voted this morning to try to ensure that concrete measures are put in place as quickly as possible.
<P>
We have been at the forefront of reform and believe that we have to reach a conclusion on this matter and start the new mandate with a statute in place.
We have pressed for a transparent system of payments for travel expenses, an equal salary for MEPs from all countries, and a proper method of direct payments for staff.
<P>
The Council has said that it will look at the detail of implementation of the Statute alongside Parliament and we look forward to playing an active role in those further negotiations over the new few weeks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Graenitz PSE)">
I abstained from all the votes because I will be leaving the European Parliament and do not wish to decide on the Statute for future Members.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Lage and Marinho">
The Portuguese Socialist Members voted against the motion for a resolution approved today in the European Parliament because this motion prevents the entry into force of the Statute for Members proposed by the Council of Ministers which represents an important reinforcement of Parliament's credibility.
<P>
The continuation of the current set of rules postpones a long-standing desire of the European Parliament to finally achieve the principle of equality between all Members.
The new Statute was characterised by strictness and transparency in the rights and duties of all the Members and would have done away, once and for all, with the vagaries and speculation which are the preferred recourse of all those who thereby aim to undermine the value of political action.
<P>
The European Parliament has missed an unparalleled opportunity to resolve an issue which is fundamental to its good image and dignity, especially at a time when transparency and efficiency in the workings of all the Community institutions are being discussed and demanded in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Lagendijk">
The outcome of today's vote, which saw a majority of our House give its support to the Rothley report, is a defeat as far as we are concerned.
This majority, which invoked all sorts of legal arguments, was concerned first and foremost with maintaining our salaries and privileges at all costs.
For a long time, a majority in this Parliament has been hiding behind the lack of initiative from the Council in this matter in order to excuse its unwillingness to conclude a statute for Members of the European Parliament.
<P>
After several years of work, a proposal had been drawn up that was, in general, satisfactory, and the Council had indicated that it was willing to negotiate with Parliament, following the result of today's vote, with a view to finding a compromise.
<P>
The response of the majority in this House today does not match up to its commitments to its own voters or to the expectations of public opinion.
Following the Commission's resignation and the problems of fraud and poor financial management, how can the majority in this Parliament justify the fact that our House is incapable of reforming anything that affects our allowances and the financial management of our institution?
<P>
My group is going to continue fighting the battle we began a long time ago.
But each of our colleagues who voted in favour of the Rothley report will have to shoulder their responsibilities in terms of public opinion and the postponement of the uniform Statute for Members of the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="Lindholm">
The vicissitudes surrounding the establishment of a statute for Members of the European Parliament have been many and complex.
As the only Swedish member of the committee, I was closely involved, over a six-month period, in following and contributing to the discussions, in particular through the tabling of an amendment reflecting the Greens' viewpoint. This expressed our opposition to the detachment of MEPs from their own voters and Member States by such things as the introduction of EU salaries, EU taxes, EU pensions and so on.
I do not think, therefore, that it is desirable to have a statute which regulates these matters.
<P>
However, we need to tackle the excessively generous allowances, for example those covering travel and office expenses, and to introduce a system whereby only the costs actually incurred are reimbursed.
Under the Rules of Procedure, this can be done at any time and without the introduction of a statute.
It is therefore unacceptable that Parliament has hitherto done nothing about it, since it would have been a simple matter - had the will existed.
In view of these considerations, I voted against the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR), Eriksson, Seppänen, Sjöstedt and Svensson (GUE/NGL), Holm and Schörling (V), Bonde, Lis Jensen, Krarup and Sandbæk (I-EDN)">
We are absolutely convinced that Members of the European Parliament are elected by the people of the Member States to represent the voters' interest in the EU.
The remuneration and taxation of MEPs is therefore a national affair.
We are consequently opposed to a uniform European statute on Members' remuneration.
We advocate that the current remuneration and reimbursement system should be discontinued, since it means that Members of this Parliament are paid large sums in expenses which have not been incurred.
It is therefore necessary to establish a new system of remuneration and reimbursement, whereby the reimbursement of expenses must be accompanied by a bill, and payment is dependent on the Member signing a declaration that the expenses have actually been incurred in connection with the exercise of their mandate.
<P>
On 26 April 1999, the Council drew up a draft Statute based on the European Parliament's text.
In this draft, the Council sets out a series of proposals regarding the Statute, stating amongst other things that the payment of reimbursements will be based on vouchers, and proposals are also made regarding the establishment of conditions of employment for assistants.
We believe that the Council's text is a distinct improvement on the European Parliament's draft Statute, which was adopted on 3 December 1998.
We shall therefore support those parts of the draft which tighten up the current arrangements for reimbursement and lay down proper conditions of employment for assistants.
We wish to emphasise, however, that Members' salaries must be taxed at national level, and the revenues must therefore go to the Member States.
We are opposed to an EU tax system, and we therefore cannot support the Council's 'should' clause in Article 8(6), which states that the revenues should be paid back into the EU's budget.
<P>
We believe that the adoption of the Statute is yet another step towards a United States of Europe, with the European Parliament as a co-legislator.
Mr Rothley's draft report shows this quite plainly, and it is a clear example of how far removed the European Parliament has become from the interests of the people.
The only reason why we can support parts of the draft for the new Statute is that we believe that it is a vital step towards remedying the European Parliament's long-standing squandering of our taxpayers' money.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Martinez">
The Treaty of Amsterdam provides for a statute for Members of the European Parliament.
Article 190(5) of the Treaty establishing the European Community gives Parliament the power to 'lay down' this statute.
<P>
Some of our Spanish, Portuguese and other colleagues are in favour of this, not only for ideological reasons, but also perhaps for the sake of convenience.
In fact, on the basis of national statutes, there was discrimination between the German Members, whose thriving economy allowed them to receive substantial allowances, and our Portuguese colleagues, whose moderate economy meant that they only received moderate allowances.
<P>
The Members of the National Front in the European Parliament are opposed to this European Statute for legal reasons which serve to nullify it.
<P>
Members of the Parliament in Strasbourg are, in fact, the representatives of 15 different nations; they are not the elected representatives of a European nation.
They represent the 15 national sovereignties and not a European sovereignty.
Furthermore, the European Parliament's legal basis originates in an international treaty and not in an internal legislative text.
It is an intergovernmental institution and organisation, not an institution that is based on a constitution.
<P>
Our legal status is therefore international rather than constitutional.
That is why the Statute for Members is a political strike against the legal texts on which Parliament is based.
It is the first element of a European federal constitution and it is being introduced in a surreptitious and clandestine manner.
And that is the last straw as far as a parliament is concerned.
A parliament represents the people.
Yet here the European Parliament is progressively imposing on them a federal constitution within its powers while the people's backs are turned.
<P>
This is all the more serious since if national Members were paid out of the European budget from now on and paid taxes into that budget, they would no longer have any financial or fiscal links with their people.
How then would the Members of the European Parliament be able to represent their country of origin when their links with it are being gradually weakened?
<P>
Today we have the Statute for Members of the European Parliament, we already have the European currency, and tomorrow it will be the European state.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Pohjamo, Ryynänen and Virrankoski">
We voted in favour of the amendment by the Liberal Group with regard to Parliament's system of pay and expenses, as it was the only way to bring into effect a reform that has taken a long time to prepare, and one that many had called for.
We do not believe the matter can be postponed any longer, but feel that this vital reform should be introduced before the start of the new Parliament.
<P>
We believe that the central issues of the reform are the standardisation of pay for Members, national taxation and bona fide travel expenses.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Theorin">
From the very beginning I have asked for a special travel card to be introduced, like the one used in the Swedish Parliament.
As parliamentarians, we should be reimbursed the travel costs actually incurred.
<P>
We need to establish a statute for Members of the European Parliament in order to change the unsatisfactory system which exists at present.
A basic requirement, which the Swedish Government has also pressed for in the Council, is that national tax should be deducted instead of EU tax.
I share that view.
I have stated on many occasions that, in my opinion, our salaries should be the same as those of Swedish Members of Parliament.
<P>
We now need to come up with a proposal without delay.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Thors">
The Conservative and Socialist groups in Parliament, through their action today, have jeopardised the credibility of the European Parliament by rejecting the proposal for a Members' statute put forward by the Liberal Group.
Legal chicanery and trickery have played a significant part in this.
<P>
Had the Liberal Group's proposal been approved, we should have been able to go to the polls with our flag flying high and showing that we had not only cleaned up the European Commission, but inside our own house as well.
The Liberal Group's proposal was a realistic one, and would have made it possible to reach an agreement with the Council of Ministers before Parliament rose for the elections.
<P>
The political groups which backed the rejection of the proposals from both the Liberal Group and the Council of Ministers are responsible for the fact that we have got nowhere with reform.
Instead, we are left with a dubious proposal on travel expenses.
<P>
In the course of our work, the Liberals have consistently pressed for an accelerated timetable of reforms.
The fact that some groups, so close to the finishing post, have been intransigent and in no hurry for reform, also leaves one feeling bitter.
<P>
The draft Statute contains many worthwhile points: a uniform salary, but with the possibility of imposing national tax in those countries which wish to do so; clear rules governing the declaration of Members' interests; and transparency in expenses and travel allowances, on the basis of actual costs.
The European Parliament would also have been able to reinforce its legitimacy by not having the sole right of approval of its own salaries, like other parliaments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Torres Marques">
I abstained from voting on the Rothley report because I feel that this is not the time to approve this statute, as so many wanted.
The lists of candidates are now ready and the rules would have been changed without the potential new Members being able to participate in the vote.
However, I consider that it will be imperative to approve the Statute for Members of the European Parliament as soon as possible after Parliament reopens in July.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Thyssen">
I voted against the resolution on the Statute for Members of Parliament.
My fundamental reason for doing so is perfectly simple.
As a Member of the European Parliament I am fed up with being constantly criticised and attacked about our allowances, travel expenses and other such matters.
<P>
The Statute on which the Council has reached a compromise is not perfect and I understand the Members who criticise it.
For me, however, these shortcomings are far outweighed by my desire to be able to begin the next parliamentary term with a totally clean slate and with the prospect of no longer having to devote our time to decisions about our own statute.
<P>
This is why I was prepared to adopt the Council's text.
Furthermore, it is a law of physics that when the pendulum swings too far to one side, it then swings back further in the opposite direction.
Dignity also means working on credibility.
<P>
Kuhn report (A4-0224/99)
<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Madam President, naturally we fought for the Kuhn report.
We would have liked to see the guarantee extended for up to five years; that would have meant that the principle of sustainability was finally also introduced de facto .
It would have meant that producers would have tried to produce long-life products.
What I very much regret about the compromise is the fact that when the directives are implemented it will now be possible for the Member States to introduce a two-month complaint period.
And I will be calling on the German Government not to make use of this; indeed it has already announced that.
It would be a bitter setback for consumer protection.
For how can it be that someone from France, for instance, goes shopping in Germany, relies on a two-year guarantee but then finds that because he bought the goods in Germany he should have lodged a complaint within two months?
<P>
I do not believe that is what we were aiming at with this report.
Indeed Mrs Kuhn is just as sorry about this provision.
Yet the report is a small step in the right direction.
I only hope that many Member States will not make use of the possibility that has now been established of a two-month complaint period. If they do not, the report will be a step in the right direction because it will mean that consumers can have the guarantee extended to two years.
I believe it is very positive that we have also managed for the first time to establish a one-year guarantee for second-hand goods; that is a step towards greater sustainability and greater consumer protection.
However, I hope that also means that we do not apply this two-month complaint period, because in the case of many goods defects are only found after two months have elapsed.
Then consumers would get little out of this two-year guarantee.
So I can only appeal for this not to be applied.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="Jackson">
I do not support the common position on this directive.
I believe that a directive on the subject can be justified if it brings real benefits to consumers who buy goods across borders - but this directive does not do so.
<P>
I believe that the directive fails to deal satisfactorily with the situation where a consumer buys goods in one country, then goes home and finds that they are defective.
In that situation he or she still has to return them to the place where the original purchase took place in order to obtain a refund, repair etc.
It would have been far better - and have brought real benefits to consumers - if the consumer had the right to negotiate such compensation/repair etc with a representative of the company - where one exists - in his country of residence.
As it is, the directive deals with this problem only through the hope, expressed in preamble 13, that producers of consumer goods marketed in several Member States will attach contact addresses in those states; there is also the prospect of future revision of the directive held out in preamble 20.
The directive may well therefore raise hopes of cross-border consumer rights that it does not fulfil.
<P>
Another problem with the directive is the way that it deals with second-hand goods.
Article 1, paragraph 3, allows Member States to exempt second-hand goods sold at auction where consumers have the opportunity of attending the sale in person.
But preamble paragraph 16 is very confusing: it says that the nature of second-hand goods makes it generally impossible to replace them, so that the consumer's right of replacement is generally not available for these goods.
It goes on to say that for such goods Member States 'may enable the parties to agree to a shortened period of liability', that is shorter than 2 years.
<P>
I take this to mean that second-hand goods, except those sold at auction, are covered by the directive, and that some form of consumer guarantee will have to apply to them although Member States may make it last for less than 2 years.
I wonder whether the Council has appreciated the impact of this on the second-hand market?
What haggles will now take place over the 'shortened period of liability'?
Will this kind of haggle add a new dimension to car boot sales (which are not auctions) with lawyers setting up their tables at such sales in order to resolve disputes?
If the consumer's right to repair etc is not 'generally available' in relation to second-hand goods, will each Member State specify where it is available?
If so, we will see 15 different systems springing up.
<P>
I await these developments with interest, but cannot give the directive my support as it stands and have therefore abstained in the final vote approving the text.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="Titley">
I will be voting today in favour of greater rights for consumers across the European Union.
One of the major achievements of the European Union has been the creation of a single market in Europe encompassing over 370 million people.
As a result, businesses, employees and consumers from my own constituency in the North West benefit from a market over eight times larger than the UK alone.
A bigger market generates more business and more business generates more jobs.
<P>
Consumers benefit from more choice and more price competition.
However, I want to ensure that when my constituents take advantage of the single market and buy abroad, they enjoy the same level of consumer protection as they have in Britain.
I want them to have the same right to repair, replacement, reduction or refund in Milan as they have in Manchester.
In short, I want to make cross-border shoppers contented border shoppers.
<P>
The Labour Government has long been committed to more information for consumers, so that they can make informed choices about the products they buy, and the right to redress in case anything goes wrong.
Under the British presidency, for example, we pushed through a long-awaited agreement on consumer guarantees establishing rights for consumers when they buy goods anywhere in the single market.
This is in stark contrast to the Tories, who, during the BSE crisis, brought the EU to a halt rather than provide proper protection for consumers.
<P>
Oomen-Ruijten report (A4-0190/99)
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="Lindqvist">
Distance marketing of financial services via the Internet, fax and telephone is on the increase.
The Commission has submitted a proposal to improve consumer protection in relation to this distance marketing.
<P>
The Commission's proposal lays down firm rules from which the Member States will not be able to depart.
A substantial minority in the committee supported this line. However, it would be disastrous for Sweden and other Member States.
It would mean that higher standards of consumer protection could not be retained.
Instead, the proposal should be based on minimum standards that would allow the Member States to retain stricter rules and to tighten up the rules if they wished to do so.
<P>
Sandbæk report (A4-0225/99)
<SPEAKER ID=118 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Here the Green Group is of course very pleased that we have now managed to make pesticide-free foods for babies and young children a binding requirement throughout the European Union.
That is not just a great success for consumer protection but also a major contribution towards a more ecological agricultural policy.
Of course it was also a major success on balance for our group, since the Greens' amendment was the only one to obtain an absolute majority and therefore led the Commission as also the Council to shift their position.
The decision to establish the precautionary principle here is groundbreaking and in our view it would now be sensible to extend it to cover schoolchildren and young people.
It also means that we have to radically rethink the concept of the average individual, for this principle is based on the assumption that harmful substances are measured against an average human being weighing 80 kg.
That certainly cannot protect the health of children, the frail and the old.
<P>
We are particularly glad that we have now managed for the first time to lay down the highest standard in the European Union in a binding way for all EU Member States, namely the zero detectability level, which de facto means organic farming, as laid down in Germany.
We have shown that we do not have to dumb down harmonisation to the lowest common denominator but that it is quite possible to set a binding highest standard for all the EU Member States.
We must take particular care of the youngest members of society.
Here we have managed to establish the precautionary principle and we hope this will prove possible in other areas too.
I see on my right my colleague Mrs Irene Soltwedel-Schäfer, who was visited on this very day by people affected by the BSE scandal.
I can only urge that if we make the precautionary principle a binding one - as we have managed here - we should also take it as our yardstick in many other areas.
<P>
EU/US trade disputes
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="Berthu">
Madam President, the World Trade Organisation has set 13 May as the deadline for Europeans to lift the embargo they have imposed on imports of American meat that has been treated with hormones, and particularly BST.
<P>
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations urges the European leaders to maintain this embargo on BST. This hormone is produced from genetically modified bacteria; it certainly has a damaging effect on the health of cattle and very probably also on the health of humans who consume the meat.
We must apply the precautionary principle here, just as we should apply it to all the genetically modified organisms whose import into Europe has unwisely been authorised by the Commission.
<P>
But we must go even further. We must determine where the responsibilities lie in the present context and put forward proposals to correct the situation.
It is important to note that the rules of international trade that are applied by the WTO and that prevent us from making proper use of the precautionary principle were ratified in the agreements concluded at the Uruguay Round by Europeans themselves; they were led astray by poor advisers, such as the European Commission, which undoubtedly was overly influenced by foreign interests.
<P>
That must be corrected first and foremost by way of institutional reform and at the next international negotiations.
But I was truly alarmed by the fact that during the debate on Monday evening, Commissioner Brittan did not show any sign of regret and indicated that he considers the laws of free trade to be almost like divine laws, superior to all.
What is even more alarming is that the President-designate of the next Commission, Romano Prodi, stated yesterday morning in this Hemicycle that the next international negotiations should open, and I quote, 'a further round of liberalisation'.
These people have not really understood anything.
With them, we are heading towards a catastrophe.
Instead, what we need to do now is to establish in international trade the free choice of the people and the primacy of national sovereignty, as expressed in a democratic manner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Madam President, of course we too are pleased that the EU has spoken out quite clearly in favour of maintaining the ban on hormone-treated meat.
I personally find it most regrettable that the Commission commissioned this study so late.
We have known for years that there is at least one hormone that is suspected of being carcinogenic and that the other hormones have particularly adverse effects on young people during puberty.
We know, and that is the crucial point, that consumers do not want hormone-treated meat.
Consumers want healthy, natural food.
That is why this is a very positive decision, for it would have been a retrograde step to have simply introduced labelling, as we have sadly done in the case of novel foods even though the consumers have objected to genetically modified foods.
<P>
The Commission is also planning to extend the moratorium on genetically manufactured bovine growth hormones.
Here too it would be high time to issue a ban, as Canada has already done.
All the studies conducted by the Scientific Committee show the dangerous and explosive effects of treating animals with hormones.
There are many other indications to support these findings and we must also finally get away from the situation where the WTO only addresses the question of residues, for when they decide to buy goods, consumers also have the right to object to a certain kind of production.
So it is most welcome that the Commission has taken this decision; however, we should have already indicated the health hazards much more clearly and plainly in the past.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Madam President, let me first say how happy I am to be able to give an explanation of vote during your last part-session as president.
I was most impressed by the strength of feeling Parliament has expressed towards you.
What also pleases me is the fact that this House has demanded unanimously by 525 votes - which is indeed rare - for the ban on hormone-treated meat to be maintained.
We in the Committee on Agriculture have succeeded in turning a proposal that tended towards giving preference to labelling into maintenance of the ban instead.
<P>
Now the scientific findings have confirmed our fears.
The outcome of the decision by 525 votes will impress the Council and make it now maintain this ban on hormone-treated meat and resume the discussions in the WTO panel, so as to make it clear that we are not in the mood to burden our people with this highly dangerous hormone-treated meat.
Many thanks and I wish you all the best!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="President">
Thank you for those kind words, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="Cunha">
In recent years we have noted that the succession of World Trade Organisation positions on matters involving trade in agricultural and food products has strangely coincided with the interests and pressure of the United States.
<P>
In the cases of hormone-treated meat and the sale of seeds produced genetically - known as genetically modified organisms or GMOs - the European Union is not being allowed to respect the concerns of its consumers.
Clearly this type of argument is sometimes used to conceal protectionist commercial practices.
However, this is not the case with the European Union at this juncture given that BSE has severely shaken consumer confidence.
This means that the European authorities are taking precautions to respect these concerns, which are more profound in Europe than in other parts of the world.
<P>
Indications exist of the harmful effects on health of consuming hormone-treated meat, together with suspicions that some scientific results are being concealed from European decision-makers.
The EU must therefore remain firm in its position that all scientific data must be provided.
<P>
The insensitivity of the WTO in this respect confirms to us that the WTO rules on sanitary and phytosanitary protection (SPS Agreement) do not serve this purpose and must be amended at the next round of negotiations.
<P>
In the case of bananas, the EU is not being permitted to grant a trade concession to small countries which used to be its colonies - the ACP countries - where bananas represent the mainstay of their economies. This is particularly serious as this EU policy is included in the spirit of the Lomé Agreements which date from 1963 and which therefore significantly predate the current Multilateral Trade Agreement resulting from the Marrakesh Agreement of 1994.
What is this all about?
Is it because the US is a banana producer?
Of course not.
It is simply because the US wants to defend its companies which have a monopoly over the banana trade with their dollar bananas and which are in competition with the ACP countries.
<P>
Furthermore, if the WTO were to force the EU into completely liberalising the banana trade, there is absolutely no doubt that sooner or later the support system for Community banana producers would come to an end.
<P>
I would call on the Commission to remain firm in defence of our interests and not to be afraid to stand up to international pressures.
It must take due note of all these cases in order to take the necessary precautions in the next round of WTO negotiations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="Lienemann">
Europe must be firm with the United States in the context of the transatlantic partnership.
We must break away from the current thinking behind the liberalisation of trade, which does not give any consideration to social or environmental rules. We must also block the political, economic and monetary hegemony of the US, which is actually imposing the interests of American companies as if they are in the general interest.
<P>
The issue of hormone-treated meat proves that health and consumer protection requirements are not being taken into account and that the precautionary principle holds little sway in the face of prevailing economic interests.
Europe must continue to uphold its ban. Furthermore, the dispute over aircraft noise is evidence of their refusal to take account of our higher environmental standards.
<P>
The social aspect is less evident in the trade disputes. Yet unfortunately, the dominant logic today of opening up the markets, where social and environmental rules are disregarded, is systematically damaging this social aspect.
<P>
The banana issue reveals that the interests of multinational firms are a thousand times more important than the development of nations; the market is prevailing over the solidarity that needs to be developed within a political community.
<P>
It is also evident that the US agricultural trusts are making enormous profits by growing bananas in Latin America, while the people in those countries are not seeing any improvement in their situation.
<P>
The time has come to base the necessary international trade and liberalisation of the markets on new principles and a framework other than that decreed by the WTO, the GATT or the new transatlantic partnership.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="Souchet">
The three disputes the European Union is currently involved in with the United States in relation to the World Trade Organisation involve the banana sector, hormone-treated meat and aircraft noise during takeoff and landing.
<P>
Although these three disputes only relate to a small percentage of the trade between the United States and the European Union, they are very good examples of its economic, political and social consequences.
<P>
In fact, as far as the banana dispute is concerned, the Member States of the European Union are losing their ability to conduct a specific and privileged policy towards certain developing countries with which we had historical links, all in the name of liberalism and the globalisation of trade.
This has very significant social repercussions in some of those countries: the Member States of the European Union are following the WTO and progressively losing their sphere of influence, particularly in terms of the African continent. This is to the benefit of South America, whose agricultural resources are exploited or developed mainly by companies dominated by American capital.
<P>
As far as the marketing of hormone-treated meat is concerned, there are undoubtedly repercussions that we can determine in terms of imbalances of production in an agricultural sector which, following the BSE crisis, has a structural surplus and has become much weaker. However, the consumption of hormone-treated meat clearly has significant effects on human health, although we are not aware of their full extent.
We know, for instance, that the consumption of hormone-treated meat is damaging to the development of adolescents during puberty.
The World Trade Organisation, whose rules were negotiated by the Commission and imposed on the Member States, scorns the precautionary principle and the principle of health and safety that each Member State must be able to preserve in order to protect the health of its people.
<P>
These two examples prove that the GATT agreements that led to the World Trade Organisation harm the interests of the people of the Member States of the European Union.
I am calling for a complete reorganisation of the way in which the WTO operates, and this should take place in the context of the new round of negotiations due to begin at the end of the year.
We must establish the principle of fair trade between the European Union and third countries and restore the precautionary principle.
After the dispute over hormone-treated meat, we all know that the United States will attack the European Union over genetically modified organisms.
<P>
Spencer report (A4-0242/99)
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="McKenna">
Madam President, I voted against the Spencer report on the common foreign and security policy.
It is just further evidence of the tendency towards militarising the European Union.
This report talks about supporting the Franco-British Declaration at St. Malo and also of the speedy integration of the Western European Union into the EU.
It is quite clear the Western European Union is a military alliance.
It believes in nuclear weapons and is committed to the nuclear deterrent.
You would think that at the end of the 20th century we should be trying to get rid of these military blocs because they are not relevant, as far as I can see.
We are breathing new life into the Western European Union, which should have actually been defunct last year.
<P>
In my own country we have been reassured over and over again that the European Union is not being militarised, yet many reports which have gone through this Parliament in the five years I have been here clearly indicate that is the direction it is going in.
I do not believe that any kind of militarising of the EU is in the interests of the people at large, either within Europe or within the world as a whole.
We are only setting up a new military bloc, which I do not believe is a good idea.
Governments throughout the EU should be honest with their electorate, especially in neutral countries like my own, and say: 'This is really what is going on here.
Are you in favour of it or are you against it?'
It is quite clear that if something is not done now, at this stage, we are going to have a defence aspect to the EU.
Helmut Kohl said he believed that at the end of the line to European Union lay a European army and European police force.
The public has not been told this. It should be.
I am fundamentally opposed to any kind of European army or European police force or to a European defence identity within the EU.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="Caudron">
The CFSP, which was first launched by the Maastricht Treaty, has found it hard to make its mark.
For too long, it was practically nonexistent and Europe has looked like a political dwarf in the international arena by adopting minimalist positions.
<P>
Mr Spencer's reports show that the European Union is beginning to assert itself as a political power, and they clearly express the European Parliament's desire to contribute in this area.
<P>
Although the European Union's political action is obviously still inadequate - and this is particularly evident in terms of security and defence - we must qualify this statement in light of the recent events in Kosovo.
The European Union has shown that it can take initiatives, for example by organising the Rambouillet Conference.
It can make its voice heard and is not playing a supporting role to the United States.
<P>
The Treaty of Amsterdam will enable us to give fresh impetus to the CFSP.
The appointment of a High Representative for the CFSP will render this policy more visible and more effective.
I support the rapporteur's suggestion that we should organise a hearing within the Committee on Foreign Affairs before this High Representative takes up office.
<P>
Moreover, the new instrument of common strategies allows us to provide the CFSP with fundamental guidelines.
The General Affairs Council should adopt such a strategy with regard to the Russian Federation and submit it to the Cologne European Council.
I am completely in favour of this timetable, and because this issue is so urgent, we must not postpone its adoption.
The crisis the Russian Federation is currently experiencing, in institutional terms and also in economic and social terms, means that there can be no delays.
The events in Kosovo should spur us on to establish intensive dialogue with the Russian Federation.
It plays an essential role in the European defence structure, and this is a key element for stability in the continent of Europe.
<P>
The European Parliament should be consulted on the content of this strategy.
Since this is not provided for in the Treaty on European Union, I hope, like the rapporteur, that an interinstitutional agreement will be drawn up to provide for this consultation.
I share his indignation as regards the assessment of Parliament's powers in this matter.
The amendments introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam do not change anything in that respect: with the exception of the financing of the CFSP, Parliament's role is confined to information and consultation.
The presidency failed to present in time to Parliament its annual report on the main aspects and basic choices of the CFSP.
That is sufficient evidence that there is no desire to involve Parliament in this policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="Lindqvist">
The EU's common foreign and security policy has been wrecked: the United Kingdom and the USA have followed their own line more than once over Iraq, and the EU has been unable to resolve the conflicts in Bosnia, Kosovo and Turkey (over Kurdistan).
The EU should tone down its common foreign and security policy and instead concentrate all its energies on preventing conflict in the EU and the neighbouring regions.
The CFSP should never have been established.
It is misguided.
The EU is not a state, and should not become one.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="Theorin">
In my view, the EU should be built on intergovernmental cooperation.
Such cooperation excludes a common defence.
Consequently, there should be cross-border cooperation to prevent conflicts.
<P>
Conflicts are something that humankind will have to live with - the problem is how to deal with them.
Conflicts have their origins in social, ethnic and religious differences; they cannot be resolved by military power, but call for political, economic and diplomatic means instead.
<P>
Security can only be achieved through cooperation; everyone should enjoy the same security, which should be based on principles of equality and justice.
Cooperation, openness and disarmament give us greater security, but real security must also include security from the threat of hunger, disease and oppression.
<P>
Spencer report (A4-0219/99)
<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="Blot">
This report contains many good intentions and for that reason it deserves our support.
However, its purpose seems somewhat pathetic.
<P>
The following symbolic passage is sufficient proof of this: 'The common strategy towards Russia is being considered against a political backdrop that has changed with NATO's military action against the Yugoslav Federation.
There is also the question of the United States Congress's decision to develop under certain conditions an anti-missile defence system that, from the Russian point of view, challenges the ABM Treaty'.
<P>
What does our rapporteur have to say in the face of these two harmful actions by the United States?
As far as he is concerned, 'all these developments support the case for intensive dialogue between the European Union and the Russian Federation'.
So on the American side, we have actions.
And on the European side, we have words.
There could be no clearer proof of Europe's powerlessness in the face of the American superpower.
<P>
The United States benefited so much from the division of Europe after 1945 that it seems to be doing its utmost to create the conditions for a new division, this time between Western Europe on the one hand, and Orthodox Europe on the other.
There have been countless hostile acts against the Orthodox civilisation in Europe - contempt, accusations of chauvinism, total ignorance of a different culture - and the bombing of Serbia is symptomatic of this attitude.
The aim is to create a new division within Europe that we would not be able to deal with in any other way.
The countries of Europe must reject this logic, with the mutual support and cooperation of the Russian Federation, in the interests of peace and prosperity for all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We abstained in the final vote on this report.
We support the line that all the EU Member States should develop and reinforce their political and economic relations with the Russian Federation, since development in Russia is important for Europe as a whole.
Contributing to the improvement of democracy in Russia is central to such a strategy.
However, we believe that the neo-liberal policies encouraged by the West have played a part in creating serious social problems in Russia, such as unemployment and increasing class conflict.
The fostering of relations with Russia should therefore be based on a policy which helps to strengthen democracy and reduce social inequality in that country.
<P>
The main theme underlying this report is that the EU should strengthen the common foreign and security policy, something we are opposed to.
In our view, such a development would amongst other things lead to the non-aligned countries - such as Sweden - becoming more dependent and having fewer opportunities to act autonomously, which would be a drawback in terms of common security in Europe and the rest of the world.
<P>
On the basis of the above arguments, we decided to abstain in the final vote.
<P>
Müller report (A4-0227/99)
<SPEAKER ID=133 NAME="van Dam">
Mrs Müller has drawn up an excellent report on the budget estimates for 2000.
We are happy to adopt many of its recommendations and therefore voted in favour of it.
The rapporteur is right to go for a strict budgetary policy.
It must only be possible to take on extra staff in specifically justified cases.
The buildings must be paid off over the shortest possible period of time in order to keep interest payments to a minimum.
The rapporteur also rejects direct subsidies out of the EU budget for setting up and operating a supermarket and the catering services in the Parliament buildings.
These are all recommendations which we firmly support.
<P>
I would, however, like to raise a number of questions.
We support the move to a new personnel policy under which promotion would be performance based.
This encourages motivation.
But the big question here is who judges this performance?
Can we guarantee that the appraisal will be objective?
We must do away with favouritism and political appointments based on personal preference.
The Santer Commission came to grief as a result of cronyism.
Let this serve as an example to others.
<P>
Finally, I should like to say a word about the salaries of Community officials.
If a statute is accepted for Members of Parliament, there will be a huge discrepancy between the salary levels of MEPs and officials.
Not that we as MEPs should be dissatisfied.
But it does indicate that the salaries paid to officials are excessive.
This is something we need to debate.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 1.48 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Agenda 2000 (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on Agenda 2000.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hänsch">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is and has been the wish of the Council, the Commission and Parliament to achieve three objectives by means of Agenda 2000.
The first is to make the Union fit for enlargement eastwards.
The second is to reform its own policies, especially its agricultural and Structural Funds policies, in a sense to bring a breath of fresh air into our policies. The third is to safeguard the financing of these policies over the next seven years.
<P>
The master plan presented by the Commission to this end did not come through the more than two years of discussions in Parliament and the Council unchanged, and I admit that this was not advantageous in every respect.
It will become apparent that we have not entirely achieved the objectives I have just listed.
But it is also true that we have come very, very close to doing so.
<P>
The result of Berlin is a compromise.
That it came into being at all is also thanks to the German Presidency of the Council, and in particular to the German Chancellor.
Every compromise, including of course the Berlin compromise, has some more and some less satisfactory aspects.
Perhaps in the European Union maximum satisfaction can be achieved only if the dissatisfaction is equally distributed.
Here too the German Presidency can boast some success.
But so can Parliament!
Never before has the European Parliament been so closely involved in the decision-making on a reform project of this scale.
<P>
From the time of the first reading of the reports in the European Parliament up to the Berlin European Council at the end of March, Parliament influenced and modified the results in the course of intensive discussions, and in intensive negotiations after Berlin.
This result is certainly not quite what we had hoped and wanted.
However, we are also aware that for the first time the European Parliament has managed to change important aspects of a European Council decision.
We succeeded in ensuring the implementation and funding of a fourth URBAN Community initiative, so as to promote the economic and social regeneration of cities and urban neighbourhoods.
<P>
I want to take this opportunity to particularly thank the Commissioner, Mrs Wulf-Mathies, for supporting the European Parliament's position on these questions, as also on a range of others.
We would not have carried off this success without having her on our side.
<P>
It will be thanks to us if more attention is paid in future to land-use planning, to remote regions and islands.
It will be thanks to us that more support is to be given to education and training, and above all it is thanks to us that the flexibility instrument can be increased.
Also to our credit is the review clause for the financing of future policies, especially in the external policy area and in relation to aid for the reconstruction of the afflicted Balkan regions.
It is thanks to us that codecision has been introduced at least in some areas of agricultural policy.
I think the future President of the Commission has us to thank that this Commission will have considerably more staff available for carrying out new tasks than the old Commission ever had.
<P>
The large majority of my group will approve the interinstitutional agreement on medium-term financial planning and we will of course give our assent to those parts of Agenda 2000 that require such assent.
<P>
As we declared back in November 1998: we, the Parliament, will do all we can to ensure that the Agenda 2000 package is adopted before Parliament is re-elected and we want to get this Agenda 2000 under way now.
It makes a vital contribution to the Union's ability to act during a difficult period.
With our decisions on Agenda 2000 we will make the European Union more able to move into the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 NAME="Hatzidakis">
Mr President, in an era when the dogma that you can implement policies, especially social policies, without money is increasingly gaining ground, I continue to insist on the need for a substantive policy of economic and social cohesion within the framework of the European Union.
Social and economic cohesion is one of the fundamental principles of the Treaty on European Union and I think that all the institutions of the European Union must remain firmly committed to this fundamental principle.
<P>
I have to say that, within this framework, the Commission proposals on Agenda 2000 were a step in the right direction. I would like, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, to congratulate Mrs Wulf-Mathies, Mr Fischler and Mr Flynn on their position throughout the negotiations.

<P>
As we all know, the European Parliament formalised its proposals as far back as November, and I believe that it went much further than the Commission proposals.
What it set out to do was to bring together two objectives: on the one hand to have effective fund management and, on the other, to place the emphasis where it was needed.
This is why we asked from the outset that three quarters of the funds went to Objective 1 regions, which are the poorest.
<P>
Taking this a step further, Mr President, negotiations took place and then we had the European Council meeting in Berlin, until which time there had been a certain indecisiveness.
Fortunately, however, the European Council in Berlin reached a compromise, which was followed by negotiations between Parliament, the Council and, of course, the Commission. This brought about three constructive changes: the first change concerned the Community initiative, URBAN; the second was the European Regional Development Fund relating to actions for culture and tourism, and the third concerned the special emphasis given, again under the European Regional Development Fund, to islands.
<P>
As with all compromises, the compromise reached at Berlin does not give cause for celebration, even less so for my country - and I must speak as a Greek - since the Greek Government accepted reforms which place us in the same category as Spain, Ireland and Portugal, countries which are less poor than ours and which are already participating in the euro.
<P>
Nevertheless, if Parliament were to reject this compromise, all our efforts would go up in smoke, and it would prevent the timely onset of programmes within the third Community support framework on 1 January 2000.
I move therefore that the regulation be adopted, especially now that most of the opinions expressed by Parliament as far back as November have been accepted, and that we achieved positive changes during the negotiations we had with the Council last month.
<P>
I would also like to say a few words about the pre-accession funds.
It is sad that Cyprus has been excluded by the Council.
Cyprus is the only applicant country that has been excluded from pre-accession funding.
I hope that Mr van den Broek will fulfil his commitment to examine the possibility of a special budget line to fund Cyprus, as we cannot have double standards.
Such exclusions give rise to doubts as to whether there is indeed the will to admit Cyprus into the European Union, and these doubts must be dispelled as quickly as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Mr President, when the European Council in Berlin reached an agreement, the most important thing was that there was a political agreement.
At that time it was unacceptable for Parliament. But at this historic moment we will hopefully agree to an interinstitutional agreement.
It is historic in that never before has the European Council position been changed by Parliament and it reflects our new position.
We see in front of us three of the resigning Commissioners, and I should like to say on this point that the original proposals on Agenda 2000 showed courage and vision on the part of the Commission.
The results of the European Council were not satisfactory.
<P>
We have achieved major results.
Above all, for the first time we now have new rights in terms of non-compulsory expenditure on agriculture.
That must surely be something positive for Commissioner Fischler.
We have received new guarantees of new flexibility.
We are not very satisfied by the fact that the Council has cut down enormously in an area where this Parliament has major rights - Category 3.
At least we have achieved within the current constraints the possibility of a further adjustment by Parliament.
<P>
In Category 4 - external policy - there is an agreement that we will have the possibility of review.
The hypocrisy of the European Council can best be demonstrated by the fact that no less than EUR 250 m had to be decided within two weeks on Kosovo, thereby taking more than three-fifths of the overall basis for seven years.
It shows therefore that Berlin is already outdated.
But voting against an interinstitutional agreement at this moment would be a major mistake.
It is on that basis that the Liberal Group will vote for the interinstitutional agreement because it will achieve not simply more money but more rights and more parity.
It is on that basis that the European Community can move forwards.
If we vote against it, with all the other difficulties, we would throw the European Union into a major phase of uncertainty at the time that the challenges for the new century are about to come.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="Baggioni">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, all the islanders of the European Union were pleased to see on the evening of 2 October 1997 that the Treaty of Amsterdam signed by the 15 Member States contained the first explicit references officially recognising the permanent and structural handicaps suffered by the island regions and the need to remedy this situation.
<P>
Unfortunately, less than two years later and with the Treaty having entered into force last Saturday, it is important to note that the reform of the Structural Funds for the 2000-2006 period does not follow the same logic as the new Treaty.
Although a solid legal basis allowed us to implement a truly integrated policy to help the island regions, particularly by means of the Structural Funds, the Council and the Commission decided otherwise, paying no heed to the European Parliament's recommendations in this matter.
The island regions saw all the possibilities of special, specific treatment being categorically and methodically rejected.
Even the modest request for a special section for cooperation with and between the islands in the Interreg III programme was rejected.
<P>
On reading the regulations that will be adopted tomorrow, it would seem that the cause of the island regions will not have made any significant advances with this reform of the Structural Funds.
Moreover, it is worrying to note that, from the year 2000, very few islands will be considered to be in need of support as a result of their slow development.
Does this mean that the Council and the Commission believe that the Union's island regions have experienced enough economic development to call into question the political will - set out a year and a half earlier at the Amsterdam Council - to give real consideration to the islands' problems?
Does this mean that the permanent and structural handicaps that were expressly recognised have disappeared as if by magic in only 18 months?
Only the regulation concerning the ERDF refers to the need to help certain islands, and even then it only contains a very vague reference.
<P>
Nevertheless, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Varela, and the members of the Committee on Regional Policy for their understanding and their support throughout this parliamentary term.
Faced with such an inadequate outcome for the cause of the islands, there is no doubt that all efforts must now be made to ensure that the specific characteristics of the Union's island regions are considered not only in theoretical terms, but also in practical terms.
But I trust that the European Parliament will continue along the path it has followed for several years.
The Council and the Commission will not be able to pretend for ever that they do not hear us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Miranda">
Mr President, the framework for the financial perspective agreed in Berlin is not likely to raise much enthusiasm.
This is probably not due so much to the amounts earmarked for or requested from each of our countries, but more to the generally restrictive solution adopted and its precariousness.
Nevertheless, all the countries and governments declared that they were winners after the summit. But we should be objective.
With such a financial framework, there will be no enlargement until 2006. In order to achieve this before then, the perspective will have to be extensively reweighted, as well as the respective amounts.
<P>
This medium-term financial framework does not respond to such important issues as the consolidation of the euro and, in particular, any asymmetric shocks or other shocks which may result from the next WTO negotiations.
In this context, although we are happy to unconditionally support and encourage the new interinstitutional agreement as a matter of principle and in order to guarantee stability and allow planning, the resulting compromise of the financial framework adopted with these characteristics gives us cause for concern. This will increase even more due to the absence of an in-depth reform of the CAP, which we recommend, and due to the undeniably restrictive content of the rules which will govern some of the cohesion-related instruments.
However, other members of my group will talk about these aspects.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first let me turn to the positive aspects.
It is vitally important to economic and social cohesion and therefore to the very core of the European social model that the new regulation was adopted in good time, before the end of the European Parliament's electoral term.
That guarantees the continuation of the funding.
However, the price is very high.
The regions will now have to compensate for the financial cuts at the very heart of European integration by putting forward more intelligent plans.
In this regard I call on the Commission to apply its control function really seriously and genuinely to pursue in its programmes the objectives formulated in the new regulation - sustainable development, promotion of employment, promotion of equal opportunities for women and men, environmental improvement, support for small and medium-sized undertakings - and not to shy away from them again in face of the Member States.
The result of Berlin, as has already been said today, is not quite the reform we hoped for.
After Parliament increased the rights of the people of Europe by incorporating a comprehensive principle of participation in the draft regulation - and this is the only basis for sustainable planning - the Council is now leaving this common concern to the discretion of the Member States.
I regard that as the main problem with the new regulation.
<P>
When the funds are used for integrated development plans, the traditional way of thinking in terms of resources must be overcome.
The regulation does offer possibilities, but I have since become aware of the resistance at Member State level.
What this means is that local development initiatives must obtain ESF and ERDF funds if they really are to be able to combat unemployment.
Under the new Structural Funds regulation it has proved possible to continue the cohesion policy.
But that is not a reform!
Efficiency, administrative simplification and concentration have fallen by the wayside.
They were sacrificed to the confessional procedure and the favours handed out there.
<P>
I conclude from this that if we do not finally manage to place the European interest above national interests we will not manage to achieve a genuinely progressive economic and social cohesion policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="Barthet-Mayer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is a consensus within Parliament as regards the enlargement of the EU to include the CEECs and the need to reform the CAP, and I would like to look at this aspect of Agenda 2000.
Parliament, which represents the people of Europe, stated that it was in favour of the European agricultural model, greater equity, balanced rural development, improved quality and the protection of the environment. This was highlighted in the Cunha report.
<P>
This political position is clear and it totally opposes the ever-increasing standardisation, the ever-increasing homogenisation, and the ever-increasing relentless competition, which pushes farmers' prices and incomes down. This is the ultra-liberal position of the Cairns Group and the United States.
Thanks to Parliament's firm stance, which has meant that the Commission has had to take up a less intransigent position, and thanks to the perseverance and persistence of certain Member States, we have a satisfactory compromise for the short-term in terms of abandoning cofinancing, in terms of a more moderate fall than expected in guaranteed agricultural prices and in terms of the status quo on quotas.
<P>
But what will happen in the future? Does the reform enable us to respond to the Commission's plans for sustainable agriculture, which contradict its amended proposal on the agricultural section of Agenda 2000?
Is cooperation between the European Union and the ACP countries enhanced? Has rural development, which involves 80 % of the Union's territory, been given the role it deserves?
Is it promoted in the island regions and allocated greater resources in the budget? Are the issues of the obvious social and environmental imbalances in the CAP and the division of agriculture into two categories truly resolved?
Is aid to agriculture better distributed and does it better protect the environment?
No, no, no and no.
<P>
By moving away from the policy of supporting agriculture through prices, by shrinking into ourselves and encouraging nationalisation, by undermining this sector through a further increase in direct income aid, Europe is moving further and further away from its mission and the founding principles of the common agricultural market.
What is even more serious is that it is eroding the foundations of its culture, its countryside, its gastronomy, and therefore a major part of its identity. How will the agricultural Europe, reformed in this way, be able to defend its political project for agriculture and rural development in the future WTO negotiations?
This gives rise to great concern.
<P>
Those negotiating on behalf of Europe in the WTO will have to prepare for battle and put our minds at rest: the European Union must never have a political agricultural objective of bringing the Community's regulations into line with the rules of play of the global market.
For the time being, since it is the present we must deal with, my group will vote in favour of the current compromise, but it urges the Commission to defend the European agricultural model at the next WTO negotiations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 NAME="des Places">
Mr President, it is on the strength of our convictions rather than any desire to put up opposition that we will not vote for the legislative resolutions on Agenda 2000, with the exception of the resolution on the COM in wine, as we do not support the positions of the Commission and the Council that emerged as a result of the Berlin compromise.
<P>
How could we be pleased with an agreement that leads to a significant reduction in European farmers' incomes, through a partially compensated reduction in prices, before totally eliminating them to satisfy the requirements of the WTO?
You will be aware, Mr President, that certain agricultural products are essential for the environmental balance and for the utilisation of EU territory.
Unfortunately, a serious decline will be experienced as far as certain products are concerned.
I am thinking, in particular, of oil protein crops, which, I would remind you, are ideal rotation crops to produce quality cereals, something we are increasingly trying to do.
<P>
When I drafted the two opinions of the Committee on Agriculture on Agenda 2000, I warned all my colleagues about the budget difficulties we would encounter.
In this connection, I am for the most part satisfied with the Berlin agreement with respect to its aim to support, if need be, the agricultural guideline as and when the successive enlargements take place, taking into consideration an automatic annual technical adjustment in the financial perspective to account for inflation.
We only hope that the principle of compulsory expenditure will not be called into question.
<P>
Apart from its repercussions on farmers' incomes, this agreement in no way prepares for the next WTO negotiations, or perhaps, without saying so, it prepares for them too well.
All the proposed reforms will be given a pounding.
The only acquis that our partners will accept is the reduction of prices.
<P>
Clearly, our partners are also going to try to dismantle compensation aid.
We all know that the motto in these types of negotiations is that everything that has been established has been established while the rest is up for negotiation.
European agriculture must not disappear.
Besides the economic and financial role that farmers play, they also have a social, cultural and environmental role that must be given top priority.
On listening to Mr Prodi's speeches, I noticed that he plans to use his position to enhance the role of the European Union in urban areas.
<P>
So allow me to ask one question: in this context, where does the future of the countryside lie with the development of the Structural Funds to benefit urban areas, with the new WTO negotiations and with a CAP that contradicts our European identity?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="President">
That concludes the political group spokemen's contribution.
We now come to the contributions of the rapporteurs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="McCarthy">
Mr President, above all we need to be aware here today of our responsibilities in Parliament's final part-session, not only our legislative function but our commitment to deliver this new round of European funds for our regions and local communities in a timely manner.
As rapporteur I would like to tell you why I am recommending that Parliament gives a resounding 'Yes' vote to the Council regulation on structural funds as amended.
Our objective has been to emphasise Parliament's priorities in the reform process through a succession of informal contacts.
This informal procedure is an ongoing exchange of information, a fruitful dialogue which has resulted in Parliament's priorities being incorporated into the final Berlin text while some demands remain to be negotiated in post-Berlin meetings.
<P>
We can be satisfied that key priorities have been met.
Parliament requested that concentration must ensure that Objective 1 regions, the poorest in the Union, continue to receive priority assistance.
This is the case in areas such as my own in Merseyside with a GDP of less than 75 % of the EU average which will continue to receive priority funds.
I have to say that even if some financial special cases were made alongside Objective 1, this was of course the price to pay for a package and financial deal.
We have to have the realism and pragmatism in this Parliament to recognise that consensus and compromise are the lifeblood of European politics.
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New Objective 2 regions will continue to benefit from a sustained European commitment and sustained investment.
Again, if I look to my own region of the North-West, it has benefited from European funding.
There is still a lot to do and we are glad to see the flexibility of a six-year potential phasing-out programme rather than four years in the Commission's original proposal.
I would like to invite the Commission at the end of our mandate to take up the offer from Manchester City Council to come and see how European funds are making a difference to local communities there.
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We supported a safety net proposal.
This we believe was a success.
In addition, Parliament very much welcomes the request, that was met, for the Union to play an active role in promoting lasting peace and prosperity in Northern Ireland.
This was met with a special peace package.
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We would have liked to have gone further on partnership but we hope that Member States will have the vision to ensure wide and deeper partnership in the drafting of programmes and in the implementing of those programmes.
Most importantly, for me personally, the jewel in the crown achieved as a result of informal post-Berlin negotiations in Strasbourg was that the Council agreed to the European Parliament's request to modify the Berlin Summit decision to add a new URBAN initiative with 0.35 % of funds added to the Community pot.
I hope Mr Flynn does not think we are plundering Article 10 because we will be using those funds for social and employment initiatives as well.
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URBAN has been popular with the public in some of our most deprived neighbourhoods and I believe we can help those communities on the path to regeneration.
The rapporteurs therefore recommend that we now see a balance of interest between Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
I would warn any political group that is thinking of playing party politics with this vote that blocking these proposals would mean a newly elected Parliament would be unable to vote until autumn, and this would put at risk over 200 billion of resources and involve interminable delays to local communities and projects.
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But let us be clear about what we are voting for today.
This is not just a 112-page document of Eurospeak and technical details, although you can find plenty of Eurojargon in it.
It is a package of funding to launch our regions into the new millennium, seven years of support for our most marginalised communities and areas who need our European commitment and solidarity, for the young, the long-term unemployed and women returners: people who want to play an active role and part in economic regeneration in Europe.
This is a European Union package for jobs, for regeneration.
It is an employment and regeneration pact and it is a product of a consensus and compromise between the Member States.
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As I have said, we believe we have made very positive improvements with the addition of a fourth Community initiative, a new URBAN initiative, which Parliament supported and campaigned for.
For all the above reasons I urge members today to use their vote to give a unanimous 'Yes' vote to this funding package.
Let us give our EU citizens the visible sign that we are backing the solidarity and support needed for the jobs and regeneration programmes for the new millennium
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<SPEAKER ID=145 NAME="Collins, Gerard">
Mr President, it gives me pleasure to present the recommendation and the report on the Cohesion Fund, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy.
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When I presented this report for a first reading last November I spoke about the need for social and economic cohesion to remain one of the central pillars of the Community.
The Cohesion Fund has been one of the clearest examples of this solidarity and action and what it can achieve.
In approving this report on that occasion this House endorsed that view of the Community.
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In recent months, and indeed up to the Berlin Summit, there have been a number of meetings with the Council on the future of the Cohesion Fund.
I was adamant to negotiate the retention of the Cohesion Fund and that it be maintained in its current form.
The final agreement at Berlin upheld Parliament's views in relation to the Fund and points raised during the informal conciliation period were taken on board.
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Parliament's priorities in relation to the Cohesion Fund were easily identifiable.
The first priority was to ensure the continuation of the Fund and the Council was able to agree with Parliament's view that the basic objectives of the Cohesion Fund are as relevant today as they were in 1992.
Therefore the eligibility criterion of 90 % of the Union average wealth had to remain unchanged, allowing Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Greece to continue to qualify for the fund.
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The view shared by Parliament and the Commission that the four current cohesion countries should continue to be eligible was agreed to by Council.
The countries concerned need to continue the convergence process, and the continuation of the Fund is a vital ingredient in this process.
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The retention of the fund under the same conditions means that the infrastructure gap between the four cohesion countries and the rest of the Community can gradually be closed.
It is vital that the current imbalance in this area be redressed so as to allow for a harmonised level of economic development across the EU.
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A second point on which Parliament's views were taken on board, relates to the amount of an advance for projects and Parliament believed that the 10 % on account proposed by the Commission was insufficient.
It would have exerted too heavy a burden on less-favoured regions trying to get a project off the ground, and the 20 % agreed at Berlin, I believe, recognised this fact.
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A further issue which Parliament had deemed unsatisfactory was the application of the 'polluter pays' principle.
While we naturally supported the idea, the Commission proposal remained unclear as to what was meant by 'a project's capacity to generate revenue'.
Clear guidelines were needed as to the practical implementation of the principle.
In this respect I welcome the Commission's declaration attached to the Berlin conclusions that the implementation would have to take account of national, social sensitivities.
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In terms of what Parliament set out to achieve for the Cohesion Fund from 2000 to 2006, the Berlin agreement is highly satisfactory.
For this reason I believe there is no need for any further adjustments.
I will just outline some of the main features of the Cohesion Fund as it will be under the amended regulation from the year 2000.
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There will be an overall amount of EUR 18 billion available to the four cohesion countries for the seven year period.
The allocation of the total resources between the four countries was made on the basis of precise and objective criteria, principally population size and GNP per capita.
Account was taken of the improvement and national prosperity attained over the previous period as well as of surface area.
Other factors, such as deficiencies and transport infrastructure were also considered.
And halfway through the funding period a review of progress will take place to see which countries will continue to qualify on the basis of continuing to meet the 90 % criterion.
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As I have already mentioned, the 'polluter pays' principle is included in the amended regulation and other environmental considerations also feature.
In this way Parliament's view that infrastructure development must take serious account of environmental obligations is clearly evident.
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Colleagues, we all took a very close interest in the Berlin Summit and are all well aware that the final agreement did not come easily.
The question of the Cohesion Fund was frequently controversial and, against this background, Parliament can be satisfied that it was taken seriously by the other institutions and that our recommendations were taken on board.
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I welcome the final text of the regulation as one that reflects very clearly Parliament's views and I recommend that colleagues give this report their assent.
This will consolidate many months of dedicated effort from Parliament's side to secure the best deal possible for the balanced development of our regions and the furthering of economic and social cohesion of the European Union.
Parliament's assent will mean that the funding timetable can be adhered to in vital projects in Spain, Ireland, Greece and Portugal, enabling them to call down the necessary funding.
These projects will make a real and tangible difference to the lives of millions of our citizens living in the Community's more remote and under-developed regions.
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But the Cohesion Fund is more than this.
Its benefits are not limited to four Member States.
In building the Union into a more cohesive, economic Union we are consolidating the single market and reinforcing the euro.
We are allowing the Union to face up to not only these current projects but also the future ambition of enlargement.
It is true that the Cohesion Fund is limited as to its sectors of operation, geographical focus and indeed amounts.
However, it has proven to be an excellently focused instrument recording excellent expenditure levels and results which are of benefit to all.
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In conclusion, Mr President, on a personal note, I should like to sincerely thank Commissioner Wulf-Mathies for her very positive role in this area.
She has always been most open at all times to discussion and debate, always understanding, always courteous to Parliament's members of the Committee on Regional Policy.
Her commitment to the European Union and to her area of responsibility is an inspiration to us all.
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<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="Varela Suanzes-Carpegna">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as rapporteur, I am very pleased for two reasons.
Firstly, Parliament has the chance to approve tomorrow in the House our recommendation at second reading concerning the ERDF.
This has important legal and political implications since, following the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the ERDF now comes under the codecision procedure.
We have had the novel experience of negotiating with the Council and the Commission in order to find a consensus between Parliament's position, that of the 15 Member States and the Commission's proposal.
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One slip by Parliament, or simply one occasion where we do not exercise our powers responsibly, could result in us approving certain amendments that might prevent us from concluding this important regulation tomorrow, thereby preventing the regions of Europe from planning their activities for 1 January 2000.
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I am also very pleased as rapporteur because of the content of the document we have drawn up.
It was not easy to fully explain our colleagues' ideas, but through four compromise amendments we succeeded in obtaining the agreement of the majority to withdraw other amendments, while also managing to preserve the spirit of our committee's proposal.
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The first of these four amendments refers to the inclusion of the concept of land-use planning in the ERDF, which is something Parliament has been fighting for for quite some time.
We need to link regional development with spatial development.
Or, if you prefer, we need to unite economic and social cohesion with the territorial cohesion of Europe.
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Our second compromise amendment is very closely related to land-use planning and calls on the ERDF to help establish the necessary links with regions suffering from permanent, geographical disadvantages because of their peripheral or insular status. The aim here is to promote exchanges between Europe's peripheral areas and the Community's central regions.
In its three-yearly report on cohesion, the Commission has highlighted the fact that this situation is one of the main reasons for the backwardness of these regions and a factor in any eventual recovery.
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Our third compromise amendment specifically brings tourism and culture under the scope of the ERDF.
Not long ago, just before he unfortunately passed away, the artist and humanist Yehudi Menuhin wondered publicly what would happen to the European Union's culture.
Strangely, although 80 % of the Union's spending on culture comes from the Structural Funds, only 3 % of its appropriations are allocated to cultural projects.
Our report hopes to provide a response to these questions and we would ask that culture be given a greater presence in the Structural Funds, including our cultural and natural heritage.
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Finally, in line with the report on the general regulation, we would ask that the URBAN initiative should be maintained alongside the Community's Interreg initiative.
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I would like to end by referring to a very special issue in which the European Parliament has played a very significant role: the structural aspects of fisheries.
In my speech to the House at first reading, I called on the Commission to amend its proposal and put fisheries on an equal footing with agriculture.
I am pleased to see today that our position - which was so strongly defended by our rapporteur, Mr Arias Cañete, under the firm and constant guidance of the Committee on Fisheries - has reached a satisfactory conclusion.
The amendments Parliament had requested have been introduced and we have managed to end up with a report that is a significant improvement on the Commission's proposal.
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I would therefore like to thank the Commission, the Council and all our colleagues who have supported us.
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<SPEAKER ID=147 NAME="Jöns">
Mr President, Members of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, it seems hard to believe: the Social Fund is our only labour market policy instrument at European level!
It has very successfully introduced new labour market policy measures in the Member States. Yet in Berlin it was not provided with anything near the funding that this House and the Commission rightly called for.
Precisely in the case of the Social Fund, which has repeatedly produced European added value, whether in regard to the policy for the handicapped, in regard to preventive labour market policy or, for instance, to promoting equal opportunities for women, much remained in dispute up the last minute.
Surely that is a rather topsy-turvy world!
It was not our fault.
We did not call for anything revolutionary.
Basically we were concerned with five key points to effectively flank the common employment strategy.
Right at the top of the list was a preventive labour market policy and specific measures for women.
Preventing unemployment has to be the more humane approach and is also considerably cheaper.
Surely it is not acceptable that people now speak of the feminisation of poverty Union-wide!
Nor is it acceptable that EU-wide women only occupy 3 % of top jobs, and the rate is declining.
Women still make up the majority of the population.
And here, gentlemen of the Council, mainstreaming alone is not enough!
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We were also concerned with doing more to combat social marginalisation, for in the long term it will pay off if these people can manage to support themselves again.
We also wanted to make the positive experiences gained from the PEACE initiative accessible throughout the Union; under this initiative, NGOs provided small grants that did not involve any great administrative outlay to help people for whom access to public sector jobs represents an impossible threshold to cross.
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Our fifth concern was to make the Member States more aware of the need to cover all the Social Fund intervention areas rather than just picking out their favourites again.
And let me say again to the Council: you have been aware of these demands since the beginning of the year.
But that did not stop you from deciding your common position with quite stubborn disregard for this.
We may well ask ourselves in this House, what is the point then of these informal conciliation meetings?
The fact that we now have compromises acceptable to both sides is thanks to us and us alone, because we openly came towards you with compromise proposals to prevent your stubborn attitude from driving us to the Conciliation Committee; for that would have meant having to stall many projects because the money would not have come from Brussels in time.
That would have been irresponsible, which, I hope, is something nobody here in this House wants!
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In the end you got round to it after all.
Even if the percentages of the funding have not been fixed, we have agreed on a more preventive labour market policy and on more specific measures for women.
Suddenly it did prove possible to enshrine in the regulation the objective of social integration in the labour market.
In the end we even managed to reach a compromise on global subsidies, which now actually makes it possible to provide up to 100 % support for NGOs.
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The amendments we have now agreed with the Council are Amendments Nos 1, 8, 9 and 10.
I would ask all Members to support these amendments so that the results of our negotiations are also reflected in the Social Fund regulation.
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There has been very little shift in the Council's position on the five intervention areas.
We will have to learn to live with that.
But on no issue was the Council as inflexible and stubborn as on mainstreaming.
So it is now up to the Commission to ensure that mainstreaming is incorporated in the national programmes.
I hope we will also see a few women in the Council in seven years' time.
It would certainly be a service to the cause!
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<SPEAKER ID=148 NAME="Arias Cañete">
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, in the first report I presented to the House on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries on the Council Regulation on structural measures in the fisheries sector, Parliament expressed its support for three basic ideas.
The first was the need to guarantee sufficient resources in the Community budget to cover the sector's needs in the context of the structural policy for the fisheries sector.
The second was the need for a single legal framework, in the form of a horizontal regulation, that would bring together the various regulations.
The third was the need for national programmes, and not only regional programmes, to guarantee that the structural policy was consistent with the fleets' multi-annual guidance programmes.
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On the basis of this strategy, at first reading Parliament brought together in a single regulation both the proposal for a Council Regulation on structural measures in the fisheries sector, which is included in Agenda 2000, and the proposal for a Council Regulation laying down the detailed rules and arrangements regarding Community structural assistance in the fisheries sector.
The vote in the House entirely endorsed the positions supported by the Committee on Fisheries. Subsequently, our committee, and particularly its chairman, Carmen Fraga, contacted the Council, the national administrations and the professional organisations to organise a public hearing, which confirmed that Parliament's political position was widely supported.
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With such support, Parliament held various informal meetings with the Council presidency which, I am very pleased to say, has agreed to most of what we wanted, and, since the Berlin European Council, a new proposal for a regulation has even been drawn up, which is at last known as the 'Regulation on the Financial Instrument for Fisheries Guidance'.
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From now on, we will have a single structural basis for fisheries and will not have to finance structural measures under the EAGGF Guarantee Section.
Equally, we will have horizontal programming in non-Objective 1 regions.
We will also have a full list of all the actions and measures involved, and on the basis of these concessions from the Council, the Committee on Fisheries has accepted that there will two separate regulations.
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I would like to congratulate the Council and the Commission on the flexibility they demonstrated in reviewing the initial ideas we considered to be mistaken and looking for a satisfactory compromise.
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I would also like to point out that we have made significant changes to the regulation on implementing measures: we have removed the additional 30 % requirement for capacity withdrawn and the arrangements linking joint enterprises to the fisheries agreements.
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I would like to end with a general reference to the Structural Funds pillar of Agenda 2000. In my view, given the backdrop of budgetary rigour, the Council and the Commission have shown good sense in concentrating aid on Objective 1 regions.
This will allow us to maintain the current levels of support in terms of per capita aid and to maintain the Cohesion Fund. Together, these elements will help us to speed up the structural recovery of the less prosperous countries.
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There is no doubt that our structural policy lacks vital weight to overcome the regional imbalances in the short term. By the same token, however, there is no doubt that the European Union is continuing to preserve some extremely important solidarity mechanisms.
Perhaps, against this backdrop of budgetary rigour, we can see the importance of the requirement set out in the Treaty that all Community policies - not only structural policies - must be considered from the perspective of economic and social cohesion.
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It may be that in a situation where the debate on net balances determines the solutions, it is somewhat utopian to demand that all Community policies should be aimed at achieving greater economic and social cohesion.
But in the near future, when we tackle the question of enlargement, we will have to look at this idea in greater detail if we do not want to end up with an enlarged Europe with even greater regional disparities that put the entire system at risk.
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<SPEAKER ID=149 NAME="Barón Crespo">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will try to help the President by speaking slowly, if possible, and without a text in front of me.
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Up until now, we have talked about how we are going to put our common house - the Union - in order.
It is now time to look at enlargement.
This report of mine which is now at second reading discusses the coordination of pre-accession aid for enlargement.
I feel that I should remind you briefly of the historical task and role of enlargement, not only in terms of Agenda 2000 but also for the European Union. The people of Central and Eastern Europe and of the Mediterranean, the majority of whom have only recently regained their freedom, want to take part in our common historic adventure.
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Since the beginning, Parliament has stated that, in its view, there should be a general process of negotiation involving inclusive criteria, without the creation of new barriers and new discriminations and with the possibility of a fairly competitive environment.
In other words, we hoped that each and every one of these countries could make the collective effort to restore democracy, restructure their economies and learn to live in harmony with their neighbours that should enable them to participate fully in our future.
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I have drawn up this report on behalf of Parliament and in close cooperation with my colleagues Mr Walter and Mr Sonneveld, and my aim has been to coordinate the aid and to also include Parliament's criteria.
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I must say, Mr President, that we have succeeded in a series of important objectives in this area.
Firstly, the Commission itself mended its own ways: it amended its initial draft and even changed the title of the regulation as we had requested. Moreover, between the two readings, we held a series of meetings with the Council presidency which, in my view, were quite positive and enabled us to develop the criteria relating to the implementation of the PHARE programme, which is vitally important for organising and strengthening the institutions in these countries and including political criteria relating to democracy and strengthening civil society.
In short, it is fundamental for helping to strengthen these societies. This is the first objective which, in my opinion, we have managed to modify and improve compared with the initial proposal.
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We have also made significant progress in other areas, such as respect for the existing comitology rules. We wanted to ensure that these rules were not changed by any underhand methods.
Furthermore, we made progress in terms of Parliament's participation, as there is now the possibility that we might be able to review this process every year. Overall, I feel that the solution is satisfactory.
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Naturally, there are some issues that have yet to be resolved and I believe they should be mentioned.
One of these, which relates to the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, is my belief - which did not receive the support of the House, but now that the Treaty of Amsterdam has entered into force it is assuming great importance - that we should look at this entire process as an overall strategy for the Union that should lead to joint measures.
In my view, this would also allow us to integrate the policy that we need to develop in this area into our legal and constitutional framework.
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There is another issue that should be mentioned, which it was not officially included but was incorporated in the procedures involving each of the countries.
It relates to the importance we attach to social dialogue in relation to strengthening the system of production and industrial relations in these countries.
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I would like to mention two other aspects of our approach that have yet to be resolved, although the Council confirms that they are being considered.
One of these is the importance of restructuring the nuclear industry in most of the countries concerned.
This is an extremely sensitive issue for most of the Union's citizens.
And the final aspect - which we hope will also be integrated in the future under the new Commission - relates to the behavioural criteria and the code of conduct that must follow.
I hope that these two issues can be resolved as quickly as possible.
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<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="Sonneveld">
Mr President, I am going to speak about pre-accession measures for agriculture.
In our first report we included a fundamental point concerning the conditions which the Commission proposed applicant countries should fulfill in order to qualify for EU farming subsidies.
I am referring here to the condition that applicant countries must have drawn up a seven-year rural development plan by 1 January 2000.
The European Parliament amended this requirement, considering it much too demanding, and proposed a more practical procedure.
The Council, however, decided to follow the Commission proposal.
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This point was repeatedly on the agenda at the subsequent trialogue meetings, and the Council presidency in particular expressed understanding for the European Parliament's objections.
Nevertheless, we did not succeed in convincing the Commission and Council that this condition would place an excessive administrative burden on the applicant countries.
The Council was prepared, however, to abandon the date of 1 January, while maintaining the year 2000. As a result, the difference of opinion in principle with the European Parliament remained unchanged.
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The European Parliament believes it is impossible for the applicant countries to develop a full seven-year integrated rural development programme in a democratic manner within such a short space of time.
The European Parliament raised the possibility of setting up a small group of experts on the acquis communautaire and the economic development problems facing the former Communist bloc countries, who would act in an advisory capacity in selecting measures and projects.
At the same time work could continue on drawing up a rural development plan which would consequently be more realistic and of better quality.
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In the meantime, it was decided following the Berlin summit to set up a separate budget category for accession, Category 7, which will also cover the SAPARD support and under which stricter financial rules will apply for prefinancing and financial management and responsibility than would have been the case if Category 1, in other words agriculture, measures continued to apply as the Commission had proposed, or with Category 2, which would have applied if these countries had actually become members.
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It seems that a country in the pre-accession phase must already meet very stringent administrative demands in order to benefit from the SAPARD pre-accession support for agriculture.
My conclusion is that all the EU bodies have the same desire to achieve successful accessions as soon as possible.
But in my opinion the European Parliament has better grasped what the EU conditions mean in practice for political life in these countries.
The other institutions are more focused on accountability and cost management.
Time for further discussion is running out, however.
This is why the European Parliament is today formally delivering its opinion, while at the same time expressing its concern at the demanding procedure.
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<SPEAKER ID=151 NAME="Walter">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as rapporteur on ISPA, the pre-accession instrument for the applicant countries, and a constant monitor of the general reform of the Structural Funds I am really glad that Parliament is bringing the negotiations on Agenda 2000 to a successful conclusion this week.
That will send out an important signal, both to the people of the Union and to the Central and Eastern European countries that are seeking EU membership.
Europe is able to act!
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The fact that we can now take the definitive vote on Agenda 2000 is not just a matter of course.
So I want to take this opportunity to specifically congratulate the presidencies of the Council and particularly the German Presidency of the Council on managing to establish a workable run-up to the final spurt.
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In relation to the structural pre-accession instrument ISPA, the Commission, the Council and Parliament broadly followed the same track.
Through constructive negotiations we have, in my view, achieved a successful overall result that sends out a clear signal of our solidarity with the applicant countries.
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The funding is limited, especially when you look at the immense need for adjustment in the applicant countries.
That makes it all the more right to concentrate ISPA on supporting projects in the environmental and transport sectors, which are central to economic development, and to interlink this aid closely with other forms of pre-accession aid, in the framework also of PHARE.
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But like the Structural Funds as a whole, and Parliament sees this as a key point, ISPA must make a lasting contribution to job creation.
We also believe it is important that the recipient countries use this instrument as a means of becoming familiar with and learning to apply the rules and mechanisms of structural policy, which will make integration all the easier later on.
So it is of the utmost importance for local and regional players to be involved wherever possible.
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Let me also take this opportunity to say something about the EU's future structural policy as a whole.
We have no cause to jump for joy about the Structural Funds reform. However, we have found a workable compromise here that ensures that in future too we do more than just pay lip-service to European solidarity.
On the contrary!
With the new Objectives 1, 2 and 3 and the Community initiatives Interreg, Leader, EQUAL and URBAN we now have powerful instruments at hand which allow us to make a major contribution to making the regions more competitive and creating jobs.
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In concentrating on the most important aspects, it is of course inevitable that some regions will lose Objective 1 and 2 status in the medium term.
So it is all the more important - and that too is a success achieved by Parliament - that we introduce generous transitional rules to ensure that the regions do not face an unreasonable and painful loss of support but have six years to adjust to the changes.
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I am also pleased and rather proud that the European Parliament managed through tough negotiations with the Commission and the Council to carry through a fourth Community initiative.
It may be called URBAN but it is something more than the previous URBAN initiative, for in future it will also benefit smaller cities and urban neighbourhoods and will take a broader approach to social and economic regeneration.
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That also largely covers what Parliament aimed to achieve with the fifth Community initiative which we demanded last year in plenary, which means that these possibilities can also be used.
With this initiative we now have an important additional job-creating instrument.
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Solidarity within the European Union and with the pre-accession states, the concentrated use of resources, job creation, less bureaucracy and preparations for enlargement eastward have been the aims of the Structural Funds reform from the outset.
We are now taking a decisive step forward.
I thank all who have helped ensure this, whether in the Council or in the Commission - and quite particularly in the Commission - and who have given us such solid support over the past weeks, months and years.
I thank them warmly. Europe may not be taking giant steps forward, but every step forward is a good step, and I think we are moving forward here.
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<SPEAKER ID=152 NAME="Tomlinson">
Mr President, the report that I introduce is a technical but important part of the Agenda 2000 proposals.
It is amending the regulation establishing the guarantee fund for external actions.
Members will recall that this was in fact presented to the House and in November 1998 referred back to committee.
As a result of it being referred back to committee we now have a situation in which we are today inviting the House to approve the Commission proposal in the form on which political agreement has already been reached in the Council.
That political agreement was reached at the Vienna Summit and was annexed to the Vienna Summit decisions.
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Essentially, the amendments which have been put by Parliament, through its Committee on Budgets, to the original Commission proposal have been accepted.
Our Amendment No 2 sought to oblige the Commission to review the parameters of the guarantee fund in its annual reports and now, following the political decision, the Commission must review the parameters of the guarantee fund at the time of each accession.
Each one of our amendments of that type of technical nature has therefore been agreed and incorporated in the Vienna Council decision.
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The Council also decided to depart from the Commission's original proposal by increasing the target amount to 9 % instead of 8 %, as the Commission had proposed, for the ratio of the fund to the Community's total outstanding liabilities.
The provisioning rate of the fund was thereby reduced to 9 % for each loan operation, down from the previous 14 %, but still higher than the rate of 6 % that the Commission itself had proposed.
In total, we have a situation which I feel satisfies all the requirements of Parliament and on that basis I commend it to the House.
<P>
However, in the wider context, it is important to say today that despite all the misgivings there are about some of the details of the interinstitutional arrangement and the financial perspective, it is better to have something which is slightly inadequate in the view of some but is nevertheless agreed, than to go forward seeking perfection and actually get nothing.
However there is a salutary lesson in this process for Parliament.
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Parliament today has managed to gather less than 5 % of its Members.
We have become a Parliament in which we merely deliver speeches to each other and there are precious few people here to listen.
I really think this is a salutary lesson at the end of this Parliament, and the next Parliament has to take it seriously if it expects public opinion to take its debate seriously.
This Parliament has got to start taking its debates seriously itself.
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<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="Görlach">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, the new regulation on the policy to support rural development is without question a major step forward in the reform of the common agricultural policy.
That is not just because nine separate regulations have been turned into one clear regulation, which is good for transparency and certainly also has an impact on the management of resources, but because it represents the move to a new policy.
Of course the picture painted by the Commission, of two strong pillars side by side, is a little over-optimistic.
One of the pillars is not as strong as the other yet, as you know, Commissioner Fischler; but there is still time.
We must continue to seek, in future too, to make agricultural policy for rural areas a little more flexible, for the Member States and also for the regions.
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Let me remind you of what Commissioner Fischler once said: this policy is so important because we always have to put the question: what will the brother and sister of a young farmer who takes over a farm do on the labour market?
This is where it becomes quite clear what we will have to do for the rural areas in future.
That is why we are still rather attached to our earlier demand that in future of course Parliament must have codecision power over the entire spectrum of the common agricultural policy.
That is still lacking.
As I said on another occasion this morning: it is a necessary part of perfecting parliamentary democracy in Europe.
<P>
So you will understand why we agricultural politicians are strongly in favour of supporting the interinstitutional agreement.
For if it becomes possible to include the accompanying measures, the expenditure on rural areas, under non-compulsory expenditure - which obviously does not mean we do not feel obliged to spend it, but which would give Parliament more say over this increasingly important policy - you will understand our view.
For the rest, it would have the advantage of allowing for transfers in the case of multiannual expenditure.
We will have teething problems with this new policy in its early years.
It would be a pity to lose money because of those teething troubles by not being able to transfer it.
<P>
Overall this is a good start.
We have not grown a real tree yet, but this little sapling that we have planted together can - if the Commission and the Council nurture it just as carefully - grow into a strong and healthy tree to support rural development policy.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="Mulder">
Mr President, as rapporteur for agricultural policy funding under Agenda 2000, I should like to begin by expressing my appreciation to the German Presidency for the opportunities granted by the German Government for a trialogue on agricultural policy.
<P>
There are obviously a number of differences between the original proposal of Parliament's Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, which was adopted in January, and the outcome of the Berlin summit.
This was bound to be the case.
I do not believe anyone can ever be 100 % right in these complex negotiations.
<P>
What we welcome is the fact that for the first time rural policy is a clear component of European agricultural policy, as Mr Görlach also said.
We also believe it important - and this is also in line with my report - that the Berlin conclusions clearly state that Europe must pay more attention to European food quality, safety, environmental protection, animal welfare, and the rest.
This must be developed further, and it must also be given emphasis at the WTO negotiations.
<P>
As many people have already said, it is also to be welcomed that rural expenditure and accompanying measures are non-compulsory expenditure.
As guarantee expenditure is fixed, I should like to ask Mr Fischler whether this means that money will be refunded to the Member States if there is a surplus for a particular year?
There was some discussion in my committee about whether or not a reserve fund should be set up.
There was no mention of this in Berlin, and I therefore assume that it cannot go through.
Could he confirm whether my assumption is correct that the EUR 200 million and 0.03 % flexibility it includes applies to all categories including Category 1, in other words guarantee expenditure for agriculture?
<P>
The second question concerns accompanying measures and rural development, where different rules apply.
If the money is not all used in one year my assumption is that it can be carried over to the next year.
Would it be possible for the Commission to give a clear statement on how these funds can be used?
<P>
Little has been said about monitoring agricultural expenditure.
In its January report Parliament paid particular attention to monitoring, combating fraud and that type of thing.
Although this is not mentioned in the conclusions of the Berlin summit, I can assure you that Parliament will keep a very close eye on such matters.
<P>
One last question Commissioner Fischler: in our parliamentary resolution we also asked for the hectare subsidies, all income subsidies, to be paid before 31 October of each year.
Is this possible?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as rapporteur on the horizontal measures I cannot give you a positive assessment.
We had a Commission proposal seeking to establish social and environmental criteria for a sliding scale of premium payments.
Little remains of those criteria.
Parliament had made proposals that were more distinct; the Commission checked the figures and decided they could ensure that the premiums were distributed sensibly.
Now none of that is left and I will tell you some of the results.
<P>
Firstly, Mr Fischler, we have not reduced the over-compensation from 1992.
As in the past, 4 % of holdings will receive 40 % of the premiums, or 20 % of holdings 80 % of the premiums.
<P>
Second point: we have not fully offset the Agenda 2000 price reductions through the premium payments.
For rationalised holdings, that means full price compensation.
But smaller farms will suffer from this lower compensation.
<P>
Third point: we are concerned here not with money in the sense of fairness or unfairness or envy but with the fact that the price pressure exerted by holdings that continue to draw on high premium payments through over-compensation will hit the smaller farms and put their survival at risk.
That takes me to the fourth point. The money that will now flow from Brussels and from the national treasuries into the large-scale rationalised holdings will be used by them for further rationalisation and growth.
In these farms, that means job cuts, but it also means jobs losses because of the further destruction of farms in the EU.
<P>
Five: we have sent out wrong signals in this respect, namely that we will continue to concentrate on intervention, in the Central and Eastern European states too, instead of educating them for the market, possibly also for the world market, Mr Fischler!
Anyone who wants to produce for the world market is free to do so, but should not then receive public funding.
Here again we did not take the bold step we should have taken.
<P>
Six: we have maintained the support for maize but not managed to obtain support for pasture land.
So premiums are being paid for basic fodder production, which is already favoured by natural conditions, and the maintenance of pasture land that is so urgently needed for the ecological survival of entire regions is not eligible for any support or any premium.
<P>
Seven: in reallocating the funds which, in your view too, we are to do from the EAGGF Guarantee section into the second pillar, only a small amount of the funds that would have been available if we had applied the degressive scale have gone to this second pillar.
The 14 billion that were earmarked for the second pillar in Berlin are not in the funding proposal either.
<P>
On the whole, this is a negative assessment, as it must also be for the Commission, for otherwise you would retrospectively have to revise all the documents you have written to justify Agenda 2000.
Basically all I have done is quote from them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="Garot">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the reform of the COM in beef and veal was one of the delicate aspects of the new CAP for the 2000-2006 period due to the structural imbalances of this market, the effects of the mad cow phenomenon on consumers and the role of livestock farming in land use.
<P>
As rapporteur for this issue, I must point out that in its initial proposal, the Commission had favoured a reform based on a substantial reduction in prices with the aim of increasing our share of the export market in the context of the restrictions imposed by the WTO.
<P>
In January, Parliament supported the proposal in my report: it rejected the Commission's recommendation and voted in favour of limiting the reduction in prices to 15 % rather than the 30 % advocated by the Commission.
The Council of Ministers finally opted for a reduction of 20 % in three stages.
<P>
The Commission had also recommended granting livestock farmers partial financial compensation for this new reduction in prices.
Contrary to my recommendations, Parliament did not vote in favour of a substantial increase in the premiums for herds of suckler cows, which actually have a positive effect on our land.
But the Council has done so and it is duly noted.
<P>
Finally, as regards the management of the market, Parliament voted to maintain public intervention and increase controls over production. This was contrary to the Commission's wishes, since it proposed to balance the markets through the reduction in production prices and the introduction of private storage in 2002.
<P>
The Council agreed with the Commission's reasoning but it retained the concept of ad hoc public intervention where necessary and the plan to introduce a 'security net' of EUR 1 560 per tonne.
It is on this point that I am proposing that Parliament vote in favour of an additional amendment to my report which has the support of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
<P>
In fact, the Council's position on market intervention needs to be clarified because, on the one hand, it accepts the option of private storage, yet on the other, it is in favour of maintaining ad hoc public intervention.
What exactly does this mean?
I do not actually believe in the virtues of private storage for managing production with a structural surplus.
For proof of this, we need look no further than the results this system has produced in the pigmeat sector.
Furthermore, since I believe that it is equally vital to reach a compromise with the Council and the Commission, I simply proposed a compromise amendment to Parliament's Committee on Agriculture - which it accepted - that involved strengthening the 'security net' by increasing it from EUR 1 560 per tonne to EUR 2 000 per tonne.
<P>
In this way, we could continue along the same lines as our vote in Parliament in January and, at the same time, ensure greater security for our livestock farmers, that is, if the Council and the Commission have the good sense to support us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="Goepel">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioners, the effects of the basic agreement on the Agenda 2000 agricultural reform on agriculture in the European Union and on farm incomes are less negative than the original Commission proposals since the price reductions are lower for cereals, beef and veal. You know that.
With the introduction of rural development measures and the strengthening of the accompanying measures that have existed since the 1992 reform, we have taken a further step towards a global agricultural policy for rural areas.
<P>
In my view the following aspects of this agricultural reform give rise to considerable doubts.
The European agricultural model sketched out at the Cork conference has only been implemented in fragmentary form.
While the measures relating to market organisations, price reductions and so forth are to be applied on a strictly central basis, the implementation of most rural development measures will be left to the discretion of the Member States.
Or if you like, it will be a purely political decision.
Why?
The rural development measures are financed as non-compulsory expenditure under Category 1.
The ceiling of EUR 4.3 billion a year can be regarded on the one hand as safeguarding rural development appropriations but on the other hand there is the risk that because the Member States would have to cofinance these measures they will not apply them or will do so only to a limited extent.
Here I am thinking, for instance, of measure 2078, concerning environmentally compatible farming.
<P>
The direct compensation payments intended to offset the price reductions are not sufficient to make up for income losses.
The additional expenditure for rural development measures is discretionary in terms of amount and use and is no substitute for the loss of purchasing power resulting from the price reductions.
<P>
The Commission was requested to submit an interim report on most of the market organisation regulations in the year 2002.
We will see how things turn out.
We greet the postponement of the reduction in milk prices to the year 2005, primarily for reasons of economy, with a certain joy.
But it will not be nearly enough and we will still have a quota up to the year 2008.
That is something that we can in fact live with quite easily and which at least enables us to offer our farmers some security, production security, in this area.
I believe that in addition to optional set-aside, that is the key result we in Parliament have managed to achieve.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 NAME="Colino Salamanca">
Mr President, I am speaking on behalf of Mr Fantuzzi.
I would like to express my support for his report, and particularly the proposal that aid to the sunflower sector be staggered in line with the amendment approved by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
<P>
We have today come to the end of our debate on the Agenda 2000 agricultural reform, a reform which, in my view, has partially lost its common European focus and been distorted by the plans of various Member States.
I would even go so far as to say that, in handling these proposed reforms, the European Commission - which is the driving force for action in the European Union - has given the impression that it was not very sure where it was heading.
<P>
Faced with some initial radical proposals aimed at encouraging European agriculture to give greater consideration to market indications and international references, it was finally agreed that the terms involved should be clarified and even that some of the sectors to be reformed should be excluded, such as the milk products sector. Its reform is being postponed until 2005 and there is no doubt that in the meantime the imbalances it suffers will become more marked.
<P>
Faced with the initial proposals to strengthen the link between agriculture and the environment in order to put an end to certain problems that have emerged, such as soil and water deterioration, attacks on biodiversity and so on, the Commission is proposing in the horizontal regulation that it should be the Member States who define the compulsory and general environmental standards and determine the penalties to be applied, thereby avoiding any Community focus.
<P>
Faced with the criteria for shaping an agricultural policy that focuses more on the structural nature of certain problems through a rural development policy that is capable of resolving some of the problems facing the countryside - the need for diversification, the need to provide the people with new opportunities and the need to prevent the constant depopulation - a minimal rural development policy has instead been chosen that lacks any real weight.
<P>
Faced with a situation where the agricultural policy must also respond to the principles of economic and social cohesion and correct certain excesses, such as the concentration of aid in the hands of a few, the Commission's response is to say that the Member States will be responsible for reducing imports, thereby rejecting an essential Community focus and the inclusion of general principles.
<P>
Commissioner, you recently stated in Madrid that we might have to start talking about a new reform in 2003. I think that this message is dangerous for two reasons.
Firstly, coming from the lips of the very author of the reform, it highlights the fact that the current measures will not be effective enough, and this is even before we apply them. Secondly, it is impossible for European farmers and stockbreeders to continue to work and plan their future without even a basic stable framework.
We cannot add uncertainties resulting from political decisions to the uncertainties that already exist because of the climate.
<P>
In short, the agreement may satisfy one or more of the Member States, but I do not believe that it rises to the challenges set out in Agenda 2000, including even that of enlargement.
<P>
And to those of my fellow countrymen who are enthusiastic about what has been decided, I would simply suggest that they should do their sums not only in absolute but also in relative terms.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="Martin, Philippe">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the common organisation of the market in wine is undoubtedly the most complex of all the COMs.
Apart from the aspects involved in regulating the vineyards and the conditions for producing grapes, we also need to take account of all the rules on oenological practices, that is, the processing of wine, as well as the rules on labelling.
<P>
Wine-growing in Europe is indeed very specific.
Every region has its own characteristics.
Every vineyard is different in terms of its product and its quality. This clearly demonstrates that wine is an agricultural product rather than an industrial product and that it must be treated as such.
The land is also different and this diversity must be respected.
<P>
My report focused on this aspect.
That is what those involved in the industry wanted and it is what we voted for.
I am pleased that, after several meetings and discussions, our proposals now reflect the Council's position on many different aspects. At a structural level, the principle of the right of expansion has been accepted.
Vineyards with a developing market will be able to obtain additional planting rights and the duration of these planting rights has been extended so as to allow for the rest period needed by the land between plantings. Moreover, structural measures have been introduced to support the renewal of vineyards, and we have managed to obtain support for this aspect.
Few changes have been made in relation to the producer organisations, apart from an agreement allowing us to do away with the measures on the extension of their powers and to preserve, for their members alone, the tasks they are entrusted with. In terms of the recognition of interbranch organisations, these organisations have been granted a specific legal status in Community law in order to prevent them from being challenged by non-producing Member States.
As regards oenological practices, the preservation of traditional methods has been recognised, while as regards labelling, a direct labelling system has been adopted. Finally, Parliament was satisfied with the measures approved by the Council in relation to musts imported from third countries.
<P>
As you can see, the Council's compromise very closely reflects Parliament's proposals and we welcome that. However, it is not completely perfect.
Some new decisions by the Council are of great concern and, in my view, are inadmissible, particularly the desire to include in the wine-growing zone new Member States that are not traditionally wine-producing nations, that is, Ireland, Denmark and Sweden.
If this decision were implemented, it would undermine the content of our compromise and the spirit in which we reached agreement, that is, in the belief that our European wines were recognised as agricultural rather than industrial products, grown in traditional regions and produced using traditional methods. This decision would go against that spirit since we might eventually see in these new wine-producing countries a shift towards using grape musts from third countries.
<P>
Therefore, in order to stave off this threat, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development voted in favour of an amendment that excludes the possibility of extending the wine-growing zone to include any Member State other than those set out in the amendment.
Finally, the members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development believe that it is vital to establish an action and information programme to make consumers aware, in particular, of the positive effects of vine products on their health.
As a result, we are tabling an amendment to this end, which I will refer to as 'vine products and health'.
Do not forget, Commissioner, that wine-growing plays an important role in Europe, it costs very little and it has a high return.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 NAME="Colom i Naval">
Mr President, the aim of my report is to provide the European Union with the financial and budgetary framework it needs to enable it to meet the challenges of the next few years.
This is the question we considered and I will admit that there is no easy answer to it; note the use of present tense here.
<P>
We have been thinking about and working on this for a long time: the Committee on Budgets spent many hours debating, 22 working documents were discussed and a resolution was drawn up, which was approved by the House a few months ago.
I would like to take this opportunity to mention the excellent work of the secretariat of the Committee on Budgets, which was always available to help me, and to thank my colleagues for their contributions and their patience.
<P>
I was involved in establishing the method for the financial perspective at the time of the 1987-1988 budgetary crisis, which led to the so-called 'Delors I package'. I was also Parliament's rapporteur for the 1993 Agreement.
As a result, I am very aware of the difference between dealing with a budget with a financial perspective and without a financial perspective.
<P>
The Interinstitutional Agreements and their financial perspectives have represented an important step forward for the Community. They have enabled us to develop the European budget in a calm and organised fashion and to fulfill a broad range of political objectives.
For example, we have been able to control the unchecked increase in agricultural expenditure, consolidate and develop the cohesion policy, which is essential for economic convergence and political solidarity, integrate events such as the reunification of Germany into the Community budget, and make progress in reducing the Council's powers in the area of compulsory expenditure.
<P>
Therefore, faced with the challenges of the launch of the euro, enlargement to include the CEECs, and the essential reforms of the CAP and the structural policies, I recommended at the time that we should try to conclude a new interinstitutional agreement, even if it was against a backdrop of even greater austerity, if possible.
<P>
In any event, I would remind you that between 1988 and 1999, we approved and implemented Community budgets totalling just under EUR 110 000 million below the own resources ceiling.
<P>
Given the restrictive financial perspective proposed by the now caretaker Commission, Parliament's offer was clear and logical: flexibility and political progress.
This was summed up in the resolution we approved in Brussels on 4 December 1997.
To achieve this, we stepped up our contacts with the Commission and the Council, organised more tripartite talks and even held an informal seminar in Vienna with the presidency and the Commission to look at the issue of flexibility.
<P>
We also decided in December that we wanted to withdraw the so-called 'strategic amendments' to the 1999 budget, and just before the Berlin European Council, our chairman, Mr Samland, sent a letter to the 15 Finance Ministers informing them of the figures the European Parliament considered to be the absolute minimum requirements, the so-called 'minima minimorum '.
<P>
The results can be presented in many ways, Mr President-in-Office.
In its resolution of 14 April, the European Parliament did not share the idyllic version set out by the Council this morning.
Any expectations we had of cuts were surpassed in Berlin.
Agricultural spending was frozen, the structural policy was cut by 20 %, and internal policies were cut by 54 %, if we exclude the framework programme for research.
We were then given a mandate to negotiate.
We did not touch the figures for Categories 1 and 2 as we took over those from the committees responsible for the relevant legislation.
<P>
Although it was stated that the agreements reached in Berlin could not be changed, we have managed to obtain a further EUR 1 480 million for Category 3, which would remain - so to speak - at the 1999 level in terms of constant prices, and a further EUR 1.1 billion for administrative expenditure.
The allocations for the flexibility instrument agreed on in Berlin have increased sevenfold.
<P>
As far as political progress is concerned, I would like to mention some of the more important and innovative advances.
A series of preexisting detailed agreements were consolidated. A permanent solution is being proposed for the dispute over the classification of compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure, which goes back to 1982.
Moreover, part of the CAP expenditure is being transferred to non-compulsory expenditure. Perhaps the final say still rests with the Council, which approves the regulations, but this is an extremely symbolic step and it opens a door to the future.
<P>
This is a brief summary of the basic points that convinced the Committee on Budgets to change its mind on Monday night about rejecting the Interinstitutional Agreement and to call on the House to accept it along with the corresponding financial perspective.
And this is also the position of the Socialist Group, which I am now representing, as I have changed hats.
<P>
You will have noticed that my three minutes' speaking time as rapporteur has run out.
Up until now, I have fulfilled my institutional role.
Now, if you will allow me, I should like to briefly set out my own personal view.
I would like to thank my group, and particularly my colleague Mr Samland, who has allowed me to use his speaking time in the knowledge that I am going to speak against the majority position.
<P>
In my opinion, each of our governments went to Berlin to see what was in it for them, and very few, if any, looked to see what was in it for Europe.
As far as I am concerned, that was a step backwards for European integration.
I would like to know what Mr Prodi honestly thinks of all this.
Does he believe that he will be able to do what he announced yesterday in this very House with these appropriations?
The Council told us this morning, for example, about a possible method for combating unemployment, yet it is cutting the budgetary framework for such measures.
I want an agreement, but not just any agreement.
And as far as I can see, this agreement would be of less use to us than the strict application of Article 272 of the Treaty.
Moreover, when push comes to shove any flexibility we achieve is made rigid and open to criticism by the Council.
<P>
Between the 1.27 % - which we criticised in December 1997 - and the 0.97 % agreed in Berlin, there was enough room for manoeuvre to reach an agreement which would have been rigorous yet better for Europe. I am prepared to accept a figure of 1.13 % if we add enlargement, although who knows when enlargement will take place.
<P>
I would like to remind you that the two previous Interinstitutional Agreements entered into force five and seven months respectively after the budget period being planned.
There are no funds in this package for essential policies. We are freezing Category 3.
In Category 4, there is only a statement in case the crisis in Kosovo calls for a review of the financial perspective. And we are told that the Council would be prepared to accept such a review before the entry into force of the financial perspective it wants us to adopt today.
<P>
When Spain and Portugal joined the Community, Parliament raised the ceilings for budgetary increases that were established in the MRI.
But now the applicant countries from Central and Eastern Europe are being offered a pittance and told that, if they join, they will be treated with kid gloves.
<P>
We talk about powers yet, in my view, we are only looking at things in terms of their face value.
With this Interinstitutional Agreement, the Council would de facto approve the budget for seven years.
Parliament has no political leeway.
Therefore, since I am in favour of more Europe, although with the same budget - and I do not believe we can achieve it with any less - I cannot in all conscience recommend that the House approve this agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 NAME="Kellett-Bowman">
Mr President, I should like first to speak on the Committee on Budgets' opinion for the second reading of Mr Arias Cañete's report: arrangements and conditions for structural assistance in the fisheries sector.
His report already includes budget amendments on technical assistance.
However, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, I must ask the House not to support Amendments 5, 53 and 54, which do not follow the principles of the regulation.
<P>
Turning to my second reading recommendation for Community financial aid in the field of trans-European networks, this work is being carried out under the old Treaty and now recognises the coming into force of the Amsterdam Treaty.
There have been many meetings and the Commission and Council have moved a long way to converge around the European Parliament's position.
I would like to thank the Commission and the hard-working German presidency of the Council for their cooperation in this codecision-type procedure.
<P>
The Committee on Budgets have supported the proposal to involve private capital in financing network projects and has raised the possibility of increasing this from 1 % to 2 %.
We have supported Galileo, the proposed European global positioning technology, and we have supported the Committee on Transport in its wish to have 55 % of the funding ring-fenced for railways and a maximum of 25 % for roads.
<P>
I believe this report strengthens Community involvement in the construction of networks.
The funding is a contribution to the projects.
It will act as an economic multiplier and provide many jobs.
Peripheral regions will benefit and business will have reduced costs in the global markets.
However, the total amount has been in doubt.
The figure in the first reading, which the House voted yesterday, was EUR 5.5 billion.
Following Dresden, Berlin and intensive negotiations I am recommending that the figure be EUR 4.6 billion.
Unfortunately, the Council is unable to rise as far as this.
Its sticking-point was EUR 4.5 billion, and it was starting from a very low base of 3.2.
It was up to the Council to agree our figure or start the whole process of codecision once again.
<P>
I am delighted to report to the House that the Council agreed to 4.6 billion at its meeting this morning.
<P>
Mr President, I commend this report and its 21 amendments to the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when the Commission submitted its proposals on the reform of the Structural Funds in March 1998, there was some doubt as to whether a genuine reform could be achieved and whether the regulations could be adopted early enough to enable the new programmes to begin according to plan early in 2000.
Today I most particularly thank the rapporteurs Mrs McCarthy, Mr Hatzidakis, Mr Collins, Mr Walter, Mr Barón Crespo and Mr Arias Cañete, in his capacity also as Chairman of the Committee on Regional Policy.
I believe that together with Council we have managed actually to achieve what many people considered unlikely.
<P>
Earlier on I set out the basic principles of the Structural Funds reform, so I will not bore you now with my specific position on each amendment, because according to my understanding of all your contributions to the discussion, you want to follow the procedure we agreed.
Certainly you would have liked to see better results in one or other respect, as we would too, but it is our joint understanding that we have now gone as far as we could and really do want to transpose this into concrete legislative acts.
<P>
So I just want to go into a few very specific questions.
On the subject of islands: I have noted during many of our discussions in this Chamber how many islanders belong to this Parliament, and I am indeed all in favour of that.
But I think that islanders also agree with the broad majority of Parliament and the Commission that the principle of economic and social cohesion primarily applies to the poorest and structurally weakest regions, which is indeed why we want to allocate 70 % of all funding to these regions, regardless of whether their inhabitants live on the mainland or on an island.
<P>
If we are honest with each other we know that there is no point in making insularity as such a criterion for support, for as it says in the Treaty, structural aid is granted to compensate for the disadvantages of certain regions and social groups, and in their interests we should adhere to that principle.
For if we do not, we will end up harming precisely those whom we all want to help most.
Incidentally, the same applies to a number of other requests for Structural Funds aid.
These funds are not a pot of money that people can freely dip into if they need more money for something; they are the means to a quite specific end, namely to promote the economic and social cohesion of this Union and to give practical application to the principle that solidarity is one of the vital foundations of the continued existence of the European Union.
<P>
And that is why we do not have a cultural fund as such either but finance cultural measures in exactly the same way as tourism measures if, firstly, they serve to create jobs and, secondly, they promote regional development; but we are not an institute of culture pure and simple.
As for the transitional rules discussed here, or the fact that some assistance has to be phased out, we are not trying to be mean but are taking account of the fact that some regions have made progress and that we always care for the poorest first and cannot give further support to the rich, who will then slowly move closer to the average.
<P>
Mrs Schroedter brought up the famous list of favours again.
I think it is important to note that in all this accounts for no more than 2 % of total funding and that one could say it has no influence at all on the structural decisions of the Funds.
I also want to point out quite clearly that such important initiatives as the PEACE initiative also come under it.
<P>
To prevent any misunderstanding, let me say to Mr Arias Cañete in regard to the fisheries measures that there are some amendments that the Commission does not accept because they relate to measures that require a Council decision which we cannot simply anticipate at this point.
Moreover, we want to see the measures relating to the fishing fleet reformed and do not agree with your proposals in this regard.
<P>
Otherwise I think it is clear that on the whole Parliament has been most successful.
I thank you all for your very close and trusting cooperation.
I forgot to thank the rapporteurs Mr Varela and Mrs Jöns so let me do so now.
I am glad that with the new code of conduct, which adjusts past procedures to the new legal situation, this close cooperation will continue in future too and I hope that it will also be carried over to the new Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="Flynn">
I would like to say a few words about the Social Fund.
Here in particular Parliament has codecision, and your concerns are clearly evident in the new text.
In fact Parliament's support for and contribution to the reform has been crucial.
I would like particularly to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Jöns, for her excellent work here.
<P>
We can be proud of the results in four particular areas: the universal agreement on the overarching priority of employment and the Social Fund's mission to underpin the European employment strategy; secondly, the confirmation of the thematic structure of the funds regulation and the scope of the five policy fields, extending from active labour market policies, through social inclusion, lifelong learning and adaptability, to positive action for women; thirdly, we have maintained and strengthened the commitment to support non-governmental organisations and the combating of social exclusion - we share the view that the regulation must oblige Member States to provide for small grants with special access arrangements for non-governmental organisations and local partnerships: fourthly, again with the support of Parliament, we have strengthened the equal opportunities provisions and the mainstreaming principle of the regulation.
<P>
Today's plenary session provides the opportunity for Parliament to influence the final shape of the regulation, now as co-legislator.
The Commission would be very happy to recommend the compromise amendments put forward by the rapporteur, Mrs Jöns, covering: the addition of social integration into the labour market to Article 1, namely Amendment No 1; the new wording on the social economy third system in Article 2, namely Amendment No 8; the importance which both the Commission and Parliament feel needs to be attached to the principles of equal opportunity and adaptability, namely Amendment No 9; and the better arrangements that you are proposing for the operation of small grants with special access arrangements for non-governmental organisations, namely Amendment No 10.
<P>
As regards the mainstreaming amendment I agree that the principle is essential but it is already covered both in the general regulation and in Article 2 of the regulation itself.
So given the problems which it might cause in the Council I would incline, as the rapporteur does, to agree, and to argue against acceptance.
Once the structural funds regulations for the new period are in place the Social Fund will enjoy a new lease of life in view of the increased emphasis given to the employment dimension in all Community policies and in the Structural Funds in particular.
<P>
We would all be proud of the ongoing success of the European employment strategy, which is the European Union's chief response to the need for more and better jobs.
We have intentionally defined the scope of the fund to allow it to respond to developments in the economy and the labour market over the next seven years, always with a view to encouraging and enabling more people to participate actively in the labour market.
To do this we must focus more strongly than ever on activation instruments which help people to become more employable, rather than passive policies.
At the same time we should make every effort to strengthen the element of prevention to stop people becoming unemployed in the first place, a point very effectively made by the rapporteur.
It is only through this flexible, forward-looking and, above all, inclusive approach that Europe will be able to meet the economic and social challenges of the new millennium.
<P>
The Social Fund is the one Structural Fund directed exclusively at the individual person.
It is about enabling individuals to progress into the new millennium; about letting people themselves make that progress through training and education, by increasing their chances of getting a job, about helping them to move forward over time to a better job and to a better standard of living.
This is why the Social Fund, acting alongside the employment strategy, is so important for the future of Europe.
Employment still largely defines a person's standard of life and weighs heavily on their expectations of what they can contribute to society and what society can offer to them.
Increasing people's chances of keeping their jobs, getting a job or a better job is what we can do with the support of the European Social Fund.
I believe that as a result of the work that has taken place between the institutions and taking on the amendments that I mentioned earlier, we have made the text as good as it can be got at this time.
I commend it to you and ask you to support it and to support the rapporteur in her proposals too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there has of course been a great deal of discussion about the Berlin decisions in the agriculture sector over the last few weeks.
Very different views have also been expressed in today's debate.
Let me make my position clear.
The reform certainly does not go quite as far as we had hoped, which gives rise to a degree of uncertainty as also of risk.
But at the same time we should not underestimate what we have achieved.
The Berlin agreement, following the Agriculture Council's compromise, provides for a reduction of only 15 % in cereal prices and the approximation of oilseed aid to the reduced cereal aid, and provides that the reform of the milk sector will not begin until the year 2000. Nevertheless this remains without doubt the most far-reaching reform the Union has ever undertaken in the agriculture sector.
<P>
This is all the more true in that even in the run-up to it the tobacco and olive oil sector were also reformed.
But above all there is one thing we should not forget, namely that the Heads of State and Government decided these reforms unanimously and that the direction agricultural policy was to follow in the coming years was therefore determined unanimously.
That gives us a distinctly stronger position in the coming international discussions and negotiations.
<P>
Let me briefly outline the main reasons for the reform and the central elements of the overall agreement reached.
In the cereal sector and the beef and veal sector in particular, the analyses carried out by the Commission showed that there is a serious risk of production surpluses increasing again soon after the year 2000.
In view of that situation, in principle we were faced with the choice of two courses: either we could choose the increasingly rigid control of supply and make that the core of the common agricultural policy, or we could adjust our policy in such a way as to enable us to sell to new, additional markets.
<P>
It was decided in Berlin that in the longer term we want to choose the second course, which means we have to make European agriculture more competitive.
We must also take greater account of justified consumer concerns.
This stronger market orientation will be counterbalanced by higher direct payments and additional opportunities to open up new income sources within and outside farming.
In Berlin we also made significant progress towards sustainable agriculture by managing to incorporate environmental concerns more firmly than before in market policy and rural development policy.
<P>
Moreover, the Agenda decisions created a second pillar of the common agricultural policy.
It is true that this second pillar is still a little less solid than the first. But we have laid the foundation stone for it and in principle that pillar now exists.
In future we shall probably have to consider how to consolidate it.
<P>
In the budget, we will in future have two sub-ceilings for agricultural expenditure.
This subdivision into compulsory expenditure and non-compulsory expenditure was decided in Berlin and confirmed here in Parliament.
It means we now have one upper limit for traditional guarantee expenditure and a second upper limit for rural development.
That will of course make everything rather more rigid, and also to some extent less flexible.
I can understand why Parliament insists on this aspect, in its capacity as budgetary authority, and I hope that budgetary discipline does not mean inflexibility.
For that would tend to weaken this second pillar, the more innovative part of the policy.
<P>
Overall, the reform that was agreed in Berlin represents an important step forward.
Yet certain risks and imponderables remain.
In particular, nobody can tell today whether the lower price guarantee reductions agreed in the final compromise will be enough to really achieve market balance.
In the preparations for the new WTO negotiations and the enlargement negotiations we will have to take due account of these constraints, as we will do when we implement the organisation of the market in coming years.
But there are certainly also some grounds for confidence.
<P>
We will enter into the WTO negotiations with very clear ideas about the kind of agriculture we want in Europe: a competitive and sustainable agriculture that supplies the consumer with high-quality products.
And that is also the agricultural model that we want to offer our partners in Eastern Europe, together with the new, second CAP pillar.
<P>
Let me conclude with a few comments on the amendments.
First, I do agree that we should strengthen rural development policy, but to strengthen the measures for the disadvantaged regions without increasing the funding would mean having to divert these funds from other rural development measures.
<P>
Secondly, in the Commission's view intervention buying at higher prices in the beef and veal sector would lead to new, unmarketable surpluses and exert considerable pressure on the budget, as also on our market prices.
If the cuts in oilseed payments were extended over a four-year period that would postpone the lifting of the Blair House restrictions by another year and also require more budget funds that are not covered.
<P>
Turning to Mr Mulder's question about transferability: I too think we should discuss this matter further.
I consider it most important that, over and above the time span, we manage to develop enough flexibility in relation to that part of rural development to make it possible actually to use the available resources.
As for the payment deadline of 31 October, I am prepared to give further consideration to this question, though with the reservation that this must not lead to any shift in the financial year for compulsory expenditure.
<P>
In reply to Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf I would point out that the new agricultural policy certainly will bring about a shift in this 80: 20 ratio and that under the reform the smaller farmers will in fact have distinctly greater opportunities than they used to.
For the rest I would also point out that the Commission never proposed aiming at full price equalisation.
We never spoke of anything more than income equalisation, which does not automatically mean the same thing.
<P>
Finally, let me give warm thanks to all the rapporteurs for their constructive cooperation.
My special thanks today go to the long-standing chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr Colino Salamanca.
<P>
Applause
<P>
This is the last debate on the future of the common agricultural policy in which you will be taking part in this House.
I thank you on behalf of the Commission, but also very much on my own behalf, for the important work you have done for the benefit of European agriculture.
I also wish you all the best for the future!
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="Goepel">
Mr President, I would like to ask Commissioner Fischler a supplementary question.
Can I assume that the Commission accepts those amendments in the second report, such as those on the milk sector, which you did not mention?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="Fischler">
Mr Goepel, I did not go into that question because it did not come up in the statement made by the rapporteur on the milk sector during the debate.
But I can tell you this much: we are prepared to return to the earlier formula and review the milk market in the year 2003. Of course the Commission is also prepared to consider the question of the superlevy in the framework of that review.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 NAME="Liikanen">
The financial perspectives for 2000-2006 and the interinstitutional agreement on budgetary discipline and improving the budgetary procedure are an integral part of the package of Agenda 2000.
I understand from the reports and intervention of Mr Colom i Naval that there are different views in the European Parliament on this item.
<P>
Let me for that reason point out some of the principal reasons why the Commission supports the agreement.
It is true that the conclusions of the European Council of Berlin with regard to the financial perspectives for 2000-2006 remain below the Commission proposal.
But the subsequent negotiations, under pressure from the European Parliament delegation, achieved substantial improvements.
For internal policies the proposal in front of you exceeds the conclusions of Berlin by EUR 1.5 billion.
These will permit the financing of the multiannual priority programmes, for example, trans-European networks.
And it safeguards a significant margin for new policy initiatives.
<P>
For external actions there is a clear commitment from the Council to finance additional needs arising from the situation in the Balkans, if necessary, by means of a revision of the financial perspectives.
<P>
With regard to administrative expenditure, the agreement would permit the financing of some 1000 new posts for the Community institutions and also finance the new Statute of the Members of the European Parliament, even though a solution on that issue is not yet clear as you know.
<P>
The new interinstitutional agreement also marks significant progress on key questions of the budget procedure.
The agreement clarifies the classification of expenditure which defines the budgetary powers of Council and Parliament. This removes a perpetual source of conflict.
In the process, Parliament has widened its budgetary powers in the field of agriculture expenditure.
Furthermore, the agreement provides for full cooperation between both branches of the budgetary authority on all parts of the budget, which Parliament has long fought for.
<P>
Mr President, without the agreement these procedural gains would be lost.
There would be a high risk of an annual budget confrontation. This would not be in the interests of the Union and its policies.
<P>
Secondly, I want to reply to Lord Tomlinson on his report.
Firstly, the Commission is pleased with the agreement by the Council because that takes into account the major part of the preoccupations of the European Parliament.
On the amendments proposed in Lord Tomlinson's report, the Commission is ready to accept Amendments 1 and 2.
As far as Amendments 3 and 4 are concerned, the Commission has accepted a joint declaration in the regulation according to which the Commission will give all oral information to the Council and Parliament on the economic situation of the beneficiary countries which are receiving loans and on the risks which I have explained when the annual report is presented.
For that reason the Commission does not find it necessary to introduce these Amendments 3 and 4 into the regulation of the Guarantee Fund.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 NAME="Mulder">
Mr President, I would like to repeat a question I asked earlier and the answer can be just 'yes' or 'no'.
My question was whether the flexibility of 200 million and 0.03 % applies to all the categories of the budget, including category 1.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="Liikanen">
'Yes'.
<P>
Laughter
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
I should like to begin by welcoming the agreement between the Council and Parliament on the trans-European networks financial regulation.
This vital component of the Agenda 2000 package has the twin distinctions of being the first legal text arising from Agenda 2000 that achieved a common position in the Council and yet the last to be agreed by the Council and the European Parliament.
It also is one of the first legal acts to be adopted under the codecision procedure set down in the Amsterdam Treaty.
I hope that the amicable and productive precedent shown here will be followed on many other occasions.
It may be that I am displaying an excess of optimism in my old age!
<P>
Much of the credit for achieving the agreement goes to the rapporteur, Mr Kellett-Bowman, whom I am glad to see in the House.
He has shown a real understanding of the financing requirements of the trans-European networks and a determination to put in place a stable long-term framework for the financing of major TENs projects.
His colleagues like Mr Samland and others - whom I am also glad to see in the House - have helped produce a very productive and effective package.
<P>
Clearly the most important issue is the overall financial envelope of EUR 4.6 bn over the 2000-2006 period.
That sum is more modest than the Commission's opening bid.
But I am glad to say that it represents a real increase of around 10 % and is fully consistent with the lower ceiling for internal policies that was agreed at the Berlin Summit.
<P>
Apart from the useful increase in funding, the new financial regulation is a major step forward as an appropriate instrument for providing long-term finance for long-term projects because it includes multiannual programming, which means that project promoters will be able to plan with unprecedented certainty about the finance they can expect from the trans-European networks budget.
That is particularly important for the development and encouragement of public/private partnerships.
<P>
Other important elements of the revised regulation include, first, a truly new facility for the investment of TENs money in risk capital funds with the aim of gaining access to the potentially very large resources of long-term funding available from insurance companies and pension funds for the financing of public infrastructure projects.
<P>
Second, the regulation provides for the possibility of financing up to 20 % of the Galileo satellite navigation project - around EUR 500 m - and doing so from the TENs budget.
That component is essential in order to demonstrate that this vital project can be financed and also to ensure that it develops as a genuinely European project.
I hope that any discussion of European Union finance for innovative TENs projects at the current European Council will confirm the importance of Galileo for European producers and for European users.
<P>
With the news today, from COREPER that the Council can accept the compromise reflected in the amendments before us today. I can also confirm full support from the Commission for Parliament's position.
I therefore look forward to early adoption of the revised regulation in good time for the implementation of multiannual programming that will commence in the year 2000.
I express gratitude - not just from the Commission but much more widely from the general public in the Community and from industry - for the foresight and the commitment demonstrated by Parliament on this issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Samland">
Mr President, let me just say to the Commissioners here present that our joy at the conclusion of the trans-European networks and of the already concluded fifth framework programme of research is still slightly clouded.
I will add another drop of water so that you do not open the champagne too soon.
<P>
Both questions were explicitly tied to a new financial perspective.
If Parliament does not agree tomorrow to give its assent to a new interinstitutional agreement, then we will not have the financial framework which we have just discussed and on the basis of which the two agreements, on the fifth framework programme of research and on the trans-European networks, were concluded.
I just wanted to say this now, as a reservation, before the champagne starts to flow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
I have been under the distinct impression for four and a half years that Mr Samland could turn water into wine.
I am looking to great things!
<P>
Laughter
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 NAME="President">
That would be a new kind of magic.
<P>
We shall now move on to the general debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Ghilardotti">
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to focus on the European Social Fund.
<P>
We have perhaps come to the end of a long task which started with an own-initiative report by the European Parliament on the European Social Fund.
We must acknowledge the fact that the Commission has accepted the European Parliament's position on objectives and priorities, as well as on procedures.
Here I want to stress an important point: the close link between the European Social Fund priorities and the employment guidelines.
The European Social Fund is certainly the basic Community instrument for applying the four pillars, especially employability, and the regulation we are discussing today is consistent with the objectives of social integration and non-discrimination.
Considering work as both an economic opportunity and a way of achieving one's potential means more and better education lifelong. It means combatting material inequalities and the modern inequalities which affect an individual's ability to plan his own future freely.
All that makes the European Social Fund a fundamental instrument, and likewise makes it fundamentally important for the NGOs and the third sector to be involved right from the planning stage, principally through a policy of practical integration.
That will certainly be the responsibility of the Member States, but it will also be up to the Commission to monitor and control it.
<P>
I would like to conclude by taking up a point already mentioned by Mrs Jöns: the Council's unwillingness to become explicitly involved in gender mainstreaming, one of the four pillars of European employment strategy, is incomprehensible - and it is especially incomprehensible now the Treaty of Amsterdam has come into force, enshrining equal opportunities as a fundamental principle of the Union.
I hope the Council will be willing to accept the amendments from the European Parliament to complete this journey in rapid time and to the satisfaction of all the European institutions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Porto">
Mr President, I too am going to talk about the European Social Fund but in relation to external economic relations. This is because I was the draftsman of the opinion on this for the Committee on External Economic Relations.
Social promotion is naturally determined in the first instance by meeting the basic needs of our citizens and there is clearly much to do in this area.
<P>
Yet this must be achieved if we are to maintain the European social model we can be proud of. However, we must remember that this must be a realistic model where the improvement in working conditions reflects the improvement in productivity.
This is where Agenda 2000 has to come in, by providing the resources which are essential for the continuation of this model together with the infrastructures cofinanced by the ERDF, the EAGGF Guidance Section or the Cohesion Fund. It must also provide training or reassign the workforce with the support of the Social Fund.
<P>
Given the current state of globalisation, it would be unacceptable to aim to compete with less-developed countries by reducing wages or allowing a deterioration in working conditions in our continent.
However, we also cannot accept a protectionist approach such as the strategy where we were digging our own grave and running away from our responsibilities towards the rest of the world, particularly the less-developed areas.
<P>
In everyone's interest, we must move towards a strategy of openness in which we and others clearly respect the rules of traditional trade. In this way, Europe surely has an important role to play through competition conditions which depend largely on the training of individuals.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 NAME="Vallvé">
Mr President, Commissioner, we have come to the end of this debate on Agenda 2000, and tomorrow the House will surely approve these regulations, with which I believe we have managed to improve one of the Union's fundamental objectives: economic and social cohesion and better territorial cohesion.
<P>
This improved economic and social cohesion should bring with it the creation of jobs and thereby attack the European Union's main problem: unemployment.
In my view, Commissioner, an excellent and positive reform of the Structural Funds has been concluded, with projects aimed at concentration and simplification and with an effective partnership as a result of the contribution of regional and local authorities, which may lead to increased efficiency in the actual implementation of the Structural Funds.
<P>
We have also taken an important step with the reduction of Community initiatives, and you have been particularly keen to ensure that only the Community initiatives with a European dimension are accepted.
A final decision by the Council, at the request of Parliament, has included a fourth Community initiative which will also have very specific advantages for certain sections of the European Union's population, although it does not have the Community dimension that the other three initiatives have.
<P>
We regret that the Berlin European Council agreed to significantly reduce the funding to be allocated both to the Structural Funds and to the Cohesion Fund, but we understand that these will be implemented in a positive manner over the next seven years.
We also need to take account of the fact that the Structural Funds are practically the last to apply to the 15 Member States, since the prospect of enlargement to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe will change the regional action policies for years to come.
<P>
I would finally like to thank the Commissioner for the efficient work she has done, which will ensure that the new regional policy for the 2000-2007 period will always be linked to her because of the enormous importance of her contribution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 NAME="Escolá Hernando">
Mr President, after months of arduous debate and complicated negotiations, the time has come for the European Parliament to say yes or no to Agenda 2000.
Personally, I am not going to say yes to Agenda 2000.
<P>
My impression is that the agreement that has been reached is an agreement based not on the Union's needs but on the negotiation of national interests.
That is the only explanation for the fact that the Commission's initial proposal was further diminished through the final agreement reached at the Berlin European Council, despite the fact that it already involved reducing the Structural Funds and Cohesion Fund below their existing levels.
<P>
For those of us who believe in a federal Europe based on social and economic cohesion, a golden opportunity has been lost to increase equality between the various regions of Europe.
Furthermore, if we are getting involved in this idea of defending territorial interests, as the Berlin European Council did, I would still not be able to vote in favour of Agenda 2000. I was elected by the people of a specific European region - the region of Aragon - and this agreement would put the people I represent at a serious disadvantage compared with their current situation.
<P>
Finally, I would point out that the agreement contains serious contradictions.
To give you an example, Commissioner, one single problem - that of depopulation - is dealt with in three different ways in Agenda 2000. Firstly, the underpopulated regions of Northern Europe are granted Objective 1 status, that is, they have access to the main Structural Funds.
Secondly, the Scottish Highlands are only granted special funding in the form of compensation. Finally - and this is the third way in which depopulation is tackled - other regions that suffer from the same problem, such as Aragon, are excluded from this aid altogether.
<P>
A single problem cannot be dealt with in three different ways if we want Europe's structural policy to be consistent.
As a result, I must say once again that I am not going to vote in favour of Agenda 2000.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Escolá.
<P>
Following that speech by Mr Escolá, ladies and gentlemen, we shall suspend the debate on Agenda 2000. It will be resumed this evening at 9 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Question Time (Council)
<SPEAKER ID=179 NAME="President">
The next item is questions to the Council (B4-0337/99).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 NAME="President">
As the author is not present, Question No 1 lapses.
<P>
<P>
Question No 2 by Alexandros Alavanos (H-0324/99)
<P>
Subject: A fair trial for Öcalan In their statements on the Öcalan affair, all the European Union institutions have been unanimous in calling for a fair, open trial, in line with the conception prevailing in the legal systems of modern, civilized societies.
However, the Turkish Government has so far rejected, in both words and deeds (obstructing the defence counsel, refusing requests for observers to attend the trial, etc.), all attempts to bring about a fair and open trial. Can the Council therefore state what steps it intends to take to ensure that the Kurdish leader does not suffer mental or physical harm and is guaranteed the right to defence, to which any person facing judicial charges in civilised societies is entitled as a matter of course?
<P>
I should like to welcome the President-in-Office and ask him to reply to Mr Alavanos's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, let me answer this question as follows. The Council expects Turkey, like any other contracting party, to fully and entirely fulfil the obligations arising from the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
Furthermore, the Council is assuming that Turkey will respect the right of any person facing judicial proceedings in Turkey, which therefore includes Mr Öcalan, to a fair trial and their right to defence, both of which are indeed also enshrined in the Turkish constitution.
In its statement of 22 February 1999, the European Union took note of the Turkish Government's assurances to that effect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, the German Presidency has taken us somewhat by surprise, and I am ashamed at what I have just heard from the President-in-Office.
<P>
At a time when Yugoslavia is being bombed we are indulging in 'savoir vivre ' with the Turkish Government, and the German Presidency is telling us that it has received assurances.
All the Members here today have received an announcement from Amnesty International which states that Mr Öcalan's lawyers, Nyadji Bulgan and Irfan Didar, and others, have been tortured, and were attacked inside the court. Following that they were rounded up outside the court and beaten by the police.
And the President-in-Office is indulging in 'savoir vivre ' with Turkey.
<P>
I ask once again: are the European Union and indeed the German Presidency interested in human rights?
If so, how can the German Presidency not do anything, how can it remain silent and say such things as what it said in its answer about these despicable events taking place at the trial of Mr Öcalan?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Alavanos, I reject quite categorically your attack on the presidency.
You know the rules here.
What I have to present is the common position that 15 Member States have formulated on your question.
I cannot inform you of the German position as it is totally irrelevant.
It is not a question here of the presidency's view but of what the Council says.
That is what I have told you and I will repeat it: the Council expects and requires Turkey to comply with its national and international obligations, which arise from its own constitution and its accession to international conventions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Verheugen.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, in accordance with our Rules of Procedure, Questions Nos 3 to 11 will not be taken because they refer to subjects which are included on the agenda for this part-session.
<P>
Mr Morris has the floor on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 NAME="Morris">
Mr President, my point of order is quite clear.
As I have repeatedly said for many months now, and certainly this week, there is one issue the Council has refused to answer: whether or not depleted uranium munitions are being used in Serbia, Kosovo, what we previously knew as Yugoslavia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="President">
Mr Morris, please, just a moment.
<P>
Mr Morris, under the Rules of Procedure questions on issues that are dealt with at another stage in the House are not included in Question Time.
So I cannot give you the floor for that question.
<P>
Mr Dimitrakopoulos wishes to speak, but I would like to know, Mr Dimitrakopoulos, which Rule you are invoking for your point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 NAME="Dimitrakopoulos">
Mr President, I am sorry but I do not have the Rules of Procedure in front of me. However, as far as my point of order is concerned, I would simply like to know if we have abandoned the practice we were using up until now in Question Time whereby, following a Member's question and the Council's subsequent response, other Members had the right to put what is known in English as a 'follow up'.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 NAME="President">
No.
If you want to put a supplementary question to the question by Mr Alavanos, you have every right to do so.
So let us return to Mr Alavanos' question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Dimitrakopoulos">
I have listened to the reply given by the President-in-Office. I have listened to the common position expressed by the 15 Member States, which is that the European Union expects Turkey to abide by the regulations in force concerning such serious issues.
<P>
My question is this: if Turkey does not abide by them, what action is the European Union going to take?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Dimitrakopoulos, it has been made clear to Turkey on many very recent occasions that its conduct in the Öcalan case, namely the guarantee of a constitutional trial, will affect the development of relations between the European Union and Turkey.
If the Council concludes that Turkey is not fulfilling its obligations, it will take the appropriate steps.
I cannot predict them today.
But you can imagine what they would be.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 12 by Aline Pailler (H-0328/99)
<P>
Subject: Free movement of persons in the EU To prevent them from taking part in an (authorised) demonstration in Paris on Saturday, 27 March 1999, the French authorities closed the border to 3 000 Italians on the evening of 26 March, committing a serious abuse that infringed the right to demonstrate and freedom of movement within the Union.
<P>
What steps will the Council take to avert similar actions in the future and guarantee that citizens may move freely within the EU?
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mrs Pailler's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 NAME="Verheugen">
Mrs Pailler, I am sorry to have to tell you that it is not within the Council's competence to judge how the Member States apply Community law; that is up to the Commission and the Member States concerned.
At the time of the incident you describe in your question, the Schengen acquis had not yet been integrated into the framework of the European Union.
Since it is a question here of relations between two Schengen partners, the admissibility of internal border controls comes under the Schengen implementing convention.
Article 2(2) of that agreement provides that internal border controls can be carried out for a limited period purely for the maintenance of law and order and the safeguarding of internal security.
The state that orders these controls decides whether this may apply here.
The entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty does not change this situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 NAME="Pailler">
Mr President-in-Office, each time we put questions to you here, you take refuge in regulatory issues, which I fully understand.
Clearly, after two months, the Schengen provisions were not fully applied, but I feel that the Council's role is a political one.
<P>
At a time when Europe is looking for its soul and the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, is telling us that we will find it in American culture, I wonder if we might not be able to generate a little enthusiasm among the people of Europe by allowing them to do something exciting that forms part of their culture, in other words, demonstrate solidarity in fighting for human rights across borders.
<P>
I am therefore seeking a political response from you, Mr President-in-Office, given that you are a minister. And I would like to know if, in the Council of Ministers, when discussing immigrants, you talk not only about security problems - which you naturally discuss in great detail, as demonstrated on a daily basis by the Austrian and German Presidencies - but also about the fact that people, along with capital, have the right to free movement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 NAME="Verheugen">
Mrs Pailler, I have to tell you too that it is not a question of my personal view nor of the presidency's view.
I can only give you an answer agreed by the two states concerned, which you mention in your question.
Surely you can imagine the answer you would be given by the government concerned if you put the question to it in your national parliament.
I cannot go any further than that.
The Council is not competent in regard to your question.
The Commission is responsible for compliance with Community law.
I must ask you to put this question to the Commission.
<P>
As for the matter of principle addressed in your question, I can tell you that the Council is looking closely at the problem of how Europe can be brought closer to our people, how they can be made more aware of the advantages Europe offers them and also how we can increase these advantages, especially in the field of internal and judicial policy which we are just discussing.
Indeed we are already preparing a summit to be held in Finland in the autumn, which will be concerned with the further development of the People's Europe.
<P>
But let me say again: individual cases such as this one do not come within the Council's remit.
And the individual states would not tolerate any interference from the Council in the way they apply national or European law.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Verheugen, but I must ask you to remain with this question as I have received requests for two supplementary questions.
The first is by Mr Ripa di Meana, who has the floor for one minute.
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<SPEAKER ID=196 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Ripa di Meana">
Mr President-in-Office, three thousand Italian citizens are being held up, under the pretext of various orders by the French police, at the frontier between Italy and France to stop them reaching a public, political and European meeting in Paris.
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The seriousness of this de facto suspension of the agreements on free movement of persons will naturally not escape you, but your prudence in matters of institutional powers - which I can understand - does not mean you can avoid a political response. Can the European Union tolerate three thousand citizens being prevented on alleged police grounds from exercising their full rights as European citizens?
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I put that to you as a political question and I expect a political answer.
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<SPEAKER ID=197 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Ripa di Meana, I have to disappoint you too, however much you expect me as a politician to give a political answer.
You know the rules of Question Time.
I cannot give you a political answer off the cuff.
I will have to discuss it first with the French and Italian Governments and with all the other 13 governments.
After that you can have your political answer.
All I can do here is point out to you that the French Government is basing its decision on Article 2(2) of the Schengen implementing convention.
Naturally the French Republic, like any other member of Schengen, may carry out internal border controls for reasons of public law and order.
Whether or not that was justified in this particular case is something I as a politician have a very definite view on. But I am not allowed to express it here.
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<SPEAKER ID=198 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Jensen, Lis">
I have a question for the President-in-Office concerning Regulation No 1408/71.
It is true that the European Union is in a difficult situation, since the Commission has been put out of action, so to speak, but clarification is needed of the proposal which has been put forward by the Commission regarding the amendment of Regulation No 1408.
I would like to ask directly how the President-in-Office views the Danish early retirement benefit in relation to Regulation No 1408.
Hitherto, the Danish early retirement benefit scheme has been kept out of the regulation, since it has been said not to be a social scheme, but an employment scheme.
The fact is that the Danish Government has been given until the end of April to respond, and I would very much like to know when this question will come up in the Council.
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<SPEAKER ID=199 NAME="Verheugen">
Mrs Jensen, I am rather at a loss.
This was a supplementary to Mrs Pailler's question.
That question referred to the fact that on the evening of 26 March the French authorities refused 3 000 Italian nationals entry into France.
With the best will in the world I cannot see what bearing your question has on that incident.
But I am quite prepared to answer it in writing.
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<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="President">
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Question No 13 by Otto von Habsburg (H-0329/99)
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Subject: Humanitarian aid to the needy in Ukraine It is reported by reliable sources that, in accordance with the so-called 'law on the protection of domestic commodity production', small packets containing food products, clothing or even medicines are being designated as 'agricultural products' and returned to senders.
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This impacts very harshly on the poorest people in the country, in particular those on old-age pensions, many of whom have to live on the equivalent of 37 to 50 German marks a month.
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Is the Council prepared to make representations to the Ukrainian government with a view to getting this policy reversed by reason of the humanitarian nature of these mailings?
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I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr von Habsburg's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=201 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, Mr von Habsburg, it is true that there were private initiatives until July/August last year to support needy Ukrainians by sending them parcels mainly containing food, medicines and clothing.
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Under presidential decree 738/98 of 4 July 1998 on imports of humanitarian aid from abroad, since that date only legal entities whose charitable status is established by law are recognised as recipients of duty-free imports of humanitarian aid, but not private individuals.
Since then, packages of aid addressed to private individuals have been returned to the sender by the Ukrainian customs authorities, pursuant to Law 468/97 on the state regulation of imports of agricultural products into Ukraine.
That law has been in force since 15 June 1998 and the presidency knows from own experience that this in fact also involves high costs for the senders of the packages.
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In the framework of bilateral talks, the German Government as the presidency has on numerous occasions urged, in fact insistently urged the Ukrainian Government to change these rules for humanitarian reasons, but unfortunately Ukraine has not responded at all to these efforts.
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The presidency will raise this matter in Brussels, at the second EU-Ukraine Cooperation Committee scheduled for July, after coordinating with its partners, especially Finland, and will make it an official subject of discussion between the EU and Ukraine.
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<SPEAKER ID=202 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Minister, I sincerely thank you for this clear, detailed and satisfactory answer to my question.
It is a pleasure to see that this can sometimes happen during Question Time.
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Let me specifically ask you to make every effort in this matter.
I receive a great many letters from Ukrainian pensioners who are in a really bad way and need help.
If at all possible, I would ask you, Minister, to take very energetic steps to help them.
After all they are our partners and will one day become our partners in the European Union.
I would be most grateful if you could repeat and emphasise this need again.
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<SPEAKER ID=203 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr von Habsburg.
I believe that this is your last question in Parliament and I must therefore thank you once again for your excellent speeches here during Question Time, and for your admirable brevity and respect for the time you are allocated.
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<SPEAKER ID=204 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, Mr von Habsburg, I take what you have just said not so much as a question but more as words of encouragement, which I am happy to accept.
I can assure you that we are keeping up constant pressure on Ukraine in relation to this matter.
One reason I was able to answer the question was that I know from my own practical political experience that there are cases, especially the cases I am sure you know too, where it is possible to get round this law and what that costs those concerned.
It really is hard to understand why someone who provides aid on an individual basis should incur costs that are many times higher than the value of the aid itself.
Here I agree entirely with you and we will keep up the pressure on Ukraine in this respect.
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<SPEAKER ID=205 NAME="President">
As the author is not present, Question No 14 lapses.
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Question No 15 by Manuel Medina Ortega (H-0339/99)
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Subject: Development of Article 299(2) In view of the imminent entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, what initiatives is the Council preparing for the development of Article 299(2) on the status of the outermost regions?
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<SPEAKER ID=206 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, Mr Medina Ortega, I really must admit that you are wasting no time in putting forward the interests of these regions here in Parliament, given that the Treaty has only been in force for four or five days.
But basically that already answers your question, for pursuant to Article 299(2) of the Treaty of Amsterdam the Commission must first make a proposal to that effect.
Only when that proposal has been made can the Council take action and discuss specific measures for the outermost regions.
But to date the Commission has made no such proposal.
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<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="Medina Ortega">
I would like to thank the President-in-Office for his rapid and efficient response.
In actual fact the Commission had said that it was going to draw up initial proposals this spring. Then, because of its resignation, it said that it was not going to do so until the autumn.
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However, from the point of view of a Member who, although representing all of Spain, represents the interests of the outermost regions in particular, it is important that the Council should take steps to enable the new Commission to consider this issue from the beginning, since the special scheme requires further development.
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<SPEAKER ID=208 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, Mr Medina Ortega, it is with good reason that the rules of the European Union give the right of initiative to the Commission.
The Commission is not here at the moment, but it will certainly defend that right tooth and nail.
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I would advise you to proceed as follows. A government with a particular interest in this matter could easily urge the Commission to submit a proposal to the Council as soon as possible and then I could assure you that the Council would consider the matter without any delay.
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<SPEAKER ID=209 NAME="President">
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Question No 16 by Hans Lindqvist (H-0341/99)
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Subject: Safe food National campaigns on food safety and health are being conducted in all 15 Member States during the winter and spring.
The original initiative was launched by the Commission's Directorate-General for consumer policy, DG XXIV, which is also financing the campaign. The EU has made some SEK 1.3 million available for the campaign.
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We in Sweden have recently had to fight hard to avoid the EU practice of regularly using antibiotics as additives in animal feed.
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Hitherto, Sweden has had strict rules on colouring in sweets, exacting standards of food quality control and stringent rules on crop spraying.
Many EU rules are now forcing us to allow certain types of sweets despite their containing colouring that was previously banned in Sweden on public health grounds.
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Does public health not always take priority? Should it not be the individual Member State's prerogative to decide what should be classified as safe or unsafe food?
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I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Lindqvist's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Lindqvist, the Council attaches great importance to food safety, especially in relation to protecting the health of the consumer.
The Luxembourg European Council expressed this same concern in its statement on food safety.
In that statement it stresses that the production and marketing of safe food must be one of the European Union's priorities and that a high level of health protection must be ensured.
As I just said in reply to your Spanish colleague's question, it is up to the Commission to submit proposals to the Council for initiatives in this area.
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For the rest let me say that if the Member States consider it necessary to maintain or introduce more stringent consumer protection measures than those that exist at Community level, they may do so pursuant to Article 129a of the EC Treaty - new Article 153 of the Amsterdam Treaty - provided such measures are compatible with the other provisions of this Treaty.
If a Member State takes further-reaching measures of this kind, it must notify the Commission thereof.
There are no further restrictions.
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<SPEAKER ID=211 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
I have tabled this question because my own country, Sweden, has quite strict food safety standards, both as regards home-produced and imported products.
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A number of decisions have now been taken in the EU which run counter to our interests.
For instance, Sweden has been forced to follow the rules that apply to the Belgian Blue and to allow the species to be developed and also sold in Sweden.
We have been forced to accept certain colouring agents in sweets and candies and in food products which could induce cancer and allergies, especially in children.
Furthermore, meat contaminated with salmonella is crossing the border into Sweden.
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The question I should like to put to the Council is this: should it not be obvious that every Member State should be entitled, in the interests of protecting people's health, to draw up rules which apply not just to home-produced products but also to those which are imported?
If it is a question of changing the provisions of the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties, then are we prepared to do that in order to reinforce our environmental safeguards?
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<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="Verheugen">
Of course I can confirm that, Mr Lindqvist.
And I have already answered that question by pointing out that a Member State has the right to maintain or introduce more stringent consumer protection measures than those that exist at Community level.
Naturally that includes measures such as those you mentioned.
However, this must not create any barriers to trade or distortion of competition.
Hence the rule that the Commission must be notified of any such measures so that it can examine that question.
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I am happy to read out the relevant passage from the Amsterdam Treaty again.
It is the fifth paragraph of Article 153, former Article 129a, and it reads: 'Measures adopted pursuant to paragraph 4 shall not prevent any Member State from maintaining or introducing more stringent protective measures.
Such measures must be compatible with this Treaty. The Commission shall be notified of them.'
That is what I just explained to you.
Compatibility with the Treaty relates to the question of barriers to trade and freedom of competition.
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<SPEAKER ID=213 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
With due respect, Mr President-in-Office, there really is something which you do not mention in your reply.
It is true that a Member State can make use of a safeguard clause.
This gives it six months in which to produce scientific evidence in order to maintain the more stringent basis which it requires in its own country.
It is stated that this must not be a technical barrier to trade.
You actually said that yourself in your reply.
If it cannot be proved that there are grounds for the more stringent rules, then it will be regarded as a technical barrier to trade, and it is now expressly stated in the new environmental guarantee that if it can be proved that the tougher rule which is being sought at national level is actually in the consumers' interests, then the EU must adopt the regime.
It is therefore not possible to maintain stricter rules unless evidence can be produced that they are necessary.
In fact, Commissioner Bangemann also said this yesterday when we were discussing baby food.
In some countries, things have been permitted because it has not been proved that a very small amount of pesticides in baby food is harmful, whereas other countries do not tolerate any pesticide residues at all.
But Mr Bangemann stated categorically that he would not accept trade barriers.
There should be clear scientific evidence on the table so that the Member States can maintain stricter rules.
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<SPEAKER ID=214 NAME="Verheugen">
Mrs Sandbæk, we have a problem here.
This is another question which seems out of context.
I was asked about food safety and I did not say a word about the six-month period you cite.
I know nothing about this six-month period; what I referred to was the Treaty provision on consumer protection.
Your question relates to an environmental matter.
That was not in the original question nor did I answer on the subject.
If you have a question on the subject, I am sorry to say we did not receive it so I can only answer it in writing.
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<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Verheugen.
I am sure that Mrs Sandbæk hopes you will fulfil your promise to answer her question in writing.
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<SPEAKER ID=216 NAME="President">
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Question No 17 by Arthur Newens (H-0343/99)
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Subject: The EU/US banana dispute Would the Council make a statement about the latest information from the WTO Disputes Panel investigating the EU banana regime and about the response that it will make to the Panel's conclusions?
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<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Newens, first let me say that I hope this seemingly endless business is finally nearing its end now.
At its meeting of 26 April 1999 the General Affairs Council emphasised that the European Union intends fully to respect the latest WTO ruling in the banana dispute and to amend the EU banana regime accordingly and without further ado.
The Council therefore called on the Commission, in the light of further contacts with the USA and the other parties concerned, to submit proposals to amend the banana regime by the end of May 1999.
Since we are not yet at the end of May, I am not in a position to tell you what form these proposals will take.
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<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="Newens">
Whilst thanking the President-in-Office for that reply, may I ask if it is envisaged that access for bananas from Lomé countries and the Canary Islands can still be adequately safeguarded, despite changes to bring the European Union's banana regime into conformity with the WTO ruling.
Will the Council do everything possible to ensure this? - because it is crucial.
Will not bananas otherwise constitute a precedent for other products of other less-developed countries to lose their outlets, and will that not raise, in the long term, the issue of amendments to the world trade system to protect the poor against the multinationals?
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<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Newens, with that question you have very accurately described the problem we are facing and that we have not managed to resolve so far. On the one hand we want to protect the banana producers with whom we have very close links; on the other hand, however, we have to respect the WTO rules.
This dispute has now been going on for years and at some point one has to admit losing a dispute.
The European Union has lost.
It did not manage to win through here.
The costs are quite considerable in any case, if you think of the punitive tariffs that have been imposed.
Yet I am inclined to say that it is some satisfaction that the WTO has now markedly reduced the level of the punitive tariffs the USA may impose against the European Union.
We are now paying 191.4 million dollars instead of the 520 million dollars the USA had originally fixed by unilateral procedure.
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We have to wait for the Commission proposal to see how the Commission manages to reconcile the two requirements you mentioned: protection of the producer, especially the poorer producer, and conformity with the WTO rules.
I really cannot predict that today.
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<SPEAKER ID=220 NAME="President">
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Question No 18 by Anna Karamanou (H-0345/99)
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Subject: Rising death toll and appalling living conditions in Iraq The President of the Medical Association for the Prevention of War, Mrs Sue Wareham, recently claimed that between 4 500 and 6 000 children are dying every month in Iraq of hunger and disease owing to the terrible shortage of food and medicines.
The doctors stress that most deaths are caused by infections of the gastrointestinal and respiratory systems which, under normal circumstances, would be completely curable.
Food and medicines are officially exempt from the sanctions imposed on Iraq after the invasion of Kuwait but the bureaucratic structure of the procurement system and the country's limited earnings from the legal sale of oil restrict imports.
At the same time, the regime is exploiting the distress of the population as a weapon to have sanctions lifted completely with no concessions on its part.
In what way will the Council intervene to ensure the effective protection of human rights in Iraq, in particular in the light of the UN Security Council's debate on the lifting of economic sanctions?
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<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="Verheugen">
Mrs Karamanou, this is an extremely serious question and the Council is grateful to you for giving it an opportunity to address this issue in the European Parliament.
The European Union is aware of the effects of the sanctions on the food situation and on health care in Iraq.
The Council has for a long time been deeply concerned about the situation of the civilian population in Iraq and especially the children.
That is why the Council has always supported the Security Council's offer, which Iraq initially turned down, to permit the sale of oil in return for humanitarian imports.
Ever since the 'oil for food' programme was implemented in late 1996, the Member States of the European Union have chaired the Security Council's committee on sanctions against Iraq and always sought the flexible application and continual improvement of the programme.
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The European Union and its Member States are also playing their part in trying to improve the humanitarian situation in Iraq.
But the crucial point of reference is and remains the 'oil for food' programme.
At the 55th meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva from 22 to 30 April this year the European Union took the initiative in drafting a resolution on the human rights situation; this calls inter alia on the Iraqi leadership to cooperate further in carrying out the 'oil for food' programme and to ensure the fair distribution of the humanitarian imports.
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The Union also continues to support any initiatives to further improve the operation of the 'oil for food' programme and in this respect refers specifically to the proposals submitted by the UN Security Council panel on 30 March 1999 on the humanitarian situation in Iraq.
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While most of the initial administrative difficulties of the 'oil for food' programme have been ironed out, the main problem with the programme is now Iraq's poor export capacity and the distribution of the medical aid.
Iraq's export capacity is now being improved under a sub-programme of the 'oil for food' programme, but it will not take full effect until spring 2000 because of the planning and delivery schedules; here, as you know, oil prices are a factor of uncertainty in both directions.
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According to information from the United Nations, medical aid to the value of 275 million dollars is currently blocked in Iraqi warehouses although it is urgently needed by the population.
Responsibility for this lies with the Iraqi Government.
That illustrates the point made in Mrs Karamanou's question that the Saddam Hussein regime is exploiting the distress of the population as a weapon to have sanctions lifted without fulfilling the cease-fire requirements of Resolution 687 of 1991.
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That means the Iraqi leadership is responsible for the inadequate implementation of the 'oil for food' programme, just as it is responsible for the fact that the sanctions still cannot be lifted after running for over eight years.
Let me remind you that in 1991 all the experts could and did assume that Iraq could have complied with Resolution 687 on a basis of full cooperation within the space of a few months.
We are dealing here with a conflict between the humanitarian principle and the principle of national sovereignty, both of which are enshrined in the United Nations Charter, which restricts our means of action.
But let me leave you in no doubt that we can only condemn the conduct of the Iraqi state leadership as utterly inhumane.
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<SPEAKER ID=222 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Karamanou">
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office, for your information.
I would also like to congratulate the European Union on the initiatives it has taken and on the recent Geneva summit.
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However, I think we need to accept that America must change its Middle East policy.
I would like you to tell me, Mr President-in-Office, whether the Council considers that the achievement of political and military objectives can ignore the cost in terms of human lives.
I would also like your opinion on whether, in the case of Iraq, the Vienna Convention, which prohibits the starvation of citizens as an instrument of war, is not being violated? Do you consider that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child are not being violated?
Six thousand innocent children are dying each month because of the embargo, and it is my conviction that no political objective can be placed above human lives.
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Because I believe that we are, quite rightly, in favour of protecting human rights, I would like to ask you whether the innocent population of Iraq does not come under the heading of people to whom protection of human rights applies.
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Finally, do you believe that this policy has weakened or, conversely, strengthened the position of Saddam Hussein, by analogy with what is happening in Kosovo and Serbia with regard to Mr Milosevic?
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<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="Verheugen">
Mrs Karamanou, you are of course right to draw a parallel with the equally dreadful human rights situation in Kosovo, but in both cases we must after all look at cause and effect.
In the case of Iraq it is clear that the sanctions were imposed on the basis of UN Security Council decisions.
These sanctions were imposed because Iraq did not fulfil the necessary obligations for ensuring the security and stability of the region.
But the programme I have described was permitted and was set in motion to ensure that these sanctions do not have the effect you described.
I have also described the particular efforts being made by the European Union to ensure that this programme is effective.
If it is not effective in certain areas, particularly in the area of medical care, the responsibility lies entirely with the Iraqi Government which has acted out of what are truly contemptible and base motives.
Let me repeat: the Iraqi leadership wants to exploit this situation in order that the sanctions, which have a quite different political purpose, may be lifted.
We must call on Iraq to fulfil its responsibility towards its own people.
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<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="Newens">
Does the President-in-Office accept that the 'oil for food' programme, while commendable, has many bureaucratic shortcomings and accompanying sanctions which still stop the needs of children from being met, while their parents can do very little to get rid of the inhuman dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.
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In these circumstances it really is not acceptable to justify the actions taken by the West by putting the blame just on Saddam Hussein - we all accept that.
Something still has to be done and more has to be done to meet the needs of these children.
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<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Newens, you are making a political statement here and all I can do is to respectfully take note of your opinion and to bring it up at the next Council meeting on the situation in Iraq.
I take a different view from you, but that is not the point here.
Your question made one point I want to address, the question of possible bureaucratic obstacles to implementing the humanitarian programme.
I agree: they did exist, which is why we have begun to streamline this programme, although this has not produced satisfactory results to date.
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<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="President">
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Question No 19 by María Izquierdo Rojo (H-0349/99)
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Subject: Presidential elections in Algeria What political assessment does the Council make of the Algerian presidential elections of 15 April 1999?
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<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="Verheugen">
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, the European Union followed the presidential elections in Algeria with great attention and made a statement on them.
It goes as follows. The election campaign raised considerable hope in Algeria and among its partners in the international community.
By taking an active part in the election campaign, Algeria's citizens showed the store they set by a free, open, pluralist poll, as promised by the Algerian authorities.
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The European Union has noted the decision by six of the seven candidates to withdraw from the election and the reasons given by them for their decision.
The European Union has supported and encouraged the democratisation process embarked upon in Algeria since 1995.
The Union believes that it is by promoting democracy and the rule of law and by continuing with economic and social reforms that Algeria will be able to emerge from the crisis in which it has been embroiled for a number of years.
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The European Union will attach the greatest importance to initiatives along these lines by the new President-elect, Mr Abdelaziz Bouteflika.
The European Union confirms its readiness to support the reform process in Algeria, particularly by way of Euro-Mediterranean cooperation, and to continue the political dialogue entered into with the Algerian authorities.
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<SPEAKER ID=228 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Rojo">
Mr President-in-Office, using the same constructive approach that seems to underlie your response, could you tell me what exactly the European Union will do to help put an end to the violence and what measures it will adopt to help combat corruption in Algeria?
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<SPEAKER ID=229 NAME="Verheugen">
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, first of all I am glad that we obviously agree on the need to continue with the policy we have already begun vis-à-vis Algeria, regardless of what we think of what happened before the presidential election there.
By saying regardless I mean that we must endeavour to support a process of democratisation in Algeria and after all the preconditions there for the democratisation process are better than in many other countries suffering from a democratic deficit.
There are strong democratic forces in Algeria and there is also a very free press there, and one which indeed makes use of that freedom.
We must also say that up to the time when the six candidates withdrew, the electoral campaign had actually suggested that Algeria was moving towards democracy.
It was in fact the case that all the candidates could put forward their programme freely and without restraint and that the political debate in Algeria took place in the kind of constructive atmosphere not seen for a long time.
We also took particular note of the fact that one of the key issues of this Algerian electoral campaign was national reconciliation.
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So we now conclude that in spite of the problem of which we are both aware, the movement towards a civil society in Algeria that began in the 1990s has in fact been boosted by the electoral campaign.
I therefore think that we should do all we can in the form of political dialogue and political contacts to give further support to that process.
In particular that means keeping in contact with the democratic forces in Algeria and supporting these forces, for instance by inviting them to the Member States of the European Union and to the European Parliament.
It is important to demonstrate international protection and international support for the democratic forces in Algeria.
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<SPEAKER ID=230 NAME="President">
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Question No 20 by Eva Kjer Hansen (H-0351/99)
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Subject: Appointment of officials without holding a competition In its answer to my question about the plans to appoint staff from the Schengen Secretariat, the Council stated that, under Article 7 of the Schengen Protocol annexed to the Amsterdam Treaty, it is obliged to take on the staff of the Schengen Secretariat since the Protocol has to be regarded as part of the Treaty and hence as part of primary Community law.
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However, Article 7 of the Schengen Protocol stipulates only that the Council must adopt the detailed arrangements for the integration of the Schengen Secretariat into the General Secretariat of the Council, i.e. the functions of the Schengen Secretariat and not necessarily its staff.
To the extent that it is possible to envisage appointing existing Schengen Secretariat staff to the EU institutions, the provision in Article 7 of the Schengen Protocol in no way prevents the Council from appointing any staff interested in conformity with the existing rules of the Staff Regulations or from resorting to the alternative appointment procedure based on Article 24 of the Merger Treaty.
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This being so, can the Council explain why it in this case still considers it legitimate both to flout the current Staff Regulations and to ignore the Commission's right of initiative laid down in Article 24 of the Merger Treaty?
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<SPEAKER ID=231 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, pursuant to Article 7 of the Protocol annexed to the Amsterdam Treaty which integrates the Schengen acquis into the European Union, the Council decides by a qualified majority on the detailed arrangements for the integration of the Schengen Secretariat into the General Secretariat of the Council.
On 1 May the Council took a decision laying down the details of the integration of the Schengen Secretariat into the General Secretariat on the basis of that Article 7.
According to my information, this legal case will in fact very soon be brought before the European Court of Justice, which is why this is all I can say by way of an answer.
I will not become involved in a legal debate because that is a matter reserved to the appropriate Community jurisdiction.
This question is now purely a matter for the Court of Justice to decide.
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Let me however repeat that the Council's view is that the rules that have been adopted make every provision for guaranteeing the skills and competence of the individuals appointed.
Given this situation and in view also of press reports that have also appeared today, let me point out that it is not the Secretary-General of the Council who is responsible for the tensions we are currently seeing in the General Secretariat, but that the only reason for these tensions is a political decision by the Council that is covered by the Treaty.
To hold the Secretary-General responsible for that is, in my view, quite unfair and inappropriate in this situation.
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<SPEAKER ID=232 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Kjer Hansen">
I would like to thank you for your reply, but I do not understand why the terms of the Staff Regulations are being disregarded, since there is after all nothing to prevent us from respecting the Council's existing rules during the integration process.
There is no reason for us now to be recruiting large numbers of staff without them having to sit the recruitment tests, so I have still had no answer to my question as to why the existing rules are being disregarded.
As far as I can see, this all smacks more of what one might call national nepotism, in other words that there are a number of Member States that wish to have some staff placed somewhere in particular, and the other Member States are therefore nodding this through.
Can the President-in-Office tell me what justification there is for us now suddenly to start recruiting more staff than the 58 people who were originally deemed necessary? It seems to me highly reprehensible that the Council is venturing to disregard the existing rules.
Is it not the case, Mr President-in-Office, that there is a need to analyse the situation within the Council with a view to cleaning things up and clearly documenting what requirements - and what resources - there are for ensuring that we get more openness and more transparency with regard to what takes place within the Council, just as we are demanding within the Commission?
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<SPEAKER ID=233 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, Mrs Kjer Hansen, nothing is happening behind the scenes here; we are talking about an entirely open and public process.
The Treaty provides that the Schengen Secretariat will be integrated into the General Secretariat of the Council and that the Council will decide the detailed arrangements.
That is what the Council has done!
<P>
I have to say again that the political intention of the Treaty was to integrate the existing Schengen Secretariat - without any new appointments being made or any selection procedures being initiated - into the existing General Secretariat because surely there would be no point in the integration of one secretariat with another secretariat meaning that we appointed 80 new staff according to the rules that apply to the General Secretariat and kicked out the 80 people who used to work for the Schengen Secretariat.
I cannot imagine that the questioner would agree to such an inhuman and unsocial solution.
Nothing is being done behind the scenes here; it is a very normal, open procedure. And I must say in all honesty that the Council cannot understand the resistance the General Secretariat staff is showing here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 21 by Pat Gallagher (H-0354/99)
<P>
Subject: Fishing fraud in southern Europe Is the Council aware of the Auditors' report criticising the Commission for failing to take adequate precautions to prevent fraud involving EU funds for modernising fishing vessels, most of which are located in southern Europe?
Is it aware that funds were given to renovate vessels that had already sunk or which would never be put in service again and that verification visits were minimal?
Will the Council now make a clear commitment that every effort will be made to recover or, if necessary, to impose severe penalties for proven embezzlement?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, I can only answer this question in the affirmative.
The Council received the Court of Auditors' report on the formation of joint enterprises in the fisheries sector on 9 December 1998.
The Council discussed the content of this report during the deliberations on the Commission proposal laying down detailed arrangements and conditions for Community structural assistance in the fisheries sector.
This Commission proposal contains various provisions aimed at removing the abuses listed in the Court of Auditors' report on the management of joint enterprises.
The presidency intends to take a final decision on this proposal at the Council of Fisheries Ministers in June, provided that Parliament has given its opinion by that date.
Looking at the agenda, it would seem that Parliament will be discussing that proposal this week.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 NAME="Gallagher">
<SPEAKER ID=237 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Gallagher, I have already told you that the Council has drawn the necessary political and organisational conclusions in the light of the findings of the Court of Auditors' report that you describe in such graphic detail.
That is the Council's job and it has done it.
The Council has to ensure that if problems of this kind arise measures are taken to prevent their recurrence.
<P>
On the concrete question of what is being done to minimise in some way the damage that has occurred and of the European Union possibly also taking legal action, that is a question for the Commission and not the Council.
I am of course assuming that the Commission will take these very serious criticisms in the Court of Auditors' report as grounds to pursue the European Union's interests as vigorously as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 NAME="President">
As the authors are not present, Questions Nos 22 and 23 lapse.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 NAME="Gallagher">
Mr President, is it possible for Mr Fitzsimons and Mr Andrews, who are attending another meeting, to have written replies?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 NAME="President">
No, Mr Gallagher, they must be here themselves.
If they had notified me in writing that you or another Member of the House were to act as a substitute for the questions, pursuant to the Rules of Procedure, then that would have been in order. However, in this case, the Rules limit answers in writing to those questions that we have not been able to cover during the hour and a half set aside for Question Time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 24 by Liam Hyland (H-0360/99)
<P>
Subject: Backing a new LEADER III programme Will the Council outline its present policy with regard to the development of a fully integrated rural policy at EU level and will it give assurances that, as a part of such a policy, it will continue to support a new LEADER programme (III) and the retention of its name which is synonymous with empowerment and self-help and a positive image of the European Union?
Furthermore, will it ensure a consistent approach to rural development by maintaining the same Local Action Groups, thereby helping to avoid long lead-in times which can cause serious setbacks in development momentum?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Hyland, the aim of the proposal in the agriculture section of Agenda 2000 for a regulation on rural development is to regenerate the rural areas and simplify the agriculture rules.
The reform of the Structural Funds, which includes the agreed reduction of the number of Objectives from six to three, will make it easier to achieve this aim.
This has already been discussed in depth here today.
<P>
On that basis rural development policy can gradually establish itself as the second pillar of the common agricultural policy.
In that context, the Leader Community initiative will be continued in the form of Leader III.
Leader III aims to make rural development more dynamic overall by supporting the programme of innovative projects by local groups.
Overlaps between Leader and measures under the rural development regulation will be prevented by the fact that the rural development regulation concerns national or regional support measures, but not local measures.
Leader projects, by contrast, remain reserved to local action groups.
Let me also point out that this question is a subject of the debate we have interrupted with Question Time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 NAME="Hyland">
Mr President, I should like to thank the President-in-Office for his reply.
But I have to ask a supplementary question.
Will LEADER retain its identity and independence as a Community initiative with a high level of voluntary Community participation?
Will the President-in-Office take steps to ensure that it is not absorbed into national or regional statutory structures but is seen by those agencies as an important but independent development programme?
<P>
A very important part of my question concerns the continuity of LEADER.
We are anxious to ensure that there will be no delay between the ending of the present LEADER II and the beginning of LEADER III.
Otherwise a lot of very professional staff who have been recruited over the years will be lost to the programme.
This would be a very serious mistake to make.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Hyland, let me herewith give you the assurances you want in relation to all three parts of your supplementary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 25 by Gerard Collins (H-0364/99)
<P>
Subject: Kuwaiti prisoners of war in Iraq Although nine years have passed since the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, the 598 Kuwaiti men and 7 women who were deported remain in Iraqi prisons.
UN Security Council Resolution 687 called on Iraq to cooperate with the International Committee of the Red Cross in order to release these prisoners of war.
Iraq has persistently obstructed the work of the ICRC by withholding information, failing to attend meetings and preventing the ICRC from inspecting Iraqi prisons.
What steps has the Council taken to-date to alleviate the plight of the 605 Kuwaiti POWs and what intervention with the Iraqi authorities or other measures does it propose to take to address this humanitarian issue?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Collins, the Council shares your concern about the problem of the disappeared persons, including the prisoners of war, who fell victim to the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait.
At the 55th meeting of the Human Rights Commission in Geneva from 22 March to 30 April 1999, the European Union submitted a draft resolution calling on Iraq to cooperate with the appropriate international organisations and to provide information on the whereabouts or fate of the remaining disappeared persons.
<P>
We called for compensation to be paid to the families of those who have died in Iraqi prisons or have disappeared.
All Kuwaitis or other nationals who are still in prison must be released at once.
Families must be notified of the whereabouts of prisoners. We also call on Iraq to provide information on death sentences carried out on prisoners of war or civilian prisoners, including the death certificates of prisoners of war or civilian prisoners who have died.
I do not think more can be done in this matter.
You know as well as I that unfortunately we are not in a position to force Iraq to comply with these demands.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 NAME="Collins, Gerard">
Mr President, I wish to thank the President-in-Office for the information he has given.
It all boils down to the fact that other than putting forward a draft resolution at the 55th human rights meeting in Geneva, where we stated our position, we have done nothing else since because we have no information whatsoever with regard to the 598 Kuwaiti men and seven women who were sent to Iraqi prisons.
Is there any further pressure that the Council and the European Union would consider putting on the Iraqi authorities in an effort at least to get information as to how many of these people are alive, who they are, what is the state of their health, when they are going to be released and, indeed, how many have died.
Can we do anything in a positive way at this particular time nine years later?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=248 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Collins, I will not conceal from you that I am very pessimistic about this.
Efforts have been going on for a long time now and the European Union has stepped them up.
In my answer I did not even list all the initiatives we have already taken.
There are a number of others.
There is also a new initiative by the United Nations Security Council.
The situation remains unchanged and I cannot see what other means of pressure we can apply against a country on which we have already imposed the most far-reaching sanctions at our disposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 26 by Per Gahrton (H-0365/99)
<P>
Subject: Interpretation in Council The TT news agency reported on 30 March 1999 that, in three cases out of four, Swedish representatives in the Council are compelled to negotiate in a foreign language during Council meetings.
According to the report, interpretation in English, German and French is almost standard.
To express oneself in a language other than one's mother tongue must be regarded as a distinct disadvantage in negotiations.
Can the Council, therefore, confirm or deny these reports and say whether it will take measures to ensure that Swedish is treated in the same way as the major languages in the EU and that Swedish representatives are able to express themselves in Swedish and rely on being interpreted in the future?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, Mr Gahrton, the Council is aware of the news agency report you quote.
Unfortunately that report about Council meetings and Swedish interpreters is undated and provides no further details.
Given the almost countless number of Council bodies that have met on such countless occasions recently, with the best will in the world the presidency has been unable to find out which Council meetings and which dates are being referred to.
So we have not been able to look into the actual incidents in question.
<P>
In regard to interpretation from Swedish in principle, let me say that a Council programme exists, and has also been forwarded to the Swedish Government, on the appointment and training of interpreters in the Swedish language and that this programme is now under way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=251 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gahrton">
Thank you for your reply, even though it was not really much of an answer.
I mentioned in my question that the report had come from the Swedish news agency, TT, on 30 March this year.
I assume that what they refer to must have taken place a relatively short time before.
However, the question was not about a particular occurrence, but a generally held view that all too often no provision is made for the Swedish language when Swedish representatives are taking part in Council meetings.
It is therefore extraordinary that the Council should not be more aware of a situation which has provoked quite an intense debate in Sweden.
Indeed, I think one might have been better informed before coming here to answer questions.
<P>
In any event, for one of the Member States it is a most important question.
Suspicion is already rife that there are plans to do away with the minority languages altogether in the EU context.
It would therefore be helpful if the Council could give a more positive assurance that, in its own work, it is not the case that it is systematically endeavouring to screen out the minority languages and taking advantage of the fact that some of the Swedish representatives are probably able to express themselves in another language.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, Mr Gahrton, all I can tell you is that I myself have never attended a Council meeting at which Swedish was not interpreted from start to finish.
If you have information to the effect that this is not the case, I would be grateful if you could pass it on to me.
The presidency of the Council does not have such information and we did look into the press report you cite but were unable to find out when and where this is supposed to have happened.
<P>
Nor does the presidency have any kind of complaint before it from Sweden that its language is neglected at Council meetings. May I perhaps advise you not necessarily to rely on an anonymous press agency report but to accept the official statement the Council presidency is giving you here.
So if you do have information, I would be grateful if you could pass it on and then we would look into the matter.
The principle of course applies that no Member State may be placed at a disadvantage by negotiations not being interpreted in its language.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 NAME="President">
As the author is not present, Question No 27 lapses.
<P>
<P>
Question No 28 by Marianne Eriksson (H-0368/99)
<P>
Subject: Commissioner for equality In accordance with Articles 2, 3 137(1) and 141 of the Amsterdam Treaty, the EU is to take up equality between the sexes as an extremely serious issue.
There are many, in fact, who say that this matter should be given top priority.
In the light of these considerations, will the Council say how it envisages achieving an even distribution of the sexes among the future Commissioners and what its views are on appointing a Commissioner solely responsible for equality?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=254 NAME="Verheugen">
Mrs Eriksson, let me first emphasise that the Council attaches very great importance to measures to promote equal opportunities for men and women and to the practical implementation of the appropriate provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty, which applies to all the bodies, organs and institutions we have in Europe, from the European Parliament to the Commission and to the Council itself. But I am sorry to have to point out that the Member States are solely responsible for proposing the members of the European Commission pursuant to the provisions of the Treaties and that the distribution of tasks within the Commission is in fact an internal Commission matter.
The Council has no part whatsoever to play in this connection, and I am not even saying: 'unfortunately no part whatsoever'.
The Commission's sovereign right to organise its own affairs is an important aspect of integration policy in the Union and we should not jeopardise it by prescribing to the Commission from the outside how it should organise itself.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=255 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Eriksson">
In spite of everything, I find it rather depressing, at this last part-session of Parliament, to have to witness such a passive approach to coordination, something which the Council is otherwise glad to recommend.
I am definitely not satisfied with the answer.
In my view, after all the criticism which has been levelled at the lack of progress in promoting equality of opportunity between men and women, the Council should be more active in initiating discussions and ensuring that there are more than the three, or possibly four, women candidates currently rumoured to be in the running.
It is a frightening thought, given that we are about to enter the new millennium, which everyone says should herald something genuinely new, that we are still being confronted with something old.
<P>
I also expected to hear whether there had been any discussion of what should now be done to give genuinely active encouragement to equality of opportunity following the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty, Article 13 of which covers all groups, including women, in terms of anti-discrimination.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=256 NAME="Verheugen">
Mrs Eriksson, I quite understand your strong feelings and your comment, but the Council will not be tempted even by Members of the European Parliament to infringe the Treaties.
The Treaties are quite unambiguous here.
The Council does not have the right to exert any influence on this question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=257 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, the State Secretary, Mr Verheugen, is behaving like a true diplomat: he avoids the issue that the President-in-Office is clearly in a position to negotiate with Member States on the matter of the balanced appointment of male and female candidates to the Commission.
Mr Verheugen, you may have noticed that on 23 March the European Parliament indicated its desire for a substantially greater proportion of women Members of the next Commission than there is at present.
I would like to ask you this: will you in no way take responsibility for this?
You are perfectly capable of promoting this aim in negotiations with the Member States.
The Commission's new President, Mr Prodi, has already discovered that we in the House are quite serious about this.
Today, in a press conference, he stated he was giving this issue his attention.
You could work in cooperation with him. But is it your intention to negotiate with the Member States?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=258 NAME="Verheugen">
Mrs Hautala, you must have misunderstood me if you say my answer was diplomatic.
It was meant to be anything but diplomatic.
I wanted to make it clear that however noble and right a political concern may be, the Council cannot assume powers that it does not have.
The same applies to the presidency.
The situation is not what you think.
The presidency does not have the power to negotiate with the Member States about who they send to Brussels as a member of the Commission.
The President of the Commission whose appointment you confirmed today has that power, and that President of the Commission, who was also selected on the basis of whether he can effectively assert the rights that he has, is pursuing the aim to which you referred.
The presidency also has great sympathy for that aim, but unfortunately there is nothing at all it can do about it.
Since the office of presidency is filled by a country that can appoint two Commissioners, it can only ensure that the principle you called for is observed by its own country.
But unfortunately I have no means of doing the same for Sweden because Sweden only appoints one Commissioner, which means it is rather difficult to apply the quota system in this case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=259 NAME="President">
<P>
Question No 29 by Jonas Sjöstedt (H-0369/99)
<P>
Subject: Protection of persons providing information Before the Commission resigned, Paul van Buitenen, the internal auditor, was suspended from duty on half pay.
Since then, he has obtained a new post in another Commission department.
This and similar cases raise the question of the need to allow Commission staff the freedom to provide information, which in Sweden, for example, is a right enshrined in the constitution.
<P>
Does the Council consider that the right of Commission staff to provide information should now be a matter for debate in the light of events prior to the Commission's resignation?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=260 NAME="Verheugen">
I am a little confused, Mr President.
Are we talking about Mr van Buitenen?
Is that the question?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=261 NAME="President">
This is Question No 29 on protection of persons providing information.
<P>
But yes indeed, Mr Sjöstedt is referring to Mr Paul van Buitenen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=262 NAME="Verheugen">
In reply to Mr Sjöstedt's question, let me emphasise that the internal organisation of the Commission is the affair of that institution alone.
As for the Council, it has never had call to act in the kind of situation addressed by the questioner.
On the contrary, in what are fortunately rare cases, the Council's administration has felt obliged to take strong action against officials who have not respected the necessary professional rules of conduct in the course of their duties.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=263 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
I should like to thank the Council for its answer.
To my mind, the right of officials to denounce and publicly criticise irregularities is not an internal matter of staff regulations and so on, but is in fact a fundamental question of openness.
<P>
There is soon to be a new intergovernmental conference which will provide opportunities for further strengthening openness within the Union, a process that has already begun with the formulation of rules on access to documents.
One such possibility would of course be to strengthen the right of employees to denounce irregularities and express criticism without being silenced or actively penalised, as was the case in the Commission.
I should be glad to hear the Council's views on this, in other words whether openness can be further developed in the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=264 NAME="Verheugen">
The Council cannot make any statement about the internal organisation of the Commission.
That is the Commission's own business.
The Council could give its view if this incident had concerned its own staff.
But that is not the case.
No such problem has arisen within the Council.
Nor can I make any judgment because obviously the personal files or disciplinary measures relating to Commission staff are not available to the Council.
It is quite impossible for me to judge what actually happened in this case.
You will have to address this question to the Commission.
And indeed you can easily do so.
The Council cannot make any comment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=265 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Verheugen.
I hope that Parliament and the Council are now back on the same wavelength, since I would now invite you to reply to Question No 30.
<P>
<P>
Question No 30 by Bernd Posselt (H-0372/99)
<P>
Subject: Agreement with Croatia Given that Croatia's economy and tourist industry have been substantially damaged by the military activity in the vicinity and that the country has also been militarily threatened, the conclusion of a trade and cooperation agreement with Croatia would considerably help to stabilise the entire area.
What is the current position as regards granting a negotiating mandate to the Commission?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=266 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, regarding the possible upgrading of contractual relations between the European Union and Croatia, I believe the honourable Member is aware that this comes under the EU's regional approach, as set out in the General Affairs Council's conclusions of 29 April 1997.
Twice a year the Council examines whether the requirements set in that respect have been fulfilled.
<P>
After its last examination on the basis of the conditions set on 9 November 1998, the Council decided that Croatia should continue to be granted autonomous trade preferences but that the conditions for assistance under the PHARE programme had not been met and that it was also too soon to negotiate a trade and cooperation agreement.
Any improvement in relations, including possible future negotiations on a trade and cooperation agreement, will depend on whether Croatia makes further progress towards meeting the required conditions.
At this moment I cannot foresee when the fulfilment of these conditions will next be checked.
<P>
In regard to your broader question about the general stability of the region, on 26/27 April 1999 the Council agreed to begin preparing a stability pact for south-eastern Europe.
The EU is vigorously pursuing this task.
It is doing so in cooperation with the appropriate international organisations and regional initiatives and in particular with the states of that region, with the initial aim of holding a conference on the stability pact for south-eastern Europe at senior official level; this will be convened by the presidency of the European Union in Bonn on 27 May 1999.
<P>
The stability pact will offer all the Balkan states a concrete prospect of stability and integration into the Euro-Atlantic structures.
I myself will be in Croatia next week as the representative of the presidency to discuss the development of relations between the EU and Croatia with the Croatian Government, the Croatian Parliament and Croatian political parties.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=267 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office, for that very detailed and informative reply.
Yet I do have a supplementary.
You said that a decision was taken on 9 November during the bi-annual consideration of the question.
If my calculations are right, six months have elapsed since then but you said you could not foresee when the next six-monthly check would take place.
So I just wanted to ask: have I misunderstood something or has the timetable changed in some way?
I also wanted to ask another question. Serious events have occurred since 9 November, namely the war in Kosovo, which after all has radically changed things.
I do agree that Croatia must fulfil certain conditions - and indeed it has already fulfilled many of them, while there are others that it has not - but I see no reason to place Croatia in a worse contractual position than, for instance, Albania or Macedonia, which are also politically very unstable and problematic countries, while Croatia is after all an emerging democracy.
That is my view but my actual question is this: when will the next decisions be taken?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=268 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Posselt, in reply to your supplementary I have to say that the Commission is indeed running late.
I shall take your question as an opportunity to urge the Commission to keep to the six-monthly date.
On your second question, the purpose of my trip to Croatia is precisely to find out whether what you say is true.
I am quite prepared to notify you of the results of the talks in Zagreb directly and in confidence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=269 NAME="President">
As the author is not present, Question No 31 lapses.
<P>
I should now like to appeal to your generosity, Mr President-in-Office.
At the last part-session, you asked if we could finish ten minutes early.
I would now ask you to finish one minute late, and to give your last answer for today and for this German Presidency to Question No 32.
<P>
<P>
Question No 32 by Brian Crowley (H-0377/99)
<P>
Subject: Earmarking 1 % of the ESF for a social capital fund In the context of the reform of the Structural Funds, will the Council give assurances that the Commission's proposal to earmark 1 % of the ESF for a social capital fund will be maintained given its importance in providing fast-track access to ESF support for NGOs and taking into account also the positive experience of this type of scheme under the 'Peace and Reconciliation Programme' in Northern Ireland?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=270 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, we have had the same problem all evening.
I have totally different numbers from you.
That is what makes matters so difficult.
But I have now found the question, because Mr Brian Crowley's name is on it.
<P>
Mr Crowley, in reply to your question, let me refer you to the Council's common position as adopted on 14 April and forwarded to the European Parliament that same day.
In it, the Council stated that it was against earmarking a minimum amount of 1 % of ESF resources for fairly small subsidies to non-governmental organisations.
The Council regarded the Commission proposal to that effect as too inflexible and replaced the 1 % by what it referred to as an appropriate amount.
However, the Council intends to amend its common position and to provide for a possible 100 % cofinancing of these subsidies.
That would create an incentive for using European Social Fund appropriations for subsidies to non-governmental organisations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=271 NAME="Crowley">
Mr President, I should like to thank the President-in-Office for his response.
However it is with some concern that I see that they have changed the common position in particular.
The reason why we looked for the 1 % of the ESF to be ringfenced for these kind of actions is that we were afraid that if it were left for the Council to decide, no money would be made available to the NGOs and for these other actions.
We are working exclusively from the experience which we already have from the peace and reconciliation programme in Northern Ireland, also from some of the environmental programmes which have been so successful where the NGOs have taken the lead and been given assistance from European Union funding.
We are afraid that these monies will be denied to them in the future.
Could we have a guarantee from the President-in-Office that, whilst they may not agree with the ringfencing of 1 %, they will give a definite commitment that there will be a percentage available when the new ESF operation comes into being?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=272 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Crowley, obviously I cannot give you that commitment.
And you know that, because it would mean suspending the existing Council decision.
I am quite prepared to put your arguments to the Council again and to reconsider them.
But let me tell you that I do not agree with your assessment of the matter.
I think the formula the Council has opted for tends to increase rather than reduce the possibilities of the funding you call for.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=273 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Verheugen.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, we have now reached the end of the time set aside for questions to the Council. Questions Nos 33 to 39 will receive written answers.
<P>
Those are the last questions to the Council for this parliamentary term, and to Mr Verheugen, whom we thank for his cooperation.
Despite our occasional lack of coordination, there has always been a willingness to work together.
We give him our best wishes.
<P>
That concludes Question Time.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 7.07 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Agenda 2000 (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=274 NAME="Funke">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I am pleased to be taking part this evening in the final debate of this House on the Agenda 2000 reform project.
Both the rapporteurs and the Commissioner delivered their opinions this afternoon. Ladies and gentlemen, you will continue the debate this evening with a general discussion.
The European Parliament's political discussions on Agenda 2000 will then come to a close with tomorrow's vote.
The conclusion will be, as it were, a tailor-made one because by approving the Agenda 2000 proposals the European Parliament is laying the foundations, during the final part-session of both this parliamentary term and the German Presidency, for the future development of the European Union and not least the future common agricultural policy.
However, this decision will also bring to an end a discussion which has occupied both politicians and professional groups in all the Member States for two years.
<P>
Since the Commission presented its statement entitled 'Agenda 2000 - a stronger and wider Union' in spring 1997, an all-out effort has been made to change the direction of the common agricultural policy.
I should like to point out in particular that the European Parliament has made its position on this absolutely clear from the outset.
It has claimed a constructive role in the process through the resolutions it has adopted and, in particular, by taking up positions of substance.
When you deliver your opinion tomorrow on the decisions of both the agricultural ministers and the Heads of State and Government, you will be adopting a reform which clearly bears the European Parliament's mark as well.
Even though many people would have wished for more far-reaching decisions in one area or another, we should perhaps accept that this reform meets the demands made on it.
I will mention four main areas.
<P>
A maximum of EUR 297 billion will be made available for the agricultural budget during the period 2000-2006.
Agricultural expenditure in real terms will therefore still be limited to the present level.
The reform of the common agricultural policy and pre-accession aid also prepare the Community for enlargement eastward in the agricultural sector.
The common agricultural policy's stronger orientation towards the market and the environment will equip the Community with an offensive negotiating strategy at the forthcoming round of WTO negotiations.
It can also use this to defend the European model of agriculture with its high standards of quality, safety and protection.
<P>
Measures to promote rural development have been extended considerably and can now be developed into a second pillar of the common agricultural policy.
<P>
In view of the complexity of the subject matter and the obvious conflicts of interest in this area between the Member States as well, I think it was not to be taken for granted that the negotiations on the agricultural part of Agenda 2000 would be concluded successfully.
<P>
It is the result of hard work, but I think it is first and foremost the result of the exemplary form of cooperation between Parliament, the Commission and the Council which was based on trust and was always constructive.
It has also been a matter of concern for me from the outset to promote the dialogue between Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
Perhaps you will agree with me that in the informal conciliation procedure we have developed an instrument which in the past few months has proved to be exemplary.
In addition to the procedure laid down in the Treaty, information has been exchanged on a regular basis, allowing you, ladies and gentlemen, to be kept up to date on the Council's views.
The agricultural ministers have also been kept fully informed of your opinions.
In particular, I would add that, as President-in-Office of the Council, the position of the European Parliament was always a very useful trump card when seeking solutions during the negotiations.
<P>
We have reached the end of a long and - we should not conceal this fact - sometimes difficult journey.
I believe that we have taken a decision to the best of our knowledge and beliefs which should be of use to Europe and its citizens.
This is definitely a joint project, and I hope very much that it will also be a joint success.
<P>
May I thank you all for your support and trust in me.
I am thinking particularly of Mr Fischler here, and the contribution he made during the negotiations.
I should like to stress this point.
This kind of cooperation based on trust has been most gratifying, even though it took up a great deal of our time, sometimes into the night. I also thank all those who participated.
In spite of all the controversy which we dealt with, it was always clear that there was a joint effort to make decisions.
In particular, the way in which we argued with each other in order to make these decisions speaks for itself.
I think it was described by everyone as appropriate and friendly.
I sensed this from the reactions of various people who participated in the project too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=275 NAME="President">
It is not for the Chair to make comments on the substance of what you have said, but I believe that the Chair has a duty to thank you and your colleagues in the German Presidency. You have always shown respect and a willingness to cooperate, and your presence in this Chamber has always left a strong impression.
We acknowledge this, and would like to thank you for all you have done.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=276 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Jové Peres">
Mr President, the implementation of the Berlin agreements will mean that the process of farms disappearing and jobs being destroyed, which already started with the 1992 reform, will become more pronounced.
In addition, this process will largely affect small and medium-sized farms, as they will be only partially compensated through income aid.
<P>
Furthermore - and this is the worst element, in my group's view - no means of correcting the existing imbalances between continental and Mediterranean production and between small and large farms has been introduced.
The financial allocations for continental production are being increased again, while those for Mediterranean production remain frozen.
<P>
The scheme approved in Berlin will also have a severe negative impact on the social fabric of the countryside.
<P>
Do the Commission and the Council really expect the timid rural development measures to compensate for that impact?
The rural development measures proposed are going to be implemented to give preferential treatment to the richer Member States that have a smaller percentage of farmers.
In addition, the Commission's proposal will exclude fruit and vegetable growers from the benefits of the rural development measures.
<P>
I am absolutely astonished that Parliament's Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development rejected an amendment tabled by my group to correct this situation and that the amendment was declared inadmissible in the House pursuant to Rule 60 of the Rules of Procedure.
It is just as well that, in this case, the Berlin European Council did intend to correct that point, highlighting the paradox of what happened in Parliament's Committee on Agriculture.
<P>
There have been CAP reforms since 1992 intended, presumably, to correct the uneven economic support granted to small and large farms.
In the wake of the Commission's timid proposal, the Berlin agreements are a step backwards in terms of limiting aid to large farms and increasing support to small and medium-sized farms.
<P>
The Committee on Agriculture's position represents no progress in that direction either, and I must say once again that it is unfortunate that an amendment by my group on modifications to the aid was declared inadmissible.
<P>
As a result, my political group, the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, will not support a reform of the CAP which will actually mean that its main imbalances will become more marked.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=277 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, this concluding debate on Agenda 2000 should be limited to the main thrust of the reforms.
If we now try to bring controversial amendments we risk bringing down the whole Berlin package like a house of cards.
I am thinking, for example, of the amendment in the Görlach report to increase setting-up aid from EUR 25 000 to EUR 35 000.
A number of Member States simply cannot accept such cost-increasing proposals.
<P>
The central question today is: do we accept the financial basis of Agenda 2000 and are we going to confirm this in an interinstitutional agreement?
My answer is a straightforward 'Yes'.
If the Union wants to give applicant countries the real prospect of accession we must look at how this is to be financed.
The financial perspective agreed in Berlin is essential for this.
The Council has succeeded in drawing up an efficient multiannual budget, thus creating the financial scope for enlargement.
I do, however, have great difficulty with certain elements of the package, such as the Council's unfortunate insistence that the ceiling on structural expenditure must also be a target.
But all things considered, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
<P>
I do not believe that recourse to Article 203 of the Treaty, which is what many Members of Parliament were calling for, is the right way forward, since it would result in an increase in the Union's expenditure which net contributors in particular would find unacceptable.
My principal objection to the use of Article 203 is, however, that it would effectively mean making the financing of enlargement dependent upon the uncertain outcomes of the annual budgetary conflicts between the Council and European Parliament.
This is completely unacceptable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=278 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, before this Parliament is dissolved it will have succeeded in expressing its opinion on the launch of the Structural Funds reform. It will have succeeded in moving forward from positions which threatened to produce yet another trial of strength between the European institutions.
After repeated misunderstandings with the Commission on the progress of the work, which threatened to discredit the efforts being made, we are finally together not only on the texts of the new regulations but on a starting point for active collaboration in the management of the Funds through the code of conduct between the Commission and Parliament on the implementation of the structural policies.
Parliament has had an important voice in defining the guidelines for this reform, but it must have an even more important one throughout the programming period.
<P>
We are glad the Council accepted Parliament's request to restore URBAN as one of the Community initiatives, albeit at the end of the negotiations.
That was not obstinacy on our part as Members of Parliament, it was simply recognising the key role of urban areas in regional development.
The balanced and complementary development of urban and rural areas is essential for economic and regional development.
This means intensifying cooperation at all levels with the regional and local authorities and socio-economic operators closest to the evolving situation in the region.
Greater competitiveness between regions must take account of the risks of imbalance caused by the differences in levels of employment and human resources, in infrastructure quality, in the natural environment and in development, especially in the delicate phase we are now entering with the identification of regions eligible for Objective 2.
<P>
We are in favour of reform, generally speaking, but we do have certain reservations about grey areas not yet examined in depth - for example, the impact on the regions whose development process will be put on hold for the sake of the principle of concentration.
The people of these areas will be penalised, and that hardly helps to demonstrate that the European Union is working for the development of the less-favoured regions.
Actually my own country, Italy, is likely to be seriously penalised by the calculation of the Objective 2 ceiling: added to the guaranteed maximum reduction of 33 % there is the reduction caused by the inclusion of the regions coming out of Objective 1.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=279 NAME="Izquierdo Collado">
Mr President, I would like to begin by saying how concerned I am that it looks as if major efforts are being made to ensure that the financial perspective can be approved tomorrow by Parliament without a qualified majority.
I hope that that does not prove to be the case because it would be an inadequate end to a subject as important as the one we are debating this evening.
<P>
The problem is that we are debating 'how' and 'how much' at the same time.
And we may agree on 'how' but not on 'how much'.
Yet tonight we have to decide on both aspects at once.
<P>
I want to refer specifically to the Structural Funds, the Cohesion Fund and the cohesion policies. I agree with the 'how', exactly as planned by the Commissioner, and I would also like to take this opportunity once again to congratulate the Commissioner and DG XVI.
We have worked closely with her and she has helped us immensely in moving cohesion forward during these past five years and, I believe, also for the years ahead.
I agree with the report by Mr Hatzidakis and Mrs McCarthy in relation to Objective 1, coordination and partnership projects, and so on.
So Mrs Wulf-Mathies and Mr Eneko Landaburu have not only the support, but also the appreciation of the parliamentary committee that has worked with them on these issues.
<P>
But we are entering an era where the European Union has more powers.
It has a codecision procedure, a single currency and a single market, and we want improved cohesion and a worthy enlargement.
We want social policies, policies on employment, on rural development and on trans-European networks.
And what does the Council offer us in its Berlin negotiations?
It offers us a move from that mythical figure of 1.27 % - which was so difficult to get past - to 0.97 %.
It offers us a reduction and a de facto renationalisation of the funds the European Union needs, and I have to say that quite a few Members will say 'no' to the Council tomorrow, precisely on the issue of the financial perspective.
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<SPEAKER ID=280 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, in Parliament's view the decision-making procedure for Agenda 2000 deserves to be praised and to be met with approval.
In view of the timetable for ratifying the Amsterdam Treaty, the Council and the Commission have already agreed that as far as possible, the European Parliament should be granted those rights to which it has only formally been entitled since 1 May this year, particularly in the area of structural reform.
<P>
As the European Parliament and perhaps also as representatives of the Member States, we can agree under these circumstances, and with a clear conscience, to the results of Agenda 2000 and the decision-making procedure regarding this.
The most important objectives which the Commission had already envisaged are entirely reasonable.
Concentrating on the real problems and problem areas, less bureaucratic structures, and greater efficiency and transparency generally make good sense.
<P>
If other important practical, national and regional concerns have been dealt with in addition to this, the matter is a really coherent one.
In this respect, as a representative of my country, I welcome the special consideration given to rural development under the new Objective 2.
I also approve of the new phasing-out regulation for former Objective 1, 2 and 5b regions where regeneration has almost been achieved but a little bit more is needed.
<P>
I welcome the new Interreg regulation in particular, because we have worked long and hard on it, and I hope in particular that the regions bordering with the applicant countries at the EU's external borders will take advantage of the time and money available.
At any rate, for Austria this amounts to ATS 5 billion over the next seven years.
<P>
My enthusiasm for Agenda 2000 is limited on one decisive issue.
Is it really justifiable to celebrate the fact that we all want Europe to cost us less in the future as one of the most successful conclusions of Berlin at a time when we are all rightly calling for more European integration in employment, structural reform in general, the EU enlargement process, and solidarity for the wider Europe?
Is 1 % of Europe's gross domestic product really too much for the Member States to pay when national quotas are 40 % or more?
I do not think so!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=281 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to express my appreciation for the fact that so many Commissioners are still present at this late hour.
I see this as a sign of esteem for the European Parliament, as also is the presence of German Minister Funke.
This too should be acknowledged.
It shows that you are ready to listen, at whatever hour Parliament calls its speakers.
<P>
Mr Flynn, you naturally called for support for the proposals to reform the European Social Fund.
My group will certainly be doing so, and will also be supporting Mrs Jöns's proposals.
When it comes to employment and job creation we must all join together to do the best we can.
But at the same time we cannot deny that a large group in society is in need of special attention, and by this I mean people in a disadvantaged position, such as women and minorities.
This is expressed in Parliament's amendments, and it was particularly the Council that was not too keen on it.
I hope that we can work together to achieve further progress in this area.
<P>
This brings me to something which is very close to my heart: the European Social Fund and also, Mr Fischler, the new budget for rural development.
I very much welcome them both.
I believe the European Social Fund is a means of giving impetus to job creation in Europe, just as the fund for rural development is something which should facilitate the major changes which large sections of the farming sector have to make.
Of course it is also the case that the resources for rural development are insufficient.
My fear, Mr Funke, is that when it comes to implementation the Member States will look primarily to their own interests.
I very much fear that alongside these very welcome budgetary headings that we have agreed a number of other things will creep in which we most certainly do not want to encourage.
The first thing that could creep in is that Member States will seek to use European money to solve their own problems.
If that happens, the people will rightly say that we are just dishing out money.
<P>
The second thing we must carefully guard against is the consultancies and other intermediaries walking away with the funds made available to introduce these changes.
I believe European-level management and monitoring in this area to be one of the most important tasks for the future.
We will have no credibility in the eyes of the people of Europe if on the one hand we say we want to exercise control over a number of problems and will make money available to do it, and then allow that money to disappear into the pockets of organisations and individuals who are not entitled to it.
<P>
This may be my last speech as although I am eligible for re-election my party is not doing so well. My final appeal to the Commission is therefore to pay careful attention to this, and if I am not re-elected I hope that I can read in the newspaper that you have received the message.
If I am re-elected, I will most certainly ensure that this happens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=282 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Rosado Fernandes">
Mr President, I really must like farming and be used to the sacrifices it demands of us to come here at this hour to speak for just two minutes.
But it is a great pleasure for me to do this, given that we are talking about an important measure, that is Agenda 2000, which deals with some extremely complex aspects of the European farming world.
I do not know exactly what the European agricultural model is, nor does anyone else, but we intend to defend this model come what may, as it keeps farmers on the land and stops the countryside from becoming deserted.
<P>
In any case, the common agricultural policy will of course continue to represent an uneven playing field given that, as it is based on the idea of historical productivity, richer countries come off distinctly better than poorer countries, much as I dislike distinguishing between rich and poor countries.
It is obvious that if some allowance were made for the difference between richer and poorer regions in Europe, the poorer ones would certainly not need so-called 'rural development', a rather vague and underfunded concept which we all know tends to mean that you only get out what you put in in the first place.
<P>
The fact of the matter is that there will not be a budget for this 'rural development', which would in practice be a way of re-establishing the balance between the more- and less-favoured regions.
Even in the sectors where we are undeniably more competitive - such as wine-making - there will not be any money for re-establishing old vineyards.
<P>
On the other hand, the European Union still considers wool to be a non-agricultural product.
It is to be hoped that with the promotion we have been promised for our products, and despite the limited funding we have been allocated, we can still be competitive in the war which is increasingly being waged at world level.
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<SPEAKER ID=283 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Novo">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the financial framework agreed in Berlin is a totally inadequate response to the requirements and objectives of cohesion, which should be the guiding star for the construction of Europe and its present and future ambitions.
<P>
So it is not surprising that despite earlier hopes that it would be maintained, the Cohesion Fund has emerged from Berlin with reduced resources, which will result in cuts for some cohesion countries, including my own, Portugal.
Nor is it acceptable that, contrary to what Parliament approved in November 1998, the conditionality of the Cohesion Fund in relation to the stability pact is to be maintained, and that, for example, the Committee on Regional Policy should now be presenting an opinion in favour of the proposal for a regulation which envisages exactly this type of conditionality.
<P>
Without affecting the cheques distributed by the various countries, regulating the Structural Funds, especially by means of intermediate assessments of the efficiency reserve and by a general lowering of cofinancing levels, will in practice result in appropriations being 'expenditure limits', whereas they were previously 'expenditure targets'.
There will certainly be a big difference between what was announced in Berlin and what will actually happen.
And these are not positive points like maintaining the URBAN Community initiative, which in fact runs counter to opinion in Berlin. This could make a difference to the considerable doubt concerning the soundness and the efficiency of the regulation of the Structural Funds in future.
<P>
One last point about the common agricultural policy and the reform agreed upon in Berlin, or rather the non-reform. Berlin neither restored a balance to nor promoted a reversal of the present discrimination between types of production and farmers.
A few one-off increases in financing distributed between a few countries will do nothing to change internal imbalances, and may if anything accentuate them, even within apparently more favoured countries.
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<SPEAKER ID=284 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, I am speaking basically on the Arias Cañete report.
We are going to vote against, as we did in committee.
It is very important to stress that this is not because we do not agree with structural funds for fisheries.
On the contrary. A fund is important to accomplish many necessary structural changes.
But what we disagree with in this report is the way that it has emerged from the committee.
Basically what Mr Arias Cañete wants to do is continue with the existing system which rejects changes and improvements proposed by the Commission.
Two examples: last year the Court of Auditors examined in detail the funding for joint enterprises and made several critical comments.
The Commission's proposal attempted to incorporate changes to improve the system.
These were not taken up in the Arias Cañete report.
<P>
The other thing is that the Commission does not want to fund the transfer of vessels to flags of convenience which flout international management regulations.
But again this was not taken up by the committee or by the Arias Cañete report.
As well as that we have two major problems with the Commission's proposal.
The Commission has very little control over how money is spent and has publicly admitted as much.
Too much is left up to the Member States.
Not enough consideration has been given to criteria for granting aid.
Vessels differ in their environmental and social impact and preference should be given to funding the withdrawal of damaging units and the creation of less destructive units.
<P>
In committee we forwarded an amendment on transparency which was not accepted by the committee.
Not only was it not accepted by the committee, but the rapporteur himself did not support it.
This is unfortunate - plus the fact that the Rules of Procedure have left it impossible for us to submit this amendment again, which means that we cannot get a registered roll-call vote on the fact that Members are failing to adhere to the whole issue of transparency.
That is why we are voting against this report.
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<SPEAKER ID=285 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioners, this is the last major debate in this parliamentary term and it is an excellent debate on a highly symbolic issue: Agenda 2000, as discussed in Berlin, in fact, with the German Chancellor, the rediscovered Reichstag, the rediscovered eagle and even a war.
Obviously this makes a change from the rather puerile debates we have sometimes had over the last five years, such as those concerning lesbians, footballers' transfers or generic medicines.
And Agenda 2000 raises important issues: the European agricultural strategy, the future of our food supplies, the structural policy and the financing of Europe, not to mention the opening up to the East.
<P>
On agriculture, Commissioner, we are still on line 92, the McSharry line, the Steichen line, the Blair House line.
Prices are being reduced - 20 %, 15 %, 30 % - with a small compromise in Berlin, partial compensation and some illusions.
There are illusions because by playing around on the world market and lowering prices, we will certainly never be able to catch up with Argentina, for example, in terms of the meat trade.
And it is certainly dangerous to play around on the world market and overlap free trade areas. This is illustrated by what Mr Martin said earlier in relation to winegrowers, with Sweden and Ireland being designated winegrowing areas so that they can obtain concentrated musts and perhaps manufacture industrial wines.
<P>
And what good is an agreement in Berlin when in six months' time the world trade negotiations will begin and, just as in 1992, we are starting to make concessions even before those negotiations have started?
That raises the problem of our agricultural model.
Mr Rosado Fernandes and many others spoke about it, just as you did, Commissioner.
We talk about the European agricultural model.
It is a model that stands for quality and welfare.
It is a model that stands against the American model of intensive agriculture.
Perhaps you have a third model, which I would call the Austrian agricultural model, because, alongside the Wagnerian American production, this would be light-hearted farming, with farmers looking after the countryside, nature and the environment, so that Sissi could go for a country walk at the weekend.
No doubt that is what you call the environmental section of the CAP.
Farmers would manage the countryside and eventually be included under the regional funds.
<P>
That brings me to the Structural Funds.
There, too, Berlin has hidden part of the truth.
Apparently there are compromises.
The Spanish wanted EUR 240 billion, the Dutch wanted EUR 193 billion and EUR 213 billion was agreed on.
But in reality, the winners keep winning - Spain still gets the Christmas tree with EUR 9 billion and Great Britain still gets its cheque - while the losers keep losing.
France has even lost out on Objective 1 and farmers are going to lose out on Objective 2 because they are now lumped in with the suburbs.
Moreover, the Eastern European countries are soon to arrive and the planned funding is quite modest: EUR 3 billion a year for the pre-accession period, which is clearly inadequate.
So what will we do then?
We will have to either share out the poverty between the farmers coming in and those who are already here, or we will have to create a new resource.
And that is the third problem: funding.
<P>
We are aware of this problem.
Germany does not want to pay more, and it is quite right. It loses EUR 11 billion every year.
France loses between EUR 1 billion and EUR 4 billion.
So unless expenditure is reduced there is only one solution: resources must be found.
Because of your foolishness in terms of constantly reducing customs duties, particularly as regards the GSPs, they no longer amount to anything: they account for only 14 % of resources.
The share of VAT is falling.
We obviously still have the GNP resource, but that is not a federal resource, it is the traditional contribution to an international organisation, a state's contribution.
Berlin clearly sought to increase the share of the GNP contribution.
But that is not enough: by moving to 20, 21 or 25 Member States, and putting a ceiling of 1.27 % of GNP on the budget envelope, we will not even last a few years.
We need other resources.
<P>
They cannot seriously come from the CO2 tax as Mr Ripa di Meana and the Greens believe, because nobody has ever seen carbon dioxide produce taxes, otherwise Pinatubo would probably be spitting euros. So there is only one resource left: a European income tax.
And that is exactly where Berlin did not tell the truth.
Just like the Europe of free trade, the Europe of the great single market lied; it did not tell us it was the Europe of 20 million unemployed and 50 million excluded. The ultra-liberal Europe is lying now and it is not saying that in 2006 it will be the Europe of taxation and the Europe of a European income tax.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioners, that is why, on 14 June, we want to come back and we will come back to change Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=286 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Karamanou">
Mr President, following the charming address given by Mr Martinez, I fear my position will appear very banal. I in fact believe that, although it contains certain weaknesses, the agreement that was reached at Berlin on Agenda 2000 is a success that can be attributed to the German Presidency.
The prophets of doom were proved wrong, and confirmation was given to both the priority that the European Union places on the policy of economic and social cohesion and the admirable and particularly effective cooperation between the main political Community institutions.
<P>
Coming, as I do, from a cohesion country, Greece, I want to express my satisfaction with the provisions laid down in the three major chapters of the agreement.
<P>
Firstly, as regards agriculture, I am satisfied with the preservation of the Community nature of agricultural policy, in spite of intense pressure to establish cofinancing measures.-Secondly, in respect of structural actions, I am satisfied with the preservation of increased per capita funding of the cohesion countries from the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund, and also with the emphasis placed on combating unemployment.-Thirdly, with regard to the chapter on own resources, I am satisfied with the adoption of a more just system which favours less-developed countries.
My position, however, is that the system on own resources needs to be changed, which will inevitably lead to an increase in the Community budget so that needs can be met and the ambitious aims of the European Union can be fulfilled.-Finally, I would like to congratulate all those who contributed to this historic Berlin agreement, especially Commissioner Wulf-Mathies for her tireless effort and my colleagues for the quality of their opinions.

<SPEAKER ID=287 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Tillich">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, I shall now change the subject.
I am speaking on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
I should like to sincerely thank the rapporteur, Mr Colom i Naval, because he has incorporated the amendments proposed by the Committee on Budgetary Control in his report on the financial perspective and the interinstitutional agreement. I should like at the same time to refer to the most important, but also the most logical of these amendments.
We have jointly agreed with the Council in the text that before the European Union's budget is adopted, an additional trialogue meeting will always be held at which the Council, the Commission and Parliament will agree on how possible additional requirements - last year there was the matter of aid for Russia - can be covered by the appropriations not utilised in the current financial year, or how new requirements in the next financial year should be dealt with and how full agreement can be reached on this before the budget is adopted.
<P>
I think that this procedure comes very close to what the Member States want, but also what Europe's citizens want, which is that a rigorous and efficient budget be adopted each year.
I should also like to mention another amendment which the rapporteur has included, and which is connected with the discussion that took place on Monday evening in plenary: the 1996/97 discharge procedure.
We now have a procedure whereby new regulations are very often adopted by the Council without the old regulation having been evaluated.
We have made a suggestion in this regard, and the Council has been prepared at least up to now to accept that if possible, a new regulation should not be adopted by the Council before an evaluation of the old one has been completed.
If this could be carried through, we would achieve a real success because it makes no sense to establish during the procedure for a new regulation that the old regulation was in fact not acceptable and the new one reveals the same shortcomings.
I would therefore invite the Council to establish its position once more on this matter in detail, because Parliament has done so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=288 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ryynänen">
Mr President, I would like to present the main points of two reports I produced on the subject of the applicant countries for the Committee on Regional Policy.
When EU aid is being allocated and prioritised, it is important to pay particular attention to matters of the environment and health.
In order for the single market to function, including, inter alia, a free trade policy in food, it is extremely important that applicant countries comply with the relevant health and hygiene regulations imposed by the EU.
The EU cannot make compromises on these issues within the framework of a period of transition.
Instead, some degree of flexibility is required when allocating EU aid.
<P>
In the Committee on Regional Policy we wish to stress the importance of three issues, in addition to that of flexibility.
Firstly, we would like to emphasise the importance of cross-border cooperation while preparations are being made for membership.
This is especially important in developing networks linking government, businesses and organisations.
Secondly, we would like to stress the importance of nuclear safety, and, for that reason, EU resources granted for purposes of nuclear safety must be concentrated within the context of PHARE.
Thirdly, we want to stress the importance of training people to promote the structural changes that are now under way in the applicant countries.
<P>
All in all, prioritisation is important, but it has to be achieved through viable cooperation with the applicant countries.
For that reason, the administration process must not be allowed to become too ponderous, especially when we consider how relatively meagre the resources are.
I am also in favour of allowing the Commission a certain amount of licence in order to achieve maximum effectiveness in the area of aid.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=289 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pérez Royo">
Mr President, I am going to speak on the Arias Cañete report on the structural policies for fisheries which is, of course, part of the Agenda 2000 debate.
In our opinion, many aspects of Agenda 2000 are worthy of criticism and ought to be criticised, and some Members have done that this evening and in the course of the day.
<P>
But that does not apply to the fisheries policy.
The outcome in terms of the rules for assistance in the fisheries sector can be considered satisfactory thanks to the attitude of the Committee on Fisheries which opposed the Commission's original plan from the start.
It opposed this original plan because it destroyed the horizontal nature of the intervention measures and established a financing system charged to the EAGGF Guarantee Section, which made the planning of this intervention enormously difficult.
<P>
These aspects of the initial proposal were changed after Parliament voted against them a few months ago and the final proposal establishes a unitary instrument for intervention in the fisheries sector.
Although there are still two regulations, there is only one fund, which means that structural intervention can be properly dealt with in the fisheries sector.
<P>
I have nearly finished, Mr President, but I do not want to end without mentioning an important fact: modernising the fishing fleet is certainly important, structural intervention is very important, but the future of fishing, for our fleet, depends largely on the existence of international agreements with third countries to provide fishing grounds for that fleet.
<P>
There are grounds for concern here, at least in some parts of the European Union.
In my specific case, coming from Andalusia, I must point out that the Moroccan Government has just confirmed that it does not intend to extend the current agreement, which raises serious problems for tens of thousands of fishermen in my region, Andalusia, and also in Galicia.
And although I know that this is not exactly what we are discussing today, I do not want to end without drawing attention to this very important problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=290 NAME="McCartin">
Mr President, as a politician representing a very rural constituency highly dependent on agriculture, I want to say that the outcome of the Berlin Summit of Agenda 2000 was not as disappointing to myself or my constituency as we first thought.
The Fischler proposals cast a great shadow over rural Europe to begin with, but at the end of the day we have to appreciate that the outcome, while not totally satisfactory, certainly is not disastrous by any means.
<P>
The fact that we are projecting to spend more money on rural Europe, together with the fact that the number of people involved in agriculture is decreasing, ensures that for the next seven years there is a minimum standard of living guaranteed to people involved in agriculture.
<P>
I hope it will be made clear to everybody at all times that the concessions expected from us in the World Trade Organisation negotiations have been made and that we will not offer the prospect of any more concessions to the farmers of Europe until the present seven years have expired.
We have had the MacSharry reform, another tranche of it now.
Farmers have been traumatised by the fall in their income so I hope that is the end of it.
<P>
I would like to say to Mr Fischler that while his message was not an easy one to sell he made a great effort to explain it to the farmers of Europe.
His efforts are much appreciated, his efforts to educate and inform and bring public opinion along were commendable.
<P>
I was not as happy with the outcome of the issue of regional policy.
We are winding down regional policy.
The region to which I belong retained its Objective 1 status but nevertheless it is only really Objective 1 in transition, because the amount of money received under the new Objective 1 is actually much reduced from the amount per capita under the last programme.
In any case we, too, appreciate the efforts that were made by the outgoing Commissioner. She worked extremely hard, not only in visiting the depressed areas of the Union, but particularly in relation to Northern Ireland and all the cross-border schemes.
Her presence was much appreciated and her total commitment to the whole issue of regional development is accepted.
<P>
Finally, there is only one person in the room tonight who will have a vote in my election: Commissioner Flynn will have the opportunity to vote for me.
I should like to say we much appreciate all the hard work he has also done, and indeed all the Commissioners.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=291 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Pohjamo">
Mr President, I represent the EU's north-eastern periphery area, Northern Finland.
I am currently examining the effects of the Agenda 2000 package on this region, which is one that is dependent on agriculture, although production conditions are much poorer than in the farming regions of Central Europe.
The report on the Union's northern dimension states that the issue of the northern dimension must figure in all decision-making connected with the Union's internal development, in accordance with the resolutions of the Vienna European Council.
In addition, a decision was taken at the Luxembourg summit that the future of agriculture must be safeguarded everywhere in the EU area.
<P>
How did Agenda 2000 take these views into account?
Through negotiation the EU's northernmost farming regions, which are also the world's northernmost farming regions, gained a few important concessions to compensate for the costs incurred because of natural problems.
The grain drying premium and forage aid are the right tools: they should simply be on a more adequate scale.
<P>
Structural measures are important, but they are not enough in themselves to solve economic problems in the northern regions.
The fields are covered in snow in April, whether they are thirty or two hundred hectares in size.
It was still nearly ten degrees below zero in my home region just this morning.
<P>
The logic behind paying aid by the hectare is very hard to explain to farm workers in northern Finland.
Why should those who reap the best harvests receive many times more in aid payments than those whose harvests are small because of the natural conditions?
Hopefully, this trend will change, as Parliament has already agreed, and the differences in payments of aid by the hectare will be reduced.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=292 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Lage">
Mr President, as the French so wisely say, 'tout est bien qui finit bien '.
We are at the end of a long haul, and we have got here in pretty good shape.
The results are not perfect, but despite the inadequate budgets and the faint- hearted reform of the common agricultural policy, and the continuing injustices and imbalances that it preserves, we have nevertheless avoided a serious crisis in the European Union and it is fair to say that over the next few years the European Union will forge ahead with confidence and stability.
<P>
This process has reached a satisfactory conclusion, and it has had a happy ending for the cohesion countries and for the poorer regions in which structural assistance is to be concentrated from now on.
I cannot resist saying that it has come to a satisfactory conclusion for my country, which will receive structural support at an annual average level slightly higher than the annual average between 1994 and 1999.
So Portugal and the other cohesion countries will be in a position to maintain their development and modernisation and converge with the European average, and this is actually happening, especially in my country.
<P>
For this reason, we welcome the financial perspectives, the interinstitutional agreement and the structural policies.
We wish to congratulate the German Presidency on the work it has done in the face of the scepticism which has beset this presidency.
And I can tell Commissioner Wulf-Mathies - if I may paraphrase the words of a previous speaker - that if she were a candidate for election to the European Parliament in Portugal, the Portuguese would vote for her in droves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=293 NAME="President">
Mr Lage, I am bound to say that you have created a problem for us. If all the Members speak for twice as long as their given time, we shall be here until 4 a.m.
<P>
I can quite understand those colleagues who, unfortunately, have only been given one minute for their speech, but those are the economics of the debate.
<P>
I will stay because I have to, but the parliamentary services cannot stay here until 4 a.m.
I would ask you not to exceed your allotted time.
I understand - what can you say in one minute?
But it is not my fault.
Ask the political groups to give you a little more time.
It is all going to come to a head this evening: 30 speakers with one minute each!
How will I be able to stop them?
I feel terrible about this.
But on the other hand, if one minute turns into two, we shall be here until 3 a.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=294 NAME="Fraga Estévez">
Mr President, I would say that the great achievement of the Committee on Fisheries was that, when presented with the Agenda 2000 proposals a year ago, it very quickly recognised the serious errors in the proposals on fisheries structural policy and immediately drew up a strategy which was stoutly defended by all the draftsmen of the opinions and, of course, by Mr Arias Cañete, the rapporteur.
<P>
I should also mention that this strategy was agreed on in our committee after three public hearings with representatives of the fisheries sector and each and every one of the national fisheries departments.
The result was the excellent report by Mr Arias Cañete, which has served as a basis for the negotiations with the Council.
In my view, this report has led to an excellent compromise, which I welcome. Above all, I appreciate the fruitful collaboration that was displayed between Parliament and the Council.
I include in my thanks all the staff who helped us reach a compromise that includes three of Parliament's principal objectives: a horizontal legal instrument, a single financial instrument, the FIFG, and a basic regulation finally covering all the financial structural measures.
<P>
I think this has been one of Parliament's major successes, but we cannot rest on our laurels because we still need to ensure the continuity of certain measures with regard to the implementing regulation, and this is dealt with in the second part of the Arias report. In my opinion, without that continuity, the fisheries structural policy loses much of its meaning.
For instance, we need continuity of measures to maintain a modern, safe and competitive fleet or measures that have proved to be extremely effective instruments of fisheries policy, such as joint enterprises with third countries. These are drained of content by the Commission's proposal, when they could be an excellent formula for cooperation with third countries, as will surely be demonstrated in the future in the case of Morocco.
<P>
These demands are perfectly reflected in the report by Mr Arias Cañete, his final task for the European Parliament, and he leaves us with one of the finest and most comprehensive fisheries documents we have ever had the opportunity to consider.
I therefore call on Parliament to vote in favour of this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=295 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
<SPEAKER ID=296 NAME="Malone">
Mr President, Ireland has the European Parliament to thank for ensuring extra funding for neighbourhoods in crisis.
This decision is particularly important for Dublin.
I cannot be repeated often enough: in an otherwise very successful city there are pockets of enormous deprivation.
The URBAN initiative will allow for projects to be undertaken in these areas to tackle the ingrained problems of long-term unemployment and urban decay.
<P>
The Council, including the Irish Government, actually failed to reinstate this project. But we in Parliament had it reinstated.
We succeeded there. This proves again how relevant Parliament is to ordinary people.
<P>
This is my valedictory speech, Mr President.
I want to thank you and all the Members and say what a pleasure it was to work here in this Parliament over the last five years.
My colleague has spoken about the end; the end is nigh.
I hope I will be back.
We have a democracy in Ireland, a funny type of democracy: it decides who will be elected and who will not.
We do not have a list system. Commissioner Flynn will appreciate that.
I want to place on record my thanks to the outgoing Commission because in all the heated debates we have had nobody has stopped to thank those members of the Commission who have worked very hard for the people of Europe, the people we all here tried to represent.
We have a very good line-up of hard working Commissioners tonight.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=297 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
Mr President, when we see what stage we have reached in the enlargement process it is perfectly clear that the views of Parliament have had a great deal of influence.
Political considerations have taken precedence over economic ones, including in the way we have formulated and implemented our strategy in regard to the applicant countries.
We are delighted that pre-accession aid has been principally focused on strengthening the administrative and institutional capacities of the relevant countries, including social dialogue, which is an important aspect of society in these countries.
Democracy and states based on the rule of law form the basis of the European Union.
They lie at its very heart and consist of much more than the acquis communautaire .
There is a place for countries which seek to become based on the rule of law, but not for those that do not.
This clear stance has been a major force for good.
In Slovakia, Romania and the Baltic states it has been taken very seriously, even if it is not always easy to apply political criteria in practice.
A good example of this is the position of the Russian minorities in Estonia and Latvia.
<P>
Decentralisation as an objective belongs among the political and administrative criteria and the EU must keep to this.
I therefore welcome the fact that the reports have specifically referred to this point.
Where possible management must be transferred to the governments of the applicant countries, which are already involved through cofinancing.
It is good that the European Union is sticking with the PHARE priorities in all of this, making them its own strategy.
Part of this is also the attempt to get the applicant countries involved in European political union, which is gaining a higher profile because of the emphasis on political criteria.
There are great differences between the applicant countries, Mr President.
This is why the guidelines and multiannual programmes must be drawn up for each country and for each sector.
It is each country's own merits that count.
However, it is not fair to constantly impose extra demands on applicants on the basis of our own national interests.
I have in mind, for example, the resolution on the Temelin nuclear power station in the Czech Republic, which is on the agenda this morning.
Nuclear safety is important, but we cannot simply demand or pressurise countries to close down nuclear power stations as part of the accession process.
The accession conditions cannot be used in order to settle bilateral scores.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=298 NAME="Howitt">
Mr President, in two years of negotiation for seven years of European regional aid, of course there are areas where we would have wished to go further: clearer commitments, the partnership by local and regional authorities, even further guarantees that payments will be made on time to those delivering projects, a specific figure for social risk capital for the smaller voluntary organisations to benefit.
Nevertheless, our intentions are clear.
I want to underline two parliamentary achievements in particular.
<P>
First, not only have we ensured that urban poverty and neglect are dealt with directly for the first time, but against all expectations we have retained an urban community initiative too, which can target the small- and medium-sized towns which currently receive less than 10 % of the funding.
<P>
Second, whilst retaining a 5 % eligible population for poor rural areas, we have also succeeded in redirecting some CAP support from within Heading 1, off-farm, and Heading 2, rural development.
<P>
My own region, Essex, in the east of England, has 18 urban wards in the 25 % most deprived in the UK.
In the Cambridgeshire Fens, which have been part of the £50m 5-B Programme across East Anglia, but where 73 % of villages have no food shops, 74 % no daily bus service and not one a bank, these decisions offer hope.
But for Europe as a whole, it ensures that the needs of severe pockets of poverty and deprivation can be tackled alongside help to large regions suffering industrial decline.
It is an agreement which we can welcome.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=299 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Berend">
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, this debate represents the end of a long discussion and decision-making process on the reform of regional and structural policy. Opinions may differ slightly on the individual points, but one aspect is clearly of overriding significance.
The fact that we have kept to the timetable is an enormous advantage. It means that the review of the Structural Funds will be able to take effect in good time, in contrast to 1994, and that we will not be faced with a repeat of the dilemma we had five years ago.
<P>
My group has from the outset declared itself in favour of reforming structural and regional aid, so that the financial resources available are concentrated on the regions in greatest need of development, but also so that greater individual responsibility is assigned to the Member States, particularly where entire regions are not eligible for EU structural aid.
<P>
We welcome the fact that the new Objective 1 regions receive 70 % of resources.
This means that it is now possible to target support at specific regions.
However, we regret not having managed to introduce a separate objective for rural development which we have been openly in favour of the whole time.
We also regret that with regard to the possibilities for national involvement, the Member States will not be allowed to select Objective 2 regions which do not meet the strict criteria, but will still be limited by criteria and the Commission's reserving the right to grant authorisation.
<P>
We have always urged that a regional GDP per capita of less than 75 % of the Community average be strictly applied as the criteria for the selection of future Objective 1 regions.
This has been successful on the whole, even though in the meantime there has repeatedly been the danger of speaking out in favour of flexibility on this matter.
Opinion is divided within my group as far as the Cohesion Fund is concerned.
Some of my colleagues - particularly those from the southern European countries - support the Commission's and Council's proposal to continue with the Cohesion Fund in its present form.
Others believe that for the countries which are taking part in monetary union, the Cohesion Fund has achieved its objective and has made a fundamental contribution to nominal convergence.
There is therefore no reason for it to continue to exist in its present form.
<P>
Obviously, not all dreams can come true.
Wishes still remain to be fulfilled.
However, the compromise as a whole is a step in the right direction for the next planning period.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=300 NAME="Elles">
<SPEAKER ID=301 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Rojo">
Mr President, this agreement means that the Spanish countryside will lose 100 000 million pesetas a year and there will be a reduction of 5 % in agricultural incomes.
It damages the interests of small farmers, who will have to compete with large multinationals in a totally unfair situation. Income from herbaceous crops will fall by 40 000 million pesetas, of which 23 000 million pesetas will correspond to cereals.
<P>
Loyola de Palacio concealed the fact that the extra 550 000 tonnes for the milk quota does not attract a premium, and for bovine animals the increases will not make up for the agreed reduction of 20 % in prices, thereby producing a fall in incomes in this sector of some 30 000 million pesetas.
<P>
Mr President, this is a bad agreement for the Spanish countryside, for Spain and for Europe and we will therefore be voting against it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=302 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schröder">
Mr President, so as not to come under pressure of time, allow me to begin by doing something which I would not normally do until the end of my speech.
That is to say, I should like to sincerely thank Mrs Wulf-Mathies for her positive cooperation with the Committee on Regional Policy.
<P>
By now everything has already been said at least once in the House on the subject which we are dealing with today.
I would ask Mr Langen not to be tempted to heckle.
However, one point has not been made, a point that in my opinion should be made, namely that we should rediscover the market economy if we want the people and the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe to one day fulfil the criteria for EU membership.
If we are really showing or want to show solidarity, then it is not sufficient to hand out money.
I know what I am talking about, since I come from a part of Germany which receives a considerable amount of funds from the European Union and western Germany.
However, this alone is not sufficient.
The principle of the market economy must be embraced wholeheartedly.
If we really want to show solidarity, we must help the people of Central and Eastern Europe to rediscover this instrument.
However, this means that we in the European Union first of all have to begin to actually embrace the market economy again ourselves.
I am sure that you will not mind if I do not quite use up all of my two minutes' speaking time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=303 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schierhuber">
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, Agenda 2000 has preoccupied us for months and in my opinion it required all those concerned to be deeply committed to it.
I should therefore like to begin by sincerely thanking Parliament, the Commission and the Council for the work that they have done.
Countless negotiating rounds had to be held in order to achieve an acceptable compromise.
Parliament was actively involved throughout the entire process and was able to influence the discussion.
<P>
We have always declared our support for the further development of the common agricultural policy and of rural development policy.
A radical course has been set for shaping the future European agricultural policy.
This involves strengthening rural development policy as the second pillar of agricultural policy.
<P>
A series of important environmental measures can still be pursued by means of this.
Environmental measures for farmers can be safeguarded in the long term, and hill farmers and farmers in disadvantaged regions can be given greater support.
I welcome the fact that the individual Member States have the opportunity to take part in the decision making.
Certainly, the lowering of intervention prices for beef and cereals could not have been avoided, but it is due among other things to the commitment of the European Parliament that these were not reduced on the scale originally proposed by the Commission.
<P>
I regret that agreement was not reached on the reforms in the milk sector.
However, in terms of promoting disadvantaged regions, the decision to continue with the milk quota system, even beyond 2008, is of prime importance as far as I am concerned.
<P>
With regard to matters which apply across the board, I certainly cannot agree to a degressive model of direct payments.
In principle, I should like to say that the compromise already worked out by the Commission, the Council and Parliament has produced satisfactory results as far as I can see.
On no account, however, should the outcome be jeopardised by the final vote which Parliament has yet to hold.
It is now up to the individual Member States to use their room for manoeuvre as nation states as far as possible, and there are a number of possibilities for examining national peculiarities.
These should also be taken into account for the benefit of our farmers, thereby creating and securing more jobs in rural areas.
<P>
Europe's farmers and thus our European cultural landscape must not be sacrificed in favour of the world market; instead, we are demanding fair conditions for European agriculture, and this also applies to future WTO negotiations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=304 NAME="Gillis">
I should also like to add my thanks to the Commission, to the Commissioners present, and all the others who have worked so hard during the period I have been in this Parliament.
<P>
My group, the EPP group, can only note the result of the Berlin Summit and while it is a significant improvement on the original Commission proposal it falls far short of what is needed by producers.
<P>
The promise of full compensation for price cuts given in 1992 has not been honoured in Agenda 2000 decisions, and while farmers suffer much lower prices, the cost of the common agricultural policy continues to rise.
More importantly, consumers continue to pay more and more for their food.
<P>
I fully realise the absolute requirement to make way for enlargement of the Union to the east and to ensure a satisfactory outcome to the forthcoming WTO round.
However, it is not acceptable that so many farmers are given no alternative but to withdraw from farming because of the impossibility of making a reasonable income.
Rural depopulation is rife, in spite of all the rural development measures.
As I have repeatedly said, without the core business of farming most rural development projects cannot be successful, because they cannot stand alone.
<P>
I realise it is difficult for colleagues from other Member States to realise how low farm incomes have fallen in my country, Ireland, mainly due to the fact that Ireland is heavily dependent on export markets, both in the EU and in third countries.
Ninety per cent of our total beef production and 80 % of our milk production is exported.
The BSE crisis in the UK has almost ruined our export markets.
As consumption falls sharply and other countries rely on their own production without importing, the collapse of the Russian economy has further weakened a fragile market.
<P>
The proposals on agricultural reform, while an improvement on the original Commission proposals, are not a long-term solution.
If we are serious about protecting the European model of agriculture, with all its constraints and additional costs, and if we are serious about maintaining the rural countryside we must return to prices which are in some way based on, or linked to, the cost of production.
Do we want a vibrant, living, well-maintained countryside or do we want a giant national park without people - and especially without young people?
I believe that is where Agenda 2000 proposals will take us unless we make changes without delay.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=305 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Glase">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to depart from the subject of agriculture in order to discuss another important area with you, that of social policy.
At Parliament's first reading on the European Social Fund, I recognised that the orientation of the programme will have a great effect on the objectives and regions in question.
Nearly all the amendments we tabled have been included by the rapporteur.
The ESF is still basically orientated towards labour market policies, and the PPE has placed special emphasis on this.
Fund support only makes sense if the results of the projects are sustainable and they actually reach the target populations as well.
The PPE agrees with the common position on the ESF.
<P>
We would like to see the new ESF swiftly and smoothly implemented within the next year, without further loss of time and guaranteeing prompt and reliable planning for those responsible for the projects and for the Member States.
For this reason, we absolutely reject a third reading and will be voting against all the amendments which would result in this.
As shadow rapporteur, I would be able to support the amendments which have arisen as a compromise from the negotiations within the Council if the Council and the Commission confirmed that the amendments in question would in fact be adopted and the danger of a third reading therefore did not arise.
<P>
The people of Europe expect us to support development in their regions, and to do so by means of speedy and practical measures which are not bureaucratic.
We are placing a fund into the hands of the Member States in question, and they should not encumber or hinder it by laying down additional rules; instead, they can use it in a way which is genuinely in line with the objectives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=306 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langen">
Mr President, we keep changing the subject in this debate.
It is not really appropriate, but I will now move on to the subject of the organisation of the market in wine.
We have heard that there are certainly many things to find fault with in the part of the Agenda 2000 package that deals with agricultural policy.
We must praise the Commission, the Council presidency, Mr Funke, and also Parliament for the progress made in one area; Mr Fischler, you took a long time to put forward such a good proposal, and you refused to withdraw the old one for a long time.
Together we have managed to reform the organisation of the market in wine reasonably well, and I believe that after holding a debate like this one, we should not only voice criticism, but we should also give praise.
It is sad that there is no wine here for those attending the last evening sitting of this parliamentary term.
Mr Funke was certainly present when the former Federal Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, announced his watchword for the future wine-growing policy on German National Wine Day: we must drink more.
A quotation from the past!
<P>
However, I should like to get back to the point.
We have pushed through Parliament's demands in this reform of the wine market, and I can only emphasise here once again that it would be a good thing if Parliament were able to take part in the decision-making in the future, since we have mastered horse-trading in this House just as well as the Council.
What has come out of the organisation of the market in wine is in any case praiseworthy.
Corrections have been made to the regulations on distillation and the rights for planting new vines.
The Member States have greater individual responsibility.
It is now possible to set up inter-branch organisations throughout the whole of Europe.
The reform includes programmes financed by the EU for restructuring, switching to different varieties, and modernisation of production techniques.
The Council retains its powers.
After all, we do not want to give the Commission too many powers, for instance over regulations on labelling and oenological practices.
We must therefore preserve the traditional growing methods in Europe.
Mr Fischler has also recognised and actively supported this.
We are therefore satisfied with the reform, and I think that the broad agreement on the organisation of the market in wine has been a great achievement for Parliament.
<P>
Only those who know of the dispute that has taken place in the last five years within Parliament over the issue of the organisation of the market in wine are in a position to appreciate how much progress has been made.
I should like to thank you all, and I hope that we will have the opportunity to drink to this outcome with a glass of wine in the next parliamentary term, if not this evening.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=307 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Otila">
Mr President, regional policy is central to the equitable development of the European Union.
The Union's structural policy plays an important role in supplementing development at national level.
Just as important as how much aid the Union can afford to give is the question of how aid is used.
The Member States have the ultimate responsibility for acting wisely.
Regional policy administered according to the principle of transparency will also boost the confidence of the public in the work of the Union and how achievable results can be.
<P>
EU structural policy resources must be targeted on investment in the creation of genuine jobs.
The bottom line must be safeguarding employment and welfare in different parts of the continent.
Regional development policy has to be all-embracing, motivating, and it must promote enterprise.
<P>
The final decision on Agenda 2000 is a good European compromise.
The fact that talks led to results in a situation in which the Commission had already resigned is proof of the viability of the Union.
The Union can congratulate itself on the introduction of a package of reforms.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=308 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Costa Neves">
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, like all compromises, the one reached in Berlin has its good and bad sides. Let us leave aside the many positive aspects.
As I believe that it is always possible to mitigate negative factors, let me highlight three of them. First, the reform of the common agricultural policy, which I regard as being a poor reflection of the concept of rural development, as in the end both the winners and the losers will be the same as before.
Secondly, the reduction in public participation in private revenue-generating projects, which, as it penalises companies, will also have an adverse effect on jobs. And thirdly, the concentration of funding under the next Community support framework in the earlier years, which, taken together with the normal flow of funds, will make accessing the Structural Funds a complex business, whilst funds that are not taken up will be lost.
<P>
In addition to these general factors, there is another which I consider to be of crucial importance, namely the absence of practical recognition for the ultra-peripheral regions.
After years of work to have them included in the Treaty of Amsterdam, it makes me very bitter to see that they have been ignored in Agenda 2000.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=309 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Peijs">
Mr President, you may well say that we are reforming the Structural Funds at the very last moment.
For here we are at a quarter to eleven in the evening, with Parliament still in full session and even the Council still present, on which I congratulate you, Mr President-in-Office, as I have never before seen the Council remain in Parliament until a quarter to eleven in the evening.
<P>
We have now been busy for more than a year with the reform of the Structural Funds for the next term.
It is now high time to give our final verdict, as otherwise the projects are not going to be able to start on time and I strongly oppose any postponement.
I am therefore pleased to learn, as I did earlier today, that the Council and Parliament have reached agreement on a number of amendments to the European Social Fund which were threatening to lead to postponement.
<P>
In November I argued for the Community's URBAN initiative to be continued, as the small and medium-sized towns which lie outside the objective areas, areas which are weak and ailing, also have their problems.
I also argued for a new Community initiative designed to provide a flexible response to unexpected serious economic crises.
In the Euroland era we need such a device, if you compare it to what you find in the United States.
<P>
Parliament supported both initiatives, but the Council wanted just three and we already had three.
So there were two too many.
However, the Treaty amendments from the Amsterdam summit made it compulsory to take clear account of Parliament's views and we fortunately reached a compromise.
URBAN and RESTRUCT were combined to form the new URBAN.
The European Regional Fund will in future help solve the economic and social problems of towns and neighbourhoods in a state of crisis with a view to promoting sustainable development.
I am pleased about this, and it would be a welcome development if the Commission could now find a little more money somewhere to spend on this initiative.
I have already heard details of the new allocation, Commissioner, and thank you for giving the innovative measures greater scope.
<P>
Mr President, perhaps I could make just one final comment to the Commissioner.
As rapporteur for the 1997 Structural Funds discharge I should like to draw your attention to the fact that a country such as the Netherlands constantly comes out badly in the reports of the Court of Auditors, precisely because it adopts a more exact manner of reporting than all the other countries.
Could you not take a look at these systems, so that this does not always come across so badly in the news coverage?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=310 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fabra Vallés">
Mr President, for five years I have listened and learned in the Committee on Budgets that the only way to prepare a good budget and take advantage of all its possibilities is to conclude an interinstitutional agreement that guarantees the financial perspective for seven years.
<P>
Today we are listening to proposals to make us condemn the interinstitutional agreement, thus leaving us without a financial perspective.
<P>
Mr President, taking account of the latest negotiations and the flexibility accepted by the Council, I do not feel that the budget cut agreed on in Berlin justifies seriously endangering the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund.
Unless there are final agreements between the Council, the Commission and Parliament, I am afraid that the only thing we are doing is promoting euroscepticism.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=311 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langenhagen">
Mr President, the European fisheries sector is in a difficult situation, and this is largely taken into account in the future structural policy.
I will concede this, Mr Funke, but the fishing industry is a relatively weak sector of the European economy and requires special treatment, especially as there are mostly no alternative forms of employment in the regions dependent on fishing.
Even our original demand for a separate Objective 4 for rural development with separate treatment for the regions dependent on fishing did not gain acceptance.
<P>
From now on, therefore, the same measures will be funded by different sources in the different Objective 1, 2 and 5b regions, with Objective 1 regions clearly being in a better position.
As a result, there is the threat of companies in the new Objective 2 regions moving into the Objective 1 regions solely because they will find better conditions and support there.
Where I live in Cuxhaven-Bremerhaven, there is the threat of just this kind of sword of Damocles; such distortion of competition must not be the result of European structural policy.
Mr Funke, Mrs Wulf-Mathies, I think there are still some important things we need to do here.
<P>
I should like to finish by thanking all those who helped to ensure that we continue to have an independent Committee on Fisheries in the European Parliament.
For this reason I am looking forward to the new parliamentary term.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=312 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Günther">
Mr President, Commissioners, Mr President-in-Office, I should like to briefly refer to Mr Barón Crespo's report again and to point out that we are preparing ourselves for an enlargement which stands out due to the fact that we now have a number of countries requesting EU membership that we would not have thought possible ten years ago.
In the past, dictatorships were always given preferential treatment in terms of accession to the European Union if they were able to make their governmental structure a democratic one and found a way of doing this.
If this was the case in the past, then it should certainly remain so in the future.
<P>
Mr Hatzidakis pointed out in his speech that along with the transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe we also have an island in the Mediterranean. He was talking about Cyprus, which is also thinking of joining the EU.
I should like to include a further Mediterranean island in the discussion, namely Malta.
Neither of these islands comes under the preparatory pre-accession measures which apply to the other countries. However, like Cyprus, Malta is important geographically, and it has a stable democracy.
It is true that both countries have been granted an extension of one year for the fourth financial protocol, but the structures are not in place for a pre-accession phase. If we are thinking of a kind of mini PHARE, then I would urge the Commission at some point in the near future to demonstrate to the applicant countries the perspectives under which they can approach their pre-accession phase, so that they obtain the same degree of specific planning criteria as the others, since those of us from the large EU Member States in particular should feel responsible for the small applicant countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=313 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schiedermeier">
Mr President, Commissioners, Mr President-in-Office, we have been discussing and arguing about Agenda 2000 for a long time.
We can now see the results of this.
In my view the winners are: the Member States in the Cohesion Fund, in particular the three which we believe should in fact no longer have been eligible; the Objective 1 regions that receive an even greater amount of funds than has so far been the case in the urban areas covered by the new Objective 2, which still even receive funds from the Community initiative URBAN; and the applicant countries which I only hope will not become a market economy, as Mr Schröder said, but a social market economy.
<P>
Applause
<P>
The losers are definitely the rural areas and especially the regions bordering with third countries.
When I look at the Commissioners sitting there at the front, it is clear to me why the regions bordering with third countries were not particularly taken into account.
They do not come from these areas.
<P>
Heckling
<P>
Three kilometres from the border regions, I have been told!
Commissioner, the unemployment criterion, which we argued about for a long time, still accounts for 50 %.
Soft criteria are only 50 %. The problem with this is that the number of unemployed might not be very high, but the infrastructure and the number of skilled jobs might not be adequate either, and young people who are well qualified then move away from the area or commute.
This is not everything.
Capping agricultural expenditure - Mr Fischler referred to this himself today - is obviously an important issue that has to be viewed as negative.
This will naturally result in even less money being made available in rural areas in the future, particularly in the areas where it is urgently needed.
<P>
Commissioner, I have no wish to conceal how positive it is that we now have a safety net in the former Objective 5b regions, as well time-limits for transitional periods - it was not certain we would have them - and that the Community initiatives, Interreg and Leader, are better provided for than before.
We must be fair and admit this.
I think that we will also benefit from EQUAL.
<P>
This is the last speech I will be making in the European Parliament.
Thank you for your constructive cooperation. I should also like to sincerely thank those I have worked with and particularly the interpreters, who have no doubt had difficulty understanding my Bavarian dialect on occasion!
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=314 NAME="President">
Mr Schiedermeier, you have put me in a difficult position.
I was thinking about you and other Members whose regular presence in this Chamber was possibly coming full circle this evening, and we should give them the credit they deserve.
<P>
In any event, you have made the announcement and I think that the Chair must acknowledge your extremely regular presence in this Chamber and your entire activity here, as well as the activity of other Members who can claim the same share of the credit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=315 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cunha">
Mr President, I shall take ten seconds of my precious time to thank the Commissioners and the President for their stoicism in being with us at this hour of the night.
<P>
With regard to the financial perspectives, I feel that it is crucial for the European Parliament to approve the framework defined in Berlin.
If not, we will be responsible for enormous confusion and instability in the management of Community policies and we could even distort the fundamental options under Agenda 2000.
<P>
With regard to the CAP, I must stress that the final agreement reached in Berlin was far better than the Brussels agreement. Nevertheless, the Berlin agreement was still a long way removed from the position adopted by the European Parliament.
It failed to restore a proper balance to the CAP in terms of fairness and cohesion, and the less-favoured and peripheral regions are still threatened by depopulation and desertification. It also failed to create practical conditions for applying the European farming model and to establish the prerequisites for the European Union to go on the offensive in the forthcoming WTO negotiations.
<P>
As far as Portugal is concerned, I deeply regret that some of my country's key specific problems were not taken into consideration.
First, the effects of enlargement were not considered, although it is well known that the Portuguese economy is by far the most vulnerable to competition from our future partners.
Second, the specific nature of Portuguese agriculture was not recognised, and the various kinds of production quotas were not extended, although Portugal is the country with the greatest deficit in the European Union, nor was any consideration given to increasing irrigation quotas, which would be invaluable given that in Portugal, which has the most backward agricultural sector in the European Union, irrigation has an essential part to play in modernising agriculture.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=316 NAME="Gallagher">
Mr President, I want to confine my remarks to the report by Mr Arias Cañete on structural measures in the fisheries sector.
In devising structural measures in this sector for the new millennium the overriding objective should be to keep them as simple and as cohesive as possible, to ensure that they are flexible enough to respond to the specific regional needs of fisheries and areas dependent on fisheries or where there are significant fishing communities.
<P>
The original proposals of the Commission on structural measures were, to say the least, complex and in some places certainly could not be considered cohesive.
For example, a proposal for the same measure to be financed from the FIFG for Objective 1 and 2 regions but from the EAGGF Guarantee Section for other regions could only encourage 'fund chasing', whereby fishing enterprises might relocate within the Community just simply to avail of funds for their particular project.
If ever there was a recipe for regional dislocation and discrimination against traditional local industries likely to create unnecessary unemployment in the fishing sector, this was it.
<P>
Contradictions in the Commission proposals for the restructuring of the fleet which is subject to the rules of the MAGP, which require national programming, compared to Objective 2 regions, which are subject to regional programming, would only serve to confuse other matters.
The less favourable redefinition of coastal areas in Objective 2 from areas depending on fishing and in Objective 1 which would eliminate areas distant from the coast requiring structural funds to support aquaculture and processing has to be resisted and changed, as this is clearly discriminatory.
<P>
I must welcome the Commission's decision to reverse its proposal to require fishermen to purchase an additional 30 % tonnage, which, if it had gone ahead, could only have been described as a penal law, designed to hinder the urgent need for modernisation and renewal of the fleet.
The case to drop this proposal was forcibly pressed by Parliament's Committee on Fisheries and the unanimous view played no small part in reversing this decision.
<P>
I wish to place on record my support for the Union's fishery sector to have a single cohesive structural policy.
It is essential to guarantee that all regions with fishing communities continue to have improved access to fishery structural funds without any attempt to reduce the levels of funding or restrict or exclude access through increasing complexity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=317 NAME="Nicholson">
Mr President, there is no doubt that Agenda 2000 will bring tremendous change to the European Union, be it in agriculture or be it in regional policy.
On regional policy I have to admit that I am extremely disappointed that Northern Ireland does not retain Objective I. But I want to pay tribute to the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly for their support for me, and to the Council and Commission because I believe we have achieved a deal that we can live with and will be good for Northern Ireland in the long term. I am content with that.
It is a compromise - a compromise that was a good one for my region. But I feel there is a real need to refocus, to relocate and reconsider and attain objectives that we have not been able to attain before: that is to ensure that we have not only got value for money but we also leave something positive behind where European money has been concerned.
<P>
On agriculture the proposals will not improve the position of my farmers.
It is a very difficult position that agriculture faces at the moment, not only in my own region but right throughout the whole of Europe.
Low income has been a tremendous problem.
But we in Europe must defend the principle of the family farm and must not allow others in the rest of the world to import into our area food that does not meet our standards.
<P>
This is my last contribution in this Parliament, but I have every hope of returning to a future Parliament.
I want to thank you, Mr President, the Parliament services and the Commissioners.
I understand that on Friday I am going to have the great pleasure of welcoming Commissioner Kinnock to Northern Ireland.
I understand I am going to have the great pleasure of welcoming Commissioner Wulf-Mathies to Northern Ireland before the election period is over.
I am sorry I am not going to be able to welcome Commissioner Fischler to Northern Ireland before the election is over, but if he wants to change his mind he would be very welcome.
<P>
It has been a great pleasure not only to be a Member of this Parliament, but over the past ten year I have found that Parliament has done tremendous work.
And I say to you, Mr President, thank you very much indeed.
While at times you get criticism - we all get criticism, so what!
You have been a good President.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=318 NAME="President">
Thank you Mr Nicholson for your kind words.
We have arrived at the end of a marathon debate on Agenda 2000. More than 80 colleagues spoke, even if for a very short time.
I had every sympathy.
Although I tried to be a bit hard because of the lack of time, we are still half-an-hour behind schedule, which means that we are going to go well over midnight.
I would like to thank all the participants, firstly the President-in-Office of the Council.
A colleague remarked earlier that it is rather rare that a President-in-Office sits so late at night to listen exhaustedly to an exhaustive debate.
Naturally the Commissioners have been more accustomed to sit with us until very late.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11 am.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Procedures for the exercise of implementing powers conferred on the Commission
<SPEAKER ID=319 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0169/99) by Mrs Aglietta, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Decision laying down the procedures for the exercise of implementing powers conferred on the Commission (COM(98)0380 - C4-0501/98-98/0219(CNS)).
<P>
I give the floor to Mr De Giovanni, chairman of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, who is deputising for Mrs Aglietta.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=320 NAME="De Giovanni">
Mr President, as you mentioned, I am deputising for Mrs Aglietta who cannot be with us tonight, and the first thing I want to do in starting my report on comitology is thank Adelaide Aglietta and acknowledge the serious and important nature of her work.
She has produced a very competent, subtle, acute and effective report, ably assisted by the entire secretariat of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, in particular Patrizia Prode, and with constant back-up from Monica Frassoni.
I wanted to mention that for one very simple reason: as we all know, comitology is hell.
It seems like a technical problem but in reality it is a profoundly political problem, because then there is the problem of responsibility for monitoring implementation.
<P>
This has always been a very serious problem and the European Parliament has tended to be diffident about it, partly because it has not always been clear who is responsible or how the European Parliament could carry out any monitoring or get any information.
It has to be said that the absence of a monitoring and information system has become increasingly less acceptable as codecision has progressed.
In my opinion we must always bear in mind the close relationship between codecision and comitology and now, after Amsterdam, with the power of codecision extended, it is all the more necessary for implementation to be monitored closely and effectively.
That is why the European Parliament has sometimes had to take a firm stand, even to the point of blocking the decision-making process for financing committees from the Community budget.
<P>
I must point out, especially as I went along with Jean-Louis Bourlanges, that it all had to do with the modus vivendi , and the modus vivendi is also an interesting point sometimes.
It has helped us make progress, but actually it has rarely been applied, and then badly. What it has clearly demonstrated is that there is no way of resolving the comitology problem merely through more information, exchanges of letters, and documents from the Commission.
They are important, but they are not enough!
We are at a different stage now. We have before us a Commission decision and this report - hence its importance - sets out the opinion of the European Parliament after many months of negotiation with the Commission and with the Council.
At the end of these negotiations we can feel partially satisfied, but I would say very partially, because there is still a great deal to be done.
<P>
So I want to clarify the European Parliament's real priorities, because I realise - and I want to stress this - that those priorities will have to be made increasingly clear, otherwise there will still be the risk of an interinstitutional conflict.
<P>
Parliament has four priorities. The first relates to information, and on this point the European Parliament has obtained a great deal, in fact almost everything it asked for.
Of course, we will need to make sure this agreement in principle is satisfactorily transferred into the final text of the decision.
We need to prevent any legislative act being adopted by the Commission and the committees assisting it outside the regular codecision procedure, and to guarantee the European Parliament the right to intervene within a limited time-frame to challenge the legitimacy and content of an implementing measure, a point on which the negotiations produced partial satisfaction. And we need genuine simplification which goes further than merely abolishing the committee variants arising from the 1987 decision.
Of course, I am referring, as everyone knows, to the great question of the regulatory committee, a question which remains open even after these initial negotiations.
We are naturally hoping for greater satisfaction on this point in the future, because the European Parliament's attitude to the issue of monitoring is sure to become increasingly radical and clear-cut.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=321 NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I do not want to go into the complex issue of comitology again now, but I should like to inform you about the opinion I have helped to prepare as rapporteur for the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, which it has adopted.
Our aim was to make sense of what is really a labyrinth of delegated powers and create something that in fact concerns all of us, namely transparency, clear separation of legislative and executive powers, and democratic control.
<P>
It is not at all my intention to dispute the fact that committees which stand by the side of the Commission are helpful in principle.
However, I must make a serious point of criticism here.
Community trade policy is one of the European Union's most important projects, but in this area Parliament is given hardly any opportunity for involvement in decision-making.
<P>
During the present parliamentary term, we were not included once in codecision.
The main committee active in this area, the 113 Committee, is completely outside our control.
This is in fact not compatible with a genuine democratic institutional structure.
There is therefore an urgent need for reform.
<P>
Our aim was also to prevent the powers from being slowly renationalised.
Surely there can be no question of civil servants from the Member States evading decisions that have been taken a long time ago - for instance, PHARE, TACIS or MED - by having to give their approval once again for major funding projects within a regulatory committee, or by being able to set them aside.
This gives them quasi-legislative functions, and the regulatory committee as an institution should therefore be done away with altogether.
<P>
Finally, on the subject of information, we do not think much of the vagueness of the wording which states that the EP shall be kept informed on a regular basis.
We need to have precise and full information, agendas, the composition of committees and calendars.
In terms of keeping the general public informed, this should not be a problem in this day and age with e-mail.
I hope that the proposals of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights find sympathetic listeners within the Commission as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=322 NAME="Corbett">
Mr President, all parliamentary systems delegate implementing measures to the executive. They do not immerse themselves in too much detail.
But what is peculiar about the European Union's system is that during all those years when the Council alone acted as the legislative authority, it was willing to delegate implementing measures to the Commission only on condition that a committee of national civil servants would work with the Commission.
<P>
We had three objections to such a system.
Firstly, there were so many committees set up with so many different procedures with nobody quite sure who sat on which that there was a major problem of transparency.
<P>
Secondly, these committees set up by the Council or the Member States had the right to block an implementing measure from the Commission and refer them back, but Parliament had no such right.
This was only possible for Council committees, not Parliament's.
<P>
Thirdly, if a measure was blocked and referred back to the legislative authority, it was referred to Council alone, not Parliament and Council jointly, even though they jointly constitute the legislative authority.
That we have found unacceptable.
<P>
With codecision, though, it is now Parliament and Council jointly and equally which will decide on what measures to confer upon the Commission and what procedures will be adopted.
We will use that power, Mr President - and I warn the Council that we are determined to use that power - to ensure firstly that there is openness and transparency (and I welcome the progress that has been made in that respect in the Council working group), but secondly to ensure that there is equality between Parliament and Council.
In other words, if Council committees have the right to block the Commission and refer a measure back then Parliament should also have that right.
And if a measure is referred back to the legislative authority it should be referred to both branches of the legislative authority, not just to one branch.
<P>
There are some who claim that Parliament wishes to immerse itself in the detail of implementing measures.
That is far from being the case: this is in the nature of a safeguard, the right to blow the whistle occasionally where you think that things may be going wrong.
That is a right that exists in many national parliaments, - not in all of them, national systems differ on this, but it is one that should apply at the European Union level.
<P>
If you look at the way we have used this power in the informal procedures that already exist, it is actually very unusual for parliaments to intervene and to blow the whistle.
We have done it occasionally - infant formulae milk is a notable example.
We blew the whistle, the Commission entered into a dialogue with us, changed its proposal and that was ultimately what was adopted.
It worked. But it is very unusual.
We do not want to do it very often, but we want the right to intervene when necessary.
If we have that right then we will be much more willing to delegate more measures, knowing that we have that safeguard in place.
But if we do not have that right, then we will be very reticent to adopt far-going implementing provisions.
We will want to hold it back in the legislative procedures. We will not want to delegate.
I warn the Council that although it has made progress on transparency, if the working group continues to be so restrictive on Parliament's rights to intervene, then there will be no agreement and we will continue in legislative procedure after legislative procedure to block the comitology measures and resist the adoption of such restrictive measures and we will be very restrictive on voting the budgets and the credits to allow comitology-type committees to continue to meet.
<P>
We are not seeking to take powers to ourselves to intervene in the detail but we are seeking to have the safeguard.
That safeguard is very important. It is the principle on which we will insist and unless agreement is reached in this matter I can tell Council that codecision procedure after codecision procedure will have to go all the way to conciliation and time after time there will be difficulty on this problem.
<P>
I invite Council to take the last few steps to reach an agreement with us on this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=323 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herman">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the problem of comitology is literally poisoning relations between Parliament and the Council. Indeed, it goes even further: it serves as a screen against public opinion, because the complexity of this comitology mechanism has succeeded in making the opaque fog around decision-making even thicker in the eyes of the public.
It is therefore a public service to clarify this obscure process and make it slightly more transparent.
<P>
When the European Parliament was granted the power of codecision, it might have been assumed that the two arms of the legislature were going to be treated equally.
But this was far from the case.
Was it treachery, bad faith, incompetence, negligence or ignorance?
I have no idea and I am not going to guess.
Article 145 of the Treaty on the delegation of implementing powers has still not been amended whereas lawyers generally consider that it should have been.
Because it has not been amended, these powers remain with the Council alone, while it ought to be shared equally by the two arms of the legislature.
<P>
When the case came before the Court of Justice, it departed from its traditional integrationist case-law - which lasted until the number of members increased beyond nine - and kept to a strictly formal interpretation of the texts, against all logic and against the fundamental principles of consistent legal interpretation.
In fact, it is not normal for the body - a binary one, in this case - that decides on the law to be different from the one taking decisions on the delegation of its implementation.
There is an error of logic in that situation which has only been possible because the lawyers were negligent when they drafted or amended the Treaties.
<P>
This matter could have been corrected in the Maastricht Treaty.
It was not, and that is because, yet again, neither Parliament nor the Commission made much effort to clarify the situation.
The Commission was extremely timid, not to say cowardly, about it.
So now we are trying to repair this mistake through an institutional agreement.
<P>
We might have expected the Commission and the Council to acknowledge, finally, in this agreement that Parliament's claims were well-founded.
But this was far from the case.
Concessions have been made, and there has been a little progress. It is a little less complex, a little more transparent, but that is about all.
Of course, we are going to take what is on offer.
We accept any progress, but at the same time we must express our dissatisfaction, and also our hope that next time the Treaty is amended, this error will not be repeated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=324 NAME="Langenhagen">
Mr President, it is after all three obligatory and two non-obligatory committees which play a role within the framework of comitology and the Common Fisheries Policy.
The committees have a vital role to play, for example, in the preparation of TACs and quotas, and in the implementation of the Multiannual Guidance Programme for the Community Fishing Fleet.
<P>
The relations between the Committee on Fisheries and the comitology committees just mentioned have two main aspects: firstly, the reception by the Committee on Fisheries of information on the activities of the committees and, secondly, the possibility for members of the Committee on Fisheries to participate in meetings of the relevant committees as observers.
However, the information sent is insufficient and often arrives late. The current procedure for sending observers is also very unsatisfactory and is in fact even inappropriate.
Unfortunately, any amendments proposed to date have been rejected.
<P>
Mrs Aglietta describes three objectives, or three good reasons why there should be a new comitology decision; these are simplification, democratisation and transparency.
The Committee on Fisheries shares the view that improvements in these areas are urgent and absolutely necessary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=325 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Mr President, forgive me for requesting to speak once again, but there has apparently been - or there may have been - a translation error.
I do not want the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights to be abolished; I was referring to the regulatory committee.
I think it is quite important to mention this, in case Mr Kinnock has been informed otherwise.
Apparently, it was translated differently in Italian.
So it is the regulatory committee that I should like to be abolished.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=326 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
I am grateful for Mr Kreissl-Dörfler's contribution.
It was not so long ago that there were people in this House who wanted to abolish the Commission, so I am much relieved by his news.
<P>
I begin by offering my warmest thanks to Mrs Aglietta, the rapporteur, who has done an excellent job in clarifying the so-called comitology issue which, in terms of the procedures of the European Union really is rocket science.
I admire, on a personal basis, the honourable Member's tenacity in pursuing this dossier over difficult months.
I regret that other obligations prevent her from being with us in order to discuss her report tonight.
We did, however, have a distinguished replacement, Mr De Giovanni, who showed his customary fluency and, above all, his very considerable technical insight when he described comitology as pure hell.
<P>
Five years ago I thought comitology might be an inflammation of the bowel or a trapping of the sciatic nerve.
Now I know much better and I share that in common with this House.
It really has been an advance in my general knowledge.
<P>
The system, obviously, as has been said in the debate, facilitates an important link between the Commission and the representatives of the national authorities who sit on the committees and assist the Commission in its executive role.
But as we have also heard, the number and complexity of both the functions and the types of committees raise concern about the transparency of the whole system.
I am sometimes amused by popular descriptions of Parliament, and indeed of the Commission, as being institutions which clog the progress of the European Union.
If only the general reporting press knew about comitology and the accumulating habits of Member States, it might bring them a revelation.
<P>
In addition, with the introduction into force of the Maastricht Treaty and the codecision procedure, this Parliament naturally and, in my view rightly, insisted that all implementing decisions should be subject to some form of control by the legislature.
The resulting modus vivendi that was adopted in December 1994 went some way towards achieving that objective.
But as we heard from Mr De Giovanni, it was clear even then that the issue had not been definitively resolved.
<P>
In June 1998, therefore, in accordance with the Declaration annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Commission presented a proposal to revise the 1987 comitology decision and we did so with the aim of making the procedure less complex, less opaque and more open to Parliamentary control.
<P>
Honourable Members will, I know, be familiar with the major elements so I will not detain the House with a description.
Suffice it to say that as a result of the discussions under the Austrian presidency and the German presidency which has made strong and commendable efforts to get an agreement in the Council before the end of June, and with significant parliamentary input in last September's resolution and now in the Aglietta report, we have reached a stage of negotiations which is likely, hopefully, to be conclusive.
Naturally Parliament's requests have been at the centre of the discussion.
I would like to make just a few responses to the more salient issues raised.
<P>
As far as the right of scrutiny is concerned, Article 7(a) as proposed in Mrs Aglietta's amendment goes in the direction that the Commission wanted.
It takes on full legal value and it makes a political dialogue with the Commission possible on the occasions when Parliament believes that a proposed measure would provide excessive implementing powers at the expense of the legislature, a point forcibly made by Mr Corbett.
An interinstitutional agreement could subsequently be concluded to clarify how this provision would actually operate in practice.
<P>
As for the informing of Parliament, the Commission is confident that the requests made in the report we are discussing for extensive transmission will be agreed in Council.
In order to achieve that the Commission is willing to establish the most modern means of communication so that Parliament will be able to exercise its scrutiny continually and through up-to-date facilities.
<P>
We also agree with the idea of having greater clarity about the scope of executive measures set out in the basic legislation itself.
In that context it is clear that for us, as in the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice, any adapting or updating of legal acts cannot entail modifications of essential elements of the original legal act.
<P>
Last, but not least, on the regulatory procedure, it is unfortunate, in our view, that the discussions within the Council have ruled out the Commission's proposal of a return to the legislature and often to the co-legislators when the committee does not give a favourable opinion.
However the current formulas devised by the negotiators would be acceptable to the Commission provided that there is no double safety net or contrefilet which would give the Council the means of rejecting a proposed executive measure.
The reason for such a stipulation is very obvious.
If there was some form of double safety net it would quickly become impenetrable and the Community would be prevented from taking any decision at all.
In the interests of the Union, the Member States and indeed the institutions therefore, we think it essential to support the relevant amendments to the legislative solution submitted by Mrs Aglietta.
<P>
We have now reached a significant point in the process of simplifying the system of comitology and making it more democratic.
After thorough examination and many informal contacts at all levels Parliament should now be in a position to give its opinion on the proposal so that the Council can pursue its work with a crystal clear view of the wishes of this House.
Naturally the Commission will continue to contribute actively to this work in the hope that by the end of the German Presidency we can reach an agreement that will satisfy all three institutions and consequently benefit the interests of the citizens of the Union whom we exist to serve and millions of whom are doubtlessly still awake tonight, awaiting the outcome of this debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=327 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Fixed-term contracts
<SPEAKER ID=328 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0261/99) by Mrs Jöns, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Directive concerning the framework agreement on fixed-term work concluded by UNICE, CEEP and the ETUC (COM(99)0203 - C4-0220/99).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=329 NAME="Jöns">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have obtained codecision in social policy by means of the Amsterdam Treaty.
However, whether or not we agree tomorrow to the social partners' framework agreement on fixed-term work comes down to exactly the same thing in the end.
This will be the case more and more from now on, since the incorporation of the social protocol into the Amsterdam Treaty will mean that the social partners will always be consulted first.
The ball will only be in our court again if they fail to achieve a result.
Amsterdam does not even require us to deliver an opinion at any point during this procedure.
The fact that we are now able to deliver an opinion is solely because the German Presidency insisted upon it.
<P>
The Commission only forwarded the draft directive to Parliament on Monday.
We are therefore now seeing, barely one month before the European elections, that the Amsterdam Treaty in fact limits our rights quite considerably in the area of social policy.
This does not make it any easier to explain in the European election campaign why it is so important for our citizens to vote in the June elections.
<P>
Surely it is unacceptable for European laws to be made in this area without the European Parliament having any kind of formal involvement in this.
Not only did Amsterdam fail to remove the democratic deficit in social policy by including the social protocol in the Treaty virtually unchanged, but it even increased it.
This kind of atavism needs to be eliminated at once.
I therefore strongly urge the Council and the future Commission to conclude with us as soon as possible - by the next revision of the Treaty - an interinstitutional agreement which also does justice to Parliament's direct democratic legitimation.
<P>
That we are rejecting the current procedure does not however mean that we would therefore automatically be against all the outcomes of the social dialogue.
I am merely thinking of our unanimous agreement in favour of parental leave.
However, social partners' agreements do not relieve us of the duty to examine them critically, as we did with the agreement on part-time work.
Allow me to come straight to the point: more and more people have fixed-term employment contracts.
In the European Union, the number of employees in fixed-term employment has increased from 14 million to 17.5 million in the last three years alone.
However, long-term employment relationships are still regarded as the sole guiding principle for both social insurance and conditions of employment.
<P>
This in turn involves various forms of discrimination for fixed-term employees, as we all know.
The fact that the social partners have now agreed on a principle of non-discrimination for fixed-term employees is to be welcomed all the more.
But unfortunately the same does not hold true for mandatory social security, although the social partners could have extended the non-discrimination principle to this as well.
This was already possible under Maastricht.
<P>
The only progress achieved on the highly controversial part-time agreement is that the exceptions from the principle of non-discrimination are cited more clearly.
However, I absolutely cannot comprehend why the provisions combating abuse of fixed-term contracts do not relate to the first contract, but only to successive contracts.
What is more, the Member States can even choose from three options here.
They either define objective reasons or a maximum duration, or the maximum number of extensions is defined.
<P>
This agreement does not set a single uniform minimum standard.
The provisions, which are uniform for everyone, stipulate only that one of the three possible provisions must be chosen.
In future, we must - and I think this is essential - make it perfectly clear once and for all what we understand by uniform minimum social standards, but I still urge you to agree to this agreement, because otherwise we will be left with nothing at all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=330 NAME="Hughes">
Mr President, Member States have committed themselves to the European employment strategy and to the four pillars of the employment guidelines, including the pillar on adaptability.
They have also called upon the social partners to engage in negotiation with a view to reaching agreement at every level to promote adaptability by balancing flexibility for workplaces with security for workers.
<P>
The Commission has done the same in its Green Paper on a partnership for the future organisation of work and in its subsequent communication.
The social partners are therefore to be congratulated for adding this new agreement on fixed-term contracts to their earlier agreement on part-time work and I hope they will soon pursue a fresh agreement on workers placed by temporary employment agencies.
<P>
But that, Commissioner, still leaves the difficulty of social security provisions for atypical workers, part of the original atypical work directive.
It is clear that cannot be tackled by the social partners and it is something that the Commission is going to have to tackle urgently.
It is an outstanding matter that we need to address very quickly.
<P>
Like any agreement under the social dialogue provisions of the social chapter this agreement illustrates a new facet of the democratic deficit, as the rapporteur has just explained.
We, the Parliament, have no formal rule in relation to agreements like this.
That also needs to be tackled urgently by Treaty amendments and in the meantime by interinstitutional agreement.
<P>
The final point I want to make is this Mr President: I am hearing rumours that one or more Member States might be interested in creating difficulties for this agreement in Council.
I hope those rumours are not true, but if they are, I want those involved to think very carefully.
Do they want to be responsible for killing social dialogue at European Union level and these important steps to promote adaptability?
That would be the result.
<P>
I hope that rather than obstructing they will endorse this agreement as quickly as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=331 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Pronk">
Mr President, I am pleased that we can still discuss the Jöns report today.
I believe the rapporteur should be congratulated on having been able to get this item on the agenda at this final part-session of the parliamentary term.
I continue to believe that social dialogue is important and that we must also discuss the consequences of social dialogue.
I do not believe the Commission has any cause for complaint.
We wanted to discuss this at this final part-session and the Commission simply followed the traditional line, and if this had not been the final part-session it would have been on the agenda next month.
So I do not believe the Commission has any reason to complain.
I do not believe the Council played much of a role at all.
If the Council had wanted to play a role, it should have adopted an interinstitutional agreement which would have put an end to the unacceptable situation that the European Parliament is not, formally speaking, sufficiently involved in the results of social dialogue.
<P>
There is also the matter of social security.
I do not believe it is possible to ask the social partners to deal with the social security consequences of their agreement.
The Council disagrees with this, which means that it takes just one Member State to insist on this position and nothing happens.
But I should like to repeat my request for the Commission finally to draw up a directive in the field of social security, so that the Council can no longer take refuge behind the excuses it has been using to date and we will have genuine Council debate on a social security directive.
I think these are the principal points.
<P>
Finally, we nevertheless find the rapporteur's report to be much too critical of the work of the social partners.
It seems as if the Socialist Group actually lacks confidence in the social partners, while at the same time giving the appearance of having so much faith in them.
That rankles, Mr President.
We have seen it during this debate.
The PPE has confidence in the social partners, is ready to let them take on the job, which is why we also want to accept this, we want to improve the procedure, but that is as far as it should go.
We do not need to study everything agreed by the social partners in minute detail.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=332 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ilivitzky">
Mr President, Mrs Jöns' report, I believe, is a good one, since although she too urges the Council to approve the agreement negotiated by the social partners, she at the same time strongly criticises that agreement.
The agreement is really nothing more than a very small and modest step towards improving the status of those engaged in atypical work.
The new Commission should embark without delay on a programme of action to find a solution to these as yet unsolved problems.
The most important is the issue of extending legislation to cover other forms of atypical work, such as homeworking and hired labour, which have become much more common of late.
The other task to address is the guarantee of social insurance for all employees, irrespective of the form of their contract.
<P>
There are considerably more women than men with atypical contracts of employment.
Thus discrimination against those undertaking atypical work is at the same time a form of gender discrimination on the labour market.
Ending this should be a priority task for the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=333 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Andersson">
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking the rapporteur for her report.
I welcome this agreement between the social partners.
The social dialogue has a significance of its own, leading as it does to agreements at European level between management and labour.
This particular accord is the third of its kind and I would like to see more, covering such things as people working for temporary employment agencies and distance workers.
A balance does need to be struck, however, between agreements as such and legislation, and I shall be coming back to this.
<P>
Agreements always involve compromise between the social partners. This one is no exception.
Its two most important features are that contracts of an indefinite duration are the rule, and that those with fixed-term contracts will not suffer discrimination.
Social security is not covered, as the social partners did not see any scope for successful negotiation here.
We have consequently urged the Commission to submit proposals in this equally important field.
Let us hope that action will be forthcoming in the not too distant future.
<P>
This framework agreement is a sound one, in my opinion.
If - as Mr Hughes says - some Member States are creating difficulties over legislative adoption in the Council, then that is extremely serious.
We have here an important agreement between management and labour.
Any blocking in the Council would be very damaging for the social dialogue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=334 NAME="Flynn">
<SPEAKER ID=335 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=13>
Protection of workers from the risks of explosive atmospheres
<SPEAKER ID=336 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0155/99), on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the common position adopted by the Council (13836/4/98 - C4-0003/99-95/0235(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive on minimum requirements for improving the safety and health protection of workers potentially at risk from explosive atmospheres (Rapporteur: Mr Pronk).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=337 NAME="Pronk">
Mr President, this is the second reading of the common position on the health protection of workers who may be exposed to risks from explosive atmospheres.
It is a second reading and what we have tried to do is look at the Council's common position compared to the Commission's original proposal, and compared to its development following the amendments brought by Parliament, although not by me as rapporteur, as I took this on somewhat later. On the basis of all this we concluded, again in cooperation with the European Commission, that we had to formulate a number of amendments.
At that time we did not of course yet know that this would be one of the first reports in the social field to come under the codecision procedure.
<P>
Since 1 May, just a few days ago, when the Treaty of Amsterdam came into force, health and safety has come under the codecision procedure.
I believe that this marks a significant new departure.
It means that the Commission's role remains unchanged but becomes somewhat easier as it is no longer faced with the united front of the Member States saying that they want to go back to the common position agreed earlier.
The Commission is then always faced with the problem of whether it should stand its ground and defend Parliament's amendments to the bitter end or bring the matter to a close.
<P>
All this has now been made easier.
If there is no agreement the matter simply comes back to the European Parliament and then we must all discuss it and vote on it.
I think that the Council in particular, which when it comes to social policy has not proved exactly progressive in its relations with Parliament, still has to get used to this.
I look forward to being able to discuss this with the Council in the future.
<P>
Mr President, I have one question, which arose after we had completed the amendments.
It concerns the position of LPG in the directive.
I should like clarification from you on this point.
Article 1 includes an exception, but there is a difference in interpretation between myself and your services on the one hand, and the English authorities on the other. The latter seem to give a different and somewhat broader interpretation.
I should like to hear the last word from you on this point, so that the Minutes will be there to help the subsequent legislative process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=338 NAME="Hughes">
<SPEAKER ID=339 NAME="Skinner">
Mr President, I should like to add my heartfelt thanks to the rapporteur, whom we have seen on many an occasion take on the mantle of health and safety, to you, Commissioner, and your services for expediting much of the legislation which has been necessary in this field, and for your assistance both formally and informally in helping Parliament to understand what can and cannot be done.
<P>
Indeed now, as Mr Hughes has just said, we move into the difficult area of codecision which can help us.
In this particular directive we can seek further clarification from the Council.
Mr Pronk and I have managed to find a compromise on Amendment No 2, which has led to a better text.
I look forward to the Commission and the Council accepting that text.
But Amendment No 7, where disagreement lies, certainly requires a large amount of clarification.
Until we get that it is not one that I am going to be fond of supporting.
<P>
However, codecision is going to be about sensible discussion.
I hope the Council will respond to what Parliament votes tomorrow.
I too would like to say that I have enjoyed working in health and safety.
I spent some time working on a lot of these reports.
I must commend Mr Hughes, the chairman of the committee. The intensity of this discussion on health and safety has been led through that chair.
I wish him the very best and hope that maybe, when we both come back in July, we will continue some of that particular discussion.
Nonetheless I would like to hear from the Commission as to what we can do about Amendment No 7.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=340 NAME="Flynn">
Mr President, let me first of all thank you, Mr Pronk. You have done a remarkably good job on what is regarded as a very technical matter.
<P>
The Commission is prepared to accept all of the proposed amendments.
The Commission considers in fact the Council's common position as a step forward towards achieving better protection for the health and safety of workers potentially at risk from explosive atmospheres where fatal accidents occur every day.
Nevertheless, you know that the Commission has maintained some reserves as regards the common position, for example on appropriate supervision and on the deletion of items in Annex 2 covering additional risks resulting from power failure and the need to provide for manual override where automatic processes deviate from intended operating conditions and the need to be able quickly to dissipate or isolate accumulated energy in the event of an emergency shutdown.
<P>
The text of the common position in these areas is considered by the Commission to be weaker than the amended proposal.
The Commission therefore considers that the amendments proposed by the European Parliament are essential for the establishment of a strong, coherent prevention strategy against the risks arising from explosive atmospheres.
<P>
As regards the amendments on the establishment of the vademecum and on the requirements for provision of information to undertakings, particularly SMEs. I share your view that a simple statement in the Council's minutes is not a sufficient guarantee of follow-up.
<P>
Finally, the rapporteur's approach to bringing the proposed safety sign into line with the international CEN ISO standard is a good approach.
As far as LPG is concerned, of course, the situation is that road traffic regulations cover the question of, say, tankers of LPG being delivered to a filling station.
LPG in a plant is covered, but in a filling station the end user, a car, for instance, is not covered under Article 118a or 137.
I would like to say as well that we have no difficulty with Amendment No 7 as it is our understanding as well that equipment is to be adapted, not replaced.
That is an understanding I can give to the House.
<P>
If I may, Mr President, this is probably our last meeting together on some very important broad issues that deal with working people.
I would like to finish by recording my personal pleasure and satisfaction with what we have achieved together on the development of employment policy and social policy agenda for the European Union.
I would like to record my appreciation for the important contribution that you have made to achieving our shared objectives.
When the history of the development of social policy and employment policy comes to be written subsequent to my leaving the Commission, the period 1993-1999 will be recorded as quite a remarkable period for change, for advanced thinking and for Treaty change support.
For those of you who will not be returning I want to congratulate you on the contribution you have made to social policy advances over these last few years.
They are quite significant and they will make a real difference to European citizens.
For those who will be back in July your responsibility to build on this base that we have started together will be quite immense.
I believe it will be made easier because of the work and the cooperation that we have had these last few years.
<P>
I want to say to you, Stephen Hughes, as the chairman of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, it has been my personal pleasure to work with you, not just as a good parliamentarian, but as a gentleman of credibility and integrity.
You deserve your place in this House and I know that you will be back with your friends here to continue the good work.
It has been a personal pleasure for me these years and I have gained enormously from the experience.
I am full of expectation for the good things that will be achieved in the coming years for the citizens of Europe.
It has been my pleasure to have been part of that advance.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=341 NAME="President">
I must say that it may not be very original but still, it does provoke emotion.
It appears that this is an evening when we are reminded of Shakespeare who urged us to 'bring garlands'.
We are distributing garlands tonight. But it is justified after years of hard work.
It has been difficult sometimes but we have also had satisfying cooperation.
On the part of the presidency of Parliament I must thank Commissioner Flynn for having been very pleasant here - sometimes a bit long in his explanations, but otherwise trying hard.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=342 NAME="Pronk">
Mr President, I am very glad that the Commissioner has accepted all seven amendments.
Seven is a holy number which expresses a certain fullness and that is very good.
I would like to thank you for all the cooperation with our group, Parliament, and Mr Hughes, who has been an excellent chairman in this connection. You have been a 'stayer'.
In skating terms that is someone who may start a bit slowly but goes on and achieves an awful lot in the end.
That is what it is all about in politics. I thank you very much for that.
We have achieved a lot on social policy. We can now go to the electorate with those results, partly or indeed mainly thanks to you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=343 NAME="Flynn">
There is a little plaque hanging in my office. It is a quotation from Abraham Lincoln, who was President of the United States from 1861 to 1865.
It has been my political motto all my life.
As I leave you I would like to quote it for you: 'I do the very best I know how, the very best I can, and I intend to do it till the very end.
If in the end I am proved right then all the things that people have written against me will count for nothing.
If in the end I am proved wrong then angels swearing that I was right all the time will do me no good.'
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=344 NAME="President">
I am sorry to depart from this rather poetic atmosphere but we still have some work to do.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Thursday at 11 am.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=14>
EC-Mexico Partnership Agreement
<SPEAKER ID=345 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation (A4-0220/99) by Mrs Miranda de Lage, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning the conclusion of the Economic Partnership, Political Coordination and Cooperation Agreement between the European Community and its Member States, of the one part, and the United Mexican States, of the other part (COM(97)527-11618/97 + 11620/97 + COR 1 - C4-0023/98-97/0289(AVC)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=346 NAME="Miranda de Lage">
Mr President, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, the debate I am opening on the now famous global agreement with Mexico ends a five-year cycle during which Parliament has worked actively with the European Commission to renew and strengthen relations with the Latin American countries, including Mexico.
<P>
The Commission's communication on Mexico provided the opportunity for us to draw up a first report in 1995.
The conclusions reflected Parliament's priorities and, as a sine qua non for adopting a future agreement with that country, the conditionality or human rights clause, political dialogue and parliamentary dialogue were priorities, as well as regional development, social development, assistance to women at risk and a long list of other points.
Of course, in addition to the objective of liberalising trade, we also wanted the agreement to include guarantees for environmental protection and respect for the basic labour standards of the International Labour Organisation.
<P>
Parliament's demands have been adequately reflected in the articles.
The agreement includes the trade objectives of the interim agreement, but also incorporates a social philosophy, a range of possibilities for cooperation in areas such as professional training, regional development or support for cultural diversity.
<P>
Recital 7 relates to the social and environmental issues.
I am highlighting this because I want to express my appreciation for the constructive position of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions on this agreement.
As a result, I would suggest that we look for some formula which makes it possible to incorporate recital 7 into the bilateral political dialogue, giving a clear signal that any requirements, including the basic standards of the ILO, commit the 15 Member States and Mexico equally, and not just Mexico alone.
<P>
A calm and impartial analysis of the text leads to the conclusion that Parliament's influence has been considerable.
But I must point out that this influence was possible thanks to the excellent attitude of the Commission, and I am grateful for its collaboration throughout this process.
<P>
In other respects, everything is not rosy, and I have to come down hard on the Mexican Government.
It should take careful note that the Committee on External Economic Relations categorically rejects the tariff increase announced by Mexico on 1 January this year.
That decision was inappropriate and arbitrary as well as being discriminatory because it does not apply erga omnes .
I must adamantly insist that this measure be abolished as soon as possible.
The decision is unfortunate because it accelerates the increasingly evident deterioration in trade flows. These have been affected for five years by the dynamism of NAFTA, and thus our share of the Mexican market has fallen from 11 % to a modest 6 % over that period.
The Committee on External Economic Relations had already drawn attention to this deterioration in Mr De Vries's report in 1990.
NAFTA's arrival has had negative consequences on our interests and I must stress that point.
<P>
Approval of the report we are debating will strengthen our political position and allow us to use this instrument to follow up the negotiations on political, social and economic issues, including, most particularly, the paragraph on democracy and human rights.
We need to talk about those issues.
The legal provisions to improve them and defend them have substantially increased in Mexico, and it is only fair to recognise that.
<P>
The opinions by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy and the Committee on Development and Cooperation stress the need to broaden and improve the conditions for development. The Committee on External Economic Relations shares this view and emphasises it in a paragraph in this report.
We are offering faithful cooperation and we also support the search for a permanent solution to the Chiapas conflict.
<P>
Mexico is a developed, dynamic country, and a member of the OECD, playing an increasingly active role in relations within North and South America and with Europe.
Our association with Mexico is more than a market, and more than a facility for getting access to NAFTA. It is a political commitment of profound significance.
The adoption of this recommendation will send a good signal to the Americas at a time when doubts are growing about our will to increase European efforts in the region.
<P>
The Union faces a number of challenges: its peace obligations and commitments and the dilemma of enlargement.
Now is the time to send a positive signal to the upcoming first summit of Heads of State and Government, that is, the 15 plus 33.
The philosophy of this agreement includes important development policies.
Like any compromise, it may be unsatisfactory in some areas, but nobody can deny that it opens the door to wide and meaningful possibilities for collaboration. And nobody can deny that, precisely because of its content, it has generated a considerable level of debate.
<P>
Mr President, this may be my last speech in this Parliament, and I want to take this opportunity to thank Commissioner Marín very sincerely for the hard work he has done on cooperation with Latin America.
I also want to thank everyone who has cooperated in this endeavour throughout the years and - obviously - all the members of the secretariat of the Committee on External Economic Relations who have worked towards these objectives, as well as all those who have believed in the advantages of cooperation with Latin America.
Finally, in view of the late hour, I would also like to thank the interpreters for their patience.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=347 NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
Mr President, my group recommends that we give our assent to the global agreement with Mexico for four fundamental reasons, and two of them are based on the pure logic of democracy.
<P>
Firstly, all the parliamentary committees involved, the Committee on External Economic Relations, the Committee on Development and Cooperation and the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, have clearly requested it.
<P>
Secondly, the main political forces and the leading political groups in Mexico have also requested it, and it has been called for and approved by all the Member States of the European Union.
<P>
In my view, it is not legitimate that the course of the interim agreement, to which Parliament gave its assent at the time, should be confused with and affected by the course of the global agreement
<P>
And finally, I feel that it is perfectly true that when defending human rights - which certainly leave much to be desired in Mexico - it is much better to defend them with an agreement which includes a clause on democracy - as this global agreement does - than with the existing agreement which does not contain such a clause.
<P>
I would like to take advantage of this debate to make two points which I consider important.
First, I want to reiterate Mrs Miranda de Lage's comment that the Mexican Government must promise to withdraw the unilateral increase in tariffs before the end of this financial year.
Secondly, the European Commission must undertake to keep Parliament informed on the outcome of the trade negotiations before they are concluded.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, for all the reasons I have mentioned, my group urges the European Parliament to give its assent as decisively and firmly as we condemned the human rights violations that had occurred in that country at a stage.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=348 NAME="Valdivielso de Cué">

Mr President, at this stage it is difficult to find anything new to say, especially with regard to Mrs Miranda de Lage's report, which could not be more complete, and given what my colleague Ignacio Salafranca has just added.
<P>
In actual fact, there are many reasons to start saying that Mexico does not have the proper reference point, the proper democratic credentials, and so on.
But I think Mexico, democracy and the agreement with the European Union will be best served by giving our assent.
Insisting on perfection often means that all we do is stand in the way of progress.
And there is so much that is positive about this agreement, so in this case the best thing we can do is support it.
We know that Mexico has a democratic deficit, but the best thing we can do to help Mexico establish a democratic structure is approve this agreement with the European Union.
<P>
I would also like to highlight some points within the agreement which, as I understand it, are rather original, such as the inclusion of the democracy clause as an essential element of the agreement.
This will promote respect for human rights in this Latin American country and it will produce better results in this field than possibly delaying the vote, which would make political and social cooperation difficult.
<P>
As has already been mentioned, we also hope that the new agreement will serve to revitalise trade between both partners - the European Union and Mexico.
Only 9 % of all Mexican exports to the European Union are agricultural and there is considerable complementarity in the trade flow. This should facilitate the rapid negotiation and entry into force of this agreement.
<P>
In short, I want to reiterate what the previous speakers have said and I feel that this agreement is extremely positive for Mexico, the European Union and, as a result, the progress of democracy in the Western world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=349 NAME="Newens">
Mr President, I wish to speak in favour of the Mexico partnership agreement and to congratulate the rapporteur on her work and thank Mr Marín for his contribution.
I most certainly am not a supporter of neo-liberal policies but the removal of trade barriers is a fact of life and the coming into force of the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement has increased Mexican dependence on trade with the United States of America.
The EU-Mexico agreement is therefore urgently needed to help restore the balance and to foster political and cultural, as well as economic, links between Mexico and Europe in the interests of both sides.
<P>
I have long been deeply critical of human rights abuses in Mexico and have been associated with urgency motions passed by this Parliament and other manifestations of our profound concern.
I believe, however, that the conclusion of this agreement will facilitate the continuing dialogue on these issues which will give the European Parliament far more leverage than if the agreement did not go ahead.
I am, however, most deeply anxious that the Commission should monitor the situation and we should not hesitate to speak out.
I am disturbed that there is concern in Mexico that full information has not been provided, that civil society is being excluded and that multinationals and private capital interests have carried too much sway.
These are matters on which Mexican representatives have every right to raise their voices and I, for one, would hope that they would meet with a sympathetic response in Europe.
However, the postponement of the decision on this accord at this point at the end of this Parliament would not, in my view, be in the long-term interest of the Mexicans or of Europeans.
Many of us have fought hard to build links and create solidarity between Europe and Latin America as a whole and the casual postponement of this accord could be very damaging.
<P>
I believe that we should all vote for this agreement to go ahead because, among other things, it will help to achieve a better human rights and democratic rights record in Mexico over the course of future years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=350 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, I think the first thing that needs to be said, because it is the general feeling in Parliament today, is that we are all in agreement - I do not think there is anyone who is not - that we must strengthen our commercial and political relations with Mexico and with Latin America in general.
It is a pity that Mexico's trade with the United States is increasing so much, under a trade agreement which does not actually contain a democracy clause or other clauses that are included in this one, and that its trade with Europe is decreasing.
<P>
Having made it clear that we do want an agreement with Mexico, we cannot ignore the many questions raised by quite a number of significant non-governmental organisations, such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International League for Human Rights and Intermón .
In other words, many groups have expressed their concern to us and we share their concerns. First, the negotiations are not over yet.
Secondly, there has been a lack of transparency, a lack of participation and a lack of information. And lastly, there is no mechanism for monitoring the environmental and social clauses or the democracy clause.
There is no clear monitoring mechanism.
<P>
I want to end by saying that we are a pluralist group and we will perhaps be voting in different ways.
I proposed abstention, active abstention, and my good friend Ludivina García Arias, who has a great affection for Mexico, asked me what active abstention meant.
Mr President, active abstention means no more and no less than that we are not washing our hands of the agreement with Mexico, that we want an agreement, but we want a good one.
That is why we are suggesting active abstention, and we are going to work for an agreement which, in the end, will satisfy both Mexicans and Europeans.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=351 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Mr President, the Amsterdam Treaty has been in force for just a few days.
It finally gives the European Parliament more rights with which to carry out one of the most important duties of a parliament, namely involvement in decision-making and controlling the other institutions.
It was precisely this which justified our decision a year ago to agree to just the Interim Agreement with Mexico, and to give our assent to the Global Agreement only once negotiations on all parts of the Treaty had come to a close.
<P>
We did not want to give the Commission carte blanche .
Incidentally, these were the words used by our rapporteur, Mrs Miranda de Lage, to justify the decision.
The Mexican Parliament also only approved the agreement on the condition that it will be consulted again once the negotiations have come to a close.
It is therefore not fair to claim that the Mexicans accepted the agreement a long time ago.
There has been no change in the situation since.
There has been no new Commission paper on which we could make a decision.
<P>
The negotiations will last for a long time yet, and civil society in Mexico is extremely dissatisfied with this.
Various parties, such as the PRD, which has also written to us, and the Greens in the Mexican Parliament do not agree with the way the negotiations are taking place.
They insist on the need for a fundamental change in direction and strongly urge us not to give our assent yet.
In my view, it would therefore be completely irresponsible towards European citizens, but also towards our Mexican partners, to hand over control now.
<P>
Why are we agreeing now to something that does not yet exist in its entirety?
It makes no difference whatsoever for the Commission to be able to continue negotiations.
But I am standing up for the rights of a parliament to take a vote on something which must in principle exist as a whole.
How could we justify to the public the fact that we are campaigning for more rights for Parliament, although we are saying that we do not want to make any decisions, and instead want simply to give carte blanche ?
It is precisely this which I do not understand.
<P>
I must say one more thing on this matter; it is after all the last round of speeches this evening. Obviously I am in favour of an agreement with Mexico, and this applies to the entire Green Group.
I hold my colleague, Mrs Miranda de Lage, in high esteem and I also have the highest regard for her work.
However, this problem of how a parliament makes a decision is of fundamental importance for me.
It is just about this and nothing else.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=352 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Economic Partnership, Political Coordination and Cooperation Agreement submitted today for ratification by Parliament represents an essential stage in the ambitious voyage we set out on four years ago to establish a new relationship with Mexico that would fulfill our hopes.
<P>
The revitalised situation in Mexico led Europe to seek a framework of strategic relationships with that country based on reciprocity and partnership and built on mutual interests. We were motivated by the importance of helping to build an international community based on democratic principles, the rule of law and full respect for human rights.
We were also motivated by the importance of reaffirming, within the international debate, that it is possible to conclude bilateral trade agreements that are compatible with the World Trade Organisation. Finally, we were motivated by the importance of giving a boost to our economies, thus promoting the growth of world trade, and by the importance of consolidating our respective presence in interdependent geographical areas.
<P>
That is how Parliament saw it back in 1995, when Mrs Miranda's report provided the political impetus needed to move towards more ambitious objectives.
And that is how Parliament saw it in May 1998, when it gave its assent to the interim agreement.
And I would like to take this opportunity - as I have mentioned Mrs Miranda - to thank her and her predecessor, Mr Newens, for their hard work, together with others who have been involved in this area and participated in the process, such as Mr Salafranca, Mrs González Álvarez and, in general, even those who have always been critical or have opted for a much more critical approach to our relations with Latin America as a whole.
<P>
Today you have before you the global agreement that establishes the legal framework for our future long-term relationship.
Like the interim agreement, this new agreement puts special emphasis on what has been one of the main demands of the European Parliament, to which the Commission and the Council have given maximum priority: the clause on respect for democratic principles and fundamental human rights, an essential element and foundation of this relationship.
<P>
There are three main elements to the agreement.
The first is to institutionalise political dialogue at the highest level. The second is to extend and deepen our cooperation, and here, for the first time, there is explicit provision for cooperation on human rights and democracy, and important areas such as social development, the fight against poverty, environmental protection and consumer protection are included.
I can confirm what most of you have said: if we want to make progress on the issues I have just mentioned, political dialogue makes much better progress with an agreement than without an agreement.
<P>
And finally, the third element, the economic element, is very important too, establishing a free trade area between the European Union and Mexico covering both goods and services.
<P>
Now let me tell you about the progress achieved to date in the trade negotiations.
<P>
Four rounds of negotiations have now been completed, and there have been substantial advances on the main goods and services issues, with excellent progress on investment, public contracts, competition and intellectual property.
While there are still certainly some points of disagreement, that is more an indication of the high and intense level at which the negotiations have taken place than of fundamental obstacles.
<P>
We share the great concern expressed by Parliament about the tariff increases imposed by Mexico and we will inform the Mexican authorities of it.
We hope that Mexico will respond by eliminating these increases as rapidly as it can.
<P>
We trust that we will be able to achieve substantial results for the Rio summit in June so that this exercise can be concluded in the second half of the year.
Obviously, Parliament's assent to the agreement will contribute significantly to providing important political impetus to allow us to conclude the process.
<P>
I want to assure you that the Commission formally undertakes to keep Parliament informed at all times - as is already the case - on the progress of these negotiations as well as the final outcome, before submitting the agreement to the whole Council.
And, of course, the Commission will consult Parliament on that outcome, in accordance with the procedures laid down in the Treaty.
So I cannot see that the Commission is being given a blank cheque.
That is impossible, because Parliament will always have the last word when the negotiations are concluded.
<P>
Finally, the Commission hopes that Parliament will see fit to give its assent so that the agreement can enter into force, and we thank you again for the great support we have always received from this Parliament, not only with regard to strengthening relations with Mexico, but also with regard to establishing a real alliance between Europe and Latin America, which is gradually being forged.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=353 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
Mr President, I would not want this debate to end without expressing, on behalf of my group, our recognition of the work Commissioner Marín has done as the Commissioner responsible for relations with Latin America.
I also want to express our satisfaction because, in my opinion, as draftsman, the explanations and clarifications Mr Marín has given tonight entirely meet the Committee on Foreign Affairs' demand that Parliament should be informed of the development of the negotiations before their conclusion.
So many thanks, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, for the information you have given and for your response to Parliament's proposals.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=354 NAME="President">
I in turn would like to thank Vice-President Marín for his period of cooperation with the European Parliament.
<P>
It has fallen to me to preside over many debates in which he has taken part, and I have always been struck by the attention he has paid to the views of Parliament and by his willingness to cooperate fully.
<P>
This evening has unfortunately turned into a marathon session.
I have been in the Chair for more than three and a half hours. It has been a very tiring day, but we had to complete our examination of all these issues because we have no time left, even though there are very few Members remaining - which is only natural at this late hour.
<P>
Unfortunately, there are no reporters anywhere to observe just how much work goes on in this Parliament.
They arrive at midday simply to write about scandals, but beyond that they do not pay much attention to what goes on and do not see some people at least working very late and very hard.
<P>
Before I bring this evening to a close, I would like to personally thank all Members of all political affiliations for their work and cooperation during this parliamentary term.
You all know that it is not in my nature to solicit applause, but I very much appreciate the respect and the positive attitude I believe I have had from all Members, and I thank you all very much.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
The sitting was closed at 0.35 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="Spencer">
Mr President, we received the news overnight that Ibrahim Rugova is now in Rome, and I wonder whether you could ask the President if he would, on behalf of this Parliament, convey our best wishes to Mr Rugova and to his family.
You will recall that in the April plenary we passed a resolution in this House inviting Mr Rugova to address the Foreign Affairs Committee.
It is proposed that we hold a Foreign Affairs Committee meeting on 21-22 June for the purpose of a hearing with the High Representative.
However, it would seem to me at the very least appropriate that we should invite Mr Rugova also to address that committee.
What are your comments on that suggestion, and could you convey that idea to the President?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Thank you for that suggestion, Mr Spencer.
We have all heard that Mr Rugova has arrived in Rome, happily with his family, and I think it is natural for him to come here to Parliament.
I shall pass on your proposal to the President, and I do not think there is any obstacle to inviting him to come to Parliament on 21 June.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, in all the confusion during the vote on the Rothley report yesterday I mistakenly voted in favour in the final vote, when I actually meant to vote against.
I would ask you to amend the Minutes to show this.
It would not change the outcome of the vote, ladies and gentlemen, but it really was all very confusing.
I would specifically request that this should be done if at all possible.
I would also ask you to note that I did vote on Amendment No 18 by Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, but my vote is not shown in the Minutes.
I actually voted in favour.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
We have noted that, Mrs Maes, and it will be recorded in the Minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, on page 8 of the Minutes, under the heading 'Approval of the President-designate of the Commission', there is a record of Parliament's vote approving the designation of Mr Prodi by the Heads of State and Government. It says that the President congratulated the elected President.
<P>
I think that the wrong terms are used here.
In order for there to be an election there needs to be several candidates and a democratic process.
I think that it is the designation of the President that has been ratified or approved by Parliament, but I do not think that insisting on talking about an elected President, when the President has been designated, is in accordance with the Treaty of Amsterdam.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
I can inform you, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, that the wording used is in accordance with the Rules of Procedure, but we shall of course double-check that, I can assure you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Soulier">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I feel that it would be useful to briefly add to what was very rightly said by our colleague Mr Spencer concerning the particular request that Parliament has made with regard to someone who was under its protection, Dr Ibrahim Rugova.
<P>
I would like to say that above and beyond all the comments that are naturally going to be prompted by his visit to Rome, our main objective should be the return of all of his compatriots to their country.
I welcome the suggestion that Dr Ibrahim Rugova, who was awarded the Sakharov Prize by this House, should come and address us in June for as long as is necessary.
<P>
We asked to go to Pristina.
The Serbian authorities refused, saying that they could not guarantee our safety, and we had to give in to them.
It is good that now all roads lead once more to Rome.
Mr Rugova should come, and we should find out what has been happening to him.
The important thing is to restore peace to the Balkans and for those people to return to their territory.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
I think a very broad majority of the House could endorse that, Mr Soulier.
I also think it is important, if the President accepts Mr Spencer's proposal - as I am sure he will - that it is then announced publicly that the new Parliament is going to receive Mr Rugova as one of its first actions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Sarlis">
Mr President, my name was not included in the list of people who were present at yesterday's sitting.
I would like my name to be added to the attendance register.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
We have noted that, Mr Sarlis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Elles">
Mr President, in our debate last night on the Colom i Naval report on the financial perspectives 2000-2006, it was drawn to my attention that the indicative list of vote for this morning at 11 a.m. is recommending that this interinstitutional agreement should be approved by a simple majority.
The Committee on Budgets has written to the President advising this should be done by qualified majority because we are handing over a number of powers if we approve this agreement.
It will have to be done by qualified majority.
<P>
I insist, on behalf of many colleagues, that the President circulate a note arguing why he is recommending this should be done on a simple majority.
This should be headed off before 11 a.m. otherwise we could find a repetition of the kinds of problems we had with the Rothley vote yesterday.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
I can assure you that the President of Parliament is well aware that a decision has to be taken, Mr Elles, and he will be chairing the sitting himself at 11 a.m.
I will pass on what you have said, so that he understands your views.
He will then take a decision, as I say.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Imbeni">
Mr President, I would like to join in with Mr Spencer and Mr Soulier in expressing my satisfaction.
<P>
But I would also like to make another suggestion, not just that Dr Rugova should be invited to visit us as soon as possible.
<P>
As today is our second-last working day, I would like to ask our President, Mr Gil-Robles, together with the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, to see whether it would also be possible to send a small European Parliament delegation to meet Dr Rugova in Rome, where he is at present, because I do not know what will happen within the next month, month and a half or two months.
<P>

There is an opportunity for a quick meeting; Mr Spencer and Mr Soulier themselves, together with Mrs Pack, chairman of the Delegation for Relations with South-East Europe, could be given the task of organising this meeting, which could take place in the next few days.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="President">
I will forward both your proposal and that by Mr Spencer to the President, Mr Imbeni, so that he can decide - if possible by tomorrow - how we should respond to the situation, now that Mr Rugova and his family have arrived in Rome.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
I wish to second that, and I should also like to thank Renzo Imbeni for his proposal.
I spoke to Mr Rugova on the phone last night.
I would ask that we be given the opportunity to see him even before the committee meeting in June, because he will be in demand over the next few weeks and, I fear, will be misused by some people.
For that reason, I believe it is important that we should grasp the opportunity to speak to him very soon.
If you can find a way of making that point to the President, it would certainly suit our purposes.
I should be willing to sacrifice a few slots on my electioneering schedule to that end.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
Thank you for your support for the proposals by Mr Spencer and Mr Imbeni, Mrs Pack.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bianco">
Mr President, I had asked for the floor in order to support Mr Imbeni's proposal, but Mrs Pack has already spoken now and I agree with her.
That is all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, I should simply like to remind some of our colleagues, and Mr Elles in particular, that the way the institutions take decisions, in accordance with the well consolidated case-law of the Court of Justice in Luxembourg, is not something we can tamper with. It is a question of law and order and is enshrined in the Treaties.
And as far as the Treaties are concerned, unless it is expressly stated, this House takes decisions by simple majority. In addition, there is ample case-law stating that the acts are what they are and not what any interpretation may make of them.
This also applies to the effects such acts may have, no matter how sensibly they may be interpreted.
<P>
Finally, Mr Elles is well aware that the Committee on Budgets, a well respected and very competent committee, is in no way an internal body with the powers to dictate which majority should be used to take decisions in this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="President">
I will likewise refer your comments to the President of Parliament, Mrs Palacio, who is coming to chair the sitting and the vote at 11 a.m.
<P>
The Minutes were approved
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Schengen
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="President">
The next item is the oral question (B4-0336/99) by Mr Voggenhuber and Mr Andersson, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, to the Council, on Schengen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the representative of the Council presidency has not been welcomed by name, so I do not know whom I should be addressing at this moment.
But I do hope that a representative is here.
Mr President, in the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on behalf of which I speak here, there have been serious concerns that the Council might not manage to arrive at decisions in time to incorporate the Schengen Agreement into the European Union and that the relevant legal instruments would then automatically become part of the third pillar.
That is why the fact that this agreement has been reached and that the decisions have indeed been taken has been greeted with a degree of relief.
That is the good news I am able to give the presidency.
The bad news is that the way in which these decisions and stipulations were made has drawn heavy criticism and even protests from the overwhelming majority of our committee, and I hope that the House will share our indignation, because this is a very important matter in terms of parliamentary control and codetermination in the field of internal security.
<P>
The Amsterdam Treaty itself dealt with the incorporation of the Schengen agreement, the institutional issues, the distribution of powers and the procedural arrangements in an extremely questionable and vague manner, namely by relegating these matters to an additional protocol.
I do believe we must dwell on the significance of this line of approach in order to appreciate fully the nature of the criticism voiced by the committee and by Parliament.
The incorporation of the Schengen Agreement into the European Union is surely the most important and the most complex transformation of international law into the law of the European Union.
It lays the foundations on which the freedom of the individual can be enshrined in EU law, it is the means by which the Union can become an area in which freedom, justice and security are guaranteed, and it is certainly the most significant increase of powers in the field of internal security.
It is a transfer of power that will have a massive impact on fundamental rights and civil liberties.
<P>
Let me ask the presidency of the Council at this point how the European institutions, and particularly the elected representatives of the European people, are to explain to the public that such a project can be implemented without involving Parliament, without informing or consulting Parliament.
How are we supposed to explain that this Parliament has not even been accorded the right to deliver an opinion, that we have not even received detailed documentation and information about this scheme, and that we now have to discuss it without actually having been briefed on its details?
<P>
Allow me to voice the view of the absolute majority of the committee by saying that this is not only a matter of the rights of Parliament, important though they may be; one of the roles in which this Parliament has always seen itself is as the advocate of fundamental rights, of civil liberties, of personal rights in the European Union, and it is difficult to serve as the advocate of the European people if we are excluded in this way from Council projects, an exclusion which we believe is contrary to the letter of the Treaty; no doubt we shall have to agree to differ once again on that point, but in any event our exclusion is entirely contrary to the spirit of the Treaties.


<P>
Perhaps I should also point out that the Council's approach once more raises the question of whether the theory of the Council's indirect legitimacy as a legislative authority stands up to scrutiny in the light of such occurrences, because the European Parliament is not the only legitimate representative body discussing these matters without the aid of documentation and being excluded from the Council's decisions and preparations; as we know, our national parliaments have been informed inadequately and at the last possible moment.
In other words, we can no longer speak of genuine parliamentary control in the field of internal security, of police and judicial cooperation.
That is the particular protest, the vehement protest, of the committee that I bring to your attention today, and it is not only on behalf of our committee that I call on the presidency of the Council to develop an entirely new culture of cooperation with Parliament in this extremely sensitive area of government authority and power in the domain of civil liberties and fundamental rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="Schapper">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on 1 May the Treaty of Amsterdam entered into force, and on that date the Schengen system was incorporated into the European Union framework.
The German Presidency has always regarded it as one of our foremost tasks to brief the European Parliament on the progress of the preparations for the integration of the Schengen cooperation arrangements, and I am pleased to have another opportunity to do so today, since the question of information and the form in which it is imparted has been such a crucial issue.
Mr Voggenhuber, I shall also deal in detail with your comments on the subject.
<P>
First of all, I should like to say a few words on the definition of the fruits of Schengen and their place in the EU framework.
The discussions that are being held with a view to defining the substance of the Schengen cooperation arrangements and incorporating it into the legal bases of the EC Treaty and the Treaty on European Union have made good progress and are now very close to completion.
The relevant draft Council decisions were noted and frozen by the General Affairs Council at its meeting of 26 April.
Following yesterday's final deliberations in the Permanent Representatives Committee, the presidency is seeking the adoption of the decisions at the meeting of the ECOFIN Council on 10 May.
<P>
I make no secret of our pride in the fact that the German Presidency has succeeded, in collaboration with its partners, in answering most of the questions relating to the place of the Schengen provisions, questions which remained thorny until the very end and which were affected by a vast range of diverse political considerations.
The way is clear now for an extensive examination of the substance of Schengen, which is precisely what the Treaty of Amsterdam requires.
It has not been possible, however, to reach an agreement on the place of the provisions relating to the Schengen information system.
While a group of Member States has been pressing for the integration of these provisions into both the first and third pillars, a number of others favour incorporation into the third pillar only.
A compromise position, which the presidency supports, proposes recourse to the third pillar as far as the establishment and operation of the Schengen information system and most of the notification categories are concerned, whereas notices of refusal of entry visas and the rules on system-related data protection would also have legal bases in the first pillar.
<P>
Despite the best efforts of the presidency, a consensus on this point has proved impossible and there is no prospect of such an agreement on the horizon.
In this area - and only in this area - the legal fiction in the Schengen Protocol, which provides for the third pillar to serve as the legal basis until further notice, will apply.
This, incidentally, will not prejudice the adoption of the decision determining how the legal bases are to be split.
I believe that this outcome, which has yet to be finally confirmed by the Council, is acceptable.
For key parts of the substance of Schengen, it will prevent innumerable disputes regarding the legal bases on which future developments are to be founded.
<P>
I should be exceeding my terms of reference if I were to deal with the legal bases of each of the Schengen provisions.
But I must point out that, about a week ago, I sent you the drafts of the Council decisions, the aims of which are firstly to define the substance of the Schengen rules and secondly to examine that substance in detail.
May I ask you to refer to those two documents for detailed information.
<P>
Let me now briefly answer the question on the associated status of Iceland and Norway.
The association of those countries with the implementation and development of the Schengen provisions will take place on the basis of an association agreement, which is due to be signed quite soon.
Now that the Executive Committee of the parties to the Schengen Agreement has had its last meeting, held last week on 28 April, which means that the fruits of Schengen can be defined conclusively, it is also possible to identify the areas in which cooperation with Norway and Iceland should take place in the future.
The discussions on this question are almost completed.
The presidency expects that the Council will approve the agreement at its meeting on 17 and 18 May and that the agreement can be signed as part of the EEA Council meeting which is being held at the same time.
<P>
At the heart of the association agreement is the creation, at all levels of the hierarchy of EU authorities, of a joint committee through which Norway and Iceland will play their part in the shaping of decisions.
In the Schengen framework, these two countries have been directly involved in the work of the authorities, with the right to express their views but without formal voting rights.
A direct transfer of this form of cooperation into the EU framework is not possible.
The basic rule is that participation in the work of EU bodies is the sole prerogative of Member States.
Other forms of involvement, such as observer status, would not have satisfied Iceland's and Norway's legitimate need to keep contributing to the discussion process on the subjects covered by the Schengen Agreement.
This is why the two countries and the Member States have agreed on the creation of a special system of committees, the main aim of which will be to serve as a platform for the discussion with Norway and Iceland of proposals and initiatives for further developing the fruits of the Schengen process.
<P>
The joint committee will only have very limited decision-making powers.
These will be confined to procedural matters affecting the joint committee itself and its activities.
Substantive decisions on the development of the fruits of Schengen, decisions which Iceland and Norway will have helped to shape, will be taken exclusively by EU bodies, namely the Council and, where appropriate, the Permanent Representatives Committee.
<P>
In addition to the association agreement I have just described, the draft of which I recently sent to you, the Schengen Protocol provides for the conclusion of another agreement on the legal relationship between Norway and Iceland on the one hand and the United Kingdom and Ireland on the other hand in matters relating to their recourse to the benefits of Schengen.
The negotiations on this have begun.
I expect that they can be completed within a short space of time.
<P>
Allow me to say a few words on the integration of the Schengen Secretariat.
On 1 May 1999 the Council, acting in accordance with the written consultation procedure, decided to integrate the staff of the Schengen Secretariat into the Secretariat-General of the Council, and I hope that a line can now be drawn under the recent debates on this subject and that the presidency, the Member States and the staff of the Council Secretariat can turn their full attention once again to the substantive work that confronts us in the remaining two months of the German Presidency.
<P>
In the course of the decision-making process, it emerged that some of the Council Secretariat staff are virtually taking to the barricades in opposition to the absorption of the Schengen staff, who have not gone through the customary selection procedure.
I have no sympathy with that position, because the incorporation of former members of the Schengen Secretariat has nothing to do with nepotism or favouritism.
On the contrary, it serves to safeguard the subsistence of a group of people who have shown great commitment over the years to the Schengen cooperation process and who must not suffer from the integration of Schengen into the EU framework.
Moreover, the Union will also benefit from the specialised knowledge and skills of the trained Schengen staff.
<P>
Let me finish by dealing with the consultation of the European Parliament on the transfer of the Schengen cooperation arrangements into the EU framework.
The German Presidency recognises unreservedly that the transfer of the Schengen arrangements into the EU framework is of enormous importance to the future work of the European Parliament, and that Parliament has a legitimate interest in the various steps that have to be taken on the way to integration.
Germany has always respected that interest by providing detailed information on developments in the process.
Interior Minister Otto Schily, staff of the Federal Ministry of the Interior and I myself have briefed Parliament and its Internal Affairs Committee on several occasions.
I might remind you that Mr Schily addressed the House on 14 January and that he spoke to the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs on 19 November and again on 30 March; I myself was at the meeting of the Internal Affairs Committee on 23 November, and Mr Eisel, who heads the other competent directorate in our department, has also briefed the committee twice during the past week.
So I believe we have done all we could to keep Parliament and its committee informed.
<P>
Nevertheless, I should also point out that we have no statutory obligation to engage in formal consultation on matters concerning the integration of the Schengen cooperation arrangements into the EU framework.
The sole basis for the incorporation of Schengen is the Schengen Protocol, which makes no provision for formal consultation.
The consultation requirements laid down in the Amsterdam and Maastricht Treaties do not apply to the transfer of the Schengen system.
Let me assure you once again, however, that the presidency will continue to keep the European Parliament fully briefed on the state of the integration process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Lancker">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, the agreement the Council has reached on incorporating the Schengen acquis into the Treaty is yet another of the sort of agreements that Parliament regards with extremely mixed feelings.
Of course, it is wonderful that an agreement has been reached, which none of us dared hope would be achieved under the German Presidency.
On 14 January this year, we adopted a resolution expressing our concern at the absence of an agreement, which would have meant that the whole of the acquis would have come under the third pillar.
So the fact that an agreement has been reached is quite a feat, and I congratulate the German Presidency on it.
<P>
The agreement also ensures that a considerable number of the provisions of the Schengen acquis , those dealing with the free movement of persons, asylum, immigration and border controls, are now mainly Community issues, which means that Parliament and the Court of Justice will be involved in policy in these fields in future.
This too is to be welcomed.
However, there are certain elements here that we find very hard to swallow because they are completely contrary to the recommendations that Parliament made in January.
<P>
First and foremost yet again, Mr President-in-Office, there is the role that Parliament has played.
It is true that the German Presidency held various discussions with Parliament and that we were kept informed throughout the period of the negotiations, for which we are grateful to the presidency.
But you cannot deny that the final documents only reached Parliament on Monday, that Monday was the first chance we had to discuss the final outcome of the negotiations, and that the consultation of Parliament is really just a joke because everything has already been decided.
A political agreement has been reached and simply needs to be confirmed by the Council on 10 May.
<P>
You are quite right.
Formally speaking you do not need to consult Parliament, but politically speaking this would not be advisable, since the choice of legal basis when incorporating Schengen into the Treaty will determine how the future acquis is to be developed and what the roles of the Commission, Parliament and the Court of Justice will be.
So it is a crucial decision that directly affects Parliament's rights, which was why we felt we ought to be consulted, and consulted seriously.
We even said in our resolution of 14 January that if this did not happen, Parliament would have to consider bringing a case before the Court of Justice, and I still think that the next Parliament should consider doing this.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office, this is not a matter of injured pride.
This is all about democratic control, because Parliament has a number of comments to make on the substance of the agreement too.
First, the President-in-Office has himself admitted that there is no agreement on the Schengen information system.
No agreement is better than just dumping everything under the third pillar, which would have been disastrous, but for the time being the Schengen information system is to remain under the third pillar, and this is a great mistake because the SIS contains a lot of data about immigration, asylum and visas, all of which are areas where enormous problems occur on a daily basis.
So I would like to ask the Council what it can do to get us out of this impasse.
Incidentally, the protection of personal data is a particularly important issue with the Schengen information system, and we should not forget that the Joint Supervisory Authority produced a highly critical report here.
I would therefore urge that a proposal be put forward on the basis of Article 286 providing for an efficient supervisory body to be set up, together with a proposal for the protection of personal data under the third pillar, where there is as yet no such guarantee.
<P>
Finally, I would also draw your attention to the Commission's right of initiative now on the whole of the Schengen acquis .
The Commission could provide considerable impetus here, but the Council in its wisdom has decided to keep the standing committee on Schengen implementation.
This might have been justified if Schengen was to be extended, but it is unacceptable that this committee should be entrusted with monitoring the implementation of Schengen.
I would therefore like to ask the Council for clearer information on this.
It seems to be something of a curate's egg.
All in all, I hope that this agreement will mean that both Parliament and the next Commission will be more closely involved in the policy areas that previously came under Schengen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cederschiöld">
Mr President, let me begin by expressing my delight over the incorporation of Schengen into the Treaty.
The Treaty of Amsterdam secures free movement of persons throughout Europe, but we naturally want to avoid creating a free-for-all for those intent on crime.
Priority must be given to protecting the public.
With Schengen as part of the Treaty, more effective safeguards will be offered.
Finding the appropriate technical solutions has nevertheless proved a very tough task.
We in the European Parliament are understandably dissatisfied with the lack of parliamentary involvement in some areas.
<P>
The Nordic countries have enjoyed free movement for a long time, and it has facilitated our relations with one another. Schengen will perform a similar service for the EU as a whole.
It is therefore fortunate that the Nordic passport union will be protected.
The Nordic group of countries is very vigilant when it comes to common Nordic legislation, the existence of which has meant so much to us.
<P>
If Nordic and EU legislation were to clash in any particular area - and there are differing views as to the likelihood of this - then we would naturally need to ensure coordination.
Iceland and Norway have been granted much greater authority in respect of border controls; they now share in the overall responsibility for monitoring the Union's external frontiers.
Effective operation of the system is essential, which means ensuring that Norway and Iceland perform to the same standards as the EU countries on border controls and combating crime.
<P>
The presidency has maintained a good dialogue with this committee on Schengen issues, keeping us informed of events.
I nonetheless wish to draw attention to the provisions in the Treaty which state that Parliament must not be sidelined in the consultation process.
As representatives of the people of Europe, we deserve to be much more involved than we have been to date in these matters.
The role of the European Parliament has been too weak.
And we have been given far too little time for deliberation.
Translations of texts were sometimes missing, meaning that people could barely follow the proceedings in committee.
This is no way to approach such issues.
I therefore hope that the Council will today endorse the view that, in future, sufficient time must be set aside for proper consideration of these matters. We are dealing with sensitive questions and need to ensure that a real exchange takes place between Parliament and the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wiebenga">
Mr President, this is the last debate we shall be having on European justice policy in this parliamentary term.
When we started in July 1994, the Maastricht Treaty had just entered into force.
We in the Liberal Group hoped that the Council of Ministers would be vigorous in tackling its responsibilities here, because combating large-scale international crime and fleshing out Europe's asylum and immigration policy are matters of considerable importance.
When we now look back over this parliamentary term, we are forced to conclude - I am sorry to say - that the Council has made little progress. What has been achieved in these five years?
There are 500 000 displaced people in Kosovo, but does Europe have an asylum policy?
No.
The Commission recently came to grief over allegations of fraud. Are the five fraud agreements in force yet?
Again, no.
<P>
None of this is the European Parliament's fault.
Here again we have often not been kept informed.
When we were, we carried out our legislative duties as quickly as possible, only to find that the Council took not the slightest notice of what we said.
I would say to the ministers and also to the officials - although I know that this is unusual - that they really need to change their attitude and their approach.
Take Parliament seriously and stop rejecting everything so high-handedly.
<P>
If we are honest, the Commission could also have played a more active role in this field.
Some good progress has been made, but more could have been done.
Schengen has now finally become firmly rooted in the European Union, which we have to admit is a positive development, even though Parliament was not adequately consulted.
We will now want to take a closer look for ourselves at the decisions which have been taken.
<P>
Finally, I regret to say that I cannot thank the Council on behalf of the Liberal Group for the work it has done during this period, because as I just said the results are far from satisfactory.
However, I would like to thank Commissioner Gradin, who is unfortunately not here, and her officials, and I would like above all to call on the Council and the new Commission to make sure that the Tampere summit is a success.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pradier">
Mr President, the Group of the European Radical Alliance is very particular about issues of freedom.
Schengen therefore remains one of our major concerns, both with regard to the freedom of movement of EU nationals and also with regard to freedom being indivisible for third country nationals who reside legally in one of the countries of the Union.
<P>
In this respect, I think that we could perhaps ask the Ministers in the Council to insist that France ceases to abuse derogating clauses, particularly with regard to border controls between Belgium and France.
To come back to my main point, I think that the Schengen Executive Committee has therefore been replaced by the Council.
The Council presidency, proud of its newfound glory, has defined, regulated and established legal bases.
It has established terms of association in splendid isolation, without consulting, and sometimes without even informing, the people's representatives, at least with regard to definitive texts.
<P>
Parliament is clearly not satisfied with this attitude.
We are once again in the position of having to request, no, demand, that the Treaty be respected.
It is high time that the new presidency conformed to this fresh request.
It is high time that we had a clear definition of police and judicial cooperation, and that we knew precisely who does what and in what context.
<P>
The new Commission will have a lot of work to do in order to present a coherent plan at Tampere, and so that Schengen can bring about the area of freedom, security and justice that everyone desires.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Krarup">
I have only one or two comments to make.
It is a well-known fact that the People's Movement against the EU, which I represent, is opposed to the Schengen system, as I am myself, mainly for reasons of public security.
I have no faith in claims that the construction of a supranational system of supervisory powers will benefit democracy in Europe.
I presume that we all more or less wholeheartedly share the objective of establishing a humane refugee policy, but I take the view that democracy is best placed, as the Danes say, 'in the pockets of the citizens'.
Schengen has been included in the Amsterdam Treaty and the opportunity has been taken to sneak Norway and Iceland into the system, whose people have voted against the European Union.
By virtue of association agreements, they have something which in reality is equivalent to two thirds membership of the European Union without any influence.
This is an absurdity.
But now that the Schengen system has been created, I would far rather that it were kept under the third pillar, and for once I find myself in the situation of being able to praise the presidency for the exceptional lack of efficiency that is inherent in the administration of these rules.
I would like to add that this Parliament is naturally interested in ensuring the maximum possible openness with regard to these decisions, a wish I fully support.
The conduct of the Council in this respect leaves a great deal to be desired, whether the Treaty is interpreted one way or the other.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Andersson">
Mr President, may I begin by saying 'well done' to the presidency. Schengen has now been successfully incorporated into the Treaty and we have a sensible balance between the first and third pillars.
So the presidency certainly deserves our congratulations as far as the substance is concerned.
Few people believed matters would be taken forward so fast.
<P>
However, there is ample room for criticism with regard to the provision of information to the European Parliament and the inadequate use made of the expertise of this directly elected assembly.
Clearly - as a previous speaker said - we need to distinguish between the formal and the political levels.
Possibly the Council did in fact follow the existing consultation procedures.
Probably this was the case, although we still need to cross-check.
On such important political items as the incorporation of the Schengen acquis and the signing of an association agreement with two very special countries, I still believe that Council should have consulted Parliament and taken on board its views.
That is where I feel the ministers slipped up.
They came along to the committee and we talked. But Parliament could have been consulted; the Council would then have been able to receive our opinions in the form of reports.
That is where the Council has missed out.
<P>
I do not wish to dwell further on issues connected with the first and third pillars; instead, let me concentrate on the association arrangements with Iceland and Norway.
I was surprised to hear what the previous speaker had to say.
I happen to know that he lives in Helsingør; I come from Helsingborg, four kilometres away.
We both grew up on free movement. The benefits of such freedom, together with the existence of the Nordic passport union, have certainly had a marked influence on my life.
I am delighted that we are now set to enjoy similar free movement with other countries too.
The system has worked well for the Nordic area, and I am confident that it will work well for the European Union.
And I am pleased that Norway and Iceland can also be associated in the agreement.
It is somewhat rich that people should be criticising these two countries, when they are the ones behaving democratically and allowing their parliaments to decide.
As far as I am aware, there will be a large parliamentary majority in favour - but no one's hand is being forced.
It is up to the democratic institutions to take the decision on whether to participate in this cooperation process.
Once the procedures have been completed, I am sure that Norway and Iceland will make the necessary legislative adjustments to bring themselves in line with the system.
There should be no major problem here, nor with the Joint Supervisory Authority.
The countries concerned will be able to make their voice heard, even though they will not have any formal decision-taking rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, since I came to this House in 1994, Parliament has been very clear about the fact that the future of the European Union is at stake here, in this area bordering the third pillar, in this area of rights and freedoms.
Since I came to Parliament, we have worked hard to broaden the extremely narrow limits of Article K.6 of the Maastricht Treaty.
And we must acknowledge that, without doubt, these limits have been transcended, not only by including many of the issues that used to be under the third pillar in the EC Treaty, in other words, in the first pillar, but also by way of the relative progress made with Article 39.
<P>
I must say that Parliament has played an important role in these advances.
I believe that we must highlight the good and bad aspects of this issue.
And I believe that we must be consistent and faithful and exploit this principle of faithful cooperation between the institutions. As a result, we must acknowledge what the Council has done and particularly the German Presidency.
I naturally appreciate the work involved in drawing up a list of the Schengen acquis, as we all know that the Schengen acquis was a web of rules and a web of international public law, which complicated matters even further.
<P>
Also, the presentation of this document on the legal bases of the Schengen acquis , which I have still not had time to study in detail, is clearly important.
<P>
And together with the progress made, we must acknowledge and be aware of the difficulties inherent in integrating the Schengen Agreement into the framework of the European Union. It represents a closed world that is also being built beyond the limits of the European Union so that it can function.
And we must also bear in mind that this is how it was born.
<P>
Having said all this, Mr President, Parliament cannot remain motionless, for the reasons that have already been outlined.
We have a duty to our people and it is extremely important where rights and freedoms are at stake. When the Schengen Agreement is incorporated into the Treaty on European Union, we must clearly give our opinion.
It is true that, legally speaking, we have no rights, and on some occasions, not within this House but in committee, some speakers have suggested that this be taken to the Court of Justice.
We have no formal rights; we are not protected by the Treaty. Yet, politically speaking, there is no doubt that we must be here, we must be informed and we should have been consulted on these decisions.
That was not the case.
It is not enough for the German Presidency to merely tell us what they have tried to do, and this must be very clear.
<P>
To conclude, I should like to mention two aspects that the German Presidency has agreed will come under the first pillar: the protection of personal data and the issuing of visas.
You are all undoubtedly aware that we must be especially vigilant on these issues.
We also hope that the initiatives being taken, particularly by the Commission, will outline some clear future guidelines that will allow us to make progress at the next summit in Tampere.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="d'Ancona">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, as chairman of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs I am naturally pleased, along with all the other Members who have spoken, that there has been a successful outcome and that the presidency has been able to tell us that the Schengen agreement has now been integrated into the Treaty on European Union.
However, we are still in the dark about the details.
It seems that considerable sections of the Schengen acquis have been transferred to the first pillar, but the exact extent is difficult to determine at the moment.
<P>
The Council is to blame for this lack of information, which is making it difficult for us to make any sort of assessment.
The President-in-Office said that the Council had put in a lot of appearances here.
This is true, we did see you quite often, but that is not the same thing as providing us with information or involving us in the decision making.
None of that happened; despite what the presidency promised in March 1998, Parliament was not even kept informed.
<P>
Parliament nevertheless has to do its duty and produce a legal and political assessment of the decisions the Council has now taken.
I would like to ask you a few questions. What is the legal status of the section that has been transferred to the first pillar?
Does it take the form of directives or regulations?
We need to be clear about this if we are to avoid problems with any cases that may come before the Court.
<P>
It unfortunately seems that none of the problems with the Schengen information system have been resolved.
It has been put under the third pillar temporarily, but how long is 'temporary'?
The lack of clarity on this point is extremely regrettable, because if we agree to it we will be landed with an entirely unwelcome responsibility. Who is to monitor the operation of the system?
Who is to supervise it?
The Commission or the Schengen Executive Committee?
<P>
My final point is something Mr Wiebenga also mentioned.
A great deal of decisiveness is still needed and there is still a large amount of work to be done.
Commissioner Monti is to come up with a new proposal on visas as soon as possible after the Amsterdam Treaty enters into force.
We are keenly awaiting an active asylum policy and the development of a series of instruments for determining violations of basic rights.
The application of Article 286 of the Treaty is a good indicator here.
Personal data are to be protected, along with the people to whom the data refer, naturally, and the European institutions are also going to have to comply with this.
<P>
In short, we are happy with this outcome, which is better than nothing.
But there is still an incredible amount to be done, hopefully in cooperation with Parliament once it has been properly informed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="Schapper">
Mr President, on the involvement of Parliament and the transmission of documents, let me say again that the political agreement was reached on 26 April, and I hope you will appreciate that the documents could not be sent before then.
As you know, we had to work right up to the last minute before managing to secure that agreement.
We shall naturally continue our endeavours to reach an agreement on the place of the Schengen information system in the EU framework, but I am not very sure that this aim will be achieved before the end of the German Presidency.
However, I should like to point out that, because of the automatic nature of the procedures laid down in the Schengen Protocol, the legal basis of the Schengen information system lies entirely within the third pillar. But this naturally means that the joint controlling body which has been monitoring compliance with the Schengen Agreement will continue to operate and will continue to ensure that data are being properly protected within the Schengen information system.
As for certain provisions being assignable to the first pillar, Mrs d'Ancona, these are, of course, covered by individual provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty and have thus become integral parts of the Treaty.
This, to my mind, is one quite palpable result that has actually been achieved.
<P>
I should like to reiterate in general terms that, for all the importance of the results that have now been achieved, the real political decision consisted in the adoption of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
What has now taken place is the implementation of that decision.
It is pleasing that this has been achieved with a fair degree of success.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Schapper.
<P>
I have received a motion for a resolution tabled pursuant to Rule 40(5).
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Legal aspects of electronic trading
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0248/99) by Mrs Oddy, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on certain legal aspects of electronic commerce in the internal market (COM(98)0586 - C4-0020/99-98/0325(COD)).
<P>
Draftsmen (Hughes procedure): Mr Hoppenstedt, Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial PolicyMr Whitehead, Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="Oddy">
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank my colleagues on the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights for the sterling effort they have made.
I have put the staff and my colleagues under tremendous pressure to get this through in the May part-session.
I would particularly like to thank the staff members who have had to work exceptionally hard.
I would also like to say that my colleagues have been remarkably good-natured and entered into the discussion in a spirit of cooperation and good will.
Because of that we have managed to complete the work on time.
<P>
This is a very important area.
Electronic commerce is a growth area.
It should produce a lot more prosperity for the European Union.
It is helpful to consumers and companies alike.
Consumers benefit by being able to shop on the Internet in the comfort of their own home and enjoy home deliveries.
It is quicker, simpler and consumers can do research on the market for the goods they want, much more simply.
<P>
Companies benefit also by having contracts of major importance.
It opens up the market across borders and gives consumers much more choice because it is easier to get goods - if you are British for instance - from France, Germany or Greece.
<P>
But there are some snags.
We need to ensure that the law we establish is clear, simple and that problems can be rectified easily.
We need to ensure that consumers can be confident that they are not dealing with rogue companies and that when they enter their credit card number into the computer they will actually receive the goods and not find that the company has disappeared.
In the vote in committee we put great emphasis on codes for regulating industry and for greater consumer cooperation.
I feel this is important.
<P>
Looking at the detail of the proposal, when you are trying to harmonise what is effectively contract law over 15 countries, that is difficult.
The Commission was keen to ensure that it was clear when a contract was completed with a third click.
The Legal Affairs Committee is concerned about that because is seems unduly onerous and it is more likely that mistakes might occur.
<P>
On the issue of conflict of law, which is a horrendously difficult legal subject, we need to ensure that the rules are clear.
I like the Commission's idea of having the certainty of home country law applying.
This gives the advantage of simplicity and clarity.
But again, we have to be aware that consumers need protection.
<P>
A lot of the debate has turned on the subject of copyright and illegal material.
We have to get a balance here between civil liberties, freedom of expression, people's freedom to put on the Internet what they want, no more official snooping on the Internet than there would be on the post or telephone, and balance the other argument that companies should not have people infringing copyright, infringing their logo, and pretending to be a company that they are not.
It is a really big problem for well-known companies that other companies steal their designs and ideas.
<P>
I feel we have just about achieved the right balance in the Legal Affairs Committee.
Again, that is because of the good-natured discussion of my colleagues trying to reach a satisfactory, simple solution.
<P>
The last point I want to flag-up is 'spamming', unsolicited e-mail.
I do not believe that those consumers who want to ban all unsolicited e-mails are correct.
I personally, as a consumer, like getting some on my interest areas like details of what is on at the theatre.
I do not want it banned totally.
I want the opt-out.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="Whitehead">
Mr President, I should like to pay a very warm tribute to my colleague, Ms Oddy, for this report which characteristically she has taken through in the last days of the Parliament in a committee where there were other preoccupations and where there were immense legal and technical complications.
It is not an easy subject and some of us feel that to bring this forward in the last few months of the Parliament when it needed considerable reflection and study was a little premature.
Nevertheless, we have offered an opinion and I believe that Parliament's committees jointly have attempted to make sense of this difficult matter.
<P>
I agree with Ms Oddy on two of the key areas she raised today.
Firstly, the issue of country of origin.
This makes common sense.
I know some of the consumer movements disagree with me but the only rational way to trace out responsibility is to do it along this line.
<P>
The second area where I agree with her is that in the issue of opting in or opting out we have to give the consumer the right to opt out, but to prescribe what may, or may not, be put on the Net is so to restrict the expansion of this traffic that we would have a harmful effect within the single market itself.
<P>
We also have to be very careful that we strike a correct balance between liberty, on the one hand, and licence, on the other, between the world of private rights and the world of public obligations.
<P>
The only area where I, and the Committee on the Environment, whose opinion I presented, differ from our friends and colleagues in the Committee on Legal Affairs, is on the issue of whether we have gone the right way in terms of consumer protection.
In my opinion in some areas we have not.
I do not believe that the amendment that seeks to bring broadcasting regulations into what is, essentially, a one-to-one transaction between individuals is right.
We should vote down that amendment.
<P>
We have also gone far too far to bring in some of the issues of copyright into this debate, where they have no place whatsoever.
In my opinion, it would be far better to go straight down the line with the proposals that originally came from the Commission in this area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="Hoppenstedt">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, electronic trade, e-commerce, is sweeping the world.
The United States, Europe, Japan and even China are examining the realities of electronic commerce as well as focusing some of their attention on what, at the present time, remain mere visions.
These visions are expected to become reality in two to three years' time, which, if the figures can be believed, would mean that by the year 2001 some 110 million PCS will be used for electronic commerce, generating a trading volume of 200 billion dollars - an enormous sum.
It is easy enough to say that, but numerous questions remain unanswered.
A great many of these are answered in the Commission proposal and in the report by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, and I believe that both of those bodies have done an excellent job.
Allow me, however, to add in all modesty that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy also recognises its own opinion, delivered under the Hughes procedure, in parts of this report.
<P>
The Group of the European People's Party and large sections of the Legal Affairs Committee therefore support the Commission draft. But we have had to agonise over some of the amendments, including those on the liability of intermediary providers.
Three or four amendments from Mr Barzanti and one from Mr Glante fall into this category.
I believe that these amendments undermine the structure and the logic of this entire report.
For that reason, our group will be voting against them.
<P>
One very important and very dangerous element is Amendment No 63, in which Mr Glante proposes reopening the question of exempting activities definable as broadcasting.
In Article 1 of the television directive, we said very clearly what new services mean and how new services are to be defined.
We also made a clear statement by saying that we want these new services to develop and that we shall discuss frameworks for the revision of the television directive again in the year 2002.
It goes without saying that we in Parliament naturally expect the Commission to honour its pledge to hold a large-scale discussion of the implications for audiovisual services.
That was one of the pledges which were made.
When they will be honoured is not known.
But I believe this ought to be mentioned here, since it was one of the balancing acts that were performed to secure our support for Article 1.
<P>
The majority of our group will vote against this amendment, because they believe, as I do, that it is out of place here.
The fact that the German federal states are pressurising the German Government to have services comparable to broadcasting, as they are called here, exempted from the rules governing electronic commerce derives from the internal situation in Germany.
I believe that the public broadcasting system, which is certainly a staunch advocate of this amendment, really ought to trust the Commission and ourselves to continue the discussion of this matter.
I have a request, which I have made in our amendment, that Annex 2 should be put to the vote in the form adopted by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, because it is my view that the common market, the internal market, can develop better with this Annex 2 as we formulated it in the Economic Affairs Committee.
That, of course, is consumer protection too.
We can help by ensuring that benefits for consumers develop from the great struggle between conventional trade and the electronic networks.
The shopping experience must be reshaped, and I believe we are progressing in that direction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Heinisch">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this directive is essentially a good means of creating a minimalist regulatory regime in the field of electronic commerce.
Ms Oddy's report also sets out a clear line of approach which accords with the spirit of the Commission draft.
May I also express my sincere thanks to her for adopting the proposals made by the Committee on Culture.
<P>
I should like to refer to one or two of these proposals.
It is essential to guarantee freedom of expression in the new information services.
The more open the networks, the greater will be the cultural diversity we can enjoy.
At the same time, in the areas in which Community action is appropriate, the directive has to provide strong safeguards, especially as regards the protection of young people and of human dignity.
The people of the Union will use the facility of electronic commerce to the extent that it proves useful in satisfying their everyday requirements in the real world.
However, the Internet must be accessible to everyone.
By ensuring that children learn how to use these new forms of technology at an early age and that training opportunities are provided for adults, we must prevent the exclusion of European citizens from the benefits of information technology.
<P>
The connection between electronic commerce and medicines is a point I wish to address as a pharmacist and as a member of the Committee on Culture.
For more than 30 years, medicines have been subject to a complex system of rules, which serves primarily to protect patients and consumers.
Strict controls on the marketing, advertising and sale of medicinal products are in place at both the national and European levels.
The Internet could invalidate some of these rules.
There are misgivings about safety, the conduct of transactions, payment, the treatment of confidential information, the possible misuse of personal data, the quality of the products and the absence of expert advice.
In order to protect patients, who are the consumers in this case - and I am thinking especially of our young people here - we must guarantee the application of Council Directive 92/28/EEC on the advertising of medicinal products for human use to electronic commerce in medicinal products.
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<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Barzanti">
Mr President, this long-awaited directive enriches the European Union's impressive body of legal texts establishing rules for many aspects of the information society.
This text certainly deals with one of the most sensitive matters; as clarified, completed and corrected by the Legal Committee, the directive definitely appears useful and acceptable.
<P>
The point is not to overburden service providers with undue and unusual costs and unreasonable monitoring responsibilities.
The limitations on liability provided for make up a simplified legal framework, while still recognising the serious problems which arise.
I should stress that the list of liability limitations should be exhaustive, because this is the only way in which the directive really will lead to harmonisation.
<P>
If, ladies and gentlemen, we wish to combat the rise in illegal activities, those offering on-line services need to be able to provide all the information required to trace and identify illegal content providers, whilst of course still complying with the provisions of Community law on the protection of personal data.
We need to give those entitled the means to carry out surveillance, we need strategies to combat unlawful conduct, and we need to use notification and deletion procedures by means of appropriate electronic instruments.
<P>
The directive does not aim - nor would it be able - to call into question what has already been achieved by the legislation on copyright and related rights, which was voted on a short time ago, nor - and might I point this out to Mr Hoppenstedt - is it intended either to apply to what is already covered and harmonised by the Television Without Frontiers Directive or to revise the definitions consolidated in the latter.
<P>
The scope of this directive is separate and distinct; I do not think that anyone wishes to cause untimely confusion here.
There is a fundamental distinction to be made between technologies, technical management of networks and the protection and promotion of contents and works.
This is the major conclusion to be drawn from the long and intensive debate on the convergence of technologies and means of disseminating messages which has been on-going for some time.
As I have said on previous occasions and will repeat once again, cyberspace is not a no man's land.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in this my last speech as a Member of the European Parliament I mentioned the Television Without Frontiers Directive.
This was the subject of my first ever report, back in 1988.
If I were to seek a leitmotiv running through my modest yet steadfast and devoted work over the fifteen years I have been here, I think I would find it in my determination to help provide Europe, our beloved Europe, with effective instruments to guarantee pluralism of information, protection of creativity, support for the dissemination of European works and new momentum in audiovisual production, making the most out of irrevocable differences between cultures and transforming an apparent weakness into a strength.
<P>
I would like to thank all those whose cooperation has allowed me to enjoy such a productive and unforgettable experience, and I do hope that these subjects will be given the time and attention they deserve and benefit from our Parliament's universally acknowledged determination and consistency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, I am taking the floor for the last time on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party to reply to Mr Barzanti, who has just spoken on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists. I feel that I can but sum up, in one single sentence, what I believe many of us are feeling: we will miss you a great deal.
I believe this institution as a whole will miss you a great deal as, of course, will all of us who have had the honour of working with you.
We will miss you here although we hope that we will be able to continue to rely on your knowledge and your advice.
<P>
Mr President, to move on to the substance of this directive, I believe that some of the more important problems it raises have already been discussed.
This is a proposal for a directive that seeks to establish a difficult balance, a balance between service providers and those who provide the content, a balance between consumers and suppliers. In short, it seeks a balance between interests competing in the market, and all these interested parties deserve protection.
<P>
Taking this as a starting point, I believe we must acknowledge the major task achieved by the European Commission.
This involved knowing where to stop, as this directive is special in that it does not attempt to regulate everything, but what it does regulate, it regulates sensibly and with an underlying idea, one that guides and directs it. I believe that Parliament would be making a mistake if it were to alter these balances.
It would be making a mistake to attempt to modify such a delicate situation where, in my humble opinion, has been dealt with very well.
<P>
As my colleague Mr Hoppenstedt has spoken on particular amendments in detail and because the PPE Group is well coordinated, all I can say as spokesperson for the group is that I agree with everything he said. I would just like to add a few clarifications, particularly on the subject of liability.
<P>
The Group of the European People's Party will vote against some of the amendments by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights on the issue of liability, particularly Amendments Nos 45, 46, 47, 48 and 50 to 54. We will vote against them as we feel they upset this balance.
Despite what Mr Barzanti said, which is a philosophy we fully agree with, I believe that they are of no benefit to content providers or authors in general terms. And in response to Mr Whitehead, there is little protection for consumers if we act in an arbitrary fashion when legislating.
Therefore, and more specifically, it is meaningless to impose limits on service providers' liability for specific policies or specific activities. It is also nonsense to expect that they will, for example, be notified of this by the relevant authorities.
<P>
To sum up, Mr President, the Group of the European People's Party supports the report by the Committee on Legal Affairs to a very large degree. It also supports some of the amendments tabled by the Liberal Group and, on the whole, except for the amendments mentioned by Mr Hoppenstedt and myself, we will vote in favour of these amendments in general.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as Ms Oddy said, this report, which is the last of many on the information society, is the most important one of all.
Contrary to what happened with the directive on copyright in the information society, we have managed - in just a short period of time - to conduct a more informative debate.
Passion and zeal, rather than the search for new knowledge, tended to dominate those copyright discussions.
<P>
I should like to thank Ms Oddy for her work.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights will miss her open-minded approach. She is very much her own person, and a creative one at that - even if we occasionally disagreed over my use of her mother tongue, English!
<P>
I do, however, endorse what has been said by those speakers who found the Commission's proposal more balanced.
I certainly feel that to be the case with regard to the duty of surveillance, the question of technology, and neutrality in terms of different standards.
My group will therefore be voting against many of the amendments on these points.
However, I would like to ask for support from the other groups on the matter of a technology-neutral solution for signing up to agreements and contracts.
The Committee on Legal Affairs has improved the proposal considerably here, but there is still one noticeable shortcoming from my point of view. We are currently too obsessed with 'clicking' on buttons.
There have to be other ways of concluding electronic commerce agreements.
<P>
I now have an afterthought, a little late in the day.
I suspect that, when we use the words 'electronic commerce', many people do not know what we mean.
A better term must be found, since more than straight 'commerce' is at stake here. We are talking about issues of liability and the ground rules which will apply to the whole information society.
<P>
Sadly, I have to note that even one's fellows forsake one from time to time.
The proposal put forward in the Legal Affairs Committee on 'spamming' came from me, yet my group will be voting for an alternative proposal.
The discussion so far nevertheless suggests that my idea stands a good chance of getting through.
I honestly think that we would be making life far too easy for certain telecoms companies if we decided to adopt the amendment which has been tabled.
I am sorry that it has come to this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
Mr President, International Consumers' Day was celebrated in March, with the theme of electronic commerce and consumer protection.
Commerce on the Internet does not in itself raise new problems of consumer policy, but since we are talking about a new medium, there is a need to establish security and confidence.
Commerce using digital networks should be at least as secure and safe as commerce in the physical world.
It is therefore unacceptable that the Commission's proposal should seek to put Danish consumers in a worse position in relation to commerce using digital networks than is the case for commerce in the physical world.
One of the major problems with the directive is that it is the rules of the country of origin that apply.
This will mean that countries with a high level of protection may risk being overrun with advertisements and marketing from firms and from countries which have a lower level of protection.
The level of protection in the Nordic countries is generally higher than in other countries, especially as far as marketing in relation to children is concerned.
This could result in distortion of competition, whereby foreign firms are able to use methods which Danish firms are not permitted to use under the Danish Marketing Practices Act.
<P>
The background to the principle of using the rules of the country of origin is that it is too difficult for trade and industry to be familiar with every Member State's legislation in this area.
But the consequence is that this burden is simply placed on the shoulders of the consumers.
For the consumer, commerce on the Internet thus virtually takes on the character of Russian roulette.
What rules apply, and what rights do we have if something goes wrong?
<P>
I support the amendments, which improve the directive, but I cannot support the text as a whole - and the June Movement cannot support the text as a whole - because it still takes the country of origin principle as its starting-point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Mr President, the need to ensure that European business remains competitive is one reason why the creation of a uniform legal framework for electronic commerce is indispensable.
In this particular field, common rules are one of the main prerequisites for efficient commercial transactions.
At the same time, due consideration must be given to the safety aspect and to protection from illegal activities and health hazards.
<P>
Regular commercial abuse of the Internet is one of the unfortunate realities of cyberspace that cannot be ignored.
Effective control mechanisms are therefore essential.
On the one hand, the development of software for the recognition of illegal content must be supported with a view to ensuring that these controls are more than a token gesture.
We must therefore forge ahead with the promotion of the necessary research projects.
On the other hand, however, I believe we should also consider whether the only type of control that is likely to be effective, namely control by the provider, cannot be effected in future in a technically and economically expedient way.
Public access to the information made available by providers would be appropriate in the light of the special responsibility borne by providers of online services.
<P>
Let me conclude by dealing with a very specific problem.
Among the possibilities opened up by the draft directive is the purchase of medicinal products without expert advice, which, as Mrs Heinisch said, creates a potential health risk that must not be underestimated.
Moreover, the Internet offers opportunities for large-scale fraud at the expense of patients, as the WHO, along with other bodies, has repeatedly stressed.
These things have to be borne in mind.
Although the draft directive, when all is said and done, is a step in the direction of an Internet that would serve the best interests of society, there is still a long way to go before that aim can be achieved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, it is fortunate that we have you as President of the sitting in this House at the moment because this is one of the last reports, if not the very last, by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and you were a very efficient member of that committee for many years.
At the moment, today's sitting has a rather nostalgic feel to it because we are reaching the end of this parliamentary term and some of our colleagues will not return. Others may perhaps return but, in short, the current Parliament is dissolving and at the moment there is a certain amount of nostalgia, a hint of twilight to this sitting.
<P>
I should like to take this opportunity to point out that the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has always been known for the great deal of internal work it does and for the high level of coordination within the committee.
Above all, I should like to point out that our rapporteur, Mrs Christine Oddy, with her usual skill, has helped, and will always help, make our work easier within the committee.
<P>
At the moment we are debating a directive on certain legal aspects of electronic commerce in the internal market. This directive attempts to harmonise certain aspects of the Member States' legislation, aspects which, in truth, are aspects of private law.
I would say that we are dealing with an area where Member States seem rather small. This area covers the whole electronic commerce sector, the electronic activities sector covering everything from intellectual property to digital signatures and everything related to information services in general, including intellectual property issues.
And not only do the Member States and the European Union seem small but also the world in general as, at a speed of three hundred thousand kilometres per second, borders have no real significance.
<P>
If the European Union did not exist, we would have had to have invented it simply for this.
With the fifteen or twenty or so Member States that will eventually make up the European Union, we cannot maintain different legal systems; rather, we must establish a full, specific and correct code. And, of course, I believe that, by definition, the principle of subsidiarity cannot be invoked at all in this field.
<P>
When it comes to electronic issues, it is true that the beginnings of legislation are beginning to take shape precisely because of the major violation of privacy bringing computers into our homes may entail. On the screen, our children, our friends and our families may be exposed to a flood of information, which may well be unsolicited.
I feel that we are currently exaggerating the cultural elements that set us apart within the European Union.
In the European Union today, for better or for worse and despite national cultural traditions, the basic principles, the principles of law and order and the principles of the protection of morals, rights and minors still apply. I therefore believe that, at the moment, a directive such as this will make it easier to integrate our national legislations through the defence of certain principles that are common to all the Member States.
<P>
Therefore, as a member of the Socialist Group, I should like to express my support for the proposal for a directive as proposed by Mrs Oddy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Cassidy">
Mr President, in common with many other people, this is positively my last performance in this House.
I should like to congratulate the rapporteur who I know has worked very hard on this proposal.
It is a very detailed dossier, a heavily lobbied dossier, as I know to my cost.
As always, when you have a heavily lobbied dossier one of the problems is that the lobbies cancel each other out, which demonstrates how Members of the European Parliament have to be able to cope with lobbyists, like they have to be able to cope with journalists.
<P>
We must not forget, however, that this is a proposal from the Commission.
I would like to congratulate the Commission on having produced a very practical text.
Indeed so practical was it that I withdrew all of my amendments to some of the controversial Articles 12, 13, 14 and 15 and made a suggestion - which I was surprised they rejected - that colleagues like Mr Barzanti and others should withdraw their amendments as well.
But as they did not the EPP will be voting against a number of amendments which were passed in committee.
<P>
One in particular which I feel very strongly about is Amendment No 45, which was originally put in committee by Mr Barzanti, which would allow means of surveillance to be rendered operational on the basis of legislation or codes of conduct.
I am very unhappy about that.
<P>
Mr Barzanti told us that in his ten years here he has concentrated on European culture and protecting it.
Fine. In 15 years here I have been dedicated to Europe being open to world trade and particularly to liberalisation.
The Commission has put forward a liberalising proposal.
It would be very unfortunate if the European Parliament were to appear to be less liberal than the Commission, bearing in mind that we are talking of a very high technology, fast-moving area where Europe is in very grave danger of falling further and further behind the United States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="Watson">
Mr President, I would like to talk about junk mail or 'spamming'.
Junk mail through the post is an inconvenience but junk mail received electronically or by fax is actually charged to the telephone bill of the recipient.
That is why it must be legislated for separately.
I have received 42 pieces of junk e-mail in the last week alone and I can tell you it is a bloody nuisance.
I have not personally received anything offensive but I know a number of my constituents have and 10 % of unsolicited e-mail is now pornographic.
<P>
There are programmes available through which companies can harvest names from the Web and send out vast amounts of e-mail to companies.
A report last year from Novell showed that junk e-mail has cost British and Irish businesses £5b a year.
It also jams up the networks.
We have legal cases pursued by Virgin Net in the UK and Bibliotech in the US, taking the fight against spammers to the courts.
<P>
Last month 23 000 signatures on a petition were presented to the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights of this House.
They call for junk e-mail to be banned.
The opt-out does not work.
There is one in the United States.
It has proved to be unworkable.
I disagree with Ms Oddy.
I believe it ill behoves us as legislators to legitimise a practice which allows advertisers to invite themselves to use other people's telephone bills and to use Internet provider infrastructure to pay for their marketing.
<P>
There is every reason why an opt-in would work.
It gives the consumers the opportunity to request marketing information that they want; it gives advertisers the possibility to target their messages to those who wish to receive them; it gives the Internet providers, who provide access to the Net, the possibility to continue to provide fast, effective and safe electronic e-mail.
<P>
That is why my group is calling for support for Amendment No 70 to this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, now that we can expect electronic trading to become increasingly important, a solid legal framework is needed which offers consumers adequate protection.
This is the only way to make people confident enough to get involved in this form of commerce.
At the same time, consumers must be able to protect themselves effectively against unsolicited e-mail.
I also feel it is extremely important to protect those who are under age and to protect human dignity.
<P>
It is also important to combat illegal activities on the Internet.
I would like to ask Commissioner Liikanen whether the way in which the Committee on Legal Affairs has formulated this in Amendment No 48 is acceptable. Will this not be making Internet service providers into censors?
I have nothing against censorship, but it should be carried out by the police and the courts.
<P>
Finally, I have to say that reading the amendments filled me with enormous respect for the Committee on Legal Affairs.
Take for example Amendment No 23 on recital 22, which has an 88-word sentence that left me completely baffled.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this is an important directive, and will play its part in building the information society.
Christine Oddy's report is, in my opinion, a well-informed, skilful and excellent one.
It is also important for us to ensure that, in enacting legislation, we do not create bottlenecks for businesses in this fast-growing sector.
<P>
I believe, however, that the big problem with the Internet is the protection and freedom of the individual.
The scale of the problem has not yet revealed itself.
This is a historical stage in the process, one in which the global surveillance of people has become possible, and it is the first time civil rights have not been protected by international borders, as they used to be.
In this respect we have entered a new era, and it must therefore be possible to opt out or opt in.
I have also received junk mail, even in a language I do not understand.
For some reason, a lot of it comes in Spanish from one particular sender.
We must be able to put a stop to this. I cannot see how the police can take action, although that is what should be the case.
<P>
I think the European Union needs to take action to create an effective, sound civil rights and protection movement in respect of the Internet.
I would ask the Commissioner whether such a suggestion has been discussed.
It would involve encouraging civil participation at European level, and protecting people's rights, in order to prevent this adverse trend from getting out of control.
As a trading place it must be safe, because that is also in the interest of business.
We must be able to locate criminal material, which should not have to be a job for the police.
The post office, for example, looks out for a bomb, if one is suspected.
The same should go for the Internet.
When a third party sends information, that party can obviously be made liable for the bill, and liability should extend also to cases where a crime has been committed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, my colleague Mr Hoppenstedt has already done a very good job of explaining my group's position on Mrs Oddy's report.
I thank Mrs Oddy for her report, but in the very heated debate that has developed on the subject of electronic commerce in Europe and the thorny issue of on-line content, its origin, its destination and its legality, I think I am justified in stressing that there must be room for freedom of expression on public networks such as the Internet.
<P>
I would like to concentrate on an aspect which particularly concerns satellite providers.
With regard to the responsibility of the on-line network service providers, the initial proposal from the European Commission distinguishes the responsibility of the various players according to what they actually do, without denying the problems of illegal content.
In my opinion there is no point in amending this.
In the transfer of information by satellite, cable or any other means, the network service providers, who are the intermediaries, are not the authors of the content.
They may have to accept responsibility a posteriori for the information that they supply and they may also ensure that there is a priori monitoring at the request of national authorities, but in very specific cases.
<P>
However, they cannot ensure permanent a priori monitoring of all the information - freely available on the Internet - to which they want to offer access.
The network service providers are suppliers of technical services and do not have editorial responsibility.
In a way, they play the role of the printers, which does not mean that they can print whatever they like, but their responsibility is not unlimited.
The Web is an excellent tool for any firm or individual that wishes to make itself known, a tool that should be developed and not censored.
Like my group, I will not vote for Amendments Nos 45, 46, 48 and 51, which have absolutely nothing to do with the issue and which would result in an impractical degree of censorship.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Mr President, I too would like to address my remarks primarily to Commissioner Liikanen.
Ladies and gentlemen, electronic commerce could be a tremendous boost to the economy and create a great many new jobs, jobs that Europe desperately needs.
The proposed directive now before us will remove many obstacles and uncertainties and provide legal certainty and security for all those involved, particularly consumers.
However, as well as the problem of 'spamming' which Graham Watson described, there is another problem too.
Section 4, Articles 12 and 13 of the directive provide that where a service provider is only passing on information passively, it is not liable for the content of that information.
So it is only operating as an intermediary.
<P>
The same applies to the temporary storage of information on the Internet, known as 'caching'.
Indeed, it appears from the explanatory statement to the Commission proposal that the restricted liability actually applies to all illegal on-line activities by third parties, such as unfair competition, misleading advertising and the pirating of copyright material.
<P>
However, two months ago Parliament adopted an amendment to Article 5(1) of the copyright directive specifically bringing caching within the scope of the directive, so that it would be covered by copyright protection, yet caching as such does not involve any individual use of the information supplied.
There is a contradiction here.
I would like to ask the Commissioner something.
These provisions contradict each other ...
<P>
The President cut the speaker off
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="President">
I am sorry, Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, I have to cut you off because we are constrained by speaking time.
I am very sorry.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Bru Purón">
Mr President, I too should like to sing a form of swan song.
For many years - although at different stages - I have been part of this House and I am now saying goodbye to it, not as far as my heart is concerned, as it will always be remembered there, but as far as my usual attendance here is concerned.
I remember many moments in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and, among them, those shared with Mrs Oddy where we always reached similar conclusions on new technology issues that we began debating in the previous term with respect to their incompatibility with copyright.
<P>
I should like to congratulate Mrs Oddy and also my colleagues who have tabled amendments, for example, Amendment No 45, that my dear colleague Mr Cassidy is criticising.
Mr Cassidy, I believe in freedom for men and women.
We must be careful with devastating mechanical technologies that have no consideration for human nature.
There is no reason why the network should eliminate the need for a certain degree of control, which is needed both for our children and for ourselves.
<P>
Octavio Paz said that we are not made for a society whose aim is to produce to consume and to consume to produce.
The fact that messages are sent to create artificial consumption is often distressing to a person, as pornography and other such things are.
I believe that all this rubbish should be controlled.
And I therefore feel that it is a good idea to have a certain degree of control at the centre of this network so that the consumer - which is first and foremost a human being - can tell where the problem comes from.
If we control the network, we create a place for the law, and the law must, of course, be above mere technology.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cederschiöld">
Mr President, forecasts suggest that, within just a few years, 500 million people will be on the Internet.
A whole new market has opened up, as Mr Hoppenstedt has so eloquently argued.
We have here a potential springboard for European growth, but we must avoid taking the kind of political decisions that might force Internet providers to locate outside the Union.
<P>
In Amendment No 36, it is suggested that 'information society service providers must keep all information necessary for the purpose of tracing and identifying providers of illegal content.' This is a crime prevention issue, however, and responsibility for criminal matters lies with the country concerned.
That is the approach taken by our competitor, the United States, and the same principle should apply here.
The State bears the cost of crime prevention and takes the necessary decisions where there is suspicion of serious criminal activity. Very strict regulations and technical provisions may need to be put in place.
<P>
If the proposal in Amendment No 36 were to be implemented, some Internet service providers would be forced to establish themselves outside the Union, which would not be the best way of utilising the growth potential of the new Internet economy.
The net result would be a typical political fudge, based on a misguided attempt to reconcile various societal interests. Such an approach is born, in my view, of insufficient knowledge of the sector.
<P>
The nominee for the office of Commission President, Mr Prodi, spoke on Tuesday of the importance of leading-edge technology for Europe's advancement.
And he was right. It is essential that we build up, rather than undermine, the conditions for growth within the IT industry, particularly from the point of view of small and medium-sized companies, which need to be shielded from storage costs.
Respect for the integrity of companies is also paramount, especially when they are small.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herman">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the development of electronic commerce will have a considerable impact on the whole of society.
It promises to create added value, and therefore jobs.
It is also a world-wide, global phenomenon, and it is unthinkable that we should be left out, as if Europe could be run as an island in the middle of the ocean.
I therefore do not think that we should impose rules and constraints on ourselves that would mean placing ourselves on the fringe of this extremely rich field of development.
<P>
However, I am well aware of the risks that it involves and they must be eliminated or contained.
Having said that, I felt that in this respect the Commission's proposal was very well balanced.
With all that I am hearing, seeing and observing, I am now wondering whether the amendments from the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights have upset this necessary balance.
As most of the speakers from my group have pointed out, I do not think that in order to protect consumers - a concern which is nevertheless quite legitimate - we should at the same time deprive them of all the advantages and all the benefits that this development can bring, both in employment terms and in economic terms.
<P>
This is why I feel it is very important that we take great care to maintain this balance.
This is why, along with my colleagues, I will vote in favour of certain amendments which aim to improve the situation, while on the other hand I will vote against others which I feel have upset the balance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Garosci">
Mr President, those who have been speaking in this Chamber for five years now should no longer feel emotional, but the thought that today is almost the last day of this parliamentary term does move me a little, to say the least.
And since, as a famous writer from my country said, 'there is no certainty in the morrow', I shall take this opportunity to say good-bye and thank you to all the colleagues, officials and interpreters with whom I have shared these five years which have been so important for European integration.
It has been an honour for me to work with many of you.
<P>
The issue being discussed now is one of the most important of all in economic and social terms, both because it particularly relates to young people and because it can lead to many jobs being created.
<P>
Yesterday Parliament voted on my report on the White Paper on commerce, which looks at length and in favourable terms at electronic commerce as well.
<P>
I would also like to thank the Commission, which kept its pledge to produce the Green Paper and the White Paper on commerce within the same term of office, making sure that this sector was tackled comprehensively by the institutions.
<P>
In the White Paper we managed to get the Commission to undertake measures to support enterprises and at the same time to protect end-users.
<P>
The legal aspects analysed today are a vital foundation for regulating and harmonising electronic contracts and future use and developments, on condition that the Internet is accessible to all, accessible but regulated, so as to defend the groups at greatest risk, particularly children, to protect people from unlawful electronic acts and cable intrusion, but to encourage anything which can create jobs and help our culture to grow and flourish.
There can be no Europe without culture, as the great President Delors reminded us.
<P>
Even though much remains to be done in the new Community market, we have shown that it is possible to protect the interests of entrepreneurs and traders, particularly in small and medium-sized enterprises, and at the same time to defend the public in their role as consumers, who are the target and focus of the work of enterprises, both public and private.
Let us continue along this road!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Klass">
Mr President, Commissioner, we live in the information age, and new channels of communication are constantly opening up.
If we use them properly, they will present us with a vast range of opportunities which have to be grasped and which will enhance the competitiveness of European business.
But we do need a uniform legal framework here.
Internet users are bombarded with a barrage of online information. The Member States cannot rely on their national legislation, since there are no national restrictions on electronic commerce.
<P>
For the sake of consumer protection, the Member States and the Commission must press for the development of codes of conduct.
One very important point concerns unsolicited commercial communications.
'Spam' must be clearly recognisable as such to recipients, who must also have a means of refusing it, especially in view of the costs they might incur by opening or downloading such messages.
Greater transparency must be achieved in this area.
Clear labelling of incoming messages is essential so that users are free to decide whether to avail themselves of the services being offered.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, the Commission is glad to know that Ms Oddy's report, which is very thorough, shares the approach and the main lines of the Commission's proposal.
It is particularly important as regards the unanimous backing of the internal market principles underlying the proposal.
<P>

The majority of the amendments in Ms Oddy's report clarify and improve the original proposal and I am happy to indicate that the Commission will accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 4, 6 - the latter in the English version only, 7, 12, 13, 16-20, 22, 24, 32-34, 37, 40, 41, 43, 55-57, 62, 65-67.
Subject to redrafting the Commission is also in a position to accept Amendments Nos 3, 5, 11, 15, 25, 29 and 35 and part of amendments 9, 14, 38, 51, 69 and 73.
<P>
There are, however, a number of amendments the Commission is not in a position to accept for one of the following four reasons.
<P>
Firstly, because their objective and formulation is not sufficiently clear, which could lead to legal insecurity.
This is the case of Amendments Nos 8, 24, 26, 30, 39, 58, 59, 60, 64 and 72.
Amendment No 42 cannot be accepted as such.
However, the Commission recognises that Article 11(1) concerning the moment at which on-line contracts are concluded needs to be reviewed.
The Commission accepts the objective of Parliament's amendment to simplify the process of contracting and will address the question in the amended proposal.
<P>
Secondly, because there would not be consistency with other Community directives or with Community law.
This is the case of amendments which could be interpreted as being in conflict with the rules on the protection of personal data or with principles of Community law: Amendments Nos 10, 28, 36, 70 and 76.
It is also the case of amendments trying to modify the scope of application of the directive in a manner which is not consistent with other information society service directives (Amendments Nos 27 and 63), and of Amendment No 31 changing the proposed definition of commercial communications.
<P>
Thirdly, because they would upset the balance of interests on a number of issues that has been achieved in the original proposal.
Amendment No 48 belongs to this group; there was a question on that.
<P>
This is the case as regards the amendments on the issue of liability of intermediaries from 44 to 54 and 75.
It is a very important sensitive area where particular effort was made in the original proposal to achieve a reasonable compromise solution that takes account of all interests at stake.
It is also the case as regards Amendment No 71 narrowing down the list of contracts established in Article 9 of the proposal.
<P>
Fourthly, because they would be too ambitious at this stage given the level of Community integration.
This is the case of amendments aimed at narrowing down the derogations in Annex 2 of the proposal (Amendments Nos 21, 68 and 74), and Amendment No 61 concerning court actions, although on this last issue the Commission recognises that there is a need to improve the possibilities of redress, especially in cross-border contracts.
<P>
I would like to finish by again thanking Parliament for its work on, and its support for, the proposal.
It will be of fundamental importance for Europe and its citizens to fully reap the benefits of electronic commerce and to strengthen the European position in the global context.
I agree with Mr Paasilinna that all non-governmental activities are welcome in this context.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
Since it is the season for goodbyes, I shall now say my own.
In particular, I should like to tell my colleagues in the Legal Affairs Committee how much I have appreciated the work we have done over the last five years, and to wish the committee every success in the next parliamentary term.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="President">
Mrs Gebhardt has the floor on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gebhardt">
Mr President, I should like to take this opportunity to express my annoyance, and annoyance is too mild a word, because I think it is outrageous that a report which was scheduled for this morning - at least that is what I was given to understand when we voted on the agenda on Monday - should now be postponed.
<P>
The report by a conciliation committee concerning the recognition of young people's vocational qualifications is a very important matter.
As I discovered quite by accident this morning, the report is not to be debated until six o'clock this evening and the vote will take place tomorrow morning; this is not the sort of treatment that such a report merits, because it is about people, about young people.
We in Parliament have said that this is one of our European policy priorities.
I wanted to say that I do not accept the treatment meted out to this report, which is the product of extremely difficult negotiations in the conciliation committee and during the conciliation procedure with the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="President">
Mrs Gebhardt, Fridays are as valid as any other day of the part-session and as long as this is the case you should not assume the contrary.
This matter was included on Friday's agenda by the Conference of Presidents a few part-sessions ago and has never been planned for any other time.
You should have spoken to the chairman of your group to see if it were possible to schedule it for another time.
<P>
In any case, on Friday mornings there is no special quorum requirement and we can vote on this matter quite calmly as no amendments have been tabled either.
It is simply a matter of checking that there is consensus. Fridays are therefore just as valid and as important as any other day.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, I should like to speak on a point of order.
More specifically, I am referring to the order of voting for today.
<P>
Reports that require a qualified majority are usually voted on first.
More specifically, the McCarthy/Hatzidakis report on the general provisions on the Structural Funds should be voted on before the implementing reports, particularly before the Varela Suanzes-Carpegna report and the other implementing reports relating to the framework report on the Structural Funds.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="President">
So, Mr Medina Ortega, what you are suggesting is that we proceed as usual and vote on the reports that require a qualified majority, in this case Mr Pronk's report, before voting on the group of reports on Agenda 2000.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, I am referring to the group of reports including the Varela Suanzes-Carpegna, Jöns, Kellett-Bowman, Colom i Naval and McCarthy/Hatzidakis reports.
The McCarthy/Hatzidakis report is the general report for these four reports and should therefore be put to the vote after the report by Mr Bösch and before the Varela Suanzes-Carpegna report.
This is a simple question of the order of voting as this is the general report and the other four reports are the implementing reports.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="President">
No, the usual order has been followed for these reports: first readings, second readings, assent procedures and consultation procedures.
If we go into which report is the general report, it will all become extremely complicated.
The order has already been established and changing it now would only complicate matters.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, I am in the same embarrassing position as Mrs Gebhardt.
I know that Friday is basically a day like any other: I am always here on Fridays.
But you are setting a dangerous precedent, as Parliament needs to be given the opportunity to reject the results of a conciliation by 314 votes.
That will not be possible.
We have already done this once for the Rothley report.
There had been a conciliation procedure, and we had agreed on the joint text, but Parliament rejected it.
Tomorrow, Parliament will not be able to do that.
I therefore protest, as we should have dealt with the conciliation reports this morning in order to be able to vote on them today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="President">
I am sorry, Mrs Lulling, but the vote on your report requires a simple majority and not a qualified one, otherwise it would have been included in the voting times today.
That is why it can perfectly well be put to the vote tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, I was not aware that conciliations could be treated differently according to their subject.
I do not think that this is the case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="President">
No, there is no question of treating them differently according to the subject.
Also, the Rothley report was rejected by a simple majority.
<P>
One needs to be properly informed before making comparisons.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
Mr President, let me come back to a point we discussed at nine o'clock this morning.
As you will all have heard, Dr Ibrahim Rugova, the winner of our Sakharov Prize, has returned from Kosovo and is with his family in Italy.
This morning, in your absence, we asked that the President and the Bureau should authorise a delegation from this Parliament to visit Dr Rugova in Rome at some time in the next few days.
We suggested this morning that the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, the chairman of the Subcommittee on Human Rights, Vice-President Renzo Imbeni and the head of the Delegation for relations with south-east Europe should travel to see him in order to find out from him how the situation looks in Kosovo, what has been done to him, and where things should go from here.
We ask you to authorise this visit very soon so that we can make our travel plans today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="President">
Mrs Pack, as you and all your colleagues are aware, the Conference of Presidents is responsible for authorising this journey.
The Conference of Presidents is meeting this afternoon and I will put this request to them and recommend that it be approved.
The competent body will therefore take a decision this very afternoon.
<P>
Mr Falconer wishes to speak on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Falconer">
Mr President, on a point of order.
Can you advise me as to whether those people who have telematic lenses have the Bureau's permission to take pictures from the gallery?
Have they been granted permission to take these pictures?
<P>
This point was raised at the last part-session and those people were removed from the gallery, as is only proper and right.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="President">
Mr Falconer, Parliament's services tell me that the photographer who is taking photos has been expressly authorised to do so and is therefore wearing a badge that shows he has been granted permission.
Therefore, if our relevant services have authorised this, it is because it is permitted in the normal run of things.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="McCarthy">
Mr President, I do not agree with your interpretation of how we take the vote on the structural fund programme, because the general regulation is actually the regulation governing every other aspect of the implementing regulations.
If this House does not give assent to the general regulation, there can be no agreement for the regulations that follow on from it.
In terms of legislative logic you need to take the general regulation first, even though that involves only assent, and take the regulations thereafter.
<P>
All you need to do is swop McCarthy and Hatzidakis with Varela Suanzes-Carpegna and then we can follow on logically.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="President">
Mrs McCarthy, I do not see that there is any difference, but so that we do not waste any more time, we are going to vote as you requested. This will stop us using up any more time in a meaningless discussion.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Varela Suanzes-Carpegna">
Mr President, I should simply like to clarify a technical detail.
One of the amendments we are to vote, Amendment No 4, is part of the compromise we reached with the Council. It involves amending the first paragraph of Article 3 of the Regulation by adding a new initiative: the URBAN Community initiative.
If Amendment No 4 is adopted, I would ask that the necessary steps be taken to enable Parliament's services to carry out the technical adjustments needed to adapt the corresponding recital.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="President">
If the amendment is adopted, that will be done.
<P>
Before we proceed to the vote and pursuant to Rule 72(5), I would ask the Commission to make known its position on the amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Mr President, the amendments agreed by the Council, the Commission and your representative, Mr Varela, will be adopted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Representative of the Council">
Mr President, the Council also accepts the amendments as agreed.
<P>
The President declared the common position approved as amended
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
The answer is the same as before.
What was jointly agreed and what was stated yesterday in the debate by Mrs Jöns has the emphatic support of the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Representative of the Council">
Mr President, my position is identical to that of the Commissioner.
<P>
The President declared the common position approved as amended
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Samland">
Mr President, I should like to draw the attention of the House to a necessary addition.
During the conciliation process and the trialogue, we agreed that the text of Amendment No 2 on Article 1(2) must henceforth read: 'this limit may be increased up to 2 %'.
The same agreement applies to Amendment No 1, relating to recital 4.
In the text before us, however, the word 'up' has only been inserted once.
May I ask you, once we have voted, to make that adjustment, so that the word 'up' is also inserted into Amendment No 1.
That is what was agreed between the Commission and the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="President">
Does the rapporteur agree?
Very well.
<P>
I would then ask the Commission and the Council to make known their position on the amendments.
<P>
Mr Liikanen has the floor for the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Liikanen">
That is correct, what Mr Samland said.
The Commission agrees.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="President">
And the Council also accepts the amendments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Representative of the Council">
The Council is also in agreement, Mr President, as established at the trialogue.
<P>
The President declared the common position approved as amended
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Samland">
Mr President, prior to the vote on this subject, there were discussions in the House on the question of the majorities that would be necessary for us to adopt the new interinstitutional agreement and the associated financial perspective.
<P>
I know that you also enlisted the aid of the legal services to try and clear up the situation.
On behalf of the members of the Committee on Budgets, I should like to make the following statement.
Until the present time, the standard practice of this House has been to decide on interinstitutional agreements by a qualified majority.
This means that we reach an agreement on the basis of the last sentence of Article 203(9) of the EC Treaty, which states, in connection with the maximum rate of increase, that 'another rate may be fixed by the Council, acting by a qualified majority, and the European Parliament, acting by a majority of its members and three-fifths of the votes cast'.
<P>
You know as well as I do that neither the Treaty nor our Rules of Procedure - not even the new Rules - regulate the question of voting on interinstitutional agreements.
In this interinstitutional agreement and in the financial perspective, however, we are fixing the maximum rate of increase for the next seven years.
We are thus indirectly taking a decision for which the Treaty explicitly prescribes an absolute majority.
Not only for that reason, but also because of the political need for such a decision to be utterly binding on the Council and the Commission and on Parliament too, I would therefore ask that we proceed on the assumption that this vote requires a qualified majority.
May I ask you to confirm that?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Samland.
I cannot confirm what you are saying.
I have in fact examined the report by the Committee on Budgets in great detail and I have asked the Legal Service to give its opinion.
As mentioned in the note your committee sent - which I have examined in great detail - and as you have indeed said, it is not stated either in the Treaties or in the Rules that interinstitutional agreements require an absolute majority.
What is more, as you are all aware, a past ruling by the Court of Justice from 23 July 1988 states that the majorities required for a decision cannot be stipulated by each institution.
This was what forced us to replace in our own Rules the absolute majority, which was used to grant discharge, with a simple majority instead.
We came to the conclusion that it was not possible to maintain an absolute majority system when it was not enshrined in the Treaties.
This would be an appropriate argument in this instance.
<P>
Along with the Legal Service, I have also examined the argument you have put forward on whether or not this decision in itself covers budget decisions, in other words, whether or not it covers budget decisions which, according to Article 272, require a qualified majority.
I agree with the Legal Service's conclusion that it does not cover budget decisions because the agreement is neither a rule nor a budget decision in itself.
Each year, when the budget is adopted, the President must verify that a sufficient majority has been achieved and has been taken into account.
Then, when the annual budget is adopted, the decision is taken with these majorities.
And you may take a decision that is theoretically contradictory not to reduce certain lines, even though the institutions may have adopted the agreement among themselves. This agreement does not have the force of law and is below the law.
However, it is an agreement that is based on the goodwill of the institutions and it has no regulatory value.
<P>
As a result, we cannot demand a qualified majority if the agreement has no legislative or budgetary value.
And there are rulings by the Court of Justice that confirm this point, which are also quoted in the Legal Service's report which I will make available to you.
<P>
Therefore, taking all these factors into account and to avoid making a mistake that might mean we could be brought before the Court of Justice and then lose - as has already occurred on a previous occasion - there is no other solution but to adhere to the Legal Service's criterion, which states that this vote requires a simple majority. It will therefore be decided by a simple majority only.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, I naturally agree with those arguments since, on the basis of my own examination, I expressed them this morning and yesterday in the Group of the European People's Party.
<P>
I would like to remind Mr Samland, who used a political rather than a legal argument, that this House has often called on the Council to do away with unanimous and qualified majority voting and to adopt agreements by a majority.
<P>
It is a strange political move to ask the Council to do something that we apparently do not wish to respect. This goes against the Treaties, our own Rules of Procedure, the case-law of the Court of Justice and even common sense, which tells us that, in legal terms, an act is an act and only has the value of that formal act.
It does not have the value of its consequences, which do indeed exist but which will eventually have an appropriate legal form, with the majorities required by the Treaty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="President">
I will not go into political criteria.
The President must act in strict accordance with legal and regulatory criteria.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, first of all thank you for that clarification: we must deal with things on the basis of the law and from a legal point of view.
We have to be very careful, because if we act on the basis of political considerations, we change everything, we can keep contradicting ourselves.
We have already seen that this week.
<P>
I think that we need to take this fact into consideration: interinstitutional agreements alter budget annuality, by agreement of the institutions, and they are an integral part of a vision of the budget that we have accepted by mutual agreement.
<P>
In the Colom i Naval report, one paragraph and also Amendment No 27 directly relate to Article 12 of the interinstitutional agreement, an article which alters the maximum rate of increase for the duration of the seven year period.
This is an extremely significant and extremely strong act on the part of this institution.
Paragraphs 8 and 9 of Article 3 in Annex IV of our Rules of Procedure require an absolute majority of Members.
I think that Mr Samland's objection is well founded.
We are protecting ourselves from the Council by demanding that there should be an absolute majority.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to endorse the line of argument advanced by Detlev Samland and to add the following comment: the case-law you have quoted, Mr President, derives from a judgment which states that the institutions may not relax the provisions on required majorities which have been adopted in the Treaty.
This does not, however, mean that the institutions are not autonomous enough to decide to increase the required majority in a particular situation, for example in order to enhance the binding effect ascribed to the maximum rate of increase in Article 203.
This is a further argument in favour of the position taken by the Committee on Budgets.
We are making a change here and are fixing the maximum rate of increase for the next seven years.
The House would do well to ensure that this decision carries the support of a qualified majority.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Colom i Naval">
Mr President, I should firstly like to note that, according to what you are saying, the Legal Service and the President made a mistake in 1988 and 1993 because, by following the Legal Service's report at the time, it was understood on both occasions that a qualified majority was required and it was put to the vote in that way.
But what concerns me now, as I would of course be prepared to correct the error, is your own interpretation of the issue, Mr President.
This is because the agreement we are voting on, as it stands at the moment, provides for the revision of the financial perspectives themselves by qualified majority.
According to the opinion you have expressed, this act would be null and void and would be at odds with the 1988 decision you mentioned.
Therefore, we could not adopt an act which, from what you are saying, is invalid according to the July 1988 decision.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Mr President, I would first of all like to pay tribute to Mr Samland, who we know is in favour of the interinstitutional agreement, and who puts concern for the law and for the political authority of interinstitutional agreements before any other consideration.
<P>
Mr President, if your interpretation is correct, the interinstitutional agreement is inadmissible because it contains a whole series of provisions which require a qualified majority.
If the Treaty really does have to specifically require a qualified majority on every occasion, and limit the cases in which the qualified majority can be extended, then this interinstitutional agreement is inadmissible, as Mr Colom i Naval has just said.
It is void, and you must withdraw it.
<P>
On a more fundamental level, I think that the main issue in this matter is that this Parliament, on its last day, intends to bind its successor and its successor's successor to a fundamental limitation of the budgetary powers laid down in the Treaty, budgetary powers which this Parliament mainly exercises by qualified majority.
It is totally unreasonable and contrary to the Treaty to make a decision by simple majority, as the Treaty states that we have budgetary powers and that we exercise those powers by qualified majority.
We cannot constrain the next Parliament and prevent it from exercising its budgetary powers by a simple majority agreement.
<P>
I would like to add that this agreement follows on from the institutional agreement of 1993, which was agreed by qualified majority and which explicitly states that it can only be revoked by qualified majority.
This new agreement implies the former agreement being revoked and replaced and it must therefore be passed by qualified majority.
<P>
In short, Mr President, at the meeting point of the political and the legal, I think that you are grossly under-estimating the significance of the emergence of interinstitutional agreements in our system.
In ruling after ruling, the Court of Justice, which you cited, is increasingly recognising interinstitutional agreements as fundamental rules.
What you are doing - if you pass this law by simple majority - will mean that, tomorrow, on a misty Friday morning, with a majority of 48 votes to 47, a makeshift Parliament will be able to abolish and destroy not only the financial perspectives, but the entire structure of interinstitutional cooperation that has been put in place over the last twenty months.
<P>
Applause
<P>
You do not have the right, Mr President, to wipe out in this manner something that is one of the foundations of sound interinstitutional operation, namely these agreements which have been drawn up gradually and confidently by the institutions.
We must vote by qualified majority.
Loyal cooperation between the institutions is at stake, as laid down in the Treaty and recognised by the Court.
<P>
Loud applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="President">
I have many requests for the floor but I do not believe that we are here to hold an academic debate; we are here to vote.
Someone must decide, and this responsibility falls on my shoulders. I have studied the matter in detail and I am terribly sorry, Mrs Müller, but our case-law states exactly the opposite of what you are saying: it states that we cannot increase majorities.
It is not that we cannot reduce them but we cannot increase them.
And therefore, where there are none, we cannot establish any.
This is unfortunately how it stands, despite the fact that Parliament is sometimes under the illusion that it may be otherwise.
On the basis of this decision, I have no other alternative but to stick to the criterion that had been reached.
And we are going to vote by simple majority.
<P>
Let us consider the motion for a resolution.
No, Mr Elles, this issue has been dealt with.
I am terribly sorry.
If anyone asks me in writing, I will pass this matter on to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure for future reference. But at this moment in time, someone must decide.
It is my responsibility and I have decided. There will be no vote on this issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, before we come to the vote on the revised Amendment No 27, I would like to question its admissibility.
As this amendment establishes the adoption, in the form of an annex, of a draft interinstitutional agreement, I do not think that it corresponds - either legally or in practice - to what is expected in that context.
<P>
When we have had to vote on interinstitutional agreements, we have had a report and we have had the approval of the interinstitutional agreement, which was proposed in the report.
I am not arguing about issues of majority.
I expressed my position concerning the interinstitutional agreement on the CFSP, and my position has not changed.
<P>
However, we are talking about adopting the text of an agreement - one which considerably alters several parts of the report, albeit only a few paragraphs apart from the explanatory statement - by means of an amendment, following a report which has a different title: I do not think that this amendment is admissible.
Moreover, you took this position in a relatively similar context concerning an amendment that I had tabled myself.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Samland">
Mr President, at its meeting on Monday, which was authorised by you and was properly convened, the Committee on Budgets took its basic decision on the adoption or rejection of the interinstitutional agreement.
A majority of the committee voted for adoption.
Since we could not vote before Monday on the resulting amendments and since you had specially authorised us to meet then, because the trialogue at which we negotiated the outcome with the Council only took place last week, the committee adopted the relevant amendments immediately after voting for the agreement.
These amendments were properly adopted and were presented to the House within the prescribed time-limit.
In that respect, the House is behaving absolutely correctly by proceeding to the final vote now.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="President">
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, the truth is that I see no precept in the Rules of Procedure that prevents us from proceeding in this way, just as we have done so many times.
In other words, we can include a related text with an amendment.
Therefore, I will now put Amendment No 27 to the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, forgive me for taking the floor again, but before the final vote and pursuant to Rule 129 of the Rules of Procedure, I would like to propose that the Colom i Naval report be referred back to committee.
<P>
I think that the discussion that has just taken place, the arguments that were put forward and the conditions in which the vote took place are all arguments in favour of a referral back to committee.
We would therefore be able to leave the next Parliament to decide, immediately after it has been elected, what is going to happen in the next seven years.
<P>
Meanwhile, we will have the opportunity to broach the legal question raised by several speakers, which Jean-Louis Bourlanges explained brilliantly a moment ago.
I therefore propose to the House to vote for the Colom i Naval report to be referred back to committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="President">
Very well, we shall discuss that with one speaker in favour and one against.
You were in favour.
Mr Samland is against, I think.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Samland">
Mr President, for two years we have been discussing this report in committee - yes, for two years!
We have presented more than twenty working papers on it.
At Monday's meeting of the Committee on Budgets we had another four-hour debate, in which Mr Fabre-Aubrespy chose not to participate.
Yesterday we discussed this report comprehensively here in Parliament.
So with all due respect, we can support the report or oppose it, but any move to refer it back would truly be a slap in the face for the rapporteur and the House after all the work they have done.
I move that we proceed to the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Elles">
Mr President, we heard yesterday evening in the debate on this report that our rapporteur himself is not in favour of this particular report.
We have had votes this morning, under the new Amsterdam procedure, in which we have not been able to take individual amendments like Amendment No 28 which would call for a review clause for this perspective which extends - as some speakers have already said this morning - over seven years without any review.
There will be no possibility for a new Parliament and a new Commission to have their say on the matter.
<P>
I therefore support the suggestion of Mr Fabre-Aubrespy to send it back to committee.
We are in the process of negotiating.
We can clarify what is in Parliament's interests.
I fear that if we take this final decision now, Mr President, you will be left with a kind of feeling that you have been acting on behalf of interests outside this House and not the interests of Members themselves.
<P>
Murmurs of dissent
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Jarzembowski">
Mr President, I move that the vote be postponed until tomorrow morning at the earliest, but preferably until September, because the draft still contains two legal defects.
Firstly, it remains unclear whether the Committee of the Regions has been given a role to play.
I personally find it hard to comprehend that the Council should be presenting us with its amended position before it has consulted with the Committee of the Regions to clarify the role it intends to assign to the Committee.
That is an unacceptable error of law.
Secondly, this morning it was still impossible to obtain the correct version of my report from the distribution counter.
The version that was available there this morning for the second reading still indicated the wrong legal basis, namely the Maastricht Treaty.
May I ask you, Mr President, to postpone the consideration of this report until tomorrow at the earliest and to instruct your legal services, which have already been working on this since Monday, to check that the text on which we are to vote contains no errors of law and that it is available tomorrow from the distribution counter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, I have great admiration for Mr Jarzembowski, and in particular I admire the tenacity he shows in pursuit of his objectives.
Having failed to achieve them through the content, because we rejected all his amendments by a large majority in committee, he is naturally trying the legal route, and I certainly have no problems with that.
The only thing is that the legal situation has been unequivocally clarified, by your legal services for example.
We have also proceeded in the manner advised, recommended and urged by Mr Jarzembowski himself in the committee, and even confirmed the first reading in committee.
These matters have been thoroughly discussed, Mr President; I consider it right and proper that we should vote on this today as you proposed.
I would ask you to stand by your view and take this vote today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, I support Mr Jarzembowski's motion for referral back to committee, not only because of his legal argument, which is correct, but also so that the next committee can come up with something better than Mr Jarzembowski managed this time!
<P>
Laughter
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="President">
One possibility would be to adopt the report now and postpone the vote on the communication to the Council until the Committee of the Regions decides whether or not it will give its opinion on the matter. Another possibility would be to postpone the vote until tomorrow as it seems that the Committee of the Regions may give a favourable opinion tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hoff">
Mr President, I was in the Chair on Wednesday evening when this debate took place, and I arranged on Wednesday evening for a check on whether the vote would be held today or not.
There has been enough time to establish that, and so I believe that we should vote today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="President">
To avoid the possibility of our vote being declared invalid, since we do not yet have the opinion of the Committee of the Regions, I suggest that we postpone the vote until tomorrow.
<P>
Parliament agreed to this proposal
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Pronk">
Mr President, we looked at this report yesterday evening, and Mr Flynn, the Commissioner responsible, told us that the Commission accepted all the amendments.
This is in yesterday's Minutes.
So the problem has been solved.
I do not think the Council needs to approve them, because we will be coming back to them later.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="President">
The rapporteur's position is a very sensible one.
We shall proceed to the vote.
<P>
The President declared the common position approved as amended
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Watson">
Mr President, this amendment seeks to protect citizens from unsolicited e-mail which they have to pay for in the form of telephone charges.
At the end of the debate this morning Commissioner Liikanen told us that the Commission would not accept this amendment even if it is adopted by this Assembly.
<P>
I wish to put on record that many of us in this House find it unacceptable that the Commission refuses to accept, for technical reasons, an amendment which is a clear expression of the political will of Parliament.
We must not allow advertisers ...
<P>
The President cut the speaker off
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="President">
Mr Watson, that is not correct.
We are not having a debate now.
I could give you the floor on a point of order but not to make this kind of speech.
<P>
Parliament adopted the legislative resolution
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, things are livening up again, and so they should! I am afraid I have to invoke Rule 129 and request that the report be referred back to committee.
It is not a matter of having no agreement with Mexico, but rather of our perception of our role as a parliament.
A year ago, we decided to approve an interim agreement so that the overall agreement could be negotiated, and at the time we explicitly said that we would not approve the overall agreement until all of its component parts had been negotiated.
And that is precisely what has not yet been done.
If we want to exercise our powers of control, not least on behalf of the European people, we should have absolutely no qualms about putting this agreement on hold and voting on it when all the pieces are in place.
The Mexican Parliament approved the agreement on the proviso that the government would consult it again at the end when the whole agreement was completed.
That is how we see our function here in Parliament, and that is why I would ask you to endorse my motion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="President">
I put to the vote the request for referral back to committee.
<P>
Parliament rejected the request
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="President">
We shall thus move on to the vote.
<P>
Parliament adopted the decision
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, a few moments ago, when I requested, as was my right under Rule 129, that the Colom i Naval report be referred back to committee, Mr Samland felt the need to criticise me for my absence from the meeting of the Committee on Budgets on Monday evening.
That argument is somewhat insubstantial, even more so than the jacket that the chairman is wearing today.
<P>
I just wanted to say that I am obviously very pleased that my absence was noticed, as that proves that something gets done when I am there.
However, on Monday evening there were several important meetings, including that of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, and it was due to the fact that I was sitting on the Committee on Legal Affairs that I was absent from the Committee on Budgets.
I would also like to add that I had attended the previous meeting on 29 April, the one that is mentioned in the report, and that I voted against the Colom i Naval report, which was not altered very much during the committee's meeting on Monday night.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="Titley">
I will be voting today in favour of zero tolerance towards all forms of fraud, as myself and my Labour colleagues have done consistently whenever such issues have come before us.
Cases of maladministration, dishonesty, corruption - whatever you wish to call them - may be rare.
The cost, however, does not just come out of my own, my constituents' and others' pockets - bad enough though that is.
The ultimate cost is borne by the European Union as a whole, which is tainted and labelled a cosy club of crooks in the public imagination.
<P>
The Labour Government lost no time in setting tough new standards in public life in Britain when it came to power two years ago.
By then, 18 years of Tory sleaze had weakened the very fabric of public trust underpinning British democracy.
As a part of this process, the Labour Government also began devolving power from Westminster and bringing it closer to the people.
Indeed, today voters will elect the first Parliament in Scotland for nearly 300 years and the first all-Wales Assembly ever.
In my own region, the new North West Regional Assembly could one day form the basis of regional government for the people of the North West - if they so desire it.
<P>
Labour will not flinch from pushing for the highest possible standards in public life, whether in London, Brussels, Edinburgh or Manchester.
Labour will also continue to argue that decisions are taken as close to the people as possible, whether in Britain or Europe.
<P>
McCarthy and Hatzidakis recommendation (A4-0264/99)
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="Caudron">
On 28 April the European Commission adopted the preliminary draft budget of the European Union for the 2000 financial year, the first year for the new financial perspectives.
<P>
The commitment appropriations proposed for structural measures are in accordance with the European Council decision: EUR 32.678 billion shared between the Structural Funds (EUR 30 billion) and the Cohesion Fund (EUR 2.6 billion), which represents a 7 % decrease compared with 1999, in other words, a large decrease, and to a certain extent, one that is TOO LARGE.
<P>
In order to compensate for this reduction in the budget, we need to increase the efficiency of the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund.
<P>
This is the aim of the draft regulations that we are discussing today.
<P>
The Cohesion Fund is a separate consideration, because it is based on funding by project and not by programme. It may be separate, but it has a determining role in that its aim is economic and social cohesion, one of the missions of the European Union.
This is why there was a need to revise its basic regulations, notably by redefining the key terms and in particular the actual concept of the project, as the Commission's proposal suggests.
I also support the idea of simplifying financial management, and I feel that it is essential to ensure that the Member States take responsibility for the Fund, and to monitor the use that is made of the subsidies granted from it, as otherwise the risk of fraud will be increased.
<P>
With regard to the Structural Funds in general, the Council regulation only envisaged three Community initiatives (Interreg, Leader and EQUAL).
The European Parliament managed to reach a compromise with the Council concerning the inclusion of a fourth initiative, URBAN.
I welcome this.
This initiative, which began life several years ago, has demonstrated how essential it was in urban areas in crisis.
<P>
More specifically, concerning the ERDF, the rapporteur opted for the reasonable solution by not altering our first reading of the Council proposal.
For your information, following the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam and the extension of the codecision procedure, the European Parliament intends to change its position on 49 first readings under the cooperation procedure and on 15 texts adopted at first reading under the cooperation procedure.
The European Parliament only intends to uphold its opinion on three regulations resulting from Agenda 2000, including the one that we are debating today.
In this case this is due to the need to move this forward rapidly.
With the same aim, the rapporteur has proposed compromise amendments to prevent the reform from being blocked.
I think that these amendments (measures in favour of island regions, expanding the ERDF's scope of research, support from the ERDF for the URBAN and Interreg Community initiatives) are appropriate, and I support them.
I hope that the Council will ratify them quickly, as we cannot afford any more delays.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="Costa Neves">
<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="Cunha">
I did not vote in favour of the final resolutions on the reform of the CAP for the following reasons: 1. it does not guarantee restoration of the internal balance between the different components of the CAP or greater fairness between farmers, types of production and regions; 2. it does not help to further economic and social cohesion in European rural areas; mechanisms for weighting productivity in such a way as to benefit farmers with lower yields have not been created, despite the European Parliament's approval of such mechanisms; 3. there are no special support measures for small farmers, who are most vulnerable and run the greatest risk of abandonment; 4. it does not adequately reinforce rural development policy, as it does not ensure practical application of the European agricultural model and the multifunctionality associated with it; 5. it does not defend European agriculture in the face of the negotiations in the new round of the World Trade Organisation; 6. it does not take into account solutions for the main problems faced by Portuguese farmers: strategic quotas such as irrigation or beef cattle and sheep have not been increased; it has not achieved an increase in productivity in relation to cereals and oilseed; it has not secured Community financing for restructuring the dairy sector; 7. lastly, because this has been a reform of the status quo, lacking in political courage and quite incapable of preparing European farming for the increased challenges of globalisation, and geared chiefly towards more efficient farmers and agricultural sectors.
<P>
In other words, it has been a reform very much at odds with the general principles for reform approved by the European Parliament in its general report of June 1998.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="Darras">
The determination and perseverance of the members of the European Parliament's Committee on Regional Policy and of our two rapporteurs have finally paid off.
I welcome this and I thank our colleagues for their persuasive efforts.
<P>
Following the conclusions of the Berlin European Council, our Committee on Regional Policy had to fight on an important issue for all the people of Europe: establishing a fourth Community initiative, URBAN, which is aimed at the economic and social regeneration of cities and urban neighbourhoods in crisis with a view to promoting sustainable development.
<P>
This was one of the priorities for the Group of the Party of European Socialists. We managed to have it adopted by the plenary session in Strasbourg on 19 November 1998, and we had to get it accepted by the Commission and the Council.
Parliament's credibility and our commitment to our constituents were at stake.
The Union needed to also help those who would not be included in a 'zone' or a regional 'Objective'.
Our duty of solidarity was at stake, and our concept of Europe was being put to the test.
<P>
It has been recognised that our point of view is correct.
This is why I will vote in favour of this report and all of the reports that are part of the Agenda 2000 package.
The 2000-2006 perspectives can now be launched.
Parliament is therefore ending this legislature by tying up this issue, one which is paramount for the future of Europe and of enlargement.
It has been a long, arduous and difficult battle, sometimes strewn with obstacles, but it has always been an exciting one, and I am pleased to have been a part of it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="des Places">
The reform of the Structural Funds does nothing to make up for the shortcomings of regional policy. It will not help to improve economic and social cohesion.
It will result in a particularly damaging breakdown of regional policy, notably to the detriment of several rural areas of France.
<P>
We will not waste any time on considering and weighing up each of the measures, which are more or less welcome, that are contained in the general regulation.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations intends to question the supposed benefits of costly Structural Funds, which are tools used by the Commission to gain political favour in order to serve a centralist Europe.
<P>
In this respect, the reform of the Structural Funds has resulted in another increase in funding: ECU 195 billion for structural policy, ECU 18 billion for the Cohesion Fund and ECU 49 billion for the pre-accession instruments.
The Objective 1 regions get the lion's share, with 69.7 % of structural funding, compared with 11.5 % for Objective 2.
<P>
Everyone is competing to be the most eloquent in demanding more funding, but no one is questioning the effectiveness of the money spent.
What is there to say about a budgetary approach which consists of fixing a spending objective rather than a ceiling for spending, seeking out projects at all costs in order to spend all of the funds that have been approved, rather than allocating funds to existing projects?
Spending is becoming an end in itself and the measure of the programme's success.
<P>
It may also seem strange that during the negotiations Objective 2, which is dedicated to industrial and rural regions undergoing economic restructuring, should have been sacrificed, to the benefit of Objectives 1 and 3: its budgetary envelope will be ECU 22.5 billion for the 1999-2006 period, which is more or less the same figure as for the 1994-1999 period.
Rural regions eligible for Objective 5b will be among the main victims of this situation: in France, one third of the population eligible under this Objective will no longer receive structural funding after the transition period.
<P>
The future of rural areas seems to be all the more uncertain given that the Commission and Parliament, always concerned with seizing new fields of competence for themselves, plan to develop an integrated urban policy, in contempt of the principle of subsidiarity.
The Orlando report, which was hastily adopted on Tuesday without even being put to the vote, echoes President Prodi's investiture speech in calling for this European policy for cities.
Once again, the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations would like to reiterate its desire to see the European Union concentrate its efforts on the existing common policies (the CAP, the CFP, etcetera) rather than spreading itself across an ever greater number of sectors, with a danger of worsening the inevitably inefficient scattering of public funds and encouraging an increase in public spending, which is always harmful.
<P>
This is not the only anomaly in the reform of the Structural Funds.
Many regions are benefiting from special treatment, as a result of political bargaining that has enabled them to escape the rigour of joint decisions.
Only three countries are left out of this: Luxembourg, Finland ... and France.
The case of the Belgian Hainaut is significant.
It is receiving an additional allocation of ECU 15 billion in order to compensate for the loss of its eligibility for Objective 1, while the French Hainaut, which borders on it, is receiving nothing; this discrimination is not justified either by the GNP or by the level of unemployment in the two regions.
<P>
This example is quite a good illustration of France's position at the end of the negotiations on Agenda 2000.
Having been undermined by Germany with regard to agricultural issues, France's position on regional policy has been manipulated, while it is also unable to maintain the position that it had within the CAP.
<P>
The reform of the Structural Funds is a failure: a failure for Europe and a failure for France.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations therefore had no choice but to reject the McCarthy-Hatzidakis report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="Klass">
Structural policy has now developed into one of the main elements of Community policy.
About a third of the Community budget is spent on structural support measures.
<P>
We all agree that European structural support cannot be spread evenly across all the regions of Europe.
This implies a reduction in the number of regions considered worthy of support, and hence in the target areas for assistance from the Structural Funds.
<P>
It is a good thing that we have created a phasing-out period for regions, such as many of the Objective 2 areas, which are set to lose their eligibility for support; this will prevent the abrupt termination of programmes that have started well.
However, the support for rural areas for which we had campaigned was not introduced.
We do have the Leader initiative, but that is only a drop in the ocean.
Measuring rural areas in Europe against areas with high population densities is the wrong approach.
The measures of hardship in rural areas are the absence of particular infrastructural facilities and the disadvantages deriving from the economic and social structure.
These shortcomings create a vicious circle, because a lack of infrastructure means a lack of jobs.
People cannot escape from this vicious circle by their own devices alone.
<P>
We have been discussing programmes such as Restruct or Recover, and URBAN is set to become the fourth Community initiative.
<P>
Smaller and medium-sized towns are measured against towns with populations in excess of 50 000.
This is another way in which smaller structures in Europe, including rural structures, are being sidelined.
We want to help the poorest regions in Europe to reduce the gap between themselves and the richest regions.
<P>
In our efforts to do this, please do not let us allow the structurally weak rural areas to slip through the safety net.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="Napoletano">
The decision-making process which led to the establishment of new Structural Funds regulations has been followed attentively by the European Parliament.
<P>
The final result, although it did not include absolutely all of Parliament's requests, was very much influenced by the latter through the work of the Committee on Regional Policy, the rapporteurs and the group which conducted the negotiations.
<P>
Having participated actively in the entire process, I must say that I am particularly pleased with the decision to renew the URBAN programme.
<P>
This result is particularly important for cities, since it reinforces and boosts the credibility of the Action Plan for sustainable cities submitted by the Commission last November in Vienna, and because it reinforces the instruments already contained in Objectives 1 and 2 of the Structural Funds for urban areas.
<P>
Finally, I would like to thank the rapporteurs on the framework regulation for their willingness to tackle the problem of an Italian region particularly close to our hearts.
This is the Abruzzi region, which was removed from Objective 1 of the Structural Funds in 1994.
It is the only region in Europe which has not been able to benefit from any flanking measure provided for under the new regulations for former Objective 1 regions.
<P>
The Berlin European Council mentioned this as one of the 'special cases' which are listed as an annex to the report which we are about to approve.
Nonetheless, paragraph 44 of the Council conclusions does not detail what is meant by the special attention which the Council quite rightly intends to pay to this region.
<P>
I hope that Parliament's requests will lead both the Council and the Commission to quantify the funding and/or population size allowed and clarify the possibility of granting state aid by way of exception to the competition rules under the terms of Article 92(3)(c) of the Treaty, as has been done in other so-called 'special cases'.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="Schroedter">
I voted for the report.
The European Parliament has significantly improved the Commission proposal.
The changes will primarily benefit the people in the regions of Europe.
Their participatory rights have been decisively strengthened.
It is a great pity that the Council has been reluctant to adopt these wide-ranging rules.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="Titley">
I will be voting enthusiastically in favour of this report today.
Building on the work of Labour MEPs, Tony Blair gained a great deal for Britain - and the North-West in particular - at the Berlin Summit.
As a result, European funds will continue to flow into the North-West to help tackle unemployment, social exclusion and environmental pollution.
This is just another example of Labour's positive approach to Europe delivering concrete results to the people of Britain.
<P>
Euro funds have already made a lasting improvement to the lives of the people of the North-West.
In my own part of the world in Manchester, the EU has pumped 13 million pounds into the Metrolink light rail network.
The EU also helped build the Trafford Park industrial estate, creating over 15, 000 jobs.
Euro money was a key element in transforming the old Manchester docks at Salford Quays into a vibrant commercial centre, creating over 4, 000 jobs.
EU funds also helped transform Manchester into a major cultural and tourism centre, by helping build the G Mex Exhibition Centre, the Bridgewater Concert Hall, The Manchester Museum of Science and Industry and the Imperial War Museum (North).
<P>
The Euro-rabid Tories - the ones led by William Hague, that is - would have us believe that the EU brings us nothing but bureaucracy and interference.
With a positive approach, however, the EU can make a real contribution to the lives of ordinary people in the North-West.
While the Tories are taking time off trying to heal their splits, Labour is hard at work making Brussels work for Britain.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="Trizza">
On behalf of Alleanza Nazionale I would like to say how glad I am that before being dissolved Parliament has commented on the reform of the Structural Funds.
Misunderstandings by the Commission and the Council threatened to undermine the result of painstaking work, with the risk of reducing negotiations to a trial of strength between the institutions.
<P>
We are delighted to have established, together with the texts of the new regulations, a starting point enabling us to be actively involved in the management of the funds, which is also facilitated by the code of conduct drawn up between the Commission and Parliament on the implementation of the structural policies.
This will allow Parliament to play an active role in the reform, including in the implementation stage and throughout the programming period.
<P>
The fact that URBAN is to be included once again amongst the Community initiatives is a victory for all European citizens.
The key role of urban and metropolitan areas in regional development must be acknowledged.
<P>
The importance of balanced and complementary growth in urban and rural areas is essential for economic and regional development.
To this end it is necessary at all levels to enhance cooperation between regional and local authorities and socio-economic operators, those closest to the changing world of the regions; it is also necessary, however, to take account of the competitive differences between regions because of the different levels of employment, quality of infrastructures, the natural environment and development, in particular during the sensitive stage that is just starting with the selection of regions which are eligible under Objective 2.
<P>
In general terms we are in favour of reform, but we have a few reservations about aspects which have not yet been explored in sufficient detail, such as, for example, the impact on regions which, for the sake of the principle of concentration, run the risk of seeing their development process come to a standstill.
People living in these regions will be penalised and that will not help show that the European Union assists the development of less favoured regions.
<P>
Italy too runs the risk of being penalised by the calculation of the financial resources ceiling for the new Objective 2.
Regions in industrial or rural decline (former Objectives 2 and 5b) will have their share of funding reduced compared to the previous programming period, with a guaranteed maximum reduction of 33 % of the population concerned; to this percentage, however, would be added the figure accounted for by the inclusion of former Objective 1 regions, causing these regions to be doubly penalised; and this is leaving aside the case of Abruzzi - the only region removed from Objective 1 before the end of the current programming period - which, hovering somewhere between transitional support and inclusion in Objective 2, runs the risk of not being fairly included in this reform framework.
<P>
Colom i Naval report (A4-0230/99)
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Mr President, we are all aware of the conditions in which the vote took place on Mr Colom i Naval's report.
Although it did not have my support, I would like to say that, as budget rapporteur - if I am to continue in this role in the future, something which only God and the electorate know - my group and I are fully prepared to be as loyal as possible in the spirit of interinstitutional cooperation.
Our contempt for the agreement was not a reflection of a contempt for cooperation. It reflected our contempt for a risky and excessively restrictive seven-year financial programme.
<P>
I repeat what I said a moment ago: I simply regret the fact that the vote took place under circumstances which mean that this agreement is tainted with uncertainty and which mean that it is at the mercy of any occasional vote from Parliament.
I still say, Mr President, that on this point you did not help the cause of interinstitutional cooperation by favouring the voting rule that you chose.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I voted against the Colom i Naval report, in particular for the procedural reasons that were mentioned at the time of the vote and which I mentioned myself.
<P>
It is not acceptable for the report as presented by the Committee on Budgets to include an amendment that goes a great deal further than the object of the report itself. This is true to the extent that it has now been placed in an totally ambiguous situation, given that at the time when we considered the report in the Committee on Budgets on 29 April, there was no question of approving the text of the agreement.
<P>
I would like to add to what Mr Bourlanges said a moment ago, that institutional agreements cannot be considered separately.
It is the entire procedure that is wrong.
It is wrong, firstly because there is not an absolute majority, something which you yourself insisted on for the interinstitutional agreement of 17 July 1998 on the common foreign and security policy, an agreement that I fought along with my group. Secondly, it is wrong because the national parliaments have not ratified texts which add to, alter and refine the Treaties, sometimes to a considerable degree.
<P>
What Mr Bourlanges has just said concerning the budgetary aspect is therefore particularly true, but he should have extended his comments to all interinstitutional agreements.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw, Palm and Sandberg-Fries">
We welcome the idea of a new interinstitutional agreement on budgetary discipline for the next seven years.
Experience with the financial perspective over the period 1988 to 1999 has shown that annual budgets can perfectly well be implemented without conflict.
It was also possible to adopt budgets which fell well below the revenue-based ceiling of own-resources.
We believe in financial parameters for the annual budgetary procedure, particularly given the pre-accession arrangements and the measures required in that context.
It is important for the EU to ensure that it has the financial resources necessary for admitting the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, as well as Cyprus.
<P>
We support this proposal for a lower financial ceiling than that established in the CAP guidelines.
The EU spends far too much money on an over-regulated system of agriculture which is not sufficiently adjusted to today's environmental requirements.
Reform of the CAP must be pursued.
We also believe that the best way of funding European policy is by concentrating on those measures that are absolutely vital, rather then creating mini-budgets which swallow up large amounts of the Member States' money.
We therefore support the Council's endeavour to produce a tight budget covering the whole period.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="Cederschiöld and Virgin">
Since we seek budgetary restraint as far as the EU is concerned and advocate a lean financial perspective with well-founded priorities, we oppose the suggested increases in the EU's budget for the coming years. We voted in favour of referral back to committee.
Financial perspectives extending over seven years, with no scope for adaptations in between, make no structural sense; the economy could at any time require alternative parameters.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, allow me to ask you just one question concerning the McCarthy report.
A moment ago, you postponed a report because we did not have the opinion of the Committee on the Regions.
I think that the same argument is valid for the McCarthy report.
Could you confirm this for me?
If this is the case, why was the vote not postponed?
I do not think that we have the opinion of the Committee on the Regions yet on these general provisions concerning the Structural Funds.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="President">
The services tell me that the opinion of the Committee of the Regions on this report was not necessary, and no one requested this opinion during the procedure, as had been the case with the other report you mentioned.
<P>
Now that the vote has taken place, it is rather late to ask whether this opinion was necessary or not.
The question should have been raised beforehand.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="des Places">
The Collins report proposes the continuation of the Cohesion Fund for the four beneficiary Member States: Spain, Portugal, Greece and Ireland.
<P>
The Cohesion Fund was set up in order to encourage certain Member States to join the single currency: Community funds were allocated in order to enable them to cope with the budgetary tightening that was imposed by the Maastricht criteria.
<P>
To ease the burden caused by the four Member States that benefit from the Cohesion Fund, payments were also made to other Member States, including France, to cover the cost of the convergence criteria.
I could add that the Cohesion Fund contributed to the conjuring trick that made some Member States into miracles of monetary union.
<P>
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, which fought against the very principle of the single currency, must consequently have reservations about the Fund and the use that is being made of it.
The policy of redistribution, when taken to such extremes, has overwhelming repercussions for the economy, as it weighs down private initiative with the burden of obligatory deductions.
<P>
Moreover, there are serious faults in the Cohesion Fund: in particular, its efficiency is questionable and there are financial irregularities in the way that funds are used.
<P>
In addition, it is a tool for federalist redistribution, whose aim is more to gain support for the Commission among the beneficiary Member States and their people rather than to enable them to overcome their difficulties.
<P>
The only merit of the Cohesion Fund is that it is allocated to Member States and not to their regions, as is the case with the Structural Funds.
<P>
The launch of the single currency is in danger of worsening the imbalances between Member States and causing an increase in relocations, either towards states or regions that are more competitive than others, or away from regions that are in difficulty towards the dominant economic centres that we are already seeing emerge (north-west Germany, the Benelux countries, Ile-de-France, northern Italy).
In this context, the Cohesion Fund will perhaps enable us to limit the damage done by EMU, but it will nevertheless fall very far short of what is needed.
<P>
This is why the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations could not vote in favour of the Collins report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 NAME="Schroedter">
The Green Group votes against the recommendation on the Cohesion Fund Regulation because most of the innovative requests expressed by the European Parliament in the first reading aiming to strengthen and integrate the role of the Cohesion Fund within the European structural policy have not been taken into serious consideration in the new regulation.
Parliament actually: - opposed the conditionality of the Cohesion Fund vis-à-vis the stability pact, because it believes that the Cohesion Fund must be considered in full terms a structural instrument; - considered that the Cohesion Fund should be subject to the same partnership rules applying for the Structural Funds, and that its operations are planned within an integrated framework together with the structural operations, involving regional and local authorities; Parliament also wished that mainstreaming horizontal themes such as employment and equal opportunities should be taken into account in the Cohesion Fund in the same way as in the Structural Funds; - asked that Cohesion Fund resources in the fields of transport and mobility are used to fund projects which improve regional and interregional cohesion, interoperability and intermodality, and in the field of the environment are also used to fund projects to maintain and restore biodiversity and preserve natural reserves; - stressed the importance of being able to group together small projects into a bigger entity and demanded therefore that some 5 % of the total fund endowment be made available for projects of this kind.
<P>
The Green Group considers those requirements fundamental and therefore is not content with the agreement reached in the Council to maintain the Cohesion Fund without deeply reforming it.
<P>
Considering that the text of the regulation agreed in the Council of Ministers did not take into account all these points, we cannot give our assent to the launch of the Cohesion Fund.
<P>
Görlach second report (A4-0229/99)
<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="Querbes">
For several years, the people of the European Union have been demonstrating more and more clearly their rejection of ultra-liberal policies and the damaging effects that they have on employment, incomes, social protection systems and public services, the environment and land use.
<P>
They want quite the opposite: a shift towards European policies whose aims and methods are social and democratic progress and the establishment of mutually advantageous international cooperation.
<P>
These demands are being expressed through campaigns and demonstrations at national and European level.
They have met with a response, even in Berlin, where the Commission's most ultra-liberal plans were rejected.
Nevertheless, the interests that are best defended are those of the major economic and financial players at European and international level.
<P>
However, this debate is also an open one, as the European Parliament elections take it to the level of all of the people of Europe.
It is now up to them to have their say on the reform of European policies and integration.
<P>
By voting against the ultra-liberal regulations of Agenda 2000, I want to give those people every opportunity to intervene.
<P>
Görlach, Mulder, Graefe zu Baringdorf, Garot, Goepel, Fantuzzi and P. Martin second reports (A4-0229/99, A4-0213/99, A4-0231/99, A4-0212/99, A4-0232/99, A4-0215/99 and A4-0223/99)
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="Barthet-Mayer">
The debate on Agenda 2000 has lasted more than a year, and has taken up the bulk of the work of Parliament's Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
At the end of my mandate, in May 1999, my political positions on social issues such as agriculture, food, rural development and the environment remain the same.
The reform of the CAP was necessary, but not in the form proposed in Agenda 2000 by the European Commission.
In our debates we have demonstrated a certain level of consensus on what we now call the 'European agricultural model', which on many points is at odds with the ultra-liberal aims of the countries of the Cairns Group and of the United States.
<P>
I therefore voted against the reports which had not been sufficiently amended by Parliament and which therefore lose their meaning and substance. What is more, some rapporteurs share my position.
<P>
1.The Görlach report as it stands, with a budgetary allocation that is far too small, does not allow the implementation of a real policy of rural development, which is more necessary than ever in order to guarantee a worthy and lasting future for the rural areas of the EU (80 % of EU territory).2.The Mulder report mentions in a recital the possibility of cofinancing, which we opposed because in the long term it would mean the destruction of the CAP and of the objectives of the Treaty.3.The Graefe zu Baringdorf report did not allow for a coherent mechanism to reorganise and limit agricultural aid according to social and environmental criteria, and following the amendments adopted in committee, the rapporteur himself will probably not recognise an amended text which is too far removed from his original text.4.With regard to the Goepel report on milk, it did ensure the maintenance of some sort of status quo, but it envisaged the possibility of abolishing milk quotas.However, I voted for the reports in which Parliament's firm position had significantly altered the uncompromising or inadequate nature of the Commission's proposals:
<P>
5.The Garot report, in which the skill and determination of the rapporteur meant that the beef sector could be partly protected, particularly suckler herds, which maintain the countryside, give structure to rural production, guarantee income for quality production without hormones, and safeguard the environment.6.The Martin report, the text of which my colleagues and I have altered considerably in a manner that favours all of the wine-producing industry - some parts of the industry have already said so - particularly with regard to the definition of wine, the ban on producing European wines with must imported from third countries and the preservation of traditional oenological practices and therefore of the quality that underlies our European cultural identity.7.The Fantuzzi report on COPs, even though the treatment of oil proteins is still far from satisfactory.I am convinced that European farmers and consumers will therefore understand the way in which I have voted and will be aware of the battles that still have to be fought in order that European construction may have a future in this field.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="Gahrton, Holm and Schörling">

We abstained in the votes on the Görlach, Graefe zu Baringdorf, Garot, Goepel, Fantuzzi and Martin reports, since we believe that the entire EU agricultural policy should be wound up. Responsibility for efficient, ecological farm policy must be returned to the Member States.
<P>
Graefe zu Baringdorf second report (A4-0231/99)
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="des Places">
As a member of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and coordinator of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, I voted against all of the amendments tabled by our rapporteur, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, as his proposals were completely incoherent with regard to the economic situation of European agriculture.
I was pleased to see that the majority of my colleagues in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development came to the same conclusions as I did.
This is why no amendments to the Commission's proposal were adopted in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
<P>
All of the French members of the Europe of Nations Group voted against the legislative resolution, bearing out the Berlin agreement on this point.
<P>
European agriculture is in a very bad situation.
The price of agricultural products is falling steadily, as the principle of Community preference gradually disappears.
The globalisation of trade in agricultural products is not an empty word, but a reality that our farmers are experiencing.
<P>
The forthcoming negotiations in the World Trade Organisation lead me to fear the worst for the years to come.
Did Commissioner Fischler not say yesterday in this House that he envisaged a fresh reform of the common agricultural policy in 2003?
The fact that the date given in that statement coincides with the end of the negotiations in 2003 is surely not a coincidence.
<P>
Direct support for farmers is necessary, and it is essential for some sectors of agriculture.
For example, the sector that currently receives the most aid is sheep farming.
It is completely absurd, given farmers' level of income, to try to put a ceiling on aid and to reduce it steadily.
In France, sheep farmers have the lowest income among farmers.
<P>
A direct and across-the board reduction in compensatory aid will therefore upset the balance in European agriculture.
The only European producers that will survive will be those who are most competitive at world level.
The environmental balance and the balance of land use and use of agricultural land will be completely upset in the years to come if the policy of destroying the CAP continues as it was launched in 1992.
<P>
P. Martin second report (A4-0223/99)
<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="Lulling">
Politics, as we all know, is the art of the possible.
This being the case, I suppose I shall have to bring myself to give my approval in the end to the reports on the reform of the common agricultural policy in the framework of Agenda 2000, and thereby to give the green light for the political decision of the agriculture ministers and the Berlin summit to be adopted in legislative form by the Council.
<P>
Needless to say, I cannot be enthusiastic about the results of Berlin summit in terms of the common organisation of the markets in milk, beef and cereals.
But these are the lesser of two evils when compared with the Commission proposals and are even an improvement on the outcome of the Agriculture Council discussions.
Whether this compromise will be enough to save the European agricultural model is, unfortunately, a matter for conjecture.
<P>
As far as the reform of the common organisation of the wine market is concerned, I can live with that, but I should feel more comfortable with it if the compromises proposed in the second Martin report were taken on board by the Council.
<P>
Surely it is unacceptable that wine-growing areas should suddenly appear in Ireland, Denmark and Sweden, thereby raising the spectre of wine being produced there in future with imported grape juice and being marketed as a product of the Community.
<P>
It is also a pity that the splendid chapter on vinicultural products and health which we had included in our report was not retained.
We have reintroduced it into the second Martin report, because we cannot give up our hope of contributing to public health in the European Union by extolling the benefits of moderate wine consumption to the peoples of our countries who are unaware that wine is actually the best and most pleasant preventive medicine for Alzheimer's, cancer and senility, to name but a few malignant and debilitating diseases.
<P>
Pronk recommendation for second reading (A4-0155/99)
<SPEAKER ID=142 NAME="Skinner">
The European Parliamentary Labour Party is in opposition to Amendment No 7 of the report because it has unnecessary repetition of existing EU legislation and lack of specific clarity on the issue of adaptation of machinery or replacement of all machinery whether or not it was practical to do so.
<P>
Oddy report (A4-0248/99)
<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="Iversen, Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats have voted in favour of a proposal on electronic commerce which will safeguard consumers' interests on the Internet and at the same time remove barriers for service providers that are established in the EU.
We have voted in favour of a large number of practical requirements aimed at improving the protection of consumers' interests.
<P>
The principle that the rules of the country of origin will apply with regard to Internet commerce has both advantages and disadvantages.
It is an advantage for the Internet industry that they are subject to regulations in their home country, since they then know the rules.
Conversely, it may be a problem that the consumers do not know the rules.
We have therefore voted in favour of increasing the rights of the consumer, including a requirement that the Member States must take measures to ensure that consumers can have themselves entered in an opt-out register, which the service provider must then check regularly.
As a general principle, the Danish Social Democrats are working to ensure the strictest possible EU minimum requirements with regard to marketing on the Internet.
If common rules are ultimately adopted which raise the level of consumer protection in every country, it will become less important whether it is the rules of the country of origin or those of the recipient country that apply.
<P>
Miranda de Lage recommendation (A4-0220/99)
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="Bonde, Lis Jensen, Krarup and Sandbæk">
Several factors have been instrumental in our refraining from voting in favour of Mrs Miranda de Lage's report on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning the conclusion of the Economic Partnership, Political Coordination and Cooperation Agreement between the European Community and its Member States, on the one part, and the United Mexican States, on the other part.
The negotiations between the parties to the agreement will not be concluded until late in the year.
To accept the Commission's proposal regarding the content of the agreement at this point will therefore be tantamount to giving the Council and the Commission a blank cheque for the negotiations.
We wish to see the final result before we reach a decision on the extent to which we can support it.
<P>
The Commission's proposal for the agreement is a distinct improvement on the present framework agreement on cooperation, dating from 1991, which it is to replace.
In particular, the democracy clause (Article 1) is an important step forward.
What is lacking, however, is a clear specification of the mechanisms that are to be used to monitor the extent to which the parties are respecting human rights.
Without such mechanisms, the clause is essentially useless.
Bearing in mind Mexico's continual infringements of human rights, this is wholly unacceptable.
Moreover, the proposal does not contain any indications as to how the involvement of civil society can be promoted and how respect for workers' rights can be ensured.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 NAME="Howitt">
Whilst congratulating and supporting the rapporteur and my esteemed colleague, Mrs Miranda de Lage in relation to her work on Mexico, as for Latin America as a whole, I have to record my personal reasons for voting against ratification of this agreement.
<P>
It is less than a year since Parliament ratified the Interim Agreement on the basis that the human rights clause it contained would be a test of the Mexican Government's seriousness in ensuring human rights cooperation was central to relations with the EU.
We also expected that human rights issues would play a central role in negotiations between the Mexicans and the European Commission.
<P>
Meanwhile the human rights crisis in Chiapas, southern Mexico, continues to deteriorate, and we have no evidence that the negotiations for clear mechanisms for the application and monitoring of the democracy and human rights clause have been included in the negotiations.
<P>
Our sister party, the PRD in Mexico and human rights NGOs believe it is premature for this Parliament to ratify the full agreement.
<P>
I share their view.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="van Dam">
The way this whole Mexico report has been handled has been deeply disappointing.
By dealing with the proposal now, the European Parliament has not kept to what it said earlier.
In its report of April 1998, Parliament said that it would not approve the overall agreement until it was clear exactly what it contained.
At the moment, the European Union is in the middle of negotiations with Mexico, and the substance of a number of provisions in the overall agreement will not be established until the end of this year.
We feel that Parliament has acted irresponsibly by voting on the report now, as this will simply be signing a blank cheque and we will have no further influence in the matter.
<P>
Apart from these procedural objections, there were also aspects of the substance of the report that led us to vote against the agreement with Mexico.
The rapporteur has seriously misrepresented the human rights situation in Mexico.
She talks about recent progress in the field of human rights and lists all kinds of formal measures that Mexico has taken.
But in practice the protection of human rights in Mexico is still far from perfect, as we can see from the unlawful executions and the continuing gang warfare in Chiapas.
The overall agreement contains no mechanisms for enforcing compliance with human rights.
<P>
Our second objection concerns Mexico's environmental policy, which the rapporteur does not even mention, although we and others provided her with information about it.
The planned construction of an enormous new salt production plant threatens not just a Unesco-protected nature reserve but also various species including the grey whale, which comes to these waters to calve.
If Mexico persists with these dangerous plans, then despite the trade agreement we must keep the option open of imposing a trade boycott in the form of an import ban on Mexican salt.
<P>
Aglietta report (A4-0169/99)
<SPEAKER ID=147 NAME="Berthu">
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations did not vote for the Aglietta report on the implementing powers conferred on the Commission, mainly because the European Parliament is seeking to distort the meaning of certain new provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam in order to alter the institutional balance to its benefit.
<P>
Although the Treaty of Amsterdam extended the scope of codecision between the Council and the European Parliament, it certainly did not make it the general rule.
Above all, it did not modify Article 4 of the Treaty on European Union, which gives the European Council (and thus the hierarchy of the different Councils) the role of instigating EU policies, nor did it modify Article 202 of the EC Treaty, which gives the Council the sole responsibility for determining the implementing powers that will be conferred on the Commission.
This being the case, even if Parliament increases its influence, it is clear that the Treaties still place the Council at the centre of the institutional system.
<P>
We therefore think that the Aglietta report, which claims for the European Parliament the right to interfere in implementing measures, particularly through the granting of the right to revoke a decision, contradicts the philosophy of the current institutions of the Union.
<P>
Moreover, it is questionable whether it is actually in the interests of the European Parliament to claim such a right.
Due to the lack of distinction between a law and a regulation at European level, the European Parliament is already forced to spend a considerable amount of time on trivial issues.
If it also had to take part in implementing powers, the situation would be even worse.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 NAME="Bonde">
I must first of all congratulate Mrs Aglietta on the quality of her work and the results that she has achieved in ensuring that the various committees involved in the process of adopting implementing powers are forced to be transparent.
<P>
The battle that I have been fighting since I was first given a mandate is finally bearing fruit, thanks to the perseverance of a rapporteur who has always been willing to listen and with whom I have had great pleasure in working.
<P>
The amendments made to the Commission proposal that the Council is prepared to accept considerably improve access to information on the Community decision procedures; these procedures are too secretive, whether they concern the work of the committees, the documents submitted, the agendas, the list of participants or the committees' work schedule.
<P>
I also attach particular importance to the rule of adhering to the principle of making everything public, with confidentiality being the exception (Amendment No 31).
I hope that once this principle has been laid down, it will not be reduced to nothing by a lack of serious motivation to determine the degree of confidentiality.
<P>
However, there are some criticisms to be made of other aspects of the report.
They are the aspects that extend ad infinitum the scope of Community regulation, and which now call for a simplification of the existing procedures, following the bureaucratic and administrative obstructions that they have caused.
We should remember this lesson when the Treaties are next revised and come to an agreement once and for all on the scope of Community powers.
<P>
Respect for the principle of subsidiarity would be a first step, but that does not feature in the report.
On the contrary, this supposed simplification is a pretext for reinforcing the supranational dimension of the European Union.
The Commission, which already has a monopoly on initiative, would thus seize executive power in Europe to become the government of the European Union, with the Council being reduced to the role of a second parliamentary chamber, making decisions by majority.
<P>
It is a step forward for the committees to be working in an open and transparent manner, but to cut them off from national concerns in carrying out their duties in order to put them under the power of the Commission is a mistake which I reject.
<P>
Resolution on Kosovo
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, like many people from France and other European countries, we are appalled by the increase in the exodus of Albanians from Kosovo and by the parallel escalation in NATO bombing.
<P>
This disastrous development of events, which is contrary to all the assurances that we were given at the start of the war, and contrary to the humanitarian objectives of the war itself, can only reinforce the doubts that we had expressed from the start concerning the strategy being used.
<P>
We feel that Europe is adding another error to this initial one, an error that has very serious consequences for the future.
Both from listening to the speeches made by Members during the debate that has taken place in this House, and from listening to the speeches made by the President of France, I am struck by the fact that analyses of the deterioration of events only implicate Slobodan Milosevic personally, his family and his inner circle.
Although their responsibility is undeniable, we cannot restrict the causes of the conflict to those people alone.
On the contrary, it is clear that the conflict was born out of very ancient disagreements that are deeply ingrained in the various peoples that are involved.
<P>
What is even more serious is that this error of judgement is in danger of guiding us towards the wrong solutions.
Implicating solely Slobodan Milosevic and his entourage insinuates that it would be enough to overthrow them in order for everything to be put right, for the Kosovar Albanians to return to their homes and for everyone to live in harmony in a multi-ethnic Kosovo.
In our opinion, this would be delusive, or at least it would take a long time and a great deal of effort to achieve it.
However, if we are willing to recognise that there are deep-seated quarrels involving the people themselves, and that these are difficult to eradicate in a short space of time, we will realise that we need to also consider other solutions, certainly including, for example, the partition of Kosovo.
<P>
We therefore call on the Heads of State and Government of the countries of Europe to rethink their strategy and to stop falling into line with the United States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Ripa di Meana">
Mr President, I voted against.
<P>
This war is governed by lies, unilateral propaganda, cover-ups and omissions.
To start with, there is the semantic confusion: the air war against the whole of Yugoslavia is described as the 'situation in Kosovo'.
The NATO aerial bombing of civilian targets - power stations, television headquarters, schools and buses - is defined as an 'involuntary error' or 'collateral damage'.
The reciprocal ethnic atrocities are always attributed to just one side and not to the others.
In the documents approved by the majority in this House, there is no mention of the terrorist activity of the KLA, armed, financed, trained and politically adopted by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
<P>
And thus, although in the last few days some opportunities for negotiation seem to be emerging, with Ibrahim Rugova travelling freely to Rome and the three American soldiers being released, this Parliament, in its last few hours of work, opts to be led down the humiliating path of NATO propaganda with this vote on Kosovo, and fails in its political role.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 NAME="Castagnetti">
I voted against this resolution because it contains no contribution from the European Parliament to help us get out of an avoidable, terrible, and to cap it all, ineffective war.
<P>
The resolution makes no reference to the glimmers of hope for a negotiated solution which have been appearing in the last few hours.
There is no assessment of the absolutely trifling role played by Europe.
<P>
Finally, the resolution does not include the call for a targeted suspension of the bombing which emerged from the debate here in the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 NAME="Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
Our party strongly repudiates the Milosevic regime's practice of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. Milosevic bears a formidable responsibility for the persecution of the Kosovo Albanians.
NATO's bombardments, however, have merely worsened and aggravated the situation.
We believe that the bombing must stop immediately, in parallel with a Serb withdrawal from Kosovo.
All refugees must be granted the right to return home under the protection of UN forces, comprising troops from neutral states and operating on the basis of a peacemaking mandate.
Subsequently, an international conference on the Balkans will need to be convened under the auspices of the UN and the OSCE, the aim being to stabilise the situation in the region and to guarantee Kosovo a high degree of autonomy within existing borders.
<P>
In the light of our principled stance on this issue, we decided to vote against the resolution, which does not correspond to our position on a number of important counts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="Papakyriazis">
I shall be voting against the motion for a resolution on Kosovo because I believe that it offers no help whatsoever in our quest to find a political solution and in putting an end to this senseless war, especially now when, after 45 days, there are the glimmerings of hope of breaking out of this tragic impasse.
<P>
Furthermore, my position is underpinned by the following:
<P>
1.My question to the Council H-0387/22-4-99 was considered, correctly and from a strictly procedural viewpoint, to belong to the general debate on Kosovo.
However, this question remains unanswered and it is: -Is the Council aware of the allegations and reports in the international media that NATO bombing and the war in Yugoslavia have destroyed or irreparably damaged monuments forming part of the European cultural heritage, including Christian Orthodox monasteries and churches?-If these reports prove to be true: a)what does the Council propose to do to stop this irredeemable loss andb)what does it propose to do to repair the damage, as far as that is possible?This question relates in particular to a 'cultural war crime' which is being committed in Europe, in Yugoslavia, where an 'environmental war crime' is also being committed.
<P>
The war in Yugoslavia, which is hypocritically and euphemistically referred to as a 'humanitarian war'(!!!), has caused major civilian losses and has exacerbated the tragedy of the refugees.
This, of course, is the main issue and the main reason for demanding the immediate cessation of the bombing and the quest for a political solution.
<P>
2.The same holds in respect of the draft motion for a resolution of 24 April 1999, which is: The European Parliament:
<P>
1.Unequivocally denounces and condemns the destructive bombardment of Belgrade Television (22 April 1999).2.Expresses its shock and sadness at the heavy human casualties (ten dead and dozens wounded) among the workers in the News department.3.Regards this as a barbaric attack against fundamental human rights, freedom of speech and expression, and freedom of the press.4.Believes that, in this light, any appeal to 'military' or 'humanitarian' expediency is unacceptable.5.Calls on the President to forward this resolution to the Council, the governments of the Member States, the Yugoslavian Government, the International Reporters' Union and NATO.- Resolution on the European Council meeting in Cologne
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="Palm">
I wish to use this brief explanation of vote to state that I cannot support the integration of the WEU into the EU; nor do I want to see the Schengen acquis become part of the third pillar.
<P>
Resolution on institutional reform (B4-0428/99)
<SPEAKER ID=155 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, in our opinion, the resolution that the European Parliament has just adopted on the method that should be used to reform the European institutions following the Treaty of Amsterdam does not make any improvements on the past and, as usual, will result in reforms from the top with no initiative or input from the people of Europe.
<P>
The principal idea of this resolution is to give the Commission the role of driving force so that it can, and I quote, 'ensure the consistency of the European political project - a role which it alone can play, '.
That is a bad start.
It is a typical reaction from technocrats to think that if they do not intervene, everything is going to dissolve into chaos.
They do not consider the idea that there could be any other type of consistency than their bureaucratic consistency, for example, democratic consistency.
On this false basis, the European Parliament's resolution, which is concerned above all with the preparatory work for future reform, proposes that the Commission should launch, and then steer, the process, and that, without relinquishing its supposed political responsibility, it should entrust the task of drawing up an initial document to a group of experts, a formula that was previously used in preparing for Maastricht.
<P>
We are absolutely opposed to this solution.
These experts, described in the resolution as 'independent', are, as usual, going to be chosen in such a way that their conclusions will inevitably be oriented towards federalism.
In any case, the very method of recourse to a group of experts, whether they are federalist or not, is to be criticised, because the document that they have prepared will serve as a basis for the discussions and those who wish to oppose it will be put at an immediate disadvantage.
<P>
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations believes that the approach should be fully reversed and that the people should be given a say right from the preparation stage of the reform.
<P>
For a start, the national parliaments should all be consulted and all of their proposals together should form the basic document to be discussed by the Member States during the subsequent negotiations.
The Commission, the supposed experts, and the European Parliament, who will all be colluding from the start in order to strip the national democratic authorities of a little more of their power, have no place in that process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="Delcroix">
Mr Biagio De Giovanni, chairman of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, has succeeded in covering in a few paragraphs the main points that need to be made concerning the forthcoming institutional reform.
I congratulate him on this achievement, as he did not sacrifice the content in order to achieve the desired level of conciseness.
<P>
I particularly welcome the fact that he starts by pointing out the importance of the investiture of the President of the Commission.
Between Maastricht and Amsterdam, there have been significant modifications to the Treaties, and Parliament must take as much account of these as possible in order to ensure that their consequences are fully realised.
During previous debates I had noticed that some of our colleagues had not yet registered Parliament's new role in this investiture.
This was also the case for a number of members of the national parliaments.
Fortunately, there has been a gradual raising of awareness during the debates and through contacts.
This is why I am pleased that the main points are once again being set out here.
<P>
The new role of the President-designate in constituting the College of Commissioners is close to that of what we in Belgium call a 'formateur ': his point of view will count alongside that of the Member States.
Also, the need for the President-designate to present his political plans to the European Parliament - what Mr Romano Prodi rightly called his 'programme of government' - means that he must achieve a majority in Parliament on which he will base his actions.
These new practices bring us closer to the situation that operates in our countries, and will be perceived by the people as a move towards democracy.
<P>
With regard to the forthcoming institutional reform, it is highly desirable that Parliament's voice should be better heard, and that, in contrast to the former method, which was extremely inadequate, reform should be based on real interinstitutional dialogue, something which is perfectly expressed in paragraphs 8 and 12 of our resolution.
It is important that the opinions of the two legislative institutions of the Union should have equal weight, and consequently that the centre of gravity for decision making should be at an equal distance from the Council and from the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="Palm">
The EU should in my view operate on the basis of intergovernmental cooperation.
This report advocates giving a strong boost to the supranational dimension.
It therefore runs counter to my convictions and does not have my backing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 NAME="Willockx">
<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="President">
Mrs Oddy has the floor on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 NAME="Oddy">
Mr President, I wish to make a personal statement.
As you know I have just presented my report which Parliament kindly voted on this morning.
This evening I will speak on the Malangré report as Socialist Group shadow.
After the vote, when I returned to my office I found a fax from my Coventry office.
This was a letter posted yesterday by the General Secretary of the Labour Party informing me that I had been suspended from my party.
I am totally astonished by this, do not know what the reasons are and do not understand what I am supposed to have done wrong.
<P>
Consequently I need urgent clarification as to my rights and obligations as a Member of this House from the President.
I wish to reassure the President that, in my view, my first duty is to Parliament and to my constituents and I shall carry on doing that to the best of my ability.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 NAME="President">
Mrs Oddy, as you are well aware, Members' duties are individual duties.
The problems that may exist in each group, or within each group with the parties Members were elected to represent, are not related to the workings of Parliament itself.
Therefore, I must tell you that your duties here are clearly as an individual and that you will remain in office, as long as you are not considering resigning.
I must clarify this point as it is established in our Rules of Procedure, Mrs Oddy.
<P>
Mrs Pailler wishes to speak on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pailler">
Mr President, as our debate on topical, urgent and highly important matters is going to be largely dealing with human rights issues, I would like to inform the House about a relatively serious event which took place in Morocco involving a French national, Mrs Danze-Serfaty.
<P>
The events took place after the official deadline for tabling resolutions on urgent subjects, which is why I am informing you of it today.
Mrs Danze-Serfaty is the wife of Mr Abraham Serfaty, who was imprisoned for 17 years in Tazmamart as a political prisoner, and who was received most honourably here following his release, notably thanks to Parliament's intervention and resolutions; however, Mr Serfaty can no longer return to Morocco, even though he is no longer accused of anything.
<P>
Mrs Danze-Serfaty went to Morocco to request that the authorities allow her husband to return to his country and spend the rest of his days there.
She was refused entry as soon as she arrived at the airport.
I ask the President of Parliament to address the Moroccan authorities in order to protest against this refusal to grant entry to a French citizen and to demand that Abraham Serfaty be allowed to return.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="President">
Mrs Pailler, as you know, there are certain deadlines established for the topical and urgent debate.
For obvious reasons, you were unable to meet these deadlines.
What you have said will appear in the Minutes, but I cannot take the matter any further at this stage.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
TOPICAL AND URGENT DEBATE
<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>
B4-0459/99 by Mr Newens and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists-B4-0467/99 by Mrs Maes and Mr Dupuis, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance-B4-0470/99 by Mr Pasty and others, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group-B4-0474/99 by Mr Miranda and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left-B4-0478/99 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party-B4-0494/99 by Mr Cunha and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party-B4-0510/99 by Mrs Hautala and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliamenton the situation in East Timor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="Newens">
Although there were high hopes in the aftermath of the resignation of President Suharto that the way would at last be open to a peaceful resolution of the problems of East Timor, after a quarter of a century of bloodshed in which a third of the population has died as a consequence of the Indonesian invasion of 1975, those hopes have not been fulfilled.
<P>
Anti-independence militias armed by the Indonesian military have created havoc and killed large numbers of people in a desperate bid to frustrate the demand for self rule.
Far from being a safeguard against violence, the presence of the Indonesian army has continued to be a cause of the problem.
If the result of the referendum on autonomy for East Timor, planned for 8 August with United Nations backing is to be accepted, the ballot must be held in fair and free conditions which Indonesian forces cannot be relied upon to guarantee.
<P>
Sadly, violence seems to be rising throughout the region and reports of yet another massacre this week by the Indonesian army confirm once again its reputation for ruthless violence.
An independent United Nations backed force is required to ensure that voting in the East Timor referendum takes place in conditions free from violence and intimidation.
<P>
Political prisoners still have not been released, Mr Xanana Gusmão, one the leaders of the independence movement still under house arrest, should be granted full and unconditional freedom.
The right of the people of East Timor to reject autonomy and demand full independence must be fully ensured.
<P>
In the European Parliament we have over the years consistently denounced the oppression imposed on the people of East Timor and their suffering at the hands of the Indonesian regime.
<P>
At the end of this Parliament it is important that we should reaffirm our support for these people and their rights and I am proud that in my last speech here I shall be doing precisely this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Newens.
We are sure that, even though this is your last speech here, your work will continue to be as positive as it has been throughout this parliamentary term, as I have witnessed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Girão Pereira">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that Parliament can be proud of the role it has played during this parliamentary term and of its important part in finding a solution to the problems of East Timor.
This issue has been addressed here many times during this parliamentary term and it has perhaps been one of the international policy and human rights issues most frequently raised in Parliament.
<P>
I believe that Parliament has done itself credit and has aided the Timorese cause.
And it is strange that it should be right now, during the final days of this parliamentary term, that a solution for East Timor seems to be appearing at the end of the tunnel.
The agreement concluded between Portugal and Indonesia yesterday in New York, under the auspices of the United Nations, is a ray of hope for a solution of this martyrised people's problems.
<P>
However, although it has for the first time become clear in this agreement - and Indonesia is to be congratulated on this - that Timor's right to self-determination and independence is recognised, I would like to emphasise, and someone must stress this point because it represents an important change of policy regarding East Timor which I sincerely welcome, that we also need to bear in mind the rather hypocritical behaviour already mentioned here.
<P>
I say hypocritical behaviour because at the same time as this political stance is being adopted, the Indonesian army and the militias and security forces are continuing to arm men who are trying at all costs to prevent self-determination.
If leaders continue to be killed, if the population has to flee to the mountains and is afraid of voting, if the thousands of pro-Indonesian people who were transferred to Timor last year are to have the right to vote, and if leaders like Xanana Gusmão are still to be kept under arrest, then I believe that it is impossible to hold a free and fair referendum for East Timor.
<P>
And that is the great challenge for the international community.
In the agreement signed yesterday, Indonesia undertook that the safety of the people and the security of the referendum would be guaranteed by Indonesia itself.
I have my doubts.
Indonesia's recent behaviour does not give us great cause for hope here.
I believe, Commissioner, that the United Nations and the European Union have an important role to play in ensuring that the Timorese problem is resolved justly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Mr President, the European Union has unequivocally supported the cause of the Timorese people and their inalienable right to self-determination and independence, and has from the outset made a significant contribution to ensuring that their struggle did not go unnoticed. We can therefore take some pleasure in the fact that we are concluding this parliamentary term by adopting positions which suggest this may actually happen.
It is particularly felicitous that this is taking place at a critical point in the process, with the signing of the agreement reached under the auspices of the United Nations, which embraces the possibility of the Timorese people being able to freely determine their own future.
<P>
We welcome this victory for the Timorese people and we are delighted that our modest but insistent and solid contribution, which some people have signed up to only recently - be it opportunely or opportunistically - has been of some assistance.
We are leaving this Parliament with a feeling that in this case at least we have done our duty as elected representatives.
The cause of the Timorese people demonstrates that it is worthwhile fighting, that it is worthwhile to resist.
Nevertheless, our satisfaction is somewhat diminished by our lack of confidence in Indonesia's policy and by the alarm it is causing.
We must not lower our guard.
And we must not forget that the referendum is not so much a happy ending as one more step - an important one - on the long road which will enable the people of East Timor finally to be masters of their own destiny, after centuries of Portuguese colonisation and a quarter century of brutal occupation by Indonesia.
<P>
We must carry on demanding that the Indonesian authorities match this diplomatic decision with consistent practical measures.
The process of disarming and dissolving the pro-integration militias must be started immediately, and it is essential that Indonesia should demilitarise the territory so that the referendum can take place freely and democratically, and the referendum should be monitored and given credibility by the United Nations.
We should also demand that all members of the Timorese resistance movement under arrest should be freed, in particular Xanana Gusmão, and that their participation in this process should be guaranteed, as should the safe return of those who have been exiled.
We must also reiterate our condemnation of those countries which hypocritically hail human rights but do not hesitate to carry on selling arms to a regime guilty of genocide.
That is what we have pledged to do within this Parliament and outside it.
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<SPEAKER ID=170 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, not so long ago we discussed the subject of Indonesia here in the House, and I said that we were very concerned not just about East Timor, but also about various other areas of what is the largest Islamic country in the world.
I hope that the European Union and the United Nations will lend a helping hand to whatever government is in power in Indonesia.
<P>
East Timor is, of course, in a very special position because of its past, and the situation there is explosive, but the concern that we felt has possibly been slightly alleviated by the New York agreement between Portugal and Indonesia that various people have mentioned.
The referendum on 8 August is vitally important, and both the European Union and the UN must do everything in their power to ensure that it is fairly and properly organised.
It would appear to be absolutely vital to send in a UN policing force immediately.
This would not just bring stability to East Timor, it could also have a positive influence on the entire region, or at least the immediate region of the Sunda islands, of which East Timor forms part.
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<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendes Bota">
Mr President, the signing of the agreement between Portugal and Indonesia yesterday in New York under the auspices of the United Nations, an agreement on holding a referendum in East Timor with a view to self-determination for the Timorese people, is a historic moment that we should welcome.
This agreement is the culmination of fifteen years of diplomatic efforts and comes 23 years after the forced annexation of this former Portuguese colony where hundreds of thousands of people have died as victims of the civil war and of the brutal repression of the Indonesian army.
Nevertheless, world history is littered with agreements and treaties that were not respected and led to nothing.
<P>
Because of the obstinate refusal of the Indonesian government, issues relating to security and the achievement of a climate of peace in which the people are free from coercion have not been properly safeguarded.
The contingent of 600 UN representatives who are to organise and observe the referendum process consists of unarmed civilians, possibly supplemented by 250 police, also unarmed, without any means of defending anyone - including themselves - in the face of the activity of the pro-integrationist militias who are spreading terror in Dili and the rest of the territory with impunity.
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The natural leader of East Timor, Xanana Gusmão, has not hesitated to denounce as a historical aberration the suggestion that the Indonesian armed forces can be considered an impartial force.
All the independent observers are unanimous in accusing the Indonesian army of conniving with the pro-Indonesian armed militias and of being their main source of inspiration and supplier of arms and munitions.
If an impartial military force cannot be guaranteed in Timor, the real choice in the referendum will not be between autonomy and independence, but between integration and staying alive.
Furthermore, the intimidatory election campaign has already started: Indonesian flags have recently been flooding into houses in East Timor, and the inhabitants are being forced to wear badges bearing the Indonesian colours and to sign pro-integrationist declarations.
There is not much choice when you have a pistol pointing at your head.
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The United Nations, the European Union and the international community in general must maintain pressure on Indonesia so as to force it to accept a military presence to guarantee the neutrality of the referendum and to stop this turning into a sham with fairly predictable and bloody consequences.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this has been my 150th speech in the plenary, and it will also be my last.
So, in saying farewell, I would like to wish all those of you who, like myself, will not be continuing to sit in the hemicycle of the European Parliament, every personal, professional and political success in the future.
And to all of you who will be continuing, I hope that you will be in the fortunate position next September of celebrating a great victory for the Timorese people, as a result of their freedom of expression in deciding their own future in a referendum which will take place on 8 August.
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<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Mendes Bota.
I am sure that we all hope to be able to celebrate in September what you highlighted in the last part of your speech.
And as you have said that this will be your last speech in this Hemicycle, allow me to wish you the very best for the future. I also hope that we will continue to have a good relationship so that, wherever we may be, we can cooperate as far as possible in the fight to complete the process of European integration and in our solidarity with all those who need our support.
I wish you the very best of luck, Mr Mendes Bota.
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<SPEAKER ID=173 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, there has been a clear breakthrough, in international terms, in the situation in East Timor this year.
It is quite correct, as my colleagues have stated here, that resolve on the part of the European Parliament has had its effect on this outcome.
However, today, it has to be said, the situation is perhaps more explosive than it has been for a long time, as paramilitary activity has jeopardised the forthcoming referendum.
We would all certainly call on the Commission to do all it can to defuse the situation in East Timor, so that the referendum on 8 August can be held in a peaceful atmosphere.
For this to happen, the European Union should participate in an international effort to guarantee an international presence in East Timor.
Australia has made significant proposals to the UN about this, and pledged to provide funding.
Our task now is to consider what this presence would consist of - police forces operating under UN supervision, or perhaps peace-keeping forces - and I would be very interested to hear the Commissioner's views on this.
<P>
The other important issue is that there are soon to be parliamentary elections in Indonesia, and preparations for the East Timor referendum are under way.
We also surely need to send observers to monitor these events, not only official observers, but also representatives of voluntary organisations.
I would like to hear if the Commission has made any preparations for this.
<P>
Finally, I would like to say that there has been a seamless bond of cooperation among the Members of the European Parliament on the question of East Timor.
Hopefully, that will continue during the next term, and let us hope, meanwhile, that East Timor achieves independence.
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<SPEAKER ID=174 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, East Timor is a typical example of an area where human rights are under threat, and there is daily evidence that the lack of international law and of genuine recognition of the right to self-determination is producing some very dramatic situations.
I hope that the new agreement will be a breakthrough, but at the same time I would join the previous speaker in urging that practical steps should be taken, including by the European Union, to ensure that appropriate pressure really is brought to bear.
It is important to send observers, but it is also important for the UN to have a presence operating under appropriate instructions, because this is something else that is lacking and is creating increasing disillusionment.
<P>
I hope that after so many years of suffering, law and order can finally be restored, that the right to self-determination will finally become a reality, and that the forthcoming referendum will give genuine democracy a chance instead of the increasing violence we are currently seeing in so many areas of Indonesia.
<P>
I do not know whether this will be my last term of office and whether this will be my last speech, but wherever I am, I shall continue to work with all those fighting for the right to self-determination and human rights, because East Timor is only one of the many countries where war has been impossible to prevent.
I hope that East Timor will prove to be an exception and will win its independence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Barros Moura">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that we should first of all welcome the agreement reached in New York yesterday between the Portuguese Government and Indonesia concerning East Timor.
This is very much the culmination of a long process in which Parliament and the European Union have played their part, and in which the struggle of the people of East Timor has certainly played a key role, but at the same time we must pay tribute here to the importance of the diplomatic triumph achieved by the Portuguese Government yesterday in New York.
<P>
This agreement and its implementation should provide us with a basis for achieving the desired results, that is to say enabling the Timorese people to freely exercise their right to self-determination and independence.
This is why it is essential - despite what some Members might say - for us to recognise the importance of the commitment entered into yesterday that the referendum on 8 August should be held under the auspices of the United Nations and its Security Council. And that is also why in addition to the police force already mentioned here it should be possible to secure the presence of a security force.
<P>
I consider that this case once again confirms the diplomatic force of an argument which has recently arisen on the international political scene, namely that the international community cannot apply double standards. If the international community demands that human rights should be respected in Kosovo, then it has to be consistent and demand that they should also be respected in other parts of the world.
I know that the Portuguese Government has deployed this argument very effectively and that it will continue to do so, just as we should carry on using it to persuade the European Union to use its full political powers and its scope for financial support to ensure that the process in East Timor goes smoothly.
<P>
This is the umpteenth time that we have discussed the issue of East Timor in the European Parliament.
However, I feel that today our discussion is taking place in a climate of special political importance, because we are not just talking about a mere question of human rights but about a political issue.
I would like to thank my colleague from the Socialist Group, Stanley Newens, whose persistence enabled us to get this point included on today's agenda.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Barros Moura">
Mr President, thank you for refreshing my memory about the relevant part of the Rules of Procedure.
Mrs van Bladel did indeed refer to a point in my speech about the kind of force that the United Nations is to send to this territory.
It is indeed a police force.
But I wish to emphasise that placing the entire referendum process under the aegis of the United Nations Security Council will inevitably make it necessary for the appropriate security forces to intervene if Indonesia does not comply with its duty to disarm the militias and to ensure this process takes place without interference from armed terrorist groups.
That is exactly why I see the agreement that has been signed in such a positive light - as I think we all should - and I wanted to explain that to Mrs van Bladel.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, the Commission naturally welcomes the fact that in the final round of tripartite negotiations held under the auspices of the United Nations in New York, historic progress was made by the Portuguese and Indonesian Governments on resolving the longstanding, delicate and tragic problem of East Timor.
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The Commission applauds the signing of the agreement in the early hours of this morning, as indeed you all do. This agreement establishes the framework for the territory's autonomy, the methods and organisation of the referendum and also security provisions.
<P>
In this respect, the Commission believes that the decision by President Habibie of Indonesia to approve the presence of United Nations observers is a step forward. These observers will supervise the referendum organised by the Indonesian authorities in East Timor.
The Commission trusts that their presence will ensure that the referendum is held in a climate of peace, impartiality, freedom and security.
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The Commission also believes that the establishment of a trust fund for this referendum by the United Nations is a positive step. And, in relation to this, I must report that this very week, and probably tomorrow, the European Union's financial contribution to this fund will be approved.
This will provide a sum of EUR 1 million that will be aimed specifically at studying how the European Union can become involved in the process.
You asked whether or not the European Parliament would participate as an observer during the referendum, as it usually does. In principle, this issue will have to be resolved by the Council of Ministers, which will determine how we should participate under the framework of the United Nations and with respect for the terms of the agreement between Indonesia and Portugal.
In any event, the European Union's financial contribution to the trust fund is guaranteed.
<P>
Also, Mr Mendes Bota - as you and other Members highlighted, particularly Mr Newens - we do of course share your concern over the continued presence of armed militias. These militias are obviously interfering in the political process that is to lead to the referendum.
As one speaker said, we will have to see how this matter can be resolved, although I would stress that within the agreement itself there are specific provisions on how to ensure and increase security.
This is the United Nation's responsibility and I imagine that, through dialogue, organisation and the actual political implementation of the agreement, it will be possible to determine how to participate with security.
<P>
But how will this happen?
One of the commitments in the United Nations agreement is to disarm the militias, as Mr Barros Moura pointed out.
Disarming the militias is a promise that must be kept for the sake of security.
We are convinced that Indonesia will have to make every possible effort to disarm the militias and, clearly, depending on how these efforts are received internationally, we will then be able to decide if corrective measures need to be taken, if there are sufficient police forces or whether more are needed and if we must send more international missions.
At the end of the day, it is difficult at this stage to predict how the agreement signed in New York in the early hours of this morning will develop between now and 8 August.
<P>
In any event, as far as the European Union is concerned, I have already told you that provisions have already been made and I can tell you that more are to follow. More specifically, at the request of the Portuguese Government, we have already begun work on the need to step up cooperation with the region, irrespective of the outcome, whilst naturally respecting the will of the people.
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<SPEAKER ID=179 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Marín.
<P>
Mrs Maes has the floor on a point of order.
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<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, I wanted to ask Commissioner Marín whether he made those comments about the budget with a view to possible preparations for independence, if the majority of the people vote in favour of it.
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<SPEAKER ID=181 NAME="President">
Mrs Maes, I must tell you that this is not a point of order.
It is a supplementary question.
I hope that Mr Marín will respond to your question, since we all know how courteous he is, and I, in turn, will be courteous and allow a point of order to become a supplementary question.
<P>
Mr Marín, I would ask you to respond to Mrs Maes.
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<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, I would give up my life for this House.
<P>
Laughter
<P>
I do not mind.
There are two decisions. The first relates to the trust fund set up by Kofi Annan to carry out the whole referendum process, on the basis of the agreement between Indonesia and Portugal.
The Council of Ministers asked the Commission to draw up an emergency contribution.
This emergency contribution has been set at EUR 1 million and will be presented next week so that it can be operational immediately.
I would imagine that there will also be donations from other countries: from the Member States, from the United States and from Japan.
This trust fund must be used to guarantee security, organise the referendum, prepare the electoral colleges, and allow for international observation.
If the United Nations believes that European observers are needed, this will be possible thanks to this trust fund.
<P>
However, over the past two years, a programme for humanitarian aid and emergency rehabilitation was established, based on the Council of Ministers' common position. It was carried out through Caritas, because of the importance of the Catholic Church in East Timor and, in particular, of the Nobel Prize winner, Archbishop Belo.
This was a programme used only for humanitarian aid for emergency rehabilitation.
Irrespective of the outcome on 8 August, the Commission is already considering a plan that could in theory become a cooperation programme that would enhance our involvement.
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<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Marín, for being as generous as usual.
<P>
Mr Marín, I am very well aware that you are prepared to give up your life for Parliament, but you are not in danger of losing your life; you are in danger of being skinned alive.
There are parliaments that can sometimes tear a person to shreds.
Therefore, with my extensive experience, I must warn you to be careful, Mr Marín.
Be careful.
<P>
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>
B4-0460/99 by Mr Colajanni and Mr Swoboda, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists-B4-0479/99 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party-B4-0486/99 by Mr Pasty, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group-B4-0488/99 by Mr Wurtz and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left-B4-0495/99 by Mr von Habsburg and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party-B4-0503/99 by Mr Gahrton and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliamenton the Middle East peace process and the 4 May 1999 deadline.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Colajanni">
Mr President, Commissioner Marín, above all I would like to pay tribute to the Palestinian National Council, which has postponed the date of the unilateral declaration of independence scheduled for 4 May.
It has made a gesture of political far-sightedness and unilateral generosity towards the peace process, it has avoided a period of upheaval and a negative influence on the elections in Israel and a serious crisis in the peace process, with the danger of military conflict flaring up again.
<P>
This is what the European Parliament called for in its resolution of 11 March, in which, while recognising the fundamental right of the Palestinian people to found their own State, it considered it essential for the international guarantors of the Oslo agreements solemnly to reaffirm their commitment to achieving all the objectives of the peace process, thereby giving the Palestinian National Authority the support required to justify an extension of the period of application of the provisional agreement beyond the date of 4 May 1999.
<P>
And this is what the Palestinian National Council has done.
It did so because - apart from the request made by this House - there was a commitment made by the European Council in Berlin.
Let me quote what we say in the resolution, that Parliament 'welcomes the statement issued by the Berlin European Council on the peace process, particularly the Palestinians' unconditional right to self-determination, including the right to create a State, which the European Union is prepared to consider recognising in due course, and the undertakings given by the European Union concerning the future settlement of the conflict.'
<P>
I feel that all this is important; I believe that these commitments are binding and we should remember them.
We must be faithful to them, and they will require a strong initiative to be taken by the European Union and the United States after the Israeli elections.
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<SPEAKER ID=186 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, the Palestinian authorities are to be praised for their decision to accept an extension of the transitional period beyond 4 May.
By agreeing to this, they have shown that they still believe in the Oslo accords and the Wye Plantation agreement, and they have also shown their desire to prevent the peace process from becoming bogged down.
Without it, an escalation in the conflict would have been very likely, but now the Palestinian decision may increase the mutual trust that is needed for a lasting peace.
We are also pleased with the statement made by the Berlin European Council, as Mr Colajanni said, and these sorts of clear political signals could give the Union greater influence in the Middle East.
Internal divisions in the past have meant that the Union's political influence has always been too weak.
It has always been the biggest provider of funds, but giving money is obviously much easier than agreeing a common political line.
It was significant that the agreement of 23 October 1998 showed that constant external pressure is needed to keep the peace process going.
Since that interim agreement, there have been too many wrong signals from both sides, most of them from Israel, I have to say, including granting approval for the construction of more houses in Har Homa and Hebron.
<P>
In conclusion, I should like to ask the Commission, and in this case Commissioner Marín, what the situation is with the hospital in Gaza that is being built with European funding.
During an earlier debate, the Commission told us that a management team had been sent to open the hospital at long last.
I was just there, Commissioner, but I saw little evidence of it.
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<SPEAKER ID=187 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, I too should like to know what Mr Bertens asked about the hospital, because I have also been there and it has been standing empty for far too long with no one using it.
This is something we would find hard to justify to our voters.
<P>
I am pleased that the Palestinians have allowed common sense to prevail by refraining from declaring an independent state on 4 May.
Generally speaking, there has been little violence in the region in recent weeks, and certainly none of the bomb attacks that Hamas was probably responsible for.
It would appear that the escalating violence in the Balkans has brought the two sides in the Middle East up short, since everyone knows that this kind of escalation can lead to unpredictable situations.
So for the time being, people on both sides are using their common sense.
<P>
However, the Palestinian position calls for an immediate and positive continuation of the negotiations with the Israelis after the elections.
I also still think that a final positive outcome can only be achieved after agreements have been concluded with Syria and Lebanon.
<P>
I submitted a written question this week calling for an amnesty for 250 people illegally detained on Palestinian territory, but I have heard from your office that my question is not to be answered or published.
I only hope that the Palestinian representative in the public gallery has heard my appeal, and that these people will be given access to the judicial process.
<P>
In recent times, we have paid frequent visits to the Palestinian territories under the leadership of Mr Colajanni.
Progress has been made, but sadly not enough.
A further initiative must be launched immediately after the elections to move everyone forward.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Elmalan">
Mr President, like my colleagues, I would like to say that, in order to protect the peace process, the Palestinians have demonstrated their good will by agreeing to postpone the date for the declaration of the Palestinian State, which the Oslo Agreement had set for 4 May.
Meanwhile, the Israeli Government is continuing to violate its commitments and is increasing its provocation of the Palestinians by deciding to close Orient House in east Jerusalem and openly encouraging settlement, particularly in the West Bank.
Was it not the Minister for Foreign Affairs himself, Ariel Sharon, who called on the settlers to take the hills in order to establish faits accomplis ?
His call was heard, as new settlements are constantly being established.
<P>
Knowingly violating the Wye Plantation agreement of October 1998, which forbids any unilateral measures that could complicate negotiations on the final status of the territories, the Israeli Government is pursuing a deliberate strategy of draining the future negotiations of all substance and removing any possibility of the West Bank continuing as a territory, with the aim of preventing a future Palestinian state from being viable.
<P>
The European Union cannot remain indifferent to this situation.
Along with my colleagues, I welcome the fact that the Berlin European Council recognised the Palestinian people's right of self-determination and their right to establish a state.
However, we need to go further than this and use all the political, economic and commercial means at our disposal to put pressure on Israel and to force the government to respect its commitments so that the two states can finally live in peace.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, I speak here above all as someone who believes himself to be a true friend of the State of Israel.
A European who experienced the Second World War and Hitlerism will always have profound sympathy for the persecuted Jews - the more so in my case, because so many of my friends lost their lives in that catastrophe.
<P>
On the other hand, however, I have to say that my political thinking is governed by the principle that there must never be another war in the Middle East; a lasting settlement will never be achieved by force.
So we must do everything in our power to bring about reconciliation between the Jews and Arabs.
That is by no means impossible, for there are many Arab states, such as Morocco, where there is perfect understanding between Jews and Arabs.
I have seen at first hand how the numerous Moroccan Jews in Israel are providing the most reliable bridge between Israel and the Islamic country of Morocco.
It therefore makes good sense for us to table this sort of resolution at the present time.
<P>
There has been a great deal of talk about the fact that the Palestinian State was to be proclaimed on 4 May, and I am pleased that Mr Arafat, who has shown great statesmanship in this situation, declared his willingness to postpone the proclamation.
On the other hand, we must not forget that elections are looming in Israel, elections that will be crucially important to the future of the region.
There are Israeli statesmen who clearly recognise that Israel cannot live without the friendship of the Arabs, that failure to cultivate that friendship will result sooner or later in the destruction of Israel.
There are those such as Shimon Peres or some of his colleagues in the Labour Party who really do follow a clear political line in that respect, and that is why we should now express the hope that the Israeli side will declare unequivocally that it desires peace and that it will now halt the various repressive measures which have been taking place with regrettable regularity since the seizure of power and since the appointment of Mr Netanyahu as Prime Minister will now stop.
We hope that the people who come to power in Israel will be totally committed to turning the present situation around and working for reconciliation between Israel and the Palestinians, since therein lies the future of the region.
<P>
I believe that anyone who knows the Middle East will be aware that successful reconciliation will enable the region to flourish, and the various tensions that exist at the present time will then be no more than a sad memory of past intransigence.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gahrton">
Mr President, the Palestinians have demonstrated admirable forbearance in not now doing what they have every right in the world to do, namely proclaiming a Palestinian state in accordance with the agreements which have been signed.
Fifty years have passed since they were subjected to a similar fate to that afflicting the Kosovo Albanians today. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were driven out of their country, never to be allowed to return.
The UN decided in 1947 that they should have their own state alongside the Jewish State of Israel, but they never got it.
<P>
For many decades, the Palestinians lived in the illusion that liberation would come either through intervention by foreign armies, or in the wake of their own sustained military struggle.
This was not to be.
Not until the Palestinians switched to non-military methods, to civil disobedience through the intifada , to patient negotiations with an enemy perceived by them as fascist and racist - not until this happened did they begin to see signs of success. Now there is a peace process under way and, as a result, much of the world is willing to back their justified claims for an independent state.
<P>
I think that it behoves us to remember these lessons of the past, and I hope that the liberation of small peoples will in future come about according to the Palestinian method. I trust that this will be the norm, and that the Kosovo method will remain a deplorable exception in the history of the world.
<P>
I am a critic of the EU, but the Palestinian question is one which I think that the Union has handled in a constructive and positive fashion.
I note with satisfaction the statement in principle that a future Palestinian state will be granted recognition.
I hope that this actually happens once the Palestinians themselves decide to proclaim the State of Palestine.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, the Palestinians have taken a courageous decision, and it is my wish that the Israeli Government - the present one and, I hope, its successor too - will take similarly courageous decisions, because we need a sovereign Palestinian State, we need the utmost respect for the sovereignty of Lebanon and Syria and, of course, for the sovereignty and security of Israel on the basis of a reconciliation process, as we heard from Otto von Habsburg, with whom I do not always entirely agree, but I am one hundred per cent behind him today.

<P>
However, the reason I asked leave to speak was to thank, on behalf of my group, two men in this Chamber who have campaigned tirelessly for the rights of the Palestinians in that same spirit.
The first is Vice-President Marín, whom we in this House have not always given an easy life - and nor has the Council, for that matter.
Nevertheless, he has taken his decisions clearly and has pursued his aims, and for that I should like to express our very, very sincere thanks.
<P>
I should also like to give our special thanks to Luigi Colajanni, who has done a great deal on behalf of our group for the Palestinians and whom we shall miss, particularly for his commitment to the Palestinian cause.
On behalf of my group, I wish him all the very best for his future work.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Vallvé">
Mr President, I welcome this decision as an extremely positive one, just as I welcome the decision taken by the Palestinian Government not to unilaterally declare the creation of a state at the beginning of May.
<P>
I believe that this would have seriously interfered in the electoral process taking place in Israel.
I hope that a democratic government like the one country has had until now will emerge as a result of this process so that the negotiations will continue and arrive at a positive outcome for this peace process.
<P>
I am convinced that the decision by the Berlin European Council on this matter was very positive and that it will help maintain the European Union's influence in this area.
But elections will also need to be held in Palestine in the very near future. The European Union itself was present at the 1996 elections and soon a period of four years will have elapsed since then.
Only once elections have taken place will we be able to genuinely talk about real dialogue between democratic states.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, the European Commission also believes that the Palestinian leaders have taken the right decision in the interests of the Palestinian people by postponing the 4 May date for proclaiming a state.
Better still, the Commission believes that this positive move was possible in part due to the courage displayed by the European Council in adopting the so-called Berlin Declaration on the Middle East.
Our common foreign and security policy has worked properly in this instance as this declaration was important in guaranteeing the peaceful and constructive continuation of the peace process in spite of the fact that the first transitional period established by the Oslo Agreements had come to an end.
<P>
As you know, the Commission already called for an increased political and economic role for the Union in the Middle East in its communication of January 1998.
Nonetheless, it is clear that the tacit extension of the transitional period does not provide a long-term solution.
In this respect, the European Union has expressed its belief that the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state that is democratic, viable and peaceful, created on the basis of the existing agreements and through negotiation would be the best guarantee of security for Israel and the best guarantee of success in the region. The European Union has stated that, in due course, it is prepared to recognise a Palestinian state established in this way.
<P>
In the short term - as is also stated in the Berlin declaration - the European Union is still concerned about the stalemate in the peace process and, in this respect, it is vital that after the elections in Israel, the parties urgently turn their attention to fully applying the respective commitments made in the Wye Plantation memorandum.
This would allow accelerated negotiations on issues relating to the region's permanent status to begin at the same time, with a view to concluding these negotiations within the set period of one year.
<P>
Assuming that the parties involved show the political will needed to make progress, the European Union will continue to help them by facilitating the resolution of all outstanding matters.
We must take all steps to ensure that the Wye Plantation Agreement does not become another Israeli or Palestinian agreement that is not applied.
<P>
In this context, there should be no attempts to introduce new conditions.
What is more, we agree with the United States that the Palestinian authorities have fulfilled, and are continuing to fulfil, the majority of their commitments.
Consequently, we are keenly awaiting the next stages of withdrawals from the West Bank as well as the release of many prisoners.
In addition, we still recommend that Israel should be flexible over fundamental issues such as safety on the roads between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and the development, opening and completion of the port of Gaza itself, as these are issues that have been postponed for a long time.
In this respect, the Commission is still working closely with Mr Moratinos, the European Union's special envoy responsible for common dialogue.
<P>
We believe that the revitalisation of the Israeli-Palestinian aspect of the peace process would also facilitate the long awaited resumption of multilateral negotiations.
And although the European Union is aware that this is extremely difficult, it will continue to try to revitalise and initiate cooperation.
This means that we would also be very interested to see the Syrian and Lebanese parties becoming involved in the peace process.
<P>
As regards the question by Mr Bertens and Mrs van Bladel concerning the hospital, the Gaza hospital is an UNRWA hospital.
It is not a European Commission hospital nor is was it built by the European Commission; it is an UNRWA hospital.
Nonetheless, in the guerrilla warfare of recent months, all the bad things taking place in the world are being blamed on the European Commission.
The hospital was built by the UNRWA and it has received a contribution from the Community budget.
<P>
Furthermore, there are other contributions from the Danish, German, Austrian, Spanish, Swedish and Belgian national budgets.
So what happened?
There was a twelve-month delay in opening the hospital.
The problem is now resolved, and as I sure you are informed about what you ask of the Commission, you must remember that we decided not to pay any more running costs.
The European Commission must do what it can do well.
The European Commission is not a hospital agent and it cannot run a large hospital thousands of kilometres away.
Consequently, technical assistance has been given to the Palestinian Authority in the form of an international team that is going to work with the Palestinian authorities for two years. The aim of this is to ensure that the Palestinian Authority takes responsibility for managing the hospital.
Fortunately, this issue has now been resolved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Marín.
<P>
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>
B4-0461/99 by Mr Swoboda and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists-B4-0473/99 by Mr Dupuis and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance-B4-0475/99 by Mr Manisco, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left-B4-0480/99 by Mr Cars, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party-B4-0496/99 by Mrs Lenz, Mr Soulier and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party-B4-0502/99 by Mrs Aglietta and Mr Orlando, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliamenton the issue of the death penalty and a universal moratorium on capital punishment;
<P>
B4-0465/99 by Mr Swoboda, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists-B4-0481/99 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party-B4-0490/99 by Mr Vinci and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left-B4-0493/99 by Mr Pasty and Mrs van Bladel, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group-B4-0509/99 by Mrs Aelvoet, Mr Tamino and Mr Ceyhun, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliamenton the trial of Mr Öcalan and the future of the Kurdish question in Turkey;
<P>
B4-0462/99 by Mr Harrison and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists-B4-0491/99 by Mr Pasty and Mrs van Bladel, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group-B4-0506/99 by Mr Telkämper, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliamenton the political misuse of trials in politics in Malaysia;
<P>
B4-0463/99 by Mrs Berès and Mr Vecchi, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists-B4-0468/99 by Mr Pradier and Mr Hory, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance-B4-0477/99 by Mr Wurtz, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left-B4-0482/99 by Mr Fassa, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party-B4-0497/99 by Mr Lehideux, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party-B4-0504/99 by Mr Telkämper and Mrs Aelvoet, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliamenton the human rights situation in Djibouti;
<P>
B4-0466/99 by Mr Swoboda and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists-B4-0469/99 by Mr Dupuis and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance-B4-0476/99 by Mrs Sierra González, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left-B4-0483/99 by Mr Cars, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party-B4-0492/99 by Mr Pasty and Mrs van Bladel, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group-B4-0498/99 by Mr Oostlander and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party-B4-0501/99 by Mrs Aglietta and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliamenton the ratification of the Statute of the International Criminal Court.
<P>
Death penalty
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Imbeni">
Mr President, a few days ago I received a letter from a committee set up in support of a campaign to save the life of Greg Sommer, one of so many people condemned to death and awaiting execution.
Of course I, like many of my colleagues too, I imagine, would respond positively in this case, as in the cases of other people condemned to death in China, Iran and in many other countries as well as the United States.
But we feel the time has now come to do something out of the ordinary: we would like to use this famous year 2000 - a year of great symbolic value for all the countries of the world, not just those with a particular tradition, history or religion - to make an exceptional gesture.
<P>
If the year 2000 does have great symbolic value, let us seriously and genuinely use it to send out this universal message: let us have a moratorium on all cases where a death sentence has already been handed down, in other words let us suspend capital punishment.
<P>
This is the request we are making in this resolution, which I think will meet with the approval of all the groups in Parliament.
Our group fully supports it in any case. We therefore want to send a clear message to the Cologne Council: the German Presidency should ask for this issue to be put on the agenda for the forthcoming United Nations General Assembly and the Finnish Presidency should be given the task of following this decision through so that, by August, this item is on the United Nations' agenda and can actually be discussed at the next General Assembly.
If this decision on a moratorium were actually to be taken at the next United Nations General Assembly, I think we would have sent out a positive message to all the countries of the world and we would also have raised a problem in those countries which refuse to tackle this subject in a decisive way.
<P>
The death penalty is not justice but vengeance!
This needs to be realised once and for all in all the countries of the world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I think that our colleague Mr Imbeni has summarised the aim of this resolution very well.
It should be pointed out that the United Nations Commission on Human Rights approved three such resolutions in succession: in 1997, 1998 and 1999.
<P>
As Mr Imbeni has just said, the time has come to use the year 2000 to take that qualitative leap and to present a proposal to the United Nations General Assembly for a universal moratorium.
There is a majority of 101 countries, out of the total of 190 in the international community, who are in favour of a universal moratorium, and the Treaties that have been adopted and the constitutional changes that have been made by many countries show that it is not simply a theoretical majority.
<P>
The conditions are therefore in place for launching an offensive that will undoubtedly not be the final step, but which could be a decisive move towards the definitive abolition of the death penalty in the world.
I urge the Council and the Commission to work towards this.
<P>
Allow me to point out an error - which is of a formal rather than a political nature - in the text of the resolution.
I apologise for this and I will table an oral amendment to delete from recital E the words 'unlike the resolutions already adopted by the Commission on Human Rights, ' because this is not strictly correct.
If my colleagues have no objection, I will table an oral amendment shortly, when it is put to the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cars">
Mr President, I see it as a great feat of civilisation that the European continent is now virtually rid of capital punishment.
Such an advance would not have been possible without the unequivocal stance adopted by the European Union, and the world should be aware of that.
This is a message that Europe can be proud to proclaim.
<P>
There are positive developments outside Europe too, particularly in Latin America.
In countries where democracy does not exist, however - in China, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq - the death penalty is often applied. Yet we still have one large democracy where ever more people are being executed, ever more people put to death.
This is a serious issue in itself, and it brings with it certain consequences. China and the other countries I mentioned can say that 'as long as America continues to execute its citizens, why should we care what Europe thinks?'
<P>
Europeans shy away from criticising America.
We have our good reasons; yet capital punishment must be combated.
Let us make our voice heard; let us defend our position more forcefully and powerfully. Not in a spirit of moral superiority - that is not what I mean at all - but because we worry and care as fellow human beings.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lenz">
Mr President, on this Thursday, during this afternoon's topical and urgent debate, many of us here will obviously be delivering our final speeches on the subject of human rights.
We have been making these speeches for 20 years, and our cooperation has been fruitful.
It is perhaps slightly gratifying, if I may endorse what my colleagues have said, that we have seen some more progress on this very issue of the death penalty.
It may be that we have played some part in ensuring that a third call is now being made in Geneva for a worldwide moratorium on executions.
<P>
It is the sincere wish of our group, and of others too, that the Council should sponsor a motion to that effect at the General Assembly of the United Nations.
That may be the only way to make those countries that Mr Cars has just mentioned realise that the death penalty is truly the worst means of restoring people's human dignity, for every person should have the opportunity to atone for the wrong that he or she has done.
With the death penalty, that opportunity is irretrievably lost - quite apart from the fact that the death penalty is flagrantly abused in some cases.
<P>
If we in the European Parliament have helped to broaden awareness of that, not only through Mr Dupuis reminding us to include the death penalty on every agenda but also simply by highlighting a number of facts time and again in the name of our Parliament, then perhaps we have contributed in some small way to the protection of human rights.
<P>
In conclusion, Mr President, let me say that I fervently wish - and you will see whether this happens - that the next Parliament will continue this discussion, that it will not allow human rights to be squeezed out by economic issues, by the issues relating to enlargement, important though they may be, but that it will regard human rights as a political priority that must be pursued through the policies of the European Union, through its foreign policy and its enlargement policy.
Abolition of the death penalty is part of that priority.
There are many others, and I sincerely hope that they will all receive due consideration.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Lenz, for that statement.
I would also like to thank you on behalf of our colleagues for the commitment and competence with which you have chaired the Subcommittee on Human Rights in the past and have continued to make a major contribution to it.
I genuinely believe that your experience will be of use to us in all our future work.
Thank you, Mrs Lenz.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Mr President, our goal evidently has to be abolition of the death penalty.
No nation in the world should employ capital punishment.
We all need to castigate the USA, China and many other countries which so blatantly violate human dignity by persisting in allowing the death penalty to be imposed. Many of the EU Member States have an important role to play here.
We have all been pioneers in fighting for the abolition of capital punishment. It would certainly be a step in the right direction if a universal moratorium, heralding an end to this practice, were to be proclaimed
<P>
I call upon the Council to make provision for this issue to be taken up during the next session of the United Nations General Assembly.
Action will be required from both the German and the Finnish Presidencies to ensure that this actually happens, and that we can say goodbye once and for all to capital punishment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pailler">
Mr President, I am delighted to make this last speech while you are presiding, and on this subject, as you have also helped us a great deal.
We must be conscious of the great deal of work that remains to be done in order to civilise mankind, given that in 1999 we are still asking for a universal moratorium on capital punishment.
<P>
I would like to discuss America, that vast country that claims to be the policeman of the world and the model of democracy, freedom and modernity.
On 21 April, a fortnight ago, I became the first Member of the European Parliament to ever enter death row, in order to meet Mumia Abu Jamal, a political prisoner who has been sentenced to death, and on whose behalf Parliament has passed many resolutions.
Something of me stayed in that prison in Greene, where 111 prisoners out of 600 were awaiting execution.
<P>
Parts of me stayed in prison.
It is not an image, it is a very physical experience.
It hurts.
I find the idea of his execution unbearable, as I do the execution of thousands who are sentenced to death, some of whom I saw behind Mumia Abu Jamal, wearing their white and blue prison clothes.
<P>
Mumia Abu Jamal talked to me first of all about the tragedy in Denver, which had happened the day before, about Kosovo, and about the culture of death that is consuming American society.
So today I would like to put a question to America.
Your children are now killing your children.
Are you going to educate them by putting them in the electric chair?
No.
This violence is in fact the response to your state violence, which takes the form of the death penalty, but also the racist justice and class justice which Mumia condemned.
<P>
In order to convince the Council and all of my colleagues to never give up on this issue, allow me to tell you a short anecdote.
In the morning, before I arrived at the prison and death row, I gave a press conference.
A journalist stood up and said to me that it had just been announced that three names had been given for the death warrants for May.
He asked me if I took that as a response to what I was doing at the time in America.
<P>
My first reaction was to shed tears, then I recovered myself, but it was unbearable to think about that.
The reason I am telling you this today is to tell you that although the tears may not return, that emotion will stay with me until we have succeeded in obtaining this moratorium, in abandoning the ways of the past, the barbarity, and moving forward on the path of the future and of civilisation.
<P>
I will finish this last speech, this last cry from the voice of those who have no voice, with the rallying cry of the black people, who are campaigning in large numbers against the death penalty in the United States, along with whites, Indians, Amerindians and Latinos, saying 'On the move!'
<P>
Kurdish question
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, once again we are speaking in this House about Turkey, and once again we do so with mixed feelings, because there are bad signs and there are a few good signs, and we are not sure of the direction in which Turkey is heading.
First of all, the Öcalan case has come before the courts.
We do not really have the impression that this is a fair, open and transparent trial.
We have a feeling of unease, stemming from the fact that the death penalty is once again being made popular and respectable in Turkey, notably through the Öcalan trial.
Secondly, we are deeply concerned that an extremely nationalistic party experienced a very strong upsurge in support at the last elections and that its manifesto does not call for conciliation with the Kurdish population, but rather the opposite.
<P>
Thirdly, the HADEP party did well in the elections, especially in the Kurdish area, and there are now 41 HADEP members in charge of local administrations.
We doubt whether these 41 mayors will be allowed to exercise their democratic rights as elected representatives of the people.
There are already numerous indications that the government would really prefer to deprive the mayors of that right.
We know that many, many dozens and indeed hundreds of people are still locked up in prisons, some of them officials of that selfsame party, without due process, without trial, without conviction.
What about them?
When will they finally be released?
When will they stand trial before a court of law?
Why do the authorities hesitate to institute proceedings against these people?
There is probably no real evidence against them.
<P>
Fourthly, there is Akin Birdal, whom I was able to visit in Ankara a few days after the attempt on his life and whom all, or at least many of us know as a staunch campaigner for human rights.
He seems to have recovered enough to be put in prison, and he is to be taken into custody in the next few days.
We know, however, that the care and treatment and the therapy he needs if he is really to be restored to full health will scarcely be possible in a Turkish prison.
A serious question mark hangs over this case.
<P>
Fifthly, perhaps the most encouraging feature of the whole situation is that there is a President of the Constitutional Court who said clearly and plainly only a few days ago that many legal provisions in Turkey would have to be amended because they were contrary to human rights, because they were incompatible with the rights that should exist in a democratic state.
I hope that this school of thought can gradually gain the upper hand.
It is a hard struggle, and I hope, Commissioner, Mr Vice-President, that you will speak out clearly on behalf of the Commission and the European Union in order to help that school of thought to prevail, because at the moment Turkey is turning away from Europe rather than moving in our direction.
If we in this House and in this European Union do something to help the Kurds, we shall actually be doing something for Turkey and helping to bring it closer to the rest of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, on 24 February we held a debate in Brussels following the arrest of Mr Öcalan, and I criticised the PKK terrorist organisation and Mr Öcalan himself.
We have never tried to put a positive spin on his activities or his aims, and we only hope that the Turkish Government will ensure that his trial is open and fair, although we do not feel exactly optimistic about this.
His lawyers have scarcely been given access to him, the national security court hardly seems the most appropriate place to be holding the trial, and no international observers are to be admitted.
I hope that the new government in Turkey realises that if it wants to be rid of the Kurdish problem, Öcalan must certainly be given a fair trial.
<P>
Mr President, this is a day - indeed a whole week - of goodbyes, but unfortunately we cannot say goodbye to the problems and issues that we have discussed in the topical and urgent debates.
I also hope that we will not be saying goodbye to the debates themselves, because in the ten years I have been in Parliament I have heard it said almost every month that this would be the last time we would be having such a debate.
I can tell you that I have done my calculations and I reckon that I have spoken some 428 times in the topical and urgent debates.
I do not know whether it has ever achieved anything, but my successors - and your successor and the Commissioner's successor - should all bear in mind that this is the only channel the European Parliament has to show that we also care about people outside this House and outside Europe, and that we care about other things than just our salaries and pensions.
Thank you and goodbye.
That is all I wished to say.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 NAME="President">
Mr Bertens, you are normally very calm and composed when you take the floor, even when commenting on the most sensitive of matters.
I feel I share your state of mind and can understand the reasons why you raised your voice a little in making a demand which I am sure is endorsed by all colleagues, or at least those who are present in the Chamber at the moment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Mr President, Mr Öcalan will not have the open and fair trial we call for in our resolutions.
I have here the press release of the public prosecutor's office of the Ankara State Security Court, signed by the public prosecutor, Tjerdet Volkan, which rules out the participation in the trial of 'observers from any institution or organisation whatsoever'. It provides for the participation of the general public, insofar as the capacity of the court room allows, with the authorisation of the special office of the Court and then not for all the days of the trial.
<P>
Of course, Mr President, Turkey has not been put under any serious pressure - and I do not mean the outrageous bombing that others are suffering - to comply with the standards of a modern European rule of law, for reasons which the Council, so sensitive and so rigorous in other circumstances, has not managed to explain!
<P>
This weakness does not simply concern Mr Öcalan, but the more important issue of the human rights of all Turks and, more especially, the large Kurdish minority in Turkey, whose identity, language, education and political expression is not recognised.
The HADEP Party is savagely persecuted, Leyla Zana, the recipient of the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for the defence of human rights is in prison, and we do nothing.
<P>
Could the Council, as it does in other circumstances, perhaps express its condemnation of this suppression of the political and cultural rights of the Kurds?
How does the Council - and, what is more, the Commission - plan to exert its influence to reform and improve the regime that is being enforced against the Kurds?
<P>
The bottom line is that Turkey and its people, of whatever national and linguistic origin, belong to the European horizon, and the 'humanitarian' and 'liberal' declarations which most governments in the European Union - also members of NATO - allegedly want to implement within a wider Europe relate to them.
<P>
Is there anyone in the Council or the Commission who has something convincing to say on these matters, Mr President?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, this morning Mr Öcalan's lawyers told the House that they are totally unable to work and that they have even come under threat.
Parliament is right to continue to call for Mr Öcalan to be given a fair trial.
But we must not forget that we have pushed this man from one country to another because we ourselves were unable to try him - and there was a warrant out for his arrest - under our own legal systems.
<P>
In addition to this, however, if we look at the situation since we concluded the Customs Union with Turkey, it has actually turned its back on us, and the recent elections showed that it is turning inwards and becoming increasingly nationalistic, and with the events nearby in the Balkans there will be little scope for the fundamental aspirations and rights of the Kurds.
Or perhaps there will be. Perhaps there is a sensible man in Ankara who thinks the time to negotiate with the Kurds and to forge a new relationship with them is now or never.
But this would require an international confidence-building plan with a fixed timetable, and there is still no mention of that.
I hope there is a politician or perhaps a former Commissioner somewhere who could draw up such a plan so that, having left office, he can help to bring the Turks and the Kurds closer together.
But it would have to be a plan with a fixed timetable that can restore confidence, because having to receive Kurds every day in your office is no joke, believe me. I am perfectly happy to do it, but it is not helping them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ceyhun">
Mr President, this is not only about Mr Öcalan or about whether or not he is to be put on trial.
I come from Germany, and in my country Mr Öcalan would have received a trial.
This is about the fact that we rightly expect Turkey to ensure in the next few days or months that the procedure and outcome of this trial are in accordance with the rule of law.
That is what Europe legitimately expects of Turkey, a country with a great interest in becoming a member of the European Union.
<P>
If Turkey really does want to become a member of the European Union, it must show us how the rule of law applies to the treatment of a defendant in its trials.
That is the substance of this motion which we are discussing today and which we shall probably adopt tomorrow.
This expectation of ours must not be misinterpreted in Turkey.
The Turkish judicial authorities and the other Turkish authorities involved in this trial ultimately have a very important task.
If they genuinely want to bring about a peaceful settlement of the Kurdish problem, they must now treat Mr Öcalan properly as a defendant.
There can be no talk of his being guilty before the prosecution has proved its case in court.
He must be treated fairly at all costs, and his lawyers must not suffer harassment because they are representing him.
<P>
If Turkey maintains it is a European country, a country fit for the European Union, these European values, these Western standards, must be applied there.
We want no more than that, which is why we ask Turkey not to misunderstand these efforts that the European Parliament is making.
<P>
Malaysia
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Mr President, the justice system in Malaysia is clearly rotten to the core.
No self-respecting democracy would allow the flagrant infringements of human rights that are occurring there.
Malaysia claims to be democratic; yet it arrests and imprisons individuals who seek peacefully to express political or religious views, denying them due legal process. This is no way to behave.
<P>
It is incumbent upon us to take these matters up with the Malaysian authorities and make them understand.
The treatment of homosexuals in the country is another issue which needs to be raised.
It is disgraceful - and a crime against fundamental human rights - that people can be sentenced to up to 20 years in gaol for having engaged in homosexual relations.
Provided two individuals have consented to have such contact, there are no grounds for condemning them.
We must continue to argue along these lines in order to ensure that homosexuals are not treated in such a way.
<P>
Against this background, it is a pity that we did not demonstrate greater understanding of homosexuality by showing the renowned exhibition entitled Ecce homo in Parliament's premises.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, speaking on behalf of the Socialist Group in support of the joint resolution on the political misuse of trials in Malaysia, I have to say to the Malaysian authorities that it is very difficult for any of us to have any sympathy with their recent actions.
<P>
Firstly they continue to maintain their internal security act which, against any normal conception of human rights, allows those peacefully expressing both religious and political opinions at odds with those of the government to be arrested, denied proper legal representation or even a fair trial.
<P>
Secondly, they have a penal code which - as Mr Holm said earlier - condemns homosexual acts between consenting adults with a punishment of whipping and up to 20 years' imprisonment.
<P>
Thirdly, all the evidence is that the trials of both Anwar Ibrahim and Lim Guan Eng were politically motivated.
We know that Anwar Ibrahim was physically abused prior to his trial.
He received six years in jail for corruption, following what most outside observers considered to be farcical proceedings which were a travesty of any notion of justice.
And yet they continue to pursue him with threats of yet more trials.
<P>
In conclusion, we have to urge the Malaysian authorities to recognise that the development of further political and economic cooperation between the European Union and Malaysia will largely depend on the opening of a serious dialogue that will lead to moves in Malaysia for the observation of basic human rights in that country.
<P>
Djibouti
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Vecchi">
Mr President, as in December 1997, unfortunately we are again having to turn our attention to human rights violations in Djibouti and in particular to the situation of political prisoners, who are not only subjected to unlawful imprisonment, which is unacceptable in our eyes, but also to every kind of ill-treatment, which in some cases has caused the deaths of some of them.
Unfortunately this is just one aspect of the ethnic and political oppression which has deprived most of this country's people of their basic rights.
Through our resolution we therefore intend to call upon the authorities of Djibouti, and first and foremost President Guelleh, to rectify this unacceptable situation.
<P>
I would point out that the Horn of Africa is devastated by conflicts of every type; it is up to the Djibouti authorities to decide whether to let their country plunge into violence, instability and lawlessness or, on the other hand, to rebuild the conditions necessary for coexistence on new foundations.
<P>
We feel that this partly depends on the revival of a peace and stability process for the entire region.
Therefore we urge that there should be a stop to all ill-treatment of political prisoners, and that they should be given access to any care and treatment required, allowed a fair trial and be released.
Respect for human rights must also be restored and guaranteed for all and, above all, any discrimination based on ethnic origin must cease.
<P>
The government of Djibouti also undertook to respect this principle when it signed up to the Lomé Convention, Article 5 of which states that each signatory shall be guided by the principles of respect for human rights and democratisation of their own country.
I think Article 5 should be borne in mind because if, first and foremost, the specific situation of political prisoners and, more generally, the human rights situation are not improved, the application of this article and the measures which derive from it is an option worth considering.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="President">
Thank you for those words, Mr Vecchi, and for the commitment which you have shown to the problems of the ACP countries and also demonstrated in the committee which has been responsible for all aspects of cooperation and development.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, ten years ago Parliament was discussing human rights violations in Kosovo and now there is a war there.
Today we are talking about Djibouti and other countries, and I am firmly convinced that if we take the right measures now we can help these countries to develop peacefully and to avoid war.
<P>
A new president has been elected in Djibouti, so this is a good time to point out that there must be an end to the human rights violations and the inhuman treatment of political prisoners, who are left languishing in prison untended and without rights.
We are not trying to deny that there is armed opposition in Djibouti, but even unarmed political opponents are thrown into prison anyway, and that is unacceptable.
<P>
Djibouti is one of the countries covered by the Lomé Convention, and we should regard this as a contract between us and point this out to the other countries involved.
We should make it clear to them that we cannot provide any financial assistance whatsoever if they spend it on arms which they then use to wage war and even to oppress their own people, particularly the Afar tribe.
<P>
We know the enormous suffering that war brings, and just because Djibouti is a little further away we must not forget this, otherwise it will be too late there as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, several colleagues who have taken the floor before me have mentioned Article 5 of the Lomé Convention, to which Djibouti is also a signatory, which establishes a genuine interrelation and operational interplay between respect for and enjoyment of political and civil rights and fundamental human freedoms and development aid.
<P>
I think we should press this point very strongly.
We cannot be satisfied with the answer that a country's straitened economic circumstances are an obstacle to the establishment of a fully-fledged democracy.
I think it would be more true to say precisely the opposite!
Indeed in the developing countries, those which have signed the Lomé Convention, we see many good examples of countries which have got under way with economic development as a consequence of the re-establishment of democratic rules, and for precisely this reason we should put more pressure on Djibouti to comply with this genuine contractual agreement it has entered into with its European partners.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lehideux">
Mr President, it is sometimes difficult to find different or new words to say what we think of the violations of human rights that we discuss during every sitting in this House.
<P>
We agree with everything that has been said by the previous speakers from all groups.
As Mrs Maes said, I think that we should indeed take advantage of the recent election of the new President, Mr Guelleh, in order to define the Union's position very clearly and firmly and to indicate that we will see to it that the famous Article 5 is applied very soon.
<P>
The arrest of a number of leaders of the opposition outside the borders of Djibouti, notably in Ethiopia and Yemen, their extradition to Djibouti and their imprisonment, the conditions in which they are being detained, the absence of a trial and of lawyers, the particularly difficult and distressing conditions of their imprisonment: we are aware of all these things and it is clear that we cannot allow this to happen.
The Djibouti authorities must know that we are going to act swiftly and that we are going to make use of the texts to which their country is a signatory.
<P>
Mr President, I think that if we delay we are in danger of being faced with an even more distressing and even more difficult situation in a few months' time, if that is possible given the fate of those whom we are discussing.
<P>
Therefore, on behalf of my group, I call upon the Commission and the Council to take firm and immediate action as quickly as possible, so that our intentions will be made known without delay.
<P>
International Criminal Court
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Barros Moura">
Mr President, I think we would all recognise that the Rome Conference on 18 July 1998 on the Statute of the permanent International Criminal Court represented a step forward in terms of international institutions and in the international legal order concerning human rights.
Nevertheless, before this Court can actually become effective in practice, its Statute has to be ratified by at least 60 countries.
And up to now, with the honourable exceptions of Senegal, Trinidad and Tobago and San Marino, no other country in the international community has ratified it yet, although some have started the ratification process.
<P>
So the objective of the resolution we have submitted is to get the Statute ratified by at least 60 countries by the end of the year 2000, so that the International Criminal Court can start to function in that year. The resolution further calls upon the Council to include this objective on the agenda of the European Council in Cologne.
Now, I believe that at a time when we are discussing the right to humanitarian intervention, and at a time when it is recognised that the international community requires instruments enabling it to defend fundamental human rights where they are being violated in a serious and flagrant manner, it is clearly perverse that there should be delays in creating what might be viewed as a legal forum governing the right of intervention, which is precisely what this would be.
It is equally paradoxical that it should be precisely a number of those countries that are practising so-called 'humanitarian intervention' which have the most reservations about approving the Statute of the International Criminal Court, bearing in mind that this Statute contains an unacceptable exclusion clause.
That is why I believe that it is important for us to appeal to those countries, and above all our Member States and the larger countries, to ratify the Statute and to specifically reject the exclusion clause on war crimes, so as to create a genuine legal body with compulsory jurisdiction, through which we can legitimise the right of intervention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sierra González">
Mr President, the current difficulties in punishing those who have committed crimes such as genocide, war crimes and, in general, crimes against humanity have more than demonstrated the need to establish an International Criminal Court. It must be operational as soon as possible and be able to effectively try those responsible for such crimes so that they do not go unpunished.
<P>
In this context, it is disappointing that no Member State of the European Union has ratified the Statute for this Court. This is all the more disappointing when we take account of the fact that the Union claims to be not only an area of pluralism and diversity but, in particular, a Community of law.
The ratification of the Statute of the Court, with no exclusions in terms of its remit, would demonstrate our commitment to complying with the law and to defending freedoms and human life. These objectives of the Union are at least as important as our commercial objectives.
<P>
For this reason, I am calling on the Council and the Commission today to establish the ratification of the Statute of the Criminal Court as a political objective for the Union.
When we talk about the right to intervene, this House believes that the right to intervene is valid when it refers to military situations but not when it refers to other matters.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=218 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cars">
Mr President, the purpose of this resolution is to underline the importance attached by Parliament to speedy ratification of the Statute of the International Criminal Court. We want to see the court operational as soon as possible.
Nothing that has occurred in Kosovo or anywhere else has diminished the significance of this.
The Liberal Group unanimously endorses the call for such a court to be set up.
<P>
This week - in the course of my three final speeches in the European Parliament - it has given me great satisfaction to be able to speak out in favour of peace and freedom in Kosovo, to support the EU's fight for the abolition of the death penalty, and to argue for an international tribunal to judge war crimes.
These three issues reflect some of the basic values underpinning our Union: freedom for the oppressed, the rule of law, democracy and common humanity.
<P>
As a student from a country which did not take part in the Second World War, I was horrified by what that conflict produced.
For me too, European integration came to figure as the key to overcoming hatred and building a new and better order for a healed and whole Europe.
I have met many people in this Parliament who feel the same way and have as a result become my friends.
<P>
Much more than I could ever even have dreamed of as a young man has come about, but a great deal still remains to be achieved.
I like to believe that there will always be people with dreams and expectations of a better Europe and a better world - people with the strength and determination to make their dreams a reality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, I believe it is really very significant that this Parliament, which has concerned itself so much with human rights issues, should conclude its topical and urgent debates on human rights for this term by turning its attention once again to the question of the International Criminal Court.
I think that Parliament has done a great deal of work in that direction through its intergroup, which bears the significant name 'No peace without justice'.
I believe one thing must be clear to us here, namely that this intergroup which deals with the subject of the International Criminal Court, and of which my colleague Mr Dell'Alba is one of the leaders, is saying quite plainly that there must be justice with a legal basis.
Sad to say, we usually have a legal basis for various operations, as we are witnessing in Kosovo at the present time; we have it at international level through the United Nations or through an organisation such as NATO, we have it at national level and at regional level, where such legal provisions can be effectively enforced.
<P>
One area in which we are regrettably without such a legal basis is that of ethnic groups and minorities.
I believe that is the reason why many conflicts of the past ten to fifteen years have been pursued by force of arms rather than before a tribunal or a criminal court.
I therefore consider it especially important that we in the European Union should act with the utmost vigour and tell our Member States that they should be among the first to ratify the Statute of this International Criminal Court and that they should press for the establishment of the Court and not leave it to other states, such as San Marino and Senegal, which have devoted themselves to this cause with admirable zeal.
We should set an example here.
The European Parliament, with its tradition of commitment to human rights, certainly possesses excellent credentials in this area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Mr President, we now need this International Criminal Court more urgently than ever before.
The turn taken by events in recent years has borne out what we have been repeating all along in this House.
<P>
What is needed is an international forum in which - before there is recourse to military means - issues can be managed and resolved in a dignified way.
It was a major step forward when the Statute was adopted last July, but I deplore the fact that not one of the EU's Member States has yet ratified it.
The procedures ought to have been set in train much more swiftly.
I am pleased to see that as many as 82 countries have in fact signed the Statute, but it is regrettable that only three have ratified.
<P>
Let us all go back home to our Member States and ensure that our governments sign and ratify this Statute as soon as possible.
We owe this service to the next millennium.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, I am particularly glad that the last time I take the floor during this parliamentary term should be to speak on the subject of the International Criminal Court.
I would like to thank Karl Habsburg very much indeed for mentioning the role of the intergroup we set up with so many colleagues.
The 'No peace without justice' campaign by the international radical movement has helped to promote what I feel amounts to one of the most important messages we can pass on at the end of a century which has been the bloodiest in history.
Just three countries have already ratified the Statute of the Court but others are about to do so.
Our country, Mr President, will probably do so at the end of May, and France is well on the way.
A strong signal needs to come from Cologne so that the fifteen Member States, whose role was decisive for the success of the Rome Conference, should set the tone for the other countries and be the first to ratify the Statute.
<P>
It is not by chance that the very first countries to do so were an African country, a Caribbean country and San Marino.
Europe is lagging behind somewhat: it should pass on this message!
I hope that Parliament will state this clearly afterwards.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when we talk today about justice and security, we can begin with an example close to home.
A few weeks ago in front of the Parliament building in Brussels, a woman was murdered.
The important thing is that the culprit should be quickly arrested, brought to trial and fairly sentenced.
It is exactly the same with international human rights.
We cannot simply tolerate and accept the violation of human rights.
What we need is a system whereby offenders are extradited and made to face the consequences of their actions. Justice and security, after all, are among the main pillars on which our European Union is built, and not only our European Union but also the applicant countries and the rest of the world.
We must campaign to ensure that our 15 Member States recognise the International Criminal Court and also that the rest of the world acknowledges these principles of justice and security.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, I should like to pass on the European Commission's reactions to the different points that have been raised in this urgent debate on human rights.
<P>
As regards the death penalty and the establishment of a universal moratorium on capital punishment, as you are all aware, on 28 April, the European Union did in fact take the initiative of submitting a draft resolution on the death penalty to the Commission on Human Rights.
<P>
This resolution was approved by 30 of the 53 member countries of this Commission and was sponsored by 72 states, seven more than in the previous session.
In other words, awareness of this situation is being raised at international level. We must not give up hope as this type of battle, just like the battle you highlighted, and as is usually the case with all problems that affect human beings, is won on the basis of a persistent day-to-day fight.
<P>
Consequently, in relation to previous situations, there is no doubt that we are making progress.
Of course, whether or not the United Nations General Assembly adopts a resolution is in the hands of its members.
If it were up to the Commission, we would have no trouble promoting it.
<P>
As regards the Kurdish issue and the Öcalan case, I would point out that, as you all know, the European Union adopted a declaration on the arrest of Abdullah Öcalan and the trial that is to take place in the near future.
And, of course, the Commission fully supports the declaration made by the Union.
<P>
More specifically, the Commission stresses that the trial must be public, it must comply with the rule of law, it must take place before an independent court, Mr Öcalan must have access to a defence lawyer of his choice and international observers must be allowed to attend.
The Commission is disappointed with the response from the Turkish Government stating that they will not admit international observers and it takes note of the fact that it has been assured that the trial will be a public one.
We also deeply regret the request for the death penalty from the private prosecution.
The Commission will pay close attention to the trial and the procedures followed.
<P>
As regards Malaysia, the Commission shares your view that the Malaysian Government must ensure that its legal system is not misused for political reasons.
In line with this view, and given that Mr Anwar Ibrahim has already spent almost seven months in prison without bail being set, the Commission considers that the trial and the appeal the defence lawyers have already announced, must be concluded in accordance with the internationally accepted criteria on guaranteeing a fair trial.
<P>
The Commission also trusts that the necessary legal measures will be taken to determine who is responsible for the verbal and physical assaults on Mr Anwar Ibrahim.
This also shows that the incident is linked to the current debate in Malaysia on the reform of the police.
<P>
The Commission is still concerned that if fundamental human rights continue to be restricted, such as the right to peaceful assembly and the right to freedom of expression and opinion, this may give rise to a climate of instability and social unrest in Malaysia.
<P>
As for Djibouti, the Commission is aware that some political figures are being held in the Gabode prison and fully shares your concerns over the fate of these political prisoners.
In all its contacts with the country's authorities, the Commission has reiterated its position on the respect for fundamental human freedoms and the rule of law.
The Commission has also taken note of the recent proposals made by the Government of Djibouti which seek to allow the Red Cross or any other independent bodies to carry out inspection visits of the prisons.
And, of course, we warmly welcome this position from the new government.
<P>
Contact has been made with the International Committee of the Red Cross and with the Member States so that they can begin helping displaced persons and refugees to return home, thus respecting their right to return to their place of origin.
<P>
As regards the ratification of the Statute of the International Criminal Court, I naturally believe that you have pointed out something that is mere common sense: the sooner this Court is up and running, the easier it will be to address and begin to resolve problems such as those in the Balkans - with Kosovo as the most recent example - as well as other problems throughout the world.
<P>
But of course we also believe, in particular, that our Member States should set an example and speed up the ratification procedures in the various national parliaments.
<P>
I should also like to draw to your attention to the fact that the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia has been receiving financial support from the Community for several years.
The Commission intends to continue to provide this support within the terms of the regulation adopted by the Council, which creates the legal basis that allows us to carry out and develop actions in the field of human rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Marín.
<P>
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=226 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lehideux">
Mr President, I would like to make a couple of comments on the joint motion for a resolution on the Comoros, which obviously begins by condemning the recent coup d'état. I should say 'the most recent' coup d'état, because goodness knows the Comoros have experienced a considerable number of them since gaining independence in 1975: this is the eighteenth one to be recorded!
<P>
Several comments have been made concerning the responsibility that could be attributed to those responsible for the secession of the island of Anjouan in the current crisis.
To a certain extent the problem is like that of the chicken and the egg.
In other words, the question is who first caused the problems.
The fact that some of the problems in the Comoros have worsened and have been repeated is very probably because the existence of some populations with their own crises and their own problems, particularly on the island of Anjouan but also on the island of Mohéli, was not taken sufficiently into account.
<P>
Mr President, some people here - I know that Mr Hory is going to take the floor in a moment - know this area and the problems that it faces infinitely better than I do. What we can hope is that we are able to find a solution - and the Union must take part in this - that will be capable of stabilising relations between the three islands, if this is possible.
In any case, this is what we want to see. This solution must also take account of the specific and particular needs of the people of each of these islands, needs which are specific even though the various populations are not very far from each other.
<P>
Personally, Mr President, I must say that I regret that recital G of this joint motion for a resolution casts some doubt on Parliament's opinion concerning the initiatives taken by the chairman of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, Mr Michel Rocard.
Personally, I approved and supported them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hory">
Mr President, having observed the political collapse of the Comoros, we could well think that they are the victims of some sort of bad luck.
In fact bad luck has nothing to do with it, and if we consider the situation objectively, we can clearly see three levels of responsibility.
<P>
Firstly - and even though it is not at all fashionable here to say such things - there is the responsibility of the Comoran people, or more precisely, of their leaders.
In the 19th century the Comoros were called the islands of the battling sultans, because Grande Comore and Anjouan were dominated by a few supposedly noble families who had been fighting for power for centuries, and who forced the vast majority of the population to bear the weight of their privileges by enforcing vast social inequalities, unjustifiable financial monopolies and a truly medieval structure of society.
This is the first level of responsibility.
<P>
In the current crisis - and this is not a fashionable thing to say either - the responsibility of the Organisation of African Unity must be underlined. It is theoretically in charge of reconciling the people of Grande Comore with those of Anjouan after the secession of the island of Anjouan.
<P>
The sole activity of the OAU, if not its sole raison d'tre , seems to be to defend the old colonial borders, against everything, against everyone, and even against obvious facts.
The OAU is therefore very understandably accused of partiality, as it has shown itself to be indifferent to even the most legitimate claims made by Anjouan and Mohéli.
<P>
Finally, and I will not dwell very long on this point, there is the responsibility of France, which has been caricatured by the fact that the eighteenth coup d'état in the Comoros coincides with the opening of the trial in Paris of the mercenary, Bob Denard, who in 1975, 1978, 1989 and 1995 was himself responsible for four coups d'état in Moroni and who is suspected of murdering two Comoran heads of state.
Today we have learnt that a former French Minister for Cooperation and Development will attend the trial to testify in his favour.
I think that is all that need be said.
<P>
Having established these responsibilities, it seems that the European Union has a duty to make up for the inability of the usual key players on the Comoran stage by mounting a political initiative for inter-island reconciliation, a considerable degree of humanitarian aid, particularly for Anjouan, and a fresh emergency economic aid programme for the Comoros.
<P>
Personally - and I will now conclude - I would like to stress this urgency from a particular point of view.
As Mr Lehideux was kind enough to say, I am fortunate to have a last chance to speak in this House on a subject which concerns me personally.
Since 1997, in Mayotte, which has fortunately remained French territory, there has been a massive and artificial influx of refugees as a result of the crisis in the Comoros that neither the public services, the local economy nor the people of Mayotte can withstand for much longer.
The stabilisation of the Comoros is therefore the condition necessary for peace in the entire region.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Vecchi">
Mr President, it is with some emotion that I am making my last speech in this Parliament.
<P>
The Islamic Republic of Comoros is a state which for many years now, virtually ever since independence, has been living through a serious institutional crisis, as previous speakers recalled.
And it is the very unity of the country, or rather of the three islands making it up, that is constantly being called into question.
<P>
A few days ago a framework agreement was reached - helped on its way by the unobtrusive but extremely important work of President Michel Rocard, to whom we pay tribute - which did and still does provide a good basis on which to re-establish conditions enabling coexistence between the various islands and the very survival of a state in the Comoros.
<P>
The military coup d'état, which we of course condemn, followed in the wake of a number of serious incidents on Grande Comore against people from the island of Anjouan and was also due to the civil authorities' inability to uphold the process of state reunification and reconciliation.
<P>
I believe that two things need to be done: the first is surely to re-establish constitutional and civil order and put an end to the coup d'état, which - as colleagues have pointed out - is the eighteenth one since the mid-seventies; and secondly, and at the same time, the process of seeking a national agreement needs to continue and should also deal with those forces, not just military forces, wishing to maintain the supremacy of the people in one island over the others.
<P>
For that reason it is important that the representatives of the island of Anjouan be allowed to consult the people and to sign up to the agreement which all the others had endorsed before the coup.
Furthermore, the international community, working inter alia through the Organisation of African Unity, but with the European Union playing an active role, should back this agreement and get to work preparing an economic assistance programme of both emergency and long-term aid, to allow the country to recover in economic terms as well.
This agreement would moreover, if it were successful, set a positive example for other African countries experiencing crises of a similar order and complexion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as pointed out in the first paragraph of the preamble to the resolution and by Mr Lehideux, this is the eighteenth coup d'état in the Comoros in the last twenty-four years, making one every sixteen months.
This statistic is sufficient to convey the difficult situation of a region which would otherwise have every likelihood of taking the right path towards democracy and development.
We need only think of the example of Mauritius, which has many similar cultural and geopolitical characteristics.
<P>
Therefore, in my own humble opinion and in that of the group I represent, the European Union must deliver a clear, specific and united response from.
Actions by individual politicians and countries are important, but only a collective effort on the part of the Union can bring something good out of this difficult and troubled time.
<P>
And having expressed this hope, Mr President, I would like to thank you in your capacity as President for the achievements of these last five years, and I would like to thank my colleagues, particularly those taking part in meetings on human rights and matters of urgency, for all the work they have done here and for all that I have learned from them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, the European Commission shares the European Parliament's concerns over the situation in the Comoros following the coup d'état which took place on 30 April 1999.
<P>
As you are well aware, the Commission reacted immediately and stressed the European Union's disapproval to the chief of staff, Colonel Azali Assoumani, drawing his attention to the principles on which our cooperation is based, the main elements of which are the respect for human rights, democracy and the rule of law.
Furthermore, the European Commission has suggested to the Member States that they should apply the procedure set out in Article 366 of the Lomé Convention, which allows them to suspend cooperation with the Comoros.
<P>
In addition, the Commission is examining with the Member States the possibility of a diplomatic initiative aimed at applying the agreement signed in Madagascar on 29 April 1999 under the auspices of the OAU.
Since 1998, the Commission has financed humanitarian aid programmes to the order of EUR 1 million to improve the situation of the people of Anjouan in terms of nutrition and health care, and the Commission has just approved a new programme to the value of EUR 730 000 which is aimed at providing primary health care. It is also examining whether or not it would be appropriate to approve an additional humanitarian aid programme in view of the requirements on the three islands as a result of the political instability.
<P>
The Commission's office in the Comoros is paying close attention to how the situation develops and, according to our latest information, the situation is calm and the army has established the initial contact needed to establish a transitional government in accordance with the agreement reached in Madagascar.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Marín.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hory">
Mr President, I would like to make a point of order, to clarify, although everyone will have guessed it, that the former French Minister for Cooperation and Development, who is testifying in favour of the mercenary Bob Denard, is not Mr Jean-Pierre Cot.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 NAME="President">
Thank you for that clarification.
<P>
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>


B4-0457/99 by Mrs Stenzel and others-B4-0458/99 by Mr Pompidou, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group-B4-0464/99 by Mr Swoboda and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists-B4-0484/99 by Mr Frischenschlager and Mr Eisma, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party-B4-0489/99 by Mr Manisco and Mr Marset Campos, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left-B4-0499/99 by Mr Chichester and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party-B4-0500/99 by Mr Weber and Mr Hudghton, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance-B4-0505/99 by Mr Voggenhuber and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliamenton the nuclear power plant in Temelin.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Mr President, in a few days' time, the Czech Government will make its decision on the completion of the nuclear power station in Temelin.
Let me quote the report by the International Commission on Temelin, which said that there is currently an excess productive capacity and that power from the Temelin plant can only marginalise the use of other resources for power production.
The stage has already been reached when any solution to the Temelin project will have more adverse than beneficial effects.
Completion may bring even greater financial losses than discontinuing the construction work would cause. Economically, then, the situation is very tricky to downright crazy.
And yet Western industries are still trying to make money there and have no compunction about possibly creating economic difficulties for a young democracy which, I hope, will very soon be a member of the European Union.
<P>
The International Atomic Energy Agency formulates minimum technical safety standards for nuclear plants which even nuclear power stations in the third world could satisfy.
That is well known.
This assessment does not come from me, but from very high-ranking diplomats and scientists.
I consider that to be an insult to the Czech Government and an affront to the Czech people.
In its conclusion of 7 December 1998 on nuclear safety, the Council, distancing itself from the IAEA, speaks of a 'high level of nuclear safety'.
That is quite a different matter!
<P>
If I may quote the Temelin report again, it says that the release of radioactive substances will be prevented by a simple concrete shell in the event of a nuclear accident.
How simple, I wonder!
The report also states that the long-term storage of radioactive waste will be assured in due course.
So when and where will it be stored?
Whatever the answers to these questions, I should like to thank all of my colleagues, particularly those from my own group, who intend to vote in favour of this resolution today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graenitz">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, nuclear safety has always been a very important subject in this House, since we are all aware that an accident in a nuclear power station affects not only the people who live and work nearby but also everyone else in Europe, and that we must therefore devote very special attention to safety.
<P>
As the previous speaker said, the government of the Czech Republic has been faced in these past few weeks with a decision as to whether or not the construction of the Temelin nuclear power station is to be completed.
Ever since the borders between the Czech Republic and my own country were opened, this nuclear plant has been a source of endless amazement, since it was supposed to have been completed several years ago.
Time and again they said the work would be done, but time and again it failed to materialise.
I believe that all these points have to be considered very carefully; the fact that money has been spent on it already is no reason to finish building something that is neither safe nor economical.
<P>
However, I should like to highlight another point here.
My group is not only anxious to voice our concerns about public safety in the European Union and in the Czech Republic and neighbouring countries; it also wishes to see aid being offered to promote change, to promote another form of energy production, another source of energy, a different type of energy efficiency to that which can be achieved with a nuclear power station, with the accompanying wastage of electrical energy.
<P>
What we are interested in is being able to offer ecologically as well as economically acceptable ways of obtaining sustainable energy to meet people's needs.
Since this is my last speech in this House, allow me to mention that I myself have launched an initiative to that end.
Under the scheme, known as 'Building with the sun in Upper Austria and Southern Bohemia', mayors, administrators, engineers and architects are invited to work together on projects in which greater use is made of solar power, for the sun, after all, is a source of energy for all of us, and it is better to harness that energy than to construct our buildings in such a way that we need a great deal of nuclear power in order to heat them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Mr President, in most Central and Eastern European countries, nuclear power is routinely accepted as a way of meeting energy requirements.
We know this, but we also know that we in western Europe tend to differentiate more.
It is clear that the obsolete Russian nuclear plants need to be shut down, but the sort of plant we are discussing now, at Temelin, is a modern Russian power station, although it still needs to be brought up to international safety standards.
I actually think that we need to consider which option is best for each country.
Sometimes alternatives to nuclear power are possible, and if there is an option that is just as cost-effective, then that is the one to go for.
But if it appears that upgrading the obsolete plants is the only option, then the European Union must work with the applicant country, in this case the Czech Republic, to achieve this.
Because there are question marks about the economic feasibility of Temelin, I do not think that we can take a decision yet, but we must work with the Czech Government to find the right solution.
I hope that the Commission will concentrate its efforts on this over the next few months.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mombaur">
Mr President, it is the sovereign right of every state, including the Czech Republic, to decide which primary sources of energy it uses.
But the European Parliament must focus on the following point: all these matters have a bearing on the Community too and affect every one of us.
In the case of power plants, this applies to safety standards, especially those governing the construction and operation of nuclear power stations, their fuel cycle and the disposal of their waste, and all of these things are important in the context of future accession treaties, because we cannot admit any new Member States which maintain lower safety standards than those which obtain in Western Europe by virtue of political decisions.
Secondly, this is about the free energy market and future participants in that market.
We shall naturally be unable to tolerate a situation in which customers can freely obtain electricity from producers who do not apply the common safety standards and thereby secure competitive advantages in an unacceptable way.
These are the two Community aspects that we in Parliament must discuss.
That is why it is right to adopt this resolution.
That is why it is right that the Commission should deliver its opinion on the present reports too, because we have a duty to the European people to create transparency publicly here on this important issue.
So it is certainly not a matter of the Czech Republic and Austria alone but rather about the European public, and we must remember that if we are to fulfil the mandate from our electorate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Weber">
Mr President, I visited the Temelin power station that is under construction.
I visited it as a national of a country that has four large nuclear power stations on its borders, notably the Cattenom station that is on French territory.
French engineers have always tried to convince us that the French power stations were entirely safe with a high level of security.
It has now been demonstrated that this is not the case.
There is always a risk, one which the people of Luxembourg do not want.
<P>
I do not think that the Austrians, who are neighbours of the Czechs, should be exposed to the risks of a power station that is even more vulnerable to accidents.
I think that the European Union should help the Czech Republic to equip itself with an alternative system for producing energy, that uses soft energy, but should not release funds for a Soviet-designed type VVER 1000 power station which, in my opinion, presents a great many risks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Mr President, the most significant Austrian contribution to the common future of Europe in recent decades was the referendum in which the population rejected nuclear energy.
What some of you dismissed at that time as the reaction of Luddites has long since proved to be a recognition of the insoluble nature of the problems of nuclear power, of the security issue, the waste disposal issue and the cost issue.
<P>
Over the past few years, the European Parliament has been increasingly supportive of the quest for new, sustainable forms of energy.
It has recognised that the risks emanating from nuclear energy production in Central and Eastern Europe have assumed an entirely new dimension, but it has also recognised that the accession talks present us with a new opportunity.
The Temelin nuclear power station is a yardstick of the credibility of this House.
But the parliamentary groups remain split.
The influence of the nuclear lobby in this House is still intolerably powerful.
I wish we had received more decisive support in the past from some of those who have tabled this resolution today, particularly the European People's Party, and I wish that some of the signatories had been more effective advocates within their own party.
Had that been the case, today's debate would not have exuded this faint odour of electioneering.
<P>
Unfortunately, however, this Parliament of ours is still unable to act on its own judgement by making the abandonment of nuclear power in Europe one of its top priorities.
But there is one responsibility that this House cannot evade today, namely its responsibility for enabling the countries of Central and Eastern Europe to switch to alternative energy policies, instead of helping them to pursue the dangerous and senseless upgrading and conversion of their nuclear plants.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
Mr President, along with many others, I am delighted about the forthcoming accession of the new Member States, and particularly the Czech Republic.
At the same time, I think we need to adopt a sober and even strict approach when it comes to meeting the agreed political and economic criteria, since the successful operation of the enlarged Union is at stake here.
However, this sensibly cautious approach must not mean that solutions to bilateral problems are forced on the applicant countries under the pressure of the accession process or by subtle references to it.
The applicant countries are the weaker party in relations with the Union, and I do not think I need to remind anyone here that it is one of the most difficult tasks in politics to ensure that justice is done to the weaker party.
As for the objections that Austria especially has against nuclear power stations in general and the one at Temelin in particular, I would point out that there are a number of recently built power stations in Central and Eastern Europe, many of which are considerably more dangerous than the one at Temelin.
Furthermore, Temelin at least meets the internationally recognised minimum requirements, which definitely cannot be said of various other plants.
This is why many in my group feel that it would not be right to single out the Czech Republic, particularly when this issue has already been covered in much greater depth and in a more appropriate context in the Adam report.
There is no reason to pick on the Czech Republic, and certainly not on Temelin.
This would simply be underestimating the dangers presented by many others.
We need to show some understanding for the Czech Government, which has few alternatives for meeting its energy needs.
I hardly think that brown coal can be seen as a viable option, because of the huge environmental damage that it causes.
So we need to adopt a more positive approach towards the Czech Government.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, the safety of existing nuclear plants and those under construction, as accession approaches, is a primordial objective, as has been underlined on many occasions by Parliament, by the Commission with regard to the Agenda 2000 package, and by the Council in the context of nuclear safety in connection with the future enlargement of the European Union.
<P>
In the case of the Czech power station, Temelín, it seems highly unlikely that the maximum safety levels for power stations which is required of applicants for accession will be achieved, particularly in the light of the Czech authorities' plan to use Soviet-type VVER 1000 reactors, which are presented as latest generation plants but have actually proved not to be very reliable at all.
<P>
These reactors do not appear to meet the maximum safety levels we should now be demanding and there are doubts about their viability insofar as their much vaunted energy efficiency is concerned.
<P>
Considering that the Adam report on nuclear safety, which was approved by this House last March, called among other things for restrictions on the use of RBMK reactors and also VVER Soviet-built models, which the Czech authorities are now planning to use in Temelin, let us reaffirm the conclusions submitted by Alleanza Nazionale's head of delegation and the draftsman of the opinion on the Adam report: first, safety is the key element of the pre-accession strategy; secondly, international legislation on safety systems must be strengthened; and thirdly, the application of such legislation should be supervised by an independent body.
<P>
We can therefore approve the common resolution submitted today, paying particular attention to environmental protection standards, which are, moreover, the only way of guaranteeing that public health is protected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sichrovsky">
Mr President, we welcome this joint motion for a resolution, and we shall support it too, even though the broad support for this motion does remind us, as one of the previous speakers said, that we are in the midst of an election campaign.
As immediate neighbours of the Czech Republic, we in Austria are particularly affected by the planned high-risk reactor.
Looking beyond the present motion, however, we take the view that, in the context of its enlargement to the East, the European Union must spell out clearly that accession would be inconceivable unless the applicant countries completely change their dangerous nuclear policy.
<P>
Let me point out, for example, that reactors built to the same specifications in the former German Democratic Republic were decommissioned after the reunification of Germany.
We believe that the financing of this reactor by means of a grant or loan from EU funds would be tantamount to misappropriation on both economic and ecological grounds.
<P>
Heckling
<P>
Is that all you can say about the nuclear power station?
Is that all the importance you attach to this subject?
It is certainly legitimate to support these countries financially in the establishment of a sustainable energy system.
I thank you, Mr President, and I thank the gentleman who felt he had to shout out his statement on this important subject in order to book his place in tomorrow's newspaper.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 NAME="Marín">
I will be brief, Mr President.
The Commission understands that the Temelin reactors are, in principle, among those that can be improved to meet acceptable safety levels. And, as indicated in Agenda 2000 and in the communication of March 1998, the Commission's overall objective in relation to this type of reactor is to ensure that the improvements undertaken by the respective countries are carried out in a rapid and efficient manner and produce satisfactory results.
<P>
However, two elements must be taken into account.
The authorities in the country where the nuclear power plants are situated are responsible for their nuclear safety.
A high level of nuclear safety is a priority in the accession process and the Commission is prepared to cooperate with all the applicant countries to help improve nuclear safety. The Commission is also prepared to help guarantee that the levels of technological and operational safety are brought into line with the safety practices currently in force in the Union.
In the Czech Republic, aid has been granted under the framework of the PHARE programme to the authorities responsible for nuclear safety and to improve the safety of the Duckovani nuclear power plant.
<P>
As regards the specific case of Temelin, the Commission does not have sufficient information on the current state of progress.
At the moment, there is no formal agreement with the Czech authorities under the PHARE framework to allow the European Union's technical safety bodies to carry out an overall safety assessment.
The Commission has taken careful note of the opinion on Temelin set out in the report published by the WENRA regulators.
This report does not provide sufficient information to allow us to reach a definitive conclusion on the level of safety that has been reached.
<P>
As regards the economic aspects of the Temelin project, the Commission supports the development of an energy strategy that gives due consideration to energy production and the diversification of sources. The PHARE programme has supported this approach in various projects.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken in a moment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 NAME="Katiforis">
Mr President, perhaps you will forgive me.
This is not strictly a point of order, but it concerns events that have occurred since the morning.
I ask that we somehow take them into account.
<P>
You may know that there has been an announcement by the G8 ministers which offers terms for a Kosovo solution which are much less intransigent than the five conditions that have been insisted upon until now and significantly re-involves the Security Council.
In view of that, the resolutions that we have tabled this week are very much out of step with events and give the impression that Parliament is out of touch with what is happening.
<P>
Mr President, I do not know procedurally what should be done, but I ask you with your superior knowledge of procedure to invent some way in which we can take account of this event and show that we do follow the live process rather than sticking to dogmatic positions that bring nothing new and contribute nothing to the solution of this tragedy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 NAME="President">
I am afraid there are no procedures that would allow us to come back to this issue.
If events have changed before we come to the vote there is nothing we can do about it.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
VOTES (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=248 NAME="Wolf">
I have to agree with the rapporteur that the results of collective bargaining to date reveal such serious shortcomings that they cast very serious doubts on the democratic credentials of legislation based on the outcome of dialogue between management and labour.
<P>
Failure to enforce the principle of non-discrimination, the application of laws to a highly restricted circle of persons and activities and a lack of binding obligations are reasons enough to question whether the European Parliament can serve employees and employers as a guarantor of minimum standards and minimum obligations when negotiations between their representatives break down.
<P>
This is no reason to opt for nothing at all rather than the little something that has been scraped together here.
And it certainly must not encourage those Member States which regard even this as far too heavily binding.
The Commission and Parliament must close the loopholes in basic European social legislation which allow people to be employed in atypical jobs without proper social cover and must hasten to address the democratic deficit in this area by concluding an interinstitutional agreement pending the next amendment of the Treaty.
<P>
Moreover, it is also high time the European trade unions learned how to represent the interests of their female members more effectively and more vigorously.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Recognition of qualifications for liberalised professional activities
<SPEAKER ID=249 NAME="President">
The next item is the report by Mrs Gebhardt (A4-0253/99) for the Parliament Delegation to the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council Directive establishing a mechanism for the recognition of qualifications in respect of the professional activities covered by the Directives on liberalisation and transitional measures and supplementing the general systems for the recognition of qualifications (3612/99 - C4-0209/99-96/0031(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 NAME="Gebhardt">
<SPEAKER ID=251 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Mr President, Mrs Gebhardt, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to congratulate the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and, more specifically, our colleague Mrs Gebhardt, for the excellent work that they have all done and the determination they showed during the conciliation procedure.
The negotiations with the Council were certainly not easy, but despite this they ended in a compromise which I personally think is quite satisfactory.
<P>
In this area it must be recognised that, although progress has been made over the last thirty years in moving from sectorial directives to more general horizontal directives - in particular the key directives of 1989 and 1992 - there was, and there still is, a great deal of work to be done.
I therefore obviously support the proposals aimed at repealing the sectorial directives, which were supposed to be temporary and have often continued longer than necessary, resulting in serious restrictions to the freedom of movement and freedom of establishment of European citizens across the Union.
<P>
With regard to the more general system of recognition of qualifications, I am also in favour of improving and consolidating the system, because although in theory the level of recognition of qualifications is satisfactory, it is not exercised sufficiently in practice.
European citizens are too often faced with problems when they try to have their qualifications recognised, and they are often refused employment because of supposedly insufficient qualifications.
As a Member representing a border region, I am in a position of having to deal with these problems almost daily, in Belgium and in France.
<P>
To conclude, I would like to say that these are serious problems, because they are damaging to the very idea of citizenship.
It is impossible to convince Europeans that European citizenship exists if they are daily being denied a fundamental right, the right to employment.
This is why, Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur once again, and to take note of the progress that has been made, but to say that in this area too, our battle is far from over.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Malangré">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at the start of what I should like to say, let me also express my thanks to the rapporteur and my respect and appreciation for her work.
Cooperating very harmoniously, not least with Mrs Fontaine, who chaired the conciliation meetings, she managed through a very astute approach, a firm hand and indefatigable persistence to make this compromise possible.
That was indeed a fine piece of work.
<P>
Everyone who attended those meetings was able to see at first hand how difficult it is to move the Council even a fraction of an inch.
Our rapporteur's achievement was truly prodigious.
As has already been emphasised, the crux of the matter is freedom of movement in the Community.
This freedom would effectively be a joke if migrants could not practise their trade or profession in the country to which they have chosen to move.
At the same time, it is a matter of ensuring that freedom of movement is not restricted to unskilled labour; on the contrary, the success of the common market and the people who work in it depends on a high standard of exchange among the Member States.
That is the core of the directive now before us.
<P>
Qualifications should be obtainable and usable.
The way that this should happen was what we ultimately managed to find.
What we found was not a perfect solution, but, as has rightly been said, a tenable compromise that provides a common path for all to follow.
My group is therefore happy to endorse the report and will vote for it.
Thank you once again for all your work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, the Commission welcomes the Conciliation Committee's adoption of a joint text on the recognition of qualification.
And, on behalf of the Commission, I should like to thank Mrs Gebhardt in particular, as well as the chairman and members of Parliament's delegation to this Conciliation Committee, for all the work they have done over the past four months to obtain this joint text.
Congratulations and well done.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=254 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 9 am.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Statistics on trade between Member States
<SPEAKER ID=255 NAME="President">
The next item is the report by Mrs Lulling (A4-0226/99) to the Parliament Delegation to the Conciliation Committee on a European Parliament and Council Regulation (EC) amending Council Regulation (EEC) No 3330/91 on the statistics relating to the trading of goods between Member States with a view to reducing the data to be provided (3608/99 - C4-0172/99-97/0155(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=256 NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, in 1993, the entry into force of the single market and the removal of border controls resulted in the withdrawal from VAT returns of statistics relating to the trading of goods between Member States, the reliability of which was guaranteed by the customs services.
As we still have a need for statistics on trade in goods within the Community, Intrastat was established, and firms were obliged to supply the necessary information to enable this body to establish the statistics.
Firms, and particularly SMEs, were of course not enchanted with the idea.
<P>
In June 1997, the Commission presented us with two proposals to simplify the 1991 regulation, with the aim of reducing the obligations for firms, and particularly SMEs, in terms of tax returns, and to reduce costs for those liable to pay tax.
Even during the first reading, it was clear that in the Council the Member States were not even prepared to support these proposals, even though they had been toned down in relation to the results of the first study carried out within the framework of the SLIM initiative.
<P>
Despite this, at first reading we tabled amendments to limit the tax return burden, to remove non-relevant information, for example means of transport and optional information, in order to limit the number of SMEs obliged to provided detailed statistical information. Their aim was also to simplify the use of combined nomenclature, while preserving a single nomenclature for intra-Community trade and trade with third countries.
<P>
We pointed out that this was only a first step in the right direction, while awaiting a more fundamental simplification, especially as the reliability of the Intrastat statistics is unfortunately inversely proportional to the costs that are borne by the 450 000 firms that have to supply the data.
<P>
With the exception of one detail, we had the Commission's blessing on the amendments that were unanimously adopted at first reading.
However, the Council then forwarded to us a common position that further weakened the original Commission proposal, which had already been weakened in relation to the results of the SLIM studies, and which we wished to strengthen by means of our amendments.
Moreover, that common position would have resulted in an increase in the tax return burden for firms.
The Council even went so far as to simply refuse to adopt a common position on the proposal for a regulation concerning nomenclature.
<P>
In the face of such a negative attitude from the Council, we refused to give in.
We retained our amendments at second reading, and we went to a Conciliation Committee.
We reached the following compromise: as there is no common position on nomenclature, we were able to obtain a declaration from the Council promising to consider the position on nomenclature, taking account of Parliament's amendments and of the results of the discussions currently taking place within the framework of a second SLIM initiative.
<P>
We achieved this result because, in the Conciliation Committee, I was able to confront the Council delegation with the decisions of the Ecofin Council of 18 January 1999, which state, ironically, that the current Intrastat system holds more details than is necessary, that it should be simplified, that costs should be limited and that the 1991 regulations should be modified.
<P>
I thought I must be dreaming when I read that, as the Council had presented us in July last year with a 'decaffeinated' common position on the proposal to modify the 1991 regulation.
In December 1998 we maintained our amendments against the common position, and then in January 1999, the Council discovered that there was a need to modify Regulation (EEC) No 330/91. Meanwhile, the Commission proposal had been on the table since 2 June 1997 and there had been two readings in this House.
<P>
Is it that in the Council, the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing?
Is this an illustration of the obvious political malfunctioning of the Council?
How is it possible that in January 1999 the Council can demand a much greater simplification of the Intrastat regulation, which it had refused in July 1998, forcing us to go to a Conciliation Committee?
Make of it what you will!
In any case, I am pleased to have persevered at second reading, and I also welcome the Commission declaration promising to submit a report to us on the Intrastat system.
<P>
If I had to estimate the cost of the work that has been done since 1997, it would certainly be inversely proportional to the results, which are even more meagre when compared to the ambitions of the first SLIM study and to our ambitions for reducing the burden on firms.
However, at least the Council's contradictions have enabled us to make a new start, which we hope is more promising than what we have had to go through on this issue over the last few years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=257 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur and the delegation to the Conciliation Committee for a very successfully drafted report.
It is a most pleasurable opportunity to say this on a day like today, the penultimate day of this parliamentary term.
I believe that through conciliation we have achieved a compromise, which indicates that both the codecision procedure works well and that Parliament has demonstrated its strength.
<P>
The directive which went to conciliation is important for small companies, and, hence, the issue of employment.
In the European Union there are approximately 18 million SMEs, and almost 17 million unemployed.
This comparison of figures already suggests that we must do our utmost to ensure that the SME sector is able to remove the burden of bureaucracy and complexity from its shoulders.
By reducing the amount of data that has to be provided on statistics on trade, we are making an important difference to those SMEs which do not have the resources to produce and maintain complicated sets of statistics.
The compromise that was reached in conciliation will ease the burden for SMEs, which hopefully will then mean that those companies can put this part of their expenditure and endeavour to better use, thus boosting employment.
<P>
In the European Union and Member States the role of labour-intensive SMEs in particular has been considered central to improved levels of employment.
If we can continue to simplify matters for them in the areas of thresholds and obstacles, that will be a good thing.
The euro is an important factor for small companies, as it removes the need to exchange foreign currencies in the single market area.
Small companies do not generally have the means or skills to monitor currency situations to keep them completely up-to-date on how exchange rates are behaving.
This being the case, the single currency will be of great benefit to SMEs, lowering, as it will, the degree of risk they encounter in the single market.
<P>
During the conciliation process Parliament also had the opportunity to send a political message to the Commission on another matter that was being dealt with. This too demonstrates the strength of the codecision procedure.
Now that the Treaty of Amsterdam has been in force for just under a week and the role of the codecision procedure is growing in importance, perhaps we have reason to congratulate ourselves, Parliament, and the triumph of democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=258 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by thanking Mrs Lulling for her very committed efforts on behalf of SMEs and other businesses.
She rightly recognised that firms need less red tape so that they have more time for their customers, and that this also provides an opportunity to create new jobs.
I would also like to thank Mr Paasilinna, who has always given this initiative his strongest support and who has shown us the way in this field.
I would also very much like to thank the Commission, because the research we were promised as part of the SLIM-Intrastat initiative, looking particularly at the issues of quality and the burden on the economy, is extremely important.
<P>
Commissioner, this research is very important for us in Europe.
We are always talking about relieving the burden of bureaucracy and supporting firms in order to create new jobs.
This is a real opportunity to find a new approach.
I think it is very important that we have decided to cut down on the number of people required to provide information, as well as reducing the amount of information to be given, although we do, of course, want to have an acceptable level of information.
What we want, in other words, is a good cost-benefit ratio, so that the exercise is a profitable one.
In Austria we are shortly to hive off the Central Statistical Office, making it into an independent profit-making operation.
People using the data will have to pay for doing so, because if the data are worth anything, then there should be a price to pay.
<P>
I would also stress that we have made great efforts to use a single nomenclature for internal and external trade, and we are reducing the number of sections from eight to six, which I think is very important.
We need to have data that are manageable.
They will not be broken down so finely, but they should still provide a clear overview of the market.
<P>
We should also welcome the fact that the transport sector and supply conditions have been dropped.
What we want is to be able to obtain really efficient data rapidly.
They should be collected in computerised form as far as possible, and we should encourage firms to supply them voluntarily, using systems of incentives rather than fines.
We must see to it that the most up-to-date statistical methods are used, such as random sampling, market research and opinion surveys.
I think that this will bring us much closer to the people, and we will then be more readily accepted by businesses, have greater room for manoeuvre on the world market and thereby create new jobs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=259 NAME="Marín">
In the framework of the SLIM initiative, the Commission presented two proposals for a regulation on 30 May 1997 with the aim of simplifying the basic legislation on the Intrastat system.
Their objective is to relieve the burden on those who have to provide statistics.
<P>
In the first proposal, the number of compulsory variables to be provided in declarations was reduced, and in the second, the nomenclature of products used to classify traded goods was simplified.
<P>
As regards the first proposal on reducing the number of variables covered, the conciliation procedure allowed us to reach a satisfactory result on the Commission's initial proposal.
This result was obtained through the combined efforts of our two institutions - Parliament and the Commission - and we are very pleased about that.
<P>
The joint text agreed in this way represents an important step in the work to relieve the burden on businesses, and particularly SMEs.
To be specific, from 1 January 2001, small and medium-sized enterprises will no longer have to provide five variables. However, the Member States will retain their option to request the 'delivery terms', 'mode of transport' and 'statistical procedure' variables for businesses that are above a certain threshold.
<P>
As regards the proposal on simplifying the nomenclature, the Commission notes with satisfaction that all the institutions acknowledge the importance of simplifying the combined nomenclature.
Its importance is highlighted in the joint text through a specific recital to this end.
<P>
Moreover, the Commission would like to point out that the Council is willing to examine the proposal for a regulation on this matter.
<P>
In conclusion, the European Commission is satisfied with these specific simplifications, which businesses will soon benefit from, and would especially like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Lulling, on her excellent report.
<P>
However, this is only the first step.
The Commission is committed to continuing with the SLIM/Intrastat initiative and the EDICOM actions for businesses, in accordance with the Council's position on the need for information in the framework of economic and monetary union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=260 NAME="Lulling">
<SPEAKER ID=261 NAME="President">
I understand the point you are making, but it is not our Rules but the Treaty that sets down that we require a simple majority for third reading.
I accept what you say about Friday, but in terms of the parliamentary calendar, it is a normal working day.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=262 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, I hope that next time a very controversial conciliation report is being discussed, we will also vote on Friday morning, with 20 votes to 18, or something of the kind!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=263 NAME="President">
I am just a servant of this House.
I merely follow the agenda.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Insolvency practices
<SPEAKER ID=264 NAME="President">
The next item is the report by Mr Malangré (A4-0234/99) on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights on insolvency practices.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=265 NAME="Malangré">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this own-initiative report is Parliament's contribution towards closing a very sensitive loophole in internal market legislation.
Much of this single market legislation is, as we know, very well advanced, I am glad to say.
However, despite three attempts we have still not succeeded in finding a solution to the problem of Community insolvency law.
This is the unavoidable downside to the great success of the single market.
As we know and are extremely happy to see, many businesses are taking advantage of the single market to operate in other countries and now have sizeable assets in various Member States of the Union.
<P>
When insolvencies occur, however, the confusing legal situation with, at present, 15 different bankruptcy systems creates great scope for manipulation, generates enormous costs in complicated proceedings and makes it extremely difficult to ensure that the assets are fairly distributed among the creditors.
Here too - and this is something we would stress - the idea of introducing remedial measures through an intergovernmental agreement, thereby excluding Parliament, came to nothing.
However, I will not deny that I have great sympathy with what the Commission has been trying to do since the early 1980s, or at least with the substance, but not with the idea of using an intergovernmental agreement.
<P>
This Commission draft was an outstanding and extremely knowledgeable legal text, but it was not accepted.
The subsequent attempts - the Istanbul Convention and the last one that failed in 1995 - tried other routes, but they too missed the mark.
Nevertheless, we need a Community solution, which is why I call in my report for a draft directive or regulation to be put forward as soon as possible.
We urgently need to have this on the table, and most of the preliminary work was done in the three earlier drafts.
If we take the approach of demanding directives or regulations, we are ensuring that Parliament will be involved and that there will be a majority decision, which experience has shown to be clearly what is needed here.
<P>
My report contains a number of proposals which improve on the agreement that failed in 1995, and we would ask you to consider them.
I think they are essential improvements which can be incorporated.
I would like to thank the Committee on Legal Affairs for all its hard work.
We held a hearing that produced a very clear outcome, and we were unanimous in demanding an urgent solution to this insolvency problem.
<P>
I would just mention that four amendments were tabled in committee which were all positive and supported the line taken in the report.
I was therefore happy to include them and can now put before you a proposal that was approved by the entire committee.
I would urge you to vote in favour of it tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=266 NAME="Oddy">
Thank you Mr President.
I agree with the rapporteur that this is an important report and I agree with his suggestions.
I regret, too, that the convention has not been ratified by all Member States and would stress that we need to find a solution to this very serious problem.
I agree with the demand of the rapporteur to draft a regulation or a directive on crossborder insolvency.
<P>
I want to flag up though that we need a solution which finds a fair balance for creditors and employers and employees alike.
Employees need some protection for accrued salaries and creditors need a sensible solution which will give them the best possible repayments of debts under the circumstances.
<P>
I would also flag up a point made by my colleague, Mr Falconer: I am sure he will not mind me saying this.
He is particularly concerned that, in insolvency situations where someone later develops an industrial disease, a solution is found whereby they can be recompensed for industrial disease problems.
<P>
I agree that this is an urgent report and that it is crucial to find a solution swiftly.
Indeed, to show how urgent it is, I was lobbied about this at an international banking meeting in Paris in spring 1994.
That shows how longstanding the issue is.
<P>
I speak on behalf of the Socialist Group.
My Socialist Group will be supporting the report and I would like to thank the rapporteur for his hard work.
It has been extremely nice working with Mr Malangré over the years that we have both been in Parliament.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=267 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, I should like to begin where the previous speaker left off, by expressing my great admiration for Mr Malangré.
He has produced a report that is as sound as a bell.
I myself have a personal connection with this subject, since my very first report, on an amendment to the Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community, dealt with the bankruptcy of the Ferrovie San'Anna, which was very unusual at the time, a steel company going bankrupt.
The High Authority, which was responsible for the social side of things, seemed to come last in the queue, while first the State, then the social services, the suppliers, the banks and anyone else you cared to mention all helped themselves to whatever was left over from the liquidation.
So I said to Commissioner Cristoffersen that the situation could not be allowed to continue, because there were so many different bankruptcy systems in the European Union, and it was high time that we had the possibility of creating European limited companies whose creation and termination would both be jointly regulated.
<P>
Now, in my last speech at the last sitting I shall attend as a Member of this Parliament, bankruptcy is on the agenda again and it has still not been regulated.
As Mr Malangré described in his explanatory statement, which as I said is absolutely first-class, it is high time that we did something about bankruptcy in the Community at European level.
There are twelve different systems for suspension of payment in Italy, and in Denmark all creditors are treated equally, even the State and the social security authorities.
We need harmonisation here, otherwise any attempts to create European transfrontier companies will be doomed to failure.
I support the Malangré report, to which I have been able to make a small contribution through my amendments in the Legal Affairs Committee, which have been included.
I and my group wholeheartedly endorse it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=268 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, the Commission welcomes Parliament's initiative to support the adoption at Community level of legislation that allows us to determine the legal and economic effects of the bankruptcy of companies operating within the internal market.
Such legislation does not currently exist.
The effects of insolvency proceedings opened in one Member State upon goods and people situated in another Member State depend on national legislation and on bilateral agreements between the Member States.
<P>
The Community has always attempted to compensate for this shortcoming in the context of the smooth running of the internal market and, to this end, it launched two types of initiative in the 1980s.
<P>
Firstly, the Member States began to negotiate an agreement on the basis of ex Article 220 of the EC Treaty. This agreement aimed to regulate in a horizontal manner the intra-Community effects of bankruptcy by determining the legal competences and the law to be applied in declaring a business insolvent.
These negotiations culminated in the signing of the 1995 Convention on Insolvency Proceedings, on the basis of which we are debating today.
<P>
Secondly, the Commission presented two directives on the liquidation of insurance companies and credit bodies.
These proposals are based on the principle of the authorities' powers in the country of origin where these companies are authorised to operate.
<P>
The Commission hopes that the two directives will be adopted as soon as possible.
Until now, however, neither of these two initiatives have been successful.
We are awaiting their adoption with bated breath.
<P>
The 1995 Convention on Insolvency Proceedings had still not been signed by all the Member States before the Amsterdam Treaty entered into force and, as a result, it cannot be implemented.
<P>
Retaining its use of the right of initiative, the Commission is assessing how the text agreed by the Member States in 1995 and could be brought into effect within the framework of the Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=269 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, I am sorry that the Commissioner must be feeling that he is getting the third degree here.
He said that the 1995 Convention has not been signed by all the Member States and the Commission is now considering doing something about this. Will the Commissioner promise that the Commission will come up with either a directive or a regulation here - we leave that to the Commission to decide - so that we no longer need to wait for these countries to make up their minds?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=270 NAME="President">
Mr Wijsenbeek, I have been very tolerant but I cannot allow the dialogue to continue.
We have to conclude the debate.
I would like to add my own personal thanks to Mr Malangré for all the work that he has done in this House and to wish him every success in the future.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Lawful interception of telecommunications
<SPEAKER ID=271 NAME="President">
The next item is the report by Mr Schmid (A4-0234/99) on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs for a Motion for a Resolution on the lawful interception of telecommunications in relation to new technologies (10951/2/98 - C4-0052/99-99/0906(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=272 NAME="Schulz">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, before I move on to the subject of this debate, there is something I would like to say to Mr Malangré, who is leaving this House after 20 years as a Member.
You know that there are personal reasons why I am addressing these words to you.
We are, if you like, opponents and competitors in politics, since we both come from the Aachen region.
You were mayor of that important European city for 16 years and alongside that a Member of the European Parliament for 20 years.
I was mayor of Aachen's smaller neighbour for just a few years, and we did our best to get our hands on your trade tax by stealing your biggest factories.
However, this has not affected our friendship or the work we have done together for Europe.
I think I can say on behalf of many in my group that you have been one of the most honourable and reliable Europeans in this House.
Many thanks for all your work!
<P>
Applause
<P>
The Schmid report deals with an extremely sensitive subject - the modern communications society on the threshold of the 21st century.
People value their privacy, and every democratic country has legislation which protects its citizens against arbitrary State interference in their private lives.
This is why the police are only allowed to tap telephones or intercept faxes and letters under lawful conditions, and then only in certain strictly limited cases and only with a court order.
The conditions for such activities are regulated under national law, and rightly so.
<P>
This draft Council Resolution on the lawful interception of telecommunications does not interfere with national law here, since whether we like it or not, resolutions under the third pillar have this somewhat circumscribed nature.
In future, under the Amsterdam Treaty, it will be more accurate to call them 'common positions', but they will still have no binding legal force.
They simply indicate that the Member States have agreed on a common course of action.
A resolution was used in 1995 to agree what interception meant in the technical sense, such as whether only the content of a telephone conversation should be recorded, or the time and the recipient's telephone number as well.
<P>
There are two reasons for having these telephone and fax agreements between the Member States.
Setting up interception facilities involves costs for the system operator, but in the single market the level of costs must be similar everywhere if distortions of competition are to be avoided.
So one country cannot impose costs on its operators which are not charged in other countries.
<P>
Secondly, in the case of cross-border requests for legal assistance, we need to be clear about what interception actually means.
The draft resolution before us extends the scope of the agreement to include mobile telephones and Internet communications.
This is an extremely sensitive area.
It is a logical extension because it will protect people's privacy, but it does not mean that we are protecting a particular technical communication medium.
The two must be clearly distinguished.
<P>
There is opposition to these agreements and the planned procedures, which is very interesting and is worth looking at more closely.
There are some Internet freaks who are very concerned that we are trying to interfere with their freedom to communicate and think that free communication is under threat.
They need to realise that the Internet is not outside the law, and that in a democratic society there cannot be any areas where people can just do what they like.
I was Parliament's rapporteur for the establishment of joint measures to combat child pornography, and I can tell you that what is happening on the Internet cries out for some form of regulation, however hard it might be to put into practice.


<P>
The Internet service providers also have some misgivings because of the costs involved.
We have included an amendment in the report to answer these concerns.
There is also no fixed timetable for implementation, which is a weak point.
There is opposition too from those with an interest in money laundering and tax evasion.
The draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, Mr Florio, has expressed such misgivings.
He has been good enough to air the concern that regulations on interception might also be applied to bank transactions on the Internet.
The 'Handelsblatt ', which is hardly what you would call a Socialist newspaper, wrote last December, and I quote, 'The Internet is the ideal medium for tax evasion.
A firm called Privacy Solutions is openly advertising itself on the Internet with the following words: 'Your office is in cyberspace, the tax authorities will never find you!'
' People have a civil right to protect their privacy, but there is no civil right to crime, money laundering or tax evasion!
<P>
Anyone who totally rejects the lawful interception of modern communications, which we have heard many speakers do, is simply aiding and abetting criminals, albeit unintentionally.
However difficult it may be to translate joint agreements into practical action, it is absolutely essential that we should recognise that the freedom which the new telecommunications give us is still something that is open to abuse.
This is an appeal to the sense of responsibility of those able to take advantage of this freedom, but it is also a challenge to the national authorities to find intelligent ways of stopping these freedoms from being abused, which is harmful to the public interest and creates particular problems for the tax system and the collection of taxes.
My colleague Mr Schmid has tried to contribute to these efforts in this report.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=273 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cederschiöld">
Mr President, the interception of telecommunications is a sensitive matter, since it touches upon the personal integrity of ordinary people.
We are engaged in the eternal process of finding the right balance between safeguarding that integrity and combating crime.
Nobody wishes to see Orwell's Big Brother take over, but nor do we want to expose the public to uncontrollable levels of crime.
The current exercise is simply a matter of updating an existing resolution on telecommunications interception, bringing it into line with modem technology.
This is a very low-key text from the legislative point of view. National legislation is not infringed upon; Member States implement the provisions only if they so wish, and in the way they choose.
<P>
The State has a duty to fight crime committed within its borders.
It bears responsibility for anti-crime measures and supports the cost.
This applies in the United States as well.
Costs arising in connection with the interception of telecommunications are currently borne by the State, and should continue to be so.
This is especially relevant at a time like now when telephony markets are being privatised.
Increased costs would make life harder for small Internet providers, undermining Europe's competitive edge.
Internet providers can, after all, set up anywhere in the world; we do not want rising costs to drive them out of the European Union.
<P>
Success on the advanced technology front is vital for Europe's development.
We cannot afford any deterioration in the growth potential of the IT industry.
There is currently scope for expansion in the sector, particularly for small and medium-sized companies. They are the ones that would suffer if they had to bear the costs of generalised data storage.
<P>
Personal integrity must be at the forefront of any debate on anti-crime measures. Sophisticated data inspection requirements offer one solution.
Equally, we will need a preventive strategy to stop the Internet from becoming a playground for criminals.
<P>
Across-the-board storage of information naturally puts us in mind of Orwell. If the State takes charge of the costs, however, we will have some degree of assurance that only such information as is absolutely necessary will be saved.
There must be a decision from a court; the exact nature of the information required will need to be specified; this data must of course only be used if there is suspicion that a very serious crime has been committed; and no action should be taken on statements from informers.
This whole area is rightly regulated in an extremely strict way in almost all countries.
I can therefore see no reason why Parliament should seek to block this move.
On the contrary, we in this House need to demonstrate that we can perform the balancing act required and contribute towards an unfettered information society, without allowing the Internet to become a vehicle for crime. Mr Schulz has warned us about that.
So, in the interest of combating crime, I would commend this proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=274 NAME="McKenna">
The EU FBI telecommunications surveillance system is developing rapidly through two separate but very linked initiatives.
First, the Council has proposed a new draft Council resolution to extend the 1995 requirements resolution to cover new technologies, the Internet and satellite-based telecommunications.
And, second, the Council is on the verge of agreeing a formula to provide a legal base for remote access to a satellite ground station in Italy through a new clause in the draft convention on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters.
<P>
This draft convention will provide the legal framework for the interception of all forms of telecommunications in the EU which is required to put into effect the EU FBI surveillance system.
Both measures are expected to be agreed at the Justice and Home Affairs Council on 27 to 28 May.
<P>
What we are discussing here today, in the version discussed in the European Parliament, amends the 1995 requirements to include data on Internet users such as IP address, electronic address assigned to a party, account number and e-mail address (ENFOPOL 10951/98 REV2).
<P>
That has actually been changed.
What we are discussing now is not the actual wording, because what it says instead is: 'IP address' and instead of 'account number' it says 'credit card number and e-mail address'.
<P>
It is very disturbing that an issue like this is being discussed on a Thursday evening when there are very few people here, the vote will be tomorrow morning, and there has been no proper debate within national parliaments on this issue.
There has definitely been no debate within the Irish Parliament and I do not think there has been debate within many of the other parliaments.
<P>
If it is possible to monitor communications in such a manner you will be able to tell where a person is, when they are there, what sites they are consulting, what electronic messages they are sending, what electronic payments they are making, basically you will know everything about a person's private life.
<P>
The Greens believe that this is a serious attack on privacy and there are not sufficient safeguards regarding data protection and democratic control.
This is something that was actually brought up by the Committee on Legal Affairs, which was very critical of this.
It is unfortunate that the draftsperson of the opinion is not here because it is extremely important that this point is stressed.
<P>
Rules on telephone tapping are controlled, for example, at national level.
That follows very proper procedures and authorisation.
This proposal here basically ignores the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the provision on the protection of private life in Article 8.
These are being overwritten here and interference by a public authority should be subject to extremely strict conditions.
The view of the Committee on Legal Affairs should be taken on board.
<P>
The other point I wanted to make is that this whole issue was discussed in a procedure which was a written procedure, not in a meeting of the Justice and Home Affairs Ministers.
This issue has not, as far as I am concerned, followed the proper democratic procedures.
It has not been discussed in national parliaments.
I also feel it is very sinister that this issue is put on the agenda on the Thursday night when everyone is going back to campaign for the election.
There is absolutely nobody here to listen to what is going on.
This is a grave step against people's right to privacy and right to freedom.
<P>
It has always been the case in Member States throughout the European Union and right around the world that oppressive legislation is brought in using the argument that we have to combat serious crime.
For example one of the speakers mentioned paedophilia and things like that on the Internet.
That does not mean that you overwrite people's basic right to privacy.
That is what is going on here.
There needs to be a lot more debate about this, not just here in the European Parliament but in national parliaments.
I would like to know why these issues have been railroaded through in such a fashion without proper democratic control and proper public debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=275 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Nassauer">
Madam President, lades and gentlemen, the mere mention of the idea of telephone tapping is enough to get the relevant circles talking about a police state and 'Big Brother', just like Pavlov's dogs.
What the Legal Affairs Committee has given us here is the sort of arrant nonsense that you might expect to hear from a first-year student, but from the second year onwards you would have to call it out-and-out troublemaking.
Mr Schulz pointed out quite rightly, and Mr Schmid wrote, that this Council recommendation makes absolutely no difference whatsoever to the legal situation in the Member States.
<P>
The legal conditions for telephone tapping and for monitoring Internet access will still, even after this resolution, lie solely in the hands of the national legislator.
The resolution simply aims to harmonise the technical standards, which we need to do in order to use telephone tapping to prevent organised crime.
<P>
Let me give you an example.
Virtual bank accounts can be used to collect extortion money: a blackmailer sets up a virtual bank account and has the money paid into it, and if access cannot be monitored, he cannot be held responsible or brought to account.
This is why it is absolutely vital that these measures are taken now.
The Council has made a recommendation, and we have a resolution before us that is essential if we are to combat organised crime.
<P>
The Member States will certainly introduce all the constitutional requirements that are needed to register something as sensitive as telephone tapping or Internet monitoring.
But we need to make provision for ways of combating organised crime.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=276 NAME="Schulz">
Madam President, I do not want to take up too much time unnecessarily, but Mrs McKenna made two points that I feel I have to take issue with.
Mr Schmid, for whom I am deputising, has not stayed away deliberately.
His report was actually on the agenda for this morning, and this afternoon he had a private appointment, not a political one, that he could not put off.
I apologise on his behalf, and I would assume that Mrs McKenna criticised his absence simply because she did not know the reasons for it.
<P>
The second point is one that I simply have to reject.
The committee responsible here in the House is called the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
No other parliament in the world, I think, devotes as much care and attention as ours does to basic and human rights if there is any question of interference with civil liberties in the construction of a European legal area.
You know, Mrs McKenna, that as well as being the spokesman on internal affairs for my group I am also the vice-chairman of the Subcommittee on Human Rights.
I categorically reject the claim that the careful work which we are doing - whether it is Mr Nassauer, myself or Mr Schmid - is designed to railroad something through that goes against the guarantees of basic rights enjoyed by individuals in the European Union.
I have to say that I think these are rather harsh allegations, and because I value you as a colleague I would ask you to consider carefully in future whether you can substantiate them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=277 NAME="McKenna">
Madam President, on a point of order.
I was not criticising Mr Schmid for not being here.
I did not mention his name.
I was talking about Mr Florio because he was the draftsman of the opinion in the Committee on Legal Affairs.
The Committee on Legal Affairs has the opposite view to the Committee on Civil Liberties.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=278 NAME="Marín">
Madam President, I should firstly like to congratulate Mr Schmid on his excellent report on the lawful interception of telecommunications.
<P>
The Commission shares Parliament's opinion of the importance of this issue, particularly since in Europe the telecommunications world is constantly undergoing rapid and revolutionary changes.
<P>
On the one hand, we must take into account the logical concerns of the police authorities.
The development of Internet telecommunications must not affect the Member States' ability to fight crime and maintain national security.
On the other hand, we are seeing a significant increase in telecommunications services and, in particular, Internet services.
Information technology companies already account for more than 5 % of the European Union's gross domestic product.
They provide employment for more than four million people and they create more new jobs than any other sector of the European Union's economy.
As a result, the Union is obviously extremely keen to remain at the forefront in this age of information.
<P>
Moreover, if this sector is to continue to expand, it is essential that we are able to ensure that users trust the telecommunication services.
The European Commission therefore believes that it is vital to maintain an appropriate balance between the interests at stake.
In our opinion, this can only be achieved through open dialogue between the police authorities, the operators and the industry.
<P>
As highlighted in both Mr Schmid's report and the opinion by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, there is a series of aspects that must be addressed in more detail.
We thus need to clarify issues such as operators' liability as well as privacy in telecommunications.
<P>
The Commission should like to begin a broad debate on the necessary requirements and on the way in which these can be met in as beneficial a way as possible.
This debate could lead to the Commission making full use of the new opportunities provided by the Amsterdam Treaty and submitting proposals on this issue.
Only in this way will we be able to protect the development of the information society.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=279 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
The sitting was closed at 7 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=0>
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
It took a few moments before we could open the sitting, because I was afraid that the lights were going out all over Europe, but thankfully they have now come on again.
<P>
Today we have the very last sitting of this parliamentary term and probably also the last sitting to be held in this Chamber.
I think that many people will be glad if we can then move into a new Chamber, but for quite a few this is also their last day's sitting and it is no doubt an occasion tinged with sadness.
I also see that a good many colleagues have already embarked on the election campaign and the House is no longer full to capacity.
I should like to thank all those who are staying on here today, the so-called Friday club, which is indeed a very alert and active club which will see things through here to the end.
<P>
I should like to thank everyone, and above all to wish you well and hope that you will be back!
And to those who are not returning, I also send my best wishes for the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Madam President, I thought you showed great respect today by having the lights dimmed to say a dignified goodbye to all those colleagues who are with us this Friday and for whom today will be their last day in Parliament.
I would like to add that as Vice-President you have always made Friday mornings enjoyable occasions for us.
Thank you very much.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
<P>
Before we move on to the approval of the Minutes, there are two points of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Ford">
Madam President, on a point of order.
Can you confirm that the Bureau agreed yesterday to send a delegation to meet Mr Rugova and, if that is the case, can you draw the attention of political groups to Rule 91 of the code of conduct, Annex 1, Articles 1 and 2, which says that before a Member may be validly nominated as an office-holder, or participate in an official delegation, he must have duly completed the declaration provided for in Article 2.
Can you confirm that rule will be applied?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
The Rules of Procedure are just the same for the Conference of Presidents, Mr Ford!
<P>
Laughter
<P>
The nominations have taken place, and I assume that all those who have been nominated will have been informed of this individually.
In any event, that is the instruction that was given.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="McMahon">
Madam President, on a point of order.
As you know, during my time here, I have made a great play of raising these points of order.
Today is a very important day for this House and it is a very important day for my country, Scotland.
We have just had the first democratic election for our Parliament.
<P>
Applause
<P>
We in the European Parliament appointed an officer to liaise with it, Mr Dermot Scott.
He took up his position in February.
<P>
For those politicians who are interested, the latest state of play is as follows: Labour 56, the Nationalists 25, the Conservatives 9, the Liberal Democrats 3 and others 3.
It looks as though it will be a very interesting situation and could I therefore suggest that we write to Mr Dewar, who is the Secretary of State for Scotland, wishing him well in his new venture.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Madam President, in January I submitted an urgent written question to the Council about five Angolan MPs who were imprisoned last December without charge and without trial. The legal period of nine days allowed in Angola had expired by then.
The least that we as MEPs can do is to look out for fellow MPs who are suffering oppression.
Although I am coming to the end of my term in office, I would urge you, Madam President, to ensure that I receive a written answer to my question about the five Angolan MPs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs van Bladel.
Unfortunately, there are no fixed time limits for the answering of questions by the Council, but we will once again press for you to be given this answer as soon as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Madam President, on 15 March I submitted a written question to the President about his statement concerning the working place in Luxembourg and the seat of the European Parliament's secretariat there.
The President had said that Parliament's secretariat would be leaving Luxembourg once Luxembourg became the seat of another international institution that was to employ 1 200 officials or other people.
<P>
Shout of 'What a good idea!'
<P>
I do not know whether it is a good idea or not, but I have asked Parliament's President and Bureau to comment on the statement.
He has not done so.
I think I am entitled, having waited since 15 March, to a written response from the President about what he said, and if he claims not to have made this statement he should say so.
I would ask you, Madam Vice-President, to make sure that I receive a written answer to my question of 15 March.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Lulling.
Your comments will be recorded in the Minutes, and I will once again take steps to ensure that you receive your answer.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
We shall now move on to the votes.
<P>
Proposal for a Council Regulation (ECSC, EC, EURATOM) incorporating daily subsistence allowance rates for officials on mission within the European territory of the Member States of the European Union for Austria, Finland and Sweden into Article 13 of Annex VII to the Staff Regulations of officials of the European Communities (COM(99)0133 - C4-0226/99-99/0076(CNS))
<P>
Parliament approved the Commission proposal
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
The next item is in principle the report by Mr Jarzembowski.
However, I have to tell the House that we have not yet received the opinion of the Committee of the Regions.
With your agreement, I should like to defer this item.
We are waiting for the information, and if it arrives in good time, it can still be taken into account.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Madam President, I wholeheartedly endorse what Mrs Oomen-Ruijten said about your conduct of our business, but with all due respect I would urge that we should vote on the Jarzembowski report.
We discussed the possibility with the Legal Service of voting today and forwarding the results later, subject to receiving the approval of the Committee of the Regions.
There are still quite a lot of Members here for a Friday, which is why I would seriously urge you to hold the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
We had intended to wait for this, Mr Swoboda, but I have just been informed that the answer from the Committee of the Regions is no longer expected to arrive today.
I shall therefore put this to the vote now.
<P>
Recommendation for second reading (A4-0245/99), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the common position adopted by the Council (13651/3/98 - C4-0037/99-96/0182(COD) - former 96/0182(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Directive on the charging of heavy goods vehicles for the use of certain infrastructures (Rapporteur: Mr Jarzembowski)
<P>
The President declared the common position approved
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="President">
I would point out that this approval will only take effect once the opinion of the Committee of the Regions has been received, pursuant to Article 71 of the Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Madam President, I just wanted to point out that we should adopt this provisional opinion.
I would also like to compliment you on your new hair style.
<P>
Laughter
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
In fact it is not new, but one always looks a little fresher after a visit to the hairdresser!
<P>
Laughter
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Caudron">
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Bru Purón">
Madam President, I voted in favour of the report by Mr Malangré because I believe that it is of great importance and that its content is extremely sound.
<P>
The last committee report for this parliamentary term confirms the old adage of 'last but not least'.
<P>
It responds to a pressing need, and the lack of attention it has received until now is at odds with the intensive harmonisation achieved in so many aspects of commercial law, from company law to some specific points on insolvency, such as deposit-guarantee schemes for trouble-stricken credit institutions.
<P>
The lack of minimum rules for insolvency proceedings has enormous repercussions for the Union's territory as it means that the single market is being built without a roof.
<P>
Mr Malangré's proposal is based on Article 65 of the EC Treaty, as amended by the Amsterdam Treaty, and I support it. However, I understand that this is not only a procedural issue and that with Article 65, we would find ourselves in a situation whereby unanimity is required in the Council.
<P>
For this reason, I should like to point out to future legislators that the basis provided by Article 95 - ex Article 100a - is valuable in terms of approximating all the provisions that relate to the workings of the internal market by means of a directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Hallam">
Madam President, on a point of order.
I wonder if, on my last day in Parliament, you could just solve a little mystery for me.
How is it that somebody who is not present and has not taken part in the vote can submit an explanation of vote?
I am fascinated by this!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="President">
You are right, Mr Hallam. One can only give an explanation of vote if one has actually taken part in the vote.
But that is checked carefully every time.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Potato starch
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="President">
The next item is the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 1868/94 establishing a quota system for the production of potato starch (COM(99)0173 - C4-0214/99-99/0088(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Sonneveld">
Madam President, alongside its decision on compensation for the reduction in the price of cereals, the Agriculture Council also adapted the compensation paid for the production of starch potatoes.
It was agreed to fix the compensation for potato growers, given solely in the form of hectare premiums, at a higher level than the Commission had proposed, provided that the number of hectares was reduced accordingly, so that the overall decision would be budget-neutral in relation to the original Commission proposal.
This could only be achieved by reducing the national potato starch quotas by an agreed percentage, albeit in an adapted form, with the larger producers giving up more than the smaller.
<P>
The Council and the Commission rightly called for the European Parliament to take a decision on the compensation and the potato starch quotas simultaneously, simply as a matter of good management.
If we approve this Commission proposal on reducing the quotas, we shall be making the growers' incomes a little more secure; otherwise they would have been hit particularly hard by the new policy.
In certain areas, the production of starch potatoes is a vital concern.
The quota proposal, in conjunction with the decision on compensation for starch potato growers, has no effect whatsoever on the competitive position of the processing industry - in actual fact the production of potato starch is being slightly reduced, so the producers of other starches can hardly object to that.
<P>
Madam President, I have always been proud that we have consistently succeeded in the CAP in finding sensible ways of linking the interests of primary producers and processors, while at the same time giving equal weight to the interests of consumers and taxpayers.
The potato starch sector shows the successful operation of the CAP in a nutshell.
It is a good example of an extremely dynamic and inventive sector which offers prospects for the non-food use of agricultural crops.
I would like to thank my colleagues for their cooperation in continuing the development of what is an extremely well-constructed policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Olsson">
Madam President, potato growing is a significant and promising area of agriculture, with its strong potential for new openings.
Sweden has a fairly sizeable potato sector.
Our negotiations for membership of the Union coincided with the dying days of alcohol production using potato starch.
Now that this activity has ceased, potato growing - for the purposes of industrial starch production - has had to be cut back considerably.
This in turn has led to problems for farmers in areas where the land is suited to such crops.
<P>
A new regulation is now being proposed, under which quotas will be reduced. The reductions will, however, be somewhat lower for countries with low-volume quotas.
I find this a satisfactory solution.
It is certainly better than it might have been.
I have no objections; in fact, I applaud the proposal.
What I would like to stress is the special value of potato starch as a raw material for industry.
It is very good for paper manufacturing and there is scope for using it in many new sectors.
This is the type of product that should be at the heart of our future investment and development strategies for agriculture.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Madam President, the Commission proposal to reduce the production quotas for potato starch forms an integral part of the Agenda 2000 package approved in Berlin.
It is therefore a good idea for us to deal with it as a matter of urgency today.
<P>
The regulation of the market in potato starch is closely linked to the regulation of the market in cereals, and rightly so, since potato starch producers are largely operating in the same market as the cereal starch industry.
It is therefore extremely important that the subsidies for potato starch should be kept closely in line with the level of aid for cereals.
<P>
The Commission's original proposals seriously affected the balance between potato starch and cereal starch and would have had disastrous consequences for the incomes of potato starch producers.
The Commission wanted to pay compensation of only 44 % of the price reduction, but the Council rightly corrected this by increasing the income premiums to 75 % of the price reduction.
To keep this budget-neutral, the Council linked this decision to the regulation reducing the quotas, a solution that the sector can live with.
<P>
A reduction in the quotas is also very much in line with the current supply and demand situation on the potato starch market.
A few years ago, the European quota was increased for political reasons.
The new Germany was allocated a reserve of 110 000 tonnes, while the most recent Member States got a quota of almost 170 000 tonnes.
All of this led to overproduction on the European market.
<P>
In short, the proposal to reduce the quotas deserves our full support.
It enables potato starch producers to be offered reasonable compensation for the price reduction, and it is a decision which the current market situation also justifies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Mulder">
Madam President, I had the opportunity earlier in the week to tell the House how important it was to deal with this proposal this week.
It is entirely logical that we should vote on the potato starch sector in the same week that we have voted on Agenda 2000.
My group believes that potato starch production is of enormous economic importance in certain areas of Europe, which is why it is absolutely vital that the balancing premium should be maintained.
We think that potato starch and cereal starch should in principle always receive the same payments.
<P>
The Commission proposal to reduce the production quotas and increase the compensation payments for potato starch seems like a good idea, mainly because future developments on the world market could yet take us by surprise.
I also think it is important that the Commission should ensure that the compensation payments are made directly to the farmers, if at all possible.
If there are fewer middle-men, there is less chance that money will be used for other purposes, so we must ensure that wherever possible the payments go directly to the farmers.
<P>
Finally, I would like to say something this morning in support of the development of new technologies.
There are a number of technological developments that would make potato starch an ideal sector to promote.
I think the Commission needs to pursue an active policy here and should say that it is compulsory to use certain agricultural products in the interests of the environment.
This would create a new market for such products and would also be good for the environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Gradin">
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Gradin.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
Parliament approved the Commission proposal
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Hannover 2000
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0195/99) by Mr Hoppenstedt, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament entitled 'EXPO 2000 Hannover' (COM(99)0131 - C4-0153/99).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="Hoppenstedt">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, when the House discussed Expo 2000 in 1990, Venice was still being mooted as a possibility.
It was made clear that it would be tantamount to a natural disaster if Venice was chosen to host the exhibition.
At the time, and without realising, of course, that I would be speaking as the rapporteur on the last day of this five-year parliamentary term, I said that if Venice was not going to be considered, Hanover should be Europe's representative to compete against Toronto.
We know the outcome.
Today, some ten years later, we are voting on how Europe is to participate.
<P>
There is quite a background to this, of course, because for the last 18 months we, and I myself in particular, have been working to move this whole project forward so as to ensure that there is adequate funding for the European Union to be represented at Hanover, and that is by no means an easy task, as you know.
This was why we made such a push last year for the 1999 budget, and thanks to all those colleagues who recognised how important it was for the European Union to take part in Hanover, particularly in the year 2000, it was voted through.
I would like to thank all those responsible.
<P>
I was entrusted with the report in March 1998, not March 1999 as it says here, and since then quite a lot has happened.
However, the report itself has appeared rather late in the day.
This was because the Lisbon World Exhibition was also important for the European Union and the Commission was very much taken up with it.
But it was not too late, because the European Union will be in one of the Expo General Commissariat's pavilions and will have an excellent position at the head of the European Boulevard near the Plaza.
I think the European Union has a good chance of attracting a large number of visitors.
As I have said in my report, we do not want the entrance to the European Union to be through the back door to some building or other.
No, the European Union must be open to all spectators, and this is what we have achieved through our work together.
If we can look forward to a total budget of some EUR 15 million, including the 2000 budget, then it is all thanks to the efforts of our colleagues.
And we need the money, because this pavilion looks both back to the past and forward to the future.
The theme in Hanover is 'Humankind - Nature - Technology', depicted in various imaginative ways, and what institution could be in a better position than the European Union to bring together all the various ideas from around the world and in the Member States, and to disseminate these ideas to give new impetus for the future?
<P>
I think that we have also been quite successful in having a square near the European pavilion or the European exhibition named after Robert Schuman as an indication of how important Robert Schuman was for the development of Europe, and to have a square that will remain in use in the future.
The exhibition centre and buildings will not be disappearing, but are to remain as a living centre in Hanover and the European Union.
<P>
There is another European element in the European Union's exhibition on the theme of 'Humankind - Nature - Technology': the euro.
The euro will be featured as one of the most recent developments that is of enormous importance for the future in particular, and we have arranged with the relevant bodies, including through requests made by our committees here in the House, to be able to use the euro as an electronic currency.
I think that it is important for the many millions of visitors to be able to use the euro and to explain to other people how it will work in future.
<P>
I think that everyone will pull together on this, including in the future, and since I will no longer be here in Parliament, I would ask Doris Pack, Paul Rübig and others to ensure that it is a success.
<P>
As I have said, I will not be returning to Parliament, and I should like to thank all those colleagues who have worked so closely with me in the Committee on Economic Affairs and the Committee on Culture, especially on these topics that are so important for the future.
I should also like to thank the interpreters sitting in their booths, who have communicated our activities here to others.
My thanks go to everyone, and I hope to see you again in some other arena in the future!
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Elchlepp">
Madam President, I should like to begin by thanking Mr Hoppenstedt for all his hard work on this issue, and we all hope that Hanover will be a huge success.
It is extremely important for the European Union to be involved in an event like Expo 2000, which will attract enormous attention from the media and the public.
It is important to present an image of Europe for inward consumption, for the Union's own citizens, but also outwardly, for visitors from around the globe.
<P>
The EU must get closer to the people in its activities, raising its profile among passing trade, as it were, and the Expo is an ideal forum for this.
In the Committee on Culture too we have repeatedly stressed that the exhibition should not just show Europe's economic successes, but should also illustrate the European Union's cultural diversity and in particular its successful programmes.
I would also urge - and this is addressed to the organisers of the exhibition - that Parliament should be able to demonstrate its independent role in initiating these programmes, and it should be kept entirely separate from the Commission both in the pavilion and in the budget for the event.
<P>
Finally, I should also like to take the opportunity to urge the Council once again not just to be proud of our cultural achievements here, but to ensure that there is sufficient funding for the programmes, because there is absolutely no point in getting the public interested in all these wonderful programmes that the European Union organises if the level of funding is just a joke.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Madam President, I should like to thank Mr Hoppenstedt most sincerely for his excellent report, which I have followed with great interest - not so much the exhibition in Hanover as the problems that it has generated.
I am also glad that Mr Elchlepp spoke on the subject, for the simple reason that he too produced a wonderful report on an earlier occasion which I still remember with pleasure.
I would like to thank him once again for that report.
<P>
Like any exhibition, the Expo in Hanover will be very important if it is used for the right purpose, as Mr Hoppenstedt underlined.
But I would also like to look a little further forward, because there will be other exhibitions in future, and we should be starting to think now about things that will be vital for these future events.
Time and again the vital cultural dimension is missing, as Mr Hoppenstedt rightly said, yet this is one of Europe's great strengths, and we should focus more attention on the cultural side of things instead of selling it short.
<P>
Secondly, we should remember that we have not always done ourselves justice here, particularly at exhibitions.
As the 2005 Expo is, I am delighted to say, to be held in Nagoya in Japan, I would point out that the exhibition in Osaka led to a number of scandalous bureaucratic blunders, when they built the Europe pavilion but refused to put up the Coudenhove-Kalergi statue.
After a wave of protests the European Community, as it was then, explained that it could not afford it.
Then came the most shameful thing of all - the Japanese themselves bought a very fine Coudenhove-Kalergi statue for the pavilion.
This also reminds me of something that happened here in this very building with a statue that was removed by the bureaucrats and has now been returned.
We should think of our own roots, and when we go to Japan in particular - and 2005 is not so far away - we should focus on the links we have with these countries.
<P>
The fact is that we cannot afford to operate just within the European Union: we must also take Europe out into a world that is, whether we like it or not, becoming increasingly globalised and in which partnerships in the Far East are also of vital importance to us.
This is why I feel that even today we should all be thinking about what to do in Nagoya.
The Asians are, after all, our logical partners.
They are a great deal more culturally aware than certain bureaucrats here, and they would be very impressed if we gave our culture pride of place.
<P>
I remember a Croatian exhibition that we had once that was Croatia's first appearance in this building.
I was wrong at the time to insist that we should stop pandering to tourists.
Thank goodness no one listened to me and they brought culture into the building, which was the best thing they could have done in the long run.
We should think about all this very carefully, and because we are now preparing to organise an event in Germany and the preparations are going so well, we should be starting to think a little further forward.
I must apologise for having pre-empted the next two stages, because we need to make long-term plans for our European culture and taking Europe out into the world, and we need to ensure that this impression of Europe is spread much further.
As this is the last time I shall be speaking in the European Parliament, I would urge my successors not to forget culture, because it is vitally important.
We are a cultural continent and we should remember that this is the most permanent feature that Europe has!
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr von Habsburg.
Not only is that your last speech in the House, but I would also like to point out the following once again: since 1979 - for 20 years now - you have been one of the Members who are virtually always present on Friday, and you were among the founders of the so-called Friday club.
On behalf of the House, I should like to thank you once more for setting such an example.
I also hope that other Members who join us will follow your example and behave likewise.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Madam President, Mr von Habsburg looked ahead in his speech and said that we must look forward to future universal exhibitions.
A glance backwards would not be out of place, however.
Let us consider how past Expos have turned out, and what sort of impression they have left on us.
Several members of the Green Group were in Lisbon and felt very disappointed about the whole event.
Lessons should be learnt from this.
<P>
The Green Group in the European Parliament therefore maintains a 'constructively critical' attitude towards the Hanover Expo.
It is important that the exhibition should be held. As Mr von Habsburg said, what is at stake here is culture.
I am also glad that we are resisting 'EU nationalism' by not restricting ourselves to European culture alone. Countries outside Europe will be included, so that we can draw on cultural knowledge from around the world.
<P>
As far as this particular Expo is concerned, there are some purely budgetary issues to bear in mind, as the Committee on Budgets has pointed out.
One aspect is the fact that a huge amount of money is being spent on this exhibition.
Appropriations for the European campaign to combat violence against women come under the same budget item.
I trust that resources for the latter will not be eaten up by the Expo.
My personal opinion is that the campaign on violence against women is actually more important from a future perspective than this exhibition.
<P>
The theme of the Expo is highly relevant: 'Humankind - Nature - Technology'.
I myself find the range a little narrow, nonetheless, and am not one hundred per cent sure that the EU should be getting involved in such an event.
Yet I believe in the end that the Green Group should support the idea of taking the project forward.
In parallel, however, we need a thorough evaluation of exhibitions of this kind. Lessons can then be learnt for future occasions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by congratulating Mr Hoppenstedt on his last speech, which was very much to the point and summed up what all this is about, namely linking modern technology with nature and mankind.
He has been very successful in fighting for this in his time in the European Parliament, for which I congratulate him.
The world exhibition in Hanover is to run from 1 June to the end of October 2000, in other words about a year before euro notes and coins come into circulation.
The whole world will be there, as millions of visitors converge on Hanover not just from the 15 Member States, but also from the rest of the globe.
One hundred and seventy countries and 14 international organisations are to exhibit, so it is important for Parliament, the Commission and the Council to start thinking now about the meetings they could organise, because a visit to the world exhibition should also primarily involve meeting up with other people, holding conferences and reaching agreements.
It is an ideal platform for us in Europe, and it is one that we should exploit to the maximum.
<P>
As far as the European Parliament is concerned, I would also urge that we should hold our interparliamentary meetings there, for example.
Hanover has an extremely modern conference centre which is right there on the exhibition site, and it has excellent infrastructure with full interpreting facilities.
It would be a good opportunity to show the rest of the world outside Europe the possibilities that Europe has for the future.
<P>
I would like attention to be focused in particular on the 'Edu-tainment Centre', placing the 'learning adventure' - lifelong learning - at the centre of our efforts.
We should show what the European Union has already achieved, and we should ensure that all the information is made available on VDUs, on the Internet, on multimedia, for young people, the elderly, in fact anyone interested, in the form of 'Infotainment'.
I think the 'learning adventure' is a special challenge, and this modern way of learning is very important and a tremendous opportunity for schoolchildren, students and everyone else.
<P>
Finally, we must take advantage of the infrastructure around Hanover, which has been developed to a very high standard.
I am already looking forward to the opening of this major exhibition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="Gradin">
I should like to congratulate the Committee on Culture, and in particular its rapporteur, Mr Hoppenstedt, for this comprehensive report on Expo 2000 Hannover.
In the year 2000, Expo 2000 Hannover will be a major communication event on a world scale.
The theme for the exhibition is mankind, nature and technology.
The organisers, under the leadership of the Expo Commissioner General, are committed to presenting current and future options on how to achieve a balanced and harmonious coexistence of the theme's three elements.
<P>
It is the Commission's intention to ensure the participation of the European Union and its institutions at this important event.
This was also outlined in our communication of 18 March.
We are pleased to see that all EU Member States will participate in this event.
The vast majority will have their pavilions located on the so-called European boulevard.
The EU pavilion would be at the heart of this, just opposite the host country's pavilion.
<P>
The aim of Union participation at Expo 2000 is to present the crucial role the European Union is playing, through its institutions, as a forward-looking, dynamic actor on the world stage at the dawn of the 21st century.
<P>
The Commission is pleased to note that Mr Hoppenstedt's report gives positive backing to the Commission's intention to organise Union participation at Expo 2000.
The report specifically underlines the importance of a coherent and balanced presentation within the Union pavilion.
<P>
The Commission agrees with Mr Hoppenstedt that the Union pavilion must present the best possible image of the European Union in the 21st century: a European Union which is democratic, transparent, law-abiding, socially just, tolerant and culturally diverse.
What we strive for is to make its citizens aware of the reality of European integration and of the Union's role in international relations.
<P>
It is our aim that such a presentation will be based on the use of the latest interactive multimedia and electronic technology available.
This will ensure that visitors, and in particular the younger generation, will have an eye-catching and thought-provoking experience.
<P>
I am pleased to inform you that an architect's competition for the design of the Union's pavilion has now been judged.
Its results are due to be announced formally in the EC Official Journal.
The companies involved in the competition have also been informed directly.
The Commission is responsible for the official coordination of all EU institutions to ensure they participate in a coherent manner in Expo.
<P>
I can report to you that such coordination has already begun.
The Commission's inter-service task force, and an interinstitutional working party have been created.
The detailed programme of activities and communication strategies is being developed within these two bodies along the lines of the Commission's communication and the Culture Committee's report.
Regular reports on the progress of this work will be made to the Culture Committee.
<P>
With regard to the budget, an estimated amount of EUR 14 m is proposed for the year 1999-2000 on budget line B3-309, Special Annual Events.
This budget, which will cover the needs of all EU institutions, is deemed the minimum necessary to finance the proper participation of the Union at the Expo.
It will be recalled that a total of EUR 10 m was earmarked on budget line B3-309/99 in order to finance two activities: Expo 2000 and a European campaign to combat violence against women.
In addition to this it is strongly recommended that a further EUR 6.5 m is voted for in the budget for the next year, the year 2000, to complete the Expo 2000 action.
<P>
The Commission is confident that the interinstitutional cooperation already set in place will produce the necessary positive results to allow the budgetary authority to determine favourably the budget for 2000.
The Commission also welcomes the proposal to second Parliament staff to work at Expo 2000.
This will be in addition to the Commission staff that will be devoted to this action.
The estimated administrative expenditure for this participation is EUR 1.44 m on part (A) of the budget.
<P>
The Commission looks forward to continuing cooperation with the European Parliament and its services to ensure that the Union's participation at Expo 2000 will be an important event in bringing the European Union and its institutions closer to its citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Gradin.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
Parliament adopted the resolution
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Svensson">
I voted against the report. It seems to me that more relevant tasks are being postponed because EUR 15 million are being expended on Expo 2000 in Hanover.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
European textiles market
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions to the Commission:
<P>
B4-0338/99 by Mrs Ferrer, Mrs Peijs and Mr Chanterie, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on mass imports of low-priced textiles; -B4-0339/99 by Mr Moniz, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the mass of cheap imports on the European textile market.
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Ferrer">
Madam President, Commissioner, the European textile and clothing sector is currently being battered by massive and abnormally cheap imports from economic areas that are either in the grip of a serious recession or whose own traditional markets have been closed to them.
This is what is happening with the countries of South-East Asia, Central Asia, the former Soviet republics and the Baltic republics. In addition to this, there is the unprecedented increase of imports from Turkey due to the closure of the Russian market and Turkey's industrial capacity, which has expanded dramatically over the past five years.
<P>
As a result of such massive imports, which scarcely cover the cost of the raw material, many European textile companies are currently recording losses and their survival is threatened. This is seriously jeopardising a number of jobs.
<P>
The unfair competition faced by this sector - a sector that includes the production of fibres, threads and cloth and also the finished products - is getting worse. And it is getting worse because of the tariff and non-tariff barriers, as all the rules established within the World Trade Organisation prevent the sector from having access to the markets of countries such as India, the United States or even Turkey.
It is as if these rules only applied to the Community's markets, which these countries and their products can access freely.
<P>
This imbalance is heightened by the vast array of preferential agreements that the Union has already signed, or is about to sign, with third countries, at a time when the announcement of a new round of multilateral negotiations is casting a doubt over the advisability of these bilateral agreements.
The result of the combination of these negative elements is that European businessmen in the textile sector feel that there was little use in investing significantly, as they did, in high technology and ambitious restructuring to modernise their business and in specialising in quality, fashion, design and the European trade mark.
<P>
Despite having taken steps to be able to successfully meet the challenge of international competitiveness, the textile sector does not have the weapons it needs to defend itself when faced with unfair competition.
For this reason, I would urge the Commission to adopt whatever measures are necessary to put an end to the unfair competition to which this sector is subjected. In this way, we could guarantee full compliance with the commitments made by all the parties in the framework of the World Trade Organisation.
<P>
I am thinking specifically of the trade defence instruments available to the European Union to eliminate trade barriers affecting Community products. I am also thinking of the safeguard measures provided for in the Uruguay Round agreements, which the Commission should perhaps adopt.
<P>
However, in the resolution on the Commission's communication on the textile and clothing sector, and in the actual plan of action that the Commission then drew up, there is already a series of proposals along these lines.
What is happening is that these proposals are not materialising, and if they are not urgently promoted, an large part of a sector which is firmly established in European industry and which, above all, provides many jobs, could disappear.
<P>
Therefore, Commissioner, I would ask you to tell Commissioner Brittan how urgent it is to adopt measures to protect our textiles sector in a fair and faithful manner.
On the one hand, this protection should be justified and should comply with some of the provisions and requirements set out in the rules of the World Trade Organisation. On the other hand, it should come under the legislation that the European Union itself has drawn up to govern its trade with third countries and with developing countries.
I hope that the Commission will bear this in mind and will address this problem which affects so many jobs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Ferrer.
I wish you all the very best for the future, in spite of the fact that you and I will be competing in the same area in the elections.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Moniz">
Mr President, during the parliamentary term now drawing to a close, we have frequently discussed textiles and clothing.
There has certainly been proportionately more talk than action.
Nevertheless, some positive things have been achieved, above all as regards the Commission's approach to this sector.
Previously, the textiles and clothing sector were viewed with suspicion, being regarded as uncompetitive and the province of third world countries.
That is to say, it was regarded as a marginal sector doomed to fade away because of an attitude of conformism and fatalist determinism which would inevitably lead to millions of workers losing their jobs, just when the European Union had chosen to give priority to the fight against unemployment.
<P>
As discussion and analysis of the situation has progressed, there has been a significant change in the attitude towards textiles.
Fortunately, this sector has come to be viewed as one of the most competitive and innovative, and it has been recognised that it is one of the most labour-intensive sectors and is therefore potentially an effective tool in the fight against unemployment.
I personally am satisfied that I have to some extent been able to contribute to this new perception of the textiles and clothing sector.
<P>
But many things still need to be put on a firm footing.
The plan of action announced should not just remain on paper as a list of good intentions.
The specific support measures needed for SMEs should be progressed without delay.
The European Union should be firm in calling for strict compliance with the rules of the World Trade Organisation and the Textile Agreement, in particular the timetable for liberalisation, controls on dumping and fraudulent practices, access to third country markets and restrictions on bilateral agreements.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, five years ago I started my membership of the European Parliament by raising the problems of the textiles and clothing sector.
I am concluding my participation in this final part-session of the European Parliament on the same subject, more convinced than ever of the need to defend this sector and more confident about its future.
In my own country, where this sector accounts for 25 % of jobs in processing industries and 30 % of exports, where there are regions that are almost entirely dependent on it, with a consequent impact on the life of most families, thousands of workers and employers are viewing the future with hope and anticipation, but also with many doubts and fears.
We must show ourselves worthy of their confidence, dedication and hard work, and their willingness to continue demonstrating their faith by investing in a sector which involves risk but undeniably has a future as an integral part of the Europe of social responsibility and solidarity that we wish to see.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Gradin">
I should like to reply to the questions by Mrs Ferrer and Mrs Peijs, and by Mr Chanterie and Mr Moniz.

<P>
On the question regarding recent imports of textiles from third countries into Europe, the Commission is in contact with the European textiles and clothing industry on this issue.
The European industry believes that recent imports from a number of third countries, especially from Asia, were made at very low prices.
On 3 May, representatives of the European industry met with my colleague Sir Leon Brittan to explain the situation.
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At present the Commission is in the process of establishing, together with the industry, the facts regarding import flows and prices.
Once the facts have been established the best course of action can be determined.
If it shows that there have been unfair trade practices such as dumping or subsidisation causing injury to the European industry, the European anti-dumping and anti-subsidies legislation provides for means to deal with this situation.
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At the meeting of 3 May Sir Leon Brittan assured the European industry that if there was evidence of such unfair trade practices the Commission would examine very seriously any complaint made by the industry.
It would then take appropriate action.
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As regards the situation under the relevant international agreements, we have to keep in mind the following.
Firstly, for WTO members, the agreement on textiles and clothing (the ATC) already provides for quantitative restrictions on imports from a number of third countries, including countries in South-east Asia.
The Commission ensures that these limits are respected, and there is no evidence that the recent imports have exceeded the quantitative ceilings.
In addition, the ATC provides for a transitional safeguard instrument.
According to this agreement new quantitative restrictions can be introduced when it can be demonstrated that increased imports seriously damage the domestic industry or threaten to do so.
These actions are subsequently scrutinised in the WTO.
<P>
Secondly, for a number of non-WTO members, bilateral textiles agreements fix quantitative limits.
In addition, for imports that are not under quota, reference ceilings are set.
These are percentage limits of the previous year's imports as a share of total Union imports.
Once these reference ceilings are reached the imposition of a new quantitative limit may be requested.
<P>
Finally, in response to the question regarding the positions expressed by third countries in preparation for the forthcoming round of the WTO negotiations, I would like to say the following.
Some developing countries which are WTO members would indeed be interested in amending the agreement on textiles and clothing in order to speed-up the liberalisation of all quantitative restrictions, presently due to be completed on 1 January 2005.
Nevertheless the Commission does not advocate this idea.
Such an acceleration of the liberalisation timetable would also cause immense difficulties for the second major textiles importer, the United States.
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<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Gradin.
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I have received two motions for resolutions to wind up this debate, tabled pursuant to Rule 40(5).
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<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gasòliba i Böhm">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as you mentioned, the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform party had in fact tabled a motion for a resolution but, in the light of those tabled by both the Group of the European People's Party and the Group of the Party of European Socialists, there is no reason why we should not support these resolutions. That is why we have withdrawn our motion.
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In truth, we are returning to an issue that we have dealt with on previous occasions.
We are calling for positive action from the Commission to ensure that international trade practices relating to products of the textile industry are dealt with appropriately.
We are trying to ensure that trade is conducted in accordance with the rules agreed on in the respective international agreements applied by the World Trade Organisation.
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We have adapted our position not only on the textiles industry but also on the European system of production in general in order to respond to the need for the sector to accept the conditions of a global economy and to work to increase its productivity and competitiveness.
It must be restructured so that our products and services are sufficiently accepted in a global economy to enable them participate fully in the international markets.
As a result of this increased competitiveness, European industry and services will be able to grow and will therefore also be able to create more jobs.
This is the general approach we are also applying to the textile industry.
<P>
Therefore, our position is not a protectionist one.
It is a position that will allow us to comply fully with the agreed international trade practices.
The events of recent months, particularly in Asia - which Commissioner Gradin mentioned - are of great concern since the very positive effort made by the textile industry to become more modern and competitive and to have the best possible position and share of the international market may be ruined in a very short space of time.
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Massive imports under inadequate conditions from various areas, including Asia, could ruin the industry's opportunities.
These imports worry us and I welcome Mrs Gradin's specific comment on this matter. I must stress that this industry has made considerable efforts to adapt.
What is more, it would be unfair to put at risk one of the industries that creates most jobs in the European Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, I am very pleased that my last speech in this parliamentary term relates to an important sector, the European clothing and textile industry, which has a predominantly female workforce, a large number of SMEs, often in rural areas, and a future which is largely dependent on the application of fair trading rules.
<P>
In the absence of any positive measures by the Commission, whose action plan to make the sector more competitive we examined in 1998 but has not been followed up in practice, some Member States such as France, Spain and Portugal have taken steps to curb the exodus of jobs to third countries.
In France, a textile sector plan which reduced the social charges that were a burden on wages has enabled 35 000 jobs to be saved, not to mention indirect employment.
<P>
The Commission then decided to get tough, not against those countries which refused to introduce social and environmental clauses in world trade rules, but against the Member States.
It considered that reductions in social charges could distort competition between European producers, and it declared France's textile sector plan to be illegal, demanded impossible repayments from firms and blocked the extension of this job-saving measure to other sectors.
<P>
This approach needs to be changed.
We should only allow into the Union products from third countries where operators comply with the ILO social rules relating to working conditions, working hours and child labour, until such time as the Union applies these rules as part of the package of international agreements it is negotiating and, in particular, the WTO negotiating rounds.
It is unfair competition against European businesses that the Commission should be attacking, not the Union's own firms.
<P>
In conclusion, I would refer to the concern generated by Mr Prodi's first statements on this subject, which suggested that he has a very ideological notion of competition and regards any regulating or corrective measures taken by a Member State as tantamount to distorting competition.
Would he regard Sir Leon Brittan as dangerously 'dirigiste'?
This is not the way to help European industries and the families they support to meet international competition on a level playing field.
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<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="Kellett-Bowman">
Mr President, it is good to see you, the faithful Friday President, taking charge of affairs at the close of the session.
<P>
I support this cri de coeur from the Europe textile industry.
Europe is a big market but it is not a dumping ground and Mrs Ferrer has made a very good case.
Mr Moniz also talked about fraudulent practices.
Let me tell you one.
A country which had the right to import shirts but not piece-good textiles got round the rules by importing shirts with tails 15 metres long - and they got away with it.
<P>
Europe may lead in the textile fashion industry but we must have a basic manufacturing industry in order to support it.
Europe may well lead also in the design and techniques of textile machinery but there again we need to have a home market for such products.
I mention friction-spinning, which was as a fairly recent invention in Europe.
Instead of using it to make textiles more profitable for Europe we actually sold the technique abroad.
We made the profit of our invention once.
<P>
We need to support developing nations by having bilateral treaties with them in order that they can have a market for their goods.
I have no quarrel with that at all, but if we are going to have these bilaterals the Commission should be called upon to draw the lines very clearly and make sure they are properly controlled.
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<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking Mrs Ferrer, because I think that this is an extremely important initiative.
When sectors are in crisis, we must always ensure that we take the right measures in good time.
It is crucial that we should prepare for the WTO negotiating round in Seattle, and in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs I have always insisted that we should clearly identify the salient points here and that our main concern is access to third markets.
We must specifically ensure that these markets are opened up to us and that fair conditions are applied.
<P>
We also need to consider incentives in export marketing.
We must see to it that firms are able to offer their goods internationally so that Europe can be presented as a powerful force.
Another very important point is that we must ensure that a lighter burden is placed on SMEs in particular.
This is an issue to which I personally am very committed.
We have more than 16 million SMEs in the European Union, and they need to be given greater help and consideration here in the House in future.
<P>
Since I am the last speaker, I should also like to thank the President and his team, who have always worked so very hard here on Fridays.
I should also like to thank the President of the European Parliament, Mr Gil-Robles, for taking my initiatives to eliminate crime in and around the European institutions very seriously; our group chairman Mr Martens for promising not to forget this issue in future in Belgium and to continue to support us; the President-in-Office for promising to devote his efforts to this; and finally the Quaestors and the Conference of Presidents, for whom this issue has now become genuinely topical.
I am looking forward to seeing a safer Europe in the next parliamentary term.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Rübig.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
Given that the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party has withdrawn its motion, we shall proceed to the vote on motion for a resolution B4-0455/99.
<P>
Parliament adopted the resolution
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Cars">
I voted against the resolution on the European textile market. The proposal is over-protectionist in its thrust and takes inadequate account of the importance of exports of textiles and ready-to-wear clothing for poor countries that are anxious to develop their economies.
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<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, when I am in the Chair I usually do not vote.
Today, somewhat exceptionally, I myself requested this roll-call vote and participated in the vote. I abstained in order to remain true to my supposedly institutional attitude.
However, I wished to make a record of all your names, with mine among them, as a symbol of what we could call the 'Friday club'.
And, ladies and gentlemen, if you will let me make the most of this list, I will contact you all every autumn from the year 2000 onwards so that, wherever we may be, we can try to meet on a Friday here in Strasbourg.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Mr Habsburg-Lothringen wishes to speak on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, chairman of our 'Friday club', I should like to make the most of this opportunity to thank you in Catalan, your mother tongue and a language steeped in the traditions of our European culture. It is a language that we do not hear enough in this Parliament.
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As a loyal member of this club, it is very important to me that I thank you for your wise leadership and your hard work to make Fridays a fully valid day of Parliament's part-sessions.
I hope that your and our example will be carried through to the next term to include Friday as a day when we can count on the presence of 620 Members.
Thank you very much indeed and goodbye.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="President">
Thank you - moltes gràcies .
<P>
Mr Medina has the floor on a point of order.
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<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, you know that I am usually present for the Friday sittings but that I rarely ask for the floor because we are almost always working so quickly as we have planes to catch and so on.
Today, as an exception, because it is the last day of the current parliamentary term and taking into account how early it is, I should like to speak on behalf of the Socialist Group and acknowledge the work you have done as President of the sitting.
<P>
Furthermore, I should like to point out that for 40 years, Spanish parliamentarians were starved of democracy, and for us the parliamentary institution is extremely important.
It is important to you and to me because of our own life experience. I believe that one only values what one does not have.
The fact that the European institutions include a Parliament, with all its defects and all its problems, is something that the people of Europe should begin to value. The fact that this Parliament has become a fundamental element of the Community mechanism during this term must be valued.
I believe that our task now in the coming weeks must be to convince the people of Europe of how important their participation in the elections is to this Parliament. And I believe that at least those Members who are here today have done everything possible to ensure that our work is not trivial, but that it is important and definitive work in the process of European integration.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Gasòliba i Böhm">
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
Mr President, on behalf of the PPE Group, I should like to thank you most sincerely and congratulate you, not just on being such a stalwart president on Fridays, but for presiding in such a very democratic, open and disciplined manner.
It has been a pleasure to come to know you as a Member of this Parliament and also as a president of the sitting, often in difficult circumstances on Fridays.
I therefore endorse what Mr Medina and the acting chairman of the Liberal Group have said.
Thank you very much and goodbye.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Poggiolini">
Mr President, I would not wish the Italian language to remain unheard at this moment of farewells.
I cannot, much as I would like to, speak Catalan, but nonetheless I would like to thank you and also all the Vice-Presidents who are not here and have done such sterling work, as well as President Gil-Robles.
<P>
We shall be leaving this Chamber, and I believe even those colleagues who are re-elected will not be returning to it, because a new one has been provided.
We are rather sorry to leave it, because this is the historic residence of the European Parliament.
<P>
I would also like to thank our chairman Mr Martens, whom I can see leaving just now, for staying here right up to the end.
Nonetheless, the vice-chairman, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, remains and is a worthy replacement for him.
I bid farewell to you all, and would particularly thank you, Mr President, for the great skills and common sense you have shown in chairing our debates.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Rosado Fernandes">
Mr Gutiérrez Díaz, I would first like to say that I believe your profession as a paediatrician has been a great help to you in understanding many of the issues discussed here in Parliament.
Lenin himself referred to leftism as a child illness, and so in this Chamber we find childishness, maturity and longevity.
All human life is here.
Those of us here on Fridays, this loyal group of survivors of the often hard and tedious work during the week, amongst whom there is a spirit of complicity, have managed to maintain a sense of humour.
<P>
Humour is a basic requirement here.
It has brought cheer to young and old alike - I will not say to children, as there are none here.
I would like to thank you on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, and in Portuguese, for the patience, humour and wisdom that has marked everything you have done here.
Thank you very much and I wish you every success in your profession.
I shall be returning to mine also: five years is a long time in a man's life and I do not have many five years to spare for Parliament, so I shall be devoting myself to other causes.
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<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, a number of people have already thanked you, and I would like to join them in doing so.
There is one person I would like to mention, whom I refer to in our group as the Friday godfather, the one who always has something to say, and that is Mr von Habsburg.
The fact that there are so many of our group here is partly thanks to him.
He too is now leaving us.
I should like to thank him for the excellent leadership he has shown us all.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasio">
Mr President, as this is the last sitting in the first parliamentary term in which Finland has been a fully-fledged Member of the European Union, I, as a faithful son of the Friday club, would like the Finnish language to be recorded in the verbatim report of the proceedings of this last sitting.
We would especially like to thank you, Mr President, for the fact that you were always happy to welcome us Finns in the Finnish language, which you pronounce so elegantly, and for the fact too that you were always ready to guide and encourage us, as we were new to the procedure of this House.
Many thanks, and many thanks also go to all of you sitting there on the tribune.
The work you have done has been invaluable.
Thank you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindholm">
Mr President, greetings to you from Nordic parts and from Sweden! On behalf of the Green Group, I should like to join in the chorus of praise heaped upon you today.
You have always conducted Friday's proceedings in such a friendly way, with great humanity and humour.
You have been a fantastic President. Because of you, Fridays have been a high point of the Strasbourg week.
Along with everyone else, I wish you all the very best for the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Virrankoski">
Mr President, I would like to add my thanks to those of Mr Paasio, as, of all those who chair our sittings, you are one of the few who have actually used the Finnish language in carrying out your duties.
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<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, it would be terrible if the group that has loyally supported this Vice-President to the end did not thank him for his work and dedication.
What is more, from a personal point of view, he knows we think fondly of him.
I hope, however, that he will not use these great complimentary speeches by the whole House to his benefit in the election campaign, as we are in different camps.
<P>
Laughter
<P>
I should like to say how fondly I think of you.
Our group has supported you faithfully until the end and you know that, wherever we may be, you will always be remembered.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, my good friend Laura.
Allow me, in this case, to correct what Laura said slightly: we are not in different camps, we are in the same camp but on different lists.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Goerens">
Mr President, I would just like to draw your attention to a small point which I think is rather important.
Friday is not a normal day either for you or for me.
Friday is usually the day when I receive groups of visitors, and I can assure you that as far as the people from my country who have visited the European Parliament are concerned, you are the most popular president of the sitting.
I am grateful that you are a candidate in your own country, because in mine you would have been unbeatable.
Thank you and good luck for the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Goerens. I hope that I will pick up your way of thinking to help me in the difficult journey ahead.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, you have always been a very friendly person.
Whenever we met in the corridor, you would always ask 'How is Maastricht getting on?'
Other people thought you were talking about the Maastricht Treaty, but in fact you meant my football club, which was always doing very badly - and still is.
But we knew what we meant.
Barcelona, on the other hand, is doing very well, but that is because it has eight Dutch players.
Thank you very much.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Bertens.
Of course, you speak as if you were from Barcelona, because you know that at the moment Barcelona is almost a Dutch team.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gebhardt">
Mr President, you seem to be being presented today with a bouquet made up of all the different cultures and languages of our various nations.
As someone born a Frenchwoman, I should like to add Germany's flower to this bouquet for you to take home in your heart, and I should like to wish you every success in your work for democracy, which is so important.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Escolá Hernando">
Mr President, I was possibly the last Member to join the 'Friday club'.
You are well aware that I came to this House scarcely six months ago.
That is a very short time but it is enough for me to have appreciated your work as President and your work in chairing this sitting.
In these six months I have missed two Friday sittings and you made sure to remind me of them.
I should like to thank you personally and on behalf of the group I represent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Bru Purón">
Mr President, as well as thanking and congratulating you, I should like to add to what has been said by Mrs González Álvarez and by you yourself.
I should like to say that there is one thing we agree on in terms of parties and lists: we are all on the list of pro-Europeans.
In the past in Spain, being on the list of pro-Europeans meant being on the black list.
Therefore, whether or not you are on the list, whether or not you are in the party, or whether or not you are in this House, I know that both of you, like many of us here today, are in favour of freedom, justice and solidarity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lenz">
Mr President, as someone who has been in Parliament for 20 years, I should also like to congratulate you, together with my colleague Ursula Schleicher, who has also often been a member of the Friday club.
It was always a great pleasure to round off a long and difficult sitting - and I was often there at the end, though not always - with a joke, and I hope that the spirit which you have stood for and which several people have reflected in their speeches will continue in the next Parliament.
It will be in a different building which will not be as homely; the light will be colder, I think, but I hope that the pleasure, the vision, the cooperation and the humour will remain.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, Luxembourgish is sadly not one of the Community's official languages, otherwise I would have added it to the bouquet that Mrs Gebhardt talked about.
But if I say 'Villmools merci ', I am sure you will understand, and it would surely not be against the Rules of Procedure just this once to use two words of Luxembourgish, one of which is French anyway.
<P>
Mr President, I should like to thank you for being in the Chair for almost all the Friday sittings.
I regard Friday as a normal working day just like all the rest, and I am extremely sorry that so many of our colleagues are notoriously absent.
I have attended every Friday sitting for the past ten years, and if I return - I do not know whether I will, because in my country the people decide, not the parties - I shall maintain the same discipline.
<P>
I would also like to thank you for being so generous with speaking time.
We have sometimes been allowed to have the floor for half or even a whole minute more than the minute officially allocated, so I would thank you most sincerely and hope to see you here again - because you are sure to be re-elected - not just on Fridays, but on all sitting days.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I should like to thank you not just for being such an excellent leader of our Friday club, as many people have already mentioned, but for something else as well.
This morning Mrs Schleicher, who is also a member of the Friday club, said in the Chair at the beginning of the sitting 'The Rules of Procedure also apply to the Conference of Presidents'.
This has inspired me to thank you for being a vice-president who has always stood up for the rights of individual Members.
The Friday club itself consists of people who stand up for the rights of Members, and I very much hope that we will be able to continue to work together on this in the next parliamentary term.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
Mr President, as a member of the 'Friday Club', I too would like to say a few words.
We must remember that this is not the only club we have. Let us not forget our 'Questions Club', over which you have often presided.
Several of us are keen users of Question Time.
Although attendance tends to be lower on those occasions, you always behave in Friday fashion, in your usual open and friendly way.
Thank you so much for the fine times we have shared, Mr President.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gröner">
Mr President, I too would like to thank you.
I cannot for the moment find the rule that I need in the Rules of Procedure, but I would like to say, finally, that this was a parliamentary term which took Europe a little further forward, but took the European Parliament a great deal further forward.
We have three new Member States, and I hope that the Amsterdam Treaty and the excellent spirit that you have generated with your sense of humour will enable us to make considerable progress towards a democratic Europe.
I wish all those colleagues who are not coming back every success and good health in the future, and I wish those who are coming back the strength to stand up for a democratic Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Gröner.
I should like to thank you and all the Members of this House who have spoken.
<P>
As regards what Mrs Lenz said, if it is not going too far, I believe that her words can be extended to all the Vice-Presidents.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="President">
I have received a request for the waiver of Mr Carlos Coelho's parliamentary immunity from the relevant Portuguese authorities.
Pursuant to Rule 6 of the Rules of Procedure, this request will be passed on to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
<P>
I have received requests from the Group of the European People's Party to appoint Members to the following committees: Mr Wieland as a member of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights; and Mr Gahler to replace Mr Wieland as a member of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
Are there any comments?
If not, these appointments are approved.
<P>
Mr Posselt has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I should like to offer my warmest congratulations to everyone on their appointments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Posselt.
That will be noted in the Minutes.
<P>
Parliament has come to the end of its agenda.
<P>
As this is the last sitting in this parliamentary term, I would propose to the House that we derogate from Rule 133(2) and approve the Minutes of the current sitting now. They have been drafted as the debates have taken place.
If there are no comments, that is how we shall proceed.
<P>
The Minutes were approved
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of our work.
As you are all aware, I usually thank Parliament's services for their help during the sittings on behalf of all of you and I am sure I reflect your feelings in doing so.
Today, such thanks must be of a special nature.
It is not the last time they will be thanked but it is the end of an era.
<P>
You all know that in order to weave a basket to hold our political activity, we need many willow branches and these branches are the officials who help us.
Therefore, allow me, albeit briefly, to express my thanks to the various groups involved, beginning with the ushers.
The ushers, ladies and gentlemen, achieve a marvellous mix of discretion and service without any degree of servility. They respond to any of our requests for help.
I believe that we should show our appreciation for their silent and subtle company with great enthusiasm.
<P>
Applause
<P>
We must also thank two groups of survivors. The first of these is the translators, who survive the reams of pages we throw at them everyday without being exhausted or overcome by such a vast quantity of pages.
An average of four thousand pages are produced by the translation service every day.
I believe it is only fair to express our gratitude for the rapidity and quality of their work. And, as I cannot mention them all by name, allow me to express our thanks via the Director-General of Translation and General Services, Mr Wilson.
<P>
Applause
<P>
And there are more survivors to be thanked: the interpreters.
The interpreters manage not to choke on the rapid speeches we cobble together in the few seconds the President may give us if we are lucky. They also work hard to turn our rambling speeches, which are sometimes difficult to understand, into something coherent.
Therefore, because they have survived, and because they have helped us so much, we thank them.
<P>
Applause
<P>
We should also like to thank those whom we do not see every day but whom we see traces of every day, that is, those who produce the Session News, the document that briefly tells us about the sitting. In the inscrutable jungle created by the number of issues we deal with in the House, they are able to choose the appropriate species and tree on every occasion.
I should also like to pass on our thanks to them for their work on selecting the right aspects.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, we must also thank those who produce the Rainbow every day.
I would say that they are like good photographers, who photograph a sunset and improve upon it but make us believe that it is exactly the same. With great subtlety, they often improve upon our speeches.
We should also like to thank them.
<P>
And, lastly, allow me to express my thanks to my friends - indulge me and let me call you my friends - who are here with me today and who have been with me on so many occasions.
<P>
I am also going to say a few words of special thanks to the Secretary-General.
I personally owe a great deal to the Secretary-General for his skill and his rigour when it comes to putting forward proposals.
This has made my work a great deal easier and I should like to thank him from the bottom of my heart.
<P>
And I would also like to thank my friends who have helped me.
Ladies and gentlemen, our political activity does not move at a frenzied pace, but we could compare it to a train, not a high-speed train but a goods train. Yet trains do not move forward if there are no rails and these rails are what stop us from coming off the tracks.
On many occasions, I have felt that these rails were guiding me along the right track and making my work easier.
<P>
Finally, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to thank you all from an emotional and a rational standpoint.
From an emotional standpoint, there is a Spanish folk song that could express the way I feel at the moment. I am not going to sing it but I will recite the lyrics.
Of course, this is a challenge for the interpreters because it obviously rhymes in Spanish.
Let us see if they are capable of making it rhyme in every language: 'They say goodbyes are not sorrowful, they say goodbyes are not sorrowful, say that to him who has said farewell, say that to him who has said farewell'.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, there is a hint of sadness today; we are not going to try to hide it.
We are saying goodbye to one another and we know that we will go down diverging paths and that there will be separate adventures for those we have met day after day in this House.
But I must say that the hint of sadness can be compensated for, firstly, by reflecting on what we have done.
We can consider two things and the first of these is the satisfaction of a job well done.
Ladies and gentlemen, we can be satisfied with a job well done every day, and even on Fridays, and we can say this without being smug and with the peace of mind and conviction we have when stating something we are absolute sure of.
<P>
The second thing that makes up for the hint of sadness, ladies and gentlemen, is the fact that we know that this is not the end: this great celebration of democracy celebration will help it continue.
As Mr Medina Ortega said, many of you have been lucky enough to have democracy handed to you as if it were completely natural and you value it just as naturally.
Some of us have had to fight for this democracy.
Therefore, every time there is an election, irrespective of the outcome for us as individuals, it is a celebration. It is a reason to be happy because we are safe in the knowledge that nothing is above the will of the people when it comes to choosing their representatives.
<P>
Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, we can take solace in the satisfaction of knowing that we will be well represented in the future.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, my friends, I wish you good health and good luck in your future work.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="President">
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
<P>
The sitting was closed at 11.02 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 7 May 1999, and I declare open the sitting provided for in Article 10(3) of the Act concerning the election of the representatives to the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage and Rule 10(3) of the Parliament's Rules of Procedure.
<P>
Before the start of the proceedings, Mr Crowley asked to take the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="Crowley">
Mr President, I should like to thank you for giving me this opportunity to address the House.
I want to register my protest at the lack of facilities for me, as a Deputy within this Chamber.
Two and a half years ago, I went to the authorities who were dealing with the building of this new structure and informed them of my requirements as a person with a disability within the Chamber.
I was assured at that stage that every facility would be made available.
I arrived here last month and spoke with the architects and builders with regard to the seating arrangements within the hemicycle.
I also wrote a letter to the former President, informing him of the difficulties that would arise.
<P>
I arrived here today, after being re-elected to this Parliament, to discover, firstly, that I cannot get from the '0' level of the building to the first level without getting a security card from one of the security services.
I was delayed for 24 minutes this morning and 38 minutes last night waiting for someone to come along with a card.
<P>
Secondly, I cannot sit with my political group within this House because there are no facilities for me to sit with them.
Thirdly, it is an absolute disgrace when so much public money has been spent on this new building that we could not give a proper example for the 21st century - for the new millennium - of what kind of an inclusive society the European Parliament wants to see in the future.
<P>
Loud and sustained applause
<P>
I should like to finish with a quote from George Bernard Shaw: 'To hate your fellow man is not the ultimate sin but to be apathetic towards him, that is the essence of inhumanity' .
We have seen it here today.
I want to register this protest.
I will be taking part in the proceedings.
But I want my heartfelt objections to be heard by everybody within this Chamber and around Europe when it is being televised today.
<P>
Loud and sustained applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Mr Crowley, your complaint will certainly be recorded in the Minutes.
I would like to express my own personal deepest regret at the occurrence.
I can assure you, as I am being assured at this moment, that the services will carry out the necessary technical alterations you have requested in time for the September part-session.
I am sure that the President-elect will personally ensure that this undertaking is made good within the deadline.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Oldest Member
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President">
I would like to announce that, pursuant to Rule 12(1) of the Rules of Procedure, the duties of oldest Member should fall to Mário Soares.
However, he considered it appropriate not to carry out these duties as he is standing for President of the Parliament.
Under these circumstances, the duties fall to myself.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, I will be brief.
It is not the first time that I have had to perform the duties of President of a Parliamentary Assembly, but it is the first time that this has been in the capacity of oldest Member, even standing in for an illustrious, older colleague, and I cannot disguise a certain feeling of embarrassment.
I am, nevertheless, very grateful for the opportunity that this occasion affords me to welcome each of you very warmly to this Assembly, of which I have had the honour of being a Member for several years now, although most of my experience comes from my many years as a Member of the national parliament of my country, Italy.
I believe strongly in the parliamentary institution, and I am especially convinced that the democratic legitimisation of the whole of the process of European integration rests on this Parliament, on the full recognition of its role, and also on its ability to collaborate with the national parliaments.
<P>
We are aware of the fact that our Parliament has acquired wider powers and must acquire more.
We must now make a decisive contribution to the reform of the institutions of the Union, to building an authentic European democracy.
This is the task which unites us, beyond the substantial political differences which characterise us, and which will certainly be expressed in heated debates.
In this hemicycle, our lovely new home, there will be brilliant reasoned debate and there will be competition, but we will never allow ourselves to forget the cause to which great personalities of European life have devoted themselves.
Please allow me to mention, of all of them, a man from whom I have personally learned a great deal, calling to mind the ten years of battles he fought in this hemicycle, our beloved Altiero Spinelli.
<P>
Applause
<P>
The cause which unites us, ladies and gentlemen, as we face difficult and exacting challenges, is that of building a more united, wider, stronger Europe, in order to ensure peace, freedom and justice throughout the continent.
<P>
I wish you all every success in your work during the fifth legislative term.
<P>
As I recall, the Rules of Procedure prohibit any discussion while the oldest Member is in the Chair, which is not strictly related to the procedures for the election of the President or to the verification of his credentials.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Cappato">
Mr President, I would like to take the floor in order to invoke the Rules of Procedure, for future reference, of course.
Rule 14(2) reminds us that only the President-elect can give an inaugural address.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
Thank you for clarifying that point.
However, you don't know how long this would have lasted had it been an address!
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="Watson">
Mr President, before moving to the election of a President of this House, I should like to ask you to confirm that Annex I of our Rules of Procedure is being abided by.
Annex I of our Rules of Procedure, Article 1, paragraph 2, states that before a Member may be validly nominated as an office-holder of Parliament, he or she must have duly completed the declaration of financial interests.
I would ask you to confirm that this has indeed been carried out.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
On behalf of the departments of the Parliament, I confirm that this has been carried out.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Election of the President
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
Let us proceed this morning, ladies and gentlemen, in observance of the Rules of Procedure, to the election of the President.
<P>
Pursuant to Rule 13 of the Rules of Procedure, nominations for President of the European Parliament must be made, with the consent of those concerned, by a political group or by at least thirty-two Members.
<P>
Pursuant to Rule 14 of the Rules of Procedure, the following nominations were made for the Presidency of the European Parliament:
<P>

Mrs Nicole Fontaine Mrs Laura González Álvarez Mrs Heidi Hautala Mr Mário Soares


<P>
Subsequently, the GUE/NGL Group declared that it was withdrawing the nomination of Mrs González Álvarez from the election.
With regard to this, Mr Wurtz has asked to take the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wurtz">
Mr President, for the first time in ten years, we shall actually be voting for the President of the European Parliament without any of those prior agreements between social-democratic and socialist groups which always seemed to represent, to my mind, a kind of condominium, stifling democratic debate.
Today, more by chance than political will on the part of the two principal groups, we have a Left and Right at loggerheads with one another.
The Confederal Group of the European United Left...
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
Please restrict yourself exclusively to the statement regarding the withdrawal of Mrs González Álvarez from the election, without expounding political considerations on the issue of the election of the President.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wurtz">
I agree, Mr President, but as you know, here it is all politics.
I shall nevertheless bear your words in mind.
In the first ballot, when it was inconceivable that the election of President of Parliament could be resolved, we took the decision to put forward Mrs Laura González as our candidate to affirm our place at the very heart of the Left.
The latest developments in this situation, particularly the signing of a formal agreement between the two main groups of the Right, mean that we can no longer ignore the fact that everything is still to play for, from the first ballot onwards.
We want to contribute from the outset, to opposing a united and self-confident Right with a Left which is rallying together and on the offensive...
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
I am sorry, Mr Wurtz, but I am afraid that I must cut you short.
Everything is political. We will have five years in which to discuss political issues, but this is not the time.
<P>
Applause
<P>

Therefore, three effective candidates remain, not four: Mrs Nicole Fontaine, Mrs Heidi Hautala and Mr Mário Soares, the nomination for Mrs González Álvarez having been withdrawn, according to the intervention of Mr Wurtz.

<P>
I would remind you that, pursuant to Rule 14 of the Rules of Procedure, a candidate must obtain the absolute majority of the votes cast in order to be elected in the first three ballots.
Blank or void ballot papers will not be taken into consideration in the counting of the votes.
I shall now draw lots to appoint the six tellers.
<P>
The President drew lots to appoint the tellers
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
The following representatives have been appointed tellers:
<P>




Mr BaltasMrs O'TooleMr Ortuondo LarreaMr KatiforisMrs SandersMrs Sauquillo Pérez del Arco
<P>
The vote was taken
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="President">
I declare the ballot closed.
<P>
I invite the tellers to count the ballot papers.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 11.15 a.m. to allow the tellers to count the votes and was resumed at 12.20 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="President">
Here is the result of the ballot for the election of the President.
<P>
Members voting: 615Blank or void: 60 including 5 irregular ballot papers bearing the name of Mr SoaresVotes cast pursuant to Rule 136(1) of the Regulation: 555
<P>
The required majority is 278 votes.
The results are as follows:
<P>

Mrs Fontaine: 306 votesMr Soares: 200 votesMrs Hautala: 49 votes

<P>
Mrs Fontaine obtained the absolute majority of the votes cast and is thus elected President of the Parliament.
<P>
May I congratulate Mrs Fontaine on her election.
I wish her every success in the performance of her mandate and invite her to take the chair.
<P>
Loud applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, you have just given me one of the most wonderful surprises of my life.
I must tell you that I am extremely moved.
I am not going to make a speech, as I shall be doing that tomorrow.
I would just like to say a few words to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the confidence you have just shown in me.
This confidence is rather overwhelming, but I would like you to know that I shall do all that I can to prove worthy of it and also in order for us to work wonderfully together, as we have done until now.
<P>
If you will allow me, I would like to say a few words in particular - I think my male colleagues may forgive me for this - to my fellow women MEPs, who have always given me wonderful support, as have others.
I would like to say that this vote is also, to some extent, a vote for you because, for twenty years, since Simone Weil in 1979, no woman has been President of the European Parliament, and so this makes me very proud.
<P>
Loud applause
<P>
I would also like to dedicate this election to those colleagues who, until yesterday, were still our colleagues.
I know that many of them are still here but there are many others who told us how much they would have liked to take part in this election, which has been a very happy one, and I would like to offer them all my thanks.
<P>
And now, I would like to say to Mario Soares that we have competed against each other in a very democratic and good-natured way, and as for the election result - well, that's life in politics - it certainly doesn't diminish the enormous respect I have for him, which is shared by our whole Assembly.
<P>
Loud applause
<P>
I shall immediately grant Mario Soares' request to have the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Soares">
Thank you very much, Madam President.
Please allow me to use my first words to congratulate you.
You have conducted a fine campaign, you have acted with great dignity and have always behaved impeccably in all the dealings that I have had with you.
I would therefore like to congratulate you most sincerely and to wish you an excellent Presidency, which I am sure it will be.
I would also like to thank, if you don't mind, everyone who voted for me.
Through my nomination, we have unleashed a new dynamism, and I would like to thank not only those belonging to my own group, but also those from other groups who voted for me too.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Soares
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Madam President, I would like to warmly congratulate you on behalf of the Group of the Greens and European Free Alliance in the European Parliament.
We know you to be a very fair and experienced President, and we want to continue to work with you in accomplishing internal reform.
The question of rules for Members, for example, is a very important issue.
On a more personal note, I would also like to congratulate you on being the first woman to lead this House in a long time.
I have had the pleasure of working together with you on the Conciliation Committees and we know that you come to your duties as an exceptionally able President.
It is now our mutual task to represent the nations of Europe here, so that they too can have a say in the affairs of the European Union.
Congratulations once again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Poettering">
Honoured Madam President, I should like to congratulate you most warmly on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party.
I am also very pleased to do this on a personal level, for we have been working together here in the European Parliament since 1984, in a spirit of friendship and trust.
Madam President, I wish you all the success that you would expect and wish for yourself, and which all of us here would wish for this Parliament.
<P>
When you relinquished the Chair in May, during the last session here in Strasbourg, you said: 'I am now closing this session.
That was my last time in the Chair as Vice-President' .
You then received loud applause, something that neither I nor any of those present had experienced before, and everyone stood up, something which is generally only reserved for Presidents.
That is why we are able to say today, wherever we happen to be sitting or standing here in this Chamber, that if there is such a thing as political justice, right here in this European Parliament too, then this political justice has become reality with the election of Nicole Fontaine as President of the European Parliament.
<P>
Jean Monnet once said: 'Nothing can be achieved without people, nothing endures without institutions' .
The European Parliament has come a long way since 1979 and, in Nicole Fontaine, we have the person we need to carry the powers, authority and honour of this Parliament forward to a prosperous future.
I wish Nicole Fontaine the best of luck and every success, and she will always be able to count on the largest party in this House, which made this proposal from a sense of political duty and for the sake of democracy.
<P>
But I should also like to pay a few words of tribute to Mario Soares.
He is one of Portugal's great characters and, Mr President Soares, during the Seventies it was you that prevented Portugal from exchanging one dictatorship for another.
You are a great statesman and a great European, and although we could not elect you as well, we still have great respect for you.
<P>
Loud applause
<P>
Heidi Hautala, we have worked very well together over the last few days, and, indeed, this finds expression in the fact that as leader of the Green Party you are sitting here in the first row, as is the leader of the Liberals, Pat Cox.
Let us continue to work within this spirit of openness and culture of fairness and, notwithstanding our personal political differences, which is to be expected in a democracy, let us get down to business today and drive European integration forward.
Madam President, these are my wishes for you and for us all.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Madam President, I hope you do not mind if I speak first in your language in order to congratulate you, to wish you the best of luck, and also to assure you of the friendship of the Group of the Party of European Socialists and of its desire to work with you.
<P>
We have worked together for several years now, in different roles.
I know very well what your responsibilities are because, ten years ago, one July day, I too went up to occupy the Presidential seat.
You have worked as Vice-President under my Presidency and under subsequent ones. You have also earned enormous respect in the House for your work, firstly as Vice-President, especially on days of difficult votes, and also for your long-standing involvement with Europe which has enabled us to work together on other projects and other platforms.
<P>
I would like to point out, Madam President, that although until now you have represented one political grouping, you are now President of all the MEPs in the European Parliament and I am sure that you will prove equal to the task.
As far as the Group of the Party of European Socialists is concerned, you will have all the support necessary, not only to bring about reforms which are essential for working within this Institution, primarily the status of MEPs and their assistants, but also to open the windows of this Institution to our fellow citizens throughout the Member States and beyond, for we are building not only a House of Parliament, but also a more united Europe.
In this, you can count on our loyal support and friendship, and I hope that in the Bureau too, given the commitments which await us, we will be able to do our best, not only to make Parliament work, but also to take Europe forwards.
<P>
I would like to conclude by saying how much respect and friendship I have for an old comrade, Mario Soares, whom I have known since the anti-fascist struggle in my own country and in Portugal.
He is a model not only of a staunch fighter for democracy but also of a great man who helped in the process of decolonialisation and in creating a world which is a little more just and more open. Above all though, I would say that he personifies admirably the attitude of fair play so essential to democracy.
I would also like to offer my greetings to Mrs Hautala and I hope that together, we will all be able to advance the cause of democracy and of a united Europe.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cox">
Bravo, Nicole, and congratulations, Madam President.
<P>
This morning, I asked Nicole beforehand for some clarification and advice in case she did indeed occupy the Presidential seat today.
In the language of Molière, what is the rule when a woman is elected President?
She informed me that according to the Académie Française , one can say either 'Madame le Président ' or 'Madame la Présidente ' .
Well, Madame la Présidente , and this is perfectly correct according to the Académie Française , I would like to congratulate you not only for just having been elected President of our Assembly for the next few years, but also for having become the first woman in twenty years, as you have pointed out, to succeed my former colleague Simone Weil, as President.
I congratulate you as well, not only for becoming President and a woman President, but also for having been an excellent colleague over the years. I hope that your work for the Parliament and for the internal reforms goes well, and especially your work for the Assembly and for Europe, because I know how much Europe and our common vision of it mean to you personally.
<P>
I would also like to say to our Portuguese colleague, Mario Soares, that I congratulate him because, by taking part in this election, he gave Assembly the chance to contest the seat, which is a sign of true politics and true democracy.
<P>
Within the Liberal Group, we chose to support your nomination, not with a view to forming a political coalition, but as a political statement, for the duration of the opening meeting, because some form of political counterbalance is needed from time to time amongst the great European political groupings.
Having been elected President of our Assembly today, you also hold this political balance between institutions which is necessary for a clearly-defined future, for a shared undertaking on Europe, for internal reform and for the whole Assembly.
Congratulations and bravo, dear colleague.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="President">
Thank you so much, Mr Pat Cox.
<P>
Mr Wurtz has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wurtz">
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="Collins">
Madam President, I extend my congratulations and good wishes on your election as President of the European Parliament.
I am quite satisfied that Parliament has acquired an excellent President and I am equally certain that you will conduct your duties with dignity and fair play at all times.
<P>
You have won the respect of this Parliament during the period of time that you served as Vice-President and the many roles that you had to fulfil.
I want to wish you every success, on behalf of Parliament, during your term of office.
Parliament has a wonderful President.
We all wish you well.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Muscardini">
Madam President, the Alleanza Nazionale knows that you will lead this Parliament with that same spirit of democracy and equilibrium which we experienced during the last legislative term.
Your strong drive for a free and politically united Europe, your respect for the democratic institutions and your belief in a Parliament with, at long last, a strong, informed and transparent relationship with the Commission give us real hope that the years to come will be a time in which the consociativismo (tacit tolerance of corruption) of the past will truly be a thing of the past and real collaboration between all the groups of this Parliament will begin.
Europe is embarking upon this legislative term at a time of great difficulties, due both to the events taking place just beyond our borders and also to the fact that the process of political union and the economic policy project are still far from being completed.
A strong, kind and capable Presidency which is well-balanced and just, such as you have already shown yourself capable of providing, will give us the hope and faith to work together, all of us together, to meet the needs of those European citizens who are still looking to us to give them a clear answer regarding their future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
Madam President, dear Nicole, the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities is also pleased to congratulate you on your election today.
I am sure that you will be the President to safeguard the interests of all Members.
It is a matter of great importance to us that things should now be put in order in Parliament, so that a journey costing EUR 300 is not reimbursed with EUR 1000, and remuneration is completely upfront and not hidden in perks slipped in through the back door. My group is critical of centralism and a lack of transparency within the EU.
I am certain that we will be able to work constructively together to open up the decision-making process within the EU.
There are other areas where we are unable to offer constructive co-operation but we can offer constructive opposition, and that is, of course, because you want greater integration in areas where we want less.
But we can offer constructive opposition.
<P>
Now some comments on a personal note to Mário Soares.
Around this time, twenty five years ago, I visited you at a flat in Paris, where you were in exile.
I was a great admirer of your fight for democracy in Portugal and helped you by getting your speeches printed in Scandinavian newspapers and by broadcasting your messages.
But I have been unable to support you today, for, although we may agree on democracy in Portugal, my group does not support your ideas on integration within Europe.
That is why we have been unable to vote for Mário Soares, even though his past life and background strike a chord with me.
<P>
Again, on a personal note and speaking as one of the ten veterans to have sat here in Parliament since 1979, Nicole Fontaine is the best President we have ever had.
When we closed the session last May, there was unanimous support and loud applause from the entire Chamber because she had presided over meetings with such outstanding success during the last election period.
On no account is it for political reasons that I voted for you today, but because I hope that you will continue to represent all Members.
And on that note, I am pleased to welcome you as the new President of the Parliament for the next two and a half years.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="President">
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Election of Vice-Presidents
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, the next item on the agenda is the election for Vice-Presidents of the European Parliament.
<P>
You should have the list of candidates in front of you.
I shall read it out to you. Ballot papers are being handed out as we decided, once again, to hold a manual vote, given that there were fourteen candidates for fourteen posts.
We shall take advantage of the benefits that electronics can offer later.
<P>
I have received the following nominations:
<P>

Mr Joan Colom I Naval, Mr Ingo Friedrich, Mr Renzo Imbeni, Mrs Marie-Noëlle Lienemann, Mr Luis Marinho, Mr David Martin, Mr Gérard Onesta, Mr José Pacheco Pereira, Mr Guido Podestà, Mr James Provan, Mr Alonso José Puerta, Mr Gerhard Schmid, Mr Alejo Vidal-Quadras Roca and Mr Jan Wiebenga.
<P>
The candidates have informed me that they accept their respective nominations.
<P>
I would like to draw your attention to something that I mentioned a moment ago, which is that, as the number of candidates does not exceed the number of seats to be filled, I propose that in the first instance, we elect these fourteen candidates to the posts of Vice-President and that we do it unanimously.
We will then hold a ballot in order to establish the precedence between the various Vice-Presidents you will have elected in this way.
<P>
Applause
<P>
The fourteen Vice-Presidents are elected unanimously.
<P>
I hereby declare the ballot open.
<P>
The vote took place
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 3.40 p.m. and resumed at 6.05 p.m.)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="President">
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Election of Quaestors
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="President">
With regard to the election of Quaestors, which will take place tomorrow morning, I propose that we set the deadline for the registration of nominations for eight o'clock this evening.
The registration of these nominations must be done in the same place as those for the Vice-Presidencies, which is the small room next to our Chamber.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Madam President, the deadline you have set can easily be adhered to by those parties that only have one good candidate for the election of the Quaestors.
Unfortunately, our party has several good candidates and we must first make a selection.
Indeed, since the election will not take place first thing tomorrow morning, I would ask you to defer the deadline to ten o'clock this evening for example, or as far as I am concerned, even to midnight, but to make it no earlier than ten o'clock this evening.
I urge you to do this on behalf of my party.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="President">
Mr Swoboda, I think that we can be even more accommodating and I suggest, if you have no objection, the time of nine o'clock tomorrow morning.
This way, you will have the whole night in which to hold consultations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Madam President, if you continue to be this generous then we shall be very satisfied with you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the order of business.
<P>
The sitting was closed at 6.10 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Address by the President
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Halonen">
Madam President, I would like to congratulate you on your being elected to your challenging post.
As you yourself mentioned in your excellent speech, immense challenges await us all.
You said you prized interinstitutional co-operation highly.
Madam President, I can assure you here and now, and I shall say it again this evening when, in this same Chamber I officially present the programme that Finland intends to adopt while it holds the presidency, that our goal is a closer system of co-operation between Parliament, the Commission and the Council.
Madam President, I have come here today in token of my respect for the power bestowed on Parliament by the citizens of Europe and to offer my sincerest co-operation in building a better future for our citizens, bearing in mind all the while that we are part of a common world.
Madam President, I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to be here on this occasion.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
I thank the President-in-Office of the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Marín">
Madam President, I will be very brief.
I must congratulate you, on behalf of the outgoing Commission, on your election to the Presidency of the Parliament.
<P>
What can I say about your personal qualities and your already long record in the quest for European integration?
<P>
We know, because we know you very well, that you are a demanding character, but we also know that you have a profound sense of balance which will no doubt help us in the future to form a new approach with regard to the relationship between the European Parliament and the Commission.
<P>
As you have indicated, I believe - and why hide it? - that this is one of the fundamental issues to be resolved.
We are convinced that, under your authority, the next Commission will be capable of re-establishing that trust which has always been a fundamental asset as far as European integration is concerned.
<P>
May I reiterate, Mrs Fontaine, my warm congratulations on behalf of the Commission.
Thank you very much.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
I am truly grateful, Mr Commissioner Marín.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
The Minutes of the last sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Gillig">
Madam President, with regard to the Minutes of yesterday's sitting, I would like to provide all the Members with some information relating to the introductory intervention of our Irish colleague yesterday morning.
<P>
I would like to make it known to all the Members that the issues concerning the means of access, for people with reduced mobility, from the public car parks to all the buildings, is entirely effective.
I tested it myself this morning, using all the paths provided and signposted by means of all the symbols normally used for this sort of information.
I want to point this out so that we can stop the circulation of inaccurate facts.
Everything is in order so that people with reduced mobility may have effective access to the buildings.
I believe that what still needs to be resolved is the problem of the chamber itself.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
Thank you for that very optimistic intervention.
I must tell you that I do not share your view totally.
I believe there is still an enormous amount to do to improve the efficient functioning of this Parliament building.
Everybody is aware of this and we will do everything we can to resolve these issues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Staes">
Madam President, speaking both for myself and, of course, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, I wish to concur with your demand that the second report of the Wise Men be made available to all MEPs before 30 August, i.e. before the hearings with the new Commission begin.
However, I have learnt from an extremely well-informed source that a kind of preliminary draft report is already in circulation in this House, between the Committee of Wise Men, the services of the European Parliament and the services of the European Commission.
We know what happens with preliminary draft reports: they are leaked, they get into the newspapers.
I think we are all entitled to demand that when such a preliminary draft is in circulation, it be made available to the MEPs.
I know it probably is not possible for it to go to all 626 Members, but would it not then be sensible, if such a report exists and if you can confirm this, for this preliminary draft report to be given to the President and the bureau of the Committee on Budgetary Control for example, and to the co-ordinators of all the groups that are represented in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
Mr Staes, that was not exactly a procedural motion, but I have listened to you with interest and, as I told you earlier, I will very quickly make the necessary contacts to that end.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Madam President, I would like to say something in relation to the Minutes. Yesterday, the Conference of Presidents and the political groups jointly registered an objection to the establishment of the so-called 'Technical Group of Independent Members' and I believe that the said objection should be explicitly recorded in the Minutes.
<P>
I assume that the chairman of the PPE, who currently holds the presidency of the Conference, will have forwarded that letter to the Presidency of the Parliament.
In any event, I would like to place my group's objection on record.
<P>
Furthermore, since I have the floor, Madam President, I would like to add that it is not appropriate to open a debate, based on rumours, on a subject which we will have to consider in turn on the agenda, for which I believe amendments have been tabled, and on which the political groups are still to give their opinion.
It seems to me that we should debate each issue in its turn.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Poettering">
Madam President, I am able to confirm the comments made by my colleague, Mr Barón Crespo.
However, I wish to draw attention to another item, that of the name of our group.
Under item 5, it says 'formation of political groups' .
I should like to inform you that in future our group is to be known as the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats)/European Democrats and would ask that note be taken of this.
I would also ask that note be taken, on the monitors and the other technical installations, of the fact that our group is now the largest group in the Parliament, something of which many people are already aware.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Madam President, I would simply like to react to the intervention of Mr Barón Crespo.
We are speaking here of the Minutes.
When you made the announcement yesterday, no reaction was registered.
I believe that the Conference of Presidents will subsequently receive a document concerning the constitution of this group.
We have taken note of this, but I do not believe that it was mentioned yesterday during the discussion.
I therefore think that the two things are different.
On the one hand, there is the possible response and, on the other hand, a reflection of what was said yesterday in the plenary session.
It does not seem to me - and there are witnesses - that any objection was expressed at that time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Dell'Alba.
There is no reason to rectify the Minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Kinnock, Glenys (PSE).">
Madam President, I know you, like me, will share the concern that this week offers no opportunity to express our interest at what is occurring in Burma and, in particular, the sacrifice and suffering of Aung San Suu Kyi who is our Sakharov Prize winner.
<P>
There has been a troika visit to Burma.
I would urge you, President, as one of your first acts, to support the proposal that a political dialogue takes place urgently with Aung San Suu Kyi and her political party.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Kinnock, for that intervention, which I will very much bear in mind.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cohn-Bendit">
Madam President, I would like to ask Mr Poettering a simple question.
<P>
Madam President, a brief question for Mr Poettering.
Mr Poettering, what is the difference between a Christian Democrat and a European Democrat?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Ford">
Madam President, may I say that I fully endorse your speech earlier in which you said that one of our jobs is to provide the public with information about the work of the institutions.
Can I invite you therefore under Rule 38 (Statements explaining Commission decisions) to ask the Commission at the end of today's agenda to come to this House and explain the decision that was taken yesterday to fine the French football authorities a derisory £650.00 for a clear breach of Community rules.
<P>
It is very difficult for anyone to understand what that message was from the Commission, apart from to say that it is good news for ticket touts and bad news for football fans to suggest that people can actually get away with breaking the law providing they are prepared to throw a few coppers towards the European Commission later in the process.
So, may I ask you to invite the Commission, at the end of today's proceedings, to come and explain that decision so that ordinary people can actually try and understand the thought processes which, I have to say, completely confound me.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="President">
We will happily forward your question to the Commission.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
European Council of 3 and 4 June/ German Presidency
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="President">
The next item on the agenda is a joint debate on
<P>
the report of the European Council and the declaration of the Commission on the Cologne European Council meeting of 3 and 4 June, -the declaration of the Council concerning the six months of the German Presidency.
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="Fischer">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am very pleased to be able to meet the newly-elected European Parliament today and extend my congratulations to you all, and particularly you, Madam President Fontaine, on your election.
<P>
At the beginning of the German Presidency, the European Union took a historic step when it introduced the single currency, i.e. the euro.
In January, I declared here in the European Parliament that the Federal Government considered the rationale behind the introduction of the euro to represent further steps towards achieving full integration, and that Germany would spare no effort in attempting to bring this about.
I said that we considered it important to make the structural and procedural preparations needed to transform a union of Western European countries into a truly pan-European Union which would, at the same time, have power to act in matters of foreign policy and security, and which must therefore be more democratic too.
<P>
Today, six months on, we can see that the progress made in these three main areas relating to integration has fulfilled our expectations.
This progress is closely associated with the two crises that the European Union has had to contend with over the last six months.
The resignation of the Commission, the outbreak of war in Kosovo and the European Council in Berlin all coincided, putting the EU's power to act to the test in a dramatic way at a particularly critical moment in time.
The EU Member States maintained not only unity and their power to act during this extremely difficult period, but also displayed considerable creative genius.
They turned the crisis to good account as an incentive to achieve further integration.
The reason for this is that the war in Kosovo served to highlight again that the essence of European integration is to establish a lasting framework for peace on our continent.
This insight resulted in an awareness of the degree to which the national interests of individual Member States are interconnected, and in a readiness throughout Europe to take a decisive step forward in the historic task of bringing European integration to fruition.
<P>
In this way, the crisis has accelerated the process of integration.
The step forward we have taken in the course of the last few months is above all a success shared by all Member States and European Union institutions.
I should therefore like to thank the European Parliament today for fulfilling its responsibility to extraordinarily good effect during this difficult period.
<P>
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should now like to take a few moments to sum up the main events of the German Presidency and then look at the prospects for the future.
Firstly, there has been an increase in the ability of the EU to act in matters of foreign and security policy.
The EU is now an international player holding considerable sway.
Nothing rendered this more apparent than the Belgrade mission undertaken by President Ahtisaari and the Russian envoy to Kosovo, Mr Chernomyrdin.
The contribution they made towards bringing the Kosovo conflict to a peaceful conclusion has enabled the civil might of the EU to take a major step in the direction of a common foreign policy.
Unlike 1991/92, the EU pursued a common line in the Balkans this time, which can be explained by the fact that the European States had at last recognised that it was not just about moral duty or the future of a region on the periphery of Europe, but about their own security, indeed our collective security.
<P>
In Europe, there is just one single, indivisible kind of security; that is, the logical conclusion we can draw from our experience of the tragedy in Kosovo.
If we had stood idly by in the face of bloodthirsty, aggressive nationalism on our continent, then ultimately the fate of European integration itself, the greatest achievement in recent European history, would have been placed in jeopardy.
We could not and would not allow this to happen.
<P>
Applause
<P>
The Kosovo conflict has propagated two important ideas in the EU.
Firstly, South-Eastern Europe is now widely and unreservedly accepted as being part of Europe.
This led to the Stability Pact being adopted, a subject I shall return to later.
Secondly, the Member States have hardened in their resolve finally to give shape to a Common Foreign and Security policy.
Against this background it has been possible to present a united front to China and the Near East in terms of human rights policy and many other difficult foreign policy issues, and ultimately to reach a number of important decisions in Cologne, which included adopting the first common strategy towards Russia and a timetable for achieving a European security and defence policy, as well as nominating Javier Solana as the best possible candidate for the post of Mr CFSP.
<P>
The European Union's importance as an international player has also become evident at the numerous Interregional Conferences such as the Latin American Summit in Rio, the Mediterranean Conference held in Stuttgart, a platform which can now gain considerably in importance against the background of a new peace dynamic, the ASEM in Berlin and many other meetings.
<P>
Secondly, the Berlin decisions on Agenda 2000 have secured the European Union the power to act for the next few years.
If we had failed to reach agreement there, and consider what it would have meant, if the Berlin meeting had finished with no compromise having been reached at a time when the Kosovo war was just beginning and the Commission was in a state of crisis, then Europe would have been plunged into a serious, historic crisis.
Agenda 2000 contained a sheaf of reform initiatives and huge national interests of a kind unknown hitherto in the history of European integration.
The fact that it proved possible to reconcile these issues in one great compromise was because major Member States, not least of which Germany, refrained from pushing to achieve the most they could for their own countries, come what may, and instead made the further development of Europe a priority.
<P>
Certainly, the Federal German Government would have liked to have seen more progress in many areas, for example in agricultural policy, where, following the WTO Round, it will be soon be essential to take further reform measures. But, all in all, the compromise is still an excellent foundation on which to lead the Union into the 21st century.
<P>
Thirdly, Agenda 2000 will also foster opportunities for the enlargement of the European Union.
The success of the Berlin compromise can in fact be measured in terms of the extremely positive reactions displayed by the Applicant States.
The negotiations for Accession have also made good progress over the last six months.
We now undertake negotiations in more than half of all the capital cities.
Moreover, when we decided in Cologne to have a new Intergovernmental Conference on institutional affairs, we seized the opportunity that will enable us to soon overcome the second large internal hurdle facing the enlargement process.
As a result, the historic project of enlargement has made considerable progress in terms of pace and quality.
<P>
Fourthly, at the time of the dispute that led to the resignation of the Commission, the European Parliament fulfilled the responsible role expected of it by the people of Europe.
I regard this as the beginning of a process that will lead to more a pronounced democratisation of the Union.
The nomination of Romano Prodi as the new President of the Commission was a very rapid reaction on the part of the EU States to the resignation of the Commission.
I should like, at this juncture, to wish Romano Prodi and the new Commission a great deal of luck and every success as they embark on the great tasks ahead of them.
<P>
In adopting the Code of Conduct the new Commission has already sent out an important signal intended to regain the citizens' trust, a good start.
However, I should also like today to again address particular thanks to the old Commission and all its staff for their work.
Despite any criticism levied at certain individuals, we should not forget one thing, and that is that without the Commission's hard work and commitment, we would not have been able to solve the numerous and difficult problems, and not least those encountered during the German Presidency.
<P>
Applause
<P>
My fifth point is that the Employment Pact agreed in Cologne makes it possible, at the European level, to pursue our goal of supplementing and strengthening national efforts to create more employment.
The Pact improves the conditions necessary to achieve an active employment policy in both a national and European context.
The macro-economic dialogue agreed on in Cologne, with the involvement of the two sides of industry and the European Central Bank, will make an important contribution to this process.
We should therefore take stock of the situation for the first time at the Employment Summit to be held during the Portuguese Presidency.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, in the period that lies before us we should use the dynamic that has emerged over the last six months from the tension between the exigencies of crisis and those of reform, to take further steps towards integration.
We must make progress in five key areas.
The first of these is that our experience of the Kosovo conflict must lead to a speeding-up of the enlargement process.
The agenda for the European Council in Helsinki includes decisions that will point the way.
Two questions of central importance will be discussed, the first being which additional Applicant States the EU is to enter into negotiations with.
It has been evident for a long time now that several of the States not yet at the negotiating stage have made considerable progress in terms of reform and this should be shown due appreciation in Helsinki.
It should also be made clear that any candidate fulfilling the Copenhagen Criteria is entitled to enter into accession negotiations.
<P>
The second question which will need to be addressed is that of a target date for concluding negotiations with the first candidates.
Numerous idealistic proposals have been made, but as yet we have no foundation worthy of consideration on which to base a realistic date.
However, a foundation of this kind will be created for the first time in Helsinki, when the full results of the screening and the Commission's new progress reports are made known.
It is therefore my fervent hope that it will be possible to fix a date in December.
Personally, I feel that we must fix the date in December.
This would send out a signal of enormous importance in terms of the future dynamics of the reform process as well as those of the accession negotiations.
<P>
Unfortunately, it has not been possible, over the last six months, to bring about any substantial improvement in Turkey's status vis-a-vis the European Union.
Germany's proposal to designate Turkey an Applicant State and to assess it in accordance with the same Copenhagen Criteria as applied to the other candidates, did not meet with agreement in Cologne, but this issue remains on the agenda.
It is important that Turkey should draw up a timetable for implementing the Copenhagen Criteria.
It is essential that Turkey fulfil these criteria if it is to enter into accession negotiations.
<P>
My second point is that if an enlarged Union is to retain its ability to negotiate then it is essential that the three institutional questions that remained open in Amsterdam, namely the size and composition of the Commission, vote weighting in the Council, and extending majority voting, are clarified in good time and comprehensively before enlargement takes place.
In any case, this is in the interests of the Applicant States.
We should therefore make every available effort to adhere to the timetable for institutional reform agreed on in Cologne and to complete the package of reforms in the year 2000 under the French Presidency.
However this will require the will and support of all Member States.
<P>
Thirdly, the end of the fourth, and hopefully last, Yugoslavian war of succession in Kosovo and the agreement of the Stability Pact mean that for the first time in its history, South-Eastern Europe now has a real opportunity to break with nationalism and violence forever and draw closer to an integrated Europe.
Reconciliation was able to take place in Western Europe after 1945 and so it can in the Balkans today, provided that it is possible to root out the hatred and violence of nationalism there too.
For this to be achieved, it is important that the European Union should make the securing of peace in South-Eastern Europe a priority in peacetime too.
Reconstruction in Kosovo and the EU's central role in giving impetus to the Stability Pact mean that it carries more responsibility, also in material terms.
Equally though, in the long-term this represents a major and exceptional opportunity for the Union and its national economies which we should embrace with determination.
<P>
Economic co-operation will be a decisive factor in the stabilisation of South-Eastern Europe.
Germany supports additional proposals for creating a regional Trade and Customs Union with the aim of forming a free-trade zone which ought, if possible, to be linked with the European Union.
A stable economic framework of this kind would also be of great benefit to outside investment.
However, the most important goal is to create stable conditions for democracy and rule of law throughout the Balkans.
The key to the lasting stabilisation of the region will be the democratisation of Serbia.
<P>
Applause
<P>
This is a question which the Serbian people must decide for themselves.
Nevertheless, as far as the European Union and its Member States are concerned, we must do everything to strengthen democracy in Serbia and weaken Milosevic.
It is precisely at this time, when courageous demonstrations are taking place throughout the country, that we must show the Serbian people that they can count on the full support of the European Union when it comes to the democratisation of their country.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Our experiences over the past few months show that Europe also needs to be better organised in terms of security and defence policy if it wishes to be able to manage future crises effectively by itself.
The Cologne decisions on the creation of a European Security and Defence Union have far-reaching implications.
This area of policy must be the European Union's next large project for integration, after the Internal Market and Economic and Monetary Union.
Consequently, the development of common options for action and the creation of the infrastructure necessary to achieve this will, in time, be the very first item on Europe's agenda for the future.
But in fact, this is not about militarisation of the European Union at all, but about developing it into an effective force for peace which has the ability to act, and which is able, as in Kosovo, to uphold the power of justice and the renunciation of violence, thus ensuring that war as a political instrument in Europe is forever a thing of the past.
<P>
Applause
<P>
The future viability of the European Union depends on its being strengthened in terms of its legitimacy and credibility in the eyes of the citizens.
The draft for a European Charter of Fundamental Rights agreed in Cologne should ensure that the fundamental rights of the citizens are accorded the same status at the European level as they are at the national level.
This is a new process.
The Charter should be based on a wide-ranging dialogue involving representatives of the European Parliament, the national parliaments, the government and the Commission.
This Committee should present its report to the European Council under the French Presidency.
I hope that the European Parliament will play a leading role in this process, building on the preparatory work that has already been underway in the Parliament for some time.
<P>
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the progress that has been made in terms of political integration and enlargement raises an issue of central importance to the future of the European Union.
How can a Union of 27, or with South-Eastern Europe in mind, in the long-term even 30 Member States, continue to work and have the power to act?
How is the enlarged Europe of the future both to retain its cohesion and fulfil its obligations internally and externally?
This question, which in terms of far-reaching implications goes well beyond the next Intergovernmental Conference, is very soon to have a considerable impact on the debate on reform within Europe, indeed it must impact on it.
Democratisation and, ultimately, development of the parliamentary process within the European Union, must be central to this debate: the creation of a true union of citizens.
It is only by following this path that we will gradually be able to overcome the decline in interest which manifested itself in the alarmingly low turnout at the European elections. Indeed, it was to the alarm of us all.
<P>
The democratic imperative has become evident from the conflict surrounding the resignation of the Commission, during which the fundamental issues of transparency, democratic control and the legitimacy of European dealings have been raised.
However, this imperative is also a consequence of the European Union's growing power to act, not least in terms of foreign and security policy.
A Union that wants to have the power to act in crises and conflicts urgently needs its own chain of democratic legitimacy.
It will therefore be essential, in the future, for the rights of the European Parliament to be extended beyond the new stipulations of the Amsterdam Treaty, but also for the national parliaments to have greater involvement.
<P>
At the beginning of the German Presidency, Madam President, I initiated a debate on the idea of a European Constitution.
This debate will further strengthen the citizens' consciousness of their identity as European citizens.
However, we should detach ourselves from a strictly legal understanding of the term Constitution and instead understand it to mean a combination of values and fundamental principles, the functioning mechanisms of European co-existence, and the way in which the European Union functions as a political construct sui generis.
<P>
The two crises experienced over the last six months will have a long-lasting effect on the progress of European integration.
The Kosovo conflict has caused us to focus again on the point of departure for integration; the setting up of a European framework for peace.
The resignation of the Commission, on the other hand, has shown that we will need in the future to create a truly democratic Union with as many checks as there are balances.
I feel that these two insights serve as a good basis for the Finnish Presidency, which I wish the best of luck for the responsible task that lies ahead of it.
Thank you for your attention.
<P>
Loud Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Marín">
Madam President, I am also going to be very brief this time for reasons which I am sure you will understand perfectly.
I simply wish to point out that, as mentioned by Mr Fischer, the President of the Council, during the German Presidency - which has been a complicated and difficult Presidency - some of the great issues and challenges which were facing us have been resolved.
I refer, of course, to the approval of Agenda 2000, which was an enormously difficult exercise in terms of politics, diplomacy and the balance of interests within the Union, and to all the consequences resulting from perhaps the greatest contemporary problem, given its repercussions within the European Union itself, by which I mean the Kosovo conflict and all the circumstances surrounding it as well as its resultant consequences for the future.
<P>
European security and defence have taken a step forward with the appointment of the person responsible for the CFSP.
These steps perhaps demonstrate that foreign and security policy, in the aftermath of the Kosovo affair, continue to be the 'Achilles heel' of Community construction and still have a long way to go.
<P>
Finally, the European Employment Pact has also been given a great boost - with the implementation of the conclusions of the European Council of Luxembourg.
<P>
The outgoing Commission therefore congratulates the German Presidency.
We believe it has been a very good Presidency.
Very difficult problems have been resolved.
This is all due, with no doubt whatsoever, to the talent, efficiency and intelligence of Mr Fischer, the Foreign Minister, with whom I have been very impressed, and I promise him that, in my new life, when I return to Spain, I will go jogging and eat bananas.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Poettering">
Mr President, Mr Foreign Minister, ladies and gentlemen, I concur fully with your speech, Mr Foreign Minister, but unfortunately the German Presidency cannot be assessed in a purely positive light.
That is why my words will be less genial in tone than those of the President-elect of the Commission.
<P>
The German Presidency was one of peaks and troughs, and whilst we have recognised its successes, there were also serious shortcomings, failures and blunders.
The German Presidency had to contend with the tragic situation in Kosovo, and the Berlin Declaration left nothing to be desired in terms of clarity.
The German Council Presidency, together with the countries of the European Union of the Western Alliance took resolute action in order to oppose the Yugoslavian tyrant and dictator Milosevic.
Such action was necessary and just.
Our message on the threshold of the year 2000 must be: never again are people in Europe to be driven from their homes, from their homeland.
Human rights, human dignity, the right to a homeland are the foundation of our European civilisation.
<P>
On behalf of our group, I should like, Mr Foreign Minister, to address a word of thanks and recognition to you on an expressly personal note, for having championed human rights with such dedication and commitment, even to the point of sustaining physical injury.
<P>
Applause
<P>
But we in our group have often asked ourselves: what would have happened if our political friends had had your political responsibility?
Had you been a member of the Opposition, would you have shown the same solidarity towards the Federal Government?
That is why we want to say a word of thanks to our political friends in the CDU and CSU, and also to the Liberals, for showing such pronounced solidarity in their support of the Council Presidency.
<P>
It filled us with horror, and we are as critical of this as you are, that the chairman of the post-communist PDS shook hands with Milosevic in Belgrade.
What is more, this individual's supporters are represented here in the European Parliament.
<P>
Kosovo must now be reconstructed; that is one of the European Union's main tasks.
We must not repeat the mistakes made in Bosnia, when there was so much red tape and everything took so long, but rather the European Union must take rapid action that is free of red tape. In this respect, the Council of Ministers, Commission and European Parliament are called upon to take concerted action that will give the sorely afflicted people in Kosovo, in former Yugoslavia and the Balkans, hope for the future.
<P>
Agenda 2000 was decided on in Berlin and it must now constitute the basis on which the first applicant countries will be able to join the European Union during this legislative period of the European Parliament, hence by 2004.
The crux of the matter here is to anchor the European family in the principled society bequeathed by European civilisation, the expression of which is the European Union.
This will promote stability and safety, democracy and peace.
But we also say, and I know that we agree on this, that there are prerequisites to enlargement, namely the reform of the European Union.
We welcome your endeavours towards a European Charter and we welcome your endeavours as regards a conference on the reform of the European Union.
At the heart of this reform process must lie the long overdue acceptance of the majority system in the Council of Ministers as the fundamental decision-making instrument for this Parliament.
For we want this to be a Union which has the power to act and which is rooted in the principles of democracy and the parliamentary system.
<P>
The Cologne Summit reached a decision on the Secretary-General, also known as the High Representative.
We consider Javier Solana to be an excellent choice.
But it is now a case of ensuring that this High Representative is given the authority he needs and that he works constructively with the appropriate Member of the Commission.
Furthermore, we must prevent those areas of foreign policy where a common line is already being pursued, from degenerating into mere co-operation between the States of the European Union.
We must take great care to ensure that the correct steps are taken in this respect.
<P>
The Western European Union must be integrated into the European Union, which would be a welcome move.
Should the Assembly of the Western European Union ultimately disappear, then, of course, in addition to the national parliaments, there must be parliamentary accountability at the European level. For this reason, authority in foreign, security and defence policy must accrue even more to the European Parliament, so that there is no sphere within the European Union escaping the influence of parliament and democracy.
<P>
Applause
<P>
I should now like to turn to less pleasant matters associated with the German Council Presidency.
Firstly there is the appointment of the new Commission.
At the beginning of the year, the Council Presidency advised us to issue the discharge for the 1996 and 1997 budgets, thereby giving us advice that was actually long out of date.
The Federal Government was still at a stage of development which we were unable to fully comprehend.
Then it came to the nomination and appointment of the two German Members of the Commission.
Mr Foreign Minister, it is scandalous how this process has developed.
It is scandalous how the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany has handled this issue.
<P>
The Treaty provides for the Members of the Commission to be nominated on the basis of agreement between the President-elect and the national governments.
We now know that an individual nominated by the Federal Government did not even have the opportunity to meet up with the Chancellor before the Chancellor's discussion with Mr Prodi, which means that the Chancellor had no conversation whatsoever beforehand with the individual that he proposed.
He then, as it were, imposed these two people on the President of the Commission, the President-elect of the Commission, which did Romano Prodi, the European institutions and the Federal Republic no service.
<P>
The list of mistakes of this kind goes on.
Even before the German Council Presidency the Environment Minister travelled to London and Paris with the intention of breaking off Treaties.
It was to be the first time since the War that Germany would breach international law in the French National Assembly.
This was inappropriate behaviour of the worst kind on the part of the Environment Minister.
The failure of the German President-in-Office of the Council and the Finance Minister to attend the launch of the euro is another case in point.
The disappearance from office of the President-in-Office of the Finance Council is an event that has never before taken place in the history of the European Union.
<P>
The Chancellor's order to drop the Directive on end-of-life cars from the Council of Ministers sitting is something unknown and unheard of hitherto in the European Union, and the order given by the Chancellor that the German Minister of Trade and Commerce should not attend the Council of Ministers sitting in Finland is also without precedent in the recent history of the European Union.
<P>
Mr Foreign Minister, I am sure that none of this was intentional, but from Konrad Adenauer, through Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt to Helmut Kohl the strength of German politics always resided in the fact that Germany's partners trusted her.
I hope, Mr Foreign Minister, that you will be able to safeguard this trust in the constancy and reliability of German European policy in the future, for it is of importance to progress within the European Union and to the future of our European continent.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hänsch">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, it is clear that Mr Poettering is keen to use the European Parliament as something of a platform for parading his national Opposition in Germany.
But the performance you give here, Mr Poettering, cannot, nor will it ever match the real-life drama facing our Foreign Minister.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the European Union has passed the acid test during difficult times under your Presidency.
You have quoted the important points here and I will not hesitate to say that in so doing a number of shortcomings and weaknesses have been glossed over.
There is no doubt of that.
But the decisions taken under the German Presidency over the last six months will shape the future of the European Union far into the next decade.
<P>
Mr Poettering asked what would have happened if the decisions taken under the German Presidency had been taken under a Presidency of his political persuasion.
I can tell you what would have happened, Mr Poettering. You would have rung all the bells here, lit a thousand candles and had the Te Deum strike up.
Incidentally, that is the difference between Christian Democrats and European Democrats.
<P>
We are not going to start singing here but would simply like to thank the German Presidency for a successful period in office.
<P>
Applause
<P>
We welcome the fact that the European Council, under the German Presidency, has concluded the work on a European Employment Pact.
We know that a European Employment Pact cannot replace national endeavours to create employment, but it can and must co-ordinate, focus and stimulate these endeavours.
We also know that a European Employment Pact does not, at this stage, constitute European employment policy.
<P>
The governments of all the Member States must succeed in progressing from non-binding joint declarations to binding common policy with clear guidelines and agreed terms of reference.
We don't just need a Pact to stabilise the euro but also one which will create employment in Europe.
<P>
Secondly, the decisions the European Council had to take in the area of common foreign and security policy will alter the European Union more profoundly than it is possible to envisage at present.
For the first time in history, the European Union employed armed troops in Europe on a joint basis, showing remarkable resolve in the process.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, we want you to show the governments of the Member States the same determination when it comes to promoting peace in the Balkans.
NATO won the war, the European Union must now win peace.
The Stability Pact for the Balkans is a just and necessary step but it is not yet a Balkans policy.
The creation of offices and agencies should not be the sum total of EU policy in the Balkans.
If you continue in this vein then very soon you will need an office to co-ordinate the co-ordinators, and that is not a Balkans policy.
<P>
My third point concerns the reform of the EU institutions.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, in January, you made a fine speech here which was very forward-looking.
However, the decisions taken by the Cologne European Council on institutional reform barely scratched the surface.
We consider it too fainthearted to restrict ourselves to the reforms contained in the Amsterdam Protocol.
It is certainly a good thing that you set the reform process in motion in Cologne, but, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, we have an answer to the questions you raised here regarding the future prospects for enlargement of the European Union and the shape of our European Union in institutional terms, and our answer to these questions is clear: we want major institutional reform to be undertaken prior to enlargement.
The price of a larger Europe must not be a lesser Europe.
<P>
Lastly, a few words on the new Commission.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you spoke of the new Commission.
May I remind you that there will only be a new Commission when the European Parliament inaugurates it by vote of confidence.....
<P>
Applause
<P>
.... but if Mr Poettering is going to shout it about that the Chancellor did not speak to a Commissioner-designate before the nomination was made, then in fact I must inform you, Mr Poettering, that former Chancellor Kohl often spoke to Mr Bangemann and you can see how successful that proved to be, i.e. not at all.
Talk serves no purpose whatsoever.
<P>
Nevertheless, again on the address from the other side of the House as regards the inauguration of the new Commission, we refuse, and on this matter I now speak on behalf of the Group of the Social Democrats, to make the procedure and timetable of Parliament dependent on the presentation of a report by a non-parliamentary group or a non-parliamentary committee.
We will not accept any delay in the inauguration of the Commission.
You may well bring this about if you have the support of the majority, Mr Poettering, but then you will also have to explain to the public why a Commission that resigned in March is still in office six months after its resignation.
My group will not support these obvious delaying tactics.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Watson">
Mr President, I have no desire to involve myself in a private German dispute.
<P>
Applause
<P>
I would like to congratulate Germany on a broadly successful Presidency though I would venture to suggest that it might have been perceived as more successful had it been trumpeted rather less.
Recent presidencies - Austria and Luxembourg with their low key presentation - can teach larger Member States such as Germany and the United Kingdom that the impact of a Presidency is sometimes in directly inverse proportion to its fanfare.
This has been a difficult Presidency.
The Kosovo conflict started during the European Council in March.
The news that Belgrade had accepted the peace terms came during your Cologne Summit in June; and the resignation of the Commission ten weeks into your Presidency cannot have made life any easier.
<P>
I would like to concentrate my remarks on three areas - employment, enlargement and citizenship.
Employment, Mr President, is a constant reminder of the failure of Western democracies to be inclusive and I would welcome some very good new ideas that came up during this Presidency.
Allowing Member States to reduce VAT on labour-intensive services where there are no cross-border implications; a renewed emphasis on research and development and a more imaginative use of European Investment Bank money such as in the creation of the European technology facility; changes in work organisation and working time to share out better the work available.
These are all ideas that came up and they deserve to be pursued.
<P>
I regret that less progress was made on Agenda 2000.
The Presidency claims to have created the financial framework for enlargement to the east.
I hope that is the case but I believe that the reality is that we backed away from the tough decisions on agricultural reform.
That will lead to problems in transatlantic relations and to further delay in the integration of Central and Eastern European applicant countries into the European Union.
<P>
But the most important progress has been in the area of citizens' rights.
If we are to get this right, we need a new approach from the Member States.
If we are to create an area of freedom, security and justice - promised to us at Amsterdam - then we will need transparency.
It is a disgrace that important documents regarding the Third Pillar have still not been made public, but I would pay homage to the role of Mr Fischer himself in this particular area and thank him for his help.
Amsterdam heralds a new dawn in the rights of European citizens.
It was a brave decision of the German Presidency to table and to advance the idea of a charter of fundamental rights.
Your pluralistic approach, your attempt to involve the European Parliament and national parliaments can only add to the likelihood of success.
We as a Parliament, Mr President-in-Office, look forward to working with the Council and the Commission in securing the anchoring of fundamental rights and fundamental freedoms for the citizen in European law.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rühle">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, esteemed Foreign Minister, it would be politically short-sighted if a representative of the Greens were to praise the German Presidency with no ifs or buts.
For example, is it not the case that the conduct of the red-green Federal Government regarding the Regulation on end-of-life cars has caused it to lose credibility and sacrifice an environmentally-friendly, sustainable policy to short-term opportunism?
A rather different attitude can therefore be expected from a member of the Greens, when speaking of the German Council Presidency, not that we would wish to compete with the Opposition for their role, Mr Poettering.
<P>
The German Presidency faced extraordinarily difficult circumstances and we believe that it passed the acid test well; a faltering European Commission which had at last to face facts and which resigned, but which in so doing also afforded a clear view of Europe's major institutional shortcomings.
The staffing implications were quickly dealt with under the German Presidency with the appointment of Prodi, which was an important start.
Unfortunately, the Council has failed to speed the progress of the institutional decisions with the same determination, but we wish to extend our particular thanks to Foreign Minister Fischer for his important initiatives, for his important work, in precisely this area.
<P>
Agenda 2000, an ambitious reform project, was to be put into action under the German Presidency in order to deepen European integration and to make the EU fit for enlargement towards the East by means of substantial reforms.
Not all the decisions reached at the Berlin Summit were as forward-looking as we had expected.
For example, whilst good compromises were reached in the area of finance, which will provide reserves for enlargement of the EU towards the East, only faltering steps have been taken in terms of agricultural reform.
It was here that the opportunity to pursue a policy of environmental sustainability, which strengthens regional structures, was thrown away.
The German Presidency was marked not least by the escalation of events in Kosovo.
The decision to undertake military intervention, in order to oppose a policy of racism, nationalism and ethnic expulsions in a 21st Century Europe, met, as you know, with a variety of reactions in the Green Party.
However, the German Presidency demonstrated great commitment to driving forward a solution, what is known as the Fischer-Plan, with the participation of Russia, Finland, and not least the UN.
We must now strengthen the region by providing well-directed reconstruction aid in order to prevent renewed destabilisation.
<P>
The German Presidency played its part in strengthening this Europe of common interests.
We hope that the learning processes experienced by all parties at this time will contribute towards the strengthening, democratic development and enlargement of Europe.
However, the European Parliament also has its part to play now and must carry on the work in precisely this area, which involves strengthening the EU institutions and consolidating the democratic structures of Europe.
<P>
It remains for me to address a final word to Mr Poettering, without wishing to make reference to decisions on domestic policy, for I feel that as this is a European Parliament, there are other matters besides Germany that we should be discussing But I can assure you of one thing, Mr Poettering, which is that the Green Party did learn from Bosnia, and has now learnt from Kosovo, and we would have taken account of this responsibility today, even had we been at a different Assembly.
It was not without reason that we had a great many discussions within the Party, and I think we have made enormous progress in this respect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kaufmann">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, to begin with, allow me to address a few words to my colleague, Mr Poettering.
A little while ago, you made reference to the fact that your group is called the Christian Democrats and European Democrats.
Unification of Germany took place almost nine years ago, and it would please me greatly if, after such a long time, you could at last bring yourself to respect the fact that there is a Democratic-Socialist Left in Germany which is now also represented in the European Parliament.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, instead of an Employment Union we're getting a Defence Union.
That is the uninspiring outcome of the German Presidency and the inauspicious message it sent out.
The hastily adopted Agenda 2000, which is to secure the financing of the Community and its enlargement, is a half-baked piece of work.
Agricultural reform failed to open the door any further to the Applicant States of Central and Eastern Europe.
Immediately after the Berlin Summit the Federal Government itself commented that agricultural policy would need to be reformed again in view of enlargement.
Not even the nomination of Romano Prodi as President of the Commission was able to camouflage the poor results produced by this Summit.
The German EU Presidency took no action to at least put a brake on the euro's continued decline in value on foreign exchange markets.
<P>
The crisis facing the European Single Currency was not even on the agenda in Cologne.
Not a single decision was taken on the taxation of international speculative movements of capital or the fight against tax dumping and tax havens within the Union.
As a German MEP, it saddened me greatly that national egotism was to become the hallmark of the German Presidency.
The crass way in which the European Directive on end-of-life cars was blocked solely to serve the interests of a German car company caused dismay, as did the overdue appointment of ex-Minister to the Chancellery, Hombach, as envoy to the Balkans and the lack of understanding of the goals and nature of French politics.
<P>
It became clear that in many Member States, people felt they had been duped by this lord of the manor approach to European policy.
Our group is as emphatic in its appreciation of the Cologne Summit Decision, which it intends to actively support, so as to further strengthen the fundamental rights of the citizens in the future, as it is resolute in its criticism of the Employment Pact.
Since unemployment continues to languish at a high level, this Pact does not merit its name.
Indeed, that is one of the reasons why such a shockingly large amount of people stayed away from the European elections.
The people of Europe do not understand why European employment policy should degenerate into sound bites.
Binding and verifiable, quantitative goals must at last be agreed for economic growth and the fight against unemployment.
We vigorously declare our support for a socially responsible Europe and that is why we will not tolerate people lightly putting the social cohesion of the Union at risk, preaching restraint in matters of pay and calling the social security systems into question.
<P>
During the German Presidency, the NATO war in the Balkans, which transgressed international law and dispensed with the authority of the UN, was actively supported by the European Union and its Member States, and at the same time the Community's conversion to a so-called defence union was sealed.
War as an instrument of politics was rendered socially acceptable again and the progress of this fatal course will be speeded further still by the incorporation of the WEU military pact into the European Union and by the build-up of armed forces for intervention.
Disarmament, crisis prevention and the settlement of conflict by non-military means, in particular by strengthening the role of the OSCE, risk falling by the wayside.
It was this kind of reasoning that led to NATO General Secretary Solana being nominated as the future Mr CFSP.
Our group rejects this nomination.
<P>
The German EU Commissioner-designate Mr Verheugen said after the Cologne Summit that it would scarcely have been possible to achieve rapid agreement on the strengthening of a Common Foreign and Security Policy for the Union without the pressure of the Kosovo war.
Put another way, war became the driving force and catalyst for European integration.
That is disastrous, and looking ahead to the year 2000, a dangerous and misguided path to go down.
Those who are now hailing the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe a great success would have done better to have refrained from squandering the money on bombs, rockets and soldiers and instead to have presented the Pact a few months earlier as part of a comprehensive political and non-military plan drawn up by the European Union for the region, and to have provided the OSCE with the necessary means.
We give our staunch support to a policy that outlaws war and military violence, banishing it from the lives of all peoples.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Abitbol">
Mr President, on behalf of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group, I would first like to briefly mention the lessons which can be drawn from the recent European elections.
It seems to me that the massive and increasing abstention recorded in all of the European countries indicates the emergence and confirmation of a virtual Europe which is distancing itself more and more from European citizens.
Another apparent sign of the increasing disinterest of the Europeans in European construction is the lack of interest in the euro, barely six months after its launch.
It seems to me - and this is the second lesson to be drawn from the European elections - that an increasing euroscepticism amongst voters in numerous countries has been demonstrated, particularly in the United Kingdom and France, and I believe that by voting for the opposition parties in the large European countries, it is the Europe in which their governments participate that the citizens wanted to reject.
I see an enormous paradox in yesterday's election, on the part of the Right in this hemicycle, of a candidate who, however admirable, is a known federalist, when this does not apparently reflect the view expressed by the voters - particularly those of the Right - in the countries of Europe.
<P>
I do not believe that the legitimacy mentioned by the German Foreign Minister can be achieved by reproducing, on a European scale, the party systems to be found in the European countries.
This legitimacy can only stem from a Europe which has been 'reforged' on the basis of national democracies rather than trying to create a virtual Europe which is ever more distant from the concerns of its citizens.
<P>
To return to the Cologne Summit and the consequences of the German Presidency, I will make three points.
First of all, the Employment Pact which has been Europe's old chestnut for a very long time.
I believe that a certain German Chancellor whom we have still not forgotten, Helmut Kohl, used a phrase which seems to me to sum the situation up exactly.
He said, 'employment - in other words, unemployment - is and shall remain a national prerogative' .
This is precisely the definition of this Europe which is seen to make plans but leaves the problems to the Member Nations.
<P>
The second point concerning the German Presidency and the six months that have just passed is the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy.
It is clear that this reform has been and still is a precondition to the negotiations to be held with the World Trade Organisation, which, as we well know, is an instrument of the dominant economy, that is, the American economy.
The recent developments that we have seen with regard to the WTO, the way in which the new negotiations will be carried out and, particularly, the appointment of the Director General preferred by the Americans for the first round of the WTO, are very bad omens with regard to European interests.
It seems to me that this Europe, which was born of the idea of the Common Market, has become a Single Market and will end up as nothing more than a part of a great global market.
That will effectively mean the defeat of the Treaty of Rome project.
<P>
Lastly, the Kosovo affair has also demonstrated the impotence of the European Union and its total diplomatic and military dependence on the dominant military power of NATO.
Furthermore, the appointment of the Secretary General of NATO as a representative of the European Common Foreign and Security Policy, appears to complete the picture, and brings to mind that phrase of a French diplomat who said that it is illusory to try to develop a European defence policy while building the European Central Bank in Fort Knox.
I believe that the Kosovo affair and its favourable outcome have eclipsed the six months which have just passed.
It is very important - for our group at least - that, in the course of the coming institutional reforms, a far greater importance is afforded to national democracies and national parliaments, instead of allowing Europe to sink deeper and distance itself even further from the citizens by creating the kind of democracy that I have described as virtual.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, the Presidency of the European Union has now passed from German into Finnish hands. It is now time to review the last six months and as well as assess the German Presidency.
<P>
We now face a situation in which the German Presidency has in fact already assessed its own performance.
According to a recent statement by the German Minister of State Mr Verheugen, it has been a very successful six months.
We find these sentiments repeated in the speech by Minister Fischer.
I think some questions are in order here at the very least.
<P>
Firstly, the negotiations for Agenda 2000 produced an agreement that was only a watered-down version of the original ambitious proposals placed on the table by Germany.
There is still the danger that whilst the agricultural sector is being reformed, there is no increase in opportunities for enlargement of the Union with countries from Central and Eastern Europe.
<P>
The nomination of Prodi as President of the European Commission and the recent events in Kosovo have also left their mark on the German Presidency.
The rapidity with which Prodi was nominated was good, although it is certainly taking a very long time for the new European Commission to get up and running.
Consequently, the European Commission's work has been at a standstill for far too long.
In addition, the war in Kosovo has greatly influenced the way in which the German Presidency has developed.
<P>
Chancellor Schröder also deserves praise for his work in this area, although of course the work of the United States and President Ahtisaari of Finland should not be forgotten.
It has highlighted the fact that it is not easy to achieve one common European policy, but I've spoken on that subject before.
<P>
What really concerns us is the way in which the German Presidency in the Environment Council dealt with the draft Directive for the handling of end-of-life cars.
Of all governments, we might have expected a green/red coalition to have taken the initiative here, rather than prove obstructive.
After all, the German car industry doesn't pull the German government's strings.
<P>
The private chats between Germany, France and Great Britain also give cause for concern.
For example, the posts of Prodi, Solana and Boisieur have recently been allocated during discussions entered into by these three big powers.
If this is a sign of the way in which future posts are to be allocated, then this does not augur well for the small Member States.
The Council of Ministers will have to become aware of this and adapt its policy so that it is possible to achieve an even distribution of positions across all Member States.
As far as that is concerned, one of these small Member States, Finland, can endeavour to bring about change in the coming months.
We shall just have to wait and see.
<P>
Preparations for the forthcoming IGC fall to the new Finnish Presidency.
There are important items on the agenda for this and our group hopes that they will receive due attention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Muscardini">
Mr President, the Presidencies of the Council of the European Union are not isolated entities and cannot be judged without taking into account the sequence of past events.
The German Presidency was established within the context of the British leadership and the creation of the single currency.
Thus, no judgment can be made regarding the outgoing Presidency without taking into consideration the low profile of the previous one and the hopes raised by the appearance of the euro, which were then dashed and now remain on the drawing board.
<P>
The Treaty of Amsterdam had not resolved the issue of the functioning of the institutions, and in the field of foreign policy the only step forward was the appointment of Mr CFSP who, however, was not yet in office during the Kosovo crisis, which, without waiting for the delays and continued absence of Europe, broke out like a scourge and set off a new spate of the crime of ethnic cleansing which had infected Bosnia.
<P>
The German Presidency was therefore left without sufficient tools at its disposal and the Atlantic Alliance was the only support suitable to confront Milosevic's policy.
Notwithstanding the ambiguous waverings of certain governments, the weight of the European Union was irrelevant for the purposes of military action and Europe was seen to have no autonomous will, even with respect to the Alliances.
Was the Cologne European Council meeting a step forward?
Perhaps, with regard to the intentions declared, but it all seems very hazy to contemplate setting a date by which the Union will be able to be an autonomous political entity with foreign and security policies.
The responsibility of the national governments regarding the excessively delayed implementation of political union is huge and the German Presidency really does not seem to have changed the rhythm.
The only positive point is that it included the common defence issue on the Cologne agenda.
<P>
Another issue on which the Presidency failed to make progress was that of employment.
Having shouted from the roof-tops during the German election campaign that with the socialist rise to power everything would change and a shining path would be embarked on leading to the creation of large numbers of jobs and thereby reversing the negative trend evident in Europe for over ten years, no initiative was taken in this direction and no proposal was discussed with regard to the development of the European economy.
<P>
Without a concerted economic policy aimed at development it will be difficult to fight unemployment or create conditions adequate to stop the fall of the euro.
Since the German Presidency did not do this, how is the Finnish Presidency going to manage it?
And how are we going to be able to deal seriously with unemployment with the date for enlargement ever nearer?
Political union, foreign policy, defence policy, common economic policy, the fight against unemployment - these seem to be the priorities that no Presidency can ignore.
But the Presidencies talk about these issues, pass them, yet fail to implement them. The European Union loses momentum and the citizens continue to call for less talking and more action.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Nassauer">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, the German Presidency has, of course, been overshadowed by the war in Kosovo, but that is all the more reason for keeping in mind that the Presidency of the Council, for which the German Federal Government was answerable, was only able to maintain its position in this matter because it had the unqualified support of the Parties of the Union, whilst your own supporters, Mr Fischer, would have taken pleasure in knocking your trainers from under you, had you still been wearing them of course.
<P>
The Council Presidency's track record is questionable, and it is in fact only the Council Presidency itself which disputes this.
Let us have a look at the outcome of Agenda 2000 for example.
This is not a decent compromise, but a shaky foundation.
It will not even withstand the onslaught of the first WTO negotiations.
This holds true for the problems associated with agriculture as well, which are far from being resolved, and which have not provided any scope for enlargement whatsoever.
All that was achieved was a worsening of the situation in terms of farmers' income.
The promising attempt at a solution in the form of co-financing was allowed to slip out of sight at the very beginning, which was an amateurish way to proceed.
At first, the German Chancellor stirred up the question of net contributions and the overhaul of the financial framework, particularly in the German public arena, and then, when it came to solving these problems, he failed miserably.
<P>
Institutional progress? Wrong!
Everything has been postponed for the future and for future conferences.
The single currency, Minister Fischer, which you have rightly claimed to be one of Europe's great achievements, obviously wasn't even important enough in the eyes of the Finance Minister, who had responsibility for this matter at the time, for him to attend the first important session.
That is also something which should not be forgotten.
And where exactly did the gossip concerning the independence of the European Central Bank come from, which was to contribute not least towards the weakening of the euro against foreign currencies, and to the fact that only now, much to our relief, is it beginning to pick up again.
<P>
This Council Presidency's track record is problematic due, in particular, to the fact that like few before it, it failed to act in a way which was beneficial to the Community.
A particular instance of this can be seen in the case of the withdrawn Regulation on end-of-life cars.
This was not dealt with in a way which was beneficial to the Community, and it was left to Mr Trittin to play the role of the fanatic, a role which obviously comes very naturally to him.
<P>
No, this Presidency of the Council has forfeited the trust built up by many previous Chancellors over the years, and therefore it is particularly appropriate that we should examine the events of the last six months with a critical eye.
We cannot talk in terms of success.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Iivari">
Mr President, firstly I would like to offer my warmest congratulations on yesterday's splendid election result.
Ladies and gentlemen, the challenges of the German Presidency showed very clearly just how difficult and complex the world we live in is.
The news of tragic events in Kosovo held our attention in the spring, and it came as a great relief when the Finnish President, Martti Ahtisaari, informed the Cologne Summit that the Yugoslav authorities would approve a peace plan for Kosovo.
It is now very much the responsibility of the EU to start to rebuild the region and stabilise the situation there.
The situation in the Western Balkans clearly shows that Europe needs a more effective course of action to ensure stability in this continent.
A vital part of that process is the Union's enlargement to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
<P>
The indisputable achievement of the German Presidency was the ultimate agreement that Agenda 2000 was vital for the issue of enlargement.
It is important during the Finnish presidential term to get a clear indication of just how determined the EU is to make headway in the enlargement process.
For that reason we must make a serious effort to introduce inter alia much-needed institutional reforms.
The German Presidency, and now the Finnish Presidency, which has just begun, have been overshadowed by an administrative crisis which culminated in the resignation of the Commission.
We all certainly hope the crisis is a prelude to a genuine series of reforms in respect of the way things are done, not only in the Commission, but in the Council and in Parliament also.
However, we have to remember that no headway can be made without a new Commission which is functioning successfully.
Obviously, Parliament must make full use of its consultative and monitoring rights in respect of the institutions, including the Commission, but it also has to be aware of its responsibility in this important situation to ensure that the new Commission may begin its work as soon as possible.
We must be particularly careful that national political passions do not predominate over the common European interest.
Unfortunately, I think there have been signs of this in this debate.
<P>
The citizens of the European Union, our own citizens, who were disturbingly passive in the European parliamentary elections, hope, above all, that the Union will improve the situation regarding employment.
A healthy rate of employment is also essential for the equitable development of our societies.
For that reason, we must embark on the practical implementation of the European Employment Pact, which was concluded at Cologne.
It is also important to pay close attention to ensuring that the economic policies of the EU Member States are compatible, and to developing courses of action in order to bring this about.
That will be vital in ensuring that the employment rate rises.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Goerens">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the German Presidency has had to assert itself within a particularly dramatic context.
<P>
The first six months of this year have demonstrated, once more, the need for European integration on the one hand and the need to continue the process of enlargement on the other.
With regard to the latter, the war in Kosovo reminds us of the wisdom of the Copenhagen criteria which stipulate, amongst other things, respect for human rights on the part of all applicant countries as a precondition for their accession to the European Union.
<P>
The Cologne European Council, which unquestionably confirmed this double ambition, shows us the enormity of the task still to be undertaken and the additional efforts which are required in this area.
The European Council meeting in Cologne, despite all the efforts of the Presidency-in-Office of the Council - to which I would like to pay particular tribute - still nevertheless raises some major questions.
I would like to highlight two of them.
<P>
The first relates to point 53 of the conclusions of the Presidency-in-Office of the Council, and I would like to ask the German Foreign minister how we should interpret the mandate of the Intergovernmental Conference and particularly - and I quote - the possible use of qualified majority voting in the Council - end of quote - in view of the declaration of Belgium, France and Italy, annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam.
I would like to ask you whether these three Member States who, in Amsterdam, made the reinforcement of the institutions an essential condition, and therefore a prerequisite, for the conclusion of preliminary accession negotiations, still maintain the reservations annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam, or whether they have moderated their position in the meantime.
<P>
My second question concerns the common security policy, particularly with regard to defence.
In my opinion, any European Union defence policy will overlook the basic problem for as long as the Member States do not accept the indivisible nature of security in the territory of the European Union.
We are still not there.
To this end, I would like to ask Minister Fischer if he envisages, apart from the conclusions of Cologne, a short or medium-term perspective on allowing accession to those countries which have not signed up to Article 5 of the amended Treaty of Brussels, that is, the mutual assistance clause which binds countries which are currently Members of the Western European Union.
I believe that the subsequent and essential stages will depend on this question if we want to realise the contents of the provisions of Chapter J IV of the Treaty of Maastricht.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gahrton">
Mr President, the Greens believe that non-violent methods of solving conflicts must play a much greater role than military intervention during the 21st century, and that any force which could , under exceptional circumstances, become necessary should only be applied following a UN mandate.
<P>
We envisage an important role for the EU as a non-violent civilian peace maker.
For this reason, we regret that the German presidency did not follow the European Parliament's recommendation to the Council to carry out a pilot study for a European civilian peace corps.
We are also worried about the resolutions of the meeting in Cologne which have been interpreted around the world as important steps towards militarising the EU.
The Swedish government has been forced to say that if more steps are taken in the same direction, a veto would have to be lodged.
The Finnish presidency has requested clarification as to whether the Cologne resolution means that the EU would only be able to intervene following a UN mandate, or whether the EU, like NATO, would be entitled to take the law into its own hands.
<P>
Joschka Fischer now states that the resolutions taken in Cologne do not imply a militarisation of the EU, which all sounds very nice.
But why then are Poettering and Goerens, who are now in the vanguard for a militarisation of the EU, so satisfied?
Why is the WEU military alliance integrated into the EU?
Why, according to the resolutions taken in Cologne, is the EU to create a military commission, a military council and other military institutions?
I really do hope that Joschka Fischer is serious when he says that the EU will not be militarised, which would reunite him with the Greens' fundamental principles of non-violence.
As a non-violent civilian body, the EU is indeed able to play a very important positive role.
Were we, however, to become a military superpower competing with other superpowers for world hegemony, the EU would only contribute to power struggles, chaos and warfare, which I sincerely hope will not be the case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Méndez de Vigo">
Mr President, with the passage of time, I believe that it will be seen that the German Presidency has had some successes.
With the approval of Agenda 2000, I believe we have produced an agreement between those people whose unfair and selfish motto is 'I want my money back' and all those who, led by the government of my country, believe that the European Union is a political project with cohesion and solidarity as its cornerstones.
<P>
I also believe that the Presidency reacted quickly in the face of the resignation of the Santer Commission and found that 'one in a million' which Mr Prodi appears to be.
It also seems to me that the appointment of Mr CFSP, after the image which we projected in Kosovo, demonstrates at least that the Presidency wanted to shake up the European Union's lethargic foreign policy and give it a new impulse.
And this new stability plan for the Balkans seems to me to be a positive thing.
<P>
However, Mr President, there is one thing which has reflected badly, very badly, on this Presidency.
I refer to the reform of institutions.
Mr Fischer, if there is one thing which all this morning's speakers have agreed upon, it is the fact that the Cologne Summit does not form a basis for the reform of the Union's institutions.
We want the European Union to work, we want to maintain the principle of integration and we want it to be effective.
The proposal of the German Presidency in Cologne, that is, to change the number of Commissioners, reconsider votes, perhaps to move in some areas from a unanimous vote to a qualified majority vote, is quite clearly insufficient.
<P>
I will go further.
You do not understand the protocol of the Union's institutions.
If you believe that there will be enlargement to more than 21 Members, profound institutional reform is required.
What you proposed to us in Cologne was a limited reform.
And not only I myself, on behalf of my group, but also all the other groups in this Parliament, say that this will only achieve one thing: it will obstruct the European Union.
<P>
I therefore believe, Mr Fischer, that we in this Parliament are bored of so much verbiage.
You came to us and said, and I quote, 'I praise the role of the European Parliament and the revision of the institutions' .
Let me ask you not to praise so much and not to laugh so much.
Take note of what we do.
We have a resolution dated 19 November 1997 in which we propose a method for the reform of the institutions.
We told you of it and you have not taken it into account.
Well, we will meet again in this Parliament, Mr Fischer, and you will see that this Parliament will be unanimous in its rejection of any reform which does not guarantee the effectiveness of the Union and guarantee that it really serves the interests of the citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I think very highly of my colleague Mr Poettering, the new Chairman of the new, hard to pronounce group in this House.
I am nevertheless extremely concerned by his speech, concerned because it expressed more than the fact that he represents the largest group and forged an alliance with the Liberals for the election of the President of this House.
But if this pact is supposed to be one which is somehow intended to strike terror into the hearts of, or rather, create difficulties for, the governments led by Social Democrats, then Mr Poettering and his group should be made aware that this doesn't just create difficulties for Social Democrat-led governments, nor does it only create difficulties for governments like that of Austria, which also includes a Conservative party and a Christian People's party, but it causes difficulties for the process of European unification.
<P>
On behalf of my group I would also like to make very clear at this point that we will not be judging the Commission and the new Commissioners on their party political affiliations, but on the skill, clarity and correctness of their past and present stances, and we believe that these must be the only criteria by which to judge them.
<P>
I now come to the fundamental aspects of the Presidency.
In many respects, it was a successful Presidency, I would like to acknowledge that quite clearly, certainly as far as Agenda 2000 is concerned and the furthering of the enlargement process, and also concerning the difficult decisions relating to the Balkans and security policy.
I would especially like to give my personal thanks not only to the Chancellor, but also to the Foreign Minister, to the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Fischer, who is present today, for doing everything in his power to bring us out of this difficult state of armed conflict.
Opinions on whether the war was justified, or whether it could have been prevented, vary throughout this House, but the German Presidency, and I would like to make particular mention of the Foreign Minister at this point, managed to act on the basis of a clear position with regard to the crimes of Milosevic's regime, but also on the basis of a clear position whose most ardent wish was for peace in the Balkans.
It was handled well and properly, and that deserves distinct recognition.
<P>
In this respect, and since security policy comes up for discussion here again and again, I would like to clearly emphasise the following: security policy is not about militarisation of the European Union.
It is about employing all the instruments of security policy to take whatever preventative measures can be taken, and I have said repeatedly that many opportunities for taking preventative action have been missed in past years, and no group, nor any Presidency can claim here that they did everything possible to prevent this war.
Therefore, we must now support all the forces in Serbia and Yugoslavia which are striving for a new political system, which are standing up for democracy, for human rights, for respect for minorities.
This is the only chance of success.
The second thing, and this is extremely important, is that we must enable all of those who are returning - and thank God there are so many returning, it was also the right decision to keep the refugees in the region where possible - to get through the winter in conditions which are acceptable for human beings.
That is why the money for this must quickly be made available, and the appropriate organisation must be established, so that the largest part of our work does not go on ensuring that there is co-ordination between one organisation and another, but is devoted to giving substantial help to the Balkans, so that the Balkans will finally become a peaceful region in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Fischer">
Mr President, I would like to comment briefly on what has been said here before I leave on a trip to Turkey.
I would like to thank all those who sang our praises and who gave us their support, and I would also like to answer some criticisms.
Something that we never promised, and there was no way on earth that this could be done, was that in these last six months we could resolve every problem facing the European Union, problems which I too have dearly wanted to see resolved for some time.
<P>
On criticism of the institutional reforms; we tried to make progress with the institutional reforms, and when I made my maiden speech as Germany took over the Council Presidency, it was still not at all clear whether we would actually receive support for an Intergovernmental Conference.
I am glad that it was possible to push this through.
I see this as an important step forwards.
<P>
But this is where the critics got themselves into a terrible muddle, and sometimes, all logic went out of the window.
To my colleague in the PDS who, on the one hand, criticised us for ignoring French sensibilities and also the aims of French politics and yet, at the same time, heavily criticised the inadequacy of the compromise on the agricultural commodities market that was worked out at the Berlin Summit, I can only say that these things go hand in hand, and you should look more closely at whether you have not, as it were, ended up getting yourself entangled in a knot of contradictions.
It will become clear to you in the weeks and months to come that these things are very closely linked.
<P>
I would like to say to those of you who are talking of the militarisation of the European Union, and this is an important point, keep your illusions.
This would mean that in the areas of security and foreign policy, Europe would not be in a position to determine its own fate, that is, to follow its own path.
During the war in Kosovo, I experienced just how much weight Europe can bring to bear in terms of possibilities for shaping situation by political means, and in terms of possibilities for pursuing a preventative foreign policy, a preventative peace policy, and for resolving a conflict when the conflict has worsened.
I can only say that Europe must come together, also in terms of its security and foreign policy, otherwise decisions will be taken elsewhere.
Here in the European Parliament or perhaps in any one of the Member States, it may be easy to sit back and allow oneself the illusion that we are not affected by such decisions.
The reality is that these decisions are taken under completely different conditions and in a completely different place.
This is exactly what I do not want, and I believe it to be a development in the wrong direction.
<P>
Applause
<P>
The euro is showing that there are differing views on Europe, and we should not pretend otherwise.
It is quite obvious that there are.
My view is that of a convinced integrationist and I would like to see Europe become an entity which has the power to act politically, because there are two reasons which convince me that it will not work in any other way.
The first reason is that in this age of globalisation, it will only be possible to maintain the European nation-state and that which we value and wish to preserve about the European nation-state, if Europe unites, because the magnitude of the traditional nation-state will only be able, in the conditions created by globalisation, to guarantee peace, security, prosperity and democracy for its citizens as part of an integrated Europe, in other words, if we have a European entity, a European Union which has the power to act.
<P>
The second reason though, and this was clearly demonstrated again by the war in Kosovo, and perhaps the various lessons history has taught us also have a role to play here, particularly in central Europe, is that there can only be one form of security for this continent. We cannot permit nationalism, racism, and what amounts to a primitive and crude form of fascism, to take hold on this continent.
Since 1992, we have tried everything in order to convince Milosevic to abandon this policy.
I took part in the final stages of the talks at Rambouillet right through to the beginning of the military action and I did not meet anyone on the Western side, even amongst the Americans, who was behaving like a war-monger, but rather everyone was striving for compromise up to the proverbial last minute.
The only party not interested in a compromise was Milosevic and the government in Belgrade.
I personally had a two and a half hour long discussion with Milosevic, and for one of those hours there was no one else present.
Should we have sat back?
Should we have said that we would like to help, but we cannot, as it would offend our pacifist principles and we have no resolution from the UN Security Council?
<P>
The UN is stronger today as a result of this conflict, and this is one of the effects of Europe's role during this conflict.
The Security Council is stronger today, unlike after Bosnia, which weakened it.
I think that we should acknowledge that...
<P>
Applause
<P>
....., that this is a result of the concerted efforts of the European Member States, of the European Union.
We should not forget this.
Let me tell you, I was in Bosnia, I saw the mass graves and I will not forget them as long as I live.
It is our duty to complete the process of European integration, and this means peace, security and democracy for everyone on this continent.
This requires our determination to oppose those who seek to carry out nationalist policies through violence, murder, terror and expulsion, and when all other means fail, to resort to military means if necessary.
This integrated Europe must not accept nationalism.
<P>
Applause
<P>
That is the most important point, although it was not included in the plans for our Presidency of the Council, because it gives a very strong message about the future of the European Union.
I am firmly convinced that in essence, this must go hand in hand with progress towards integration, and above all with the process for further democratisation.
This will be a very complex and complicated debate, but we must start this debate, which in France is summed up under the heading 'Culmination of European Union' , and it will continue for a long time.
Where do the outer borders of the European Union lie?
What does the make-up of its constitution look like? What is the relationship between the European Union and its Member States, and the relationship between the institutions themselves?
What will the future role of the Parliament be and how can its powers be strengthened?
<P>
These are all questions which will relate directly to enlargement, because we can already see what heavy weather a Union of fifteen Members makes of things.
If enlargement occurs, the question of the Union's ability to act will be absolutely central.
This is the essence of the next great challenge; common security and foreign policy, deepening and, ultimately, enlargement.
<P>
I have a message for all those who speak in favour of a preventative peace policy, and there is a broad consensus in the national parliaments as well as in the European Parliament, in spite of all the things Dayton failed to deliver, and that is not a criticism of Dayton as presumably it couldn't have been any other way at the time, and that message is that a strategy which will be effective in the long-term for bringing South-Eastern Europe up to the level of an integrated Europe and then bringing it into an integrated Europe, has now become a functioning policy.
Life must now be breathed into the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe.
Money is not the first and foremost issue here, for the issue is one of decisions about structures.
We must bring about confidence there and we must establish a free trade area there.
Trade and change must replace national aggressions and the necessary means must be put in place to achieve this.
So I appeal to all of you who have spoken here in favour of a preventative peace policy, to fight for the long-term success of the Stability Pact, because that would indeed be drawing the right conclusions from the war in Kosovo, the Yugoslavian wars of succession.
<P>
I would like once again to thank everyone, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for your support during the German Presidency, and I wish you, the new Parliament, all the best, as I do the coming new Commission, once they have survived the difficult hearings.
These are the Commissioners who have yet to be appointed in the torture chambers, and I mean this ironically and, of course, only in a rhetorical sense, of the freely-elected European Parliament.
All the best!
I would also like, if you would permit me to, to make a parting request of you, and in particular of the new majority: we should discuss national politics at a national level and argue intensely about them, and come to blows, but it is European politics that should be discussed at the European level, and this House should always uphold the subtle differences!
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="President">
Thank you, President Fischer.
In addition to the opinions which have been expressed, on behalf of the Parliament as a whole, may I thank you for your work, as you have put in six months of extraordinary hard work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Friedrich">
Mr President, it is a shame that Mr President-in-Office of the Council is now leaving the hall as I was going to begin by offering a word of praise.
I was going to say that he has been one of the few, if not the only, shining lights under this Presidency.
Mr Swoboda mentioned the new majority, yes the new majority gives the profile and views of this Parliament clarity, and that is good for Europe, Mr Swoboda.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Unfortunately, I have no option but to grade the German Presidency as overall 'unsatisfactory' for the first six months of this year.
The grandiose announcement of a new Employment Pact turned out in reality to be a castle in the air.
When analysing the Cologne Decisions in detail, it is possible to see that not one new idea was added to the Luxembourg guidelines of the previous year.
<P>
Secondly, the language and style adopted by the German Government over the last six months have at times caused me to feel ashamed in the European Parliament.
This style has been of no use to Europe and it has certainly been of no use to the German Presidency.
Mr Trittin's loutish conduct in terminating the nuclear Treaties led of course to the German Presidency's proposals being regarded with great scepticism.
The shameful withdrawal of the sound proposal for co-financing in agricultural policy was also the consequence of a similarly ill-advised policy.
And to cap it all, I might add that Chancellor Schröder said Helmut Kohl's cheque book diplomacy must at last be brought to an end!
<P>
I do not wish to say any more at all on the nomination of the German candidate, which in view of the choice, was a resounding slap in the face, and so to conclude I shall express a wish. As long as the dictator Milosevic is at the helm in Serbia, neither a penny nor a euro of the European taxpayer's money should go to Serbia.
Democracy must first be restored there.
That is the message the Council Presidency should take away with it.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cunha">
Mr President, the Berlin Agreement has enabled the European Union's main issues to be opened up, but it has not done anything to secure the future of the European Union in the long or even medium-term, because the Agenda 2000 Agreement went far beyond what was necessary.
<P>
I say this because in the first place, it has been unable to achieve any reform of countries' own resources, which should be based solely on the Gross National Product, the only fair, equitable and transparent basis for contribution.
<P>
Secondly, it has not reformed the Common Agricultural Policy, which was imposed in order to make us adopt an offensive position in the next round of GATT negotiations.
Without wishing to denigrate the efforts of Commissioner Fischler, it was almost a reform which maintained the status quo which had never secured the sought-after balance between farmers, regions and their cultures, in which farming in the Mediterranean was once again badly treated by the CAP. It did not guarantee, in any practical sense, the completion of the European Farm Model, almost nothing was done in this area to help small farmers and very little progress was made on the issue of rural development.
<P>
Thirdly, this Agenda 2000 runs the risk of leading us towards a Europe which is less evenly-balanced and less united.
I shall give you two examples from the country I know best, which is my own.
Firstly, all the studies have shown that the Portuguese economy is the one which will be most affected by competition from the new Member States from Eastern Europe, but nothing has been done to support Portugal in this area.
Secondly, nothing has been done to improve the situation of Portuguese farming, the one which is the most debt-ridden, backward and least-favoured by the CAP.
Apart from the durum wheat quota, Portugal has gained nothing specific from this CAP unlike some countries such as Spain or Italy which have benefited from arrangements made specifically for them.
It is true that we in Portugal suffer from a government which is incompetent and unable to negotiate successfully, but this does not justify all the treatment we have received.
We need a more united Europe in order to move forwards.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Mr President, the serious and negative effects of the financial crisis and the slowing down of economic growth within the European Union, at a time of Economic and Monetary Union, have clearly underlined the need for the Cologne Employment Pact.
It is no castle in the air, but a long overdue, concrete attempt to go beyond employment guidelines and achieve co-ordination of economic policy within the European Union, particularly with a view to promoting growth.
We need structural reform in the European Economic and Monetary Union, in the European Union.
However, it is equally important to achieve increased and more rapid growth.
That is our aim.
In this respect, the national governments are right, as far as the European Employment Pact is concerned, not to delegate responsibility for employment policy to the European Union. However, they are aware that in this age of globalisation a common solution must be found, and that is right.
There should simply be more concrete terms of reference and guidelines.
<P>
But I should like to ask something of the forthcoming Presidencies. We also failed under the German Presidency to improve the democratic legitimacy of Economic and Monetary Union dealings.
We urgently need there to be inter-institutional agreement between the Council, Commission and European Parliament on the essential features of economic policy.
In addition, we need the guidelines on employment and economic policy to be integrated, and we need the institutional framework for the European Employment Pact to be modified, something which is of great importance.
In other words, it is more democracy that we need and not for the European Employment Pact to increase the democratic deficit, and this is what this Parliament demanded during the previous legislative period.
As regards this demand, we must also...
<P>
The President cut the speaker off
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="McCarthy">
Mr President, I believe that overall the German Presidency was a very positive period.
In particular I should like to thank them on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, and indeed the Socialist Members, for the very good work that was done throughout that period on the reform of the structural fund process.
We believe that we have a fair and just deal for Member States.
In particular I would like to thank the Germans for not only pushing ahead for progress in peace concerning Kosovo, but peace on the issues concerning Northern Ireland.
This House will know that we have entered yet again a critical phase in the peace process in Northern Ireland. Successive Presidencies have backed that peace process.
What I should like to say today at this inaugural session is that we hope to be able to count on our new Commission President, on the Finnish President-in-Office of the Council and indeed on Madam Fontaine to continue that good work in supporting the peace process and making a priority of peace in her visits to Northern Ireland.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="President">
I would like to announce that I have received six motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Election of the Quaestors of the European Parliament
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="President">
The next item is the election of the Quaestors of the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mombaur">
Mr President, you have had a declaration distributed to us and a trial vote has subsequently taken place.
The name of the candidate selected is visible and is also emphasised by the asterisk.
I should be grateful if you could explain to us how, under the circumstances, we are to vote in secret.
I regard it as being anything but a secret ballot and wish to contest its legitimacy before we go any further.
It is illegal.
We vote in secret here, and not in such a way that everyone can see how people cast their votes, and that includes the cameras present in this house.
I do not consider that a secret ballot.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="President">
It is true, colleagues that unless you put a piece of paper over your machines, the people around you can see how you are voting.
What we mean by 'secret ballot' is that no record is kept.
Of course, when you fill in a piece of paper, someone can look over your shoulder and see where you put your cross.
However, we can vote on whether to have a written vote instead.
<P>
Parliament decided to hold an electronic vote
<P>
(In successive ballots the following were elected Quaestors of the European Parliament:
<P>



Mr BalfeMrs BanottiMr DucarmeMr PoosMrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, on behalf of the Greens/European Free Alliance, I would like to express my grave disappointment with the manner in which the Group of the Party of European Socialists has handled this matter.
I believe it is morally wrong that the representative of the Greens/European Free Alliance was not selected, and I hope that the Group of the Party of European Socialists will consider this matter among themselves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="President">
Your comment is noted.
<P>
The sitting was suspended at 12.35 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Statement by Mr Prodi, President-elect of the Commission
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="President">
The next item on the agenda is the declaration of Mr Prodi, President-elect of the European Commission, and it is my great pleasure to offer him the floor immediately.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Prodi">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first of all like to congratulate the new President of the European Parliament and all of you most warmly on your recent election.
I am very happy to be here today to introduce to you a new team of European Commissioners.
In the last two addresses I gave before the European Parliament, in April and May, I promised to inaugurate a new era of change within the Commission.
The new College of Commissioners which I am going to introduce to you today is the team which will implement these changes.
<P>
I do not intend to introduce each member of the College to you individually.
They are sitting here in front of you and their names are well known to you.
This is a well-balanced team of the highest quality, and is the result of my constructive debates with the Heads of State and Government, which have fully respected the new powers which the Treaty of Amsterdam conferred on the President-elect.
<P>
Each member of the team has proven experience.
Almost all have been members of the parliaments of their own countries, three quarters of them have been Ministers, many have been leaders of political parties and others have accumulated a wealth of experience in diplomacy, business, economic policy making and the legal sphere.
<P>
Right from the beginning, I have made no bones about the fact that I would not accept a lower female representation than that of the outgoing Commission.
I have succeeded in this although I had hoped to do better.
Therefore, throughout its term of office, the Commission will promote equality of opportunities between the sexes in all sectors.
<P>
The new College is also characterised by the right balance between the political complexity of national governments and the European Parliament.
I am happy that this is so, but it should be specified that the Commission does not operate according to the same procedures as political parties.
The Commission is a College and the Commissioners are neither delegates from political groups nor representatives of their national governments.
<P>
Applause
<P>
In our first informal meeting last weekend, we set a few clear ground rules.
Each Commissioner will, at all times, discharge his duties in such a way as to reflect the interest of Europe as a whole.
If at any point I am not satisfied with the situation, I will not hesitate to use the powers conferred on me by the Treaty and change competences and portfolios or ask individual Commissioners to resign.
With regard to this, although it is not laid down by the Treaty, each Commissioner has given me his personal assurance that he will stand down if and when I ask him to.
Obviously, this is not a step to be taken lightly, but the existence of these agreements is a transparent guarantee of the sense of responsibility of each individual Commissioner.
<P>
We also found we were in agreement regarding the need for the new College to abide by the highest standards of public life.
One of the first actions of the new Commission will therefore be to adopt formally the new Code of Conduct for Commissioners, including also new, stringent rules for avoiding conflicts of interest when the Commissioners leave their office.
<P>
We are looking forward to getting down to work and we hope that dialogue with the Parliament will be frank and open during our team's hearings, and that we will receive firm support from you in September.
<P>
I will now move on to the other main subject of my address today: the reform of the Commission.
The need for reform is indisputable, as recent events have shown that European institutions as a whole are no longer adequately equipped to deal with the wide range of tasks incumbent upon them.
This is why I have promised a revolution in the Commission's operating procedures.
This does not mean that I want to undermine the Commission's achievement as an institution: that would be extremely unjust.
The Commission has many strong points, including committed, experienced personnel and a great capacity for innovation and foresight.
Over the years, it has given proof of its considerable capacities to adapt, repeatedly taking on new tasks and responsibilities.
Practically every major development in the process of European integration can be traced back to the commitment and dedication of the personnel in the Commission.
However, as is the case in numerous public administrations, the world has moved on and the Commission has failed to keep up.
Too little has been done to modernise the institution itself and no alterations of substance have been made to the structure of the Commission in forty years.
This is why an in-depth examination of the institution's working procedures needs to be carried out now.
<P>
The challenge to be taken up consists of redesigning, adapting and improving the organisation in order to make it more efficient, to fight fraud at all levels and place the institution at the service of the citizens of Europe. Let us not be under any illusions!
This whole process of change will take time, but an initial reorganisation of the Commission is already underway. The bureaucratic machine will be simplified and rationalised, with fewer Directorates-General.
The Commissioner's offices, that is, their private offices, will be in the same building as their respective Directorates-General. Both offices and Commissioners will be more streamlined and more multinational - I have tried to ensure that each head or second in command of an office is the citizen of a different country from that of the Commissioner, and each office contains people from at least three different Member States.
The rules for appointing higher civil servants will be more stringent and transparent, and mobility within the Commission of higher civil servants will increase. The Directorates of the Commission will be identified by short, clear names instead of by numbers, and a larger department will be established in the mass media and communications sector to ensure that the Commission's policies are communicated professionally and that they reach all the citizens of Europe.
Naturally, this is only the beginning and further, more important changes will follow.
<P>
Presumably, the Committee of Independent Experts will present its second report in September, although I share Mrs Fontaine's hope that it will be ready for publication as soon as possible, within a time frame which the five wise men will be able to sustain.
We will study this report with the utmost attention, and I hope that it will contain elements which will be useful for the reform process.
In this respect, the new Vice-President responsible for reform will submit a detailed plan at the beginning of the year 2000.
All this will have to be discussed in depth with the European Parliament.
In particular, we will have to find a suitable mechanism for ensuring that the Parliament is kept constantly and exhaustively informed of the progress of the reform, while at the same time respecting the Commission's autonomy in managing its own competences.
My intention is to transform the Commission into a world class administration which will lead by example.
Our watchwords at all times will be transparency, accountability and efficiency.
<P>
Now is not the time to dwell on the programme for the new Commission.
I gave a broad overview of our future priorities in my addresses to this Parliament in April and May, and we will have the opportunity to examine these issues in more detail in September.
I am here today to introduce the new Commission, not its programme, but I can promise you that the central theme of our entire programme will be to make the European Union more relevant to the citizens of Europe.
In fact, it cannot be denied that the European institutions are suffering from a collective loss of confidence on the part of our citizen and in order to win this back, we must act decisively.
However, we will only succeed if we confront the issues which have genuine importance in the daily life of the citizens, such as unemployment, economic growth and the challenge represented by sustainable development to ensure a balance between the creation of riches, social justice and quality of life.
This must be the new Commission's genuine priority.
<P>
As I have just said, this is not the time for a detailed examination of the programme, but I would like to put forward just three examples of what I mean by renewal.
First of all, let us consider the issue of health and food safety.
The European public has lost confidence in the national and European authorities responsible for controlling drugs and foodstuffs: it no longer has faith in this government, or any other governments, or scientists.
I consider it our duty to take the initiative and make provision for an independent European Food and Drugs Agency, which will help to win back consumer confidence.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Air traffic is another matter for concern.
Our European airports are in a semi-permanent state of chaos, due to ever-increasing traffic and lack of co-ordination between air traffic controllers.
I think we can all testify to this.
The problem transcends national boundaries in this case as well, and we must seek solutions at a European level - solutions that really work.
<P>
A third example is the doping which is taking place in the sporting world - a question which may seem banal to some but which for many is a cause of deep concern.
This is a problem which obviously requires the different nations to co-ordinate and take decisive action.
I do not pretend that Europe has all the answers to these problems. What I mean is that we must show our commitment to contributing to the resolution of these issues at a European level, as by their very nature, they go well beyond purely national boundaries.
I have no hesitation in suggesting that in some cases - or, rather, in many cases - the answer to the concerns of disillusioned European citizens lies not in reducing but in increasing the European dimension.
The vast majority of European citizens are not sceptical about action on a European scale, but they are becoming increasingly disillusioned and are fast losing interest in the interminable, impenetrable wrangles over who should do what at a European level.
What the citizens persist in demanding are clear answers to the important problems in their everyday lives.
The bottom line is, what interests them is not who solves their problems but the fact that the problems are finally being dealt with. They want consumers to be able to trust the food they buy, travellers to be able to take a plane without worrying about their safety and the sporting world to be above board.
<P>
I have already stated that I do not intend to dwell on the policies as the time for that will be in September.
However, I would like to touch briefly on two issues which are especially important in the new Commission: Kosovo and the next Intergovernmental Conference.
<P>
Let us first take the situation in Kosovo and the Balkans.
The war in the Balkans has left the whole of Europe deeply scarred.
What we must do now is make sure that peace brings something positive.
As time goes on, my concern grows that our capacity to make war far exceeds our ability to co-ordinate the reconstruction after the devastation suffered by the populations involved.
More time than necessary has been wasted in diplomatic disputes over who should co-ordinate the reconstruction work.
It is now a question of focusing our energy on the really important tasks: rebuilding houses left without roofs, putting back together shattered communities, and, even more importantly, providing the Balkans with a clear political and economic future, which will put an end to all the centuries of continual conflict.
Only the European Union can do this.
In order to restore peace, a clear, long-term strategy is needed, based on reconstruction, reconciliation and rapprochement : construction to repair the damage done by the war, reconciliation between all the parties involved, including the Serbian people, and the rapprochement of this region to the European Union, including the prospect of future accession to the European Union for all the countries of the region, if and when they show themselves to be politically and economically ready.
I am sure that the best way of pursuing such a goal is the method already successfully employed by the Community in the past: firstly, to ask the various parties to co-operate with each other, to start to work together on issues of everyday relevance, to establish customs unions, to set up common institutions and to consolidate peace through common interests.
This is how lasting peace was achieved within the European Union, reconciling opposed nations by co-operation.
When the Second World War was still a recent event, the signatories to the Treaty of Rome were people of great courage and farsightedness.
Are the men and women of our generation unable to display the same farsightedness and courage over the Balkans issue?
Is it that Europe is not ready to take the risk?
Does Europe not have the ambition to bring about successful change?
<P>
When we start to take up this challenge, we find before us a paradox. The European Union may be first in line with its contribution, but the risk is that the impact of its aid will be lost in a complicated network of competing structures: the United Nations Mission to Kosovo, the Stability Pact, the G-7 High Level Group for economic relations, the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia, the special envoy for the Republic of Yugoslavia, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
<P>
This multitude of decisions undermines the central function which should be carried out by the European Union.
There is a desperate need to simplify things.
In particular, we must ensure that the European Union's huge financial contribution is spent on reconstruction and not on bureaucracy.
I believe this is the reason the Commission has refused, for example, to draw upon the budget made available by the OBNOVA reconstruction programme, approximately EUR 45 million to pay the salaries of the seven hundred people working for the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia. This is the equivalent of a sum of about EUR 17 million out of a total of forty-five.
As a priority, our financial aid must be used to benefit the population and reconstruction work directly.
We must focus exclusively on sustaining the economic growth of the region and reinforcing its democratic structures.
Moreover, with regard to the structures to be created, we must pay particular attention to the specific value added in each case.
We must at all costs avoid things being done in Brussels when it would be better to do them in Thessaloniki, and doing things in Thessaloniki when it would make more sense to do them in Pristina.
<P>
Applause
<P>
The second point which I want to touch on today is the new Intergovernmental Conference which will be announced at the Summit in Helsinki.
Some people think that the Intergovernmental Conference will be a simple job of fine-tuning after the Amsterdam Summit, the object of which will be to speed through the individual issues on which it was not possible to reach agreement in Amsterdam. I do not share this view.
For me, the Intergovernmental Conference will be crucial for European institutions. It is our opportunity, possibly the last opportunity, to prepare ourselves for the potential doubling of the number of the Union's Member Countries.
In my opinion, an Intergovernmental Conference which only has limited goals could not deal with a similar challenge.
I am well aware that some people will object that it is better to make rapid progress in a limited field than to line up a whole series of issues in several fields, which are too complex to be resolved quickly.
To me, this means not going to the heart of the matter.
If the agenda of the Intergovernmental Conference is too limited to allow us to prepare adequately for enlargement, the only thing to do is to enlarge its scope.
<P>
Applause
<P>
It will serve no purpose to patch up the borders.
For enlargement to work, an in-depth, thorough examination of the institutions is essential.
To this end, I intend to build a small, high level working party - and I do hope that it will be of a high level - which, during the next three months, will prepare a report on the subjects to be covered at the Intergovernmental Conference.
The report will contribute to the preparation of the official position of the new Commission on the Intergovernmental Conference.
Even though much of the political demand of the European Union is currently opposed to a clear refusal on this matter, I will not be shaken in my resolve to present, at least in an official way, the possible options.
<P>
Applause
<P>
In my opinion, it would be an error of mammoth proportions to organise an Intergovernmental Conference in Helsinki which is too limited, simply because of the collective fear of confronting the real challenges of future enlargement head on.
We will naturally see to it that the European Parliament plays a greater role in the work carried out in Helsinki.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, the Commission and the institutions of the Community have been through a very difficult period.
The European public is now looking to us to draw a line under the past and move on towards the future.
The challenge facing all of us is that of restoring the credibility of the European Union in the eyes of its citizens and ensuring that they understand the benefits that the European Union provides for their personal, everyday lives.
I cannot insist enough on this point.
As I speak, the whole of the European public is watching us, and is waiting with bated breath to see what is about to happen in the great history of the Commission and the Parliament.
<P>
I would like to propose that we disappoint those spectators who have come here to watch a confrontation.
None of us will act in the interest of the people of Europe if we allow the European institutions to be in a state of permanent confrontation and deadlock.
Now we have a new Parliament and a new Commission, and this is our opportunity to start afresh.
The Commission and this Parliament are the only two institutions whose leaning is exclusively and genuinely towards Europe.
There should be a solid alliance between them.
We have to deal with the same tasks. Who else, if not the Commission and this Parliament working together, can take this project forwards?
The Commission has suffered greatly from the recent events, but I believe that this Parliament has also been affected, considering the poor turn-out at the recent elections.
<P>
The task we face is that of restoring deep, mutual confidence between the two institutions, which has traditionally been the driving force of European integration.
This means working together, while at the same time acknowledging the diversity of our functions.
I am convinced that it is in the best interest of the Parliament for there to be a strong, autonomous, independent, trusted Commission.
I hope that the new College which you see before you today will receive your full support in September.
The go-ahead is not, however, a carte blanche for the future.
This Parliament, which is the voice of the citizens of Europe, is the supreme judge of the Commission's work.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, we are faced with many challenges and Europe needs a powerful sign of renewal and leadership.
I have done all I can to prepare the new team and we are all impatient to get started.
However, only you can give us the signal to start work.
I am confident that you will use the great powers and responsibilities conferred on you by the Treaties wisely and in the best interests of the Union.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Poettering">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, this is the first time that a debate of this kind has taken place in this form.
That is progress and we welcome it.
Today's debate is part of a longer process and the Hearings, which are to start on 30 August and run throughout the first week of September, also form part of this process.
All those who say that they endorse the Commission or say 'No' to it today, be they within or outside this Parliament, are disregarding Parliament, because the Hearings are an important part of the whole process, at the end of which we will be free to reach a decision on whether or not we will endorse the Commission.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Mr President, you said again just now that the Commission is balanced.
I don't know which criteria you would cite in support of its being balanced, but I want to make it crystal clear to you that we, the Group of the European People's Party and European Democrats do not consider this Commission to be politically balanced.
<P>
Loud applause
<P>
And that is why we must not allow the myth to develop in Europe that this Commission is balanced.
If you were to repeat that it is politically balanced then under no circumstances would you be increasing the likelihood of your team being endorsed, although it may well be thoroughly competent.
<P>
Applause, heckling
<P>
Consequently, Mr President, I should be grateful if you could enlarge a little on the criteria used to judge balance.
This team has a weak point.
You said that you were wholly responsible for putting the new team together.
I am bound to inform you that the preceding Council Presidency under the Federal Republic of Germany certainly did not speak in terms of a process in which you as President-designate of the European Commission were involved.
What happened to you in Bonn was a diktat from the German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder
<P>
Applause, heckling
<P>
The Treaty states: the governments of the Member States shall nominate the other individuals they intend to appoint in agreement with the President-designate.
As far as we are aware, you had no involvement in the nomination of the two German Members of the Commission. I am bound to tell you that I find this regrettable.
The vociferousness of your arguments does nothing to improve them, Mr Cohn-Bendit, neither does it improve the arguments of the others now kicking up a fuss behind me. We consider it unacceptable that whilst Great Britain, Italy, Spain and France nominate two Commissioners, one of them belonging to the Opposition, this example is not followed in the Federal Republic of Germany.
I consider it unacceptable.
<P>
Loud applause
<P>
It shows presumptuousness and arrogance on the part of the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Our President, whom we elected to Office yesterday, spoke of how important it is for us to receive the Report by the Wise Men as quickly as possible.
It is my wish for us all that we should work together to see that this report by the Wise Men is made available before the Hearings begin.
<P>
Applause
<P>
We, or at least my group, will also do all that is necessary to ensure that an adequate period of time is allowed for each applicant during the Hearings, for the one and a half hours which have been allowed for hitherto are not sufficient. We need at least three hours to hold a discussion which is to our complete satisfaction.
<P>
Applause
<P>
I would also recommend, Professor Prodi, that we, as a Parliament, are given the opportunity to enter into probing discussion with you in the appropriate committee.
I speak on behalf of my group when I say that the Hearings are conducted on a fair basis and without any form of personal discrimination.
This means that as far as the individuals are concerned, we treat everyone equally at the Hearings.
There is no prejudice.
We are fair and shall also behave accordingly.
<P>
Applause, heckling
<P>
To close, a remark concerning the role of our institutions.
Mr President, I support your contention that we the European Parliament and the Commission have equal responsibility for this European Union.
The Commission is the guardian of the Treaties and you used the term 'government' , a term I personally very much approve of, because it implies that this government must also bear parliamentary responsibility and be accountable to Parliament.
That is why, Mr President of the Commission, I should be grateful if you would provide me with an answer to the following question. You have said that you have asked every Member of what is potentially your new Commission whether they would actually comply with your request in the event that you were to ask them to resign.
That is why I want to ask you the following: if a Committee of Parliament was not to endorse an individual a majority, if the Committee was to say 'no' , what then would be the question that you would put to your team?
Would you then urge the Member to comply with the vote taken by this committee of the European Parliament?
I would be pleased to hear you answer this question.
<P>
Applause
<P>
A final remark: As the Group of the European People's Party and European Democrats, we know that we have responsibility for Europe and when the Hearings have taken place we will make our own decision, remaining true to our consciences, and I hope it will be a decision that serves the interests of us all.
<P>
Loud applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I would like first of all to welcome Mr Prodi and thank him for his speech and also to welcome the candidates for the Commission.
<P>
I think we should remember now that we are having this debate on this side of the Rhine and not on the other side.
On the other side, there are domestic issues which can very well be resolved in Germany, but this is not the place to bring them up.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Madam President, I hope we are capable of overcoming this first great crisis which is currently facing us in the European Union.
According to the opinion polls, the citizens are still in favour of the European Union. However they do not participate in great numbers in the elections.
We have the responsibility, as elected representatives, for construction rather than destruction.
This means that we have to respond to the problems which are worrying our fellow citizens: unemployment, Kosovo, consumer problems, the management of the euro.
This must be done as soon as possible.
<P>
We can neither carry on with a Commission in total ruin, nor delay its investiture until next year.
How could we explain such a thing?
Mr Prodi, you have spoken of the Commission as the government of Europe.
I will offer you a more sporting simile: a team.
We are playing here a European league.
The German, Italian, Spanish and Danish leagues each play against each other in their own countries, but not here.
Here we have to take the lead as Members of the European Union.
I therefore believe that there is a basic truth in your talk of this team and this government.
Your Commission must be invested in a democratic fashion.
You have begun to take steps.
You have announced reforms.
I agree with you that it is impossible to make known the list of Directorates General, and I am grateful that the change is going ahead.
<P>
We cannot subordinate the work which must be done by the Commission - and I say this, Madam President, with all respect for what you have demonstrated this morning - to this report by the Committee of Experts.
The report of the Committee of Experts is a useful instrument, not a basis for law.
We must show political judgment and responsibility in order to understand what we can ask of the new Commission and in order to await and support the reform process proposed by President Prodi.
<P>
Applause
<P>
With regard to such a critical matter as the hearings - which for us are fundamental - we believe that these must be directed at Commissioners regardless of the political persuasion of the particular Commissioner.
Questions should be asked of the Commissioners - first in writing and then orally - in order to discover whether they are in a position to fulfil their responsibilities and also to identify their political criteria with regard to Europe.
This is absolutely legitimate, but we must not turn this into a sort of fairground shooting-gallery where we blast away and see how many candidate Commissioners remain standing.
It seems to me that this would be enormously dangerous and, of course, my group intends to ask questions, responsibly and on our own terms - without waiting for third parties to tell us what to do - and we will ask them in a way which will deliver us, as soon as possible, a Commission which is in a position to carry out its duties.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Secondly, Mr President Prodi, we have listened attentively to what you have said in relation to the individual responsibility of the Commissioners.
In politics, responsibilities may be accepted, above all, when they are taken up.
But I believe that you have touched upon a constitutional matter which is tremendously important and the standards which can and should be adopted by the Parliament, which has already expressed its view on this question, must be taken into account.
I think this should be discussed with a little more calm.
<P>
With regard to the European Union reform process - which is absolutely necessary, not only in terms of enlargement but also in terms of making the Union more democratic and efficient - Madam President, I believe that we cannot have another Intergovernmental Conference behind closed doors.
It should be done in the way that we carry out reforms in our own States: transparently and on record, in Parliament and before our co-citizens.
<P>
Applause
<P>
How can we explain that we have the euro - a common currency which is not common to all - but at the same time we are implementing reforms which not even we are able to comprehend or justify.
In this respect, we believe this to be an absolutely critical matter.
<P>
Therefore, Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, we do not participate in the threats made by some political groups in this Parliament, who want to take the Commission, which presents itself to our scrutiny, hostage.
We do not believe we should take it hostage.
Our future is genuinely at stake with this Commission.
Furthermore, we should remember that if we go along the route of concessions we will never know where we will end up and we must act responsibly.
For some people, the principal objective is not to achieve institutional equilibrium but to undermine it and destroy it.
We do not share that opinion; we believe that the European Union, our fellow citizens, deserve better, they deserve a Parliament which acts responsibly and with an approach which looks to the future, with hope and towards the construction of a united Europe.
<P>
Madam President, may I conclude my intervention - if President Prodi will allow me - with a quote in my own language, written by an immortal Italian, by Manzoni, who says in I promessi sposi : 'Adelante, Romano, con juicio ' ( "Go ahead, Romano, wisely' ).
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Cox">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, President-designate of the Commission and nominee Commissioners, you are very welcome to our Chamber this afternoon and we look forward to our hearings and our various communications over the next few weeks and eventually months and years.
<P>
I want to make a few things clear here at the outset.
Firstly, the ELDR Group in this House comes here in terms of a European vocation.
We will not judge Commissioners on the basis of the national preferences of one or other party or group inside this Chamber.
<P>
Applause
<P>
I wish to say, Madame President, in respect of your helpful suggestion this morning that we should incorporate, as we prepare for the hearings, an understanding of the work and insight of the Committee of Experts that we, as an Institution, must say to the Experts 'speed up what you do and deliver it in time'.
If necessary, 'speed up the report' but by no means should we slow down the process of hearings as anticipated.
<P>
Applause
<P>
My group's essential and fundamental starting point in this debate is very clear.
The outgoing Commission resigned last March and since I can hardly explain to myself why the rump part of that Commission is still there, how can we expect the citizens of Europe to understand that fact?
It is therefore our overwhelming duty in this House to decouple Europe from this institutional embarrassment at the earliest available date and the only means to do that is to take the available Commission - and I do not prejudge how the hearings may go - and do our utmost to make sure that it takes up office at the earliest available date.
By this means we should begin to decouple ourselves from what has been a very difficult, but useful experience, but one that remains, unfinished as it is, deeply embarrassing and complicated as we have seen recently by the deplorable choices of Dr Martin Bangemann.
<P>
Could I say also in regard to the hearings process which will be in two parts, i.e. written and oral, that we in the Liberal Group will want to know from each of the candidate Commissioners: 'What is the perspective that you will bring to Europe for Europe?'
This will be important to us.
We want to be able to talk to you and engage with you on the question of suitability for the portfolios and to understand the capacities that you bring to this prospect.
We want to ask you about your willingness, your personal willingness, to accept that you are accountable and responsible to the public of Europe in whatever you do with your President and before this House and in clear and full public understanding that this is the public forum for European democracy to which you are accountable and have a public responsibility.
I wish to say on behalf of my group that when the IGC comes we will continue to press for Treaty reform on the question of individual accountability.
We recognise that within the current constraints Professor Prodi is taking some steps to improve the dreadful situation of the past, but we may need Professor Prodi to take some more steps.
<P>
We propose that the hearings should be tough because we have learned from the lessons of the past five years that it is better to be tough at the outset than to regret it later.
Our hearings also will be fair.
There is one point I would ask the Commission President-designate to respond to.
We have been so busy reconstituting ourselves we have not yet had the capacity to do our homework and our research, so if the hearings bring to light issues of substance and public concern about which we as yet know nothing, we in this House would have a duty to Europe to act and we will act - certainly, my group will.
<P>
If such difficulties present themselves, I would make an appeal to you as President-designate of the Commission, Professor Prodi, please to make sure that difficulties do not become crises.
We need a respectful dialogue between our institutions.
This Parliament has matured in recent months and we have learned one basic lesson for the years ahead: we are no longer the junior partner in the European political institutions.
We do not claim the status of 'primus inter pares' but we expect and demand to be treated as an equal among equals in the European institutions.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Madam President, in September we have the hearings and, as I said, I do not wish to anticipate how they should proceed, but my group's strong preference is that in September - subject always to the reservations that we must see what emerges - we should take a decision and rid ourselves of a sense of crisis.
If we have to have some difficult debates, for God's sake, let us have them in September and let us have it out in September so that we do not have some form of institutional guerilla warfare right through to December or January.
Let us do the business early and let us do the business well!
<P>
A final comment, Madam President; before he had this high office thrust on him some months ago, rather I think to his surprise, Mr Prodi had sought to contest the European elections in Italy.
He had chosen as the symbol of his party the donkey.
Well, the donkey has various traits - one of which we know is stubbornness.
I wish to say to Professor Prodi, if he uses his stubbornness in this Parliament as a reliable partner for Europe, that is the kind of stubbornness we welcome.
And if he uses his stubbornness to refuse to dialogue with us, if we have difficulties in the hearings, that is a stubbornness we will oppose.
<P>
That is the message of my group today.
We want to work with you as a reliable partner for Europe now and in the future and that requires respectful dialogue.
We will give it.
We believe in a strong Europe, we believe in a strong Commission and we believe we should be natural allies - let us work to that end.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lannoye">
Mr President of the Commission, I would like to welcome you on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance and to welcome the promising declarations which you have just made.
Your team, Mr Prodi, faces a double challenge of which the first, which you have mentioned at length, is the restoration of the trust of the citizens and parliamentarians.
The institution that you will be presiding over must achieve this trust.
We can only have trust in an institution if it is run rigorously and transparently.
I believe that you have the necessary qualities to restore that trust, and I have no reason, at first sight, to believe that the various applicant Commissioners are not also up to the job, whatever their political allegiance.
I therefore greet your team positively.
It goes without saying that we are impatiently awaiting the second report of the Wise Men, which is constantly being promised us, and your reaction to its contents, before expressing a definitive opinion.
<P>
But I would like straightaway to deal with the second challenge, which has already been widely discussed.
In my opinion, this challenge which you are going to have to face is more political and just as fundamental.
Certain recent events, such as the war in Kosovo and the new crisis in the field of food safety which has occurred in Belgium, but which clearly has repercussions for the whole of Europe, are particularly significant, and I believe that the necessary responses to them - and you have said some interesting things in this respect - must be ambitious responses.
<P>
There are also important deadlines and I think there is one deadline that nobody has mentioned until now and that is the opening of the new negotiations of the World Trade Organisation in Seattle at the end of this year.
I believe that this is a major problem and when we talk of transparency we find ourselves faced with a significant problem.
I do not wish to criticise you though, for ideas which you may not hold.
<P>
I want to mention the relationships, which have sometimes been difficult, between the Commission and the Parliament.
It has often been said that there is a natural alliance between the Commission and the Parliament.
In the past, the facts have unfortunately often shown that this alliance is more frequently evoked than realised.
The rejection by the Commission of the Parliament's position - even when passed with an overwhelming majority - does not show a good attitude and I would like to point out that it is the previous Commission which is responsible for it.
Likewise, I could speak of the numerous resolutions voted for by the Parliament - with just as big a majority - involving requests for initiatives which have not been responded to or acted upon for years.
We await from you, Mr President, a change of attitude in this respect.
<P>
Some moments ago, I mentioned the start of the new round of negotiations of the World Trade Organisation, and I would like to dedicate my remaining two minutes of speaking time to this subject.
The Commission has obtained from the Council the mandate for negotiations proposed by the last Commission - in fact by Mr Leon Brittan.
This mandate has not been debated by the European Parliament nor by national parliaments.
There is, however, a fundamental problem which we find totally unacceptable; that is, the broadening of the competencies of the World Trade Organisation without a serious and exacting evaluation of its workings having been carried out.
<P>
Applause
<P>
In fact the World Trade Organisation, as it currently functions, plays an extremely arguable role in European politics.
In this respect, I could mention the decisions regarding the issue of bananas and that of hormones in cattle rearing.
<P>
Applause
<P>
The adoption of concrete measures aimed at respecting multi-national agreements on the environment - in particular on climate and biodiversity - and the implementation of the decisions of the Copenhagen Summit with regard to the fight against poverty, have been put on hold. Meanwhile, the Committees of the WTO are imposing their law on democracies - in particular the European Union - and are giving priority to free trade over all other issues, whether they concern public health, the environment, human rights or social rights.
<P>
Applause
<P>
The precautionary principle, which forms the basis of European legislation relating to the environment, is, if not ignored, then interpreted in a very restrictive manner by that organisation.
Your Commission, Mr President, must express its view on this subject in a clear and rapid manner, at least before the negotiations start.
<P>
We are ready to open a debate on this subject and I hope that this goes for the other political groups.
It is even more important that the dioxin affair in Belgium, which will be the subject of heated debates, is clearly connected to the problem of food safety which is itself clearly directly related to the functioning of the World Trade Organisation.
Transparency, Mr President, must not only be applied to management, including financial and administrative management, but also to political decisions.
And on this point, it should be noted that there are serious deficiencies.
<P>
We therefore expect ambitious initiatives from you and your team.
I hope you do not disappoint us and I insist once again that we are prepared to work loyally with you and to listen attentively to the arguments of the nominee Commissioners in the forthcoming hearings.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bertinotti">
Madam President, President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, our group is set to assess the Commission on the basis of the tasks before us, the hearings and the presentation of the whole programme announced for September.
We will carry out this assessment with great care and, naturally, try to be constructive.
<P>
The President of the Commission has pointed out the need for a clear rapport between the composition of the Commission itself and its programme.
We will assess the proposed choice on the basis of this rapport.
At the moment, the composition appears to us to be rather neocentralist, and the representation of women still inadequate, but in any case, it is a question of assessing the overall success of the operations as they happen.
The decisive factor will essentially be the relationship between the Commission and its programme, and we are preparing for this comparison with great enthusiasm.
<P>
The President of the Commission has touched on some of the issues such as public health, doping in the sporting world and air traffic, to give a token semblance of adherence to the programme, but his attention seems rather to me to be focused on two other issues: the reconstruction of Kosovo and the Intergovernmental Conference in Helsinki.
I would like to comment on these two issues.
<P>
Firstly, with regard to Kosovo, it is right to be thinking of reconstruction and reconciliation and treating the Balkans as a region with a special relationship with Europe.
However, it is also essential to be aware, in addition to the damage in the Balkans, of the devastation wreaked by the war both on international order, with international legislation ripped to shreds and on the UN, which has been razed to the ground, and to bear in mind the substantial loss of autonomy for Europe with regard to the Atlantic Alliance and the United States of America.
Now, of course we must reconstruct the Balkans, but in order to do so, Europe needs to regain its autonomy and authority, which requires democratic construction as well.
<P>
President Prodi is giving thought to the Intergovernmental Conference, but he seems not to be giving enough heed to the fact that the critical state of the institutions and the citizens' lack of confidence in them is neither politically nor socially neutral.
Although it is exacerbated by the confidence crisis produced by the défaillance of the Commission, this Parliament does have a democratic deficit. It is far removed from the everyday problems of the people of Europe.
The only Governmental body seems to be the Central European Bank, and that has less control than the United States' Central Bank.
However, we await what will be said in the hearings with great interest and especially in the September programme.
<P>
We would like you to know, Mr President, that our attitude will nevertheless depend on the correction we request from you regarding the content of your previous speeches, which displayed a change of direction which we did not appreciate.
It is not for me to remind you that there are twenty million unemployed in Europe at the moment - and unemployment is a problem which undermines Europe's social cohesion - and that the achievements of this Europe in areas such as the welfare state are being undermined by neo-free trade policies, which are those same neo-free trade policies in which you exalted the need for flexibility in previous speeches and which, however, brought a reduction in the quality of work and life, in contrast to your proposals for the future.
<P>
We suggest that you reflect on the need for a change of direction. Even this debate seems to point to two testing grounds: one concerns the relationship between Europe and the world, and the other concerns European construction and the individual situations in the different countries.
The negotiations on the WTO and world trade will be the testing ground for Europe, to see whether it will be able to temper the first principle of the free trading of goods, which dominates today, with the need to protect working conditions throughout the world, environmental conditions and the health of the world's populations and Europeans in particular.
<P>
The other testing ground is that of Europe.
Here we have a Stability Pact which is making it increasingly difficult to respond to the problems of unemployment. Even the costs of the war are by now placing strain upon the Stability Pact, which was already being challenged by a growth rate so slow as to be completely inadequate for the problems of Europe.
Here you are right, Mr President. There is a need for flexibility, not in the labour market, but regarding the Stability Pact.
Maybe it should be suspended, but in any case, growth investments need to be considered outside of this context and a qualified enlargement policy put forward. Without these, there will be no possibility of either making good the democratic deficit or reducing the lack of confidence of the people of Europe in their current institutions.
<P>
It is in this spirit that we are preparing for a constructive debate on the work that awaits you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Portas">
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission Romano Prodi, I have just heard your intervention, and I must say that I am none the wiser: politically speaking, nobody knows for sure where you stand.
<P>
To some, you appear to be a Socialist, others would call you a Christian-Democrat and the latest news paints you as a Liberal.
The Italian view is that you are sustaining a left-wing government; the view in Europe is that you are associating yourself with political groupings to the centre and to the right.
This ambiguity does nothing to bring clarity and credibility into the political debate in Europe.
<P>
In any case, Professor Prodi is a Southerner and from a Portuguese point of view, this is something in his favour.
I hope therefore that he will understand my questions, which are frank, direct and of a practical nature.
They will probably be of no interest to the federalist parties of this House, but they will certainly interest the citizens who voted for me; that is, the workers.
<P>
Mr President, the Commission's attitude towards Portuguese farming has been one of real persecution.
I will deal with the Portuguese government's inability to protect us when I am in Portugal, but it is my duty to deal here with the profound injustice of the Commission's decisions.
<P>
The first proof of this is mad cow disease.
The Commission has just extended the embargo on Portugal by another six months. At the same time, it has partially lifted the embargo on the United Kingdom.
Just think about the scientific dishonesty in their decision. Portugal has fewer than two hundred cases per thousand animals whereas the United Kingdom has more than six hundred cases per thousand animals.
Since the first outbreak of the disease, there have been no more than five hundred cases in total in Portugal. In the United Kingdom, more than one hundred and seventy thousand cases have occurred.
Given these facts, the Commission is punishing Portugal and is seriously threatening the livelihood of one hundred thousand farmers across the country.
<P>
There is an even more serious side to this!
The Commission's decisions have been nothing but political wheeling and dealing between big States and have no basis in any kind of scientific logic.
This is how mad cow disease in a Europe without borders mysteriously disappears at the border with Spain.
It is pathetic, Mr President Prodi.
<P>
The second proof of our persecution is the crisis in pig-farming.
We all know about it, because it hit pig-breeders hard in several European countries, and drove them to ruin.
My country's government set up a programme of national assistance, as did others.
To our surprise, and probably in order to take revenge for some other matter, the Commission is now saying that this assistance is illegal, and goes even further by saying that pig-breeders are running the risk of having to repay the sums and pay interest on them, which means that those in real difficulty are going to end up bankrupt.
<P>
In one word, Mr President Prodi, it is pathetic.
If I am directing these remarks to you, it is because you decided to keep Commissioner Fischler in the agricultural domain. My question is very simple.
Are you prepared to look into the matter of why Commissioner Fischler acts systematically against the interests of the Portuguese state?
You see, Mr President, to my mind, the Commission is not a government, and here we have a difference of opinion: a government is what each of us has in his own State.
Above all Mr President, I will only accept a Commission made up of impartial scientists, not of biased bureaucrats. I will only accept a Commission which treats big States, medium-sized States and small States equally.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Saint-Josse">
Mr President Prodi, we have listened to you attentively and we are concerned.
<P>
On 13 April last, you stated your desire for reform aimed at greater efficiency, absolute transparency and full responsibility.
Since then you have frequently restated your laudable intentions in this respect.
But what exactly does this reform consist of?
Where is this promised revolution when you are bringing back those same commissioners who were forced to resign following the damning report of the Committee of Independent Experts?
<P>
The ultimate mystery is why you entrust administrative reform, which must be based on the said report, to one of the four returning Commissioners.
Not all of the new Commissioners seem to us to have the necessary credibility to satisfy this desire for reform.
<P>
Our group will therefore be particularly attentive during the coming hearings, and as far as we are concerned there is no question of Parliament being content to be a mere registration chamber.
<P>
This disastrous management of the Commission must come to an end.
It must never happen again, otherwise it will be the citizens who, justifiably, turn their backs on Europe.
The high level of abstention in the recent European Elections is a genuine cry of alarm.
It is a sign of a profound crisis of confidence.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, we are open to dialogue and debate, but can only pass judgment on actions rather than fine speeches.
Firstly, we need to know what spirit the Commissioners are going to be working in and what approach they intend to take with regard to working with all Members of this Parliament, regardless of whether they belong to a small group or large group.
<P>
Last January, Jacques Santer asked for the political trust of this Parliament, under threat of a vote of no confidence, stating that we should stop looking to the past.
Today, you are asking almost the same thing.
How much confidence can we show in you?
At best, we can give you the benefit of the doubt.
If your changes only consist of technical improvements, while preserving the same culture, they will not be acceptable to us.
We expect Commissioners to open dialogue with the elected representatives in the European Parliament as early as possible before decisions are taken, but above all we expect them to respect the principles of transparency and subsidiarity as well as our democracies and traditions.
In that way you will provide us with the means to work with you effectively and we will all gain from our differences.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bonino">
Madam President, President of the Commission, in January this year, Parliament adopted Mr Brok's report recommending that the majority of the new Commissioners be Members of the European Parliament, people with experience in the European institutions. It requested sufficiently equal numbers of men and women representatives and an adequate balance of political trends.
I leave it to you and to this Parliament to assess to what extent you have complied, or been able to comply with this Parliamentary resolution.
<P>
Mr President, you went so far as to announce an era of change, a revolution - in which I wish you every success - and mentioned an internal restructuring which maybe Mr Kinnock will elaborate upon; the fifth, I may add, in seven years!
I assure you, however, that it will not be a change in the number of Directorates-General, the fact they are called by name instead of by number, the fact that the homes of the Commissioners are scattered all over Brussels or that the use of a spokesman is consolidated which will bring the institutions closer to the great European public, the objective you referred to.
What is currently lacking in Europe and our institutions is a fresh vision of the Europe of the beginning of the next millennium.
Today, we live in a situation which is post Berlin wall, post Kohl, post Mitterand, post single currency, post initiation of enlargement, and pre-hardly anything.
This is the vision, the challenge. For us radicals, the Federalist compass of Altiero Spinelli will remain an appreciation gauge, a very clear compass, which will show us whether our institutions are moving towards the consolidation of the Union, towards a more European Europe and towards political union.
This, I believe, is the challenge which must unite us in the diversity of our roles, in the knowledge that those who have brought us thus far, Mr President, present and past colleagues, may deserve greater respect and perhaps even a little more generosity of spirit.
<P>
Applause from the left
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fini">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, President Prodi, the representatives of the Alleanza Nazionale have taken note of your declared intention to renew and revolutionise the Commission.
We will, of course, see whether your deeds measure up to your words and we will be keeping a check on concrete achievements, but I would like to say that right from the word go that we will base our assessments purely on facts, disregarding our respective positions in national politics.
I know that we are politically opposed in our own country, but we are nevertheless united in our desire to build a Europe in which the peoples of the old continent are increasingly ready to place their trust.
<P>
We appreciate your unequivocal statement regarding the urgent need to restore the faith of the citizens of Europe in the Commission. Their faith has been damaged, as we have seen from the fact that the number of voters at the European Parliament elections is ever-decreasing.
It has been damaged, to our way of thinking, not only by the events which caused the resignation of the last Commission but also, and I would say above all, because of the fact that too often the citizens of Europe see the Commission as a source of bureaucratic obligations which are sometimes costly, sometimes neither indispensable nor urgent, sometimes stupid and even dangerous. These obligations seem to have nothing to do with the process of building a united Europe and, unfortunately, in many circumstances, undermine European ideals.
Faith will be regained, therefore, when there is greater transparency, but especially when greater consideration is given to national and cultural differences when Directives are issued and there is greater and more frequent recourse to the principle of subsidiarity.
<P>
Greater attention on the part of the Commission to the fundamental rights of the citizens of Europe will also be essential. We were particularly pleased to hear you express the intention to concentrate more on both workers' rights and the right to health, including the quality of food products.
The damage caused by incidents such as dioxin in poultry or mad cow disease to the overall credibility of the Community institutions is huge and cannot be repaired by words. Unfortunately, these situations often take a great deal of time to remedy, and time is not always available in the institutions.
<P>
In conclusion, I believe that in circumstances such as these it is essential not only to adhere to the facts, but to do so without bringing the dynamics of national controversies into this House. Above all, there must be a closer relationship between the institution of which you are President and the Parliament.
This attitude must be mutual, and I hope that one effect will be to inspire the Commission of which you are President with greater respect for the work of Parliament, and therefore to greater diligence and to produce a higher quality of responses to questions than that of the recent past.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Mr President-elect of the Commission, I would first like to reiterate the sense of esteem, respect and personal trust which some of us expressed when we voted for your investiture.
We are still faithful to this fundamental choice and we would like to let you know that, in your difficult task, you will always find us to be speakers who are sometimes demanding but always anxious to help you and not to hinder you.
<P>
I have found grounds for reassurance, if that be needed, in the fundamental approach which you have laid out, particularly - if you do not mind me saying so - with regard to institutional matters and I therefore have confidence in the action you intend to take and the approach you have indicated for the Commission.
<P>
I would like to take advantage of this brief intervention to attempt to clear up a kind of misunderstanding.
I do not want you to think, neither you nor your potential, possible or future colleagues - who can say - that concerns about you are dictated by national or partisan considerations.
Let us not speak of national considerations.
As for partisan considerations, it is clear that your Commission must represent the great political forces of the European Union, and on a Parliamentary level we must continue to work with all the large groups - and that does not mean just two groups - according to a policy of co-operation necessary for the success of our legislative work.
<P>
What we are defending here - and what concerns us - are the rights of Parliament in relation to the European Council.
We hope that the Commission that you embody is fully representative of that difficult balance between the European Council and the European Parliament.
In conclusion, and I will finish here Mr President, we do not want to be, as if in a new version of Plato's myth, the shadows in a cave where the true life is the European Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Veltroni">
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Holmes">
Madam President, Mr President-elect, I represent the EDD Group, a small group in this Parliament, but extremely democratic.
I share the platform this afternoon with my French colleague and I share his concerns for the future role of this Parliament.
Parliament, at the moment, does not appear to be very democratic.
It appears also that Members of Parliament are not very concerned as the auditorium is now half empty.
<P>
To get a democratic structure we have to change over the years so that Parliament is not the servant of the Commission but the Commission is the servant of the elected representatives of the electorate of Europe.
Until that happens there will be extremely low turn-outs at all future European elections.
It would be better if the future of Europe was entrusted to elected representatives who can be dismissed from office at elections and not to nominated bureaucrats in the form of Commissioners.
<P>
Turning to Mr Prodi, I believe that half this Parliament at least is disenfranchised because he was endorsed by the previous Parliament and just over 50 % of us were not in that Parliament.
I would seriously suggest that he should put himself up again for reselection with his other Commissioners in September.
<P>
Applause
<P>
In the long-term, I am convinced that, while the cart is in front of the horse - and that is the Commission exercising greater policy-making influence than the elected Members of this Parliament - throughout Europe people will remain apathetic toward this institution.
In the United Kingdom, we already have a very Euro-sceptic electorate.
We probably are the most Euro-sceptic according to a survey conducted on behalf of the European Union published two weeks ago.
If Mr Prodi and his colleagues wish to remedy Euro-scepticism and Euro-apathy, I am calling for true democracy and for the elected representatives to have much more authority over the programme and policies of this institution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Speroni">
Mr President, as a Member of the Italian national Parliament for the Lega Nord per l'indipendenza della Padania (The Northern League for the Independence of Padania), I did not vote for Professor Prodi in Rome as I considered he would be completely useless as head of government.
I was then proved right as he lost the vote of confidence of the Italian Parliament. Reckoning also that a Roman idiot would still be that stupid wherever he was, which, incidently, is reflected in the symbol on the list which bears his name for the election of this Parliament, I cannot for consistency's sake express my faith in the President of the Commission.
As a native of the Po valley who is Italian only by passport, I am fortunately immune from the national Christian Democrat type of opportunism which brings Berlusconi together with Mastella and De Mita and sees in Prodi not the impartial President of the Commissioners uninfluenced by the States, but the lavish dispenser of favours to a wide and varied assortment of Southern Italian profiteers.
Although I hold some of the Commissioners in high esteem, I recall the old mafioso Neapolitan saying: 'A fish rots from the head downwards' and I therefore have to express my negative opinion of the Prodi Presidency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Dimitrakopoulos">
Mr President, I wish to congratulate Mr Prodi on his presentation here in the Parliament and to concentrate on two issues which he mentioned.
<P>
Firstly, the situation in Kosovo.
I appreciate, as does Mr Prodi and as do we all, that the rebuilding of Kosovo is a very important matter.
However, it is an issue which goes beyond quantitative criteria.
Rebuilding is not just about construction.
It is of much greater significance, involving the regeneration of the societies which existed there before the catastrophe.
<P>
I want to believe, therefore, that the new Commission will put in place procedures to incorporate basic political, social and, of course, economic factors into the reconstruction programme.
On those grounds, the question of where to locate the seat of those organisations involved in the rebuilding programme is a very important one and I would like to believe that Thessaloniki will remain the choice to serve as the main decision-making centre for the whole reconstruction project.
<P>
The second issue I would like to consider is the Intergovernmental Conference.
It is a matter of great importance, so much so that, at the last Intergovernmental Conference, we examined and reached decisions on many issues which were simply brushed aside when it came to the actual signing.
It is not advisable, in my view, to start off with sweeping statements and far-ranging plans at this stage.
It is, however, imperative before we begin work on specific plans for specific sectors, to clarify once again what exactly we want, where we want to go and just how far we can go.
<P>
Finally, I should like to express my delight in what Mr Prodi expressed regarding relations between the Parliament and the new Commission.
It is clear that better progress in the advancement of the European ideal can be made when the institutions are on an equal footing and when the Commission and the European Parliament work in harmony.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Desama">
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, I would first of all like to remind Parliament that we generally judge a tree by the fruit that it produces.
The tree that you have described to us has strong and healthy branches which appear to us to be a good omen for the future of Europe.
<P>
Certain people have obviously expressed - is this not the case, Mr Cox? - a degree of regret at seeing former Commissioners present in your Commission, but this perhaps proves that Mr Cox, driven by a desire for polemic, had not properly read the report of the Experts which fully exonerated those Commissioners.
Of course, some people, such as Mr Poettering, have been carried away, and we are not surprised, by partisan spirit, to the point of turning this Parliament into an annex of the Bundestag, but a 'stage left' annex, of course.
<P>
Our attitude in the Socialist Group is clearly extremely different.
We are going to take care of your Commission and to those who doubt your independence, Mr President, because you will have too many socialist Commissioners, I will reply by saying that, while you have been nominated by a majority of socialist and social democratic governments, it is the Socialist Group which has been most surprised by your first public statements.
This will be a good demonstration from the outset of your desire for independence and your desire to see to it that the Commission is what the Treaty wants it to be; that is, a Commission beyond countries, beyond national sentiments and also beyond the ideological preferences that we hold here within this Parliament.
<P>
Of course, we have raised the spectre of the hearings.
Certain people, no doubt through historical atavism, would like to turn them into an inquisition process.
As for us, we would like to take the hearings for what they are, that is, as an opportunity to listen to the Commissioners, to question them, to ask them questions so that we might better understand their objective and above all to find out to what extent their expertise, competence and motivation are appropriate to their positions.
It is on these bases that we will come to a certain number of conclusions, but it is not our job to treat you as if we were the judges at the final judgment.
<P>
What is important for the Commission, apart from the hearings which your team will doubtlessly pass successfully, is to see what you are going to do, in other words the works which you are going to undertake.
You have mentioned some of them today.
From the outset, I would like to take up that of reforming the Commission.
You have rightfully stressed the fact that the Commission must modernise its structures, its spirit and its working methods and I believe you have been given the means to effectively carry out that reform.
<P>
I would, however, urge that, by acting in that way, the baby is not thrown out with the bath water, and that it is well understood that one of the causes of failure on the part of the previous Commission has sometimes been the loss of the notion of public service.
It is important that the Commission is offered the means to take on, with its new structure, its officials, whose spirit will no doubt have changed, is offered the means to take on its tasks and that it shows no hesitation in saying to the Parliament or the Council, 'you ask us to achieve these objectives, we ask you for the means' .
Otherwise the fear is that you will re-live the difficulties of your predecessor.
<P>
Secondly, the Intergovernmental Conference.
I must confess that, of the decisions taken during the Summits of the German Presidency, the idea of establishing an Intergovernmental Conference has both pleased us and worried us.
We are pleased by the desire for reform; we are worried by the fact that we are returning to an old method.
I was therefore very happy to hear you say that now you are going to return to what I would call the Delors method, which stimulated the 1985 Intergovernmental Conference in Luxembourg, leading to that wonderful reform of the Single Market.
<P>
Finally, since I am running out of time, I would simply like to make an appeal by saying that the Commission is not only an executor for the decisions of the Council and the European Parliament, and that we have now perhaps lost the taste for the discreet charm of standards for lift springs and we would prefer more initiatives from the Commission in the area of social problems.
In that way you will truly be the European government that we all hope and pray for and which deserves our trust.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Carlsson">
Mr President, Professor Prodi, you are presenting us with your ideas of a political 'dream team' .
Our fair yet strict interrogations in the Parliament will be the test of competence which each part of your team must be able to pass.
However, when seen in context, Europe's Heads of State and Government have made things unnecessarily difficult for you at the outset.
This is a proposal which has an unnecessary bias.
I share the agitation of my German friends, while I would also like to state that in the three countries of Northern Europe approximately one third of the votes go to the Social Democrats.
Today, however, we have a proposal for a Commission comprising 100 percent Social Democrat candidates.
The lack of balance may result in tensions which risk giving your team less leeway if things go wrong.
<P>
Professor Prodi, the trust of the PPE Group in you is based on the civic spirit and the political orientation you have expressed: a policy of renewal for Europe, the ability to compete, liberalisation and free trade, co-operation and peace, an open and trustworthy administration and an EU which devotes itself to matters of common relevance in order to gain the trust of the citizens of the EU during the next century.
<P>
You wish to create a 'dream team' Good luck!
I believe you will need it, but most of all Europe will need it.
The challenges and possibilities for us all are great.
I wish you luck and welcome you to this Parliament.
The coming weeks of questions by the committees promise to be interesting.
These will be fair but, as has been said before, tough.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bodrato">
President Prodi, this is your third meeting with this Parliament, a Parliament which is greatly changed but which has an institutional continuity which we must all respect.
We know the areas in which you intend the Commission to work, and today you have completed and spoken in greater detail of your intentions for the reform of the Institution, and you are aware of the orientation and also of the political concerns of the European Parliament.
<P>
I will make three very brief points.
The first is that we agree with your objective of accelerating economic union by means of a political Europe.
This objective requires close collaboration between the Commission and Parliament, whose composition democratically represents the citizens of Europe and must therefore contribute fundamentally to the reform of European Institutions.
This is where we must search for that European soul which is essential for the future of the continent.
But although we need first of all to reestablish trust between the Institutions and the people of Europe, we consider that it will be necessary to establish a relationship of close, loyal collaboration between the European Institutions, and therefore between Parliament and the Commission.
<P>
The second point concerns the objections and the debate which we will resume in September.
I think that the primary reason for the objections is to verify the compatibility between the selections that you have made in putting together the team which you introduced to us today, and the general themes which you have presented to this Parliament.
We fully support a strategy which is motivated by the conviction that it is essential to respect the Stability Pact, and we are in agreement with the idea that today the fundamental issue is to make Europe into a more competitive unit, in order that it can resume the path of development, and also in order to combat unemployment.
However, we also consider it necessary to emphasise the opportunity to highlight the reasons why there has been recent talk of an Employment Pact as well, and the need to devote great attention to the regional imbalances which still exist in Europe.
Without a European strategy from this point of view, we will run the risk that an economy such as ours will tend to concentrate its resources on the strongest areas and leave the weakest by the wayside, even though some of these have recently shown signs of great progress.
<P>
The third and last thought refers to President Martens' address on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party in this Parliament during the debate on political agendas.
He expressed strong support for your candidacy, and I invite him to deal with a few issues which are holding back the activity of the Commission.
I believe, however, that notwithstanding the peculiarity of the constitutional nature of relations between the Commission and the Parliament, the concerns voiced regarding the political balance which exists in this Parliament but which is not reflected in the Commission are well founded.
We hope that the hearings will help us to resolve this point as well.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stenzel">
Mr President, Mr President-elect of the Commission, rarely has the formation of a new Commission been accompanied by such high hopes and expectations as has this one.
The distrust between citizens and Commission, clearly caused by the inappropriate behaviour of individual Commissioners, is deeply entrenched.
However, your appointment to the post of President-elect of the Commission, Professor Prodi, and the appointment of your team, which has now taken place, give cause for great hope.
You are the first President of the Commission who will be able to transfer a Commissioner's individual area of responsibility if he or she behaves inappropriately, and to dismiss the person concerned.
This is a major step in the process of rebuilding trust.
<P>
Even if the Commission does not reflect the majorities gained in the European elections, the reappointment of reliable Commissioners gives cause for satisfaction.
The restructuring of areas of competence should also open up the way for greater efficiency and transparency.
We will, though, in the interests of our citizens, be looking at each individual Commissioner extremely thoroughly.
This will be a hearing though and not an interrogation.
We need credible representatives for it to be a strong Commission.
This is why we urgently need the relevant information though.
It is necessary that the findings of the Committee of the Wise Men's second report be distributed suitably in advance of the hearings.
Otherwise, the seeds of a new crisis between Parliament and the Commission will have been sown.
Any delay in the appointment of the Commission would not be in the interests of our citizens either.
<P>
In view of the great tasks ahead, whether it is enlargement, the Intergovernmental Conference or reconstruction in Kosovo, the European Union must be able to act at all levels as soon as possible.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Prodi">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for this debate, which has been in-depth, clear and in many cases, extremely comprehensive and which has mostly demonstrated open confidence in our future work. I say open confidence because all those who spoke, even those who criticised the composition of the Commission, acknowledged the need to work closely together in a major, intense undertaking and recognised the fact that the future of the European Union lies in collaboration between the Parliament and the Commission.
It is we and our collaboration which will form the basis for the way out of the current crisis, a crisis so serious as to reduce the number of voters who turned out at the last elections to among the lowest proportions in European political history.
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I believe that, at the end of this mandate, one gauge of our success will be the numbers who vote in the next elections. That will show whether we have managed to restore the faith of the citizens of Europe in the Institutions for which we are responsible.
This means transparency, a whole cleaning up operation which will not be easy to conduct. It is easy to promise - and I have committed myself fully on this matter - but I also know very well that it is not an easy promise to keep.
A little while ago the electoral symbol for my candidacy - a little donkey - was invoked with charming irony, and I was invited to be stubborn, an invitation which was unnecessary as I am pig-headed by nature. However, I would like remind you that I was prompted to choose the donkey while reading a passage from Leonardo da Vinci, in which, while he is describing the donkey - although I cannot vouch for the truth of the statement for lack of proof - he said that the donkey is a strange animal because rather than drink dirty water it will die of thirst.
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Applause
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It is important for us to take the donkey as the symbol of our politics because, in this five-year term, we must try to do likewise.
I am perfectly aware that it is easy to make these resolutions but that it is not so easy to keep them, but the method we used to build the Commission, Mr Poettering, was a very open one.
There was no night of long knives, no investiture struggle and no border fighting.
It was not an easy task to bring together fifteen countries, north and south, and diverse political situations.
As for the result, when I say 'balanced' we know full well that there is discontent in some countries, but that is politics: balanced means that the major forces present in the European Parliament are very well represented in terms of personality and portfolio size in the Commission.
You can analyse the composition of the Commission in as much detail as you like.
I repeat, within the bounds of the Treaty of Amsterdam, I have taken full advantage of all the power conferred on me, and I believe that one improvement at the end of this mandate may be more advanced ways of forming the Commission.
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Nevertheless, please consider the progress made with regard to other areas.
Please consider the fact that we have arrived here with a Commission which will work hard - well or not so well, we will see - whatever the case, which is able to agree on common programmes and the Members of which are ready to face their responsibilities, individually and collectively.
I reiterate this point because there has been a great deal of discussion regarding the manner in which we will conduct the audiences, hearings and inquiries.
I attach very great importance to this aspect of things, as I attach very great importance to the Wise Men's report, but I also believe that these inquiries must be made into the history of the Commissioners and their programmes, and must be carried out in great depth and with political serenity as, in my opinion, they cannot be the tool to regulate problems which occurred in the past.
Having said this, I believe that they must be explored in more depth and that there must be hearings which go right to the bottom of the Commission's problems, because, and I am right to do so, I have taken on board the warning that prevention is preferable to the Commission being subsequently thrown into crisis.
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Earlier today, in my address, I said that I have asked all the Commissioners to give me their word of honour that they would resign should any new event take place or should there be any hidden fact.
I believe that this tool will not be used lightly, but with the sense, however, that the problem in question involves not only individual responsibility but also the efficiency and responsibility of the entire Commission team which must present itself to you as capable of governing for the next five years.
Clearly, we have to present ourselves as individuals, but we must also present ourselves as an organically composed group, not as distinct individuals which are separate from each other.
This has been the endeavour of the past few months and this is the type of Commission which has been introduced to you.
Please assess it in this way. Therefore, I consider that the vote on 15 September will be enormously important.
I believe that you have the right to reject the entire Commission and consider it inadequate for the great task of leading Europe in the next five year period and making its contribution to the great task before us.
Well then, I invite you to perform this task according to the vision of European common interest, and not in a context, although absolutely legitimate in politics, of individual interest.
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I will conclude by returning to a couple of points which have been recalled and raised today.
Firstly, the Wise Men's report.
I believe that it is very important for us to have read the first of these carefully and to have measured against it many of the thoughts which I have expounded to the Parliament on the three occasions in which I have come here.
This report does exert an influence, but we have to understand that the political responsibility of the future is our own.
The Wise Men's report is a wonderful instrument, and we must read it and reflect upon it, but the decision is ours alone to make and its consequences ours to bear, and it is in this sense that the dialogue between Parliament and the Commission takes on a completely different dimension.
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Secondly, several speakers have invoked the question of international trade, which I did not bring up because it will be discussed in September.
I can assure you that it will be very important to maintain a balance between the need for free trade, which is one of the foundation stones of Europe, and the protection of important rights, including the fundamental health rights.
This is the reason why I have highlighted the example of health with regard to food and medicine as one of the benchmarks for the our future Commission.
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There you are.
This is the path we have to follow. As Mr Barón Crespo said, quoting Manzoni: 'Adelante ' but 'con juicio ' , 'Go on, carefully' .
The quotation is not complete, however, because there is another sentence.
In fact, Manzoni says: 'Adelante, Pedro, si puedes ' , that is 'Go on, Pedro, if you can' , and this power to move forward is in your hands.
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Applause
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<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hänsch">
Mr Prodi, you have just portrayed very colourfully, how the little donkey would rather go thirsty than drink dirty water.
I ask you now though, if you can assure us that the little donkey would also say no to watered-down wine.
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<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Prodi">
This is the aim of the proposed Commission and this is the reason why we have made health a priority, to be consistent.
In this case, to protect humans rather than donkeys.
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Applause
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<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, the agenda now provides for time for a further ballot for the Quaestors, which we do not need because we voted electronically.
I therefore declare the sitting adjourned until 5.30 p.m.
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The sitting was adjourned at 5.05 p.m. and resumed at 5.30 p.m.
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<CHAPTER ID=6>
Programme of the Finnish Presidency
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="President">
The next item on the agenda is the declaration of the President-in-Office of the Council concerning the programme of activities of the Finnish Presidency, economic and social reconstruction in Kosovo as well as the draft Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe and the death sentence passed on Mr Öçalan.
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<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Halonen">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I would like to warmly congratulate all the newly elected members of the European Parliament.
In addition, I would like to congratulate you once more, Madam President, on being elected.
I am glad to have the opportunity to start working together with you.
In response to the wishes of Parliament, shall now outline the main points of the programme that has been drawn up in respect of the Finnish presidential term.
As requested by yourselves, I shall deal in particular with the situation in the Western Balkans and the death sentence passed on the Kurdish leader Öçalan.
Firstly, however, a few words on developments in the Union in general.
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The Commission's President-elect, Romano Prodi, drew attention in his speech to the fact that the institutions of the European Union have failed to keep up with the changes that are going on in the world around us. I completely agree with him.
Not just the Commission, but the whole European Union, must undergo reform.
It is not a matter of a one-off dramatic upheaval nor does this concern just one institution in particular, but of an on-going, unremitting process.
We have to remember that its ability to grow, enlarge and face up to ever newer challenges has made the Union both unique and long-lasting.
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Today, as we embark on our work together, we have the chance to make a clean sweep of matters, in a manner of speaking.
The new Parliament has now started and the appointment of the new Commission is under way.
We Finns now hold the Presidency of the Council for the first time.
The Treaty of Amsterdam, which recently came into force, will provide us with a good basis for developing closer co-operation than has existed before between Parliament, the Commission and the Council.
We now have a splendid opportunity to reform old ways of working.
For my own part, I would like to emphasise the fact that the work of the Council also has to be advanced.
It is a paradox that, as the Union's importance grows, co-operation among its governments in the Council is being threatened as powers are fragmented and compartmentalised.
The Council, like the Union as a whole, has to focus on the essential.
The Council is expected to provide political leadership to give real added value to the lives of our citizens.
During its Presidency, Finland intends to embark on new projects to improve the work of the Council.
We will attempt to make the work of the Council significantly more transparent and efficient; we consider greater transparency to be a vital precondition of the public's approval of the Union as a whole. We would also like the General Affairs Council to assume a relevant role in managing the work of the Council.
We must do all we can to ensure the Union is one, and is regarded as such: the Union must have a common will, a common policy and a common voice.
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President-elect Prodi said the key words in the work of the new Commission will be transparency, accountability and efficiency.
I am very happy to see that the new Commission's policy corresponds word for word with the key aims of the Finnish Presidency.
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The Finnish Presidency begins at a time when there is exceptional pressure on the Union's ability to function in external affairs.
The war that has raged in the Western Balkans has caused an inconceivable amount of human suffering and damage to property.
The European Union must be ready both politically and financially to invest in developing the Western Balkan region, so that democracy and stability can take root there.
During the Finnish presidential term, we will be paying special attention to how efficiently and consistently the Union functions in external matters.
Dealing with the situation in Kosovo now that the crisis is over, and ensuring the stability of the Western Balkans, will be, for us, the most crucial acid test.
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On Monday, the European Union's General Affairs Council stressed that the Union furthermore intends to help the Serbian people, who are suffering from the disastrous policies their leaders have pursued.
When we finally start to put an end to the sanctions we imposed on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia we will realise that the government in Belgrade and the Yugoslavian people are two different things.
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Applause
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The Yugoslav government must implement Resolution 1244 of the UN Security Council, work in co-operation with the International Court of Justice, and progress towards establishing democracy.
We agreed on Monday that first we would remove the sanctions that were imposed on the people, such as the flight ban and the avoidance of sporting links.
We emphasised the need to remove immediately the sanctions on imports of oil and other sanctions imposed on Kosovo and Montenegro.
We also consider it important to provide support for all those players in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia who are committed to the values of democracy.
Next, we should be defining the ways and means by which we can make their situation easier.
This would include, for example, shipments of raw materials and the supply of electricity.
We asked the Commission and the competent bodies to make recommendations on the matter without delay.
Furthermore, we confirmed the decision taken by the Heads of Member States and Governments in the General Affairs Council to set up an agency responsible for the rebuilding of the region, and we decided to hold a South-Eastern Europe Stability Pact Summit in Sarajevo.
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The crisis in Kosovo may mark a turning point in the Union's external actions which should now be conducted purposefully and with a common cause.
We need to broaden our scope when it comes to the Union's external relations, we must improve our ability to foresee crises, and we must become more adept at coping with the aftermath of crises.
We discussed this at length on Monday in an open sitting of the General Affairs Council.
We were all unanimous on the subject of developing this area, and adhering to a tight schedule.
The European Union has the perfect opportunity to assist in stabilising the region in a coherent and determined fashion.
However, I hope we will remember that the Union is by no means solely responsible for the restructuring programme in Kosovo.
We are working in close co-operation with other countries and international organisations.
There is a vital need for further development and expansion of co-operation with the United Nations, the CSCE and the Council of Europe.
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MEPs have, in many different connections, stressed the great importance of the Union as a driving force behind, and a guarantor of, peace and stability in our continent.
It is precisely this that lies at the heart of the next phase of enlargement.
Gradually, the European Union will become a entirely pan-European Union.
In one respect at least the next phase of enlargement will differ from all those that went before: co-operation within the Union itself has reached a level that will place very great demands on all applicant countries.
Nevertheless, I am convinced that these demands are for the good of both the applicant countries and the Union.
Meeting the criteria will strengthen social and economic development in the applicant countries concerned, and this has also been observed in the applicant countries themselves.
Enlargement is a process which must move forward constantly and which cannot be allowed to be compromised with empty promises.
During the Finnish presidential term, accession negotiations will continue in a spirit of determination.
We aim to reach a decision on as many points of negotiation as possible, and initiate new ones.
The European Council in Helsinki intends to reach a decision, on the basis of a report by the Commission, to include new applicant countries in accession negotiations.
At the same time, we are discussing the development of relations with European countries and long-term aspects of enlargement.
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Enlargement will require the countries involved to adapt to the Union's institutional framework. We have already begun preparations for an Intergovernmental Conference, and we intend to draft a chairmans' report on it for the European Council in Helsinki.
The views of Parliament will be vitally important while these reforms are under way, and I realise, with a sense of satisfaction, that our opinions are similar on many issues.
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We cannot neglect Turkey in the enlargement process.
Turkey is an important partner for the Union.
It is involved in the enlargement process, and a separate strategy has been created for it.
Opinion on Turkey's membership of the Union is affected by the progress the country is making in the areas of democratic reform and human rights, and, above all, the rights of minority groups.
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In this connection, I would like to stress the fact that the Union opposes the death penalty everywhere and in each and every case.
It is a common aim of the European Union to do away with capital punishment.
Finland, as holder of the Presidency, will be monitoring the situation.
If the sentence passed on the Kurdish leader, Öçalan, were to be carried out, it would be an unfortunate turn of events in Turkish policy.
Turkey is a member of the Council of Europe, and thus endorses the aim to abolish the death penalty.
The death penalty has not been carried out in the country since 1984.
It is to be hoped that Turkey will continue to postpone the implementation of the death penalty until it is abolished entirely.
It is hoped that the Turkish parliament will use its powers to reverse the judgment.
Turkey has expressed its desire to join the European Union.
One of the common values of the Union is to refrain from carrying out the death penalty.
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Madam President, I shall not go through the entire Presidency programme with regard to this matter.
My committee visit in September will be an opportunity for me to continue the discussion on external relations.
Many matters of current interest, including Russia and the northern dimension, are thus certainly on the agenda, but I would still like to raise one question that is of topical interest: the outlook for the peace process in the middle East since Barak's government came to power is brighter than it has been for years.
The European Union is actively promoting the peace process in both political and economic terms.
I myself will be travelling to the region in early August to meet key players in the process and to convey the views of the union on how best to promote it.
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Regardless of whether we speak of the proliferation or the prevention of conflict, there is one thing we can be sure of: we can only assist others if our own wealth is assured.
Knowledge and ability are fundamental preconditions for our well-being and ability to compete, as they are for the Member States and for the whole Union.
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The information society offers new opportunities to citizens, to enterprises and to the administrative sector.
During the coming months, we will scrutinise how the information society can be utilised in order to enhance our ability to compete.
At the same time we have to ensure that the development does not lead to wider gulfs between different groups within society.
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We have not yet completely exploited the opportunities which monetary union and the internal market offer us.
We can only create new employment opportunities if our economy is doing well.
The increase in the employment level indicates that we are going in the right direction.
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We are going to continue our work in the areas of gender equality, socially and ecologically sustainable development, the problems affecting our youth and the well-being of our fellow citizens.
I know that all these problems are important to this House, and that the European Parliament has carried out important work in promoting them.
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I was talking before about how the Union can have an impact on strengthening security in Europe and the world in general.
People's security does not only stem from the avoidance of war, but also has to do with economic security, the realisation of human rights, and the protection afforded by a constitution.
At the Tampere European Council, there will be an attempt to create a more uniform, more united policy on immigration and asylum-seeking and increased efforts to prevent cross-border criminality.
Legislation in the Member States in this area should be harmonised and aligned, judgments should be more effectively carried out, and administrative and legal barriers to co-operation should be removed.
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My ideas are based on the principle that the Union can only succeed through close and open co-operation between its various agencies, and with the active support of the citizens of Europe.
The European Parliament will play a crucial role in the process.
Madam President, may you and all the members find the energy, perseverance and will you need as this session begins, and I would like to assure you that Finland, as holder of the Presidency, expects much from our mutual co-operation.
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Applause
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<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Madam President, I would like to thank Finland's Foreign Minister, Ms Halonen, for her excellent account of the Finnish Presidency programme.
As the Member State to hold the Presidency of the Council, Finland is piloting the European Union into a new millennium with an extremely well-balanced programme.
It is important to point out, as the Foreign minister made clear in her speech, that together, the internal reform of the Union and the strengthening of civil societies all over Europe will form the cornerstone of EU development in the future.
Emphasis on these goals can be seen very clearly in the Finnish Presidency programme.
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The hallmark of the Finnish Presidency, a strong and open Europe for a new millennium, reflects the Union's vital need for reforms.
The people's Europe must be built with the emphasis on the serious importance of transparency among the EU institutions and on the principle of subsidiarity.
The enormous challenges of the future, such as the economic changes associated with the single currency, the Union's enlargement to the east, and the prevention of international crime, require the support of more viable EU institutions than is the case today.
It is a positive sign that Finland has started off with concrete proposals.
Wordy proclamations will not produce the changes we now need.
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Tragedies such as the crisis in Kosovo, and, more generally, in the whole of the former Yugoslavia, show that the peace and stability afforded by European integration do not as yet extend very far beyond the Union's external borders.
The inevitable conclusions must be made regarding this point, so that the Union's crisis management skills may be strengthened as promptly as possible.
The EU must ensure that it has in future an effective non-military range of options at its disposal both to prevent a crisis and to put out fires that have already started.
The fact that these goals are high up on the agenda is a very positive sign.
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The economic, social and political rebuilding of the Western Balkans must proceed at a brisk pace while Finland holds the Presidency.
It is such an immense challenge that the Finnish Presidency will be required to show it has the special ability to keep all the interwoven threads tightly in its hands.
Finland has to ensure that all allocated funds are used effectively.
Not a single bridge can be rebuilt nor a single school constructed if the costs of administering the reconstruction projects are inflated.
The reconstruction programme should be funded in a way that takes account of the use of local resources.
In this way, the region's business community, ravaged as it has been by war, can be revived, jobs can be created, and trade with the surrounding areas and the Union can be developed.
The Union's employment problems cannot be solved by making official appointments at Kosovo's expense.
Aid must go to where it is most needed.
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The enlargement of the Union to the East will require the unflagging support of its citizens.
The Union must make absolutely sure no bottlenecks in the enlargement process arise through its inability to function properly.
Ensuring the single market functions effectively and strengthening the Union's internal security are the important keys to successful enlargement.
We must expect the Tampere Council meeting, which will focus inter alia on questions relating to asylum-seekers and refugees as well as the fight against organised crime, to provide concrete proposals for action to improve internal security.
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The Union's northern dimension concept, about to come into the limelight, features many aspects of EU internal security, such as nuclear and environmental safety and co-operation with neighbouring regions. Furthermore, the ideas expressed concerning the Union's northern dimension need to be made into more concrete programmes of action.
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Applause
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<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Mr President, Members of the Council, Ms Halonen, the start of Finland's first presidential term in the European Union marks a time of great change.
Parliament, in its new assembly, will start newly invigorated by its recently acquired constitutional rights as bestowed on it under the Treaty of Amsterdam; in place of the former Commission that resigned before its term was over we await the appointment of the new Commission, and Council is preparing for reforms in its working practices.
The undeniable fact is that we shall be unable to restore the confidence of the people in the Union to take decisions, without reforming the way we do things and this concerns all institutions: the Commission, the Council and Parliament.
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One of the most pressing matters we are expecting Parliament and the Council to resolve is a proper arrangement relating to members' pay and expenses.
The reform of the Union's institutions is a crucial part of the Finnish presidential programme, as Ms Halonen mentioned in her speech.
We note with particular satisfaction that the programme includes an aim to reform working practices in the Council.
The principle of transparency will be promoted in a very real sense with the development of open sessions of the Council, better accessibility to documents, and the general availability of Council and working party agendas and meeting schedules.
In acknowledgement of decisions taken by the Cologne European Council, Finland will oversee preparations to convene an Intergovernmental Conference.
The aim must be for a conference which leads to a new agreement to make enlargement possible and create the right conditions for more effective action on the part of the Union after enlargement has taken place.
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It must be said, however, that the efficient functioning of the Union has already met with obstacles during this session.
I cannot help wondering why the right-wing group in the Parliament is attempting to postpone the appointment of the Commission using the report by the Committee of Independent Experts as an excuse.
I shall be frank and say that tactics like these will make it difficult for the Finnish Presidency to succeed.
We must speed up the drawing up of the report and the proper debate on it in Parliament in every way possible, but we cannot surrender the legal rights of the Parliament to an unofficial investigative body and give in to the timetable it imposes.
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We also need to strengthen the Union's credibility, to enable us to become fully involved in serious problems that are our responsibility, the most pressing of which is the drawing up of the timetable for the rebuilding programme in Kosovo.
That will be the start of our task to strengthen stability in the whole Balkan region.
The Finnish President, Martti Ahtisaari, made a sound contribution to the achievement of a solution for Kosovo, showing that a non-aligned state can also successfully represent the common view of the Union as a whole.
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A properly functioning Union is a pre-condition of a successful conclusion to the enlargement process that is under way in respect of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
The starting point must be insistence on uniform membership criteria, which also means an attempt at the truth when discussing a timetable for enlargement.
Finland has quite rightly pointed out that it is necessary to connect the enlargement process with Europe's influence on developments in the areas of environmental protection and social welfare.
The aim must be sustainable development and the inclusion of the issue of environmental protection in all community policy, which means obligations not only for future members but for the present members also.
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The enlargement process can make headway if co-operation with the Union's neighbouring regions is strengthened.
The northern dimension policy, which has been approved by the Union, covers inter alia co-operation in the Baltic region, but it also supports the implementation of the approved strategy on Russia.
The main issue in need of reform is genuine cross-border co-operation, which needs to be strengthened.
Another current challenge for the Union also is the realisation of economic and monetary union in a way that will generate jobs.
So there are various challenges. Finally, I would sincerely like to wish the Finnish Presidency luck in the implementation of its programme, favourably inclined as it is, to reform.
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Applause
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<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, Madam Minister, just as the Minister did in a part of his speech, I am also going to use the second Finnish national language.
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The agenda of the Finnish Presidency does not contain any great surprises; it is balanced, and is focused on the most important challenges to the Union.
The agenda actually emphasises those problems which earlier Summit Meetings have agreed that we should solve in Helsinki.
I am very glad that the minister tackled the problems concerning the work of the Council of Ministers so frankly for I am of the opinion that they have not been discussed sufficiently, and there remain for us many tricky problems to be solved.
Precisely for this reason, many issues have also been delayed until Finland's Presidency.
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We emphasise in the agenda a strong and open Europe, which is correct.
A strong Europe is a Europe in which the institutions are strong, not where some strongmen solve Europe's problems.
Unfortunately we have witnessed the tendency that some problems have not been solved in the institutions, but by individual persons.
This is not in the spirit of Monnet.
I hope that the Finnish presidency will succeed in its aim of making the EU act unanimously for a common policy and with common will.
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A strong Union is also a Union which is able to create stability in its neighbouring regions.
For this reason, it is important to also build up a comprehensive and clear strategy of involvement, which includes countries such as Albania and Macedonia, by means of successful expansion and through credible crisis management.
Regardless of all the work carried out with a view to stabilisation, there are nevertheless risks that the streams of refugees might increase.
In this regard, I think that the Finnish agenda could have been more ambitious, in particular in light of the Kosovo crisis.
We certainly must not find ourselves once again in a situation of unreadiness as was the case when we had to find a solution to the distribution of payments.
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I finally wish to stress that I sincerely hope that Minister Halonen, who knows the situation in Slovakia personally, is going to fight for an end to the discrimination, for instance against the Roma population, which exists there as well as elsewhere.
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<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, Finland's goal is the right one: there has to be more transparency within the EU.
Right at the start, the EU's Finance Ministers, under the leadership of Finland, reached the conclusion that it is only possible to speak of EMU within the EU if it is with one voice.
As a result, we have now fallen silent in eleven languages over the subject of monetary policy in the EU.
Under Finland's leadership, transparency and public accountability should extend to the secret and secretive work of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
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Finland is a non-aligned country, and not a member of NATO.
Nevertheless, she should show more credibility in her opposition to an EU common defence force.
We should not give in to the former Social Democrats and the Green pacifists, to Schröder, Fischer, Blair, D'Alema or Solana, who want more arms for Europe, and to expand NATO.
NATO is also now an organisation on the offensive.
It will be Finland's task to see to it that EU Member States are free to remain non-aligned.
This goal is being undermined by the principle that the EU should have a common will, a common policy and a common voice, a goal the 70 per cent of Finns who did not vote in the European Parliamentary elections were opposed to.
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<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Collins">
Mr President, the Finnish Government assumes the Presidency of the European Union at a very challenging time.
This year has seen the implementation of some very wide-ranging and aggressive policies which are all going to play a role in developing the economies within the fifteen Member States of the European Union.
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The launch of the new euro currency will certainly help to reduce business costs for small and medium-sized enterprises as foreign exchange transactions in eleven countries become an event of the past.
I know that the euro currency has experienced some trading problems at times during this year.
The instability within the EU institutions and the war in Kosovo have certainly not encouraged a climate of investor confidence.
However, in recent times, the value of the euro currency has substantially increased as political and economic stability within the European landscape has re-emerged.
There are eleven participating countries within the new euro currency zone encompassing over 291 million people.
It is of the utmost importance that consumer information campaigns about the timetable and effects of the new euro currency continue in the run-up to the introduction of euro notes and coins in the year 2002.
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The Finnish Presidency of the EU, together with the Commission, should review progress that is being made on this important issue across the EU so that consumer concerns about the new euro currency are fully addressed.
The increased interdependence between the Member States and EMU demands the strengthening of economic co-ordination.
In order to boost competitiveness, growth and employment, the Finnish Government rightly intends to promote the co-ordination of economic, employment and structural policies and to complete the internal market.
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The ageing nature of our population, globalisation and technological advances present real challenges for European economic and social development.
European employment strategies must be put in place in accordance with the new powers contained within the Amsterdam Treaty as well as within revised European social fund regulations.
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Unemployment still remains at over 9 % within the European Union which is unacceptably high.
It is not right that one in four people below the age of 25 have difficulty in getting a decent start in life.
The Finnish Government is certainly laying a great emphasis on the need to promote the enlargement process to a greater extent.
The Finnish Presidency will direct preparations to convene an Intergovernmental Conference in accordance with the decisions taken at the recent Cologne European Council.
An IGC is very important as institutional reform must take place before the practical process of enlargement can succeed and much work needs to be done to prepare EU Institutions for this intergovernmental phase.
I am very satisfied that the Finnish Government intends to pursue this matter vigorously over the next six months.
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Enlargement of the Union is essential for the stability of Europe.
The opening-up of larger markets will assist in the process of economic growth.
The Union itself must be prepared to take up the challenges posed by enlargement by improving its decision-making capacity and improving the functioning of its institutions.
National interests must be protected during this phase of negotiations as an overburdened bureaucracy at EU level is not the desired outcome from these IGC talks.
<P>
In conclusion, as a result of the Cologne Summit of March of last year, it has been agreed that the EU budget will be worth over £506 billion during the seven-year period, i.e. 2000-2006.
The conclusion of the Agenda 2000 discussion has ensured that the European Union can move forward and discuss and implement new policy objectives and goals.
The Finnish Government has certainly started this process.
The EU certainly now has a golden opportunity to put in place new policies in the fields of consumer rights, food safety and assistance to the elderly, as well as areas of environmental protection.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
I would like first of all to thank Madam President-in-Office for her comments regarding the abolition of the death penalty.
I believe that, on the Finnish initiative, the European Union is preparing to implement other initiatives on an international level, and I am grateful for that.
<P>
The point I would like to highlight here concerns Kosovo.
Nobody has spoken about it until now, but there is a problem which has not been confronted, or has not been confronted with the determination expected by the European Union. It is that of the three thousand Kosovan prisoners who were literally kidnapped by Mr Milosevic and his henchmen during the latter days of the international intervention in Kosovo and transferred by force to Serbian prisons.
Nobody knows anything about these three thousand people.
They are Mr Kurti, the former leader of the student movement in Pristina, Professor Oti, and three thousand other people who have literally disappeared.
<P>
I would like to know whether, on the initiative of the Finnish Presidency, we may finally take determined action, with the support of the Red Cross and other international organisations, to oblige the war criminal Milosevic not to do what he has done so many times before: to use blackmail, to use these people who are now in his hands and about whom nothing is known, to once again oblige the European Union to drop the evidence.
I believe that, before even talking about lifting the embargo, Mr Milosevic should be forced to release all of these people unconditionally.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
Madam President, the work of developing the Amsterdam Treaty for even greater union is commencing under the Finnish Presidency.
As things stand, the next treaty will be even worse than the one we already have.
It will provide for more majority decisions whereby ministers and civil servants are able to tone down the democracy in our Member States.
Decisions which today are taken in publicly elected open assemblies will pass to secret committees within the Commission and the Council.
We will have much more Brussels and less democracy.
That the new treaty is to be called the Paris Treaty is unfair on the city of cities.
The power which we as voters are losing is mainly being transferred to the Commission and the Council, although the Parliament is taking over the right of veto from the parliaments of the Member States.
The individual States may no longer prevent the adoption of a law or recommend that a law be amended.
A democratic era is being superseded by a bureaucratic era in which the voters are being driven into a siding.
It is to prevent this watering down of democracy that we have created a new group: the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities.
Democracy, because power must lie with the publicly elected in our Member States and because the necessary common legislation must also be controlled democratically.
Plurality, because we wish to maintain diverse identities and cultures and to counter euro-nationalism and its euro-anthems and common passports, currency, policing and defence.
We no longer want centralism and unification, but decentralisation and freedom.
We do not want the EU to be a new state, but rather a practical collaboration on problems which we cannot solve individually.
The EU must be a help and not a hindrance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Poli Bortone">
Mr President, when speaking of Kosovo in the address she gave this morning, President Fontaine said: 'The guns have fallen silent, the horrors have ceased, but peace still remains to be built' .
The guns may well have fallen silent, Mr President, but the anti-personnel mines continue their butchery; the horror of war is over but not the horror of the discovery of mass graves day after day, a tragic, heart-rending testimony to a contempt for the right to live of individuals and populations, a right which is no less than respect for the diversity and identity of a people for whose affirmation we will fight both here and in our national parliaments.
<P>
' It is not acceptable that in the very heart of Europe, human rights should once more be flouted in such a barbaric manner, ' declared Mrs Fontaine once again.
We are in agreement on this point as well, reaching forward as we are to be part of the process of solidarity between nations through a common foreign and security policy for which my group has fought right from the start of its representation in the European Parliament.
Starting with the Balkans, with the urgency and determination which today's situation demands, the Common Foreign and Security Policy will allow us to achieve the objectives of peace, economic stability and the certainty that human rights are being respected.
NATO has won the war and Europe must build the peace: this is the challenge which we must take up immediately, in the loud and clear definition of the role that Europe will assume in the construction of the peace process, in political wisdom, in the quality of the steps that it will take in order to prevent the migration flows which it is currently suffering and will continue to do so in the years to come, from causing religious, economic and social conflict, especially in areas in which unemployment is increasing at an alarming rate. Of course, the establishment of an agency will not in itself solve the problem.
However, all remains to be seen. How will this body, which we hope will guarantee rapid, efficient, useful, rational and fair measures, be structured and made operative, with the appropriate participation in the reconstruction, above all, of all those areas such as Italy and, in particular, Puglia, whose tourist trades have suffered extensive economic damage from the war and the effects of migration.
It is true that the war has left deep wounds: they are clearly visible. They can be clearly seen on territories and on the people who lost their lives in or were driven from those territories; but it has also harmed certain governments, which are left without a clear foreign policy.
In any case, it has displayed the failure of ten years of diplomacy and highlighted the oversights, the shortcomings and the squanderings, of international co-operation.
<P>
Europe's undertaking, then, cannot be understood as merely revolving around the reconciliation of the parties involved in the conflict, but the measure of its performance will depend upon the overall ability it displays in reconciling the Stability Pact, reconstruction and ever-increasing unemployment.
In his statement, the President of the Commission undertook to spend money on reconstruction, not bureaucracy.
Let us hope that this reconstruction will be more than just material. We must rebuild roads, schools, ports and water systems, but we must also restore the faith of peoples who for years have been deprived of the right to live with their loved ones on their own land with their own jobs, and who are now hoping to enjoy the peaceful life denied to them for years.
If Europe were to pursue the aim indicated by Professor Prodi of providing the Balkans with a clear political and economic future, it would certainly achieve a great deal, but it would not be performing the whole of its task, which includes making a substantial contribution to building a path for democratic, and of course economic, development, but essentially social and cultural development, in the knowledge that reconciliation is all the stronger and more stable, the higher the level of tolerance and respect for diversity of the parties is concerned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Fischler">
Honoured President, esteemed Representative of the Council Presidency, ladies and gentlemen, it is inappropriate that the Representative for the acting Commission should make a full statement on the Finnish Presidency's programme here, for this programme will largely be implemented under the new Commission.
Permit me, therefore, to restrict my comments in the main to two issues, namely reconstruction in Kosovo and the sentence passed on Abdullah Öçalan.
<P>
Firstly, I should like to remind you that from the very beginning, the European Union was heavily involved in the endeavours being made to bring about a peaceful resolution of the Kosovo conflict.
The Commission also provided humanitarian aid throughout the conflict.
The European Union is, as we are all aware, the largest donor.
We gave financial aid to those countries most severely affected by the influx of exiles and refugees.
<P>
Now that the conflict is over, our immediate priority is to support KFOR's endeavours to restore peace and order and to reconstruct a functioning civil administration under the leadership of the United Nations.
The European Union has a special task to fulfil in this respect.
In particular, we bear the responsibility for the reconstruction aspects of UNMIG.
Jollie Dixon, the acting Special Delegate for the Commission appointed for this purpose, has now taken up his position in Pristina and it is time to solve the huge number of practical problems.
<P>
What has been provided so far in terms of aid?
The humanitarian aid committed to Kosovo and the neighbouring countries totals EUR 378 million, with the bulk going towards providing essential foods and other goods such as medicines, sanitation equipment and accommodation.
This aid is channelled through the UNHCR, the International Red Cross, UNICEF and various NGOs.
This amount includes the EUR 196 million currently being mobilised from the Commission's budgetary reserves.
<P>
Furthermore, EUR 100 million were committed as macroeconomic aid for the damage sustained by other countries as a result of the Kosovo crisis, 62 million being earmarked for Albania, 25 million for FYROM and 13 million for Montenegro.
The first instalments have already been paid out.
In addition, EUR 45 million will be committed to Kosovo through the OBNOVA programme, a first priority of which will be to finance a delegation whose task is to ascertain the scale of material damage.
The first set of findings will be available on 23 July.
<P>
The European Commission will then base its definitive aid programme on these figures.
In addition, the budgetary requirements for reconstruction will need to be set in the course of the next two to three years, and the anticipated costs which the other donors are to incur will need to be calculated.
<P>
The measures to be financed under the OBNOVA programme as a matter of priority include such areas as mine clearance, obtaining materials for rebuilding houses and also public buildings, supporting public utilities and customs control, and a village employment and rehabilitation programme.
Working in conjunction with KFOR, UNMIG and UNHCR, these projects were prioritised and they are to supplement the on-going work undertaken by the humanitarian organisations.
We hope to be able to commit the EUR 45 million before the end of this month.
<P>
As explained to the budgetary authorities in the trialogue of 2 July, an additional EUR 92 million will still be required this year.
It was agreed during this trialogue session that in September the Commission will submit a proposal to increase the budget by means of an amending and supplementary budget which will raise the 92 million required.
The funds are largely to be raised by reallocation, with as little utilisation as possible being made of additional funds.
It was also agreed that both parts of the budgetary authorities will deal with this proposal in one reading.
We are counting on receiving Parliament's support as far as this is concerned, so that the European Community can continue to play a leading role in the reconstruction process.
<P>
I should now like to say a few words on the issue of a reconstruction agency.
Before the Cologne European Council meeting, the Commission proposed to the Heads of State and Government that a special agency should be set up which would deal with the implementation of the reconstruction work.
The European Council followed this recommendation and instructed the Commission back in June to formulate an actual proposal on the basis of experience gained from Bosnia.
We at the Commission proposed that the agency should be located in Pristina, that is at the centre of reconstruction activity, where all the other international organisations are located.
<P>
Applause
<P>
However, at the informal meeting of Heads of State and Government in Rio, the Heads of Government agreed that the agency 's seat should be in Thessaloniki.
We cannot escape the conclusion though, that this was due not so much to the fact that the reconstruction activities, for which this agency was to be responsible, were in the immediate vicinity, but rather to the fact that there was a general need for economic aid throughout the region.
<P>
The Commission takes the view that it will only be possible to work effectively if the vast proportion of activities is concentrated in Pristina.
However, the Commission could envisage a solution whereby, for example, some of the administrative personnel would be based at another location. But this must not be to the detriment of the efficiency and effectiveness of the operation.
The Commission assumes that to uphold these principles accords with the Court of Auditors' position and the first reactions of the European Parliament.
<P>
However, the Council decided conclusively on Monday this week that the agency's seat should be in Thessaloniki.
The Commission has refrained from stating its position, preferring the Commission's definitive position to be established by the new Commission.
The proposal has now been submitted to Parliament for advice.
Meanwhile, as of 1 July, the Commission has been despatching a task force consisting of approximately 20 officials and supporting personnel to Pristina, where it will be responsible for implementing the reconstruction programme.
All authority required to effect implementation was transferred from Brussels to the leader of the task force in Pristina in order to create a mechanism which will work with optimum efficiency and speed to provide aid at a time when it is most urgently needed in Kosovo.
<P>
Finally, a comment on achieving co-ordination amongst the donors.
On 13 July, a meeting took place of the High Level Steering Group, the committee managed by the European Commission and the World Bank which is based on partnership and is intended to co-ordinate the Kosovo crisis aid provided by international donors.
It was confirmed on this occasion that the first Kosovo donor conference would be held on 28 July in Brussels.
This conference is to focus in particular on determining what the pressing needs will be from now until the end of the year.
A second donor conference has been planned for October and this will deal in greater depth with the reconstruction efforts.
<P>
Turning to the Öçalan trial, the Commission takes the same position on this matter as that taken up by the German Presidency on 29 June, following the death sentence passed by the state security tribunal of Ankara on Abdullah Öçalan, and again expresses its absolute repudiation of the death penalty.
It was for this reason that on 29 June, the Commission asked the relevant Turkish authorities to take account of the European Union's repudiation of this death penalty.
Consequently, the Commission, knowing that Turkey has not employed the death penalty since 1984, anticipates that as a member of the Council of Europe, Turkey will abide by the obligations that it has entered into.
To carry out the death penalty would inevitably place relations between the European Union and Turkey under huge strain.
<P>
Like the majority of EU Member States, the Commission believes that recent amendments to Turkish legislation have paved the way for the case against Mr Öçalan and the process of reaching a verdict, to be transferred to a civil court.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Fischler.
<P>
I have received ten motions for resolution pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, I must begin by emphasising that this Parliament has observed that the Finnish Presidency, from the beginning of its mandate, has shown independence and equanimity and has sought agreed solutions.
These three attributes, which I wish to highlight, bode well for the success of this first Finnish Presidency and they will be needed, given the challenges which face it.
<P>
Since it is impossible in three minutes to list all these challenges - the Presidency-in-Office of the Council has said that it is impossible to list its programme - I will limit myself to a few brief observations on some particular points.
<P>
With regard to enlargement, we must be aware that events in the Balkans have changed the landscape, and in Helsinki we will have to open negotiations with other countries.
<P>
In relation to institutional affairs, the Finnish Presidency has an enormous responsibility: that of initiating work which will lead to the conclusion of a statute on fundamental rights.
But we should not forget that the mandate of the Cologne European Council meeting speaks of a non-binding statute which, initially, will not be incorporated into the Treaties.
If our intention, from the outset, is to implement a set of binding rights, this would leave us with a minimal statute which will offer little to European citizens.
<P>
With regard to the statute on MEPs, the Finnish Presidency - and it should be congratulated on this - has also shown respect for the fact that this initiative concerns this Parliament.
<P>
With regard to the functioning of the College of Commissioners, I would like to say, from this Chamber, that we will not allow the individual responsibility of the Commissioners to be used as a weapon.
<P>
Moving on to economic affairs, the matter of a tax on energy has been mentioned here.
The Finnish Presidency knows that this is a disputed question and we hope it will make use of all its powers of conciliation in order that this taxation package might move forward, since it is of great importance to Europe.
<P>
And I would like to say a few words on the question of the internal market. I hope that the internal market does not suffer as a result of this idea of bringing it into line with international agreements in areas such as electronic commerce.
<P>
It is must be stated that the Tampere Summit must not become a Summit on immigration and asylum.
Although this is very important and events in the Balkans have demonstrated the urgency required in this field, the Tampere Summit must be dedicated to developing a region which enjoys liberty, security and justice.
We must be conscious of the fact that, if this development is to be harmonious, we must insist on the idea of 'justice' , we must promote the European judicial network, we must be capable of making sentences effective and making the sentences immediate, both the criminal and the non-criminal ones, and we must facilitate direct relationships between judges.
These are the challenges for the Tampere Summit and immigration, although important, must not be allowed to push them to one side.
<P>
And just a word about three matters which have been side-stepped and which are important for the South and for Spain. We must begin a dialogue with Mexico and Mercosur.
And with regard to Morocco, those EUR 125 million must be released.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Commissioner, I should first like to offer my warmest congratulations to the Finnish Presidency, Madam Foreign Minister and her colleagues on their lucid and precisely-formulated programme, which may not be one imbued with great vision, but which is nevertheless very forward-looking.
It is exactly what we need.
There will be more than enough problems to solve, the list is already before us, but best efforts have been made to this end.
<P>
I should like to stress the following, further to the points made by Mr Commissioner Fischler, giving particular attention to the two matters of Turkey and reconstruction in Yugoslavia.
Firstly, I consider that it is right that as far as actual reconstruction work is concerned, particularly in Kosovo, the decisions should be taken on site.
That is a line of argument that this Parliament has represented and which we have defended, namely that greater local autonomy should be devolved to the area where the reconstruction work is actually to take place.
However, and I am probably prepared to go further than you are in this respect, Mr Commissioner, I believe that Greece and Thessaloniki would be a good location when it comes to aid for reconstruction in general for the Balkans or South-Eastern Europe, and particularly in co-operation with Mr Hombach.
This work cannot be undertaken in Pristina alone, both in view of infrastructure and political relations.
<P>
People may well say that is a bad compromise. I don't believe it is.
I believe that they are two different things, but that they must be closely interwoven.
But this decision is entirely reasonable, on the one hand Pristina for the actual reconstruction aid and, on the other, Thessaloniki.
<P>
Turning now to my second point, which is Turkey, I believe that we must state in a clear and unambiguous fashion that as far as we are concerned, the Öçalan case is not just about one man threatened with the death penalty, but rather we repudiate the death penalty in general.
He is a symbol for many others, for example Akim Birdal or others too, who are in prison, some of whom have not had legal proceedings taken against them, and some whose health is greatly impaired.
Turkey must at last demonstrate respect for human rights, for full democracy, particularly as regards the Kurdish question.
<P>
We do not support terrorism in either word or deed.
We support a political solution for Turkey; this is necessary in every sense, and I hope that the Finnish Presidency too will succeed in making this clear to Turkey.
Yes, there is a road that leads to Europe and there is also a road that leads to the European Union for Turkey, and the same rules apply to Turkey as apply to Latvia, Bratislava and Slovenia.
If Turkey is prepared to recognise these rules, then there is a clear and unambiguous road leading to Europe, but that means showing respect for democracy and showing respect for human rights.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Väyrynen">
Mr President, during the Finnish presidential term, the Council will be discussing many important issues.
The Finnish government's programme for its presidential term shows that Finland intends to carry out its most important tasks in an effective manner. For my part, I would like to make two points.
As far as the future of the Union is concerned the most important tasks of the Council will be tied, on the one hand, to enlargement, and, on the other, to improving the Union's decision-making machinery, both of which hinge on one another.
<P>
The large-scale programme of enlargement which is now on the horizon calls for a selection of bold reforms to the decision-making process.
The Union, which is achieving pan-European dimensions, can only function properly if it develops more as a union of independent states rather than a federation.
This must be taken into account when the mandate for the next Intergovernmental Conference is being drafted.
The mandate must be drafted in such a way that the Union's decision-making process is changed to cater for the needs of eastward enlargement as a whole and not the requirements of accession in respect of just five or six countries.
This being the case, action cannot be restricted merely to the points not covered by the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The Union has to change direction.
Any move towards a centralised federation of states on the American model must be checked; we should be aiming for a decentralised Union, and here the Swiss federation might serve as a model in principle.
The Swiss system is often referred to as a confederation.
Only a Union developing in this sort of direction will be able to enlarge in accordance with existing plans.
The Intergovernmental Conference mandate must therefore be broad in scope and include an investigation into the basic principles of the Union's decision-making process.
<P>
My other point is connected with the northern dimension.
During its presidential term, Finland must try to speed up developments associated with the northern dimension.
The next major step will be the development of the northern dimension as part of the union's internal policy.
The northern dimension means that the situation and circumstances pertaining to the northern regions should be taken into consideration in all Union decision making.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cohn-Bendit">
Mr President, I have lost count of the number of times we have discussed the problem of Balkan reconstruction in this Parliament.
We have spoken about Bosnia and have endlessly discussed the same problems of decentralisation.
I believe that the Balkans will not be reconstructed unless the European spirit of co-responsibility becomes the dominant spirit of politics there.
<P>
I think that the European Union can offer the spirit of European construction to the reconstruction of the Balkans and that will be the determining factor.
Nothing we say about Thessaloniki, Pristina or Sarajevo will have the same meaning, because today - and this is where the danger lies - in the method of reconstruction with the UN on one side, the European Union on another and the OSCE on yet another, we are creating institutions of dependence where the reconstruction of the Balkans depends on our will but the self-determination of the Balkan peoples in terms of managing themselves is not achieved.
<P>
The danger is that we plan and construct on behalf of others, but do not create the conditions necessary for the peoples and countries of the Balkans to take control of their own destiny.
It is for this reason that here, in this Parliament, we have already proposed, for example, a foundation for democracy which, starting with the Bosnian problems, should be extended to the whole of the Balkans.
This foundation would finance all the initiatives and contribute to the reconstruction of democratic structures in the Balkans, because, at the end of the day, the capacity for self-determination depends on the society's capacity to organise itself democratically.
This is where the great problem lies in those countries with authoritarian structures where democracy is not readily available.
Not until democracy is readily available will the reconstruction of the Balkans be possible.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Korakas">
Mr President, listening to the Finnish Presidency, it is evident that European Union policy, which only proliferates and aggravates the problems facing our citizens, will not undergo fundamental change.
That is precisely why it is essential for our citizens to step up their fight against the objectives of the European Union.
<P>
Thus, under the Finnish Presidency, we will see EU militarisation become increasingly subordinate to NATO.
Indeed, with the Presidency of a country which is not even a NATO member and which is renowned for its pacifist stance, we will also witness the continuation of the European Union's participation in the escapades of new NATO on a similar or even a much worse scale, as in the imperialist attack against Yugoslavia. We can also expect to see a lot more of the flagrant attacks on workers, in addition to an increase in unemployment and poverty, heightened levels of social and marginal inequality, continuation by the Turkish regime, with the support of the European Union, of the 25 year occupation of 40 % of Cyprus and the genocide of the Kurdish people, regarded by some as terrorists.
<P>
It is a crying shame that Öçalan has been refused asylum and that he was handed over to the Turkish authorities when it was certain that a death sentence would be imposed.
In other words, we are dealing with a combination of imperialistic policies and crass hypocracies, since, amongst other things, the European Union does its utmost for Human Rights and the rights of its citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Gollnisch">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the disastrous war in the Balkans unleashed against a sovereign State without the approval of the United Nations Security Council and with no prior declaration of war only appears to have ended.
<P>
Of course, the Atlantic coalition, on the orders of American politicians, appears to have come out on top.
But at what price?
We are now faced with the enormous destruction which we have caused, mostly with no serious military objective.
Having paid for this destruction, the European tax-payer will now be asked to pay for reconstruction.
Bitter derision and, material waste have added to the human and political damage, and we are now in the front line of Community confrontations, in a psychological situation which is aggravated by the destruction which we have brought about.
<P>
We are at risk of being ensnared in these conflicts, unless the European countries do not stand by powerless in the face of the final phase of ethnic cleansing which has not touched the universal sense of conscience to any great extent: we risk the elimination of the remaining Serb inhabitants, in that region, who have become a minority in their own country.
<P>
Respect for international law, for the sovereignty of States, for their territorial integrity, is not always without its problems, but the violation of that respect causes infinitely more problems.
This is what the authorities of the Union and the governments of the Member States should understand.
In that way we will perhaps be spared the still unforeseen dramas which may await us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Belder">
Mr President, over the next six months, the Finnish Presidency faces the weighty task of initiating substantial input to the economic and social reconstruction of Kosovo.
Indeed, it was the violent escalation of the drawn-out Kosovo affair that now places before us the prospect of a Stability Pact for the Balkans.
I should like to make a number of recommendations in connection with both interrelated themes.
<P>
If we are to consolidate the fragile peace on the legendary killing fields of Kosovo Polje, there must be optimum co-operation between the international organisations concerned; the UN for the return of the refugees, the OSCE in terms of constructing democracy, and the EU for economic and social construction.
If international co-ordination is lacking or falls short then the price paid for this will be institutional chaos.
For its part, the EU would do well to guard against this critical danger.
Thus, there should be no proliferation of EU bodies all concentrating on the one essential task: the reconstruction of Kosovo.
<P>
At the same time, Brussels must urge the rival Albanian parties, that is the Democratic League of Kosovo and the Kosovo Liberation Army, to work together.
Ultimately, those who pay have a fair amount of say in the matter.
<P>
We believe that it is precisely this kind of homegrown contribution that is indispensable to the realisation of an effective Stability Pact in the Balkans.
That is why all those engaged in the Balkans should also turn their hand to the wheel together; with every available support from the European Union.
A regional Stability Pact could be one solution, or a pan Balkans bureau for reconstruction.
Homegrown initiatives of this kind will boost Western stabilisation efforts in a way that cannot be underestimated.
For neither the region nor the European Union will be served by Balkan states entering into the race for Brussels on a purely individual basis.
As I speak, the notion, perhaps the distant dream, of a form of Benelux, is spreading through the Balkans.
This is certainly an encouraging sign, for even if we do not strive for political unity, we are certainly in favour of being on good neighbourly terms. Indeed, that is in every sense our Christian duty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President-in Office of the Council, ever since 1989, Kosovo has constantly been the subject of debate in this Parliament.
We have demanded action and warned against passivity on the part of the West.
I make this point so that those who are new here today know that we have been talking about this for a very long time.
Unfortunately, the Western governments' lack of action led to Milosevic first launching an assault on Croatia, then on Bosnia Herzegovina, and ultimately creating a bloodbath in Kosovo.
<P>
There are millions of refugees, umpteen thousand dead and misery everywhere we look in the region.
Many years of turning a blind eye is one of the reasons why it was necessary to undertake a military strike.
We are all glad that the joint action undertaken by the West and Russia brought the war to an end and made it possible for the Albanian refugees to return to their homeland.
But major tasks now await us which we must tackle energetically and efficiently, ensuring above all that we do not exclude the citizens of Kosovo in the process.
<P>
The errors that we made when undertaking reconstruction work in Bosnia Herzegovina must not be repeated.
If the salaries received by the international personnel in Bosnia Herzegovina are not in reasonable proportion to the aid which is received on site, then that is unacceptable and must not be repeated in Kosovo under any circumstances.
But we must also avoid making other errors of the kind that the Council is prepared to make now.
If the Council were to locate the Kosovo agency in Thessaloniki then inefficiency would be the order of the day.
This agency must be located in Kosovo, and not 200 Kilometres away in another country, when all the UN, OSCE, and UNHCR organisations and agencies are located in Kosovo.
<P>
However, I am convinced that Thessaloniki is the best location for the headquarters of the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe.
I urgently call upon the Council and also the Greek government to vote for this option.
Permit me also to mention at this point that I cannot begin to see the point of next week's spectacle in Sarajevo.
One and a half days of spectacle will cost EUR 1.5 million, which is out of all proportion to the achievements that won't be made that day, since all the things that are supposed to be achieved there have already been decided on in Cologne.
<P>
How many small and medium-sized enterprises could we set up in Bosnia Herzegovina with this one and a half million euro?
How many jobs could we create and how many more people could return than have been able to hitherto?
Now just a word for Serbia's benefit.
A warm welcome to two representatives of the Serbian Opposition in the stand.
Esteemed colleagues, the Serbian resistance to the Milosevic regime must now be given all the help that we can offer, unlike two years ago when we left the Opposition to their own devices for fear of antagonising the regime.
Let us at last learn from our mistakes.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berès">
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, as others have said previously, your Presidency has come at an exceptional time, just when the crisis has erupted in Kosovo and the European Union has made its contribution to dealing with it, after an institutional crisis which we have still not dealt with, after the election of a new Parliament in very unusual circumstances with voters taking less and less interest in an institution which has more and more powers and, finally, after the Cologne European Council meeting which launched important projects for the future.
<P>
In order to face up to this, Madam President, we require a Community machine which is in good working order, and I can assure you that my group will do everything possible so that this machine may be put in order as soon as possible.
You need it and we need it.
How can we allow a situation in which the resigning Commission has continued to operate since last March and is still intervening to try to undermine the implementation of a single price for books and to define the mandate for the next WTO negotiation, the importance of which for the future is well known.
This is not democratic and we will fight it.
On the other hand, we will help you with the rapid establishment of a serious and trustworthy Commission which is at the service of all Europeans.
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Apart from these considerations, our candidate for the Presidency, Mr Romano Prodi, has just displayed the constructive and creative spirit with which he views the contribution of the Commission to the next Intergovernmental Conference.
Under your Presidency, it will fall to the Council to define the mandate of that IGC.
I believe that the presence by your side of a strong Commission making its contribution to the development of that mandate is equally essential.
We will certainly help you in this to ensure that everyone faces up to his or her responsibilities.
However, apart from that IGC, certain things will also depend on your Presidency, and we all know that certain improvements to the functioning of the institutions do not necessarily depend on a reform of the Treaties and that it concerns firstly - and perhaps principally - the Council.
It depends particularly on you.
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As for Kosovo, I only have one thing to say. At the end of the day we Europeans often regret our lack of a common foreign and security policy.
We express our impatience in the face of these vacillations.
However, the President of your country has given a marvellous demonstration of the contribution that Europeans can make to peace on their continent and the development of a European solution to European problems.
The fact that the United Nations and Russia have been able to be incorporated into the peace process in Kosovo is due to united European action.
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With regard to the Öçalan affair, Mrs President, I would like to say a few words. The first is to congratulate you for having made Tampere into a European Council primarily dedicated to asylum policy.
In fact I believe that the current Öçalan affair in Istanbul is also due to the fact that we were not at first able to implement an asylum policy worthy of its name.
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Finally, in relation to the death penalty, please allow me to draw your attention and insist to you that your Presidency intervenes with all its powers in Istanbul as well as in Tehran, since in Tehran we know of thirteen judges who face the death penalty simply for having been accused of spying on behalf of Israel.
We are counting on you, Madam President.
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Applause
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<SPEAKER ID=95 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Haarder">
Madam President, it is an extremely difficult task to rebuild Kosovo without disempowering the population and undermining the self-supporting powers of that country.
It is even harder to rebuild relations between the Serbs and the Albanians which make it possible for the Serbian minority to remain in Kosovo.
This can only be achieved if legal proceedings are initiated against murderers, rapists and war criminals.
This is one of the genuinely difficult tasks.
The most difficult of all will be to secure long-term peace.
We must learn to combine the military iron gloves of NATO with the economic velvet gloves of the EU and provide co-operation and aid for economic and democratic development.
We in the EU must establish an anteroom to those Balkan states which intend to develop along the lines of democracy and the market economy.
If they hope to perhaps one day become members of the European Union, we can strengthen the democratic forces in the same way as was successful for other previous dictatorships in Southern Europe.
We must also provide humanitarian aid to Serbia, insofar as this can be achieved without supporting the Milosevic regime, and we must urge municipal leaders, private associations and others to work with the democratic forces in both Kosovo and Serbia.
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With regard to the reconstruction agency, I would like to thank Mr Fischler for his frankness.
I have seldom heard a Commissioner distance himself so clearly, and in such a well-reasoned manner, from a Council Resolution.
The Council has entered into a shameful, face-saving compromise for those who promised to locate the centre in Thessaloniki.
Now, the Headquarters will be in Thessaloniki, whilst those carrying out the work will be in Pristina.
What on earth is that all about?
I ask all the Union's citizens to note that it is therefore not the Commission and the Parliament but their own governments which cannot grasp something as simple as the fact that the reconstruction work in Kosovo must be carried out in Kosovo and from Kosovo.
We in the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party will vigorously contest the Resolution.
It simply won't do.
It must be amended.
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Applause
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<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ceyhun">
Mr President, in addition to Kosovo we are currently dealing with the Öçalan case as well, which we could in fact have handled better as Europeans if we hadn't made so many mistakes.
Abdullah Öçalan was in Italy. Abdullah Öçalan was in Greece.
My country, Germany, didn't want him.
He was not supposed to remain in Italy and neither did he wish to.
He was not permitted to be in Greece.
Now he is in Turkey.
Our collective failure in the Öçalan case makes it difficult for us to explain to many people in Turkey, irrespective as to whether they are Turks or Kurds, why we are against the death penalty in principle, and that, as Mr Swoboda has just said, we do not just oppose the death penalty on account of Mr Öçalan, but in principle.
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We challenge the Turkish Parliament to abolish the death penalty once and for all, because it is very much in our interest to welcome Turkey amongst us as a European country amongst equal partners.
For this reason, we are convinced that to use the death penalty in the Öçalan case would not be the right answer to the long-standing Kurdish question and certainly cannot be an alternative solution.
The Öçalan case could also be an opportunity for the people, for the Turks, for the Kurds in Anatolia and for the country, the Republic of Turkey, if the Turkish government and the Turkish Parliament only had the will for this to be so.
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In this respect, our resolution, which hopefully we will adopt tomorrow, is also an appeal to our Turkish colleagues in Ankara.
Working together, we could ensure that one day it will not be necessary to conduct debates in this exalted Chamber on a democratic Republic of Turkey.
I hope that together we will succeed in bringing this about.
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<SPEAKER ID=97 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Morgantini">
Mr President, between the devil of Milosevic and the deep blue sea of NATO: this is the feeling of most of the Serbian democratic opposition to Milosevic.
Between the violence of Serbian paramilitary forces, the intimidation and violence of the KLA and NATO bombs falling from the sky: this is the sentiment of those Kosovo Albanian troops who chose to fight for their rights without resorting to violence.
Against the NATO bombings and against nationalism and the homicidal and suicidal politics of Milosevic: this is the feeling of millions and millions of European men and women who hold the respect of human rights to be fundamental, wherever they have been violated: in Kosovo, Kurdistan, Palestine or Iran.
These are the democratic, peaceful forces which should have been supported by the international community.
Obviously, Milosevic had and has to be stopped, as the KLA had and has to be stopped, each responsible in different ways.
Now, after NATO has destroyed and laid waste in the name of the defence of human rights, we must rebuild.
We hope and wish to act in this Parliament so that construction takes place in such a way that human resources and the dignity of each side involved in the conflict are respected and valued during the process, and that colonisation by Europe or the United States World Bank is avoided.
Kosovo must be reconstructed with its present and past inhabitants - both Albanian and Serbian - as protagonists.
At the same time, Serbia and Montenegro and the infrastructures laid to waste and destroyed by air raids, must be rebuilt, and the damage to the environment investigated and remedied. The reconstruction of Kosovo must focus not only on the economy and trade, but also on the social, civil and democratic fabric.
To achieve this, reconstruction must be carried out through the involvement of local communities, with exchanges between municipalities, universities, men and women of the European Union, Kosovo and the Republic of Yugoslavia.
For the war to be truly erased from the picture, we must bring about reconciliation, create societies and build democracy. This is our challenge.
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<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Speroni">
Mr President, NATO intervened in Yugoslavia maintaining that they were defending Kosovans from Serb persecution, but no-one intervened to defend the Kurds from Turkish persecution.
This is the crux of the Öçalan issue: the fact that laws still exist in too many national legal codes which punish as a crime the exercising of peoples' rights to self-determination in its extreme form of secession, even when non-violent, democratic means are employed.
This is the meaning of Article 125 of the Turkish Penal Code, which, as Mr Kaleli, the Turkish ambassador, stated right here in Strasbourg, follows the example of Article 241 of the Italian Penal Code, which was issued at the time of the Fascists and is still in force.
Therefore, for as long as the European Parliament focuses its attention solely on whether Öçalan's death sentence will be enforced, without dealing with the question of peoples' rights to self-determination, it will scratch the surface of the problem but never manage to resolve it.
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<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
Mr President, I should very much like to congratulate the President of the Finnish Council Presidency on the statement she has just made, particularly with regard to the comments she made on Kosovo and the Balkans.
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As the Parliament of a union of democratic constitutional States how can we do otherwise than to advocate a just peace and reconciliation in that region, and particularly in Kosovo.
That is the heart of the matter and we have gained that insight particularly during the debates on and inquiry into the enlargement of the European Union, a democratic constitutional state, that is the heart of our movement, of our Union.
I also think that we are justified in saying that everything depends on this, both the safety of the citizens and the development of the economy in the regions concerned.
Nothing can be achieved when there is no constitutional state.
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I believe that we must also endeavour in earnest to see that particularly the other aspects associated with law and government in Kosovo are also given the attention they deserve.
It is about the safety of the citizens, and particularly those who are returning.
I should like in particular to draw your attention to the fact that there are perhaps 2000 or maybe more Kosovan prisoners who have been taken to Serbia by the withdrawing Serbian troops.
I feel that there should be no question of us leaving them to their fate, but that we in this Parliament, the Council and the Commission should give our full attention to the situation.
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Equally, if we are to see justice done then we will have to ensure that full co-operation is given to the International Tribunal in The Hague in order to pursue the criminals that have wrought havoc in Kosovo, and not just in Kosovo but now at last in Bosnia too.
Why have Karadzic and Mladic still not been arrested?
If that doesn't happen, Mr President, then we can more or less forget being able to achieve reconstruction in the region in any real sense.
If we talk about a Stability Pact then it isn't about gagging those who are screaming for justice, but about a just peace, and that demands action and not keeping serious crimes under wraps.
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I think that we should also urge parties and groups in Kosovo towards political participation in government.
That is why the resolution also states how important it is for Mr Rugova to be present in Kosovo.
On the subject of which, it will not do for the most important figures not to be present at all times when they too have a role to play in the process of political reconstruction, also perhaps in co-operation with other parties that have emerged from the KLA.
We are going to have to get everyone there wishing to take political responsibility used to the fact that they are responsible in an administrative sense, so that later on, when elections take place, the population will also be able to see whom it can trust.
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I think that the Stability Pact is of great importance for the wider region.
For far too long now, we as the European Union have taken measures, for example against Serbia, measures which were necessary but which were taken at no cost whatsoever to ourselves.
It was Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Romania, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the surrounding regions, which paid the price.
It is imperative that we offer financial compensation here, but by no means that alone.
We will also have to create economic opportunities so that the European Union, by taking a more generous stance, is able to recompense the economic damage done in this area.
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I believe that the whole process of development, also in terms of society, is of great importance.
The same applies to the insights we have gained from the enlargement process.
Democracy can only grow if the population truly experiences it.
I should like to close by quoting the Bishop of Kosovo: 'Nothing will ever become of Serbia unless it is transformed into a democratic constitutional state' .
The Parliament has never given up hoping for this.
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<SPEAKER ID=100 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wiersma">
<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Malmström">
Mr President, Madam Foreign Minister, it is shameful and deeply regrettable that now, just as so many other international problems begin to approach a solution, it has not yet been possible to treat the Kurdish question in a civilised way.
It continues to be a bleeding wound in our continent.
Despite international protests, including from this Chamber, the Turkish government continues not merely to refuse to recognise but also to systematically violate the basic rights of the Kurdish people.
Thousands of people have been killed and maimed in the long years of this conflict.
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The arrest and death sentence of the PKK leader Öçalan and the strong reactions caused by this have emphasised the need for a rapid solution.
Both Turkey and the Kurds must demonstrate the will to sit down at the conference table and must, in a peaceful and democratic way, find a solution in order to end the suffering.
Hopefully, the EU and the Finnish Presidency will be able to play an active role in this process.
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It goes without saying that all Members of the Parliament distance themselves from Öçalan's methods and actions.
I, nevertheless, believe that we are all ready to declare that capital punishment will not bring the problem closer to a solution.
Capital punishment can never be the answer to any problem.
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We Liberals will never cease to condemn this barbaric act wherever it may occur.
In those countries which have applied for membership of the Union and where capital punishment still exists we are currently witnessing how it is being abolished.
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Since we hope that Turkey also will be welcomed to the European Union within the next few years, we appeal to Turkey not only to suspend Öçalan's death sentence, but also to work towards the general abolition of capital punishment in Turkey.
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To conclude, I would like to urge the Turkish government on behalf of the Liberal Group to go even further and to use this opportunity in order to take the initiative for negotiations and to implement those reforms which are necessary in order to guarantee the political, human and cultural rights of the Kurds.
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<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Marset Campos">
Mr President, Madam Minister, I agree with you that the death sentence imposed on the Kurdish leader Mr Öçalan constitutes a significant challenge for the international community, since it violates minimum requirements in terms of justice as well as respect for human rights.
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Our group condemned both the violation of human rights on the part of Belgrade and the war by NATO against Yugoslavia, as an illegal, unjust and immoral war.
For this reason, despite the violation of human rights and the ethnic cleansing against the Kurds by the Turkish regime, our group does not request that the European Union nor NATO bomb Turkey.
We are prudent and we are sensible.
On the contrary, we believe that the two problems that you have mentioned - the death sentence and respect for the human rights of the Kurdish ethnic minority - require a peaceful, political solution.
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The death sentence against Mr Öçalan must be lifted.
In addition, the European Union must demand that the Turkish government maintains a dialogue with the Kurds, a dialogue which resolves the Kurdish claims for autonomy within Turkey, as well as respect for democratic rights.
In the same way that there are Autonomous Communities in Spain, Länder in Germany or Communities in Belgium, etc., there should also be a similar solution in Turkey for the Kurds, so that they may enjoy, in the same way that you have indicated in Finland, the ability to speak their own language, a free press reflecting their problems and a regional Parliament.
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To this end, we believe that the European Union and the European Parliament should react speedily and thoroughly, so that Turkey may embark on a democratic path and participate in this greater Europe which stretches from Portugal to Russia.
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<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Giannakou-Koutsikou">
Mr President, the programme of the Finnish Presidency, as presented, seems a very positive one, even though it does not differ greatly from the programmes of other Presidencies.
The question is whether or not there is the basic political will throughout the whole of Europe to ensure its progress.
Naturally, it is a welcomed sign that one of its long-term objectives is to advocate an Intergovernmental Conference which will deal with all institutional issues, in particular the hitherto largely unchecked issue of maintaining institutional balance.
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Of course, rebuilding Kosovo and intervention in the Western Balkans are matters requiring immediate attention but the question is: have we learned from past mistakes?
I have the feeling that European intervention and investment in the Balkans has remained very much on an individual rather than an institutional level.
If we fail to recognise our past mistakes, I do not think that we will be able to proceed in the future and it must be said that, from now on, it all boils down to whether we can deal with issues relating to democratic progress without the use of weapons.
That is what is important.
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As regards the issue of the reconstruction agency and of Thessaloniki, I would like to say that, whilst the solution may be a simple and straightforward one, let us not forget that we are primarily talking about European intervention.
When there is a neighbouring country - and the same would be true, Mr President, if the situation were in Hungary, in which case the base for intervention would probably be in Austria - the question is not only whether the latter can and should benefit but also whether those neighbouring countries which border problematic areas really can share their experience about what is happening in the area.
Therefore, this issue should be examined from a political, practical and commercial perspective.
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The security policy which the President referred to is, I believe, one of the most important issues but one which once again calls for political will.
We have decided to narrow the gap between high-sounding proclamations and the practicalities of their implementation.
Of course, all the organisations will work together and experience has it that wherever many international organisations are involved, we have had results.
Issues concerning freedom and security are of utmost importance.
Madam President, at the Tampere Council, we must decide to fight against drugs, organised crime and the threat to the safety of our citizens. We must also invest in the protection of citizens and not compromise with that 'dark side' which promotes closer links between terrorism, trade in arms and nuclear weapons and organised crime.
Generally, our policy must not be one of compromise with the status quo, but of war against it.
Only in this way can we ensure the protection of our citizens.
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The resignation of the Commission proves that we do not just need institutions - we also need the control mechanisms and the collective will to assign the European Commission the role it deserves. In addition, we have to fill the democratic void - not, as I see it, within the European Parliament but between the Council and the Commission.
We must return to the fundamental principles which advocate real co-ordination between social and economic policies.
We must intensify our social intervention, Madam President, since guidelines are not enough.
I am afraid that the problems are getting out of hand and our way of tackling them is far too bureaucratic.
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I wish, of course, to congratulate the Finnish Presidency for its ambitious programme.
We know that the Finnish Presidency will do all that it can.
The issue is whether the whole Council is determined, and if we are all determined for that matter, to meet the challenges of these difficult times of heavy competition and internationalisation, and to respond to all the problems, including Third World development, where the support of Europe is vital.
We also need to ensure the success of enlargement which can only be made possible, Madam President, if we increase our existing pool of resources.
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<SPEAKER ID=104 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Katiforis">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, I wish to welcome the Finnish Presidency for the usual reasons but also for particularly personal reasons.
During a particularly dark period of my country's history, when freedom of movement was effectively forbidden, Finland was the first country which I was able to visit using my journalistic immunity.
It was the first European country where I saw with my own eyes what democracy and socialism mean and what it means for a nation to live freely and not under military rule.
It was a great eye-opener for me and has remained with me throughout my life.
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Madam President, Finland is a country with great experience of surviving peacefully under difficult conditions and with difficult neighbouring countries. It is the ideal country to lead our increasingly urgent endeavours for Balkan reconstruction and already President Ahtisaari has contributed a great deal to this process.
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I regret that I cannot speak more on your very interesting programme, but unfortunately political issues have arisen here which I am obliged to comment on.
Firstly, Commissioner Fischler's attack on the decision to locate the reconstruction agency in Thessaloniki.
He suggested that this was just a means of getting aid for the area, meaning Greece.
I don't know when he last visited Thessaloniki but I can assure him that it is a thriving city and the establishment of this centre there will not necessarily add anything to the city.
Surely, however, it will be very economical for the European Union to establish the Centre in Thessaloniki. I don't know if the Commission has done its home-work and realised that the alternative would mean higher salaries, that there is no infrastructure in Pristina and that it would have to pay out a great deal to ensure the safety of its staff who would be in danger in an area where there is little safety.
So if you consider that, under these circumstances, Pristina is an ideal place to establish an international centre, a central administration covering not only Kosovo but also all of the Balkans, then I regret to say that your comments are not only insincere but are also politically motivated. It makes me wonder how a Commission which no longer has any political authority and whose ethical reputation has been largely discredited, particularly following the Bangemann case, dares to adopt such a stance and campaign against the decisions of the Council of Ministers.
I am dumbfounded, Mr Commissioner!
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As regards Turkey, Madam Minister, I personally wish to see Turkey heading in the direction of Europeanisation since that will be better for Greece.
I would agree with the need for a special strategy for Turkey but please take into consideration that a similar strategy of guarantees for Greece is required by the European Union.
Greece is the only country of the European Union whose borders are threatened and disputed by the very country which everyone - we Greeks included - truly wishes to welcome with open arms and to see become a European country.
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As regards Öçalan, now regarded by many as a terrorist - just as Arafat and the IRA were terrorists before we accepted them as leaders of their people - the least we can do for him, since the idea of political asylum seems to have fallen by the wayside, is, as our colleague so aptly put it, to save his life if that is what it takes to rid ourselves of the stigma that, up until now, has been attached to our conduct in the matter.
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Madam Minister, I apologise for not being able to stay for your reply as I have another urgent commitment, but I would like to send a few words of Finnish to your country: Minä rakastan sinua ( I love you).
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<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, today we have heard two Foreign Ministers speaking on the issue of Turkey.
We heard Mr Fischer, the great general of the European Union, who is in command of the incursions in the Balkans, speaking about Turkey and the only thing he said was that in Helsinki Turkey should be upgraded to a preaccession state.
What Mr Fischer seems to have forgotten, what he failed to recall, what just escaped him, was the Öçalan factor and, not least, the existence of 20 million Kurds in Turkey.
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The Finnish government minister made reference to the Öçalan case which was most encouraging.
But we must not limit ourselves to a few simple references in our speeches.
There are two very good reasons why the European Union should intervene proactively.
The first is that we were under the impression that it was interested in human rights both within the Balkans and further afield.
So, there are 2 million Kosovars, fine - but what about the 30 million or so Kurds?
The second reason is that the European Union is guilty of not granting asylum to Öçalan.
In this case, we need actual intervention, not words.
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I would like to end, Mr President, with a question to the President-in-Office of the Council of Foreign Ministers: If Turkey cannot give assurances for Öçalan's life and if Turkey does not take steps to ensure the political rights of the Kurds, then does the Finnish Presidency believe that Turkey should proceed to the preaccession stage in Helsinki?
I would like an answer from the Minister.
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<SPEAKER ID=106 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, firstly, I should like to congratulate Finland on the Presidency and I should also like to compliment the Finnish government on the sound and refreshing manner in which it is approaching this task.
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I shall not talk about Kosovo, for my colleagues Doris Pack and Arie Oostlander have already done that.
I want to say something about the rest of your programme, because there are a number of interesting points there too.
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Firstly, the problematic area relating to asylum seekers.
I understand that you are to organise a special summit on this subject.
For many years now, there have been calls for effective policies at the European level in this area and we too advocate improved harmonisation of our legislation in this field, both in terms of admission procedures and reception facilities.
We advocate improved distribution of asylum seekers across the European Member States so that it is not a case of a few Member States, and there are four or five of them, receiving the vast majority of asylum seekers and the others doing far too little.
If you see an opportunity to achieve something in this respect then I think you will have achieved something very worthwhile for Europe.
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A second point on your agenda is a transparent Europe free of fraud.
In my country, the Netherlands, we have a law on openness in government with maximum transparency and Finland has the same tradition.
I understand that a number of international researchers have recently produced an excellent proposal relating to openness of government and transparency for the European Union. I shall see that you receive this proposal.
It is a full regulation with explanatory notes, etc.
I hope that we shall at last have the opportunity to implement something of this kind.
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Then I saw to my surprise that you have also put the subject of taxation high on your agenda.
That is interesting, particularly with there being a new Commissioner from the Netherlands in that field.
I should like to recommend that you concentrate above all on taxation pertaining to trade and industry, for there is a great deal that needs to be brought into line there.
But I should also like to ask you to give attention to one particular area of income tax and that is the equal treatment of men and women.
The Parliament has been asking for this for more than ten years.
If you could make a first move in this respect and receive support from Mr Bolkestein then you will also be doing something very positive for Europe.
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To conclude, Mr President, the subject of human rights.
I have seen that you wish to undertake a number of endeavours in this field too.
Firstly, in relation to Yugoslavia.
I sincerely hope, and concur with Doris Pack and Arie Oostlander in this respect, that you take the opportunity to exert such pressure on Yugoslavia that those who have violated human rights there are indeed handed over to the Tribunal in the Hague.
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I also hope that you can prevent the death penalty from being carried out in Turkey for I believe that would be a disgrace for Europe.
Lastly, a subject I am particularly keen for you to give a great deal of attention to is Burma.
I hear that the Finnish Presidency has already organised a visit to Burma.
Earlier this week, a request was made for attention to be given to the subject.
I belong to the international committee that supports Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi.
I hope to travel to Thailand and Burma in three weeks' time and to speak to all parties concerned.
I sincerely hope that you will take the opportunity to at last bring about progress where Burma is concerned.
I think that you would receive a great deal of support from this Parliament.
I think that you would then have performed a valuable task for democracy in the ASEAN countries.
I wish you a great deal of luck and success.
It is your first Presidency but it appears to me that you really are going to do it well.
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<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Poos">
Mr President, although our hemicycle is largely empty, I do not want to miss this opportunity, from the benches of this Assembly, to greet and wish the best of luck to my former colleague, Tarya Halonen.
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There is a new Presidency, which does not resemble the last one very much, but shouldn't we point out some similarities nonetheless?
The German Presidency was concerned with putting together its key work, Agenda 2000, and faced two major crises, that of the Commission, and the much more serious one of the war in Kosovo.
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The Finnish Presidency has been entrusted by the European Council with a number of important projects which could be grouped together under the heading 'Preparation for Europe's Future' .
Indeed, if it manages to bring to a successful conclusion the Tampere Extraordinary Summit, which concerns the security of Europe's citizens, the preparation of a European defence system, through the integration of the WEU with the European Union, the launch of a new round of enlargement in December, and finally, the implementation of the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe, the Finnish Presidency will have been a great Presidency of transition for the 21st century.
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Finland, thanks to the commitment and tenacity of its President, Martti Ahtisaari, caused a shift in the mind set in Kosovo from one of war to one of peace.
Together with the German Presidency, the Finnish President clearly articulated Europe's voice at the opportune moment.
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In Kosovo, and throughout the region devastated by war, almost everything remains to be done: to guarantee an orderly return of the refugees, to build democratic institutions, to set up infrastructures, to reconstruct the economy and make it work.
Well, in order to overcome all of these challenges, the international community, particularly Europe, will have to commit a huge amount of human and financial resources.
Are we ready for that?
The necessary funds have not, of course, been provided for in the financial projections.
The sums of money which have been announced seem largely insufficient, and the ECO/FIN Council, as it has done many times before, is already questioning formal decisions taken elsewhere.
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If I have one piece of advice to offer you today, Mrs Halonen, one suggestion to make, it is that you should ensure that these words are followed up with action.
The great European plan for definitive peacemaking in the Balkans must not fall victim to complicated and penny-pinching calculations.
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<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Purvis">
Mr President, Kosovo is a small economy.
The European Union could subsidise Kosovo for ever and hardly notice it.
But surely this is not an acceptable solution.
As soon as possible, we must aim to have Kosovo stand on its own economic feet.
That inevitably means external trade.
However, there is a problem in redeveloping Kosovo's trade.
Its biggest trading partner in the past and almost certainly in the future must be its neighbour immediately to the north, Serbia proper.
Not only that but its trade routes to much of the rest of Europe past through Serbia.
And yet Serbia is a pariah, embargoed, its infrastructure largely destroyed, its economy shattered.
Here we have a conundrum: how do we get Kosovo to stand on its own feet unless we can rehabilitate Serbia also?
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The current international community's set purpose is that Milosevic and his regime must be got rid of and then everything is possible.
Until he goes, not a penny - well, we heard earlier, hardly a penny.
But what if Milosevic does not go?
Let us hope that he does, but if he does not, have we begun to estimate the cost of restoring Serbia's infrastructure and productive economy?
Remember, Serbia was a sizeable, developed industrial economy, a vital trading partner and transport corridor for Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Greece, as well as Kosovo and all the former Yugoslav Republics.
<P>
So my question to the President-in-Office of the Council and to the Commission is this: how far have you thought through the political steps, the economic and financial commitments that are needed to bring about a free and democratic Serbia and reintegrate a free and democratic Serbia into the European economy and body politic?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rothley">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, as rapporteur for the rules governing Members of Parliament, I would like to make a couple of observations.
In December 1998, the European Parliament adopted a statute with a qualified majority, a decision which was confirmed in May of this year by an overwhelming majority.
We therefore have a statute, all that is now required is the approval of the Council.
It is not enough that the Council submits an alternative draft.
That is no solution.
I would like to remind you that the European Commission has unequivocally approved the statute of the European Parliament.
<P>
Permit me to make a few observations regarding the principles which will govern our actions.
One thing is for sure; this statute will not be drawn up by the press, be it the Swedish press, the British press, the Dutch press or that of any other country.
Not even the highly regarded French daily Libération will write this statute, nor shall we allow ourselves to be governed by a statute produced by civil servants.
We are not children who can be taken to task; we shall not be harassed by civil servants.
<P>
Therefore, I would recommend that the Finnish Presidency gently shelves the Council document.
We will not place ourselves in the Babylonian Captivity of the Council.
We will preserve the Parliament's autonomy and reject any type of guardianship over the Parliament.
<P>
Applause
<P>
We shall make constructive proposals to the Finnish Presidency.
I look forward to initial talks taking place at the beginning of September.
My request to the Finnish Presidency is that the talks, which will be necessary, be conducted at the highest possible political level.
In this way, I believe the success we are after will be achieved as soon as possible.
<P>
Mr President, we are pinning high hopes on the Finnish Presidency.
We are also pinning our hopes on the Finnish Presidency as far as the European Parliament's involvement in drawing up the catalogue of fundamental rights is concerned.
The Council cannot seriously be considering the option that only two members of Parliament collaborate on this catalogue of fundamental rights.
Without a minimum of 15 delegates, an imbalance will exist between the European Parliament and the national Members of Parliament, where such a balance is required.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Morillon">
Madam Minister, since 11 February, when our Parliament reacted to the first news of the massacres in Kosovo, it has ceaselessly denounced the atrocities committed in that province, caught up again in that hellish spiral of violence and fear which has caused so much suffering through the systematic violation of a human being's most basic rights, one of the first of which is that of being able to stay in the place where one was born, and to retain the culture one has grown up with.
<P>
The dynamic reaction of the Union's governments has been supported by the large majority of European citizens.
Public opinion can be congratulated for the fact that, for the first time in centuries, a war has been fought, not in the defence of national or private interests, but in order that what is right should triumph.
If many of us feared seven years ago, that Europe had been killed in Sarajevo, our President is all the more right when he says this morning that a new Europe should be born in Pristina.
<P>
However, the political aim, which caused us to resort to force, is still far from being achieved.
Peace needs to be rebuilt there.
Allied soldiers, with their Russian partners, are on the ground to calm people's fears and in time, to allow reconciliation to take place.
They will only be effective if the whole of Europe, and its Parliamentary representatives at the highest level are up to the task of taking over from them.
Nicole Fontaine committed herself this morning to contributing personally to this undertaking.
I think that I am speaking on behalf of most of this Assembly when I say that we approve of this initiative, and that many of us would like to join her in this.
<P>
It has been said that Parliament should provide itself with the means for this action through its budgetary powers.
This is the message that several of us were expecting, because we were worried to discover the absence of any specific funds and feared that in these circumstances we might be tempted to rob Peter to pay PauI by sacrificing steps which were considered essential at the time the budget was set.
I am therefore repeating the request that our colleague, Mr Poos, has just made.
We know that the healthy management of the budget during the last Parliamentary term has left us with sufficient means to deal with Kosovo's immediate needs.
We fervently hope that this will be done.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Ferrer">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, repairing the dramatic material and, above all, moral consequences of the Kosovo drama, collaborating with the International Criminal Court so that the crimes committed do not go unpunished, laying down the foundations for the economic development of the area so as to promote reconciliation between the Kosovan Albanian and Serbian populations, must be matters of the utmost priority for the European Union.
Another priority must be the promotion of enlargement in order to safeguard the peace and political stability of the continent.
To this end I have heard, Madam President, with satisfaction, that both issues are political priorities of the Presidency, together with the creation of a catalogue of human rights.
<P>
I was also satisfied to hear, passing on to other matters, although no less important, of its concern about the creation of jobs and improvements in the well-being of our citizens.
In the global world of today, job-creation measures, in order to be genuinely effective, must be adopted within a global framework.
Hence the need for this Presidency to pay particular attention also to the preparation of the next Millennium round.
Not only to continue with the deregulation of world trade, but also to provide instruments with which to fight fraud and dishonest commercial practices and to guarantee reciprocal compliance with the regulations governing international trade to achieve the simplification and generalisation of customs procedures under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation, in order, in a word, that the opening up of markets may constitute a genuine opportunity which will create jobs and contribute to the well-being of the citizens of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Bowis">
Mr President, most of the contributions in this debate have been about the big global issues that appear on our television sets.
I want to raise something with the Presidency which was in the small print of her remarks.
It is something which affects millions of our fellow citizens in Europe, not once in a while, but every day of every year, and that is mental illness.
I was so pleased when the Finnish Government decided to make mental health promotion one of their priorities for their presidency.
That is welcome. It is important.
<P>
It is important because as the World Bank showed, this is the fastest growing area of health burden throughout the world.
It is important because as the United Nations has declared, it is to be one of the priorities for the UN for the next fifty years, as declared by Boutros-Boutros-Ghali, Secretary General.
It is important because, as the Harvard World Bank report showed, mental disorder accounts for some 10.5 % of the global health burden and that is forecast to rise to 15 % by the year 2020.
<P>
It is important because five of the ten leading causes of disability are psychiatric, with the first of those, unipolar depression, accounting for some 10 % of life with disability.
It is important because psychiatric and neurological conditions cause 28 % of lives with disability.
It is important because suicide is the tenth most important cause of death in the world - in the United Kingdom it is the ninth, ahead of road accidents.
<P>
It is important because surveys show that one in three people visiting their doctors have a mental health problem but only one in six are diagnosed as such.
It is important because one in seven of us have a mental health problem at any one time.
One in three of us will during our lifetime.
It is not a forgettable minority.
Nothing is more important among all the Finnish pledges than their pledge to take up the cause of people and their families who suffer not just an illness or a disability but disadvantage and stigma too.
<P>
We need to encourage good mental health.
We need to help prevent illness and we need to educate peoples and governments in Europe that mental illness is not to be feared, not to be ignored.
It can be cured, it can be treated and millions of our fellow citizens can lead full and fulfilled lives if we...
<P>
The President cut the speaker off
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Harbour">
I would also like to commend the Finnish Presidency on another of their initiatives which is the attention they are giving to the development of the information society.
This issue is going to affect the lives of every citizen in the European Union.
We have crucial decisions to make in the Union and in the regulation of information technology over the next five years.
<P>
I am very much hoping that the Finnish Presidency will give us the right framework within which those decisions will be taken.
I would just like to set out some pointers for that.
<P>
The first pointer is that it is quite clear that technology runs ahead of politicians.
I cannot resist pointing out, Mr President, that we do not yet have computers or Internet access in this splendid building.
Indeed, I suspect that many of our colleagues are not as literate in technology as they should be, but that technology is going to have a huge effect on opening up the single market and we must make sure, first of all, that legislation does not restrict the ability of people to innovate and introduce changes and new forms of electronic commerce.
<P>
Secondly, we must ensure that consumers powerfully use this technology.
The information society is going to be one in which consumers have tremendous power to shop all over the world and particularly within the boundaries of the single market.
I have to say that over the next five years the power of electronic commerce will act more quickly to create the single market than any amount of harmonising legislation that we might care to introduce in this Chamber or anywhere else.
It will be crucial in creating the single market.
Finally, of course, it will create jobs.
Electronic commerce is giving small entrepreneurs access to global markets cheaply, quickly and effectively.
It is encouraging the development of new forms of small business and we must continue to allow those new businesses to grow.
<P>
And so, in conclusion, Mr President, Finland with its great strength in computers and communications is ideally placed to lead us.
There are three words I would leave you with if I may - openness, flexibility and innovation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Halonen">
- (FI) Mr President, time and again, we will return to those issues that have been raised here in these two hours or so.
I apologise sincerely for not being able to respond to all the excellent, well-considered and immensely important speeches that we have heard here today.
I have solved the time problem to some extent by addressing some of the issues that have been touched on by the majority of members in my response.
<P>
Firstly, the situation in the Balkans. In September, when I come to the committee meeting here I shall certainly be once more engaged in the same discussion.
However, I would like to answer two questions.
Firstly, the position on the Commission's agency in Thessaloniki, which has been expressed here, comes as no surprise.
The Commission expressed the same position in the General Affairs Council.
The General Affairs Council made a unanimous decision, which you are aware of, and which I mentioned in my speech.
<P>
We begin from the position that the European Union will approach the issue of stability in the Balkans on a regional basis.
Accordingly, the headquarters will be in Thessaloniki.
However, the centre of operations, the first of such, will be in Pristina and there will be more of them in other regions as and when facilities improve.
I sincerely hope that we, the Commission and you yourselves will achieve consensus on this matter.
As far as I am aware, we have a tradition that when the Heads of our Governments and States come to a decision on an issue at a summit, be it a regular or extraordinary meeting, we strive in the General Affairs Council to find a way of implementing that decision.
This is what was done in the case of the Thessaloniki office as well as with regard to the broader plan and Hombach.
As the country holding the Presidency, we shall strive to implement, as I said, all those decisions we need in respect of Sarajevo and the future.
In every respect I agree that we have to avoid excessive bureaucracy.
That is not the right way to provide employment for the citizens of the European Union.
But we do need a sufficient number of skilled officials to take care of the operation.
As for the other matters, I would just like to say briefly that despite all the help we shall give the region, ultimately the responsibility obviously lies with the people there themselves.
We will only be providing them with support.
<P>
Serbia is a part of the Balkans.
For this reason, we have looked at great length into ways of helping Serbia to achieve democracy as quickly as possible.
One condition of the return to democracy is freedom of opinion.
In this I agree with what has been said here regarding the safety of those who are speaking for freedom of opinion and also the proposal that we should create, through various means, a structure to support real freedom of opinion for this country.
<P>
The war is behind us, but the peace has to be built.
For this, we shall also need peacekeeping forces.
Finland is not a Member State of NATO, though you might perhaps have formed the opinion she was, from some of the speeches we have heard.
But Finland respects the choice of those eleven EU Member States who do belong to NATO.
Finland, which has a population of five million, is making its contribution by sending eight hundred peacekeepers to Kosovo.
You may compare that figure in terms of the population of your own country.
In my opinion, we should all share in the task of ensuring that the Balkan region is secure.
But as I said before, for this we need a non-military option in addition to the military one.
In this connection, I would like to acknowledge the role played by Denmark for being the first country to allude clearly to this issue in the resolution passed at the Cologne Council meeting.
Denmark was the country to make the proposal, but Finland is the country which, as holder of the Presidency, will promote this worthy initiative as vigorously as possible in co-operation with others.
<P>
I would also like to mention that the International War Crimes Tribunal is, in our opinion, extremely important, and the tribunal dealing with war crimes in Yugoslavia is a special partner in co-operation for us.
We have been co-operating together in Kosovo ever since the report was put together on the mass killings at Racak, when the expert opinion of Finnish coroners was used.
We believe this policy is a coherent one.
<P>
Next, I will briefly mention the Tampere Summit again.
We will strive to strike a balance, a very delicate balance, between human rights and the question of security.
The Tampere meeting will be preceded by an independent meeting of non-Governmental organisations, and we, for our part, wish to offer them our support, while obviously respecting their independent status.
The European Union must not be allowed to become a fortress: it must be both strong and open at the same time.
This is the principle upon which we will operate, with respect to the Tampere Summit also.
The rights of minorities are a weak area in established democracies also, whatever aspect of minorities they are concerned with.
I wish to call attention to the fact that there is often room for improvement in all our countries when it comes to the status of ethnic minorities.
The Roma are a European minority with no host country to speak up for them when their rights are being violated.
I have been in touch with the foreign ministry in Slovakia, one of the applicant countries, and we have begun talks on how the issue may be solved from their point of view.
But there is no cause for complacency: the status of the Romain Europe is by no means good.
In addition, the situation regarding the rights of minorities in Turkey has been mentioned here.
I spoke of it in my speech, and the Kurdish question will most certainly be a subject for debate here very often in the future, when we shall strive to find a way to improve the situation.
<P>
As for enlargement, we shall accept with seriousness the challenge this presents while Finland holds the Presidency.
As I must respect the order of business I cannot go into this question in any great detail now as it would take up too much time. But I would like to assure you of two things.
We shall treat the applicant countries as impartially as possible, on the basis of the Commission's reports, and we shall try to make our decisions wisely so that the applicant countries will feel they have made progress according to their individual merits, believing the process to be fair, efficiently undertaken and conducive to the common good.
For this reason, we Finns have never made promises in connection with timetables any more than we have regarding other matters.
However, in our opinion, enlargement is a special issue, and we will do everything within our power in the area of institutional reform to move it along.
Institutional reforms must be introduced in such a way that the Union can live with them even when the number of Member States has exceeded twenty.
<P>
Finally, I have to commend the many here who have spoken of a socially and ecologically strong Europe.
That gives me hope.
I mentioned it today to a group representing young people in Europe, who met me, as a representative of the European Union, at a writing competition award ceremony.
I assured them that we would be giving consideration to the issue of youth, although there is no longer any special portfolio attached to this issue.
Issues of youth can be successfully dealt with by means of mainstreaming, just as effectively as, for example, issues of gender equality, aged people, as has been touched upon here, and other such matters.
I believe that we have to discuss the matter again with the new Commission, and also with you here in the European Parliament.
<P>
I have tried to be as brief as possible to keep to the schedule, and in keeping with the spirit of the new, efficient European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12.00 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Position of Mr Bangemann
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="President">
The next item on the agenda concerns the statements by the Council and the Commission on the appointment of Martin Bangemann to a post in the private sector.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, right at the start, I would also like to congratulate you on your election to this Parliament.
I wish you all every success in the discharge of your demanding duties.
As a representative of the country that now holds the Presidency, I shall be personally present at the part-session in September.
I really appreciate having the opportunity to work together with you all.
<P>
In a letter from him dated 9 June, Mr Bangemann, then Member of the Commission, informed the then President of the Commission, Gerhard Schröder, of his intention to enter the service of a private telecommunications company, the Spanish firm Telefónica .
The Council immediately looked into the matter, deciding on 9 July to take the case to the European Court of Justice, on the basis of Article 213 (2(3)) of the EC Treaty and the regulations contained in the ECSC Treaty and the Euratom Treaty.
<P>
Under the EC Treaty, Members of the Commission must make a solemn declaration, when commencing their duties, that they will honour their obligations of membership, during their term of office and after it has ended, and behave with integrity and discretion, in the acceptance, after their term of office has ended, of certain appointments or benefits.
<P>
In the view of the Council, Mr Bangemann, who has, since 1992, been the Commission Member expressly responsible for telecommunications, was in breach of the regulations.
The Council believes he was under an obligation to decline Telefónica's offer.
The Court will decide whether the Member of the Commission was in breach of the EC Treaty or not.
While handling the Bangemann case, the Council noticed with satisfaction how swiftly the future President of the Commission was to act after the case was brought.
It is the common objective of the Council, the future President of the Commission, Romano Prodi, and all the candidates for membership of the Commission to prevent the repetition in future of similar conflicts of interest, such as that which occurred in the Bangemann case.
Professor Prodi, in his own programme of reforms for the Commission, has stressed the need for transparency, efficiency and accountability.
When he spoke earlier today here in the European Parliament, he told us what demands he would be making in practice on the Members of the new Commission.
For example, there will be clear rules for new Members regarding what sort of posts would be appropriate for them to take up on departure from the Commission.
<P>
Members of the Commission must also, if requested, allow an independent ethics committee to investigate any future post up to a year after they have ceased to hold office, to ensure the new job is compatible in its nature with the work of the Commission.
<P>
The Council and its President warmly support the rules on behaviour that Romano Prodi has given notice of, and they are a good start on the road to comprehensive reforms.
Besides the Members of the Commission, all others in the service of the institutions of the Union must be able to demonstrate that they are adhering to the principle of transparency and complying with commonly accepted rules of behaviour.
I am happy to note that the Commission has acted in accordance with the wishes of both the Council and Parliament and begun preparations to alter rules relating to personnel policy.
We need precise rules.
Only credible reforms will bring the Commission and the Union as a whole closer to the public and increase the confidence of our citizens in the Union and its institutions.
<P>
Mr President, as Finland is bilingual, I will conclude my contribution in Swedish.
<P>
As President of the European Union, Finland will place great emphasis on openness, efficiency and accountability.
The reform process has been initiated in all institutions, which is due, amongst others, to the European Parliament, which on various occasions has drawn attention to these problems.
On the other hand, there is still a lot to be done.
I hope that all EU institutions take responsibility by showing the necessary readiness to undergo reform in this work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
Can I join Mr Sasi in congratulating Members of the House on the election that they achieved to this Parliament and particularly congratulate, as Mr Sasi did, the new Members of the House?
I hope that they will find their tasks and their career here are both fascinating and fulfilling in the service of the people who have elected them.
<P>
The resolution for debate relates to specific events and to principles concerning the conduct of Commissioners.
I will therefore respond on behalf of the Commission by reporting briefly on those events and on the Commission's reaction to them.
<P>
On 29 June 1999, the President of the Commission, Mr Santer was made aware of the decision of Mr Bangemann to depart from the Commission in order to take up a private sector appointment two days later on 1 July 1999.
Mr Santer wrote to Mr Bangemann on 30 June 1999 informing him that he would be put on functional leave and that his responsibilities would be transferred to a colleague in the Commission.
In that letter, Mr Santer stipulated that Mr Bangemann could not commence his new duties and his new activities until the procedure set out in Article 215 of the Treaty had been completed and he also said that he would submit to the College the question of the compatibility of that planned appointment with Article 213 of the Treaty.
<P>
On 1 July 1999, the Commission discussed the matter before beginning its formal scheduled meeting.
Mr Bangemann attended those proceedings and stated that he had not acted and would not act in ways that breached Article 213.
The Commission formally took note of those statements from Mr Bangemann.
<P>
The House will be familiar with Article 213 which, amongst other things, requires Members of the Commission in particular 'to behave with integrity and discretion as regards the acceptance, after they have ceased to hold office, of certain appointments'.
All Commissioners, Mr President, appear before the Court of Justice to swear an oath to that effect on taking up office.
<P>
At the meeting held on 1 July 1999, Commissioners expressed their views to Mr Bangemann and he then withdrew from the room.
Commissioners subsequently considered the issues raised by these events and their conclusions are set out in a statement which was published on 1 July 1999 and extensively reported.
<P>
On 9 July 1999, as the House will have heard from Mr Sasi, the Council decided to refer this case to the Court of Justice under Article 213 of the Treaty and, following that decision, it is now for the Court to pronounce on the matters.
Honourable Members will understand that the case is therefore now sub judice and the Commission consequently has to abstain from public comment on it.
<P>
As a general indication of the view of the Commission on the issues posed by the motion before the House, I refer Honourable Members to the concluding paragraph of the Commission's statement of 1 July 1999 which expressed the view 'that it would be advisable for the future to clarify the implementation of Article 213 regarding Commission members' activities after they have ceased to hold office'.
<P>
The Commission consequently notes that on 17 July 1999 the President and Commission-designate agreed upon and published a draft Code of Conduct for Commissioners.
As the House will have seen from press reports, that document specifies clear compulsory requirements for future Commissioners who intend to engage in any occupation during the year after they leave office to inform the Commission of their intentions in good time.
It further provides for a procedure of examination and decision-making that includes the specific power of the Commission to refer the matter to an ethics committee when a Commissioner's planned occupation is related to his or her portfolio.
<P>
The House may also wish to know that, in the course of discussions this month, Members of the existing Commission who have always fully respected their solemn undertaking to meet the obligations of integrity and discretion have readily and voluntarily reaffirmed that commitment.
To them, as to me of course, it is axiomatic.
<P>
The House will be aware that the composite version of the resolution for debate before this Parliament today was produced this morning in keeping with usual practice.
The Commission has therefore had no opportunity to discuss the specific call in the motion for resolution for current Commissioners to respect voluntarily the new Code of Conduct.
I have, however, consulted the acting President, Mr Marín, and can inform the House that this issue will receive the attention of the Commission at its meeting next week.
<P>
I have sought to respond to the motion for debate as fully as possible whilst respecting the fact that the case which prompted the question is now sub judice .
<P>
I know that the House will share my awareness of the fact that this debate and my later response to it will need to take account of that obvious legal consideration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="Elles">
Mr President, it is clear that in our European Union today changes are underway, particularly in the Commission, as a result of the refusal to give discharge for the 1996 budget and then the consequent and ultimate mass resignation of the Commission.
Everything in that particular story showed where codes of conduct had begun to be discussed and debated.
Indeed the acting President, Mr Santer, had put out a Code of Conduct for Commissioners and officials but it seemed it did not go far enough.
Everything in the story was too little, too late.
From the comments of Commissioner Kinnock, the Commission might examine this tomorrow or next week.
It is always in the same kind of vein.
<P>
This applies also to the question of a Code of Conduct for high level officials because in the Commission over the last few years there has indeed been lax management in internal organisation as was underlined by the Wise Men's report.
This is why we were calling earlier today for the second part of that report to be available to us so we have as much information available to us when we come to the hearings in early September for the incoming Commission.
<P>
One simple example which I can give the House of the internal games which were played by the heads of cabinets - not the Commissioners - on one particular staffing matter goes to show how these things were handled.
ESPRIT, an important information technology programme designated under Mr Bangemann at the beginning of the Commission as it was in early 1995, was transferred from originally DG XIII which was under Mrs Cresson to Mr Bangemann.
Lo and behold, in 1998, this was then shifted back to Mrs Cresson without any formal Commission decision - it was just decided as a game between the cabinets.
How much time, energy and problems were caused for staff in the running of a programme simply because the Commissioners did a deal between themselves which was not transparent, not effective and certainly unaccountable to us here in the European Parliament.
<P>
I come to this particular case of Mr Bangemann.
It is to us extraordinary insensitivity at this particular time, in this current climate, when you have an acting Commission, that someone can, in that particular state of office simply say two days later he wants to go and work for a private company which is one of the major operators in the field for which he is responsible in telecommunications.
It could be argued that Mr Bangemann is not doing anything strictly wrong because there was not an enforceable Code of Conduct.
But the Statute is very generous to Commissioners.
Is not 80 % of salary for five years enough to satisfy someone's need for financial back-up and to make sure that they do not need the extra finance which a company like Telefónica is giving?
<P>
We unanimously support in our group the Council's decision for this case to go to the Court of Justice.
We are particularly hopeful that they will look at the suspension of pension rights for the Commissioner in this instance, particularly while he is engaged in a private company.
What it leaves for us is a reflection of the disregard of certain members of the outgoing Commission for the need to have a rigorous approach to high standards in public life.
<P>
We therefore welcome the statement by the incoming President, Mr Prodi, that there will now be codes of conduct applied rigorously, but we have heard this before.
This is what worries us.
We want to be able to see these codes of conduct effectively applied so as to make sure not only that the people at the top accept political responsibility, but also that we have high quality management right the way down so that people can be appointed for what they know rather than who they know.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council on his first appearance, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I asked the question on the Bangemann case because I thought it raised a matter of great topical importance, that of the ethical behaviour of public officials.
We are not only judging a Commissioner whose behaviour has been unacceptable. We are talking about a former Member of this Parliament, a distinguished parliamentarian who was even a leader of the Liberal Group in the European Parliament, a former German Minister for the Economy and a Commissioner with a long record of service.
We must start with the freedom of people and the fact that we are all in public service voluntarily, and the ex-Commissioner cannot claim ignorance of this.
<P>
I welcome the Council's decision on this case - and I believe it has been a quick one - as well as the Commission's explanations with regard to its actions in this case, which have been enormously speedy.
It is clear - while I respect the fact that it is still sub judice - that the acceptance of the post offered to him by Telefónica represents an obvious conflict of interests.
We simply have to remember the role played by Mr Bangemann in the Commission's revised proposal on royalties and the information society, the pressure applied by Telefónica to introduce changes to the proposed Directive previously rejected by Parliament, Telefónica 's active policy with regard to penetrating the media, and also in relation to charges.
And I could mention other cases, such as the case of the Internet.
<P>
Mr President, I know from my own experience what the Telefónica company represents in Spain.
I was Minister in this area during the 80s and I can tell you that in Spain it is more significant than the Society of Jesus.
Telefónica has been a monopoly from the beginning and has been privatised incredibly quickly, it has been put into the hands of an ex-college associate of the present Spanish Prime Minister, the whole privatisation having been highly questionable.
But it still holds a dominant position in the Spanish market-place and an international profile, which means that this is not a purely Spanish matter.
<P>
What is there at the moment to prevent Mr Bangemann from using any confidential or strategically sensitive information about Telefónica 's competitors that he has obtained through his status as Commissioner?
There is no answer to this question and it is truly serious.
I therefore believe that we should draw up codes of conduct which include standards of political decency applicable in all of our countries.
At the moment, as we have been reminded, the Commissioners now have a suspension of three years to rebuild their professional life without having to sell themselves to the highest bidder.
<P>
Allow me, Mr President, to conclude with something which relates to the end of the last legislature and the beginning of this one.
In the Committee on Budgetary Control, certain examples of the behaviour of the ex-Commissioner were presented.
However, these were not used, even in the light of the report of the Committee of Experts, an inquisitorial campaign against certain Commissioners was preferred - and in one case I would say there was sexual discrimination because the Commissioner was a woman.
Since highly critical things have been said here in this Chamber, who is going to restore the honour of those Commissioners?
<P>
In any event, I believe that, in view of the locations we have for this Parliament and in the Union, this is an experience which must not be repeated because, in the end, black sheep are found in unexpected places.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="van der Laan">
Mr President, I am delighted to be making my first intervention under your Presidency.
<P>
Mr President, on 10 June, all Europeans suffered an electoral defeat.
By not voting, many people made it clear that they no longer have any faith in Europe as it now is.
That is why it is an absolute priority for our group to restore our citizens' faith in Europe so that we are able to meet the challenges of the coming five years with credibility.
For the same reason, my group finds it incomprehensible that Commissioner Bangemann should choose precisely this moment to take an extremely dubious step in his career.
Unfortunately, this affair confirms the view that nothing will ever change in Europe.
Whereas the whistleblowing official Paul van Buitenen is still waiting for his reputation to be rehabilitated, those at the top, such as Mr Bangemann, are evidently able to go about their affairs in the usual way.
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We democrats seek to restore the people's faith in Europe, which is no small challenge.
That is why every European slip-up must be tackled, irrespective of who is responsible for it.
Consequently, my group heartily endorses the fact that the Council intends to present this case to the Court of Justice.
However, it would have been more fitting if the President of the European Commission had taken this step himself.
This would have signalled an ability to put its own house in order, which would have been most welcome in view of recent events.
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<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Mr President, esteemed colleagues, I could make things easy for myself and side with the previous speakers.
They are certainly right when they say that Mr Martin Bangemann, in his own inimitable manner, has succeeded in permanently damaging not only the reputation of the Commission and the Parliament but also the European ideal itself.
The electorate, the citizens out there in our countries, cannot always clearly distinguish between the Commission, the Parliament and the Council.
They frequently get the institutions mixed up and we now have a situation where people at home refer to us as 'you over there, you in Brussels who are always corrupt, lining your own pockets and so on' .
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We now have to painstakingly rebuild, together with the new Commission, that which Mr Bangemann destroyed.
What does this tell us about Mr Bangemann when he acts in such a manner?
It is imperative that the courts deal with this matter since, casting our minds back to the case of Ignacio Lopez at Volkswagen, this sort of insider knowledge is actually tantamount to a criminal act when an individual gains employment in another area so soon afterwards.
This should also be borne in mind.
<P>
This Mr Bangemann, however, was also sent here on two occasions by Kohl's government.
In this regard, I would like to clear up the myth once and for all that the opposition in Germany also always provides a Commissioner.
That was the case the first time with Mrs Wulf-Mathies, and only then.
I would like to ask Mr Poettering, who of course is no longer here: Where was his Party when it came to controlling their own Commissioner?
He was hardly acceptable as Minister for Industry and Commerce.
He has again been kicked out by the Liberal faction in the European Parliament.
As Commissioner, he was very often controversial.
Remember the business with the yacht.
This is also relevant here.
I welcome enormously the fact that the new President of the Commission, together with his new Commission, which we still have to approve, wishes to introduce different rules to the game.
Of course, simply signing a Code of Conduct won't make any difference. We also have to lay down legally binding and documented sanctions in this regard.
<P>
We can not accept it when someone says: 'Well, my reputation may have been called into question but, in any case, I am free to do what I like once my time in office is up' .
In this regard, it is down to us, among others, in our positions as Members of Parliament, to fight for clear statutes and rules of the game, and to elaborate on these, since no one benefits from simply throwing stones at others whilst overlooking the fact that we ourselves sometimes sit in glass houses.
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Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Markov">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Bangemann's decision to accept a position on the board of directors of Telefónica represents an unacceptable breach of political ethics.
Such behaviour endangers the reputation of European institutions and engenders reservations on the part of citizens towards the European Union.
This makes it all the more pressing to take effective measures in the fight against corruption and to introduce clear and open regulations for the proper application of Article 213 of the Treaty.
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Legally binding regulations must be created, similar to those in private industry, which contain a competition clause or a competition restraint clause in employment contracts.
Naturally, Mr Bangemann has to take personal responsibility for his actions, but a policy geared towards economic interests as a matter of priority and, unfortunately, towards the business management interests of large concerns, also as a matter of priority, poses the inevitable risk that their leading representatives, as those putting this policy into practise, adopt the same attitude, thereby devoting themselves to maximising their personal profit, in violation of every moral code.
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In order that an example can be made of Mr Bangemann for future generations as an unfortunate, one-off practitioner of amoral behaviour, the case against the former leader of the FDP, the party which, typically enough, carries the nickname in Germany 'Party of the Self-seekers' , must be upheld at the European Court of Justice.
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<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, the Europe of Nations Group finds the attitude of Commissioner Bangemann, the Commissioner for Telecommunications in the previous Commission - or in the present one, we are not too sure of his exact position - completely unacceptable. This same Commissioner Bangemann has just accepted an extremely well-paid job on the board of a company involved in his area of responsibility.
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We think that the Council of Ministers was right to inform the Courts of Justice, in accordance with article 213 of the Treaty, which prohibits Commissioners from accepting, even after leaving their posts, jobs which would place them in an awkward position, given their obligations to be honest and sensitive in these matters.
<P>
One of these obligations which I feel should be mentioned in particular, as it is not mentioned often enough, is that of professional secrecy, which, in accordance with Article 287 of the Treaty, applies to Commissioners indefinitely after leaving office.
Indeed, I do not see how Mr Bangemann could act as a director of Telefónica without using, directly or indirectly, confidential information which he has acquired over the last few years.
<P>
The Union for a Europe of Nations Group finds that the new Code of Conduct, touched on by Mr Prodi, is not up to the job.
The one year minimum period which would relieve the Commissioners of their obligations after leaving office, seems far too short.
In addition to this, potential penalties should be made much more severe, and could even include the returning of salaries paid to them during their time in office at the Commission.
<P>
The stakes are high, dear colleagues.
We must know whether or not we can take decisions at a European level which reflect the opinions of the citizens of Europe and not those of economic or financial lobby-groups.
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There is more.
The indifference of Commissioner Bangemann, who has not even had the decency to wait just a few months until the Commission's agony is over, shows the extent to which there is a feeling within this institution, of being above the law and above public opinion.
This type of behaviour casts serious doubts, in retrospect, on many past decisions.
This must be put right as a matter of urgency, particularly before the forthcoming international negotiations at the Millennium round which will be fundamental to Europe's interests.
In order to put things right though, Mr President, we will need more than a new Code of Conduct.
The control of whole European institutions will have to be given back to the people, and the first step in this direction is to give this control back to their national parliaments.
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<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Krarup">
This case is interesting.
It reveals totally rotten law and no less rotten policy.
I consider that these persistent colleagues, who are keen to give their own ruling in the case brought before the Court, thus pre-empting the course of events by pronouncing a judgment without court proceedings, in obvious violation of Article 213, and depriving the man of his pension rights, are usurping a function which is rightly a matter for the courts.
It is rotten law and it is rotten policy.
However, I will take another starting point and say that I, representing the Danish opponents of the Union, the People's Movement against the EU, owe Mr Bangemann a debt of gratitude.
It was Mr Bangemann who, as a Commissioner in 1992, spoke the truth concerning the Maastricht project.
The truth which is evident today, namely that the large States have unlimited power and outrageous dominance over small, less fortunate States such as the State which I represent, Denmark.
It was Mr Bangemann who, in this way, secured the Danish 'no' to the Maastricht Treaty on 2 June 1992, which put the skids under the process which we call the democratisation process.
We now owe Herr Bangemann a debt of gratitude for yet another eye-opener.
Mr Bangemann has breached a few regulations, but we are not here to defend Telefónica' s competitors.
We are not here to reproach Mr Bangemann for damaging trust in this project.
Mr Bangemann simply transgressed the very, very broad and flexible boundaries of greed and the merging of private and public, which is a vital part of the European Union.
Mr Bangemann's offence is that he has made this fundamentally corrupt system visible, so that any European voter could see it and therefore choose to stay at home on voting day, as most people did between 10 and 13 June, thus depriving this assembly of any form of democratic legitimacy.
That was all I wanted to say.
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<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="Read">
Mr President, it is right that this Parliament and indeed the Council and the Commission treat this matter with the utmost seriousness.
It really is most reprehensible that there has been not only an apparent flouting of the formal rules for Commissioners, but also a contravention of the spirit of transparency and trust that should be the basis of the work between this Parliament and Commissioners.
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I have been the rapporteur on a substantial number of Directives concerning the liberalisation of the telecommunications industry and I, and my colleagues, have acted in good faith in this work and had assumed that the former Commissioner Bangemann had done the same.
One can only speculate at just how much of a commitment Mr Bangemann had to the level playing field in this aspect of the internal market when he is willing to sell his knowledge to Telefónica , a major player in the European Union and further afield.
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It is particularly difficult, Colleagues, when Mr Bangemann was a former Member of this Parliament and indeed, a leader of the Liberal Group.
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One matter which has not been mentioned in the debate is that there is to be a major review of all of the telecommunications legislation later this year and part of this work has already been started by the Commission under Mr Bangemann's commissionership.
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As I have previously stated, I have been the rapporteur on a number of matters, but if I can just give you a thumbnail sketch of just how extensive this review will be and what it will cover - universal service, frequencies, satellite, regulation, licences, interconnections, numbering, mobile telephones, convergence of broadcasting, data transmission and telecommunications - an explosion of legislation and an enormous segment of the European Union's manufacturing, industrial and commercial base in its own right, but also as an adjunct to so many other industries.
On all of this, Mr Bangemann takes with him his knowledge and his contacts to Telefónica .
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There are also a worryingly substantial number of cases before the European Court of Justice on breaches of legislation, particularly in the field of interconnections - again, matters on which the former Commissioner has intimate knowledge.
The Commissioner, when he was here in this Chamber, and I have had many debates with him, was fond of quoting from Shakespeare and other English poets.
I shall quote one in his absence on his behalf - 'Just for a handful of silver he left us, just for a ribbon to stick on his coat'.
I know that the money he has been offered by Telefónica hardly can be justified by the description of a handful of silver and indeed it begs the question of just how seriously Members of this House will treat a company like Telefónica when it comes to lobby us as they surely will on the matter of the review and future legislation in this field.
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If I can be slightly mischievous, one wonders just how much value for money Telefónica will get out of Martin Bangemann.
I wish he were on a performance-related pay and he might find that the fat cheque might not look nearly so attractive.
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I understand Commissioner Kinnock's hesitation and his hesitations because this matter is sub judice .
Fortunately, Members of this Parliament are protected by parliamentary privilege, but even then, Commissioner Kinnock, I would ask you to note the reasonably restrained language that there is in our resolution and if I may just quote to you briefly on what the resolution says - "it deems his conduct to be particularly open to criticism' .
We did choose the language very carefully and many might say that 'open to criticism' might be a serious understatement.
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I finish, where I started, by saying that we are right to treat this with the utmost seriousness.
I support absolutely the Council's decision to refer this matter to the Court and to use all the powers that there are under the agreements.
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However, one matter still is outstanding.
There seems to be no mechanism within the existing rules and obligations where a company like Telefónica itself can be subject to some sort of punitive measures.
If we could find some way not only of having a measure to take against former Commissioners who act in this way, but also against the companies who benefit from their knowledge, then I think that we might have two very powerful levers to use in future transgressions.
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We hope, of course, that these will not occur.
We wish the new Commission every success and hope that the high standards they espouse will be put into practice.
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<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="President">
I would like to take this opportunity to say that I was always unpleasantly surprised by the fact - and this observation has nothing to do with the debate now taking place - that generally, when the Conciliation Committees were held, all the Commissioners except for one, were present and on time. Commissioner Bangemann never took part.
He would send officials in his place, in spite of protests from us, Members of the European Parliament. I don't know, maybe it was just his way of doing things that was the problem.
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<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="Duff">
Mr President, the worst thing about Mr Bangemann's imprudent career move is the threat that it poses to the Commission that he served.
The Commission was already in serious trouble and its problems were bound to have been compounded by the Bangemann decision.
In my view, the Commission has a final chance to prove itself the clean, efficient and effective executive that the European Union needs and that its citizens deserve.
Should the Prodi Commission fail, then I fear that the European Council will execute a coup d'état and deprive the Commission of its right of initiative and its important role as the promoter of European Union.
So to start the process of the Commission's recuperation, may we insist that the outgoing Members of the Santer Commission apply voluntarily the Prodi Code of Conduct.
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<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Laguiller">
Mr President, I share the indignation of Mr Markov of the GUE/NGL Group towards Mr Bangemann's attitude, but the real question is: what has Mr Bangemann been able to offer in order to command such a high salary?
How much have his services brought to Telefónica, a private company?
How much control do European institutions have over the subsidies and advantages gained by private companies such as Telefónica or others, and what control is there over the use that these companies make of them?
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Yes, it is shocking that a European Commissioner should be able to profit unduly from his position for his own benefit, but it is even more shocking that incredibly rich companies should be able to profit, quite legally, from subsidies from European institutions whilst to my knowledge, these same institutions are giving no help at all to the eighteen million unemployed workers throughout the Union, nor to the several million other people who are forced to live on salaries which barely keep them alive.
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Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
He was a determined and skilful Member of the Commission, a bit like a steam train, and occasionally in debates he would slap us MEPs like cod on a jetty, but what of that?
What is most important is that this sort of thing does not spread to the civil service or gain popularity there.
The impartial nature of our administration is the most important issue for all of us here and in the Commission.
There is a real need to reform the bureaucratic machinery of the European institutions, and an end must be made to these sorts of cliques.
This is what the public hates most about the European Union.
That was seen in the elections and in the campaigning.
Our citizens do not understand an administration that works along such lines, and we should not wonder.
Mr Prodi's Commission is off to a good start, and I congratulate him on that, but it must continue as it has begun.
I thank the Council for taking a swift decision to bring this case to the European Court of Justice, but as we have to be the pioneers in an administration which is open and efficient, so Mr Prodi's Commission should get ready for the test in September.
I believe that by the start of next year, we will see, on the basis of the study by the five experts, what the Commission has achieved with regard to its own administrative reforms and those of its body of civil servants.
Therefore, we shall meet up here once more at the end of the year.
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<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, we have been unanimous in this debate. The actions of Mr Bangemann, a Member of the Commission, in this affair can in no way be approved.
I would like to thank those who have spoken for having given their approval of the Council's decision to take swift action in this affair, and for their support in bringing the case to court.
I would like to underline the importance of Mr Prodi's code of practice in this connection, and I wish to refer to Mr Elles' speech in which he said that hopefully we will not be saying 'too little, too late' next time.
We must take care this time, then, that codes of conduct are absolutely clear and legally binding on all parties.
In my view, it is an issue that concerns us all as it is sometimes hard for the public, as was mentioned here, to distinguish between the institutions of the Union, which means that events such as this should not be allowed to occur in any of the institutions.
Thank you.
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<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
I should like to begin by saying that Mrs Read was absolutely right to draw attention to the moderate way in which the resolution is couched and indeed the moderation of the language throughout the whole of this debate.
It would have been easy for people to try to make a populist appeal. That was almost entirely avoided.
That simply added to the weight of the opinion of this House and therefore to the reaction which everyone has just heard from Mrs Sasi, President-in-Office of the Council.
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Mr Elles was quite right to emphasise that it is absolutely essential to see responsibility exercised to the highest standard.
I hope - to take Mr Barón Crespo's point - that this experience is not repeated, that we can ensure that specific and very clear provision is made so that there cannot be any repetition of the experience of recent weeks.
<P>
There are those who would say, and they have, I believe, rationality on their side, that the provisions of Article 213 of the Treaty and its references to integrity and discretion mean that for anyone who has an understanding of required standards in public life, little more should need to be said, if anything.
<P>
But if it is necessary - and I am conscious of being subject to the fact this issue is now before the court - even then to be more specific about what the implications of integrity and discretion are, then I am glad the House welcomes the developments that will take place as a consequence of the initiative taken by the President designate.
I look forward to ensuring that there is a full response to both the appeal of Mr Barón Crespo and that of Mr Elles to the demonstration of the highest standards of public integrity.
<P>
I would also say that Mr Kreissl-Dörfler was right to emphasise, together with Mr Duff - in a very interesting maiden speech - that if all institutions do not demonstrate the highest standards of rectitude for themselves, by themselves, then those standards will be imposed externally, either in the form of punishment by the general public, initially through its apathy and detachment but maybe in other ways more directly, politically too, or by the Council taking a responsibility which others appear to be unwilling to demonstrate.
<P>
I do not believe the European Union, its institutions or its people would be enriched by that experience.
It is a fair warning to all of us who serve the institutions and the European people that we are responsible for our own destiny and our own standards and we must therefore proceed without any form of delay to ensuring that those standards are as stringent as possible.
<P>
I was interested in the point made in another fine maiden speech by Miss van der Laan which calls for a response.
I am happy to report to the House that she is a friend of some years and therefore my joy in witnessing her maiden speech was very particular.
I see it was shared in other parts of the House.
She said that it would be 'better if the Commission had taken the step of reference to the Court of Justice' .
I should like to say to her, therefore, that the Commission, as I reported earlier, discussed the matter in its meeting of 1 July.
In that meeting the feeling was expressed that the issues relating to Mr Bangemann and to Article 213 had legal complexities that could not be speedily resolved.
For that reason the Commission made plain its view in its statement of 1 July that there needed to be clarification of implementation of Article 213.
There was no consensus at that meeting which supported reference to the Court of Justice at that stage.
I say that to ensure that Members of this House understand that the issue is live, it has been a matter of discussion, the action has now been taken by the Council and that determines the path for the future.
But there is no lack of concern or consideration in the current Commission, despite the fact that it is coming to the end of its life, in these issues.
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I conclude by saying that Mrs Laguiller made an extremely valuable contribution to this debate because, like others, she dramatised the issue quite properly by drawing attention to the economic gaps in society and the way in which those divisions actually serve to emphasise the fact that it is absolutely essential for those of us who have the good fortune to hold representative and appointed positions in the public service to act with complete integrity and discretion.
We enjoy a very considerable privilege.
We must, therefore, show complete probity.
This debate has served to underlined that.
If anybody ever needed the lesson, this has added to it.
I hope we can look forward to a future where no instruction will be necessary.
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<SPEAKER ID=133 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
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The vote will take place on Thursday at 12.00 p.m.
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I have received four motions for resolution pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
The sitting was closed at 9.10 p.m.
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<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of the previous sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="Evans, Robert">
I wonder if you are able to confirm, or your services are able to confirm, that this building, particularly the Tower Building, satisfies all aspects of health and safety legislation and whether it has a valid fire certificate.
These are important issues and if it does not, then I think serious questions must be raised.
I would therefore ask you either to confirm this categorically or, if not, to confirm that measures are taken to investigate the situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Mr Evans, we have followed the building regulations and taken them into serious consideration during this time at the Presidency office, and I believe that your concerns received due attention.
I will, however, pass on your comments to the President and they will be discussed at the Presidency office, so that all possible clarification may be given to the Assembly on this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Evans, Robert">
Mr President, do I understand it that you are therefore not able to confirm what I asked?
You are not confirming that the building satisfies health and safety and fire regulations?
You said you will look at it and try to clarify the situation.
What I am asking is: are you able to categorically confirm that the building satisfies these regulations, yes or no?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Mr Evans, my opinion is that the building complies with all the specifications laid down by law, but at this precise moment, I am unable to give you a guarantee of this because I do not have the relevant information to hand, and I therefore reserve the right to pass on your intervention to the President.

<P>
The Minutes were approved
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Dioxin
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
The next item is the Council and Commission statements on the contamination by dioxins of certain products intended for human or animal consumption.
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<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hemilä">
Council. (FI) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first, I would like to congratulate you all on the election results and wish the European Parliament every success in its legislative work.
I eagerly look forward to working in co-operation with you in my role of chairman of the Agriculture Council during the Finnish presidential term.
I have no doubt that co-operation between us during this time will be fruitful and will serve the interests of European producers, manufacturers and consumers well.
Obviously, I might have wished that our first meeting under the Finnish Presidency had taken place in other circumstances which would have permitted me to present the actual priorities of our programme.
These include, in particular, legislation projects which aim to guarantee food safety for the consumer and promote the health and welfare of animals.
Unfortunately, owing to circumstances, we were obliged to give consideration to a chain of events we would never have wished for.
<P>
Recent events concerning the contamination by dioxins of certain foodstuffs in Belgium have resulted in a very serious situation, not only with regard to the risks to people's health, but also because they have weakened confidence in the animal feed and food production chain and in the ability of the authorities to monitor the situation properly.
Quite understandably, there has been a very strong reaction on the part of the public to this crisis, which erupted just as we were starting to think that the BSE crisis was an exceptional, isolated case which we were already getting over.
I fully understand why consumers expect us to take speedy, comprehensive and effective action, appropriate in terms of the gravity of the matter, to give them the necessary guarantees that the crisis will be resolved in both the short and the long-term.
<P>
At the same time, we have to bear in mind that an undesirable occurrence such as this has very costly economic consequences.
For that reason, we are under an obligation to do all we can to protect consumers' health and offer them guarantees regarding the safety of food that are as comprehensive as possible.
It is in our own interest to take all necessary action to prevent incidents such as this from recurring.
In connection with all this, I shall be working in co-operation with Ms Biaudet, who is chairman of the Council of Health Ministers, to restore consumer confidence.
<P>
We have to take into account the fact that legislation on issues of veterinary medicine and animal feed in the European Union is amongst the most stringent in the world.
You are well aware of the criticisms made by certain third countries that measures meant for the protection of consumers within the Union are too restrictive.
I can mention, by way of example, the recent decision by the World Trade Organisation to allow the USA and Canada to impose penalty tariffs on our exports, owing to the importation ban on hormone-treated meat.
<P>
The understandable financial and social worries of producers notwithstanding, the Council has always worked, and will continue to work, with two principles in mind.
First, the most important objective is the protection of people's health, and second, all action must be based on the best possible scientific evidence.
The recent decisions of the Council are indications of this style of approach.
I would refer to the decision forbidding the use of some antibiotics in feed as a boost to growth, and the decision approved by the Council last Monday to tighten up the rules on the treatment of animal waste as a way of protecting against infectious TSE diseases.
<P>
In speaking of dioxin contamination, we have to say that the investigations carried out by the Belgian authorities and the inspections made by the Commission show contamination was due to the introduction during the manufacturing process of a raw material that should never have been used for this purpose.
We must also admit that the dioxin contamination of the feed shows that current legislation and protective measures are not fully sufficient to prevent the feed becoming contaminated by hazardous substances such as dioxin.
For that reason, there is no doubt that Community legislation should be amended to ensure that the quality of animal produce is to be relied upon fully.
We must act now to see that the 'prevention rather than cure' principle is fully applied in the future.
<P>
Before I move on to the question of the approach agreed upon in the Council, I would like to remind everyone of the timely and effective work instigated by the Commission and given the support of the Member States' Standing Veterinary Committee to implement vital crisis measures imposed by the precautionary principle.
This action led to the identification, withdrawal from the market and destruction of all produce that was contaminated or suspected of being so.
In addition, the Commission imposed conditions on certified produce coming onto the market and on the continuance of trade in produce in national markets as well as the entire Community market.
The Commission has already sent out all the details regarding the work it has begun, so I will not repeat them here.
For my own part, and on behalf of the Council, I would like to say we appreciate the Commission's work.
<P>
Turning to the action the Council has taken, I would like to remind everyone that the Ministers of Agriculture and Health have followed the dioxin crisis closely, and that they discussed the situation at the first available opportunity in meetings held in June.
The aim was to provide a springboard and political direction for further vital action to be taken.
The Council adopted a set of conclusions on how this issue should be approached.
The Council particularly stressed that a swift, thorough and independently drafted report should be produced and, if required, that there should be changes to current legislation.
The Council also made a point of asking Member States to ensure, through a comprehensive programme of checks, that EU legislation to guarantee health protection was being complied with.
The Council reminded everyone that, with the threat of a risk looming, the Member States should use the early warning systems currently in place fully and in good time.
<P>
Furthermore, the Council asked the Commission to monitor the effective and uniform implementation of these EU early warning systems and, if it was appropriate, to make recommendations regarding how they might be improved, and give consideration to how much the existing monitoring systems should be extended to cover all situations.
In addition, the Council asked the Commission to produce a report by the end of the year on the progress made in the establishment of a Food Veterinary Office and its overall viability.
On the basis of this report, we should also look at the need for a general improvement in food monitoring, including the possibility of food monitoring bodies.
The Council urged the Commission to speed up the work already begun by its Standing Committee on Feedingstuffs, which re-examines the legislation on animal feed and proposes, if deemed necessary, additions and amendments for tighter harmonisation.
The Council also urged the Commission to take a critical look at EU legislation regarding the disposal of meat meal, animal waste and feed.
Moreover, the Council emphasised that the manufacturers of animal feed were responsible for the safety of their products.
Anxious about the situation, the Agriculture Council in their meeting on Monday this week returned to the issue to monitor developments.
At the end of a new full debate on the issue, the Council reaffirmed the conclusions drawn in June, and drew attention to the importance of unanimous political will on the part of the Member States and the Commission to act on these conclusions fully and immediately.
<P>
The Council considered the Commission's proposal for an exhaustive programme of legislation to be welcome in principle, a programme of which you are aware and whose purpose is to accommodate legislation on animal nutrition and measures relating to animal waste.
The Council made all the relevant decisions relating to procedure to ensure the speedy examination of the Commission's proposals, bearing in mind the aim the Council has to finish the job, if at all possible, before the end of the year.
<P>
I will take this opportunity to remind everyone that the co-decision procedure applies to debates on future Commission proposals, and I would therefore ask the European Parliament for their co-operation in honouring this very ambitious timetable.
I can assure you that Finland, as the country to hold the Presidency, will, for its part, do everything within its power to ensure that work in the Council is expedited in order for us to achieve a positive end result as speedily as possible during the Finnish presidential term.
<P>
Before I end, I would like to say that the dioxin crisis has clearly shown that the effects of this type of occurrence are not restricted to the regions, or even countries, in which it began.
The effects spread to every region of the Community and extend also to our trading relations with third countries.
This crisis has had an adverse effect on our exports, and the actions of some of our trading partners have in many respects exceeded justifiable limits as regards not only severity but also scope of application.
We therefore have to rebuild consumer confidence both within the Community and the world over and, at the same time, develop appropriate action to restore viable commercial relations.
<P>
When it is a matter of people's health, simply the best way to reassure the European people and the consumers who live outside Europe is to act with transparency, clarity and a sense of accountability.
Aside from the programme of legislation, now available, as it is, to all, we are grateful to the Commission for the consistent way in which it kept third countries and the World Trade Organisation informed and for its reports on Community action to solve the dioxin crisis.
It was an attempt to show that certified EU exports are safe.
Some positive results have been achieved, but the situation remains unsatisfactory in some cases, which means that the Commission will have to continue with its efforts.
In order to be successful these efforts need, and should receive, the support, not just of the Council, but the European Parliament also.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, esteemed colleagues, ladies and gentlemen. Sincere thanks for affording me the opportunity to be able to inform you of the measures taken in relation to the recent dioxin crisis in Belgium.
I would also like to take this opportunity, however, to outline, in a somewhat broader context, some plans and projects which will help, firstly, to put this event in context and secondly, to provide us with the opportunity to give consideration as to where we must, and should, make improvements in the law concerning animal feed and foodstuffs.
<P>
Now to the reason itself.
Unfortunately, the Commission was only informed of the problem by the Belgian authorities on 27 May, but we immediately implemented a whole range of measures with a view to safeguarding the health of humans and animals.
With the consent of the representatives of the constituent Member States on the Standing Veterinary Committee, firstly, emergency measures were laid down for the poultry industry as well as for poultry products of Belgian origin.
These were followed, several days later, by measures relating to the cattle, pig and milk sectors and products derived therefrom.
<P>
In the meantime, however, it was possible, on the recommendation of the Scientific Committee, and following consultation with the Standing Veterinary Committee, to lift the bans on milk and milk products.
As far as the question of the source of the contamination is concerned, and I should point out that inquiries are still continuing in this regard, it can be assumed, based on the latest findings by the Public Prosecutor's Office in Gent, that the cause of the crisis was a serious product contamination which took place in January of this year.
I should also point out that Community officials arrived at the same conclusion during their inspections which were carried out on site between 8 and 11 June.
<P>
Looking ahead, one can assume that all products which are manufactured or marketed in the Community today, be they of Belgian origin or otherwise, will not be contaminated by this source.
Naturally, our work is continuing, and we will verify, as soon as the Belgian authorities have provided us with the necessary information, whether the PCB certificate can also be applied to pork and beef.
This would then allow us to make certain changes to the precautionary measures already taken.
<P>
In order to limit the economic damage caused by the dioxin crisis, the Commission has also introduced a number of measures.
A Regulation was passed on 16 June with the aim of maintaining exports at an acceptable level in spite of the more difficult conditions.
Pig breeders can also profit from having to keep their animals for extended periods.
With regard to the poultry sector, a Regulation was passed on 13 June allowing export grants for destination countries in addition to the Middle East.
As regards the milk sector, on 15 July, the management committee for milk decided to extend the period of use of butter and butter concentrates in bread, cakes, pastries and ice cream.
A Commission resolution for eight different state subsidies, which were announced and notified by the Belgian authorities, was passed the day before yesterday.
Apart from the emergency measures which have already been adopted, the Commission is, however, now working, and this is where the general context comes in, on proposals to improve and define Community provisions relating to foodstuffs and animal feed more closely.
These projects far exceed what is required.
<P>
In connection with this, I would now like to cover certain issues which have already been discussed in Parliament and which will continue to be discussed.
Firstly, I shall come to the question of foodstuffs legislation.
Here, we have already long since set about consolidating the texts of all hygiene-related regulations in the area of foodstuffs.
This project is about to draw to a conclusion.
On this point, we should also look to simplify matters from a legal viewpoint, which should serve to make the regulations relating to hygiene more transparent and ensure that they are applied better.
<P>
In this regard, we have come to a definitive ruling on an issue which we have already discussed previously here in Parliament, namely to what extent the decontamination process, modified and carried out under strictly controlled conditions, should apply to slaughtered hens and chickens as well as to red meat.
Another key issue is the traceability of animal products from the shop counter to the manufacturer.
In the pig sector, of course, we have come a long way in this regard but the question still has to be asked regarding the extent to which this system should be applied to other sectors.
<P>
Throughout the Community, four research laboratories are at our disposal for the testing and inspection of foodstuffs and the development of different research methods in connection with said testing and inspection. One of these, the laboratory in Rome, has been specially commissioned to develop, where necessary, new and improved research methods.
In addition, this laboratory offers a further education programme which is particularly concerned with the consideration of environmental contaminants.
<P>
In the last Council, which the President-in-Office of the Council has already talked about, political agreement was reached on different measures and, even prior to this in June, at the meeting of Agricultural Ministers, an agreement was reached on a Regulation concerning biological farming and its expansion to include animal products.
This is also one of the Commission's initiatives which should assist in improving production conditions and, above all, transparency for the consumer.
<P>
Another ambitious programme, which was last discussed on Monday at the meeting of Agricultural Ministers, concerns substantial changes to current foodstuffs legislation.
The Commission is trying to deal with this matter as quickly as possible but, in this regard, we also need the support of the Member States and, above all, of this Parliament.
We wish to concentrate on three different types of measures.
In the first instance, we want to expand the list of animal feed raw materials which should not be used in mixed animal feed.
Secondly, we wish to establish maximum dioxin values for oils and fats as well as mixed animal feed products to which oils and fats are added.
Thirdly, we want to change the definition of animal feed raw materials, in particular with regard to oils and fats and animal products.
<P>
In order to achieve this, we have a catalogue full of concrete proposals which have already been discussed by the committee responsible for animal feed products.
I have forwarded this catalogue to the Committee Secretariat since it would simply take too long to go into all of these points here and now.
Therefore, I would like to mention a few points briefly.
A legal basis must be created as regards the application of a safeguard clause in the event of emergencies which may occur in the European Union in connection with animal feed products and which may pose a serious risk to the health of humans or animals and the environment.
<P>
Secondly, it is a question of making it incumbent upon the Member States to implement a Union-wide monitoring programme for contaminants in animal feed products.
Thirdly, we also wish to introduce an early-warning system for animal feed products, along the lines of the one already in place for foodstuffs.
I would like to point out that the time frame for this has been altered and that it will now be in place as of September 1999.
From this time, there will be a ban on the intermixing of contaminated animal feed raw materials and the exemption regulation for the regional use of animal feed products that have been contaminated due to local conditions will also cease to apply.
<P>
Finally, we want to inspect current provisions relating to the information concerning raw materials, in particular provisions concerning the labelling found on mixed animal feed products in the sense that, in future, a clear statement of quantity on all the raw materials used should be possible which will obviate the need for information on raw materials by categories.
We then want to approve, in general terms, all mixed animal feed manufacturers as well as drafting an exhaustive positive list for approved animal feed raw materials.
<P>
I would also like to point out that not all of the measures contained in this list, which I have forwarded to the Committee Secretariat, are completely new.
This is the case, for example, as regards the approval of mixed animal feed manufacturers.
We have already made a proposal along these lines in the past, but at that time the Council did not accept the Commission's view and the proposal was therefore dropped.
<P>
I would now like to talk about some trade issues with third countries.
It was extremely important to inform these countries on the ensuing situation and of the precautionary measures taken by the Commission and to keep them updated on an on-going basis.
To this end, the competent services of the Commission have been in regular contact with third countries and we used the WTO/SPS plenary session which took place on 7 and 8 July to report in detail on the current situation and the relevant legal documents.
During this session, we also made it clear that the dioxin problems are not only a Community issue.
No country is free from dioxins and we can cite a whole number of examples of dioxin contamination which have made the headlines in many different parts of the world.
It is to be hoped, therefore, that all countries, not only Europe, can take some lessons from this.
The majority of committee members at this session welcomed this report and thanked the Commission and the sovereign authorities for the on-going and reliable exchange of information.
<P>
A final word on the tests.
The Foodstuffs and Veterinary Office of DG XXIV has introduced a range of measures on site.
Even in the case of the first visit to Belgium, it became clear that the crisis, unfortunately, had been poorly handled by the Belgian authorities.
This state of affairs could be attributed primarily to the lack of co-ordination between the various competent administrative authorities and the responsibilities of these authorities which were fragmented and unclear.
In addition, it was revealed that Community decisions concerning the withdrawal from the market of potentially contaminated products had been inadequately enforced by the Belgian authorities.
<P>
Tests carried out in the Netherlands, France, Germany and Spain also demonstrated certain loopholes in the procedures relating to the inspection of animal feed products.
Unfortunately, certain Member States used the crisis in Belgium as an excuse to erect trade barriers against non-contaminated Belgian products, thereby infringing the principle of the free movement of goods.
It has also transpired that other Member States have also been supplied with reconditioned used oil which is Belgian in origin.
With regard to the infringement procedures, I can report to you that the Commission has introduced, on the basis of Article 226 of the EC Treaty, summary infringement proceedings against Belgium, since it failed in its obligation to inform the Commission and Member States immediately regarding the dioxin cases and did not fully transpose Decision 1999/389.
<P>
Other issues concern the import barriers imposed by certain Member States with regard to Belgian products in general.
The Commission's services met with the competent authorities to discuss in detail the uncertain legal and administrative provisions.
These talks have led, in the meantime, to specific health protection measures being implemented and the lifting of temporary import barriers for a range of products.
<P>
Other problems persist of course, but the Commission's services are endeavouring to co-operate closely with those parties responsible at a national level, and we want to resolve the issues outstanding as quickly as possible.
In conclusion, I would like to assure you that the Commission will continue to do everything in its power to alleviate the consequences of this crisis as quickly as possible.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Florenz">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, if you will allow me, I would like to address my speech to you directly, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, because I believe that the European Council in recent years has become far too an insignificant factor at the heart of European discussions and has also held back somewhat when it has come down to stepping in and taking charge.
In this instance, following our unpleasant experiences with BSE, the Commission is largely blameless and the Member States have once again played their games under the guise of subsidiarity and have not been brave enough, for example, in drafting a framework Directive on foodstuffs which could be something concrete to which the Member States can adhere.
<P>
I do not want to go so far as to say that the last five years have seen an upswing in renationalisation but certainly, in that time, the Council has not become any more audacious when it has come down to, for example, in view of the obvious conclusions to be drawn from the BSE crisis, proposing real European goals which could then also be safeguarded and sanctioned.
This is very regrettable and I fear the only thing that will get the Council moving on this question will be the agreement that we have just concluded with the Americans whereby they may verify whether Europe itself is observing the same standards of hygiene as we expect from the Americans.
Only then will the Council start to act.
The days of Member States playing their games must stop; instead, they have to play a European game with European goals and, of course, proceed along individual paths in order to achieve this goal.
<P>
As a farmer, let me now come onto another issue which I am finding somewhat disconcerting.
Worldwide competition in the foodstuffs industry is causing ruin.
The Americans are squeezing the European market and the profits of processing industries are lower than ever before.
Competition is passing this onto the consumer and, in this instance, onto producers in particular. As a result, this is clearly creating the environment for criminal dealings.
Minister, you have said that the dioxin admixture was a mixture of unsuitable raw materials.
Perhaps this is a translation problem.
As far as I am concerned, it is a criminal act which is driving farmers in my constituency to ruin.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Therefore, let's talk in clear and plain language for the benefit of consumers and farmers alike, and for the benefit of Europe as well.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth-Behrendt">
Mr President, let me begin by giving Mr Prodi a sound piece of advice, both him and all the other nominees who wish to be confirmed in their positions by this House here in September.
One of the questions which all of the committees certainly wish to ask is this: What is your attitude towards honouring decisions made by the European Parliament?
If Mr Prodi or one of the other nominees replies, 'Well, I couldn't care less' , then these nominees will have a problem.
Yesterday, in his third speech to this House, Mr Prodi used the words 'consumer protection' and 'health policy' for the first time.
That is a fair few.
In this regard, he also said that he would make provision for, and I quote, 'an independent European Food and Drugs Agency' .
<P>
This House decided, after long discussions in connection with the BSE crisis, that this is something which we simply do not want.
We are not after an independent Agency but an authority which is subordinate to the Commission and which is accountable to this House, the European Parliament.
<P>
Applause
<P>
I hope that this piece of information reaches Mr Prodi so that he knows in future to be very careful about what he says.
I have already asked Mr Fischler yesterday whether this was his suggestion.
He assured me that it was not.
Mr Fischler, I believe this to be the case and, after your speech here today, which I thought was excellent, I am even more convinced.
<P>
I would now like to say something to the President-in-Office of the Council. He said at certain points that the Council was concerned that the dioxin crisis has shown that its effects concern the Union as a whole and that the Council wants to act decisively and responsibly.
Mr President, I believe that it would be something new if the Council were to act decisively and responsibly.
I hope that the Finnish Presidency of the Council will actually bring this about.
You would then be able to count a complete novelty amongst the successes of your Presidency.
Up to now, the Council has routinely covered things up, dithered, and swept things under the carpet.
<P>
Applause
<P>
So let's get down to business.
Everyone in the Council knows that individual countries all handle things in a similar manner.
What has happened in Belgium, and it is a disgrace that it took the government six weeks to inform the Commission, could have happened anywhere else.
It was just bad luck that it happened in Belgium.
We all know that it could have occurred in Italy, Germany or Austria.
Have you, for example, done anything to help ensure tighter inspections and controls?
You have left untouched a proposal from the European Parliament on this matter for more than six months.
<P>
As far as the details of this crisis are concerned, I would like to expressly commend the Commission.
We have certainly frequently maintained, in connection with BSE, that the Commission was not quite on the ball.
But at the same time, however, there is nothing, nothing at all, as regards the behaviour of the Commission for which it can be criticised.
Everything the Commission did, and the way in which it was done, was excellent.
The same certainly cannot be said of everybody else.
<P>
So what lessons can be drawn from this?
Mr Fischler mentioned some of these.
He made reference to legislation which is necessary.
This is definitely the case. There is no question that other legislation for animal feed products is required.
We have to avoid a situation where, for example, waste products enter into animal feed.
We talk of foodstuffs and animals which have been fed on these foodstuffs.
Waste products have no part here.
Mr Fischler, of course there should not be dioxin limit values.
The limit value has to be zero for both dioxins and PCB.
We should therefore be very careful as regards both the wording and the language.
<P>
In this regard, something else is worthy of mention.
Let's have the courage to also declare dioxin to be a worldwide problem.
Will there be a dioxin register in the European Union and worldwide?
Will it be investigated where emissions accumulate from incineration plants, where other dioxin emissions can be found which are present in the soil and in the grass which is eaten by animals?
We know for sure that they are not only found in animal feed but also in our natural environment.
So please let's have a dioxin register.
This is something that is definitely needed.
<P>
I would now like to briefly outline some proposals relating to the checks.
If we do not ensure that the tests are better carried out in Member States, if the Commission is not able to carry out inspections unannounced, but first has to wait for permission from a Member country such as Belgium or another Member State, we can forget it.
We must modify the inspection process and agricultural policy as a whole.
If we believe that we can make high profits by means of waste products which are as cheap as possible, and that is something which we want, such cases will always crop up.
We have to change this within the European Union as well as with our partners outside the Union.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Sterckx">
Mr President, it is a shame that in my maiden speech as a new MEP, I should have to speak of serious mistakes that have been made in my country, firstly by companies that supply raw materials for cattle feed, and secondly by the control agencies whose responsibility it is to ensure that when a mistake is made, it is discovered immediately and the consequences limited. Particular mention should also be made of the government then in office which wasted weeks and caused us a great deal of harm by not giving the European Commission and the Member States adequate warning that something was wrong.
<P>
These mistakes have resulted in an extremely serious situation, firstly as regards public health, and secondly, they have caused economic disaster in agriculture and throughout the food sector.
People's trust has been damaged and it will, of course, be a long time before it is restored again.
<P>
These mistakes were duly punished in the political arena at last month's elections.
There is now a new government in Belgium which is trying to limit the damage, pick up the pieces and also repair the damage, as quickly as possible and using all the means at its disposal.
I hope that Belgium will also be able to count on the Union's support in this, for it is clear that whether a crisis such as this is caused by a disease or an accident, or even a crime, that is of no consequence to a consumer, a farmer or a company that falls victim to the crisis.
They are victims and they suffer.
<P>
Fortunately, Mr Commissioner, at the beginning of the week, the Commission opened the door for the Belgian authorities to come to the assistance of companies in need.
I hope that will not prove to be the last step.
<P>
In the long-term, there is also a task for us here in the European Parliament.
Mr Commissioner, you have said that you will soon be presenting proposals.
I assume, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, that we and the Council will be able to discuss the texts very shortly and will be able to turn them into the legislation we need.
We must have European regulations.
<P>
Speaking as a liberal, Mr Commissioner, I am very pleased that you have said that these regulations must be simple and user-friendly.
Of course, they must also be strict, so that people know what is meant by healthy food, and they must apply to the whole food chain.
But it is clearly absurd that at the height of the crisis, the Commission and its technical services should be wasting time on discussions with the Belgian authorities and their technical services because there are no standards, because people do not know what the permitted level of dioxins is for different products.
At the height of a crisis, time can be better spent on other things.
<P>
Clear and unambiguous regulations must be drawn up for all matters of this kind which are clear, simple and strict.
And, of course, you must monitor them as well.
We must ensure that consumers are able to tell from a quality label when something is healthy, and they must also be made fully aware when something has the European seal of approval.
<P>
I think it is a good thing that Romano Prodi said yesterday that there is to be a European agency for food.
Of course, it goes without saying that such an agency must discharge its responsibility in a democratic manner and must be embedded, if I can put it this way, in the European institutions.
If we, as European Parliament, European Commission and European Council, fail to ensure that regulations and effective controls are introduced very rapidly, then yet another item will be added to the long list of disasters already in existence.
My colleague said things of this kind can happen in any country.
We have seen a number of examples.
I think that we should spare no efforts in ensuring that the list of examples does not grow ever longer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Nogueira Román">
Mr President, may I remind Parliament that our group has two components, the Green component and the European Free Alliance component, of countries with no State.
I have been noticing, yesterday and today, that, on the screens and elsewhere in general, the real name of our group, Greens/European Free Alliance, does not appear.
<P>
I therefore ask the President to provide all the relevant information, in order that the true name of our group be re-established.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Staes">
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
To return to the comment made a minute ago, the competent services confirm that there is indeed a problem with the computer programme, and that the names will be corrected, I hope, by the next part-session in September.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Papayannakis">
Mr President, the crises are mounting, we have the dioxin crisis in Belgium and the soft drinks crisis with Coca-Cola amongst others. We have the continuing crisis of mad cow disease, Mr Fischler.
And the crisis is not yet over.
A reliable British magazine has reported that towards the end of 1998, the number of young people dying from the new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease quadrupled and yet we have no information on this matter.
We do not know what is happening with mad cow disease in Portugal, yet we are hearing a great deal about hormone-treated meat from the United States and the intolerable pressures imposed on us with regard to its free movement. There was not even any fundamental and serious debate on genetically-modified foods prior to their becoming a part of our daily diet.
As I read in a recent study, we do not ultimately know what we are eating.
In fact, even our farmers and cattle breeders do not know what they are farming or how to feed their animals.
<P>
It is all very disturbing and worrying, Mr President.
The Parliament owes it to its citizens to do more than make accusations of criminal offences like the one committed by Belgium. It should also be noted, Mr Commissioner, that it hasn't yet made known those companies which used dioxin-contaminated cattle feed.
This time, however, the Commission, having learned its lesson from mad cow disease, took Belgium to the European Court of Justice.
However, we have still not discussed things fully and have not taken decisions on how to make controls tighter and more efficient, leaving them instead to the good will of the Member States.
Although we are mindful of the fact that we are lacking infrastructure, veterinarians and inspectorates, we are well aware of the bribes and attempted bribes, the threats and the murders which have taken place in certain countries with regard to these issues - yet, I do not see anybody taking it seriously.
We are also well aware that there have been strong reactions from the European Union itself to the establishment of a proper organisation to carry out spot-checks, along the lines of, for example, the American Food & Drug Administration, instead of having non-specialised research bodies.
What we need here is both transparency and public access to information.
<P>
Therefore, Mr President, I strongly endorse our group's proposal for the Parliament to set up a temporary committee which will fully deal with all issues of food safety and public health and not just certain aspects of it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the dioxin crisis, BSE and the pressure put on us by the Americans to ensure that we accept hormone-treated meat are just a few examples of the very serious threats overhanging the safety of our citizens' food today.
If these threats are not dealt with forcefully and adequately, irrationality will prevail at the expense of our farmers.
<P>
The President-elect of the Commission recognised yesterday the huge importance of this matter, but he has remained completely silent about how he proposes to deal with it.
Instead of these ideological tirades from days gone by, calling for a return of the old supranational connivance between Parliament and the Commission against the Council, we would have preferred to hear from Mr Prodi, how exactly he intends, within his jurisdiction, to repair the damage done by previous Commissions at the Uruguay Round.
<P>
By accepting rules which act against our interests and measures such as the one covering sufficient scientific proof, which prevents us in practice from applying the precautionary principle, previous Commissions did a great deal of damage to our companies and to our economies.
They offered up our exports as hostages to those countries who want to impose their methods of production on us with all the effects that these may entail, on health, the environment and society.
<P>
In years to come, our citizens' food safety will depend almost entirely on the way in which the new Commission is able, at the forthcoming Millennium round of negotiations, to defend the complete acceptability of a model for a separate European zone of high agricultural quality.
<P>
Member States must give or renew a clear and firm mandate to the Commission in order to make it the stimulus for a new, enlightened renegotiation of the GATT regulations which today are an obstacle to setting in action the precautionary principle in the areas of health and food safety.
<P>
The Commission must also put a stop to the CAP's very serious drift towards collapse as a Community-wide policy, as European prices are higher than those anywhere else in the world.
Those who are pushing for complete integration to the world market in order to satisfy American demands should be aware of the heavy responsibility that they bear.
They are leaving many of our farmers no other option but to launch themselves ill-advisedly and prematurely into introducing new and untried methods of crop cultivation and animal-rearing, which have not been properly tested and which, therefore, may put public health at risk.
<P>
Ensuring the safety of our citizens' food is one of our prime duties.
So, ladies and gentlemen, let us not allow European farming to go mad.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Vanhecke">
Mr President, as the people in my country already know, the dioxin crisis has, I am sorry to say, propelled tens of thousands of companies into extreme difficulties.
It is my belief that when an economic and environmental disaster occurs on such a scale, people should have the courage to seek out and point to the causes, and, where appropriate, the culprits, not out of some misplaced form of vengeance, but in order to prevent problems of this kind from occurring in the future.
<P>
We must be honest.
It is, above all, the former Belgian government that made one blunder too many in this area.
At first, the government didn't know what was going on and was completely indifferent, then it wanted to sweep everything under the carpet until after the elections, and ultimately it was responsible for a panic reaction which was out of all proportion and which led to the entire world boycotting so-called Belgian products, although it was my country, Flanders that suffered most from this, since the lion's share of so-called 'Belgian' exports are, of course, Flemish exports.
<P>
But sadly enough, the problem is not just one of incompetence, nepotism in the administration, political appointments and lack of monitoring in Belgium alone.
Perhaps we, as MEPs, must now just face the fact that years of European agricultural policy have, in fact, almost destroyed the high-quality agriculture that can invariably almost be described as small-scale, and have led to the omnipotence of industrial European agriculture and to the omnipotence of a number of agro-industrial groups which are only out to make a profit and which thumb their noses at public health and quality standards.
<P>
If, for example, the man in the street were to hear that all manner of waste was being recycled for animal feed, that years after mad cow disease, herbivores are still being fed with animal bonemeal and what is more, that products of obscure provenance which have undergone no checks whatsoever, are being mixed into animal feed bases, then he may well ask himself if decades of European agricultural policy should not, in all honesty, be classified as a total failure.
I shall remind you again that half of the European budget is spent on this agricultural policy.
<P>
I believe we must now have the courage, and we must now ask the Council and the Commission to have the courage, firstly, to learn from past mistakes and to discontinue the kind of agricultural policy we have been pursuing to date, and to opt, at last, for high-quality agriculture in Europe, which is the sensible, sober and necessary choice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Dam">
Mr President, yesterday we were alarmed yet again, this time by news of increased dioxin-content in German cattle feed.
The contamination, though less serious than in Belgium, is another appeal to producers and governments to act responsibly.
I consider the European Commission's strict measures in the recent crisis to be quite justified.
It is right that irresponsible, indeed criminal behaviour, should be punished.
However, punishment alone will not suffice.
We must avoid such incidents in the future.
The question is how?
<P>
I do not think there is any point in setting up a new bureau after every food crisis.
More bureaucracy does not automatically lead to increased food safety.
Neither do I think that we should ban an ever-increasing number of cattle feed ingredients.
If cattle feed factories are no longer permitted to collect waste fat from catering establishments, then who will?
The environmental problems should not be underestimated.
<P>
Well-integrated management of the food chain would be far more likely to prevent incidents of this kind from arising.
It is very important to be able to trace the waste derived from cattle feed.
This would also guard against one incident throwing the entire cattle feed sector into disrepute.
It is, above all, the Member States that have an important role to play in terms of food chain management.
If they are not prepared to take action for food safety, then the European Commission is powerless.
<P>
Finally, I should also like to draw the Commission's attention to the fact that Belgium's ban on vegetable fats for cattle feed encourages fraud, owing to the limited availability of animal fats.
Therefore, for this reason too, I support the call within the resolution to change to vegetable fats.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="President">
Pursuant to Rule 37 of the Rules of Procedure, I have received five motions for resolutions.
<P>
The vote will take place at 12.00 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Grossetête">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Europe has had, over the last few years, a succession of food-related scandals. We have had mad cow disease, we are questioning GMOs and their labelling; we are now aware of the problem of the dioxin content in animal bone meal; we are seeing well-known soft drinks withdrawn from sale because they have been causing problems...we are all wondering what the next scandal will be: which one will be uncovered tomorrow.

<P>
We must certainly not give in to a mood of panic, but it is quite reasonable for us to be asking ourselves about the quality of the products which we consume.
Concern about food safety is unfortunately far too recent a development in Europe, emerging as it did at the time of the BSE crisis.
This concerns all of us, consumers, small producers, industrial-scale producers and farmers.
We are all concerned because we care about public health, and this drives us.
<P>
But at the same time, we also feel very worried for farmers who are directly involved and who have been singled out for blame, and for the whole food-processing industry.
All parties are still suffering.
These scandals have done them an injustice because there are some producers and farmers, very honest people, who do their best to ensure that their processes are faultless.
We should not punish the whole profession because of a few people within its ranks who are less than honest.
<P>
What can be done?
We must recreate the right conditions for winning back consumer confidence in Europe.
We must therefore strengthen Europe-wide rapid alert mechanisms.
Member States must be willing to accept health inspections.
Member States must not be made to feel that they are being singled out for blame if we ask them to make these inspections.
We must all play the game.
It is in everyone's interest as we have this huge single market.
This condition must be met if the market is to work successfully.
If it is not, consumers will boycott products and we will find ourselves once again in an economic situation which most people will find extremely difficult.
<P>
Member States and the Council must therefore both show greater transparency.
Quality producers who respect the environment must be offered support.
We must, in effect, be brave enough to bring about a fundamental reform of agricultural policy if our consumers are going to want to consume our products again.
We must guarantee vigilance and consistency in traceability and labelling.
We must be especially resolute in discussions with the WTO.
We must, quite simply, put an end to unacceptable practices.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Lancker">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am certainly very reassured by the fact that no one in this House, nor in the European Commission or the Council, has considered the Belgian dioxin crisis to be a purely Belgian problem.
It is indeed the case that enormous problems have arisen in Belgium and, of course, the European Commission was right to state that serious mistakes have been made as regards the Belgian situation. However, those of my colleagues who have got to know a little bit about the case in the meantime, are aware that the Belgian government has taken very drastic measures and can now give guarantees to all consumers throughout the European Union.
<P>
Indeed the Belgian dioxin problem also points to a European problem and as such, of course, it has to do with the European internal market, with competition policy and with flawed agricultural policy.
I must say, Mr Commissioner and Mr President, that I welcomed the measures just announced by you both, but I would like to remind you that a number of those measures were placed on the table by the European Parliament some time ago. In fact, they have been there since the Committee of Enquiry into mad cow disease finished its work.
<P>
First and foremost, Commissioner Fischler, I do indeed think that the European legislative framework needs to be improved.
You are quite right in saying that we need new quality standards.
I should be pleased if a positive list was indeed to be produced and we were to stop undermining the legislation on account of pressure and lobbying from the agro-industry.
Or are there really people out there who can make out a good case for recycled products and waste entering our food chain?
<P>
Secondly, I wish to say something about the organisation of the European administration.
My colleague Dagmar Roth-Behrendt has already said that we are of the opinion that food safety should remain under the control of the European Commission, and consequently also under that of the European Parliament.
We believe that the European Commission should set up a service that is adequately staffed and has adequate finances but which above all, is also able to co-ordinate the controls undertaken by the national bodies and which is able to carry out its own controls, sometimes unannounced, on its own initiative, where and when it considers it appropriate.
<P>
Mr Commissioner, I was particularly taken with your announcement regarding the legal foundation for a community initiative on food safety.
It would indeed appear to me to be of benefit for action to be taken to prevent contamination of the food chain and to avoid public health disasters, without the bona fide farmers being the ones to suffer in the process.
<P>
But to conclude, Mr Commissioner, Mr President, I should still like to emphasise, just as my colleagues have done, that we shall never be able to solve this food safety problem unless we undertake a radical and complete rethink of our agriculture and of our food production.
We should not continue to give preferential treatment to large-scale agro-industry alone.
In particular, we must support small-scale agriculture and healthy food production.
As a matter of fact, I must say that I find it totally unacceptable that the Belgian farmers' union is refusing to co-operate on agricultural reform during this dioxin crisis, and on reducing the quantity of livestock in Belgium.
<P>
Lastly, ladies and gentlemen, there are perhaps quite a number of arguments in support of setting up a European Committee of Enquiry as part of this European approach.
I should just like to say that we must give serious thought to the matter before we come to a decision, and we must think carefully as to whether it would not be better to use the respective committees to continue our work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Mulder">
Mr President, the last speaker can rest assured that I do not intend to talk exclusively about the mistakes made in Belgium either.
I believe that a dioxin scandal or a BSE crisis, or whatever it may be, can occur anywhere in Europe.
I therefore feel it is high time that the European Commission, together with the European Council, which I understand has given its full support, should develop initiatives as rapidly as possible for bringing about a food policy at European level.
Of course, it goes without saying that it is all about public health.
Providing guarantees for public health must be the first priority.
<P>
On the same theme, I should just like to refer to the resolution adopted in October last year, when the European Parliament gave unanimous support to producing a European quality assurance policy for foodstuffs.
All foods which are to enter the marketplace and receive a European label of quality will have to have been monitored throughout the food chain.
Who will be able to do this?
We already know of a number of inspection bureaus that are offshoots of the biological production industry.
If people do not want to buy such food, they want to have food in a different way, but so that we know exactly how it has been produced, then in my opinion that should be possible.
The customer is king and the same inspection bureau that monitors biological food will also be able to monitor food subject to different standards.
<P>
I think it is particularly important for this to happen in Europe.
For if it happens in Europe, then we will be the first large trading block in the world to provide consumers with guarantees of food quality in this way.
At the end of the day, that is what it is all about.
It has already been pointed out from various quarters that our first priority is to guarantee fair competition, that if we demand something of the European producers, we can also demand the same standards of producers outside Europe.
<P>
What would be the best way of bringing this about at the moment?
We are already aware that there are, at present, integrated production systems in various European countries.
Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, to name a few countries at random, all have standards for integrated production.
It is only a pity that these standards vary from country to country and I consider that unacceptable for such large common European markets.
It is, therefore, for the Commission to find the common denominator as soon as possible.
<P>
I should also like to talk about what Mr Prodi said yesterday on the subject of a European food bureau.
I am not yet absolutely convinced of the need for one.
The American Food and Drug Administration has some five to six thousand officials.
Can the Commission afford to set up something of this kind?
I very much doubt it.
I should therefore like to ask if it could send something to the European Parliament so that a comparison can be made.
How does the American Food and Drugs Administration operate?
How would it be if a particular department were to be added to our office in Dublin, the Veterinary and Phytosanitary Bureau.
They could perhaps fulfil the very same function considerably cheaper.
That seems to me to be something that this Parliament should consent to.
<P>
Finally, I wish Finland every success.
We shall take stock at the end of this year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Isler Béguin">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, I would like to have been able to address the Commissioner for the Environment and other Commissioners too, because we know very well the harmful effects of dioxins on human health, and this is not merely an agricultural matter. It goes far beyond that.
<P>
Along with many scientists, we estimate that the spreading of carcinogenic dioxins into the human food chain will undoubtably be the scourge of the next century.
I really would like the Commissioner to hear what I have to say, because it is our job as well as his, within the framework of the policies which he will be putting into place, to find a way of integrating this problem into these different policies.
We also believe that it is criminal to allow dangerous dioxins to spread into the human food chain.
<P>
Recent studies have shown that mother's milk throughout the world is contaminated by dioxin, and that nobody is immune.
We also know that the main causes, the things spitting out most dioxins, are incinerators.
In this matter though, given the considerable financial cost of analysing it, we do not yet know how many people on continental Europe are currently contaminated by dioxins, imagining that they are eating foodstuffs grown in a nice clean field, which are actually being grown near old incinerators still in use.
<P>
The European Union is responsible for conserving human health and the environment.
This is why we are demanding first of all, a totally efficient warning system.
It appears that we do not currently have one, given that France did not immediately interpret the announcement of contamination published by Belgium as a health alert.
We are also asking for a parliamentary enquiry.
We know that when the announcement was made about the chicken 'with dioxin in it' , consumers rushed out to buy fish, even though we know that fish are fed with the same food.
What will be next on the list?
We very much hope that the Commission will be able to tell us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Jové Peres">
Mr President, although the BSE crisis was of an epidemiological nature and the dioxin crisis of a toxic nature, they share worryingly similar characteristics.
Both crises were caused by the addition to animal feedingstuffs of raw materials derived from recycling and both caused serious problems for consumer health.
These practices inevitably lead to the concentration and accumulation of elements which are either infectious or toxic.
<P>
The dioxin crisis has also coincided with the scandal of the use of sewage sludge in the manufacture of feedingstuffs.
In this case, the risk arises from the accumulation of heavy metals.
<P>
But although we cannot go into a schematic analysis here, I must make a comment in this context: the Common Agricultural Policy and the World Trade Organisation are increasingly promoting the search for aggressive competitiveness as a fundamental principle, which worries me greatly because this type of official approval of competitiveness, above all else, will surely lead to practices presenting risks, such as the use of hormones or antibiotics for example, amongst the raw materials used in animal feedingstuffs.
For the European Union, the precautionary principle in defence of consumer health should take precedence in these cases.
<P>
One serious problem in this area concerns the insufficient regulations on the manufacture of feedingstuffs and the lack of a food policy in the European Union.
Let me remind you of the fact that Community institutions have not taken heed of the recommendations and demands of the Parliament, which requested the prohibition of meat and bone meal in animal feedingstuffs.
<P>
Nevertheless, the most serious problem arises from the fact that any ingredient which has not been expressly prohibited in the manufacture of feedingstuffs is implicitly authorised.
Therefore, the Commission must draw up and formulate proposals for the creation of a positive list of raw materials authorised for use in animal feedingstuffs, together with a study of the incidence of production costs for cattle feedingstuffs in order to prevent incompatibilities with the CAP.
<P>
Lastly, Mr President, I would like to remind the Commission that it must immediately formulate a food policy, in implementation of the Green Paper which was produced two years ago, and I would like to express my agreement with the comments of Mrs Roth-Behrendt with regard to the independent Food Agency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="Farage">
Mr President, given the history of the United Kingdom in relation to the BSE crisis, some delegates may consider that the UK is disqualified from giving an objective view.
However, such a view would be wrong.
It must be remembered that this was not our only crisis.
We also had salmonella in eggs and listeria, giving us unparalleled experience in dealing with food safety crises.
<P>
On the matter of listeria, this crisis came to a head in 1989 when over 200 babies and young children had been killed in preceding years, far more than died of new variant CJD.
What fellow Members may not know is that the main source of the disease was contaminated paté sold from three Belgian plants.
Only when UK health officials intervened was the problem finally resolved.
What this says is that it is not just the UK that has food safety problems.
But what we have learned from our incidents is that precipitate reaction can often do more damage than the initial crises.
Action needs to be carefully considered and based on good science.
<P>
In response to the dioxin incident, we see the Commission launching once again into frenzied legislative action.
This is damaging British interests, in particular a company called Spalding Nutrition which is threatened by an entirely unnecessary ban.
Thus, we would say: by all means have an enquiry, but first let us have a wide-ranging review of all Member States' systems for dealing with food and health scares, starting with an evaluation of the British system.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Böge">
Mr President, once again, we are faced with unbelievable sloppiness and criminal behaviour and, in this respect, there are definite parallels with past events, with one difference however: the Commission has taken the lessons on board and has acted more rapidly than in the past.
Some Member States, in this particular instance Belgium, are still taking preventative consumer protection far too lightly.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, after listening to your speech this morning, I hope that there will be jump forward in terms of quality in the Council and I also hope that this will become evident through actions and decisions over the coming months.
<P>
The Commission has now submitted a number of good recommendations, in part, recommendations which have already been called for in relation to BSE.
Therefore, Mr Fischler, you will be able to rely on this Parliament for its full co-operation and support as regards the questions of open declaration, the safeguard clause and also the positive list.
But I should also say that I find it absurd if Member States which, in the past, have not observed European safety standards for example, now wish to prohibit the use of meat and bone meal in general or, if the Commission, as regards the question of the use of oils and fats, at the same time makes a general issue in a working document of the recycling of leftovers.
In this event, we are heading from recycling systems which are in working order towards unresolved waste problems.
<P>
One last point: I am opposed to the inflammatory ideas expressed by news agencies who say that the Commission is no longer required.
This is my point: tell the Parliament what you expect of veterinary surgeons and inspectors, make sure that the notification procedures function more quickly and that the allocation of posts within the Commission is more flexible. In this way, we can bring about an improved system within the Commission which is also under the control of the Commission.
Here in Parliament, we will make sure that, in the case of co-decision making, matters are dealt with smoothly, quickly and in a proper manner and do not descend into chaos.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Whitehead">
The dioxin story is very familiar to those of us in the United Kingdom who have lived through BSE.
Many of the ingredients are exactly the same - disagreeable and even disgusting practices in the preparation of some animal foodstuffs in a world of intensive agriculture and panic and deceit in some of the Member States concerned when the source of contamination is first discovered.
<P>
We must remember this was discovered in January 1999 and the Commission was only able to take action after a period of months and a good deal of obfuscation.
What we have now seen is the same set of arguments that perhaps they were trying to avoid: a consumer panic and protection of a market - a market which is actually now much more imperilled by the way in which the crisis has unfolded.
<P>
I think there are dangers of overreaction and some Members have referred to that.
What I would say is that we must learn lessons from this crisis.
Firstly, a vigorous and properly funded inspectorate must be established to take a preventative role in this matter.
<P>
We are now talking about significant changes in the law, long lists of further regulations of substances which may be banned.
I certainly do not know, because I do not have the technical expertise, whether the range of recovered vegetable oils which are now seen to be a source of risk should be subject to an outright ban, or whether it should simply be limited to some section of kitchen waste which should never have been in any form of animal foodstuff in the first instance.
What I do know is that the inspectorate which we have fought for - we had to fight to get an effective budget for it, to set up the veterinary office in Brussels and to make sure that we had the principle of general inspections throughout the Community - that inspectorate finds itself threatened and bullied.
<P>
We have had examples in my country and in Belgium of people being physically threatened, of being blackmailed and in some instances even murdered!
Now when that is the situation, how can we say that the proposal, welcome as it is, to look at a Europe-wide Food and Drugs Agency and all these grand gestures can work when no individual inspector can penetrate into the world of crime and fraud which characterises sections of this industry.
<P>
So, in my opinion, we have to put our own House in order in this matter.
We have to be able to say, as the motion of the Socialist Group does, that the rule of law must apply, that we are a Community of law, and unless we have a universal application, which never happened in the wake of BSE, of the regulations, the situation cannot improve.
Simply to bring forward new lists to imperil the producers and not to safeguard the consumer in the actions involved is the wrong way forward.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner Fischler, in this dreadful state of affairs, we must take note of the fact that here clearly systematically toxic substances have been recycled via animal feed.
You have talked about product contamination being the starting point of this crisis, but there is still no apparent mishap to which blame can be attributed.
Clearly, this contamination can also take place systematically and therefore the full force of the law must be brought to bear.
The criminal elements who exploit people by using them as human waste disposal units must be punished.
Many demands which they have made are still under discussion by the BSE investigation committee.
I hope that they can now be transposed quickly.
Above all else Mr Fischler, the question of maximum values must be tied in with a ban on mixing or else this systematic disposal will continue.
<P>
One more thought on waste: if we are talking about toxic substances, it is not.....
<P>
The President cut the speaker off
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Thyssen">
Mr President, in an internal market, the attention given to producing safe and healthy food must, of course, be organised on a cross-border basis.
We appear to all be in agreement on this, but we still haven't managed to bring it about, either in terms of prescriptive legislation or in terms of monitoring and control.
However, the dioxin crisis is not the first crisis to occur in European food policy and neither will it be the last.
Let us hope that we shall be able to manage future crises more effectively.
<P>
Of course the Member States must exercise more control, but there is also a need for control at the European level.
That has already been made clear here this morning.
It goes without saying that this must be brought about in a democratic manner, but what I ask myself is when is something at last to be done?
Commissioner Bonino told us the week after the parliamentary elections that she didn't think an agency would work out.
Mr Mulder has already spoken here of the 5, 000 officials that would be needed to staff it.
The new President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, told us yesterday that he is in fact considering such an agency.
I should very much like to know which course of action the Commission actually intends to pursue, what actual steps have been taken, and whether the Commission intends to take account of the wishes expressed by the Parliament, both in the BSE reports and in the Green Paper on food, the resolution that we drew up on the subject.
<P>
However effective the control, we can never rule out human error.
We have learnt that the consequences of problems can escalate to an unexpectedly high level.
This raises the question as to the purpose of Community solidarity.
Should this really continue to be restricted to natural disasters and veterinary illness, or should it also come into play when human error has serious economic consequences, for many entirely blameless SMEs, among others.
<P>
Hence my second question to the Commission.
Has consideration already been given to creating a legal foundation for Community financial aid given to innocent victims?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lienemann">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Commissioner, we owe it to the people of Europe to tell them the whole truth about this dioxin business.
In addition to this, we must finally obtain world-wide figures for this sinister matter.
That is why I am asking for a Temporary Parliamentary Committee of Enquiry to be established, with the responsibility of ensuring that the whole range of problems is brought to the table, and that all the lessons to be learned from it are looked at.
I can see at least three.
<P>
The first would be to amend European legislation which has shown obvious shortcomings.
There are some products which need to be banned, and some mechanisms which need improving.
The second is the question of the notification procedure which did not work and which must be clarified, toughened up and improved.
And here we come to the vital matter of inspection.
This Europe of ours will not work, and there will be no confidence that Europe does work, if we are not able to move from this type of co-ordination of inspection towards a genuine Community-wide approach to at least some aspects of food inspection.
<P>
From this point of view, Mr Prodi's proposal for an authority or agency seems attractive.
There is a need for an authority with specific responsibility for food safety, but it would have to remain independent, because we need both the Commission and Parliament to uphold the public interest in this matter.
<P>
I would like to insist finally on the banning of animal bone meal.
How many more times must we have the kind of accident that results from this practice before we put an end to this absurd system which leaves land fallow and farmers, who should be working in order to keep the heritage and the countryside of this Europe of ours alive, unable to work because we favour the use of recycled waste, particularly animal waste.
This is an absurd and dangerous system which we should really bring to an end.
<P>
I would like to end with the idea that behind this question, which is asked so often, lies the fundamental issue of the direction that farming is taking in Europe and around the world.
We shall be reopening the WTO negotiations, and like everyone else in this Parliament, I expect you, the Commission to ensure that standards for health, the environment and society are set to limit and restrict this theory, which is becoming more and more dangerous, of a free market whose prime motive is profit.
<P>
Europeans expect something better than this.
Mr Commissioner, I would like to know if you are intending to propose a ban on animal bone meal and within what framework you think this measure might be possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Ayuso González">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Commissioner, in recent years, Europe has been plunged into two significant health crises caused by food; firstly, BSE in the United Kingdom and, subsequently, the dioxin case in Belgium.
<P>
This should give us cause for reflection. But rather than just reflecting, we should take urgent and effective steps.
The effects of these crises have been collective panic amongst consumers, some unfortunate cases of people affected, and irreparable and significant financial losses in the agricultural and food industries.
Furthermore, they have caused distrust amongst consumers, damaged the reputation of the European agricultural and food industries amongst third countries and caused headaches for the governments of the Member countries. I can confirm this as a former head of food policy in Spain.
<P>
I want to highlight the fact that this serious health crisis is being fought with instruments which were designed for other purposes connected to the Common Agricultural Policy, such as the Standing Veterinary Committee which was intended to monitor animal health.
Europe should have a professional Scientific Committee which guarantees food safety, including animal feedingstuffs which are another link in the food chain.
It should have control mechanisms which allow for prevention rather than a posteriori stop-gap solutions and must have in place mechanisms to penalise Member countries which put public health at risk by deliberately obscuring causes of risk for a certain length of time.
<P>
Let us bear in mind that the necessary liberalisation of the markets and the opening up to third countries is exposing agriculture and cattle farming to difficult levels of competition and if effective preventative measures are not taken, the race to lower production costs will sooner or later bring about another similar case.
Legislation is important as well as ecologically friendly agriculture, but it is not enough.
We must act through effective mechanisms.
<P>
Finally, I would like to draw attention to the Commission's chaotic information policy.
In the case of dioxin, 15 days passed between the communication of the Standing Veterinary Committee and the official alert, while Commissioner Bonino simply announced that she did not drink Belgian milk.
All of this was conveniently manipulated by the media.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="Bowe">
Mr President, I want to focus on one particular issue which I feel has not been fully explored.
Dioxin, and in this case its source chemical PCB, is one of the number of non-biodegradable bio-accumulative chemicals that we know are contaminating the food chain around the world.
There are rules and regulations already in existence for the correct and proper disposal of these substances.
Indeed, I was Parliament's rapporteur on the Council and Commission proposal for the elimination of PCBs and PCDs we dealt with in the last Parliament.
<P>
We have to ask if these existing European rules and regulations are being properly followed.
Are the responsible authorities given the duty to dispose of these chemicals in a correct and safe way, following the rules, or are they deliberately avoiding them and disposing of these chemicals in the wrong way?
This incident appears to indicate that is the case.
<P>
Unlike bacterial or some other form of organic or biological contamination of the food chain, we have here a finite quantity of substance that could easily be eliminated.
Would the Commission please look into why the regulations on the proper disposal of PCBs and PCDs are not being correctly followed?
Will they please investigate where the substances came from that caused this incident?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maat">
Mr President, the dioxin crisis has demonstrated that consumers want safe food. Farmers produce it, but things sometimes go wrong through no fault of their own.
At such times, it falls to the authorities to do something.
As far as that is concerned, we should note that although this crisis originated in Belgium, it affects countries throughout the EU. I should like to propose, therefore, that we quickly get to work on setting up a food safety bureau, and that more money is devoted to this.
I should like in particular to lend my support to the proposals put forward by MEP Böge on this point.
Let the Commission advise the Council of Ministers on what is necessary in terms of money and manpower, with a view to dealing with this more quickly.
For citizens and farmers are entitled to expect the authorities to respond effectively to a crisis of this kind and although it may not be appropriate to term a natural disaster, it comes very close to one when you see what the effects are.
I would thus advocate quickly getting down to work and setting up a food safety bureau under the direction of Commissioner Fischler.
<P>
My second point is that there should be improved harmonisation of national legislation as regards criminal law, with a view to dealing rapidly with those who infringe the laws on this point, which is, in fact, a criminal matter.
<P>
I should like to draw attention to two matters: firstly, the side effects.
It is Belgian farmers and Belgian consumers who have been the ones to suffer.
In fact, it is a natural disaster of sorts and we actually ought to be able to say: this is a matter for the European institutions. I should like to support MEP Thyssen's call for the Commission to be more generous in that respect and to enter into discussion with the Parliament on how matters of this kind should be dealt with in future.
<P>
Secondly, what is the Commission doing about the fact that the minute such a crisis arises, the next thing to happen is that Belgian pigs are transported to other countries, are slaughtered and labelled there, and are therefore using a different label?
This has repercussions for the market.
What does the Commissioner hope to do at this juncture and in terms of creating effective policy?
As a representative of the European People's Party, I should particularly like to point out that whilst we cannot prevent disasters, as administrators, as parliamentarians, we must take the opportunity to deal with matters in a completely effective way.
That is why I wish to make you fully aware of these two points in particular.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Grosch">
Mr President, this House is expected to produce at last one clear statement in relation to the dioxin crisis.
I would sum this up by saying that on the question of health, we do not want to enter into a compromise, nor do we want to compromise on the issue of industrial crimes.
This crisis, just like the BSE crisis, is throwing up questions which we must answer, both in concrete terms and also very quickly.
Are the resources which we have allocated to carry out checks sufficient at the end of the day?
And are they efficient? To what extent are crises of this sort also an opportunity for certain Member States, as the Commissioner has just mentioned, to set up additional trade barriers over and above the measures imposed?
What resources shall we place at our disposal, together with the Commission and especially with the Council, so that definite checks and early warning systems can be introduced?
<P>
I am raising these issues because I am of the opinion that we do not have to answer these questions in tedious or prolonged committees of enquiry.
Nor am I convinced that a government Commissioner responsible for dealing with a crisis in a country will concern himself with efficiency and credibility.
Let us simply show, at our level and at a national level, that we possess the political will to act rather than simply to analyse.
The consumer expects a swift and efficient response, not contradictory statements by experts who engender more mistrust than trust with consumers.
<P>
Quick, efficient action is also expected by farmers since, in our country, in Belgium, well over 90 % of farmers are victims of this crisis.
We should not punish these farmers who have invested many years in the quality and also the clarity of their controls.
I therefore ask you not to give a de facto refusal to provide financial assistance within the framework of the European Union.
We know, in the meantime, how crises originate; now we must finally provide ourselves with the means of avoiding them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schierhuber">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all it was cattle and BSE, now the fuss is all about poultry and dioxin.
I do not want to know what will be next.
Therefore, I cannot repeat often enough the importance of maintaining animals in proper conditions and having a food processing industry which is conscious of its responsibilities.
The chain begins with the farmers, but then leads via the foodstuffs industry to our dinner plates.
As far as I am concerned, the most important thing is a healthy diet, and this is something which concerns us all.
Therefore, we all have a responsibility.
<P>
I do not want to insinuate anything, yet clearly precautionary measures and careful inspections in an area as sensitive as the human food chain were disregarded.
Extra special care is necessary when we are talking about highly toxic substances such as dioxins.
All of us here know that dioxin was used in the Vietnam war and I would also today like to remember Seveso.
Therefore, we need a comprehensible labelling system for the foodstuffs industry as well.
The image of all Austrian foodstuffs is being damaged by such incidents.
<P>
European agriculture will be an important topic for discussion at the next WTO round and the world market will pose immense problems for us over the next few years.
One possibility for our continuing survival is quality production in the EU.
Our foods must be safe and healthy. This must be our trademark and represent an opportunity for our farmers.
We must do everything we can to allay consumer fears.
Quality must take precedence but quality also has its price, ladies and gentlemen.
<P>
In this regard, I welcome the establishment of an independent European Food Agency.
In the long run, we will all benefit from it.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hemilä">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I agree in many respects with what has been said here today.
The safety of consumers is vital, not just for the consumers themselves, obviously, but for the whole food chain from the field to the dining table.
In fact, consumer safety is an absolutely essential aspect of an idea which has become familiar in connection with Agenda 2000, that of the European agricultural model.
That model includes the notion that the farmer must be able to trust in the quality of the production foods he or she purchases, such as animal feed.
The dioxin crisis is also proof of this as its result is that tens of thousands of innocent farmers will suffer heavy financial losses.
I agree, in this regard, with the comments of Mrs Grossetête and Mr Souchet on the European agricultural model.
I would like to return to two particular comments.
<P>
Mr Florenz raised the issue of the position of the Council in this crisis.
This theme was taken up by Mr Böge, among others.
I would like to stress the fact that the Council embarked on a series of measures as soon as the problem arose.
The Agriculture and Health Ministers began work on the matter in co-operation with the Commission immediately.
As far as the Agriculture Ministers are concerned, the conclusions were adopted at political level in the Council in June, and now, again in terms of practical action, in the Council last Monday.
Mrs Roth-Behrendt mentioned the independent European Food Agency.
This was also mentioned by Mr Thyssen, Mr Mulder and Mr Van Dam.
Regarding this, I would like to state very clearly that food monitoring is the responsibility of the Member States, of the regions and the local authorities.
At Community level we need effective control, but the office responsible for overseeing the work of the Member States is sufficient for that.
I would like to give my strongest assurance to Mrs Roth-Behrendt that Finland will act with complete transparency in this matter.
<P>
Mr President, I shall convey the messages I have heard here to my colleagues in the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for conducting a very constructive and healthy debate on this difficult question.
I would like to briefly add to certain points that have been raised. Firstly, the question of the applicability of the PCB tests for pork is still open.
The problem, and this particularly applies to the Belgian Members of Parliament who have asked to speak on this issue, that we are still faced with is that as a prerequisite for using this test, parallel tests on dioxin and PCB content must be available so that a correlation can be established.
In order to do this however, a minimum number of samples is required.
Thus far, we have received a total of eight such samples from the Belgian authorities.
This is far too few.
As soon as we obtain the necessary results from the Belgian government, we are ready to implement the required measures immediately.
<P>
A second issue which has been raised by many is the question of the use of Community funds to aid farmers who have been victims of this crisis.
In my introductory remarks on this issue, I pointed out that in the area of market regulations, we have put in place a whole range of measures to alleviate the difficult situation in different areas.
I also pointed out that we have thus far authorised eight national subsidies after notifications.
However, as far as a direct Community subsidy for Belgian products is concerned, I have to make it clear that there is no basis in Community law for doing so.
Ladies and gentlemen, I agree with those of you who have asserted here that the mixing together of substances which are highly contaminated with dioxins, and which is suspected here, is still a criminal act and not an animal illness.
We can only pay compensation or subsidies where animal illnesses are concerned.
<P>
Applause
<P>
Mention should also be made of the fact that recently, there has allegedly been increased dioxin values in Germany.
I do not want to leave this matter hanging as that would be unfair.
What is the issue here?
Several clay minerals were tested which are also partly used as binding agents in the production of animal feedingstuffs.
In some of these clay minerals, increased dioxin values were actually found.
This dioxin, ladies and gentlemen, is several million years old, and is therefore nothing new. So we must take care that these substances have also been tested where they are used in the manufacture of animal feedingstuffs.
<P>
At the same time, this also demonstrates that it is not possible to have a zero dioxin value.
Dioxin these days is an ubiquitous substance that can be found anywhere in the world and which also occurs, unfortunately, in our countryside.
What we have to prevent, therefore, is the mixing together of dioxin-containing substances or at least ensure that such substances do not enter the animal feed chain via another route in spite of sufficient controls.
In this regard, I am also of the opinion, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, that it is irresponsible that we do this by means of the dilution factor.
That cannot be the plan.
<P>
On the other hand, however, we must discuss further how we should deal with animal waste products in general.
Things are actually not as simple as Mr Böge suggests.
It is also illogical, for example, that it is permissible to cook soup for human consumption from cattle marrowbone, or that the cattle marrow is even served in restaurants as a delicacy, while its use is prohibited in the animal feed industry.
Therefore, I am very much in favour of ruminants not obtaining their feed from materials which are animal in origin. Such a black and white policy in this area is not possible, however, if we do not want to run the risk of finding ourselves with enormous difficulties in terms of waste disposal.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, a couple of small points to finish with which I consider to be important. Firstly, repeated mention has been made of the issue of safety and quality requirements and an appropriate label.
Let me be quite clear on this point. We are not saying that if we have a quality label, we can, so to speak, permit a two-tier system as regards safety requirements.
The safety requirements must be satisfied for every foodstuff; there can be no compromise on this.
Of course, however, there have to be other possibilities for designating particular quality accordingly.
In this regard, we have the resolution from Autumn '98, which I commented on at the time.
My stance remains the same today.
<P>
Last point: Hormone meat. On this issue I would like, ladies and gentlemen, to draw your attention to the fact that, the day before yesterday, the USA announced that they are abandoning, at least temporarily, the supply of hormone-free meat to Europe since they are not currently in a position to observe the guarantees required by us.
As you know, however, we have made considerable changes to our regulations so that not only are spot checks carried out on imports but that every import is scrutinised.
Just so you know!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 12.00 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="De Clercq">
Madam President, I should like an error to be rectified.
In Annex I of the Minutes for yesterday, Wednesday 21 July, Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck's name appears under the Liberals in the list of Members that took part in the vote.
Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck is no longer an MEP.
However, Mr Ward Beysen, who succeeded Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck, is an MEP and he participated in this vote.
Might I then request that the name Neyts-Uyttebroeck be deleted as regards the first round of voting as well as the second, and that the name Ward Beysen be added.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="President">
Of course.
The Belgians did, in fact, send the details of their newly elected Members rather late, and the services will, naturally, make the necessary changes to these lists.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sánchez García">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in the Minutes of yesterday's sitting, 21 July, my name appears as a Member of the ARE Group.
I believe that the ARE Group no longer exists as a political entity.
Politically, I belong to the Liberal Group.
I would be grateful if this error could be rectified.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="President">
Absolutely.
This correction will, of course, be made.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Knörr Borràs">
Madam President, as Mr Sánchez has pointed out, there are errors in the Minutes, but not only because Mr Sánchez is included in the European Radical Alliance, which does not exist - and this has also happened with MEPs Bautista, Hudghton and MacCormick - but because I, although I belong to the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, appear in the Group of Non-attached Members.
I therefore respectfully request that the Minutes be revised since, to be quite frank, they are awful.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="President">
Of course, we will be systematically checking all of that to ensure that everything is correct.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Ortuondo Larrea">
Madam President, my intervention concerns the same matter.
I appear in both votes as belonging to the Group of Non-attached Members, although I belong to the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance.
May I ask that the appropriate rectifications be made.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="Doyle">
A small matter, Madam President.
Is it possible to sort out the microphones?
Those of us that must listen to interpretation for nearly every speaker are finding it very difficult to hear with the volume of these mikes.
A small matter, but please resolve it.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="President">
Mrs Doyle, we are working on a list which will be as complete as possible, of all the problems - and unfortunately there are many - that we have encountered in this building.
The list will be compiled at the beginning of next week.
It will be sent to all MEPs - I insisted on this - so that you can each add to it if needs be.
We will then, of course, do everything we can to rectify all the problems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Madam President, I would just like to point out that although I, like Mrs Thomas Moreau, took part in the second round of the Election of Quaestors, this fact is not recorded in the Minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="President">
We shall have this corrected as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Staes">
Madam President, yesterday's Minutes state quite correctly that I asked you to supply all the MEPs with the preliminary draft by the Committee of the Wise Men, if such a draft exists.
The Minutes state that your response to me was that you would take the steps necessary to achieve this.
Madam President, have you, from your position of importance, had the time to take any action in this matter yet?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="President">
Yes, Mr Staes.
You will shortly receive chapter VII of this report.
The Chairman of the Committee has sent me chapter VII and he says that the other chapters will only be available on 13 September.
I have already replied to him, asking to see him in order to let him know that this arrangement does not meet the wishes of our Assembly at all.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cohn-Bendit">
Madam President, it seems that there have been some amendments to the nomination of Members of the committees and delegations.
<P>
I would like to know if I am the only person who is not aware of these amendments, or if there are other MEPs in the same position, because before deciding if I am for or against an amendment, I would like to know what it is about.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="President">
I shall announce these amendments very slowly so that everyone will be aware of them.
As you will see, they are not particularly problematic, and this is why they have not been distributed in advance, although obviously, all amendments should otherwise be distributed beforehand.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Madam President, I respect the individual way in which you conduct sessions but could you perhaps ensure that it is standardised as far as possible that once the speaking time has expired, and before the microphone is switched off, an acoustic warning, made with the small hammer, sounds first so that a speaker is not simply cut off mid-sentence?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="President">
I have taken note of your request.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="Elles">
Madam President, apparently the Committee of the Wise Men may be presenting their report to the President and the group leaders sometime today.
If that is the case, could you please ensure that these are the final conclusions and that they are available to all Members as soon as possible?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="President">
Mr Elles, I have just given an answer to Mr Staes.
The position is exactly the one I have just stated, which is that one chapter of this report has been made available to us.
This is by no means acceptable, and that is why we are pursuing our demand as I have just told Mr Staes.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
VOTE
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="President">
Six amendments have been submitted to me, and I would like to repeat the point that I have just made, that they are merely redistributions of posts between various political groups, and by that I mean that they represent the exchange of various posts within the same group, or the addition of an appointment for a post which was vacant.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Grossetête">
Madam President, you say that these are just revisions or changes, but we would like the Socialist Group to tell us, concerning its amendment 1, if it is an addition or a real change, and we would like the same answer from the European Socialist Group on their amendment 4.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="President">
Mrs Grossetête, I propose that you hear what I have to say, if you don't mind, and then, if you are not satisfied, you may ask for more detailed explanations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cohn-Bendit">
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="President">
That is a good question.
The amendments have not been given to any Member.
I do not know what Mrs Grossetête's information networks may be, but no favouritism has been shown to any Member.
<P>
By successive votes, Parliament adopted all the proposals
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Nogueira Román">
Madam President, would you please bear in mind that our group is called 'Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance' , that it has two components and that this is a new group and should be referred to as such.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="President">
I do not know if you noticed, but when I called for your first amendment, I was careful to give the name in its entirety. I thought that afterwards, we might save time by abbreviating it.
<P>
Applause
<P>
(Parliament rejected the joint motion for a resolution)
<P>
(Loud applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Beazley">
Madam President, can you confirm this latest electronic vote?
Is it a vote by roll call or not?
<P>
The President replied that the vote was confirmed
<P>
May we have a vote by roll call?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="President">
No, Mr Beazley, requests for votes by roll call must be made within certain time limits.
<P>
Applause
<P>
It is quite possible that some Members may have voted electronically rather than by hand, but they are entirely within their rights to do so.
In any case, I personally did not observe the result, but the machine deems it to be correct, and the result stands as I have just announced it.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the resolution of the Group of the PPE and European Democrats.
As this resolution has not been adopted, we shall vote on the other resolutions.
<P>
Motion for a resolution (B5-0008/99), on behalf of the PPE Group on the conclusions of the Cologne European Council meeting on 3 and 4 June 1999
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Madam President, firstly, please allow me to intervene so that there may be equal treatment amongst all of the groups.
I believe that you said that it was the Group of the European People's Party/European Democrats.
I believe that the third part of the group's title is missing, and I say this so that all of us may be treated equally.
<P>
Secondly, Madam President, I believe that the proposal that you are suggesting we put to the vote has already been rejected. I think we should move on to the next one.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="President">
No, Mr Barón Crespo, we had a joint motion for a resolution which was issued by two political groups, the Group of the European People's Party and European Democrats, and the Liberal Group.
This resolution has just been rejected.
We are therefore proceeding now to the vote on the various resolutions which have been put forward individually by the groups.
That is how it stands.
Do you agree?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Madam President, in the event that the PPE Group and the Liberal Group present a joint motion for a resolution, as I understand it, the other proposals are automatically rejected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="President">
Absolutely not. That would have been the case had their resolution been adopted, but it was not.
<P>
Parliament rejected the motion for a resolution
<P>
Motion for a resolution (B5-0014/99), on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the results of the Cologne European Council meeting on 3 and 4 June 1999
<P>
Parliament rejected the motion for a resolution
<P>
Motion for a resolution (B5-0016/99), tabled by MEP Hautala and others, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, on the Cologne European Council meeting on 3 and 4 June 1999
<P>
Parliament rejected the motion for a resolution
<P>
Motion for a resolution (B5-0019/99), tabled by Mr Goerens and others, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the Cologne European Council meeting on 3 and 4 June 1999
<P>
Parliament rejected the motion for a resolution
<P>
Motion for a resolution (B5-0024/99), tabled by Mr Bonde, on behalf of the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities on the Cologne European Council meeting on 3 and 4 June 1999
<P>
Parliament rejected the motion for a resolution
<P>
Motion for a resolution (B5-0025/99), on behalf of the PSE Group, on the Cologne European Council meeting on 3 and 4 June 1999
<P>
Parliament rejected the motion for a resolution
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Madam President, I would already have asked for the Minutes to have been approved this morning if I had seen that Annex III had not been distributed for our perusal.
This morning, we found on our seats the Minutes containing two Annexes while the third Annex had not been distributed.
They were only pigeonholed over the course of the morning.
I wish to protest at this and would like to ask about the reasoning behind it.
Approval of the Minutes dictates that all three Annexes, and not just two, are available.
<P>
Secondly, I wish to point out that the third Annex contains the composition of the committees of delegations, and I would like to ask whether yesterday, when we took a vote on this issue - which is what apparently happened - whether the lists with the names and the composition were available or whether we took a vote without knowledge of the composition. I consider this to be an unheard of sequence of events if no appropriate submission was forthcoming.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="President">
We have just voted on the composition of the committees and delegations.
As far as the Annexes are concerned, you are indeed quite right. Members must have all relevant documents, and let me assure you that we will see that they do.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Madam President, the Cologne Council launched two processes for institutional reform which, to our mind, avoid the fundamental issues.
<P>
Firstly, it decided to work on a Charter which will bring together citizens' basic rights already in force throughout the Union, but it did not state exactly what legal basis it should end up having, nor what it would add to current legislation.
This is an obvious case of propaganda, with the aim of bringing to the table the idea of a European Constitution which would itself legitimise a Super-State ready to be constituted.
<P>
The second Cologne initiative was the work towards an Intergovernmental Conference on improving institutions with the future enlargement of the European Union in mind.
Its mandate has expanded beyond what was foreseen in the first Article of the Protocol on Institutions found in the Annex to the Treaty of Amsterdam, because the Cologne European Council, without consultation, added the option to extend voting to the qualified majority.
This solution strikes us as completely unworkable, for in order to prepare for enlargement, we need institutions which are not more rigid but more flexible, and that is why we feel that this mandate for negotiation must be set right by the Helsinki Council.
<P>
The biggest drawback about the Cologne conclusions is that they made a huge omission.
Almost nothing has been learned from the institutional point of view, from the major crisis, prompted last March by the collective resignation of the Commission, as a result of irresponsible management.
No amendment to the Treaty was proposed.
The possible reforms are being dealt with by the Anti-Fraud Office and by Romano Prodi himself, who told us yesterday that he would be able to resolve almost everything by changing the internal workings of the Commission and by putting forward a Members' Code of Conduct.
<P>
We are being taken for a ride, because the problems which led to the resignation of the Commission are much more serious.
They represent a huge gulf between the Union's institutions and its citizens, which can only be remedied by reform on a huge scale which would establish a Europe of Nations.
By forgetting this, the Cologne Council managed to dodge the question of democracy itself.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak, Lund and Thorning-Schmidt">
The Danish Social Democrats have voted in favour of the motion for a resolution from the Group of the Party of European Socialists on the Cologne European Council Meeting because we found the main content to be sound.
However, we wish to draw attention to three points on which we do not share the group's position.
These are:
<P>
1.The points concerning an EU defence policy, since Denmark has a reservation in this matter.2.The point concerning the statute for European parliamentarians.
We abstained from voting on this point, since the European Parliament's proposal for a statute is unsatisfactory.3.The point concerning the next Intergovernmental Conference, since we consider that the Conference should only cover enlargement and not be hampered by extensive reforms.
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Concerning the Summit which closed the Council's term under the auspices of the German Presidency, I would like to insist from the very outset on the very good work achieved by this Presidency within a perilous international context and in a period of 'doubt' in European opinion.
<P>
There was no lack of seriousness and toughness.
Who could think otherwise?
<P>
Concerning the actual decisions taken, although I welcome the efforts devoted to employment and the decision on a 'European Employment Pact' , I must state my unhappiness about the gains which were made and the concrete proposals put forward.
<P>
I hope, therefore, that it represents a starting point (and not the point of arrival!).The overwhelming majority of the Right in Parliament, incidentally, will not make things any easier.
<P>
The European Left will therefore have a fight on its hands to help the Council to implement its promises, and if possible, to go even further.
Unemployment is still 'an absolute evil' in today's Europe, destroying our society.
We will see then, how this matter is followed up under the Finnish Presidency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Thomas">
I could only approve with reservations the resolution of the European Parliament regarding the European Council Summit, held in Cologne on 3 and 4 June 1999 under the German Presidency.
Those who had hoped that the success of the German Presidency would continue smoothly through this year would have been bitterly disappointed.
There is a big difference between someone like Helmut Kohl shaping policies in the German and, at the same time, the European interest, coming to an agreement in advance with partners in the Member States, and thereby achieving something tangible as a result, and someone like Mr Schröder attempting to do this.
The entire world has noticed that he is uneasy on the international stage.
This has been evident in the lack of progress in the fight against the predominant problem in Europe, the lack of jobs and the inadequate employment situation.
<P>
Back in 1994, with a German as EU President-in-Office of the Council, Helmut Kohl, a milestone was reached in Essen when agreement was reached on the first elements of a co-ordinated European employment strategy.
On this basis, the Employment Summit in Luxembourg agreed upon significant guidelines.
Jean-Claude Juncker demonstrated the path to changing the structure of the labour market with the aim of securing a higher employment level through increased efficiency.
<P>
The grandiose announcement by Mr Schröder concerning the European Employment Pact was, as usual, premature.
A lavish menu was planned but what transpired was meagre fare.
All the' Cologne process' means is getting macro economic dialogue under way, i.e. conducting negotiations between the Council, Commission, social partners and the European Central Bank.
Nothing more was achieved.
<P>
This takes you back, embarrassingly, to the 'Alliance for Work' , which has transformed into an 'Alliance for Rhetoric' , lacking in effective structural reforms worthy of the name and where agreement cannot be reached on low wages, wage policy and wealth creation.
Citizens, and primarily those who are unemployed, are sick and tired of rituals lacking in substance.
<P>
Recently, the Kosovo conflict has overshadowed everything, but nothing can be concealed for long.
With bombastic Schröder maxims, the Federal Government going it alone, unauthorised and arbitrary personnel decisions à la Hombach and through rough behaviour instead of sensitivity, there has been absolutely nothing to write home about, either at a national or at a European level.
The European elections gave the necessary resounding slap in the face: The outgoing Council Presidency was a flop, not a success.
<P>
Kosovo
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fitto">
Madam President, with regard to the resolution approved on Kosovo, and in particular with respect to point 11, which appears to be an opportunity for political dialogue between the different positions, I think that it is important, within the declaration of voting intent, to emphasise a certain number of aspects.
One of these is related to the structure of the reconstruction agency in Kosovo.
The fact that a decentralised, flexible structure for improving efficiency has been identified is very important, but this must be linked to a more comprehensive assessment.
Since 1990, certain areas of Europe, Southern Italy, and, in particular, Puglia, have been suffering because of their geographic location from the effects of migration flows.
The Kosovo conflict has further complicated this situation.
In attempting to evaluate the situation, a more comprehensive assessment of the problem will be crucial, as will efforts to identify solutions which, within the flexibility of the structure, are able to highlight any aspects which may be linked to the problems of these territories of Southern Italy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
As far as I am concerned, there is no reason for soul-searching.
Europe was right to use military intervention.
Europe must do everything to punish the murderers. Europe must contribute to the reconstruction of the region.
<P>
I would like to say that, above and beyond these three points, the most important thing for me is that we quickly build a politically solid Europe, to speed up enlargement in the East in order to strengthen democracy, to eliminate the residues of National Communism and to reassure democratic governments by giving them the possibility of association and then accession.
<P>
The Balkan region is still very sensitive, and there is no guarantee that we will not face another, even more serious crisis.
There is, therefore, no time to lose.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
The resolution on Kosovo contains many declarations of good intentions and correct general principles, but there are also contradictions and omissions, even deliberate concealments.
There is no reference to the controversial legitimacy of the armed intervention of NATO in Yugoslavia without the clear authorisation of the UN.
However, in the absence of universal recognition of international legitimacy, on what legal grounds can the courts indict those in contravention who simply... lost the war?
Perhaps this legitimacy can be based solely on the will of NATO?
The declaration within the resolution of the need for a multi-ethnic Kosovo is all well and good, but to call on the KLA to safeguard this multi-ethnicity may be seen as rather black humour, particularly as one paragraph prescribes the disarmament of the military and paramilitary groups of the KLA itself, which I can only assume is because they are considered a threat to the progress of (multi-ethnic?)
Kosovo! Finally, the vindictiveness and naivety of the resolution in hoping that excluding Yugoslavia from the recovery programmes will aid stability and development is quite striking.
I strongly believe that it is only by incorporating into the European agenda reliable and realistic prospects of recovery for the whole of the country that we can witness healthy developments on the political scene of Yugoslavia, including the weakening of the Milosevic and other objectionable regimes along the way.
More generally, the incorporation of a reliable and realistic European agenda with a view to eventual accession into the EU, which we shall oversee and support, is the only solution which, in effect, can stabilise and creatively develop relations between all the Balkan countries and their relations with the rest of Europe and the world.
<P>
It is evident, however, that we understand Europe and the world quite differently to the authors of the incoherent ramblings contained in the resolution. that is why I shall not be voting in favour.
<P>
Death sentence on Mr Öçalan
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
I am not one to defend terrorism and terrorists and so I am not shocked that Mr Öçalan should face trial in Turkey.
<P>
Nevertheless, the drama of the Kurdish people is very real, and if we want to see their rights respected, a reasonable and balanced solution will have to be negotiated with its representatives.
<P>
This is assuming that there will not be an irrevocable decision on Mr Öçalan, especially an execution.
<P>
Finally, we must remind Turkey that its association with Europe implies respect for the same values and principles which unite the countries within the Union.
<P>
Contamination by dioxin
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
The issue that we are dealing with during this constitutive session is an extremely serious one: that of the dioxin crisis.
I am pleased that it features on our agenda and that representatives of the European Commission and the Council spoke on this matter this morning at the request of our Assembly.
<P>
The scandal of chickens and other animals being contaminated by dioxin, this carcinogenic substance, brought back very bad memories for all consumers.
This is the unpleasant impression for many of us, of having been through this scenario before - a scenario in which consumers are the last to find out what they are eating, and yet whose health is at serious risk.
The vote for this resolution is a genuine sign of the will of the European Parliament to get to the very bottom of this business and to answer consumers' legitimate concerns.
<P>
At the time of the mad cow crisis, the European Parliament did not spare any effort to have measures adopted for the protection of consumers.
Through its Temporary Committees of Enquiry, it followed with great vigilance the way the European Commission and the Member States managed the crisis.
Its efficiency has been unanimously recognised by all European institutions.
This is why I, like many of my colleagues, feel that we must set up a Temporary Committee of Enquiry on the dioxin crisis.
<P>
Short-term solutions must be found in order to resolve problems caused by the contamination of foodstuffs in Belgium, and in the longer term, debate must be started on the many questions first thrown up by the mad cow crisis and which are again coming to the fore because of this new food crisis.
I am thinking, for example of the Belgian government's lack of transparency in alerting the European Commission so late, and of the lack of information which was given to consumers.
<P>
On a more global scale, the question being asked is 'what kind of food policy do we want within the European Union?' .
The European Parliament, as well as numerous consumer associations, has been able to give answers which are also ways forward for thinking about a new definition of the European Union's approach to food.
This must uphold the interests of consumers, it must ensure that the precautionary principle prevails over all other principles, and it must set up an integrated inspection of the food chain in its entirety, from producer to consumer.
This traceability is essential for food safety.
<P>
This is, therefore, a global debate which we Members of the European Parliament must sustain throughout the next legislature. It must cover dioxin, hormones and GMOs which are all very controversial issues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Klaß">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in Germany we have a saying: 'Was ich nicht weiß, macht mich nicht heiß ' , i.e., ' What the eye cannot see, the heart cannot grieve over' .
At a personal level, this holds true, but when it comes to consumer protection, this maxim can not apply.
<P>
The dioxin scandal has once again demonstrated that an open information policy is an essential prerequisite for effective and comprehensive consumer protection.
The irresponsible behaviour of the Belgian authorities and the withholding of information relating to animal feed and foodstuffs contaminated with dioxins have shaken consumer confidence permanently.
Consumers must be able to feel confident that they will not be presented with health-endangering foodstuffs.
<P>
This equally applies to farmers as regards animal feed.
They obtain their feed from industrial enterprises and do not have the opportunity to inspect these products for harmful substances.
They must also be able to have the confidence that the animal feed is completely untainted.
On the one hand, this clarifies the responsibility of the competent authorities which are responsible for inspecting products and, on the other, makes it clear that the dioxin scandal is not a problem nor a mistake on the part of agriculture.
It is solely a failure on the part of industry.
Farmers, along with consumers, are the ones who have suffered as a result of this scandal.
Through no fault of their own, it is the farmers who have to accept heavy losses and who must also carry the burden of trying to win back the trust of the consumers.
<P>
Healthy feed is a precondition for healthy animals and thereby also for healthy foodstuffs.
Equally, it is a prerequisite for a flourishing farming industry with good operating profits.
<P>
Like other products, animal feed and foodstuffs could also be traded throughout the European Union without boundaries.
Nevertheless, or precisely because of this, it is important that consumer safety is safeguarded by the Member States and the European Union.
<P>
European standards exist in the area of foodstuffs, ensuring that products are properly inspected.
Similar monitoring should also be put in place for animal feed.
The dioxin scandal has clearly demonstrated one thing - if animal feed, as the first link in the food chain, is contaminated, the inspection of foodstuffs comes too late.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="President">
That concludes voting time.
<P>
The sitting was closed at 1.05 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Madam President, today's Minutes include an Annex indicating that the Bureaux of delegations of the joint parliamentary committees for Associated States have already been elected.
However, if you read the Rules of Procedure, you will see that Rule 170(6) states that the appointment of the joint parliamentary committees is somewhat different from the interparliamentary delegations and must therefore be carried out under the same conditions as the appointment of the committees.
This is how we have done it in the past.
This means that elections must take place as for the committees.
The fact that there are discussions between the groups of parties is another matter altogether.
So, in the case of interparliamentary delegations, the Plenum decides, whereas in the case of the joint parliamentary committees for Associated States, in my opinion, Rule 170(6) applies.
I would like to make that point.
<P>
There is a second point which I would also like to make.
The deadline for submitting the relevant proposals was ten o'clock yesterday.
However, the proposals - that is, the preliminary draft - on which we voted did not reach us until after ten o'clock and so I must call the entire vote into question.
I would ask you to consider both points and give me your feedback at the next sitting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
I will make the President aware of your first point, and she will discuss it with the Presidents of the Groups at the Conference of Presidents.
On your second point, the services have informed me that you were given all the documents relating to the Minutes of the previous sitting.
In any case, your comments have been noted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Madam President, I would like to ask that the results of the votes be displayed on the indicator board for at least ten seconds so that in future they can be noted down.
We now have a new voting device and perhaps this can be programmed to display the results for at least ten seconds.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
This has been noted.
I think that many here share your concern.
It is important that we find out the result of every vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langen">
Madam President, I have a question on Wednesday's Minutes, or, more specifically, on Annex 3 which was first distributed yesterday afternoon and which contains the proposals for nominations to the Bureaux of interparliamentary delegations.
I would like to know whether the typing error, which is actually binding, has since been corrected.
It meant that my colleague Sumberg from the PPE Group would have become a deputy chairperson in two of these delegations, i.e. for Japan and China.
In actual fact, colleague Jarzembowski has become deputy chairperson for the Japan delegation.
Has this been corrected and is this binding?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
This correction has been made and everything is now as it should be.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valdivielso de Cué">
Madam President, I wish to refer to the comments which the President, Mrs. Fontaine, made yesterday concerning the prohibition of the use of mobile telephones inside the hemicycle.
There is nothing more important in our Parliament than talking and communication, but in debates and not through external means of communication such as mobile telephones with the ringing and distortion that they cause.
<P>
I ask that real measures be taken, where necessary, to impose sanctions, just as we might penalise those who do not vote.
Those who distort the use of words in this hemicycle must be penalised, forbidden entry or have their mobile telephones confiscated.
I request that effective measures be taken.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
I shall certainly make the President aware of this, but I think that the first step is to appeal first to the courtesy and public-spiritedness of our colleagues.
I am sure that, given time, everyone will find ways of treating one another with respect.
In any case, I hope that we will not find ourselves having to impose disciplinary measures.
We will discuss this within the Bureau to see how this problem can be dealt with.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Friedrich">
Madam President, firstly, I would like to point out that the German interpreting service has clearly failed.
However, I also have a second point: are you aware of the significance of Mr Posselt's explanation?
If the error, as pointed out by Mr Posselt stands, we do not have a properly elected President and Vice-President in the delegations.
This is an extremely serious matter and must therefore be treated with urgency.
I would ask that this be clarified and dealt with as soon as possible by the Bureau because this means we are entering the summer recess with a completely unclear situation with regard to the delegations and this must not happen in this Parliament.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
On your first point, I have been told that the German interpreting service appears to be working again, and I am very relieved that this is the case.
On your second point, I think that you are right. I shall inform our President of the comments which you and others have made.
As you are part of the Bureau, I know that you will also make her aware of this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Provan">
Madam President, it has become a bit of a tradition in this House for Members to stand up and say that their name was not on the attendance list for the previous day.
My name does not appear on the list for yesterday for some reason or other.
Perhaps it might be a better system if one could just go up to the front desk somewhere and point out to a member of staff that one's name was not on the list, rather than having to rise and inform the whole House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
We shall be attending to this.
Incidentally, you have just given me the opportunity to tell our new colleagues that the procedure you have just mentioned is available to all Members. This makes the sitting somewhat easier and also means that an MEP does not have to come and point out the omission orally.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Vander Taelen">
Madam President, I was very interested to hear the main findings of the second report by the Committee of Wisemen on Belgian radio this morning.
But I think it is a bit of a shame that in this high temple of communication, it appears to have been easier for the report to find its way into the newspapers, even in a far and distant land such as Belgium, than onto the desks of the MEPs.
My colleague Mr Staes raised this matter yesterday.
I understand that he succeeded in getting hold of the report, on which I congratulate him, but to tell the truth, I had at least expected that all MEPs would receive this report yesterday.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="President">
That is right.
It seems that the report has indeed been given out to all MEPs.
Perhaps you should approach the distribution services.
In any case, this is what I have been told, and I shall see to it that it is confirmed, and that everyone does indeed have access to this report.
Besides, you know that, unfortunately, the media sometimes manages to obtain information before the official channels are able to act.
This is one of the great debates in society today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Madam President, I should like to raise a point of order, and he should not take this personally, regarding the presence of the Commissioner.
The subject we are shortly to discuss is the 'non-competition clause in football' .
That is on the agenda for this morning.
The Commissioner for competition policy, Mr Van Miert, ought to be present for this.
It has often been the case in the past that Commissioners who did not have competence in the agenda item have attended here.
I would urge you as the Bureau, to discuss with the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, that when certain items appear on our agenda, the Commissioners who attend are those who actually have competence for the area concerned.
Mr Kinnock is not to take this personally, for it may be that he is a great fan of football, and I know that he is a talented Commissioner, but I think this matter is too important to have to bring before the new Parliament again.
It is the Commissioners with responsibility for the topic concerned that should be here when their subject is being discussed.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
As you know, in his new Commission, Mr Prodi has nominated a Commissioner with special responsibility for relations with Parliament.
We must be able to make Mr Prodi and his new Commissioner aware of your proposal to have Commissioners come and give detailed replies to questions which are relevant to them.
Having said that, the Commission is a collective body, and Mr Kinnock certainly made use of all the necessary information in replying to us this morning, and I would like to thank him for being here.
<P>
The Minutes were approved
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
French Football Federation fine
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="President">
The next item on the agenda is the Commission's statement on the fine imposed on the French Football Federation following its infringement of the European legislation on competition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
I should like to begin by responding to the words of Maij-Weggen.
The point is well made and well taken.
I know that she feels strongly about this and that she is not alone in that.
<P>
Whilst I obviously cannot commit my colleague, Mrs Loyola de Palacio, who is happily a Member of this House at the present time, to the development of her policy and approach in this House, there are several who feel that the time is right for further discussion between the Commission and Parliament on some of the procedures and conventions of this House, which obviously meets in more than one place, as well as the conventions and procedures of the College.
I hope that discussion can proceed without great delay because there could be developments which would be of mutual benefit and would actually promote accountability and transparency in the service of the Union.
<P>
On the question before the House, I would like to make the following statement on behalf of the Commission.
This week, the Commission issued a formal legal decision against the local organisers of last year's football World Cup tournament in France.
The organisers were the CFO.
That decision followed the organisation's use of discriminatory sales arrangements for tickets for matches.
<P>
As the House will recall, in 1996 and 1997 the system used by CFO favoured consumers who were able to provide an address in France.
In the view of the Commission, that constituted an abuse of the organisation's dominant position in the market which is contrary to Article 82 of the Treaty.
This was the first case in Community history in which Article 82 of the Treaty has been used to penalise a discriminatory practice that harms the interests of consumers without having a significant effect on the market.
In reaching its decision therefore, the Commission took account of the fact that there were no previous decisions of the Commission or case-law from the Court of Justice to guide CFO in its ticketing policy.
In addition it was evident that the ticketing arrangements used by CFO in 1996 and 1997 were exactly similar to those employed in previous World Cup tournaments and other similar major international contests.
<P>
As the House will recall, the Commission responded to complaints from people outside France who were finding it impossible to buy tickets by beginning an investigation.
The CFO then quickly changed its policy and made efforts to make sure that tickets sold in 1998 were available without discrimination.
Then 100, 000 tickets became available to everyone on a first-come-first-served basis.
<P>
The Commission judged that these factors - the unprecedented application of the law, the conventions relating to previous ticket sales for international tournaments, and the constructive action of CFO - justified a symbolic rather than a punitive fine.
In addition, it is relevant to add that a more substantial fine on the organisers of the 1998 World Cup in France would have imposed an obligation on the Commission to consider action against the organisers of previous major tournaments who used exactly the same ticketing policies.
This could have meant, for example, action against the organisers of the 1996 European Championship because on that occasion, supporters benefitted from a sales scheme which favoured nationals over fans from abroad.
<P>
The French organising committee is not a normal commercial profit-seeking company.
It exists for the interests of football and it is important to recognise that all profits reverted to the game of football.
Fining the French organising committee means taking money away from grassroots football and from the promotion of the game and putting that money into the coffers of the European Commission.
I do not believe that any genuine lover of football would think that was either sensible or acceptable.
<P>
I know that football supporters in parts of the Union have strongly criticised the size of the EUR 1, 000 fine.
My colleagues and I can certainly understand such reactions when those reactions are not informed by the facts.
I hope, however, that in this House and elsewhere, there will be recognition of the specific factors directly relevant to this case.
The important - and I think the instructive - outcome of the case is plain.
All future sports tournament organisers now clearly know that any ticketing arrangements must comply fully with European Community competition rules and be non-discriminatory.
Secondly, they know that the Commission will not hesitate to take action against any organiser that fails to comply with those rules.
Thirdly, they know that the symbolic approach could only be followed once, and in very particular circumstances.
<P>
These realities, in the view of the Commission, mean that standards of fair treatment for sports fans have been clarified and strengthened.
They will definitely enjoy protection against discrimination in the future.
The organisers of the Euro-2000 Cup in Belgium and the Netherlands have, for instance, contacted the Commission and as a result, they have adapted their sales system to meet the requirements of Community law.
There has been no previous occasion on which a higher percentage of tickets has been made available to the general public with absolutely equal rights for all citizens of the European Union.
We intend to keep it that way.
<P>
That is the silver lining.
It is a pity that first there had to be a cloud.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Perry">
Madam President, I want to congratulate Commissioner Kinnock on the statement he has just made.
I simply do not know how he managed to keep a straight face as he read out those comments.
That statement from the Commission was quite appalling.
I do not blame Commissioner Kinnock himself, but I certainly blame the action, attitude and inaction, in fact, of the outgoing Commission.
This is a pathetic fine from a pathetic Commission.
All we can say is that it is absolutely typical of the way they have conducted affairs over the last five years.
I only hope that the President-elect Mr Prodi will take this as an example of how not to do it.
<P>
I was one of 32 Members of this Parliament who took a private legal action before the French courts last year in a last-ditch attempt to get more tickets for fans across Europe.
Unfortunately, when we went to the French courts, we were told that it was too late at that stage to get the redistribution of tickets ordered, although the French courts themselves recognised that European rules had been flouted in the procedure that was followed.
<P>
I should like to point out that the costs to the individual Members of Parliament who took that legal action was, surprise, surprise, in the order of £1000 each, something rather more than the fine that has now been imposed upon the World Cup organisers.
<P>
The Commission itself, had it wished, had the power to impose a fine of something like EUR 20m - perhaps even more - if it had taken this seriously.
It did not take it seriously in 1997 when it could have taken action to ensure a fair distribution.
It did not take it seriously in 1998 when we had the problem and fans across Europe were denied the opportunity to see the World Cup.
It is not taking it seriously now.
What sort of message is this giving out to sports organisers?
Commissioner Kinnock called this a symbolic fine.
Well, it is certainly giving a sign that it does not take it seriously at all.
We are talking about big business here.
The amounts of money involved are significant.
Something like £300m, I am told, was the turnover of the World Cup; the fine something like EUR 1000.
This is simply not acceptable at all.
<P>
The sign that is being given is that the Commission is turning a blind eye, that it is not really worried.
It is saying to large-scale organisers: 'You can carry on exploiting the fans' .
It is also saying that this is the way to encourage - and it is encouraging - a black market in these tickets.
It must do something to stop it.
Sport is now big business.
The Commission in future must show that it means business to ensure that sport, like other businesses across Europe, must observe European rules and regulations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="Ford">
Madam President, I thank the Commission and Commissioner Kinnock for being available to make this statement following my request earlier in the week.
While I welcome the fact they are here to make the statement, I am disappointed in its content.
<P>
I am told I do not like football: I am a Manchester City season-ticket holder.
I am told that the Commissioner has similar problems with a rumoured enthusiasm for Cardiff City which may explain some of the difficulties we both face.
Nevertheless, I agree that the French Football Federation put on a wonderful feast of football.
The French 'rainbow team' did much to confound the xenophobics and racists who, like Mr Le Pen and our unlamented former colleague Mr Mègret, believe that to be French is to be white.
Yet importantly, there clearly was a breach of competition rules on a massive scale.
Commissioner Kinnock talked about 180, 000 tickets being made available to football fans across Europe.
That was after 600, 000 tickets were sold on a discriminatory basis.
The organising committee deliberately and provocatively ignored early on the requirement that all citizens of the European Union be treated equally, and clearly breached Article 82 of the Treaty.
In doing so, they massively increased their profits, selling tickets in corporate blocks as small as one.
You could not buy a ticket by telephoning and paying FF500, but for FF5, 000 you could get the same ticket and the equivalent of a school dinner - I have had corporate hospitality before.
<P>
If Commissioner Kinnock is asking me if I believe that the European Commission could actually help grassroots football better than the multinational corporations who actually rely on the profits, I would actually vote for the European Commission.
It may not be a very popular move but I have seen very little evidence of the people who are making multi-millions of pounds out of football putting it back into football.
They are putting it into franchising and other things.
<P>
This also endangered the security of thousands of football fans.
It turned tens of thousands of French men and women into amateur ticket touts.
If they bought their allocation of four tickets each for a major match and sold them on the black market, they had enough money for two of them to take a two-week holiday in Australia.
It was very difficult to imagine that French men and women would not pick up tickets and sell them in that way and clearly that was happening.
<P>
In these circumstances, therefore, does the Commissioner not agree that football fans will think it is absolutely ludicrous, the EUR 1000 fine - which was about the black-market price for a ticket for England-Argentina - that ticket touts will think that this is good news and that genuine football fans will be disappointed?
Can he not confirm that we could have fined the French football authorities something between FF 100m and FF 200m, which was something like 10 % of the extra profits they made?
Does he not believe that the excuse that the organising federation no longer exists is actually a facile one when clearly it is the responsibility of the French Football Federation?
<P>
Does he not agree that the message to the organisers of Europe 2000, to the organisers of Europe 2004 and the possible organisers of the Mondiale 2006, whether in Germany or the United Kingdom, is that they can ignore the rules, maximise profits and in the end, all it costs them is the small change?
<P>
Should the Commission be treating football differently from any other multi-billion pound industrial operation?
It seems to me that if this had been in the telecommunications sector or elsewhere, the notion that we would have come back with a symbolic fine in circumstances where people had increased their profits by £200m or £300m would have been as ludicrous as the symbolic fine appears to football fans.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Watson">
Madam President, our former Belgian Socialist colleague, Mr De Coene, and I led the group of 30 MEPs who took the case to the High Court in Paris last year.
The tribunal there found in our favour.
They found that the European law had been broken by the CFO. They dismissed our case on a technicality, finding that we were inadmissible as litigants.
But we took action because we were not convinced that the European Commission was standing up for the rights of the European citizen.
As a result of our action, we were assured by Commissioner Van Miert that the Commission would prosecute this to the very end.
That action, as Mr Perry has pointed out, cost us individually more than EUR 1000 each.
Members of this House are sick at the fine that has been imposed by the European Commission on the CFO.
I can well imagine why Commissioner Van Miert did not want to come here personally to make this statement today.
<P>
This is not the first time that the World Cup organisers have rigged the sales of tickets against the ordinary football fan.
But it is the first time that they have trumpeted their tournament as the first billion-dollar World Cup.
They have made millions out of discriminatory sales arrangements.
If the Commission had pursued this abuse of Article 82 as rigorously as it pursues abuses in other areas of industry then this fine would have been not £600 but £6m or more.
<P>
The Commissioner tells us that the interests of consumers were harmed but that this had no serious effect on the market.
I suggest to the Commissioner that it has a very serious effect on the European Union's reputation.
He tells us that there was nothing to guide the CFO.
What about the fine that the Commission imposed on the Italian organisers of the World Cup in 1990, a fine which was, in fact, larger than the fine that is imposed on the CFO this year?
What about the exchange of correspondence between the CFO and the European Commission which started the previous July?
<P>
Unlike Mr Ford, who represents the Southwest but supports Manchester City, I do not support any football club, but I do support the right of the European citizen to be protected from discriminatory practices and the abuse of a dominant market position.
I support the European Union in developing its role to protect those citizens.
To me, this fine sends to the European citizen the message that Europe is on the side of big business and not on the side of the ordinary man or woman in the street.
<P>
In my view, this is a sad-and-sorry ending to a sad-and-sorry Commission.
I hope that our new Commissioners, when they have been approved in September, will have rather more backbone in taking up this kind of case on behalf of the people of Europe.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Madam President, unlike the previous speakers, who were, it has to be said, all British - well, well, what a surprise! - I would like to protest against the Commission's decision, which I find quite astounding, to penalise the French Football Federation for so-called discrimination in the sale of tickets during the last football World Cup.
Commissioner Kinnock pointed out, and rightly so, that this has been the accepted practice in previous World Cups.
<P>
And why is this an accepted practice, ladies and gentlemen?
Well, it is quite simply that a World Cup like that is organised by a country, and paid for by the tax-payers of that country.
Given these conditions, it is felt to be courteous and good practice to allocate a slightly larger quota to that country's citizens.
When a company floats shares for example, increases its capital, and then sells the shares, nobody says that it is illegal if it reserves a quota for its own employees, who are a vital component of the company's lifeblood.
This quota is, of course, a form of discrimination and yet, I feel it is a legitimate one.
I, therefore, think that the Commission was wrong to apply Article 82 of the Treaty because there was no real abusive exploitation of power, only a quite legitimate and understandable use of a set of circumstances which were highly unusual from a financial point of view.
<P>
However, Madam President, I would like to move on, because this is, when all is said and done, a relatively minor matter which is of no great consequence to life in our country. There are other more serious matters in which the Commission has been guided by the same extremist mind set which may bring about very serious imbalances in our country's economy and also in its employment figures.
<P>
I am thinking in particular of the sanction imposed, yet again on France, for having allowed certain textile companies to reduce their national insurance contributions at a time when they were taking on new staff in an international climate which, as you know, ladies and gentlemen, is extremely tough, largely because of the international agreements negotiated by the Commission itself.
So these businesses are now going to have to repay the social grants which they were given because of an extremist, narrow-minded and almost plain stupid way of seeing things.
It is an absolute scandal.
I think that, in future, this Parliament should set an example with a more considered vision, one which is more fair and impartial towards competition.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Vander Taelen">
Madam President, first and foremost, I should like to quote a great Dutch philosopher, Michels, a famous football coach who once said that football is war.
I would prefer to suggest that if football is an alternative to war then I am in complete agreement with that.
I do not intend to talk about the World Cup in France here, but there are a few general points I wish to make.
<P>
I believe that football, and international fixtures in particular, are indeed a valuable alternative to war, however silly that may sound.
Football should be a celebration, and international fixtures such as World Cups or European Championships really ought to belong to the people again.
What we are seeing now, and what happened last year in France, is a perfect illustration of this.
What ought to be a celebration for the people has, to some extent, become a completely commercialised celebration.
We can see that the same thing is tending to happen with national football competitions throughout Europe.
These show that football is becoming less and less accessible to ordinary people and has to some extent become a celebration of business, with people tucked away behind plate glass windows and in comfortable business lounges.
<P>
That is why I want to call on the Commissioner to take positive action for a sport that must remain accessible to ordinary people and that must be protected from commercial interests.
Of course, the same applies to competitive cycling, where cyclists sometimes inject themselves with the same hormones that cattle are injected with.
<P>
On the same note, I would ask the Commissioner to actually produce a policy that is no longer concerned with imposing fines on organisations that have infringed some competition regulation or other, but is, in every sense, a policy aimed at controlling those big organisations and ensuring that European Championships and World Cups that are held in Europe really do continue to be celebrations for the people and not celebrations of business.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Désir">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I do not think that the market should be the only factor taken into consideration as regards the organisation of sporting events.
During the 1998 World Cup, of the two million tickets sold, the largest share was handled directly by FIFA, which sent quotas to the 203 national football associations, with a larger share going to the 24 qualifying countries, of which the United Kingdom was one.
Another share, 600, 000 tickets, was handled by the host nation, which reserved 37 % of this quota.
<P>
The idea of putting all tickets for a sporting event of this size up for sale on the European market has never been put into practice by any country, as Commissioner Neil Kinnock has just pointed out.
In Euro '96, for example, the football tournament organised in the United Kingdom, 42 %, not 37 % of the tickets were reserved for the host nation.
<P>
Secondly, having control of the tickets is to have 90 % control of security.
If the World Cup was a success in this area too, if we had relatively few incidents, it was largely because this control over the tickets facilitated for example, Franco-British co-operation in security matters, and efficiency in handling the arrival of groups of supporters, supervising them, and following up any problems. This allowed us to escape many outbreaks of hooliganism, which we hope never to see again on our continent.
<P>
Thirdly, the more individual sales that are made, the greater the risk of a black market developing.
This is the lesson learned by the Italians themselves, from organising the 1990 World Cup, and it was obviously taken on board by the French organising committee.
<P>
Fourthly and finally, it is understandable to ensure that where a popular sport is concerned, when the host nation has invested nine billion francs in the event, the citizens of the host nation support and participate positively in this event, and this is also a key factor in its success.
But it is also understandable that care is taken over the security of these citizens and also that of the groups from abroad, whom the host country accommodates for the occasion.
<P>
During this World Cup, ladies and gentlemen, you saw thousands of little Zidanes and Marcel Desaillys, coming from the working-class neighbourhoods of Marseilles, Toulouse and Strasbourg to applaud the exploits of the great Zidane and the great Desailly, but also those of the great Owen, the great Beckham, and the great Di Pietro.
Nobody could say that this amazing World Cup was tainted by racial or social discrimination.
It was an open and welcoming popular celebration. It gave us a wonderful picture of sport, a picture of the diversity of our teams and of our nations, and a picture of fraternity across our continent.
The supporters group which was most successful and most appreciated by the French people was that of the Scots.
We, the citizens of France, did not go on holiday to Australia in July 1998 because the world came to France, and because we were at the Stade de France, at St-Denis, at the velodrome, in Marseilles with the people from our working-class neighbourhoods.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, I think that the European Union's priority in sport today is not to punish a Member Nation which has managed successfully to organise an event like this, but is rather, as Romano Prodi said yesterday, to engage in a real pan-European battle against doping, and this means refusing to allow the unique power of money to kill off the beauty and the very spirit of sport.
<P>
Applause
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="Gill">
Madam President, I am here to speak on behalf of millions of women football fans.
I welcome Commissioner Kinnock's reassurances.
<P>
I must say that I was appalled at how the ticket allocation was handled by the French authorities. I know that a large number of people in Britain were equally frustrated.
The release of the tickets was really too late for most people to be able to take up those opportunities given their work commitments.
What we need, I believe, is some joined-up thinking.
<P>
One of the main objectives of the EU institutions is to ensure that citizens of all EU countries are treated fairly and equally.
In this instance, millions of football fans were discriminated against.
And yet, this breach is taken lightly.
Whatever the reasons for that particular measly fine, it will alienate a large number of fans.
It is another missed opportunity to connect with the people of Europe.
Football is a passion that unites all the countries.
What better way for us to change our image and connect with the people of Europe than to say that we take football as seriously as we take any branch of commerce.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
I should like to begin where Ms Gill left off, first of all by congratulating her on her maiden speech in this House.
She will never feel such fear again or derive such satisfaction.
I am sure the whole House thanks her for her contribution.
Indeed, she summed up the feelings of the Commission in many ways when she said that she deeply regretted the existence of discrimination.
That is the universal feeling in the Commission, which is why my colleague, Mr Van Miert, and his associates in the Commission specifically sought to do something effective about preventing for all time in the future and indeed for 1998 the use of discriminatory practices by CFO.
<P>
I should like to take up where Mr Vander Taelen left off.
When he said that football is a valid alternative to war I was reminded of the maxim that the first casualty of war is truth.
As I listened to some of the contributions in the course of this debate, I could not escape the feeling that sometimes the first casualty of football is truth because there were one or two contributions that were made passionately, but largely without the recognition of fact.
I would like to respond on behalf of the Commission, with some repetition of fact.
I regret it if I am repetitive, but if at first people do not hear, perhaps they will hear the second time.
<P>
I begin with Mr Perry.
I enjoyed his recitation of sound-bites about pathetic, appalling and all the rest of it.
But what is he really saying when he says that the European Commission has the power to impose a EUR 20m fine?
In theory and in constitutional terms, he is right.
But is he really suggesting that the European Commission should take EUR 20m or EUR 30m out of football and put it in the coffers of the European Commission?
Mr Ford says 'yes' , he would rather that the European Commission have the money than the CFO.
He demonstrated a surprising distance from the realities of public opinion.
This man has been my friend for a considerable time. I admire everything but his taste in football clubs.
But the fact remains that if that were the course of action taken, he knows what the headlines would be.
So does Mr Watson, who is disturbed about the reputation of the European Union.
He knows the headlines would say: 'Euros snatched from football' .
<P>
Let us be rational.
Is it sensible in the circumstances to take the money in large amounts from football and deposit it in the European Commission's coffers, or is it sensible to take action that guarantees that on no future occasion will there be discriminatory sales of football or other international tournament tickets?
Then Mr Perry says that he wants this action to be absolutely firm and ferocious.
I can understand the sentiment.
But to be consistent the same action would have to be taken against the organisers of the European Cup competition which happened to be in the United Kingdom in 1996.
Football came home, it was said.
Are we really suggesting in this House, or anywhere else, that we should look back to 1996 or comparable competitions and say that we are dishing out EUR 20m fines on those who organised these competitions?
Come on. Let us be rational.
<P>
Let me return very briefly again to Mr Ford.
He said those who make money out of football should put it back in.
He knows very well that I am zealous in my support of that view.
But I would suggest that we have to do rather more than attend only to international football ticket sales in order to bring about that intelligent and necessary recycling of funds.
<P>
One point I want to focus on, in what Mr Ford said, is that the Commission, he alleges, is sending out the message to organisers of Euro 2000 and maybe future World Cup competitions in the European Union that they can ignore the rules.
The absolute opposite is taking place.
I had already said ten minutes before Mr Ford spoke that the organisers of the Belgian and Netherlands European championship have been in touch with the Commission and not a single ticket will be sold on a discriminatory basis.
They are already obeying the rules, setting the precedent, and, at all future times in the European Union, that will be the way in which affairs are conducted.
The football supporters and supporters of other sports quite rightly will now know that they have the protection of the law and organisers of tournaments will know that they will be the object of real and heavy punishment if they break what are now known to be the rules.
<P>
This is the point.
There was no knowledge of the rules.
There is no case-law from the Court of Justice.
There is no precedent of action by the European Commission.
The money would have been taken out of football if there had been a heavier fine.
There would have to be a further effort to levy fines against previous organisers.
The fact is that CFO, who I do not paint as plaster saints, the moment that our investigation commenced, stopped the discriminatory sales.
Everybody would have liked that to have occurred earlier, but it did happen.
When Mr Watson says, therefore, that this is not the first time that organisers have rigged the sales, he may be right.
But this is the first time that the legal competition authority has stopped the rigging, stopped the discriminatory sales and the first time that any competition authority in the world has prevented for all future time the use of discriminatory methods in the sale of tickets.
<P>
Mr Watson accepted my point when I said that this was a case where consumers were hit but the effect was not on the market as it is generally understood.
I think he conceded that because he said that was my claim and the problem was that the reputation of Europe had suffered.
I would put this point to him, a man for whom I have very high regard, as I do for the other participants in this debate: that reputation can only suffer if what has occurred is misrepresented.
I know there is no-one in this House who will ever want to do that.
I therefore appeal for attention to the facts.
Whilst I fully understand and indeed, to a degree, share the passions about the way in which the big business of football so frequently now is operating in ways that contradict the interests of genuine football fans, I accept all that.
I ask for fair treatment in this case as indeed in many others.
<P>
It was uncharacteristically unworthy of one honourable Member to say that he could understand why my colleague Mr Van Miert is not here because of the gravity of this case.
If there has ever been a Commissioner in the forty-two year history of the European Union who has publicly demonstrated integrity and guts, it is Mr Van Miert.
The reason he is not here this morning is because he has to attend to his work, not from any cowardice.
It is infamous for anybody to even infer that is the reason for his absence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Commissioner.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="President">
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
<P>
The sitting was closed at 9.55 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="Howitt">
Madam President, I respect what you say about not engaging in the debate and I will not seek to do so. But I wonder if you could give an undertaking to reply to the letter that I and a number of other Members specifically wrote to you personally on the issue of disability access.
If we were to receive that reply in advance of Friday, it would help the issue enormously.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Absolutely, we intend to look into the matter with colleagues but also with the organisations which are competent in these matters in order to ensure that everything which has to be done is done.
But I shall, of course, give you a reply before Friday, if you so wish.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Madam President, we have a marvellous television in our room and it works too, so I have no complaints whatsoever on that score.
It is fantastic, and there are twenty channels.
But in the previous Parliament building, one of them was a Dutch TV channel, which meant that we Dutch MEPs could follow the news as well.
Now, not one of the twenty channels is a Dutch one.
Could you please have this channel re-installed?
I do not mean one for following the plenary part-session but an actual TV channel such as Nederland 1,2,3 or RTL 4, as we had last time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
As you can imagine, Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, since I have tabled this period on Friday in order to itemise all the new problems and the old problems which have not been remedied, that is the time when we can look into all this.
I would ask you to please keep your comments concerning the premises until Friday so that we can have a comprehensive debate on the subject at that time.
If it is a matter of urgency, we shall see if the problem can be settled before Friday, but I am not sure whether it can.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Nogueira Román">
Madam President, I believe that it would be appropriate if we now, having observed a minute' s silence for the victims of the earthquakes in Greece and Turkey - with good reason since, quite apart from the large numbers of casualties, these events have a deep political significance - observed a minute' s silence for the victims of Indonesian repression in East Timor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
As you know, Mr Nogueira Román, we have put this tragic matter on the agenda for our plenary part-session.
At that time, we shall have an in-depth debate on the question, with a contribution from the Finnish Presidency, and a vote upon a text.
This is the reason why I did not mention the situation in East Timor when opening this part-session.
But I can tell you, as you well know, that this is a matter of great concern to me.
And indeed, I have already expressed a very strong opinion on this matter on behalf of all of us.
<P>
As you perhaps also know, a small delegation of observers was organised during the summer on an emergency basis by the President, Mr Báron Crespo, who came to see me on the matter, and I was pleased to follow up his request.
So, Mr Nogueira Román, you can be assured of our solidarity in this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Lynne">
Madam President, I should like to request that the "no smoking" areas are respected, which was not the case at the last Strasbourg session.
As an asthmatic, I had two asthma attacks in this building during the last session.
I do not wish to repeat that performance.
I am sure there are other people in this building who also have asthma and other lung problems, so I request that all "no smoking" areas are respected.
<P>
(Loud applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
Mrs Lynne, I have noted your request which is perfectly legitimate, even, indeed, if one does not suffer from asthma.
It is certainly very unpleasant, and we shall ensure that these areas are scrupulously respected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Knörr Borràs">
Madam President, as well as supporting my colleague' s proposal regarding the victims in East Timor, I would like to remind you that, a year ago, a peace process was launched in my country. I would like, through your Presidency, to ask the European Parliament firstly to support the efforts of all political forces in the promotion of dialogue between all political representatives.
Secondly, I would ask this Parliament to strongly urge ETA to abandon violence for good. Thirdly, and lastly, we should agree on programmes to aid victims, the rehabilitation of prisoners and education aimed at peace in the Basque Country and Northern Ireland.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
Mr Knörr Borràs, I have noted your intervention whose rightful place is in the context of the debate we have organised on the matter.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
The Minutes of the sitting of Friday, 23 July have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Madam President, a word regarding the Minutes.
I just want to point out that in the Minutes from last Friday, one of my interventions was not properly reproduced.
I was pointing out that, in accordance with our Rules of Procedure, the joint parliamentary committees, unlike the delegations, but just like the committees, have to elect their bureaux.
This is not properly reflected in the Minutes.
All that is contained is my protest that the documents were not distributed on time.
I request that it be made clear that we in the joint parliamentary committees also have to hold elections just as is the case in the parliamentary committees.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Posselt.
I take note of your request.
<P>
If there are no further comments on the Minutes, I declare the Minutes approved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Perry">
Madam Chairman, I rise on a point of order.
I see that certain Members in the House at this time are raising banners in support of a cause. I am sure the overwhelming majority, myself included, agree with the sentiment but can you advise us on any rules, regulations or guidance that you wish to give this House in terms of manifestations in any form other than speaking under the Rules of Procedure of the House?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, as Mr Perry has just said, I think I can say that virtually everyone in this Parliament of course shares the feelings of our colleagues who are waving the banners concerned.
<P>
This demonstration does, however, create a difficult precedent and though, today, there is great consensus on the Timor question, you will understand that this may not always be the case.
Moreover, as I have already told you, we have tabled a debate on the subject.
We hope this will be a truly serious debate, and I do not doubt it for an instant, a debate which will result in some conclusions on the political role which the European Parliament considers it must play in this situation.
<P>
I shall therefore request you, colleagues, to be so kind as to put away your banners.
The message has been received.
But that will suffice, as we must take care not to set a precedent which may, in other circumstances, seriously impede the running of our House.
<P>
Thank you for your understanding, and as an expression of thanks I am going to grant your request and propose that you stand to observe a minute' s silence for the victims in East Timor.
<P>
(The House rose and observed a minute' s silence)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Interpretation of the Rules of Procedure
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
I am sure you remember that during its meeting on 27 and 28 July, the Committee on Constitutional Affairs (AFCO) examined a request for interpretation of Rule 29(1) of the Rules of Procedure put forward by the Conference of Presidents during the meeting on 21 July.
<P>
The Committee on Constitutional Affairs ruled as follows: "The constitution of the Technical Group of Independent Members, a mixed group, is not in accordance with Rule 29(1) of the Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament."
In fact, the Committee on Constitutional Affairs continues, "The constitution of this group, specifically Annex 2 to the letter of constitution addressed to the President of the European Parliament, excludes any political allegiance.
It permits the various signatory members total political autonomy within the group."
<P>
The Committee on Constitutional Affairs requests that the following interpretation be inserted into Rule 29(1) of our Rules of Procedure: "The formation of a group which openly rejects any political character and all political affiliation between its Members is not acceptable within the meaning of this rule."
<P>
This interpretation will be included, as is right and proper, in the Minutes for this day' s sitting.
It will then be inserted into the Rules of Procedure, but if this interpretation is opposed tomorrow, before the Minutes of the current sitting are adopted, by a political group or by at least 32 Members, in accordance with Rule 180(4) of the Rules of Procedure, the matter will then be immediately referred to our House for a decision, as is usual, by simple majority vote, with at least one third of members in attendance.
This is the procedure.
If rejected, the matter will be referred back to the appropriate committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell' Alba">
Madam President, as you might expect, given that until tomorrow morning the Technical Group of Independent Members will still be in existence, we will ask for a vote and to that end, we will ask for an immediate announcement that tomorrow morning, the Chamber will give an opinion on the matter.
Those elected from the Bonino list tried to explain in an open letter to all their colleagues the reason for the setting up of this group, the reasons for the discrimination against the Non-attached Members in this Parliament and therefore the reasons for our initiative - as well as for the motion for an amendment to the Rules of Procedure which I hope will be announced soon - and to invite them to vote with us against this interpretation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="President">
There is no need to start a debate on the subject.
Thank you for giving us advance notice that there will be opposition to this interpretation and that, consequently, our House will be required to vote at 9 a.m. tomorrow according to the procedure which I have just mentioned.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Order of business
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="Chichester">
Madam Chairman, I rise with regard to an item on the agenda for Wednesday, 15 September.
I am rather surprised to see a procedure without debate on a report under the name of Mr Westendorp.
I have the document of this report in which it says that the committee voted it.
I was in attendance in the committee at this time and I am not aware that this report was voted. I think there has been a misunderstanding or a mistake within the secretariat of the committee.
I am giving advance notice that this is a matter subject to a query and that we may have to object to this item on the agenda.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="President">
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Second Report of the Independent Experts
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="President">
The next item is the Statement by the Commission on the follow-up to the second report of the Committee of Independent Experts which has been issued to you, as you wished, as speedily as possible.
We have really done all in our power so that you could familiarise yourselves with it at a sufficiently early stage, particularly within the groups.
<P>
I would remind you that at its meeting on Thursday, 9 September, the Conference of Presidents decided to refer the matter to the Committee on Budgetary Control so that a report could be drawn up.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Marín">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, last Friday the Commission received the text of the second report of the Committee of Independent Experts, which analyses the administrative management of the Commission and puts forward proposals regarding its reform.
<P>
There is no need to point out the political significance of this day.
<P>
This Commission, the outgoing Commission, held what will probably be its last meeting last Wednesday and, therefore, has not had the opportunity, in the short time which has passed since the document was issued, to carry out a thorough analysis of its contents or to establish a final position in relation to it.
<P>
It will be the task of the new Commission to carry out a more thorough evaluation of this second report and, in this regard, the Vice-President responsible for reform of the Commission, Mr Kinnock, will respond during the debate to the specific points relating to future activities.
<P>
Having said this, please allow me briefly to address certain comments to you, from the point of view of the outgoing Commission, regarding the work carried out by the Committee of Independent Experts in this second report.
<P>
First of all, I would like to stress the fact that the Commission has cooperated honestly and constructively with the work of the committee as it promised Parliament from the moment that work began.
When Parliament proposed the creation of the committee and established its mandate, the Commission expressed its agreement with it and its acceptance of the consequences and responsibilities which may arise from it.
This was the case with the first report of the Committee of Independent Experts and the events that followed its presentation, which led to the resignation of the Commission.
I will not dwell on these, since Parliament is well acquainted with them and I believe they are already assigned to history.
<P>
However, what does interest me, with a view to the future, is to point out that this second report is, in our opinion, a positive contribution to the reform process which the next Commission will have to undergo under the Presidency of Professor Prodi.
I would like to express my agreement on this point.
<P>
This is a debate which looks to the future, the future of the European Union and the strengthening of its institutions and, in particular, the European Commission, whose central role in European construction cannot be called into question.
<P>
Lessons can no doubt be learned from a reading of this second report.
Shortcomings in management are highlighted, but also, timidly, in our opinion, the causes are mentioned.
In some cases, these include legislative limitations and the obligations which the Commission, institutionally, has had to take on in circumstances which were not expected and were insufficiently prepared for.
But, furthermore, there is one issue that appeared in the first report and which is repeated in this report on various occasions: The limited human resources available for the tasks taken on by the Commission in response to public opinion or at the request of the Council and, on occasions, also of Parliament itself.
<P>
Therefore, I believe that this is basically an analytical report.
It is clearly a critical report and it demonstrates once again something that I have always observed as a Commissioner and that I would like to testify to before this Chamber: The human and professional quality and integrity of the men and women who make up the European civil service and who offer that service not only their labour but also their personal commitment.
<P>
There have been exceptions.
There have been cases of abuse, but they are very limited, very limited indeed.
It has always seemed to me unjust that, as a result of very limited cases, generalisations have been made in the past with regard to the European civil service.
There are officials in the European Commission who are worthy and honest and who wish to cooperate with you and overcome the crisis which has arisen during this past year.
<P>
Please do not forget that the European Commission is, by nature, the embodiment, the consequence and the summary of everything good and bad in the history of European integration.
<P>
It is true that the Commission, as an institution, represents more than forty years of heritage in terms of European integration.
But forty years of heritage can also undoubtedly be a burden.
And sometimes, a negative burden.
<P>
Every day, the European Commission has had to confront new and numerous tasks and it is true - and I wish to freely admit this here without any compunction - that we had difficulties in adapting to the new challenges.
This has undoubtedly been our great responsibility.
<P>
Modernisation and reform are therefore necessary and they should be carried out if we want the Commission to be able not only to fulfil its basic role of guardian of the Treaties but also to be the promoter of the decision-making process and the effective manager of the programmes and projects assigned to it.
<P>
Everybody has proclaimed during recent months - Parliament, the Member States, the media - that the future requires a strong and independent Commission.
I hope this proclamation is sincere, although I must admit that I sometimes doubt whether it is actually sincere.
<P>
The report proposes a large number of changes which are summed up in 90 recommendations.
This is not the time to analyse them in detail, but I would like to highlight the fact that the problems relating to the distribution of budgetary resources, the protection of the Union' s financial interests, the fight against fraud, the management of contracts and decentralisation are matters which require solutions and responses which will demand the active cooperation of the European Parliament and also, and above all, of the Member States that make up the Council of Ministers.
<P>
Why is this?
The recommendations, as we have read in the report, are of a very varied nature, Madam President.
Some require practical changes.
They can be carried out, and without delay.
Others require changes in management mechanisms.
They can also be carried out, but, as my colleague Mr Kinnock will explain, they will require a certain amount of time.
<P>
Other cases involve profound, sometimes radical, modifications of the legal and regulatory framework, and this cannot be done by the Commission alone.
Finally there are others, with a greater content and on a higher level, which will even require the reform of the Treaties and, in some cases, probably the reform of the Constitutions of some Member States.
<P>
I freely admit, Madam President, that as a European citizen after next week, I will be very curious to observe the attitude of the Member States and the European Parliament when the new Intergovernmental Conference opens in Helsinki.
The conclusions of the Committee of Independent Experts can obviously be applauded.
Some, in my opinion, are necessary, very necessary, and can be carried out. Others will need time.
But in some cases, the European Parliament should apply pressure in the correct quarters, and this pressure should not be applied on the Commission this time but basically on the Member States; otherwise we will be faced with an enormous disappointment.
<P>
I repeat that the most radical reforms require a reform of the Treaties.
In my humble opinion, with much experience as a Commissioner, I am curious to see how we will all behave, at this precise moment, at the moment of truth, faced with a new model for the organisation of European integration.
<P>
Other issues are old and recurrent and are not innovations but a product of the realities, contradictions and also the residue of successive political commitments which are, at the end of the day, the ones which form the overall picture of the European Commission.
<P>
We are at a decisive juncture.
Perhaps we were not able to explain it, perhaps we could not do it, perhaps we lacked courage, but something was started with the outgoing Commission.
And I would like to end by saying that this debate is good and positive.
<P>
The other day, we briefly analysed the work of the Committee of Independent Experts.
We believe that much can be done.
We are perhaps paying a heavy price for not having been able to do it, but I would ask this Parliament to painstakingly analyse the second report of the committee, to understand, after the explanations of Mr Kinnock, that the Commission will require some time, and to be a bit more generous this time.
Give the Prodi team some time to carry out the task that we were unable to do, as it has work to do which is probably even more difficult.
<P>
I believe that this is the constructive way to evaluate the results of the crisis, with a view to the future and, above all, in the eyes of the citizens.
Perhaps the Commission, as well as yourselves, will gain from all this.
Consequently, perhaps, the next European elections will not see a repeat of the behaviour of the citizens who did not vote this time, probably because they did not understand what was happening in Brussels.
<P>
Please allow me to be frank. I have tried to illustrate the positive attitude that we have in the outgoing Commission and to ask, please, for calm, serenity and a little generosity to allow the new team to launch those reforms which, in our opinion, are absolutely necessary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="Poettering">
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Madam President, honourable Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, I am very pleased that my colleague Mr Pöttering has today spoken in different terms than was previously the case when we were still uncertain as to its contents.
Many myths have been spun surrounding this report, one being that this report will show that several Commissioners from the old Commission should no longer be represented in the new Commission - a further statement on the old Commission and its practices.
In reality this has happened, something I consider very important, and I believe that in this sense I have also understood the previous speaker. We must take appropriate steps as a result of the mistakes and inappropriate behaviour of certain Commissioners.
In this respect, we have to draw a line under the old Commission, we should not cover anything up as far the mistakes that have been made are concerned, but rather we should look to the future in order to jointly make things better in the coming years.
This is our task for which, as far as I have been able to read the report, very many starting points are contained therein, although it is too early to put my name to it at the moment.
<P>
I would, however, also like to make an observation regarding the time factor.
I did not understand Vice-President Marín to be rebuking us, although perhaps, in his situation, he sees things somewhat differently from us parliamentarians.
Why am I in favour of giving the Commission time, albeit not too much time?
Because I take the viewpoint that, at the end of the day, we have to get round to the important issues: strengthening the Union and enlargement of the Union.
In addition, we must get away from the fact that for far too many of our people, the European Union is associated with scandals, fraud and maladministration.
This is certainly not the case.
But we also have to demonstrate this by rectifying matters where mistakes have been made.
My question to Commissioner Kinnock therefore relates to the notion of time.
Yes to having sufficient time to initiate reforms, but also yes to beginning these important steps as soon as possible, in order that we can get away from the bad light in which the Commission, and indeed the whole European Union, is portrayed.
In this regard, clear decisions must be taken.
<P>
The most important thing, and this is something which was also often mentioned at the hearings, during yours too Commissioner Kinnock, is the question of responsibility.
It was not clear to Parliament and, of course, still less so to the citizens of Europe, as to who is ultimately responsible for what.
These points, which have been clearly pointed out in the first and also in the second report, must be quickly rectified.
I, for example, am in total agreement with the report where it says that ultimately, the Directorates-General within the Commission should also bear not only the political and administrative responsibility but also financial responsibility.
It should be made clear in this regard that in carrying out a range of duties, with this comes full responsibility.
<P>
I would like to make one more comment in connection with this which is very important as far as my group is concerned.
We stand by our policy of collective responsibility within the Commission and we want to see this maintained in the future.
But we are also standing by the fact that, in addition to this, we have to find the means of incorporating individual responsibility of the individual Commissioners.
In this regard, some positive things have come out from the hearings, while other points were perhaps rather cautious.
This will be a difficult matter.
My question to Commissioner Kinnock is certainly along the lines of him taking the trouble to make it clear that individual responsibility of the individual Commissioners and collective responsibility do not contradict one another.
We do not want to amend or abolish collective responsibility in principle but we would like to supplement it accordingly.
<P>
The report of the Committee of Wise Men also makes it clear that the Commission must be bolder in relation to national governments, even with regard to filling certain posts.
I have experienced it myself in the area of foreign policy how governments exert influence and how decisions that the Commission would like to make itself are frequently delayed for long periods.
I call upon the Commission to show greater courage in relation to national governments and to report to Parliament if governments, as a result of their stalling tactics, not making a decision, or their unacceptable and unreasonable influence, prevent the Commission from adopting a certain stance or making clear decisions.
They have us on their side provided they clearly demonstrate where the reason lies.
<P>
An important area which we must concern ourselves with over the coming weeks is the overall question of the allocation of contracts and subsidies.
This is my question to Commissioner Kinnock in this regard: is the Commission ready to draw up clear regulations regarding the allocation of contracts, subsidies and regulations which are transparent and comparable?
This seems to me to be an important issue and it will certainly be difficult to do this in such a way that flexibility is not lost.
But transparent and clear regulations of this type are required and I hope that the Commission is ready in this regard.
<P>
Such clear regulations are also particularly necessary in those instances where responsibilities have to be delegated elsewhere.
In this area, I am also in agreement with the report. It should not be that the Commission takes on all the responsibilities itself and does not delegate anything.
That would mean an immense extension of the apparatus of officialdom.
Yet even if responsibilities were to be delegated elsewhere, then the regulations must be clear as to the principles according to which this allocation should be effected.
The report of the Wise Men is also very clear on matters relating to control in the Member States.
I know that this is a delicate area.
I now come back to my original point.
Member States are all too ready to apportion the blame to the European institutions, to Brussels.
In this regard, in truth there is quite a lot of abuse and inappropriate behaviour on the part of Member States themselves and their own institutions.
Even here we will be on your side if you implement controls where they are necessary, even in the Member States.
<P>
Through OLAF and the Bösch report, we have made considerable strides with regard to controlling fraud.
In my opinion, we should get away from the saying: fraud has its home in Brussels.
Fraud does not have its home in Brussels!
As with all large institutions, there are cases of fraud.
But what there has been too little of at home is the clear disclosure and pursuit of fraud.
And, my colleague Mr Pöttering, Commissioner Kinnock has already said that certainly as far as whistle-blowers are concerned, there will be new support procedures in this regard, and this House will certainly fully endorse that.
In this sense, Commissioner Kinnock, I hope that we will soon have this regulation.
<P>
The final point, which this report also goes into in detail, is openness and transparency.
It is not only this House which now expects a higher degree of openness from the Commission than was the case in the past.
There will be fewer rumours circulated in the media if openness and transparency hold sway.
In Recommendation No. 85 - I would particularly like to draw the Commissioner 's attention to this point - it clearly states that there may only be a few regulations that are exempt from this openness and transparency and these should still be agreed with the institutions.
But the large majority - 95% of cases - should be characterised by openness and transparency.
If the Commission succeeds in this in the coming years, then it will have our support.
Then, what has happened in the past will not be repeated for we will not be interested in sending the Commission packing again.
We want to cooperate with a strong Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Mulder">
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Staes">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, honourable Commissioners, the report that we have before us is, I feel, an impressive work.
It undoubtedly exercises the mind in an extremely useful way, coming as it does in the wake of the first report produced last March.
In any case, it shows that there is a need for greater transparency.
For almost three hundred pages, the experts bash away remorselessly at the problems relating to management, supervisory mechanisms, the fight against fraud, personnel management and business organisation.
In so doing, they do not shrink from taking the Commission severely to task, but they also refer to what has sometimes been weak behaviour on the part of the European Parliament and the Council.
I feel this only increases the objectivity of this report.
<P>
I fully endorse my colleague Mr Mulder' s comments on the Flechard case.
Be that as it may, our group considers that this report has come slightly too late.
It should have been available when the hearings started at the beginning of this month.
There is no doubt that it contains a whole armoury of facts that we could have used to good effect during our hearings.
Certainly as far as Commissioner-designate Kinnock was concerned, who will probably be responsible for reforming the Commission, it has provided us with facts which could really have added to the discussion.
I will cite just two examples.
Under point 2.323 the Committee of Wise Men suggests that when the Commission' s contracts are put out to tender, non-profit making associations are used which have been set up by officials or officials' acquaintances.
What truth is there to this?
It could have been an interesting debate.
<P>
The Committee of Wise Men also refers to the handbook that Santer' s dismissed Commission compiled on Technical Assistance Offices.
The Committee of Wise Men considers this to have been an analytical error.
It could have been an interesting debate with Commissioner Kinnock.
It is all too late though.
<P>
Be that as it may, the crunch question now is what does Prodi' s Commission intend to do with this document?
I have been told that Mr Prodi said in the Conference of Presidents that this document has no legal basis.
Is that so?
In any case, our group considered it unacceptable that this document should just be brushed aside.
Our group of greens, regionalists and nationalists wants Mr Prodi to take this document seriously.
The European Parliament and the Commission financed the five Wise Men.
In the course of the last six months, they have spoken to many people working at the Commission, and their analysis is damning and sometimes caustic.
Messrs Prodi and Kinnock, what do you intend to do with this report?
As a matter of fact, I feel that it would be a good thing if the Commission, which is soon to take office, were to provide answers on a point by point basis to the proposals and comments made by the Committee of Wise Men.
Come what may, there must be some follow-up to this document in the European Parliament.
<P>
I am very pleased that the Conference of Presidents has proposed that this document should be referred to the Committee on Budgetary Control.
It is certainly the case that this committee must now draw up an own-initiative report, but I would also like to appeal to all the other committees which, in view of their expertise, could each make a particularly substantial contribution.
I have in mind the Committee on Agriculture, the Committee on Regional Policy, and also of course, the Committee on Industry, which could make a number of concrete proposals in the run-up to the IGC.
<P>
To conclude, let us be quite honest about this, the Committee on Budgetary Control has done a lot of work in this area over the past five years.
But at the end of the day, it was a humble official on level B3 who, in December 1998, passed a 700-page memorandum to the European Parliament, and whom we owe thanks to for the fact that this document at last came into being.
His actions had a catalytic effect and ultimately led to the appointment of the Committee of Wise Men.
I fully endorse Mr Pöttering' s proposals on this matter, but I would like to point out to Mr Kinnock that Mr Van Buitenen is still in the dark so far as his position is concerned.
The disciplinary procedure to which he is subject is still on-going.
Would Mr Kinnock, working together with the whole Commission as a College, undertake to bring this disciplinary procedure to a satisfactory conclusion as soon as possible after his appointment, so that Mr Van Buitenen can at last return to work in the right and proper manner and have his reputation restored?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wurtz">
Madam President, my colleague Herman Schmid will be making a contribution on behalf of my group in this debate.
I would, however, like to make a preliminary comment and ask a very concrete question of Mr Kinnock.
<P>
Reading the second report of the Committee of Independent Experts shows how right we were to ask these five wise men to pursue their investigations and their thinking beyond the cases of the individual Commissioners and, in particular, to draw up a more general diagnosis of the institution as a whole.
For this diagnosis is an edifying one.
The title of the report alone represents strong condemnation of the outgoing Commission: tackling maladministration, irregularities and fraud.
The former Commission must be reminded, 42 years after the creation of this institution, of the necessity of, I quote: "making Commissioners responsible from the initial drawing up of a proposal through to its implementation" .
The matter is in fact one, as one can read in the conclusions of the Experts' report, beyond the actual operational problems, of an attitude problem, one which implicates not the staff of the Commission, but the structural deficiencies of this institution, which are of a political rather than technical nature.
<P>
Another document had already been produced on this subject, proposing an analysis which was, in my view, lucid and pertinent.
What is more, it had been commissioned by the Commission itself from its own Forward Studies Unit in preparation for the European Council of Pörtschach, and was subsequently classified as not to be followed up.
It contained, for example, fundamental criticism of the propensity of the Commission - like other administrations - to, I quote: "deal with its own area according to a logic of its own, listening to a particular type of lobbying, and taking insufficient account of the consequences outside its own field of expertise" .
This exposition of the internal workings of the crisis which the Commission is going through, and with which all the European institutions are faced, would contribute towards usefully placing the analyses of the Independent Experts in their global political context, which is characterised, in the terms of the Forward Studies Unit document in question, by the exhaustion of a certain manner of organising public action, by a crisis in governance which is clashing head-on with the European Union.
<P>
My question to Commissioner Kinnock is thus a simple one: do you agree to make public this document of the outgoing Commission, whose great topicality is shown by our debate?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Madam President, the second report of the Committee of Independent Experts, which has just been issued to us, is remarkable in terms of the breadth and the quality of the work achieved within a few months, and also in terms of the will to describe frankly the internal operational problems of the Commission.
It is the first time I have read as incisive an analysis from an official source, without waffle or prevarication.
It will provide a basis for working towards serious reforms.
<P>
In the report, one discovers that the rules regarding the awarding of subsidies are practically non-existent; that the advisory committee on procurement and contracts common to the institutions has only a formal and subordinate checking role.
That the Commission has turned to the technical assistance office in order to get around budgetary restrictions; that in shared operation expenses, the Commission and the Member States take responsibility away from each other; that a priori financial control is practically useless; that internal auditing is inadequate; that the Financial Regulation is unsuitable for the requirements of modern management and effective monitoring or that the enquiries of the anti-fraud unit have a tendency to drag on too long and offer only minimal results.


These observations match what my group has long been denouncing, and also, indeed, the technical solutions suggested, i.e. reinforcement of internal auditing, of anti-fraud action, of transparency, and the requirement for the Commission to be accountable.
<P>
It seems to us, though, that the Committee of Independent Experts does not go far enough in the analysis of the political causes of the crisis, but perhaps, after all, this was not its role at this stage.
For example, reading phrases such as this, on page 64, "Why has the Commission lost control over technical assistance?
Because the Financial Regulation has never adequately spelt out the law on contracts" , one cannot help having the disturbing impression that thinking remains incomplete.
Why indeed was the Financial Regulation unsuitable?
Why was it not improved?
Is it not true that a lot of people found advantages in these imperfections?
And, in the final analysis, is it not true that the theory of the independence of the Commission, as cultivated by the Federalists, but resulting in the weakening of controls, has provided a breeding ground for irregularities and fraud which go unpunished?
<P>
Under cover of this, indeed, organised networks have been set in place to misappropriate and launder Community money, such that today fraud is essentially not the result of individual slips, like those denounced in the first report of the Experts, but rather of permanent covert mechanisms.
<P>
This is why, according to the Union for a Europe of Nations Group, the real political problem we face today is that of the statutes of the Commission, a supranational institution subject to limited control and protected by prerogative, privilege and immunity.
In this regard we are witnesses to a disturbing development.
Whilst, in recent times, the European Parliament has been attempting to strengthen its control of the Commission and the theory of its independence should logically have been retreating, it has instead re-emerged and been re-affirmed with new vigour, no longer at the level of the Commissioners but at the level of the departments.
Thus, during the hearings of last week, Commissioner-designate Kinnock clearly upheld, both in his written answers and his spoken responses, two curious principles which I shall quote verbatim.
Firstly, "management independence" which the Directorates-General enjoy with regard to the Commissioners and, as a corollary to this, the "principle of non-interference" which the Commissioners are subject to with regard to the departments.
Mr Kinnock even specified that, in his experience over recent years, these principles worked very well.
<P>
Obviously, this is by no means the opinion of my group, nor is it the opinion of the Committee of Independent Experts who, in Chapter 7, rightly state that the distinction within the Commission between laying down policy and implementing policy is tenable, I quote, "neither in law nor in fact" . It makes it possible to evade political responsibility, and it should logically be eliminated in favour of accountability to the Commissioners who have political responsibility.
There we see a complete contradiction between the recommendations of the Experts' report and the declared intentions of the new Commission.
We must draw our own conclusions from this when voting in the election of the Commission on Wednesday.
Everyone must accept their own responsibilities.
<P>
As for the privileges and immunities of the Commission and its staff, they clearly seem, from reading the report, to constitute a serious brake on the fight against fraud.
This is, in fact, the first obstacle which OLAF, the anti-fraud office, faces when it wishes to expedite a case against the staff of the European institutions in national courts of law.
In fact, to quote the report, "to proceed with a criminal investigation, a national jurisdiction must request waivers of official immunity (for suspects), of professional secrecy (for witnesses) and of the inviolability of Commission premises (for searches and access to documents)" .
<P>
Such obstacles are enough to discourage the best will in the world.
This is why the priority of my group is to get rid of them and to subject the Commission to common law before investigating other solutions such as the institution of a European Public Prosecutor, which would satisfy the Federalist hobby horses but would not contribute a great deal more in relation to the powers of OLAF in the fight against fraud.
<P>
More generally, control over the Commission should be strengthened.
Control by the European Parliament of course; for example, our House should, following this Experts' report, request new audits on specific points or even appoint one or more committees of enquiry in order to shed light on some still obscure areas, for example, the evaluation of the actual impact of community subsidies.
But if it stands alone, European Parliament control over the Commission will be insufficient for two reasons: firstly, because the European Parliament shares the objectives of the Commission and because Parliament is not subject to the pressure of pubic opinion.
That is why there must be Council control in addition to Parliament control.
<P>
The Council must stop letting itself be brainwashed by the peculiar arguments of the Federalists. It must re-establish its authority and strip the Commission of its outmoded privileges and immunities.
Above all, it must not let itself be deprived of the future Intergovernmental Conference, which it must take advantage of in order to take the initiative again, reinforce the anti-fraud campaign and subject the Commission to a new form of responsibility with regard to national governments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="Farage">
Mr President, we are being asked to comment on a 283-page report that was not released until late on Friday morning, and that was produced in two languages.
In between there has been a weekend and today most people have spent the whole day travelling to Strasbourg.
<P>
We cannot possibly comment in any way at all in such a short space of time.
It is not possible for us to have formed any real opinions.
For certain, no business would ever operate like this.
But perhaps I should not be surprised because it seems to me that in the European Union one is drowned in paper to the level where the European Parliament - and, I am sure, the Council of Ministers - cannot actually read what they are being asked to approve.
In this world the bureaucrat most certainly is king.
<P>
There are, however, two points that I have picked up: firstly the outgoing Commissioners complained that in practice they were unable to supervise the actions of their most senior officials, namely, their Directors-General.
It seems to me unacceptable that the Commissioners can be the executive of the EU without having the responsibility that goes with it.
But the real meat of this is Recommendation No. 59 which urges strongly the appointment of a European public prosecutor, which urges strongly a European prosecution office with delegated public prosecutors in Member States to create "an area of freedom, security and justice as laid down in the Treaty" .
<P>
The British Government has repeatedly told us that corpus juris was merely a discussion document.
And yet it would appear that we are at the beginning now of an entirely new legal system just for the sake of a few fraudulent officials.
It is quite unacceptable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell' Alba">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, naturally the Wise Men' s report is an excellent report, and naturally their recommendations must be studied in great detail.
I would say that, as with their first report, which had a far-reaching effect on the College of Commissioners, I also think that this second report, if possible, should have an effect that is just as far-reaching and severe, where it is deemed necessary, on the structure of the Commission.
<P>
However, since everyone is talking about the Commission, I would like to talk instead about the European Parliament. Every now and again some self-criticism does not hurt, and the same goes for the other institutions.
Firstly, I would like to say to my colleagues who, in January and February, protested against the motion which established the Committee of Wise Men, thinking that it was a kind of manoeuvring to stifle everything through the creation of a committee, that I think they realise they were very wrong in their viewpoint and reasoning, and they should at least withdraw all the criticisms they made at that time of the European Parliament' s initiative, which I believe was a positive move, on the part of those Members who voted to establish the Group of the Wise Men.
And I would also like our Parliament itself to take its cue from the Wise Men' s report.
What does the Wise Men' s report say?
It says that the institutions and the budgetary authorities were likewise not very quick to detect a series of irregularities and that they themselves did not operate in the best and wisest way to prevent the consequences either.
I am thinking, for example, of the great policy which led us to drop the famous mini-budgets.
Our Parliament, ready for battle, created a policy which brought about - and we are proud of it - the abolition of mini-budgets.
It seemed to be the overall solution.
The abolition of the mini-budgets and a freeze on human resources: this was the recipe that the Commission should have followed to implement infinite additional policies.
Naturally, four years on, the result is that those who protested against the mini-budgets are now saying: ah, you have given the jobs to the TAOs, to the Technical Assistance Offices!
A little self-criticism then!
From those same pulpits now comes the argument, for example, on helicopters: much is said about Agusta but we never hear about Westland, for example.
Well, I would like to hear about the Westland case from those pulpits that have so much to say on the Agusta case, given that the Commission had an interest in these helicopter stories too.
<P>
I have strayed from the point a little, but to get back to the subject, I would say then that our Parliament should...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
.
Mr President, I am very grateful for the opportunity which this House has provided for comment by the Commission in this debate.
The report of the Committee of Independent Experts is obviously large in size and scope and significance, and I know that at this stage Parliament will not seek detailed references to every one of the many comments and valid conclusions.
The House will be right, however, to expect effective Commission responses to the recommendations of the committee as we proceed with reform.
In this case, as in many others, deeds speak louder than words. As far as I am concerned, and as far as the President and Commission-designate are concerned, that is a maxim and a reality that will shape the reforming mission of the Commission from the outset, if that is the decision of the vote in this House on Wednesday.
<P>
Mr President, the Committee of Independent Experts has provided us with a comprehensive and constructive report which shows impressive insight and makes practical proposals for progress that is deep, broad and indeed essential.
Its diagnosis is of an institution overtaken by, and to some extent overwhelmed by, increases and shifts in demands which over the years should have been met by new standards and methods of management, of practice and of openness, but were not met by those means.
The report says that everything outside the Commission changed, whilst it remained largely untouched.
The past ruled, conventions paralysed.
<P>
Of course a diagnosis is not an excuse, it is at best an explanation which provides the basis for remedy.
That is how the report is received in the Commission, the current Commission which has days to live, and the Commission-designate.
It must be used by the Commission and, as the committee emphasises, by Member States and by this House as a charter for change, a prescription for cure.
That is the essential validity of this report from the Committee of Independent Experts.
<P>
As the committee acknowledges in several references, some of the changes needed have taken place and some are in prospect.
That recognition is very encouraging.
It demonstrates a clear alignment between the recommendations of the committee and the reforms that have been undertaken and the reforms that are impending.
There is however no lasting comfort to be taken from that.
To the great frustration of those in the Commission and those in this House who have promoted reform, and as we have just heard from Mr Dell' Alba, the advances made so far have been sporadic and not conceived and not implemented as a managed programme of change.
<P>
Reform has therefore not gone far enough, fast enough or deep enough.
It has been approached in a way that has meant it has not been offered or pursued with the explanation and the reorientation necessary to gain an understanding of purposes and of outcomes.
It has therefore not motivated the will of the many high-quality people which, as the report says on several occasions, are in the Commission services.
Even those who are interested in and committed to change have not been imbued with a sense of urgency or, crucially, Mr President, a feeling of ownership of reform.
The cumulative efforts to modernise have therefore not been strong enough to replace an outdated and deficient culture with the practices and instincts of what is generally termed new public management as it has developed over the last 20 years in several other modern administrations.
That must change - and it will change.
<P>
Mr President, I heed and I fully understand the view of the committee in its final remarks that no single measure can deal with the problem of mentality, but I do believe that a clear and comprehensive reform strategy, effective mechanisms for vigorously assessing and insisting upon the achievement of objectives, quality of public service and value for money, vocational training in the techniques and ethics of management, strictly meritocratic promotion, fair, firm and trustworthy disciplinary procedures, continual emphasis on professionalism and probity in the college and in the services can mould mentality.
That is not a wish-list.
It is an outline of the changes that will be designed, the changes that will be put into effect.
<P>
In undertaking those tasks we have the advantage of the commitment of the many people in the Commission services who, as the committee says, sincerely want to contribute to radical improvement.
The reform effort can therefore be with the grain of the attitudes of a large number of the Commission staff at all levels from the most senior to the most recently arrived.
Some may not yet share the broad desire for improvement, however.
They would be well advised to recognise the weight of political and public opinion that propels the change and has given rise to the circumstances that now starkly confront the institution that I represent and indeed all of the European institutions.
I also trust that those who may fear reform as a source of insecurity, of disturbance will, on reflection, come to understand that change is the path to security.
It is institutions, administrations, companies which fail to anticipate and to respond productively to new demands that doom themselves and the people who work for them to insecurity and the turmoil that comes with it.
<P>
Against the background of all these considerations and the statements that we have heard from political leaders in this House today, I offer on behalf of the Commission-designate the pledge that the report will be treated as a fundamental ingredient in the Commission' s reform proposals.
The February reform strategy will therefore address all of the issues raised, propose the relevant action and set out the means of taking that action.
<P>
I equally give the undertaking that the complete overhaul of the Commission' s financial management and control systems will be intensified, taking full account of the specific recommendations of the Committee on all matters including those raised by those who have so far spoken in the debate on subsidies and much else.
In particular, the Commission pledges to move systematically from the traditional dependence on ex-ante financial control to an integrated system of financial management and auditing in which the responsibilities of individual officers are clearly defined, monitored and reinforced.
<P>
In the same spirit, the Commission will respond to the report by setting up an internal audit service, as recommended by the committee, and we reiterate our commitment to the strengthening of financial cells in all directorates-general.
As an immediate development, the control of technical assistance organisations is being made more rigorous and specific, and radical reform will ensure clear definition of the core public service functions of Commission officials and effectively supervised and accountable management of executive agencies.
A complete overhaul of personnel policy will take place and it will focus in particular on the areas of weakness identified in the report and elsewhere including the Commission' s own stringent report, notably recruitment, discipline and career development and training.
<P>
The Committee of Independent Experts advanced the arguments for establishing a committee on standards of public life at European level.
The House will know that the Council and this Parliament, as well as the Commission, will obviously have to deliberate on that.
As an individual however, I must say that I believe that the functions set out by the committee should be fulfilled either by an existing suitable body or by a new organisation.
I hope therefore that all the European institutions will be willing to proceed on that basis.
I am certain that the Committee of Wise Men is not exercised by the name of such a body.
It is the fulfilment of the functions relating to public standards that is really required.
<P>
The Commission of the future must be an independent, permanent and capable public service that puts the principles of accountability, efficiency and transparency to work at all times.
The values sustaining the institution should moreover be centred on an ethos of good management, value for money, clear communication, merit and duty to the citizens and taxpayers of the European Union.
My colleagues and I share strong commitment to those purposes and to the practical changes need to achieve them.
We do not promise instant gains.
We do promise unceasing effort.
We shall get the advances which the people of the Union deserve and the people of the Union have the right to expect.
Given the chance by the vote of this Parliament, we will show that, not in our words but in our deeds.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Theato">
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van den Berg">
Madam President, firstly, I would like to thank Commissioner Kinnock for informing us of the action that is to be taken and of the debate due to take place in February.
The European Union is in a paradoxical situation.
On the one hand, there is a great deal of support for the "people' s Europe" , food, air quality and so on, and a variety of issues must be tackled at a European level.
The citizens support this and consider it to be important, but on the other hand, they do not understand how the workings of the European institutions actually function.
The low turnout at the elections reflects this lack of understanding.
It will undoubtedly be possible to tackle some of the problems on the basis of the report of the Committee of Wise Men.
To some extent, and others have made this point here, it is also something that we as a Parliament must address ourselves.
If there were less of an ivory tower mentality in the hemicycles and more interaction with ordinary citizens; if more time was spent amongst them; if there were not so many debates between experts and institutional specialists and institutional debates were to take place rather as a result of tackling actual problems, then Europe would draw much closer to its citizens.
It is not just the Commission and the institutions that are deserving of criticism, for we too have a difficult task ahead of us.
When the debate with the Commission takes place in February, we will also need to hold a debate ourselves.
<P>
Madam President, as regards the second report which we now have before us, issues such as subsidiarity, the delegation of competencies, the importance of combating fraud using independent agencies, are the key concepts.
They are underpinned by a vision.
Less centralised hierarchical control over social and economic affairs, with more delegation to States and to social organisations would create space and consequently greater clarity in job demarcation.
That too demands a certain vision.
A kind of vision that certainly was not always of central importance in this Chamber.
I am very curious as to whether that is the path that will be chosen in February.
If that path is chosen, then that will mean creating a different kind of culture.
In Mr Kinnock' s words, a different culture for officialdom, getting away from the island structure that we have now, a more inviting work atmosphere, entailing a different remuneration structure.
My personal view, and I say this without hesitation, is that the expatriation allowance should be abolished too, for no one has to feel all that much of an expatriate in Brussels.
<P>
We support the idea of a European Prosecution Office and its being independent.
It could be seen as a trial run prior to establishing a European Public Ministry in the longer term.
It would mean a more clear-cut relationship with Parliament and effective supervision. It would not be under the supervision of the President of the Commission, but rather there would be a more clear-cut relationship with this Parliament.
<P>
Madam President, might I also make a suggestion as regards the events referred to by Mr Kinnock which are to take place in February?
Why, if there are so many important issues at stake in our Member States, do we not ask them to initiate debate in the regions and local councils on fund spending and end-results, enabling a public debate to take place in these countries, which will feed into our work and ensure that these two issues are not separated?
I am in favour of having a European-wide national day of monitoring for fund end-results.
<P>
Lastly, Madam President, on the subject of the whistle-blowers, I hope that we will soon know when the matter is to be settled and I support everything that has been said in this Chamber about Mr Van Buitenen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van der Laan">
Madam President, as Vice-President of the Committee on Budgetary Control, I will have plenty of time in the coming weeks to exchange ideas with Mr Kinnock and other Members of the Commission on this report.
I want to restrict the comments I make now to a few major points.
<P>
Firstly, we must not forget why this all started if we are to guard against losing the support of the European people as we embrace the major challenges of the future.
And we need to aim high in the face of such major challenges.
That is why I see this report not as a panacea but as a modest starting point for the reforms which are to take place.
And so I challenge the Commission not to regard this report as the ultimate yardstick but merely as the minimum level to which we should aspire.
Listening to Mr Kinnock, I also hope that we can trust him to push his proposals for reform this far and that he will do all that is necessary and not just work through a wish list like the one we have here.
<P>
Secondly, this report could be used by some individuals in this Chamber, and also outside it, to pass the buck to the Commission, so that they get all the blame for the crisis in Europe.
This has happened in the past and I want to warn everyone to guard against it happening again.
The Commission is now being investigated and we applaud this, for it is a first step towards improving the situation.
But we cannot blame the Commission alone for the crisis of confidence as regards Europe.
The European Parliament has its own role to play here and it is also time now for us to hold up our hands and put our own house in order, just as if a report had been written on our working practices.
Nor should we forget the part played by the national parliaments and governments.
More than 80% of all fraud goes on there.
That is why it would also be a good idea to create a legal structure for carrying out effective supervision of the way in which these Member States spend European money.
<P>
Finally, a few words about Paul Van Buitenen.
He has become symbolic of the fight against fraud in Europe, probably reluctantly.
The care we take over a symbol of this kind here in Europe could, to a very large extent, determine whether or not we regain the trust of the citizens of Europe, which is why we must ensure that the Commission, and particularly Mr Kinnock, live up to the pledges undertaken during the hearings with regard to Mr Van Buitenen.
But I am sure the Commission was already aware that we will continue to keep a very close eye on this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Lagendijk">
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schmid, Herman">
Mr President, when you read this report by the Committee of Independent Experts, you are amazed at how many unsatisfactory states of affairs are reported there; so amazed, in fact, that you wonder how it can have been possible for there to be so many.
I think that the committee has really left us a bit in the lurch in regard to this.
I do not think the analysis it offers is sufficiently thorough and searching, but is too superficial.
I will try to explain what I mean by that.
<P>
The experts are looking for more rationality, more administrative professionalism etc., but they are ignoring what is itself the main problem with the Commission, namely that the Commission is a political bureaucracy.
In classical bureaucracy theory, a sharp distinction was made between the political and the bureaucratic.
The bureaucracy was to be a neutral organisation, drawing its impetus from the political system.
But the Commission is a political democracy.
The main problem which has given rise to the cheating, fraud and other difficulties there have been over the years is precisely the fact that the Commission is political in character, meaning that it acts politically and is therefore treated in a political way by other political forces.
<P>
I also think that the committee' s recommendations point in the direction of a strengthened political democracy.
The talk is of more internal monitoring, increased management responsibility and a more efficient and cohesive bureaucracy with more muscle.
That is how I would summarise the ninety recommendations.
I had hoped to hear something quite different: more talk about the principle of transparency, more talk about freedom of information.
How are people like Van Buitenen going to go on in the future? Will they get caught?
Will they be stopped? Will they be silenced, or will they get to speak freely?
I would like to hear more talk about openness and public control. That is the first problem I think requires a deeper analysis, that is to say how a political democracy' s internal antagonisms and problems are to be dealt with.
<P>
The second problem, which is also a major one, is in fact touched upon in the report, but too superficially.
It has to do with the antagonism between the Member States and the central EU community.
We all know that this is an on-going antagonism that characterises day-to-day life in the EU in everything, big and small.
Joint decisions are taken at one level and are then put into effect by an administrative apparatus with offshoots all around Europe.
International interests then come to dominate more often than not.
That is when you get cheating and bad supervision and when even the EU' s inspectors and their attempts to carry out inspections are viewed as abusive meddling or as disagreeable acts of hostility.
You do not solve the problem by sending in more EU inspectors or by tightening up on the hierarchical controls.
Quite different approaches are needed.
The talk must be of democracy.
Discussions have to be started about how the Commission might be de-politicised and about how political power might be transferred to the actual political bodies.
How do you go about that? Do you create a relationship between democracy and administration such as we have in the democratic nation states?
<P>
Renationalisation is also a tool we can work with.
Large parts of the EU' s activities would benefit from renationalisation.
This would also reduce the problems concerning legitimacy.
Political reforms are needed, then, and not just administrative reforms.
<P>
I' ll conclude by turning to Mr Kinnock and to President of the Commission Prodi and asking some specific questions.
What is the situation now regarding freedom to provide information?
Are we to be getting any changes or guarantees in this connection?
What is happening about the principle of transparency?
What is to be done about the political character of the Commission?
Is this something we want to hold on to and develop or is it something we want progressively to do away with?
Those of us who sit in this Parliament experience on a daily basis just how powerful the Commission is as a political factor.
Is this the road we want to go down, or ought we to be moving in the direction of the classical relationship between political and bureaucratic authorities?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Dam">
Madam President, when it comes to financial management, the following holds true: trust is good but control is better.
I want to consider the Wise Men' s second report in this light.
Their criticisms leave little to be desired in terms of clarity.
Control over the European programmes must be greatly improved.
The report demonstrates again the importance of control before the event.
Control after the event should be the finishing touch.
<P>
The new Commission should make the improvement of financial management and combating fraud its highest priority, but this would mean making a lot of changes.
Up until now, most Commissioners were interested primarily in new policies.
The Wise Men refer to it as expansionism in the Delors era.
Little attention was given to management of the programmes.
There are a number of reasons why we have no use for expansionist tendencies Delors-style.
The Union should concentrate on its core tasks and to carrying them out to good effect as well.
<P>
The Wise Men say the legal framework for tackling fraud is disjointed and incomplete.
This must be improved with all speed, as must cooperation with the national control organisations.
After all, a good two thirds of the European budget is channelled via the Member States.
Is the Commission prepared to step up the controls in the Member States to a considerable extent? 150 control visits per year are currently undertaken in relation to an agricultural budget of EUR 40 billion, which is nowhere near enough.
<P>
To conclude, this Parliament has stringent requirements as far as the European Commission' s financial management is concerned.
Practically all the instruments for tackling fraud originated in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
But that means that we must also set high standards for ourselves, on the subject of which, I am attracted by the idea of imposing a kind of interinstitutional Code of Conduct on the committee.
Parliament should take up the gauntlet here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Mr President, the second report of the Committee of Wise Men is an important contribution, while not containing too many big surprises.
It deals in the main almost inevitably with the reform proposals which we today regard as being necessary.
Of course, I cannot go into detail on all the recommendations contained in the report, but I would like to concentrate on one problem, namely that of individual responsibility.
When the Wise Men' s report, which expressly does not draw a distinction between administrative and political responsibility, calls, inter alia, for the Commission President to have the authority to dismiss individual Commission members, then, to my mind this requirement does not do justice to the gentlemen' s agreement between President Prodi and the Commissioners-designate.
In any case, as called for in the report, what is required is a relevant contractual regulation designed to provide a firm basis for a form of individual responsibility which is legally enforceable in serious cases.
The agreement can only be a transitional regulation.
<P>
No one has so far been able to explain to me, and the report in question has not helped in this regard either, how those Commissioners who are standing again have contributed to exclusive collective responsibility, something which has been criticised by us but which is legally stipulated.
In view of this de facto rejected responsibility, it is now difficult however to take the explanations of the Commissioners seriously, i.e. that they would in future resign if requested to do so by the Commission President.
With good reason, the report additionally calls for the Commissioners to be directly responsible to Parliament, but the gentlemen' s agreement also brings with it the danger that if we trust it, we could prevent ourselves from actually taking the necessary radical steps.
That should certainly not be allowed to happen.
I consider it absolutely necessary that the recommendations in this regard from the Committee of Wise Men be included in the programme for the next Intergovernmental Conference and be legally transposed, in spite of the explanations given by the designated Commissioners.
That should be a considerable pillar for effective cooperation between the institutions from the point of view of citizens' interests.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Morgan">
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Colom i Naval">
Mr President, like many, I am pleased to have a document which will undoubtedly be useful in the process of administrative reform which the Commission must undergo, unavoidably, in the short-term.
Commissioner Kinnock will no doubt be delighted to have this guide and, perhaps, alibi.
<P>
However, apart from this shared sentiment, I am also pleased for other reasons.
In particular, because I hope it will put an end to the unhealthy climate which is stifling the discussion of Community matters.
Too often, the unavoidable and laudable concern for good management and the fight against fraud has been manipulated and used in demagogic and hypocritical operations, deliberately aimed at the discrediting of the European Institutions and even the European project itself.
Well-intentioned colleagues have fallen naively into this anti-European trap.
<P>
I confess that, having seen the product issued to us by the Committee of Independent Experts, my initial doubts remain with regard to whether its appointment did not basically illustrate a certain recognition of the inability of our own systems of control and political orientation.
I trust that the voters will not demand to know who is responsible for the cost of the report given that, as well as penetrating observations, I have noted the presence of obvious remarks, various "re-discoveries of the wheel" and a wide use of our own documents.
<P>
Although my mental hygiene rules for the weekends have stopped me from dedicating the hours to my reading of the report which it no doubt deserves, I believe that it has an additional virtue little appreciated by my predecessors, if I may use that word. In many points, it takes up positions of Parliament and proposals which were not favoured in their day.
It is to be hoped that now, endorsed by independent and well paid experts, they will be better treated.
<P>
Some of our colleagues have dedicated dithyrambic eulogies to the report, which we might have been spared had they paid more attention to the work of the Committee on Budgetary Control or had they not voted against some of our suggestions.
Do not oblige me to mention any names, but I do not have to look far to see people in these very seats who now applaud the proposal to create a European Public Prosecutor, but who had no hesitation in voting against it when Mrs Theato and myself proposed it a couple of years ago, anticipating that this would require going ahead with the creation of a European judicial area and amending the Treaties.
<P>
A new Financial Regulation.
Enough of patching up and "updating" processes.
Excellent.
I have spent fourteen years in the Committee on Budgetary Control and, without delving into my archives, I can remember four resolutions of the Plenum in which this very thing was demanded.
I requested it myself from this bench last year from Commissioner Liikanen on behalf of the Socialist Group.
<P>
Time is at a premium and I would like to highlight a couple of observations which are important, if not fundamental.
<P>
Firstly, the Committee of Independent Experts recognises that, in spite of the fact that ultimate responsibility for management falls to the Commission, we should not forget that Member State administrations handle more than 80% of the Community budget and that their attitude towards fraud is not always diligent, although their Ministers do protest about Community management.
They have clearly read Mr Brinkhorst' s working document of May last year.
<P>
Secondly, in its final observation 8.1, the committee highlights that the Commission must be provided with the resources necessary for its responsibilities and stipulates that it is not only referring to those laid down in the Regulations.
It is de facto alluding to the possible hypocrisy and incoherence of the budgetary authorities.
<P>
And lastly, chapter 5 refers to "whistle-blowers" .
Before anybody proposes the restoration of torture in the investigative processes, I would ask, please, that the defence of the accused be attended to.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Laguiller">
Mr President, one of the aspects of the discussion on the Experts' report concerns Community personnel which includes, I believe, the staff of the European Parliament.
This is why my question is addressed as much to Mr Kinnock as to the President of the Parliament.
In their report, the Experts highlighted the non-transparency which taints recruitment and recommended that regulations and principles be applied to Community personnel.
That is all well and good, but it should also be the case for the staff of the European Parliament.
<P>
The fact is, we have heard of many instances of irregularities, of non-observance of the Community Charter of Basic Social Rights for Workers within the European Parliament, especially in sub-contracting firms.
There have, for example, been irregularities as gross as paying night watchmen at day work rates.
There is also the problem of social welfare cover according to local law.
There are problems with wages.
And these are just a few examples.
<P>
My question is thus as follows: what action do you intend to take in order, in the first place, to make an inventory of all these irregularities and, more especially, of course, to put an end to them?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bigliardo">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it has not been possible to make an in-depth analysis of what the Wise Men have said from an initial examination of the report that we have received and also from a comparison of this examination with what my colleagues have said in the Chamber.
We had the feeling, or at least I had the feeling, that we are faced with a wonderful exposition of analyses, proposals, rules and legal points which seem very impressive, but which do not really change anything.
<P>
It has been said that there are 90 recommendations.
It is true that God made 10 recommendations but especially in the case of the seventh commandment, he did not manage to put a stop to the large numbers of thieves and delinquents who crowd our planet.
I hope that in some way something can come of these rules, but I think that we have to start, as a Parliament, but in the first place as individuals, by proposing firmly that the activities of Parliament' s inspection body with regard to the Commission be stepped up, thereby providing us with a procedural method.
<P>
Today, we have had a statement by the President of the Parliament who announced the dissolution of the Technical Group of Independent Members.
Here too, in my opinion, we are dealing with genuine fraud as it certainly is not a good example of democracy and freedom to have the authority to overrule the free will of people who unite on the basis of one of the Rules of Procedure. On the contrary, if a Member of Parliament was to think that this act came about simply because of the economic budget of the groups and the assistants, then we are dealing with an out and out case of fraud.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pomés Ruiz">
Mr President, many Europeans were awaiting this report to see when the hard core, the driving force which the Commission is supposed to be, will finally begin to function at a certain amount of speed.
<P>
This is not the time to deal with details, since in the Committee on Budgetary Control, thanks to the proposal which we have made, we will have the opportunity to closely observe the work of Commissioner Kinnock.
<P>
He tells us that he will respond effectively.
Perhaps we will have our first opportunity to see whether this is the case in a month' s time when the Justice and Home Affairs Council takes place.
<P>
I do not know whether or not you will have time to include in the agenda of that Council meeting some of the questions put forward in the report of the Committee of Independent Experts which I believe are supported by general consensus.
<P>
There is no doubt that the fight against fraud should be one of the objectives which we aim for immediately.
I believe that we should offer OLAF the necessary resources as soon as possible so that it can carry out its work efficiently, but it is nevertheless essential that budgetary control goes much further than the sixth part which is directly controlled by the Commission.
We will have to pursue those 1,327 cases which in 1997 were included in the former UCLAF.
<P>
The current legal framework is incoherent and incomplete.
We will have to work, steadily and relentlessly, to remove that permanent suspicion of fraud which, unfortunately, engulfs the activities of the Community institutions.
<P>
But I do not wish to dwell on these issues, since I agree that the enormous majority of people who work for Europe are competent and honest.
It is perhaps not the resources lost through fraud or corruption which should worry us most but rather those lost through the absence of a personnel policy, as claimed by the Committee of Independent Experts.
<P>
Those inefficiencies, those mistakes and that lack of motivation which affect the work of the people who work for the Commission must be, from our point of view, one of the principle areas of activity of the reform of the Commission.
<P>
Chapter 6 of the report of the Committee of Independent Experts, which we have not had time to study in detail, demands absolute transparency.
It demands it, perhaps, because we have never had it.
There has certainly never been transparency in the policies of recruitment, promotion or mobility.
<P>
We want a Commission which is strong and independent.
Therefore, we want you to be prepared to say no when you are asked to carry out work for which you do not have the resources.
You must not accept commitments which you are not able to fulfil effectively.
<P>
In your hearing, Mr Kinnock, we heard that there are 500 posts, which have been authorised by Parliament, which are still vacant.
Perhaps this was pressure?
Distribution of power?
Lack of transparency in recruitment procedures?
<P>
It is essential to evaluate the merits of the personnel who work for the Commission, to have a genuine career policy.
<P>
I have noticed that, amongst the 90 recommendations of the Independent Experts, some describe an Anglo-Saxon style administration, where more responsibility falls to managers.
<P>
It is necessary to decentralise and clarify competences.
Not everybody is responsible for everything, neither in the management carried out in the Member States, nor in the Regions nor in the Commission.
<P>
Therefore, Mr Kinnock, time is running out.
The European citizens cannot allow us to fail in this pursuit.
Let us work steadily and relentlessly because, as I have said, we cannot continue to be a source of scandal for the citizens of Europe.
This is not good for Europe and not good for any of us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schori">
Mr President, as a new Member of the European Parliament I had not anticipated coming here and beginning by saying thank you.
However, I do want to thank the group of Experts for the work they have carried out.
It has, in fact, led us straight into matters relating to the EU' s legitimacy and credibility, straight into the core questions affecting the EU citizen: questions of accountability, openness, supervision and efficient use of the EU' s resources.
I would also say that all this may possibly already have been discussed in Parliament (in fact, I am certain it has been), but a firm push from outside is perhaps what is needed to speed up the process.
I would also take the opportunity to thank Paul van Buitenen.
<P>
Secondly, I would like to thank Neil Kinnock who has given a major political response today.
I am very pleased to be able to say that I have no important questions to ask him in this connection.
Instead, I will say only this: with what he is promising, with the pledges he is making, we can return to our fellow citizens, our voters, and say that the process is under way.
We are on the way to concluding a pact for radical reforms of the EU, just as our voters and all citizens of the Union expect of us.
So thank you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Böge">
Mr President, President-designate of the Commission, Romano Prodi, spoke in July of a revolution of the working method which it is now time to translate into action.
In fact, the statements from the Wise Men make it clear that we in Europe need a new culture of responsibility and I would like to add, Mr Kinnock, that on this very point it would be an enticing prospect to continue the hearings from the past week because many issues from the hearings which are still unclear have to be tidied up in terms of definitions and clarity since we would certainly like to know how exactly the Commission should look and function in future.
<P>
The Wise Men' s second report contains approximately 90 recommendations which are worth analysing and discussing carefully.
I shall pick out four points.
There are the recommendations relating to the Commission' s Code of Conduct.
The Committee of the Wise Men says that these recommendations have not yet been fully incorporated into the Commission' s proposals.
When I look at the wording of the Wise Men on this point, what they talk about are actually foregone conclusions, and it really is surprising that the Commission has not even transposed these in the past.
As regards OLAF, I am of the opinion that it should be made clear that the strict independence of OLAF, which is something we all want, must include the operative, independent capacity to act.
This has to do with personnel provision and, at the end of the day, has to lead to the establishment of a European Prosecution Office.
It is quite interesting that the Committee of Experts in its concluding remarks says that Community administration is moving towards favouring the tasks of conception and negotiation to the disadvantage of management and supervision responsibilities.
I believe that this is the crucial point. We have to learn to practise successful management at a European level and this will only be achieved, and this is something that has been made clear to the Commission, if, in this regard, Parliament, the Commission and the Council can come to solutions jointly.
<P>
I would also like to mention another point in this regard. In most political areas, we have committees in which representatives of the Member States have administrative and supervisory authority, but this is used by these representatives, at the end of the day, to pursue their own interests.
Whilst not wishing to anticipate Thursday' s debate, I would like to make it very clear that, for example, the discussion regarding the creation of the reconstruction agency in Kosovo, both with regard to the legal position as well as with regard to the administrative structures for which provision has been made, is heading precisely in this direction.
It cannot be allowed to do so, hence my reference to the discussion due to take place on Thursday.
I expect the new Commission to comply with Parliament on these very points, as regards the legal basis and on the question of the future administrative and responsibility structures of this reconstruction agency for Kosovo.
Otherwise, we will be creating new structures which are basically encumbered with past mistakes.
<P>
Let me say one more thing. The Committee of Independent Experts has complained that the indifference with which the Council practised the discharge procedure in the past, was truly scandalous.
In this area as well, it is quite crucial that in the interests of Europe, a new culture of responsibility takes shape in the Council itself.
The Commission has at last taken action on quite a few issues although, with regard to BSE, it only acted after coming under pressure, and the pressure of public opinion at that.
I say to you: in future, you are better off listening to Parliament than some policy advisors, even from among your own ranks.
That will benefit the European project, the success of which we all certainly believe in and wish for.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sauquillo Pérez del Arco">
Mr President, we are debating a report of around 200 pages which contains an exhaustive analysis of the structural operation of the Commission' s departments, and yet we have had only 48 hours in which to read it and give it our consideration.
I think that, given the seriousness of the subject, it would have been preferable if the President of the Commission had made a statement on the document which we are expecting from Mr Kinnock, on institutional reform, and to wait for a report compiled by the competent body of this House, and then formulate Parliament' s position on the future functioning of the Commission.
We could then have done this without the conditions which have led to the rushed inclusion of this report in the plenary part-session before we have even voted on the investiture of the Commission which will have to propose and apply the reform.
<P>
Indeed, Mr President, in the great haste which seems to hold sway over us, the competent committee for the fund has been decided on even before we know what it contains.
<P>
It is a great source of satisfaction for me - and I would like to make this known - to have heard the current Commissioner Manuel Marín refer today to the Commission' s future with the same honesty he displayed throughout his terms in office, and the same dignity with which he took on the problems of the previous College of Commissioners.
<P>
I must also point out that it is the outgoing Commission which is presenting this document, bringing into the debate a Member of both Colleges, but we are not altogether sure in which of his two roles he is addressing us.
<P>
The reasons we have found ourselves in this situation, a situation the Chairman of my group has been warning of since June, are to do with the fact that we have not been able to impose the limit for institutional responsibility on those groups who thought that the report' s contents could influence the investiture of the new Commission and who, for this reason, have insisted that it be debated now.
They have underestimated this Parliament' s ability to implement independently the competences conferred on it by the Treaties, and this has brought about the present situation: the public has the impression that we are unable to comment on the future Commission since this report, as important as it is, and as knowledgeable as its authors may be, does not really determine our political standpoint.
<P>
As spokesperson for the Socialist Group on the Committee on Development and Cooperation, I would like to make a few observations regarding the idea put forward in this report on the future functioning of the Commission.
One of the mitigating circumstances in the Commission' s shortcomings, which is clear throughout the report, is the lack of resources that the Commission' s departments have in order to carry out the policies which we MEPs agree on in the area of cooperation in development and humanitarian aid, both of which fly the flag for Community action abroad.
<P>
We cannot expect the Commission to have a growing, skilled, visible and efficient presence in the developing world if we do not provide it with the necessary means to achieve it.
Some of the problems which afflicted the last Commission in this area of cooperation for development were sometimes due more to the imbalance between resources and aims than to poor administration.
This is why I advocate - I believe with the consensus of the majority in this Parliament - that, in the future, together with our parliamentary requirements for efficiency, our generosity should also be realistic.
We can start, as the budgetary authority, with the budget for the year 2000, which we have recently been debating in the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
<P>
Mr President, I hope that this report will prove to be a useful contribution to the reform of the Commission' s functioning.
Therefore, the Socialist Group is prepared to contribute - given the institutional responsibility that Parliament must hold - to an improved functioning of the Community institutions, both of Parliament and of the Commission, and to demand this of the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, I shall just comment on one point made in the report by the Committee of Independent Experts, which is chapter 5, concerning fraud in the European Union.
<P>
The Committee of Independent Experts has hit the nail on the head in the sense that, at the moment, fraud is a matter of national responsibility.
That is to say that, theoretically, somebody could take all the European Community' s money, and if that person is brought before a court, in a legal system which does not recognise the crime of fraud against the Institutions of the European Community because it is not classified as such, that person would not even be able to be tried, because there would be no legal basis to do so.
<P>
I think that this is quite a serious matter.
We must remember, for example, that only four States have ratified the European Union Agreement on cooperation in the fight against fraud in the European Union and that, at the moment, there is no legal framework for combating fraud.
<P>
The Committee of Independent Experts' report has some practical conclusions to offer on this matter.
The most important is the creation of a European Ministry for Public Affairs in various stages.
Both Joan Colom and Mrs Theato mentioned this.
I think though, that the problem goes far beyond that.
Specifically, the Committee of Independent Experts' report proposes that the Union Treaties be amended in order to give the European Ministry for Public Affairs far-ranging powers.
But the question we should ask is, is it not time, if the European Union wants to protect its financial interests effectively, for a Community Criminal Law which would allow us to establish fraud against the Community' s financial interests as a Community-wide crime, and to have a competent criminal legal system?
<P>
I have the impression that, when all is said and done, the proposals are positive, that we should endorse them, but that probably, bearing the Intergovernmental Conference in mind, we should take them further.
<P>
I would like to end my intervention by thanking Mr Marín for his hard work over all these years in his posts within the Commission, and in his final one as President-in-Office of the Commission, and by wishing Mr Kinnock good luck, a lot of tact and caution in the difficult tasks which await him in the forthcoming months and years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Morgan">
Mr President, I, along with my Socialist colleagues very much welcome this report which underlines the work that we have done in the Budgetary Control Committee and really is built upon that.
There are several very radical recommendations, not least the one that establishes the post of the European public prosecutor.
Time and again many Eurosceptics have used fraud within the European Union institutions as a battering ram to beat us with.
Of course any degree of maladministration and fraud must be weeded out.
But this makes clear that 80% of the problem lies within the Member States themselves.
<P>
The recommendation to establish a European public prosecutor, as proposed, would mean that there would be a mechanism to present criminal cases relating to EU fraud throughout the Union but it would not impinge on the jurisdiction of national courts.
That is the way it has been written.
It is sensitive to Member States' worries.
A series of shortcomings within the institutions have been identified in this report and recommendations are made here for correcting the problems.
We look forward to developing the action programme for reform with the Commissioner responsible and although we have not had time to look at it in detail, I believe it would be fair to ask the Commissioner for a clear discussion and justification on why steps are not taken if some recommendations are left out.
I am sure we will not agree with every single detail in this report but that would be a useful exercise nevertheless.
<P>
The whole question of outside bodies doing work for the Commission is an area that needs clear attention.
Whose responsibilities are the bureaus for technical assistance?
Can we tighten-up the contracts granted to these bodies?
How can we simplify procedures and make staff within the Commission more knowledgeable about tendering processes?
The proposals outlined by Commissioner Kinnock in his hearing, in particular in the field of training, need more detailed response.
We look forward to hearing more of his ideas over the next few months.
<P>
I hope people will take time to read the report which clearly distinguishes between fraud and irregularity.
The report states that of all the thousands of transactions which take place within the European Union institutions there are only 30 investigations involving Commission officials in fraud.
Of course that is 30 too many, but the main cause of concern are the many examples of irregularities.
This is an administrative problem, not a criminal issue.
But measures are needed to tighten up the slack administrative practices, to rewrite poor regulations, to cut down complicated payment mechanisms, dispense with excessive exceptions and derogations which lead to the far too many irregularities and errors.
It is these irregularities that give rise to alarmist headlines when we are presented with the Court of Auditors' report on an annual basis.
<P>
The report also correctly referred to the regulation on the protection of the financial interests of the European Community and points out that only three Member States have ratified the regulation.
I am sure this report will give food for thought to those Member States that have not signed.
It will be interesting to note how they respond in particular to the recommendation on the creation in each Member State of a national prosecution office for European offences.
<P>
It is indeed appropriate that this report is published this week when we are about to decide on the fate of a new Commission.
It is interesting in particular, in the light of recent events, that the Committee of Experts recommends that legal powers are given to allow the Commission President to sack individual Commissioners.
This week we also received from the Commission a request on the supplementary and amending budget for money to establish the staff necessary to operate the new fraud office, OLAF.
We would also concur with the report that specialised expertise is needed for these posts, and the need to make more effective use of information technology in intelligence gathering.
<P>
The report itself should also be a lesson to us all within the European Union institutions.
It has been clearly written, is really easily accessible and avoids jargon wherever possible.
It is really a model on how to write European legislation.
Having said that we welcome the move from ex ante to ongoing ex post control in the budget control mechanisms within the Commission. We would like to see that implemented.
Again, we will have further discussions on that in the committee.
<P>
We are at the dawn of a new era within the European Union institutions.
We look forward to a time when officials are promoted on merit.
We look forward to recruitment of people with appropriate expertise in specific sectors.
We look forward to the commitments already made on whistle-blowers being implemented.
But most of all we look forward to a time when every official and Member State Government responds to a new culture of responsibility.
The next few months and years will be critical.
But let us not forget that we have a base on which to build.
The report is clear in its praise of the commitment and experience of most officials.
From this week on a new chapter is being written.
The plot is outlined in this report.
It will be written by the Commission but Parliament will insist on strong editorial control.
In partnership we can rebuild confidence in the institutions, not only for the people who work within them but most of all, for the people they serve.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
.
I will speak, as I can at this juncture, only on behalf of the current Commission.
As I said earlier, my fate is in the hands of this Parliament.
Depending on the vote on Wednesday, either I have taken up much too much of Parliament' s time already in putting forward a point of view or we are at the start of something big.
It is for Parliament to choose, therefore, which capacity I speak in on this particular evening.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="President">
It really must be a big question because there are an awful lot of questions on your plate.
I hope you can answer some of them at least.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Kinnock">
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="President">
As you have indicated, Commissioner, this matter will be under discussion for weeks, months, years and possibly even generations in the future.
But thank you just now.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Accidental marine pollution
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="President">
The next item on the agenda is the report (A5­0003/99) by Ms McKenna, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a Council Decision setting up a Community framework for cooperation in the field of accidental marine pollution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="McKenna">
.
Mr President, I am rather disappointed that the Commissioner responsible, Commissioner Bjerregaard, is not here.
It is rather disappointing that the Member of the Commission responsible for this issue is not here and that someone else is here who is not responsible for this portfolio.
It makes a laughing-stock of the debates in this Parliament.
<P>
Marine pollution, accidental and deliberate, is one of the major threats to the marine environment of Western Europe.
This region represents one of the most intensively industrialised areas of the world where chemical, radioactive and hydrocarbon materials are routinely discharged into the marine environment and carried by cargo ships.
The region also contains one of the highest concentrations of shipping and includes several of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.
There are several tragic examples of accidental pollution from tankers and from other ships carrying various forms of dangerous cargoes.
More by good fortune than by good planning there has not yet been a major accident resulting in radioactive spillage with a ship carrying radioactive materials although there was an incident some years back where a ship carrying uranium hydrofluoride from France to Riga sank but it is recorded that the containers apparently were recovered without any spillage.
<P>
Historically the marine environment has been used as the ultimate dumping ground for much of our industrial waste.
Although industrial and radioactive discharges continue from a range of sources, the practice of direct dumping with little thought to the future is now widely regarded as unacceptable.
However, the legacy of the years where materials were simply dumped remains and has sometimes returned to haunt us, often with severe consequences.
It is a lesson which tells us that when we attempt to throw things away there really is no such thing as "away" .
<P>
This report acknowledges the need for establishing cooperation in the field of accidental marine pollution.
Furthermore there is a need to broaden the definition of accidental marine pollution to include operational historical and radioactive and other harmful substances, accidental and operational marine pollution.
Although much attention is rightly paid to the impact of marine accidents, in terms of the chronic pollution it is the operational spills and discharges of hydrocarbons, radioactive materials and other harmful substances which, because they go largely unnoticed, are a cause of major concern.
In terms of the environment whether a substance is accidentally or deliberately discharged is of no real consequence, the environmental impact remains.
<P>
Furthermore, although the direct dumping of industrial materials, including military dumps of redundant munitions, is largely a practice which has been abandoned by Member States, the sites of such dumps continue to present a real threat to fisheries and in some cases, for example not far from my own coast, the Beaufort Dyke, a threat to human safety. Often fishermen' s lives are at risk, as are the health and welfare of the public who either visit the coast or live by the sea.
Furthermore, as the sea is the ultimate sink for much industrial material from the shores and rivers these sources must be included within the definition.
<P>
The transboundary nature of the marine environment, which means that pollution in one area can impact on a wider region, leads to the need for a Community-wide framework for cooperation in the field of accidental marine pollution.
Sharing information regarding hydrocarbons, radioactive substances and other harmful substances carried at sea and discharges into the sea which have been dumped as part of historical dumping regimes is a vital prerequisite in facilitating the preparation and coordination of any response necessary to mitigate the environmental and human health impacts of pollution incidents.
<P>
Effective mitigation requires a rapid response.
The longer an incident is allowed to go unchecked the wider the impact, as we have seen.
Hence it is too late to begin trying to get the required information after a serious pollution problem has occurred. We need to take action before.
Knowledge about the type and extent of potential pollution problems is also a prerequisite for correct preparation in terms of techniques, personnel and equipment at appropriate locations.
It is also necessary to be clear about the risks to the public and the environment and to alleviate justified public concern with accurate assessments of the risk.
The public' s trust in the authorities is important to ensuring adequate responses.
Furthermore, the public have a right to know what preparations are being made, what types of materials are threatening and what impacts may be expected.
To this end, publication of information is a vital component as it establishes a route through which the general public can obtain information, for example emergency phone contact numbers.
Such information can be easily made available and updated on the Internet as well as through established channels.
<P>
To conclude, it is a truism that once the marine environment has been contaminated or polluted it is impossible to fully clean up and repair the damage.
However a rapid, efficient, adequate and effective response coordinated across national boundaries is needed to mitigate the impacts on the environment and public health in the case of a pollution incident.
A prerequisite is the necessary information sharing with all parties.
The database and information technology exists to establish the necessary communications between national and regional authorities, emergency response experts and the public.
The dissemination of information about the range of marine pollution threats - hydrocarbons, radioactive substances and other harmful substances - will serve to ensure that the best possible mitigation measures are in place and have the full public trust and confidence of the public.
On the issue of radioactive substances, during the debate in the committee the Commission representative said that it was "implicit" but we want it to be explicit.
It is quite clear that it should be explicit and if it is already implied then I do not see what the problem is about ensuring that it is explicit because as time goes by radioactive substances are going to pose an even greater danger and - as I have already said - we are very lucky that there has not already been a serious accident.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Lund">
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="De Roo">
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Fitzsimons">
Mr President, I agree with the tenor and the thrust of the McKenna report.
Indeed, as a Member of the European Parliament who represents the east coast of Ireland, this is an issue which is close to my heart.
<P>
It has come to my attention that British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. has applied to the British Department of the Environment for authorisation to discharge high levels of technetium 99 into the Irish Sea in the near future.
If BNFL is successful with this application, while it will result in halving the levels of technetium 99 that are dumped in the Irish Sea, this will still be 15 times higher than the levels which existed in 1992.
If BNFL has problems in discharging radioactive products such as technetium 99, it should store such waste materials on land in Britain as opposed to dumping them in the Irish Sea.
<P>
It is quite timely that BNFL is making applications to the British Government to deal with how much radioactive materials it can discharge into the Irish Sea.
I say this because 15 September - Wednesday of this week when there will be a lot happening - is the deadline which has been given by the Radioactive Discharges Commission of the Ottawa Convention for the British Government to come up with proposals as to how best it is going to substantially reduce the discharge of radioactive substances into the marine environment.
<P>
One must remember that the Ottawa Convention on Marine Pollution has at its core the principle of substantially reducing the use of radioactive substances.
A clear plan in this regard must be implemented by the year 2000.
We know that the British Government has done nothing to implement its obligations under the Ottawa Convention to date.
I await with interest to see how the British Department of the Environment intends to comply with its legal obligations under this important convention.
As the British Government addresses the final details on this issue, it should be remembered that there is no safe level of radiation.
The Irish Sea must not be used as a soft option for the disposal of radioactive nuclear materials by BNFL.
Ever since the opposition to the THORP nuclear plant in 1993, the level of radioactive discharges from nuclear operations in Cumbria has substantially increased.
<P>
In conclusion, I support the proposals in the report.
From the Irish perspective, we will have more confidence in the British regulatory authorities if they reject this application in its totality.
It is up to the British Government to force BNFL to come up with alternative technological methods to deal with the discharge of such materials.
I congratulate Ms McKenna on her report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="President">
My dear Mr Fitzsimons, as President I always add a little on to the speaking time anyway.
But if I am to indicate with the hammer that your speaking time is up, then I would request in future that you adhere to it.
We cannot stick to a schedule if someone simply steals the speaking time of others, as you indeed have just done.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Marín">
Mr President, I would like to thank the Committee on the Environment, and particularly its rapporteur, Mrs McKenna, as well as the members of the Committee on Budgets, for the work and the dedication they have put into this proposal.
I am sure that you will all agree with me in confirming the importance of this Community framework for cooperation with which we are trying to back up and finalise the work of the Member States in the field of accidental marine contamination, in order to make it more efficient.
This framework has proved to be very useful when, in cases of severe spillage, it has been necessary to coordinate the work of various Member States.
<P>
The Commission can completely or partially accept 20 of the 29 amendments proposed, which obviously improve the proposal.
Amendments Nos 3, 6, 8, 9 and 13 and part of Amendment No 15 would be acceptable in principle, although we would like them to undergo another rewrite.
<P>
The 9 remaining amendments pose difficulties for the following reasons:
<P>
Amendment No 1 and, in part, Recommendations 5, 15 and 24 make specific reference to contamination caused by radioactive substances which are already regulated by implication in the proposal.
Furthermore, prevailing international agreements on the protection of the Mediterranean, Baltic and North seas, to which the Community is partially bound, all follow the same approach of not making mention of any specific substance.
<P>
Amendments Nos 10, 11, 12, 17 and 18, and the first part of Amendment No 22 have as their objective closer cooperation between countries taking part in the PHARE, TACIS and MEDA programmes.
The inclusion of these amendments may make managing it difficult, given the differences between the decision-making processes and the proposed Community framework.
<P>
Amendment No 22, in the Commission' s opinion, does not conform to the recent decision on the amount of time spent in committee.
<P>
Amendment No 23, in our opinion, contravenes the Commission' s right of initiative.
<P>
In spite of these observations, I am sure that Parliament' s contribution and support will facilitate the rapid adoption of this proposal, so that continuity between the way in which the Community currently works and the programme which is due to be implemented on 1 January 2000 will be guaranteed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12.00 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Environmental inspections
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A5-0002/99) by Mrs Jackson, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Recommendation providing for minimum criteria for environmental inspections in the Member States (COM(1998)0772 - C4-0073/1999 - 1998/0358(COD)(former 1998/0358(SYN)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Jackson">
.
Mr President, I rise as the rapporteur on the draft recommendation from the European Commission on the provision of minimum criteria for environmental inspections.
The most important thing about my report is that I rejected the idea - and the Committee has backed me on this - that it should be a recommendation.
I want to make sure that this instrument is in fact a directive.
I am absolutely certain that the speech which Mr Marin is now anxiously looking through rejects what I am about to say.
<P>
It is a very important point and underlies some of the disappointments that people feel about the European Union in many of our countries.
It is based on the perception that we adopt legislation in the European Union which is then not implemented universally throughout the Member States of the European Union.
I do not know about my MEP colleagues but certainly this was one of the criticisms made against the European Union during the British version of the European election campaign.
<P>
It is a situation at the moment where there are currently more than eighty actions pending before the Court of Justice against eleven Member States for infringement of European Union environmental legislation.
I know, as rapporteur on the recent directive on landfill, that what is happening is that the European Commission is proposing legislation on the basis that it will be adopted and properly implemented in all the Member States while at the same time the same directorate-general of the European Union knows full well that in some areas of policy no inspectorates at all exist able to see that that legislation is implemented in some Member States of the European Union.
<P>
The European Commission' s recipe for dealing with this is for inspectors from the various Member States to meet together from time to time to try to improve their techniques and to make that into a recommendation.
There is nothing particularly radical about it at all.
I and the members of the Environment Committee feel that this is grossly inadequate and that if it is not a directive there will in fact be no impulsion on the Member States which are currently lagging behind to do anything at all.
<P>
The advantage of transforming the recommendation into a directive is twofold.
First of all it creates the momentum for changes to take place under the eventual sanction of financial penalties and secondly, by taking the proposed text of the recommendation, which we have before us as its base, avoids creating a directive which is too heavily prescriptive in detail.
People want to see the legislation implemented.
They do not want what they call 'red tape' .
This instrument, if transformed into a directive, would mean that we are able to see through the European Commission and through the Members of Parliament whether anybody is actually doing anything.
The likelihood is that if we leave it as a recommendation somebody in five years time or so may or may not remember to report to the European Parliament that a recommendation was passed and that very little was done about it.
A directive has legal force and we feel that is what is needed.
<P>
I note that the Greens have proposed an amendment drawing attention to the opinion of the European Parliament that there should be some form of European Union environmental inspectorate.
We have to tread very carefully here if we are not to tie up even more red tape around the Member States.
It is much better, rather than going for a supranational environment inspectorate with all the difficulty about right of entry, if we have the legislation in place to make sure that the environmental inspectorates in all the Member States (a) exist and (b) are performing their tasks to more or less the same standard.
You can only do that through a directorate.
A recommendation is grossly inadequate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lienemann">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Socialist Group, I would like to express our full support for the report by Mrs Jackson.
I believe that this is an important question. We have seen it happen, even if it is not the direct subject of this report, with the dioxin case.
We can set up all the European directives, all the recommendations, all the laws that we want. If their application is not guaranteed by inspection, I believe that the grave doubts of our fellow citizens regarding European effectiveness and the value of these standards may well increase.
<P>
We therefore need to establish control and inspection on a Community basis.
Obviously, a fair balance between the responsibility of Member States and European intervention must be found.
In this area, we support the request from Mrs Jackson not to limit ourselves to adopting recommendations, but to go on to the phase of an actual directive, which establishes precise criteria, which each of the Member States shall have to respect in its performance of inspections.
<P>
We therefore support all the amendments, requesting the Commission to take note of the need to set strict frameworks.
We have heard the new Commissioner, Mrs Wallström, whom we questioned on the matter of the effectiveness of laws.
She stated the intention of the Commission to be stricter to ensure that, in the end, inspection is effective and its application strict.
We therefore support adoption of the amendments by Parliament.
<P>
After all, after the cases we have experienced with dioxin, we can clearly see the risk we face.
We can progress in a reasonable and strict manner towards effective European inspection of Member States, within the framework of a European vision.
But the second phase is the creation of European inspectors - I might call them super-inspectors - who will be able to check the proper performance of Member State inspections.
<P>
If we do not do this, when the first crisis comes along, given the lack of inspection in a Member State and the lack of a European principle on inspection, we shall resort to an independent agency which must be created in order to manage the question of food, for example, as we have seen when debating this matter.
<P>
I think that this is not the correct response.
The proper response is inspection, control, regulations, managed politically by the representative authorities of the Union, and in which the European Parliament must have entire responsibility.
We therefore would request the Commission to heed the proposals of the Jackson report both to go on to issue a directive but, at the same time, to finally initiate a new phase as regards Community inspection.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Davies">
Mr President, the European Union has many critics but few voices of protest are heard when the institution takes action to protect our air, our rivers, our seas and our land.
Because people everywhere recognise that pollution knows no national boundaries and can only be tackled effectively by countries working together.
To its great credit Europe has taken a lead in introducing legislation to protect the environment.
But laws which are not enforced equally by all 15 Member States will be cynically ignored by those who seek financial gain at any cost and will generate a sense of injustice and eventually hostility in all those who play by the rules.
<P>
None of us, of course, have any reason to feel superior.
No country has a perfect record when it comes to enforcing environmental legislation.
This report takes us a positive step forward and shows Parliament at its best as a defender of the public interest.
It emphasises our commitment to protecting our environment and applying equal procedures in each Member State.
It greatly strengthens the Commission' s well-meaning but frankly insubstantial recommendations for inspection procedures which could not guarantee that improvements will actually take place and it provides for a detailed programme of action to make sure that existing laws are properly enforced within a realistic but tight timetable.
<P>
There are one or two sections in this report, as drafted, which I believe would benefit from some very minor amendments to tighten them up.
I have tabled a couple and one of the delights about making a maiden speech in this House is that one has the feeling that those words might actually be studied for their merits rather than simply judged on their party political background.
The real substance of this report and my concern is as raised by Mrs Jackson, that the Commission may not give its support to these proposals.
I congratulate Mrs Jackson on the work she has undertaken.
I believe strongly that this report should be given Parliament' s wholehearted support and a message should be sent to both the Commission and the Council that we are determined that these essential measures should not be diluted or weakened in any way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="De Roo">
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Mr President, I endorse Mrs Jackson' s report, which makes some very valid points, particularly in its explanation as to why we do not want a recommendation, but a directive.
If we had had such inspections over the last few days in Greece, especially in Athens, even in the form recommended by Mrs Jackson, we certainly would have been able to protect, albeit indirectly, by looking after the land and the urban environment, most of the dead, the injured and the thousands of homeless which our capital is witnessing today.
<P>
That is why we support the proposal for environmental inspections.
I just wish to add two comments, Mr President, one of which is in slight disagreement with Mrs Jackson.
I too believe that the inspections should at some point be carried out at a Community and pan-European level.
It is not certain, it is not inevitable, as Mrs Jackson says, that this will lead to increased "red tape" .
There are ways in which we can organise it to make the inspections of a random nature and perhaps have them at a higher level of legal redress, which would not necessarily involve any red tape.
On the other hand, it incorporates rules and, I believe, it satisfies all the citizens of the European Union, who not only want the legislation to be enforced but who also want it to be enforced to the same degree and at the same level in all the countries.
<P>
My second comment - and I am, of course, stirred by my anguish and great sorrow in the wake of those earthquakes in Athens - is that our environmental legislation, which we will now have to review and enforce, still does not incorporate any, or does not incorporate enough, regulations on the use of land, the urban environment, and the degradation of the environment within towns and cities.
<P>
With these two comments, which I hope we will be able to bring to the table as soon as we have settled the general issue raised thanks to Mrs Jackson' s report, I once again wish to offer my support of the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Madam President, we are dedicated, as a European Parliament, to protecting the environment.
For this to be a success the Member States must implement the directives, regulations and recommendations in the right and proper manner.
It is, of course, extremely important for environmental legislation to be implemented and upheld if we are to protect the environment.
<P>
We cannot allow an industrial sector in one Member State to expel far more polluting substances than the same industrial sector in another Member State.
This would result in the manufacturing industry moving to the country where the most lax environmental regulations are in force; the environment would then stand to lose the most and those Member States that were taking the environmental legislation seriously would be punished for doing so.
<P>
That is why we must invest a great deal of time and energy in the coming months in bringing about improvements in the way in which this legislation is implemented and upheld, in order to provide adequate guarantees that our policy really will bring about improvement in the quality of the environment.
I want to emphasise how important it is for EU environmental legislation to be upheld to the same standard across the board.
The existence of the internal market justifies striving for common competition regulations.
<P>
How can this best be achieved?
The Member States are empowered to implement European directives under the terms of the subsidiarity principle.
Equally, the Member States themselves bear full responsibility for implementing European environmental legislation.
After some hesitation, I have allowed myself to be convinced by Mrs Jackson' s arguments in support of establishing minimum criteria for environmental inspections in the Member States in a directive, and not settling for the European Commission' s proposal for a non-binding recommendation.
However, in future, this Directive on environmental inspections must not be further embellished.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Marín">

Mr President, there is, in fact, in the report presented by Mrs Jackson, one point which concerns not so much the content but the question of which legal basis we should choose in order to try to resolve the problems of the minimum environmental criteria in Member States.
The Commission has in fact proposed a recommendation.
Parliament would like it to be a directive instead. This is not really, and I must repeat this, because we have a problem with the content, since none of the amendments are fundamental to the recommendation proposed by the Commission.
<P>
Why has the Commission considered that in this specific case, it was better to present a recommendation rather than a directive?
Firstly, Mr President, because the Commission, before making a legislative proposal, holds appropriate consultations with Member States.
Of the fifteen Member States, only one is in favour of a directive.
<P>
And once more we find ourselves caught between a rock and a hard place. When the European Commission proposes a recommendation, you in Parliament want a directive, and when the Commission proposes a directive, we should be making recommendations, because the principle of subsidiarity must be respected.
<P>
It is therefore extremely difficult, given that out of the 15 Member States, 14 think that a recommendation would be better.
Firstly, because it is sometimes right to respect the principle of subsidiarity.
Secondly, because we prefer the concept of shared responsibility.
Thirdly, because in this case, it concerns a measure within a programme which does not exclude the possibility of presenting it as a directive in the future if the recommendation proves insufficient.
<P>
This means, firstly, that it is just a pragmatic approach, knowing that most of the Member States do not want a directive.
Secondly, it would have recourse to the principle of subsidiarity.
And thirdly, the Commission prefers to maintain this programme through recommendations, see the results of this phase of closer cooperation on the question of inspections, and then present a directive at some point in the future if it considers it to be appropriate.
These are the explanations which I am able to give you on behalf of the European Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Jackson">
.
Mr President, I will very briefly come back on that.
I take the Commissioner' s point about subsidiarity but what we are arguing for in Parliament is a minimum framework directive which does not invade subsidiarity and which solves the problem by creating an obligation on the Member States to set up an inspectorate within certain broad guidelines.
<P>
Secondly, I would like to ask the Commissioner, given that all of us will be lobbying the Member States to change their minds, whether he can let us in on a secret in the interests of transparency.
Which is the one Member State which we do not need to lobby?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Marín">
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12.00 p.m.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 8.52 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=0>
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="Andrews">
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, we have had some slight technical problems regarding the Minutes for yesterday' s sitting.
Apparently, not all Members have received a copy.
In this situation, given that a number of Members have not been able to obtain the Minutes, I do not think that I can ask you to approve the Minutes.
This is one of the things that we are going to improve gradually in order to prevent a recurrence of this type of incident.
<P>
So, we will approve the Minutes for both today' s sitting and yesterday' s sitting tomorrow morning.
However, we still have one problem.
You will recall that we had tabled a vote for this morning on the interpretation of the Rules of Procedure proposed by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs regarding the Technical Group of Independent Members, a mixed group.
<P>
I will now turn to the representatives of this group.
If Mr Dell' Alba thinks that, considering the absence of the Minutes, we should postpone this vote too, then this is what I shall do.
That would be quite in order.
On the other hand, if he thinks that we can proceed to the vote, then I shall give an explanation of the case so that all Members are properly informed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell' Alba">
Mrs Fontaine, since it is an Appendix to the Minutes, it would be appropriate, in accordance with the Rules of Procedure, to vote tomorrow morning, at the same time as the Minutes, if you wish.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President">
Mr Dell' Alba, that would indeed seem to be perfectly in order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Madam President, I would propose that it be approved at midday.
We are perfectly capable of doing so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
Mr Barón Crespo, there is no vote at noon, and I do not think it would be desirable to interrupt the debate with Mr Prodi in order to have the Minutes approved.
That is all that I am saying, even if it is very important to get the Minutes approved.
<P>
Frankly, I think tomorrow would be better.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Madam President, may I draw your attention to the fact that not voting on the Minutes this morning will have consequences which are not limited simply to their approval but will also affect the political and budgetary work of Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
Well, firstly, will we in fact have received the Minutes by noon?
As I am assured that everyone will have a copy of the Minutes in their own language by that time, we could, indeed, interrupt the debate for a few moments in order to approve the Minutes.
But let the House decide the matter, and we will then also vote at noon on the interpretation of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
That would seem logical.
<P>
So, I turn to the House.
Who is in favour of this, given that I have just had confirmation that everyone will have received the Minutes by then?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pannella">
Madam President, there are matters which the President should decide, as a guarantee with regard to the entire House, so that we do not start to query the principles of proper procedure, even the most reasonable ones.
<P>
We had accepted the decision which you announced.
Going back on that now and submitting the decision you had so wisely taken to the majority of the House just because of the contribution of the chairman of the Socialist Group seems to me a meagre excuse in comparison with the principle which you applied and which we all supported.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Statement by Mr Prodi
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
The next item is the statement by Mr Prodi, President-designate of the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Prodi">
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Poettering">
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
President Prodi began his intervention by speaking of East Timor.
I would like to ask him whether he proposes any common European action in relation to East Timor.
<P>
We are arriving at the decisive moment in this long gestation period of the Millennium Commission: its investiture, with the democratic legitimacy which the recent elections to the European Parliament have given us.
<P>
The Group of the Party of European Socialists has behaved coherently throughout the process, and this can be summed up in the affirmation of the need to positively overcome the institutional and political crisis which has paralysed the Union since December of last year.
We need construction rather than destruction, so that we can set to work with the aim of resolving the problems and responding to the aspirations of our citizens.
<P>
To this end, the House took a first step in May by voting en masse for Romano Prodi as President of the Commission.
Today, I can restate the support of our group which has felt free to vote, into such an important post, a politician with such a long pro-European record, whose party history we do not share, although we appreciate his journey between the cross, the olive tree and the donkey.
We have never asked to see Mr Prodi' s party membership card in order to vote him into such a high post.
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With the same criteria we have examined, in writing and orally, the team which President Prodi, after negotiations with the governments of the Member States, has presented to us as his government.
For the purposes of getting to know the personalities and suitability of the candidates for the fulfilment of their duties, we believe that the public hearings have been a positive exercise in democracy and transparency, and those who have tried to turn them into a witch-hunt have failed.
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As a conclusion to the process, we have decided to support the investiture of the new Commission despite the reservations which we have in relation to Mrs Palacio, whose innocence we accept, but whose idea of political responsibility in a matter which concerns the Community budget we do not share.
Let us hope that, as Vice-President, she offers more trustworthy information than she gave on her exoneration by the Congress of Deputies.
This debate will be carried out in plenary session next Thursday in Madrid.
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With regard to Mr Bolkestein, the conditions which President Prodi himself imposed on his team, as we understand it, oblige him to renounce the Presidency of the Liberal International, because of incompatibility, and not because we want him to renounce his ideas, especially those which he demonstrated during his hearing.
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Our vote is not a blank cheque.
By offering him our trust, we are establishing an umbilical cord which completes the legitimacy of the Commission as the responsible executive in democratic terms.
We are doing this in the hope that they work hard and effectively during the legislature.
And our relations must be based on how we obtain and maintain the trust between ourselves and our citizens.
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This is the only way of preventing new crises and overcoming the present one.
To this end, we propose the following specific commitments, which we believe may serve as the basis for a new contract with our peoples.
The Commission must present that political programme for the legislature which you, Mr Prodi, on the proposal of my group, committed yourself to in January, with annual debates and programmes.
May I point out that this proposal has been accepted by the Conference of Presidents and requires a de facto amendment of our Rules of Procedure.
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With regard to this debate, I tell you in advance that my group will require the acceptance of further specific commitments in terms of policies on employment, social and economic cohesion and the modernisation of our economies, taking into account people, enlargement, the Mediterranean and the defence of human rights throughout the world, as cornerstones of our foreign policy.
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Meanwhile, we have to negotiate a framework agreement which forms a solid basis for the improvement of our institutional relationships, with measures relating to transparency and information, such as obtaining the working documents of the Council, the Minutes of the meetings of the College of Commissioners, except when confidentiality has been agreed, or an information system on the work of OLAF which would take into account the necessary discretion.
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With a good framework agreement, the question of individual condemnation of Commissioners will be put on the correct footing: that of the public political commitment of President Prodi and all the candidates to this Parliament.
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In the event that a Commissioner clearly loses the trust of Parliament, it will be up to you and the person concerned to take responsibility.
Let us hope that there is no repeat of what happened to that spiritual leader of the West, Mr Stoiber, President of the Government of Bavaria, who did not manage to turn his Minister Sauter into a scapegoat and get him to resign and consequently, has had to appeal to his own Parliament.
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We are talking here in political terms and amongst responsible people.
No regulation can replace honesty in this area.
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There are two areas in which a close relationship between our institutions can create trust between our citizens.
The first is the reform of the institutions.
We await the Commission' s proposal for reform which you have announced and which Vice-President Kinnock is due to present in February.
For our part, and I say this solemnly, we can contribute, using this time to approve the statutes of the Members of the European Parliament and the assistants, by means of which we, ladies and gentlemen, can teach by example.
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The second area is the Intergovernmental Conference. We cannot wait for the programme.
I take your word, Mr Prodi, and I hope that we can debate the report of the three experts before the Helsinki Summit in order to establish a common approach for the Commission and the European Parliament for the purposes of the Intergovernmental Conference.
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We will vote for the investiture of the Commission for the legislature without condition or reserve, and also without renouncing our rights and responsibilities so that it can set to work as of tomorrow to do what it has to do, what our peoples want it to do, and to do it well.
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<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Cox">
Madam President, let me begin by saying on behalf of my group that we fully share the perspective of Mr Prodi that certainly from tomorrow we stand on the threshold of a new beginning; a new beginning in particular between our two institutions, Parliament and the Commission, and a new beginning for Europe itself.
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On the issues which the President-designate has raised of reform, which should be brought forward by Commissioner Kinnock next February with due consultation, the policy programme of next January, the moral and political imperative of addressing the enlargement challenge and preparation for the Intergovernmental Conference, I pledge my group to a positive and constructive engagement with the Commission in this regard.
Indeed we look forward to getting down to serious and immediate work on questions such as East Timor, south-eastern Europe and the Balkans in particular.
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But today is an opportunity for this House to review the investiture process and to place on record some of the questions or observations that arise from that.
In due course, within the House and in the appropriate fora, my own group intends to contribute to a debate which we hope will be initiated on lessons which we ourselves, as Parliament, must learn from the hearings process.
We certainly would hope for the future that we might be able to develop procedures to allow for what might be described as more questioning in depth of nominees.
That said, however, we believe that the exercise just completed has been a positive and valuable exercise.
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Some in this House - I believe from the outset that they have been a minority, though perhaps rather vocal in terms of the media - have talked of targeting individual nominees.
This has not been the approach nor the view of my group.
We believe that ab initio this kind of process, which, as I said, was a minority pursuit, to be a sign of weakness and not of strength.
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Tomorrow, when we vote on the college, the ELDR group will vote for a college and we will not seek at this point to differentiate, to pick or to choose between nominees.
We respect in the act of voting tomorrow the essential collegiality of the European Commission and regard that as an essential value for its working method.
But we have some questions that arise from the hearings and some observations.
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In the procedures to date, many of the nominee Commissioners were kind enough to, in effect, promise in advance a charter of reform for their own areas and have alluded to specific policy commitments.
We have taken note of those commitments and we expect to see them reflected in the work programme in January.
We shall check that programme against those commitments which were given in the course of the hearings.
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It is obvious from the hearings - indeed without them it is obvious - that there are major areas of overlap and therefore potential conflict in operational responsibilities within the college.
Here again we hope that, in working through the programme for January, where these overlaps arise they will be explicitly identified and addressed in order that potential conflicts in spheres of responsibility should not slow down the reform process.
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I recall in particular questions about the overlaps between food law and food safety, the various overlaps that one can imagine with the World Trade Organisation and a host of other responsibilities, not least those of the Environment Commissioner.
The President mentioned the importance of electronic commerce and information technology.
These issues must clearly be addressed as to responsibility.
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Many colleagues have also raised questions about the desirability of separating the ex ante responsibility for budget control from the ex post responsibility for budget implementation or formulation within the Commission.
Many in my own group have raised this question with me.
I raise it today but hasten to add that this is in no way a reflection on the qualities or capacity of the nominee Commissioner charged to deal with both of these issues in the current sphere of responsibilities.
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There has been a certain diversity of views, Mr Prodi, among your nominee Commissioners about their personal political accountability in the future.
They all accepted in the hearings that they will be responsible for themselves and their cabinets.
Some did not quite accept what I believe is also a necessary requirement, that in the matter of policy formulation and implementation they carry a general responsibility for their departments, answerable to the college but accountable to this Parliament.
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Specifically, my group, has for many months now raised the question of individual responsibility.
Again I return to that point today.
I have already said we support as necessary the collegiate nature of the Commission.
However we reassert, as we have done consistently, that an effective college requires the assumption of individual political responsibility.
The buck must stop somewhere.
Where everyone is responsible it can result in a system where no one is responsible.
We do not contest, President Prodi, your prerogative to act in this regard.
But we insist that, whatever the current state of law, the law needs changing and that if a Commissioner fails to enjoy the confidence of this House you must act accordingly.
We urge you to do that.
It is your prerogative but it is our right to insist that the confidence of this House be respected and its absence be respected also.
Indeed, here I hope you will not adopt the Stoiber formulation referred to by Mr Barón Crespo.
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I should add, arising from matters raised in the hearings but not concluded, in respect of some of the individual nominee Commissioners that should any legal or criminal proceedings arise - which I do not anticipate would necessarily be the case but which would pose problems for the integrity of the Commission - we would expect the President of the Commission to act in such circumstances.
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We intend to negotiate later today and tomorrow a political resolution.
That will formulate and specify a number of requests, not just on the area of individual responsibility but also specifically to do with areas of transparency and access to documents.
When we vote on those my group will expect to hear from you a specific detailed and positive response before our final vote.
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In conclusion, we share the vision expressed here today.
It is high time that we had this new beginning.
It is the time for us to return to serious work.
It is time that we recognise and rebuild as institutions - Commission and Parliament - our common European vocation.
The ELDR group pledges itself to that task.
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<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Madam President, Mr President-designate of the Commission, you have recently outlined to us a view of what the tasks of the European Union will be.
You have spoken of an enduring development, you have spoken of peace and of stability.
Mr Prodi, you may not belong to the great Expressionist painters, but I have faith that your gentle leadership can produce good results.
You have also mentioned East Timor, and we all expect that Europe will bear full responsibility in this matter.
What we have heard from the Commission in Parliament has not been a useless act and a worthless spectacle at all, they have been particularly necessary and you yourself have been completely right to demonstrate to us in the last week that elsewhere in Parliament the Executive has not got around to issuing any detailed clarifications.
Perhaps in this there would be a model also in relation to other Parliaments and executive bodies.
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This Commission cannot ally itself with the Council unilaterally, just as its predecessor frequently did, unfortunately.
My group will not unite with those who would like the Commission to be some kind of secretariat to the Council.
No.
The Commission is a political organ and, as has now become clear, it also has political responsibility to, of all things, the European Parliament.
So that we can have confidence in your Commission at least until the year 2005, it must first be confirmed what this new spirit in the relations between the Council and the Commission will come to mean in practice. We are still waiting for clarification.
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My group emphasises the political responsibility of each Member of the Commission, and we accept your promise that you will carefully study the well-founded dissatisfaction with each Member of the Commission.
The President of the Commission must also commit himself to using his power if there is any Member of the Commission suspected of, or being investigated concerning, misconduct or criminal behaviour.
<P>
Mr Prodi, one thing must be stressed: there are far too few women in the composition of your Commission, and this must be stated now so that we learn something from this for future occasions.
In future, the equal representation of men and women in the Commission or in other named bodies of the Union cannot be an optional principle of others in the group.
Concrete measures are needed.
When the new agreement between Parliament and the Commission is negotiated, action must be taken so that in future the candidates for the Commission will also be discussed with Parliament.
The procedure now followed has clearly proved to be too limited.
My group also calls for the amendments to the legislative process proposed by a large majority in Parliament to be taken in accordance with the proposals of the Commission in future.
We also appreciate that you have promised to take a serious view of Parliament' s suggestions for legislation.
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We also call for Parliament to be included in the coming reform of Union bodies and also in the negotiation process with a completely different emphasis than has previously been the case.
We will also be responsible for including the whole commonwealth of European nations in this process because the upcoming reform of European institutions will guarantee greater rights to the citizens of Europe.
We have not been satisfied with the way in which Parliament has been allowed to participate in international agreements.
We also call for Parliament to be consulted at every stage in future in negotiations such as those involving the World Trade Organisation.
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Mr Prodi, everyone is talking about glasnost, and transparency, and I believe that you are talking about it sincerely, but the hearings have not convinced me that the individual candidates or even you yourself, as the future President of the Commission would understand what glasnost or transparency really mean in practice.
It must not remain a mere catchphrase.
Your first task is to create the background for the transparency required by the Amsterdam Treaty.
This is not only necessary so that Parliament is kept informed, but also so that the citizens and all the nations can influence the development of the European Union with an emphasis which is completely fresh.
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<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wurtz">
Mr President, since your nomination to the Presidency of the Commission and the candidacy of the nineteen Commissioners-designate, you and the members of the new College of Commissioners have spared no pains to get a very clear message across to the European Parliament.
And we have received it.
You and the Commissioners have found the words to express it: change, reforms, questioning, new culture, glasnost.
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Although often suspected of arrogance, the Commission has managed to come down off its pedestal.
Although it has a reputation for opacity, it has committed itself to promoting transparency.
Although severely criticised by the Committee of Wise Men, it has adopted the recommendations of the Independent Experts.
During the hearings, the Commissioners proved to be so open to the consensus of the majority of Members that even the groups which, for reasons outside European politics, had promised to maintain an antagonistic attitude were quick to bury the hatchet.
In short, you set yourself the task of regaining the confidence of Parliament, and you managed to achieve it.
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It must, however, be noted that you have not tackled the other challenge which you just mentioned, Mr President, a far more ambitious one, it is true, with the same strong will - that of regaining the confidence of the citizens of Europe.
And there' s the rub.
You, like us, will note that a real phenomenon of rejection of Neo-liberalism, bearing with it a great desire for justice, solidarity and change, is on the increase in our societies.
What new solutions do you offer in response to the increasing rejection of the galloping ever-growing threat to job security and even to life itself?
What new solutions do you offer in response to this thirst for resistance to the frantic rush for profits which is being expressed throughout Europe, for example, at this very moment, in my own country, in the form of the immense movement of sympathy towards the workers of the Michelin group which has just announced 7 500 layoffs in Europe despite seeing its profits climb by 20%. What new solutions do you offer the men and women who expect Europe to give the impetus for a real dynamic of alternatives to the globalisation of exclusion that is today at work, whether it is a matter of employees, rural workers, or cultured people opposing the regulations of world trade, or two young men from Guinea, victims of the flight from poverty, in default of an international order recognising the right of each and every human being to life, employment and dignity?
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In connection with this, I note, Mr President, that in your inaugural speech I heard no mention of the relationship between Europe and the South, that is to say the majority of the human race.
Generally, the responses of the Commission to all these ethical questions are far too conventional: they do not have the ambition which generates major projects.
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At the start of my speech, I highlighted the efforts you have made towards fulfilling the expectations of Parliament.
The comments I have just made do not deny the progress made, but put them into perspective.
Still less does my group ignore the slight shift in the centre of gravity of the Commission towards Parliament which has just taken place, as this proves, in the eyes of the world, that it is possible to shift the position of seats of power, even those reputed to be untouchable, and this is very important.
I would add that the working areas which have been opened up are of interest to us.
In this respect, we shall be demanding but constructive partners.
For all that, we cannot let ourselves be satisfied with administrative reform whilst our fellow citizens are asking us questions on the very meaning of Europe today.
At this stage, therefore, we cannot, to our great regret, affirm our confidence in this Commission.
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<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Collins">
Madam President, at the outset we must view this week as a new beginning for all the key institutions within the European Union as to how they intend to interact and work together on various policy programmes over the next five years.
In particular the relationship between the European Parliament and the European Commission must be hardworking and harmonious, so as to ensure that key elements of our EU legislative requirements are enacted in as an effective a manner as possible.
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The 350 million people who make up the membership of the European Union will not thank either the European Parliament or the European Commission if we are seen in the public eye as having a fractious relationship in any shape or form.
This would only help to erode public confidence in the institutions of the Union, which would be a very regressive step for all interested parties, particularly in the light of the key challenges that lie ahead for the Union as a political and economic entity.
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The President-elect of the Commission, Mr Prodi, has certainly made it clear that he intends to guarantee that the European Commission and the European Parliament will work extremely closely together on the implementation of a comprehensive work programme within the Union over the next five years.
Included within this process must be the efficient working of the codecision procedure, which covers the enactment of EU legislation across 38 different economic and social sectors of our society.
Since the Amsterdam Treaty came into force on 1 May, the codecision procedure, which involves a very close relationship between Parliament, the Commission and the Council, now covers a wide range of policies including those in the transport sector, regional affairs, social matters, employment initiatives, structural funding, consumer protection, public health and environmental concerns.
The relationship between the European Commission and the European Parliament must not be based on strict contractual terms.
We must set common policy objectives together and face the key challenges which lie ahead for the European Union within a united and unified framework.
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The European Union works at its best when Parliament, the Commission and the Council are working closely together on the implementation of various EU regulations and directives.
The body of the European Union treaties and, in particular, the Single European Act, the Maastricht Treaty and the Amsterdam Treaty are all to be reevaluated in the context of the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference.
This IGC will examine what key amendments must be made to the body of EU legislation to take account of the impending enlargement of the European Union.
Preparing for enlargement is not going to be a particularly easy task and it will not be made any easier if Parliament and the Commission are not working closely together to guarantee that tough decisions must be taken on these issues or worked through in an atmosphere of understanding and equal purpose.
Enlargement of the European Union will itself not succeed unless the internal decision-making procedures within the Union are streamlined and simplified.
<P>
Finally, with the accession of six new Member States between the years 2004 to 2006, we all collectively have a lot of work to do to ensure that this process is a success.
The forthcoming IGC is the biggest challenge facing the European Union as a political and economic body since the decisions were taken when negotiating the Maastricht Treaty to set in train the process of Economic and Monetary Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
Madam President, the hearings have provided no clear answer.
Next time, they must be prepared better and concentrate on fewer questions, which can then be pursued until the Commissioners give clear and unambiguous answers.
We still do not know these 15 men and 5 women.
We have heard about which of them is interested in jazz but we also want information about the economic interests they have represented over the last twenty years so that they are protected against unnecessary pressure.
We shall also insist upon clear answers on the subject of openness.
Some questions, then: will the ombudsman receive all the documents he asks for?
Will the Chair of the Committee on Budgetary Control receive all the documents concerning fraud that she requests?
Will we be able to obtain a complete overview of all the committees and their members so that we might see who is involved in making laws and taking decisions?
Will Mr Prodi, here in the Chamber, solemnly promise that there will no longer be documents in the Commission which can be read at COPA, within the national delegations, in the lobbying firms and by journalists but not by ourselves, who have merely been elected by the people?
Dear Professor Prodi, at the meeting with my group you promised that there would always be a place in Parliament where full information could be obtained from the Commission.
Will you repeat that promise here today in the Chamber, where it is binding?
I shall then, in return, promise critical and constructive opposition on behalf of my group.
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<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Speroni">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we will be called upon to vote for the Commission presided over by Mr Prodi who has presented, like everyone who presents programmes, a good programme - as if there were any doubt that he and his collaborators could present a good programme!
But let us take a look at what he has done in the past.
I do not mean in a professional sense, because he has amassed considerable personal wealth - he has used his abilities well - but let us look at when he was Chairman of IRI, Italy' s largest economic public body, and the thousands of billions of lira much of this from the pockets of taxpayers in the Po area - that he managed to squander by implementing a policy which led to bankruptcy.
Just think of the steelworks in Southern Italy that are now closed.
And I recall that as Italy' s Prime Minister, a vote of no confidence was brought against him by Parliament and also by those political groups which - and I do not know how they have the nerve, the cheek - have become turncoats and have willingly voted for him here after having voted against him in Rome.
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<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Galeote Quecedo">
Madam President, I also believe that the hearings process has been rigorous and useful, as my group has stated, and we have all taken an important step towards the transparency of the Community' s institutions.
And as the coda to these hearings, in my judgement, Mr Prodi has shown signs of political good sense and courage in the speech which he has just made.
The offers which he has made us, which are broadly accepted by this group, form a clear commitment to European integration and are a clear declaration of intentions with regard to the representation of citizens which this Parliament demonstrates.
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Where is the problem then?
In my frank opinion, it lies in some people' s attempts to transfer their domestic debates to the Community institutions, in those governments which juggle European postings in order to satisfy the demands of pacts in their countries, and also in some opposition parties who wish to achieve on a higher level what they cannot achieve at home, like Mr Barón, in Spain, who has been ordered to prolong the internal domestic debate by attacking the Vice-President-designate of the European Commission in, as he well knows, an unjust and dishonest way.
<P>
Mr Barón, please display more independence, more prudence and, above all, more responsibility.
Ask the advice of your sympathisers, Mr Solbes and Mr Solana, because we know how these things begin but not how they end and, sometimes, the schemes backfire.
You have some experience in this respect.
And above all, do not try to distort the facts.
State here that the Committee of Inquiry on flax of the Congress of Deputies has already approved its conclusions.
State clearly that this Committee has cleared Mrs de Palacio of any responsibility, pointing out that the responsibility for the management, control and granting of subsidies falls to the Spanish Autonomous Communities, and famously the one governed by one of your cohorts in Castilla La Mancha.
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I will end, Madam President, by saying that I want to forget about this squalor because it is not our style.
We still have an enormous task to perform during the next five years, in which dialogue and the existence of a consensus between us and between the institutions is essential if we are to continue to make progress.
We offer you our co-operation.
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<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen of the Commission, I am assuming that you will be receiving a vote of confidence from this Chamber tomorrow.
I should therefore like to speak to you directly, but I must first make just one comment to Mr Galeote who is also now being so kind as to put his headphones on.
<P>
You started out by saying that we ought not to be discussing any internal political matters here.
You then went on to spend at least half of your speech dealing with just such internal political matters.
If you have seen how reticently Enrique Barón has addressed the subject, then you will see how reticently we too are dealing with it, because we do not want to deal with any internal political matters.
<P>
Mr President of the Commission, I can agree one hundred per cent with the programme you have put forward today.
I should not like, therefore, to comment upon it in more detail but, rather, to mention a few more points in particular.
<P>
First of all, we are engaged in a process - and here I should like to take up a concept which Michel Barnier used during the hearings - a process of developing a constitution.
This is not something which we can do overnight, but it is something which we really must set in progress over the next few years.
For this, there needs to be a big European debate.
You yourself have said - and I agree with you, Mr President of the Commission - that a succession of Intergovernmental Conferences is not particularly appealing.
I would imagine that you are making proposals from your own point of view too about how you see this process of developing a constitution.
For the Commission must in fact have a leading role to play.
In this connection, Mr President, I must mention that a number of the Members of your Commission have still not perhaps made the relevant approach to the European Commissioner in the course of these hearings.
A number of them were still too caught up in the business of the governments to which they belonged or in the roles set by their individual nations.
Here, the European consciousness must certainly be strengthened, above all because we are unfortunately also seeing increasing nationalism, which we must combat.
<P>
Secondly, reform of the institutions.
In yesterday' s debate here, we were in complete agreement with what Commissioner Kinnock stated.
It was a clear and unambiguous creed of reform and could not have been clearer.
I should like, however, to repeat exactly what he said: "deeds speak louder than words" . That is the basis on which we shall judge you.
I am convinced that deeds will in fact follow, but it is they that will be the yardstick for our further ratification of the Commission in the years to come.
<P>
The third point is the question of openness and transparency.
Yes, it is also a measure of the relationship of the Commission to this Parliament that we demand complete openness, the full truth and not half-truths or statements which mislead.
That, for us, is the deciding factor.
It is also quite clear - and this too we have always said unambiguously - that if it should prove that a Member of the Commission has lied to this Parliament, then our confidence in that particular Commissioner has certainly been destroyed.
We are therefore absolutely in favour of there being in addition to - I emphasise, in addition to - the principle of collegiality, the principles of individual trust and individual responsibility.
Only, we do not want a situation in which a multi-party policy plays any role here.
We do not want Commissioners from small political groups from small countries being to some degree open to blackmail by majorities in this Chamber.
So we have to take this with a pinch of salt.
We need sensible regulations which do not undermine and interfere with the principle of collegiality.
<P>
A last word about the hearings.
They were positive.
Not everyone shone all the time, but it is easier being the examiner than the examinee.
On the whole, though, we find that this Commission is in a position to be a strong Commission but, Mr Prodi, a strong Commission because you can be certain that we shall be a strong and alert Parliament.
<P>
The two together can nicely set about the necessary reform of the European institutions.
We wish you good luck with your work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Costa, Paolo">
Mr President, Mr President-designate, ladies and gentlemen, this new chapter in our history requires us to be here today for this discussion on the crisis in transparency and the crisis in the functioning of the Commission.
Mr President-designate, you have agreed to lead us out of that crisis, which is why you are here today to propose, and we are here to demand, institutional reform and the strengthening of European politics.
Leaving aside the albeit serious crisis which initiated everything, this was the only possible outcome because, there is now a demand, for apparently opposing reasons, for greater attention to be paid both to the need for institutional reform and for more policies.
I said for apparently opposing reasons because one of the subjects we are dealing with is the apparent bewilderment - I hope it is not lack of confidence - of the European citizens, as shown by the poor turnout in the June elections but, on the other hand, there is undoubtedly more being asked of Europe.
The Kosovo crisis has certainly highlighted the original reasons for the creation of a united Europe. Europe as an instrument of strengthened European institutions, as an instrument to ensure peace even before ensuring prosperity, across the entire continent.
<P>
This demand calls for commitments on enlargement and on strengthening the institutions which on the one hand, we must honour.
However, on the other hand, for the Europe already in existence, for those countries of Europe which are already part of the Union, there is more being asked of Europe. The euro is a tool, an intermediate stage.
It is a condition, a tool for bringing prosperity to everyone, so that we can move on to those policies which form the fundamental chapter we are about to open, the final goal, that is, more growth, more development, more employment. We must deal with the need for new transparency, new institutions and new politics.
As for transparency - we have already said, Mr President - our group puts all its confidence in you, confidence which obviously depends on the results you and your Commission will achieve.
This confidence obviously depends on each individual Commissioner' s ability to sustain high moral and professional standards. We shall keep a close watch on the Commissioners in many different ways, which includes the improved methods of transparency that you have promised us.
<P>
However, in my view, we need to make greater progress on the institutional problem, because that is what the institutions' image hinges on as far as the European citizens are concerned.
I think that the points of that triangle you mentioned - Commission, Parliament and Council - must evolve, are evolving and will evolve along an upwards course towards the progressive, inevitable transfer of powers from the governments - that is, from the Council - to the citizens, and therefore to Parliament.
This is the basic process that we can either speed up or slow down.
We are asking you - and this is why we are happy to put our confidence in a strong Commission - to do all you can, which means a lot, and maybe even more than you imagine doing at the moment.
We are asking you to be ambitious in this area, to make sure that as you already said in a meeting with the leaders of the parliamentary groups, the relationship between Parliament and the Commission is a positive one.
<P>
This is possible, but it depends on you. It also depends on us.
We will do all we can to create the conditions necessary for success.
However, we are doing all this as a means to implement European policies.
We accept the commitments that enlargement brings, but even if the focus is now essentially shifting towards Central and Eastern Europe, we must not lose sight of the Mediterranean policies that Europe has a duty to adopt.
<P>
I know that there is a great deal of work to do. I know that the difficulties may seem impossible to overcome.
But I also know that you have the right qualities, the will and the ability to succeed. Aim high, Mr President!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lannoye">
Mr President of the Commission, circumstances have contrived to focus the debate on the acceptance of the new Commission upon the operational problems of the institution.
You announced your intention to set your house in order, fight against corruption, demonstrate efficiency and strictness, and you announced the implementation of ambitious reforms.
We are delighted to hear it.
You even went beyond this debate, mentioning a number of challenges facing the Commission and the European Union: expansion, consolidation of growth, sustainable development.
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Having said that, I do not see any hierarchical ordering in this list, and I do not believe we can get away from what seems to me a crucial challenge for the future: overcoming the possible lack of coherence between the policies run by the European Union.
Let me take one example: you declare yourself in favour of greater liberalisation, yet it will be difficult, in this context, to achieve real sustainable development.
You will recall the commitments on biodiversity made by the European Union, whether at Kyoto or at Rio: the convention on the subject is still at the draft stage.
Do I also have to remind you of the Copenhagen Declaration on social development with its very ambitious handling of the North-South divide and the divisions within the North between rich and poor: the European Union made a number of commitments in this regard, none of which has to date been upheld.
I therefore believe we must look into the tools which are available to us and not be content to use the tools which have already existed for many years.
I am thinking, for example, of our relationship with the WTO.
It goes without saying that the regulations of the World Trade Organisation are, to a great extent, incompatible with the objective of sustainable development.
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Finally, I would like to mention a second and final point: you wish to reconcile the European citizen with the European institutions.
Very well.
You also speak of transparency. Certainly, it is an effective tool, but it must not be limited to routine mechanisms and usual administrative procedures.
There must also be transparency on the major stakes involved, particularly those which, justifiably, are of concern to citizens, as is the case right now with food safety.
In this connection, I observe increasingly, hence my disquiet, that important decisions on the subject are both discussed and digested in advance in the inner sanctums of diplomats, thus escaping the control of both Members of Parliament and citizens.
I am thinking in particular of a statement made a few days ago by the United States Ambassador to the European Union, in which he declared his delight that the biotechnological working party resulting from Transatlantic economic partnership had arrived at a draft agreement on procedures for the approval of new transgenic varieties.
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You know, Mr President, that transgenic varieties are not well thought of within the European Union and that we are therefore on the verge of a probably very heated conflict between expert opinion and public opinion on the subject.
I would like to see more clarity from the Commission regarding the role it intends to play with regard to Parliament and the citizenry.
Are you on the side of the experts and big industry or are you on the side of the citizens and Parliament?
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<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Frahm">
Mr President, I should like to thank the President-designate of the Commission for his presentation.
As a newly elected Member of this Parliament, I had been rather looking forward to taking part in the democratic process which was planned before we were finally to adopt a position on the Commission.
However, I was quickly disabused of any prior illusions I may have had, because the committee I served on had in fact already prepared the written questions before we held our first meeting.
They had been prepared by officials and by the outgoing Parliament.
We newly elected Members did not have any chance to pose written questions to the Commission.
This can scarcely be called particularly democratic.
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Regarding the round of oral questions, this has been a major piece of work requiring a major effort by the Members of Parliament, the proposed Commissioners and the employees in both the Commission and Parliament.
And yet it now looks as if it was not an open democratic process that decided the matter.
The decisions were taken in a completely different place and against a completely different background.
What was decisive was the conversation which you, Mr Prodi, had with Mr Poettering from the Group of the European People' s Party and, after you had twisted the arms of Parliament' s largest group, Mr Poettering obviously did not think he had any choice.
Is it a sign of European democracy in the future, not to have any choice?
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I will not be in a position to support this form of democracy.
Certainly not when all the warnings have been taken no account of, when Commissioners are proposed whom the first Wise Men' s report has cast considerable suspicion upon and when, following the conversation I mentioned, no critical questions are asked of Mr Lamy in the course of the committee' s oral hearing.
It is being said that we are getting a strong Commission, stronger than the one which is now bowing out.
And Mr Prodi talked about our having an open, modern and efficient administration.
There are a lot of positive things to say about this.
But the introductory round of questioning does not augur well for how the Commission is to use the power it has.
Twisting the arms of the European Parliament' s politicians, steamrollering through ideas such as common defence, common taxation and a common policy on social benefits (which, into the bargain, it is recommended be reduced); bulldozing policies like these through, irrespective of how the populations in Europe see things.
A Commission which has the power and working methods of a bulldozer will make sensible co-operation and the development of democracy difficult, if in fact democracy is to be taken even slightly seriously.
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The previous speakers did not think that all this was symptomatic of what future co-operation would be like.
Now, I believe that problems should be nipped in the bud.
Promises were given at the Conference of Presidents.
One of these was that a Commissioner who did not have the confidence of Parliament would be asked to resign.
This sits ill with the requirement that the Commission be endorsed in the one go: either every single member or no-one at all.
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I cannot recommend a "yes" vote.
I shall recommend saying "no" to the proposed Commission, and this for political reasons but, first and foremost, for democratic ones.
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<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, the statement of the President-designate of the Commission confirms his previous statements, particularly those given to our House on 13 April or 4 May, and the French Members in my group shall therefore be induced to vote against.
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Mr Prodi in fact thinks himself the head of government of a European super-state, and sees no solution to problems other than promoting ever greater integration, ever greater unification, ever greater limitation of national authority.
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During last week' s hearings, the Commissioners-designate competed to show their zeal on the subject in order to demonstrate their Federalist ambitions to their questioners.
Mr Barnier tried to outdo them by proposing heading towards a "European sovereignty," I quote "replacing national sovereignties."
Let me say, in passing, that these hearings, in this form, which incite the candidate Commissioners to undertake commitments which are not approved by their peoples, seem to me to introduce a certain distortion in fidelity to the procedures.
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Mr Prodi furthermore described his extreme vision of the bonus of competition according to which public service would be acceptable only if did not present an obstacle to the market.
The presidential candidate champions the continued liberalisation of international trade according to the reductionist route taken by the Uruguay Round.
This assessment was somewhat tempered subsequently by Pascal Lamy, but it was still not very clear what means he would use in order to control globalisation without demanding radical change in the rules of the game, particularly by means of the introduction of the idea of social or environmental cost into international negotiations.
Finally, Mr Prodi was insistent that the Commission, in his words, should establish itself as the main driving force behind an accelerated campaign for a review of the Treaties in many areas.
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Clearly, this idea leads in a direct line to a future expanded Intergovernmental Conference, where the nations would be deprived of their prerogatives and would no longer have any control.
The initiative has already been given by Mr Prodi who himself appointed a Committee of Wise Men to produce a preliminary report on behalf of the Commission even though the Council of Cologne had expressly rejected this idea of the Committee of Wise Men.
Indeed, although we never quite know how these Wise Men are selected, we do, however, know in advance that their conclusions are going to be in favour of going ever further in the direction of a super-state.
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I would like to tell you today, Mr Prodi, that you will not fight against fraud, as you would like, or re-establish democracy in Europe by constructing a super-state which would be artificial and which, by its very nature, would entail a Commission and a European civil service which are cut off from the people.
What is necessary, on the other hand, is to make them more open and to re-establish their links with the nations.
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Mr Prodi, you spoke of glasnost in order to describe your future policy.
This word, which was applied to Soviet institutions, seems to me particularly well chosen to apply to the Commission today.
I hope that, like the other glasnost, your version will create a shock wave in these anti-democratic institutions likely to lead to reforms which you cannot today anticipate.
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<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Saint-Josse">
Mr President, the problem today is not to judge the Commission programme but the operation of the institution.
You said, President Prodi, that we must get past the crisis of last year and that we should turn the page.
Yet you have not, in our opinion, learnt the lessons of the crisis.
For, in spite of the recommendations of the first report of the Committee of Independent Experts backed up by the second report which has just been published, no serious action has been undertaken to modify the methods and modes of operation of the Commission.
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Thus, the new Commission includes four Commissioners who were part of the former, recently disowned team.
Although they were not individually implicated, they did give their support to the incompetence of the entire Santer Commission and its lack of collective responsibility.
In addition, the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities deplores the fact that the essential reform of the Commission has been entrusted to a member of the former team.
At the time of the hearings of the future Commissioners, the EDD Group, of course, noted the quality of the majority of these Commissioners while criticising some centralist tendencies.
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We would like to see a change in culture and democratisation of the existing system, as well as greater consideration for Parliament.
At present, for instance, it is not possible to request the resignation or non-renewal of one individual Commissioner without implicating the Commission as a whole or without causing an overt crisis.
The cultural revolution which you announced, Mr President, is not in sight.
Bad practice is allowed without sanction, dysfunction in the system is allowed to continue.
The work of Parliament is, furthermore, flouted by dubious practices.
The second report of the Committee of Independent Experts discussed in the plenary part-session on Monday has still not been delivered, or has only just been delivered, to the majority of Members of Parliament, thus preventing us making a serious study of it.
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In these circumstances, the six CPNT Members, and the whole of the EDD Group, will be voting against the appointment of the Prodi Commission in order to denounce a system which is deeply undemocratic.
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<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Raschhofer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, following the crisis of confidence we have experienced this year, there has been a lot of talk about the need for a new beginning in relations between the Commission and Parliament.
A new beginning of this kind is in fact necessary.
Mistrust on the part of Parliament arose as soon as documents concerning cases of fraud landed on the desks of newspaper editors but not on those of the Committee.
It was unacceptable for amendments proposed by this Chamber simply to be ignored by the Commission and for any officials who referred to mismanagement also still to be punished for this.
All this, in fact, makes a new beginning necessary. However, I still have some reservations even after the long preparatory phase this new Commission has been through.
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I should like to quote three reasons for this.
Firstly, political responsibility must also be accepted by each individual.
Each Member of the Commission is responsible and answerable for his department.
Not all candidates see it like this.
Secondly, there are still doubts about the Commissioner-designate responsible for research.
I expect you, Mr Prodi, to produce a further statement of your position regarding this matter.
Thirdly, because the former Commissioners are again standing as candidates, there is still in the end the question of the terms in which they understand their political responsibility as part of a collegiate body.
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Europe' s citizens are entitled to expect transparency and proper supervision and a policy which accepts, undivided, that responsibility which has been transferred to it.
We have our justified doubts as to whether this has in fact been guaranteed for the future.
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<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Nassauer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, responsibility for Europe and the European Union again having by the end of tomorrow a Commission which is capable of acting lies with this Parliament, with ourselves.
In an overall judgement, we have to decide whether or not, tomorrow, we can affirm our confidence in this Commission. In so doing, Parliament accepts responsibility for the Commission, as well as for individual proposals, and that does not make our decision any the easier.
I should like first of all to say to you, Professor Prodi, that as President of the Commission you can count upon the broad assent of the CDU/CSU Members of Parliament.
The fact that we have formed different judgements about individual members of the collegiate body is no surprise.
A number of people have used the opportunity of the hearings brilliantly, for example Chris Patten and also Mr Vitorino.
However, you have on board a candidate who has been implicated in a matter regarding a donation in his home country and about whom we must, since yesterday, ask whether he has made an appropriate statement in the hearings before this Parliament.
This particular candidate could become a burden on the Commission.
I allow myself to issue this warning because the restoration of trust which you yourself, Professor Prodi, have quite rightly demanded naturally depends too upon your heading a Commission which can go to work unimpeded by reproaches of this kind. It is precisely this which must distinguish it from its predecessor.
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There has been talk of the political balance of the Commission. It is not a condition of any treaty that there should be balance of this kind but a sign of political wisdom and, in fact, of consideration for this Parliament.
Our critical comment on this subject still stands, although we do not want to emphasise it again right now.
We therefore have high expectations, Professor Prodi, in connection with our comprehensive affirmation of yourself and of your task as President of the Commission.
You are the first Commission President to whom the Treaty grants the ability to reach agreements, and not only with the Commission as a whole but also with each individual candidate.
We can only encourage you to make energetic use of this role.
No government of any Member State should, in future, be able to disregard the President of the Commission.
In this connection, we demand that the budget and the supervision of the budget be very clearly separated.
We shall judge the Commission on the basis of whether you succeed, when legislating, in being more true to the spirit of subsidiarity than Commissions in the past have been.
A new culture of subsidiarity must enter the Commission over which you preside.
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<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Napoletano">
Mr President, tomorrow' s vote means that finally, the Commission presided over by Professor Prodi can get down to work.
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After listening to the speeches that the President-designate has made to Parliament, after voting for his appointment in May, and after taking part in the hearings with the 19 Commissioners-designate with a professional and open-minded approach, our group believes that the long crisis involving the Commission must end with a clear and strong appointment: you, Mr President, and your proposed Commission, in accordance with the powers that the Treaty confers on you.
We have no hesitation in endorsing you so that the Union can once more have a strong executive, where there are new people, new programme perspectives and a new way of handling important internal and international policies which call for efficient, transparent and democratic institutions that respect each other' s autonomy yet co-operate effectively.
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I hope that this framework will bring about a return to the strategic partnership between Parliament and the Commission, albeit respecting their different functions.
I say this because, as well as the political balances within the various institutions, the Council' s role is to represent the national governments, and the federal and Community leaning of the Commission and Parliament means that they are the driving force behind integration.
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This is the subject which recent events threatened to overshadow and that we must now discuss. It goes without saying that we must fight abuse of power, dishonesty and inefficiency in this area.
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The second report of the Committee of Independent Experts highlights the areas we need to deal with, many of which were already among Parliament' s suggestions and which you yourself have already given clear undertakings on. For example, the new criteria for the establishment of private offices and more transparency in relations with the European Parliament and public opinion.
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I would, however, like to mention that I am particularly concerned about something in the report, although I do not intend to dwell on it longer than necessary. Nonetheless, it is almost as dangerous as corruption.
I refer to pursuing national interests to the detriment of common interests, and that goes for the Commission, and also Parliament, although in a different way.
In fact, if Parliament becomes the forum where national political conflicts are replayed, how can we credibly rebuild an open, objective, robust and sometimes severe relationship with the Commission? How can we restore credibility to European politics?
We are faced with economic and social challenges in the wake of the single currency and must carry out a far-reaching reform of the institutions. We need to specify the rights of European citizens.
Looking beyond our borders, we must tackle the strategic vacuum that has been around for at least ten years and that has been exposed by the dramatic Balkans crisis.
We must continue with a policy on the Mediterranean which is supported by the revitalised peace process. Then there is the dramatic crisis in Russia, and matters concerning human rights and the rights of the world' s minorities.
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In conclusion, if the European citizens do not receive convincing replies at a supranational level, it will be difficult to curb their feelings of detachment and alienation from the institutions, which will seem distant, incomprehensible and also costly.
This is why, Mr Prodi, I wish you and your Commission every success in your work.
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<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="Clegg">
It is indeed welcome of course that the interinstitutional trauma of the last few months is now drawing to a close and good that normal business is about to resume.
But, as has been said before by many speakers, we must understand the way in which the interinstitutional crisis of the last few months has altered in some fundamental way the relationship between our two institutions.
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It is fair to say that in the past there was a traditional view that the European Parliament and the European Commission should operate in an almost permanent state of collusion to take on the vested interests of Member States and so promote European integration.
This is now an outdated view which has been bypassed by recent events.
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From now on we should perhaps both accept and welcome a permanent creative tension between our two institutions - that, after all, is the heart of a mature parliamentary democracy.
This requires changes not only in the European Commission with which we are all familiar, but also changes in the European Parliament itself.
Indeed, I hope that Parliament will take this opportunity to reform our own outdated procedures and practices including the financial provisions for MEPs.
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Unless we, as parliamentarians, examine ourselves with the same forensic attention with which we examine other institutions we will find it difficult to reverse the shocking voter apathy which was seen in so many parts of Europe in the elections in June.
Indeed, it is not an exaggeration to say that voter indifference remains the greatest long-term threat to the European Union as a whole and perhaps to this Parliament in particular.
Thus our overwhelming priority should be to re-engage the disenchanted voter: a reformed European Commission, a reformed European Parliament, interacting in a robust but mature manner, is the only way in which we have any real hope of doing so.
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<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, Commissioner, we want a democratic Europe, a peaceful Europe, a Europe of different nations.
We are a Europe in the making.
We want to be a strong Parliament and that is why we also want a strong Commission.
The hearings have shown that some of your Commissioners are strong and others are weaker.
Parliament does not have as much confidence in their readiness to reform things and does not have as much faith in the way in which they will treat Parliament.
But all in all, our wish for you is that you will be the strong Commission we need, although it is possible that not all members of our group will vote for you.
You were right to regard the word "responsibility" as a key word, not just in the Wise Men' s first report, but also in terms of solving future problems - collective responsibility, but also the individual responsibility held by the members of your Commission, and to my mind, the responsibility held by your officials.
I am thinking of the fate of Mr Van Buitenen here, and of the fact that his case should be brought to a conclusion in an honourable manner.
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Commissioner, our institutions are not equal to the challenges you have outlined as regards the enlargement of Europe for we must bring about the enlargement of Europe and make it more democratic at the same time, which is difficult.
You spoke of reorganising subsidiarity and that is a statement that finds favour with us as it holds promise for the future.
The parliaments of the Member States, as well as our own, must become involved.
But we want to go further.
We want you to consider that if the right of nations to self-determination is to be taken seriously, then that will also mean the constitutional parliaments of federal states, regions and of cultural communities being taken seriously and being given a place in the subsidiarity-based Europe of the future, for the right of nations to self-determination is a sacred principle for all the nations of the world and that does not always mean for the states alone, for those concepts do not always coincide.
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I also want to remind you that we inhabit a world that has become very small.
I found your speech to be rather heavily eurocentric.
For when we look down our own streets we find that the poor of Africa are there as well.
To a large extent, the world is one of poverty and AIDS, and one in which the Europe that you outlined as being an island of prosperity and peace is, as we know from experience, one which remains a distant dream for many people.
Indeed, we have not yet been able to realise this distant dream within our own Europe.
I have in mind the peace processes that are dragging on in Northern Ireland and the Basque country.
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Commissioner, you can inspire confidence but at the end of the day, you have to earn it too.
I hope that this Commission will achieve this.
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<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bertinotti">
Mr President, our group' s vote, which expresses our lack of confidence in the Commission, is not down to disliking the people, the Members of the Commission, or the President, but is the result of a political assessment of their programmes.
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We have listened carefully and with an open mind to the President' s repeated statements and the Commission hearings, and this has allowed us to welcome the commitment which springs from a new relationship between the Commission and Parliament.
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Following the collapse of the previous Commission, a significant change is being proposed, which includes the undertaking to produce an Annual Report on the State of the Union. This is a change that we welcome.
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Nevertheless, on the subject of the programme, our dissent could not be clearer.
Indeed, the Commission appears to be continuing along the same path as the previous Commission.
We disapproved before, and disapprove even more today, because to continue along that path now, in the light of two important new events - first, the terrible war in the Balkans, whose effects are still being felt, and second, the creation of the euro, something which has the potential for development.
We would then need a new political plan to deal with the economic and social issues.
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The tragedy in East Timor testifies to the falsity of the thinking behind the war in the Balkans.
The UN Charter was torn up and international aid and the supremacy of the United States was the only reason behind the war. America' s geopolitical vision worried even its old friends like Helmut Schmidt.
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You are proposing an ambiguous response on the UN, which is dominated by the United States from a military point of view, and you are totally uncritical with regard to the process of globalisation of the world economy which greatly reduces Europe' s autonomy.
Basically, there are no original ideas for a new social and political European model, so it might end up simply as a watered-down copy of the North American model.
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I am struck by the Commission' s lack of useful and original discussions on culture, mass communication and artistic and cultural production, with regard to which Europe is showing a distrust and a stubborn resistance to the influence of the United States.
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However, it is mainly your proposals on economic and social matters that do not convince us.
The Stability Pact has been confirmed, and you propose a neoliberal approach to the World Trade Organisation' s important meeting.
This is basically another monetarist orthodoxy which goes against any proposed attempts to leave it behind, such as the proposals made by the French Government or by a Minister such as Lafontaine.
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We have seen the creation of the euro and, as the President says, we are in an economic upturn, although mass unemployment undermines this orthodox policy.
You propose maintaining this policy so that in reality, you can pursue the goal of increased productivity by means of increased flexibility in work.
However, this will lead to an increase not a reduction in the social crisis. Mr President, I fear that this will accentuate Europe' s political crisis and widen the gap between the European citizens and these institutions.
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<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Muscardini">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the long appointment process is drawing to a close. It marks the end of a turbulent time in the life of the Union, from an institutional point of view, a time which Parliament has used to express all its capabilities and resolutely reaffirm its democratic vocation.
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We need a strong, responsible Commission, able to propose suitable choices and ensure that the aspirations of the European citizens will be honoured, which will work alongside a Council that expresses the will of the national governments, and a Parliament which represents the people.
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The Commission will be strong if it can carry out its work in harmony with Parliament, which would like more involvement in drawing up legislative proposals and an enduring institutional relationship with the Commission.
This continuous transparent relationship with Parliament will prevent the Commission from acting as the Council' s secretariat and from harming Parliament and its democratic function.
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Making proposals is not the same as implementing them, but means drawing up initiatives based on the guidelines discussed with Parliament.
The statement by President-designate Prodi seems to express this intention. We invite him to pursue this avenue, thereby taking the path to reducing bureaucracy.
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The events that led the previous Commission to step down must never happen again.
Internal reforms and reorganisation must be carried out according to the rules of transparency.
The principle of collegiate responsibility has been reconfirmed, but it is up to the President to exert control over individual responsibilities.
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Trade talks will soon begin within the framework of the Millennium Round, and we ask the Commission to take a firm and determined stance so that within the World Trade Organisation, it can defend the supreme importance of social rights, safeguard the environment and protect the European agricultural model and the consumer with regard to world trade. It must also find the courage to propose again a triangular nature for aid for developing countries.
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Preserving and spreading the culture of the European peoples is a main common priority.
If the Commission performs this task with conviction, it will have Parliament' s support.
One of the more delicate and immediate tasks is to regain people' s confidence, as you, Mr President, said in your report, to bridge the gap made apparent by the poor turnout at the elections.
It is not only a political problem, but also a social one, with the citizens' increasing feeling of alienation from politics, and this is something we find in all our countries.
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A structure as complex as the European Union cannot do without a stable relationship with its inhabitants, those on the receiving end of all its decisions and policies, but the unification process cannot proceed without the conscious support of citizens, without combating unemployment and creating new economic growth.
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Without deepening the Union, which is the basis for a new institutional order to give Europe a role on the world stage, we will neither be effective promoters of peace and justice nor capable of reconciling the needs, sometimes opposing needs, of North-East Europe with South-West Europe.
So we must have new and thorough discussions on the enlargement process in our institutions.
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Good luck, Mr President, to you, the Commission and Parliament!
And good luck with the Europe which we must finally build!
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<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Professor Prodi, you are a man of great talent, surrounded by men and women of equally great talent: Professor Monti, Mr Barnier, and Mr Busquin, who survived where Mrs Cresson succumbed. The first thing your gifted Commission will have to deal with will be the major Seattle Conference.
You are, together with Mr Lamy, the negotiator for the Fifteen.
But are you going to work in transparency, or are you going to work as you did at Blair House in 1992, where we had to wait a year, until October 1993, before receiving the Blair House text?
In other words, are you taking the democracy of Athens or the oligarchy of Venice as your model?
And this is the real question of the Intergovernmental Conference.
The problem is not the vote by qualified majority or the reduction in the number of Commissioners.
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The problem is how to work with realism, with compromise, perhaps even with such a compromise as there was in Luxembourg in 1965.
After all, the World Trade Organisation has over 137 members and operates by consensus.
We can therefore expand to twenty members while still respecting the identity of each one.
In other words, expansion is not an institutional problem.
It is perhaps a fiscal problem, to know who will pay: will there be a tax on revenue?
It is perhaps a geographical problem: how far should we expand?
You mentioned Ukraine.
In the South, should we extend as far as Turkey?
And then, at a certain point, we will be faced with an issue of civilisation, not between the civilisation of Maimonides, Averros or Saint Augustine, but between that of the Islamists, who carry out bombing in Moscow or massacres in East Timor, and the sophisticated civilisation which you represent.
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In other words, Mr Prodi, when one seeks to create a synthesis of East and West, the result is Byzantium, and you know how that ended.
That is why we shall be voting against the Byzantine route, while admiring the "emperor" you could have been.
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<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="McMillan-Scott">
Mr President, I should like to make four points.
The Conservatives are opposed to the return of any of the former Commission and we have been denied votes on individual Commissioners.
Secondly, the left-wing composition of the proposed Commission is wholly contrary to the views of Europe' s voters as shown in June.
Thirdly, important questions on probity have still not been answered in respect of some of the Commissioners-designate.
Fourthly, we are concerned that some are simply not up to the job.
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Over the past two weeks Conservative MEPs, as others, have cross-examined the nominated European Commissioners.
Our criteria were competence, policy and background.
Right from the outset we demanded an open vote in every parliamentary committee in order to allow MEPs to register their opinion on individual EU Commissioners.
Time and again this request was blocked. Finding ourselves unable to hold individual Commissioners to account, Conservative MEPs are left with no choice but to oppose, on the grounds of democratic principle, the incoming team of European Commissioners.
We insist on responsibility and accountability.
Even Professor Prodi declined to face an open hearing.
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In most of our countries, perhaps all, a minister who misleads parliament or who fails to take action to deal with grave mismanagement would step down.
In the Wise Men' s report into the last Commission, it was noted that it is becoming difficult to find anyone who has even the slightest sense of responsibility.
It is even less reassuring to note that during their time as commissioners not once were the EU accounts effectively signed off.
It is hardly an advertisement for responsible financial governance.
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The outgoing Commission stood on collegiate responsibility.
Four governments reappointed their Commissioners.
For these reasons, Conservative MEPs oppose the four returnees.
This is not personal.
It is not political.
It is a point of principle.
The only way to deliver on this is to vote against the Commission as a whole.
We want the European Parliament to be given the power to dismiss individual Commissioners for maladministration or fraud.
By failing to allow votes on individual Commissioners, MEPs have been denied an important democratic right.
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We want a European Union that is efficient and accountable and where Europe' s institutions are kept under close scrutiny.
We are not anti-European Commission.
We are against fraud and corruption, mismanagement and inefficiency.
We want a Commission which works, which really does less better.
Wednesday' s vote is an important opportunity to signal to the new Commission that business as usual cannot be the guiding principle in Brussels.
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<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Simpson">
Mr President, I address my remarks this morning in the main to Mrs De Palacio.
Mr Prodi in his address to this Parliament some time ago gave a strong commitment to combating fraud and the misuse of public money.
That is why during Mrs De Palacio' s hearing I and my colleagues insisted on questioning her very closely on the flax subsidy scandal in which her department was involved in Spain.
The response of Mrs De Palacio was not to our satisfaction and indeed her contention that the Spanish Parliament had cleared her of any responsibility and that the issue is now closed is clearly not true.
<P>
Whilst I appreciate that the OLAF and Spanish investigation is ongoing and that Mrs De Palacio may be totally exonerated of any involvement, the fact remains that she was a little economical with the truth when answering my questions on 30 August.
<P>

Finally, Mrs De Palacio' s outburst at the press conference following the hearing does not bode well for someone whose remit includes relationships with the European Parliament and, whilst I accept that Mrs De Palacio did apologise later for her remarks, it nevertheless raises another doubt about her ability to carry out this specific role in the new Commission.
<P>

Sadly, Mr President, even though Mrs De Palacio answered our questions on transport to our satisfaction, and as a group we will no doubt endorse the Commission tomorrow, we must enter a reservation on the candidature of Mrs De Palacio pending the findings of the OLAF and the Spanish authorities' investigations and because of the way she responded to questioning on this issue at her hearing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Esteve i Abad">
Mr President, Mr President-designate of the Commission, you have spoken, Mr Prodi, of the future of the Union as a union of sentiments, as a preservation of diversities.
You have spoken of a new order as a co-operation between cultures.
You have even spoken of religions.
I believe that, so that it may be politically effective, this desire demands the recognition of the plural reality of Europe and plural reality of many States.
The United Kingdom, Belgium, Spain, Italy and many States which will join the Union in the future are plural realities.
For their political recognition to be effective we have to promote it and we believe that the appropriate body for this purpose is the Committee on the Regions, the institution which will lead this process within the European Union.
<P>
Tomorrow, a group of MEPs will begin work on the creation of an Intergroup to work in this area, with the intention of creating a spirit of co-operation with the Commission and the institutions of the Union so that collective rights and their recognition should become an extension of the recognition of individual rights.
This process of recognition will be based on dialogue, negotiation and political agreement, so that the supreme values of co-existence and peace should be paramount.
<P>
If this new culture is recognised as having value, it will be to the good of the European Union.
There is no doubt that if over the past decade, our position on the former Yugoslavia had shown more sensitivity to the different realities of peoples, instead of becoming obsessed with the idea of the State, things would have been different and, no doubt, less disastrous.
<P>
I appreciate your active sensitivity with regard to East Timor and also with regard to the Mediterranean area.
You can count on my vote, Mr Prodi, as our spokesman, Mr Cox has announced, with full conviction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Mr President, Mr President-designate of the Commission, I shall be giving my approval to your Commission tomorrow. However, I shall be taking some aspirin beforehand, and I shall probably need a double dose after the end of the hearings and in view of the results of these.
We had been told that the sun shone out of this Commission. In fact, the Commission did come through the test, but hardly shone.
A number of Commissioners are suspected of having mislead Parliament, and there is the risk of the past catching up with a number of them. A number of Commissioners were hardly filled with ambition, ability and the desire to continue working in the Commission, and the fact that this applies to candidates who are to be concerned with relations between the Commission and Parliament and with preparations for the Intergovernmental Conference is something I find very regrettable indeed.
<P>
Mr President of the Commission, I believe you have a bigger job in front of you than your Commission is aware.
I am voting for you with the sober insight that work has to begin and I am voting for you in the light of your very trustworthy promise to enter into an alliance with this European Parliament.
I am voting for you not because of the visions which, for the most part, you still owe us and for the ways leading to the fulfilment of these.
I believe that it is either in this Chamber or nowhere at all that the vision of European integration will arise.
However, we need the alliance you propose for the vision of a European democracy.
We need it for the vision of a peaceful order in Europe, and we need it for the vision of Europe as a single social and ecological area.
<P>
However, more is needed in order to achieve these things than you have so far set out.
For a European democracy, a constitutional process is needed; for a peaceful order in Europe, courage is needed to accept responsibility for our own security; and for the vision of Europe as a single social and ecological area it will be necessary for politics to be emancipated from an ever more aggressive neo-liberal ideology.
This may be a punishable offence for a parliamentarian of 20 years' standing, but I am voting for you out of hope and not yet out of conviction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Korakas">
Mr President, despite the brave efforts, all the palaver with the resignation of the Commission, the replacement and hearings of the Commissioners did not succeed in blotting out the crux of the problem.
<P>
In fact, in our view, the most important thing is not the individual personalities and abilities of the Commissioners, nor the changes in administration.
Our judgement and evaluation of the new Commission is based on the policies it is called upon to implement.
We must admit that the Commissioners under scrutiny, both as individuals and as a whole, have all the skills and determination, as was evident not only in the hearings but also in Mr Prodi' s statements today, to meet both faithfully and unswervingly the objectives of the European Union at the cost of the interests of the working people and of the European people more generally.
<P>
In our view, it is certain that the new Commission will not just continue the disastrous work of the outgoing Commission, but will reinforce it.
Today, Mr Prodi again presented his credentials to the forum affirming not only that both he and his team are ready to serve it but also that they can, with their alluring words, deliberately mislead the citizens.
However, the people of Europe must not succumb to this seduction. It is simply the old hiding under the cloak of the new.
They can, however, rest assured that even with the new Commission, today' s bleak situation will still persist as it is precisely that Commission which is the brainchild behind NATO and European Union policy.
We will see fresh tensions and wars like the ones witnessed in the Balkans; a continuance of the double standards policy as regards respect for human rights and independence; we will also witness increased levels of unemployment, greater privatisation, the liquidation of all small and medium-sized agricultural and industrial enterprises, the gradual petering out of social rights, and the curtailment of democratic freedoms.
<P>
Thus, against this dangerous backdrop not only are we refusing to remain blasé, not only are we rejecting and voting against the new Commission, but we are also calling on all working people and the people of Europe, to step up their fight, to thwart those plans which are disastrous for their future and to revolt against the current situation, for the sake of another Europe, a Europe of the People, of peace and solidarity, of mutual and beneficial co-operation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Camre">
It is with growing concern that I have heard the President-designate of the Commission' s, Mr Prodi' s, remarks about the role of the Commission.
Mr Prodi and a number of the Commissioners-designate have put forward strongly federalist plans which the majority of people in my country are opponents of, and which, I have noted, a growing number of people in other Member States are also opposing.
The aversion to a federalist Europe is, of course, due to the fact that EU countries are generally much better at solving their own problems in accordance with their people' s wishes than an overpaid officialdom out to lord it over the continent. This attitude has been reinforced by the maladministration, deceit and lack of accountability which led to the downfall of the previous Commission.
We all know that it will, at best, be a very big task to bring the Commission' s ponderous and high-handed bureaucracy up to the standard we require of public administration in our home countries.
It has therefore been a source of shock to see that the new Commission contains a number of members who, in one area of responsibility or another, have such a share in the mistakes of the past that they definitely ought not to be sitting on the Commission. It has been disgraceful to hear a number of Commissioners dismissing the need for quite elementary changes which in fact are a prior condition of stamping out the scandalous states of affairs which characterised the previous Commission and a number of earlier Commissions, and which have turned the EU' s administration into a caricature of an accountable democratic administration.
<P>
Mr Kinnock' s hearing showed, then, that there is no will in the Commission to use its powers to instruct, and assume full responsibility for, the directors-general and their employees.
If the Commission does not take full responsibility and exercise complete authority in connection with the whole administration, then any talk about proper administration is just empty words, and I am certain that Mr Kinnock, like most of us, is used to better things at home.
I must say, therefore, that I regard it as my duty to my electors and to my conscience to vote against endorsing this Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Holmes">
Mr President, it would seem that even the majority of your own MEPs are indifferent to this charade of a democratic debate.
What can one say in 90 seconds or even in 90 minutes, Mr Prodi, that would justify to the people of Europe your appointment and that of your Commissioners?
The answer is "nothing" because there is nothing that can justify your agenda to control the political life of the nations of Europe by stealth, aided and abetted by the Heads of Government of Member States, not least the United Kingdom.
The United Kingdom Independence Party supports the EDD and rejects the dangerous and unworkable scheme to create a new nation called Europe.
We campaign for a Europe that once again respects the political, economic and cultural diversities of all the individual nations and their right to democratic self government.
That is why the UK Independence Party campaigns for the withdrawal of our country from membership of the European Union by repealing the European Communities Act so misguidedly signed by Prime Minister Heath in 1972.
Already almost 50% of the British electorate are in favour of withdrawal.
Our campaign has placed this question firmly on our nation' s political agenda.
<P>
Of the three nations allowed a vote on the Maastricht Treaty seven years ago only Ireland, with a population of 3.6 million, showed any enthusiasm.
What about the other twelve Member States?
So much for European democracy.
The appointment of Mr Kinnock and Mr Patten clearly underlines the impression that appointment to the Commission is in effect a consolation prize to compensate for political rejection in one' s own country.
Clearly this is yet another reason why a large section of the British electorate reject membership of the EU and backed our campaign for withdrawal.
<P>
Tomorrow we shall vote against the appointment of your Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Vanhecke">
Mr President, there are, of course, many areas in which the new Commission must be assessed, but firstly, I think that it is simply the question relating to trust that must be asked, in other words, can we as Members of Parliament, as representatives of our people, reasonably assume that the new Commission is not going to go down the same road that led to the downfall of the Santer Commission?
Sadly enough, I believe that the answer to that question has to be no, notwithstanding the respect it is possible to feel for the competence of some Commissioners-designate as individuals.
After all, the Belgian Government has, in appointing Mr Busquin, chosen a Commissioner-designate who was the President of that den of thieves, the Walloon Socialist Party, a party truly epitomising bribery scandals, financing by arms dealers, fraud, political appointments, squandering of the authorities' money and European subsidies.
Mr Busquin himself enjoys massive protection, which is reported quite openly in my country' s press, but he was certainly personally responsible, and he has recognised and admitted this himself, for submitting party accounts which he knew had been falsified and which led to the party being financed by unlawful means.
What is more, he refuses to speak Dutch, the language spoken by the majority of people in his country, and has made this a kind of trademark of his.
<P>
Esteemed President, in my country, Flanders, people roar with laughter whenever this question of trust is raised in relation to a Commission containing such politically suspect individuals.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tajani">
Mr President-designate of the Commission, we welcomed your report on the enlargement of the European Union, institutional reform, the consolidation and economic growth of the entire Union, as well as sustainable development for the creation of jobs.
<P>
During your speech, Mr President-designate, you stressed a subject that we are particularly concerned about: the need to fight for a European identity. Without this fight, we cannot achieve the ambitious goals that all the peoples of Europe, this Parliament and all the institutions wish for.
<P>
It is something that all the European institutions - the Council, the Commission and this Parliament - must fight for together.
It is a fight to give the Europeans a feeling of shared destiny, of a shared mission, a shared identity, a shared civilisation and a shared land.
And we, our movement, Forza Italia, the Italian Popular Party, and the European People' s Party, with links to our Christian heritage, will give all the support we can to this fight.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Garot">
Mr President, Mr President-designate, just a few words on the WTO and agriculture.
<P>
We do indeed need the WTO in order to organise the opening of markets and not to suffer from them.
This is particularly true for agriculture.
Everyone knows that our form of agriculture, our rural environment, is not comparable to that in Australia, Argentina and the USA.
Confronted with this, Europe therefore has a duty to defend its own model of agriculture and has the right to an appropriate common agricultural policy.
<P>
We expect specifically that multinational agreements integrate the concerns of our farmers and of our consumers.
We expect the forthcoming negotiations to expressly take into account the fact that, in Europe, we have structures of production, and environmental and social conditions, which entail costs which must be compensated by public subsidy.
I also wish to point out that competitiveness in agriculture is measured not only on the world market but also in terms of balance of the land, maintenance of the fabric of rural life and conservation of our natural heritage.
<P>
That is why the concept of multifunctionality in agriculture must also be recognised in the WTO.
That is why, Commissioner, we intend to continue the debate on all these matters with the Commissioners concerned and we intend to monitor developments in negotiations very closely.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, honourable Commissioners-designate, I have to say that I feel sorry for you in a way.
You will not be having any honeymoon period because we are all waiting impatiently for you to begin work on the task in hand and for us, together, to begin working for Europe.
So I do not think you' re going to be getting any honeymoon period, as new colleagues and new bodies usually do.
<P>
In general, I take a positive view of your programme and of what you have put forward already and today.
There are, however, three things I should like to ask you to consider.
<P>
I perceive that there is something of the "emperor' s new clothes" about the Codes of Conduct you have adopted for the new Commission.
The question I am asking is what distinguishes them from the rules which applied to the old Commission.
This is not robust legislation we have here. The rules do not take account of citizens or of citizens' rights.
Where are the hard and fast rules and the citizen' s perspective upon things?
<P>
Secondly, Mr Prodi used the word glasnost today.
Coming from Finland, I am familiar with a number of Russian jokes.
There' s a Russian joke about a number of Presidents and Soviet leaders travelling by train, and the punchline includes the very words glasnost and Gorbachev.
One sign of glasnost is that nothing happens.
There is openness but nothing else.
I do not think we shall be talking in the future about any spirit of glasnost in Europe because it is synonymous with nothing happening.
<P>
Thirdly, I would draw your attention to the fact that you must look again at your staff of advisers.
If you have the same staff of advisers in the new Commission as in the old, there is in fact a risk of precisely the same errors being committed as, for example, by the previous Commission in its relations with Parliament.
You should have a shake-up of the advisers who are closest to your colleagues in the Commission.
<P>
Finally, I want to say a few words to Mr Swoboda.
I agreed entirely with him when he said that we must be careful about how we judge the individual Commissioners in future.
We did not get it right with the previous Commission.
In fact, it was in particular the Commissioners-designate from smaller countries who were questioned the hardest.
This is not an honourable way of looking into just how responsible individual Commissioners-designate are.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Jonckheer">
Mr Prodi, the ecologist group suggested that you amend the distribution of portfolios among your team because, in addition to the integrity and competence of each Commissioner, we consider that their personal commitment and their determination to defend the matters entrusted to them from the perspective of a federal Europe are a further important element in our assessment of them.
<P>
Regarding the subject of growth which you dealt with in your introductory presentation, our commitments to the people who elected us are those of sustainable and less inegalitarian growth, going in the opposite direction to the structural tendencies which we observe today.
In this respect, new European policies are indispensable and in the course of their hearings the Commissioners were given the opportunity to indicate their priorities in this direction.
<P>
Regarding fiscal policy specifically, we were particularly disappointed by the lack of conviction expressed by the Commissioner questioned on the subject of developing the co-ordination of fiscal regimes and the need to move towards qualified majority rule at the forthcoming IGC.
<P>
The great majority of our fellow citizens would like to see increased fairness in fiscal matters, Mr Prodi, that is why we again ask for a strong personal commitment from you on these questions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Laguiller">
Mr President, the Members representing LO and the LCR will be voting against the Prodi Commission.
<P>
The European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, was designed to serve the interests of the main European financial and industrial groups in international competition.
Resulting from undercover bargains between governments, its role is to contribute towards creating the most favourable conditions for the multinationals in their constant efforts to increase their profits on the back of their own employees, the most recent example being that of Michelin, and, more than this, to the detriment of the majority of the population of the European Union and the peoples of poor countries.
Its method of appointment, its operation and its composition reflect this basic reality.
<P>
The essential interests of the working classes are not taken into consideration.
In order to justify catastrophic unemployment and layoffs, the European Union takes refuge behind national governments.
As for the harmonisation measures which it is responsible for, they do not improve the situation even in countries where the legislation is most unfavourable for the working classes and underprivileged sectors of the population or those discriminated against, women and immigrants in particular, as harmonisation, when it is implemented, is to the lowest common denominator.
The Members of the European Parliament representing Lutte Ouvrière and the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire shall consequently be voting against the Prodi Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Karoutchi">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the French Members of the PPE/ED have come to a generally positive assessment of the Prodi Commission.
This positive opinion is not, however, either a rubber cheque, or a blank cheque.
<P>
It is not a worthless rubber cheque, Mr President, as we are aware of the developments in relation to the previous Commission.
Mr Prodi has undertaken, at the request of groups, our own in particular, some very clear commitments as regards the transparency of the actions of the Commission, consultation with Parliament, and the responsibility of Members of the Commission towards this House.
On the major issues coming up - negotiations on the World Trade Organisation, the Intergovernmental Conference, debates on the case of the Mediterranean - the President of the Commission also indicated his wish to include all the Members of this Parliament as parties involved, as decision makers.
This is a step in the right direction.
<P>
But still we cannot give you a blank cheque.
Firstly, because, even though the hearings of the Commissioners went well on the whole, they did not give rise to unanimous enthusiasm.
In July already, without implicating the individuals, we denounced the political imbalance of this Commission which hardly corresponds to the distribution of power within this Chamber.
In September, some of the Commissioners did not necessarily seem to us to be up to the ambitious plans which you defined yourself.
<P>
This morning, Mr President, you stated that you wanted an integrated and efficient administration, competent Commissioners above all suspicion, a political programme for the next five years, in full collaboration with Parliament.
How could we possibly not approve?
<P>
Mr President, the great challenges which await us - expansion, deepening of a European reality while respecting national identities by the new approach of subsidiarity, the safekeeping of our agricultural systems, the construction of a more humane Europe in the field of employment, a more generous Europe - are such that we must accept them together.
But while we can not give you a rubber cheque or a blank cheque, we can announce our wish to work together in order to give all the peoples of Europe, in spite of difficulties and conflicts, good reasons to believe in their own destiny and to have faith in their shared future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Miguélez Ramos">
Madam President, it is not my task to make a political evaluation of the new Commission.
However I would like to say a few words about fishing.
<P>
The reform of the common fisheries policy, envisaged for 2002, will be a great challenge and a great test which this new Commission will have to face since the fishing industry expects this reform to turn the fishing policy into a genuine common European policy and the Commission to endow it with the necessary additional Community status.
<P>
In the fishing industry, employment should also be our political priority, Mr Prodi.
The Commission which you preside over must commit itself to maintaining employment in the fishing industry, both in the Community fleet and in the processing industry.
The fishing policy, Mr Prodi, is also an effective tool with regard to the organisation of European territory and the correction of the disparities which still exist in Europe today.
<P>
It is the peripheral regions with a degree of development which is lower, much lower, than the Community average which suffer most from unemployment and which have the least effective infrastructures.
These are the regions, Mr Prodi, which depend most on the fishing industry.
<P>
Please make great efforts, Mr President, Commissioners, Mr Fischler, with regard to the common fisheries policy, since the whole of Europe, including inland Europe, will be grateful for them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Flautre">
Mr Prodi, you expressed the wish to restore the trust of citizens in the building of Europe and in the European Union.
Our view is that a great deal of the disrepute of the European Union is related to its inability to fight effectively against the ravages of all-pervading neo-liberalism.
The Members here present who have all conducted campaigns in which the debate focussed on the urgency of the social situation and the fight for greater employment, have been elected to ensure real progress towards a Europe of employment.
<P>
The work programme which you presented today, as you have reported it to us and as it has been implemented for several years now, does not live up to expectations.
The Greens are proposing a number of measures on the active, global and massive reduction of working hours, and on support for sustainable economic activities, which are creating employment, in sectors such as the construction of accommodation, public transport, renewable energy.
We also think there is an urgent case for measurement and harmonisation of minimum social values on the European scale.
<P>
We are obviously not unaware of the fact that there is no consensus within the European Union, and within this Parliament indeed, on this work programme and programme to combat job insecurity and unemployment.
However, we think it a matter of urgency, and it is a matter of responsibility, to permit public debate on these matters.
That is why we are totally aggrieved at the exclusion of the European Parliament from the employment process resulting from Cologne and we formally request, Mr Prodi, that you do all that you can to ensure that Parliament can regain its proper place in this employment process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, I would like to ask a question on an issue which was not raised in the Commissioners' hearings as the problem had not yet arisen.
<P>
What does Mr Prodi think about the action and proposals of the Commission for dealing with the earthquakes and their consequences for Greece?
This is a major issue as we are talking about 130 dead with the numbers continually increasing and 100,000 made homeless within Athens alone not to mention the tremendous burden on the Greek economy, the huge social problem, and those small businesses and industries which have collapsed.
<P>
As far as I know, Mr Prodi received a letter from the Greek Prime Minister.
I understand that perhaps he is unable to announce specific measures today, but I would appreciate his initial thoughts on the matter.
I know that he is attuned to the issue and he will recall the measures taken by the European Union following the earthquakes in Italy, in Assisi. I therefore look forward to a positive reply.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Friedrich">
Mr President, and in particular Mr President-designate of the Commission, I have good and bad news for you.
First, the good news.
As a person and as President of the Commission, you also have the confidence of those Members of the European Parliament who are very sceptical about your team. In other words, you personally will be able to count on a "yes" vote from our group in both elections.
Now for the bad news.
It has emerged in the course of the hearings that, in addition to brilliant, excellent Commissioners, you have evidently also had to present to us Commissioners who are merely average or below average and, unfortunately, one or two who are just not qualified for the job at all.
In other words, we naturally have reservations about Mr Busquin in particular.
When scandal is never far behind a person, experience dictates that sooner or later it catches up on him.
<P>
Although I well understand that you have limited room for manoeuvre, there really has to be a change in personnel when serious criticisms like this are being made. Barón Crespo said this morning that one particular refractory minister in Bavaria would not have resigned.
Well, I have news for him.
The minister resigned yesterday before the vote in Parliament. I fear however that, unfortunately, it will probably be another century before the European Commission achieves the efficiency of the Bavarian state administration.
<P>
Mr President of the Commission, with all due respect for yourself and the estimable ladies and gentlemen of your team, if you do not arrange for Mr Busquin in particular to be replaced, then a number of my colleagues will unfortunately feel compelled to not yet be able to affirm their confidence in this Commission.
The chance to embark upon a genuinely new era in Europe must now be seized courageously and energetically.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth-Behrendt">
Mr President, honoured colleagues, if we are talking today about the future Commission, then we are also talking about our political priorities.
And what do these include, Mr Prodi?
They incorporate areas of life which are among the most significant for human beings and which are of importance every day for us and our children.
Examples include clean air and drinkable water, safe food which does not poison people, the safeguarding of their personal economic interests and the development of a basic standard of health within the European Union.
In the course of the hearings before the relevant committees, Margot Wallström and David Byrne have shown brilliantly and convincingly, as well as to the satisfaction of the committees, that these priorities have been recognised and that full commitment will be given to this policy and to its fulfilment.
<P>
How, though, do such policy areas become political realities and priorities?
That can only happen with the support of the whole Commission around the Commission table and with the support of the President of the Commission, that is to say of yourself, Mr Prodi.
So, can we be hopeful?
I have been asking myself that question for a number of days now and, Mr Prodi, I have been asking it whenever I hear a speech by you.
That is four or five in all now.
I will also tell you the answer. I am not hopeful.
My impression is that, in the past, you have merely been paying lip service.
And because it was too much trouble, you do not do it at all now.
In your speech today, you did not say a word, not a single word, about environmental policy.
You mentioned sustainable development once.
This is a compulsory exercise which everyone engages in.
You did not say a word, not a single word, about consumer protection and safe food.
And that is after BSE and dioxin!
You used the word "health" in connection with the economy and sport.
You betray your ignorance here, Mr Prodi, not that of your Commission, merely your own.
<P>
Mrs Wallström and Mr Byrne have quite clearly come through their examinations before the European Parliament with flying colours.
But they will probably often feel themselves to be alone around the Commission table, for you, Mr Prodi, have no idea about the interests of people inside the European Union despite the fact that you are always spouting about the "European soul" .
You say you have learned lessons.
So what lessons have you learned, Mr Prodi, other than that enterprise is important?
You have shown in the past that you do not seriously mean what you say, and so you no longer say anything at all.
I am telling you quite clearly, Mr Prodi, you have not passed the examination as far as I am concerned. So far, you have clearly failed it.
So if I vote "yes" tomorrow, it is because of your esteemed colleagues, Mr Prodi, and not because of you.
If, when voting, I was able to differentiate between yourself and your colleagues, you would get a clear "no" and all the others a clear "yes" .
In football, a good team with a bad coach would never reach the top of the league.
I only hope that the future Commission will overturn this rule.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I am suspending the debate to allow the vote that was decided on this morning to take place. The debate will resume after the vote.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
You have all had time to look at them.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Napolitano">
Madam President, in the text of the Minutes that have been distributed, only the second part of the decision made by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs is included.
<P>
Yesterday, you read both the first and second part in the House.
The second part refers to the interpretation to be inserted as a note in the Rules of Procedure, but the first part says: "the declaration of the creation of the Technical Group of Independent Members is not compatible with Rule 29(1) of the Rules of Procedure" and you have entrusted us with this matter and also given us the opportunity to make our own interpretation as a note in the Rules of Procedure, which will be relevant in the future too.
<P>
I therefore think that the Minutes should also include the first part of the statement you made to the House yesterday.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="President">
That will certainly be done.
The Minutes will be corrected and completed so that this is the case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Gollnisch">
I would like to make a comment on the Minutes and on our colleague' s intervention on what you have just said, if you do not mind, Madam President.
In the same way that this morning, you delayed the vote until later, and quite rightly so, because we did not have the Minutes on which the House was due to decide, it is quite obvious here that we would only be able to decide on the rule which features in the Minutes, which is a rule of general order, and not on the particular conclusions which follow on from it.
<P>
This is my first point, Madam President, which I believe cannot be argued with.
The House' s decision will hold for the general rule which represents an interpretation of Rule 29 of our Rules of Procedure.
<P>
I would also like to say very briefly, if you do not mind, why, in our opinion, this interpretation must not be upheld.
Rule 29(4) of our Rules of Procedure, states that a group declaration must show the designation of the group, the names of its members, and the composition of its bureau.
These are the only three requirements stipulated in our Rules of Procedure.
<P>
If, ladies and gentlemen, you choose to interpret the rule in a way which goes beyond the letter of Parliament' s law, even though it is extremely clear, perhaps out of scorn for the rights of minorities or as a way of expressing the large Parties' hegemonic desires, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that you would be creating an extremely important and damaging precedent which might rebound on any of the Groups or sub-groups of this House one day.
<P>
You would, in effect, be allowing the majority of the House, the way it currently stands, to make decisions on political allegiances which might exist between any MEPs who may nevertheless have signed the constitution of a Group, and we know very well that there are, even within Groups with a majority, factions which are certainly in agreement with one other on a common political programme.
<P>
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, these are the reasons why we are appealing to the House' s wisdom, its moderation and, above all, to its respect for the rights of minorities which, until now, it must be said, it has not observed with any great distinction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell' Alba">
Madam President, I would just like to say that the Minutes are perfectly well written as they are, and so it is right that they should be the sole basis for a decision on the interpretation of the Rules of Procedure which will be annexed to the Rules of Procedure themselves.
The rest of the ruling decided on by the Constitutional Committee has no place in this text.
I therefore propose that we keep the Minutes in the form in which they were written, and in which they have been submitted to us for approval.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="President">
Mr Dell' Alba, one thing is clear: I know what I said yesterday, and not only do I know it, but I have here, in front of me, the text which I read out yesterday, and which nobody can dispute.
<P>
We have a procedure which makes provision for the adoption of the Minutes and which makes provision so that Members who think that the Minutes are not in line with what has been said can choose not to adopt them.
I too, have the feeling that my ideas have indeed not been accurately reported, given the differences between the way that I expressed them and the way I see them reported here today.
<P>
The only thing I can do is, of course, to retain the correction Mr Napolitano is demanding, as I am more qualified than anyone to tell if my words have been correctly reported.
Therefore, I cannot refuse to include this correction.
<P>
Are there any other comments on the Minutes?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pannella">
Our task is to vote in favour of the Minutes or against them, certainly not for or against the consequences of this vote and of a statement by this House.
That is all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="President">
Absolutely, Mr Pannella. Furthermore, we must not get things confused.
For the moment, I would ask everyone to present the corrections which they consider necessary to the Minutes, on other points as well as this one.
In accordance with the way we have always done things, I will then declare the Minutes adopted with the corrections I have been informed of.
Only afterwards will we proceed to the vote on your opposition to the interpretation.
<P>
Are there any other comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Knörr Borràs">
Madam President, I would like to make a comment regarding page 7 of the Minutes.
Yesterday you were kind enough to give me the floor and I spoke of the anniversary of the beginning of the peace process in my country, the Basque country.
In your kind response, you said:
<P>
"Mr Knörr Borràs, I have noted your intervention whose rightful place is in the context of the debate we have organised on this matter."
<P>
(ES) We have not organised a debate on this matter.
It was probably an error in translation but anyway, I thank you for giving me the opportunity to say what I had to say concerning the peace process in the Basque Country.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Madam President, on page 6 of the Minutes it says that Mr Posselt clarified his remarks at the beginning of the sitting. I want to say something about this.
Firstly, I made no remarks at all at the beginning of the sitting and, secondly, this clarification of mine yesterday would appear to have been to no avail, since there is again no mention in the Minutes of what I actually said, and the next point in fact contradicts what I said.
<P>
I should therefore like to repeat my comments. I indicated last plenary week that, according to our Rules of Procedure, the plenum decides about the Bureaux of the delegations but that, again, according to our Rules of Procedure, the joint parliamentary committees, just like the parliamentary committees (that is to say, the normal specialised committees of Parliament) have to hold elections to their Bureaux, just as we have done in the internal committee in all committees.
This also has to happen with the joint parliamentary committees in third countries.
<P>
I have touched upon this matter on a number of occasions here, and there has never been any reaction, although it is clearly stated in the Rules of Procedure.
I again referred to this matter yesterday when the Minutes of the Friday sitting of the last part-session were adopted. Now, the Minutes state that I clarified my remarks (but do not go on to state what I actually said) and then list at the back who' s who in the Bureaux of these joint parliamentary committees.
This is incorrect, though. What instead we are concerned with here are proposals which still have to be voted on in the joint parliamentary committees once these have been constituted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="President">
Mr Posselt, we will make sure that what you said yesterday has been correctly included in the Minutes, because that is really the only issue here, and not whether there should be a new debate on the matter.
<P>
(The Minutes were adopted)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Statement by Mr Prodi (continued)
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="President">
I have received, pursuant to Rule 180(4) of the Rules of Procedure, an opposition from the Technical Group of Independent Members, to the interpretation proposed by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs to Rule 29(1) of the Rules of Procedure.
Pursuant to the Rules of Procedure, I am submitting the interpretation to Parliament.
I would like to remind you, as I stated yesterday, that our Rules of Procedure require a simple majority with at least a third of the Members present.
I would say that there are about 209 of us present, maybe more, but in any case, we will find out easily enough as there is a request for a nominal vote.
<P>
(The interpretation was adopted)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bodrato">
Madam President, Mr President, from Kosovo to East Timor, the world needs Europe, the Europe of the institutions of the Union. And the European Union needs a good relationship between the Council, the Commission and Parliament in order to win the full confidence of its citizens.
Mr Prodi has proved to be fully aware of these considerations.
An institutional crisis would weaken the Commission but also this new Parliament at a time which is crucial for European federalism.
In our political opinion, the Commission' s programme is very important in that it intends to build on past triumphs and strengthen the commitment to peace, security, stability, employment and the well-being of all Europeans, but also people from other nearby countries, to the East and South.
But regarding the appointment of the Commission, the method of government is important too, in terms of its collegiate nature but also in terms of the behaviour of individual Commissioners.
We think that Mr Prodi will perform the duties of President with authority regarding this matter.
Taken together, the issues we have discussed allow us to express a vote of confidence in what Mr Prodi called 'a new start' : a term commonly used to refer to the Commission, but also in my opinion, that applies to this new Parliament too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="McNally">
Mr President, Mr Prodi this morning you used a Russian word, glasnost, which means openness.
I hope you know the other word which Mr Gorbachov made famous - perestroika, meaning restructuring, reforming - because we expect that from you too.
You have to regain the confidence of the public of Europe.
Everyone has said that this morning.
You will only do that if you show these qualities: clarity, leadership, honesty and humility.
<P>
Clarity: your political vision, as expounded this morning, does not completely satisfy our vision, and you have to expand and think very much about social Europe, the environment and other aspects.
We want from you concrete objectives.
That is what people understand, and we want, as part of this clarity, evidence that you can listen.
That evidence is not forthcoming at the moment.
We want evidence that you can listen and understand what your role is, what our role is and what the roles of of the Council of Ministers, of lobbyists and of members of the directorates-general are.
<P>
Leadership: you have to show willpower, integrity and you have to show that you have very good eyes and ears and that you are a competent person.
<P>
Honesty: telling the truth even when it is not comfortable to do so.
<P>
Your Commissioners are being tested on the same grounds.
Our committee, the Industry Committee, questioned three Commissioners and sent delegations to three others.
We questioned Commissioners Liikanen, Lamy and Busquin and we went to the hearings of de Palacio, Patten and Wallström.
We had the widest grasp of any committee.
When we questioned Commissioners Liikanen and Lamy, we did so objectively, asking questions about their role.
That was not the case with half of the Members there for Commissioner Busquin.
Commissioner Busquin' s hearing revealed far more about that side of the House than it did about Commissioner Busquin.
That is because he was subjected, unlike any other Commissioner-designate, to a sadistic, preplanned and concerted attack.
There was no reaction to his repeated, very clear answers to the same question, and issues involving internal Belgian politics which had no bearing on Mr Busquin' s future role, given that this is a multilingual House, were repeated ad nauseam.
No other Commissioner was subjected to this ordeal and it is bitterly resented by those of us who wanted to do this thing properly and to objectively listen to what Commissioners would say about their future work.
That side of the House should be thoroughly ashamed of their conduct in the Busquin hearing.
<P>
Unlike those opposite we listened to the answers to questions about the future roles.
The six Commissioners with whom we had dealings satisfied us as to their future competence in the roles which they will undertake.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, I would like to raise a point of order.
One of the things that is being agreed with Mr Prodi' s Commission is that the Commissioners will attend if the subject under discussion concerns them.
I now see that a large number of Commissioners, indeed a sizeable number of them, have obviously already gone for lunch, despite the fact that they are still the object of discussion.
I consider that the whole Commission should attend until the end of this debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bayrou">
Mr President-designate, you know that you have the confidence of many in this House, as a result of your conduct, and also I believe, as a result of your human and personal qualities.
These factors ensure that you will gain the confidence of this House, and because of you, many of us will be voting for your whole team.
You will be responsible for the common interests of Europe.
This is the mission that the Commission has.
I think that the common interests of Europe today will require you to face up to two main challenges over the next five years.
<P>
The first challenge is the European people' s complete lack of understanding of the European Institutions.
What we have here are institutions for beginners, which people do not understand, which they are not informed about, and as these institutions are a mystery to them, they are suspicious about them, sometimes excessively so.
It is your duty, as defender of the common interests of Europe, and it is our duty as the people' s representatives, to give this action clarity, and this is why we are defending, as you know, the idea of a constitution, of working towards a European constitution.
<P>
The second challenge, which is even more important, is to find out if there is a social action programme for Europe.
Europe was made for just such a programme, and in these times of globalisation, when our citizens have the impression, the feeling that all the real decisions are made somewhere else, and particularly in the world of finance, it is important to revive the idea of a plan for Europe which is understood by the citizens and defended by the institutions.
The task of formulating a plan for Europe falls to you as President of the Commission, just as it falls to us as representatives of the people.
<P>
As you well know, and I shall end now, it is through dialogue, between the European Parliament and the European Commission then, that we will find the key to Europe' s future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Cashman">
Mr President, on a point of order.
I should like to refer to the point of order that was made from the other side of the House about the attendance of Commissioners.
If we demand the attendance of Commissioners, surely it is right and proper that we demand the attendance of all parliamentarians in this House?
I would point out to the other side of the House that you cannot be selective in the application of principle.
Thank you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Walter">
Mr President, Mr Prodi, in your speech on 21 July 1999 you said that your bywords were transparency, a sense of responsibility and efficiency.
It is precisely in the area of budget policy that these three basic principles need to be given concrete expression.
If we want to win back the confidence of our citizens, we need transparency regarding the implementation of the EU budget in all its details, a sense of responsibility in handling tax revenue and efficiency in transposing Community budget policies.
Clearly, this is a task for the Commission as a whole, all Commissioners and all departments.
<P>
In the person of Mrs Schreyer you have introduced us to an experienced politician who still has to find her way around one or two corridors here and go through one or two new experiences at a European level but who is also, however, someone who has become quickly and comprehensively acquainted with the very complicated material of budget policy and who is very aware of the forthcoming challenges of budget policy.
She has set out budgetary discipline as being, for her, one of the cardinal virtues. This is praiseworthy stuff.
However, we shall also take care to ensure that it is not just a question here of describing new tasks and slipping these into our budget. Instead, we shall need, together with yourself, to go before the Council and say that new tasks require new money.
<P>
I was gratified to hear Mrs Schreyer say, very undiplomatically, that the distinction between non-compulsory and compulsory funds has to be removed.
This would mean equal rights for all parts of the Parliament.
A courageous statement like that is worth repeating.
She also said that control over revenue needs to be shifted in this direction, something we must set about discussing very soon.
I think Mrs Schreyer is among those proposed candidates who will do full justice to their tasks in this Parliament.
We shall have no cause - over here at least - to doubt your team.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Giannakou-Koutsikou">
Mr President, we listened attentively to the statements concerning the programme of the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, in which he highlighted the policies which the European Union is to follow.
Mr President Prodi, your references to the extreme importance of enlargement as well as your dedication to full integration and to the political union of Europe are principles with which we sympathise.
<P>
We believe that Europe may indeed have a future only as a political, social and cultural entity.
Its goal should be to become a place where freedom and social justice prevails for all European citizens.
However, such a place needs the full participation of all the citizens.
The last European elections were characterised by the very low turnout.
You know that in the minds of the European citizens the structure of Europe is not so much an issue as is peaceful existence between the people.
The recent crisis and the resignation of the European Commission due to certain individuals who did not fulfil their duties contributed to the disillusionment of the European people.
<P>
Mr President Prodi, you are assuming your responsibilities at a time of great uncertainty but this Europe, despite its concerns and misgivings, will not go away and you and your Commissioners have serious responsibilities.
When you were designated President, we thought, based on your statements, that the final decision for appointing each of the Commissioners would have your seal of approval.
However, it did not quite happen in this way.
Of course, we are not asking you to breach any treaties.
We are, however, asking you to bring about a new start, to defy and take a stand against the badly construed texts of the past and to take account of Parliament' s recommendations.
<P>
We, the New Democracy Party of Greece, will vote in favour of your Commission, regardless of any reservations, because we are hopeful that you will respect your commitments of the previous week on the one hand and because we agree with the political content of today' s statements on the other.
This is not a blank cheque but a move of confidence in you, in a Europe which must forge ahead.
We hope that you will make transparency within the functioning of the European Commission a priority and set your initial goal as policies covering citizen protection, employment, cultural development as well as solidarity amongst those who suffer from an absence of democracy and from poverty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Hughes">
Mr President, we Socialist members of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs believe that Mrs Diamantopoulou has shown herself to have the skills and attributes that she will need to become a good Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs.
We will give her every encouragement and the support she will need to pursue progress for social Europe through the college of the Commission.
We hope she will be heard fairly there.
<P>
She knows some of the tests we will apply to her.
I should like to mention three.
Firstly, a commitment to sit down at the earliest opportunity with members of the committee to devise a new social action programme to cover the term of office of the new Commission, which will recognise the realities of the new world brought by the euro and the new possibilities arising from Amsterdam to promote employment and opportunity and to combat insecurity and exclusion.
Secondly, to seek with Parliament a new understanding on the operation of the social dialogue provisions of the social chapter.
Neither the procedure itself nor the legitimate expectations of this democratically-elected institution have been met in the way the procedure has been used so far.
That is an urgent priority.
Thirdly, to join with Parliament in calling upon the Council to remedy the exclusion of Parliament from the macroeconomic dialogue agreed at Cologne.
The last thing we need now is to add to the democratic deficit.
<P>
Should all go well tomorrow, we look forward to working with her on these and other matters.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, even if the Commission gets a majority in this Chamber tomorrow, that does not mean that our group does not have any doubts about certain individual Commissioners.
Indeed it is because of these doubts that two critical passages have been included in the resolutions.
It is clearly stated under 3 and 5(a), (b) of our resolution that if Parliament loses confidence in a Commissioner then we will only need a simple majority to ask the President, Mr Prodi, to dismiss the Commissioner concerned.
Point 5(b) adds that if a judicial accusation is made on account of corruption then that too is a reason for the Commissioner concerned to depart.
In addition, point 5(f) of the resolution reiterates that Parliament can request for there to be an exchange of portfolios if there is good reason for this.
I would like to ask Mr Prodi again to respond to this.
<P>
My second comment relates to the agreements that have already been made under paragraphs 1 and 4 of the resolution and under paragraph 5 up to and including (h).
It must be evident from the additional questions that other than the points I have just mentioned, the undertakings that have been made have been inadequate.
But I also want to refer to the obligation to provide information, to the need to pass documents through to Parliament whenever requested to do so.
I have already presented a draft regulation in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs as regards this obligation to provide information.
We believe this matter should be speedily resolved.
Either you draw up a draft regulation or the Committee will do it itself, in which case there is already a text.
<P>
To conclude, I have a message for Mr Bolkestein, who is not in fact present.
For years, he has presented himself as a euro-critic and euro-sceptic, and during the hearing he made a 180º turn.
As Christian Democrats, we must, of course, support anyone who repents.
But we are assuming that it wasn' t a turn just for the purposes of the hearing, but one which will also be given expression in his work.
We will follow this with a very critical eye
<P>
The question as to whether we will vote for or against tomorrow, or whether we will abstain, depends on the answers provided by Mr Prodi to the paragraphs in the second half of our resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Goebbels">
Mr President, the right to approve the Commission goes, by implication, hand in hand with Parliament' s duty to determine the aptitude of future Commissioners for exercising their mandate.
<P>
The hearings have been extremely useful.
They generally took place in a constructive atmosphere.
I would like, nevertheless, to warn Members against any attempt to ape certain practises of the American Congress, particularly its intrusions into the private lives of politicians, both male and female.
It is reasonable to require anyone on the political stage to declare his or her interests, but transparency must stop when it reaches the private domain.
<P>
The European Parliament is not the holy inquisition, although this idea might not please some of our apprentice Torquemadas whether they are Bavarian or Flemish who did their best to denigrate Philippe Busquin.
Flanders is one of the cradles of European civilisation.
The Flemish people deserve better than the Vlaams Blok.
Having known Philippe Busquin for years, I have full confidence in his personal integrity.
<P>
I am also taking up arms against those who seem to want to bring about a political emasculation of the future Commissioners.
I do not share Mr Bolkestein' s political ideals, but he is entirely within his rights to remain active within the Liberal International.
<P>
Future Commissioners will have to abstain from standing in political elections during their term of office.
I hope, though, that they will remain faithful to their political convictions.
<P>
No one criticised the excessive number of Commissioners with Socialist allegiances.
This fact is perhaps less a reflection of the current political composition of Parliament than of the image of the power held by Socialists across the fifteen Member States.
Whatever the reason, the Commission must rise above traditional political divisions.
It must, at all costs, remain a College.
Even if many MEPs are sorely tempted to judge the Commissioners individually, the Treaty requires - and quite rightly so - a vote for the whole body.
<P>
The Treaty also gives the Commission the only right of initiative relating to the administration of Europe.
An attempt to change this would mean turning the Commission into a merely executive body.
It is in Parliament' s interest to defend the Commission' s powers and particularly its right of initiative, without which the power of national governments and bureaucracies would become overwhelming.
Parliament has nothing to gain from neutralising the Commission' s powers.
<P>
The hearings showed that the Prodi Commission wants to co-operate with Parliament, to take note of our suggestions and of our legislative work.
When they appeared before the Economic and Monetary Committee, Commissioners Monti and Solbes laid down bases, solid bases for future collaboration.
Be that as it may, the Commission and its Commissioners should be judged on their political action.
What President Prodi gave us this morning was a preliminary sketch.
I hope that we will be able to see, by the beginning of the year 2000, a much larger portrait of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Pacheco Pereira">
Mr President-designate of the Commission, you began your intervention by talking about East Timor.
I thank you for your interest in this matter, and I call on the Commission to understand clearly that the issue of Timor will, unfortunately, remain open for some time, and to demand that urgent action be taken, both in terms of humanitarian aid and in political and security terms, because the announcement of intervention by an international force does not per se guarantee security conditions in the region, as it must intervene without any kind of condition imposed by the Indonesian authorities, and the urgency of providing humanitarian aid is URGENT in the true sense of the word.
<P>
I can confirm this as I witnessed the elections in Timor personally, on behalf of this Parliament.
The situation is extremely serious and requires immediate intervention and relentless, immediate pressure from all European institutions because nothing has yet been guaranteed.
<P>
The start of a new Commission' s work is a moment of hope for Europe.
We know that the circumstances in which the proposal for the composition of the Commission arrived in this Parliament were far from ideal.
We know and reaffirm the legitimate doubts as to the factors which led governments to the individual nomination of Members, and we see with some concern that the composition of the Commission takes into account neither the results of the recent European elections nor the old tradition of political pluralism.
<P>
But these objections do not mean that we do not wish the Commission well in its task.
The forthcoming turn of the century will be a decisive event for Europe.
We hope that the Commission will be able to face up to what will probably be its main task, which is to reconcile social and economic cohesion with enlargement.
If it does not achieve these two objectives in a coherent and integrated way, it will find it very difficult to make the borders showing Europe' s politics and well-being match Europe' s geographical borders.
<P>
Conscious of the fact that this is the Commission' s main task, we would like to assure Professor Prodi and the Members of the Commission that we wish them well in their work and to state that he can count on the votes of the Portuguese MEPs of the European People' s Party.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sakellariou">
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, in your speech this morning you said that the Commission was to become much more open. You spoke in this connection of the need, here and now, for glasnost.
In doing so, you went to the heart of the problem.
Last year' s conflict between the Commission and Parliament was largely due to the Commission' s culture of secrecy and to the arrogance with which the Commission handled Parliament' s justified concerns.
I hope all this belongs to the past and look forward with yourself, Mr President of the Commission, to a new beginning.
<P>
I turn now to the Committee' s hearings specifically in connection with foreign affairs, human rights, and the common security and defence policy.
A general remark, first of all. If we were to set the qualifying standard for Commissioners at the level displayed by my colleague Ingo Friedrich at the hearings and also in today' s debate, we would not have any difficulties with anyone.
However, Commissioners-designate Günther Verheugen and Chris Patten have no need of formal qualifying standards.
They have both engaged in an excellent debate in committee and provided real proof not only of their specialist qualifications but also - and this is almost more important - of the new political culture to which you yourself have referred, Commissioner, and of the dialogue between the European Parliament and the Commission.
<P>
Of course, we have identified differences when it comes to political opinions.
It would not be understandable if it were otherwise, but it is precisely that which makes collaboration interesting and preserves us from boredom.
All the co-ordinators were subsequently correct in agreeing that our committee had gained two valuable and esteemed partners in dialogue.
<P>
Mr President of the Commission, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has also arrived at the same consensus regarding Commissioner-designate Nielson.
I say this because our committee too was involved in this matter.
I should like to assure you and also the other Commissioners that we shall offer critical co-operation and engagement in dialogue. I have no difficulty in repeating what my group chairman said a short while ago, namely that we shall be expressing our confidence in you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stenzel">
Mr President, Mr President-designate of the Commission, no-one should take the decision regarding the new Commission lightly.
What the citizens of Europe are expecting is for work finally to begin again after the long months of crisis and paralysis, but under better conditions which increase people' s confidence in the Commission.
The great weakness in the construction of the European Union is still there, whether or not, at the end of the day, we can only approve the Commission as a whole (and this despite the fact that we have grave reservations, at least about one Commissioner-designate).
I am aware of the fact that, as President-designate of the Commission, you have already accepted significant political demands on our part in order to make it possible for the principle of individual responsibility to be transposed.
I especially emphasise this because this demand for individual responsibility is anchored in a proposal of mine which was included in the European Parliament' s resolution of 23 March 1999.
<P>
What I wish for on behalf of my delegation but also as one of my country' s MEPs is proper supervisory control over the Commission and confidence on the part of the citizens in both the Commission and the European Parliament.
Confidence of this kind cannot be taken for granted but has to be justified over and over again.
We cannot just issue a blank cheque, nor would we want to.
We need strong, functioning institutions. Otherwise, the European idea will not translate credibly into practice.
I subscribe totally to your programme, which is dedicated to glasnost, which is not about just tinkering with the institutions but about far-reaching reform, which strives for sustainable job creation through consistent liberalisation of the economy, which attaches a high value to the principle of subsidiarity and which considers it necessary to find adequate responses to demographic developments in Europe.
The European Union must remain attractive as a model.
The zone of peace and prosperity must, with credibility and a sense of vision, be extended to include the candidate countries for accession to an enlarged EU.
The European idea which forms the basis of the EU needs a new impulse.
The personalities who translate this idea into practice must be in a position to do this.
Individual responsibility and co-operation with Parliament in all phases of the process are indispensable prior conditions of this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="O' Toole">
Mr President, we welcome the opportunity to work with the President-designate of the Commission and with the Commission.
This is an opportunity to explore their commitment to working in partnership with Parliament and embracing positively our concerns to scrutinise the implementation of the reform process and also their constructive engagement with our concerns as Members for a European economy based on knowledge, skills and creativity and a European society based on inclusion, diversity and cultural wealth.
<P>
What cannot be ignored are the challenges of globalisation now facing our Union, the explosion of the audiovisual and information society, the need for an educational capacity of great depth and breadth and, finally, the need to establish the legitimacy of our institutions and reinvigorate their forms.
These are challenges that go right to the heart of the reform process and challenges that concern my own committee.
I hope that the Commissioner-designate will go forward with our confidence but also with the understanding that your success also reflects our own success.
Together we can work for the future of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Carlsson">
Mr President, we now have high hopes of implementing a policy of openness and of carrying through reforms in the interests of efficiency.
Mr Prodi, your agreement with Mr Poettering points to a new era, the possibility of an entirely new Commission culture aimed at winning back citizens' confidence and interest in our European Union.
It has been a dizzying but, in my view, absolutely necessary process for the Union.
<P>
Let me go back to December 1998 when we in the Group of the European People' s Party, together with Liberals and the Greens, fought for openness and the need for accountability in the debate for adoption of the budget.
Then, the Socialists opted for party considerations, evasion and cowardliness in the face of the Council.
Without the willingness of ourselves in the right-of-centre parties to exercise supervisory power, to take responsibility for this and, in a spirit of openness before all else, to demand to have all the papers in full view on the table, we would never have come as far as we have in fact today.
<P>
Mr Prodi, Commissioners-designate, when it comes to enlargement of the Union, foreign and security policy, strengthening free trade in the world, opening up markets, maintaining a vigorous policy on the environment and continuing to pursue economic liberalisation in Europe and with a common currency that is more competitive, Europe is going to need, for all these things, a very strong and functioning Commission in which you, Professor Prodi, will have our confidence and approval of your legislative arrangements.
When you obtain these things, you also acquire, however, a responsibility to make sure that each and every one of the Commissioners can live up to the ideals, share the focus and conviction and meet the requirements of justice and propriety that we all demand now.
I wish you luck.
You will be receiving the Moderate delegation' s "yes" vote tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gebhardt">
Mr President, with the approval of the Prodi Commission, the European Parliament will tomorrow draw a line under the scandal of the Santer Commission.
I hope that in the process, we shall also overcome an understandable degree of mistrust on the part of Europe' s citizens and create a new confidence in the European Union.
<P>
However, drawing a line under the matter does not mean just filing it away.
The European Parliament will remain alert and keep a sharp eye on the Commission in future too.
That is why we were elected by the peoples of Europe.
We shall ensure that, if need be, individual Members of the Commission are removed if they are no longer acceptable for professional or personal reasons.
I am convinced that, for example, Mr Bolkestein would fail the test tomorrow if, in appointing the Commission, we had the opportunity to vote on individual Commissioners.
A Commissioner responsible for the internal market who, during the hearings, was forever mouthing the word "subsidiarity" has clearly not understood enough about the great common tasks facing Europe.
<P>
The people of Europe expect to benefit from a leadership which focuses upon the common good and not upon the sum total of individual interests in the Member States.
When Mr Bolkestein learns to understand this, then he may go on to share for a long time in the success which I wish Mr Prodi and his Commission.
If he does not, then he is a candidate for the sack.
Mr Prodi, since Mr Bolkestein is still not back yet, I trust you will pass the message on to him.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Thyssen">
Mr President, on behalf of the Belgian delegation, the Belgian Members of the PPE Group, I want to start by driving home the message that the voting due to take place this morning places before us a decision of the utmost importance.
We have no doubts about Mr Prodi' s Presidency.
We were impressed by his introduction, we are expecting positive answers to the points contained in our Resolution, and we have faith in Mr Prodi' s ability to lead the Commission in a responsible and professional manner.
If we had been asked to give our opinion on each of the Commissioners-designate individually then indeed we would have given most of them our support.
But now of course, we have to give our opinion of the Commission as a College.
We know that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
Unfortunately, we feel that one particular link in the chain is indeed weak.
<P>
Is the crisis situation in the institutions to continue?
Not as far as we are concerned, for it is high time that the Commission was able to get down to work again, exercising its full authority.
So you will not find us voting against the Resolution.
The weak link, and everyone now knows who it is, is the candidate put forward by the Belgian government.
This government could have done its own country a better service.
The hearing with Mr Busquin was not a great success for the candidate.
We, that is almost all those present in that committee, were agreed on this.
But sadly enough, this assessment did not find expression in the letter to the President of the Parliament.
It is anyone' s guess as to why.
<P>
What is more, Mr Busquin did not show the least sensitivity towards, let alone demonstrate any commitment to, the question of defending the use of Dutch in the European institutions, which was an insult to the six million Flemish people.
Those of us who represent the Flemish people cannot just overlook this.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, you will not be surprised to learn that the Belgian delegation of the PPE cannot give its approval to this College with one voice, but we do intend to adopt a constructive attitude over the coming years in order to work with the College.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="President">
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Statement by Mr Prodi (continued)
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="President">
In accordance with the agenda, the debate on Mr Prodi' s statement continues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Mr President, President-designate of the Commission Prodi, if we are optimistic and confident about the future, we can state that we are now in a perfect situation.
Now, all the possibilities of steering the actions of the EU are better than ever and the confidence of the citizens is growing in that direction.
Before us we have a new Commission, which has bound itself in the hearings to making the actions of the Union more transparent, more efficient and more comprehensible.
We have also heard from each Member of the Commission that the Commission will be getting leaders in each field who have committed themselves to working more closely with Parliament.
As a College, the Commission has affirmed that it is prepared for real reforms through the mouthpiece of its President.
<P>
The hard rebuke given to us in the parliamentary elections in June by the citizens of Europe is still fresh in our minds.
We cannot continue on the present course, but the Union must engage in prompt reforms which will transform the procedures of all the institutions of the Union for the next Millennium.
The Commission has to move forward at the same pace as the reality of the Member States and their citizens.
Here, Mrs Roth-Behrendt has drawn attention to a particularly important matter: the Commission really must bear in mind the true matters of concern for the citizens when choosing its own priorities and publicising them, such as environmental issues, an enduring development in all areas as well as the need to protect the consumer.
To this, I would also add equality of citizens and social equality.
<P>
Although I did say that all of the opportunities facing us are better than they have been before, I fear that it will not be possible to make use of them.
First and foremost, the question is whether the future Commission will have the ability to carry out fundamental reforms instead of just being content to gloss over the real problems with sticking-plaster policies.
We cannot afford to do this, and I am sure that real reforms are on the way. For the tasks ahead, I also wish the future Commission a long life.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Pannella">
Mr President-designate of the Commission, if we had to choose here and now between your opponents and the reasons they have given and you, we would find ourselves in a predicament, maybe to the point of abstaining, indeed even to voting for you, as the arguments of the last communists and allies of Milosevic against NATO and our countries and against British conservatives and others are so weak and worthless.
But we must judge you and decide whether to put our confidence in you on the basis of your statements and what we know about you, leaving these statements to one side.
<P>
As European federalists, we can have absolutely no confidence in you whatsoever.
The picture you painted of politics and the programme lacked all mention of the urgent institutional problems or supranational issues.
<P>
As liberals and liberalists we know, especially from your references to the programme, that we run the risk of importing the postcorporate and postfascist heritage into Europe which has characterised the so-called mixed economy of Italian party politics.
<P>
Finally, as Italians, we fear that through you on the continental political stage, there will be a return to sharing the spoils of party power which goes against every notion of the Constitutional State, every effective feeling of a Europe which stands for progress with regard to revolution and the reform of freedom and rights, progress in this sense.
And so I, along with the other elected Members from the Bonino list, announce our determination to vote against you and we clearly refuse to put our confidence in you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Krarup">
There are a number of people from my group who have talked on this matter.
Personally, and on behalf of the group I represent in Denmark, I have to say that I cannot vote for the Commission.
I shall emphasise two points.
The first is that the political programme which has been put forward promotes a degree of integration which goes far beyond what there is a mandate for from 80% of the Danish population and, what is more, from the populations of the other Member States.
It is politically unacceptable.
The EU is to make its presence more keenly felt across national borders, and, to an extent, that is a threat to our nation states.
The second point is the background to the Prodi Commission.
As we know, this was the scandal that was uncovered in connection with the first report by the Experts' group this spring.
One might have imagined that, as a prior condition of endorsing the new Commission, Parliament might have demanded radical changes to put a stop to the systematic abuses that have taken place and to the consistent lack of proper supervision to be found in the system. However, none of this even enters into the equation.
In the course of these hearings, a completely perfunctory explanation from the designated candidates for the Commission has been accepted.
It is especially scandalous that someone like former Commission President Delors' right-hand man, who was responsible for setting up the criticised security services, should have been waved through this Parliament without so much as having to answer a single critical question.
For these reasons, it is impossible for us to vote for the Commission-designate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Suominen">
Mr President, in his speech today, President-designate Professor Prodi quite correctly mentioned how important co-operation is for the Union.
He mentioned the need for rapprochement with the USA, the Mediterranean area and even between religions.
I may have misheard, but I did not detect any reference on his part to the Northern Dimension of the Union, the area from the Barents Sea through northern Russia to the Baltic States and Poland, and also from Scandinavia to northern Germany.
The longest borders between the Union and applicant states are, however, to be found in this area, and in addition there is the only border with the largest European state, Russia.
I hope that the problems of this area, as well as the opportunities, enjoy the attention of the Commission.
Likewise, I hope that the renewal of the strategy on Russia will continue although I know that Russia with its scandals and problems is a truly great question mark at the present time.
The report of the Group of Independent Experts shows that the structures of the EU and the Commission have been confused and obscured with regard to responsibility and power-relations for years.
Commissioner Kinnock truly has a task as great as that of the fabled Hercules when he continues Commissioner Liikanen' s work reforming the structures of the Commission. I wish him success and await the results.
<P>
Professor Prodi was looking for more glasnost.
This is quite correct when one considers relations with Parliament.
It must, however, be remembered that Gorbachev' s Soviet Union dissolved into too much glasnost and too little perestroika.
The word perestroika can best be translated as "to build a new house on tried and tested foundations" .
The Soviet Union experienced its own disappearance.
I hope that the Prodi Commission will also focus on perestroika in the Union.
Only in this way will the Commission be able to make progress in matters of substance and to "build a new house on tried and tested foundations" .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Soares">
Mr President Prodi, I would like to begin by applauding the important reference you made at the beginning of your intervention today to the tragic situation in East Timor.
I must ask you though, what specific action are you planning to take - in co-operation with the UN of course - in terms of consolidating Timor' s now irreversible independence and making it viable, and in terms of supplying emergency aid to the long-suffering people of Timor?
<P>
As for your statement overall, I approve the fact that it touched on some very important points but I do not think that it emphasised sufficiently the social dimensions of the objectives of the Commission over which you preside.
The fact that a word as symbolic as "cohesion" was removed from the Directorate-General for Regional Policy strikes me as rather unfortunate.
I must admit that I was shocked that you were perfectly clear on the freedom of trade and on the demands of competition on businesses, but you were silent or vague on fighting unemployment, poverty and social exclusion, all veritable scourges of the European Union.
<P>
Commissioner António Vitorino, who made an absolutely brilliant statement to this Parliament, highlighted the need to integrate refugees and to give effective protection to ethnic minorities.
He presented an excellent programme for the area allocated to him and which deserved the agreement and applause of the majority of this Parliament.
<P>
I would like to know if, as President of the Commission, you will attempt to commit yourself to resolving the very serious social problems which exist within the European Union, and which, to my mind, should be an absolute priority for the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Doyle">
Mr President, I feel that none of us must lose sight of the fact that the European Union is seen as irrelevant and unresponsive to the crises in our world today.
The huge problem of confidence in our institutions has been exacerbated by the problems of the Commission in recent months.
<P>
The European Union' s response to the Balkans, on our very doorstep, was generally viewed as too little, too late.
On East Timor - and I note, Mr Prodi, what you said this morning - where are we?
Two weeks after the world is advised of the most brutal genocide following elections in an attempt to establish the very essence of democracy which we, as Parliamentarians, above all should uphold, we are not yet in gear and not seen as relevant to the solution by any commentators.
<P>
While Parliament must look at its own role very seriously, especially following the poor turnout in the recent elections in many Member States - evidence at best of disinterest but more likely cynicism and disdain by our citizens - our job today is to respond to the hearing of the Commissioners-elect and to the case put by the President-elect, Mr Prodi.
<P>
Yes, Mr Prodi, we need "ambitious reforms of the European Union institutions" .
I take that to be your perestroika, to match the glasnost which you refer to, but not an everlasting reform, not a constant state of flux.
We need stability and we need to get down to the business of policy as quickly as possible.
<P>
I support the view of the Commission' s relationship with Parliament being akin to that of a government' s relationship with its parliament.
But let us reflect that in most parliaments a vote of no confidence in a single member of the government results in the entire government resigning, not just the individual minister.
Is that what we are asking for?
We are giving confused signals.
<P>
In insisting on the political reflection of the outcome of the recent European Parliament elections within the European Commission, how far should we go in restricting the choice of and dictating to national governments their selection of Commissioner?
We must learn from our hearings.
We must never allow a government to use the Commission as a retirement home for politicians past - to use a consumer term - their "sell-by date" or for a political pay-off for old pals or indeed to export a national embarrassment to Europe.
At the same time there is a need for an important balance between the Commission, Parliament and the rights of governments.
<P>
We have no choice, Mr Prodi.
It is all or nothing in terms of your new college.
On balance I feel we must accept it and support your team.
Yes, we have concerns about a few individuals but the responsibility for ensuring that none of them hit the headlines adversely over the next five years is yours, not ours, given the limited scope of the hearings in this Parliament.
<P>
The key to the future of a credible Europe lies in a proper relationship between the Commission and Parliament built on mutual respect.
I hope you agree with that.
I wish you all well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Corbett">
Mr President, with these hearings we have just carried out an exercise in scrutiny and transparency the like of which exists in none of our Member States.
Imagine if each of our national governments had to go through a procedure whereby they had to fill in fifty pages of answers to a questionnaire and were subject to three hours of grilling and questioning in public before the national parliaments took a vote of confidence allowing them to take office.
We have achieved something that we can be proud of.
<P>
Of course this is a new procedure and a young parliament and things were not perfect.
Some of the questions were less than forensic.
There are things that could be improved next time.
Nonetheless, with the outcome of this procedure on this side of the House we are confident that we have a Commission that is a distinct improvement on the previous one.
Granted there were questions on the past activities of two candidates in particular; but both have been cleared by the national investigations that pertained to their activities and, in the absence of anything new, it would be difficult for the European Parliament to press this issue further.
But the fact that the President of the Commission has secured a right not available to his predecessors to dismiss any Commissioner, should that ever be necessary, means that we can rest assured - and we shall be vigilant on this - that, if anything new emerges, we will be able to take action.
<P>
We have not tried to play party politics or national politics and petty games of that sort on this side of the House.
We thought that Parliament should approach this professionally and responsibly.
We are satisfied with the outcome of these opportunities afforded to us in this new procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Velzen">
Mr President, a number of hearings have taken place in which the tension between collective and individual responsibility could be felt.
It is, of course, clear that the question of individual responsibility and how this new Commission will give it shape over the next few years, will become an important issue.
Great stress has been laid on collective responsibility in the past, but if you read the Wise Men' s report, the last report that has just come out, then the situation has been rather different in practice, with cases being founded primarily on the principle of non-intervention.
I am not concerned with your affairs, you are not concerned with mine, and ultimately no one takes responsibility.
That too is the painful truth that has emerged.
I believe that the need to exchange the non-intervention principle for real collective responsibility represents a challenge.
How exactly do you give shape to this personal responsibility?
<P>
I would in fact like to make the following proposition to Mr Prodi.
He will produce an annual programme and this will, of course, include the things to be done within the various Directorates-General.
Would it in fact be possible for an annual programme of this kind also to include a number of political obligations in terms of the results to be achieved by the various individual Commissioners?
You would continue to be responsible as a collective entity, but even within this context you could specify the results that an individual Commissioner was to deliver that year in more precise terms.
You could then address him or her on these issues afterwards.
I would argue in favour of this.
<P>
Then there is the unease over the question of whether it should not in fact be a number of Commissioners, i.e. one or more, against whom criminal proceedings are initiated.
I take it for granted that Mr Prodi would ask a Commissioner against whom criminal proceedings have been initiated, to resign.
I also take for granted, and this is also in the Wise Men' s report, the fact that if a Commissioner should be found to have knowingly supplied Parliament with false information, then this same Commissioner would depart.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gröner">
Mr President, Mr President-designate Prodi, we Social Democrats are disappointed.
In spite of announcements, you have not succeeded in achieving a better balance between men and women in your new team.
The EU Commission remains a male domain.
The mission conferred in the Treaty of Amsterdam, to oppose all forms of discrimination, is still, for women at least, just a vague hope.
We may speak the same European language, but you have not in fact understood us.
<P>
A third of your candidates did not answer the question from the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities about gender mainstreaming.
The Social Democrats' demand was and remains - again, I stress the word "remains" - to have in future an Equal Opportunities Commissioner with the power to implement equal opportunities.
We demand that the College and yourself as its head become ambitious about gender mainstreaming, with measurable developments and improvements as a result.
Mrs Diamantopoulou, whose portfolio includes equal opportunities alongside employment and the social dimension, has in fact shown a lot of commitment but, Mr Prodi, how will she react when she has been gagged by you in advance and when the struggle against violence, as well as the issue of non-discrimination, has been placed in other hands?
<P>
You speak of a new balance, a new partnership, but do not waste a single word on the women of Europe who, at the end of the day, do represent half of our citizens.
<P>
We want you to take steps to ensure that substantial improvements in income and in access to power and money are achieved, and that you join us in our struggle against violence and against the everyday discrimination faced by women.
<P>
Without the input from women, the idea of the big European family is meaningless.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Elles">
Mr President, I would like to make three remarks about the hearings, their results and the elements that still remain to be put in place between the incoming Commission and Parliament.
<P>
On the hearings, I agree with Mr Corbett that it has been a good start, but there are several things that need to be improved when the issue comes up again in 2004, for example, the possibility of our voting on individual Commissioners after a committee or at least an indicative vote to see whether the committee was really in favour or not.
Secondly, we should have time in the hearings to follow up questions which it was quite clear were treated unevenly by the committees.
Last but not least, the committees should have equal time.
The Committee on Fisheries for instance had only one hour whereas other committees had three hours.
We in Parliament need to sort out these details.
<P>
As for the results, without referring to individuals, many in my Group have already indicated which performers have been good or less good in the incoming Commission.
Our Conservative position has been set out by the Conservative Leader Mr McMillan-Scott.
We are left with an imbalance in the Commission and it is there that I believe we need to make some progress.
<P>
Firstly, in the light of our experience from the discharge for 1996 for which I was responsible, can we really be sure that, if we do vote against an incoming Commissioner, that Commissioner will resign?
Secondly, how can we be sure that we will get the information which we need?
There was so much frustration in the last Parliament about not being able to get the information we required.
Finally, as regards the codes of conduct, we need to know that promotion will be on merit and that promotion at the highest levels of the Commission will involve managerial competence, which has not always been the case up to now.
<P>
In conclusion, these are important elements, at least for my Group.
We want to see these included in our operating agreement between the Commission and Parliament because the numbers abstaining or voting against the Commission tomorrow on the final vote will depend on how far those elements are in place by tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Morgan">
Mr President, you have a major task ahead of you and nobody is more aware of that than the Budget Control Committee.
The number one priority must be the reform agenda.
If you fail to deliver on this then we will all judge you very harshly and will in fact all suffer as a result.
But as Mr Kinnock said yesterday, you will be judged on your deeds and not on your words.
<P>
On behalf of the Socialists in the Budget Control Committee, I would like to comment specifically on Mr Kinnock' s presentation at the hearing.
Mr Kinnock' s record within the Commission is second to none and we accept fully his commitment to accept collective responsibility in terms of past problems whilst agreeing that he bears no individual guilt.
Performance and management of the transport directorate has been exemplary and we believe that with his experience of modernising the Labour Party in the UK, he has the relevant qualification to undertake this work.
If you can turn the Labour Party around from the lamentable state it was in the 1980s to getting us to a position in the 1990s where we swept everything away, then you must really be able to perform miracles.
<P>
We note the Commission' s commitment to the reform agenda and, in particular, Mr Prodi, your commitment to consult the European Parliament on the reform programme.
We expect this to be before its presentation in February.
We note the commitment to consult us on the reform of the Staff Regulations which addresses some of Mr Elles' concerns, the new commitments given to whistleblowers and the need to develop new disciplinary procedures.
The idea of giving legal effect to the codes of conduct once established is also something we welcome and the overhaul of the Commission' s management and control systems.
We expect active consultation with Parliament at all times and we have no doubts that the Commissioner will fulfil his commitment on that score.
We do have concerns that the Commission must respect the independence of OLAF.
We will not allow you to play budgetary games on this issue.
This is the beginning of the reform process and we now look forward to some action.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="President">
Mr Cashman, do you have a point of order to make?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Cashman">
Mr President, I am sorry to make a second point of order when I still have not made my maiden speech in this House.
I would like to point out to my colleague that the Treaty of Amsterdam refers to ending discrimination not only against women but against a whole range of minorities on the basis of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability.
That is something that I hope the Commission will approach as a whole and not just, on a point of order, the equal opportunities of women.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="President">
Mr Cashman, I must tell you that this was not a point of order.
Please observe the Rules .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Theato">
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Donnelly">
Mr President, much has been said today about the cynicism and hypocrisy of the past, but I want to say to you that there is nothing more cynical or hypocritical than people who have already announced that they were going to vote against the Commission commenting on the process of hearings.
We had part of this House announce even before the hearings started that they intended to reject the Commission.
We need the progressive forces of this House - and I say this to people like Mr van Velzen and to others - to unite after the vote tomorrow to work with the new European Commission so that we can actually make progress, because we have had nine months of stagnation.
We must stop the political guerrilla warfare that is going on in this House.
We must work together.
<P>
Let me make a comment on the fact that two members of the potential Commission have been criticised.
We are not offering the European Commission a blank cheque, Mr Prodi; we will be watching very carefully what you and your colleagues do.
But we will not see members of this Commission hounded by the press in any Member State of this Union.
If there is evidence, it will be presented, and we rely upon you to take action where it is necessary.
We will be voting within the Socialist Group in the European Parliament not on a party political basis but on the objective basis of the hearings and the questions that we had answered over the last couple of weeks.
<P>
Let me pick up the point made by Mr van Velzen because I think this process is in two stages.
We have had the speech by the President of the Commission and we have had the hearings, but the second stage is the work programme of the European Commission.
The work programme should be an exciting indication of where the European Union is going and of what the European Union intends to do.
In the past even under Delors and under Jacques Santer it never appeared that way, but the second stage is vital.
That is why I agree with Mr van Velzen: we must make sure that this work programme is understood by the public, and that it is important to the public; and we have to work with you to deliver that work programme.
<P>
We have made a good start with the hearing and after that vote tomorrow let the progressive forces in this House work with the Commission to deliver what the people of Europe want.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr Prodi, I am not speaking on behalf of any political group or any delegation.
I speak for myself and all those of us who share certain opinions.
Certain opinions which we could sum up in the following way: firstly, we know that Europe has been built on the basis of two forces for construction which are dialectically opposed: those who, aware of the weight of history, defend the survival and validity of the national State and those who, with greater courage, imagine a future with greater integration, whose political definition we still do not know, and this is perhaps one of the advantages of construction.
<P>
Mr Prodi, I speak on behalf of all those who share your principles, who share your programme, who share the idea that Europe must establish a new order of peace, prosperity and stability and that Europe must show coraggio, ambizione and visione (courage, ambition and vision).
<P>
And in their name, Mr President, I understand that we must respect the essential equilibrium laid down in the Treaty.
In this respect, for example, we must respect the Commission' s right to initiative.
And, of course, we must ensure that the Treaties, the legislative texts and the activities of the institutions are more in line with the demands of society.
And society demands something else - you said it yourself, Mr Prodi - it demands realism and demands that we are in closer contact with that society.
<P>
Therefore, all I can do is, in the name of those I speak for, underline the commitment that, at the Intergovernmental Conference, we will carry out the fundamental reform which the citizens demand, the importance of which they have demonstrated through their low turn-out in the elections.
<P>
The texts and our attitudes should be brought into line with today' s society, but we should not lose that which has been the key to the vault of Community construction.
<P>
Mr President Prodi, good luck with next Commission which, with no doubt whatsoever, will be voted in tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berès">
Mr President-designate, the members of the French Socialist delegation are anxious that the institutions should run efficiently, and this requires the rapid establishment of a strong Commission, strong in the sense of respecting the Treaties, which means that your mandate and ours must coincide.
<P>
The French Socialists also have a certain awareness of their political responsibilities.
This is why tomorrow, they will vote in favour of your investiture, because we believe that the composition of your Commission is balanced, in line with the Council.
We judged the quality of your team' s members.
But as you know, as you must realise, this is by no means a carte blanche or a vote of confidence.
<P>
As far as we are concerned, the political aspect is not an issue.
Our expectations of you rest on your programme.
We expect commitments from you, to define and defend the European Social Model, to re-establish balance, as the Treaty of Amsterdam suggests you should, between the policy of competition and other policies.
To ensure that the great reforms of the labour market structures do not necessarily result in greater unemployment.
In short, to take into consideration these great projects which will enable Europe to experience the kind of growth which creates jobs and which does not make thousands more people unemployed.
<P>
We also expect you to implement a development policy which will allow Europe to maintain its position of solidarity between the North and the South.
We also expect you to let us know how you think international standards can be developed.
Do you think that it is up to the WTO to lay down what the internal legal system within the Union should be, or do you think that it is up to us to define the rules which will serve us?
<P>
Regarding institutional matters, we are pleased with the stances you have taken on giving the Intergovernmental Conference a broad mandate, and we await with interest the report of your three Wise Men.
But we are anxious to find out who in your team will be responsible for the development and the drafting of the Charter of Rights.
We shall also be asking you about this idea of the future make-up of the Union.
This is a matter of urgency for your Commission.
<P>
Briefly, the setting-up of your Commission has allowed new relations to be established between your institution and ours.
We are delighted about this.
By holding these hearings, our Parliament has shown what a modern and democratic Parliament is capable of.
We expect the same from your institution, and if you meet these conditions, you will have our support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="President">
I would inform you that, in accordance with Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure, I have received seven motions for resolution.
In addition, I have received from the Conference of Presidents the draft resolution for electing the Commission-designate.
<P>
The vote on these motions for resolution and the motion received from the Conference of Presidents will take place tomorrow, Wednesday, at 12.00 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Varela Suanzes-Carpegna">
Mr Prodi, I address you in my capacity as President of this Parliament' s Committee on Fisheries.
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We have not heard you speak about fishing and, nevertheless, you must be aware that thousands and thousands of fishermen depend on it, thousands and thousands of families, thousands of secondary businesses and businesses involved in the processing of products which are necessary in the European Union, employment which is furthermore located in European regions and territories which are highly dependent on fishing.
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I want to be very clear in this intervention, Mr Prodi, and I want to tell you that Mr Fischler, who obviously knows a lot about agriculture, nevertheless knows little about fishing.
He admitted this himself during his hearing and has also demonstrated it.
However, he made us some political commitments which I would like to remind you of in your capacity as President-designate.
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Mr Fischler expressed orally the political commitment to maintain the current Directorate-General for Fisheries, amending the statement that he had made in writing in his questionnaire and thereby accepting the maintenance of the current Directorate-General for Fisheries.
And I say current in the sense that we are talking of a specific Directorate-General, for Fisheries, with the status of Directorate-General.
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I say this because this is a sine qua non condition which we have established in our Committee and this is what was communicated to you in the letter which I signed myself.
I ask you therefore to take good note of it, and I ask the same of Mr Kinnock, who is to the left of you, as Vice-President responsible for reform, since this is a sine qua non condition for maintaining the parliamentary trust which we have granted Mr Fischler in our Committee.
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Secondly, I would like to remind you that Mr Fischler granted us the written mandate for the negotiation of the crucial fishing agreement with Morocco, which is a matter of extreme urgency, so that this Parliament can continue to maintain the budgetary reserve of the item agreed by the Council and that your Commission, Mr Prodi, will not be responsible for the fact that there is no finance for this agreement in the future.
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<SPEAKER ID=108 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Katiforis">
Mr President of the Commission, I would like to begin from where Mr Donnelly left off, the second stage of your mission - the work programme - because I believe that, aside from the collective and individual responsibilities, which I certainly believe are of the utmost importance, the work in the restoration of the Commission' s credibility and its productiveness will be judged by this work programme.
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This programme will be met with some apathy and reactions as regards the wording and the actual execution of it.
In order to overcome all that, Mr President, originality and dynamism are necessary of which I hope you have plenty in reserve because many of us believe that these elements appear to have been lacking, judging by your speeches so far. Likewise, there have not been sufficient signs of a new attitude of mind emerging, which would be necessary to deal with the deepening confidence crisis facing Europe as regards not only the issue of unemployment but also the issue of security
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You made reference to the Balkans, Mr President.
It is a good job that Europe understands the importance of the Balkans and I agree with you wanting to convey the urgency of the matter.
You are right in saying that the Balkan states cannot import their conflict into Europe, but you are not right in distancing yourself from the problem by telling them that they must resolve the conflict themselves before we can accept them.
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Europe, Mr President, imported the Balkan problems the moment it decided, with the force of weapons, to find a settlement to those problems.
And it is not only the Balkans, if we are to begin naming names.
How is it possible that an applicant country, for example, can threaten to attack a Member State without being warned that attacking one Member State is tantamount to attacking all the Member States, just because there is no common European border.
I hope that at the Intergovernmental Conference, Mr President, you will be able to propose measures for creating such a border and for instilling a greater sense of security into many of us who do not feel secure.
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<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Wogau">
Mr President-designate of the Commission, the new Commission is faced with a number of big tasks.
We now have a joint policy on currency which is being managed by the European Central Bank.
What we now need is a common economic policy.
This should include consistent application of the rules on competition, including the Stability and Growth Pact. It should also include joint minimum regulations for taxation and a number of basic principles.
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I am convinced that this common economic policy can only succeed if it is designed in accordance with the principles of a social market economy.
What we need in this connection - and this, Mr President of the Commission, is a further point to which you referred quite specifically - is a number of projects which are visible to the citizens of Europe.
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Firstly - and I know that there are criticisms about this - food safety is one of people' s basic concerns yet also one of the things which stops the Common Market from really working.
I should like personally to encourage you, Mr President of the Commission, to take up this theme, for it seems to me to be of fundamental importance, on the one hand for our citizens but, on the other hand too, for the proper functioning of the Common Market.
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Secondly: the supervision of air space.
For this, America has one authority, to which you also referred in one of your initial speeches.
In Europe we have three authorities concerned with this issue.
That is unacceptable to the airline companies and is dangerous for the citizens of Europe.
This seems to me to be a second big priority.
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Thirdly: the further dismantling of monopolies.
From the costs of telephone calls and of electricity, it appears now for the first time that dismantling monopolies is of practical value to our citizens and also entails tangible advantages.
I think this ought to encourage us to go further down this road, that is to say, in the fields of postal services, energy, telecommunications and railways where similar conditions prevail.
In my opinion, dismantling monopolies is to the advantage of the citizens of the European Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van den Berg">
Mr Prodi, on behalf of the Dutch Socialists I would like to express the hope that we will be in a position to draw a line under the crisis, with the appointment of your Commission in its entirety tomorrow.
You have our support, provided of course that the Commission fulfils all those conditions that you yourself have imposed.
You gave a speech this morning and we have heard a lot in the course of the hearings.
What is still very much conspicuous by its absence as far as we are concerned, is that element of social concern.
First and foremost, that element of social concern towards the rest of the world.
125 million children will not be going to school today, which means they have no future in this world.
Our world is not millennium-proof. I am so keen to see January' s programme become one of ambitious endeavours on the part of Patten, Lamy, Nielson and your Commission to make Europe really socially-minded towards other countries in this respect, and then towards its own.
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The solidarity, free market and need for reform we have spoken of, will only work if we keep everyone on the same track.
Too many people are excluded at the present time, in our own European world too.
Internal solidarity and solidarity towards others, as I said, that is what we would like to judge you and your programme on in January.
For our part, we are looking at all the Commissioners and we hope to be able to make a confidence-inspiring new start in Europe, in the way described so effectively by Mr Van Velzen when he set out how the programme could achieve this.
We would like to hold each of you responsible on an individual basis and achieve sound results working together as Parliament and Commission.
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<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Chichester">
Mr President, I should like to address matters of procedure and of substance with regard to the hearings of the candidate Commissioners.
In my view these hearings were flawed because there was insufficient time available to the committees to pursue their lines of questioning.
I speak from our experience on the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
Because we had to make time available to delegations from other committees, neither the members of my group nor our committee nor the members of the delegations had sufficient time to put all the questions that they wanted to candidate Commissioners Liikanen and Lamy.
This is a matter for great regret.
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The second point where the hearings were flawed was in the failure to hold indicative votes at the end of each hearing.
I know there are different views on this issue but it seems to me that without an indicative vote the key element of whether Members feel the candidate Commissioner is competent or not cannot be determined exactly.
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Let me come to the substance.
I have mentioned two candidate Commissioners but there was a third who appeared before us, candidate Commissioner Busquin.
It is no coincidence that this was a hearing where there were no delegations from other committees and we had more time to pursue questioning.
I am afraid that Mr Busquin did not satisfy a majority of colleagues on the committee either with his answers on his part in past financial scandals or with his answers on his competence with the portfolio and whether he would have a sense of responsibility and leadership appropriate to the tasks facing this Commission.
Fresh information has come to light since the hearing in The Sunday Times this weekend which casts further doubt on whether Mr Busquin was truthful in his answers to Parliament.
I have asked the President to consider this matter.
So, I am afraid he would be a flawed Commissioner, Mr Prodi.
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<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Martelli">
Mr Prodi, on behalf of the Italian Socialists, I hope that Parliament offers you its broad and unconditional confidence.
There has been enough evasion and we need a strong Commission.
Besides, without an authoritative leadership, Parliament is in danger of losing its way.
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This period of adjustment could not have been more difficult. The crisis in the previous Commission occurred just at the time when Europe was going up in flames!
If it were not for Emma Bonino, in the face of the Balkans tragedy, the Commission simply would not have existed.
However, the European citizens and peoples have been left with an impression of fragility, if not powerlessness and a sense of weakness in the crucial area - the area Europe was created for - of ensuring peace in our continent.
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You spoke of the Europe of peoples more than the Europe of the institutions.
It is the view and feeling of the European peoples that Europe is already one from the Atlantic to the Ural mountains, from the tundra to Anatolia.
You rightly put at the top of the list enlargement of the Union to include those countries that are ready, and then you spoke of the different degrees of co-operation by drawing concentric circles of 'virtual Membership' to include nearby countries not yet ready to accede.
You also mentioned a partnership with Russia and Ukraine and a cultural partnership with the Mediterranean countries.
And encompassing all these circles is the joint and strengthened leadership with the United States of America.
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Mr President, are you sure that this view is shared on the other side of the Atlantic?
You will no doubt have read yesterday that the American Minister of Defence is already putting obstacles in the way of common European defence.
And yet Mr CFSP is non other than the former Secretary-General of NATO. NATO' s borders already stretch to Warsaw and Budapest while Europe' s borders clearly end in Berlin.
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Enlargement is the main priority, but it is not without its problems, both for the countries concerned and for the Union itself.
And I am not only thinking of the disproportion between larger aims and a smaller budget.
If we do not want to lose in substance what we gain in size, if we want to give a soul to the Europe of the single market and currency, if we want to regain the citizens' and people' s faith, we - Commission, Parliament and Council - must work together on what only a more robust foundation and new energy can bring: European citizenship, a Charter on Rights and a real Constitution.
What is the point in having ensured free movement within one border yet maintaining fifteen different laws on immigration and political asylum?
What is the point in having one parliament that is formed on the basis of fifteen different types of electoral system?
A new frontier remains to the South, and a common citizenship: this is the perspective I would like you to focus on between now and January
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<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
Mr President, Mr President-designate of the Commission, esteemed Members of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Donnelly accused us a short while ago of hypocritically making false attacks upon Commissioners-designate.
I can only say that whoever heard Brian Simpson this morning would not have recognised him at all.
That must have been socialist policy.
Brian Simpson attacked Mrs Palacio quite unashamedly and for no apparent reason.
I emphatically reject these attacks on her on behalf of my group.
The facts of the matter are quite different to what was stated.
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The Committee recognised Mrs Palacio' s professional qualifications by a large majority.
The Committee has confirmed that the priorities which Mrs Palacio has set out orally and in writing reflect the opinion of Parliament.
A majority of the Committee was also satisfied with Mrs Palacio' s answers to the Socialists' accusations in connection with the flax subsidy investigation in Spain.
Mrs Palacio has convincingly shown that the investigating committee of the Spanish Parliament has rejected all accusations against her as unfounded.
We decisively reject the attacks by the Socialists who take up this old theme again and again and repeatedly put forward accusations.
We look forward to co-operating with Mrs Palacio.
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You can gladly speak, Sir, when you have been allocated speaking time, but you will not steal the time allocated to myself!
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However the collaboration with Mrs Palacio is to work, it will be decided in conjunction too with our colleague Mr Barnier, the Commissioner-designate for Regional Policy.
Because of his political experience as a national minister and also as chairman of a regional assembly, Mr Barnier is in the best position to understand, apply and transpose regional policy.
He said something which I found very convincing, namely: "Yes, we respect the principle of subsidiarity, that is to say, the Member States and the regions decide first, but, as a Commissioner, I am responsible for ensuring that the goals of regional policy are adhered to, and I shall take that responsibility seriously."
In this respect, we also look forward to collaborating with you, Mr Barnier.
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<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="De Rossa">
Mr President, one wonders what one can say in two minutes on the appointment of a Commission.
I want to wish you all well: Mr Prodi, Mr Kinnock and everybody else who is taking on enormous responsibilities on behalf of the people of the European Union.
They are enormous responsibilities because they relate to the way people will lead their lives over the coming decades.
There are people in Europe killing each other because of differences over religion, ethnicity and nationality, there are people going to bed hungry, there are people sleeping outdoors and there are people without adequate health care.
These are all problems that Europe has to solve in partnership, not only between the Commission and Parliament but also between the Commission, Parliament, the Member State Governments and the Member State parliaments.
One of the things we should try and do over the next five years is to forge a closer partnership between national and regional parliaments and the European level.
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If we are to develop a Europe in which our people have a share, we must give them a role in creating that Europe and sharing that Europe.
The only way we will do that is if we give the social dimension of Europe - the social convergence that is needed in Europe - the same status as we give to monetary convergence and to economic convergence.
We cannot create a Europe that the people will feel is theirs if we simply talk about economics and money all the time.
We have to talk about social issues, culture and what concerns people in their daily lives.
We have to demonstrate that the politics of this Union can solve their problems.
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<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Pronk">
Mr President, I too was surprised by my colleague Mr Donnelly' s attack on my colleague Mr Van Velzen.
Mr Donnelly appears still to abide by the old Marxist principle that the Socialist Party is always right and anyone who disagrees with this is wrong.
But I did not want to talk about that today, Mr President, I wanted to speak, as co-ordinator of the Committee on Employment, about the hearing with Mrs Diamantopoulou.
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The answers provided by this Commissioner-designate were, in principle, satisfactory.
It is clear that not everyone was in agreement with all her answers, but everyone on the Committee on Employment feels that the answers she gave provide a sound basis for future co-operation.
The same goes for the vast majority of the European People' s Party.
This Commissioner is not one of those against whom the PPE rightly raised objections.
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Nevertheless, a few comments need to be made here.
The Commissioner-designate was not prepared to accept more intensive co-operation with the European Parliament as regards the Employment Pact and its further development.
I refer now to the celebrated Cologne Summit.
There is every risk of the successful Luxembourg process that we now have being swept under the carpet by the unsuccessful Cologne episode without parliamentary contribution.
That is why the Commission must continue to involve Parliament in the process.
Another critical point, which our British colleagues were particularly concerned to raise, is that concerning deregulation.
The Commission should also pursue this issue, insofar as it can create employment.
The position of non-governmental organisations in the social sector still has not been determined.
A legal basis must be created as soon as possible which will enable organisations for the disabled, the elderly, children and families in particular, to create a real civil society at European level.
The social dialogue is very important.
Europe can count itself as lucky that the social dialogue has achieved so much.
But the social dialogue, Mr Prodi, must never be a reason for the Commission and Parliament to renounce their political responsibilities.
As long as Parliament' s role in judging the outcome of the social dialogue remains undetermined, there is a need for an interim solution.
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To conclude, Mr President, I very much appreciate the fact that the Commissioner went into great detail during the hearing about my report, the aim of which is to bring about a kind of Luxembourg process in relation to security for the citizens of the Member States.
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<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pomés Ruiz">
Mr Prodi, you are able to represent the aspiration to carry out what this House has been demanding for a long time.
I was captivated by your comments to this Parliament when you said that you were going to act, that you were not going to be afraid of making mistakes, that you would prefer to get things right but that, if by taking decisions, you make mistakes, you would run the risk of making those mistakes.
Congratulations.
These are good intentions which we hope to see shortly reflected in deeds.
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In the Commission on Budgetary Control, the members of the Group of the European People' s Party are primarily concerned with the need to be honest.
The Committee of Independent Experts says that OLAF must be given the necessary resources to put an end to this aura of corruption which brought about the downfall of the former Commission.
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But I believe that we must go further.
We must soon adopt a genuine personnel policy which will ensure that those who work in the Commission - on whose successes and failures we depend so much - may work with a personnel policy which values merit.
I asked Mr Kinnock whether those 500 or so vacant posts in the Commission were going to be filled.
If you lack resources, why do you not fill the posts which this Parliament has authorised?
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We want to see action soon.
In a month' s time, the Council on Home Affairs will take place.
This could be the moment to introduce those measures which the Committee of Independent Experts proposes, and which on the whole are common sense measures which should have been carried out long ago.
This Parliament demanded some of them a long time ago.
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Are you, Mr Prodi, ready to include those measures which will be dealt with in Helsinki?
We want to see facts because time is at a premium, Mr Prodi.
If tomorrow you receive the approval of this House - and I hope this is the case - you have a huge job to do on behalf of all the citizens of Europe.
Make haste, Mr Prodi.
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<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Goepel">
Mr President, I want to concentrate briefly on three matters. Firstly, Mr Prodi, I would remark that Mr Fischler was very well prepared on the matter of agriculture and provided convincing proof of his specialist knowledge.
In the hearing before the Committee on Agriculture, probably one of the most important questions was that of Parliament' s participation in decision-making in the matter of Community agricultural policy.
In this connection, my group expressly welcomes Mr Fischler' s statement that basic legislation affecting the way in which the general direction of agricultural policy is conceived should be decided as part of a joint decision-making process and that he would actively put forward this view at the future Intergovernmental Conference.
Mr Prodi, I am assuming that you support Mr Fischler on these matters.
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Secondly, a lot of time at the hearing was devoted not only to the outstanding questions concerning enlargement of the Union but also to the question of introducing the European agricultural model to the international stage in the future WTO negotiations and, above all, safeguarding it.
Here too I can state, on behalf of my group, that it is clearly the settled will of the Commission to include such questions as, for example, socio-agricultural standards and European environmental provisions in the Millennium Round.
Our colleague, Mr Garot, has already referred to this matter.
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Thirdly: if, in the next legislature, the Commissioner-designate for Agriculture succeeds in listening more to the draft amendments introduced by Parliament and to parliamentarians themselves (as long as, it is only fair to say, the latter do not exceed the budgetary limits and do not put existing legislation out of force), then a majority of my group is of the opinion that the Candidate' s experience, skills and commitment suggest that he will do some good work as a Member of the Commission.
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<SPEAKER ID=118 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Méndez de Vigo">
Mr Prodi, I am going to vote for you, but I confess that I am not going to vote very willingly.
And if you bear in mind that a Spanish politician once said that the Spanish are characterised by their willingness, you can imagine the mood I am in.
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Why am I going to vote unwillingly?
Well, because I believe that what Europe needs are three things that in my language begin with "i" : ideas (ideas), ilusión (aspiration) and impulso (motivation).
I believe that the speech which you have made today has suffered from a lack of all three.
It has been a speech with no clear political objectives, no edge, and has been downright boring.
You have said that you want the Commission to be the Government of Europe.
So do I, but I believe that your speech has not been that of a President of a European Government but more like a speech of a Secretary-General of the United Nations.
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I will give you an example of what I mean by specific commitments.
The next European Council will cover constitutional reform.
Mr Barnier made an excellent contribution before the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, and he made certain compromises, because this Parliament does not simply aspire to co-operating with the Commission.
What was it that you said today: "the Commission and Parliament will co-operate" ?
No, we already take co-operation for granted, it is in the tradition of the Community.
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What we have wanted since 1997 is to prepare for the Intergovernmental Conference in conjunction with the European Commission.
The Commission must consider this matter - and this Parliament will do the same thing - and these two institutions of the European Union will together try to produce a preparatory document to facilitate the adoption of agreements.
You have not said a word about this although it has been the doctrine of this Parliament since 1997.
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Therefore, Mr Prodi, allow me to give you a piece of advice.
We have to make more commitments, we have to be less prudent, because the Europeans want a strong Commission, which works hard and strives for the interests of Europe.
Mr Prodi, I believe that our citizens are going to demand this objective more and more every day, and not speeches void of commitments.
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<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Grosch">
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, I will not repeat what my colleagues in the PPE have already said and, as a member of the Belgian delegation, I will not introduce internal Belgian politics into this debate.
To my mind, there is a double challenge facing this Commission: winning the confidence of Parliament and also, and especially, that of our fellow citizens.
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As a Member for a border region between Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, I can describe for you the everyday expectations of many Europeans but, in particular, their lack of comprehension concerning the many instances of bullying which affect relations between our Member States.
Investments, employment protection, health protection and fiscal policy are just a few examples of the points at issue.
These problems are not those of a minority in Europe. No, Europe' s shortcomings in these areas are particularly sensitive issues on the national borders.
They are everyday problems which, unfortunately, have only been acknowledged somewhat late in the day as problems for Europe as a whole.
Devoting ourselves to these problems, Mr President, means winning over our citizens, in their work and with their problems. It is in their thinking and in their creative activity that we also have to win them over to the European idea.
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This Parliament has given clear signs to the previous and future Commissions.
We therefore expect genuine co-operation, and right from the start.
We expect strengthened supervision, for EU funds are not anonymous in origin but are tax payments from all our citizens.
We are also awaiting, however, a precise definition of political responsibility from this Commission.
I shall express my confidence in you and your team because you alone at present bear the responsibility for this College and for its strengths and weaknesses.
The power is in your hands, Mr President, to ensure that Parliament' s signals are correctly interpreted.
One thing I know already. A highly critical Parliament will not be fobbed off for weeks with arguments about overall responsibility.
Our vote of confidence is no blank cheque but an offer of constructive co-operation from many Members of this Chamber.
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<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="Sumberg">
Madam President, this is the first or maiden speech that I shall make in this Chamber and in the tradition of the House of Commons from which I came, I should normally spend a great deal of time talking about the beauty of my area.
But time does not permit it and I shall simply content myself by thanking those who sent me here for doing so and saying that I will try and serve their interests as best I can.
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I shall not vote for the Prodi Commission.
Firstly, despite my fondness for my former parliamentary colleague, Neil Kinnock, my party and I made a commitment at the European elections that we would not support any Commission which had within it previous members.
Although I do not expect anybody else to support that, I hope those who disagree will understand that in a democratic society when you make a commitment to people who elect you, you try and comply with that commitment when you get elected.
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Secondly, I shall not vote for this Commission because I do not believe that in real substance anything has changed in the last few weeks as a result of the hearings which we have had.
We have not had enough time to question Commissioners; we have not had enough time to follow up with an interrogatory process.
There has been not one individual vote in any committee on any Commissioner, not one Commissioner has been forced to withdraw as a result of the questions as to his suitability and not one Commissioner has accepted any sort of responsibility for the events of the past.
Because we cannot vote for individual commissioners tomorrow and because I cannot individually record my vote in this Chamber that my colleague Mr Patten would make a fine Commissioner for External Affairs, I am left with simply no choice but to vote against this whole Commission in order to send a message to Mr Prodi and his colleagues that if and when they are elected they will respond to this Parliament; they will accept that it can no longer be business as usual and that we have to change our ways if we are to give the people of Europe the confidence they must have in this Parliament and its institutions.
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<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Liese">
Madam President, Mr President-designate of the Commission, I am also among those who tomorrow will vote "no" if something decisive still does not happen.
And make no mistake, the discussion in the PPE Group this evening will still be very exciting.
These are the reasons why I shall be voting "no" if no far-reaching change is to take place.
Firstly, your Commission reveals a democratic deficit, Mr Prodi.
The result of the European election is not reflected at any point in your team.
I can appreciate why you' ve accepted a "green" Commissioner in view of the result achieved by the Greens in the European election.
People will not, however, understand why ten Socialists are to be represented when they ask what influence their votes have really had upon the composition of the European Commission.
And let us ask your predecessor, Mr Santer. Who, in this connection, has achieved any kind of success with the various national governments?
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My second reason is the answers given by the Commissioners-designate at the hearings about the van Buitenen case.
The citizens of Europe will not understand it if a new strategy is not at last applied here and those who care about transparency do not also finally receive stronger support in the Commission.
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The biggest problem for me and many others, however, is the proposed successor to Mrs Cresson.
I do not, of course, want to pronounce any legal judgement upon Mr Busquin. I do not represent Belgian justice, and none of us want to put him in prison.
The question is that of how we can restore trust in the European institutions.
Do you really believe that we can win the citizens' trust when the only answer we are ever presented with is "I have not been accused personally" ? Mr Busquin is involved in the Inusop affair and has not been accused for the sole reason that the case became statute-barred.
This is an astonishing parallel to the case of the EU' s Balkans Co-ordinator, Bodo Hombach.
And in the Dessault-Augusta affair it has since become very clear that he knew of an illicit fund.
I wonder who can guarantee us that we will not have illicit funds in the Commission in future, in the DG XII or elsewhere, if this subject is not tackled in a better way than has so far been the case. So, Mr Prodi, you can still convince me by active intervention, but you must provide a very clear sign to Parliament and to the public.
Otherwise, I shall be voting "no" tomorrow like a lot of other people. It won' t be a "no" vote for Europe but a vote for a clean, democratic and transparent Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fatuzzo">
Mr President-designate, while I was listening to your address this morning, at one point you made me jump because you said 'the pensioners are here' .
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I said to myself, "he has spotted me" , but you had your back turned to me.
Thank you, Mr President, for having unintentionally quoted me because I have come to the European Parliament as leader of the Pensioners' Party to represent for the first time the needs of the elderly.
So this statement by Mr Prodi, in which he went on to say that he will keep matters relating to pensioners in mind, has given me hope for what the next few years will bring.
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I must say that I and the pensioners who sent me here to seat 270 of the European Parliament were pleased by the comment made by Mrs Anna Diamantopoulou.
When she replied to one of my questions during the hearings - and we should point out what did not go well but also what did - she said that she is fully aware of the issue concerning the elderly who expect a pension which the fifteen Member States are no longer able to pay because the pension funds are weak and are in deficit.
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The elderly live for too long, and we and our supporters will do our best to make our lives as short as possible, but I am afraid this will not be enough. So I hope that the European Parliament and the Commission will finally speak out for the elderly so that the fifteen Member States give them the respect they deserve and, above all, establish rules that ensure that the money people have to pay every month is safe, so that they will have a pension in the future.
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<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Prodi">
<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Madam President, since we still have some money left, I would like to remind Mr Prodi of the earthquakes in Greece.
I noticed that he listened with some compassion and made some notes, perhaps to remind himself to include the issue in his rejoinder.
It is a good opportunity, now that we have time, to hear Mr Prodi' s thoughts on a matter which has scarred the whole population of a Member State of the European Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Prodi">
Following your address this morning, Mr Alavanos, I had a long talk with Mr Kinnock about the earthquake.
He is organising and co-ordinating the report on this subject, so I have not mentioned it now but I have taken steps in the meantime.
Mr Kinnock told me that on Thursday he will be ready to give us an organised response on this matter.
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<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, if there are no more interventions, I declare our debate closed.
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The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12 p.m.
<P>
(Whilst waiting for the next debate, the sitting was suspended at 4.45 p.m. and resumed at 5 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Budget for 2000
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="President">
The next item is the presentation by the Council of the draft overall budget plan for the financial year 2000.
The acting President-in-Office of the Council, Mrs Siimes, has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Siimes">
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Nogueira Román">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I take the floor to express my perplexity and to say that this Parliament is being presented with the budget of the outgoing Commission before we have elected the new one.
<P>
I believe that, within the context of turning the European Parliament into a genuine parliament, we are doing something that never ever happens in State institutions.
It is the incoming government - which won the elections - which presents the budget and it makes no sense that the Commission that has resigned now obliges us to debate a budget which, in any event, has been initially drawn up by it.
<P>
I say this in the context of European construction.
Mr Prodi, you have said that you want the Commission to be a genuine European government and Mr Poettering, Chairman of the main political group in this Parliament, has even spoken of this role for Parliament in relation to the Commission.
<P>
I wish to add - and I am sorry to cause any Member uneasiness - that the new Members like myself have felt most uneasy because we are dealing with amendments to a budget which we did not know and approving amendments to a budget which has still not been presented.
It is an absurd situation and I believe that - although I do not want to request any measures at the moment - legal measures will be required in the near future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="President">
Sir, I think your question can be answered quite simply.
The budget procedure for the financial year 2000 does not in fact begin today. Instead, we have already previously had a debate on the subject in this Parliament.
At that time, the Council had been dealing with the matter, and we are now about to discuss what the results of the Council's recommendations are.
Now, it is quite simple. We have a Commission which is still in office and of which Mr Liikanen is a member, responsible for the budget.
The new Commission only takes office when we as a Parliament tomorrow approve its appointment and after the Commissioners, at 12.00 p.m. on Thursday in Luxembourg, have taken their oath of office before the European Court of Justice.
From that time on, Mrs Schreyer is responsible.
Until then, Mr Liikanen is responsible, and that is why he now also takes the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="Liikanen">
.
Mr President, the sooner this transition period is over, the better for all of us: as soon as Parliament has confirmed the new Commission, competences can be transferred to the new Commissioners.
<P>
Firstly, I wish to state very briefly that the budget is a legal obligation of the Commission under the Treaty.
The Commission-in-office must handle the budget - it has no choice but to do so.
<P>
I have only very few comments regarding the draft budget adopted by the Council: it proposes a cut of EUR 430 million in commitments and EUR 1.7 billion in payments.
While these cuts are quite normal at this stage of the budget procedure, they are this year supplemented by a substantial redeployment of EUR 430 million in category 4 - external actions - to finance the Kosovo reconstruction of EUR 500 million.
<P>
Although redeployment appears necessary to finance this new priority, one must take account of the fact that too great a redeployment risks destabilizing the budgetary and political balance in external relations.
Redeployment should be the main source of financing of the Kosovo action but it may have to be supplemented by other means.
<P>
As far as agricultural expenditure is concerned, the new Commission will come back at the end of October with new forecasts in its now traditional letter of amendment which has been agreed by the institutions.
<P>
I take note of the Council' s overall concern to improve the situation of the outstanding commitments by following most of the Commission' s requests.
In category 2 - structural actions - where payments can be reduced due to the proposal to adapt the payment on account from 4 to 3.5%: this can be done without major difficulties.
<P>
Finally, however, I would like to draw your attention to an important inconsistency in the Council' s decision.
The Council proposes to increase the Commission' s administrative expenditure by only 0.9% while it foresees an increase of 3.5% for the other institutions.
The Council has achieved its reduction by assuming that the Commission would increase the number of vacant posts and thus realise important savings.
This aim goes against what the European Parliament has wanted for many years and what the Commission has undertaken to do, namely to reduce the number of vacant posts.
<P>
All in all, the key to success in this year' s budgetary procedure is the financing of the EUR 430 million needed for the reconstruction of Kosovo and of Turkey following the earthquake.
I am sure that the new Commission will look into this matter as one of the first priorities and come forward with a balanced proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="Wynn">
Mr President, can I just make a point to our colleague at the back who came in on a point of order, which was not actually a point of order but a criticism.
On this occasion the Commission is not presenting anything - it is the Council which is presenting its draft budget.
And on an occasion like this the Commission is not necessarily the enemy - in fact it is quite a friend.
The opposition is these people here!
Let us not lose sight of the fact that a budget has been presented to us today.
<P>
That is no condemnation of the President-in-Office, for whom I have great regard.
Also Mr President, as you said, this process has gone on for several months.
A lot of people have been involved and a lot of hard work has gone into it.
I want to name two people who have been very much involved.
One is Mr Samland, the previous Chairman of the Committee on Budgets, who left Parliament at the end of the last mandate.
He worked tirelessly right up to the end to make sure that we could get the cooperation between the Council and Parliament that we need to get the budget we all want in the year 2000.
The other person I want to thank is Mr Liikanen.
As Commissioner - or Commissioner-designate - this is probably the last time you will sit here on a budgets issue.
We have not clashed over the last few years but have had opportunities to try and solve a lot of problems.
You deserve the praise of this Parliament for the work you have done in the budgetary areas and especially in some of the areas where you have tried to change things within the Commission.
I should like to wish you well for the future.
<P>
Mr President, that has got the nice bits out of the way.
Let us now get down to the budget.
Let us not get this debate mixed up with tomorrow' s debate on the supplementary and amending budgets 1, 3 and 4 for 1999 because, when the President-in-Office says that this spirit of cooperation is based on mutual trust (that is what I wrote down) between the institutions, I only have to remind the Council of what it did with supplementary and amending budgets 1 and 3 and our reaction to it.
That had nothing to do with a spirit of cooperation and it certainly did not breed mutual trust.
<P>
I am reminded of a story I once told Mr Liikanen.
Mrs Dührkop, when she was the rapporteur, likened the harmonious relationships to a symphony being played on a grand piano.
It reminded me of a famous comedy duo in the UK - Morecombe and Wise - where Eric Morecombe was playing a grand piano and making an awful noise and André Previn said to him "You' re playing all the wrong notes" , to which he replied "I' m playing all the right notes, not necessarily in the right order" .
We have to get the right notes between the Council and the Parliament playing in the right order if we are to have this harmonious relationship.
<P>
Madam President-in-Office, you reminded us of those areas where we did get agreement in the trialogues, about the letters of amendment in the autumn, about the commitment appropriations in the Structural Funds and about what our clear priorities should be.
You also said that the budget should have the same discipline as national budgets.
We have always considered that this Parliament' s Committee on Budgets and Parliament itself are extremely prudent.
They do not go out of their way to make problems in the budget or to waste taxpayers' money.
<P>
Our problems are caused in the main in Member States, where 85% of EU money is actually administered and 85% of our problems occur.
If we had more cooperation with the Member States we would not have as many problems.
Also, there are many Member States' national budgets which are running deficits.
That is one thing we cannot do.
<P>
On the different categories, on Category 1 I would agree with the President-in-Office when she said that agricultural expenditure should be based on up-to-date facts.
That is why we agreed on an ad hoc procedure; that is why we agreed on the letter of amendment in the autumn.
But for the life of me I cannot see why you have actually made cuts in Category 1.
If we are waiting to find out what the latest situation is, why have we made reductions in Category 1 already?
It just seems to be an exercise of taking money out of the system because that is the thing to do to please the Member States.
<P>
As for Category 2, we may have the commitment on commitment appropriations but we certainly do not have the same understanding when it comes to payments.
Taking EUR 1billion from payments, once again, is just a burden for the future.
The Member States have to pay some time.
It is no use trying to dodge the fact or hide it away.
It will not go away.
That money has to be paid for sometime.
We would argue that now is the right time and that decision should not be delayed.
<P>
Looking at the reductions made in Category 3, there are many areas where we will disagree and agree to disagree.
<P>
In Category 4, the 10% across the board cut - I am now speaking for Parliament before it has decided this - I would assume is absolutely unacceptable.
Yes, Kosovo is a priority; yes, we do want to make sure that funds are available for East Timor and earthquake victims in Turkey.
But the way to do that is by a revision of the financial perspective.
That will be our position, I am sure.
Yes, we want a solution.
We do not want confrontation between our two bodies but at the end of the day we want to make sure that development, other sections of Category 4 and external expenditure are not disadvantaged.
If money cannot be spent then we will look at those areas where it may have to be reduced.
But a 10% across the board cut is not the way to do it.
<P>
On Category 5, the sad part is that we still see no solutions being proposed by the Council on how to solve the problem of pensions within the institutions.
I am sure my colleagues Mr Bourlanges and Mr Virrankoski will add to my comments.
We look forward to our first reading next month when the Council will get a pretty good idea of our opinion of its draft budget.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Mr President, I would like firstly to express my agreement with Chairman Wynn' s words on the timely nature of this debate.
This is a debate taking place between the Council and Parliament.
As far as I know, the Council-in-Office is not currently involved with the appointment procedures.
I think that this is a shame, because I would have been delighted to appoint Mrs Siimes.
But this is not our role.
Tomorrow we will be appointing the incoming Commission.
I am also delighted to have this last opportunity to deal with Mr Liikanen in his present role, before the metamorphosis which will have taken him, the day after tomorrow to a new post.
I would like to take the opportunity this debate has given to me to say that although our exchanges have sometimes been rather harsh, we have always appreciated the talent, seriousness and the extremely open and cordial nature which have characterised the way we have worked together.
<P>
Basically, Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, I have to say that the Commission' s draft budget did not really impress us, and that we are disappointed with the Council' s budget proposal.
The reason this draft failed to impress us is that it was brought in at a time when the Commission was not really in a position to make sound financial forecasts.
This made its work appear somewhat unreal, particularly because it could not, and with good reason, absorb the crisis in Kosovo and its financial consequence and, finally, for reasons which do not strike us as being particularly satisfactory, because it refused to respond to the concerns expressed by Parliament on the issue of administrative reform.
In our budgetary advice, we had asked for a progressive dismantling of the TAOs.
<P>
In our budgetary advice, we asked for a detailed evaluation of personnel requirements and of the capacity to act that the Commission thought it had with its current staffing level.
We did not find you to be particularly enthusiastic on these two points.
<P>
We were disappointed Madam President, I shall not pretend otherwise, with the Council Budget.
We found category 1 disappointing.
We still do not understand why, for what purpose, with obligatory expenditure, you are enforcing massive reductions across the board.
The argument given to us by certain representatives, according to which this is due to the changing monetary situation, seems to us, I must remind you, to be contrary or opposed to the very precise rules of our financial regulations.
<P>
Nor do we understand why, in category 2, you have reduced payment credits even though there might be several technical justifications for them.
<P>
In category 3, we can see clearly that although you may have performed a good job for the large programmes, which means all those which stopped at the co-decision stage, everything that concerns Parliament directly and specifically, on the other hand, you have sacrificed.
You defend what is ours, you defend what belongs to both of us, but what belongs to us alone, you hold in contempt.
<P>
In category 4, you know the extent of the problem.
You have tried to fit into this category a whole range of problems which do not fit: the "fishing" agreement on Morocco, and especially the enormous funds, estimated to stand at around 500 million for Kosovo, and that is without expanding the category any further.
The result of this is that your proposal would be, as we say, robbing Peter to pay Paul - to sacrifice the priorities established by yesterday' s legislative and budgetary authorities for the sake of tomorrow' s priorities.
We do not feel that this is a good policy.
<P>
In category 5, finally, we note a great reluctance to tackle the problem of pensions.
We consider this to be a serious matter.
We would also like to see a little more solidarity in supporting the much-needed changes to the Commission' s administrative structures.
I think that, to sum up our complaint about your budget proposal, you seem to be simultaneously insulting the past, the present, and the future.
<P>
You are insulting the past, for the reasons I have just mentioned.
As soon as you think that tomorrow' s priorities should be financed by sacrificing hitherto accepted priorities, you are acting unacceptably.
We know, and you were quite right to remind us, that the Commission will have greater responsibilities in terms of foreign policy.
It must fulfil these responsibilities.
<P>
You are insulting the present, because you are making no provision for the efforts necessary for credit payments.
<P>
You are insulting the future finally; by the way you are ignoring or treating indifferently the high stakes which await us in the areas of administrative reform and retirement.
<P>
So we will be having a constructive dialogue, Madam President.
I have confidence in your ability to co-operate.
But I want you to know that our dialogue will be difficult.
We will not accept the interinstitutional agreement that we signed and ratified becoming a yoke around our neck.
Co-operation, yes. The sacrifice of the European Union' s fundamental priorities, no.
We will certainly ask you for a revision of the Financial Perspective whenever this proves necessary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Virrankoski">
Mr President, before I start I want to welcome you, honourable Minister, to the European Parliament and to its plenary part-session.
At the same time I want to thank Commissioner Liikanen especially for his valuable co-operation.
Your work with Parliament has been transparent, decent and honest.
<P>
My own maiden task relates to the administrative course of the year 2000 budget, which affects more institutions than the Commission and the Council.
The combined budget for these institutions is EUR 1,288 million.
This is a 3.66% increase on last year' s budget.
The addition is remarkably large though it is within the framework of the currently valid agreement between official bodies.
The budget of the European Parliament does exceed the share agreed by Parliament itself in accordance with the gentleman' s agreement, which is 20% of category 5, because it currently stands at 20.3%.
This naturally means that some pressure for cuts is directed at Parliament' s budget in the hearing.
<P>
Recently, the European Parliament has observed great discipline in budgetary policy.
In the staffing policy of the official bodies, great moderation has been observed, which meant that staff increases were less than in the previous five-year period.
Between 1995 and 1999, Parliament' s staff increased by eleven people, and likewise, the staff of the Court of Justice increased by eleven people.
The Court of Auditors received a considerable increase in resources in 1997, and it grew to have a total staff of 49 officials. The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs as well as the Committee on Regional Policy increased their staff by ten people.
This has been achieved by employing a deliberate staff policy and by redeployment of tasks.
We therefore have a good inheritance which we should cherish.
<P>
Now a change is threatening this development, in which the EU is attempting to save taxpayers' money.
Different institutions are aiming to gain substantial increases in the number of posts.
In connection with this, it must be stressed that the European Parliament is an important example.
If the European Parliament attempts to increase its own staff considerably, this is a clear signal to other institutions.
The same can be said concerning the promotion of grades.
For this reason, the European Parliament has to create alignment in this budget hearing concerning the budgets for the next few years.
Now it must be decided what kind of disciplined staffing policy the European Parliament wishes to follow, because it has quite a lot of authority in this matter.
I want to stress that in leading the way for the other EU institutions, the European Parliament cannot evade its responsibility in this matter.
<P>
My predecessor in this post, Edith Müller, drew attention to activity-based budgeting.
Put concisely, Parliament directs money to official bodies for administration as a lump sum, and each official body can itself decide on the basis of its own unique organisation about the salary grades to be imposed and increases in those grades.
I support this idea fully.
The fact of the matter is that activity-based budgeting is the only sensible way of developing administration of staffing in the different institutions.
It is not particularly sensible that the Committee on Budgetary Control and the President of the Council discuss the establishment of one C-grade when there are 1,776 C-grades in Parliament.
It is much better to discuss allocations and grant them without analysing them in minute detail.
<P>
This point of view also accords with the report from the Group of Independent Experts.
It emphasises the need for personal responsibility as well as economic responsibility at lower levels of the official machinery.
The only means of stressing this responsibility for improving the administration as well as for improving the supervision of the financial management is to delegate this power and responsibility to lower levels.
At the same time, we must improve one urgent problem in particular, namely the slow payment transactions of the EU.
It is incongruous and objectionable that the EU needs longer payment times than Member States or enterprises whose budgets can be many times the size of the EU budget when compared.
<P>
The development of staffing policy must be regarded as an important part of EU policy.
Activity based budgeting, the division of allocations and responsibility amongst lower levels of the administrative machinery, an efficient monitoring of monetary transactions as well as emphasising personal responsibility still require a lot of work.
These issues must be clearly borne in mind when staffing legislation is reformed in the next few years.
Therefore, and for this reason, it is possible to strongly agree with the Council' s demand that the Commission must set about preparing new regulations on staffing.
With these thoughts in mind, I would like to consign the Council' s budget proposal to a reading in the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for the speeches given here. I would like to focus on commenting closely on one issue, but an issue which is important, called category 4 or, put more precisely, Kosovo.
<P>
In the first place, and as I said in my own speech, my view is that the question of providing the necessary finances for Kosovo will surely come to be one of the most central and dominant elements of the autumn budgetary process.
The Council view has been that we make the creation of a reservation for Kosovo a priority.
It is true that part of the funds allocated to category 4 have been cut, but the Council cuts expressly mean a reduction with regard to the Commission' s proposal when compared with 1999.
In accordance with this view, most of the allocations belonging to category 4 have grown in comparison to the budget of the past year, and on the other hand, there are also points under category 4 to which no cuts at all have been applied.
Within the framework of these regulations, Kosovo has been regarded as an absolute priority.
<P>
As regards the references made by both Mr Wynn and Mr Bourlanges concerning the agreement between official bodies and other financial means other than those newly allocated, I can state the view of the Council to be that it is possible to limit the reservation for Kosovo by means of a completely new allocation or by a transfer of allocations, but the Council is honouring the agreement between official bodies and all of its points.
I have stated on many earlier occasions that we have to expect consistent estimates of the requirements concerning the rebuilding of Kosovo.
Up to now the results of the estimates of what is required have been encouraging to the extent that the estimates of what is required for aid have fallen rather than increased as matters have progressed.
<P>
In the agreement between official bodies, it is stated that before the financial framework is exceeded, other ways of attending to finances will be clarified, and this the Council has done in accordance with its own views.
On the basis of current information, we assume this to be sufficient, but we are, of course, ready to debate this issue in the light of better information because, as we all know, acceptance of the budget requires that both official bodies with budgetary control come to a consensus on the issues. As I stated at the outset, if we go down the path of effective co-operation and trust as well as a desire to seek mutual solutions, we will surely be able to reach the end of this process, or the year 2000 budget, together.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, I just wanted to ask the Minister if it has been thought to include the International Monetary Fund in these discussions about financial resources for East Timor, Turkey and Kosovo so that we do not have to bear the burden alone.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, this point of view on the inclusion of the International Monetary Fund is the kind of matter which the Council itself must study for its part.
In general, when assistance is the matter under consideration, it would be a good idea for all of the parties concerned who are, in one way or another, dependent on currents of money flowing in some direction, to assemble around the same table.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="President">
Thank you, Minister.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 p.m.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 5.53 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Tribute
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I have the sad duty of informing you of the death of the Greek Deputy Foreign Minister, Yannos Kranidiotis, in an accident, and also that of five other people who were accompanying him, including his 23-year-old son.
<P>
The Minister was on an official mission.
He was travelling with 12 other people to Bucharest when his plane lost altitude and dropped from 25,000 feet to 3,000 feet without crashing, finally coming to land at the airport in Bucharest.
<P>
Some of you will certainly recall that Yannos Kranidiotis was a Member of the European Parliament between January 1995 and February 1997, when he was appointed as a Minister in the Greek Government, and you will remember that he was, within our Parliament, a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committee on Budgets, as well as being the Vice-President of the joint European Union/Cyprus delegation.
<P>
Many of us have memories of our late colleague.
I shall say that he was greatly appreciated for his qualities as a human being and for his competence in the field of European politics.
<P>
I propose that we observe a minute' s silence in his memory.
<P>
(The House rose and observed a minute' s silence)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Madam President, first of all, I must express my appreciation, on behalf of my group, for the tribute which has been paid to the memory of Mr Kranidiotis.
But I had requested the floor in accordance with Rule 122 of the Rules of Procedure to make an intervention for personal reasons, concerning the accusations made against me yesterday by Mr Galeote during the debate on the investiture of President Prodi.
In accordance with the Rules of Procedure, this is the appropriate moment in the proceedings.
As I cannot see Mr Galeote in the Chamber, I leave it to your discretion as to whether I speak now or when he is present.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President">
I think, Mr Barón Crespo, that the Rules of Procedure envisage that you should make your statement now as a personal statement, even if Mr Galeote Quecedo is not present.
He will be able to read of it in the Minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Madam President, Mr Galeote made an intervention which was inappropriate on the grounds that we were not carrying out a motion of censure against myself but rather a debate on the investiture of Mr Prodi, and he criticised my comments about Mrs de Palacio.
As I have here the text of my intervention, I confirm what I said yesterday.
I said that we have decided to support the investiture of the new Commission despite the reservations which we have in relation to Mrs de Palacio, whose innocence we accept, but whose idea of political responsibility in a matter which concerns the Community budget we do not share.
Let us hope that, as Vice-President, she offers more trustworthy information than she gave on her exoneration by the Congress of Deputies, since the debate in the plenum of that Congress will not take place until next Thursday.
This is what I said yesterday and I stand by it.
<P>
And, as he accused me of dishonesty, all I want to say at the moment is that, in accordance with the principles and indications of President Prodi in relation to the responsibility of Commissioners, I believe that, if today this Parliament approves the political resolution, with the consensus of all the groups, on the new Commission, Mr Galeote will find himself part of an Assembly of dishonest people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
We shall now return to the Minutes, if you don' t mind.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
Mr Bourlanges, this correction has already been included in the Minutes: "Mr Bourlanges indicated that he had intended to vote in favour."
But you have just managed to advertise your intentions a little more.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Madam President, I have also had a problem with the machine.
In yesterday' s Minutes, on the question of the interpretation of the Rules of Procedure, it appears that I did not vote.
I was obviously here and I do not know whether the machine worked.
I would like this to be recorded in the Minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
Very well, Mrs Palacio, we take note of this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Madam President, after the few small criticisms which I have had to make, may I use this opportunity to express my gratitude and praise the support services.
In today 's Minutes, the remarks I made are correctly reported, in fact almost more correctly than I spoke them myself.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
We appreciate your compliments, Mr Posselt.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Madam President, the Minutes give Mrs Stenzel as the member of the ACP delegation from the delegation of Austrian Members.

However, Mrs Stenzel has nominated me, and I would like to request that this is corrected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Rack.
I see that Mrs Stenzel agrees.
We will amend this.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sichrovsky">
Madam President, may I remind all those present, and yourself, that in this week 55 years ago a forgotten concentration camp, located in our immediate vicinity here, was liberated.
The Natzwiller-Struthof Camp was one of the most gruesome of the Nazi camps, where thousands of people met their death due to medical experiments.
It also contained one of the few gas chambers not located in the large extermination camps of Eastern Europe.
I would therefore like to ask whether it would be possible for Parliament to have a plaque made.
Secondly, I would like to suggest that we send a delegation there on the occasion of the next anniversary of its liberation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="President">
Mr Sichrovsky, I think you might make this proposal in writing, according to the Rules of Procedure, and we would then see what the best follow up might be.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Preparatory work for the European Council meeting in Tampere
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
The next item is the statements of the President of the Council - I would like to congratulate the President-in-Office of the Council, Mrs Halonen - and the Commission on the preliminary work for the meeting of the European Council on 15 and 16 October in Tampere.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Halonen">
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Marín">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Heads of State and Government took the initiative almost a year ago to call an Extraordinary European Council meeting which would be principally dedicated to the area of freedom, security and justice.
This is therefore an act of great importance which will guide the activities of the Union during the coming years.
<P>
In this context, it is important that the European Parliament, whose activity during this last year has been considerable, ensures that its voice is heard after the resolution adopted in its April plenary part-session which established the political framework which is now required.
<P>
The resolution on what we are debating today, furthermore, will have the advantage that it will be adopted on time so that it will be known in the informal meeting in Turku which begins tomorrow.
And the fact that you are talking at the same time about the area of freedom, security and justice and the Charter of Fundamental Rights illustrates the unavoidable political relationship between the two objectives.
<P>
The area of freedom, security and justice must be backed up by a solid guarantee of the respect for rights corresponding to the realities of contemporary society, which is in line with the open and innovative approach which this Parliament wishes to see.
<P>
The Commission, for its part, totally shares this approach, and will firmly commit itself to the process of drawing up the Charter and, of course, Mrs Halonen, we will communicate to the next Commission your invitation to the Commission to make specific proposals in this regard.
<P>
The European Parliament has given some indications as to the most radical institutional reforms which will have to be taken account of during the preparations for the next Intergovernmental Conference.
<P>
In this respect, neither must we forget, although there is much that must be changed, the possibilities which the new framework of the Treaty of Amsterdam offers, particularly in relation to democratic control and transparency.
The Commission fully shares your opinion on the contents you wish to see for the area of freedom, security and justice.
<P>
Some common ground has come into view; for example, with regard to the importance attached to access to justice, the development of a coherent strategy in the field of immigration and asylum, the protection of the weaker groups and those suffering from discrimination, or the strengthening of the mechanisms used in the fight against organised crime.
These are very sensitive points and they will all firstly require a broad political consensus and a great political will in order to find common solutions.
<P>
As I said before, the establishment of an area of freedom, security and justice is a basic objective in bringing the Union closer to the citizens, and this matter forms part of the daily concerns of the citizens of the Union.
It is therefore essential if European construction is to have even more legitimacy.
For this reason, failure is not an option.
<P>
Therefore the Commission, like Parliament, hopes and trusts that the Tampere meeting will provide an initial impetus.
The issues are very complicated, very sensitive and, as Mrs Halonen said, very different political cultures will be dealing with the same phenomenon, but it is good that this process has been started.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pirker">
Madam President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, you rightly pointed out that this summit in Tampere is an Extraordinary Summit on the subject of making preparations for an area of freedom, security and justice.
In conclusion you also pointed out that prior to this - tomorrow and the day after - an Extraordinary Council Summit would take place, a meeting of Ministers for Justice and Ministers for Home Affairs in Turku.
That is why it is so important for us to discuss this subject today here in Parliament, too.
<P>
Against the background of this preparation meeting tomorrow and the day after in Turku and against the background of having to deal in Europe, unfortunately, with a rise in organised crime, drugs-related crime, the criminal trade in human beings and the like, it was incomprehensible to me that we should have to discuss in this Chamber whether we could even have this debate here in the European Parliament.
I am pleased, however, that we in the European People' s Party, together with the friends of security, have successfully been able to implement the initiative in this Chamber against the Social Democrat Group who did not want this discussion to take place here.
<P>
It is a matter of the possibility and the necessity of giving a clear sign here that we take the sphere of security and justice seriously, that the point is to prepare material for the Tampere Summit in the interests of the security and freedom of the citizens of Europe. This is essential.
The Council keeps appearing here and putting forward great proposals.
I see that as very positive. What is lacking is the translation of these into concrete action.
What became, for example, of the asylum paper which was discussed about a year ago? What became of the strategic paper on asylum and migration submitted by the Austrian Presidency?
We are still waiting for the implementation of EURODAC.
We are waiting for the harmonisation of data which would make it possible to check which anti-drugs campaigns are successful and which are not.
Announcements must be followed by action.
This is what we are waiting for, concrete action in three areas.
<P>
Firstly, we are waiting for comprehensive strategies on the management of migration which, on the one hand, do not make excessive demands on the capacity of Member States and their citizens to integrate but, on the other hand, also help to avoid social conflict.
We are waiting for lasting instruments for joint solutions to deal with the influx of refugees, unified standards in the field of asylum procedures.
For us, burden sharing in the reception of refugees is indispensable, as indispensable as the preparation of on-site aid.
We need permanent solutions here.
What we also need - I am pleased to see that you mentioned them - are instruments to fight against illegal immigration, the criminal trade in human beings and the abuse of asylum.
We are therefore waiting for EURODAC to be quickly set up and the Schengen security system to become effective at all frontiers in Europe.
We are also awaiting effective measures in the fight against organised crime.
EUROPOL must be fully developed; it must be given operative authority.
Cross-border collaboration between police forces must be extended to provide co-operation in training and co-operation with applicant countries.
Naturally, we expect judicial co-operation to guarantee legal protection for citizens while, on the other hand, enabling speedy and effective criminal prosecution across borders, and that means accelerated procedures, the direct exchange of documents, harmonisation of criminal law systems and also assistance for the victims of crime.
<P>
The challenge has been issued to the Council.
We expect deeds, not fine words and summit photos.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Madam President, my thanks go to the Minister for her most comprehensive presentation.
The Social Democrats here in Parliament are very keen to participate already at this stage in the debate on these important issues.
The removal of obstacles on the road to economic and cultural interaction lies at the heart of European co-operation.
With the single market we wish to improve Europe' s capacity for responding to global competition and thereby create conditions to improve the welfare of our citizens.
Free movement also carries with it the threat of a growth in international crime, which citizens in various parts of Europe feel today is one of the greatest causes for concern.
On the other hand, increased co-operation among the Member States will compel us to examine citizens' rights from a European viewpoint, one that is broader than that pertaining to the individual state.
In this connection, we must emphasise the importance of non-discrimination and the realisation of the rights of minorities.
I also wish to express my satisfaction regarding Mrs Halonen' s urgent call in her speech for the implementation of Article 13 of the Treaty on European Unity, and I too would like to see initiatives from the Commission on this issue.
<P>
The European Council meeting in Tampere on 15 and 16 October will be a historic attempt to shape EU common policy in the prevention of cross-border crime, and in the creation of a European judicial area and a common policy on immigration and asylum.
One of the main issues of the meeting is that of fundamental rights as recognised under the Treaty of Amsterdam, including the right of citizens to security.
Effective crime prevention requires closer co-operation among Member States, which in practice means the co-ordination of legislation and better co-ordination with respect to co-operation with the police and the investigation of crime.
It is also important to invest in the prevention of crime, which is naturally a matter of considerably broader scope than an issue merely for legislative policy.
Safeguarding the free movement of our citizens and the flexible creation of legislation on the subject will require the adoption of the practice of majority ruling in Union legislation.
In reality, it is a question of the implementation, among other things, of the Schengen Convention.
<P>
By strengthening the role of the Union in the creation of a European judicial area, and in the prevention of international crime, we can, at the same time, dispel suspicions that are known to exist regarding closer European co-operation.
Our job will be to show that this is an integral part of European co-operation and, in this way, we will be responding to the worries expressed by our citizens.
These matters also concern the period following enlargement; in other words, the demands being made on the applicant countries.
Closer co-operation will also create a basis for unhampered interaction with the Union' s neighbouring regions.
<P>
Clarity, transparency and ethically sustainable action must be the guiding principle behind European decision-making, whether it is a matter of the Union' s internal administrative culture or of ensuring the rights and security of our citizens.
We need the co-operation of various players, so that these principles may also reach the attention of the people.
The NGOs have an important task to perform.
The fact that Parliament is debating this important subject right now, well before the Extraordinary Summit at Tampere, indicates that the spirit of the Treaty of Amsterdam is being realised in the way intended.
In compliance with the same principle, it is important to assure Parliament that it will be represented on an equal basis with the Council when the Union prepares to draft the Charter in respect of the fundamental rights of citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Watson">
Madam President, the Council Presidency' s tour of capitals has identified three areas about which the President-in-Office has spoken this morning: asylum and immigration, the fight against cross-border crime and the establishment of a European judicial area.
I would like to deal with each one briefly in turn.
<P>
The political challenge in asylum and immigration is striking a balance between the need to safeguard asylum as an individual right and to ensure the proper protection of refugees and the desire to resist economic migration.
Europe needs a common policy on migration.
At the very least we need minimum common standards.
Those must be based on the 1951 Geneva Convention and on the UNHCR guidelines.
We must avoid the lowest common denominator approach which would lead to a downward spiral in the level of protection.
The European Union must show that it will not become a fortress, terrified of infection from without, but that it will remain a refuge for the dispossessed.
<P>
Events in recent years show us how easily situations of mass influx of refugees can come about.
We need a clear message from Tampere on disentangling asylum from the debate on migration.
A temporary protection regime is fine but only in exceptional circumstances and must not be one which denies the right to individual examination of asylum claims.
Let us make sure that we are not moving back to asylum at political discretion but that we still regard asylum as a human right.
<P>
<P>
In the fight against cross-border crime it is clear that Europol has a role.
Let us get it going. But it is only part of the solution.
There are other ways to strengthen police cooperation such as the idea of a European police staff college.
And there are ways to strengthen judicial cooperation.
For example, some of the ideas that have been put forward under the title "Eurojust" , bringing prosecutors and magistrates from different countries together to prosecute cross-border crime.
We need to determine the precise role, powers and financial implications of Eurojust and the issue of accountability.
We need to maintain a balance between the prosecution of offences and the protection of the rights of defendants.
<P>
Much has been said about making life more difficult for the criminal but harmonising offences and penalties is an ambitious project.
It has been compared to the 1992 Single Market Programme.
It merits study, but let us not make the best the enemy of the good.
Let us also look at progress on mutual recognition of judicial decisions in criminal matters.
<P>
I would challenge you, President-in-Office, to define the European judicial area.
It seems in matters of civil law to be about making access to justice easier.
There are opportunities for concrete progress in cross-border litigation.
We have already a certain degree of harmonisation: certain conventions are being worked on, for example, on driving disqualification.
Much can be done on mutual recognition too. But when the European judicial area is looked at in the criminal field we are perhaps talking about operating as though there were no legal boundaries within Europe.
When we deal with harmonisation of criminal law the key concept is full confidence in each other' s legal systems.
Here we need common minimum standards and safeguards, for example, on the treatment of suspects in custody.
We need a rigorous and transparent evaluation of criminal justice systems in the Member States.
We need a form of inspection and evaluation to build confidence, perhaps similar to the Schengen test on border controls.
We need to invest in judicial systems such as in the training of judges and magistrates.
I would commend to the Presidency the proposal for a system of Euro bail where people could be granted bail while they await trial and serve the period of bail in their home state.
<P>
In conclusion, President-in-Office, the scale of the agenda you have for Tampere is wide, the contributions from the Member States are many and varied.
Your ideas seem not yet completely formed so you will forgive us if we are sceptical about the prospects for success.
We need the Justice and Home Affairs Ministers there if we are to have real progress.
We need the European Parliament involved.
That means giving us full access to documentation as the debate develops.
Finally, we need from Tampere a summit that will carry public opinion, that will tailor its ambitions to the human and financial resources available but will give us guidelines to demonstrate the relevance of the area of freedom, security and justice to ordinary people
<P>
(Applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Wuori">
Madam President, despite the splendid presentation by the President-in-Office of the Council, Mrs Halonen, I have to draw attention to the secretive way preparations have been made for the meeting at Tampere, which last week led to a grotesque incident after the Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende published a story saying that a curb would be put on immigration from third countries, even with recourse to scare campaigns and threats.
A certain Finnish television reporter, who had used a quite harmless memo on the Tampere meeting he had got from a Member of Parliament, received a communication from the Secretary-General and the Speaker at the Finnish Parliament banning him indefinitely from entering the Parliament building.
Suppressing the free flow of information and bypassing society in this way, whilst preparing for a summit on an area of freedom, security and justice, gives cause to suspect that that area is not free or open to the extent that our traditions would require.
It gives cause to suspect that narrow, strict security, which is ultimately based on repression, will ignore those very freedoms and fundamental rights of citizens whose enhancement ought now to be on the agenda.
<P>
The Finnish writer, Samuli Paronen, said, "The more efficient the security systems, the more insecure the people" .
Ignorance is not a virtue; sometimes it may be a questionable blessing. Ignorance due to secrecy has no place in a mature political system, such as the one we should be building for a Europe of the citizen, of the individual.
In this way, we can also achieve a positive, humane and open policy on immigration and an asylum procedure which genuinely complies with the Geneva Convention and avoids discrimination of any kind.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Madam President, democracy demands that we take decisions through a system of majority ruling.
Democracy also demands that people have fundamental rights, which may not be violated by means of majority ruling.
Such violations must be prevented in a constitutionally governed state.
Privacy is a human right that cannot be abolished with an EU directive, a convention or national legislation.
There is legal provision for the protection of privacy in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the European Convention on Human Rights.
<P>
Representing the Council, Mrs Halonen said that it was necessary to identify certain new types of crime that had come into existence.
But then it is necessary to recognise the existence also of crimes relating to the violation of people' s privacy, which intelligence agencies in the USA and the EU countries are guilty of 24 hours a day.
I speak of electronic surveillance.
In the European judicial area, prevention of this type of crime seems still not to be the object of political and parliamentary preparatory action or control, and merely takes the form of police co-operation. There are types of crime that remain outside the democratic system, which the preparation of the Enfopol 19 document is connected with.
There are undemocratic issues that are connected with the so-called Ilets police co-operation. Undemocratic too is the Echelon programme for collaboration on espionage and the bilateral agreements between the security services in the USA and the EU countries.
It is also a crime that American computer manufacturers and software companies install special ID codes in their products.
It is a crime against people' s privacy, in addition to which it jeopardises the security of European states.
<P>
We have to fight against such things and crimes of this type with transparency and by drawing public attention to them.
I hope that Finland will move from words to deeds in this issue.
At present, there is no visible prospect of an increase in transparency and public awareness during the Finnish presidential term: they only speak about it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Camre">
Madam President, the members of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group intend to vote against this motion for a resolution.
The main reason for this is that the resolution aims at introducing a legal situation which goes beyond the EU treaties in force.
The resolution includes a number of proposals which are directly inconsistent with each other.
It will not be possible to stop organised crime, the trade in human beings, money laundering and terrorism just through co-operation between police forces if, at the same time, the doors to the free movement of people between EU countries are opened, both for EU citizens and everyone else, and certainly not if controls on the EU' s external borders are weakened, as will inevitably happen when the EU is enlarged.
As a prior condition of creating peace and security in Europe, the EU' s Member States must work more actively to create this peace, security, economic growth and democracy in the EU' s poor neighbouring countries.
The solution is not to use resources in a non-prioritised way to move poor countries' populations to Europe, but to employ resources for the purpose of exporting European development to poor countries.
Immigration to Europe helps only a minority and often a quite random minority, while the majority of people in the immigrants' home countries continues to suffer under existing conditions.
The motion for a resolution is devoid of any reference to these central solutions, and it is aimed solely at promoting federalist development in the European Union, a form of development which a majority of the population in my country, Denmark, dissociated itself from in the 1993 referendum on the Treaty of Amsterdam.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Madam President, the area of freedom, security and justice we have spoken of is a utopia that we will never achieve on this earth.
<P>
The institutions have high expectations in terms of what the further development of the European Union will bring its citizens.
I think there is a need for a certain amount of modesty when it comes to the things we can achieve, and that we should exercise a certain amount of caution when it comes to extending European competencies in the field of justice and home affairs still further.
<P>
There is certainly a need for this.
A European policy on asylum is long overdue, for example.
Opening up the borders has created a need for co-ordination.
A number of countries, of which the Netherlands is one, have had to deal with a disproportionately large influx of asylum seekers in recent years.
The reality of the situation is compelling us to bring about substantive harmonisation of legislation in order to prevent a "race to the bottom" .
The main thing is that genuine asylum seekers should not suffer as a result of the tightening-up of EU legislation.
The minimum standards must not be allowed to become quite that minimal.
<P>
However, we do not consider it to be a good idea to draw up a European Charter, a new catalogue of civil rights.
The constitutions of the Member States, the ECHR and other treaties already offer adequate protection to citizens, so there is no need for there to be an accumulation of all different kinds of constitutional systems of government, as the Dutch Minister for Home Affairs said last week.
<P>
In short, there are many items on the Tampere agenda offering us the opportunity to get down to some real work.
However, the European Parliament runs the risk of putting itself beyond the discussion by straining to achieve its own utopia in which the citizens are enabled, by virtue of the advantages of European citizenship thrust upon them, to at last see the light at the end of the tunnel.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Gaulle">
Madam President, like the previous speakers, I believe that, firstly, the creation of a European judicial area and, secondly, the introduction of general regulations for the control of immigration, will not contribute in any way towards solving the problems of cross-border crime or immigration.
This is just another decoy being waved in front of public opinion in Europe in order to deceive people into thinking that Europe is capable of solving their problems.
<P>
I would like to speak, anticipating a little bit, about the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference; this conference is actually already on course without us however knowing the exact conditions.
The European elections demonstrated the very deep disaffection of the various peoples of Europe with regard to the European Union.
<P>
The questions which public opinion has been wondering about may be summed up as follows: where exactly does Europe offer added value and improve these decision-making systems of ours? Has Europe brought us greater economic growth, an improved standard of living in daily life or the expectation of participating in a great adventure?
The response given in many countries, starting with the Netherlands - which in fact surprised me a little, because it was in the Netherlands that the Maastricht Treaty and the Treaty of Amsterdam were signed - has been negative.
More and more people are starting to have doubts about the value of the fast track to integration and indeed about the value of the Treaties which Mr Barnier, who has moved all the way from Gaullism to centrism finding no middle ground, would like to see enshrined in the constitution.
<P>
But, Mr Bourlanges, thirty years ago you were a Gaullist and now you are the opposite of a Gaullist, since you are a centrist.
<P>
In other words, the subject of the forthcoming IGC should be not to reinforce this institutional process but, on the contrary, to reduce it, that is to say, to limit the scope of activities of the Union, returning to a common market which respects the environment and public health.
<P>
Moreover, Mr Lamy, the Commissioner-delegate, described the building of Europe as a phenomenon without historical determinism, "a human and fragile endeavour."
He doubted that there was really a future...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Dimitrakopoulos">
Madam President, please allow me, first of all, as a Greek MEP, to express my sorrow at the death of a former colleague and friend, the Greek Deputy Foreign Minister, Yannos Kranidiotis and his entourage.
<P>
The Extraordinary European Council meeting in Tampere is undoubtedly particularly significant, since it aims to formulate more integrated policies on freedom, security and justice within the European Union as it is now, a European Union which is expanding and within a European Union which is developing ever closer ties with third countries - policies which, as we all understand, are perhaps more directly related to some of the issues which fall under the headings of justice, security and freedom in Europe, such as the issues of immigration and asylum.

The Tampere meeting is also being called upon to address the issues of freedom, security and justice for citizens in relation to the new conditions created by the new challenges involved in crossing the threshold from the 20th to the 21st century.
<P>
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, in a few hours, you will have in front of you a resolution of the European Parliament on these issues.
I wish to ask you to pay particular attention to this resolution, since the proposals of the European Parliament do not aim just to resolve isolated problems.
On the contrary, they aim to create a new institutional framework which will not only guarantee freedom, security and justice within the European Union, but also put forward recommendations for specific policies on a range of sensitive issues, such as the key issues of immigration, asylum - since, judging by recent events, it is clear that unfortunately we need a new approach to the matter - and crime. I believe, as I am sure we all do, that the list is a long one.
<P>
Madam President, the drawing up of a Charter of Fundamental Rights for citizens is, of course, also relevant to those issues to be discussed at the Extraordinary European Council meeting in Tampere.
At this stage, we are, of course, debating the establishment of a body that will deal with this very important matter.
I would like to ask the Council to review its proposal and to ensure that the European Parliament' s participation in this body is genuinely representative of the European Parliament and reflects all the political forces and all the various political tendencies and beliefs which are currently to be found in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would have liked to say something in response to the speech by Mr de Gaulle.
Now, unfortunately, he has left the Chamber after his speech, which has actually done more to raise the tone of the debate than his presence did.
<P>
The Finnish President-in-Office of the Council has presented her ideas, and I would like to draw your attention, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, to one point which I consider essential in connection with the debate on the construction of the area of freedom, security and justice.
Practically all the ideas you have presented, and everything my fellow Members have mentioned here in the debate - as far as the collaboration of the European Parliament, national parliaments, the Council and the Commission is concerned - is within a legal arena, which involves a great danger, the danger of alienating the legislature of the citizens, male and female, of Europe.
<P>
What is this construction of the area of freedom, security and justice about?
It is about security and fundamental rights, that is, on the one hand, the immediate rights of the individual and the protection of security and, on the other hand, the protection of these individual rights by state bodies or by state bodies as they should be established in Europe.
These are two factors, which can affect every individual citizen of Europe, male or female, directly.
There is thus a direct involvement in almost all subjects, whether it is asylum, immigration, migration, EUROPOL, whether it is the Charter of Fundamental Rights, or anything else, there is a direct involvement of each individual citizen, male or female, in this matter.
<P>
But how will legislation be implemented?
All the fine words of the Council do not alter the fact that in 90% of all acts which are passed, only the Council is actively involved.
And how is it involved?
Well, 15 executives come to Brussels, perform the function of a legislature in Brussels, and finally travel back home to their capital cities and then implement the laws enacted by the Council alone, which is to say, the executives in this way, as the practise has been until now, increasingly exclude the national parliaments - as can be seen so clearly in the case of EUROPOL and the materialisation of the EUROPOL Convention - and do not transfer the legislative function to the European Parliament.
In this absence of referral to Parliament, the area of freedom, security and justice, which specifically represents the establishment of a structure of individual claims for protection and of possibilities of intervention in the individual sphere, cannot be established in a way that is really democratically justified.
The European Parliament must therefore appeal to the Council and the Commission.
Particularly in the areas which you have already - all too timidly, in my opinion - decided to make the European Parliament a legislative body with equal rights in the foreseeable future, if you wish to establish a democratic area of freedom, security and justice, in Tampere you must ensure that for the next Intergovernmental Conference we will be a legislative body with equal rights, otherwise you run the risk of alienating the European Union further from the citizens in general.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="President">
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Preparation of the European Council meeting in Tampere (continued)
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wiebenga">
Madam President, what needs to be done to make the Tampere Summit a success?
European policy in the field of justice is in a state ranging from bad to useless, a point I want to make to my newly arrived Finnish colleagues too.
Two examples: massive numbers of people were driven out of Kosovo and, prior to that, out of Bosnia.
The European Union did not and still does not have any arrangements in place for the temporary protection and reception of these groups of people.
The relevant proposal was put forward by the European Commission two years ago, and was adopted by the European Parliament last year.
The national governments have refused up until now to enact the proposal.
<P>
The second example is European fraud; it takes so long to get improved co-operation in the field of justice off the ground.
The question of a European Public Ministry has been raised.
This House voted on that in April and was in favour of it.
The Committee of Wise Men is too, and now it is the Council' s move.
Madam President, the one thing the Tampere Summit needs above all else is the political will of the Member States.
<P>
We have no need for new plans of action, nor do we have any need for "soft law" .
We want the national governments to abolish the unanimity requirement in decision-making, for it is this that paralyses the process, and we want steps to be taken towards achieving this end in Tampere.
<P>
May I ask you another question Madam President-in-Office of the Council?
Give us here in the European Parliament full control and the final say over legislation.
<P>
Madam President, on a final note: more plans of action, more fancy press releases, they are no use to us.
Decision-making by majority voting, full parliamentary control, it really would not be all that difficult to bring this about.
It is a matter of having the political will.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ceyhun">
Madam President, the summit on internal policy in Tampere is a historic milestone in the development of the European Union.
Only a few years ago, the governments of Member States were not prepared to co-operate with the European Parliament on important matters such as collaboration between police forces, migration or common asylum policy.
The time has come for the European Union to lay foundations after Amsterdam.
The results of Tampere will determine how democratic and how just the Union will be, if it is really to be an area of freedom, security and justice for all citizens, male and female.
As yet I have not seen any documents from the Finnish Presidency.
Even in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, the Ministers for Justice and Home Affairs remain too vague.
We have not seen much sign of great Nordic transparency.
<P>
I must therefore refer to documents from Germany about Tampere.
I regret that once again we have to have a debate on internal politics in this Parliament without having the documents of the Council Presidency on the table.
In this connection, I would like to make it clear that my group is very concerned particularly if, in Tampere, the areas of collaboration between police forces, the fight against drugs, data protection and the democratic control of Europol and the Schengen information system are discussed, because we are again afraid, that it is exactly these important points, which have really great significance for European democracy, which will come off badly and that the citizens in general will find in the end that, as far as their rights are concerned, they are the real losers.
I am still hopeful, but previous experience has made me pessimistic.
I hope that the Finnish Presidency of the Council will take our reservations seriously.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Di Lello Finuoli">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we hope that the participants at the Tampere Summit will remember that migratory movements, however relentless, form the basis of the history of humanity and are, in the long-term, the premise for its collective salvation.
We also hope that, on this basis, in trying to create a common area of freedom, security and justice, they are inspired by the principles of solidarity and inclusion and are not thinking about creating a European Community that is peaceful and wealthy on the inside but which is impenetrable to those pushing to get in from the outside on account of hunger, war or social difficulties.
Internal peace and well-being cannot last long because the nearby countries cannot resign themselves to living with insecurity, need and chaos for long.
We would be terrible hypocrites to take up the fight against discrimination, racism, and xenophobia as a founding principle of the European Community and then, in our normal procedure, to implement exclusion policies which heighten the fears of European citizens of being contaminated by people who are different to us.
Just how they are different is a consideration we willingly leave to the racists.
<P>
We would also like the area of freedom, security and justice to aim to increase the guarantees for everyone - be they citizens of the Union or people from other countries - and that it does not stop at declaring formal guarantees but also aims to put substantial guarantees into practice, such as those concerning work, social security, personal freedom, equality between men and women and many others which nowadays are being sacrificed on the altar of competition - global competition - so close to the heart of the Commission and its President.
This neoliberalist strategy, a typical exclusion strategy, makes us sceptical even of the Tampere Summit, and we would be naïve to hope that our scepticism will be proved groundless.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Angelilli">
Madam President, after employment, the most pressing issue that European citizens bring to the Community' s institutions is the security emergency which, because of its nature, cannot be solved by the Member States on an individual basis.
We must commit ourselves fully to this issue, with the aim of strengthening the faith that the European citizens have in Parliament.
<P>
However, I think that the idea of creating a Charter of Fundamental Citizens' Rights does not go far enough.
We already have a lot of written declarations which often are not implemented.
What we really need is the will to use all the practical means necessary to ensure genuine co-operation on legal and police matters.
I think that nowadays, the lack of a European strategy on immigration is unacceptable, with regard to dealing with both legal migration and illegal immigration
<P>
In conclusion, the concept of Europe as not only a single market and currency is very appealing, especially as an area of freedom, security and justice, but it is important for this challenge to become reality through progressively strengthening the Community institutions and developing the collaboration and co-operation between the Member States, rather than resorting to decisions taken by qualified majority, which in itself does not constitute the solution to the problems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Krarup">
There is one paragraph in the motion for a resolution which I have a lot of sympathy for, and that is paragraph 7 b, in which the criticism is made that the texts to be decided upon within the context of the Schengen collaboration have still not been made public, in spite of the fact that they have been Union law since May of this year.
It may then be asked how and in what form the citizens of the Union can take their stand on provisions which are in practice inaccessible.
This is the only paragraph which can be supported.
Other than in this respect, however, both the report by the Council and the Commission and the proposal prepared by Mr Watson head off in a political direction.
Under cover of the concept of an area of security, peace and justice, what we have here is an enormous leap forward in the development of the Union.
It is a question of the EU' s making its presence felt to a much greater degree than there is a mandate for among the populations of Europe. The point is that this House suffers from the obsession that more power to Parliament means the same thing as more democracy.
If I may say so, that is a very restricted understanding of democracy.
<P>
The crux of the matter is that the proposal and the reports from the Council and the Commission, as well as the motion for a resolution under consideration, contemplate a massive transfer of powers to the European Union.
We are talking here about the judicial system, criminal law and police powers.
In part it is about constructing a Fortress Europe, necessitated partly by the EU' s own policy, but what we are concerned with in particular here is the fact that these parts of the legal culture represent our democracies' central nervous systems.
These, if the proposers have their way, are to be subjected to a supranational system in which dislike for the EU' s Third Pillar is encouraged.
Co-operation between States is not working, so a supranational authority is needed.
What is being proposed here is the dismantling of a range of democratic mechanisms and, in their place, the construction of supranational systems which will create democratic problems with a vengeance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Brok">
Madam President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, in fact, in these matters of European policy on rights, even with reference to the considerations for a Charter of Fundamental Rights, we have entered a decisive phase of the development of the European Union.
We all know that this concerns questions which have to do with the core area of national sovereignty.
For this reason we must be mindful of the fact that many Member States have difficulties with this.
<P>
On the other hand, it must be seen that in the meantime a process of development has taken place in the European Union, with a European agreement on rights and with the responsibilities of the European institutions.
This should put an end to inconsistency, which has its starting point in the wrangling about competence among the institutions at different levels.
<P>
This means nothing other than that, with the transfer, for sensible reasons, of responsibilities to a given level, the legal obligations and responsibilities of parliamentary co-operation and decision-making rights on this same level must also be connected because otherwise a legal vacuum is created where Parliament is not present.
In this crucial area of the law, involving not only the protection of citizens with regard to the outside world, but also the protection of citizens against state institutions, a situation whereby protection from incorrect executive measures and corresponding control in the interest of the citizens is not provided must not be allowed.
<P>
For this reason, it is extraordinarily important to close this gap.
It is not just a question of general matters which may crop up in future, instead I would like to expressly challenge the Council, because of current developments to do with refugees and asylum, to introduce majority decision on these matters of the scheduled period of five years, by simple resolution of the Council, and with the automatic consequence also envisaged there, i.e. the co-decision rights of the European Parliament.
<P>
<P>
I would also like to mention the matter of fundamental rights.
I find that the Cologne resolution to establish a Charter of Fundamental Rights is of unusually great significance. But it does have limited legal validity.
In time, we must achieve a situation where the citizen may present claims on the ground of fundamental rights at the European level if European administrative and legislative procedures go against his interests.
But the crucial issue in what has been put forward in Cologne is the method, i.e. not having national governments prepare such things any longer but having a sort of convention in which national parliaments, the European Parliament and governments are represented.
<P>
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, there is a tremendous opportunity here, if we are successful, to find the right composition for this convention, with the appropriate participation of the European Parliament, which must be equal in proportion to the other two areas.
From experience with this operation it may then perhaps be possible using this method at some point, in the interests of the citizen, to lay down the main cornerstones of the process of European unification.
<P>
This is not just a matter of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, but rather a rehearsal in the new meeting procedures between national parliaments, national administrations and the European Parliament, which can provide the European Union with great legitimacy for these cornerstones.
<P>
Please, do not get too caught up in these less important, self-interested aspects, but rather see this great opportunity.
Our first concern here is the Charter alone.
In Tampere, then, you should be generous and allocate the European Parliament the number of seats which will enable it to legitimise this body.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Paciotti">
Madam President, in my opinion the proposed resolution contains all the assessments and proposals which it is appropriate for Parliament to approve in order to make a timely contribution that will enable the Tampere Council to start implementing the formal promises that the Treaty of Amsterdam makes to the European citizens.
<P>
The aim is simple: what the individual Member States would do less well on their own, we need to do together.
Nobody fools themselves anymore that the battle against organised crime, where fraud and the cruel trafficking of children, women and refugees do not respect borders, can be fought effectively by individual countries.
We have to do this together, but if we give greater powers to the Union with regard to the prevention and repression of crimes, then this must happen in a framework where every individual is sure that his or her rights will be respected.
There is no freedom without security, but there is no security without justice.
In the first instance, justice means respect for the principle of equality, for the principle of non-discrimination, for the equal dignity of each person and for diversity.
<P>
The Union' s policy must draw on this principle.
The proposed document draws on it.
We know how much resistance the Member States put up, including the countries which do not admit to it, in this field which is traditionally a national competence.
But resistance, failure to act and delays are harmful, and we cannot afford to put it off.
Enlargement of the Union to include the new applicant countries requires talks to start now on the progressive adoption of common measures and appropriate standards of guarantees.
<P>
I hope that the Finnish Presidency, whose statements I welcomed this morning, wishes to take the credit for having started the implementation of the promises enshrined in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="Ludford">
Madam President, speaking for the first time here I want to insist that this summit be more than a committee on public safety.
It must have a balanced agenda.
<P>
The Treaty prescribes the creation of an area of freedom, justice and security, but the Tampere summit is in danger of turning only into a security summit.
Of course we want prime ministers to provide protection from threats like organised crime, drug running, terrorism and sex crimes, but let them also focus on the threat of discrimination and racism.
Let them also tackle the problems of banking secrecy and tax havens which provide cover for money laundering.
They should seek to provide European citizens with protection from injustice so that those arrested away from home can get legal representation, interpretation and bail. Instead of trying to harmonise European legal systems, just start with getting cross-border justice for individuals caught up in expensive red tape.
And while countering illegal immigration and abuse of asylum laws is important, governments must respect their obligations under the Geneva Convention to grant asylum to genuine refugees and treat them with compassion and dignity, not demonise them.
<P>
The Treaty stresses liberty and respect for human rights as fundamental principles.
We should insist that the Charter of Fundamental Rights not only be drawn up with this Parliament as equal partner but also be legally binding and not just a pious declaration without teeth.
Some of the rights we need as citizens are against our own governments, such as checks on our police, customs and intelligence services.
Freedom of information ought to be a summit priority and so should ratification of the international criminal court and pursuing perpetrators of crimes against humanity.
<P>
The message we must send today is that Tampere must be a summit for citizens, not just the bureaucrats, and democratic accountability must increase.
<P>
Finally, if our national leaders want to set an example of justice and good governance let them disown their own foreign ministers who disgracefully want to put the Agency for Reconstruction of Kosovo in Thessaloniki.
This shabby fix is the opposite of what the European Union should stand for.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Boumediene-Thiery">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we welcome the holding of a European Council dedicated in part to the area of freedom, security and justice, testimony to the recognition by the European institutions and States of the importance of these essential questions to the future of Europe.
<P>
These questions are important for all citizens living in this area, since they affect their individual and collective freedoms.
Tampere will also provide political orientation on such sensitive questions as immigration policies, which will necessitate a new look at North-South relations, and freedom of movement, which will necessitate real harmonisation of visa policies in Europe, such as the right to asylum and the right to health for all refugees.
Other important questions include integration policies, which also affect the cultural rights of minorities, the right to family life with dignity and political rights for all citizens residing in Europe.
<P>
All these rights must, of course, be included in the Charter of Fundamental Rights, a Charter which must address all these men and women who live in Europe and thereby enrich it.
It is, therefore, necessary to reinforce democratic control of the choices which we are going to make, as today there are still too many shady areas such as Europol.
<P>
That is why the European Parliament, the product of the will of the people, must be closely associated to meetings such as Tampere.
The choices of the European Council must be transparent, in accordance with human rights and the wishes of the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Sjöstedt">
Madam President, the European Union is now quickly on the way to developing a common policy in the legal field by means of a series of different measures and programmes.
Large common registers of personal details are being established for refugees and for the purpose of combating crime.
This raises important questions about legal security and personal integrity, not least for the most vulnerable refugees of all.
Experience so far is not so good.
Supervision of the Schengen Agreement' s register, SIS, has been poor and, where the SIRENE structure is concerned, it has been even worse.
In the SIS register, details of asylum seekers who have been refused entry have been mixed up with those of criminals and stolen goods.
The Joint Supervisory Authority has been severely critical in connection with the misuse of information in cases where refugees have not been informed of their rights and where the authority itself has not had proper access to the register.
<P>
The proposal concerning the EURODAC register is worrying, not least when it comes to demands to register groups in addition to asylum seekers and when it comes to the rules about when information is to be deleted.
It will be possible for very sensitive personal information, for example about political views, to be entered in Europol' s search register.
It will even be possible to register people who have not been convicted or directly suspected of crimes.
<P>
The proposal concerning the ENFOPOL Convention is worrying because certain Member States will be able to engage in wire-tapping in other countries without the latter' s permission.
In view of all these considerations, it is therefore a disappointment that Tarja Halonen and the country which holds the Presidency of the European Union had so little to say about questions of legal security and personal integrity which ought to be major issues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Madam President, the European Council of Cologne had the unfortunate idea, without, as far as I know, any national Parliament ever requesting anything of the sort, of initiating the preparation of a Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.
This idea, in the form in which it has apparently been adopted, seems to us both unnecessary and dangerous.
<P>
Unnecessary, because, according to the conclusions of the Council, this should be no more than a purely formal exercise, combining in a single document the rights which are already in force.
These are then rights which already exist and which are found in a variety of documents: treaties, the European Social Charter, the European Convention on Human Rights and above all, of course, national constitutions.
What is more, these rights, as far as citizens are concerned, are already properly protected by the legal systems in force.
The proposed exercise therefore seems pointless.
<P>
It is none the less dangerous, as the Federalist lobbies will seize upon the Cologne decision in order to attempt to take the defence of citizens' rights away from national constitutions and to crown them with a superior text, a supposedly European constitution.
Mr Barnier even complacently stressed, during his hearing last week, that the process of preparing the Charter should be brought together with the process of constitutionalising the Treaties.
Clearly the Cologne Council has set in motion a chain of events of which it is going to lose control.
<P>
I believe that in fact it would be better to leave the rights of citizens to national constitutions and the protection of those rights to the national parliaments who have perfected them over the centuries.
As for the Union, it would do better to devote itself to the top priority of the moment: the need to draft a Charter of the Rights of Nations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Paisley">
Madam President, the people that I represent have no confidence whatsoever in Commissioner Patten as far as law and order is concerned.
Mr Patten has just recommended what could be called a terrorist charter for Northern Ireland.
Our police, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, has had 302 of its members savagely murdered and 8 700 of its members brutally maimed.
Yet Mr Patten insists that the police must be responsible to a new ruling body on which the IRA will be represented.
If the Commission is going to adopt this sort of thinking in the field of crime and drugs etc., what will the future of this European Union be?
It has within it the seeds of its own destruction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Madam President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I appreciate that the task is very difficult.
As for you, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, it is clear that we are talking about an area in which an obdurate attachment to sovereignty is in evidence which, in my opinion, should be totally banished.
It is with good reason that we identify nationality with the flag, the police and the judge.
And that is what we are talking about: the policemen, the judges and what is behind the flag, at least the flags of the States of the European Union, which is the defence of human rights.
<P>
There is no doubt that you are experiencing difficulties because the functioning of the Presidency of the Council is complex.
There is no doubt that you are experiencing difficulties as well because taking decisions in the highest body, the European Council, means starting with general principles, and the will to act.
In other areas, such as building roads or establishing Trans-European Networks, these general principles make sense.
However, ladies and gentlemen, at this summit we want something more specific, especially in the area of justice.
It cannot only be a summit on immigration nor, of course, only on security.
Of the three areas - freedom, security and justice - the one which is furthest behind and needs most promotion is the area of justice.
<P>
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, there is a lack of specific proposals.
It is not a matter of providing access to justice or legal aid to victims.
It is a matter of proposing a uniform procedure for small-scale actions.
Talk about this, do not talk about general principles or simply the fact that we all have to co-operate, because if we carry on like this, the Tampere Summit will not be a success.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Napolitano">
Madam President, the decision of the Council of Cologne to proceed with the drawing-up of a Charter of Fundamental Rights will involve our Parliament in a long and complex process.
<P>
We will have to discuss the nature of the Charter, its contents, the relationship between the Charter of Rights and the process of creating a Constitution for the Union.
These issues will form the basis of a report by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs in co-operation with other committees, to be prepared over the coming months and which will be submitted to you during a plenary part-session.
<P>
At the moment, however, we must urgently take a position on the procedure to follow in order to draw up this Charter.
This is the limited but important aim of the resolution put forward by Mr Watson and myself.
<P>
Before the Council decides on the nature of the body responsible for drawing up the draft Charter, Parliament must state today that we cannot accept fewer representatives of the European Parliament than representatives of the Heads of State and Government. Parliament should also state that we are pressing for in-depth talks before deciding if the essential contribution of the national parliaments should be ensured through the participation of a certain number of their representatives at the appointed body or through other, more efficient channels.
<P>
And now a personal view on the fight against crime and the challenge posed by immigration.
The time I spent as Italian Minister for Home Affairs leads me to say that it is essential to speed up the move towards common rules and policies, which is just the opposite of the adoption of strictly national policies. As for immigration and asylum, the best basis is the document resulting from the Austrian Presidency in autumn 1998.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Sylla">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the objective of the European Council of Tampere - which is, as we have been reminded here, an Extraordinary Council - is to define political orientations and priorities concerning the establishment of areas of freedom, security and justice.
<P>
In this respect, the freedom of movement of individuals within the Union is a fundamental objective of the building of Europe.
Freedom of movement must, above all, be applied identically to all men and women, and I am thinking particularly of the difficulties experienced by many alien residents who are too often denied the right to live as a family.
I am convinced that the fundamental objective of this European Union is to enable the integration of immigrants.
<P>
Madam President, I withdrew my intervention at the opening of the sitting, as the tribute which Mrs Fontaine paid to the two dead Guinean youths, Yaguine and Fodé, showed great feeling.
It was with astonishing insight that these two adolescents wrote us a letter in which they reminded us of the enormous difficulties there are today in being a child of the third world.
My own name is Fodé and I too come from this underprivileged part of the planet.
But I had the immense good fortune to be adopted by a French family, to go to school and now to take my seat among you in this Chamber.
<P>
This tradition of welcoming others with respect for their dignity must continue, for, believe me, no woman and no man would ever leave their family, their village or their country unless there was an overwhelming need to provide for their kith and kin.
So let us stop splitting up mothers and children, withdrawing residence permits from workers who have lost their jobs and attacking the right to asylum.
To sum up, let us take immigrants out of their precarious administrative position and let us offer them a lasting residence permit, enabling them to stay as long as they think fit in a country they have come to, precisely because it was the countries of Europe which colonised their own country in the first place.
<P>
Finally, this Europe of ours must ban all forms of discrimination, in recruitment, in housing and in access to leisure pursuits, and remind all those who deny the existence of the gas chambers and believe that races are not equal that racism is not an opinion, but a crime.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="President">
It is my great pleasure to welcome the members of the delegation of the Turkish Grand National Assembly to the Joint European Union/Turkey Parliamentary Committee, chaired by Professor Kursat Eser.
<P>
Please applaud them, especially as we are particularly sorry to hear the news of another serious earthquake in the north-west of Turkey on Monday, only a few weeks after the tragic events which have struck this same region.
<P>
On behalf of the European Parliament, I would like to express my deepest sympathy to the Turkish Grand National Assembly and to the people of Turkey for the tragic losses which this natural disaster caused.
In the spirit of solidarity, I am pleased to note that the Council and the Commission have taken the action necessary to assure the Turkish authorities of the aid of the European Union and to co-operate with these authorities in order to relieve the suffering of their people.
<P>
Finally, I would like to express the hope that the debate which you will be having today and tomorrow with the members of the European Parliament delegation will be productive and that dialogue between our two Parliaments will continue in the near future within the framework of the joint parliamentary delegation.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Preparation of the European Council meeting in Tampere (continued)
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Madam President, many thanks for your tolerance and patience!
A fellow member of the European People' s Party described his Party as being friends of security, as if there were any enemies of security in this House!
I think the problem is rather that many are not the friends of freedom and the law to the same extent.
<P>
<P>
Therefore, I also believe that the most pressing task consists of achieving the prerequisites for an area of freedom, security and justice, specifically a Charter of Fundamental Rights in Europe, because the important thing is not only to centralise the sensitive application of State and police authority, but also to europeanise the rights of citizens.
<P>
Now the Cologne Summit has decided upon the proclamation of just such a European list of fundamental rights, a laudable intention.
But when one looks at the manner in which this has been planned, then one can only, as a Member of Parliament, be shocked.
The Council has - for what reasons, I do not understand - assumed total responsibility for this list of fundamental rights.
There was no dialogue with the European Parliament.
This is unacceptable, given that the European Parliament has the role of representing the peoples of Europe and is thus the original authority for such a Charter of Fundamental Rights.
There can be no question of equivalence of legislative institutions in this process.
The inclusion of national parliaments has involved only individual representatives, so there can be no question either of plurality of political tendencies in this process.
<P>
What is most worrying and most alarming is the scope of the undertaking.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, I believe there is one thing we should not do and that is to fulfil the fundamental requirements of the citizens in appearance only.
A proclamation of already existing rights is no Charter of Fundamental Rights, but political versemongering!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Andrews">
Madam President, may I congratulate the Finnish presidency on this initiative in which I fully support him.
<P>
I hope that at the end of the temporary conference all Member States will ratify the setting up of the International Criminal Court so that the war criminals who are so prevalent today throughout the world can be prosecuted.
In July 1998, 83 countries agreed to the establishment of an international court at a conference sponsored by the United Nations in Rome.
Only four countries to date have ratified the Rome Statute: Trinidad and Tobago, Senegal, San Marino and Italy.
<P>
Above all, the International Criminal Court will encourage states to investigate and prosecute genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity and will itself investigate and prosecute these crimes in certain circumstances.
By addressing the issue of impunity and providing a fair forum for prosecutions, the court will help ease international tensions and promote peace and security, domestically and internationally.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cederschiöld">
Madam President, Commissioner-designate Vitorino pointed out at the hearing that the purpose of preparing a Charter for human rights should not only be that of finding a common denominator between Member States. Rather, the Charter should be an independent declaration of rights.
When the Charter is drawn up, it is important to bear in mind that immigration policy within the European Union must take account of the Member States' various social systems and educational opportunities.
This applies especially if the Charter is to include citizens from non-EU countries who are resident within the European Union.
In that way, the particular level of social protection is related more clearly to immigration and asylum policy.
If too great a proportion of publicly financed social and economic entitlements were introduced, the walls shutting off the outside world would also be raised at the same time as the level of social provision in the European Union increases.
This would mean that a caring approach to EU citizens would be to the detriment of those who really need protection within the EU' s borders, namely refugees.
<P>
The Treaty of Amsterdam introduces the concept of a European judicial area.
If it is to be possible to use the term "judicial area" , then legal security must prevail there.
To be able to measure how far along this road the Member States have come, criteria must be established and efficient methods of measurement created.
It is a question of establishing convergence rules for legal security.
Once convergence is established, a table of results ought to be drawn up for the purpose of making the Member States' progress public.
This would make the differences between the Member States clear.
Group pressure is a strong social force which can contribute to voluntary harmonisation.
If evaluation of this kind is fully open, efforts by the EU institutions may be that much more effective by promoting voluntary forms of harmonisation along the same lines.
Once a process like this, aimed at establishing minimum rules, has begun, it should be possible to combine it with time limits and, in that way, provide the impetus towards creating a reliable area of justice which is a prerequisite if citizens are to be able to move freely, safely and securely and also a prerequisite for creating guarantees of security when the European Union is enlarged.
This demands more effective safety and security measures, balanced with clearer definitions of personal integrity and human rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Evans, Robert J">
Madam President, the President-in-Office has said that if you were to ask the people in Member States what they want you would get a clear message.
This Tampere motion is, I believe, part of that message.
It is one example of the people' s agenda.
If enacted at Tampere and enforced by Member State Governments it will show to some of our more Eurosceptic citizens that real progress is being made.
Many of them are not really concerned about the extension of qualified majority voting, important as that is, but they are anxious for progress on citizens' rights, progress on free movement, progress towards a real integrated Europe where people know and understand their rights and responsibilities.
<P>
You pointed out the importance of this agenda when we are moving towards a successful enlargement of the European Union, setting our own House in order.
Freedom, justice, security and transparency before we enlarge is, I am sure many would agree, absolutely crucial.
It is a Europe that builds on what we have in common and does not set up barriers to highlight our differences.
<P>
Earlier Mr Camre spoke against support for poorer countries.
I say to him and others that you cannot have real prosperity and real security for 350 million people in 15 countries if you deny hope and similar rights to your neighbours.
Walls, weapons and iron curtains are not the answer to asylum-seekers and refugees.
That is why the success of the Tampere Summit and this resolution are so important.
<P>
Some UK Members on this side of the House may have reservations about one or two points but we fully believe in the principles of this resolution, the points that are practical and enforceable.
I feel very optimistic that the Tampere Summit will not just be a positive step forward but will become a historically significant summit.
I wish the Finnish presidency every success.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="MacCormick">
Madam President, I wish to underline the point made by Mr Napolitano and Mr Voggenhuber that it is absolutely vital that this Parliament be fully and properly represented in the preparation of the Union charter of rights.
<P>
May I also say to Madam President-in-Office that subsidiarity must be as vitally respected at Tampere as in all aspects of the work of this Union.
I represent an electoral region which has had an independent legal system with a distinct tradition in justice and home affairs for over 500 years.
It is not a Member State itself, but we in Scotland now have again a parliament which legislates for our justice and home affairs.
It is vital that this and other such regions are fully and properly borne in mind when policies are developed dealing with these matters.
<P>
Finally, I agree very much indeed with what Madam President-in-Office said about making rights effectual.
It is no use having charters of rights and having rights enshrined in treaties if these are ignored in practice.
It has been drawn to my attention, in the short time I have been in this House, that there are foreign language lecturers in Italy who for eleven years have had rights declared by the European Court of Justice effectively denied by a Member State of this Union.
I hope that the Council and the Commission will take the strongest measures to ensure in this and other cases that we do not have rights and then see them rendered ineffectual by state action.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
Madam President, I hope that, following the declaration which the President-in-Office of the Council has made, this Tampere Summit may lead to a firm commitment of political will on the part of the Union, and that we will adopt a whole series of clear and necessary positions which will allow us to move forwards.
<P>
I believe that this is what our citizens expect. They do not want to hear any more declarations, but they want us to take specific steps in order to allow progress in this direction.
<P>
In attempting to do so, with regard to the area of freedom, I believe that there are two issues which warrant preferential treatment: the harmonisation of asylum procedures and illegal immigration.
To these two matters we should add temporary protection, which is an issue with great currency given the recent Kosovo crisis, and the internal solidarity between Member States of the European Union.
<P>
With regard to the area of security, I believe that it is reasonable to concentrate initially on those types of crime which are of a truly international nature.
I refer to terrorism, drugs, organised crime and the trade in human beings.
<P>
In my opinion, Madam President, the means which should be used are three in number: police co-operation - bearing in mind the progress that has been made through the Schengen Agreement - the prevention of crime and external relations, given that security in the Union cannot be isolated from security in the rest of Europe and throughout the world.
<P>
The European Union must pay very special attention to the South, as well as to the countries adjacent to Russia.
<P>
Lastly, with regard to the area of justice, our aim should be to do everything possible so that citizens have the sense of being, throughout Europe, within a framework of justice which is appropriate and within which their rights are protected in a similar way, not only with regard to criminals, but also with regard to the possible abuses of public power.
<P>
The European judicial network is, undoubtedly, the least developed of the three areas we are dealing with and, in this sense, I believe that the creation of a stable unit, charged with giving continuity to legal co-operation and acting as the judicial counterpart of Europol, would be appropriate.
<P>
I believe, finally, Madam President, that the objectives of the European Council meeting in Tampere are very ambitious, but I believe that by simply being ambitious in our efforts to turn this area of freedom, security and justice into reality, we will persuade the citizens of the European Union to see our work as an effective instrument with which to confront their problems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Martin, Hans-Peter">
Madam President, there is no doubt, I consider it desirable - quite the opposite of many of the previous speakers - that the European Union should now be starting to turn its attention to its own Charter of Fundamental Rights.
With a common general system of values it can create for itself the thing that people first look at when they meet, a face.
It is therefore more than disappointing that this new face for Europe should have no binding nature for, at the present stage of development, the Charter will not form part of the Treaties.
The modest will say, "well, at least we are creating a model" . However, we in the European Parliament should not be modest and we should maintain that a Charter opens up the opportunity of forming part of the Treaties, of becoming part of an all-European constitution and even possibly becoming the forerunner to it.
<P>
In any case, the question of who is to formulate the Charter is of outstanding significance.
We well know that institutions have their own intricacy and each their own political motivation.
There is then an obvious difference, whether an executive body or the administration work on the fundamental rights, or whether a Parliament does this.
Our Committee on Constitutional Affairs demands, therefore, that the European Parliament should not collaborate as a mere accessory in such an important process, but as a generator of ideas and decision-maker on the same level as the Council.
It is an important sign that this is precisely how so many national governments have come to see it recently.
<P>
At the same time, we are aware of the gap in credibility we have with the citizens of Europe which we still have to eliminate, for there would be the opportunity of also consulting, in a quite original form, non-governmental organisations and individual citizens in the process of development of the Charter.
From this, we could envisage organising public hearings together, even in non-conventional meetings with citizens from the various national states.
In this way, work on the face of fundamental rights could give new strength to the whole body of Europe.
Freedom and equality, human dignity and social justice cannot be achieved until they are perceived as an issue of the peoples.
I am therefore of the opinion that if we cannot have a Charter with the full participation of Parliament we should rather have none at all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Madam President, here we stand in Strasbourg, in the unique tradition of Robert Schuman, whose European Coal and Steel Community was not only a step towards economic integration, which has now been crowned with the euro, but also a step towards political integration.
The Council now has the opportunity, at the Tampere Summit, to achieve something like a Coal and Steel Community of freedom, security and justice within this European Union.
My only fear is that this may not be the case, and my scepticism is based on a number of points.
Firstly, the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Madam President, I am of the view, that it is in fact necessary, for the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission to work together on this on an equal footing, in the manner in which such a Charter of Fundamental Rights should be created.
The principal role here must be that of the European Parliament.
I find it unacceptable for us to have to act, so to speak, as mere decoration for the national parliaments.
In internal committee we were very critical of the composition of this planned body, and we were told by the Presidency of the Council that it was not possible to deviate from the mandate.
I find that scandalous!
The Council grants itself a mandate and then declares that it cannot deviate from this mandate!
I consider that to be absolutist in the extreme.
I am therefore of the opinion that we should use today to bring this procedure back to Parliament.
The citizens of Europe are represented by the European Parliament.
If national parliaments co-operate, so much the better. But I would ask you, please, as the Council, to seek dialogue on this matter with the European Parliament on both the content and the procedure.
<P>
Secondly, Tampere will also discuss the question of burden-sharing for civil war refugees and applicants for political asylum.
I consider it scandalous that we have not yet decided to introduce set quotas.
The Kosovo crisis has shown that, unfortunately, burden-sharing on a voluntary basis does not work.
People have maintained that it was used in Kosovo and that it worked there.
We were only lucky that thanks to the Nato intervention and thanks to the return of the Kosovo Albanians prepared to rebuild their lives, the flow of refugees was soon brought to a halt again.
But we must see quite clearly that in the next crisis we would slip into a catastrophe if we approached that crisis with the same set of procedural instruments as in the Kosovo affair.
We therefore need set burden-sharing according to quotas.
European solidarity required clear, set rules which must be determined before the crisis arises and not in a mad rush once it is already underway.
I would therefore like to say quite clearly, please use this opportunity to make Tampere a real new departure which will bring Europe real political integration beginning with internal security and co-operation in justice, because these are the core elements of statehood and also of the Community.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Marinho">
Madam President we do not know if Tampere will be a success or not.
We feel though, after the speech that we have heard here this morning, that it may be because that item in the Treaty of Amsterdam which was, of necessity, destined to be almost a dead letter or just hot air, is now gaining a certain visibility, creating greater consensus and asserting itself naturally, thereby making the path towards a common area of freedom, security and justice seem much more credible.
<P>
Both in your speech today, Madam President of the Council, and two weeks ago, during the hearings of Commissioner Vitorino, we MEPs, used to the waffle of the Council and the Commission, found some philosophically rigorous elements concerning the fundamental assumptions about this real internal market of freedom and justice; that is, the market of values, no longer the market of goods and services - which have caused us to be quietly optimistic about Tampere and its consequences. Why should this be?
<P>
Of course, because the basis for legal measures which we can implement is found within the framework of a Charter of Freedom and Fundamental rights.
This is also because the Community method is favoured over traditional intergovernmental co-operation which will bring about a new European institutional or legal system, which, in turn, will be more efficient, modern, and closer to the problems still festering today. These are still unsolved and caught up in the web of sovereignty and of obsession with laws and nationalism.
<P>
Finally, why not make the visibility of this new European area the benchmark of citizens' trust, not by reducing the problem to the age-old argument of "freedom versus security" , but instead by taking on the whole range of new challenges and concerns for which European citizens hope Europe will actually find solutions?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Coelho">
Madam President, Madam President of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we all know that the increasing sophistication of international crime means that the efforts to combat it within the confines of individual countries are becoming insufficient.
Although much has been done relating to the economic aspects of the Union and the strengthening of its political dimension, there remains a great deal to be done in the area of genuine freedom of movement for our citizens.
Not only because the Treaty of Amsterdam enshrined the right to security, but also because the concept of European citizenship will not become real without a genuine area of freedom, security and justice.
What is required is the abolition of internal borders, care for citizens' security, harmonisation in terms of allowing into the European Union nationals of third countries, and allowing them freedom of movement once inside the Union, thereby creating an immigration and asylum policy which will be more coherent and unified. We also need to co-ordinate action on the prevention of crime and in the fight against it, particularly against organised crime (especially terrorism, trade in human beings, crimes against children, drug and weapons smuggling, corruption and fraud) and finally, we need laws and fundamental freedoms to be guaranteed at a European level.
<P>
This is why this Parliament, with the new responsibilities conferred on it by the Treaty of Amsterdam, must make its objective to move towards implementing this area of freedom, security and justice whilst respecting national differences and always attempting to bring Europe closer to its citizens, clear in the objectives it is trying to achieve and in the way they are conveyed to the general public.
<P>
In order to achieve all of this, for the sake of Europe, for the sake of our fellow citizens and for the sake of the strengthening of freedoms, of security and justice, we must work together in a spirit of efficiency and interinstitutional solidarity.
We in the European Parliament have the will to do this, we expect a great deal from the work of Commissioner Antonio Vitorino on the Commission, and from the Council. We expect to see signs of this and decisions on these matters by the time of the Tampere Council meeting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Leinen">
Madam President, the Finnish Presidency of the Council has a very great responsibility.
Many are looking towards Tampere with great hopes and are expecting considerable steps towards a Europe for the citizens.
Here, I believe that the Charter of Citizens' Rights is a unique opportunity to say to people from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean that this Europe is not only a single market. It is not only a single currency.
Rather, this Europe is a community of values designed to defend and promote the achievements in terms of civilisation which we in Europe have fought for over recent centuries.
<P>
The Charter of Citizens' Rights can only be of interest if the method behind its preparation is open and transparent.
This should not therefore entail a traditional Intergovernmental Conference behind closed doors. This Charter must be drawn up openly in dialogue with the citizens.
I believe that citizens' rights is an original theme for the European Parliament and national parliaments alike.
In this regard, I am of the opinion that the Tampere Summit should make considerable strides forward and allow the European Parliament a greater involvement than was agreed in Cologne.
<P>
It is certainly a question of European citizens' rights.
In this respect, we should really ensure parity between representatives of this European Parliament and representatives at a national level.
<P>
I believe that citizens will only take an interest in this Charter if it amounts to more than a solemn proclamation.
Citizens' rights must also be binding in law.
I hope that this debate points the way ahead as to how these rights can be incorporated in the next treaties.
Open debate and legal incorporation; then we will have the opportunity to get to know Europe' s citizens once again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Hernández Mollar">
Madam President, we find ourselves, in this legislature, with a momentous challenge with regard to the construction of the European Union.
During the previous legislature, this Parliament said "yes" to Monetary Union, "yes" to social integration, making employment the centrepiece and the motor of European social policy, and now we must also say "yes" to a European area of freedom, security and justice.
<P>
The European Council of Tampere, which is the result of the initiative - it must be said - and the efforts of the President of the Spanish Government, José María Aznar, must confront this issue with the same political will that it displayed at the Extraordinary Summit in Luxembourg when it confronted the serious problem of unemployment.
The phenomenon of migration is a challenge which we must face with courage, realism and a deep sense of humanity and understanding.
<P>
Solidarity and integration must be the two fundamental cornerstones of our immigration policy.
As has been said here, any solutions which are legal, economic, social or based on controlling the flow of migration, should be adopted according to a common approach, in accordance with a common policy.
This is not a Spanish, German or Italian problem, but rather a European Union problem.
To this end, the very concept of immigration should be defined at the next European Council meeting in Tampere.
Immigration for political reasons is one thing and economic immigration is another, and the two things do not require the same solutions.
<P>
Furthermore, we should define the concept of asylum which is very often confused with illegal immigration and the problems relating to the status of foreigners.
<P>
We should also establish, as laid down in the Treaty of Amsterdam itself, a balanced effort amongst all the Member States to confront the consequences of accepting refugees, displaced persons and the powerful migratory pressure which is of an exclusively economic nature, such as that which originates from non-EU countries in the Mediterranean or the Southern flank of the Union.
<P>
To this end, it is important that we analyse the political, geographical and economic circumstances of each crisis and each type of immigration.
It would be neither reasonable nor efficient to distribute responsibilities in a uniform way, especially with regard to the distribution of displaced people.
<P>
Finally, Madam President, social integration will be the shield, or protection, in the face of the racist or xenophobic attitudes which are currently appearing in some European countries
<P>
I shall end, Madam President, by appealing to the countries from which the migratory flow originates.
It is not enough for the European Union...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Karamanou">
Madam President, as I am taking the floor just hours after the terrible accident, I must say just how distressed the Greek representatives are and how much they grieve the tragic loss of the Greek Deputy Foreign Minister, Yannos Kranidiotis, killed while performing his duty: he was a remarkable politician and European visionary who worked hard for peace and co-operation in the Balkans and for reconciliation between Greece and Turkey and who was once himself a Member of the European Parliament.
I personally succeeded him in February 1997 in the European Parliament when he assumed his services as Deputy Foreign Minister.
Madam President, please forgive me for intervening in this way and for being so overcome by emotion.
<P>
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Mrs Halonen, I found your speech, which included specific recommendations, particularly satisfying, since it strengthens my conviction that Tampere may prove to be a key event, a landmark on the way towards European integration.
We hope that, like the European Parliament, the Council will send a clear signal to the citizens of Europe, reassuring them that the European Union is indeed interested in and seeks to promote their vital interests, such as heightened internal security, freedom of movement, free access to justice, the fight against international organised crime, cross-border controls and respect for fundamental freedoms and rights.
<P>
The Tampere Council meeting can and must take advantage of possibilities provided by the Treaty of Amsterdam. It must make substantial progress on vital issues such as, firstly, the harmonisation of immigration and asylum policy, with a view both to securing better protection for immigrants and granting them rights; secondly, the issue of equitable burden sharing amongst Member States in hosting displaced persons, particularly from crisis areas, a very recent example being the Balkans; and thirdly, the issue of reinforcing internal security for EU citizens not only by police measures.
<P>
Finally, I believe that the time has come to adopt the relevant proposals put forward by Greece, which include the introduction of speedy access to justice for citizens, using alternative means such as arbitration and pre-trial conciliation, and also by creating a harmonised system of public order and a way of resolving differences, based on the principles of freedom, democracy, respect for fundamental freedoms and rule of law.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="President">
Mrs Karamanou, we understand your distress at the announcement of the death of your Deputy Foreign Minister.
The President has had the opportunity to express Parliament' s sharing in your loss and that of your people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Kauppi">
Madam President, Mrs Halonen, security is one of the main causes of concern for the citizens of Europe.
The Tampere Summit will attempt to respond to this important challenge: the creation of a more secure Europe.
One of the most important questions at the meeting will be the EU common immigration policy.
The idea of a common policy on asylum and supranational burden sharing sounds fine, but it will be very difficult to put into practice.
Instead, voluntary burden sharing would serve very well as a basis for Union action.
If the desired results are not achieved with voluntary burden sharing, we might consider compensating Member States for costs incurred in respect of refugees flooding into the countries in question.
This is something that you also proposed, Mrs Halonen.
Otherwise, the use of measures for economic guidance should be approved as part of the policy on refugees practised by the Member States of the Union.
For example, in my country, Finland, which is a very long way from places recent crises have focussed on, there is very broad support for the idea of effective aid for destitute people as close as possible to their homes.
<P>
Recently, there have been suggestions that responsibility for co-operation in police and legal matters should be transferred from the Third Pillar to the Community.
This would, I imagine, make co-operation easier.
The proposal, however, will very clearly interfere with the essential authority of nation-states, the right to determine the maintenance of the judicial system, and monitor compliance with the law in their areas.
For that reason, we should consider at greater length the good and bad aspects of the proposal.
Co-operation under the Third Pillar must be made adequate as long as the EU lacks its own police forces, and co-operation is always therefore based on action by the police forces of the Member States, which a Europol system would attempt to aid.
Furthermore, as for the investigatory teams that were suggested, the situation is the same.
The question of transferring responsibility to a common authority will become of serious interest only if we want to establish supranational police squads for the Union.
<P>
The creation of a European judicial area and establishing a working party to discuss the idea has my full support.
The right of our citizens to fair treatment - access to justice - must be ensured and the public must be guaranteed adequate aid if they have to confront the legal authorities of a foreign Member State.
I warmly support the idea to set up a working party to discuss the issue.
The creation of a European judicial area has to be part of the new people' s Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Madam President, García Márquez, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, wrote a book entitled "The General in his Labyrinth" .
It referred to the life of the liberator, Simón Bolívar.
<P>
Reading Annex IV of the European Council of Cologne gives the impression that, on the subject of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the Council is also in the middle of something of a labyrinth.
<P>
I am sure that the institutions will be capable in the end of finding their way out of the labyrinth, more or less willingly.
The problem is not with the institutions which in the end will be able to find their way out of the labyrinth of the Council with regard to the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
The problem is with the citizens, with the frustration which can be added to that which they already feel with regard to certain issues relating to European construction.
<P>
I therefore believe that it is essential that in Tampere decisions are taken to clarify the situation, that they be steps forward with regard to the already positive decision taken in Cologne on the character, the content, the relationship with the Intergovernmental Conference and the procedures for the drawing up and approval, of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
<P>
This Charter must be binding and actionable.
It must reinforce the rights of the citizens and, at the end of the day, of European citizenship.
It must encompass all those who live and work in the Union.
It must be connected therefore with the Intergovernmental Conference, so that the Treaty of Amsterdam may be revised.
This Charter must benefit from the active participation of the European Parliament, involving a sufficient number of its Members so that all the political tendencies of the Union may be represented.
And above all, the Charter must be approved.
<P>
The term "proclamation" , which was used in Cologne, is clearly insufficient.
From here on - I repeat - we must ensure that the Council finds it way out of its labyrinth.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Giannakou-Koutsikou">
Madam President, I would like to thank the President for his remarks on the tragic event and death of the Greek Deputy Foreign Minister.
We wish, as the New Democracy Party and Greek Opposition Party, to express our profound and sincere condolences and our deep sorrow at the death of a former colleague and, I must say, a very good politician in his capacity as Foreign Minister.
<P>
The Tampere Council is extremely important, Madam President.
We largely agree with the President-in-Office of the Council. However, she failed to show any clear political will, for example, in the area of harmonisation.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, of course, immigration policy is an integral part of external policy, but on many occasions external policy gives way on grounds of expediency, grounds which ultimately go against the humanitarian aspect related to immigration and asylum policy.
Of course, Europe cannot close its doors, but neither should it open them so wide as to create ghettos or open them without having laid down the necessary preconditions beforehand.
These policies will have to tie in with development and co-operation policies which, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, have been largely unsuccessful in the delivery of the financial aid they promised.
<P>
The biggest problem, however, is that "dark side" - the amalgamation of organised crime, terrorism, drug trafficking, and other activities. We are reaching the point where we are simply observing from a distance the activities of these people, especially those involved in organised crime, and cannot confront them.
Justice and security are absolutely essential, Madam President, and harmonisation is absolutely essential, but to make all that happen, the necessary political will is essential.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="President">
I have received two motions for resolution, pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Halonen">
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Situation in East Timor
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="President">
The next item is the Council statement on the situation in East Timor.
<P>
I must remind you that the debate on this statement will take place this afternoon after the debate on the report by Mrs Dührkop Dührkop and Mr Fabra Vallés.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Halonen">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, since the process began the European Union has supported Portugal' s and Indonesia' s attempts to attain a lasting solution for East Timor, under the protection of the UN, one that was acceptable to the international community, and one that would be based on the right to self-determination on the part of the East Timorese nation.
The Union continues in its determination to achieve this aim.
As a result of a decision taken in the General Affairs Council in April 1999 we have asked the Commission to draft economic and social programmes to improve facilities for the establishment of institutions for East Timor.
<P>
The eagerness to vote shown by the East Timorese awoke interest, as we know.
The General Affairs Council stated on Monday that the East Timorese also deserve all our support in the future.
We will be ready to recognise East Timor when a decision has been made on the independence process, which is under the guidance of the UN.
<P>
In this connection, I would like once again to thank the UN' s UNAMET operation for its staff' s tireless work in bringing about the referendum in especially difficult circumstances.
At the same time I would like to say that I am grateful to Ireland' s Foreign Minister, Mr Andrews, who acted as the President' s personal representative in overseeing the election in East Timor, and Great Britain' s Foreign Secretary, Mr Cook, who represented the President at the APEC meeting.
We would have liked the Council of Ministers to be present at these events also, although the President could not be present at them owing to the obligations that a whole week' s part-session in Parliament presented.
I also wish to thank the delegation of observers from the European Parliament and everyone else that took part in the observation process: the importance of an international presence was vital for the success of the voting operation.
I believe they were responsible for the safe atmosphere that prevailed while voting itself was going on.
<P>
We all feared unrest.
When voting was over, however, the terror that started came as a shock in terms of its violence.
During the whole crisis the Union has been putting pressure on the Indonesian government to meet its obligations to guarantee safety and keep the situation in East Timor under control.
<P>
I believe that we are on the right track, but the road is long.
Alleviating a humanitarian disaster and putting together an international peacekeeping force are now urgent priorities.
The faster a peacekeeping force is got there, the better.
Consequently, the European Union will continue to exert its own pressure to bring that about.
Another very urgent matter is getting humanitarian aid there quickly.
At present those in the most difficult situation are people who have fled their homes for the mountains, and East Timorese that have been forced to enter West Timor, where some have been accommodated in camps.
According to various estimates there are from 200,000 to 400,000 refugees.
This also shows that assessments made regarding the situation are very vague.
We have no exact information on events for the very reason that foreign representatives of the international community cannot reach the area.
<P>
These people are in need of immediate humanitarian aid.
Intergovernmental organisations and NGOs are to participate in the programme of assistance co-ordinated by the UN.
The Indonesian authorities have announced an open-door policy with regard to international aid, but they cannot guarantee the safety of humanitarian workers.
A comprehensive aid operation can only begin when the humanitarian organisations have unhindered and safe access to the region.
This will ultimately come about obviously only with the arrival of an international peacekeeping force, but we have already called once again for humanitarian aid to be delivered to the region immediately.
<P>
Various countries have been prepared to participate in the delivery of relief aid.
Supplies are being planned and deliveries organised at this very moment.
The Union has a total of EUR 8 million at its disposal in respect of humanitarian assistance in East Timor, making it already the largest single contributor of aid.
Representatives of the European Community' s Humanitarian Organisation have taken part in an assessment of the size of the aid package needed together with the Indonesian authorities and international organisations.
I hope that the Commission can tell us of its plans in greater detail.
<P>
Humanitarian aid might begin with operations in which essential goods such as food, medicines and other goods such as blankets and cooking utensils are dropped from the air in areas where refugees are known to be.
Experts say that, for reasons of safety, the drops must be made during the initial phase from Hercules transport planes from a height of one and a half kilometres, which may affect its chances of getting to the right place.
Nevertheless, we have to do all we can to ensure that there is adequate aid getting through at this stage.
<P>
The situation with regard to security will improve in the region only when the international peacekeeping forces have arrived.
The Union has the whole time stressed and demanded that Indonesia take responsibility for order and security, but as we have seen, the Indonesian authorities have unfortunately ignored the obligations they have agreed to in this respect.
Indonesia has now agreed to the arrival in the region of international peacekeeping forces and I have just heard that the UN Security Council has taken a unanimous decision to send a peacekeeping force to East Timor.
We require Indonesia to work in close co-operation with the Security Council in the future also.
We shall work towards getting the forces to the region as soon as possible.
<P>
For my own part, I would like to say that I have also personally tried to contact Member States on the telephone, especially Portugal, and also Indonesia via our representation there, and Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the UN.
I hope there will be better opportunities for close co-operation among us in the future.
<P>
I would now like to speak of a serious matter, which is the climate of fear and deeds of terror that are gripping East Timor at present.
Indonesia has failed to commit to guarantees of order and security in the region. In the opinion of many, it has not entirely wished to do so either.
Tyranny has prevailed in the area.
There has been evidence that the Indonesian army and the police have taken part in acts of terror in East Timor.
According to humanitarian workers from the international community, representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross and human rights organisations were forced to leave areas so that crimes could be committed in the absence of foreign witnesses.
The day before yesterday the Council expressed its deepest anger regarding this state of affairs and the attacks on East Timorese, humanitarian workers, church representatives and advocates of human rights.
We in the Council have given our support to convening a special meeting of the Commission on Human Rights with regard to the situation in East Timor.
We shall also work towards sending an investigatory commission to the area as quickly as possible to collect evidence relating to the responsibility for deeds of terror that were committed in the wake of the referendum.
<P>
The General Affairs Council the day before yesterday approved the conclusions reached on Union action and took a decision on a common position to make them more effective, by imposing a comprehensive export ban on weapons, munitions and other tools of internal repression and terror to Indonesia.
At the same time too, bilateral military co-operation between the Member States and Indonesia was discontinued.
This common position will be in force for four months and will be renewed if need be.
<P>
While we work towards bringing about the right to self-determination of East Timor and its people, we must concern ourselves also with Indonesia' s future development.
The General Affairs Council emphasised the Union' s desire to see a strong, democratic and united Indonesia.
Democracy, a respect for human rights and the principles of the rule of law are the foundations on which Indonesian society can also build.
Conduct in the international community that reflects a democratic society will have the support of us all.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="- Motion for Resolution (B5-0061/99) tabled by Mr Souchet, on behalf of the EDN Group, at the conclusion of the statement by Mr Romano Prodi, President-designate of the Commission">
<P>
(Parliament rejected the motion for a resolution)
<P>
Motion for Resolution (B5-0062/99) tabled by Mr Wurtz, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the nomination of the Prodi Commission
<P>
(Parliament rejected the motion for a resolution)
<P>
Motion for Resolution (B5-0063/99) tabled by Mr Blokland and others, on behalf of the EDD Group, on the College of Commissioners and its programme
<P>
(Parliament rejected the motion for a resolution)
<P>
Joint Motion for Resolution on the Prodi Commission
<P>
Pannella (NI).
(IT) Madam President, I would just like to give you and the House what I think is some urgent and useful information.
In Rome, the third parliamentary group, which comprises 130 Members, is a group which unites Members to the right of Le Pen and to the left of Cossutta.
<P>
We have examined yesterday' s decisions, and we are not monkeys who will do what a Parliament based on party politics expects of us!
Emma Bonino will explain later why, in the name of the political affinity of those who believe in parliaments, in democracy and in law and of those who abhor party politics, bureaucracy and falsity, we are not voting and will not vote.
Emma Bonino will have the time to explain.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Prodi">
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="President">
I thank the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, and, in accordance with what we agreed, each group chairman may make a speech lasting three minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Poettering">
Madam President, Mr President-designate of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats yesterday had a passionate debate about how we should vote today.
The previous President of the European Commission, Jacques Santer, made a remarkable and impressive contribution to this debate.
I would like to begin this short statement by giving a heart-felt word of thanks, respect and acknowledgement to our colleague and friend, Jacques Santer, for his wonderful contribution to Europe as Prime Minister of Luxembourg and as President of the European Commission.
<P>
<P>
In this debate among our group, questions were also put and doubts expressed, both of which remain.
This fact cannot be concealed and because of this we also have respect for the stance adopted by those who vote differently to the majority of our group.
The overwhelming majority of our group will say "yes" to the Commission of Romano Prodi.
But this is neither a blank cheque nor carte blanche.
We will take you at your word, Mr Prodi, in other words, we will follow very closely whether, following your confirmation of appointment before the European Parliament, you fulfil the obligations you entered into prior to that confirmation.
<P>
We expect you to discuss your programme up to the year 2005 with Parliament and that it will be a politically balanced programme.
You have committed yourself in this regard and, above all, you have once again committed yourself to the five points.
I would like to express my sincere thanks to my colleagues across all the groups, Mr Hänsch, Mr Costa, Mrs Hautala, Messrs Collins and Bonde, for the fact that we succeeded, after yesterday' s two-hour debate between our group' s chairmen, in today passing a resolution with such a large majority.
It is our duty, as the European Parliament, to speak with one voice when talking about the key questions surrounding the future of Europe.
The resolution would have been approved with an even greater majority if the translation had been available in a certain language for one of the groups.
Because it was not, this group did not give its assent.
You can see that the problems faced by Parliament are similar to those of the Commission, but that also gives a human side to the European Union.
<P>
Allow me one final observation.
In recent weeks, we have made great strides in co-operation.
It is now our task to continue along this path towards democracy and parliamentarianism and, above all, to satisfy the hopes of the countries in central Europe of being able to join our community of law, peace and freedom.
In this sense, we say "yes" to the Commission-designate.
<P>
(Applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Cox">
Madam President, the time for speaking is drawing to a close and the time to decide is at hand.
<P>
From the outset of the recent period of crisis the ELDR Group has played a central role, leading from the front and insisting on greater parliamentary accountability on the part of the Commission as executive.
All the trauma we have gone through will have been worthwhile if the correct lessons are learned and applied.
We believe that the Commission, now to be voted, wishes to be more open, transparent, rigorous, reformist and accountable than any of its predecessors.
We believe that the message is understood that such parliamentary accountability is both collegial and individual in nature.
We believe the past nine months in and through the European Parliament represent a milestone in the democratisation of the politics of the European Union.
<P>
Today we vote in two parts: a political resolution and on the Commission.
The political resolution supported by more than 500 deputies foresees a new accord between Parliament and the Commission for the new millenium.
We have promoted and support this idea.
We have insisted on emphasising greater transparency, greater access to documentation and the necessity for individual responsibility and accountability of Commissioners.
<P>
We are conscious of the delicate sensitivities and prerogatives surrounding these questions, but our bottom line is clear.
In demanding these reforms we believe that they strengthen both our institutions in our common European vocation.
The message should go loud and clear from this House today to the capital cities of the Union in particular, that the rules of engagement have changed utterly.
Never again can the diktat or presumption of capitals with regard to preserving individual Commissioners be allowed to bring an entire Commission to its knees.
<P>
<P>
Collegiality cannot be a shield to cover all behaviour, including unacceptable behaviour.
Reinvigorated by the crisis we have passed through I believe there is a new energy and that there shall be a new synergy between our institutions to put the Union to work.
My group - the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Group - should vote unanimously for the Commission and its President.
We are pledged to making a fresh start for Europe.
Let the work begin.
<P>
(Applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lannoye">
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wurtz">
Madam President, in the course of the debate yesterday, I presented the reasons why my group could not affirm its confidence in the Prodi Commission.
<P>
While highlighting the interesting "shift" in the relationship between this institution and Parliament, as well as our desire to work towards the success of the administrative reform announced, I expressed the conviction that in order to respond to the urgent expectations of our fellow citizens it would have been necessary to take the initiative on significant changes affecting not only the operation of the Commission but also on its political orientations.
Unfortunately, I have heard nothing of this ilk in the various hearings of the Commissioners-designate or in the speeches of Mr Prodi himself.
<P>
At a time when the Commission is just emerging from the most serious crisis in its history and the European Union as a whole has food for thought, given the unprecedented alarm signal which millions of voters, male and female, have just given it, the time seemed ripe for strong action likely to open up new perspectives, action likely to regenerate hope.
Experience has shown that the European Union cannot be built simply by the market and by directives.
It is forged above all by means of living relationships between people who are carrying out projects which motivate and unite them.
<P>
My conviction is that Europe will win back credibility in the eyes of many of the peoples of the world, and their sympathy, by clearly stating, in the face of the advancing tide of neo-liberalism, its own values and plan.
<P>
It is this ambition, Madam President, which, in our view, is lacking today.
This is the reason why my group cannot affirm its confidence in the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Collins">
Madam President, Commission President, 1999 has been a difficult year for the mainstream EU institutions in that problems which surfaced over issues such as the accountability about the administration of various EU initiatives had strained relations between the European Parliament and the Commission.
<P>
I would like to impress upon the new college of the Commission and all Members of the European Parliament that the events of this year must be put behind us as a matter of urgency.
We must all reflect on the difficulties of the last twelve months in particular and learn from the mistakes that were clearly made.
We must ensure that decision-making structures are put in place at EU level which will guarantee that all decisions are accounted for.
<P>
In the resolution tabled today by my political group, we stress that there must be sound management in the administration of all EU programmes and initiatives.
Because the Commission is responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operation of so many EU-sponsored policies, it should take particular note of its Treaty obligations in this regard.
The challenges facing the European Union are too great for institutional deadlock to hamper the Commission and the European Parliament in dealing with their legislative programme.
The European Union cannot operate effectively unless there is cooperation and understanding between the Commission, Parliament and the Council.
I am not interested in promoting European Union decision-making founded on institutional stalemate.
I believe that the Commission too must recognise that the expanded remit of the codecision procedure means that Parliament has an equal say in the enactment of EU directives and regulations encompassing 38 different economic and social sectors.
The codecision procedure covers a wide range of activities including those in the transport sector, regional affairs, social matters, employment initiatives, structural funding, consumer protection, public health and environmental concerns.
If the codecision procedure is not operated in an effective manner, then inefficiency will take root in the internal decision-making procedures of the Union.
That is the last thing we need at this challenging time.
<P>
The single greatest challenge facing the European Union is to prepare for the enlargement process with the accession of six new countries to the Union by the year 2004-2005.
There are currently 37 different chapters of negotiation to be discussed between the Union and the new applicant countries.
These are going to be difficult discussions and internal institutional reform is needed in the EU if the enlargement process is to be successful.
<P>
In conclusion, the Commission and Parliament must ensure that tough decisions are worked through in a spirit of understanding and common purpose.
I hope that all of us have learned this lesson from the events of the last year.
Our Group does have a group position. Each national delegation will vote as it thinks fit.
The Irish delegation will vote for President Prodi and the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
Madam President, with Mr Prodi' s Commission, the EU is getting a real government for the first time.
It is a product of the fifteen Prime Ministers, but it has now come into its own, freed from supervision by the Member States, removed from national parliaments, light years from ordinary voters and tax payers, but still not subject to supervision by the EU Parliament.
The voters and the national parliaments are forfeiting power to Mr Prodi, but this power is not being picked up here in this House.
Voter influence is being limited again.
The executive is again being strengthened at the expense of the legislature.
Mr Prodi promises he will listen and despatch a Commissioner every time we ask for one.
He will seriously consider firing Commissioners if Parliament expresses its lack of confidence in them.
But it is Mr Prodi and the Commission itself who decide.
It is they who decide whether they have confidence in us, in the electorate and in the national parliaments, and they are still the only twenty people in the EU who can propose a new law or propose that an existing law be removed.
In the Commission itself, the directors-general have again taken power.
While Mr Prodi promises openness, answers concerning this are emptied of content by the directors-general.
A lot of answers at the hearings were prepared by the old officials.
In the draft version of Mr Kinnock' s response the officials had even written that the problem was that the Dutch official, Van Buitenen, had given too many documents to the group chairmen.
The problem was not that the Commission had covered up the misappropriations.
Clearly, there are still officials with things to learn.
<P>
The Experts' Group is therefore proposing a prosecuting authority and more supranational supervision in the Member States.
The Commission and the majority here will have Brussels impose more rules and manage more projects.
The result will be more centralism and more fiddling and, in five years' time, a new Committee of Wise Men will be preparing a new report on increasing fraud within the EU, for it is secretiveness and centralism which give rise to fraud.
Supervision can uncover a small amount, but the solution is a radical curtailment of assignments and projects in Brussels so that, instead, the focus is upon those things that extend beyond national frontiers and can no longer be solved on a national or regional basis.
We must move in the direction of a slimmed down, open and democratic EU.
<P>
My group, the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities, cannot offer the Commission political support but, instead, hard-working, critical and constructive opposition.
The democratic dream is that people' s conditions of life should be equal. This must not be confused with treating everyone the same, for we are different in our diversity, and that is our strength.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bonino">
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, we have a new Commission for a five-year term, and I would like to clarify somewhat my group' s attitude towards it.
Many of us believe that we are creating a new relationship with the Commission, and that really does mean that Parliament and the Commission will, in future, work in very close co-operation with one another.
Some of us therefore decided to grant the Commission a vote of confidence, as we consider that we have made a remarkable start in this relationship.
We also value the broad co-operation among the political groups in the adoption of the resolution calling for the Commission to take seriously the responsibility of individual Members of the Commission.
We are most satisfied that Parliament as a whole stresses the importance of public access to documents and information.
We have also emphasised that Parliament and Europe' s civil society must in future be more seriously involved in amendment procedures relating to the Treaties and Intergovernmental Conferences.
Some of us, however, have said that they do not expect very much in the way of green policies from the new Commission, and our whole group will, in future, also see to it that the Commission gives sufficient weight to the principles of the creation of a social Europe and sustainable development, so that they have a serious part to play in all decision-making.
Nevertheless, we are sure that the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, has listened to Parliament, and we are now embarking on a process of co-operation with the new Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, the French delegation of my group, like the Danish delegation, have already presented, in the main debate, the fundamental reasons why they could not support a Commission which believes itself to be the government of Europe even though the citizens have never expressly approved any such status.
<P>
The European Parliament, for its part, seems happy to play along since the text on which we are voting is entitled "Draft Decision on the Election of the Commission-designate." Whereas, obviously, there is no election involved either at the level of our House, where in legal terms it is a matter of the approval of the appointment of the Commissioners, or, to an even greater extent, at the level of the voters who, in France at least and no doubt in many other countries, have never even heard of Mr Prodi.
<P>
But I would also like to take advantage of this explanation of vote to mention the parallel resolution combining a number of the undertakings made by the Prodi Commission in areas that were often technical, but important, relating to the Code of Conduct, ethics and transparency.
We can do no other than to approve most of them, especially concerning the proper distribution of information.
I hope that, thanks to this, the Members of Parliament will, for example, be better informed regarding the negotiations of the Millennium Round than they were for the Uruguay Round, although this Europe has to date been obedient to the powerful forces which want free trade to prevail absolutely, but which prefer to act in secret.
<P>
Unfortunately, this resolution is contaminated by a number of irregular conditions, for example, the one which stipulates that the Prodi Commission undertakes to include on the agenda for the Intergovernmental Conference, in addition to the three points already determined, an important programme of institutional reforms.
Of course, the Commission has no power, until further notice, to itself decide the agenda for the forthcoming IGC.
This phrase at least has the merit of showing that the European Parliament and the Commission are going to back each other up in order to increase their respective powers and trample on the decisions of the Council.
<P>
But really, in this matter as in that of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the foolishness of the Council prevents us having any compassion for them.
In any case, we are voting against the resolution which includes this condition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Paisley">
Mr President, it is a disgrace at this vital time in the history of Europe that a shadow lies over the Commission.
No matter how much Mr Prodi protests, he and his college are seriously flawed.
Blackmailing threats of resignation indicate a weakness which is a running sore already and will develop into a festering boil.
<P>
If this vote had been taken before the elections I am sure the vote would have been somewhat different.
As I have already stated in this House this morning, the people I represent especially have no confidence in Commissioner Patten.
His insult to our honoured police dead and to our honoured police maimed is something we will not tolerate.
Mr Patten may forget, we will not forget.
Mr Patten may bury their heroism, we will see to it that their heroism still lives.
Solemnly I salute them today in this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Meijer">
Mr President, the United Left has already voiced our objections to the neo-liberal intentions of Mr Prodi' s proposed team.
These objections relate in particular to the Dutch candidate Mr Bolkestein, for he is the most outspoken proponent of policies for effecting cutbacks, privatisation, deregulation and the lowering of taxation.
A few months back, during the election campaign for this Parliament, the people heading the list of candidates of almost all the Dutch parties were quite vocal in saying that Mr Bolkestein should not be permitted to become a Member of the Commission.
His attitudes were often provocative, which led to him being labelled a euro-sceptic.
<P>
I do not actually think that he has ever been one.
It is true that he is keen for the Netherlands to be a tax haven for large companies and high incomes and he does not want the European Union to hinder him in this.
That is why he certainly would not be the right person to take on the taxation harmonisation portfolio.
But now, the vast majority of Dutch MEPs have voted for a Commission of which Mr Bolkestein is a Member, thereby completely breaking their promise to the Dutch electorate.
My party, the Socialist party in the Netherlands, does not go along with this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Ortuondo Larrea">
Mr President, I am sorry that almost no Members of the elected European Commission are present.
<P>
This is an explanation of vote directed at Mr Prodi.
I hope that somebody will take note and pass the communication on.
<P>
According to many historians and anthropologists, the Basque people form the oldest nation in Europe which, in spite of its limited population, has maintained its own ancestral language for centuries and millennia, as well as a distinct culture and traditions.
<P>
But, despite all of this, there are many other manifestations of the Basque uniqueness, not only in social, biological, civic, legal or administrative terms, but also, and above all, economically and fiscally.
<P>
The gradual historical absorption and integration of the Basque Country into the Spanish State, which has always been the result of military defeats in the past, as well as the mass arrival of immigrants from other parts of the Iberian Peninsula, has resulted in the blurring and dilution of our personality and of native Basque uniqueness.
<P>
For this reason, the Basque country maintains a political conflict with the Spanish State which has manifested itself in a violent way, a violence which the majority of us reject, but which, nevertheless, has left a trail of deaths, injuries, pain, extortion, fear and many innocent victims.
<P>
Much has been snatched from us for reasons of state interest.
But there is a distinguishing mark, a clear tendency towards self-government and sovereignty which has resisted all the historical upheavals and misfortunes.
I am referring to the full autonomy, to the exclusive capacity and competence which the Basque Country enjoys from a fiscal point of view, from the point of view of the collection of taxes, rates and public levies, as well as with regard to budgets and public spending.
<P>
Fortunately, today in Euskadi, as in Northern Ireland, we live in times of hope.
The armed organisation ETA has declared a cease-fire and the majority of Basque political parties, unions and civil organisations have signed an agreement in Lizarra-Estella (Navarre) which aims at dealing with the Basque conflict through dialogue and negotiation.
That is to say, by taking an exclusively democratic path.
<P>
Well, the Commission of the European Union has called into question and cast doubt upon certain fiscal measures which are designed to promote economic activity and reduce our high level of unemployment, measures which were adopted by the Basque institutions by virtue of their sovereignty and autonomy in this area.
This is a right which not even the Fascist dictatorship of General Franco dared to interfere with or violate in the historic Basque territories of Navarre or Álava.
<P>
In these historic days when the Basques are opting for European construction as a democratic path to understanding, conciliation and peaceful co-existence with all Spaniards, as well as all the other peoples of Europe, the thing that we need least, the thing that could affect the peace which we are seeking and which we yearn for is for our remaining fiscal sovereignty, our economic harmony, not to be respected.
<P>
We would have liked to have voted positively, in the affirmative, for this new European Commission which you have presented to us.
But the replies given by those responsible for competition and other issues relating to the European regions have caused disquiet and concern in the Basque Country, and for this reason we have not been able to put our trust in them.
<P>
But neither have we wanted to say no.
We have not rejected your candidature or your proposal, since we prefer to seek opportunities for the future.
<P>
For all of these reasons, Mr President Prodi, I ask for your support for the peace process in Euskadi, in the Basque Country.
To this end, there are some proposals concerning programmes and actions which will benefit the peace process, which have been presented to your Directorate-General responsible for human rights.
<P>
But, above all, there is one thing you can do for the sake of our peace and that is to promote the respect for the historic rights of the Basques, amongst which is fiscal sovereignty, which is the right of any other Member State of the EU.
This is a sovereignty which we are willing to harmonise with everybody else, as long as it is through dialogue, understanding and agreement.
Not through disrespect, inconsiderateness and even less, through imposition.
<P>
We believe that peace warrants reflection with regard to all these issues.
<P>
Thank you very much, Mr Prodi, for your attention.
We trust that your well-known democratic disposition will help to find a satisfactory solution for all of us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="MacCormick">
Mr President, in the vote I registered an abstention.
My reason for doing so was that the case for the appointment of this Commission needed to be proved "beyond reasonable doubt" and in my view, and that of my colleague Mr Hudghton, the correct verdict would have been "not proven" .
<P>
I recognise the quality and ability of many of the Commissioners and acknowledge that the majority in this Parliament has, on balance, decided to confirm the whole Commission.
We shall therefore work with them gladly. However, I am still of the opinion that there are too many doubts about particular individuals and about the leadership of the Commission as a whole.
These have persisted.
I cannot, in all conscience, justify to my constituents in Scotland the casting of an affirmative vote today.
On the other hand there is not yet compelling evidence to justify the total rejection of the Commission.
<P>
In these circumstances a positive abstention seemed to be the right vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Raschhofer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the fact that four members of the old Commission have reappeared in the new Commission, despite the fact that they were part of that collegiate body which, on account of mismanagement, was forced to resign, is one of the reasons why we have refused to give our approval to this Commission for the current period.
We were also not in a position to grant our approval for the period following on account of the fact that several of the candidates have not unequivocally declared themselves fully and individually responsible, as required by their office.
<P>
Mr Prodi has therefore passed up the opportunity to usher in a new start for the Commission, which is needed.
He would have had a green light to replace the members from the previous Commission and thereby give a signal of transparency and integrity to the citizens of Europe.
In the end, it is the aim of this Commission to consolidate its power base in terms of a European supergovernment.
We do not agree with this development, nor does it correspond to the will of the citizens of Europe.
Even if the resolution required for approval is to be regarded as a task conferred upon the Prodi Commission, which we certainly reject, we cannot agree to this because in this way, the fundamental responsibilities of this Parliament are allocated to one of the EU' s administrative bodies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Konrad">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are a plethora of reasons for rejecting the Commission.
First of all, I would like to again recall the political imbalance of the Commission.
Following the landslide election victory of the Christian Democrats, this Commission does not reflect their majority standing in Parliament.
As far as I am concerned, this is simply not acceptable.
Furthermore, in Mr Busquin from Belgium and Mr Lamy from France, we have two people in the Commission who, it has been proven, are embroiled in scandal.
<P>
If we here today want to embark on a new beginning, then, as I see it, such a new beginning will just not be possible with both of these gentlemen, and the citizens of Europe have a right to expect that we parliamentarians ensure that only persons of impeccable character feature in this Commission.
This is not the case in this instance.
Here, it is again a question of, if I may put it this way, cast-off national politicians.
As a Parliament, we did not act the way we did in January so as to elect people in September who are worse than those whom we sent packing in January!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Goebbels">
Mr President, I would like to explain why I abstained during the vote on the resolution.
The resolution includes one point (b) which, in my opinion, undermines an essential foundation block of European institutional architecture: the Commission' s right of initiative, since the Commission must act as a College and have the sole right to put forward European legislation.
<P>
Parliament believes it has won a great victory since it has obtained the guarantee that President Prodi is going to take account of the legislative initiatives of the European Parliament.
This initiative of Parliament' s will surely not fail to elicit requests for the same consideration from Member States and national bureaucracies.
You will see that as soon as this happens, the pressure exerted by the capitals of Europe upon the Commission will become greater than the pressure exerted by the European Parliament.
I believe we must do all in our power to defend the Commission' s right of initiative, otherwise it will be no more than a mailbox, a merely executive body.
This Parliament has considerable political influence on the Commission as long as it remains a political body, but this will no longer be the case when the Commission' s right of initiative is weakened.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, today I would have liked to have approved the Commission without any reservations.
Unfortunately, however, I have to register a reservation by abstaining since, although there are good Commissioners - Mrs Schreyer and Mrs Wallström have convinced me - I must say that I found the interventions of Mr Prodi more than disappointing.
I do not consider it enough that he only presented declarations of intent, when really what he should have been talking about was the direction in which the reforms in the European Union are heading.
For me, there were too many fine words, too little of substance and, therefore, through my abstention, I wanted to express my feeling that this is not enough and that over the next few years, the Commission must succeed in carrying out its promises as far as possible and not stand still on its words.
Hopefully, Mr Prodi will then succeed in becoming a stronger figure within this European Union.
Let me make it clear that I have not voted with a "no" , I would have preferred to give my approval with an unequivocal "yes" , yet I found Mr Prodi' s statement too disappointing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Gorostiaga Atxalandabaso">
Mr President, I shall begin in French, in that beautiful language of yours, to say that it is my duty to inform you of my intention to stop speaking this language until such time as France recognises the Basque language.
<P>
And neither will I do it in Spanish, in this Chamber, while the Basque language does not enjoy full recognition in our country.
<P>
(FR) I must add that the spectacle offered this morning was shameful, particularly before Mrs Halonen.
It shows a total lack of respect for a lady of this calibre.
<P>
Euskal Herritarrok, the Basque Left, has voted against the appointment of the Commission even though we knew that Mr Prodi had succeeded in winning the confidence of the majority of this Parliament.
<P>
We know now that the new Commission most certainly does not have the confidence of the majority of Europeans.
After this morning' s spectacle I doubt that Parliament has the confidence of most Europeans, in other words those who believe that it is still possible to build a new European Union in which freedom and justice are the guiding principles.
<P>
Mila esker
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Carlotti">
- (FR) Like my comrades in the European Socialist Party, who have been particularly attentive and assiduous on the occasion of the hearings of the candidate Commissioners, I am pleased with this procedure which has offered us a wealth of information regarding the personalities and intentions of these people we are to liase with.
<P>
This "final examination" of the future College of the executive body before the elected representatives of the citizens of Europe is an important phase in the democratisation of the European institutions which the Socialists have made their key issue.
<P>
The low-key performances of some of the candidates, still apparently reticent whenever they have to mention social or employment conditions in Europe, and even the most unconvincing hearing with Mrs Palacio, do not cancel out an overall impression which is generally satisfactory.
<P>
Unlike the European Right which manifestly sought to conceal its divisions by the very virulence of its attacks, occasionally personal and insulting attacks, on some Commissioners, I intend to promote the path of dialogue and collaboration with the future Commission.
<P>
The main thing is, in my view, to find once more a credible partner, putting an end to this interminable state of transition, and enabling the European executive to resume its onerous duties and finally make progress, in close consultation with the Members of the European Parliament, on the crucial matters of concern to Europe and its citizens.
<P>
In this spirit, I am voting in favour of the appointment of the new Commission, without thereby offering them a "blank cheque" .
I mean to give myself the option of assessing the quality of the work done on a "piecework" basis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
- (FR) I have personally listened to all the speeches by the President, Romano Prodi, and I have participated in all six hearings of the candidate Commissioners.
<P>
The first conclusion I draw from this is that we are faced with a reliable team of Commissioners who, by and large, are competent in their own areas.
<P>
The second conclusion is that the ideology expressed by this team and also many of their proposals are far removed from my own ideas regarding the construction and management of Europe, with an extremely worrying predominance of Liberalism over social aspects and citizen' s rights.
<P>
This is why, even though I shall be voting at noon, with no qualms, in favour of the appointment of this Commission, wishing it every fortune and good luck, nonetheless in a few weeks I shall be paying particular attention to the programme which will be announced for the year 2000 and the legislature.
<P>
My vote on this occasion, and any subsequent votes, will depend on the extent to which the proposals made to us reflect the propositions on the basis of which I was elected on June 13.
<P>
For me, more than ever, the stakes of the next five years come under four items:
<P>
1 - a political Europe which is democratic, transparent and efficient;
<P>
2 - a social Europe which is solid and fair, and which defends those most at risk;
<P>
3 - a citizen' s Europe where every citizen feels completely European in everyday life;
<P>
4 - a Europe which is capable of expansion with grit and determination in order to guarantee peace.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Cossutta">
- The parliamentary group I belong to is leaning towards voting against Mr Prodi.
<P>
I share a lot of the concerns and reservations expressed by the majority of my parliamentary group regarding the Commission' s programme and composition.
<P>
However, I do not agree with voting against him.
<P>
I know Romano Prodi well and greatly appreciate his leadership qualities and his democratic aims.
President Prodi was head of the Italian Government at a decisive moment for Italy' s entry into Europe.
At that time, I firmly supported the work of his government and I tirelessly fought to prevent his centre-left government from entering a crisis - just about a year ago - through an initiative of the political group led by Mr Bertinotti.
<P>
I did not lose confidence in him them, and I do not intend to deny him my confidence today.
<P>
Romano Prodi was nominated President of the Commission by the current government of the Italian Republic, which my party is an active member of. And I confess that his strength of character can guarantee strong leadership of the Commission, overcoming the limitations and inadequacies we have noted in the programme and the composition of the Commission.
<P>
And so, in contrast with the positions taken by the majority of our parliamentary group GUE/NGL, we Italian Communist Members make a reasoned and vigilant abstention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Désir">
<SPEAKER ID=97 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Ferrer">
- (ES) I have given my positive vote to the Commission presided over by Mr Prodi, firstly, because the President clearly has the characteristics required to meet the challenges which the European Union must face on the threshold of the third millennium, and because, in general, the Commissioners have given evidence of their ability to respond to those challenges in an effective way.
It is not simply a matter of ensuring, within the framework of economic globalisation, a degree of growth which is capable of creating lasting and sustainable employment, or proposing profound institutional reform at the next Intergovernmental Conference. Nor is it just a matter of going forward with the issue of enlargement of the Union in order to contribute to the well-being of Europe as a whole, despite the undeniable importance of these challenges.
What is needed, above all, is the advancement of the process of European construction with regard to feelings and conscience.
It is a matter, as Prodi said himself yesterday, of creating one soul and one heart: the European heart and soul.
It is also a question of offering genuine peace and prosperity to the neighbouring populations and establishing links of co-operation on a global level in order to create a decent society for all, a world which enjoys peace and liberty.
<P>
Mr Prodi, both through his loyalty to the principles which brought about the current European Union and through his proven capacity for management, will, I am sure, lead the new Commission along the path and at the pace which current circumstances require.
Therefore, in spite of individual questions which concern certain Commissioners which, in any case, belong to the past, I have given my vote of confidence to the new Commission in the knowledge, furthermore, that Parliament has the necessary mechanisms in place to withdraw that confidence in the event that it is betrayed.
The restoration of the hope and confidence of the European citizens now depends on the Commission which, under the direction of President Prodi, today embarks on its course.
This Commission has been granted, by this Parliament, the democratic legitimacy and transparency which the citizens demand.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Figueiredo">
The President of the Commission' s intervention sums up all of the committees' work which provided the opportunity to assess the political positions of the various Commissioners.
<P>
On the whole, the fundamental political positions which have been responsible for the current problems were defended, particularly those on unemployment and social exclusion.
<P>
The complete lack of confidence that our citizens have in the European institutions, which was clearly demonstrated by the low turnout in the recent elections, requires not only "a modern and efficient administration" , but new policies which will respond positively to the socio-economic problems currently experienced by the European Union' s Member States.
<P>
This is why the central features of the positions held are still neo-liberal and federalist policies, although in a few cases, there were hints of social concern in the speeches, but without any concrete suggestions as to how they might be implemented.
Only yesterday, Romano Prodi clarified his position when he claimed that it was necessary to "restructure the single market and to promote liberalisation" , and deliberately emphasised the need to continue the process of liberalisation in the goods and service sectors.
<P>
If we maintain the criteria of Maastricht and the Stability Pact, the European Employment Pact loses any credibility it might have had, and this, together with the insistence on the flexibility of working conditions makes it clear that what is at stake is an increasing deregulation of working conditions.
In turn, no progress has been made on the need to assess the movement of capital, in terms of national social programmes having to adapt to current demographic trends, which proves that, in fact, their objective is not greater social justice, but quite the opposite: greater social inequality.
<P>
In the area of farming, there was still an insistence on the great objectives of the CAP - common agricultural policy - and on a greater liberalisation of the markets, which upholds the injustices in the distribution of aid and subsidies, with an obvious bias against family-based farming and against countries such as Portugal where small-holdings represent the most common kind of farming.
<P>
Concerning foreign and defence policies, the insistence on the federalist approach was emphasised, as was the strengthening of the CFSP' s militaristic positions, instead of a decisive pledge for policies of co-operation.
<P>
These are the main reasons for a vote against the new Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fruteau">
- (FR) I would like to report my great satisfaction at having been able to participate in the great democratic event we have just experienced, which is unparalleled on the European political scene.
<P>
The European institutions, particularly the European Commission and the European Parliament, emerge with increased statures from the hearings of the Commissioners-designate, and the European citizens who followed them (in the press) may find in them, I hope, good reasons to become more interested in the building of Europe.
<P>
For these reasons, taking account of the generally acknowledged competence of the Commissioners and the intention expressed by the majority of them to work in close collaboration with Parliament, I voted in favour of the appointment of the European Commission.
<P>
It was all the easier for me since the procedure selected for these hearings provided an opportunity to remind the Commission of its undertaking to present, by the end of 1999, a raft of proposals intended to finally give substance to Article 299(2) of the Treaty of Amsterdam which establishes the specificity of the most remote regions, and their right to specific conditions of exemption, to enable them to deal with their structural problems.
<P>
In addition, with regard to the OCT associated to the European Union, Commissioner Nielson acknowledged the need to present as quickly as possible a wide range of proposals intended to give these countries a status appropriate to their current situation, with a view to the forthcoming Association Agreement and, in particular, the consequent renewal of the financial instrument allocated to their development.
<P>
On both these subjects, which I attach particular importance to, the proposals of the competent Commissioners seemed to me to augur well for the future collaboration between Commission and Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gahrton and Schörling">
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Hudghton">
. My main consideration in passing judgement on the Prodi Commission is whether this team of 20 has convinced me of its ability to significantly restore public confidence in the European Union and its institutions.
<P>
Regrettably, following the individual hearings and the various statements of Mr Prodi, I remain unconvinced.
<P>
The strong pressure on MEPs to approve the new Commission, thus allowing a return to 'normal' business, must be balanced against the many doubts and reservations which surround aspects of the Prodi team.
<P>
Mr Prodi views the Commission as a Government for Europe.
That concept is not one which I would be inclined to vote in favour of, but even if I did feel so inclined, I could not give a positive vote for this Commission-Designate to fulfil such a role.
<P>
I want to see real and radical improvement in management and financial control within the Commission.
I want to see genuine change in the Commission' s attitude towards the European Parliament.
I want a Commission which is seen to be relevant to the lives and aspirations of our citizens.
<P>
The only verdict which I can apply to Mr Prodi' s team is 'Not Proven' and accordingly register my abstention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Inglewood">
. Over the winter of 1998/99 the European Parliament came of age, bringing about the resignation of the Santer Commission and in so doing established its proper place in the European political order.
I fear however we have failed as an institution in the manner in which we have scrutinised the Prodi Commission, which has been unstructured, insufficiently in-depth and inconsistent.
That has made it impossible for me to endorse the Member States' nominations.
<P>
Before the next Commission is scrutinised I believe Parliament must instruct the Rules Committee to draw up comprehensive procedures covering all aspects of a much more thorough and in-depth series of hearings.
<P>
Unless that is done we shall destroy public confidence in us and let down the European public whom I believe have not been well served by Parliament' s actions in respect of the Prodi Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lienemann">
- (FR) The vote on the ratification of the Commission is not a vote of approval for the Commission' s programme, since Parliament will be consulted on this at the end of the year.
<P>
What we have to do today is to assess whether the Commissioners-designate are up to the task of fulfilling their assignments competently and with due seriousness.
There is nothing in what we have learnt during the Commissioners' hearings to justify, at this stage, a veto on any one of them in particular.
Let us say that they can enjoy the benefit of the doubt at this early stage.
The fact remains that, in his speech to the European Parliament, Romano Prodi made statements which can only disappoint and worry those who are waiting for rapid and bold responses from the European Union in order to re-align Europe to be at the service of people and humanity rather than of finance and of the great God, money, for Europe to put itself forward as an alternative to world-wide liberalisation.
<P>
Mr Prodi' s silence on the subject of the need to defend the European Social Model, his irritating reticence, his frequent omissions on the subject of a European policy to promote employment and his tentative generalities on institutional change, give us rather more than reservations.
<P>
This is why in the vote on the nomination of Mr Prodi, I voted against.
In anticipation of the essential reorientation of the political paths of the Commission and of the debate on the action to be taken, a vote in favour today must be interpreted as a choice not to multiply crises, blockages, in our institutions, and as a refusal to look for individual scapegoats when it is the orientation of Europe in terms of politics and civilisation which is in question.
<P>
This vote is, to some extent, purely administrative.
My vote is not therefore a challenge to the Commissioners-designate.
Nor is it a vote of confidence.
I expect the new Commission to earn this confidence.
The Commission must be aware that there are many of us who will not hesitate to penalise it if its actions should prove to be as disappointing as its current political performance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Lucas">
. My decision to vote against this Commission was not taken lightly.
But having listened closely both to the debate here today, and to the answers we have been given from the Commissioners designate in the Parliamentary Hearings over the past few weeks, I still have a number of grave concerns and reservations.
<P>
There are two aspects to these concerns: on the one side, the political side, of course we could not expect a Green Commission.
But what we did expect was the demonstration of a greater awareness of how to prioritise and implement key issues of social justice and environmental sustainability.
<P>
On the other side, the assessment of the Commissioners' ability to live up to the enormous expectations that now lie upon them to introduce a very different kind of behaviour and culture in the new Commission, we did expect the demonstration of an ability to introduce genuine, far-reaching, radical reform.
<P>
And so, in order to be able to vote in favour of this Commission, I would need to be able to say that, as a bloc, these are Commissioners whose commitment to introduce exactly such fundamental reforms I can endorse.
<P>
I would need to be able to say that these are all Commissioners whose integrity and good judgement are beyond reproach.
<P>
I would need to be able to say that these are Commissioners whom I, and the citizens of Europe, can wholeheartedly trust.
<P>
I greatly regret that what I have heard and read over the past few weeks and months means that, for a number of Commissioners in the proposed new Commission, I cannot yet say these things.
<P>
And because I cannot say these things, I cannot justify to the electorate who voted for me a vote in favour of this new Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Thomas">
- (DE) I have just voted against the composition of this Commission and abstained from voting for Romano Prodi.
My reason for this: in May of this year, Commission President Prodi received a convincing vote from the European Parliament to initiate a comprehensive reform programme with a new team for a Commission in need of cleaning up.
Yet the Commission is already tarnished.
<P>
Mr Prodi did not react to the outcome of the hearings.
In view of the considerable doubt expressed as to the competence of the Belgian Philippe Busquin for the research department and the plethora of accusations regarding his affairs, he should have rejected the candidates.
Furthermore, he accepted without reservation the proposal from the French government to nominate Pascal Lamy as Commissioner responsible for foreign trade, even though he is the architect of the "Jacques Delors System" , and therefore responsible for the emergence of a completely confusing financial structure within the Commission.
This system is the real reason behind the serious lack of organisation which led to the resignation of the Santer Commission.
<P>
Nothing has come of the grandiose promise of "a fair balance across the political spectrum" .
The majority of the Commission is from the Left.
Romano Prodi did not raise any objection to the German Chancellor when the latter nominated a Green and a Social Democrat purely on the grounds of party political affiliation.
Word has now got out about Schröder' s lack of any definite line and sheer power tendencies, and Germans the length and breadth of the country are now making him pay.
In contrast to his predecessor Helmut Kohl who, five years ago, accepted the opposition' s nomination for the Commission - and it was not easy for me to vote for Monika Wulf-Mathies in 1994 - Schröder was not prepared to give consideration to the views of today' s opposition, the CDU/CSU, the victors in the European elections in Germany.
Elmar Brok would have been a more excellent nomination and one capable of winning a majority.
<P>
It is intended that Michaele Schreyer will take responsibility for budgetary issues, an area in which she can only supervise and not shape policy; she could do nothing to alleviate misgivings relating to her ability to take responsibility for budgetary issues.
Günter Verheugen is being pushed into the sphere of enlargement where the decisive steps have already long since been taken.
He will not even be responsible for his own Directorate-General and is, therefore, only a junior Commissioner.
I cannot accept this second-class arrangement for the largest Member State in the EU, no doubt a result of Schröder' s pigheadedness.
<P>
The upshot of all this: I have to reject this Commission.
This vote does not concern expressly the Italian Mario Monti (Trade), the Luxembourger Viviane Reding (Culture and Education) and the British national Chris Patten (External Affairs) who, and I myself am convinced of this, left behind an indelible impression of competence and an ability to communicate.
<P>
In spite of the misgivings mentioned, I did not say "no" to Romano Prodi. Instead I abstained.
I recognise that he has taken on board five demands from the Group of the European People' s Party, inter alia, with regard to the legislative right of nomination of the European Parliament, the conduct of the Commissioners in the case of a vote of no-confidence and the necessary permanent dialogue concerning Commission reform.
I hope that Mr Prodi will become someone who is willing and able to undertake reform and who will give Europe' s citizens new confidence in clear and efficient European institutions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
- (NL) Yesterday, I referred in my statement to how positive we consider the approach of Mr Prodi and his new team to be.
Nevertheless, I abstained from this vote.
After all, the representatives of the European Free Alliance want a Europe which is not just one made up of States.
Moreover, I personally cannot place my trust in certain Commissioners because I have doubts as to how effective the fight against fraud will be under their leadership.
That is why I abstained from the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Martin, David W">
. I will be voting for the new Commission.
<P>
The Commitments given by Mr Prodi to change the culture in the Commission to ensure more transparency and better financial management are very welcome.
<P>
Mr Prodi' s desire to pursue enlargement of the Community, to give job creation the highest priority and to work closely with a the Parliament on the Intergovernmental Conference are also encouraging.
<P>
The individual commissioners' acceptance of their personal responsibilities and commitment to work closely with Parliament show they understand the new environment within which the Commission will have to operate.
<P>
The new Commission has not been given a blank cheque; they have been judged fit to be appointed.
Their ability to do their job will be judged later.
That judgement will be based on whether this Commission brings Europe closer to the people, tackles fraud and inefficiency within its own service and above all equips Europe for tackling crime, unemployment and social exclusion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
- (DE) Along with the rest of the CSU European Group, I voted against the Commission twice because its composition is lop-sided and in no way reflects the clear electoral will demonstrated on 13 June.
In addition, there are misgivings relating to individual Commissioners, above all strong misgivings were expressed against Mr Busquin, the replacement of whom ought to have been a matter of central concern for Mr Prodi as well.

<P>
As regards the second vote concerning Mr Prodi himself, I abstained because, whilst admittedly wanting to give him my full backing for the rest of his term of office, I did not want to vote on the coming five-year period until January and I am extremely sceptical of the procedure adopted here today.
<P>
I would like to wish President Prodi, Vice-President Palacio, who is responsible for Parliament, and whose qualities I have every confidence in, and all the other Commissioners who will have responsibilities in my areas of activity - Mr Patten, Mr Verheugen and, above all, our long-serving colleagues Mrs Reding and Mr Vitorino - the best of luck and much success and I would like to offer them good and constructive co-operation.

<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Draft supplementary and amending budgets (SAB) 1/99, 3/99 and 4/99
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A5-0009/99) by Mrs Dührkop Dührkop and Mr Fabra Vallés, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft supplementary and amending budgets 1, 3 and 4 to the budget of the European Communities for the 1999 financial year.
(C5-0021/1999, C5-0074/1999 y C5-0130/1999).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Dührkop Dührkop">
Mr President, please allow me to highlight a few points as rapporteur of the 1999 budget.
<P>
Firstly the 1999 budget was defined at the time as a "bridge" towards the new financial requirements, that is towards the financing of Agenda 2000.
<P>
Secondly, it was also a bridge with regard to the political priorities which this Parliament wanted to establish with a view to the future, with a view to the new millennium, especially in category 4 - external activities - where the European Parliament made an effort to increase the commitment appropriations.
<P>
And finally, the European Parliament also increased the payment appropriations in the 1999 budget in view of the clear shortfall of one billion in payment appropriations, a shortfall which had appeared, above all, in the Social Funds.
<P>
Now, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we find ourselves with four supplementary and amending budgets (SABs), with 41 transferrals and a fifth amending budget.
<P>
This is a record.
It is also a record that we have taken less than 150 hours to arrive at the first and only reading of this SAB 4.
<P>
On the one hand, we have amending budget no. 1.
This does not cause any problem, it is a normal procedure, it is the surplus of the 1998 budget which, normally, is returned to the Member States.
But it deserves to be taken into account when we speak of the other amending budgets.
<P>
As for SAB 3, I will leave it to my colleague, Mr Fabra Vallés, to go into more detail.
I will turn directly to SAB 4, which proposes 137 million in commitment appropriations for the creation of an Agency for the Reconstruction of Kosovo, for macro-financial aid for the former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia and 30 million in humanitarian aid for Turkey as a result of the earthquake.
And, in payment appropriations, aid of 180 million for PHARE, the former Yugoslavia and Kosovo.
And, apart from that, 15 posts for OLAF.
<P>
Mr President, once we have looked at the fact that all the contents of SAB 4 were to be reallocated within category 4, in view of the fact that Parliament and the Council have decided to finance these within title B-1 Agriculture, I will change the subject a little because my problem is not with the SABs.
My problem is not the urgency, and is not the fact that we have to provide aid through finance which was not anticipated.
I have another pressing problem, Mr President.
It is that when I read page 12 of the Spanish version of the preliminary draft supplementary and amending budget no. 4/99, I realise that we are only dealing with the tip of the iceberg.
Because here the Commission tells us literally that, despite the fact that we have made this financing effort through reallocation, a further sum of 570.5 million is required, which the Commission intends to reallocate in the global transferral or in a supplementary transferral during this financial year.
<P>
The Commission also recognises that the reallocation of this sum is not yet possible in category 4, but says that an extensive effort should be made to make a reallocation within the budget as a whole.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this terrifies me, because at the end of the financial year of the 1999 budget - to refer to a Spanish proverb - "not even the rapporteur is going to recognise her own budget" .
<P>
With so many reallocations, the most serious matter is the fact that the European Parliament' s own priorities, voted for in December, no longer exist.
They have been totally changed because the budgetary authority of Parliament has been undermined by this continuous reallocation.
I warn you of this, Mr President, in consideration of the 2000 budget.
<P>
On pages 8 and 12, there is an equally terrifying problem: we have increased the payment appropriations.
In this case, the Commission says that even so it is calculated that we are still missing 650.5 million in payment appropriations.
Add to this the fact that an SEM 2000 forecast says that the possible shortfall in payment appropriations for the Structural Funds in 1999 is going to be even greater than in 1997 and 1998.
Mr President, this "burden of the future" which you talked about years ago in the Committee on Budgets, is now the burden of the present, because I believe that we have ignored your "warning" and we have not been sufficiently strong as a Parliament to prevent this false saving on the part of the Council, which presents a payment budget while carefully forgetting that the commitments have to be fulfilled.
This is the plea I would make with regard to the 2000 budget: we must not carry on like this.
<P>
As rapporteur for the 1999 budget, the 2000 budget must - as I see it - anticipate a review of the Financial Perspective.
It has been announced and the figures are there.
It must include a considerable increase in payment appropriations, not only to prevent the burden from becoming even heavier, but also to prevent the paralysing of payments in the Community' s programmes.
I hope that the 1999 budget will serve at least to prevent these mistakes in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fabra Vallés">
Mr President, first of all, I would like to congratulate you - if I am not mistaken - on your first Presidency.
The truth is that it appears that you have been doing it all your life.
Therefore, congratulations.
<P>
With regard to the SAB 3/99, Mr President, there are two cases, which are not of that type which we have often criticised in the Committee on Budgets for the use and abuse of the supplementary and amending budgets, but which I believe are well justified cases.
<P>
On the one hand, the Court of Justice, which is going to renew its entire informatics system with regard to word processing.
This is totally justifiable, not only because it is currently a system which is not prepared for the "year 2000 effect" , but also because the new system takes into account the compatibility of systems and, what' s more, it is a complicated system which will cover the whole process from the beginning, from the conception of the text up to its publication, without any other system being involved, and I believe this will put the Court of Justice in the best possible position to carry out its work.
<P>
This increase which has been requested in this supplementary and amending budget amounts to EUR 1,675,000 which is not all for equipment, since a proportion - EUR 135,000 - will be dedicated to the training of staff.
This is all that would remain in this SAB if it had been taken into account earlier, since we began to speak about it in 1998, but it could not be covered in the 1999 budget without recourse to an SAB.
Well, this is due to delays because, firstly, an auditing company which understood the matter had to be used and the best system had to be chosen and also an invitation to tender had to be issued.
This has led to the delay and we therefore are faced with this supplementary and amending budget which the Committee on Budgets is fully prepared to grant.
<P>
The second case refers to the Committee of the Regions.
We all know that the Committee of the Regions and the Economic and Social Committee has a common organisational structure, the COS, but that as a result of the Treaty of Amsterdam and its implementation, it was decided that this common organisational structure would be dismantled.
Therefore the Committee of the Regions ended up without a financial controller or an accounting officer, and it is very difficult to function without a financial controller or an accounting officer.
This is why the Committee of the Regions has requested an A3 as a financial controller, an A5 as an accounting officer and a C5 as a secretary.
The Committee on Budgets fully agrees with the Council and believes that we should allow an A4 as financial controller, an A5 as accounting officer and for the moment not allow this C5.
<P>
I would ask the person responsible for the 2000 budget to bear in mind the needs of the Committee of the Regions and consider whether this post can figure amongst posts included in the 2000 budget for that Committee.
<P>
We have often been a little mean in the granting of staffing increases but it is also true that sometimes we do not allow the institutions to function totally efficiently through a lack of personnel.
This is therefore an issue which should be looked into thoroughly.
<P>
I do not wish to end, Mr President, without addressing a few words to the Commissioner, Mr Liikanen, whom I believe to be on his last day in charge of budgets.
I can only say two things to him: one, that the task has been difficult and, two, that the result has been good.
I would not say very good, but I would say good.
You have played your role in the task and how many people would want to do the job you have done?
Therefore, I would like to express my thanks and my congratulations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Fabra.
I am grateful for your opening words.
Actually, after 14 years as a member of the Committee on Budgets, this is the first debate that I will follow as President.
But this is my second Presidency in this Chamber.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Böge">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to make a couple of basic observations regarding this matter of supplementary and amending budgets.
<P>
It is surely correct and necessary to react to urgent and pressing demands relating to financial policy, in particular as prompted by the situations we are faced with in Kosovo and also in Turkey.
Nevertheless, one cannot help thinking that we are faced with a certain amount of confusion.
Parliament, understandably, given past experiences as well, is always very quick to suspect that conscious redistribution from sections of the budget where funds are still available is actually practised since the budget undoubtedly contains unpopular priorities on the part of Parliament which other institutions do not necessarily remember to transpose.
<P>
The worse thing is actually not supplementary and amending budget no.
4, but the fact that I cannot today make any assessment whatsoever whether we are to end this year with the fifth supplementary budget or whether we will not get to no. 7 by December, for the Commission itself in its working document regarding the setting of borrowing requirements provided very different estimates.
It is not possible to estimate what payments may still have to be made to the PHARE programme.
Madam rapporteur has already mentioned the 650 million.
In this respect, we should all actually feel uneasy.
Commissioner, I believe that in order for us to arrive at a well-ordered and rational procedure, it is absolutely necessary that the Commission gets down to clearing-up operations by December, before the second reading, so as to avoid finding ourselves in a similar situation next year to the one we have this year, particularly as the Commission itself is saying that it can certainly not be estimated what payments will be needed for the year 2000.
<P>
I would also like to set great store by the fact, Commissioner, this being a matter of concern for the Committee on Budgetary Control, that the Commission declares itself ready, in presenting the fifth supplementary and amending budget, to introduce the extra 15 posts called for in the agreement by the Committee on Budgetary Control.
As far as we are concerned, this is one of the prerequisites if we are to come to a decision in October.
<P>
I would also like to establish a connection with tomorrow' s debate, Mr President.
Tomorrow, we are discussing and voting on the proposal relating to the Agency for Reconstruction for Kosovo.
I would like to make it very clear that we, through the fourth supplementary and amending budget, were spontaneously and quickly in a position to increase the appropriate resources and to make said resources available.
But it is also in the interests of the Commission itself that the proposals, both with regard to financial responsibility and as regards the structure of the Agency for Reconstruction, are urgently revised by Parliament, for making the resources available is not in itself sufficient to make the undertaking efficient, transparent and responsible.
We will come back to this point tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="Wynn">
Mr President, when I came in I was immediately confronted by three surprises. Firstly I saw you sitting there, instead of out here for our budget debate.
The one great advantage of that is that because you are there and not here the Socialists now get more speaking time since you would have had speaking time in this debate.
The second surprise is to see Commissioner Liikanen, after I praised him yesterday.
I was about to welcome Mrs. Schreyer to her first debate and all of a sudden I see him there.
The third surprise is the fact that there is no one here from the Council, because this debate is on SABs.
<P>
I say that with a lot of sadness because the Council deserves to be criticised over SAB1 and SAB3.
I have said this at a trialogue meeting, we have said it in our committee and I now wish it to go on public record.
The way the Council behaved over SAB 1 and 3 was nothing short of disgraceful. It was a slap in the face to this Parliament.
For those who do not understand what I am talking about, I am referring to the timing of their submissions for both the supplementary and amending budgets, which meant that we would not have the chance to debate them in full.
We will vote on them this week but it will be to all intents and purposes a formality.
I hope it does not happen again.
If I thought they were going to do the same thing next year, i.e. submit an SAB at the end of July, I would not hesitate to call a special meeting of the Budgets Committee within the 45-day timetable to make sure that we blocked it so that we could discuss it in full.
It did nothing for the trust that we are trying to build up between the two institutions.
It just led to antagonism and suspicion.
<P>
Having said all that, when it comes to SAB4 the speed with which the institutions have worked has been quite commendable.
The Council took on board what we were asking and got it through within a week and tomorrow we will be voting on SAB4.
This is indeed encouraging.
We welcome the cooperation that has gone on in SAB4.
We welcome the use of category 1 funds for external expenditure and we welcome that speed.
However, two things need to be said about SAB4.
One is that the 15 extra posts for OLAF are there, which we accept, but we need to stress that there has to be an SAB5.
SAB5 should be imminent because of the Commission' s needs for payments but within the resolution that we will vote on we will insist on an SAB5 and an extra 15 posts for OLAF.
This is a political decision which the committee and the Budget Control Committee have to make and the message that therefore needs to be taken to Mrs Schreyer, if not from you, Commissioner, then at least from the Commission services, is that we would want an early meeting with Mrs Schreyer to talk about the contents of an SAB5 to be placed before Parliament as soon as possible and, more importantly, to include the extra staff for OLAF.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="President">
I believe that we all share the surprise of the Chairman of the Committee on Budgets.
And I hope that the officials of the Council who are present will take note and communicate it to the relevant minister.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Virrankoski">
Mr President, the Commission' s proposals for supplementary and amending budgets 1, 2 and 3 have been dealt with in Parliament unusually quickly and very flexibly.
It shows that Parliament and its Committee on Budgets show real responsibility for the European Union economy and, in addition, real responsibility for the development of different policies and adjusting promptly to prevailing circumstances.
<P>
Budgets 1 and 3 are mainly technical; they concern a surplus and certain computer-related purchases.
The most interesting additional budget is number 4 which channels significant sums in respect of reconstruction and humanitarian aid to the Balkans - Kosovo and Macedonia - and aid to Turkey.
Putting this fund together was a significant challenge to EU credibility and the fact that they were dealt with by the Committee on Budgets leading to amendments being made shows just how great that responsibility is.
<P>
I would particularly like to stress that when reconstruction in Kosovo gets under way, the procedure must be simple and clear, with regard also to the administration of funds and the share of responsibility.
For this reason, the agency responsible for reconstruction should not be split up into two separate areas, but must be in one place, and it should be independent with sufficient authority to take decisions.
Otherwise, the management of funds will be time-consuming and will lead to a situation in which the impact of aid is weakened.
For this reason, when tomorrow we debate and decide on this issue, the Agency for Reconstruction should be set up in Pristina, and it should on no account be associated with the agency that monitors the Stability Pact at Thessaloniki.
<P>
On other matters I would say that the questions raised by Mr Fabra Vallés on arrangements regarding appointments can surely be dealt with at the next debate on the budget.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Buitenweg">
Mister President, amending budget 4 proposes that hundreds of millions of euros should be reallocated.
This newcomer had to make up her mind on the matter based on this little piece of paper.
It seems to me that that is not an exercise to be repeated.
<P>
The proposal provides for the reallocation of commitment appropriations to the value of EUR 137 million, 30 million of which is for Turkey, largely for relief action in the form of temporary accommodation now that winter is on its way, emergency aid in other words.
Yet only 15 million in payment appropriations is being reserved, and under certain conditions at that.
Therefore, we can expect another amending budget soon. Otherwise, companies and organisations are going to have to wait rather a long time before they are paid.
There will have to be another amending budget for Kosovo, too.
30 million is now being released in payment appropriations, but we need 50 million.
Plugging holes and robbing Peter to pay Paul creates a lack of transparency in relation to the budget and also compromises budgetary authority, a point clearly made by Mrs Dührkop Dührkop.
<P>
Turning now to the content of amending budget 4, the original proposal provided for a reduction in the amount spent on co-operation with Latin America and Asia.
This was certainly unacceptable as far as we were concerned.
What we want is to see that this money is actually spent, and to see the Commission do its best, put its shoulder to the wheel, create the posts and ensure that the money is indeed spent on those things that the budgetary authority intended it to be spent on.
<P>
Our group welcomes the fact that, as Mr Wynne said, the Council has certainly been quick to take up the Committee on Budgets' idea and to look into the agricultural guarantee fund' s underspending.
<P>
But soon, when the time comes to deal with Budget 2000, the same discussion will start up again.
Once again, the Council and Parliament will have to reach agreement on expenditure on external activities, and the reconstruction of Kosovo will feature here again, too.
It is likely, under these circumstances, that the Council will place the money set aside for co-operation with Latin America, Asia and Africa, in jeopardy for good.
Cutbacks are also being made in spending on projects for furthering the peace process in the Middle East, and on projects for reintegrating demoralised soldiers and refugees into society.
The support for NGOs is on the decline.
I want to take the opportunity now to say that the Green Group will not support this.
<P>
Consequently, some of the 500 million needed for the reconstruction of Kosovo will be borne by those countries for which the European Union is providing development assistance.
We do not believe that to be fair.
The Green Group does not support the short-sighted slogan: "I want my money back" .
We want to ensure that the people of Europe get value for their money, and we are quite prepared to discuss making cutbacks in, or abolishing, aid programmes that are not going well.
But the 10% linear reduction, the drip-feed method, shows that there has been no serious weighing up of priorities.
<P>
Kosovo is a special case.
Even at the time when the Financial Perspective was being discussed, people said that it would probably be necessary to increase spending in category 4 for the purposes of the reconstruction work there.
I think we are indeed going to have to lay the Interinstitutional Agreement on the table for a short and limited period of time.
In view of this discussion, I would like to remind you that one of the matters we are dealing with this week concerns actually giving back 1.6 billion in payment appropriations to the Member States.
Surely it would not be an insurmountable problem to devote part of that surplus to Kosovo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, I would first of all like to say that, unfortunately, the report by the Committee on Budgets does not exist in all the languages. The Greek version did not reach us until just an hour ago, and I believe that it is something that we must pay particular attention to.
I understand that it may have been due to the urgency of the procedure, but we are a new Parliament, we are just starting out, and I believe that some principles and procedural mechanisms must be upheld.
<P>
I would also like to make two comments on the amending and supplementary budget 4/99 and I believe that the matter should be discussed with a representative of the Council.
We see various activities: for example, we have been informed that the Yugoslav Opposition is organising conferences and demonstrations in Brussels.
My question concerns how these activities are being funded.
These Parliament-approved appropriations are reserved solely for Yugoslavia for strictly humanitarian action, but on what political criteria do the Commission and the Council of Ministers base their decisions as to when and how they should be used?
Other fundamental issues, however, such as the continuing phenomenon of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, directed against the Serbian, Gypsy and Turkish communities, are not being addressed at all.
<P>
The second point I would like to make concerns the EUR 30 million which is being given to Turkey as humanitarian aid.
It is a sound move, a positive act, as is the involvement of the European Investment Bank and the use of other programmes.
However, we must not forget the principles laid down by Parliament as regards relations with Turkey and which the Turkish Government should be taking into consideration. We saw no signs of this in the meeting two days ago with the Turkish Foreign Minister.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="President">
Mr Alavanos, I am sorry that the text is not available in all language versions.
You know that the Committee on Budgets discussed this report last night, but I can guarantee that, before the vote, you will have it in all versions.
I am sorry that this has not happened yet.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Dam">
Mr President, these supplementary and amending budgets relate to urgent problems, of that there can be no doubt.
Both the reconstruction of Kosovo and the provision of humanitarian aid to north-west Turkey must be undertaken without delay in view of the disasters that have taken place in those regions, and it is the European Union' s moral duty to provide the financial means for doing so.
Hence the resolution put forward by Mrs Dührkop Dührkop and Mr Fabra Vallés deserves all our support.
Amending it will lead to unwelcome delay.
<P>
Nevertheless, we have a problem with certain aspects of the package.
For example, we are not at all happy that the extra appropriations for Kosovo, Turkey and the Republic of Macedonia are to be financed in full by appropriations from category 1, agricultural expenditure.
That is at odds with the spirit of the Financial Perspective.
Additional appropriation requirements should, in the first instance, be met by making economies in programmes which come under the same budgetary heading, i.e. category 4 in this case.
Initially, the Commission took this line as well, but came to abandon it under pressure from the Committee on Budgets, even though there is a great deal of scope for making economies within category 4.
The MEDA programme, among others, comes to mind here.
This programme' s low rate of utilisation gives cause for concern.
At the beginning of September, only 24% of the payment appropriations for 1999 had been spent.
Given this fact, it would surely be appropriate to reallocate this money.
<P>
It is clear from the current state of affairs as regards these payment appropriations in category 4 that a thorough and on-going discussion between the Commission, the Council and Parliament needs to get underway.
How is it that practically all the payment appropriations for 1999 for programmes such as TACIS and the programmes for former Yugoslavia have been used up now, when this is by no means the case as far as MEDA is concerned?
Can it be put down to poor administration on the part of the Commission?
Or, and I suspect this to be the more likely scenario, does the budgetary authority fail to take adequate account of the actual appropriation requirements and absorption capacity of the various programmes when it adopts the budget?
Bearing in mind that we are due to embark on the budgetary procedure for 2000, this must be resolved as soon as possible.
One of the new Commission' s first challenges.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ilgenfritz">
Mr President, life is indeed not always easy.
As a new Member of Parliament and of the Committee on Budgetary Control, I discovered relatively quickly that the organisational arrangements and support offered to new Members are distinctly lacking.
In order to be able to vote "yes" or "no" in the Committee on Budgetary Control, I would have to familiarise myself with several years' worth of Budgets of the European Union in a few days, and this without the support of this Chamber.
I could not do this, of course.
I am basically an optimist and believe that it is very feasible to familiarise oneself with this subject matter, although I am conscious of the interventions of several Members, the gist of which is that in the Committee matters are handled like in a cattle market, where funds are passed back and forth, and that documents are, to some extent, prepared worse than in a good many municipal councils.
<P>
I would propose, however, that, in future, new members are quickly provided with the necessary information and training which will allow them to carry out their duties in the respective Committee and participate in voting.
The citizens of Europe expect this of us, even those taking up office as new Members and, at the end of the day, will thank us if you take up and transpose this initiative of mine.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 p.m.
<P>
Before proceeding with the next item, I would like to remind you that Mr Liikanen is here today for the last time as Commissioner for Budgets.
I hope that we will continue to see him in his new role.
Given that we have had our quarrels over the last five years as well as some excellent co-operation, I would like to say good-bye to him and to wish him every success in his new task.
Until the next part-session, Mr Liikanen.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Situation in East Timor (continued)
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the declaration of the Council regarding the situation in East Timor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Costa Neves">
Mr President, I was a member of the European Parliament' s delegation which observed at first hand the referendum in East Timor which took place on 30 August.
There, I was able to acquire up-to-date information and to witness the bravery and conviction of the people there and the extent of their resistance.
They have resisted 24 years of Indonesia' s violent occupation; they have suffered and died for wanting to be themselves.
They have never given up the struggle nor bowed their heads.
As the international community finally woke up to Indonesia' s oppression, the idea that freedom was on its way grew in their minds.
They registered in droves and 98.6% turned out to vote.
They did so in a disciplined way, visibly happy, trusting the international community' s guarantees, thinking that they would be able to freely express their will and that this would be respected.
<P>
The demonstration of the people' s desire for independence was clear, broad and unequivocal.
The following day was not the peaceful day that it should have been.
Indonesia did not want to fulfil the formal commitment it gave in New York to guarantee security.
This is why thousands of deaths were recorded, hundreds of thousands of refugees left without protection, starving, many of them wounded or ill.
Twelve days of genocide is too long to wait for the international community to reciprocate the trust placed in it by the Timorese - and also in us, Members of the European Parliament.
<P>
The people of Timor have the right to expect that the aggression to which they have been subjected, just because they legitimately demonstrated their will, should stop immediately.
They have the right to expect that those responsible for these crimes, both morally and physically, are charged and brought before an international court.
Not even the churches and those who sought refuge in them were spared, and it became clear that the militias, rather than just created by the Indonesian armed forces, have been inspired, trained, armed and even joined by them.
I saw all this with my own eyes.
<P>
Humanitarian aid must be guaranteed, and the European Union must play a leading role in this.
The European Union must support reconstruction and participate, in joint action with the Commission, in the development process of the new independent state, which must be recognised immediately.
What all of this entails, of course, is the immediate dispatch of an international peacekeeping force to Timor, and the withdrawal of Indonesian soldiers when this force arrives.
Time is at a premium, as rumours abound to the effect that every day, boats are leaving Timor full of passengers and arriving at their destinations without them. Why should there be mass graves?
We share responsibility for what has happened, for what is taking place and for what will happen in East Timor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Soares">
Mr President, I would like to start by congratulating my colleague Mr Costa Neves on the intervention he has just made, which I endorse wholeheartedly.
There really has been a spirit of co-operation and total unanimity on the part of the Portuguese MEPs here on matters relating to East Timor.
<P>
We are very familiar with this problem, as everyone knows.
In unison with what is happening in our country, where the people have taken to the streets en masse, in order to demonstrate and to show their complete repudiation of what could be called Indonesia' s betrayal and of the atrocities experienced by the long-suffering people of Timor, (there has been a unanimous reaction in my country, and fortunately in many other countries too), we are working here, in our various political groups in order to draft a document which this Parliament can approve with a huge majority, if not unanimously. What we are doing follows on from this expression of popular feeling.
<P>
Mr President, I should add that an agreement was signed under the auspices of the United Nations and its Secretary-General in May of this year, precisely in order to conduct a serious consultation with the people of Timor.
The United Nations sent a mission there, and these people were followed by international observers and hordes of journalists. The referendum was carried out, and was unequivocal, given that, as my colleague pointed out, not only did 98% of registered voters participate, but 78% showed that they were in favour of independence.
This was completely unequivocal.
<P>
After this, Indonesia was bound, by the agreement made under the auspices of the United Nations, to maintain order and to guarantee the transition to democracy.
Not only did it fail to do this, it turned Timor into a veritable hell, by means of the militias and the Indonesian armed forces who make use of them, and they subjected the population to the situation we see now which has become extremely critical.
<P>
We have now had a statement from the Security Council of the United Nations which condemns what has taken place in Timor, recognises the rights of its people, and orders the dispatch of a peacekeeping force.
In addition to this peacekeeping force, help for the population, many of whom are sheltering in the mountains and are starving, must get there as quickly as possible, via humanitarian corridors.
Children are dying, women are dying, priests have been singled out - because unfortunately, the repression has also had a religious angle - and they are the chosen victims of the Indonesian torturers acting freely in Timor.
<P>
In spite of the fact that President Habibie himself has admitted that Indonesia was not capable of maintaining order, and that he invited a United Nations peacekeeping team to go into Timor, for various reasons after this, the arrival of this team has been delayed.
And therefore, the whole international community, and therefore the European Parliament too, must demand that these two things be done; that the peace corps go as quickly as possible in order to re-establish peace in East Timor, and so that humanitarian aid should get there.
<P>
In addition to this, it is essential that journalists, who are the world' s eyes in terms of what is taking place there, should be allowed to return to Timor, since they were forced to leave, as were the international observers.
I hope that the European Parliament can match up to its responsibilities and is able to condemn what has happened in East Timor and to come to the rapid and efficient aid of its people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maaten">
Mr President, to begin with, I would like to express my regard for the statement made by the President-in Office of the Council this morning.
It underlined the urgency and importance of what is happening in East Timor, where militias continue their endeavours to smother the struggle for independence in blood.
We received information only the other day, both from Human Rights Watch and from Oxfam, and of course we have been able to see it with our own eyes on television.
As we speak, it is evening in East Timor.
It is precisely when it is dark, when night falls, that the civilian population is most afraid.
Therefore, as a Parliament, the least we can do here is to express our support for that civilian population and for their legitimate aspirations.
And that is why we support the idea of an international tribunal for calling the guilty to account, and why we will take action to protect the refugees.
<P>
Mr President, I would like to join our parliamentary delegation of observers which was sent out on the initiative of the President of our Parliament and under the excellent leadership of the Vice-President of our Parliament, Mr José Pacheco Pereira.
The Finnish Presidency is deserving of praise here too, for it initiated the idea of sending a delegation on behalf of the European Union.
Whereas up until recently Portugal was practically the only country to carry this torch, now all the countries of the European Union are rallying behind the East Timorese struggle for independence.
But, ladies and gentlemen, involvement of this kind comes at a price.
<P>
We went to East Timor to reassure the population that they could vote in safety, and overwhelmingly large numbers of people have done so.
But after we left, these same people were again put to the sword by the pro-Indonesian militias.
Ladies and gentlemen, we cannot stand by and let this happen.
If we were to do so, it would mean that our delegation had been nothing more than a pointless exercise in referendum tourism.
<P>
I would also like to draw your attention to developments in East Timor in the longer term.
There has been an immediate and generous response from the European Union in terms of humanitarian emergency aid, but once the country has gained its independence it will be necessary to provide support for economic development and it will be at least as important to give our support to the establishment of democratic institutions.
There is absolutely nothing of that kind in East Timor.
No political parties, no system for the administration of justice, not a single functioning institution apart from the Church.
I believe that a programme along the lines of the one we undertook in South Africa would be appropriate.
<P>
Mr President, the campaign for the referendum was the most one-sided campaign I have ever experienced.
Every attempt to pursue the campaign for independence met with violence.
Yet still the people of East Timor voted overwhelmingly in favour of this independence.
The protection that the Indonesian authorities were unable or unwilling to provide must now be immediately provided, without prior conditions, by an international peacekeeping force.
We owe that to the people of East Timor, we owe that to UNAMET, which has carried out such excellent work, and we owe it to ourselves.
<P>
Mr President, the people of Indonesia are themselves, or at least we hope this is the case, on the road to democracy, and have more than enough problems to come, even without East Timor.
In future, we must turn our attention to these problems too.
Nevertheless, it was right to suspend the bilateral aid for Indonesia for the time being, as we have learnt from recent experiences that pressure must be kept up until the whole process reaches a satisfactory conclusion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, I would like to thank the Council for the determined action it showed in connection with the referendum on independence for East Timor, for example, by sending there a prestigious delegation, made up partly of our colleagues representing Parliament.
I myself was able to be part of the presidential delegation, which I greatly appreciate.
<P>
In May, we discussed here what sort of international presence was needed in East Timor.
Some of us considered whether something other than a regular police force was perhaps needed there, or whether peacekeeping forces were required.
It would appear that the biggest mistake was that the whole international operation was aimed only at allowing people to vote.
That was the great challenge, as people were being intimidated and, since April, the terror had been really appalling.
People went to vote; it was a sunny day, and I will certainly never forget how many people came to thank us, the international observers, for having come there. The joy, however, was short-lived.
Already the following day, paramilitary forces began to rampage through the streets and villages, and we received news that, in particular, local people in the service of the UN were being persecuted and killed.
<P>
Now I wish to add three demands to the list already presented.
Firstly, we must demand that the commanders of the army, who are known to have taken part in this outrage, withdraw immediately.
Secondly, we must send, through the ECHO programme, humanitarian aid as soon as possible and, obviously, the aim should be in the long-term for a programme of development. Thirdly, as the paramilitaries are still terrorising the people, international human rights monitors must inevitably be sent there
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Figueiredo">
Mr President, I would like to begin by saying that I agree with most of the interventions which have already been made by my fellow MEPs.
It is well known that East Timor has been illegally occupied by Indonesia for around 24 years, which has resulted in successive resolutions by the UN demanding Indonesia' s withdrawal and restating the people of East Timor' s right to self-determination.
<P>
Even here, in this Parliament, similar positions have been taken on a number of occasions.
The truth is that throughout this period, the Indonesian occupying forces were claiming hundreds of thousands of victims, inflicting immense suffering on the people of East Timor, who have never wavered in their heroic struggle for freedom and independence, a struggle which we acclaim.
<P>
But with the signing of the New York Agreement between Portugal and Indonesia, under the auspices of the United Nations, it was thought that the way was finally clear for the resolution of all these problems.
The turnout of 98.6% on 30 August, in the referendum which was held with the overwhelming majority of the people of East Timor, with over 78% coming out in favour of independence, showed clearly that its struggle deserved to be recognised by the whole world.
<P>
The truth is though, that later, both the UN, and international observers and the Indonesian authorities themselves, who thought that the elections had been held in a free and fair way, in spite of the pressure and the campaign of intimidation carried out by the pro-Djakarta militias, the truth - as I was saying - is that when the results were made public, terror was once again given free rein in East Timor.
<P>
Once again, the people were, and still are, threatened with genocide.
It is therefore essential that we urgently and immediately put a stop to this situation, and that the people of East Timor are helped, using all possible humanitarian aid.
It is essential that the militias, the police, and the Indonesian army stop sowing terror in the area.
We must also recognise that Indonesia did not fulfil the commitments it accepted in the New York Agreement, which required the intervention of the UN Security Council through the dispatch of a peacekeeping force, with a clear mandate and a defined time-scale, to guarantee security and peace in the territory and to prevent further genocide.
It was a long time before this decision was actually taken.
Finally, it was taken, and the UN Security Council eventually decided to intervene, but incidents are still occurring, and it is crucial that they do not continue, that this intervention is not delayed any further.
<P>
The people in East Timor - but also those who have fled to other parts of Indonesia - need this support.
Something else which should also be done urgently is to ensure their safe return (of the refugees and displaced people) and that non-governmental organisations, international observers and journalists can enter East Timor as quickly as possible.
As we stated in our motion...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Portas">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the debate on Timor has come two weeks after the terror began, in this new phase of the territory' s history.
This is what must be noted first of all.
The speed of the genocide has not been matched by the delay in international decision-making.
Where Timor is concerned, we must be aware of the fact that East Timor has suffered two genocides in twenty-five years: that of the occupation, and the one which was planned down to the last detail for the referendum.
It has been abandoned twice in twenty-five years: once by Portugal in 1974 and, until now, by the international community which has been unable to honour the commitments it made to the Timorese people.
It has known two diasporas in twenty-five years: firstly the exile of those who did not accept the invading force and now, the exodus of those who have fled the terror.
There is, therefore, no time to lose.
The terror in Timor is widespread, and these people, as far as we Portuguese are concerned, deserve the particular consideration of those who see them dying, praying and suffering in Portuguese.
<P>
At the first opportunity, the Timorese had to set themselves free, they came down from the mountains, they came out of their houses, they went to the churches and sought out the ballot boxes in order to regain, peacefully, their freedom.
This is an extraordinary lesson, which should calm and relieve the Western World: a nation which still believes in the ballot box as a liberating force.
<P>
What happened after the referendum deserves greater condemnation.
This is because Indonesia carried out a plan for genocide which can leave no doubt as to its true nature: demographic genocide, because it caused hundreds of thousands of Timorese to flee; and cultural genocide, because from the first day of the terror, the main target in terms of institutions, was the Catholic Church. Churches, bishops' residences, priests, nuns and churchgoers, were all targeted.
In short, the whole traditional institution in which the Timorese placed their trust. The full extent of the extermination carried out in this genocide has not yet been discovered because, as everyone knows, both the remaining international observers and journalists were forced to leave.
<P>
We feel therefore, that there are two clear conclusions to be drawn.
The first is that this Parliament must also understand that Portuguese colonisation never did to the Timorese what Indonesia has done to them.
This is why Portugal' s flag in Timor is much loved.
This is why it will take a very long time for Indonesia' s flag to be respected again.
On the other hand, although de-colonisation under the auspices of Portugal was a rushed affair, this self-determination, without making provision for the consequences and under the auspices of the international community, has not prevented deaths and bloodshed either.
These people have suffered twice and this suffering was caused entirely by others.
Just because they wanted to be free.
<P>
What can be said then about the conduct of the international community in the days following the terror?
Let me put a question to your conscience. Would the international community have taken such a long time to help the Timorese if they had been English- or German-speaking?
If it were not necessary to ask the Security Council' s permission where Kosovo was concerned, nor to wait for Milosevic to allow us in, why is it that when it comes to East Timor, we have to wait for the Security Council to give their authorisation, and for Mr Habibie to give his consent?
<P>
<P>
Would governments have been so slow to provide aid if the Timorese were a politically correct minority?
<P>
The tragedy of the Timorese, the tragedy in which they have been caught is that there are few of them, that they are poor and Catholic... and that they have oil, which is too serious a matter in the eyes of some international powers to be left to the Timorese to decide on.
<P>
Here are two more questions for your consciences.
Look at the list of countries which supported Indonesia in the United Nations: Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Sudan.
A coalition of dictatorships formed straight away to protect the freedom of tyrants! How long did it take to form a coalition of democracies?
One other thing: the European Union has just declared an embargo on supplying military equipment to the Indonesians. What are four months after twenty-four years of the compulsive arming of Indonesia in full knowledge of the genocide which has been taking place in Timor for the last twenty-four years?
<P>
I have four requests to put to you, friends and colleagues, on behalf of the whole of my group: for international peacekeepers to be sent quickly and in force to Timor; for humanitarian aid; for a court of law to try the criminals, and for economic and financial sanctions.
<P>
Long live East Timor!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Belder">
Mr President, the population of East Timor has endured and continues to endure truly tragic events before the eyes of the world.
We have the courage of various reporters to thank for the fact that the world is adequately informed of what is going on.
<P>
The reason for the current great suffering of the East Timorese people is clear: pro-Indonesian militias are endeavouring to smother in blood the desire expressed by the vast majority of people for political independence, and take careful note, this is a downright denial of the outcome of the referendum which took place on 30 August 1999.
The army units present on the spot, as well as the official local police forces, are direct accessories to this orgy of violence.
Nor, however, have the Indonesian military leadership nor the Indonesian government kept their hands clean in this respect.
In fact, the latter bear full responsibility for what, according to reports, are thousands of dead, hundreds of thousands of refugees and hundreds of thousands of East Timorese deported to West Timor.
<P>
After all, in a civilised country politics presides over guns, the former instructs the latter.
The next obvious step is to prosecute those responsible for the crimes recently committed in East Timor, indeed President Habibie' s pledges support this.
Therefore, the task that needs to be attended to by Djakarta as a matter of urgency, in anticipation of the arrival of a UN peacekeeping mission to East Timor, is to call an immediate halt to the wrath of the militias.
Only action of this kind would bear witness to an intention to truly serve the interests of the country.
<P>
It is precisely at a time like this, when Indonesian national pride is so openly at issue and stirring up phoney feelings over the country' s sovereignty, that restoring the constitutional state in the Molucca Islands is entirely appropriate in this context.
<P>
Following heavy international pressure, President Habibie has at last said that he will accept military intervention in East Timor.
Now then, the great need of the indigenous population cannot brook any further diplomatic procrastination on the part of the UN Security Council.
What is more, Djakarta has made official the fact that it does not intend to impose preconditions on a mission of this kind.
In other words, the peace mission can begin its task in East Timor without delay.
<P>
In view of the lawlessness that now prevails in East Timor, only a powerful military mandate can offer political prospects to the East Timorese, who have long been terrorised, in which case, the financial aid that the European Union has already undertaken to provide, will be every bit as worthwhile.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Speroni">
The tragic events in East Timor have shown the cowardice and opportunism of the international community.
We need the courage, following the clear results of the referendum, to immediately implement the principle of peoples' self-determination by recognising the independence of East Timor, without waiting for problematic concessions by the Indonesian Government.
I extend this invitation especially to the governments of the fifteen Member States of the European Union.
<P>
Above all, this would mean that the intervention of an international peacekeeping force could be considered not as interference with Indonesia' s sovereignty, but as assistance offered by the international community to an independent and sovereign state.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
Mr President, the horror in Timor has illustrated many things.
<P>
Firstly, the ineffectiveness of the United Nations which, unfortunately, is nothing new.
<P>
Secondly, the inhibition and passivity of the international community, which initially did not want to complicate its relations with other regional powers which - clearly - have little respect for human rights.
<P>
And the result has been that the entire world has had to remain impassive in the face of "plan B" which was not much different from the "operation horseshoe" led by Milosevic.
And today, the genocide of the Christians of Timor is beginning to be as well recorded as that of the Muslims in Kosovo.
<P>
As for the European Union, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, we cannot and must not - and it has been said here - have double standards with regard to humanitarian intervention.
Human rights and the right to life cannot be preached with regard to one region, one country or one continent, but rather they are of a global or universal nature.
<P>
We must therefore welcome the brave approach of Portugal and other countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia.
<P>
And this is the time to act.
It is late, too late, but, on a Community level, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, we must ensure that the humanitarian aid, mentioned this morning by the Minister, of EUR 8 million, and the aid to follow, arrive at their destination immediately.
<P>
Secondly, the European Union must support the arrival, as soon as possible, of the international force which can guarantee the life and rights of this tortured and martyred population of Timor and finally put an end to this nightmare.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Naïr">
Mr President, as we now know, what is happening in East Timor is both a crime and a tragedy.
This has been said several times here.
A crime, because Indonesian colonial occupation has lasted for 24 years.
On-going human rights violations, terror inflicted on a people that is peace-loving, unhappy and defenceless have become widespread, but have existed there for 24 years, as I myself have seen.
<P>
The UN organised a referendum: there was 98% participation, with more than 78% in favour of independence.
This was a perfectly transparent democratic vote.
Well, far from finding peace again, the Timorese are now suffering a real tragedy.
We are witnessing serious violation of East Timorese sovereignty by a state of siege imposed by Indonesia.
In international law, from the point when the Timorese people chose independence, it became effectively sovereign on its own territory.
It becomes sovereign in law as soon as it sets up representative institutions which it has chosen.
There is only one sovereign authority today in East Timor, and that is the people of East Timor.
<P>
You are aware of the facts which flout this law: the deportation of more than 80,000 people to West Timor, where they are held in pens, starved, beaten and held hostage by the Indonesian army.
Mass terror everywhere else.
The people responsible have been identified: the militia, the army and the civil authority of Indonesia.
<P>
We are told that Mr Habibie' s government is the prisoner of the army in Djakarta, that the Army High Command no longer has any control over the troops of East Timor and that the militia are getting out of hand everywhere.
But I ask you, friends, who then is responsible?
If it is not the civil government, then we should denounce a bloodless coup in Indonesia.
If it is not the army, we should denounce the disappearance of any representative institution in this country.
<P>
It is clear what action must be taken.
The UN must intervene under Chapter 7.
The UN must define the composition of the intervention force.
The Indonesian army must withdraw from East Timor.
The militia must be disarmed.
And the Indonesian State must be held clearly responsible for its present prevarication.
An international commission must be set up to look into the acts of violence in East Timor and the people responsible for these crimes must be brought before the International Criminal Court.
All trade with Indonesia must be conditional upon the definitive restoration of peace in Timor.
The Timorese must be given the means to establish themselves as an independent state and to be recognised.
In this tragedy, Mr President, there is no question as to our right to interfere.
It is a matter of respect for international law.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="President">
I appreciate that this is a very emotional debate, but I would be grateful if you would limit yourselves to the allotted time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 NAME="Lynne">
Mr President, can I put this debate in context?
After the Indonesian invasion in 1976 the UN did not recognise the Indonesian sovereignty over East Timor.
Let us get that straight for a start.
Only the Australians recognised it and even they, after a while, decided that they were wrong, so legally we did not have to ask permission to send in an international peacekeeping force.
However, we did.
And now, at long last, they have agreed.
But when will it go in?
Hopefully, by this weekend.
Who will head it?
Hopefully it will not be the Indonesians.
I heard on the television this morning that one faction within the Indonesian army was actually saying that it wanted to lead the multinational peacekeeping force!
Fortunately the foreign minister had other ideas, but obviously there is warfare between them all at the moment.
But whoever leads it, it must go in now, immediately, before we see any more atrocities.
<P>
They are happening on a daily basis.
Churches and schools are burnt. People are hacked to death.
Yesterday I heard of a nun who was told she was being rescued and she should not look at the church.
She tried to see it and saw blood seeping in front of the church door, the blood of women, children and priests.
What had they done?
Nothing.
And that was not an isolated incident.
UN workers were attacked when they tried to move food and the army just stood by.
If food and shelter cannot get through, there is going to be a humanitarian catastrophe, not just in East Timor, but in West Timor as well.
<P>
The latest story is that refugees were put on to ships and told they were being rescued.
The ships then came back a short time later with nobody on board.
That is genocide in anybody' s terms.
<P>
<P>
And that is why we have to have a war crimes tribunal: to bring these people to justice.
<P>
What else can be done?
A military embargo yes, but it should have been done sooner.
The Hawk jets from Britain should have been cancelled sooner.
I am glad they have been cancelled now but it is a bit too late.
The peace-keeping force must go in now.
Humanitarian aid and human rights monitors for West Timor and East Timor must go in now but more importantly the Indonesian Government must be held to account.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Knörr Borràs">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, visitors, as a Member for the Basque Country I would like to believe that raising our voices and asking for intervention and aid for Timor will be one more step towards ending, not only the killing by people protected by the Indonesian military, but, above all, the hypocrisy which dominates international politics.
<P>
Enough of bad dictatorships and good dictatorships, of the theory of "he' s a son of a bitch, but he' s our son of a bitch" - if you will excuse me, Mr President.
<P>
Enough of doctrines of the lesser evil, which imply that we can accept the rights of a few being trampled on in order to preserve the security of certain areas which are of interest to the powerful nations for geo-strategic reasons.
<P>
Enough of the speed of intervention being determined by the level of underground oil reserves.
<P>
But let us look inwards as well.
Let us look at ourselves.
Within the Union, we are witnessing the last two conflicts: Ireland and the Basque Country, which are in deadlock because of political and electoral party interests.
<P>
Peace, human rights and prosperity, inside and outside the European Union, cannot wait for days, weeks and years while we come to agreements amongst ourselves.
<P>
If only we could understand this once and for all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="Manisco">
Mr President, it is not in a spirit of sterile recrimination but because of our concern and alarm about the way the situation is now developing that we feel compelled to recall and stress the direct and indirect responsibility of the United States of America for the massacres, the ethnic cleansing, going on unabated at this very moment in East Timor.
We share some of the relief felt by many when the Clinton Administration, in an apparent turnaround, finally criticized the Jakarta Government and let the United Nations take control of the crisis.
<P>
Anybody in this House who is not familiar with Washington' s role in the tragedies in Indonesia and Timor, from 1966 to the latest genocide unleashed by the military on 30 August, should read the analysis published today by the Washington Post and the Herald Tribune under the banner headline 'Pentagon defends Indonesian military contacts as useful' .
We are reminded of the close personal friendship between the Chairman of the United States Chief of Staff, General Henry Shelton, and the butcher from Jakarta, General Wiranto.
The top military man in the United States aiding and abetting the violence in East Timor and last Monday ordering his Indonesian pal to accept an international peace force.
Mrs Halonen stated this morning that the terror unleashed on 30 August took the Council by surprise.
It should not have.
May we suggest that in order to avoid future surprises, the Council and Parliament monitor very closely the peacekeeping mission of the United Nations, the humanitarian aid plan by Europe, the integrity of any present or future programme designed to put an end to the suffering of the Timorese to guarantee their full independence and sovereignty free of any threat, interference or pressure by the Indonesian military and their American mentors.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sichrovsky">
Mr President, of course we are committed to supporting the efforts of the people of East Timor in their fight for independence and democracy.
But what form should this support take?
As Europeans, we cannot behave like schoolmasters in a conflict in South-East Asia.
In so doing, we will not engender any trust on the part of those people in Asia who would be important partners as regards the democratisation of this country.
Above all, the disintegration and balkanisation of South-East Asia can surely not be Europe' s goal.
The question was therefore asked in the leader in today 's issue of the Herald Tribune: "Who are these Western crusaders to be lecturing the Asians?" - a question that may be a bitter pill for us to swallow.
Our responsibility, as Europeans, is to support democratic development, which will also result in an improvement in the living conditions of the people.
<P>
Perhaps, we will first have to learn as Europeans how to support a people in a foreign land in their fight for independence, as well as along their path to a democratic form of society.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Pacheco Pereira">
Mr President, I would like firstly, as a member of this Parliament' s mission sent to observe the elections in Timor, to tell you of something I witnessed myself, so that you will all be able to understand what has happened in Timor.
Almost all the buildings used by the European Parliament' s delegation in Timor - the houses we slept in, the places where we ate or held meetings - have now been destroyed.
Maybe this will give some idea of the scale of events in East Timor.
<P>
Secondly, from the political point of view, there are various decisive factors in determining our action as an international community.
For the international community is not an abstract concept, it consists of us ourselves.
The first factor is understanding that what is happening in Timor is not a civil war.
Indonesia tried to take us along that path, and only failed because of the presence of international journalists and observers.
There is no civil war in Timor.
There is a conflict between the Indonesian army and its cohorts - the militias - and the majority of Timor' s population.
<P>
The second factor is that the Indonesian army has no problems keeping the peace and security situation in Timor under control and never has.
We could see that the Indonesian army could quite easily have kept the peace and security situation under control if it had wanted to.
The truth is that the army simply did not want to, as it was itself part of the conflict.
<P>
Finally, - and this is the important thing for the future - the Timor question is not over just because the Security Council has decided to send in peacekeeping forces.
We must be aware - and I speak as someone who knows the area - that these forces are going to face opposition, and will probably encounter a much more serious conflict situation than the one encountered by forces in Kosovo.
<P>
This is why there must be strong political will to support the international community' s next moves to ensure that Indonesia does not impose any conditions on the intervention by these forces and that, however serious the conflict in the region may be, the peace and security of the Timorese should be guaranteed, as well as the humanitarian aid and the development that Timor so desperately needs.
This factor of political will is decisive because unfortunately, we will be hearing about Timor for much longer than we would probably like to.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schori">
"Whether you live in Africa or central Europe or any other place, if somebody comes after innocent civilians and tries to kill them en masse because of their race, their ethnic background or their religion and it is within our power to stop it, we will stop it" .
<P>
The words were President Clinton' s and he was talking about Kosovo.
But they must also apply to East Timor which has now become a moral test for the whole world community.
We are talking about humanity and human rights, politics and international law, but also about economics and credibility.
If we do not contribute to solving the tragedy in East Timor, the message to East Timor' s people and to others is this: democracy is synonymous with death.
Democratic efforts supported by other countries in the world and by the United Nations are synonymous with massive, unchecked massacres. Countries' credibility is therefore at stake.
<P>
From an economic point of view, we in the Socialist Group demanded early on that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund should stop supporting the regime in Djakarta.
I am not talking about humanitarian support and support to democrats.
Normally, political considerations are not taken into account in financial dealings.
Even in the Emperor Vespasian' s time, when he introduced tax on toilets, it was said that money had no smell.
But billions of dollars in support of the regime in Djakarta stinks and must be stopped.
This has actually happened now.
The lessons of the tragedy in East Timor are that politics and economics are interconnected and that compassion and credibility demand that countries intervene on humanitarian grounds.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, what is happening now was predicted well before the vote.
The people of East Timor were encouraged by the UN to go out and use their democratic right to vote and they are being persecuted for doing so.
The international community was warned well in advance.
What has it been doing for the last 14 days?
It has sat and twiddled its thumbs, waiting for an invitation from Indonesia, the country that has been illegally occupying East Timor for the last 25 years, whose Foreign Minister has stuck his fingers up at the UN General Assembly when the issue was raised.
<P>
One-third of the population has been massacred and here we are waiting for an invitation from Indonesia.
President Clinton' s hypocrisy, which has already been highlighted today, is unacceptable.
Tony Blair' s wonderful new government, with its ethical foreign policy, has continued sending its arms to Indonesia.
These are the hypocrites, the so-called moral police forces of the world who put profit before people.
It is completely unacceptable.
<P>
What we want to see now is a complete arms embargo on Indonesia and also an economic embargo.
We want an international peacekeeping force.
We want to see independence for the people of East Timor, which is their democratic right.
We want an end to the tyranny that has been perpetrated on the people of East Timor for the last 25 years with the help of EU countries, America and all these hypocritical people who want to sell arms to tyrants in Indonesia and other countries around the world.
It has to stop.
The hypocrisy of the European Union' s arms industry has to end and this is the best example we have had so far of what the end result is.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Krivine">
<SPEAKER ID=144 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell' Alba">
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is one thing to look back, and that is surely sensible, but it is another thing to look forward quickly.
Let us not try and kid ourselves.
Even if UN troops move in at the weekend, perhaps without the co-operation of the Indonesian army and the national authorities, we will not be able to bring about peace at the drop of a hat.
For the marauding gangs, which are still roaming through East Timor and the army, which still has a presence there, cannot be kept in check by a six or eight thousand strong UN force.
<P>
The East Timorese who have fled, and who are now in West Timor, must be able to return home.
They must be protected in West Timor where they are now staying.
Therefore, we must give a clear signal to those parties who have responsibility in Indonesia.
I am no longer sure whether the government still has responsibility and control.
Perhaps this now rests with the army.
We must say to all those parties who have responsibility: if Indonesia' s policy does not change, and quickly, then we, and I am addressing the Council and the Commission here, will have to seriously threaten them with all the economic means at our disposal and force those who have the power in Indonesia to co-operate.
Otherwise, what we will see is that although our troops are stationed there, people will continue to be murdered and driven out.
<P>
Therefore, we have to send out a clear signal.
Indonesia still has the opportunity to maintain good relations with us over the coming years.
But if it does not change its policy, then it will no longer have partners in Europe for as long as those responsible for the current situation are still in power, whether they be in the army, the parliament or the government.
Therefore, we are also appealing to the Council, along with the Member States, to send clear signals to those responsible in Indonesia in the next few days.
They must co-operate, otherwise a UN peacekeeping force will be defenceless.
We need strong action on the part of Europe, the Council, the Commission and Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Candal">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is some unanimity in this Parliament in our attitudes - although not in the nuances - on the Timor question.
As this is the case, I would just like to say a few words, as I was a member of the parliamentary delegation of observers who went to Timor.
<P>
I must tell you that we did our duty, and added to this Parliament' s good name because we visited, I believe, more of the area than any other delegation (we went 200 kilometres to the East), and checked more polling stations than anyone else.
It was useful for us to be able to bring you this news which we expected to describe in quite different terms when we left Timor and which was of interest to the Timorese, who, at least at that time, felt supported and who still are being supported.
<P>
This referendum was an impressive sight, really quite impressive!
An entire people - for nobody was to be seen in the streets - an entire people turned out to vote, expressing their national feeling, their bravery, their sense of democracy and their love of freedom.
Anyone who prides himself or herself on being a defender of democracy would have found it inspiring to witness that scene.
<P>
The Timorese created a flower, a castle of hope which, in one outburst of violence, was brought down and destroyed in blood, violence and death.
Once again, it is not politicians but the Timorese themselves, with their cries and their pain who have drawn attention to their just cause.
I think that this time, Timor will not be forgotten again and I think that the ever growing support for the long-suffering and heroic people of Timor will remain strong until they are free and until Timor is a happy nation - one that is moving forwards.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Nogueira Román">
Mr President, as an MEP for Galicia, I would like to express my solidarity with the people of Timor, my total condemnation of Indonesia' s genocidal repression and my concurrence with all those who recognise and defend the Timorese people' s right to self-determination as expressed today in favour of independence.
<P>
I request that the institutions of the European Union support the extremely urgent dispatch of a civilian mission and a UN security force, of a size which reflects the gravity of the situation, to ensure that Timor is established as an independent state, which will require a great deal of time. During this time, the UN must maintain its unequivocal support, and the European Union its vital political and economic assistance.
<P>
In accordance with its historical responsibilities in Timor, the UN and the European Union' s protection of Timor is imperative, not just in the face of the current aggression, but also in the face of any future threat by Indonesia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 NAME="Van Orden">
Mr President, I began my military career as a British army officer in the mid 1960s, engaged on military operations against the Indonesian Army in Borneo in defence of the newly created State of Malaysia.
It is perhaps appropriate that I should now begin my parliamentary duties with reference to Indonesia and another State that is in creation - East Timor.
<P>
It is over two weeks since the referendum took place in East Timor.
The outcome of the referendum and the terrible consequences were very predictable.
Yet the international community, with certain exceptions, seems to have been taken by surprise by the way in which this tragedy has unfolded.
Quite clearly international pressure had to be put on Indonesia and many of us have called for the early suspension of World Bank and IMF financial assistance and the suspension of arms exports and military cooperation.
We therefore welcome the albeit belated common position adopted by the General Affairs Council.
If resolute action had been taken earlier, then maybe the Indonesian authorities would have responded differently.
<P>
The immediate need now is for the rapid deployment of a peacekeeping force and the delivery of humanitarian aid.
I do not necessarily think it is appropriate for the Europeans to react militarily to crises in areas far from their borders. But the crisis in East Timor has highlighted the difficulties for Europeans in responding to yet another peacekeeping task.
The fact is that there is little scope for this, even if it was desirable.
Capabilities are limited.
EU Member States do not spend enough on their armed forces and what they spend is often not spent well.
Over the years the United Kingdom has developed a highly effective military capability and yet the United Kingdom armed forces are now desperately overstretched and most Member States of the European Union spend a smaller proportion of their GDP on defence than the United Kingdom.
<P>
The most useful European Union contribution in a situation such as East Timor is more likely to be civil rather than military.
That is the right sort of focus for us in this situation.
We heard from Mrs Halonen that the Commission has been asked to prepare a socio-economic programme for institution building in East Timor.
This is most welcome but the programme will require early implementation once the security situation permits, coordination with contributions from other institutions and countries and very careful management to ensure effectiveness.
<P>
Finally, there is yet another aspect of this tragedy which we must not forget.
Over the past few weeks the most horrific crimes have been committed against Timorese and others, and those responsible must be brought to justice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van den Berg">
Mr President, in view of the Dutch connection with Indonesia, I would like to start by saying that I am completely astonished by the way in which the world order has again shown such extraordinary naivety when it comes to the international rule of law and the conduct of the Security Council.
Everyone knows that in Indonesia, the real power lies with a broad military leadership of complex composition, topped by what purport to be political parties.
And everyone knows that the Indonesian military had no intention whatsoever of stopping the militias, indeed it has itself been actively involved in orchestrating the operations that have taken place in recent days.
Notwithstanding all this, the world has allowed itself to discuss the situation in formally legal terms, in the expectation that Indonesia would do the right thing.
Such naivety is almost tantamount to provocation and ought, in the fullness of time, to be a lesson to us in other situations.
That is my first comment.
<P>
My second comment is as follows: it is my fervent wish that when this House discusses the question of Indonesia, it draws a clear distinction between the military regime of Indonesia, the referendum that has taken place and which reflects a longstanding and deep transformation process that has only just begun in an enormous empire, of which East Timor is only a very small part, and the enormous suffering endured by the Indonesian people.
<P>
Just as we must give unequivocal support to East Timor, and I support the sanctions and give my signature to and support the resolution, so we must also stand by the people of Indonesia as a whole.
We must deliver humanitarian aid to them, but also other forms of aid too, for building up society for example.
It would be a mistake of historic importance if we were to neglect the Indonesian people in so many other areas of the Indonesian archipelago.
In my view, the best way to support East Timor is to support the Indonesian people as well.
Both need democracy and an international system of law, and as a European Parliament we must render our services to both.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="Deva">
Mr President, this is a timely debate.
As we speak, the UN Security Council has passed a resolution under Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter to allow a peacekeeping force under Australian command into East Timor.
It is two weeks too late.
The UK, US, New Zealand, Canada, Philippines and Thailand have now committed manpower and material to the peacekeeping force.
They are too late.
China, Russia, South Korea and Malaysia have indicated their commitment to help. They too are too late.
The international community has woken up at last. As usual it is, and always will be, giving too little too late.
<P>
Since the East Timor referendum, up to 10 000 people have been slaughtered for voting for independence.
300 000, including children, out of a total population of 800 000 have been displaced and made homeless, hiding without shelter, food and sanitation in the jungle.
What surprises me is that the international community and the United Nations never manages to learn, to anticipate from the experiences of Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo, and now East Timor.
What is wrong with us?
The international community, time and time again, is called upon to clean up the mess left by brutal tyrants, so-called ethnic cleansers and the genocide of dictators.
Under the Montevideo Convention, we are compelled by international law to recognise these brutal regimes as sovereign independent states.
Perhaps we should now reconsider this definition and encourage an international debate on whether democracy such as ours should give equal recognition, treatment and respectability to regimes throughout the world which refute democracy and the rule of law, human rights and good governance.
Surely the time has come now to differentiate, to redefine, to tighten up the criteria as we do now in giving aid.
If good governance is a fundamental prerequisite for development aid, why should good governance not also be a fundamental criterion for international recognition, bilateral relations and trade development?
The IMF has recognised this recently in Indonesia and it is time that the European Union' s Member States also recognised it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, we were told by Council this morning that East Timor deserves our full support.
We were told that we supplied observers that were crucial to the success of the referendum when the East Timorese said a very loud and very large "yes" to independence.
We were told by the Council that the Commission is preparing social and economic assistance for a newly independent East Timor, all of which of course we welcome.
But we are also told by Mrs Halunen that she was surprised at the terror that took place after the referendum.
I am surprised that she was surprised.
I was in Jakarta in August, as a special representative of the UNDP working with the Indonesian Parliament, the DPRK, on new rules for that parliament.
It was clear to me then and more importantly to everybody else in Jakarta that firstly there would be a resounding yes in a referendum and secondly that the army, or at least large sections of the army, would try to subvert that process by engaging in and encouraging terror.
We have seen that happen, but why we are surprised I do not know.
<P>
I welcome the peacekeeping force.
I welcome the humanitarian aid that is going to go in to help the 200,00 to 400,000 refugees.
I welcome the fact that we were told that EUR 8 million would be available for that humanitarian aid. But it must be delivered quickly.
I accept that in the interim it may be delivered by air.
We are told it is going to be dropped in by helicopters from 1,500 metres.
If you remember the aid we saw being airlifted in and dropped to some of the Kurdish refugees from the air, it was not very successful.
If I recall correctly, some of the refugees were actually killed.
As soon as possible that aid needs to be delivered on the ground.
We need to make sure that it happens within days rather than weeks.
<P>
I accept the need for the ban on arms.
We need to stop arms sales to Indonesia and I welcome the four-month ban.
It may be that it needs to be continued but at the same time we also need to be helping the Indonesians by providing them with assistance to ensure that very fragile democracy elected in the last general election is able to establish itself.
Unless we do that in November or December we will be having a similar debate about Indonesia, telling each other how we knew it was all going to end in tears.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, the referendum in East Timor, which was supervised by the United Nations, has turned into a drama.
After more than twenty years of violence and repression, the people there were able at last to choose their own future; yet, the choice they made in freedom, to go down the road of independence, was punished with a brutality of which history has scarce seen the like.
Murdering, setting fire to things and deporting people as they went, the pro-Indonesian militias left the country in a state of chaos, plundered and burnt to the ground.
The images have been there for all to see.
<P>
The Indonesian army failed to take action to protect the population.
The UN, the NGOs, the observers were all powerless to do anything.
There have been instances of death and wounding in these quarters too.
I count myself as one of those that know Indonesia well.
I hesitate a little to address Indonesia in harsh terms, representing as I do, a country that held sway as a colonial power there for 300 years.
But these events transform any hesitation on my part into outright criticism and severe reprimands directed at the Indonesian government and the Indonesian army.
<P>
What happened in East Timor is serious and requires us to impose sanctions and take international action with all haste.
Sanctions have now been approved, also by the EU, and I welcome this with open arms.
I regret that France and the Netherlands tried again in Council to prevent the weapons embargo from going ahead, and admire the Finnish Presidency for pushing it through nonetheless.
<P>
The second step that must now be taken is to send an international peacekeeping force, preferably from within the region, so that the people can be protected and the independence of East Timor can be implemented
<P>
The third step is to set up a tribunal for the purpose of punishing those who have committed such cruel acts, so that law is upheld and justice is done.
<P>
The fourth thing that needs to happen is the delivery of aid to the region.
Once independence has been implemented, which is undoubtedly going to happen now, East Timor will need an enormous amount of help.
And we must be generous in providing this help too.
<P>
On a final note, the violence meted out by the militias in Indonesia has not been confined to Timor alone.
They murder and plunder in the Moluccas, in Aceh and in Irian Jaya too.
Hundreds of people, especially Christians, have already died in the Moluccas in particular.
Last week, Dutch citizens of Moluccan extraction demonstrated in Brussels in a dignified manner.
We believe that attention should also be given to what is happening there.
If the murder does not stop in those other regions too, and if the Indonesian government doesn' t offer protection, then, in our view, the United Nations should also take action in those other regions of Indonesia.
<P>
Mr President, human rights and democracy are at stake in Indonesia.
Let us deal with the situation as an international community.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fava">
Mr President, I would like to read out a few lines: "in 1975 Indonesia took control of Timor, beginning the oppression which led to the death of a third of the population through hunger, epidemics, war and a reign of terror."
This is not a piece of journalism or a summary, but the statement that was made when Ximenes Belo and José Ramos Horta were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on 11 November 1996.
<P>
The holocaust which led to the death of 250,000 people in East Timor is already history, with the last ten thousand killed over recent weeks.
Regarding this holocaust, I do not think that our institution or any European citizen can afford to feel astonished: we do not have the right to, we have definitively lost our innocence.
For a long time, the international community has allowed the so-called development dictatorships to survive, from Indonesia to the Chile of the Chicago Boys, to China and Korea, those countries where, for the sake of macro-economics, we have tolerated market interests prevailing over the interests of human rights.
We have tolerated intolerance and violence.
<P>
I hope that our guilt will not now be added to the international community' s guilt.
I am happy that the Council has decided on a common position, a symbolic four-month embargo on arms, ammunition and military equipment.
I hope that this embargo will be extended to supplies now being prepared so that we can avoid feeling even more remorse in the future. I want to point out that at this time, my indignation has nothing to do with the language that the inhabitants of East Timor speak.
My problem is that for twenty-five years, the population of East Timor has not had a voice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="Cushnahan">
Mr President, who can forget the tragic images of Burundi, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Bosnia-Herzegovina and more recently, Kosovo that are still fresh in our minds.
We have now added to that list the ongoing humanitarian plight of thousands of displaced East Timorese as a result of the well-planned and systematic policy of killings, destruction of property, and intimidation carried out by the militia and elements of the Indonesian security forces.
<P>
In most of these situations it must be said that timely action by the international community based upon assessments and early warnings of situations could undoubtedly have saved many lives and greatly reduced human suffering and misery.
I do not believe that anyone in this Chamber would deny that recent events in East Timor were totally predictable and therefore to some extent preventable.
The international community, in particular the United Nations, has to ask itself some searching and probing questions.
I also believe that we in the European Union must put our house in order.
<P>
Today, we have just approved the new Commission and in the light of recent events in East Timor, Kosovo and elsewhere I would like to address my remarks to the new Commissioner responsible for the common foreign and security policy.
I would like to ask would he assure this Parliament that the establishment of a policy planning and early warning unit as envisaged under the Amsterdam Treaty will be given top priority?
In addition, will he guarantee that this unit will provide the appropriate parliamentary committees with all the relevant information including analyses, recommendations and strategies on any potential crisis which should be monitored by this Parliament.
<P>
The provision of such information would greatly enhance Parliament' s contribution to the development of a more effective and cohesive EU foreign policy, which is long overdue.
We must ensure that the EU responds urgently and effectively to potential crisis situations and thereby helps prevent the recurrence of the sort of tragedies that we have recently experienced in East Timor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="Seguro">
) Mr President, I would like to add my voice to the condemnation and the words which have already been expressed by my colleagues, but I would like to state here that death did not suddenly strike in East Timor after the referendum. Before the referendum, more than two hundred thousand Timorese were killed, whilst the international community did nothing, taking the view that the people of East Timor were expendable.
We feel that no nation is expendable, and this is why we are speaking out now.
Speaking out in order to save lives and to ensure that the free will of the people of East Timor is respected.
This is why we feel that the European Union - and we are appealing directly to the Council and the Commission - must take the decision to move forward with an initiative which will ensure that this process towards independence for the people of East Timor is respected.
<P>
The most urgent matter though, is to save lives, because in East Timor, it is not just bullets that kill; hunger also kills.
It is therefore necessary that we arrange for emergency humanitarian aid and an international peacekeeping force.
We must also cease negotiations with Indonesia.
We must do this so that the international community understands once and for all that Indonesia is not part of the solution in East Timor. Indonesia is part of the problem in East Timor.
The Council and the Commission must extend the suspension of support in terms of economic and military co-operation because the human rights argument makes no impression on Indonesia, Mr President. The arguments that really affect them are those of economic sanctions and military concerns.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Mauro">
Mr President, I will refrain from adding to what many Members have said very effectively on the subject of East Timor.
Instead, I would like to ask a question about it - 'build peace without opportunism' - what does that mean?
In short, after 24 years of this tragedy, and after 24 years of the international community avoiding imposing economic sanctions, what does 'make every effort' now mean?
<P>
On this, I add my voice to the request already made in this House and by the Senate of the Republic of my country, asking for European governments and the UN to recognise, as soon as possible, the sovereign state of East Timor, and the fact that it is no longer an issue dealt with exclusively in this House does credit to my Portuguese colleagues and colleagues from certain other countries.
<P>
I would like to add another consideration to this.
In addition to the debt we have owed to East Timor for 24 years, there is the fact that, while there have been demonstrations about East Timor, we are not taking into account the political hypothesis that we must in any case once again beg the United States for the favour of possible military intervention.
This forces us to re-examine the subject of common defence.
<P>
One final point.
It is still possible for us to do what is right for East Timor, to do it immediately and with determination.
The credibility of this institution depends not only on endorsing the Commissioners of the Commission, but also largely on the question of East Timor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="De Rossa">
Mr President, a feature of the current situation is the anger and the frustration of the men and women of all our Member States.
They are angry and frustrated at the sclerosis that exists in the decision-making processes of the European Union and indeed the United Nations.
It is time we got our act together and resolved these decision-making problems.
<P>
The President-in-Office here this morning declared that the Council was surprised at the events of the last two weeks.
I cannot understand how the Council or anybody else could be surprised.
Has no one in the Council been reading the paper for the last 25 years?
Do they not know that we have armed the perpetrators of this genocide for the last 25 years?
The people of East Timor believed us when we told them we would protect them if they voted and they came out in their thousands and thousands to vote for independence.
We failed to protect them.
<P>
How many more times do we say "never again" before we actually take a decision to ensure that when we make a promise like that we will keep that promise and plan to keep that promise?
It is not good enough for us to wring our hands and declare we are sorry.
We have to make sure it never happens again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 NAME="Banotti">
Mr President, you will note by the number of Irish people wishing to speak in the debate today that this is an issue very close to our hearts.
For many years Mr Tom Hyland, an Irishman who has made this the cause of his life, has led international demands for action on East Timor.
In Ireland we care very deeply about East Timor and we have been extremely active; as the President-in-Office noted this morning, our Foreign Minister, Mr David Andrews, was the special EU Overseer of the recent elections in East Timor.
<P>
But in the context of the current disaster there, Indonesia has become a symbol of the lengths to which a brutal, weak and unscrupulous regime will go to further its power and control over those it perceives as challenging its authority.
Unfortunately this government has had many friends in this Parliament over the years and many EU governments have put the profits of their arms industries above those of the basic human rights of the unfortunate people of East Timor.
Events of the past month have graphically illustrated what many have sought to highlight over the years about the reality of life in East Timor.
The President-in-Office spoke very passionately this morning about her concerns but, as Mr De Rossa has rightly pointed out, these concerns were no surprise to a great many of us.
Perhaps it is because East Timor is very far away and a very small country, that the crucial issues at stake in this dreadful catastrophe engulfing the country at the moment have been of little concern either to ourselves within the EU or, of course, to the United States.
What we have seen is a brutal regime taking a terrible revenge on a small country that dared to say it wanted to be independent and we must support it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="Tannock">
Mr President, as a little boy growing up in Portugal I collected Portuguese stamps and particularly remember the colourful and attractive ones from East Timor.
The província esquecida, or forgotten province of Portugal, as it was then known, conjured up a picture of a beautiful, remote Pacific island, an exotic mix of East and West producing a unique Catholic cultural heritage.
Sadly, I have never been there but I feel passionately for the Timorese people suffering since Indonesia' s annexation in 1975 with almost one third being killed - an even greater proportion of deaths than in the former Yugoslavia.
<P>
The UN recognises the right of the Timorese people to self-determination and Portugal' s sovereignty in its territory.
In the West we did not seek a UN resolution to bomb the former Yugoslavia over Kosovo which still remains part of Yugoslavia, and yet we have felt willing, for whatever reason, to avoid any military intervention on behalf of the Timorese in the past.
<P>
I have always believed that foreign military intervention should only take place in the national interests of the nation-states concerned, yet the serious deterioration and spiralling violence in the region demand action and meet the test of the new ethical foreign policy of which Portugal is a full Member State.
As a Briton, I am happy to support Portugal in its attempts to secure a just outcome, not only because Portugal is Britain' s oldest ally, but also because Portugal should be given the opportunity to grant independence to all its colonies, including its last colony now, other than Macao, namely East Timor.
We in Britain had that opportunity.
We granted self-determination to all our colonies where it was legally possible to do so.
<P>
Human rights, if they are to be considered a casus belli as over Kosovo, must be universally and consistently applied.
Therefore I fully support and welcome the UN Security Council resolution for the establishment of an international peacemaking force involving willing and principally neighbouring countries such as Australia and New Zealand.
This will enable the 78% of East Timorese who voted on 30 August to establish their own independent sovereign state and to look forward to a peaceful and prosperous future within their own homeland.
<P>
Lastly, but not least, I salute the courage of the East Timorese people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 NAME="Stevenson">
Mr President, like other speakers in this debate I wish to draw the attention of this House to the appalling double standards and hypocrisy displayed throughout the tragic crisis now unfolding in East Timor by the British Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook.
When Mr Cook was appointed Foreign Secretary he launched an ethical foreign policy containing amongst other things a commitment to a stringent code of conduct on arms export controls.
Nevertheless he has allowed Hawk ground attack aircraft to be exported to the Indonesian military in breach of his own ethical foreign policy and arms export guidelines.
Because the contract had been signed by the previous Conservative Government, Mr Cook claimed it could not be broken.
He even gave repeated assurances that contractual clauses ensured that jets would not be used for aggressive purposes against the people of East Timor.
Now, in the face of spiralling atrocities in that country and hard evidence that the aircraft in question have been used in attacks on the East Timorese, Mr Cook has performed an amazing U-turn: last Saturday he finally cancelled the contract and introduced a temporary arms ban.
We will never know how many East Timorese died as a result of his refusal to cancel this contract at an earlier stage.
<P>
This House has a right to an explanation from Mr Cook of how something which the UK Government insisted could not happen suddenly became possible.
We should also ask Mr Cook why British taxpayers' money was used to fund this scandalous episode and indeed, why the UK Ministry of Defence specifically intervened to ensure an invitation was extended to the Indonesian military to attend a major arms fair in Britain next week.
<P>
Again, only after international pressure has Mr Cook been forced to withdraw this invitation.
We should insist that Mr Cook is brought before this House to provide us with an explanation on his extraordinary collaboration with the oppressive Indonesian regime.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 NAME="Doyle">
Mr President, the only issue left to address at this stage, given the broad range of contributions from all sides of this House, is why we are surprised about what has happened in Indonesia, why we are surprised at the impotent response of the European Union to the tragic genocide of the last two weeks in East Timor.
If we were unable to intervene and intervene promptly and properly in Kosovo, on our own doorstep, without weeks and months of prevarication and legal consultation to see what we could or could not do, how could we really expect the EU to respond as we would wish and the citizens of Europe would wish to the tragedy in East Timor?
<P>
What is it about the institutions of Europe - about the European Parliament, about the European Union collectively - that makes us unable to respond to the crises in the world as our people, our voters, our citizens would want us to do?
We need urgently to examine why our response is always - as I said yesterday and others said today - too little, too late.
We are a multi-billion pound, multi-billion dollar talking-shop, as far as the citizens of Europe and the world are concerned.
We are never there when it counts.
We always respond several months too late, we spend hours debating crises in this House and in other institutions, but we are not there, when it counts, as quickly as we should be.
Why?
Maybe the answer will come from the next two speakers.
<P>
Why is it always too little, too late?
Why was it a surprise that there was genocide since the referendum two weeks ago?
Why was the UN Council taken by surprise?
We had guaranteed these people that if they exercised their democratic rights and voted we would protect them and see it out to the end.
We failed, and failed miserably.
The international community should hang its head and the European Union along with it.
<P>
What is wrong?
What needs to be done to enable us to respond as we should?
That is the only question that needs to be answered because we are too late now.
Others have taken up our cudgels.
Let us not be caught in this position again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="President">
Pursuant to Rule 37 of the Rules of Procedure, I have received six motions for resolution to close the present debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Seguro">
Mr President, I would just like to let you know that today a consultative meeting was held, and that these motions for resolution will be replaced by a single motion for a joint resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Seguro.
<P>
The Presidency has received a request for permission to make a statement from the Commission and the Council.
Commissioner Liikanen will therefore speak on behalf of the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, Mr Cushnahan asked the Commissioner responsible for foreign policy a question.
Unfortunately, that Member of the Commission is not here; he will assume office tomorrow.
I can inform you that the new Commission meets for the first time on Saturday this week.
The situation in East Timor, and three issues in particular, are on the agenda.
<P>
Mr President, I was asked a question which was addressed to Mr Patten, who is responsible for foreign and security policy.
He is not here today.
He will assume office tomorrow.
The Commission will have its first meeting on Saturday.
In that first meeting the situation in East Timor will be on the agenda.
There will be three basic issues: how to re-establish peace; what the urgent humanitarian needs are and how they can be met in the area; how to prepare a multi-annual programme to build institutions in East Timor.
<P>
As far as the ECHO' s activities so far and at the moment are concerned, Mrs Halonen, the Foreign Minister of Finland and President of the Council would like to say that the ECHO humanitarian aid office has been present in East Timor since 15 July.
There have been six partners in East Timor.
They were fully in action until 9 September when they had to be evacuated for security reasons to Australia.
All these people are returning to East Timor as soon as the security situation improves.
We hope that the recent UN Security Council resolution allows the situation to develop so that all the humanitarian aid activities can be restarted soon in East Timor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
<P>
Mr Sasi will speak on behalf of the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first I would like to thank all those who have contributed to the debate for their opinions and also for the questions they have asked.
I am convinced that, with all of us working together, Parliament, the Council and the Commission, we can participate, with maximum effectiveness, in a solution to the crisis in East Timor and the arrangements that will need to be made afterwards.
The resolutions approved on Monday by the Council are an indication that we feel a special sense of responsibility towards finding a solution to the issue of East Timor that will benefit its people.
<P>
One key principle of international law is the right to self-determination of nations.
This issue is about establishing that right.
Another principle is insistence on compliance with agreements.
That we are demanding unconditionally from Indonesia.
Indonesia must respect and comply with essential commitments to human rights, and, above all, the UN agreement made in New York on 5 May on the question of East Timor.
This being the case, the Union will continue its forceful action in the United Nations, the Security Council and in Djakarta.
An international presence is the only immediate way of improving security and safeguarding it besides, so allowing sufficient humanitarian aid to be delivered to the region.
<P>
A decision was taken this morning by the Security Council to send an international peacekeeping force and an advanced guard to East Timor immediately.
The meeting at which the decision was approved was a long one: it began yesterday at 18.00. local time and ended today at 02.00.
We can feel satisfied that the mandate that has been given is a so-called strong mandate.
We expect the first troops to arrive in the region before the weekend.
The Australians have announced that they are on twenty-four hour alert.
We consider it important and positive that no preconditions were imposed in the decision to become involved.
The primary criterion - the best and fastest way of restoring security - is an important one.
In the long-term, we must allow other Asian countries, and especially those in ASEAN, to participate fully.
In addition, the Member States of the Union have been asked to participate, and we know that many countries are now doing so.
We also know that France, Great Britain and Portugal have announced their readiness to send troops.
<P>
The new problem that appears to be emerging now is the situation of the East Timorese in West Timor.
The region is a part of Indonesia, and we trust that Indonesia will guarantee the safety of all those in the region, and I also hope it will.
At the same time, we have to unconditionally ensure that the international humanitarian organisations and, above all the UNHCR, have safe access to the area.
To show that the international community is in earnest in this matter, we are recommending a visit to West Timor in the next view days by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Mrs Ogata.
<P>
Humanitarian action is urgently needed and its main priorities are the protection of refugees in West Timor, access to the area by the UNHCR, and the commencement of airdrops of food and other supplies to take place as soon as possible.
Regarding the airdrops, we can state that apparently they can start on Thursday through action on the part of the World Food Aid Programme and UNICEF.
For this we must ensure there are sufficient supplies, and we will use Union relief funds to purchase these supplies.
I believe humanitarian action will be in capable hands with the UNHCR, the UNDP and the ICRC.
The Union and its Member States will also have a considerable part to play in the operation in the future.
Furthermore, ECHO has all the while been involved in assessing the size of the aid package needed and co-ordinating Union aid so that it gets to where it is needed most right now.
<P>
The question of sanctions has been raised here, and I would now like to say that the ban on the export of weapons approved in the Council on Monday will come into force immediately.
This decision will mean we will stop the export of arms to Indonesia by any Member State, and the ban will be in force for the next four months, after which it will be up for review.
The legal aspects of the decision are to be finalised by the relevant bodies, and I shall not go into further detail as far as that is concerned.
<P>
Much emphasis has been put in our discussions here on the fact that human rights are being violated. We strongly condemn a state of affairs in which these violations have been carried out on such a large scale and so flagrantly.
It has been said here that no one could have failed to predict that things would turn out as they have.
It is absolutely true that we knew beforehand that there would be problems in the region after the referendum.
However, I believe that the extent and intensity of the terror carried out came as a surprise to all the observers.
The Union and the whole international community had had an assurance from the Indonesian government that they would be capable of keeping order and maintaining security in the region.
They had also legally committed to this in the New York Agreement.
<P>
As Mrs Halonen said, it is probable that people in the region are also guilty of crimes that violate international human rights.
For this reason, the Council has decided to give its support to the organisation of a special convention of the Commission on Human Rights and the appointment of an investigatory delegation to be sent to the region.
It is also very important that we discover who is responsible for criminal acts in this crisis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Portas">
I would like to draw attention to the absence of the Commissioner for External Affairs who has already been appointed.
<P>
If Timor is an urgent matter, his appearance was to be expected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Portas.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Question Time (Council)
<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="President">
The next item is questions to the Council (B5-0029/99).
<P>
I was looking over this balustrade to see whether the Council was present.
I wanted to assure myself that we were in the presence of the Council, which I greet as President of the Parliament.
<P>
This is the first sitting of this parliamentary legislature in which we will have Question Time, in this case to the Council.
I would like to remind you that, after the Council has replied to the written question, the Member who has asked the question, and two other Members, have the right to ask supplementary questions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, the procedures used in Member States to effect deportation do not fall within the scope of Community legislation.
Neither has the Community drafted any provisions for the temporary protection of nationals of third countries.
The Member States themselves have authority in procedure relating to deportation.
In carrying out their tasks, the authorities in Member States must act in compliance with their own national legislation and be subject to legal and political monitoring by national bodies, and also act in compliance too with the relevant international provisions relating to the safeguarding of human rights.
<P>
The death of a child is always a shocking event.
Being a father too, I am touched by the case.
However, the Council, unfortunately, has no knowledge of this case, so it cannot take a position on the matters raised by the Honourable Member in her question.
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<SPEAKER ID=172 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Díez González">
I regret the so-called reply which has been given to me because are we to conclude from the words of Mr Sasi that the Spanish authorities were acting correctly on 8 July when they expelled those 100 Romanian Gypsy families?
No, we do not conclude that.
They did not act in the defence of public order, they did not defend human rights and they did not safeguard national security.
They did not act according to principles of justice and fairness, nor did they act with respect for human rights.
No, the Spanish authorities only gave one response: the violent response towards refugees, the unacceptable response, democratically unacceptable.
The Spanish authorities acted against that European spirit which is the driving force behind the European Charter of Fundamental Rights which affects all of us, Members of the Council.
They acted in a way which shames and embarrasses us as Europeans and democrats.
<P>
Facts such as these once again illustrate the urgency with which we require a common policy in this area; an equitable and basically civil common policy for the control and acceptance of immigrants.
For this reason, we eagerly await the Tampere Summit. We require an initiative and a commitment which affects all of us, even the most reluctant of governments, which is, unfortunately, the case with the Spanish government in this field.
<P>
I will go further.
We hope that any abuse and any violation of human rights will be punished, and that we do not fail to respond when the responsibility falls to us, which is currently the case.
Furthermore, if the perpetrator of the violation, Members of the Council, is a democratic government, ladies and gentlemen, there is no third way or means of escape in the defence of human rights, not even by giving a reply in this Parliament.
We are either in favour of human rights or, quite simply, we are against them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, I do wish to state that we strongly condemn situations in which people die as a result of certain action.
On the basis of the question, however, it would seem that this is more a case of a traffic accident, rather than a problem of action on the part of the Spanish police.
This is a matter more suited to the Spanish Parliament' s Question Time, although we must remember that each institution has its own powers and this case comes under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Spanish authorities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Hernández Mollar">
I am ashamed to hear what I have heard from the mouth of the President of the Spanish Socialist delegation.
I must remind her that one Socialist Minister has been found guilty of kidnap and the Socialist Government of her leader, Felipe González, was found guilty by the Court of Human Rights for the expulsion of 103 immigrants on the border of Melilla.
But, furthermore, I believe that the Council has responded correctly and it would be a good thing if the Socialist Member, who is also spokesperson for her delegation, would do her duty and study this thing called European construction in a little more depth and not make fools of her parliamentary group with questions concerning issues which are not within Community competence and which need to be resolved on a national level.
<P>
If her strategy consists of discrediting the Spanish Government with falsities and furthermore displaying a deceitful, irrational and irresponsible sectarianism, she is showing a clear incapacity to understand her mission in this Parliament - which is not to exploit the tragic death of a child - then it is truly worrying that her job has started in this way.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I would like to ask you what policy of economic and social solidarity the Council intends to propose in the case of the numerous families that move from one country to another for purely economic reasons.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, the question is a very far-reaching one: what can be done in this respect?
Certainly it is clear that if it is a question of a country, for example, that has applied for membership of the European Union, the negotiations for membership may cover discussions on how people' s living conditions may be improved.
In addition, it is certainly appropriate that, in the case of the Phare programme, for example, ways are found of funding projects which may result in improved living conditions, and in this way reducing pressures on migration within the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Cerdeira Morterero">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I would like you to go into a little more depth, given that we are not at all satisfied with the reply that you have given, even taking into account the limitations of the Council in this area.
<P>
But we cannot forget that not only in my country but also in the rest of the European Union, in the years to come, we will continue to experience migratory pressure from nomadic groups, which is the case in Spain with the group of Romanian and Gypsy origin.
<P>
And faced with this pressure, which we all know will continue to increase on our borders and within our countries, we believe that it is essential that we develop a general plan to attend to these populations.
A general plan in which the competences and responsibilities of the European Union are defined, as well as those of each Member State.
It is absolutely necessary to co-ordinate actions to the benefit of these groups so that at all times, in all circumstances, the human rights and dignity of people are respected.
But the required co-ordination can never allow any Member State of the European Union to shirk its responsibilities: neither the State nor any of the administrations into which that State is divided, which has happened in the case that has been mentioned in my country.
<P>
We therefore demand a response from the Council to this problem which we will face with regard to the nomadic migratory population in the whole of the European Union, a co-ordinated response of the Member States, which at the same time involves everybody taking their own responsibility.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, first I would like to say that the Union aspires to a more uniform immigration and asylum policy and this is the subject intended for discussion at the Tampere Summit in October.
I shall not go into greater detail, as Mrs Halonen has already given an account of the meeting to Parliament in its sitting today.
I would like, however, to stress that it is important that the demarcations regarding authority that exist between institutions and bodies in Europe are relatively clear so that each one knows its business and where its ultimate responsibilities lie.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 NAME="President">
Mr Carnero has the floor for a very brief procedural motion.
I hope that it is a procedural motion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Mr President, since you know me, you will have no doubt that this is going to be a procedural motion.
Because I am attending this debate not as a Member who simply asks questions, but as a Member who is interested in the fundamental issues in the affairs dealt with by the Council, and I witness with amazement the contents of some interventions of other colleagues, in particular Mr Hernández Mollar.
<P>
It seems to me that he, as well as the spokesman of his delegation, Mr Galeote, has highjacked questions to the Council to discredit, in a personal and unacceptable way, a colleague who has expressed completely respectable political opinions.
<P>
I believe that this is a very pertinent procedural motion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 NAME="President">
The President, without calling you impertinent, considers that the motion is not pertinent and asks that others do not use the floor in this way.
<P>
Mr Korakas has the floor for a procedural motion.
He will lose the floor immediately if it is not a procedural motion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Korakas">
Mr President, today I received a letter from the services department informing me that the question which I submitted to the Council will be answered alongside another question submitted by another colleague.
However, the issues in question are completely different, because our question does not cover the general issue of nuclear power plants.
Our question concerns a specific nuclear power plant which the Turkish Government wishes to establish in an earthquake-prone area and we are correlating this issue directly with that of the terrible earthquake which took place in Turkey.
Should, in your opinion, two completely different issues be discussed together?
The nuclear power plant which will be established in Morocco concerns the desalination of water. I do not know if Morocco' s problem can be likened to the one we are raising in our question as regards the station which is to be established in Turkey; that is, the problem of seismicity, particularly in view of the terrible earthquake in Turkey a few days ago.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="President">
Mr Korakas, when we reach the questions which we have decided to respond to jointly, I will give you an explanation, but we must follow an agenda, we must follow this agenda so that the sitting may be satisfactorily completed and I am not prepared to allow any more points of order or procedural motions which disrupt the normal functioning of the question time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="Per Gahrton">
Question No 2 by (H-0407/99/rev. 1):
<P>
Subject: Common EU defence policy During the European election campaign this year, the Swedish Prime Minister, Göran Persson, said that there was no possibility of a common EU defence becoming a reality as Sweden would use its veto as soon as the question came up for discussion.
Pierre Schori, then Minister for Co-operation, claimed that there was a crucial difference between what the EU meant by effective crisis management and a common defence.
According to Schori, the EU does not intend to develop a common defence but simply wishes to enhance its capabilities for effective crisis management.
With regard to these statements, will the Council say whether the Treaties stipulate that the EU should develop a common defence?
How does the Council interpret the decision of the Cologne Summit to integrate the WEU into the European Union?
Is there a place for neutral Member States within the future common foreign and security policy?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, as the Honourable Member knows, Article 17 of the Treaty on European Union states that "The common foreign and security policy shall include all questions relating to the security of the Union, including the progressive framing of a common defence policy...which might lead to a common defence, should the European Council so decide."
Therefore, a common defence is stated as a future possibility in the Treaty on European Union in compliance with the conditions set forth in the Article.
The Article also states that Union policy will not prejudice the specific character of the security and defence policies of certain Member States.
<P>
The European Council at Cologne discussed Europe' s capacity for attending to the so-called Petersberg Tasks, which are in accordance with Article 17 of the Treaty on European Union, and which are humanitarian and rescue actions, peacekeeping and action by combat forces to restore peace in crisis situations, including when there is a credible military capacity.
Heads of State and Government undertook to develop an effective European military capability founded on existing national, as well as bilateral and multilateral capabilities, and to strengthen the European capacity in this connection.
The General Affairs Council has been given the task of drafting pre-conditions and measures required to achieve this goal.
In this connection, we have to determine detailed provisions for incorporating in the Union such action on the part of the WEU that the EU needs to be able to see to its new responsibilities in respect of the Petersberg Tasks.
Thus, the WEU is not integrated into the Union as such.
The aim is to take the necessary decisions by the end of the year 2000.
<P>
As is pointed out very forcibly in the statement approved at the Cologne Summit, this strengthened capacity for effective crisis management does not change the independent solutions that Member States have regarding defence.
The special nature of militarily non-aligned states is preserved.
In compliance with the conclusions made at Cologne, the task we have in common is to strengthen the Union' s capacity for effective crisis management, not an arrangement for regional defence.
As the European Council at Cologne confirmed, the common foreign and security policy, according to the stipulations of the TEU, includes the issue of crisis management.
Under the Treaty, all Member States have the same rights and obligations.
Furthermore, the third subparagraph of Article 17 (3) provides for the participation, fully and on an equal footing, of all Member States in planning and decision-taking in the WEU.
<P>
The conclusions of the European Council at Cologne stress that the creation of a successful European security and defence policy will require, inter alia, that all Member States of the Union, including non-aligned Members, may participate fully and on an equal footing in EU operations.
Let it be said that decisions taken in respect of crisis management action, especially decisions having military and defensive effects, will be taken in compliance with Article 23 of the TEU.
Member States will maintain the right, in all circumstances, to decide if and when they will use their national armed forces.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gahrton">
Thank you for your answer.
It was quite comprehensive, but I think you would have to be able to interpret oracles to understand what the representative of the Council really said.
Is there to be a common defence policy or not?
If the answer is to be interpreted as saying that there is in fact not going to be a common defence policy, then that is sensational news.
It would then be extremely interesting to hear the reactions from Paris, Berlin and Madrid and many other places where the Cologne resolutions have in fact been interpreted as a further step in the direction of a common defence policy.
<P>
Or shall I interpret the answer as saying that there will in actual fact be a common defence policy?
Is it really so impossible to answer the question?
I do not know how many times I have taken up this question since I first came into this Parliament a few years ago and how many times I' ve tried to obtain clarification and clear interpretations from the Council about what is really going on.
Because opinions within the European Union are so diverse and because interpretations of the Cologne resolutions are so totally at odds with each other in different parts of the EU, is it just not on, then, to say quite straightforwardly either "yes, we are on the way towards a common defence policy" or "no, there' s not going to be a common defence policy" ?
Can we not get a clear answer to this extremely important question?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sasi">
I can see that the matter is clear in so far as, if you ask something about the future, then nothing completely certain about what is going to happen can be said to you in reply.
Obviously you can state that it is a possibility which may become real for us when the EU is developed further, but in that case different decisions have to be made before anything can happen. Where the present position is concerned, it can be stated quite clearly that there are more so-called peacekeeping exercises the European Union could become involved in.
These should progressively be engaged in first. As this process goes forward, we do not know exactly what will happen.
At this stage, I should still not, however, be able to say that we can begin to talk about a common defence policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schori">
Our colleague, Mr Gahrton, refers in his question to my statements in the Swedish EU election campaign.
These have proved to be correct and have also been confirmed not only by the Council here but also by Chris Patten in the Committee hearings.
He said that a common EU army would be unnecessary, extremely expensive and directly damaging to relations with the USA. Let me add that we who definitely do not want to see a common EU army and who are not members of NATO would nonetheless, in common with an overwhelming proportion of Sweden' s population, its government and the party I represent, like to see the EU taking more responsibility when it comes to Europe' s peace and security.
We also recognise the Cologne resolution which says, amongst other things, that the EU must become better at organising military and civil crisis management.
<P>
My question to the Council is this: do you share my view that the way to lasting security is mainly through civil, cross-border co-operation and not through military rearmament, that is to say that we ought to follow the Monnet line and not the Maginot line?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sasi">
I think the questioner is quite right.
If we have to use military troops, then we have gone wrong somewhere.
The whole fundamental idea behind the EU is that attempts are made to bind the people of Europe to one another in a way which guarantees peace and security throughout Europe.
If we talk about the enlargement process, what we are basically saying is that we must try to bind other countries too to a peaceful Europe and in a way that guarantees that problems don' t arise in this area.
I am of precisely the same view, namely that we ought, in the first place, to direct our efforts towards such measures so as to ensure that crisis situations do not arise in Europe or in our immediate neighbourhood.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, I have a question concerning how events will run in practice.
What would happen today if a neutral Member State was attacked militarily by a non-EU State?
What would you do and which course of action would you recommend?
We have just recently had a military crisis between the borders of two EU countries, namely between Greece and Austria.
What plan would you have if a military attack were to take place today against an EU country, even if it were a neutral EU country?
How would you proceed as President-in-Office of the Council?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="Sasi">
It has to be said that it is difficult to predict what would happen in a situation like that.
There are no legal requirements to the effect that Member States need to take measures if anything like that should happen.
However, we clearly inhabit a Union characterised by solidarity.
If any Member State were to be attacked by a non-EU country, we should obviously have to show solidarity in some way.
Precisely with what means, it is very difficult indeed to predict.
Clearly, situations such as the ones you describe and which we hope will never arise can end up having to be dealt with in different ways.
I hope, however, that we shall never find ourselves in a situation such as is described in the question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=193 NAME="Charlotte Cederschiöld">
Question No 3 by (H-0408/99):
<P>
Subject: UN Convention on combating organised crime On the basis of Article K.1 of the TEU, the Member States have committed themselves to preventing and combating all forms of international crime and regard the fight against organised crime as a matter of common European interest.
The action plan for organised crime sets out the joint strategy which the Member States have chosen as a means of combating such crime.
<P>
In October 1998, the Council called on the Presidency to submit, pursuant to Article K.3 of the TEU, proposals for joint positions concerning the draft UN Convention and protocols thereto, as it wishes to contribute to their negotiation and prevent inconsistencies between the future Convention and EU instruments.
<P>
What action has the Council taken to advance and influence the future UN Convention and to ensure consistency between it and EU instruments in this area?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, the Council is aware that it is desirable and necessary to draft and propose joint positions concerning the draft UN Convention and protocols thereto.
It also wants to participate actively in talks on them and ensure there is consistency between the future Convention and the EU instruments in this area For this, the EU countries holding the Presidency, after a call to do so expressed in the Council in October 1998, reconciled the positions of the Member States and put them to a multi-sector working party and the K.4 Committee, which is now a committee within the meaning of Article 36, at meetings in Brussels and also during talks held at Vienna.
The Member States of the Union took an active part in the talks.
<P>
During the German presidential term, the Council confirmed the common position on the proposed Convention based on Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union on 29 March 1999.
In the future, we shall have other joint positions confirmed, depending on the progress made at the talks in Vienna.
Member States agree that it is desirable to avoid inconsistencies between the proposed Convention and the instruments drafted in the European Union, which include, for example, joint action, as agreed on 3 December 1998, on money laundering, recognition of the means of committing an offence and benefits associated with it, tracking down criminals, freezing assets, seizure of goods and successful conviction, and joint action, as agreed on 21 December 1998, on involvement in organised criminal activity.
Member States continue to reconcile their positions in talks on the proposed Convention as far as possible, and on the initiative on the part of the country holding the Presidency, and are endeavouring to reach consensus on all issues that significantly affect the interests of the Union.
The Commission is fully involved in this work.
The Member States of the European Union agree that it is desirable to participate in negotiations on the proposed Convention as energetically as possible, and they intend to continue to be intensely active in discussions and negotiations on this issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cederschiöld">
Thank you. That is a good answer.
It should, however, be possible to develop it further.
When it comes to combating organised crime, what is needed is a greater degree of organised, cross-border co-operation.
It is a fact that criminal investigations are unduly focused upon national inquiries.
If we want to be effective, more investigations involving a European dimension are needed.
<P>
My question is this: is the Presidency exerting pressure to ensure that the informal meeting of ministers which is taking place at this very moment will be in a position to take further steps which might find concrete expression in more cross-border investigations following the summit meeting in Tampere?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sasi">
As the questioner says, the Justice Ministers are at this very moment holding a meeting in Finland.
Clearly, this meeting is preparing the ground for the summit meeting in Tampere in the middle of October.
One of the subjects to be discussed at the summit meeting is criminality and organised crime, together with the problems which this type of criminality entails.
As the questioner pointed out, it is however also extremely important that this question not only be discussed within the European Union but also at international level and in conjunction with work being done by the United Nations.
Obviously, matters will be discussed within the European Union but, in order that progress might be made, we shall also give all our support to the United Nations.
<P>
With regard to providing a mandate for talks within the framework of the United Nations' convention, the idea is that a mandate shall in fact be provided, but this may be a little difficult.
This is something which, as the country which holds the Presidency, we are now looking into.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, in the draft Convention approved by the Council, there are also regulations on concealed listening devices and co-operation among authorities connected with it.
Many of the regulations on bugging, however, are drafted by the Enfopol working party, which is under the control of parliamentary or political forces, but is concerned exclusively with police co-operation.
Nevertheless, this sort of bugging might be violating personal and national privacy, and may also be criminal.
I would ask what the Council intends to do in order that these Enfopol regulations come within the scope of parliamentary and democratic control.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, obviously at the stage when regulations on concealed listening devices in each Member State are finally agreed, they will certainly be the subject of extensive debate and they will have to be assessed.
Regarding the views of the Member on the political control of this working party, the country holding the Presidency may throw light on the issue, but I cannot take a more precise position on the proposal as I do not know a good deal about it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="Jonas Sjöstedt">
Question No 4 by (H-0409/99):
<P>
Subject: Access to Schengen documents When the Amsterdam Treaty entered into force, the Schengen Agreement, together with its implementing regulations, became EU law.
Previously, the Council had been unable to make public certain documents owing to the separate status of the Schengen Agreement.
<P>
The opportunity is now there to increase transparency and, thereby, democratic control over Schengen issues.
Some of the most important documents which have been kept secret are the Sirene manual and handbooks for external border control and those for embassies and consulates.
<P>
Will these documents now be made public, in full or in part?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, as the Member quite correctly stated, the Schengen Agreement became part of the European Union framework when the Treaty of Amsterdam came into force.
The more than 700 pages long Schengen Convention is to be published in the Official Journal, and it will be accessible on the Council' s web site as soon as it has been translated into all the Community languages.
The General Secretariat of the Council has, in addition, just published a pamphlet containing the Schengen Agreement, accession treaties, and decisions and declarations made by the committee implementing Schengen.
We intend to have this pamphlet sent to the Member who asked the question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
Thank you for your answer to the question.
I wonder if I am to interpret it to mean that the SIRENE manual too is to be in the public domain, as are instructions to ambassadors and consulates and instructions for external border controls.
Are these included in the 700 pages of material to be published? Or are they still to be secret?
I think it is quite unreasonable that significant, applicable parts of such an agreement should remain outside the public domain.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sasi">

The documents which are in this manual and which will be published in the OJEC should cover most of the material the questioner is asking about.
If there is something missing from this material, it will be seen to what extent such information can be handed over if it is requested, and in that case, we will comply with the Decision which the Council approved on 20 December 1993.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 NAME="Newton Dunn">
Mr President, I welcome strongly the fact that the 700 pages are going to be published.
They are of course legally binding on the citizens of Europe. But what about the future when more of these laws are going to be passed in the Council of Ministers?
They will be passed in total secrecy. The public in the gallery, we Members, the press cannot watch law-making going on.
What is the attitude of the Finnish presidency towards law-making in secret, because at the moment the Council of Ministers is only matched by Beijing and North Korea in passing laws over citizens in secret?
Should not it be in the open and will you do something about it?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, as the country holding the Presidency, Finland aspires to the greatest possible transparency in its work in the European Union.
For this reason, among other things, during the Finnish presidential term, we will be publishing Council and other committee agendas, so that people may know, if they need to, what issues are up for discussion, and so that, if necessary, they can find out more about those issues and, besides, hold public debates on them.
As far as my personal experience of the work of the Council is concerned, I have to say that, although, obviously, issues are prepared in a way that is not always open, in most cases the best way of acquiring information on the preparatory work of the Council is to read about it in condensed form in the Financial Times.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="Olivier Dupuis">
Question No 5 by (H-0414/99):
<P>
Subject: Establishment of a universal moratorium on capital punishment On a number of occasions, the European Parliament has called for the EU to promote an initiative within the UN aimed at establishing a universal moratorium on capital punishment.
In this connection, on the initiative of the Council or of Member States, the UN Commission on Human Rights has, over the last three years, adopted resolutions calling for the universal abolition of the death penalty.
Does the current Council Presidency believe (as the European Parliament does) that the conditions are now such that a majority of the members of the UN General Assembly will this year call for the establishment of a universal moratorium on capital punishment?
If so, has it already moved to include such an item on the agenda for this autumn's General Assembly? If not, is it intending to do so during the next few days, by means of some other procedure?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, opposition to the death penalty plays a central role in the Union' s policy on human rights.
In June 1998, the Council established guidelines on EU policy relating to the death sentence in third countries.
It is a fundamental aim of the Union that the death penalty should be abolished world-wide.
To achieve this aim, the Council is urging those countries still applying the death sentence to agree to establish a moratorium on capital punishment, and is calling for compliance with minimum standards.
In addition, it is inviting them to embrace international legal instruments banning the death penalty.
<P>
In compliance with its guidelines, the EU proposed, as an initiative, for the first time a draft resolution on the death penalty at the 55th sitting of the Commission on Human Rights at Geneva this year.
The initiative was a great success, being in content more radical than former resolutions and, in addition, there were more who were jointly proposing it - 72, in fact - than in 1998, when there were 65.
The Union also organised a panel discussion at the sitting on capital punishment, in which NGOs and government representatives of different countries took part.
The Council has just decided to continue with its policy to take up the subject of the death penalty in a multilateral forum, and it decided for the first time to propose a draft resolution on capital punishment during the 54th session of the UN General Assembly.
The Council believes that the Union initiative will strengthen the international trend towards abolishing the death penalty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, firstly, I would like to ask you to take a look around the House to the right and left, because I was first to indicate that I wanted to ask an additional question just now and, because you did not see me, I was not able to.
<P>
I wish to thank the Finnish President' s team for the action it is taking at the United Nations on the matter of abolition of the death sentence, and I am delighted to know that thanks to the Finnish Presidency - not just them, of course - we will have a decision this year in New York.
The whole problem resides, I believe, in the matter of the text adopted by the Assembly.
<P>
According to the information I have, this text was based on the one adopted in Geneva.
There is only one problem, the omission of successive deadlines for the implementation of a moratorium initiative in the form of a treaty or other institutional initiative.
<P>
Could the Council Presidency give me further information on this? What type of schedule, if any, does the Council have in mind in order to be able to realise this initiative?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, the Council wants to act openly to achieve the best possible result at the United Nations General Assembly.
I also hope that we can have talks with other possible supporters of the project.
With this process still under way, the draft text has not yet been finalised.
<P>
The resolutions of the Commission on Human Rights contain a reference to the question of a moratorium.
Setting a deadline is a good thing in itself, and it would be good to achieve such a thing, but it is not entirely without problems.
<P>
I would also like to stress that we all have an obligation to try and encourage the abolition of the death penalty in our official contacts, at one-off events, at official announcements and in multilateral forums.
It is also important that when we have political discussions with countries such as China, Iran and the United States we try and raise the issue of capital punishment at those meetings also.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, my question concerns the last part of your intervention.
<P>
We are very happy that it affects the Member States and that it is intended to be included in the agenda of the 54th Assembly of the United Nations.
I am in complete agreement with the spirit of the question and the intervention of Mr Dupuis.
<P>
However, could the President-in-Office of the Council tell us whether, in those countries with which we maintain political and economic relations, such as China, the Council can have an influence, maintaining a clear and specific position in favour of the abolition of the death penalty which this European Parliament supports so firmly?
Can we not in some way have an influence in those countries with which we maintain these commercial and political relations?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="Sasi">
) Mr President, I would like to say once again that in June 1998, we agreed guidelines for Union policy relating to the death sentence in third countries.
Our main goal is the abolition of capital punishment, but as the group of countries that apply the death penalty contain some very important countries, cooling relations with them is not a viable solution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, I was very pleased to hear the President-in-Office say that the Finnish Presidency will go ahead with negotiations with certain countries, including China, with a view to abolishing the death penalty.
I would like to ask the Finnish Presidency: do you intend to begin some kind of negotiations with Turkey either to prevent the carrying out of the death sentence on Abdullah Öçalan or to abolish the death penalty in Turkey altogether?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 NAME="Sasi">
) Mr President, it is very evident that the Union has repeatedly expressed its desire that Turkey should continue with its policy by which it has refrained from using the death penalty, and that must obviously also apply in the Öçalan case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=216 NAME="Gerard Collins">
Question No 6 by (H-0416/99):
<P>
Subject: EU support for Ireland's maritime services Ireland has one of the largest maritime areas to patrol in the EU, a responsibility which is important to Ireland and the EU as a whole and extends to activities such as drugs surveillance and interception, fisheries protection and the safety of shipping. Will the Council state what initiatives should be taken at EU level to support Ireland's efforts in this sector?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="Sasi">
) Mr President, the Council is aware that Member States, which have a long coastline, have an enormous responsibility regarding the implementation of Community regulations on maritime security and the protection of the sea environment from its contamination by vessels.
To lighten the burden of these obligations, Community directives and regulations on the subject provide for closer co-operation and an exchange of information between Member States, to avoid overlapping, to make it easier to acquire information on vessels, and to standardise practices in Member States.
<P>
Regarding fisheries, the Council would like to mention the legislation provisions that apply under Council Decision 95/527/EC.
These acts, which cover the period 1996 - 2000, provide for Community participation in the funding of costs incurred by the implementation of monitoring and surveillance in respect of fisheries policy.
On the basis of this act, Ireland has the right to apply for a contribution by the Community.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="Gallagher">
Mr President, would the Council accept that the cost of maritime surveillance to Ireland is totally disproportionate to our size and population.
I appreciate his point that under the 1995 fisheries legislation provisions this is taken into consideration, but does he support the provision of funding commensurate with the area to be surveyed by the Irish authorities?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="Sasi">
) Mr President, we must be cautious about the sort of promises we make, but I have to say that at this time, there are no plans to increase funding in this area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 NAME="President">
I suspected something like this.
That is why I wanted to give you time to reflect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="Liam Hyland">
Question No 7 by (H-0418/99):
<P>
Subject: Cheaper mortgages In view of the ever increasing cost of housing throughout the EU, will the Council outline new ways in which house buyers could avail themselves of long-term cheap mortgages?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 NAME="Sasi">
) Mr President, the trend in mortgage rates partly reflects the long-term interest rates in capital markets.
The present long-term interest rates in the euro area should, in principle, therefore mean cheaper mortgages.
To some extent, monetary policy might indirectly affect mortgages interest rates.
This does not fall within the jurisdiction of the Council, however, as the Honourable Member will certainly know.
The Commission has not presented the Council with any proposals for tax or any measures to improve mortgage rates.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="Hyland">
Mr President, the introduction of the single currency, combined with better competition in the marketplace, has resulted in a substantial reduction in interest for those on variable rate mortgages.
I want to emphasise variable rate mortgages.
There are however, particularly in Ireland, a substantial number of borrowers on fixed rates, sometimes at interest which is three times higher than the current rates and which lending institutions are unwilling to adjust without substantial financial penalties.
I would ask the President-in-Office if he is willing to have this matter examined, if not by the Council, by the Commission or indeed the European Central Bank.
It is a very serious problem for a very large number of borrowers who are finding it increasingly difficult to meet interest rates which prevailed five, six and seven years ago at treble the rate which we have at the present time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="President">
Although there are some requests for the floor, I have to apply the rules, and point 4 of Annex II of the Rules of Procedure says that each Member may ask only one supplementary question during questions to the Council.
I am therefore very sorry to say that I cannot give the floor to Mr Newton-Dunn.
<P>
Mr Sasi has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="Sasi">
) Mr President, improving the regulations on single market procedures with regard to finance policy is in fact one of the primary goals of the Council.
It aims to increase competition in the sector, which would be likely to benefit house buyers also.
As I mentioned in my speech just now, the Council has had no proposal from the Commission in this area.
If such a proposal should emerge from the Commission, we will obviously pay special attention to it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="Pat the Cope Gallagher">
Question No 8 by (H-0420/99):
<P>
Subject: Stopping the practice of multi-use trial contact lenses Media reports in June stated that in Britain 'opticians have been advised to stop using multi-use trial contact lenses because of fears they could transmit new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease'.
<P>
Has the Council considered this development at EU level and does it consider that such a 'precautionary measure' should be taken in all EU Member States?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 NAME="Sasi">
) Mr President, since 1996 the Health Council has examined and monitored at all their half-yearly meetings the appearance of any new form of contagious Spongiform Encephalopathy, and especially Creutzfeld-Jakob disease.
However, as yet, the Council has not been presented with information or proposals on the particular matter the Honourable Member refers to.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 NAME="Gallagher">
Is the Council aware of the situation in Britain to which I have referred?
If he is not aware, I would strongly suggest that the Council familiarises itself with this situation.
I do not want to be alarmist in any way but the fact that the British Government has already acted is something which should be taken into consideration.
In view of the fact that the Amsterdam Treaty accords the highest priority to the protection of human health and given the fact that the European Parliament now has powers of codecision under the Treaty can the Council assure the House that any proposal to be considered on the multi-use trial contact lens will be brought before the House for our consultation and approval?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 NAME="Sasi">
) Mr President, I believe that ophthalmologists and opticians are aware of the risks which contact lenses carry with them, but, as we know, as far as division of responsibility is concerned, it is the job of the Commission to monitor how the situation is progressing in practice.
If the Commission perceives problems it is its task to make recommendations that we will obviously look into carefully.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 NAME="President">
As the author is not present, Question No 9 lapses.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 NAME="Brian Crowley">
Question No 10 by (H-0424/99):
<P>
Subject: Youth crime, drugs and the Tampere European Council What assurances can the Finnish Presidency give that at the special European Council on Justice and Home Affairs to be held on 15 and 16 October next in Tampere a common strategy will be adopted aimed at tackling youth crime and delivering a clear message that the EU will not introduce a liberal policy towards drugs?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 NAME="Sasi">
) Mr President, at this stage I cannot give any guarantees to the Honourable Member of what issues will be discussed at the Tampere Summit, although mention has been made of them today.
In fact, the Minister for Justice and the Minister for Home Affairs have to prepare work on matters relating to their own areas in an unofficial meeting to be held in Turku on 16 - 17 September, and the General Affairs Council began its preparatory work on the European Council meeting at a meeting last Monday, and will continue with the task at a meeting to take place 11 - 12 October.
<P>
I can say, however, that the country holding the Presidency has noted the particular interest the UK delegation, with the support of the French and Swedish delegations, has shown towards the problem of youth crime.
In the debate on the prevention of crime, the country holding the Presidency intends to stress how important it is to have an active preventive policy to act as a counterweight to measures that strengthen the tools of co-operation in respect of the police and matters of law.
<P>
The Extraordinary European Council meeting at Tampere will not be dealing with the question of drugs mentioned by the Honourable Member.
The institutions of the Council and the European Parliament are right now drafting a strategy on drugs, which is based on a Commission communication.
The intention is to deliver a presentation on the matter at the European Council to be held in Helsinki in December 1999.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 NAME="Crowley">
<SPEAKER ID=235 NAME="Sasi">
) Mr President, I can assure the Honourable Member that Finland, as the country holding the Presidency, will play an active part in striving to prevent and reduce youth crime.
We see youth crime as an enormous problem, and giving attention to this problem will have an impact on the crime rate in the future also, as someone learning antisocial patterns of behaviour when young is a danger in the longer term not only to himself but obviously to the whole of society also, in terms of criminal damage.
<P>
Regarding a policy on drugs, the Finnish line is very clear.
As the country holding the Presidency and as an individual state, Finland is not in favour of the liberalisation of the drugs policy or, for example, of some drugs becoming legalised.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 NAME="President">
As the author is not present, Question No 11 lapses.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 NAME="Alexandros Alavanos">
Question No 12 by (H-0428/99):
<P>
Subject: Reciprocal abolition of visa requirement between EU and other countries Some Member States of the European Union have abolished the visa requirement for US citizens travelling to EU countries.
The USA, however, retains the right to require EU citizens travelling to the USA to obtain a visa.
<P>
Which Member States' citizens are not required to hold a visa for travel to the USA and what measures will the Council take to persuade the USA to abolish the visa requirement for all EU citizens?
<P>
Mr Alavanos also requests the floor for a procedural motion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, I apologise for the interruption but from the text, at least the Greek text, it appears the question has been written incorrectly.
Something must have gone amiss between the text leaving my office and it arriving at the services department, and I would like to clarify the matter for the President. The question is this: although the citizens of the United States can enter all the countries of the European Union freely, there are some countries within the European Union whose citizens require a visa from the American embassy in order to enter the United States.
I would like you, Mr President, to enlighten us on this political issue and tell us what you intend to do to put an end to this discrimination.
I am saying all this because my question has been written incorrectly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 NAME="President">
Mr Alavanos, it seems to me that the Spanish version says the same thing that you have mentioned.
It is probably a linguistic issue.
Nobody is perfect, as you know.
Errors are committed and the President-in-Office of the Council, who furthermore has been enlightened by you, will reply to you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 NAME="Sasi">
) Mr President, I believe the Honourable Member is fully aware that, as the United States is not at this time on the list annexed to Regulation EC/574/99, it is not for the Council to persuade the United States to abolish visa requirements for citizens of the Union.
This is rather the task of the Member States concerned, by virtue of Article 2(3) of the above-mentioned regulation.
<P>
The plan of action accepted for the Council and the Commission in the Council of Justice and Home Affairs on 3 December 1998, which concerns the most suitable ways of implementing the provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam on the realisation of an area of freedom, security and justice, puts forward a proposal, one of a group of measures to be implemented within a two-year period, for a regulation for countries whose citizens do not need visas for Member States of the Union, and for countries whose citizens do.
Reference is made in this respect to subparagraph i of paragraph b of Article 62(2) of the consolidated version of the EC Treaty.
Only when the Commission makes proposals on this regulation can the Council, by virtue of the principle of reciprocity, make a check of those countries whose citizens do not need any kind of visa to visit EU Member States.
<P>
The USA' s Department of Immigration and Naturalisation permits travellers from certain countries to apply for entry into the United States without a visa for a maximum of 90 days for purposes of business or tourism under the so-called visa waiver pilot programme, Visa waiver.
EU Member States included in the programme are Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom, which means that only Greece is missing from the list.
Greece is not yet actively involved in the programme.
However, I would like to point out that the US Foreign Minister has announced that the Attorney General has agreed that Greece should participate in the programme, but there is still preparatory work to be done before Greek citizens can enter the USA within the context of this programme.
Talks are being conducted with Greece with special advisers present, with the result that Greek nationals will soon be able to participate in the Visa waiver programme, and thus this problem will no longer be on the agenda.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, I received a reply which was quite substantial and requires some study on my part.
I do not, however, agree with the Presidency' s viewpoint that this is not a matter for the Council.
I believe that from the moment the European Union was created, from the moment we had free movement, from the moment we had the Schengen Agreement and consensus on the issue of the movement of people between Member States, no country, such as the United States, should ever have been allowed to come along and rock the boat and impose discriminatory practices on a country like Greece.
<P>
From this viewpoint, we would expect the Council and particularly the Finnish Presidency, which is generally attuned to these issues, to intervene in some way with the United States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 NAME="Sasi">
) Mr President, it is true that the free movement of people is a central principle in European Union policy, which, moreover, has been implemented.
On the other hand, it is also true that Member States practise independent visa policies that are not at the moment entirely in line with one another.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=244 NAME="Bernd Posselt">
Question No 13 by (H-0436/99):
<P>
Subject: Land acquisition in applicant countries What is the Council' s position on efforts being made in applicant countries of Central and Eastern Europe to continue, subsequent to any EU accession, to restrict or prohibit the free acquisition of land by EU citizens, at least during a transition period?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 NAME="Sasi">
) Mr President, as the Honourable Member states, several countries that have applied for membership have asked, during the accession negotiations at present going on, for a period of transition, for them to be able to keep in force some restrictions to the right on the part of Union citizens or companies to freely acquire land.
These requests, which are being justified in terms of political, economic and social necessity, are being examined at present in Council bodies established to formulate the EU common position at the negotiations.
The Union will, however, determine its final position only after it has received further information and reports from the countries in question on the scope and consequences of the requests.
Nevertheless, we must remember that the European Treaty contains undertakings, according to which Community companies based in countries that have applied for membership have the right to acquire land, including agricultural land.
The Union also stressed its common position, when the negotiations on accession started on 21 March 1998, that the requests in respect of transition measures may not involve changes to Union regulations or policy or prevent them from being properly implemented.
In this connection, it has to be said that a transition period in respect of land acquisition has been proposed in the chapter on the free flow of capital.
This principle is of primary importance as far as the proper functioning of the single market is concerned.
In a general sense, this means it should be guaranteed that all kinds of capital transfers may take place freely in connection with accession.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I would like to put one additional question: I share your opinion and thank you for this clear response that the complete adoption of the acquis communautaire is, of course, necessary for accession.
More and more rumours are being circulated these days that a deal could be struck: transitional periods, as far as the free labour market and similar are concerned in the EU, could be combined with transitional periods in the candidate countries.
I regard this as being extremely problematic because it will certainly not be a question of the amalgamation of two things, rather an accession process, and I am of the opinion that there could be transitional periods with regard to accession, as there have been earlier, but that the candidate countries actually have to adopt the complete acquis communautaire on accession.
Should this not be the case, then it would be accession à la carte which could greatly jeopardise the Community.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 NAME="Sasi">
) Mr President, I have myself travelled around in the applicant countries, and in some of them I have had my attention drawn to the fact that people are worried about the right of foreigners to purchase land.
I must, however, say that many countries have by now already amended their legislation, so that land acquisition will at least be easier than before.
I have made it clear in all discussions that Union regulations cannot be changed, and that applicant countries must accept the acquis communautaire in this regard also.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=248 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=249 NAME="Gary Titley, which has been taken over by Mr Skinner">
Question No 14 by (H-0437/99):
<P>
Subject: WTO Millennium Round At the European Council held in Cologne in June 1999, EU Heads of State agreed that the forthcoming "Millennium Round" WTO trade negotiations should include workers' rights. "Negotiations covering a broad spectrum of topics, including labour standards, environment, development and transparency" , they argued, "are the most appropriate approach for achieving substantial and balanced results for the benefit of all WTO members" .
<P>
The inclusion of labour standards was widely applauded by the governments of developing countries, by NGOs and by the trade union movement world-wide.
<P>
A few weeks later, however, EU trade ministers subsequently decided to remove workers' rights from the EU' s negotiating mandate.
<P>
Does the Council now agree with its trade ministers that minimum labour standards have no part to play in achieving substantial and balanced results in the "Millennium Round" for the benefit of all WTO members?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 NAME="Sasi">
) Mr President, the Council has many times adopted a stance on trade negotiations and the forthcoming Millennium Round of talks, the last time in the resolutions issued at the meeting of the General Affairs Council on 21 and 22 June 1999.
The Council has not given the Commission an official negotiating mandate to prepare for the round of negotiations.
The Council has, however, decided to return to the preparatory work in respect of the WTO' s third ministerial meeting in October this year, when the new round has been planned to start.
The intention is therefore to decide on the Union' s overall position on this preparatory work.
The Council, in its resolutions of June 1999 on preparatory work in respect of the WTO' s third ministerial meeting, clearly made reference to the President' s conclusions at the European Council at Cologne on 3 and 4 June 1999, which stated that talks on various subjects, including rulings on employment, are the most appropriate way to approach the achievement of significant and fair results for the benefit of all WTO members.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=251 NAME="kinner">
Mr President, I should like to say, on my own behalf and on behalf of Mr Titley, that response is rather weak.
As we are aware, the Council meeting in Cologne fully endorsed the need to include minimum core labour standards in the negotiations for the WTO millennium round.
It is vital for our prospects of bringing the world ever closer in terms of these minimum core standards - which include an end to slavery and child labour - that we start this round properly.
I hope, therefore, that the Council will take on board many of the issues which have been raised in this Parliament, both in committee and in plenary regarding such measures.
I hope that you will take a stronger stance and come back with a stronger answer when you have considered the full implementation of your key negotiating standards.
It is essential that you consider this particular element.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 NAME="Sasi">
) Mr President, I agree with the Honourable Member that it would be appropriate to discuss core labour standards at the WTO round, and preparations are based on the recognition that these matters have to be discussed.
However, we must bear in mind that it is evident from discussions that, particularly in developing countries, there are very great fears that the Union will call for a labour action policy which will simply try to prevent the import of goods from developing countries.
We have tried to diminish these fears purposefully, consistently and emphatically, but they still remain relatively strong.
I know, however, that, merely for the sake of the NGOs, it is important that in questions of labour standards and minimum standards we should be able to make progress, so that the next round of WTO negotiations acquires sufficient approval and credibility.
I can also assure you that the country holding the Presidency is determined to seek a solution whereby labour standards will be on the agenda for discussion at Seattle, and in that way we should be able to make real progress.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 NAME="MacCormick">
<SPEAKER ID=254 NAME="Sasi">
) Mr President, I agree with the Honourable Member entirely.
It is very important to be able to resolve the banana dispute before the next round of World Trade Organisation talks begin in Seattle.
A decision was taken in the General Affairs Council last April in which the Commission was set the task of presenting a proposal during September that would guarantee absolutely that the Union' s new strategy in respect of the banana sector would be in compliance with WTO rulings.
The banana issue was discussed last Monday in the General Affairs Council, and there was a report on the situation.
The Commission has primarily tried to find a solution that would involve some sort of quota system, but it has been very difficult to move from any kind of banana quota system to consensus on the matter with the banana-producing countries and the United States, as the interests of the countries concerned are very different regarding quotas.
If no agreed solution can be found, it is possible that we will end up in a situation in which a solution will only be found in a system based on tariffs.
<P>
The country holding the Presidency will apply its energy to find a solution quickly, in a way that will not cause any problems in relation to WTO rulings.
It is important that this dispute is off the agenda as quickly as possible, and we know that it is also important for many of those companies that have suffered from the increased sanctions approved by the WTO.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=255 NAME="Skinner">
<SPEAKER ID=256 NAME="Sasi">
<SPEAKER ID=257 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=258 NAME="Maurizio Turco, which has been taken over by Mr Dupuis">
Question No 15 by (H-0438/99):
<P>
Subject: Situation in North Korea For many years now, the situation in North Korea has been catastrophic: the total lack of freedom and democracy has been exacerbated by a food crisis of tragic, not to say apocalyptic, proportions.
According to the estimates of international organisations, between one and three million people have died in North Korea since 1995 in the wake of the chronic famine which resulted from natural causes and, more specifically, from the nature of the nationalist-communist regime in power in Pyongyang.
In reaction to that situation, not only has the North Korean regime not shown the slightest inclination to initiate political and economic reforms but, on the contrary, it has imposed even harsher measures on the people of North Korea, maintaining total control on missions by expert advisers and on the food aid provided by the international community to the people of North Korea (600,000 tonnes of cereals in 1998, and 530,000 tonnes in 1999) and refusing to allow the international organisations involved to monitor the use and effectiveness of the aid.
Furthermore, the menacing attitude taken by the North Korean authorities towards neighbouring democracies, especially Japan and South Korea, extends to the entire region the threat posed by this dangerous regime.
<P>
What measures has the Council taken, or does it intend to take, with a view to ensuring that the people of North Korea may regain their freedom at the earliest opportunity, build a country where democracy and the rule of law hold sway and once again participate in the market economy?
Does not the Council feel that, at this juncture, it has the duty to propose to the UN Security Council a plan whereby North Korea would be placed under international trusteeship?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=259 NAME="Sasi">
<SPEAKER ID=260 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, Mr Member of the Council, I think it is not enough for the European Union to be concerned.
It must take action on North Korea.
Obviously it is a distant country, but nonetheless the regime in power there is literally a criminal one; the Union ought to make efforts to overturn this regime, before we are obliged, as in the case of Kosovo or other regions, to adopt drastic means.
<P>
This would require some imagination, and that is what I am asking of the Council.
It would be possible to carry out "subversion" in the best sense of the word, and to get information to the citizens of North Korea so that they did not feel isolated.
The United Nations could set up a major diplomatic initiative in order to isolate North Korea completely.
We could parachute certain things in, as we do have the necessary military and technical resources.
I would like to know if the Council is willing to study a number of steps of this type in order to overturn this literally criminal regime, so that we would not have to, as is the case for the Soviet Union, lament the tragedy 30 or 40 years later.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=261 NAME="Sasi">
) Mr President, I am very much of the same opinion as the Honourable Member.
North Korea is a positive shame to humanity, and I consider its government criminal in nature, and I have to say that its system of government is totally inhuman.
The Honourable Member said that creativity should be applied in contemplating how the country' s administration could achieve democracy and essentially change.
Many countries in the world have certainly used their imagination, but so far nobody has yet found the philosophers' stone enabling us to find a peaceful solution to the problem which is simple and easy, or even one that demands considerable effort.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=262 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alyssandrakis">
Mr President, both the question and the answer have perturbed me somewhat.
I have the feeling that the incursion against Yugoslavia has whet the appetite of those warmongers who want to join the United States of America in its role as the world' s gendarmerie.
I must confess that the second reply of the Council delegate increased my concerns.
Perhaps he could tell us if the European Union really does intend to invade North Korea.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=263 NAME="Sasi">
) Mr President, I wish to stress that, as the country holding the Presidency, Finland will act purposefully and firmly to ensure that the Union does all within its power to safeguard human rights in the world.
But the Union cannot act as the world' s police force, and that restricts our possibilities for a more radical solution for North Korea.
But I want to make it quite clear that the North Korean Government is continually in serious breach of fundamental human rights and introducing democracy to the administration would be desirable.
Here we have talked of creativity, with which we have endeavoured to find positive means of bringing about changes in the North Korean administration.
But it is not very easy to bring about change through positive means, and, obviously, the problem arises where such positive means only give strength to the existing administration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=264 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
<SPEAKER ID=265 NAME="Sasi">
) Mr President, I only want to briefly say that information is often an important friend of democracy and human rights.
But, obviously, in the case of North Korea, the problem is that the country is so tightly shut off from the outside world it would be tremendously difficult to broadcast information there, although that would be desirable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=266 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=267 NAME="Ioannis Theonas">
Question No 16 by (H-0440/99):
<P>
Subject: Situation in Kosovo During two and a half months since the introduction of KFOR into Kosovo, not only has there been no progress in calming the situation in the region and promoting a climate of stability, security and peaceful co-existence among the populations, but the unstable situation created by the NATO bombings has been further inflamed and exacerbated.
The silence maintained over the discovery of a mass grave containing the bodies of 15 Serbs murdered in mid-July in the vicinity of Gnijlane, a zone under the responsibility of American troops, raises serious questions about the role of the so-called peacekeeping force in that it has tolerated or even supported an extensive campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Serbian population of Kosovo, revealing the partiality of the international community with regard to the protection of the human rights it is supposed to uphold.
<P>
Given that the KLA is pursuing its illegal activities without hindrance and, according to reports in the international press, organising arms and drugs trafficking and murdering innocent Serbs with impunity, what steps will the Council take to call an immediate meeting of the United Nations Security Council so as to shed light on the circumstances surrounding the massacre at Gnijlane, launch an overall review of the human rights situation, assess the role of KFOR in Kosovo and take firm and immediate decisions regarding the KLA as well as measures to ensure that Serbs, gypsies and other ethnic groups can remain in Kosovo?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=268 NAME="Sasi">
) Mr President, the international community rejects the accusations made by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia that there was concealment over the discovery of a mass grave containing the bodies of fifteen Serbs.
The United States, which was responsible for the zone in which the grave was found, confirmed that information on its location had been given to the International Criminal Court on the day after the discovery.
The International Criminal Court has been responsible for the investigation since mid-July.
<P>
Neither can I accept the accusations relating to partiality on the part of the peacekeeping forces in Kosovo.
The international community is committed to full implementation of Resolution 1244 of the UN Security Council for the establishment of a democratic and multicultural Kosovo within the internationally recognised borders of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
The violence and persecution that continue in Kosovo is only to be condemned.
For this reason, it is very important to disarm the KLA and dismantle its military structures.
The KLA must comply with the imposed deadline of 19 September.
<P>
The Council also expressed serious concern that Serbs and non-Albanians have left Kosovo in large numbers, and it reminded everyone that Resolution 1244 of the UN Security Council states that all refugees and those forced to move out of their home regions have the right to return.
Everything possible should be done to try and make their return home easier.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=269 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, I believe that both the President' s reply and the debate concerning the previous question are evidence of the selective approach of the said International community for dealing with world-wide problems, including the situation in the Balkans.
At the moment, Mr President, we are witnessing the ethnic cleansing of Serbs, Gypsies and any other ethnic groups living in Kosovo.
Is this issue of any concern to us? Yes or no?
Secondly, does the Council believe that the KLA will have disarmed by 19th of the month, i.e. Monday?
Yes or no?
Thirdly, does the Council have any inkling that the KLA is, by its actions, attempting to or is in danger of destabilising Albania and the Former Republic of Macedonia?
Yes or no?
I would appreciate some concrete answers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=270 NAME="Sasi">
) Mr President, the country holding the Presidency has been alarmed to see the exodus on the part of many Serbs, and Romanies also, from Kosovo.
The fact that Romanies have also left shows that internal problems and disputes between ethnic groups in Kosovo are very serious and difficult to solve.
Obviously, it is absolutely essential that KFOR troops protect and help all ethnic groups in Kosovo equally.
We must try to achieve peace in the region as speedily as possible so that everyone there may feel secure.
I also wish to say that the country holding the Presidency of the Council considers it very important that the KLA adhere to their commitment to a decommissioning of weapons.
Only then can confidence be sufficiently increased within Kosovo, enabling us to preserve a genuine multi-ethnic society.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=271 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Korakas">
Mr President, we are indeed dumbfounded by the replies that the President-in-Office has given us.
Is he mindful of the fact that of the 250,000 Serbs who were in Kosovo when the bombing stopped, only a few thousand now remain.
In Pristina, there used to be 27,000 Serbs but now there are only 1,500-2,000.
He himself recognises the fact that everybody is fleeing Kosovo, apart from the odd few and the Albanian-speaking population.
Can he tell us therefore why this proud International Force, which I call the Occupying Force, has left?
Can he tell us therefore why, whilst Mr Solana himself is recording secret documentaries on NATO which prove that the KLA is involved in drug trafficking, prostitution and crime, the International Force is continuing to support the KLA, and why the International Community is continuing to arm and not disarm them as was agreed?
This hypocrisy must come to an end once and for all, Mr President-in-Office. We must sober up and acknowledge the fact that the real goal was for there to be true ethnic cleansing in Kosovo just so that you could manipulate it to suit your own needs.
Furthermore, that is why you are refusing to pay for the reconstruction of what you destroyed in the rest of Yugoslavia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=272 NAME="Sasi">
) Mr President, my understanding is that there is no ethnic cleansing taking place in Kosovo at this moment but that peace to some extent has been restored, with occasional isolated incidents.
The KFOR are obviously there in a peacekeeping capacity and Finland also has sent an 800 strong force.
These soldiers will work in earnest to ensure that there is a lasting peace in the region and that all Kosovans can return to their home regions irrespective of race or creed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=273 NAME="President">
Question No 17 has been withdrawn by its author.
<P>
The Council will reply jointly to Question No 18 by Mr Medina and Question No 19 by Mr Korakas.
<P>
Mr Korakas has let us know that he considers that they should not have been regrouped, but this has been decided and I trust in the ability of the replies of the President-in-Office of the Council to respond to both of them appropriately.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=274 NAME="Manuel Medina Ortega">
Question No 18 by (H-0443/99):
<P>
Subject: Construction of a nuclear power station in southern Morocco Is the Council aware of the fact that a nuclear power station is due to be built in southern Morocco for the purpose of desalinating sea water? If so, could it consider discussing alternatives to the project with the Moroccan Government, in view of the effect which the project may have on the environment and the threat it represents to security in the area?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=275 NAME="Efstratios Korakas">
Question No 19 by (H-0446/99):
<P>
Subject: Stopping the construction of a nuclear power plant in the highly earthquake-prone region of Akkuyu, Turkey The scale and intensity of the recent earthquake in Turkey and the incalculable damage it has caused have focused attention even more sharply on the plans to build a massive nuclear power plant in the region of Akkuyu in south-west Turkey, a project with which the Turkish Government is nevertheless persevering. All expert reports confirm that the region is highly earthquake-prone.
<P>
What measures will the Council take to block this plan, which threatens the vital interests of the entire region and opposition among its inhabitants, both within and outside Turkey?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=276 NAME="Sasi">

) Mr President, I would like to answer Manuel Medina Ortega' s and Efstratios Korakas' questions simultaneously, as both questions concern the risks connected with the construction of nuclear power plants, in this case, one planned in Morocco and one in Turkey.
The Council would like to state, in a general way, that Morocco and Turkey have both signed a convention on nuclear safety, whose aims are connected with the concerns raised in the Honourable Members' questions.
The aim of the convention referred to, which came into force on 24 October 1996, is to achieve and maintain high standards of nuclear safety world-wide by developing action at national level and international co-operation, and organise and maintain effective protection in nuclear plants against possible dangers of radiation, for the protection of society and the environment from the possibly harmful effects of ionising radiation issuing from these plants.
In addition, it sets out to try and prevent accidents that lead to effects from radiation and alleviate the effects of radiation if an accident does occur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=277 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, in the case of Morocco the issue concerns the building of a nuclear power station to produce 600 MW of electricity.
The European Union has agreements with Morocco with regard to economic aid and, it seems, the reason for constructing this power station is because there is Chinese aid available.
That is to say that it seems that the Republic of China is prepared to offer money for the construction of a nuclear power station.
<P>
My specific question is whether the Council thinks that it could offer Morocco the possibility of a more rational procedure, because building a nuclear power station to produce 600 MW of electricity is "using a sledge-hammer to crack a nut" and I believe it would be preferable if our neighbours were not to do it.
Can the Council not do something so that Morocco will not have to turn to this dubious Chinese technology which is currently being offered to them?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=278 NAME="Sasi">
) Mr President, it is important that the Union should monitor these projects and their implementation and try its best to see that the plants are as safe as possible and that their use and construction present no risks either to the citizens of the Union or to the inhabitants of the countries in question.
Let it be said that one positive aspect of these plants is that they are not responsible for carbon dioxide emissions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=279 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Korakas">
Mr President, the issue we raised in our question has nothing to do with the more general issue of nuclear power plants.
We are concerned with a specific nuclear power plant of 1400 MW which Turkey is about to establish for no apparent reason. We greatly fear that it will be used to build nuclear weapons, in the Akkuyu region, 120 kilometres east of Cyprus, in an area renowned for its seismic activity.
There, three tectonic plates are adjoined and in 1917 we had an earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale.
Recent studies point to the fact that the Esemis fault is still active and between 1871 and 1975, more than 50 significant earthquakes were recorded, all within 130 kilometres of each other. Not too long ago, about 136 kilometres from there, we had an earthquake in Adana, measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale leaving 140 dead.
Another typical example is of course the recent earthquake, and we are all aware of its effects.
So, notwithstanding all that, is it or is it not criminal on the part of Turkey to insist on building a station in that area?
This is an issue of general importance not only for Turkey where there have been rallies taking place against the plant, but also for the whole of Greece, which is why we need direct intervention to stop this plan from going ahead.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=280 NAME="Sasi">
) Mr President, it is clear that earthquakes are a factor that cannot be ignored when considering the planning and safety of a nuclear power plant.
It is quite obvious that the safety authorities must always take account of the possibility of seismic disturbances in examining the suitability of a site and that it is necessary to see to it that structural solutions help to ensure that an earthquake would not cause problems for the plant.
Obviously, we will be monitoring the situation as closely as possible to ensure that the buildings are up to the approved standard.
In addition, I wish to emphasise that Turkey and Morocco are nevertheless bound by these international agreements, which is an ideal situation for proposing additional safety requirements.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=281 NAME="President">
Mr Sasi, we thank you for the great effort that you have made today in response to all of the questions.
<P>
Since the time allocated to questions to the Council has expired, Questions 20 to 26 will be replied to in writing.
<P>
Question Time is closed.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 7.10 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=0>
<SPEAKER ID=1 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, I wanted to ask you about a non-profit association that calls itself the non-profit association pension fund.
Members of the European Parliament, I believe that pension funds have already been discussed here in the European Parliament a number of times, and that we are in a transitional phase.
That is why I am extremely bemused to find an invitation from Mr Balfe here for a meeting that he is going to have with the non-profit association pension fund.
I wanted to ask whether Parliament provides the interpreters and covers the expenses for meetings of this kind, and whether this non-profit association continues to be supported in any way by Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
Thank you very much Mrs Maes.
Your comments have been noted by the Bureau.
As you can imagine, at the moment, and in these circumstances, the Bureau is not in a position to be able to give you an answer. This is not an individual decision, taken by the President-in-Office.
It is decided on by the Bureau as a whole. You will receive an appropriate answer when the time is right.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Galeote Quecedo">
Mr President, it appears from yesterday' s Minutes that Mr Barón Crespo replied to an intervention of mine from the previous day.
<P>
Do not worry, Mr President, I am not going to exercise my right to reply to personal references.
And furthermore, I confess I do not have the parliamentary skill to reply to a personal reference within 24 hours.
I simply wish, through his colleagues, to offer him my willingness to co-operate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Galeote.
You have asked a question, as is your right, but you must understand that I am not really in a position to give you the answer you would like.
I think that you will have to raise this question the next time Mr Barón Crespo is acting as President.
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(The Minutes were approved)
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<CHAPTER ID=2>
European Reconstruction Agency - Situation in Kosovo
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
The next item on the Agenda is the following joint debate:
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Report (A5-0013/99) by Mrs Pack, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation 1628/96, relating to aid for Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, in particular through the setting-up of the European Reconstruction Agency (COM599)312 - C5-0062/1999 - 1999/0132(CNS));
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and the Commission' s statement on the situation in Kosovo.
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<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="Pack">
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Kinnock">
Neil, Commission.
Mr President, with your permission, indeed at the suggestion of the House, I would like to make a Commission statement on Kosovo.
Naturally I value the work and the words of Mrs Pack and particularly the force and clarity with which she put a very convincing argument.
I will respond properly to her report at the end of this morning' s debate.
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The Commission welcomes the fact that international civil and military administrations have been established and have begun the very difficult task of rebuilding in Kosovo.
It calls on all parties to respect Security Council Resolution 1244 and the military agreements and undertakings in full and hopes that complete KFOR and UNMIK deployment will be completed without great delay.
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The Commission supports the creation of a democratic and multi-ethnic Kosovo and deeply regrets the continuing ethnic violence.
It condemns, in the strongest terms, violence perpetrated by any ethnic group and calls for maximum efforts to secure the reconciliation and cooperation which are essential to stability and security for all in the region.
The Commission' s roles in the massive efforts to restore infrastructure and civil society in Kosovo will be of interest to the House.
Broadly, there are two such roles: engagement in the major reconstruction programme and collaboration in the framework of UNMIK coordinating initiatives with other international donors.
Clearly the first element will be discussed, particularly as this House debates the report by Mrs Pack, and I therefore highlight just a few of the relevant elements at this juncture.
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Firstly, a total budget of EUR 137 million is foreseen for 1999 under the Obnova Programme of which EUR 46 million has been committed and implementation is under way.
However, the Commission counts on the active support of this Parliament, which I am sure will be forthcoming, in obtaining both the remaining EUR 92 million for 1999 and the additional funding which will be required in the coming years.
At present we estimate that some EUR 500 million will be needed in 2000 and EUR 500-700 million needed in 2001 and 2002.
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Secondly, efficient implementation will obviously be of crucial importance.
The Commission proposes, therefore, the creation of a locally established reconstruction agency to ensure the effective application of the Community' s reconstruction programme in Kosovo.
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Thirdly, the creation of the agency must clearly be well prepared and a taskforce has therefore been set up for that explicit purpose.
The taskforce has programmed and is implementing the first EUR 46 million tranche of reconstruction assistance.
Landmine clearance, customs and the procurement of essential supplies for rehabilitation of housing, public buildings and, in particular, Mitrovica Hospital are the main focus of attention.
Later tranches will concentrate on preparing roads for winter conditions, municipal twinning in which assistance from Member States is being requested, and subsequently public utilities, public buildings, economic reconstruction and institution-building.
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The second element of the Commission' s involvement goes beyond the implementation of Community assistance and extends to the wider international effort in Kosovo.
It naturally includes a variety of activities.
I refer to some of them for purposes of illustration.
Firstly with the other participants in reconstruction and the major international financial institutions, the Commission is involved in damage and needs assessment.
Indeed the Commission is conducting the only province-wide methodological assessment of physical damage.
The initial results of that exercise relating to damage in housing and local infrastructure were issued at the conference arranged by the Commission and World Bank donors last July.
A more comprehensive report, focusing on large-scale infrastructure, will be completed by the end of this year.
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Secondly, the Commission shares responsibility for donor mobilisation with the World Bank and at that July conference of donors over EUR 2 billion was pledged.
A second conference is scheduled for next month.
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Thirdly, as the House is aware, the European Union has a special responsibility for reconstruction within the United Nations Civil Administration, UNMIK.
These activities are organised in the so-called Pillar 4 which is headed by a Commission official, Mr Dixon.
Thanks to the strenuous efforts made by Mr Dixon and his colleagues, Pillar 4 is working well, though faced with enormous problems due to the legal and institutional vacuum in Kosovo.
The current priorities are putting the banking system in order, working closely with other pillars and KFOR to provide essential supplies, shelter and transport in advance of winter, preparing with the World Bank and the IMF a simplified budget and working on fiscal issues and drawing up with the World Bank a medium-term investment framework to be presented to the next pledging conference.
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Fourth, the European Union, and obviously the Commission, will also contribute to work in the other pillars: pillar 1 with UNHCR on humanitarian issues, pillar 2 with the UN and pillar 3 with OSCE on institution-building and democratisation.
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We will strive to ensure full cooperation between the different participants where there are clear overlaps between civil administration and reconstruction.
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Mr President, following the Council' s recent decision on the easing of sanctions relating to the Kosovo crisis the Commission is putting forward a proposal for the exemption of Kosovo and Montenegro from particular EC sanctions against the former Republic of Yugoslavia.
The oil embargo and the flight ban will therefore be lifted.
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Cooperation from all relevant authorities in Kosovo will obviously be vital in order to establish effective controls on end use and to avoid circumvention.
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Mr President, in recent years fellow Europeans have again been perpetrators and victims of appalling violence and attempts at ethnic extermination, sometimes described, in a euphemism which bewilders me, as "cleansing" .
As ever, the worst results of such horrors are suffered by the innocent and the effects will blight their lives for many years to come.
I know this House does not need convincing, but as a direct and leading contributor to relieving suffering and rebuilding normality and as a coordinator of the efforts of others, the European Union must make the maximum possible commitment.
In those and other efforts, by working with people of all ethnic backgrounds we are for them and also working for the purposes and values that bind us together.
In giving help as humanitarians, we hope that we are giving an example as Europeans too.
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<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Mr President, we welcome with great interest and some concern the draft which has been submitted to us, and of course we approve of the general positions stated by our rapporteur, Mrs Pack.
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On the matter of the Committee on Budgets and Mr Tillich - whom I am representing here on an ad hoc basis - and I hope, Commissioner, that you will forgive me if I am not able to stay in order to hear your replies, but I shall certainly look forward to finding out about them - our concerns are both positive and worrying.
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There are three things whose presence we welcome. Firstly, we welcome the idea that this agency will be active at a grass roots level.
It is at a grass roots level that problems will be solved, not in Brussels.
It is better to do things in Pristina than to wait in vain for them to be done in Brussels.
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Secondly, we also welcome the maintenance, within the structure of the agency, of a system of hierarchical responsibility, which means that this agency will be headed by management staff from the Commission.
Nevertheless, we do feel that the distribution of tasks is unsatisfactory and gives the staff sent by the Commission a too basic and limited role compared to workers recruited on-site.
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We are also delighted with the administrative flexibility which I have just mentioned, which means that we will be able to attend to local needs with largely locally recruited staff who, consequently, know the area well.
I shall describe this agency, Commissioner, as a kind of anti-TAO, as we have combined the flexibility necessary in TAOs with keeping hierarchy and responsibility, the lack of which has sometimes been criticised.
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We have five main concerns. Firstly, the location.
There is no point in leaving Brussels only to move to Thessaloniki.
Either you are on-site or you are not.
This agency will be dealing with problems in Kosovo, so it should be in Kosovo.
Secondly, its length of stay.
We support the idea of an agency which acts when needs arise.
We oppose the idea of an agency whose administration would continue indefinitely.
From this point of view, a length of stay of 30 months seems, at least to start with, quite satisfactory.
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Our fundamental concerns relate to the balance of power between the Commission, the Council and the Member States.
This is of real concern to us.
In the structure which has been proposed, we - and the Court of Auditors shares our concern - see a serious risk of the Commission' s administrative authority being dismembered in favour of an intergovernmental supervision which we cannot approve of.
We are also in favour of a board of management which will not hand over the management of the agency to the Member States, but which will uphold the Commission' s control.
We are defending you, Commissioner, and we are asking you to defend yourself too.
We also favour not a management committee, but a consultative committee, in which the Member States will play a role, can make their voices heard, but in which they are not the real decision-makers.
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Our last concern is for clear financial responsibility.
It is essential that what is paid for by the European Union should be managed by the European Union, and that what is paid for by Member States should be managed by the Member States.
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<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van der Laan">
Mr President, after months of misery it looked as though it was going to be possible for a little ray of hope to shine on Kosovo.
The European Union generously released EUR 500 million to help the Kosovars rebuild their country and the Commission did its best too.
Instead of the usual bureaucratic "to-ing and fro-ing" between Brussels and the location where the work takes place, the Commission opted for a decentralised agency which was in a position to start work on an autonomous basis.
But nothing came of the Commission' s good intentions.
Yet again they were torpedoed by political games in the Council.
It was due to horsetrading, for it cannot be called otherwise, between the Germans and the Greeks, that the unhappy decision was taken to have the Reconstruction Agency based in Thessaloniki.
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This leads to wastage, wastage of money, wastage of manpower and wastage of efficiency.
It also produces incomprehension in Kosovo, for at the end of the day, it is Kosovo itself that has to be reconstructed and not Greece.
But the worst is still to come. Do you know that a Kosovar needs a visa to travel to Greece?
And that he can only obtain that visa from the Greek Consulate in Belgrade?
Of course that is very hostile territory for most Kosovars, which means that in deciding to base the agency in Thessaloniki, the ministers are excluding the people they are trying to help from the reconstruction process.
The members of the Committee on Budgetary Control have decided unanimously, that is across all parties, to reject this state of affairs.
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We also call for there to be effective supervision of the agency.
Some of the points have already been mentioned by my colleague from the Committee on Budgets.
Furthermore, we consider it to be of the greatest importance, of course, for OLAF to be able to intervene when things go wrong.
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I will just return briefly to the question as to where the agency should be based, and I also speak for my group.
Mrs Pack has very courageously taken upon herself the task of clearing up the Council' s mess, proposing a completely logical solution that involves establishing the agency in Pristina and linking it with the Stability Pact in Thessaloniki.
That ought, at the same time, to give some substance to the motley collection of talking shops we have now.
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I applaud her intentions, but of course the question is whether the Council is going to take any notice.
I think it was made clear yesterday that the Council has no intention of listening to what we want in any way, shape or form.
That is why I wholeheartedly support her proposal to postpone things.
We are simply going to have to do battle with the Council for what is right and efficient.
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<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
Mr President, the reconstruction of Kosovo has not yet got underway and the Member States are already greedily asking themselves: what can my country get out of it?
Duties are being distributed amongst the large countries, regardless as to whether they are major sponsors, and curtailing the Commission' s role is successfully preventing a rather broader vision from establishing itself.
That is generally accomplished by setting up a Governing Council with representatives from the 15 Member States.
In this way everyone can easily see if the interests of their own country are being given due attention.
I am also under the impression that the 15 representatives of the Member States work on this Council on the basis of an oath of office which requires them to support and further the interests of their own country to the best of their ability. They do not work on the basis of a European oath of office, which could require them to promise to do maximum justice to European interests and visions, and not just to national interests.
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If our attention was truly focused on Kosovo' s needs then we would never set up a Governing Council of this kind.
For if this was truly the case then an advisory committee with a limited number of expert advisors, based on a European oath of office, would be sufficient.
They would then be able to monitor how effective the implementation process was.
Self-interest would not be the determining factor in their case, but rather the question as to whether the reconstruction of Kosovo might also give a nice boost to the business community in Kosovo and in the surrounding poor countries, whom we are only compensating in dribs and drabs for the loyal way in which they have carried out the boycott against Serbia.
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In any case, we want to make a Stability Pact work for their sakes.
By stability we don' t mean things being at a standstill, but, rather, progress.
We can use the Council' s readiness to modify its proposals as regards the aforementioned board, to show the citizens what the Council' s true motives are and to what extent it has a horror of wastefulness. After all, it will tend to be cheaper to produce the goods needed for the reconstruction of Kosovo in the region rather than in the Member States.
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I would like to draw your attention to another particular aspect.
It is well known that building up the public administration will make a very important contribution to Kosovo' s developmental opportunities.
In my country, the association of Dutch authorities is working very hard on this at local level.
But they come up against KLA civil leaders wherever the KLA has been able to take over the office of civil leader.
These civil leaders impose their will on the population, which directly frustrates all attempts to create a civil service that functions effectively and inspires confidence.
That is why I ask myself if the Council would be prepared, at the suggestion of the Commission, to look into whether it might be better for such offices to be filled by experienced people from outside.
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We know from our experiences in Bosnia that there are some civil leaders of decidedly criminal character and some real low-life in these posts, which impedes the proper development of local communities.
Mr President, we can see whether this project will be feasible from the Council' s willingness to take up our request to amend their document, a process that will show that Kosovo really is at the centre of interest.
I would therefore also like to see the Commission do what is necessary to urge the Council to make amendments.
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<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Haarder">
Mr President, I was in Kosovo last winter and wrote a report to Parliament' s Subcommittee on Human Rights.
I visited a number of private aid organisations.
Their biggest problem was the Commission' s centralist working methods and the unduly long time it therefore took to deal with matters.
The Commission' s local representative had to ask about everything in Brussels because the people in Brussels were so dreadfully afraid of mistakes being made.
I would say to the Commissioner, however, that this is not how you combat fraud and mistakes.
If the work is to be made efficient, it should be delegated.
People locally need to have powers to make the necessary arrangements to act quickly and efficiently.
If fraud and irregularities are there, the hammer should fall heavily upon those responsible locally.
It is therefore quite naturally unacceptable, Mr President, if the chain of command is now to be still longer, that is to say if the agency in Kosovo has to wait not only for orders from Brussels but also from Thessaloniki.
This must not happen.
The Liberal Group is shocked by the horse trading which apparently went on when Mr Hombach was appointed and the office located in Thessaloniki.
We hope this doesn' t cause too much damage.
We do not want the people who are having a hard enough time as it is managing the construction work in Pristina also having to struggle with additional bureaucracy in Thessaloniki.
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Finally, Mr President, I would urge that, as far as possible, local, civil representatives of the Albanian population are relied upon, that the Albanians' own talents are used and that they are not helped with things they can work out for themselves.
The most important means of opposing KLA gangs, which are to be stopped and fought against whenever they drive away Serbs, is to mobilise the civil leaders in Kosovo.
There are in fact parties which have won 80% of the votes cast in elections.
They are there all the time.
Their leaders are there all the time.
They are ready to take over.
And locally, too, there are leaders who can take over. They are the best means of opposing the KLA, which I have only very, very little sympathy for.
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<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cohn-Bendit">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think that we have to be careful not to confuse fundamental problems with organisational ones.
We agree that the Reconstruction Agency for Kosovo should be established in Pristina, but the Agency or the Office for the Reconstruction of Bosnia was in Sarajevo, and still faced enormous problems.
In naming Pristina, we are not really saying anything other than that an agency for reconstruction in Kosovo should logically and effectively be done with the inhabitants of Kosovo.
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I propose nevertheless that we also discuss the way in which reconstruction will actually take place.
Now, as far as this is concerned, what we know of the European Union in Bosnia is the enormous bureaucratic weight of the way we function as the European Union.
In other words, instead of just focussing on Thessaloniki or Pristina, we should learn lessons from the situation in Bosnia, and try to set up autonomous structures which will be able to decide - in Pristina - on the details of the heavy reconstruction, that is: bridges, housing, streets, etc. and, at the same time, to work out the details of the reconstruction of the fabric of society.
So what programme does this civilian society need in order to be able to, as Mr Haarder said, take control of reconstruction?
Let us not leave this - I will not say to the KLA groups - I will simply say to the temptation to take military action which we should perhaps condemn in political terms, but which we can understand after everything that the people have been through, out of fear that a similar situation might reoccur.
It is true that only democratisation will take us forwards.
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We could cite the example from Bosnia of the "3000 roofs for Bosnia" programme.
This was a very basic programme, which consisted of saying to the population, "If you rebuild the walls of your house, we will pay for the roof, and if you have already rebuilt your roof, we will pay for your heating."
This was a programme designed to get the population active, at all levels.
I would therefore like to see us think carefully about autonomous decision-making bodies in Pristina, which would give the population the power to decide, in conjunction with us, what needs to be done. I would also not want to see an excess of bureaucracy in Brussels, given the way the European Union functions as a rule.
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<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, the situation in Kosovo is characterised by the persistent attempts by the KLA to exploit the presence of NATO and KFOR forces in order to carry out complete ethnic cleansing of the Serb, Gypsy and other minorities, with the exception of the Albanians, living in Kosovo, and to construct its own state by detaching the whole region from the state of Serbia.
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The responsibilities of the European Union and the so-called 'International Community' are huge.
Already, amendment 2 of Mrs Pack' s report which is under debate today, stipulates EU co-operation with those Albanian Kosovars who are interested in the reconstruction of their state, and that we must help them to participate and contribute to the European Union' s projects.
But what are these projects?
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Firstly, the report admits quite openly that it is seeking the creation of a state in Kosovo.
Secondly, flagrant blackmail is being carried out via the criminal bombings of NATO on the devastated people of Yugoslavia who are being called upon not only to submit ethnically, socially and politically, but also to adopt a style of leadership acceptable to the Americans and NATO in order to have any hope of reconstruction for this devastated country.
This policy is catastrophic.
It continues its endeavours to dissolve Yugoslavia through other means.
It supports the criminal activities of the KLA and seriously jeopardises the stability of its neighbouring countries and of all the Balkan region.
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The unrestrained action by the KLA, under the wings of NATO will, sooner or later, create great problems even in Albania and the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia. This is a clear indication of the type of peace which you would like to impose on the Balkans.
In all honesty, does anybody really believe that the KLA will have disarmed by the 19th of the month?
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It is perfectly understandable that today we are debating the economic reconstruction of Kosovo, which, however, is directly related not only to expediency policies of the Member States, but also to their efforts to distribute those funds set aside for the rebuilding of Kosovo to the various associations within the Member States.
Let the predators fighting for their prey begin!
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<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Nobilia">
Mr President, first of all, I agree with the disapproval expressed by Mrs Pack in her proposal for a report on the Council' s attitude regarding the expected adoption of its position on the legislation in question.
Indeed, its attitude does not seem to take into consideration the spirit and approach taken by Parliament both in the first amendment of the 1998 Directive and in its Resolution of July this year.
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I share the objections regarding the choice of where to base the Agency in question - Pristina in our opinion and not Thessaloniki - as well as the objections regarding the unilateral possibility, or so it seems - in the Council' s opinion - of extending the activities of the Agency itself to other regions of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia without even consulting Parliament beforehand.
And this, at a time when the quarterly inspection and auditing of the Agency' s activities fall to Parliament, albeit after the event.
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Nevertheless, regarding the composition of the Agency' s board, I do not understand the reasons that should lead Parliament to envisage the nomination of the seven independent experts by the Commission only. This is in direct contrast to the proposals put forward by the Commission itself which, in conjunction with the committee responsible, has instead envisaged the presence of a representative of each Member State.
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It is not appropriate, in my view, for Parliament to exclude, paradoxically, the Member States that constitute the European Union from a context of decision-making. First and foremost, this context is political and its operational nature comes second.
This means that it is not a question of pursuing preventative checks as regards the overall aid proposed, even if the amount, EUR 1,900 million over the next five years, would suggest that this is appropriate.
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<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Belder">
Mr President, I would first like to express my sincere regard for the work of the rapporteur, Mrs Doris Pack.
As a committed politician she enjoys great recognition among Balkans experts, for Mrs Pack was and still is "in situ" .
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We can be brief on the setting up of a European Office for Reconstruction.
A commendable initiative.
We support the two main strategies advocated by the rapporteur.
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After a dark, repressive decade, there is light at the end of the tunnel again for society in Kosovo.
The sticking point continues to be whether this applies equally well at this stage to those of the Serbian minority who have stayed behind, as it does to the Albanian majority that has now returned.
In any case, EU aid should be for the benefit of both population groups, albeit on a proportional basis.
A much-needed incentive to show mutual tolerance, provided from outside.
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I would like to make a general comment on the practicalities of delivering aid to the sorely afflicted Kosovars.
Either it can be distributed evenly across the legendary Field of Blackbirds (Kosovo Polje), or it can be put to use through model projects.
The latter approach is favoured by the sad fact that some regions and towns in the de jure Serbian province had to pay a particularly high price in human and material terms, owing to the fury of Milosevic' s special police units and the regular Yugoslav army.
Selecting a number of model projects and developing them successfully is precisely what is needed to provide the Kosovars with something concrete to hold on to, for it is progress that is likely to help them gain in courage.
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Furthermore, the restoration of public order in Kosovo is of course an essential prerequisite to the success of all reconstruction assistance, by which I mean EU assistance too of course.
There is plenty of provocation from both sides.
On no account should the international community tolerate this, rather it should take a co-ordinated and resolute stand against this on the spot, and under the leadership of KFOR, the organisation that has primary responsibility for public safety.
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We have frequently heard about the faith the West has in the Kosovan parallel social institutions, i.e. the Albanian shadow state of the last ten years, being an ideal starting point for a new beginning for this territorial bone of contention, yet this idea merits critical comment.
Whilst there are undoubtedly areas of society which would lend themselves to this (think of the underground education system or continued medical care and specialisation), it will not do to simply follow the same line where politics is concerned.
That is why elections ought not to be a priority for the moment.
Political calm, allowing the political landscape in Kosovo to take shape, are musts.
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I will end on a lighter note.
A positive development is the return of a critical Kosovan press, which covers a broad political spectrum.
It doesn' t hesitate to denounce the misdeeds committed by its own Albanian people in open and severe terms.
Take the expulsion of the Roma and the Serbians. This indigenous display of moral courage certainly justifies having a European Office for Reconstruction in Pristina.
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<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sichrovsky">
Mr President, the reconstruction in Kosovo is without a doubt one of the most urgent tasks, but also responsibilities, of the European Union.
According to the latest reports from the UN, Kosovo is today a completely devastated country in which neither people' s security is guaranteed nor the population' s nutritional needs provided for.
However, the European Union' s responsibility must this time involve more than merely financing the reconstruction.
The reinstatement of a democratically just system is a prerequisite for any reconstruction programme, and the EU bears political, just as much as social and economic, responsibility.
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As the negative examples from Russia have shown in recent weeks, billions of dollars in aid often reach only a fraction of the people who are really affected by a crisis.
The flow of cash must therefore be transparent.
We must all be given a guarantee that Europeans' tax payments do not trickle away into the accounts of so many political and economic criminals.
The European Union is alone responsible for ensuring that this money is not misused.
As Members of Parliament, we have a responsibility towards our electors who are financing this reconstruction with their tax money.
We depend upon a positive opinion in the population and it is therefore a basic responsibility of the European Union to be able also to explain to those who are helping to finance the reconstruction how the money is being used.
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For this, the European Union this time needs a modern, efficient, rationally managed and also transparent form of conflict management.
Only under these conditions can we count upon broad support for this project from the European population.
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<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fitto">
Mr President, the Commission' s report on the location of the Reconstruction Agency for Kosovo is certainly a positive step because it aims to take into account the experiences of previous reconstruction work in other parts of Europe.
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I think that this is also an opportunity not just to turn our attention to the main issue, that is, that this Agency can operate by drawing on the principles of transparency and efficiency that are crucial given the current situation in the Balkans.
But I also think it is important and must be stressed that we must now tackle the reconstruction of the social, economic and moral fabric in a context where a broader vision of South-East Europe surely cannot be a dividing factor with regard to locating the Agency' s headquarters in one place instead of another.
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Having heard my colleagues' interventions, I think that we are asking a fair and legitimate question: 'What is the Member State' s interest, which certainly cannot be a priority interest?'
So we need to ask another question as well - in the context of the European Union, what damage occurred to neighbouring countries owing to the action and events in Kosovo?
Entire regional economies in various Member States have collapsed over recent months through the closure of airports and the events connected to the war in Kosovo. I refer in particular to the areas in Southern Italy.
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So I think it is important to make more of an overall assessment, especially in light of an intervention policy which, as I read in the report on next year' s Union budget, provides for a far-ranging reorganisation of the policies concerning small and medium-sized businesses located in border regions.
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I think that the real problem is trying to create conditions which make it possible to include, in a Mediterranean context, a more complete assessment, and one which gives, above all, a broad perspective.
It does not mean espousing one solution instead of another solution in a parochial way as regards the location of the Agency' s headquarters, but we must keep in mind the clear and well-defined basic options.
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As regards the speed, efficiency and transparency of the activities of this Agency, it is important to try to look at its establishment as a good opportunity for reconstruction, quickly and as a priority, in the current situation in Kosovo. But we also need to create the conditions whereby migration in the Mediterranean will be examined in careful detail.
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Thousands of refugees are now reaching our shores with no destination in mind, while the Member States and the European Union are completely incapable of providing a perspective and a specific response to this problem.
I think that this is the main issue we need to focus on, in order to avoid the possibility of having to assess other situations similar to Kosovo in the near future.
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<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wiersma">
Mr President, I think it is important that we discuss a matter today which has to be settled quickly, i.e. how we formally give shape to the reconstruction programme for Kosovo.
The European Union has a major role to play where this reconstruction is concerned, and we believe that is as it should be.
However, we do not want the same mistakes to be made as were made in the past with large programmes such as those in Bosnia and in other places.
That is why we want there to be more supervision, and this Parliament has a role to play here too.
OLAF must be able to carry out its checks, and that will help us to implement the programme rapidly and effectively, for we are already receiving reports of delays that have occurred in the delivery of the things which are needed to quickly build Kosovo up.
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Furthermore, and this is also in Mrs Pack' s report, the direct involvement of the EU Member States will have to be kept to a minimum.
Hence our proposal that we should not set up another of the famous management committees but, rather, that we should work together with an advisory committee.
I consider that to be one of this Parliament' s important demands.
We have often found in the past that things went wrong because the Member States interfered too much with programmes or wanted to carry out too many parts of the programmes themselves.
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The implementation of a programme must, as far as possible, be managed on-site, in this case from Pristina.
That is the operational centre.
It is the people there that must do the real work, and I mean particularly the Kosovars themselves.
For another lesson we can learn from Bosnia is that too much is done by the international community and too little by the people themselves, which leads me to think sometimes that those countries are being run from outside rather from within.
At the end of the day, they are, after all, going to have to do it themselves.
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Kosovo comes under the Stability Pact, which has to do with the proposal to establish the headquarters of the Stability Pact in Thessaloniki.
I am completely in agreement with Mrs Pack' s proposal as far as that is concerned.
It makes sense to administer that from within the region too.
One of the amendments states that the countries of Southern and Eastern Europe should also have the opportunity to participate in the reconstruction projects.
That too is a good thing.
I think there is a great deal of expertise and experience available in the region which we can make use of.
However, my group would make one qualification at this point.
We assume that when we talk of South European countries and their involvement in the projects for reconstruction, we are not talking about the governments and authorities of Serbia and Croatia.
We believe it is still too early to make overtures to these two countries.
We are aware of the situation in Serbia, the problems surrounding Tudjman, the refugee situation in Krajina and the relationship between Tudjman and the government of Croatia and the Hague Tribunal.
That is why we have certain reservations where the direct involvement of these countries' authorities is concerned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Gollnisch">
Mr President, I am sorry, but there is a problem.
I am not making my intervention as a Non-Attached Member. I am making the intervention as a Member of the Technical Group of Independent Members.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="President">
Excuse me, Mr Gollnisch, but this political group does not exist as you well know, or should know.
Therefore, you are not allowed to intervene on behalf of a group which does not exist.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Gollnisch">
Mr President, I have not been informed of this, and there is no mention of this in the Minutes.
The vote which took place the day before yesterday was a vote on an interpretation of the Rules of Procedure, but did not contain any provision which covered the Group to which I belonged.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="President">
I am sorry to disagree with your interpretation, but if that is indeed your interpretation, please communicate it in writing and the Bureau will reply.
The interpretation of the Bureau is that the approval of the Minutes is sufficient to apply the application approved by the vast majority of this House.
Therefore, for these purposes, and until further notice, you belong to the Group of Non-Attached Members.
If you do not want to intervene, you can give up the floor, but let us not waste any more time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Gollnisch">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, our colleague, the rapporteur Mrs Pack, gave a good description of the disastrous situation in Kosovo: the collapse of public services and chaos in the areas of administration and law-enforcement.
We must recognise the fact that this is simply one of the results of the monstrous aggression committed by the government of the United States of America and its European henchmen in contravention of every rule in international law and also of every political teaching.
<P>
Several of my colleagues have made it quite clear today that whilst ostensibly fighting against ethnic cleansing, what we are actually seeing, of course, is the complete elimination of Serbs from Kosovo.
That is the reality.
The civil infrastructures have been systematically destroyed, not just in Kosovo, but in Serbia too, in most instances, with no military justification whatsoever.
Bridges, roads, waterways, railways, electricity stations, government buildings and even hospitals have been destroyed, not to mention the dead, coyly referred to as collateral damage, or their families.
All this was done with no more justification than if NATO had bombed the bridges over the Loire to prevent the French police or Gendarmerie from intervening in a suburb of Strasbourg, a sight that we might experience sooner than you may think.
<P>
The citizens of Europe paid for destruction to take place.
Now they will be paying for reconstruction.
We look forward to hearing what the United States' contribution will be.
In the current state of affairs, we approve of limiting invitations to tender and the awarding of contracts to anyone connected in any way with a Member State or Beneficiary State.
The question of where the Agency should be located is important, but less so than the definition of eligible countries.
The United States of America and the countries of Europe are unfortunately responsible not only for the destruction in Kosovo, but also for the destruction in Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro.
<P>
But it understood, these few thoughts do not represent the slightest approval for a criminal policy which will go down in history as a terrible precedent which may well cause us to suffer as a consequence in the not too distant future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Böge">
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Efthymiou">
Mr President, I would first of all like to congratulate Mrs Pack on her exceptional work which helps us all understand why we need an integrated, as opposed to a fragmentary, European policy for the Balkans.
The Balkans ought to be top on the agenda of foreign policy within the Union because a stabilised, developed and democratic Balkan region is an essential link for us to be able to have a positive impact on the creation of a more stabilised and democratic Russia.
A stable, democratic and developed Balkan region is a prerequisite for the Union to have an effective and positive policy in the troubled Caucasian region and oil-producing countries which are threatening the peace and stability within that region.
A stable, democratic and developed Balkan region makes it easier for the Union to have a positive influence in the Middle East and in Eastern Mediterranean countries.
<P>
However, a stable Balkan region would mean that we too ought to have a stable and long-term strategy for peace, democracy and development, because there must not be any doubt in our minds that up until now the Union has not been a key player in the Balkans.
To put it more succinctly, we provide the money and bear the cost and the Americans formulate the policy and collect the profit.
An integrated policy is required therefore; a common development, peace, stability and co-operation strategy for the area, such as is beginning to be outlined by both the Stability Pact and by the Reconstruction Agency, which will be effective once it gets underway, with its seat in Thessaloniki.
It is only a start, but a good start all the same.
We must exercise a policy which, for it to be productive, must not involve sanctions or predispositions towards the people in the area, but which must promote democratisation and development as a whole.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, this was what our colleague Yannos Kranidiotis was striving for and we Greeks would like to honour him with our work here today by continuing his endeavours.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Giannakou-Koutsikou">
Mr President, reconstruction not only in Kosovo but also throughout the whole of the region which is continuing to be hard hit by the repercussions of the conflict is, of the utmost importance.
<P>
The European Union, which, without a doubt, plays a pivotal role in dealing with the problems, rightly decided to widen the scope of the regulation, particularly as regards the Reconstruction Agency in the area.
Mr President, this is what led to certain misunderstandings.
It concerns the reconstruction of the region and not of Kosovo.
For that reason, I am ashamed of the stance taken by the Commission so far.
I do not believe that anyone imagines that plans for the reconstruction of the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia or of Yugoslavia can be drawn up in Pristina.
We must look at the long-term problems and deal with those.
This service, which must be set up together with the Stability Pact in Thessaloniki, since as I said it concerns the reconstruction of the whole of the region, must be authoritative.
There must be management autonomy in Pristina but this service must be powerful enough so as to be able to overcome any obstacles.
After all, we are not only concerned with repairing the damage.
We are not just concerned with restoring the necessary institutions nor are we concerned solely with law and order, but we must give the people hope that we will make a substantial contribution to the economic and social life of the country.
<P>
The rapporteur is right. We must be more careful.
The experience to date in Bosnia-Herzegovina shows that reconstruction efforts were costly and not particularly effective.
Therefore, this service must now be able to set in motion the reconstruction programme in Kosovo, to bring back the refugees and to also function on the basis of the humanitarian measures adopted so far.
The financial assistance made available thus far is obviously not enough and should be more, but I believe Parliament will agree that more should be given if this service proves to be more effective.
It is a very positive sign, Mr President, that for the first time Parliament has become involved in this affair. It has jurisdiction and, mainly through intergovernmental delegation, can monitor the functioning of this service which, in turn, should naturally organise the actual implementation of the supplementary measures to reinstate the refugees.
It must revive the economy at a local level and it must create free communication between countries and between the regions of the area.
<P>
It is not just about repairing the damage caused by the war.
It is not just about the rebuilding and restoration of telecommunications.
It is about our fully re-establishing life in the region and being able to see more clearly what is also happening in Yugoslavia.
If Yugoslavia were left at the mercy of the current regime, then any hopes of repairing the psychological damage caused by the conflict would be dashed.
Perhaps now is not the time to analyse why this conflict arose and who made the most mistakes.
What is certain is that we do not have the right to make any more mistakes.
The European Union has a role which it must play effectively and which it must take seriously.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Pittella">
Mr President, I welcomed the dry and energetic style of the rapporteur and the punctuality of Commissioner Kinnock' s reply.
Indeed, it is not appropriate to make pompous speeches, and Europe' s response to the Kosovo crisis in setting up the Reconstruction Agency in Kosovo is a genuine, operative response.
I would define the Agency, as it appears, by using four adjectives: agile, efficient, transparent and independent.
It will not have an infinite life span and will have to involve the local communities.
It must ensure the public receives as much information as possible, including via regular postings on the internet.
<P>
As regards the headquarters, I agree with the wise meeting point proposed by Mr Swoboda. I liked the image of the ray of hope suggested by Mrs Van der Laan, but I would be more realistic.
There is a considerable glimmer of hope, yes, but the political problem has not yet been resolved. How can we really explain our role in the various places in crisis, not only Kosovo, without reviewing the Financial Perspective?
By hunting for funds in a disorganised and unsystematic way?
It might be appropriate, in the right place, to consider this point.
In particular, I think that the Mediterranean deserves adequate financial help. The Mediterranean is where the future of a new era founded on harmony, peace and international co-operation is in the balance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, I support the Commission' s revised model of operations, and here it will be put to the test.
Our problem is that our good decisions get watered down on the way, and the coffers begin to leak.
This principle of feeding off the burden has to end.
For that reason, I would like to make three points. Firstly, we do not need two administrative bodies for one agency; secondly, decision-making must be carried out where the work is being done, that is to say at the Kosovo Reconstruction Agency in Kosovo; and thirdly, it is important to work in co-operation with the local people and, more particularly, on a multi-ethnic basis, as has been emphasised here.
Actually, I could put it this way: reconstruction is not a matter of bricks and mortar, but co-operation.
It is thus a new time for both the Commission and ourselves.
Three criteria, directness, an unambiguous approach and transparency, give us strength, and will enable us to succeed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sakellariou">
Mr President, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, a lot has been said about the reconstruction of Kosovo.
You know that this Parliament has gone to the utmost trouble to find a compromise strategy, and we shall stand by this compromise strategy and are prepared to make our contribution to it.
<P>
I should like to touch upon two questions which do not directly concern reconstruction but which are of special importance for the future not only of Kosovo but also of the entire region.
About 15 days ago, the UN' s special envoy, Mr Kouchner, introduced a new currency to Kosovo.
I do understand the need for a stable currency, partly for the benefit of the work being done there. What I do not understand, however, is the penalisation of the dinar, the official currency of the state to which Kosovo still belongs.
The second resolution contradicts the convictions of us all and also the agreement made between the UN, NATO and the KLA.
The KLA is not being disarmed, at least not completely. Instead, there are still KLA units, only they now put on different uniforms and will still be armed.
Have we, as the European Union, an opinion on these resolutions, Mr Vice-President of the Commission and, if so, what is it?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="Kinnock">
. Mr President, it is true of course that politics is the only profession in which it is possible to lose your virginity more than once!
As a maiden vice-presidential speaker, I am in that position again in my life.
<P>
In response to what has been a very high-quality debate, I am extremely pleased to be joined by my new colleague, the Budget Commissioner, Michaele Schreyer, whose presence is evidence of close interest in this issue and its financial and budgetary implications.
It is extremely useful that Mrs Schreyer has been here today.
<P>
I would like to thank very much the rapporteurs and members of the various committees who have given such thorough and urgent attention to the crucial issue that is before the House now.
I would also like to thank them for the quality of their contributions and the commitment they have shown in offering their opinions and submitting the report by Mrs Pack.
<P>
As the House will know, the Commission proposal essentially concerns the setting-up of an agency to implement the Community' s reconstruction programmes, initially in Kosovo but later, when circumstances allow, in other regions of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia like Serbia and Montenegro.
Clearly the agency' s mandate does not cover assistance in the other countries of former Yugoslavia or other Balkan countries because this structure is the specific European Union instrument for the reconstruction of Kosovo.
It is designed to maintain the European Union' s necessary control over the reconstruction programme and to safeguard its independence and right of initiative in the process.
The agency' s work must be clearly associated with the European Union and not diluted in the broader activities of the numerous bodies that are dealing with Kosovo and the region.
That is not for any reason of insularity; a clear division of tasks is essential in order to ensure proper accountability.
<P>
The Commission' s proposal reflects the need to set up an instrument for the rapid, decentralised and efficient management of reconstruction aid in a way that takes account of the urgency of the situation and the exceptional efforts that are required.
Honourable Members repeatedly have drawn attention to those realities in this debate and indeed on many other occasions.
The Commission' s initiative takes past experience into account and, in particular, the difficulties encountered in the first phase of reconstruction in Bosnia which, as the House has rightly recalled again this morning, led to delays in implementing those programmes.
The Commission' s proposal to set up a European Agency for reconstruction is largely based on Parliament' s recommendations on reconstruction in Bosnia - recommendations which rightly underline the need to decentralise the management of aid by increasing local staff numbers and to provide for mechanisms that are better adapted to the urgency of the reconstruction requirements.
<P>
I would like to make particular reference to certain aspects of the Commission proposal relating to the agency' s structure.
Following the request to set up an agency made by the Cologne European Council, the Commission' s proposal is largely based on the model of all other existing European agencies: a structure with its own legal personality and decision-making powers and with the Member States represented on a governing board.
Such a structure will enable reconstruction to be managed by means of specially adapted procedures which are unlike those used in the Commission' s departments.
It will enable staff to be recruited specifically for the requirements of reconstruction and for a period of time, as Mr Bourlanges sought, that is limited to the tasks in hand.
The agency will employ staff in ways that are subject to statutory provisions for carrying out public service tasks which the technical assistance office should not and cannot take on.
<P>
As is the case with all other existing Community agencies, the Commission proposes that Member States be represented on the governing board so that their presence ensures full coordination of the European Union' s activities with those carried out in the field by Member States.
It could encourage Member States to use the agency to implement their own programmes.
Furthermore, the participation of Member States in the governing board will make it possible to ensure that once the annual programme is decided by the Commission, all the rest of the decisions related to projects will be taken on the ground without referring back to the management committee composed of Member States in Brussels.
Regardless of the proposed competences of the agency, I would like to make it quite clear that the Commission will continue to exercise its powers and fully assume its responsibilities.
The agency will not be empowered to determine policy guidelines or to approve the reconstruction programmes.
It is the Commission that will take, and will be accountable for, the decisions on the programmes to be carried out by the agency.
<P>
Mr President, the location of the agency' s headquarters, as this morning' s discussions again made evident, has led to some controversy in the Council as well as in this House.
The function of the agency is to ensure efficiency and speed in the management of aid.
That involves decentralising management and establishing effective cooperation with other operators from the international community in Kosovo.
Pristina has, therefore, been chosen by the Commission as the location for the agency' s headquarters.
That is where the provisional administration of Kosovo is based and all the agencies and organisations responsible for reconstruction in the region are located.
It is Kosovo that is to be reconstructed.
<P>
Logically, therefore, the agency should have its operational base there, although in arguing for that option, everyone will, I am sure, bear in mind the very persuasive points that Mr Cohn-Bendit made in today's debate about previous experience.
<P>
As the House is aware, the Member States agreed to set up the agency' s headquarters and general services in Thessaloniki.
The Commission has entered a reservation against this decision.
As far as the Commission is concerned, the establishment of the agency in Pristina is not a mere detail of its proposal.
It is a basic requirement for the efficient management for the programmes and the achievement of the agency' s objectives.
<P>
Disputation which causes delay is obviously not acceptable in view of the need to find a rapid solution to the problem and the Commission is therefore open to a compromise which maintains those objectives of speed and effectiveness.
The Commission has already sent a document to the Council presidency and to Parliament in which it proposes a clear functional division of the agency services and staff between Pristina and Thessaloniki, with all the operational services concentrated in Pristina and the agency' s director based there at its centre of operations.
<P>
Finally, I should like to thank Parliament on behalf of the Commission for its amendments.
The new Commission will obviously study them closely.
I emphasise, however, that the Commission and Parliament have the same objective: to maximise the speed and efficiency of the Commission' s efforts on the ground in Kosovo for the people of the region.
<P>
As a new Commission, we would like to take a short time to look at the situation and your amendments, in order to be as sure as we can be that we get things right.
I am certain that the Council will wish to do the same.
<P>
It is essential to involve the people of Kosovo in the reconstruction process and to ensure effective coordination with non-governmental organisations.
Budgetary transparency is clearly necessary, as Parliament proposes to draw a clear distinction between the contribution from the Community budget and contributions from other sources and to distinguish between expenditure on physical reconstruction and on institution-building.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, the Commission would be in favour of Parliament being consulted before any decision by the Council on extending the agency' s activities to other regions of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
That would enhance the role of Parliament, which already receives a quarterly report on the agency' s activities and has the important task of giving discharge to the agency' s director for the implementation of the budget.
<P>
I am sure that full advantage will be taken of the slight pause that it is generally agreed is needed if we are to achieve our objective of a speedy and efficient aid effort for the benefit of and with the assistance of the people of Kosovo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Kinnock.
<P>
Before closing the debate, I will give the floor to Mr Staes for a procedural motion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Staes">
Mr President, I am a newcomer to this Parliament, as an MEP.
I have followed this debate with a great deal of interest and I believe it was a good debate.
But still I have the feeling that there is something wrong with the way in which this Parliament organises its business. What are we achieving?
The Commission has submitted a proposal concerning the establishment of the Agency headquarters in Pristina.
The Parliament supports the Commission and there is a conflict with the Council.
What do we see? The Council' s benches are empty.
So there is no response from the Council. The Council appears not to have been invited to come here and tell us what it is going to do.
I would therefore like to ask you the following question: could you please convey my wish to the Conference of Presidents that in future, when debates take place on subjects where there is conflict with the Council, the debate is organised in such a way that the Council attends so that we can enter into direct confrontation.
I think this would benefit democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="President">
We will take note of your observation, Mr Staes, but I must point out that the Council is represented and has not wished to take part in the debate.
The Council, at ministerial level, is only represented on Tuesdays and Wednesdays in the Plenum, but we take note of your observation.
I am sure others share your view.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sakellariou">
Mr President, since the Vice-President of the Commission has declined to say anything about the questions relating to the currency and to the KLA, may I proceed on the assumption that the European Union has no opinion on these issues?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="Kinnock">
Neil, Commission.
Mr President, I understand the import of Mr Sakellariou' s inquiry and normally I would have been very happy to have given him explicit answers to his two very important questions.
I am sure he is old enough in this Parliament - I am speaking of his experience of course and not his age - to understand why at this juncture I could not.
I am certain that my colleagues who are specialists in this area will be pleased to give him the information he seeks on a future occasion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Kinnock.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 12 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
10th EC-UNRWA Convention (1999-2001)
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0010/99) by Mrs Morgantini, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Co-operation, on the proposal for a Council decision approving the text of a 10th EC-UNRWA Convention covering the years 1999-2001, prior to the signature of the Convention by the Commission and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East [COM(1999)0334 - C5-0059/1999 - 1999/0143(CNS)]
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="Morgantini">
Mr President, the era of peace and prosperity, to which Mr Arafat and Israeli leaders have referred to since 1993 following the Oslo Accord, is still not here.
The revival of the peace process after the fall of Mr Netanyahu' s government, the election of Mr Barak and the new Accord signed in Sharm el-Sheikh undoubtedly mark a step forwards in respect to a dark past, after the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin. But there are still difficulties to overcome before stable and lasting peace can be achieved and before the Palestinians can live in a Palestinian State, as sanctioned in the UN Resolutions, that I hope will be democratic and will peacefully co-exist with the Israeli State.
<P>
There are a lot of on-going problems. 70% of the West Bank and Gaza territory is still occupied by the army, the status of Jerusalem has not been established, there is the question of the Israeli settlements and the confiscation of land and water, more than 2,200 political prisoners are still incarcerated and there is the issue of the Palestinian refugees from the first exodus in 1948 and 1967 who amount to around four million.
Without a positive response to these problems, peace will always be at risk.
<P>
The European Union and, in particular, the European Parliament have always expressed their unconditional support for the attempts to help the Middle East peace process and to assist the Middle East.
In the Resolution of March 1999 on the peace process and future aid for the Middle East, the European Parliament stressed with good reason that if the Wye Plantation Accords are confirmed - as they have been - the main problems must still be resolved, including in particular the status of the refugees.
The Commission voted for the need for a steady and rigorous commitment to the refugees and accepted the tenth EC-UNRWA Convention which refers to 1999-2001. This has been submitted to the European Parliament and represents an important contribution.
The proposed Convention, like the other nine signed after 1972, sets the EC' s contribution to the budget of the normal programmes of the Agency for the next three years, 1999 - 2001, and provides for annual talks on the EC' s contribution to the food aid budget.
Naturally, the amount of food aid will be the subject of separate talks.
<P>
UNRWA is asking for an overall contribution of EUR 120.82 million for the period up to 2001.
Part of this contribution will be used for UNRWA' s educational programmes.
Within the health programme, the majority will go towards the education programme.
UNRWA' s regular programme aims to help 3,500,000 Palestinians in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. And as I said before, it provides aid to essential social sectors.
<P>
In order to take into account the development of the political situation in the region, Article 6 of the Convention lays down that, at the end of 2000, developments regarding refugees will be re-examined and possible UNRWA programmes concerning the Palestinian authorities gaining more power over their own affairs will also be evaluated.
However, since the Palestinian authorities only control their own territory in the West Bank and Gaza, we must pay careful attention to UNRWA' s actions regarding the refugees who are still in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan and in all the countries where Palestinian refugees can be found.
<P>
In these circumstances, I would like to emphasise once again that the refugee question is not only still unresolved but is now becoming worse, as I learnt from my recent visit to the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, from the various UNRWA reports and also from our colleague, Mr Menéndez del Valle, the European Union' s representative for humanitarian aid in Jordan.
<P>
However, it is essential for this EC-UNRWA Convention to be adopted and implemented as soon as possible.
This is particularly important, especially in view of the current crisis in which we are discussing UNRWA' s budget.
Austerity measures have been introduced which suppress various appropriations for teachers, hospitals and medical equipment which has provoked, amongst other things, strong protests in the Palestinian refugee camps.
<P>
One last matter - while underlining the need to continue providing humanitarian aid through UNRWA, I think that the European Parliament is particularly interested in finding a fair and balanced political solution to the Palestinian refugee problem.
This solution must be in accordance with UN Resolution 194. In this respect, I think that the greatest efforts must be made to invite the authorities concerned in the region, especially the Israeli and Palestinian authorities, to contribute to this solution.
<P>
Just two more points: the Committee on Budgetary Control has proposed two amendments on greater transparency, which we subscribe to, and finally, there is a legal question of the way in which our vote is requested by the Commission, and this is something which we will have to examine.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Khanbhai">
Mr President, it is a great pleasure to speak on Palestine.
It is extremely important and it is a subject in which I have been very interested for many years.
Mrs Morgantini has produced an excellent report which I and my group support and the two amendments are very important because they ask for an annual report and for access to the sites and information on the aspects of the financing.
<P>
I should like to raise a few points.
One is that we are helping 3.5 million refugees.
I accept that these are people in refugee camps now and I hope that the European Union will play a very positive role in helping them to rehabilitate once they come across from neighbouring countries into Palestine for resettlement.
I hope the European Commission will take the initiative, with the close cooperation of Parliament, in being more of an active player in the Middle East and not take a back seat and let the Americans lead.
<P>
When we look at the aid we are giving, EUR 40 million, that is not a lot of money.
I accept it is quite a large part of the EUR 120 million that are being given and 85% of our budget of about EUR 40 million per annum is for education, which I consider the right way forward.
We are helping to educate half a million children.
<P>
I hope that this proposal will be acted upon quickly because as Mrs Morgantini pointed out there is urgency, teachers are losing their jobs or not being employed and education and medical help is essential.
I hope that the Commission will do its best to speed this on.
<P>
Mrs Morgantini has really covered this subject extensively.
I do not want to waste Parliament' s time and I thank the President for giving me the opportunity to speak on this subject.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sauquillo Pérez del Arco">
Mr President, this report has been approved unanimously by the Committee on Development and Co-operation, and, wisely, with the two amendments tabled by the Committee on Budgets, so that, rather than just words, we will actually have an economic and financial plan.
<P>
The report has been prepared by Mrs Morgantini, and concerns the signature by the Commission of a Convention with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.
<P>
The achievement of a just peace in the Middle East, which we advocate in the Socialist Group, is only possible if, together with the negotiations on the items on the peace agenda in this complex conflict, the problem of the refugees is resolved.
<P>
One of the issues to be dealt with in relation to this problem, which is a necessary one although not the only one, is aid for the refugees, without prejudice to the achievement of a permanent solution within the framework of the peace negotiations which goes further than the therapy of aid.
<P>
The role of the European Union in aid to Palestine is undeniable.
And, in this respect, the communication of the Commission, which has given rise to this report, simply continues our coherent approach to our contribution to peace by means of the said aid.
<P>
This should not be an obstacle to the European Union' s, and in particular Parliament' s, more direct participation in the peace process.
<P>
The problem of the refugees, together with the status of Jerusalem, the problems of water and the settlers, is one of the key factors relating to peace in the Middle East.
Every effort should be made if we want to reach a satisfactory agreement on the refugees and thereby bring peace closer.
<P>
Between the extreme positions, which demand the recognition of the right to return, ignoring the real problems which, in reality, would be caused by the mass return of refugees and the uncompromising positions, which do not even accept that the problem exists, there are intermediate options which should be studied, developed and implemented.
One of these options is this report.
<P>
Although we know it is not a definitive solution, we must approve this report as one more European Union contribution to the difficult peace process in the Middle East.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van den Bos">
Mr President, UNRWA ought really to celebrate its fifty-year anniversary by disbanding itself.
For five long decades the way back for the Palestinians was closed off and the way forward was blocked too.
All that time UNRWA was doing extremely useful work under extraordinarily difficult circumstances.
All the endeavours to bring education and health care up to standard, no matter how valuable in themselves, were still unable to solve the political problem of the refugees.
<P>
UNWRA has suffered a great deal on account of financial problems in recent years.
Increased costs were not covered by additional revenue.
Consequently, it had no alternative but to develop illegal secondary economies, much to the discomfiture of the Palestinians.
Unfortunately there is nothing about the refugees in the Wye agreement.
The Palestinians now feel desperate, forgotten about and left to their fate.
Uncertainty about the future, high unemployment and restricted mobility cause tension and fear, which creates a breeding ground for fundamentalism.
<P>
Therefore, giving support to UNWRA as proposed does not just serve humanitarian ends but is also of political importance, i.e. by bringing stability to the region.
Israel must demonstrate more flexibility in the peace process.
The Arab host countries, in turn, must take responsibility and stop misusing the Palestinian problem for political ends.
They must assist in integrating the Palestinians into their country.
The European Union, in its turn, should provide financial assistance here.
<P>
Up until now, Europe has not known how to convert its financial assistance into political influence.
It has given the refugees financial assistance for 25 years.
It is high time for Europe to at last bring its political influence to bear in order to make UNRWA redundant once and for all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schröder, Ilka">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, since 1972 the EC and UNRWA have concluded nine agreements concerning the EC' s contribution to UNRWA.
The EU is the leading donor of economic and financial aid in this region.
In this way, we shall, in the future, too, have a considerable responsibility for the Palestinian refugees.
For the period 1999 to 2001, UNRWA has requested an amount of EUR 120 million.
The major part of this amount - EUR 102 million - is earmarked for UNRWA' s education programme, and EUR 18 million for the health programme.
<P>
We Greens welcome the fact that the new programme is being discussed promptly by the EU Commission and by the Committees of the European Parliament.
We ought to be agreeing to its submission to the plenum equally promptly.
Above all, there should be no reductions in the budget, and discussions about the programme' s legal basis should not further obstruct its submission.
These problems appear now to have been solved, however, just as the justified criticism by the Court of Auditors of the lack of supervision in implementing the old contracts has been removed.
Transparency is the basis of our budgeting.
This must be guaranteed even in urgent cases of humanitarian aid, for all we are in fact doing in the end is passing on taxpayers' money.
<P>
The programme is urgently necessary, for health care and the education programme are basic services.
The education programme has become UNRWA' s biggest single area of activity.
445 young people are being educated at school and 6000 are receiving training.
We also welcome health care based on needs. This is provided at local authority level, directly to the people, through a network of 123 health centres.
The Palestinian refugees are in need of this help, for the refugee situation, which has lasted for years, has serious psychological effects on many people. To these are added many forms of social and economic discrimination.
Now as before, a political solution to the problem of the Palestinian refugees is urgently needed.
Peace negotiations have finally begun again, but cease-fires and status negotiations are not enough because the Palestinian refugees are still ignored.
We must offer them prospects for the future. The EU can contribute a lot here.
<P>
At present, day-to-day deprivation must however be at least partly reduced by means of this programme.
Our group is therefore fully endorsing Mrs Morgantini' s report.
The Palestinian refugees can count on our support and our solidarity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="Kinnock">
Neil, Commission.
Mr President, it is my pleasure to comment on the fact that in this short debate we have had three maiden speeches including that of Ms Schröder who, at 21 years of age, is the youngest Member of this Parliament.
It is evidence of the fact that young people are extremely interested in politics.
At 21 she is seven years younger than I was when I went to the House of Commons.
I can only offer the hope that Ms Schröder matures better than I did and I am sure that she will.
<P>
Can I begin by expressing the Commission' s gratitude for the thorough report by the Committee on Development and Cooperation and for the support given throughout the consultation procedure for the Commission' s efforts to conclude the Tenth Convention between the Community and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees in the Near East.
In particular, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Morgantini for her work.
The constructive involvement of Parliament' s Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, and Committee on Budgets also deserves thanks, and I will in a moment comment on the amendments proposed by the Committee on Budgets about which Mr Khanbhai spoke.
<P>
Since 1972 the Community has signed nine conventions with UNRWA governing the EC contribution to the organisation' s regular and food aid budgets.
The tenth triennial convention covers the period 1999 to 2001 and provides for a contribution of EUR 120.82 million to UNRWA' s regular education and health programmes.
It also allows for the annual negotiation of the contribution to the food aid budget.
That EUR 120 million includes a 5% annual increase which reflects the operative principle of indexation that takes account of inflation and population growth.
That arrangement has governed previous European Union contributions under the successive conventions and has been repeatedly praised by the United Nations Agency because it prevents erosion in the value of the Community' s contribution.
<P>
The Commission has made efforts to improve and to clarify the Convention being considered before the House today in order to make its application more transparent and also to take into account the relevant agreed provisions in the European Community-United Nations global arrangement.
Other innovations in this convention including Article 4 on payments, Article 8 on visibility of the Community' s contribution, Article 9 on arbitration and Article 12 on entry into force, all aim at enhancing transparency and accountability.
<P>
I would like to advise the House that the Commission cannot accept the two amendments proposed by the Committee on Budgets for two reasons.
Firstly, the purpose of the draft Council decision is not to regulate an interinstitutional information request. It is to approve the text of the EC-UNRWA Convention and to authorise the Commission to sign it on behalf of the Community.
Secondly, the obligation to inform is inherent in the Commission' s responsibility to implement the Community budget.
The annual report submitted by UNRWA will certainly be provided to Parliament as well as to the Council.
<P>
Progress on this issue is now urgent.
UNRWA is facing a severe cash shortfall and we, as donors, have to do our utmost to accelerate the procedure to help out UNRWA and ultimately the Palestinian people.
The House will be conscious that, in the context of the Middle East peace process and the Oslo peace accords, the refugee issue was specified for final status talks.
Under those accords, the parties were supposed to have negotiated the final status issues by 4 May this year but sadly that has not happened.
Let us hope, however, that the signature of the memorandum in Sharm el-Sheikh will reinvigorate the peace process and ensure that the outstanding issues on final status are tackled without great delay.
<P>
I conclude by saying that until the refugee issue has found a just and comprehensive solution, the Union' s support for UNRWA, as a provider of para-governmental services in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, to alleviate the very difficult lives of 3.5 million Palestinian people in the refugee camps, is absolutely crucial.
Far from taking a marginal role, the European Union, and therefore, the European Commission will sustain a strong engagement to ensure that the conditions of those people are significantly improved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="President">
Thank you, Vice-President Kinnock.
I believe we are all in agreement with the comments which you have addressed to our new colleague, Mrs Schröder.
<P>
There are two procedural motions: one from Mrs Morgantini, the rapporteur, and then one from Mrs Schröder.

<P>
I offer the floor first to the rapporteur.
<P>
Please be very brief.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Morgantini">
First of all, I apologise to the President for not having stood up sooner, but I did not realise.
I will not do it again. I certainly do not want to show disrespect to the House.
However, I am afraid I have made another mistake, by speaking too quickly.
So I apologise to the people who work so hard for us, the interpreters, because one of my colleagues told me that I was speaking too quickly.
I was emotional but I think that as I am a woman and emotion and reason go hand in hand, next time I will use reason more.
<P>
However, I would simply like to say that I am extremely pleased with the interventions that my colleagues have made because something has emerged very clearly. Despite the need to carry out this programme quickly, the important point is for the European Union and the European Parliament to play a stronger, more active role so that in the Middle East, stable and lasting peace will come about, especially between Palestine and Israel.
This will allow us to find a solution to the refugee question and enable a Palestinian State to live peacefully with the Israeli State too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="President">
Do not worry, we are all rather new to this job.
I also believe that I should have congratulated you on your first report to this Parliament and I forgot.
<P>
Mrs Ilka Schröder has also asked to speak.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Schröder, Ilka">
I would like to thank the Vice-President of the Commission for the warm welcome and I understand we are both political people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 12 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="President">
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="President">
I have just been informed that Dr. Carlos Roberto Reina, the President of the Central American Parliament, and his wife have arrived in the distinguished visitors' gallery.
We are delighted that they have been able to join us today and I would ask the House to welcome them to the gallery.
<P>
(Loud applause)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Votes (continued)
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Joint motion for a resolution">
on the situation in East Timor
<P>
Hautala (Verts/ALE).
(FI) Mr President, our group is withdrawing Amendment no. 1, as it has been agreed that the need for a permanent UN force to be sent to areas of crisis world-wide should generally be discussed by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, as this issue is not directly connected with East Timor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Costa Neves">
Mr President, given the nature of the question we will be voting on, and hoping that we can count on your consent, I would like to ask you if the vote we are about to hold, could be conducted, if possible, by roll-call.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="President">
I appreciate why you are making this request, but I am afraid the Rules are very strict and I cannot allow it.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
Report (A5-0013/99) by Mrs Pack, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (COM(1999) 312 - C5-0062/1999 - 1999/0132(CNS)) amending Regulation (EC) No 1628/1996 relating to aid for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, in particular through the setting-up of the European Agency for Reconstruction
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="Van der Laan">
Mr President, the Liberal Group would like to withdraw Amendment 32 because it has been replaced.
I would like to ask for a split vote on Amendments 8, 10, 14 and 18 because that would allow us to vote for more of the amendments that Mrs Pack has put forward.
In view of the very high quality debate we had this morning, that would be very helpful, but only, of course, if you would allow it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="President">
I always try to be helpful and I understand that new Members are only just learning the Rules.
The Rules are very clear about when we can allow a split vote, a separate vote, or a roll call vote.
There are timetables for all these things which your group secretariat really should advise you of.
While I would like to help, I am afraid I cannot.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Cohn-Bendit">
Mr President, perhaps Mrs van der Laan meant a separate vote for each paragraph and not a split vote.
That is different to a split vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="President">
You are absolutely right but equally we have rules about separate votes and the same ruling applies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
, rapporteur.
(DE) Mr President, I have been asked to briefly say something about the vote so that colleagues do not have to be attacked at home for something which is not the case.
I should like therefore to say what we are voting about. We want no delay in providing aid to Kosovo, but we do want more efficiency.
The Council has proposed an inefficient procedure, and I would therefore ask it to be understood that we accept the headquarters in Thessaloniki as an operational component of the Reconstruction Agency for the whole of South-East Europe with its headquarters in Thessaloniki, but which must be closely linked with the headquarters of the Stability Pact in Thessaloniki.
That is an important political point.
I would ask you all to bear this in mind. It is one of the essential points.
<P>
There are also two further points I must make here. We should like to see a simplification of the administration.
We should like to see more transparency and more flexibility.
In fact, these points are to be found in our amendments.
We should also like the Council to include us as soon as it extends the work into other regions.
We must be made a part of this.
We should also like there, for the time being, to be a time limit of thirty months on the Agency' s work, for the longer we extend this, the more inefficient it becomes.
We should set ourselves a limit and try to achieve everything by then.
<P>
Another really important point is that OLAF must be deployed...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="President">
You are long-standing Member of the House and you know that we can take points in relation to the conduct of the vote but not political points.
And certainly not another round of speeches which you are in danger of starting.
<P>
Before the vote on the draft legislative resolution:
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
I should like to ask my colleagues to give their approval in the light of what I said just now and also in the light of what Commissioner Kinnock said this morning on behalf of the Commission and of what we yesterday learned from the Finns, as holders of the Presidency of the Council, to the effect that there is not at present any room for manoeuvre in order to comply with our amendments.
In order to give both of them the opportunity to consider matters, to acquire greater insight and then to join ourselves in ensuring greater efficiency, I would ask that the final vote be referred back to the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="President">
Mrs Pack - can you just clarify one point because neither I or the Secretariat were clear.
Do you wish to postpone the final vote or refer the matter back to committee?
The two are different - we need to know.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
I was told yesterday that I ought to request that the matter be referred back to the Committee so that we might have the final vote taken at a later date.
It is not a question of a new debate in this Chamber, but only a question of gaining time.
Whatever you want to call it, proceed in the way you think right.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="President">
Let me suggest that what you want is to delay the final vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, we would also recommend that the matter be deferred to the next plenary part-session.
Therefore, no referring back to the Committee, but deferral of the vote.
That is what we shall support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ilgenfritz">
We Independents are in favour of transparent and efficient budget planning and supervision.
With regard to the Supplementary and Amending Budget for 1/99 and 3/99, we expressly emphasise that we shall judge the Supplementary and Amending Budget for 1/99 and 3/99 positively and also support it.
<P>
In the Supplementary and Amending Budget for 4/99, a considerable reduction in the resources for agricultural expenditure is specified.
This reduction in authorised payments and in other financial commitments increases the burden upon farms which are in great difficulty as it is.
For the reason mentioned, we cannot approve the entire Supplementary and Amending Budget.
<P>
(Parliament voted to hold the final vote over to the next part-session)
<P>
President.
Before we move to the last vote I should just like to explain to colleagues who thought I may have been a little harsh about separate votes, roll-call votes and so on that the reason we take a tough line is that groups prepare their whips on the basis of information from the presidency.
If we change that during voting time in plenary it causes a lot of confusion and difficulty.
So we try to be as helpful as possible but it could actually lead to more difficulty sometimes if we acceded to requests from the floor.
<P>
<P>
Report (A5-0010/1999) by Mrs Morgantini, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Co-operation on the proposal for a Council decision (COM(1999) 334 - C5-0059/1999 - 1999/0143(CNS)) approving the text of a 10th EC-UNRWA Convention covering the years 1999-2000, prior to the signature of the Convention by the Commission and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE
<P>
Dührkop Dührkop/Fabra Vallés report (A5-9/99):
<P>
Hatzidakis report (A5-5/99):
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Gallagher">
. Discussions are already under way in relation to how the EU budget for the year 2000 will be disbursed.
Initial budgetary plans which have been forwarded to the European Parliament for its consideration have included within them a recommendation that monies for road safety campaigns in Europe be reduced by £1.5 million (EUR 1.9 million).
Per annum, this will mean in practical terms a reduction in the overall annual budget for road safety campaigns from EUR 9.9 million to EUR 8 million.
<P>
This is a truly unacceptable state of affairs.
It is hard to believe that in the fifteen countries of the European Union as many as 7,500 lives are lost simply because people do not use seatbelts in the front seat and in the back seat.
Every year in the European Union around 45,000 people die and about 1.6 million are injured as a result of road traffic accidents.
<P>
Ever since the enactment of the Amsterdam Treaty on 1 May this year, the European Parliament has power of codecision in the whole area of transport policy matters.
Other EU institutions will not be permitted by the European Parliament in the future to recommend in any shape or form a reduction in the budgets available for road safety campaigns.
<P>
On a more national front I welcome the strategy of the Irish Government to reduce road deaths and injuries by 20% before the year 2000.
The Road Safety Campaign which is being put in place includes the following matters: more speed cameras, more breath tests, a penalty point system, stricter enforcement of seat belt law.
<P>
McKenna report (A4-3/99):
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="MacCormick">
Mr President, I do not have to tell you what a beautiful and vulnerable coastline the west of Scotland presents.
Certainly it is one which is particularly vulnerable and this week we have heard yet further alarming reports of leakages from Sellafield which will damage the coast of Galloway, the Firth of Clyde, Argyle and beyond.
It is vital that action of this kind be taken as quickly as possible and I am delighted to have had the opportunity of voting for it today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
- (FR) Marine pollution, whether accidental or deliberate, is a particularly serious threat to the maritime and coastal zones of the European Union' s Member States.
We have had in the recent past, several tragic examples of accidental pollution in the form of spillages of hydrocarbons and other dangerous substances, particularly chemical ones.
<P>
The members of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group think that in this area of accidental marine pollution, the implementation of a community framework for co-operation is justified on the grounds of genuine common interest.
The proposal that the Commission has presented to us aims to gather together, within a single legal framework, the various actions carried out to date in this area.
<P>
Regarding the amendments adopted by the Committee on the Environment, we have voted against all of those which invite the European Union' s neighbouring countries to make use of the PHARE, TACIS and MEDA programmes in order to make them contribute financially to the implementation of this Community framework for co-operation.
Indeed, these three programmes make no provision at the moment for any action in this sector, and it does not seem desirable to be encouraging the dispersion of available means at the expense of priority programmes for the economic development of the European Union' s neighbouring countries which are candidates for accession.
<P>
On the other hand, the members of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group have voted in favour of all the other amendments, including amendment 22, which limits the Commission' s right of initiative and which allows the ad hoc committee to have control over its agenda, to produce its own minutes, as well as the declarations of interest of its own members.
It is essential that we curb the tendency which we have seen in other areas: The Commission does in fact tend to set committees up and then try systematically to take complete control of them, in order to make them totally dependent on their views.
Any committee set up by the Commission must remain autonomous and independent if it is to play its full role, which is that of providing expert advice.
<P>
Jackson report (A5-2/99):
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Thomas-Mauro">
The members of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group have voted against all the amendments adopted by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, which aim to turn the Commission' s recommendation into a directive, for three basic reasons: because of the bureaucracy, because of the legal basis and because of the structure of the inspection bodies in the European Union' s Member States.
Indeed all members of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group are in favour of a Europe which encourages co-ordination between the different Member States, rather than a bureaucratic Europe which advocates a strict adherence to the rules and which does not adapt to geographical and cultural differences.
<P>
In terms of the law, we must point out that Parliament' s role is to conform to existing legal bases and not, by any means, to create new ones which are not in accordance with the Treaties signed by the governments of the various Member States.
<P>
Finally, we would like to remind you that the inspection bodies in the different Member States are, for cultural or historical reasons, different.
We know that the Federalists' tendency would be to replace the inspection bodies in the Member States with a European super-inspection body, far from the reality at the grassroots level.
As far as we are concerned, the European inspection body must remain as it is, that is, a body which allows us to see if the inspection bodies of the Member States are applying the Community rules in order, of course, to prevent distortion of competition between the different Member States.
Community rules must be applied fairly throughout the Union so that all businesses are competing within the framework of the Single Market.
<P>
I shall conclude by saying that the members of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group will try to ensure that, throughout this legislature, a bureaucratic and technocratic Europe does not develop any further, but that Europe does develop within a framework which is harmonious and accepted by all the citizens of the European Union' s Member States.
<P>
European Council in Tampere (B5-110 and 116/99):
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, the resolution which has just been voted on concerning policies of police and judicial co-operation and the free movement of people in preparation for the forthcoming European Council meeting in Tampere, shows some developments, which appear to be positive, in Parliament' s position.
For example, I noticed that our House has just rejected the original drafting of paragraph 6 of the resolution which stated that it was impossible to achieve the area of freedom, security and justice if the rule for unanimity in the Council was maintained.
The rejection of this drafting is therefore a positive thing.
The question is, though, whether this is a lasting reversal of Parliament' s position, or merely a chance vote. Only the future holds the answer to this question.
<P>
In any case, many of the other rulings in this text are not at all acceptable to us, including the one, for example, which, under the pretext of harmonisation and the implementation of a European immigration policy, lowers our defences instead of raising them.
For example, paragraph 10 states that the European Parliament "considers it to be a matter of urgency that the European Union, in order to facilitate the integration of citizens of third countries residing legally in its territory, should tackle the principles which govern the status of these people."
It is highly praiseworthy to try to facilitate the integration into Europe of nationals of third countries, but there is also another very serious possibility which should be studied; and that is the voluntary return of these people to their own country.
<P>
Now the European Parliament' s resolution, as if by chance, does not mention this at all.
The paradox is that we have absolutely no need for European co-operation in order to facilitate the potential integration of nationals of third countries.
This is really each nation' s job, whereas we would need this kind of co-operation in order to facilitate their return to their own country.
The Eurocrats in office however, have absolutely no desire for a policy which would control immigration, even if this might one day allow them to prove their worth.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
We Independents always stand up for defending basic rights and therefore also support efforts to create a Charter of Fundamental Rights for the European Union.
<P>
However, we do not understand this Charter as a step in the direction of a European constitution, which we reject because of the centralising effect this would have.
<P>
Any such Charter must also be designed in such a way that there can be no overlap of powers between the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Corbett">
Mr President, on behalf of the Labour members of the Socialist Group I wish to inform you that we were unable to vote in favour of the Tampere resolution in its final form.
<P>
This is not because we do not sympathise with many of the things contained therein but we felt that some things were in danger of overloading the agenda of this summit and might cause it to fail.
There are other issues that were examined in this resolution which should be more properly dealt with in the forthcoming intergovernmental conference to revise the Treaties.
<P>
For these reasons we felt unable to support the resolution in its finally amended version.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Andersson, Färm, Hedkvist Petersen and Schori">
We consider that the establishment of an Area of Freedom, Security and Justice is of significance for the European Union' s future, and the Council' s initiative in raising the question at the summit meeting in Tampere is welcome.
<P>
The particular resolution with which the European Parliament is dealing contains a series of important standpoints which Finland, as the country which is at present holding the EU Presidency, together with the European Council as a whole, ought to consider in advance of the summit.
We therefore lend our support to the major part of the proposals which the resolution contains, but with the odd exception.
In our view, paragraph 3 deals too generally with the integration into the relevant Pillar of the EU of police co-operation and co-operation in connection with criminal law.
We think that there is good reason for seeing police co-operation above all as being between the Member States.
<P>
With regard to paragraph 19 about providing Europol with opportunities in the operational sphere, we think that this paragraph is to be interpreted as meaning that any such development of Europol co-operation should be for the purpose of promoting the fight against cross-border crime, but must in that case take place within the framework of the Member States' right to full control over police activity within their own borders.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
The resolution on which the European Parliament has just voted, on drafting a Charter of Fundamental Rights for the Union illustrates perfectly the abuses that, as I said in my intervention yesterday during the main debate, we would be risking.
<P>
In almost every paragraph of its resolution, the European Parliament broadens the interpretation of the decision of the Cologne Council in order to boost its own sense of importance, to marginalise national Parliaments and to prepare for the transformation of the Charter into a European Constitution.
<P>
In paragraph 2, the European Parliament claims that responsibility for the preparation of the Charter will fall jointly to the Council and to itself, whereas all the evidence shows that fundamental rights are protected today by national constitutions, and that any activity relating to them should largely, if not exclusively, involve national parliaments.
<P>
In paragraph 3, the European Parliament calls for an "open and innovative approach to the Charter' s character, the type of rights it should contain as well as its role and status in the development of the Union' s constitution" , which clearly demonstrates the desire for it to be more than just a collection of existing laws, as the Council wanted it to be.
<P>
In paragraph 4(1) and 4(2), Parliament requests that the number of its representatives in the "forum" who have the task of drafting the Charter, should be equal to the number of representatives of Member States; that is to say, at least fifteen. At the same time, it is doing away with the need for national parliaments by suggesting that all that is required is "the appropriate consultation of the leaders of those Parliaments" .
<P>
In paragraph 4(3), 4(4) and 4(6), Parliament requests that the future forum should itself determine the competences of its office as well as the organisation of its working parties and secretariat, which would give it a very large degree of independence and which would enable it to take the process in the direction it sees fit.
<P>
In paragraph 4(5), Parliament insists that there be "contributions from NGOs and from the citizens" .
We know what that means: the entry into the debate of people or organisations who have no democratic legitimacy, chosen according to obscure criteria and often heavily subsidised by the European Commission.
This will guarantee a mess from which, bearing previous occurrences in mind, the only people likely to benefit are the Federalists.
<P>
This is a perfect example of the start of one of these exercises in manipulating public opinion, which the Federalists have always been so fond of.
The most astonishing aspect of this manipulation is the attitude of the Council: throughout the negotiations on the Treaty of Amsterdam, it had staunchly resisted the grouping together of all the citizens rights scattered throughout the text in any form distinct from the Treaty itself.
It won the argument at that time.
Of its own accord, and without consulting anyone, it has suddenly accepted something much worse; the setting in motion of a much broader process of dispossessing national Constitutions.
We shall staunchly oppose this anti-democratic manoeuvre.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Blak, Lund and Thorning-Schmidt">
- (DA) The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have declined to vote for a motion for a resolution concerning further integration in the fields of freedom, security and justice.
We believe in just and efficient European co-operation in connection with asylum and immigration.
We are also believers in improved co-operation to prevent criminal activity in areas such as the trade in human beings, offences against children and money laundering.
<P>
The motion for a resolution includes a desire to transfer police co-operation from the third to the First Pillar, a wish to give Europol operational powers and a plea to set up a common European prosecution service (Corpus Juris).
<P>
We have voted against giving Europol operational powers because we don' t want it developing into a European answer to the FBI.
We have also voted against establishing a common European prosecution service.
We are not in favour of a common European criminal law or authority.
Criminal activity can be combated just as effectively with the existing instruments, including Europol, and the conventions relating to extradition and to the assistance to be given by one State to another in the administration of justice.
<P>
We have declined to vote for transferring political co-operation from the Third to the First Pillar.
As long as the Danish reserve in the legal sphere still stands, we are in a special situation.
We respect the fact that the other Member States wish to transfer co-operation to the First Pillar, but we cannot vote in favour of this as long as Denmark has a reserve in the legal sphere.
<P>
For the reasons stated above, we have declined to vote for the whole motion for a resolution.
Nor, moreover, can we support the desire that the Tampere Summit should be the starting signal for a new Intergovernmental Conference concerning further integration in the area of law.
At the next Intergovernmental Conference, it is the institutional changes which need to be concentrated upon. Otherwise, we risk delaying the enlargement process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Laguiller">
I am voting against the positions and the priorities proposed by the European Commission at the Tampere European Council concerning rights and freedoms.
<P>
The simple fact that it does not envisage regularisation of all people living and working on European soil without proper papers should explain why I have voted this way.
<P>
Designating Europe an "area of freedom, security and justice" shows a certain amount of cynicism.
We do not ask about the background of capital in order to allow it freedom of movement and freedom of investment throughout the European Union.
The free movement of people though is regulated, limited or banned according to their national and, above all, social background.
Multinational companies are free to form groups, but the families of immigrant workers are not.
Complete freedom is granted in cases where it damages employment and society, but it is withheld however when it concerns the most basic sense of humanity.
<P>
The European Charter of Fundamental Rights which the Tampere Summit is supposed to work on will be nothing more than a collection of empty words if it does not at least contain complete freedom of movement, and the individual' s freedom to settle where he wants for all those living and working in the European Union, whatever their original nationality, as well as complete equality of rights, including the right to vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
- (EL) The increased Community action in areas of justice and home affairs is a major cause for concern for European citizens.
It is a direct attempt to fortify strongholds and to tighten control and monitoring mechanisms with a view to exercising command over the citizens and to monitoring their activities effectively as opposed to promoting citizens' rights.
<P>
Of particular concern is the sphere of immigration and asylum where there is a growing trend towards the creation of a fortress-Europe.
We should show more concern over the attempts both to divert from and replace the Geneva Convention, which is the main source of international law governing refugees, and to implement a "temporary protection regime" . We should also be particularly concerned about deliberations to amend the Dublin Asylum Convention, to enforce stricter legislation on the procedure for processing asylum applications and to implement "effectively" the removal procedures for those whose residency applications have been rejected.
<P>
The increase in the wave of refugees cannot be dealt with by enforcing repressive measures, but by implementing an international policy which will reduce tensions and will contribute to peaceful political settlement of all differences, and will not resort, as in Kosovo, to criminal military intervention measures.
It must be dealt with by conducting an international economic and commercial policy which will support economic development of third countries and will contribute to the welfare of the population.
<P>
The proposals regarding the widening of police and judicial powers of intervention in criminal cases, as well as the various proposals concerning the creation of a special European judicial area, constitute the cloak under which Europol can strengthen and widen its operational powers and under which repressive national principles can be formulated, thereby seriously jeopardising fundamental democratic rights and freedoms.
Widening activities in the exchange of information, filing and processing this information, either within the framework of Europol or directly among Member States, will not only increase the dangers of uncontrolled use of those files but will also legitimise all activities relating to surveillance and placing on file under the pretext of crime prevention.
<P>
In this connection, the creation of "European Public Order" based on the Schengen principles would inevitably constitute an undemocratic arsenal which, at any given moment, could be used against political and trade unionist action, to prevent working people from reacting to any unpopular policies of the EU and of the Member States.
When the underlying philosophy of the proposals in question centres around the meaning of "law-abiding citizens" and the need to "make those who 'threaten the freedom and security of the individual and of society' accountable for their actions" , we cannot but detect a certain re-emergence of those principles which, in countries like ours, once formed the basis of anti-democratic laws and restrictions and the basis for the penalisation of all political and trade unionist activities.
It is obvious that under the cloak of the fight against organised crime and certain other types of unlawful punishable behaviour, we are attempting not only to control developments at policy level in the long-term, but also to introduce tougher enforcement procedures for law and order.
It is no coincidence that, for matters concerning justice and home affairs, the issues of public order and security fall outside the already limited competence of the European Court of Justice.
Similar difficulties exist for parliamentary control which means that action by the police and secret services and public security standards will remain all the more uncontrolled.
Increasing co-operation in civil and criminal cases demands total respect for traditions of international civil and criminal law, total respect for democratic rights, and the safeguarding of traditional principles of fundamental and procedural law.
<P>
It is evident that not only must we disagree with but we must also condemn such developments.
For their sake, working people should not only show opposition to the plans being advocated, but should also expose the hypocrisy of the EU and of the Member States and fight to avert such dangers to the development of their freedoms.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
- (SV) The Area of Freedom, Security and Justice is of significance for the EU' s future.
The particular resolution with which the European Parliament is dealing contains important standpoints which Finland, as the country currently holding the EU Presidency, together with the European Council, ought to consider in advance of the summit.
In the main, I support the motion for a resolution, but with a number of important exceptions.
I think that comprehensive co-operation at European level in the fight against crime is important.
I do not, however, support the idea of a federal Europe and do not therefore want to contribute to changes in the direction of qualified majority voting within significant areas.
<P>
I think that co-operation in the fields of police work and criminal law ought, in the future too, to be between Member States.
Paragraph 3 is too general and far-reaching.
I am therefore voting "no" to this paragraph.
The same applies to paragraph 19 which is about giving Europol the ability to act in various ways at operational level.
Paragraph 6 deals with qualified majority voting but is too unclear, especially paragraph 6 c, for me to be able to support it.
Certain parts of paragraph 21 are too far-reaching, especially 21(b) and 21(d).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="President">
That concludes the vote.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 12.46 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Financial crisis in Russia
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="President">
The next item is the Commission' s statement on the financial crisis in Russia.
<P>
Mr Kinnock, speaking on behalf of the Commission, will be the first to take the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Kinnock">
Neil Commission.
Mr President, with your permission, I would like to make a Commission statement on the effects of the financial crisis in Russia and on matters relating to corruption and money laundering.
As the House will know, some stability has been achieved in the general financial situation in Russia since the dramatic fall in the international exchange value of the rouble in August last year.
Indeed, since the beginning of this year, there has been some encouraging news with the recovery in industrial output, mainly as the result of import substitution, relatively tight controls on inflation and a stronger balance of payments position, produced mainly by a sharp rise in the price of Russia' s oil exports.
<P>
In addition, at the end of July, agreement was reached with the IMF, and other financial institutions, on the resumption of direct loan assistance, and soon afterwards there was an agreement in the Paris Club on rescheduling debt service payments due on Russia' s sovereign debt.
Talks are now under way in the London club of private-sector creditors.
The Russian economy has consequently gained a breathing space in the run-up to the duma elections in December and the presidential elections next summer.
<P>
However, by itself, none of this is enough to revive an economy which remains very fragile with rising unemployment and levels of poverty.
Much more effort is therefore needed from the responsible authorities to promote sustained recovery over the medium-term.
Adoption by the duma of the budget proposed by the government for the year 2000 will be a significant test.
In addition to severe structural problems like lack of investment, the public debt, particularly foreign debt, has grown rapidly and at present it is not clear how the authorities intend to service that debt burden.
<P>
With reference to the more specific issues of the flight of capital and money-laundering, I would like to say the following.
The Commission is aware of the current media speculation and the growing worries about the misuse of international assistance funds provided to Russia.
Clearly we must await the outcome of ongoing investigations in Europe and the United States of America, and the Commission is naturally following the matter closely.
<P>
In the meantime, the decision about a response to the speculations and the allegations about misuse of assistance funds is primarily a matter for the IMF, the World Bank and the G7 countries, since they are obviously the main suppliers of direct financial assistance.
Everyone should of course be mindful of the fact that the Russian authorities are responsible for repaying the principal and the interest due on such assistance.
Moreover, the latest IMF assistance will be cancelled out by debt-servicing payments due to the IMF by Russia.
It will therefore be a book transaction without any substantial transfer of money.
<P>
Meanwhile Community assistance is, as this House will know, primarily delivered through the TACIS programme which is centrally managed from Brussels.
The funds concerned are predominantly used to pay EU firms to provide technical expertise and advice for Russia.
Only a very small proportion of the funds therefore goes to Russia.
Indeed it is only EUR 4 million out of the total of EUR 140 million.
That EUR 4 million is obviously directly managed by our representation in Moscow.
<P>
In addition the Community food supply programme for Russia, that was launched earlier this year, is subject to very close monitoring which involves, amongst other things, checks on the use of the funds generated by the sale of relevant food products on local markets.
Moreover, Russia does not currently receive Community loans, and the lending mandate of the European Investment Bank for countries outside the European Union does not extend to Russia.
<P>
However, the issues which deserve close attention are not confined to alleged misuse of international funds.
They extend, in the Commission' s view, to the massive outflow of capital from Russia which has in turn obviously contributed to the low level of internal investment and therefore impeded economic growth.
The Commission has always made it clear to Russia that reversing capital flight urgently and fundamentally requires a more appropriate investment environment and better protection of investor rights in Russia.
<P>
For some time, the Commission has recognised the link between capital flight and corruption and criminality in Russia and we also understand the cumulative threat these conditions pose to the country' s transition to a democratic system and a market economy governed by the rule of law.
The House will be aware that criminal activity thrives on institutional weaknesses and the fragility of efforts to consolidate the rule of law.
That is why the Commission has made, and will continue to make, useful efforts to assist Russia in its arduous transition by actions like targeting technical assistance at combating money-laundering and organised crime and supporting efforts to advance the rule of law in general.
One example of such activities is a study into Russian institutional and regulatory requirements in combating money-laundering that will be launched later this year.
<P>
There is also growing cooperation between the relevant Commission and Russian officials in customs and anti-fraud activities.
The House will be only too aware of the sophisticated skills of international criminals in taking advantage of different legal and regulatory provisions across the globe and infiltrating economic and financial systems regardless of national frontiers.
We are therefore faced with a worldwide problem that is not confined to Russia.
Obviously combating it requires closely coordinated international responses and the Commission is ready to play its full part in that.
<P>
Russia must nevertheless take whatever action it can to put its own house in order.
The Commission therefore hopes that the Russian authorities will respond to the present situation in a convincing way and it is vital that those authorities cooperate fully with the ongoing investigations in Europe and in the USA.
The Commission notes with approval that the authorities have decided to send a high-level mission to the USA to liaise with investigators there, I think that is actually happening at the present time.
Clearly the internal investigations in Russia into these fraud allegations should be actively encouraged.
<P>
The Commission is concerned, however, that the questions raised have been met by only routine denials and have not been properly addressed in Russia.
Against that background, timely action by President Yeltsin in signing into law the Russian draft legislation on money laundering would be reassuring to the international community.
Ratification and implementation of the relevant Council of Europe Convention is also essential.
<P>
In addition, the Commission would like to see a speedy resolution of the problems in the Russian banking system, which is obviously at the centre of concerns about corruption.
Confidence in that system needs to be restored quickly and decisively as a major contribution to the achievement of something like normality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, I do not want to interrupt the debate, but since this debate and statement by Commissioner Kinnock are due to an urgent request by a number of Groups, I should like to ask you also to pass on to the Conference of Presidents the wish that these Groups might therefore ensure that at least a minimum of Members of Parliament is present.
I find it shameful, in fact, that a statement on an important question is being made here and yet so few Members of Parliament are present.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="President">
I must admit it would have been nice to have seen more people here today.
I shall see to it that your request is conveyed to the Conference of Presidents.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Provan">
Mr President, can I associate myself with Mr Swoboda' s remarks.
I had not intended to speak in this debate but I have listened to a very carefully prepared statement from the Commission and I thank Mr Kinnock for that.
It correctly sums up what I believe is a very dangerous situation developing in Russia.
<P>
What we need at the moment is stability and further investment to allow Russia to develop. What is happening is the exact opposite.
I was in Moscow last November with a group from this Parliament which had gone there to evaluate the need for humanitarian aid, and it became obvious that the country is just not able to put itself in order.
We as a European Union really do need to take some political initiative to try to help the Russians get their economy back on track.
<P>
The Central and Eastern European countries that were former members of the Soviet bloc have been able to pull themselves together, and improve their economies and their peoples' standards of living.
This was because we put ownership and the laws of property ownership high on the agenda.
That is not the case in Russia and the difficulty there, I believe, arises because no one has the responsibility to own anything and therefore take control of their own economy.
I hope we can therefore take some sort of political initiative to try to make sure that country puts its basic law into proper order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we perhaps have to remind ourselves that much has happened in Russia: over 5 000 nuclear warheads have been withdrawn from use, democratic institutions have been created, and the media there may criticise the government, and, in fact, dare to.
It is true the media is more and more passing into the hands of the few, the very people who, as the previous speaker reminded us, have acquired common property for themselves.
At the same time, however, we must remember that Russia' s leaders are primarily and directly responsible to their own people, the Russians themselves.
<P>
I would like to raise the issue of this ruthless campaign of terror and bombing - the most recent explosion took place yesterday evening.
The intention of this action is to create instability in the whole area, for the whole vast region, and it is happening at a very awkward time.
Russia has two elections in the near future, the situation is very tense, the country has a sick president, and the whole economy is in difficulties.
We must condemn, as we are now doing, those states that are aiding the terrorists in their aim to create new instability in a region where there is enough of it as it is.
<P>
We should not speak of a financial crisis in Russia, however.
Russia has a political crisis, and that has continued since the country changed direction.
We can certainly see the reasons for this political crisis, but the situation will not be remedied with money, however much of it you heap on Russia.
We have seen how things go with money: they go fairly badly.
<P>
With regard to the West, I would really like to bring up another issue.
We still have no clear policy on Russia, although we have a bulky agreement on partnership and co-operation.
We have practised collaboration in many ways and we support democracy and civil society in Russia, but, for all that, we do not understand Russia.
One reason for that is, in practice, we do not know the Russian politicians very well.
We have concentrated on one person, or one body of people, in fact, on one narrow group of people in power.
As a consequence, what happens in Russia always takes us by surprise.
We should therefore broaden the scope of our political contact with Russia, and, this would help us to understand the changes that take place there so unexpectedly.
<P>
We know that our financial aid and food aid have pretty much slipped into the hands of those for whom it was not intended.
It is the Russian elite that are guilty of this, a group we have had no hold on.
I think we should discover how, for example, the competition for transporting food aid granted to Russia by Europe was organised.
I perceived problems there, and I would ask the Commission to give an explanation of this affair.
In this situation, however, it is necessary to increase co-operation with Russia, and not terminate it.
The Northern Dimension, medical care, the Nordic regions, etc, will all be important.
Now Russia needs from us very concrete proposals on co-operation, and that is why I regard the aspect of the Northern Dimension as so important, and I hope the Commission will act.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Väyrynen">
Mr President, this time we are discussing Russia' s financial crisis.
It is just one of those serious inter-related problems, or crises, Russia is struggling against at the same time.
These problems have one sole cause: the political crisis.
In this I am in full agreement with the view of Mr Paasilinna.
Since the collapse of the socialist system, Russia has had no viable political system.
The parliamentary elections organised for the end of this year and the presidential elections next year may create a basis for solving the political crisis; at least we must hope they will.
<P>
The international community must be patient with Russia.
As the political system and the main social institutions do not function properly, some of the aid to the country is getting wasted.
Aid and assistance to Russia must, however, continue, but we have to learn from experience so that the operation may be as successful as possible.
The European Union must strive to ensure in particular that Russia can develop a workable democratic system for itself, with viable social and economic institutions.
To assist the operation it would be of value to establish regionally and locally based contact and co-operation between the countries of the EU and Russia.
This would provide, on a massive scale, a context for providing Russia with the social and economic know-how the country badly needs.
There are particularly favourable opportunities for this in border areas between the EU and Russia, as the bilateral agreement on co-operation in neighbouring areas made between Finland and Russia at the start of the 1990s shows.
<P>
Unfortunately, there have been difficulties in communication between the European Parliament and the Duma.
The meeting of the parliamentary Committee on Development and Co-operation planned for this autumn has been postponed.
We must hope that it will be organised again as soon as possible.
The Committee on Development and Co-operation has grown, and it has many new members from our group.
For this reason, we should make our work more effective to increase, for example, the knowledge our members have of Russia.
It might still be appropriate to hold a seminar this autumn, one in which we could acquire more expert knowledge on economic and social conditions in Russia.
In addition, we need a monitoring committee to help members to keep their knowledge of Russia continuously up to date.
<P>
Mr President, in my opinion, the Commission' s report was well-informed and valid, and I believe that the Commission will attend to the issue of the economic crisis in Russia and matters generally connected with Russian relations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Lambert">
Mr President, the news that we are seeing at the moment alleging misconduct by the Russian Central Bank comes as very little surprise to many of us.
It has long been evident that the large sums of money provided to prop up the national level of the Russian economy have not produced the desired effect and that the top-down approach might have appeared simple, but it can be less efficient in the long term.
<P>
We are aware that the gap between rich and poor has become a chasm, that the people of Russia are losing faith in the ideal of democracy and that the infrastructure is crumbling and workers are not paid.
The West might have done better to have paid the teachers, doctors and miners directly, perhaps.
If we are to invest further in the Russian economy we have to find the means to support and develop local economic activity - as our colleague has just said - which meets people' s needs and provides a sense of stability and involvement.
There are many examples of that being developed in areas of social exclusion in the world' s poorer countries at the moment, from which we can learn.
<P>
The emphasis on money laundering and crime is only part of the issue.
We need to look at how to develop internal investment.
The example from the West is that you bring in other people to do the investing and they take the cash with them.
So perhaps we would do well in this House to look at how we talk about issues such as the repatriation of profit to countries producing it, rather than simply extracting the cash as well as the natural resources.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, the European Commission has now woken up to the fact that the aid and assistance granted to Russia is being abused.
However, it has been abused for ten years now, and this is how the basic structures of Russian society have been destroyed.
Aid has been both used wrongly and granted wrongly.
We in the European Union have granted it in the wrong way.
Corruption is a fine word for what has happened.
The whole of the upper stratum of society is party to this corruption.
In this we cannot trust the president, his family, the government ministers, or even the central bank.
It is unbelievable that the central bank has recycled the aid granted it by the IMF through companies that merely exist on paper on the tax evaders' isle of Jersey.
We just speak of corruption, but we do not say directly that this is a matter of criminal activity.
The reason for this criminal activity has also been the aid granted by the West.
The West has given aid for the wrong reasons.
<P>
A typical example is the relief aid granted to Russia last winter in the form of food aid.
It was meant to help Russia to escape a winter of starvation and survive the sub-zero temperatures at the beginning of the year.
But this aid has not yet reached its destination.
We gave Russia relief aid in the form of food to cover the time of the winter frosts, and that food is still on its way to Russia.
That food is being sold in Russian shops, and thus the price of Russian agricultural produce and food is being caused to tumble, and farmers' hopes of practising their own food production are being dashed.
Above all, we must say, from the point of view of the taxpayers in the EU, that if we wanted to give Russia' s social sector aid equal to the cost of a pension we should have given it money, not food.
Food aid was an agricultural policy, which cost us taxpayers a lot more than if a corresponding amount of social aid had been given in the form of money.
With this in mind, the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament should look in the mirror and recognise their own mistakes.
Aid has been used wrongly, but it has definitely been given wrongly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Turchi">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at a time when we are declaring that, together with the new Commission, we must give a central role to the European Parliament, it is only natural that we should consider relaunching Parliament' s foreign policy at the same time.
<P>
The crisis in Russia gives us that opportunity.
Indeed, at a time when the international community and the world press are emphasising the importance of the scandal taking place in Russia, we must take the initiatives necessary for understanding the gravity of this scandal, the explanations of the Russian Government regarding these accusations and our position with regard to the Community' s financial aid for Russia.
<P>
Of course, Commissioner Kinnock' s report is studied and significant, but above all we need to consider the political aspect of what is happening in Russia at the moment. In the near future, all this could destabilise international politics and also the Community' s trade relations with Russia itself, not to mention the serious consequences for the Community' s entrepreneurs who have invested in this country.
<P>
We must remember that the current scandals are rocking the Russian Nomenclature and institutional representatives.
Moreover, the United States decided in Congress to launch an inquiry to ascertain the use of money given as financial aid to Russia and whether it has been used instead in an illegal way.
<P>
Having said this, the Community' s Institutions must, in my opinion, ask the competent Russian authorities to clarify how funds intended for the development of the country and for its food crisis were used.
<P>
The services of the Commission, which oversaw the aid to Russia, are drawing up a report on the way the funds were used. In short, they are requesting a committee of inquiry, made up of the Council, the Commission, the European Parliament, the EIB and the EBRD which will verify how much aid was sent to Russia, which funds were used and if it was spent in the planned way.
Take the TACIS programme for example. Just yesterday, President Prodi referred to the concept of transparency in his Commission and at the same time, co-operation with the European Parliament.
<P>
If this is the first commitment, we must immediately clarify our relations with Russia and clarify the bilateral relations between the Community and the Russian Government.
If we do all this, we will give our institution political significance and we will regain credibility in the eyes of the world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Belder">
Mr President, there continues to be one financial scandal after another in Russia.
For example, today's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports that last summer the Central Bank of Russia sold as much as USD 3.9 billion of an IMF credit destined for Moscow and USD 4.8 billion in total directly to Russian private banks.
In so doing, it withdrew a huge quantity of roubles from the country' s public monetary dealings.
And what is worse, those USD 3.9 billion of IMF money did not even go directly to Russia but were ultimately transferred through accounts in the United States.
<P>
The man behind this revelation is Skuratov, the Public Prosecutor, whom Yeltsin relieved of his office.
Two salient comments are in order as regards this accusation.
Firstly, Skuratov has only exposed a very small part of a practice which has been going on for years, and certainly at least since 1990, that is the systematic manipulation of international credits by the Central Bank of Russia.
<P>
Secondly, the International Monetary Fund and the American government, too, were informed about this abuse early on.
Yet they took no action, under the pretext of the spurious, hence costly slogan: "Corruption is better than Communism" .
<P>
The fraudulent draining away of financial assistance provided by foreign countries, a Russian capital flight over the last ten years amounting to an estimated USD 150 to 300 billion, and a Russian economy which has largely slid back into a barter economy all make it difficult for us to gain a proper idea of the scale of the financial crisis in the Russian Federation.
<P>
As far as the European Union is concerned, it should always be the case that only real Russian projects which have been approved by independent experts should be considered for financial assistance, and only then on condition that careful follow-up supervision is undertaken on an annual basis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating Commissioner Kinnock on his second term of office, which I am sure will be even more distinguished than his first.
<P>
In relation to this particular problem, while we must not underestimate the damage that crime and organised crime can do to Western society. It is important where Russia is concerned that we try to get beyond the headlines.
After all, to be blunt, crime is a fairly normal occurrence throughout the history of Russia.
There is nothing new about it.
We must not forget that Russia is potentially an extremely rich country.
It has huge natural resources from gold to oil to agricultural land, and yet production has gone down 50% since 1989.
The key problem is capital flight, whether it is legal capital flight or illegal capital flight.
After all, the money which stays in Russia, even if it is on the black market, has an economic effect.
Capital outflow is now about USD 25 billion a year and yet foreign investment is less than USD 3 billion and falling.
To be quite honest, if the Russians are not prepared to invest in Russia what chance is there that anybody else will do so?
We must not lose sight of the fact that any public money we can give is a mere drop in the ocean.
The key to Russia' s salvation is private investment. It is that area that we ought to focus on.
<P>
The answer lies within Russia itself. It has to implement proper economic reforms.
We have to have a viable and fair taxation system.
We have to guarantee modern democratic law and law enforcement.
<P>
Industrialists have made it clear to us - for example, in the EU/Russia industrialist round table - that they want to invest in Russia.
After all, given the potential, there is a killing to be made in Russia with the right investment at the right time.
But repeatedly they all say the same thing: it is corruption that discourages them, investment conditions are very poor because there is no viable long-term tax system, laws are constantly changing , the infrastructure is poor and, most importantly, property rights, including intellectual property rights, are weak and confused.
Those are the areas we have to focus on.
<P>
I recognise that in the current atmosphere it is difficult to justify EU technical assistance but we must continue that process because of the importance Russia has for us for security reasons as well as economic reasons.
<P>
I am glad to hear what Commissioner Kinnock says because it is important that we focus on a few areas: not only economic improvement but clearly, what we also have to aim at, improvements to civil society which will underpin economic reform and the social aspects.
<P>
I would therefore like the new Commission - and I ask Commissioner Kinnock now - to make an overall evaluation of the efficiency of the TACIS programme and then to report back on how they will improve the programme for the year 2000 budget so we can have greater confidence when we vote in support of the TACIS programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, I too should like to congratulate Mr Kinnock on his new post. I hope for worthwhile and constructive dialogue with him over the next few years.
As far as I am concerned, two basic questions arise from what Mr Titley has said.
Russia, as we know, is suffering not only from financial crisis, but also, and above all, from the erosion of basic democratic mechanisms such as transparency, public supervision of the administration and an independent judiciary.
<P>
In a situation like that, how can the difficult process of social transformation take place at all?
This is just what I have already been saying - our problem is that, in our action programme, we are setting false priorities for Russia.
The democratic bases of the market economy must be operating before we can create a free trade area.
On the other hand, it is evident that banks in the West have also been weak enough to permit money laundering and the mismanagement of money at an international level.
How can it have been possible for the destination of international credits not to have been understood?
How is it that money laundering on such a large scale is possible at all in the West?
These questions are also waiting to be answered.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="President">
Thank you to the Commissioner.
<P>
The debate on this agenda item is hereby closed.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Topical and Urgent Debate
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="President">
The next item on the agenda is the debate on topical and urgent subjects.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Earthquakes in Turkey and Greece
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Van Orden">
Mr President, the earthquake that struck Turkey in the early hours of 17 August was the worst in over half a century in a region that is prone to such shocks.
There were at least 40,000 casualties and we extend our deepest sympathy and the hand of support to Turkey at this tragic time.
<P>
The European Union has responded to the disaster with some EUR 45 million of emergency humanitarian aid in addition to bilateral aid from a number of our Member States.
We must insist on urgent implementation of this Community assistance.
The immediate need is for practical material assistance such as prefabricated housing, generators and specialist vehicles and equipment.
The release of a further EUR 150 million in European Union aid will require the support of this House.
<P>
In due course, given the fact that the European Union is a major contributor of humanitarian relief, it would be most useful for the Commission services and ECHO in particular to explore possibilities for improving the effectiveness of relief organisation in disaster situations.
In addition, the Commission' s joint research centre should examine ways in which more effective warning might be given of seismic activity.
However, we do not feel there is justification at this stage for the creation of some sort of new European research institute for this purpose.
<P>
Mr President, amid the tragedy there is one encouraging sign.
What was also buried in Izmit was some of the enmity between Greece and Turkey.
Greek rescue teams were among the first to provide assistance in Turkey, a very positive and humane gesture that was reciprocated by Turkey when not long after Athens too fell victim to earthquakes.
There have been many, other often low-level, gestures of rapprochement between Greek and Turkish people in recent weeks.
Many of us wish to see progress in the resolution of the various issues which stood in the way of Turkey' s candidacy for the European Union.
This requires generosity and flexibility on all sides.
<P>
Out of the tragedy of Izmit let us hope for positive and permanent improvements in the relationship between the European Union and Turkey.
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<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, I would like to express here the sympathy and consternation of our group in the face of the earthquakes in Turkey and Greece.
It is an irony of history that the earthquake in Turkey and the earthquake in Greece have brought these two countries closer together at last.
I will not say reunited as yet, but certainly brought closer.
<P>
It is indeed a rare coincidence that legal proceedings, whose fairness and rectitude I am not one hundred percent convinced of, and a conviction, of which, for fundamental reasons, I am even less convinced, specifically the death sentence against Mr Öçalan, have led to the development of an opportunity to bring a dreadful civil war in Turkey to an end.
Sometimes this is the case in history; tragic events can set positive developments in motion.
<P>
Therefore, instead of going into details, I would like to basically welcome the fact, firstly, that relations between Greece and Turkey have improved even regardless of the dreadful events, because both Foreign Ministers are prepared to speak to each other.
I am very pleased to see that many European countries reacted so positively and made aid available immediately when the dreadful events occurred, and the European Union, furthermore, is considering, as a result, how a new beginning in the relationship between the European Union and Turkey can be achieved.
<P>
In recent days I have spoken with some Turkish Members of Parliament, who also clearly expressed their desire for this new beginning.
There have been a series of changes, new laws in Turkey.
So it could be that, because of the awful events and a certain rethinking and reconsideration within Turkey, a new beginning will be possible in the next few months in the relationship between Turkey and the European Union, with the help of Greece.
In all these steps together with, and with regard to, Turkey it is important to proceed in partnership with our Member State of Greece.
The Foreign Minister, Mr Papandreou, has just established the prerequisites for us to enter into this new partnership with Turkey.
<P>
It will be a long and laborious path.
But for once it could be written in the history books that these terrible disasters in both these countries were the beginning of a new relationship, even a new political relationship, and possibly even a new economic relationship.
Personally I shall also strive, as the former rapporteur on Turkish matters in this House, to achieve these new relationships between Turkey and the European Union.
<P>
Turkey is an important strategic partner, but Turkey must also know that it must carry out appropriate changes in its law in order to achieve the prerequisites for clearing the obstacles to its free entry into Europe.
Entry into Europe is conditional upon legality and respect for human rights.
That is the only possibility.
With this in mind, my group will attentively follow the latest endeavours of Commission and Council and will consider them positively, but critically.
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<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ceyhun">
Mr President, the earthquake in Turkey is clearly one of the most dreadful disasters of this century.
Nothing further need be said about the number of victims.
We also know that in Turkey in the near future there will be tens of thousands of homeless people who must continue their lives in the earthquake region for years without prospects.
In these conditions it is naturally very important to reflect more intensely on how we could more preventatively approach this situation regarding earthquakes and Turkey.
It can never be early enough to initiate fundamental thinking on the earthquake and its consequences.
There is urgent need for international dialogue on this Turkish disaster to determine the best course for the reconstruction of the country.
This dialogue could begin between the European Union and Turkey.
<P>
I support what Mr Swoboda said just now, but given the situation we currently have in Turkey, i.e. the willingness to use its relationships with European partners, we should first - in today' s motion for a resolution - speak about aid for Turkey in a much more concrete manner, and show our Turkish friends that we are there for them if they need our assistance, and also convey the impression to them that, they will not be seen by us in a sweeping way as adversaries, as was so often the case before the earthquake in Turkey.
The proposal of my Group would be that now, in addition to considering how we can best help Turkey in its reconstruction, we must also give additional thought to how we can offer Turkey some prospects for the future.
While engaging in these reflections, we should also deal with Turkey much more openly and clearly show that, as far as the prospects of EU accession are concerned, we would be genuinely willing to accept Turkey as the thirteenth applicant country, should Turkey approach us.
We will have enough opportunities to take advantage of this in the next three months.
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<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Duff">
Mr President, we all sympathise with Turkey after the traumatic experience it has been through.
We must, however, strive to see that out of this trauma comes something of a catharsis, so that civil society is reinforced by its great efforts to cope with the aftermath of the earthquake crisis.
The Turkish Government should be made far more accountable to the needs of the citizen, and the forces of reform such as Mr Selçuk, President of the Court of Appeal, and his colleagues must be everywhere stimulated and supported.
Such a cathartic effect would certainly allow us in the European Union to formulate a fresh approach to our relations with Turkey and to develop a more positive collaboration in a spirit of true solidarity, and Greece must show itself to be a willing partner in this project.
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<SPEAKER ID=104 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Karamanou">
Mr President, it appears that Enceladus is furious with Greece and Turkey and, being his inept self when it comes to dialogue and bargaining, he flew into a fit of catastrophic rage, scattering death, sorrow, pain, desperation and havoc around the two countries.
The catastrophic bible-like scenes in Turkey stretch over some 60,000 square kilometres, almost the size of Belgium and Denmark put together - an expanse which has affected the lives of 15 million people.
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More than 15,000 people lost their lives in the earthquake.
Every building within 80 to 90 kilometres of the epicentre of the earthquake is in ruins.
According to statistics, this region once produced 30% to 35% of Turkey' s GNP and provided employment for thousands of workers.
The purely economic repercussions of the earthquakes are great and it would seem difficult, if not impossible, to expect Turkey to overcome all that without any generous help from outside, without our active support.
<P>
In Greece, the destruction is not so wide-spread but the cost in human lives is grave with 138 dead, 3 seriously injured, and approximately 100,000 left homeless.
The material cost is huge and the earthquakes cost both Greece and Turkey dearly.
One particular part of this cost, and perhaps the most tragic, concerns the number of human beings who lost their lives, the number of families who were destroyed and the psychological shock suffered by the whole of the regions' population, who are now filled with dread at the possibility of another earthquake.
The people in those regions have had to summon spiritual strength to overcome the individual, family and financial disaster and to start building again from scratch.
<P>
Nevertheless, every cloud has a silver lining. The earthquakes seem to have destroyed houses on the one hand and built bridges between Greece and Turkey on the other.
The earthquakes laid the unique foundations for co-operation between the two countries.
The pain and the disaster have taught us that we can only cope with national disasters through co-operation and peaceful co-existence.
George Papandreou and Mr Cem, the Foreign Ministers for Greece and Turkey respectively, finally decided to include the issue of Greek-Turkish co-operation in dealing with natural disasters on the agenda for dialogue between Athens and Ankara.
It appears, as the speaker said previously, that every tragedy has a cathartic effect.
However, in closing, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to return once again to a suggestion which was also put forward by other speakers, that is the need to create a European research centre for the systematic study, research and implementation of new preventative methods for earthquakes.
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<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Mr President, I will not make further reference to the tragic events of the earthquakes which have shaken the whole of the region, both in neighbouring Turkey and in Greece, at varying degrees, of course.
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We refer to the resolution which we tabled concerning the need for action on a political, ethical and material level.
I would just like, Mr President, to take this moment to inform you that in Athens, for example, there is now great concern and panic amongst the population derived from irresponsible reports circulating around the country of further imminent earthquakes.
These are reports from scientific circles both in Greece and in other European countries because, as you know, everybody is following the progress of the earthquakes with great interest.
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I believe, Mr President, that if we were to do anything useful and long-standing - and I would like the opinion of the Commissioner on this - then that would have to be the setting up of that wonderful organisation we have been talking about - the one for the study of earthquakes, etc - which, in turn, would have to have a main code of ethics as regards its constitution and when, where, how and to whom information on earthquakes should be publicised.
It is one thing to give out information to improve anti-seismic protection, for instance, and another thing to bandy about scientific information, albeit with good intentions, and to terrorise the population.
And since this is a cross-border issue, Mr President, and the information is circulating from country to country, I believe that we should have some general, serious and scientific regulation throughout the whole of the European Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=106 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Korakas">
Mr President, I would also like to say that it is imperative, without further ado, that we find the necessary but carefully monitored financial assistance for Turkey to cope with the problems brought on by this terrible earthquake.
We will have to check that the aid will be used solely for that purpose and not for others.
This, if you will allow me to say so, is the unanimous desire of the Greek people who, in a thousand and one ways, have displayed their moral and material solidarity.
However, with those feelings of solidarity towards the Turkish people, we demand that the earthquake disaster is not looked upon as just an excuse to get financial assistance. We ask that this aid be blocked if the Turkish regime does not fulfil its promises to respect human rights, as in the case of Cyprus and the Kurdish issue, or at least show that it has some intentions of taking specific steps.
<P>
With regard to Greece, as has already been said, the disaster was also great.
I myself have visited the region. It has instilled a sense of deep anguish for the future among the population, mainly precipitated by our discovery that profitability tends to have transcended safety when it comes to property acquisition.
Therefore, it is essential not only for Greece but for other seismogenic countries, to take the necessary measures to put up their anti-seismic guard so as to avert similar tragedies in the future. It is a fact that although governments and individual people cannot be blamed for earthquakes, the responsibility they bear for the extent of the disasters is huge, as has been proved by the earthquakes in Turkey and Greece.
<P>
We believe that there must be direct intervention, that the necessary funds should be taken from the 2nd and 3rd Community Support Framework in order to introduce a specific mechanism such as the one discussed by other speakers for the anti-seismic protection and for the prevention of disasters caused by earthquakes.
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<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Marinos">
Mr President, because these were the worst earthquakes ever to hit Turkey and Greece, leaving thousands dead and injured and causing extensive damage to houses, factories and businesses, as well as to the infrastructure of both countries, the European Union must take both immediate and long-term action to deal with the problem.
As regards immediate action, it could grant generous help at no cost from funds from the unused resources of the legislated expenditure.
Such swift granting of aid will save lives, mainly of children and the elderly, and will relieve the plight of the homeless, who are already imperilled by winter approaching.
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The cost of the disasters in Greece is estimated to be at least EUR 600 million.
Of course, EUR 100 million can be drawn from appropriations from the second Community Support Framework not expended by Greece.
However, there is an urgent need for more long-term measures for tackling the problem at a European level.
Reliable European and American seismologists have ascertained that South-Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean area, including European countries, have entered into a prolonged period of heightened seismicity.
<P>
In my view, therefore, it is quite right to propose the establishment of an organisation but this organisation should not just restrict its activities to the study of seismic phenomena or to earthquake forecasts which, according to seismologists, is scientifically impossible - something that those colleagues who are proposing an institution for earthquake forecasts should be mindful of. This organisation should also define regulations and specifications for earthquake-proof construction, appropriate building materials, etc., and should also contribute towards providing informed advice to European citizens on any imminent Acts of God and the best ways to deal with them.
I note that, aside from Greece and Turkey, other countries under threat include Albania and Italy where, just a few days ago, Mount Etna showed signs of activity.
<P>
Secondly, I believe that we should reincorporate the sadly annulled B4-3400 into the Community budget which provided for urgent aid to disaster victims.
There should be a high special reserve fund which will be transferred from year to year. It should not be abolished at the close of the financial year and should not have the low amounts that we witnessed in the past.
<P>
Finally, I propose that the various public and private voluntary direct action groups for natural disasters within Europe should unite and conform to a uniform European standard.
In this way, they can be called upon to intervene immediately in any European country stricken by a natural disaster, working alongside their national counterparts, so that rescue operations consisting all the bodies together can cover a wide expanse and meet all the requirements in as short a time as possible.
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<SPEAKER ID=108 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ceyhun">
Mr President, it is not that the Greens have no other speakers, it is just that we had a technical hitch, so this is my own contribution.
As a European of Turkish origin, I definitely wished to comment on the earthquake in Greece.
I believe my Greek friends will understand me if, as a European from Germany, even though of Turkish origin, I say "silipitiria" (my condolences), and I say this on behalf of all people from Turkey.
Indeed, this earthquake in Greece - enough has been said about Turkey - although it resulted in many victims, has achieved much more than hundreds of motions for resolution could.
Precisely in this period of peace between Greece and Turkey we have an opportunity, here in the European Parliament, to bring the people of both countries together and to finally purge what they kept trying to teach me, and probably you too, in school in our history books, i.e. that Greece and Turkey supposedly hate each other.
That is an outrageous lie!
In fact Turkey and Greece have a great deal in common, and for this reason you can perhaps understand if I, a Green Member of Parliament from Germany, have made such an emotional speech.
I wanted to express my gratitude to you and, in connection with the earthquake disaster in Greece, to again express my "silipitiria" .
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<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Uca">
Mr President, in the earthquake in Turkey, the devastating tremors within the earth brought to light the devastating situation within society.
More than 15,000 people had to perish just because unscrupulous building firms, shamelessly making money out of shoddy construction, are protected by people in politics and administration up to the highest levels of government.
Thus the earthquake often affected the poorest of the poor.
While desperate people were digging their relatives out of the rubble with their bare hands, the state apparatus showed that it was first and foremost concerned with itself.
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In the Kurdish province there are 500,000 militiamen and soldiers under arms in a war, which the other side ended long ago.
Meanwhile the sight of a soldier in the earthquake area with a shovel in his hand is a rare one.
Ankara did not just leave people to their own devices but also confiscated aid funds and hindered the work of foreign NGOs.
This culminated in the Grey Wolves, the Nationalist Action Party, demanding of the Health Minister that Turkey should reject Greek blood donations for the victims. We cannot accept such contempt for people without protest.
But the fact that both the Greek and the Turkish people decided to offer each other mutual help is a positive sign.
And so, after the earthquakes, both the Turkish people helped the Greeks and the Greek people helped the Turks.
<P>
Please do not misunderstand me, but the industrialised nations of the West should not take the moral high ground where Turkey is concerned.
They should rather at last admit their share of responsibility for the political and economic situation on the Bosphorus.
Only then is the way clear for serious democratic changes in Turkey and for appropriate aid which is actually delivered to the victims.
The European Union has spent thousands of Euros to assist the victims in Turkey.
I therefore propose that we send a delegation to Turkey and to Greece to check whether the money has been used for the victims, whether the poorest people, the ones who really need the money, have actually received it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
.
Mr President, could I say how grateful I am to the honourable Members from all parties for putting down motions for resolution on the tragic effects of the earthquakes in both Turkey and Greece.
I also join honourable Members in offering the deepest sympathy of the Commission to all who lost friends and loved ones and all who have suffered injury in the terrible disasters in both countries.
<P>
It is clear that nothing can heal the grief.
Practical help can, however, ease some of the misery.
The Commission took speedy action to try to assist the Turkish people and its government in their efforts to deal with the catastrophe.
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The first priority, immediately after the earthquakes, was obviously to try to rescue and care for survivors.
To this end, and in parallel with the systems provided by Member States and the wider international community, the Commission delivered EUR 4 million for first aid services and equipment through ECHO in two tranches.
In addition, following a visit by the Finnish Presidency and Commissioner van den Broek to Turkey on 26 August, a financial package of EUR 30 million is currently being assembled to help with the current emergency and rehabilitation activities.
<P>
To permit swift utilisation of the funds, the EUR 30 million will also be allocated through ECHO.
Emphasis will probably be put on temporary dwellings and repair works for essential public infrastructure like schools and hospitals.
A more precise picture of needs will result from the joint assessment mission similar to the one that has just been called for, I would presume, that is being undertaken in the disaster areas by ECHO, the Commission' s representation in Ankara, the United Nations and the World Bank acting collectively.
In the medium to long-term, reconstruction needs will clearly have to be addressed after comprehensive damage assessment.
Meanwhile the Commission envisages the use of the following instruments to support further rehabilitation and reconstruction works.
<P>
Firstly, from 2000 onwards, Turkey should receive a share which reflects its important reconstruction needs from the MEDA 2 funds.
Secondly, as this House will know, there are two regulations before the Council and this Parliament that will underpin the European strategy for Turkey.
Those regulations foresee a total of EUR 150 million for Turkey over a three-year period which the Turkish Government regards as being of significant help.
This week' s General Affairs Council committed itself to adoption and implementation of the regulations as soon as possible and asks the European Parliament - this is the Council speaking - to take this into account in their consideration.
I hope that this House will seek to expedite its consideration of the legislation which has been here since last spring as far as my knowledge extends.
I hope, therefore, that the honourable Members directly engaged in that consideration will not further delay their work.
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Thirdly, the European Investment Bank is asked to make a special effort - we think around EUR 600 million worth of lending - to support reconstruction needs.
Plainly that will require an additional allocation from the guarantee budget line.
<P>
In addition to these developments, the Commission envisages the possibility of acting in coordination with the IMF in granting Turkey macrofinancial assistance geared towards maintaining the reform process under what are evidently difficult conditions.
<P>
We trust that these short, medium and longer-term support initiatives will be of sustained help to the people of Turkey and we are sure that people right across the European Union will join us in hoping that the arduous task of restoring communities and morale will be successful.
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As the House will know, and as we have heard from several honourable Members in their statements and speeches in the course of this afternoon, the people of Greece also suffered tragic deaths and damage in recent earthquakes and further tremors.
As this Parliament will also recognise, there are no funds on the budget line for emergency aid within the Community.
There is, therefore, little that the Commission can do to give material support to the efforts of the Greek people and its government in the short-term.
However, together with the Greek Government, the Commission will look into the possibilities of reallocating some of the unused Objective 2 resources for reconstruction support in Greece.
<P>
The recent earthquakes, as several honourable Members have commented, were obviously unmitigated tragedies but once again they showed that the human capacity for mercy can be greater than any long-standing divisions.
In the international effort for Turkish victims, the Greek Government gave instant support.
When the earth trembled in Athens, the Turkish Government was one of the first to send relief workers and equipment.
Let us hope that what we have seen graphically demonstrated, indeed movingly in this Chamber this afternoon, and the genuinely humane gestures undertaken by both Greeks and Turks in recent weeks, will lead to the strengthening of relations between the two neighbours and between Turkey and the European Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
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The debate is closed.
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The vote will take place this afternoon at 5.30 p.m.
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<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Mr President, according to today' s agenda, the debate on matters of urgency was supposed to begin at 4 p.m..
I arrived at ten to four and as I was entering, I saw my name light up.
This almost made me out to appear unpunctual in front of Parliament, the Chamber and my colleagues watching.
I imagine that other speakers would have experienced such unpleasant surprises, too.
Could you explain, Mr President, how this confusion came about?
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<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="President">
My expert advisers are telling me that, according to the Rules of Procedure, the action of Parliament and the session president, my predecessor, was correct, as the Agenda stated that the Commission statement on the financial crisis in Russia would take place from 3 to 4 p.m., and the topical and urgent debate would begin immediately after the Commission statement or by 4 p.m. at the latest.
That means, therefore, in the Agenda which you have before you, an alternative was also given.
That is the Agenda for the sitting of 16 September.
I am sorry that you will have to remain here a little longer, but that was correct according to the official running order.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Dagestan
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolution:
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B5-0071/99 by Mrs Muscardini, on behalf of the UEN Group, on the situation in Dagestan;
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B5-0078/99 by Mr Sakellariou, Mrs Krehl, Mr Wiersma and Mrs Jöns, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the situation in the Republic of Dagestan (Russian Federation);
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B5-0090/99 by Mr Alavanos, Mrs Schleicher, Mr Posselt and Mrs Grossetête, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the conflict in the Autonomous Republic of Dagestan;
<P>
B5-0095/99 by Mr Haarder, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on Dagestan;
<P>
B5-0103/99 by Mrs Schroedter, Mrs Lambert, Mrs Isler Béguin and Mr Voggenhuber, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group, on the conflict in the Autonomous Republic of Dagestan.
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<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wiersma">
Mr President, it is actually a little strange that we closed a debate half an hour ago on the financial vicissitudes of Russia and have now moved on to another problem facing the country.
Perhaps we should have organised things a little better here in this Parliament and had an extensive debate on Russia and all the things going on there, in view of its needs and the great importance of the country, also from the European Union' s point of view, in an attempt to get some kind of grip on the situation.
Once again, I would like to endorse what Mr Swoboda said on the matter.
Having just discussed the financial vicissitudes of Russia we are now going to discuss the political stability of the country.
Recent developments there give cause for concern, indeed I might say a great deal of cause for concern.
Violent conflict in Dagestan, bomb attacks in Moscow, and all this in the midst of rumours about plots and all kinds of theories as to what is supposed to be behind it all, and all the different associations being made, for example with the forthcoming parliamentary elections and attempts by certain groups to undermine this process.
<P>
We lament the violence and the victims and we sympathise with the Russian authorities, who are trying to get the situation under control.
We repudiate the violence in the severest terms.
Russia has enough problems as it is.
Even the political system is under pressure and political violence will only increase instability in the country.
The negative consequences of this affect us too.
The violence in Dagestan, the subject we are actually discussing, may spread further through the Caucasus, with all kinds of unpredictable consequences.
No one is anticipating that either.
Whilst it may be clear as to why it is in our interests to find a political solution, we only have a limited amount of influence over the internal situation in Russia.
Indeed the debate we have just had demonstrated this and all we can do is encourage the Russian authorities to restore order with the minimum of violence.
The Russian authorities must enter into political dialogue with the authorities of Chechnya, who must also take responsibility and stop supporting illegal groups in Dagestan.
We believe, and this point is also made in the resolution, that the OSCE should be the one to bear this message.
The EU should concern itself more with the socio-economic development of the region, another point made in our text.
These are small steps which are unlikely to have a great deal of impact on Russia as a whole.
But they are things we can do and which will also serve to convey that we have our reasons for wanting Russia to become stable, both in terms of the details we are discussing here and as a whole.
We must be ready to deliver any humanitarian aid that is required.
We must provide help wherever we are able to do so.
But we do not have much of a grip on the situation.
That is one of the greatest risks which Europe will have to face in coming years and I call upon Parliament, but also the Commission and the Council, to put the debate on Russia and its future in Europe on the agenda, and keep it there.
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<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schleicher">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we must be aware of the fact that there is seething unrest in the Caucasus.
Right now it concerns the tragic fate of the people in Dagestan.
Most news reports only give us a scant account of the drama taking place in this part of the world.
We need humanitarian aid there urgently.
The main thing would be above all for these people in Dagestan to be granted the same autonomy as they already have in neighbouring states.
So what is happening?
There is clearly a lack of objective information on the political situation there, but there is also a lack of respect for human rights.
The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe must be commissioned to prepare a report for our Parliament, the Commission and the Council, and the task which faces us generally in our various Groups must be directed particularly at obtaining such information as quickly as possible and reliably.
Regardless of where responsibility lies for the situation in Dagestan, the fact remains that it is a result of the dramatic developments following the fall of the iron curtain and that the countries in this region have only managed with great difficulty to liberate themselves.
In addition, the political authorities responsible continue to attempt to regulate ethnic groups and to create divisions between them.
<P>
We have seen this in direct proximity to us in Europe in the former Yugoslavia, and now we are observing similar developments further away.
We must do all we can to extinguish the fire that has been kindled there, so that the people in this part of the world also have the possibility of developing in peace, establishing their own autonomy, and having a future, such as we have already secured for ourselves in Europe.
We should not forget that a few decades ago we lived through a similar fate here in Europe.
We were then reasonable and came to an understanding, and it is now our job to help people there in their development, which may perhaps run a similar course, but which can in any case offer them the possibility of a future, in which their existence is secure, and where they can take control of their own destiny.
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<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Haarder">
Mr President, I think it is only right that we should use most of this afternoon to discuss the smoking heap of ruins that the former Soviet Union has left behind.
In fact, the conflict in Dagestan has to do not only with the conflict between the Russian army and militant Islamicists from Chechnya but also with Russia' s weakness, with oil in the Caspian Sea and with poverty in the northern Caucasus which is being increased by the lack of economic support from Moscow.
There are perhaps 30 different peoples in Dagestan with just as many different languages.
One small group consists of Chechens who are supporting the guerrilla leader Basayev in an attempt to incorporate Dagestan into Chechnya. On the other side there are these fundamentalist Wahabis who want to establish an Islamic state with support from Saudi Arabia and Osama bin Laden.
So the scene is set and all the ingredients are there for a tragedy of inconceivable proportions over the next few years.
The local population has so far not supported the Wahabis' desire for an Islamic state, but things can change.
They are one of the poorest republics in the Russian Federation.
80% of young people between the ages of 18 and 35 are unemployed, and the average wage is below the Russian minimum wage.
And in Moscow there is not a lot of interest in the situation.
<P>
Now, the population is receiving a greeting from Moscow in the form of bombings.
Moscow is supposed to be protecting the population, of course, but is instead perceived by many as the opposite of a protector, namely as the party which is bombing them.
The problem is that journalists dare not travel to the place.
They are kidnapped and taken hostage for cash.
Nor do I think, therefore, that this Parliament is in a position to express a particularly precise opinion about this tragedy which is now unfolding.
But the resolution says what needs to be said, and the most important thing is that we now promise each other to keep a sharp eye open for any means of helping, any means of contributing to stability in this unhappy part of the world.
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<SPEAKER ID=118 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, five year ago it was the Chechen war which concerned us on a daily basis.
Thanks to pressure from this European Parliament, decisive diplomatic steps were then taken.
The risk of a major conflagration was already colossal, and they were successful, at the time, in damping things down.
But there was no follow up action.
In the action programme on Russia, which has already been mentioned today, this specific region is omitted and, in the dramatic poverty which predominates there, extremists of course have an easy job of it.
If we have an interest in a concept of security embracing all of Europe, we cannot be indifferent to the situation in the Caucasus.
As anyone familiar with the region knows, it is more difficult than ever for measures to be taken in the area, and therefore in our resolution we prescribed only a verification mission, to begin with.
As we know, there is no one at the present time who is prepared to go there.
<P>
Nonetheless, the people there are in real need of humanitarian aid, and this must take priority.
But even the extension of the mandate of the OSCE mission in terms of finance and personnel should be checked seriously, and I request Mr Kinnock to assign Mr Patten to report to us in the Committee on Foreign Affairs on the results of this verification, so that we can reach further conclusions.
I consider this to be urgent, and I consider it to be our important contribution towards achieving stability in these regions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="Kinnock">
, Neil, Commission.
The Commission is following the situation in Dagestan and the related issues in Moscow referred to by Mr Wiersma very carefully.
Naturally we deeply regret the loss of many lives and the displacement of nearly 40,000 people from their homes as a result of military activity in the Caucasus region.
<P>
Current information is that Russian troops appear to have secured most, if not all, of the villages occupied by the invasion forces from Chechnya.
As the House will know, this was the second major incursion from Chechnya since early August.
Fighting still continues in the border region.
According to reports available to the Commission, the invasions have not gained any general support amongst the population of Dagestan.
At present it is not clear whether and to what extent Islamic extremists from outside the region have incited or financed the incursions.
<P>
For the moment, therefore, the Commission, in common with others in the international community, calls on the Russian authorities to use proportionate force both in fighting on the territory of Dagestan and in hot pursuit operations across the Chechen border.
We also call on the Chechen authorities to prevent such incursions being launched from their territory.
<P>
We also share parliamentary and public concern about what realistically seems to be the terrorist bombings in Moscow and, as recently as this morning, in Volgadansk.
The Commission joins with the Finnish presidency in expressing its sympathy to the Russian authorities.
We await the results of the official Russian investigations into the blasts before attributing the blame for these atrocities to any particular group.
<P>
The Commission is reassured to note official statements from Moscow that neither the crisis in Dagestan nor the Moscow bombings will be treated as a cause for declaring a state of emergency and thus postponing the forthcoming duma elections.
At all costs all parties must ensure that the current situation is not allowed to destabilise Dagestan, cause destabilisation in the longer term, or lead to greater political instability in Russia as a whole.
<P>
Mrs Schroedter raised the question of a hearing with my colleague, Mr Patten, in the Foreign Affairs Committee.
I will certainly pass on her comments.
Knowing Mr Patten, I am sure he will respond with alacrity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, unfortunately I have not been informed precisely, and now I would like to ask, whether I have the right to the minute' s speaking time which I had before but did not use, in order to say something.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, Mr Kinnock very clearly pointed out the risk that this problem presents for stability in Europe and throughout the world as a whole.
For there is a real danger that extremist forces may use this to bring about a state of emergency in Russia.
No one knows exactly what the background to this aggression is.
What is happening in Russia at present is extremely worrying.
We naturally condemn any form of extremism, but we must ascertain the precise background.
As regards Chechnya and Dagestan, this is the long-term damage left by a brutal colonial regime, which we will only get to grips with little by little.
<P>
We must therefore urge most strongly, firstly that Russia must respect its obligations resulting from the peace agreement with Chechnya and must resume reconstruction work there.
Secondly action must be taken to prevent destabilisation of the ethnic balance in Dagestan.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="President">
With that, the debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Human rights
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wiersma">
Mr President, I shall not use up all the speaking time allotted to me.
The resolution we have here speaks for itself.
In addition, this morning we have again spoken extensively about the situation in Kosovo, and about all the things we want to do there to ensure that the country is rebuilt as quickly as possible.
Of course there are now all kinds of problems that need to be resolved as a matter of urgency and to which immediate attention must be given.
The resolution goes into this as well.
I am referring here to the several thousand Kosovars being held captive by the Serbian authorities.
Most of them were arrested during the military operation against Kosovo, when a state of emergency was declared throughout Yugoslavia.
The conflict has been over for a few months now, but the people are still in captivity.
It is true that there is an agreement, on the basis of which the conflict was brought to an end, but it would appear that when this agreement was concluded, the group of people in captivity was forgotten about.
No agreements were drawn up about this.
We believe that all those people who were taken captive after 24 March, that is after the state of emergency was declared, must be released as soon as possible.
Pressure must be brought to bear on the Serbian government as a matter of urgency in order to achieve this, and today' s debate also serves to underline how urgent this is.
I hope that the Council and the Commission will do all that can be done to help secure the release of these people and their return to their homes as soon as possible, just as all the other refugees who were outside Kosovo have been able to return to their homes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is the second time we have discussed Kosovo today.
We are now discussing a matter, in which little can be changed unless there is some goodwill on the part of the powers-that-be in Belgrade.
Unfortunately, neither the Kumanovo Agreement between Nato and the Yugoslavian government nor the UN Resolution which gave the mandate for the international presence in Kosovo made any mention of the situation of the Albanian prisoners in Belgrade and the missing persons.
<P>
Here too we should have learnt from our experience in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Today, three years after Dayton, we still do not know where many of the missing people are.
On a weekly basis I receive queries from families who are still looking for missing persons, and who have not received any details.
<P>
What sort of people are these who detain thousands of their fellow men for years in inhumane conditions for no good reason, leaving the family members of these prisoners, the wives, mothers and children, in ignorance as to their fate?
<P>
Perhaps we should appeal to them less as politicians and authorities in this region than as the father or sons they also are.
Unfortunately we cannot compel them.
The Serbian regime leaves us no formal means to do this. But its conduct goes against any conception of legality, never mind humanity.
<P>
We therefore call on the UN Administrator, Kouchner, and also the OSCE, to seek a way to ensure their release.
We place our hopes in a sub-committee for problems of prisoners and exiles of the Kosovo Transitional Council.
<P>
But we expect all states in the international community not to lift any of the sanctions against Serbia until, among other things, these prisoners are released.
<P>
It is possible to have peaceful co-existence between Serbs and Albanians, and between Croats, Muslims and Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina, only if, among other things, the matter of prisoners and deportees is clarified.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Staes">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this afternoon' s debate is, of course, closely associated with the debate we had this morning on the Pack report and the reconstruction of Kosova.
Yes, you heard correctly, I am talking about Kosova and not Kosovo, and I do this out of respect for the Albanians whose true homeland is Kosova and who make up 80 to 90% of the population there.
They speak Albanian, and Kosova is the Albanian word for Kosovo.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, I have been to Kosova.
I devoted part of my holiday to this trip.
I have spoken to most of the Albanian political leaders and they included Mr Rugova of the LDK, the LBD, the Christian Democrats, the Social Democrats, and also representatives of the KLA.
I have to say, everyone is hugely grateful for the international presence.
People are very grateful that UNMIC and KFOR are there but fear a sort of "over-colonisation" taking place.
People are scared that the international bodies will not take enough account of the Kosovan people' s strength.
<P>
Of course some of this frustration can be put down to the fate endured by the Kosovan prisoners, who are sitting in Serbian prisons as we speak.
After the Serbian reign of terror, with all the murder, fire, and ethnic cleansing that entailed, these people are now left with the fear as to what has become of what are literally many thousands of missing persons and prisoners.
That is why I give my full support to the appeal made both by Mr Wiersma and Mrs Pack, and to the compromise resolution before us.
We must adopt this resolution and we must endeavour to reach a solution for these prisoners using all the decisiveness and vigour this Parliament can muster.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, the image we have of the Kosovars is perhaps one we have acquired from the international press, namely that the Kosovars, the Albanians that is, have taken over where the Serbians left off and it is now they who are oppressing the Serbians and the gypsies.
I have been to Kosova and do not believe this to be the case.
Personal acts of revenge are indeed being carried out and we must condemn these.
They can never be defended but, ladies and gentlemen, let us not equate such acts of revenge with the ethnic cleansing, the systematic terrorisation there has been over the last ten years.
Let us ponder that for a moment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, I am very happy to see that our Parliament is finally looking into this matter.
It is obvious that the international community made a serious mistake by not including the question of Kosovar prisoners in the agreements reached with the authorities in Belgrade.
We must now correct this mistake.
I agree entirely with our colleague Doris Pack when she says that this must be a precondition for any lifting of sanctions.
I agree rather less, though, on the ability of the European Union and the international authorities to intervene in this matter.
The issue of Kosovar prisoners is a humanitarian issue.
The European Union is still providing humanitarian aid to Serbia.
This is the only channel for aid still open.
<P>
I think, and the Commission is in a prime position to intervene at this level, that as the issue of the Kosovar prisoners is a humanitarian one, the European Union could be less zealous in its supply of aid to the Serbian authorities until they have released all Kosovar prisoners.
I feel that there is something we can do straight away, which is to send a clear message to the authorities in Belgrade, and I ask the Commission to let us know the results of its steps as quickly as possible.
<P>
Burma
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Ghilardotti">
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, in the recent summer months thousands more people have fled Burma in order to escape the violence, the enforced deportations from their own country, the forced labour and the political repression.
There are now 150,000 refugees in camps, mainly in Thailand but also in Malaysia and India.
Then there are a further 100,000 illegal refugees in the surrounding countries, in Australia, Europe and the United States.
<P>
This summer I attended a conference in Bangkok held by an international organisation that concerns itself with Burma.
I got to know many representatives of the refugees again.
They feel that Europe will gradually start to forget about them and that people no longer really take the situation that has now been going on in Burma for ten years very seriously.
<P>
We know that Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi has now been under house arrest for ten years and that with 80% of the Burmese people' s votes, she is the chosen president.
We are aware that Burma' s Parliament was disbanded, that dozens of Members of Parliament have been killed, are in prison or under house arrest, or are among the refugees.
<P>
We know that the situation is growing more serious: the Burmese government is stepping up the repression in the shadow of the events in Indonesia.
In fact almost nothing is being done at the moment.
Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi has appealed to the western democracies to give her more help.
I want to appeal to the European Union to follow suit.
A delegation of diplomats went to Burma just before the summer but came back with nothing to show for its pains.
<P>
The sanctions already in force for Burma are to be extended in October and my group believes that it would be better if they were strengthened.
The United States has already added an investment freeze to these sanctions.
Let Europe at last show a united front for once and do the same.
I notice Commissioner Kinnock is nodding.
I sincerely hope that he will convey this message and our resolution to the European Council of Ministers, and that measures will at last be taken which will help to bring down the regime in Rangoon and which will enable Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi to truly feel that her actions, which are peaceful ones, are being supported.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Knörr Borràs">
Mr President, to speak of Burma truthfully, crudely and without disguising our words, is to speak of the violation of human and collective rights, of the non-recognition of the results of free elections and the persistence of dictatorship, of human exploitation through forced labour which benefits certain Western multinationals.
And this is happening in a country which, unfortunately, was the first to benefit from our programme of preferential treatment, which should have had a better future.
<P>
The European Union must continue to act under the Finnish Presidency so that relations with Burma can be re-established as soon as possible, but on the basis of the respect for human rights, the results of the elections and the liberation of the British prisoners who were arrested for defending democracy.
We must put pressure on the military Junta and not allow them to find ways of circumventing democratic legitimacy, which will make a mockery of it.
We must find the best way of working out a solution.
<P>
I hope, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, that the European Union, neither now - with Finland - nor later, allows such a mockery to take place.
And I hope that all of you - and Mr Kinnock in particular - will also condemn the behaviour of those companies which take advantage of human exploitation in a country which is under a dictatorial system and regime.
<P>
<P>
Iran
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Zimeray">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, only two years ago, in Iran, two Jews were accused of spying for Israel.
They were sentenced to death and were hanged.
<P>
Today, thirteen Jews and several Muslims from Isfahan, Shiraz and Tehran have been arrested and face the same fate.
Little is known about them.
The accused, one of whom is sixteen years old, come from humble backgrounds: a cemetery caretaker, a shoemaker, a ritual performer of circumcisions, a teacher of Hebrew.
It is hard to believe that these unfortunate people are really endangering Iran' s democracy.
<P>
Since their arrest, there has been no news of them.
When we start hearing about Jews being arrested and espionage trials, this is a very worrying sign.
We are worried because we know what conditions of detention in Iran are like.
This is worrying because no evidence, no specific charge has so far been made public and there has been no due hearing of the case.
We are worried because the accused do not have the right to mount a defence.
<P>
We are worried, Mr President and also sad, because we were delighted at the prospective rapprochement between Iran and the European Union.
It is now obvious that this business compromises the rapprochement and until we have obtained guarantees that the rights of these prisoners are being respected, we cannot even consider it.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are now hostages coming between Iran and the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Morillon">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the fears expressed just now by our colleague Mr Zimeray are justified by the recent death sentences passed on four people, following the student demonstrations which took place in July. These fears are backed up by the hanging last year of a 60 year old man.
<P>
There has consequently been great consensus on the motion for a resolution which will be submitted shortly for Parliament' s approval.
Its aim is to demonstrate Parliament' s indignation at the procedures which have been applied, and to demand that the basic rights to a defence be respected.
It asks that international observers be authorised to follow the whole trial in court.
And finally, it is restating our desire to maintain dialogue, only to the extent that it would allow for progress in the area of human rights in that country, particularly in order to have these death sentences revoked.
<P>
For this reason, I feel that the amendment tabled by our colleagues in the Greens Group is even clearer than the initial common resolution, and I would like to say that, personally, I am in favour of it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Malmström">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the news last Sunday about the death sentences issued against the four people involved in the student disturbances over the summer in Iran sent a wave of disgust and indignation among the Iranian people and throughout other countries.
The shock was that much greater because many of us were delighted at the election of President Chatami and at the signals of openness, reforms and respect for human rights which he was giving out.
The Iranian people could at last begin to hope for a new future and for a time when the period of killing and violence would be behind them.
<P>
Following the student demonstrations in the summer, President Chatami promised open and just trials for those involved.
It is therefore incomprehensible and deeply worrying that the legal process was held in secret and that the death sentences against four people were published almost en passant in a newspaper interview.
The light and hope which were kindled among the Iranians following the election is now at risk of going out, and the improved relations between the EU and Iran are at risk of cooling.
I nonetheless hope that the President can draw strength from the massive support he obtained from the voters in the election and that he will act to ensure that the revolutionary court repeals the death sentences so that Iran might continue along the road to reforms and the development of a civil society.
<P>
This Chamber strongly condemns the death penalty wherever it is practised and will continue to do so.
Offences against human rights can never be merely a matter of a country' s internal affairs.
I hope that this message will also be conveyed by the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Wuori">
Mr President, distress cannot be measured or compared quantitatively.
It is quite shocking how the tragedies we have seen in Kosovo, East Timor, Turkey and, in some respect, Greece, have overshadowed the situation in Iran, which has become very significantly worse.
In addition to death sentences passed at secretly held trials, we have today had news of new harsh political sentences.
The freedom of the press has, at the same time, been stifled and, in this way, the considerable curtailment of human rights has reached a very critical stage.
The European Union is having a dialogue with the Islamic Republic of Iran, which should not be just critical, but actively critical.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Belder">
Mr President, the power struggle in the Islamic Republic of Iran between conservatives and those inclined towards reform continues to rage unabated until today with all the consequences you would expect for the constitutional state, in other words the non-application of the constitutional state' s basic principles.
Fortunately, critical Iranian newspapers and some Iranian members of government are brave enough today to speak out about these very principles.
The same applies both to the students under arrest and to the Iranian Jews accused of espionage.
The extent to which they are prepared to stick their necks out is apparent from the sombre and also dispassionate reports by Iranian political analysts.
Quote: "As long as the generally-held view in Iran is one which defines dissidents as people of another faith and which derives the right to decide on whether people should live or die, or the right to take the fate of the country into their own hands, from religion, the country' s political climate will continue to be poisoned and politically-motivated violence is to be expected" .
Unquote.
<P>
There has certainly been no lack of this type of violence in the Islamic Republic of Iran since it was first founded in 1979.
The murders that took place last autumn of four independently minded souls are still fresh in the memory, and of course we must not forget the extraordinarily brutal treatment meted out by the henchmen from the conservative camp of the supreme lawyer Khamenei.
The latter and his immediate entourage attempted to conceal their involvement in the grim liquidations of 1998 with utterly vile lies about a Jewish-American plot against the fatherland.
The international community, and therefore likewise the European institutions, must rally around the indigenous voices calling for open and just trials for the students and Jews held in captivity.
And so it goes without saying that we support the joint draft resolution.
<P>
Togo
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 NAME="Watson">
Mr President, the ageing dictatorial dinosaurs which stalk across the African sub-continent are dying and a new dawn of democracy is appearing.
But in one country, a dinosaur has presided over a regime responsible for widespread human rights violations for 32 years.
President Eyadema would be my first candidate for bringing before the new International Criminal Court.
The situation there is grave.
We know about the deaths at the time of the elections.
We know about the human rights activists tortured in jail every day.
We need to use the office of the EU facilitator to sort that out, to get an agreement between Eyadema and the opposition parties to take Togo to democracy.
We call on the Council which will be meeting to make sure that the office for the facilitators is given the resources that it needs in order to be able to do that job.
<P>
Cooperation between the European Union and Togo should only be resumed when Togo fully complies with the provisions of Article 5 of the Lomé Convention.
In the meantime we should be supporting independent media and civil society groups to bring what help we can to the population.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schwaiger">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, regional co-operation between the states of West Africa has made good progress in recent times.
A West African economic community on the model of the European Union is beginning to take shape.
But one of the main impediments to further regional integration is the non-operation of democratic institutions, particularly of the Parliament in Togo.
The Group of the European People' s Party therefore welcomes the serious endeavours of practically all political forces in Togo to make the development towards democracy irrevocable and to prepare within the next few months for elections to the National Assembly which will be indisputably democratic and free of pressure from the army and the State President and his entourage.
<P>
We are in favour of peaceful transition to a fully functioning democracy.
We also accept that State President Eyadema will continue his period of office until the year 2003, even though the counting procedures of the last presidential election showed rather more than cosmetic flaws.
We also call, however, upon the State President and his administration, to agree, in collaboration with all political forces in the country, upon an election procedure which gives the same chances to every political grouping which complies with democratic rules.
We acknowledge the very constructive role played in this by our former colleague, the French ombudsman, Bernard Stasi, and his two colleagues from Germany and Austria, as mediators.
In this regard, it is essential that the elections are faultlessly prepared, carried out in a non-partisan way and result in a government freely and democratically elected by the people of Togo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Rod">
The situation in Togo is not new.
Indeed, since General Eyadema seized power, there have been constant violations of human rights: executions, cases of torture and arrests.
After the electoral fraud last year which allowed General Eyadema to hold on to power, we are right to be worried about the democratic intentions of this regime.
The absence of an independent electoral commission, the absence of fair access to the media, the absence of any guarantee of the right to campaign, have all led the opposition, which is in the majority, to boycott next spring' s legislative elections.
<P>
Even if we take the agreement recently signed with the opposition to be a step forward, it is still inadequate, and risks being a meaningless scrap of paper unless it provides a number of guarantees.
We must bring an immediate end to the impunity enjoyed by those who commit such abuses, and we must also ensure that the authorities do in fact respect human rights.
The parliament must not only be dissolved, but we must also demand Mr Eyadema' s resignation, before the end of his term of office, so that genuinely free and fair elections can be organised.
<P>
These conditions must be met if the European Union is to resume co-operation with Togo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
.
Mr President, I must say that, as I listened to these very high-quality debates in the course of this afternoon, I reflected again on the maxim that if the state of domestic affairs makes you depressed, the state of international affairs will make you desperate.
None of us can succumb to such pessimism and that is why strong concern and demands for action have been voiced in this democratic House. I very much welcome that.
It shows that there are much better and more lively alternatives to simply surrendering to hopelessness, which is sometimes a temptation, both for political representatives and activists and indeed for the more general public.
<P>
Can I first of all turn to the debates on Kosovo and the various tragedies attending that sad part of the world?
The Commission fully shares the concerns expressed in the draft resolutions before the House, both in relation to the continuing ethnic violence in Kosovo and the earlier so-called disappearances and the detentions.
We naturally also join Members of this House in strongly condemning violence, no matter which ethnic group is the perpetrator or the victim, and we actively support efforts by UNMIK, KFOR and OSCE to establish law and order in Kosovo.
The Commission obviously shares the deep concern of this House about the fate of the many civilians who are still missing.
We are therefore directly involved in efforts to determine which of the missing people are still held in Serb prisons and which have been killed during the war and the circumstances in which they died.
The Union is consequently providing support for forensic investigations into alleged war crimes, and earlier this week the General Affairs Council' s conclusions expressed deep concern that the question of several thousand persons - overwhelmingly Kosovo Albanians - who have disappeared remains open.
<P>
Finally, on numerous occasions, the Commission has condemned the gross failure of the authorities of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Serbia, to respect accepted international norms of humanity and minority rights.
That apparent contempt for international obligations is one of the main impediments to improved relations between the former Republic of Yugoslavia and the European Union and an impediment too to the reintegration of the former Republic into the international community.
That impediment is likely to stay, as long as the Serb authorities pursue their present policy.
<P>
I move now to the resolution relating to the situation in Burma.
The Commission, as the House will know, strongly deplores the continued violation of human rights by the military authorities in Burma: in particular, the oppressive treatment of ethnic minorities, the persecution of Aung San Suu Kyi and other NLD members, the denial of basic trade union rights and the use of forced labour, the prohibition of freely functioning parties, the countless arbitrary arrests and the continuing state violence.
We also share concern about the treatment of European Union citizens who have been arrested because of their public engagement in democracy movement activities in Burma.
In April this year the European Union common position strengthened the October 1998 policy decision by covering transit visas and including a ban on tourist visits by people associated with the Burmese authorities.
The Commission supported that action and assists the democracy movement and refugees in Burma, including of course by providing financial support for the Brussels office.
The Council is currently reviewing the common position and its extension, as honourable Members said in the debate, should be decided before the 29 October.
<P>
The Commission has made it clear that although Burma has become a member of ASEAN the European Union cannot agree to Burmese participation in the EC/ASEAN Agreement.
We use every opportunity to press our Asian partners to urge the Government of Burma to enter into a substantive dialogue with the opposition, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, and with the ethnic minorities and to change its policies radically in order to respect human rights.
<P>
Members are aware that Aung San Suu Kyi recently renewed her call for more comprehensive international economic sanctions against Burma, including unilateral sanctions, whilst the present regime controls the country that she loves.
<P>
The Commission participated in the recent EU troika visit to Rangoon which was undertaken with the aim of clearing the way for the establishment of a political dialogue with Burma as provided for in the Council conclusions of 26 April.
The objectives of establishing political dialogue are to explain the European Union common position on the human rights situation and on the absence of the rule of law and democracy in Burma and to assist in creating conditions that would be conducive to political dialogue between the governing SPDC military junta and the democratic opposition and representatives of the ethnic minorities.
<P>
The European Commission remains committed to maintaining the pressure upon the SPDC, formerly known as the Slorc.
Meanwhile the international situation continues to deteriorate and no meaningful response has been made to the repeated international calls for the Burmese authorities to take steps towards the promotion of democracy, human rights and national reconciliation.
<P>
The Commission therefore continues to support the renewal of the common position next month and the strict enforcement of the resulting pressures and sanctions.
<P>
I now turn to the situation in Iran, to which attention has again been drawn by resolutions before this House.
<P>
As the House will know, the Commission views the human rights situation in Iran with deep concern, which we share with this House.
In the comprehensive dialogue between the European Union and Iran, questions directly relating to human rights are always raised by the European Union representatives.
Whilst the Commission does not have any bilateral contractual relationship with Iran or representation in the country, we associate with the démarche made by the European Union troika.
The treatment of members of religious minorities in Iran, particularly the Baha' is, was raised by the Union troika during the meetings with the Iranian Government last December and in May this year.
That pressure will be maintained.
<P>
To come to the specific points relating to violations of human rights raised by Mr Zimeray, Mr Morillon and Miss Malmström, I would like to say that a Union troika démarche concerning the death sentences on four students, which incorporates the views expressed by this Parliament, is being prepared by the Finnish presidency.
The Commission is also concerned about the trial of 13 Jews from Shiraz on charges of espionage.
The Union has made a number of representations on the subject, both through the troika and bilaterally.
<P>
It is evident that the recent developments in Iran reflect the internal power struggle between moderate reformists and conservative hard-liners.
The efforts of the conservatives to regain the initiative and undermine the government must realistically be regarded as a preface to the parliamentary elections which are due to take place next February.
<P>
Meanwhile the Commission considers that particularly in the period leading up to those elections, the policy of the cautious opening of relations with Iran through the comprehensive dialogue, should continue as a way of encouraging Mr Khatami' s government and the supporters of reform, many of whom are showing considerable courage in their efforts for change in extremely difficult and dangerous circumstances.
<P>
I now move to the issue of Togo.
As the House will know, the European Community suspended development cooperation with Togo in 1992.
Despite some shifts in the political situation since then, I regret to say that the prerequisites for the resumption of development cooperation and the full normalisation of relations with Togo - respect for democratic principles, the rule of law and human rights - are still not adequately fulfilled.
However a certain political momentum towards political reconciliation has been created through the Lomé framework agreement that was reached between the government and the opposition in July of this year.
<P>
The progress was made possible through the facilitators provided by the European Union, as Mr Watson just said.
The Union, therefore, intends to support continued action by the facilitators as well as projects that are related to the full restoration of the rule of law and respect for human rights.
<P>
The Commission welcomes the positive will for progress that was demonstrated by the government in opposition in the framework agreement, but substantial further progress - for example, properly conducted legislative elections that are anticipated in the next year - is required before we can consider resuming regular cooperation.
<P>
The Commission shares the particular concern for the resolution of the general human rights situation in Togo that is expressed in motions before this House.
It is obviously very disturbing that the offences against human rights reported recently by Amnesty International have largely been confirmed by other sources.
It has, however, not yet been possible to verify some of the most serious allegations concerning large-scale killings.
Further investigations would therefore be welcomed by the Commission.
<P>
The House will know that wherever problems relating to human rights occur the United Nations system provides for a number of follow-up mechanisms to promote improvement in the situation.
Such measures could, in the view of the Commission, be considered in the case of Togo and it would appear that they would certainly be justified.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Lusaka peace agreements
<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on the following motions for resolution:
<P>
B5-0070/99 by Mrs Muscardini, on behalf of the UEN Group, on the Lusaka peace agreement;
<P>
B5-0082/99 by Mr Van Hecke and Mr Corrie, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the Lusaka cease-fire agreement;
<P>
B5-0084/99 by Mr Miranda and Mrs Morgantini, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the Lusaka agreement on the future in the Great Lakes region in Africa;
<P>
B5-0094/99 by Mr Van Hecke, Mr Corrie and Mrs Grossetête, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the Lusaka cease-fire agreement;
<P>
B5-0099/99 by Mr Van den Bos and Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the Lusaka cease-fire agreement;
<P>
B5-0101/99 by Mrs Maes, Mr Rod, Mr Schörling, Mrs Lucas and Mrs Boumedine-Thiery, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group, on the Lusaka peace agreement for the Great Lakes region.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Hecke">
Mr President, yesterday evening in a long television speech, President Kabila again reaffirmed his faith in the Lusaka agreements.
Sadly, there continues to be a huge difference between words and deeds.
So far, there has been no sign of the hoped-for overtures towards the political parties.
Worse still, in the course of the last few weeks, a number of prominent opposition figures have again been picked up and put behind bars with no charge whatsoever having been brought against them.
It is crucial that the Congolese authorities permit political activities to take place, as soon as possible, and make an immediate start on releasing political prisoners.
For it is only in a constructive and transparent climate characterised by goodwill on the part of all the parties concerned, that the national dialogue will have a chance of succeeding.
It is, of course, clear that at the present time there are some very divergent interpretations in relation to the forms of the national dialogue.
There continues to be a great deal of confusion.
Therefore we still have a long way to go before we have a stable, peaceful and democratic Congo.
But the Lusaka agreement has lent important impetus to the process.
We must now take full advantage of this impetus.
Africa must not disappear from our political agenda, notwithstanding the priority that is understandably being given to the Balkans and East Timor.
And so we expect the European Union to become very actively involved and we hope that the Commission will do its duty and support the peace process in the Congo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Ducarme">
Mr President, the Lusaka Agreement is a positive step and, naturally, my group wholeheartedly supports this process which is moving towards peace.
<P>
We will therefore be voting for this resolution because we feel that, from the outset, it provides a response to the Rwandan tragedy and to the need to confront concerns about Congo.
Having said that, I would like to make two observations.
Firstly, this agreement is fragile, and no one can guarantee today that we will not be confronted by a major obstacle - here, the several armed groups who are not aligned to any State, are not under anyone' s control, and these groups could, in fact, destabilise the peace process.
We must be vigilant in this matter.
<P>
Secondly, we feel that Europe must pursue this course of action, take responsibility for its past and uphold its duty to remember.
Although the Commission has a role to play in this, I feel that the Council should also remain alert to it, because we think that in the future, we will be moving towards a partnership agreement between Europe and these countries.
It might also be a good idea if, through the Council, countries such as the United Kingdom, France, Portugal and Belgium should face up to their past more productively than they have done to date.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, Commissioner, the words spoken by my colleagues show how fragile a peace process is and, at the same time, how important.
The hostilities and war in the Congo, but also in the region of the Great Lakes and in Angola, are all interlinked conflicts and are not just the cause of dreadful human suffering but will also hinder any efforts to build and develop in the future.
That is why we must not just watch this peace process from the sidelines and make symbolic gestures.
<P>
We can see that there are different phases to this process.
An end must be brought to the hostilities.
We already know how limited the achievements have been here up until now; there is the necessary preparation and implementation to be undertaken by a united military committee that must precede the establishment of a peacekeeping force. In its turn, this force must undertake the disarmament of all armed militias and prepare for national reconciliation.
Every one of these steps represents an enormous challenge.
I believe that the European Community and the various Member States have a responsibility of historic importance in this respect.
That is why, Mr President, Commissioner, I want to make particular reference to the last few paragraphs of our resolution which state emphatically that we must assist with the implementation of the peace agreement.
But I want to point out that this assistance must not be symbolic. Rather, it must be efficient and it must be tangible.
Parliament would like to be kept informed of developments here.
I also want to draw your attention to the shameless export of, and illegal trade in, weapons that various of our Member States are still guilty of.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Ries">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the conflict which has brought bloodshed to the Great Lakes region for more than a year now appears to be reaching a favourable outcome.
We are delighted at this of course, but much work remains to be done.
<P>
On the one hand, the Lusaka Agreements must lead, in the short-term to a lasting and verifiable cease-fire.
In this context, the rapid deployment of international observers is essential and even of paramount importance.
The European Union must participate in this process alongside the United Nations and the OAU to verify the withdrawal of foreign troops from the country as well.
Congo must cease to be a mere pawn, in order, once again, to play a genuine role in finding a fair and equitable solution for all parties involved in the conflict.
<P>
On the other hand, it is necessary and even imperative that the Congolese resume dialogue among themselves.
A debate on national reconciliation must involve civilian society, which is so vital in this country.
<P>
Finally, and this is no doubt a more unusual path, the European Union could begin thinking about concluding a Stability Pact for Africa, modelled on the example of the Balkans.
Member States who have a special historical relationship with this region must, to my mind, face up to their responsibilities.
The whole of Africa is calling out to us.
The recent death of two young Guineans in an aeroplane bound for Brussels, a tragic fate recalled by the President when she opened this part-session on Monday, is a cry of alarm which demands our attention, as European officials, and which must force us to act.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
.
Mr President, may I again express the Commission' s thanks for the way in which Members have drawn attention to this very important issue this afternoon.
<P>
The Commission considers that the European Union, together with the rest of the international community, must take decisive steps to contain the repercussions of the crisis in the Great Lakes countries which in a variety of ways, as Members have said, threaten the security and stability of the whole of Africa.
European Union policy is therefore based on the view that the results of the Great Lakes conflict must be dealt with in their three main dimensions: regional, bearing in mind the interests of the neighbouring countries; national, taking account of the interests of the government, rebel groups and democratic opposition; and local, concerning community clashes due to ethnic rivalries and severe social pressures.
<P>
In this context the Union is undertaking significant mediation and dialogue promotion efforts at the different levels of the conflict and the Commission is ready to contribute to the success of the Lusaka ceasefire agreement in the following areas.
In terms of political support, the European Union intends to continue and to encourage the efforts already undertaken by our special representative for the Great Lakes to facilitate the necessary degree of dialogue between the different factions involved in the DRC conflict.
The Union intends to continue the promotion and financing of mediation efforts, notably those of the President of Zambia, that made the Lusaka agreement possible in the first place.
That is necessary in order to try to maintain the commitment of the signatories to respect their obligations.
The Lusaka agreement foresees an inter-Congolese national debate to allow for the reconciliation of the differing political forces in DRC and to pave the way for a new political disposition in DRC.
The Commission is also ready to finance the mediation efforts necessary to bring about that national debate.
<P>
Secondly, amongst the efforts that we are undertaking to make, are those related to support for the peacekeeping operations to be carried out by the United Nations and the Organisation of African Unity.
Several Member States are contributing to the 90 United Nations military observers who are deployed in the capitals of the region and at the military headquarters of the rebel groups in order to oversee the implementation of the Lusaka agreement.
These activities should also support the Joint Military Commission that is in charge of organising the deployment of a peacekeeping or peace enforcement force.
The United Nations Security Council still has to decide, of course, on the nature of such a force.
It will then be possible for the Union to consider whether and how to give relevant support.
<P>
Thirdly, in terms of economic and development support, the commitment of the Commission in the Lomé Convention framework could and should be reactivated under two conditions: Firstly, improvement in the security situation in the DRC and secondly, an outcome of the national debate which provides a stable political disposition in the DRC in which the essential elements of the Lomé Convention are respected.
The reconstruction and development support of the Commission should then focus on the following areas: firstly establishment of the rule of law and the democratisation of national institutions; secondly, demobilisation and socio-economic reintegration of the belligerents; thirdly, restoration of the environment, especially in the Kivu and Orientale provinces; fourthly, reconstruction of transport infrastructure; and finally improvement of health and sanitation facilities.
Naturally I would also have sympathy for the call made by, amongst others, Mrs Maes for a strict suspension of the gun-running and arms trafficking that are continuing to feed conflict in the region and frequently originates here in the European Union.
<P>
Finally, humanitarian aid is obviously a continuing need and the Commission Humanitarian Office (ECHO) has deployed around EUR 55.5 million this year.
<P>
Our efforts to achieve support and lasting stability will continue, and naturally we will also continue to seek to keep this Parliament fully informed because we value greatly the commitment to our joint objectives in securing stability and continuing peace in this sorely troubled region.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place immediately after this.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 5.28 p.m. and resumed at 5.30 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sakellariou">
Madam Present, in the past our Parliament has looked very critically at the situation in Algeria, but our Parliament was also the first which sought contact and dialogue with the Algerian Parliament.
The result of yesterday' s referendum gives us cause to rejoice, along with the people of Algeria, who are on the road to reconciliation and striving to achieve peace in their country.
<P>
I would like to ask you, Madam President, to convey the congratulations of this Parliament to the President of Algeria.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Sakellariou.
Your statement was not included in the Minutes, but I am pleased to take note of it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Evans, Robert J">
Madam President, with reference to a point I made in the debate on Tampere on Tuesday, it has been brought to my attention by my colleague, Mr Camre, that remarks that I attributed to him were not what he intended and the translation into English, and I believe French, was the exact opposite of what he intended to say.
My criticism of him was perhaps unfair. I would just like to put that straight and I have now done so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Mr Evans, this correction will be made. Thank you.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
State of the Louise Weiss building
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="Andrews">
Madam President, I do not want to criticise but to praise the people who put together this quite extraordinary building.
When you move into a new home, there are always problems.
<P>
There are problems, Madam President, but I appreciate that you,Mr Priestley and the group who dealt with the complaints from the last session recognise them. There seems to be a culture of complaining among the Members.
How many of them had such lovely offices as we have here - and we are only here for four days a week.
We have beautiful offices, fully equipped.
Of course they need one or two things done to them, but if we constantly complain, we will get nowhere.
<P>
Having said that, I should like to make one request.
In Brussels, there is a Members' bar - as is traditional in parliaments throughout the European Union.
I would like to see a room here where just Members can go to talk amongst themselves in private.
<P>
As regards the car-park, I have had difficulty once or twice in finding my car but I found it in the end.
I did miss a vote during the week because of the lifts, but I recognise that in due course these matters will be resolved.
<P>
I must say that I admire the technicians and other people who have been criticised here.
They have taken a lot of stick and have been hurt unnecessarily in many ways.
I want to pay tribute to them and all the workers who put together this wonderful building.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Sacconi">
Madam President, I agree with what my colleague has just said in thanking the workers and in expressing her appreciation for what has been done since July to improve the situation, and for the on-going building work aimed at further improvements.
I would, however, like to mention something I have come across and which I feel should be resolved.
It does not concern the Members of Parliament, but rather our co-workers.
In the Tower building, in room 382 on the fourth floor to be exact, I saw an enormous photocopier which one person operates.
Well, in this room there are no windows and no air inlets, and we do not know if the extremely noisy machine emits substances which could endanger the operator' s health.
Now, since this Parliament is involved in establishing important directives on health and safety at work, I would find it extremely contradictory if this situation were to continue, even though only one person is affected.
In fact, I saw the sign on the door and originally, the room was probably meant for a different purpose. So maybe we are talking about a temporary solution.
I honestly hope it is temporary because otherwise it really would seem contradictory to allow such a situation to continue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Berger">
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Berger, for this very constructive suggestion, which we are pleased to note.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Madam President, the acoustics here are so bad that it is difficult to hear the interpreter.
We cannot hear the translation clearly because the echo here is so bad.
I request that the volume be lowered.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Provan">
Madam President, it is the same point.
If you speak very close to your microphone most people cannot hear what you are saying.
It is an indication of what is wrong with the system.
It is exactly the same in the committee rooms.
It is the distance of the speaker from the microphone.
We need to hear what the interpreters are saying.
I believe Mr Seppänen is absolutely right.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
In the meantime, I understand that I need to speak further away from the microphone.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="Ford">
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Quisthoudt-Rowohl">
Madam President, I would just like to say first that last week we really got a lot of work done.
I was very pleased to see how attentive you were, as President, to all the requirements and questions which we or the administrative officials had.
<P>
To the Members I would like to mention really two points, which were mentioned here and which were decided in the College of Quaestors: your filing cabinets have not only been decided upon, they have already been ordered.
We are assuming that they will also be delivered as quickly as possible.
<P>
Secondly, the matter of the building decoration.
French law in this connection is very strict and treats this building as a work of art, over which the architects have intellectual property rights.
But we have decided - intellectual property rights or not - to discuss things with the architects to see if we can make all the dark areas somewhat brighter.
If it is already dark in the July season, how is it going to look in the December light?
We do not want to do that to ourselves or to you.
I hope we can make the red more pink, the dark blue perhaps light blue or something similar, and the black perhaps a champagne colour, Madam President.
<P>
A third point which seems very important to me and to all of us is safety, something you yourself, Madam President, did not necessarily mention in detail.
You recall that it was mentioned, and now it has also been decided, that the safety of the building should be retested twice a year, that is, every six months.
We consider it essential that a building which is used so intensively by so many different groups, and sometimes used in a somewhat chaotic and anarchic manner - this chaos says something for the liveliness of European politics - is also inspected on a very regular basis.
<P>
A body such as the European Parliament cannot itself vouch for safety, cannot be responsible for it; it must be able to delegate it.
Indeed that is what we intend to do.
<P>
By the way, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the College of Quaestors I would like to ask you, if you have complaints, to formulate them, and come to us.
With your support, Madam President, matters will be rectified as quickly as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl, and thank you at the same time for the very great help of the College of Quaestors.
I can tell you that I was most appreciative of it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Lambert">
Madam President, while I welcome many of the improvements that have been made, I want to make a point concerning the management side: we would very much welcome some recycling facilities, given the sheer amount of paper that appears every day, much of which is not kept.
We would like people to look into that please.
There is an issue that was raised with me by a number of assistants who were refused entry to the public gallery even though there was space.
We quite understand that the public has to have priority - it is their building too.
But we would ask that when there is space our assistants should be allowed access: it is not always convenient for them to be in our offices if we have visitors.
<P>
Finally, a minor point that was raised with me by a colleague who had to leave early.
Could we have water provided during the sessions?
People here find the atmosphere in this building very dry, not just politically, but in environmental terms, and we would very much welcome that provision.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Lambert.
To wash down the rather indigestible nature of the pizza that Mr Ford mentioned.
We are pleased to take note of your comment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Watts">
Madam President, I concur with my colleague, Mr Ford, that of course if we only sat in Brussels, we would not be here debating this building.
That underlines the problem that we are confronted with the enormous task of managing two buildings across the European Union.
Nonetheless that is the task that the Council has decided that we must undertake.
I would, therefore, like to thank the services, Mr Priestley in particular, and all his staff for the strenuous efforts they have undertaken to make this building work.
This week this building has worked.
While there have been problems, our parliamentary business has not been hindered by the defects and this is thanks to the efforts of Mr Priestley and others.
<P>
There are significant design defects, particularly in relation to access.
It is not an architecturally welcoming building particularly to people with disabilities.
That is going to be a real challenge for us all to overcome.
On the whole, a lot of the resistance is due to the fact that people just do not like change.
They do not like unfamiliar surroundings.
In my view, it is not appropriate to discuss our own internal business at a full parliamentary session here in the European Parliament.
We need to find, perhaps, a less formal form of ongoing dialogue with you and Mr Priestley and his services to discuss the issues of accessibility and other issues relating to the internal organisation of this Parliament.
This session is an illustration that the dialogue between ordinary Members and the administration is perhaps not working as effectively as it could be.
<P>
In conclusion, putting all this in perspective, yes we have problems as Members.
Our staff have problems too, but this is nothing compared to the problems faced by those we represent.
I hope we all bear that point in mind.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tajani">
Madam President, this Parliament will have an increasingly important role - we said this during the discussions on our confidence in the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi - and I believe that more and more should be known about Parliament' s work in all the nations of the European Union.
To achieve this, I think that we should improve our relations with the press and that journalists' work should be made easier.
You have already done a lot and I note that this Presidency is sensitive to the needs of the press and has always been very helpful.
When the sitting opened, you announced that some initiatives have already been adopted and specific responses have been given to the Parliamentary press but, I repeat, I think that much more needs to be done to facilitate journalists' work so that they can inform the entire European Union about the important work carried out in the Parliament.
Journalists still do not work under optimum conditions, and so I think it is appropriate, for example, to move the pressroom to the area beneath the Chamber. Their current room is still too far away and it is not often easy for the journalists to come and talk to the Members, especially during important sittings.
<P>
I think that thanks to your interventions, we can build on past improvements and continue to improve the situation over the coming weeks and months.
As a Parliamentary journalist and Member, I would be grateful for any assistance you can provide regarding this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
Madam President, first of all I would like to say to the Members who are thanking the French government or the city of Strasbourg for this building, that they are addressing their comments to the wrong people.
We were the ones who had the house built so we should be the ones beating our own breast if mistakes have been made.
But I am not here to offer praise.
The building is fine.
It is the many defects I would like to comment on now.
<P>
Firstly, Madam President, if you ever had to send a fax in my office or that of my fellow Members, I could tell you it is practically impossible!
You would have to stand on a chair, a swivel chair, to be able to look down on the top of this machine.
You probably know that most accidents in all the households in Europe happen because housewives are trying to stand on some sort of swivel chair, which should be avoided if possible.
I would not like to know how much money the insurers of this building will have to pay out in future for all the medium-sized persons climbing up on these chairs.
People like me.
I am just 1.60 m tall. I' m just not tall enough.
I need assistance. There is a notice on it saying, "Please do not move" .
<P>
Secondly, Madam President, I drive a normal passenger car into the entrance of our car park.
You cannot get to Level 2 if you don' t reverse in order to take the bend.
Well, you can imagine what it gets like in the rush hour.
There are cars coming from the left, from in front, from behind, and there is always someone who has to reverse so he can get round the bend.
My heartfelt request is that this central reservation is halved in size so that we can enter the car park without having to reverse.
<P>
Apart from that I do not see why I should have to insert my pass twice when entering the car park, once on top and once in the middle.
That' s just crazy. If I have already got in at the top, I should be able to carry on inside.
I understand even less why, when I' m leaving in the evening or at night, I have to do the same again.
Once I' m inside, you might as well let me out!
The situation is just ridiculous on both counts.
In the rush hours it is just not feasible.
<P>
Thirdly, in the morning I would like to be able to get my newspaper quickly.
There is no newspaper stand nearby.
I still have not found the newspaper stand.
I always ask someone who knows where the stand is to bring me one back.
<P>
Fourthly, this week I have got into a lift five times and not been able to get out at my own floor.
I wanted to get out on the tenth floor.
It wasn' t on.
Five times that has happened to me.
Then I thought, "right, let' s avoid that particular lift" , and since then I have always tried to take another lift.
It is, of course, an intolerable situation in this building.
<P>
As the person responsible for a delegation - I chair the South-Eastern Europe Delegation, this has nothing to do with the Louise Weiss building, but with the Salvador de Madariaga building across the way - I would now like to make one more request.
At least four of the delegation staff occupy a tiny cell, which I previously had to myself.
The first is talking to Dagestan, the second to Moscow, the third to Macedonia and the fourth perhaps to Cologne.
Can you imagine it, in a single room?
Please could you do something for the members of staff!
The present situation is unbearable!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Pack, for reporting all these malfunctions.
Clearly, there is some incompatibility between you and the lift, because five times is really rather excessive.
All this will be dealt with.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fabra Vallés">
Mrs President, I believe that if we look for the common denominator in everything we have been talking about here, we would find that there is a problem of inconvenience, which I believe we will gradually be able to iron out. Things will then improve.
<P>
The problem is also that we are being far too sensitive with regard to this inconvenience.
And we are far too sensitive because we have to come here via a transport system which is also inconvenient and our inconvenience in the face of this transport system is added to the inconvenience that we find here.
I believe that if we want to deal with part of this inconvenience we will never be able to do so by thinking only of the building or only of transport.
We will have to deal with the problem jointly and at the same time.
<P>
The problem with the building is not to do with the current team.
On the contrary, we should be grateful for the efforts that they are making to resolve it.
And this current sitting demonstrates this.
Rather, I believe that the responsibility is to be found among previous teams, like, for example, Mr Quintela.
Mr Quintela is responsible for half - or more - of the problems which have been created in this building.
I think we should bear this in mind if, at some time, Mr Quintela wants to once again become involved in the works of the Parliament.
<P>
And lastly, Mrs President, I believe that the only way to resolve all of this is to arrange a serious meeting between the SERS, the Parliament and the French Government.
With regard to the French Government, I think the first thing they should do is find a new representative.
I do not think that Mr Vaillant currently has the necessary sensitivity to offer the solutions that the French Government must offer.
<P>
Lastly - and perhaps I am talking with my budgetary hat on - I would like to point out that, although we will eventually find out how much it is going to cost - because we will see every last invoice - what we will never know about are the additional costs there may have been because, at the moment, we still do not know exactly how much it is supposed to cost us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Fabra Vallés.
In fact, I do not think the problem you mentioned is actually related to the building.
In other words, the problem you are talking about is actually that of the scheduling of flights to Strasbourg and transport links to the city.
<P>
Thank you for mentioning it, because it gives me the opportunity to make an announcement to you.
Our visit to Strasbourg, last Wednesday, concluded in a meeting with the Mayor of the City of Strasbourg and his principal assistants.
I pointed out the serious difficulties which many Members face in attempting to travel to the city of Strasbourg easily.
<P>
I can tell you, Mr Fabra Vallés, that the Mayor was really very interested in my comments.
He asked me to send him as soon as possible - which I will do, with your help, of course - a sort of summary of the actual situation for all the nationalities represented here.
This morning I promise you - you understand I cannot achieve the impossible: I cannot promise you daily flights to your own capitals and vice versa - that I will do all I can, with the co-operation of the Mayor and the competent authorities, to appreciably improve the situation in this area too.
<P>
I make this undertaking to you because what I want to achieve, and this is what I am responsible for, is that matters proceed in the best possible conditions, both in Brussels and in Strasbourg, for everyone: Members of Parliament, staff and visitors.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Madam President, I am pleased that you have already broached the problems relating to communications. Prestigious as this building is from an architectural viewpoint (although it has a lot of space which cannot be used), there are, to my mind, communications problems in addition to what I would say are the building' s defects in terms of convenience.
Now that we have a French President, I would have expected the French railways to have shown some interest and that the Belgian railways too, together with the French railways, would pull out all the stops to make our journeys here comfortable.
Madam President, a train service has been axed rather than an additional one laid on.
That is exactly what we did not need, and it was primarily the officials that alerted me to this fact, for those who have to stay until the end of the part-session can return to Brussels on a quarter to three train and then have a five hour journey ahead of them.
This means that I will no longer be able to fulfil my evening commitments as I have a speaking engagement this evening.
So the only other option open to me is to return earlier, which will be very early indeed.
Had I left at quarter to ten this morning, I would have arrived in Brussels seven hours later, although today, as it happens, I might not have arrived at all for there is strike action going on too.
But I digress.
<P>
I wanted to point out to you that a five-hour train journey to get here and five hours back seems an inordinately long time in this day and age.
After all, there are high-speed rail connections now, everything you could want.
But not here. There is a prestigious building here but no high-speed rail service.
I feel the two should in fact go together, but when I get to hear that the rail service that connects with the end of our part-sessions has been abolished then surely that is the complete opposite of what you would expect.
Could you please do something about this too?
<P>
By the way, congratulations on all the small and large improvements that you have already been able to make, following great efforts on your part.
I have no doubts on that score.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="President">
Thank you for continuing on the subject of Mr Fabra Vallés' s speech and my own response, because when we contact you via your groups, your delegations, in order to draw up what I have called this summary, this inventory, we will be asking you to point out everything which can be improved, in addition to planes.
I know, for example, that there were flights which Members found very practical which have been cancelled.
I cannot tell you that they can be reinstated with a wave of a magic wand.
But at least we will see what can be done.
<P>
I shall therefore ask you to respond in as concrete terms as possible, as Mrs Maes has just done, by saying, for example, "This train was very good, and it no longer exists."
We shall then try to make things easier, even if it is not perfect.
I shall be in touch with you.
We shall see in exactly what form very shortly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Madam President, I know you have certainly endeavoured to pick up on all the defects there are here.
I think, however, we should take care not to put all the defects down to the architects, but we should rather look into our own court.
<P>
There is one thing I find simply unforgivable.
In countless motions for resolution, all of us in Parliament have stressed that renewable energies were the technologies of the future, the technologies of the 21st century.
This week the UN presented a report pointing out that energy conservation would be one of the themes of the next decade.
I find it unforgivable that we call for a One Million Roofs Solar Programme, but we have not invested in renewable energy either in Strasbourg or Brussels and have not adopted the slightest energy-saving procedures here: for example, the vestibules to our offices are lit up day and night and the lights cannot be switched off, and so forth.
<P>
This is precisely what we called for in the Bettini Report seven years ago.
There have been several exchanges of letters with the Bureau.
Mr Priestley will inform you of this.
I was told it would be too expensive.
That is just incorrect and unacceptable.
You know the costs of renewable energy would pay for themselves within nine to twelve months.
How can we explain that to house builders in the Member States?
We are encouraging them to have solar roofs installed while we do not do the same with our own roof, even justifying it with the spurious argument that it is for reasons of cost.
<P>
Energy conservation, energy efficiency, renewable energy, this is what we recommend day in day out in our resolutions!
Madam President, this is a very serious matter, as we lose our credibility if we do not lead by example, if we do not make it clear that these are the themes of the next millennium.
If we do not put the principle into practice here ourselves, then we will also have lost some of our credibility.
<P>
I therefore call upon you, as a matter of urgency, to correct the most unforgivable mistakes which have been made both here and in Brussels, and to immediately convene a working party to obtain quotes for setting things right.
In addition, I would like to have an energy efficiency plan for both buildings.
For I do not think we can afford to squander so much energy here while at the same time telling the general public that they must save energy.
We are all familiar with the problems of carbon dioxide emissions and so on.
<P>
Madam President, this is a very serious subject, which has not unfortunately been addressed by you here today.
I would also like to receive an answer from you as to why this was not taken into account in the planning and how we can sort this out in future.
We must resolve these problems and achieve this with emphasis on renewable energies, energy conservation and energy efficiency.
I simply think we have a responsibility to the public to set a good example.
For I believe we are all unanimous here in thinking that environmental problems are problems which we must resolve urgently.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="President">
Mrs Breyer, thank you for mentioning all these very important problems.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately, I have to leave you now for the reasons I gave earlier, i.e. to attend the swearing in of the Commissioners.
I leave you in the most capable hands possible, those of Mr Provan.
I hope you continue to work well, and have a pleasant weekend.
I sincerely hope, and I am convinced, that on October 4, when we meet here again, things will be running smoothly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="Ludford">
Mr President, I am sorry to have lost the opportunity to bend Madam President' s ear.
I wanted to ask her to plead with Air France not to switch, as is rumoured, its flight from City Airport to Gatwick - that is if the flight works, because this week it was cancelled.
I wanted to thank her for being willing to give her personal attention to these matters.
<P>
If we are navel-gazing and examining our working conditions and those of our staff this morning, it is not a question of comfort and convenience, but because we want to be efficient as elected representatives and in spending taxpayers' money.
Strasbourg is indeed a beautiful city.
If I was a tourist I would have no problem spending one week out of four here, it would be delightful.
Many parts of this building are impressive and beautiful, although it is also, in my opinion, grandiose.
I concur with what has been said about waste and the need for recycling and energy saving and I believe that we must practice what we preach both in the area of health and safety and energy saving.
<P>
I would like to raise three particular points.
First of all I am unhappy that we have lost one-third of our offices to an unnecessary bathroom.
Please could I get mine removed and have extra office working space instead?
Secondly, in the ladies toilets we are faced with constant flooding, and it is particularly unfair on the cleaners who have to constantly go round mopping up.
As far as I can see, it is a very simple problem of excessive water pressure so the water spills everywhere around the basin and on to the floor.
Could someone reduce the water pressure?
Finally, could we start the session on a Thursday at 2 p.m. instead of 3 p.m. and have the votes on urgencies at 4.30 p.m.
This would mean that I could catch the 6 p.m. flight, assuming of course it still exists, to City Airport.
This might help a lot of people if we could leave on Thursday night instead of Friday.
<P>
I am conscious of the fact that it costs, I think, around EUR 200 million a year extra to have this travelling circus and I am indignant that the European Parliament is unable to decide its own place of work.
We are wasting taxpayers' money and we are not as efficient as we ought to be as elected representatives.
I take my job seriously and I am sure all my colleagues have also come here to work, not to treat this place as a club, but to actually do their jobs as elected representatives.
I want to be able to go back to my constituents and tell them that I am an efficient representative.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="President">
Thank you Mrs Ludford.
Let me assure you and all colleagues that notes are being taken of this discussion this morning.
It will be brought forward as a series of proposals to the Bureau, and Mrs Breyer, if she is still here, should recognise the fact too that everything that has been said will be taken note of and will be fully discussed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
I am of the opinion, which Mr Andrews expressed, that we should not forget how to be grateful.
We should be grateful for the building, grateful for the working conditions which we now have in Strasbourg after 20 years and more of provisional arrangements.
We should also be grateful for the style and manner in which our President is taking on board our criticism. That is worth repeating.
I consider today 's question time to be an absolute novelty.
Such a thing has not existed since the first direct elections in 1979.
I would like to suggest that this is organised at specific intervals for other matters besides this.
I consider discussion between the Parliament and the President to be very useful and necessary.
<P>
As regards the concrete matters, I am of the view that this building is certainly very fine and worthy, but it is also necessary, of course, to make full and fitting use of it.
Here I would like to take up what some Members have already said.
In order to utilise this building efficiently, we must ensure that we spend the whole of our plenary part-sessions here, including the Fridays, so that we then have an entire week in which, as Mrs Ludford suggested, we can devote ourselves specifically to constituency matters.
If we do not use this building properly, ending the plenary part-session as early as Thursday and making Thursday the last day of the week, then a backlog of work is created.
This backlog of work leads to innumerable additional plenary part-sessions.
Then we have a mishmash of sittings running from one week into the next.
I propose ...
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="President">
Mr Posselt, we are dealing with the problems of this building and not the problems of the agenda of the House.
Can we please deal with the matter in hand.
You have had well over a minute already.
Can you make the point please?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
In connection with this I would like to say that it is apparently only thanks to my intervention that it was possible, for example, for the cafeteria, to be opened today, or for certain services to operate. I would like to request that it be possible to use all the facilities of this building right through the week of the part-session from Monday to Friday.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Aparicio Sánchez">
Mr President, I am one of those who believe that this building has made history, both in architectural terms and in the parliamentary world.
For example, we have the greatest parliamentary chamber in the world at the moment, the best from a functional point of view.
<P>
I know that I am not abiding by the agenda, because this is a sitting for discussing problems and I am not doing that.
My opinion of this building is positive.
But I have decided to take the floor because we run the risk of exaggerating the complaints, and anecdotes go down in history as if they were the opinion of the Parliament.
I believe that we are talking about a piece of architecture which is difficult to understand and, on the other hand, this "culture of complaint" - which one colleague referred to - leads everybody to complain.
I believe that if architecture is a conflict between form, function and space, then this has been resolved admirably.
<P>
I believe that these initiatives to resolve the small problems are excellent but, in my judgement - and it is that of many of our colleagues - we should not forget that they are small problems which will be resolved and we have something for which we should congratulate the institutions, the French State, the architects and the workers.
I believe it is important to highlight it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="MacCormick">
Mr President, I am one of those who would very much like to thank you, Mr Priestley, the ancillary and administrative staff.
There have been problems but we have been treated with extreme kindness and courtesy.
I would like to register my thanks for that.
When problems arise they get solved.
<P>
Like other colleagues I should like to say that the energy efficiency issue is terribly important and ought to be concentrated on.
<P>
I should like to mention just two minor areas that need improvement.
Even though I have something like six doctorates from five countries - most of them honorary, I have to admit - the instructions on how to use the telephones and how to set up the voice mail are nearly unintelligible.
<P>
Office supplies - staplers, paper clips and little things like that - are very hard to come by.
If those who have got the franchise for the newspaper shops could be encouraged to stock up with the kinds of things that efficient offices need.
That would help us all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van der Laan">
Mr President, unfortunately the bad press over this building has again focused attention on the question as to where the Parliament should be based, and this has been the case in the Netherlands too.
Now I know that this is not the moment to start talking about this and we all know what the Treaty says.
But still I would just like to seize this opportunity to remind the Presidency as well how difficult it is to explain to our voters why we are always having to move from one place to another, and also that this is something that severely tarnishes the Parliament' s "dignité" , to use a lovely French expression.
<P>
I actually have a few specific questions to do with the building that my voters put to me.
The first question is to what extent this building really was fully financed by France and really was a gift from the French government, for my voters want me to reassure them that the money they pay in taxes, in the Netherlands that is, has not been used for this.
<P>
Secondly, I would like to know how much is paid in rent for this building.
Thirdly, I have heard that there are plans afoot to buy the building because the rent amounts to rather a lot of money.
I want to know what stage these plans are at and how much it all entails.
Furthermore, I trust that all the complaints you have received, including those in writing, will continue to be given due attention.
I do not wish to pursue this matter any further at this stage.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="President">
Thank you Mrs van der Laan.
The Secretary-General informs me that you will get a written reply to that specific question regarding the budgetary costs and the financing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Lynne">
Mr President, I am going to raise a few points, but my main point is on smoking, again.
I have raised it several times with the President before and also with the Quaestors.
I have been asked to write in but I thought it would be worth raising it here as well.
<P>
As an asthmatic who has grave problems when I come into contact with a cigarette at all, I am finding it extremely difficult to move around this building.
It has got a little better since the last time we were here.
At least in the corridors people are not smoking.
But I cannot get in and out of the hemicycle without encountering cigarettes.
So I cannot do my work properly.
I have to cover my face with paper towels and run through to my office.
I had serious asthma attacks here.
I cannot carry on with the smoking in this building.
I should be grateful if you could actually do something about it so that at least outside the hemicycle I and other people like me do not have to encounter smoke.
<P>
In the restaurants there is supposed to be a no-smoking area.
It is not observed and also the no-smoking area is through the smoking area in all the restaurants.
So if I want to get food I have to queue up in the smoking area or someone has to bring it to my office for me.
<P>
I would also like to see exit signs in case of emergency.
When the bell went off yesterday several of us did not even know where the stairs were.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="President">
I personally have a great deal of sympathy with your remarks.
The Quaestors have been asked to look at this again so that they can tighten up the regulations within the building.
There will be a notice going to all Members regarding smoking and what they can or cannot do within the building.
So I think you are making some progress.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maaten">
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="President">
I understand that we may be able to have a discussion with the Council of Europe to see if it is possible to negotiate some sort of arrangement with them, but you should recognise the fact that we no longer, technically, have access to that building because we do not pay any rent for it any longer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Thomas">
Mr President, there is a slogan "Black is beautiful."
I support it completely.
At the present time in Germany I see, from region to region, that black is stronger than red or green.
I consider this dominance to be a good thing.
But, despite that, we should be a little wary.
If too much black is used it can be rather dismal.
There have been improvements to the lifts.
I am pleased to see them.
But for a bar to resemble a night club all day long, in spite of the pretty flowery carpet, is surely not a development we can accept.
We have to be able to drink tea and coffee there.
We wish to meet each other in full view and not as shadowy figures.
<P>
I consider the business of the stairs to be rather more serious.
I too have been stuck in the lift a few times.
I am mobile enough to take the stairs down from the sixth or seventh floor.
But all the steps there are completely black.
I have seen male and female colleagues clinging anxiously to the banister, as they did not know where one step began and the other finished.
We need safety areas, as this can be very dangerous.
There is a danger of falling.
<P>
Some Members think we should have far more colours.
I have been working for 20 years in design.
We should keep to the principles.
The architects specified slate.
Slate doesn' t have to be just black, it can be white or silver or grey.
In other words, we have plenty of opportunities to make improvements using this colour scheme so that we do not have to work in a building in which not only does black express dignity but in which an excess of black leads to depression.
We should carefully move towards silver and other colours.
I believe that then we will finally be able to say that it stands for greater visibility, greater transparency, and we can show ourselves clearly instead of hiding ourselves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Collado">
Mr President, I am also one of those who have an enormously positive view of the building.
I believe that we have a historic building and that we must be the first to respect it and to project a positive image of it.
And to the symbolic nature of our building, we should add its functionality.
<P>
We should recognise, Mr President, that this building has a significant structural defect. In comparison with the building in Brussels the Members have much smaller offices, not in view of their smaller area in terms of square metres, but in view of the fact that Members have to share all their activities with an assistant.
Anybody who appreciates the political activity of a Member, and the confidential nature of many of their conversations and activities, will understand that this is possibly the most serious structural defect and, as the President has pointed out, there is possibly no solution to it.
<P>
Anyway, I think that we should continue to work towards trying to find a way for there to be a degree of independence between the Member and the assistant, given that our work requires this independence, with regard to conversations, the issues to be dealt with and also in other areas which are beside the point.
<P>
And finally, Mr President, I would like to make another observation - and I understand that this is not an easy issue to resolve - with regard to any possible improvements to the access to this building from the city.
There have been times - such as this week' s part-session, which has coincided with the fair - when there has been considerable disruption as far as access to the Parliament is concerned.
This will happen again and I believe that analysing possible improvements to this access - at least during parliamentary weeks - would be a positive step.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Dam">
Mr President, I would first like to express my gratitude for the dynamic way in which the many different problems were tackled after the July part-session, but let us also not forget that this building was under construction for many years.
For years we have seen from the other side of the water how there was already a great deal in place, which makes it all the more galling that even though it stood empty for so long, there are still so many defects.
As far as I am concerned, we should not crow too much about this building.
In the first place, it has been funded by Community money, be it French or European.
We are talking very large sums of Community money.
Secondly, I completely agree with those who say that the least we must do therefore, is lead by example.
Consequently, I find it particularly galling that French legislation appears to focus heavily on the artistic décor in relation to impossible corridors, lights and stairwells, and appears not to concern itself with energy conservation, whilst in my country, for example, at least a third of all new homes are equipped with solar panels.
<P>
There are two small points that I would still like to mention, the first being something strange that happened in July when I was doing a live radio interview from this building. I realised that the technicians were unable, at least this was the case at the time, to get an outside line from the radio studio.
It was too silly for words, but I had to do a live interview on my mobile phone.
<P>
Lastly, on the subject of waste separation, I became aware yesterday morning that although we have two bins for different types of waste in our rooms, which is itself a retrograde step, these two bins are emptied into the same bag.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="President">
Thank you Mr van Dam.
I do not know where you were when you discovered that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Roure">
Mr President, I believe we can all be very proud of this magnificent building which will soon, I believe, be known throughout the world and which will add to the prestige of the Union.
<P>
Before making a few observations, I would like to draw your attention to the matter of tastes and colours.
Personally, I like these colours a lot.
Perhaps I am in a tiny minority, but even so.
You know, we could be discussing colours for hours on end.
Just now a fellow Member said, " I hope there will be some pink" .
Well, I don' t like pink!
So I think we must try to be reasonable, to spend as little money as possible, and then we can all get used to it.
<P>
However, I would like to add a detail regarding the specification.
When we are told that the disabled access is not suitable for visitors, well, perhaps someone should have thought of that before.
The specification was perhaps not precise enough, and I find it unfortunate that it is only now that we are noticing that disabled visitors do not have proper access.
The improvements are going to cost us even more, but it is only because we did not plan things properly beforehand.
<P>
A few thoughts, now, on the lifts.
They go as far as level zero, there are glass doors which open to the outside, but we have no access to them.
I would like to know why, as I think it is unfortunate.
<P>
Regarding access by car, even though the red light is extremely unpleasant, I find it reasonable to be obliged to use the badge.
On the other hand, being obliged to use it and still having to wait minutes on end to get out, I do not see the reasons for this.
Being checked on entering, maybe, but as we go out? That is beyond me.
<P>
I would also like to ask if it is possible to have a shuttle for our assistants and for the staff when there are meetings which last until 9 in the evening so that they do not have to take a taxi.
I find it regrettable.
<P>
Finally, the only thing that really bothers me is the reception as you enter this building.
Compared with the reception area in Brussels or that in the former building, there is a vast difference, and there should be some thought on providing a far better reception.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="President">
Thank you very much.
If you have trouble getting into the garage, think of me coming from the United Kingdom with a car and the steering wheel on the other side which is even worse.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Beysen">
Mr President, I have been fortunate enough to enter two new parliament buildings in the course of my political career.
The first one was the Flemish Parliament around four years ago.
In view of the fact that I was the official authorised to take responsibility for the buildings, I am well placed to draw comparisons between the opening of this building and the previous Parliament that I belonged to.
I must say that I am in fact annoyed about the many shortcomings I have been able to discern in this building, with what I would say is almost a professional eye.
I feel that the great interest in the building that is very much in evidence today bears witness to the fact that, to my mind, there was too little prior consultation with the Members of Parliament, with those who were to use the building.
I think that there are lessons to be learnt from that for future reference.
I want to make three points that may already have been made by some of my colleagues, but which serve to underline how important it could in fact be to bring about total change here.
<P>
Firstly, the offices.
I think our offices resemble a kind of glorified campsite.
I think this is a classic example of the injudicious use of the space available.
I therefore urge that adaptations be made, whatever the structural difficulties.
But I think many of my colleagues will agree with me on this.
<P>
Secondly, a great deal has been said about colours but I think that many psychologists would support my view that some colour schemes may produce severe depressive conditions, and that this particular colour scheme may be one of these.
I hope not but time will tell.
<P>
Thirdly, I feel that we are going to have to demonstrate greater efficiency and more streamlined procedures where the entrance to the visitors' gallery is concerned.
It has been brought to my notice that some people had to pass through five different security points this week, before gaining admission to the visitors' gallery.
<P>
And last but not least, we like to talk about transparency here.
I believe it is important to talk about transparency, but I would also like there to be transparency as regards the cost price of the building, and I would also like to know what possibilities there are for recouping some of the costs arising from the building' s defects that have been noted here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Callanan">
Mr President, as a new Member here, I am not rising to criticise the architecture and decoration of the building, although quite clearly I could.
I agree with those other Members who think it is absolutely awful, but that is a matter of individual taste.
<P>
I wish to add my voice to the many comments that have already been made and say that I find it absolutely incomprehensible that we are even here in the first place, when we have perfectly good offices, meeting rooms and chambers in Brussels and that it is absurd that the whole "Euro-circus" has to come traipsing down to Strasbourg for three, possibly four days a month (5 days this week - I do apologise).
European taxpayers have read the extensive press coverage about this building and they possibly think that we are all mad.
Those people who are in favour of building Europe should not be surprised that the public treat it with great scepticism.
Regarding the costs, I would like a letter from Mr Priestley outlining the costs.
Perhaps we should publicise it a bit more, although I suspect that would get us into even more trouble with the electorate.
My main plea is that since a treaty change was required to bring us here in the first place, surely we can all lobby in our political parties, our Governments, to get a treaty change to take us away and spend the money on something useful that the people would appreciate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="President">
Mr Callanan, that process has being going on for many years and has not been successful.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Helmer">
Mr President, in my first speech in this Chamber, I had hoped to speak about linking the banks of lifts electronically to make them more efficient, about ventilation in the bathrooms, about the air conditioning and about the dog-sick carpets in the bar areas.
But in the interests of time, I will pass that by.
<P>
I would like to respond to the first floor speaker today who asked if any Members had previously had better offices; we had such fine offices here, had we ever had better ones?
Well I certainly had a better one before I gave up the day job a year ago, and every single Member of this House has a much better office in Brussels.
That surely is the key point.
The reason for all the carping and complaints about this building is, as my colleague, Mr Callanan says, that actually we do not want to come here and we want to stay in Brussels.
We ought to get that sorted out.
<P>
Just one very brief suggestion for improving the general ambience of the place as long as we do have to come here.
Our President, earlier on, said that we would look at the decoration of it.
This building is full of dead spaces and blank walls which are extremely tedious and unfriendly and inhuman.
I believe that the art museums of Europe have many more pictures and art works than they are able to display.
They have cellars and vaults full of pictures for which no display space is available.
Why does this Parliament not contact some of these museums and say that we can provide large spaces of wall on which some of these pictures could be displayed.
I suggest that this would be a vast improvement in this building.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="Eriksson">
Mr President, I must honestly say that this is the first building I have been in where I often find myself thinking, "How would I get out of here if there were a fire?"
It is quite straightforward in certain places, but you cannot get over to the other side if you do not use the narrow bridges with the glass parapets.
I really should like us as soon as possible to have a very realistic fire drill for all Members of Parliament, tradesmen, visitors etc., so that we know basically how to get out of the place.
<P>
We talked earlier about the lifts being too small.
There is talk about the staircases and, regarding these, I think it might be worth knowing what kind of materials have been used in them.
If they can be re-painted, I should like to see the walls there being re-painted as well.
Certainly I do not think that very much could be seen if the stairwells were filled with smoke, but you do not, in any case, feel particularly safe when it is completely dark and you do not know if the electricity is going to work in an emergency.
A very realistic fire drill is absolutely necessary, then, before we perhaps discover that there is a real fire. In that way, we might at least be a little prepared and be able to find our way out of the building, as well as see if there are enough emergency exits.
<P>
I am not too familiar with quite specifically what intellectual property law means in French legislation.
I should be very glad indeed if I could find out what is copyright and what we can attend to in relation to possible costs.
We are, in spite of everything, only here one week a month.
Perhaps we can avoid a number of extremely high costs which are not directly necessary.
<P>
One small wish that has been expressed for a number of years by the Scandinavian countries is that we should have access to the Scandinavian press here.
I do not know if it is possible, but it is clearly desirable.
It is not something uppermost on my wish list, but a comment all the same.
<P>
Finally, I should like to say that, for Swedish electors, irrespective of which party they vote for, this travelling between two buildings under construction, meaning that irregularities cannot clearly be established, is not in fact defensible. Nor do I intend to defend it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schleicher">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, firstly my thanks for the good things which have quite rightly been mentioned.
I would like to mention three points.
<P>
Firstly, services.
The cleaning personnel always used to do their work very early.
Arriving at the office at half past seven, one could work in peace.
Now they come much later.
If one wishes to be on time in the Chamber at 9 o' clock, the lifts are full of cleaning staff who take much longer to get in and out because they have their trolleys.
Would it not be possible to ensure that the cleaning staff do not carry out their work at a time which is the peak time for the Members of Parliament?
The times we work are well known.
Please give this further consideration.
<P>
The second is again access to the garages.
It has already been mentioned, but every time we are arriving or leaving with all our luggage, if we take advantage of the travel service, we have to cope with these colossal stairs.
This is really hard with all your suitcases and papers.
It is inadequate.
I request that this be put to an end.
<P>
The third point is the multiplicity of different cards.
I have kept asking, whether it is not technically possible these days to have a single electronic card for everything.
I do not know if you have noticed that the card which opens the garage has to be used the other way round to Brussels.
That means you have to take the thing out every time, then you lose it and so on and so forth, because it gets dropped.
These things are just unacceptable.
I maintain that modern technology is such that these things can be combined into a single item.
Then we wouldn 't have to carry around three, four or five different cards.
Please look into this once more.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="President">
I am assured that we will have one badge by the end of the year but your point about the cleaning staff is well made.
I understand that already they have been told not to use the main lifts and should just be using the service lifts.
But that does not seem to be happening.
<P>
We have a time problem.
Before you all rush to go, the Secretary-General has agreed that, because so many of you are still on the list of speakers, we will treat any letters that come in rather like an explanation of vote which will be published in the Minutes of today, provided you get your letters in by the end of next week so that you can make your point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Bowis">
Mr President, I should like to say one thank you and make four short points.
The thank you is to the President, Mr Priestley and his team, and our Quaestors for the way they have taken up the points we have been raising since the last meeting.
There have been many improvements which we have noticed, not least the very helpful guides who are around to help us when we get lost.
<P>
The four brief points: the first is air conditioning.
Mrs Lynne may have problems with smoky air.
I have problems with no air in some of the meeting rooms.
I hope they can get that right.
If they can get it right for our offices, it should be able to work in our meeting rooms too.
<P>
Secondly, when we leave this Chamber we are met with a scrum.
I would like to see the area outside the Chamber deemed to be part of the Chamber so that no cameras, assistants, lobbyists or members of the public block us from reaching our offices.
The area around the back, including the bridges across to the lifts should be seen as part of the Chamber, and not accessible to the public.
<P>
Thirdly, concerning the lifts, I have been stuck twice in a lift - which might not surprise you if you look at me.
The first time somebody jumped up and down and the lift started again.
The second time somebody found a bit of plastic, put it into a hole in the wall and that seemed to start the lift up again, but it might have fused the whole system.
<P>
Lastly, I ask that the flexes and loose wires in our offices be looked it.
This is a health and safety at work issue.
When I spin round on my desk chair to access my email I am entangled in a mess of wires.
One of these days there will be a puff of smoke, a loud bang and one of your Members will light up like a Christmas tree.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gebhardt">
No, I do not have a point of order to make, I entered my name a very, very long time ago, right at the start.
I entered my name at the same time as Mrs Berger.
My name was already on the list.
I particularly wanted to speak too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="President">
I am afraid that we still have 20 people on the list of speakers, so you are not alone.
The Secretary-General has agreed that he will take written letters from you that will be published later.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gebhardt">
Then, you could have said so far earlier.
In that case I would have left the Chamber and followed the discussion from my office, where I could also have got on with my work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="President">
I am sorry, but I have no control in a debate like this over how long people are going to speak.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Isler Béguin">
Mr President, I also came here specially this morning to participate in the discussion.
I would like to know when the schedule was decided.
I have just realised that in fact this debate was scheduled to run from 9.00 to 10.30.
I would therefore like to thank you, even so, for letting the Members of Parliament continue to express their views beyond 10.30.
I shall send you a comment in writing.
Nonetheless, I shall hope that in three months' time, at the end of the year, we may once again have a meeting of this type in order to ascertain what follow-up there has been to the requests presented today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="President">
I will certainly pass that message on to the President.
I thank all colleagues who have stayed this morning.
The Conference of Presidents decided how long the session would be.
We have well overrun the time.
It is very important that we note for the future that this has been a fairly successful session.
Perhaps we need to do it again.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="President">
I declare adjourned the session of the European Parliament.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Written submissions concerning the Louise Weiss building
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
While I recognise that the building is beautiful from the outside and that my office is more than adequate for the Strasbourg week, I would like to take this opportunity to point out some of my concerns:
<P>
drawer units in the offices (in the process of being solved)
<P>
slowness of lifts and colour of the paint (in the process of being solved)
<P>
poor working conditions for people operating photocopiers
<P>
poor working conditions for chauffeurs
<P>
poor working conditions for people working in the Members' cash office
<P>
poor working conditions for people working in the Members' cafeteria
<P>
difficulties of movement for disabled people
<P>
few WCs - which are also dark - (at least in the TOUR building), and which are insufficiently ventilated and cleaned.
<P>
We cannot allow a building, which has cost, and will continue to cost, the taxpayer so much money, to have so many functional problems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Daul">
Madam President, as I was not allowed to speak in the debate, I hereby submit my intervention in writing, as announced by the President chairing Friday morning' s sitting.
<P>
He was right to point out that this debate is not the time to state whether we are for or against having the Parliament based in Strasbourg.
It is all the more incomprehensible then that he should systematically refuse the floor to MEPs who want to speak in defence of Strasbourg, in response to the attacks on this city which he has allowed others to voice quite freely.
I protest strongly at this extremely biased way of conducting the debate, which appears to be an abuse of the Agenda.
We have a British gentleman, Lord Bevin, to thank for the choice of Strasbourg as the seat for the Council of Europe, because he saw this city as a symbol of reconciliation between France and Germany, and of reconciliation between all Europeans.
<P>
We are now at a time when we must go back to fundamental principles, to rise up and outline for our citizens the horizons of our continent' s peace-loving organisation, which respects human rights and is founded on a European model of economic and social development.
Bearing this in mind, what do the colours of our buildings' walls or the pressure of our toilet flushes matter?
Any citizen listening to us is going to ask us if we have nothing more urgent to discuss than the details of our own comfort!
I am not denying that this building would benefit from some improvements.
Anyone who is keen on the use of new buildings, as I am, realises that it takes some time to break them in; in six months time, we will have forgotten these details.
I would also like to thank the President, for having shown such great interest in particular problems, and I would especially like to thank and encourage all the staff for their genuine and determined efforts, the effects of which have been very evident this month.
<P>
We are all concerned about putting the European taxpayer' s money to good use, and I was extremely sorry to hear our Dutch colleague leaping to the defence of "her" taxpayers in an outburst which she felt was appropriate, but which actually showed utter contempt for any concept of European solidarity.
Well, I want her to know that my citizens, whom I do not claim to be my own, but whose honour and taxes I shall defend, have, themselves, contributed to the financing of these buildings, and the vast majority of them are extremely proud of this fact.
Without matching the huge sums spent on the buildings in Brussels, the European Parliament has, henceforth, a worthy seat which is bound to encourage all those who visit it and work there to act with dignity and with a sense of duty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Tannock">
I would like to begin by congratulating my colleague James Provan on his excellent chairing of the debate which was the first I attended with him presiding and which proved to be an interesting and useful exercise with the aim of improving the conditions of our working environment.
<P>
I would like to state that, although like many members I too regret the travelling circus between the various homes of the European Parliament, I am perfectly satisfied with my office design in Strasbourg, particularly if a lockable filing cabinet is installed as promised.
I also value the luxury of a private toilet, unlike Baroness Ludford.
However, I would like to make a strong plea for the urgent installation of a powerful extractor fan in the toilet to avoid the embarrassment of what might happen if a visiting guest to one' s office avails himself of the toilet shortly after the member has used it (this problem also exists incidentally in the Brussels office toilets)!!
<P>
I also regret the lack of TV monitor screens in the bar and restaurant areas which should be available to members having a coffee break to follow the debates in progress and, if due to speak, to time their entries back into the chamber appropriately.
Could it be deliberate policy that TVs are not there to ensure that members stay in the chamber rather than hang around in the bars watching the debates
<P>
Lastly, I dislike the garish design and colour scheme of some of the carpeting in the bar areas, reminiscent, as pointed out by another Member, of a cheap night-club rather than the desired dignified atmosphere of this house.
Similarly the beautiful cream coloured carpets used in some of the committee rooms I predict will be irreversibly stained and soiled within 3 months and rendered unusable, making it a very poor and impractical choice of colour and ultimately a waste of resources.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Purvis">
1.
"Request to speak" system
<P>
This does not seem to work.
I registered my request by pressing a button on the console but was not registered on the speakers list.
As a result, I had to revert to waiving my arms!
<P>
2.
Lifts - C Bank
<P>
These lifts still do not appear to be working smoothly.
<P>
Link call buttons to all four lifts: one has to press two buttons to call lifts.
<P>
Programming should be improved.
<P>
The lifts are slow to arrive.
They stop at floors unnecessarily, overload and jam.
<P>
The outside glass of the building is dirty.
There is also miscellaneous dirt on the concrete beams.
<P>
3.
Lifts - Glass near hemicycle (Access to press, radio and TV rooms)
<P>
Several are out of order.
<P>
They are very slow to come.
<P>
They overload too easily.
<P>
Programming should be improved.
<P>
4.
Dining Room IPE IV
<P>
Service is extremely slow (this may be due to the distance between the dining room and kitchen or perhaps there are not enough waiting staff).
<P>
The food is less interesting than IPE 1 dining room (especially no buffet).
<P>
The room lacks character (layout and design should be improved).
<P>
5.
Quiet sitting areas outside hemicycle
<P>
More chairs and tables are needed.
<P>
6.
Bars
<P>
These need to be accessible quickly and without a scrum.
<P>
7.
Fire Escape
<P>
What do we do
<P>
8.
Flights to Strasbourg from Scotland
<P>
Flights via Brussels - overbooking.
<P>
Flights via Paris - lost luggage, tight connections.
<P>
Flights via London City - cancelled flights.
<P>
Flights via London Heathrow - none.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 17 September.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Statement by the President
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
As you know, on the morning of 21 September, a terrible earthquake, measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale, struck the island of Taiwan.
Several thousand people were killed or seriously injured and there has been enormous material damage.
I would like to express, on behalf of the European Parliament, my deepest sympathy and sincere feeling of solidarity towards the victims of this tragedy and towards their families.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
The Minutes of the sitting of 17 September have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Madam President, Mr Van Buitenen' s fate has repeatedly come up for discussion in this Parliament and there have been repeated calls for his rehabilitation.
I want to express how delighted I am about the solution reached, whereby the action being taken against Mr Van Buitenen has been stopped. This means it is now possible for him to be taken on in another position.
I hope he will be able to work in the Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Maes.
I shall take note of your statement even though it does not relate to the Minutes.
<P>
If there are no more comments, I shall submit the Minutes for your approval.
<P>
(The Minutes were adopted)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
Madam President, I would simply like to make the Members aware of the fact that, last week, there was a serious earthquake in the Mexican state of Oaxaca.
Given that the European Union is currently concluding the negotiation of an agreement with Mexico, I would be grateful if this Parliament would express its solidarity and sympathy for the victims of this earthquake.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Absolutely, Mr Salafranca Sánchez. I shall be happy to do that on behalf of the European Parliament as a whole.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Speroni">
Madam President, I submitted a question for Question Time in accordance with Rule 43 of the Rules of Procedure and I adhered to the time frame contained in Annex II A(13) which stipulates, "Questions shall be tabled to the President at least one week before Question Time begins.
Questions not tabled within this time limit may be taken during Question Time with the consent of the institution concerned."
However, the question was rejected by the competent service because a term appears on the back of the form that is different to the term used in the Rules of Procedure.
Firstly, I wonder whether it is correct that a form can amend a ruling. Secondly, in any case, the Rules of Procedure stipulates that, even if a question is tabled after the deadline, the question is admissible if the institution concerned agrees.
Instead, a completely different procedure has been followed.
Given that the Rules of Procedure were approved by Parliament, whereas the form was produced by internal bureaucracy, I am wondering whether bureaucracy should prevail, or whether what the citizens' representatives voted for should prevail instead.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Speroni.
There is one point at least on which I can give you satisfaction straight away.
Obviously, a form cannot amend a Rule of Procedure.
This being the case, we will look into the matter and see if we can give you a satisfactory answer, particularly on the problem of abuses.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Agenda
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
The next item is the order of business.
The draft agenda has been distributed and the following amendments have been proposed or included.
<P>
Relating to Tuesday President.
The Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party has requested that the Commission make a statement on the French Government' s refusal to lift the ban on British beef.
This is an issue which could possibly be raised in the context of the Commission' s statement on food safety which is tabled for Tuesday morning.
<P>
I give the floor to Mrs Lynne, who would like to make this request.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="Lynne">
Madam President, under Rule 111 of the European Parliament' s Rules of Procedure, I propose an amendment to the agenda of this part-session to include a statement by the Commission about the French Government' s refusal to lift the beef ban and its decision to stop UK beef crossing its territory, which is a vital route into Spain and Italy.
<P>
I should be grateful if the statement could be followed by a short debate as provided for under Rule 37.
<P>
The Commission agreed that British beef is safe.
Scientific evidence proves that British beef is safe.
The French Government, as far as I know, has no new evidence.
Stringent safeguards are in place in the UK, yet one state - France - is going to opt out of the Commission ruling.
It will damage the internal market if this state of affairs is allowed to continue; it will damage the credibility of the Commission and it will further damage British farmers.
<P>
BSE has already cost the UK GBP 1.5 billion in lost exports.
British farmers have been patient for the last two-and-a-half or three years during the negotiations.
They have abided by the rules.
They have even destroyed animals with no sign of BSE.
At long last the beef ban was lifted. Now they are confronted with a new attack on their industry.
We need an urgent statement and debate.
I hope time can be made for this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth-Behrendt">
Ladies and gentlemen, those of you who have been Members of this Parliament in previous years know that there are very few people in this House who have concerned themselves so labour- intensively and, one might almost say, as enthusiastically with the question of the safety of meat, particularly British beef, as I did when I was the chair of the last BSE Committee.
A report once said that I ought to know every single cow in Great Britain by name.
That is not the case.
Herr Schmid thinks I know every other cow by name, well that is not true either, but I do know at least some of them.
<P>
I am the last person who wants to see unsafe meat anywhere in the European Union.
This Parliament saw to it that the Committee of Enquiry was set up.
We took care to ensure that, within the scope of the BSE debate, loopholes which still existed in many areas of legislation on foodstuffs were eliminated.
Parliament can be proud, on the whole, of what it has achieved in the last five years.
But we achieved it by working seriously and rationally.
That means, among other things, doing one thing at a time and in a well-founded way.
I am full of sympathy for fellow Members when they complain that one Member State is not complying with Union legislation.
Indeed, I am thankful that my own country, Germany, was not criticised some time ago for a similar attempt.
<P>
Madam President, on your interesting initiative, we will have a comprehensive debate on food safety tomorrow, that is to say, on food safety as a whole.
There is so much more to it than meat; there is so much more to it than dioxins or sludge or swine fever.
It is a debate on the safety and quality of foodstuffs.
This is why we also wish, at some time in the future, to discuss food safety in the European Union with the President of the Commission himself, Mr Prodi.
<P>
If we wish to take away the comprehensive nature of the debate, if we wish to change this debate, then the easiest way to do so would be to add the British beef issue to the proceedings.
Then tomorrow, we will have yet another debate on BSE.
I would happily run such a debate!
I have no problem with that.
I even believe I know the many files almost off by heart. I could do it.
But I do not think that we should do that.
I believe for a quite different reason that we should not do that.
<P>
Two days ago, the French food agency expressed doubts regarding the safety of British beef.
I have not yet read any document on the subject.
I have not yet seen anything in writing on the subject.
The appropriate committees on agriculture or the environment have not yet had time to look into the matter.
I would like to have a serious debate on the matter.
I therefore request, Madam President, that we do not debate the question tomorrow but rather in two weeks time, if it is still necessary, so that the appropriate committees can look into the matter, and that tomorrow we should debate the topic on the agenda, i.e. foodstuffs ...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Bethell, the Lord">
I understand, Madam President, that there was one speaker in favour of the suggestion, and another speaker, who has just resumed her seat, putting forward the idea that there should be a debate on this matter at the end of this month in the second October part-session.
Are you going to put both propositions to the vote?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
No, we cannot do this.
This proposal comes from the Liberal Group.
It has been put forward by Mrs Lynne and aims to include in this part-session a debate on the subject which has been mentioned.
We have heard Mrs Lynne speak on behalf of the Liberal Group.
We have heard one speaker against, Mrs Roth-Behrendt.
Now, I shall ask if there is a speaker in favour of the proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="McCartin">
Mrs Roth-Behrendt did not keep to the subject.
We accept the importance of a debate in Parliament on food safety but the proposal made was for an urgent debate on the question of whether a Member State has the right to decide for itself in accordance not with Community policy but with what suits its own political aspirations at a particular time.
<P>
This is a very urgent matter and deserves to be debated as a matter of urgency, because it is a threat to the free market.
If other Member States then proceed to behave in the same sort of way, this could lead to individual items being banned in every Member State in the Community at different times, and there will be no guarantee that the single market, which we worked so hard in this Parliament to bring about and to consolidate, will work properly.
I agree with the proposer of the motion that this is most urgent and should be discussed here immediately.
<P>
(Parliament rejected the request)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Madam President, in my opinion, Parliament should not waste this opportunity of issuing a statement on the mandate for the round of talks with the World Trade Organisation, because the Council of Ministers will give this mandate to the Commission on 13 October, and it would be completely wrong if this mandate were given without knowing the European Parliament' s opinion.
I would also like to remind you all that only a few weeks ago, when approving the Commission, the Parliament approved a declaration in which it stressed its desire to be involved in influencing the negotiation of international agreements, at the different stages of the negotiations, so it would truly be a shame if Parliament neglected to take advantage of this opportunity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Poettering">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am very sorry to have to contradict my honourable friend, Mrs Hautala.
At the Conference of Presidents, between the group chairmen, we agreed by a clear majority that we did not want a resolution on the WTO at the present time because we still need to have discussions, and we should not now draw up a summary motion for a resolution just to gain popularity in certain quarters.
We therefore abide by our decision, also out of solidarity with our vote at the Conference, not to rush the job through now.
<P>
Mrs Hautala, as regards the representatives of Parliament at the WTO Conference in Seattle, we unanimously stated that the European Parliament must be represented numerically by 15 Members of Parliament just as the American Congress claims the right to do, that is to say, this position remains unaffected regardless of whether we adopt a resolution here or not.
For my group I say: we wish to be represented on equal terms with the Americans but, at the present point in time, we are against a statement from Parliament on the matter.
<P>
(Parliament rejected the request)
<P>
Relating to Thursday: President.
Relating to the topical and urgent subjects of major importance, I have received three requests from the Greens/ALE Group, the GUE/NGL Group and the ELDR Group who would like to enter a new item entitled "Nuclear Accident in Japan" .
<P>
Pursuant to our Rules of Procedure, we must, as you know, in the event that we accept this new item being registered, remove an already existing item.
Therefore, I shall put the first request to the vote, which proposes entering the item "Nuclear Accident in Japan" , which would mean removing the item "Earthquake in Taiwan" .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Madam President, it seems to me that there has been some misunderstanding here, as there are two proposals: one which proposes that the point concerning the accident in Ustica be replaced, and another which proposes that the point concerning the earthquake in Taiwan be replaced.
I think there has been a misunderstanding and many Members of this Parliament do not know exactly which proposal they are voting for.
I am sorry that we are in the process of taking a vote, but this is the situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="President">
Perhaps I have not made myself sufficiently clear, Mr Barón Crespo, and I apologise.
<P>
I was talking about the first proposal which aims to replace the item "Earthquake in Taiwan" with a new item titled "Nuclear Accident in Japan" .
<P>
(Parliament gave its assent)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
I, too, am pleased about the decision that has been made not to fire Mr Van Buitenen, but I would ask you to put the matter on the agenda for the next meeting of the Conference of Presidents, as the grounds for the decision are completely unacceptable.
Mr Van Buitenen' s crime consists in having given documentation to a President of the EU Parliament.
That can hardly be a crime!
These grounds must therefore be changed, and that is why I would ask you to put the issue on the agenda for the Conference of Presidents.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="MacCormick">
Madam President, I have a request for information about a matter of order.
I am not sure if one is entitled to make an explanation of vote at this stage in this debate, but if so, I would like to say that I think, from the point of view of people in Scotland, it is a great pity that we will debate food safety tomorrow, without including a case where a Member State is defying the Community judgement on food safety.
That is why I voted for that motion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr MacCormick.
I think that you will have ample opportunity to raise that point during the debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
Madam President, I wanted to express my deepest thanks for dealing promptly with the difficulties which we reported to you during the last part-session.
I can now use my fax machine as it is located in a position appropriate to my height.
Thank you very much.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Madam President, I would like to a propose a procedural motion on the layout of the new Chamber.
<P>
In the old Chamber, the President sat in front of a display of flags which symbolised all the countries of the European Union.
I see that in the new Chamber, this display has disappeared.
We can all notice it.
<P>
I would therefore like to ask the following question: Has our House thought carefully about this matter, or has it been quite the contrary, a case of the services taking a decision on their own on a matter which strikes me as extremely symbolic and important?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="President">
Mr Berthu, I can reassure you straight away in a way which I am sure will satisfy you. I have ordered this display which, unfortunately, has been delayed.
It will be here tomorrow.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 5.35 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Papayannakis">
Madam, I would just like to mention that my name is not included in the list of those present.
I was present yesterday and I forgot to sign in.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Fine, we will record you as being present.
<P>
Are there any further comments?
<P>
(The Minutes were adopted)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Decision on urgent procedure
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="President.">
I would like to remind you that in its sitting on 16 September, Parliament postponed the final vote on Mrs Pack' s report on this matter.
<P>
Pack (PPE), rapporteur.
(DE) Madam President, I should like to ask that we reject the request for urgent debate.
During the last part-session of Parliament, we did not see any requests for urgent debate because we still wanted to give the Council and the Commission the opportunity to have a proper look at our amendments and to also evaluate them and perhaps even comply with them.
It is not acceptable that, during the summer recess, we should, in no time at all, have responded to the Council' s request by producing a report, and that the Council should then not even have taken note of what we had proposed by way of amendments, let alone thought of complying with them.
We expect that, by the time of the next part-session in October, the Council will have told us which of our amendments it has accepted and which it has not.
At the last part-session in Brussels, Chris Patten told us that he too would examine these proposals and would then present one of his own.
I believe that if, by means of its proposals, Parliament is speaking up for more efficiency in spending tax revenue, the Council should not do the opposite.
If, in fact, money ever disappears or gets lost in the wheels of administration, then it is always the Commission which is to blame and never the Council.
<P>
We should like, as this agency gets off the ground, for everything really to be perfectly clear, for the administration to be stringent, for the headquarters of the Agency for Reconstruction in Thessaloniki to be closely linked to the headquarters of the Stability Pact (also in Thessaloniki) and for the Kosovo Agency to be an operational component of this in Kosovo.
We also want the administrative structures to be so strict that the processes through which money is spent are precisely visible.
<P>
I should like here to contradict anyone who maintains that reconstruction in Kosovo will not be possible if we do not take a vote here today.
That is nonsense.
The EU Commission' s Task Force is already working in the area itself.
It is doing this and, ladies and gentlemen, you all know very well that the Commission never pays up very quickly and that we cannot therefore say: today it issues its instructions and tomorrow it pays.
It can confer the assignment today, and when, in October, the amount required has been estimated, it will then pay, perhaps in November or December at the earliest - as always, unfortunately, very belatedly.
<P>
We are not the ones who are impeding the reconstruction of Kosovo. It is the Council which will be doing this if it does not soon follow us on the path that we have embarked upon here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Brok">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee agrees with Mrs Pack' s remarks.
The Council' s decision is also not anticipated for this week, so that no delay is to be expected.
What is more, neither the Committee nor Parliament has yet received an official response from the Council to our representations.
For this reason, I would ask that the request for urgent debate be rejected.
<P>
(Parliament rejected the request for urgent procedure)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Public health and food safety
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
The next item is the statement by the Commission on public health and food safety.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Prodi">
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Florenz">
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
Mr Florenz, I can assure you that, in the course of the three-way discussion which we shall have tomorrow morning, I shall notify the President-in-Office of the Council that the European Parliament is actively in favour of the Council being represented at our debates.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth-Behrendt">
Madam President, Mr Prodi, I know that I was not very forbearing with you at the last part-session.
I am therefore saying today, quite openly too, that I should like to have heard the speech you made today before now.
It was very good. If you also really mean what you just said, then you may yet become a hero of mine.
You have not occupied that position in the past, but I am prepared to think again.
Until now, I have only wanted to place David Byrne in that position.
<P>
What, then, are we talking about here today, Mr Prodi?
You have made it clear. We are talking about the safety of our citizens, about health and about consumer protection in the European Union.
Let me, therefore, touch upon three points to which you also referred to some extent in your speech.
First of all, what we call the precautionary principle.
This must be the dominant goal of the policy of the European Union and of all its institutions.
I shall give you an example, Mr Prodi, which you will certainly understand. This principle must be as important for us in the European Union and have as high a priority as, for example, the criterion of price stability for the European Central Bank.
Have you understood this?
I hope so, Mr Prodi.
The Member States have not understood this.
The Council has still not understood it.
It is also your task to get this message across.
We shall do our bit. That you can be certain of.
The Council and the Member States are still light years away from this attitude.
Therefore, work together with us in this area.
<P>
Secondly: what does the precautionary principle actually mean?
It is about closing the loopholes that still exist in legislation.
You therefore referred to a White Paper which David Byrne presented at the hearing in the European Parliament and for which we were very grateful to him.
What ought this White Paper to contain?
It must be very ambitious, Mr Prodi.
I would quote here for you, in summary form only, a number of tasks which must be indispensable component parts of this White Paper.
These include safeguard clauses for foodstuffs.
At present, the European Commission is still not allowed to issue any safeguard clauses relating to foodstuffs.
It only has this right in the veterinary field, and that is a flaw.
<P>
Let us consider the area of supervisory authority.
When it comes to supervision in third countries, we may not exercise any supervisory authority in respect, for example, of fruit and vegetables.
This is a shortcoming.
Consider the so-called rapid alert system, the early warning system.
This must be improved.
You touched upon this subject, and I am grateful to you for doing so.
However, I should also like to tell you how it can be improved.
It must be made transparent.
At present, the Member States pass on information to the Commission in confidence.
This means that you, Mr Prodi, and you, Mr Byrne, have no right at all to inform our citizens about any dangers.
This must be changed.
This is not the sort of transparency which you and I value. This is not an instance of keeping the public informed.
<P>
It must be possible to improve the ways in which supervision is itself controlled in the Member States.
The supervisory office in Dublin must have the ability to exercise supervisory authority in the Member States as soon as there are grounds for suspicion, and it must also have investigative powers.
We need legislation in connection with feedingstuffs.
You have referred to this subject, and I say again that we need a positive list and we need supervisory controls in the field of feedingstuffs.
We do not have any of this.
We need the duty of declaration, something which I and my colleagues, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf and Mr Böge, have been demanding since the BSE scandal.
<P>
All this, Mr Prodi, must be achieved by the Commission before the end of 1999.
It is on this basis that I shall be assessing whether you really want to achieve your ambitious goals.
You have time before the end of the year to complete this White Paper.
We in the European Parliament will then have time in the year 2000 to work on this.
That is our task. We must change and improve the systems of supervision and monitoring.
We have established that they do not work.
For example, I am still calling for a dioxin register.
I have already done this once before in this Chamber.
We need a dioxin register which also includes other sources of dioxin such as incinerating plants and other facilities.
In this way, you can see the close, two-way connection between environmental policy and consumer protection and vice versa.
The two cannot be separated.
The one is crucial to the other.
How can it be, Mr Prodi, that fish for human consumption may have higher dioxin levels than meat?
You need to change this.
<P>
The reports on residual matter which the Member States have, after a fashion, submitted to the Commission in recent years must be checked more thoroughly and more quickly.
On the subject of antibiotics, why has more still not been done, Mr Prodi?
We have known for months that a number of antibiotics in animal feed produce forms of resistance in humans.
I therefore urge you to do something now, before the end of the year.
Mr Florenz has touched on the subject of pesticides.
There are more and more reports about the damage done to health and the environment by obsolete pesticides which no longer make sense in scientific terms.
We need regulations to ensure that these are harmless.
<P>
I come now, Mr Prodi, to your, and my, favourite subject, and to the end of my speech. This is the third of my three points and concerns your "agency" .
I put inverted commas around this, however the interpreters may translate these.
What, then, do we want, Mr Prodi?
What do you and I want?
We want the best scientific expertise, we want transparency in everything and we want safe and harmless products for the citizens of the European Union.
Is that what we have then Mr Prodi?
I say to you, "yes" , we have a large part of this.
During the BSE scandal, we ensured that the European Union' s scientific committees were restructured and that scientists are now appointed under an open appointments system, that their past careers and financial interests are known about and that the agendas, minutes and also minority opinions expressed are published on the Internet.
That is what I want.
I want transparency at a high level.
<P>
I do not, however, want what I fear you yourself want.
I do not want industry exercising influence.
You mentioned as an example the Medical Agency in London.
It has the task of authorising drugs produced through biotechnology, and that is how it earns its money.
If you make an agency responsible for doing this, then it is also responsible to industry.
That is the wrong way to proceed, Mr Prodi, and I hope that you too will appreciate this very soon.
With regard to what you are proposing, we must make it quite clear that we do not only want scientific expertise but also the exercise of supervision.
If you were to discover today in the Commission, Mr Prodi, that there was a problem area in relation to the protection of plants, then you would have to be able to call upon the scientists to organise an investigation quickly, and I should like to be able to exercise supervision over them.
Whatever else is created, there must therefore be a body of some kind, a subordinate authority.
Whether we establish this on your own premises, Mr President, or at the joint research centre which we already have in the European Union or whether we locate it somewhere else, it is all the same to me.
For me, the important things are supervision and transparency.
<P>
Finally, I would say Mr Prodi (and with this I end my speech) that if we want to ensure that our citizens regain the confidence of which you have spoken, then we must be democratic.
I assume, Mr Prodi, that this proposal for an agency, as you call it, is to be put before Parliament.
You said that you had still not decided.
Then I can only say that you have been lucky!
It is this Chamber which must decide, and it is not you in the Commission who decides. In this way, we shall certainly arrive at a satisfactory solution.
Thank you for your attention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Ries">
Madam President, President Prodi, Commissioner Byrne, ladies and gentlemen, I too would like to return, as Mrs Roth-Behrendt did just now, to the dioxin crisis and Belgium, of course, without necessarily discussing it as a purely Belgian problem.
<P>
The recent Standing Veterinary Committee of the Union took the decision, a fortnight ago, to lift the embargo on Belgian beef exports, thus recognising the serious nature of the tests and the strictness of the standards which are now imposed by the new Belgian Government.
The meat produced today in Belgium is henceforth certified as being of excellent quality, and may now return to its former position on the market.
In fact, it seems to me that the European Union would be well advised to follow this example in promoting systematic testing for PCB and dioxin in all States, as this is not the case at the moment.
It would be remiss of me not to mention the creation in Belgium of an agency for food safety, responsible for monitoring the entire food chain from beginning to end.
<P>
Victims of a crisis which they did not cause and whose consequences they have no control of, Belgian farmers, moreover, are waiting for concrete evidence of European solidarity, so that this dioxin crisis may be recognised as epizootic, in the same way as the mad cow crisis in Great Britain.
This, in my opinion, is the price of Community solidarity.
<P>
We must now, four months after the start of the crisis, rise above the emotional atmosphere - you mentioned it too, Mr Prodi - which has often dominated the debate until now.
It is not, as I said, an acute problem limited to Belgium, but is, indeed, a case with a European dimension.
What do we want to eat?
What level of quality do we want for our consumers?
How can we guarantee this quality?
It is our way of life, as you said, Mr President.
<P>
To do this, then, the Union must invest more in the safety of the food chain, at every stage of the process, and decide, for example - as we have discussed - whether or not it is useful to create this agency, this notorious independent food agency, supposedly inspired by an American model or some other such thing.
I note your various proposals, Mr Prodi, particularly citizens' access to the early warning system; and Commissioner Byrne' s proposal on the White Paper.
<P>
Having said that, the questions remain: when will this actually happen?
What is the timetable for these proposals?
I would also like to ask you a question too: to what extent does the Union, in fact, use, if at all, its own resources, such as, for example, the research centre into health and food safety located at Ispra?
<P>
As the elected representatives of the citizens primarily affected by all these stakes, which are crucial, this Parliament must play an essential role in this area.
The vote on the next budget, including a series of amendments designed to draw the initial lessons from this dioxin crisis, will indicate whether we have decided to lead the way or not.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Auroi">
Madam President, President Prodi, ladies and gentlemen, after hearing Mr Prodi' s proposals, I am utterly astounded by the position of the PPE and the PSE on food safety.
Perhaps they do not feel capable of putting forward concrete proposals today, but we do.
That is why we wished to propose a resolution for, throughout Europe, the series of scandals which have occurred means that, today, the citizens and consumers no longer have any confidence in their farmers.
<P>
The quibbling involved in stating that the Committee on the Environment has scheduled a hearing on animal feedingstuffs should not be an obstacle to the debate.
Of course, one can listen to the experts on a small part of the subject, but the fact remains that we, as Members of Parliament, must take initiatives.
It seems to me that what the citizens expect of Parliament and the Commission are initiatives.
<P>
Adopting a resolution today would have been a clear sign on this subject.
From the recent past and its frenzied emphasis on high productivity, we have inherited a situation which, in the agricultural sector just as - too often - elsewhere, has subordinated policy to the major food-processing groups and major distributors resulting in mad cows, dioxin-contaminated chickens, motor oil in cooking oil, sewage sludge in cattle meal, and who knows what else?
There is a long list of scandals which show that, as regards agricultural production, European States have been no more virtuous than their American counterparts, even if they have banned hormones.
We should have the courage to say so.
The recent attempts by some governments to control these industries are still insufficient.
What is more, a good number of European States have not taken any action.
<P>
In order to achieve this, we need regulations which prioritise the precautionary principle which the Greens have long cherished.
In addition, we must agree on the meaning of this principle.
For us it means getting back to the quality of foodstuffs which guarantees the safety of products intended for consumption.
We are first of all asking for a list of all the toxic substances which can contaminate our food through pollution, be it of air, water, or soil.
We are asking for regular tests in branches of industry where there have been problems with toxicity, and inspections in agricultural areas located in the vicinity of firms creating pollution.
We are asking for traceability at all levels, not just in the labelling of the products that go into the housewife' s shopping basket, but also beforehand.
We want to ascertain the exact content of products which go into cattle feed.
Finally, according to this same principle, it is vital to wait for a period before accepting genetically-modified products whose long-term effects on the resistance of plants unsuitable for cultivation are unknown, as little known as the adaptability of weeds to GMOs.
<P>
If the European Union really wishes to show all those who have suffered from past neglect that it wished to draw all the parties involved together and that they can once again have confidence in its policies, it must immediately put forward some very concrete proposals on food safety.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Fiebiger">
Madam President, against the background of a predictably fiercer debate about farming products costing as little as possible, a lot of damage has been caused to food production in the EC.
Many active farmers who were working in accordance with good rural practice had to cease production.
No details at all have so far been given of the costs of this.
The massive industrial contamination of feedingstuffs through additives introduced without regard for any maximum permitted limit leaves the consumer with the justified impression that the production of animal feed has degenerated into its mere exploitation.
<P>
Disposing of used sludge and sewage sludge may be a problem, but guaranteeing the safety of animal feed additives must be placed higher on the political agenda than it has been so far.
I expect the Commission, when it creates a food agency, to specify that animal feed should be traceable back to its origins and to formulate legal provisions which penalise criminal practices and reward working farmers.
But this has to happen quickly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Muscardini">
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Esclopé">
Madam President, President Prodi, it is opportune for us to have a debate on food safety today, at a time when consumers have so many legitimate reasons for concern.
<P>
The Council and the Commission would like to get the measure of this concern, but at the moment, they do not seem to be particularly capable of offering solutions other than pernickety but overcautious regulations, which the sharpest and most unscrupulous people will continue to circumvent, to the detriment of food safety.
Recent examples provide clear evidence of this.
<P>
So, I would like to take advantage of this general debate to stress to my fellow Members and to the other institutions the need to get back to a few common-sense principles which have been swept away by great theories which are based too much on economic concerns and not enough on human concerns.
<P>
Confidence is not achieved by decree, it must be earned.
Of course, it may be something innate, especially in the case of country products which are subject to quality rules which are handed down for generations sometimes.
So, let us take advantage of this in order to recognise and acknowledge as justifiably special the products which are deserving of confidence.
At least, let us leave those who have forever known and practised their business with the complete confidence of the consumers to continue to do so, without raising the guillotine blade of unsuitable directives above their head, unsuitable because the author of the directives is unable to grasp the reality of the situation.
<P>
These country products, I say to you, should never be penalised under Community regulations, especially not when they are sold as local produce, for their quality is almost certainly the best guarantee of food safety.
Let me take our local farmers' markets as just one example.
Of course, the fruit and vegetables that I find locally are not kept in isothermic containers, but at least we know where the products come from.
If they are not fresh, they rot.
So, in this case, sell-by labels are not needed.
<P>
On the other hand, when one does not have the privilege of living so close to the production sites, it is necessary to intervene in order to merit confidence, and never to betray it.
But I worry when I see that the most basic safety measures are not taken.
Whether it is a case of negligence or deliberate disregard, it is a serious error for which all the parties responsible must be accountable to the population.
<P>
So, in order to ensure food safety in the face of the unknown, I believe that, going beyond the practice of scientific committees which is far too widespread in the United States - and which I deplore, even here in the European Union - with decisions taken behind closed doors, we must, above all, guarantee the consumer complete and accurate information right from the original production sites.
The transparency of these products, their traceability with details of their production and components, and comprehensive labelling will enable everyone to be kept informed.
In addition, the use of non-natural components, such as GMOs or hormones must be clearly indicated, even if we want them to be banned.
<P>
How many more scandals must we expect before requiring, without risking incurring fines, recognition of the precautionary principle which, in the field of human health, is the only one capable of guaranteeing consumers the protection they are entitled to?
This is the question you must answer today if this debate is not to have been in vain.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Vanhecke">
Mr President, the mere fact that there is a need for this debate at all ought, I feel, to instil a degree of humility in all those who make policy at European level.
After all, Europe has more competence in the agricultural sphere, which absorbs half our budget, than it does in any other area.
Nevertheless, we have had to contend with what have proved to be particularly severe forms of food poisoning in various Member States in recent years and there is little or no supervision in the agro-industry, which incorporates all manner of filth and rubbish into the food chain.
<P>
My country is now having to contend with the consequences of the notorious dioxin crisis.
But everyone knows that what is happening in my country is just the tip of the iceberg and that the food safety problem is not confined to one or a few countries.
Everywhere you look, there are residues of medicines and pesticides in the food chain.
There are salmonella and dioxin problems everywhere and the list just goes on.
<P>
We do have a large number of European regulations and standards but they are rather fragmented.
There appears to be a lack of a framework.
Most importantly, there is no effective supervisory body to ensure that all these regulations and standards are adhered to.
At the present time, more and more people in my country are asking the question, and rightly so, if it is normal practice for us to foot the bill for the stringent standards adhered to and, especially, for the stringent supervision exercised in our country when other Member States, I regret to say, do not take a blind bit of notice of these standards and supervision.
It is an either/or situation.
But since there is a free market and open borders and almost unlimited imports, including those from non-member States I might add, then effective measures must also be taken to impose common safety and environmental standards within the European Union, but also in the countries from which our food imports originate. These standards must then be supervised in earnest.
<P>
As I said, European agricultural policy absorbs half of our budget.
80% of that budget goes on 20% of agricultural enterprises, which is a very clear sign, of course, that for years European agricultural policy has taken the side of the agro-industry rather than that of the small-scale producers of high-quality agricultural products.
<P>
I believe that some responsibility for the problems we are facing should also be taken at European level, and that the EU should step in with financial aid when large numbers of small-scale farmers and agricultural enterprises in my country fall victim to what in many cases amounts to nothing less than the derailment of European agricultural policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Grossetête">
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, if the PPE did not want this debate to be held today, it was not because it did not consider it important, but just in order to be able to shed light on a number of aspects, to hear the opinions of a number of experts, before making a statement.
Well, the debate is being held today after all, and as we are here and we have heard President Prodi' s statement, we have been able to take into consideration the things he has announced, i.e. the creation of an independent European food agency, prioritisation of food safety, strengthening of controls, etc.
<P>
We hope however that these proposals are not just empty words.
A European agency may be effective, but it may also be no more than a group of officials attempting to deal with problems far removed from real events, and this is not what consumers expect.
Given the many scandals we have seen in the food sector and the growing concern of consumers, passed on, what is more, by political decision-makers, I believe there is an urgent demand for greater transparency, more controls, greater traceability, and especially greater responsibility at every stage of production.
<P>
President Prodi, there is no way around true reform in agriculture.
I believe that recent decades show that we have been playing the role of the sorcerer' s apprentice.
So, today, we are faced with food scandals relating to BSE, dioxin, antibiotics, pesticides, and the excessive use of fertilisers as well.
What scandals we have already witnessed, and how many more are still to come?
So, Mr President, you would be specifically to blame if you were unable to propose a real reform in agriculture and, from that point of view Madam President, it is a pity that the Council is not represented here, since agricultural policy is chiefly dependent on the Council.
It is not possible to progress without carrying out real reform, one more concerned with product quality and respect for the environment.
True, all this has a price, the price of extensive production, but the agricultural budget is a sizeable one and all that is required is the political will to change the way it is distributed.
<P>
Finally, Commissioner, Commission President, Madam President, we must present a united front in the discussions we are to have with the United States about our relationships within the context of the WTO.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Whitehead">
Madam President, it is very appropriate that the issue which - in restrospect - did so much to blemish the reputation of the last two Commissions should be the subject of the opening debate for this new one.
I welcome what President Prodi has said today.
The citizens of Europe have the right to know what they are eating, where it was produced and by what means, and to have these things clearly indicated and labelled.
Of course, all of us believe that where other countries' products are concerned; but we also need to know it about our own.
<P>
When I asked the Commission representatives in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection a couple of months ago about the reported illegal recycling of sewage sludge into animal feed in some Member States, nobody could define for me what sewage sludge was, where it was being used or why.
Two separate directorates of the Commission were there - the then DG XXIV and DG VI.
Everybody looked at everybody else.
I would like to hear from Mr Byrne today, using this small example initially, whether he has got to the bottom of this problem.
We are not talking here of a practice of which no-one knew the dangers before.
It is a disgusting procedure.
We need to know why and how it has been allowed to happen.
I hope Mr Byrne, when he comes to reply, will be able to tell us.
<P>
What we need is the ability to act quickly where the law is not upheld.
In the dioxin scandal, for example, what is needed, it seems to me, is not so much a mad rush to ban a whole range of products - RVOs and so on - as the possibility of discovering whether these things are new pollutants or simply products which have become polluted.
It we can find that out we are on the way to a better scrutiny of the products themselves.
<P>
A food agency, which some have doubts about, is to me as credible and as necessary as an environment agency, about which there were also doubts at its inception.
It would provide a benchmark for all Member States.
For those whose precautionary legislation is defective it would be a boost and a buttress.
For those who now set high standards, as I believe my own country does, it would be a reassurance that we are all toiling in the same vineyard and on the same level cornfield.
The tragedy is that in areas where we have a rudimentary common policy, through the scientific committees and the new Veterinary Office in Dublin, some Member States still break ranks.
<P>
We have had a relentless drive to achieve full safety methods in beef production in my country, quite rightly after BSE.
That led to the end of the beef ban in August of this year, but not, apparently, in France.
I would like to know now from Mr Byrne how he proposes to validate Community decisions based on scientific advice - as the lifting of the beef ban was - when they are flouted by a Member State.
<P>
Safety issues simply cannot be allowed to degenerate into shabby national politics at the will of any Member State.
I would like to know how the White Paper will ensure coherent safety standards, proper labelling and precautionary advice.
We want to see these things implemented in the three-year target period that he has set for himself.
It would be disastrous if we were left with the politics of retribution and recrimination where we could move towards common European standards.
It would be absolutely ludicrous if we were to go into the next WTO round unable to set out clear standards ourselves which are the framework of the precautionary principle.
If we do that we are left exchanging insults on the basis of self-interest and ignorance.
Europe can surely do better than that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Sterckx">
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, it is therefore clear, as you rightly said, that the entire process must be followed from the beginning right through to the consumer.
In so doing, we have known for the past few years now that cattle fodder is one of the weak links in the food chain.
I can remember that when the dioxin crisis began in Belgium, in my country that is, people said: how could we have detected that?
Nobody had ever imagined that something like that would end up in cattle fodder.
I now ask myself if there are still a number of things which we do not suspect of being able to enter the chain but which do, in fact, end up there.
And so I think it is time to set to work on a positive list and, as Mr Florenz said, to ensure that we know what is allowed to be in the food chain and what is not.
That is my first important point.
<P>
A second important point is this: after months of hard work, my country' s faith has been restored in the European Commission and so, we are starting work using a system that is stringent and that is very expensive, it is true, but that is worth the effort nonetheless; it is one of stringent supervision and stringent standards.
The tests on cattle have shown that there are a number of cases which do not derive from cattle fodder but do derive from contamination, dioxin contamination, caused by industry and by incinerators.
We are aware of this in Belgium because we have carried out a great many tests, but what is the situation in the rest of the European Union?
Is it not the case that efforts should be made to monitor this in other EU countries as well, and a number of other things too?
Was there not a report on incinerators by the European Parliament and should that not be in the hands of someone in the Council?
Could we, at long last, be allowed to know what stage we have reached?
I had wanted to ask the Council something else and I think it is a pity that they are not present.
We note that the Commission wants to be strict, not just towards Belgium but also towards the others.
I hear that there are a number of countries that are nowhere near as enthusiastic and that are putting the brakes on.
I would certainly like to know who these countries are and why they are taking this line.
Am I right in thinking that certain Member States no longer want to go as far as the Commission' s proposals?
<P>
I feel that as the European Parliament we must support the Commission when it takes rigorous, rapid and explicit action.
Its White Paper certainly must not be used as a delaying tactic.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, we are agreed that the EU should no longer be synonymous with rubbish and poison being found in foodstuffs.
Yet, a food agency does not create any security, and a White Paper ought not to be misused for the purpose of putting off long overdue decisions.
We need a change of direction in foodstuffs policy.
In the past, the Commission has made itself too much the mouthpiece of industry and all too often trampled on the precautionary principle.
You spoke of labelling from field to table.
All right, but what of the duty to label feedingstuffs?
What of the duty to label genetically-modified additives?
You know of the loophole in the Order on novel foods.
What of an Order on novel feedingstuffs, an Order relating to genetically-manufactured feedingstuffs?
What of a stamp of quality for foodstuffs free from genetic modification?
<P>
What is not needed is a mere shunting yard of a White Paper. Rather, what we need here is a quick decision.
As long as two years ago, the Commission gave us an assurance about these matters. Really, we ought to have had these regulations a long time ago.
What I am expecting from you here is a clear timetable and a clear statement as to when these legal decisions are to be taken.
In the field of PCBs, too, more limit values are needed.
We know from the EPA in the United States that there are further toxic PCBs.
We also need clear rules and bans.
It is not acceptable that you should demand more safety in the field of antibiotics too when, at the same time, the Commission permits antibiotics in additives.
<P>
As we have already been reminded, we must finally have a clear positive list in the field of pesticides as well.
May I say one more thing. It is completely irresponsible to speak of industry' s accepting responsibility for its own actions while it postpones decisions about environmental and risk liability.
We in the European Parliament, and it is to the big groups that I am addressing this remark, must...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="President">
Mrs Breyer, one minute thirty seconds is one minute thirty seconds and not two minutes.
If you would like to speak for two minutes, you must argue within your group to be allotted two minutes.
Otherwise, we are going to get in a complete muddle and off track as far as time is concerned.
I hope you understand.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Thomas-Mauro">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I have listened with a great deal of attention to the statement from the Committee on Public Health and Food Safety.
<P>
The French delegation is extremely perplexed with regard to the comments we have heard if we put them back in the context of the crisis we witnessed several years ago, the BSE crisis or "mad cow" crisis.
Indeed, following an assessment by the French national food safety agency, France decided last week not to lift the ban on beef from Great Britain.
<P>
I was personally in favour of lifting the embargo with regard to Northern Ireland.
In fact, there was no BSE there, or virtually none.
Controls and traceability of products were of an acceptable level there.
This is not the case in Great Britain: the disease has not been eradicated and the numbers of diseased animals there is still too high to prevent all risks of contamination and to guarantee consumers a healthy product.
<P>
I have also taken note, like all my fellow Members, of the Commission' s intention to create a European agency for food safety and for medicinal products.
I am resolutely opposed to this initiative.
Member States must be in a position themselves to establish the level of precaution and food safety they wish for their citizens.
We saw that the Commission was fully responsible for the slowness of the decision-making process in the mad cow crisis.
I therefore do not trust the Commission to guarantee my fellow citizens an adequate level of health safety.
The role of the Commission and the European institutions must, in the specific case of food safety, be limited to negotiating the precautionary principle within the framework of international agreements and to coordinating the policies of Member States and the European Union.
The sacrosanct principle of the single market and globalisation must not be allowed to undermine the food safety which all the citizens of the European Union are entitled to expect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fiori">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, dioxin and BSE are different types of problems which have both hit the world of agriculture hard as well as directly involving consumers too.
These are two matters which have been explained to citizens as extraordinary events, but given the frequency of similar cases in the European Union, in our opinion, we can no longer use stopgap measures but need real solutions instead.
<P>
The latest striking evidence comes from dioxin.
We have to think of stable and lasting solutions.
The solutions target specific areas: 1) the consumers; 2) a new agri-environmental revolution; 3) precise political direction which the Community bodies must give.
Overall, the broadly positive note is coming from the producers and consumers.
On the one hand, farmers, who have for some time firmly followed the set of rigid production rules, have been guaranteeing and giving their full backing to - as history and current events show - the maturity of consumers. On the other hand, a possible way to resolve the problem is linked to consumers themselves, who by now well understand the European policy on brands and typical products which aims to strengthen local European products that are perfectly able to avoid being crushed by international competition that favours standardised food products instead.
But in this context, we certainly cannot ask the producers to sacrifice themselves in the context of problems which all too often means they give way and are beaten. They lose out in the market through no fault of their own and can only look forward to a prolonged period of trying to win back the confidence that they had gained by hard work and production costs which here again, were all too often undervalued or at least, not given their full value.
<P>
The subject of production costs does not appear either in the regulations on rural development or in the regulations on consumer policy. There is not even the barest mention.
Issues such as dioxin should teach us that, while it is true that farmers who have higher environmental standards should have higher incomes, in the case of food these requirements should also be applied, to an even greater degree.
So, if it can be proved that the producers had nothing to do with cases like the dioxin scandal, then it is worth considering putting an appropriate price on quality.
<P>
The concept of quality has often been discussed and I too would like to refer to a precise but complex weave of characteristics: hygiene, traceability, safety, specific production - and environmental - characteristics, nutritional value etc.
But quality - not the standardised quality which I mentioned in reference to the global market - must be recognised both in normal situations and even more so in conditions where producers face almost constant environment risks.
Agenda 2000 and Regulation 1257 recognise and emphasise aspects which are connected with moves in this direction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Lancker">
Mr President, Commissioner Prodi, I think that the statement you have made today demonstrates that the Commission does indeed intend to provide consumers with full guarantees as regards safe and healthy food.
Today, I want to touch on three points which appear to me to be crucial if these guarantees are to be lived up to.
<P>
First and foremost, we need effective legislation, at European level too, of course.
You did indeed refer to 800 basic directives but in fact there are still huge gaps in this legislation.
It just does not make sense for there only to be PCB and dioxin standards for Belgium, and for it not to be deemed necessary for other European countries.
Neither does it make much sense to me that we are not to discuss how to proceed with pesticides, antibiotics and with other undesirable contaminants in food.
I feel I have no choice but to agree with those here present who have called for a positive list to be compiled as regards cattle fodder, for you would not believe how much goes wrong there.
<P>
A second important point appears to me to be the introduction of a sound supervisory system.
You may say that responsibility for supervision should fall first and foremost to the Member States and indeed it should.
However, the Committee of Inquiry in Belgium has shown that things are going badly wrong there.
To my mind, it is extremely important for supervision to be undertaken in the same way in all Member States, for there to be guarantees for this supervision, for the supervisors themselves to be subject to supervision, and for the agency in Dublin to be given more autonomous authority to exercise supervision on its own initiative.
<P>
My third and final point is one that I feel it is very important to touch on in today' s debate, namely that there is a real need for the work of all the departments concerned to be coordinated.
We are all aware that there are many of them.
Even though the Commission is being re-organised, it is still the case that a variety of departments are involved.
President Prodi, Belgium has set up a food safety agency for this purpose.
I feel it is also important for a coordinating body to be set up at European level, and that there is also a need for reliable, scientific advice, for coherent policy at European level.
I welcome your announcement about the open debate that is to take place on the setting up of a European food agency.
<P>
President Prodi, if this agency is to be independent of something then, to my mind, it is essential for it to be independent of industrial lobbying.
When it comes to our food policy, we cannot allow commercial interests to take precedence over the interests of the consumer.
We believe it is absolutely essential that an agency of this kind should always fall within the Commission' s sphere of political responsibility, and always be under the political control of the European Parliament.
Equally, we feel it is essential that all the Directorates-General throughout the Commission' s administration should work together in an efficient manner.
I hope that Commissioner Byrne will be able to fulfil his role as coordinator efficiently and effectively.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Pesälä">
Mr President, it was stated in a previous speech that consumers and the public do not trust producers.
For our part, we must all swiftly rectify this basic error: this is not so much a matter which concerns producers: these crises are crises of the food production industry and the feedingstuffs industry, for which the producer then winds up involuntarily looking like the responsible party.
<P>
I would like to raise one issue which has not yet been mentioned, and that is the matter of heavy metals in sewage sludge.
Sewage sludge contains heavy metals, including considerable quantities of cadmium and because of this, in my own home country, and in the Nordic countries generally, this sludge may not be spread on the fields at all, because cadmium gets into the food chain and thereby enters the human body.
It is inconceivable that it has been possible to use sewage sludge for years in the preparation of feed and in fertiliser, although this was banned in the EU ten years ago.
Our European agriculture model has received a heavy blow and, because of this, we must swiftly take up these issues.
<P>
President Prodi said that he would also deal with economic matters.
For this reason, the factories using prohibited substances must be closed immediately.
Then we would be acting on a sensitive issue, intervening in aspects of the economy, and that would have a very speedy effect.
Such action, which adds to monitoring and bureaucracy, must be totally transparent, however, so that everyone knows what is actually going on.
Sewage sludge and waste cannot be permitted to be used in animal feed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Staes">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President of the Commission, first and foremost, I would like to lend my support to the objection raised by Mr Florenz and the PPE about the Council' s failure to attend this plenary sitting.
We are part of the three-cornered relationship of Council-Parliament-Commission, but I note that the Council attends rarely, if at all.
This is scandalous.
<P>
We must search our own hearts.
I feel that this Parliament behaved in a eunuch-like way yesterday in refusing to link this debate on food safety and the WTO with a resolution.
I feel there is a need for a broadly based discussion in the public arena about the recycling industry.
I endorse the comments made by Mr Whitehead.
<P>
We really need to have all the facts about what goes into our food.
Waste matter must be treated as such.
If something can still be recycled then it must only be allowed to enter the food chain having fulfilled extremely stringent conditions, and it must always be retraceable.
<P>
President of the Commission, I welcome your proposals.
In common with Mrs Roth-Behrendt, I too feel very strongly that there should be a dioxin register.
It is clear that our food contains dioxins that also derive from external sources.
The situation in Belgium is evidence of this and that is why we must take action.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="President">
Mr Staes, I should like to point out to you that a Parliament in which we have so many female colleagues cannot, by its very nature, be a eunuch!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Mr Prodi, we shall judge your good intentions and declarations when they become proposals.
Until then, we are asking you to do your job better.
<P>
First of all, you yourselves must actively seek out any breaches of the law and not wait around for the citizens to come forward with their accusations.
In the last scandal, which few speakers mentioned and which concerns the carcinogenic coating on tinned food, we saw no initiative from you nor did we see any ensuing determination.
<P>
Secondly, we are calling on you to be tougher and to make public any legal proceedings against governments who breach the deficient legislation that we have.
Tell us which governments you have referred to the Court and why, and which companies were responsible for those violations.
<P>
Thirdly, what we are asking for is for you all to be a little more forward-looking.
We all know what the next scandal will be over: nitrate contamination of vegetables.
Do you intend to do something about that?
Do you intend to say something to the citizens?
Do you intend to prepare yourselves for action?
<P>
As regards the body you wish to establish, do not go looking for other models.
The best model is probably that of Europol.
And as for the international dimension of it all, do not turn to the World Trade Organisation.
For goodness sake!
What about the World Health Organisation, Mr Prodi!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Thyssen">
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, the Commission' s statement on food safety comes not a moment too soon. We have been pondering the Green Paper for one and a half years now.
The Green Paper itself has been in existence for more than two and a half years and, in fact, nothing more has been done in the meantime.
The BSE crisis and now also the events of the last few months have demonstrated that food safety must be made a priority, but also that such things are only given priority when there are crises.
We are banking on the fact that this is now going to change.
Mr President of the Commission, the fact that it was you that provided the introduction to today' s debate gives us cause for hope.
<P>
Your statement was certainly full of good intentions but I only heard a little about the actual measures that are to be taken.
That is why there are some questions I still want to ask and which I would be pleased to hear answered.
<P>
Firstly there is the matter of the agency for food safety.
It seems that an agency of this kind is to be something of a deus ex machina, but still we must ask the question: what exactly is its role to be?
What would the division of labour be between the proposed agency and the existing one in Dublin?
Would it be adequately staffed from the beginning?
What would its relationship with the national services and agencies be?
Last, but by no means least, to whom would this agency be accountable?
<P>
My second point concerns the internal market.
It must now be obvious to everyone that public health must take precedence over economic interests and those of the internal market.
Nevertheless, the internal market is an established fact.
What will the Commission do to stop Member States introducing protectionist measures under the pretext of public health?
Suspicions on that score are rife.
I would also refer you to the intervention made by Mr Whitehead.
<P>
My third point is prompted by the dioxin crisis.
The Commission compelled Belgium to carry out PCB testing but there is no European PCB standard.
It is an either/or situation: either there is a public health problem or there is not.
If there is then the whole of Europe is affected, which means that Europe-wide measures must be taken and the same yardstick must be used throughout the EU.
Hence, my question: will the Commission produce a European PCB standard, and if so, when?
I have submitted a question in writing on this but I am sorry to say that I have received no response as yet.
<P>
I also have a question about the distribution of competences.
I see there are no less than four Commissioners whose competences relate to food safety.
My question is as follows: how are these responsibilities to be coordinated?
Has a system of cooperation been agreed?
Who in the Commission is to have the final word?
<P>
Then, of course there is the international dimension.
The Green Paper is long behind us and we have the White Paper to come.
We have prohibitive regulations in relation to hormones in meat and our own regulations as regards genetically-modified organisms, but the question is to what extent the European Union will continue to be able to choose its own policies, and how far the Commission will be able to go in demanding international recognition for the right to autonomy and the right to maintain EU authority over food safety and political choices relating to food policy.
These are questions which I would be pleased to receive an answer to.
I lend my support to the comments some of my colleagues have made about the scandalous absence of the Council from this debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="Bowe">
Thank you, Mr President.
I have listened with interest to the debate today. I have listened with interest to the things which Mr Prodi has said in the past about how we can reach a solution to the crisis with food safety within Europe.
One conclusion comes immediately to my mind which I do not hear Mr Prodi addressing, and that is the implementation and enforcing of existing legislation.
Forget about creating new agencies, forget about new rules; why are you not looking much more seriously at implementing and enforcing the existing legislation?
If you had done that, then we should not have had a dioxin crisis in Belgium.
Mr Prodi really has to think about that and perhaps produce proposals for that before Christmas.
<P>
Central to the solutions that he is proposing is the food agency.
We have to remember, Mr Prodi, that when this Parliament has looked at this problem of a food agency in the past, we have not been absolutely sure about whether this is the right way forward.
However we, like you, are prepared to listen and consider it.
But I have to say to you that we will have to ask you some very hard questions before we can be satisfied that you are moving in the right direction.
<P>
The first question will be whether it is a food and drug agency or a food safety agency that you are proposing?
The second will be how much power you will devolve from the Commission to this new agency, and perhaps to some of the existing agencies, so that they can do their job better and assist the food agency in solving the problems regarding food in Europe? How will you ensure the accountability of these new agencies?
Would you consider, for example, hearings held here in the European Parliament to choose the directors of those agencies?
There are many issues that we want to hear from you about, Mr Prodi.
We would like to hear from you today about them. We definitely want to see them in your White Paper.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, I would say that there is already a confusion in the minds of parliamentarians about who is responsible inside the Commission for key elements of this problem.
We have Mr Byrne responsible for some issues and Mrs Wallström responsible for others, particularly as regards GMOs.
You must resolve those issues inside the Commission before you take steps towards creating a food agency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="De Clercq">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is becoming increasingly clear that problems relating to public health and to healthy food truly are European problems, world problems, and not just one Member State' s problems.
For that very reason, support must be given to the efforts made by Member States such as Belgium, which is endeavouring to keep the consequences of the food contamination episode to a minimum and to guarantee safe and healthy food.
I would even go as far as to say that these efforts must be continued at a European level.
<P>
I consider there to be four priorities arising from the dioxin crisis experienced by my country and these are as follows: firstly, Belgium has set up a federal food agency which will become operational at the end of this year.
I believe that the same course should be pursued at a European level, but that there is no need to set up a new body in the process.
The work can be incorporated into the existing office in Dublin.
<P>
Secondly, notwithstanding the European Veterinary Committee' s decision that it is no longer necessary for PCB tests to be carried out on Belgian meat, Belgium continues to carry out these tests on meat destined for export.
I therefore believe that tests of this kind must take place throughout the European Union.
<P>
Thirdly, supervision must be carried out on the basis of the same quality standards.
It is not permissible for Member States to still be using different standards for ascertaining food quality.
This distorts competition, which is to the detriment of those who play the game by the rules, if I can put it that way.
European legislation must provide a quality labelling system and must ensure that tests and quality standards are the same throughout Europe.
<P>
Lastly, a European financing system must be established.
It is not acceptable for one Member State to bear the brunt financially for a crisis such as the dioxin crisis.
There are a number of amendments to next year' s budget on the table that will be able to provide the necessary financial room for manoeuvre.
We hope that these will be adopted during the next plenary session and that you, Mr Prodi, together with your Commission, will give it the legal basis it needs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, agricultural production of the conventional kind uses more and more chemical substances, additives, auxiliary substances, antibiotics and hormones - I could go on - and our food processing plants resemble chemical factories rather than food production facilities. In this situation, supervision at the final stage and the setting of upper limits are no longer adequate measures.
What matters is that we have supervision over the process as a whole.
Interestingly enough, supervision of the process as a whole is laid down in the order concerning conventional, organic farming.
So, in an area where production holds no dangers, we have supervision of the process as a whole, and quite rightly too.
I support that as well. In the other areas, however, we do not have such controls.
This kind of final-stage supervision is a direct invitation to criminal wheelings and dealings. Meanwhile, opportunities are taken to blend substances, something which - we must suppose - has led to the systematic addition of toxic substances in the field of feedingstuffs.
This must be changed.
<P>
The second point I should like to address is the need to restore the close relationship between producer and consumer. There is no place for anonymity.
I tell you that if I were to behave on my farm in the way that much of industry, including the food industry, does, people would not come back; or, if they did, it would be with a stick in order to teach me a lesson!
Then I would have no more customers.
This close relationship between producer and consumer, together with responsibility on the part of the consumer for his or her own behaviour, must be restored.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Keppelhoff-Wiechert">
Mr President, Commissioner Prodi, consumers are living ever longer lives and are becoming ever healthier at more advanced ages.
In spite of this, the subject of food safety is high up on the agenda.
I believe that producers and consumers are in the same boat here, for the producers are themselves also consumers.
That is something we sometimes forget in the overall discussion.
Losses in the cattle and meat industry due to falling sales caused by constant public discussion of these matters are, however, unsustainable in the longer term.
<P>
In Germany, a country in which animal corpses and waste from slaughterhouses are recycled in the appropriate manner, the discussion of animal feed has now become a macabre media spectacle.
Unappetising pictures, together with headlines about the everyday cycle of horror in disgusting factories, are increasingly marginalising meat production and the practice of keeping livestock on farms.
The fact is that, in a number of countries, sewage sludge is now also being declared a biomass and animal feed enriched with this is driving the last customer away from the meat counter.
Feedingstuffs legislation is part of a quite distorted picture.
I appeal to you and to us all. We can no longer skulk in dark corners.
That must be our maxim!
Should the consumer really be convinced, in the future too, that farm animals have been reduced to the status of interim depositories for dubious feedingstuffs?
Is the consumer to go on thinking that we in the EU close down farms and so give up cultivating cereal, but burn the corpses of our animals and use meat and bone meal as animal feed?
I cannot begin to imagine that, in this period of innovation, we cannot find new and different ways of disposing of waste.
<P>
Our farmers certainly do not want this policy.
Should the consumer then continue voluntarily supporting this practice through his consumption of meat?
He will simply not do this, and for ethical, moral and emotional reasons.
Declining to use meat and bone meal as animal feed benefits both producer and consumer.
Voluntarily refusing to be involved in such processes is something which is already seen to be having a very positive influence upon the way in which meat is advertised.
<P>
I shall say one more thing: as far as I am concerned, food is not superfluous junk.
Food is now already being wasted, partly because of production costs.
This state of affairs also has a bad effect upon European agriculture.
Mr Prodi, it is not acceptable to deceive consumers again, as in the dioxin scandal.
We need an entirely clear information policy in all Member States.
The tactic of covering up these matters really must be brought to an end.
I fully support you when you say that we need a comprehensive system of labelling.
This should include everything of relevance to the consumer.
But we also need reasonable prices so that both producer and consumer are in accord with one another.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Malliori">
Mr Prodi, we are particularly concerned about the fact that, in recent years, matters of vital concern relating to the quality and safety of food and the protection of the health of European citizens are continually in the news, which does not always guarantee valid and reliable information.
<P>
I am particularly pleased that you yourself are here today to inform us about a most important issue, even though I believe that it is too soon since the new Commission was nominated for you and your fellow Commissioners to have come up with specific proposals.
<P>
It is true that there is now an urgent need to set up a system of continuous scientific control not only for the safety, but also for the quality of food.
Mr President, the Green Paper on food was discussed two years ago, and we are still waiting for the White Paper which I hope will outline specific initiatives and the responsibilities of the European policy on food issues.
<P>
I would like you to tell me what steps you will be taking over the next six months and to clarify who will be responsible for the portfolio for food safety, because I believe that, up until now, there has been some overlapping of competences.
Now that we are undergoing institutional reform, I would like to know who will be responsible for announcing the relevant information and for tackling the crises when they do crop up.
As part of the reform of the common agricultural policy, I wonder, Mr President, whether you should perhaps look at promoting small producers, so as to ensure better quality goods.
Unfortunately, all too often, citizens have been informed about everyday issues which concern them when it is too late. For such sensitive matters, preventative action should be taken so that the food chain can ensure the physical and psychological well-being of all consumers and not be an object of exploitation for purely financial interests.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Paulsen">
Mr President, Commissioner, we appear to have lost our elementary knowledge of biology.
For tens of thousands of years, our forefathers have known that corpses, both animal and human, have to be buried or burned.
They have to return to the great cycle of nature and become new materials.
Nowadays, we seem to believe that natural cycles of this kind imply re-use and that animals we shall be eating ourselves should be fed with dead animals of their own species.
We need to regain a holistic understanding and realise that whatever we put onto our fields we get back in the form of bread and, above all, drinking water, which is also an important form of sustenance.
What we give animals to eat, we later find on our own plates.
<P>
There is a need for openness and public scrutiny at every link in the food chain.
That is our best form of inspection. It is obvious that consumer groups, environmental organisations and the media should have free access to farms and to factories manufacturing foods and animal feedingstuffs.
<P>
The European Union needs a clear and precise set of regulations governing food safety.
This would not distort the market if it were the same for everyone.
It must cover agriculture, the methods we use for rearing animals, the feedingstuffs and medicines which animals are given and, of course, how the raw materials are handled subsequently.
It is quite a simple matter to produce a set of regulations but very difficult indeed to monitor compliance with them.
What is needed in fact is intensive collaboration and interaction at local and district levels.
The European Union must create some form of supervisory system for supervising the inspectors.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="Hudghton">
Mr President, food safety issues have quite rightly dominated much of our thinking and that of Member States in recent years.
I welcome today' s statement and debate as a recognition of the continuing need for action.
It is right that public bodies and politicians, whether in local authorities or governments, should play a part in regulating food production and processing.
The European Commission and we in the Parliament, too, should do all in our power to ensure that consumers Europe-wide can have confidence in their food purchases.
<P>
The BSE problem is one case where, at a European level, stringent conditions were put in place in relation to the export of UK beef.
These conditions were met, resulting in the recent lifting of the ban which has had such a major effect on agriculture and related industries in that country.
This came as a long-awaited sign, bringing some relief to our hard-pressed farmers.
<P>
Can it be acceptable then, given that the European Union body responsible judged it the right time to lift the ban, that individual states, without producing and publishing a clear justification in terms of food safety, should maintain the beef ban This decision by the French government last week comes as a particularly bitter further blow to Scotland' s beef farmers, whose herds are predominantly grass-fed and did not have a BSE problem in the first place.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alyssandrakis">
Mr President of the Commission, there are so many cases of food contamination that there is no way that this phenomenon is arbitrary, neither is it the simple result of human error.
In our opinion, the main cause is that the social system puts profit before human health, especially when it comes to the profits of large corporations and the health of their workers.
<P>
The problem is further exacerbated by both the liberalisation of trade resulting in the circulation of products which have not undergone any fundamental inspections and the severe competition which has become an excuse for monopolies to seek out more unorthodox ways of cutting costs and increasing their profits. Thus, fundamental quality control is being left to the consumers themselves.
<P>
Neither Mr Prodi' s statement nor the discussions so far have touched on the core of the matter.
Our problem is not about the confidence or lack of confidence of the citizens.
The matter will not be resolved with food labelling or White Papers, nor will it be resolved by increasing the directives from 100 to 150.
If we do not tackle the irresponsibility of monopolies at all levels, the dangers will become even greater.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Ayuso González">
Mr President, Mr Prodi, I am grateful for the information which you gave Parliament this morning, but I would like to stress the fact that these accidents - those of mad cow disease and dioxin - are not really accidents.
I believe them to be the consequences of the policies that have been pursued.
<P>
We have a Green Paper on this issue, we will have a White Paper and 800 directives, but the root of this matter, the reality, is that it is a consequence of the economic policies and decisions which have been taken in Europe, and of globalisation.
In agricultural production, quantity has taken precedence over quality and this has caused the balance to be upset.
We have abandoned European traditions, we have ended up with extensive and semi-extensive livestock farming and, as Ferdinando Riccardi pointed out a few days ago, Plutarch reminded us in his treatise on animals of some cows who had gone mad as a result of becoming carnivores.
We have turned our ovine and bovine animals, which are ruminant herbivores, into carnivores, like those animals in Plutarch.
And not only have we turned them into carnivores, we have tied them up, immobilised them, treated them with unnecessary antibiotics, castrated them, inseminated them, kept them in conditions which are inhumane - and the expression is quite appropriate - for animals.
We have changed to an earthless form of agriculture. We have abandoned European traditions.
This is the real cause of the problems we are experiencing.
<P>
And apart from this, whatever happened to animal welfare?
We talk of animal welfare, but this welfare must begin with food.
<P>
President Prodi, do you and your Commission really intend to tackle the problem at its source or will you carry on acting as a trouble-shooter and apply stopgap solutions every time a problem arises?
I would ask for more investigation, more control and more accountability for those countries which do not comply with the regulations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Rojo">
Mr President, Mr Prodi, I would like to speak about two basic conditions for improving food safety.
Firstly, the European inspectorate must be able to inspect whenever it deems it necessary.
The current situation in which a Member State, in the case of fraud, can hold the key which locks the European inspectorate, cannot be allowed to continue.
This legislation must be amended.
<P>
Secondly, we must fight fraud relentlessly, and to this end it is necessary that some sectors, which have paid an unfair price for this dioxin crisis, are compensated by means of market measures.
It is essential that fraud is never rewarded in any way, through direct or indirect measures.
Food fraud has been committed and, therefore, the Commission must ensure that it does not, through any measure, for the first time, reward fraud.
<P>
Finally, I would like to point out that during the dioxin crisis, there has been a degree of genuine dishonesty between the Member States.
We must ensure that there is Community honesty with regard to information policy.
Perhaps this lack of honesty with regard to information is due to the fact that we were in an election period, but I must point out that there was a real war of accusations between certain Member States.
This is very serious and we require measures which will safeguard this Community trust between the different Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="Lynne">
Mr President, I tried yesterday to get a Commission statement on the French refusal to lift the beef ban but unfortunately the proposal to change the agenda was rejected.
<P>
We need urgently to know what steps the Commission is taking against the French.
The British farmers are in crisis at the moment.
GBP 1.5 billion worth of exports has been lost in the UK because of it.
Commission scientists say they are satisfied, so why are the French flouting the rules?
They have no new scientific evidence.
<P>
The BSE crisis happened because the previous government reacted too late to the problem.
They closed their eyes to it.
Cows should never have been fed the remains of other cows, but it was not just a problem in the UK.
Britain is vigilant now.
Since 1996 no cases of BSE in the eligible age group - that is 6 months to 30 months - have been discovered.
Some other countries cannot say the same.
They do not have to adhere to the same rules.
<P>
It is time we had a level playing field.
Hygiene standards in the UK are second to none, and the ban must be lifted across the EU, including France.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, the fact that the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, is present shows that it is indeed the case that European citizens must be able to rely on their food being safe and healthy.
I am referring to food produced here but also to food imported by the European Union.
The same safety standards are needed in both cases.
This will form an important part of the discussions due to take place at the WTO Round.
<P>
What appears to be forgotten is that the food industry is of enormous importance to the European economy.
On average, a fifth of disposable income is spent on food and drink.
This means that BSE and dioxin scandals and the like do not just harm consumers and farmers, who are often able to do little about it, but, without a doubt, they harm all the workers employed in the industry too.
This has many unpleasant consequences.
<P>
That is why I also feel that those who take risks with food must be severely punished.
On turning again briefly to the relevant section of the food book or the Green Paper, I find that as early as 1997, there were calls for national legislation and European penalties to be harmonised.
I have the feeling that nothing has happened there yet and that we are simply taking far too much of a softly softly approach.
When someone infringes an environmental law in the United States the name of the company and that of its managing director are published, and so perhaps we could do something similar in the Netherlands.
<P>
I have just mentioned the publication of the Green Paper.
However, the Commission now wants to produce a White Paper.
I have the feeling that this will delay matters somewhat.
It would be more useful to receive a proper answer to the questions that were already raised in the Green Paper.
Everyone here accepts the need for integral chain management, but how is this actually carried out in the Member States?
What control does Europe actually have over this and what options does it have as regards imposing penalties?
Problems arise with the animal feed meal.
What is being done on that score?
It ought only to be permissible for animal feed to contain components of vegetable origin; why is this not so?
If this were the case, then the feed would definitely be safe.
<P>
My third point relates to supervision.
Our system for obtaining scientific advice is now very well organised.
We must supervise food safety at a European level.
An excellent idea.
I am certainly not in favour of a system along American lines.
It is the government that must be responsible for food safety, fulfilling a coordinating function.
But what would the Commission do if, for example, food safety controls in the Netherlands were to be improved upon by those of a new agency?
Would Brussels be informed?
Do you have an opinion on this?
All these sorts of affairs are going to have to be better organised.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Goebbels">
Mr President, our common goal is food safety and consumer health.
I share all the views expressed by my colleagues in the Socialist Group.
I would, however, like to draw the attention of this House and of the Commission to an often neglected aspect of this whole problem, i.e. the resignation of the parties responsible at the European, and more especially the national, level for the health and safety of consumers.
<P>
Generally, authorities are slow to react. They do not always effect the necessary preventative controls.
But as soon as a scandal breaks, public authorities go into overdrive, opening all the umbrellas they can, with the primary intention of covering themselves.
This is the Dr Garetta syndrome, named after the official responsible for the contaminated blood case in France.
Since then, the people responsible for public health no longer take any risks whatsoever.
This is called the precautionary principle, in itself a valid principle, but one which authorises all sorts of aberrations if it is used by Ministers or officials whose only purpose is to cover themselves against taking any sort of responsibility.
<P>
So bans are introduced with a vengeance, without any regard for confusion of the farmers or the shopkeepers who are doing nothing wrong.
I do not have enough time now to expand upon the subject, but I would like to draw the Commission' s attention to the need not just for preventive action but also for increasing the accountability of all the official inspectors, all the experts, so that the precautionary principle does not become a principle of refusing to accept responsibility on the part of those in charge of monitoring food safety and consumer health.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Klaß">
Mr Chairman, Mr President, Commissioner Prodi, ladies and gentlemen, the food crises and, most recently, the dioxin crisis have released a wave of uncertainty, yes even of anxiety, throughout Europe.
How safe is our food?
Who can guarantee its safety?
Who keeps watch over these matters?
The internal market has removed frontiers and border controls, and we are proud of this and happy about it.
Free trade. A Europe of citizens.
Europe must now, therefore, also guarantee food safety.
That is what the people at home are saying to us, and that is what we are concerning ourselves with in the field of consumer protection.
I would remind you of the Directive concerning Product Liability of a few months ago which inflamed passions in this very Chamber.
The crisis about dioxin in eggs and meat shows that directives and orders alone are not enough.
At home, ordinary people are already saying to us: trust is all well and good, but proper supervision is better.
Europe must accept its responsibility; that is to say, we certainly first need crystal-clear definitions so that we can say that one thing is healthy and the other unhealthy, one thing harmful and the other harmless.
We need clear, uniform, Europe-wide standards, Mr President of the Commission.
For us in Germany, sewage sludge is waste and does not, under any circumstances, belong in feedingstuffs.
<P>
Feedingstuffs are to be found at the beginning of the food chain, and they must be as safe as the food itself.
Healthy animal feed means healthy animals, and healthy animals go on, logically enough, to produce healthy meat.
That is the farmers' capital.
Farmers must be able to rely upon manufacturers of feedingstuffs.
Farmers themselves cannot check up on what feedingstuffs contain.
Above all, they cannot know whether they contain substances they ought not to contain, for there are no labels specifying these substances.
Manufacturers of feedingstuffs are liable for their products and they must also be liable for losses caused to farmers.
What has happened here is not permitted under any order in connection with feedingstuffs. That means that the consumer has been deceived.
<P>
Commission President Prodi, we are reducing cereal production in Europe in order to avoid over-capacity.
To save money, unhealthy substances are being mixed in with animal feed in order make it go further.
That can no longer be conveyed to anyone.
The trouble is certainly to be found in the low prices.
If, for example, farmers are only able to earn EUR 1.25 per kilo of pork, then everyone wonders how the production costs can be covered.
So feedingstuffs have to be cheap.
The issue then comes full circle with consumers asking the question: are we also prepared to pay more for foodstuffs?
Food must also have its value.
We must be prepared to pay more for it.
<P>
Education and the provision of information can contribute to improving and enhancing citizens' relationship with the foodstuffs they eat.
But responsibility for food safety comes first, and only then can confidence increase.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth-Behrendt">
Mr President, I have asked my group to again give me the opportunity at the end of this debate to elucidate a number of points arising from it.
Let me now again emphasise, Mr Prodi, that what you have talked about - and what has also in part become clear from many other interventions - is something which you ought to, if you would, take home with you.
<P>
For us, there are three essential points. We need good, proper legislation, and we need it quickly.
There is one thing you must do in connection with this, Mr Prodi: you must also put your own house in order.
It is just not acceptable that responsibilities should be scattered among different Directorates-General with the result that no healthy, sensible legislation comes into being.
It is not acceptable that Directorate-General III should be responsible for processed food, drugs and genetically-modified organisms and that Directorate-General XXIV should also have a portion of responsibility for these while Directorates-General VI and XI should retain a small portion of responsibility for feedingstuffs.
This is just not on, and I would ask you, Mr Prodi, to regulate the situation in a sensible way.
Legislative powers belong inevitably with whatever Directorate-General is responsible for consumer protection and health policy.
<P>
What is more, we have established in this debate that we need good scientific advice.
Many of our colleagues have referred to this and have said that we need an independent, authoritative advisory body.
I would say again that any such advisory body must not be influenced by Member States or the interests of industry, Mr Prodi, and it ought not to have any powers to lay down regulations.
This power lies with the European Parliament alone and, in a small number of exceptional cases, with the Commission in its comitological proceedings.
Nowhere else!
We must be in agreement about this.
<P>
We then come to the subject of supervision, Mr Prodi.
When we have all this - that is to say when we have good, healthy, sensible and integrative legislation, together with good scientific advice - we still need supervision.
I would ask you to make it clear to the Member States that supervision cannot be had for free.
In recent years, the Member States have neglected their obligation to implement legislation and supervise production.
They have never really reported to us about how many supervisors in the Member States supervise what, when and where.
It is, however, their duty to do this, and you, Mr Prodi, must convey this unpleasant news to the Member States.
When the Member States in fact carry out what should have been their task for a long time, namely to check that food does not poison us but enables us to live, then we still have a supervisory authority at the Commission.
We have the Control Office, or the Foodstuffs and Veterinary Office, which reports to Mr Byrne' s department and which has its headquarters in Dublin.
In the Committee on Budgets, we have just now decided that this body should have more departments so that it can carry out its supervisory tasks.
I would ask you, Mr Prodi, to lend your support to the idea that this body in Dublin should be able to visit the Member States without warning, that it should have investigative powers and that it should be able to carry out its task of overseeing the relevant supervisory arrangements in the Member States.
<P>
Once these three goals have been achieved, that is to say, once we have designed sensible legislation, have access to scientific advice at a high level and are properly carrying out the relevant supervision, only then are we really on the safe side.
Then, we shall have a system unlike any other in the world.
We shall then also be able to go to the WTO negotiations in Seattle and say: everything is above board, we are not practising protectionism, we are enabling our citizens to live healthily and that is what we also want for you in the United States and in the developing countries.
We want to cooperate in what we do.
This, however, is our task: that we should put our house in order, as we already have done in a sense.
It is still not perhaps perfect in every detail. We are, however, getting there.
We must, then, also make this clear outside the European Union in the negotiations which will begin with the Millennium Round.
I believe that we shall then be able to say to our citizens: nothing is ever guaranteed in life, but we are providing you with the highest possible levels of safety, well-being and health that, as far as anyone can judge and on the basis of scientific advice, we can offer at present.
If that is your stated goal, Mr Prodi, then you will be a successful President of the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Nisticò">
Madam President, first of all, I would like to congratulate President Prodi on the scientific rigour, but also on the high degree of transparency which characterised his address.
Obviously, I share the premises of Commission Decision 640 of 23 September 1999 which highlighted that on the basis of WHO findings, dioxin is one of the most carcinogenic substances in existence. This is why the WHO recommends keeping the acceptable daily dose at 1-4 picograms per kilogram of body weight.
And yet, as a scientist and as a politician, I cannot help but feel perplexed and concerned by the conclusions arrived at in this decision, in other words, a maximum ceiling of tolerance set at 200 nanograms of PCB per gram of fat, both in poultry, in meat and in pig derivatives.
<P>
I wonder, Mr President, who can guarantee - albeit with this point of reference for PCB at hand - that the levels of dioxin present will not harm people?
Basically, the danger is not only linked to the levels, but also to other pharmacokinetic characteristics typical of these compounds which have a half-life of around 5.8 years, maybe even 7 years.
This means that they linger for dozens of years after intake.
Therefore, after continuous intake, there certainly will be an accumulation which can be dangerous.
I therefore think that the directives issued by the Commission which you lead should cover permanent checks on dioxin levels but also other pollutants, in all the food we eat. The same goes for the air we breathe and the water we drink.
Taking all this into account, I think then that clear directives are in the interests of citizens and consumers so that people' s levels of exposure to dioxin and PCBs - which belong to the same class as dioxins - are as low as possible.
<P>
In conclusion, I agree with what Mr Florenz said about a European agency. It is something that would be extremely useful, but would achieve little, Mr President, if it were not organised across the Union, as close as possible to the citizens following what I myself suggested to the Finnish Health Minister.
And so we must have highly specialised laboratories in every European region that are close to the citizens and which can scientifically guarantee what we eat, drink or breathe each day.
And this can all be done, as I have already clearly said, in specialised laboratories already in place in universities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schierhuber">
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, eating and drinking have a high status in the lifestyles of Europeans.
The clear trend is for consumers to desire and demand high-quality food.
It is essential that our farmers should produce fresh and natural food.
European food must correspond to the demands which consumers are increasingly placing on it, and quite rightly too.
Consumers want food which is safe and healthy and which has been produced and processed in ways that are friendly to the environment and to animals.
In the end, health is important to all of us, ladies and gentlemen.
I should like to point out here that over recent years, indeed decades, Austria has pursued another path in agricultural policy.
I must say that it has proved worthwhile.
Over 10% of farmers in Austria, in other words 20,000 businesses, engage in organic farming.
<P>
In view of increasing competition and further concentration in the market, the future of the foodstuffs industry lies in the specific promotion and development of quality products and services.
That is one reason why we cannot, and should not, afford scandals such as the BSE and dioxin affairs, irrespective of whether they were triggered by carelessness, avarice or whatever.
The image of us all, of farmers and producers, is damaged by such events, and this has consequences.
Not only does it lead to uncertainty for the European consumer, but it also damages our foreign trade.
The strength of Europe and that of European agriculture lie in their good reputation.
I would therefore vigorously urge us to go in more for trademarks and symbols of quality.
With our guaranteed production methods, we can really only win.
<P>
I would also urge that Europe should not fence off or close its markets, but pursue purposeful agricultural and food policies which are in keeping with the conditions and also the needs to be found in Europe.
The European model for agriculture, as decided at the European Summit in Berlin, must be given priority in the WTO negotiations.
I would also call for it to be at last stipulated that all feedingstuffs should be labelled. We as farmers can only produce high-quality products if we can also be certain that the animal feed we also have to buy is also in order.
Labelling is one way to achieve that goal.
For the consumer, however, this means that quality has its price and that food, including meat, should not be used, as it has been to date, as a lure in supermarkets.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="Cushnahan">
Madam President, Commissioner Prodi, Commissioner Byrne, the BSE and dioxin crises coupled with the ongoing controversy regarding genetically modified foods have combined to seriously undermine consumer confidence in the safety of food.
Furthermore, inept handling of these issues by the respective governments and the EU itself has seriously undermined public confidence in the ability of politicians to deal with crises in the food chain.
<P>
For these reasons, I welcome both Commissioner Byrne' s commitment to make food safety his number one priority and also the statement by the Commission President, Romano Prodi, in this House on 23 July, when he said that one of the first tasks of his Commission would be to restore consumer confidence in the safety of food products.
Hence this debate.
Commissioner Byrne, I may add, is to be commended for his prompt action in agreeing to produce a White Paper on EU food law later this year and also to tighten up the EU' s rapid alert system for food emergencies.
<P>
However, I would urge the Commissioner to go the extra mile: if he and his colleagues are determined to regain the confidence of consumers and the food industry in the EU' s food safety structures, then he should establish a European food agency along similar lines to the US Food and Drug Administration. Such a body could take responsibility for the Commission' s present inspection and enforcement functions in relation to the food hygiene, veterinary and plant health legislation.
It could also have responsibility for the rapid alert system itself.
It could be given the role for the authorisation process for GMOs and genetically modified foods while also maintaining a monitoring brief on genetically modified foods throughout the EU.
Health promotion campaigns on nutrition and diet and the ability to initiate research into food allergy and food-borne disease could also come within its remit.
<P>
I would argue that the list of possible functions is by no means exhaustive, and its accountability could also be ensured if it were required to produce an annual report and if its officers regularly appeared before the Parliament' s Environment, Public Health Consumer Policy and Committee.
<P>
I would urge you, Commissioner Byrne, to give serious consideration to the establishment of an independent food agency along these lines.
Such an initiative would, in my view, restore not only consumer confidence in food but also public confidence in the EU itself.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Böge">
Madam President, from some of the contributions, you would get the impression that all foods are rubbish and constitute a danger.
That is, of course, as false as if one were to maintain that everything is in order.
That is just the first thing I want to say.
In fact, the dioxin crisis was necessary in order to ensure that a number of the Commission' s and the Member States' shortcomings arising out of the BSE crisis might finally be sorted out.
I am talking about the positive list and the question of open declaration.
But the question of how, in future, we are to handle the issue of meat and bone meal in terms of an effective recycling system still remains.
<P>
In this connection, it is of course remarkable if, on the subject of labelling, the Member States and also the Commission consider postponing the identification of cattle and the labelling of meat until after 1 January 2000.
They would not be able to explain the fact to anyone outside.
There must be clarity about what is going to happen.
Mr Prodi, an agency is naturally no substitute for a policy, and there can be no question of our seeing a proliferation in the number of agencies, for then there would come a point when we no longer needed the Commission!
<P>
<P>
You cannot, however, go and create agencies where things might become difficult for you in order to evade some of the responsibility and then say, in cases where you can in fact exercise power (as with cartel law): we are doing this as the Commission!
These things do not go together.
As always, discussions are therefore required.
I believe that we need a rapid alert system and that the Commission must be entitled to intervene in the Member States more quickly than has so far been the case.
Also relevant in this connection is a framework Directive on Foodstuffs which is worthy of the name and which, in providing preventative protection to the consumer, is easy to read, workable and can be overseen.
<P>
(Applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Trakatellis">
Madam President, the recent successive crises in the area of food safety have shown in the most convincing manner that the protection of public health must take priority over all other policies.
In order to make this a priority, however, we need a series of actions which will cover the whole of the issue of safe food for European citizens and not just part of it.
<P>
In general, the following is required. Firstly, from a legal perspective, we need a review of Community legislation on food, animal feedingstuffs, raw materials, additives, preservatives, contaminants such as pesticides, and the labelling thereof.
We should deal with this issue first in the immediate future, so as to successfully fill the legislative gaps which exist today in the single market.
<P>
Secondly, as far as administration and controls are concerned, we need to draw up measures so that the Commission services can function effectively, without any overlapping of competences, and so that we know who is responsible for what.
Furthermore, we need effective implementation of the legislative framework, which inevitably means cooperation both at Community and national level, mainly through coordinated action.
<P>
Thirdly and finally, from a scientific perspective, we should widen and further the scientific knowledge and methods we have for the production of safe food and animal feedingstuffs. We should introduce methods of detection and restrictions on various substances which contaminate food, and examine the suitability of various animal and plant-based foodstuffs and foodstuffs based on recycled products such as oil.
<P>
Here, then, are three areas in which action is needed: legislation, controls with constant vigilance and a scientific perspective with constant advancement of knowledge and methods.
In this way, we can always be ahead of the problems and not run around panic-stricken when such problems crop up, shattering the confidence of European citizens and causing serious damage to public health.
<P>
Mr Prodi, we hope that you will act soon and swiftly, because this issue and food safety are prerequisites for safeguarding the health of the European citizen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Gallagher">
Mr President, in July of this year the House expressed its grave concern over the Belgian dioxin contamination and urged the Commission to act urgently to address the whole issue of food safety.
It is both welcome and reassuring that from the very outset the new Commissioner, Mr Byrne, has demonstrated an unequivocal commitment to restoring consumer confidence in the food industry.
The review of EU animal feed legislation in the wake of the recent series of scares is most welcome as it goes to the root cause of problems that have arisen.
<P>
I am pleased that the review will address key areas of concern to Parliament in its July resolution, such as sufficient controls in the animal feed production chain, a register of all animal feed producers, traceability of ingredients in animal feed and the setting of dioxin limits.
<P>
Coming from a region that depends heavily on the fishing industry, I want to refer to Commissioner Byrne' s proposals on dioxin levels.
It is important that scientific testing look at the dioxin/PCB level of compound feed as an end product, rather than the dioxin level of just one ingredient such as fish oil.
In this regard, proper consultation of the fishing and aquaculture industries is not only desirable, but absolutely necessary and essential so as to avoid any detrimental consequences for the fishing industry that may be caused by levels not scientifically justified.
<P>
The damage done by the dioxin scare is immeasurable, both in terms of shattering consumer confidence and the economic consequences of tarnishing the image of key industrial sectors and export generators.
Producers, traders and the entire agri-food business have felt the effect.
The Commission' s determined effort to restore consumer confidence by putting effective control mechanisms in place is clearly welcome.
Consumer protection must have absolute priority in all measures regarding food safety.
<P>
Mr President, I should like to apologise to the House for being absent when my name was called earlier, and to thank you for giving me an opportunity to speak.
Could I say to the President and to the sessional services that it would be helpful if there were monitors in all the meeting rooms to ensure that we were fully au fait with what was happening in the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Prodi">
Madam President, I will be very brief because Commissioner Byrne is going to reply to your detailed questions.
I think that here, too, the Commission must prove it is capable of working as a team.
<P>
You said that the White Paper must be very ambitious, that it must have a precise timetable and the Commission will undertake to achieve this.
We must also clarify the matter of the precautionary principle because it is a framework principle which everything hinges on.
It is unthinkable that without dealing with this aspect we could have rules which would convince all consumers and clarify the system.
During the debate we must keep in mind - and this is important - all the problems of agriculture and reward quality agriculture, as well as giving a lot of room to the matter raised by Mrs Roth-Behrendt of the relationship between technical and democratic control.
This is why we have introduced this debate today.
It is an extremely important issue because we must have - let us call it - an agency, which will take these two fundamental principles into account.
This agency, this structure - and here I am addressing Mr Nisticò in particular - absolutely must be in contact with the citizens.
So the monitoring structures must be adapted and be decentralised to a local level. We must not create a centralised bureaucratic structure.
<P>
The last matter, which I believe to be of enormous importance for our future work, was raised by Mrs Roth-Behrendt and Mrs Thyssen, and is the fact that various Commissioners and various Directorates-General are involved with Parliament.
I would respond that this is - for better or for worse - our way of working.
This is a very complex question which not only involves the Committee on Public Health, but also the Committees on Agriculture, Research and Trade.
We cannot consider simplifying complex matters. We must have a coordinator, but also keep in mind that the whole Commission - and there are various Directorates-General - are still involved.
Our problem is to constantly coordinate this process and not try to reduce it by taking away the role of the various Commissioners.
<P>
We discussed this subject in depth at the meeting of Committee Chairmen and we are trying to improve things because I do not think we can solve the problems by pretending that the competences have been simplified or unified.
We have to be aware of the complexity and assume the responsibility for coordinating, but make it understood that the other Commissioners also have their responsibilities for this delicate task.
<P>
I now invite Commissioner Byrne to reply in detail to your questions on this debate which I am finding very constructive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="Byrne">
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Byrne.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Eleventh international AIDS conference in Lusaka
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="President">
The next item is the statement by the Commission on the eleventh international AIDS conference in Lusaka.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Nielson">
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Madam President, when the first grave reports about AIDS first inundated Europe and the United States at the beginning of the eighties, some very grave predictions were made as to the extent and the social implications of this disease.
Now, twenty years on, AIDS is reasonably under control in Europe and the United States, although the situation still gives a great deal of cause for concern in certain areas and amongst certain groups.
In Africa, however, all our worst fears as regards the disease have been realised and exceeded.
<P>
Although the situation varies from country to country, there are, in fact, a number of countries in which 20-30% of the active population is infected.
These are mainly young adults, therefore people who are active in economic terms but who also often have family responsibilities; a generation of people who in most countries form the backbone of society.
When such a group contains so many people suffering long-term illness and who are seriously weakened, and there is such a high number of deaths, then these countries suffer disastrous consequences.
At the grass roots level of the family, we see the large scale on which families are without breadwinners and children without people to bring them up, whilst at local and regional level the social, health and educational problems are really getting out of hand.
<P>
Madam President, the problems experienced by the older generations, who often have to be cared for by these groups, are on the increase.
We can see how, at the national level, the economy and foundations of society are weakening.
That is what we have seen happening in Africa over the last twenty years.
As a result, everything that has been built up in terms of aid and progress these last 25 years is at risk of being demolished.
The question is, how can we help the African countries to ward off this fate?
I believe it is Europe' s duty to share our knowledge and experience of this disease and to give financial aid to those African countries that want to participate in the process themselves, with a view to supporting them in their fight against AIDS and the consequences of AIDS.
<P>
African countries really got to grips with the situation at the eleventh conference in Lusaka.
I want to express how much respect I have for the experts and relief workers, including those from the African regions, who made their contribution with such frankness and expertise.
What needs to be done now in order to tackle the disease in Africa?
What can we do to help?
My group considers the following points to be essential.
In each African country, an assessment must be made of the scale of this disease and of the proportions it threatens to assume.
All efforts must be directed at achieving maximum openness and preventive measures.
As far as openness is concerned, a lot still has to be asked of African leaders in terms of breaking through traditional African taboos, particularly with regard to speaking out about the dangers of unprotected sex.
This is not just about traditional African taboos.
There are certain churches, European ones too, that, to my mind, with all due respect for their teachings, ought to warn against unprotected sex, and that includes advocating the use of condoms.
Prevention will only be possible if there is honesty and openness.
Prevention is vitally important and must be encouraged in all sections of the African population, and particularly amongst young people.
<P>
People must grasp the idea that having unprotected sex puts your life at risk, all the more so in present-day Africa.
This is not about preaching at people but it is about becoming fully aware of the dangers.
<P>
Madam President, when it comes to prevention, it is also important, of course, to avoid a situation in which pregnant women with AIDS pass this disease on to their unborn children.
There are drugs for this and they must be made available.
Lastly, Madam President, there is the help we need to give the children who have been left orphaned.
They must be helped to go about their lives, to pursue an education and to make a fresh start.
We believe these to be the most important points that need to be addressed.
That is why it is so difficult to comprehend why the European Commission has reduced the original budget for the AIDS assistance programmes, specifically with regard to third countries.
I was pleased to hear the Commissioner say that additional resources are to be made available again.
That is a good thing.
But I hope that this will also be taken account of in the Budget as soon as possible.
<P>
Do more and do it better.
That was the theme of the Lusaka conference.
We call upon the Commission to boost its programmes for Africa with this theme in mind.
The disease is being tackled successfully in Europe and the United States.
Let us help Africa to avert the disaster that threatens it.
My group wants us to become involved here, even if there are budgetary consequences.
The Africans are our neighbours and we must not abandon them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Junker">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in fact the problem cannot be taken seriously enough.
AIDS is threatening to become a health catastrophe on an unimaginable scale, particularly in the countries of Africa south of the Sahara.
Children are affected above all.
According to an estimate by UNAIDS and the World Health Organisation, 7 out of every 10 people newly infected with the HIV virus live in this region. In the case of children under 15 years of age, the figure is as many as 9 out of 10.
Approximately 83% of deaths from AIDS take place here, and at least 95% of all children orphaned by AIDS are African boys and girls in this region.
Of the 34 million people infected since the epidemic appeared in this part of Africa, 11.5 million have already died, a quarter of them children.
<P>
At the same time, reference has been made to the fact that all the successes there have been in terms of increasing life expectancy have been reduced to nothing.
In many countries, life expectancy has even fallen again to the level recorded in the 1960s.
To put it another way: a child who is born today in an African country badly affected by AIDS has an average life expectancy of only 43 years. Without AIDS, it could have been 60 years.
<P>
The situation in Eastern and Southern Africa is particularly dramatic.
In Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland and Zimbabwe, a fifth of the adult population is infected or ill with AIDS.
This dreadful situation could continue indefinitely.
However, AIDS is no inevitable fate.
A number of countries such as Senegal, Tanzania and Uganda committed themselves early on to prevention, and with success.
It is high time that, where the politics of health are concerned, the emergency brake was put on throughout Sub-Saharan Africa and also in other affected parts of the world.
Social, political and religious taboos have no place here.
They must be cleared away; how and by whom is immaterial.
<P>
Trivialising AIDS and making it taboo are a direct route to catastrophe.
The partnership, AIDS against AIDS in Africa, founded at the Lusaka Conference, deserves firm support from the European Union, both in material terms and in terms of visionary perspective.
Civilian society, including the private sector, together with representatives of governments, international aid organisations and non-governmental organisations of various kinds have come together in order to declare war on the epidemic.
They have undertaken to launch comprehensive AIDS or, rather, anti-AIDS programmes in all African States.
One of the ambitious goals of these programmes is to achieve a 25% reduction in the number of young people between the ages of 15 and 24 newly infected by AIDS, and this by the year 2005 in the most badly affected countries and by the year 2010 in all countries.
These efforts can and must be supplemented by the European Union and, above all, vigorously supported through cooperation with the ACP countries.
<P>
In fact, the European Union has not been inactive to date.
Between 1987 and 1997, almost 200 million ecus or euros were spent on HIV/AIDS programmes in more than 90 developing countries.
This fact should be expressly recognised.
To this will be added, over the next three years, a further EUR 45 million in the context of a special budget strand for developing countries in regions around the world, together with EUR 20 million for a regional 5-year programme for the ACP countries and additional funds in the context of specific programmes such as those for the ACP countries. These figures do not include, for example, research programmes or co-financing by non-governmental organisations.
<P>
More than in Europe, it is young girls who are especially at risk in Africa.
Nowhere are there more teenage mothers and nowhere do they give birth to a larger number of infected babies.
<P>
The main effort must therefore be to educate young people.
This is a task which must be carried out in schools.
The education campaigns and condom advertising in Tanzania and Uganda have shown that success is possible.
Above all, the radio must be employed as a means of information to reach everybody.
Here too, specific measures of support are absolutely necessary.
Joint efforts in a spirit of partnership are the right path to go down.
But if these are to be effective, more rather than less resources are needed and, in this regard, I am anxious about the Commission' s, as well as this Chamber' s, financial policy.
Mrs Maij-Weggen, I hope that your group will help ensure that the decisions of the Committee on Budgets that I have heard about will be revoked or altered in the plenary sitting, while any watering down of the proposals tabled by the Committee on Development will be reversed.
We must together ensure that whatever it is that we want can also be financed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maaten">
Mr President, on behalf of my group I would like to say how pleased we are that this debate is taking place and I also welcome the Commission' s statement, which has a ring of vigour and decisiveness.
As far as policy in Africa is concerned, the figures speak for themselves.
AIDS threatens the long-term development of at least ten African countries.
The epidemic there causes more deaths than do armed conflicts on that continent.
Two million people have died of AIDS-related diseases, which is ten times the amount of people that have died due to armed conflicts.
In the year 2001 there will be more than 13 million orphans in Africa on account of AIDS.
<P>
At the same time, there is no, or at least not enough, money to pay for drugs in Africa.
Of course it is not just an African problem, as the Commission rightly commented.
The disease knows no boundaries.
That is why it is our duty to do something about it, and I fully endorse what Mrs Maij-Weggen had to say in this regard.

<P>
Accordingly, there are two issues I would briefly like to go into.
Firstly there is the problem relating to compulsory licensing, which I believe will also come up for discussion at the WTO meeting soon to take place in Seattle.
Compulsory licensing must not be allowed to lead to people in Africa no longer being able to afford anti-AIDS drugs.
This really is a big problem over there.
AIDS drugs can be produced more cheaply than is the case at present.
That is an issue that needs to be addressed.
<P>
My second question relates to the financial aid delivered by the European Union.
I hear reports to the effect that not all this aid gets to where it is supposed to be going and that one of the reasons for this is that this aid, or at least a part of it, is distributed via national governments.
If that is the case, then it would be worth looking into whether something can be done about this.
<P>
On a final note, I want to add my voice to the appeal made by the Commission.
I have in mind its appeal to religious authorities to play an active part in preventive programmes, particularly where the distribution of condoms is concerned
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Rod">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the problem of the fight against AIDS in developing countries has been discussed many times in the European Parliament.
Yet, since 1996, the situation has further deteriorated - 89% of the people afflicted with AIDS are resident in the 10% of the poorest countries on Earth.
This is clear evidence of the failure of a policy dedicated purely to limiting the illness without looking into the economic and social reasons for the spread of the disease.
<P>
On the one hand, the economy of African countries is crumbling due to the structural adjustments made necessary by the World Bank and the IMF.
States are making swingeing cuts in their social budgets, resulting in an inability to provide patients with minimum care.
The European Union must assist these countries in providing this minimum care, and more, if possible.
Indeed, we were stupefied to learn that, against the advice of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, the AIDS budget was to be halved, which would be a scandal, given the urgency of the situation, and contradictory to the comments made by Mr Nielson.
<P>
In the majority of African countries, there is no access to screening and, even if it were accessible, surely it is understandable that no one wishes to find out their status when discovering that you are HIV positive means that all you can do is wait to die.
The fact is, treatment is practically non-existent in most of these countries.
Confronted with this situation, the Lusaka conference maintained an often inappropriate line, promoting abstinence, moral order and traditional medicine.
AIDS cannot be fought by ignoring the provision of medical treatment.
<P>
Thus, the States most affected by the disease ought to be able to benefit from compulsory licences permitting them to produce, at reduced cost, the generic anti-HIV treatments effective in preventing the development of the opportunistic infections which lead unavoidably to death.
Today, this right is not applied due to pressure from holders of patents, from States or multinationals.
Within the scope of the precautionary principle in health matters, the European Union must therefore defend the application of the entitlement to compulsory licences in the Millennium Round
<P>
Millions of people dead, millions of orphaned children, we cannot stand by and do nothing.
This is why, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, I ask you to support our proposals, so that we can give developing countries some real means of combating this scourge which is AIDS.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wurtz">
Madam President, everyone remembers the alarm cry which went out from the eleventh international AIDS conference in Lusaka less than a month ago.
HIV has become the principal cause of death in Africa.
In some countries, it affects a quarter of the population.
We may speak of a risk of humanitarian catastrophe.
<P>
In requesting, therefore, a debate in the European Parliament, I was hoping that we would show that Europe had heard this alarm cry.
Since then, I have met some of the main NGOs involved in the fight against AIDS in the field.
Arising from these discussions, there are three essential proposals which I would like to mention now.
<P>
The first, naturally, is to do with the budgetary resources which Europe assigns to the fight against AIDS in developing countries.
I am not the first to remind you that the draft budget for the year 2000 anticipates a spectacular fall in the level of our aid, a two thirds reduction of the commitment appropriations from EUR 16.5 to 5.5 million, at the very time when, quite the opposite, it is the strengthening of international mobilisation which is needed.
Consequently, we Members of Parliament shall soon have to face up to our responsibilities in this matter.
<P>
The second area where we can and must improve our intervention involves, in my opinion, the selection of our priorities in the field.
The Commission favours prevention, which is indispensable, but it underestimates the possible inconsistency of access to treatment.
For, indeed, how can people be persuaded to go in for screening if they know full well that they will not receive any treatment?
It is a situation which promotes fatalism.
We should therefore, in my opinion, see prevention, access to treatment and research as indivisible components.
<P>
In the third place, there is the necessary question of the cost of medicines and how to enable the countries of the South to have access to these.
Commissioner Nielson mentioned this problem and, for my part, I would put forward two proposals.
Firstly, the European Union can and should enter into negotiations with laboratories in order to obtain different prices for North and South.
Secondly, Europe could in fact play a decisive role at the negotiations in Seattle on world trade.
In fact, agreements on intellectual property signed within the framework of the WTO allow for States to authorise the local production and distribution at reduced cost of medicines, which are otherwise protected by patent, in "emergency situations" . So far this exists only in principle, but surely this is such a case.
This is the matter of the compulsory licences which have been mentioned.
In actual fact, implementing this clause exposes the countries concerned to the threat of sanctions by the most powerful groups and States.
This must cease.
Then, the European Union could take pride at Seattle by firmly defending the principle of a sort of exception for health, in other words, by demanding that the major imperatives of public health are not threatened by international trade agreements.
The European Union could, furthermore, assist the countries of the South in preparing their legislation in this spirit in order to counter ultra-liberal pressure.
<P>
Madam President, by adopting these proposals, Europe can affirm its own identity on the international stage while contributing towards giving new hope to millions of human beings.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Andrews">
Mr President, it is now over fifteen years since the disease we all now know as AIDS came into the public domain.
Though the number of people suffering from HIV has stabilised in recent years in Europe, the problem of AIDS is still a very real one particularly in the more deprived and disadvantaged urban areas and of course, within the African continent.
<P>
A recent study carried out by an organisation in my constituency called Cáirde points to the fact that 80% of people who contract HIV in Ireland are in receipt of welfare payments.
Social exclusion and inadequate income, and living in a disadvantaged or deprived area, are all factors explaining why HIV as a disease mainly affects the more deprived communities in urban Ireland.
There is no room for complacency when it comes to the issue of combating HIV and AIDS.
Again according to the report of Cáirde, in Ireland almost 3 000 people are HIV positive, and a further 3 000 people are affected when one considers the family members and children of those who are HIV-positive.
Medical treatments are certainly improving; however, they are not inexpensive and one year' s treatment for HIV illnesses costs an average of between IEP 12 000 - 14 000.
Public information campaigns must be supported both within Ireland and the European Union, because prevention is the best cure in such matters.
While medical treatments are improving, and while standards of care, standards of treatment and the cost of such care are paramount in our concerns, if one can prevent transmission of such diseases, then we may go a long way to reducing the number of those affected.
<P>
I believe that the European Commission, the European Parliament and the national member governments should redouble their efforts to publicise the public health information campaign; this should be done either via the respective Departments of Health or through voluntary groups who play such an important role in helping those who are affected by such diseases.
<P>
As a member of the Development and Cooperation Committee of the European Parliament, I recognise that AIDS is rampant, particularly on the continent of Africa.
Health and education programmes must be targeted at the African continent where the AIDS plague is out of control.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, the aim of the eleventh ICASA conference in Lusaka was to set in motion a critical evaluation of the priorities and strategies which have been drawn up so far in the fight against the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
I would like to thank the Commissioner for his statement.
<P>
We are going to have to give particular attention in our debate on this subject to the solutions being proposed by the African scientists themselves.
As affluent western countries, we must not start talking in a high-handed manner about what we consider to be the best approach.
For it is heart-rending to think that, of all peoples, it is the impoverished African people who are having to endure this affliction.
<P>
On the occasion of the Lusaka conference some comments worth listening to were made on the question of how to tackle the spread of AIDS effectively.
A case in point was the courageous contribution made by Professor Nkando Luo, the Zambian Minister for Public Health, who called for high moral standards to be maintained and for responsible sexual behaviour.
In saying this, she reached the heart of the matter.
Other speakers in Lusaka also suggested that this is not being made a subject for discussion in all candour, although everyone is aware that the spreading of the HIV virus is due, above all, to promiscuous behaviour.
<P>
It goes without saying that this should never give rise to the stigmatisation of those who are infected with the AIDS virus.
Compassion and mercy are the key words when it comes to our behaviour towards these sick fellow human beings.
Cheap drugs and the means to relieve their suffering ought therefore to be available.
Where this is not the case, as affluent countries it is only right that we should make a contribution.
<P>
But what I have just said relates to curative care.
Preventive measures are even more necessary.
If we are to tackle a problem effectively, then we must always begin at its root.
If we drop the moral standard advocating that sexual intercourse be embedded in a relationship based on mutual trust, in which the man and woman know each other inside out, then it is to be feared that this will bring about disintegration and breakdown in society.
When people lead promiscuous lives we are not talking about relationships in which respect for the other person as a human being sets the tone.
This means that we are destroying that which is loveliest.
The comment made by the South African Zindaka Sibeko during the ICASA conference was telling.
He said: "I believe that the longing for marriage raises a painful dilemma these days, for we have been completely robbed of the happiness, the joy that accompanies a wedding."
<P>
Africa holds up a mirror to Europe in this respect: the selfish lifestyle, in which purely individual sexual pleasure without respect for the other person or responsibility to society is considered the norm, has a very high price.
Too high.
Perhaps there is a need for a European version of the Lusaka conference at which we as Europeans would reflect on our principal responsibilities, for the draft resolutions submitted to date do not contain so much as a hint of how badly this is needed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell' Alba">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in Africa over two million people die every year, four million people become infected and we know that 70% of new HIV-positive people are in Africa. This is obviously a pandemic that is the primary cause of death for a citizen in an African country.
This is far-reaching and of unprecedented seriousness owing to the way this illness is affecting, in particular, a continent which the European Union has special relations and links with. But in recent years, I think these have slackened and have completely missed the mark.
I am referring, obviously, to the Lomé Convention, to this partnership pact that is a bit exclusive, a bit special, and that we have always described as the European Union' s response to the former colonies, as well as to other areas, but which mainly addresses the African continent.
And the response, as Mr Wurtz and other speakers stated, was a bureaucratic response to initially reduce the expenditure linked to the budget as regards investment in the AIDS sector.
Clearly, the response should be political, which it was not.
We are undoubtedly dealing with this illness a bit differently, according to whether it is in this part or in the other part of the hemisphere.
<P>
Next week, when we meet our African partners in the ACP Parliamentary Assembly - European Union meeting, we must bear in mind that, while Lusaka was a failure, in part this is definitely down to the fact that we did not pay enough attention to this matter, along with other matters.
We should therefore organise a large conference on AIDS, but not leave it only to those countries that must then deal with such terrible consequences in practice, but a conference that we have wanted for years, since 1993, on pandemics and AIDS. With us there to oversee things, we could meet this situation head on and finally agree on measures that are appropriate for an international authority, given that in this regard the WHO is completely incapable of offering specific responses.
<P>
I think this would be a wise and sensible measure, a measure which, up till now, we certainly have not taken.
I hope that this will head our agenda next week in the context of the ACP and that it will become, Commissioner, a proposal that the Commission and the European Union will themselves make, so that we can finally approach this matter in a serious way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Wijkman">
Mr President, the HIV epidemic so far has very often been described primarily as a health-related problem.
Indeed the health implications are serious.
In less than two decades, a very short time in the world of infectious diseases, AIDS has become the leading cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa.
But the implications of this epidemic go far beyond the health sector.
The loss of young men and women in the prime of their lives is devastating as regards economic development and productivity, education, agriculture and a whole host of socio-economic spheres.
Hard-won gains in terms of development are being eroded and even reversed as a consequence of this epidemic.
Reference has already been made in this debate to the demographic consequences.
Countries where the population grew by 3% or more just a few years ago will experience negative growth.
If a comparison is allowed, I believe that what several countries in sub-Saharan Africa are going through is something similar to the Black Death in 14th century Europe.
<P>
Mr Nielson referred to the response so far.
There have been efforts at international level, I agree, but far too limited.
I welcome Mr Nielson' s suggestions for the budget to be topped up, but more has to come.
What is needed in the first instance is more money and support in terms of financial resources.
Here the international community can do a lot.
Then we have to bring about - and this is primarily the responsibility of the countries concerned - more openness.
The whole area of HIV prevention has been surrounded by too much silence.
There has even been a stigma attached to it.
In such an environment prevention through education is difficult.
In such an environment people are discouraged from seeking testing and counselling.
<P>
Let us hope that the recent conference in Lusaka represents a turning point.
What is needed in the future is more funding, more concerted effort and more openness.
<P>
I have personally followed very closely efforts within the international community over the last couple of years to bring about a more concerted fight against HIV/AIDS.
A joint programme, UNAIDS, was established a few years ago.
It has done some good things, but efforts within that programme have been undermined by shrinking budgets within the UN system.
<P>
It is my absolute conviction that the European Union has to take a much stronger lead in international efforts in terms of AIDS and HIV prevention.
Our aid budget is considerable.
We ought to allocate a gradually bigger share of that budget in support of HIV prevention.
If we are serious about development we have to do this.
Otherwise all our other efforts in the area of development will be very much in vain.
<P>
I have four specific questions to ask the new Commissioner.
Firstly, are you willing to work hard to ensure that a permanent increase in the Union budget will be allocated for HIV prevention?
Secondly, are you willing to make sure that whatever the European Union does in this field is well coordinated with other donors?
In few areas, I believe, are coordination and cooperation more necessary than here.
Thirdly, are you willing to make sure that efforts go beyond the health sector, realising that the socio-economic and developmental consequences are so serious?
Last but not least, are you willing to seek partnership with the pharmaceutical companies, on the one hand, to speed up work to try to develop a vaccine and, secondly, to make medicines more accessible to the poor of this world?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Kinnock, Glenys">
Mr President, my thanks to the Commissioner for his statement.
In 1998, Commissioner, 530 000 children were infected with the AIDS virus in Sub-Saharan Africa. The startling contrast is that 1 000 children in total were infected by the virus in the whole of Western Europe and North America during that year.
<P>
So we have to ask the question: why does such a discrepancy exist Why are there such stark contrasts in terms of the sheer scale of the poverty of people' s lives in Africa and, of course the resulting lack of proper health services, education, and AIDS treatments.
Of course, as others have said, the neglect of Africa has very severe economic consequences.
These include the suffering and death of productive members of their societies and, very importantly, the diversion of women away from employment towards the role as carers, and the diversion of resources in families and communities from savings to care, and indeed, as I am sure you are aware, to the endless funerals that you can witness in countries like Zimbabwe if you stand on a street corner.
<P>
The time has come to invest in programmes that target more effectively the health needs of the people in Africa.
It is, of course, ironic, as we mentioned in the Development Committee yesterday, that the Budget Committee voted last week to cut the budget line on reproductive health care and HIV/AIDS work by half from EUR 25 million to 12 million, and that we are now discussing the need for investment in this area.
In rich countries, anti-retroviral therapies are extending the lives of significant numbers of people in wealthy nations.
But I have to say that these solutions will never be affordable or accessible to the tens of millions of the world' s poorest people.
<P>
I welcome the fact that the European Commission is placing increasing emphasis on giving resources to support the development of an AIDS vaccine.
Only last week, as I am sure you are aware, the British development minister announced a very large investment in research for that vaccine.
Early clinical trials will begin in January 2000 in the United Kingdom, and afterwards in Nairobi.
In countries like Zimbabwe where 20% of the population are positive, vaccines, in my view, are the only hope.
<P>
Meanwhile, in the short term, women are the key to progress.
Adolescent girls in Sub-Saharan Africa are 6 times more likely to be infected than boys of their age.
In a recent study in Kenya 25% of girls between 15 and 19 were HIV positive and 4% of boys.
Women are literally silenced by ignorance, fear and stigma.
Gugu Dlamini announced in a rally in Johannesburg last December that she was HIV positive.
A week later, she was beaten to death by neighbours who said that she had brought shame to their community.
That kind of situation, President, shames us all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Sylla">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the AIDS epidemic in Africa is acquiring increasingly dramatic proportions.
The recent conference in Lusaka showed this quite clearly.
Every year, two million people die of AIDS and another four million are infected.
In total there are today in Africa 25 million people who have contracted AIDS and who are virtually programmed to die.
In one tenth of the countries of Africa, life expectancy will not reach 60 or 70 by 2010, as might be expected, and will drop to 40, a rate similar to that we experienced in Europe in the Middle Ages.
<P>
This endemic is not just a catastrophe in humanitarian and health terms, it is also a threat to social and economic cohesion and to the demographic balance of the countries of Africa.
In Kenya, therefore, 43 of the 50 employees of the tax department who died last year died as a result of AIDS.
According to the Farmers' Union in Zimbabwe, the virus is responsible for a drop in production of 60% for corn and 30% for animal husbandry.
In Zambia, if projected figures are substantiated, in 2010 there will be a million fewer children than there are today.
<P>
In this situation, how can we accept reducing by one third, in the year 2000, the appropriations allocated to the fight against AIDS in developing countries?
How, Commissioner, can we accept that the pharmaceutical companies have a virtual monopoly on manufacturing and distribution?
We must re-negotiate the agreements signed on intellectual property.
Solutions do exist.
The pharmaceutical industry must no longer be content just to calculate its profit margin in relation to its profitability on western markets alone, and must urgently provide poor countries with triple-combination therapy - at cost price too.
Right now, it is essential for the countries of the South to have the possibility of producing and obtaining for themselves the necessary medicines.
<P>
In a few weeks' time, in Seattle, the forthcoming WTO negotiations may constitute a significant stage.
We must do all we can to ensure that free and anonymous screening centres are set in place. This is an effective means of curbing the disease throughout the world.
We must also intensify the use of condoms because, in countries such as Senegal, it is known that condom use has played an important role in the decline of the illness.
But how many of us would agree to give half our daily wage for one condom?
Because, for a farm worker in the Sahel, a condom costs 150 CFA francs, that is 1.50 Francs, half of his daily wage?
<P>
I invite you, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, and you too, Commissioner, to together call upon the United Nations, the United States, and the European Union to create a world fund for medical solidarity.
What could be more urgent than to save 25 million people from programmed death?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Paisley">
Mr President, there is also one matter I would like to raise, and that is the relationship of drugs to this problem.
We are looking at Africa but we must also look around us, to our own local societies.
Northern Ireland is on the periphery of this Union and it is a peripheral part of the Union and yet we are seeing the start of a terrible spread in our country, greatly linked to drugs trafficking.
<P>
Whether this Parliament likes it or not, when laws are violated there is always a sad reaping to the violation of law.
The Bible says that if you sow to the flesh, of the flesh you will reap corruption; and that is a fact that has to be faced.
Nevertheless, there must be infinite compassion for those who have been stricken.
I am glad that my own church has a programme to that effect and is working hard on it.
There must be compassion.
We must sit where these people sit, we must recognise the circumstances that they are in, and we must do everything in our power to seek to help them in their dire plight.
<P>
It is a tragedy that this Parliament is meeting today in the shadow of the fact that our Committee on Budgets is cutting down on aid.
We should be doing our best to get more finances to deal with this problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Marset Campos">
Mr President, our position has been very well explained by Mr Wurtz and Mr Sylla.
<P>
I only want to highlight three aspects.
The first one - and I say this as a medical historian - concerns the fact that, in a continent that has been destroyed by colonisation, which is the case with Africa, it is not an accident that the AIDS epidemic has occurred, but rather it is a consequence of the impoverishment of that continent, and therefore we are responsible, as the former colonial power, for helping Africa.
<P>
The second is that, given the prevalence of AIDS in Africa and knowing that thousands of young people cross the Mediterranean into Europe, via Spain and other countries, and also bearing in mind the incubation period of the disease, which is from five or six to twelve years, we can calculate that a third of these young people are infected with AIDS and are living in Europe.
This issue, therefore, affects us directly.
<P>
Thirdly and finally, I would like to point out that the most suitable instrument we have - this has been demonstrated by the UN by means of the WHO in the fight against smallpox - is the WHO.
It is incredible that we have abandoned such an important international instrument as the World Health Organisation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Nielson">
Let me first of all thank everyone for this debate.
I was very happy to note that there is full agreement to what has been said by the different groups in Parliament.
I also think that the nature of this problem demands a response which cuts across what otherwise often divides us in politics.
I should like to give an assurance that the Commission wishes to increase its efforts in this area, not least in accordance with what has been the unifying theme and approach in the various interventions.
<P>
I have a number of more specific comments to make.
Mrs Maij-Weggen stressed that this is a very serious issue for the younger generation.
I, too, was making the same point, and others have also emphasised it.
If we are to contribute some hope to Africa, it is here that something is to be done.
The figures which a number of people have quoted, tell their own story.
I think that the situation is very serious and I agree that this is something other and more than a health problem, as has been pointed out in the course of the debate.
Mrs Maij-Weggen said that what we are seeing is a breakdown of the societies concerned and that the progress which has been achieved is being undermined.
I think these figures are hugely important.
Producing better statistics and providing better information to the rest of the world about just how bad the situation in fact is, could be factors in increasing understanding among our populations of the necessity of increasing our efforts on behalf of Africa, and also generally, because this particular problem is bound up with the general situation in Africa.
<P>
Statistics are also crucial for supporting those who wish to counter the taboo surrounding the problem.
In Zimbabwe, it is very useful to obtain clear public statistics, not only about how bad things are there and how many people have been affected, but also about the results it has been possible to achieve over a number of years in neighbouring Tanzania and Uganda, and in Senegal.
The more openly the authorities approach the problem, the more effective the results they can achieve.
<P>
I have also noted in the debate about condom use that there is very broad agreement as to the crucial importance of making condoms available at low cost and of providing the population with accurate and straightforward information, as has been the case in Tanzania, Uganda and Senegal.
<P>
In this connection, I should like to talk about an experience I had in the Binga district in Zimbabwe.
There, 25% of women giving birth for the first time are HIV-positive, and more than 30% of women giving birth in maternity wards at the local hospital are also HIV-positive.
This is a dreadful situation.
We visited a number of nuns involved in an AIDS project.
I asked them if the question of condoms was discussed in their educational work.
They answered that they could only accept and recommend the use of condoms where prostitutes or similar groups were concerned.
Otherwise, they preferred that people should be protected through the use of moral strength.
This was a hard line to take, I think. When we know what is effective, we also have a duty to share this knowledge with people who can use it; in fact, to force it upon them, I would almost say.
<P>
I think that the moral aspect of the matter and the question of where our duty lies can also move the discussion on. Also, this discussion may be seen in the light of the concept of conditionality which we do not refrain from utilising in these very poor countries, which need our partnership and our support.
It might also be said that when, in relation to formulating conditionalities, we talk about structural adjustments and macro-economic support for these countries, it might be worth discussing certain conditionalities in regard to the countries' ability to ensure survival of their own population.
We ought, of course, to avoid too rigid an approach to this problem, but there is, in any case, a moral aspect to it which means that it would be wrong of us to accept the fact that people close their eyes to what is going on in certain countries.
Survival is also a human right.
And when we talk about the broad modern concept of human rights, it is, therefore, the new-born child in Zimbabwe, infected with HIV, who is our partner in securing these and not those groups of people who deliberately close their eyes and do not share with the population their knowledge of how HIV can be treated and, especially, prevented.
<P>
The budget problem has been referred to by almost everyone in the debate.
I should like to say that what we have here is a variant of a very general problem: that of how far it may be deduced from the budget' s various, and more or less specific, headings what the Commission, as a whole, is doing in a given area.
In fact, it cannot be deduced.
We are in the middle of an operation involving many more budgetary headings than the one discussed.
It is an operation aimed at simplifying and clarifying the budget.
That is what characterises the discussion.
What we are doing about HIV and AIDS cannot be deduced merely by looking at the particular heading in the budget which has been discussed.
That having been said, I would be the first to admit that it cannot properly be discovered from our own budget either (or, sadly, from our reporting) what, when it comes down to it, we are actually doing in this area.
This is a significant weakness in the organisation of the whole reporting process and of efforts to make information available.
It is a reminder to us that there is a lot of work ahead.
The aim is that we should be able to report precisely, to our own public also, on what it really is we are getting for our money.
<P>
My answer, then, is that it is not very significant if there is this particular heading in the budget.
As I said in the introduction, there are now EUR 25 million on the way as an extra input into this area, and this sum has been taken from a variety of resources.
This demonstrates that it is not only this one particular budget heading which shows how much we are doing.
<P>
Mr Wijkman mentioned relations with other organisations, and the WHO was mentioned by another speaker.
We shall be doing more to open up the EU with a view to better cooperation and coordination with other players, including players in addition to our fifteen Member States.
This is an important part of improving the quality of what we offer, especially from the recipients' point of view.
I can therefore answer positively that this is something of what we want to aim for.
<P>
Those are my comments.
Thank you again for this debate.
Finally, I would point out that, in a week' s time when we have the debate in the ACP-EU Joint Assembly in Nassau, I should very much like - if it is possible against the background of the questions I shall be answering - for us to discuss some of these themes there too and pass on some of the same messages which have characterised the present debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Nielson.
<P>
I have received six motions for resolution pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Granting of supplementary macro-financial assistance
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A5-0017/1999 by Mr H.-P. Martin, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision providing further macro-financial assistance to Bulgaria [COM(99)0403 - C5-0098/1999 - 1999/0165(CNS)];
<P>
A5-0018/1999 by Mr H.-P. Martin, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision providing further macro-financial assistance to the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia [COM(99)0404 - C5-0099/1999 - 1999/0166(CNS)];
<P>
A5-0019/1999 by Mr H.-P. Martin, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision providing further macro-financial assistance to Romania [COM(99)0405 - C5-0097/1999 - 1999/0167(CNS)].
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Martin, Hans-Peter">
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, I will mainly speak on the same subject the last speaker finished on.
What we are concerned with is macro-economic financial assistance for those countries.
That means that the European Union only acts as an intermediary in obtaining funds.
The money is borrowed on the international markets and passed on to these countries for their use.
The European Union can guarantee that the cost of borrowing is less than it would be if these countries borrowed the funds directly from the international markets.
<P>
The aid to be given to Macedonia is the most problematic of these financings, because in this instance it is not only a case of a loan, but also of a grant, to be paid over two years.
The Council has decided on this form of financing, but it made the decision without the corresponding funds being available. The Committee on Budgets draws its attention to this fact.
If the Financial Perspective is not revised, we will have to adjust other budget lines under heading 4, "External Action" , and in order to secure the aid to Macedonia, we will find ourselves cutting aid to other areas.
With this kind of financial aid, it cannot be the intention that, in order for one country to receive, money should be taken away from others.
For this reason, the Committee on Budgets has proposed to the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy that it should demand a revision of the Financial Perspective in this regard, and positive reference has been made to this in the report.
<P>
Examination of the Financial Perspective is, in any case, an important matter and is linked in its entirety to the question of what the financial basis is or, in other words, to the fact that the war in Kosovo has brought about a situation which is unexpected and new and which had not been catered for by the Financial Perspective.
This is also linked directly to an examination of the Financial Perspective, which must be carried out on account of the aid to Kosovo, the funds to rebuild areas of Turkey devastated by the recent earthquakes and on account of the agreement on fishing with Morocco. Neither is it unconnected with the fact that at this moment in time there are not sufficient funds available to realise all those projects in Category 4 which the Council and the Commission want to realise and which they have proposed.
The response of Parliament to the form proposed by the Committee on Budgets is that it is important in connection with this issue to examine the Financial Perspective and in this way also to ensure that general aid from Parliament and from the European Union really does reach its destination and also to safeguard the possibility of bringing these matters to a favourable conclusion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Folias">
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Baltas">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the aid that we are calling on to be approved for these three European countries - and I stress "European countries" because we are forgetting that we do also have needs in Europe - i.e. in FYROM, Bulgaria and Romania, is both necessary and urgent.
<P>
Firstly, I say necessary because these countries are trying to adjust to a new environment of economic and commercial relations which are causing them problems, particularly in their balance of payments which, in turn, is affecting the general functioning of the market and economic development.
<P>
Secondly, this aid is urgent - and I would say particularly urgent - because following the bombings in Yugoslavia, the whole economic equilibrium of the region was dangerously affected with exceptionally negative repercussions on those countries which fell victim to the intervention, without their wanting or causing it.
Therefore, this macro-financial assistance is both necessary and urgent and our Parliament must show its support by promoting these Southern European countries.
<P>
The third point which will sway decisions to vote in favour of the Council' s proposal is that the level of financial assistance is relatively low and so it will not affect the economic programme of the Commission.
As for the difficulty which was mentioned regarding Category 4 of the Budget for FYROM, it is absurd to insist on this aid and not come up with the EUR 30 million.
<P>
In conclusion, Mr President, this aid is necessary, urgent and imperative and yet our contribution is minor compared to the great efforts that these countries are displaying in their adjusting to the new challenges they are facing and which the war has tragically exacerbated.
I believe this aid merits our unanimous support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, macro-economic assistance for the three countries which lie outside the war zone but which have suffered in the extreme during the war in Kosovo is only right and very important.
Each of you will be thinking, are there still questions about this issue?
Support for lasting, successful development in the countries concerned is, however, urgently necessary.
Here, I wish to clearly state again on behalf of my group, that we want to do everything to ensure that Bulgaria and Romania are not left behind in the process of enlarging the European Union.
These countries, and also the neighbouring country of Macedonia, urgently need our political and economic support.
In this connection, I should again like to remind you that this Parliament has decided here on several occasions that the visa requirement for entering and leaving Romania and Bulgaria, which constitutes a form of exclusion, should finally be removed.
The Council and the Commission should urgently state their position on this issue at the Helsinki Summit.
<P>
On the question of financial assistance, the Commission and the Council always extol their splendid charitable initiatives in referring to the huge sums given by way of macro-economic aid.
Have you ever asked, though, how effective this macro-economic assistance is in regard to economically and socially-balanced development in these crisis-racked countries?
What basically is the money for? Whose pockets is it really going into?
The truth is that not a single euro benefits the people in the region, neither small and medium-sized businesses nor the education and health systems. Nor is the money used to create employment.
It does not contribute either to the local and regional infrastructure, the reconstruction of which is an important prerequisite for investment.
No, it amounts to nothing more than bribes for international banking systems.
It offsets the indebtedness into which the IMF has brought these countries.
It flows practically direct into the coffers of the international banks and in that way contributes to the further indebtedness of the so-called recipient countries.
It is also only a credit, even if the conditions are better than those of the EMF.
Nonetheless, the conditions are: save on health care and on social insurance and pensions systems.
The result: the further impoverishment of broad strata of the populations of the countries concerned.
Is that what we mean by stability?
Can stability in the region be based upon further indebtedness and further impoverishment?
In practice, the macro-economic assistance only contributes to account being taken of the budgetary conditions of the EMF.
The indebtedness is therefore compounded.
In other words, we need a change of direction in the structure, and we need politics to again assume priority in this domain and responsibility for economic and socially-balanced development which is genuinely stable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Solbes Mira">
Mr President, I would like to thank the Members, firstly, for their analysis of the problem and, secondly, for their generally positive reaction to the proposal which is being examined here today.
<P>
I would also like, in my first appearance before this Parliament, to insist once again on something that I insisted on in the Commission, which is the need to establish the best possible relationship between my duties as Commissioner and the people responsible for the corresponding areas in this Parliament.
<P>
I believe that the various interventions have shown that there is no group which, in principle, will stand in the way of aid. In fact I have noticed a position which is clearly favourable to the proposals.
We all agree that the crisis in Kosovo, which has given rise to this difficulty, leaves us no choice but to make a greater effort.
However, I would like to clarify certain issues which may help us to understand the Commission' s position with regard to the different proposed amendments.
<P>
Firstly, we are talking about balance of payments aid.
Balance of payments aid is very different from the provision of funds for normal programmes.
Balance of payments aid is aimed at boosting a country' s reserves in such a way that it can confront its external payments problems, which always have a compensation: it is always either the provision of services or the supply of goods which is being paid for.
Therefore we are not talking about funds directed at the budgets of each one of these countries, the aim of which would be to carry out specific actions.
Clearly, and as a consequence of this fact, they are connected neither to specific projects or programmes.
We are talking about a financial contribution aimed at confronting these difficulties.
<P>
Secondly, in the case of Bulgaria and Romania, the funds are connected to agreements with the International Monetary Fund which have this same objective.
In the case of FYROM, the situation is rather different.
That country is currently negotiating an agreement with the International Monetary Fund.
It is possible that agreements will be reached, in which case we will cooperate with them, but, in the event that no agreement is reached, we believe that the situation demands the support of the European Union in any event.
Therefore, whether or not there is an agreement with the International Monetary Fund, there will be support for FYROM, although it must clearly be conditional upon the application of the necessary reform programme so that these funds will be put to specific effective use.
<P>
I would like to remind you that this is not the first time that this type of aid has been granted to these countries.
It has happened in the past.
This aid has always functioned efficiently.
We have never had problems with regard to the repayment of debts, there have never been delays on the part of these countries, and therefore, from our point of view, and in financial terms, they are absolutely viable partners.
<P>
Having made these preliminary comments, I would like to deal with the various proposals put forward by Mr Martin in his report.
In view of the philosophy that I have explained, I believe that our position is understandable.
<P>
With regard to the first proposal, if I have understood correctly, the intention is something which I share completely with Mr Martin and that is that, ultimately, growth and economic reform should increase employment and improve standards of living.
In these two respects, we are in absolute agreement.
<P>
Therefore, we would accept a wording which, in place of what has been put forward in the proposal, said "with a view to increasing employment and living standards."
This wording would be perfectly acceptable to the Commission.
<P>
We come to the second point, which is the second Amendment, which intends to establish budgetary control by the Commission with regard to the funds in question.
Given the difference between these funds and the normal projects which supply money to the budget, I am afraid that, in this case, this idea of budgetary control, which we all accept and defend, is not really applicable.
In this case, the control must be carried out differently.
We should control in general terms whether the country is using the funds correctly.
Consequently, we would be in favour of an idea which seems to us fundamental, and that is that the Commission monitors the reforms which must be carried out in the said countries so that the aid may be used correctly.
<P>
However, we do not believe that this point should be included in the text of the decision.
The Commission is committed to carrying out this control and it should be done, obviously, in accordance with the evolution of macro-economic factors.
We believe that this type of control will be sufficient.
However, as I have said, we do not believe that including the proposed amendment is the best method.
<P>
With regard to Amendment No 3, the fundamental idea, as has been said, is to try to ensure that a proportion of these resources is dedicated to the provision of the basic social needs of the population.
This raises once again the problem that I mentioned before concerning the nature of this aid.
If we were talking about budgetary aid I would have no hesitation whatsoever in accepting your proposal.
In this case we are talking about financial support for these countries' reserves in order to help them deal with a certain type of counterpart.
We are not here to discuss whether or not we should support the basic needs of the population.
Nevertheless, for your peace of mind, I will tell you that these cases are radically different from the case you have mentioned concerning Indonesia.
<P>
Also with regard to the International Monetary Fund' s own plan, in the Fund' s global plan concerning the definition of budgets and expenditure of the said countries, it is clearly established that a certain percentage of expenditure will have to be dedicated to social spending.
<P>
In the specific case of Romania for example - I have the figures here - at the moment, for 1997, 8.3% of GDP is being spent on social expenditure.
However the condition established in the Fund' s plan states that in 1999, this figure should rise to 10.5% of GDP.
Therefore, I hope that this addresses the Honourable Members' concerns regarding the issues involving the International Monetary Fund.
Nevertheless, I do not believe that it falls to the Commission to define internally, with regard to national budgets, how a global budget is to be established given that, as I said before, the Funds in question do not themselves have any particular specific purpose.
<P>
We could clearly say the same of Amendment No 4, which has a similar justification and problems of an analogous nature.
<P>
With regard to Amendment No 3, however, I would like to make an additional point.
There are specific Union programmes dedicated to this idea of improving administration and dealing with basic social needs.
Please remember, for example, that in the PHARE programme, 30% of the resources are dedicated to "Institutional Building" , which is clearly linked to the whole question of improving administrative functioning which will allow the problems to be resolved.
These are the reasons why Amendments Nos. 3 and 4 do not seem acceptable to us.
<P>
However, we are in total agreement with Amendment No 5.
To Amendment No 5, we would simply propose a small correction in terms of style and that is, instead of the phrase appearing after the reference to the International Monetary Fund, we believe it should appear immediately after the word "Commission" .
Therefore it would be worded, "the Commission, in accordance with the principles of sound and efficient management, shall verify..." , etc.
In this way we would totally accept your proposal but it would be more correctly worded.
<P>
In Amendment No 6, the Commission is asked to inform Parliament before carrying out the second payment of balance of payment appropriations.
Again this raises a problem of form and practice.
The problem is as follows: decisions of this type are based on elements which must be treated, I would not say as secrets, but at least, with a degree of confidentiality and that, therefore, it would not be appropriate, it seems to me, to explain them and discuss them in sessions which are absolutely public and on record.
Therefore, the problem stems from how we will find a procedure which will inform Parliament of these facts before they happen without involving a public meeting which I believe could cause certain problems with regard to the handling of these issues.
<P>
The formula which I would now propose, and which I can commit myself to, is that, before these payments are made, the Chairmen of the Committees involved in these issues, for example, should be informed, so that Parliament has knowledge of them and there is no problem with regard to the need for confidentiality in relation to certain matters.
<P>
We are in total agreement with Amendment No 7 concerning the provision of information before a certain date.
<P>
Lastly, we come to perhaps the most problematic amendment, in terms of the form it should take, which is the one concerning the additional loan of 30 million.
The Honourable Members raise budgetary problems and, insofar as this is a contribution of a budgetary nature, they will have to be resolved.
The resolution you propose involves a revision of the Financial Perspective.
<P>
I would like to distinguish between the two time periods.
Firstly 1999 and then 2000.
We are talking about EUR 30 million - 15 for this year and 15 for next year.
With regard to the 15 million for this year, I can tell you that the figures are laid out in the budget and therefore, we have no problem with meeting these payments immediately.
The problem concerns next year and, in fact, in the Commission' s decision, if the Honourable Members would like to see page 7, in section 4 which refers to this issue, it clearly states that, given the existing budgetary restrictions, there could be some difficulty and an adjustment in Category 4.
<P>
This is clearly not a new problem therefore. It is a problem that has been noted and you are right to raise it now.
The difficulty is which solution to adopt.
Should we adopt a specific solution consisting of revising, by means of a specific Council decision, the Financial Perspective with regard to a specific point?
We believe that this would cause difficulty in terms of budgetary authority and analysing the issues individually, in such a way that we are not able to have a global view of the difficulties which we may have to face.
<P>
Therefore, I would ask you not to include this reference to the revision of the Financial Perspective bearing in mind two things: firstly, that the Commission will clearly in any event consider revising the Financial Perspective in the future, taking into account not only this question but also other matters relating to Kosovo.
Secondly, that logically it will fall to the budgetary authorities, to you as Parliament, to the Commission in its proposals and to the Council in its decisions, to take the decisions which it considers appropriate for 2000 without, at the moment, anticipating the definitive solution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="President">
<CHAPTER ID=6>
ALTENER multiannual programme (1998-2002)
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on the recommendation for second reading (A5-0016/99) by Mr Langen, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adoption of the Decision of the European Parliament and of the Council adopting a multiannual programme for the promotion of renewable energy sources in the Community (ALTENER) (1998-2002) (7122/1/99 - C5-0032/99 - 97/0370(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langen">
Mr President, ALTENER is part of a multiannual programme of measures in the field of energy policy for the period 1998-2002.
It is concerned with the important aspect of alternative, renewable energy sources.
The Commission' s proposal dates from November 1997.
At the first reading in March 1999, the last Parliament adopted its position on the basis of the draft report by our former colleague, Carlos Robles Piquer.
<P>
With the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the legal basis has changed. The multiannual energy programme now falls under the codecision procedure.
On 21 May 1999 - on the basis of the new legal position and directly after the Treaty of Amsterdam had come into force - the European Commission fundamentally altered and revised its proposal on the basis of Parliament' s decisions of 11 March 1999.
On 28 June, the Council adopted its common position.
<P>
Today, we can see that both the Commission and the Council have, to a large extent, accepted our proposals, and speaking here as rapporteur for the Committee on Industry, I should therefore like to say a sincere thank you for the constructive cooperation in this matter.
<P>
At this second reading, Parliament now has to examine whether the common position requires further amendment.
On 22 September, the Committee on Industry and Energy unanimously adopted a recommendation on this.
It is a shared goal of Parliament and the Commission to increase the proportion of renewable energy sources to 12% of gross energy consumption within the Community by the year 2010.
That is approximately double the present figure.
This is an ambitious goal requiring considerable efforts.
The compromises which have now been reached are only a step along this road.
Parliament is convinced that it is necessary for the Member States in particular to make increased efforts. The resources we have for the ALTENER programme are so modest that this ambitious goal cannot be achieved.
<P>
The amendments we have tabled - nine in all - call on the Member States to make a voluntary commitment to promote renewable sources of energy.
A charter should be used to overcome the fact that the European Union Treaty does not contain a specific chapter on energy policy.
What is more, Parliament wants to include in Article 1, paragraph 1 implementation of the campaign to promote renewable sources of energy already called for by the 1997 White Paper. It also wants to create new instruments and mechanisms to promote rapid and coordinated penetration of the market by all sustainable energy technologies.
In addition, the Eastern and Central European States and, as the Liberal Group has rightly requested, the Mediterranean States should also play an important role in implementation.
<P>
In Article 5 of the ALTENER programme, Parliament would also like to insert a reference to the new procedures for exercising powers of implementation in order to improve the participation of the European Parliament.
<P>
We are convinced, ladies and gentlemen, that part IV of the programme of several years' duration consisting of measures in the field of energy policy cannot fulfil everyone' s wishes.
In this connection, I should remind you of the second report being discussed today: the report by Mrs Ahern on energy efficiency.
I should, however, also remind you that, in implementing alternative sources of energy, we have two major examples, namely water and wind power, which are already proportionately so important that the others, such as solar energy and also utilisation of biomass, will have to be promoted extremely intensively.
I am very grateful and happy that you, Commissioner, now have responsibility for this important subject for, as a former Spanish Minister for Agriculture, you know that it is possibly much more sensible to reduce the surpluses achieved in the context of European agricultural policy than to make areas available for cultivation which could be exploited for utilising energy from biomass.
I am aware, however, that there is quite a lot of resistance in this area and that we are encountering opposition from industry and also from those who formulate agricultural policy.
We should all be striving, however, to combine agricultural and energy policy in the sphere of renewable energy sources.
With this in mind, I should like to say a warm thank you for your valuable cooperation and hope that the report will be accepted by a majority in Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rothe">
Mr President, I should first of all like to express my thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Langen, for presenting a really good report.
We in the Committee have gone along to the greatest possible degree - in fact, unanimously - with the proposal to again take up important requests for changes which arose out of the first reading and which have not been taken into account by the Council although we were very happy - and I say this here too, Mr Langen - that extensive approaches to Parliament were made.
<P>
It is a declared goal of the European Union to double the proportion of renewable sources of energy consumed by the year 2010.
Parliament and the Commission were already in agreement on this in the debate on the Green and White Papers.
The Council too has supported their stance in the common position we have before us.
Although it is clear that the technical potential available from wind power and solar energy, from biomass, from water power and from geothermal energy could cover considerably more than 12% of energy consumption by 2010, we know that achieving just this 12% will require great efforts, judging by growth rates in the past.
<P>
This means that the Member States must do their homework. It also means that the European Union must make greater headway than in the past.
For this to happen, it is necessary, on the one hand, to facilitate fair access to the grid for electricity from renewable energy sources.
I would point out to the Commissioner that Parliament awaits the relevant proposals which must be such as to contribute to real market penetration.
The close connection between conditions of access to the grid and growth rates in the proportion of electricity produced from renewable energy sources is something we can see from the above-average rates of increase in Denmark, Germany and also Spain.
<P>
But what we are concerned with today is the ALTENER programme.
It is the only EU programme which alone has the promotion of renewable energy sources as its goal.
This programme is also the main instrument for implementing the Community strategy for renewable energy sources and it is therefore also the main instrument of the breakthrough campaign for renewable sources of energy.
By means of this campaign, we want to introduce photovoltaic systems with a maximum output of one million kilowatts within the European Union and in developing countries.
Among other things, 15 million square metres of solar collectors are to be erected. 10,000 megawatts are to be obtained from wind power and a further 10,000 megawatts from biomass.
This campaign has to be financed from resources of the Member States, privately and with European funds.
<P>
The Commission had earmarked the amount of EUR 81.1 million for the four-year period from 1998 to 2002 in the ALTENER programme.
According to the Commission' s estimates, the breakthrough campaign alone requires public financing to the tune of approximately EUR 7 billion by the year 2003.
That is to say, EUR 7 billion which has to come from the Member States and from the European Union.
We know that this 81.1 million would only be a drop in the ocean, but we cannot, under any circumstances, accept that this sum should again be reduced to EUR 74 million, as specified in the common position.
<P>
I would therefore urge you, ladies and gentlemen, to endorse this position of the Committee, which has been unanimously adopted, in tomorrow' s vote and to also ensure that corresponding decisions are taken in the budget votes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Pohjamo">
Mr President, the promotion of the use of renewable energy sources is of particular importance for environmental reasons.
The Union cannot meet its environmental targets unless the use of renewable energy sources is actively increased.
<P>
The ALTENER programme is an important part of the strategy to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions.
Renewable energy sources reduce the dependence on imported energy and an increase in their use will also improve competitiveness.
Europe must attain a leading position in the rapidly growing area of the economy which is based on new technology for renewable energy sources.
We must also remember that the use of renewable energy sources has a positive effect on regional development and employment.
<P>
The ALTENER programme is a step in the right direction.
Mr Langen' s amendments also received broad-based unanimous support in the committee, which is no everyday occurrence.
This consensus is a good starting point for promoting the use of sources of renewable energy.
As has been stated here, however, this programme alone is by no means sufficient. An increase in the long-term use of renewable energy sources still requires a lot of research, pilot studies, an exchange of results, the harmonisation of legislation, a change in attitudes, information campaigns and also private and public investment which will pay for itself, but only in the long term.
The sums used to finance the ALTENER programme are paltry considering the scale of the undertaking.
In future we will need to investigate how we can increase investment in the greater use of renewable energy sources.
<P>
At the present time, increasing the use of renewable energy sources is mainly the responsibility of the Member States.
Hopefully, this programme will encourage the Member States to act decisively in increasing the use of renewable energy sources.
In the list of renewable energy sources, peat has not yet been mentioned.
It is, however, at least in Finland, an important, sustainable, and slowly renewable source of energy.
I hope that it can be added to the list of renewable energy sources at some point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Turmes">
Mr President, as a member of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, I should like to thank the rapporteur.
I think we have a fairly broad consensus on this ALTENER programme.
I also hope that, in the negotiations with the Council, he is able to get at least the EUR 81.1 million we have been talking about.
<P>
It is important, however, that, one day before the debate here in Parliament on the Kyoto follow-up conference in Bonn, and also a few days after the second-worst nuclear accident in history (this time in a hi-tech country), we should also place this ALTENER programme in a wider context.
It is against a particular background that we are framing energy policy: we want to protect the environment and we want to cut down on CO2 emissions, so we must examine in particular whether the liberalisation of the European electricity market, as is at present being implemented in a number of Member States, is not counter-productive.
Wholesale liberalisation in Germany is now already putting both biomass and solar projects under pressure and, in the social sphere, it will also, of course, result in our soon finding ourselves with a lot of little Michelin-style incidents because jobs are being rationalised out of existence so that power companies' share prices rise.
<P>
I think it is time to analyse this liberalisation - in both ecological and social terms - and then to consider what are the good approaches.
Personally, I particularly like the Danish model, where there is transparent access to the grid; there is an energy tax which corrects prices; there are clear targets for renewable energy sources; and there is an almost protected market.
We also need a protected market for renewable energy sources and for block-type thermal power stations.
In my view, merely national corrective measures or national "protective barriers" of an ecological and social nature are insufficient.
We must also consider, at a European level, how we might build in corrective features.
We naturally want this "feed-in directive" adopted very quickly.
I believe we need mechanisms in the field of renewable energy sources similar to those we have today for nuclear energy.
We need an export guarantee because, all in all, renewable energy sources mean many more jobs and better environmental protection.
Renewable energy sources should be worth that to us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, the share of renewable energy resources in the production of energy in the EU stands at less than 6%, and hydro-electric power makes up the bulk of this.
It will be impossible to reach the target to double this figure with the current way of thinking, which would have us believe that oil and gas will last for ever, and if they do not, coal is cheap in any case.
Far too little money has been devoted to the ALTENER programme.
It is self-delusory to apply such small sums of money to good ends.
We are deceiving ourselves by investing so little in a new approach.
The security of the EU must also be considered.
By 2020, 94% of the quantity of oil needed in the EU will be imported, as well as 80% of the coal and 75% of the gas.
If we leave the future of our energy in such a precarious position, we will not be able to provide a secure future for our people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, I would like to say to my fellow Members that, once again, I fear that this Parliament may be distinguishing itself by its faintheartedness.
As Mrs Rothe said, 12% is not enough.
Mr Langen said that the resources made available are not enough to ensure 12% of production and, yet again, in spite of these warnings, we are going to adopt this report.
<P>
I think it is important to take a broader view of the question.
It is not enough to see the amounts, which are quite inadequate, that we are going to spend on renewable energies; we should perhaps also take a little time to consider the financial energies which we are expending on other forms of energy, particularly nuclear energy.
Our colleague from the Group of the Greens mentioned the tragic events in Japan, and yet Japan is not a problem country or an underdeveloped country.
So today, in the same annual period, we will be allocating EUR 60 million to nuclear fission as against EUR 15 million to renewable energies, and EUR 200 million to nuclear fusion. That gives us an idea of the real policies which the European Union is pursuing.
It is totally unacceptable.
<P>
Especially now that a number of Member States have decided to abandon their nuclear policy, including their fission policy, we cannot accept that the Union as such should continue to finance nuclear policy by up to four times as much.
We must become aware of these disparities.
We must demand sums that are at least greater than those allocated to an energy about which we know nothing - nuclear fusion. We must immediately abolish the appropriations which we allocate to nuclear fission and transfer them entirely and directly to renewable energies.
This is the next challenge, in my opinion.
<P>
At a time when the great nuclear States of Europe such as Germany are questioning their nuclear programmes, when France is starting to talk about doing so, we cannot continue to spend such vast sums, four times, let me say again, what we are spending on renewable energies, on these energy policies.
It is not acceptable.
I therefore ask my fellow Members to vote against this draft agreement, especially as the Council has the audacity to cavil at a few million.
But, of course, the problem does not lie here.
The problem is one of resources.
12%, as Mrs Rothe said, is not enough.
We should set ourselves far more ambitious objectives, and this Parliament must force the Council and the Commission to find the resources necessary for this policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="McNally">
Mr President, my congratulations also to Mr Lange, who has shown real interest and enthusiasm in presenting his report and his amendments following on for Mr Robles Piquer.
I am pleased to see our new Commissioner, Mrs de Palacio.
We look forward to working with her and we hope she will soon share, if she does not already, our enthusiasm for renewable energy.
<P>
Together with the SAVE Programme, we have in ALTENER II a way of showing the public of Europe that there are rational ways to meet the challenge of climate change: energy efficiency and renewable sources of energy.
We are asking Member States to pledge their commitment to the encouragement of renewable energy - and they all say, individually, that they have this commitment - by signing a Charter on renewable energy - the EURENEW Charter.
This would symbolise the added value of working together in the EU on society' s wishes and needs.
<P>
Of course, the environmental benefits of renewable energy are obvious.
But Mr Langen wisely reminds us of the enormous potential for European industry.
One needs only to look at Denmark.
And I fully support his call for the European Renewable Energies Export Council to be strengthened.
Sadly, we lost one of the driving forces with the sudden death, earlier this year, of John Bonda, but others will carry on his work in the Export Council.
I must say I am very pleased at the vocational training element of ALTENER II.
That is to be welcomed.
The budget is clearly inadequate and has to be increased if this programme is to be properly effective.
I hope that an indication can be given by the Council in time for the appropriate changes to be made in the first reading of the 2000 budget.
The emphasis on information dissemination in ALTENER II is very important indeed, and I look forward, if it is available yet, to looking at the Agores Centre on the Worldwide Web which is clearly intended to bring together all sorts of information on renewable energy so that everyone can look it up and can be kept up-to-date.
<P>
Alongside ALTENER, and the research into renewable energy in the 5th Framework Programme, which we hope will be very significant, we need urgent flanking measures such as the "feed-in directive" for the electricity market.
I hope we will hear more about this shortly from the Commission.
The White Paper raised expectations, and we look forward to the exciting campaign for take-off with its 1 million PV systems, its large windfarm, its biomass and most exciting of all its 100 communities where all the electricity will come from renewable energy.
There is nowhere in the whole of European Union where renewable energy is not relevant, whether it is Lapland or the Islands of Greece.
<P>
The ALTENER II Programme will work and can work in every Member State and of course, outside the European Union in applicant countries, for example, as well as in the Mediterranean countries where the potential is huge.
Renewable energy should become the symbol of what is sensible and progressive about Europe.
This programme will help us obtain that symbol.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Markov">
Mr President, Mr Langen, an outstanding report, you have my respect.
Utilising renewable sources of energy is a model example for the development and use of the most modern technologies which, at the same time, contribute to caring for the environment. However, there is also a second aspect.
If one looks at those firms in Europe which are particularly involved in this area, it can be seen that these are mainly small and medium-sized companies.
And, of course, since these small and medium-sized companies have, with these new technologies, made a considerable contribution to the employment policy of securing jobs, it is also a question of continuing to support them.
<P>
In contrast to the big energy concerns in which employees are being laid off, by launching this programme and by promoting alternative energy sources, we are also making a contribution as Europeans to increasing the status of employment policy.
<P>
At the same time, it must, of course, be said that this programme also has a special significance from the point of view of the enlargement of the EU eastwards.
Of course, we are also concerned with bringing regenerative, environmentally-friendly energy production to these particular countries in order both to promote the protection of the environment and also of course - this must be added in all honesty - to open up new markets.
<P>
To that extent, the resources made available for the ALTENER programme are in no way adequate.
They must be increased, and the European Council must also be more heavily involved in the export of renewable energy sources. In that way, expertise can be combined and translated more quickly into effective action.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kronberger">
Mr President, Commissioner, I have prepared a speech which essentially repeats what the previous speaker said.
I am, unfortunately, in the sad position of having to read out to you a message from Reuters news agency which proves the importance of what we are talking about here.
The message was issued at 3.07 p.m., less than 30 minutes ago.
It reads: Seoul, 22 injured in accident in South Korean nuclear power station.
The precise text reads: 22 workers have been injured in an accident in a South Korean nuclear power station.
They were exposed to radioactive radiation when heavy water escaped. This was reported today by the Yonhap news agency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Rapporteur, ladies and gentlemen, last March I already had occasion to say that as a Frenchman, I was and still am in favour of a highly voluntarist policy on energy.
We must, as far as possible, move beyond the mere declarations of intent which have been heard so many times over the last decade, and find strong concrete applications if we want to achieve this target, a very modest one by the way, of 12%.
It is only on this condition that the European Union will be able to provide itself with an energy policy which is durable, balanced and fully secure.
It is of course the European Commission' s task to work towards this.
<P>
To this end, two strategies have been developed through two multiannual programmes: SAVE II and ALTENER II.
What must be done today, at their second reading is, of course, to renew both of these programmes, but also to improve them, with the help of the opportunities given to us by the Treaty of Amsterdam and by codecision.
As far as the Langen report is concerned, and this is really what my intervention is about, as well as sources of renewable energy, everyone knows how important these energies are in reducing pollution and in preserving natural resources.
We are also aware of the difficulties preventing these sources of energy from entering a free market in which more traditional energy resources are often much cheaper, not to mention the absence of measures designed to promote the taking up of new energies on a voluntarist basis.
<P>
This is, of course, why I approve of the amendments tabled by Mr Langen which demand that the Commission plays a more active role in encouraging a strategy of coordinated promotion within the Member States as well as developing Europe' s potential for exporting technologies connected with renewable energy.
It is true that this will entail additional costs.
We must bear these costs because they are actually quite modest compared to what is at stake: around EUR 7 million.
I also approve, of course, of the call for a charter on renewable energy.
<P>
In conclusion, I shall say that the vote for these two reports represents a pledge to the citizens of Europe, showing the European Union' s will to protect the environment whilst reducing our dependence on energy.
This is also a statement and a measure against the dictatorship of the market and of out-and-out liberalism.
More specifically, on the threshold of the next world conference on climate change which is to be held in Bonn, this sends out a positive sign of our Kyoto commitment to reduce CO2 emissions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mr Langen, the rapporteur, on his report on the adoption of the multiannual programme for the promotion of renewable energy sources in the Community, Altener II.
A number of people have made critical comments about the nuclear programme in the Community.
Fusion power is perhaps technically renewable energy, nevertheless this is not what we are talking about here.
This is a report that originated with the Commission proposal in November 1997 which the last Parliament considered at first reading, in the Robles Piquer report, in February.
<P>
Now with the Treaty of Amsterdam we have moved over to codecision and we are having a second reading here today.
The major thrust of the report is the demand for the doubling of the amount of renewable energy to 12% by 2010.
This is something we clearly support in the Socialist Group, but I am not entirely sure that commitment is accompanied either by the political resources - which is one of the reasons we are asking for the campaign to encourage and foster renewable energy - or, more importantly, by the financial resources.
The amount that is being allocated is far too small in my view and does not add up in terms of achieving a doubling.
We have EUR 80 million allocated: EUR 30 million for 1998-99 and EUR 50 million for 2000-2002.
It seems to me, firstly, that the amount available is far too little and secondly, if we are expecting a doubling of the amount of renewable energy, there should be a sharp increase in the amount of money being made available over a period of time.
<P>
In fact, even this may not be allocated given that Amendment No 5 to Article 1(3) (new), actually says that the amount of money might have to be reduced if it is inconsistent with the financial perspective for the period in question.
<P>
I welcome Amendment No 6 to Article 2(e)(a) (new) about the need to encourage the export of renewable energy technologies from the European Union and to encourage the European Renewable Energies Export Council.
<P>
In conclusion, a number of short points: renewable energies cannot be shoe-horned into the current thinking of energy suppliers, who are trained to see energy production as always being large scale and costing hundreds or thousands of millions of euros in terms of each project.
Many will be small, community-based schemes which will be site-specific, whether using wind, waves, solar power, combined heat and power or even biomass.
That means, if we are to encourage lots of small schemes, that we need even more money.
<P>
Secondly, if we are serious about exports we should also pay some attention to renewable energy sources in which we in the European Union have a technological lead, which is not necessarily the case here.
One of which I am aware of is ocean thermal energy conversion that uses the temperature difference between the cold bottom waters of the tropics and the warm surface waters.
We have a lead in Europe but we are not encouraging that.
If we want to export these technologies we need to make sure that the resources are available.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="De Palacio">
Mr President, before coming to the point and discussing the adoption of the European Parliament and Council Decision on the application of the ALTENER programme in accordance with the codecision procedure, once the Treaty of Amsterdam is approved, I would like firstly to express my satisfaction, acknowledgement and gratitude for the support that the Commission has received at all times from the European Parliament specifically in the field of renewable energy.
<P>
To this end, I would like to thank Mr Langen who is continuing the work of his predecessor, Mr Robles Piquer, a great promoter of these forms of renewable energy.
Furthermore, to an extent, both Mr Langen and Mr Robles Piquer have demonstrated that this is not an ideological issue, that we must not mix up questions of liberalism or non-liberalism with what must be our ultimate common objective, which is to promote the use of renewable energy in Europe.
This is an effort which corresponds to and obeys two key objectives of European energy policy.
<P>
Firstly, an energy policy which respects the environment; an energy policy which takes into account the future of our planet. This must be a characteristic not only of our energy policy but also of any policy worthy of its name on this dawning of the 21st century.
<P>
Secondly, we must examine something which is of great concern in Europe: our dependence on third countries with regard to the supply of energy.
As soon as we are able to achieve our objective of doubling our sources of renewable energy supply from the current 6% to 12%, we will be less dependent on third countries, some of which may be facing a difficult future.
<P>
I have to say, Mr President, that the first ALTENER programme and later the White Paper on Renewable Energy Sources, which has developed Community strategy and the action plan for 2010, have been possible thanks, and I repeat, to the cooperation between our two institutions, Parliament and the Commission, and that the new European Union renewable energy policy has been put together precisely as a result of a good understanding between us.
<P>
With regard to the ALTENER programme, which is the second bearing this name, we are now confronted with its enlargement and incorporation into the multiannual framework programme for action in the field of energy.
Please allow me, having congratulated Mr Langen on his magnificent work, to also express my gratitude to all the other speakers during the debate.
<P>
With regard to Mr Langen and the proposed amendments, which have also been mentioned by some of the other speakers, it is my pleasure to announce that the Commission can accept practically all of them, although I will make some particular points with regard to the last three.
Some will be accepted in their entirety.
In the case of some others, I will request a different wording which will render them acceptable to the Commission.
<P>
As for Amendment No 1, the Commission has always believed that renewable energy policy and energy efficiency policy are closely linked, as some speakers have pointed out, and that the coordination of these two policies is essential.
Reference is made to a EURONEW charter, and we must ask ourselves whether it may be premature given that we have little perspective on the strategies and action plans which have already been approved.
Perhaps we need a little more time.
<P>
Amendment No 3, especially once the working document of the Commission services on the renewal campaign, which has been communicated to Parliament and the Council, has been adopted, is not only acceptable to the Commission but we embrace it with great satisfaction and gratitude.
<P>
Amendment No 4 is acceptable in principle, although the Commission considers that it does not so much constitute a third objective of the programme but rather an expansion of the first objective.
<P>
With respect to Amendment No 6, I would like to remind you of the favourable acceptance by the Commission of the Parliament' s report on the European Union' s new perspectives in the field of the export of technology and services for the use of renewable energy when it was presented in the plenary meeting on 15 January.
However, it is a question of, rather than requiring a new action, considering whether point 25 does not already reflect this need to prioritise exports in order to improve the position of the European industry, which is world leader in certain renewable energy sources, which some speakers have referred to, because in this field we have clear advantages over other producers.
This is perhaps where most progress has been made, in Europe and in this field, in recent years.
<P>
Amendments Nos. 2 and 7, as well as Nos. 8 and 9, which have reached us in the course of today, have the support of the Commission in principle, although their wording will have to be revised and adapted to a form which is acceptable to the Commission.
<P>
Amendment No 5 is in accordance with the initial proposal of the Commission.
It is therefore totally acceptable.
With regard to Amendment No 10, when it mentions associated Mediterranean countries and Cyprus, I would like to know exactly what we are talking about and therefore tomorrow, when the vote is taken, Mr Patten will raise this question.
But alternatively, during our future discussions, we could talk about this issue so that we can specify who and what we are referring to, which would be the most appropriate way, from our point of view, to deal with the concern that this amendment clearly raises.
<P>
Mr President, I would like once again to congratulate Mr Langen on his contribution to the continuation and consolidation of the ALTENER programme, since we must remember that this programme is our main instrument, although not from a financial point of view, in the carrying out of the European Union' s strategy on renewable energy.
It is undoubtedly the main instrument of coordination, control and monitoring of that strategy.
There is no doubt that a key question in all of this will be the Directive on access to the electricity network for renewable energy sources.
This will clearly be the key instrument in order to see whether we are capable of promoting the use of this type of energy within our countries.
<P>
As you all know, the sources of renewable energy, in the support systems - apart from hydroelectricity, which does achieve very competitive results when compared to other energy sources - cannot compete with traditional sources of energy.
Not even in the case of biomass, which is one of the alternative sources which clearly has its place within the framework of the common agricultural policy.
<P>
And it is clearly through the possibility of providing access to the network, through being flexible enough in the proposals that we put forward, which allow us to cover the different instruments which the different Member States have used and which are not homogenous and are different, that we will be able to guarantee that renewable energy is not only maintained but doubled in the coming years.
<P>
I would like to express my thanks once again and say that I hope that the final revision will contain the definitive formula and therefore provide an impetus for the ALTENER programme, which will clearly promote the use of renewable energy in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
SAVE multiannual programme (1998-2002)
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on the recommendation for second reading (A5-0015/99) by Mrs Ahern, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adoption of the Decision of the European Parliament and of the Council adopting a multiannual programme for the promotion of energy efficiency (SAVE) (1998-2002) (7123/1/99 - C5-0033/99 - 97/0371(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Ahern">
Mr President, I should like first of all to welcome Commissioner de Palacio to this House today.
I look forward to working cooperatively with her.
I cannot, however, let the information that I have just received about the nuclear accident in South Korea go unrecognised.
I was very shocked and saddened to hear of the deaths of 22 workers, apparently as the result of a heavy water accident.
That underlines what we are trying to do here today and the need for changes in energy policy and in the budget for energy policy.
<P>
SAVE is the only Community-wide programme dedicated to promoting the rational use of energy.
SAVE II focuses on the non-technical elements, helping to build energy efficiency infrastructure, and therefore does not pay for hardware investments.
The purpose of the programme is rather to create an environment in which investments and energy efficiency will be promoted and where energy efficiency will be recognised as a market opportunity.
We have heard about the difficulties of competition and renewable energy, but energy saving also saves money and, therefore, is a good investment all round.
<P>
The SAVE programme was thoroughly and positively evaluated in 1994.
I congratulate the Commission on the way it was run: credit where credit is due.
This House gives kicks to the Commission when it sees programmes badly run.
When a programme is well run and has been evaluated as such, we must also give it credit.
<P>
The evaluation highlighted SAVE as a valuable policy instrument to promote energy efficiency but stressed that a clear and consistent strategy for pilot actions was required; that dissemination of results is the key to long-term success; and that long-term effectiveness requires better on-going monitoring and impact analysis.
The evaluation also showed that SAVE actions will also indirectly lead to the achievement of the objectives of the non-nuclear energy R&D programme through the creation of a positive environment for the dissemination and implementation of new technology in renewable energies.
<P>
The amendments proposed by this report are a direct result of this evaluation.
Energy efficiency means lower consumption, the conservation of non-renewable energy sources and reduced dependence on energy imports, but most of all it means lower levels of environmental pollution from harmful substances such as CO2, one of the major causes of the greenhouse effect.
<P>
The European Parliament has often underlined the importance of energy-efficient actions and the Council has also emphasised the need for energy savings and a reduction in CO2 emissions in a series of resolutions.
However, these announcements have been followed up by very modest proposals.
The energy savings targets will, in all likelihood, not be achieved by the means foreseen in the SAVE II programme.
<P>
As the Community has so far not been able to agree on what is probably the most effective instrument for the reduction of greenhouse gases - namely, the taxation of energy consumption - the Commission and the Council regard the SAVE II programme as "an important and necessary instrument" .
Why then make cuts in an already low budget?
That is why I have restored the budget figures originally proposed by the Commission which were fully justified.
<P>
Bearing in mind the expected increase in the energy CO2 emissions and the low budget allocated to SAVE II it is rather unlikely that the internationally agreed objectives for reducing emissions could be achieved by this programme.
However, under the energy framework programme SAVE II offers an opportunity to reverse a trend.
Since at Member State level progress has stagnated, the responsibility for achieving energy efficiency targets and meeting reduction commitments now lies with the Community.
The Finnish presidency has therefore announced an action plan for energy efficiency during the second half of 1999.
It is very welcome and important.
<P>
The Commission argues in favour of setting a Community energy efficiency target.
Given the approximately 1% annual improvement in energy efficiency in final consumption achieved so far, the Commission calls for a target of reducing energy intensity in final demand by a further percentage point per year.
Given our commitments, as already underlined, it is incomprehensible that the Commission could confine itself to such a target.
A goal of a further one-and-a-half percentage points should be set in order to develop additional savings potential.
As you know, Parliament agreed this at first reading.
<P>
I should just like to add two technical points.
We have, on legal advice, improved the comitology amendments.
Therefore we have replaced Amendment No 5 by a new Amendment No 13, and Amendment No 11 by a new Amendment No 12.
This was on legal advice to improve the original amendments.
I hope that will be acceptable to everyone.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Velzen">
Mr President, rapporteur, Commissioner, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Ahern, for the dynamism with which she has taken up the work of the previous rapporteur Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz on the multiannual programme to promote energy efficiency, SAVE II for the 1998-2002 period, and has prepared it for the second reading in this Chamber.
In addition, I would like to thank the Commission for the preparatory work it has carried out.
SAVE, the joint programme for energy efficiency and energy savings, is an important and necessary part of the European Community' s strategy to promote efficient energy consumption and also to reduce CO2 emissions.
<P>
The SAVE programme is to be supplemented as a policy instrument by the specific programme covering issues relating to energy, the environment, and renewable energy technologies which forms part of the fifth framework programme for activities in the field of research, technological development and demonstration.
A number of objectives relating to the emission of greenhouse gases were set in Rio de Janeiro and Berlin.
In addition, the EU undertook to comply with a number of important statements on this subject in Kyoto.
<P>
The time has now come to turn the fine words uttered in Kyoto into deeds.
The EU is in a position to take on the mantle of pioneer and under no circumstances must Kyoto be allowed to degenerate into a pointless paper exercise.
That is why I would like, on behalf of our group, to urge the new European Commissioner to produce more far-reaching proposals which will enable the Kyoto objectives to be realised.
What we need is for Commissioner Bolkestein to finally get round to a decision on the eco-tax at a European level.
<P>
Mr President, there is every chance that the EU will fail to meet the objectives relating to the reduction of CO2 emissions.
The SAVE programme can provide a counterbalance to such developments. But then again, one should not expect much of this programme.
What is more, the budget is very low, which is why our group warmly welcomes the rapporteur' s proposal to increase the SAVE programme' s budget by EUR 4.4 million to EUR 68.4 million.
<P>
However, we must not set ourselves unrealistic objectives.
It will be possible, between now and the year 2000, to bring about a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of between 180 and 200 million tons by further improving the energy intensity of the final demand by 5% as compared with normal expectations.
The rapporteur proposes improving the energy intensity of final consumption by one and a half extra percentage points per year over and above the percentage that would otherwise be attained.
<P>
Mr President, our group believes that this is an unrealistic aim. Indeed, it has become apparent that one extra percentage point per year will be quite difficult enough to achieve.
That is why we intend to vote against the rapporteur' s proposal on that point and opt for one per cent.
Should it become apparent, in the fullness of time, that it is possible to achieve more, then of course we will be the first to raise the target.
But we must take care not to present households, energy companies and the like with objectives which, of course, sound marvellous in practice but which are just not realistic.
That would be very demotivating for those who have to do what is necessary to meet these goals.
<P>
My group feels that some of the proposals made by the rapporteur go into too much detail.
The rapporteur has placed the main stress on legislation. We believe that only a framework should be created at European Union level.
According to the principle of subsidiarity, a considerable proportion of the measures for increasing energy efficiency must be taken at national, regional and local level.
That is why the PPE group will reject those amendments that prescribe an overly rigid framework.
Instead of this, I feel that it would be a much better idea to draw up various incentives measures which will encourage governments and the business community to conclude voluntary agreements, for example.
<P>
Experiences in my country have shown that in many cases more is achieved as a result of voluntary agreements than as a result of obligations imposed by legislation.
It is better to make use of the resourcefulness of the parties involved than to impose obligations on them in this area by means of legislation.
Mr President, to conclude I would like to touch on another important theme.
I wish to emphasis anew the importance of the proposal to throw open the SAVE programme to associate countries in Central and Eastern Europe.
A very great deal remains to be done in Central and Eastern Europe.
The energy sectors in these countries are lagging far behind the EU Member States when it comes to energy efficiency.
<P>
There is also still a huge amount to be organised in terms of legislation.
But when it comes to saving energy, these countries stand to achieve so much more than EU countries by employing the same efforts, which is why the returns would be so much greater.
I therefore hope that energy companies in EU Member States in particular, that have a great deal of experience of projects in the field of energy efficiency, can share their knowledge with these countries and, Commissioner, it is my special hope that these energy companies then have a real chance as far as projects are concerned and are not just shoved aside by American companies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="McNally">
May I congratulate Mrs Ahern on so enthusiastically taking up the work which Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz began.
Energy efficiency is one of the few obvious contributions towards the attainment of the targets set for the EU in Kyoto.
By saving energy, we produce fewer CO2 emissions and other pollutants.
We also make our businesses more competitive.
We can create thousands of much needed jobs and we can allow gas and electricity suppliers to make their money in a more sensible way by selling the services which energy gives us - warm homes, cool fridges and machines which work - rather than selling increasingly large amounts of gas and electricity.
<P>
The main area in which work is needed is actually that of domestic householders.
They use more energy than industry and they use it in a profligate way.
That is why many of the measures in SAVE II are aimed at households - better design of houses, more economical household appliances and effective education programmes.
<P>
Unlike Mr van Velzen, I support very strongly the rapporteur' s amendment raising the percentage of savings to 1.5% above what would happen anyway.
We only have to look at the progress in some Member States, including the Netherlands, to see that this is a perfectly attainable percentage.
<P>
I am convinced that the use of regional and local networks like Federene, Energie Cities and Islenet is one of the most effective ways in which to bring about change, and I hope they will be specifically encouraged in SAVE II as they were in SAVE I. It is important, of course, that we monitor SAVE II and that its achievements are quantified.
Our committee will shortly be putting in place a mechanism to ensure that we monitor all spending programmes very closely.
SAVE II could be an example of how funding can be used in other EU programmes such as structural funds and funding for third countries.
<P>
The budget again is inadequate.
This programme is not enough on its own either.
I hope, Commissioner, that you will persevere with the philosophy behind the rational planning directive.
I am pleased that you have done so so far, and we look forward to your next communications on energy efficiency.
<P>
It is very good to start the work of this new Parliament with programmes which can make a difference, both to the environment and, of course, to the competitiveness needs of our Member States.
Like ALTENER, SAVE II is one of those programmes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Beysen">
Mr President, Commissioner, first and foremost, may I offer the rapporteur my warmest thanks for her outstanding work.
The Liberal Group considers promoting energy efficiency to be a key factor in the European Union' s energy policy.
However, if the Union wishes to pursue a credible energy policy, then the time will come when the Commission and Council will, at last, have to draw conclusions from the previous SAVE programmes.
This is a necessary prerequisite for the third SAVE programme, which has a great deal to offer, being able to achieve the desired effect.
<P>
The liberalisation of the energy markets is currently in full swing, resulting in considerable price reductions.
According to the economic principles that normally apply, offering energy at lower prices is diametrically opposed to the call for consumption to be reduced.
Energy-saving measures risk fading away against such a background.
That is why it falls to us to adopt the SAVE programme so that the liberalisation of the energy markets can go hand in hand with increased energy efficiency within the European Union.
<P>
It will only be possible to secure the effectiveness of the SAVE programme if adequate publicity is given to the initiative and there is substantial follow-up to the SAVE III programme projects and activities which are to be financed.
This can best be achieved by setting concrete objectives.
That is why the Liberals will give their full support to amendments 2 and 5 which aim to increase the energy efficiency of the final demand by 1.5 extra percentage points per year.
If we want to achieve our goals, then we really do need to have the courage to set high standards.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, the reference to renewable energy sources, on the other hand, appears to me to be inopportune.
It can only cause confusion with the ALTENER programme.
In any case, to my mind, the best thing to do as regards renewable energy sources would be to enter into a preparatory and searching debate about access to the electricity grid.
<P>
I am convinced that governments have an important role to play when it comes to leading by example in matters relating to rational energy consumption.
This position is in stark contrast to the observation that, equally, government buildings could be described for the most part as archetypal wasters of energy.
Citizens that have cause to enter government buildings ought to be able to see that saving energy is a concern to which the government gives priority.
It would thus be a good idea to designate a Mr or Mrs Energy whose specific task would be to strictly monitor energy consumption in government buildings.
Let us lead by example ourselves in this respect and start by designating a Mr or Mrs Energy in the European Parliament in both Brussels and Strasbourg.
Simple measures are usually far more effective than long-winded programmes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
Mr President, a sensible energy policy should aim to change behaviour at every stage.
So promoting energy efficiency should also be a natural part of any energy policy.
If we take the Kyoto targets seriously - as we hopefully do - then we must also follow them up with the relevant tools and resources.
In the programme we have before us, tools and funding are both inadequate and are not given a high enough priority.
In view of the obligations we have assumed in regard to CO2 reduction, it is urgently necessary to establish ambitious efficiency targets.
I therefore find it incomprehensible that the Commission wants to enhance levels of final energy by only 1 percentage point per year.
As Mrs Ahern pointed out, the target ought to be at least 1.5%, and the budget ought also to be larger.
<P>
Unlike the previous speaker, I do see the need for a reduction in CO2 emissions linked to programmes for renewable energy sources, such as the ALTENER programme.
Linking of this kind means that nuclear power cannot merely be left, as some would wish, to replace existing power stations which pollute the atmosphere with CO2 emissions.
It is often emphasised that nuclear power is one of the cleanest energy sources and does not discharge greenhouse gases.
I totally disagree with this.
Technical progress in recent years has markedly improved the efficiency of renewable energy sources and, instead of giving so many resources to the nuclear industry in Europe as the Community is notorious for doing, efforts to promote renewable energy sources should be strengthened.
<P>
I am also completely in agreement with Mr Van Velzen in believing that the countries of Central and Eastern Europe should be permitted to take part in this programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Brunetta">
Mr President, Commissioner, first of all, I wish to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Ahern for her work on highlighting the importance of promoting energy efficiency.
Greater energy efficiency will mean less consumption in the medium-term, safeguarding renewable energy sources, less dependence on energy imports as well as less environmental pollution.
<P>
I would like to make two points on the draft recommendation for second reading, keeping in mind that the SAVE programme is aimed mainly at strengthening research and the exchange of know how, as well as monitoring the results achieved in the sector (Article 2), despite the limited financial resources.
<P>
My points are that firstly, as for today' s discussion on the proposal to set the improvement of energy intensity of final consumption at 1.5% a year - via an amendment to Recital 15 and to Article 1 - I think this goal is certainly ambitious but not very realistic. It is also harmful for the users who have successfully, and with notable efforts, reached the targets set out in the SAVE 1 programme (1991-1995).
<P>
As regards this, I would remind you that efficient energy use in the short-term costs firms as much as it does final consumers.
So we need to carefully evaluate the objectives for improving energy intensity in final consumption.
We might risk burdening our production apparatus with costs that will cause our firms to be less competitive with regard to other international competitors who are not bound by these obligations.
<P>
Staying with the aim of making our production system competitive and efficient on a global scale, I will now move on to my second point.
I would like to remind you that it is not always effective to promote efficient energy use using extremely restrictive, even intolerable legislative instruments and standards.
Saving energy is a complex process, one which needs to develop gradually and is geared to gaining technological and economic knowledge for firms and users alike, but this will take some time.
<P>
So, I welcome the awareness campaigns on subjects linked to saving energy, but I do not see how adopting excessively prescriptive legislation could be the most efficient way of improving the energy intensity of final demand.
I refer here to Amendment 1 to Recital 11, to new Recital 15a and to Amendment 6 to Article 1.
<P>
To conclude, in the light of these remarks, I would like to draw your attention to the need to carry out long-term cost/benefit analyses on the introduction of measures to reduce energy intensity of the final demand. These are very complex areas where the market and its regulations come into conflict with public welfare considerations.
These analyses are possible in transparent markets where the individual end user - firm or consumer - can always assess to what point energy use is efficient thanks to gradual progress in the technological and economic spheres, sustained by sound research and as much information as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="De Palacio">
Mr President, I would like to thank Parliament once again, and especially Mrs Ahern, for the work it has carried out and the repeated support for the Commission' s policy, specifically with regard to the improvement in the use of energy and the increase in energy efficiency which the SAVE programme is aimed at.
<P>
On behalf of the Commission, I would also like to thank Mrs Ahern and Mrs McNally for having congratulated the Commission on the development of this type of action, which the officials of the Commission will also be grateful for.
<P>
Once approved, this programme will become an important component of the multiannual framework programme for energy, providing a greater degree of transparency and better coordination of our programmes in the energy industry, allowing Parliament to fulfil its monitoring role in the interests of European citizens.
<P>
With regard to the report of the Honourable Member and proposed amendments, Mrs Ahern, I would like to say that, in principle, the majority of them are acceptable.
In the case of Amendment No 4, as we said earlier in relation to the ALTENER programme, there is a clear need for renewable energy and energy efficiency to go hand in hand.
All of this constitutes one of the basic objectives of the multiannual framework agreement on energy, which is aimed specifically at improving complementarity and coordination in this field.
<P>
As for Amendments Nos. 12 and 13, which replace Amendments Nos. 11 and 5, which the Honourable Members have referred to, and which refer to the involvement of Committees, I would like to say that they are acceptable in principle but require another more appropriate wording.
I can say the same for Amendment No 10, which proposes an increase in the budgetary item which restores the Commission' s initial figures.
<P>
With regard to amendments which the Commission cannot accept, I would like to say that, firstly, there is the one which refers to increasing the ambitions of this programme, that is, achieving a saving of 1.5%.
In my view we should not be setting unreasonable figures but rather discussing achievable and ambitious objectives, because the objective is 1% per year, which will add up and eventually lead to considerable savings.
For this reason we can accept neither Amendment No 2 nor Amendment No 6, insofar as this issue is concerned.
<P>
With regard to the legal aspect, the SAVE programme is not a legislative programme.
Legislative action and proposals may be brought into play, but it is not in itself a legislative programme.
For this reason, we cannot accept Amendments Nos. 1 and 3, nor part of Amendment No 6.
<P>
Honourable Members, the SAVE programme is intended to provide a framework of action in the field of energy efficiency.
We believe that this formula has worked adequately in the past and that it would not be advisable, even with the best intentions, to add too many details or standards which will ultimately hinder the effective implementation of the programme.
We therefore require a certain degree of flexibility and for this reason we cannot accept Amendments Nos. 8 and 9.
<P>
Finally, and in the hope of finding a compromise, we can accept Amendment No 7, despite the fact that it presents a little difficulty, requiring some amendments of its wording.
<P>
With regard to two questions which have arisen, firstly, I profoundly regret the nuclear accident in South Korea which has happened just days after the accident in Japan and which has affected a number of workers.
<P>
Secondly, I would like to mention the Kyoto objective, to which energy efficiency is clearly of key importance.
The Commission will briefly present - it is included in the agenda of the next Council of 2 December - the action plan on energy efficiency, and then we will have the opportunity to discuss these questions in more depth.
<P>
With regard to a final matter which I had left out, which is the participation of some countries in Central and Eastern Europe, I would like to say that currently there are ten countries which are benefiting from the SAVE programmes in order to bring about an improvement in energy efficiency.
When we compare data on energy efficiency we find differences of 1:5 and 1:6 in relation to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
<P>
Mr President, I will end by congratulating Mrs Ahern once again, thanking all of you for your positive participation in this matter, and Parliament for the support it has lent the Commission in this field and, simply, by saying that we are talking about something very important which is the intelligent use of resources and energy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Velzen">
Mr President, I asked the Commissioner if, when writing up the project in this field, she would give particular attention to companies in Europe that have a great deal of experience in this field.
It seems to me that she is now saying that she is keen to see the budget increased and has also rightly pointed out that the ratio is one to six and that it would be very much worth our while allowing European companies to play an important part in this.
I would like to ask the Commissioner if she would respond to this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="De Palacio">
Mr President, in fact, in some cases we are providing external support for these countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
And not only is bilateral support from some countries being used - since bilateral cooperation with countries of Central and Eastern Europe is also taking place - but we should take into account the support which they receive via the SAVE programme and other Community programmes, by means of which companies are contracted - which are involved in such areas as support, instruction, education and the spread of good practice - and, clearly, amongst them there are companies from the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
EC-South Africa trade, development and cooperation agreement
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on the recommendation (A5-0020/1999) of Mrs Kinnock, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the proposal for a Council and Commission Decision concerning the conclusion of the trade, development and cooperation agreement between the European Community, on the one part, and the Republic of South Africa, on the other part (8731/1999 COM(1999) 245 - C5-0154/1999 - 1999/0112(AVC)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Kinnock, Glenys">
Mr President, last Saturday, I was privileged to be at the opening ceremony of the Rugby World Cup in Cardiff, the capital city of Wales where I come from and Wales actually won!
All around that rugby ground there are adverts for South African fruit companies and for South African airlines.
We were entertained by singers from South Africa and I thought then how far we have come from those dark days of Apartheid when so many of us, including myself and perhaps one or two of the Commissioners, called for sanctions and boycotts against Apartheid in South Africa.
Now, the institutional racism and legalised bigotry and prejudice has been swept away and recognition of that momentous achievement now determines the European Union' s relationship with South Africa.
<P>
But, I think we all have to acknowledge, Mr President, that we have had five years of protracted and tortuous negotiations on everything from apples, pears and asparagus to cut flowers, fish, wine, port and sherry, but eventually now we see an agreement and hopefully, a signing on Monday in South Africa.
I would like confirmation from the Commission that will in fact be the case.
<P>
The European Parliament and Joint Assembly have played a positive role and have offered encouragement and critical analysis and it is very appropriate that this Parliament is the first parliament to give assent to the agreement.
Some Members States of the Union soon forgot the commitments made to Nelson Mandela in Berlin in 1994.
It was difficult at times to understand why the response by some Member States was lacking in generosity and understanding.
South Africa' s GDP is half that of Belgium and only 0.6% of the world GDP.
And yet the negotiations repeatedly stalled because Member States of the European Union allowed sectoral interest to override any need to support South Africa.
At the time of the United Kingdom' s Presidency, Philip Stevens, who writes a column in the Financial Times, observed that the European side has been consistently devious, destructive and above all, shamefully protectionist.
From the outset, it has sought to hold South Africa hostage to its own subsidised farmers.
<P>
Let me now summarise the essentials:
<P>
The asymmetric nature of the trade agreement is crucial and involves the systematic elimination or reduction of tariff barriers and other duties.
Europe will open up its markets to 95% of South Africa' s exports over ten years.
South Africa will open its markets to 86% of European Union exports over twelve years.
<P>
This agreement is unique in that it includes the agricultural sector which, of course, is of immense importance to the South African economy.
It also acknowledges the potential damage which subsidised agricultural products can do to South African markets, and actually allows South Africa to impose a special safeguard clause in the event of any threats to their own domestic agricultural industry.
However, I see running through the agreements the protectionism which unfortunately still characterises the common agricultural policy of the Union.
It is also my view that this agreement should not be seen as a model, particularly for ACP countries currently involved in the new post-Lomé Agreements, and I would like confirmation that is not the Commission position.
But there are clear lessons to be learnt about the sheer complexities involved in such a project, especially when the mighty EU is your counterpart in very difficult and contentious discussions.
This Agreement now needs to be translated into practical benefits.
<P>
Finally, let me turn to the regional implications.
This, I feel, will be the aspect of the agreements which will cause most concern.
There will be a reduction, naturally, of customs revenues which Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland have become dependent on.
These duties are sometimes as high as 90% in the case of Lesotho and this, of course, will affect these countries' ability to spend on essential health and education and other social needs.
There will be adjustment costs.
It is still very unclear, Commissioner, how these costs will be met and certainly the Conference in Lesotho which the Commission has promised seems to be somewhat unclear also.
I have had representation from the BLNS countries asking exactly what the position is on that Conference.
<P>
My own interest in South Africa dates back thirty years.
It continues because the issues at stake are no less important now than they ever were.
President Mbeki knows that the patience of the people of South Africa is not infinite and he also knows that black impoverished South Africa is desperate to see change.
When President Mbeki was inaugurated, he said 'our nights cannot be nights of nightmares while millions of people live in degrading poverty.
No night can be restful when millions have no jobs and are forced to beg and rob to ensure that they and their own do not perish from hunger.
Our country, South Africa, is beginning a long journey' .
This Parliament should give its assent to this agreement in order that the European Union can play its part in that momentous journey.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gahler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is my maiden speech in the plenary sitting of this venerable House.
I am therefore particularly pleased to be able to speak on the subject of South Africa, a country whose development I have followed, since my first visit there in 1981, with concern and with hope and, recently, with confidence.
<P>
Finally, we can establish economically and politically privileged relations with the country in Africa whose stable development is both in our very own interests as well as in the interests of its neighbours south of the equator.
The forthcoming agreement should be useful to both.
In nurturing a special relationship with South Africa, we are supporting the economic development there and, at the same time, reinforcing the potential of the country to act as a positive influence on the whole region.
<P>
Politically, we are thereby also paying tribute to the results of a reform process which, unfortunately, has not always proceeded peacefully over the years.
Many people will remember both the images of the brutality of the police and army and at the same time the rioting by the blacks.
The first high point in this process of democratisation were the first democratic elections for all South Africans in 1994, the visible expression of emancipation not only for the previously suppressed majority of the population but also, I believe, really for the classes privileged under the old system; a liberation from the self-imposed pressure to justify a system which they themselves knew, at least in their innermost selves, could not be justified and which also isolated them increasingly from people in Europe and North America whom they felt culturally and ethnically akin to.
<P>
This moral and political isolation, economic sanctions and the ever increasing material expense of maintaining the old order led in the end to economic stagnation and political recognition that things could not continue this way.
<P>
I am, however, also convinced that it was an event in Europe which was the final impetus for the De Klerk Government, which took office at the end of 1989, to summon up the courage to implement fundamental change in the system and thereby to abolish itself: the fall of the Berlin Wall as the last visible expression of the end of a system, in whose name even in South Africa freedom and democracy had not exactly been defended, took away from white South Africans the subjective impression that, if there were to be democratic elections in South Africa on the principle of "one man, one vote, once a vote" , they would find themselves in a one-party system and, once their property had been expropriated, in an economy under State control.
A substantial argument, or bogus argument, for the repression of the liberation movement had disappeared.
<P>
In the meantime, the South African Minister for Trade and Commerce - though a member of the Communist Party - was pursuing a free market policy.
We wish to support this policy of liberalisation of trade and restructuring of the economy including by means of this agreement.
<P>
In addition, an essential constituent part of the Agreement is also the defence by the parties to the contract of the observance of democratic principles, human rights, rule of law and responsible government.
In order to promote this, the European Parliament must also utilise all its powers within the scope of the agreed structured political dialogue and thus offer South Africa as much support as possible in its efforts at achieving stability.
<P>
In recent years, the Group of the European People' s Party has continually supported the cause of strong cooperation with the Republic of South Africa.
I therefore expressly welcome, on behalf of my group, this agreement between the European Union and South Africa and at the same time congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Kinnock, on her excellent report, which we support.
<P>
In the five years of on-going negotiations, the European Parliament and particularly my own group have called for the speedy conclusion of this agreement and its direct entry into force.
Even in the South African Parliament, by the way, there is general unanimous approval of the agreement.
<P>
So, as the agreement now stands, in my opinion a fair balance of interests has been achieved on the whole.
On the one hand, negotiations with a total of 24 rounds are surely not entirely necessary and have been dragged on and on due to sectoral or national interests.
The rapporteur pointed this out.
On the other hand, however, this has enabled rapprochement and mutual understanding on both sides in precisely such difficult matters as the agreement on wines and spirits or some agricultural products.
The asymmetrical trade agreement envisages, among other things, the 95% opening up of European markets to South African exports within ten years.
<P>
I would particularly like to stress, in this regard, that with this free trade agreement the European Union has included the agricultural sector in an agreement for the first time.
Within the realm of possibilities, i.e. in line with the rationale of the present subsidy regime, a considerable amount has been achieved.
In the area of spirits, it was surely emotionally very difficult for the South Africans to cope with the fact that, in 12 years' time, they would no longer be entitled to call their own sherry "sherry" or their own port "port" , even in their own country.
In August, I attempted to console my opposite number in South Africa by pointing out that although we Germans are not permitted to call German sect "champagne" , it still sells well abroad under the name "sect" , just because it is good!
<P>
There is one drop of bitterness for me in the fact that the Council could not bring itself to adopt the agreement as a Community agreement.
Its present form as a joint agreement means that it will not come into force until all Member States have ratified it.
<P>
Even if many trade-related agreements are already applicable provisionally from the start of 2000, I hope that the ratification process will not be too lengthy.
As the European Parliament, with our quick adoption of this we are giving a sign for immediate action.
This should serve as an example to the national parliaments and should also show our sympathy for the new South Africa, which deserves all our support on its difficult course.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Martínez Martínez">
Mr President, I would like to express my agreement with the comments of the rapporteur, Mrs Kinnock.
I wish to congratulate Mrs Kinnock and the negotiators who have brought this agreement into being.
I would also like to congratulate everybody because finally we have secured, after an enormously long process, the agreement instrument which the European Union is going to sign with South Africa and which must give renewed and definitive impetus to relations between the two parties.
<P>
I have said that the journey has been a long one.
At times, it has seemed interminable.
There have certainly been some complex issues, some of which, like the issue of port and sherry, continue to raise difficulties which we hope will be resolved in the coming days.
But it is also true that there have been times when we have seen behaviour on the part of the European negotiators as well as certain Member States which has been excessively bureaucratic, defensive and at times nit-picking. We have also been concerned to see at times, on the part of our South African counterparts, a tendency to backtrack and to revive questions which we thought had been resolved, all of this causing the process to be delayed more and more.
<P>
Mr President, with the necessary will on both sides to positively resolve any remaining loose ends or interpretations, we are arriving at the point of the parliamentary procedure for approving a rigorous text which is full of hopes and expectations.
This is an agreement which has taken into account diverse interests, interests which are often difficult to reconcile and which, nevertheless, seem to be providing acceptable responses for all sides.
It is an agreement which, while safeguarding and providing opportunities for European interests, must above all contribute to the economic stability and progress of South Africa as well as its political and democratic consolidation.
<P>
Mr President, with the signing of this agreement and the support which it lends to the South African process, the European Union is acting coherently.
It is acting coherently with regard to its duty to defend the interests of its Member States, coherently with regard to the principles of social equality and progress which we claim as our own, coherently with regard to the type of world which we wish to build together, with more balance and more solidarity, but also coherently with regard to the actions which many of us and many of our co-Europeans, for four decades, have maintained in the effort to put an end to apartheid while dreaming of the establishment of a South Africa with a regime which provides liberty and dignity for all South Africans.
It would have been unforgivable if, when South Africa has dismantled that odious regime, when the South Africans have made history and shown an example by bringing about an admirable reconciliation, successfully overcoming the always difficult transition from a civil war and a dictatorship, the transition from having the profile of a freedom movement to the establishment of a pluralist, democratic and constitutional State, it would have been scandalous if, when the South Africans have not betrayed our trust in their conduct, we Europeans were not able to rise to the occasion and were to betray the trust which South Africa has put in us.
<P>
Mr President, perhaps the thing that most pleases me about this agreement is the fact we have moved from rhetoric to reality and the European Parliament, which has supported and closely monitored the negotiation process, providing impetus and acting as a stimulus, should today commit itself to applying the same energy to the monitoring of its implementation and its results.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van den Bos">
Mr President, Europe was as lavish with its fine words when apartheid was abolished as it proved to be miserly when it came to economic concessions.
This small-minded mentality did not hold sway in the Commission but it did in the short-sighted European governments that allowed their national profit interests to carry more weight than the welfare of the South African people.
<P>
It has emerged from a recent report by UNCTAD that South Africa' s imports from the European Union are likely to increase more dramatically than exports to this market.
In so far as this is the case, the agreement is certainly going to have to be adjusted.
We are going to have to keep a very close eye on the actual implementation of the agreement.
<P>
We must not allow the SADC countries to be disadvantaged by South Africa' s relations with Europe.
The same applies here: a good neighbour is worth more than a distant friend.
Indeed, South Africa must give impetus to the development of the whole region.
Its aggressive expansion in neighbouring countries is doing nothing to further this aim.
The balance of trade with neighbouring countries is completely unstable.
South Africa exports seven times more than it imports.
Just as the European Union has granted Pretoria preferential tariffs, so Pretoria could do the same with its neighbours. After all, economic development is essential if there is to be political stability and peace throughout the region.
Notwithstanding our criticism of the European Union' s position, we attach a great deal of importance to the fundamental objective of the agreement, that is the economic development of South Africa and integration into international trade.
That is why we support Mrs Kinnock' s recommendation.
<P>
Mr President, as the saying goes: better some of a pudding than none of a pie.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="Wyn">
Mr President, I am pleased to support this initiative on behalf of the European Free Alliance/Green Group in Parliament.
We thank Mrs Kinnock for her efforts.
<P>
Inter-state and, more recently, inter-regional alliances both within the European Union and with partners outside is an initiative we can pride ourselves on developing enthusiastically.
Funding schemes such as INTERREG, PHARE and others are a clear expression of this ideology.
<P>
This initiative of itself cannot be expected to resolve overnight, as it were, the problems of economic deprivation in the new South Africa.
It has to address massive domestic problems including social integration, chronically poor housing for the majority of the population, massive unemployment and an economy that produces only 0.46% of world GDP.
<P>
The concern of most South Africans is that our initiatives take so long before coming to fruition.
We must ensure that all support schemes can be expedited far quicker than at present.
An agreement that provides for the full liberalisation of 95% of South African exports to the EU over a ten-year period with tariffs eliminated on 86% of its industrial goods is a very long time to wait for a country facing such acute economic and social problems.
<P>
Tariff restrictions are fine, but should be viewed in the context of the restrictions on third world countries exporting to the developed world being four times as stringent as the tariffs we face when we export to them.
<P>
Inter-regional relationships must also be fostered with South Africa, a country of regions.
The role that the regions and historical nations of the EU can have in building economic and cultural links with the diverse regions of Africa is vital and should be an essential prerequisite to its future prospects, as will the elimination of its debt.
The decision of the World Economic Summit in Cologne this year to cancel $100 billion of third world debt was important in this regard and should be a catalyst for further action by all EU countries, not just the few.
<P>
Financial partnership is not the panacea that will cure the problems of South Africa as a whole.
A whole raft of issues that are crucial to the task of ensuring that South Africa is in a position to maximise the opportunities afforded by this agreement now need to be explored in a holistic way.
The EU should be looking to develop strategies and training programmes to ensure that the regeneration of the South African economy is sustainable in the long term both economically and environmentally.
I welcome this initiative.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Boudjenah">
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Kinnock for her report.
The agreement between the European Union and South Africa, which we are debating today, is of great importance.
I am all the more favourable towards it because the Council stalled the negotiations at the beginning of the year, which sent out a very bad sign to the South African people.
<P>
In February 1999, our House expressed its failure to understand this rejection, even if the interests of certain European agricultural producers had to be taken into account.
This could have been done though, without threatening the discussions in their entirety.
Parliament' s urgent appeal was obviously heard, because the Council finally approved the agreement.
I am also pleased that at the insistence of the South Africans, the agreement was extended to cover development cooperation, too.
<P>
What we have to do now is to follow very closely the way the agreement is applied to ensure that its most positive aspects contribute to the development of the new South Africa.
Although it is a "rich country" in one of the poorest continents, relations within society there are still very unevenly balanced, to the extent that the UNDP ranks this country 93rd in its human development index.
52% of annual income goes to only 10% of the population, and unemployment rose from 30% in 1994 to 37% in 1997.
These disparities reflect the racial divisions which still exist.
To sum up the situation, and this is what South Africans themselves say, "Apartheid has been defeated in political terms, but it is still very much present in the daily life of millions of people, in economic and social terms."
There is a noticeable, justifiable impatience, particularly among the black population.
<P>
Having showed our solidarity with the movement for freedom from the harsh apartheid regime, we must now support the unprecedented efforts which have led to the RDP.
Substantial advances have already been made in providing schooling for children, local medical services, access to drinking water and to electricity. Nevertheless, a great deal still remains to be done.
<P>
This agreement means all the more to me because, after years of going on demonstrations for the release of Nelson Mandela, I had the privilege of going to South Africa on the day after he was elected President.
<P>
Finally, we must listen to those expressing their concern about the consequences of free trade.
South Africa' s preference was from the outset for an agreement close to the measures of the Lomé Convention, and Unctad predicts an unequal impact on the bilateral movements of trade to the detriment of South African products.
Also, concerns and fears at a regional level in the countries within the Southern African Customs Union have not been given sufficient consideration.
Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland will be losing a major source of revenue as the entry into force of the agreement will lead to a dramatic fall in the level of the sums currently raised by customs duties in their Union.
In addition to this, the appearance on their market of produce subsidised by the CAP will represent a real threat to their agriculture.
<P>
The agreement that we are discussing is of strategic importance for both parties.
It is also of strategic importance for the peace, stability and development of Southern Africa.
As well as giving my approval, I would like to finish by putting forward a proposal.
Perhaps we could hold hearings in Parliament for the ambassadors of Southern African countries in order to involve them directly in these new relations between the European Union and this part of the world, which is so crucial to the future of the whole African continent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Coûteaux">
Mr President, as a representative of an agricultural country, France, and more importantly of a country which has linked its name and its policies with a particular concept of cooperation with Africa, we cannot go in the direction Mrs Kinnock is leading us, and as a result, we cannot approve the so-called trade and cooperation agreement with the Republic of South Africa, both because of its form and its content.
<P>
The problems of content are quite obvious.
The first problem concerns the nature of the settlement on the registered designation of origin.
To grant financial compensation to a country in order for it to stop its improper use of protected names - such as sherry, to give an individual case - sets an extremely dangerous precedent.
It is obvious, moreover, that if this agreement were ratified by national governments, whose main role, I just mention in passing, has been proven once more, any non-EU country could decide to use a European official designation of origin in order then to negotiate a financial settlement.
This is absurd.
<P>
The second problem with the content strikes us as being even more serious.
It concerns the very philosophy, or rather the ideology, implicit in this agreement.
To claim that the liberalisation of trade is a priori favourable to development certainly adheres to the creed of globalisation which is holding sway everywhere, but reality continually shows these allegations to be false.
Firstly, it is obvious that poor countries are being dragged further and further down as their borders are increasingly opened up and their essential services increasingly privatised.
Moreover, the countries which are already dominant today have guaranteed their own expansion within the framework of a planned protectionist system, and it is this protectionism that I hope and pray for.
The agreement corresponds to an ideology whose sole aim is to mask the pernicious policy of a commercial superpower, the United States, and in this area as in many others, Europe has gone astray as a result of clinging to the Americans' heels.
<P>
As to the form of the agreement, I shall just mention it briefly.
It gives an additional illustration of the connivance between the Commission and Parliament aimed at divesting the European Council of something that I believe to be its exclusive competence, which is foreign policy.
<P>
For all of these reasons, we cannot give our approval to this agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Belder">
Mr President, whilst we recognise the valuable aspects of the agreement as regards trade, development and cooperation between the European Community and the Republic of South Africa, it has raised some critical questions in our minds, as it has in that of Mrs Kinnock, relating to suggestions to be addressed to the Commission and the Council.
<P>
Firstly, trade relations between the European Union and South Africa are characterised by a pronounced dependency.
The latter depends to a very large extent on the former both in terms of its imports (33%) and its exports (40%).
This is certainly not the case the other way around.
So why then are we not allowing South African products full access to the European market?
In this way, the good intentions the Member States had towards South Africa as a developing country in 1994 are evaporating.
<P>
Secondly, an assessment of the Lomé Agreement in 1996 demonstrated that asymmetrical liberalisation of trade is not exclusively to the advantage of developing countries.
This is because such asymmetry stops them learning how to compete against world prices.
To what extent does this drawback apply to South African products too?
<P>
Thirdly, we strongly recommend that the agreement between the European Union and South Africa should not be to the detriment of Pretoria' s excellent regional trade relations.
If good rules of origin are applied, then South Africa' s partners in the SADC and SACU ought to be able to benefit from the trade agreement too.
<P>
Following on from Mrs Kinnock' s sharp observation that the European Union has "sought to hold South Africa hostage to its own subsidised farmers" , my fourth point is that failing to include the wines and spirits sectors in the agreement was a downright omission.
What will the damage to the European market actually be as a result?
<P>
On a final note: EU development policy towards South Africa will yield little fruit while Europe is not prepared to make sacrifices to this end.
In the recent past, work in the field of development cooperation has been placing increasing emphasis on development by integration into the world market, and rightly so in our view.
However, this trade agreement contains certain elements that will impede South Africa' s integration into the world market.
All in all, European self-interest appears once again to rule the day.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, first of all, I would like to thank the rapporteur for her excellent report that begins by saying that after five years of discussion, hesitation, prevarication, consultation and negotiation, at last, we have a trade agreement between the European Union and South Africa.
The Dutch would express this more succinctly, Mrs Kinnock, by saying that after five years of moaning, whining and whinging, the die is finally cast.
The Dutch nationals in our midst will know very well what I mean by this.
Incidentally, and I agree with Mr Van den Bos on this, the Member States were the major culprits as regards all the moaning, whining and whinging.
It was not the Commission and it certainly was not Parliament.
<P>
Mr President, whatever the words are that we use to express it in our national languages, the negotiations for this trade agreement were dragged out over a long period of time in an unprecedented manner, which was, as many resolutions in this House have expressed, a poor performance, particularly in view of the courageous transition to free and democratic government carried through by South Africa; a marvellous achievement in an age when there is so much violence in the world.
That is why South Africa is an example to us all.
<P>
The EU is South Africa' s foremost trading partner, absorbing 33% of its exports and accounting for 40% of its imports.
That is why this agreement is so important for us, but, more importantly, for South Africa.
It is a modern agreement which is adapted to the times and is all about the liberalisation of tariffs, the setting up of a free trade area, agreements on economic and development cooperation and agreements on science and technology and on a political dialogue.
To sum up, it is an agreement that is sure to enable both sides to make progress for a few years.
It could have been better of course but I think we would be well advised to just be satisfied with it for the time being.
<P>
An asymmetrical trade agreement also has a lot to offer in that Europe is to open its markets to 95% of South African exports and South Africa, in its turn, is to open its markets to 86% of European exports.
This will involve 75% of South African agricultural products.
Indeed, most trading products will soon, or at least in three years' time, be allowed in, subject to as few restrictions as possible.
Of course, the fact that port and sherry have caused such delay and that, what is more, transitional regimes of 5 to 12 years have been created for this, does not inspire much confidence.
But neither does this matter a great deal.
I agree with Mr Gahler and I can tell him that we drink more "sect" than champagne in the Netherlands.
So in the long run, quality, along with price is at least as important as the name.
<P>
Mr President, I have said enough on the detail of this agreement. The political aspects of the agreements are, of course, just as important.
As far as that is concerned, we sincerely hope that this agreement will give a positive boost to the economic development and political stabilisation of South Africa.
There is still a great deal of cause for concern there, though, for the pace of economic development in South Africa is slackening, as a result of which the fight against poverty, which is to reduce the deprivation suffered by the black and coloured populations owing to years of apartheid, is not making nearly enough progress.
Poverty is still there for all to see in South Africa and this is leading to a section of the younger generation becoming frustrated and also turning to crime.
This does not just have a serious impact on the groups concerned for it also, I am sorry to say, holds back a certain amount of investment, which causes economic development to slacken off further still.
<P>
It is important that this trade agreement has, at last, got off the ground now because it will make it possible for the European business community to know what stage it is at in South Africa and the same applies to the South African business community.
In any event, the Netherlands is soon to send a trade delegation to South Africa and I hope that the other Member States will follow suit.
South Africa needs new impetus to promote economic growth and drive out poverty at a more rapid pace.
This would benefit political stability and is what is most needed.
<P>
Mr President, South Africa will enter a new era when the forthcoming elections are over.
It will be an era in which signs of hope and progress must be translated into economic and social stability and into justice.
This trade agreement has a positive role to fulfil here.
My group endorses it and I sincerely hope that positive consequences will indeed flow from it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Dybkjær">
Mr President, with Nelson Mandela' s farewell as President and the election of Thabo Mbeki, South Africa entered a new political era.
As one young South African who had grown up in Denmark expressed it, "it is good for South Africa now that Mandela is retiring."
It is not good for a democracy to have a god as President, and Mandela was and remains a deity.
But you do not rebel against gods, not in any case when they have just opened the way to freedom.
By this, I do not mean that Thabo Mbeki does not have god-like characteristics. What I mean is that the patience shown by the poor towards Nelson Mandela will not be shown towards Thabo Mbeki.
They are making demands here and now for food, housing, education, that is to say, all the things which we in the western world take for granted.
For the time being, they remain only criminals. Subsequently, they will rise in rebellion.
This puts Thabo Mbeki in a quite different situation from his predecessor, but it also puts us in the EU in a quite different situation.
We should remember this fact and we should also remember the Balkans and what Kofi Annan said in his speech to the UN at the opening of the General Assembly this year: that it is incredible how much we sacrifice to go to war and how little we sacrifice to prevent war.
That is why it is good that we have obtained the present agreement between South Africa and the EU.
It is certainly not as good as it ought to be.
It is not nearly generous enough, and I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Kinnock, for pointing this out.
Nonetheless, it is there and it binds the EU and South Africa together.
Hopefully, it will mean that, in South Africa too, it is felt that it is no longer so very far from the EU to South Africa, either physically or psychologically, and that the gap between words and action is no longer so lengthy as, without a shadow of a doubt, it was felt to be in the period after 1994 and up until 1999.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="Lucas">
Mr President, the first thing I want to say is how much I welcome what I hope will be the successful conclusion of this landmark agreement, and I congratulate the rapporteur for her tireless work to get the best possible outcome.
<P>
This agreement is one of the first free-trade agreements with a developing country and so it sets a number of important precedents.
One of the most significant of these is the fact that it has broadened from a focus on trade alone to a wider emphasis on development cooperation.
I welcome that, but there are also other precedents it might set which could be less positive, in particular its impact on other countries in the region.
<P>
One key area of concern for these Southern African Customs Union (SACU) countries is the loss of customs revenue, as Mrs Kinnock has said.
At the moment these countries rely heavily on customs duties which are collected from European imports and shared out between the customs union members.
We are talking about significant amounts of money here.
Swaziland, for example, depends on these for up to 40% of all government revenues.
But, with the free trade agreement in place, products arriving from the EU into South Africa duty-free will also enter the other customs union countries duty-free - there are no tariff barriers between them.
So there is a very real concern among SACU countries that these products will undercut local goods in their own markets.
While that might make products cheaper for southern African consumers, the effects on local industries could be extremely severe.
<P>
There is consequently very real concern that the pace and extent of the elimination of tariffs on imports from the EU will exceed the ability of industries in the region to improve their efficiency. This points to the importance of getting the timing and the phasing of free-trade arrangements right, in order to avoid negative repercussions on other countries in the region.
<P>
Although South Africa' s neighbours have been promised compensation for the cost to them of adjustments in South Africa, it is far from clear how this will work in practice.
The European Parliament will, I am sure, continue to monitor this situation to assess what effects are being felt by other countries, and to do all in its power to ensure that appropriate compensation is forthcoming as necessary.
<P>
The agreement also has wider implications for the post-Lomé negotiations, where the Commission and Council are strongly in favour of regional free-trade arrangements to replace Lomé-style preferences.
I welcome Mrs Kinnock' s recommendation that we do not see this agreement as a model for ACP countries.
<P>
To conclude, while I welcome the fact that South Africa has won a share of significant European markets, I hope we can also learn from the lessons of this agreement and ensure that in future the timing, phasing and scope of free-trade arrangements will reflect more closely the different needs of the participating countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Laguiller">
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, cooperating with South Africa and helping it to put its under-development behind it should be a fundamental duty for Europe, whose ruling classes greatly benefited in the past from the pillage of that country' s mineral wealth and from the exploitation of its poverty-stricken masses.
I will certainly not join the European institutions in their displays of self-satisfaction as they have even had the effrontery to claim that they contributed significantly to the defeat of the apartheid regime in South Africa, whilst in fact, the great powers, including European ones, were overwhelmingly responsible for keeping a notorious regime in power for such a long time.
It was the struggle of the black masses which put an end to institutionalised segregation, but unfortunately, they have not been able to end the social segregation which causes that country' s workers and the unemployed to continue living in poverty.
<P>
The only thing that the European institutions are offering South Africa in terms of cooperation is a trade agreement, carefully negotiated so that it favours European business and industrial interests, an agreement which, in South Africa, will only profit the tiny minority of exporters of precious stones and agricultural produce, who were already the main beneficiaries of apartheid.
Moreover, the signatories to the agreement make no secret of this and say that, I quote, "The measures on cooperation aim to facilitate the re-structuring and modernisation of South African industry and to stimulate its competitiveness."
Well, workers of any country will have understood that this means redundancies and greater unemployment!
Our solidarity goes out then to South Africa' s workers, to its underprivileged people and not to those, whether over there or in Europe, who enrich themselves as a result of these people' s poverty.
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<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Musumeci">
Mr President, the agreement reached with South Africa undoubtedly constitutes an overall step forward on a political level for the European Union. In this sense, we should feel particularly satisfied.
But we do not think the same can be said on a trade level.
This agreement is somewhat bewildering, leaves questions unanswered, and still has grey areas.
Many organisations have been unhappy during these five long, tiring years, organisations which are usually involved in the processes of development in Third World countries.
Moreover, different interpretations and opinions have been expressed by Parliament which wanted an agreement with conditions closer to those of the Lomé Convention, and the Commission itself wanted, how shall we say, an agreement with more conditions attached.
<P>
In our opinion, this is an inconsistent agreement.
What we really needed were separate agreements where we could work with equal dignity and equal responsibilities.
However, where this balance could not be achieved, we should have had calmer and certainly more analytical talks.
The European Union, for example, has recognised safeguard clauses for agriculture in South Africa, and also for sectors competing with the European economy.
75% of South African agricultural products will benefit from facilitated access on to our markets and, in return, South Africa has taken - we think we can say this in good faith - rigid positions of outright refusal and which are, in certain aspects, incomprehensible.
I am referring in particular to fish and wine.
European countries have asked for access to South African waters to be regulated, despite the price concessions on South African exports of fish products, against the wishes of that country.
South Africa uses European designations for its own products in our markets and in third countries' markets in return for financial help for our sector.
All this seems excessive and irrational.
So we, the delegation of Alleanza Nazionale, believe we must vote against. We repeat, though, that in the future we are very willing to support the long and difficult process of growth and development in South Africa in a way that does not create injustice or unfairness.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Smet">
<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Commissioner, it seems that there are still major difficulties in the wine and spirits sector which are preventing the smooth conclusion of the agreement between the European Union and South Africa.
<P>
It is essential that we know if South Africa has taken the necessary measures to ensure that certain basic designations such as Port and Sherry are not used in their imports to the European Community and that in five years time, they will not be used for any export markets.
<P>
Moreover, we do not imagine, Commissioner, that you foresee increasing the current level of imports of South African wine into the European Union - I shall remind you that it currently stands at 320,000 hectolitres - without preserving minimum customs rights, if the whole European industry is not to risk being seriously damaged.
<P>
In order to resolve this problem, I believe that it would only need an amendment to Annex 10 of the protocol to the agreement, and I would like you to be able to give us some fundamental points of reassurance on this matter.
According to other information though, it would seem that we are obliged to amend this Annex if it were not validated on 30 September.
I would therefore like to know the Commission' s position on whether this Annex 10 is valid now, six days after the initial deadline, or whether the Commission has proposed an amendment.
<P>
Commissioner, we have the feeling that Pretoria has a quite different understanding of this agreement to that of your services and particularly of its Annex 10.
We ask you, in any case, not to envisage a conclusion of an overall agreement unless there is already an equitable "wines" agreement which is not destructive for either party.
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<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Hecke">
Mr President, like most of my colleagues here, I too welcome the fact that this agreement has come about.
Without further ado, we have an important agreement which will make it easier for South Africa to become further involved in the global economy, which will increase political stability throughout the region and which, come what may, will provide a strong boost to our bilateral relations.
The trade agreement differs from traditional agreements because it takes South African specificity into account.
That is why the agricultural sector has not been left out and great emphasis is placed on development cooperation, as indeed it should be.
This agreement creates important momentum.
But we must not allow it all to end here. We must not lose sight of the need for a follow-up.
<P>
Furthermore, building on the dynamic that has come about, further agreements must be concluded in a number of sectors, in the fisheries sector for example.
Therefore, whilst I share everyone' s enthusiasm for the agreement that has been reached, I am much less enthusiastic about the manner in which it has come about.
I have lived and worked in South Africa for the past two years.
I have had to watch Europe being severely taken to task in the South African press on account of corporate and protectionist reflexes which were in stark contrast to the fine declarations of intent about solidarity with the rainbow nation.
<P>
When the Council rejected an agreement concluded by Commissioner De Pinheiro, the question was even openly asked in South Africa if there was still any point at all to concluding such an agreement.
For a long time still to come, Europe will be identified with port and sherry in the minds of South Africans.
In that respect, the run-up to the agreement was a lost opportunity; a lost opportunity to rid ourselves of the fortress Europe image.
<P>
The report focuses a great deal on the regional consequences of this agreement, and rightly so.
The rapporteur has pointed out that some SACU countries will see a sharp decline in the income from customs levies which is so important to them.
The agreement has tried to anticipate this, due primarily to the pressure brought to bear by Parliament, but we need to remain vigilant.
This agreement must invite South Africa to promote regional cooperation as well and must help the South African economy to become the driving force for development throughout the region.
<P>
Mr President, I am one of South Africa' s great admirers: I love the landscape, the people and its leaders.
However, this special affinity cannot and must not be used as an excuse for not setting the same standards when it comes to preconditions as we do for other ACP countries.
Honesty compels us to recognise that South Africa is having to contend with certain dysfunctions in governmental conduct which include sharp rises in corruption and criminality.
Good agreements make good friends.
<P>
This agreement bestows on us not just the right but also the duty to continue to press for good governance and an effective approach to tackling criminality.
Equally though, we must actively support the South African Government in its struggle to reform a society which has first and second class citizens.
Mr President, only if we succeed in this can we talk in terms of there being a true partnership between Europe and South Africa.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cunha">
Mr President, according to the information I have available to me, there are still differences of interpretation between South Africa and the European Union concerning the specific agreement on wines, particularly regarding the use of "Port" and "Sherry" as designations of origin.
<P>
Following a meeting between both parties at the beginning of September, the European Union feels that the agreement lays down that South Africans cannot use the designations "Port" and "Sherry" after the specified period of twelve years, which means that they have to start thinking now about alternative names for the South African products in question.
South Africa, on the other hand, interprets the agreement to mean that discussions to find new replacement names for the designations I have just referred to, on which agreement will have to be reached, only have to be started when those twelve years are up.
<P>
If agreement is not reached on this matter, in its opinion, South Africa would continue to use the current names.
Faced with such a situation, it is vital to avoid any interpretation which is less clear on the designations of origin "Port" and "Sherry" , which are in fact European geographical names which must be protected, and which cannot co-exist in any way with brands of wine from other places, which are allowed to use them with impunity.
Above all, it is essential that, in line with the conclusions of the General Affairs Council of July, the specific agreement on wines should be concluded before the trade part of the agreement comes into force. That is due to happen in January.
<P>
If this does not happen, the agreement' s entry into force should be delayed.
What is in question here is not our political will to establish close cooperation with South Africa, a huge African country which is now a major trading partner of the European Union.
What is in question is respect for a fundamental principle of our own long-term survival, that of the designations of origin of our authentic products which are protected, by the way, by the World Trade Organisation, under whose intellectual property laws they are covered.
<P>
If the European Union is not capable of guaranteeing these principles, it will lose face completely in the negotiations which will be held shortly at the World Trade Organisation' s Millennium Round.
I repeat that it is not the agreement itself which is in question, but whether it is possible to make this cooperation agreement compatible with respect for our own principles and with defending our interests.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="Nielson">
It must be an almost unique situation for an agreement to be ratified by Parliament before it is actually signed.
Today we seem to be preparing for exactly that.
I feel honoured and privileged that the subject of this remarkable event is the agreement with South Africa, for which I now carry the responsibility within the Commission.
<P>
In a week from now I will have been in South Africa three times this year.
My first visit was to celebrate the years of solidarity struggle.
Speaking in the prisoners' dining hall on Robben Island was a nice experience.
The second time was when I was representing my country at the inauguration of President Mbeki.
Now I look forward to taking part next Monday, in Pretoria, in the actual signing and launching of this agreement.
<P>
I want to thank Parliament and, in particular, the rapporteur of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, Mrs Kinnock, for the swift and smooth way it has prepared for the parliamentary assent to the outcome of our negotiations with the South Africans and for the very active and committed way it has assisted this process over the years.
<P>
Next week we will sign this agreement in Pretoria.
Over the last few days we have heard suggestions by some people from some EU Member States that this joyful event might be affected by the fact that the parallel negotiations with South Africa on an EU/South Africa wines and spirits agreement have run into last-minute difficulties.
Without going into the inappropriateness in principle of these kinds of suggestions, I wish to underline that both sides are working very hard to find a quick and mutually acceptable solution to the outstanding problems on the wines and spirits dossier.
As a matter of fact, this Thursday negotiators of both sides will meet again in Brussels for a concluding session on the wines and spirits talks.
I am confident that they will succeed.
<P>
To the question put by Mr Souchet and others on what would be the consequences if a wines and spirits agreement was not reached in time, I have the following remarks.
<P>
This was discussed in July and clarified in an internal declaration made by the Commission.
Neither the special financial assistance - EUR 15 million - to the South African wine sector nor the duty-free wine quota of 32 million litres should come into play as long as the wines and spirits agreement is not operational.
We have told this to the South Africans and we might wish to make it explicit in the exchange of letters that will be signed on the provisional application of the trade agreement.
<P>
The trade, development and cooperation agreement that we will sign on 11 October is, in my view, a very good agreement.
It is a vibrant symbol of the EU' s political commitment to the new post-apartheid South Africa.
For South Africa the bold move towards a trade, development and cooperation agreement with the EU is a symbol of its commitment to economic restructuring and to regaining its full place in the international community.
<P>
The agreement is one of the most ambitious partnership agreements that the EU has ever concluded with a third country.
It confirms a clear determination by the EU to support the process of change and reform in South Africa and reflects both sides' desire to further expand their political, trade and cooperation contacts to the benefit of South Africa and indeed the southern African region as a whole.
<P>
The agreement will break new ground for EU/South Africa cooperation in many areas.
Seen from the specific angle of development cooperation it is my sincere hope that the agreement will contribute to the eradication of poverty and the promotion of prosperity in South Africa with full respect for democratic principles and fundamental human rights.
<P>
Mrs Kinnock' s report gives an excellent and largely accurate description of the potential and scope of the agreement.
On some points though - and please forgive me for making some technical remarks - the wish seems to be father to the thought.
I will give some examples.
<P>
Contrary to what the report claims on page 8, the regional safeguard does not apply to the whole SADC region, but only to the BLNS countries which belong to the South Africa Customs Union.
Since these countries will in practice apply the same external tariff as South Africa, it made sense to offer them also the same kind of safeguard protection, but this mechanism does not apply in the whole SADC area.
It is also not yet agreed that the EU will liberalise imports of South African automotive products within three years, as the report seems to announce on page 9.
This option has been made dependent on South Africa' s own efforts in this area, which will be reviewed in the second half of the year 2000.
If the South African side proposes meaningful market openings to the EU, we will be able to fully eliminate our tariffs by the year 2003.
If not, the EU liberalisation of the motor car sector will take longer.
<P>
In contrast to what the report suggests on page 10, good governance is in strict legal terms not an essential element of the Agreement.
Our negotiating mandate did not provide for this.
The Agreement does, however, state that both parties reaffirm their attachment to the principles of good governance and sets this concept in the context of the essential element.
But apart from some imprecisions of this kind, the report is, I have already said, very accurate indeed and very well written.
And obviously, I fully share its positive conclusions.
<P>
This brings me back to the challenge ahead - how to implement this agreement as soon and as well as possible.
Since it is of a so-called mixed nature, we need to await ratification of the Agreement by all fifteen national parliaments.
I hope that the amazing precedent to be set here this week will inspire your national colleagues to put this Agreement quickly on their working agenda.
Experiences on other agreements have, however, taught us that it may very well be two or three years before the last EU Member State ratifies the Agreement.
Under these circumstances, I welcome the fact that Council has decided to provisionally apply certain parts of the Agreement, notably the trade and development sections, as from 1 January 2000.
During the next few weeks and months, I will closely follow the preparatory process towards this date so as to ensure that the all-important EU trade concessions towards South Africa will indeed effectively kick in on this agreed date.
<P>
As for the other aspects of cooperation, a lot is already legally in place - development cooperation, Lomé, science and technology.
But for many other aspects and subjects I am confident that the Agreement can provide immediate direction to our ambitions and efforts, even though in legal terms the Agreement may not yet be fully operational.
Pending the formal ratification process and guided by the agreed text of this Agreement, it is my personal commitment to ensure that existing and upcoming areas of co-operation between the EU and South Africa will be quickly and effectively strengthened and deepened.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="Kinnock Glenys">
Mr President, I thank the Commission for that response but I did raise the issue of the elements of the support package for the BLNS countries on which it was promised that a conference would take place in Lesotho.
These countries are still waiting for any kind of confirmation of this conference and have been told by the Commission that it would take place before the signing of the agreement.
That clearly will not happen, but we do need some reassurance, because they feel that the Commission is letting them down on this point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="Nielson">
I can reassure you on that point.
The conference in Lesotho is going to take place on 13-14 October and we are prepared to discuss there with representatives from the BLNS countries, how to structure the support package for those countries.
So, this is also on track.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner Nielson.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Communication from the President of the Commission
<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="President">
The next item is the President of the Commission' s statement on the decisions taken by the Commission at its meeting today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Prodi">
Madam President, less than three weeks ago, you expressed your confidence in this Commission.
At that time, I took on a series of commitments and I am happy to stand before you as proof that a new era of cooperation between our institutions has begun.
I can see that it does not draw large crowds, but major objectives are never straightforward.
<P>
The new Commission has just ended its third meeting and I would like to summarise its results.
The first important topic concerns advertising A1 posts.
Last week, we started to make a series of substantial changes at the highest administrative levels in the Commission, on the basis of a complete cultural change in appointment methods.
I would especially like to stress that we have stipulated that, at regular intervals, low-level managers and their responsibilities will be coordinated and that the nationality of the outgoing member of staff will not be a factor in the appointment of their successor.
<P>
After transferring a certain number of directors-general last week, we decided today to advertise the following vacant positions: directors-general of the Directorates-General for Enterprise Policy, Agriculture and Education and Culture; vice-directors-general of the following Directorates-General: Education and Culture, Competition and Foreign Relations. These positions will be taken up in accordance with the new procedures.
I insisted that these procedures must be transparent and that after the initial selection, appointments are made on merit.
This fact is extremely important. This will also enable those outside the Commission to express their views.
<P>
My second point is that the Commission has discussed the situation as regards the implementation of the 1999 budget and noted that there are sectors where we need a transfer before the end of the year.
The specific proposals only concern the redistribution of commitment appropriations.
The main aim is to take the burden off amending and supplementary budget 4/99, adopted on 16 September, by proposing the financing of more appropriations in line with the Commission' s proposal made at that time. These are: EUR 98 million for PHARE, EUR 68 million for TACIS, EUR 15 million for humanitarian aid to Turkey, EUR 21 million for Kosovo, EUR 20 million for cooperation with South Africa and EUR 10 million for the environment and tropical rainforests.
These increases will be financed through the reallocation within Category 4 of EUR 155 million and the transfer from Category 3 of EUR 10 million.
<P>
The third point concerns the Commission' s programme up to the end of January.
We have stressed the importance of a good work programme.
In line with this commitment, the Commission has reviewed the areas where a decision of the College must take effect before the end of January 2000.
In this way, we will be able to communicate our programme commitments to you and to the European Council, so that you can keep it in mind when planning your work programme for the coming months.
I will present Parliament with the five-year perspectives in January 2000, as we agreed here, after which our annual programming will return to its normal rhythm.
I would like to add that I will be strict with my colleagues in the way they deal with the Commission services.
The Commission demands quality, well-prepared proposals and understandable texts, above all - I repeat - understandable texts.
The Commission is not a secretariat which must follow specific interests. We want to renew our role as the driving force of Europe and so we want to act as a College.
Our programme is the one we proposed to you and we will present it in an analytical and comprehensive way.
<P>
My fourth point is about the report on the competitiveness of European industry.
The Commission has adopted the annual report on the competitiveness of European industry which deals with structural changes.
We have also examined some reports devoted to the steel and forestry industries.
I must add that both myself and Commissioner Liikanen intend to work in such a way that, in future, the Commission can concentrate on the more horizontal issues in business policy, because we now leave discussions on individual industries to other decision-making bodies.
<P>
The fifth point concerns the new strategy for the internal market.
With the help of a comprehensive report by Commissioner Bolkenstein, we have examined the priorities facing the internal market over the next five years.
The action plan ended this year.
The aim of the communication is to establish the potential objectives and the possible actions geared to the internal market over the next five years.
We are counting on incorporating the most valuable element of the previous action plan, the so-called scoreboard framework of the internal market, and we intend to guarantee that there are sound procedures to assess, monitor and adjust the objectives.
<P>
The Commission will be glad to welcome comments and reactions before making a definitive decision at the end of November, since today' s presentation is included in a communication procedure.
Therefore, there will be a debate with Parliament and various times for consultation, and only in November will we arrive at a, let us say, operative proposal.
This is another chapter where cooperation with Parliament is of the utmost importance.
Just in the last few minutes, Commissioner Verheugen explained how we are starting to prepare the decisions which we will make next week on enlargement.
This too is just a procedural explanation but it concerns the most important issue we have to deal with.
<P>
Next week, we must approve all the reports on the progress of relations with the applicant countries.
Commissioner Verheugen has already been in contact so that the parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs can be immediately informed about the situation.
During next week, we will touch on one of the most important subjects for the whole of the Commission' s five-year term of office: we are starting the actual enlargement process.
<P>
These were the subjects we discussed today, as well as numerous procedural aspects that are always discussed in Commission meetings that it is not appropriate to go into in Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Madam President, firstly I would like to reassure President Prodi.
The difference between the parliament of a dictatorship and a democratic parliament is that the parliament of a dictatorship is always full and the Members applaud, and a democratic parliament is not very full because the Members are working in other places.
<P>
Secondly, I would like to make a comment concerning the reassignment of Directorates-General in the Commission: I welcome the political courage which this Commission has had.
<P>
And finally, I would like to ask a question regarding the budget: bearing in mind that almost all transferrals involve Category 4, that is, the external activities of the Union, and that is one of the points that produces most dissatisfaction in my group and, in general, in the Committee on Budgets. Does the President not think that it would be appropriate to revise the Financial Perspective with regard to the Union' s external policy?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Prodi">
Mr Barón Crespo, regarding your first remark, I was pleased by your words on the quality of Parliament.
As for the second point, I would say that today we are limited to urgent reforms on the matters which are, as we have seen, absolutely extraordinary.
If we re-read the list of the measures we find Turkey, and all the urgent cases which made it essential to alter the budget.
We have not in any way reanalysed the major items of expenditure in the budget.
If we look at that item, then I must say, Mr Barón Crespo, that it is not only external policy expenditure which must be reallocated, but I would say that we must reallocate all items in the budget.
In all honesty, the structures in the budget are more faithful to their historical origins than to the needs of the future, but I think this is one of the three or four challenges that we must face together.
So I am not responding to the single item because I do not feel like it, but I accept your invitation, Mr Barón Crespo, because when I myself start to examine the large expenditure percentages, I find that past rather than future needs are dictating our path.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Clearly, enlargement of the European Union is the most important issue for the immediate future.
We understand that you have discussed the progress reports which are to be published next week.
Now, part of this progress towards enlargement - that concerned with cooperation on legal matters and between countries of the EU as it stands at present - is not being overseen by the Commission but by the Council of Ministers.
All right, so we know this, but will any progress within this area be described in your reports? Or is there a risk of the Council not making it public?
It would be very worrying if that were the case and if we in Parliament or our opposite numbers in the countries which are candidates for accession to the European Union were unable to study the progress made.
<P>
Now, another small question by the way, Mr President of the Commission.
Have you anything against your letter to Prime Minister Lipponen about the Tampere Summit being published?
It has been published in Sweden, and I imagine that you, with your policy of openness, would not object to its being published.
Prime Minister Lipponen, however, refuses to let it be published in Finland.
How do you view this?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Prodi">
Mr Thors, my attitude regarding this letter is very simple.
I have absolutely nothing against publication but it must be the recipient of the letter who publishes it, not the sender.
Therefore this really is a decision that Minster Lipponen must make.
Since I have not written anything secret to him, because it was not at all necessary, I have nothing against this but I think that it is right for him to make the decision.
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<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bigliardo">
President Prodi, because I know you as an Italian and through the hearings that took place in this Parliament, I know that you have a firm desire to make this Parliament into something more than just a symbol.
However, I have the feeling that the individual Governments in the various Member States do not share your desire.
I refer, for example, to the type of administration of the budget funds that we transfer to the various Member States.
In our case, in Italy, they go via committees within the Ministry of Industry, for example. But it is difficult to have access to them, despite the work we do in the committees, in order to ensure that the funds, in ever greater measures, are transferred to the Member States.
<P>
Can you intervene to make it possible in some way for the European Members of Parliament to follow the course of funds that are given to the Member States?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Prodi">
In terms of power alone, no I do not have this power. If I am being asked though, it is clear that this cooperation is desirable and I think we must do all we can to make it happen.
Also, in the end, these are decisions which must be generally supported so they can be carried through. If the two parties which have to go ahead with these decisions have no relationship with each other, the work then becomes useless, or at least disorganised.
<P>
As for the first matter, concerning people' s feelings and indeed the reality that Parliament is becoming very important, this is a process of mutual agreement.
I therefore think that it is really unlikely for the power given to Parliament to come from a concession. It has always come from a victory too, as well as from the willingness to open up.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Madam President, Mr Prodi, the President of the Commission, boasted that he was instigating some kind of Cultural Revolution in the administration by rotating senior posts.
I would like to ask why not one of the new directors-general is a woman?
Is it really the case that there were not enough suitable applicants, or do you not know how to get them?
Why is it that only one of the Commissioners' chefs de cabinet is a woman?
It seems to me that we must pay great attention to promotions within the Commission, so that women can also rise in their careers to senior posts.
I would also like to ask how you intend to guarantee that this so-called glass ceiling is shattered and that women are not restricted to lower levels in the administrative hierarchy?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Prodi">
You are perfectly right to ask the question, Mrs Hautala.
I would only remind you that the cultural revolution needs more time. Here we have only changed some posts which it was essential to change because we had to give an example of mobility, for countries and people.
We had to show that the posts are not anyone' s fixed prerogative. So we have made these ten changes which are, however, of fundamental importance.
<P>
I, like you, looked at the issue of women and there have been great difficulties in dealing with this at this stage.
The problem, however, is worse still, Mrs Hautala, because the situation is very difficult, even with reshuffles. Either we really change policy, in employment and career procedures, or we cannot see the matter through to its conclusion.
So this is one of the themes we must talk about in the cultural revolution, and one that we must discuss with the administration.
<P>
Allow me to make one more remark. The issue of the cultural revolution of the administration goes deeper than we might think.
I came here from outside the institutions, observed with great curiosity the type of administrative structure in place, and I have to say that we need to discuss the basic philosophy of this administration.
Every new political and administrative situation created in the world has always found new strength in its administration. Here however, the administration has grown by a process of stratification and has not looked to the future.
The cultural revolution lies here, not in changing only ten directors.
The major challenge goes much deeper, and calls for us to work intellectually too, in a direction that is still unknown.
However, in studying all this, I have realised that there has been no effort to create an administration for the duties the Commission must perform.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Frahm">
Mr Prodi, even though you are new in the job, you have already succeeded in creating a powerful impression. I have been following especially closely your statements about economic policy after the introduction of the euro.
I should like to ask you whether, in your view or in that of the Commission, there is any type of taxation which will not require a common policy or some form of harmonisation following the introduction of the euro and the integration which that will set in motion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Prodi">
Mrs Frahm, this really is a question which would require a conference in order to reply.
If I understand correctly, you are alluding to the problems of tax harmonisation.
Just now, in the Commission meeting which has just finished, Commissioner Bolkenstein summarised, in a way I believe to be absolutely correct and precise, why there are some items of fiscal policy which do not need to be harmonised, which thrive on diversity, for example personal income taxes.
There are other items, such as value added tax, which call for a certain amount of harmonisation, because otherwise, there would be problems with competition. There are still more items, on company taxation and taxation on financial revenue which instead must be harmonised where the lack of harmonisation leads to a distortion of competition.
This is a general statement, but it is clear that within this, a thousand individual items must be created because then each of these general items splits into many specific issues that it is not appropriate to discuss here.
The basic philosophy, however, seems to be this: there are some subjects which upset or violate competition and so we must have thorough harmonisation. However, I think that harmonisation would be harmful for other items, which is not the case in the current States where we even find diversity from region to region.
<P>
This doctrine is simple and also very clear because it is in line with decentralisation, which we believe to be a Commission doctrine that we have all accepted and share.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Avilés Perea">
Mr President of the Commission, a sorry story of child abuse in a Commission nursery has appeared in the Spanish press.
This story came to light in 1997 and it would appear that the people involved have still not received their deserved punishment and that the Commission has still not initiated a thorough investigation, nor taken the contract away from the people who have it at the moment and who are responsible for the situation which has been created there.
<P>
There is a series of irregularities in the granting of this contract, as well as irregularities in the operation of the nursery in question.
The Commission knew that this was happening and has not resolved the problem, nor has it tried to resolve it, and the children, who are the most important concern, have not been sufficiently protected nor transferred to other people with suitable guarantees of care and attention.
<P>
This is a deeply serious issue which, unfortunately, is appearing in the media far too frequently.
Mr Prodi, what do you intend to do about it?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Prodi">
Madam President, I am being made aware of this problem for the first time.
I think that, given that this matter is so close to home and that it is so serious, the only thing I can undertake to do is examine this matter carefully.
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<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Madam President, yesterday the European Commission decided to give Paul Van Buitenen an official reprimand.
Have you, Mr Prodi, and your colleagues, in fact taken account of the opinion held in this European Parliament and by many voters that this whistle-blower deserves the very opposite of a reprimand?
Mr Prodi, so far you have been unable to find the time to take receipt of the petition that calls for Paul Van Buitenen' s rehabilitation.
Now it is almost too late. I would like to try a new approach and present the 6,253 signatures to you here.
I think it is a shame that this whole business continues to be a millstone round the European Commission' s neck.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Prodi">
Madam President, we have had an administrative procedure and we now await your petition which will be examined at length.
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(Mr Blokland gave President Prodi the petition)
<P>
Well, I do not think there is anything more to say.
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<SPEAKER ID=142 NAME="Cox">
Madam President, firstly let me thank Mr Prodi for this initiative today.
Even if the tone of the communications today is rather low-key, they represent the crossing of a major institutional threshold.
They are a signal of the new era of which you speak and I wish to welcome that on behalf of my group.
<P>
Can I ask Mr Prodi whether in principle, subject to Parliament and the Commission being able to formalise appropriate arrangements, it would be possible to do this regularly?
Next week, if I understand correctly, you will also be available to discuss the enlargement questions, but as a general principle what you have started here today is important and the opportunity to continue this dialogue between our two institutions by appropriate and formalised mechanisms would be appreciated, either through you personally or through other members of the College of Commissioners as appropriate in other part-session weeks, depending on the agenda.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Prodi">
Madam President, I must say that as things stand, I have no commitments for next week. There has been no agreement on enlargement.
I thought that Commissioner Verheugen would be coming, but I will certainly be available.
<P>
We are dealing with a very serious and very important question of procedure.
I think that if the type of information we have to give is to work properly for five years, we must clearly establish when the President will be present, when individual Commissioners will be present and when instead, a written communication will be sufficient, because otherwise we will lose our relationship and it will become trivial.
I think that the most serious thing is for us to lay down these rules in a small committee.
Certainly the President is available in all important and necessary cases, otherwise, and quite rightly, the level of debate they say, will drop.
Of course, if more minor questions are asked, then we will have to lower, quite rightly, the debate to the level of the matters in question.
<P>
Now, in my opinion we have three levels: the President, specific Commissioners devoted to different areas and routine, which must be conducted in the fastest and most transparent way possible - using the Internet or written communications - because it does not merit being the subject of a debate.
We must preserve direct communication when there is going to be a debate.
This is what I think and, in this regard, in all the cases where there will be important issues, I will, of course, be happy to be of service to Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="Cashman">
Thank you, Mr Prodi.
From my accent I am sure you will not be surprised by my question.
We in Britain have complied with the beef ban.
The beef ban has been lifted and now the unilateral action of one Member State is undermining, certainly in Britain, the whole spirit of the European Union project.
In my region, the West Midlands of Great Britain, there are farmers who have very little left to live on. Will you please act urgently to bring pressure to stop this unilateral beef ban by the French?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Prodi">
Madam President, in this House this morning, Commissioner Byrne replied by saying that he has asked for urgent clarification.
If the urgent clarification does not bring any new facts to light, then I will immediately ask for the measure taken to be abolished.
I think that all this will take place in the space of a few hours and so the formal undertaking made by Commissioner Byrne this morning will be put into practice in the next few hours.
In this way, we can establish whether the French Government' s decision has been made because of new facts, in which case it will be valid, or whether instead it has been made in breach of the general rules and then it is clear that in some way it must be revoked in the next few hours.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
I should like - very unusually for me - to begin by praising the Commission for meeting in such large numbers here today.
I think it is a good tradition which is now being introduced whereby the Commission reports on what happened at that day' s meeting, or the previous day' s meeting if it is a Wednesday.
I think it is something which will help create greater openness about the Commission' s work.
In this connection, I should like to ask if the Commission will produce the agendas for the meetings of the Commission, together with the most important working documents, in advance of the Commission' s meetings. In that way, there could be something about the documents in the newspapers before the meetings take place and there would be greater interest in the meetings on the part of the press.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Prodi">
Mr Bonde, within the limitations time imposes, this is already happening, as there is an agenda which is definitely not kept secret.
The problem is that the Commission works at a really intensive rate and so it is impossible to say, ten days ahead of the Commission' s meeting, what the precise agenda will be.
However, as regards the important subjects that we will be discussing, the ones that can be prepared in advance, we have already begun to set down the framework for our future work.
This is a commitment that I just made in my address, that is, to lay out the framework of our work up to the end of the year so that we can work together on major topics.
Last minute changes are made to the agenda but there is nothing secret about this. It is just difficult to communicate these changes when we ourselves only know that urgent facts have come up a few minutes before the start of the meeting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 NAME="Helmer">
Madam President, Mr Prodi has mentioned the competitiveness of European industry in the course of his introductory remarks.
He said that this would be high on his agenda and that the need was for structural change in European industry.
I would suggest to Mr Prodi that many economists believe that the most important factors for competitiveness in industry would be, first of all, a reduction in corporate and employment taxes and secondly, a reduction in the enormous and indeed intolerable burden of regulation which puts Europe at a great disadvantage in relation to other parts of the world.
We have a European employment programme which is based on four pillars.
None of those four pillars will make a significant impact on unemployment in the short term.
The solutions for unemployment are exactly the same as the solutions for competitiveness, that is, reduced employment taxes and reduced levels of regulation. What attitude will the Commission take to these points?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Prodi">
Mr Helmer, I am very pleased to be asked these questions because, for many years, I specialised in the analysis of competitiveness and industrial economics.
I fully agree with the points you made: the reduction in corporate taxes and their harmonisation are useful for European competition, as is employment tax.
<P>
However, if you asked me what the primary factor in Europe' s industrial problems is, I would be very frank: the human resources problem as the incentive for entrepreneurship that exists on our continent and, therefore, the whole problem of preparing the financial structures for new entrepreneurship.
I therefore think that the human factor is top of the list of our problems in developing production and the fiscal factor is extremely important.
We can give them equal importance if you like, but certainly the human resources issue is, in my opinion, of huge importance for our continent. If we do not take urgent measures using a very broad programme in this sector, I believe that not even reducing taxes, which would represent substantial action and can make a strong contribution, will be sufficient to bring about growth in European industry.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Napoletano">
Madam President, I would like to make a very brief remark.
I would never judge the matters raised by my colleagues, but I would like to say that these talks with the Commission should perhaps keep to the Commission' s discussion and their decisions, otherwise, we risk running over into another section which will soon begin - Question Time.
So I think that if we want to make this time meaningful, we must keep it as we initially wanted it to be.
<P>
A quick question to President Prodi on the organisation chart.
In the second Wise Men' s report, there is a point which concerns national interests which have supposedly been organised to some degree in the Commission.
I think that for an institution like the Commission there is nothing worse, along with fraud, than this: the thought that there is no impartiality or supranationality.
Does the policy you have begun concerning directors-general also consist of examining, tackling and facing up to the issue of the Commission' s impartiality and independence?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Prodi">
Mrs Napoletano, if we look at people' s reactions, I would say that we have indeed been impartial.
I have been criticised by everyone, starting with the Italian press, not to mention the Spanish press and the French press, while the Germans have criticised me in speech as well as in writing.
Therefore, either we have done everything badly or we have done everything well.
All things considered, I do not know.
I would like to stress, however, a very important point - why have we done this?
Because there cannot be a truly European body if a specific post has been reserved for thirty years for one country or for twenty years for one person.
Here the future of what we understand as Europe is at stake.
So, in these cases, it is likely that mistakes will happen. It is also likely that high-level people will be sacrificed, but do you understand what is at stake?
Do you understand what we are facing? We really are facing the future of a structure that must be as international as possible.
<P>
Secondly, by making these decisions I have taken a risk, a very real risk, and this too is a sign for the future.
I want to be clear that appointments must be made according to merit and sometimes they will upset or overturn certain balances between countries.
But the future of Europe is at stake here, and it is already an extremely important consequence.
I have seen it in people' s reactions.
In fact, after discussing this with the representatives of various countries, with the people who objected, the consequence was this: we must invest more in training the young and we must put more energy into sending high-level officials to Brussels.
This is what I wanted.
To start a chain reaction so that this becomes the best bureaucracy in the world.
It is clear that this is a challenge, along with what I said before in reply to Mr Cox' s question - to start creating a type of bureaucracy suited to the objectives we want to achieve and then choose the best people which will sometimes mean upsetting the balance between countries.
However, I think that it is worth it for our future goal.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Question Time (Commission)
<SPEAKER ID=152 NAME="President">
The next item is Question Time (B5-0030/1999).
We will examine the questions addressed to the Commission.
<P>
First part
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="Alexandros Alavanos">
Question No 28 by (H-0465/99):
<P>
Subject: Measures to check the structural resistance of buildings in Greece The powerful earthquake which recently occurred in Attiki in Greece caused enormous damage to buildings throughout the area, resulting in dozens of fatalities and numerous casualties.
<P>
Can the Commission rapidly earmark funds (for example for residual balances entered against the CSF and other Community programmes) for immediate preventive checks on the structural resistance of not only public premises such as schools, hospitals etc. but also premises on which large numbers of people are employed, (for example factories) throughout Greece, to establish how well they will stand up to major earthquakes?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Barnier">
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Alavanos for giving me the opportunity to express for the first time the Commission' s concern for, and solidarity with, the population and the authorities of the Republic of Greece.
The Prime Minister, Mr Simitis has made an appeal to us and your question, Mr Alavanos, supports this request for aid and solidarity from the European Union and passes it directly on to us.
<P>
Together with Mrs Diamantopoulou, we informed the Commission, this very afternoon, on what action is possible within the framework of the Structural Funds to provide support to Greece and to assist it in terms of reconstruction and repairs.
I can confirm to the European Parliament that within the framework of the regulations of the Structural Funds, with the appropriations currently available, we are able to offer substantial support to those parts of the Greek population which have been affected. This is around 20,000 households, not to mention several hundred victims.
I am now able to give the European Parliament the list of areas in which the regulations allow us to intervene as well as how the European Investment Bank envisages the way it will be done.
The bank will make its decision on this at its board meeting on 7 December.
<P>
Yesterday evening in Tampere I met Mr Partas, the Greek Secretary of State for Regional Policy, in order to ask him to provide us as quickly as possible - and I know that it is difficult - with an assessment and the most accurate figures possible so that we can commit the appropriations which are available to us.
This is the substance of the answer I wanted to give to Mr Alavanos.
<P>
Moving beyond compensation now, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Alavanos has asked a question which has always interested me - I am now thinking of the action that I took in my own country when I was Minister for the Environment, concerned with natural risks - the matter of prevention.
Prevention is cheaper, always cheaper than having to repair things afterwards.
My answer is yes, in a general way, without targeting any institution in particular, with the Structural Fund appropriations we can finance studies for the prevention of earthquake risk in Greece as well as other countries as long as the Greek Government asks us to.
<P>
Finally, as I have been talking about the lessons to be learnt from this natural disaster, I would also like to emphasise how seriously - and I have said this within the College - I take the idea of improving the coordination of different countries' resources in terms of the civil defence of their people.
Personally, I am in favour of the idea of a European civil defence force, which I believe will be extremely useful with regard to the citizens and the problems that still remain. The purpose of this force would be to work better together, more quickly and more visibly, in the event of a natural disaster, both within the territory of the European Union and elsewhere, and God knows, there is no shortage of disasters as current events show.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
I would like to thank the Commissioner for his substantial and interesting reply and for his sensitivity.
Firstly, I would, of course, like to ask him if he could have been more analytical as regards the proposals which he himself and Mrs Diamantopoulou made for tackling the issues of the earthquakes.
My second question, which is the main point of the question, is whether or not the Commission thinks - since we have the Seveso Directive which provides for the protection of workers and citizens around factories from accidents within industrial installations - that it should take some measures to protect all industrial installations from natural disasters such as earthquakes.
Both in Greece and Turkey, and in the past in Naples, Taiwan and Mexico, we have seen a constant lack of control over industrial installations.
In view of this, is the Commission proposing to examine such a possibility?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Barnier">
The prevention of natural disasters, Mr Alavanos, is the responsibility of Member States.
As I have just told you though, if any government - because Greece is not the only country concerned by this: we have seen disasters or earthquakes of varying magnitude happen in other countries too, but they had a less serious effect - anyway, if any government asks us, we are able to support and finance, by means of the Structural Funds, preventive studies which would allow us to determine the risks to inhabited areas, as you mentioned in your question, but also to factories, with the secondary risks of industrial disaster that that would entail.
<P>
I am therefore giving a straightforward answer to your question: we will be able to take charge of such a request and deal with it as soon as a Member State presents it to us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="Hervé Novelli, which has been taken over by Mr Madelin">
Question No 29 by (H-0470/99):
<P>
Subject: Danger of a humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan The civil war raging in Afghanistan is in danger of causing a humanitarian disaster, particularly now that winter is approaching.
<P>
Between 100,000 and 120,000 refugees have already been forced into the Panshir Valley and the Northeast region controlled by the military commander Massoud.
The refugees are fleeing a brutal offensive by the Talibans (villages razed to the ground, summary executions and mass graves, the abduction of women, etc.).
<P>
Depending on the course of the military operations, the refugees' situation may get much worse should a Taliban offensive force a further 180,000 to 200,000 refugees into the Panshir Valley, which, with the onset of winter, could become a valley of death.
<P>
Does the Commission not think that it must, as a matter of urgency, consider the possibility of providing humanitarian aid in order to prevent a humanitarian disaster?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Nielson">
Echo is carefully considering developments in the situation of the displaced persons following the renewed hostilities which have taken place in Afghanistan since the spring.
The office has on-going contact with the International Red Cross, the United Nations organisations, the NGOs which are present in the country and Echo' s own representative.
The latter has carried out a mission in Kabul where streams of refugees were recorded in the northern districts.
Echo' s representative is now in the Panshir valley in order to assess the situation.
Difficult access to the Panshir valley, the extremely explosive situation and the marked political sensitivity which characterise the situation in the area demand intervention of a kind which will have to be organised between the various humanitarian organisations if errors of judgement and bad decisions are to be avoided.
What is more, everything we do will have to respect Echo' s neutral mandate.
<P>
Echo has plans to provide aid amounting to EUR 1.5 million to all the displaced persons staying close to the various front lines, namely in the Panshir valley - where there is talk of displaced persons following the fighting in April and May - and in Kabul.
The fact that this particular aid, details of which have already been submitted for approval, is being provided does not rule out the possibility of further aid being necessary before the end of the year.
With the threat of difficulties created by the winter, the situation is really becoming acute.
<P>
As regards an agreement with the most representative humanitarian players in the area, the aid will be aimed in particular at consolidating the existing humanitarian structures in the area and at assisting the local population by supporting the displaced persons with medical help, food aid and shelter.
The practical details of these forms of humanitarian action are being established in collaboration with our partners in the field.
We are prepared continuously to alter our input, not least against the background of the highly volatile military situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Madelin">
This is an answer for bureaucrats and technocrats.
In reality, Europe is very slow, it does too little, and I find this neutrality that you mentioned quite scandalous.
<P>
My question concerns humanitarian aid to the Panshir valley, that is, the zone controlled by those resisting the totalitarian and criminal regime of Kabul and the Taliban, whose horrifying treatment of women we are only too aware of.
<P>
We must make a choice.
There are more than 100,000 people there, men, women and children who, as winter approaches, will experience an unprecedented humanitarian disaster in the Panshir valley.
So do not talk to us about neutrality!
Europe is not neutral in this matter.
Europe must choose.
There are executioners and victims, there are Nazis and Jews, and there are criminals and innocent people!
I ask you to give a straight answer to the question of what we are going to do for these women and children who are now hemmed in, in the Panshir valley.
We expect Europe to come up with a better answer than this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Nielson">
Yes, but you are not getting one.
My answer was not of a bureaucratic nature.
There is just as much humanitarian concern in focusing on the victims of the conflict, irrespective of the character of the conflict.
When we are confronted with suffering of this nature and with victims in the numbers we are seeing here, there are obviously factors on both sides of the conflict which may be characterised in the way the questioner has just done.
Otherwise, the victims would not be in the position they are in fact in.
And our mandate in connection with what Echo is doing in the field is a humanitarian mandate.
I ask that this fact be respected.
I am fully conscious of the fact that it is not always possible to be completely unpartisan, and one can always be taken advantage of by one or the other side in a conflict when one helps the victims.
However, there is no value in representing the issue as the questioner has done.
It is difficult enough as it is to be of use in providing humanitarian aid.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
I think that there is really no misrepresentation here.
As Mr Madelin said before me, this is a dramatic situation; there are opportunities to intervene via the Central Asian countries, and I do not understand why the Commission has adopted this wait-and-see position.
<P>
As Mr Madelin said, this is an extremely dramatic situation.
I think that the Taliban regime is completely indefensible, which is yet another reason to intervene.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Nielson">
I had expected some understanding for my line of argument.
I have not in any way expressed a positive view of the Taliban regime.
Nor can I be persuaded to.
I have merely tried to insist upon regard for the conflict' s victims as being the decisive factor here.
I do not believe that the warring parties, and certainly not the Taliban regime, view what we are doing here in Europe as something which is in support of themselves in the conflict.
However, it is crucial to our credibility and to Echo' s ability to enter the zones of conflict and come into contact with the people we are to help that we avoid a rhetoric which is confrontational, and that is something I shall go on endeavouring to do.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="Bernd Posselt">
Question No 30 by (H-0489/99):
<P>
Subject: Support for Slovakia What steps are being taken by the Commission to further consolidate and support the positive democratic developments in Slovakia?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, Mr Posselt, I would firstly like to support the basic assumption of your question, i.e. that there has been positive democratic development in Slovakia and that this positive democratic development must be supported and consolidated.
<P>
Directly after the Dzurinda Government took office at the end of October 1998, the Commission, on the initiative of my predecessor, set up a bilateral high-level working party to once again give Slovakia' s preparations for accession the necessary momentum.
This was seen as a significant sign of support for the democratic new beginning in Slovakia.
You can see this from the fact that no such group had ever been set up before for any other country.
After five sessions, this working party completed its activities in September with positive conclusions.
The positive conclusions concern primarily the political Copenhagen criterion, but I must add that the conclusions of this working party do not prejudice the conclusions of the forthcoming regular report on Slovakia.
<P>
The Commission will now accordingly acknowledge this encouraging development in its forthcoming regular report.
The Commission will adopt this report on the development of Slovakia on 13 October, i.e. as early as next week, together with the other progress reports.
<P>
The Commission is particularly strong in its support of the non-governmental organisations essential for the development of a mature civil society in Slovakia.
<P>
In the national PHARE programme for Slovakia 1999, EUR 2.5 million were made available for the Slovakian foundation for the development of a civil society, brought into being on the initiative of the Commission.
This foundation will forward funds to approximately 100 non-governmental organisations for activities, among other things, in the fields of human rights, environmental protection, social work, etc.
Mr Posselt, I would, incidentally, like to point out that PHARE resources for Slovakia in the year 1999 reached the level of the previously highest volume to date with almost EUR 70 million.
<P>
In addition, we have established a special fund for projects which are intended to benefit the national minorities, particularly the Romany.
This special fund has been allocated EUR 2 million.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Commissioner, thank you for this very clear answer. I am pleased to see you here for the first time in your new role.
I would just like to ask two questions.
Firstly, is there also concentrated collaboration with the Slovakian universities, especially as regards academic and student exchange?
This is also a question of the expansion of our programme to the associated States. That is what we have the Additional Protocols for.
Secondly, I would like to ask whether you consider it conceivable that in Helsinki, Slovakia will be ranked among the countries with which discussions are to be held?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Posselt, I can answer the second question easily.
I consider it not only conceivable but I can even tell you right now that I shall be making that proposal at all events and I expect that the Commission will support this proposal.
It is quite clear that the reason that Slovakia has not yet been included in talks is because there were political deficits.
These political deficits have been eliminated, and no one - either in Slovakia or outside it - would understand, if there were not now a suitably positive response from the European Union.
<P>
As regards the question about universities, I shall accept that as a suggestion.
On the spur of the moment, I cannot just tell you what concrete collaboration with universities and student exchange there may be.
If they do exist I shall notify you in writing; if they do not exist, I shall put it as a suggestion to the competent authorities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Commissioner, I would like to ask a question on the economic situation.
In Slovakia, the package of economy measures has entailed some problems and privations for the population.
It is therefore important to stabilise the economic situation.
We know in Europe small and medium-sized businesses are the bedrock of the economy.
What do you intend to do to expedite economic stability here and especially to establish contact between neighbouring States, located in direct proximity to the European Union? What programmes are envisaged here to get privatisation on the right road too?
You know, there were considerable problems with the Meciar Government when privatisation went ahead.
I believe that there is a great need for economic rehabilitation, and I believe it is extremely important for Slovakia. I would like to thank you expressly for the fact that you are going to propose that the appropriate negotiations begin in Helsinki.
I believe this is a very important contribution that Europe can make.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Rübig, I can only agree with everything you have said.
In Slovakia, it is absolutely essential to quickly work off the deficits which have arisen in recent years.
One of these deficits is the sluggish progress of the privatisation process, which was also connected with other problems, as you well know.
The result is, of course, that we still do not have a satisfactory situation with regard to a self-supporting sector of the economy, capable of development, above all in the middle range.
The Accession Partnership currently under discussion with Slovakia will include appropriate programmes in this area.
<P>
The resources already envisaged for Slovakia will indeed serve, as you know, the development of infrastructure or "institution building" , but they can also be implemented as instruments for the regulation and further development of the economy.
We shall do that through the programme.
I cannot give any further details at the moment because, naturally, the basic prior political conditions for that must be achieved first.
Obviously, I shall keep Parliament informed regarding the concrete programmes not just with Slovakia but with other States, for which Accession Partnerships are now being further developed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=173 NAME="Pierre Schori">
Question No 31 by (H-0498/99):
<P>
Subject: Aid for civilian population of Serbia With their economy and production in free fall, the people of Serbia are heading for a difficult winter.
The reprehensible policies pursued by the regime are having severe effects on many innocent people.
Popular discontent is directed at both the regime and the outside world which is regarded as compounding the suffering with indiscriminate sanctions.
It is important that the EU does not inadvertently strengthen Milosevic' s position, but that it should make a contribution in the form of targeted, democratically-controlled humanitarian aid.
In the light of this situation, is the Commission prepared to consider measures in essential areas to assist the Serbian civilian population? Consideration should be given primarily to the growing environmental threats posed by destroyed sewage plants, oil refineries and chemical factories in Novi Sad and Pancevo, for example, and to exempting young students from the academic embargo which is cutting them off from foreign educational institutions and other contacts, making their future bleak and encouraging a brain-drain so damaging to the country.
Such measures would relieve the Serbian people' s suffering, make it more difficult for Milosevic to demonise the outside world and strengthen democratic forces.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Nielson">
As a consequence of the crisis in Kosovo, the Commission, via Echo, is providing emergency aid to the most vulnerable population groups in Serbia.
Aid amounting to EUR 45.1 million has been provided so far.
Against the background of the growing humanitarian needs which will arise in the coming winter, Echo is considering setting aside a further EUR 10 million for the purpose of implementing a comprehensive programme of humanitarian aid with the following six components.
<P>
Firstly: aid in the form of food and sanitary measures for 770,000 recipients of support in Serbia.
This figure, which includes 350,000 refugees from Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, 120,000 internally displaced Serbs and gypsies from Kosovo and 300,000 socially vulnerable people, has been calculated by the World Food Programme' s and UNHCR' s joint assessment team for emergency food aid which visited the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in July of this year.
Support for the displaced persons is being provided via the International Red Cross, while the Red Cross Federation and the national Red Cross societies are in the process of extending their programme to provide food stations, to which Echo will continue to provide support.
<P>
Secondly: shelter to individuals who have been displaced recently.
Echo provides support for the repair of private dwellings and the supply of goods other than food to make it possible to establish adequate shelter for new arrivals driven out of Kosovo.
Through its contribution to UNHCR, Echo also provides support to families who are housing displaced persons from Kosovo.
<P>
Thirdly: psychological and social support for displaced persons.
With the help of projects of this kind, attempts will be made to alleviate the trauma caused by the experiences undergone by many displaced persons, especially children.
<P>
Fourthly: emergency improvement of the structures for providing water and sanitation.
Even if larger rebuilding projects are not undertaken, Echo will make less extensive improvements to the installations concerned in order to prevent health problems from arising.
<P>
Fifthly: support for social institutions.
The most vulnerable groups in Serbia are to be found in such institutions, and Echo will, to the extent that is necessary, provide help in the form of supplementary food aid (basic food aid being provided by the World Food Programme) and supplementary goods other than food and heating.
<P>
Sixthly: hygiene.
In the course of the winter, special arrangements will have to be made at certain points to provide heating, among other things.
Negotiations with the World Health Organisation concerning flu vaccinations and problems with tuberculosis are under way right now.
<P>
Students from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia are not - as the honourable Member supposes - excluded from foreign universities or cut off from contacts abroad, because the sanctions in place do not extend to such matters.
It is true that no EU aid is being provided under the Tempus programme, but that is due to the fact that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia does not fulfil the criteria established by the Council in connection with the PHARE programme to which Tempus is linked.
In any case, resources have been set aside to support democratisation and promote the institutions of civil society.
<P>
With regard to the environmental consequences of the Kosovo conflict for Serbia, I would refer you to the answer given to question no.
1512/99.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schori">
Thank you for that answer to my question.
I am delighted by what you said. My question arose from a visit I made to Belgrade about three weeks ago and from renewed contacts I had last week with the democratic movement, all the opposition political parties, private and humanitarian organisations, etc., which had issued a message for help in combating the way in which Milosevic is now demonising other countries.
Other countries, including the EU, are being regarded as enemies which have destroyed their lives and institutions and which are now even subjecting them to sanctions.
It is extremely important to destroy this picture, which is false.
So I am very pleased that Serbia' s democratic opposition and other democratic forces are now getting the clear message that the European Union is ready to do its utmost for the civilian population in its present difficult situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Nielson">
I think that the very size of the EU' s humanitarian aid to Serbia clearly underlines the fact that we wish to make a positive contribution to benefit the population, and we have, up until now, been in a position to identify clear, well-founded needs of a humanitarian nature.
We have therefore sought to make a contribution in relation to these needs.
We naturally need to work together with other organisations, and I was therefore careful to report on what we are doing together with the Red Cross, the World Food Programme, UNHCR and others who are involved, including the World Health Organisation. This is precisely for the purpose of making it clear that this is a humanitarian operation, but I also think it is a good thing that the population and political circles in Serbia see that the world outside is also prepared to help in this way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alyssandrakis">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I see crocodile tears being shed over the people of Serbia.
Whilst Serbian academics have been banned from international scientific circles, we are concerned about the fact that students in Serbia have no contact with foreign educational institutions.
Whilst the European Union, together with the Americans, is slaughtering the people of Yugoslavia, transforming its whole infrastructure into ruins, we are concerned that the Serbian people are heading for a difficult winter.
<P>
I have the feeling that we have here a case of gross hypocrisy.
In my opinion, the only honourable thing left for the European Union to do for Yugoslavia would be to pay out war compensation for the disaster it caused, and a first step would be to lift the trade embargo.
I wonder if such thoughts prevail in the Commission, albeit at embryonic stage. I would like to ask whether this flagrant blackmail of promising aid to Yugoslavia once Milosevic goes will ever end.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Nielson">
I have reported on the humanitarian aid being provided by the EU to those who require it in Serbia, and the other questions in fact lie outside the actual discussion of humanitarian aid.
A limit needs to be set upon the extent to which humanitarian aid is really going to be provided, and I feel that the proper limit at present lies in what we are doing in relation to Serbia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Commissioner, I am sure that you will agree with me when I say that the humanitarian aid which we are giving to Serbia is by no means penalising Mr Milosevic, but those are the criteria for humanitarian aid, and it is therefore right, at least according to your logic, that they should be met.
<P>
Having said this, there is another humanitarian issue yet to be resolved: that of the 3000 or more Kosovar prisoners still being held in prisons in Serbia.
This is a humanitarian issue, so it concerns you too.
You have a major bargaining tool, which is the sum of EUR 50 million granted to Serbia as humanitarian aid.
Are you committed to using this in the near future to ensure that these prisoners are set free?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Nielson">
It would be extremely good if what was suggested in the question could be done.
The money I have mentioned is money we have in fact used.
The sum of EUR 45 million is money we have spent so far.
I cannot use it again, and that was the point at issue in the question.
What we can do in relation to those in prison is to contribute to the international effort to obtain some insight into how they are being treated.
We shall use all possible channels and contacts to help them in their situation, but the great struggle for power in Serbia, for democratisation and so on is not something which - if I am to have the slightest credibility - I can assume we can sort out using these humanitarian resources.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="Niels Busk, which has been taken over by Mrs Riis-Jørgensen">
<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="Byrne">
I should like to thank the questioner for giving me the opportunity to deal with this issue which is a complex, difficult and sensitive one.
<P>
First of all, a clear distinction needs to be made between the 17 scientific studies and the opinion delivered by one of the Commission' s independent scientific advisory committees.
In February 1998, following the criticism of the WTO appellate body, the Commission launched 17 studies with the aim of providing additional information concerning risks in areas such as toxicology, abusive use and environmental aspects.
The studies will be continued as planned and the final results from a number of them are expected to be available by the end of the year.
However, several studies will, as foreseen, not be completed before the summer of 2000.
<P>
In conformity with the principle of transparency the Commission intends to make the outcome of the studies public as soon as possible after their finalisation.
The results of the studies concerning residue analysis of meat and meat products have already been made public and can be obtained from the Commission services.
<P>
The Commission also asked its Scientific Committee on Veterinary Measures relating to Public Health to deliver an opinion on the potential adverse effects to human health from the administration of the six animal growth promotion hormones.
On 30 April this year the SCVPH adopted unanimously an opinion on the assessment of potential risks to human health from hormone residues in bovine meat and meat products.
That report has been published.
<P>
This work has been carried out on the basis of the most recent data in the open scientific literature.
On the basis of this scientific advice the Commission is of the opinion that it cannot propose lifting the ban.
Any new information which may come to light from the studies or from other sources will be fully considered.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Riis-Jørgensen">
I listened with interest to the discussion this morning about food safety and have a question to put to the Commission: is it the precautionary principle which is now to be tested by the Commission in connection with the hormone war with the USA?
I do not feel convinced that there are scientific proofs to justify our maintaining the ban on imports of hormone-treated meat. Nor did I hear the Commissioner substantiate any possible scientific proof.
I only heard that the Commissioner did not wish to propose that the ban be lifted.
Can we be certain that there will in fact be scientific proof to justify continuing with the ban on hormone-treated meat?
That is the first question.
<P>
The second question is this: how can one be certain that, in the forthcoming World Trade Organisation negotiations in Seattle, problems do not arise with the USA and, in general, with the negotiations concerning free trade if Europe continues to stand by what is, in my view, an unscientific ban on imports of hormone-treated meat?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 NAME="Byrne">
In response to that question, you will be aware that the precautionary principle operates in circumstances where there is either no scientific evidence available or where the evidence that is available is uncertain in character.
<P>
That is not the situation here.
The report that I referred to, that was published by the SCVPH in April this year, specifically identified that there were residues of one of the six particular hormones that were being checked for - that is, 17 beta-estradion.
That particular hormone is found in 80% of the tests that have been carried out.
This particular hormone is - as described by the committee - clearly a carcinogen.
<P>
Having regard to these circumstances it is believed that the lifting of the ban at this stage would be premature.
Accordingly, having regard to what I said earlier about the application of the precautionary principle, it seems to me that it would be inappropriate to apply that principle because there is clear evidence available to us from the report from the SCVPH.
<P>
In relation to our negotiations with the WTO, this issue will have to be addressed.
There has been United States representation on the committee that conducted the examinations.
That will be stressed to the US negotiators. This is an important issue.
It is one that has to be addressed between the United States and the European Union.
One would hope that it would be addressed in an amicable and non-confrontational manner.
Hopefully that will be done during the WTO negotiation period.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="Martin, David">
I would like firstly to welcome the Commissioner' s response but also to push him a little.
What he said in relation to beef is that free trade is important, but that the health of the consumers should come first and free trade second.
Will he also reassure us that he will take that attitude in Seattle When we look at the WTO negotiations it often appears that the health of consumers and others is subordinated to the free-trade aspect.
Both are important, but health is a key issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 NAME="Byrne">
<SPEAKER ID=188 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=189 NAME="Charlotte Cederschiöld">
Question No 33 by (H-0463/99):
<P>
Subject: Availability of the Official Journal Members of the public are not particularly well aware of their rights and should be entitled to receive information about legislation, since it is they who finance it.
The EU' s Official Journal (OJ), which provides information about EU legislation, is published in an edition of 20,000 copies for 380 million people - is it any wonder, therefore, that the information is poorly distributed?
A single copy of the OJ on the Internet would substantially increase access to the information and should be made a requirement under a Free Information Act for the year 2000.
<P>
Will the Commission endeavour, within the next two years, to ensure that there is free access to the entire Official Journal on the Internet?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Reding">
The concerns expressed by Mrs Cederschiöld are shared by the Commission, so much so that the Eurlex system, set up by the Publications Office in April 1998, already deals with it.
This service offers free access and coverage of the Official Journal for 45 days.
After this period, texts concerning legislation are stored on the Celex documentary database, which is also accessible via the Internet, but this must be paid for.
This also contains the Treaties, current legislation, bills in preparation and recent judicial cases.
As you can see, Mr President, the Commission has taken the initiative in this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cederschiöld">
Thank you for that answer, Commissioner.
I am pleased with one part of it, namely the positive attitude towards openness and having access to documents. However, I am less pleased about there not being cost-free access to these on the Internet.
The European Union is actually financed by its citizens who should also be entitled to know what it decides.
As far as I am concerned, it is transparently clear that there should be free access on the Internet to the whole of the OJEC.
<P>
I myself find it difficult to understand that part of the answer given in connection with the hearings, i.e. the view that certain citizens' not having access to the Internet and, therefore, free access to the OJEC, could be regarded as discrimination.
In fact, we live in a modern society where by far the majority of people can get access to the Internet.
Most school children are on the way to having, or already have, their own e-mail address. Most people in employment have Internet access, and there are lots of Internet courses for pensioners.
Every citizen should have the right to obtain relevant information.
I hope that the Commissioner will take this to heart and that information will be available for free in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Reding">
I can only repeat what I have already said.
All the information that the Commission provides for the public via the Internet is absolutely free.
There is no cost to the user.
Of course, installing the Internet itself involves costs, but the Commission cannot supply every citizen with free Internet access so that they can then have free access to information.
What counts and what is important is that all of the Commission' s official documents are accessible at no charge.
Moreover, we also have the Europa site.
Access to this site is also free on the Internet and it is consulted, by the way, by millions of citizens every month.
<P>
As you see, we have already set in place the opportunity to use modern forms of media.
I would also like to tell you Mrs Cederschiöld, that the Commission obviously wants to expand access to the Internet across all strata of society.
For example, as the person responsible for education within the Commission, I have already looked at the question, with the Ministers for Education, of how we can ensure that as many young people, as many schools as possible, have Internet access.
I know that in Nordic countries, it is relatively easy to set up this access, but this is not true for other countries in the Union.
We must also reach a balance within the Union where Internet access is concerned.
So, I take what you say extremely seriously.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=194 NAME="Jan Andersson">
Question No 34 by (H-0469/99):
<P>
Subject: Commission's plans for combating drug abuse and preventing the use of drugs in sport The World Championships in Seville turned the spotlight once more on the issue of drug-use among top sportsmen.
The widespread use of drugs is serious, both for sport as such but also because top sportsmen act as role models for many young people.
The use of drugs among top sportsmen may entail greater tolerance of the use of drugs among young people.
<P>
Does the Commission intend to take measures to prevent drug abuse in sport in connection with its efforts to combat drug-use or in other contexts?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Reding">
Mr Andersson is asking what the Commission intends to do concerning drug abuse in sport.
<P>
Following President Prodi' s statements to the European Parliament, the Commission will be making an in-depth study of the situation brought about by the increase in cases of drug taking in sport, and it is considering concrete measures which it would be possible to take at a Community-wide level.
<P>
In the context of this study, we have taken into account your Parliament' s resolution of December 1998, as well as the conclusions of the Council Presidency following two informal meetings of Ministers in charge of sport.
We are also working, in this matter, in close collaboration with Member States and the Council of Europe within a working group which has already met several times.
<P>
Moving on to the creation of a world-wide drug-testing agency, I can tell you, Mr President, that today, the Commission is already working on this issue.
We have already moved towards a first round table discussion on the initiative of the sports ministers.
I met some of them yesterday and they told me that the Commission had to act very quickly in order that we should become, as the European Union, part of this world-wide agency.
The Commission expects to announce its decision on this matter next week.
So, as you see, we are making huge leaps forward in this area.
<P>
In parallel with the Union' s possible membership of a world-wide drug testing agency, we feel that a European plan is needed, a plan which will make us all responsible, with all fifteen Member States marching to the same rhythm in the fight against the plague of drug taking in sport.
This will be the aim of the document that we are preparing at the moment so that Mr Prodi will be able to inform the Heads of State and Government at the Helsinki Summit about the measures which need to be taken in this area.
We will then be able, from next year, to propose concrete measures to you to be put into practise in our Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Andersson">
Thank you, Commissioner.
I am grateful for your answer to the effect that this matter has now been placed on the Commission' s agenda or, more accurately, placed higher up on the agenda.
Work which prevents young people from beginning to use drugs is a priority area in the fight against drug abuse.
If we look at sport, we see that this is an activity which attracts a lot of young people.
Sports stars are often role models for young people.
It is therefore important that, in this area too, we should actively combat drug abuse.
<P>
Because I think that sport has a responsibility to help prevent drug taking within sport, I wonder if plans are being made for some type of collaboration with the sports bodies in Europe with a view to tackling the problem, which has become worse in recent years.
Is the Commission planning to cooperate with the sports bodies?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Reding">
Mr Andersson is very aware of the problems inherent in the fight against drug taking in sport.
I would like to thank him for his intervention and I would like to discuss this matter with him, as he seems to have information which I would like to make use of.
<P>
Let us move on to the specific issue here.
As you know, Mr Andersson, the Treaty of Amsterdam clearly specifies that there must be a European body competent in this area, but we must also take subsidiarity into account as well as the autonomy of the world of sport.
The measures that I would like to present to the College and to Parliament will therefore be measures which have the assent of Member States and which will guarantee this autonomy.
<P>
I am also responsible for youth programmes.
I have already discussed this with colleagues who are dealing with these matters in Parliament.
I am very aware of the importance of prevention through the work of youth movements.
Our studies have shown that in most cases, sporting organisations are the ones that young people value most.
I think then that through these young people, and through sport, we can convey many ideas on cooperation, attitudes of fair play and the elimination of racism and xenophobia.
Consequently, moving in these directions - fair play, sport and healthy young people - youth programmes will be taking the direction that you would like to see, Mr Andersson.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Zabell Lucas">
Mr Andersson' s question seems very interesting to me, and having been a professional sportsman for the last 20 years, drug taking in sport is an issue which interests me and worries me very much.
<P>
As has just been said, in February this year the World Conference on Drug Taking in Sport took place and it was decided that an international agency to combat drug taking in sport would be created.
Eight months have passed and this agency has still not been established because one very important issue has not been decided, which is where the agency will be based.
The European Union does not want the agency to be based in Lausanne, at the headquarters of the International Olympic Committee but, nevertheless, wants to have it in one of the Member States of the European Union.
Possible locations such as Madrid, Bonn, Luxembourg, Lille, Vienna, Lisbon or London are under discussion.
<P>
I would like to ask the Commissioner whether, in order to achieve our aim, it would not be better to unite all our forces and, with the backing of all the Member States, present a single European candidate as a seat for this agency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Reding">
You will not be surprised if I tell you that I agree with you entirely, Mr Zabell Lucas.
<P>
This is in fact a world-wide agency, and we Europeans cannot march out of step.
I do not think, however, that the most important issue at this stage is where the agency should be located, because it has already been decided that it will be based provisionally in Lausanne, for two years, until a definitive decision is reached.
<P>
As you know, the Finnish Presidency, which would like to see the agency based in Helsinki, is putting a great deal of effort into persuading the Ministers for Sport to reach agreement on a single site which the Europeans would then propose.
<P>
I shall be making a case for this too, but I do not think that it is a matter of priority.
Our priority is rather to ensure our membership of this agency. Once this is done, we will help to set it up and we will also insist that it be based in one of the Union' s Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Bautista Ojeda">
Commissioner, as a doctor specialising in sports medicine, the issue of drug taking worries me enormously.
<P>
But I would like to ask you one thing. Is the Commission aware of the powerful influence of the links between sport, the media and those with large financial and advertising interests, which induce elite sportsmen to use drugs?
<P>
Has the Commission established, with the International Olympic Committee, a timetable with regard to the issue of drug taking in sport?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Reding">
I am quite surprised - pleasantly surprised - that so many Members of this Parliament are interested in the fight against drug taking in sport, and are so knowledgeable about it.
<P>
I propose then, that we put all this information together and discuss ways in which we can improve the programmes for fighting drug taking in sport.
<P>
I agree with you, Mr Bautista Ojeda: top sportsmen and women who are not "clean" , who use substances from outside sport in order to win, do set a bad example.
I think that the necessary steps have to be taken as quickly as possible.
<P>
We will be taking these steps at a world-wide level in conjunction with the Olympic Committee; indeed, it is together with this body that we will take our seat within the world-wide agency on drug taking in sport if, as I hope, the decisions go the way we would like them to.
In parallel though, we must develop a programme for fighting drug taking in sport across the fifteen Member States which the Member States themselves will have to set in action.
<P>
With your permission, Mr President, I shall therefore ask all Members of this Parliament who are interested in this matter to come and meet me so that together we can work out the best way of wiping out this plague.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
We will find a way of holding this meeting which promises to be so interesting.
Let us proceed to the last question to the Commissioner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=204 NAME="Ioannis Marinos">
Question No 35 by (H-0478/99):
<P>
Subject: Raising the awareness of European citizens concerning the EU The EU spends vast sums of money printing thousands of information leaflets on its activities. This involves, inter alia, using huge amounts of paper, which is not exactly environmentally friendly.
The low turnout at the last European elections showed, however, that the message about the EU and its aims is not getting through sufficiently to European citizens.
<P>
Will the Commission look into the use of more modern means of communication for this purpose? For example, it could purchase between three and five minutes of advertising time daily between the news bulletin and the sports part of peak-time news on the TV channel with the largest viewing figures in each Member State, so as to put across in simple form the achievements and aspirations of the EU, thereby targeting the broad sections of the population who do not normally read anything, least of all our publications?
<P>
Questions to Mr Patten
<SPEAKER ID=205 NAME="Reding">
The budget allocated to information activities is very small.
Publications account for only 0.005% of the total EC budget - much less than average Member State expenditure on similar information products.
The Commission is aware of the scope and possibilities of different communication media and carries out twice - yearly public opinion surveys with two questions, on how citizens are informed about EU affairs and how they would prefer to be informed.
<P>
Now it is interesting to see that TV is used and preferred by over 90% of citizens, so improving and increasing audiovisual information has been a priority for several years.
Free dissemination of our own production material via the Europe by Satellite service and cooperation with Euronews have proved effective measures, but we cannot go further than this free availability.
It is up to the communication media whether or not to use this material.
<P>
Publications follow as the second choice of medium.
For general information, print is still predominant as Eurobarometer shows that access to the Internet is not yet general in most Member States, especially not for the public at large.
<P>
Concerning the purchase of public air time, a wide variety of attitudes exist amongst Member States.
In some of them, free institutional primetime is available.
This is very positive and we can profit from it.
In others, this is perceived as unacceptable political interference.
You see that respect for cultural values and preferences calls for strict application of the principle of subsidiarity, so we have also to respect cultural differences concerning the information system in the different Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Marinos">
I would like to thank the Commissioner, whom I welcome in her new capacity to the European Parliament, of which she was once a Member before she was nominated Commissioner.
I am aware of the efforts being made by your domain and I am aware of the restrictions on the budget.
I also know that you consider television to be the most effective medium for reaching a wider audience.
However, I am very mindful of the fact that the problem of lack of information and communication is much more widespread as far as the public at large is concerned, proved by the low turn-out in the European elections.
The abstention was a spur for this weak European Union to inform and to convince people of its significance.
People do not know what the problems are and they do not know of Parliament' s efforts, what Parliament is, what it does and why citizen participation is important.
I suggested advertising on prime time television and, indeed, I asked if the Commission would be prepared to choose the time between the general news bulletin and the sports section of peak-time news because the public at large tend not to change channels at these times.
I regret that time does not permit me to continue but I am at the Commissioner' s disposal to develop my argument verbally to her in person.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Reding">
I understand why you are asking these questions Mr Marinos, because you are yourself a highly regarded professional in the media industry, and you know what works and what does not work.
<P>
If we want to operate in the different Member States, we must respect the letter and also the spirit of national prerogatives.
We have tried in the past, during election campaigns, to have the Commission and Parliament conduct these campaigns jointly.
The Commission cannot, of course, take a political stance, but it can take a stance on the information available to the citizen.
I think that in the future, in order to reach the wider public as efficiently as possible, the Commission and Parliament should join in their efforts to inform the public of what is happening in Europe.
<P>
I would not want this information to be mere propaganda, but I feel strongly that it should be balanced and that it provides answers to our citizens' questions.
I know that this is much more easily said than done.
As you will see from the new flow chart of my Directorate-General, this a citizen' s service, which really puts itself at the service of the citizen, and which aims to answer all the questions and meet all the requests citizens may put to it. It does this by using, as Mrs Cederschiöld requested, the most up-to-date technology, but also falls back on the printed word when no other means can be used.
If we can, in conjunction with the Member States and Parliament, make use of television, we will certainly do so, but we cannot set up access to that medium if it is not felt that there is a demand for access to it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 NAME="Taylor">
Annex II, Conduct of Question Time under Rule 43, part B (3) states that the time limit of 30 seconds should not be exceeded.
I have now suffered because my question was No 36, a very important question dealing with people in my constituency, and I feel that people should keep to the timescale.
It is unfair!
This was my first time to speak in this Chamber and I have now lost that opportunity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 NAME="President">
I am very grateful for your interpretation but it is no doubt due to the fact that it is the first time that you have spoken in this Chamber.
This is the second time that I have presided in this Chamber, I have sought information and there is a Bureau doctrine which Mr David Martin should be very aware of, for example, on the time of the intervention, which has been extended to one minute.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, Mrs Reding, thank you for your explanations.
I believe that increasing the awareness of the citizens of Europe is of special importance for the next elections.
Is it conceivable to create our own program in the field of 'learning entertainment' ?
Young people are clearly very enthusiastic about the Internet, and if we could offer the enjoyment of learning in this area with various possibilities such as prize competitions, trips to Brussels, etc. and could encourage schoolchildren to use our program on the Internet, would that not be one goal for the next five years?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Reding">
Mr President, Mr Rübig has spoken from the heart.
I do see the significance of a policy on information, also after my experience of many years as a Member of the European Parliament, not just in the "higher spheres" but also among very young people, among children, who absorb information like a sponge and utilise it throughout their lives.
I shall certainly strive to ensure that the programmes, the cultural programmes and the youth programmes are applied not just to high schools and universities, but that cooperation between schools is promoted in primary schools too.
For this, we do not actually need long journeys, as these cost a great deal of money and cannot be paid for.
But different schoolrooms in different countries can be connected via the Internet.
This is an idea which is close to my heart and which I will willingly take up.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="Perry">
I heard what the Commission had to say about Europe by Satellite, but is the Commissioner satisfied that local and regional television stations across Europe are adequately aware of their rights of access to Europe by Satellite? Can they do it easily technically?
I find that in the south of England that is not the case. Is there anything the Commissioner can promise to do about making sure that local television stations get easy access to the Europe by Satellite server?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 NAME="Reding">
The honourable Member has given me a very important cue.
It is true that it is not only the big channels which are important.
The small routes - the regional TV stations and the regional newspapers, the regional newsmen and - women are also of paramount importance.
I do not know whether it is technically possible or not.
If not there should certainly be a solution to that.
I would very much like you to send my services information about this lack of communication so that we can find a solution as quickly as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 NAME="President">
Thank you very much for all your interventions, Mrs Reding.
<P>
Questions 36 to 39 will be replied to in writing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=216 NAME="Olivier Dupuis">
Question No 40 by (H-0494/99):
<P>
Subject: Holding of a first annual EU­India Summit In its report A4-0066/99 of 12.3.1999 on the Commission Communication on the EU-India Enhanced Partnership, Parliament 'calls on the Council and Commission to propose to the Indian Government the holding of an annual Euro-India Summit' .
Furthermore, during the debate which preceded the vote on the report the Commission, represented by Mr Monti (Commissioner), expressed its support for such an initiative.
<P>
Can the Commission say what action (including representations to the Council and the Indian Government) it has already taken or intends to take with a view to holding the first of such Summits in the very near future?
In more general terms, does the Commission not think - in the light of the various crises and the growing threats posed by the many anti-democratic regimes in the region - that the development of a strategic, political, economic and cultural relationship between the EU and India (the world' s largest democracy) would make it possible, within a single policy, for the wish to establish special political and economic relations with countries governed by the principles and rules of democracy and constitutional government to be combined, in a significant and exemplary fashion, with clearly conceived trade and economic interests?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="Patten">
I am aware of the contents of the European Parliament' s report on the Commission' s communication on India, and I am aware also of the honourable Member' s interest in the country, which I fully share.
<P>
When I met Mr Jaswant Singh, the Indian Foreign Minister, last week on 30 September, I emphasised to him that I intend the EU-India relationship to be a very close one reflecting India' s strategic and economic importance.
During our meeting Mr Singh invited me to visit India, and I hope to do so early next year.
I intend to push for full implementation of the Commission communication taking into account Parliament' s recommendations.
I am pleased that a number of joint working groups have already met, or will shortly do so, on topics as diverse as consular affairs and environmental issues.
In addition, we have regular meetings of ministers and senior officials.
<P>
As for the specific proposal for an annual EU-India summit, this is a decision for the Council.
I personally believe that we should measure the success of the EU-India relationship through substance, not summits, of which - and I hope the honourable Member will not think this too undiplomatic of me - in general, I believe there are too many.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=218 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Thank you very much for your answer, Commissioner.
I see that you intend to strengthen greatly relations between the Union and India.
I think, and here I differ a little from you as far as the last part of your answer is concerned, that there must be a counterbalance to the powerful signals given out by the Union to other parts of the world, which are nevertheless close to India, by organising events such as Summits.
<P>
European entrepreneurs, the European political classes and European public opinion, just like those in India, need a clear sign which only a Summit can provide.
I would like to ask you then, to determine the views of the Members of the Council, to see if one or more Member States might be interested in organising this kind of Summit quite quickly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="Patten">
I want to stress straight away that I totally share the honourable Member' s enthusiasm for developing our relationship with India.
It is not just that we have a very close economic and trade relationship with India; it is not just that we have a relationship based on historical ties.
It is much more important than that.
We have a relationship based on shared values.
In the last few days there has been a fair and free election taking place in India involving an electorate which is larger than the electorate of North America and the European Union put together.
India is the largest democracy in the world and has coped with some horrendous problems precisely because it is a free society living under the rule of law, with a fully developed civil society.
<P>
I accept that we have to develop that relationship.
We have to encourage India' s relationship with the other members of the SAARC, of its regional body.
I will certainly discuss the Member' s proposal with my Indian colleague and with Member Governments.
But I do not accept that the only way you can demonstrate the importance of a relationship is through a summit.
Sometimes there is a danger of them being ceremonial occasions.
What we really want with India is a lot more - I will not say beef - muscle in our relationship and a lot more substance to it.
That I am determined to do.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 NAME="Martin, David">
If we keep putting hormones in beef we will get a lot more muscle in our beef as well.
<P>
The point I want to make to the Commissioner is this.
While I welcome the question and the answer he has given - I agree with him that too much emphasis on summits is not necessarily a healthy thing - I wonder whether he will consider expanding the India/EU dialogue into an EU/Indian sub-continent dialogue?
That is a role that the EU could usefully play - of bringing the Indians, Pakistanis or Bangladeshis, etc. together in that sub-continent to discuss their common problems and, in a sense, act as an external honest broker in dealings between the countries in that sub-region.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="Patten">
In New York about ten days ago I had an extremely good meeting, together with the Presidency and the Portuguese Foreign Minister; with the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation under their splendid Chairman, the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister, who happens, incidentally to have been at my college.
He has done a terrific job in revitalising that organisation.
We are involved in trying to support it, not least administratively, as it tries to develop free trade agreements in the region.
<P>
I accept what the Member said.
There is an important role to play in helping to sustain those regional relationships.
After all, we do have a certain experience in the importance of regional arrangements to demonstrate here in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="Glenys Kinnock">
Question No 41 by (H-0496/99):
<P>
Subject: Joint service for Community aid to non-member countries There is not time to regale the Commission with the litany of problems being experienced by both North and South NGOs in receiving funding from projects already agreed by the former DG VIII.
Obviously, the new Commissioner responsible for the SCR (Joint Service for the Management of Community Aid to Non-Member Countries) has been handed an unenviable legacy and I am sure he will be intending to institute reform in this area.
However, I would like to know what the Commission intends to do about the immediate situation and the real tragedies that are occurring because of the immense backlog that has now been built up?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="Patten">
The honourable Member is absolutely right to highlight this important issue.
<P>
As the House is aware, one of my top priorities is to build on recent improvements in the management of European Union external aid programmes.
In this context I should mention the significant personal contribution of Philippe Soubestre Director-General of the SCR.
<P>
We have a huge responsibility to the developing countries to ensure effective and timely use of European Union aid.
This is vital for the credibility of our policies and for the wider international image of the EU.
The honourable Member will know that the Commission' s services have recently made significant progress in eliminating the backlog of late payments on external aid contracts.
The vast majority of valid invoices are now being paid within the normal deadline of 6 000 days - I beg your pardon 60 days.
This applies, in particular, to the some 5 000 current projects with NGOs, financed either from the budget or via our delegations from the EDF.
<P>
It is an unfortunate but inevitable fact of life that we never have as much money as we would like.
This is particularly true in development aid where the available resources are never enough.
This means, for example, that we have requests for additional support for existing co-financing projects with NGOs amounting to twice the available budget in 1999.
<P>
This may create an impression of delays, but in reality it is an unavoidable consequence of pressure on limited resources.
<P>
Finally, I draw the honourable Member' s attention to recent changes to the requirements for NGOs to provide bank guarantees, which should make it easier to obtain advance payments up to EUR 1 million.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="Kinnock, Glenys">
I could list a number of NGOs and others who have, in fact, waited 6 000 days and are still waiting.
For example there are landmine clearance NGOs and 'Article 19' - which the Commissioner will be aware of in the UK - who have had problems with lost documents, and with a whole litany of complete chaos.
<P>
Is the Commissioner aware of the huge tensions which exist between the external DGs and the SCR now because of the confusion about tasks, because of the staffing difficulties that DG VIII has, for instance, because of their staff being moved to the SCR?
<P>
There are underlying tensions which your answer does not address. The answer is somewhat complacent about a real crisis situation in the SCR.
That is added to by the fact that the RELEX DGs are being reorganised.
That causes even more chaos for the very essential work that we are engaged in with countries outside the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="Patten">
I think the honourable Member, who knows as much if not more about the NGO sector as anyone does, recognises the priority we have given to reforming and supporting the SCR.
We need to recognise as well the problem they inherited - a backlog of 19 billion of commitments, a backlog of 14 500 projects.
They have been making progress in dealing with those issues and I want to help them with that and not further damage their morale or that of the DGs.
<P>
It is therefore important to understand the difference that exists at the moment between problems caused by applications which cannot be met because of budgetary considerations and the processing of commitments, where the situation, despite difficulties at the beginning of the year, has improved; and it is worth remembering that some of the problems at the beginning of the year had a little to do with the lateness of receipt of commitments in December.
We all have to work together to try to ensure that the European Union gets the assistance it has promised to those to whom those promises have been made as rapidly and as effectively as possible.
<P>
I am aware of the gap between rhetoric and reality.
I want to ensure that those who are responsible for managing these funds have all the support from me and from others that they deserve; and I know very well that is an objective which the honourable Member shares too.
<P>
So, I take the question as pressing me to do more but I can assure the honourable Member that I am intent in moving in the same direction as she would like.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=228 NAME="Richard Howitt">
Question No 42 by (H-0516/99):
<P>
Subject: Commission action to restrict arms transfers and promote disarmament Bearing in mind the forthcoming first annual report on the operation of the European Code of Conduct on arms transfers of 1998, would the Commissioner for External Relations indicate whether he would support an extension of Commission competence to include arms trade issues at the next intergovernmental conference?
What action has the Commission taken and what does it intend to take in the future in order to implement the Joint Action and Resolution on Small Arms adopted by the Council and the subsequent EU Development Council Resolution on Small Arms?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 NAME="Patten">
. Member States have up to now on the basis of Article 296 (former Article 223) exempted trade in arms from the scope of application of European Community Treaty rules.
There has therefore not been any scope for Community action in this field.
Arms trade is currently dealt with in the context of the common foreign and security policy, with which the Commission is of course fully associated.
The new Commission will have to consider whether to seek a modification of Article 296 at the next Intergovernmental Conference, taking into account the Conference agenda as well as progress on a new policy on arms exports.
<P>
Following the adoption of the Joint Action, the Commission participated in a series of troika demarches aimed at presenting the Joint Action to all governments and major regional organisations and gaining their political support for its goals.
A number of specific projects are currently under way.
The European Union is contributing EUR 500 000 to the UNDP Weapons in Exchange for Development pilot project in the Gramsh district of Albania, which, if successful, might be expanded to other districts.
A fact-finding mission to Cambodia has put forward a series of recommendations for practical cooperation on the basis of the Joint Action.
More projects are currently under consideration in the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 NAME="Howitt">
I thank the Commissioner for his response.
I regard consideration as positive and urge him to bring that forward.
We know that two billion a day is still being spent on the military and on arms sales - 40% of it from Europe.
All of us therefore have to be more effective in curbing this trade.
I congratulate the Commission on what it has done in terms of implementing the Joint Action on small arms - the project in Albania.
I urge the Commissioner to implement the project in Cambodia as soon as possible, and other projects which I know he and his services are considering in a former Soviet Republic and in a South African country.
I hope that when we look at the review that is taking place in the Council at the moment, we will all be able to contribute in a way that will curb the arms trade and enable more money to be made available for development.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 NAME="Patten">
The honourable Member will know what the Commission' s traditional view has been on the trade in arms.
He may also have read recently an extremely interesting column in the Times newspaper on the arms trade by Simon Jenkins, which I thought made some extremely important and valuable points.
<P>
As the honourable Member knows, we have had discussions with the United States and Canada about small arms, and I very much hope that we can continue to make progress with specific projects in the way he has suggested.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 NAME="Kinnock, Glenys">
I take it from the Commissioner' s answer that he is in favour of regulating the arms trade. What is his response to the brokering of arms which is still going on?
Recently arms travelled from Russia via Antwerp to the war in Eritrea. Would he like to see a tightening up of the regulations to ensure that kind of gun-running cannot occur?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 NAME="Patten">
. Absolutely!
As an ex-development minister I formed very strong views about expenditure on armaments as opposed to expenditure on educating people and improving their health.
The honourable Member knows better than I, though I have some experience of it as well, the damage which has been done to Africa by the illegal movement of arms.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 NAME="President">
As they deal with the same subject, the following questions will be taken together.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 NAME="David Martin">
Question No 43 by (H-0517/99):
<P>
Subject: East Timor What assistance does the Commission propose to offer to help with the reconstruction of East Timor?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 NAME="Mário Soares">
Question No 44 by (H-0543/99):
<P>
Subject: East Timor Will the Commission state what action it intends to take on behalf of the European Union with regard to East Timor?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 NAME="Patten">
The Commission considers humanitarian aid as the most urgent priority in East Timor.
The ECHO services of the Commission are relaunching their temporarily halted humanitarian aid projects worth EUR 2 million.
In addition to that, a series of aid projects worth EUR 3 million is about to be started.
If necessary, more money - and I want to emphasise this point - can be made available for humanitarian purposes.
<P>
As to rehabilitation programmes, the Commission is in close contact with the World Bank and other leading donors to develop a coherent scheme, thus avoiding the overlapping of donor contributions.
In an interim period a UN administration will be put in place.
The Commission obviously intends to participate actively in this phase.
A procedure has begun to make a significant contribution to UNAMET with a view to help establish administrative structures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Soares">
Mr President, I know that the Commissioner, whom I would like to take this opportunity to greet, has several times expressed his solidarity with the people of East Timor quite emphatically, but I would like to know if there is in fact a programme of aid for the reconstruction of East Timor yet.
This programme is extremely urgent, and I would like to know if it has been quantified and how much the Commission foresees spending on this plan.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 NAME="Patten">
. If I may say so to the honourable Member who in the course of his distinguished career has gained much more experience of this issue I imagine than almost anyone else in this Chamber, there seem to me to be three stages to our assistance.
<P>
Firstly there is the immediate humanitarian assistance which is essential, not least given the systematic trashing of infrastructure and transport by the militias in East Timor.
<P>
Secondly - and this is immensely important and I discussed it at the UN with the Secretary-General and the deputy Secretary-General - there is the question of funding civil administration in the short and medium-term.
There has not been any indigenous civil administration in East Timor for as long as anybody can remember.
It is going to be costly to run services in East Timor.
That is why I mentioned as I did contributions to UNAMET.
I hope that we will be able to help there and I hope that Member States will be able to help as Portugal has already indicated it will.
<P>
Thirdly, there is the question of longer term development assistance and longer term reconstruction help.
We are discussing that with the World Bank.
There was a donors' meeting on 29 September.
There is going to be a subsequent mission to look at what is required.
I want to see that we do what is best for East Timor, not just pluck figures out of the air.
<P>
I can assure the honourable Member that is not a way of excusing ourselves from the obligations we have to that part of the world, to that soon-to-be country.
<P>
For years every foreign minister from Europe and North America who has been to Indonesia has had a speaking note about East Timor.
Now there is an obligation on us to put our money where our mouths have been all those years.
I hope that we will do it in a way which is sensible and effective and focused and targeted on real needs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=241 NAME="Juan Izquierdo Collado">
Question No 48 by (H-0467/99):
<P>
Subject: Cultivation of flax Does the Commission consider it reprehensible that high-ranking officials at the Ministry of Agriculture should have encouraged practices reminiscent of 'premium hunting' with regard to the cultivation of flax, promoted them through administrative channels, and received perks for themselves and their families as a result?
What information with regard to Spain and the EU can the Commission provide on developments in the cultivation of flax, the receipt of subsidies, the monitoring of requirements to guard against fraud, the resultant processing for marketing purposes, and the providential fires at some processing plants?
What measures does it intend to implement to protect income aid for farmers under the CAP and shield such aid from fraudulent practices which tarnish the sector' s image and undermine its impact?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, as regards flax cultivation and the problems in Spain in connection with this, the Commission has already, within the framework of the prices package for the year 1996, proposed to the Council that a guaranteed ceiling be established for flax cultivation and, over and above that, that flax - with the exception of flax pulled in the traditional way - be assigned a lower level of support.
<P>
The Council should have adopted a position on this proposal by the end of 1996.
The Council did not endorse this proposal.
As a result, the Commission sought to implement other measures so that premium hunting - as it is termed generally - in this area could be curtailed.
Here, I would like to stress particularly that we introduced compulsory supply contracts between the producers and the primary processors, and we then also introduced the principle that every primary processor requires a licence.
Finally, in addition, we also introduced a processing commitment for the harvested flax and a minimum yield.
Besides this, the system of explanations of sowing areas, controls and sanctions was reinforced.
<P>
On top of that, within the framework of the EAGGF statement of accounts for the budget years 1994 and 1995, the Commission services cut back the expenditure declared by Spain by 10% due to deficiencies in the checking system.
<P>
Years 1996 to 1998 are currently undergoing inspection.
The inspection has not yet been completed.
We will then see what amounts can be paid out definitively.
In addition, in February of this year, we asked the Spanish authorities to supervise the conditions of cultivation, harvesting and processing particularly carefully in order to prevent premium hunting. Just today I learnt from the newspapers that currently only one region in Spain has acted accordingly in this area and has withdrawn support from various producers.
<P>
We all know, then, that in the Spanish Parliament a committee of inquiry was set up which has looked into these matters as well.
On the part of the European Union, the anti-fraud office, OLAF, was commissioned to arrange for the Spanish judicial authorities to conduct investigations as to whether the Community aid for textile flax had been administered and monitored properly and whether incidents under assessment were to be noted as criminal offences.
These investigations are still underway and are being monitored attentively by OLAF.
<P>
But, over and above this, I would like to say in conclusion that we still see a need for fundamental rehabilitation in this area and that the Commission, by the end of this year, will therefore be putting forward a proposal for a comprehensive reform of the aid system and the market organisation system in the area of flax and hemp.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Collado">
Let us try to redirect the situation because your reply has also been very general.
<P>
You will know, Commissioner, that the headlines of the entire Spanish press, and not just the largest newspapers, today feature the serious irregularities uncovered by the inspection of the Agriculture Department of the Council of Communities of Castilla la Mancha in the flax processing companies which were in dispute and have been examined and analysed by the Committee which has been mentioned.
<P>
Since you know about this, I would like to ask you what information you can provide regarding the investigation, which I imagine you are also carrying out in your Directorate-General, with regard to flax and premium hunters.
Do you not have any information of your own?
Will you take account of the information supplied by the Agriculture Department which I have mentioned?
If the Agriculture Department inspection indicates evidence of serious irregularities in the flax processing companies, should the corresponding subsidies be paid or should we await the conclusion of your Directorate-General?
<P>
Commissioner, the worst possible approach would be to try to prematurely close an investigation such as this flax investigation, which involves senior members of the Spanish Government in relation to the illegal payment of subsidies and fraud in this aid for the flax processing industry.
There could be nothing worse than to close our eyes to it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, Mr Izquierdo Collado, I would like once again to remind you that I have given very concrete answers, both to the problem and also to the steps which the Commission has taken with regard to it.
If today it is reported in the newspapers here that now the competent authorities in individual regions are starting to take action, then this is only welcome and desirable, and actually complies with the request we made to these authorities as early as February.
<P>
Furthermore, I must point out to you that, insofar as it concerns suspicious circumstances which could possibly involve a criminal act, we only have the possibility of cooperating with the Spanish legal authorities on the basis of OLAF.
This is an area where absolute confidentiality must be guaranteed and so, because of the legal requirements we are subject to here, I cannot name specific names or cases.
<P>
I would also like to point out to you that at the moment a number of years are being investigated by the EAGGF, and if deficiencies in the running of the market organisation system are determined in these spot check investigations, then Spain must be prepared for the fact that a lump sum penalty may be incurred, i.e. that the support payments already paid out are reduced in retrospect by a lump sum - according to the gravity of these deficiencies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Ayuso González">
Commissioner, this question is part of the electoral stunt organised by the Spanish Socialist Worker' s Party in relation to the recent European election campaign in order to attack the then head of the Popular Party list, Loyola de Palacio.
In any case, Commissioner, despite all of this, it was this list that received the most votes.
<P>
At first they talked about privileged information, but the announcement of aid is published through the European Union, Spain and the regional governments.
Then they talked of an organised system for the payment of subsidies, but the family relatives of the senior members of the Agriculture Department who received subsidies already cultivated flax before those people took their senior posts, before Mrs de Palacio became Minister for Agriculture and even before Mrs de Palacio knew them.
<P>
They then tried to accuse the then Minister of Agriculture of a supposed fraud in the award of subsidies, but responsibility for the control and payment of CAP subsidies falls to the regional governments, in accordance with the distribution of competences of the Spanish State.
Good evidence for this can be found in the a posteriori inspections carried out after the election campaign by the Socialist Government of the autonomous community in which this fraud took place.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 NAME="President">
Mrs Ayuso, I must remind you that you have used up one minute and 36 seconds and that furthermore you have not asked any question.
<P>
There are various procedural motions.
I expected this to be the case although, in my capacity as President, I have to behave as if I were, for example, Finnish, which is the Member State which holds the Presidency of the Union for this six-month period.
Naturally, I do not want to enter into a discussion of intent, not even when the issues relate to my own constituency.
But I must remind all of you that you must ask questions of the Commission and that they must relate to the matter under debate.
<P>
There are various procedural motions and I am going to offer the floor to the person who asked the question, who is Mr Izquierdo Collado.
I would ask him not to spend more than one minute in tabling the procedural motion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Collado">
Mr President, I would simply like to point out that, once again, groups in this Parliament and Members, specifically of the Spanish Popular Party, are manipulating Question Time and supplementary questions to the Commission.
<P>
It is truly incredible that this behaviour should reoccur and that every time there is a question from a Member, especially a Socialist, the Popular Party uses Question Time to hide the shame of its government and does not ask the corresponding Commissioner a question.
<P>
This should cease to happen in this Parliament and I would ask that the Presidency, when Members from the Popular Party are seen to behave in this manner, not to wait until the end of the intervention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=248 NAME="President">
We are not currently sitting in the Spanish Parliament, nor in the Assembly of the region in question, but in the European Parliament, and I cannot prejudge nor anticipate any principle or respect for freedom of expression of the Members.
I have allowed you a procedural motion in which you have also digressed and indulged in name-calling.
<P>
I would ask you to respect the dignity of this Parliament.
This goes for all of us, whether Tyrians or Trojans, although I am not sure whether there are any Tyrians and Trojans here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Mulder">
I would like to ask a follow-up question to question no. 48.
The Commissioner made an interesting point.
He intends to produce new proposals at the end of the year concerning flax cultivation in Europe.
That being the case, I would like to ask if these will include proposals relating to other fibre plants cultivated in Europe, such as hemp and so on and so forth.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Fischler">
Commission. (DE) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, firstly I would like to specify that as far as I am concerned there are no Socialist or other types of question.
As far as I am concerned there are only questions which I am called upon to answer.
Well, just such a clear question has been asked by Mr Mulder.
Perhaps just now something was lost in translation. I already mentioned in my first contribution that this proposal would be presented in any case by the end of this year and, secondly, that this proposal would deal with both flax and hemp.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=251 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=252 NAME="Camilo Nogueira Román">
Question No 49 by (H-0479/99):
<P>
Subject: Possible abolition of the Directorate-General for Fisheries Can the Commission state whether it is the case that, as has been reported in the media and in contradiction to the undertaking given by Mr Franz Fischler, the Commissioner for Agriculture, at his hearing before Parliament' s Committee on Fisheries, the Commission has decided to abolish its Directorate-General for Fisheries (DG XIV) - a measure which would clearly be contrary to the interests of the Community' s fisheries industries and, in particular, the interests of fisheries-dependent regions such as Galicia?
<P>
Does the Commission intend to reverse this damaging decision, as those interests require?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe I can answer this question very briefly.
At its meeting on 18 September, the Commission decided the guidelines for the re-organisation of its departments. This was previously announced - on 9 July - by President Prodi.
According to these guidelines, the Directorate-General for fisheries was furthermore set up.
Thus this decision is also in accord with the explanation which I gave in my hearing to the European Parliament Committee on Fisheries on 30 October.
Over and above that, the organisational plan for the Directorate-General for Fisheries was adopted by the Commission on 29 September.
There is therefore also a valid organisation chart for this Directorate-General.
Finally, at the same meeting, a new director-general for the Directorate-General for Fisheries was also decided, and so it is Mr Smidt who will, in future, be the director-general in charge of the Directorate-General for Fisheries.
This, I hope, clearly establishes that the Directorate-General for Fisheries does exist.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=254 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Nogueira Román">
I would like to congratulate you, Commissioner, on your decision to keep the Directorate-General for Fisheries.
For my part, I retained my question in order to have the opportunity to hear in this plenary sitting, the ratification of your commitment to the Committee on Fisheries.
I hope, as I am sure you do, that this decision will prove useful to the development of an economic and social sector which is fundamental for the people of Europe who make a living from fishing, and for European citizens' food in general.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=255 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, unfortunately, I was unable to find any question in Mr Nogueira Román' s comment.
So I am unable to give an answer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=256 NAME="President">
I was following the question in Portuguese instead of Spanish and I am not sure whether there really was a question.
I did not want to interpret Mr Nogueira' s words.
<P>
There is a procedural motion from Mr Knörr, which I imagine will be the last intervention concerning the procedural problems of this Question Time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=257 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Knörr Borràs">
I am new in this Parliament and I regret that the first question whose reply I was expecting to hear in this Parliament cannot be replied to orally due to lack of time, but I doubly regret the fact that this is due to the attitude of some people who, by raising questions in this House which, in my opinion, do not belong here, deprive us of the pleasure of hearing Mr Fischler speak today of the problem of our fishermen' s daily bread, for example.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=258 NAME="President">
I share your point of view, and the question which was not going to be answered orally, due to the over-running of the previous one, has been included in the end.
It was Mr Nogueira' s question.
<P>
I thank Mr Fischler for his response to all of the questions.
<P>
Questions 50 to 86 will be replied to in writing.
<P>
That concludes Question Time.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 8.20 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=0>
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="Simpson">
Madam President, I am grateful to you for giving me the floor.
I want to bring to your attention and that of Parliament the tragic and terrible rail crash that took place yesterday just outside Paddington Station in London, in which two trains collided.
At the moment the death toll is at 26 but is expected to rise - maybe even to double that - and there are many people seriously injured.
<P>
I therefore request, President, that you write a letter on behalf of the European Parliament to the British Prime Minister expressing our shock and horror at the magnitude of this terrible disaster, asking him to and pass on our deepest sympathy to the relatives of those people who have died, and also to the relatives of those who remain seriously injured in the hope that they make a full recovery.
<P>
I would be grateful, in light of this terrible rail disaster, if you would do that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
Yes, Mr Simpson, I have myself heard the news of this terrible accident and I agree completely with your suggestion.
I shall write on behalf of all of us, if you agree, to express our deepest sympathy to those who have suffered in this disaster.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
State of relations between Turkey and the EU
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
The next item is the statement by the Council and the Commission on the state of relations between Turkey and the European Union.
<P>
I have received 6 motions for resolution laid down pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Sasi">
Madam President, Members of the European Parliament, Turkey is, economically, socially and culturally, a key partner of the European Union.
Turkey also has, and will have, an important role to play in maintaining peace and stability in our continent.
This has once again been proven with the recent events in the Balkans.
<P>
It is clear that the Union and Turkey need one another.
The importance of that cooperation was underlined four years ago, when the Customs Union became effective.
It is our belief that the Customs Union has benefited both sides.
Last year, EU exports to Turkey accounted for more than half of Turkey' s total imports, and Turkey' s exports to the Union area in the same year accounted for approximately half of its total exports.
In this connection, it is worth noting, however, that the financial and institutional cooperation, which was agreed when the Customs Union agreement was made, has not come about in the way that was planned.
<P>
By virtue of the decisions made at Luxembourg in 1997 and Cardiff in 1998, Turkey is involved in the enlargement process.
Turkey has had created for it, its own strategy for preparing for membership: the so-called European Strategy.
This strategy involves both a broadening of cooperation in different areas, as well as financial cooperation.
Finland, as the country holding the Presidency, is endeavouring to enhance the implementation of the European Strategy.
Two proposals for a Regulation relating to financial cooperation in respect of the European Strategy are at present on the agenda in the European Parliament.
It will be very difficult to implement the strategy fully without financing.
As the country holding the Presidency, we appeal to Parliament to debate these regulations in a positive frame of mind, and as promptly as possible.
As we all know, there was a tragic earthquake in Turkey in August.
The damage the country suffered as a result, as well as the serious economic damage, underline even more the importance of financing.
<P>
The Union is closely following the development of democracy in her partner in cooperation.
There are serious failings with regard to human rights in Turkey, including the rights of minority groups.
We hear all too frequently about, inter alia, restrictions on the freedom of speech. This is not in harmony with our European values.
We have, however, noted with satisfaction a recent move on the part of the Turkish Government to implement democratic reforms and improve the situation regarding human rights.
We also wish to encourage Turkey to continue on its path to reform.
The OSCE Summit in Istanbul on 18 - 19 November will be an important opportunity for Turkey to show that it is trying to improve the situation with regard to generally accepted civil liberties.
<P>
The European Union opposes the death penalty everywhere, and whatever the case.
It is a common objective of the Union to abolish capital punishment everywhere in the world.
Under Turkish legislation, it is still possible to pass and implement the death sentence.
However, the death sentence has not been carried out in the country since 1984.
We hope that Turkey will refrain from implementing the death sentence in cases where such a sentence has been passed - including the PKK leader, Abdullah Öçalan.
We expect Turkey to remove the death sentence from its statutes entirely and continue with its moratorium until that time.
In addition, we would like to remind everyone that non-implementation of the death penalty belongs to the common set of values of the Union, a Union whose membership Turkey has indicated it aspires to.
<P>
Recently we have seen encouraging signs that relations between Turkey and Greece have improved.
We hold in high regard the contribution that Greece has made to this development, and we consider the dialogue that has started between these countries to be a very positive step forward.
It has been quite moving to see the genuine show of sympathy and solidarity in both Turkey and Greece, as a result of earthquakes in both countries.
We hope that the positive climate that has recently developed will be a step towards a more lasting improvement in relations between the countries.
Increased cooperation breeds trust, which can only lead to reinforced stability in the eastern Mediterranean and the whole of Europe. This is to our common advantage.
<P>
Although the dialogue I mentioned awakens optimism in us, difficult questions remain.
The European Union and the country holding the Presidency give their full support to UN efforts to achieve a lasting and just solution to the situation in Cyprus.
This autumn we hope to make headway in finding a solution to a problem that has dragged on for too long.
We believe that Turkey, for its part, can contribute to the process wherein a just solution may be found,
<P>
When I went to Turkey, two weeks ago, I discovered that the destruction resulting from August' s earthquake was the most extensive in Europe since the Second World War.
Turkey cannot cope alone with the demanding task of reconstruction.
There is no full reckoning as yet of the cost of repairing the damage caused, but estimates vary between USD 3 million and 6.5 million.
The earthquake left 400,000 people homeless. At present, they are living in tents.
With winter approaching, it is no longer possible to live in such conditions.
The European Union wishes to support the reconstruction work in Turkey.
We also trust in the constructive cooperation on the part of the European Parliament in this important area.
<P>
During its presidential term, Finland will strive to do its best to integrate Turkey more closely into European structures.
This aspiration on the part of the country holding the Presidency has been given a good basis by an exchange of letters between Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit and the Union' s previous country to hold the Presidency. Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit reconfirmed in his letter that he thought the Copenhagen criteria were a basis for Turkey' s aspirations for membership.
<P>
There is unanimity among the countries in the Union with regard both to Turkey' s importance as our partner in cooperation and the need for closer cooperation.
It is something that has been mentioned by the European Union and individual Union countries in many connections.
Just a few days ago, Prime Minister Costas Simitis and Chancellor Schröder stated that the Union, for its part, would make a serious attempt to reach a positive conclusion at the forthcoming Summit in Helsinki.
The central issue will be how to strengthen Turkey' s status as a candidate.
There must be much active work and goodwill shown on the part of both the Union and Turkey to achieve this.
<P>
We are firmly of the opinion that bringing Turkey closer to the Union will be the best way of aiding the implementation of democratic reforms in the country.
In this respect, the path of isolation does no more to promote the aims of Turkey than it does the aims of the Union.
In this there is no doubt that we need the support of concrete action on the part of the European Parliament in matters of financing and general support to develop and consolidate relations between the European Union and Turkey.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="Verheugen">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission is extremely pleased to see that the European Parliament, so soon after the start of its work, is having a full debate on the subject of Turkey, since this is in fact one of the most important political and strategic matters which we have to settle in Europe at the present time.
Today' s discussions are taking place at a time when relations between the European Union and Turkey have the opportunity to pursue a new course: exactly two months before the European Council meeting in Helsinki, which is expected to make important decisions with regard to the enlargement process as a whole and with regard to Turkey in particular.
<P>
The representative of the Presidency has just given a political analysis of the current situation, which the Commission can fully endorse.
I would like to add the following thoughts, from the viewpoint of the Commission. Since the European Council meeting in Luxembourg in December 1997, relations between the European Union and Turkey have deteriorated, for obvious reasons.
As you know, Turkey did not see the European Council confirmation that it should be considered for accession as sufficient.
<P>
Shortly after the European Council of December 1997, the Commission discharged the "European Strategy" on Turkey' s preparation for accession in all relevant areas.
This European Strategy was drawn up as a specific, customised introductory strategy with the goal of expanding and deepening the existing Customs Union.
The Commission proposals were approved politically at the Summit meeting in Cardiff in June 1998.
Since Cardiff, several meetings on the implementation of specific aspects of this strategy have taken place, but thus far, the lack of appropriate funding has prevented substantial progress, although I must point out that the overall picture is not so black as it is sometimes painted.
<P>
The Customs Union was improved in some areas, and the exploratory talks regarding a possible free trade agreement in the service sector have made good progress.
The Commission experts visited Turkey in order to improve our general knowledge of Turkish legislation in all the areas concerned.
Concerning financing, I wish to point out that by the end of this year, Turkey will receive a share of EUR 375 million from the MEDA I financing programme. We must in any case make further efforts to fulfil our arrangements with Turkey.
The Commission would like to encourage the European Parliament as soon as possible to issue its position on the draft regulations, with which the European Strategy should be supported.
<P>
Without this financial support, we are in danger of losing the credibility of the European Strategy.
Credibility is urgently needed in order to convince the Turkish side that they have to make an active contribution to the implementation of this strategy.
If we really want to help Turkey in the preparations for accession, as the European Council in Luxembourg wanted it with the European Strategy, then we must also show that we ourselves will make a significant contribution to the achievement of this goal.
The European Parliament clearly has a key role in this process.
<P>
At this point, I would like to express my satisfaction at the fact that the Commission reacted so promptly following the devastating earthquake which shook Turkey on 17 August.
The decision to make EUR 30 million in emergency aid available for reconstruction was possibly thanks to the speedy reaction of the budgetary authority.
In future, the European Investment Bank will grant medium-term loans of up to EUR 600 million for reconstruction, and also macro-financial aid of up to EUR 200 million, in order to support the current reforms in close agreement with the International Monetary Fund.
<P>
But we should look to the future.
As has already been mentioned, the European Council in Helsinki will once again deal with the question of the European Union' s relations with Turkey.
In this respect, I would like to make it absolutely clear that all accession candidates are assessed according to the Copenhagen criteria, and are all treated equally in this assessment.
Turkey does not fulfil the political part of these criteria.
In addition, there are deficiencies in terms of democracy, rule of law, human rights and minority rights.
However, the question is how we can ensure that the necessary reforms are initiated in Turkey and that Turkey is resolutely and irreversibly on the way to becoming an established member of the family of European democracies.
I am firmly convinced that this process in Turkey will only get underway and can only be successful if Turkey has the green light to enter Europe.
<P>
Recently Turkey has made some progress, though by no means enough, in the field of democratisation and human rights, and I can point out that this will also be made clear in the next progress report on Turkey.
Next week, in exactly one week' s time, this progress report will already have been discussed and decided by the Commission.
This report will indicate, among other things, that in June of this year, the system of special courts was changed and the military judge eliminated from the Turkish national security court.
It will point out that a number of important legislative and administrative measures have been carried out in order to prevent the abuse of human rights by public servants.
We expect Turkey to go one important step further and finally abolish capital punishment.
<P>
I would also like to stress that the rapprochement between Greece and Turkey which had been achieved shortly before the earthquake in various matters of mutual interest is an encouraging sign for the future.
I sincerely hope that the trust achieved between both these countries by means of détente will give them the possibility of addressing the difficult issues of security in the region in the same spirit as in previous discussions.
<P>
As you know, Turkey has decided in favour of Europe and is ready to undertake its obligations under the Treaty of Amsterdam.
I therefore think that, at its forthcoming meeting in Helsinki, the European Council should clarify what place Turkey can assume in the structure of Europe.
I would like to inform you as early as today that next week I shall be proposing that the Commission issues a recommendation for the Helsinki Summit to the effect that Turkey should also be treated as a candidate for accession on the same basis as all the others.
This means that Turkey must undertake the obligations of the Copenhagen and Madrid criteria.
Turkey still has a great deal of work to do, and considerable progress in the political and the economic field is still needed. Still, in view of the enormous strategic importance of Turkey for the future of Europe, for long-term security, stability and peace in Europe it would be a grave mistake to deny Turkey entry into the enlargement process on equal terms.
<P>
The time leading up to the Helsinki Summit must be used by Turkey and by us to agree jointly upon a timetable for Turkey.
There was already some discussion of this timetable in the exchange of letters between Chancellor Schröder and Prime Minister Ecevit prior to the Cologne Summit.
This would concern specific measures in the areas covered by the Copenhagen criteria in order to assist Turkey in the fulfilment of these criteria in the medium or long term.
Appropriate initiatives by Turkey in the run-up to the Helsinki Summit would doubtless increase the chances of success of this European Council meeting.
<P>
I am convinced that this Parliament will play an essential role in the forthcoming debate, particularly when, following the decision at Helsinki to grant Turkey candidate status, the comprehensive process of alignment of legislation, of screening begins.
I would like to clarify one thing at this stage in order to prevent misunderstandings. We are not now discussing initiating accession negotiations with Turkey, instead we are discussing taking the very first step.
The very first step involves granting Turkey candidate status so that the process may be initiated and so that we have the opportunity to be able to speak on the subject of starting negotiations in the foreseeable future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="Poettering">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, after the statements of the representative of the Council Presidency and also the representative of the Commission, one must certainly assume that a resolution to grant Turkey candidate status will be brought at the Helsinki Summit.
I agree specifically with Mr Verheugen when he says that this is one of the most important strategic questions affecting the future of the European Union.
<P>
Yet we ask ourselves: what has changed since December 1997 in Luxembourg, when Turkey was invited to a European Conference and refused the invitation?
Let us recall the arguments put forward by Turkey in 1997.
They said they were suffering discrimination, because they were not included in the accession process.
I see Mr Poos, who was present at the time, who belongs to another large group here.
If we now grant Turkey candidate status - and I say this in all seriousness -, but then start negotiations with all the other Central European countries, as we can indeed probably also expect from Helsinki, then there will be another sort of discrimination because Turkey is being treated differently to the countries of Central Europe.
How shall we then answer that charge?
<P>
My group was involved in the drafting of the compromise text of the motion.
I must tell you, though, that we could not support this compromise text of the motion in this form, neither Item D nor clause 1, because it would give the impression specifically that Turkey' s membership would have a positive influence on security, stability and development in the European Union.
We do not think it right, to say this at this time.
We can also see contradictions in the resolution.
If clause 2 specifies that the Copenhagen criteria must be respected, i.e. democracy, rule of law, human rights, minority rights, and article 3 in clause 3 then specifies that Turkey a long way from meeting these criteria, then we must indeed take note of this.
We cannot believe, on the basis of a deluded policy, that Turkey is today already so far on the way to being granted candidate status.
<P>
I am speaking in all seriousness, and certainly not for the sake of being controversial. I know how complicated the Socialist Group made matters regarding the Customs Union, and we in the Group of the European People' s Party were then always in favour of it.
I am not saying that in order to reproach you for the change in your attitude in striving after accession status for Turkey.
Rather, I am saying it because we in the Group of the European People' s Party were always in favour of having as close a partnership and as friendly relations as possible with Turkey, and that is, of course, still true today.
<P>
We therefore want to establish a forum between the European Union and Turkey in which we can discuss all Community issues.
I would like to say in conclusion that Turkey of course has a European vocation.
But if we grant Turkey candidate status now, the question arises as to what we will say to Ukraine or Russia tomorrow if we refuse them candidate status.
We therefore say that this is not the right time to grant Turkey this status.
Enlargement to the countries of central Europe must be initiated first.
Only when that has been successfully concluded can we perhaps take a further step.
But let us not take the second step before the first and, above all, let us do all we can so that this European Union, this great project of European unification, will be a strong, empowered and democratic European Union in the 21st century!
This must take priority over all other considerations because we want a Europe of peace and stability in good, clear partnership with Turkey.
But the time has not yet come to make strategic decisions regarding Turkey' s membership of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I should like to remind you that this Parliament or the previous Parliament decided, on the basis of my motion and my report, that a timetable should be drawn up governing how Turkey and Europe can move closer together.
This is in complete agreement with what the Commissioner has also said here today.
<P>
With commendable candour, the Commissioner has clearly set forth what he is in favour of.
I would also like to spell out clearly that my group cannot today say either yes or no to it, because we are familiar neither with the progress report nor with the discussions which the Council is having with Turkey.
I would however like to say just as clearly that I deeply regret, Mr Pöttering, not that you do not accept the consolidated resolution, that is not the essential thing, but that you are going back on the decision which this Parliament reached with a very large majority.
I find that lamentable.
We must pursue this process of rapprochement, which is a difficult one, and which will last a long time - of that I have absolutely no doubt - in the interests of the development of Turkey.
<P>
What has changed within Turkey?
Firstly, particularly on the initiative of the Greek Foreign Minister, to whom I should like to pay great tribute, a considerably better, though still not perfect, relationship between Turkey and our fellow Member State, Greece, has been achieved, as well as a step in the direction of finding a solution to the Cyprus issue which is so important.
<P>
Secondly, on the Kurdish question there was, albeit in unfortunate circumstances given the death sentence on Öçalan, still the first step towards a political solution. Also, in the field of human rights, it was not only possible to achieve the release of Akim Birdal, even if only for health reasons, but there were also some legislative changes, which will hopefully also be put in practice.
I do not want to exaggerate matters, I do not wish to paint a totally rosy picture, but there are changes which we must respond to.
What should a country make of it if we keep saying "You must take this step and that step," and then, when it does take these steps, there is no real positive answer and no sign of recognition?
<P>
My criterion and our criterion in the Social-Democrat Group is as follows: by sending a positive sign can we reinforce the positive changes which are emerging in Turkey, or not?
That is the crux of the matter.
Secondly, what do the human rights organisations say?
What do the representatives of the Kurds in Turkey say?
Whoever you speak to in Turkey, even in the field of human rights, even with the representatives of the Kurds, you will hear the message loud and clear: relations between Turkey and Europe are improving! This is our opportunity to be able to take more action, this is our chance to be able to do more to bring about the appropriate changes in Turkey!
<P>
In this spirit, Madam President, I would like to make it clear. We shall give an equally clear response to the clear statement by the Commissioner when we have all the facts and all the documents.
But we have one goal as Socialists and Social Democrats and that is to change things and relationships in Turkey in such as way as to be able to speak of real democracy, freedom and respect for human rights there.
If a signal is given in Helsinki, then it must have that as its goal, and it must give full support to those who fight for human rights in Turkey.
In this spirit, on behalf of my group, I am hoping for a good decision in Helsinki.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Duff">
Madam President, the central question seems to be whether this Parliament and the European Union show themselves to be sufficiently self-assured to confirm Turkey' s status as a candidate.
A failure to do so will provoke a serious crisis in our relations with Turkey.
Nobody wants special treatment for Turkey and nobody should ignore the series of problems over the treatment of the Kurds or over the situation in Cyprus.
<P>
My group believes that the discipline of candidate status will involve Turkey in more serious preparation for membership, a stronger dialogue and greater exposure to European Union culture and politics.
Parliament has certainly been dragging its feet on this issue, as the MEDA programme and the financial support for the European strategy show.
<P>
The Liberal and Green groups have tabled an amendment calling for the clear prospect for membership to be opened up.
This would encourage the forces of progress and reform within Turkey and increase the leverage of the European Union upon Turkey' s future development.
This position is supported by the Cypriot and Greek governments and Parliament would be reactionary should it fail to be in the vanguard of progress here.
<P>
I plead to all those who want Turkey to modernise on the basis of its European traditions to support our amendment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ceyhun">
Madam President, in his speech at the formal opening of the new legal year in Turkey on 6 September, the Senior Judge of the Supreme Court of Appeal, Sami Selçuk, strongly denounced the country' s constitution.
With the words, "Turkey is a country with a constitution but it is not a constitutional state," he condemned the Turkish constitution.
The constitution apparently protected the rights of the state at the expense of the freedom of the citizens.
"We need more democracy and more citizens who are allowed freedom of thought without being restricted by the laws of the land," said the judge.
He spoke in favour of widespread democratic reform and also fundamental restructuring of the political system.
He is right.
His demands are identical to our expectations.
I am even convinced that the majority in this House is also in favour of a democratic Turkey, in which human rights and minority rights are respected.
It is my conviction, too, that we are bound to support democratic circles and their modest successes not just on moral grounds but also because a democratic Turkey, which can solve its own problems within Turkey, will be advantageous for the internal security of the European Union.
<P>
By means of our policy we could make a contribution towards ensuring that the proponents of a European democracy in Turkey may be successful and that the hawks who are against Europe may be the losers.
In other words, at the present time, we need a policy which assists Turkey whilst maintaining a critical attitude and a policy which induces it to settle obvious issues such as the Kurdish question, the Cyprus issue or the human rights problems speedily and humanely.
This cannot be the policy of the exclusion or the isolation of Turkey!
Therefore, whatever the timetable or the exact procedure, in Helsinki a sign must be given towards the people of Turkish and Kurdish origin and towards democracy in Turkey.
<P>
I cannot as yet say anything for sure on behalf of my group on the integration of Turkey, because we are still having discussions, but for me personally, it means as Mr Verheugen has already said, that it has candidate status for accession to the European Union. Its integration is urgently necessary, not just for the democratisation of Turkey, but also for peace and stability in the Balkans and in South-Eastern Europe.
The Greek Foreign Minister Papandreou yesterday said at the University of Istanbul, "We want Turkey in the European Union right now!"
Nothing further need be said!
I think he made it perfectly clear!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Madam President, our group is in favour of a European vocation for Turkey and the possibility of its eventual accession. It is also in favour of a more open policy as regards granting financial assistance, provided this aid can benefit in particular the plight of its many earthquake victims.
This does not mean, however, that we agree with the delegate of the Finnish Presidency or with Mr Verheugen or with the joint motion for a resolution being tabled in the European Parliament.
<P>
We believe that we, the European Union, must be a community of principles and not a cynical political entity pursuing geo-strategic policies which, to a large extent, come from Washington.
Why did we lay down certain conditions for Slovakia and refuse to grant it applicant status.
Was this a bad thing for Slovakia?
And why did we do the same for the Baltic States on the grounds of respect for minorities?
Was this a bad thing for the Baltic States?
Were we not aware that Slovakia and the Baltic States had made specific progress?
So why should we change our standpoint as regards Turkey?
<P>
Mr Verheugen said that it is up to us to provide Turkey with an incentive, a signal or a symbol to help set in motion the democratisation process in Turkey.
Have we not already done this?
Did we not do this with the Customs Union?
Did we not do this with the proposal for the European Conference?
Did we not do this with the MEDA programme?
We had no response.
Therefore, I believe that we must insist on the preconditions and demand that specific progress be made by Turkey.
Finally, I would like to mention that I was disappointed to hear the three groups referring to the Greek Foreign Minister' s statements and standpoints to endorse their argument for intensifying relations unconditionally.
I myself do not wish to comment on this.
It is not an area on which I would like us to comment. However, I would like to say that Mr Swoboda is wrong to say that progress has been made on the Cyprus issue because Mr Papandreou said so.
No progress has been made on the Cyprus issue!
We also heard Mr Ecevit saying that there will be no intercommunal agreements unless Mr Denktash' regime receives official recognition.
No progress has been made on the Cyprus issue and no progress has been made on the Kurdish issue!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Turchi">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it will seem incredible or maybe simply a coincidence, but just yesterday evening, I was given a statement on behalf of the Kurdish authorities on the continuation of the armed struggle.
In my opinion, this should be condemned in the name of both democracy and mutual civil respect of populations.
I am saying this because this is the real Turkish problem, along with the relations between us as the Community and the Turkish State.
<P>
Before the Öçalan case, nobody questioned the wisdom of the best possible relations with a State which had always declared its desire for an ever-closer cooperation with the Community, even to the point of asking to accede.
Mr Poettering himself stated just now in his report that at the time of the customs agreements, he was in favour of this step.
On the one hand, both as a Catholic first and as a politician second, I must stress the need in Turkey for more genuine respect for civil rights and fundamental values, especially as regards human rights. But on the other hand, we have to consider that all the commitments made by Turkey to the Community in recent years in terms of foreign policy, cooperation, economy and also in the cultural field, have always been honoured.
So in my opinion, we need to press both the President of the Commission and the President-in-Office of the Council, as well as ourselves in this Parliament, to make sure that all the agreements made with the Turkish State are upheld and complied with. And also that the competent Community bodies continue the timely and very thorough task of checking that the democratisation process and the peaceful resolution of the differences with other States are actually going ahead and are not mere words spoken by the Turkish State.
<P>
If we continue with the goal of enlarging the Community and, at the same time, of ensuring it complies with fundamental principles and values, this institution will assume its true role once more, which is fundamental in terms of foreign policy and international credibility.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Belder">
Madam President, the terrible earthquake of 17 August took place in the very region of Turkey that has the highest per capita income.
The three provinces in the disaster area account for no less than 17% of the country' s industrial production.
One in every hundred workers in the region did not survive the earthquake.
One in every four inhabitants lost relatives and their homes.
Who in Europe could not feel pity for the victims of this disaster?
There is no doubt that a helping hand was and continues to be provided.
Indeed this is our moral duty from a Biblical point of view.
<P>
One of the offshoots of the disaster was a sudden change in the worldview of the Turks.
The spontaneous assistance provided by their traditional arch enemies Greece and Armenia refuted the Turks saying that a Turk will only find friends among fellow countrymen.
<P>
The earthquake made people painfully aware of the great shortcomings of the ostensibly powerful state machinery in Turkey.
Non-governmental organisations had their hour.
Since then, calls for sweeping political and social reforms have been on the increase. These have come from people at all levels of society and even from President Demirel himself who only last Friday refrained from describing the Turkish constitution as democratic.
<P>
On the other hand, prominent representatives of the Turkish business community are suppressing these positive noises.
They are not saying a word about the dangerous polarisation between state and society, whilst at the same time, the gulf between rich and poor is widening.
The aforementioned industrialists are endeavouring to defuse this explosive situation by calling for people to join forces for a civilian society.
<P>
What attitude should the European Union adopt towards Turkey, a country at odds with itself?
Certainly one that bears witness to genuine good neighbourliness, which includes providing political and economic support.
Offering the prospect of membership of the European Union is not on the agenda yet though.
In any case, we still await progress reports.
<P>
It is precisely Ankara' s unaltered, hard military line as regards the Kurdish question, notwithstanding the PKK' s request for dialogue and the fact that they gave up the armed struggle, that underlines how important it is for us to assess Turkey' s compliance with the accession criteria.
The still unresolved question of Cyprus is another reason worth mentioning.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Speroni">
Madam President, the Commissioner' s statements displayed nothing but utilitarianism. He spoke of economic criteria, of strategic criteria and of security.
He made absolutely no mention of democracy and human rights. In Turkey, the death penalty is still in force, and neither individuals' rights nor peoples' rights are respected.
Apart from the Kurdish question, there is the question of other minorities too. Antidemocratic rulings are still present in the legislation - for example, Article 155 of the penal code and Article 8 of the so-called Anti-terrorist Law.
So before giving Turkey candidate status, I think we should verify that Turkey is making the necessary legislative changes.
Only then will it be able to take the path to accession.
<P>
I was a member of the committee established by the Council of Europe to monitor the Öçalan case, and I have to say that the penal process completely transgresses democratic rules.
I therefore think that it is too soon to grant Turkey candidate status.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Velzen">
Madam President, we have of course, listened with great interest to the European Commission' s proposal to grant Turkey candidate status.
But the problem you are now confronted with is that whilst, as a politician, you obviously have to act when the going is good, you also of course have to ask the question as to what will actually happen next once a country has been granted candidate status.
For we are not talking about political dealings here but about preparations for a country to become an EU Member
<P>
You only have to look at what effort it is costing the countries of Central and Eastern Europe for the inevitable question to come to mind as to what the Commission' s offer will mean to Turkey.
I would like to ask the Commissioner if we are proposing to leave Turkey in this position for decades?
Would it not make far more sense to achieve things little by little and to continue to work on the process we have set in motion in order to bring it to completion.
Mr Swoboda' s little list of developments in Turkey was of course extraordinarily lean.
As things stand we are proposing to grant candidate status to a country that does not yet fulfil the Copenhagen criteria in any way, shape or form, so as to send out a positive signal from Helsinki.
<P>
I am absolutely convinced, Madam President, that it will not turn out to be a positive signal from Helsinki but that it will, on the contrary, become one big source of frustration.
Moreover, what is the state of play as regards the European Union' s own preparations for the future membership of Turkey?
How much thought has been given to the implications it will have for our borders?
How much thought has been given to the implications it will have for our agricultural policy and for the deepening of the European Union that we are currently working on?
We are simply going to have to answer all these kinds of questions.
<P>
It is time for us to deepen the Union.
It is time we started pondering questions of this kind now that this proposal, which is completely premature, is to be put forward in Helsinki.
I hope that we will come to see the error of our ways as far as this is concerned, for it would be extremely frustrating, for the Turkish Government and the Turkish people too, if we were to grant a status which will not offer any real prospect of membership for decades.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Katiforis">
Madam President, Commissioner, Mr Representative of the Council, it is clear that today' s debate on EU-Turkey relations is a limbering up for the negotiations to be held at the Summit meeting in Helsinki at the end of the year.
The direction these negotiations will take has not yet been specified.
During the last round of talks, the Finnish President of the Council, Prime Minister Lipponen, stated in Athens that he did not yet feel ready to make specific recommendations.
Also in Athens, Chancellor Schreider, following his meeting with the Greek Prime Minister, Mr Simitis, stated that he thought it would be a mistake in a public debate and at a press conference to mention the conditions that Turkey must meet in order to be considered a candidate country. I believe, this suggests Madam President, that Turkey must meet certain conditions before it can be considered a candidate country.
<P>
Public debate is certainly the biggest flaw of democracy.
Governments can negotiate behind-the-scenes but Parliament cannot have this luxury of silence.
I believe that we all, or at least most of us, agree on certain basic issues.
We want Turkey to have a positive European vocation.
We want Turkey to be given generous humanitarian aid for the earthquake tragedy.
Finally, we all, or at least most of us, know that, in Turkey, individual freedoms, freedom of the press, the prison service and methods of police interrogation bear no correlation with democracy or with European culture.
I cannot forget the comment of the Prime Minister of Luxembourg during the Luxembourg Presidency when he declared, quite justifiably, that Europe cannot sit at the table with torturers.
<P>
Madam President, the anachronism of the regime was demonstrated by the sacrifice of the Turkish people themselves in terms of human lives during the earthquakes. This could not have happened in a country with a fully functioning legal system, democratic control and freedom of the press.
I consider very optimistic the remarks of the Commissioner that, by the time the Helsinki Summit comes around, Turkey will have fulfilled the criteria laid down by the Copenhagen Council to become a candidate country.
<P>
The Greek people showed their heartfelt sentiments towards the Turkish people during the earthquake tragedy and I believe that the Turkish people also have heartfelt sentiments towards the Greek people.
The Greek Government has stated that it is prepared to accept the progress made by Turkey towards candidate status provided that Turkey can show some signs it intends to fundamentally change its attitude.
Turkey has shown no signs of this.
It still persists with the partition and military occupation of Cyprus.
It still persists with its threats of war against Greece if Greece should enforce the international law on territorial waters.
As long as Turkey persists with these, it will not be possible.
What has been said here about Mr Papandreou acknowledging that Turkey has made progress on the Cyprus issue is totally wrong.
I can assure you that Mr Papandreou made no such statement.
It is not right that such statements can be distorted just to impress.
If Turkey does show signs of progress, then of course we will welcome it with open arms, but it must show some signs.
The ball, Commissioner, is in Turkey' s court and the next move must come from them. Europe has given it sufficient encouragement yet we have not seen, on an official level, and not from the Turkish people who are also suffering under the regime imposed on them, the response Europe needs to proceed to the next phase.
We would need to have the necessary response and then, of course, we can proceed with the issue of Turkish candidature.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Ludford">
As an MEP for London, I am glad to represent many Turks, Turkish Cypriots and Kurds.
That leads me to insist that the chief obstacle to Turkey' s accession is not prejudice or discrimination.
The EU is not a Christian club.
Europe is culturally richer for having Muslim citizens and residents, and I welcome that.
The chief obstacle to Turkey' s entry is its inability to meet the political criteria laid down at Copenhagen, especially regarding democracy, human rights and the rights of minorities, especially the Kurdish people.
And it is patronising and insulting to treat Turkey differently from other candidates as if suggesting Turkey is second class and incapable of aspiring to European political standards.
<P>
The main cancer in the Turkish system is the repression of the Kurdish people.
This has distorted the Turkish State and justified its militarisation.
Hundreds of thousands of people have died and millions have been evicted from their homes.
The PKK has committed some atrocities but these have been far outweighed by those perpetrated by the Turkish army.
There is insufficient response to the PKK' s ceasefire.
Our mistake is to perceive Turkey more as a strategic military ally than as a political partner.
We must intensify our relationship and contribute to constructive change, but must not say yet that Turkey is on track to join. That is why I cannot support my own Group' s Amendment 1.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Korakas">
Madam President, it is clear that both the Council and the Commission are determined to grant Turkey candidate status within the European Union.
In our opinion, this once again shows that total hypocrisy is an underlying principle of the European Union, with its double standard policies of selective sensitivity towards human rights and respect for international law.
<P>
Personally, I am not surprised by the proposals brought by the Council and the Commission.
When the Union itself can bomb Yugoslavia, an independent country, it cannot have any problem with the bombings carried out by Turkey on Kurds in Iraq.
These double standard policies, based purely on the financial and political interests of the powers that be in the European Union, are making us turn a blind eye to what is happening in Turkey today; that is, Turkey' s refusal to acknowledge democratisation and respect for human rights, not to mention the violations of all the principles of international law.
The prisons are full, the tortures and the executions are continuing.
The Turkish regime has ignored the gestures of the PKK who actually sent some representatives to Turkey, just as a sign of peace, and called a cease-fire.
<P>
Nevertheless, this means nothing to the Turkish regime.
It still insists, at all costs, on a military solution to the Kurdish question, and on enacting genocides on Kurdish people.
Cyprus is still suffering the invasion and occupation of the Turkish troops and yet, we are still turning a blind eye to it.
If we vote in favour of the proposal of the Commission and the Council, then rest assured that this will not in itself encourage democratisation. It will, however, encourage Turkey to reinforce the current inhuman, objectionable policy it is pursuing and to intensify the incursions against Greece and the incursions against humanity.
A few days ago, in the EU-Turkey joint committee, the representative from the Turkish delegation told us, "This is how we are; we are a democratic country.
Take us or leave us" .
<P>
So well done!
Keep it up and you will indeed be the ones receiving the human rights prize!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Gollnisch">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the French, Flemish and Italian Members of Parliament in the Coordination of the European Right are in favour of establishing a relationship with Turkey based on mutual respect, mutual benefit and non-interference in internal affairs.
However, they are resolutely opposed to the integration of Turkey into the European Union where this would be in the interests neither of the Union nor of Turkey.
<P>
The Turkish nation is a great nation, but it is distinct from the nations of Europe in terms of its origin, its language, its history, its culture, its religion and its institutions.
The main part of its territory and population is in Asia.
The integration of Turkey into the European Union would cause insoluble problems: immigration aggravated by demographic differences, economic competition aggravated by differences in earnings and labour costs.
We must finally rid ourselves of these internationalist delusions which seek to extend the Union indefinitely, without taking national identity into account.
We must also find a way out of the humiliating impasse that we have been keeping Turkey in for years.
We must have the courage to say that the pre-eminent role of Turkey is to serve as a bridge between Europe and Asia, between East and West, and not to attempt integration which will be damaging for all the nations involved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
Mr President, I think that as far as the thorny and complex matter of relations with Turkey is concerned, we should begin by stating the fact that relations between the European Union and Turkey have been in hibernation for the last two years.
Turning to the representative of the Commission, I would like to ask: is this situation really in the European Union' s best interests?
<P>
I believe, Mr President, that we must make ourselves clear, and be able to distinguish between what we can actually do and the promises we would like to make. I think that one of the messages that we have to put across in Helsinki - and I am directing this remark to the Presidency-in-Office of the Council - is that the climate for negotiating in Luxembourg must be improved.
How can we do this?
Well, we have to bring Turkey closer to the European Union and the European Union closer to Turkey on the basis of actions which are concrete, tangible and resounding.
<P>
I do not think that dodging a question that we will have to face up to sooner or later is a good idea.
We cannot put this off any longer.
Do we want Turkey to become firmly anchored in the democratic system of Western values or not?
What are we prepared to do in order to achieve this?
<P>
Turkey has been a loyal ally of the European Union and deserves a clear and honest answer.
I think that within the European Union, we must face up to this situation with clarity, not by replacing reality with a reality of our own invention, because when all is said and done, that produces nothing but discontent and frustration.
I shall direct these remarks, for the sake of this clarity, to the Commission' s representative because in the end, the Commission' s decision will be definitive, or at least will have great bearing on the way Heads of State and Government see the matter.
Is the Commission going to propose more of the same to the European Council, or will the Commission, on the basis of the requirements of the Copenhagen criteria and of its own conviction about the Turks, offer the Turks the chance of not missing the boat in the future?
<P>
I would like the Commission to give a clear answer as to what the terms of their proposal will be.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Mr President, I sincerely believe that the most important factor in relations between the European Union and Turkey is to avoid making U-turns and complete shifts in policy.
It is essential not to give out wrong or unrealistic messages either to the Ankara Government or to the Turkish people, and to base our position on two principles.
<P>
The first one is that relations between the European Union and Turkey are vital to both parties, now and in the future, in all areas and at all levels. Secondly, that the European Union must give priority to promoting Turkey' s democratisation in an intelligent way.
To achieve this, we have to use the means available to us - the Association Agreement and certainly the Customs Union too.
The European Union must demand that Turkey fulfils the Copenhagen criteria, but we must not add new ones.
<P>
I was perturbed to hear how Mr Poettering, on behalf of the European People' s Party, added a so-called cultural criterion to our relations with Turkey.
What was he referring to?
To the fact that there are unavoidable cultural differences between Europeans and Turks, which prevent Ankara from having the chance that their country might join the European Union?
I am radically against this unacceptable view.
<P>
We can require that there be political principles, democracy, respect for human rights, and fair treatment of minorities and of the Kurdish people, and that international law be respected.
But to add other criteria would certainly not be European in the best sense of the word.
I would therefore like the EPP and Mr Poettering to make their position clear on this matter.
Turkish public opinion, a progressive public opinion in terms of politics, society and business, requires that we give a clear message. But this message includes a rapprochement between the European Union and Turkey and at the same time, a push for the democratic values which today are still not being fulfilled.
Leyla Zana is surely the most striking example of what I am talking about.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van den Bos">
Mr President, Europe has a lot to offer Turkey and vice versa.
That is why I agree with the Commission that Turkey should be granted candidate status and will be welcomed providing it fulfils the strict Copenhagen criteria.
We must help Turkey with the preparation process.
However, it is essential for Turkey to undertake radical reforms itself, not just in words but above all in deeds.
Supreme authority must fall to the government and no longer to the military.
As long as Turkey infringes human rights and Ankara attempts to resolve the Kurdish question primarily by military intervention, there is not the remotest possibility of its actually becoming a member of the EU.
The resolution we have before us articulates this view, Madam President, particularly in paragraphs 1, 2 and 3.
However, I consider paragraph 9 to be unacceptable because it suggests, unjustifiably, that Turkey is attempting to resolve the Kurdish problem by peaceful means.
If only that were true.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Uca">
Mr President, I concur with all the speakers who have pointed out that the current changes in Turkish policy are completely inadequate.
Nonetheless, as a Member of Parliament of Kurdish origin, I advocate financial aid and economic cooperation, and I also support Turkey in its integration into the European Union, on condition, however, that the Helsinki conditions be fulfilled, i.e. the question of Cyprus, the human rights issues and the Kurdish question must be settled politically, capital punishment must be completely abolished and all prisoners must receive a general amnesty.
Kurdish identity must be recognised!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
Mr President, the European Union is a Union of democratic constitutional States that contribute to the strengthening of the international rule of law both amongst themselves and in their relations with non-EU countries.
That is why the European Parliament wanted Article 6, which contains such wording, to be included in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Article 7 even provides for the suspension of those Member States that do not abide by Article 6.
It therefore follows that negotiations on accession to the European Union cannot be undertaken with countries that are not full constitutional States.
We have had prior experience of this with Slovakia.
We adopted a very clear position at that time.
Slovakia did not satisfy the political criteria established in Copenhagen.
<P>
Commissioner Verheugen is also absolutely right in saying that Turkey does not satisfy the political criteria, and certain consequences flow from that statement.
Of course, we cannot compromise the character of the European Union on geopolitical grounds and for reasons of Realpolitik.
We cannot allow a State that is not a constitutional State to determine our common future; there cannot even be negotiations on that point.
We must give the character of the Union due consideration.
<P>
The Council has politely said that Turkey is doing its best to become more of a constitutional state.
The Right Honourable Member, Mr Swoboda has scratched around for some ideas, with a view to showing that there really is some truth in this.
He himself will not be too happy with the list he has submitted.
What actual evidence is there that Turkey is doing its best?
Could we cite its dealings in relation to Cyprus or the Kurdish question, or the treatment meted out to Christian minority groups in Turkey?
Could we cite the fact that command is being taken of the police, who have become a law unto themselves at local level, or the fact that the role of the army is under review?
Could we cite the changes that are afoot as regards religious freedoms?
I would like to see either the Council or the Commission produce a documented report on the positive steps that Turkey has taken, together with an overview of the points which still need to be worked on.
<P>
There is one point on which we, as the European Union, fall short and that is the completion of the Customs Union in financial terms.
Immediately after the earthquake, the Greek Government made very friendly noises about Turkey' s becoming a member but I do not think we can take them at their word.
The litmus test for the Greek Government consists in their willingness to lift the blockade on the financial aspects of the Customs Union.
That is the only real contribution the Greek Government can make and any friendly noises it might otherwise make are completely empty gestures.
We want them to put their money where their mouth is.
Nor must the European Union disappoint Turkey in this respect.
Fond words about the earthquake do not help either, for it did not alter the constitutional state in any way.
<P>
Mr President, we are going to have to leave Turkey in no doubt about all this.
There must be no doublespeak!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sakellariou">
Mr President, the chairman of the Group of the European People' s Party expressed his sympathy with regard to my own group, because at the time we made heavy weather of the decision on Customs Union.
I would like to return this sympathy on the grounds of the ease, with which the Group of the European People' s Party has undergone a complete U-turn in its position since the agreement on Customs Union.
<P>
Mr President, I have listened attentively to what the President of the Council and also Commissioner Verheugen have said on the subject of the possible candidacy of Turkey in Helsinki.
I would have welcomed it if it really had been an honourable position of the European Union with regard to Turkey.
But I am afraid that we are re-establishing a policy which, for decades, has permitted us to hide behind the Greeks and say that the Greeks would never agree to it.
Now, as the Greeks are showing that they would agree under certain circumstances, we must, in fact, come clean.
We must really ask ourselves in all conscience if we want to have Turkey in the European Union or not.
Nuances of wording, whether it concerns one candidate for one candidacy, as in this case, or whether we should establish a new category of candidates, who are indeed valid candidates but with whom no negotiations are held, will by no means be beneficial to our relationship with Turkey.
<P>
My last remark concerns a matter in which nuances of wording once again play a role.
We are always talking about the Kurdish question, but we never talk about the Kurdish people.
This is a people of between 12 and 20 million individuals, who nowhere, either in Turkey or in other countries, can enjoy their freedoms, human rights and rights as citizens.
We must support the cause of these people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Giannakou-Koutsikou">
Mr President, Mr President-in-office of the Council, Commissioner, there is no doubt that the tensions, the insecurity and the instability are all enemies of development and prosperity.
We Greeks seek the consolidation of peace and stability throughout the whole of the South-Eastern Mediterranean.
It is therefore evident that we consider closer rapprochement between Turkey and the European Union a positive development.
I ought to stress the point, so as to avoid any misunderstanding, that the rapprochement of Greece and Turkey, despite the historical antagonism and the fundamental differences, is in fact one of the most significant issues in our country' s foreign and security policy.
<P>
Turkey' s vocation within Europe, however, is a debate of great interest within the international community.
Any positive development depends solely on Turkey itself.
Provided that Turkey conforms to the prerogatives and duties imposed on those states wishing to join the European Union, and provided it subsequently fulfils the criteria and follows the programme stipulated in the joint decisions in Copenhagen and Luxembourg, then it could progress with its European goals.
It is unfortunate that Turkey' s behaviour both nationally and internationally is a far cry from that of stable Europe.
As regards democratisation and respect for individuals' rights, the gap is major.
Internationally, Turkey is known for its lack of stability, persisting with actions which promote rather than prevent destabilisation of the local geopolitical environment.
<P>
International Law cannot accommodate threats of violence, political blackmail by the larger States or disputes over borders and obligations arising from involvement in the international arena. Nor can it accommodate countries adopting defiant stances in the international arena.
<P>
In particular, the stance taken by Turkey in relation to the Cyprus issue proves that nothing has changed, despite the distorted view propagated by the international press during the disastrous earthquakes.
Turkey wants to join the Union, but it wants to do this without changing anything in its internal functioning and approach.
Is this possible when it does not respect international law?
It is self-explanatory that one cannot justify such preferential treatment, such behaviour and such forfeitures of rules and principles within this Community.
It would be wrong for other applicant countries and would set an unpleasant precedent in the framework of enlargement and of current and future.....
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fava">
Mr President, I think that this debate and the motion that we are discussing today fully demonstrate Parliament' s wish to give out a clear, strong and friendly signal of cooperation, a signal which takes note of the Greek Government' s changed position with regard to the Turkish Government.
However, we must also find the courage to admit that now, Parliament is waiting for the Copenhagen political criteria to be complied with, even before there is compliance with the Copenhagen economic criteria.
The Copenhagen political criteria are ethical criteria which represent the real identity of Parliament and the European Union.
<P>
The European Union bases its own identity on the fact that it follows the principle of the rule of law, which is much more important and significant than being able to mint a common currency or have a common defence policy.
The ethical criteria mean human rights, democracy and respect for minorities.
I think that the summary we have made in our motion is a fair one, and that we should impose it on Turkey.
Candidate status and the cooperation signals are fine as long as we have the courage to repeat first to ourselves that it will be difficult to welcome Turkey into the European Union while the Turkish Government continues to ignore the Security Council' s resolutions on the invasion of Cyprus, while it continues to deny the existence of a Kurdish minority by referring to them generically as terrorists and until the threat of the death sentence no longer hangs over Öçalan.
<P>
I think that in our reasoning, we should rise above a purely economics-orientated approach and reading.
We must demand genuine results at a democratic level, and this is a guarantee required not only by our Treaties but above all by our peoples, especially the Turkish people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Khanbhai">
Mr President, in a historical context the European Union is a baby.
In its infancy it questioned the eligibility of British membership and rejected its application to join.
At that time many thought Greece or Spain - I suppose these days all that is forgotten - would never qualify for membership.
<P>
Over the last ten years we have witnessed huge changes.
Membership has expanded to 15 Member States, Parliament is beginning to acquire political power and will, I hope, cease to be a mere talking-shop.
<P>
Turkey' s application has to be judged on the basis of the following criteria: Turkey' s strategic geographic and economic position and how this impacts on Europe; Turkey' s crucial role as a member of NATO and how this membership could be sustained if the door is permanently shut in its face; Turkey, which as a future responsible member of the EU could be the fire extinguisher for the fires of discontent that burn in the Middle East and beyond.
<P>
I appreciate the fears of those who worry about Turkey' s Islamic population.
The reality is that there are large numbers of Turks living in Germany and France, large numbers of Muslims - including Turkish Cypriots - who live in Britain.
The populations of Kosovo and Albania are predominantly Muslim.
The religious complexion of Turkey is a matter of historical accident, like Spain under the Moors for a few hundred years.
Turkey' s culture is distinctly European and its religious complexion should not devalue its European identity.
<P>
Let us look ahead over the next 10, 15 or 25 years and examine what is in Europe' s best interest: what will contribute to the prosperity and peace of this family of nations that we call the Europe of today.
Let us not be hypocritical, and let us ask ourselves what is the intellectual basis for excluding Turkey.
Young Europeans, socially mobile and far less religious than us, expect us to develop a Europe of opportunities for work and prosperity that we can all enjoy.
<P>
Turkey cannot join the EU today; but geography, culture, history, security and common sense . . .
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Roure">
Commissioner, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in introducing my proposal, I would like to remind you of the European Parliament resolution voted on 18 June 1987.
<P>
In this resolution, there were four points which constituted inescapable obstacles in examining the possible accession of Turkey to the Community.
Let me remind you of these four points.
<P>
Firstly, the refusal of the Turkish Government to acknowledge the genocide previously committed against the Armenians; secondly, its reluctance to apply the standards of international law in its dispute with Greece; thirdly, the maintenance of Turkish occupation forces in Cyprus; fourthly, the denial of the Kurdish problem.
<P>
Nothing has changed since then.
Of course, the resolution we are voting on today does repeat some of these points, but we must insist absolutely on the fact that the current situation in Turkey is not acceptable to us nor in terms of the Copenhagen criteria, as indeed highlighted in the third paragraph.
<P>
It is up to Turkey to change its attitude if it really wishes to join the European Union.
It is up to them to change.
Obviously, for us, there is no way around the question of Cyprus, and Turkey cannot conceal the Kurdish problem.
These are key issues.
<P>
We must remain firm in our demands if we wish to be credible and if we want Turkey to change.
We know that democracy can be strong in a country, as history has recently shown, only if this country is able to recognise the rights of minorities and to respect them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langen">
Mr President, the European Parliament is called upon to make give a fundamental, open and honest evaluation of past and future policy on Turkey.
Turkey is and remains an important partner of Europe.
But this partnership is not strengthened by now offering the prospect of accession to Turkey.
We need pragmatic steps on the way to an autonomous European Union Policy on Turkey.
We said yes to Customs Union. But in this House the financial services of the Customs Union were blocked.
I am asking for these pragmatic steps to be implemented at the earliest possible juncture.
We need Turkey as a reliable partner in a geostrategically unsettled region on the edge of Europe.
<P>
An autonomous policy on Turkey cannot, however, have Turkey' s accession to the European Union as its objective.
The prospect of accession, Mr Verheugen, which the Helsinki Summit will open up and which you have described here on behalf of the Commission, is, we are firmly convinced, clearly the wrong way to go.
We are pleading emphatically in favour of an autonomous European Union policy on Turkey, based on the three pillars: partnership in security matters, close economic integration and ongoing dialogue on political, economic, cultural and democratic issues.
<P>
The admission of Turkey into the European Union would excessively overstretch the European Union and would impose radical political change on Turkey, which it cannot fulfil in the foreseeable future and, I know, does not even want to fulfil.
Therefore, the admission of Turkey would lead for a variety of reasons to a qualitative change in the European Union and to an inevitable standstill in European efforts for integration.
The Ankara Agreement is not a sufficient reason for this as, since this Agreement with the EEC, in three amendments to the Treaties, the Single European Act, the Maastricht Treaty and the Amsterdam Treaty, Europe has documented its willingness and capacity to transfer further competences from the national to the European level and thus deepen Europe.
<P>
My group is, therefore, in favour of an autonomous policy on Turkey just short of accession.
We want these high level relations with Turkey for reasons of security policy, economics and politics.
But we also want to deepen Europe further and not let it be undermined by accessions which we cannot cope with.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, I must confess when I hear phrases about Europe being overrun and overwhelmed it fills me with absolute horror about the quality of the debate in this Parliament.
However, this debate has puzzled me somewhat and therefore I would like to put a question to Mr Sasi and Commissioner Verheugen, namely: What is the difference between what is going to happen in Helsinki and what happened in Luxembourg?
In Luxembourg we confirmed Turkey' s eligibility for accession to the EU.
I understand we are talking about confirmation of Turkey' s candidate status in Helsinki.
However, whenever I ask Commissioner van den Broek if Turkey is a candidate, he says the Commission regards Turkey as already being a candidate.
So what exactly is new in Helsinki?
<P>
All candidate countries of course must meet the Copenhagen criteria and Turkey is surely no different.
None of the applicant countries meet the Copenhagen criteria yet, otherwise by definition they would be members now, so what is the difference with Turkey?
<P>
Meeting the Copenhagen criteria is not a static process - it is a dynamic process.
We are working with the other applicant countries to help them meet the Copenhagen criteria.
Human rights problems in Latvia and Slovakia would never have been dealt with without the positive prospects of European Union membership and Turkey should be treated in the same way.
<P>
We have to be actively involved in order to improve the implementation of the European strategy.
We need to harmonise Turkey' s legislation to the acquis and we need to work with Turkey to build a civil society.
We cannot do that unless we do what we did with the other Central and Eastern European countries and are prepared to spend the money we have promised: that is the crucial factor.
We have to become involved as we promised to do in the Customs Union and in the association agreement, and we must work to make Turkey ready for European Union membership, just like all the other applicant countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Morillon">
Mr President, the impassioned and fascinating nature of the debates held last week in Brussels within our group, as those being held right now in this Chamber show, if proof were needed, the importance of the matter before us today.
<P>
In this light, there is a wide consensus in favour of according Turkey a special position due, specifically, to the history and geography of Europe.
As a result there is some agreement on the need to intensify the relationship between the European Union and this country.
Yet, even though we must acknowledge the progress that Turkey has made towards rapprochement, doubts remain as to its ability and even its intention to meet all the Copenhagen criteria.
<P>
The time has come to get rid of this ambiguous position.
This is why our group has suggested that a discussion forum be set up, uniting politicians from the European Union and from Turkey, naturally, but also representatives from elsewhere in society.
The objective would be to look in depth into the matters which are still problematic, those involving respect for human rights and minority rights, of course, but also matters relating to economic relationships, and in this respect Europe must fulfil its commitments regarding the Customs Union and expedite the establishment of the appropriate financial protocol.
<P>
In consideration of the geostrategic importance of Turkey and the role it continues to play in the defence of Europe, it seems to us, finally, that it would be appropriate also to table a discussion of questions of security and foreign policy.
Establishment of a forum of this type seems to me the only way to respond to the questions that remain without hypocrisy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Martínez Martínez">
Mr President, I think that the new position which has been outlined for Helsinki on relations between the European Union and Turkey is a good one, and that it should perhaps be made more urgent, by stating even more firmly, the two principles on which - I believe - our approach is based.
<P>
The first is that Turkey has the right to become part of the European Union and that we need Turkey for our project, which will not be complete unless Turkey is incorporated into it.
<P>
The second is that in order for Turkey to be integrated, it must meet the same requirements accepted by the other Members of the project.
<P>
I am convinced that we need Turkey not just for reasons of security but also to regain the credibility and universality of the project of European construction.
A large secular State with a majority Muslim population will prove that the Europe we are building is not a Europe with a Christian outlook, but is rather one based on universal values relevant to every citizen of Europe, of any faith or of none at all.
This Europe that we are committed to is capable of sharing values with other great groups of humanity from whom a project based on a religious outlook would separate us.
<P>
If we state emphatically that Turkey' s place is ready for them, that we are waiting for our fellow European Turks to come and join us at the Union' s table, we must state, just as firmly that there will be no weakening of the conditions set out in Copenhagen.
We must do this because we acknowledge that Turkey has a long way to go, basically in the area of human rights and of the rights of their various peoples and minorities, whether they are recognised as such or not, who make up the population of that country. Turkey also has a long way to go in terms of the way it acts towards Cyprus.
We must make Turkey aware of this firmly but without exaggerating or caricaturing things, by describing their shortcomings and the obstacles they must overcome without shying away from them, but neither must we portray these difficulties as insurmountable.
The European Union must see their shortcomings, even the most serious ones, as problems, and we will be committed to helping Turkey to find solutions to them, always bearing in mind the fact that our shared objective is to achieve the integration of Turkey into the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tajani">
Mr President, the subject of relations with Turkey is difficult and complex.
We cannot hide from the true situation of a country which, however, has always sided with NATO.
Turkey must still make a lot of progress, embrace western democratic values, and resolve the question of relations with Greece and Cyprus.
But to facilitate this process, I think that serious consideration should be given to President Poettering' s proposal to establish a timetable of regular meetings between Turkey and the European Union in order to discuss democracy, the human rights of minorities, economic and social development and foreign security policy.
There is a long, long way to go, but open dialogue between the partners, which will be strengthened with the forum proposed by Mr Poettering, cannot and must not stop.
Ending talks would mean increasing the risk of a growing Islamic extremist presence in Turkey. This would have a destabilising effect in the Mediterranean region.
So we favour continuing talks between the European Union and Turkey, but invite Turkey to make actual progress.
<P>
A policy of promises is not sufficient. We need a policy of concrete facts, we need respect for human rights and we need the abolition of the death penalty.
However we know that the Kurdish question does not only involve Turkey.
Respect for the human rights of the Kurdish minorities also involves Iran. When we speak of respect for human rights and guarantees for the Kurds, we have to look beyond the Turkish borders because otherwise it would only become a political propaganda tool.
So I think that the proposal to continue the dialogue should be supported but, I repeat, Turkey must give real proof that it is adhering to European democratic values.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Mr President, the Turkey of today is not the accession candidate of tomorrow.
We are worlds apart as regards capital punishment, human rights, minority rights, democracy and rule of law.
Scarcely less deep are the rifts on important matters such as economic, social and environmental legislation, to name but a few areas.
The continuing military occupation of part of Cyprus is no contribution to peace and security in Europe.
There is no getting around these facts.
Anyone who says otherwise is, in the best analysis, hypocritical.
No trust is to be gained by means of hypocritical set phrases, either in Turkey as our partner, or with our citizens at home.
Therefore, we cannot say yes to substantial passages in the compromise resolution before us.
If the relevant sections are not deleted from the text then we shall reject the whole resolution.
<P>
Turkey' s membership of the European Union is not really an important contribution to the future development of the Union.
To put it correctly, we are making a contribution to greater clarity in Turkey and on behalf of Turkey.
At the same time we retain our credibility in the eyes of our own citizens.
In order to make further progress along the long road which Europe and Turkey must travel to become closer, we urgently need credibility.
In this sense, we can support everything that has been mentioned many times today.
This includes, for example, the requirement to take the European Union' s financial commitments towards Turkey under the financial protocol seriously and not just verbally, but also to make the necessary funds available.
In so doing we will be showing both our own citizens, and also Turkey and the citizens of Turkey, that we take invitations and declarations of belief seriously. We do wish to be partners in future!
This is however conditional upon our not proceeding to the second step before taking the first, as one may already have supposed on many occasions today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Suominen">
Mr President, when Romano Prodi was presenting his programme, he told the European Parliament that we had 20 or even 30 years of enlargement in the Union ahead of us, during which time the number of Members would rise to 25 - perhaps more than that.
His time perspective was a realistic one, and remains so.
<P>
I fear that many countries, which are much closer to possible accession than Turkey, were given the impression years ago, from many quarters - and I do not mean Parliament, but government representatives - that full membership for the Baltic Countries, Poland and Hungary, for example, would be possible by the year 2002 or 2003.
The internal development of these States, and, above all, their ability to fulfil the obligations of the Union in order to acquire Union rights, may not be sufficient for such speedy accession as they themselves would hope.
<P>
We must make one thing clear for ourselves, however.
In my opinion, it is not honest to say that developments in Turkey remain inadequate, when we mean that Turkey cannot be a Member at all.
No, in my opinion, we have to say, as Mr Sasi, representing the Council here, said, that we must see a lot more development in Turkey, but that we wish to show goodwill.
In other words, we shall not exclude Turkey.
Furthermore, the Union must take stock of the burden of enlargement, when, in a few years' time, Poland, with its population of almost 40 million, one quarter of which still derives its livelihood from agriculture, becomes a Member.
And the Union' s potential is not boundless, either, which is why it is easy to agree with the words of Mr Poettering: yes to a reformed Turkey in the future, but that time is not now.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schröder, Jürgen">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think the premise, which is repeated again and again here, according to which Turkey would have to fulfil specific conditions to become a Member of the European Union, is a false one.
Just imagine if the Turks were actually to fulfil the criteria!
We, in the European Union would be in no position whatsoever to integrate Turkey.
That is the reality!
For we have a principle in this European Union of ours, the socialist principle of redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor.
We call it economic and social cohesion.
If Turkey were to become a Member of the European Union, then of course Turkey would also have a claim in having this principle respected. The European Union would be completely overtaxed by this.
<P>
What we are planning now, is already a show of strength of the first order, i.e. integrating the Poles, the Czechs and Hungary, whom I would have in the European Union tomorrow rather than the day after.
But we cannot yet integrate Turkey too.
And as regards identity, as this is an argument which keeps being brought into play, I think that if Turkey is European, then Ukraine and Russia, at least, should first belong to the European Union, and that is impossible too. But it is equally impossible to integrate Turkey.
We should dismiss this thought. We should not string Turkey along any longer.
It is just unfair and thoughtless. It is not we but our children who will have to pay the price.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, I would like to thank the Members of Parliament for their valuable opinions.
I would like to stress that political situations have to be exploited to promote peace, stability and human rights.
Now we have this opportunity.
The Kosovo crisis gave us a concrete picture of how important it is for us to build cooperation and peace in Europe.
That can only happen through commitment to European structures, and we know that Turkey has an important part to play in promoting stability in South-East Europe. The other major event has been the earthquakes in both Turkey and Greece.
They have generated a sprit of goodwill between the Greek and Turkish people and laid the groundwork for closer political relations between these countries.
We therefore have an opportunity for better cooperation to take the place of estrangement.
<P>
I believe that closer cooperation will also aid real development in Turkey.
I believe that will mean that, in Turkey, improved human rights, democracy and political climate will be seen as absolutely vital steps to take.
I also believe that it will give us the opportunity to make headway on the Cyprus question, as Turkey has an indisputable influence on that issue, and its cooperation will be needed for progress to be made here.
<P>
Mr Verheugen of the Commission referred in his speech to Turkey' s possible candidate status.
In this regard, it has to be said we still have a lot of work to do before the Helsinki Summit in order to reach a conclusion here.
We have work to do in the Union, but it is also important that Turkey gives out positive signals during the whole of this process that the country is on the right track for development and that the position of democracy and human rights in Turkey is being strengthened.
<P>
The Copenhagen criteria have been discussed here.
Regarding these, it should be stated that they are a condition of the opening of talks.
We are now discussing Turkey' s candidate status.
If candidate status can be approved, the Copenhagen criteria will be an important path for Turkey to follow for its development, and they will be an ideal vehicle to take that development in the right direction: towards the values that we advocate here.
<P>
I would also like to emphasise Turkey' s importance with regard to the stability of the region that surrounds it.
I believe that if the Islamic countries see that Turkey' s new road towards Western values offers it greater economic opportunities and better political operating prerequisites, it will serve as an important example to the Islamic countries surrounding it, and it may also in this way have a stabilising influence on developments in Europe' s neighbouring regions.
<P>
I value the motion for a resolution proposed here very highly, and I would like to say that I am particularly satisfied that Parliament is promising to act swiftly in matters relating to the Turkish question.
Once again I would like to appeal to Parliament that the regulations on funding be dealt with in Parliament as quickly as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, I would like to thank the Parliament very sincerely for a debate which assists both the work of the Commission and the decision which we have to make.
Permit me to answer a few of the questions which have been asked.
<P>
Firstly, there is no question today or next week or at Helsinki of giving Turkey the prospect of acceding to the European Union.
Turkey has had this prospect for decades.
The fact that it has been confirmed again and again, most recently in Luxembourg in 1997.
Turkey is already part of the process of enlargement of the European Union.
Therefore it is indeed I and nobody else, who is responsible for Turkey, including within the Commission.
This is indeed part of the enlargement process.
What we are talking about today is only a tactical change.
In Luxembourg, the decision was taken, to select a different form of approach to the time of negotiations for Turkey as opposed to the other applicants for accession.
This Luxembourg decision has not proved to be manageable because Turkey perceives it as discrimination.
<P>
If I am asked whether we will ever live to see Turkey as a Member of the European Union, I say I do not know.
If I am asked, whether we will get to the stage of negotiations with Turkey concerning accession, I again say I do not know.
But we will never find out if we do not now try to start Turkey along the path which will perhaps bring it to a position where, if it wishes, it can enter into accession negotiations with us.
Candidate status does not mean that we are negotiating about accession but that we are checking what needs to happen for the Copenhagen criteria to be fulfilled.
Everyone here in this House has agreed that we want a democratic Turkey, a Turkey which respects the rights of minorities, a Turkey which protects human rights and a Turkey which makes a contribution to peace and stability in the whole region.
All the speakers have wished for this.
Perhaps someone could please answer the question how we can move the process forwards other than by discussions with Turkey!
<P>
The Helsinki decision that I would like to see would mean that we engage in very serious dialogue with Turkey, engage in the harmonisation of legislation, and tell Turkey specifically what needs to be changed.
Only when these changes have taken place, only then will it be possible to discuss negotiations.
I guarantee you that no one is going to come here and say, "We want to begin accession negotiations with Turkey now" , if the political Copenhagen criteria have not been absolutely clearly fulfilled.
This means that Turkey must already have changed in the direction of democracy and rule of law before we can start accession negotiations.
Hopefully that makes it quite clear what the real question is here!
<P>
For years, Turkey has been answered in the form of the arguments which I have heard again here today and which I would like to sum up in the phrase "not thus and not now!"
Now is the time for truth!
This expression "not thus and not now!" can no longer continue in this way!
Anyone who does not now recognise that this is the hour of truth and that we must now provide Turkey with a clear and honest answer, may have to face the possibility that none of the things we are asking of Turkey will be attainable. Rather, a quite different development will set in for which responsibility will also have to be taken in any case; that is to say, responsibility will have to be taken for the fact that Turkey will no longer be seeking to join the Community of democratic values in Europe but will be following its own path in a quite different direction.
One should then also be prepared to accept the responsibility for this, if one wants this.
<P>
A last word on the cultural aspect.
I do not dispute that there are cultural differences between Europe, which is overwhelmingly typically Christian, and this part of Europe and Turkey, which is typically Islamic.
I do not dispute that.
But if you just imagine how the world may develop in times to come, then the answer to cultural difference can surely not be that cultures should shut themselves off from each other, the answer can only be that cultures must open themselves up to each other!
Cooperation between Europe and Turkey could be an encouraging and promising example of how cultures living side by side as neighbours can find a joint path towards achieving peace, democracy and rule of law, and also opportunities for prosperity, for their people.
<P>
I ask the European Parliament, to offer us the possibility in this spirit to discuss matters credibly with Turkey and to contribute credibly towards achieving changes in Turkey. This involves strictly keeping our commitments, including our financial commitments towards Turkey.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Middle East peace process
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="President">
The next item is the Council and Commission statement on the Middle East peace process, followed by a debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, Members of the European Parliament, I am glad to have the opportunity to speak to you today on the present situation regarding the Middle East peace process, and the role of the European Union in it.
It has been gratifying to hear, after a gap of many years, positive news on the progress the peace process is making.
<P>
Much has changed since the last spring.
Six months ago we were in a situation in which the implementation of the Wye River Accord, signed in October 1998, had come to nothing.
The Israeli Government, owing to internal political pressures, was unable to secure the implementation of the treaty, and the country ended up going to the polls prematurely.
The ending of the mid-term stage of the Oslo Agreement on May 4 this year made the situation more uncertain.
The Palestinians had said they would unilaterally declare the existence of an independent Palestinian State on that day.
When, at the same time, a heated election campaign got under way in Israel, the situation looked likely to come to a crisis.
There was a general atmosphere of disappointment and uncertainty.
Furthermore, people were afraid that terrorist attacks would increase.
<P>
Today, the situation is to a large extent different.
The result of the Israeli parliamentary elections and the election for Prime Minister in May was a turning point that made it possible to restart work on settling the conflict.
Israel' s new government has given an assurance to the international community that it will strive in earnest to attain peace with its neighbours.
There is always a hint of the unexpected associated with political developments in the Middle East, however.
What is different about the situation at the end of last year compared with this spring is that this time there is some cause for hope.
We have a display of increased political will, of the capacity for direct talks and the timely implementation of agreements.
<P>
I know that the European Parliament closely follows the development of the Middle East peace process and that there is a good deal of expertise here in matters relating to the region, as shown by the study published by the Parliament on the subject.
I shall concentrate on developments since last spring. That was when Parliament last issued a statement on the matter.
<P>
Finland, as the country in the Union to hold the Presidency, has consistently considered the Middle East peace process to be one of the most important issues in the common foreign and security policy.
We follow the development of the peace process carefully and are in close contact with all parties.
The Finnish Foreign Minister visited the region on 1 - 5 August.
The Finnish President, Martti Ahtisaari, is right now in the region, on a visit which will take in Israel, the Palestinian areas, Syria and Lebanon.
Furthermore, we have regarded the comprehensive network of contacts set up by special envoy Miguel Moratinos, as well as his vast expertise, as being of immense benefit.
His work has been very valuable from the point of view of EU transparency, visibility, and contact for discussions.
<P>
The European Union has made an important contribution to developments in recent months.
We have always encouraged the parties involved to take part in discussions and negotiations.
In addition, we have always tried to create opportunities to generate a climate of opinion that is favourable to the peace process and we have worked to ease tension.
A good example of this is the declaration made at the Berlin European Council, which, in my opinion, played an important part in reducing tension in the spring.
<P>
It is hoped that the EU will be more active in the Middle East peace process in many contexts.
It is true that we are in a very influential position.
Europe has a solid, one thousand-year-old Mediterranean connection to the Middle East and an unparalleled knowledge of the region.
We are not trying to compete with the United States or any of the other players in terms of whose role is more important, but seek close dialogue with them.
The prospect for the near future would appear to be that, with regard to the Palestinian track, both sides will discuss the matter directly with one another, without any appreciable participation on the part of others.
<P>
There is broad consensus among the Member States of the Union regarding the basic issues and objectives of the Middle East peace process.
It has solidified during the last decade, which has meant that the role of the Union in the region has gathered strength.
We are already now the largest donor of aid to the Palestinians, which is visible, from the political point of view, in the important contribution we are making, for example, to the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee to coordinate Palestinian aid, to be held in Tokyo in mid-October.
Economic cooperation and expert technical assistance in certain matters relating to the permanent status negotiations, and in the area of good administration, are those areas where we have been of help and where we are ready to act in the future also.
In addition, the European Union believes it is very important to have projects involving the cooperation of citizens, which would bring individuals into contact with each other in a positive way.
This kind of cooperation has quietly gone on during all the years of the cessation of peace.
<P>
The current stage of the political peace process can be regarded as having once more got under way with the agreement made at Sharm el-Sheikh last month.
The international community supports the agreement made by the parties involved. The implementation of the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum has got off to an excellent start, with Israel and the Palestinians fulfilling their obligations to the letter.
The implementation of the agreement, through tangible practical action, will be the best way to rebuild trust between the sides.
The agreement will create a new belief that the principles of Oslo have not been forgotten.
In my view, there will be a need for faith and trust.
The parties have purposefully left the most difficult and sensitive issues to be solved later.
The one-year deadline set by the parties for signing a permanent status agreement is an ambitious one.
However, determination, the consistent building of mutual trust, and the right attitude will make the objective achievable.
The European Union is prepared to assist with every means at its disposal, should the parties so desire.
<P>
The Syrian track has ever greater opportunities to start negotiations and thereby achieve peace, as both sides want peace.
They only feel they should wait for someone else to make the first move.
The opportunity must be seized, and we are ready to offer our services to all parties.
I believe it is only a matter of time before talks begin.
<P>
In the rapid developments that have taken place in recent weeks, the Lebanon track seems to have been somewhat excluded from public attention.
It is vital to bring about more stable conditions in Lebanon for her to develop favourably.
We hope that a political solution for the Lebanese track can be found quickly, and we are ready to assist as best we can with regard to this track.
<P>
I have, up till now, examined the peace work mainly from the political standpoint.
Politics has the main role in achieving peace, but, at the same time, economic and other types of regional cooperation will play an important part in increasing trust and, above all, securing the peace that has been achieved. This will be handled on a multilateral track.
It still has not succeeded in living up to the expectations we had of it as a factor in supporting the peace process, but I believe that it offers every prospect of success.
Indications of that are EU cooperation with the Mediterranean countries within the framework of the Barcelona Process and moves to continue the MENA series of Summits next spring.
<P>
A just, comprehensive and lasting peace will bring with it, not only changes in regional cooperation, but also pressures for change within the countries themselves.
We were glad to see the parties preparing to reconcile themselves to unavoidable bilateral compromises demanded on both sides.
Now is no longer the time for harsh words.
We earnestly believe the changes in the Middle East to be only for the good, if only people get to enjoy the fruits of change.
Finland, as the country holding the Presidency, fully understands that there is an opportunity for profound change and will continue, together with our partners, to promote peace and the common interest with every means at our disposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="President">
It gives me particular pleasure to call Commissioner Patten.
I believe it is your first major statement to Parliament on behalf of the Commission.
Welcome, Commissioner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Patten">
. I am delighted at this early opportunity to which you refer to discuss this extremely important subject with you as members of a parliament which, after all, has taken a long and keen interest in the efforts to bring peace to the Middle East.
You have chosen an opportune moment for this debate.
Hopes for peace in the Middle East are higher now than they have been for many years.
The election of a new and more constructive government in Israel and the signing of the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum last month have set the stage for a relaunch of the peace process.
There are clear signs too that both sides mean business.
The first troop withdrawals, prisoner releases, and yesterday' s agreement on the opening of the safe passage route between Gaza and the West Bank, all show that both Israelis and Palestinians have begun again their efforts to reach a permanent peace.
The permanent status negotiations have recently started once more.
The differences are not to be underestimated.
But with political will on both sides, they need not be unbridgeable.
The European Union will do all it can to help the parties meet the February deadline for concluding an umbrella agreement.
We also believe that the permanent agreement should be concluded within the target period of one year, as Minister Sasi said, as stipulated in the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum and as called for by the European Council in Berlin.
<P>
So what can we in Europe do to stand by the peacemakers?
It is right that we should match their renewed political commitment to move forward with practical support from the European Union.
That, as the Presidency has just made clear, is what the Union collectively is doing.
President Ahtisaari is in the Middle East, a point made by the Presidency, Ambassador Moratinos has been accompanying him and will I know continue to work hard to maximise the European Union' s contribution in the coming vital months.
<P>
We are also pressing ahead with the implementation of projects such as the construction of the Gaza seaport and the safe passages between the West Bank and Gaza: projects which are invested with political and social as well as with economic importance.
We are also hoping for an early relaunch of the Syrian and Lebanese negotiating tracks, and will continue to assist the parties with a view to early resumption of these crucial talks.
<P>
But peace in the Middle East has a broader dimension - it extends wider than the talks between Israel and the Palestinians, central though they are.
That is why we are keen to revitalise the multilateral talks and regional cooperation.
The Presidency and the Commission have renewed their call for a monitoring committee meeting of the regional economic development working group to take place as soon as possible.
This is, of course, chaired by the European Union.
After three years of impasse, this would bring Israelis, Egyptians, Palestinians and Jordanians together again at official level.
<P>
We are taking other practical steps which are calibrated to the new political climate.
The Commission has stepped up its planned support for regional cooperation projects between Israelis and Arabs.
We will propose to Member States next month financing of more than EUR 20m for such projects.
This package includes renewed assistance for people-to-people activities and cross-border cooperation where Israelis and Arabs meet on non-governmental and expert levels.
The first generation of people-to-people projects, 17 of them in all, costing some EUR 5m, will start soon.
Members will recall that the European Union, as the Presidency said, is the largest financial donor to the overall efforts in bringing reconciliation to the people of the Middle East.
<P>
Let me say a word about our assistance to the Palestinians, a subject in which this Parliament has taken an appropriate interest.
In general, we look to both Israelis and Palestinians to improve their performance in removing obstacles that prevent international aid from achieving its goals.
The Palestinians, for their part, need to persevere in the path of sound institution-building including, and I stress this point, budgetary transparency.
In addition, Israel must find more effective ways of reconciling its legitimate security concerns with the urgent need for genuine Palestinian development.
<P>
We are pleased to have recently reached agreement on the update of the tripartite action plan.
This plan, honourable Members will recall, details Israeli, Palestinian and international donor obligations in the framework of the assistance efforts to the Palestinian Authority.
The improved political climate should, I hope, allow for more progress on these matters.
<P>
We have consistently pressed for the building of sound and accountable institutions in the Palestinian Authority.
I am pleased to report, therefore, that President Arafat has endorsed the recently published report on strengthening Palestinian institutions, prepared by the independent task force sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations with substantial European Union assistance.
<P>
President Arafat has appointed several senior ministers to a special committee.
They will meet the task force, including President Prodi, in Brussels next month to discuss the implementation of the report' s far-reaching recommendations.
<P>
We will also continue discussion on these issues at the upcoming meeting of the ad hoc liaison committee for assistance to the Palestinians - the meeting in Tokyo - which is the international donor mechanism.
We will press for the next meeting of this committee to be held in Portugal in line with the understanding reached at the Frankfurt meeting last February.
I have every confidence that we shall succeed in that.
In view of our major share of total assistance to the Palestinians of over 50%, most future donor coordination meetings should, in our judgement, be held within the Union, co-chaired by the European Union Member State hosting the meeting.
<P>
I am happy to report that the tenth convention between the Community and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency was signed last week.
The Commission has already initiated the first payments under the new convention.
This will allow us to help deal with UNRWA' s severe cash shortfall and to continue our crucial support to the Palestinian refugees.
<P>
Let me also express my gratitude to the Committee on Development and Cooperation, and indeed to the whole Parliament, for the very thorough report and for your support, in the framework of the consultation procedure, for the Commission' s efforts in finalising the convention.
I would like to pay particular tribute to the rapporteur, Ms Morgantini.
Let me also thank the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, as well as the Committee on Budgets, for their support for the convention.
<P>
I have given you a summary of the efforts we are making with the presidency to help bring peace at last to the Middle East.
We look to the parties to carry out in actions what they have put their names to on paper.
In exchange, Europe will continue to play its full part in the peace process.
But let me also stress that we intend to continue working closely with the United States, not as competitors, but as partners, in this matter.
We recognise the crucial role of the United States, which has wrestled for so long and with such tenacity to bring peace to this troubled region; and I pay warm tribute to those efforts - for example, to the negotiating skill and determination of the Secretary of State.
<P>
It was Yitzak Rabin who famously remarked that you do not make peace with your friends.
No-one underestimates the scale of the challenges ahead: peace will not come tomorrow.
But peace will come - of that I am sure; with time and with patience, allied in equal measure to the will of the parties to achieve it and the will of outsiders to help bring it about.
We have today a new chance for peace in the Middle East.
Our task is to do all we can as Europeans to give that peace a chance and to hasten the day of its arrival.
That is what we, with your active support and encouragement, intend to do.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Galeote Quecedo">
Mr President, many of us feel that the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum represents a milestone in the Middle East peace process that we all want to see.
The simple truth is that it is not possible to find absolute truths in a dispute whose origins are interwoven with the very roots of our civilisation.
This is exactly why the determination that Israelis and Palestinians are now showing in the way they are developing and applying their agreements is opening up an amazing opportunity for hope.
Further proof of this feeling is the way the recent stumbling blocks relating to the introduction of the 45-kilometre corridor which will unite Gaza with the West Bank, have been overcome in the last few hours.
<P>
But, as Mr Patten put it so well, we must not underestimate the difficulties lurking on the horizon, which will certainly trip us up in critical situations - hopefully these will only be fleeting - during which we should all bear two things particularly in mind: firstly, that the way forward must always be dialogue between all those involved, which is genuine, open and direct. Secondly: that it must be seen that both Israelis and Palestinians have a common enemy - terrorism - in all its forms, whose only aim is to destroy peace, freedom and respect for human rights.
Particularly given our own current historical context, there is no possible justification for the use of violence, wherever it may come from.
<P>
We do not have to resort to the figures on commercial exchange, investment and cooperation in development to see how important a role the European Union plays in the region, but the European Union' s proven economic solidarity must be valued as highly as its ability to contribute efficiently to a peaceful solution to the conflict.
<P>
I share Minister Sasi' s recognition of the efficient work done by the European Union' s special envoy, Ambassador Moratinos.
Nevertheless, the fact that we have mentioned it so many times does not mean we can stop discussing the lack of vision of our contribution, as Europeans, to the peace process.
This is another area for which the European Parliament must accept responsibility in line with its stated desire to contribute to developing a common foreign policy for the European Union.
Given this context, I think that this House should have two immediate objectives: to set in action the parliamentary structures of the Euro-Mediterranean Forum, bearing in mind that this could be a very useful instrument for securing peace.
It should also put into practise the initiative of Parliament' s President, Mrs Fontaine, who is to make a tour of the region.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schori">
Mr President, after decades of war, conflict, refugee columns, occupation, terror, despair and bitterness, we are now finally seeing some light at the end of the Middle East tunnel - a tunnel which has locked the region' s inhabitants into a situation of mistrust and antagonisms.
<P>
Through the Wye River and Sharm el-Sheikh Agreements, the new political situation in Israel, a decisive PLO leadership and, not least, a deeper insight into the Arab world, a new situation has been created which prepares the ground for a real and sustainable solution in the region' s interests.
Seldom have the prior conditions for progress been as good as they are now.
It is Israelis and Palestinians who are the main players.
They themselves have the key to this solution.
Today' s leaders are conscious of their historical responsibility.
In this situation, it is very important that both sides refrain from unilateral undertakings which might jeopardise the process.
<P>
With commitment and disquiet, indefatigable diplomatic energy and enormous financial commitments, the surrounding countries have followed the Middle East drama for more than half a century.
As has been evident here, the EU has a growing and important role in the region.
I fully support the Presidency' s and Commissioner Patten' s constructive attitude here today.
<P>
Our new Parliament is today sending out a new and clear signal of vigorous and sustained support for the peace process which must open the way to progress, democracy, respect for human rights and hope for the future for all people in the region without exception. And, not least, it will open the way to peaceful co-existence between Israel and the independent State of Palestine.
The Group of the Party of European Socialists unanimously backs the multi-party resolution which has been set out here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="Nicholson of Winterbourne">
Mr President, this motion celebrates the good news, the successful ending of the Sharm el-Sheikh negotiations and the agreement of safe passage for Palestinian goods, vehicles and people.
But the safe passage is physically just a narrow corridor through which freedom of movement, a central tenet of European Union philosophy, is hedged about with many necessary security constrictions.
May these soon ease as confidence builds up.
<P>
Free trade also needs fair pricing in order for the producer and the seller to make due profit, as well as honest labelling of product origins and processes to satisfy the customers' requirements on health and choice.
Both these key free trade elements have been absent in part or in whole from Palestinian export trade, particularly in textiles and in agricultural products.
Conflict has dominated the trade agenda too.
<P>
This motion calls for an end to all trade obstructions.
Only then can three close neighbours - Israel, Palestine and Jordan - build real prosperity for all their peoples.
Yes, there are risks involved, but what a prize to win.
I commend this motion to Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, this resolution does not evoke the same feelings.
In fact, we all welcome the developments that have taken place since Mr Ehud Barak was elected Prime Minister of Israel.
We welcome the relaunch of the peace process and the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum, which came into being after what were certainly laborious negotiations and which, to this day, has had the respect of all parties. The protocol that was signed yesterday concerning the link between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank of the Jordan is also a cause for celebration.
We may be in optimistic mood but we are still troubled.
The new Israeli Government is persisting with its policy of colonising Palestinian areas and remains the hostage of the Likhud party, which multiplied the number of settlements in order to prevent people from returning to the Palestinian areas.
As far as these settlements are concerned, both in the Syrian Golan Heights and in the Palestinian areas, we want to draw the Commission' s attention to the matter of the preferential tariffs that Israeli products attract.
<P>
Commissioner, we need to ensure that these preferential tariffs also apply to products from the settlements.
The previous Commission took certain precautions to this end.
More attention must be given to these measures, otherwise we will be giving de facto encouragement to those pursuing a policy of colonisation, and that when the European Community together with the rest of the international community, the United States included, has constantly condemned this policy and we are all aware that Israeli settlement policy is a major obstacle on the long road to freedom and a true Palestinian state.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Morgantini">
Mr President, I am convinced that we must make the most of every opening and every chance of building peace through the assertion of the human, social and political rights of each individual or people.
The situation in the Middle East is still a long way from this, but without doubt, the election of Ehud Barak as Prime Minister of Israel and the Palestinian' s peaceful choice have given peace a chance. This was shown by recent developments in the reworking of the Oslo Accord at Sharm el­Sheikh.
But for peace, or at least possible justice to materialise, the Israeli authorities need to take more steps - some colleagues have already said this - not only because of the Palestinian-Israeli question, but also because of the Lebanese and Syrian question.
The occupation of southern Lebanon must end and Syria' s land must be returned, as laid down in various UN resolutions.
Of course, this is all in the interests of the security of the Israeli State.
However, the security issue cannot hide the illegality of the military occupation or bombings of civilians, which happen in southern Lebanon, or the existence of prisons like those in Qian. But the Palestinian question is still at the heart of the matter.
<P>
In March 1999 in Berlin, the European Union reaffirmed the Palestinians' right to a sovereign, democratic State that will peacefully co-exist with the Israeli State. In Sharm el­Sheikh, the conflicting parties undertook to lay down the final State by 2000.
To achieve this, it is imperative that Israel realises that for the Palestinians, a sovereign state is not a generous concession but a right.
Above all, Israel must not take any action that will change the territorial and demographic order of the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem.
Still today, we hear news of Palestinian houses that have been demolished, confiscated land and the growth of colonial settlements.
On 25 September, the military administration gave the go-ahead for the confiscation of Palestinian land belonging to 79 villages, in the Green Line area of cultivated and inhabited lands.
The same happened in the village adjacent to Hebron. In East Jerusalem, men and women' s identity cards are confiscated to reduce their numbers in an operation that the centre for Israeli human rights has called 'silent deportation' .
Moreover, there is still the Palestinian refugees tragedy. Well, the UN resolution must be implemented.
Of course, the opening of the corridor between Gaza and the West Bank is extremely positive, but Israeli checks make it difficult for men, women and goods to pass through.
The European Union has a large part to play here.
The European Union has played a positive and important role in the peace process in everything it has done and I think that it should continue to do so.
In this sense, our role, the role that the European organisations are also performing, is essential.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Collins">
Mr President, firstly I should like to say that I very much appreciate the comprehensive statement made in the debate this morning by Commissioner Patten on the many complex issues which remain to be contended with in this very difficult area.
<P>
The outlook for the future in terms of securing a permanent peace agreement in the Middle East is, I believe, now more promising than ever.
There have been key developments taking place in this regard, which have been mentioned by others.
The new Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Barak, has put in place a government with a sufficiently strong majority to allow him to resume negotiations in the peace process with adequate parliamentary support for his declared intention to get the peace process moving forward again.
<P>
In fact President Arafat and Prime Minister Barak have already signed the memorandum to implement the Wye River Accord and to resume the final status negotiations.
<P>
A number of measures have already been implemented under the Wye River Accord, including the transfer of control over specific territories as well as the release of a number of Palestinian prisoners.
Our Union must continue to play an active role in putting in place and consolidating a permanent peace agreement in the Middle East.
The European Union is right to support a negotiated settlement in the Middle East which reflects the principles of the transfer of land for peace, which ensures the collective and individual security of both Israeli and Palestinian peoples.
<P>
In this context I welcome the decision by the Palestinian National Union to reaffirm the nullification of the provisions of the Palestinian National Charter, which called for the destruction of Israel.
They have also reaffirmed their commitment to recognise and live in peace with Israel.
I am convinced that the creation of a democratic, viable and peaceful sovereign Palestinian state on the basis of existing negotiated agreements is the best guarantee for the security of Israel.
I support the right of the Palestinian people to form a state, but one which comes about on the basis of negotiation and goodwill of all interested parties and not one which is brought about as a result of coercion.
<P>
The implementation of the Wye River Accord seems likely to proceed.
The real difficulties will arise within the framework of the final status negotiations, which includes the contentious issue of Jerusalem, control over water rights and the return of refugees.
Progress on these issues may be hindered by developments on the ground, such as the expansion of settlements or terrorist attacks.
<P>
I welcome the statement of the Palestinian authority which has declared that it will take action against terrorism while Prime Minister Barak has informally given an understanding that he will try to limit the expansion of settlements.
<P>
Prime Minister Barak has also vowed to end his reign of occupation of Southern Lebanon within a year.
Peace talks between Israel and Lebanon which have been frozen since 1966 - and the conditions in which Israel' s withdrawal from Lebanon is achieved - will be of particular importance for the safety of UNIFIL personnel who are based there.
<P>
In addition to questions relating to the sovereignty and security between Israel and Lebanon, the return of refugees will be of particular concern to Lebanon, whose ethnic balance is disturbed by the fact that there are 250,000 Palestinian refugees on its territory.
<P>
Finally, I believe that Syria, which seeks complete restoration of the Golan Heights, has announced that it is willing to renew peace talks with Israel, but only from where they broke off in 1966.
The issue has stalled there.
I believe that the European Union and the United States working together will do their very best to get the talks under way.
<P>
We must continue to be very active in encouraging movement on both sides.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Belder">
European discussions about the peace process in the Middle East often tend, in our view, to be remarkably one-sided.
They would have you believe that the major stumbling block is solely down to a failure on the part of the Israelis to be accommodating and cooperative.
On the other hand, the West makes remarkably few peremptory demands of the Palestinian authorities.
The Arab world itself often stays completely out of the picture.
In this respect, there is no doubt whatsoever that the present joint motion for a resolution represents an improvement on certain previous resolutions.
<P>
The key to an accurate understanding of the long, drawn-out Arab-Israeli conflict still resides in the fundamental question as to how it began, in other words the cause of it.
Well now, the cause certainly does not lie in what is termed the Palestinian question.
This exists, of course, but this extraordinarily poignant question is, in turn, a legacy of the war that the Arabic States waged in 1948/49 against the recently proclaimed Jewish State.
<P>
The big test facing the peace process is likely to be the question as to whether the Palestinians will be able to introduce sound administrative structures.
The Palestinians definitely deserve all the help both the Israelis and Europe are able to give to this end.
This kind of interaction will also promote mutual understanding, which is an essential step towards real peace in the Middle East.
As a matter of fact, paragraph 11 of the joint motion for a resolution links up perfectly with this idea.
<P>
Lastly, both parties, Israelis and Palestinians, should themselves make it known if they require the European Union to act as a political mediator in the peace process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sichrovsky">
Mr President, as Europeans, we have a special, historic responsibility in connection with the peace process in the Near East.
This responsibility cannot however involve our judging the current political strategy or the Palestinians and expressing our opinions on democratically elected politicians in Israel.
As Europeans, we must remain neutral in this conflict and support both sides equally in their efforts.
We are therefore, like the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance rejecting motions for resolutions which express views which are increasingly critical of the Israeli Government but which do not go into the problems of the other side.
As Europeans we cannot afford to take sides in this conflict, thus losing our credibility as negotiators.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Napoletano">
Mr President, I think that the debate taking place here shows the unanimous welcome this Parliament accords to the progress in the peace process noted in the Sharm el­Sheikh Memorandum.
It is a complex process - Commissioner Patten reminded us of this - and yet today, we have important deadlines and timescales during which things should happen which will bring us within sight of a definitive solution; that is, the recognition of two independent, sovereign states which can co-exist in a situation of mutual security.
<P>
I think that we must now reconfirm our commitment and make an exceptional effort which will supplement that of the contracting parties which clearly nobody can replace.
But I think that within this framework, the European Union can perhaps play a more political role to help resolve controversial points.
We have been reminded of the negotiations between Israel, Lebanon and Syria on the Golan Heights and the items on the agenda which have not yet been dealt with.
However, I think it is important that no unilateral action is taken on these items which will compromise the negotiated solutions and I think that the two societies must immediately work together - Israel in a move towards security and the Palestinians in a move towards peace and prosperity.
I do not think there is anything that cannot be resolved.
<P>
I would like to make a final remark on the extremely delicate question of Jerusalem and its status, which naturally requires that both the Palestinians and the Israelis find a solution.
I want to say that there is nothing that cannot be resolved, and to back this up, I will give my city, Rome, as an example which shows that within the capital city itself, it is possible for two States to co-exist.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Sbarbati">
Mr President, on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, I would like to say that we are very satisfied by this Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum which will strengthen the tiring peace process in the Middle East, and we hope that it will bring it to a conclusion.
In the Liberal Democrats' opinion, Europe must continue to give its firm backing to the peace process and cooperation in the Middle East. But it must make commitments, not just on an economic level, but also on a political and cultural level and acquire a stature and political weight recognised in the region and the rest of the world.
However, in defending the right to self-determination we believe that all parties must be urged to make real commitments against terrorism to ensure people' s security.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Jonckheer">
Mr President, obviously we are delighted at the change in policy promoted by the new Israeli government of Mr Barak and the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum.
Today, we must support by every means possible those forces in both Israel and Palestine who wish to come to a definitive agreement.
<P>
In this context, the Israeli Government must refrain from creating new installations unilaterally, carrying out expulsions of Palestinians and maintaining its settlement policy in East Jerusalem.
We also think that it is important to continue and intensify the Community "People-to-People" programme mentioned in paragraph 11 of the resolution.
<P>
Peace between these two States, Israel and Palestine, will be a lasting one only if their economy develops within the framework of regional cooperation favouring development which is sustainable and equitable for all parties - cooperation which prioritises the most vulnerable territories. We are thinking, for example, of the problem of water.
The European Union must target this objective.
It must also initiate the negotiation of Euro-Mediterranean Agreements with Syria and Lebanon and update the agreement signed with Jordan.
The statements by the Council President and Commissioner Patten seem to us to be heading in the right direction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Frahm">
Mr President, developments in the Middle East have taken place according to the motto, "two steps forward and one step back" . Nonetheless, it is true to say that we have come a long way since the beginning of the 1970s when I first became interested in the problem.
At that time, the Palestinian people and the PLO were completely marginalised.
The only people who took them even slightly seriously were the European Left.
I must point out that it was only when the right-of-centre Netanyahu lost the election that the peace process got under way again.
Even if there are grounds for optimism now, it has to be said that there are still a number of unsolved problems.
There is the problem of the status of Jerusalem.
There is the problem of international contact for the Palestinians via Gaza and that of an international airport on the West Bank and, not least, the question of resources for migrants.
There will now be the important task of keeping both parties on the track of peaceful development.
I think that the EU can play an active role if it is prepared to use economic incentives and keep a careful watch on whether the agreement is being adhered to.
This will be a form of development in which human rights can be strengthened on both sides and in which my friends on the Israeli Left may perhaps see their dream fulfilled.
Everyone is entitled to a homeland!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="Gorostiaga Atxalandabaso">
Mr President, in the Basque country we have examined with interest the whole Palestinian peace process, because we also support in Euskal Herria the need to overcome the current political conflict through democratic settlements.
<P>
We are much concerned about the fact that the impression most people get from the current talks in the Middle East is a positive one.
As a matter of fact there is no real peace process going on because the most important issues to be tackled have not been agreed upon.
<P>
We would like to stress at least three of them: firstly, the continuing colonisation process, both in the Gaza Strip and in the West Bank.
Secondly, the situation of Jerusalem, Al Quds - that is to say, the wish of the Barak government to make the city the indivisible capital of Israel.
And, finally, the lack of solutions for the Palestinian refugees living outside their country, who have the right to return to their home.
As Minister Sasi says, now Israel has no major reasons for not resuming the negotiations with Syria that they left off in 1996.
If these negotiations are successfully settled, we are sure that negotiations between Israel and Lebanon will follow.
Meanwhile, Israel does not respect the Accords signed with the representatives of the Palestinian people.
<P>
There is only one solution - a solution based on the peace process, that also takes into account also the will and the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Menéndez del Valle">
Mr President, we are all delighted that the peace process in the Middle East has been relaunched. Nevertheless, we know that the history and circumstances of the conflict are dramatic and that, over the years, various initiatives which seemed to open up a future of hope, have ended up being blocked as a result of intransigence, a lack of political will or the short-sightedness of one of the sides involved.
This is why serious obstacles to achieving a peace which is just, such as the constant establishment of Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory or the lack of respect for what East Jerusalem means to Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims in general, have made the road to peace a difficult one. Peace is a concept which should not be defined as merely the absence of war.
<P>
In order to ensure that, this time, the way forward for hope which has opened up after the signing of the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum is not closed in the future, the political sensitivity and intelligence of the new Government of the State of Israel, whose security we want to see guaranteed, must come up with measures which are capable of creating a lasting confidence on the Palestinian side, so that the peaceful way forward, recently reopened, reaches its final goal as soon as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Ries">
Mr President, Commissioner Patten, ladies and gentlemen, yesterday in Jerusalem, Israelis and Palestinians were signing the Agreement to open the road between Gaza and the West Bank, a free passage through Israel connecting the Palestinian territories.
This corridor, today, is more than a symbol, it is a reality, fragile but tangible.
<P>
The way opened up a month ago by the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum finally puts the Oslo and Wye River Accords back on track.
This phase is essential for a fair and lasting settlement of the conflict.
The Accords recognise the Palestinians' right to self-determination, as a State, but also guarantee the right of Israel to live in safety within secure and recognised borders.
<P>
The European Union, itself a unique example of cooperation between nations formerly at war, must serve here as a model and as a catalyst, promoting trade with the region and why not, in the longer term, creating an internal market for the whole of the Near East.
Did you not speak, Commissioner Patten, of multiplying, revitalising multilateral cooperation in the region?
The objective may seem to be a distant one, but it is one worth pursuing.
The European Union must associate itself with this; its vocation and its interest require it to be present wherever peace and democracy must be consolidated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schröder, Ilka">
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I welcome the fact that, according to your statement, there is again movement in the peace process.
Nonetheless I would like to stress that the terms of the present agreement fall considerably short of those of the Wye Agreement.
I am disappointed by these repeated relapses to agreements already signed.
It is so much more gratifying that the Commission is taking the political initiative in supporting the Gaza seaport, the connection between the West bank and the Gaza strip and the "People-to-People" projects.
<P>
I consider the working party on regional cooperation important in taking forward the multilateral negotiations of the Madrid Process.
As Greens, we are requesting a Council and Commission Initiative on the disarmament process in particular and on environmental protection.
We ask Israel to make the joint use and fair sharing of resources with Palestine possible, especially in the area of ground water and drinking water supplies.
<P>
The peace process between Israel and Syria requires stronger support from the EU.
The situation must not be allowed to deteriorate into a two-way blockade!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Poos">
Mr President, the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum is a new interim agreement.
It does not contain anything new and is insufficient as regards its content.
The two parties have agreed on the implementation of commitment which had previously been signed but which had not been followed up.
It is not peace, and it is premature to cry victory.
Nonetheless, this recent agreement has considerable political significance - it marks the end of the deadlock in the peace process after years of stagnation, even sabotage, by the Netanyahu Government which never accepted the terms of the Oslo Accord.
This is why it is important for the European Parliament to consider it favourably and to call on the parties involved to implement it in its entirety and in good faith.
<P>
The motion for resolution is balanced and fair. It is a useful reminder of the statement of the principles of the European Parliament on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
I am sorry that paragraph 7 of the PSE motion for resolution on the freeze on settlement has not been included in the compromise text.
Observation of this condition by Israel is, in fact, essential to establishing confidence.
The Palestinian counterpart, however, is found in paragraph 8 in the form of a clear and unambiguous undertaking to fight terrorism.
<P>
The European contribution to peace in the Middle East is expressed not only by means of economic and financial aid, it is also by adhering firmly to the political principles of a fair and lasting solution that we shall ultimately leave a European imprint on the final settlement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gahrton">
Mr President, I can agree with what a lot of other people have said here, namely that something positive is finally happening. The road between Gaza and the West Bank is an example of this.
There is, however, a very great deal which remains to be done.
Where, for example, settlements are concerned, we want a more powerful wording for draft Amendment No 1.
It is very important indeed that it be emphasised that it is Resolution 242 which is the foundation for the whole peace process and that Israel must definitely vacate the areas which have been occupied since 1967.
<P>
An important part of these areas is, of course, Jerusalem.
I think it is important to note that Israel, or its predecessors, in fact accepted the principle that Jerusalem is an international concern.
When the United Nation' s partitioning plan was accepted, it was also accepted that Jerusalem should be an international city which should not belong to any of the Jewish or Palestinian States decided upon in accordance with the partitioning plan.
The EU must persistently emphasise that it is unacceptable for Israel to treat Jerusalem as if it were its own private concern.
It is an international interest, not least for the three big world religions.
<P>
Finally, the matter of the refugees.
Through its contributions of one kind or another to the war in Kosovo, the EU has, in practice, accepted a war in order to guarantee that refugees might return to their own land.
In Palestine, there are also millions of people outside the region who, in accordance with the United Nations' Resolution of more than fifty years ago, are entitled to return there.
It is absolutely crucial that this principle should be maintained.
The people concerned should have the freedom to elect either to return or to receive compensation.
Most of them have already found other lives and are certainly unlikely to exercise the right to return to precisely the houses in which they once lived.
The principle must, however, still be held to. Otherwise, there is unlikely to be any final resolution of this problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, having been the President of the Europe­Israel delegation under Netanyahu, today, following the election of Ehud Barak, I wish to express how pleased I am to see the peace process under way again.
<P>
Barak made the promise; now, he is keeping his promise.
As we say in French, let us not deny ourselves this pleasure, let us salute Israeli democracy.
But at the same time, let us not be deceived.
It will not be easy, none of it will be easy.
There will no doubt be crises, deadlocks, and I wish to say today that it is necessary, and it will, in future, be necessary, to trust the negotiators and, perhaps, within this Parliament, undertake in future months not to proliferate resolutions which offer little instruction, at every hitch along the way.
<P>
I shall end by expressing a second wish.
It is that the European Union should cease to be a mere provider of funds and should take on a real political role in the Middle East.
Perhaps the Commissioner and the Council President will tell us how it may find the means to do that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, Members of Parliament, I realise that we are all taking quite an optimistic view of the future of the Middle East peace process.
The opportunity for progress is a real one, and we have to try to seize it.
The Union is prepared to participate in promoting negotiations both financially and politically.
<P>
Nevertheless, as many speakers have stated, immense challenges lie ahead that no one should underestimate.
The most difficult and sensitive issues are still unsolved.
If the period following the Madrid Peace Conference in 1991 had been put to better use, there might now be a solid trust between the parties.
Now, instead, the one-year time limit set by them for the signing of a permanent status agreement seems fairly ambitious, as, indeed, is generally agreed.
I only wish to say that if the parties so desire, the Union is ready to assist with every means at its disposal
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Patten">
As Minister Sasi said, this has been a very helpful debate.
It has underlined the concern of Parliament and of the entire European Union to play a constructive role in the Middle East.
Several speakers: Mr Galeote at the beginning of the debate, and Mr Schori - pointed out that after some rather and difficult, gloomy months and years there was at least a hint of dawn on the horizon.
I think that is true, and it was reflected in what most honourable Members said.
<P>
Of course Mr Poos is correct in saying, with all his knowledge and experience, that - and I paraphrase him - 'it is a little too early to open the champagne' .
There is more work to do.
We intend to do what we can to assist the process and I want to express once again my gratitude to Ambassador Moratinos for all that he has been doing in the region to contribute a great deal of assistance on the part of the Union.
<P>
Perhaps it is just worth emphasising once again the strength of our economic relationship.
We are, of course, the largest economic partner of Israel, and it is worth recalling as well the total aid to the Palestinians.
European Union assistance to the West Bank and Gaza Strip from 1994 to 1998 totalled EUR 1.5 billion and European Union assistance to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency during the same period totalled approximately EUR 505m.
That is a very substantial commitment by any standards.
<P>
The honourable Lady who spoke on behalf of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Parties - we know one another from different pasts - referred to the importance of fair as well as open trade between the region and the European Union.
When I saw Foreign Minister Levy in New York a couple of weeks ago, I said to him that I did not think that our relationship should be drowned in orange juice - there are important trade issues we have to resolve, of which orange juice is one.
There are more comprehensive issues that we have to resolve, and I am sure we should aim to do that in the next few months.
<P>
Mr Collins, speaking about halfway through our debate, said that he thought there was a more promising outlook in the Middle East.
I think that reflected the consensus, during the discussion, that there is the opportunity of carrying things forward more helpfully, and we certainly intend to do all that we can in the Commission to contribute to that process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Patten.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place during voting time.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 11.55 a.m. and resumed at 12.00 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell' Alba">
Madam President, on behalf of the radical and non-attached Members of Parliament present, I confirm that we will not be taking part in the final voting until the matters of the rights and prerogatives of all the elected Members of this Parliament have been resolved, and until all the 626 Members of Parliament are allowed to have the same rights and duties.
We hope that the Committee on Constitutional Affairs will find a suitable solution as soon as possible which will enable all European citizens to feel fully represented in this Chamber.
<P>
Proposal by the Conference of Presidents on Parliament' s calendar of part-sessions for the year 2000
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Madam President, I only got to see the Conference of Presidents' proposal for the European Parliament' s calendar of part-sessions for the Year 2000 once the deadline for submitting amendments had elapsed.
I then became aware of the fact that one plenary part-session in Strasbourg, namely the one due to take place on 12 June 2000, falls on Whit Sunday. This is an official Christian festival and therefore also a public holiday in some EU Member States, that is to say in Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Austria and Sweden.
I have never known the European Parliament to meet on such a day before.
I bitterly regret that the existing proposal fails to take account of this important tradition.
In view of the aforementioned considerations and the practical problems that may arise as a result of organising a part-session on what is actually an official holiday in many Member States, I would ask you, Madam President, to find a fitting solution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Patten">
Madam President, I hope to appear on the screen for less than ten seconds.
On Amendment No 1 the Commission has always been of the opinion that renewable energy policy and policy on energy efficiency are intimately linked and must be closely coordinated, but we wonder if a charter on renewable energy is not premature.
<P>
We accept Amendments Nos 2, 7, 8 and 9 in principle, but we think they could be reformulated.
We are delighted to accept Amendment No 3.
We can accept Amendment No 4 in principle although we do not believe this is a question of adding a third objective for the programme, but rather of clarifying its first objective.
Amendment No 5 is fully acceptable.
We are happy to accept in principle Amendment No 6.
<P>
Amendment No 10 is the one with which we have the most difficulty.
Having had the opportunity to consider this amendment we are now of the view that it should be rejected for two reasons.
Firstly, the ALTENER programme is open to participation from countries in line for accession.
This is not the case with the associated Mediterranean countries in question.
Secondly, the amendment refers to a recital and makes no corresponding reference to the article in question, which is, I think, Article 7.
Accepting this amendment would, in our judgment, be inconsistent and confusing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Patten">
I am afraid that we cannot accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3 and 6.
They seek, in our judgment, to introduce an unrealistic objective, increasing energy intensity to 1.5% over and above what would otherwise be achieved.
There is another reason why we find them difficult to accept, and that is because they seek to make SAVE a legislative programme.
<P>
With regard to Amendment No 4, we are happy to accept this.
There is a clear need for complementarity in the fields of energy efficiency and renewable energies.
<P>
On Amendments Nos 5, 11, 12 and 13, we accept all of those in principle, subject to some rewording and I think the last two replace Nos 5 and 11.
<P>
We are prepared to accept Amendment No 7 in principle.
Amendments Nos 8 and 9 we do not find acceptable as they would make the programme too inflexible, and Amendment No 10 we fully accept.
<P>
Relating to Amendment 5
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Ahern">
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Redondo Jiménez">
I would like to ask the Commission to confirm whether its position on South Africa is the same now as it was when the Commission presented it to Parliament, as I understand that there is some discrepancy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Patten">
If there is any discrepancy it is entirely unknown to me.
We are positive about the report which Parliament is considering and we are positive about the agreement.
We do not think that there are any problems with it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="President">
That is quite clear then.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cunha">
According to what I have heard today, South Africa is refusing to sign the agreement on wines.
This was an absolute prerequisite for the signing of the whole agreement.
I would like the Commission to tell me what it thinks about this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Muscardini">
Madam President, there is a rather serious problem. This motion for a resolution says in paragraph 15 in the Italian version that 'religious authorities are invited to cooperate fully in implementing prevention programmes and to participate constructively in the AIDS prevention scheme' .
This seems completely normal and reasonable.
The French and English versions stipulate that religious authorities are asked to cooperate unreservedly, which already from a lexical point of view, differs from the Italian version. But above all, they are asked to participate in 'the distribution of condoms' .
Now, it seems quite incredible and inexplicable for religious authorities to personally distribute condoms.
Do you realise that in the French and English versions this is what it says!
<P>
<P>
I have not been able to read the text in the other languages of the European Union, but first of all, I would like to know whether there has been a political misunderstanding which has caused the Italian version to be wrong, or whether the French and English versions are wrong.
However - but this is another issue - I wonder if each time Members of Parliament have to vote, they really can be expected to read the texts in fifteen languages, because if this were the case, Parliament would have to meet every day of the month.
President Pasqua has already stressed the problem of the lack of translations. Our group is today stressing that there is not only a lack of translations but also inexact translations.
I would like a clarification and, obviously, if the French and English versions prove to be correct, I will withdraw my signature from this proposal.
<P>
(The Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
Joint motion for resolution on Turkey
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Velzen">
Madam President, there are more problems as regards the different language versions of the text.
At any event, concerning the resolution on Turkey, an essential verb has been left out of the first paragraph of the Dutch language version.
It is "to apply for" in the English version but has been left out in the Dutch.
I would like to point out that the English version is used as the point of departure and that the following phrase should be added to the Dutch version: kan in aanmerking komen om het lidmaatschap aan te vragen (may be eligible to apply for membership).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="President">
Yes, I can tell you that it is the English version which is the authoritative version.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Friedrich">
Madam President, I have to comment on the same thing.
It is very, very misleading, as obviously most Members have mentioned, in paragraph 1, and that is the most important paragraph of all.
The printed text reads: voting on the first section, second and third section.
This is misleading insofar as in this sentence both the "first" and the "second section" refer to the first half of this rather long paragraph.
The difference between the "Vote, first section" and the "Vote, second section" is only that the words "to apply" should be added in the one instance and omitted in the other.
If the words "to apply" are missing, then this of course completely changes the meaning of the sentence, because it then reads as if Turkey is in fact eligible for membership.
If "to apply" remains, then it is saying that Turkey has the right to apply for membership.
This is the "first section" in plain language. Anyone voting in favour of the first section will want to remove the words.
Anyone voting against where it says here in the text "first section" will want to have the words "to apply" included in the second section.
I therefore request, Madam President, that exceptionally in this case you should read out what we are voting on so that everyone is clear as to what they are voting on.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="President">
That is exactly what I was going to propose to you, Mr Friedrich.
I think it is very important.
It is important that every Member should be clear as to what they are voting on.
I shall therefore first read out exactly what we are voting on.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Madam President, I will not hold you up long.
It is patently obvious that in such an important matter you do not need us to advise you to please read the individual points out first.
Since the Group of the European People' s Party is backing out ...
<P>
...I do not know about the Austrians, but, since the Group of the European People' s Party is backing out, we naturally thought about whether we should have the vote today.
I am however in favour of giving the Commission and Council an orientation decision today by means of our vote, as to the direction they should move in.
I would only ask, Madam President, that we may have a separate vote on paragraph 7, because I have an oral amendment on it.
I shall come back to this later.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="President">
If you agree, Mr Swoboda, I think it would be better, or clearer, for you to give me your oral amendment when we get to the vote on paragraph 7.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Katiforis">
Madam President, I would just like to say that the same error which Mr van Velzen mentioned has also been committed in the Greek translation. The words "to apply" have been omitted, which are vitally important.
I would like to point out to my Greek colleagues and to you all that there has been an error in translation.
<P>
Relating to paragraph 7
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Madam President, once again, when voting on the calendar of part-sessions for the year 2000, we have had to withstand an assault of amendments tending to reduce the length of the plenary part-sessions in Strasbourg.
<P>
This behaviour is all the more intolerable as it is intended to invalidate an intergovernmental agreement almost before the ink is dry, i.e. Protocol No. 12, integrated into the Treaty of Amsterdam which has just been ratified by the various Member States.
This arrangement, furthermore, was perfectly in line with the decision of the Court of Justice on 1 October 1997.
<P>
Finding it impossible to reduce the number of part-sessions, opponents to Strasbourg are now seeking to reduce the number of days in each part-session, achieving the same result by a different route.
This would be, in our opinion, just as much a violation of the spirit of the Treaty and that is why we are pleased to see that these amendments have been rejected.
<P>
But let us also take this opportunity to recall our position of principle on the Brussels mini-sessions.
These are, as the Treaty specified and as the Court of Justice reminded us, additional sessions - let me specify "additional" - which can be scheduled only if the normal Strasbourg part-sessions have been held regularly.
The mini-sessions are thus additional sessions, obviously indicating, according to us, that they can be held only if the regular agenda for Strasbourg is overloaded.
This being the case, it is clear that we cannot know as of today, when voting on the calendar for the year 2000, whether the agenda for the plenary part-session in November 2000, for example, will be overloaded and whether it will be necessary, therefore, to add a mini-session on 29 and 30 November, i.e. in more than one year' s time, in precisely fourteen month' s time.
<P>
In taking such decisions, the European Parliament violates the spirit of the Treaties and I hope there will be governments capable of restoring order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Martin, David">
The very disappointing turnout in this year' s European elections provided dramatic proof, if proof was needed, that this Parliament' s visibility and relevance to the people of Europe need to be enhanced.
I think two proposals relating to the calendar gave us an opportunity to improve both our working methods and our contact with the citizens.
<P>
The proposal to shorten Strasbourg sessions to four days would have meant that MEPs could have been back in their constituencies for longer periods meeting groups, individuals and organisations and getting across the message about what we do here in Strasbourg and Brussels.
<P>
The proposal to have a mini-mini-session in Brussels on a Wednesday - when, of course, MEPs are already in Brussels for Group and committee meetings - would have allowed the President of the Commission to come to Parliament and report on the outcome of the Commission' s weekly meeting, and thus demonstrate to the citizens that the Commission is responsible to Parliament and raise our profile by getting major Commission initiatives announced inside this institution.
<P>
I regret that both proposals were rejected today, but I am sure colleagues will come back with future proposals at a later date.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Della Vedova">
Madam President, I have asked for the floor so that the Minutes will show that the five radical Members of Parliament present - Mrs Bonino, Mr Dell' Alba, Mr Della Vedova, Mr Dupuis and Mr Turco - have not taken part in the vote on the calendar for 2000 or in the following votes.
As Mr Dell' Alba reminded us at the start of voting time, we will not be voting because we do not intend to support a situation which discriminates against millions of European citizens, whose representatives are denied the ability to fully exercise their own parliamentary mandate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I would first like to say that I am very happy about this vote on the calendar, not because of an administrative compromise, like Mr Berthu, but because I am convinced that only by fully using the working week can our capacity for work be maintained, that means not turning Thursday in to the last day of the week.
Secondly, it pleases me because I am of the opinion that Strasbourg is the autonomous, democratic and anti-centralist face of the European Parliament with significance as a symbol of Europe.
I am therefore, as a European, grateful for this vote and I would like to say very clearly that we must ensure that this is not now undermined in practice.
I share the opinion of Mr Martin that we need free time.
That problem is not solved by using the Fridays but by the way we structure our work in committees and groups so that we can timetable working weeks without any sittings, which can be used for any one of the three types of work, but the great majority of us will spend in our own constituencies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak, Lund and Thorning-Schmidt">
. (DA) We have voted for the proposal to have part-sessions lasting four days in which Fridays are omitted.
It is our view that there is no serious political content in the Friday sittings, which are used for matters which might just as well be dealt with on an administrative basis.
We should have liked the Groups in the European Parliament to have been able to agree to use Fridays for political debate, but this has not happened.
<P>
Europol personnel (C5-90 and C5-89/1999)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Bonde, Krarup">
- We voted against these two Council decisions regarding Europol employees on a point of principle.
The Europol Convention was passed in the national parliaments of Member States without any true debate.
The ratification of the Convention was merely a rubber-stamping exercise as it was impossible for the national parliament to propose any amendments.
<P>
The European Parliament - the only one of the EU institutions which is directly elected by the citizens - was also not consulted at any stage during the two years of negotiations on the Convention' s content.
This was in spite of the provisions in Article K6 of the Maastricht Treaty that EU ministers regularly consult Parliament on the principal developments in justice and home affairs and ensure its views are "duly taken into consideration" .
<P>
But the most disturbing aspect of all is that Europol officers will, in effect, be above the law.
In May 1997, EU justice ministers reached agreement on a protocol granting immunity from prosecution for Europol staff for any "words spoken or written or acts performed by them in the exercise of their official functions" and for unauthorised or incorrect processing of data.
This immunity would continue even when somebody stopped working for Europol as "all their official papers and documents and other official materials are inviolable" .
<P>
These powers of immunity are extraordinary and not analogous to those enjoyed by any police force within the EU.
Such powers are an insult to the rule of law and not in the public interest.
<P>
Veterinary and phytosanitary matters (C5-100, C5-101 and C5-102/1999)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
On the occasion of these technical votes on veterinary and phytosanitary matters, I would like to recall how important it is for the Member States of the European Union to retain sovereignty, at the national level, with regard to their freedom to assess and decide all food safety matters.
<P>
Indeed, States must retain the absolute right to protect their population.
We have a perfect illustration of this today with the decision of the Commission to lift the embargo on British beef, and the refusal by France and Germany to apply this decision.
In the opinion of the French it is clear that if 3,000 cases of "mad cows" are still being recorded in Great Britain every year, despite all the precautionary measures which have been taken, then there is something in the transmission of this disease which has not yet been fully understood.
In these circumstances, our national food safety agency in France, approved by the French Academy of Medicine, considered justifiably that France must maintain its embargo.
If we did not have this national agency, and if we had replaced it with a European agency, as some people are today requesting, then we would be deprived of objective information, and we would not have this expert opinion on which to base our reluctance.
<P>
However, the fact remains that the governments of European countries, particularly the French Government, have put themselves in an impossible situation by adopting the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The new Article 95, modifying the former Article 100(A), prevents any Member State from implementing, on its own initiative, derogations to Community regulations in the field of public health, and force them to come and request the Commission for any derogations, justifying their case by presenting "new scientific proof".
Well, it is clear that in the "mad cow" business, we are not adding any new scientific evidence in relation to the elements which the Commission already has in its possession.
All we have is an alternative interpretation of the principle of caution: as ever, the Commission places a high priority on the freedom of movement of products, and it is interesting to note that, for once, France is placing a higher priority on the food safety of its citizens.
<P>
It still remains that the inconsistency between the European Decision to lift the embargo and the refusal by the French to do so creates an intolerable situation which, less than six months after the ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam, proves the fecklessness of those very people who supported it.
A few more events like this, and perhaps the French will understand the usefulness of taking at home the decisions which are to be applied at home.
<P>
Recommendation for second reading of the Langen report (A5-16/99)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Kauppi">
Mr President, in connection with the ALTENER programme, I would like to draw your close attention to the Nordic energy economy.
The exceptional climate in Europe' s peripheral areas makes its own demands, which the EU has to take account of.
The use of peat is a bonus in Nordic energy policy.
For example, the Finnish marshes are an important natural resource, and peat bricks meet approximately 7% of Finland' s energy requirements.
6,500 people derive their livelihood either directly or indirectly from peat production.
<P>
Up till now, peat has not been classed as a renewable energy source, like wood.
In fact, peat is a natural renewable resource whose cycle for regeneration is longer than that of wood.
Estimated emissions from the use of peat as an energy source would decline considerably if the whole life cycle of its use and its renewable nature were taken into account.
The use of peat is essential with the increase of the use of wood to produce energy.
Without the parallel use of peat, the volume of planned wood-burning boilers will not be sufficient nor will the operation be lucrative.
Thus, the exceptional use of peat must be taken account of when examining energy taxation in Europe.
A healthier and cleaner energy economy requires that peat should be included among renewable sources in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
.
(FR) As I already had the opportunity to say last March, I am in favour of a voluntarist policy on energy.
We have gone beyond the stage of the declarations of intent which we heard throughout the last decade, now it is time for the words to be applied in practice.
It is only on this condition that the European Union will work in this direction.
It must give impetus to a movement in favour of the rationalisation of European energy policy.
<P>
To this end, two strategies were worked out in two complementary multiannual programmes within the framework programme of actions in the energy sector: SAVE II (promoting more efficient use of energy) and Altener II (promoting sources of renewable energy).
<P>
The time has now come to renew these two pre-existing programmes.
The European Parliament must take advantage of the codecision power conferred on it by the Treaty of Amsterdam in order to approve them.
<P>
With regard to SAVE II, the Council has accepted a number of the amendments proposed by the European Parliament at the first reading.
In addition, a number of amendments have taken into account the recent resolutions of the Council and the positions defended at the time of the Kyoto Conference.
<P>
However, the Parliament wished to re-present some amendments which were discussed in committee, particularly the important amendment on the degree of improvement in energy efficiency.
<P>
In fact, considering that the energy efficiency of final consumption has improved until now by approximately 1% per year, the European Commission advocates a reduction of a further percentage point in the energy efficiency of the final point of demand.
Even the rapporteur wanted to set a more ambitious objective of more than 1.5%.
I support this amendment even if I allow that it is necessary in some way or other to measure its potentially negative impact on the ability of firms to compete, especially small and medium-sized firms.
<P>
In order to reach this objective, it goes without saying that legislative measures must be adopted even if they represent just one instrument among many. I am thinking particularly of economic sanctions.
<P>
With regard to Altener II, everyone acknowledges the importance of renewable energy sources in reducing pollution and conserving natural resources.
We also know of the problems such energies have in gaining ground on the market and the reasons for this state of affairs: traditional energy sources are available at a relatively low, stable price and there is a shortage of measures intended to promote renewable energy sources.
<P>
This is why I approve the amendments laid down by Mr Langen demanding a more active role for the Commission in encouraging a coordinated promotion strategy within Member States and in developing the potential of Europe in the exporting of technologies related to renewable energy.
<P>
In the same vein, I feel it is essential to adopt the charter on renewable energy as soon as possible.
<P>
The vote on these two reports constitutes a pledge to the citizens of Europe of the will of the European Union to protect the environment while reducing our dependence on energy.
<P>
Recommendation for second reading of the Report by Mrs Ahern (A5-15/99)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Hyland">
- The political benefit to mankind of genetic research is seriously eroded by vested interests, using the technology in a manner which is not compatible with sustainable development, and every often in conflict with acceptable ethical standards.
<P>
While the EU is committed to closely monitoring and regulating the industry, there is, in my view, a moral responsibility on those involved to agree on standards which it is not acceptable to exceed.
<P>
Experimentation with human genes and more recently attempts to introduce 'terminator technology' which ensures that crops will not produce reproductive seeds represents a frightening affront to the welfare of mankind.
<P>
If it were not for the vigilance of politicians, NGOs, environmentalists and consumer interests, this technology would by now have been foisted on society.
<P>
While I welcome the recent undertaking by Monsanto not to commercialise the 'seed termination technology' , this matter is far too serious to leave to those who are directly involved and who would have acted otherwise in the absence of consumer vigilance.
<P>
I believe both the EU and Member State Governments must further tighten and control the overall operation of the genetic research area and, in particular, the implementation of programmes that do not fully conform to established ethical, environmental and consumer guidelines.
<P>
Recommendation by Mrs Kinnock (A5-20/99)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Figueiredo">
.
(PT) This agreement with South Africa is part of Community policy on cooperation and development, which aims to guarantee vital solidarity with developing countries.
But we must analyse the economic and social consequences resulting from the liberalisation of trade for both contracting parties.
<P>
Apart from the fact that this would eliminate customs duties on products of concern to Portugal, such as textiles and clothes, we are also concerned about the specific case of the Davos Agreement on wines and spirits.
The matter of the "Port" official designation of origin is vital to the Portuguese wine-producing sector.
It would be a very positive thing if South Africa took steps to resolve the problem of its use of this designation, which is both unfair and illegal.
In spite of the very long deadlines provided for in the Davos Agreement and of the concessions made in the area of agriculture, the latest available information shows that South Africa is delaying its fulfilment of this commitment.
<P>
On the other hand, it would be an extremely serious matter if this agreement were to be separated from the overall negotiations on the general agreement, as this would cause it to be postponed, with all the damaging consequences that that would entail. This would set a dangerous precedent from the point of view of defending Community designations of origin at the WTO, particularly as far as the "Port" designation is concerned.
This is why I am abstaining from voting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fruteau">
.
(FR) The signature of the Trade, Development and Cooperation Agreement between the European Union and the Republic of South Africa has just been approved by our House by a large majority.
<P>
I can only rejoice at this Agreement, which I, naturally, voted in favour of.
As a local representative, one of my first acts after being elected as Mayor of Saint-Benoît, in Réunion, was to name one of the city squares after Nelson Mandela.
It was then 1983, and this purely symbolic act was intended as a fraternal gesture, a hand stretched across the Indian Ocean to the man then languishing in the jails of the apartheid regime.
<P>
Today everyone can appreciate the distance we have come along the road.
And this agreement, whose signature we are approving, comes at the opportune moment to definitively consolidate the process of democratic transition and economic and social stability undertaken some years ago now by the Republic of South Africa.
It is in keeping with the tradition of solidarity of the European Union. By establishing a free trade area between two bodies at different stages of development, it even takes on a historic aspect.
It also puts the finishing touches to the implementation of the strategy of the Union with regard to this country, a strategy defined, let us remember, under the French presidency.
Finally, it is doubtless not without interest to note that the partnership thus cemented with this great nation of the south may contribute to the creation of synergy useful to the European Union within the framework of the delicate negotiations which are about to be opened within the WTO at the Seattle Conference in November.
For all these reasons, we can only rejoice at the approval of this agreement.
<P>
There is, however, one point to which I wish to draw the attention both of this Parliament and of the Council and the Commission: it is the influence which this liberalisation of trade, even over a ten year period, may have on the economic development of the outermost regions, specifically Réunion, a fully functioning European territory located in proximity to South Africa.
<P>
I did indeed, of course, note the conditions given in Article 23(2) of the agreement, providing for the possibility of making use of supervision or safety measures in the event that the economic development of the "outermost regions of the European Union" should suffer serious damage.
It seems important to me, nonetheless, firstly to have an in-depth study made as soon as possible in order to determine as precisely as possible the possible impact of this agreement on the economy of Réunion, and secondly to establish a permanent mechanism for supervision, establishing the conditions for quick intervention.
Indeed, failure on our part to remain vigilant could have dramatic consequences for the society of Réunion, which is already seriously affected by unemployment (40% of the active population) and would be in total contradiction to the efforts of the European Union for many years, through the Structural Fund, to promote the economic and social development of the island.
It is for these reasons that it seems important to me to draw the attention of this House to this essential aspect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
.
(FR) The French, Italian, Portuguese and Danish delegations of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group have voted against this free trade agreement between the European Union and South Africa.
<P>
As opposed to what the rapporteur indicated in his presentation of reasons, this agreement is not based on general acceptance of all parties.
I would like to remind you, furthermore, of its nature which is particularly favourable to South Africa and as a result of the main terms stipulated by this agreement, which applies, let us remember, to a country whose GDP is closer to that of Poland than to that of its African neighbours:
<P>
Within 10 years, Europe must open its markets to 95% of South African exports, while South Africa needs to open its markets to just 86% of European exports.
<P>
75% of South African agricultural products will benefit from facilitated access to the European market.
<P>
The European Union will eliminate customs duties on 86% of the total volume of exports of industrial products from South Africa to the European Union.
<P>
Products which South Africa considers sensitive will be placed on a reserve list.
<P>
A separate agreement on fishing will be signed, as well as an agreement on wines and spirits.
<P>
In my own contribution during the debates, I personally addressed four questions to the Commission on this separate agreement on wines and spirits and, more specifically, on its Annex 10.
The answer which Commissioner Nielson gave me was couched in the vaguest possible terms and I am personally very surprised to observe that Parliament has been able today to give the go-ahead to the signature of this free trade agreement, even though the principle of protection of trade names and designations of origin has not been clearly acknowledged in the Annex to the Agreement and that no guarantee has been offered regarding the evolution of zero-rated imports and the consequences of this for the whole of the wine-growing sector in Europe.
<P>
I would remind you that we currently import 320,000 hl in wine from South Africa which will be imported, if this agreement is applied, without any import tax.
<P>
In conclusion, Mr President, I and the fellow members of my group are very worried about the evolution of these free trade agreements.
For the first time, we are reimbursing a third country which illegally abuses the terms defining our European registered designations of origin, in total contradiction of the TRIPS Agreements.
This infringement of international regulations, enshrined in an irresponsible fashion in an agreement which is binding upon the European Union, constitutes a dangerous precedent likely to be extended to other States, especially wine-producing countries (Latin America, Australasia, etc.) if they make such a request of the European Union.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, I am worried that we are proliferating preferential agreements, even before the opening of WTO negotiations, which will lead us to reconsider the concept of the most favoured nation clause.
<P>
Report by H.-P. Martin (A5-18/99)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I am very pleased that the European Parliament is working intensively on the situation of Macedonia, for we must clarify that Macedonia is the European country which is at present most endangered by the instability of its neighbours. On the other hand, it has made exceptional progress in the peaceful resolution of problems with minorities and tensions with the neighbouring countries.
Hence this country needs massive support, as the new government has shown how it is possible, in a European spirit, to ensure stability in one of the most dangerous regions of the world.
So, let us give massive support for Macedonia and its reform government supported by both peoples of that country.
<P>
Reports by H.-P. Martin (A5-17, 18, 19/99)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Laguiller">
.
(FR) I am opposed to aid whose only objective is to re-establish a market economy, an economy of exploitation, which means that not one cent will go to the population who will continue to live in the same poverty.
And just because Parliament hypocritically adds the word "social" to the expression "market economy" , this does not mean anything will be fundamentally changed.
Besides, the precedent of Russia in the matter of aid under the aegis of the IMF can only make us more distrustful as to what becomes of the money in this sort of aid.
<P>
Conference on AIDS
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Laguiller">
.
(FR) I am abstaining on the compromise resolution on AIDS.
The fact that the joint motion for resolution bears my name is an error.
<P>
I was not made aware of the text in the form in which it has been presented, and I do not approve it.
Precisely because I think that AIDS is an absolute catastrophe, particularly for Africa, I find it inadmissible to conceal the overwhelming responsibility of the governments of rich countries and pharmaceutical trusts in the spread of this disease.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lang">
.
(FR) We can only sympathise with the fate of a continent where 25 million people will die within the next ten years and which is experiencing, due to AIDS, unprecedented economic and social decline.
<P>
The resolutions proposed by the various political groups are full of good intentions but also great naïveté.
<P>
In them you condemn the "egotism" of an industry which respects only the rules of the economic and commercial game which you at best accepted and at worst contributed to establishing.
You also condemn Western indifference and the paucity of the aid given to Africa for the fight against AIDS.
But you did not even have the courage of Emma Tuahepa who herself dared to ask the African Governments what they had done and what they were still doing with the money of the Africans. No more did you report that none of the eleven African Heads of State invited to the Conference either deigned to turn up or pointed out the importance of cultural and religious factors in the spread of this scourge.
<P>
In the world of the GATT and the European Union, you seem to be only just discovering that the values of sales and finance have taken over from politics.
Well, Africa will not escape this human catastrophe by means of solutions offered by external sources alone. It needs not only the political will of its own leaders, but also the participation of the entire population.
<P>
There is no question of denying the financial needs of Africa.
It is a question of remaining lucid: manna in the form of Western financial aid, part of which, as per usual, will end up in private bank accounts, will not be enough to curb the epidemic.
It is necessary, but it is not sufficient.
And it is all the more necessary as the populations of our own countries are also endangered.
<P>
Our own political leaders are acting irresponsibly.
In refusing to put an end to immigration into Europe, in refusing to control it systematically, in refusing to impose systematic AIDS screening for candidates for immigration coming from African countries, you are exposing Europeans not only to HIV, but also to a number of opportunistic illnesses, such as tuberculosis, which had nonetheless been eradicated from this continent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Martin, David">
- AIDS has become a massive development crisis in Africa.
It is threatening to obliterate decades of health and social development progress.
It threatens future economic development in Africa as it kills adults in the prime of their working lives, thus decimating workforces.
AIDS fractures and impoverishes families and orphans millions.
In other words, AIDS brings untold misery to countless Africans.
<P>
In order to tackle this scourge, health education and welfare resources must be mobilised on a massive scale.
This assistance should be channelled though local agencies spreading knowledge of the disease, its causes and its effects, and providing preventive and palliative healthcare.
<P>
Turkey
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="Duff">
Certainly I would wish to explain why despite our reservations about the resolution and its ambiguous character the Liberal Group in the end decided to support it.
The resolution is at least a statement of our position on our relations with our great neighbour, and for Parliament not to have expressed itself upon this important subject would have been to have failed to shoulder its responsibility as an international parliament, and a sad sign that the policy of Fortress Europe is alive and carries more support than it deserves to inside this Assembly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, on the Turkish question we have this morning heard what I consider to be quite staggering statements from Mr Verheugen, the Commissioner responsible for enlargement.
<P>
Already, during his hearing last month, he had stated that Turkey' s candidacy must be re-examined next December, at the Helsinki Council, and that he, personally, would support it.
This morning, Mr Verheugen committed a second offence.
He declared that the Helsinki Council must grant Turkey candidate status and this country must subsequently be treated like any other candidate for accession.
It is true that Turkey, as such, would have to satisfy the criteria laid down by the European Council of Copenhagen, including the existence of stable institutions guaranteeing democracy, human rights and respect for minorities.
Obviously, in the short term, Turkey is a long way from fulfilling this criterion.
Nonetheless, according to the rather muddled speech by Mr Verheugen, Turkey should be accorded the candidate status to be allowed, in time, to join the European Union.
<P>
For, although it seems necessary to us to associate Turkey to the Union in order to prevent an Islamist breakaway in this country, still its integration, pure and simple, into the structures of the Union in their present form, as the European Parliament has just requested, seems to us impossible.
It seems to us impossible to integrate into the superstate which is being formed a country which is so profoundly different, and which, in the very short term, will have the largest population and therefore, no doubt, also the greatest number of votes in the Council and the largest number of Members of Parliament in our House.
One wonders what Turkey would make of this power when we see the downright blackmail we were subjected to on the occasion of our invitation to them to participate in the European Conference.
<P>
In addition, it seems impossible to us to extend the area of free movement of citizens, which the countries of the Union today enjoy, to Turkey.
In fact, the Turkish question today highlights the inadequacy of the structures of the Union when faced with enlargement.
It is impossible to integrate Turkey into a European superstate.
On the other hand, it ought to be possible to associate it to a Europe with a flexible shape, respecting national sovereignty and national boundaries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Gorostiaga Atxalandabaso">
Mr President, we cannot accept Turkey as a candidate for the European Union, because of its attitude of constantly denying the slightest recognition to the Kurdish people.
<P>
This morning, as usual, we have heard speakers from different groups of this House mentioning the Kurdish minority in Turkey.
It is crystal clear that there is a Kurdish people, as our colleague, Mr Sakellariou, pointed out during the debate.
<P>
The European Parliament ought to realise that there is no Kurdish minority in Kurdistan, just as there is no Basque minority in the Basque country.
We want to see Kurdistan closer to the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Konrad">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the process of enlargement of the European Union is the important theme of this legislature.
Now today, in an isolated fashion, we have discussed and voted on a resolution on Turkey.
Against the background of this enlargement process, I voted against this resolution.
Today Turkey, and tomorrow perhaps another country too?
The question must be asked.
I consider it important for this Parliament to stop and think fundamentally about how we actually see Europe.
How large should the European Union become?
Today Turkey, tomorrow Armenia, and the next day Morocco, or is there an alternative concept?
I am therefore opposed to extending the established enlargement process now to just any other country.
<P>
My second comment is that in Helsinki the Council will very probably include Turkey in the group of candidates for accession.
We have told the eleven countries - the applicant States - that when we accord a country candidate status, we are, at the same time, undertaking to allow their accession to the EU. That being the case, this status would be devalued by our according it Turkey now, but declaring at the same time that no negotiations are to take place.
This is harmful to the process which has been initiated and I do not consider it acceptable.
I believe that the Parliament has the task here of clarifying what the concept of Europe, which we can finally also call political Union, should be.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I should like to warn our Turkish partner against thinking that all those who voted in favour of the resolution were friends of Turkey and all those who voted against were enemies of Turkey.
I see things the other way around.
I would like to see more intensive cooperation with Turkey than previously, the financial protocols being released, and a close partnership, just short of full membership, being put into effect immediately. Those who voted in favour of the resolution, are only contributing to propagating the idea of this unattainable goal of full membership, so that they can take advantage of it to discourage and oppress Turkey.
I am therefore of the opinion that we need honesty, we must tell the Turks that their dream of full membership is deluded, but everything up to that point must be tackled rapidly in the interests of stabilisation and bringing Turkey closer to European structures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, I would like to make this statement on behalf of the EFA members of our group.
<P>
Although we are aware that the Turkish authorities are making positive noises, still we are not convinced that they signal real change at this stage.
Their position as regards human rights, the Kurdish question and Cyprus means that we do not yet consider Turkey to be a democratic constitutional state.
What we want is for Turkey to become such a state The pro-democracy Turks, the Kurds and the Cypriots want this too.
We must support these forces in Turkey and that is why we want real cooperation.
Consequently, we have voted neither for nor against this resolution precisely because we are both for and against it.
<P>
So do we consider the prospect of full membership to be a necessary precondition of cooperation?
Not so.
We believe that cooperation is certainly feasible, indeed we believe that such cooperation is actually necessary for bringing about policy that will truly promote peace and development.
That is something we all have a need for.
<P>
So can we not have cooperation which is made to measure?
In any case, geopolitical factors are not sufficient reason for something as radical as full membership of the European Union.
We believe that a democratic Turkey must be able to speak out about this itself.
But we also feel that the European countries themselves, that the people must know how far they want integration to go.
I am very concerned, particularly when I actually hear someone in the Commission, Commissioner Bolkestein to be precise, say that the enlargement of Europe is getting in the way of the deepening process.
We want a Europe that truly unites peoples and regions and has extensive supranational power, with more authority being devolved to subordinate levels.
But we believe that these questions need answering first.
However we feel that Turkey deserves an honest answer too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Korakas">
Mr President, I would also like to say that I voted against the resolution on Turkey because it essentially adopts the proposal for granting Turkey candidate status in Helsinki.
Worse still, the resolution stipulates that the government and parliament of Turkey are making efforts towards democratisation, that they respect human rights and that progress is being made in these areas.
However, we all know that, at present, the tortures are continuing, the prisons are full and the resolution will be the last straw for those who are fighting within Turkey itself for real democratic change.
<P>
My vote is just as much a sign of solidarity towards the Turkish people as it is to the Kurdish people.
This resolution will encourage the Turkish regime to pursue and reinforce its policy of oppression not only against the Kurds but also against the Turkish people and to continue its occupation of Cyprus and its intolerance and disdain for UN decisions. Finally, it will have a very negative effect.
The resolution will intensify and deepen the intransigence of the Turkish regime, which is why I believe we should have voted on another resolution - the one recommended by the GUE Group.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="Martin, David">
- I welcome the compromise motion on Turkey as striking the correct balance between the need to affirm Turkey as eligible for EU membership and the need for Turkey to undertake a number of economic and political reforms before their application becomes 'live' .
<P>
There is no question that Turkey has the right to join the EU, nor in my mind that one day it will.
However, it must build on its recent reforms and ensure that full democracy, respect for human rights and the rights of minorities become the norm in Turkey.
<P>
Turkey must continue to improve its relations with Greece and work actively to find a solution to the Cyprus issue.
<P>
The Turkish Government' s efforts to find a political solution to the Kurdish question are encouraging.
The commuting of the death sentence on Mr Öçalan and the formal abolition of the death penalty in Turkey would be welcome further steps.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
- (EL) I shall not be voting in favour of the joint resolution on EU-Turkish relations as it contains contradictory policies and arguments as well as a dose of hypocrisy which does not become such a serious political body as our Parliament.
Even in its first article, the resolution calls for Turkey to be considered eligible for candidate status with a view to eventual Union membership.
Yet, immediately on from that, there is a series of articles which explain why Turkey does not fulfil the Copenhagen criteria for recognition as a candidate country!
If that is not a contradiction, then the draftsmen of this resolution obviously mean that recognising Turkey unconditionally as a candidate country will help it to make better headway towards the political reform necessary to satisfy the Copenhagen criteria.
In which case, why can we not say this in our resolution?
Why can we not make it clear to Turkey that its recognition as a candidate country is an exception to what we demanded from other countries (such as Slovakia), and that this exception is being made for special reasons (which must be clearly stipulated) so as to facilitate its progression towards the necessary reforms? It should stipulate that Turkey' s progress will be monitored by the EC and only then will it consider its actual application for accession into the EU.
The fact that we did not do this in this resolution can only mean that either we do not take the Copenhagen decisions seriously, or that we cannot explain publicly, i.e. politically, why we are making an exception for Turkey. Alternatively, it may mean that we do not take Turkey seriously in the sense that we recognise it as a candidate country for reasons we cannot make public, but in any case, we have absolutely no serious intention of even helping it to ever become a Member!
From what I have heard of other speakers who pointed to certain differences which generally rule out rapprochement with Turkey, this last interpretation seems the most likely.
I am also totally against such standpoints, which even border on being racist in some cases.
Europe has everything to play for with Turkey' s accession, and should not mock or underestimate it but should set clear preconditions for a stable and long-term relationship with it with a view to eventual accession into the Union.
But this will not happen with micropolitical and opportunist sophistry or with endless pirouetting, which favour neither the Union nor Turkey.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schmidt">
.
(SV) I would have preferred a different wording for paragraph 9.
<P>
Paragraph 9 - which deals with Turkey and the Kurdish question - is, in my view, far too weakly formulated.
For decades, the Turkish State has persecuted the Kurdish people and denied them their self-evident entitlement, as a minority, to political, social and cultural rights, as well as the right to their own language, their own schools and their own culture.
<P>
The death sentence upon Öçalan is one more proof that Turkey still does not comply with the EU' s requirements of a candidate country.
<P>
It is also important to emphasise that the KLA must cease engaging in violence and terrorism in order to support a peaceful and political solution to the Kurdish question.
<P>
Turkey may not be regarded as a sound candidate for accession to the EU for as long as basic human and humanitarian rights are not respected.
<P>
I therefore refrained from voting in the final vote.
<P>
Middle East Peace Process
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
.
(FR) On the occasion of the debate and the vote on the resumption of the peace process in the Middle East, I wish to congratulate the Israeli and Palestinian partners on their courage and their tenacity.
<P>
I also wish to express my satisfaction at seeing Mr Ehud Barak keep his campaign promises and resume the path marked out by Mr Yitzak Rabin.
I wish to assure my Israeli friends of our support on this course.
<P>
I hope that Europe will be capable of demonstrating intelligence and tolerance, in letting the negotiators get on with negotiations, and refraining from "preaching" every time there are one or several more or less serious problems. The way forward has been marked out.
It will not be easy.
It is full of pitfalls.
<P>


Nonetheless, there are no other roads possible and, at the end of the road, there will be two States which are each guaranteeing to respect the other.
<P>
I have always had confidence in this.
Now, of course, I have even more confidence and I support Israel in its attempts more than ever.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="President">
That concludes the explanations of vote.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 1.20 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Opening of the Millennium Round
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="President">
The next items on the agenda are the statements by the Council and the Commission on the opening of the Millennium Round under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation, due to take place in Seattle from 30 November up to and including 3 December.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, Members of Parliament, it is a generally recognised fact that the multilateral trading system has, over the last fifty years, guaranteed steady economic growth.
The EU' s main priority in foreign relations is to establish and strengthen a multilateral trading system.
The new round on the liberalisation of trade is a necessary and natural extension of earlier achievements.
The EU has been pushing for a broad-based round of trade negotiations since 1996.
In spite of the fact that there have been doubts in many countries about the advantages and benefits of a new round, all WTO Members are now very keen to have a new round.
However, we do not agree on how broad-based the round should be
<P>
The EU' s great challenge is to now convince the less developed countries and civil society of the benefits of a broad-based round.
Finland, as the country holding the Presidency, will endeavour to ensure that the final decision on the commencement of the forthcoming round, the form it will take, and its agenda, will be taken at the meeting of WTO Ministers to be held in Seattle in November to December.
The Union supports the commencement of broad-based WTO talks to take place in 2000.
A round that is as broad-based as possible will guarantee a balanced end result, which will take account of the interests of all.
As everyone knows, we will embark on negotiations to follow on from the decisions taken during the Uruguay round, at least on the issues of agriculture and services.
This will be known as the 'built-in agenda' .
Unless we can convince other WTO Members of the advantages and benefits of a broad-based round, there is a danger that the talks will focus on agriculture alone, a matter in which the EU has important interests to defend.
<P>
The EU is also agreed that the outcome of the round must be approved as one package and by all WTO Members.
In other words, nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.
However, this will not prevent results being achieved more quickly in some areas than others.
We also have to insist that the results achieved impartially reflect all the views of the Members of the WTO.
<P>
The EU is also united in its call for a round to last approximately three years.
We have to bear in mind that the EU objective of a broad-based round must fit in with both the United States' sector-based and internally structured agenda and its policy to reduce tariffs as well as more qualified positions on the less developed countries.
The less developed countries have called for inter alia the Uruguay Agreement to be reviewed and amended to make its terms more favourable to them.
<P>
It is enormously important for the success of the Union' s objectives that the less developed countries are convinced of the advantages of a broad-based round and of the EU' s good intentions behind this objective.
This means, firstly, that the EU should be able to discuss issues that are difficult for it also, such as dumping and the textiles industry.
In other words, the EU must be open to the recommendations of other WTO Members.
The industrialised countries must be able to offer the less developed countries concrete benefits rather than promises.
The Union has been in the forefront of those pushing for exemption of duty on almost all products from the least developed countries by the time the new round ends.
We hope that the other industrialised and better-developed countries, in addition to the EU, will give their approval to this objective.
<P>
I will briefly go over the most important topics the EU is proposing for the agenda for the next round.
<P>
It is of fundamental importance that agriculture can be practised everywhere in the European area, including regions where there are special problems.
It must be made possible to preserve the countryside, protect nature and promote a thriving countryside.
These form a part of a concept for which we have used the term 'multifunctionality' .
As an important exporter of food, the Union believes it is also important to improve access to markets and remove trade barriers in this new round.
We are also ready to negotiate cuts in aid, provided that the so-called 'peace clause' , and the 'special safeguard clause' remain.
In addition, we must be able to respond to consumers' worries about the quality and safety of wood, the protection of the environment and the welfare of animals.
<P>
The Union is also in favour of a broad-based WTO round with regard to services.
We consider that no sector should be excluded from the talks.
The EU' s position in the talks will be improved commitment to services and a broadening of the existing commitments by sector and by country.
The EU believes it is important to support the participation of the less developed countries in the talks, with reference to the provisions of the agreement on services.
<P>
The Union believes that a regulated system is of benefit to all, as the effects of unilateral action are avoided.
We support the fact that the new round of talks will enable new rules to be made and principles agreed in those sectors that are closely associated with international trade. These would be questions of the environment, investment and competition, for example.
Our objective is to review and adapt the rules of trade to meet the demands of a globalised and integrated world economy.
The WTO rules of the future must be fashioned in such a way that they enable us to take care of the environment and take responsibility for the non-discriminatory treatment of foreign investment.
At the same time, we must ensure that the special needs of the less developed countries are taken account of and that they are accorded a certain degree of flexibility in the manner in which they adopt the new rules.
<P>
Sustainable development is the common objective of the Member countries mentioned in the WTO Agreement.
Trade policy and environmental policy must support each other more effectively.
For that reason, the Union considers it important that sustainable development is the basic principle behind the talks and that the environment is taken into account in all aspects of the round.
<P>
Direct foreign investment has grown faster this decade than trade.
We wish to create a framework for the non-discriminatory use of investment around the world.
At the same time that the WTO starts to draft an agreement on investment, which would safeguard the rights of international investors, we think we should also create a mechanism to ensure that investors act responsibly.
<P>
It is important for the Union to guarantee the future work of the WTO in the areas of trade and competition.
We regard the development of multilateral principles of competition as an important part of the liberalisation of international trade, which we believe will remain limited, unless the WTO can prevent barriers from being erected by private companies and the distortions in trade that they create.
In these areas also we must take account of the special needs of the less developed countries and ensure that they are accorded a certain degree of flexibility in the way they make progress.
<P>
The Union is strongly committed to the enhancement of democracy, the rule of law, and respect for human rights, which include fundamental employment rights.
The EU therefore believes it is important that the next round pays attention to issues relating to the social dimension of trade.
We must remember, however, that the less developed countries are strongly opposed to the discussion of so-called standards of employment in the WTO.
They fear that debating basic rights of employment in the WTO is an attempt to undo the advantages they enjoy as a result of low labour costs.
<P>
It is naturally fundamental to the WTO talks that they should be transparent.
If we are open internally we are strong and credible externally.
We think it is important that Members of Parliament participate in the meeting of Ministers at Seattle.
As the country holding the Presidency, we shall see to it that Parliament is kept informed and we shall take its views into account to the best of our ability.
It is also worth noting that communications with NGOs have strengthened both at Community level and within the Member States.
<P>
We are living in a historic age.
We will be in a new Millennium when the round of trade talks commences.
While the new Millennium will bring with it challenges for the WTO, it must also reflect development.
Including new subjects for discussion by the WTO is the answer to today' s challenges.
They can have an impact on the progress that we hope for.
<P>
It is the objective of the country holding the Presidency that the draft conclusion of the Council should be approved in the General Affairs Council Monday.
Immediately after the General Affairs Council, I will be reporting in detail to the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy on 12 October on the common position of the Council in the light of the approved conclusions.
Finally, to describe the conclusions briefly, they will by nature be primarily an expression of EU political will, containing a vision for the new Millennium.
The conclusions will be directed at the public at large, and they will reconfirm at the same time the common objectives of the EU to commence a round of negotiations that features different topic areas.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Sasi.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="President">
I would like to inform the House that an official delegation from the National Institute for Public and Social Administration in the People' s Republic of China, under the direction of Mr Wang Zhongyn, Member of the Council of State and Secretary General of the Council of State Affairs, is now seated in the official stand.
This delegation is visiting France as part of an exchange programme between the National Institute for Public Administration and the Ecole Nationale d' Administration in Paris.
<P>
I would like to offer you all a warm welcome and hope your visit to our Parliament proves fruitful.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Opening of the Millennium Round (continued)
<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lamy">
Mr President, Members of Parliament, those of you who requested the debate today on the subject of the Seattle Conference did not want, if I have understood correctly, an exchange of technical proposals but rather a political presentation.
I think you are right.
Public opinion in our countries clearly feels that the liberalisation of trade - in which we hope to enter a new phase - is part of a greater movement, which invites questions and interrogations and in relation to which we must therefore adopt a stance.
So, let us ask the question quite bluntly, is internationalisation a good thing or a bad thing?
<P>
In the Commission' s view, it is positive, for at least three reasons.
In the first place, the internationalisation of markets makes the economies of scale possible, which are essential to the industrial revolutions in progress within information technology, biotechnology and transport.
These are the advances which should make it possible to reconcile demographic growth and economic growth with a limited pool of natural resources, for it is technological progress which pushes back the frontier of the long-term use of these resources.
<P>
In the second place, it is access to our markets and the liberalisation of direct investments which have supported the industrialisation successfully initiated in South-East Asia, opening up new and growing outlets for our own exports and demonstrating that there are strategies to overcome underdevelopment.
It was also the successes achieved, thanks to liberalisation of trade, by industrialised countries and emergent economies in Asia which shook the confidence of the communist regimes and led to their radical transformation both in Europe and in Asia.
<P>
Finally, internationalisation comes back to the perceptions of the rising generations, those of the next century, who, through the media and through their own wandering, will experience the world as the global village where mutual dependence entails solidarity and where the taste for differences and for encounters can be expressed.
<P>
Of course, I do not intend to confine myself to a lyrical and idyllic vision of internationalisation here.
Like a number of you, I can perceive the costs and the risks of free trade without regulations and without strong multilateral institutions to control it.
I can see inequalities gaining ground to the extent of creating social exclusion in our countries.
I can see the growing divide between continents.
I can see the instability of the financial markets.
I can see the threats to the local and the planetary environment.
But if our role here is to reflect the concerns, the questions and the expectations of our fellow citizens in Europe, let us keep in mind the world-wide dimension of what is at stake, those of developing countries divided today between the hope of integration into the world economy and the fear of marginalisation.
Our responsibility is also to separate millenarian fears and resistance to change from the opportunities to be grasped in internationalisation for growth, human development and the protection of the environment.
Through the new cycle of negotiation, what we are preparing is the multilateral organisation of the world markets of the 21st century, with the firm intention of achieving better balance.
<P>
You know the reasons which induced the Commission to propose a long agenda and a short schedule for Seattle to the Council and to your House.
Although I am jumping onto the bandwagon, liberalisation by means of rounds of negotiations rather than through the routine WTO channels seems to me to be advisable for three reasons.
Firstly, à la carte liberalisation just does not work.
Real progress requires a comprehensive approach and a single ultimate commitment.
That does not mean that we cannot quickly garner the first agreements as they come to ripeness.
Secondly, new subjects must be integrated into the WTO missions, subjects contributed by society, such as the environment, culture, health, food, and also competition and investment, henceforth an integral part of international trade.
Thirdly, the world economy needs direction, after the financial crises which emerging and transitional economies have experienced over the last two years.
A round of negotiations thus seems the safest defence against the temptation of protectionism.
<P>
Let us quickly go into these points in further detail.
In our position - as the Council President has just rightly mentioned - there is first and foremost the concern of the Union not to get caught up in the sectorial negotiation, enshrined in the conclusions of the Uruguay Round, concerned only with agriculture and services.
Our strategy is to make negotiation more balanced by opening it up to all sectors, so as to cover our offensive and defensive interests and to persuade our partners - particularly, developing countries - to do the same.
As regards agriculture, the orientations provided by the European Council in Berlin on Agenda 2000 give us a solid basis to achieve, in the field of liberalisation, progress which is compatible with the European agricultural model.
<P>
There is then the concern to define the rules and consolidate the institution of the WTO, so as to strengthen its multilateral nature, to improve the impact of internationalisation on sustainable development and prevent the risks to the environment and to health inherent in unrestricted competition, between different national standards and different levels of production.
These regulations concern investment and competition primarily, two areas where some of our partners show a certain reluctance, for very different reasons, and which, given the precedent of the MAI - I prefer to spell it out A.M.I. (rather than call it friend "AMI" ) in French - give rise to reservations on the part of some developing countries and reluctance, even outright hostility, in some of our non-governmental organisations.
<P>
Allow me to expand briefly on these two subjects.
On the matter of investment, let us be clear: we are not looking to impose our own investment codes, the ones which predominate in our countries and which suit us, on developing countries.
We hope to convince them by means of negotiation that the most effective way for them to attract direct external investment, the special access route to technology and international markets, is first to create a safe and predictable framework for foreign investors, whether they come from industrialised countries or from other emergent nations.
<P>
With internationalisation, the concentration of economic power and the extra-territorial impact of decisions taken on competition policy by states, competition presents all economies with challenges.
But for developing countries the stakes are even more formidable.
In this area, these countries face a twofold problem: their internal markets are too often cornered by monopolies or by oligopolies whose first effect is to inflict prices which are far too high on the local consumers, the mass of the very poorest in the main, and whose second effect is to prevent the arrival of newcomers and to force them to confine themselves to the informal economy.
Restrictive practices in access to markets, credit and energy are among the main causes - generally not acknowledged by us - of underdevelopment, of the perpetuation of social inequality and corruption in these countries.
The inclusion of competition on the WTO agenda is not intended to transform the WTO into a world authority on competition but simply to establish a body of principles and procedures intended to promote the implementation of internal competition policies and to make them mutually compatible.
<P>
Let us look at three more subjects, protection of the environment, consumer health and the audio-visual sector which, beyond the tensions between technical progress and cultural traditions, refer back to the features of civilisation which characterise Europe - the demand for quality, food quality, for example, cultural identity in an open world, the preference for the non-commercial in a number of areas.
<P>
It is evident that we suffer, in this respect, from a lack of regulations and procedures, and indeed primarily, I must say, in our own countries.
The European Union has undertaken to define policies for the protection of the environment, health and food safety.
Indeed yesterday, right here, Romano Prodi committed the Commission to a fundamental revision of food legislation by 2002.
Everyone knows the complexity of these questions, involving scientific knowledge, with its share of uncertainties, national legislation and the WTO procedures.
We are all aware of the problem presented by the interface between national standards, WTO regulations and those of the other multilateral agreements on the subject of the environment or health protection.
With the new round, we must, on the one hand, prevent any abuse of these gaps and differences with a protectionist purpose and, on the other hand, stop leaving the arbitration between competitive national standards to market forces.
The precautionary principle must serve as our safety valve to adjust for scientific uncertainty.
Furthermore, progress in the labelling and traceability of products, indissolubly linked, would serve to better inform the judgement of the consumer.
European opinion also considers it necessary to reinforce the capacity for artistic creation within the audio-visual media, a key sector in our culture, and the Union must respond to this expectation.
<P>
I come finally to the issues which most polarise opinion today and our Member States' Governments, to wit, the link between commercial liberalisation and the progress in the fundamental rights of workers.
For the European Union, it is evident that these objectives are not only compatible but also, in our experience, deeply coherent.
In Europe, the return to free trade since the post-war period has been accompanied by social progress in which the relations between productivity and collective negotiation have been the two main driving forces.
In raising this question, then, our intention is by no means to open up the possibility of setting wage standards or to bear down on the comparative advantages of developing countries, as Mr Sasi said so well just now.
We have, in addition, become particularly sensitive to the risk of protectionist abuse that the unilateral imposition of social standards would entail, potentially.
Nor do we wish to make the WTO the forum for the drawing up of these standards, for which the International Labour Organisation is responsible.
Our only concern is to achieve progress in the observance, by our partners, of fundamental social standards, as defined at the Copenhagen Summit for Social Development in parallel with progress in the liberalisation of trade.
In Seattle, we must therefore attempt to convince developing countries of the political legitimacy of this objective and the interest which social progress offers in their own development.
<P>
If I have referred several times already to developing countries, it is for two reasons.
Firstly, because the chief target of this new round of negotiations is indeed sustainable development and this is primarily of concern to developing countries.
Next, because, in order to achieve our own objectives within this round, we need the consensus of all our partners and, of course, of developing countries.
But it is self-evident that this round must be included in the wider context of global government.
Henceforth a stronger and stricter connection must be ensured between the new pillar of the international system, the WTO, and the pillar already formed by the Bretton Woods institutions.
<P>
Mr President, Members of Parliament, this debate on the new round which you requested leads to a question of great importance, in my view. Does the Union, by means of its own action, offer the governments and citizens of Europe any additional means to adjust successfully and gain control of internationalisation?
Do we have the will, by exploiting our position and our weight in the world economy, the institutional advances which we have achieved, to regain the sovereignty, which world markets rob us of occasionally, and to contribute to effective global government?
If the response from the Council and from Parliament is positive, our negotiating position will be stronger.
This will mean, in fact, that we are capable of gaining support for our views and transforming the fears we perceive here and there into a meaningful project.
My wish is that one day, your legislature will be called upon to give an opinion on the results of this new round, entailing a great deal of work and not a little dialogue for us all.
Once again I undertake, on behalf of the Commission, to pursue this dialogue with you, on an ongoing basis, in the months and years to come.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schwaiger">
Mr Vice-President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the development of world trade in the last 50 years is a success story.
In the last 50 years, trade throughout the world has increased by a factor of 17, and has expanded by more than twice the level of macroeconomic production.
Increased prosperity and the creation of jobs in Europe are an important consequence of this.
Freer and fairer world trade within the framework of a strengthened multilateral world trade system formed a successful foundation for this.
Progress to an exceptional extent and at an exceptional rate in the globalisation of real activity now makes further development of this multilateral body of regulations, which was based on GATT and is now the World Trade Organisation, the WTO, imperative.
<P>
The focus of the Millennium Round is this objective.
A comprehensive European Union Strategy, which embraces all the areas concerned in a dynamic way is being proposed by the Commission and, I feel I can already say this as a rapporteur, is widely supported within the European Parliament.
We are defending the European Agricultural Model, food production, the maintenance of farms as family businesses, preservation of the countryside and environmental protection in equal measure.
<P>
This Millennium Round should not be characterised by a defensive attitude towards the American position on imports of agricultural and genetically modified products into the European Union. Instead, the European Union should be finding confederates for its dynamic global strategy.
The usefulness of globalisation should be measured against its usefulness to the regions and nations of the world equally, so that a better balance is achieved between the interests of the European Union, of the other European States, of the USA, of other industrial countries, and newly industrialised and developing countries.
The framework now available to us, established with the World Trade Organisation in 1995, must be developed further in this direction and its instruments must be perfected.
The essential bases for negotiations and solutions mentioned in the Commission document of July 1999 have so far met with a predominantly positive response in our discussions within the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
<P>
Today, I would like to touch briefly on our guidelines for content. In November, we have the opportunity to discuss this again in detail.
Our draft resolution will predominantly include the dynamic elements which the President of the Council and also Commissioner Lamy have already mentioned and which will include our ideas on the improved incorporation of financial services, on investment and competition policy within the framework of the WTO, on the further reduction of duties on industrial products and on the improved integration, indeed the "mainstreaming" , of environmental and consumer protection in the body of regulations of the World Trade Organisation and vice versa.
The protection of copyright must be improved in many developing countries.
Labour standards should be taken into account more in the world trade system, and our markets must be opened more to developing countries.
<P>
There are still, however, some outstanding questions regarding the cooperation between the Council and the Commission, on the one hand, and with the European Parliament, on the other hand, within the scope of the Millennium Round.
Let me stress one thing at the outset. The European Parliament gratefully accepts this dialogue with the Commission and hopes that this dialogue will also include the Council.
It will represent its position within the framework of its resolution, which will certainly be adopted in November, in an energetically coherent but also responsible manner.
You can assume, Mr Sasi, as President-in-Office of the Council, and Mr Lamy, as Commissioner, that in the position determined in our November resolution we will present ourselves as energetic and coherent both to you and to our partners in the Millennium Round.
We shall strive thereby to be true to our responsibility as the elected representatives of the peoples of Europe.
<P>
Secondly, we are assuming, a previously justified assumption, that the Commission and the Council are representing the interests of the European Union with equal coherence.
The strength of the European Union as the largest trading power in the world resides in its joint position, which is represented by all elements.
We are therefore somewhat concerned to hear rumours that in the Council, even before the start of negotiations, some delegations are now ...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Erika">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner Lamy, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to talk about some fundamental aspects of the Millennium Round which my party considers to be important.
My colleagues will deal with this in greater detail from their own respective points of view.
<P>
The new round of World Trade negotiations which will open in Seattle on 30 November, offers the opportunity to partially extend the blueprint for world trade, in some fundamental aspects.
The round will automatically take on a symbolic character and should contain a clear message from the European Union.
Our aim must be to achieve growth, employment and prosperity for everyone, and at the same time to reduce the poverty which exists throughout the world.
The concept of opening up the market further only makes sense if everyone is able to profit from it.
<P>
What we need is a new sense of direction, which leads to a reconciliation of trade and social components, without thereby setting up new barriers of discrimination by means of a concealed form of protectionism.
We therefore have to ensure that social and employment standards, standards for health and food as well as env0ironmental considerations form an essential part of the negotiating package.
<P>
The new WTO Round may lead to a further push towards globalisation which will make many people anxious.
We must make it clear that everyone has something to gain from an open system of world trade.
As far as this is concerned, it is particularly important to establish improved integration of the developing countries into the world economy and into the multilateral world trade system.
The Group of the Party of European Socialists particularly supports the Commission' s attempt to combine the concepts of globalisation and sustainable development.
This is the only way to ensure that the basis for world trade is formed in a balanced and socially just way.
<P>
We also agree with the Commission and the Council, in that this round of negotiations must be comprehensive, that is, one that includes all subjects.
This is the only way to guarantee a sensible consideration of the specific advantages and disadvantages. This is also the only way that the interests of the European Union and of its citizens can both be assured.
<P>
This time, the European Union must show that it is in a position to play some role in these marathon negotiations, if not a leading one.
It would be disastrous for the European side to respond passively to the current weakness of the American political leadership.
This is an appeal particularly to the Council to come up with a united European position and to the Commission to express complete confidence that a comprehensive mandate for negotiation will be granted in time, which will allow it to be submitted officially to Parliament for approval at the same time.
Only if the European Union is strong at the negotiating table, will it be able to ensure that, within the framework of the World Trade Organisation, there will be a better balance in the globalisation process, between the European and the American models for liberalisation.
<P>
Comprehensive information and transparency are necessary to win the public' s confidence in and agreement with the new negotiating rounds.
We particularly welcome the consultation with unions and non-governmental organisations.
Confidence is also essential because the continuing development of the European Model amongst other things depends on what scope for arrangements national and regional administrations will have in the future.
Just consider that the World Trade Organisation is a leading player, if the leading player, in shaping global economic processes.
Only by combining transparency, the involvement of the public and official, extensive means...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="Clegg">
Mr President, on behalf of the ELDR Group I would like to signal our strong support for the efforts of both the European Commission and the Council to persuade our international partners of the virtues of a broad-based new round of WTO talks, covering a wide range of issues.
In order that the right compromises can be made between the different and complex issues facing the international trade system today it does indeed seem essential that the talks should cover a comprehensive agenda from traditional tariff reductions to crucial issues such as the environment and labour standards, and new topics such as competition and investment.
<P>
You can count on large parts of this Parliament to give you robust support when arguing against those who may wish to confine the round to no more than a narrow series of sector-specific commercial trade-offs.
<P>
I also welcome the openness with which Mr Lamy has commenced his working relationship with this new Parliament, and I also welcome his support for changes to the Treaty in the forthcoming intergovernmental conference to strengthen the role of the European Parliament in the common commercial policy.
It would be a benefit to the Union as a whole if the Commission and Parliament could increasingly stand together in international trade negotiations.
However, if the European Parliament is to play a new and more responsible role it must be given greater access to the information governing trade issues than is presently the case.
New responsibilities should be accompanied by new rights.
For that reason I would like to ask the Council two specific questions.
<P>
First, the Commission has already stated that it has no objections to the inclusion in the conclusions which will be adopted at Seattle of wording on the role of the European Parliament in the conduct and completion of the new WTO round.
Could Mr Sasi confirm the presidency will draft such new language?
<P>
Second, could Mr Sasi confirm that the presidency will come forward with new proposals to facilitate the fullest possible provision to the European Parliament of documents discussed in the 133 Committee in the Council, accompanied, if necessary, by special procedures to protect confidentiality?
Since Mr Sasi has kindly agreed to come to the meeting of the European Parliament' s Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy on 12 October, I suggest he presents his formal response to both these points at that meeting.
If we could move forward on those two points, I feel both the accountability and legitimacy of the European Union' s negotiating position in the Millennium Round will have been significantly strengthened.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lannoye">
Mr President, I believe that the question that concerns all of us here is not whether or not multilateral rules are necessary to provide a framework for world trade.
We unanimously recognise the need for such rules.
The problem, in my view, is to know whether the World Trade Organisation is functioning on the basis of rules which are equitable and able to help the world, and not just Europe, to progress towards sustainable development.
<P>
The replies that I have heard from the Council especially, and to a lesser extent from Commissioner Lamy, make me think that it is begging the question.
We have started from the hypothesis that there is clearly no contradiction between these two objectives and therefore the desire is to extend the field of competence of this organisation without having answered, through reasoned argument, what seems to me to be a fundamental question.
We have five years of experience from which we can say that, in a certain number of significant cases such as hormones in animal rearing, bananas and GMOs, the record is far from brilliant.
We note that the consequences are negative upon the functioning of the European Union' s policies and also, I feel able to say, those of certain developing countries.
Also, we note a lack of action on the part of the European Commission when it senses the possibility of conflict with the WTO.
We therefore in advance give in to certain demands which may be made by trading partners in order to avoid conflicts.
So much for internal policies.
<P>
As for foreign policy, I think we should insist on the fact that we do not only have commercial commitments, but we are also bound by multilateral agreements on the environment and international conventions on respect for human rights and that these commitments, in my opinion, an opinion which I believe is shared by many colleagues, have a value on both an ethical and a political level which is more important than free trade.
<P>
We believe that these values cannot be called into question by the functioning of the WTO.
We have no choice but to state that there is contradiction at the very heart of the texts of the WTO, the agreements and the statutes. Two principles form the basis of the functioning of the WTO.
On the one hand, the prevention of discrimination between products for which the production processes are different, that is to say in particular the environmental or social conditions under which the product is produced. On the other hand, the fact that it is necessary to reduce to a minimum the negative effects on free trade of any political measure aimed at public health, the protection of the environment or social protection.
These are two examples of the basic principles of this organisation which go against the objectives which we are trying to defend.
<P>
In conclusion, Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, we believe that an evaluation prior to any expansion of the competences of the WTO is essential and that, otherwise, we are doing nothing more than applying a liberalist ideology.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Ainardi">
Mr President, I agree with Mr Lannoye that it is a question of rules, but the question is - which rules?
Unfortunately, all the indications available to us show a desire to turn the future negotiations of the WTO into a further stage in the imposition of rules of liberalisation on a global scale.
The European Commission has in fact announced, in its communication in July, that it wishes to liberalise new services, such as health, education, but also investments and public contracts.
This wave of liberalisation is clearly justified in the name of the general interest and employment, as you stated, Mr Lamy, in your hearing, indicating that the progressive opening up of markets, both for goods and for services, is in the interest of the Community.
<P>
However, it is not the results of the liberalisation initiated at Marrakech which are going to calm the fears which you spoke of just now.
Did the Union make a serious appraisal in Marrakech?
What I observe is that the poor countries are trapped in wretched circumstances and that here we are seeing an increase in unemployment and instability that goes hand in hand with huge profits.
We are seeing great mergers and take-overs on a European and global scale.
Yesterday and today, the employees of Michelin have been here, in this Parliament building, to dramatically illustrate this idea which governs relationships on a European and world scale. Financial viability comes first.
But what about the human beings? What about thought?
What about nature?
What about solidarity?
<P>
I do not believe that the choice is between liberalisation and protectionism.
I am reassured by the fact that the MAI has been rejected, which shows that intervention is possible.
A front could be developed to demand a change of direction.
To this end, this Parliament has adopted an amendment from my group which requested a review of the mechanisms of the WTO and the rules procedure, in order to take more account of social, health, environmental and cultural questions.
Today, 1,800 organisations are addressing us and calling for changes to the system.
Developing countries are demanding a review of the previous agreement.
I am also pleased to see that an Intergroup on WTO issues is about to meet.
With my group I have taken the initiative to organise an open meeting on these matters during next November' s part-session.
Many people expect the European Union to stand up in these negotiations for the values of cooperation, solidarity and the pre-eminence of human beings, as against financial values and the dictates of the market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasqua">
Mr President of the Council, Mr President, Commissioner, the communication of the Commission to the national parliaments is extremely revealing with regard to the profoundly antidemocratic workings of the main European institution and of the conditions under which the new round of multilateral trade negotiations will be approached.
<P>
The Commission claims peremptorily that for 50 years, this GATT and WTO system has contributed to stability and the pursuit of economic growth, with all the advantages which result from them.
A malicious mind may point out to the Commission that this phrase destroys our illusions since we thought - and God knows we have heard it enough times - that it was to the construction of Europe that we owe these fifty years of stability, economic growth and the peaceful settlement of disputes etc.. However, a purely curious mind may ask the Commission what it thinks of the continuous decline, decade after decade, of the average annual rate of growth in developed countries.
<P>
According to the OECD report, the average annual growth rate of OECD countries was +5.2% between 1961 and 1969, +3.9% between 1970 and 1979, +2.6% between 1980 and 1989 and +2.1% between 1990 and 1996.
These statistics hardly support, and this is putting it mildly, the idea that the progressive dismantling of barriers to trade, after the eight rounds of negotiations from the early fifties until 1994, have favoured economic growth.
<P>
Would it be too much to ask the Commission to communicate to us the relevant economic studies on which it bases its current recommendation to proceed to a new round - as Mr Lamy has said - of dismantling?
Would it be impertinent also to ask the Commission whether it has taken the care to ascertain whether the possible projections which it established on the launch of the Uruguay Round have been achieved?
Could you give us written documents containing figures, sources and dates?
It is, to say the least, strange that the Brussels Commission, at the point when it is inviting the Member States to give the green light to the immediate launch of the new round of multilateral trade negotiations, does not feel the need to make an appraisal of the WTO which is the least bit objective, particularly of its provisions for the settlement of disputes.
<P>
Is the Commission really more modest than our friends across the Atlantic who regularly weigh up the pros and cons of a procedure?
Is this a procedure you hoped and prayed for?
It is noticeable, furthermore, that in reality it is above all the Americans who achieve a certain degree of success within the system which has been put in place.
I will not go on, given the short time allotted to me.
<P>
I would however like to say this: unless we are blind and have no idea what is being said and what is happening on the other side of the Atlantic, we cannot help but be struck dumb by the similarity between the terms used by the Commission and the words of President Clinton.
<P>
The opening of the new round of multilateral trade negotiations is first and foremost a decision of the President of the United States of America, who himself has set the tempo - I translate: accelerated negotiation, a tight agenda - and the objectives ....
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Muscardini">
Mr President, I would like yesterday' s speeches in this House to be checked in order to see how many speakers exceeded their speaking time, by how much they exceeded it and who was allowed to do this and who was not.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Butel">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, our fellow citizens understand only too well that the agreements resulting from the Millennium Round will seriously affect their personal and professional lives.
<P>
The Uruguay Round offered producers and consumers a fait accompli.
Let us not allow this to happen again.
Look around.
The farmers are justifiably concerned for their future and it is our duty to listen to them.
Repeated food scandals, the dictates of large-scale distributors, the European desire to give handouts to the agricultural world, we have been spared none of it.
This is the logic of globalisation ordered by certain people who should now be called into question.
Otherwise the Millennium Round will become the death warrant of our farmers, our countryside, our land, and this is something that we must not accept.
<P>
These negotiations should be aimed at the promotion and prosperity of our peoples and not simply at the defence of the great financial powers.
We must leave behind this ultra-free trade logic which standardises the market.
It does not guarantee the fair defence and promotion of our interests, which are European interests because they are primarily local, regional and national.
It falls to us to ensure the continuity of our employment, our production and our quality of life. Europe will thereby find its justification.
The current situation shows that we are liable to incur retaliatory measures, while we simply intend to protect ...
<P>
(T he President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Della Vedova">
Mr President, Commissioner, international trade and a new international division of labour are a major resource in terms of economic growth and freedom for the 6 billion plus human beings who are now crowding the planet.
No freedom exists that is not also the freedom to trade and the freedom of movement.
In my opinion though, in this context of international trade and also in the Millennium Round, there are well founded risks that Europe will hang back and will not instead take on a role as a leader of civilisation, a leader which wants to guide, within the scope of clear rules for everyone, the changes in international trade in 2000.
In the first place, these risks must be averted for the good of the European citizens.
I am thinking, for example, of the excessive emphasis on the social protection clauses and social dumping when we know full well that these will be mere words which nothing can come of. They will not lead to effective checks and for developing countries and recently industrialised countries, this can only represent the protectionist sword of Damocles which can be used when the old Europe, the old Europe of bureaucracies, of union bureaucracies and industrial decline is in a fix.
<P>
Another point concerns audio-visual production and cultural production.
I think that this protectionism which is felt in Europe - in France and Italy - is completely out of place and obsolete.
We need only think of how the Internet represents the chance to disseminate audio-visual and cultural products.
To insist on protectionist values means imposing low quality audio-visual and cultural products on the European citizens, which are almost always state-controlled, and financed and aided by the public purse.
I think that European citizens have the maturity and the right to make choices in this area too, from within the supply available on an international level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="Elles">
I would like to contribute to this debate by making three remarks of the following nature - general, specific and political.
<P>
Firstly, a general remark.
From the outset we should be in support of this round, we should have a positive outlook to ensure that we can avoid protectionism, promote free trade and extend prosperity in the world system to other parts of the world.
It is a pity that Mr Pasqua has gone. He said that there was no debate in this Chamber, but I would refer him to results of the economies run by Britain and the United States where they are achieving in a world trade system high rates of growth, low rates of unemployment, low rates of interest.
The French economy and one or two other continental countries could learn from that particular experience.
<P>
Might I say too, in terms of the general debate, that the communication of the Commission has indeed laid down four major principles for the Agenda of the round which we fully support in my Group.
Not least we support the need to have a comprehensive round because if the round is as broad as possible, we will be able to make progress in the end.
<P>
On specifics, there is one comment I would like to make about agriculture.
Quite clearly, this is going to be one of the most sensitive areas to be investigated, in terms of export subsidies, in terms of the vital need to maintain the rural areas, but also in terms of food safety.
These are three of the main issues which the round will have to deal with.
It may be, Mr Commissioner, that the Commission together with the US administration could come up with some kind of Green Paper sketching out where the differences are and where the common interests are between America and Europe because as you know, in your previous role, unless America and Europe agree on the major outlines in an international round such as this, we will never conclude.
And therefore, maybe an informal document such as this would be useful for Seattle.
<P>
Lastly, of a political nature, there are a number of networks and non-governmental organisations now which are indeed in favour of world trade and would like to take a responsible part in these negotiations.
There are others, which are much less responsible, more militant in nature and likely to be present in Seattle.
It is for those reasons that, if we want to ensure that consumer and social and labour issues are part of the agenda, we must ensure that these networks do not actually take over our agenda.
We therefore need, I believe, to have a large parliamentary delegation in Seattle from this Parliament at least equal in size to that of the US Congress to make sure that we can represent what the views of this House are there as well as being able to ensure that as this negotiation takes place on non-tariff as well as tariff issues.
These are legislative problems and therefore legislators need to be present.
I therefore endorse those colleagues who have said that we should have a strong parliamentary presence.
The three institutions of the European Union must cooperate and it would be very interesting to have the both the Council' s and the Commission' s view on the need to have a strong European parliamentary presence in these negotiations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Westendorp y Cabeza">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Erika Mann has given a good - if rather brief - summary of the Group of the Party of European Socialists' current position on the Millennium Round, so I shall not dwell on it any further.
<P>
I just have two observations which I would like to share with the Council and with the Commission - and they are two sides of the same coin.
These are, to be precise, the need to include our citizens in this important exercise, and to deal with their legitimate concerns.
<P>
My first observation concerns the need to include the European Parliament in the forthcoming negotiations.
This is not simply a matter of making a claim for this institution, and nor is it a childish desire to be in the limelight.
It is a question above all, of ensuring that the problems that this round poses for our citizens can reach the European Union' s negotiator at all times, as we have seen from what previous speakers have said, as well as the solutions that these citizens expect of the negotiators.
This is the only way to ensure that these demands reach the Union' s representatives.
And these demands will have all the more force if Parliament presents a united front with the Commission and with the Council.
This therefore, is my first observation.
<P>
My second observation justifies my first request and that is that our citizens' main concerns are heading in an apparently opposing direction.
On the one hand, we are perfectly aware that this round should not result in empty words, but should instead provide a net benefit for everyone, especially for the developing countries.
On the other hand, our society has legitimate concerns about the challenges that the phenomenon of globalisation poses for us: respect for human rights and of fundamental social liberties, the protection of the environment and the preservation of nature, as well as the protection of our consumers' health.
<P>
My question to the Council and to the Commission is this: how can we reconcile these two apparently contradictory issues?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 NAME="Pesälä">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, the WTO must guarantee the purity and quality of food.
For that reason, with the meeting at Seattle drawing near, the EU must not be too modest in its demands.
Europe wants to practise a social and sustainable agricultural policy and, above all, produce food which is pure and of good quality.
That is why the environment, people' s health and that of animals, and the question of fairness must be a proper basis for the talks.
<P>
The agenda for the negotiations must be broad in scope from the outset.
The European agricultural model has to be forcefully promoted in the talks.
The quality and purity of food cannot be put into jeopardy as the result of a liberalised market.
In future, food production must be able to comply with the principle of caution.
In addition, I think it would be best for all if food could, in the future, be produced near to where it is to be consumed.
Regional food chains would help us to monitor the quality of food in the best way.
<P>
The EU must take an aggressive stance to defend its own sustainable course of action.
Furthermore, others must take account of the protection of the environment and health in their own production processes, if trade is to be liberalised.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Mr President, wealth is just as unevenly distributed throughout the world as it ever has been.
In the last five years, since the WTO was set up, the differences have become even more marked, and those countries which cannot count themselves amongst the leading industrial nations have become even more dependent.
That is why we do not need new rounds on liberalisation, instead we need a fundamental analysis and evaluation of the effects of the Uruguay Round on countries, people and the environment.
The WTO Round of Ministers is the right place for this.
A fundamental reform of the institution itself is also called for.
Transparency, democratic control and the equal participation of all countries, amongst other things, must be guaranteed.
<P>
Now on the subject of agriculture: if we stay on our current course, as the Commission and the USA would like, farmers with small- and medium-sized holdings will be the ones to suffer, both here and also in developing countries.
They cannot be made to compete with one another.
That is why better conditions for entering the market must be obtained for developing countries and at the same time, all export subsidies for farm products from the EU should be withdrawn.
The recognition of safeguarding food as a 'non trade concern' according to Article 20 of the Agreement on Agriculture must also be accepted.
A whole raft of Southern countries is quite rightly demanding a renegotiation of the TRIPs Agreement because they are losing the right to use their own resources.
We are also completely against the patenting of living things.
We must also refuse to accept any agreement similar to the MAI agreement on investments alone at a WTO level.
Other international institutions such as the UN and the ILU must unite on this issue.
By combining their forces they would be able to say that the welfare of all people will come to the fore in Seattle, and not the interests of big companies, of the rich and powerful such as well as the interests of the European Union and various elites and oligarchies.
<P>
The Commission should not accept a mandate for negotiation which goes against human rights, social rights and the environment.
What developing countries need, as they are not equally strong economic partners, is a special position laid down by agreement, and this should be the rule, not the exception.
It is not only to them that we owe this, but also to all of us here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Manisco">
Mr President, we really would like to believe the assurances given by Mr Sasi and Mr Lamy on Europe' s aim in Seattle to limit the harmful effects of further liberalisation without rules on multilateral trade under the usual stars and stripes flag of globalisation.
We would like to believe them, but bitter experience prevents us. Take, for example, Mr Lamy' s predecessor, Sir Leon Brittan, whose commitments in this Parliament to oppose the American steamroller were often disregarded - just think of the case of Helms­Burton and the WTO.
We realise that times have changed radically, and that awareness accompanied by protests is spreading across the world and that the slogan 'what is good for big business is good for the world at large' is no longer shouted from the rooftops.
Let us hope that what we have heard today is not just a public relations reaction, a placebo, or a tranquilliser.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Muscardini">
Mr President, globalisation needs a leader.
It is clear that the World Trade Organisation has removed barriers from commercial activities, meaning ideological barriers have been broken down which has helped peoples to communicate with each other.
But liberalisation cannot be an uncontrolled process, but must be steered by rules which will safeguard the specific values of each people and the characteristics of each country.
We must therefore also defend European agriculture and the traditions of those typical products which also encompass the textile sector, shoe sector and industry. We must remember that the demise of certain products also means a change in traditions or even landscapes - just think of olive oil, hops and malt.
Another requirement is to guarantee food safety. We cannot, in the name of freedom of trade, allow non-approved products to circulate.
Hormones in veal are not a very good recipe. So removing barriers must not include removing the safety and quality of products.
The last imperative is to prevent small businesses being eliminated.
Let us ensure that the Millennium Round is not a round in which Europe gets knocked out.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
Mr President, in the Millennium Round, concern with further free trade ought to be combined with concern for poor countries, employees' rights and the environment.
Unfortunately, the Commission' s proposals in important areas such as agriculture and TRIPS reflect an old-fashioned trading policy designed to promote one' s own export opportunities at the same time as retaining protectionist arrangements within the EU.
It is not therefore difficult to understand why developing countries form the impression that the EU' s policies in other areas are just as heavily characterised by our own interests.
If the negotiations are to cover employees' rights, the environment, consumer protection, investments and competition, the EU must send out a clear signal that common interests are being given priority over and against our own narrow interests.
For developing countries, this must mean free access for all goods, compensation for rising prices for basic foods, exemptions from the TRIPS agreements and a situation in which the EU removes the subsidies which result in unfair competition, especially in connection with agricultural products.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Mr President, this new round of negotiations poses a question of principle, a question of method and a question of content.
<P>
First of all with regard to principle, why have a new round?
There has already been Tokyo, Kennedy, Nixon, Uruguay!
Has humanity gained anything from them?
If the rounds had not taken place, would we have been worse off?
The MAI has not been signed, the transatlantic contract has not been signed!
Yet, there has been no catastrophe.
On the other hand, the GATT has been signed and there are still 18 million unemployed people in Europe.
The NAFTA has been signed and Mexico has been bled dry.
<P>
Scientifically, free trade is like the independence of central banks.
There is no conclusive scientific evidence as to whether it is good or bad.
We are not in a domain of science but in a domain of belief.
It is basically as if in Seattle on 30 November the Church of Globology was going to meet.
<P>
That means that the method is important.
It is important that the Council monitors the mandate of the Commission, so that Blair House may not happen again, and that both the States and public opinion monitor it.
This is because in France the sickle has revolted against MacDonalds and the Millennium has come out of hiding.
<P>
As regards the content, there will clearly be a lot of questions.
The question of services, audiovisual, social and environmental questions, developing countries and, of course the agricultural question, with the risk that Europe will behave like Bambi and Walt Disney.
Europe will no doubt obtain labellings and traceability, it will be able to play with blue boxes and green boxes, but it will give in on the important points, that is, the internal support for the farmers and the Community preference.
Mr Lamy, you have not even mentioned the term "Community preference" , hence our reservations regarding this round.
<P>
To participate in these cycles, you have to be some sort of a cyclist.
The only problem is that it is the people who do the pedalling and the very poorest who most suffer from the punctures.
But it is true that we still have the strength to bear the evils of others!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cunha">
Mr President, as my colleague Konrad Schwaiger, the general rapporteur, said, the framework for the agricultural negotiation must be the CAP, reformed in the context of Agenda 2000, as laid down at the Berlin European Council.
However, I would like to emphasise four particular points.
<P>
Firstly, the only way that the European Union can maintain a fighting stance in these negotiations is to lay the truth about the state of its agriculture on the table.
The reality of this is one of multifunctional agriculture, which combines its economic function with preserving the environment and the countryside and which guarantees that the whole of our territory remains populated.
This reality has a name: it is called the European agricultural model.
Bearing this in mind, the European Union will not be able to accept any measure that might put it in jeopardy.
<P>
Secondly, the European Union can only consent to enter into negotiations on the issue of agriculture if it is made clear that free trade is inseparable from fair trade.
And for this reason, the WTO cannot confine itself to commercial matters, but must also address fundamental issues such as the quality and safety of food, animal welfare, the protection of the environment, and respect for consumers and their views.
<P>
Thirdly, the European Union must put on the table the precautionary principle, which means being able to take exceptional steps to protect our consumers.
There should be no more trade reprisals merely because we have sought to protect our consumers, as we did in the case of the battle over hormones.
<P>
Fourthly, we must be aware that although European agriculture as a whole comprises many specific elements, it is also deeply heterogeneous. That is to say, the European agricultural model is a plural model.
To this extent, special measures should be advocated for those areas whose survival is at greatest risk, particularly those with small farms, and the poorer regions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Garot">
Mr President, agriculture will therefore still be one of the main subjects of the next round of WTO negotiations, and our European institutions all seem to agree that we should seek the recognition of our European Farm Model, protect the consumer, and treat the Berlin agreement as the framework of the Commission' s negotiating mandate.
We now have to benefit from this coherence in the face of our competitors, our partners in the WTO.
<P>
In this respect, we should make it clear that anything that can be done to inform, sensitise and mobilise public opinion, will strengthen the determination of our negotiators in the eyes of the Cairns Group, the United States and developing countries.
<P>
We can already see that the pressure of our civil society can have contagious effects in our competitors' camp.
The proof can be found in what is currently happening in the United States, for example, with regard to GMOs.
<P>
It is therefore necessary, as an extension of this matter, and with the aim of creating a favourable balance of power within the WTO, to debate, to communicate throughout Europe regarding the direction to be given to globalisation and the liberalisation of trade.
<P>
For us Europeans, the aim of this globalisation should consist of reconciling economic competitiveness with a global development which is more balanced, more durable and better distributed especially between North and South.
<P>
With regard to agriculture, we should establish a system for trade in agricultural products which is fair, based on the market certainly, but also on more general considerations such as public health, the environment, employment and balance between territories.
It is in light of these objectives that there is good reason to carry out, without delay, an intermediary appraisal of the application of the Marrakech Agreements.
Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, these aims should naturally form the basis of the principle of the global application of the agreement, which should take precedence in the negotiations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Ducarme">
Commissioner, the half-heartedness of the Commission alarms me and I would say that, perhaps, one suggestion should be taken on board: avoid the capitalist trap, be offensive and, if you will allow the expression, "be liberal" .
<P>
I would like to ask the Commission if it can commit itself to a firm basis comprising three main points.
Why not commit yourselves to humanist values and dare to say that we must recognise the fundamental social standards defined by the ILO?
Why not require quality standards on a global level, and therefore demand the same rights and the same responsibilities of all economies and businesses?
Why not argue for diversity on an international level and demand, for everyone, a cultural exception and an agricultural exception?
<P>
Finally, a wish and, in any case, a will.
I do not think it is good for the European Parliament to accept the possible position of the Commission and then leave it to the end of the round to pass judgement.
We must always work alongside the Commission, but also see to it that the Parliament is not just a ratification Chamber, but may make its point of view count.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Nogueira Román">
Mr President, as stated in the introduction to the Commission' s report on the draft communication to the Council and the European Parliament, in public opinion today, there is, fortunately, growing concern, engendering much debate, about the impact of the liberalisation of trade on employment, on the distribution of wealth, on the environment, on health, consumer protection and cultural diversity, as well as the increased marginalisation of poor countries.
These concerns are shared and (...) by our group.
We are not in favour of increasing the competences of an organisation lacking democratic structures, as is the case with the WTO. Nor are we in favour of interaction (...).
What we want instead, is the World Trade Organisation to be officially reformed so that it complies with the Convention on Human Rights and with the conventions of the ILO.
<P>
We particularly want economic and commercial measures for the development of poor and marginalised countries.
In any case, I want to say that the Millennium Round negotiations must not harm the basic elements of the European Agricultural Model. Neither must they harm the reforms which in addition to Agenda 2000, are necessary for protecting the development within each State of the number one objective which is local, family-based farming in the face of the interests of big industrial companies which have huge powers of distribution.
<P>
Finally, we are asking this Parliament to participate, as well as the Commission...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Brie">
Mr President, I believe that what is being considered here will probably be the most serious international agreement ever. It is therefore all the more depressing for me that, so far, no comprehensive evaluation of the consequences of the Uruguay Round has been made.
<P>
During our discussion on food safety yesterday, I wondered how we are really doing on the safety issue, as few of today' s consequences have stemmed from the deregulation which has already begun.
The fact that the mandate for negotiation has barely been discussed in national parliaments I find all the more unacceptable.
I think that it is shameful that we must accept that many developing countries who are contractually bound within the framework of this discussion to take part and above all who are directly concerned, for financial reasons cannot sit down at the negotiating table at all. It is also shameful that so little of the proceedings will be open to the public.
<P>
If there is one thing then that I would call for, in the short time I have left, I would wish that this Parliament, across all Parties, guarantees this openness to the public, and that there is transparency and intensive discussion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, I had almost decided against speaking in this debate.
Why?
Because when I hear the Council, Commission and Members of Parliament talk in this way it really does put me in mind of courting hedgehogs: afraid of needling each other and knowing that when it comes down to it we appear to agree on all the important issues, that is to say the social issues that Mr Hansenne talked about before and which I shall enumerate again: sustainable development, culture, the precautionary principle in food safety, agricultural affairs, development-related matters and animal welfare.
<P>
Mr President, that would only require a day' s work, which is why I believe it is appropriate to call upon you to consider this one point: all these courting hedgehogs will soon be gathering in Seattle; how does the European Commission intend to keep them communicating?
I think there are two things which will achieve this.
Firstly we need to see to it that Parliament sends a strong delegation which will ensure that national interests do not play a part.
Secondly, Mr President, I hope that Mr Lamy will see to it that everyone continues to be aware that if the WTO is of importance to us, if it is of importance to Europe then it is also of importance to our other trading partners. What is more, they must remain aware of the fact that the WTO can only serve an important purpose if every Member State ensures, and also continues to understand, that the interests of one State alone cannot be allowed to prevail, rather the interests of Europe as a whole must always be served by these negotiations too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 NAME="McAvan">
Mr President, the advantage or disadvantage of speaking late is that much of what I was going to say has already been said, so I will just reinforce three general points.
<P>
Firstly, we must resist the pressure for a narrow round of debate, wherever that comes from.
We need a broad round, we need comprehensive negotiations to get a package that has something in it for everybody.
<P>
Secondly, throughout these talks we will be very much in the public eye.
The days of negotiations on technical matters behind closed doors are gone forever.
People are watching, NGOs are watching, businesses are watching environmental concerns, health, animal welfare.
So I am very pleased that the European Commission is tomorrow having a consultation with NGOs in Brussels.
That is very good news.
<P>
Thirdly, many have spoken about the need for a balanced approach.
We must have a balanced package.
It is not just about trade, it is about international and social justice, it is about environmental concerns.
But neither can we, as some in this House would wish, forget job creation and wealth.
That matters to the public too.
It is going to be hard to get that balanced package, but the public expect it of us and that is what democratic, responsible government is about.
We have to do it.
<P>
Finally, I am pleased to hear the Commission and the Council mention the needs of the developing world.
It is very important that we give them more than warm words as we enter the new millennium.
Let us hope that in the next century we shall see something other than stories of Africa going backwards in terms of economic development.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sánchez García">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is reassuring to know that in negotiations as important as those with the World Trade Organisation, the Fifteen Member States have adopted a common position in order to establish, in the area of agriculture, stable ground rules which will allow fair trading on the world scene and to face the challenges of the new Millennium with a clear purpose. We can do this because we have based our position on those adopted at the time from the agenda of the agriculture agreement of the Uruguay Round and at Agenda 2000 in Berlin, as well as on maintaining the multifunctional nature of agriculture
<P>
To these basic principles, I think that we should add the strategic value of agriculture in some regions of the European Union with strong exports, which furthermore were given particular recognition in the Amsterdam Treaty, such as the so-called outlying regions. These should be given special consideration in the Millennium Round negotiations so that the decisions taken in Seattle safeguard their agricultural interests and guarantee their cultural, economic and environmental survival, particularly after the Cologne Summit.
This is why it would be useful to remind the Council and the Commission of the problems these regions face, and to make another of the negotiations' aims safeguarding the...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Figueiredo">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am concerned by the statements on the so-called Millennium Round.
They say that we should extend our policies of liberalisation to an ever-greater number of sectors and countries, including agriculture and services essential to development and essential to improving the quality of life of our citizens, such as education and health.
<P>
The President of the Commission made his intention clear when, in his speech during the investiture process, he said that it was necessary to continue restructuring the single market and to promote liberalisation. He specifically emphasised the continuation of the process of liberalising the goods and services sectors.
This means that we are no longer only in the process of liberalising the exchange of goods, as happened with GATT.
The multinationals now want to go much further. They want to take over public sectors which are essential to our citizens' lives and which have until now been the responsibility of the State.
<P>
This is a very dangerous road to go down, as the consequences of applying the WTO rules have shown, causing as they did, an increase in social inequality, unemployment, and world poverty.
It is vital that the forthcoming negotiations do not go any further down this road, but take the road of solidarity and cooperation instead.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Karoutchi">
Mr President, yesterday we held a debate here on the strengthening of food safety in Europe, while conflicts on the precautionary principle are taking place within the Union and in parallel, the Americans are pursuing unjustified retaliations.
The situation in the agricultural and food-processing sectors has become more serious over the last few years, although we were theoretically covered by the Uruguay Round and the Marrakech Agreements, which were supposed to guarantee and organise access to the market, support for exports and internal support.
<P>
So you will appreciate, Commissioner, our concern at the apparent absence of shared views within the Union before the beginning of the negotiation, while the United States seems very determined to oppose the European system of subsidies, while skilfully absolving themselves from flexibility payments.
In fact negotiations cannot get under way seriously until we persuade our partners and competitors to recognise the European Agricultural Model.
It is this model which, based on the Community preference, guarantees product quality, food safety and the survival and development of our agricultural and food-processing sectors.
<P>
Commissioner, we have been happy to note your answers to the committee as well as your words at the beginning of this sitting.
But we would like to know whether you can tell us how the Americans have reacted to the European position in favour of extending the peace clause beyond 2003.
Could you also tell us whether the United States are demanding compensation or the disappearance of the green and blue boxes which amused Mr Martinez so much but which are absolutely essential for our farmers?
Finally could you tell us whether you consider that the conclusions of the Berlin Council on the reform of the CAP are an inviolable basic element in your eyes or whether they are under threat in the new negotiations?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth-Behrendt">
Mr President, Commissioner, in the short time I have left, I would just like to make a few key points.
What do we need to do in terms of form?
We must change the process for the settlement of disputes within the World Trade Organisation.
We must make it more transparent, clearer and more accessible to the public.
This is one of the most important conditions necessary for ensuring that areas such as the protection of the environment and of the consumer are given their rightful place, and are not ridden roughshod over in some panel.
<P>
Concerning the areas that are included, Mr Lamy, the most important of all is the precautionary principle.
I have already said this on many occasions.
We must take the precautionary principle from the trade agreement on plant health and apply it to the Agreement.
So what then do we really need?
We need policies on the environment and health to be important and proper components of the Agreement.
The achievements of the World Trade Organisation' s committee on trade and the environment are not enough.
It has not so far fulfilled its duties and must be penalised.
It must be given a clear timetable so that it can give support to the various projects.
<P>
What are the most important areas that we really have to deal with?
We must do what the Commission itself asks.
We must make the whole World Trade Organisation more open, more democratic and more transparent and we must ensure that the whole contract underlying it can be subjected, as you yourself say, to a study on its environmental acceptability.
We must examine production methods that are not tied to products and we must have an overview of the situation.
I am convinced that this Parliament will not ratify another agreement in which the precautionary principle, consumer protection and health policies do not play an important part.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hansenne">
Mr President, a great many people are concerned about the social consequences of a new wave of trade liberalisation.
These fears must be taken into account and must appear in the agenda of the Millennium Round negotiations.
However, neither on the creation of the WTO nor at the Singapore Conference were we able to persuade our partners to discuss them.
We must draw lessons from this failure and, with determination, present a credible and coherent position.
Above all determination: there will be no balanced negotiations if we are not able to debate these issues, and our citizens will not understand if we dare to start these negotiations by immediately giving up this essential issue.
<P>
In order to succeed, we should take a credible stance.
In 1994, in Marrakech, and in Singapore, in 1996, we were unable to convince many developing countries of the validity of our concerns because we presented them in the form of a social clause.
We failed because we presented ourselves with a negative and punitive image.
<P>
Since then things have changed.
Last year, the Member States of the ILO - and amongst them our own countries - adopted a declaration on the principles and fundamental rights relating to work.
We all undertook to respect the principles which create a genuine social dynamic in each country.
We promised to support the efforts of developing countries to fulfil their commitments.
We do not wish to sanction but rather to assist.
Not to assist for the sake of assisting, but to assist so that the commitments may be met.
To this end we must ensure that there is suitable and effective cooperation between the ILO and the WTO.
<P>
We must finally give substance to the agreement reached in Singapore on the cooperation between the secretariats of the two organisations, in order to guarantee the positive implementation of the declaration.
We must also adopt a coherent position.
If we are willing to help our partners to build with us genuine world-wide social foundations, we must tell them what efforts we are willing make to this end.
A more attractive incentive system involving preferences and a programme of specific and generous cooperation may contribute to this.
A clear and strong sign in this direction on the part of the Commission and our governments must be prepared and announced in Seattle.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Carraro">
Mr President, I think the Commission did well to stress in its communication, the important point that what we are going to open in Seattle is a round of world talks.
It will mean difficult and complex talks, during which we must always keep at the forefront of our minds the strategic interest that is fundamental for the European Community.
We are the largest exporter in the world and so we are involved more than any other area on the planet with the push towards the abolition of barriers which hinder development of international trade.
<P>
Developing international trade means making a substantial contribution to European economic growth, which the countries of the Community really need.
I think that this is an irrefutable situation which Mr Pasqua' s anti-American arguments, which are at least 30 years old, cannot bring into question.
Naturally, we have to defend the values and principles which are fundamental for the countries of the Community, but we have to do it in a shrewd and flexible way. We must also keep in mind that first of all, we need to develop that strategic interest that is fundamental to the liberalisation of international trade which I spoke of a short while ago.
I therefore think that this is neither the place nor the time to be erecting barriers.
I think that Parliament' s involvement in the course of the talks and its cooperation with Commissioner Lamy will bring about results that are appropriate for this objective.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langenhagen">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to talk about an area in which there is a large deficit, and to state that I recognise the advantages of further liberalisation.
But I would like to see balance in world-wide trade.
The tried and tested European Model must be maintained, with, for example, our high environmental standards and consumer protection, including our socio-economic measures.
Against this background several maritime aspects must be considered in the WTO negotiations, even if the fishing industry does not have as much weight as agriculture.
I shall now mention three of these aspects.
<P>
Firstly, Europe has been allocated fish imports.
Each measure that weakens our European fish-processing industry means large-scale job losses, mostly in regions which already lack infrastructure.
The valuable assistance that the Commission and the European Parliament have so far guaranteed, through various market and regulatory instruments, should not be sacrificed at the altar of absolute liberalisation.
<P>
Secondly, international fisheries agreements benefit the exploitation of waters outside Europe and give support both to European fishermen and to the development of third countries.
I do not call this protectionism. But without public support, these agreements would not be feasible.
What we must do here is to look beyond the confines of absolute liberalisation, in order to guarantee the many jobs which are dependent on a balanced and regulated world market.
<P>
In the future, the principle of partnership must be strengthened on a global scale.
But this does not mean that free trade must be proclaimed to be the golden calf.
It must be brought into line with other important aims such as environmental protection and sustainability in the fishing industry.
The WTO negotiations must also deal particularly with ensuring that the products we want to market world-wide will still be available when we finally get around to discussing them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ettl">
Mr President, even if the European Community is a passionate advocate of the new round of negotiations within the framework of the WTO, in the course of what will probably be the last big push for liberalisation, we should not ignore social issues.
<P>
Participation in prosperity, a healthy environment and healthy working conditions are by far the best investments for a good future.
Following the 1994 Uruguay Round, we expected to see greater prosperity through higher growth for the ACP countries.
Growth was to a large extent achieved, but according to studies by the OECD and the UNCTAD, standards of living at the lowest levels have not changed at all.
In fact, what has happened is quite the opposite!
It cannot make sense to have a policy of increasing our prosperity while making poor people poorer.
This is why we should not miss the last chance to demand that the seven most important core employment standards, which were ratified in the IAO agreement, be made checkable social clauses.
This does not imply a new form of protectionism, but is to do with standards of fundamental rights with which employees suffering discrimination can protect themselves.
This is a human rights issue and we must strive for this minimum standard.
Once we have these things, we can offer the ACP countries positive incentives to do the same.
There is a whole raft of ideas on this in the Commission' s report.
If we do not succeed in having the social components included, the last great step in achieving liberalisation will not work.
I expect greater commitment on the part of the Council on this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="Kauppi">
Mr President, Mr Sasi, the liberalisation of world trade is preparing to take a big step forward at Seattle.
With European integration, the EU has grown into a major global influence on the economy, for which only a broad-based round of negotiations will make it possible to ensure steady economic growth.
<P>
Of all the important issues on the agenda for the talks, the liberalisation of trade in services is the most challenging.
The European Union is the world' s largest player in the field of trade in services.
Services account for the largest share of GNP in the European Union, and, what is more, that share is growing all the time; and that is good.
One of the greatest barriers to free trade in services is the lack of any global set of norms relating to tendering for contracts in the public sector.
International companies must have converging opportunities to make tenders for contracts, and the public sector must be opened up to international competition.
Furthermore, the rules of global commerce must be defined to safeguard the rights of the market operators.
Similarly, we must substantially develop a scheme to gauge the international comparability of rules of copyright.
<P>
The main aim of the talks is to ensure the quality of services on offer.
If the European markets are opened up, any external agent offering services must meet the same high standards that exist in Europe.
Any monitoring mechanisms used to check levels of quality must be clear as to their principles and as open as possible with regard to the communication of information.
It is especially important that the fast growing services of the information society become subject to an agreement.
The advantage of the development of the modern trade in services in Europe is that it maximises the benefits of increased commercial exploitation of information technology.
Electronic shopping must clearly be made easier, and regulation and taxation in this area must be kept to a minimum.
At the talks we must be able to ensure that electronic shopping remains free and dynamic, and guarantee the possibilities for developments in electronic shopping in Europe in the next Millennium also.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Désir">
Mr President, I would like first of all, to ask a question of the Council and the Presidency which concerns transparency: when will the European Parliament receive the draft final declaration which the Finnish Presidency has tabled in the Council?
It would appear that this long and detailed document is currently under discussion in the Council and between the Council and the Commission.
It is the real mandate for negotiations which the Council is preparing to give to the Commission.
We would like the European Parliament to be genuinely involved in the preparation of the negotiation mandate and, to this end, this text should be made available to us.
<P>
Secondly, I would like to mention one of the most important points in future negotiations: the question of services.
Not all services can be put on the same level.
For us, for example, human health is not a piece of merchandise.
Certain services should continue to stand out amongst public services and general interest services.
I am also thinking of education.
Elsewhere in the world, others have made a different choice and have reached a situation where you are asked for your bank card on entering a hospital before they will treat you.
This is one choice, but it is not ours and we do not want a situation where tomorrow, in Europe, the inclusion of services in the scope of the WTO leads to the rules of competition and market openness being applied to sectors such as health and education.
This would mean the dismantling of our social model.
This would mean changing from a market economy to a market society.
The best guarantee for our public services is to place them clearly, and from the outset, outside the scope of the negotiations, as has happened in the case of the cultural exception.
<P>
I would like to finish - and this is not unrelated - with the question of investment.
May I remind you, the European Parliament has rejected the MAI, and we should not let the very thing that we turned away from our door yesterday, when it came from the OECD, today get in through our window coming from the WTO.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Brunetta">
Mr President, Commissioner Lamy, Mr Sasi, the Millennium Round will, out of necessity, have to promote forms of cooperation and integration between the World Trade Organisation, the International Labour Office, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. This is so that the liberalisation of trade will be accompanied by renewed stability in the money market, by wide-ranging policies on human resources, by social protection networks and by widespread compliance with the fundamental regulations on work.
Only in this way will it be possible to remove the mutual accusations of social dumping and protectionism.
<P>
With the solemn declaration of June 1998, the 178 Member States of the ILO undertook to promote the four fundamental rights of work: the right of association, respect for the minimum working age, the prohibition of forced labour and the suppression of discrimination.
Out of this came an indirect definition of fair competition so that social development will not be compulsorily suppressed for competitive purposes.
More recently, the express hope came out of the G8 meetings in Washington and Cologne that the ILO' s solemn declaration will be implemented.
<P>
Support policies must therefore always prevail over sanctions.
In this regard, Europe can constitute a reliable point of reference, and this is also thanks to its model of the social market economy.
The Commission, backed by Parliament, must therefore commit resources to assisting developing countries and transitional economies, construct modern social protection systems and efficient job markets.
This is the ideal, political message which the united Europe will be able to take to Seattle, confirming the traditional function of dialogue and integration between developed economies and developing economies or those undergoing changes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 NAME="Kinnock, Glenys">
Mr President, in today' s Financial Times the Secretary-General of UNCTAD reiterated that there remains persistent bias against developing countries in the multilateral trading system.
In these deliberations we need to be absolutely clear that developing countries are not asking for an ambitious programme in this round.
They are asking for compliance with the commitments which were made under the Uruguay Round.
They have not, for instance, seen the benefits for their textile and clothing industries, neither have they seen benefits from the liberalisation of trade in farm products.
What they want to see first are the good effects that could come from the Uruguay Round.
<P>
Developing countries are preparing for Seattle, and preparing to be very busy.
They are saying that market access alone is not going to be a panacea enabling them to achieve competitiveness and integration into the global economy.
We need to acknowledge that all these fine objectives will demand that we support the supply side in developing countries, because they simply will not have the capacity to deal with these fine objectives.
<P>
It is also necessary to see the elimination of agricultural export subsidies and a new WTO clause to cover the need for food security in developing countries.
Also, a social clause - which many people have mentioned - should be jointly managed by the ILO to ensure that some of the susceptibilities we all know about are dealt with.
<P>
Finally, Commissioner, when you deal with WTO rules in your deliberations, I would ask you also to remember that we have enormous duties and responsibilities under the Lomé Convention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, production in the European Union has grown by just over 3% per year in the last few years.
Trade in recent decades has decreased by an average of 6% per year, service exports stand at 9% and foreign direct investments are at about 12%.
This shows very clearly what our priorities must be.
Our number one aim, which is full employment in Europe, requires an improvement in our competitiveness and is being decisively formed by these developments.
<P>
My priorities for the WTO negotiations are firstly, electronic commerce, the area with the greatest potential growth rate, and in which Europe is actually very competitive.
In this area, we want to see electronic transactions and supplies made officially exempt from duty in the long term.
We want to avoid ways of looking at the situation that differentiate between traditional and new services as the way in which a transfer of goods or services is effected does not change the nature of providing a service. We also want improved access to markets in non-EU countries for goods and services, and in the telecommunications services which give the necessary support to electronic commerce.
<P>
Secondly, telecommunications.
Well-developed networks and fairer competition have a generally positive effect on a country' s economic performance and employment situation.
The forging of international alliances opens up new markets, and as a consequence brings about a covert and strengthened sense of competition which is to the consumer' s advantage.
But there is also a need for transparency in this area.
Liberalisation is a prime example of a job creator.
Through liberalisation, hundreds of thousands of new and supplementary jobs have been created.
<P>
My third point is TRIPs.
The effective implementation of this agreement should safeguard the equality of status between material and intellectual property.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Corbey">
Mr President, many NGOs have signed the declaration opposing the Millennium Round, the WTO and Seattle.
We are no longer in a position to leave the concerns of citizens and various organisations off the Seattle agenda, which means that the European Parliament and the Socialist Group also have an important role to play here.
This role must be focused on making a positive contribution during the negotiations.
A contribution that has due respect both for trade interests and the interests of citizens.
We must succeed in having the best of both worlds, even when it comes to the sensitive area of consumer and environmental protection.
The political question is always about the division of responsibilities between the WTO, the European Union, national governments and the consumer.
There are various answers to this question.
In the United States, more responsibility rests with the consumer.
Here in Europe, the government tends to bear the responsibility and we rely on legislation.
Many conflicts over environmental and consumer protection could be avoided by the effective application of the precautionary principle.
According to the Rio Declaration of 1992, it must be scientifically proven that a new product will have no damaging effects.
This evidence must then be provided before the product can come onto the market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Mr President, the significance of the Millennium Round and world trade on economic and employment policies and for the European economy in general, which is now the largest trading partner in the world, cannot be emphasised enough.
This means that it is particularly important that the European Union clearly states its opposition to any attempt to promote a new or even an old kind of protectionism.
It must contribute towards developing a type of administrative interdependence for interdependent national economies, and it must also contribute to a global concept of economic management.
<P>
The most important thing we need to do is to establish international rules for competition.
These rules for competition are all the more important because it is actually not very useful for the development of the European economy to have rules for competition here which do not apply throughout the world.
I am thinking here of huge mergers, amalgamations, price cartels and cartels within a particular field.
It is not acceptable that the 100 biggest companies in the world share things out between themselves, and all we can do about it is react but not actually play a role in it.
That is why we need a catalogue of minimum standards for international rules for competition which must be laid down in national rules for competition.
What we need above all are independent competition authorities in all the countries that are members of the WTO to implement these minimum standards for competition regulations.
<P>
Whether a procedure for the arbitration of disputes will one day turn into an international competition authority is a question that should be left open for today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, I am just going to talk about one subject.
This is a subject Mrs Roth-Behrendt has already spoken of: the procedure for conflict resolution.
<P>
When the Uruguay Round ended in Marrakech, the World Trade Organisation brought in a compulsory system of settlement of disputes, but the procedure they used was one inherited from the old General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
This was a procedure led by groups of experts and informal bodies.
The result of this is that now, the European Community is handing over to an international organisation its obligation to find a solution to its international disputes with no guarantee that it will be treated with sufficient impartiality.
<P>
For example, the first dispute about bananas was resolved by a panel, that is a group of experts, presided over by a former American senator, when the plaintiff was the United States of America.
And secondly, closer to home, the Commission needs to set its own affairs in order because now, the Commission services responsible for putting its claims to the dispute settlement body of the World Trade Organisation are completely toothless.
<P>
I would therefore expect from the Commission and from the Member States that in the new draft of the World Trade Organisation text, an independent and impartial system for settling disputes will be established, which will not push us into the path of an oncoming bus as has happened in the past.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="O' Toole">
I think our deliberations today have been very much about the key issues of environment and agriculture and also the social clause issue, but I want to bring to your attention the specific needs of the cultural industries and the audiovisual sector.
<P>
It is particularly important, in considering these areas, that we look at the problems that challenge us in these sectors: for instance, the growth rate, presently 13% in the EU, which probes the capacity and the reach of negotiated rules; as well as their complexity.
To take, for instance, the convergence of the telecommunication industries, audio and computer technology, which I feel pose fundamental questions regarding the way in which we produce and consume these industries.
But much of this will depend on the detail as concluded in the negotiations themselves.
<P>
I want to use the opportunity of the Commissioner' s presence here today to propose - in the light of the exemptions we already have in the European Union for the audiovisual industries, which give us room for manoeuvre, which give us also the ability to evolve with the industry and to make a gesture in the direction of an even playing field vis-à-vis the US - that, in constructing the infrastructure for the negotiations, we should be flexible enough to accommodate our needs here in Europe.
At the same time, I also recognise that we need a negotiating arena that is both robust and realistic.
So I would advocate that, in terms of our position here in Europe, we need to ensure that our industries move forward in a way auspicious to achieving the potential that they undoubtedly possess.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, firstly, I would like to thank everyone for this lively exchange of views.
I would also like to thank Parliament' s large groups for the positive attitude they have of both Council and Commission policy.
<P>
In my opinion, Commissioner Lamy asked the essential question in his excellent speech: is the liberalisation of world trade of any benefit to us?
In the opinion of the Council, it most definitely is.
It offers us economies of scale, which means obviously cheaper products for consumers.
In addition, it offers the opportunity for economic transparency, and it can be clearly shown that in open economies, democracy and human rights fare better.
It also furnishes trade with clearer rules and transparency to prevent bureaucracy, malpractice and bribery.
We could say on the whole that we are not at the moment working for prosperity, democracy, human rights or integrity.
<P>
Here in Parliament, there is also cause to remind everyone that the basic idea behind the Union was to create a common market.
We have a single market, whose objective is peace and the creation of prosperity.
For that reason, it is quite natural that the Union should want a more open market for the world economy also.
Central to the round of talks will obviously be the question of democracy, human rights and the environment.
It is important that we try to find positive incentives for less developed countries to develop their own systems.
I have to say that the Union' s own generalised Preference system is an excellent tool.
But these incentives can be created outside the information system, for example, for the World Bank system and elsewhere, where they can function effectively.
<P>
When transparency and democracy is spoken of in the WTO, I would like to remind you that decisions are taken unanimously in the WTO.
Consequently, it is certain and clear that democracy is also established there.
I would also like to stress that cultural diversity will be a very important issue for Europe in the talks.
In questions of agriculture, the fundamental principle will obviously be the Agenda 2000 solution that we achieved, and that solution has to be defended.
We have been asked here to predict its outcome, but it would be quite wrong to assess the outcome in any way at this stage, or at least to say anything about Agenda 2000 that might be off the track.
But it is important for us to remember that a broad-based round is also, for this reason, of benefit to the Union. I would also like to remind everyone that the Union enjoys important benefits in the area of agricultural exports.
I believe that if we develop our own production, the agricultural produce of the EU Member States will become competitive, not necessarily with regard to just price: we also have to bear in mind quality, and especially the fact that we are taking responsibility in our own area for food safety, whose importance to consumers will essentially increase in the future.
<P>
The role of Parliament has also been discussed here.
The Council also wishes in future to have an exchange of opinion with Parliament - here in the part-session, and, likewise, on the Committee.
We will try our best to take account of the opinions that have been expressed in Parliament while formulating our own positions.
As for the documents discussed in the 133 Committee in the Council, we will furnish Parliament with all the information it requires as well as the documents insofar as the Union' s own acts allow.
I wish to refer to the fact that during the previous parliamentary term a written question was presented on these procedures and a written reply was issued on the subject also.
<P>
As for the number of Members of Parliament to be present at the talks in Seattle, it has to be said that what is most important is that we have a body of people that can work in close cooperation with one another and between whose Members information can freely circulate.
My experiences of other rounds and the number of MEPs present were positive, so this could serve as a basis for estimates of the number of Members required.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lamy">
I do not intend to touch on all the subjects which we have debated, but I would simply like to thank the speakers - or at least most of them - for their support and to reply to some specific points or some of the questions posed by the speakers.
<P>
First question: can we, or should we analyse the impact of something like a round on the economy or the environment?
I believe that in the case of the economy, it is not necessary, even if it is not an exact science, because the majority of economists consider, for reasons which have just been indicated, that the liberalisation of trade is the right direction to take.
<P>
It is less obvious in the case of the environment, so much so that the Commission has taken the initiative to carry out a study of the environmental impact of the round which we are about to launch.
One could therefore ask why we have not done the same in relation to the Uruguay Round.
We did not do it because at the time we had not thought about it, we did not have the means and to do it now on the basis of the Uruguay Round does not make any logical sense.
On the other hand, we have begun to do so for the next round. It is not an easy task and furthermore I think that the Union is a pioneer in this field.
<P>
It is clearly possible to improve the mechanism for the settlement of disputes!
Let us remember however, between ourselves, that, on the whole, the results of the application of the mechanisms put in place after Marrakech are absolutely correct from the Union' s point of view, with regard to the relationship between the number of cases we brought against other parties and the number of cases brought against us, between the cases won and the cases lost.
If we look at the statistics and try to consider the exchanges in question, the results are satisfactory.
<P>
It is true that I have not mentioned the term "Community preference" .
I am not superstitious and, from the moment that it appeared in the treaties and I was made responsible for developing it, I have not felt the need to repeat it constantly.
<P>
To my knowledge, the United States have not yet given their opinion on the problem of the peace clause which takes us to 2003; we will clearly have to address the question of knowing what we will do after that.
<P>
With regard to the interpretation of the European Council of Berlin, which has, on this point, expressed its agreement on what has been called Agenda 2000, I have said, and I repeat, that it seems to me to be a good basis for discussion.
<P>
With regard to the possibility of developing countries gaining access to the techniques of commercial liberalisation, to the WTO and its panels etc, it is true, as has been said, that this poses a problem, that this objective is not yet within the range of many of them and that the use of these complex mechanisms is reserved for those who have the means, hence our proposal of technical assistance (which is furthermore mentioned in the Commission' s document), so that these countries may themselves possess and use the necessary legal technology.
<P>
As for the problems of health and education, we do not think, we do not foresee and we do not wish to call into question the public policy objectives in these areas within the proposals on the liberalisation of services in the next round.
<P>
Finally, with regard to the representation of the European Parliament, I have already said, and I repeat, that the Commission is absolutely clear on this issue.
We believe that to have the Members of the European Parliament, who are so well informed, by our side, in a negotiation of this type, is a trump card for us and hence for the Union.
I have not therefore changed my opinion on this.
We are aware that generally we work under your supervision and, sometimes, with your support.
<P>
On the question of the number, I consider this to be a matter which is in your hands and I would not presume to interfere.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner Lamy.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Climate change
<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="President">
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the forthcoming global conference on climate change, from 25 October to 5 November 1999 in Bonn: implementation of the Kyoto Convention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="Hassi">
<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wallström">
<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="Jackson">
Mr President, I cannot think of a worse building in which to hold a debate on climate change.
The building is a monument to how humankind has ignored the imperatives of climate change.
There is no natural light at all and we demand huge amounts of electricity.
Even when we get into the lifts they are black so we have to have the electric light on.
However, that being said, I welcome the remarks by the President-in-Office and by the Commissioner and, if I may do so in my humble position, I would like to congratulate her on her maiden speech.
<P>
The Kyoto Protocol created certain expectations and the impression of the European Parliament is that things have been allowed to go to sleep for far too long after the negotiations on that protocol were concluded.
Politicians have partly conspired to hide from the peoples of our Member States that implementing the Kyoto Protocols is going to be painful.
It is going to cost them money.
It is going to be money well spent, because we need to spend it to protect the environment, but it is going to cost them money.
<P>
I should like to thank Mrs Wallström for outlining to us what the Commission' s action is going to be.
She said at one point, rather blandly I thought, that she was going to propose tangible measures in various sectors.
Well, we wait to see what these are going to be.
We are glad there is going to be an action programme coming forward in the spring and a Green Paper on emissions trading.
When we had our debate in the hearing with the Commissioner about a month or so ago, my committee, the Committee on the Environment, was really rather in two minds as to whether it wanted to see emissions trading measures put forward, but it is worth our while to explore that line.
<P>
We need to produce an action programme to enable the European Union to live up to what it signed up to in Kyoto.
We would like to highlight - and we have highlighted in our resolution - the need for action, particularly in the air transport sector.
That is not something which can be left to the transport Commissioner, it is an initiative that should come from Mrs Wallström.
<P>
Finally I would like to pledge the Commissioner our full support in the Committee on the Environment for whatever it is that she brings forward.
Whatever it is, we hope she brings it forward in concrete form and soon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lange">
Mr President, Commissioner, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, I would like to make two observations as well as two requests.
The first is about emissions trading.
Emissions trading has two sides, one is political and the other economic.
In political terms, there are different ways of evaluating emissions trading.
Many in our group take the view that emissions trading, i.e. the freedom to buy the obligation to reduce CO2, is not politically tenable.
I do not want to evaluate that further now, but I think that the reduction of CO2 should not be seen merely as a burden but that it actually has an economic effect, and offers the opportunity, and the possibility, to bring the improvement of the quality of life into line with employment. That is why I feel that we should not participate in unlimited emissions trading.
<P>
I am absolutely convinced that Parliament' s position, which we drafted - to permit at the most 50% emissions trading, that is, 50% reduction of CO2 must be done in one' s own country - is in political and also economic terms, exactly the right way to generate employment here at home.
There is a sufficient number of studies which show that, for example, a reduction by 34,000 carbon equivalent units creates around 100 jobs in Europe, and this is the route we should take in order to bring ecology and economics designed to increase employment more in line with one another.
Hence my request: could you please confirm that you do not support any agreement which allows more than 50% emissions trading to take place outside one' s own country.
<P>
Secondly: the European Parliament' s participation.
I was very pleased Mrs Wallström, that you emphasised once again your desire to work closely with the European Parliament and I fully accept what you say. Past experience has shown, though, that this was sometimes not the case and that participation indeed worked on a very ad hoc basis.
This occurred firstly in the delegations for example, where one sometimes had the impression that the European Commission did the actual negotiating there, and that the Members of Parliament who were also present, were just there to make up the numbers. It also occurred in the drafting of the mandate or, to give a particularly negative example, in the issue of individual obligations to reduce CO2 and their negotiation by the Commission with the relevant partners, especially recently with the Japanese and Korean car manufacturers.
In this case, there was absolutely no contact with the European Parliament and the Parliament was not even officially informed.
The Council on the other hand, was informed and will make its decision on this on 12 October, but we have been cut out of the loop.
If we want to establish an instrument for individual obligation, then please ensure that all partners participate.
This brings me on to my second request: could you please confirm that a modus vivendi for the participation of Parliament will be found.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Olsson">
Mr President, changing and influencing nature in such a way that future generations do not have the same chance to live as we have is indefensible, be it from human or ecological points of view.
That is why it is really good to hear that Mrs Wallström has ambitions for the years to come.
<P>
I believe that we are today in a position where ever more people recognise that it is the interplay between environment and economies and between environment and markets in which a large part of the solution to our problems lies.
We must therefore make more and more use of economic instruments of control.
We take this up in our resolution. Commissioner Wallström has also touched upon the question.
The fact is that each country is free to introduce this type of measure, as in fact a number of countries have done already.
The best thing, however, would be for all countries to do this at the same time.
The next best thing would be for all EU Member States to do it at the same time.
A less good, but nonetheless necessary, alternative would perhaps be for some country to take the lead, that is to say for the flexibility clause to be used.
In that case, the majority of countries could move to introduce the measures required, while the others remained shamefully behind.
I had intended to ask Commissioner Wallström a question about this.
I do not, however, need to do this now because she has backed this point of view right from the beginning.
The question is merely one of how many countries we can get to join us in a first phase of this kind.
<P>
The second point I want to raise is precisely the point that Mr Lange raised in the matter of trade in emission rights.
I believe it is necessary to make for the greatest possible effectiveness at the lowest possible cost.
It is good that we should now be getting a Green Paper on this subject.
I am also pleased that Commissioner Wallström, with the background she has, has adopted the standpoint she has done.
I think it would be unfortunate to land ourselves today with percentage figures concerning the extent to which a particular environmental measure is to be employed.
I believe that we should be prepared to work as quickly and effectively as possible to influence the environment for the better.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, on behalf of the Greens/European Free Alliance, I would like to welcome Madam President-in-Office of the Council and Mrs Wallström, of the Commission.
Parliament must give you both its fullest support in your aim to include the issue of climate change in all European Union policy.
We know that very far-reaching decisions will be made at the Helsinki Summit on how to take account of environmental considerations generally, and climatic issues in particular.
<P>
Mrs Wallström spoke of a very positive matter with regard to Mr Monti.
The Member of the Commission responsible for issues of competition is thus ready to look into how subsidies and taxes will impact on climatic issues.
Parliament' s draft statement forcefully emphasises the importance of reducing those very large subsidies that are granted at present for fossil fuels.
I believe that Mr Monti will tackle this problem in earnest.
Perhaps we could then redirect the subsidies to areas that further the Union' s intentions, especially that of sustainable development.
<P>
I also support the idea that we must try hard to ensure that market forces work to halt the development of climate change.
In this, the importance of an energy tax cannot be underestimated.
The Commissioner responsible for the Internal Market, Mr Bolkestein, told Parliament yesterday that he also intends to become involved in this issue, although, unfortunately, he said he still needed a year to convince Spain that an energy tax is really needed.
I would have been interested to hear the opinions of the Member of the Commission and the President-in-Office on how a common energy tax would evolve, as, without one, the European Union will be unable to fulfil its objectives.
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<SPEAKER ID=176 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
Mr President, climate change is set to be one of our most difficult environmental challenges.
What makes it so difficult is that, if we are to take the matter seriously, huge changes must be made in both the energy and transport sectors.
What is probably also required, in spite of new technology and alternative energy sources, is less use of transport and lower energy consumption overall.
<P>
A large part of the responsibility for this lies, of course, with the individual Member States, but the EU too can do a great deal.
My Group naturally supports this resolution which we have also been involved in drafting.
I shall emphasise three points which are especially important for the EU in this situation.
<P>
The first point is that we must come up with a carbon dioxide levy, that is to say, a tax on greenhouse gases.
I should like to emphasise what is stated in paragraph 15 of the resolution to the effect that it is probably better to have a decision of substance, even if we do not have everyone on board, than to have a decision lacking in substance which entails an unacceptable delay.
<P>
The second point concerns the subsidy for fossil fuels which is, of course, directly counter-productive.
I also think that the EU' s energy research grants must focus solely on renewable sources of energy, which is not the case at present.
<P>
The third point concerns aviation fuel.
It is a matter of urgency that agreement be reached on the international taxation of aviation fuel.
Aviation is the area with the fastest increase in emissions of greenhouse gases.
On this subject, I should like to hear a little more from Commissioner Wallström.
What do you intend to do with regard to this particular area?
What initiatives do you have under way?
<P>
To conclude, I should like to point out that there is a lot of scepticism in my group about trade in emission rights.
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<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, first of all I would like to thank Minister Hassi and Commissioner Wallström for their inspiring statements.
A conference on climate change is just around the corner now. It is to take place in Bonn.
<P>
In view of the fact that there are so many different opinions about climate change, there are bound to be a great many more conferences in the future.
The fact is that there has been no noticeable improvement whatsoever.
According to a report by IPCC, there will need to be a 35% reduction in CO2 emissions between now and 2010 if temperatures and the rise in sea level are to be kept within the necessary limits.
This does not sit well with the fact that in most EU countries CO2 concentrations have done nothing but rise since 1990. So we will need drastic supplementary measures if we are to comply with the Kyoto Agreement.
<P>
However, it has become apparent since this agreement was reached that countries are taking their time when it comes to compliance.
It is downright scandalous that the Member States have not yet ratified the Kyoto Protocol.
This severely restricts the foundation on which practical efforts to cut down greenhouse gases are to be based.
It would in any case be best if Member State Governments were to press on with ratification.
In view of the seriousness of the situation I support the proposal made by Mrs Roth-Behrendt and Mr Lange to do this by means of an assent procedure.
Ratifying the Kyoto Protocol is not, in fact, something Parliament has to do, but neither can we allow a situation to develop in which laxness on the part of the Member States means there is no ratification whatsoever.
<P>
Another point is that there must soon be clarity and agreement in relation to the criteria for flexible mechanisms.
However, we must also guard against wanting other countries to effect reductions when we do not take measures to limit CO2 emissions ourselves.
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<SPEAKER ID=178 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kronberger">
Mr President, we must be perfectly clear about the scale of all this.
We are currently releasing as much CO2 per day as has been bound in the last 3000 years.
If we add that up over the course of a year, we are actually moving backwards in one go, at a rate of one million years per year.
In this sense, the plans of the Council and the Commission do not of course go far enough by any means and are actually merely cosmetic actions.
What we need in the long term are not voluntary agreements, but thorough analyses of the real costs and to make the whole tax system environmentally friendly.
If these things are not done, it simply will not work!
<P>
Within the framework of the current agreement on the common position, the requirement in Amendment No 5, that is, an EU Directive with legally binding targets for renewable energies to be achieved, is the minimum condition necessary if the Paper in any form can be taken seriously to any great extent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Arvidsson">
Mr President, this is an important motion for a resolution which may form the basis of continued work in the field of climate change.
There are ever more signs to indicate that imminent climate changes on our planet will become the really big environmental question and challenge for politicians the world over.
<P>
On behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party, I should like to report on the positions we have adopted.
We oppose paragraph 15 because we are doubtful as to the suitability and effectiveness of general energy taxes.
We oppose paragraph 16.
The question of energy efficiency is in fact also dealt with in paragraph 11 in the motion for a resolution.
It is proposed in paragraph 11 that a directive be prepared for this area and, in so doing, consideration can be given to what might be a more realistic goal for increased energy efficiency than what is stated in paragraph 16.
<P>
Where the draft amendments are concerned, we support proposal 1 from Mr Bowis, who is a member of the Group of the European People' s Party, together with draft Amendments Nos. 2 and 3 from the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
With regard to proposal 4 from the Socialists, we request split voting because we think that it would be unrealistic to try to achieve ratification of the protocol as early as the first few months of next year, even if it were a matter of urgency.
<P>
With regard to paragraph 5 from the Greens, we request split voting there as well.
We share the view that an EU Directive on renewable energy sources ought to be prepared, but we think that decisions about targets which are to be legally binding upon the Member States ought not to be formulated by the EU organisation.
<P>
Finally: I listened this morning to Environmental Commissioner Wallström who is in fact also with us here now.
She emphasised that market forces, free trade and well-informed consumers can be our best friends in obtaining a sound environment.
I agree with her statement, including the parts of it concerning measures to arrest climate change.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 NAME="Myller">
Mr President, we have to move on from the Kyoto agreement to be successful in preventing climate change. For that reason, we need a longer-term action programme, as proposed by the country holding the Presidency.
International emissions trading must be assessed according to how effective it will be in reducing emissions.
Environmental taxation is important, and that is why it has been discussed here.
It is an important means of achieving cleaner production processes and cleaner transport.
Ambitious attempts on the part of individual countries are doomed to failure unless there is progress in the EU area as a whole.
The cultivation of forests, as a means of dispensing with carbon dioxide, is still being discussed; this discussion must continue openly and we should also make more of the versatility of forests with regard to the environment and the prevention of climate change.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 NAME="Väyrynen">
<SPEAKER ID=182 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I think that what the public expects from us is not a contribution to even more hot air, but concrete measures.
The most important of these will be specific steps towards the incorporation of them by the European Union, and industry-specific targets and timetables.
Unfortunately, I have heard you say very little about these things here today.
Please be more specific. I believe that we must start implementation here in the EU and not wait until the start of the period of enforcement.
<P>
There are two other points I would like to mention. Commissioner, you mentioned renewable energy sources.
This is less a matter of financial assistance and more of when we will have a European "feed-in directive" with compensation that actually covers the costs.
<P>
Secondly, as the Swedish speaker already said, there is the matter of taxing aviation fuel.
According to our international obligations, we are not able to tax aviation fuel.
What is possible, though, is a tax on CO2.
The European Union could introduce such a tax immediately.
I would have liked to hear in concrete terms, what the timetables look like and how they stand in relation to these two specific recommendations, which represent a real contribution to achieving a noticeable fall in CO2 emissions.
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<SPEAKER ID=183 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, Commissioner, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, I must thank you for agreeing, on most points, with the European Parliament' s resolution, which lays down our whole philosophy on climate change.
<P>
Really, I would like to concentrate on the points which are of most concern to this Parliament.
Firstly, the European Union must continue to lead the way at the meeting which will take place in Bonn from the 25th of the month and, if necessary, it would be very useful to suggest a unilateral reduction, which was initially envisaged as 15%.
<P>
Secondly, we also feel that it is essential that the Kyoto Protocol be ratified.
I think that it is scandalous that 84 countries signed it and yet only 12, mostly small islands, have ratified it.
Perhaps these small islands have done so because the danger is much closer to home for them.
The European Union therefore, must make efforts to ensure that its Member Countries also sign this protocol.
<P>
I am also very keen on emphasising the issue raised by Commissioner Wallström, regarding a concrete plan of action.
I think that the time has arrived, Commissioner and Madam President-in-Office of the Council, to abandon rhetoric and to take action.
If you abandon rhetoric and take action, this Parliament will certainly support you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="Bowis">
Mr President, I welcome many of the things our Commissioner has been saying and is proposing to do.
I ask her with my amendment to do one thing more.
We all want to see greenhouse gas emissions reduced and my amendment is not a judgment on energy taxes, but it is seeking to help us make informed decisions on any proposals for such taxes.
<P>
What we need to know is the assessed impact on jobs in Europe and the extent to which pollution might simply be exported to low-income countries which can ill afford to cope with it.
An example of this: for a leading tomato grower in Britain currently paying GBP 363 000 for its gas and GBP 60 000 for its electricity, the proposed climate change levy in Britain would increase its energy bill by GBP 149 000.
That is a staggering 35% increase, an increase which would simply drive that company out of Britain and into some non-EU country, possibly in Eastern Europe, possibly in the developing world.
What would then happen is that the European Union would claim to have reduced its pollution, reduced its emissions, but at a cost: firstly European jobs would be lost and secondly the world would not have reduced its pollution levels by one iota: the pollution would simply have been exported.
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That in my view would be immoral to low-income countries and it would be insane economics for the working people of Europe.
<P>
The European Trade Union Confederation has called on us to make sure that every step - and they do say every step - taken to implement the Kyoto targets is carefully evaluated.
They are right.
That is what I want.
That is what I am asking the Commissioner to do.
Please publish your impact assessments on jobs and on the extent to which emissions would be exported.
Then we can all take an informed decision.
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<SPEAKER ID=185 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Lund">
The climate changes we have been experiencing for the last few decades present us with the biggest environmental challenges of all.
There are also humanly created problems.
The EU and the Member States should therefore stick to their goal of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases by 15% by the year 2010 and might well go further than that in the slightly longer term.
On the other hand, the tools we use to reduce emissions will have to be effective and binding, as Mrs Hassi and Mrs Wallström emphasised.
We know however that there are strong forces which are prepared to cheat the system by means of any old agreements.
You can certainly do that as a way of wangling lower environmental requirements for yourself, but you cannot cheat with regard to the actual effects of climate changes.
I would therefore urge the Council and the Commission to stand by the demand that at least half of the CO2 reductions are to be made on a national basis.
If we lower that 50% level, then I think we should be considerably impairing the EU' s policy on climate change and also greatly reducing the EU' s credibility in continued negotiations on the subject.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Liese">
Mr President, Commissioner, I support the joint resolution submitted by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, and unlike others in my Party, I also support the section which deals with an CO2 energy tax.
The CDU Party in Germany believes, and we have recently discussed this again with our Chairman, Mr Schäuble, that we should stop continuing to work towards a European solution, just because at the national level, left-wing and Green governments are abusing the issue of environmental taxes.
<P>
But we should not concentrate solely on the tax issue, as seems to have happened in the Committee to some extent, as well as in our Party.
There are many aspects of reducing CO2 which we will not be able to resolve through a tax alone, perhaps not through taxation at all.
I will give the example of the stand-by switch which is taken up in paragraph 9 of the motion for resolution which I proposed.
Between five and ten per cent of the European Union' s energy consumption is wasted because we do not switch off our televisions and other electrical appliances, but leave them on stand-by.
Five to ten per cent represents a huge contribution to energy savings, which can be achieved here if we either turn the appliances off or come up with new technical means in order to achieve a reduction in energy consumption.
<P>
This will not be achieved though, by means of a tax.
When someone buys a television, the question of how much energy it uses on stand-by is not generally of prime importance. They have other criteria in mind, and this is why we also need technical solutions to this problem.
<P>
However, I would like to ask those of you who want to see solutions other than a tax not to raise objections again when we are holding a discussion on technical alternatives to stand-by on the grounds that this is a European regulation and you did not want that either.
We must do something if we are to appear credible in the negotiations.
<P>
Nor should we discuss only CO2, because if my information is correct, 50% of the greenhouse effect is caused by other greenhouse gases.
I think that we have not made this sufficiently clear in the discussion. We should give this point much greater consideration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Linkohr">
Mr President, firstly I would like to thank Mrs Laura González Álvarez and also the Spanish speaker who is coming after me.
Without them, one might have assumed that this is a Northern European debate.
This is not the case, as this is an issue which concerns us all.
<P>
On climate change itself, I would like to express my fear that this issue is being continually pushed into the background, as something which is of less and less interest to the public and to politicians.
Finally we have professed our beliefs and that appears to be enough for most people.
That would be extraordinarily dangerous!
Therefore, I would like to suggest two things: firstly, we should endorse Mr Lange' s call to reach agreement on the emissions trade with the close involvement of Parliament, because such a powerful intervention in trade policy would be very difficult to carry out against Parliament' s wishes.
Secondly, I suggest that we establish a binding timetable, one with real sanctions against any EU State that deviates from the targets for reduction.
The model I recommend is the concerted reduction of debt, which has now made the Euro possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García-Orcoyen Tormo">
Mr President, Commissioner, I think that now, all of us in Parliament agree on the need to tackle the problem of climate change rigorously, not just in order to fulfil a commitment made by the European Parliament but also because of the undeniable world-wide importance of this issue.
<P>
Nevertheless, we feel that in order to succeed in this task, we must avoid various topics which crop up on a regular basis in discussions on the subject and we should avoid including them in the text of the resolution.
<P>
The first approach that we have to avoid is to think that economic development inevitably brings with it an increase in the deterioration of the environment.
It is possible to neutralise to a large extent this undesirable effect of growth by making our resources more efficient.
Introducing low cost efficiency measures would significantly reduce emissions.
Nevertheless, attaining this objective may prove difficult for certain Member Countries, which is not what we want at all.
<P>
The second topic concerns the way global problems are dealt with as local issues.
The European Union must show itself to be strong on this matter and encourage as many countries as possible to sign up to this commitment and fulfil it.
This is the only way we will be able to accept adopting measures which will certainly be difficult and economically damaging for various European Union countries, as well as for some of those mentioned in the motion for resolution.
<P>
The last thing that we should avoid doing is to make the protocol' s so-called flexible mechanisms the fundamental basis for our actions.
Although it is true that there are means which would potentially allow us to fulfil the commitment made in Kyoto through national strategies and measures, the economic cost of the different options varies enormously.
Strategic action in the areas where the net economic costs are lower should be stepped up immediately.
For this reason, and before the measures are adopted as standard for energy, we would have to ensure the adoption of this strategic action, as well as the reliability of the means of production of gases that contribute to the greenhouse effect, so that we can efficiently monitor the development of the problem in all countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lange">
Mr President, now that we have discussed the question of world-wide negotiations in great detail, of course we have to optimise our own strategy.
I am pleased then, that the Commissioner finally wants to propose appropriate strategies.
At the moment, I rather have the feeling that our actions are relatively selective and ad hoc and not really purposeful.
What we really need is an integrated strategy on which we will base our decision as to which industry-specific measures we should take.
<P>
I would like to come back to the idea of voluntary agreements.
The gist of the Commission' s statement is that we should call on everyone to sign up to voluntary agreements.
This will not allow us to state precisely where our priorities lie and what conditions are necessary to achieve them.
I reiterate Parliament' s continual demand to specify what measures are required for each industry and how they should be applied.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 NAME="Doyle">
Mr President, most of what needs saying has been said at this point.
The EU is falling sharply behind in meeting its legally binding undertakings on reducing greenhouse gases.
I would just like to mention my concerns about my own country.
<P>
I am very concerned that the Irish Government is complacent in its attitude towards its Kyoto Protocol commitments, which they entered into in December 1997.
We are committed to limiting the emissions of greenhouse gases to 13% above our 1990 levels by the year 2010 or so.
On current predictions Ireland' s emissions will be up to 40% above this target.
<P>
In relation to the energy tax issue, it is time we decided exactly what we mean by this.
I am a great believer in more carrot and less stick, particularly when it comes to environmental protection.
Just to wave taxes as a threat, without matching them with grants for retrofitting older plants so that they can comply with acceptable emission standards, and without generally increasing investment in monitoring emissions, will not work.
Are we talking about climate change levies, emission taxes, energy taxes generally, carbon tax, carbon dioxide tax?
I do not think we have ever put our heads together to decide exactly what we mean by it.
<P>
I fully support the point made by my EPP colleague, Mr Bowis, that under no circumstances can we export our problem from the developed world by slapping taxes on our older plants with problematic emission standards and just driving those jobs and those particular production units to the less developed regions where they are less able to cope with environmental degradation.
It is a net reduction in emissions we want globally, not just exporting the problem from the West to the less developed regions.
<P>
I am also very concerned about the projected increase in fluorocarbons, which are presently a minor contributor to the total greenhouse gases.
We are told they will increase by 40% on current rates.
That is a major cause for concern.
We should turn our attention to it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="Hassi">
Mr President, Mrs Jackson said that the policies hid the fact that their implementation costs money and that it was hard-hitting.
I do not know how the debate is conducted in other Member States, but in my own country, it is certainly no secret that big changes are needed to reduce emissions.
The question was asked here concerning the effects of reductions in emissions on jobs.
Personally, I am certain that the reduction of emissions will create jobs in some areas, but it is equally true that it will mean reduced employment in others.
Those who will obtain jobs are not certain of it yet, but those who are losing them know a lot more about it, and, for that reason, unfortunately, there is much stronger lobbying from their side.
<P>
Many Members spoke of the need for financial controls and an energy tax.
As you know, the Council cannot take a decision on this, so I cannot say anything at all on behalf of the Council.
I can only state Finland' s position, which is that we believe it is very important for the Union to make headway in the creation of a common energy tax and we have also discussed the possibility of Member States, which are so inclined, moving forward faster in this area.
One problem connected with this is whether such action would be of benefit in conflicts that could possibly arise with regard to EU competition legislation.
For example, in my own country we experienced the situation where an energy tax that was brought in at national level in its first version was found to be in violation of the Union' s acts on competition.
However, I think that energy taxes are one means of inducing market forces to reduce emissions and develop new, modern and clean technology, and I consider that to be very important.
<P>
Regarding the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, I would say that, as the rules for the Kyoto mechanisms and those to do with compliance with the commitments made have not yet been agreed, ratification at this stage would mean that we would not really know what we were ratifying.
As these matters are being discussed internationally, I believe it is important that the EU holds the trump card, enabling it also to negotiate the terms on which it should be ratified.
If the EU were to ratify it immediately, it would mean that, thereafter, it would no longer have any great significance when more precise rules were being discussed.
<P>
I agree with Mr Linkohr that, as the Union is committed to targets for reduced emissions, we also have to decide on action in respect of those Member States that are unable to meet their commitments.
The Kyoto Protocol and the climate agreement also states that if a combined body of economic cooperation such as the EU cannot achieve the targets as a whole, responsibility for the targets set for it falls to all its Member States, in other words, if some Member States cannot meet their commitments, the Union will suffer as a whole.
<P>
Finally, I would like to stress that the idea, which has been expressed in these deliberations, that, if nothing is done, the temperature of the Earth will have increased by two degrees in a 100 years' time, is wrong.
Restricting the rise in temperature to just two degrees over the next 100 years will take much effort.
If the current trend is allowed to continue uncontrolled, with no determined climatic policy, the rise in temperature of the earth will be a lot greater than two degrees in one hundred years, and all the corresponding effects it will have will be all the more dramatic.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wallström">
Ladies and gentlemen, it is an almost incomprehensibly large and difficult task we have before us.
We are to assess the credibility of future scenarios which involve actually diverting the Gulf Stream and perhaps encountering a new ice age.
On the other hand, we are today to try to make decisions about concrete measures which in certain cases may only take effect perhaps 50 or a 100 years in the future.
We are being asked preferably to come up with specific proposals today and to speak about exactly what will happen.
I believe that this is necessary because it is exactly what citizens in our respective countries are asking of us.
We know that the problem exists. They too know that it exists, and they wonder: are you prepared to take decisions so that we can see a change?
<P>
What I have done today is to report on how the Commission and I want to tackle this problem, how we must analyse it, how we must work with a strategy and a programme in which we consider each greenhouse gas in turn and how exactly we are to manage the problems. There are already proposals on the table.
The Kyoto Protocol contains a number of proposals concerning how we can proceed further and what measures need to be taken.
<P>
I am completely convinced that we need financial incentives. Money talks, as they say.
That is when things become serious, and this is something which companies and industries understand too.
On many occasions, expectations that jobs were to leave the country have proved unfounded because, instead, an environmentally friendly technique or a more efficient and environmentally-friendly use of energy has been promoted. Which is what we want to bring about.
<P>
I want to comment briefly on a number of questions which have been raised here.
Where air traffic is concerned, the Commission is very conscious of the fact that this is a growing problem.
We shall present a report before the end of the year.
Those of us from the Environmental Directorate have of course been involved in this.
In this connection, too, I am in favour of the use of financial instruments of control because we know that they are effective.
<P>
When it comes to trade in emission rights, I believe that we must first see a concrete proposal.
I have said that I shall be presenting a Green Paper with just such a concrete proposal for a system. This will, of course, describe the national responsibilities which each country will have.
It will not be possible for a country to buy itself free of obligations. There must be a system of rules through which, instead, countries honour their commitments in the most effective way.
That is what is intended.
I believe we should be on our guard against language.
You see, words channel the way people think.
If you use a concept such as "an exchange for trade in emission rights" , then I think that we are feeding the thought that this is to be a cynical system in which it will be possible for countries to buy themselves free of obligations. Now, this is definitely not my approach.
Any system must be sensibly regulated, and we must make sure that a lot more interests are involved.
If we do not have industry with us, if we do not have the citizens of the European Union with us and, above all, if we cannot take political decisions, then it is not going to work.
In that case, we shall not succeed in this undertaking.
We must mobilise on a much broader basis.
In fact, I believe that, in general, our citizens are the ones who are more acutely conscious of these issues and that their willingness to act is greater than that of the politicians in our Member States just now.
That is the big worry.
<P>
When it comes to an energy tax, I cannot judge exactly how long it is going to take to introduce this.
It is something which we have to discuss in the Commission.
If the fact of the matter is that it is going to take too long a time, then I am prepared to support a proposal to the effect that a number of countries go on ahead in order to show the way and demonstrate that it can be an effective way of achieving results where the issue of climate change is concerned.
<P>
I want also to take the opportunity to thank you for your interventions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, some of the speakers have already asked quite specific questions.
I would like to ask Mrs Wallström again, to go into some specific details.
Firstly, there was the question on when we can expect industry-specific plans for reduction, and timetables for this from the Commission. Secondly, there was the question raised by two of us on the subject of CO2 emissions from aviation fuel.
The question obviously still remains as to how you produce a Directive on phasing in renewable energies, and providing compensation which actually covers the costs.
I would be most grateful to you if you could answer these three specific points.
I do not know if you are in a position to as you have so recently taken up your post.
I think that we are agreed that we should all do something to protect the environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wallström">
I do not have time to answer every specific question, but what I have been talking about here is my way of setting to work on the concrete measures.
Before the end of the year, we are to present a Green Paper describing a system for trade in emission rights (one of the flexible mechanisms).
We are to get an action programme under way, requiring us specifically to examine each area in turn and involve all interested parties.
This is necessary because there is no such plan at the present time.
<P>
I shall also, of course, try to push forward the integration process as far as possible.
Exact dates cannot be given. The question of energy taxes has been on the agenda for six years.
I wish I could say that results will be seen no later than tomorrow, but it is going to take a little longer than that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
<P>
Mrs Breyer, in this kind of debate, even the omissions are respected.
<P>
I have received, pursuant to Rule 37(2), a motion for a resolution to close the present debate.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Question Time (Council)
<SPEAKER ID=196 NAME="President">
The next item is Question Time (B5-0030/1999).
We shall look at the questions put to the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 NAME="Alexandros Alavanos which has been taken over by Mr Koulourianos">
Question No 1 by (H-0464/99) :
<P>
Subject: Adoption of a decision regarding the reconstruction of areas hit by earthquakes in Greece. Following the powerful earthquakes which occurred in Attiki in Greece, causing dozens of deaths and incalculable damage, will the Council adopt an immediate decision concerning a subsidised loan to restore economic and social infrastructures, including housing, and restore production capacity, following the example of previous decisions in respect of Portugal in 1993 and in respect of Greece in March 1981 and September 1986 (Decision 81/1013/EEC of 14 December 1981 and 88/561/EEC of 7 November 1988)?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, the Council is very sorry to hear about the earthquake in Greece, and would like to convey its deepest sympathy to the Greek nation with regard to the widespread damage this natural disaster has caused.
<P>
So far, the Commission has not sent the Council a proposal for a decision on the reconstruction of the areas affected by the Greek earthquake.
However, the Council would like to state that it is satisfied that the Commission has already begun talks on how the consequences of the earthquake can be alleviated.
As was the case with decisions previously made on natural disasters, and if the Commission makes a proposal to the Council regarding the earthquake, the Council will treat the matter as urgent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="Camilo Nogueira Román">
Question No 2 by (H-0466/99):
<P>
Subject: Structural Funds The Structural Fund resources allocated to the Objective 1 Autonomous Communities are not distributed by the Spanish Government on the basis of objective criteria relating to population size and per capita income. This constitutes a policy which is not in accordance with the objectives of the various European funds.
<P>
During the 1994-1999 period, which Autonomous Communities received the Structural Fund resources allocated to Spain for distribution to Objective 1 areas and in what proportions?
In the 2000-2006 period, what will be the criteria for the geographical distribution of the Structural Fund resources set aside for Spain and legally allocated to the Objective 1 Autonomous Communities?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, the Council considers that the distribution of financial aid from the Structural Funds in different areas should be carried out in compliance with the rules in existence, so that all regions are treated impartially.
However, the Council cannot give a precise answer to the honourable Member' s question regarding Spain.
The coordination of Structural Funds aid for the Objective 1 areas is laid down in the Community' s aid framework, which the Commission drafts with the Member State concerned, The implementation of Structural Funds aid does not, therefore, fall within the competence of the Council, but the Member States.
It is the responsibility of the authorities and bodies appointed by the Member States and the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Nogueira Román">
I could really not have hoped for a more insubstantial answer.
What I mean Mr President-in-Office of the Council, is that as far as the Autonomous Regions in Objective 1 are concerned, the Spanish state, in spite of the competences held by these Regions, is reserving 55% of revenues which go to the Spanish State for centralised policies which do not apply in general to the Autonomous Regions in Objective 1.
Therefore, they are being distributed arbitrarily and - I repeat - are being spent on centralised policies.
<P>
For example, in my country, Galicia, which is part of Objective 1 and which should therefore receive proportionally around 12% of the revenues going to the Spanish state, received only 5% in the period 1994-1999.
In this way, Galicia differs from Portugal and Ireland, both countries in Objective 1 who have achieved extraordinary development, which has unfortunately not taken place in my country, Galicia.
<P>
What is the Council going to do to stop this happening?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, the question of competence is really very clear here.
By virtue of the rules governing the granting of Structural Funds aid, it is the Commission' s task to see that no distortions occur.
As this is the business of the Commission, which is an expert in the field, being in possession of all the necessary information, it may be able to give an answer to the honourable Member' s question.
As long as the rules stay as they are, these matters are the concern of the Commission, and they must be dealt with by the Commission. The Council may not interfere.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Collado">
I would like to restate my colleague' s question and although I realise of course it might have been more aptly directed to the Commission, I would like to inform the Council of the reality of the situation he mentioned.
<P>
We have seen a large overall growth in the Structural Funds, but what is happening is that in some countries, the money coming from the Structural Funds is being used by the Member State under the pretext of putting it towards multiannual programmes, which means that the money received by the Communities and other regions is greatly reduced.
This does not happen in other countries.
In other countries, the State does not appropriate 50 or 55% of the Structural Fund money.
Does the President-in-Office of the Council think that it is logical to take away so much of the European regions' budgetary contribution?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, I believe it is logical that aid always goes to the right areas for the right work, as only in that way can we achieve the best possible results.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Garriga Polledo">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, it was my understanding that Spain, just like other countries which receive Structural Funds for Objective 1 regions was applying these funds according to criteria which accord perfectly with the regulations of these Funds.
And I have to say that it is quite a bad mistake to confuse countries with regions.
<P>
Furthermore in Spain' s case, all institutions, starting with the Court of Auditors and the Commission itself say that Spain is applying the Structural Funds to Objective 1 correctly and they also confirm that these funds have been managed extremely well.
Some Spanish regions such as Galicia, to give an example, have a percentage of the gross domestic product dedicated to infrastructures which is well above the national average.
<P>
But my question to the Council is this: does the Council intend to put pressure on Member States whose standards of performance relating to the Structural Funds are lower than the European average, to force them to manage their funds more effectively and to prevent the "snowball" effect taking place?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, as the Commission monitors this matter, the most appropriate option is to leave the Commission to apply pressure. The Council does not consider it appropriate to interfere in this matter.
Besides, I believe that this might well also be a subject for debate in the Spanish Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 NAME="President">
Mr Nogueira is asking for the floor on a procedural motion.
But there is not actually any procedural discrepancy here.
Everything is going very well and you can write to Mr Sasi, who I am sure, will be very helpful.
<P>
Despite all that, Mr Nogueira, now has the floor in order to make a procedural motion, but it must be a genuine procedural motion.
Do not set a bad example, Mr Nogueira.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Nogueira Román">
Mr President, I am making this intervention because of an anticonstitutional remark that the Member of the People' s Party has just made. I must remind you that in the Spanish Constitution, my country is defined as an "autonomous region" .
I therefore ask you to respect the Spanish Constitution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="President">
Mr Nogueira, I told you yesterday that as this is the Finnish Presidency' s term in office, I intend to act objectively in these controversial debates, as if I too were a Finnish President.
This is not a debate on nationalities and regions in the Spanish Parliament.
When we talk of regions, I understand that to mean that it is European Regions that are being discussed.
I do not want to hear anything that goes beyond that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 NAME="Maj Britt Theorin">
Question No 3 by (H-0471/99):
<P>
Subject: Women's rights and equality Article 3(2) of the Amsterdam Treaty stipulates that equality must be a feature of all areas of policy.
To achieve that goal, budget resources must be earmarked for a fifth action programme and specific, measurable targets set for equality.
Targets may be set, for example, by measuring the percentage of women making up the labour force and the unemployed, by assessing the extent to which the equal pay directive is being implemented and measuring the percentage of women on decision-making bodies.
The best three countries should then be selected as targets to be achieved by the Member States through their own action programmes.
<P>
What does the Council intend to do to promote the adoption of a fifth action programme with sufficient budget resources and a fixed timetable and what measures will the Council take to set specific, measurable targets for equality?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sasi">
The Council recognises, as does the European Parliament, first of all that the policy of equality is still extremely important; secondly, that the action programme comprises the EU' s most important instrument for implementing the obligations accepted as a result of the action programme arising out of the Peking Conference; and, finally, that successful implementation can best be achieved by integrating a perspective of equality into all policies.
<P>
That is the reason why, during the Finnish Presidency, the Council is expected to take decisions with a view to achieving this and why the Council welcomes the Commission' s intention to submit a proposal as soon as possible for a new action programme designed to promote equality between women and men and to ensure that this can be implemented when the present action programme comes to an end.
<P>
What is more, the Council is planning to have indicators and benchmarking for the purpose of following up the action programme arising out of the Peking Conference.
The Finnish Presidency has prepared an initial report on women' s participation in the decision-making process.
Finland has proposed that the Council should clarify its intention to continue, during the forthcoming presidencies, to develop indicators and benchmarking for other critical areas specified in the Peking Conference' s action programme and to undertake regularly to examine progress in the areas under discussion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
Thank you for your answer.
I want to say that I welcome your answer clarifying that there is to be a fifth action programme.
There is one small quibble, namely the question of adequate funding through the budget.
I would therefore hope that the Council will ensure that there are in fact adequate funds (because, without money, nothing can be achieved) as well as make sure that there is a fixed timetable.
<P>
Integration within all policy areas is very important indeed for equality, but it is necessary to have a two-pronged approach and therefore also to come up with special measures designed for specific purposes.
It is important, then, that specific goals should be set for what one wants to achieve.
That is why I want to ask again: in what way are you, on the part of the Council, prepared to establish specific and measurable goals for equality for the coming five-year period?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sasi">
When it comes to funding through the budget, the question may be said to have been asked too soon because the Commission has still not issued its proposal.
The Council cannot yet therefore take up a position on this question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="Martin, David">
The Council could of course indicate what its response would be if the Commission were to bring forward such a proposal for financing.
However, my question to the Council is: does the Council not believe that the European Institutions themselves have a duty to lead by example on the issue of equality, and is it happy about the existing staff quality of the Institutions?
Even though Mr Prodi has initiated some reforms, it seems to me that women are still very much under-represented in the hierarchy of both the Council, the Commission and, to be honest, this institution as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sasi">
I want to say that we welcome President of the Commission Prodi' s proposal to strive for a higher level of competency where the Commission is concerned.
It is our goal on the Council too to try as far as possible, whenever people are elected, to take account of qualifications.
We would wish and hope that this would lead to the proportion of women in various posts increasing in the very near future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="Anneli Hulthén">
Question No 4 by (H-0473/99):
<P>
Subject: Common method of compiling drug statistics One of the tasks of the Lisbon Institute is to compile drug statistics for the Member States, which provide an overview of the trend in drug abuse in the EU and an opportunity to compare Member States' statistics.
Unfortunately, there are a great many failings in this system as no common method of compiling the statistics is used.
<P>
Will the Council press for the introduction of a common method of compiling these statistics and/or does it consider that other improvements can be made to make the system more practicable?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sasi">
<SPEAKER ID=220 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Hulthén">
May I thank the Minister for that answer in which he shows that he has come to the same conclusions, namely that this is a problem.
On the other hand, he does not perhaps indicate equally clearly how this problem is to be solved.
It is not just a question of our being able to report to each other upon how many drugs the police are confiscating or upon what the Customs are doing. Instead, it is above all a question of the statistics we have for drug abuse among young people in Europe today.
These are what are most interesting because they show us what the trend is, what increase is to be found and which drugs are being used.
With this information, we can attempt in a more effective way to administer the European Community' s resources for combating any increased use of drugs.
Statistics are important because they reveal the trends.
<P>
The fact is that, at present, we are to a certain extent taking each other in by having different concepts when it comes to producing statistics.
Then we put everything together at the Lisbon Institute and send it around the European Union.
In that way, there are no reliable statistics. Nor, perhaps, are the programmes we present reliable.
This is a task for the Council too, I believe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="President">
With all due respect, Mrs Hulthén, I must tell you, so that your intervention does not set a precedent, that although you have given us a great deal of information, you have not asked anything, and you have taken the floor in order to ask an additional question.
Mr Sasi will have to answer a non-existent question, but he can try if he wants.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sasi">
. (SV) As I said in my answer, it is a fact that there is a problem which we must try to solve.
The EDMC has now undertaken to devise a common method for compiling statistics.
However, it will then also have to be seen what resources are available.
In then attempting to develop the required statistical method, the purpose for which the statistics are required will need very much to be borne in mind.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, I am rather astonished by the reply of the Presidency of the Council, insofar as we are all in agreement with regard to the need for statistics.
The European Parliament has restated this in a resolution, and as the President of the Council has reminded us.
This has been requested several times by the Monitoring Centre.
There is a working party with the Retox network, and according to the response of the Presidency of the Council, we still do not know when we will have the joint statistics.
<P>
I believe that this is really important because we have fifteen national policies which are all absolutely disastrous in the field of drugs.
It is therefore urgent that the European citizens understand that the increase in resources allocated to the fight against drugs corresponds directly to the increase in the consumption of drugs and that therefore the policies that have been pursued are a complete failure.
I would like to ask the Minister when we will finally get these joint statistics which will demonstrate the disastrous strategy of the prohibitionist policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sasi">
. (SV) Let me just say briefly that we are on the way forwards.
We have, then, taken steps to make progress and to obtain uniform statistics.
It is still not possible, however, to give any date for when everything will be ready.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="Esko Olavi Seppänen">
Question No 5 by (H-0475/99):
<P>
Subject: Common policy Speaking in Strasbourg in July as a representative of the country currently holding the Presidency of the Council, Finland' s Foreign Minister stated one of Finland' s objectives as being to ensure that the Union had a common will, a common policy and a common voice.
Does this mean that Finland, which is militarily neutral, is prepared, like other countries, to establish a common defence policy within the Union in order that the Union may have a common will, a common policy and a common voice?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, the honourable Member, Mr Seppänen, knows it was firmly concluded at the European Council at Cologne, that the Union would participate to the full in international action. Union Heads of State and Government also said they intended to grant the European Union the means and facilities to deal with the job of creating a common European security and defence policy.
At the European Council in Cologne the Union' s readiness to prevent a conflict and manage a crisis was discussed. Reference was made to a credible military capability specifically in connection with controlling international crises.
<P>
It was also emphasised at the European Council that the Union' s development of a crisis control capability would improve its position when involved in the furtherance of world peace and security in accordance with the principles of the UN Charter.
Work in the area of crisis management is in total harmony with the neutrality or non-alignment policy of Member States.
The conclusions of the European Council in Cologne specifically state that there would be no interference when it came to the special status of the different Member States with regard to guarantees made concerning a collective defence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, the representatives of the country holding the Presidency have stated, in various connections, that we shall be adopting the practice of qualified majority decision-making on the subject of a common foreign and security policy also, and, evidently, since Cologne, on a common defence policy as well.
<P>
I would ask the Minister how the country holding the Presidency is preparing for the adoption of the practice of qualified majority voting in the areas of foreign and security policy and defence policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, as the country holding the Presidency, Finland has prepared for qualified majority voting by asking Member States in what areas they are prepared to increase majority voting.
Preparations are still in hand, and it is impossible to say yet whether it will extend to foreign and security policy, but if we consider the history of preparatory work for a moment, it has to be said that taking binding decisions based on a qualified majority, for example in matters of defence, is not very likely to come about, at least very quickly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=231 NAME="Carmen Cerdeira Morterero">
Question No 6 by (H-0477/99):
<P>
Subject: Attacks on homosexuals There has recently been an escalation in the number of attacks on gay and lesbian communities throughout Europe. They have included the attacks on two gay establishments, one in Gijón and one in London, in which several lives were lost.
These crimes are particularly serious in a region such as the European Union, where the protection of human rights is a basic issue, especially at the present time when we are drafting a European Charter of Fundamental Rights
<P>
Under new Article 13 introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam the Council is entitled to take appropriate action to combat discrimination based, amongst other things, on sexual orientation.
For this reason, homophobic attacks of this kind on freedom of sexual orientation call for a clear and tough response from the Council.
<P>
What action does the Council intend to take to prevent and avoid attacks of this kind within the territory of the European Union?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, the Council considers the protection of fundamental rights to be very important.
As Article 6 of the Treaty on European Union states, the Union is based on the principles of freedom and democracy, the respect for fundamental rights and fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law.
The same Article states that the Union respects fundamental rights as a general principle of Community law.
With the Treaty of Amsterdam becoming effective on May 1 this year, the new Article 13 of the EU Treaty gives the Council the power, within the limits of power the Community is entrusted with under the Treaty, to take action to combat any form of discrimination inter alia discrimination based on sexual orientation without, however, limiting the application of other provisions in the Treaty.
<P>
The provisions require a proposal from the Commission and a hearing in the European Parliament, for the Council to take a legal decision.
The Council has to say that, thus far, there has been no such proposal from the Commission that is based on the new Article 13 referred to.
The Council would remind everyone, for the sake of clarity, that it is the exclusive authority of the Member States to prevent the attacks and attempts on people' s lives the honourable Member refers to.
They alone are responsible for maintaining order and protecting people and property.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Cerdeira Morterero">
I would like to use this intervention to the House to draw the Council' s attention to an extremely serious matter.
In the European Union' s territory, in our territory, a whole range of completely intolerant attitudes and behaviour bordering on the fascistic is currently prevailing towards homosexuals.
<P>
Europe has always been at the forefront in the protection of human rights, coexistence and tolerance, which have made this territory the most advanced in social terms, and we cannot allow ourselves to go back on these achievements of liberty, tolerance and coexistence.
We must denounce the slightest hint of a divergence away from these strikingly European values.
In the face of these facts, we should be concerned, and we should react in order to eradicate attacks on people, whatever their moral, religious, ideological or sexual orientation may be.
<P>
Having said this, and considering that we are now at a historic moment in European construction, with the creation of an area of freedom, security and justice, with a debate on a Charter of Fundamental Rights about to take place, and considering also the powers conferred on the Council by the Treaties in order that it carries out action which guarantees these rights of European citizens, I would like to know what the Council' s attitude is on the contents of this Charter of Fundamental Rights concerning the protection of sexual freedom and sexual choice rather than sexual guidelines.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, a respect for, and tolerance of, human rights are basic values of the Union. They are Western European basic values.
In this regard, we all have to work hard to create a climate in all Member States in which, for example, sexual minorities are viewed with respect and appreciation.
<P>
As for rules, they can have an impact on developments to some extent, but in this case it is more a question of attitudes.
Attitudes can also be influenced through action in the areas of cultural policy and social policy.
It has to be said that all sectors of society must try to cooperate so that the climate in all European States is as tolerant as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 NAME="Cashman">
Thank you very much.
I do not think you read the question - it said what action will be taken?
We know what has to be done, but it is no use standing there saying that until the Commission acts or until Parliament acts, you will do nothing.
Such inaction actually endorses these attacks upon minorities.
Therefore, I offer you another chance to answer: will the Council undertake an audit of Member States to establish those states which have discriminatory legislation against lesbians and gay men, which fail to offer equal rights, equal civil rights to lesbians and gay men and which fail to offer equal protection under the law to lesbians and gay men?
Only when we have determined this can we begin the process of implementing Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The talking has to stop.
The excuses have to end.
We must act and act swiftly or else this House and all its institutions will always be held in low regard.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, I would like to say that we really have a proper legislative basis insofar as all Member States of the European Union are parties to the Council of Europe' s Convention on Human Rights.
This agreement is of immense value with respect to civil rights, human rights and tolerance.
We also have Article 13 of the EU Treaty to refer to in such matters, but in concrete cases it has to be realised that the Union does not have its own police forces, but national governments with their own police forces in each country, which are specifically responsible for the safety of their citizens.
Audits of the situation in the various Member States can of course be made, but I believe the primary responsibility in this matter lies totally with each Member State and its political decision makers themselves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, we must, of course, adopt a tough and determined line on violence and crime.
We are all aware that that there are constantly muggings in Brussels, within sight of this Parliament, and that out there, crime is the order of the day.
There are really no comparative statistics for Europe.
If you ask EUROSTAT, they give extremely varied results.
I think that we need standards for evaluating crime and that we need comparable statistics.
During the last legislature I asked the Council to make an effort to look after the safety of Parliament' s employees and of the people of Brussels. I would also like to take this opportunity to request the Council to create a safety initiative which is for Brussels and against crime in the city.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 NAME="President">
I must say, Mr Rübig, that I gave you the floor so that you could ask a supplementary question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
I specifically asked the President of the Council if he is prepared to provide comparable statistics in this area.
That was my question: will the Council try to obtain comparable statistics?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, I wish to say in answer to the honourable Member' s question that there is certainly much benefit to be derived from statistics in themselves, but the question is of a general nature, so that if the honourable Member specifies what sort of statistics he would like to see, I can take a position on this issue later on.
However, I want to say that this is very much a question of attitudes, and, obviously, in a society in which there are strong clashes of opinion, attitudes often easily harden.
It is quite a lot to do with what sort of spirit prevails in a society.
As for deeds of violence in general, in just over a week from now there is a Union Summit organised in Tampere, whose purpose is also to debate how crime, and violent crime also, can be prevented generally in the Union area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 NAME="President">
Mr Dupuis is asking for the floor so that he can table a procedural motion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, Mr Rübig' s question had nothing to do with the question which appeared in the agenda.
Maybe it was a very interesting question for him, but in this case he must ask a question like the other Members of this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 NAME="President">
This is not the time to call Mr Rübig back.
I have already said that any supplementary questions made must be relevant.
Furthermore, only one person should be presiding at a time in this House.
If there are several Presidents, the whole thing will take much longer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 NAME="Ole Krarup">
Question No 7 by (H-0480/99):
<P>
Subject: Denmark's share in the capital of the ECB Will the Council state what Denmark's share in the ECB's capital has to be, as a percentage and as an actual sum, if Denmark wishes to play a full part in EMU?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, under Article 28 of the European Central Bank Statute, the ECB' s paid-up capital amounts to EUR 5 billion.
According to the formula for ECB Member States' subscriptions set out in Article 29(1) of the Statute, the Bank of Denmark' s share of the paid-up capital of the ECB is 1.6709%.
Member States outside of the euro area pay, according to Article 48 of the Statute, only a minimum percentage of the share of entered capital to share in the operational costs of the ECB, if the General Council of the ECB so decides.
On the basis of the Article in question, central banks outside the euro area had to pay a share of the ECB' s operational costs, which was 5% of the share of the entered capital.
In Denmark' s case, it was EUR 4,177,250, which takes account of the revenue that resulted from the discontinued work of the EMI.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Krarup">
Thank you for your answer. I should like to ask an additional question.
The fact is, the huge power which the European Central Bank has to intervene in national financial institutions and the national banks is part and parcel of a highly cryptic system reminiscent of a nest of Chinese boxes.
I am very familiar with Article 28 of the Statute.
In addition to this, there is Article 30 which stipulates that the contribution may be increased by the currency reserves to ten times as much, that is to say EUR 50 billion. What is more, Article 30(4) has a condition to the effect that the European Central Bank can call in currency reserves over and above the maximum, which is set at EUR 50 billion.
This is a very large sum, whether it be for Denmark or for other countries, and this maximum may, of course be established by means of a majority decision in the Council on the basis of a recommendation of the Board of Management, which also makes majority decisions, while each individual country has the voting weight to which its contribution entitles it.
My question is: are there any limits?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, it is my understanding - although I have to say there was very little time for a legal amendment - that it is the European Central Bank that will make the decision on this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=248 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
I also want to thank the Council for their answers.
I have two additional questions.
First of all, I am curious to know how large Sweden' s share will be as a percentage if we join the single currency. We have received some information here about Denmark' s share.
<P>
Secondly, I just want you to confirm that the Council can, against a Member State' s will, increase this share so that the country concerned has to pay more. That is to say, it can be forced to deposit a larger proportion of its currency reserve with the Central Bank, and there is no real upper limit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 NAME="Sasi">
I have to admit that, in this particular case, I do not have sufficient material to be able to answer the Member' s question concerning Sweden' s share and the procedure in question.
I would ask to come back to the Member with a written answer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=251 NAME="Gorka Knörr Borràs">
Question No 8 by (H-0481/99):
<P>
Subject: Non­compliance with Regulation 1239/98 on a reduction in and ban on the use of drift­nets The Luxembourg Council of Ministers of June 1998 agreed to ban the use of drift-nets for tuna fishing from 1 January 2002. By adopting Regulation 1239/98, it also agreed on a minimum reduction of 40% in the number of vessels allowed to use them for the year 1998, and that lists of those vessels authorised to use them must be drawn up annually.
<P>
Given the blatant non-compliance with this regulation, the delays in communicating lists, the increase in the number of vessels using these nets, the harm to the tuna fishing industry and the marine ecosystem, the serious economic repercussions for fishermen in the north-west Bay of Biscay and the total lack of response from the EU to the recommendations of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) in relation to the overfishing of this species, what measures will the Council take to ensure strict compliance with Community legislation in this area?
<P>
Does the Council intend to urge the Commission to incorporate the ICCAT=s recommendations into Community legislation?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, first, the Council would like to remind everyone that it is within the competence of the Commission to monitor compliance with Community legislation in the Member States.
This also holds true for monitoring action that Member States have to implement within the framework of the common fisheries policy.
It has not come to the attention of the Council that the application of Regulation 1239/98 has been found wanting.
So far the Council has received no proposal to implement the recommendations of the ICCAT regarding restrictions on white tuna catches.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Knörr Borràs">
The only thing I would like to say to the President-in-Office of the Council is that this does in fact fall within the competence of the Commission, but I put this question to the Commission, who could not give me an answer yesterday, and I still have not received an answer.
<P>
There have obviously been cases of non-compliance, there are delays of four months in communicating lists, the number of boats is increasing - between 57% and 63% more in Ireland and England - at a time when there should be fewer. Harm is being done to the ecosystem, people are suffering financially and the ICCAT recommendations are not being implemented.
<P>
I shall therefore ask again, how many more facts and figures do the Commission and the Council want us to give them before they actually take steps to ensure that this does not continue?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=254 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, we most certainly like to receive information.
If we do, we convey it to the Commission so that they can embark on the necessary measures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=255 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Miguélez Ramos">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, we all agree that the element of control is essential to guaranteeing a sustainable level of fishing.
<P>
To this end, the Council, and the Commission, Mr President, adopted in 1998, with this aim of conserving our resources, a decision on the progressive disappearance of drift-nets also known as volantas.
<P>
I would like to ask the Council, and the Commission, how it feels, in general terms, that this campaign is developing; if it is true that this has been a good year for tuna and that this is why disputes between the different fleets that work the Bay of Biscay have been avoided. I would like to know by how many boats each country has reduced its fleets as a result of the moratorium and if this method is proving useful in reducing the pressure on tuna populations.
<P>
Finally, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I would like to ask you if the fact that several European boats - and I hope you will tell me just how many - have replaced their drift-nets with other high yield methods has brought about greater protection for tuna fisheries or if, quite the opposite, we are now seeing increased pressure on tuna populations, which is the opposite effect to the one we wanted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=256 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, unfortunately, I have to say that I cannot really answer these questions.
The Council does not have these statistics at its disposal.
These statistics are in the possession of the Commission, and I would ask the honourable Member to refer the question to the Commission, which can give him the information he requires.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=257 NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, drift nets are also used in the Baltic, where they lead to overfishing of salmon.
I would ask the representative of the Council this: if he has no information on reductions in tuna catches, has he any information on the natural salmon spawn last year in the Tornio river that separates Finland from Sweden, and will the representative bring it to the attention of the representative of the Commission that drift net fishing should also be restricted in the Baltic, and not just in the tuna fishing waters now being talked about?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=258 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, I have an idea that drift net fishing is restricted in the Baltic, but I would have to consult Kalevi Hemilä, who is President of the Council of Ministers for Agriculture, and convey these questions and this information to him.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=259 NAME="President">
I think that in some cases, we should direct these questions to national Parliaments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=260 NAME="María Izquierdo Rojo">
Question No 9 by (H-0484/99):
<P>
Subject: Referendum for civil concord in Algeria What are the Council' s views on the referendum on the Law on Civil Concord held in Algeria on 16 September?
What measures and actions will the EU undertake with this Mediterranean partner over the coming months?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=261 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, after the referendum on the Law on Civil Concord held on 16 September 1999, the country holding the Presidency of the Council issued a declaration, on behalf of the European Union, which also answers the honourable Member' s question in full.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=262 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Rojo">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I thought that here we had a question on which the Council could finally shine, because this is a matter of enormous importance for current European foreign policy - as the recent referendum showed - for a partner of ours such as Algeria, a country with an extremely important role in the Mediterranean, and for the relationship we have with that country.
<P>
Instead, the Council has given an answer which is a kind of lengthy side-step which makes my role useless.
<P>
This is a Parliamentary Question Time.
I ask the President in Office of the Council to be explicit, to use words I can understand, not bureaucratic ones, and I ask him to assess what view the Council should take on the referendum on the Law of Civil Concord held recently in Algeria.
<P>
Please speak to us in words that the citizens and I can understand.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=263 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, perhaps it would be best if I read the essential points of the declaration: "The European Union is satisfied with the results of the referendum held on 16 September in Algeria.
The Algerian people expressed their support for President Bouteflika' s plan for national harmony and peace.
The European Union hopes that Algeria will finally rid itself of the violence its people have had to suffer for years and start national reconstruction to bring about the political stability that is an essential requirement of economic and social progress.
The European Union reconfirms it is prepared to support and encourage the renewal process in Algeria, especially through Euro-Mediterranean partnership, including the prompt recommencement of talks on establishing the Euro-Mediterranean Association Pact.
The Union believes it is very important the political dialogue that has commenced with Algeria should continue, and it is satisfied that a meeting at ministerial level is to be held with the EU troika on 3 November in Algeria."
<P>
I would like to say that, as the honourable Member stated, Algeria is a very important country for the Union, and we consider it to be a positive sign that the referendum was able to take place.
We are satisfied with the results, and we hope that peaceful development can gain strength in Algeria in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=264 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=265 NAME="Bernd Posselt">
Question No 10 by (H-0488/99):
<P>
Subject: Agreement with Croatia What progress has been reached with preparations for the conclusion of a trade and cooperation agreement with Croatia and the release of PHARE funds?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=266 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, as the honourable Member knows, in granting a preferential agreement on trade and PHARE aid, as with contractual relations, a regional approach to the action is adopted by the European Union that it has applied to the countries of South-East Europe.
The countries in question are aware of the criteria they have to meet, and the sectors in which the Union hopes progress will be made.
The Council regularly reviews the situation with regard to the progress that has been made in meeting the criteria set for this approach.
<P>
In connection with the last review, carried out on 21 June 1999, the Council found that political dialogue between the Croatian Government and the opposition had improved over the previous six-month period.
It was the Council' s opinion that progress, however, had been insufficient in the areas of democratic development, human rights and the judicial system, especially regarding the separation of powers and the return of minority groups.
The Council also considered that the government had not begun proper information campaigns on the rights of the people who wish to return.
On the basis of its assessment, the Council decided that a unilateral preferential agreement on trade should continue to be applied to Croatia.
The Council found that democratic development should be furthered through inter alia an overhaul of the media, electoral reform, and the return of refugees.
It noted, however, certain positive moves with regard to elections and the media.
<P>
The Council presumed that if current developments continued in these areas, an opportunity would soon present itself for Croatia to benefit from the PHARE programme.
Regarding contractual relations, the Council stated that the commencement of talks on a Stability and Association Pact, which is a new type of bilateral agreement that the Union is offering the countries of South-East Europe, would be discussed on the basis of a report by the Commission when Croatia has met the relevant conditions.
The Council next intends to discuss conditionality in November this year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=267 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I am referring directly to a discussion with Mr Verheugen in Questions to Council before the European elections, and I would like to say that, of course, Croatia has many things to improve on.
But many people who were driven out have now returned, and democracy there is very highly developed.
Therefore, I would like to ask you why Russia is receiving a TACIS programme as is the Ukraine, and why States like Albania which have many problems also have a Agreement on Trade and Cooperation.
Why are tougher criteria imposed on Croatia - and I am afraid that this does appear to be the case - than on any other country?
The PHARE programme and the Agreement on Trade and Cooperation are the first steps in taking a country forwards in order to reform and open it up.
My question is: do you not want to take this step at last?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=268 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, I wish to say that the same criteria apply to all countries.
And, indeed, as regards Croatia, positive developments are taking place, and we believe, hopefully, that we can also make headway fairly soon with the PHARE appropriations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=269 NAME="President">
Question No 11 by Mr Deva lapses as it appeared on the Agenda of the present part-session.
Mr Deva has been informed of this in writing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=270 NAME="Pierre Schori">
Question No 12 by (H-0497/99):
<P>
Subject: 'Cultural cleansing' by the Front National In the town of Orange in the south of France the Front National has conducted a 'cultural cleansing' (èpuration culturelle) operation in the municipal library by banning what it regards as impure literature.
For fear of knowledge of both the past and the future, books on subjects such as Ancient Egypt, and the EU on the brink of the Millennium have been removed.
<P>
This is an attack on the freedom of expression and the public' s unrestricted right to culture unparalleled in the EU or anywhere else in the democratic world.
<P>
What action does the Presidency intend to take against this form of cultural cleansing and to strengthen the democratic and informational role of libraries?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=271 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sasi">
The Council attaches a very great deal of weight to protecting fundamental rights.
According to Article 6 of the Treaty on European Union, the European Union is founded upon a number of principles common to the Member States, namely the principles of freedom, democracy and respect for human rights, together with the fundamental freedoms and the principle of the constitutional state.
It is specified in the same Article that the fundamental rights are to be respected by the European Union as general principles for Community law.
It ought however to be noted that circumstances of the kind described in the Member' s question are a matter for the Member States.
<P>
On the question of libraries and the promotion of democracy and culture, the Council would remind you that, in Article 151 of the EC Treaty, it is specified that the Community' s efforts to contribute to the development of culture in the Member States, at the same time as respecting the latter' s national and regional diversity, should be aimed at promoting cooperation between the Member States. If need be, the Community' s efforts should also support and augment the Member States' activities in a number of areas: firstly, improving people' s knowledge of, and disseminating information about, the European peoples' culture and history; secondly, preserving and protecting such cultural heritage as is of significance to Europe as a whole; thirdly, promoting cultural exchange of a non-commercial nature; and fourthly, supporting artistic and literary creation, including within the audiovisual sector.
<P>
In accordance with the codecision procedure, the Council, together with the European Parliament, therefore assumed on 28 June 1999 a common position on the adoption of a decision to establish a uniform instrument for financing cultural cooperation and for planning programmes for such cooperation.
It is called the Culture 2000 programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=272 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schori">
Thank you for your answer.
I consider it a disgrace to this Parliament that we have representatives here who stand for this type of ideological and intellectual "cleansing" .
I should like to ask if the Council considers that this perversion of local democracy is compatible with the European Union' s fundamental values.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=273 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sasi">
Where our fundamental values are concerned, it may indeed in this case be said that the rights which ought to apply throughout the European Union have not been properly respected.
In the end, however, it is always a matter for the individual nation state to guarantee that human rights and other fundamental rights are guaranteed in that country.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=274 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=275 NAME="Gerard Collins">
Question No 13 by (H-0499/99):
<P>
Subject: Peripheral island regions Will the Council, under the Finnish Presidency, outline its policies towards peripheral Objective I and II island regions in relation to infrastructure, agricultural and employment policies?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=276 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, many thanks for your sympathy.
When it approved the new Code on Structural Funds last June, the Council defined in the basic regulation the primary objectives, general principles and programming procedures for the period 2000 - 2006.
In the various regulations on Structural Funds, the Council has defined the rules for each fund and, in particular, their areas of operation.
As the Council charged the Commission with the task of applying the codes, the Council is not competent to specify sector strategies for Objectives 1 and II, based on the code in question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=277 NAME="Collins">
I wish to thank the President-in-Office of the Council for his reply.
There are two parts to my supplementary question.
<P>
The economic and social situations of the EU' s peripheral and island regions vary considerably.
Export costs and excess costs to the market put these regions at a major disadvantage.
I would like to know what commitment the President-in-Office intends to show to ensure that EU policies will always give special priority to assisting peripheral and island regions, including those regions on the Atlantic coast.
<P>
Peripheral and island regions have their own specific and geographic characteristics which require European Union responses, particularly with regard to infrastructure and employment needs.
The concentration of infrastructural development in cities must not be at the expense of other areas.
I would like to know what the Council' s response to this is.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=278 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, firstly, the new rules on Structural Funds were approved last June, and, obviously, the relevant decisions were made.
As for the island regions generally, it could be said that when people in the Union have spoken of areas that have fallen behind, for example, in many conclusions made at Summit meetings and in other declarations, particular attention has been drawn to these very island regions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=279 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=280 NAME="Pat the Cope Gallagher, which has been taken over by Mr Collins">
Question No 14 by (H-0501/99):
<P>
Subject: Duty free Will the Council outline its strategy aimed at assisting Irish airports, ports, airlines and passenger shipping companies in their efforts to overcome the loss of income resulting from the ending of duty-free and how does it intend to safeguard consumers against higher fares, protect and enhance employment and support vital infrastructure developments which, in the past, were made possible by sales of duty-free goods?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=281 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, according to the decision taken by the Council in 1992, duty-free sales to travellers within the Community do not apply to the single market, which does not have any tax restrictions.
However, the Council decided in 1992 to keep the situation with regard to duty-free shops unchanged for a temporary period ending in June 1999.
<P>
The Council considers that it is primarily the task of the Member States to alleviate both the social affects on the sector and regional problems in border districts that have been caused by the duty-free sales being discontinued.
A communication was issued to the Council on 17 February 1999 by the Commission containing Community instruments at the disposal of Member States to deal with the possible consequences of the ending of duty-free.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=282 NAME="Collins">
Does the President-in-Office of the Council understand that the ending of duty-free contrary to the majority view of the Member States has undermined the strategy of airports, airlines and passenger shipping companies aimed at keeping fares at a low level?
Will the Council undertake to keep the decision on the review and request the Commission to ensure that airports in Objective I areas and Objective I areas in transition are not penalised by the loss of revenue resulting from the ending of duty-free, which inevitably leads to higher prices for consumers, loss of earnings for airlines, shipping companies, ports and airports, and threatens employment for the industries and small firms which have supplied a range of goods to duty-free shops?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=283 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, firstly, personally, I have noticed that most large airports are doing very well, despite the ending of duty-free, and, as I said in my reply, we consider that it is primarily a matter for each Member State to try to alleviate both economic and other problems - mainly problems of employment - that will result from the fact that duty-free sales have stopped.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=284 NAME="President">
As the author is not present, Question No 15 lapses.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=285 NAME="Brian Crowley">
Question No 16 by (H-0505/99):
<P>
Subject: New EU Combat Poverty Programme As the Council is aware, under the Treaty of Maastricht no progress was made towards the adoption of a new Combat Poverty Programme.
<P>
Following the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, does the Council now intend to press for a comprehensive EU Combat Poverty Programme and to what extent will it support EU action for housing and the homeless?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=286 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, the Council takes a positive view of those new opportunities to prevent social exclusion that it gained with Article 137(2) on social provisions when the Treaty of Amsterdam came into force.
Within these frameworks the Council can now implement measures to promote cooperation between Member States.
This being the case, it supports such initiatives to prevent social exclusion that attempt to improve access to information, improve information and the exchange of best practices, promote innovative approaches and evaluate experience.
<P>
As the measures to be decided on and implemented in this area are very delicate in nature, the legislator has included this area in the codecision procedure, meaning that the European Parliament will also function as legislator.
Up until now the Council has had no proposals from the Commission that would have any bearing on the special problems mentioned in the question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=287 NAME="Crowley">
I should like to thank the Minister for his answer.
I know how difficult this area has been in the past for the Council.
However, there is a very firm majority in Parliament who are in favour of a European involvement, not just in the exchange of best practices or the cooperation procedures, which we agree with, but also in utilising some of the previous programmes which existed in the past; in particular the Poverty I and Poverty II programmes and the way that they dealt with the problems using a bottom-up approach.
By analogy we already have at the moment within the European Community initiatives like the Leader programme and the Urban programme where this bottom-up approach has been proven to be successful, and has resolved some of the problems that have been faced.
<P>
Could I ask the President-in-Office whether he would be willing to bring forward an initiative at Council level calling on the Commission to put in place a new poverty programme that will utilise the best of the past but to make it a real programme, not just experts exchanging ideas, or meetings taking place in exotic parts of the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=288 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, I would like to say in reply to the question that such programmes that have up until now been implemented have had barely any significant effect in the Union area.
For this reason, it is the opinion of the Council that a new approach should be found to deal with this issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=289 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=290 NAME="Jonas Sjöstedt">
Question No 17 by (H-0511/99):
<P>
Subject: 'Open' Council meetings The Finnish Presidency began with the laudable aim of holding many of the Council' s meetings in open session, accessible to the public and the media.
What success has the Presidency had with this objective during this period, and what proportion of the meetings have been fully or in part open to the public?
Where the Presidency did not succeed in its plan to hold open meetings, which Member States opposed it and prevented it from being carried out?
<P>
An interesting question with which to end the sitting.
Mr Sasi has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=291 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sasi">
On the Presidency' s initiative, the Council has in fact approved a fairly complete list of questions which ought to be taken up for public debate in the course of these six months.
These questions are all based around a common theme: "a strong and open Europe in the new Millennium" .
<P>
The Presidency has also undertaken to improve the quality of public debates and increase the interest these generate, partly through preparing the debates better.
In advance of any public debate, the Presidency therefore distributes a discussion document with a list of questions for the Member States and the Commission. This constitutes a springboard for the discussions.
It is too early to provide a definitive evaluation of this procedure.
When it comes to the public debates which have already taken place in accordance with this principle, it must however be noted that a satisfactory start has been made.
<P>
With regard to the Member' s question about certain Member States' attitude to these initiatives from the Presidency, it should be pointed out that the initiatives were approved unanimously by the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=292 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
I want to thank the Council of Ministers for this answer.
It is, in fact, a most excellent initiative by the Finnish Presidency to arrange for greater openness in the work of the Council.
This is something which is really positive and timely.
It is indeed a fundamental democratic right to be able to have insight into the actual processes of legislation and, in that way, to be able to insist upon political accountability.
<P>
My question following on from this is about whether it has ever happened that whole Council meetings, from start to finish, have been open to the public. Or has it only been specified points on the agenda that have been debated in public?
Have you ever, during your Presidency, been presented with objections which, in one meeting or another of the Council of Ministers, have prevented you from having as much openness as you would have wished for?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=293 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sasi">
With regard to the first question about the extent to which whole meetings have been open to the public, the answer is that they have not been.
We have always had some point on the agenda which has been discussed openly but the remainder of each meeting has, so far a in any case, been closed to the public, as it will continue to be during the Finnish Presidency.
<P>
What was the second question?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=294 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
My second question was about whether there had ever been a case in which you wanted to have a greater degree of openness but in which some individual Member State, in one context or another during the period of your Presidency, prevented this and used its veto to oppose such openness.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=295 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sasi">
What can be said is that the practice has been for the country holding the Presidency to decide which points on the agenda are to be discussed openly.
As far as I know, all the other countries have approved this.
It may be that, in certain situations, we have consulted other Member States, but in principle, it has been the decision of the country holding the Presidency which has been acted upon.
As far as I know, no problems have, at least so far, arisen involving other Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=296 NAME="President">
As you know, Mr Sjöstedt, Mr Sasi is renowned for his discretion.
I think that he has answered you as best he can, and we are very grateful to him for the great mental and physical efforts he has had to employ this afternoon.
I am also pleased because we have ended the sitting on time, in harmony with the Council.
<P>
As the time allotted to Questions to the Council has run out, Question Nos. 18 to 27 will be answered in writing.
<P>
That concludes Question Time.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 7.30 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
TOPICAL AND URGENT DEBATE
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Chechnya
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolution:
<P>
B5-0142/1999, by Mr Maaten and Mr Väyrynen, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on Chechnya;
<P>
B5-0149/1999, by Mr Schori and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the alarming situation in Chechnya;
<P>
B5-0158/1999, by Mr Markov and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the situation in Chechnya;
<P>
B5-0168/1999, by Mr Schroedter and others, on behalf of the Greens/ALE Group, on the war in Chechnya;
<P>
B5-0177/1999, by Mr Oostlander and Mr Posselt, on behalf of the PPE Group, on violence in the Northern Caucasus.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Krehl">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is certainly not the first time that this House has talked about a war in Chechnya, nor is it the first time that we have talked about a problem in the Caucasus.
Mind you, compared with the war that took place in 1995, the motives behind this war are much more understandable.
The events which have taken place in Dagestan and Chechnya in recent weeks render it almost imperative that this pressing problem be resolved through military action.
<P>
The problem in the Caucasus, in Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia is actually nothing new.
It has been around for decades, for centuries, and it is therefore also quite important that in our resolution, we express the view that in general in this area, the problem has to be tackled and a solution has to be sought, something which is important for the region as a whole and which will bring stability to the entire region as well as contribute to its development.
<P>
The proposal in the resolution to convene a New Millennium Conference in which European partners and organisations would also participate and provide structures for such negotiations is, therefore, very important.
I hope that our Russian negotiating partners will take this up accordingly.
<P>
The European Union also has to look into the problem of refugees, and very closely at that.
Hundreds of thousands are again fleeing.
We still have things to do as regards the refugee problem from previous conflicts.
I would like to call upon the Commission to make proposals as quickly as possible in this regard as to how the problem can be solved; how a way can be found for the refugees to survive the winter, which is imminent.
I think that being able to help in this area is a matter of the deepest concern for Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maaten">
Mr President, it is clear that the problems facing Chechnya are complex.
I am pleased that the resolution as well as a number of the amendments that have been submitted point to the complexity of the problems.
Russia has been in Chechnya for years now.
This has nothing to do with the government that is currently in power.
The situation already existed under the Tsarist regime.
It is easy to understand why, in many countries of the Caucasus, some of whose problems differ widely, there is great opposition to Russia' s presence.
I therefore think it is important that we first ask Russia to really get down to talking to everyone in Chechnya.
That is the only solution.
It is important as well that we ask them also to take care of all the refugees that come from there.
That is why we intend to support some of the amendments submitted by the PPE.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Markov">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, once more we have a war.
In this motion, this term, unfortunately, does not appear and therefore, I am pleased that Mrs Krehl used this expression.
<P>
Do you also not consider it appalling and alarming that both in thought and deed, responsible politicians regard the use of military violence as an indispensable element in the resolution of conflicts?
And do you also not consider it appalling and alarming that increasingly, the inhumane tactic of bombardment, which was employed to excess in Yugoslavia and where nobody suffered more than the civilian population, is again regarded, in the meantime, as being an adequate policy?
<P>
Mrs Krehl, I simply cannot understand you when you talk about fighting terror with terror, and when you express understanding for the current situation in Russia.
Military violence has no place in the political spectrum in the resolution of conflicts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, a brutal colonial war is currently taking place in the Caucasus which is being disguised as an anti-terrorist and anti-fundamentalist campaign, I could almost say a holy crusade.
A few years ago, the talk was of the Gulf War, no blood for oil.
I now miss these demonstrations because there, blood is indeed flowing for oil.
Mr Putin has talked quite openly of the fact that the war in the Caucasus is exclusively, or primarily, about energy and raw material interests which are being defended there.
<P>
Human rights have been trampled upon in an extraordinarily brutal fashion, as was already corroborated by the OSCE during the last Chechen war.
Even at that time, we needed a long time to become aware of the reality and we later said, "Yes, if only we had known that" .
This is what we should avoid this time.
<P>
It was announced yesterday that Russia' s military budget for next year is to be increased by EUR 1 billion on account of the Chechen war.
You know that Russia would today be unable to repay its debts without IMF credits and without money from the EU; in other words, we are paying for this brutal war.
Therefore, we have a large responsibility to bring our political weight and the Agreement on Partnership and Cooperation to bear in order to stop this war and to ensure that dialogue is again entered into with the Chechen President, elected under the supervision of the OSCE, and with the Chechen parliament, also elected under the supervision of the OSCE.
You are aware that Moscow has reactivated the pseudo-parliamentary Council in Moscow that was established before the armistice, to which it has signed up. It recognises this Council and in so doing, has ruthlessly broken this agreement, which came about under the auspices of the OSCE.
We must put a stop to this.
<P>
I must say in fairly unequivocal terms, Mrs Krehl, that I do not understand how, exactly ten years to the day that it was plotted to use the military against refugees, exiles, prospective emigrants and demonstrators in Saxony, the SPD Chairman of Saxony can express sympathy for military action.
At that time, I would, however, have wished for a similarly clear position from Mr Markov and others, although that is another story.
<P>
Irrespective of this, however, we must put a stop to this terrible campaign.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lehne">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are experiencing another tragic chapter in Russia' s development after the end of the Soviet Union.
We can certainly understand why the Russian Government, against the backdrop of terrorist attacks against its civilian population, would like to take vigorous action.
However, one must distinguish between vigorous action in the sense of a legal development and what is currently taking place in Chechnya.
There were many dead and injured as a result of the first Chechen conflict, numbers being totally comparable with the dead and injured witnessed in other conflicts world-wide, as well as in Europe.
<P>
It is not right that we, as the European Parliament, on the one hand criticise human rights' violations in other regions and make strenuous efforts to put a stop to them while, on the other hand, stay silent on the issue in Russia because we are talking about an important economic partner.
Even in Russia' s case, the European Parliament is called upon and (we, as the European Union are called upon) to defend all people clearly and unequivocally, and to speak out in favour of human rights and against human rights' violations.
For this reason, it is good that we are today dealing with this matter in an urgent procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, the Russian Parliament is trying to impeach this same President for the former war in Chechnya.
The war is political, it is taking place at the same time as election campaigns in Russia, so that any way out must also be political.
It will not be possible to get these fighters out of the mountains using force.
Russia has got its own Kurdish problem, which is evidently just as difficult to solve as it has been in Turkey.
In both cases international aid is required simply on account of the refugees, some of whose camps are out in the open. Soon they will be covered in snow.
<P>
In addition, there is the threat of the conflict spreading.
Military operations are now taking place in the territories of at least five States and for this reason the matter is already an international one.
The OSCE and the Union must offer to negotiate between the two sides so that in this way, the stalemate, which seems time and again to lead to war in the area, can be broken.
We must act swiftly to aid the refugees because they are the innocent ones in what has happened.
It is therefore a question of a political solution - I do not believe a military one to be possible - and we now have the opportunity to help Russia, which is in a difficult political situation in any case, by offering help to find a solution and bring about negotiations on the Chechen problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Speroni">
Mr President, we are again dealing with what we might call the conflict of interests between the principle of the territorial integrity of a State and the principle of self-determination of a people.
As regards what is today Russia and what was once the Soviet Union, this second principle has been implemented smoothly in Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus and the Caucasus.
But it seems that within the Caucasus, this does not apply in the case of Chechnya.
<P>
The international community has made every effort to help the Kosovars, but not the Chechens.
The international community has supported independence for East Timor, but not for Chechnya.
I wonder: why is there this discrimination against a people which has every right to self-determination?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Ortuondo Larrea">
Mr President, there is nothing new about the conflict between Russia and Chechnya, that small country in the Caucasus with little more than a million inhabitants which, nevertheless, has the same right as any large country to freely determine its own future.
<P>
The last precursor to the current conflict took place between 1994 and 1996, a war which cost 100,000 lives.
Now, since 22 September, Russian warplanes have begun to bomb Grozny and other cities.
The Russian army has entered the Republic' s territory and has invaded, according to its own sources, a third of its territory causing death, destruction and a massive exodus of more than 100,000 refugees - women, children and the elderly - who have entered neighbouring Ingushetia, whose President is now talking of humanitarian disaster and is requesting international aid which is not arriving.
<P>
It is also true that Russia has, in previous weeks, suffered horrendous terrorist attacks which have caused considerable loss of life, supposedly carried out by guerrillas who are based in the mountains of the Caucasus.
<P>
The European Union must not remain passive in the face of this conflict, once again displaying the same spectacular inactivity that we showed during the early years of the war in Yugoslavia.
It is essential and urgent that all the institutions of the European Union make a serious plea to the Governments of Russia and Chechnya to end the escalation of war, silence their weapons and take up political dialogue, using all our resources - of whatever type - so that our voice may be heard.
It is essential and urgent that we use all the measures available to us so that we may re-assert human rights in the region, so that the refugees may count on all the humanitarian aid that they require and so that, finally, they may return to their homes as a result of peace being established once more.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
I simply wanted to ask whether the Commission will press Georgia, in view of the supply problems, to build the 700m of road which is lacking up to the Chechen border, and which was not constructed following pressure from Russia, so that humanitarian supplies may, in future, reach the Chechen border?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Nielson">
You will recall that the first thing I mentioned in my contribution here was to express deep concern about the threat to stability in the Caucuses that this conflict represents.
I fear that if we do what is being suggested here, if we commit ourselves very directly on that specific matter, we might not be helpful in terms of strengthening stability in the region.
We have to do what is possible, so I will not commit myself to any specific action that is suggested here.
We will have to find many different ways - perhaps unexpected ways - of solving the logistical problems of getting assistance to the people who need it, but it is difficult to promise specific action on this one.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
European Code on arms exports
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolution:
<P>
B5-0143/1999 by Mr Haarder, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the EU Code of Conduct on the export or transfer of arms;
<P>
B5-0152/1999 by Mr Van den Berg and Mr Howitt, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the First Annual Review of the EU Code of Conduct on the export or transfer of arms;
<P>
B5-0157/1999 by Mr Morgantini and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the EU Code of Conduct on the export or transfer of arms;
<P>
B5-0163/1999 by Mr McKenna and others, on behalf of the Greens/ALE Group, on the EU Code of Conduct on the export or transfer of arms;
<P>
B5-0175/1999 by Mr Morillon and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the export or transfer of arms.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Haarder">
Mr President, we have to change this resolution in one important respect and it is for a gratifying reason.
In paragraph 1 we urge the Council to publish its report on arms exports - and the Council has now decided to do so.
When we have the vote this afternoon I would like to make an oral amendment to that effect, noting with satisfaction that the Council has published its report.
<P>
This is a very good example of transparency.
It is a good example for the Member States, it is a good example for the EU as a whole, and we can all be happy that at least we have achieved some progress in this field.
<P>
Finally I would like to note that what we do jointly as a Union in this area has a lot of influence.
This really is progress, when we can act together on this issue, and when what individual countries are doing is less important.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Brie">
Mr President, I too consider it an important step but, unlike Mr Haarder, I am extremely dissatisfied.
Three obvious things come to mind.
Firstly, I find it depressing that a Code allowing arms to be exported to Indonesia up to the summer of 1999 is obviously totally insufficient.
Secondly, if the rules are so totally different whereby arms exports to Yugoslavia are prohibited by law, but are permitted to Indonesia, for example, then clearly standards other than those contained in the Code, namely economic interests and trade, hold sway.
Thirdly, it naturally occurs to me that the dependency of governments on these economic interests is so great that no uniform standards are enforceable in this regard.
It is for this reason that I considered it extremely necessary that this Parliament is included in supervising arms exports, over and above the transparency which is desirable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Wuori">
Mr President, arms trading is a persistent plague, which also distorts the development of the poorest countries.
Therefore, the fact that the Union has produced its first report on the export of arms, and that it has made it public, is very welcome.
The report must, however, be actively extended to also include instruments of torture and other inhumane and debasing treatment so that information is available to national parliaments and this House as soon as possible, and before it is more widely disseminated. In this way, the monitoring of arms exports can be made more effective and we have sufficient political and legal means to intervene when the regulations of the monitoring system are contravened.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Morillon">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I do not think that I need three minutes to tell you that the resolution concerning the export of arms, which is subject to our approval, deals with a matter which is fundamental to the establishment of an area of peace and stability throughout the world, which is without doubt one of the most important mandates which our electors have given us.
<P>
I simply regret the fact that it has been examined following an urgent procedure, thereby denying us the time for a thorough reflection on it, and God knows it would have deserved it!
I fear that it contains nothing more than proposals which, while certainly noble and generous, in some cases perhaps do not have much practical application.
I would like to take this opportunity to draw your attention to the risk to the credibility of this Parliament resulting from the excessive use of this urgent procedure, especially when, as in this case, we are examining a text drawn up by an external body.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Nicholson of Winterbourne">
Mr President, this motion is both topical and urgent.
It is urgent because we have not yet defined how to control the spread of small arms and light weapons, nor have we strengthened the code to cover conventional arms.
<P>
Death and destruction can be caused by almost any means.
I saw recently the mass grave in Rwanda of up to half a million people bludgeoned to death by physical weapons, called machetes: just a single weapon in the hand of one man killing person after person.
Half a million people were genocidally slaughtered by this method.
Some time ago, 25 000 people died as a result of ground-to-ground missiles in the marshlands of southern Iraq.
I saw where they had been killed by just one ground-to-ground missile.
So death and destruction can come by simple or complex means.
We have to address that. That is the urgency.
The topicality of the motion comes because the year 2000 has now been declared by the United Nations to be the year for peace and to usher in a decade of UN aims for peace.
Let us, in this motion, also put our hands behind that effort.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van den Berg">
Mr President, the reason for this urgent resolution is, of course, that we as a Parliament have produced a joint statement about the problem of bringing the export of small arms and arms in general under control.
At the same time, we know that our governments really drag their feet and are uncooperative and often obstructive when it comes to taking any action.
<P>
We are soon to receive a report from various governments and this motion for a resolution is extremely topical because it addresses the national governments yet again, via Parliament and the Council, on the fact that we as a Parliament - and I am very pleased that all groups have been able to reach agreement on the motion for a resolution - really do stress the importance of their taking active steps to produce a carefully considered report.
Russia is supplying Eritrea with arms through Antwerp whilst we, the European Community, are in the midst of this conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia.
<P>
We know that the authorities are not supervising these affairs properly.
So we also know that there is a desperate need for discussion about effective supervisory mechanisms.
The motion for a resolution, expressing as it does the view of our Parliament, has the following to say on that point: if we are aware that at the beginning of this century, just as many soldiers perished in wars as civilians perish in modern-day conflicts on account of these very same small arms, and if we are aware that so many arms are exported from or conveyed through our own Member States, or are actually produced there, then do we not bear an enormous common responsibility for this?
I welcome the fact that this Parliament as a whole supports putting the right amount of pressure on our Member States and governments to take serious action on this point.
Doubtless we will be able to discuss this further in November.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="Lucas">
Mr President, this resolution states that we are appalled by the atrocities in East Timor and that these awful events strengthen the need for effective controls on arms exports.
If we truly believe that - and I hope we do - how can we then not take the next logical step and condemn those governments which ignore arms controls?
What is the use of a code of conduct on arms exports, or an arms embargo, if we do not condemn those who violate them?
<P>
In the very week after Britain agreed to an EU embargo on arms sales to the Indonesian government last month, three British Hawk warplanes were delivered secretly to Indonesia.
It stretches credibility beyond belief to imagine that the British government could not have halted the delivery of these war planes which arrived only hours before Indonesian forces shot dead at least five demonstrators in Jakarta.
<P>
Please make this resolution on arms exports a resolution that is worthy of this Parliament.
Make it one that truly respects the awful suffering of the people of Indonesia. Make it one which firmly condemns those governments which defy an EU arms embargo.
Please support the Green/EFA amendment to this resolution which seeks to do exactly that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Nielson">
The Code has now existed for one year.
As acknowledged in the first annual report, initial experiences of the Member States from its operation during that period were positive.
The Code has increased mutual understanding on Member State policies, established an efficient consultation mechanism and encouraged dialogue on the implementation of its provisions.
<P>
The statistical tables attached to the report testify to the strong interest shown by Member States in making the Code' s consultation mechanism a success.
It is undeniable, however, that there are grounds for continued strengthening of the Code and its implementation.
The aim of the annual review process is to identify such potential improvements.
Naturally, any amendments to the Code must enjoy the support of all Member States.
<P>
As far as the role of the Commission is concerned, I would like to point out that Member States have up to now, on the basis of Article 296, exempted trade in arms from the scope of application of Treaty rules, thereby preventing Community action.
Ultimate responsibility for arms exports therefore belongs to national governments.
Arms trade is currently dealt with in the context of the common foreign and security policy with which the Commission naturally is fully associated.
<P>
Finally, the Commission is interested in broadening acceptance of the main principles contained in the Code so as to cover the world' s main arms exporters.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Human rights
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolution:
<P>
Moratorium on the death penalty - B5-0144/1999 by Mr Thors and others, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the vote on the UN General Assembly resolution on the creation of a universal moratorium on capital punishment;
<P>
B5-0155/1999 by Mr Schori, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the vote on the UN General Assembly resolution on the creation of a universal moratorium on capital punishment;
<P>
B5-0159/1999 by Mr Manisco and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the vote on the UN General Assembly resolution on the creation of a universal moratorium on capital punishment;
<P>
B5-0169/1999 by Mr Frassoni and Mr Wuori, on behalf of the Greens/EFA Group, on the creation of a universal moratorium on capital punishment by the UN General Assembly;
<P>
B5-0171/1999 by Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra and Mrs Grossetête, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the vote on the UN General Assembly resolution on the creation of a universal moratorium on capital punishment.
<P>
The Moluccan Islands- B5-0145/1999 by Mr Maaten, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on communal conflict in Indonesia' s Moluccan Islands;
<P>
B5-0153/1999 by Mr Schori and Mr Wiersma, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the on-going violation of human rights in Indonesia and in particular on the Moluccan Islands;
<P>
B5-0167/1999 by Mr Lagendijk and others, on behalf of the Greens/EFA Group, on human rights violations in the Moluccan Islands, Indonesia;
<P>
B5-0172/1999 by Mrs Maij-Weggen and Mr Costa Neves, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the serious violations of human rights in the Moluccan Islands in Indonesia.
<P>
Belarus- B5-0146/1999 by Mr Haarder, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the disappearance of Mr Victor Gonchar and the situation in Belarus;
<P>
B5-0154/1999 by Mr Wiersma and Mr Schori, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the situation in Belarus;
<P>
B5-0164/1999 by Mr Schroedter and others, on behalf of the Greens/EFA Group, on the political and human rights situation in Belarus;
<P>
B5-0173/1999 by Mr Wijkman and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on disappearances and imprisonment of parliamentarians in Belarus.
<P>
Situation of the Roma people in Kosovo- B5-0147/1999 by Mrs Ludford and Mr Haarder, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on abuses against the Roma people and Serbs in the new Kosovo;
<P>
B5-0151/1999 by Mr Schori, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the situation of the Roma people in Kosovo;
<P>
B5-0166/1999 by Mr Staes and Mr Sörensen, on behalf of the Greens/EFA Group, on abuses against the Roma people and Serbs in the new Kosovo;
<P>
B5-0174/1999 by Mrs Pack and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the situation of Romany civilians in Kosovo.
<P>
Moratorium on the death penalty
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Rutelli">
Mr President, we believe that it is particularly important that in the debate on the budget, amendments have now been approved in committee which support the Commission and ask it to back the campaigns and actions in favour of the moratorium on executions and, in the long term, the abolition of the death penalty.
Why am I saying this, Mr President?
Because this House has often made commitments on specific issues and has had successes, alongside defeats, as regards the commutation or stays of executions.
<P>
The important thing is to mark the end of the twentieth century by means of action by Europe - Europe as the home of human rights - involving the abolition of the death penalty.
All over the world, there is a vitally important campaign which Europe should be leading.
I would ask the Commission to undertake to implement these objectives to make Europe the global home of political action against the death penalty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="Manisco">
Mr President, since I and my colleague Olivier Dupuis moved this draft resolution on a moratorium on the death penalty, a most grievous and sinister event has taken place.
Last Monday, the United States Supreme Court rejected the petition for a writ of certiorari by Moumia Abou Jamal, the Afro-American freedom fighter sentenced to death in 1992.
<P>
At the very moment we are debating in this Chamber, Thomas Ridge, the Governor of Pennsylvania, is probably issuing and signing the order for his execution.
There are very few legal avenues left open to Moumia to escape the gallows.
<P>
As has happened in the past, when this House, the Council, various heads of state and world public opinion mobilised to obtain a stay of execution, we once again have to do everything in our power to save the life of this victim of racist hatred and of an egregious perversion of justice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Frassoni">
Mr President, the fight against the death penalty in the world is, first and foremost, civilisation' s fight for the right of humanitarian intervention which is making headway in terms of global awareness.
This Parliament has a long tradition on this issue, and I would like to pay tribute here to the work of Adelaide Aglietta, who was the first rapporteur in this Parliament to deal with the issue of the death penalty in the world.
<P>
The Council is doing a good job and we hope that the Commission will do likewise.
However, we must now make sure that the resolution which will be put to the House will not end up as just a piece of paper, but will constitute another stage in the continuation of this fight.
The Council must not stop.
It needs to establish further deadlines and mechanisms to monitor the implementation of the resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, we know that Olivier Dupuis has been leading this particular struggle, a fact which has also been mentioned here before.
I think he deserves a big thank-you for enabling this discussion to take place.
<P>
I also think that, at the moment, things look very promising indeed in the UN General Assembly.
There has been a lot of support from every country, and it has been easy to reach agreement within the Council on this point.
Now that the fight is being carried on within the UN, we must beware of cunning counter-proposals which perhaps look innocent enough but which will come from various directions for the purpose of watering down any strong position adopted by the UN General Assembly.
We therefore need to keep track of what is happening in the UN.
<P>
At the same time, we need to ensure that there is strong support from Parliament for this action and that in the future, and in Geneva too, whenever questions affecting human rights come up, we get binding decisions adopted. We also need to ensure that we can follow up the present resolution, which I hope will be approved in New York this autumn.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Boudjenah">
Mr President, it is high time that we adopted a universal moratorium on the death penalty, that true administrative murder, as Albert Camus called it.
This is the purpose of our resolution directed at the General Assembly of the United Nations.
<P>
Like my colleague, I would like to devote a few words to the urgency with which we must intervene to save Moumia Abou Jamal.
Moumia is the black American journalist who was sentenced to death in 1982 after a police set-up and a rigged trial.
The Supreme Court has just rejected his appeal.
Having spent 17 years on death row, Moumia is now at the mercy of an execution order which the Governor of Pennsylvania can legally sign at any time.
<P>
At a time when an American study has revealed racial disparity in the application of the death penalty in Philadelphia, the American Government should be noble enough to make a stand against this flagrant violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
<P>
The shock that this produced in public opinion and the resulting powerful international mobilisation, in which this Parliament took full part, already prevented the implementation of the first execution order, signed on 2 June 1995.
Today the threat is serious.
It is urgent.
The person who is known as the voice of the voiceless and the peacemaker is in danger.
Any stand, demonstration or resolution will help to prevent the irreversible, and may prevent that voice from being silenced.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first of all like to thank Mr Frassoni, Mr Thors and Mr Manisco for their support for the text of this resolution.
I think that we are very close to achieving the first great result from the UN General Assembly and that it is important that we make an effort to ensure that the final text is a genuine text, a text which allows us to continue this battle which, as other speakers have said, is particularly close to this Parliament' s heart.
<P>
We risk - as is the case after debates within the Council - having a weak text, which will simply reproduce those which have been adopted over the last three years in Geneva and which will not allow us to continue this battle, set new deadlines, or create mechanisms which allow us to verify the steps taken or the progress made to date.
I therefore ask the Council not to get bogged down in philosophical debates, but to see to it that the mechanisms allowing us to continue this battle are included in the text and that the drafting may soon be completed, so that the Council and the Commission - and we have Mr Patten' s assurance on this - may begin the work of convincing the 180 Member States of the United Nations.
It is urgent. The House has already begun its task.
The days and weeks to come must be used to give solid form to this great text in favour of the abolition of the death penalty by the General Assembly.
<P>
We must also ensure that this text is not anti-American.
The initiatives of recent years have shown the Americans that this is not the case, but I believe that this point should continue to be stressed.
The American administration is aware that there is now progress in this direction on the part of the whole of humanity and it is really a matter of widening the sphere of human rights.
<P>
Finally, it is all the more significant that in the last few hours, Mr Öçalan has been sentenced to death.
This is therefore another manifestation of the need to definitively legislate, at United Nations level, for the abolition of the death penalty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cauquil">
Regardless of its formulation, I shall be voting for this resolution which demands the abolition of that barbarous punishment, the death penalty.
<P>
I would ask the House to take an urgent stand against the execution of the black American journalist, Moumia Abou Jamal.
Moumia Abou Jamal fought against racism and for the dignity of Blacks by denouncing in his articles the violence and corruption of the Philadelphia police and institutional racism in general.
After being arrested by that same police force, which accused him, without proof, of the murder of one of his own people, he was sentenced to death following a rigged trial, as a result of falsified evidence and bribed witnesses.
He has now spent seventeen years languishing on death row, seventeen years claiming innocence and fighting for a review of his case.
<P>
Moumia Abou Jamal may be executed at any moment, since his appeal in the United States Supreme Court has just been rejected.
The United States is a signatory to the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention against Racial Discrimination, as well as the Convention against Torture, which is applicable in Moumia' s case since the racial factor weighed heavily in his trial and he has spent seventeen years on death row which constitutes, according to those Treaties, an unjust form of punishment which is equivalent to torture.
<P>
This is why I call on the House to vote not only for the resolution against the death penalty, but also for the amendment which adds that the European Parliament is appealing to the Governor of Pennsylvania to refrain from signing any new execution order against Moumia Abou Jamal and is renewing its demand for a review of his case.
<P>
Moluccan Islands
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maaten">
Mr President, viewed apart, the problems facing Ambon have their own particular characteristics, yet at the same time there are certain similarities with the situation in East Timor and also in Aceh and other parts of Indonesia.
It is the case with all these areas that we must not labour under the misapprehension that the international community is in a position to solve the problems.
The international and European Community can only play a modest role.
We must also avoid giving the local population the impression that when international institutions start getting involved everything will come right again.
We must spare the local population the disappointment that this expectation could lead to.
Of course this does not alter the fact that the situation in Ambon is serious.
Our first priority is to remain vigilant and endeavour to find a solution, but we must not add fuel to the fire.
In my view, the resolution produced contains all the necessary ingredients.
We might consider modifying the religious aspect slightly but, even without such a shift of emphasis, this resolution makes it adequately clear that the European Parliament attaches great importance to preventing a similar situation from arising in Ambon as arose in East Timor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Lagendijk">
Mr President, with all due respect to my colleagues in this Parliament, I think that it is a little odd - I thought I would just say this, looking at the list of speakers - that we are having what is almost an all-Dutch round on the Moluccas.
Of course, there is every reason to say something about the Moluccas.
The pictures and, still more, the reports that we are receiving are, after all, very reminiscent of what happened in East Timor.
But I must say that I have my doubts about this round.
<P>
Last time, we talked about East Timor and today, we are talking about the Moluccas. We might talk about yet another part of Indonesia tomorrow, for the problem is not confined to the Moluccas.
I have a problem with the way in which we are handling this subject; that is to say, I do not think Parliament should discuss individual incidents, for I fear that this great island kingdom will be the scene of many more such incidents where national and religious factors are intertwined.
<P>
What actually needs to happen is for Parliament to ask itself how, in any event, it should deal with the big problem of Indonesia.
The Moluccan situation is not an isolated case.
The Moluccas form part of a great State comprising many nationalities and religious groupings.
It is a State that is at risk of falling apart and where tensions are running high.
I would be very much in favour of having a big debate of the kind I have just described at some stage in the future, rather than going from incident to incident all the time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wiersma">
Mr President, I am keen to endorse what Mrs Maij-Wegen had to say.
I think we would all agree that we need to ask for attention to be focussed on the situation in the Moluccas as well.
There are many people from the Moluccan islands living in the Netherlands and they also believe it is important for the European Parliament to speak out about the situation in that part of Indonesia.
I welcome the fact that we are all able to do so this morning and that we have also produced a joint motion for a resolution containing those principles we consider to be fundamental.
<P>
We all know that the violence in Indonesia has not been confined to East Timor, although, as is perfectly right and proper, this region has received most of the attention of late.
We are also very much in favour of talking about the Moluccas.
The violence being meted out there has cost many people their lives and the Indonesian authorities have failed to take adequate action against this.
By disturbing the balance of Moluccan society Jakarta has, in fact, contributed to the increase in violence.
The authorities do not appear to want to get a grip on the continuing polarisation between Christians and Muslims.
There too, as we see, armed militias run amok without let or hindrance.
<P>
We want this situation to change and we demand that the Indonesian Government put an end to the violence.
We also demand that it create a situation in which we too are able, from within the European Union, to lend appropriate assistance with repairing the damage and providing the people with the humanitarian aid they need.
<P>
Indonesia will not survive if it does not find a solution to the violence that is spreading across a number of islands, if there is no respect for minorities within a democratic structure and if there is no scope for regional autonomy.
Indonesia must be given a push in this direction.
We want the United Nations to play an active part in this, particularly in the interests of the people who live on the Moluccan Islands.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, the list of speakers from this morning also clearly shows how firm the bond between the Moluccas and the Netherlands is.
You see, we are closely involved in the ups and downs of the Moluccas, one reason for this being that many Moluccans have lived in the Netherlands for a long time now.
<P>
Following the disturbances that took place at the beginning of this year, there was a short period of calm in and around the Moluccan islands, but at the end of July, the violence flared up again in all its ferocity.
It is striking how little interest the media show in these disturbances.
The Moluccas have been completely overshadowed by East Timor.
<P>
The current irregularities are much more organised in character than the disturbances that took place in January.
This gives me great cause for concern.
Various army units in the Indonesian army have been transferred to Ambon, not to maintain public order but to participate in the conflicts themselves.
Civil-military relations are not very democratic, which is why pressure must also be brought to bear on the Indonesian Government to take independent action.
<P>
To close, I would just like to make reference, in this connection, to the disadvantages of delivering aid via international channels.
In the case of the Moluccas, there is a historic bond with the Netherlands.
The Netherlands has recently started delivering ever more multilateral rather than bilateral aid, which has led to the aid no longer being recognisable.
Consequently, the Moluccans feel they have been left in the lurch.
We must not allow the joining of forces to be to the detriment of historic bonds.
<P>
Belarus
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wiersma">
Mr President, we have just come from the first meeting of the delegation from this Parliament that concerns itself with relations with countries such as Belarus.
We have already briefly discussed the alarming situation in this country.
We would like to ask Parliament to give some of its attention today to recent developments there, whereby Belarus, that is the Government of Belarus and President Lukashenko in particular, are at risk of isolating themselves still further from the international community, and in so doing from the European Union too, of course.
<P>
The internal situation in Belarus gives great cause for concern.
Democratic structures are not functioning and we are on the sidelines to some extent because the international community is disregarded by the authorities in Minsk.
Our willingness to help to find a solution to the internal political problems and the deadlock that exists there is not being satisfactorily addressed by President Lukashenko.
<P>
We also want to help to promote dialogue between the opposition and the government.
We support the OSCE, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, in its efforts to achieve this.
Our Parliament is also involved in activities undertaken by the Assembly of the OSCE which are designed to bring about an improvement in the situation in Belarus.
But where is the gesture from the President? What positive reaction has there been on the part of the government in Minsk to the efforts being made to bring about a dialogue?
What we see is quite the reverse.
Instead of positive gestures we see arrests, intimidation and disappearances.
A climate of fear is being created.
<P>
It gets very difficult to find a compromise in a situation of this kind.
We are in fact prepared to stretch our standards a little in the interests of the people of Belarus.
We are prepared to talk to a President who is actually there illegally. If he fails to offer us a gesture, then things will certainly become very difficult.
<P>
If, as I said, the opposition wants to talk then we will support this, but there will have to be a prospect of fair elections which will put an end to what is currently an extremely odd constitutional situation in Belarus in which there are two parliaments and a President reappointed by "referendum" .
There are, of course, limits to our realism and that is why we want to take the opportunity today to register our protest about the situation in Belarus. We also want to make an urgent appeal to its government to do something about those who have disappeared and to ensure that they reappear so that that in itself may lead to really getting a dialogue going which will move towards free and fair elections, hopefully next year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, as Deputy Chairman of the delegation which has just sat on this subject, and as a rapporteur to this country for many years, I can seamlessly follow on from the previous speaker.
We know that we are faced with a very, very difficult situation on account of the fact that in this country, such dubious Stalinist values are enjoying a renaissance and it appears that nothing has really changed.
On the other hand, Belarus is important for the entire European security structure and it is - and we should not forget this - one of the countries bordering the European Union.
<P>
Therefore, we are naturally clutching at any semblance of hope that we can again support a democratic movement in this country.
But the situation is unimaginably poor.
The work of the OSCE is marking time, in spite of the enormous motivation of the working group and despite the fact that it is really looking into every opportunity in detail.
All attempts at dialogue with the opposition are counteracted in practice by human rights' violations on the streets and in the prisons and by violations against the free press.
Lukashenko has to be told in no uncertain terms that he cannot speak with a forked tongue.
<P>
The drama attached to important people, rivals of Lukashenko, suddenly disappearing, shows that the opposition is to be rooted out.
As soon as a critical article is written, the newspapers are threatened with closure.
We really have to strive to speak a clear language in this regard, even if we naturally want to promote the process of dialogue and not obstruct it.
In this connection, Lukashenko, however, must be the first one to set an example.
Such an example would amount to him approving the 5 Million programme for civilian society in the event that the Commission were to travel to Minsk tomorrow.
A second example would be releasing his opponents from prison.
That would be a sign to begin a dialogue.
<P>
I would question the sense behind this resolution when Lukashenko will not listen to us in any case.
But it does have a point, because we would like to show the people that we will never lose hope for a change in Belarus, and that we will do all we can to ensure that democracy is restored to this country.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sacrédeus">
Mr President, my name is pronounced Sacrédeus and it is a family name we have in Sweden.
<P>
Democracy is a gift to us all.
It is a gift from previous generations, from our forefathers.
It gives expression to a view of human beings, a view bearing the stamp of Christianity, which says that all human beings are of equal worth and have the same value, a unique and inviolable human dignity.
<P>
It is an important task of the European Union to defend democracy and this view of human beings.
Developments in close proximity to the European Union, namely in Belarus, are therefore deeply worrying.
An old communist system lives on there.
People disappear and, not least, parliamentarians close to the Christian Democrat Party such as Andrey Klimov and Vladimir Kudinov have disappeared without trace.
Other people too have disappeared, as has been pointed out here in previous interventions.
<P>
Democracy is founded upon people being free to express their opinions, even if this is uncomfortable and is not appreciated by everyone.
Let us, together as a Parliament, view supporting the developments towards democracy in Belarus as one of our most crucially urgent tasks.
<P>
I would also say to you that today is Birgitta' s name day. In fact, my wife is called Birgitta.
Birgitta has also been chosen by the Pope as one of the three patron saints of Europe.
Birgitta is also a Swedish patron saint.
It is a special honour to be able to give one' s maiden speech in the European Parliament on Birgitta' s name day.
I should like to see it as one of my most important tasks to work for democracy and human dignity in Belarus.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Belder">
Mr President, speaking of courage, this commendable human quality is certainly one that adorns the Belorussian lawyer Vera Stremkovskaya.
Though one of the few advocates in her fatherland, she dares to defend the political opponents of the Lukashenko regime.
In so doing, she does in fact already have one foot in prison, figuratively speaking.
The judicial authorities in Minsk judge that her personal commitment to human rights is irreconcilable with her legal work.
The confederation of German lawyers has an entirely different view of the matter.
It recently awarded Stremkovskaya its prize for human rights.
Her speech of thanks tells us a lot.
Those who champion a democratic constitutional state in Belarus long for western support and for interest to be shown in their extremely difficult position.
This is the ultimate significance of the prize awarded to her for her selflessness. Belarus must not remain a "black hole" on the European map.
<P>
The present joint resolution fulfils this fondest wish of ours.
Hence, we are able to give it our full support.
The resolution serves to underline Stremkovskaya' s criticism of Lukashenko' s repressive presidential rule: "people are disappearing in Belarus and that is causing great public unrest."
We want this topical debate to give a boost to the opposition in Belarus.
There is certainly a need for this, now that such bitter, almost desperate words are reaching us of the kind uttered by the exile Siaretski, the former President of the Belorussian Parliament that was dissolved by Lukashenko: "Belarus is currently under the leadership of a man who says of himself that he admires Hitler."
A man who can only survive politically on account of support from Moscow which, in turn, is itself being financed by the West.
<P>
The situation of the Roma in Kosovo
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, it is an incredibly serious crisis we have in Kosovo regarding the Roma.
A week ago, I was involved in a live television debate with the OSCE's representative for the Roma population, who is monitoring the situation.
I regret to have to say that his appeal to the effect that the EU should do something about the Roma' s situation, such as arrange a special meeting, has fallen on deaf ears.
We know that people are being thrown out of hospitals and exposed to various forms of violence if they belong to the Roma population.
The profound appeal I am making to the Commission and the Council is therefore as follows: help arrange a special meeting where the Roma' s situation can be discussed.
Try to obtain a proper monitoring of the situation and demonstrate that all the international organisations which are on the scene in Pristina want to do something about the issue, for example by calling a meeting of the kind that the OSCE' s special rapporteur has been seeking (but without receiving any support).
This could be extremely significant in showing the path we are to go down.
<P>
I hope that the present Commissioner, Mr Nielson, will present this message to Mr Hombach and his colleagues in Pristina and Thessaloniki.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wiersma">
Mr President, we are now talking about the situation facing the Roma in Kosovo.
We all agree, and this is also apparent from the joint motion for a resolution, that the Roma in Kosovo are not receiving adequate protection at the present time.
There may be all kinds of reasons for the fact that they are being treated in a very unfriendly manner, particularly by the Albanians, but that does not alter the fact that they have a right to protection and that this is inadequate.
<P>
KFOR is doing its best but there is too much happening all at once.
Nevertheless, we urge that a more active approach be taken to protecting the rights of the Roma, for they have just as much right to this as the other inhabitants of Kosovo. After all, that is what the Kosovo conflict was all about.
Were those not the values we were fighting for?
It is on account of these selfsame values that we must now also fight for the interests of the Gypsies in Kosovo.
If the Albanian leaders expect us to support them in rebuilding Kosovo, then it is right that we should not hesitate to remind them of their responsibilities with regard to the Roma.
Their situation demonstrates yet again that it is taking far too long to build up the police force.
One of the big complaints we have at the moment about the situation in Kosovo itself is that the military police have to carry out extra duties when they have so much other work to do and they are not actually trained for the duties.
We would also make an urgent appeal to the UN to ensure that the police force is built up more rapidly than is the case at present.
For the situation in Kosovo - I was there myself only last week - is one of chaos, and this must not be allowed to continue for too long.
<P>
The resolution rightly points to the problems endured by the Roma in other European countries, some of which are applicant countries.
Only this week, I was confronted with one example of this in the form of a Czech local authority that wants to build a wall somewhere in the city in order to separate the Gypsies from the rest of the population.
It seems to me that actions of this kind are not in keeping with the Copenhagen criteria.
I just wanted to point out that the Roma problem is not one that crops up in Kosovo alone.
The Council of Europe is very active in this area, for every day there are in fact reports of problems somewhere in the world.
I would also urge this Parliament to endeavour to develop a coherent approach and to help to find solutions to the problem on account of the sense of responsibility we all share.
Just shaking a fist does not always solve problems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="President">
Mr Wiersma, I do not hold it against you that you have spoken three times today on the subject of human rights; quite the opposite, we need colleagues in Parliament who will take up this subject.
However, next time, I would request that you do not exceed your speaking time by 100%!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Staes">
Honoured President, ladies and gentlemen, and Members of the European Commission, this is not the first time since the elections that we have spoken about the situation in Kosovo.
As recently as the last part-session, we talked about reconstruction and we also discussed the situation facing Albanian Kosovars in Serbian jails in the debate on urgent subjects.
I would like to point again to the fact that this situation gives a great deal of cause for concern.
We did adopt this resolution last time but reports have reached me in the meantime to the effect that there has been no improvement whatsoever in the situation.
We really are going to have to keep an eye on this.
<P>
It is right and proper that we should be discussing the situation facing the Gypsies in Kosovo today.
I think it is completely unacceptable for any section of the population whatsoever to be disadvantaged and persecuted.
We must take very decisive action against this and I believe that the compromise resolution articulates this in a very balanced and effective manner and also places responsibility where it needs to be placed.
There is no need for me to read it out.
Everyone can read it for themselves and we will see that it is indeed worded very effectively.
Indeed, I have visited Kosovo myself and have spoken to most of the Albanian political leaders there from across the political spectrum including Rugova, Bukoshi and Thaçi.
These people are well aware that they do not always have control of the situation.
I believe this resolution shows our support for them; it is a recommendation and we must help them to put it into practice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
Mr President, Milosevic has long been poisoning the entire region with his racist ideas as regards ethnic minorities.
He has certainly been successful in certain parts of former Yugoslavia.
Radicalisation is underway in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, everywhere, in reaction to his ethno-racist policy.
The Albanians in Kosovo have already been subject to this pressure for a very long time but they have continued to resist it. They have succeeded in this for some time now due in particular to Mr Rugova' s leadership.
But if the oppression continues to increase in its severity and shows no signs of abating and ethnic cleansing takes place, then it is to be expected that radicalisation will be the response met with there too.
In reality this would mean success for Milosevic in terms of his policy, for he would actually like to spread this ethno-racist ideology throughout the region.
We must bring pressure to bear on the Albanians as a matter of urgency and appeal to them not to grant him this success.
<P>
This Parliament has always rejected ethnically-based lines of reasoning.
We are on the side of the oppressed in principle and even if the victims of yesterday are the ones holding power today, we will still be on the side of the victims of today.
Everyone knows that this tends to be the Serbs.
Indeed, there are many instances of the Serbs being violently oppressed at the present time, but there is very little attention being given to the Roma.
They easily fall prey to ethnic hatred for no one likes them anywhere.
That is all the more reason to keep this very vulnerable population group within our sights, specifically with the use of this resolution.
KFOR must be afforded the scope and resources it needs to protect the Roma.
<P>
There is an urgent need for a fully fledged Kosovan political power that will truly be in a position to guarantee public order, and not by choosing the easy route, that is to say, the division or cantonisation of Kosovo, but by choosing a route that leads to reconciliation.
Kosovo must take the route leading to a constitutional state if it is to achieve this.
Effective public administration must be established.
I know that in that respect Western Europe is doing everything that can be done and this deserves our full support.
This will have to include support and a role for the Yugoslav Tribunal, since justice for all concerned is an essential prerequisite to reconciliation between the various population groups.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="Ludford">
The war against Serb ethnic cleansing in Kosovo was a just war.
It was fought in the cause of upholding European values.
The fact that it was to protect a largely Muslim people - the Kosovo Albanians against oppression and genocide by the Christian Serbs showed that such values are independent of, if certainly influenced by, religious belief.
<P>
The core of the values we fought for was the right to be different - the right to live in peaceful enjoyment of one' s own culture and identity and to enjoy full civil and political rights and not to be segregated or ghettoised.
It would be a betrayal of those who believed in the morality of the war in Kosovo for us now to tolerate discrimination against any minorities there - whether Serb, the subject of my Group' s amendment, or Roma.
Of course, we can understand bitter grievances and resentments, but we cannot condone summary justice.
We stress here again the need for proper investigation into war crimes.
<P>
The success of the Austrian Freedom Party last week threatens to contribute to making dangerously populist and xenophobic views respectable in Europe.
This resolution signals, not least to the Kosovo Albanians, that Europe does not accept xenophobia in any guise.
Europe does not choose to defend certain communities or minorities. It insists on defending everyone' s human rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="President">
Thank you very much.
Mrs Hanja Maij-Weggen, has asked me to point out that she would still have liked to mention in her speech the fact that a delegation of Moluccan Dutch nationals is present who have just been following our debate with great interest.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, the situation in Kosovo is both tragic and dangerous for all ethnic groups, not only for Albanians.
Serbs, Gypsies, Egyptians and Muslims are also victims of the ethnic cleansing operation which the KLA forces have been systematically carrying out for some months now, turning the presence of NATO and KFOR forces to their advantage.
The responsibilities of the European Union and of the so-called international community are great.
Despite our being well aware of the atrocities committed by the KLA, we still nominated its forces to act as a protective body for Kosovo and, at the same time, we purported to be interested in the plight of the Gypsies.
In view of this, we consider the resolution under debate today to be hypocritical. Not only does it omit to outline the responsibilities, but it essentially makes the European Parliament jointly responsible for the terror facing the Serbs and Gypsies in Kosovo.
If Parliament wishes to play its role, it needs to put an end to KLA action, under all its guises, both policing and military.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Nielson">
On capital punishment: during the last three years, a resolution on the death penalty has been passed in the UN Commission on Human Rights with a growing number of co-sponsors.
To take the policy against capital punishment one step further, to consolidate the achievements of the Human Rights Committee and to establish the question of the death penalty on the agenda of the UN General Assembly, the EU Member States have decided to introduce a resolution in the Third Committee during the 54th session of the General Assembly.
It is the objective of the EU to keep the text focused and concise to win as broad a support as possible.
<P>
The EU will seek collaboration with other regions and states that share the same vision to arrive at the best possible result.
I noted, and I agreed with, what Mr Dupuis said, that this initiative is not anti-American. It is pro-human.
<P>
On the Moluccas: the Commission follows closely domestic events in Indonesia and shares with honourable Members, the serious concerns about the dramatic inter-religious conflict in the Moluccas and the ensuing injury and loss of life.
The European Union has made it clear to the Indonesian government, on numerous occasions, with particular reference to the Moluccas, that it holds it responsible for law and order throughout Indonesia.
The government is well aware of the Union' s view and acknowledges its responsibilities.
ECHO has been running a project worth EUR 1 m for humanitarian aid to the population in need.
The project covered the supply of drinking water, food and medication.
A renewal is under consideration.
<P>
At this moment, Indonesia is undergoing significant political, economic and social changes.
It is hoped that this process will contribute to improving the social climate in particular as regards inter-ethnic and inter-religious tensions.
<P>
I heard the debate today and I interpret it as a very mature and very sober contribution to furthering these hopes that what I would call a soft landing for Indonesia and for all the peoples of Indonesia can be obtained.
<P>
On Belarus: the Commission is closely following developments in Belarus.
We appreciate the efforts of the Belarus government and opposition to initiate a constructive dialogue in order to agree on acceptable conditions for fair and free elections, and thereby restore the rule of law in the country.
<P>
However, the Commission remains concerned about Belarus' s human rights record and in particular about the disappearances of political personalities, most recently Mr Gonchar.
The EU presidency has officially asked the Belorussian authorities to make all efforts to find Mr Gonchar and secure his safety.
This took place on 24 September.
<P>
Such developments may well put at risk an agreement between the government and the opposition in the framework of their recently established dialogue.
In a few days the Commission will adopt the TACIS civil society development programme in the slightly amended form agreed informally last June with the Belorussian authorities.
The document will then be formally submitted to the Belorussian authorities for approval.
We trust that the Belorussian authorities will remain committed to the endorsement of the programme.
This will represent the fulfilment of an important political benchmark set by the EU last April.
Only the fulfilment of the EU' s political benchmarks will allow the EU to gradually normalise relations with Belarus.
Among these, human rights have a significant weight alongside free access to the media, an end to harassment of the opposition, constructive dialogue between opposition and government and endorsement of the TACIS civil society development programme.
<P>
On the resolutions on abuses of Roma and Serbs in Kosovo I have the following remarks. The Commission fully shares the concerns expressed in these resolutions.
The Commission and the EU have been clear from the outset in our condemnation of all ethnic violence whoever the perpetrator and whoever the victim.
It is as unacceptable now against the Serb and Roma minorities as it was when carried out against the Kosovars until some months ago.
<P>
The Commission continues through its assistance programmes in the field of democratisation and human rights to support confidence-building measures and dialogue between the different communities.
We already did so, though unfortunately without enough success, before the conflict and now in the changed circumstances this continues to be one of the priorities in selecting projects.
<P>
Furthermore the Commission, through ECHO, provides humanitarian assistance in favour of the victims of the Kosovo crisis, including the Serb and Roma minorities.
We fully support the efforts of KFOR to maintain law and order in Kosovo and to protect all citizens.
We fully support the efforts of UNMIK to establish a functioning civil administration which would take over policing functions from KFOR, and to create a peaceful multi-ethnic society which would set about the task of rebuilding Kosovo and its society.
<P>
UNMIK has approached the Commission for support for the Kosovo protection corps.
Member States will decide in the coming weeks on the Commission' s proposed programme in this regard.
<P>
We call on all others within and outside Kosovo to also support these aims and to support UNMIK and KFOR in their work to achieve them.
We too oppose any cantonisation of Kosovo.
Kosovo must become a multi-ethnic society without distinction or discrimination on ethnic or any other grounds.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, I wonder if the Commission can support the proposal I submitted, to the effect that the EU should call a meeting with OSCE representatives in order to have a special discussion specifically about the Roma' s position and involving everyone who is active locally there.
I would appeal to the Commissioner at least to pass on my message to his colleagues and to Mr Hombach.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="Nielson">
I will convey the wish you have expressed concerning such a meeting, but I would also add that the existing organisational set-up is very comprehensive in its complexity.
Most of the problems we are facing will fit in somewhere in the framework established concerning the organisation of support and the re-establishment of society in Kosovo. So I think the issue will come up in one place or another, but I will convey your wish to them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Aviation accident at Ustica
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolution:
<P>
B5-0138/99 by Ms Muscardini, on behalf of the UEN Group, on the aviation accident at Ustica;
<P>
B5-0148/99 by Mssrs Procacci and Haarder, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the aviation accident at Ustica (Italy) on 27 June 1980;
<P>
B5-0156/99 by Mr Barón Crespo and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the aviation accident at Ustica;
<P>
B5-0160/99, by Mssrs Di Lello Finuoli and Manisco, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the Ustica attack of 27 June 1980;
<P>
B5-0162/99, by Mr Celli and others, on behalf of the Greens/EFA Group, on the aviation accident at Ustica on 27 June 1980;
<P>
B5-0176/99, by Mr Bodrato and Ms Grossetête, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the aviation accident at Ustica.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Angelilli">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it really is very important that a debate is taking place on the Ustica massacre here today.
It will take on particular importance if Parliament manages to exercise an appropriate political and practical role which will help shed light on this sombre event and bring justice for the 81 victims and their families who, for more than 19 years, have been waiting to find out what happened, why it happened, and who was responsible.
I said that more than 19 years have passed and there have been several inquiries by the Italian magistracy, but not even the last inquiry overseen by Judge Priore, while very noteworthy, has provided truly satisfactory answers.
Was it a missile launched during air combat which destroyed the aircraft or was it a bomb planted inside?
Unfortunately, a great deal, indeed too much evidence has been concealed or destroyed and it would be an oversimplification to place the blame for this tragedy only on the top ranks of the army, who generally speaking, only follow orders.
Obviously, the real blame lies elsewhere, in particular at the door of the high level Italian representatives of government and politicians of the time.
<P>
What inconvenient facts, what political manoeuvrings were covered up in the interests of National Security?
In fact there have been numerous unanswered questions regarding the complex international events of those years.
On the one hand, the great world powers - USA and USSR - were at diplomatic breaking point, and on the other hand, there was a progressive deterioration in relations between the Atlantic Alliance and some Islamic countries, Libya in particular, while in Italy, the far left in particular, was continually calling into question Italy' s participation in NATO.
Finally, what is the link between the Ustica massacre and the one that happened around a month later at Bologna train station?
<P>
We have tabled a motion for a resolution to underline the importance of these factors, factors which, however, were not mentioned once in the joint motion for a resolution.
Nevertheless, while we consider that the joint motion for a resolution leans too far towards the air missile hypothesis rather than towards an internal bomb, and above all, while we believe this motion to be far too kind and diplomatic towards the Italian political authorities, we agree on the need to request the cooperation of all the Member States of the European Union in finally providing everything necessary for an appropriate and adequate detailed examination of the inquiries, so that those who did this, the instigators and the motives behind this absurd massacre can be identified.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Procacci">
Mr President, the Ustica question is one of the darkest legal episodes in not only Italian, but I would say especially, European history.
Over the past 19 years, we have seen numerous dramatic turns of events regarding the investigations to establish the truth that has still not emerged which, it appears, is also down to those involved preventing this happening and riding roughshod over the legal rights of the victims' families and over our basic democratic principles.
<P>
We do not want to apply a political interpretation or allow anyone to exploit a tragedy which has caused so much suffering.
Let us leave it to the magistracy to ascertain the truth which is the right of everyone, not only of the victims' relatives.
In addition to the results obtained recently by the Italian magistracy, I do not know whether, in the future, there will or will not be other scenarios which, in recent years, we have unfortunately become used to owing to the legal events of Ustica. But today, we are faced with a judgement which outlines the hypothesis of the participation of aircraft from different countries during the disaster of 27 June 1980.
And so Parliament must make a firm request to the Member States and the United States to cooperate in finding the truth.
<P>
It is certainly significant for our institution to promote an action which aims to protect...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Imbeni">
Mr President, as you can see, it is almost exclusively Members elected in Italy who are speaking, and this is significant.
Various colleagues from other countries have asked me - what is Ustica?
Why the urgency?
This is a question, or rather, these are two very reasonable questions.
Ustica, as perhaps a lot of people know, is a small island in the South Tyrrhenian Sea.
Why this urgency though?
It does not spring from something that has happened now but from something serious which happened almost twenty years ago.
The urgency is because an Italian deputy Public Prosecutor has issued a judgement which identifies the high-level air force authorities as being to blame for covering things up, keeping quiet and not saying what they knew, which prevented the truth coming to light about what happened almost twenty years ago.
<P>
So what happened?
An aeroplane left my city, Bologna, two hours late but never reached its destination, Palermo.
It was hit, so several parties say, by a missile during an aggressive act which took place nearby.
Well, immediately afterwards, in the following days, weeks and years, there ensued an extraordinary criminal course of events which aimed to conceal the evidence, to silence people and to ensure that the truth did not come out.
<P>
Why was all this done?
This is why we need to take up this subject again today, as the course of Italian justice has entered the final and perhaps overdue stage of its inquiries.
We are asking the Member States - because they say aircraft from one of the Member States or NATO might have been involved in that act of war - to help with information, which there is no longer any reason to keep confidential, concealed or secret, so that we really can bring the facts to light and the whole truth can be told.
After all, the relatives of the 81 victims are asking for nothing more than to know the truth and to see that justice be done.
I think this is not just an Italian internal affair, but is a service to the whole of European democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Di Lello Finuoli">
Mr President, on the night of 27 June 1980, off the coast of Ustica, 81 innocent European citizens who were flying from Bologna to Palermo, lost their lives in the course of a military operation which involved the civilian airliner in which they were travelling.
A few minutes after the disaster, the military and secret service machinery of the countries concerned - with the Italians leading the way - were already putting in place a huge and disgraceful operation to conceal, if not destroy, the evidence to prevent the legal authorities ascertaining what really happened in the skies over Ustica.
<P>
The European Union and its Parliament have the institutional duty to protect the interests of the European citizens and not those of individual governments, NATO or the United States.
The European citizens, including the 81 European families of the victims of Ustica, have the right to demand all our help in bringing justice to bear.
And so it is our duty to ask for the States involved in the disaster to be put under pressure to say all they know.
This is also of the greatest interest to us because this is the only way to prevent something similar happening again in European skies, and not only in European skies.
Over the next five years, we are committed to creating a common area of freedom, security and justice.
Ascertaining the truth on the Ustica disaster would be a major first step along this path.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Messner">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Ustica tragedy - with more than 80 dead, almost 20 years of inquiries and more than 15 victims linked to this tragedy either during or after the inquiries - brings to mind three crucial points: the transparency, accountability and arrogance of a certain type of military power, but not only military power.
In order to perhaps understand this tragedy better, I will also refer to the tragedy which occurred at Cermis in the Dolomites, where an American military plane cut through a cablecar cable. Twenty people plunged to the ground in the cablecar and died.
In this case, we know what happened because the plane was seen, but up till now, even in the Cermis tragedy, it is still not at all clear where the blame lies.
<P>
Firstly, I wonder whether Italy, despite it being strategically important in Europe, is the best place to carry out military experiments, tests or even training.
In my opinion, the Nevada desert is much more suitable because Italy has too many inhabitants.
And it has to be said that the victims' loved ones have the right to know why, how and when their children, parents or relatives died, and to this end, we join them in asking for help and complete transparency.
The Governments of Italy, France, Great Britain and the United States as well as the Secretary-General of the UN must help us to shed light on these tragedies, especially the Ustica tragedy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bodrato">
Mr President, after almost twenty years and despite the commitment of the Italian magistracy and the association of the victims' families, we still do not know the truth about the Ustica tragedy, a tragedy which affected Italian public opinion and also the wider European public opinion.
The inquiries were made more difficult by the reticence and lack of cooperation shown by some countries, including countries which are Members of the European Union as well as the very Alliance which guaranteed security in Europe during those years.
The mystery which continues to surround the catastrophe has ended up casting serious doubts on Italy' s democratic life and its very independence.
Now, a judgement made by the Italian magistracy has outlined various scenarios which provide for military operations along the very route taken by the DC9 that disappeared into the Mediterranean that evening.
Transparency is therefore an issue.
Transparency is a value which this Parliament referred to decisively during the first weeks of its activities and the public has the right to trust both political and military institutions.
However, we believe that it is right for the European Parliament to ask the Member States - which can participate in ascertaining the truth - to provide the magistracy with all the documentation necessary to definitively identify who was to blame.
This is the moral and political significance of this joint resolution and is the reason for the urgency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Zappalà">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in 1980 something happened in Italy, the scale of which, in terms of numbers of victims, made it a disaster.
As is typical of Italian justice, 19 years later, nothing has yet been said with any certainty.
In relation to this grave episode - and the previous speakers highlighted this - secrecy and doubts have surrounded military bodies, institutions, governments and nations for two decades.
The lack of certainty encourages prejudices and vague judgements.
The victims, their families and the entire international community have the right to uncover the truth, not in twenty years or more but as quickly as possible.
This Parliament must oblige all the States concerned and individual institutions to close this chapter, which is one of the many Italian mysteries where the truth is never found, and which has seen high level involvement and assistance.
The Italian and international communities will be grateful to this Parliament and they will regain confidence in the institutions. This will honour the memory of the many innocent victims.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Musotto">
Mr President, today' s debate in this House is also an opportunity to highlight the extremely serious and unjustified delay of a magistracy measure arriving after twenty years of inquiries.
This delay has displayed a serious disrespect for the great desire for truth, not only of the victims' relatives but also of those entire communities which have been involved in this tragic event.
So naturally, while I join the invitation extended to those countries which were involved to cooperate in establishing the truth, I would also ask the European Parliament not to forget this event at this most delicate time of public debate in order to ascertain the truth. Therefore, I ask Parliament to use its representatives and bodies to continue to monitor events so that this tragedy will finally reach a just and honest conclusion, as requested by the Italian and European communities in their entirety.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Sbarbati">
Mr President, we are in favour of this debate being dealt with on a European as well as an international level, because we think that the Ustica question, with its fatalities and the controversy left in its wake, which are still an issue in our country, deserves to be clarified, and must be clarified.
<P>
If we all want to be European citizens, if we want a shared destiny, we must not regard this as just an Italian matter but as a matter for the international community, and it must be investigated and resolved at this level.
We are asking for military activities to be definitively and transparently coordinated with civilian activities.
This is the transparency that citizens are asking for, this is the justice we want, this is the sense of justice that is being requested by the citizens, by the people who have suffered this grave loss as well as by the entire international community.
We are asking, therefore, for serious cooperation between political and military activities. We are asking for justice to be done.
Just as Cermis was not only an Italian matter and was dealt with at an international level, so Ustica deserves to be discussed here. It deserves to be clarified and it deserves our respect, as does the work of the magistracy, which must get to the heart of the matter, clarify blame and charge those responsible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Nielson">
The Commission deplores this tragedy and hopes that investigations carried out by the Italian authorities can be conducted with full transparency and equity.
The Commission shares the concern of the honourable Members, and calls on the Member States to collaborate with the Italian authorities to bring together all available evidence to help clarify the causes of the disaster.
<P>
Concerning the rules on safety of military air traffic, the Commission recalls at present the Community has no powers in this field.
It is for the Member States to take the necessary measures.
However, the Commission is well aware that the joint use of airspace by various users, civil and military, may be at the root of safety problems, as it is already partly responsible for air traffic delays and congestion.
This is why the Commission has advocated in the past, in its White Paper on freeing European airspace, that European airspace should be managed centrally by a strong international organisation for all aspects of its use.
Moreover, the Commission felt it was better to entrust this task to Eurocontrol rather than to a Community body, because national governments might find it easier to allow that organisation to play such a role in the military use of airspace.
<P>
At the request of the Council, the Commission is preparing a communication on air traffic delays and congestion and will certainly address this question again and propose initiatives in the field of airspace management.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Nuclear accident in Japan
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolution:
<P>
B5-0141/99 by Mr Maaten and others, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on recent accidents at nuclear power plant and shipments of dangerous substances;
<P>
B5-0150/99 by Ms McNally, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the accident at the Tokaimura nuclear power processing plant in Japan;
<P>
B5-0161/99 by Mr Papayannakis and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the nuclear accident in Japan;
<P>
B5-0165/99 by Ms Ahern and others, on behalf of the Greens/EFA Group, on the major nuclear accident in Japan and MOX shipments;
<P>
B5-0171/99 by Ms Grossetête and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the nuclear accident in Tokaimura, Japan.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="McNally">
All accidents are tragic for individual people and, of course, we extend sympathy to the workers involved in the incident at Tokaimura, their families and the 300,000 local people who were subjected to intense fear and worry for several days.
<P>
Accidents occur in all industries, and we have just seen an appalling train crash in the UK this week.
But accidents in nuclear installations, especially criticality accidents, are the most feared of all accidents.
Rare though they are for obvious reasons, the potential consequences to very large numbers of people are extremely serious.
That is why the nuclear industry has to be more careful than other industries.
It will not survive as an industry unless the public believe in a strongly instilled and strictly enforced safety culture.
Now that culture was breached quite clearly at Tokaimura this week.
There will be an investigation.
We hope and expect that the findings will be shared with us so that any lessons can be enforced everywhere where nuclear activities take place.
Workers in the industry expect this, and the public most certainly does.
<P>
Nuclear activity requires emergency plans, spot checks by independent inspectors and factoring-in of the possibility of error or negligence.
That costs money but it has to be done.
All installations in the supply chain are part of safety requirements.
Any weak link is dangerous.
A wide-ranging investigation and a public explanation are required by those whose concerns have been justifiably raised by this very serious incident indeed in Japan.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Olsson">
Mr President, the accident in Japan has again reminded us of the very great risks associated with nuclear power.
Again, it was human error which caused the accident but, as human beings, we are made in such a way that we easily make mistakes.
It is this which is the big risk in connection with nuclear power.
<P>
The export of MOX from Sellafield in Great Britain means that both Great Britain and the EU are involved in this problem.
That is why I personally share the points of view expressed in the draft amendments submitted by the Greens.
We in the Liberal Group do not, however, consider that they are sufficiently at home with this issue.
We shall therefore abstain in the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
Mr President, the accident which has just happened in Japan shows that nuclear power can never be completely safe.
Even in a technologically very advanced system, the so-called human factor plays a decisive role.
<P>
The resolution which has been produced is a good one, even if I should like to have seen it go further still in the positions it adopts.
An example of this is point 9, because it ought to be obvious that one should not have reprocessing contracts with countries which do not comply with international standards.
<P>
As we all know, Japan is one of the world' s technologically most developed countries.
Nuclear power and the way in which nuclear fuel is handled are probably, all in all, no less safe in Japan than they are in our own countries.
It may be worth remembering this when we happily criticise unsafe nuclear energy in other countries but do so less readily in the case of our own countries.
<P>
All that is, in fact, completely certain is the fact that one can never be certain that nuclear power is completely safe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Ahern">
President, our hearts go out to the two radiation workers who were subjected to intense radiation poisoning and to the 300,000 people who were in terror as radiation levels skyrocketed.
<P>
All over the world nuclear authorities insist that an accident like that in Japan could not happen anywhere else.
Different processes will ensure that the chain reactions do not start.
But in Britain, BNFL has recently admitted the falsifications of safety checks on MOX fuel while in Japan the authorities have found that the plant at Tokaimura was operating illegally for four years.
The nuclear industry is clearly out of control.
<P>
The PPE and PSE refuse to acknowledge a link with the BNFL MOX shipments to Japan.
Perhaps here we see the long arm of Mr Blair, but the falsification of such data is of concern to Europe.
There is a link - MOX shipments to Japan are under EU safeguards controls.
If both ends of the chain are operating illegally, we must not only halt all MOX shipments but we must also halt the production of MOX fuel.
<P>
I have to say here today that we must also stop blaming workers, workers who are now under sentence of death for the illegal and criminal activities of the nuclear industry.
We have been told time and time again that stringent controls are in place, that accidents cannot happen and that fail-safe systems are in place and then when anything happens, we are told it is the fault of the workers.
This is not only injuring people but also adding insult to injury.
<P>
It is time that the nuclear industry was shut down completely.
That, of course, is our position. But is this latest accident the death rattle of the nuclear industry or must further nuclear terror happen before we close this monstrous industry down?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Karoutchi">
Mr President, a nuclear accident always provokes highly emotional reactions, fear and even irrational terror.
The events in Chernobyl affected our mood for a long time.
But in Tokaimura, the Japanese authorities have themselves recognised that the safety procedures, both in the conversion plant and in the fuel production plant, had not been followed.
It was therefore not an unforeseeable accident.
<P>
Apart from our sympathy and friendship towards the families affected by this drama, what are the lessons and consequences to be drawn from this accident?
The first lesson is clearly that it is imperative that the European and national authorities in each of our States deal with the question of safety procedures.
Secondly, it seems very clear to me that the IAEA should intervene more regularly, not only to verify the text of the regulations, which it does too often, but also to do what it has not done often enough, that is, to go to the site to verify that the regulations are really being applied.
In the case of Tokaimura, the IAEA should, in any case, ask the Japanese authorities not to authorise the resumption of reprocessing activities before a thorough investigation is carried out and before public and transparent conclusions are published.
<P>
For us, the European Parliament, it seems to us more necessary than ever that the European Commission, within the framework of its Euratom competences, not only lends its assistance to Japan in the current circumstances, but also asks the Euratom services to carry out a complete analysis of the official safety regulations for our power stations, and around our power stations, in Europe.
In this way, it would be in a position to ascertain whether all the safety conditions are being respected and to know whether further urgency procedures can be added in the case of regrettable human negligence, which are ultimately much worse or at least they have been in the last few years, than the unforeseeable accident which, by definition, can spread terror.
<P>
We are in favour, Mr President, of the use of nuclear energy and we know that, in the European Union, the safety rules and conditions are stricter and more respected.
Or at least we are told, for example, that the initiation of a nuclear chain reaction as a result of faulty handling by an operator is practically impossible in Europe.
This is what happened in Tokaimura.
<P>
We wish to avoid two pitfalls, Mr President.
On the one hand, the blind, unconditional and uncontrolled support for nuclear energy.
But also on the other hand, the manipulation by too many people of public opinion in order to spread irrational fears and terrors which were well known a thousand years ago.
These were the famous millennium fears of the year 1000.
Today, they are the fears on the eve of the year 2000.
No, nuclear power does not kill any more than a traditional source such as coal has killed and still kills.
That is the purpose of our resolution today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Ford">
Two accidents have focused our attention over the last ten days.
The first was in Tokaimura in which some 45 people were injured and 3 are in a critical condition in hospital.
The second, was the rail crash in London which involved a train taking hundreds of people from the capital to the region of England I represent, in which 70 died and 200 were injured.
While I wish to think of the individuals and families of those who died or were injured in the railway accident, I am afraid that the two accidents are very different.
Accidents in transport systems can endanger the lives of hundreds of people. Unfortunately, a nuclear accident can affect potentially hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people.
Mrs McNally made the point that near Tokyo, in Tokaimura, 300,000 people were confined to their homes.
It appears that the accident was not as severe as we first thought.
As a former Japanese civil servant, and as a member of the Japanese delegation for the last 15 years, I wish to put on our record, however, our concern for the victims of this accident in Japan.
<P>
I want to make three political points: firstly, it is very clear that human error or human stupidity is continually with us in all areas of endeavour.
We cannot trust individuals.
In Tokaimura, it would appear either that the workers - with the active collusion of management or owing to the failure of management to enforce regulations - were breaching regulations that were there in the interest of nuclear safety.
There are stories that there was actually an illegal handbook produced by the management telling workers to operate in this way.
The swift action of the Japanese police going into the company may enable us to establish whether that is the case.
<P>
If it was the case, it demonstrates the truth of Nietzche' s dictum that madness is rare in individuals but common in parties, groups and organisations, which is why we need individual, independent monitoring of what goes on in nuclear plants.
We need someone to guard those people from their own stupidity and errors.
Secondly, it is clear that there is a lack of emergency planning.
Thirdly, we have to say that we should be offering assistance to the Japanese if they request it.
<P>
Finally, two factual corrections; firstly, our Amendment No 6 makes it clear, when we are calling for the plant not to be reopened until an investigation has taken place, that we are talking about the conversion plant and not the reprocessing plant in Tokaimura, which is a separate plant on a separate site operated by a separate company...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maaten">
Mr President, the accident in Japan is, of course, something we must also concern ourselves with here in Europe for at least two reasons.
Firstly, it has created uncertainty about the safety of nuclear power.
Now Japan is planning to build 20 additional reactors between now and the year 2010 and to make itself enormously dependent on nuclear energy.
It is therefore unacceptable that neither Japan' s own people nor the rest of the world have been provided with adequate information, and their failure to involve the IAEA in the investigation is equally unacceptable.
Of course, it should actually be standard international practice to involve the IAEA when accidents of this kind occur.
<P>
Secondly, nuclear MOX fuel is shipped from Europe, for example from Cherbourg and Sellafield, to Japan.
Apart from the problem of what may happen to it out at sea, British Nuclear Fuel has admitted that safety data relating to MOX shipments has been falsified.
Of course that just cannot be allowed to happen and is every bit as unacceptable.
I would like, in due course, to hear from the Commission about what kind of European Union regulations are applicable to such shipments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Mr President, I would like to put some questions to the Commission.
<P>
In my view, the accident in Japan demonstrated, first of all, that nuclear energy is not safe.
When are the safety levels actually determined?
How many victims were there at the time of the Chernobyl accident and how many are there today, about ten years on?
Safety levels cannot be measured at the time of the accident.
A nuclear accident is not the same as a train accident.
In time, the effects magnify and they cannot be reversed quite so easily.
<P>
Secondly, just how cheap is nuclear energy, Commissioner?
Will the nuclear industry pay the initial cost of research and development which the military, i.e. the taxpayers, had to pay?
Does the nuclear industry pay for the cost of the accidents when they affect areas and sections of the population on a much wider scale?
Of course, it would work out cheap if it did not have to bear all those costs.
<P>
This is why I believe that it is time to turn a new leaf, to change existing policy.
It would take decades to close down all the nuclear plants.
Let us capitalise on this time and concentrate our efforts on the other sources of energy we have been discussing here. Let us discourage the establishment of new nuclear plants, particularly in areas which are not as safe as Japan such as the ones now under preparation in Turkey, in Akkyu, or in Thrace.
How can we dare to encourage such dangerous investments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kronberger">
Mr President, when we have spoken in recent years on the use of nuclear power to produce electricity, we have always made reference to the hazardous eastern reactors which are of Russian design.
Self-declared opponents of nuclear power have drawn the distinction between the relatively safe reactors of the West and these reactors.
The Japanese have said, just as the Europeans are doing today, that their reactors are safe and that a chain reaction could not occur.
The facts tell us otherwise.
<P>
Today, after these two bad accidents, the one in Japan and the other South Korea, we have to recognise that drawing this distinction between high-risk nuclear reactors and supposedly non-risk nuclear reactors was a serious strategic error.
All nuclear reactors have a risk attached to them, to say nothing of the fact that the permanent disposal of nuclear waste is not safe in any area.
<P>
In view of the fact that such nuclear accidents do not stop at national borders, now would be an opportune time to explain to the accession candidates to the European Union that if they choose to continue with their risky nuclear policy - I am thinking here of Temelin, Krsko, Bohunice and Mohovce - which are a threat to the entire European Union, then accession should not, and cannot, be granted under these circumstances.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Malliori">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, once again we are faced with a nonsensical disaster, and we are powerless to intervene.
The nuclear accident of 30 September in the private nuclear power plant in Japan proved once more that the use of nuclear energy is dangerous and that it is imperative that we establish tough safety specifications.
<P>
Of course, what is particularly noticeable is the fact that for a country with 51 reactors and an undertaking to establish a further 20, it does not have the appropriate knowledge and experience to deal with such events.
Thirteen years after the great Chernobyl disaster, this nightmarish history seems to be repeating itself.
In the immediate future, we shall find ourselves grieving for yet more innocent victims.
Despite all that, instead of being ousted from the world energy market on environmental and financial grounds, the nuclear power industry is still continuing to expand
<P>
The issue is a critical one and public opinion is sufficiently sensitive to it.
The European Parliament, as a representative of European public opinion, has a duty to take heed of the messages and react accordingly.
The objective of sustainable development stipulated in the Treaty of Amsterdam has once again provoked deep concern and forced us to rethink what we are doing.
Current trends show that milder and renewable energy sources are increasingly becoming the only solution to the energy problem of post-industrial society.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Nielson">
The Commission shares the concern of the European Parliament and others about the accident at the uranium processing plant in Japan.
That an accident such as this could happen in a technologically developed country such as Japan once again makes it very clear that nuclear safety requires great and constant vigilance everywhere.
<P>
Another major concern is that in a facility handling such hazardous materials the operators were able to interfere with or bypass the procedures designed to avoid such accidents.
This, in particular, highlights the question of the overall safety culture of the plant and the level of training of the personnel as well as the importance of rapid dissemination of information.
<P>
The Commission has already asked the Japanese authorities for detailed information on the accident and its causes.
The authorities have launched an enquiry.
This will undoubtedly address the issues of regulation, safety procedures, supervision and worker training.
The Commission will most carefully examine the report of this enquiry for lessons to be learnt in Europe.
In the light of these, it will in due course review its emergency procedures.
<P>
Poor safety management in combination with inadequate training or poorly qualified personnel appears to have been a very important factor in this as in many accidents.
In the European Union, Member States' national authorities must require undertakings to inform exposed workers and apprentices of the health risks involved in their work and train them in radiation protection.
<P>
The Commission will enquire of Member States what their latest provisions are for radiation protection and training of workers.
The Commission will also undertake a review of the present levels of training in nuclear safety for operators and other workers in the different types of nuclear facilities in the European Union.
<P>
Research on safety culture in the nuclear sector is already included in the research and training part of the Community' s Fifth Framework Programme.
Research on nuclear reactor safety is also included in the programme, though at a lower level of funding than previously.
The Commission will respond positively to any request for assistance from the Japanese authorities in managing or exploring the consequences of the accident.
The Commission services will remain in close contact with the International Atomic Energy Agency to exchange information and analysis and, if necessary, provide support for follow-up activities.
<P>
The issues raised in the motions concerning the manufacture, transport and use of mixed oxide - the MOX fuel - are unrelated to the accident at the Tokaimura plant.
The questions relating to inspection of the fuel at the Sellafield MOX plant are within the competence of the national authorities and have been reported to the UK nuclear installations inspectorate.
There was no question of any of the material being removed from safeguards control.
Transport of MOX fuel is performed under the control of national authorities in the countries of origin and destination, taking into account the appropriate Community legislation and IAEA standards.
As the MOX fuel shipped to Japan is ready for use in the nuclear power reactors without any further processing, it will not pass through the Tokaimura facility.
Concerning the use of MOX fuel in nuclear power plants, this is a decision made by the individual electrical utility after licensing by their national safety authorities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place in a moment.
<P>
President.
The debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance is closed.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 11.25 a.m. and resumed at 11.30 a.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="President">
The first item is the vote on topical and urgent subjects of major importance
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I have a point of order to make.
A characteristic of urgent procedures is that they are urgent and, as a rule, we receive the approved amended texts with the Minutes on Friday morning.
I wanted to ask you whether these texts will be available here in Strasbourg by tomorrow morning, in which case I would pick them up or will they otherwise be vailable this afternoon?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="President">
At the moment I can only assure you that the texts will be available electronically this afternoon.
<P>
Motion for Resolution (B5-0188/99) on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on climate change: preparing for implementation of the Kyoto protocol
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
Explanations of vote
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Kauppi">
According to the definition in the Kyoto protocol, only forests established in non-forested areas after 1990 can be considered as carbon sinks.
Under this method of calculation, only 1 to 3% of the network of European forest can be taken into account.
The present definition of 'carbon sink' in forest is inappropriate for the European practice of forest regeneration.
This is a matter of the utmost importance.
If we really want to combat climate change and not just develop measures which have nothing to do with the environment, we should accept the overall carbon stock of forests as a carbon sink.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Fitzsimons">
- There must be full cooperation of all the Member States within the European Union if we are to play our full part in reducing the level of greenhouse emissions which are presently playing such a destructive role within our global environment.
We owe it to future generations to take seriously the long-term implications of the uncontrolled emissions of CO2 and their impact on the environment.
<P>
I welcome the fact that EU Environment Ministers have agreed to reduce the EU' s emission of six greenhouse gases by 8% between the years 2008 and 2012.
The figures agreed will permit Ireland only to increase emissions by 13% relative to 1990 figures.
The European Parliament too, has worked hard in implementing legislation which reduces the use of CO2 gases. For example, the EU' s new directive on regulating pollutants obliges oil companies to sign up to ensuring that the sulphur content in cars is cut three-fold and that the sulphur content in diesel is cut seven-fold by the year 2005.
<P>
If the overall social, human and environmental benefits of clean air are to be secured, then the standards laid down by the EU' s recent directive on vehicle emissions and fuel quality must be strictly adhered to.
There must be maximum cooperation between the EU Member State governments and all interested bodies so that a reduction in the use of CO2 becomes a reality.
<P>
I welcome the debates which took place this week in the European Parliament on the uses of alternative energy resources.
The Irish government has brought out a Green Paper on Sustainable Energy which is to be given special status within our National Development Plan for the period 2000-2006.
This Green Paper discusses the framework for reducing CO2 emissions within all sectors of our society.
More funding must be put aside for alternative energy resources and there is also an anticipation that there will be a switch from the use of solid fuel and oil to natural gas and renewable energy sources and power generation in the future.
<P>
This plan also proposes measures targeted at various consumer sectors which are designed to enhance energy awareness expertise and practice in areas such as appliance purchasing, use of energy in the home, building installations, heating systems, energy management in industry, the services sector and the public sector.
I want to stress that the publication of the Green Paper on sustainable energy in Ireland should be viewed as a positive contribution to the debate on how we deal with climate change threat within the energy sector.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Helmer">
- This motion for a resolution calls, inter alia, for a kerosene tax and for kilometre charges for motor cars.
I believe that these measures are damaging and unnecessary in themselves, and in any case I am opposed in principle to taxes being set at the European level.
I affirm that fiscal policy is exclusively a matter for individual Member States.
<P>
In view of the position of my political group in this matter, I feel unable to oppose the resolution outright, and I shall therefore abstain.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lienemann">
- (FR) I am voting in favour of this report because it is urgent that the European Union takes specific decisions to combat the greenhouse effect.
<P>
However, the reference, in point G, to "flexibility mechanisms" is unacceptable to me because the principle of organising a market for the right to pollute would be scandalous.
<P>
The "right to pollute" should not be for sale and the richer countries should not be able to side-step the common law by means of a payment or transaction.
It is they above all, who should have the means to conform to the necessary constraints in order to improve the environment.
<P>
Everything possible must be done to ensure that each operator will make the greatest possible reduction in its pollution, guaranteeing that the minimum effort laid down is carried out by all parties.
<P>
Market regulations should not replace the requirements of the law - and therefore the duties - which apply to everyone.
This is a crucial choice of society which is fundamental to European identity.
In this respect too, we are making serious concessions to American and liberal ideas which, however, have proved to be ineffective in terms of protecting the planet and to be unfair.
<P>
Europe has not been able to prevent the establishment of this principle in Kyoto, however it is in no way obliged to implement it in its own territory.
<P>
Finally, I hope that we will be able to resist it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schmidt">
- (SV) I should like to give the following explanation of my vote.
I could not, for the following reasons, vote for the resolution concerning climate changes and the way in which the Kyoto conference as a whole is to be followed up.
<P>
The resolution contains nothing about which particular consequences for the climate the unreasonable development of nuclear power has.
In my home country, Sweden, the parliament has decided to phase out nuclear power by closing an extremely dependable nuclear power station, Barsebäck on the Sound.
According to calculations made, closing this power station will increase carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 3.5 million metric tons per year.
This more than doubles Sweden' s contribution to overall CO2 emissions from electricity production.
<P>
This unwise strategy in my own country has also meant that Sweden has negotiated for itself a quota within the EU, on account of the EU' s commitments following the Kyoto Conference, as a result of which carbon dioxide emissions in Sweden have been permitted to increase by 4%.
This is extremely regrettable and remarkable, considering that the EU' s responsibility after Kyoto is to reduce CO2 emissions by a total of 8%.
<P>
Because these important facts were not dealt with in the resolution, I could not support it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Vachetta">
.
(FR) To drastically reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases in the rich countries is a duty of solidarity towards future generations, but also towards the peoples of the developing countries who will suffer more and more from natural disasters caused by global warming.
<P>
The Kyoto protocol sets targets in this respect which are still very limited.
Only radical public interventions will allow the environment to be protected.
In each country, action must be taken without waiting for hypothetical international agreements.
The question of road transport offers an example of this.
It also demonstrates the need not to limit this issue to a national level and to develop a battle strategy on a European scale.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="President">
That concludes the vote.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="President">
I declare adjourned the session of the European Parliament.
<P>
(The sitting was adjourned at 12.05 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 7 October 1999.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="Bethell">
Madam President, I gave you a note indicating that I intended to raise the question of the visits to France and the United Kingdom by the President of China, and the effect of this on the violations of human rights in China, and the arrests and heavy-handed behaviour by police in France and the United Kingdom.
<P>
There have been very serious violations of human rights in China and this should be taken into account.
I hope that you, Madam President, will not consider inviting the President of China to this Parliament because that would indeed be a disgrace.
It is not so bad for him to be invited by the Queen or by President Chirac but please, not here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
I cannot quite place your intervention, Mr Bethell, in the framework of the Rules of Procedure.
I think it was supposed to be a procedural motion, but was not in fact. Nonetheless, I take note of your wise advice.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Agenda
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
The Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party has requested that the Commission statement on British beef be brought forward to Thursday.
I must clarify that the reason why we decided at the Conference of Presidents to schedule this debate for Friday was, of course, to take into account the meeting of the Committee of Experts scheduled for the previous day, i.e. Thursday. I felt it necessary to clarify this point, without wanting to prejudice the decision of the House in any way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="Watson">
Madam President, I should like to speak on behalf of my colleague, Miss Lynne, who sadly has injured her shoulder, having fallen down the stairs here while showing people how dangerous a particular set of stairs was!
<P>
Miss Lynne would have asked that we be allowed to close the debate on the question of British beef with motions for a resolution from the various political groups.
I would like to make that proposal that the political groups be invited to submit motions for a resolution to close the debate on British beef.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Watson.
Firstly, please convey my sympathy and best wishes for a speedy recovery to Miss Lynne.
There are two aspects involved here: we already had the problem of the lifts.
As far as the stairs are concerned, that is quite a different problem, and we shall be looking into things.
<P>
I would like us to proceed in order, as I do not quite follow.
I had two requests. The first was for the debate scheduled for Friday to be brought forward to Thursday.
This is the request which you should be speaking in favour of, first of all, on behalf of your Group, and I shall therefore give you the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Watson">
Madam President, my apologies for not being clearer the first time I spoke.
<P>
Our initial demand was to bring the debate forward to Thursday.
However, we understand now that the reason the Commission wished to make the statement on Friday was because on Thursday there is a meeting of the Veterinary Committee which will look at this matter, and so the Commission will therefore be in a position to give further information on Friday.
We welcome this but we would also like to ask that Members have the possibility of putting down motions for a resolution to close the debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
In other words, if I understand you correctly, in the light of the argument I suggested, you are withdrawing your request to bring the debate forward.
On the other hand, you are maintaining your request for the submission of motions for resolutions at the end of the debate.
Is there a speaker against this request?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="Donnelly">
Madam President, instead of the empty gestures that we are getting from the Liberals and the British Conservatives on the issue of British beef, can we hear what the Commission has to say on Friday.
Then, at some stage, in the future, Parliament can table an oral question with debate, where we can have a resolution to wind up the debate.
What we want on Friday is a clear statement from Mr Byrne as to the legality of the document produced by the French Government.
I expect that it will vindicate British beef.
What we then want is for the Commission to take action or the French Government to back down and allow the free movement of goods through the European Union.
<P>
At this stage there is no need for Parliament to have a resolution.
I wish that other British Members would stop the cheap politics that we are seeing this week in this House.
<P>
(Applause from the left)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I have been approached with a request from the Liberal Group for the submission of motions for resolutions and a vote on these at the close of the debate on British beef.
<P>
(Parliament rejected the request)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Elles">
Madam President, it should be said at this particular stage that it was the British Conservatives, the EPP, who asked for this item to be put on the agenda on Friday simply because, as Mr Watson has said, the Commission will only be ready on Friday morning.
I therefore reject the allegations of Mr Donnelly.
British Conservatives were in favour of making sure that we have free commerce in the European Union.
We want to make the internal market work and have British beef bought on the continent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
It is my very great pleasure to cordially welcome Mr Dehaene who does us the honour of attending in the visitors' gallery to hear our debates prior to his own statement on Wednesday.
<P>
(Loud applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
Still on the subject of Thursday' s sitting, I have a request from the Group of the European People' s Party to bring the question for oral answer on the European Union-Morocco fisheries agreement forward to Thursday. At the moment, this point is included on the order of business for Friday.
<P>
Who wishes to speak in favour of this request?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Poettering">
Madam President, it was always the wish of our colleagues in the Committee on Fisheries that we should no longer only ever discuss fisheries issues on Fridays, and we have heard that there is still sufficient time on Thursday afternoon to discuss one issue.
Given that relations with Morocco are of such great importance, not just in general terms, but also with regard to the area of fisheries policy, we are pleased that there is time on a Thursday to give an issue like this its due importance.
I would be grateful if we could show a relatively united front in deciding on this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
Madam President, I am sorry, but I was getting Tuesday and Wednesday confused.
I would be most grateful if you could advise me whether it would be possible for the Council, before the vote on the report on Kosovo - which we have urged should take place - to at last provide its comments on Parliament' s amendments, following which we will then be able to hold the final vote.
We had made a written request for the Council to be present, for it to comment and for us to hold the vote only after this has been done.
Has it now been resolved that this is how matters are to be handled?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="President">
Absolutely, Mrs Pack. I can assure you that the Council will be represented, and that we have forwarded Parliament' s request.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Madam President, I propose to talk about a human rights violation.
Many Europeans have been shocked and disgusted over the last few days to discover that in a country with which we are on very friendly terms, and to which we Europeans, especially those in my own country, owe a great debt of gratitude, that is, the United States of America, it is still legally possible to put children on trial and to take them away from their homes in handcuffs and shackles. And I am not talking about seventeen or eighteen-year-old youths, but about ten and eleven-year-old children.
This is what has happened to a small slip of a boy with a very high-pitched, young child' s voice, who has been accused of sexually abusing his five-year-old sister.
<P>
Madam President, I would therefore request that you write a letter to the governor of Colorado and ask him to give this small, mistreated child his fatherly help.
Remind him too that the United States of America is the only country apart from Somalia that has not yet ratified the UN Convention on Children' s Rights.
<P>
(Loud applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Flemming.
We are going to look very closely into this case, and I shall be happy to consider some action along the lines you request.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Madam President, I would like to raise a matter which, although not as sensitive, is still important.
During the first part-session of this Parliament I asked you if you could do something about the television channels.
We had a Dutch TV channel for five years at a stretch in the other building and suddenly we find that we no longer have one.
I asked you about this during the first part-session and you assured me at the time that you would spare no effort in putting matters right again.
We are now three part-sessions and three months on.
I do not doubt your good intentions but the point is that nothing has been done yet.
I would ask you again to see to it that we get a Dutch channel on the television again, just as we used to in the old building next door.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel. Thank you for reminding me of this point once again.
We shall see when this can be done.
I thought it had been. I did ask for it to be done, quite emphatically.
I think that it has not been possible to do anything so far for technical reasons, but I promise that I shall ensure that the situation is remedied as quickly as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Madam President, I would like to raise a point of order because the Members of Parliament have just received a directory, published apparently by the American Chamber of Commerce in Belgium, which gives a list of the European Members of Parliament together with their details.
Well, reading my own details and those of some of the Members in the same group, It is not the name of my party or my Group, the Union for a Europe of Nations Group that I find, but instead a totally subjective assessment, "nationalist, anti European Union" .
<P>
I find it somewhat strange, Madam President, for it to be the Americans who are sorting out who are the good and bad Europeans.
It is even stranger for the Secretary-General of the European Parliament, perhaps unwittingly in violation of the duty of confidentiality, to be providing a flattering preface to this directory, in which I can read, in particular, that the directory is a useful reference work for the business community, and even a true public service!
<P>
Madam President, I think that the good will of the Secretary-General has been abused.
I do not think that he had seen all the details included in this directory.
<P>
Would it be possible for him to send a letter to the authors of this directory to say that he is not responsible for these subjective descriptions and to ask for an amendment.
Otherwise, I should, of course, be forced to think that this is truly a case of infringement of the requirement for confidentiality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="President">
I promise you that I shall read this booklet very carefully, and if there is indeed the need to carry out this amendment, then we shall readily attend to it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="Chichester">
Madam President, my report, which was to have been debated and voted on this week, has been deferred.
My understanding was that it had been deferred to the sitting on 3 November but I cannot see it on the draft agenda.
Could you advise me whether that is an oversight or whether it is going to be deferred again.
I shall begin to feel that this report should be renamed: "The deferral" !
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="President">
Mr Chichester, I can tell you that the report has been included on the order of business for the November part-session in Strasbourg.
I thought that would suit you. I see that is the case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bigliardo">
Madam President, over the last few days, the Italian press has disclosed the scandal of the Mitrokhin files which concern spying.
As I belong to the group of Members which was disbanded in a democratic vote in this Parliament, I have tried to properly understand the meaning of the term 'affinities' .
Reading about the scandal in the press, I have learned that two influential Members of the European Parliament are involved in this scandal.
Given the involvement of these two Members, I would like to know whether the term 'affinities' also covers possible relations between their groups and the KGB.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="President">
As you can imagine, it is not my place to answer that question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="Ludford">
Madam President, on the same subject of TV reception, as raised by my colleague Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, I wish to express the hope that the technical problems currently preventing the reception of BBC1 and BBC2 can be resolved.
I realise that we English-speakers are spoilt with Sky, CNN and BBC World, but it is not the same as having the domestic channels.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="President">
I think that your request involves another technical problem, one that we are going to look into, but which seems to me less easy to solve than Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel' s.

<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Changes to the Rules of Procedure following the interinstitutional agreement (OLAF)
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="President">
The next item is the report by Mr Napolitano, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, regarding the possible changes to the Rules of Procedure following the interinstitutional agreement of 25 May 1999, relating to internal inquiries carried out by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Napolitano">
Madam President, when a speech is made before a parliament, silence might be too much to expect; I think we can allow a gentle hum of voices.
Ladies and gentlemen, the report and proposal for a decision that I am presenting and briefly explaining on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs concerns the implementation of the interinstitutional agreement on the methods used to investigate fraud.
We are tabling this report at the specific request of the President of the European Parliament, taking fully into account the opinion of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
<P>
I would like to remind you of the facts that are, actually, very simple.
On 6 May 1999, the European Parliament approved this interinstitutional agreement with its own vote in plenary session.
On 25 May 1999, the agreement was signed by the President of the European Parliament - Mr Gil-Robles, the President of the Council and the President of the Commission. The Council and the Commission adopted, on 25 May and 2 June respectively, the necessary decisions under their competence concerning the implementation of the agreement within those institutions.
We are somewhat late in implementing this agreement, which can, of course, be explained by the hiatus caused by the elections and the start of the new Parliament' s work.
We must proceed, however, without further delay in order to avoid any ambiguity regarding our desire to cooperate fully in the more correct and rigorous way fraud will be investigated.
In fact it means inserting, in accordance with Rule 186(C) of the Rules of Procedure, a very short new rule - 9(C) - which will allow an annex containing the text of the interinstitutional agreement to be included, in which the necessary technical alterations with regard to our institution' s competences have been introduced.
<P>
To avoid any ambiguity regarding the respective functions and competences of an institution such as the European Parliament and a unit such as OLAF, I would like to stress, Madam President, that both Recital 5 and Article 1(2) state unequivocally that the provisions on privileges and immunity of the Treaties in general, and of the Protocol in particular, will take precedence and will be fully complied with.
I would like to add that because concern had been expressed about Article 2 in particular, during the debate of 14 October in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, all of us in the committee agreed on an amendment which now appears as the last paragraph of Article 2 and says: 'This article applies without prejudice to confidentiality requirements laid down in law or in the European Parliament' s Rule of Procedure."
I therefore believe, ladies and gentlemen, that this text can be adopted without any reservations, especially because the Committee on Constitutional Affairs has unanimously adopted this report and proposal for a decision.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Dimitrakopoulos">
Madam President, first of all I would like to congratulate the Chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Mr Napolitano, for clarifying such an important issue in his report.
We all know that this clarification has come at an opportune and important time - at a time when there are widespread calls to tackle, and ultimately root out altogether, fraud and those conditions which nurture it.
As you are all aware, the European Parliament showed some awareness of this issue when, some months ago, it adopted a decision containing very specific articles - a decision which Mr Napolitano has incorporated in his report which also contains very specific articles on how we should function and what factors we must consider in order to achieve our goal of combating fraud.
<P>
Now is not the time to re-examine the articles one by one.
We all know them very well.
However, at this time, it is essential to draw your attention once more to the awareness this House has shown and the awareness the European Parliament has shown on the issue of fraud - an awareness which was turned into action by the internal decision of the European Parliament, and an awareness which is re-formulated in the report and the proposal of Mr Napolitano.
It is, I believe, quite significant for this House and it is significant for the institution of the European Parliament that, once again, it is responding to the demands of the European citizens - demands which have been made quite clear of late, particularly during the recent European elections.
<P>
Madam President, you all know that the word "fraud" forms part of our major focuses.
On many occasions, we have mentioned the need to combat and eradicate fraud altogether.
However, you all know very well that our experience, both in the European Parliament and in Europe, proves that it is not enough just to say this, to go on reiterating that something should be done.
We need to take steps - specific steps - and it is up to us to take the first steps since we are the ones who anxiously call for fraud to be tackled and eradicated.
Mr Napolitano' s proposal which, as he himself said, was adopted in the Committee of Constitutional Affairs without any objections, is a very clear and very specific step in this direction.
For precisely this reason, this House must also vote in favour.
At the same time, it would be an oversight on my part if I failed to mention the contribution made by the European Parliament' s Committee on Budgetary Control which has laid down the right foundations for us in one of its opinions, which can also be found in Mr Napolitano' s report.
<P>
In closing, I would once again like to thank the Chairman of the Committee of Constitutional Affairs, as well as the Committee on Budgetary Control, and I would like to ask the House to vote in favour of the Napolitano report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bösch">
draftsman of the opinion of the Committee asked for an opinion, the Committee on Budgetary Control. (DE) Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am able to follow on from where the preceding speaker left off.
We give our unqualified support to the report by our colleague Mr Napolitano.
We, on the Committee on Budgetary Control, have recommended that the changes that have become necessary as a result of OLAF should be incorporated directly into the Rules of Procedure.
The Committee on Constitutional Affairs has suggested that a single basic rule be incorporated into the actual Rules of Procedure and that the full wording - consistent with the interinstitutional agreement - be added as an appendix.
That is perfectly acceptable.
It is crucial that the substance remains unchanged.
The key point, as has already been mentioned, is that we, as a Parliament, should give a clear signal that we are not just demanding or stipulating that others should be subject to investigations by an external, independent authority, but that we want to subject ourselves to this process too.
I would have liked us to be able to discuss this decision of Parliament' s together with the question of appointing the new director of OLAF.
We had planned to hold the hearing for shortlisted candidates last week, in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
The Commission, however, did not draw up the definitive list of candidates in time.
Some people, moreover, have the impression that we have sought to interfere improperly with an appointment procedure that is, and must remain, the responsibility of the Commission.
<P>
Yet those who have this impression overlook or gloss over the fact that this is by no means a normal appointment procedure, rather it is a matter of filling a key post that has far-reaching powers and the right to conduct administrative investigations into every organisation and institution of the Union.
The Regulation on OLAF of 25 May 1999 lays down specifically that the Commission can only appoint its director once Parliament and the Council have voted.
Therefore, there must be harmony between the three bodies.
This procedure was chosen to guarantee the director' s independence.
I hope that this week, here in Strasbourg, we will succeed in resolving the confusion over the procedure which has emerged.
Ultimately, we must not be the ones to delay any decision of this kind when, almost exactly a year ago, the overwhelming majority of Members of this House gave their support to the idea of launching an independent anti-fraud office.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="Corbett">
Madam President, for my group this interinstitutional agreement is another building block in the re-establishment of the credibility of the European Union as regards how it handles fraud and financial mismanagement.
I say "another" building block, because since last year this Parliament has had the toughest provisions of almost any parliament in Europe as regards the declaration of the financial interests of its Members and it already has, in the Rules of Procedure, one of the toughest provisions as regards the behaviour of lobbyists within the institution.
<P>
This interinstitutional agreement takes us one step further in another direction with the obligation it would place on all Members and staff to use the proper procedures to inform the future office, the OLAF office, so that any allegations of fraud can be properly investigated.
<P>
The interinstitutional agreement has been signed by the other institutions, and indeed already adopted as regards the internal provisions both by the Council and by the Commission, where it applies both to the politicians and to the staff alike.
Today we shall be adopting the same or very similar provisions for ourselves.
I was very glad to hear in the debate so far that the EPP Group now appears to accept that these provisions should also apply within Parliament to the Members of Parliament.
<P>
There was a question on this but I think we solved it satisfactorily in committee by the compromise amendment tabled by Mr Gil-Robles and myself, which specified that application of this interinstitutional agreement is without prejudice to any provisions in law or in our Rules of Procedure as regards an obligation of confidentiality upon Members.
Now that has been clarified, there is no reason whatsoever not to apply this interinstitutional agreement in full.
I am pleased that, at least as far as the speakers that have spoken until now are concerned, this should be something we can achieve today.
<P>
To postpone it further or, even worse, to fail to approve this interinstitutional agreement and to fail to apply it internally would be a severe embarrassment to the European Parliament and one that would undermine the good work that this Parliament has done in rebuilding the credibility of the European Union in matters relating to fraud and financial mismanagement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="Duff">
Madam President, my group welcomes the decision.
We regret, in fact, the delay of four months now in Parliament bringing the report to a conclusion.
A failure or further delay would be catastrophic for Parliament' s reputation with its public.
<P>
The centrepiece of the decision is Article 2.
This will avoid a potential van Buitenen affair emerging from inside Parliament' s own ranks.
The final clause of Article 2 is slightly cryptic, and questions will arise about its meaning.
It is important for us to recognise that under the Rules of Procedure of Parliament the information acquired inside a temporary Committee of Inquiry is to remain secret only if it contributes to the writing of the inquiry report.
We must acknowledge that any knowledge acquired that is superfluous to the inquiry or gratuitous should be disclosed immediately.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Madam President, my group is totally supportive of the interinstitutional agreement of 25 May 1999 on the internal investigations which the anti-fraud office must be able to carry out within the institutions, bodies or agencies of the Communities, including the European Parliament.
This seems to us an excellent agreement.
It is indeed necessary to react vigorously to any suspicion of fraud of any nature whatsoever.
<P>
We are, however, rather more puzzled when faced with the measure to be applied with regard to the European Parliament which has been proposed to us today, in the form of an amendment to Parliament' s Rules of Procedure, directed at both officials and Members of Parliament.
I feel that we have simultaneously moved too fast in one respect and not fast enough in another.
Not fast enough because, as regards the officials, it seems unnecessary to me to wait until the end of October before taking an implementing decision applying to parliamentary officials. A simple Bureau decision taken under Rule 22(5) of the Rules of Procedure would have been sufficient.
<P>
But perhaps we have moved too fast regarding the Members of Parliament, and here I plead guilty before Mr Napolitano, chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, as I am a member of this committee. But perhaps the debate in plenary session will enable us to make good some omissions.
We should at least have found it strange, considering that this does not exist in many parliamentary democracies, that Members of the elected House may be monitored by a body which is more or less answerable to the Executive and, as it happens, although OLAF is supervised by an independent supervisory committee, it is still run by a manager appointed by the Commission.
<P>
This observation should bring us back to the interpretation of Recital 4 and Article 1 of the interinstitutional agreement defining the persons whose breaches of discipline may be subject to administrative inquiries by OLAF.
The persons targeted are the personnel subject to the Staff Regulations and Conditions of employment of other servants as well as, I quote, 'Members, heads or members of staff of the institutions, bodies and agencies of the Communities not subject to the Staff Regulations' .
I think that this wording and the reference to the Staff Regulations in particular show that the members and personnel involved here are employees rather than elected representatives.
In any case the Members of the European Parliament are subject to specific rules under the Treaty itself.
<P>
Consequently, Madam President, I think that Members of Parliament must, of course, be subject to a rigorous internal inspection system, and I am the first to say so, but I do not believe that the text establishing this control should be one that is simply derived from the standard decision applicable to just any individual within the administrative bodies of the Community.
The Members of Parliament must be covered by a specific decision which could perhaps envisage a separate supervisory board, for parliamentary inquiries, for example, which would be elected by this House at the beginning of each legislative term.
This text could quite naturally be included in an Annex to our Rules of Procedure, whilst it would not be necessary for the text on officials to be included.
<P>
If, however, my fellow Members considered it politically impossible to postpone the adoption of the current draft legislation, and I am not that far from their point of view, I think that a reform should still be started fairly quickly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
Madam President, the best way of combating fraud is not to appoint more inspectors but to implement, in our own Parliament too, a policy of complete openness about subsidies and administration.
It is the present culture of secrecy which is the fraudsters' best defence.
All administration and all subsidies are nowadays dealt with by computer.
It is a very simple matter to give our citizens access to the information on the Internet.
Everyone can see, at the library or on their own computer, who has received what amount and for what purpose.
If a company or an association wants there to be confidentiality about any subsidies it receives, then it is free to use its own resources to ensure this.
If a company, a municipality or a Member of this Parliament wants a subsidy from myself and other European taxpayers, I want to know what I am supporting.
I ask that funds should be seen as being entrusted to our care and that they should not, en route to their recipients, be wasted or siphoned off by fraudsters.
But no matter how many people we appoint to OLAF, fraud is, at best, only going to be slightly reduced.
We need to go to the root of the problem if we want to stamp out fraud.
<P>
The first prerequisite for doing this is a radical reduction in the number of projects and subsidy schemes the EU operates.
Brussels ought only to be granting subsidies to cross-frontier projects or in cases where each country is too small to be able to carry out the projects concerned on its own.
It should not be the EU' s job to decide if taxpayers' funds are to go to a church in Christiansfeld or a golf course in North Jutland.
Prioritising of this kind can be done much better by Danish voters and politicians.
Nor should it be the EU' s job to decide whether motorways or schools are to be built in Alentejo with the help of EU subsidies.
We can safely leave those decisions to Portuguese voters and their representatives.
Funds are more efficiently transferred to poor Member States from the rich countries in the north by reducing or completely doing away with the contributions paid by poor countries to the EU.
At present, EU subsidies mean more often than not that poor people in rich countries are taxed for the benefit of rich people in poor countries. None of us ourselves want to pursue a policy of wealth distribution of this kind, but this is happening nonetheless because of the EU' s numerous systems for granting subsidies.
For example, 20% of farmers receive 80% of subsidies.
We ought instead to make all subsidy schemes transparent.
Our citizens will then ensure that they are done away with.
The newspapers will write about the absurdities entailed.
And then the voters and the various organisations will get involved.
In this way, living democracy will ensure that incentives to fraud are abolished and that the fraud which does go on is revealed.
To combat any remaining fraud, it is a splendid idea for the police authorities in the Member States to cooperate with each other.
On the other hand, we have no need for a Corpus Juris, a common prosecution service, penal legislation and a European answer to the FBI.
These things are aimed not at reducing crime but only at creating a new state and developing a more intrusive European Union.
<P>
I totally agree with Mrs Maes that complete openness about subsidies and subsidy schemes will make the job easier for OLAF' s new director.
So who is this to be?
My group proposes that we do not turn the decision into an election battle between left and right.
We ought instead to unite around the best qualified candidate and be content with nominating him or her for the job.
For years, the Council has approved faulty accounts and so disqualified itself from finding the right candidate.
The Commission has positively concealed fraud and so shown the need for an independent director of OLAF.
As the situation stands, a unanimous nomination from the European Parliament is therefore the best solution, and my group sincerely hopes that we can find a director for OLAF who will take decisions to prevent any fraud in future.
And because, Madam President, Parliament must clearly abide by the same rules, I too am voting for the agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell' Alba">
Madam President, I think it was a good idea for you to stay and chair this debate, because it is a very important subject.
I have taken note of the consensus which seems to reign in this House on this matter, but I have the impression that there are a number of us who, in spite of everything, have doubts and some concerns regarding the wording of this agreement and this amendment to the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
Does the creation of an anti-fraud office, logically designed to ensure that the Community budget is handled properly, have anything to do with the establishment of all-round supervision, exercised without discrimination, not only of basic staff but also, as someone has already mentioned, of the members of institutions?
<P>
I have read the rule governing members of the Council.
Do you really believe that the Ministers of European States, despite the little phrase which was added, will stand for effective supervision of their professional activity?
This in a way draws a parallel between the role of the member to that of the civil servant who is subject to supervision both under the Staff Regulations and also within the framework of his responsibilities.
I do not want Members to be exempt from all monitoring or not to be subjected to any sort of questioning regarding their activities including their activities as a Member of Parliament in the execution of their mandate, but I am afraid that this agreement may allow some uncertainty to remain and may entail precisely this parallel nature of the roles if we proceed in an over-hasty way, just like the events of recent months, and do not take a step back.
For my part, I would have preferred to wait a while, just as some groups suggested at one point, in order to gain a more objective overview.
<P>
I think that the provisions which we have implemented require further thought.
There is certainly a contradiction between the fundamental decision and the application thereof.
We inherited this matter, and indeed I even wonder why it was not considered to have lapsed.
This House even decided that it was necessary to proceed to a new vote on Mr Prodi as the decision was taken on 4 May.
<P>
On 6 May, the previous Parliament adopted a text which has since been changed.
That text has the force of law. President Gil-Robles signed it at a time when everyone was involved in election campaigns and now, two or three months later, we are involved in making it enforceable.
<P>
There is food for thought here.
My own opinion is that a little time would perhaps enable us to gain more objectivity and better understanding of the margin we must retain within the framework of the protocol on privileges and immunities in the event that we all become subject to OLAF decisions or inquiries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Theato">
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Frassoni">
Mr President, I have always been rather sceptical about moralistic or police-like attitudes that actually encourage whistle-blowing, which means that fraud is only avoided through the creation of increasingly invasive instruments used to monitor individuals.
I believe that along with my group, I can give my full backing to President Napolitano' s report, because the amendment to the Rules of Procedure and the proposed decision are a serious response to the concern that Members might be subjected to excessive and arbitrary checks - a concern which has been voiced of late, most recently by Mr Dell' Alba.
I think that there is no reason to delay the decision any longer.
The European Parliament and its Members have a wide range of means available to defend themselves in the event of these investigations.
This will clearly become easier if the internal procedures are made clearer and more transparent.
We must have confidence in OLAF' s future work and make its work easier.
Only in this way can we react in a credible way in the event of abuse, and react effectively to episodes like those mentioned today by Mr Theato and Mr Bösch.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schreyer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the decision on the establishment of an anti-fraud office can largely be attributed to the European Parliament' s involvement.
The establishment of this office was a very significant decision because combating fraud plays a central role in the way the citizens of our Member States perceive European politics.
This is why the general public expects this office to be able to perform its task thoroughly, and this ability to perform its task thoroughly will relate primarily to the institutions in which OLAF is able to carry out investigations, and I therefore welcome Mr Napolitano' s report and the contributions that have been made here.
<P>
The appointment of the director will obviously play a major role in the office' s ability to do its job.
A special appointment procedure was agreed on and has been emphasised here several times.
That is why it is also necessary to prevent irregularities in this procedure.
I can assure you, ladies and gentlemen, and you, Mr Bösch, that I, for my part, will prevent any improper influence being exerted on the selection of a director.
The only decisive factor in appointing someone to this extremely important post should be that person' s qualifications for the job. I hope that very soon the selection of the candidates and the appointment of a director will take place, through consensus, and also that the posts you have already approved for this year will soon be filled.
<P>
I can assure you that the Commission is fully aware of the role that combating fraud plays in the way European politics are perceived by our citizens and therefore, on behalf of the Commission, I once again welcome the report and the work that went into it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Schreyer.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Thursday after the votes on the Budget.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Electronic signatures
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lechner">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, although the Internet may have been seen until now as a source of information, it is now being used by the business world for buying and selling, and not just by businesses but by quite ordinary private individuals.
Of course, this development within a rapidly expanding market with terrific growth rates ignores national borders and requires the provision of a Community framework.
In recognition of this fact, the Commission has proposed a recommendation for a Directive on a Community framework for electronic signatures, in other words for signatures that are produced electronically rather than by hand.
Parliament approved 32 amendments at the first reading in January 1999.
The Council then presented its common position on 28 June 1999 having taken into consideration many of Parliament' s amendments.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market discussed the position and voted unanimously in favour of it, with 7 amendments, one of which we ought not to accept though.
<P>
I would like to discuss the following points. The directive is intended, first and foremost, for subscribers to open networks such as the Internet and does not affect the right to voluntary agreements in the context of closed systems.
The Internet does not stop at European borders.
For this reason, the directive aims to open up the market to third countries and provides for cross-border agreements.
<P>
Secondly, the future of electronic legal and business transactions essentially depends on whether we succeed in improving confidence in security, especially where the consumer is concerned, both in technical security as regards forgeries, for example, as well as in the legal validity of such processes.
A crucial starting point for this is the electronic signature. By means of this kind of signature in electronic form, one can guarantee that the identity of the person who has made a declaration and signed it, the signatory in other words, can be immediately ascertained.
In addition to this, the integrity of the data that have been supplied can also be ascertained.
<P>
As regards the technical standards which the directive deals with, it is attempting to ensure technological openness.
We should be able to achieve higher standards of security through such advanced signatures and qualified certificates.
<P>
The directive guarantees that the appropriate cryptographic products will be available throughout the Community without this being made dependent on approval.
It will permit voluntary accreditation systems though, in order to promote the level of quality standards.
It is envisaged that there will be a minimum liability for certification-service providers.
It will have to be possible to use pseudonyms and data protection will also be taken into account.
<P>
A crucial issue in subscribers' confidence in the trustworthiness of legal transactions concluded electronically on the Internet is the legal validity of such actions.
In future, advanced signatures will, as a matter of principle, be accorded the same status in the eyes of the law as hand-written signatures because they are particularly secure.
However, the legal validity of ordinary signatures and their use as evidence ought not then to be denied as a matter of principle.
<P>
With this directive, which involves the first worldwide framework regulation of this kind, the European Union is making a first and crucial step towards both the regulation and the promotion of electronic commerce within the Community.
This is designed to increase people' s confidence in the trustworthiness of open networks, in the services and products on offer and in the legal validity of business concluded on the Internet.
It also makes a valuable contribution to the free trade in goods and services in the internal market, and indeed both for the consumer - if I may make a rather sensational comment: in terms of Internet shopping - and also for the suppliers of the necessary cryptographic services and products.
<P>
I would like to offer a word of thanks in particular to the Commission and to the Council for the extremely cooperative way in which they both worked together with Parliament.
But my thanks also go to all my fellow Members of Parliament, from every group, not least those from the previous legislature period during which important preparatory work was done.
<P>
Our task consists mainly of painstakingly dismantling the divergent national regulations which have evolved, and of bringing them into line with one another.
In this case, we are dealing with a newly developing technological and social reality, to which we can, from the outset, give legal form, through original European legislation, by means of which we will be able, at the same time, to prove our worth as a European Community of law in a particular way.
<P>
Divergent national regulations should not be allowed to develop at all, or become established over and above the current scope.
For this reason, I also think that it is important that this directive should come into force as quickly as possible and so I ask you to give it your approval.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wuermeling">
Mr President, European regulations are often accused of lacking balance; either they are too bureaucratic, or they only serve certain interests, or they are even ignorant of worldwide developments.
I think that we can say now that here we have an excellent example of the opposite.
In the area of the approximation of laws, we must always try to find the difficult balance between necessary harmonisation, on the one hand, and consideration for the legal traditions that have evolved in Member States over the years on the other.
This is an outstanding example of balance.
On the one hand, a small number of clearly defined regulations relating to the requirements pertaining to electronic signatures will be laid down. On the other, Member States will be able to decide in which cases to accord these signatures equal status with conventional declarations of intent such as hand-written signatures, written proof, or other documentary evidence.
<P>
At this point, I would like to comment particularly on proposed Amendment No 2 which clarifies the rather misleading wording in Article 5(1).
I would now like to emphasise once again that it was also confirmed to us by all sides in the discussions that were held in Committee that it is not automatically permitted to substitute an electronic signature with a personal one for certain form requirements as laid down by individual Member States.
National legislature will have a completely free hand in deciding in which cases electronic signatures will be afforded the same status as hand-written ones.
<P>
This directive is a good example of balance between the interests of commerce, on the one hand, and the consumer on the other.
What we have here is a precise, straightforward rule that lays down only a few requirements.
Look at the appendices for example.
But we also have the necessary protection to make such agreements binding and to make the supplier liable.
<P>
Finally, it is also a good example of, on the one hand, systematic action by the European Union within its borders, in the internal market, but is, at the same time, a way of opening up towards international cooperation.
We have here a clear framework which applies first and foremost within the EU, but we have also laid down in the text of the directive itself, and this is particularly noteworthy, an openness towards international regulations.
One can see very clearly in exactly this area that in terms of harmonisation within the EU, we are currently at an intermediate stage of regulation.
We have the national level, we have the European level, and recently the international regulations level has increasingly been making its presence felt in more and more areas.
It is good that we are clarifying here that precisely in the area of new technologies, in the area of electronic commerce, we are prepared to address these issues on a worldwide scale.
Of course, this will also have a central role to play when it comes to the WTO negotiations.
<P>
I am pleased that, as a new Member of this esteemed House, I have been able, in my maiden speech, to participate in a good piece of European lawmaking, and I hope that there will be broad agreement here with what I have said and that the Council of Ministers will not have any problems in adopting the directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="President">
Thank you very much Mr Wuermeling, particularly as this was your maiden speech here in the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Berger">
Mr President, I would first like to give my heartfelt congratulations to the rapporteur for his report on behalf of my group and to give him my especial thanks for having been able - in spite of being new to this House - to steer this report on the Directive on electronic signatures so quickly to its second reading.
Because in a matter such as the regulation of requirements for the recognition of electronic signatures, a rapid solution is at least as important as finding the proper solution.
I am convinced that we have found both a rapid and proper solution for helping the electronic signature along and making it possible for there to be a breakthrough in the suitability for everyday use of the new information and communication media.
<P>
What strikes me as being particularly appropriate is the demarcation of the scope of closed and open systems, the neutrality of technology, enabling people in the legal field to apply these rules unambiguously, and the admissibility of pseudonyms.
First and foremost, this will allow the consumer to remain anonymous on the net, as anonymous as in everyday business in the 'offline' world. It will also allow the prevention of a precise profiling of the consumer.
<P>
In accepting one of the amendments we want to establish this week that it is the responsibility of the Member States to stipulate those legal areas where the use of electronic signatures may apply.
This clarification has certainly been necessary.
However, I would like to see this clarification combined with a request, a request to Member States, to be as generous as possible here and to limit the applicability of electronic signatures and the equal status accorded them only in exceptional cases.
<P>
If we now more or less conclude the Directive on electronic signatures at second reading, it will be an important stage victory.
The aim, which is to achieve a consistent and halfway-complete European legal framework for the information society, has not yet been achieved.
For that, we still need the second reading on the Directive relating to e-commerce, the Directive relating to copyright and that relating to the distance selling of financial services.
<P>
To conclude, I would therefore like to appeal to the Council to establish its common position on these draft directives as quickly as possible, of course as far as possible on the basis of the amendments from first reading in this Parliament, in order to submit it to Parliament for second reading.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, at this time I shall be thinking of our former colleague, Ullman, who was the rapporteur when we discussed electronic signatures last time.
There were not many of us present here then, but there are a few more of us today.
I think it is because there are more of us here in the Chamber who understand the importance of this directive.
<P>
Its importance is also illustrated by the share issue last week in connection with the Finnish company, Data Fellows.
This was a real example of people' s capitalism.
Data Fellows is a company which, partly through the Internet, markets just the kind of security and verification services we have been discussing.
It is therefore an economically important proposal we are debating.
<P>
When we discuss this, it is also important that we obtain a quick decision, as the rapporteur pointed out and as many others have emphasised.
I support the rapporteur and am pleased about the Council' s view that a quick decision is wanted and that constructive dialogue has taken place.
I think that, otherwise, the European market may well become fragmented because quite a lot of countries have now already adopted directives.
It would therefore be unfortunate if we were not to obtain this directive.
<P>
I also think that this directive is clear, even though there have been certain discussions about its not specifying what formal requirements the Member States want to make in connection with different procedures.
One unoriginal example which might be used to illustrate this is the fact that, if legislation in the Member States makes it a prerequisite that both parties be present simultaneously, then, in order to get married over the Internet, it is not enough for both parties to produce this type of signature.
There is therefore a formal requirement there in the legislation, and this cannot be overturned.
<P>
When we talk about identification and security services of this type, I hope that we do not limit ourselves and think that it is just a question of numbers.
Instead, we shall, in the future, have other forms of perhaps physical identification and verification, and I hope that this will be borne in mind when drafting the revision clause of the directive.
Now, do not imagine that I have been watching too many James Bond films.
No, this is in fact how it is going to be in the future, and that is why the revision clause is important.
<P>
The talk is of voluntary agreements and of a variety of options, but in actual fact it is important that the security requirements in this directive should be complied with so that signatures valid on a national basis also have international currency.
It is also worth pointing out that the Commission has an important task in establishing both what are to be regarded as reliable signatures and what are to be regarded as secure arrangements.
Where these matters are concerned, I hope that the Commission will establish standards which are economically correct, that this will be done in an open way and that no de facto monopoly will be created.
We know in fact that standards in the information society have precisely this degree of significance.
The directive gives the Commission a very great deal of power in this area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="MacCormick">
Mr President, it is a remarkable thing that we are coming to the end of a period of about 500 years when the main way of authenticating documents and transactions has been the written signature and the witnessed signature and so on.
Now, within half a lifetime, we are entering a world which is going to be dominated by e-commerce, by new technologies and by signatures which do not exist in the old sense of the term and which therefore have to be authenticated in a new way.
For many of us, and I am surprised Mrs Thors did not mention this, this is an exciting, equalising and liberating phenomenon because the old world was dominated by the great centres and peripheries were at a disadvantage compared with the centres.
But in the new world of electronic commerce, there is no centre: the periphery is as central as the centre.
<P>
This will be a great thing for many of us in this House and certainly for Mr Miller and myself who represent Scotland here.
Indeed it is such a very welcome development that we in the European Union should be setting out to create an adequate framework for this form of commerce - an adequate framework for mutual trust among citizens of the different countries because, after all, if anything acknowledges no frontier, it is the Internet.
<P>
We believe, as other speakers have said, that this directive does a very good job. I would particularly like to congratulate my fellow new Member, Mr Lechner, on the job he did for us in the committee.
My own group would have felt happier if there had been somewhat stronger protections for privacy as well as somewhat stronger data protection elements.
No doubt in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity these remain with the Member States and I have no particular objection to that. But it may be something that we will need to revisit at another time.
<P>
It is also very important, as has been said by others, that there will be a possibility for further development internationally because the frontiers of the EU are artificial frontiers when it comes to this matter.
<P>
I want to be sure that when developing international agreements, we do not find things arise which are oppressive either to citizens or to consumers.
Not all of us feel that the balance has always been well struck in the World Trade Organisation, for example, between environmental, consumer and worker protection and the liberalisation of trade.
Let us not see that happen again in this domain.
Our negotiators must fight hard for a fair and just framework as well as a free market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="Gallagher">
Mr President, firstly I should like to congratulate Mr Lechner in the preparation and presentation of his report which my group can support in principle.
Worldwide electronic communications and business traffic in the field of information technology services are increasingly becoming more important products, and services in the field of information technologies will increase by over 100% within the European Union between now and the year 2001.
Ten years ago, who would have believed there would be such an expansion in information technology services.
E-mail was non-existent on personal computers worldwide, but this is now changing at an accelerating rate.
<P>
We know that new forms of business, particularly in the field of e-commerce, are developing.
Equally, security standards must be provided and improved so as to protect the interests of consumers at all times.
I read recently in the Financial Times that half the disputes which customers have with the Visa credit card company relate to Internet transactions.
Therefore, procedures to improve security standards must be put in place as a matter of urgency.
This should also include the legal recognition of electronic signatures, and certification services are needed to cope with this development.
These are essential if the twin aims of consumer security and consumer confidence are to be secured.
<P>
The European Council' s common position of June of this year seeks to establish a European framework for electronic signatures.
For the first time the European regulatory framework for authentication services will be established and the legal recognition of electronic signatures ensured.
In areas of rapid technological progress, the European Union must make a special effort to avert any future barriers in the internal market as a result of conflicting national rules and establish a European legal framework at an early stage.
<P>
In conclusion, the implementation of uniform European rules can play an important pioneering role in influencing world level agreements.
Parliament must take this into account when voting on this important directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell' Alba">
Mr President, firstly, I would like to welcome Commissioner Liikanen as for the first time he is concentrating on information society matters and no longer on budgetary matters.
I wish him every success in his work.
I am very pleased by this development.
I hope that with our vote we will accelerate the procedure as much as possible in order to finally allow electronic signatures to be recognised, something which already exists in practice.
We are aware of the speed with which this system is growing and the fact that the world of the Internet, that is to say, the world of the users of the information society, is already well advanced as regards the validity of contracts and transactions via the electronic system.
I would stress that we in the European Parliament should have been the pioneers of this, but we were not because our administration refused to comply with one of Parliament' s decisions.
Some years ago, we voted on an amendment to the Rules of Procedure which aimed to make electronic signatures valid, especially as far as petitions and appeals to the Ombudsman were concerned.
This would have allowed petitions to be presented via the Internet, increasing transparency and the chance to contact Parliament and the other institutions, for example the Ombudsman' s department.
Well, despite this amendment, this provision has, to a large extent, remained a dead letter.
Indeed, it is true that a petition can be presented via the Internet, but then written confirmation by the writers is always needed, which in fact makes this method redundant.
<P>
I hope that during the vote which we are about to take, the strength of Parliament' s wish will be affirmed in a way that will immediately establish the provision that will straight away allow more visibility, more transparency and give the citizens of Europe more access to our democratic life.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="Inglewood, The Lord">
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating Mr Lechner on his report and on the way in which he introduced it to this House.
The point that he made very clearly is one which I believe to be very important - that this piece of legislation is one of a larger series of pieces of legislation which are going to regulate electronic commerce.
That clearly is going to be very significant, not only for Europe, but for business round the whole world.
<P>
In this context I should like to use my time to flag up one particular concern I have about the possible impact of the proposed - if I can use the horrid word - "Amsterdamised" versions of the Brussels and Rome Treaties relating to the operation of this part of the single market.
As I understand the position, they may pose a serious threat to the market inasmuch as a number of the provisions look as if they will cut across the country of origin principle which, as the House knows, is the basis on which the single market is founded.
If the country of origin principle is not honoured in the construction of the single market then I am concerned that it will not work to the benefit of Europe' s citizens.
<P>
As we all know, electronic commerce is going to become ever more important to the economic and social wellbeing of the citizens of the European Union.
If it turns out that the legal framework for that means of doing business is flawed, it is then going to jeopardise the wellbeing of all Europe' s citizens.
<P>
And if, as I believe, it is the case that the erosion of the country of origin principle threatens fundamentally the single market in electronic services in Europe - and this, in turn, has a significant read-across to the operation of electronic commerce around the globe - that would be very sad and damaging for Europe' s citizens.
It is something that we, as representatives of those citizens, should strive our utmost to ensure does not happen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for this report.
Electronic commerce is growing rapidly, which we find very positive.
However, we still often fail to understand the cultural and political significance of the Internet.
In the future, we shall obviously need a movement to uphold civil rights in electronic commerce.
<P>
Electronic signatures ensure the security of electronic commerce, and that is important.
We need growing trade, for example, so that we can improve our competitiveness with the United States.
Our use of the Internet is only one third of that in the U.S. Even though three passwords would be needed for one transaction, and two of them would be changed each time, the system is not completely secure.
If hackers can access Pentagon files, then obviously they can also access electronic commerce networks.
In retail trade, where losses due to theft might be about 1% of sales, it is the retail trade that suffers.
In electronic commerce the customer suffers too, and very often just the customer.
For this reason, the importance of security cannot be sufficiently emphasised.
<P>
We need international cooperation, as has been proposed here already earlier this evening.
To secure extensive cooperation we should set up an Internet police force comparable to the traffic police.
But imagine how much higher the speed is and how much longer the roads are than in ordinary road traffic.
It is also important that surveillance take place where the action is.
This will require international cooperation and much effort from our negotiators at the WTO round of talks.
We also want to protect minorities, and the largest minority in all countries is the poor.
I await the time when they too can access the Internet, and I hope that the Commission will take action to that effect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Niebler">
Mr President, I too would first like to warmly thank my colleague, Mr Kurt Lechner, for his excellent report which I can also fully endorse in terms of its content.
With the Directive on a Community framework for electronic signatures, the European Union is taking an important step towards breaking down the barriers to electronic commerce.
Until now, the legal position of electronic signatures has been unclear, and it has been particularly open to question whether electronic statements with a digital signature can be accepted as evidence in legal proceedings.
These problems will now diminish since, according to the directive, in future, legally binding declarations may also be submitted electronically, thereby facilitating electronic commerce.
<P>
The directive is the first step on the way to achieving a comprehensive legal framework for electronic commerce.
Amongst other things, it points the way for the Directive relating to electronic business transactions, for the Directive relating to distance selling and in part for the Directive relating to copyright which will both soon be dealt with at second reading in the European Parliament.
My colleague, Mr Wuermeling, has already quite rightly clarified the fact that the directive leaves it to the Member States to determine when an electronic declaration of intent which is signed with a digital signature should be taken to be equal to a signed statement or to a statement for which the law stipulates, for example, that a hand-written signature is necessary.
<P>
I particularly welcome the fact that the directive exempts national contract law, in particular provisions on the drawing up and fulfilment of contracts, from its scope, and concentrates on essential matters.
I have two more very brief observations on the directive.
Firstly, it is extremely important that a Europe-wide system for electronic signatures is established, one which will be open to global developments and ready to integrate them.
Here, too, it is incumbent on the Commission to take up contact with third countries and international organisations in order to find appropriate solutions. It will be of particular interest to observe in this context which recommendations the UN Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), the OECD and the WTO are developing in this area.
<P>
It must be our aim to ensure that electronic signatures are recognised across borders, in other words, to establish an internationally compatible framework.
Secondly, I would like to stress, and with this I shall also conclude my speech, how important and urgent it is for there at last to be regulations governing market access for the certification service providers, for internal market principles to be applied and for there to be liability regulations.
It is high time that through the adoption of uniform provisions, both for certification services providers and for consumers, consistency of law is achieved, so that - as is the case when credit cards are used - they will then know exactly to what extent there is a risk of them being threatened with liability.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="Harbour">
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="Liikanen">
Firstly I should like to thank the European Parliament for the very encouraging and supportive approach taken on this matter.
I must say for the first time in this Parliament that I have agreed with all the speakers.
It has been very constructive and different viewpoints have been presented here.
In particular, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Lechner, on his constructive report.
<P>
The progress in Parliament has also been of symbolic importance for future issues in the same area.
The rapidity of the technological change is such that we need to strike a balance between rapid procedures and flexible legislation.
Otherwise, we shall not be able to meet the requirements of the huge changes we see every day in the information society in its different sectors.
<P>
The directive which is on the agenda today deals with the use and legal recognition of electronic signatures.
This is very important, as has been said so many times today.
Doing business electronically is increasing rapidly both for companies and for consumers.
The Internet will be pervasive in Europe in a matter of five years or so.
We can expect half of the European population to be connected to the Internet by 2005 and not only via PC, but increasingly via mobile communication devices.
That was the message everyone received from Geneva Telecom two weeks ago.
<P>
The use of electronic signatures is an important means of ensuring authenticity in the future electronic world.
Without it there will be no safe electronic communications for European citizens.
In fact, even further growth in Internet usage may even be slowed down due to the growing concerns of security and privacy.
The bottom line is that without security and trust there will not be a notable shift towards commercial and financial transactions on the Internet.
<P>
This directive is not designed to regulate everything, neither is it meant to replace the market.
It offers legal recognition of electronic signatures where currently only the paper form is recognised, thus providing for more security in the market place.
Furthermore, it secures the internal market for electronic signature products and services.
But there is also a considerable international dimension to this initiative.
The Internet and e-commerce are global by nature.
Therefore, other international organisations like the United Nations and the OECD are increasingly active in the field of electronic signatures.
Almost all US states either have an electronic signature law in place or are preparing one.
Japan is also drafting a law in this area.
Hence, having a harmonised European legal framework in place would strengthen Europe' s position in the international context.
<P>
We also need this directive to avoid divergent approaches in Member States' law, as has been mentioned.
Today, all EU Member States agree on the importance of electronic signatures to ensure security and trust in electronic communication. This is good news.
We can build on this by avoiding obstacles to the free circulation of electronic signature products and services within the internal market.
<P>
As to the amendments proposed, the Commission can accept them with the exception of one.
We have a problem with Amendment No 6 because, according to our interpretation, it goes against the Treaty because the Treaty provides that these kinds of proposals must be submitted to the Council.
In that context the European Parliament is not mentioned.
<P>
All in all, I want to repeat that I am very pleased about the high degree of consensus between the positions of the Commission and the European Parliament.
<P>
It is in the interests of all of us to support the fast progress of this matter.
With this aim in mind, I should like to suggest that Parliament reconsider Amendment No 6 in order to avoid an unnecessary conciliation procedure.
In this context, the Treaty does not leave room for interpretation.
<P>
Thank you for your cooperation.
I hope that this kind of rapid consensual cooperation can be taken by us with many new initiatives in the same field which are already now in Parliament or expected later this year and next.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Liikanen.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Motor vehicles and trailers
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0033/1999) by Mr Harbour, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the common position of the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Council Directive 70/221/EEC on the approximation of laws of the Member States relating to liquid fuel tanks and rear underrun protection of motor vehicles and their trailers [8697/1/1999 - C5-0031/1999 - 1998/0071 (COD)].
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Harbour">
Mr President, I am now putting on a different hat to present my report to Parliament.
I would very much like to thank my colleagues on the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market for entrusting me with this job a week after I assumed my mandate, and I see a number of colleagues are here in support.
<P>
I will try to make this a simple presentation.
It is an important piece of single market legislation that establishes uniform technical requirements on a key component of the motor vehicle fuel tank.
The proposal achieves four important objectives.
The first is that it introduces uniform test standards for plastic fuel tanks; that covers all types of motor vehicles, both cars and commercial vehicles.
Some of you may be aware that plastic material is increasingly being used across the motor industry and this uniform test standard will allow designers to concentrate on meeting one single standard, instead of having to divert their efforts to meet a whole range of different standards.
<P>
It is often felt that these technical directives may not mean a great deal to consumers, but I must point out from my experience as an engineer in the car industry that if we allow engineers to concentrate on making safer and cleaner vehicles instead of having to meet a whole series of different regulations, that in the end will be very beneficial for customers and users.
That is the first objective.
<P>
The second is the provision for the technical requirements to be extended in future through a regulatory committee procedure to introduce new standards for fuel tanks containing gaseous fuels.
This is an important and forward-looking proposal because gaseous fuels are increasingly being used - and I refer for example to things like liquefied natural gas and petroleum gas - and there is also the prospect of hydrogen becoming a fuel in the future.
This is a sensible measure; yet this relatively straightforward technical measure has already taken 18 months to get to this point of second reading.
That does not seem to me to be a very sensible use of administrative time.
That is the second point.
<P>
The third point is that it provides for type-approval to be extended in cases where motor vehicles are fitted, after they have been built, with additional fuel tanks for additional fuels or additional larger tanks.
That again is increasingly important for safety.
<P>
Those three principal objectives were in the original proposal that came from the Commission to Parliament on first reading and has subsequently resulted in the common position.
Parliament, at its first reading, was particularly concerned to add an important extra objective, namely to address the problem of diesel fuel spillage on the highway, which has been posing an increasing safety hazard for road users, particularly riders of motor cycles.
<P>
Parliament proposed that this should be addressed.
This was rejected by the Commission, but the common position from the Council did contain this measure.
This fuel spillage has resulted from inadequately fitted fuel filler caps, and the directive that we are now putting before you, with Parliament' s amendments at second reading designed to tighten up those provisions, addresses this question by requiring motor vehicle fuel tanks to have positive closure mechanisms so that the cap is always securely closed.
<P>
We have added recitals explicitly setting this out as an objective of the legislation and tightening those technical requirements to make sure that provision is effective.
I am sure that will have the full support of the House.
<P>
In presenting that to you, I would like to say that this is not the only solution to the problem and our committee wishes to draw attention to the need for other committees to address this safety hazard through the forthcoming emission directive for heavy commercial vehicles and also through vehicle test standards, to make sure that faulty fuel filler caps are picked up, either in roadside or annual testing of commercial vehicles.
<P>
To conclude, Mr President, the final element of this proposal is the committee procedure for maintaining and enhancing the technical nature of this directive, and I referred to this earlier.
Parliament, at second reading, proposed a change to the commitology arrangements but, in the light of the Treaty of Amsterdam, I have not recommended that those amendments be supported.
I am proposing that the Council and Commission' s proposal for a regulatory committee be endorsed.
This issue will come up when we discuss Mr Ferri' s proposal later.
<P>
In conclusion, I commend this proposal to the House.
It is a sensible, straightforward single market proposal with a number of important features and I hope it will have your unanimous support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Miller">
Mr President, I congratulate Mr Harbour on his first report.
For a new Member he has done very well on this.
He gave a clear explanation of what the report is about.
I would like to pick up on a couple of the aspects he touched upon.
These relate to the question of safety.
Safety was pertinent to this report all the way through.
At the very end it picks up the question of safety of two-wheeled vehicles.
<P>
Perhaps not many people here realise that there are more accidents involving motorbikes in the vicinity of roundabouts than anywhere else on motorways or roads.
Why is that?
It is because of diesel spillage.
Mr Harbour recognises that in his first amendment.
He states quite clearly that diesel spillage is a danger to users of two-wheeled vehicles.
<P>
So we have to look at why there is more spillage of diesel around motorways.
It is because of missing caps or ill-fitting caps on fuel tanks.
As these commercial vehicles go round roundabouts the fuel tends to spill out and motorbikes following closely behind skid on the greasy surface that diesel leaves.
Therefore, the second amendment tackles this whole question of the ill-fitting caps and, sometimes, no caps at all.
I congratulate him on that.
<P>
I should also like to point out that motorcycling is enjoying a boom at the moment.
There is a revival in motorcycling. I do not know why.
I look around this room and see that most of us are probably approaching middle age.
Maybe some of us hanker back to our younger days and fulfilling the role of Dennis Hopper in the film Easy Rider.
I do not know, but anyway motorcycling is enjoying a revival.
I welcome that, and if there is increasing usage of motorcycles on the roads, then we have to make those roads safer.
Therefore my group will fully support Mr Harbour' s report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, first of all I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Harbour, for the deep analysis of the common position, and also his very concise presentation of the issue here today.
<P>
This draft proposal for a directive is aimed at establishing construction standards to be respected by manufacturers of fuels tanks for the purpose of EC type- approval.
In particular, the idea is to introduce into Council Directive 70/221/EEC new provisions for plastic fuel tanks for motor vehicles.
The provisions will cover such matters as impact resistance, mechanical strength, fuel permeability and fire resistance.
In fuel tanks, safety is of paramount importance, especially when new technologies and materials are introduced.
<P>
The draft proposal links up directly with the technical requirements of Regulation No 34 of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, relating to the prevention of fire risk and in particular to the provisions for plastic fuel tanks.
The report proposes two amendments, both related to diesel spillage, which may be a serious hazard to motor cyclists, especially in combination with a wet road surface, as has been mentioned here.
We fully agree that this is a serious problem from both safety and environmental points of view and the Commission can accept the two amendments.
<P>
To summarise, the Commission can accept all the proposed amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner Liikanen.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12.00 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Speedometers for two- or three-wheel motor vehicles
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0029/1999), on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive on speedometers for two- or three-wheel motor vehicles and amending Council Directive 92/61/EEC on the type-approval of two- or three-wheel motor vehicles (COM(98) 285 - C5-0029/1999 - 1998/0163(COD)) (rapporteur: Mr Ferri).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Ferri">
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fiori">
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, at its first reading, Parliament did nothing about this directive because it appeared to be a technical directive which presented no difficulties.
<P>
But the Council later opened up a Pandora' s box by introducing two supposedly technical amendments: one, to Article 3, which provides for a sort of legislative delegation with continuous reference to the Regulation of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe; and another, to Article 6, extending the time limit for the entry into force of the directive owing to the need for an adaptation period for the industry.
<P>
Parliament, as a result of these amendments introduced by the Council on the recommendation of the Commission, felt obliged to review the text.
<P>
The time limit seems reasonable, bearing in mind the delay which this directive is experiencing. The deadline for mopeds has been extended from 1 January to 1 July 2002, so that the industry may have a slightly longer adaptation period.
<P>
But above all, the Council has re-addressed the question of commitology.
The original decision laid down a certain type of committee, specifically the committee mentioned in Article 3(A) which, in the meantime, was disbanded last July.
That committee no longer exists and therefore the rapporteur, displaying a high degree of responsibility and intelligence, has proposed an advisory type committee.
<P>
It seems inappropriate that in the case of provisions of this type, which the Council describes as technical, the Commission feels set on the idea of a management committee.
I hope that the rapporteur maintains his proposal to adopt an advisory committee, which would be most appropriate for this type of regulation.
Maintaining the mechanism of a management committee is complicated and, furthermore, it would have to be done by amending the original directive on the type-approval of motor vehicles.
<P>
Therefore, I hope that, on the basis of the agreements which this Parliament adopts this week, the Council and the Commission will consider the possibility of definitively laying down the advisory committee procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Beysen">
<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Markov">
Mr President, I will not take up the two full minutes because several thoughts that I wanted to express, particularly about road safety, have already been expressed by the preceding speakers.
I think that the problem of road safety, particularly for two-wheel motor vehicles, is actually a problem that concerns the younger generation above all.
I personally only ride motorcycles and never drive a car. I am also a member of various motorcycle clubs and deal with young people there too.
This is why I think it is particularly necessary to do something about this specific area.
Of course, speedometers are installed in order to automatically create an inhibiting threshold to the vehicle' s speed because otherwise - unfortunately this is the case - very high speeds are attained which these vehicles cannot cope with on account of their centre of gravity being too high, for example. This has dire consequences.
<P>
For this reason, we fully endorse this directive, and we would also be pleased, of course, if, all in all, more could be done in the European Parliament with regard to road safety so that it is more consistent between Member States, because the accident figures clearly show that young people are the ones most affected in this area.
<P>
We agree that the deadline should be postponed.
We must also give industry the chance to actually transpose it if, at the end of the day, that then helps us to achieve a uniform directive.
We also believe that an advisory committee would be the appropriate instrument for this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Harbour">
Mr President, I am sorry to be taking up so much of colleagues' time but it shows the interest we have in each other' s measures.
<P>
I want to commend Mr Ferri on his report and, in particular, his emphasis on the road safety aspects.
My concern is that I believe these aspects are so important that I certainly would not like to see this directive held up because of arguments over commitology.
It seems to me that this directive is too important for that.
I know Mr Ferri feels very strongly about commitology but it seems to me there are much broader issues.
This links in with my own report, as I mentioned earlier.
<P>
It is quite clear from Mr Ferri' s analysis that we are talking in terms of motor vehicle legislation not just at a European level, but at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe level which has, for many years now, been accepted within the motor vehicle industry as setting a whole range of global standards.
Increasingly we are entering into dialogue with the United States and Japan about global technical standards for motor vehicles.
Indeed in the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, of which I am also a member, we will shortly be considering a report on that subject.
<P>
It seems to me that to just look at the commitology aspect of this particular directive now and to hold up this measure is not the right way of proceeding.
We have to think about how we are going to address the whole issue of considering and approving global technical regulations and the European Union' s input into them.
This is something we really need to ask the Commission to consider.
<P>
We also need to consider our own approach.
It is quite clear, looking around here this evening, that there is not an overwhelming interest in these technical directives among Members of the European Parliament.
There are some enthusiasts here with an interest in addressing these issues and we have to think about ways in which we can have an input into these technical processes.
We must let the Member States and the Commission make their proposals and then look at some of the key initiatives and put forward the point of view of the citizens, the businesses, the road-users and drivers across the European Union.
<P>
I do not think we have got that balance right.
We need the safety benefits of Mr Ferri' s directive but we also need to take a much broader look at how to handle the move towards global technical standards in a crucial industry for the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, the draft directive under discussion concerns the compulsory fitting of a type-approved speedometer in all new mopeds, motorcycles and three-wheel motor vehicles.
The Commission believes that, for reasons of safety and to protect the environment, mopeds and motorcycles that are not fitted with a type-approved speedometer should no longer be allowed to be placed on the market.
<P>
It should be possible at all times for drivers of two- or three-wheel motor vehicles to comply with the speed limits in force in the Member States. They should not have the opportunity to refer to the lack of legal provisions in order to escape the consequences of breaking the speed limit.
Besides, the speedometer is already a standard fitting in most of the vehicles placed on the market in the European Union, without this significantly affecting the overall price of the vehicle.
In addition, the compulsory fitting of a speedometer in all these vehicles will yield economies of scale which will benefit consumers as well.
<P>
The Commission would be prepared to approve all the proposed amendments, but Amendment No 5 on the committee procedure may prove very problematic.
As the Commission will soon be making a proposal to amend the framework directive, i.e. the Directive establishing a committee on motor vehicles, the Commission suggests that the committee procedure be discussed in that connection.
The issue could also be dealt with when the new commitology decision approved in June enters into force with regard to the existing committees.
However, I would consider it unfortunate if discussion of the document became a matter for conciliation simply because of a problem concerning committee procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner Liikanen.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12.00 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Passenger cableway installations
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0028/1999), on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive relating to cableway installations designed to carry passengers (COM(93) 646 - C5-0030/1999 - 1994/0011(COD)) (rapporteur: Mr Miller).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Miller">
Mr President, can I again thank all my colleagues in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market for their assistance in producing this report.
<P>
The first reading of this report went through Parliament earlier this year - in April I believe - and that report had two aims similar to the aims of this report.
The first was the free movement of cableway installations.
That is central to the whole concept of the single market. But this can only be done - and I stress "can only be done" - where we have harmonisation of safety standards.
I would add that each Member State remains responsible for overseeing that. So the central point initially was the free movement of cableway installations.
<P>
The second point was the safety of cableway installations.
Earlier this evening I spoke about safety - the safety of two-wheeled vehicles on the road.
We in the European Union should be concerned about all aspects of safety in all modes of transport, not just two-wheeled vehicles, four-wheeled vehicles, trains, planes, boats or whatever, but also in relation to cable cars and cable installations.
We have to be concerned about safety.
<P>
That brings me on to the amendments which have been tabled here by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3 and 5 clarify the position with regard to all persons utilising cableways.
In the past, this has been a grey area but hopefully now, with the introduction of those four amendments, we will have clarified the position for all persons using those installations.
<P>
Amendment No 4 is basically a tidying-up operation, as the earlier paragraph was out of date.
Amendment No 6 takes out the question of mining which is the subject of separate legislation.
Amendments Nos 7, 8, 9 and 10 simplify the safeguard clause.
If we had agreed fully with the Commission text we would have had three unwieldy safeguard paragraphs.
By doing it this way we have one simplified paragraph.
Amendment No 11 again highlights safety aspects.
Amendment No 12 is again a tidying-up exercise.
<P>
I commend this report to you.
It highlights the whole question of safety within the European Union; it is an area we should all be concerned about and, as such, I would hope that the Commission and Council will accept it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Karas">
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party/European Democrats, I would like to thank the rapporteur and to welcome this directive.
We all ask that the formal procedure following Parliament' s decision be carried out as quickly as possible, and that the directive be quickly transposed so that we can successfully conclude this discussion process which was initiated by the Commission in 1994.
This directive is significant in four ways.
It is significant in terms of industrial policy, competition policy, security policy and consumer policy.
This directive relates to all four policy areas.
<P>
We can all still remember the dramatic accidents that have taken place on and as a result of cableway installations.
They are largely responsible for the fact that calls for uniform safety standards have become more vociferous.
These calls have also become increasingly topical.
I am therefore very pleased, and the preceding speaker also touched on this matter briefly, that it will not only apply to those people who are actually in the cable car, but also to those who disembark at the station or who are waiting to depart.
<P>
Uniform Europe-wide safety standards are necessary in order to protect both the safety of passengers and also the competitiveness of the European cableways industry in the international market.
<P>
Cableway installations have undergone highly specialised, state-of-the-art improvements.
Cableways are an important economic factor in many Member States, particularly in the Alpine region.
I am pleased to be able to refer to the fact, in my maiden speech to this House in plenary session, that in my own country, Austria, cableways are a cornerstone of tourism and consequently, of the Austrian national economy.
<P>
I would just like to emphasise the importance of this directive.
In my country alone, we have nine million passengers who take around 526 million trips with 255 cableway companies and, in economic terms, this represents a total turnover of 10.8 billion Austrian schillings.
The directive represents a competitive advantage and raises the competitiveness of European and particularly Austrian cableway companies.
The directive is aiming to harmonise safety standards for passengers.
It aims to boost the free movement of goods, that is to say the internal market, as far as the cableway industry is concerned.
It will consolidate this sector as an integral part of the national economy.
Uniform and simplified procedures, a relieving of the burden on the authorities as well as the removal of procedural steps are all part of this directive.
<P>
I welcome the fact that, by means of this directive, it is going to be possible to bring an initiative that was introduced during the Austrian Presidency to a successful conclusion in terms of consumer safety and competitiveness.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Zappalà">
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on the substantial and significant content of this directive.
I have only been a member of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market for a few days, and therefore I have not had the opportunity to follow its entire course. Over the past few days, I have only been able to familiarise myself with it.
The speaker before me was saying that this type of installation is very widespread in Europe - it certainly is in my country, which includes almost all of the Alps as well as the Apennines.
So we are dealing with structures, and a sphere of activity which are of great concern to us.
<P>
As I was saying, the content of this directive is all very noteworthy, and we certainly agree with it.
In this way, we are giving the go-ahead to the free movement of technologies in this regard, and to the free movement of supplies.
As was said a short while ago, the route has been opened to competition in this sector which, in the field of technology and in the field of safety, is essential because competition is exactly what it is - it makes technology advance.
<P>
I have read carefully the content of the directive and from a technical point of view, I still find some points unclear.
Of course, the directive lays down principles, gives specific instructions, brings into line and also harmonises legislation within the Member States on what has to be an essential goal - safety.
However, in the area of safety and in the area of technology, specifications, parameters, characteristics and materials used become fundamentally important. Levels of maintenance and planning times also become vital.
Now, from my point of view, certainly the technical provisions which will follow this directive - and which will be laid down in other places and after other meetings - will form the basic element in defining the authorisation of this directive in all the Member States.
<P>
In this sense, and knowing which parameters will be examined from a purely technical point of view, I would ask whether it is possible for Parliament, and particularly the Commission, to be kept informed. Above all, I ask whether it is possible for the Commission to inform us what the result of the implementation of this directive will be, from a purely technical point of view.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Liikanen">
The draft directive before the European Parliament concerns the safety of the persons carried and the free movement of cableway equipment and installations.
In ordinary language, the installations concerned are the cable cars, the funicular railways and ski lifts used in mountain resorts, all used where access is difficult.
It goes without saying, as has been said here, that these are very important issues.
<P>
I should like to thank the parliamentary committee and in particular the rapporteur, Mr Miller, for the excellent work carried out during the second reading.
The Commission is happy to accept all the amendments.
For one thing, they are designed to clarify certain provisions of the common position, in particular, regarding its scope, and are therefore welcome.
<P>
Secondly, the rapporteur has proposed adding mining installations to the exclusions.
This seems justified given the particular nature of such installations which are subject to very specific rules and regulations.
<P>
The Commission also agrees that this matter should be part of the report to be drawn up by the Commission four years after the directive enters into force.
<P>
The adoption of your report will constitute a decisive stage in the process leading to the long-awaited implementation of this much-needed directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner Liikanen.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12.00 p.m.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 7.40 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
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Are there any comments?
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<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="Howitt">
Mr President, on behalf of myself and several other MEPs, while I fully respect the solemn nature of today' s formal sitting, I wish to make a point of order under Rule 19 out of concern for human rights given that the Colombian President' s visit today is restricted to his parliamentary address until a formal dinner with heads of political groups.
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Bearing in mind that the Colombian Government' s own public defender reports one massacre for every day this year and that the Commission of Colombian Jurists attribute 78% to paramilitaries with the knowledge of the official Colombian forces, will you, as President of this Parliament, in your private talks ensure that you discuss issues of human rights.
Will you in particular ask when the law passed in June this year requiring crimes against humanity committed by the Colombian military to be transferred to the jurisdiction of civil courts will actually be implemented.
Will you ask why instances of forced disappearance, extrajudicial execution and sexual abuse have been excluded from that law.
Will you find an appropriate way to report back to Parliament on the responses given.
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I ask this in the spirit of successive resolutions on human rights in Colombia passed by this European Parliament and in support of brave human rights defenders working under the threat of violence and of death.
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<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Howitt.
Of course, both the Bureau and the Presidents will present Parliament' s position in accordance with their traditional decisions in that regard.
The results of these contacts will be communicated to you.
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(The Minutes were approved)
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<CHAPTER ID=2>
EC and ECSC budgets for 2000
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
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A5-0030/1999 by Mr Bourlanges, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2000: Section III Commission (C5-0300/1999);
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A5-0031/1999 by Mr Virrankoski, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2000 (C5-0300/1999)
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Section I, European Parliament - Annex: Ombudsman
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Section II, Council
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Section IV, Court of Justice
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Section V, Court of Auditors
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Section VI, Economic and Social Committee and Committee of the Regions;
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A5-0032/1999 by Mr Pittella, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the ECSC draft operating budget for the financial year 2000 (SEC(1999) 803 - C5-0017/1999 - 1999/2072(BUD)).
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<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Mr President, you will understand, ladies and gentlemen, that it is a great honour for me to be able to take the floor today.
I have had a seat in this Parliament for ten years now, and I have never had the opportunity to speak for fifteen minutes before, which, considering my temperament, has been a long-lasting source of frustration, and is finally coming to an end today!
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I would like to tell you, Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, that preparing the budget of the European Union is a strange process indeed.
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What sort of budget is it, then, which is based on the principle that the budgetary authority and Parliament vote on the expenditure but not on the revenue?
What sort of budget is it which necessitates making a distinction between two well-defined categories of expenditure, one being the compulsory expenditure determined by an authority - the Council - the other being the non-compulsory expenditure determined by Parliament?
This distinction is patently absurd.
What sort of budget is it which subordinates the budgetary authority to legislative texts to the extent that some figures and some amounts expressly stipulated in the legislation and in the programmes are so restrictive that they tend to reduce the budgetary procedure to a set of legislative adjustments which have already been carried out?
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The situation is thus strange, to say the least.
But it is even stranger still to draw up a budget within the framework of the interinstitutional agreement and the budget perspectives which we have.
Effectively, we are working within the framework of the Financial Perspective decided in Berlin.
Well, the least that one can say is that the programming exercise which took place there was quite strange, firstly in terms of its duration (setting a seven year programme in two days of Council meetings was perhaps risky) and vague in terms of the amounts.
Today, we can see that however one approaches these needs there is only a very approximate matching of budget estimates and actual requirements.
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In Category 1 on agriculture and market expenditure, we are already up to the limit of the margin.
In Category 4 on external action - I shall return to this point - the Category is literally at bursting point. In Category 5, we do not know what the administrative reform of the Commission will cost, but it is with great concern that we see the problem of pensions taking shape before suitable expenditure has been envisaged; and in Category 7, intended for pre-accession preparations, the movement developing in favour of faster and wider enlargement, if I may say, is not supported by suitable appropriations.
Countries such as Cyprus and Malta are in an uncertain situation already.
The budget programming exercise was, therefore, vague, but also very restrictive for the European Parliament because, for the first time, we are working within a framework where we have obtained less flexibility in exchange for - not more money, as previously, but less money.
The situation is inherently paradoxical.
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The matter becomes thoroughly surreal when we tackle the subject of the financial year 2000, as the European Union is experiencing an absolute contradiction here.
On the one hand, the Treaty of Amsterdam and the implementation of the single currency are creating new burdens, whilst on the other hand, the planned enlargement effectively entails an additional financial load.
Finally, the increased weight of the Union' s responsibilities, especially as regards Kosovo, are also creating far greater tensions, far greater pressure on the budget.
Well, confronted with this situation, some institutions, particularly the Council - I am wondering what the Commission will decide in the end - tell us that we are going to finance more policies, with more partners, take on more responsibility, with less money.
I must say, Mr President, there is a paradox here, a contradiction which Parliament does not wish to accept.
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This is the situation we find ourselves in.
Budget 2000 is characterised by the paradox that I have just mentioned, of how to finance more with less money, but will also, I hope, be characterised by Parliament' s rejection of this paradox.
How do the institutions seek to address this paradox?
Well, by two methods, both very simple and equally reprehensible. The first involves cutting expenditure, and the second sacrificing traditional priorities in favour of new priorities.
I find the draft budget, which the Council has submitted for our approval and whose inspiration we are objecting to, quite worrying from that point of view.
When I speak of cutting expenditure, I am thinking, for example, of expenditure under Category I for which a cut has been proposed.
The Commission already started off on the wrong track. Perhaps today it is starting to experience some regrets?
In fact, across-the-board reductions have been proposed to us, which are not in line with the real situation.
The same applies to payments.
As regards structural funds, we have considerable payment requirements, due both to the implementation of the new instrument of Agenda 2000 but also to the vast weight of past commitments.
This death rattle, which is the last gasp of the dying man - forgive me, interpreters, this is impossible to translate, it means the final hour has come - is the last gasp when the programmes of previous years finally expire.
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All that entails considerable burdens as regards payment and, in this respect, the Council follows neither the Commission, nor us, and proposes a perfectly unacceptable reduction in relation to the preliminary draft budget.
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Having demonstrated some vagueness on this question in recent months, the Commission seems recently to have returned to more laudable sentiments, which we are pleased to see.
Thus, on the one hand, we have a cut in expenditure and the appropriations allocated to existing and future requirements.
The same is true for expenditure under Category 5.
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At the same time, the priorities of yesterday and today are being sacrificed, and this is unacceptable, in favour of the priorities of tomorrow.
I think this is a serious point.
In Category 4, the Council makes the completely unacceptable proposal to implement across-the-board cuts without any justification whatsoever.
We have clearly understood that there must be reductions on condition that they are at least justified, but in this case they are not, I must insist.
We have been told that it is necessary to finance Kosovo, Morocco, Timor and Turkey.
Admittedly, Timor and Turkey are not in the draft budget yet, but we shall surely find them there in time.
We have been told that all this must be financed and, in return, there will be cuts in all the traditional expenditure for the development appropriations for Africa, Asia, Latin America.
Parliament says no.
We shall not accept making Africa, Latin America and Asia, everyone bar Europe, pay for Kosovo.
It is not acceptable.
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More generally, we consider the fact that the Commission is undertaking this type of approach for the future to be very serious, since we shall have to bear the cost of these new responsibilities from structural funds.
And we cannot expect to pay for the Balkans, for example, in a structural and lasting way by means of enlargement, etc.
No, we cannot get out of it that way.
You cannot get the foot of Charlemagne' s mother, Berthe au grand pied (Berthe Big-Foot), into Cinderella' s slipper.
It is just not possible.
You have to make the shoe bigger, to take into account the needs we must fund.
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This is the situation as we see it.
We are waiting for the Commission to make a statement on this point.
The PDB obviously did not take some items of expenditure into account, but it was very clear.
All we want to know now is whether the Commission is going to defend it.
I should warn you, Commissioner, of a proposal which may be made to substantially reduce your own PDB, for it would be a serious matter if the Commission were not even to defend its own policy.
We would be in a situation even more paradoxical than I am willing to accept, setting up Parliament as defender of the Commission' s preliminary draft budget, replacing the Commission as guardian of the major policies decided by the European Union.
I should warn you on this point.
It would be a serious matter.
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What is Parliament' s response?
It is quite simple. It rejects this attitude.
It considers, on the one hand, that it is necessary to face up to the new priorities.
There are essentially two of these. Firstly, administratively, it is necessary to deal with the consequences of the institutional crisis which we experienced last winter.
This entails active support, and even an active demand for administrative reform addressed to the Commission.
All the measures relating to TAOs have that objective, in the same way as all the appropriations for OLAF.
The call for the creation of a new administrative instrument, a sort of executive agency or decentralised executive unit, fulfils a real need.
We have initiated contacts with the Commission which seem to be productive.
We have heard the words, we are now waiting for the deeds.
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Internationally, our second priority is effectively to finance, by some means, the main priorities: Kosovo with up to EUR 500 million, the agreement on Morocco with up to EUR 125 million, the programmes for Turkey and Timor with up to EUR 50 and EUR 30 million.
In this regard, we have voted on an amendment which corresponds to a serious political commitment from this Parliament, even if we vote it before Category 4, which means that it does not to date have the status of an amendment, but it does constitute a commitment on the part of this House to vote in these appropriations at second reading, especially regarding the Morocco agreement which is one of Parliament' s political priorities.
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The second approach adopted by the European Parliament is not to sacrifice our traditional priorities.
This is why we have rejected en masse all the across-the-board cuts proposed by the Council and we consider that we must face up to requirements in the areas of redevelopment, development, international development, social actions and environmental policy.
We must face up to all these expenses with great energy and we must not accept their being sacrificed.
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Just now, I left out one essential point, research, within the framework of administrative reform.
We are waiting to formalise in writing and give concrete expression to the agreement which is in the pipeline between Commission and Parliament in order to guarantee better budgetary use of the appropriations under this sub-section.
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We are therefore facing up to the new priorities but we are not sacrificing our traditional priorities.
Thirdly, this requires us, and this is the essence of the problem, to respect fully the terms of the interinstitutional agreement, but in a dynamic fashion.
We are respecting this agreement.
We are respecting all the ceilings in all the categories and we are even leaving substantial margins in some of them, such as Category 1B on rural development.
But we want a dynamic interpretation, in accordance with what has been said and, in particular, we want an ongoing structural review of Category 4, rather than an annual review.
There are new expenses which must be funded.
These expenses are not just for one year, they are ongoing expenses.
This must be translated into a net increase in the appropriations allocated to Category 4 for the entire period and not just for the budget for the year 2000.
This is a demand which Parliament is making and I would like to see it taken fully into account by the Commission and by the Council.
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What is the way out of this situation?
The Council still has time to think and a choice of means. There is the time to think as we are to meet on 25 November, Saint Catherine' s Day.
There is a French saying "A la Sainte-Catherine, tout arbre prend racine" (on Saint Catherine' s Day, every tree takes root), so I hope that the budget tree will take root. As for the choice of means, Madam President, you and your colleagues have to choose, for I know that you cannot do everything, and I am sorry for this, between two avenues.
One alternative is to review the Financial Perspective of Category 4 which will make it possible for us to vote in this budget by facing up to the new priorities in accordance with the commitments undertaken at the time of negotiating this agreement. If you do not want to go down this road, Parliament shall then be forced to resort to the strict application of Article 272 of the Treaty, and to assume the powers, which it is entitled to do, regarding both commitments and payments, and to vote for appropriations which match up to the level of the commitments which are the political commitments of the European Union and in strict observance of the Treaty.
Madam President, the ball is in your court.
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(Applause)
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<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="Virrankoski">
Mr President, the 'EU budget for the year 2000 - other sections' , which we are considering, follows the rigorous policy of recent years.
The budget for institutions other than the Commission and the Council for the year 2000 will be EUR 1.286 billion.
The increase is EUR 44 million, or 3.5%.
The margin for manoeuvre calculated from Category 5, as referred to in the Financial Perspective, is EUR 135 million.
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This draft budget focuses mainly on rental arrangements and renovation solutions for the places of work of the institutions.
The intention is for the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions to move into Belliard buildings I and II once they have been vacated by Parliament and renovated.
The joint organisational structure for these committees will be accommodated in the Bertha von Suttner Building, the former Montoyer building.
The rented premises that have been in use until now will be given up.
For these solutions to be successful, seamless cooperation is required on all sides.
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The budget provides for new posts to be created at both Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee to render the administration of the buildings more efficient.
One condition of adequate administration, however, is that the division of labour and of responsibility of both Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee be clarified both interinstitutionally and with regard to the individuals involved.
This division of responsibility must be considered a pre-condition of the project' s success.
There are two reserves attached to the buildings, which are still in the budget.
A reserve of EUR 7.4 million has been entered in Parliament' s expenditure for the rental of the Belliard buildings, as the rental agreement between the owner and the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions is still under discussion.
If the rental agreement is finalised before the end of the year, the amount mentioned will be deducted from Parliament' s budget, as the European Parliament budget is, at present, 20.11% of Category 5, whereas Parliament has itself declared a ceiling of 20%.
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There are two reasons why this ceiling has been exceeded.
The first is the double budgeting relating to rents, as explained above.
The other reason is the reserve related to the Statute for Members.
In the spring a reserve of EUR 60 million was included in the parliamentary budget for remuneration related to the Statute for Members.
Parliament has demanded that Members' remuneration be paid from parliamentary funds, and the Council has supported this initiative.
Because at present it is the Member States that pay the salaries of MEPs, this will mean that the payments are transferred from the Member States to the European Union.
It is quite natural to suppose that a new expenditure item of this kind, which at the same time would diminish Member States' costs, cannot be included under the ceiling for formerly approved expenditure.
If we take these two expenditure items into account, Parliament' s share of Category 5 would be 18.97%, which is in line with the principles of budgetary discipline.
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Another priority of this draft budget is increasing the resources of the Court of Justice of the European Union, especially their translation resources.
According to the Council' s proposal, the Committee on Budgets has recommended that altogether thirty new translator' s posts be established, and that a substantial appropriation be earmarked for paying freelance translators.
As appropriations have been proposed for improvements to the electronic office, the Court of Justice can expect a clear increase in resources.
After this, we expect that the Court of Justice will be able to cope better with its workload, reduce the number of documents left untranslated, and serve Member States, citizens and businesses better in the interpretation and application of European law.
Parliament has both the right and the obligation to demand clear results.
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Discussion of this year' s budget made it clearer than ever that there is a need to move towards activity based budgeting.
The institutions have an abundance of staff, and it is to the benefit of all that they be used efficiently.
The present administrative model, however, gives cause for criticism.
The institutions seem extremely interested in inventing new requirements and job descriptions, so as to be able to justify their ever-growing need for staff.
It is very difficult for Parliament, as a decision-making authority, to scrutinise the chart of its own four thousand strong organisation and draw conclusions as to what new posts are needed for what jobs.
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Every Member State, however, has had to radically reorganise personnel structures.
Jobs have been reallocated, as have posts and staff.
That is why in many cases the establishment of new posts is no longer the responsibility of the budgetary authorities.
The budgetary authorities only allocate appropriations to the institutions.
There are two advantages to this.
Firstly, the overall work of an institution is seen clearly, which means that there is less danger of getting swamped in details.
The work of the institutions can be assessed more clearly, on the basis of results, and can be better managed.
On the other hand, comprehensive budgeting also makes it possible to clarify and increase personal responsibility.
This encourages better and more efficient work, as everyone can find a way to work more effectively and use resources sparingly where the need is greatest.
It is high time the European Union switched to activity based budgeting, result-oriented management, delegated power and responsibility downwards, and clarified personal responsibilities.
We must require managers and heads of department to bear the responsibility for their own areas of revenue, and for their development and improvement.
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Finally, I would like to thank all those who helped me to prepare this report.
I would especially like to thank the Chairman of the Committee on Budgets, Terence Wynn, who has given me his support in so many ways, both in practical negotiations and at meetings of the Committee on Budgets, and in personal discussions.
At the same time I wish to thank the main rapporteur, Jean-Louis Bourlanges, with whom I have enjoyed seamless and smooth cooperation.
I would also like to thank all the coordinators, especially Reimer Böge of the European People' s Party and Ralf Walter of the Party of European Socialists for their constructive and pertinent cooperation.
Finally, I wish to thank my own group for their unreserved support in every respect, as well as the secretaries and employees who were involved in the project.
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<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Pittella">
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, Members of the European Parliament, the discussion of the budget for the year 2000 has progressed significantly since I presented the Council' s draft budget here in Parliament on 14 September.
Today, I have heard detailed perspectives and justifications regarding the content of Budget 2000, with particular reference to the European Parliament.
The Union appears to need diverse resources, and the most essential questions are gradually beginning to be resolved.
With the new trialogue practice, we have been able to discuss many major problems in a positive spirit.
The speeches that have been made here indicate clearly the main priority of Budget 2000.
It stresses particularly the many current challenges presented by Category 4 on external action, which call for joint solutions by the budgetary authorities.
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First, I will speak generally about the budget, on the basis of contributions from various quarters, and I shall return, at the end of my speech, to the Kosovo or Category 4 issue.
First, I would like to comment on the compulsory agricultural expenditure, that is to say, Subsection B-1.
The view of the Council is that the Commission' s proposal overestimates requirements for the year 2000.
Therefore the Council in its own deliberations reduced this item by EUR 375 million.
Overestimation by the Commission has been the regular practice throughout the 1990s.
That was also shown in this year' s figures.
The same can be said with regard to subsection B-1 on rural development action.
In matters of appropriations relating to structural operations, the difference between the Council and Parliament concentrate on two areas: firstly, the size of the advance payment in respect of new structural operation payments, and, secondly, the timetable for attending to old, unpaid, committed funds.
I believe that both matters are purely technical.
Setting the advance payment at 3.5%, instead of the 4% proposed by the Commission does not require amendments to the legal effect measures.
Neither does it in any way affect the total amount of new Structural Funds that Member States will be receiving over the period 2000-2001.
As regards old, unpaid commitments, it is necessary to take account of the new spending criteria the Commission has just announced.
In addition, we should note that the level of expenditure proposed by the Commission - 48% -clearly exceeds the 45% held to be the basis of the European Council' s own decisions at Berlin.
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In internal policies, there are many problems that are presently being discussed in the codecision procedure.
It is important that the budgetary authorities respect the ceilings for expenditure adopted in the interinstitutional agreement.
This will require even more effective coordination.
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There is significant pressure to develop administration in the Union.
The new Commission has promised to issue a report on administrative development in February 2000.
We can all agree that only on the basis of the Commission' s views can we comprehensively evaluate the need for human resources.
As the OLAF commences its work, we should set great store by the qualitative aspects of this work.
Regarding the importance of pension funds stressed by Parliament, we must also expect a comprehensive report from the Commission on, inter alia, reform of the acts on human resources, and other concrete proposals.
Regarding the so-called BAT issue, or the issue of technical assistance offices, perhaps the time is not yet ripe to conduct such a laborious reform as Parliament is proposing in the budget for the year 2000.
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Funding for action in Kosovo and in connection with other external relations will be a challenge for the Union in terms of budgetary procedure and financing.
It is noteworthy that the direct financing needs of the Kosovo area are considered to be mainly covered.
This was established at the first donor conference in July.
The budgetary authorities should now wait for the final, reliable, assessment of needs, which, in my opinion, cannot be expected until next year.
The Council, for its part, is committed to attending to the financing needs occasioned by the earthquake in Turkey with the help of a loan from the EIB, macro-financing aid, and the funds targeted at the MEDA programme.
This being the case, perhaps there will be no need for a separate financing programme for Turkey.
As for East Timor, aid has been channelled there via ECHO.
The donor conference on East Timor is to be held in November, so more detailed assessments will be available only later.
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As I mentioned earlier, Kosovo has become the main priority of the budgetary procedure for 2000.
For this reason, the Council has demonstrated flexibility in its own procedures, resulting in a reallocation of appropriations in the draft budget for the reconstruction of Kosovo.
It would seem appropriate to reallocate appropriations of humanitarian aid for Kosovo, especially as a large number of refugees have now returned to Kosovo, and to a certain extent humanitarian aid in Kosovo would seem to be the first step on the road to reconstruction, offering people at least shelter for the winter.
For other budget headings that concern external action under Category 4 of the Financial Perspective, fixed-rate reductions for appropriations granted are a means of preventing hurried decisions to amend the excessiveness threshold of this Category. The reason, as I said, is that there do not yet exist any assessments of the genuine reconstruction requirements.
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With regard to the concern expressed by Parliament regarding the possible consequences that might result from the reallocation of appropriations under Category 4 regarding Union aid for the least developed countries, we should not forget that, by virtue of the Lomé Convention, the European Development Fund channels EU aid to many of the countries in question.
The European Development Fund is not included in the general budget for the European Union: the Member States contribute directly to it and it has its own internal financing rules.
Thus, the reallocation of funds for the reconstruction of Kosovo did not affect the European Development Fund.
Subsection B7 of the budget is only partly aimed at the poorest countries, and the fixed-rate reduction thus harms countries other than just the poorest.
In the sitting of the Budget Committee on 16 July, the reallocation of appropriations for Kosovo was discussed, and it was stated that the Commission should not burden the least developed countries and poorest groups. Furthermore, we were reminded of the Commission' s commitment to an international development strategy, whose purpose it is to halve world poverty by the year 2015.
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I have noted that the European Parliament also intends to propose appropriations that exceed the excessiveness threshold under Category 4 of the Financial Perspective, so that funds would be allocated to finance operations in East Timor and Turkey and to adopt the new fisheries agreement with Morocco.
On this matter, I would like to make the following observations.
The Council is also very worried about the situation in East Timor, but until now no precise assessments of the amount of aid needed there have been presented.
The consequences of the Turkish earthquake have required our assistance already this year.
This assistance was provided for in the supplementary and amending budget no. 4/1999.
It is, however, too early to determine the total amount of aid appropriations required for the year 2000.
Appropriations to fund action in Turkey and East Timor should also be found within the framework of the excessiveness threshold under Category 4 of the Financial Perspective determined at Berlin.
The Council, furthermore, has accepted that the Commission be empowered to negotiate a fisheries agreement with Morocco.
The outcome of these talks is not yet known.
I might, however, remind everyone that, in adopting the draft budget, the Council has also reallocated some Category 4 appropriations in order to create a reserve for the funds required under the new agreement.
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Finally, I will briefly comment on the overall increase in the budget and the frameworks for drafting it.
On the basis of votes taken by Parliament' s Committee on Budgets, the payment appropriations would increase by over 6%.
The corresponding figure in the Council' s draft budget is 2.8%.
We have a responsibility to European taxpayers.
It should be clear that Union expenditure should comply with the call for budgetary discipline and cost-effectiveness.
The Union budget should observe the same degree of rigour as those of the Member States.
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At the start, I emphasised the need for a swift response from the budgetary authorities in ever-changing circumstances.
I believe that the new interinstitutional agreement also contains sufficient means to deal with unforeseen needs.
The spirit of the new agreement is clear: we cannot right away rely on the new funds for aid that exceed the total sum in the financial framework.
Let this also serve as a basis for adopting the budget for the year 2000.
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I believe that, through sound cooperation among the institutions, we will successfully steer home the decision-making process with regard to the draft budget for 2000.
I would like to thank the President and the Members of Parliament.
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<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schreyer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the budget is the political programme cast in figures; this is the short-and-sweet summary normally used to explain the budget plan.
Although many decisions are taken at European level which are not directly reflected in the European Union budget, nevertheless Budget 2000 is a crucial and defining basis for many areas of European policy in the coming year.
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Since the drawing up of the preliminary draft budget in the spring there have been important events which could not have been anticipated at the time but which will and must be reflected in Budget 2000.
Most importantly, this year we have had to experience a war on European soil necessitated by the most atrocious violations of human rights and by a policy of expulsion and ethnic cleansing on the part of the Milosevic regime; a policy which could not be tolerated by a democratic Europe and by a democratic international community committed to human rights.
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Europe at the close of the 20th century must not accommodate any policy of expulsion, or indeed murder of minorities.
The European Union has assumed the responsibility for financing reconstruction in Kosovo, where it is not just a matter of reconstructing bridges, schools and the technical infrastructure, but rather the total reconstruction of a democratic and peaceful civilian society in the region.
I am glad, therefore, that there is absolute consensus, absolute agreement between Parliament, the Council and the Commission, on making available in the EU budget the necessary funds for Kosovo.
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I think it is worth stressing the point that everyone is aware of the responsibility and stands by the commitment to finance the reconstruction of Kosovo.
The preliminary draft budget of the Commission from April of this year provides for a total of EUR 92.8 billion for all expenditure commitments which may be entered into during the coming year and EUR 89.6 billion for payments.
However, as I have already said, this preliminary draft budget of the Commission does not take into account Kosovo, East Timor, Turkey and the fisheries agreement with Morocco.
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The Council draft reckons with EUR 92.4 billion for commitments and EUR 87.9 billion for payments and the amendments adopted by the European Parliament Committee on Budgets give overall commitments of EUR 93.4 billion and payments of EUR 90.8 billion.
Then in addition there are the funds needed for Kosovo, East Timor, Turkey and the fisheries agreement.
I would like to add that there are a further EUR 15 million to be financed in the budget 2000 (directly, i.e. not from the development fund) as a contribution by the European Union to debt redemption initiatives for the poorest countries.
<P>
I have given these aggregate figures for four reasons.
Firstly: for all three sets of figures in question, i.e. those of the Commission in its preliminary draft, of the Council and of Parliament, the expenditure to be appropriated for the year 2000 in fact exceeds the totals for this year.
The reason for this, which must be stressed, is as follows: the necessary payments, e.g. for structural operations in particular, are increasing next year due to the commitments from previous years and the Commission fully agrees with Parliament that it is not right in these instances to appropriate lower amounts than the standing commitments require.
That would be a dubious policy.
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Secondly: in all three sets of figures some of the appropriations for commitments which may be newly entered into are, conversely, far below the corresponding amounts for this year even though, for example, the appropriations for pre-accession aid, i.e. in the case of the funds which are being allocated to the applicant countries, show a large increase.
In short (and I would like to say this in reply to the speech of the Council also) this means that budgetary discipline is not just required of the Member States, but is clearly also being exercised at European level.
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Thirdly: the aggregate figures also show, however, that ideas on budgetary appropriations, in particular those of the Council and Parliament, are still far removed from one another and, consequently, intensive debates lie before us in the coming weeks.
Fourthly: the aggregate figures are, of course, also an indication of the work which has been carried out by the committees, in particular by the rapporteurs, and, on behalf of the Commission, I would therefore like to thank Mr Virrankoski for his report on the individual plans of Parliament, the Council, the Court of Justice, the Court of Auditors, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, Mr Pittella for his report on the operating budget of the European Coal and Steel Community and particularly Mr Bourlanges for his report, which again shows him to be an excellent rapporteur and a master of highly sophisticated proposals.
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Besides budgetary appropriation levels, the report deals with important issues of budgetary economy and administration.
<P>
I would like to mention the issue of the TAO, i.e. the issue of when external offices should be brought in to help.
Mr Bourlanges, you quite rightly point out that this is not just a matter of better supervision and better contracts, although these are important issues, but also of the basic questions: "what should be handled by the public administration and what can be done and under what conditions by private enterprise?
Therefore, these questions obviously concern the entire Commission staff.
The new Commission has been able to meet the initial staffing requirements for the newly established Directorates-General through restructuring.
However, the total staffing requirement now obviously depends on the institutional reforms for which the Commission will submit a blueprint, a proposal, in February.
<P>
I hope that in the coming weeks we will be able to bring the proposals in the report into line with the Commission' s schedule for reforms.
<P>
Regarding the OLAF staff, the Commission will incorporate into its letter of amendment the proposal of the Committee on Budgetary Control and the Committee on Budgets to provide 75 new jobs next year.
<P>
A brief word on agriculture.
The Commission fully agrees with Parliament that the second pillar, the measures for rural development, presents a great opportunity, in particular for agro-ecological development.
It will therefore propose in its letter of amendment, an appropriation increase which, although lower than that of Parliament, is nevertheless considerable.
The Commission will also take account of the request to provide funds in the budget for the fisheries agreement with Morocco.
<P>
We are agreed that Budget 2000 should ensure EUR 500 million in commitment appropriations to finance the reconstruction of Kosovo.
The Council decided at the first reading to finance an across-the-board cut in the appropriations for external action.
You have made it known as a parliament that you consider this course to be untenable.
The Commission has authorised me to inform you that the Commission will propose another course which will take account of both the ideas on policy prioritisation and the ideas on budgetary discipline.
The Commission proposes financing the necessary funds firstly by making adjustments within the external action Category, secondly by using the smaller part of the flexibility reserve and thirdly by making adjustments between policy areas, which will entail a change in the Financial Perspective.
This is a course which was established in the joint agreement, the interinstitutional agreement between Parliament, the Council and the Commission, in May of this year.
<P>
European taxpayers would, I believe, not understand it if we simply requested additional funds to finance work in Kosovo without taking the difficult course of prioritisation, which means in practice reallocating funds.
<P>
On the other hand, the increasing tasks of the Union in external action will also need to be reflected in the structure of the budget.
The budget should be an expression of political tasks and priorities, which ultimately means an increase in the external action Category.
<P>
I hope that, on the basis of preliminary work carried out by all institutions and, in particular, the reports of Parliament before us, we will reach agreement on Budget 2000 through a positive, open debating process which befits the major political responsibility we have for European policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="Titley">
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="Morgan">
Mr President, I would like to thank the Budget Committee and Mr Bourlanges for their work.
I am grateful to the commitment that they have shown in the fight against fraud in the European Union and, in particular, with the extra commitment they have made - an extra EUR 9 million has been voted by the Budget Committee for OLAF.
This will allow for the creation of an extra 50 to 75 new posts in the year 2000 on top of the 30 new posts voted for in the supplementary and amending budgets.
<P>
I should remind you that OLAF needs 300 posts to carry out its duties.
This was endorsed by the report of the Committee of Independent Experts.
Let us not forget that there are raised expectations in terms of the public' s attitude towards reform of the European institutions.
It is essential that OLAF is given the appropriate resources.
I should like to remind the Commission that we will not allow OLAF' s independence to be compromised by budgetary gains - a little note there for the future.
I am disappointed that the Council Presidency has not referred to this.
Are you committed to the extra 75 posts or not?
I would be grateful for some kind of feedback on that.
You need to show the same commitment to fighting fraud as we are within the European Parliament.
<P>
Another issue for the Budgetary Control Committee is the use of technical assistance agencies.
In its budget guidelines for the year 2000, Parliament called for the phasing out of the agencies.
And for the Commission to provide it with an assessment of its staffing needs.
That has not been done.
The Budget Committee has entered expenditure on logistical support and technical assistance in a separate section, with 90% of those appropriations in reserve.
The Budgetary Control Committee would support this approach.
It is absolutely right that those appropriations should not be released until the Commission has defined those categories of tasks that need to be outsourced.
We look forward to receiving that information from the Commission.
<P>
On another matter, in 1999 there have been large under-spends in the Community initiatives, the cohesion fund and many other areas.
In some cases this is the second or third consecutive year when there has been a large transfer away from particular lines.
This demonstrates the need for Parliament to monitor budget implementation more closely throughout the year.
The subject committees must take more responsibility for monitoring the budget lines within those areas.
If we do that then we can feed that into the budgetary process and make sure that we are more on track during the course of the year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Deprez">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to join the two previous speakers in expressing my thanks and praise for the work done by the general rapporteur and the Committee on Budgets.
<P>
As regards Budget 2000, the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs was working towards four objectives.
The first of these objectives was to align the budgetary nomenclature with the priorities defined by the Treaty of Amsterdam and, in particular, the fact that henceforth the creation of an area of freedom, security and justice is one of the fundamental objectives of the Union.
This is the reason why we proposed, with the support of the Committee on Budgets in this matter, to gather all the policies and budget lines relating to the creation of this area of freedom, security and justice under a single title comprising five chapters corresponding to the main policies dedicated to the establishment of the area of freedom, security and justice.
<P>
As our second objective, we wished to rationalise and restructure the budgetary instruments in the sector of asylum and immigration policy.
When drawing up the budget for 1999, we managed to create the European Fund for Refugees.
Unfortunately, following events in Kosovo, the Council was forced to mobilise virtually all these resources in order to deal with the emergency situation in Kosovo and in the Member States.
<P>
This is the reason why the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs has proposed that, henceforth, in the area of asylum and immigration policy, there should be two budgetary instruments: firstly, a European Refugee Fund intended to finance by structural means the necessary measures relating to the reception, integration and voluntary repatriation of refugees in the event of a normal flow of refugees, and secondly, a second budget line with the objective of making it possible to take emergency measures in the event of a mass influx of refugees.
Indeed, with this, we anticipated the request of the European Council at Tampere, as the Council considered it appropriate to envisage creating a financial reserve, in some form or another, intended to offer temporary protection in the event of a mass influx of refugees.
Mr President, this instrument is something we have already proposed.
<P>
Our third objective was to strengthen resources in the area of the fight against crime, and our fourth objective was a budget line making it possible to undertake measures within the framework of the Commission Action Plan 2000-2004 for combating drugs trafficking.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Katiforis">
Mr President, the first reading of the budget by Parliament, which we have been following today will, as always, have a significant impact on the policy of the European Union, of which Economic and Monetary Union forms a part.
The budget contains internal policy lines concerning the Prince programme.
This programme covers the public information campaign with regard to the euro which was, is and should be a priority for the European Union.
<P>
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) believes that this endeavour should continue to be a vital policy priority and that a great deal of work is still required before the banknotes and coins can go into circulation throughout the European Union.
That is why we support and welcome wholeheartedly the proposals tabled by the Committee on Budgets for an increase in the Prince budget.
ECON also believes that funding measures in the field of taxation should be an absolute priority as it is still an area which displays some irregularities in the internal market, and as a consequence, budget line B5-3001 for the completion and development of the internal market should be kept at the level proposed by the Commission in its draft budget.
ECON also endorses the amounts recommended in the draft budget as regards the Fiscalis programme in line B5-305.
This ensures stricter coordination of the current taxation system.
The committee also believes that the provision of quality statistical information should be a priority for the Union, particularly now that Economic and Monetary Union has been introduced in the euro area and we have prospects for a further enlargement of the Union.
Therefore, line B5-600 on statistical information should continue to be funded.
<P>
Finally, speaking as a member of the Greek delegation, I would like to express my regret at the European institutions for not yet coming up with an appropriate legal basis to enable us to provide assistance to a particular Member State recently struck by natural disasters.
There is no such legal basis in the budget and I believe this to be a serious oversight. As in the case of Greece, and in other cases, this shows a lack of sensitivity towards our fellow human beings who are victims of such accidents and to whom we should show at least some generosity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rothley">
Mr President, with all due respect to the rapporteurs, the Committee on Budgets will not take seriously the fact that the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market is applauding it for its work!
The Committee on Budgets has let down the European Court of Justice, as has the Council!
I know that in the political process law is frequently considered irritating.
However, to disregard in such a way the work of the European Court of Justice on European integration and legal protection of the individual is verging on scandalous!
<P>
The question arises as to what role a specialised committee should continue to play when the Committee on Budgets, in a generous gesture, simply sweeps all the carefully considered, moderate proposals from the table?
So what role should specialised committees continue to play?
I fear that legal protection in this European Union will continue to be limited.
It is all too clear who is responsible for this.
We should not expose ourselves to the danger of limiting legal protection in the European Union, not least when we constantly talk of wanting to create an area of freedom, security and justice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="McNally">
Mr President, I took over the job of committee draftsman following the heart attack of Mr Desama who was originally to have done the work for the committee.
We hope he will soon be back with us.
<P>
My thanks and congratulations to Mr Bourlanges for his painstaking work on behalf of the Members of Parliament.
The Committee on Industry covers 120 budget lines - so you can see our task is fairly complex!
We cover the energy programmes, those relating to industry, including small and medium firms, the research programmes under the framework programmes which of course amount to more or less 60% of the internal policy expenditure of the European Union, and the trade and technical assistance lines.
<P>
As far as the energy lines are concerned, we were sorry that the Committee on Budgets did not follow our line in increasing the expenditure for Altener and Save. Those are renewable energy and energy efficiency programmes currently in conciliation.
If we get, as expected, an increase as a result of conciliation more money will, of course, be asked for next year.
<P>
As far as research is concerned, and after very many long discussions with Mr Bourlanges, I am interested to know what he intends to do.
We, in the Industry Committee, do not want the research programmes broken down into dozens and dozens of lines, one for each key action.
But we do want to monitor each key action.
I think we have reached an agreement with the Commission that information will be provided to us at intervals and in a form that allows us to monitor that spending in the way we want to.
<P>
I am also sorry that the Committee on Budgets did not approve moving the training of the nuclear inspectorate in the former Soviet Union from the external policy to the energy line where that training could be done far more efficiently.
We have made this argument very clearly and we will make it again.
<P>
As far as monitoring is concerned, we intend in our committee to take one member responsible for monitoring each of the 120 lines.
They will be expected to follow the spending, to look at the way the projects are organised, to visit the projects and to be in a position to let us know how things are going.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Hughes">
Mr President, I would like to thank my colleagues on the Budget Committee and the Budget rapporteur in particular for the good cooperation we have had with them in this first reading.
That is code for saying that the employment committee got pretty much what it was looking for in this first reading and I am grateful for that.
<P>
Others have referred to the Structural Funds.
We are broadly happy with the fact that the Budget Committee agreed with our recommendations, so I would like to look instead at a number of subcategories of lines.
One that is important to the Employment Committee is that of Social Dialogue.
There we have ended up with EUR 4.5 million more than the European Commission were looking for initially.
That I think is more in line with the tasks that we are facing in that important area and it includes appropriations to involve representatives from accession countries in Central and Eastern Europe which we think is very important.
We have less than we wanted on B3-4003.
That is a cause of disappointment because it is an important area with the expected implementation of the European company statute and, we hope, progress on the general framework for information and consultation of expenditure.
We are happy that what we were looking for in relation to NGOs has been agreed in the first reading.
This, we think, is a very important area - the idea of developing civil dialogue.
I am particularly pleased that funding will continue for the NGO platform which I think is an important part of developing civil dialogue.
<P>
Employment, of course, is one of the most important issues from the point of view of the Employment Committee.
And here, with budget lines B5-502 and B5-503, we have combined some EUR 24 million more than the Commission' s original proposals.
We think that is an excellent outcome.
We are looking to implementing the employment chapter from Amsterdam and making progress in relation to the macroeconomic dialogue agreed at Cologne.
We are therefore grateful that we have the funding to move those important issues forward.
Two slight problems in conclusion, President.
One is that we still have no enduring legal base for NGOs.
I hope the Commission and the Council will make progress on that, otherwise the civil dialogue will end at the end of next year.
That would be catastrophic.
<P>
The other difficulty relates to technical assistance and the funds that have been transferred into the reserve.
I hope that the Commissioner for Social Affairs will act quickly to provide the information necessary to release 50% at second reading.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Bowe">
Mr President, firstly I congratulate the rapporteur of the Committee on Budgets on the work he has done this year.
I also thank Mr Wynn for the cheerful way in which he conducts the Budget Committee, a new experience for me.
The rapporteur has done very well given the constraints he has been under this year.
Whilst the budget lines under the responsibility of the Committee of the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy are not great in monetary terms, they play a vital role in facilitating the development of the Union' s policies, and particularly in bringing closer to the Union and realising the needs and desires of the ordinary citizens.
<P>
The Budgets Committee rapporteur has acknowledged a number of points we have made and has enabled us to maintain spending in most areas and develop it modestly in one or two.
I cannot thank the Council in the same way when I examine their PDB.
They have to give greater priority to the interests and needs of citizens.
<P>
Utilising the amounts determined last year through the conciliation on the Whitehead report, the consumer affairs budget lines will continue to build confidence amongst the public, reassuring them that we are not just a Europe open for business but are also campaigning for citizens' rights as consumers.
The additional monies granted for the additional posts in the Veterinary Health Office in Dublin will reassure our citizens that we are taking steps to protect the quality and safety of the food on their plates.
The new health responsibilities put into the Amsterdam Treaty can be developed using the additional monies granted on the health budget line.
I particularly welcome the possibility of developing new strategies for dealing with mental health problems and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer' s and CJD.
Equally, as we come to the end of the fifth action plan on the environment, the monies available to begin development of the sixth action plan are most welcome.
<P>
If I have a disappointment, it concerns the rapporteur' s approach to the various agencies of the Union, set up by the Commission.
I was the only draftsman, along with Mr Bourlanges, to meet the representatives of the agencies and I heard good arguments for increasing monies available to those agencies for the work they are doing with the applicant states of Eastern and Central Europe and for bringing on to the market orphan drugs that are so vital for a relatively small number of people with diseases difficult to treat.
I feel that perhaps more consideration could have been given to the arguments they made.
I am very disappointed the rapporteur of the Budgets Committee did not accept the validity of the arguments as I have done.
I can only hope that in the following years we can address the problems they have identified.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Görlach">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, relations between the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the Committee on Budgets were always tense during preliminary work on the budget.
That is clear and, given that the greater part of the budget falls within the agricultural sector, it was only to be expected.
Which is why it is particularly pleasing that, on this occasion, we can state that cooperation has been a whole lot better than in the past.
This is in no small measure owing to the committee chairpersons and, above all, the rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges, but also, it should be added, to senior members of all groups.
<P>
Nevertheless, not all the wishes of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development would manage a majority today; we know that.
All the same, we place particular importance on not accepting the Council proposals for across-the-board cuts and, above all, on providing for a moderate increase in veterinary and plant health expenditure and in sales promotion.
Veterinary and plant health expenditure is not just agricultural expenditure, but also expenditure in terms of sensible, forward-looking consumer protection.
<P>
The new second pillar in the matter of rural development is, of course, a special concern of the Committee.
Here we simply cannot understand the reservation of the Council.
We are pleased that, in its letter of amendment, the Commission opposes Parliament' s position.
The multifunctional tasks of agriculture relating to food, maintaining the countryside, nature conservation and tourism as a job sector of the future which will expand rather than diminish are a major concern for the whole Parliament.
<P>
The Council really must accept that, in future, changes will be made to agricultural sector expenditure across the individual blocks of which it is made up.
But that must not lead to us pursuing the cheap option and imagining that we can simply free up money for other policy areas by making across-the-board cuts in the agricultural sector, which not only covers expenditure on farmers but also that on all rural matters.
<P>
It should be noted that recent years have seen a convergence of Parliament and the Commission in this sector.
The previous lack of vision on the part of the Council must give way to a more realistic approach, not least with a view to what the future holds for us in terms of the powers of Parliament, also where the budget is concerned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langenhagen">
draftsman of the opinion of the Committee asked for an opinion, the Committee on Fisheries.
(DE) Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Fisheries has studied in detail the figures in the budget relating to fisheries.
The debate was tense and lively.
There were many differences of opinion, firstly on FIFG, secondly on support for the common European fisheries policy by the Council and the Member States, above all in relation to international fisheries agreements such as the most recent one with Morocco, and thirdly on relations between the EU and other international organisations.
<P>
We appeal for the European Parliament at least to try to maintain the level of appropriations allocated to the common fisheries policy in recent financial years.
On my initiative, we in the Committee have drafted three amendments which have all recently been adopted either directly or indirectly by the Committee on Budgets.
In particular, the Committee on Fisheries is concerned about line B2-901 concerning supervision and monitoring measures by the Member States, line B2-903 concerning support for the common European fisheries policy and line B7-8000 concerning international fisheries agreements.
<P>
The budgetary policy variously affects the three following core issues.
Firstly: structural operations.
At the Berlin Summit, EUR 161 million were earmarked for regions outside Objective 1 areas.
That is a truly considerable amount, yet the commitment and payment appropriations increased in 1998 and 1999 and might, in all probability, increase further.
<P>
Secondly: the draft budget does not allocate sufficient money for the implementation of an effective supervision and monitoring policy.
In 1999 alone, the Member States applied for more money than was available in the EU budgets.
This explains why the Committee on Fisheries applied for an additional sum of EUR 2 million.
At the same time, we are understandably reassured by the fact that there is sustainable management of resources, systematic recording of basic data and an intensification of dialogue with the industry.
Accordingly, the Committee on Fisheries then made this application a high budgetary priority.
<P>
The third matter is obviously Morocco.
We welcome the negotiating mandate which the Council has finally awarded.
Finally, I would like to point out that the common fisheries policy - but I do not really need to tell you that - requires major support by the Community.
I do not just mean financial support.
We are facing major challenges. We must all make it perfectly clear that that the EU, which constitutes a superpower in the fisheries sector, is prepared to stand up for an industry which concerns numerous regions, States and citizens of the Union.
The number and quality of jobs is of significant added value to the EU and, as we all know, also plays a crucial role in enlargement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Watts">
Mr President, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy and Transport and Tourism I would like to endorse warmly the approach adopted by the general rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges.
In particular I would like to thank him for the attention he has paid to liaising with my committee over recent months and our predecessors in the past year.
<P>
My committee has advanced five budget priorities: Objective 1, 2, Interreg, transport safety and sustainable mobility.
I will deal with the regional policy priorities first.
I agree with the general rapporteur' s comment that the cuts to Structural Fund appropriations are completely unacceptable.
So what are the cuts proposed by the Council?
The Council is proposing that the payment appropriations are cut by EUR 433 million for Objective 1, EUR 95 million for Objective 2 and EUR 33 million for Interreg.
This Parliament enthusiastically endorsed the Agenda 2000 Structural Fund programme.
We expect the new Structural Fund programmes to be launched in the coming year with a flying start.
This simply will not be possible if these cuts proceed.
The Council is advocating a reduction in advance payments to new programmes to just 3.5%.
In contrast, this Parliament has previously considered that advance payments at the time of first commitment should be in excess of 10% of total funds.
<P>
In our view, if these cuts proceed regional regeneration will be put at risk.
Existing programmes will stall before they are transformed into new programmes.
Momentum will be lost.
Inevitably the poorest communities in the poorest regions will suffer the most.
The bottom line is that new jobs will not be created and existing jobs will be put at risk.
<P>
My committee has proposed 100% restoration of these three budget lines to the level of the provisional draft budget.
This EUR 561 million increase in Structural Fund appropriations will allow us to honour properly historic commitments and ensure the new Agenda 2000 programmes hit the ground running.
We also endorse, incidentally, the proposed 20% entry into reserve pending the successful outcome of our discussions over the guidelines.
<P>
I will now turn briefly if I may to transport and just say to members that I hope they are able to support the Committee on Budgets' moves to restore the cuts to the transport safety line and the cuts to the line on sustainable mobility.
<P>
I would like to conclude by thanking all my colleagues on the committee for the support they have given me through this budget process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="Perry">
Mr President, this is the third occasion I have been asked to be draftsman for the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport.
It is not an easy job, there is never enough money, but it is one I would rather do than be the general budget rapporteur.
I would like to add my thanks to those already expressed to Mr Bourlanges for the support he has shown to the Culture Committee.
<P>
Culture has not come out of the budget process as well as it wished, but we are doing rather better than the Council of Ministers' proposal and have figures close to the 1999 level.
<P>
Our main education programme, Socrates, and the programmes of Youth and Culture have been mauled by the Council of Ministers.
I would say that the EUR 238 million proposed for Socrates is simply not enough to do a sensible job.
Last week I met the Committee of British University Vice-Chancellors.
They told me that no-one - student or university - gets involved in Socrates because of the money.
They do it because they believe in Europe and they want to make the single market work.
But we have to ask ourselves, are the figures now so low as to make the objectives unrealistic?
Let us hope that the conciliation procedure taking place tomorrow will recognise the need to give a higher priority to Europe' s students and increase the funding.
<P>
The total for our share of the budget is approximately EUR 600 million, a lot of money until you divide it by 370 million people - less than 1% of our budget, not a bottomless pit.
In the year 2000, the EU will spend less than EUR 2 per citizen on education, encouraging young people to participate in exchange programmes or to acquire knowledge of different languages and cultures, on informing its citizens about the future developments of the Union while supporting our audio-visual industry.
Of this scant EUR 2 support for Europe' s cultural heritage will be less than 20 cents.
The call for the millennium must be EUR 1 per head on Europe' s culture.
<P>
What we are currently engaged in is tokenism and symbolic expenditure only.
Even there we manage to get it wrong.
I do not criticise individual staff, but I receive too many complaints from prestigious organisations like the European Youth Orchestra, the European Youth Parliament, the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation - renowned organisations doing a wonderful job for Europe and our young people.
Not one of those organisations covered by budget lines 3021 or B3-2005 has received a single euro yet in 1999 for their budgets.
Can we make the millennium the year when our systems work.
Mr Prodi, Mrs Reding and Mrs Schreyer, we are relying on you to do it better this coming year.
<P>
I will finish by telling you a story.
I live in a small village in Hampshire with a population of 2 500 people.
My wife is the chairman of the parish council.
I asked her what she spends on cultural, sports and social activities for the village.
They spend EUR 50 000, or EUR 20 per head.
So if anybody comes to me for European support, I tell them they are much more likely to get realistic support from their village council than they are from the EU.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Carlotti">
Mr President, the budget debate is always a key moment to express one' s political will.
For the European Union, it represents the opportunity to reassert its firm moral duty to extend a helping hand to the developing world; the opportunity to show how much we wish to combat poverty, injustice, discrimination of all kinds, the lack of democracy, violation of human rights and attacks on freedom.
In short, it is the opportunity to show our determination to pursue our development policy, even if we must review it here and there in order to make it more efficient and more transparent.
<P>
From this point of view, the draft budget for the year 2000 gives rise to serious concern.
In saying that, I am of course referring to Category 4, which Mr Bourlanges has just discussed at length.
In addition to the fact that first the Commission and then the Council have proposed very significant reductions in all the budget lines concerned, we now have to respond to a great number of tragic situations throughout the world.
We have to respond to the tragic situation of the Kosovar people and commit considerable resources to the reconstruction of the country.
But we must do this by freeing up new appropriations and not by amputating all the Category 4 lines by approximately 10%.
We cannot make the very poorest people pay for the operations of the European Union.
We cannot set the poor of one country against the poor of another country or distinguish between good victims and bad victims, and I am very sorry that the Council to some extent presented the problem in these terms, by setting different cases of poverty against each other.
We need sufficient appropriations to finance reconstruction in Kosovo, of course, but also for East Timor.
And, believe me, ECHO appropriations will not be enough to fund everything, no more than transferring appropriations from one line to the next according to current priorities.
We also have to finance the fisheries agreement with Morocco, which is a priority for the European Parliament.
<P>
We must therefore invite the Council to review the Financial Perspective for our external policies in Category 4.
I believe that Parliament is fairly unanimous on this point.
I must also thank, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, both the general rapporteur for the budget, Mr Bourlanges, and the Committee on Budgets, as well as its chairman, Mr Wynn, for the stance they have taken on this matter.
Nonetheless, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, we have decided to submit three amendments.
The first involves the question of gender.
Throughout Africa, women are taking action; they are the driving force, the hope of Africa for the next millennium, and we must support this movement.
The second amendment concerns the lines of health, reproduction, and the fight against AIDS, which we propose to merge.
This merging must not, however, be grounds for a reduction in appropriations.
Twenty-five million people in Africa are going to die of AIDS, twenty-five million potential patients, nine tenths of whom, due to lack of scanning and lack of sex education, are unaware of the danger lurking in their body.
AIDS will be the next tragedy in Africa.
<P>
The third amendment which we wish to submit concerns line B7-6000 on the Community contribution to the operations of NGOs.
The draft budget envisages a drastic reduction in the appropriations allocated to this line.
Mr Bourlanges proposed instead to increase them, and I thank him for this.
What we propose is to amend the wording.
This is an amendment which does not have financial implications but which is going to enable the Liaison Committee ...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Klaß">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner Schreyer, ladies and gentlemen, according to an ancient Chinese proverb 'women are half of Heaven' and it is only right that in the European Union women should also be involved in the budget in the same proportion.
Perhaps that is why the Committee on Women 's Rights and Equal Opportunities is the last in the series of Committees to be heard this morning.
<P>
We in the Committee on Women 's Rights and Equal Opportunities have few priorities: firstly, actions specific to women and, secondly, gender mainstreaming in all Community policies.
The Fourth Action Programme for Equal Opportunities expires at the end of the year 2000 and I would like to remind Commissioner Diamantopoulou of the promise which she made to the Committee to submit as soon as possible a proposal for continuing this programme so that the Fifth Action Programme can follow on seamlessly.
<P>
DAPHNE, the programme for combating violence against children, youths and women, must pass through the second reading as quickly as possible in order to retain here also continuity with the promotion period which is expiring.
The Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities is asking here for a broad interpretation of the term "health" which covers not just physical but also mental and social well-being.
The Community initiative NOW is expiring and therefore funds must be made available in the new Community initiative EQUAL specifically for promoting women.
The labour market, education and training are key areas for the active promotion of women and accompanying measures, e.g. support for dependants, play a major role for women in particular and help to make access to the labour market easier.
<P>
Unfortunately it is still the case that in the European Union, we need special promotional opportunities for women also.
The same also applies to public relations work and the information society where we should direct our attention to women in the applicant countries in particular.
The funds for the European Women' s Lobby, which also represents the interests of women in Europe, must also be made available in Budget 2000.
Europe is facing up to its responsibility in development policy and therefore the funds here must not be cut under any circumstances.
It makes sense to group together the budget lines B7-631 and B7-6211 into a single line.
But this must then be allocated the corresponding monies.
<P>
Family planning and health care for mothers and children are among the most important principles of population policy.
Here, women are a key factor which we must use to lead developing countries out of poverty.
The involvement of women in social, economic and political life must be expanded.
By purposefully promoting women within population and development policy, we can help to produce a stable social background, to modify existing structures and to develop new structures.
The Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities is proposing only a few amendments and I would invite you to support them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Böge">
Mr President, firstly, on behalf of my group I would like in particular to warmly thank the two general rapporteurs for the correct points of focus and the correct strategy which they have developed.
<P>
If in a public debate concerning budgetary reorganisation and savings measures we advocate a limited revision of the Financial Perspective, we are doing this as a Parliament with a clear conscience because in the past, we have always maintained that Parliament was able to responsibly set the necessary European political priorities whilst striving for greater efficiency and transparency in the budgetary procedure.
<P>
Of course, it is not a matter of financing new political needs simply by increasing funds.
But, on the other hand, current development makes it clear that parts of the Berlin Agreement were not quite so prudent and forward-looking and that there is a need here for further improvement.
<P>
I would like to address the following comments to the Council and the Council Presidency: you do not need to remind us that we have a responsibility to the European taxpayer and that we too have a responsibility to exercise budgetary discipline.
I would much prefer it if in the future the Council did its share of the homework rather better.
It really was scandalous that the Council recommended to Parliament granting discharge of the budgets for 1996 and 1997 to the Commission.
Since a major part of the Community budget is handled by the Member States, I would recommend that, in the interests of good housekeeping, the Council pay attention in this matter to efficiency, transparency and tidy implementation so that the Commission is not forced in future to repeatedly resort to the funds of the charging procedure.
If this part of the job is done, then the Council can feel free to make new proposals to Parliament on how we should conduct ourselves in matters of budgetary procedure.
<P>
I am very grateful to Commissioner Schreyer that she opposed the figures.
What was the preliminary draft?
What proposals did the Council lay on the table?
How is this to be assessed in connection with the ceilings on financial expenditure on which we jointly agreed?
We certainly do not want to use up the margins which, in terms of the 1.27% of the gross national product of the Member States, now comprise EUR 9-10 billion.
But I would also like to say very clearly that there are international commitments which we have undertaken towards developing countries, towards third countries, which cannot simply be cut across-the-board by 10%!
That is visionless and politically indefensible.
That is nothing but bookkeeping!
The Council really should distance itself from this!
<P>
In this regard, I would also like to make clear that it is not just a matter of setting in motion the necessary priorities for external action, such as the reconstruction of Kosovo, but, so that it is reasonably organised and initiated, the Council must also meet Parliament halfway in the matter of how we should organise this aid and how the future reconstruction agency for Kosovo should really operate?
I believe that here also the Council must compromise with Parliament.
<P>
The rapporteur correctly pinpointed the problems of the Technical Assistance Offices.
We are prepared to give the Commission the necessary funds for administrative expenditure and the management of all these projects if in return Parliament is involved in the deliberations on reform.
I believe that we can have good dialogue here.
<P>
I would also like to take up what my Mr Perry said: multiannual programmes such as SOCRATES and LIFE are indeed programmes which the citizens outside expect from us and here also we should provide the quality and the necessary funds as a contribution to European development, the European integration process.
<P>
The Commission has taken a first step towards Parliament in the form of the comments of Mrs Schreyer that we should strive for reallocation, the use of a smaller portion of the flexibility reserve and possibly an amendment to the Financial Perspective.
This is a first step but, where cuts are concerned, there is an onus on the Commission and the Council to provide evidence line-by-line, whether it is genuinely the case that funds are not being drained away, or whether the intention is to block the politically desired priorities of Parliament.
The onus is on you.
Then we can have various debates.
I believe that we still have a lot to do before December, before the second reading.
Parliament is agreed: we need a limited revision of the Financial Perspective so that, unlike this year, we do not need to again crib our way through x number of different supplementary and amending budgets!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Walter">
Mr President, Commissioner, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, firstly, Mr Böge, a minor correction: I would like to thank the three rapporteurs, not two.
Mr Pittella also submitted an extremely important report to us; I would therefore like to thank the three rapporteurs for the genuinely constructive cooperation which has accompanied the budgetary procedure this year.
I must also thank all those who have approached us from the individual committees with their requests and who, in the majority of cases, in the vast majority of cases, have shown a great deal of understanding for the fact that in a limited framework much is desirable but not everything is possible.
<P>
We are dealing here with monies which are of course limited, and indeed limited with our approval, but which must reflect the tasks which we have carried out at European level.
The European Union budget for the year 2000 is a special budget, not just because it was initiated by the old Parliament, but because there was also a binding interinstitutional agreement which we adopted at the same time and which has had to be continued after the re-election.
It is this interinstitutional agreement which restricts us, but which has also opened up additional opportunities for us; I shall come back to this.
<P>
Thirdly, Budget 2000 is noteworthy because this year we are entering the period of the next Financial Perspective, which runs to 2006, and today we must put down important markers for the coming years.
Fourthly, following the Treaty of Amsterdam, the European Union is in a situation of facing many new challenges, for example in matters of internal policies, the area of freedom, security and justice, the employment chapter or increased opportunities in health protection and even consumer protection.
<P>
However, additional tasks also require that we make available the necessary funds, since otherwise it is nothing more than lip service and budgets should not be mere lip service.
We must, therefore, clearly define our priorities and make it very clear what they are.
We have done this in the past and will do it in the future.
Turning to the President-in-Office of the Council, I must say: obviously for us this is about people, people in the form of the taxpayer who must raise what we spend here, but also the people to whom the money must be made available, for whom we are deciding policies.
We are not making policies as a game between the Commission, the Council and Parliament for our own benefit, but in order to create the best possible conditions for the development of the European Union and for the people with whom we are dealing.
<P>
In the past we have placed great importance on the citizens being able to verify that we ensure careful handling of our taxes.
In terms of appropriations which concern commitment appropriations, Budget 2000 is lower than the budget 1999.
Just go to the finance ministers in your Member States and tell them that they must submit a budget plan which is lower than the plan for the previous year.
I would like to see that.
That is the first thing we must get on top of.
Here we are acting accordingly and anyone should be aware of this if they come to us and say that we only want increases.
That is not the case.
We handle the money very, very carefully.
<P>
However, because we are working with and on behalf of people, one of our particular tasks is Category 4, external action.
Here the Council has actually come up and said: we want to finance an important future task and an important current task which must be spread over the coming years, i.e. aid for the people of Kosovo. To finance that we are carrying out a 10% cut in all lines.
<P>
Mr Böge said that this is visionless and this is a neat term.
Are you aware, for example, that in these lines we must then cut by 10% financial aid for Israel and the Palestinian people, i.e. the aid for establishing peace in the region?
Are you aware that we must cut by 10% population programmes and funds for combating the scourge of AIDS in developing countries?
Are you aware that tackling anti-personnel mines, which is also in our budget lines, will have to be cut by 10%, or that we must cut by 10% measures by non-governmental organisations in developing countries, e.g. for street children in Guatemala or in other regions of the world because we do not want to have any vision, because we do not want to take a close look at where these funds ought to come from?
This cannot be the policy which we want to pursue.
An across-the-board cut with the lawnmower is indefensible and, therefore, we must and will fight it and we will cite Category 4 as part of the interinstitutional agreement.
Although it is difficult, we will observe the other parts of the interinstitutional agreement.
<P>
We also have problems with other categories, e.g. Category 3, which contains the traditional focal points of our policy: environmental policy, youth training programmes, research and trans-European networks with their possibilities for creating jobs and improving our competitiveness in global dealings.
Here also things are very tight because we are outlining ever more tasks but are not getting the necessary funds.
We are shifting tasks from national to European level, expressis verbis, but then we are not getting the appropriate financial resources.
This cannot be a sound policy.
We need to discuss this.
All the same, within this Category we will not endeavour to increase the funds.
<P>
Within the interinstitutional agreement, we have established that, in future, agricultural policy too can be definitively co-decided by us.
In future, we cannot just promote the production of individual products, but the development of rural areas.
This is an extremely important matter for us, and finally, allow me to say something on staffing policy.
In this too we have acted extremely responsibly, as in previous years.
Except in two central areas, we have not provided for additional jobs.
OLAF must be strengthened, whilst the second area concerns veterinary protection and food controls, where we have made a very modest increase of five staff.
This much we owe to the people, who demand that we ensure that they have safe food to eat.
These, in brief, are the focal points.
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Mulder">
Mr President, I too would like to begin by thanking the three rapporteurs for leaving no stone unturned in their work.
I would particularly like to thank Mr Bourlanges.
I have often noticed that it takes him less than 15 minutes for him to win various people over with his eloquence.
We adopted the Financial Perspective in May this year and it is a shame that we did not manage an absolute majority.
We managed an ordinary majority.
But at least we managed some kind of majority and so I think we should respect the Perspective.
<P>
My group believes that we should in fact do this as often as we possibly can.
There is one category in which this it is difficult to do so and I intend to take this up again at a later stage.
It is Category 4.
In broad terms, I would like to lend firm support to the position adopted by the rapporteur where his policy on TAOs, the Technical Assistance Offices, is concerned.
If we look at the events of the past year we have no choice but to make this issue as transparent as possible.
We must know what concerns the public sector and what concerns the private sector.
<P>
Let us just go through the various categories.
Firstly, Category 1: agriculture.
For around three years now we have had a new procedure for this: the ad hoc procedure.
We are due to receive a report from the Commission at the end of this week containing the most recent estimates of how much agriculture will cost in the year 2000.
I have no idea how the Council is able to determine where cutbacks can be made as early as July.
A percentage cut in agricultural expenditure in all the lines is out of the question.
It simply cannot be done.
We must wait to see what the estimates are and after next week we will be in a position to talk about what exactly it is that agriculture needs.
I feel that the course of action taken by the Council is very much against the spirit of the agreement.
<P>
As far as the innovations in agricultural expenditure are concerned, Category 1B, we firmly endorse those amendments that say that we must do something about the nitrate problem in Europe.
We also feel that something must be done in terms of a quality-control policy for European agricultural products.
Exactly one year ago a report on this was unanimously adopted in this Parliament and it happens to be the case that I was the author of it.
<P>
As far as Category 2 is concerned, we believe that the payment appropriations must reflect actual needs and I think that we need to have another exchange of ideas on the subject.
<P>
Category 4 is something my group has discussed intensively and indeed it continues to do so.
I believe that I can put the rapporteur' s mind at rest.
A majority of people supports his position.
The majority of people believe that it will not do to make cuts in funds for other countries that need help.
We must pay this money.
The same group of people feels that Kosovo is part of Europe and ought to be given priority.
Turkey must be helped and East Timor must be helped.
There is also another group of people, probably a minority - and the rapporteur will not be surprised to hear that I am one of them - that believes that the figures need to be scrutinised once again.
Can Kosovo really absorb the 500 million when its gross national product is between EUR 800 million and EUR 1 billion?
I would be pleased to have another look at exactly how this has been calculated some time.
I also feel that as much attention as possible must be given in the coming months to seeing if we can still solve the problem.
<P>
I would now like to say something about expenditure on administration.
We consider it to be essential that the rapporteur and the rapporteur for the year 2001 get down some time to answering the question as to what exactly comes under part A of the budget and what comes under part B. Turning now to Category A-30 in particular: when can an aid organisation call upon EEC funding?
The criteria for this are far too opaque to our mind.
What does have a bearing on expenditure on administration?
We hear this day in day out and many of us are uncomfortable with it.
The proportion of elderly people within society continues to increase.
The pension problem in Europe must be given serious consideration at some stage.
I too believe that this will be a fine task for the Commission to attend to.
<P>
The phase we are about to enter between first and second reading will be particularly interesting this time round.
I feel we must carefully examine all the headings once again for whichever way you look at it, a rigorous budget is what we need at this moment in time and that is what we are all going to have to strive for.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Buitenweg">
Three rapporteurs and many draftsmen of opinions. Mr President, on behalf of the Green Group I would like to say how obliged I am to them for their endeavours, which have resulted in the piles of reports that I have here before me.
Unfortunately I am only in a position to single out a few points and I intend to start with expenditure in the field of external action, since it is this area that is at the heart of this discussion on the budget.
<P>
I share the rapporteur' s disapproval of the European Commission' s proposal to organise development cooperation under geographical headings from now on and to reduce thematic budget headings.
It is by using the horizontal approach that we are in fact able to boost precisely those activities relating to subjects which we make our political priority: human rights, the environment and emancipation for example.
Four years after reproductive rights were fought for at the United Nations conference in Beijing, the European budget heading on this is being torpedoed.
I am very pleased that the rapporteur still put this right in his report.
What is a pity is that this subject is going to be added to the budget heading on AIDS.
Condoms seem to me to be a common denominator but there are also other aspects to the right of women to self-determination over their bodies.
<P>
I fully support what the rapporteur has to say on financing the reconstruction of Kosovo.
Minister Siimes reminded us of our obligations to the taxpayer and that the money must be spent wisely.
I think that is precisely our point.
The Kosovo pot is being filled at present by means of an across-the-board cut of 10% in expenditure on external action.
This drip-feed method is, in every respect, a short-sighted approach of the kind used in accountancy and does not testify to a serious weighing up of priorities.
The question that needs to be asked most is whether or not this amendment to an EU external policy area will also have its advantages in the long term.
Mr Walter has already mentioned a number of examples.
There will be less money for the peace process in the Middle East; less money for projects aimed at reintegrating demobilised soldiers into society.
The lesson Kosovo has to teach us is not being taken to heart.
There is less money being invested in conflict prevention.
My group therefore believes that the reconstruction of Kosovo should be financed by raising the ceiling on Category 4.
<P>
The financial assistance for East Timor and Turkey will, however, be more limited in scope.
I agree with Mr Mulder that there is a case here for looking at the possibility as to whether the money can be found in the existing budget.
This will certainly mean setting priorities, and that being the case, using the European budget to subsidise large enterprises' exports will not be one of my first priorities.
It may also be possible to create some room for manoeuvre - and that is perhaps something for discussion with the Council - by taking the EUR 89 million destined for humanitarian activities in Kosovo out of the humanitarian aid pot and carry it over to the total financial package for the region.
These differences must not, however, be allowed to conceal - and I said earlier that I share the rapporteur' s opinion - the fact that more money must be made available for external policy because it is unacceptable to allow Kosovo to suffer on account of the developing countries.
<P>
Another major point of discussion in the Committee on Budgets was the subsidising of non-governmental organisations.
Budget heading 3021 - Mr Perry has already made reference to this too - contains a list of organisations awarded a precise amount.
I do not intend to call the work of these organisations into question here, but I do feel that it is appalling that Parliament is going to have to be drafted in where the granting of individual subsidies is concerned.
It is understandable though, from the point of view of the organisations concerned, for the Commission is failing badly in its tasks if organisations have to wait a year and a half for subsidies to be awarded or if criteria are changed in the meantime.
The amount of red tape involved has to be seen to be believed.
That is precisely what puts a brake on initiatives from EU citizens. The reform of the Commission is therefore also going to have to play its part in improving service provision by ensuring that money is spent efficiently, in a transparent manner, and also in accordance with the political choices of the budgetary authorities.
That is not to say that the choices made by the budgetary authority itself are always rational.
The cultivation and export of tobacco is being subsidised to the value of almost EUR 1 billion for example.
In addition, we spend several millions a year on informing people about the negative consequences of smoking tobacco.
How can we still justify this?
Accordingly, my group proposes that we should reduce this tobacco subsidy by 10%.
<P>
My final point, Mr President, relates to the Members' voluntary pension scheme.
This became the talk of the town because the affiliated Members were receiving extra pensions from European resources through this arrangement.
This will all be gone into at length during the negotiations on the Statute and I will not attempt to prejudge any decision on this at this early stage.
What I do want us to achieve in the course of these negotiations is to see the pension fund become independent of Parliament, both in terms of its administrative and political structure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wurtz">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, any budget is the expression of political choices par excellence.
From this point of view, I think there is a singular contradiction between piling on the tasks assigned to the European Union, while subtracting the resources necessary to fulfil these tasks.
The iron logic of the budgetary Stability Pact does not go at all well with the ambition for a Europe of greater social justice and greater solidarity.
<P>
Let me sum up as follows for the benefit of the uninitiated, by which I mean our fellow citizens, in order to make explicit the main themes of the draft budget submitted to us by the Council of Ministers.
Agricultural expenditure: a systematic 10% cut of all the credit lines in relation to the Commission' s preliminary draft budget, without even examining the specific requirements, case by case.
Structural Funds: appreciable reduction in the regional aid appropriations.
Internal policies, that is, excluding research and networks, all policies supporting employment, youth, training, the environment, culture: a reduction of nearly 18% in relation to our current budget.
External policies, especially in the area of cooperation with the countries of the South: the chop.
Examples have been given already, but let me add: food aid down by 9% in relation to the present, cooperation with Africa down by 12% and aid to NGOs down by 35%.
<P>
This choice is completely unacceptable in the opinion of my group.
The reason put forward to attempt to justify these swinging cuts is the unexpected appearance of new priorities, which are incidentally perfectly legitimate, such as aid for the reconstruction of Kosovo, our contribution to the construction of East Timor now that it has been liberated, our solidarity with the earthquake victims in Turkey and financing of a fisheries agreement with Morocco.
<P>
This argument is inadmissible, in my opinion.
It is not acceptable to rob Peter to pay Paul.
While my group is by no means arguing in favour of recklessly increasing Union expenditures, we still think it necessary, if the need arises, as is clearly the case, to utilise the margin for the increase in expenditure which is authorised under the agreements signed between the Member States themselves.
Yet, as a percentage of the gross domestic product of the Union, the volume of the Council' s draft budget is less than that of the Commission' s preliminary draft budget, which was already less than that of the Berlin Agreement which in turn was less than the ceiling set by the Edinburgh Agreements.
Where is it all going to end?
We have to know what we really want to achieve and allocate appropriate resources, within reason.
<P>
This is why my group is requesting, within the limits envisaged under the agreements signed by the Member States themselves, a review of the Financial Perspective for all the items I have just mentioned.
And, Monsieur Bourlanges, since he who can do more can do less, we are at all events supporting the rapporteur' s proposal for the review of the Financial Perspective for external policies.
<P>
In addition, I would like to draw the attention of my fellow Members to some amendments proposed by my group in favour of a study on the application of the Tobin tax in support of the world cultural heritage classified by UNESCO within the countries of the Union, in favour of a freeze on aid to Turkey, excluding, of course, aid to the earthquake victims, until the Turkish authorities change their attitude to the Kurdish people, on the question of Cyprus and on the subject of human rights in general.
<P>
Finally, we urgently demand that the appropriations allocated in the 1999 budget to the European Women's Lobby, which unites 1400 women' s organisations and which performs work of a high quality, are renewed in their entirety in the 2000 budget.
As you can see, these are common sense proposals on which all progressive Members of Parliament, and even others, can and should agree.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Kuntz">
Mr President, the budgetary procedure for the year 2000 is henceforth included within the strict financial framework with the regulated expenditure for the period 2000-2006, as accepted by this House in the interinstitutional agreement.
If the same stringency in budgetary matters prevails as much at the level of the States as in the Union, here it is chiefly a response to the demands of some Member States, and we know that the first victim of this stringency will be the common agricultural policy.
A gradual decrease of expenditure is being organised deliberately, to the detriment of farmers.
<P>
As regards the Structural Funds, European regional policy has become a real handicap for France, contrary to the myth complacently propounded by some, including, alas, the current Commissioner responsible for regional policy.
<P>
On the subject of foreign policy, we are of course in favour of the fisheries agreement with Morocco, an essential agreement in European-Mediterranean relations, which are too often neglected by the Union.
We are also in favour of financial support for East Timor and of aid for Turkey in the aftermath of the earthquakes.
As for aid for Kosovo, let us one last time deplore the bombing of a European State by the countries of the Union.
Yesterday we bombed the Balkans and today we must help to reconstruct the region and re-establish peace, but this means re-establishing peace for everyone, including the Kosovo Serbs.
We can indeed clearly see what this increase in the total appropriation for foreign policy actions foreshadows.
The austerity that the Financial Perspective herald will in fact be a sort of selective austerity: foreign policy rather than agricultural policy.
The significant weakening of agricultural policy and the dubious regional policy are elements that our group could not possibly accept.
And if there were further need, paragraph 20 of Mr Bourlanges' resolution, which considers the distinction between compulsory expenditure and non-compulsory expenditure to be seriously anachronistic, would be sufficient to justify our rejection of the budget.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Dam">
Mr President, last May this Parliament endorsed the financial framework for the period 2000-2006.
That implied a readiness to observe the necessary budgetary discipline.
We must assess Budget 2000 against this background.
<P>
The rapporteur proposes that we should go way beyond the ceiling on expenditure on external action.
He is playing for high stakes in so doing; seeing as this will only unsettle matters where the interinstitutional agreement is concerned.
Financing important priorities such as Kosovo and East Timor is now becoming dependent on a political game that Parliament and the Council are playing over the Financial Perspective.
Moreover, what credibility can a Parliament have when it wants to renegotiate the financial ceiling that it itself agreed with such a short time ago?
<P>
It is far too early to call upon Article 19 of the interinstitutional agreement.
We must first look seriously at the various possibilities for financing these new priorities within the present framework.
I am thinking, for example, of those areas where there was underspending in 1999 and of the possibility of making cutbacks in programmes with low expenditure figures such as MEDA.
<P>
Next a few words about the Structural Funds.
The current problems with the payment appropriations are evidence of the fact that the budget for the Structural Funds has been pegged at too high a level in the past.
The rapporteur proposes to incorporate 50% of outstanding payments into Budget 2000.
I am very apprehensive about this enforced increase in the appropriations.
Can such an amount be absorbed and is the Commission capable of managing this extra money effectively?
<P>
I cannot support those who are in favour of incorporating the resources of the European Central Bank into the European Union' s budget.
After all, this would mean the budgetary authority gaining control over the European Central Bank' s capital, which would jeopardise the independence that the ECB needs to have.
Furthermore, the European Union is not a shareholder of the European Central Bank.
Any distribution of profits would then go not to the EU but to the national central banks.
<P>
We are amazed to see an amendment to the effect that the Commission is attempting to draw up a statute for European political parties.
Only parties matching up to this blueprint would be considered for financial assistance.
There is no way that we can go along with this attempt at centralism.
Drawing up a statute of this kind is a matter for the political parties themselves in the first instance.
Moreover, the party organisations reflect national cultures and diversity.
Any attempts to squeeze the political parties into a European straitjacket will only serve to widen the gulf between Brussels and the citizens of Europe.
<P>
On a final note, the Virrankoski report contains the umpteenth declaration of intent to revise the regulations governing travel cost reimbursement on the basis of costs actually incurred.
But are we not getting to the point when it is time to convert words into deeds?
Our group put forward an amendment aimed at achieving this but the Committee on Budgets rejected it.
That was a lost opportunity and it sends out the wrong signal to the citizens of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell' Alba">
Mr President, I would first like to congratulate the rapporteur and, with a great deal of respect for the work he has done, thank him very sincerely for this draft budget which is courageous and innovative in many aspects.
The rapporteur is to be praised for having achieved it by means of a budgetary procedure which has run its course with the utmost smoothness, even if Parliament is in the process of issuing a major challenge to the Council - a challenge which, in my opinion, is worth accepting.
I am referring, obviously, to the Financial Perspective and the need for Europe to prove itself worthy of the role it wishes to play in the world, without making an over-complicated issue of the budget of the Union.
<P>
In 1999 we had a budget - I say this to the ladies and gentlemen of the Council in particular, I am reminding you of this because it is a matter which affects us all - in 1999, Commissioner, we had a budget of EUR 96 billion.
This year, a milestone year, what with the war in Kosovo, the events in East Timor, the earthquakes in Turkey and the commitments of a Union that wishes to take on more responsibility in the international arena, the Council is proposing a budget of EUR 92 billion, that is, EUR 4 billion less than the budget for the previous year.
<P>
The Edinburgh perspectives set us an ever higher ceiling and the Council gives us an ever more limited budget, meaning that it will be necessary to cut back on actions in the field of development, for example, or human rights and many other actions, in order to finance the priorities which have been set, and it is not our fault if Europe is the great paymaster of foreign policy.
We shall be responsible for the payments, while other people are responsible for the policy, and I hope that this is going to change.
<P>
Parliament will therefore do well, on Thursday, to ask you to go beyond these Financial Perspective.
Do we wish to finance reconstruction in Kosovo?
Fine.
Do we wish to assist the integration of Turkey, including by subsidising its immediate dramatic needs?
Do we have a new nation emerging into the international arena after all these massacres which have taken place?
Then, let us finance these policies, for heaven' s sake.
We have an interinstitutional agreement that allows us, if exceptional events require, to go beyond the Financial Perspective, so why not do it?
That would be EUR 1.5 billion more.
It will still be less than the 1999 budget, but I think that the citizens of Europe will clearly see that this endeavour is not only logical, but also perfectly feasible at the level of the budgets of our Member States.
We would therefore do well to proceed in this way and I think that Parliament should follow through and, if necessary, demand that we have recourse to the former Article 203 of the budget.
<P>
A brief word on TAOs.
There too I think we are demonstrating great pragmatism.
I thank the rapporteur very much.
We have an interim solution which, I think, will enable us, by means of dialogue with the Commission, to find an agreement on a definitive solution.
I am pointing out this pragmatic aspect of our report for the year 2000 and I would compare it to policies which were rather more extremist in which a clean sweep was made of mini-budgets and then one found oneself with one or two thousand TAOs which could not be managed because the project had been axed in the meantime without any thought as to the consequences.
<P>
So, I congratulate the rapporteur.
As regards political parties, may I say that, frankly, asking the Commission to lay down the status of political parties - I am referring to the contribution of the last speaker - is neither fair nor worthy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="Elles">
Mr President, like others who have already participated in this debate I should like to congratulate the rapporteurs, but in particular Mr Bourlanges.
In his opening remarks, he clarified for us the perspective for the 2000 budget in putting forward the idea that we have to have more programmes, we have to have more countries and we have to have less money.
There seems to be a contradiction here which, in the longer term when we come to enlargement, when we come to a new intergovernmental conference, we are quite clearly going to have to resolve in the context of our budget procedures.
<P>
For my part, I would like to focus my remarks on three aspects which concern the running of European policies and the attitudes which we have taken in Parliament in previous years to these aspects.
This is in the particular context of the Commission.
We, as a parliament, want to make sure that accountability is seen to work for those who elected us and to make sure that we have value for money in the running of the programmes.
<P>
The first item in internal policy refers to information policy.
In the last Parliament we wanted to make sure that we had proper functioning interinstitutional cooperation.
We made progress in that respect by making sure that in terms of the general information lines, in terms of the specific campaigns, we had good cooperation on both sides.
But we did not arrive at a common framework for this interinstitutional cooperation as we in Parliament had wanted.
<P>
There is some degree of concern at some of the initial moves the Commission is now making in its information structures which we in Parliament will keep a close eye on.
In particular, we had asked in the last Parliament, and indeed in previous Parliaments, for the Commission and Parliament offices to work closely together in the Member States.
I have put down an amendment, our group has put down an amendment, to make sure that we can have a report from the Commission on how far this has gone.
There are still one or two countries where the Commission and Parliament are separate in terms of structure and we need to be particularly vigilant in instances where more than 75 or 80% of the appropriations go into paying for salaries and buildings rather than adequate information policies.
<P>
Secondly, in terms of external policy, particularly in terms of Kosovo, the hearing we organised a few days ago with the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committee on Budgets, was very revealing to me, in particular the fact that this is not a short-term commitment.
We had evidence from Mr Bildt, Mr Kouchner, Mr Hombach and then from all the other agencies, that this is a long-term problem we have in front of us.
We must, therefore, make sure not only that we get proper coherence between the agencies working on the ground but also Madam President-of-the Council, that we do not take decisions which mean that we are spending money futilely because of a Council decision that we must have some people removed some 100 miles away in another place.
We must make sure that when we come to Mrs Pack' s report later this week we take the right decisions and that the Council understands Parliament' s feelings on that.
<P>
In the longer term, we must ensure that we have vision and - as you said Commissioner - we need to have the idea of building civil society in the longer term, not just as some kind of short-term project.
Kosovo and stability in the Balkans must be a long-term project.
It is us, as Europeans, who have to take that responsibility.
We cannot expect others to take on that particular responsibility for us.
I therefore welcome the idea of a working committee between the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committee on Budgets.
We must make sure not only that funds are properly spent but that the ideas which are coming through are properly coordinated.
<P>
Lastly, in terms of administration policy, there are the Technical Assistance Offices.
I would underline what Mr Böge said to the Council.
The Council has been absent from this debate on discharge.
With nonchalant ease, they have gone through approving the 1996, the 1997 discharge, and it has been up to us in Parliament to press for change at every turn.
Therefore in terms of EU reform we are right, as a parliament, to say that we do not wish to see new posts until we know where the posts are going.
What are the real needs of the Commission?
<P>
Secondly, we are right to say that we should not have Technical Assistance Offices performing tasks through temporary officials in what are meant to be permanent posts for the Commission.
We must find some way of having a dialogue between the institutions over the next 12 months to make sure that these reforms take place and that we have the right kind of criteria for making sure that we are getting value for money from the staff.
Otherwise - and I will end on this proposal: we must start cutting programmes if we do not have the proper staff resources available to run them, because ultimately we must make sure that these processes are accountable and we must make sure that we get value for money in the system.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="Martin, David">
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Jensen">
Mr President, I should also like first of all to express my appreciation of the sterling work which Mr Bourlanges, Mr Virrankoski and Mr Pittella have done as rapporteurs for the budget.
<P>
As a Liberal, I personally have the basic attitude that we should be thrifty when it comes to public expenditure.
In fact, I also think we have tried to live up to that basic principle when discussing the budget.
I therefore want to emphasise that, when a majority of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party gives its backing to the strategy which the rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges, has devised and which aims at rejecting the 10% general reduction in external expenditure, this does not reflect an unwillingness on our part to make savings.
It is, on the other hand, a rejection of the way in which the Commission and the Council have proposed financing the reconstruction of Kosovo.
As has been mentioned many times today, it is unreasonable that poor countries in Africa should in this way finance the reconstruction of Kosovo.
All the more so when, with the signing of the interinstitutional agreement in the spring, it was anticipated that there would be a need to find funds specifically for Kosovo and that the reconstruction would be expensive.
<P>
It is important that a solution to this problem is found, and it is my hope that, in the negotiations, the Council will show the required flexibility so that we might find a solution within the framework of the interinstitutional agreement.
We have started with the assumption that EUR 500 million should be found for the reconstruction of Kosovo.
That is the Commission' s figure.
But, in the Committee on Budgets, we have also, through a conference among other things, received information to make us question whether that figure has not been set rather too high for the year 2000 and whether we might not be concerned here with a more long-term commitment.
This also indicates that a great deal of effort will have to be made to find a solution involving all the various institutions.
<P>
As a new member, I have been very pleased, during the Committee on Budgets' negotiations, to experience the discipline which characterises its work.
We have tried to live up to an unwritten rule about avoiding dotting the "i" s and crossing the "t" s too much when it comes to noting specific budget appropriations.
These tie down the administration and can lead to far too little flexibility and a lack of accountability if we go too far in that direction.
Noting specifically which funds are to be earmarked for which purposes is obviously an important tool for Parliament when preparing a budget.
But any tool can become blunt and lose its power if it is not used with care.
Despite our attempts at restraint, there are many examples of dotting the "i" s and crossing the "t" s in the budget, including many good examples.
I think that in principle, however, it is goals and frameworks we ought to be aiming for to as great an extent as possible.
It is our task as politicians to establish goals and set the general frameworks.
We need to beware of specifying too much detail.
<P>
In this connection, I want vigorously to back up Mr Virrankoski' s proposal that budgets should be prepared and controlled on the basis of activities and in relation to goals, as he has recommended they should be in his report.
Clearly, the circumstances of the past year - what with the Commission' s departure and the reports by the Committee of Independent Experts - provide a reminder that we need to secure for ourselves a foundation which can give us confidence that resources are being administered in a reasonable way.
There have been good signals from the new Commissioners, and I think we are all looking forward to fruitful cooperation with both Mrs Schreyer and Neil Kinnock, but they must live with the burden of what we have experienced.
<P>
This is also the background to why so much money has been placed in reserve.
The Technical Assistance Offices, or TAOs, have been established by the Commission as a roundabout way of getting administration into those areas which could not be administered with the given resources.
And the Experts' report shows that the necessary follow-up and supervision was not in place.
We need the Commission to provide realistic assessments of the need for administrative resources.
This is the background to the situation in which payments into the technical accounts have been placed in a reserve, and there is a need for open dialogue concerning future administration.
<P>
As I say, those of us in the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party attach a lot of importance to a solution being found which all three institutions can live with.
The next few years will demand a lot from us.
There will continue to be major external tasks to consider.
Enlargement of the European Union will necessitate a constant re-ordering of our priorities, and we need to continue tidying things up internally.
The prior condition for tackling these things is constructive cooperation between Parliament, the Commission and the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rühle">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I think we are heading for some difficult debates given that Parliament is pretty much agreed - even my group - that we oppose the across-the-board 10% cuts in funding.
We would like to thank Mr Bourlanges for his preliminary work, even though we certainly envisage the need to amend some points of the negotiations.
It has already been mentioned by Mr Mulder that there must still be a critical review of expenditure on Kosovo, of the assessment of expenditure on Kosovo.
As a group, we also consider that there must also be a critical review of the fisheries agreement. In these areas also we must ensure more efficiency, more ecological principles.
There are some points where a critical review may be necessary, e.g. the export agreement with Japan.
Nevertheless, we believe that additional tasks - and in this case many additional tasks would pass to the European budget - must also mean additional funds being allocated.
We therefore need a critical review of the Financial Perspective.
We would like to thank the Commissioner for intimating this.
In any case, we are prepared to cooperate constructively in this matter.
We think that Kosovo can certainly be financed with fresh funds, but we consider that the other points - Turkey, the fisheries agreement, etc. -must be financed by the budget for the current appropriations.
<P>
However, Parliament has also clearly shown in today' s debate that it is increasingly aware of its responsibility, not just insofar as concerns the effective use of funds, but also the discharging of funds.
It is not just a matter of introducing new budget lines and critically reviewing whether all the budget lines can be used correctly and effectively; it is also about ensuring during the course of the year that the programmes are run properly.
We are also responsible for this.
I hope that these were not just isolated declarations today, but that in the coming year Parliament will also assume the responsibility of critically reviewing in all the Committees whether the appropriated funds are also being discharged properly.
<P>
I would like to briefly address another subject that has also been mentioned here and which will be important.
We must, in order to increase trust in the European institutions, also increase the efficiency of parliamentary work itself.
In this regard, we have already heard several key points today.
Firstly, it is a matter of swiftly developing a Members' Statute, an Assistants' Statute.
Also, and here I am opposing some of the previous speakers - it is a matter of developing a European Parties' Statute since I think that, in the area of party financing at European level also, we need more transparency, more efficiency.
The voters must know what funds are available in these areas.
This, of course, requires that we clearly define what a European Party is and what sort of work is done at European level.
It also, of course, requires that we critically and precisely determine what in this case the term "European area" means.
How far does the European Union' s coordinating task go? It cannot just be about the EU.
It must also cover enlargement in the east.
Funds must also be made available for this.
But in all these areas we need more transparency.
<P>
Finally, one more area in which I think that Parliament must also do its homework properly is the whole question of estate management.
Here, in my opinion, mistakes have been made in the past.
We must therefore ensure that in future the monies in this area are used much more efficiently and purposefully!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Miranda">
Mr President, the first budget of this new financial framework confirms and reinforces the grave apprehensions we had during the debates on Agenda 2000 and on the interinstitutional agreement that goes with it.
<P>
Indeed, the most striking point about this budget is its obvious lack of appropriations with which to confront specific objectives, given that it is in Category 4 on external action and cooperation that this shortfall is most evident.
<P>
On this matter, I would like to express not only my strong disagreement with the indiscriminate horizontal cuts that the Council is proposing in this Category, but also to state my general agreement with the strategy that the rapporteur is proposing to us. I also agree with the fact that in essence, it is aiming for a revision of the Financial Perspective so that they will respond to new priorities without previous objectives being affected as a result.
<P>
Within the scope of this strategy, we are pleased to note that Timor is one of this budget' s priorities, and we particularly welcome the fact that the rapporteur has accepted the insertion of a new heading in order to deal with the reconstruction of that region, which is moreover what we on the Committee on Development and Cooperation had proposed and approved.
<P>
This is, moreover, the only way in which we can respond to the new situation in Timor, whilst at the same time respecting the legal basis for intervening in the right way.
The proposal of EUR 30 million in payment appropriations, however, seems insufficient to us.
This is why we want to see this merely as the starting point for a final sum which will be established in the near future and in the context of the Conference of Donors, which is in progress and in which the European Union is participating.
By the same token, we would only accept the insertion of this new heading for Timor in a multiannual perspective to be considered within an international framework.
<P>
One final, very specific point, which is nevertheless of great importance: it is essential to ensure - if this has not already been done - that under heading B7-6000, concerning non-governmental organisations, there is a reference to the Liaison Committee in the respective commentary.
Indeed it would be absurd if this did not happen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Turchi">
Mr President, first of all, I would like to thank Mr Bourlanges for his competence and the great balance he has shown in preparing this budget.
However, I must emphasise the fact that this year' s budget cannot fulfil the objectives set at the beginning, that is, a revival of the Union' s economy and, above all, growth in employment.
Indeed, if we start by cutting back the budgets by 10% and we hit sectors like industry, trade, transport and in some cases, even agriculture, we will not be able to revive our economy and become more competitive with regard to competitors such as the United States and NAFTA.
<P>
We must not forget that these are our real competitors and that therefore, only budgetary policies aimed at protecting investments and economic growth will allow us to lay the foundations for a Union which will certainly be stronger from a structural and economic point of view.
In view of this, I therefore propose that during the next period, we no longer analyse the programmes and their related credit lines for periods of four, five or six years but for shorter periods - one or two years at most - as the rationales of the market and investment in a now global economy no longer correspond to the criterion which the budget itself was built on.
In fact, everything is moving much more quickly and much more competitively on the market.
This will allow us to intervene immediately in specific sectors and, at the same time, to verify whether our budgetary policy is on course, moving in the direction we set out.
<P>
In short, this is a budget which must be revised by including new credit lines with regard to international interventions.
I therefore agree with the line set out in Mr Bourlanges' report, although nothing must be taken away from the other credit lines that have already been allocated.
At the same time, however, we must endeavour to alter the content and rationale of the budget to take into account the challenges that the Union will have to face over the coming years, in particular the fact that the real enemy to be overcome within the individual States is unemployment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
Mr President, the budget line for reproductive health has been halved by the Council and the Commission.
But, every minute, 380 women become pregnant.
Of these pregnancies, 190 are unwanted or unplanned.
One hundred and eleven women experience pregnancy-related complications and 40 have unsafe abortions.
Every single minute, there is a death following a pregnancy-related complication.
Approximately 300 million women suffer from short- or long-term illnesses because of complications in pregnancy.
That is more than a quarter of all women living in developing countries.
The risk of dying in pregnancy or while giving birth is 1 in 8 in Angola, while it is 1 in 8,700 in a country like Switzerland.
<P>
Only 53% of women in developing countries give birth with a doctor, nurse or midwife present.
Seventeen per cent give birth completely alone.
At least 60% of all pregnant women in developing countries are anaemic.
We know what it means for a family if the mother is sick or dies.
The mother' s income goes on food, clothes, schooling and health care.
If there is no access to reproductive health facilities, there are consequences for the whole family, not least the children who, in the worst case, also die when the mother dies or else stop going to school and become malnourished.
<P>
Reproductive health is cheap, costing EUR 2 or 3 per woman per year.
It is also cost-effective when one considers the consequences for the whole family.
This year, almost 600,000 women will die in pregnancy or while giving birth.
By far the majority of these fatalities could be avoided.
It is therefore incredibly important to maintain this particular budget line for reproductive health.
<P>
A lot has been said about Kosovo.
Of course, I completely share the view that it is outrageous to let poor countries pay for the reconstruction of Kosovo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Mr President, the draft budget for the year 2000, EUR 92 billion, a margin of flexibility for our Parliament of EUR 1.5 billion taking into consideration the Financial Perspective, the across-the-board reductions in all appropriations, or at least in appropriations for agriculture, the lack of ambition, and the usual thin spreading of resources and budgetary gimmickry; in other words, it is a draft budget with no great innovations. It is to Mr Bourlanges' great credit that he attempted to make the discussion more lively by introducing technical objections.
He presented a fine study with a sort of pot pourri of everything he has written since March and all that with the attitude of an official of the French Supreme Audit Office.
Well, that is all very well.
<P>
The only innovations are not deliberate.
It is the first budget of the 21st century, one which will indeed see the dissolution of the European Union following the Seattle Conference where the Community preference will be abandoned. It is the first budget to implement the Financial Perspective for 2000-2006, which Mr Bourlanges is also asking that we review.
It is the first budget which is going to verge on the EUR 100 billion mark if we adopt the amendments which Mr Bourlanges is proposing and, speaking of Mr Bourlanges, who I might call the financier from "Uncle Jean Monnet' s Cabin" , this is a first for him, his first report following the general report, after that of Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, Mr Tillich, Mr Lamassoure or others.
<P>
Apart from the change in presentation in the form of Mr Bourlanges, 2000 is much like 1999 as far as the budget is concerned.
Firstly one finds once again the European Parliament' s ongoing aspiration to make its presence felt. This has been a constant ever since 1979.
This is a natural tendency on the part of all parliaments throughout the world.
The judgements of the Court of Justice of the European Communities have multiplied.
The 1995 budget was even cancelled, and President Hänsch refused to sign, and, every single time, there is this conflict about NCE and CE.
Well, Mr Bourlanges is bringing us back to this bellicose atmosphere, even quoting Marshal Foch, which is appropriate, I suppose.
In the backwater of the European budget there is not enough room for two crocodiles, the crocodile of the European Council and the crocodile of the European Parliament which, after eating up the Commission by toppling Santer, now wants to eat the Council too.
<P>
So Mr Bourlanges proposes to be voluntarist, he wishes to increase Community expenditure by 7%, he is an ultraliberal who has forgotten the budget rationing pact which he wanted to inflict on others, and he is doling out money because Christmas is coming, 135 million for Turkey, 500 million for Kosovo.
First we bomb, then we rebuild.
And then there is even East Timor.
It is said that it is old monarchs who concern themselves with foreign policy.
Of course, the farmers are not entitled to the same largesse, unless they move to Turkey.
The only problem, obviously, is that if you keep increasing expenditure, one day you will also have to increase revenue and contemplate a Community tax.
But in the meantime, well, Italy will pay, and France will pay another EUR 600 million.
<P>
I shall conclude, as Mr Bourlanges quoted Saint Matthew, by quoting Jesus, asking Simon Peter. "What thinkest thou, Simon?
Of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? Of their own children, or of strangers?
Peter saith unto him, Of strangers.
Jesus saith unto him, Then are the children free." But with Mr Bourlanges' tendencies, how long will this freedom last?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Garriga Polledo">
Mr President, this budget is fundamental to the development of Europe in the next few years.
It is the first budget in accordance with the new Financial Perspective and institutional harmony will depend very much on its efficient execution, and without that harmony - and I would like to underline this - it will be very difficult to implement a genuine European policy.
<P>
We must remember that the previous Parliament approved, in May, the Financial Perspective for 2000-2006 and the interinstitutional agreement.
Parliament approved them by a simple but, nevertheless, clear majority.
<P>
We must also remember that the Berlin Council approved the Financial Perspective by means of an extraordinarily complicated consensus, which began with some extremely divergent standpoints between the Governments and, furthermore, with a European Commission which had resigned and a European Parliament which was at the end of its mandate.
<P>
What I mean by this is that it is now of fundamental importance to defend the Financial Perspective.
Only in this way for example can we guarantee the financing of the Union' s structural policies.
<P>
It is clear however that the interinstitutional agreement itself provides for a review of the Financial Perspective if necessary.
If the Council has not found any other way of financing the reconstruction of Kosovo other than an across-the-board cut in the external activities of the Union, it is logical that the European Parliament will want to defend those lines.
<P>
In any case, we believe that the notion of defending the validity of the approved Financial Perspective and the notion of needing to finance the reconstruction of Kosovo by means of a limited review of that perspective, are compatible notions.
If this is the proposal which Commissioner Schreyer is making, I hope that this Parliament will welcome it.
<P>
With regard to the fisheries agreement with Morocco, we should point out that the commitment presented by the rapporteur on the first reading calms the fears of a significant section of the Community fishing industry.
We must remember that the fisheries agreement with Morocco affects almost 30,000 citizens of the Union and that regions such as Galicia, the Canary Islands and Andalusia have a large proportion of their fleet fishing in Moroccan waters.
<P>
It is normal - and this is the view of the rapporteur and my own group - that, at the beginning of the budgetary process, we should be concerned to see that in the first reading no commitment had been specified for these EUR 125 million.
<P>
Nevertheless, and bearing in mind that fishing policy is a Community policy whose funding is separate from the Treaties, a formula has been found between all of us that allows the Council' s amendments not to be rejected in the first reading, including those referring to fishing, but rather defers their approval until such a time as financial agreement is reached with the Council.
<P>
We would have preferred to separate the fishing agreement from the rest of the Community' s external activities.
In our opinion, this is a confusion of two categories of expenditure and two different kinds of problem.
However, it is also clear that the outgoing Commission did not include any indication concerning the renewal of the agreement in its preliminary draft and, for this reason, did not include any appropriation in the reserve.
If the outgoing Commission had been willing to take that political step, we would not now have to wait for the second reading.
<P>
We repeat however that we will have a political commitment on the part of the European Parliament to prioritise the funding of the said fisheries agreement.
This will serve to calm the fears of all those families and economic sectors which urgently need this agreement.
<P>
Finally, what we do ask the rapporteur and the representatives of the Council is that an enormous effort be made in terms of negotiation.
We do not want to reach the second reading with a proposal to break the interinstitutional agreement and thereby end up with no Financial Perspective.
<P>
I repeat: we need a Financial Perspective and we need the interinstitutional agreement.
But we also need credible, and therefore well financed, external European activities.
We need both things.
And we want the Member States to confront these exceptional circumstances, and the reconstruction of Kosovo is an exceptional circumstance, with exceptional solutions which must not be sought by means of a simple across-the-board cut imposed on Parliament in their lines and programmes.
<P>
The general rapporteur has said this: we are in a paradoxical position which requires a real solution.
The priorities are clear.
Now, representatives of the Council, the negotiation must begin.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Wynn">
Mr President, it is customary to congratulate and thank the rapporteurs and I will do that as chairman of the committee, and there are three of them - let us not forget that.
First of all, Mr Virrankoski who has done a thorough job.
He came to this position halfway through the year; his attitude has been exemplary and he really deserves the congratulations of Parliament, not just the committee.
Secondly, Mr Pittella who, as a new member, came to the committee and has made quite a significant point about the phasing-in of the ECSC funds.
It is quite an innovative approach and he should be congratulated.
And while we are giving out congratulations I shall also congratulate the Commissioner on her speech which was politically realistic.
Well done Commissioner!
<P>
But the main congratulations go to Mr Bourlanges.
When Mr Bourlanges began he said it was the first time he had had 15 minutes to speak in Parliament, and my immediate thought was "yes and that will not be long enough" .
Sure enough it was not long enough - he exceeded it by almost a minute and still had not said half the things he wanted to say.
Mr Bourlanges, I congratulate you on your approach to the budget.
It is fair to say there has never been a dull moment.
You are pragmatic, innovative and, most importantly, serious.
That is shown in your attitude towards the BATs.
You may well be known as "BATman Bourlanges" although I cannot quite see you with a cape and mask, wearing underpants outside your pants, but you have done an extremely good job on the BATs!
<P>
This first reading is predominantly about the asterisk amendment concerning Kosovo, the Morocco fisheries agreement, East Timor and Turkey, which was mentioned by the rapporteur.
I have to stress this point quite clearly to the Council and - to a lesser extent - to the Commission because I think they understand.
We take the interinstitutional agreement extremely seriously.
There are forces within this Parliament which would quite happily see it scrapped tomorrow but as far as I am concerned my job - and the job of Parliament per se - is to defend the agreement which we made earlier this year.
We have shown that we are prepared to do that.
If we were against it the Category 3 ceiling would have been exceeded, and on that point, incidentally, all three institutions have a problem with the amount deemed necessary for codecision lines such as Socrates.
This is not just a problem for the year 2000, it is an ongoing problem.
Can I say to both the presidency and the Commission that this is something we need to find a solution to together and quickly.
<P>
The amendment for Category 4 should not be seen as Parliament just flexing its muscles.
I hasten to add this is not a threat - though that may sound like a contradiction of something I have to say a little later on.
But I do not want the Council to see it as a threat.
We do not want the Council thinking that we think we have them "by the Balkans" so to speak; we are not trying to squeeze them too hard, though that may be the wrong phrase to use.
It should be seen as an invitation for our two institutions to sit down and agree a solution.
That is what we should be aiming to do, President-in-Office.
<P>
We look forward to the proposal from the Commission which will come forward next week.
In the light of what Mrs Schreyer has said, I look forward with anticipation.
I hope the Council can do the same.
But I do need to stress to the Council that this is not the Grand Old Duke of York marching his troops up the hill, just to march them down again.
This is not just some act by Parliament to mount a show of force, but at the end of the day Member States will put pressure on individual Members whose parties are in government to get us to change our mind.
Things do not work like that because of the majorities that now exist within this Parliament.
If we do not get an agreement on the revision of the Financial Perspective especially, I am fairly certain that Article 272 will be invoked.
There is no doubt about that and Council should be in no doubt about that whatsoever.
That it is not a threat, it is a statement of intent.
<P>
Let me reiterate the philosophy of two of my predecessors: Mr von der Vring and Mr Samland.
I want the Council to take back this message.
What we are fighting for is Parliament' s rights, we are not fighting for money.
It is about the rights of this Parliament and that is the message they have to understand through and through.
Once they understand that message I am quite sure that the discussions we should and will have will be fruitful.
I know the political constraints that Member States are working within, we are all serious about - as you put it - the principles of cost efficiency and rigour.
We abide by those same principles but in this instance, after what Parliament has fought for over the years, this revision of the interinstitutional agreement, a revision of the Financial Perspective as outlined in the interinstitutional agreement, is extremely important to Parliament.
I hope that is understood.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Costa, Paolo">
Mr President, I would like to add my voice to those who have already expressed their satisfaction and support for the basic outline in the Bourlanges report.
Mr Bourlanges stands before a double paradox - a debate on the budget which deals with expenditure but not income, and then a budget subject to the double conflicting pressure of an increase in the tasks of the European Union and an actual trend towards reduction of the European GDP rate which is reflected in the Union' s budget.
The way out of the paradox has been suggested to us and means not accepting tomorrow' s priorities being financed by the sacrifices and priorities of today and yesterday, and consequently, financing new, indispensable priorities of external actions by increasing the Financial Perspective for Category 4.
<P>
I hope that the European Parliament will follow the rapporteur' s statement and that the Executive Commission and the Council will accept the consequences of this.
However, I do not think that everything can come down to difficult negotiations that seek a possible compromise between new resources and the sacrifice of former priorities.
It would be a short-sighted attitude which is largely hypocritical and out of keeping with the irreversible prospect of an extension of the Union' s competences and geographical enlargement of the Union' s strategy.
This prospect is dictated by the implementation of the Treaty of Amsterdam, but even more so by the change in global political balances following the war in Kosovo.
One of the few and sure guarantees of stability and prosperity in Europe which cannot be ignored is Europe' s active presence on the world stage and its unequivocal, open attitude towards progressive enlargement policies, even towards south-east Europe and the Balkans in the perspective of that parallel virtual enlargement of peace and security which Mr Prodi has given us a glimpse of.
<P>
In these circumstances, we need to make a bold choice. We need the hypothesis which is contained in Mr Bourlanges' proposal to be set out for all to see.
We have to say that the emperor is naked!
Today the European Parliament, the Executive Commission and the Council have to take on the responsibility for opening a broad, thorough debate in full view of the European taxpayers.
In short, we need to ask ourselves whether or not the moment has arrived to entrust the European institutions with greater shares of financial resources.
This must not lead to any increase in public spending in Europe, but requires individual countries, all the European countries, to be willing to transfer the resources corresponding to the de facto transfer of competences to the Union.
The increase in the Community budget will and can correspond to a reduction in national budgets.
The task we have before us is a formidable one which can no longer be avoided, for otherwise the all the European institutions will lose credibility.
I hope that Parliament will take this path.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Staes">
Mr President, firstly I would like to give my reaction to the rather naïve comments made by Mr Martinez about Kosovo.
The money that we want to spend in Kosovo, Mr Martinez, will largely be spent on rebuilding the 80,000 homes that were destroyed there.
Those homes, Mr Martinez, were destroyed not by NATO but by your friends there, that is to say, by certain Serbian paramilitary organisations.
That is the truth of the matter and there is no other.
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I am indebted to the rapporteur and the Committee on Budgets for their support for Amendment No 69, which I submitted with the support of Mrs Van Lancker and Mr Beysen, as well as most of the Flemish and French-speaking Belgian Members.
It provides for an appropriation of EUR 50 million to be taken up in the financial reserves for financing the activities to be undertaken by those producers or Member States wishing to set up an integrated quality control system for the whole food chain.
That will make it possible for us to restore the consumer' s faith in his or her food.
And so I will take the opportunity at this plenary sitting to say that it is my express wish that the Council should lend its support to this amendment.
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Secondly, I would like to affirm my support for paragraphs 13, 17 and 57 of the Bourlanges report.
Paragraph 57 relates to the allocation of additional posts to OLAF and the Veterinary Office in Dublin.
I endorse what Mrs Morgan, Mr Walter and Mr Mulder had to say about this.
Paragraphs 13 and 17 concern the future of the TAOs, the Technical Assistance Offices.
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As Mr Bourlanges rightly says, the measures produced by the European Commission do not satisfy our demands.
I regret that Mrs Siimes' reaction to the proposals made by rapporteur Bourlanges was one of slight disenchantment.
The Council maintains that the European Parliament is proposing very far-reaching reforms and that it will not be possible to accommodate these in Budget 2000.
Mrs Siimes, the citizens of Europe expect us to exercise robust and financially-transparent administration and it is therefore absolutely essential that we see to it that the Technical Assistance Offices are gradually disbanded.
I would refer you to what Mr Elles has just had to say on the matter.
And so it is my hope that the overtures we have made to you do not fall on deaf ears.
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<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cauquil">
Mr President, the main proposition of the Bourlanges report involves increasing the budget by EUR 700 million to finance what he calls the four priorities, with, first and foremost, aid for the reconstruction of Kosovo.
I am in favour of aid for Kosovo.
But financing for the reconstruction of Kosovo, and indeed Serbia, where the fate of the population seems not to be of interest to the European institutions, should be taken out of the military budget of the powers responsible for the destruction.
The humanitarian arguments which we have heard serve mainly to hide the fact that EUR 500 million of public money, supposedly earmarked for Kosovo, only serve to make profits for big business in the private sector, especially building firms and public works contractors.
The Members of Lutte ouvrière and the Ligue communiste révolutionnaire have no intention of sanctioning the European budget either directly or indirectly.
This budget reflects the fundamental orientation of the European institutions, responsible for facilitating the activities of the large capitalist groups, including in the areas which are most damaging to society, such as the redundancy plans which are responsible for the gravity of the unemployment situation and the spread of poverty.
On the subject of internal policies, since the Bourlanges report establishes priorities, the first priority should be to prevent all the redundancy plans announced by Renault-Nissan, Alsthom, Rhône-Poulenc, Hoechst-Marion-Roussel and many others.
This is the only way to oppose the rise in unemployment effectively without it taking a single penny from the budget.
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<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Gallagher">
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferber">
Mr President, Commissioner, in undertaking our first reading of Budget 2000 today, we are discussing the first budget under the guidance of the new Commissioner, under your guidance Mrs Schreyer.
And it is the first budget to be treated in accordance with the Berlin decisions on Agenda 2000 from March of this year.
I think that both these points are worth mentioning.
Firstly, because I had expected more involvement by the Commissioner in the budgetary procedure; there was actually little to be seen and heard.
Secondly, because in the first year of implementation of the decisions on Agenda 2000 there is already a need to discuss revision of the Financial Perspective.
This also I consider to be fully worthy of note because the wish list of the foreign ministers, which has grown in recent years, means that today we can no longer cope financially.
The buck has been passed to us to bring about a solution in this and to find a way to handle matters from a budgetary point of view.
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To be perfectly honest, I find this unacceptable.
First of all, the foreign ministers should be at one with their own finance ministers and then we can also sensibly implement this in the budget.
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However, I would also like to say a few words on the so-called "small budgets" .
Firstly: I do not consider it credible that, as the European Parliament, we should, on the one hand, require the most stringent tests from all other institutions, in particular the Commission, that we should expect the staffing structure to be adapted to new challenges and that we should want to accomplish this through the European budget, when, on the other hand, we are not prepared, here in our own domain, in the parliamentary budget and in the parliamentary administration, to take the necessary action.
For this reason, as the Group of the European Peoples' Party, we have commissioned a study which, for our own administration, will bring about opportunities for staff development and task allocation within our departments.
We have - and I would like to state this quite clearly - started an initiative to find a neat solution to the budget funds which we must manage ourselves as a Parliament - I am referring here, in particular, to travel costs.
In this regard, in the very near future I am expecting specific proposals from our parliamentary administration which can then be treated accordingly by our Bureau.
It must not be the case that the initiative which we as the Group of the European Peoples' Party have started leads in the end to savings being made where it makes least sense, i.e. in the very place where real work is done, Strasbourg.
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In the European Court of Justice, there has been an urgent need to increase the number of interpreters.
It must not be the case that Court processes are delayed for two or three years due solely to problems with interpreters.
Here we as a Parliament have seen the need and assume our responsibility.
The Committee on Regional Policy has now found a solution for solving its staffing problems internally.
It is not a matter for the budgetary authority, but something they can do, and indeed are doing, by their own efforts.
I would like to thank the rapporteurs for their loyal cooperation and hope that in the second reading also we can adopt a sound budget.
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<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Colom i Naval">
Mr President, naturally enough the rapporteur and some of the previous speakers have already alluded obviously to what for me is one of the crucial political elements - if not the crucial element - of this draft budget.
But, as rapporteur for the interinstitutional agreement and the Financial Perspective, I feel compelled to emphasise it.
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Few people interpreted Berlin as a success: the European Council confused austerity with miserliness.
I will not repeat my criticisms: I refer you to the Minutes of the plenary sittings.
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Between 25 March and 6 May, we held the last round of negotiations between Parliament and the Council.
During that long and intense month of bargaining, Parliament made an effort to persuade the Council that there was more to the Union than the EAGGF and the Structural Funds, that the remaining 20% of the budget was also used to serve the Union' s objectives and that, often, it affects issues which were politically very sensitive.
The Ministers implicitly recognised the obstinacy of their leaders, but did not want to find fault with them barely five weeks later.
For this reason they only accepted the slightest and most miserly alterations to Category 3 (Internal Policies) and Category 5 (Administrative Expenditure).
<P>
The insuperable stumbling block was Category 4 (External Action) and not even the war in the Balkans persuaded them to accept the higher figure.
One of the Ministers who negotiated and who is now a Commissioner came to recognise that it was possible that the Financial Perspective would have to be revised before it entered into force, but that we would have to wait until the Commission provided an estimate of costs.
Once again, the Council confused the multiannual budgetary framework, that is to say the Financial Perspective, with the budget itself: a self-interested short-sightedness which hindered suitable and appropriate political decision-making and which led to a bungled handling of the budget.
<P>
What is the situation?
We are beginning to see the cost of the needs of Kosovo, there has been an earthquake in Turkey and a political disaster in East Timor, not to mention the need to pay for the fisheries agreement with Morocco, which the government of the principal country involved must have forgotten in the negotiations in Berlin.
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The Council intends to resolve the matter by cutting a good proportion of the aid to Russia and the Mediterranean area with the rest coming from proportionate reductions in the other external programmes.
Very cunning.
The Financial Perspective has also failed to take into account the question of the accession of Cyprus and Malta.
I believe that we should bear in mind that the interinstitutional agreement includes a mechanism for revision of the Financial Perspective for these cases, and that it is there to be used when necessary.
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There are those who keep an empty bottle in the fridge in case their visitors do not wish to drink anything.
If the Commission now presents a proposal for revision of the Financial Perspective, think of that bottle, Madam Minister.
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<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schröder, Ilka">
Commissioner, Mr President, the current climate conference in Bonn is crying out for more funds for renewable energies; to wit funds from the EU, both for research and for demonstration projects.
The recent nuclear accidents in Japan and South Korea again show how overdue a new energy policy is.
Regarding the EURATOM credits, we in the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy are asking that Parliament be consulted immediately.
It is incomprehensible to us that our colleagues in the Committee on Budgets cannot support this as parliamentarians.
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The sole purpose of the budget lines in the area of trade is, professedly, to promote exports and create free market access.
Yet this so-called "free market" only exists for multinational concerns because, for example, the SME cannot access either the information on money allocation nor the programmes themselves.
In the last two decades exports from Latin America have increased by 300% whilst the gross domestic product in those countries has only increased by 3.3%.
Since the beginning of the worldwide policy of a liberalised world economic area, there has been a massive redistribution from the rich to the poor, both within societies and between States.
I advocate the opposite political trend.
The result is that the financial assistance from the EU is indirect subsidisation.
It is precisely this which contradicts the declared concept of free trade.
Ultimately, what we are seeing here is another of the many inherent contradictions in WTO policy.
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<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Markov">
Mr President, any budget reflects the financial implementation of the intended policy.
Consequently, the decision to accept or reject the budget can, of course, only be bound up with how the focal points of the policy match up to one' s own ideas and whether the available financial funds are sufficient.
What then, in my opinion, are the main criteria for this budget?
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Firstly, a drastic minimisation of the unemployment which dominates in the Member States of the European Union.
Secondly, a reduction in the economic and social divergences in the Member States.
Thirdly, the enlargement of the European Union and, fourthly, a peaceful, democratic and social development of all regions in the world.
If, and this I am assuming, you share these starting points, albeit there will certainly be differences of opinions as to the ways in which we reach these goals, it must be clear that the budget, as it stands, cannot be affirmed.
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Mrs Schreyer, I am, of course, in favour of reorganising and redistributing.
I would immediately switch the focus from large enterprise to small and medium-sized economic policy which safeguards jobs.
I would immediately move from an offer-oriented economic policy to a demand-oriented economic policy in order to boost consumption.
<P>
But it is absurd to find ever more responsibilities for the European Union without providing it with the necessary financial funds.
It cannot be the duty of Parliament to accept that the Council wants to finance important new political needs by renouncing traditional needs.
Similarly, it cannot be the duty of this Parliament to accept that the Member States want to reorganise their budgets to the detriment of the European Union budget.
Consequently, I consider that the most urgent task, given that we have a new Parliament and a new Commission, is to give consideration to the fact that the Financial Perspective really must be amended and that the interinstitutional agreement must also be modified.
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<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Camre">
Mr President, Budget 2000 contains some technical improvements while an attempt has been made to do away with the usual over-budgeting for structural arrangements.
Over-budgeting is an unsound budgeting practice, and it is important that it should disappear completely from the EU' s budget.
I have noted the Council' s savings in regard to both structural arrangements and the agricultural sphere.
These I support, even though they only constitute a small beginning when it comes to the required changes to the EU' s financial arrangements.
In a changing world, we must be in a position to make adjustments to the budget far more quickly so that, without increasing the overall budget, we might meet any new needs including, first and foremost, the development needs of the new Member States in Eastern Europe but also the need for emergency aid and reconstruction in the Balkans, which ought not to be financed through cutbacks in support to the Third World.
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Overall, the EU has no need for more money but, rather, a need to use the existing money more sensibly.
I want to emphasise that a more professional and accountable administration of the EU' s financial resources will provide rich opportunities to get more out of the same amount of money.
Everywhere, there is a need for activity-based budgeting.
More cost-conscious administration must be implemented and the wastefulness of which we have again and again seen examples and which the Court of Auditors' reports have revealed for a number of years must be eliminated if the EU' s citizens are at all going to be able to regard the EU' s institutions as serious partners in the development of Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Daul">
Mr President, I would like to draw Parliament' s attention to the fact that the draft budget for 2000 did not envisage any allocation of funds to line B1-3800 concerning the promotion of agricultural products, an amount used solely to discharge the past, and I would of course like to thank the rapporteur, Jean-Louis Bourlanges, for his understanding, and Mr Böge and Mr Görlach for their support.
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As a result, all the efforts made in favour of quality beef, fruit, vegetables and dairy products would be in danger of being wiped out, even though this action is part of the Community action which could be entered in the green box at the WTO.
The pretext of setting up an evaluation study does not justify the suspension of appropriations whose continuation is the guarantee of success.
The professionals in the Member States who participate widely in this action are in agreement in favour of a study.
Such a study could in particular result in the harmonisation of the Community contribution which currently varies between 40 and 100%, according to the products.
For the same period, there are plans to finance a communication action for third countries, but in the absence of an implementing regulation, it will probably not be possible to use the provision in the year 2000.
Finally, provision is also made for the promotion of the labelling. The Commission, however, is actually proposing to defer the implementation of labelling for one year, making the promotion of this non-existent product completely useless.
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It is therefore possible to continue to promote quality products without requiring additional expenditure, and I therefore ask the Commission not to stop promoting quality products, for these products are the external face of difficult regions, local products and the earnings of family farms in Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Casaca">
Mr President, supporting the economic reconstruction and the political renewal of a free, democratic and independent East Timor is not only nor is it fundamentally a question of humanitarian aid.
What it represents above all is the confirmation that the Europe that we are building is ruled by universal values which are equally resonant across the world.
It also means that military invasion is not an acceptable method of extending borders, whoever perpetrates such an act and whatever geopolitical factors and interests may be involved.
It means above all, that liberty, democracy and respect for human rights are the fundamental principles according to which we would like to see our world develop.
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By deciding that the budget for the year 2000 is to make Europe' s financial contribution to Timor one of the four great European priorities, the European Parliament will be giving an unmistakable political signal to Europeans and to the world.
I am pleased to note here the determined way in which the Commission and most particularly the Commissioner directly responsible for this matter, Chris Patten, is committed to supporting East Timor.
In spite of the huge budgetary constrictions within which we work, the Commission managed to find the means to respond to the most pressing needs even in 1999.
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The assessment reports on the reconstruction costs for East Timor, as well as for the attendant international financial aid plan, have still not been completed which means that it is not yet possible to have an accurate estimate of the European contribution to the costs of reconstruction.
The political message that we shall be giving when we vote next Thursday in favour of Mr Bourlanges' draft legislative resolution is nevertheless unmistakable.
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Europe' s support for East Timor is an absolute priority for Parliament in terms of the budget for the year 2000.
It gives an accurate reflection of the feelings of many Socialist MEPs and of those from other benches who came here to give their evidence in the debate that we held on the situation in East Timor in the September part-session.
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(The sitting was suspended at and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
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<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Rod">
Mr President, we approach the draft budget 2000 with considerable concern, particularly regarding the lines on development and cooperation but also those concerning human rights, as other Members have already said.
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Indeed, we have the impression that this budget is restricting all those things which are dearest to us.
At a time when the requirement is for women to take greater part in the decision-making process, the corresponding budget lines are being restricted.
At a time when the wish is for the environment, particularly the protection of tropical forests, to be integrated into the development process, the appropriations allocated to this are being reduced.
At a time when developing countries are being asked to respect the principle of good government, with respect for human rights, our own budget on this crucial issue is being drastically reduced.
Finally, at the very time when Lusaka is reminding us of the human and economic ravages due to AIDS in Africa, we are reducing the funds dedicated to it, contrary to the Commissioner Nielson' s assertions, while mixing them in with the policy on health and reproduction.
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Furthermore, we can only regret the re-orientation which involves favouring aid to States rather than to NGOs, especially the organisations of the South which are, however, known to be more effective and which make it possible to really target society.
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In short, we cannot be satisfied with this new distribution of appropriations which destabilises the priorities of the European Union in developing countries.
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<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, I would like to express my support for Mr Bourlanges' s position regarding the amendment of the Financial Perspective.
At the same time, I wonder how Finland, as the country to hold the Presidency, has clung to the untenable position of the Council, according to which world events do not influence the EU budgetary framework and the final sums fixed in the budget itself.
In the same connection, I would also like to draw attention to the calls there have been to adopt financial support for European political parties.
Our group, the Confederal group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, has another stand in this matter.
We do not want Europe' s taxpayers' money to be spent on support for political parties.
We would also like to see a revision of the pay and benefits enjoyed by MEPs by adopting a common rule, whereby MEPs do not receive unjustifiable expense compensations and everyone is paid a fair salary and remuneration.
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<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Hyland">
Mr President, in the time available I want to refer to just one particular line in the budget which is the school milk scheme where the Commission has proposals to reduce the allocation from EUR 96 million to EUR 53 million.
In 1997 Ireland for example received over IEP 1.4 million from the European Union for the administration of the school milk programme.
As a member of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development I fully support the scheme, both now and in the future.
However, I am disappointed that reductions are being made in the overall budgetary allocation but I hope that the European Council, when it comes to reviewing the second reading of the EU budget for the year 2000, will take on board the recommendation of this Parliament that it should increase the funding for the programme to EUR 67 million or IEP 53 million in next year' s allocation.
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<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Färm">
Mr President, it feels good to be able to say, in my first speech in the European Parliament, that the EU' s budget for the year 2000 has its sights set on a number of important processes.
I am thinking of the importance of increased democratic support for the EU' s activities and of the importance of concentrating on crucial issues, for example the fight against unemployment and the enlargement of the European Union to include the new applicant countries.
These tasks go hand in hand.
The European Union must win the fight against unemployment so as to break down ordinary workers' and employees' mistrust of the European Union.
In order to succeed, the enlargement of the European Union must quickly give rise to social and economic improvements for the citizens of the applicant countries.
That is why we now want to increase the resources for developing dialogue between the two sides of industry.
It is a question, among other things, of giving employees a say in the development of the Employment Pact and coordinated economic policy.
It is equally important that the applicant countries should now be able to participate in the dialogue with a view to constructive cooperation on the labour market in these countries too.
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The procedure leading towards membership for Eastern and Central European countries, among others, is a difficult one.
It is not enough to design well-balanced accession agreements.
For EU membership to be a palpable and advantageous change in the eyes of ordinary citizens, the current state of affairs needs to change, and companies and employees need to be able to create a labour market which is not only dynamic but also grants rights to employees.
Enlargement of the European Union must not mean that companies exploit a situation where there are low wages and poorer social security or that taxes and environmental demands are evaded.
Employees in the new Member States have the same legitimate claims upon social entitlements and influence as we do.
In this budget, we want, both for their and for our own sakes, to support dialogue between employers and employees and the establishment of union rights in the applicant countries too.
In the same way, we would point out how important it is for the EU' s Committee of the Regions to have resources to develop contacts with regions and municipalities in the applicant countries.
We also support the proposal for a special initiative to promote local and regional cooperation around the Baltic and the Barents Sea.
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<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Pronk">
Mr President, I would like to start by saying how indebted I am to the rapporteur, who has done some sterling work in this area.
He has developed a strategy that everyone can support.
My colleague Mr Wynn may have feared that we would end up with a "Duke of York" -type scenario, but I feel that the whole affair is more akin to a scene from Asterix and Obelix, where Asterix has a special part to play in this case and we then have to vie with the Council, which plays the part of Julius Caesar.
That is my first point.
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I must say that we can be satisfied with regard to Category 3, which is of particular interest to me.
The rapporteur has struck the right balance here.
But I would like to temper this comment with a caution to the Commissioner.
I would ask that she does not start making changes to the categories when she puts her package together.
We have decided most emphatically to restrict ourselves to Category 4 and if she starts on Category 3 then I think we might run into difficulties.
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I am very curious as to the contents of this package.
I believe that the Council and in fact the Commission itself are responsible to a certain extent for the problems now facing us.
The Commission because it misjudged the fisheries agreement, thereby actually reducing our margin, and of course the Council because it allowed Africa to foot the bill for the remainder.
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I have one more small point to make about Kosovo.
It relates to a particular concern of mine besides that of the total amount to be spent on Kosovo.
Of course we can consider the situation in terms of existing needs.
I am completely in agreement with taking this approach.
But we must also look at how much Kosovo' s economy can bear.
If we were to provide assistance amounting to approximately 50% of Kosovo' s GNP - and there is a possibility of this happening if very high estimates are made - then I fear that the inflationary and other consequences for the economy would outweigh the benefits afforded by the assistance.
I would ask the Commissioner to look not just at existing needs but also at the macroeconomic consequences.
It is very clear that this is what happened at the time of the Marshall Plan.
That is when it all started.
We should also look very closely at this matter in the case of Kosovo, and we must learn from our experiences in Bosnia as far as that is concerned.
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<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gröner">
Mr President, I would like to start by saying that it is very difficult for me to get on with my work here in Strasbourg owing to the fact that for the second time now, my case of documents has failed to reach my office.
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I would like to thank all those involved in the budgetary procedure for their work, which had to be executed with very little room for manoeuvre and was intended to send out a message to all the citizens of Europe.
We are able to do this as far as Category 3 is concerned, which relates to internal policies.
The youth programme, the SOCRATES programme, the cultural programme and issues relating to women and equality all provide us with the opportunity to make clear to the citizens what we want to achieve.
A mistake was made in the case of Category 3, that is to say, when the vote took place in the Committee on Budgets an amendment was adopted by a very slim majority which could cause considerable damage if it is not corrected.
The Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities submitted a remark and a budget for the European Women' s Lobby in line A-3037, as it did the previous year, but the remark now states that this line is to be opened to all non-governmental organisations.
May I remind you that we as a parliament have supported this umbrella organisation for European women' s organisations and have entrusted it with the task of implementing the plan of action agreed in Peking at non-governmental organisation level, and I think it would be disastrous if just any women' s organisation could have a share in this budget.
That is why I would ask you all to correct the amendment again and to vote against Amendment No 443 and in favour of the amendment tabled by the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities.
We weighed the situation up very carefully and exercised great restraint as regards the amendments relating to gender mainstreaming and the question of firmly establishing equal opportunities in all European policies.
I would particularly ask the rapporteur to take this into account and to support the position of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities.
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<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Stenmarck">
Mr President, all budget work is about setting priorities.
There are grounds for asking the question now and again, "What should the EU' s tasks really be?"
It is in fact the answer to this question which ought to guide work on the budget, too.
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Within a short period, we shall be facing what will probably be the biggest round of enlargement of the EU ever.
It is a prerequisite of enlargement that there should be extensive changes to the budget and that we should begin to make these changes right now.
This ought to involve making cuts right now in Category 1.
We can begin this work by reducing the tobacco subsidy, among other things, and in such a way that it can be abolished completely within a ten-year period.
<P>
A number of so-called unforeseen expenses have arisen in the course of the year' s work on the budget, and this means large demands for increased expenditure in Category 4.
Humanitarian efforts to help refugees or victims of war in Kosovo, people injured in the earthquake in Turkey or innocent people hit by events in East Timor have obviously led to demands being made upon the European Union.
As I see it, it must be an obvious objective successfully to deal with these matters too within the frameworks which we ourselves have been involved in setting up.
That is where the important issue of prioritising comes into the picture.
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We have budget frameworks in the form of an interinstitutional agreement, signed less than six months ago.
In my view, it would be extraordinarily unfortunate if this should need to be cancelled.
I am in fact proceeding on the assumption that it will be possible for this issue to be solved jointly by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers before the second round of discussions.
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<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Gill">
Mr President, this is my first budget.
I should like to begin by thanking Mr Wynn and Mr Bourlanges and the other two rapporteurs for simplifying a very complex process for me.
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I believe that the European Union is changing.
The institutions are having to become more representative.
In that spirit, we should be trying to bring the European budget closer to the electorate.
It is crucial for the citizens of the EU to know what their stake in the EU' s policies and operations really is, what they are paying and what they are paying for.
Increased transparency will be the key to the future success of all EU institutions.
That means assessing every budget line to see how it benefits the citizens of Europe.
<P>
Given the commitment in the Treaty of Amsterdam to incorporating the interests of consumers into all other policy areas of the EU and the derisory level of the consumer budget, which stands at a quarter of one percent of total EU spending, there is a need to begin by making sure that valuable programmes such as the school milk scheme are safeguarded.
This is not the case in the draft budget as my colleague, Mr Hyland, said earlier.
The draft budget for the school milk programme throughout Europe has been reduced by 50%.
This cut is a drastic measure for a programme that has benefits for both consumer and producer alike.
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The reason I feel strongly about this budget line is that it has an impact on the long- and short-term health of people, it addresses social deprivation issues and it impacts on the economy and jobs in my region.
I do not have any difficulty with the reform of the CAP if it means cheaper and safer products for the consumer.
I know that people are concerned about paying for subsidies that increase prices for them as consumers.
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The response I had from the Commission in the Budgets Committee was initially quite disappointing.
They said that social issues are not within the original remit of the programme.
But it now emerges from the Trialogue meeting last week that the Commission will be proposing an increase of EUR 31 million.
I welcome this.
I must say that I am disappointed that the Council is not here because I would like to know if they will support this.
People out there are not concerned about the finer points or headings of the subsidy.
What matters to them is the impact and the positive benefit of policies, such as this one.
<P>
I accept totally the need to streamline and introduce efficiencies in the management of this scheme and others and to improve value for money, but a more effective way in terms of amending the budget would be to outline improvements and provide an implementation plan for the future.
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The Commission, in estimating spending, should look at funding in its totality.
I call on Members to support this endorsement and amendment in Thursday' s vote.
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<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Costa Neves">
Mr President, in this debate, the European Parliament has the opportunity consistently to underline its resolve concerning the future of the European Union.
In this context, I must emphasise the fact that the Council' s draft budget represents less than 1.10% of the Community' s GDP, an amount which is already quite low in itself and what is more, is considerably lower than the ceiling of 1.27% set in Edinburgh and confirmed in Berlin. This should be cause for serious reflection for those who want Europe to do more and to do it better.
<P>
Having said this, I agree completely with the rapporteur Jean-Louis Bourlanges, whom I congratulate for the quality of his work, concerning the obligation to meet, in the budget for the year 2000, major needs which have recently arisen in the area of Category 4 on external action without calling into question other needs which have been previously defined, as the Council is trying to do.
Taking away from some in order to meet others is not acceptable!
Across-the-board cuts are an aberration!
I am also against any reduction in the level of Category 1 on agriculture and Category 2 on structural operations.
<P>
Amongst the new priorities, I would single out that of the reconstruction of East Timor, a region which has been a permanent target of the attention of the European Parliament which in September, once more adopted a firm resolution.
In terms of the political commitment it represents, I think that the proposal to dedicate a specific budgetary heading to East Timor is of great significance.
It is a shame that the Commission' s estimates - EUR 30 million - are not in line with reality.
Once we have consistent forecasts, we will have to make the necessary adjustments.
<P>
Two final observations: the first is the difficulty in understanding and then in explaining why there is a legal basis, and rightly so, for assisting victims of natural disasters anywhere in the world, as we are very rightly going to do for Turkey, but there is no such basis for doing the same at home.
Today let me remind you, it is Greece. Tomorrow, God knows.
Secondly, there is the expectation, that I insist be noted, of the specific measures and the resulting funds which the Commission is obliged to propose for the outermost regions of the Community which have been recognised, identified and defined since Amsterdam in the Treaty on European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Iivari">
Mr President, adopting the budget for the cultural sector is more difficult than usual this time.
The Socrates II programme is presently the object of conciliation, and the recommendations for a second reading on the Youth for Europe action programme and the Culture 2000 programme will be discussed in the plenary sitting on Wednesday, which is tomorrow.
Thus the final effort to have these multiannual programmes approved still remains to be made.
<P>
The greatest differences of opinion between Parliament and the Council relate to the financing of the programmes, which is still open.
At the same time, the Committee on Budgets has had to present the allocations for the implementation of the programmes next year.
It has to be clearly pointed out that the figures presented by the Committee on Budgets do not constitute a stand on the result of conciliations.
A schematic mathematical method is not suited to multiannual programmes.
The financing of the programmes has caused worry to the members of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, and it might not be just a one-off problem.
<P>
We have to alter parliamentary procedures with regard to the budgetary procedure for multiannual programmes that are the object of the codecision procedure.
The opinion of the Committee on Budgets relates to the report on the first reading, but there is no official collaboration between the special committee and the Committee on Budgets in connection with the second reading and conciliation.
That can easily lead to breaks in the flow of information and misunderstandings between the special committee and the Committee on Budgets.
The worst that can happen, however, is that Parliament' s position on financing for the programmes remains unclear; that can be used against Parliament.
As multiannual programmes must in any case adapt to the general Financial Perspective of the relevant budget heading as well as the budget as a whole, it is necessary, in my opinion, for Parliament to enhance the effectiveness of its internal coordination when discussing multiannual programmes and the budget.
Communication between the special committee and the Committee on Budgets should not be broken at Parliament' s first reading, after which some time might pass until the matter is finally resolved.
The Treaty of Amsterdam emphasises Parliament' s position as a responsible and effective decision-maker.
That is why we need Parliament to have a common and sustainable view of the matter under discussion in budgetary negotiations and conciliations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Costa, Raffaele">
Mr President, we are dealing with a consolidated budget, which is showing the effects of choices perpetuated over the years and which has not yet been dynamic enough.
The major items have undergone some changes, but they are not yet at the level of a structure free of conditioning, which may vary in nature: there is national conditioning which, however, is acceptable in part, conditioning by sector, not to mention by corporation, which is less acceptable, and by lobbies, categories, individuals and structures.
Budgetary language is not dry because it is made up of numbers but because it pays little heed to changes in society and its needs, expectations and hopes.
The Union performs its major function not only through political and legislative acts, but also through investments, management and expenditure, which are becoming a means not so much to satisfy as to stifle high expectations.
The wait for funding is becoming the strongest bond for many communities, not just local ones - funding which binds people together more than any other types of ideals or principles.
<P>
While we do not agree at all with some of the programming choices, we will, however, accept them on one condition - that expenditure is subjectively and overall, individually and collectively useful.
But because of inveterate habit, it does not always appear to be like this.
Just because there is unjustified management does not necessarily mean there is unlawful management.
Taxpayers' money can be badly spent in a perfectly orthodox manner.
The Community' s expenditure is huge and there could be many benefits and beneficiaries.
If this is not the case, it is often because Brussels seems distant from Europe and does not always know what is happening there, while those in charge of controls sometimes seem distant and uncoordinated or disorganised.
Let us give them more means, as is repeatedly requested, and the results will certainly be significant.
There is a great deal of confidence, but the choice of what is to happen is just as important.
<P>
Finally, I would like to recommend a reduction in the Community' s bureaucratic impetus, reducing the number of officials who are inspectors in name only, committees, commissions, temporary transfers, obligations and regulations. We need more passion and transparency.
As a new Member - and this is just one example - I approached the European Investment Bank, and I felt as if I were approaching a sanctuary for privileged, all-powerful fat cats who had been released from the rules of democracy and therefore from their obligation to citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fabra Vallés">
Mr President, this year, once again, we rapporteurs and speakers are using the word rigour in relation to the budget.
And if it is clear that rigour is required in the implementation of the budget, I would also claim that we require rigour in the drawing up of the budget.
And it is difficult to be rigorous in the drawing up of the budget if one does not have rigorous information.
<P>
And here today, how many of us have had to insist on the question of the fishing agreement, a clear case of a lack of rigorous information.
The previous Commission should have foreseen that the said agreement was going to be discussed again, that it was going to be renewed and that therefore it would have to be reflected in the budget.
<P>
With regard to the other institutions, when we speak, for example, of interinstitutional cooperation, how much rigour was there in the information on the day when our colleagues previously agreed that a Common Organisational Structure had to be set up and what is the reality today when we decide that we have to dissolve that common structure?
I believe that we lack rigorous information.
<P>
When we speak of building policy, who has the genuine information about the continuous changes between the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions who say "now I am going to that building" , "now I am not interested" , "now I am going to the other" ?
When we speak of the rigour necessary for interinstitutional cooperation with regard to the buildings in Luxembourg, has Parliament decided what the effective minimums and maximums are which Parliament requires in Luxembourg?
<P>
When we talk about expecting enlargements as from 2002, are we taking account, in our building policy, of the enlargements to come, in 2002, 2003 and 2004?
<P>
Rigour also has to be demanded of the members of other committees: the Committee on Budgets must not always be seen as the baddy, the one who always makes all the cuts.
The other committees must take responsibility in the knowledge that new policies mean new expenditure, that for every increase there must be a cut.
<P>
And with regard to MEPs allowances, I believe that the current regulation is less unjust than any situation which the absence of a regulation would cause.
In any event, it can only be reformed by means of the Members' Statute.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, Commissioner Schreyer, we have just had a very interesting discussion.
The Members have endeavoured to get to the heart of the issues.
At the same time, we should not forget the goals of the European Union, the most important of which is to make our budget lines as effective as possible in terms of creating employment.
Which budget lines can we use to create fresh employment opportunities in Europe?
Another interesting question of course is which budget lines we can use to secure fresh taxation revenue.
Revenue is a very important area and we should examine these issues in detail.
<P>
On the other hand, we must take a look at which of the products currently on offer in the EU superstore we could take off the shelves.
Which products could be returned to the national level?
It would be interesting to set up a research programme into which activities are currently being performed at European level that could in fact be dealt with much more easily, more efficiently and better at national level.
This would free up our time and give us the opportunity to concern ourselves with the new projects, new goals and all the aspirations that we have expressed here today.
<P>
There are two budget lines that are particularly dear to my heart.
One is B5-512, financial support for small and medium-sized enterprises, support for family businesses.
The SMEs account for 66% of jobs.
In excess of 55% of turnover in the European Community is generated by these enterprises.
We must concentrate our energies on specific programmes, start-up support, transfer of business know-how, and on the Euro-infocentres, for it is these that will give rise to fresh employment opportunities and fresh sources of taxation revenue.
<P>
The second budget line B5-234 concerns financial support for the European digital capacity for global networks.
Commissioner Liikanen advised this House that there will be approximately 1.2 million additional jobs by the year 2002, but we will not be in a position to guarantee the necessary quality of staff.
We must train people and ensure that this labour market of 1.2 million jobs can be exploited in future, and that we develop programmes that will enable us to get people into work.
This will put us on the right footing in terms of the Internet, e-commerce and the many sectors which will bring brand new opportunities to Europe, and there is no question but that we should work on this.
<P>
In addition, programmes such as BEST are of crucial importance to us.
When it comes to enterprises of this kind - there are 18 million SMEs in Europe, 50% of which have no employees - we must make the legal requirements pertaining to them a great deal simpler so that they can concentrate on their main tasks of satisfying customer requirements and offering the right products and services.
That is what creates jobs and new opportunities.
That is why we should also look to encourage innovation in schools and to reinforce initiative and innovation in schools - from primary school to university level - so as to give this sector completely new impetus and also enable new opportunities to develop there.
We must reach agreement with the supply sector.
How can we foster links between small and large companies so that the former can learn from the latter, so that we can help them with the introduction of the euro, so that we can promote transfer of business know-how, and so that we can tackle any year 2000-related problems?
<P>
To close, I would like to mention the enormous challenge we have before us, that of enlargement.
I believe that enlargement also represents a huge opportunity for small companies.
But we should not shrink from providing them with the support they need.
There are only a few more years to go.
Many are already involved over there, many are interested, and I believe that the work being done at grass roots level is interesting and affords new opportunities.
We in the European Parliament recognise the challenge to give our commitment and invest our energies here, and I would like to take the opportunity today to thank you for your support in this, Commissioner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="President">
Many thanks, Mr Rübig. Also many thanks for coming to work on what is a national holiday in your country.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schreyer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Many thanks for your interesting and highly varied contributions to the debate, and above all, thank you very much for making the atmosphere in which this debate has taken place an extremely constructive one.
I would like to limit myself to a few points in my speech, points which I would like to come back to since, in my view, Parliament and Commission proposals must be reconciled.
I wish to refer, firstly, to market measures in the agricultural sector.
The Commission agrees that it is of course, necessary for the budget appropriations for the year 2000 to correspond to actual requirements as far as possible, and that no artificial reductions should be made here.
That was our position in the preliminary draft budget and it will be maintained in the letter of amendment.
<P>
Turning now to the measures in the rural development sector, I had pointed out that I also considered this second pillar of agricultural policy to be an absolutely essential addition. Accordingly, the Commission will propose a limited increase for agricultural development measures so that the Member States are also given the incentive to step up their efforts as far as environmental protection in the agricultural sector is concerned and as regards establishing structures to ensure safety in the food chain.
<P>
I would like to mention the issue of research.
It is being proposed here to divide up those budget lines in the budget plan which relate to the research sector.
I believe that there is a pre-condition to consensual solutions.
The Commission will always inform the European Parliament before there is a need to amend the appropriations for key actions and before these amendments are actually carried out, and it will of course substantiate these in full.
I hope that on this basis we will be able to reach a consensual solution as to how matters are to be represented in the budget plan.
<P>
I will now turn to the question of the TAOs, which Mr Bourlanges, Mr Wynn and Mr Elles went into very deeply again.
The new Commission will undertake and examine the award of contracts to the technical assistance offices according to the various criteria, which, again, you have discussed, in order to reach a clear decision here as to what has to be undertaken by public administration and what can be undertaken by the assistance offices.
This issue will also be a main theme of the blueprint paper on administrative reform and institutional reforms.
It will then also be possible, against the background of this blueprint - as is desired by the European Parliament - to estimate the overall staffing requirement.
<P>
Finally, I would just like to address the question of financing the important measures associated with reconstruction in Kosovo.
Mr Bourlanges rightly pointed out that it is not a task which lasts only one year.
On the other hand though, we are in a situation where we do not yet have a definite basis to be able to estimate the overall requirement.
That is why the Commission is proposing that we should first review the Financial Perspective for the year 2000 and only then, once definite figures are available, should we talk about how the necessary funds for the ensuing years are to be made available.
<P>
There have also been a few critical comments made on the question of what our approach will need to be in the year 2000.
The question of how the sum of EUR 500 million stands in relation to Kosovo' s estimated GDP is indeed worthy of mention.
On the other hand, though, I think that we should continue to stand by the figure that the EU has in fact quoted in the political sphere - it has said that it will make EUR 500 million available for the year 2000 - so as to avoid giving the impression that the EU is backing out of its political responsibilities.
I have gained the impression from this debate that the Commission' s proposal, which I myself put forward, could form a sound basis for compromise.
<P>
I would like to come back again to Mr Böge' s and Mrs Buitenweg' s contributions to the debate.
The Commission proposes a limited revision, as you yourselves mentioned, and it also very important that we should make a point of providing for and taking account of ECHO measures for Kosovo.
The Commission will therefore propose that all three instruments should be used i.e. reallocation of funds, use of the flexibility instrument and review of the Financial Perspective.
In the Institutional Agreement we all have an excellent legacy on which to base our handling of Budget 2000 and fruitful cooperation, and as far as that goes, I am very confident, having had this debate, that it will be possible to reach a consensual solution and make the budget for the year 2000 one in which we can have faith.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
, rapporteur.
(FR) Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Schreyer for the remarks she has just made.
We will appreciate her proposal, once she has drawn it up, which will help us to understand.
<P>
For the moment, I shall limit myself to one small comment, which Mrs Schreyer will understand perfectly, on the subject of research appropriations.
I appreciated the terms of the commitments which were publicly undertaken by the Commissioner regarding the management of the lines for research.
Like everyone, I believe, on the Committee on Budgets, I attach particular importance to seeing these commitments being made in writing further to the highly interesting letter which Mrs Schreyer sent us and to which our chairman, Mr Wynn, responded requesting, I believe, further details.
<P>
I shall therefore ask you, Commissioner, together with your colleagues, please, to formalise the commitments that you have just undertaken in the terms you deem appropriate, so that we can be familiar with the facts and we can proceed to the vote on Thursday on the basis of clear commitments which do not allow for any misunderstanding between us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="President">
I see that the Commissioner is nodding in agreement, which means that there is no need to continue the debate.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote on the budget will take place on Thursday at 10.00 a.m.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 3.45 p.m. and resumed at 4.30 p.m.)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, the best laid plans in life are wont to go wrong.
Mr Duisenberg should in fact be here by now but he is stuck in a traffic jam.
I shall, therefore, open the sitting and suspend it again straightaway for another fifteen minutes in the hope that he will have arrived by then.
If not, then I am afraid that we will have to repeat the same formal procedure once again.
I am not the one to blame; presumably it is the motorways.
Thank you for bearing with me.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 4.30 p.m. and resumed at 5.20 p.m.)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, please take your places, as Mr Duisenberg has just joined us.
<P>
Mr Duisenberg, we have been waiting for you, if I may say, with some impatience, and we are delighted that you have at last been able to join us.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
ECB annual report
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A5-0035/1999) by Mr Huhne, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the 1998 annual report of the European Central Bank (C4-0211/1999).
<P>
I shall give the floor immediately to Mr Duisenberg.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Duisenberg">
. I have great pleasure in presenting the first annual report of the European Central Bank to the European Parliament at today' s plenary sitting.
Almost ten months have passed since the euro was successfully introduced and the European Central Bank took over full operational responsibility for the single monetary policy.
Many of us feel that, with the launch of the single currency, the process of European integration has gained a new quality.
Indeed, the transfer of a core competency of the modern state, namely monetary policy, to a truly European and independent organisation such as the ECB must be regarded as a historic event which marks an unprecedented degree of economic and political integration within the European Union.
<P>
The smooth transition to this new era of European integration and the successful operational start of the ECB was the outcome of several years of intense and thorough preparation.
The Annual Report of the ECB gives a detailed account both of the final preparatory work conducted by the Eurosystem in the run-up to the introduction of the single currency and of the main economic and monetary developments within the European Union in 1998 and in the first few weeks of 1999.
<P>
Since the information contained in the annual report is of a self-explanatory nature, it might be more useful if I concentrate my remarks here and now on some of the issues addressed by the draft resolution prepared by your Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
After that I shall be happy to answer any questions you might have.
<P>
I should like to start by commenting on the discharge of the ECB' s accountability vis-à-vis the European Parliament.
The Treaty establishing the European Community contains various provisions to ensure the democratic accountability of the ECB, one of the cornerstones of which is certainly the presentation of the Annual Report to the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union.
However, apart from this annual exercise, the ECB and the European Parliament have established several other contacts.
<P>
First and possibly most importantly, I should like to mention the regular hearings held by the European Parliament' s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
Within the scope of these hearings, which - in line with the European Parliament' s Rules of Procedure - take place on a quarterly basis, I provide detailed explanations regarding both our assessment of current economic and monetary developments and the decisions taken by the ECB.
Transcripts of these hearings are published on the websites of both the European Parliament and the ECB.
Moreover, the European Parliament has invited members of the Executive Board of the ECB and of the staff to participate in additional hearings on a number of specific issues, including the external representation of the Eurosystem, the preparation of euro banknotes and statistical matters.
<P>
Furthermore, the ECB also had the opportunity to welcome delegations of members of the European Parliament' s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs to its premises in Frankfurt.
We attach great importance to these visits and will be pleased to continue to host such events.
However, since these visits to the ECB are of a more informal nature, it goes without saying that they have to be considered as an additional tool for communication between the two institutions and cannot be seen as a substitute for regular public hearings at the European Parliament.
<P>
In setting up its communication policy, the Central Bank decided to go beyond the transparency requirements of the Treaty.
Thus, while the Treaty requires the ECB to publish a quarterly report on its activities, the ECB has decided to publish such a report on a monthly basis, the Monthly Bulletin, which gives a detailed presentation of economic and monetary developments.
<P>
In addition, there are a number of other communication tools that the ECB regularly uses.
First, let me mention the extended press conferences that the Vice-President and I hold immediately after the first meeting of the Governing Council every month, transcripts of which - including transcripts of the questions and answer session are also accessible via the ECB' s website.
You, of course, are aware of the broad range of publications that the ECB has issued on specific subjects related to its fields of responsibility.
Our communication policy gives clear priority to maintaining and enhancing the credibility of the Eurosystem and confidence in the euro, both of which - credibility and confidence - are crucial elements in the successful conduct of monetary policy.
In this context, one should always bear in mind the fact that the Governing Council acts as a collegial body, and that all decisions have to be communicated to the public in a clear and consistent way.
Speaking a common language is particularly important for a central bank operating in a monetary union comprising several countries.
Contradictory indications about the decisions taken by the ECB and the underlying reasons might trigger unwarranted market expectations and increase uncertainty, thereby running counter to the very objective of being transparent with regard to the conduct of monetary policy.
I should like to stress that the information provided at the press conferences held after the meetings of the Governing Council, together with the analysis contained both in the ECB Monthly Bulletin and in the other channels of communication comes very close, in substance, to the publication of "summary minutes" .
In view of the broad variety of publicly available information issued by the ECB, it is my firm belief and conviction that the ECB can stand comparison with other central banks in the field of transparency.
<P>
In this context, I should also like to comment briefly on the request to publish the ECB' s internal forecasts.
First, it would, at this moment, clearly be premature to consider such a step since the Eurosystem - that is, the ECB and the eleven national central banks - has yet to gain experience with its forecasts.
More time will be needed before we can assume that all the technical issues have been addressed properly, and the publication of forecasts can be considered without endangering the ECB' s credibility.
I am confident, however, that we can achieve this in the course of next year.
Let me also emphasise that the role of the ECB' s internal forecasts in the decision-making process should not be overestimated.
Such forecasts constitute one piece of information made available to the Governing Council, but certainly not the only one.
The role of our internal forecasts within the monetary policy strategy of the Eurosystem therefore differs from the role of inflation forecasts in a strategy of direct inflation targeting.
Finally, I should like to recall that the Monthly Bulletin - especially in its extended quarterly version - provides a forward-looking analysis, including reviews of the outlook for price developments.
<P>
The ECB has also been asked to publish reports featuring national data relating to countries participating in the euro area.
The publication of such data, however, would, in our view, be misleading since the single monetary policy cannot be directed at country-specific situations.
On the contrary, the Eurosystem must take a euro area-wide perspective in its assessment of the economic situation in general and the outlook for price stability in particular.
Publication by the ECB of detailed reports for each country participating in the euro area would run counter to the necessary creation of an area-wide perspective in the conduct, discussion and thinking of monetary policy.
However, it should be recognised that the national central banks of the Eurosystem continue to produce their own regular reports that address national economic and financial developments in some detail.
<P>
I should now like briefly to expand upon another issue which I know is of fundamental concern to the European Parliament, namely the contribution of monetary policy to the general economic policies in the Community.
The Treaty provides for a fundamentally sound allocation of objectives and policy instruments between the monetary and governmental authorities in Europe.
The Eurosystem is responsible for maintaining price stability.
To this end, the Eurosystem has adopted a monetary policy strategy that is forward-looking and acts promptly to address threats to price stability.
The Treaty also states that, without prejudice to its primary objective of price stability, the Eurosystem shall support the general economic policies in the Community.
<P>
By maintaining price stability, it is our firm belief monetary policy makes the best contribution it can to achieving a high level of output and employment in the medium-term.
Price stability has beneficial effects on general economic performance - including growth and employment prospects - through many channels, of which I should like to mention the following.
<P>
First, in an environment of price stability, the market mechanism will allocate resources more efficiently to their most productive uses.
Markets function most effectively when relative price signals are not distorted by fluctuations in the general price level.
<P>
Second, a climate of price stability reduces the inflation risk premia in interest rates, particularly in longer-term rates, and thereby improves the conditions for financing investment.
<P>
Third, lasting price stability serves the interests of social justice and helps to protect the weakest members of our society, such as pensioners and the unemployed, who depend on fixed incomes and who cannot protect themselves against the costs of inflation with other assets, such as property or shares.
<P>
Broad agreement exists that there is no long-term trade-off between price stability and economic growth.
Attempting to use monetary policy to raise real economic activity above its sustainable level will, in the long run, simply lead to ever higher inflation, but not to faster economic growth.
Such an attempt would simply forfeit the benefits of stable prices, which I have just outlined, and would therefore prejudice growth and employment prospects over the medium term.
<P>
While the contribution it makes through maintaining price stability must not be overlooked, monetary policy clearly cannot solve the serious structural unemployment problem in the euro area.
Other policy areas have the instruments needed and are thus responsible for solving the structural problems.
Decisive action in this field is certainly required to improve growth and employment prospects.
<P>
Safeguarding sound government finances is a means of strengthening the conditions for price stability and achieving strong sustainable growth which is conducive to employment creation.
In this context, the Stability and Growth Pact sets the right incentives for the conduct of sound and disciplined fiscal policies across all participating Member States.
In addition, structural reforms in labour and goods markets, as well as a moderate development of wage costs, can best address the root causes of currently high unemployment in Europe.
<P>
The clear division of policy responsibilities I have just described enhances the credibility of monetary and economic policies in Europe, increases transparency and facilitates accountability.
It provides the proper incentives for the policy-makers in individual policy areas.
If all parties concerned respect the fundamental allocation of these responsibilities and act accordingly, the achievement of the objectives of all policy areas will be the natural outcome of their individual policy choices.
<P>
In this regard the Eurosystem supports the idea of a dialogue between monetary policy and other policy areas in the form of an open exchange of information.
However, such a dialogue should be clearly distinguished from any attempts to coordinate policies ex ante, so as to achieve a certain "policy mix" , which would blur the fundamental responsibilities I described.
Such coordination would tend to decrease accountability, reduce the transparency of the policy framework for the public and increase uncertainty about policy actions, potentially threatening to destabilise the economy.
Finally, the debate on a "balanced and appropriate policy mix" should not be used to deflect attention from the structural reforms that are so urgently needed to address the euro area' s serious structural unemployment problem.
<P>
One other matter, which is addressed by your committee is the ECB' s contribution to financial stability, and in particular the question of the provision of emergency liquidity to financial institutions in distress.
Allow me to explain some of our main considerations in this regard.
The main guiding principle within the Eurosystem with reference to the provision of emergency liquidity to individual financial institutions is that the competent national central bank would be responsible for providing such assistance to those institutions operating within its jurisdiction.
The ECB does, however, have to be informed of this in a timely manner.
In addition, in operations of relevance to the single monetary policy, the decision-making bodies of the Eurosystem will be involved in assessing the compatibility of the envisaged operations with the pursuit of monetary stability.
In the case of a general liquidity crisis resulting from a gridlock in the payment system, for instance, the direct involvement of the Eurosystem could be expected.
<P>
For the markets it would be sufficient to know that there is a clearly articulated capability and willingness to act if really necessary.
It is not common practice amongst central banks to disclose the conditions and practicalities of emergency liquidity assistance arrangements.
In particular, there are typically no official documents describing the conditions under which emergency liquidity would be extended or what procedures would be followed.
Indeed, ex ante commitments would be counter-productive in this field, since they would restrict the ability of the central bank to act to contain systemic disturbances with unforeseen features.
Moreover, this policy of "constructive ambiguity" can limit the associated problem of moral hazard.
<P>
Finally, I should like to turn to a different issue which has also been raised by the European Parliament on several occasions, namely the question of cross-border retail payment services in the euro area.
The ECB is aware of the criticism that has been expressed with reference to the low level of efficiency and high costs involved in the processing of such payments and it fully shares the concerns expressed by the European Parliament in this regard.
The current situation is particularly unsatisfactory in the area of cross-border credit transfers, whereas the situation in the area of cross-border card-based payments raises fewer concerns.
<P>
As you will be aware, one of the basic tasks conferred upon the Eurosystem by the Treaty is the promotion of the smooth functioning of payment systems.
However, the involvement of central banks in retail payment systems is, in general, less pronounced than in large-value payment systems, mainly because retail payment systems entail significantly lower systemic risks.
Nevertheless, the Eurosystem is concerned with efficiency issues related to cross-border retail payments.
<P>
At present, the performance of cross-border retail payment systems is clearly lagging behind the policy objectives of Economic and Monetary Union and, indeed, behind the expectations of many European citizens and small enterprises.
After the introduction of the euro banknotes and coins on 1 January 2002, these differences in service levels for national and cross-border payments within the single currency area will become even more apparent.
<P>
Against this background, the ECB strongly advocates the creation of a single payment area in order fully to reap the benefits of the single currency.
In order to give a clear signal to the banking industry and the public, the ECB published a number of objectives in September which it expects the industry to fulfil and which should contribute towards substantial improvements.
The current inadequacies are linked, in part, to the still predominant recourse to correspondent banking and the lack of adequate interbank infrastructures.
More efficient funds transfer arrangements have been set up in recent years, but they are too fragmented and economies of scale are very limited.
One pre-condition, therefore, for achieving a substantial enhancement in the processing of cross-border retail payments is undoubtedly the fact that the banking industry must implement common technical features in the processing of funds between banks.
<P>
However, this is unlikely to be sufficient.
The banking industry must also improve substantially its internal procedures for processing cross-border payments, as well as its communication with the customer.
This, in turn, requires a more extensive use of automation and standardisation.
In this respect, I should like to draw attention to the standards agreed within the framework of the European Committee for Banking Standards, which I consider to be of particular importance.
The ECB is organising meetings with all parties involved in order to bring the implementation of the standards forward.
<P>
Once the conditions related to interbank processing and internal procedures have been met, it should be possible for the banking industry to decrease substantially the price of cross-border credit transfers and to reduce the execution time to that needed for domestic payments plus one day.
<P>
The ECB expects the banks in the euro area to achieve substantial improvements by 1 January 2002 at the latest.
The ECB will act as a catalyst for change and will, together with the national central banks of the Eurosystem, discuss these issues with the euro area banking industry in order to play a supportive and coordinating role in this regard.
At present, an operational involvement of the ECB does not appear to be justified since there are already some indications that the general appreciation of the problem by the private sector is now increasing.
The ECB will, however, closely monitor further developments in this area and will inform the European Parliament and the general public about the progress achieved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Huhne">
It is an honour to be chosen as the rapporteur for this important report.
This is the first occasion on which the European Parliament has given its views on the progress of the European Central Bank and in this context it is my pleasant duty to congratulate the ECB and Mr Duisenberg, as President, on its success so far.
<P>
The launch of the euro itself is a truly historic moment in the life of an extraordinary undertaking.
It represents a substantial technical achievement and the many officials involved deserve our thanks and our appreciation.
<P>
Clearly it is still early days in terms of judgement on the results of the ECB' s mandate but here, too, we can already point to many positive signs, not least that investors are prepared to lend euro area governments their money at very low rates of interest.
This is a real vote of confidence that the ECB will continue to deliver price stability and will not allow an inflationary erosion of people' s savings.
<P>
It is very much in this context of overwhelming support for the objectives of the ECB and of praise for its achievements so far that my remaining remarks should be seen.
Only if the ECB is open about the way it reaches its decisions will it be able to retain support in bad times as well as in good.
It may achieve its objective of price stability but without openness it will not be clear whether that objective has been attained by design and can therefore be repeated in future or by lucky accident which may therefore require some improvement in its methods of working.
<P>
The committee was also struck by the fact that other central banks have moved more rapidly in recent years towards greater openness.
The US Federal Reserve, the Bank of Japan, Sweden' s Riksbank, the Bank of England all publish the individual votes of the committee that decides interest rates.
They all publish forecasts, they all give information about the nature of the debate within their governing councils.
In all of these respects - objective measures of transparency - the ECB lags behind normal international practice.
<P>
The committee therefore proposes, firstly that the ECB should publish a summary minute giving both sides of the argument, for and against monetary actions.
Secondly, the ECB should publish a six-monthly forecast of economic developments in the euro area.
Mr Duisenberg' s remarks to us today are particularly welcome in that respect because he has promised that he that will do just that within the next year.
Thirdly, the ECB should discuss on a regular basis developments in each of the Member States of the euro area in order to have a positive influence on price and wage developments which must, as Mr Duisenberg rightly pointed out, differ from Member State to Member State.
Finally, the committee may request that the President appears following each significant monetary action.
These measures would do much to foster a culture of transparency.
<P>
The committee was unable to support a call now for the publication of votes as is in the Liberal group amendment today.
It was felt that a young institution should have time to find its feet.
Most members felt that publication might intensify the public pressures on governing council members to vote in line with their national interest.
Similarly, the committee did not support the Liberal position that it would be useful to publish the ECB' s econometric models of the euro area, partly for fear that they may be abused.
<P>
The committee also rejected the Greens' view as expressed in their amendment today, that the price stability mandate should be altered to take account of the difficulties faced by manufacturers alone if their prices fall.
The amendment from the EPP, however, clarifies the paragraph and should, in our view, be supported.
<P>
Mr President, I would like to highlight briefly some other points that we make.
The first is to thank Mr Duisenberg again for his assurance to this House that the process of cooperation between the ECB and the national central banks is now adequate, even in the case of a serious crisis in which a euro area financial institution may need to be supported.
I would also like to stress the committee' s view that the ECB should bring pressure to bear on those Member States which rely excessively on short-term debt, as this can present dangers, particularly during a financial crisis.
<P>
Thirdly, we encourage the ECB to fulfil its role on the international stage as one of the three main pillars of the international monetary system.
<P>
Finally, I very much welcome, too, Mr Duisenberg' s taking up of a point in the report about the need to reduce the costs of cross-border payments, particularly for smaller payments which affect individual members.
<P>
Mr President, if the euro is as great a success as I hope and expect, it will play its part in revolutionising the European economy.
By completing the single European market it will give Europe' s consumers more choice of goods and services, of higher quality and at lower prices and will, therefore, spur greater increases in living standards.
It will provide jobs in expanding industries which is the only sure guarantee of future prosperity.
Although I have no doubt that the ECB will face many difficult challenges in the years ahead, I am pleased to report that so far it has risen to the challenges it has faced with considerable élan.
We can look forward to a future which builds on its recent success.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Karas">
Mr President, President Duisenberg, rapporteur, I would like to outline five thoughts briefly.
<P>
Firstly, we have heard that this is the first report of the ECB and first position that we have been called upon to express on it.
It can be discerned immediately that the report describes the status quo of a year that has now passed and does not definitively clarify the work of the ECB and our relationship to the ECB.
Cooperation between the European Parliament and the ECB, as well as the operating methods of the European Central Bank, are in a process of evolution.
Much of our criticism or our requirements today will seem self-evident in a while.
I would, however, like to say on behalf of our group that we consider the fundamental conditions to be sacrosanct.
The Group of the European People' s Party/European Democrats sees itself as the political group which says yes to the independence of the ECB, to reinforcement of the stability policy, regarding both price stability and currency stability, and which also says yes to further reduction of the public debt, to new growth and employment and to the credibility of monetary policy.
<P>
These fundamental positions of ours, in addition to the tension between autonomy, confidence, a transparent public record and the essential intensification of monetary dialogue with the European Parliament, are crucial for us to be able to assess the work of the ECB, but also for the preparation of our own report and the operating methods of Parliament.
<P>
We have already heard briefly today that the main theme of the report is the year 1998, a year in which it was announced which countries had met the convergence criteria - eleven of them, the location of the ECB was decided, the EMI was taken on, the third phase of economic and monetary union was introduced and the ECB Governing Council decided on the stability strategy, based on the two recognised pillars.
<P>
It has to be said, a lot happened in the course of this year.
In spite of some currency turbulence on other continents, the euro has already demonstrated that it can earn confidence, and the conversion of existing currencies to the new currency on 1 January 1999 was achieved smoothly.
<P>
At this point, therefore, I would like above all to offer congratulations and thanks. Congratulations and thanks to the European Monetary Institute, the national banks, the European Central Bank, represented here today by President Duisenberg, but also to all the Member States who, by means of many politically necessary reforms, drove forward further structural and institutional reforms and fulfilled the convergence criteria, and not forgetting the citizens who support this necessary step towards European integration with increasing approval.
<P>
Permit me to say in conclusion that fulfilment of the convergence criteria has led to price stability, exchange rate stability and to improved public finances.
These three successes are the prerequisite for economic growth, on the one hand, essential investment in the future, on the other hand, and creating jobs and making them secure.
Considering that the report contains all our fundamental conditions, my hope is that it will meet with wide approval.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Mr President, our primary objective is to establish the euro, after a successful start at the beginning of this year, as a stable currency in the long term, to make it an international reserve currency and to ensure that it is accepted by the citizens.
I am particularly pleased that the President stressed again today that the European Central Bank also regards consumer protection as an important task within monetary union.
<P>
The independence of the European Central Bank is important for the objectives I mentioned, but its credibility and the degree to which the public can have confidence in it are important too.
In a democratic legal system, the institutional and political independence of an institution is only possible if democratic legitimisation is guaranteed at the same time, and that includes transparency of decisions and indeed the possibility of understanding these decisions.
<P>
In this respect, a central role falls to the European Parliament, and I think that the dialogue on monetary policy, in the form established between this Parliament and the European Central Bank, is a good start for future years in the euro area.
<P>
I know how difficult it was, and this is shown in the annual report, to set up the European Central Bank, and indeed the whole system, and to get Monetary Union underway without problems.
I also consider it very positive that the European Central Bank has improved its information policy.
I do think, on the other hand, that it is not sufficient to allocate only an ancillary role in this communication policy to the European Parliament, as the open forum for European policy.
It is important to see the special role of the European Parliament here too and I also think therefore that ECB information services and transparency could be significantly improved with regard to the European Parliament.
By that I do not mean that we necessarily need to have verbatim reports of meetings published now, but it would be useful to have outline minutes of meetings giving the arguments for and against, making it possible to understand the way in which the European Central Bank actually makes its evaluation in the assessment of the risk of inflation or of deflation.
<P>
It has not been clear to us to date how an assessment can be made or is made in this area regarding the development of prices over and above goods and services, with reference, for example, also to property markets or share markets.
There is therefore some uncertainty in this area as to the basis for decision making and the intelligibility of decisions, just as there still is with reference to the forecasts and models.
The European Central Bank must be allowed some time. It is only 10 months since the child came of age and became responsible in the monetary arena, but it must continue in this direction.
<P>
I am convinced of the fact that trusting collaboration between the ECB and Parliament will also contribute towards achieving greater certainty and confidence among the public.
At the moment there is great speculation on the subject of the ECB' s decisions in matters of interest rate policy.
In this context within the euro area, I expressly welcome the ECB decision last Thursday to leave interest rates unchanged.
This shows that the ECB is taking its responsibility in supporting other national economic objectives, particularly employment, seriously, and we know that the economic "spring" in the European Union, in spite of the varied developments within the euro area of the 11, certainly needs even further support.
I think that the drop in oil prices, together with the fall in consumer prices which has already been experienced and which is expected to continue in the telecommunications, electricity and financial service sectors as a result of competition and the liberalisation of the market also certainly played a part in the decisions of last Thursday.
This should continue to be the case.
<P>
I am filled with consternation regarding the ECB' s attack upon the Employment Pact.
I would ask the ECB to make a constructive contribution towards achieving the Growth and Employment Pact and to say very clearly what part it intends to play in the macroeconomic dialogue in order to contribute to a balanced policy mix.
It is no longer possible for monetary policy just to be responsible for price stability.
It is no longer possible for budgetary policy just to be responsible for state finance, and social partners for moderate wage policy.
There must be real liaison here in the interests of the further development of European Economic and Monetary Union, and also a shared position in this area in the interests of increasing employment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gasòliba i Böhm">
Mr President, on behalf of the Liberal Group, I am pleased to express our support and favourable position with regard to the report presented by Mr Huhne, concerning the 1998 annual report of the European Central Bank.
<P>
First of all, we must congratulate ourselves on the process of introducing the euro.
It is now a complete reality which is operating with total normality on all the economic levels envisaged - in the Member States, in the European Union, on an international level.
The good leadership and management of the European Central Bank has undoubtedly contributed to this normality and we should congratulate it and its President since, during the early months of the establishment of the euro, when the initial approaches were adopted, they had to overcome - and they did it skilfully - certain adverse circumstances at moments which were clearly delicate at an internal as well as an international level.
At that time - and I must insist on this - the European Central Bank displayed skill, good leadership and management and the ability to maintain the principles of independence.
<P>
This very solidity, which has been demonstrated in so few months, should allow us to be braver, more decisive in some areas which have already been mentioned, which are in Mr Huhne' s report and which I would like to insist on.
One of them is clearly the issue of transparency in some areas that the President of the Central Bank himself has already mentioned.
The publication of the forecasts, the possibility of having access to the minutes of meetings and a global report on the economic progress of the Member States are elements which will contribute - as the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, by means of the intervention of its President, Mrs Randzio-Plath, has demonstrated, and as mentioned in Mr Huhne' s report - to the consolidation of the level of internal and international acceptance and, of course, transparency, not only with regard to public opinion but also with regard to the experts in monetary affairs.
<P>
Let me end by insisting on the specific position of the Liberal Group which calls for, after the transitional period of two years, the publication of votes, the various positions taken in the meetings of the Executive Board and the macroeconomic models, which I believe would allow more convincing and accurate forecasts to be made by those whose operations relate to the European Central Bank.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lipietz">
Mr President, this is the first time that the new Parliament is fulfilling its mission of supervising the European Central Bank.
<P>
The Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance heartily supports the Huhne report, not only for its professional quality but also for its general attitude of mind.
It is effectively a response to the fundamental problem which faces us today, that of accountability in managing monetary policy.
<P>
What is the nature of this problem?
The Central Bank is not a fourth estate.
It is not, for example, in a position to challenge the social rights gained by Europeans.
These rights are enshrined either in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in national bodies of legislation and in conventions between management and unions.
<P>
The Central Bank, on the other hand, has been assigned a specific function by Europeans, that of ensuring price stability.
The Maastricht Treaty is not very specific on the manner in which it must actually be accountable for the fulfilment of its mission with regard to national representatives.
All central or international banks of major countries are bound, in one form or another, by this democratic accountability with regard to the socio-economic community - in the Anglo-Saxon countries through Parliament and in Germany through the federate banks of the Länder.
<P>
Today we have to invent the forms of democratic responsibility of the European Central Bank.
The Huhne report already provides many possible routes.
We support the two amendments tabled by the rapporteur himself, for publication of votes in the Council of the European Central Bank and the econometric models on which these votes are based.
Only the most complete transparency of the relationship between the objectives set by the Treaty and the actions of the members of the Council will make it possible for Europeans to actually measure whether the members of the Council are fulfilling their mission properly, not that we doubt it.
<P>
From this point of view, the Huhne report is justifiably very pleased with the reduction in interest rates which occurred in April.
Apart from the positive effect of this decision on employment, it is in line with the objective of ecological sustainability, which is to say the rejection of a policy of excessively favouring immediate prospects at the expense of long- term future prospects.
<P>
This is why our group is concerned about the rumours of a forthcoming increase in interest rates.
Such a decision would compromise both the upturn in employment in Europe and ecological investment, especially that related to saving energy and combating the greenhouse effect.
<P>
Such a decision could only be taken in the event that price stability was threatened.
Well, price stability applies in both directions.
For many months, the consumer price index has been increasing at a rate of 1%, while the industrial price index on the other hand has been decreasing, at a rate of 1%.
This deflation in industrial prices prompts giving preference to short-term prospects. It would become dangerous if real interest rates were to increase.
<P>
In order to prevent such situations arising, our Group is proposing an amendment drawing the attention of the European Central Bank to its mandate to ensure price stability in both directions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kaufmann">
President Duisenberg, I would like to mention three matters critical to this first annual report of the European Central Bank: accountability, transparency and employment.
Firstly, in my view, the content and the drafting of the report do not make it sufficiently clear that the European Central Bank is willing to subject itself to democratic control by the European Parliament.
This is demonstrated by the fact that dialogue on monetary matters between Parliament and the ECB is assessed on page 95/96 on just the same terms as cooperation with other institutions.
In my opinion, this is in contradiction to Article 113 of the Treaty on European Union, which makes it mandatory for the ECB to present an annual report of its activities and its monetary policy to Parliament.
This is precisely what you get as a result of the fact that the European Central Bank' s accountability towards Parliament is described in such vague terms in this Article.
I therefore support the request made in the report of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, to wit, that the ECB should take immediate action in order in future to at least take into account fully the special relationship with the European Parliament established by the Treaty on European Union.
<P>
This brings me to my second comment. It is not acceptable that the European Central Bank should give no details of the background and reasons for its decisions on monetary policy.
Indeed, this Parliament is the forum where the ECB must present its monetary decisions, justify them and, if necessary, let them be criticised.
If this does not take place, then Parliament cannot fulfil its own task of supervising the activity of the Bank.
Monetary policy is, as is known, a highly political matter, and it is precisely for that reason that the Bank must demand a high degree of transparency with regard to decision-making.
<P>
Thirdly, what for me is a central question, there is clear dissent in this House, President Duisenberg, as to the views you have just expressed.
I am of the opinion that the European Central Bank must make a contribution to economic growth and employment by means of its monetary policy.
It is not right for full employment to be de facto abandoned as a political objective and for everything, literally everything, to be subordinated to monetary stability.
I still consider this to be the crucial foundation for establishing...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off.)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Abitbol">
Mr President, today our Parliament has the President of the European Central Bank as its guest, that is to say the president of the first institution to which the nations of Europe, by who knows what perturbation, have decided, eleven of them at least, to confer to give sovereign power.
<P>
Thus, Mr Duisenberg, even though today' s poor attendance does not seem to back up my statement, you are nonetheless the successor to the emperors and popes who, since the time of Charlemagne, have dreamt of unifying our continent by faith or by force.
No doubt you will even have more power or influence, in the final analysis, than they ever did, even if it is to be a less flamboyant form of power, since at the end of this millennium which seems to set money up as the ultimate universal value, you are poised to hold both temporal power and spiritual power within the European Union.
<P>
Confronted with this - I do not know how to describe it exactly - this "Bank State" or this "Holy Bank" , the Vice-President of which, Mr Noyer, recently explained to us ingratiatingly, but in English, how responsible it felt for the long term whilst governments, on the other hand, gave in to short term whims because they were subject to the vagaries of universal suffrage. Confronted, then, with the omnipotence of this Bank, the excellent report by our fellow Member, Mr Huhne, calls for greater transparency, without however daring to go as far as demanding of you what might pass for exhibitionism, that is to say, ceasing to maintain anonymity regarding decisions.
<P>
We can only approve these excellent resolutions, while being aware that there is even more talk of transparency when democracy is being relinquished or sidelined.
Let us recall, for that matter, that transparency comes from the Russian glasnost.
That is why, Mr Duisenberg, I believe that today' s meeting, and particularly the ridiculous opposition force which Parliament is attempting to exert in relation to the considerable power which has been entrusted to you, can only worry anyone who attaches importance to national sovereignty, which is just one way for nations to keep control of their own fate.
I only hope that, aware of the power which has been granted you, you will be able to exercise this power with all the wisdom one could hope for.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, the ECB' s first annual report looks back over 1998, a year dominated by the build-up to the launch of the single currency on 1 January 1999.
The transition to the third stage of EMU proceeded fairly uneventfully.
We can justifiably be pleased about that.
But it has since become apparent that bringing about the monetary union of eleven Member States also has its drawbacks.
These negative effects could, in the main, have been foreseen, but this Parliament never gave them serious attention during the run-up to EMU.
<P>
One issue that is now receiving people' s undivided attention is that of the divergent rate of inflation in the euro countries.
Currency depreciation is significantly higher in Ireland, Spain and the Netherlands in particular.
There will be no change here in the foreseeable future.
According to the estimates published by the IMF yesterday, the Netherlands can expect inflation to be at 2.3% next year.
The constant rise in consumer spending is prompting the Dutch Government to make concerned and admonishing comments, but it is doing the wrong things in policy terms: tax reductions instead of debt reduction.
<P>
Following an inquiry into the situation, the ECB concluded that the differing rates of inflation ought not to be a major cause for concern.
Regional differences in the rate of inflation are in fact greater still in the United States.
However, federal states in the US benefit from automatic stabilisers coming into play via the federal budget.
The mobility of labour is also much greater in the United States.
I tend to feel that the ECB wants to play fast and loose and I would like its President to clarify his position.
<P>
I also want to ask him if the banking supervision system needs to be adapted.
As things stand it is decentralised and that is fine, but is the supervisory process not rendered more difficult by transnational mergers with banks outside the euro area?
I would be pleased to hear what you intend to do about this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Della Vedova">
Mr President of the Central Bank, I am speaking on behalf of the Italian Radical Members.
Certainly, this first report by the European Central Bank is compensating for the launch of the euro and you and the Governing Council of the bank are taking on a great responsibility.
The Huhne report certainly contains positive elements, especially as regards the request to the European Central Bank for more information regarding the grounds for the decisions it adopted through the publication of concise Minutes including dissenting opinions as well.
However, there is a point in the report which, Mr President, in my opinion is completely unacceptable.
I am referring to point 11, which states that Parliament regards 'the reduction of 50 basis points in interest rates on 8 April 1999 as appropriate, and welcomes in particular the reasons given for it' , which tells us that the cut in rates supported the general economic policies in the Community.
<P>
Regarding the method, I wonder why on earth Parliament, in discussing the 1998 report of the European Central Bank, feels the need to include its approbation of a specific measure which the European Central Bank will give an account of in its next report - the 1999 report.
Moreover, how can we consider judging the effects of the manoeuvre on taxes after only a few weeks?
And what sense is there in Parliament giving an opinion of one single act of the Central Bank?
<P>
Considering this matter further, I find this approbation totally out of place.
Yesterday, both the head economist of the Central Bank, Mr Issing, and Vice-President Noyer implied that a fresh increase in taxation is imminent. Does this not maybe prove that the decision taken in April was wrong, given that in the meantime there has been no unexpected shock?
And was the long-term tax increase not due to the loss of credibility owing to that very cut?
We have the suspicion, actually more than a suspicion, that that decision was made following political pressure - for example, Oscar Lafontaine - and that Parliament, with today' s approval, wishes to confirm the move towards a Central Bank which is subordinate to political requirements or even electoral interests.
I believe that the Central Bank' s strategy must focus exclusively on currency and prices.
It would be suicide, as today others have repeatedly advocated, to think that European leaders can put pressure on the Central Bank so that it will make up for their inability to relaunch the economy through structural reforms, liberalisation of the markets - the job market first and foremost - and tight budgetary policy which must be coupled with a reduction of the tax burden on people and firms.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Wogau">
Mr President, President Duisenberg, I too would like to express my delight at being able to welcome President Duisenberg here today.
Why is the debate we are having today so important?
The European Central Bank is autonomous, and my group is surely the one which always stressed this most.
But, at the same time, the European Central Bank must make decisions which concern every individual citizen of Europe.
It is therefore particularly important that the bank should not exist in an ivory tower but that it should continue to justify itself to the public.
There are a variety of ways in which it can achieve this.
<P>
I would also like to point out that the European Parliament has a particularly privileged role here.
The European Parliament is explicitly mentioned in the Treaties as the partner of the European Central Bank in dialogue, and this is not the case in the same way with other institutions.
The European Parliament is a forum where all of Europe can in fact take part in the debate; though I would have liked to see a rather larger participation in this debate today, for I am of the opinion that this debate is of great significance.
<P>
The European Central Bank is autonomous.
It is committed in the first instance to ensuring price stability.
At this point, I would like to remind Mrs Randzio-Plath that the Treaty plainly stipulates that the prime objective of the European Central Bank is to ensure price stability and that any other objectives may be pursued only if they can be achieved without any risk to price stability, and that price stability itself, as the President has already stated, can have positive social and economic effects.
<P>
On behalf of my group, I should like to say that the European Central Bank has achieved some outstanding work in the course of this last year, since it was founded.
It has taken some very important decisions, for example, its decision on the definition of price stability.
That is of very great significance for the long-term development of our debate on this question.
Even in its decision regarding the minimum reserves, which were rather controversial, the European Central Bank, i.e. the Governing Council of the European Central Bank, has demonstrated great perceptiveness.
It has, at least, passed its period of probation as far as that goes.
I would however like to specify that throughout this probationary period the Bank experienced fair weather, economically speaking.
Perhaps occasionally things were rather hazy, but, on the whole, we are going through a period of positive economic development.
<P>
It will be much more difficult for the European Central Bank to take uncomfortable decisions, such as, for example, raising interest rates rather than lowering them, if the economic situation becomes more difficult and if actual risks to price stability arise.
In the first months of its existence, the European Central Bank has earned our confidence, but if it is to be able in the future to withstand such situations, then this confidence must be systematically consolidated in the years to come and, Mr President, in that endeavour you may count on the support of my group.
<P>
We are called upon to vote on a draft amendment which demands that the votes of the individual members of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank should be made public.
I would like to make it perfectly clear that my own group will never agree to such an amendment.
Why not?
Individuals sit on the Governing Council of the Bank, who are personally responsible for monetary stability and who make decisions as individuals within this Governing Council.
There is not, therefore, any weighting of votes, such as there is in the Council of Ministers, since it has been determined that these are people who have to vote here as individuals.
Publishing the votes could lead to a situation where there would then be national debates on the behaviour of individual members.
That would be extraordinarily negative both for the European Central Bank and also for all of us.
The European Central Bank has achieved some excellent work, it has earned the confidence of the citizens by dint of its work in the last few months, and this is what we are going to reflect in this resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Goebbels">
Mr President, this first annual report of the Central Bank gives me the opportunity to make an on the whole positive assessment of the work accomplished to date by the European Central Bank and the operation of the euro area.
The Central Bank has managed to fulfil its primary mission of maintaining price stability.
The general economic policies of the Union have been accompanied by an opportune reduction in key interest rates.
The countries participating in the euro area have been in a position to continue their structural improvement.
Growth has returned in the majority of European countries.
Following the doubling of petroleum prices, a slight upsurge has been observed in inflation.
The ECB has a duty to remain vigilant, but as the mean rate of inflation of the euro-11 is still well under the 2% mark, I dare to hope that the Governing Council will give growth and, consequently, further reduction in unemployment, a chance.
According to ECB estimates, some four fifths of unemployment is structural in nature.
More recent studies show that in fact less than one fifth of unemployment is structural.
This type of unemployment linked to the current economic climate could be absorbed only by more vigorous growth.
<P>
While emphasising the need to continue the policy of stability, I would like to ask President Duisenberg the following question: can Europe' s only ambition be to pursue a macroeconomic policy focused on stability alone?
In my view, the fight against inflation must go hand in hand with the improved coordination of budgetary policies and the establishment of a macroeconomic framework favourable to growth and to employment.
When assessing the work of the ECB and the positive effect of the euro area, one must consider the internationalisation of financial markets.
One is bound to observe that Europe has come to terms with the crises in Asia, Russia and Brazil rather well.
Without the euro, some more vulnerable Member States would probably have experienced monetary difficulties along with, who knows, some cases of competitive devaluation.
The euro is also a victory of Community regulation over the disordered interaction of individual financial markets.
People will bring up the objection that, since its successful launch, the value of the euro has depreciated in comparison with the dollar.
This is to forget that, within a floating exchange rate system, the main currencies are always going to evolve in relation to each other.
In the last twenty years, the yearly slide in the volatile Mark/Dollar exchange rate has, on several occasions, exceeded 10%.
<P>
The only criticism I have of the ECB is that it should be a bit less reticent about international exposure in all the various for a.
The ECB is one of the most important central banks in the world.
It is its duty to take a particularly close interest in the vulnerability of the international banking system and the fragility of the financial sector throughout the world.
The crisis in Asia was not triggered by traditional macroeconomic imbalances, but by the financial excesses of the private sector.
The irrational exuberance which characterises some stock exchanges, the excessive indebtedness of American households and of some economic sectors in important countries cause a definite threat to hang over worldwide economic stability.
The ECB should make a firm commitment in all the appropriate fora to create a new regulatory framework for the structure of international finance.
The essential complement ...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schmidt, Olle">
<SPEAKER ID=86 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Knörr Borràs">
Mr President, Mr Duisenberg, it is probably not necessary to say it, but please allow me to emphasise, as a humble MEP from a small country - the Basque Country - that you have a lot of power but it is a democratic power.
And contrary to what somebody said a little while ago, we do know who granted that power.
<P>
In the current phase of European construction we are seeing significant economic and monetary integration processes, which have been speeded up since the adoption of the single currency.
In the real economy we are witnessing great mergers and concentrations which must be carried out in accordance with good practice and respect for consumer rights.
<P>
At an institutional level the Central Bank plays a key role and we would also like this role to be counterbalanced with the transparency demanded of those institutions which result from the votes of the citizens.
<P>
Somebody said that one should not grow fond of banks because they will never grow fond of you.
We do not intend to present you with a rosy picture or a wonderful idyll, but we do not believe that it is too much to ask that at least they are transparent with the citizens of Europe who are affected by their policies and measures.
<P>
In general terms we agree with the Huhne report, which emphasises the quality of the annual report of the ECB and the progress made in the communication of the Bank' s policy.
<P>
We also agree with the measures proposed with regard to the increase in transparency and the need to clarify what the European Central Bank understands monetary policy to be, beyond price stability - which is evidently its main function - because this will undoubtedly contribute to an appropriate and balanced policy mix which is aimed at promoting sustainable development and lasting employment.
<P>
I must insist once again on transparency: do not apply a bandage until you are injured.
Mr Solbes said in an appearance before this Parliament that he would try to cooperate with the Members without prejudice to the quality of his work.
Transparency does not have to be incompatible with the protection of aims of monetary policy.
<P>
We are not asking for miracles nor that a great song and dance be made about what is going to be done, but simply that its management model be more transparent.
If you take note of what other Central Banks have done and if you trust in this Parliament, have no doubt that we will make progress with transparency without endangering the objectives of the European Central Bank.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, the European Central Bank is still very much an institution which makes crucial decisions for the millions of citizens of the European Union without being subject to any democratic or political control.
From this point of view, when Parliament considers that progress is being made because regular press conferences are held following any Governing Council meetings and because, in addition to annual reports, the ECB also publishes monthly reports, this invokes a false sense of true democracy among the peoples of Europe.
This 'progress' has, in fact, been run-of-the-mill practice at the central banks since the 1930s!
<P>
Mr President, European citizens are, first and foremost, interested in and, at the same time, concerned by the content of the policies of the European Central Bank, the European Union and the Member States - policies which give absolute priority to so-called monetary stability and the interests of major credit capital, at the cost of dramatic job losses and the total disintegration of the so-called European social model.
Workers are concerned by the fact that the European Central Bank considers a growth rate of over 2.5% to be dangerous for the notorious monetary stability, thereby deferring indefinitely efforts to address the issue of unemployment.
The average inflation rate of the 11 countries within the euro area is below 1%.
Some countries have already entered an anti-inflationary phase, but there are growing signs of a rise in interest rates in order to maintain monetary stability.
<P>
Mr President, with growth rates below 2%, with a new rise in interest rates, with deflation and the rigorous implementation of the Stability Pact, growing pressure is being brought to bear on the security and social rights of workers, and this will indirectly bring about a dramatic deterioration in their living standards and working conditions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Turchi">
Mr President, first of all, we must analyse the first period of the ECB' s activities which, as we know, began a year ago in the hope of becoming, in time, the main institution for intervention in the economies of the Member States of the Union.
On the one hand, we have all noticed the greater role played recently by this institution - and indirectly, at the same time, the whole Union - in terms of economic policy and, especially, employment policy. On the other hand, this was not sufficient to ensure that the euro was not affected by speculation or weakened in the face of our competitors - which, of course, we must definitely not ignore - which are the United States and NAFTA.
In fact the euro, which started with a strong position in the money markets, after a few months was exposed to attacks which were, to say the least, speculative.
We must take note of this signal and always ensure that the focus behind major political, budgetary and monetary strategies is not the new single currency but a long-term view taking into account the need to give the euro and the Member States stability, and above all, to relaunch the Union' s economy and the employment situation which concerns each of us in this Parliament so greatly.
<P>
Therefore, we must continue along the path which President Duisenberg is establishing within his role and the institution itself.
However, at the same time, we must monitor price stability so that we can control the greater evil with which we are all familiar - inflation - and at the same time keep interest rates low to stimulate investments and relaunch the European industrial sector, making it more competitive with regard to the other States.
In doing this, we would bring prestige to a new institution like the ECB and we would gain political credibility internationally.
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<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Krarup">
In a debate like this about this important institution known as the European Central Bank, two starting points might be taken.
One can talk about what is apparent, that is to say the surface details; or one can talk about what is real.
The European Central Bank' s mode of functioning is to stay on the surface.
It is a question of regulations and rules of procedure.
We are conducting a rather shadowy debate here, and it is also interesting what the rapporteur has written in the explanatory statement, namely that the European Parliament "is responsible both for receiving and debating the annual report of the ECB and for monitoring the ECB" .
There is no basis for this.
Neither Article 113 of the Treaty nor Article 15 of the Statute give Parliament any powers other than the power to talk.
So we can talk, then, and come up with comments about openness, as my excellent Swedish colleague has done, and I concur fully with the criticism of the culture of secrecy.
But the reality is the European Central Bank as a political tool, and this House believes that the question of the euro and its establishment as an important institution is a matter which is over and done with.
It is not!
It is a success, writes the rapporteur at the start of the report.
Success according to what criteria?
Is it a criterion of success that the exchange rate has fallen since the euro was established?
And, if one considers social criteria such as unemployment, it hits you right in the eye that the three North European countries which are outside the single currency (namely Denmark, Sweden and Great Britain) have significantly lower unemployment than certain areas in the EU, where it is catastrophically high.
Is this success?
<P>
The next step consists of referenda in the Scandinavian countries, and these will perhaps introduce a different agenda.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Tannock">
Mr President, nine months after the euro' s launch and with enthusiasm for its future role as the major international reserve currency dimmed as the result of exchange rate weakness, it cannot be heralded as an unqualified success.
It remains to be seen if the "one-size-fits-all" model of interest rates will work in countries like Ireland, without causing large tax rises and damaging the popularity of the Euro-project.
<P>
Nevertheless I applaud the aims and coherence of the Huhne report as a basis for defining accountability of the Central Bank, on which I should like to say a few words, particularly on the issue of transparency and accountability.
<P>
Some may question why I, as a British Member, should like to speak on this issue.
I would like to point out that Britain and the British Conservative Party - to which I belong - have never been hostile to the euro as a currency for those Member States which genuinely wish to join, as we are all bound together through our membership of the single market so that a collapse in confidence for the euro would affect us all, whether we are in or outside the EMU.
For this reason it is vital that the Central Bank enjoys the confidence of the financial markets.
We live in an era of massive capital flows and foreign exchange markets.
Some £300 billion is traded every day in the City of London.
A collapse in the credibility of or belief that the Bank would not be prepared to pursue an anti-inflationary policy at all costs could have severe repercussions economically throughout the whole Union.
<P>
I believe that only the Central Bank, for instance, should pronounce when necessary on foreign exchange target zones for the euro, to avoid conflicting messages being given to the financial markets.
It is also vital, in my opinion, that the Bank be encouraged to follow the example of other leading central banks, such as the Federal Reserve in America, and make transparency a central feature of all its activities.
I regret, therefore, that attempts to require the Bank to publish the names of those present, the voting on monetary actions, after a grace period of some two years and the publication of the ECB' s econometric models were defeated at committee stage and have not been put before this House today.
<P>
It was also confusing yesterday to hear that Mr Issing, the ECB' s chief economist, reportedly stated in London that the Bank would not publish economic forecasts for Euro-land, perpetuating a culture of secrecy.
I welcome Mr Duisenberg' s clarification on this issue today.
I believe that any confident central bank would welcome the opportunity for its members to be challenged on the fundamental assumptions underlying their decisions.
But particularly in the ECB' s case, as it does not have the track record of the mighty Bundesbank and could quickly lose the confidence of the financial markets if it is reluctant to protect itself through greater transparency.
<P>
Openness to criticism is not a weakness but a strength.
As a doctor I know that advances in medicine are often achieved only after rigorous scrutiny and challenge in peer review journals.
The Bank has to learn to operate within the same spirit.
I also believe that the financial markets and the people of Europe will expect no less of this new Central Bank and that this Parliament should be relentless in the pursuit of an open and accountable European Central Bank for the near future.
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<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berès">
Mr President, Mr President of the Central Bank, Commissioner, I believe that our sitting, today, is a founding act.
<P>
This is the first time that you have presented your annual report to this House as President of the Central Bank.
Indeed, if I am interpreting the Treaty on European Union correctly, this is an essential element in the balance designed by the people who set up Economic and Monetary Union, with the success we have seen, taking into account the conditions of the transition to the euro on 1 January this year.
This balance, in fact, involves both the independence of your institution and the annual report which you must present to our own institution. This is the meeting we are witnessing today.
<P>
Unlike some of my fellow citizens, I believe that today we are here reaching the very core of your democratic responsibility.
As you know, this institution has clearly shown its will to exercise fully the competences accorded under the Treaty. Parliament set the condition of having a hearing with each of the members of your Executive Board; it meets you on a regular basis, and considers today' s meeting to be the high point of this approach.
<P>
It is only to be expected that our debate today should be more concerned with the methods rather than the basis of the monetary policy.
You are still just about in your initial running-in period, as are we.
We must take advantage of this period to strengthen the resources that we, the European Parliament, have.
But for your part, you too, Mr President, must perhaps take advantage of it to review again your idea of the relationship between your institution and ours.
<P>
So, as regards transparency - many people before me have said it, but let me repeat it once again - if we want to be able to really act as an intermediary in monetary policy, which you implement and which we discuss, then we need you to present the decisions you are taking, and give your reasons and justifications for them.
<P>
As regards monetary policy itself, you said, Mr President, that it cannot solve the structural problems of the labour market.
Very well.
But it can make a contribution, and this is what the Treaty invites you to do, and what we invite you to do.
Sustained growth in Europe is essential if we wish to solve the problem of employment.
There will be no structural reform without growth.
Certainly, positive signs are appearing. We know that more gradual growth today is already enabling the creation of jobs in some of our countries.
But if we want sustainable growth for a high level of employment, we need monetary policy to accompany this movement.
This is what the treaty invites you to do, and this is the matter on which we expect positive signs from you.
In this sense, the policy which you are pursuing in the area of interest rate policy is clearly essential, and we are awaiting very clear commitments from you in this respect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maaten">
Mr President, this is an important debate for it is the first time we have come to discuss the European Central Bank' s report.
The fact that President Duisenberg is present serves to underline the special relationship that the ECB has with our Parliament.
The Liberals are satisfied with the ECB' s report and with the four proposals put forward by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs for there to be more transparency in the bank' s dealings.
But we are disappointed that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has shown itself unwilling to take one step more towards achieving still greater openness, hence my group has submitted a number of amendments to this end.
I refer in particular to the publication of votes and the voting behaviour of each individual member of the Governing Council.
We believe that this could only strengthen, not weaken the independence of the members.
After all, the ex officio attendance of the Council of Ministers and the European Commission means that the national governments too are now in a position to know how the members vote and are able to bring pressure to bear at will, but then this is done completely unverifiably and behind closed doors.
<P>
We do not doubt the integrity of the members of the Governing Council and openness is, we think, the best way in which to guarantee greater integrity.
We have no time for the argument that members could not then change their minds. Of course they can if, for example, circumstances changed or new arguments were put forward.
It may well be that their voting behaviour would initiate debate, but we are sufficiently reassured that the members of the Council have the fortitude to deal with this.
<P>
Greater openness is a sign of strength and inspires confidence.
We consider this to weigh more heavily than any possible risks.
What is more, publication would bring the Bank more into line with the Federal Reserve Bank in the United States and the Bank of Japan.
Why should we Europeans act as if we have something to hide?
Surely that is only going to weaken confidence in the euro?
<P>
Mr President, as liberals we are very much in favour of the ECB' s being independent and we value the part the President has to play in upholding this.
But we believe that greater openness would reinforce the independence and authority of the ECB and request that Parliament supports moves to this end.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Schmid, Herman">
Mr President, I want to thank Mr Huhne for an interesting report containing a number of important clarifications.
Among other things, he points out that the European Central Bank is altogether too secretive, that the meetings are held in camera and also that the current President, Mr Duisenberg is against the minutes from the Bank' s discussions being published.
There are a lot of people who have taken up this point, so that Parliament is expressing a strong opinion on the matter.
<P>
Mr Huhne complains in his report that the European Central Bank does not display the same openness as the central banks in the USA, Japan and England.
Olle Schmidt talks about the Bank of Sweden' s publishing the minutes as soon as two weeks after the meetings concerned.
Why should not the European Central Bank be able to do the same?
<P>
There are various arguments in favour of this culture of secrecy.
One of these which has been put forward is quite startling, I think.
This is an argument to the effect that the Bank' s leading personnel will be better able to withstand pressure from lobbyists and individual governments if they have a duty of confidentiality imposed upon them.
I think that, in this way, an amazing lack of confidence in these people' s strength of character, integrity and independence is being expressed.
They are mistrusted, which shows that it is not only ourselves, who are among those critical of the EU, who are mistrustful. Instead, I would maintain that distrust of the Bank' s leading personnel is written into the Bank' s own statute.
<P>
Finally, I also want to associate myself with Mr Huhne' s understanding of the goal and significance of monetary policy.
I want to go a step further and say that the ideology concerning stability is just that: an ideology.
If we look at what has happened in Europe in recent years, it appears, rather, that the policy of stabilisation merely stabilises unemployment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García-Margallo y Marfil">
Ortega y Gasset said that wasted effort leads to melancholy, and I, in order not to become a victim of melancholy, am not going to repeat any of the ideas which have been expressed here.
I will simply highlight some of the points with which I agree or disagree.
<P>
The vice-chairman of my committee said, referring to the history of the euro, that we would have to go back as far as Charlemagne and probably Diocletian, who is the grandfather of the euro.
And as a Spaniard I must mention Charles I, who wanted to unify the European currencies on the basis of the Cologne mark.
<P>
And this leads me to the speech made by an English Conservative Member, who explained what the single currency required in order for the financial markets to have faith in it.
What they probably need most is for the United Kingdom to join the single currency.
<P>
Having said this and to get to the point, the Treaty of Maastricht enshrined the principle of price stability and put in place a fully independent European Central Bank to uphold this principle.
But the Treaty of Maastricht did not deal with the institutional consequences of this decision, and for this reason we are talking today about the independence of the Central Bank, the relationship between the Central Bank and other institutions and the unresolved problems.
<P>
In Amsterdam, the decision was taken not to amend the Treaty of Maastricht in any way, and therefore the problems which were pending are still pending.
We are now on the eve of an Intergovernmental Conference which has to deal with the consequences of the decisions which we have taken before.
<P>
Much has been said here about independence and it is true that, with the Treaty of Maastricht, those of us who believed that price stability was an essential condition for sustained development and that a Central Bank was necessary to control inflation have been vindicated, while those who believed that it was possible to implement any economic or monetary policy provided it produced short-term artificial growth, have been proved wrong.
The spokesman of my group has expressed this very well and I will not repeat it.
<P>
But because we believe in this model, we also believe that we should adopt decisions so that this model does not fall apart.
Firstly, we have the problem of transparency, a topic the rapporteur handled with humour and skill.
We believe in the independence of the Central Bank, but this Central Bank is much more independent than the Bundesbank or the United States Federal Reserve, because it was not created by an act of Parliament and cannot be modified by one, because it does not exist side by side with a government that has its own economic policy.
And this has led some people to talk of a type of platonic aristocracy composed of a series of independent experts to whom decisions regarding monetary policy are entrusted in the belief - probably correct - that money is too serious an issue for politicians to deal with.
<P>
For this reason, if we do not want this model to fall apart, it is necessary to prioritise transparency measures, and I whole-heartedly subscribe to each and every one of the measures which the rapporteur has mentioned.
<P>
Secondly, we have the problem of the relationship of the Central Bank with the other European institutions.
It has been said here that the priority objective is dealing with inflation, but it is not the only one: we have to think in terms of, amongst other things, an economic focus, responsibility, the international representation of the euro and the monitoring of the banking institutions at a time of significant mergers amongst the financial institutions.
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<SPEAKER ID=95 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pérez Royo">
Mr President, Mr President of the European Central Bank, this debate is taking place with the euro having been in place for nine months, in conditions which enables us to affirm that its introduction has been successful, even if only in the limited sense that the transition to the third phase of the Economic and Monetary Union has taken place with no great upsets.
Given that much of this success is undoubtedly due to the Central Bank, we must communicate our congratulations to its President, and we hereby do so.
<P>
Having said this, we must stress two or three points: firstly - and this has been mentioned this afternoon and Mr Duisenberg knows perfectly well that it is a concern of this Parliament - we have the question of transparency.
Given that this has been discussed here this afternoon, I will not pursue this argument, particularly as I know that Mr Duisenberg is perfectly aware of the Socialist Group' s position in this regard.
<P>
The second issue I want to address, which for me is more important, is that of growth and employment, specifically the relationship between monetary policy and growth and employment.
We agree with you, Mr President of the ECB, when you say that price stability is necessary for growth, and that growth and the creation of employment cannot happen without guaranteed price stability.
Likewise we agree with you when you say that monetary policy alone cannot resolve the problem of unemployment.
But we must also warn - and you understand this perfectly - that bad decisions regarding monetary policy may harm growth and prevent the economic recuperation which has started.
There is no lack of historical examples in this respect and the warning is worthwhile at a time when economic recuperation in Europe is far from being confirmed and when, at the same time, there is speculation about the imminence of a stricter monetary policy.
<P>
Lastly, I would like to take this opportunity, given that the Commission is present in this debate, to remind you of something which has also been repeated many times by this Parliament and which, in any case, is very important to our group: economic policy does not end with currency and does not end with monetary policy.
The third phase of Economic and Monetary Union raises the issue, even more than in the past, of the need for a more robust and articulate coordination of economic policies.
In this case, it is the responsibility - I would say the main responsibility in this area - of the Commission.
You know this, Mr Solbes, and we call on you to face this responsibility, and in this you will surely be able to rely on the support of this Parliament.
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<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bordes">
Mr President, obviously I do not share with the rapporteur in offering congratulations to the ECB.
As for presenting the purely formal actions of the managers of the European Central Bank to involve the European Parliament as if it were the expression of democratic control, that is just a feeble joke.
<P>
Having said that, I feel bound to object in particular to the virtual declaration of war against the workers and the unemployed of the European Union in the form of the objective declared by Mr Noyer, the Vice-President of the ECB, when he speaks, and I quote, of the need to "reduce rigidities in labour markets" or even for "a break with often deeply rooted habits and allegedly acquired rights" .
Well, we know that the rights he is talking about are simply the rights to a job and to a wage which affords a person a decent living.
<P>
These gentlemen of the Central Bank act like the spokesmen for the employers who are effectively in the process of reducing "rigidities in labour markets" by axing thousands of jobs, such as Michelin, Renault-Nissan, Alsthom, Rhône-Poulenc, and Hoest Marion Roussel and many others even now, or by propagating the precariousness of jobs by means of wages which cast an increasing proportion of the population into ever greater poverty while the fortunes of major shareholders continue to grow.
<P>
Gentlemen, beware, their attitude will ultimately trigger the reactions they deserve among workers and the unemployed.
I hope that in all the countries of the European Union these reactions will unite the victims of the policy of employers.
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<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Villiers">
Mr President, Mr Duisenberg, we MEPs, as we have stated a number of times this evening, have a unique role to play in relation to the single currency because this Chamber here is the only place in which the people of Europe can have any democratic input into how their new currency is run.
We must not shy away from addressing the difficult issues which surround Europe' s single currency, because if we do so we will be letting down those people who elected us to this Chamber so recently.
<P>
Mr Duisenberg, in my view, you have a more or less impossible task because you have to set a rate that is suitable not only for the booming economies of Ireland and Spain but will also suit the faltering economy of Germany.
Still less would it be possible to fix a rate which would also suit the persistently divergent economy of the UK.
But none of us here doubt the importance of your role because a domestic Euroland government faced with reviving a faltering economy has very few weapons at its disposal.
It has no power to set interest rates, no power over exchange rates, little power over government spending restricted by the Stability Pact and, if many people in this Parliament had their way, it would have no power over its own tax rates.
<P>
The governments have very few cards left to play with and not for nothing has it been said that the euro could lead to a recipe for stagnation.
But we should not be surprised at the limitations on the powers that are left to the domestic governments in Euroland because it has never been a secret of those founding fathers of the single currency that what they had in mind was the creation of political union and a united states of Europe.
I welcome your frankness, Mr Duisenberg, in making clear the very big political leap which has been made by those countries which have already entered Euroland.
<P>
But anyone who denies the existence of this political agenda - which subsumes the single currency - in my view is either deluded or dishonest, because it is a very real agenda.
We saw that very recently, articulately presented to us by President Prodi when he said that we now face the best opportunity to unite Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire.
Clearly, Mr Prodi had in mind the replacement of an ancient hegemony with a new economic one.
But political union may not just be the idle dream of a few federalists.
When you share a joint bank account with your neighbour you are affected by the actions and the spending decisions of your neighbour.
You legitimately need some control over their actions.
There is a very strong argument for saying that the single currency cannot function properly unless there is increased political integration and political union.
That is one of the many reasons why the British Conservatives are campaigning vigorously to persuade the UK to keep its own currency and to keep the pound and to stay out of the single currency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Katiforis">
<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Kauppi">
Mr President, Mr Duisenberg, the annual report from the European Central Bank shows that the bank has got off to a brisk start, and the steps taken so far have been on the right track.
The transition to the third stage of EMU has taken place without problems.
During its first months of operation, the bank has been able to adapt its working methods to the demands of the present day.
Nevertheless, much has still to be done to raise the European Central Bank to the position to which it is entitled, though not automatically so.
In the future we wish to see a strong and independent European Central Bank and not just one alongside our global competitors, Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan, but, preferably, edging ahead of them.
Building up its status and obtaining the confidence of markets will, however, take time, and we here in the European Parliament cannot presume that everything will happen in an instant.
<P>
In discussing the annual report in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, we had lively discussions on inter alia the issue of transparency and how it can be gradually increased.
Although transparency has undeniably increased and, for example, press conferences with the President, held after board meetings, have meant a clear improvement in the bank' s approach, the aim must be to increase transparency further, once the work of the bank becomes established and the teething problems disappear.
The European Parliament must, as the representative of the European people, have the right to demand that in future, the ECB, like other central banks, should also publicise the arguments both in favour of, and against, its monetary policy decisions.
Furthermore, the publication of abstracts of board meetings is justifiable, and the justifications for decisions taken must be clearly evident from these abstracts, so that market players can make their own decisions.
<P>
For my own part, I seriously considered my position regarding whether the individual opinions of the members of the board and possible decisions taken by a vote should be made public in the future.
However, I ended by adopting the majority position of our group, justifying my decision by reflecting how this sort of approach might reduce rather than increase market confidence in the work of the bank in the early stages.
It could also be just too big a step to take so early on.
In the long term, however, I hope that transparency is fully realised at every stage, in this regard also.
Information is power, and the dissemination of information in an open market economy is democracy.
Market viability can be enhanced through the spread of information.
The more evenly information is disseminated in a society, the more effectively individual choices steer the economy' s development and guide the invisible hand of the market.
<P>
Finally, I would like to say that I thoroughly support the publication of the reports on the economic situation of the countries in the euro area and the various indicators that go with it.
The ECB may also comment on this information, but their analysis must, however, be left to national decision-makers.
We have to remember that, although the euro area has just one monetary policy, we still have eleven different economic policies, for whose coordination the Member States are responsible, within the frameworks determined in the Growth and Stability Pact.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van den Burg">
Mr President, it is a shame that this debate is soon to finish.
I would very much like to hear Mr Duisenberg answer a number of questions that have been raised.
I hope there will still be enough time for this.
I wanted to remind him of his role in the Dutch consultation system in a former life.
In particular I also want to raise the question that other speakers have raised too, as to what he would think to developing a consultation system of this kind on the European scene.
I hope that he will take a little time to address this issue before we close.
<P>
As far as his former life in the Netherlands is concerned; the Central Bank of the Netherlands, of which he was President for many years, was at the centre of the field of influence in society in which socio-economic policy was developed, and I believe that we should take our example from this and involve the European Central Bank in a European macroeconomic dialogue.
As you know, there are plans afoot for dialogue of this kind to take place and there is also due to be a meeting on 8 November.
<P>
It is also established practice in the Netherlands for there to be structured ways in which the Dutch Central Bank participates in the consultation system, for example there is a banking council in which advice is given to the bank and in which both sides of industry also take part. This participation in the consultation system economy is also afforded by the Dutch Central Bank having a seat on the socio-economic council, which is the most important advisory body in the socio-economic field.
I hope that the macroeconomic consultation between both sides of industry that is soon to take place will be given a far more prominent role.
The comments that Mr Duisenberg made in his introduction, to the effect that this dialogue ought only to confine itself to the exchange of information, fell rather short of the mark in this respect to my mind.
I think that in view of his experiences in the Netherlands he ought not to be so wary of taking such responsibilities, and also feel that coordinating and harmonising policy could be of great benefit to further developments.
<P>
I would like to close with a quote that he himself used when he recently attended the opening of new banking premises in the Netherlands.
The quote was as follows: " I believe that the future is also the past, only it comes in through a different door" .
He might like to relate this quote to his own circumstances.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Peijs">
Mr President, I never thought of comparing Mr Duisenberg with the Pope but if we are going to do so here in this Parliament then might I request that Mr Duisenberg' s role is a more independent one, if at all possible.
<P>
The annual report goes into great detail about the seamless way in which the crucial transition to 1999 was effected, a very important moment.
Another such crucial point in time is on its way, that is to say the day on which Europe' s general public will literally have the new coin in hand.
I have had several discussions with you, Mr Duisenberg, on how the Member States want to handle the introduction of the euro.
<P>
The closer the first of January gets, the more everyone becomes aware of the difficulties that consumers, particularly the elderly, and the retail trade are to face.
An ever increasing number of studies state that there are going to be very considerable problems and these are being shouldered by the weakest parties: the consumer and the retail trade.
It recently became apparent that the Central Bank will not oppose frontloading the general public with coins.
It is true that the Member States are in agreement about the distribution of coins.
However, the Central Bank has always maintained to date that regulations and/or laws preclude the frontloading of the general public with banknotes.
<P>
Mr Noyer came to Parliament recently and when I asked him what the main objection was to frontloading coins or banknotes he actually gave the vaguest answer I have ever heard.
If he ever finds himself penniless then he will have no trouble at all getting into politics.
<P>
But I want a clear answer today.
I know just how clear you can make yourself.
What is the main objection?
And do not tell me that it would be difficult to explain to people that they could not spend their euros for the first fortnight.
Any citizen assumed to have an understanding of the Treaties of Maastricht and Amsterdam could not possibly have difficulty comprehending that.
It is downright insulting to suggest otherwise.
The Economic Institute of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises in the Netherlands, which I am sure you are familiar with, carried out a study and concluded that the retail trade needs to have 100% of its daily turnover available in change, as opposed to the 7% available to it now.
The situation is so bad because the cash machines, the banknote dispensers will not dispense any of the small five and ten euro notes.
I hardly need to tell you what kind of an impact that will have on cash flows, the security of check-out operators and shops, bank charges, etc.
Every evening proprietors are going to have to convert their whole day' s takings into change again, doing the same for every shop they own.
The banks will have to face up to their responsibility.
<P>
Mr Duisenberg, the Central Bank needs to come down from its ivory tower and really get to grips with the difficulties facing those ordinary people who are soon going to have to work with the euro.
Have trial runs carried out if you do not believe me or the studies.
But consider that the success of the euro will depend on its introduction running smoothly precisely where ordinary people are concerned.
The discussion continues to focus on how much it will cost the banks.
But the discussion ought in fact to focus on whether there is going to be chaos or whether things will run smoothly.
The banks are equipped to deal with large flows of money and security but the corner shop and the local baker are not.
You too will be assessed not in terms of greater or lesser increases or reductions in the rate of interest but in terms of how the euro will be brought into circulation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Solbes Mira">
. (ES) Mr President, my intervention will be very brief, and I simply wish to highlight the importance of the presence of Governor Duisenberg in Parliament for the analysis of the first report of the Central Bank.
It also seems essential to comment on the success of the euro and to congratulate the Bank on its excellent performance during the last year.
<P>
Given that today' s debate is basically between Parliament and the Central Bank and it is not for us to play any other role, I would simply like to point out, in response to the concern of some Members, that we will have the opportunity to debate here the problem of coordinating economic policies, which is within the competence of the Commission.
<P>
And with regard to the specific problem of the external representation of the euro, we are satisfied with the role that the European Central Bank is playing.
We are not so satisfied with the role of the Commission.
As I pointed out in my hearings, we will have time to return to a discussion of this issue.
<P>
Once again, my congratulations to the Central Bank.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Duisenberg">
Mr President, in my introductory statement I already approached many of the issues which have been again brought forward in Parliament this afternoon.
So if you allow me, I will try to formulate my answer by grouping together many of the issues that have been raised in Parliament and produce a comprehensive answer, or at least some remarks.
<P>
First of all the issue of transparency.
Although I realise and I am grateful that the desire to have the votes or minutes published by the Governing Council does not appear in the motion for a resolution which will be voted on tomorrow by your Parliament, in this discussion a lot of attention, much more than I expected, was paid to the phenomenon of transparency, culminating in publishing the vote.
I would like to emphasise that when you talk about and require transparency you have to indicate precisely what that means.
What does transparency mean?
I would warn against what I might call mixing up transparency with publishing the vote.
<P>
As far as transparency is concerned, which I define as giving to the public or Parliament as much information as possible about developments in the economy, about monetary developments, about the outcome of the deliberations of the Governing Council, I believe - and I said so in my introductory statement - that the European Central Bank can look squarely in the eyes of any central bank in the world.
For example, there is our publication immediately after the meetings of the Governing Council of the considerations which have played a role in the Governing Council' s ultimate decision whether or not to change interest rates.
That is done about one hour after the decision has been taken.
We give the arguments for and against certain decisions there.
I believe that you will find no central bank in the world which is more transparent than we are.
<P>
The only thing we do not do is we do not publish votes.
Apart from the fact - and this may be somewhat embarrassing - that we virtually never vote in the Governing Council, so there is nothing to be published, I will not repeat all the arguments against this which I have brought before this Parliament on earlier occasions, but one has to remember that the decisions of the Governing Council of the Eurosystem are made in a collegial way and there is one decision only which emerges.
<P>
The arguments for and against it are published in the press conferences and in the Monthly Bulletin after the meetings have taken place but there is one decision.
One always has to bear in mind that every word that is spoken by me or any other member of the Governing Council about economic developments and about the decisions which are taken and in what direction sets in motion immediately billions of euros across the world.
It is always a signal to the market and it takes effect almost simultaneously with the utterance of the opinion.
<P>
On forecasts, Mr President, I do not need to say more than I have already said in my introductory statement.
There will come a time when we will publish forecasts, either bi-annually or tri-annually.
I do not yet know the precise form.
We are actively investigating this question but we simply are not ready yet and we do not have enough data or know the models which ultimately we will use.
We have not yet reached a degree of stability which would make it responsible for them to be published now but, as I said in my introduction, I am confident that in the course of next year we will publish forecasts.
<P>
To avoid one misunderstanding, it has been asked repeatedly here "why do you not take an example from the Federal Reserve system which publishes forecasts" and I believe it is also a consideration behind the motion for a resolution.
That must be a misunderstanding because what the Federal Reserve system publishes twice a year in its Humphrey-Hawkins testimony for the Senate is a range of figures for a few indicators, the range being the range of the individual forecasts of members of the Federal Open Market Committee coming from the regional Federal Reserve banks.
That range, the forecast with which they come once every six weeks to Washington, is published.
Forecasts are also prepared for the FOMC meeting and in particular for the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve system, forecasts prepared by the staff of the Board of Governors.
They are the forecasts which are used to underpin the decisions that the FOMC takes at any particular moment in time.
Those forecasts are not published.
And I already made some remarks in my introduction on the relativity of forecasts, even if they are published, for the decision-making process.
<P>
Various Members of this Parliament have questioned whether the ECB places too much emphasis on prices and too little on growth and employment.
At least that is how I have understood the question; that was the signal that was given to me.
<P>
Firstly, the Treaty of the ECB makes it literally mandatory for the ECB to give primary attention to their primary objective, which is to maintain price stability.
The Treaty says "without prejudice to price stability" , that is only when price stability, I should say, is guaranteed, should the ECB in its policies support the general economic policies of the Community.
There is another small remark I would like to make, Mr President, but it is important in the context of the motion for a resolution.
I believe the Treaty language is a little misrepresented.
In the resolution it says "providing that this price stability is attained" .
The Treaty says, and not without reason, "without prejudice to the objective of price stability" - and that is of great importance in economic terms.
<P>
The wording of the resolution may be interpreted as suggesting that when the current rate of inflation is below 2% then the Eurosystem would be under an obligation to support the general economic policies of the Communities.
In contrast the wording "without prejudice" clarifies, and it is intended to do so, that the Eurosystem is under no obligation to act in this mechanical fashion if it believes that doing so might jeopardise price stability in the future.
<P>
I ask Parliament to take that into account.
<P>
Regarding the suggestion that there is too much emphasis on price stability, the formal answer is that it is our mandate.
Also, I would like to repeat that we do not overestimate the impact that monetary policy can have - what it can and cannot do.
It is my firm belief that monetary policy can and will influence the movement of prices over the medium-term but not in the short-term.
That is why we have a forward-looking strategy.
The direct impact of monetary policy measures on employment and growth is very limited indeed.
That is borne out by research which we did at the institution where, as Mrs van den Berg indicated, I previously worked.
<P>
Turning to the current situation, I should like to repeat that the monetary policy strategy of the Eurosystem, which has been made very clear to Parliament, is based on two pillars, both designed to be forward-looking over the medium-term.
The two pillars are: the reference value for monetary growth, M3, and a broadly-based assessment of a wide range of indicators and their impact on the primary aim of price stability.
That broadly-based assessment is one that encompasses a wide range of indicators, of course including developments in the real economy, movements in employment and unemployment, an assessment of movement of the exchange rate in so far as it has an impact on price levels in the euro area.
That is our strategy.
It is forward-looking.
Of course we look at the current developments in inflation also as one of the indicators of what we think is going to happen in the future, but it is certainly not true that we only look at the current inflation rate, as implied in the draft resolution.
<P>
You will understand that I will not join Parliament in the debate on what decisions might be taken in the short-term on interest rates, although that decision has been alluded to by various Members of Parliament.
In Parliament it has been said by various Members that if interest rates were to be raised that would choke economic growth and the growth of employment.
But please remember that when you are driving a car very fast and you want it to go forward, but maybe a little slower, you can either step on the brakes or you can lift your foot a little bit from the accelerator.
There is a difference. Raising interest rates in a certain situation might be more akin or related to lifting your foot from the peddle as opposed to braking the momentum of the economy and in that way going slower.
We all want to go forward.
<P>
Mrs Peijs wanted a very clear answer on frontloading.
I hope to be as clear as I can on banknotes.
The Eurosystem, early on, made it clear to the public at large that frontloading over a short period would not be a problem provided it could be ensured that the money frontloaded to banks, for instance, or other organisations is not brought into circulation before 1 January 2000 - into general circulation that is.
We formulated that by saying that banknotes may be frontloaded provided there are legal or contractual guarantees at the receiving end which ensure they will not be brought into circulation before 1 January.
There would have to be contracts or legal provisions or contracts with retail organisations or banks.
Then it would be possible.
<P>
On coins - you will be aware I do not have responsibility for coins, this is a matter for the finance ministers - the big difference is that it is virtually impossible to get that same guarantee as far as coins are concerned because coins are generally put into circulation by the retail sector rather than by the banks.
To have such a guarantee would be impossible.
Another large difference is that it is very easy to try to make a counterfeit banknote with modern photocopying techniques which is the reason why the precise features of the banknotes to come will be widely published but only very briefly in advance of their introduction, so as to reduce the danger of counterfeiting and confusing a public which is not yet familiar with the notes.
It is much more difficult to counterfeit coins.
<P>
I have touched upon all the major issues that have been raised today on banking supervision.
It is well known that the Treaty gives very little responsibility to the European Central Bank in the area of banking supervision.
Our task is to promote financial stability and the stability of the financial markets.
We monitor banking supervision, but this is not one of the tasks of the Central Bank.
We are fully involved in the further development of rules.
Mr Goebbels said that the ECB should be: "a bit less reticent about international exposure in all the various fora" .
The ECB is now fully involved in all discussions in all international fora on the future of what is now called the "financial architecture" in the world.
The ECB is fully involved in all discussions of the G-7, of the G-10, of the OECD.
We have a permanent representative who is very actively engaged in discussions at the IMF.
In December there will be the first meeting of this new Group of 20 at the initiative of the G-7 countries, consisting of the G-7 countries and a few emerging market representatives.
The ECB will be there.
We will also participate in that dialogue.
<P>
As Mrs van den Berg has asked, we do participate in the macroeconomic dialogue but just as in the Netherlands, the Central Bank participates in the dialogue but does not agree to a compromise on its policy in order to get a concession in another policy area.
There will be no ex ante policy coordination but there will be an extensive and, I hope, critical exchange of information of all the partners involved, including the ECB.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Duisenberg.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Assessing the Community' s humanitarian actions and looking to the future
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="President">
The next item is the statement by the Commission on assessing the Community' s humanitarian actions and looking to the future.
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<SPEAKER ID=106 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Nielson">
Mr President, the Commission has today accepted a report to Parliament and the Council, assessing ECHO.
The Commission' s assessment is based upon a report by consultants.
This report has been prepared by professional people.
I think that this is the correct way to go about things.
When, in the future, the Commission assesses activities in my own area, this ought to be done on the basis of such modern, professional and open methods.
The consultants' overall conclusion was positive, and the Commission shares this positive view of ECHO.
However, we are alert to the fact that there are a number of things which can be improved.
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First of all, cooperation needs to be improved.
We need to improve our cooperation with the multinational organisations, the UN bodies and the Red Cross organisations.
The intention is to help the international community respond more effectively and in a better coordinated way in different crises.
The fact that ECHO is such a big aid organisation means that we also share a more general responsibility for its effectiveness.
At the same time, it means that we should also make larger demands in cooperation with, among others, the various UN organisations.
We need to establish a broader and more activity-based approach to individual humanitarian crises.
This should be done within the framework of the existing regulations.
<P>
Secondly, there is the question of our management strategy.
Improvements internal to ECHO should also be made.
We should invest more highly in a concerted handling of the whole project cycle, which includes ensuring effective feedback.
On this basis, we should to a greater degree be measuring results instead of input.
There are also points on which we have disagreed with the consultants' proposals.
We do not, for example, wish to abolish ECHO' s logo.
European taxpayers are entitled to know where the aid is going to, and there is no reason, either, to conceal from the recipients where the same aid is coming from.
But ECHO' s visibility and its logo must not be permitted to hamper cooperation with our partners.
<P>
Thirdly, there are the policy considerations.
In the longer term, the Commission wants to develop a cohesive strategy for the grey area here, that is to say the area between real humanitarian aid and longer-term, more future-oriented development work.
At present, a lively international debate, in which the Commission is also to be an active participant, is taking place about this so-called transition gap.
What is more, the Commission' s internal resources are to be mobilised so that they can release the required humanitarian aid in individual situations when the time is ripe.
The objective is to give ECHO the opportunity to define a meaningful exit strategy in connection with different crises.
<P>
Combining the two portfolios of development and humanitarian aid provides a better opportunity for this, not least on the basis of the fact that both ECHO' s sphere of work and the Commissioner' s responsibility for development policy are global in character.
The plan is to present a report on this subject in June 2000.
The Commission will also launch a debate about other important policy areas: conflict prevention, preparedness in advance of crises and catastrophes, and humanitarian aid which is based upon upholding human rights, that is to say which focuses to a greater degree upon the victims' rights as human beings.
Special groups include women (especially victims of rape), child soldiers, refugees and internally displaced persons.
In all these areas, a connection with the Commission' s development policy should naturally be guaranteed.
The plan is to report on these areas in July 2001.
<P>
And, finally, the conclusions.
ECHO is to continue to retain its non-partisan character in all conflicts.
This is important for the purpose of securing access to the victims of crises.
ECHO' s presence in a wide range of countries, each with its own workers who have been sent out, is an important link in an effective policy of humanitarian aid.
ECHO is an organisation with its own power to act and with motivated staff who are ready to implement the proposed improvements.
In the midst of all discussion about changes, it is important to state that ECHO' s committed and loyal staff are the most important asset we have to build upon.
I am looking forward to seeing the results of the changes.
It is my intention to visit East Timor in the very near future.
This will be a good opportunity to see some concrete results of ECHO' s work and for me to do what I can to establish fruitful cooperation with all our partners.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, I have a question for Mr Nielson regarding bridging the gap which he mentioned. He said there would be further discussion of this.
Were there any proposals in the expert report as to the form this involvement of development aid would take or even of other development instruments such as PHARE or TACIS, for example, and has it been ascertained whether the problems are in the area of ecological aid and the programme there or in the area of other forms of aid?
Could you clarify this?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Nielson">
Mr President, there were actually a number of proposals made by the evaluation.
One of them had to do with ECHO moving more into the area of development cooperation, in a sense staying longer in a post-conflict situation.
I do not think this is how to do it - we will end up over-stretching the resources very rapidly because new conflicts keep coming up.
So we need to have a balanced approach, drawing on the resources in our development cooperation in general but making sure that they go in when ECHO goes out.
<P>
It sounds easy but it is not that easy.
In general it is necessary to combine these things and many are not able to do it.
A very big problem is that individual countries although good donors do not have the resources to stay a long time in many conflicts.
This is where the European Union has a special capacity and also special responsibility.
It is extremely important that we, at a certain point, become very good at managing this transition gap.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Martínez Martínez">
Mr President, I am going to ask three questions on behalf of my Socialist colleagues in the Committee on Development and Cooperation, who are here in spirit but physically are in the Committee itself, voting on the amendments relating to the World Trade Organisation.
<P>
Firstly: can it be deduced from the Commission' s arguments here today that the funding of ECHO for humanitarian aid will mainly continue to be channelled through the programmes of different NGOs, or is any change envisaged in this regard?
<P>
Secondly: does the Commission intend to support the reform of the regulations which govern humanitarian aid?
And, if that is the case, in what respect?
Would such a reform be carried out in accordance with the codecision principle which is introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam?
<P>
Thirdly: can it be deduced from today' s discussion that ECHO will retain its full role of channelling European Union humanitarian aid in crisis situations, or, rather, that the activity of ECHO and humanitarian aid itself will be progressively diluted within the Union' s general policy of cooperation for development?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Nielson">
.
First, we are not planning or expecting any change concerning distribution, as between NGOs and UN organisations and other organisations, driven by our management or policy We respond to appeals and crises and use whichever organisation is able to do a good job in the specific circumstances.
We do not have a fixed, preconceived idea of who gets what.
Concerning the NGOs, we have found very few changes to be necessary.
We know that in practice, in daily operations, we will have to streamline procedures as much as possible but, in general, this has not been seen as a major issue in the whole evaluation process.
<P>
Moving on to the next question, on reforming or changing the regulation, I already made it clear in my opening remarks that we think it is possible to make many important and necessary changes within the existing regulation.
We will come back to that.
We are not closing the option of changing the regulation but this will be taken up in a much broader, long-term process - the one I mentioned concerning the policy part of our response.
For the time being we will work on the basis of the existing regulation.
We think this gives enough scope for the changes that are needed.
<P>
Regarding the codecision aspect of this, in responding to the evaluation, I have deliberately avoided saying anything concerning that issue.
How codecision will eventually be hammered out in terms of relations between Parliament, the Council and Member States in decision-making on humanitarian activities is something that needs to be discussed further and perhaps negotiated.
But I did not want to open up a discussion on that because following up the evaluation is not a problem I have to deal with.
<P>
Concerning the identity of the operation, I distinctly mentioned the logo and the discussion.
The consultants recommended that we should give up the specific ECHO logo.
This is one point on which I feel we should not follow their recommendation.
But we have to strike some kind of balance.
To put it in a nutshell: visibility is fine, feasibility is better.
There is, in some cases, a risk that pushing the logo too much creates friction and reduces the willingness to cooperate smoothly on the ground.
Somewhere we have to find a balance.
But I did not want to back down as far as visibility is concerned.
We owe it to our tax-payers, the European public.
Certainly there is no reason why we should hide from the beneficiaries who it is that is actually helping them.
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<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schori">
Mr President, I want first of all to say that I am here as a representative of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, which is meeting now.
<P>
I want to say to Commissioner Nielson that his presentation was music to my ears.
Three things, in particular, caught my attention.
First of all, he promises openness and modernity; openness is incredibly important, since ECHO is among the highest-profile organisations of the European Union.
Secondly, he also promises increased cooperation with the United Nations and the Red Cross; this is also important and has been needed for a long time.
Thirdly, he anticipates too a more integrated view of humanitarian aid in foreign policy generally, designed to prevent conflict, which I believe is necessary.
<P>
My question is this: is the Commissioner prepared, in anticipation of the report also promised for June 2000, continually to consult in one form or another with Parliament and with any non-governmental organisations concerned?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Nielson">
My answer to the question will be "yes" .
I should very much like to see open debate and open procedure.
We can use any good ideas, and what we are trying to do with ECHO is precisely to mobilise Europe' s population, too.
The fact that we are involved as active partners in these different conflicts and crisis situations is also a demonstration to our own citizens in Europe that Europe has a role to play in these places.
That is why it is also necessary to involve citizens, and that is to say Parliament, and I am therefore very prepared for cooperation with Parliament and with Parliament' s committees when it comes to the next steps we are to take.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Dybkjær">
Mr President, involving the NGOs is something which the machinery both of the United Nations and of Europe is intensely concerned with, and this is doubtless something which is necessary.
But when it is a question of constructing democracies in a number of countries, I also think we ought to be looking at how we can involve the members of the parliaments in these countries.
We have no tradition at all for doing this through, for example, the UN machinery.
We still scarcely have any such tradition through the European machinery.
It is, for example, a fact that the NGOs have direct representation in the United Nations whereas members of the parliaments are only appendages of their governments, and it is only as such that they can offer any input.
I am very much of the view that we could re-think this machinery and that we ought to be asking ourselves how we can guarantee better parliamentary cooperation with a number of developing countries and also with the Central and East European countries we are supposed to be helping. I am saying this not because the NGOs should not continue to be involved there but because I think it is a rather false picture we are giving of the construction of democracy if we say that it is only NGOs which can be actively involved.
In fact, parliamentarians can also be involved and, in reality, were in fact originally involved in our own wealthy part of the world before the NGOs came on the scene.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Nielson">
I very much share Mrs Dybkjær' s point of view.
The impression has been given that the abbreviation NGOs might almost be read as standing for neogovernmental organisations.
But when we consider ECHO' s work, we are talking here about situations following wars and crises in which the societies concerned have fallen apart and in which, in general, it is a question of establishing structures in the societies concerned.
I very much agree that members of the various parliaments are naturally important elements but, if we take countries like Somalia, Sudan and other such places, we are forced to take what there is by way of structures in the so-called civil society and try to help these structures become parts of a civilised society.
In connection with our efforts as a whole in this area - and not just those involving ECHO and humanitarian aid - a lot of people have asked whether we have not got things the wrong way around in insisting that elections be held quickly.
Cambodia was one example, Angola another.
Some people think that, in these cases, we insisted too quickly that elections should be held and the formal structures of democracy created.
On the other hand, insisting on these things has worked well in many cases, so I agree that we should be pressing for the outward and formal structures of democracy to be established. This is the way in which - as soon as structures of this kind have been established - parliamentarians become the decisive players, in civil society too.
<P>
With regard to the part of the question concerned with the role to be played in what we are doing by members of the parliaments concerned - and that is another way of looking at the question - I want to say that the debate itself, the very dialogue between the Commission and Parliament about the policy we are to pursue, is for me the decisive factor, and it is from there that we get the decisive inspiration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="Kinnock, Glenys">
Mr President, could I ask the Commissioner whether he considers that this evaluation risks putting structures in place which actually endanger the possibility of us of being able to react in a crisis as quickly and as effectively as he suggests we should? secondly, Commissioner, let us take for instance a case study such as Sierra Leone: You talked about the clear distinction between humanitarian aid and long-term assistance.
Could you give me your analysis of what stage one part of your work will take over from the other in the case of Sierra Leone?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="Nielson">
No, to the first part of the question. I do not see that anything we are suggesting here would actually endanger our capacity for quick action.
We are not moving towards creating a rigid system and the special character, the ability to act and the identity of ECHO as such, are all something I find important in order to avoid ECHO, as a humanitarian relief organisation, becoming involved in the very cumbersome decision-making machinery of the Commission in general.
We are not heading toward the kind of problems that you ask about here.
<P>
Regarding Sierra Leone, it is very difficult to say.
The main thing is to what extent it is possible to mobilise enough donors; it is not just what we do ourselves.
There must be a critical mass of donors who are willing and able to make a more long-term effort in a given country, so coordination is extremely important here.
We have to be able to deliver our share of it and phase out crisis-based ECHO presence, replacing it with the post-conflict presence of a more long-term character of our development resources.
<P>
If others do not participate, it will not work, so part of the answer to what we have to do now is to be more active in the discussion from case to case - within groups of friends of Sierra Leone, to take one example - trying to organise a more coordinated response to moving away from the immediate crisis demands.
<P>
One case that illustrates where we should be careful not to end up is that the UNHCR is still today funding and managing primary education in Rwanda.
Nobody else is ready to pay for it and that is why they are there.
They are doing a respectable job but it shows that the international system and who does what becomes distorted if the normal donors do not demonstrate a readiness to play their traditional role.
This is where we hope to be able to push the international discussion in a better direction than hitherto.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner Nielson.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 8.15 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Annex - Formal sitting
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, it is my very great pleasure today to welcome Mr Andrés Pastrana, President of the Republic of Colombia here today.
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(Loud applause)
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Mr President, your visit to the European Parliament comes at a time when the whole population of Columbia has demonstrated loud and clear its desire for an end to civil unrest, and for democracy and respect for human rights.
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We were very touched by this appeal by eleven million Colombians, including your own wife, who last Sunday marched through the streets of many towns in your country.
Please be aware that the desire for peace expressed by your fellow countrymen addresses us and it is our duty to encourage any initiative which may contribute to peace.
<P>
This massive demonstration coincided with the opening of peace negotiations between your government and the guerrilla movement in Uribe.
I would like, especially, to pay tribute to your perseverance and to your courage which made it possible to initiate this peace process which, I sincerely hope, will progress and be successful.
Yes, the European Parliament can stand alongside the Colombians who last Sunday chanted Nunca mas (No more).
<P>
Mr President, your continent and your country in particular have paid a high toll to violence and political instability.
This is why I would like to pay tribute, in your presence, to all those who were the victims of their own commitment to democracy.
There were too many of these female and male politicians, journalists, defenders of human rights and citizens who paid with their lives for their fight for a more just and more humane society.
<P>
Please be aware, Mr President, that we shall support every effort intended to suppressing terrorist campaigns, to controlling paramilitary forces, and to affirming the supremacy of civil authority over military might.
<P>
The European Union will assist you in your peacemaking enterprise, and shall promote the strengthening of relations between the European Union and Colombia.
The cooperation agreement, of the third generation type, has already made it possible to establish solid links between us.
I am convinced that these links would be stronger yet if they were to come within the framework of intensified regional cooperation between the Andean Pact countries, a reinforcement which we devoutly wish for because regional stability is achieved primarily, of course, by being on good neighbourly terms.
<P>
Mr President, the European Parliament today hopes to encourage you to continue in your move to establish once and for all the rule of law.
We thank you for your attendance here, for your visit, and it is now my very great pleasure to give you the floor.
<P>
(Loud applause)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Address by Mr Pastrana, President of the Republic of Colombia
<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pastrana">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is an honour for me to appear before you, the representatives of a Europe which promotes optimism, which is the most successful example of a genuine political integration this century and which demonstrates that it is indeed possible to return from death to life, from disrespect for human beings to the veneration of their rights, from pessimism to hope: which also demonstrates that peace is possible wherever development, social justice, the defence of the weakest, solidarity and coexistence are established. These are the things that determine culture, give meaning to liberty and open up the path leading to the achievement of shared goals.
<P>
At this moment, and from this hemicycle within the new European Parliament complex, my country has the great privilege of addressing Europe, through the elected representatives of the people of the fifteen countries which currently make up the European Union.
<P>
Colombia, the country which I govern by democratic consent, is struggling with a difficult quest for peace, employment, development and, above all, social justice.
The sovereign population of Colombia, in the highest vote in history, expressed itself clearly and delivered to me an emphatic mandate.
A mandate to search for peace in our country.
<P>
It is not my custom to block out the sun with my hands nor to cover my eyes with bandages. The international community is discerning and is watching us attentively.
We, who are also discerning, also see what is happening in the countries of the world and we know that it is necessary to act now, that there is no time to lose. We know that this is the time for cooperation, not for confrontation nor for intervention.
<P>
Many of our neighbours in Latin America, over the course of time, have found solutions to their conflicts.
In these processes the European Union has always been present to a significant degree, as a mediator and as a bridge between the various political and social sectors.
In the negotiation processes in Guatemala and El Salvador, the role of the European Union was fundamental.
<P>
The traditional concern of Europe for peace and human rights, and its marked tradition with regard to negotiation processes provide my country with absolutely essential support: this support is vital.
And it is also vital that Europe understands the background to the Colombian conflict.
<P>
We cannot allow the discussion of Colombia to be based on words but no action, on the idealisation of conflicts belonging to past decades and even less on press reports which are more concerned with the spectacular nature of the news rather than the reality behind it.
<P>
I can tell this from your questions concerning our conflict and the peace process: "Why are there still guerrillas in Colombia when they have disappeared from the rest of the continent?"
"Is there a civil war in Colombia?"
"What does the "zone of peace mean?"
"Who violates human rights in Colombia and what is the commitment of the government to human rights?"
"Is the Colombian Plan a military plan?"
<P>
I have come here today to explain our real situation to you, without denying the brutality of the violence we suffer.
Nobody could be unaware of the reality of my country.
Violence has plagued our country for years.
Many Colombians have died for their cause and many, through kidnap, have lost their liberty.
<P>
The Colombian conflict, under its own steam, has undergone serious changes and, without doubt, the force with which drug-trafficking exploded in Colombia in the Eighties has been the element which has led to the greatest increase in violence.
This has not only permeated the guerrilla movement, whose finance increasingly comes from charges imposed on coca leaf, but it has also extended the circle of violence to other armed groups and organised criminal groups.
<P>
Faced with this escalation of violence, the Colombian population has said NO MORE.
Mass demonstrations have taken to the streets, reminding us of the response of the Spanish people to terrorism, to demand NO MORE VIOLENCE.
Today the people of my country, like never before in their history, are united in the demand for a cessation of the violation of human rights, especially kidnap which should cease to be used as a source of finance by the guerrilla movement and other violent groups.
<P>
In Colombia, there is no civil war.
Less than 4% of Colombians support the guerrillas.
During the last two decades, the conflict has changed substantially.
While the military capability of the violent groups is increasing, largely thanks to drug money, the civil population is asking to be freed from the conflict, since they have realised that it is they who suffer as a result and it is their fundamental rights which are violated day after day.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, ours is a unique type of conflict which requires a unique type of solution, and my government is determined and committed to finding this solution.
<P>
The guerrilla conflict has concerned our people for 40 years.
During this time, several insurgent groups have participated in the conflict.
But there are also several who have now understood that the best alternative for our country is to abandon violence through a process of political dialogue.
Six armed groups comprising around 8,000 rebels, have, during the last ten years, laid down their arms in favour of the power of argument.
<P>
Today we are treading the path of negotiating the armed conflict with the FARC, the oldest of the guerrilla groups.
In little more than a year, through dialogue, we have already agreed an agenda for negotiation which consists of twelve points and last Sunday, in a historic moment for our country, we embarked upon a negotiation process which must lead our country along the path to the construction of a lasting and genuine peace.
<P>
There has also been a lot of speculation about the so-called "zone of peace" .
The truth is that this is an instrument created by Colombian Law to generate security conditions to assist the dialogue.
This zone covers only 3% of the national territory and a quarter of 1% of the Colombian population lives there.
We have not given up our national integrity there and the State is represented by democratically elected Mayors and Councillors.
<P>
We are also moving forward in the search for a solution with the National Liberation Army, the ELN.
Last week preliminary contacts were started, aimed at reactivating the discussions and I am optimistic that we will soon see significant advances which will allow us to initiate negotiations with this rebel group as well.
<P>
The whole of Colombia and the international community believes in the progress that is possible through a political solution.
I know that it will not be an easy path to follow and we will certainly continue to encounter difficulties, but we will always remain steadfast in the effort to overcome them.
Peace processes take time and require patience, a lot of patience.
Let us remember the cases of El Salvador or Guatemala.
Let us observe the peace processes in the Middle East and Ireland.
Neither of them happened overnight, but a negotiated political solution will be seen to have obvious benefits.
<P>
I would like to repeat that I will do everything possible to achieve this peace which is essential to all of us.
But, as I said a few days ago before the United Nations General Assembly, I do not want peace at any price, but rather a peace which genuinely strengthens democracy, which preserves the territory and allows all of the citizens to enjoy full rights and liberties.
<P>
I believe that a decent and democratic future is not possible without a culture of respect for fundamental rights.
I know that in the course of the protracted internal conflict in Colombia these rights have suffered serious violations, and this must not continue.
<P>
I am totally committed to the defence of human rights.
My convictions, my background and the mandate of my people testify to this.
To this end, I have implemented a broad State policy to combat, within the framework of the law, those armed groups which operate outside that law, to guarantee security, protection, support and freedom of action for the defenders of human rights; to assist people who have been displaced by violence; to adopt legal instruments which protect human rights and strengthen our judicial apparatus.
To sum up, a group of specific measures aimed at guaranteeing compliance with international humanitarian law.
<P>
The results of the application of this policy are reflected in the notable decrease in the complaints of human rights violations emanating from the public, as recognised in the reports from the intergovernmental bodies and NGOs which operate in this field.
<P>
We have worked hard to bring our legislation up to date.
Congress is currently debating a law to define and punish enforced abduction, genocide and massacres.
Furthermore, my government supported the approval of a new Military Penal Code which includes significant advances with regard to the competence of the civil courts to judge the military with regard to crimes such as genocide, enforced abduction and torture and we have signed up to the Statute of the International Criminal Court.
<P>
In addition, a Presidential Decree has been issued to promote respect for non-governmental organisations which operate in the field of human rights.
I also hope that those organisations can carry out their noble activities for strictly humanitarian purposes, without any political interference.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, my government is taking decisive action with regard to the protection of human rights, and in this task we need the support of the international community.
If the guerrillas or the autodefensas (vigilantes) violate human rights, this fact must be reported and they must be punished.
If any agent of the State does the same, this is also a crime and must not go unpunished.
That is to say, any human rights violation must be rejected and the perpetrators punished in accordance with the law.
Over the "State motive" or the justifications bandied about by the perpetrators of violence, the "human motive" must always prevail.
<P>
It is also important for Colombia that both Europe and the United States understand the correlation between drug trafficking and violence in Colombia.
<P>
There is no nation in the world which has offered up as many martyrs as Colombia in the fight against drug trafficking.
This disastrous trade has been and continues to be the principal cause of the worst tragedies of our recent history.
The economic power of these organisations led to corruption in many areas of our lives.
Drug trafficking has been the great creator of violence and has led to assassinations of the highest possible human cost to our country.
<P>
Currently, it contributes to the maintenance of the wave of violence which we are suffering by financing the various perpetrators of violence.
I have said, and I would like to repeat to you today, that drug-trafficking is the foremost and the worst enemy of peace, and peace will not be achieved totally without the eradication of the organisations which carry out this accursed drug trade or without finding alternatives and solutions which are economically and socially sustainable.
<P>
My country, like no other, has carried on its shoulders the burden of the fight against drug trafficking.
Therefore, I would like to take this exceptional opportunity to invite all the countries of the world community to fully implement the principle of what has been called "shared responsibility" , in order to combat the global problem of drugs.
<P>
This principle requires us to confront together the serious global problem of drugs, at every link in the chain; that is to say, production, distribution, consumption, money laundering, the diversion of chemical ingredients and arms sales.
It also requires us to contribute to lasting solutions in accordance with our own individual capacities.
<P>
We have significant agreements with the European Union which recognise the shared responsibility in this area.
We have made advances in the promotion of cooperation mechanisms between Europe and the Andean countries, as in the case of the tariff concessions of the Andean GSP, the expansion of which is vital to my country.
<P>
Whilst on this subject, I must also express my satisfaction with the recent conclusion of the Presidency of the European Council at Tampere with regard to the laundering of capital, which mentions the Council decision to "ensure that specific steps are taken to trace, freeze, seize and confiscate the proceeds of crime" .
<P>
We must confiscate the money and property of the drug-traffickers, and their associates, which results from this murderous trade and deny them any possibility of buying chemical ingredients and arms and we must pursue the underworld which launders the money which they obtain.
<P>
Together we must continue to make advances towards complete solutions which cover all the links in the chain.
And together we will have to give priority to those education and prevention programmes which will bring about a reduction in demand.
In this struggle, ladies and gentlemen, we need you as partners and allies.
<P>
My country is not asking for much: simply that each member of the world community plays its part in the task, in accordance with the principle of shared responsibility, and that we can all meet the costs of lasting solutions within the bounds of the available possibilities and resources.
<P>
It should also be of great concern to all of us that drug trafficking is causing more and more ecological damage.
In our country, which is one of the eight richest nations in terms of biodiversity, the illegal cultivation of coca and poppies have destroyed more than a million hectares of jungle, rain forests and mountain areas.
The pillage of nature is so out of hand that five hectares of forest are destroyed in order to cultivate one hectare of coca or poppy and every year 200,000 gallons of herbicide, 16,000 tonnes of chemical fertiliser and 100,000 gallons of poisons used on these crops contaminate Colombian waters and soil.
<P>
I want to repeat today that there is no doubt that the activities associated with illegal cultivation are spoiling the earth' s natural heritage.
It is therefore the duty of all of our countries to stop this destruction in order to defend at all costs the human right of future generations to a habitable planet.
<P>
We share Europe' s concerns about global warming, deforestation and the essential conservation of tropical forests.
We also understand that we must tackle the problem of polluting emissions.
For this reason we want to propose to Europe an Environmental Alliance between the countries of Europe and Colombia so that we may move forward together in this noble purpose.
<P>
Faced with Colombia' s real situation it is clear that in order to advance in the arduous task of building peace it is necessary to go beyond dialogue and negotiations with rebels.
It is necessary to find fundamental solutions to our problems.
We need to construct a new nation where respect for human rights, the application of justice and the reconstruction of our social fabric are the solid foundations which will allow us to build a society in which the factors which create violence are eradicated for good.
<P>
It is for this reason that I am here before those of you who share these ideals, to propose that you deepen your commitments with us and that we strengthen this alliance which is useful to all of us.
Appropriate cooperation is one of the most effective ways of protecting human rights; cooperation means preventing the preventable; cooperation means opening up the roads to hope.
<P>
To this end I have drawn up the Colombia Plan for peace, prosperity and the strengthening of the State.
It is not a military plan.
It is a comprehensive and unified plan aimed at strengthening such basic issues for our country as the search for peace, the reactivation of our economy and the generation of employment, the protection of human rights, the strengthening of justice and the increase in social participation.
The final result will be the strengthening of our State, as the essential requirement for the achievement of peace and progress.
<P>
We need your participation on all these fronts but principally we need you, your nations and the whole of Europe to invest in peace for the sake of peace, and to open up your markets so that we can create employment for the sake of peace.
<P>
For this reason, Colombia is presenting the international community with an alternative policy for the eradication of illegal crops based on an alternative development which offers the rural population, which is currently involved in illegal cultivation, a permanent escape from their economic and social problems, replacing illegal crops with commercial, mining, agricultural, agro-industrial and service companies, and with the necessary infrastructure so that they may compete adequately in the world' s globalised economy.
<P>
Colombia hopes to finance, jointly with those countries which are in some way involved in the drug chain, the infrastructure of the project and also hopes to involve private capital, both national and foreign, in the economically productive companies so that they may incorporate advances in technology and new capital.
<P>
Madam President, honourable Members of the European Parliament: I wish you, on behalf of the Colombian people, the greatest success in the enlargement and deepening of European democracy.
You represent people who have opted for life, peace and the defence of human rights, you constitute the means of expression of those who believe in democracy, freedom and a healthy environment for future generations.
You are largely responsible for leading the rapprochement with those countries which are building hope for themselves and which are eager for the third millennium to bring genuine successes.
<P>
I am here before the representatives of European democracy, to tell you unequivocally that I have opted for peace, I have offered the guerrilla movement peace with dignity and security.
In order to live in peace we need a national agreement supported by the international community.
<P>
As a democrat and before democrats I ask you here today: support peace in Colombia.
To do this would be to invest in humanity and in a vision of a future which brings about development, well-being and social justice.
<P>
Thank you very much.
<P>
(Sustained Applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="President">
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Outcome of the European Council of 15/16 October in Tampere
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The next item is the report of the European Council and the Commission statement on the outcome of the European Council of 15/16 October in Tampere.
<P>
It is my great pleasure to give Mr Lipponen, President-in-Office of the Council, the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Lipponen">
<SPEAKER ID=3 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Vitorino">
First of all I should like to say that the Commission shares the presidency' s positive point of view on the outcome of the European Tampere Council.
We would like to warmly congratulate the Finnish Prime Minister, both for the preparations which preceded the meeting and for the way in which he personally chaired its proceedings.
<P>
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the conclusions reached in Tampere combine a strong political message on the priority given to the construction of an area of freedom, security and justice with the concern to define priorities which concentrate on those issues which directly affect the daily lives of Europe' s citizens.

<P>
The Heads of State and Government have thus set themselves the obligation to respect the solemn commitment they made in Tampere.
The Commission, on the basis of dialogue and cooperation with the European Parliament, is prepared to do everything necessary in order to create an area of freedom, security and justice which, above all, achieves balance between its three components: freedom, security and justice.
<P>
The letter that President Romano Prodi wrote to the European Council highlighted our main concern which was that Tampere should not be a restrictive summit.
This objective was achieved.
The Commission is particularly pleased with this fact. And I would like to emphasise that the steadfast affirmation of the untouchable nature of the Geneva Convention as a basis for constructing a European asylum policy is something that merits our backing and applause.
<P>
We are pleased with the commitment given at the highest level to working in partnership with countries of origin and transit countries in confronting immigration issues. We are pleased with the far greater emphasis given to fighting the trade in human beings than to action against its victims in relation to illegal immigration.
The Commission backs the clear affirmation of the importance of prevention in the fight against crime, whether it is financial crime, crime in the cities or juvenile crime, and notes that its efforts to give special prominence to the rights of victims of criminal activity have been recognised.
<P>
The Commission agrees with the proactive view of the establishment of a European concept of access to justice as an instrument for people to exercise their right to free movement without obstacles of a legal or administrative nature. It is also necessary that this right to free circulation should now be accompanied by the legislative measures which are necessary for us to be able to achieve it as quickly as possible.
<P>
The Commission is pleased with the establishment of the principle of harmonising, as fully as possible, the rights of citizens originally from third countries, but who have lived for a long time in the Union, with the rights and duties granted to citizens who are nationals of the Union' s Member States. We realise that we will have to move forward with specific proposals in this area.
<P>
Finally, the Commission would like to single out the establishment of the clear priority given to fighting racism, xenophobia, and all forms of discrimination, which are laid down in Article 13 of the Treaty, as being a very positive move.
<P>
Similarly, the Tampere conclusions tackle, in an appropriate way, the strengthening of cooperation between police forces and between judicial authorities in order to protect and preserve the freedoms of Europe' s citizens.
The conclusions do this in a way which is necessary in order to respond to citizens' legitimate concerns about security and about the judicial guarantee of their rights, as is fitting in a Union which claims to be founded on the principle of the prevalence of rights and of the law.
<P>
I would like to highlight, in this regard, the principle of mutual recognition of decisions and sentences, which all Member States should contribute to by adopting common definitions and penalties against certain criminal activities which transcend borders,.
This would cover areas such as organised crime, illegal drug trafficking, the trade in human beings, or crimes against children.
I would also like to highlight the establishment of the EUROJUST network which is, without any doubt, the beginning of the construction of a European Judicial system which will be an instrument of support and monitoring for EUROPOL' s actions in guaranteeing security within the Union and which will also be an instrument for protecting the rights of European citizens.
<P>
The Commission is looking at its own role and proposes to act by responding to the ambitious action plan for fighting money-laundering, which involves changes both in the Union' s position towards the rest of the world, and also at the level of legislation in each Member State.
<P>
However, Madam President, Tampere did not fully meet all of the Commission' s expectations.
Without wishing to criticise the positive results which, to a large extent, have just been highlighted by the President-in-Office of the Council, I cannot help admitting that on some points, the Commission is rather disappointed. The Commission regrets that the European Council has not accepted the idea of a single asylum system which represents, as we see it, something to aim for, but also the urgent necessity of dealing with asylum issues in a collective and coherent way.
The Commission will not stop making proposals which will allow us to dispel any possible fears that a centralised asylum system may bring about in some Member States.
<P>
Similarly, I regret the fact that some Member States were reluctant to support the idea of a European refugee fund, even though the Commission made it clear that this fund would not involve any new or additional expenditure. The lessons drawn from Bosnia and Kosovo reinforce our conviction that it is crucial to persist in explaining our aims, which we hope will happen before the end of the current year, specifically in the context of preparing the 2000 budget.
<P>
Tampere did not allow the idea of a European Public Prosecutor to be adopted yet, even one who would be limited to protecting the Community' s financial interests.
I would like to suggest that the next debate on the Intergovernmental Conference might be a good opportunity to take up this idea of ours once again.
<P>
An event like Tampere, with the expectations which precede it, can sometimes appear to be an end in itself.
It is only the beginning of a process. The Commission believes, however, that Tampere sent out the right message to many different audiences: to our citizens, first of all, that a subject high on their personal agenda is also rising quickly to the top of the Union' s political agenda; to national administrations that there is no turning back and that their own heads of government are committed to making the improvements, including the institutional improvements of the Amsterdam Treaty, work properly; to the criminal world, that the Union is mobilising all its potential to counter their activities which threaten our freedom and our well-being, if not our own democratic regimes; finally, to the outside world, that an internally secure Union does not mean a fortress Union and that our commitments to those in need of protection are sacred.
That is not a bad start.
<P>
There is an enormous task ahead, not least for the Commission, to whom the European Council entrusted numerous tasks, thus showing a gratifying confidence in us. With the help and cooperation of Parliament and the necessary resources to do the job I am confident that we will be able to play the part that has been allocated to us by Tampere.
<P>

We certainly plan to begin by working on how to create the scoreboard requested of us as a way of keeping up the pressure on ourselves, in the first instance, but also on others, as well as ensuring that everything takes place with the fullest possible transparency in the very near future.

<P>
If either you, in Parliament, or we, in the Commission, see any signs of back-sliding we will not hesitate to remind heads of state and government of their message from Tampere.
When I say "their message from Tampere" , it is not only the message in the letter of Tampere but also what we could call the spirit of Tampere.
<P>
(Applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Suominen">
Madam President, Prime Minister Lipponen, I agree with the view that the European Council meeting at Tampere may be considered a historic occasion for the reason that, for the first time, the Council discussed the creation of an area of freedom, security and justice in the discussion, and put it at the top of the agenda.
The issues discussed have great importance in the everyday lives of ordinary people and for companies as well.
The Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats finds that progress has been made in part, although we are also disappointed with how short the steps are that have been taken.
<P>
The major decision in the creation of the European area of justice was to make the mutual recognition of judicial decisions and sentences the foundation stone for legal cooperation within the Union, both in matters of civil and criminal law.
A precondition for the continued support, by the people, of the principle of free movement, is that there needs to be better opportunities to obtain justice within the whole area of the Union.
Improvement in police cooperation in practice and growing support for Europol will boost the investigation and prevention of crime.
In this connection our group would like to say that legal cooperation must, however, lead the way for cooperation, and it is with satisfaction that it welcomes the cooperation of prosecuting authorities in the Eurojust scheme.
We are nevertheless disappointed that the decisions of Tampere do not mention a European public prosecutor, whose field ought to have covered the fraudulent dealings behind the Community budget.
<P>
Our group agrees with the view of the Council that the Union and its Member States strengthen transparency of the Union through personal, cultural, political and economic relations with the rest of the world.
This also relates to the fact that the right to seek asylum should be fully respected.
We hope that the Council, with its decisions to ultimately create a common asylum-seeking process and a common status for those who have received asylum throughout the Union, has opened up the way for Europe to become a united area in matters of asylum and refugees.
The meeting in Tampere did not take us quite that far; the resolutions merely refer to a common area.
<P>
Our group will use its opportunities to influence the Community budget for the creation of a basis for a European refugee fund. This is a matter that was only mentioned in the Council' s decisions, in which the Commission was urged to explore the possibility of considering some sort of reserve fund for situations where large groups of refugees are applying for temporary protection.
The Council' s decisions contain no mention of how the financial burden caused by refugees and asylum seekers should be shared within the Union.
Although the States of the Union now want to decide themselves ultimately who can settle in their territory, the longer-term aim must be a coherent policy and consequential share of costs.
<P>
Our group welcomes with satisfaction the composition of the institutional assembly that will work on the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, believing that the strong parliamentarian dimension contained within it reflects the democratic implementation of EU development better than a conventional Intergovernmental Conference.
We shall participate fully in the work of this institution.
<P>
Madam President, President-in-Office of the European Council, although I have made a few critical remarks, we consider the results of the Tampere meeting to be important, and our criticisms are targeted at the fact that the Council should aspire, in future, to yet more ambitious Community objectives.
The decisions are, however, just words on paper.
Now, we believe, it is important that the Council and the Commission attend to the implementation of the resolutions quickly.
When the resolutions are passed back down from on high to the plain greyness of the Councils of the Ministers of the Interior and Justice, they also become run-of-the mill and nothing more happens for three or four years, Tampere will remain in history as the forum of unrealised declarations.
This is what will happen, although the Council has borrowed a good idea from the world of business, the scoreboard, the actual term being a perfectly balanced scorecard.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, keep the momentum up.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, first of all I would like to congratulate the Finnish Presidency on the success of Tampere with regard to the opening up of a new stage in the development of European citizenship, dealing with the always difficult balance between liberty and security. This demonstrates that we are not only building a Union based on freedom for goods, services and capital, but also one which will respond to the question of the freedom of settlement and movement of European citizens.
A step forward has been taken with regard to the fourth liberty of the Treaty of Rome: the access to justice beyond national boundaries, thanks to the mutual recognition of sentences, the possibility of fighting organised crime and money-laundering beyond national boundaries.
<P>
Furthermore there is another important dimension, Madam President, and that is that we are now on the eve of a new wave of enlargement, as the President-in-Office of the Council has said, and we are also witnessing a series of election results which are a clear warning for all of us that certain xenophobic and racist attitudes are arising within the populations of some of our countries.
Therefore, it is very important, at the moment, that we are capable of sending a message of freedom and progress in the face of this type of defensive reaction which demonstrates that not everything has yet been consolidated.
<P>
And this is especially important in relation to two issues.
The first is asylum.
I believe that this is one of the basic freedoms which we have to defend, and to this end, a single system of asylum is very important, and I say this from the point of view of somebody who comes from a country in which political asylum saved the lives of many of those who fought for freedom and allowed them to continue to live in other European countries.
The second is immigration.
We have to strive, depending on our own particular situations, for legal immigrants to have the same rights, together with a policy of co-development which will prevent the kind of out-of-hand immigration which we have been witnessing for a long time.
And to this end, we believe that this is the way to tackle the issue afresh and we also support - as the Parliament' s initiative demonstrates - the creation of a refugee fund, which we believe may be a key element.
<P>
To conclude, Madam President, we understand that the Commission has repeated what it did with regard to the internal market, the scoreboard system and the emulation system.
This is positive.
We still advocate that there should be a public prosecutor to fight fraud at a Community level.
Finally, I am grateful to the President-in-Office of the Council for being here today.
I regret that the presence of the Council in the Committees of this Parliament has not been too frequent, because that would have helped us to debate and get to know each other better so that we could have moved forward together.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="Ludford">
Madam President, this summit was highly significant and its outcome better, less repressive, than expected.
We will look back in amazement at how much more progress Europe made on cutting red tape on goods and businesses than it did on people.
This must now change quickly.
But Parliament is not yet a full partner and that must be our goal over the next few years.
<P>
It is unacceptable that Europe' s directly elected representatives are, despite the presidency conclusions' stress on democracy, marginalised in the creation of the area of freedom, security and justice.
May I say how much I believe the voice of Parliament is strengthened by the ability of four groups to agree on the resolution put forward today.
<P>
I can only pick out a few points, but firstly: refugees.
We welcome the reaffirmation of the full and inclusive application of the Geneva Convention, and credit is due to the Finnish presidency for this point.
It is very important that the common EU asylum system - which ought, however, to be a single system and incorporate EU funding - should not be based on the lowest common denominator.
We must also be very careful not to whip up racist prejudice and we look forward to proposals based on Article 13 to combat racism.
<P>
On individual rights, some progress was made but not enough.
We very much welcome the reiteration of how important it is to legislate to give legally-resident third country nationals rights as near as possible to those of EU citizens.
This is now urgent.
<P>
We also need tangible progress on the rights of EU citizens to move freely and reside elsewhere.
It was a pity nothing was said at Tampere about rights to access information and documents despite transparency being cited as one of the important principles.
<P>
In the area of access to justice we need mutual recognition to be accompanied by common minimum standards and it would have been good to see something about the rights of people to get bail when they are criminal defendants in a state other than their own.
<P>
We look forward to the body preparing the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which it would be appropriate for a representative of this Parliament to chair, producing a document which can confer direct rights on EU citizens and enable them as individuals to enforce their rights in the European Court.
It is appropriate to give governmental authorities greater cross-border powers to pursue criminals but the use of these powers must be supervised by the European Parliament and the European courts so that civil liberties are entrenched and robustly defended.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Boumediene-Thiery">
Madam President, as one might suppose, given the lack of transparency regarding the preparatory work, the conclusions of the Tampere Council are, as far as our Group is concerned, still disappointing in terms of their ambition and vague in terms of their conclusions, even in spite of a few interesting advances.
<P>
Generally speaking, it is significant that the Council should have announced a specific timetable for the measures to do with the area of security.
On the other hand, no clear timetable has been drawn up for the actions to do with an area of freedom.
Our fear of the establishment of Fortress Europe therefore still remains.
<P>
As far as measures regarding the right of asylum and immigration are concerned, they are still totally vague and not at all mandatory. The only good news is the commitment to the observance of the Geneva Convention and further confirmation of the fight against racism.
<P>
Our Group is pleased to see the desire that was shown to grant similar rights to nationals of third countries as well as to European citizens.
It is concerned, however, at the grey areas which remain on this matter.
It is indeed vital that this equality in rights should be extended to political rights, to freedom of movement and the right to live together as a family.
Europe has a duty to offer the same guarantees to all individuals resident on European soil.
<P>
Prime Minister Lipponen' s statement regarding the future of the Charter of Fundamental Rights may also be cause for concern.
Announcing at this stage that this is to be nothing more than a political declaration is tantamount to wiping out in advance the hard work of the working party.
The compulsory aspect of this charter is essential with a view to the construction of a Citizens' Europe.
<P>
Finally, while the Council announced that the scope of activities and the mandate of Europol, a necessary instrument in the fight against organised crime, were to be increased, what of democratic and judicial supervision, especially regarding the compilation of files?
This omission is the potential source of future irregularities as regards our individual and collective freedoms.
<P>
This omission must be dealt with as a matter of urgency by setting up a Committee on Information Technology and European Freedom.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Di Lello Finuoli">
Madam President, I do not believe I am the only one to be disappointed by the results of the Tampere summit.
It is true that it could have been worse, much worse, especially for the citizens of third countries who are in Europe or who need to come here, but that does not change the fact that we have missed a good opportunity to actually start constructing an area of freedom, security and justice.
The Summit' s conclusions seem to be a summary of the preparatory documents which had already been in circulation in Parliament for some time, without any more detail being added.
There was a long list of good intentions with which we cannot disagree, but I am concerned and perplexed by some of the clearer decisions.
I will give only one example out of the many I could give - the priority given to cooperation in fighting urban youth crime seems a little odd and out of place, given that, to make any real impact, the States would do better to join forces in order to defeat large-scale organised crime, which increasingly operates on an international basis.
We will only be able to find out more from the legislative proposals that will be put forward.
In the meantime, we repeat our concern that what we will actually achieve is an area of internal security fitted with an iron lock to stop the outside world getting in.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="Collins">
Madam President, I believe that the EU leaders' recent meeting in Tampere in Finland was a very successful one.
It was the first such meeting since the European Parliament ratified the new College of European Commissioners and the new President, Romano Prodi, has stated many times that he is deeply committed to involving Parliament in more decision-making in the future.
This new interinstitutional approach within the European Union was certainly in evidence at the Tampere Summit.
EU leaders had extended an invitation to you, Madam President, to attend the meeting: a recognition of the importance of the European Parliament as an institution.
<P>
I fully agree with the statement issued by the EU leaders when they expressed their deep regret at the failure of the American Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
This treaty is a cornerstone of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation efforts, and without it, the prospects for progress in nuclear disarmament are considerably reduced.
The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty is in the interest of all States worldwide, and the European Union is correct to restate its deep commitment to bringing the treaty into force at the earliest opportunity possible.
I welcome the restated commitment of President Clinton to ratify this treaty as well as his renewed commitment to the maintenance of the US moratorium on nuclear testing.
<P>
Earlier this year the European Council in Cologne decided to establish a chapter for fundamental rights which will bring together in one comprehensive document all the fundamental rights applicable at European Union level in order to make these rights more visible to its citizens.
The Cologne Council directed the Finnish government, as the office-holder of the Presidency, to establish the conditions for the implementation of this project in time for the Tampere Summit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Madam President, I recently said of the Tampere Summit that we ought not to strive for an unattainable utopia but rather we should set to work in a pragmatic manner on what the Tampere agenda had to offer in the way of concrete possibilities.
Judging by the reports from the Summit and the Presidency' s findings, the Council has, I am pleased to say, followed this modus operandi.
There has been criticism to the effect that the outcome has been indeterminate as far as asylum and immigration policy is concerned and some of my colleagues in the European Parliament would probably like Community legislation to be in place already.
I believe that it is the very caution with which cooperation is being brought about that will have a major bearing on asylum and immigration policy receiving a broad spectrum of support.
<P>
The outcome of the Tampere Summit is pervaded with a positive attitude that is clearly expressive of the desire for practical cooperation.
Even Parliament seems to have been affected by the positive tone set by the Summit and has maintained this in its resolution.
The fact that Parliament' s resolution contains any criticism at all can be put down to those who nurture the pipe dream of a federal Europe.
I do not share this dream.
What I do want is for the European Union to be one in which the Member States endeavour to draw closer together in those areas that have a European dimension.
The Council took a positive step in this direction at Tampere.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Turco">
Madam President, once again we have received a Council document which fails to combine the announcement of great and noble principles with their implementation.
In Tampere, not only did the reticence and insignificance of the decisions mean that Europe is not being constructed, but the creation of the Europe that we - and I think the citizens of Europe as well - do not want was announced.
The much trumpeted area of freedom, security and justice is nothing more than the confirmation of a bureaucratic, repressive view of politics where much is said about security but little about freedom and justice, as demonstrated by the intensive series of Intergovernmental Conferences, Dublin, EUROPOL, EURODAC, EUROJUST and reciprocal assistance on legal matters, none of which are under the democratic control of Parliament, the Commission and the Court of Justice.
<P>
Once again, you have chosen to let bureaucracy determine policies, and not the other way round, as is the case in the major democracies.
Since you have created the European bureaucracy of the right to asylum with the Dublin Convention and with EURODAC, perhaps one day you will finally decide on a European asylum and immigration policy.
How can we combat organised crime using the instruments you are proposing?
Firstly, the way EUROPOL was established, and its nature as a body which is not covered by democratic and legal control, means that thanks to you it continues to gain new competences, and so EUROPOL has the characteristics of the phenomenon it is intended to combat.
<P>
As for the actions concerning the fight against drugs for the period 2000-2004, the Council is now urging us to rush through the adoption of this document while, as the Commission itself admits, no systematic and rigorous assessment of the presumed results of the previous plan have been carried out.
Not only is the Commission anxious to state that the objective is far from being achieved, but it is also saying that drug trafficking and abuse is on the up, which means that a large part of the money spent up till now has turned out to be an investment not in the fight against drugs but in the spread of drug abuse.
<P>
And what about freedom?
The Council is proposing the implementation of Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam in the most minimalist way possible, by proposing that we give a non-institutional body the responsibility for drawing up a Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Council, this is not the Europe we want - an intergovernmental, ademocratic, illiberal Europe which it is the duty of your institution to represent!
We, along with Ernesto Rossi and Altiero Spinelli, want the federal United States of Europe of rights, freedom and democracy!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pirker">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I should like, on behalf of my Group, to ask and answer three questions.
The first question is this: was the Tampere Summit an important summit?
I should like to say yes to this question on three counts.
Firstly, because the subject of internal security was brought to heads-of-government level and wrested from the nation-state mentalities of the Ministers for justice and the interior.
In this connection, I should like to thank former President Jacques Santer and José Maria Aznar, who were at the Pörtschach Summit, and who provided the impetus there for the summit on security in Tampere.
<P>
Secondly, this summit was important because it gave a signal to the citizens of Europe.
The summit said in effect: we are here for the sake of your security.
Where the Member States have come to the end of what it is open to them to do, the European Union steps in: in asylum policy, in migration policy, in the fight against organised crime and in cooperation concerning justice.
Thirdly, this summit was important because, although we may so far have managed to translate economic and monetary union into reality, the special summit took the first step in the direction of a union for security and in the direction of an area of freedom, security and justice for the citizens of Europe.
<P>
The second question is this: was this summit a success?
We still cannot at present answer this question with certainty.
In 2001, when the initial results will be there to see, we shall be able to say whether it has been a success by then, and we shall be able to say in five years' time whether Tampere was a success.
What we can state, however, is that there have been many small successes and instances of progress.
The first and important one is this: it has clearly established goals, responsibilities and deadlines for the first time.
In other words, we have been placed in a position to monitor how progress actually occurs.
<P>
The second important feature - and the reason why Tampere was a success - is this: it provided for the first time clear distinctions in asylum policy, labour migration policy and the policy for dealing with temporary refugees, which is to say people driven from their homes by war. It also provided the first concrete measures for taking action in these particular areas.
In asylum policy, it is important to issue a clear declaration of belief in the Geneva Convention and to declare our support for rapid, joint procedures, but also to set about tackling abuse.
In the case of migration policy, it was important to make a clear statement that there exists a commitment to combating abuse and a stated belief in hands-on management and in a country' s capacity to receive and integrate refugees as a basis for management of this kind.
The first initiatives have been taken to establish sensible measures with a view to receiving temporary refugees.
<P>
A further point concerned the taking of concrete measures in connection with combating organised crime. These included more operational powers for Europol, a European police college or more stringent measures to combat money laundering, and cooperation with the candidate countries, for these are very often the countries where organised crime originates.
A further point is the cooperation introduced here concerning the matter of justice, for it is only if there is cooperation in this area that organised crime can also be successfully combated.
This means that the constituent elements of particular criminal offences are to be defined, that substantive criminal law is to be harmonised, that there is to be mutual recognition of court judgements, that EUROJUST is to be set up and that there is to be protection for the victims of crime: all in all, a full range of measures signifying that the summit was a success.
<P>
Let me nonetheless briefly pose the question: what critical comments might be made?
Announcing the results of Tampere as the Council has done here is to fundamentally misinterpret the Amsterdam Treaty.
Cooperation with Parliament also means cooperation in the relevant committee.
We missed seeing the Ministers for justice and the interior here on the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs.
Little that is concrete has emerged on the subject of labour migration. Nor, unfortunately, has any uniform asylum system emerged, and there has been nothing on how the burden is to be shared.
<P>
Overall, however, I must say that, in spite of all the critical comments which can be made, Tampere is, for the time being, a success.
It was a first step in the direction of a union for security and it now lets us together set to work in the interests of security and of the citizens of Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Madam President, there is every reason to congratulate the President-in-Office of the European Council on the very well organised Tampere Summit, which proved even more fruitful than anticipated.
The country to hold the presidency played an important part in reaching these results.
<P>
An extra challenge to the extraordinary summit conference at Tampere was that justice and home affairs are only now being debated on the EU general agenda.
The steps taken thus far have, owing to the basis of the agreement, been modest.
The issues are difficult and lead easily to conflict.
However, we have to devote our considerable energies to matters that affect the security of our citizens, such as crime prevention, at European Union level.
Criminal investigations and convictions must take place within the context of a real European area of justice.
Mutual recognition of sentences and judicial decisions is therefore needed, as is work to harmonise criminal law.
This is especially needed in the area of fraud.
<P>
It was important that, in the fight against crime, prevention was raised as a Union level issue.
We have to be concerned about our youth, and invest in youth employment and training.
The European social model must show more solidarity and, with its help, we must be able to prevent exclusion, encourage spontaneous recovery, and support equal opportunities for all groups of citizens, including immigrants.
<P>
The results of the meeting at Tampere also confirmed that we do not want a 'Fortress Europe' , but want to take responsibility.
The new comprehensive approach that has been established for issues of immigration and asylum, the European Council' s commitment to the full application of the Geneva Convention as it relates to refugees, and the decision to aspire towards a European asylum system, are steps in the right direction.
<P>
We must realise, however, that our work is just beginning and the biggest challenges still lie ahead.
It is important to take account of issues relating to the applicant countries as well as regional cooperation in this area.
Face with these challenges we will need seamless interinstitutional cooperation.
Furthermore, the citizens of the Member States must be included in the process and we must ensure firmer support from the people than is the case at present in decisions taken at EU level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="Watson">
Madam President, I should like to congratulate the Council and the Commission on the progress made at Tampere in so many areas and I would like to associate myself with the remarks made earlier by my Liberal Democrat colleague Baroness Ludford.
<P>
In the short time I have available I would like to touch on two issues.
The first is the position of non-nationals, the many millions of our fellow human beings not citizens of the Union but either legally resident here or being offered asylum.
I welcome some of the progress that was made at Tampere: for instance, on giving them comparable rights and on the fight against racism and xenophobia.
If we are talking about creating an area of freedom, security and justice, however, we must recognise that these are the people to whom justice is most regularly denied.
They are still too often associated with criminals.
Racist urban youths are a social embarrassment but racist policemen are a major social hazard.
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I welcome legal aid and greater information to citizens on legal systems and I recognise that progress can be made on mutual recognition of judicial decisions.
Nonetheless, we need common high standards of judicial competence and I hope that we will see more work done in this area.
We need protection of victims and the right to compensation; but we also need a recognition of the rights of defendants if we are to live in a decent society.
<P>
The second point I would like to touch on is the involvement of citizens.
The President-in-Office made much of the increased efficiency and transparency that Tampere has brought.
He talked about this being key if the Union is to win the trust of its citizens.
He talked of "opening up" the Council to public scrutiny and looking at other reforms. He hoped that the Finnish presidency would leave a lasting impression on the Union in this regard.
<P>
As chairman of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, I would like to suggest to the President-in-Office that more recognition be given to the role of this Parliament in dealing with citizens.
The European Parliament could have been invited at a working level to many more of the debates surrounding the Tampere summit.
The presidency could have sent a representative to our committee to come and talk about the results of that summit.
Does the presidency recognise the legitimacy of the European Parliament or is it somehow running scared of our participation?
I have a message for the presidency: relax - come and discuss with us.
I hope we will be able to prove to you through our work in the body that will draw up the Charter of Fundamental Human and Social Rights that the presidency and Parliament can work very well together.
<P>
I hope that, as we proceed in this area where so often Parliament must work directly with the Council, we will see much more effective cooperation between us.
I hope we will move from the somewhat stilted process of government by summit to more government at working level.
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<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ceyhun">
Madam President, I can only support what Mr Watson has said in his intervention and make it clear that, despite the poor preparation (since Parliament was genuinely excluded and not kept informed at all by the Finnish Presidency), the outcome is nonetheless welcome.
We in Parliament must also, of course, express our thanks to Commissioner Vitorino, for his contribution was decisive as far as the outcome was concerned.
I think that the Finnish Presidency should learn from this that, when one is prepared to cooperate, one can also achieve reasonable results.
We saw this when the Commission got involved and salvaged a good deal of what there was to be salvaged.
With this in mind - and in view of the fact that my colleague, Mrs Boumediene-Thiery, of my Group has really already said everything that needs to be said - I should just like to add the following comment. We now have a good outcome.
There are still outstanding questions, and the years 2000 and 2001 will be the decisive years in which a great deal will finally be undertaken.
I hope the future Presidencies of the Council will support the Commission and Parliament and keep us informed. In that way, we shall, in the end, be able to translate this positive outcome into action.
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<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Frahm">
Madam President, a lot of fine words have been written following the summit in Tampere, but the prerequisites of these fine words' becoming a reality and of our living up to the humanitarian principles behind them are that people must actually be able to get into Fortress Europe; that we must seriously begin to pursue a political strategy where policy on asylum can be distinguished from policy on immigration; and that we should begin to pursue a serious policy involving cooperation with UNHCR in solving Europe' s and the world' s refugee problems.
I think it is time now to begin to see if Europe cannot introduce an immigration policy of its own, and I should like to urge the Council to do some thinking along those lines.
<P>
It is also the case, however, that special situations demand special contributions - and a special fund was necessary to cover the special contribution we have been discussing. It will not then be projects already up and running which will have to pay for special situations, in the way that there is now a risk of Africa' s having to pay for the EU' s contribution in Kosovo.
<P>
I should like to close by saying that I cannot support the idea of a scoreboard in the legal sphere.
I think this is integration by the back door and a move in the direction of a United States of Europe by the back door.
It is out of step with the democratic approach to things which I otherwise know from experience that Mr Vitorino is in favour of.
If we are to go down that path, it must be by the front door.
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<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Muscardini">
Madam President, the Tampere summit has finally decided that we must harmonise asylum and immigration policies, tighten cooperation on investigating crime and really construct a European judicial area.
Alleanza Nazionale has been backing this in this House for at least eight years and so we are pleased that the Fifteen have begun to take a common position, and we hope that words will be followed by deeds.
<P>
It is clear that without security there can be no social peace, and we must combat crime using strict controls on illegal immigration.
Immigration is now a phenomenon which affects all European countries and, to prevent this causing imbalances or tensions in our national societies, it must be regulated and controlled in every aspect by common legislation.
Creating a European judicial area means eliminating the inequalities between the Member States' legal systems and changing Europe' s multi-speed image in this field.
An area of justice will give form and substance to the third pillar and allow a more intensive fight against organised crime, in all its terrible forms - trafficking of women and children, paedophilia, prostitution of minors, the production and selling of drugs and prostitution. These have all been fuelled recently by illegal immigration.
<P>
I think it is difficult to conceive that all of this can happen in the short term if there is no strong signal given out to the national States as well.
In 1998, in Italy alone, there were 130,000 statute-barred criminal cases, and the magistrates themselves say that the penal code has failed and that the Italian judicial system is bankrupt.
We need common legislation or we will not be capable of promoting growth in Europe or stopping the spread of crime.
To this end, we must also address the issue of how to prevent laws on security being in force in one Community country but not in another, given that our borders are open.
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<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Krarup">
There are in fact legal problems with cross-national borders and which demand cooperation.
These are predominantly technical problems which we might reasonably set the lawyers to solve.
However, the ambitions which now dominate, both in the motion for a resolution concerning the Tampere Summit and in the communications from the Commission, go much, much further.
They go much further because the hidden agenda is not merely to solve technical problems but to establish a number of supranational systems.
There has been talk of "creating a union of security" .
This is part of the European Union' s project and of the development of the Union, and it goes much further than is necessary.
When the discussion turns to legal and home affairs, it is the family silver we are talking about.
We are at the heart of a nation' s right to make its own decisions.
We talk about a common policy on crime, refugees and immigration, but the question is: which policy is to be pursued?
There are widely different interpretations of crime involving drugs, for example.
There are many different legal traditions and, where legal policy is concerned, you can talk in terms of repressive and liberal approaches.
You can do so too on the question of refugees and immigration.
I would warn against establishing the supranational systems.
Better to wait a bit and not be too impulsive.
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<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Madam President, we are all still under the spell of the June elections in which a clear, absolute majority was achieved.
But for the low turn-out (with people not voting, either because they were not interested in, or did not agree with, the development of the Union), the election was probably a milestone of democracy.
Whether the conclusions of the Presidency and whether the results of the Tampere Summit will merit the term "milestone" remains to be seen.
<P>
By the time of Amsterdam, we had had to acknowledge that the limits had been reached of how far the Member States were prepared to move towards integration.
Following Amsterdam, there was extensive agreement that the Intergovernmental Conference was no longer a suitable instrument of change.
This analysis was impressively confirmed by the embarrassingly low turn-out in the election.
Otherwise, everything is continuing much as before.
True, the Intergovernmental Conference is to get a face-lift, but the basic problems remain the same.
There are doubtless some more positive entries on the balance sheet: the Tampere declarations concerning the area of freedom, security and justice; efforts towards a more intensive programme for combating crime; and improved access to justice.
And also the results we are already seeing of the new policy on asylum and migration.
Where, however, it was a matter of placing common interests before individual ones - for example, when it came to a fair sharing of the load - no agreement could be reached.
Our conclusion, then, about Tampere: no doubt some important steps were taken there, but these were hardly milestones.
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<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Brok">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Tampere has been an important step forward, and I believe that great progress would be achieved by using these initiatives to create a genuine Europe of citizens in the areas of justice and internal affairs.
You will see, however, that, when it comes to translating these initiatives into practical terms, you will only achieve the relevant goals when the opportunities afforded by the Treaty of Amsterdam are taken to make decisions about these areas using majority voting.
This subject should therefore, perhaps, be addressed again in advance of the Intergovernmental Conference in Helsinki, for a decision about voting can in fact be made simply by the Council and without an Intergovernmental Conference.
<P>
The tasks of any policy on justice and internal affairs are twofold: to provide the citizen with security against crime, yes, but also against instances of interference by the State.
In a liberal community, both are tasks forming part of the relevant policy concerning justice and internal affairs.
Partly in connection with what has been achieved in Tampere, a Charter of Fundamental Rights is to be designed.
I should like to thank the Finnish Presidency of the Council for the way in which it has set this process in motion.
What now needs to happen is for the matter to take on a dynamic of its own, leading in the end to obligations on our part and to certain rights for our citizens.
This process ought not to give rise to revised new catalogues of fundamental rights for the individual Member States but to legal entitlements in respect of action taken by the European institutions and in respect of legislation affecting our citizens.
I believe we should achieve this in time.
<P>
At the same time, I should like to ask the Presidency of the Council to abide by the bill and give the Commission the chance, however, to submit, in preparation for the Intergovernmental Conference, its own proposal for how working methods might most sensibly be put into practice.
This is a really effective way of making progress.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, let me make a final remark about the Pack Report which is to be voted on today.
The European Parliament has no institutional objections to the Report.
It would like only to display an efficient approach, and there is also the widest possible agreement on this matter.
With this point of view and in the light of the decision by the European Council concerning the competence of the Agency, agreements should be reached which, in time, achieve reconciliation throughout the Balkans and tie the region into the Stability Pact.
The Administrative Council should no longer have an advisory role in deciding on individual reconstruction projects.
In this connection, and with a view to achieving the greatest possible degree of efficiency, there is certainly broad agreement that a reasonable distribution of the workload between Pristina and Thessaloniki should be achieved.
It would be helpful if you could adopt a position on this matter which might make the decision at 12 o' clock easier for us to take.
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<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berès">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I do not know if there will be a spirit of Tampere.
In any case, I am fairly sure that Tampere will be a significant step on the road to the establishment of a Citizens' Europe, the Europe which we must henceforth fight for with determination.
In this area of freedom, security and justice which we hope to create, all three elements are important, and Tampere acts on all three of them. What is more, Commissioner, in undertaking to draw up this "scoreboard" , you are henceforth assuming a considerable responsibility.
There is a helm which is in your hands; we have great expectations of it.
<P>
On the matter of fundamental rights, the establishment of a forum for Parliament to make its contribution to drawing up a charter is one element, but we shall be debating the basis of this for, as far as we are concerned, this charter must have a direct application, i.e. citizens must be able to appeal to the Court of Justice, and this charter must include the new rights for Europeans in the 21st century.
<P>
On the subject of immigration, by integrating what might be called a co-development strategy, that is to say, by acknowledging that, in order to resolve the question of immigration, the underlying causes of the refugee phenomenon must be tackled in full, I believe that Tampere is a significant milestone.
It is also a significant step in the recognition of the nationality rights of nationals of third countries.
It is an important step.
We also think that, in this fight, the contributions of the French, Germans and British on the subject of asylum rights and immigration will offer elements which must be taken into account to a greater extent in future.
<P>
In the measures relating to justice, we attach especial importance to the mutual acceptance of verdicts in civil and criminal cases.
This is an essential point, in our view, for this is underpinned by the reality of a Citizens' Europe in which it will be possible for the rights of the family to also be extended to the rights of couples of different nationalities, and not just to be a cause of problems.
We therefore invite you, Mr Lipponen, to integrate the second Brussels Convention at the earliest possible juncture, since this is a matter of urgency, and it is a legal entitlement which many families are waiting for.
<P>
Next, and this will be no surprise to you, in this Parliament we attach great importance to the democratic nature of procedures.
We therefore request that the legislative procedures envisaged by the Treaty of Amsterdam be applied properly.
We also request that, as regards police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters, these matters may be communitised in future.
<P>
Finally, if there is a Tampere spirit, we request that heading 4 of the Amsterdam Treaty may be implemented ahead of schedule.
We would see that as a pledge of the good faith of all the partners involved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Wuori">
Mr President, the Tampere Summit in itself was indeed a milestone in the progress made towards widening cooperation and strengthening intergovernmental solidarity.
The constructive effort focused above all on the area of security, we could say that from here on the direction is going to be fairly uncertain and it might be a hard and bumpy journey.
Despite its positive features, therefore, the outcome must be seen, from the point of view of fundamental and human rights, as the victory of a defensive battle.
We must be particularly vigilant in the next round of preparatory work, which must be done openly.
The road to Tampere was a very dark one.
We need more light!
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<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Sylla">
Mr President, the Tampere Summit decided that a European Charter of Fundamental Rights must be drawn up.
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The fact that the HCR was consulted on immigration and asylum policy may be seen as a significant sign of progress.
I am sorry to see that human rights associations, anti-racist organisations and both sides of industry have already been left out of the process of drawing up this charter.
For my own part, I would like to pay tribute at this point to these men and women.
Their dedication and their groundwork have made it possible to re-establish a social structure and drive back racism, hatred and contempt on a daily basis.
<P>
Enlisting these human resources would make it possible, when discussing matters of immigration and asylum, to find a way out of a debate which has been cut short.
Unemployment, lack of security and immigration are too often lumped together.
It is not acceptable to have people say today that Eurodac is going to be used to record the fingerprints of asylum-seekers and minors, and justifying this on the grounds that it is easier than taking DNA samples is beyond belief.
<P>
Quite the contrary, immigrants must be given equal rights and treated as citizens in their own right.
This means granting the right to live as a family unit, combating discrimination in accommodation, employment, leisure, and full nationality rights.
And, in view of the daily round of humiliations inflicted on immigrants, it is only fair to grant them the right to vote.
Finally, regularisation of the situation of those immigrants without proper documents, and elimination of the double penalty, would amply justify the existence of this Charter.
<P>
There was one extremely important phrase which was used at Tampere, if you will permit me.
This charter will guarantee, when confronted with outbreaks of extremism....
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="Holmes">
Mr President, the issues discussed at Tampere are obviously of great concern to all decent law-abiding people: asylum, immigration, cross-border crime and not least the death-dealing drug-smuggling activities of the loathsome drug barons.
Like disease, crime knows no borders.
Therefore, there can be no good reason for opposing the meetings of Heads of State as has happened at Tampere to discuss these issues.
However, one has to express a note of caution.
The suspicion amongst many in the United Kingdom is that these issues and the high-minded pronouncements are yet another power play by stealth on the part of the EU and its institutions.
<P>
We have seen it all before: first the problem, a problem of huge legitimate, public and topical concern, then the meeting and then the solution.
The central agenda is that whatever the problem, the solution is always the same.
More power to the EU and its undemocratic institutions.
The issue of asylum, immigration and cross-border crime and the administration of justice impact on the very fundamental issues of human rights and individual civil liberties.
<P>
What we are considering is vesting even more powers in the hands of the EU and the unelected bureaucrats to take control of our very liberties - the body which brought us the inestimable benefits of the Common Agricultural Policy and the Common Fisheries Policy.
Both are absolute disasters.
British fishermen and farmers are now martyrs to the irresistible ambition of the European Union.
Therefore, before we even think of passing more powers to the European Union, we must take into account its past activities and failures.
Fishing and farming have been subjected to its most tried and tested policies: policies tested almost to destruction.
<P>
We should forget the theory, fellow delegates.
Forget the high-minded pronouncements and look at the implications.
If there were prizes for rhetoric, the EU would be a world-class performer.
But when it comes to performance, the EU is the bottom of the class for efficiency.
There is a yawning gap, an unbridgeable gap.
So, when it comes to the issues of liberty, the EU cannot even sort out fishing or look after our farmers.
Why should we trust it with our freedom and our security?
Much more can be achieved by using existing national institutions and an international organisation....
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Gaulle">
Mr President, General de Gaulle used to say that a fine policy is not a policy which expresses fine sentiments.
<P>
In this respect, the Tampere Council marks a new era in the refusal to accept reality.
Reading the report of the proceedings of this conference, the special characteristics of the peoples of Europe should actually merge together in a sort of worldwide melting-pot in which migrants have, I quote, "rights and obligations comparable to those of EU citizens" , and "the legal status of third country nationals should be approximated to that of Member States' nationals" , all this in application of an alleged principle of non-discrimination.
<P>
All these fine sentiments will clearly only result in increasing the flow of migrants yet further, and this means unemployment and lack of security.
A realistic immigration policy ought, on the contrary, to involve making the situation of migrants in Europe more difficult by particularly eliminating any social assistance, and this indeed is the policy of the American Congress, by reducing economic aid to countries which encourage immigration, and organising systematic deportation.
<P>
But for that, we should have to make a break with the prevailing ideology, denounce the media who spread this ideology, such as the ARTE television channel, and, in general, stop being afraid of our social and cultural superiority.
We cannot carry on our shoulders the poverty of the entire world, the inability of some parties to organise themselves and the thirst for revenge on the part of formerly colonised peoples.
It is natural for groups of men to attempt to dominate others.
It is up to us, the peoples of Europe, to be the strongest in this fight.
If we do not fight, then Europe, like any entity which stops fighting, will ultimately be lost in the melee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Hernández Mollar">
Mr President, the Tampere Council was a significant step forward for European construction.
It pleases me as a Spaniard that it has given its backing to the impetus which the Spanish Prime Minister, José María Aznar, gave to this Summit.
The European citizens are very concerned that freedom of movement should not be coupled with the free movement of those people who wish to use it to threaten their security.
Terrorists, drug traffickers, traders in human beings and other criminals most not be allowed to move around within Europe unhindered by the police or the judiciary.
<P>
It seems to me to be good news in the fight against terrorism, although the resolution of Parliament does not say so, that the formal extradition procedure for people who have been finally sentenced should be removed.
It also seems to me that the Commission, in accordance with the new Tampere spirit and as the monitor of Community legislating, should ensure that directives to tackle money-laundering are complied with, given that non-compliance with these directives is hindering effective judicial cooperation as, for example, in the case of Gibraltar.
<P>
Furthermore, the will expressed in the Council to tackle illegal immigration networks must come to fruition urgently as a result of decisive and effective police and judicial action.
The Straits of Gibraltar and the Andalusian coasts are the silent witnesses of the tragic deaths of human beings.
Not one death more, Mr President-in-Office of the Council.
Not one death more.
<P>
The President-in-Office of the Council has also referred to the cooperation with countries of origin by means of action plans.
I hope that, from now on, the Presidency of the Council will give this Parliament more explanations concerning the content of those plans.
I ask you, Mr Lipponen, for more clarity and transparency in this area.
We would like to know the timescales for action, the financial framework within which they will operate and the Commission' s responsibility with regard to these plans.
<P>
And finally, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I cannot understand how the mandate will be extended in order to initiate other plans of action when the recently adopted ones have still not been implemented.
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<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Terrón i Cusí">
Mr President, the conclusions of the Tampere Summit seem to me to be a basically positive sign for the citizens of the European Union because they address issues that affect all of us, but also, above all, because they open the door to the development of certain policies which the citizens themselves demand.
I would like to see Tampere as a starting point, as a door which is opening and which will show us the path which we must travel along during the coming months, since there are some things which I still wonder about and I hope that they will be resolved during this process.
<P>
With regard to fighting crime and the creation of an area of justice, I believe that we have moved forward and that this is positive.
But I would like to concentrate principally on the question of immigration.
I believe that it has also been positive to confront the need for a common asylum policy, but we need the funding to sustain it.
We also need to confront the reality of immigration.
I hope that, in the coming days, we will receive more information about what the Council intends and how the measures adopted at Tampere will be implemented.
<P>
The action plans approved seem to me to be very interesting.
This "interpillar" policy opens up possibilities which may lead us to a good result, but it also raises many questions as to by who and how these action plans will be developed and whether the Council will ever give us any information concerning the results of the one which has been implemented, that is to say the action plan concerning Iraq.
<P>
The fight against illegal immigration also interests me.
But I believe that, in order to combat illegal immigration, we must ensure that it is more worthwhile to approach a European Union consulate than a band of traffickers.
If we want to put an end to the ignominy of deaths on our borders, as Mr Hernández Mollar said, we must offer a genuine common immigration policy, which we did not see at Tampere, offer new initiatives, and allow those people who live in the Union to do so with equal rights.
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<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Krivine">
Mr President, in spite of all the fine words which we have just heard, it seems clear to me that after the enormous effort that went into Tampere, the results are something of an anti-climax.
The only resolution adopted was to adopt the resolution to adopt a resolution at a later date in order to resolve the problems we face.
<P>
Yet the situation is urgent.
While all the States in Tampere were pledging their commitment to human rights, the Belgian government was sending several dozen gypsies back to Slovakia by chartered plane, under military guard.
In France, due to changes in the legislation, around 70,000 immigrants now find themselves without the proper documents, in an illegal situation.
In Saint-Denis in the Parisian region, six of them started a hunger strike more than 30 days ago.
<P>
The question remains, how can Member States be forced to respect the rights and the dignity of immigrants and asylum-seekers?
In concrete terms, this means freedom of movement, voting rights, the right to live together as a family, abolition of the double penalty, regularisation of the situation of immigrants without proper documents, and an end to racist discrimination.
The Tampere approach is, thus, a poor one.
Rather than harmonising the repressive laws in this Europe which more and more resembles a fortress, let us establish real status and real rights for immigrants and asylum-seekers throughout the Community.
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<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="Kirkhope">
Mr President, everyone, especially lawyers like myself, is in favour of justice and civil rights.
Any member or aspiring member of the EU should already have in place systems to protect their citizens based on their own common law, precedent and legislation.
The third pillar is a vital repository of national competences arrived at through historic development, reflecting different cultural and social histories of the nations.
Its demolition in my view is very sad and a big mistake, just at the time when it could be needed most.
<P>
As for the proposals on immigration and asylum, I was the minister in the UK until 1997 dealing with these issues.
From my experiences there, I now believe that the uncontrolled movement of people in global terms over the next 20 to 30 years, whether it be based on economic issues or climatic issues, represents a massive challenge to good order and democracy.
<P>
I am certainly in favour of free movement in the EU where legal status exists, but what of the applicant states and their borders - they will have to take over protection of the EU under Schengen?
Are we really happy about those arrangements and does Tampere really address them?
What do our German friends think?
What do the ordinary electors in Yorkshire or in Brentwood in the United Kingdom think?
The granting of asylum is a precious gift not to be abused, as is unfortunately the case too often.
The United Nations Convention in 1951 was clear: it should be applied to the letter but not replaced or surrounded with new regulations which, in my view, could cause even more confusion.
<P>
Sometimes, in order to be generous, in order to show good sense, it is essential for us also to be firm.
I regret that Tampere does not address the issues with sufficient firmness.
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<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Karamanou">
Mr President, without a shadow of a doubt, Tampere is a significant step forward on the path towards full European integration and I would like to congratulate the Finnish Presidency for its great contribution.
Tampere proved that the Union has the political will to carve out joint policies on issues which indirectly affect our daily lives, policies which will, for example, make citizens feel more secure through effectively stepping up the fight against organised crime, particularly in the area of drug trafficking, money laundering and the trafficking of human beings through judicial cooperation and mutual recognition of judgements.
<P>
Personally, I would like to see a common European family law and further efforts to combat racism, nationalism and xenophobia.
The protection of the fundamental human rights of every person, without exception, who lives in the European Union is a sine qua non for the creation of a common area of freedom and justice.
It was very encouraging to hear special reference to the Greek-Italian memorandum on strengthening cooperation in the Adriatic and Ionian Seas in order to combat organised crime.
<P>
However, the Council remained quite diffident when it came to endorsing the common European Asylum System and Fund for immigrants proposed by the European Parliament and the Commission, as opposed to simply approximating rules and procedures.
In addition, the Union seems unable to formulate a strategy to combat the social causes of immigration and to provide aid to the countries of origin so as to reduce pressure on the European Union.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, please allow me to express my reservations on one question in particular.
Do you believe that the Tampere meeting has set in motion a five-year process to enhance the democratic and political make-up of the Union or to transform it into a fortress which is unassailable to all the victims of persecution around the world?
I believe that only in December 2001, with the interim assessment and with hindsight, will we be able to judge the direction which it has actually taken.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fiori">
Mr President, laying the foundations for the construction of a European area of freedom, security and justice was the goal of the European Council of Tampere, an important goal because it affects the values which are at the heart of our western civilisation.
We are therefore waiting impatiently for the good will declarations to be followed by real, concrete policies.
For example, the need to establish a joint policy on immigration and asylum is now commonly felt by the peoples of Europe.
We must aim for an open, secure European Union which will establish partnerships with the migrants' countries of origin and draw up joint development policies with these countries and those that migrants pass through.
To start with, we need a common European asylum system with the basic conditions for receiving migrants and, later, we need a uniform statute for asylum seekers.
<P>
I am worried that, along with joint legislation, there is a lack of effective solidarity measures between the Member States for times when we need to address emergency situations, as in the case of the huge influx of Albania and Balkan citizens into Italy following the political crisis in those countries.
Think of the Mediterranean in general, and the Adriatic in particular which forms an external border of the Union and not just Italy.
The invitation to the Commission to assess the possibility of a budgetary reserve for this is significant but it is still not enough - the entire European Union should take responsibility for the extraordinary influx of non-Community immigrants with a strong act of solidarity towards the most affected countries, Italy in particular.
The act of solidarity and improved control of migration flows are important instruments in the fight against organised crime and, in particular, against trafficking in human beings.
The issue of women and children who are exploited and set up as prostitutes and the relationship of this world with drug trafficking, apart from being important matters affecting public safety, are, from a human point of view, tragic and distressing and require specific intervention on our part.
<P>
All of these actions and others as well, which relate to the security of European Union citizens, must be carried out in full compliance with the fundamental rights of those living in the Union, because the keystone of the future area of freedom and security is in fact those indispensable fundamental rights.
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<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Lancker">
Mr President, if the Tampere Summit achieved one thing, then it was the fact that the Member States were reminded that they once signed something called the Treaty of Amsterdam.
I have to be honest with you; it was vital that this should happen for we needed to give form to the aforementioned area of freedom, security and justice.
Of course Parliament wanted more far-reaching European commitments to come out of the Tampere Summit but I have to say that since these important issues are now on the European agenda all the same, along with a scoreboard, a clearly-defined task for the European Commission and thus also a role for the European Parliament, then that is a very good thing and I would like to congratulate the Presidency on this, but also the European Commission in particular.
<P>
However I would like to raise two critical objections in connection with the outcome of the summit; first and foremost with regard to the rights of the citizens of Europe.
It is a good thing that it was at last resolved at the summit that all citizens of the European Union must be accorded equal rights, and that includes those who are non-nationals of the Member States.
Citizenship of a Member State must not be founded on exclusion and discrimination though.
And so it is also my hope, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, that the Council will assign the European Commission the task of establishing what the rights of citizens from third countries are, and that the Commission will interpret these in the broadest sense, respecting the non-discriminatory principle, also when it comes to voting rights, to the right to live as part of a family and to the right to freedom of movement, notwithstanding the fact that nothing was said on this at the summit.
<P>
Secondly, the policy on asylum and migration appears to me to still be lacking in balance.
For one thing there are intergovernmental measures which can be implemented immediately through the action plans but which are primarily geared towards the protection of migrants, and for another there are tasks for the European Commission, common asylum policy, protection of asylum seekers.
On behalf of my group, I would like to urge that the principles of the Geneva Convention find full expression in all its aspects in the two aspects of the migration policy and that the Commission and Parliament become fully involved in all said aspects.
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<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cederschiöld">
Mr President, the purpose of the Tampere Summit was to specify the measures which are required for creating an area of freedom, security and justice.
Among the Commission' s tasks was that of establishing a table of results as a model for comparing the extent to which the relevant measures had been implemented.
This is a good initiative which will also clarify the areas within which the Commission should be the first to take action.
It is, however, only an evaluative instrument and can only go so far towards achieving the goal of a European Union governed by the rule of law.
As well as strengthening fundamental rights, the table of results can provide legal convergence rules with legal objectives and guarantees.
<P>
If an area is to be designated an area of justice, the rule of law is required to operate there.
If it is going to be possible to measure how far the Member States have progressed, criteria must be established and effective methods of measurement devised.
It is about being able to compare legal systems and bring about improvements.
<P>
If differences are to be made clear and voluntary harmonisation achieved by means of group pressure, comparisons ought to be illustrated in the form of a table of results open to all.
This is how the driving force can be produced to push ahead with extending throughout the European Union that dependable area of justice which is the prerequisite of citizens' being able to move about freely, securely and safely.
<P>
The principle of mutual recognition, accepted in Tampere, must, however, in future, be supplemented by a degree of harmonisation within the field of criminal law as well.
Initiatives were also taken at the summit to strengthen the position of the victims of crime and to ensure that citizens have access to the judicial system.
I should like to have seen the Member States urged to introduce national funds for the victims of crime so as to be able to guarantee that the latter receive support in terms of financial prerequisites which are similar throughout the Union.
Victims ought to receive aid, economic, psychological and social support through State, voluntary and individual contributions throughout the entire European Union.
<P>
I want to end by expressing special thanks to the Commission and to Commissioner Vitorino for their constructive contributions at the summit.
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<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Swiebel">
Mr President, the big news from the Tampere Summit is that apparently there is the political will to produce common European policy.
The political role of the Commission and of this Commissioner will be strengthened as a result.
Some essential fundamental principles were also reaffirmed such as the right to seek asylum and the fight to combat racism and discrimination.
It goes without saying that this is all to the good.
But it is still a matter of first seeing then believing.
<P>
The decisions taken still need to be given substance and some policy options have not made it.
The proposed common European asylum system still falls a long way short of the idea of integrated European policy.
The notion of spreading the burden between the Member States is still taboo.
A European approach to migration as such is not a realistic proposition at this stage.
We are talking in terms of a policy of determent at the very most.
And it remains to be seen how exactly the Council proposes to improve the rights of people from third countries.
<P>
The Commission should take the lead in drawing up a further agenda and Parliament must be enabled to play its rightful role where all of these issues are concerned.
Cooperation in the fields of criminal and civil law establishes the principle of mutual recognition as the crux of the strategy.
That may sound modest but it is probably a sensible choice in view of the disbelief and repugnance that this development still seems to evoke amongst the professional circles that lawyers move in.
A great deal of work still remains to be done here to get the message across.
<P>
In this context, setting up EUROJUST is a bold initiative.
Hence it is all the more a pity that the parliamentary control aspect has been swept under the carpet.
<P>
On a final note: the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Now that a decision has been taken on the composition of the forum that is to compile the Charter, it is high time that we determined what the status of this document is to be.
So far, the Council has left this matter up in the air.
If this Charter is to have any added value then it must become binding law to which every EU citizen can appeal.
To that end, it will have to be incorporated into the Treaties.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, on 3 April of last year, this House thankfully approved by a large majority my report on internal security and on extending the European Union to the East and issued an order to establish a European Academy for Internal Security.
I am very happy and grateful that, in Tampere, the Council gave concrete expression to this order by establishing the European Police College.
I am also delighted that, on Monday in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, Mr Vitorino gave notice that the Commission would soon be submitting a study concerning the way in which this project might be specifically put into practice, for I believe in fact that, when our police are trained together in the European spirit and when, as specified in the order, the police in the candidate countries are involved right from the beginning - and this idea too is traceable back to the proposal by this House - then we shall be taking an important, concrete step towards a Europe of justice and internal security.
I should be very grateful if this College could be located in the border area between the EU and the candidate countries, for example in East Bavaria.
Here, there are already a lot of examples of practical cooperation in the sphere of policing, and these might be useful in connection with this project.
<P>
I should like to address a second issue.
I am of the view that the Council has done well to set the course for a common policy on asylum and refugees but, unlike many members, I am not so unhappy about the fact that we still have some way to go in that direction, for a number of quite important elements are still missing.
Above all, I should like here to criticise the fact that, now as before, no specific sharing of the burden between individual countries has been arrived at.
It even looks as though any such personal distribution of the burden has receded into the far distance. I am of the view, however, that, without such a sharing of the load, a common policy on asylum and refugees would be something which might be likened to a large roof erected only with a single supporting wall somewhere on the perimeter.
A roof of this kind would inevitably tumble down.
I consider a common asylum policy to which there is no definite key for sharing the load to be completely unthinkable.
We therefore ought to use the time we have here and do some further, specific work on this matter.
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<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gebhardt">
Mr President, we can either accept and rejoice in the outcome of the Tampere Summit or else consider it to be defective.
However we may categorise the result, the Tampere Summit was, and is, important.
It is important because it signifies a step towards a common European area of justice.
The direction is the correct one.
But with the great goal of the common area of justice in front of us, Tampere is just a small step on a long road.
The people of Europe expect more.
They expect larger and, above all, courageous steps in quick succession.
I am convinced that they are also entitled to these.
<P>
The citizens of Europe can certainly demand that the law in every individual Member State should offer them the same level of safety, protection and security.
They can expect not to be taken to the cleaners in a neighbouring country with the help of another legal system which is alien to them.
Summits of varying degrees of solemnity do not alone do justice to these entitlements.
Just as peace is not created simply by not going to war, so too is a common European area of justice not created just by a handful of governments expressing their good will.
Reliable rules for cooperation must also follow a willingness to cooperate on issues of justice.
The Council and the governments alone cannot create these.
Parliament must help them.
The Council should know that, in the interests of the people whom we represent as Members of the European Parliament, we are prepared to do this and will in fact do it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Coelho">
Mr President, Mr President of the Council, on 15 and 16 October, in Tampere, important steps were taken towards the creation of an area of freedom, security and justice within the European Union.
<P>
Contrary to the idea that our Union should be of an exclusively or mainly economic nature, the Council, following a course of action that Parliament has now been defending for a long time, turned to our citizens, to their freedom of movement, to their security and to the recognition of their right to justice, rights which must be granted not only to citizens of the Union but to all those who, for a variety of reasons find themselves in our territory on a regular basis.
Various political priorities and guidelines were agreed on, and the Commission will have to put forward a "scoreboard" proposal, that is, a panel which will assess the progress that has been made and whether we have met the terms laid down in the Treaty of Amsterdam, by the Vienna action plan and by the conclusions of this European Council itself, a pragmatic initiative which promises good results and which relied on the commitment of Commissioner António Vitorino, whom we should congratulate for this too.
<P>
It is true that there will be greater cooperation and that there were some areas in which it was easy to reach agreement, such as in the case of creating EUROJUST which should become operational towards the end of 2001, or in the strengthening of EUROPOL' s role or even in the creation of a European Police Academy.
But, we should recognise that, on the whole, compatibility, convergence and the approximation of practices in the 15 Member States were given preference over the harmonisation and standardisation which could and should have taken place.
In this way, the emphasis was placed on convergence and on common rules on asylum procedure, on the creation - albeit in vague terms - of a financial instrument for situations in which the temporary protection of refugees is required, on closer judicial cooperation, on recognising judicial decisions etc.
The principles have been laid down and are on the whole positive ones.
What we are now waiting for are the decisions and the initiatives which will allow us to give real substance to what was laid down.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, as the last to Parliamentarian to speak, there is one thing that comes to mind: you have spoken of the Tampere spirit and I believe that there is also a Tampere signal.
It is a strong signal that Europe is no longer just a market and that the European citizen is no longer just a consumer or a worker; that the citizens, in all their forms, with all their worries, with all their needs, with all their demands, are at the centre of European construction.
<P>
And it seems important, bearing in mind everything that has been said here, to point out an issue which, in my opinion, symbolises this setting for the citizen.
<P>
At Tampere, a quasi-constitutional transformation has taken place, because the Council has given the Commission a mandate to establish, on their proposal, common rules on admission and residence, on small claims and many other issues.
<P>
In this way we are moving from a shared right of initiative to a right of initiative which is wholly in the hands of the Commission.
It seems to me that this, from the point of view of European construction, is enormously important.
<P>
In the final seconds of this debate I would like to highlight judicial construction and the fact that the citizens, in addition to security, the police and the fight against crime, wish to know that justice is on their side, in any part of Europe, and that they will find justice before any judge.
This is another of the great messages of Tampere.
Commissioner, you have said that a lot of things were left undone in Tampere and it is true.
But there is - as the French say - du pain sur la planche.
You have at least fifteen enormously important mandates to perform.
<P>
We in this Parliament hope that those proposals will be on the table very soon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Lipponen">
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="President">
Thank you very much Mr President-in-Office of the Council.
Lastly, I am going to hand the floor to Mr Vitorino, who is to speak on behalf of the European Commission.
The debate is overrunning somewhat.
I would ask the Commissioner to restrict his speaking time a little if at all possible.
There will be plenty more opportunities for us to enter into debate with you.
I hand the floor to Mr Vitorino.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Vitorino">
Mr President, I do not consider your warning to be a constraint on my fundamental freedom of speech, I do assure you.
<P>
I would simply like to thank you, on behalf of the Commission, for all the contributions you have made in this debate.
I must assure you, ladies and gentlemen, and Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi in particular, that the Commission is well aware of its own responsibility as regards the application of the Tampere conclusions.
<P>
I must stress that the Commission could never have fulfilled its role if it had not been able to count on the support of the Finnish Presidency, particularly the Prime Minister, Mr Lipponen, whom I must thank once more for his cooperation and his work to make Tampere a success, and also on the support, critical and vigilant as always, of the European Parliament.
<P>
The Commission is now indeed counting on the critical and vigilant support of the European Parliament in order to prepare the "scoreboard" .
In fact, the "scoreboard" is not just an instrument for legislative programming, it is also an instrument intended to strengthen the transparency and accountability of all European institutions with regard to the citizens, because it is the citizens who are in control in the area of freedom, security and justice.
It is not just a control panel, it is also an instrument for evaluating the actual results achieved in terms of actual progress in the application of the Tampere conclusions.
The progress achieved will not be the concern of just the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament, but also the Member States, insofar as some "scoreboard" tasks will be entrusted to them in application of the principle of subsidiarity.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, I wish to stress the importance, for the Commission, of the decisions regarding the drawing up of the Charter of Fundamental Rights which were taken at Tampere and which will be followed up in Helsinki.
<P>
As the political and philosophical foundation of the area of freedom, security and justice I propose to consider all matters related not only to the fundamental rights of the citizens of the Members States of the Union, but also the rights of third country nationals legally resident on a long-term basis within the Union.
<P>
As for rights relating to the fight against discrimination, based on Article 13 of the Treaty, they will be discussed during the debate on the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
At this time, a clear sign must be given so that the process of drawing up the Charter and the Intergovernmental Conference of the Union, which are due to take place at the same time, both express movement in the same direction, with a view to guaranteeing the conditions for enlargement and strengthening the foundations of the rule of law in our Union.
<P>
Before handing over to my fellow Commissioner, Michel Barnier, who is going to present the objectives of the Intergovernmental Conference, I would once again like to thank the Parliament for the support given to the Commission in this project, the Tampere project, the spirit of Tampere, the letter of Tampere, but most of all the project of the citizens of this shared Union of ours.
<P>
(Loud applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="President">
I have received six motions for resolutions, tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2), to conclude the present statement.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 12 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Report on the IGC
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="President">
The next item is the Commission' s statement on the report by the high-level working group regarding the Intergovernmental Conference.
<P>
I now hand the floor to Mr Barnier, who will speak on behalf of the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Barnier">
Mr President, Members of Parliament, for the Commission, the debate which we are having right now is of great interest but is also limited.
<P>
The limitation, which you will all understand and respect, is that at the time of this debate neither the Commission nor the European Parliament have established in a precise and detailed fashion their position and their proposals for the next institutional talks which are due to commence at the beginning of next year.
Today, then, the matter in hand, a considerable one, is to assess and gauge the state of mind in which we, together with you, are going to approach these talks.
<P>
I am therefore going to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, or rather reaffirm, the state of mind shared by President Prodi and the College of Commissioners, and I shall be extremely attentive to what you have to tell me, either on behalf of your political Groups or as individuals.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, in asking three respected and experienced individuals to comment freely and express their ideas, the Commission wished, without further ado, to initiate and shed light on the debate.
In so doing, I am certain that we are fulfilling our role in the precise spirit of the first clause of Article 48 of the Treaty on European Union.
<P>
The first objective has been achieved.
The debate has been initiated.
It must take place here, it must take place within the Member States, within the national parliaments.
I shall contribute to it along with all the people interested in building Europe, and there are more of them than you might think, working as closely as possible with the citizens.
<P>
I would like, Mr President, to express our gratitude to Prime Minister Jean-Luc Dehaene, to President von Weizsäcker and Lord Simon for the high quality of their contributions, and to thank you too, in this place, for your welcome and for your careful consideration of their report, particularly within your Committee on Constitutional Affairs, run and chaired by Mr Napolitano.
<P>
The primary merit of the Dehaene report lies in establishing what is at stake and giving a real political perspective to institutional reform.
I shall return to this point in a moment.
A number of lessons may be learnt from it as of now: firstly, regarding the timetable, secondly, regarding the scope of the reforms which must be implemented successfully and, finally, regarding the way in which these talks must be prepared.
<P>
On the subject of the timetable first of all, ladies and gentlemen, let me express this conviction of mine. This reform is the last opportunity to implement real reform before the greater enlargement of the Union, before the States and the peoples of Europe come together in a great political and economic community.
The prospect of greater enlargement is no longer a mere hypothesis, it is not a remote possibility.
The Commission decided, on 13 October, that we must prepare for this with the same degree of seriousness, but more quickly.
This is why it is necessary for this Intergovernmental Conference to be completed effectively before the end of the year 2000.
<P>
This tighter deadline makes success essential.
But the question is, ladies and gentlemen, does this deadline necessarily make a mini Intergovernmental Conference essential?
We do not think so.
This reform, which is necessary, as we must all realise deep down, is not only and not primarily a matter of time, it is primarily a matter of political will, of clear-sightedness regarding our own way of operating at the moment and its inadequacies; it is a matter of courage, the collective courage that we may or may not have to give priority, this time, to the Union, to give priority to a long-term vision which, as we know, even if it is difficult, goes beyond short-term caution and short-term interests.
<P>
Considering the time limits for the talks, and the time limits for ratification by each of the Member States, now is the time to wish to achieve and to actually achieve a real reform.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am not talking about a definitive reform of the European institutions, but of a reform that is far-reaching enough to prevent the institutions being deadlocked or choked, a reform far-reaching enough, as a Member of Parliament said the other day, to enable further development in future.
It is a mistake to believe, let me emphasise this strongly, that it will be possible at a later stage, with eighteen, twenty or twenty-seven Members, to carry out the reform which we did not manage to achieve at Amsterdam and which we were not willing to carry through now.
<P>
As regards the scope of this reform, we have discussed the level of ambition for this Intergovernmental Conference, and this is the frame of mind of the Commission.
This, ladies and gentlemen, should surprise no one, since the great project of enlargement, as I said moments ago, will be even faster and even wider than we imagined at Amsterdam.
I repeat therefore: the Commission and the European Parliament are fulfilling their role by wishing to take this conference forward and by recommending that reforms be undertaken now so that the Union may integrate a great number of States.
<P>
It is not, ladies and gentlemen, a matter of challenging the Cologne conclusions.
The primary obligation of this Intergovernmental Conference will be to deal with the matters which were still outstanding after Amsterdam, and deal with them properly; deal with them, I must emphasise, ambitiously, because it is perfectly possible, let me tell you from experience, to deal with these three subjects with a greater or lesser degree of ambition.
All three of these matters, the number of Commissioners within an enlarged Union, the new weighting of votes, the scope of qualified majority voting, are extremely problematic, but necessary, subject areas.
Our feeling, let me tell you, is that it will not be so hard to deal with them if they are included in a political perspective.
<P>
This is why the list of questions mentioned in the Dehaene report seems perfectly admissible to us.
Not one of the ideas put forward may be deemed superfluous.
It is not unnecessary to work on the reorganisation of the Treaty to make it more readable, more accessible to citizens and in order to imagine one day the simpler amendment of common policies, as opposed to the fundamental principles of the Union.
<P>
It is not unnecessary to seek to improve the system of strengthened cooperation, without however taking the slightest risk, I am absolutely sure, of the acquis communautaire becoming "unravelled" in some way or other.
It is not unnecessary to hope that it may be possible, by the end of the year 2000, in the new Treaty, to draw the conclusions affecting the institutions of the decisions which may be taken in the meantime, in the spirit of Cologne, for the security and the defence of the continent of Europe.
It is not unnecessary, ladies and gentlemen, to work on the other institutional questions which arise with enlargement.
For example, the matter of the legal personality of the Union.
For example, the matter of the operation of the Court of Justice, or even the matter of more concerted European action in the fight against fraud.
I am saying this in the aftermath to the Tampere Council, which you have just discussed with my friend and colleague, Mr Vitorino.
On all these matters, and on others too perhaps, the Commission will be pleased to hear your reactions and your suggestions.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a brief word about preparations for the talks.
The intentions of the Portuguese and then the French presidency, the intentions of the Finnish presidency, before the Helsinki meeting, are essential for the Intergovernmental Conference to be able to proceed on a firm foundation and to go ahead, may I say, as early as possible, by the beginning of the year 2000.
As for us, we are making serious preparations, and this is the least that can be expected of the Commission.
Within the College of Commissioners, as of 10 November, we shall be debating the form and the broad lines of our formal report which is to be published before the start of these talks.
<P>
In any case, ladies and gentlemen, this formal report will be a comprehensive, forceful policy document, constructed and structured so as to be of use in the talks, to facilitate and, we hope, expedite them.
Recalling the fine quality throughout the entire period of the run-up to Amsterdam, of the contributions made by the two representatives of the European Parliament, Elisabeth Guigou and Elmar Brok, I would also like to say that I think it generally useful for Parliament to be able to have a say and to be involved, ideally, in these forthcoming talks.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, I shall conclude with this observation.
Between caution and recklessness, between realism and utopianism, there is, we are convinced, a place for and a path towards the real reform of our institutions, for the more efficient and more democratic operation of the Union, not to delay enlargement, but to make a success of it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Poettering">
Mr President, let me first of all say a word of thanks on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats to Jean-Luc Dehaene, Richard von Weizsäcker and Lord Simon for this report which is ambitious, courageous and yet, at the same time, realistic. That is why this report points to the future.
We had a debate with Jean-Luc Dehaene in our Group last week. Commissioner Michel Barnier was present - and I should like to tell you, Commissioner, that we have every confidence that you will make your contribution towards taking the European Union, aided by the work of the Commission, into a worthwhile future.
You have the support of all of us on this road.
<P>
In Helsinki it will be decided that we should negotiate with six further States about accession to the European Union.
We are therefore negotiating with 12 States in all, and it is very probable that, in a first round, more than five States will accede to the European Union.
It is not therefore realistic to limit this Amsterdam Protocol to three subjects. We must go beyond that.
As the Group of the European People' s Party, the Christian Democrats and the European Democrats, we therefore say: we want more than was promised in Amsterdam; we want Amsterdam plus; we want a fundamental reform of the European Union so that it is capable of the expansion which is a great priority for us.
<P>
<P>
The heart of the matter is certainly majority voting in the Council, and we are in favour of this becoming the basic decision-making procedure.
In all questions of majority voting, moreover, the European Parliament must have equal rights under legislation to participate in decision-making, as it already has now in the case of agricultural policy (which is a further point).
Where the matter must still be discussed, we appreciate that each country is also represented on the Commission and that we are getting a new weighting in the Council of Ministers.
The double majority is one instrument, and there are others.
However, the way in which the votes that can be cast in the Council of Ministers are recalculated must still, of course, be democratic in character.
I would also say that there is a dimension beyond all legal procedures.
Whenever, now, representatives of a number of large Member States show a certain presumption, a certain arrogance towards smaller Member States, we reject this and say that all Member States of the European Union make their contribution and must be integrated into the Union.
On this issue, the large Member States too ought to acknowledge that the Presidencies of many a small country have proved to be more successful, more efficient and more committed than those of many large Member States.
<P>
(Applause)
<P>
We approve of the proposal of the Committee of Wise Men to create a basic Treaty.
I am particularly glad that our friend Jacques Santer was pleased about this point because his country, Luxembourg, is an example of an efficient smaller Member State.
We emphasise that it is quite right - and I think this is a brilliant idea - for the working party to have proposed creating a basic Treaty and a Treaty for the enlarged Union.
Under the basic Treaty, all Member States and all Member Parliaments would always be represented when a reform was proposed. That is only right.
Under the Treaty for the enlarged Union, it would be the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament which could take the relevant decision This makes for flexibility, and the possibility would exist of doing justice to the respective requirements of the countries concerned.
<P>
Mr Barnier spoke of the legal personality of the European Union.
Legally, the European Union is at present a non-entity, a nothing; it cannot even buy a house, let alone be represented in an international organisation.
This is something we must change if the European Union is to carry any weight in the world.
<P>
We must also take action in the field of foreign, security and defence policy.
Just last week, the Institute for Strategic Studies in London said that Europeans were not in a position to act.
That is not only a question for the European Union as an institution, but a question of the readiness of the Member States to provide our armed forces with the necessary logistical support and reconnaissance.
We expect the new High Representative, Mr Solana, to arrange with Chris Patten for the necessary initiatives to be taken here.
We also now need a large-scale debate about the geographical enlargement of the European Union, about what it is to contain, and we urge the Council of Ministers, which is to say the ladies and gentlemen who are represented there, to have the courage to lead Europe into a worthwhile future, for we are concerned here with stability, peace and democracy on our continent in the 21st century.
<P>
(Applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="Corbett">
Mr President, my group welcomes the publication of the Dehaene, Lord Simon and von Weizsäcker report because it makes the case clearly, and makes it well, to have an IGC that is not confined to the so-called "three Amsterdam leftovers" .
We must address wider issues.
This IGC, though, will not be so much about broadening the field of responsibility or the competences of the European Union; it will be about structural reform, institutional reform, reform that will make the Union more open, more efficient, more democratic and more transparent.
Above all, the IGC will make it capable of functioning and carrying out its responsibilities when it is composed of more than 20 Member States.
<P>
The three Amsterdam leftovers will be part of the package but they will not be alone.
We are winning the argument to have a wider agenda.
But even those three leftovers, as Mr Barnier underlined, are not subjects which are easy to handle.
For instance, extending the field of qualified majority voting will immediately provoke assorted Eurosceptics and others to say in their Member States that their country is giving up the veto and giving up sovereignty.
Indeed, it is the position of one of the largest component parties of the EPP that there should not be an extension of qualified majority voting.
Yet if they pause to think for one minute they would soon realise that their own country, every country, probably loses more from the vetoes cast by other countries than they gain in using their own in many areas of European Union responsibility.
<P>
However, change must come not just for the three Amsterdam leftovers; extension of qualified majority voting, the size of the Commission and the weighting of votes in the Council.
Change is necessary for the Court.
How will it function if it is going to be composed of nearly 30 members?
Change is necessary as regards the size of this Parliament if we are to respect the limit of 700 members laid down in the Treaties at our own request.
Something needs to be done to take further the conclusions reached by our Member States that the WEU should now be integrated and its functions, or part of its functions, transferred to the European Union.
<P>
There is the question of codification and simplification of the Treaties, an issue that this Parliament was first to highlight in the run-up to the Amsterdam negotiations; a task started by Amsterdam but far from complete and which, too, is a point underlined and highlighted in the Dehaene report.
<P>
In adding new issues like those to the IGC we are not necessarily making it more difficult.
Having a wider package might make it easier to reach agreement and easier to ratify in our Member States but I can say, on behalf of my group, that we are willing to have Parliament work closely with the Commission in the spirit that Mr Barnier has just indicated, so that together we can put a balanced package of proposals on the table of the IGC that he, and our representatives to all the meetings of the IGC, can defend: a package that will make the Union fit to work when it has more than 20 Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="Duff">
Mr President, I welcome the report for pointing us at the central question which is the method for revision of the treaties in the future.
We must realise that it will be virtually impossible - and certainly it will be impracticable - to forge agreement between 25 or 30 states upon essential questions of sovereignty.
So, the key reform is Article 48 for treaty change.
We must entrench the constituent articles of the treaty and we need a softer, lighter system for changing the treaty in regard to policy chapters.
The first reform will calm citizens' fears of creeping sovereignty transfers and the second should encourage citizens to engage more obviously with the political choices that we face in Brussels and in Strasbourg.
<P>
The second reform that is essential is to remove the national veto from the clauses of reinforced cooperation; and the third will be to grant citizens the right of direct approach to the European Court.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Frassoni">
Commissioner Barnier, the Dehaene report contains positive and negative points, like almost everything in life.
I would like to add that the main ideas have been advanced by the European Parliament for decades, so it does not seem particularly original.
I would like to make the most of my short speaking time to invite you and President Prodi to reflect on the risks we are running in only talking to the governments and trying to convince them alone, especially the most reluctant ones, and always trying to combine realism and credibility in proposals which are often ambiguous and moderate.
<P>
In my view, it is worrying that even the Wise Men, who no longer have any obligations to anyone, consider trying to reach a compromise as a priority and that they want to play a part which is not theirs.
I hope that in the proposal that you put to us, the Commission and yourself will have the courage to aim higher and that you will be able to justify the need to establish a constitutional section in the founding texts of the European Union with something more inspiring than the mere reorganisation of the confused texts of the Treaties.
I am sorry that President Dehaene could not find this courage.
I also hope that the Commission will be able to free itself of the inefficient and anachronistic pillar structure and clearly refute the extremely odd idea which the Wise Men put forward, that Parliament' s power of codecision is legitimised only under the first pillar.
The courage to seek alliances and a consensus outside the palaces of power, among the people, and in this Parliament, is a challenge that the Commission must accept.
If it does not, we will all lose.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kaufmann">
Mr President, President of the Commission Prodi was quite right when he spoke before this House of an error of historical proportions if the Intergovernmental Conference were to be reduced to dealing with the so-called Amsterdam leftovers.
No, what the citizens of the European Union rightly expect is true democracy, transparency and efficient decision-making.
What is necessary, above all, is the courage to critically examine the policies of the Union so far.
The need for a socially just Europe remains highly topical.
We need a reform of the Union which finally places the struggle against mass unemployment and poverty at the centre of policy.
The reform should also entail having the courage to change Article 4 of the EC Treaty which, in classically neo-liberal manner, defines the Union as an open market economy with free competition.
<P>
The same applies to Article 105 of the EC Treaty so that the European Central Bank might have the contractually established political task of using its monetary policy to promote growth and employment.
Our citizens must be involved in the debate about the content and objectives of the reform.
They must have the opportunity, through referenda, to themselves deliver their own judgement on the results of the Intergovernmental Conference.
<P>
I have noted with interest the proposals of Messrs Dehaene, von Weizsäcker and Simon.
A number of these I personally consider to be definitely worth discussing, for example the proposals to simplify the Treaties or the proposal that qualified majority voting in the Council and the involvement of Parliament in decision-making ought to be the rule in future.
As a Member of the European Parliament representing a large Member State, I attach the greatest importance, of course, to the fact that the rights of small States should not be restricted.
<P>
One thing, though, I want finally to say loud and clear here. My Group decisively rejects the integration of the Western European Union into the Union.
We want to see a civilian Europe characterised by solidarity.
We do not want a military union appearing in future, armed to the teeth, as a Euro policeman on the stage of international politics.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, Commissioner, the Union for a Europe of Nations Group considers the Dehaene report on the institutional implications of enlargement to be unsatisfactory in terms of both its method and the greater part of its conclusions.
<P>
Firstly, its method. The Cologne Council, last June, refused to appoint a limited working party to prepare the work of revising the Treaty.
It did want discussions to be more open from the outset.
And what did we find?
The Commission, piqued at not having been able to control the debate completely, hastened to appoint a limited working party on its own account, which was immediately described as a Committee of Wise Men even though its members are no wiser than most people here today.
All this in order to attempt to force the Council to retain the conference agenda which the Commission wanted.
It is not surprising, in such conditions, to see that the Dehaene report, basically, is seeking to strengthen the powers of the Commission and circumvent the rights of the States.
First of all, by a strange coincidence, this text concludes that, from the very beginning of the Intergovernmental Conference, the Commission will have to submit a complete draft Treaty to the Council.
It is simply a continuation of the same old method of forcing decisions through.
<P>
In the same spirit, the working party puts forward the old federalist proposal of making qualified majority voting the general rule in the Council.
This proposal, combined with maintaining the Commission' s monopoly of initiative, would ultimately end, as we know, in a considerable strengthening of the Commission' s powers and a concomitant reduction in the rights of States.
For that matter, it is quite interesting to note that the system of majority voting is presented in the report, in a fine example of European Newspeak, as, I quote, "leading to consensus" , whereas, obviously, the opposite is true.
Majority rule obliges the minority to give way, especially the smaller States, whereas the requirement for unanimity makes it necessary to negotiate until a consensus is obtained.
<P>
Again, in the same spirit of circumventing State power, the Dehaene report proposes that the Treaty may, in some cases, be modified by a simple Council decision, and even on the basis of a decision taken by qualified majority alone. This is absolutely unacceptable, since it stands in absolute contradiction to our concept of a Europe which respects its nations.
Apart from the usual federalist clichés, the report does, however, tentatively sketch out one new idea, the idea of the institutional flexibility required in an enlarged Europe.
It acknowledges what we have always said, that the cases of strengthened cooperation outlined by the Treaty of Amsterdam go in no way towards resolving the twofold problem of increasing heterogeneity and the absolute impossibility of giving up sovereign powers in favour of procedures for decision by qualified majority and, what is more, in a Europe comprising thirty or more States.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the real subject that must be included on the agenda of the IGC, and a second subject, "how to restore national control in Europe" should be added to the first, since it too posits the free exercise of national sovereignty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Dimitrakopoulos">
Mr President, the as yet unofficial Dehaene report is on the right track.
Of course, on reading the report, one notices that it makes no mention of the visions, the goals or the challenges facing Europe on the eve of the 21st century. Nevertheless, it does, at least, give some broad guidelines on a number of institutional issues which must be addressed.
Despite Commissioner Barnier' s very interesting comments, we have yet to see how many and which of those proposals we shall adopt and what needs to be added for the European Union to prepare itself properly for the future.
<P>
Mr Barnier' s comments about the Commission presenting a text which will be "global et fort" are quite significant.
We, therefore, await the contents of this text.
In any case, from the European Parliament' s point of view, we must press for the text to include a systematic approach to all aspects of the European Union, so that the new Intergovernmental Conference can address in turn all the issues and problems which concern us at present using the Aristotelian logic that politics is the art of the possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Leinen">
Mr President, I see the report of the Wise Men as being a big step forward and I expressly agree with Commissioner Barnier that comprehensive reform of the European Union must now be implemented and should not be postponed until after the enlargement of the Union.
That would be disastrous and fatal because what the 15 States cannot settle among themselves, 20 or 25 States most certainly will not be able to.
Now is the last chance to reform the Union in such a way that it functions properly, is understood by the citizens and is capable of being expanded.
<P>
I am pleased that the Treaties are to be redesigned.
None of our citizens understands the Treaties of Maastricht or of Amsterdam.
It is unreasonable to expect any citizen of the Union to read these texts.
The texts must now successfully be divided up into their genuinely constitutional and their more technical elements.
This distinction needs to be made, as it is in our Member States' own fundamental laws or constitutions.
<P>
A word about the reform of the institutions.
The Dehaene Group has concentrated very much upon the reform of the Commission.
In my view, it is the Council which should be at the centre of the reform.
The Commission will function on the basis of what is done now.
Parliament has carried through reforms and is functioning.
The institution which is not functioning is the Council.
It is the Council which forms a barrier within the Union.
In Parliament, we shall therefore also be concentrating on making demands for the reform of the Council. The rules must somehow be laid down for this dual role it has as both a legislative and an executive body, and certainly in a Union of 20 or 25 Member States.
I hope, Commissioner Barnier, that the Commission can come up with a concrete proposal for altering the Treaty, which we shall then discuss.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Malmström">
Mr President, Commissioner Barnier, the clear message regarding change which the electorate sent out on 13 June is something which we EU politicians must take very seriously indeed.
We must act in accordance with this message and work for change.
The Intergovernmental Conference is one very good opportunity for doing just that.
<P>
There is a lot to be inspired by in the Report of the Wise Men, and we ought to use the Intergovernmental Conference to carry out a proper examination of the Treaties.
We need to simplify, open up, clarify and review all of the European Union' s tasks and bring about an order in which the EU concentrates on fewer things, that is to say the genuinely cross-border problems.
The EU' s citizens need a democratic constitution which lists the powers that can be exercised, and in such a way that accountabilities are clear and that the principle of subsidiarity is of proper significance.
<P>
With these ambitions on the eve of the Intergovernmental Conference, I believe that we can succeed in both of the EU' s major tasks: to create a larger Union which functions democratically and to win back some of the confidence our citizens have lost in the European Union, as well as the legitimacy they lent to the enterprise.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Mr President, for the cool and collected, the year 2000 is of course a year like any other, but it is not only romantics who, at the beginning of a new century, cannot escape a certain magic inspiring them to rise above the daily round of business and approach their own future in a creative spirit.
I very much regret, Commissioner Barnier, that the preparatory work for the Intergovernmental Conference contains no trace of that turn-of-the-century magic and of an ability to entertain new visions.
I also regret that, quite unlike the panegyrics delivered in this House, the deliberations of the Committee of Wise Men revealed no such visionary courage either.
<P>
When it came to the whys and wherefores of reforming the European institutions, reference was made to the technocratic concepts of increased efficiency and the ability to act, but not so much as a glance was directed towards the very urgent and necessary matter of establishing a European democracy.
The Committee of Wise Men wastes not a word of criticism on the second and third pillars of this democratic no-man' s land of intergovernmental cooperation. Nor does it hazard any proposal to include this area among those which are to be subject to democratic reform.
Nor is any thought wasted on the Intergovernmental Conference as a method, which we now all know is in no position to bring the European idea any closer to fruition.
Involving Parliament is, in truth, not one of its concerns.
<P>
Nor does the report of the Committee of Wise Men contain a single mention of the social dimension of the European Union, which is a prerequisite of a European democracy.
On the question of foreign and security policy, the report wastes a lot of time on developing security policy, as well as policies for governments and heads of state, and forgets in the process that security policy is a function of foreign policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
Mr President, if the Dehaene Group' s report is to be summarised in the course of one minute, which is what I shall try to do now, it might be said to contain what Swedish supporters of the EU promised would never happen.
If the Group' s proposals were implemented, the EU would take a decisive step towards being transformed into a State in its own right.
The remaining right of veto is to be taken away and the influence of small countries reduced; the President of the Commission is to become a sort of Prime Minister in an ever more powerful European Commission, and the EU is to become a military union.
<P>
What is especially negative is the fact that the Group proposes that the Member States' power over changes to the Treaty is to be drastically reduced.
Where large parts of the present Treaty are concerned, the Group wants it to be possible for changes to be made without these being approved by the Member States' parliaments and without any requirement of unanimity.
It is a proposal which is directed specifically against the opportunities which Member States and their populations have to wield democratic influence on the EU' s development.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Méndez de Vigo">
Mr President, what must the next Intergovernmental Conference do?
It must prepare the Union for a Europe of 27 Member States.
Therefore, the wider the scope of institutional reform, the wider the scope of enlargement will be.
<P>
What must it do?
It must maintain the institutional equilibrium, which has allowed the advance of European construction over the last forty years.
What must it mean?
It must not mean new competences for the European Union.
The Treaty of Amsterdam did this already.
And neither should it mean changing the nature of the Union.
<P>
In this context, I wish to say that the report carried out by Mr Dehaene is very correct in many areas, but it contains something that worries me very considerably.
If we consider it in its entirety, Mr Dehaene' s report intends, on the one hand, to extend qualified majority voting and, at the same time, the constitutionalisation of the Treaties and their division into two parts, one subject to a very strict procedure, which requires unanimity for reform, and the other subject to majority voting.
And to this add making strengthened cooperation more flexible.
<P>
What worries me - I address this to the Commission, which has to carry out a report on it - is that the combination of these three factors - the extension of the qualified majority, the subjecting of legislation to differing types of revisions and making strengthened cooperation more flexible - leads to a Europe à la carte, a Europe where every Member State chooses what it wants to be.
And I wish to say, Mr President, that that is not the European Union which many of us have fought for and in which many of us believe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van den Bos">
The Dehaene Group' s plans are, by its own admission, very ambitious, but these plans are only ambitious in relation to the current situation and existing opposition.
However, the proposals fall short with respect to the requirements of a Union numbering more than thirty Member States.
If the Union was to have twice as many Member States as it has now, the decision-making process would completely run aground unless drastic changes were to be put forward, and they would have to be far more drastic than those that are now on the table.
Inevitably, the competences of the Commission, as guardian of common European interests would be extended at the expense of the competences of the national governments represented in the Council.
This would demand far greater democratic legitimacy on the part of the Commission than is presently the case, and it would be necessary in the long term for all Commissioners to be directly elected.
Of course our Parliament would also need to be accorded the authority due to it.
What has a revolutionary ring to it now will soon seem very realistic.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="MacCormick">
Mr President, there is one dog that has not yet barked in this debate, and I should just like to draw attention to the radical failure of the Dehaene report to deal adequately - mentioning it only in passing - with the regional aspect of government in Europe.
Subsidiarity here seems to be a concept which gets lip service but not real action and it certainly needs redefining in the Treaty.
<P>
The autonomous regions and nations internal to the Union states of the European Union, like Spain or the United Kingdom or Belgium, must obtain effective standing in our system.
Reform in the Council would be one prerequisite. It could properly differentiate its executive and legislative roles and in the latter begin to approximate itself to a territorial chamber.
<P>
The Committee of the Regions as at present constituted is both toothless and not in any sense fairly representative.
Are Members here aware that Luxembourg has six members in the Committee of the Regions and Scotland four?
I am not familiar with the differences between east and west Luxembourg but I know a little about the internal differences of Scotland, and the principle of representation as it exists is absurd.
A committee that was supposed to enable regions and internal nations to counterbalance the states is dominated by the state system.
<P>
New members will arrive here with enlargement in this Parliament, many of them representing former member nations of union states.
Think of Slovenia, think of Estonia.
They are small states but their representation will automatically exceed that of the Basque country, that of Flanders, that of Scotland, that of Wales.
The principles of representation in Europe, as applied to its nations and regions need to be re-examined, and I am very sad that the Dehaene report has said practically nothing about this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lamassoure">
Mr President, less than one year after the historic success of monetary union, we find the European Union in a strange position.
It is running and running, but no longer knows where it is running to or how it is going to get there.
<P>
The European currency is not yet in circulation, and yet in Cologne in June there was mention of a European army, and in Tampere in September of a European criminal justice system, a Charter of fundamental rights is being prepared and finally, above all, the Commission is inviting the European Council to accept the prospect of a Europe expanding as far as Asia Minor, up to the western borders of Iraq and Iran.
This is not just enlargement, it is explosion.
<P>
Some people, including us UDF members within the PPE, are in favour of the new developments in Europe.
Others among us are doubtful and even hostile.
But I believe that we are all unanimous in considering that it is time for the political leaders to regain control of the machine and to dare finally to discuss the objective of the geographical dimension and the way forward for political union in Europe, as we did for economic and monetary union in Europe.
<P>
How far is Europe going to go?
How far, in terms of geography?
This has never been debated either here in Parliament, or in the Council or the Commission.
How far is Europe going to go, in terms of jurisdiction?
A Europe of thirty Member States will no longer be able to operate in the same way as the Europe of twelve Member States.
On the one hand, it will need a far more efficient decision-making system, one that is of a political and no longer diplomatic order.
On the other hand, there will be far fewer matters of common interest and there will be much greater demand for decentralisation.
<P>
How far do we want to go?
With what partners and by what route?
These are the questions which must be answered before giving instructions to the legal experts on matters like "the future weighting of the vote for the beautiful island of Malta" .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Väyrynen">
Mr President, beforehand there were rumours circulating that the high level working party was intending to propose an onion skin model for Europe, a sort of system of concentric circles.
It is a pity that the report contains no 'onions' , as institutional differentiation would seem to be the only realistic solution for a Union that is expanding fast.
<P>
In the future Europe must comprise three institutional circles.
The outer circle would be the European Council, whose intergovernmental institutions could be utilised better than they are at present by giving them new jobs to do.
The second circle would be the European Union, which would develop as an association of states in the future.
This would mean the decentralisation of decision making and would require intergovernmental cooperation to be strengthened.
This sort of EU association could easily and rapidly expand.
The inner circle would be the Federation of Europe, made up of an integrated group of EU states that had progressed the furthest: those that belong to NATO and the euro area.
The EU would thus become an association of states, the core of which would be a federation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Hecke Johan">
Mr President, the Dehaene-report unmistakably has the advantage of clarity and testifies to creativity and vigour, to pragmatism and ambition.
We do not have 101 recipes for making an Intergovernmental Conference' s work rapid and efficient.
If there is a desire to avoid a new tour de force in legal high technology, an inextricable tangle, then one way or another it will always be necessary to refer back to the substance of this crystal-clear report.
It does not have to be Mr Dehaene' s swansong.
But if we fail to embrace the crucial importance of post-Amsterdam Treaty developments then we run the risk of rendering Europe powerless.
The ball is now in the court of the Member States and the Commission.
As far as we are concerned, and let this be made very clear, reforming the Union is, in any case, still a conditio sine qua non for enlargement.
First deepening, and only then enlargement.
After all, we should say "no" to a Europe that is becoming increasingly rich in members but increasingly impoverished in terms of support, efficiency and soul.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Barnier">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at this stage, in view of the restrictions of your agenda, I shall limit myself to a brief comment.
As regards today' s debate, the rules of the game were clear.
This debate was of great interest to the Commission but it was also somewhat limited since neither the Commission nor yourselves had yet defined precise positions and proposals.
It was therefore an exchange of views on the basis of the Dehaene report which President Prodi had intended specifically to initiate and shed light on this debate.
I have listened to all the speakers, Mr President, with a great deal of attention and I thank them for their attention and for their own contributions.
We are going to take these questions, these suggestions, and even these occasional criticisms or fears into account in the few days which remain before 10 November.
This is the day on which the Commission is to establish its initial position on policy, and then we shall have a debate on the Commission' s first policy document.
After this, we shall again have a great deal of work to do between 10 November and the start of the talks, since the Commission will then have to submit a document which I have myself described as a forceful and comprehensive policy document, designed to be of use to the negotiators and to facilitate the talks.
During this period we shall have to work in close liaison with the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and with the Parliament.
I therefore wish, Mr President, by way of conclusion, to thank the European Parliament for this initial exchange of views on the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference and on the ambitions we should have in approaching this conference.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place in a few moments.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bonino">
Mr President, I am taking the floor to invoke the Rules of Procedure. I would just like to confirm that the Radical Members present will not be taking part in the vote this time either.
This is because, despite the good will of numerous, individual Members - whom I thank - this institution has not found a solution regarding the non-attached Members, a situation which is intolerable from an administrative and financial point of view, but even more so from the point of view of Parliamentary privileges - we have no powers of amendment or resolution.
<P>
Mr President, we have been democratically elected just like you and we represent two and a half million European citizens, and yet, during the last part-session, in order to table an amendment we were forced to beg and sell it to another parliamentary group.
Frankly, this is intolerable!
We are taking this matter to Court and I think that we will win.
Mr President, a month has already passed and the rapporteur of the amendment has only just been appointed.
We are quite familiar with the slow machinery of this Parliament, where the average time for a report to come from the Committee on Constitutional Affairs to this House is twenty-one months.
Now, in these coming twenty-one months, we will not be reduced to a button-pressing machine and vote when you allow us to, voting on resolutions which we did not even have the chance of putting to your vote.
I hope that many Members will hear the call to uphold Members' dignity and privileges and support those who have been elected just like you and who, just like you, want to defend Parliament' s dignity.
We are against groups and your bureaucracies!
<P>
<P>
We are Members of Parliament and we represent European citizens with the same legitimacy that you represent yours!
<P>
(Applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Corbett">
Mr President, on a point of order.
I hope we are not going to have our votes delayed every month by a diatribe about the position of the radicals and other non-attached Members.
The Committee on Constitutional Affairs has now appointed a rapporteur.
If there was a delay in appointing a rapporteur it is because the representative of the radicals at the meeting of the coordinators to agree a rapporteur asked for it to be postponed.
It was at their request that it was postponed in the first place.
It is the height of hypocrisy to come here and accuse the Committee on Constitutional Affairs of taking its time on it.
<P>
Meanwhile, as regards the tabling of amendments you have exactly the same right as every other Member to table amendments with 32 signatures.
If you cannot even get 32 signatures to support a position then it is not worth wasting the time of plenary voting on that position.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="President">
I now have a list of Members wishing to speak.
I will give the floor to Mr Madelin in the interests of political balance but I would ask all the other speakers to withdraw so that we can proceed to the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Madelin">
Mr President, without wishing to prolong the debate further, I believe that one problem has arisen which requires a solution if we are not to face the same problem over and over again.
Certainly, the operation of a democracy requires rules, but the honour of a democracy lies in the attention it devotes to the protection of its minorities, and I would want us all to have the same rights within this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
Mr President, this morning we heard in the debate on Tampere that the Presidency of the Council has finally consented officially to take note of our report and to give serious consideration to the demands contained therein.
Whatever this means, I take the fact seriously and hope that, as from Friday, the Presidency will enter the general debate so that we might obtain a functioning Agency for Reconstruction in Thessaloniki, together with a Stability Pact, and that our proposals regarding the functioning of the Agency in Kosovo might really be given serious consideration.
<P>
I must now, before the debate, quite sincerely ask the new Commission to take this first opportunity it has had to express its opinion on what Parliament has said on this matter.
I would ask you, Chris Patten, to take the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Patten">
I am very grateful for this opportunity to comment on Parliament' s amendments and perhaps I can also take this opportunity to pay a tribute to the honourable Member and to her colleagues who have taken so much interest in this extremely important matter.
<P>
Before I set out the Commission' s position regarding the amendments voted through by Parliament on 16 September, I hope you will allow me to stress that the Commission has tried to examine Parliament' s suggestions in the same spirit that I am sure Parliament made them: how we can best deliver our collective European effort on the ground in Kosovo and in the region as a whole.
<P>
I am going to Kosovo tomorrow with Mr Javier Solana to assess for myself how we are doing, so I will have Parliament' s views to support my very clear awareness of the need to get the Agency up and running as soon as possible.
That is the best way we can reinforce the excellent efforts made already by Mr Franco and his team.
<P>
Let me set out our position on the amendments seriatim.
The Commission can accept the spirit, provided changes can be made in certain cases to the wording of the amendments relating to accompanying measures, participation of local communities in reconstruction, coordination with non-governmental organisations, consultation of Parliament before the Agency extends its activities to other areas of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and, of course, budgetary transparency.
<P>
This means Amendments Nos 1, 2, 4, 9, 15 and the second part of Amendment No 24.
Some of the amendments - 7, 8, 10, 11, 17, 21, 25 and 26 - relate to issues that are already addressed in the current version of the proposal.
<P>
On the following points, however, we do not feel able to go along with Parliament: merging humanitarian aid and assistance for reconstruction within a single body, separation of Agency revenue from appropriations allocated to programmes, exclusion from the agency' s budget of contributions from other sources, approval of the staffing plan by the budgetary authority and a report on the possible winding up of the agency after 24 months.
This covers Amendments Nos 5 and 23, the first part of Amendment No 24 and Amendments Nos 27 and 28.
<P>
I hope there will not be too much difficulty on those points with our position.
I realise that the biggest issues for Parliament lie elsewhere.
<P>
I am, of course, aware of the special importance the European Parliament attaches to two particular questions: the first relates to the establishment of the Agency' s headquarters in Thessaloniki and its operational centre in Pristina, the extension of its mandate to the whole of the western Balkans and the bringing of its activity within the framework of the Stability Pact.
This is the issue that is covered in Amendments Nos 3 and 18.
Our view is essentially this.
The Agency' s immediate aim is the reconstruction of Kosovo and thereafter, when conditions permit, of other parts of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
It is an instrument of the European Union and must retain its autonomy of action.
Its headquarters can only be established in Thessaloniki as long as its operational centre in Pristina retains its own autonomy.
<P>
The Commission believes that a compromise that might take account of Parliament' s wholly understandable concerns could be reached along the following lines.
First, the Agency' s headquarters would be established in Thessaloniki and a joint declaration would be drawn up listing the general service departments to be located there.
Second, another joint declaration would set out the terms for coordination with the Stability Pact while safeguarding - and I want to underline this - the Agency' s independence.
Third, the Commission would undertake to report next year on the possibility of extending the Agency' s activities to other Balkan countries under a new regulation.
<P>
The second issue which has given rise to a number of amendments is the desire to bring the Agency under the sole and direct responsibility of the Commission which would appoint the director.
Independent experts appointed by the Commission would replace the Member States' representatives on the governing board.
The management committee would be replaced by an advisory committee.
That covers Amendments Nos 6, 12, 14, 16, 19 and 22.
<P>
The Commission' s view is that the presence of the Member States on the governing board would, on balance, be good for the Agency and would make it easier to coordinate the Community' s and Member States' reconstruction activities.
The Commission would point out that this proposal is based on the standard format used for all the European agencies, though there are admittedly differences with this one.
This includes representation of the Member States on the governing board and specific rules on the line of responsibility.
The management committee formula is in accordance with the existing rules.
<P>
But I do not want to rest our case there.
The Commission believes that a compromise that might take account of Parliament' s principal concerns could be reached along the following lines.
First, instead of the governing board having decision-making powers it could have an advisory role on certain issues including the selection and implementation of projects.
Second, the Commission could be given the task of appointing the director in line with Parliament' s proposal.
<P>
So what next?
I think it is quite straightforward and I welcome what Prime Minister Lipponen said earlier today in response to a question from the honourable Member.
I shall take these proposals to the Council and try to persuade the Council to accept what I believe is a sensible compromise that should, in my judgement, be acceptable to everyone.
What we all want, after all, is to get on with an extremely difficult job in Kosovo as competently and as rapidly as possible.
We all owe that to our team in Kosovo.
We owe that to the people of Kosovo themselves and I certainly do not think we should play politics with such an important issue.
<P>
I hope Parliament will feel that we have made every effort to find a compromise solution to this extremely important issue and I hope we will be able to work with the Council in a way in which Parliament would approve.
<P>
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
Procedure without debate:
<P>
Report (A5-0021/1999) by Mr Hatzidakis, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the Commission communication to the European Parliament and the Council on the effects of the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam on current legislative procedures in the area of regional policy, transport and tourism (SEC(1999) 581 - C4-0219/1999)
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)- Report (A5-0037/1999) by Mr Vallelersundi, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the Commission communication to the European Parliament and the Council on the effects of the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty on current legislative procedures in the field of legal affairs and the internal market (SEC(1999) 581 - C4-0219/1999)
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
Procedure without report:
<P>
Proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the front underrun protection of motor vehicles and amending Council Directive 70/156/EEC (COM(1999) 32 - C4-0094/1999 - 1999/0007(COD)) (Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market)
<P>
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)- Proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Council Directive 92/61/EEC relating to the type-approval of two or three-wheel motor vehicles (COM(1999) 276 - C5-0012/1999 - 1999/0117(COD)) (Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market)
<P>
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)- Proposal for a Council Decision concerning the approval, on behalf of the Community, of the new Annex to the Convention for the protection of the marine environment of the north-east Atlantic on the protection and conservation of the ecosystems and biological diversity of the maritime area, the corresponding Appendix 3 and the Agreement of the meaning of certain concepts in the new Annex (COM(1999) 190 - C5-0013/1999 - 1999/0095(CNS)) (Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy)
<P>
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)- Proposal for a Council Decision concerning the approval, on behalf of the Community, of OSPAR Decision 98/2 on the dumping of radioactive waste at sea (COM(1999) 190 - C5-0014/1999 - 1999/0096(CNS)) (Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy)
<P>
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)- Proposal for a Council Decision concerning the approval, on behalf of the Community, of OSPAR Decision 98/3 on the disposal of disused off-shore installations (COM(1999) 190 - C5-0015/1999 - 1999/0097(CNS)) (Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy)
<P>
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)- Proposal for a Council Decision concerning the approval, on behalf of the Community, of OSPAR Decision 98/4 on emission and discharge limit values for the manufacture of vinyl chloride monomer, and OSPAR Decision 98/5 on emission and discharge limits in the vinyl chloride sector (COM(1999) 190 - C5-0016/1999 - 1999/0098(CNS)) (Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy)
<P>
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)
<P>
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0034/1999) by Mr Lechner, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive on a Community framework for electronic signatures (C5-0026/99 - 1998/0191 - (COD))
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lechner">
Mr President, I should like, because it is not unimportant, to refer to a linguistic ambiguity in Amendment 1 and simply have this put on record.
In clause 2, point 16 of the German version, it says: "Es bedarf keiner gesetzlichen ... Rahmenbedingungen für Signaturen, die ausschließlich in geschlossenen ..."
The word "geschlossenen" must be taken out.
This is a printing error.
In the same way, further on in the same clause it reads "einer begrenzten Anzahl ..."
Instead of "begrenzt" , it should read "bestimmt" , that is to say "einer bestimmten Anzahl" or, in English, "defined" .
<P>
May I also point out that I am asking for Amendment 6 not to be accepted, because otherwise this important directive would not come into force.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="President">
Does the Commission wish to comment?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Barnier">
Mr President, following Mr Lechner' s contribution, I wish to say that we have no problem with the suggestion he has just made concerning amendment 1.
We ourselves had a problem, which Parliament was aware of, on the subject of amendment 6, since it seemed to go against article 133 of the Treaty.
So, that was another reason why we could not approve this amendment which Mr Lechner himself has just recommended that you reject.
<P>
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
<P>
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0033/1999) by Mr Harbour, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the common position of the Council with a view to the adoption of a directive of the European Parliament and the Council amending Council Directive 70/221/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to liquid fuel tanks and rear underrun protection of motor vehicles and their trailers (8697/1999 - C5-0031/1999 - 1998/0071 (COD))
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Barnier">
Mr President, we have no problem with any of the amendments.
<P>
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
<P>
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0029/1999) by Mr Ferri, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of the European Parliament and Council Directive on speedometers for two- and three-wheel motor vehicles and amending Council Directive 92/61/EEC on the type-approval of two- or three-wheel motor vehicles (6884/171999 - C5-0029/1999 - 1998/0163(COD))
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Barnier">
Mr President, without wishing to hold the debate up any more, once again we have had no problems with accepting all of the amendments.
We did have a problem with amendment 5, but you yourself have just said that it was unacceptable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Ferri">
Mr President, I would only like to say that this is a missed opportunity, in my modest opinion, because Amendment No 5 touches on an important aspect of the relations between the Commission and the Council, in particular the issue of commitology.
The previous legislation has been revoked and therefore we must urgently take positions on the amendment procedures of the various regulations we are adopting, especially on some important and delicate matters, that is, whether the opinion of the Commission or the Council should prevail.
They have two different points of view, regardless of whether an advisory committee is selected - which we chose - that put more emphasis on the Commission, or a regulatory committee which put more emphasis on the Council.
I think that we should have been able to vote on this amendment because, especially in a fairly delicate area like road safety, and therefore the protection of citizens, it could have been very useful.
I would, however, like to urge the Commission - I do not know whether Commissioner Liikanen is present, but, in any case, we have already discussed it in the general debate - to move quickly if it is to present a legislative framework covering all the subjects, so that an issue which is very sensitive from an institutional point of view can be addressed in an organised, thorough way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="President">
Thank you.
Amendment No 5 had to be ruled inadmissible because it was not compatible with the rules for second readings.
<P>
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
<P>
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0028/1999) by Mr Miller, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive relating to cableway installations designed to carry persons (14248/3/1998 - C5-COD 1994/0011)
<P>
President.
Would the Commissioner like to comment?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Barnier">
Mr President, I can tell you immediately that we approve the amendments.
<P>
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
<P>
Report (A5-0035/1999) by Mr Huhne, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the annual report for 1998 of the European Central Bank (C4-0211/1999)
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
Joint motion for a resolution on Tampere
<P>
(Parliament adopted the joint resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Evans, Robert J">
Madam President, I have been waiting patiently - or even impatiently - for quite a long time now because I wanted to raise this point before the vote on the Ombudsman.
<P>
Could you explain why, when we have a very expensive and sophisticated system of electronic voting, we had to go through - and I choose my words carefully - the organised chaos of the previous vote.
We have a system here which has three buttons to vote for candidate A or candidate B or abstain; this affords the perfect opportunity for secrecy, and I know we have used it before in similar circumstances.
It would be less time-consuming and less expensive surely to have used that rather than go through the procedure we have just gone through.
Could you explain why that decision was taken.
<P>
Whilst I am on my feet, Madam President, I would like to refer back to earlier this morning when you were in the chair.
You will be aware - because I noticed a distinctly presidential frown - that a Member' s mobile phone went off during the speech of, I think it was, the Prime Minister of Finland.
This was a gross discourtesy to the Prime Minister of Finland, and I felt the discourtesy was exacerbated by the fact that the Member then proceeded to answer the phone and continue with the conversation.
What action can we take to eliminate this in future?
<P>
Thirdly, as I am on my feet and I have your ear, can you do anything about the fact that the some of the huissiers at the entrance are smoking on duty.
I think it gives an extraordinarily poor impression of this Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van der Laan">
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
- (DE) The position of the non-attached Members on the content of the first two decisions of Parliament regarding the Statute for Members has not changed.
In order, however, to put an end to the present inactivity on this issue, we have - against the background of recent negotiations with the Council - agreed to the confirmation of these decisions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van den Berg">
The Members of the PvdA (labour party) Euro-delegation have voted for an amendment that procedurally establishes the resolutions of the European Parliament of 3 December 1998 and 5 May 1999, the subject of which is the statute for the Members of Parliament.
<P>
The PvdA delegation does not consider this vote to be a reflection of how it views the content of the resolutions of 3 December 1998 and 5 May 1999.
It regards the vote as no more than a procedural affair that is a necessary to allow the negotiations with the Council to proceed on the statute for the Members of Parliament that has yet to come into force.
<P>
It is important for the amendment to convey explicitly Parliament' s willingness to negotiate with the Council in order to obtain its approval for a statute for the Members of Parliament.
This will entail a willingness on the part of the European Parliament to reach compromises with the Council.
The PvdA delegation and others in the European Parliament have worked hard in the past to cultivate this willingness to compromise on the part of the European Parliament and will continue to do so.
<P>
Finally, the PvdA delegation remains committed to the idea of a new statute for the Members of the European Parliament coming into force around the turn of the year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Lancker">
I voted for the PSE amendment to paragraph 2 in the vote.
In approving this amendment we are opening the door to resuming discussions with the Council on the future statute for the Members of the European Parliament, in the hope that this statute will at last be brought in with all possible speed.
<P>
As far as I am concerned, this vote in no way signifies approbation of the resolution of 5 May 1999 on the Statute for Members.
I still believe that with this draft statute the majority of the Members of Parliament failed to give the voters a clear signal that they want to renounce the excessive privileges and remuneration entitlements.
That is why, on 5 May last, I voted against the aforementioned resolution together with my socialist party colleagues in the PSE group of this Parliament.
<P>
The SP will also continue to be a zealous advocate in the new European Parliament of a fair and just statute with a transparent remuneration system on the basis of costs incurred, and is therefore also able to identify with the proposals that the Council has drawn up on this matter.
The socialist party believes that this statute should be approved as quickly as possible.
It must form the basis for far-reaching reforms within the European Parliament so that our institution too is in a position to win back the trust of the citizens of the European Union.
The demands we make of the Council and the Commission we must also be prepared to ask of ourselves.
<P>
Recommendation for second reading of the Lechner report (A5-0034/1999)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
It is not the first time and certainly not the last time that I am making a statement regarding the stakes related to the development of electronic commerce services.
<P>
Indeed I think that, while one should be delighted that trade is facilitated by developments in information technology, it is nonetheless necessary to remain as vigilant as possible and ensure that there is a fair balance between the interests of the service providers and consumer protection.
<P>
We must take new data into consideration: electronic communications and transactions are becoming more developed and more widespread.
Sectorial products and services are generating a rapidly expanding world market. Its growth is expected to exceed 100% by the year 2001.
<P>
This means that regulations to control this new market must be adopted as quickly as possible.
Indeed, while it is generating new possibilities for firms of all sorts to make profits, it is, at the same time, creating a certain lack of security for consumers.
<P>
It is therefore imperative to perfect standards for security and for the legal recognition of electronic signatures and authentication services (authentication of the origin and integrity of data).
<P>
This is what the directive we are discussing today proposes.
At the time of the first reading, the European Parliament proposed several amendments.
We were pleased to note that many of them were adopted in the common position.
This must also apply to the amendments proposed today.
<P>
This directive must form an initial step in the development of a European framework in the field of electronic commerce, while bearing in mind that we cannot afford to wait long before having worldwide discussions on this subject.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Kauppi">
With the proposal for a directive, the commercial use of electronic signatures takes a step forward, but there is still a long way to go.
The basic problems of electronic signatures, such as how reliable and flexible the system is, and clarifying how responsibilities relate to one another, call for more development work in the future also.
<P>
Many states and organisations over recent years have developed digital signature systems and rules on them.
In addition to the EU draft directive, the International Chamber of Commerce and the OECD have made recommendations on this issue.
An important recommendation has been made on an organisation to promote global electronic commerce, Global Information Infrastructure.
<P>
In my opinion, as we develop a European frame of reference for electronic signatures, the European Union must also constantly work on the international level, so that the legal framework of the system can be strengthened.
It would be to the European Union' s benefit to establish an international organisation.
<P>
The development of cooperation must not, however, lead to an increase in regulation.
Systems of protection must be allowed to develop freely and become as effective as possible with the help of market forces, and they must at the same time ensure that the confidence of consumers in the opportunities presented by electronic signatures remains firm.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Martin, David W">
There is no doubt that electronic commerce is going to be one of the boom areas of the future, providing consumers feel that they can use the system with confidence.
<P>
Two problems are presently holding back the development of e-commerce: the difficulty in verifying the identity of users and consumers and the uncertainty surrounding the extent to which on-line transactions are legally binding.
<P>
I welcome the fact that the proposed Directive gives legal force to digital signatures (provided they are authenticated) and so gives them the same legal force as documents signed in ink.
<P>
Increased security for e-commerce in the EU should boost consumer confidence and help the citizens of the EU to benefit from this area of activity with greater peace of mind and security.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Titley">
I wholeheartedly welcome this sensible step to tackle one of the key problems hindering the potential boom in e-commerce across Europe, namely the difficulty in verifying the identity of users and consumers.
This latest EU initiative, complementing others at the national level, will help create the right regulatory framework enabling European businesses to be at the cutting edge in developing electronic commercial services.
In short, this e-commerce initiative makes A grade business sense.
<P>
British business is already at the forefront in realising the potential of e-commerce in Europe.
More than 13 million people now have Internet access in Britain and revenue from e-commerce is expected to top GBP 10 billion next year.
The Labour Government is likewise at the forefront in creating the right environment for e-commerce to thrive.
We are introducing a bill, hailed as a model across Europe, to modernise contract law to take account of e-commerce.
We are improving educational standards, encouraging life-long learning and striving to ensure that our schools are on-line.
Indeed, by 2002 we will have connected every school in Britain to the Internet.
We will also be opening a network of IT learning centres, or 'e-libr@ries' , right across the country.
<P>
The great towns and cities of my own region, the North West of England, were built on the back of an earlier great economic revolution, the Industrial Revolution.
What iron was to the 19th century, information technology will be to the 21st.
And, just as the railways were the communications network that drove the Industrial Revolution, so the Internet will drive the new Knowledge Revolution.
I want the north-west to regain its position at the forefront of technological progress.
Through such far-sighted yet practical policies, I believe we can release the natural industriousness and imagination of the people of the north-west and once more turn the region into a powerhouse of economic prosperity for Britain, Europe and the world.
<P>
Recommendation for second reading of the Miller report (A5-0028/1999)
<P>
Huhne report (A5-0035/1999)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
I voted against the European Parliament resolution on the 1998 annual report of the European Central Bank (ECB), since it approves this report, which itself is aligned with the prospect of transition to a completely unified European monetary system.
Indeed, like the economists of the Association for the Monetary Independence of France (Association pour l'indépendance monétaire de la France), I think that this is not a desirable objective, and that on 1 January 2002 it will be necessary to retain national currencies alongside the euro which will serve as a common currency.
<P>
Moreover, the European Parliament resolution discusses at length the technical measures to improve the transparency of the ECB.
This is an apparently laudable objective, but one that is impossible to achieve.
The European Parliament has indeed just proved this by getting into an imbroglio which it has not been able to get out of.
Actually, the initial text of the resolution required that the way that the various members of the Governing Council had voted should be made public following each decision on monetary policy.
Mr Duisenberg, the president of the ECB, asserted that he did not agree with this idea, for all sorts of reasons, each one worse than the last.
In particular, he stated that making voting public would be an incentive to exert undue pressure on the members of the Governing Council.
Professor Buiter, a member of the Bank of England' s monetary policy committee, rightly replied that if the votes were to remain secret then this pressure would be applied in secret, and that would be even worse.
<P>
The European Parliament Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs eventually withdrew the relevant section of the draft resolution so as not to get into trouble with Mr Duisenberg, and the European Parliament has just backed up this withdrawal.
<P>
The matter is more serious than it first appears.
In the first place, it demonstrates the timidity, nay subservience, of the European Parliament in its supervisory capacity.
In the second place, it must be recalled that open voting is accepted in all great central banks throughout the world, particularly in the United States and Japan.
Why should the European Central Bank be the exception to the rule?
Why should it play the card of less transparency?
The answer is simple. The central banks which I have just mentioned all work within a single nation, while the European Central Bank works with several different nations and several different peoples.
By virtue of these differing circumstances, it is far more afraid than the other banks that particular Member States may exploit its internal conflicts. And to stave off this danger, it is forced to be that much less transparent.
So, it' s all connected. Because it has jurisdiction over an area that is too diverse, the European Central Bank must distance itself even further from social reality.
In so doing, in the short term it may calm things down on this or that vote, but in the long term it is ultimately condemning itself by cutting itself off from the peoples of Europe.
<P>
Understandably, in these conditions, I cannot give my approval to either the European Parliament resolution or the annual report of the ECB for 1998.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
As a former member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, I read attentively the first annual report of the European Bank whose work I try to monitor closely.
<P>
This is the reason why I cannot but approve the action of the rapporteur in deploring the lack of transparency in the ECB.
Some progress has certainly been achieved, but this falls a long way short in comparison to the information made available by other central banks.
Considering its high degree of autonomy, it is essential for the ECB to ensure a high level of transparency regarding decision-making on monetary policy.
This would provide a guarantee of its credibility.
<P>
I find it deplorable, for example, that Mr Duisenberg is opposed to the publication of detailed minutes of meetings, even though this is common practice in many central banks.
<P>
I support the proposal of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs requesting that brief reports of the meetings of the Governing Council should be made available to the EP, outlining the arguments "for" or "against" the decisions taken and the reasons for these decisions.
<P>
I think it essential, furthermore, that, in order to promote effective collaboration between the ECB and the EP, the ECB President should be willing to brief Parliament regarding any significant decision on monetary policy.
<P>
I shall also insist on one requirement which the EP expressed with regard to the ECB.
The Bank must endeavour to consider monetary policy in terms of sustainable growth and employment.
The objective of price stability is not an end in itself; monetary policy must contribute to growth and the creation of jobs.
<P>
I am taking advantage of this opportunity to express my views on the ECB to mention a problem which I feel strongly about, and which I have had to denounce on several occasions, the bank charges which some banks add to euro transactions.
These problems are far from being resolved and they are still affecting European citizens within the euro area.
An initiative must be taken as quickly as possible to put an end to these practices which have been denounced on many occasions by the European Parliament and the European Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Figueiredo">
The European Central Bank, in spite of having a financial role in European policies and the economy, operates independently of the Council, of the European Parliament and of national parliaments, which is unacceptable.
Regrettably, this is an example of the lack of democratic control on the part of these institutions.
<P>
By taking the fulfilment of the Stability Pact and of the respective criteria for nominal convergence as a basis, and making price stability the main priority, the ECB' s monetary guidelines come to be crucial for national and European policies in a huge variety of economic and social areas, including in the Financial Perspective of the European Union and of the Member States.
<P>
Thus it is vital that the ECB finds another means of intervention, that there is effective democratic control over the way it operates, that priority is given in European policies to resolving the economic and social problems of the European Union and of its Member States, giving particular prominence to the policies of growth and job creation.
That is the reasoning behind my vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Titley">
I welcome this first annual report by the Governor of the European Central Bank, Mr Duisenberg.
He has earned our praise for the successful establishment of the ECB and the smooth introduction of the euro.
To MEPs such as myself, the ECB' s annual and monthly publications have proved to be invaluable and of a consistently high standard.
<P>
I regret, however, that the ECB does not follow the high standards of transparency and openness set by the Bank of England.
The Bank of England was granted operational independence in May 1997 in one of the first acts of the incoming Labour Government.
Minutes of meetings of its Monetary Policy Committee, including voting records and reasoning, are now published after about six weeks.
This boosts market confidence in its decisions and is a great example of open government.
<P>
It can surely be no coincidence that, since the Labour Government' s brave decision in May 1997, Britain has enjoyed a previously unknown period of economic stability and been praised by the OECD.
It can also be no coincidence that the Labour Government' s decision was criticised at the time by the boom-and-bust Conservatives, who have a record second to none when it comes to economic instability and incompetence.
<P>
I would like to see the ECB follow a policy of openness and transparency similar to the Bank of England.
Such openness should include the publication of minutes of its Governing Council with the reasoning behind decisions taken, particularly over interest rates.
<P>
It would be perverse for Britain to go from a position of transparency to one of relative secrecy.
Therefore, if Britain is ever going to embrace the euro, the ECB must also embrace greater openness.
<P>
European Council at Tampere on 15 and 16 October
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Madame President, the Tampere Council which has just taken place, dedicated to the so-called European area "of freedom, security and justice" , did make a few good technical decisions to strengthen cooperation in the fight against crime and in favour of judicial coordination, for example by means of the wider use of mutual recognition of legal judgements in civil and criminal law, as you yourself, Madam President, indeed recommended in your introductory speech.
<P>
More generally however, particularly when it dealt with the subject of immigration, the Council became bogged down in two contradictions which indeed both suggest either its lack of political courage or the mutual paralysis of its members, it is not very clear which.
<P>
The first contradiction: whereas, in the Treaty of Amsterdam, the means were proudly established to make immigration matters totally Community-controlled, the Tampere Council suddenly becomes more cautious.
It is as if the heads of state and government, who are always willing, in treaties, to sign up to great European principles that do not commit you to anything, were suddenly appalled at the practical consequences of this new text.
The difference in tone is so marked that it is hard to believe that these same people signed both the Treaty of Amsterdam and the Tampere conclusions with an interval of six months.
The contradiction becomes frankly laughable in the case of the French Government which, in the Amsterdam Treaty, signed in favour of the financial and physical distribution of refugees among the states of the Union, and which now recoils at the consequences of its own signature.
<P>
The second contradiction: the Tampere Council propounds its purely formal intention to control the flows of migrants and to combat illegal immigration at source, but, at the same time, staunchly proclaims, on several occasions, that legal immigrants must be given, I quote, "a set of uniform rights which are as near as possible to those enjoyed by EU citizens" , and that as a priority a policy of integration must be set up to enable them to stay.
<P>
This is absurd.
Obviously, the more rights you give legal immigrants, the more immigrants you are going to attract, including illegal immigrants hoping that their situation will one day be regularised.
How much more time will it take for the Council and the Commission to see, in this matter too, the catastrophic practical consequences of the principles they publicly maintain?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Newton Dunn">
Madam President, thank you and thank you to the services who, I realise, I am delaying from enjoying their lunch.
<P>
I want to emphasise my support for a European police training college and for increasing the competences for Europol provided, of course, there is full democratic control over their activities.
I have talked to the public a lot about this subject and I find that they would welcome a much greater ability to act against international crime and organised crime which increasingly crosses our frontiers.
<P>
There are over 100 separate police forces in the European Union, over 50 in my own Member State.
Their separateness weakens their ability to deal with increasing and unquantified amounts of crime across Europe.
So I predict the need for a capability for our police to operate across frontiers is going to become increasingly obvious and increasingly urgent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Banotti">
The Tampere special Summit, whilst focusing on immigration and asylum policy for the first time, also seriously raised the issue of trafficking in humans which has been steadily growing over the past five years.
<P>
No European city is without refugees, primarily women, who have been illegally trafficked for the purpose of prostitution.
<P>
The Parliament resolution does not make reference to this, but I would like to put on record that concurrent to trafficking in adults, there is growing trafficking in children for prostitution and paedophile activities.
<P>
It is disgraceful that the affluent West has now added trade in human flesh to its consumer excesses.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Figueiredo">
The main objective of the Tampere European Council was to provide continuity and to plan the establishment of the "area of freedom, security and justice" which was laid down in the Treaty of Amsterdam, with the intention of seeking greater coordination or even common policies in the areas of immigration, asylum and visa policy. In our opinion, this, and taking into account the importance of the area of public freedoms, justice and security, demands that the Council' s unanimous decision-making procedure be assured, with respect to the sovereignty of Member States.
<P>
This Area, which has come to the fore in line with progress in dismantling the EU' s so-called "internal borders" and with the strengthening of its "external borders" , must not transform the EU into a fortress.
<P>
In spite of the concern to establish principles relating to respect for rights, freedoms and guarantees in this particularly sensitive area, and that measures leading to cooperation are necessary, for example in the fight against organised crime and money-laundering, the traffic in drugs and weapons and the trade in human beings, it is worth highlighting the fact that we will have to be particularly attentive to the coherence and the implications of the policies and measures that are actually adopted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gahrton">
I have voted for amendment 2 from the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance because I consider that citizens of third countries resident within the EU ought to have the same rights as EU citizens when it comes to freedom of movement.
However, I am not a supporter of a common EU policy on the issuing of passports. Instead, I consider that each EU country should be able freely to exercise control over its own policy in this area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Hautala">
I sincerely hope that the Tampere Summit marked a step away from Fortress Europe, as claimed by the EU Presidency.
The confirmation of the Geneva Refugee Convention "in its full and wide interpretation" is an important victory for the Greens and many non-governmental organisations.
I regret, however, that for most asylum-seekers, the only way to get into the Union is still an illegal one.
The new approach towards combating illegal immigration in the countries of origin bears a risk, since the cooperation could lead to a sort of repression.
The Union must tackle the problem at its roots to truly improve human rights and economic conditions of people living in those countries.
<P>
Our Group welcomes the increased efforts to fight money-laundering and trafficking of human beings.
But we insist that increased powers for Europol must be accompanied by equally increased democratic safeguards at Union level to ensure respect for civil rights.
This includes control by the European Parliament and the European Court of Justice.
<P>
The Greens think that the status of third-country nationals needs to be further improved beyond the Tampere proposals.
Fair treatment includes not just the right of access to social services or education, but also the right to vote and free movement in the EU.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights must include new and binding rights for EU citizens if it is not to become a mere political declaration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, most of my constituents were probably not aware that an important meeting of EU Governments took place in Tampere last week on justice and home affairs.
This is probably because the agreements reached make such common sense and are of such obvious benefit to ordinary Britons that not even the extremist Europhobic Tories could find anything to complain and make a fuss about.
<P>
EU Governments agreed to create a common area of justice to tackle the common problem of organised crime, especially drug smuggling and human trafficking.
There will now be greater cross-border police cooperation, including - at Britain' s suggestion - a new Police Chiefs' Task Force and a European police college.
There will also be greater cross-border judicial cooperation, including mutual recognition of court decisions in all EU countries.
Fast track extradition will be introduced, which may even help bring ex-dictators to justice.
<P>
In addition, measures were agreed at Tampere to make it easier for ordinary people to travel, live and work across Europe.
Long-term British residents from non-EU countries, from the Commonwealth for example, will now receive guaranteed equal access to education, health care and other benefits on the Continent.
Furthermore, Britons facing legal difficulties abroad will now have easier access to justice, including access to legal aid and translation services and simplified procedures governing compensation and debt claims.
<P>
Among other measures, Governments also agreed common rules on providing refuge to those in need of political asylum and to draw up a Charter of Fundamental Rights.
The Charter will, for the first time, set out all the fundamental rights enjoyed by EU citizens on one piece of paper.
A milestone instrument, it will complement the European Convention on Human Rights now being incorporated by the Labour Government into UK law.
<P>
With all these measures, I will no longer be stuck for advice when constituents, facing legal problems abroad, call me asking for help.
Britons will now have the same statutory rights on the Continent as all other EU citizens.
For so long relegated to second class under the Tories, Britons are now first class citizens under Labour.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 1.30 p.m. and resumed at 3.05 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Announcement of the result of the election of the Ombudsman
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="President">
I shall now announce the result of the ballot for the election of the Ombudsman, as agreed. A total of 557 members voted.
There were 32 blank or spoiled ballot papers.
The number of votes cast was 525.
The absolute majority is 263 votes.
<P>
The votes cast were as follows:
<P>
Mr Anastassopoulos: 256 votes
<P>
Mr Söderman: 269 votes
<P>
Mr Söderman obtained the absolute majority of the votes cast and is thus elected Ombudsman.
May I congratulate him on his election, and wish him every success in the performance of his mandate.
<P>
(Loud applause)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Restructuring of firms
<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Diamantopoulou">
Ladies and gentlemen, the Michelin case has once again brought the key issue of the restructuring of industry to the fore.
We are living in a time of radical changes to industry and to companies in general - changes which have come about for a number of reasons, the main one being the complex phenomenon of globalisation.
The deregulation of the capital markets, the abolition of economic borders, changes in various models as a result of high technology and the information society and global competition are all factors which often precipitate drastic changes and restructuring in industrial production.
<P>
What is certain is that this restructuring can be predicted and effected in many ways.
The Michelin profit figures, together with the announcement that it is to shed 7,500 jobs over the next three years, has created considerable disquiet with which I sympathise. This disquiet does not relate solely to this particular company, but to what is happening and what will happen from now on in all small and large businesses in Europe.
<P>
It would be quite realistic of me to say that no restructuring can be a smooth operation without its problems.
However, restructuring can either be "intelligent" , in other words, it can take account of the social and economic cost, or it can be short-sighted by taking account of the economic cost today and paying the social cost at a much later date. Any company which fails to take account of the social dimension will have to suffer the negative consequences.
<P>
Our goal is most certainly "intelligent restructuring" and there are three distinctive factors which many companies already take into account. In the past, we have witnessed cases throughout the European Union which adopted both methods of restructuring.
Intelligent restructuring consists primarily of a plan to address the issue of the employability of the persons concerned.
Clearly, this is both a right and an obligation of the company itself.
Companies should draw up strategic plans which, first and foremost, address the issue of the employability of the persons concerned.
Secondly, there is no excuse for failing to give adequate notice to employees, for not giving them detailed information and for not consulting them on alternative forms of restructuring which could be just as effective but at a lower social cost.
<P>
The institutional framework to date in the European Union has consisted of two directives: the Directive on collective redundancies and the European Works Council Directive.
These two directives constitute a minimal framework of specifications within which a company wishing to restructure can operate.
<P>
As regards today' s discussion, there has been no proof to date that the company in question has contravened any of the rules.
We have plenty of time ahead of us to monitor its next moves.
It is, however, quite clear, and so it appears in today' s case, that with the changes that are taking place around us, the way in which we deal with these changes will also need to be changed.
In other words, existing rules may well need to be improved and amended or new rules may be needed.
That is why, in November 1998, the European Commission submitted a directive on information and consultation of workers.
This directive has, to date, been endorsed by Parliament, and I believe that today' s discussion on Michelin will spur us into further action in support of this directive.
However, what is certain is that, at present, legislation alone or this particular piece of legislation cannot address the major problem of the restructuring of industry when European industry can only compete within its own borders. European industry must engage in and be able to successfully withstand global competition.
<P>
In previous cases, such as that of Renault, the Commission had entrusted experts to approach the issue of restructuring from the job losses perspective.
The Gillenhammer report, which is well-known to Parliament, contains relevant proposals which we could follow.
The first is that of the Observatory.
In January, we will have the final proposal for the Observatory, which I would like to discuss with Parliament in order to decide whether or not there should be an Observatory for small and medium-sized businesses to keep them informed of imminent changes. It will be connected at national level to the local Observatories so that firms are better equipped to deal with changing times.
<P>
My next point concerns social dialogue.
Social partners bear the responsibility for social dialogue and they could initiate special action plans within the context of the social responsibility incumbent upon all of us.
The first action is to address the employability of workers. This is not only a matter of national policy; it also concerns the workers and the company itself.
Companies are responsible for maintaining the employability of their workers and workers are responsible for participating in continuing training and for updating and developing their abilities and skills.
Negotiations between companies and workers on lifelong learning mechanisms is one of the most serious issues of social dialogue.
At the beginning of November, I shall be having my first official meeting with the European social partners and one of the key issues under discussion will be precisely this.
<P>
Finally, and again I am borrowing ideas and proposals from the Gillenhammer report, I intend to send a letter to every company in Europe with over 1,000 employees, asking them to draft a voluntary report entitled "managing change" ; this kind of benchmarking between these large companies will help us to make provision for restructuring without creating acute or major social problems.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, I feel it is important to touch on a number of measures which have been taken so far at European Union level in connection with the restructuring of firms. I would like to mention very briefly the decision taken just a few days ago to implement the draft on risk capital and high risk capital investments approved by the Commission last week; this will be a very important tool, particularly for small businesses.
Measures include promoting cross-border innovation, promoting the mobility of wage-earners by transferring their rights and pensions, special training programmes and, of course, the exceptionally high amount, in the order of EUR 24 billion over the next 7 years, to be channelled to Objective 3 via the Structural Funds, to which all the countries belong. Objective 3, the Structural Funds programmes and, of course the employment strategy can be used to structure national and associated policies at European level on employability, entrepreneurship and the adaptability of firms and workers.
<P>
We have before us today a special case which is not a model worth following.
This is a special case whereby there have been two announcements made by the same company; one announcing mass redundancies and the other announcing huge profits.
Quite clearly, the European Union will and, in fact, must make every effort at every level to support free competition and create a free and healthy competitive area in which European companies can operate.
It is also clear that Europe must primarily support what it has been proud of for centuries - the European social model.
There must be no victims in the restructuring and modernisation of firms.
As I said earlier, restructuring is not a smooth operation but it can be both foreseen and managed, and true, it may indeed cost us provisionally but there must be no victims.
I believe that the proposals on a legislative level, and more importantly proposals resulting from the cooperation between the social partners are a good starting point from which to address these pressing issues of our time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Pronk">
Mr President, we are talking about restructuring today.
I want to start by offering the Commissioner my sincere congratulations.
I believe that today is the first time she has been involved in a debate on social affairs.
I think that we will see a lot more of her here on a variety of different occasions.
But this particular debate is in fact bringing out something that is fairly essential in all debates on social and employment affairs, namely restructuring and globalisation
<P>
I think that it is a good thing in itself that we should discuss this subject again in this new Parliament.
It is clear that restructuring is taking place on a continuous basis.
That is sometimes forgotten.
People tend only to consider restructuring if there are job losses.
Of course jobs are often created as well but much less is said about that.
<P>
This debate has taken something of a strange course.
That is why I would just like to make a comment about a resolution that is evidently still in circulation and is still in my name.
It is a resolution that was submitted in connection with the original subject of the debate: the Michelin affair.
The Presidents decided not to include this subject in today' s agenda but to talk about restructuring in general.
I believe that was a very sensible decision on the part of the Bureau.
But my first resolution had to do with the original subject and that is why the PPE has replaced this resolution with the Menrad resolution, which has therefore become the official PPE resolution.
<P>
Ultimately we also succeeded in producing a compromise resolution, which replaces a number of group resolutions.
The only point, and we must not beat about the bush here of course, is that it was the Michelin affair that gave rise to this debate.
I do not intend to talk about this a great deal myself.
I believe that it is not the place of Parliament to involve itself in decisions concerning individual companies.
My group is firmly convinced of this; all the more so since there has been no mention of government funding in this concrete decision and the decision is also being dealt with in its entirety on the territory of the Republic of France.
The French government, which as we all know, consists of socialists, greens and communists, has not intervened in this affair.
It would therefore be extraordinarily odd if we were the ones to do so.
That is another reason for not getting involved here.
<P>
But our fundamental position is that as a general rule we ought not to do so, particularly now that we have a European Works Council whose responsibility it is to solve these types of problem.
I would like to add that consultation and information are things that can make it much easier to resolve restructuring problems.
Far and away the largest section of my group is absolutely convinced of this.
This was also evident from the figures.
It is much easier to solve problems if there has been extensive consultation.
The Commissioner said the same.
But if there is an instrument, and the European Community is fortunate enough to have such an instrument, then surely it makes no sense at all to start talking about each specific case at European level.
We must leave that to the consultation system within the company concerned.
Even if a national government feels that it has to intervene, that is a matter for that particular national government.
It is certainly not for the European Parliament to raise this but that does not alter the fact that a debate of this kind always has its place of course.
<P>
Lastly, I have a brief question for the Commissioner.
I have not heard government assistance mentioned.
That has always been something that has played an important part in debates on restructuring, as in the case of the Hoover debate amongst others. Might the Commissioner be prepared to say something more on this issue?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Mr President, Commissioner, as the representative of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I wish to begin my contribution to this debate on the restructuring of firms by repeating the message of the Michelin employees, a message which I understood to consist of a thrice-repeated "no" , whatever Mr Pronk might say.
<P>
No, ladies and gentlemen, in a balanced and prosperous Europe, it is no longer acceptable to have a firm announce a 17% increase in profits while at the same time making 7,500 employees redundant.
No, ladies and gentlemen, it is not a moral situation where the share price of this firm can increase by 12% following this announcement, thus creating added value for shareholders without creating any sort of additional wealth, quite the contrary.
No, ladies and gentlemen, employees can no longer be content with the incomplete and twisted, if not actually false, information issued by the Michelin bosses in attempting to justify their decision.
<P>
By the way, this new and serious scandal which shook the media and the political milieu in France, demonstrates, if proof were needed, the urgent need for strong and appropriate action in Europe to finally reconcile economic performance and social guarantees, growth and employment, freedom to do business and the defence of wages.
The European Socialists are demanding such measures and this is why they have drawn up, among other things, a number of proposals.
<P>
Firstly, a direct link between public aid and agreements, including a reduction of working hours, with financial penalties for firms which do not respect their commitments even though they may have received public monies.
The Socialists are also asking for a report on the application of the European Directive on collective redundancies, to be accompanied by proposals for improvements intended just to make it effective in defending jobs and employees.
The European Socialists are insistent, finally, that the European Directive on the establishment of a European Works Council should be reviewed, so that employees can receive proper information, in the normal course of things and at the right time, and so that there can be real consultation, which presupposes that employees are given adequate resources in terms of time and independent experts.
<P>
Without these minimum measures and some others, accompanied by concrete measures against the relocation of firms within the European Union and other measures against social dumping outside the Union, the European social model, so dear to some of our politicians, including those on the right wing, will never be anything but empty words, and this will contribute to exacerbating the anti-European feeling pervading our countries and many employees.
<P>
As is often said, progress is worth nothing unless it is shared, and for us this means that, in a world of constant change, we should stop placing the main burden of effort and sacrifice on employees in order then to let the most wealthy and most powerful be the first to benefit from the positive results of this effort and sacrifice.
It is more than time for action at Council and Commission level, and I would even go so far as to say, in conclusion, that this is of course a matter on which the consistency of our societies, industrial peace, the very survival of the European ideal, but also, of course, the interests of enterprise as a whole and thus of the soundness of the European economy, depend.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Mr President, Commissioner, in view of the fact that the market is becoming ever more global in character, it is more important than ever for companies to optimise their competitiveness.
For this reason it is sometimes inevitable that companies will have to reorganise or introduce painful measures such as transferring or replacing employees, or if the worst comes to the worst, making them redundant.
As my group sees it, neither the European Parliament nor the European Commission have the authority to intervene in the operational management of European companies.
Companies ought to be free to take management decisions which will lead to growth and thus to more jobs being created.
That is what Europe needs.
<P>
It goes without saying that my group believes that the restructuring of companies must take place following thorough and timely consultation with the works council.
The right of employees to consultation and information as laid down in various European directives should be respected.
<P>
In addition we should also see to it that measures taken at national and European level improve the economic climate in Europe.
After all, inappropriate social or economic commitments for companies lead to more unemployment instead of more jobs
<P>
Finally, I would like to say, Mr President, that a number of companies in France have also reached the conclusion that there is a need for reorganisation.
Better late than never because all companies must be primed for the 21st century.
That will be good for Europe and will guarantee jobs in the long term.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Auroi">
Commissioner, Mr President, the Commissioner' s statement was more concerned with SMEs than with the concerns of the Michelin employees represented here.
I was born in Clermont Ferrand and live there still, Michelin' s birthplace and headquarters, and it is for this reason, amongst others, that they have been my guests here on several occasions.
<P>
The concomitant announcements of the axing of 7,500 jobs, the enormous increase in its profits, and the closure of the Wolbert-Michelin factory at Soissons, described as a PR mistake by the company' s directors, show to what extent cynicism and lack of respect are the driving forces behind this multinational' s industrial strategy.
<P>
Other identical examples are still fresh in our memory, Renault Vilvorde, the French banking system and the large distribution companies, and let us not forget Daewoo.
All these companies who implement redundancy plans year after year have benefited from European and national subsidies without at any time being held accountable for the way in which they use those funds.
<P>
I think that our institution is duty-bound to be involved with the concerns of millions of Europeans who live in unemployment or in the fear of becoming unemployed.
We must therefore be firm and clear on three points. We must work out whether the allocation of sums to large companies will result, above all else, in guaranteeing the permanence of jobs.
On the eve of the opening of the WTO negotiations, we must remind everyone that any business strategy, including that of multinationals, must take the human figures into account, in the same way as the economic and financial figures, so that millions of European employees may keep their jobs and their dignity.
<P>
Finally, at a time when a European-wide Michelin works committee has just come into being, Community legislation must be amended so that employees, or their representatives, who are concerned at the plans for collective redundancy on economic grounds can take their case to the competent local court, without waiting for the redundancy to be announced, and challenge the grounds for the decision.
<P>
This is the thinking behind the resolution that we are proposing and it is only if these conditions are met that Europe will maintain its political role whilst facilitating the truly sustainable economic development of businesses and protecting the rights of employees who are, let us never forget, the Union' s lifeblood.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wurtz">
Mr President, Commissioner, I am delighted that we have been able to hold this debate in the European Parliament on the tidal wave of company restructuring that we are witnessing and the massive job losses that accompany it.
<P>
My Group had expressed its desire to do so at the time of the "Michelin" affair. In other words, and this has just been reiterated, the simultaneous announcement made by the management of this huge company to financial analysts of achieving substantial profits on the one hand, and the decision to shed 7,500 jobs in Europe on the other.
Although this initiative was immediately welcomed by the stock exchange, where its share value immediately rose, it also caused great indignation in large sectors of public opinion, particularly in France but also in other countries, as I have seen myself.
<P>
To some extent, the cynicism of the "Michelin" method has had the effect of increasing tenfold the phenomenon of rejection which this modern capitalist strategy is itself bringing about, the strategy known as "share-holder value" , the creation of value for the shareholder which consists of subordinating everything, especially employment costs which in their eyes are intolerable, to the bulimic demands of the shareholders who finance business.
<P>
Michelin is unfortunately far from being the exception in this area.
Its provocative announcement fits into the context of a veritable gangrene which we cannot allow to develop without reacting to it, unless we ourselves renounce any control over economic and social development and, as a result, the ambition to promote a European Social Model in the midst of globalisation.
<P>
The same applies to Olivetti which, having found the capital necessary for its lucrative take-over bid for Telecom Italia, arranged to shed 13,000 jobs. The same applies to Alcatel which, in order to regain the confidence of its financial shareholders, at the same time announced a net profit of FRF 15 billion, that is EUR 2.3 billion, and 12,000 job losses.
The same thing applies to the banking sector where the arrival of the euro gave a veritable boost to the mergers and acquisitions which eat up jobs and which shifted the emphasis of banking towards financial and even speculative activities. The sad record is held by Renault which is gratifying its shareholders with its swingeing job cuts at Nissan even if it means exporting the most horrendous image of Europe to Japan whilst, as an indirect result, shedding several thousand jobs within the European Union itself.
<P>
But what can we do?
Governments have some responsibility in this area, particularly in the reform of the laws on so-called "economic" redundancies.
In no case should a flourishing business shed staff, let alone make employees redundant.
Then there is the responsibility of the European Union.
In January last year, our Parliament amended the Directive on informing and consulting workers.
We are still waiting for the Commission to adopt these amendments.
<P>
But I think that today we must go further.
To give some examples, a six-month delay for any restructuring plan should be imposed on businesses in order to allow an independent assessment by the unions. If the company has received public funds, as has already been said, including European funds, non-compliance with the rules as laid down should entail the funds being paid back.
By the same token, in the Directive on European works councils, the role of these councils as well as the protection of the staff delegates should be appreciably strengthened. It is therefore up to the Commission to submit two revised proposals for a directive to us as quickly as possible.
<P>
Finally, on the eve of the opening of the WTO negotiations, I want to stress the need for Europe to state its political desires, including those related to industrial policy, focusing on "employment, wealth creation and regional development" .
In the face of new technologies and the information revolution, there is room for a new concept of productivity, based not on the rationing of social expenditure but on the promotion of human abilities.
Contrary to the current tendency to deregulate everything, the European Union can, if it wants, provide itself with instruments which will allow it to promote just such a policy, from the taxation of speculative transactions to the establishment of selective credit which will stimulate job creation and discourage mass redundancies.
<P>
For its part, my Group will be addressing the main European trade union organisations in order to exchange views and, if needs be, initiate a European petition which will allow our fellow citizens to weigh up the forthcoming decisions.
There has been a Vilvorde effect, the scope of which everyone remembers but which has not been reflected in new rules.
We hope that the Michelin effect will instead result in concrete changes.
I think that this is the standard against which our fellow citizens, faced with the kind of restructuring we are debating today, will judge the real extent of our solidarity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Nobilia">
Mr President, I would like to thank Commissioner Diamantopoulou for her speech.
For my Group, the Union for a Europe of Nations, the context of this matter is rather delicate because there is the danger, on the one hand, of setting the premises for restricted competition and, on the other hand, limiting the actions of the Member States in this field, and this conflicts with the principle of subsidiarity.
So a real principle that would justify the Union' s intervention here is the possibility of social discomfort that the restructuring of firms could cause within the Community and within the Member States as a whole. It is, moreover, a principle which is already provided for by the Treaty of Rome of 1957.
And this is to prevent future Union policies intended to increase cohesion and social integration being rendered, even only partly, useless.
<P>
Given the hope that the Union will have a joint economic policy and, possibly, a joint industrial policy, in our opinion it seems appropriate in the meantime for the Union to give its opinion, especially on those restructurings which the Member States have been or are involved in, financially or otherwise.
Moreover, we must stress the requirement for the Union to subject its interventions in this area to more stringent control and some checking mechanisms, both as regards the involvement with - and in any case, the information given to - trade union representatives, and also as regards the actual positive results - not just economic but also social results - of the interventions themselves. Union aid to firms has not always resulted in stable growth in the firms or protection of their employment levels.
<P>
In these cases, we have to ask for a broad sanction to be implemented until the amounts committed by the Union itself have been completely reimbursed.
This principle must also be applied in the event that aid is given to a non-Community firm, when it is considered that a cooperation agreement with the firm' s country - if one does not already exist - might not only better formulate and integrate the Union' s interventions regarding that country, but in this desirable event it could facilitate the implementation of the above-mentioned sanction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lang">
Mr President, the arrogant and rabble-rousing European political class has found the ideal scapegoat to carry the blame for its own base economic behaviour.
Those on the left who are today denouncing the redundancies at Michelin have given massive approval to the ultraliberal economic policies of the European Union, as defined in the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties.
<P>
You actively support globalisation but you scream at the top of your voices when European companies try to adapt to the damaging regulations that you yourselves laid down, as well as to the economic environment that you are imposing on them.
Have the courage then, to face up to reality. The Michelin employees are not the victims of the Michelin management, they are the your victims, created by you, the merchants of globalisation, in the same way that employees in the banking sector, in the insurance sector, in the car industry and so many others whose companies merge, relocate or restructure just to survive are also your victims.
Your globalised economy means the globalisation of unemployment and it will ensure that society as a whole goes backwards.
<P>
Socialist or Liberal governments and the European Commission, also under the sway of the dogma of globalisation, are jointly responsible for this situation.
They have constantly deceived and manipulated the workers of Europe.
They are capitulating at the height of the campaign, before the negotiations of the Millennium Round even open, refusing to fight effectively against social dumping, refusing to force through a necessary social clause and abandoning the principle of Community preference.
<P>
So, in favouring the free circulation of capital throughout the world, in seeking to liberalise investments even further, European governments are transforming Anglo-Saxon pension funds into the real masters of the economic and financial markets.
Tomorrow, these stateless multinationals will be the uncontrolled masters of the economy, but also of the new world order that you pray for.
The only possible policy for the full employment of the European workforce is to win back the internal market, to protect it against unfair competition, to reject this criminal and antisocial globalisation, and to re-establish the necessary rule of Community preference.
In short, it is to produce European, in Europe, with Europeans.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Helmer">
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Hughes">
Mr President, right at the outset I would like to say to Mr Helmer and others that people on this side of the House are not in the business of shackling or hampering the decision-making capabilities of businesses.
<P>
What we would like to do is to encourage them to look after their investors.
But when I talk about investors I am not just talking about shareholders.
I also mean the thousand of workers in companies like Michelin who invested their time, energy, knowledge, skills, their hopes and aspirations, and those of their families, in the company they have worked for for many years.
I mean the investment of the communities that underpin and sustain them.
I mean, as well, all of us here and out there in the rest of the European Union as taxpayers.
Public money, directly or indirectly, is involved in these enterprises; regional, national and European money and, as Mr Nobilia said a short while ago, it should not come without strings attached.
<P>
A good company will look after its workforce.
It will work in partnership with its workforce and it will encourage involvement, partnership and innovation.
A good company will not treat its workforce or the community housing it as factors of production to be disposed of lightly in a global game of profit and loss.
<P>
We in this House have become accustomed to the idea of externalities in environmental policy, with the bill for the costs of dirty practices being picked up not by the enterprise in question, but by society more broadly.
Perhaps we need to think in similar terms when it comes to the social responsibilities of enterprises like Michelin.
Otherwise the danger is that the main burden will only be upon the shareholders.
<P>
We clearly have an imbalance within the European Union.
On the one hand, considerable freedom for companies to restructure and move but very few rights for the workers involved.
Even where we have rights in European legislation, rights for example to be consulted well in advance about decisions on collective redundancies or other major changes affecting livelihoods, the law is not being properly observed or applied.
We need to revisit that.
<P>
We have a number of outstanding issues to tackle at European level.
We need to review and improve the law on individual and collective dismissals and on works councils.
We need a general framework on information and consultation and we also need a review of the law on transfers, mergers and take-overs - not involved here but in the banking and insurance sector for example.
<P>
The 12% rise in the share value of Michelin in the days following the announcement shows what a cynical and deliberate manipulation of the stock market was involved here.
I find that totally reprehensible and I hope all right-thinking people in this House will feel the same.
<P>
Finally, on a point of order, genuinely a point of order.
Mr President, I would draw this to your attention.
I signed a resolution, a compromise text, along with others, two days ago.
That resolution contained in the final paragraph a reference to Michelin.
The resolution which has now been circulated to be voted upon tomorrow no longer contains that reference.
Someone in the sessional services has removed it without any reference back to those of us who signed it.
That is a very serious matter indeed and I hope you will investigate it fully and report back to this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Hughes.
I will be very happy to look into what has happened and we will inform you accordingly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Flautre">
Mr President, we will be very interested in the conclusions of the enquiry that you are going to lead because we are also signatories to this resolution and we made the same observations.
<P>
What we have all been saying for a while is that, in fact, the goal being pursued by a growing number of companies who are restructuring is to provide their shareholders with more and more guarantees, and to ensure ever greater profitability for their financial investments.
That is why the management of the Michelin Group simultaneously announced the axing of 7,500 jobs and fantastic profits.
That is why, as you pointed out, announcements of redundancy plans are always followed by a rise in the share prices of the companies concerned.
<P>
This violent expression of scorn for employees and their lives fundamentally contradicts our stated objectives in favour of employment, social and regional cohesion, and the European Social Model.
What do you expect the employees who are being made redundant from the Wolbert-Michelin factory at Soissons to think of these objectives and our determination to take them forward?
The social desperation that these decisions generate is inevitably transformed into political desperation and this political desperation is a permanent threat to democracy.
<P>
That is why the European Union must make its actions match its words and must uphold its commitments to employment and to the right to live in dignity.
How can it do so now, at the moment, when it is confronted with the brutal, unilateral decisions of huge companies?
First of all, the European Union must unequivocally condemn this type of decision and support the employees concerned.
No, Mr Pronk, huge companies do not have the authority of divine right for their decisions.
It is the responsibility of politicians to intervene and to say what they think of these decisions.
<P>
The European Union must also acknowledge the end of a magical formula that all the European Institutions keep trotting out, according to which growth plus competition would necessarily equal employment and development.
This is wrong and has been proved to be so!
We will have to draw conclusions from such a statement, in order to bring ourselves to reconsider the foundations of our European employment strategy and of our economic guidelines.
We must provide for increasing the power of employees and their representatives in order to strengthen their right to contest the basis for the economic reasons behind their redundancy, which we shall call the Wolbert-Michelin amendment and which we shall submit for your vote tomorrow.
It is not acceptable for the definition and the management of the general interest to be hijacked by the economic decision-makers.
Neither by bowing down to shareholders nor by injecting authoritarian nationalist populism...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="President">
I share many of your views, but my obligation is to obey the Rules of Procedure and the timetable.
You will understand this.
Even those of us on the left must obey the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Laguiller">
Mr President, I must use this debate to protest at the scandalous decision by Michelin to go ahead with 7,500 redundancies when it is experiencing increased profits.
<P>
I am of course equally disgusted by the plans for lay-offs by Renault-Nissan, by Alsthom, by Rhône-Poulenc, Hoechst Marion Roussel and many other companies.
What they have in common is the fact that they are all making considerable profits and are nevertheless sacking workers, or making them redundant, the consequences of which are almost as serious, for every job axed means one more unemployed person.
Companies behaving in this way, their customers and their major shareholders are the people mainly responsible for the seriousness of unemployment and for the physical, and even moral poverty that this creates.
<P>
We think that redundancies by all companies who are making profits should be prohibited, subject to requisition.
Favouring the enrichment of a handful of major shareholders whilst forcing tens of thousands of men and women into unemployment and into poverty is a criminal attitude, and I choose my words carefully.
Company profits are the result of the work of all its employees; those profits should be used to maintain existing jobs as a matter of priority, and to create new ones, by sharing out the work without reducing wages.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Della Vedova">
Mr President, we are all aware that redundancies involve human tragedies, and it is perhaps a good thing that the European governments, which draw their inspiration from the European social model, are taking greater responsibility for these.
However, today' s debate has become absurd, given that we are talking about restructuring firms and what should be acceptable profits and what should not, in the great liberal Europe.
<P>
I think that, if many of the opinions we have heard today were to prevail, we would be building a Europe of poverty and unemployment and not a Europe of employment and wealth.
What is the point in saying that Michelin' s profits have increased by 17%, without saying whether that is more or less than the profits of Bridgestone, Goodyear or other competitors, and without saying that Michelin is a company with a turnover of 106 dollars per employee, as compared to Goodyear' s 141 dollars per employee. Then there is Renault, in which if I am not mistaken, the French Government is a major shareholder, that went to Japan, bought a company there - Nissan - but to keep it open found itself forced to make 21,000 workers redundant, but as they are Japanese, do we really care?
I think that, instead, we should bring into question the European social model which is the social model of the Europe of unemployment and taxes, the Europe where trade unions have enormous power, stifle economic growth and prevent millions of unemployed Italians, French and Germans and millions of immigrants finding work, in order to protect situations which are often nothing more than situations of privilege.
<P>
Yesterday, Parliament asked President Duisenberg to subordinate monetary policy to the need for growth in a Europe which does not know how to reform itself, how to reform its economies or to liberalise the markets, especially the job market.
If this is the Europe we are building, we are hypocrites because we are building a Europe where unemployment will reign and companies will close.
But when there are no more firms, maybe there will not even be any tears left to shed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Karoutchi">
Mr President, the European Union must have a competitive industry, one that creates wealth and thus jobs.
<P>
This means that within the Union, we must arrive at a real coordination of fiscal policies and at a definition of comparable social norms for everyone, so that we no longer experience the distortions of competition that are still too marked today.
This also means that we must prepare our companies to support globalisation and to adapt to it.
We might wish that this globalisation did not exist, but it does.
It is up to us to manage it in such a way that its negative aspects can be avoided.
In this context, we find ourselves facing the difficult problem of relocation. The problem is difficult because obviously it eliminates jobs in Europe, difficult because the people vilifying relocations today are the same people who are, at the same time, demanding that Europe should multiply its investment in developing countries and should make it as easy as possible for products made in those countries to enter European Union territory.
<P>
As far as the Michelin affair is concerned, since everyone is talking about it, despite our all saying that it is not the subject under discussion, on the day the Michelin redundancies were announced, Pirelli was doing the same thing, on just the same scale, but nobody is talking about that.
Michelin today consists of 82 production plants, 48 of which are in Europe.
I would be very interested to know how many car manufacturers, including those in public ownership, or tyre manufacturers, including those in semi-public ownership, still have such a major presence in Europe today and have not already quietly relocated, sometimes with the assistance of governments, including left-wing governments.
<P>
Today, we should tell it like it is.
Michelin has, it is true, reduced the number of its jobs by 25,000 in twenty years but, I would like to remind some people, these are 25,000 job losses due to levels of productivity which are comparable in all sectors of industry, and particularly in the car and tyre industries. These are 25,000 job losses, only 186 of which have been redundancies.
So for goodness' sake, let us stop trying to find scapegoats for the way industry or restructuring is evolving.
<P>
People are telling us to just look at the profits being made on the stock markets.
Well, excuse me. Do look at the profits made on the stock market, but look at all the profits for all businesses for last year or the last two years, and let me remind Mr Wurtz that he, or rather his friends, are members of a government which does nothing to stop profits being made on the stock market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Ghilardotti">
Mr President, we are here once again - this is not the first time, unfortunately - to discuss a very serious problem: the redundancies of thousands of workers due to the unilateral choices of a firm.
And the Michelin case, which I do not want to talk about in detail because other speakers have already done so, gives us the opportunity for this debate.
<P>
In many Member States - as recent history reminds us - there have been cases of restructuring: indeed, history is full of cases of restructuring, relocations and firm closures - Mr Wurtz reminded us of some - which not only reduce employment, but jeopardise the economic and social cohesion of affected areas, create a climate of social insecurity among workers and create a climate which certainly does not encourage development and growth.
The requirement for greater competitiveness of firms, especially in the era of globalisation of the economy must, however, be able to combine the necessary flexibility within companies with the security of workers.
These processes, these phenomena which are becoming increasingly more frequent, must be regulated using the instruments available and these must be improved.
Commissioner Diamantopoulou, whom I would like to thank for the clarity of her statement, spoke of intelligent restructuring.
The existing instruments for prevention and management of the phenomena must be used both at national and European level, because job losses, Mr Pronk, concern Europe. They do not only concern individual countries, but all of us.
<P>
In particular, the case we are discussing today should give the Commission the chance to pledge today, before the European Parliament, that it will make an assessment, a revision of the Directive on redundancies and the closure of companies to make it more effective in terms of protecting jobs.
Moreover, we need to speed up the re-examination of the Works Council Directive, strengthening information processes and consultation in particular but, I would add, we must also include in that directive the fundamental issue of sanctions.
Rules must be obeyed, and those who do not obey them must pay the price.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García-Margallo y Marfil">
Mr President, I am pleased that this debate is taking place here today because the Parliament must be permanently attentive to the citizen' s needs and be the pioneer in the construction of Europe and, in order to fulfil this double objective, the development of the European social dimension seems fundamental.
<P>
The resolution which were are now debating is a mixture of styles, of individual contributions, whose result is an extraordinarily unequal combination.
But some of the reflections, especially those expressed by Mr Pronk, seem to me to be particularly important.
<P>
But, allow me to say that those of us who believe that only competitive companies can create employment, and that only by creating employment can the European social model be preserved, have emerged the winners.
And those who believe, by means of public intervention, in a type of arbitrary inventiveness, have emerged the losers.
<P>
But, having said that, those of us who believe in the market and belong to this side of the Hemicycle, far from the autarchic temptations of some parts of this Assembly, believe that the principle of social compensation must counter-balance the principle of a functioning market.
<P>
Therefore, I am especially pleased that our resolution opts for social dialogue as a method for resolving conflicts.
I am also pleased that it opts to implement the Social Charter, the Social Protocol, by means of specific measures.
I am also glad that it refers to the need to review this fiscal set-up, which tempts companies to relocate to areas where there is a more favourable tax system.
And finally, I am happy that employment should be a fundamental principle, a principle which underpins all policies, especially with regard to public aid.
<P>
However, to those on the other side of the House, I would say that those people who tried to throw the textile machines into the rivers of Manchester, in order to save jobs, were wrong because we live in an era which is infinitely better than the one which they wanted to preserve.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Weiler">
Mr President, I believe that the gentleman who spoke before me is right about one point.
If it were in fact the case that the market could regulate itself, then we should not today be speaking about Michelin.
It is also a spectacular mistake, Mr Pronk, to believe that this is not an issue for this House.
We spoke here a number of years ago about Renault, too, and also quite rightly.
7,500 jobs are being destroyed, and that is an especially negative record for a company to set here.
<P>
Secondly, we must talk about this matter here because employees in Europe expect us, the European Union, to direct the process of globalisation and to regulate necessary modernisation and companies' adjustments to the market in intelligent ways, that is to say in ways which take the social contract into account.
The European Union has a number of directives for doing this which, however, are being applied all too cautiously here.
It seems to me to be symptomatic of Michelin' s policy as a company that it is only at the end of this year that it has established a European Works Committee.
<P>
There will be further economic changes in the EU but, for us Social Democrats, it should go without saying that employees and their unions are to be included in this process, that they are to be informed of developments in good time and that their proposals are to be examined seriously.
If, Commissioner, you will be sharpening the tools available to the EU, we shall most certainly support you and accompany you in the process.
I should like to express my thanks to those of Michelin' s employees who are here today.
I should also like to have seen that kind of commitment from the owners.
A rise in profits for the first six months of over 17% is really excellent, but these profits ought to be invested by the companies in new products, new environmentally friendly production methods and, above all, in employee training too.
That would be a contribution to social peace, and the share markets would then have every good reason to see an increase in value.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Menrad">
Mr President, with regard to the restructuring of companies we have been referring to, I would emphasise the statement made in the four Groups' joint motion for a resolution which has been mentioned.
Global players in Europe have no choice other than to lay themselves open to competition in world markets.
In the opinion of the Group of the European People' s Party, instances of rejection on social grounds are simply to be avoided.
None of this is a completely new phenomenon.
When I first entered Parliament ten years ago, I was approached by works committees from a cable fibre factory in my constituency.
Their company had just been taken over by a large group in France.
The employees were hoping first of all to have more secure jobs now.
More by chance than by anything else, they learned that the distant head office of the French concern wanted to close the factory it had taken over within three months.
It is when sore points like this come up that the Directive on European Works Councils comes in. This has been predominantly successful.
We should also let it be known here, as a success story and positive message, that 600 new European Works Councils have been created in the last couple of years.
It is still often the case, though, that not enough information is provided soon enough.
An amendment to the Directive would definitely be appropriate here, Commissioner.
<P>
Finally, we must also insist that all companies and groups fulfil their now legally accepted duties to offer information and consultation and that there must be consequences if they do not do so.
<P>
I close with the observation by the Christian Democrat Minister of Labour under whose chairmanship the Directive on European Works Councils was adopted.
Lack of information results in uncertainty, mistrust and, in the end, only anxiety.
Information and consultation mean transparency, which creates trust and does away with losses due to friction in European companies.
Employers and employees are then winners in equal parts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Gillig">
Mr President, Commissioner, by this stage of the debate many things have been said.
This allows us to take up some of the ideas again by way of a conclusion.
<P>
This resolution on restructuring in industry has arisen today because one company, Michelin, decided to make 7,500 people redundant.
Of course the situation is tragic, but it is interesting to note today that we are able to talk about restructuring in industry not from a purely economic point of view, but raising the human issues that it involves.
I think that it is quite right to link this resolution to Michelin' s situation.
To axe 7,500 jobs today, when neither a company' s financial or industrial output allow us to attribute these redundancies to some kind of crisis, is quite unacceptable from the legal point of view alone.
<P>
From the human point of view, this situation is not only unacceptable; it is indecent and immoral.
The fact that a simple PR exercise allows a company' s share value to rise by 12% whilst no extra value has been created, no extra tyre has been manufactured or sold, giving the impression that huge sums of money could simply appear spontaneously as a result of the financial markets alone, shows utter contempt for human labour.
While shareholders are selling their stock and making a gain, men and women are finding out that they will be the only ones to suffer from the situation.
This is the heavy price that European employees must pay so that a few investors can maximise their return.
<P>
In the measures that have been proposed, Commissioner, you talked about social costs and the way we should take them into account in the long term.
It is obviously essential, as a matter of urgency, that this measure is complemented by strengthening the directives on collective redundancies and European Company statutes.
It is also essential to envisage new forms of social redistribution, financed by the shareholders of prosperous companies that make employees redundant with the sole aim of increasing the price of their shares.
Finally we are waiting for an explanation which will enable us to find out if we will be able to vote on this compromise resolution, omitting the word Michelin.
In any case, this debate has clearly shown the political division in this House which does not disappear even in supposedly "compromise" resolutions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="Bushill-Matthews">
Mr President, first of all I would like to express my real and genuine sympathy to all those who lose their jobs through no fault of their own as a result of corporate restructuring.
I say that with real feeling and authority because I have been in that position myself.
I have been unemployed and it is no fun.
<P>
But the best way to promote job security is for companies to be successful.
The best way for companies to be successful is for them to be competitive in the global market.
To disagree with some people opposite, it may not look good in the newspapers but the best time - indeed the only time - to make restructuring plans is when you are strong.
If you wait until you are weak, you have to take much greater action and lay off more people.
That is very much a fact of life.
<P>
Companies clearly have many responsibilities but their primary responsibility is to survive as an employer and to take the necessary steps in order to do that - and I do not believe it is for us in this House to lecture them on the best way to do it or to comment upon whether that restructuring is "intelligent" or not.
Rather it is for us and indeed for governments to see what we can do to help, as far as is possible, avoid the problem in the first place.
That means looking to see where we can reduce the burden of unnecessary regulation which adds costs to business and to see how far we can reduce the non-wage costs on business which, in turn, encourage companies to shed labour as the best way of saving large sums of money.
That is the real issue which we should be debating today.
<P>
Finally I would say that all too often government intervention can get in the way and make companies less competitive.
We must make sure for the credibility of this House that we do not fall into the same trap.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Martin, Hans-Peter">
Mr President, this dispute we are witnessing here about which direction to take really is an interesting one.
The European company landscape is changing at a pace never before seen, but the pattern which, in our view, these changes follow is always the same.
Through restructuring and mergers, new giant companies come into being in their respective branches of industry, and their record on jobs - if it is the big companies you look at - is practically never good.
In the German banking industry alone, more than 100,000 jobs are being lost at present.
Millions of employees in Europe rightly fear for their jobs and, at the same time, the company reorganisations and restructurings are accompanied by rising share prices, at least in the short term.
The fact is very often ignored that only a very few people benefit from this new distribution of profits, for it is a very modest minority who hold any shares at all.
And, in contrast to what you said, Commissioner, Michelin is not in fact, heaven knows, an isolated case.
Other speakers have in fact already made this very clear.
<P>
Those who carry out the restructuring always argue that they had no other choice. You just have to adapt now; no-one can avoid the growing concentrations of businesses.
The result, however, is a very dangerous self-fulfilling prophecy and, in more and more branches of industry, we are heading for dangerous market concentrations.
I am certain that, in the future, we shall still be very much occupied with this question precisely here in the European Parliament.
We therefore need initiatives for a workable European law on cartels.
<P>
I should also like briefly to emphasise two further aspects.
In the course of powerful and radical changes, small and medium-sized companies in particular come under a very great deal of pressure.
While large companies are setting their sights on yields of 15% on invested capital, more and more suppliers are seeing their profit margins shrink.
In the end, it is the small and medium-sized companies which, in addition to the employees, are having to bear the largest share of the tax burden.
Those who come out on top from the mergers and restructurings also understand how legally to avoid paying tax.
In this way, Europe is heading for a genuinely dangerous and unbalanced state of affairs.
Our social peace is placed in the greatest jeopardy if scarcely more than a fifth of society benefits from developments and the remainder lag behind.
Any commitment which runs counter to this development ought now therefore to be persistently supported.
We are not concerned here with a law of nature.
We must have the courage to demand also of those who profit from the reorganisations that they should make a relevant contribution to social tasks.
To that extent, it is important that national tax policies should be coordinated in such a way that transfers of capital and of companies on the basis of tax advantages alone should be prevented.
<P>
However, that is not enough.
Never since the Second World War has there been such an imbalance in economic and political power.
In this connection, the opportunity for employees, as well as small and medium-sized companies, to organise themselves on a cross-border basis ....
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
That is why it is crucially important to strengthen the European Works Councils.
I urge the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament to concentrate on these central questions and to put the finishing touches, above all, to the European Works Councils and not only to the issue of offering consultation and information.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, Commissioner, competitiveness is theme number 1 in Europe.
Every company, every entrepreneur, is of course out principally to create a monopoly.
The entrepreneur himself or company itself would like to have a monopoly.
Suppliers and customers are naturally opposed to this so that, here too, there is pressure in the direction of a market economy.
I believe - and this is what makes it so interesting - that the market economy is there in the first place for the benefit of the consumer and therefore stands in the way of monopolists.
The consumer creates jobs through his decision to purchase products and services which are of use to him.
I believe that this triangle of success we have, with the company on the one side with its owners and shareholders, the employees on the second side and the consumers on the third side just has to be successful.
Everyone must gain some advantage.
We must see to it that there is a win-win situation here and that everyone benefits when products and services are offered which are bought by consumers.
What we need as a priority here is a development initiative.
We must ensure that we see electronic commerce and many other technologies introduced quickly and efficiently.
We need a dramatically strengthened and improved infrastructure.
In very many areas in this regard, we are still limping along behind.
<P>
Finally, research too.
We are discussing minimum amounts for research here. Having new and efficient products, however, is precisely what the consumer values.
This is where we also need a new culture at European level. In the European social partnership - and here I should like to support Hans-Peter Martin - we need new emphases which permit a win-win situation arising for all three types of participant: namely for companies, employees and consumers.
In Europe too, then, we shall have the chance to live in prosperity in the future.
If today we consider the enlargement of the European Union, then prosperity is one of the central and most important questions in connection with enlargement as well.
I should like to ask the Commissioner to ensure that, where the European budget too is concerned, we have a situation in which more money is put into budget lines which promote jobs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Diamantopoulou">
First of all, I would like to comment on the issue raised, i.e. whether we are actually discussing the case of one company in particular and whether or not we are, in fact, justified in doing so.
<P>
Quite clearly, the Michelin issue is an issue which is at the heart of the preoccupations of the European Union at this time; that is, the issue of competitiveness on the one hand and social cohesion on the other.
Comparisons have been made with other countries and other continents by way of example.
I believe that we have a lot to learn from the United States of America on the issue of monetary policy and on the issue of the use of high technology and the fast functions at that level. However, there is, of course, a significant difference in Europe: the cultural, social and historical model of Europe is based on stringent social forces and on the balance between society and the economy.
<P>
It was said that Europe will have to create an environment for our companies.
However, we should also have a corresponding environment for our citizens and the two must be created at the same time.
<P>
It is clear from the extremely productive debate which has ensued that this preoccupation applies to both sides.
The means may differ but it is clear that both sides have the same preoccupation.
Can the European Union intervene?
I think the answer must be "yes" because the market does not operate according to natural laws, it is not a natural phenomenon.
It calls for intervention by the political powers.
And we, the European Parliament and the Commission, form part of the political powers of Europe.
At the European Union level, therefore, there should be three levels of intervention.
<P>
The first level is in the area of legislation and institutional intervention.
There have already been proposals from the European Parliament on the two directives you mentioned, the Directive on the European Works Council and the Directive on collective redundancies.
The initial assessment of these two directives shows that they work well, but at present amendments tabled by Parliament are being processed and in January 2000 we will be able to begin discussions on these two directives.
<P>
The second directive, concerning information and consultation of workers, has, as you are aware, already been tabled for discussion at the Council of Ministers.
I believe that it would not be wise at this stage, since we are working on promoting the directive, to begin amending it.
It is, however, certain that this will be one of the areas in which the European Parliament will be playing a pivotal role.
Again in the area of institutional and legislative intervention, interesting proposals have been made to shift the tax burden away from labour costs, away from the taxation of workers, and on to environmental factors and the directives on employment have provided an initial incentive to move in this direction.
<P>
I consider that at this level, we can, within a general framework of either broad economic guidelines or broad employment guidelines, learn a lot at national level, i.e. we could have a form of benchmarking, an exchange of information and successful models already in place at national levels to address this major problem of restructuring which faces us on all levels.
Banking was mentioned, and this is one of the problems which will face us, but of course, Europe has vast experience and a history of restructuring, beginning with the textile factories and shipyards, through to the industries of today.
<P>
The second level is that of institutional operations.
I would like to refer here to social dialogue, an issue which a number of MEPs have already raised.
Please allow me to refer to an extract from the recent document by UNICE, the Union of Industrial and Employers' Confederations of Europe.
The document concerns the issue of liberating the workforce of Europe and includes the opinions of companies on European social policy beyond 2000.
It states that European companies regard themselves as an integral part of society which means that they operate in a socially responsible way.
It mentions that European companies view profit as their main goal, but not their sole reason for existing and they prefer to take a long-term approach to strategic decisions and investments.
In addition, they are prepared to accept their responsibilities and one of the main challenges which they face is the complexity of the demands made on them by the various social factors (workers, consumers, capital investors, public authorities, environmentalists and other interest groups).
<P>
Therefore, when one side of industry - the side faced with global competition and which, we all agree, should be supported and protected since we have a strong interest in European companies being able to compete at a global level - begins to voice its concerns over society and maintaining social equilibrium, we have a very strong argument for developing and supporting social dialogue.
Please allow me to make one political remark: these positions are based neither on charitable perceptions nor on socialist ideas.
They are based on the completely realistic assessment that, without social cohesion in Europe, which is an area of powerful social forces, social conflict will arise. In turn, this social conflict will have negative repercussions on economic stability, i.e. the environment which competition and companies need in order to develop.
<P>
Enhancing social dialogue is, in my view, of fundamental importance.
Yesterday saw the beginning of the technical element of the first form of macroeconomic dialogue in Europe.
The political element of this dialogue will begin on 8 November and for the first time social partners expressing their social concerns on the issue of employment, banks outlining their monetary policy, and the Member States, which are the political forces in Europe, will sit at the same table.
Supporting and promoting social dialogue is not only essential but it is also a prerequisite on a more microeconomic level for every form of restructuring within firms.
<P>
This brings me onto my third issue: actions and policies.
At a European level, we have, and for the first time this is being enforced, a European Employment strategy, with 22 directives which have been incorporated into the Member States' employment plans. As I mentioned earlier, substantial funding is also available.
These broad guidelines and the funding of many of these policies include a lot of the proposals we have heard here, such as special tax relief for workers and for small and medium-sized businesses, financial assistance for the education or further education of those workers facing either redundancy or restructuring, social packages to support the social network in cases of major restructuring, continuing training and providing workers with new skills and qualifications so that they can respond to restructuring.
Naturally, at a time when changes are taking place at such alarming rates, enough can never be done.
Plans drawn up yesterday will never suffice for today.
<P>
I would like to mention the issue of state aid and how we can combine state aid with company profits.
History shows us that companies cannot operate under laws which prescribe employee numbers or profit margins.
But the political forces can clearly intervene in how those profits are invested and in how much is invested in high technology, the environment or in manpower in ways which were mentioned earlier.
Such guidelines can be imposed and can be adhered to.
Therefore, at a time of such rapid change, there will have to be scope for modification and reorientation of these guidelines on a daily basis.
There has already been exceptional cooperation and exchanges of views at this level within Europe.
I would like to assure you that constant communication between the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the Works Councils will steadily pilot the Commission towards further and, as far as possible, more flexible and fundamental intervention in this area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner, for your intervention and your closing words concerning dialogue with the Parliament.
<P>
I have received six motions for resolutions, tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2), to conclude the present statement.
<P>
I have taken a careful note of Mr Hughes' intervention and we will ascertain whether any paragraphs have disappeared from the motion for a resolution.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Nuclear testing
<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="President">
The next item is the statements by the Commission and the Council on the failure by the US Senate to ratify the treaty imposing a wholesale ban on nuclear testing.
<P>
Mr Sasi has the floor on behalf of the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, the European Union has pushed for the speediest possible implementation of the Test Ban Treaty.
All EU countries, whose ratification is needed to bring the treaty into force, have complied - including France and Great Britain, which have nuclear weapons.
The EU believes that the CTBT is an important step in the promotion of non-proliferation and the decommissioning of weapons, and its entry into force will be to the benefit of all countries.
<P>
This being the case, the European Union deplores the decision taken on 13 October in the American Senate not to ratify the Test Ban Treaty.
The decision reflects badly on the multilateral attempts that have been made to promote non-proliferation and decommissioning.
The disappointment felt as a result of the decision was expressed, while it was still fresh in everybody' s mind, in the statement presented by the country to hold the presidency of the European Union on 13 October.
There was also a resolution on the banning of nuclear testing passed at the Tampere Summit.
We have also emphasised European Union support for the Test Ban Treaty in political dialogue between the EU and the United States.
<P>
In assessing the significance of what has happened, we should point out that President Clinton still assures us that he is doing his best to have the United States ratify the Treaty as soon as possible.
President Clinton has stated that the United States will, in the future, refrain from carrying out nuclear test explosions.
<P>
International credibility regarding the nuclear test ban is strong.
There is a long history of trying to ban nuclear testing, stretching back to the 1950s.
As a result of hard negotiations, a general session of the United Nations approved the Test Ban Treaty in September 1996.
155 countries have now signed the treaty and 51 have ratified it.
Of the 44 countries that use nuclear technology, and whose ratification is, under Article XIV of the treaty, a condition of the entry into force of the Test Ban Treaty, in all 26 have ratified it.
A strong international reaction to the nuclear test explosions carried out by India and Pakistan last year showed that nuclear testing - no matter who is responsible - will meet with clear global condemnation.
<P>
In July 1999 the European Union adopted a common position, whose purpose it was to strengthen EU cooperation in international efforts to bring the CTBT into force.
On the basis of the common position, the EU actively participated in the conference held this year on 6 - 8 October in Vienna according to Article XIV of the treaty.
In addition, the EU has been involved in bilateral discussions to promote the entry into force of the treaty with all those countries that have not yet signed or ratified it, but whose ratification is vital for the treaty to come into force.
These efforts to promote the treaty' s entry into force must continue, with the relevant objectives very much in mind.
The EU is appealing to all countries, and especially those, and this includes the United States, whose ratification is a condition of the treaty coming into force, to become associated with the treaty as soon as possible.
<P>
The European Union considers the Non-Proliferation Treaty to be a major tool of international security that offers a set of global frameworks for the promotion of both non-proliferation and the decommissioning of weapons.
The Test Ban Treaty supports this system of non-proliferation.
The European Union is preparing to play a constructive role in the study conference with regard to the Non-Proliferation Treaty to be held in April - May of the year 2000.
<P>
The Test Ban Treaty is unique in nature.
It prevents all nuclear tests in whatever place, including so-called peaceful nuclear explosions, which were the subject of a heated theoretical debate when the Non-Proliferation Treaty came into being in the 1960s.
Compliance with the Test Ban Treaty will be monitored by means of a comprehensive system of verification, whose main element is a worldwide monitoring system consisting of 321 technical survey stations.
The verification system also contains legal provisions that enables on-the-spot checks to be carried out when there is reason to suspect that there has been a breach of the treaty.
The verification system is effective and makes it possible to check that the treaty is being complied with to a highly reliable degree.
The system will support the maintenance of relationships built on trust among the parties to the treaty.
<P>
Members of the European Parliament, the European Union will play an active part in the preparatory work being done in Vienna to create an organisation for the implementation of the treaty and a verification system for it.
The Union supports the efforts on the part of the CTBTO Preparations Commission to establish a verification system in good time and with the degree of efficiency the treaty requires.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="Patten">
The Commission shares the disappointment that has just been expressed by the presidency of the Council that the United States Senate rejected ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
<P>
The Treaty, as honourable Members will know, is the result of decades of hard work, decades of determined work to halt the spread of nuclear weapons, starting with the Non-Proliferation Treaty in the late 1960s.
It constitutes a key element in the international strategy to control, reduce and ultimately to eliminate the risk of nuclear conflict.
Its ratification by the present nuclear powers is essential for our efforts to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons to other countries.
<P>
The European Union, as the presidency has pointed out, has been and remains fully committed to these objectives.
We have worked hard for the earliest possible entry into force of the Treaty.
All 15 Member States, bar one, have already ratified the Treaty and work is under way in the 15th state to complete the procedures there.
<P>
I know that the American administration shares our objectives.
President Clinton and his team worked hard to obtain Congressional approval for ratification of the Treaty.
They understood, as well as we do, how important it is for us to take the lead together in order to obtain the 44 ratifications which are necessary for the entry into force of the Treaty.
<P>
It is therefore all the more regrettable that the Senate voted against ratification.
They seem to have done so for internal American reasons as much as on the basis of any assessment of the value of this Treaty for United States' and international security.
<P>
I believe - and this is reflected in the motion put before us today - that they made a very grave mistake.
In refusing to give their agreement to the Treaty they offer encouragement to the very states which we wanted to draw into the commitments set out in the Treaty and whose ratification is a condition for its entry into force.
<P>
What message has been sent to Russia and China?
How will this vote help to persuade countries like India and Pakistan to ratify the Treaty?
This regrettable vote may even offer encouragement to other countries in their nuclear aspirations and make them cross the threshold by testing their own nuclear devices.
<P>
Any such nuclear tests at this stage might undo all the work which has gone into the Treaty.
They would undermine international support and confidence in the multilateral arms control efforts.
More seriously, they might trigger reciprocal actions in other countries through testing or through the strengthening of their nuclear programmes.
<P>
The Senate refusal to agree to ratify the Treaty is a setback but it is not the end of the road.
We must now, more than ever, show our commitment to the Treaty and redouble our efforts to promote its early entry into force.
This is essential in order to maintain the international momentum in favour of continued arms limitation and a stronger global non-proliferation regime.
<P>
The Commission has consistently supported an ambitious European Union policy on non-proliferation issues.
Wherever possible, we have complemented CFSP initiatives in this area with action falling within Community competence.
Under the Euratom Treaty, for example, we have contributed to the development and strengthening of an efficient nuclear safeguard system in Europe, including the Russian Federation.
Activities in this field are supported by financial allocations under the PHARE and TACIS programmes.
We are currently considering extending these activities to other areas such as safeguards on chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction.
<P>
The common strategy on Russia also contains specific provisions on non-proliferation.
In this context we are examining the scope of cooperation with the United States on the expanded threat reduction initiative.
<P>
Accession to the Treaty is also a crucial element in our policy towards South Asia, as the presidency made clear.
Following the nuclear tests by India and Pakistan the Commission has participated in the international taskforce set up to develop confidence and security-building measures and to engage these countries in constructive discussions on regional non-proliferation and arms control.
<P>
Over the years remarkable progress has been made in international arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament, through both bilateral and multilateral efforts.
In the multilateral context the ratification of the Treaty and the review of the non-proliferation treaty next year will be crucial to reconfirming earlier commitments and building a platform for further progress.
<P>
To achieve this we need to work with the United States and other leading partners.
The leading role played by the United States has been essential in developing the global non-proliferation regime.
I hope we can encourage our American friends to take up that role again.
<P>
We should do everything we can to convince Congress of the importance of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty for ourselves, for the United States and for the international non-proliferation efforts.
I can assure you that the Commission will continue to bring its contribution to this objective.
<P>
I also believe that all honourable Members have a particular role to play in this respect.
I would hope that you would use every opportunity to explain and underline to your colleagues in the Senate why they should reconsider their vote on the Treaty and how a renewed commitment to international non-proliferation and arms control will promote American security interests, as well as broader international security and stability.
<P>
In that marvellous newspaper the International Herald Tribune, there is today a shortened version of a speech given the other day to the Council on Foreign Relations by the President' s national security adviser Sandy Berger.
American opponents of treaties like the one we are debating today neglected the fact, he pointed out, that the United States has already stopped testing and that the Treaty helped freeze the global development of nuclear weapons when America enjoys an enormous strategic advantage.
I hope that, to borrow an unattractively appropriate phrase, the fall-out from this lamentable political decision can be contained.
I know that is what the American administration wants.
It is what we all want.
American senators and congressmen should face up to the responsibilities of their country' s global position.
It places a high premium on bi-partisanship in foreign policy in general and in nuclear policy in particular.
Failure to recognise that condemns us all to live in a much less safe world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Morillon">
Mr President, Mr Sasi, Commissioner, you have just reminded us, in great detail, of the importance of this Treaty Ban, the basic aim of which is to strengthen the measures of the non-proliferation treaty and, in conjunction with this, aims to keep the development of nuclear weapons under control, thereby limiting the proliferation of these weapons and of the technology necessary for developing them.
<P>
As you pointed out, the treaty was established three years ago and was signed straight away by the five nuclear powers which are the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.
But, in order for it to come into force, it must be ratified by forty-four specifically designated States amongst which there are the states that actually have nuclear capability, and the nuclear powers, but also those States known as "threshold States" , which are States that, because they have nuclear reactors in the civilian sector, are capable of developing military technology.
<P>
On 13 October, this treaty was defeated in the American Senate, which rejected it by 51 votes to 48 and one abstention.
This shows that the margin was very narrow and that it may therefore be useful - and it certainly will be useful - for our Parliament to make its voice heard after those of the Heads of government who, in Tampere, lamented the attitude of the American Senate, pointing out that it represented a timely signal to those who might be tempted to equip themselves with nuclear weapons.
<P>
Among the arguments put forward in the United States, some people thought that it was not yet time to stop nuclear testing at a time when North Korea is making efforts to develop its own weapons, and as China is continuing to build up its arsenal.
Others questioned the validity of simulation and felt that in order to ensure the long-term credibility of nuclear deterrence, they should not prohibit themselves going ahead with testing.
Finally, others questioned the application of this treaty which, it must be admitted, will be difficult to control even when the 381 monitoring stations that the Representative of the Council told us about have actually been deployed.
There is no guarantee in the short term that they have the necessary means to detect weak nuclear explosions in an environment which does not always make it possible to tell them apart from earthquakes.
<P>
All of that is of little consequence, however, in terms of the geopolitical challenge that confront us, consisting of monitoring as efficiently as possible the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction.
I am pleased that Commissioner Patten mentioned the fact that the threat does not come from nuclear weapons alone.
Having dedicated my life to the use of weapons, I know that force is in itself neutral, and that it is the way it is used that can be good or bad.
The advent of nuclear weapons has at least had the merit of forcing political leaders to take stock of the risks that their jobs may entail.
It was probably the balance of terror throughout the forty years of the cold war which allowed us to avoid a third world war.
The strategy of deterrence may therefore have its merits.
<P>
If we do not manage to ban the proliferation of these weapons, we run the risk that they will end up falling into irresponsible hands.
This is why, aware of this risk, I am approving the resolution which will be submitted tomorrow for Parliament' s approval.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, my group had requested the inclusion of this point in the agenda.
Allow me first of all to welcome the fact that there is virtual unanimity between the Council, the Commission and, hopefully, the Parliament, concerning such a crucial issue at a time when we have to take decisive steps in the development of the common foreign and security policy.
Since we are always so self-critical, I believe that we should welcome this step.
<P>
And, having said this, I believe that rather than debating amongst ourselves, what we have to do is address the American Senate, and especially its Republican majority, because this is not a debate against the United States, but a debate in which we specifically support President Clinton.
What we profoundly criticise is that attitude of the Republican majority in the Senate which corresponds more to the former doctrine of the "clear destiny" of the United States, much more than to the moral, as well as military, leadership which they currently hold.
I must confess - with some experience of relations between this Parliament and the Congress of the United States - that in the Congress of the United States we have many friends and connections but that we have at no time been able to timetable a positive debate with Senator Helms, who does not even seem to have an American passport and who considers, not only with regard to this issue but also with regard to many others, that it is his job to impose his laws on the world.
Think also of the slow and delayed attitude of the United States with regard to UN funding.
<P>
We have to point out to our American friends and partners the risk involved in this decision, because it encourages States such as Pakistan and India - with the risk of all-out war - to continue with their nuclear tests.
It disturbs our relations with Russia and creates a situation which encourages those States which are on the threshold of having a nuclear capability to start again.
I believe that this a blatant display of total irresponsibility.
And in the Union, where we have all ratified the Test Ban Treaty, we have political and moral arguments to address to our American partners so that we can remind them that they have a serious responsibility to try to stabilise the world and that they can rely on our help if it is really possible to cooperate with them.
This type of unilateral measure, which ignores the lessons of history, which puts a dramatic halt to the process which has taken many years and still needs to be promoted, is the exact opposite of what we should be doing.
<P>
Mr President, I hope that our colleagues in the Delegation for Relations with the United States will remind our American friends of this as soon as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Haarder">
Mr President, I should like to thank Commissioner Chris Patten for his clear and powerful speech, and I should also like to thank Mr Barón Crespo for emphasising that it is not the United States we are criticising today.
Rather, it is a number of specific politicians in the American Senate.
We are friends of the United States.
We admire the United States' contribution to freedom and peace in the world.
We have supported the United States' and NATO' s nuclear strategy, including their attempts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
And that is why, in this situation, we must have a serious word with our friends in the American Senate.
It is completely irresponsible to use ratification of the nuclear test ban treaty as a political football in an internal political dispute between the Republican Congress and the Democratic President.
How are we to be able to press Russia and China and India and Pakistan to ratify the treaty when our most important ally will not do so?
We protested - I think Mr Morillon can remember this - when France carried out its nuclear tests in the Pacific.
We protested because this damaged attempts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
We need now to criticise the majority in the American Senate.
We urge that the matter be taken up again.
We hope due note is taken of the fact that the American Senate is today facing a barrage of criticism.
It is well deserved.
I hope that it leads to the issue being taken up again quickly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, first of all I should like say on behalf of my group that we are very disappointed at the failure to include in the resolution a call for all European Member States and EU applicant Member States to give their full support for the new agenda coalition resolution which is now on the table of the 55th United Nations General Assembly.
This resolution which, incidentally, is supported by the European Parliament and by my own country, Ireland, sets forth a new way of thinking for effective measures to forward the cause of a nuclear-free world.
<P>
The American decision is deplorable and it sends out a very dangerous signal to the rest of the world as regards nuclear disarmament.
The recent case in Scotland which has re-endorsed the International Court' s ruling that nuclear weapons are illegal is also interesting and has to be taken on board.
<P>
We also have to look at NATO where there needs to be a review because, as far as I can see, the US has demonstrated quite clearly its contempt for the whole issue of nuclear disarmament at an international level.
These are issues which have to be taken on board.
<P>
Finally, the European Union should look again at its policy of supporting NATO and the Western European Union.
Both military organisations are committed to nuclear weapons, weapons that the International Court has deemed illegal.
We are supporting illegal weapons and we really have to look at this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Morgantini">
Mr President, in voting against the Test Ban Treaty the American Senate has been irresponsible, and at the same time has become responsible for putting the world at serious risk of a nuclear holocaust.
Senator Jesse James pompously said that the Treaty is dead and buried. He is known for his fundamentalism, but he did not realise, or perhaps he realised full well, that the signing of the Treaty was the first step towards the concrete realisation of the hope that what the United States did with the nuclear holocausts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would never be repeated.
What a sad prospect for our century!
In fact, in the country which wishes to set itself up as a moral and strategic leader, groups seem to prevail which, for the sake of profits and military and nuclear supremacy, are not afraid of destroying themselves too.
Actually, maybe we should not be surprised.
These groups are the same ones which continue to inflict the death penalty and not pay the amounts due to the United Nations, thereby contributing to the loss of legitimacy and functionality of a structure which was founded on the principle of peoples' right to be free from war.
<P>
What the Senate has done is sheer madness and, as Commissioner Patten was saying, it may not even have been done for strategic reasons but because of internal struggles, which makes the matter worse and even more shameful. Above all, as we have seen, this is encouraging other countries which already have nuclear capabilities, not to ratify the Treaty, and inciting even more countries to arm themselves with nuclear weapons.
We have seen that Russia did not waste any time, and the day before yesterday it tested a Steel RS 18 intercontinental ballistic missile.
What the Japanese Minister is doing is also worrying.
And China, which has carried out 45 nuclear tests, had assured us it wanted ratification to be accelerated.
Now all of these things are certainly in doubt.
<P>
Several times, Parliament has come out in favour of an end to nuclear weapons.
We must work hard to ensure that those countries which have not yet ratified the Treaty do so as soon as possible.
Here are just a few examples - China, Russia, India and Israel, which is still holding Mr Mordekaivanour as a conscientious objector in prison.
We must also put a stop to Nuclear Sharing, as laid down in articles 1 and 2 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which states that no State in possession of nuclear weapons can, directly or indirectly, transfer weapons to another country.
On the contrary, we have seen that large quantities of nuclear weapons have been brought to NATO bases, against the wishes of the local population who have chosen to live in nuclear-free areas.
The European Union is certainly active in consolidating the path to the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.
I do not want to lose confidence that it is possible to make this world more rational, and that it will stop producing what could destroy it.
I am convinced that peace movements against nuclear weapons, which achieved so much in the seventies and eighties, could take up their activities again in cooperation with us and our Parliament, so that we can truly live in a nuclear-free world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 NAME="Elles">
Mr President, the previous speaker mentioned Senator Jesse James.
My recollection is that he was a gunfighter.
We are actually referring to Senator Jesse Helms who normally shoots from the hip, but not with a gun.
<P>
I should like to make three points in this debate.
Firstly, we all agree about stressing the dangers of nuclear proliferation.
The Commission was right in its statement to highlight the need for a lead from the United States in dealing with countries like Russia, China, Pakistan and India, who are waiting for this lead. They do not have it now.
We will have to try to do what we can to make sure the Senate recognises where reality is.
Therefore we are right today to strongly criticise the action which the US Senate has taken on the comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
<P>
Secondly, it is interesting that in the previous debate we had on this issue of globalisation we recognised, whether we liked it or not, that economic forces were global, new technologies were global.
And yet here we have a US Senate, a legislature, which wishes to resist the global environment in which it lives.
Perhaps it is because they have fears of difficulties in verification and that the ban could allow countries such as North Korea and Iraq to conduct low-level tests, or perhaps they fear that by permanently halting testing the US could suffer a deterioration of its nuclear stock-pile and deterrent.
<P>
The Commissioner says there was an article in the Herald Tribune from Sandy Berger, but was that the real answer to the question of why Republicans in the Senate voted to condemn the Treaty this time round?
There is a second article in the Herald Tribune today on exactly the same page where Mr Crystal, who is editor of the Weekly Standard, says: "Republicans will argue that American security cannot be safeguarded by international conventions.
Instead they will ask Americans to face this increasingly dangerous world without illusions.
They will argue that American dominance can be sustained for many decades to come, not by arms control agreements but by augmenting America' s power and therefore its ability to lead."
I contend that we will have, as other speakers have said, the absolute right and need to argue with our Congressional colleagues, particularly those in the Senate.
As a member of the Delegation for relations with the United States, I will be doing precisely that as soon as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sakellariou">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner Patten, I should like to use the term which President Clinton used to characterise the behaviour of the Senate.
He called this irresponsible.
This irresponsibility has dealt a severe blow to all international efforts towards non-proliferation and puts nuclear disarmament into a state of severe crisis.
It seems that much more important to me at this time for the EU to take the initiative in this area.
<P>
I welcome the initiative of President Jacques Chirac, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and Prime Minister Tony Blair who, in an open letter to the American public, canvassed in favour of ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
That was not enough.
We know that.
Therefore, we must do a lot more.
We must think in concrete terms and we must take action.
I am a little disappointed, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, that you have only told us what we have read in the newspapers anyway.
I congratulate Commissioner Patten on the very concrete steps which he has presented here.
Commissioner, I should like to urge you to collate these steps in a kind of action catalogue forming part of a report for the European Parliament. In that way, we can become active, take initiatives or make further proposals to the Council.
<P>
I should finally again like to support what the European Parliament decided on 18 November of last year when it supported the eight States' declarations of 9 June 1998 concerning the new agenda coalition for the rapid, definitive and complete elimination of nuclear weapons.
Demand this, and the European Parliament ought to renew its support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="MacCormick">
Mr President, last week in Greenock, on the western seaboard of this Union, three brave women Angela Zetter, Ellen Moxley and Bodil Ulla Roder stood trial on a charge of criminal damage.
They had acted to impede the Trident missile system based on the Clyde.
Their aim was to prevent what they consider a grave crime under international law.
The judge, Sheriff Gimblett directed the jury to acquit them on the ground that the prosecution had not proved they acted with any criminal intent.
Her judgement can be appealed.
If he appeals, the Lord Advocate of Scotland will have to contend in our highest appeal court for the lawfulness of a defence policy based on weapons of mass destruction.
<P>
The doctrine of double-effect has no application to weapons which, in their intrinsic design are designed to cause mass destruction.
The courage and judicial independence of Sheriff Gimblett - the courage of Angela Zetter and her companions stand in sharp contrast with the petulant failure of the United States Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
<P>
Like most of my countrymen I am deeply hostile to the use of Scottish waters for Trident.
I am proud to represent here a party, the Scottish National Party, which opposes this absolutely.
I am glad that the entire Green EFA Group is in solidarity with us on this point.
Unsurprisingly, we deplore the Senate' s action.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Giannakou-Koutsikou">
Mr President, the recent decision of the US Senate to reject ratification of the comprehensive nuclear test-ban treaty has set an unpleasant precedent for the efforts by the people of the world to create lasting peace and stability.
<P>
At a particularly eventful and critical time in the international arena, rejection by the one and only de facto superpower has raised a fundamental issue; that is, the need to reaffirm the political will of the civilised world to monitor effectively the production and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Without a doubt, modern democratic societies enjoy an order of peace, security, growth and prosperity.
However, new forms of political and social instability can indeed threaten the cohesion of our liberal societies, for example as a result of organised terrorism.
Terrorism today is regaining strength at all levels and is keeping up to date with new technological developments in both weaponry and communications systems.
<P>
According to available statistics, there may be, at some point in the future, means of mass destruction which will be used to hit specific political targets anywhere in the world.
Such a prospect, Mr President, should remain just a prospect.
Only by introducing concerted, joint preventative measures to monitor the development, availability and use of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction can we prevent this from happening.
We are under no illusion that limiting nuclear weapons and banning their development will, undoubtedly, discourage some states from acquiring any in the future.
We have all seen what has been happening between India and Pakistan.
Very often, differences between warring neighbouring countries or even upsetting a geopolitical equilibrium which one state feels is not in its interest is reason enough for some to resort to the nuclear option.
It is, however, important in all cases that there are clear and binding expressions of political will, both internationally and on the part of those who can guarantee world peace and stability, that the non-proliferation of nuclear arsenals is a high and non-negotiable priority.
<P>
We would like to believe, Mr President, that the decision by the American Senate is but a temporary diversion from the moral obligation which the superpower has towards public opinion worldwide, i.e. as a country which should lead the way in its policies to reduce nuclear danger.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wiersma">
Mr President, this Parliament was always squarely behind any endeavours to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world - the French President will have some vivid memories of this- both when it came to the START Treaties and the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty, which I am glad to say was extended not so long ago.
Very many states renounce nuclear weapons voluntarily.
The major nuclear powers have scaled down their arsenals by a considerable amount, but that does not mean that we can rest content though.
The START process is faltering and too many countries reserve the right to develop a nuclear capability.
<P>
This is increasing tension in some parts of the world.
Some time ago a Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was signed.
An important step forwards.
The treaty was and is the expression of an ambition to eradicate nuclear weapons in the long term.
The US was one of the countries that promoted the ban and it is extremely sad that it is precisely the US, or rather the majority in the Senate, that have now declined to ratify the treaty.
<P>
The Non-Proliferation Treaty more or less signifies the acceptance of five nuclear powers.
The non-nuclear states went along with it on condition that the nuclear powers would do everything to reduce their nuclear capability.
A ban on nuclear testing was and continues to be an essential part of this.
This commitment is an important feature of the non-proliferation process and constitutes its moral basis to some extent.
<P>
That is another reason why the step taken by the American Senate is so serious.
The credibility of the non-proliferation process is thereby impaired.
The Senate points to the fact that countries such as Iraq could pose a nuclear threat in the future.
The US therefore claims that it must continue to be in a position to have an up to date nuclear arsenal at its disposal and that nuclear tests may be necessary to this end.
<P>
Quite apart from the significance of this line of argument in political and military terms, it is important to recognise that it is an expression of American provincialism which leaves no room for a reciprocal international approach, in which countries such as Iraq are countered with international embargoes coupled with sanctions.
We believe that the EU will have to be quite forceful in fostering this approach.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stenzel">
Mr President, the American Senate' s refusal to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty or CTBT is a setback for disarmament which I most particularly regret.
This behaviour by the US Senate is in conflict with the final declaration of the CTBT Conference which, as the President-in-Office of the Council has mentioned, sat in Vienna from 6 to 8 October and emphasised the importance of a comprehensive, verifiable ban on nuclear testing, as well as urging all States to sign and ratify this Agreement quickly.
<P>
Viewed with political realism, the fact that this has not happened in the USA is not of very great importance because, of 155 countries, only 51 have so far ratified the Treaty and, of 44 key States, only 41 have signed it.
However, this Treaty' s coming into force in the USA would have put regional nuclear powers under pressure to enter into the Treaty - countries such as India and Pakistan, which are in the process of building up their regional balance of terror, or North Korea or Iran, Iraq or Israel.
Not all of these countries are equally unpredictable, but the proliferation of nuclear weapons has, unfortunately, not declined but increased since the existence of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Through the failure of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in the United States, fresh impetus will be given to the suspicion on the part of Third World nuclear powers and countries on the threshold of becoming nuclear powers that the Non-Proliferation Treaty primarily serves to maintain the large nations' nuclear status and discriminates against small countries.
<P>
The fact that a non-nuclear power like Austria has signed and ratified the Test Ban Treaty is no doubt laudable but will have no direct effects upon regional nuclear powers.
What we want to see and must now strive that much more to achieve is a step-by-step approach to the final goal of nuclear disarmament.
A ban on nuclear testing is part and parcel of this process, to the same extent as the continuation of the START process and the verifiable reduction in fissionable material.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, I do not need to go over the issues which have been very succinctly summarised by Mr Patten in particular - except I would re-emphasise the danger that this action by the Senate may give the wrong message to the hawks in the Russian Duma who have so far failed to respond to nuclear disarmament initiatives.
I would also mention the impact this has on the Non-Proliferation Treaty which is due to be reviewed next year because that is based on the premise that existing nuclear powers work towards disarmament.
That premise must now be called into question. And all this despite the fact that the Test Ban Treaty would have frozen forever US nuclear superiority.
That is the stupidity of this.
<P>
But this is actually about a broader issue.
This is really about domestic US politics.
If, for example, we look at the history of western policy towards former Yugoslavia, we see the effectiveness of that ebbed and flowed with the ebb and flow of US domestic politics.
<P>
I would ask Commissioner Patten, if he is still listening, whether or not he agrees with me that this reinforces the need for an effective European Foreign Security Policy and European Defence Policy where we would be capable of taking autonomous action - not to be independent, but rather to protect our security from being blown around constantly in the winds of US domestic policies and US presidential elections.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
Mr President, "The land shall be built with law" - a dictum which should also apply internationally.
When it comes to nuclear weapons, there are two central treaties: on the one hand, the Non-Proliferation Treaty in which the nuclear powers have undertaken to reduce the size of their nuclear arsenals in return for other countries' not acquiring nuclear weapons; and, on the other hand, the Test Ban Treaty which is incredibly important because the purpose of the tests is to develop nuclear weapons.
<P>
It is an enormously dangerous signal which the American Senate has sent out to the world community.
In this way, the process of nuclear disarmament, which is so extraordinarily important, may be brought to a standstill.
Let me say that it is not the case that nuclear weapons are only dangerous when they are used; instead, their mere existence is a source of danger.
<P>
The four-star general, Lee Butler, who was responsible for American strategic nuclear weapons and who has had his finger on the button for many years, is entirely convinced that the very existence of nuclear weapons, which can be triggered not only through political decisions but also through technical mistakes, is a very serious matter.
It is important that the European Union should clearly speak its mind to the United States and demand that the present Treaty in fact be ratified.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, I am very satisfied that the debate here in Parliament has shown complete unanimity, and it is good that the Commission, Parliament and the Council have very clearly emphasised the support of the European Union for the Test Ban Treaty.
It is also good that our Member States have comprehensively ratified the treaty.
It is unfortunate that the American Senate has given the totally wrong signal in this issue, and especially the wrong signal to those countries that might still feel tempted to carry out nuclear testing.
I assure you that, for our part, this issue will be raised continually in political dialogue between the European Union and the United States.
But as you know, the US administration is not a problem here: we, and especially you, the Members of Parliament, must target your special efforts at the American Senate, for it to support this treaty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 NAME="Patten">
Mr President, I was interested to hear during the course of this short but important debate, the views of the honourable Member, Mr MacCormick.
He and I have known one another for 35 years which may surprise honourable Members because we both look much younger than that.
But I think that I can honestly say that our respective views on nuclear weapons have not changed in three and a half decades which is an argument, I guess, for consistency through life.
<P>
One rather more serious point.
I think that most speakers have made the extremely important distinction between the United States and the United States Administration, on the one hand, and the United States Senate, and in particular its Republican majority, on the other, a point made by Mr Baron, Mr Haarder, Mr Elles and by other speakers.
It is important for us to make that distinction and to recognise that it is the Senate and the Members of Congress as a whole on whom we need to put some pressure.
One thing we have to argue with them, and it was reflected in the article from which the honourable Member, Mr Elles, quoted, is that unilateralism today as advocated by some Republicans, but not all Republicans to be fair to Senator Logan, is a policy, to borrow from Irish history of "ourselves alone" that would be as disastrous for the world as it was after the First World War.
<P>
I think, we have a lot of persuading to do.
The honourable and gallant Member, General Morillon, mentioned the vote in the Senate and that it had been lost by 51 to 48.
Actually, it is more serious than that because it requires a two-thirds vote in the Senate to ratify a treaty, so we are still almost 20 votes short of that ratification figure.
In any event, I can assure Parliament that the Commission will want to join honourable Members in trying to persuade Senators to think again.
It is in our interest, it is in their interest and it is in the whole world' s interest.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, I asked Mr Patten a direct question.
I wondered whether he was going to give me an answer?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 NAME="Patten">
Was the honourable Member referring to the question whether we recognised that the American action argued very strongly the case for us developing a common foreign and security policy?
I totally agree with him on that issue.
But perhaps I could go a stage further and say that what would be really damaging for the European Union would be if, having asserted the case for a common foreign and security policy, having argued the case for a European security and defence initiative, we were then to fall way short of our rhetoric in what we actually did.
Because in those circumstances we would have had the worst possible effect on American public opinion as well as on our own.
It would be the sort of action that would encourage the very unilateralist sentiments in the United States that he and I both deplore.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
<P>
I have received five motions for resolutions, tabled pursuant to Rule 35(2) to conclude the present statement.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow morning.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
EC-Russia summit in Helsinki
<SPEAKER ID=149 NAME="President">
The next item is the statement of the Council on the EU-Russia Summit in Helsinki.
<P>
Mr Sasi has asked the presidency to inform the Assembly that he must leave at 6.00 p.m. due to unavoidable commitments.
<P>
You have the floor, Mr Sasi.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Sasi">
<SPEAKER ID=151 NAME="Patten">
Mr Sasi has admirably summarised the results of last week' s European Union/Russia summit.
As Parliament would expect, the summit was inevitably dominated by straight talking on Chechnya with the European Union, as the presidency indicated, pressing for de-escalation, for a return to political dialogue, for proportionality in the use of force to deal with terrorism and a solution to the humanitarian crisis.
<P>
I would like to say a word about that and then concentrate briefly on two other issues that loomed large in our discussions: implementation of the partnership and cooperation agreement and European Union enlargement and the northern dimension.
<P>
Firstly, the Commission very much shares the deep concern of all Member States about the present situation in Chechnya.
One of the immediate priorities, particularly as winter approaches, is to ensure humanitarian assistance for the tens of thousands of people displaced by the conflict.
The Commission has decided in principle that ECHO could make available straight away EUR 1.2 million to help relieve the situation in Ingushetia and Dagestan.
The Russians are open in principle to offers of humanitarian aid but we have still some way to go in discussions with them before European Union aid can be distributed.
<P>
Before we can go ahead we need further assurances from the Russian authorities on the security arrangements for international aid workers on the ground.
There is too much recent history for us to avoid that important issue.
We have also been pressing them to arrange for aid agencies to visit the area to assess the needs on the ground and I hope that this mission will now take place in the coming days.
<P>
Secondly, the Commission broadly welcomed progress on implementation of the partnership and cooperation agreement.
Although naturally the summit did not go into the detail, there was a clear awareness of the importance of a strategic European Union/Russia partnership whatever the present difficulties.
In this context, the economic cooperation initiatives that we have launched with Russia are, in general, developing well.
For example, we are making significant progress in ensuring better protection of intellectual property rights.
We have launched a major programme providing young Russian managers with periods of practical training in firms in the European Union.
<P>
Cooperation between experts is advancing in a number of other areas including the environment, coping with the millennium bug in Russia and the more efficient use of energy.
By contrast bilateral trade relations and investment are not developing as well as the Commission would like.
The European Union is rightly extending export opportunities for Russian companies in EU markets to boost the Russian economy.
But there is unfortunately less progress in the other direction.
We have repeatedly asked the Russian authorities to address the obstacles which stand in the way of European Union companies' expansion in Russian markets.
These include excessive certification and testing requirements, as well as specific concerns like the continued charges on international airlines to fly over Siberia.
The decline in European Union exports to Russia since the financial crisis of August last year underlines the need for action in these areas.
Minister Sasi indicated some of the things which are necessary in order to improve conditions for direct foreign investment.
<P>
Thirdly, Prime Minister Putin welcomed European Union enlargement as a force for political stability in Europe.
The Russians are understandably taking a very close interest in the enlargement process and the European Union is ready to engage in a serious dialogue with them in the partnership and cooperation agreement framework.
However, the Commission has always made clear that it would not be appropriate to set up a special mechanism or some form of trilateral consultations with the applicant countries as requested by Russia on various occasions.
<P>
In response to Russian worries about the economic impact of enlargement, President Prodi stressed the benefits in terms of lower tariffs and improved access to the markets of applicant countries.
The benefits will be even greater if Russia can bring her technical norms and standards closer to those in the European Union, helping her to gain access more easily to the expanded commercial opportunities of the enlarged single market.
A fundamental principle for the Commission is that enlargement should not create new dividing lines in Europe.
<P>
At the summit, Prime Minister Putin was very positive about the northern dimension.
He said that he not only wanted cross-border zones but large areas of north-west Russia to be covered.
We agreed that detailed proposals should be discussed at the Helsinki Conference in November.
<P>
Kaliningrad, as a future enclave inside the European Union, represents a particular challenge within the northern dimension.
Partner countries to the northern dimension, including the European Union applicant countries neighbouring Kaliningrad, show increasing interest in cooperating on the issues raised by its unique situation.
Already through Tacis and other European Union financial instruments the Commission is supporting the process of economic transition in Kaliningrad.
<P>
It was not an occasion on which we had a complete meeting of minds.
How in the circumstances could it have been?
But for all that I think it was a useful meeting and I very much hope that the Russian Prime Minister will reflect on all that we said, particularly perhaps on the northern Caucasus.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schori">
Mr President, the summit in Helsinki took place against a very serious background.
According to information from Moscow, the Red Cross is now, in anticipation of the winter, preparing new deliveries of aid for people in need throughout the Russian polar region.
At the same time, the World Bank and the UNDP are talking of growing poverty, increasing social maladjustment and record youth unemployment in Russia.
<P>
The fact that social destitution constitutes fertile ground for populists and extremists and for ethnic and religious conflicts is something we can see right now with appalling clarity in Chechnya and neighbouring regions where warlords and criminal clans are feathering their nests at the expense of the civilian population.
There seems to be no end to the blood bath in Chechnya.
Close on 200,000 innocent people have been forced to flee, and Dagestan is being ever more destabilised.
It may be that our best intentions where Russia is concerned will in fact run into a lot of difficulties and be threatened by on-going crisis. In other words, "our best laid schemes might go agley" .
<P>
No-one within the EU is recommending an independent Chechnya.
We cannot accept terrorist acts, but nor can we accept a military solution to this crisis.
We demand that Russia initiate negotiations with Chechnya' s elected President without unrealistic prior conditions and that the aid which the EU has also promised should actually get through.
<P>
Yesterday, Prime Minister Putin got the Duma to approve an appropriation of a billion dollars for the war effort in Chechnya.
My question to the Council and the Commission is this: will you see to it that Russian aggression in Chechnya is not partly financed from international sources?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Väyrynen">
Mr President, with the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, the West began from the principle that the Russian Federation would be given unreserved support for her regional unity.
Presumably, the Russian leaders also received some sort of promise regarding this when they were making their contribution to the peaceful dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union.
This has also been the West' s common position in its attitude to events in Chechnya.
<P>
The Russian leadership, however, apparently fears it is losing those regions whose population is mainly made up of ethnic and religious minorities.
Military withdrawal from Chechnya was seen as a dangerous precedent.
The events of Dagestan gave cause to presume that the disease is spreading.
The Russian leadership' s worry concerning their country' s regional unity is doubtless well-founded.
They should, however, realise that a country' s sovereignty cannot be secured through military force.
The only realistic way forward is for the minority peoples living in the southern parts of Russia to be satisfied with their circumstances and feel that belonging to the Russian Federation benefits them.
<P>
Military might is necessary, but it should be used only to keep terrorism under control.
The West must clearly condemn the excessive use of military force in Chechnya - more clearly than what was the case at the Helsinki Summit meeting.
We must influence the Russian government so that it would try to solve its country' s internal problems both through political means and by promoting economic and social development.
EU and Western credibility and capacity for action generally is unfortunately made weaker in this matter by the recent war waged in Yugoslavia on humanitarian grounds.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Sasi has just reconfirmed the unfortunate idea that the European Union is examining the events of Chechnya as a Russian internal matter alone.
However, Russia is in breach of many human rights agreements.
For example, the European Council' s agreements strictly prohibit countries from murdering and bombing their own nationals.
The OSCE agreements also demonstrated clearly that countries are committed to the notion that violations of human rights can never constitute the internal affairs of a state.
In addition, Russia' s centralised power is oppressing a national minority.
We might even suspect that ethnic cleansing is taking place there, with Russia trying to create Chechen-free buffer zones.
<P>
Our group' s position is that our wishes and cabinet discussions are not enough: financial aid for Russia should be restricted to humanitarian and environmental aid.
My colleague, Mr Schori, gave an account just now of the latest information on how Russia is, in fact, strengthening its military budget.
Does the European Union want, for example, to be involved, through a pact of partnership and cooperation, in increasing Russian military expenditure, which will be used to punish Chechnya in the future?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, we must totally condemn the acts of terror that have been targeted at the Russian people, and which have resulted in a large number of civilian victims.
If, and only if, these acts of terror are the work of Chechnya, then they are the wrong way to go about things on the international level.
But at the same time we must also condemn Russian action against the civil population of Chechnya and the acts of terror perpetrated against civilians there.
<P>
Unfortunately, the European Union and the countries of NATO have given an example of how to act in this connection; in the war in Yugoslavia, they showed how conflicts can be resolved.
They can be resolved in the EU and NATO through violence, precision bombing raids and attacks on independent countries, all of which runs counter to the decisions of the international community.
This way of solving problems is the wrong one.
We should be developing international means of peacefully resolving problems between countries and safeguarding people' s freedom and human rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kronberger">
Mr President, Commissioner, there is no doubt that constructive cooperation between Russia and the CIS States, on the one hand, and Europe on the other, is one of the most important prerequisites for peace for the 21st century.
Cooperation of this kind is presently threatened by the war in Chechnya and by other regional conflicts.
I believe, however, that the war in Chechnya should not be seen either as a purely regional conflict or as a purely religious dispute.
That would be to play down the situation and also to underestimate it.
It is also quite clearly a question of geo-strategical manoeuvrings for access to the oil and gas reserves in the Caucasus and around the Caspian Sea.
Here, European, American, Chinese, Russian and other economic interests collide.
A small spark in this area can lead to an explosion.
And, as of today, a new crisis has evolved, namely in Armenia.
A few hours ago, Prime Minister Sarkisjan and President of the Parliament Demirtschjan were murdered.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, unfortunately, I have to leave for a meeting with the President of the European Parliament, and, for that reason, I would like to say now that, as Mr Patten of the Commission said in his excellent speech, the Union will not accept terrorism, but neither can we in any event accept the disproportionate use of force.
In no circumstances is it acceptable. We wish to achieve a solution through dialogue, and that will require talks between the leaders of Russia and Chechnya.
We will arrange for still closer dialogue between the EU and Russia.
In these discussions we will express our frustration with the Russian action in Chechnya.
<P>
As was pointed out in the discussions, it is clear that the continued crisis is increasing pressure to put Union cooperation with Russia on ice.
If the situation does not improve, it will be even harder for the Council to counter this pressure.
We have also noted the growth in the proportion of military expenditure in the Russian budget, and we have asked how Russia intends to finance this.
It has been said that, with increased tax revenues and economic growth, there may well be more funds at their disposal.
But, as has been claimed, the longer the war goes on, the more negative the attitude will become to any kind of aid to Russia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lehne">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, relations with the Russian Federation are very important.
All of us in this House agree about that, and it has been said again and again through a multiplicity of decisions.
Against this background, I naturally welcome the fact that the partnership agreement has now been translated into concrete fact, that there are regular consultations and that every possible question is being discussed and, in that way, positive results even achieved.
I also welcome the fact that the new Secretary-General of the Council, Mr Solana, has declared that, from his point of view, policy towards Russia has first priority.
It is certainly only right that that too should be the case.
<P>
So much for the good news.
Now for the bad news.
I do not want to conceal the fact - and I have in fact been involved with policy towards Russia for a number of years now - that there are aspects of it which are hugely frustrating.
In connection with Russia, the same themes appear over and over again on the agenda, whatever the Committee concerned and irrespective of whether it is a question of the fight against crime, economic reforms or sensible legislation in Russia concerning, for example, banking or taxes. And nowhere can any effective progress be seen.
That is frustrating.
<P>
It is just as apparent that, now as before, a large part of the flow of aid to Russia (I need only mention the letters IMF or International Monetary Fund) disappears into a bottomless pit.
It is regrettable that we cannot achieve any real progress on this issue.
Just as frustrating is what is happening at the moment in Chechnya and being conveyed to our television screens.
I do not want to say anything more at all just now about the infringements of human rights because quite a lot has already been said about these at the last plenary part-session.
They are alarming, and we must condemn them and address the issue.
But I believe too that what is now being done in Russia to solve the problem is really no solution.
Mr Putin may perhaps have some short-term successes in the area of domestic politics, but he will not in the end solve the problem of minorities within Russia and the problem of a certain necessary decolonisation.
<P>
The Russian government would be well advised to look at examples partly to be found in their own country - I mention only Tatarstan - and to try to find other political solutions instead of doing what they are doing at the moment where, in the end, any success will be outweighed by the damage done.
This must be said because one must be honest with partners and also tell them the truth.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Krehl">
Mr President, I can only agree with Mr Lehne.
Cooperation between the European Union and the Russian Federation is of enormous importance, and important matters were discussed at the summit, too.
I really cannot, however, to be honest, share the optimistic account Mr Sasi has just given of present circumstances and future development within the Russian Federation.
<P>
<P>
When I examine the Joint Declaration of the Summit on Chechnya - the most important matter at the moment in our cooperation with Russia - I see that it says that the European Union and the Russian Federation exchanged viewpoints about the situation in the North Caucasus.
In fact, that really cannot be all there is to say.
<P>
Any cooperation with Russia is at present overshadowed by the war in Chechnya.
There are already 180 000 refugees in Ingushetia and Dagestan.
Aid organisations cannot work there.
Thousands of refugees are no longer permitted to leave the country, and the Russian government is not prepared to talk.
<P>
We need a political solution.
I am of the view that the European Union must attach more weight to discussions.
We have an interest in cooperating with Russia.
Naturally, we need Russia, for example in Kosovo.
But Russia in turn needs us, that is to say it needs the European Union.
I think that consideration might be given to whether, in negotiations, the following might be said: we must consider whether, if no political solution is sought and found in Chechnya, we ought in fact to block credits or cancel aid - other than forms of humanitarian aid - for Russia.
<P>
(Applause)
<P>
In the European Parliament, we did not ratify the partnership agreement in the case of the first war in Chechnya.
Now, at a summit which has become significantly more explosive politically, we are still only talking about exchanging opinions.
In its efforts to achieve greater weight for its foreign policy, the European Union should not permit this.
<P>
(Applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, to follow on seamlessly, may I thank you, Constanze Krehl, for finally being so courageous and for saying these things so clearly.
<P>
Throughout Europe, this summit has been a gigantic disappointment. Nor can there really be any beating about the bush as the Presidency has just done.
In fact, the EU has failed downright and has not used the possibilities open to it.
Why are we again accepting a brutal war by Russia against its own people?
Why do we simply pass on to the existing agenda?
That is really not what meetings at the highest level are there for.
They are not there for the purpose of exchanging civilities. They are there for calling a spade a spade.
I must say that the report by the Finnish Presidency is a mockery of the facts, however they are described.
The truth is that villagers are being bombarded and refugees surrounded, and these are startling infringements of international laws.
This is not just an internal matter for Russia that can simply be brushed aside.
<P>
We have the partnership and cooperation agreement, we have the human rights clauses and, therefore, we have the opportunity to threaten economic sanctions and press for the bombardments to cease.
Without this, no international aid can arrive there, Mr Patten; that is no doubt clear.
I therefore expect the Presidency and the Commission to get together now and to develop a strategy in the framework of the Joint Foreign and Security Policy which threatens the use of these economic tools and compels Russia to end this war.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="Gorostiaga Atxalandabaso">
Mr President, by now it is crystal clear that most colleagues in this House share my conviction that the tragedy of Chechnya could have been avoided if the European Union had shown a firm attitude towards the Russian aggression.
Instead, we have witnessed in recent days a most deplorable sight with the Russian Foreign Minister in Madrid and with the Russian Prime Minister in Tampere.
<P>
Mr Sasi mentioned the particular significance for the Finnish people of the place where the meeting was held in Helsinki.
Finland is now an independent country.
How can the European Union deny this very right to the Chechen people?
Can we stand any longer the imperialistic policy of Russia towards small nations like Chechnya?
<P>
A few minutes ago Mr Patten mentioned Kaliningrad and I recall the historical shelter of the people of Kaliningrad, formerly Königsberg.
Can we accept that only these particular countries are well protected?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, when Russian colonial troops conquered Chechnya in the last century, Finland had already been under Russian control for a long time.
It was with great bravery that the Finnish people found their way to freedom, and I should therefore have expected the Finnish Presidency of the Council to show more understanding for the sufferings of the oppressed Chechen people.
I must say quite clearly that the European Union' s strategy towards Russia has failed.
Not only because the Russian State and economy are in a deeper crisis than they were just a few years ago; and not only because the present Russian leadership is already conducting its second brutal colonial war against Chechnya, which is about oil interests and which we are paying for.
It is also the case that at present a particularly brutal form of election campaign is being developed.
We are contributing to this bloody election campaign with summit meetings and with money which is being frittered away in this war.
Without western money, Russia would in fact be unable to finance this war by no later than the end of the month.
It is therefore we who are financing this murder of the civilian population in Chechnya.
We must therefore get down to business here as well, and make it clear to the Russians that we are no longer prepared to do this.
<P>
I should like to be quite clear in my opinion that the European Union must change its policy here, that it must come out unambiguously on the side of the Chechen people. For this, the OSCE, the Ceasefire Agreement of 1996 and also Russia' s membership of the Council of Europe can also offer levers, together with our Cooperation Agreement with Russia.
We only have to use these tools and should not just say what the present Russian leadership wants to hear.
Mr Putin, a secret service man who distinguished himself in the last war in Chechnya, has constantly been quoted today.
It has been said - almost emotionally - that he does not plan to declare a state of emergency.
Why not?
Because his popularity since the beginning of the war in Chechnya has increased sevenfold.
Why then is he not going to be holding any elections?
In fact, he is already conducting an election campaign by means of this war, and only if his popularity were to decline would scenarios like that have to be reconsidered. That is why we need to change our tune quickly and find clear words in which to express our point of view.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, it would indeed appear that the Chechen war in Russia is also part of an election campaign, although there may be many other reasons for it.
The Russian action there seems to be taking the form of actual persecution of the civil population. This is to be condemned once and for all, and this will lead to a situation before long in which we have to cease providing aid to Russia.
The cessation of this aid will obviously affect the poorest and those who need help most, it has to be remembered.
<P>
I am looking for a way out.
Could we imagine a conference being organised for the whole Caucasus issue, as there are military operations going on there within the territories of at least five states, and not just in Chechnya, about which my colleagues have spoken?
The example of Armenia - the murder of the Prime Minister a few hours ago today - is again a deplorable indication of that.
The other possibility is that Russia turns the main weight of its attention from the south to the north, which is much richer in natural resources than the south, with no conflicts or dangers.
This again would be one way of finding a way out of the difficulty.
Is the Commissioner ready to support this sort of northern dimension action?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Volcic">
Mr President, in the Caucasus States the Russians are pursuing the policy which they vehemently rebuked others for pursuing in Kosovo.
Recently, Prime Minister Putin' s 2000 budget was approved but only because he has earmarked an additional billion dollars for the army in Chechnya, which means arms for Chechnya against the vote of the old Communists.
With less than two months to go to the vote, Putin is not going to upset the Russian Parliament, which is against him, with proposals for a political solution instead of a military one.
Putin, moreover, accepts the military aid, but says that it must be distributed by the Russians without international control - an absurd request given all the thieves and enemies around.
Putin is pushing the war on for pre-electoral reasons and not because he fears Islam or any other even more foolish reasons.
However, documents where a rational desire to cooperate with westerners is expressed are useful to him, such as the Helsinki document of 22 October.
We know that a week ago the debate was very bitter, while the resulting document, loaded with clichés singing the praises of cooperation, obviously does not express the feeling of that debate and the Russians are taking advantage of it.
I would also invite the Ministers not to use the term "terrorists" when referring to the Chechen guerrillas. Indeed, we have had to change our minds all too often, as in the end terrorists have become fighters for national rights.
<P>
I think that proper political dealings with Moscow will only be able to start again in January, after the elections, and maybe not even before August.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="Patten">
The debate has been dominated by concerns about the North Caucasus.
But there are, as Mr Paasilinna pointed out, grounds for concern about the situation in the South Caucasus as well.
The honourable Member pointed to the alarming reports of the shooting in the Armenian parliament today and the reported assassination of the Prime Minister.
We await confirmation of that tragic news, but it appears the news is probably accurate.
<P>
I saw the Armenian Foreign Minister recently to discuss his concerns about the stability of the Southern Caucasus and, as well, to hear some of the concerns that he was expressing about Chechnya and the Northern Caucasus.
I should like to say on this occasion that the Commission wants to reiterate its support for the Armenian Government in its efforts to find a rapid and peaceful solution to the situation in the Caucasus.
What has happened today is deeply troubling.
<P>
This debate has focused on Chechnya, which was the subject of some very straight talking in Helsinki with some Members understandably asserting that the European Union should have done something more than it has done already.
I think it is perhaps an inevitable consequence of a debate like that, that there was not absolute clarity on what it was that we should have done.
<P>
I want to reiterate some points that were made earlier by the presidency.
The communiqué, as the honourable Member pointed out, referred to the fact that we had exchanged views on the situation in the Northern Caucasus.
The communiqué did not say any more than that for a very good reason: we could not put in the communiqué that we had agreed on anything regarding the Northern Caucasus.
<P>
What the European Union asserted strongly was: first of all, that whatever the concerns about Chechen terrorism - which are understandable - there is a powerful case for proportionality in dealing with that problem; secondly, we argued passionately for de-escalation and political dialogue.
The problem, if you appear to undermine and destroy the authority of any moderate leaders in Chechnya, is this: who do you then talk to?
Who do you then have a political dialogue with?
That is a point that we put very strongly to Prime Minister Putin, both during the official discussions and over lunch when Chechnya completely dominated the discussion.
<P>
We argued very strongly for the aid assessment mission to be allowed into Ingushetia as rapidly as possible.
I spoke last week to the Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance at the UN.
I spoke last week to Mrs Ogata in the UNHCR.
I read, as honourable Members will have done, the reports from the International Committee of the Red Cross on the humanitarian crisis which gets worse day by day in the Northern Caucasus.
The ICRC suggested last week that over one third of the population of Grozny had left already.
So we pressed the Russians to recognise that there must be an early visit by aid organisations to the region so we know what the situation is and how we can best contribute to the humanitarian problem.
<P>
I hope that the honourable Member who suggested that we should perhaps consider cutting off any humanitarian assistance will have second thoughts about that.
I have been a development minister providing humanitarian assistance on a national basis to countries torn apart by war.
I have never believed that cutting off assistance to those who are affected by war, who are affected by the political decisions taken by their rulers, was a very good way of responding to crisis.
<P>
Let me just add a word about the funding of the military campaign which, in my judgement - not a judgement which appears to be supported by the Russian Prime Minister - is bound to have an effect on the recovery over the last months of the Russian economy.
<P>
Some Members suggested that we should cut off financial assistance to the Russian Federation because that assistance might be used to sustain the military campaign.
I should just like to remind Members of Parliament, who are probably more familiar with some of the details of these issues than even I am, that we are not the provider of direct financial assistance to the Russian authorities.
That is not how Tacis works.
We are not an international financial institution providing financial assistance for the reconstruction - we hope - of the Russian economy.
People should be clear that what we are doing is not sustaining Russian military campaigns in Chechnya or anywhere else.
<P>
But when you start talking about cutting off programmes of assistance to Russia you have to face up to some of the consequences.
An issue about which I feel passionately is the successful negotiation of the multilateral nuclear environment programme, the attempt to ensure that Western donors can provide technical and financial assistance for the storage and disposal of nuclear waste in north-west Russia, including all those terrifying, rusting nuclear submarines and the other nuclear garbage.
<P>
It is very important for all of us that we make a programme like that succeed.
I hope we can push on with talks about programmes like that even while we talk firmly and strongly to the Russians about the tragedy in the Northern Caucasus in Chechnya.
<P>
One point that we made to Russian officials, to the Prime Minister, was that we were talking strongly on these issues, not as enemies but as people who wanted a cooperative relationship with Russia.
We were talking strongly because we were reflecting the opinions of our public in the European Union: the sort of opinions reflected in speech after speech in this Chamber today.
<P>
So what this debate has done is to underline the argument that we were putting to Mr Putin and others.
It is an argument which I hope they will take very seriously over the coming days and weeks.
<P>
There must be a return to negotiation, difficult though that may seem to Russian leaders.
There must be a return to negotiation otherwise I fear that we will see disaster loaded upon disaster.
In those circumstances I do not think that anyone' s opinion poll ratings are going to hold up for very long.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Culture 2000 programme
<SPEAKER ID=168 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0026/1999), on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Decision establishing a single financing and programming instrument for cultural cooperation (Culture 2000 programme) [13328/2/1998 - C5-0023/1999 - 1998/0169(COD)] (rapporteur: Mr Graça Moura).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Graça Moura">
Mr President, the CULTURE 2000 programme, as a single instrument, will be replacing the ARIANE, KALEIDOSCOPE and RAPHAEL programmes which gave outstanding service to the cause of European culture and whose success has been universally acknowledged.
<P>
Thanks to the activities that were developed within the respective frameworks, access to a vast range of cultural products and values has been provided for many European citizens who would not otherwise have had this opportunity.
As a single financing and programming instrument for cooperation, CULTURE 2000 declares a range of objectives which aim to provide a response, more of a response and a better one, to such needs, and this, then, is able to represent a decisive step in the direction of a European cultural policy that is worthy of this name. By this I mean an instrument which will permit repeated, interactive and fruitful contact between the cultures of the various Member countries in such a way that the variety of areas looked at and the multidisciplinary nature of the events become an ever more vitalising element in the very soil of European identity without threatening pluralism and the essential diversity of these cultures.
<P>
Although all the participants in the various phases of the process bore these concerns in mind, it became clear that the attitudes of the Council and the Commission on the one hand and of this Parliament on the other were not completely attuned with one another.
But although we have come a long way, we should nevertheless mention some of the main areas of disagreement.
<P>
These are, of course, the budgetary question, the question of a supposedly excessive fragmentation or disintegration of the Union' s actions, which is considered likely to reduce its visibility and, as a result, the question of an option in the sense of there being privileged lines which would support initiatives of a greater scale and of a more spectacular kind. The participation of agents and operators had been foreseen for this, which would involve a greater number of countries as a minimum which, as we see it, would carry a serious risk of hypertrophy in some networks of cultural operators.
This would give them an excessive concentration of means and powers and, as a result, threaten the normal functioning and even the very existence of many others.
<P>
Consistent with the Mouskouri report which this Parliament was right to adopt, the recommendation to which I am honoured to put my name, maintained its aim of seeing the budgetary appropriation strengthened, from the EUR 167 million initially provided, and raised it to 250 million.
There is no doubt that both the Council and the Commission are sensitive to the great needs that are being experienced in all the sectors covered by the programme, nor that there is much good will in the sense of trying to find satisfactory solutions.
<P>
Moving now to other points of disagreement, I will say that experience shows that the greater the number of States participating, the greater the risk of each initial project losing its own character.
Now, in principle, each initial project corresponds to needs experienced specifically by a given group of citizens.
On the other hand, it seems obvious that there are great imbalances as a result of extremely varied conditions of time, method and place, in terms of the opportunity for access to the enjoyment of cultural values that the citizens of various European countries possess.
<P>
This aspect tends to become even more complex with the perspective of enlargement which has, to a large extent, been prepared and anticipated at exactly the level of cultural contacts.
This is why the possibility was foreseen of supporting medium- and even small-scale actions so that the greatest possible number of European citizens benefit, who will, as a result, be able to become more directly involved.
Visibility will not count for much unless it relates intimately to life and to what culture has to offer.
<P>
In this respect, more concessions were made, and a minimum number of three was accepted for States involved in the joint organisation of specific projects and of five for States involved in the large-scale cultural cooperation agreements. Attempts were also made to find a way towards making the framework mechanisms more flexible.
There was also the intention to stimulate the emergence of new synergies and of new thrusts for creativity without wanting to favour a sector-based approach to action.
<P>
It is becoming a matter of urgency that we move ahead.
There are countless cultural operators and agents who will be deprived of any kind of means for the action that they are developing, which will be of inestimable value if this dossier is not concluded before the end of the year so that we can allow the programme to come into force at the beginning of next year.
The figures calculated for conciliation will make this possible, as we know, moreover, that this conciliation will be conducted in parallel with the conciliation relating to the YOUTH programme, although it will be completely autonomous in relation to this programme.
<P>
We all know that our cultural coordinates are related to our sense of identity as Europeans. We also know that fundamental action linked to cultural life in its multiple forms is an indispensable factor for the strengthening of an awareness of European identity.
Until this dimension is fully achieved, political union itself will have feet of clay.
Culture on its own can be one of its strongest foundations.
In order to achieve this, there will have to be greater participation on the part of the citizens, and greater access to culture.
I shall close my speech with the hope that this Parliament' s actions will make an important contribution to achieving this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
Mr President, I wanted to sincerely thank our colleague, Mr Graça Moura, for taking over this report and really being content to take forward what we had already decided in the last legislative period and which was the work of Nana Mouskouri, whose warm greetings I am to pass on to you today.
She is very happy that things are finally moving forward.
<P>
The model of society which forms the basis of this report by Mr Graça Moura is a deeply humanitarian one.
Culture plays an important role in this model, and partly for the purpose of facilitating respect on the part of our citizens for each other' s different cultures, as well as for national and regional traditions.
<P>
This new programme sets out the framework for the European Union' s cultural policy for the next few years.
It must be added that a genuine policy on culture and education is needed today more than ever, since it is the actual basis of European politics.
Above all, however, it gives a human face to the distant and bureaucratic politics of Europe and puts the citizen in the centre of activity and debate, as is also happening with the "Youth" programme and with the "Socrates" education programme.
<P>
The European Union should not just be a question of figures and statistics, for example.
Only the genuine participation of its citizens makes it a living whole.
When we see that the European Union has precisely 167 million ecus left for cultural policy, we naturally regard this as a ridiculous sum.
As insiders, we know of course that what we are doing in terms of cultural policy is not confined to the area covered by this sum. We are also working in the cultural sphere when it comes to the areas covered by the regional funds.
However, EUR 167 million is too small a sum. Even EUR 250 million would not be enough in view of the scale of the work which awaits us.
I consider that the cultural sphere, to which we have the task of giving a higher profile, requires a much larger sum of money.
But that is how it is everywhere in the European Union.
Everyone gets up on their soapbox and says that Europe must be given a soul.
That is a wonderful catchword.
Everyone hides behind it but, unfortunately, not a lot of money is spent on it.
I believe it is the same in every country.
<P>
This cultural programme can basically make only a small contribution to realising this desire that neighbours should be made genuinely aware of each other' s respective cultures.
<P>
In the form in which we now have the report, extensive parts of the former Commission' s proposal have been changed.
We have responded more to the will of our citizens and have been that much less inclined to go in for big events.
I know that this is also the attitude of the new Commissioner.
I hope that the quality of the projects which we are now to have will make up for the lack of financial resources.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Aparicio Sánchez">
Mr President, this is a serious and rigorous report.
And Mr Graça Moura deserves the congratulations of the Socialist Group, which I pass on to him with pleasure.
<P>
Culture 2000, for the reasons which have just been expressed, is an extraordinarily important programme.
The joint position of the Council has not yet accepted the Parliament' s criteria and the rapporteur, reasonably, has retained in this second reading the ones which he considers to be essential.
<P>
Firstly I must highlight funding.
We do not understand, given the margin within the Financial Perspective, why a third of the resources which we considered minimums have been cut.
<P>
On the other hand, we agree with the Council on the need for the activities of Culture 2000 to be visible to the public, but the best way to achieve this is through small and medium scale events, in diverse locations and close to the citizens, rather than events on a grand scale.
The Council confuses public reaction with media reaction and forgets that in the latter case the reaction is almost always ephemeral.
<P>
The Council, or rather, a small part of it, has ignored the spirit and the letter of the Treaties and specifically Article 151.
It is still afraid of expressions such as "European Policy" and "European Cultural Area" etc. and prefers to carry on speaking of "partnership" .
<P>
Legislating and taking action in the field of culture and education directly shapes the European soul which has so often been elusive.
The system of knowledge, the human emotions which only the Arts and Letters can produce, in other words, our culture, are deeply based on what the Europeans have in common and therefore form the basis of European citizenship.
<P>
I hope that the steadfastness of this Parliament, on the one hand, and the help of the new Commissioner on the other, together finally with the understanding of the Council, will all come to act together to this end.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Sanders-ten Holte">
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to congratulate Mr Graça Moura on his outstanding work.
The liberal group warmly endorses the amendments that he has submitted.
As far as the level of the Budget is concerned, the liberal group too feels that the Council' s efforts fall short of the mark.
There are a few points that I would like to emphasise.
<P>
Firstly, the cultural networks.
The Council' s text literally states that financed projects must operate with the aid of networks.
According to this text cultural networks ought only to be able to make claims of the Framework Programme on culture for individual projects.
However, they should also be able to receive support for some of their recurring expenses.
For if there is money available for the project, but not for keeping the network' s office running, then there will be no support for the project and the experience gained will be wasted.
<P>
My second point is that the programme now takes full account of the importance of reading and translation.
However, I am rather concerned as to whether the money will be distributed effectively.
There must be proportional representation as far as promotion, translation and cultural exchanges are concerned, and these must not compete with each other.
The literary translation establishments, which play an important part in making our cultural heritage accessible, are particularly at risk.
That is why I intend to see to it that they continue to receive some of the money.
<P>
My final point, Mr President, is that I was not happy with the budgetary procedure.
The members of the Committee on Culture have a better understanding than the Committee on Budgets as to how the money should be distributed amongst cultural and educational institutions.
Let the Committee on Budgets establish the framework and the specialised committee get down to work on the priorities as regards content and the financial interpretation thereof.
I await with interest the discussion that the budget rapporteur has announced which will take place on the way in which the financial resources in chapter A 30 of the budget for 2001 are allocated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Vander Taelen">
Mr President, I just wanted to make a few general points in connection with cultural matters.
Although everyone appears to agree that culture is important in theory, in practice the situation is often quite different in Europe.
Europe seems to be more interested in agriculture than culture.
They only differ by four letters but that certainly makes a very big difference at the budgetary level.
<P>
Any MEP with cultural sensitivities is still moved to read the European Council' s declarations of love when it comes to cultural matters.
But this emotion soon gives way to disillusionment when the words are not followed by deeds, particularly where budgets are concerned.
For there is nothing that the European Union spends so little on as culture and savings even have to be made in the little that we do spend, notwithstanding the fact that everyone always agrees that promoting culture is probably the only way to make the EU popular with its citizens.
<P>
I therefore think that it would be particularly misguided of this Parliament not to follow the rapporteur' s recommendations, for you cannot keep saying that you think it is a shame that an ever-decreasing number of people vote in European elections, or that you regret that every inquiry shows that the EU appears to be ever more distant from the people of Europe, only to go making cutbacks in projects whose precise intention it is to bring the EU closer to the people.
<P>
We certainly feel that we ought not to finance large-scale, expensive projects, but rather small-scale projects that the people of Europe can identify with and which could make a tremendous contribution at the socio-economic level in terms of job opportunities.
<P>
Now that we are talking about the Europe of the next century, a new, wider Europe, an enlarged Europe, would it not perhaps be useful to pursue a bold cultural policy at long last, for culture is not something that should be talked about in the way that all the other "important" matters are discussed.
Now that everything appears to be discussed in economic terms, perhaps it is time for us to start showing more interest in what are, after all, the origins of Europe, notably our culture.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fraisse">
Mr President, I would first like to point out how important Mr Graça Moura' s report is.
The construction of a cultural Europe is now proving to be just as great a necessity as the construction of a political Europe, which has until now been an economic and monetary Europe.
Whether we are aiming for a cultural policy or promoting cultural activities, the findings are the same. The budget allocated to the "Culture 2000" programme is ridiculously small.
Is it acceptable that the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, Media and Sport has been given EUR 167.33 million per year when it is asking for EUR 250 million?
Community expenditure on culture stands at 0.003%.
Is it really appropriate to welcome the adoption of such a budget?
<P>
Mrs Reding herself, in the September hearings spoke of cultural action in a way that suggested it was being recognised belatedly.
Let us find a way of making up the lost time that is obvious to everyone, with an adapted budget.
The rapporteur also stresses the link between culture and citizenship.
I think in fact that greater balance is necessary between the budgets allocated to ambitious cultural events and the targeted projects.
The construction of European citizenship will come about as a result of the involvement of individuals, not only of institutions
<P>
In view of this reticence where budgets are concerned, I would like to make a concluding observation.
What can we say about a Europe which is proud, and rightly so, to defend its cultural diversity at the forthcoming WTO negotiations if we are not capable of giving real support to this cultural expression?
I would not like the budget for culture to become inversely proportional to our cultural ambitions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Angelilli">
Mr President, it is very important that we have finally succeeded in including explicit references to culture in the Treaty.
Indeed, at this delicate stage for the European Union, while we begin to enlarge eastwards, while all the economic and financial changes linked to the creation of the single currency are already underway, we must not forget the value of culture, the specificity and diversity of European culture, its enhancement and its diffusion.
Culture, which also means history, languages and traditions, must remain a fundamental and indispensable bond for European citizens.
We must therefore welcome the new Culture 2000 programme, but reiterate some considerations which, moreover, most of my fellow Members have already done.
Firstly, we need to encourage and stimulate the European citizens and European associations and small businesses in this sector to make as much use as possible of this programme, but avoid concentrating the meagre funds on only a few large events, to the advantage of a few privileged networks which, in the long run, as past experience has taught us, end up monopolising these funds. Secondly, in any case, we would need to make an effort to increase the funds laid down for this programme.
<P>
To conclude, Europe must not forget that investing in culture does not mean simply preserving a great legacy and our identity as Europeans, but also the creation of many new jobs.
Mr President, I think that the European citizens are currently in great need of this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gutiérrez Cortines">
Mr President, I wish to support the Culture 2000 programme and congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Vasco Graça Moura, for having enriched the text as a whole with new contributions aimed, on the one hand, at achieving greater participation of countries and beneficiaries and, on the other, at emphasising the need to diversify the grants, as well as recommendations in defence of the deconcentration of activities and great cultural events.
<P>
In this same respect, I wish to communicate to the Commission my concern about the development and subsequent implementation of the programmes, in all their fields.
The success of Culture 2000 will depend largely on its capacity to implement new working methods and to bring these offers of cooperation closer to a citizens' Europe.
<P>
It is important that the Commission itself and the Member States achieve greater efficiency in communication, expand their advice and information services and cooperate in the task of guiding and advising possible beneficiaries.
The announcements of grants must be published with sufficient notice and must reach all points of Europe, allowing applicants sufficient time to find partners and seek supplementary aid.
If we intend culture to be active at a grassroots level and for the majority of individuals to be involved in it, it is necessary for the European Union to come closer to them and for the details of the grants to be published in the sections of the media with the widest audience.
<P>
On the other hand, I believe there is a consensus amongst all of us who have been involved and all the parties that small-scale creative elements should be supported.
At the same time, it would be appropriate to favour, through the selection criteria, the proposals of individuals and groups, since it is necessary to compensate for the tendency of institutions to become the protagonists in terms of cultural production.
<P>
Although it is easier to operate through the procedures of agencies and institutions, the basic purpose of the programme will be to break this barrier and favour culture at the grassroots of society, given that their function is not to create an official culture.
<P>
On the other hand, Mrs Reding, I would like to offer you my full support with regard to funding: I am conscious that pressure must be exerted on Mr Prodi and the College of Commissioners and I know that you will strive earnestly to achieve this improvement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 NAME="Wyn">
Mr President, I would like to touch on one aspect of cultural diversity needing support: minority languages.
Europe should take pride in its linguistic diversity.
The European Union has done much to promote its wealth of cultures and I congratulate Commissioner Reding on her work in this regard.
<P>
Many in this new Parliament might not remember that in May 1998 budget lines for minority languages were frozen because they had no legal basis.
Will the Commission now guarantee that a legal basis for these projects is introduced?
The situation of 1998 cannot be allowed to arise again.
Lesser-used languages must be granted the funding they deserve, otherwise excellent innovative projects - drama, the translating of literature following the end of the Ariane project - the teaching of languages and so on will all suffer.
<P>
As a Welsh speaker, I have seen the significant benefits of European funding but also the threat to many excellent projects when financial support is withdrawn.
As the budget has already been frozen for 16 months it is unlikely that any schemes under the Culture 2000 programme will come into being until 2001.
It is crucial therefore that the Commission uses its preparatory measures to ensure that current projects do not now suffer.
Languages are more than mere words.
They are the vehicles by which the cultures of Europe are expressed and celebrated also.
<P>
Let us hope that Commissioner Reding' s words become reality and that every language is respected and promoted regardless of the numbers who speak it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Ortuondo Larrea">
Mr President, last Tuesday we received Mr Pastrana, the President of Colombia, in this Hemicycle, and all welcomed his proposed peace plan.
<P>
In Europe we also have on-going political conflicts which result from cultural differences.
Two of them have also taken a violent form: Northern Ireland and the Basque Country.
<P>
I wish to state here my support not only for Colombia and other countries but also for the current peace processes in these two regions, which are part of Europe.
<P>
I call on the Council, the Commission and this Parliament to ensure that the mechanisms of the Culture 2000 programme, as well as the other programmes available, are also used to support these peace initiatives.
<P>
We should opt for events such as the European Culture Capital and the Month of Culture taking place in Northern Ireland or the Basque Country, since this new political framework for Europe may offer valid solutions to these two conflicts.
<P>
In these areas we need to promote the values of tolerance and respect for cultural diversity and the freedom of peoples to decide their future and promote co-existence, solidarity and a sense of justice and peace.
<P>
This is what we should opt for.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Reding">
Mr President, firstly, I would like to warmly congratulate your rapporteur on his excellent work, and the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, Media and Sport for the support it has given to the rapporteur.
I would like to tell you how much the Commission appreciates the fact that the rapporteur for the "Culture 2000" programme is one of today' s major poets.
I would like to tell you, although this is perhaps only anecdotal, that one of Mr Graça Moura' s books is to be translated into Swedish this year thanks to the Ariane programme.
That just shows that European culture does travel!
<P>
<P>
Your rapporteur has submitted a very constructive report, based on an in-depth analysis of the needs of cultural cooperation.
The report clearly shows, if it were still necessary, Parliament' s commitment to this programme and to the cultures of Europe.
<P>
The "Culture 2000" programme is the first framework-programme for culture.
It will enable us to develop a common cultural area designed to encourage creativity, cooperation and exchanges, one which will safeguard the heritage and history of the European peoples, generate a greater understanding of them, and which will encourage cultures to flourish.
You have stressed, both in your speeches and even, previously, during our brief encounters in the corridors of Parliament, the positive aspects and the things which can be improved in the day-to-day running of this programme.
I have taken careful note of the problems relating to the breakdown of funds, the implementation of specific programmes and the treatment of languages.
I would like to thank you above all, though, for the speed with which you have worked.
This is in the interests of our citizens because, as you know, the conciliation procedure between Parliament and the Council must begin quickly so that our citizens will be able to feel the benefits of our "Culture 2000" programme in the year 2000.
<P>
I am aware of Parliament' s expectations and I want to say quite clearly that I share them.
This is why the Commission can accept most of the amendments introduced by Parliament.
These are amendments 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12 and 14.
I am not now going to repeat the content of these amendments, as you know them better than I do.
I would just like to say that, in principle, the Commission accepts amendment 4 on commitology, on condition that there is a simple cross-reference in the text to the management procedure laid down by the decision of the Council on 28 June 1999, which sets out the conditions for exercising the competences for implementation granted to the Commission.
I would also like to make an observation on amendment 12: The Commission accepts this amendment although we would like to maintain a certain degree of flexibility in order to be able, in the conciliation phase, to bring the positions of the Council and Parliament more into line on this specific point.
<P>
I propose to partially accept amendments 7, 11 and 13.
Amendment 7, on integrated action within the transnational cultural cooperation agreements, consists of two parts. The first concerns the role of the committee and, more specifically, the obligation of the managers of projects that we have financed, to submit a report of the action it has undertaken directly to the committee, because supervision is the task of the Commission, which must also take responsibility for the management of the programme.
Secondly, there is the part that envisages specifying "heritage specialists" . The Commission cannot accept the use of this very general term, which would make the list of the programme' s potential beneficiaries much longer, with practical consequences that are impossible to foresee.
This does not mean, of course, that we do not accept the preservation of our heritage, quite the opposite. This has been well provided for in the Parliament amendments which we have accepted.
<P>
I have just one observation regarding that part of amendment 7 which the Commission has accepted, and this concerns terminology.
We should actually use the terms "Member or Associate States" . This is quite a small correction.
<P>
We can accept amendment 11 relating to the role of information by means of cultural contact points on condition that their regional activities, which can be conducted as a complement to their national role, are done so on the basis of the measures in force in the various Member States and that they do not involve any increase in the Community' s overall financial contribution.
The Commission will obviously discuss with the Member States the breakdown of this aid between the national and regional levels.
<P>
The Commission accepts amendment 13 which proposes criteria relating to the distribution of the budget among the main cultural fields, whilst raising from 9% to 11% the percentage in favour of activities in the books and reading sector whose annual subsidy would decrease slightly in relation to the Ariane project.
This will certainly please your rapporteur.
<P>
I have listened carefully to all your demands for the budget.
I agree with you wholeheartedly, but we cannot ignore the Realpolitik and, as you well know, the budgetary authorities do not always share our views.
I am therefore forced to maintain my original position on amendment 3 and cannot accept the proposal seeking to raise the budget from EUR 167 million to EUR 250 million.
The three institutions are in fact committed to respecting the budgetary programme and only the budgetary authorities can implement a modification.
Of course, if such a modification were to be implemented, the Commission would be delighted, but given the current state of affairs, I feel compelled to refuse this amendment.
<P>
Rapporteur, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted that we are able to vote for "Culture 2000" today.
This will be a new starting point for our citizens who expect us, in addition to taking economic action, to make the people, the culture, the roots and the diversity that contribute to the richness of Europe our central concern.
<P>
It is from this perspective, and in the hope that we will be able to make rapid progress in the direction our citizens wish, that I ask you to vote for this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Reding.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Youth programme
<SPEAKER ID=181 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0038/1999), on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council decision establishing the Youth Community action programme [13175/1/1999 - C5-0022/1999 - 1998/0197(COD)] (rapporteur: Mrs Gröner).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gröner">
Mr President, Commissioner, on 28 August 1998, the Commission submitted a proposal for an order by the European Parliament and the Council to introduce the Community action programme, "Youth" for the period 2000-2004.
The programme was passed on to the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport as the Committee in overall charge.
The existing youth programmes, "Youth for Europe III" and "European Voluntary Service" were combined in the Commission' s proposal and their objectives given more concentrated form.
Our Committee has worked very quickly and efficiently and, on 28 October 1998, it unanimously adopted the de Coene report with 61 amendments.
The plenary sitting accepted this report on a first reading on 5 November.
<P>
We wanted to give equal status to the European Voluntary Service and "Youth for Europe" .
The proposed amendments were to bring the programme closer to young people and so to the European Union.
Our emphases were, and are, on increasing the budget resources for the programme - the Commission had proposed EUR 600 million and ourselves EUR 800 million - in order to double the number of young people who are being targeted.
Through our amendments, we wanted to help simplify the structures, improve communication with the target group, make the implementation procedures transparent, increase the participation of disadvantaged groups, spread information about the programme more broadly in order to improve access to it and, finally, make the age limits for participants more flexible in order, through the commitology, to find horizontal solutions.
<P>
The proposed programme was then blocked in the Council until, under the German Presidency, it resulted in a Common Position' s being adopted on 28 June, based on a proposed five-year programme involving EUR 350 million.
That corresponds to an expenditure of less than EUR 0.20 per citizen per year for the youth exchange programme and is in the region of a per mill of the overall budget.
I cannot imagine a European family without young people, nor any programme which neglects significant sections of the young population.
The European Parliament therefore welcomes the fact that the Common Position in the form of a number of amendments is being passed to ourselves.
We have been able, through the programme, to implement respect for human rights and also to combat racism and xenophobia.
We have created a situation in which attention has been given to removing discrimination in such a way as to promote equality of opportunity between girls and boys and, in implementing these measures in cooperation with the Commission, the approach is user-friendly and youth oriented.
We have succeeded in guaranteeing that the European Voluntary Service does not take the place of any potential or existing paid employment.
<P>
If now, with the unanimous support of Committee 13, I am bringing in further amendments, these relate first and foremost again to funding, duration and prevailing upon Member States to remove obstacles to gaining access to the programme.
As the very first priority, social protection and access to medical care for young people must be ensured.
Regulations could be laid down in this area, as they have been for student exchanges.
It is also a question of introducing a structure for gathering information about young people and for setting up an Internet website for "Youth in Europe" and "Youth for Europe" in order, on an interactive basis, to reach new strata of young Europeans.
<P>
In order to be able to address young citizens directly, the importance of this programme, which is to commence at the beginning of next year, must be clear to everyone involved in the process.
The "Socrates" and "Leonardo" programmes have shown that a seven-year programme can be more effective than a programme which runs for just a few years.
I therefore recommend that a period of seven years be proposed here and that the financial framework for implementing this programme be set at EUR 980 million.
I propose a mid-term review for the middle of the seven-year period, together with an evaluation and reassessment of the youth programme.
A prerequisite for the success of the programme is a method of disseminating information which is not only directed at the initiated.
We must succeed in getting young people enthusiastic about Europe and helping, for example, to foster in them an appetite for Europe and to mitigate their social or financial problems or the effects of living on the periphery of things.
Age limits ought not to be rigidly adhered.
The potency and the wealth of Europe lie in its diversity.
<P>
I again appeal to the Member States to make commitments regarding social protection and medical care.
We respect the principle of subsidiarity but, in this area, the responsibility of the Member States must also have an effect.
It is now a matter of ensuring that deeds follow the fine words spoken at summits.
Informal contacts with the Presidency of the Council and with the Commission provide hope of agreement here, for young people and their associations expect not bureaucratic but pragmatic action from the European institutions, as well as cooperation between the latter.
As an elected Parliament, we bear a responsibility.
<P>
As rapporteur, I shall do everything humanly possible to find a sustainable compromise, and I urge the Council to approach us, above all when the budget comes round.
Europe' s future begins with the youth of today.
That must be the message on 1 January when, hopefully, the new programme can come into effect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Zissener">
Mr President, first of all I should like to thank the rapporteur for her work.
As a reminder, I should like again quite briefly to sketch out the new action programme in the youth field for the period 2000 to 2007.
The action programme sets out to contribute to the realisation of a European sphere of education which promotes lifelong learning and facilitates the unrestricted exercise of citizens' rights.
By means of this action programme, the various programmes in the youth field which there have been so far ought to be brought together in concentrated form, as the rapporteur has just said.
<P>
Although the new action programme is to take the various programmes there have been so far and bring them together in concentrated form, no single programme is to be preferred.
Parliament has already approached the Commission to see to it that the relationship of the one programme to another is well-balanced, thereby guaranteeing a better distribution of financial resources.
In this way, the new action programme will, in some ways, be easier to take an overview of and also, therefore, more citizen-friendly than the numerous youth programmes that are all too scattered.
<P>
A further advantage for citizens is the considerable decentralisation of the youth programme which therefore also enables young people to take part in the programmes in their home areas.
I think this is very important because it also provides an opportunity for contact with Europe for young people in whom an interest in this area has not been inculcated at home.
The earlier young people get together with people of other nationalities in Europe, the sooner they will take an active part in the integration of Europe.
<P>
The youth action programme also promotes the integration of Europe in a further sense by including the applicant countries in the East, Cyprus, Malta and Turkey.
In this way, young people have the opportunity to become aware of the cultural diversity, not only of those States which are already members of the European Community, but also of those which are still on the borders of this Community but large groups of whose populations already live in various Member States.
This state of affairs in turn has a positive effect upon the struggle for the respect of human rights and against racism, exaggerated nationalism and anti-Semitism.
In this way, young people actively contribute to the construction and integration of Europe.
<P>
By contributing to programmes with participants from various Member States, young people discover the real Europe in its social and cultural diversity and become alert to new surroundings, something which greatly increases the incentive to learn a foreign language.
For a programme of seven years' duration, the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport requires an overall financial package of EUR 980 million.
However, the Council is only prepared to approve exactly half of the amount we requested.
I believe that I do not have to repeat yet again here that this sum is in fact spread over seven years, meaning an annual amount of EUR 140 million.
As Mrs Gröner has already quite rightly said, this money is not being invested just anywhere but in the future of Europe, a future which lies with the youth of Europe.
<P>
The education of European youth is not an area in which money-saving measures are to be taken.
It is therefore important that Parliament should agree to the programme with a large majority so that we can enter into negotiations with the Council with definite backing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="Taylor">
Mr President, the Youth programme has been one of the most successful programmes in getting people from different nationalities to work together and learn from each other.
If I can take Scotland, which I represent, as an example, there have been hundreds of Youth programmes benefiting thousands of Scots.
For example, in Fort William in the Highlands of Scotland, a Youth group interested in outdoor projects developed a cross-country ski programme with Slovakian counterparts.
In Dundee an exchange of views and experiences has developed with a Spanish project concerning the current problems being experienced by young people.
In West Lothian a project has been developed on street work with a partnership from Munich.
In fact only yesterday a group from the Lothians were here listening to a debate in this Chamber.
<P>
To end my list of examples: a link between Larkhall in Lanarkshire and a French programme where young people have contributed to the construction of a cycle path in the south of Scotland.
From youth work to cross-country skiing, from cycle paths to street work, the issues are as diverse as the participants.
And if this is just a small number of examples of how the Youth programme has worked in Scotland, just think what an impact the Youth programme has had across the EU and the potential of what it can achieve in the future.
<P>
However, funding for the Youth programme is not just critical, it is paramount.
Young people like myself are the Europeans of the present and the future.
We are the first generation to relate to a European identity as well as our own national ones.
If these very institutions which we are members of are to have relevance today as well as tomorrow, funding of the Youth programme is essential.
I encourage Members to go back to their constituencies and to speak to the organisers, participants and beneficiaries of this work, the work which brings the basic ideas of the European ideal to local communities: the ideal of people from different nationalities working together for the benefit of the common good.
<P>
Please support this report and support the work of young people in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Sanders-ten Holte">
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate Mrs Gröner on her excellent and also particularly succinct work.
I see cross-border youth exchange programmes as a good opportunity for young people to get to know each other' s cultures, at the same time making a contribution to the edifice of Europe.
They enable young people to gain greater awareness of the differences in their surroundings and make it possible for mutual trust to grow, which lessens fear of anything that is unfamiliar.
This increases people' s tolerance and their willingness to cooperate and show solidarity.
In short, democracy is strengthened and that is what Europe needs.
Money is needed for this, on a large scale even, in view of the importance of the programme.
But the liberal group feels nonetheless that this programme too must stay within the financial framework.
<P>
Secondly, I would just like to emphasise here how important it is to have good communication with young people.
The communication medium par excellence is, of course, the Internet.
That is why an Internet site "Youth for Europe" is an absolute must.
Young people will then be able to read about all kinds of European and national activities in the field of education, training, sport, media, leisure, and so on and so forth.
The possibilities are there, use them.
In this way young people will become well informed by doing something which is very appealing to them, that is surfing the digital highway.
I expect it to be a website that is challenging, innovative and highly accessible.
<P>
On a final note, the programme must be set up soon.
Mrs Gröner was right not to submit too many amendments so as to enable agreement with the Council to be reached quickly.
Consequently, the vast majority of the liberal group intends to support her in all aspects of her work, in which it has every confidence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Angelilli">
Mr President, the strengthening of the European Union cannot be achieved solely through the euro.
Our young people must feel integrated, not separated by borders, and have a more open, free mentality.
In short, they must gain that ability to adapt and that speed in cultural exchange, training and professional experience which are increasingly necessary elements in the society of the next millennium.
<P>
"Youth" is a programme which will be able to achieve these aims. Above all, it allows the least well-off and most disadvantaged young people to have experiences of other countries which could prove decisive when they enter the job market.
It is therefore a priority to ensure, as highlighted by the rapporteur, a greater diffusion of the programme and to make sure that, in future, Community actions like this one will not remain a privilege for a minority because of a lack of information.
<P>
I fully agree with criticisms that the Council has not been willing to increase the budget, which is necessary for equal opportunities of access to the programme.
Moreover, it is incredible that full protection of the participants cannot be ensured as far as social protection and medical assistance is concerned.
To conclude, I would like to emphasise that in a society which is leaning towards telematics networks and the Internet, and which increasingly invests in their use, for communication, information and services, it is almost ridiculous that the Council has not accepted the amendments on the creation of an Internet site dedicated entirely to young people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 NAME="Scallon">
Mr President, I should like to thank Mrs Gröner for her excellent report.
<P>
As regards an analysis of the factors which have promoted or hampered the social integration of young people, I believe it is essential to include an analysis of the role of the family or lack of family in the young person' s development.
In the Council of Europe report on Coherent and Integrated Family Policies it states: "Families play a primary role in socialisation because they communicate the values, standards, customs and behaviour of the social group to which their children belong.
Presumably a lack of family structure will also affect the child' s socialisation."
<P>
Whether a child is raised within or without a family, both circumstances will have a profound effect upon that child' s social development.
Therefore reference to the role of the family should be, I believe, included in the European Community Youth Programme, which hopes to analyse the factors which have promoted or hampered the social integration of young people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 NAME="Cashman">
Mr President, I should like to remind this House that in Agenda 2000 we give a high priority to youth education and training but this priority is not reflected within the budget allocation to the Youth Action Programme.
Yet this programme is about investing in our future, investing in young people who will become, as we have heard today, the Europeans of tomorrow.
Through these action programmes we will change young lives, offering hope and options where before there were none.
<P>
In my region, the West Midlands of England, thousands of young people have benefited. I want more to benefit, not fewer.
<P>
Finally, it is rather apt, following Mrs Scallon, that I say this: let us remind ourselves in this House that these young people will become the generation that finally rid our continent of racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia and the other discriminations which shame us all!
<P>
It is our duty to support this report and to support the youth programmes.
And I would point out to Mrs Scallon that the term "Family" has been used politically to exclude more people than it has ever been used to include.
I congratulate the rapporteur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Kauppi">
Mr President, Commission Representative, Mrs Angelilli commented that we are just speaking of the euro, although there are many other important issues here.
I would like to say to her that the birth of the euro is a very important thing for us young people too.
<P>
The Community' s Youth Action programme is one of the most important programmes targeted at the citizens of the European Union.
It has been a success both in the operational sense and with regard to its publicity value.
Although Parliament also decides the framework and main policies of the programme, it is important to remember that the successful implementation of programmes can only be carried out at national level.
In the implementation of the Youth programme the Member States must allow for sufficient leeway and provide the necessary support.
<P>
The Youth programme, despite its success, is not ready or complete.
The programme' s application procedure has to be further clarified and be made more user-friendly, which is what has already been said here.
The problems of youth programmes often originate in the fact that there is an attempt to reach as large a target group as possible with different sector programmes.
In this way we try to make it possible for people who are as young as possible to take advantage of the programmes.
Experience, however, has shown that a target group that is too heterogeneous increases the amount of administrative work required to assess applications and might even adversely affect the chances of certain special groups to use the programmes.
<P>
Youth programme evaluation must clearly be improved.
We have to make more use of the ideas of national players in the implementation of programmes.
Programme evaluation should also pay attention to the programme' s cost-effectiveness.
For example, the group meeting sector programme is considerably cheaper than the European voluntary service and, furthermore, a greater number of young people derive benefit from the group meeting.
<P>
Sport has been included as an added dimension to the Youth programme.
This is an important step forward.
Before the programme is implemented, we must, however, be clear about what sort of sports the Youth programme funds may be spent on.
Funds must be targeted mainly at emphasising the educational dimension of sport.
Programme resources can easily be used up in mere sporting events unless restrictions are imposed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fatuzzo">
Mr President, Commissioner, I have been elected to the European Parliament as leader of the Italian Pensioners' Party.
An hour ago, someone in my Group said: "Fatuzzo, you must have bumped your head - you are from the Pensioners' Party and are speaking about the youth programme!" .
Yes, two days ago I did indeed have a slight accident, but that is not why I am talking about the youth programme.
I am speaking about it because I want people to know that in Italy, the Pensioners' Party and the pensioners - and I think all Europe' s elderly people too - agree with this youth programme, and are in favour of young people meeting each other, learning languages, going from Ireland to Italy, to Portugal, to Finland. This programme is extremely important because it brings Europe to young people.
However, I also tried replacing the word "young" with "elderly" in the programme we are discussing today and I saw a wonderful project appearing, which would be worthwhile too, because it is true, as Mr Taylor said, that this is the first generation who have a European identity and, as Mrs Gröner said, that the future of Europe starts with the young.
But the elderly who constructed Europe - do we think about them sometimes?
Well, I am taking the adoption of this youth programme as a starting point to say: "Build, let us build together a programme for cultural exchange among the elderly too!" .
Maybe we will not spend a billion in seven years, given the age of the elderly, but seven billion in one year.
It is not very much, but it certainly is positive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gröner">
Mr President, a short comment. I should like to point out that the English text has been changed.
In amendment 12, a portion of the proposal withdrawn by Mrs Scallon has found its way back into the German version.
Spiritual undertakings ought to be included in the investigation of activities.
This runs the risk of our suddenly also having sects for young people included in the programme.
This part of the amendment had been withdrawn at the Committee stage.
I would ask you to check the language versions for which the English text provides the basis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Reding">
Mr President, I should like wholeheartedly to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Gröner, on her efforts and on the energy with which she has moved this project forward.
I should also like to thank the Members of the Committee, for it is them we have to thank for the fact that we can today vote on a project which will in fact be available to young people very quickly.
Speed was required, and speed was what we got.
Please accept my sincere thanks on behalf of the Commission.
<P>
I must also highlight the very positive attitude of the Finnish Presidency, which has also done its best to ensure that work progresses, and I think that the cooperation established between the two institutions in order to take the negotiation forwards as quickly as possible is quite exemplary.
<P>
As the point has been raised, I would like to inform you, on the subject of information on the "Youth" programmes, that the Eurodesk network, a combination of Internet sites and youth advisory services, is available in all the countries of the Union and in all its languages.
This is a first step towards achieving what Parliament is requesting and I shall say, for the sake of the anecdote, that it is a programme that was developed on the basis of a Scottish project.
This shows that the things that work well in the regions are taken up by the Commission.
<P>
I would also like to tell you that the Commission is receptive to the conclusions of the report that your Parliament has produced.
I am therefore able to accept almost all of the amendments.
The 13 amendments tabled by Mrs Gröner will be totally or partially accepted at second reading.
<P>
We rejected certain parts of amendments for what are basically institutional reasons.
This is the case, for example, regarding the interinstitutional declaration on the significance of the sums deemed necessary, amendment 9 part 3.
One aspect of the amendment may also concern implementation. I am thinking here of amendment 12, part 2.
<P>
Concerning finances, I have listened very closely to what you have said and I agree with you.
As you know, in the initial proposal, and in accordance with the priorities established in Agenda 2000, the Commission proposes a financial package of EUR 600 million over a period of five years.
Given that I agree with your amendment to extend the period from five to seven years, we will of course have to review the sum provided by the budget accordingly.
<P>
I think, like your rapporteur, that in order to maintain consistency between the programmes on education, training and youth, we must extend the length of the period from five to seven years.
I have indeed just confirmed this.
I also consider it essential to find a solution to the obstacles that remain in the area of youth mobility, whilst of course respecting each State' s own competences.
This is why we are able to accept amendments 2, 3 and 6.
Besides, some amendments provide useful clarification for the text of the Council' s common proposal and we feel able to accept these too.
These are amendments 1, 4, 5, 9 part 2, 10, 11, 12 part 1, as well as amendment 13, tabled by Mrs Gröner and Mrs Scallon.

<P>
It goes without saying that article 7 concerning the programming committee will have to take into account the new decision on commitology.
We are thus able to accept, in principle, amendments 7 and 8, as long as the appropriate wording can be found of course.
<P>
In order to follow up this report, I am intending to propose to the Commission that we adopt a modified proposal on the basis of the amendments that we can accept.
We will present this modified proposal to the Commission before the Council meeting due to take place on 23 November in order to assist the Ministers for Youth in reaching a decision.
<P>
As you well know, ladies and gentlemen, we still have a small battle to fight, but I remain confident in the objectives and stakes of the "Youth" programmes, and I have no doubts that these objectives will be accepted just as completely by the Council and by the Member States.
<P>
I must tell you how delighted I have been to note the enthusiasm that has been expressed here, the enthusiasm with which young and not so young Members have committed themselves to ensuring that the youth of our continent may, in future - even more so than in the past, because everyone was also in agreement in pointing out that the "Youth" programme has already given a great deal to millions of young people - build on what has already been well done.
<P>
Young people are our present.
Together with us they are building the future.
They are building their future.
With this programme we will be giving them a helping hand. I thank you, on behalf of the young people of Europe, for having contributed towards giving them this helping hand.
<P>
(Applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
European Audiovisual Observatory
<SPEAKER ID=194 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A5-0024/1999) by Mr Gargani, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on the proposal for a Council decision concerning Community participation in the European Audiovisual Observatory (COM(1999) 111 - C5-0019/1999 - 1999/0066(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Gargani">
Mr President, I would start by saying that in a letter of 6 July 1999 the Council consulted Parliament pursuant to Article 157, on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning Community participation in the European Audiovisual Observatory.
At the sitting of 23 July, the President of Parliament proposed that the Committee, chaired by myself, should examine the subject, and in its meeting of 27 July, the Committee on Culture and Youth appointed me rapporteur.
During the meetings of 22 September and 11 and 12 October, the Committee considered the proposal and the draft report, which it adopted unanimously.
<P>
The European Audiovisual Observatory, Mr President, is a very important public service body, which aims to gather and disseminate information on the audiovisual industry: cinema, television, video etc.
It was set up under the aegis of Audiovisual Eureka in October 1989 and operates within the framework of a partial agreement which was obtained in the Council of Europe. As a whole, its members include at least 34 European States and the Commission of the European Union.
With regard to its network of partners, correspondents and various organisms, its mission cannot be confused - this is an important and fundamental fact, which the Committee discussed at length - with Eurostat' s mission and its tasks in this sector.
They are two different things. While the Community body aims for a harmonised, systematic collection of general statistics from various States, with the public and administrations as its main clients, who therefore provide it with work, the observatory has more specific and focused objectives, according to the market and the statistical requirements of firms and professionals.
Moreover, its sphere of competence is broader: it extends into the legal sector, to specialist information, and its mandate, which covers the 34 States - and I stress this once again - is broader than that of Eurostat.
The two institutions must not be too far opposed, or rather, they must not and cannot be opposed as they are in regular contact, have also established their modus operandi and have come to an agreement on the way their activities are to be carried out.
On the other hand, the Court of Justice' s ruling of 12 May 1998 concerning the legal bases called for a better defined framework with respect to the past because of the previous confusion.
<P>
The new line concerns the preparatory measures of the audiovisual sector. It does not refer to former Article 130(3) regarding industrial development and the decisions on the basis of which a Eureka programme was founded for the audiovisual sector.
A category seeking to create an infrastructure of statistical information has been envisaged. This should allow payment of the Community' s contribution to the budget of the European Observatory of Strasbourg for 1999, that is for the current year.
The delay has certainly hindered and is still hindering the functioning of the institution. And I think - and moreover, this is the opinion of the entire Committee - that its functioning is important and fundamental for the European Commission and for the 34 Member States which are members and which continue to be active members in the observatory.
On the other hand, I believe we will have the chance to cooperate on these issues with the excellent Commissioner, Mrs Reding, and I take this opportunity to greet her and thank her for her willingness on the matter.
<P>
Mr President, having the honour to chair the Committee on Culture, naturally I also represent its position.
As I said at the beginning, the final vote was unanimous and of the three amendments, two were adopted unanimously and one was adopted by a majority.
On a personal note, however, I would like to say that I did not agree with the third amendment, in the sense that the decision we are about to adopt and that the Commission has already brought forward should have expired in the original text on the last day of the last month of the fifth year, while the Commission has shortened the time period to three years.
I repeat that, personally, I have some doubts because I think that we are making a distinction between Eurostat and the observatory which will maybe not lead to cooperation, although that has been decided on recently.
On the other hand, the justified concern which was worrying Mr Perry - he is a signatory of the amendment - that over the next few years Parliament would have to control the expenditure and budget of the observatory, will still be valid when we change the five year period, that is when we give the observatory the chance to plan the valuable functions that it has in a broader and more organised way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Echerer">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am new to this Parliament. Allow me to make a comment: debates about cultural policy - a handful of people are present who are, however, by and large like-minded.
I believe we have an almighty struggle ahead of us.
And because there are so few of us, we must also stick together here.
<P>
Turning now to the Observatory.
As rapporteur for the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy that was asked for an opinion, I naturally speak in favour of the Community' s participating in the European Audiovisual Observatory. I also concur with the Commission' s proposal that the period of this involvement should be set at five years.
As already mentioned, the Observatory counts 34 European countries as members and therefore almost anticipates the forthcoming enlargement of the EU as well.
It does not just confine itself to market research and to gathering statistics and does not therefore only juggle with figures.
Instead, it offers qualitative analyses and goes so far as to provide legal information. It is, above all, especially important to have information about the resources available to particular branches of industry.
<P>
Information of this kind is of course important when overseeing, evaluating and formulating Community programmes in the audiovisual sector, and it is of decisive importance to industry itself and especially to small and medium-sized businesses.
This is where my only criticism comes in.
According to my researches, it is, in many Member States, precisely the small and medium-sized businesses which know anything from not enough to nothing at all about the Observatory. And yet it is they which would find using this service of great importance.
Respective contacts were challenged and questioned about this matter at various levels, and I am pleased that, at my suggestion, the Commission has made a really good proposal, namely to include a clearly visible link on its home page.
I hope that this proposal is also soon translated into action.
<P>
In view of the forthcoming negotiations with the World Trade Organisation, during which the audiovisual sector will also be discussed, it is becoming ever clearer how important it is for reliable information about markets in Europe to be available not only to political decision-makers such as the Community bodies, the governments of the Member States and the social and economic decision-makers of the Member States and regions, but also to researchers, universities and the media.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 NAME="Perry">
Mr President, I am sure I speak for more or less everybody in the Chamber this afternoon when I say that we believe culture does not get enough money.
The question is what do the Members who are not here think?
<P>
What they would all agree is that we must make sure that we get value for the limited amount of money that we have to spend on culture.
I really need to be convinced that we are getting value for money out of the audiovisual observatory.
That is why I tabled, and supported, Amendment No 3 that was put forward by the Committee on Culture, restricting our commitment to three years.
It could be extended, but our commitment is for three years.
<P>
My reasoning is threefold: what substantive evidence do we have that the audiovisual observatory is doing the job that we want?
Let me quote Mrs Dührkop Dührkop in her report on this.
She said that Parliament' s own audiovisual services had a negative perception of the quality and usefulness of the paid services provided by the observatory.
We are running a EUR 6 billion deficit with the United States.
Clearly we are getting something wrong and we need to get that put right.
<P>
Secondly, I would say that we are financing statistical services from too many angles.
The observatory itself: EUR 215,000; Eurostat: EUR 250,000; Member States' statistical services: EUR 350,000.
That is almost EUR 1 million we are spending on statistics alone.
The observatory is used to perform those tasks that Eurostat cannot.
We should be asking Eurostat and the Commission if they could sort it out, to give us the information we want so that we can try and get better value for this money.
If I can say that in under two minutes, it is not unreasonable to expect the Commission and Eurostat to get their act together in three years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Iivari">
Mr President, Commissioner, audiovisual production has an important role in preserving and developing the cultures of European countries and Europe' s cultural diversity.
The importance of national cultures is being emphasised with globalisation.
The audiovisual sector is one of the most global of cultural sectors.
While audiovisual production is big business, the cultural dimension also plays a major part in it.
<P>
Neither must we forget the sector' s impact on employment.
The total number of jobs in the cultural sector in Europe is more then three million.
A considerable number of these are in the audiovisual sector.
Although the sector may be run by large consortiums, we have to remember that its new jobs are created primarily for SMEs.
The work of the Audiovisual Observatory is important for these SMEs.
We must safeguard the development of SMEs in the audiovisual sector.
They mean greater competitiveness and more diversified production for Europe' s audiovisual sector.
<P>
There are actually 34 European states, plus the European Commission, that are members of the observatory.
In other words, states that are only now applying for membership of the Union are also included in the collaboration within its framework.
The Audiovisual Observatory will improve the operating prerequisites of European companies in this rapidly developing area.
The collation and dissemination of information particularly helps SMEs to cooperate and, hence, develop.
For that reason, it is important that the operating prerequisites of the observatory are safeguarded.
<P>
It is unfortunate that, as a result of a vote taken by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, it is being proposed that financing for the observatory should be safeguarded for just three years, going against the position of the rapporteur, the chairman of the committee, Mr Gargani, among others.
I am very happy that Mr Gargani made his opinion clearly known here in this plenary session.
It is true that Parliament must be careful with taxpayers' money.
At the same time, however, it must be remembered that savings should not be made in the wrong areas.
It is better to support SMEs through services and not, for example, through business aid that distorts competition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Andreasen">
Mr Chairman, we are often accused here in Parliament, and sometimes justifiably so, of spending taxpayers' money too freely.
In discussing this motion, we can demonstrate that we also have some aptitude for effecting savings and making matters more efficient.
The European Audiovisual Observatory prepares statistics for businesses in the audiovisual industry, work which Eurostat and the various national offices for statistics also attend to, so that there is a certain degree of overlap between these organisations' work and that of the Observatory.
This cannot be rational or expedient, and we should like it to be investigated whether closer cooperation between Eurostat and the various national offices might, in the long term, render the Observatory' s work superfluous.
Even if the Community' s contribution only constitutes 12% of the Observatory' s budget, it is money all the same, and we believe that there is money to be saved.
But, when the main content of this motion is "only" about reducing the period of support from 5 to 3 years, then there is also time to investigate whether Eurostat and the national offices of statistics can cover the need we have for statistics and statistical information.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell' Alba">
Mr Gargani, the Italian Radicals would have liked to have amended, intervened in and had the chance to speak about this as well as all the other reports.
They cannot do this because, as Emma Bonino reiterated this morning, we are not allowed to carry out that parliamentary activity which is part of the very mandate of a European Member of Parliament.
Therefore, Mr President, we have not tabled, or rather we have not been able to table amendments, or participate in the vote on the report.
We are sorry about this, because it is an important subject and besides, in Italy, we have had a lot of experience with the European Audiovisual Observatory.
It was precisely us radicals who were perhaps the first to independent create an audiovisual monitoring centre that monitors the frequency of appearances, for example political appearances, in various television programmes, news programmes and media.
It would be important, and this was the amendment we would have liked to have tabled, for there to be, for example, among the Observatory' s duties, with a view to European integration, which must increasingly become political integration, integration of societies and political behaviour and integration of information at European level, monitoring of the various television channels across Europe for the appearance of parliamentary political activity of national political groups and European politics, which could thus take the observatory as a reference point.
President Gargani, this is an idea I am putting to you as, I repeat, I am unable to set it down in a parliamentary act, which we are not allowed to do as things stand.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Ridruejo">
Mr President, Commissioner, in the first place, I would like to offer some background information which seems to me to be useful, although some of it has already been mentioned.
The European Audiovisual Observatory, as has been said, was set up in 1992, under the initial auspices of the Audiovisual Eureka programme.
At that time it was laid down - and I quote - that "the aim of the Observatory will be to improve the transfer of information within the audiovisual industry and promote a clearer vision of the market, as well as greater transparency.
Specifically the task of the Observatory will consist of collecting and processing information and statistics relating to the audiovisual sector" .
Furthermore, in 1997, the European Council commented on the Observatory by saying: "Its services must be directed principally towards the needs of the professionals in the industry" .
<P>
Therefore, on this basis, Commissioner and Mr President, I wish to ask both the Commission and the Observatory itself to remain faithful to this founding principle.
Although it is not the case with the Observatory, there currently exists a tendency towards the easy option.
Let me explain: it is a reality that many structures and organisations end up tied to their public funding body, and this situation tends to take them away from their objective, which in this case is public service and assistance for professionals in the audiovisual sector.
Many people have not heard of the Observatory.
<P>
For this reason, I believe it to be appropriate, on the one hand, that the Observatory makes a greater effort to attract the interest of professionals, substantially reducing their increasing dependency on the request for their services on the part of the Commission.
In that way their resources would be increased through the provision of services to professionals and greater autonomy would be achieved.
This requires objectives and efforts.
<P>
On the other hand, it would be suitable for the Commission to obtain, from external specialists, a periodic review of the efficiency and acceptance of the Observatory' s services amongst professionals, for example, by means of surveys.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Junker">
Mr President, whoever would like to know what use the Audiovisual Observatory is, needs only to cast a glance at the contents page of any issue of the legal journal, IRIS, for example the issue for September 1999. Here, there is a report about a resolution to enact a Directive from the European Commission requiring Member States to ensure that no telecommunications company of relevance to the market should be able to operate its cable television network through the same legal entity.
Another report is about the plan for a comprehensive French draft law concerning the information society which is to govern, among other things, questions about the free use of codings, about confidentiality in data transfers, about copyright protection and about necessary regulatory authorities. A third report concerns the latest judgements of the European Court of Human Rights through which 13 complaints against Turkey were heard and in eleven of which the Court agreed with the appellants and recognised violations of the law concerning free expression.
All this amounts to far more than just collating statistical material, and I think it makes it clear why this institution is important.
<P>
This impressively casts some light upon the objectives with which the founding of the Observatory was originally justified, namely those of surveying the market and promoting transparency there, as well as collecting and processing information and statistics concerning the audiovisual sector.
Industry and related areas, and also the European Commission, Member States and the European Parliament, have since reaped the benefits of the Observatory' s services in many different ways.
It has not, however, had any binding legal basis, and this is now to be created on the basis of Article 130a, paragraph 3 of the EC Treaty and with reference to the fact that, as a provider of information, it is mainly to contribute to strengthening the competitiveness of the audiovisual industry by improving the flow of information.
The transparency which is to be produced in this way is an indispensable prerequisite for political action on Europe' s road to the information society, even if this is not perhaps to the liking of those who want to throw open the doors to unbridled market forces.
<P>
I welcome the fact that the rapporteur has come out in favour of a five-year period of applicability. This view is shared by my Group.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Reding">
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for his excellent report.
His work was thorough and fast.
Thank you, President Gargani.
<P>
As Members of Parliament know, the observatory is a public institution with the task of collecting economic and legal information from various international sources and to upgrade it by assembling it in an organised and comprehensive way.
<P>
The observatory disseminates such information via periodical publications as has been discussed in the Chamber.
These tasks are fulfilled effectively by the observatory and the return on our participation in terms of support for the audiovisual industry and the Union is positive.
Moreover, I would like to stress that were Community participation in the observatory to be discontinued, the Commission would be obliged to collect the same information from different sources - in most cases on a commercial basis.
This would not only be time-consuming but certainly more expensive than the amounts envisaged for the yearly contributions.
<P>
I understand that consultation of the observatory publications, notably the year book and the legal newsletter, Iris, is common practice in the services of the Commission dealing with audiovisual issues.
Moreover, the observatory' s advice has been sought on several occasions and in several areas in the context of on-going contacts when specific information was needed.
I wish to mention the fields of employment, film financing schemes, international trade statistics, statistical methodologies, market trends and so forth.
<P>
For the future the Commission envisages extending the activities carried out by the observatory, notably in two specific areas: implementing a statistical information structure under Eurostat and preparing for the GATT 2000 negotiations.
The active participation of the Commission for the next five years in the observatory will allow it to optimise the complementarity of the tasks carried out by Eurostat and the observatory itself.
The aim is to create, at the end of a five-year period, a harmonised official EU set of statistics for the audiovisual sector.
I would like to stress that the activities of the observatory and Eurostat do not overlap in terms of period covered, geographical scope or output and could be usefully coordinated in order to achieve a clear view of the complex reality in the audiovisual sector.
The Commission services are best placed to carry out this task.
<P>
With your understanding, Mr President, I do not intend to go into Parliament' s amendments in detail, but I am happy to tell you that the Commission shares the concern about the need for small and medium-sized enterprises to be successful and so accepts the amendment relating to such enterprises.
<P>
Concerning the other two amendments: the Commission understands Parliament' s concerns but cannot accept the amendments as they are drafted.
Nevertheless, the Commission will do its utmost to ensure that the observatory work is widely accessible.
<P>
To conclude, I would just like to say one thing.
Within the framework of the budgetary procedure, even if we opt for a period of five years, Parliament every year has the opportunity to make amendments and to determine payments, i.e. to impose sanctions if it should prove necessary.
Parliament thus has complete control.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Turkish participation in Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes
<SPEAKER ID=205 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0023/1999), drawn up by Mr Gargani, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council decision amending the basic Decision relating to the Socrates programme to include Turkey among the beneficiary countries (8076/1/1999 - C5-0024/1999 - 1996/0130(COD)), and the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council decision amending the basic Decision relating to the third phase of the Youth for Europe programme to include Turkey among the beneficiary countries (8077/1/1999 - C5-0025/1999 - 1996/0131(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Gargani">
Mr President, the idea of including Turkey among the beneficiary countries of the Youth and SOCRATES programmes goes back to 1996.
The Commission' s proposal was made on 14 May 1996 and is in line with the objective of extending the large cultural market to Turkey too.
This happened despite the obstacles put forward, in particular, the human rights situation in Turkey and the Cyprus issue.
Despite these difficulties, and despite the fresh wave of problems we have had recently, this idea led Parliament to extend the decision to include Turkey at its sitting of 25 February and, in the last few days, the Commission has also decided the same thing.
<P>
I think that this is a very significant decision.
It is significant because, despite Turkey being a country which has had some difficulties in this area - I confess, Mr President, that in the committee we heard about this problem, this difficulty in getting the idea accepted within Europe, the Europe which is so open to culture, as the various speakers have been saying all afternoon in their speeches on the four somewhat interconnected measures. I think that this decision means we can describe Europe in its entirety, as a body of States which regards new countries with an open mentality and great dignity, and offers them wide possibilities to develop in the areas of freedom and culture.
<P>
I think that in adopting a measure of this kind, Parliament is giving a warm welcome to Turkish young people who, by renouncing their forefathers' mistakes, can now look to Europe as a place of great freedom, as a union of States, where culture, its dissemination and solidarity among young people are important, fundamental elements.
I would ask for this measure to be adopted unanimously, as it was in the Committee, and despite the delay in the 1999 programmes, for it to be implemented on time in 2000, which is now very near.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="O' Toole">
Mr President, my thanks to Mr Gargani for bringing forward this report and to Members of the previous Parliament who also put some work into ensuring that it comes before us tonight.
<P>
Of course it is not an issue without contention.
There are largely two approaches to dealing with this sort of issue.
The first is to say that we are letting people off the hook without allowing them to fulfil their obligations.
The second - and a view to which I subscribe - is that we are actually allowing the power of cultural activities to cut across people' s differences and to change people' s lives.
While there are serious issues that are not entirely resolved here, if we want to have a healthy European future and a healthy European project, we depend on such initiatives to take this forward.
<P>
These initiatives are vital to changing people' s attitudes.
If we look at change and coexistence as our goal, then we need to look no further than Northern Ireland where we have brought people together through European funds and dramatically changed the landscape of conflict.
It is this that can be achieved from this sort of initiative, and this that will help Europe, its borders and its beneficiaries to put forward an agenda of change.
<P>
I echo Mr Gargani in saying that all of the issues that have been discussed around the Chamber tonight seek to ensure that culture is seen as a priority; that it is not just, for instance, the euro or jobs and employment that will bring a successful European project together.
Cultural change will ultimately concretise the ideals and ideas that we all have in promoting our future together.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Andreasen">
Mr President, as we know, Turkey' s relations with the European Union have been the cause of many opinions being expressed lately.
It is self-evident that the EU cannot initiate real negotiations for accession to the European Union with a country which does not fulfil the Copenhagen criteria.
Respect for human rights and minorities is the basis of European cooperation, and countries which do not understand this are not welcome in the Union.
But is the EU for that reason to turn its back on Turkey in as many contexts as possible?
There are Members of this Parliament who think so.
I do not share that attitude.
If we, in the EU, have the opportunity to improve democratic conditions in Turkey, we should seize it.
We have such an opportunity now with the recommendation concerning Turkey' s participation in the Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes.
<P>
At the Conference of Presidents 14 days ago, Mr Prodi attached just such importance to the EU' s working for a situation in which Turkey respects the Copenhagen criteria and said that the EU ought to initiate a closer political dialogue with Turkey.
I view the Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes as natural links in this closer political dialogue, a dialogue which will have great importance for the development of democracy in Turkey.
In a democratic society, legislation and institutions should naturally be democratic but, in order for them to be so, the citizens of the country concerned must think and act like democrats.
That does not come automatically.
We can see this in the history of Europe.
Contact and exchange with democratic countries, especially between young people, provide the most fertile soil for democracy in countries which do not have real democratic traditions.
The Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes increase young students' opportunities for exchange and for moving between one country and another. They also help raise levels of education.
The programmes will further the process of democratisation in Turkey and help ensure that, in time, the country can become an integral part of our partnership.
<P>
Mr President, all democratic parliamentarians ought to be able to vote for this recommendation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Musumeci">
Mr President, Commissioner, the Italian delegation from Alleanza Nazionale is fully in favour of Turkey being included among the beneficiary countries of the Youth and SOCRATES programmes.
This is not just a deserved tribute to culture, but it is also an objective political assessment which springs, in particular, from the knowledge that we have a State - Turkey - as an interlocutor, which is still a long way from fully upholding human rights and the principles of freedom and democracy which the European Unions is based on.
And it is for this precise reason that we must stimulate and encourage full involvement of the young people of that country in a sound policy of exchanges, mobility and meeting the other young people of Europe.
<P>
Youth has always been the first to long for novelty, change and growth - even cultural growth - of a country.
The young are an extremely efficient means of transmitting sound values, characterised by democracy.
The European Parliament has already done well at first reading - and here I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Gargani - in saying that it will allow Turkey to take part in the exchanges envisaged by the two programmes.
Besides, to deny this chance would mean increasing the isolation of that Mediterranean State from a Europe which has to seek dialogue, especially with those, as in this case, young people, who cannot be expected to take the blame for something that is not their fault, but which is the fault of a government which we still have our reservations about.
<P>
Therefore, allowing Turkey access to the SOCRATES and Youth programmes does not confer legitimacy on a State that has not yet shown concrete evidence of maturity with regard to the rights of minorities, but it does contribute to helping young people to accelerate the slow and difficult process of achieving this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Ries">
Mr President, Commissioner, the extension of the Socrates and Youth programmes is a clear signal sent by the Union to Turkey, to those in Turkey who want Europe and who need Europe.
This programme targets young people and does so with good reason: young people are the sap which will nourish the whole tree and it is through young people that democracy and human rights may be enabled to take root in that country.
We must also ensure that the young Turkish people who join us are representative.
<P>
It is up to the Commission then - we are counting on you Mrs Reding - to be extremely vigilant in ensuring that all young Turks, regardless of sex or ethnic background, are eligible under this programme.
The substance of amendment 5, if not its wording, has been adopted by the Council. It demands absolute respect for minority rights.
<P>
It is almost impossible, or at least extremely difficult, to approach this debate without mentioning Turkey' s possible accession to the Union.
Turkey is an Associate Country and we demand more, much more than this from an Associate.
As a result of the inflexible way it has dealt with the Kurdish question in particular, but with other matters too, Turkey has sent a very negative signal to Europe.
Ankara is still a long way from meeting the Copenhagen criteria.
Through this programme, we are staking our hopes on Turkey' s young people.
It is up to the young people to act as a link between us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Reding">
Mr President, I have carefully listened to MEPs state their positions.
The Commission is convinced that Turkey' s participation in programmes directed primarily at young people, such as exchange and encounter programmes, which strengthen society, democracy and respect for human rights, will foster friendship and understanding between peoples and cultures.
<P>
At first reading, the Commission accepted the amendments tabled by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, and for which I must thank the rapporteur, intended to encourage the implementation of preparatory action.
Indeed, the Turkish structures which are to run the new generation of Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes would not be able to get their work under way without prior training or technical assistance.
It is also clear that we will not be practising any sort of elitism but will be helping those parts of society that most need help, including minorities.
<P>
Although decisions on Turkey' s eligibility under current proposals do not allow that country to actually participate immediately in the programmes, they will allow the European Union to send a positive signal to Turkish society at large and to express once again its desire to develop cooperation in different areas with Turkey.
<P>
You are quite right. If Turkey does change, it will change through its young people and because its young people have changed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Reding.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 8.10 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=0>
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I am sure that I do not need to tell you how shocked we all were at what took place last night in Armenia.
I think you have probably all heard the reports.
I am of course referring to the murder of the Prime Minister and of eight members of parliament.
By now the terrorists have been arrested and the hostages released, but of course, considering the serious nature of these events, and if you agree, I shall express our solidarity and sympathy, on your behalf, towards the people of Armenia and I shall do so by sending a letter to the President of the Republic of Armenia.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="Hughes">
Madam President, during the conclusion of my contribution in the debate on company restructuring yesterday I pointed out to the Vice-President presiding at the time that there was an anomaly in the joint resolution which we will vote on later today.
The resolution which I signed on behalf of my group on Tuesday included in the final paragraph a reference to Michelin.
The text has now been distributed and while the English and Spanish versions include that reference to Michelin it appears to have been removed from the other language versions.
<P>
One explanation I have had from the Sessional Services is that someone from the EPP Group had been in touch to say that point had been withdrawn.
Madam President, the authors of the resolution, the signatories of the joint resolution, were not consulted.
As far as I and the other signatories are concerned, that reference should remain in at the vote today.
<P>
(Applause from the left)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Pronk">
Madam President, there is a great deal of confusion surrounding this issue because an error has crept into the final signed version.
The negotiated version of the resolution did not contain any reference to Michelin.
I am quite sure of this.
There are quite a few versions, however.
So either the English version is the correct one or else the other versions are.
Whichever way, we are dealing with different versions.
I would therefore suggest that a vote be taken on this issue in Brussels after the Strasbourg part-session.
This seems to be the best way forward to me.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="Hughes">
Madam President, I do not wish to drag this out and frustrate Members waiting to get on with the vote on the budget.
The test should be very simple.
All you need do is ask for the version with the signatures of the various signatories from the different groups that combined in this joint resolution.
If the reference to Michelin is there, that is the text we should vote on today.
I would oppose a deferral until Brussels.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Madam President, I too would like to say something on the matter as I dealt with this resolution on behalf of the liberal group.
Right from the word go, it was decided to omit the word "Michelin" from the resolution because it would otherwise be impossible to reach a joint resolution.
The word "Michelin" does not appear in any of the language versions, apart from the English.
I would therefore ask you to keep the German or French versions as they are and take a vote on them.
This, in my opinion, is unacceptable behaviour in politics: if we agree on certain issues, then I hope that the socialists too can subscribe to these.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, we shall very carefully examine the question of which version is the authoritative one.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Poettering">
Madam President, I would like to address this point, not because I have followed previous events over the last few days particularly carefully.
I am not such a great expert as the previous speaker or Mr Pronk.
But there is one thing that I would like to stress and make perfectly plain. This is that agreements which are made, also in the Conference of Presidents, must be respected.
<P>
<P>
I very clearly remember discussing in the Conference of Presidents, as my neighbours here on the right, Pat Cox, Mrs Hautala, Mr Barón Crespo and others will recall, whether we should mention Michelin or discuss globalisation and the restructuring of firms in a general way.
The Conference of Presidents came to the unanimous conclusion that we should not discuss Michelin specifically, but instead speak generally about the restructuring of firms in connection with globalisation.
That was the unanimous decision.
<P>
When the word "Michelin" suddenly appears in the versions in one or two languages, then I wonder who did this.
This does not follow the agreed rules of the game.
I resolutely refuse to accept terms which have not been discussed being inserted into texts.
My group absolutely refuses to approve this!
I would ask all Groups to uphold the principles of fairness and mutual arrangements in this House.
<P>
(Loud applause from the right)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wurtz">
Madam President, we do not wish to re-open a debate which was concluded yesterday.
I would merely like to clarify one point.
There was not a unanimous opinion at the Conference of Presidents in favour of removing the reference to Michelin in the debate.
There was a majority consensus, which we had to bow to, naturally, that the word Michelin should not be included in the wording.
As far as I am concerned, I spoke at the Conference of Presidents to say that, of course, everyone would be free to speak in the debate as they saw fit and that, for my own part, I considered Michelin to be at the very centre of this debate on the restructuring of firms.
On that basis, I do not see what objection there could be to Groups discussing a text considering that the Michelin question should be included in the resolution.
I would like furthermore to specify that my group did not sign this compromise which it did not, in any case, consider satisfactory.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I do not think we can drag this debate on for much longer.
We have a perfectly clear idea of the situation.
Indeed, I must say, having chaired this Conference of Presidents, that my recollection of events tallies with what has just been said.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Flautre">
Madam President, I wish to make a comment about this resolution.
As far as we are concerned, the matter is very simple: we put our signature to a document which specifically mentioned Michelin, and so for us the compromise is clear on this point.
If there were to be some ambiguity or if the word Michelin were not to be included in contradiction to the text we approved by signing, then obviously this signature would no longer be valid.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
Very well.
That is quite clear. We understand your point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Madam President, in fact, it was I who made the proposal to turn an urgency procedure into a more general debate on globalisation, which was accepted by the Conference of Presidents.
And I also made a proposal to remove the name of the company, to whom we are giving publicity, which appears in the title in parentheses.
And that was the right thing to do, but here we are dealing with a different question, that is to say, a motion for a resolution was tabled which included, in its final point, a question almost of courtesy, and that was that the resolution was to be sent to the president of this company, and what has happened is that the transaction resolution which was presented, carried that name.
<P>
And the question is very simple: those who are against this point being included in the resolution may ask for a separate vote.
But what is not correct is that a motion for a resolution should be modified, once it is under way, in the corresponding body of Parliament, without the knowledge of the signatories.
<P>
And this extends to another problem which has arisen in relation to the fisheries agreement, to which there has been a modification without the knowledge of the signatories.
And I therefore ask the President for there to be rigorous control in the records in relation to the non-authorised modification of proposals, which I regard as a problem insofar as it concerns the modification and falsification of a Parliamentary public document.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
Mr Barón Crespo, you are quite right.
In fact, Mrs Miguélez Ramos should have asked my permission to speak on the subject of the fisheries agreement with Morocco.
I checked with the Sessional Services. Apparently there was a technical error, so I am told, and the text on which we are to vote tomorrow, Friday, will be duly amended.
So, things should be quite clear.
I apologise, but all this was due to the technical error.
I think, indeed, that in future we must ensure that mistakes of this sort do not recur, because they are really very prejudicial.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell' Alba">
Madam President, I would like to take the opportunity afforded by the adoption of the Minutes in order to point out that, even today, in the case of Mr Turco, we shall not be participating in the vote in the way we announced.
<P>
As regards the actual Minutes, on page 7, at the point where the report of Mrs Bonino' s speech is given, and where it is noted that Mr Corbett and Mr Madelin spoke, I think that the Minutes should be a more accurate reflection of the statements made by the speakers.
Mr Madelin, in particular, spoke in favour of this proposal.
I think it would be logical if this was indicated in the Minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="President">
The verbatim report of the debates will give the exact content of the statements made by Mr Madelin.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bigliardo">
Madam President, I would like to announce that, as of this morning, I am joining the Radical Group' s fight for an independent technical group.
To improve the overall situation of Parliament and the non-attached Group, I too am joining the Radicals' endeavours - I will therefore not be taking part in the vote on the Minutes or the other votes, and I declare that, like them, I am on strike.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Hautala">
Madam President, I am not now referring to the Minutes, but I would like to turn all my colleagues' attention to a certain tragic event that took place yesterday in Yerevan, Armenia.
I would ask you to consider whether we could hold a minute' s silence as that country' s President of the Parliament and Prime Minister was killed in an armed attack.
In addition, sixty people were injured in the attack, which was targeted at a democratic parliament.
I would ask you to consider holding a moment' s silence as a result of this incident, which we, as Members of Parliament, can in no way endorse.
On the contrary, we must do all we can to restore parliamentary peace there.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="President">
Mrs Hautala, I am extremely sorry that you were not present at the beginning of this sitting because, as you might expect, I did mention this tragedy and I said that I shall send, on your behalf, naturally, my condolences and sympathy to the people of Armenia.
We are all on the same wavelength on this matter.
<P>
(The Minutes were adopted)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schleicher">
Madam President, at the start of the sitting you not only reported events in Armenia, but also informed us that you would be sending a message to Armenia.
As the president of the delegation for cooperation between the European Union and Armenia, I would like to thank you most sincerely for that.
<P>
We are all horrified at the tragic events which occurred last night in the Armenian Parliament.
Not only the head of government, but also the president of the parliament and several other politicians were murdered.
We must ask ourselves whether peaceful development is now possible in Armenia.
The raid has plunged the new Republic of Armenia, located in direct proximity to Chechnya, into a state of emergency, the effects of which cannot yet be predicted.
I think you all share my hope that the recently won independence of Armenia will not thereby be threatened once again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Varela Suanzes-Carpegna">
Madam President, with regard to the question of fishing which was mentioned previously by Mr Barón Crespo, you said that there had been a technical error.
In my capacity as President of the Committee on Fisheries, I would like to ask you, since this a very important and serious question, to explain this technical error and tell me what it consists of.
And also, I would ask you to inform the political groups who have signed this motion for a resolution so that they may know exactly what has occurred: whether it was a technical error on the part of those who presented it or whether it was a technical error on the part of those who allowed it.
<P>
And I would also like, Madam President, to tell you that the motion for a resolution will be debated this afternoon and I understand that, in accordance with Rule 37(3), the vote should take place following the debate, that is, this afternoon and not tomorrow, as you have said.
<P>
Could you please clarify this point?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Miguélez Ramos">
Madam President, yesterday I wrote to you to report certain facts which I believe deserve consideration in this Parliament.
According to information received from the services of the sitting of Tuesday 26 October, an unidentified person approached those services to withdraw a motion for a resolution which had been presented by the PPE, PSE and UEN groups, as well as the motion for a resolution presented by the ELDR group, without the consent nor the agreement of any of the signatories and, what is more serious, these motions for resolutions were replaced with a supposed joint motion for a resolution, without signatures, which contained, in addition to a whole series of names of MEPs which had been added, those of some of the signatories of the first motion for a resolution.
<P>
Madam President, I had to find out about these facts through a journalist who rang from Spain.
Madam President, I am not going to describe the behaviour of these MEPs who can name themselves as co-authors without having added a dot or a comma to the text of the resolution.
This is an action which speaks for itself and is an example of active parliamentary manoeuvring, if you will permit the irony.
<P>
My question, Madam President, has to do with the procedure.
Does the procedure followed in this Parliament allow these things to happen?
Because personally, I would have loved to have been a co-signatory of the text of the Spanish Constitution and through this procedure, Madam President, I could have been precisely that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I do not think we can prolong this discussion any further.
I can assure you, Mrs Miguélez Ramos, that I shall take action to ensure that this type of unacceptable occurrence does not recur. We must be clear on this point.
<P>
Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna, you have had your answer. The three proposals that were made initially have been reinstated and these are the ones we shall be voting on.
There has been, in discreet terms, a technical error, actually some sort of tampering, and, indeed, this is something that must not happen again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Madam President, I wish to speak in order to support strongly the two speeches which have just been made.
Our group co-signed this compromise resolution.
It is absolutely unacceptable for such compromise resolutions to be modified without the knowledge of their authors.
I therefore request you, Madam, to take extremely strong action against what has just happened, which is perfectly deplorable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="President">
Absolutely. You can rely on me.
I have just said so, and I believe that we are in perfect agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Nogueira Román">
Madam President, I imagine that this problem will have arisen because ten MEPs, who form part of the Greens/ALE Group, aware of the joint resolution of three parliamentary groups, had the idea of supporting it in the belief that we were exercising our right as individual MEPs.
To this end, we ten MEPs delivered a letter to the registry, saying that we supported this resolution, which we believed to be a joint resolution of the PPE, the PSE and the UEN, and that was that.
We are unaware of any other problem.
We simply thought that the resolution was so good that we supported it, and we still support it.
Anything else is pure confusion and we do not understand it and, anyway, we do not understand why something as normal as a minority group of MEPs supporting the majority groups, should be presented in such a problematic light.
If you do not want us to support you, let us know and next time we will not do it.
<P>
(Applause from the Greens/EFA Group)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langenhagen">
Madam President, I echo your regrets, and I also work on the assumption that errors of this type must not recur in future.
I signed the PPE resolution myself and was, naturally, more than astonished, not to say horrified, at the subsequent actions.
At this point in time I also have to say that, unfortunately, this is not the first such occurrence.
I have experienced something similar in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Something must be done here, immediately and as a matter of urgency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cohn-Bendit">
Madam President, I would just like to ask my fellow Members whether they are not wondering if we are being completely ridiculous about all this, for the simple reason that it is possible to have the opinions we have on globalisation, and on Michelin, whether on the right or on the left.
But it would be absolutely out of order to draw up a resolution on globalisation in Europe, today, without mentioning Michelin.
The people who agree with Michelin should have the courage to say so, and those who do not agree with Michelin and with the layoffs should be able to say so, but let us not beat about the bush for hours on end. That is completely ridiculous.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="President. -">
I must point out that we are proceeding to votes in blocks, taking into account the requests for individual votes by split voting and by roll call.
Members new to the House will see that this is rather complicated, but we shall try to make things as simple as possible, with the active support of the rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges, to whom I hereby give the floor.
<P>
Bourlanges (PPE), general rapporteur.
(FR) Madam President, may I assure the new Members, they are not going to get another speech.
As Mr Napolitano would say, making a speech is something completely different from what I am about to do now.
Madam President, I would just like, as a preliminary comment to the voting, to make a statement regarding some technical points.
I must point out to the staff of the Sessional Services that purely technical or linguistic errors have been found in a number of amendments.
The necessary corrections will have to be made so that they reflect the voting of the Committee on Budgets.
<P>
This involves the following amendments: Amendment Nos 409, 471, 520, 621, 612, 565, 637 and 459.
I can assure my fellow Members that there is not one jot of a political problem relating to these technical corrections.
<P>
Thank you. I hope that the services responsible for the Minutes will be able to make the necessary changes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="President">
Mr Bourlanges, I can confirm this, and I can tell you that the linguistic services have already been made aware of these problems, and will make the necessary corrections.
<P>
Relating to Amendment No 460
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Buitenweg">
Madam President, a number of amendments with regard to the re-structuring of administrative expenditure and the technical assistance offices will now follow.
The question is whether this should be dealt with here, i.e. after a discussion in the Committee on Budgets, or whether it should be discussed as part of an extensive debate about the re-structuring of the Commission as a whole in all the relevant committees.
We are concerned that a whole spate of amendments will not actually benefit the management of the Commission.
My group will therefore vote against this amendment but many subsequent amendments will also contain this particular issue.
I therefore want to point out that, as of today, we will only vote on the additional points in those amendments and that our vote, as far as this aspect is concerned, will remain unchanged throughout the voting procedure, because otherwise, I would have lumbered you with more than twenty split votes.
<P>
Relating to Chapter B1-400 President.
We shall now move on to chapter B1-400 which requires a majority of 314 votes.
I shall immediately give the floor to the rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges, who, I believe, wishes to make a compromise proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Madam President, the compromise proposal is not mine exactly since, as the rapporteur for the Committee on Budgets, I am obviously bound by the previous vote of the Committee on Budgets.
Having said that, we held a consultative meeting with the coordinators of the various Groups and a compromise was arrived at between the coordinators regarding the amendments to sub-section B1-4.
<P>
This compromise involves a change to the amounts of the amendments adopted by the Commission on Budgets. It makes it possible to cover all the lines in sub-section B1­4.
If this amendment were to be voted in, the request for a separate vote introduced by Mr Walter, the coordinator of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, and others, would then have to be withdrawn.
So, if this compromise is adopted, we should still have to vote on the heading for line B1­4050, amendment 507, with a favourable opinion from the Committee on Budgets and in a split vote requested by the Group of the Greens, as well as the heading for line B1­406 on Amendment No 69, this time with a vote by roll call.
<P>
Thus, the compromise amendment concerns lines B1­400, B1­401, B1­402, B1­4030, B1­404, B1­4050, B1­406, B1­4070, B1­408 and concerns a total amount of EUR 115 million, or, more precisely, it deducts EUR 115 million from the margin.
<P>
This, then, is the content of the oral amendment.
I believe that we must vote on this and then, if it is adopted, obviously the whole section will be finalised in the way I have just described.
Thank you.
I cannot be associated with it in my official capacity as rapporteur for the Committee on Budgets.
I shall be voting on this amendment in a personal capacity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="President">
This may seem rather complicated for the uninitiated among us, but it really is quite simple at the end of the day.
It must also seem rather complicated for the visitors present.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="President">
Before going on, I would like to welcome a very important delegation from the French Senate, headed by its President, Mr Christian Poncelet, who do us the honour of visiting Parliament.
<P>
(Loud applause)
<P>
We are delighted to welcome you to the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Görlach">
Madam President, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, I would like to thank the coordinators of all Groups in the Committee on Budgets for the fact that this compromise has been achieved.
I must acknowledge the generous nature of the general rapporteur, who was himself of another opinion.
That is understandable, and I also know that the Committee chairman was in favour of another view, but we should pay tribute to the hard work of all the representatives of the Committee on Budgets here.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development supports this view.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Staes">
Madam President, I have attempted to listen very carefully to the rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges.
From what I can gather, Amendment No 69 on budget line B1-406 has been incorporated into this oral amendment.
This Amendment No 69 was drafted by a number of Flemish and Wallonian colleagues of mine.
What I have as yet failed to understand is what is to remain of this amendment if it is included in the overall compromise.
I would very much welcome clarification on this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Yes, that is correct, Mrs Staes.
We still have to vote on the heading for line B1-4050, Amendment No 507 and the heading for line B1-406 on Amendment No 69.
Amendment 69 did not present a problem for the coordinators in terms of the amount.
The heading did, however, present a problem and, as you so rightly say, we shall be voting on it separately.
<P>
Relating to Amendment No 65
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Madam President, Amendment No 65, introduced by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, has now been included in the compromise amendment in a somewhat altered form, but it has been included, so that plant and animal genetic resources have received their own title.
The Council still has to approve this.
Something in the compromise was deferred so we do not have to vote on it now.
We therefore withdraw our amendment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Madam President, I would just like to make a policy guidance suggestion regarding all the amendments to Category 3.
Following our discussions in the Committee on Budgets and consultations with all the relevant committees, we arrived at proposals which are generally satisfactory to all parties concerned, but the price to be paid for this is that we are working right up to the limits of the margin permitted.
Now, the interinstitutional agreement, which is our Bible, stipulates that in our votes on the budget, right through the procedure, we must keep within the ceiling limits.
<P>
Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, you are of course free to vote as you wish, according to your own judgement, but you should be aware that as soon as you vote for an amendment on expenditure in excess of what has been agreed I would say "around" rather than by the Committee on Budgets, you risk putting us in a very delicate position with regard to the margin.
I wanted to make this perfectly clear so that everyone can be aware of the responsibility they have.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Bourlanges.
So, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, would the President of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development please tell me if he will withdraw this amendment?
I see that he will.
<P>
Relating to Amendment No 430
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Walter">
Madam President, may I ask how it is that there is a change to the voting order?
We have Amendment No 430 on the European Year of Languages as the next amendment to be voted on.
Could someone, either Mr Bourlanges or yourself, give us some information on this?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
That is because it is still the amendment of the Committee on Budgets which we are going to vote on.
This is the custom. It is perhaps not justified but, like any custom, one must take care before challenging them!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wynn">
Madam President, following on from what Mr Bourlanges said, with the last amendment we voted we have now actually gone past the margin for Category 3 which means that any amendments which are not in line with the Committee on Budgets' recommendations are going to give us serious problems.
We already have a problem.
We have now gone above the margin.
It is ludicrous to keep voting like this.
I would ask you to respect the rapporteur' s recommendations on Category 3.
<P>
Relating to the fifth framework programme Bourlanges (PPE), general rapporteur.
(FR) Madam President, the amendments relating to the fifth framework programme for research have had to be changed following a compromise which was reached yesterday with the Commission.
This was a compromise which was difficult to reach, and I have to thank Mrs Schreyer for having ensured that it was achieved.
This compromise met with the approval not only of the Committee on Budgets, but also that of the committee responsible, with the particular support of Mrs McNally, its rapporteur, whom I must thank for her cooperation.
In terms of procedure, this means that amendments 647, 648, 649, 650, 651, 652, 653 and 654 must be voted on separately.
Moreover, one line for administrative expenses has been created for each programme and the amounts for the various key measures will be entered in the remarks.
<P>
So, the compromise arrived at is a very simple one.
It was a question of whether to create one line per key measure, as had been envisaged by the Committee on Budgets, or to maintain a single overall line for research, as the executive committee wished, in exchange for guarantees that information would be provided on the transfers of funds between key measures within this line.
Since these assurances were given by Mrs Schreyer, we can therefore vote on the compromise according to the procedural conditions which I have just described.
<P>
Relating to Amendment No 394
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Heaton-Harris">
Madam President, a number of Members present today will be confused as to what has actually gone on concerning this European Women' s Lobby amendment.
<P>
Amendment No 394 was tabled by a colleague of mine, Mrs Scallon.
A number of us would like to vote for her amendment but, because of what has gone on in the coordinators' meetings, we have no idea how to do so.
I would very much appreciate your advice on how we can support the original Amendment No 394.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Madam President, I think that there is no way that we can proceed to a vote on this amendment as it has not been re-introduced after being subject to a vote or, I might say, a transformation within the Committee on Budgets.
Thus we have an amendment from the Committee on Budgets which, I must say, was voted on in a state of some confusion, and which represents a hybrid entity since it has the European Women's Lobby' s title and the content of Mrs Scallon' s amendment.
<P>
Well, it will not have escaped you that in some respects the positions of the European Women' s Lobby and Mrs Scallon are not identical, but this is the amendment which the Committee on Budgets has voted on.
I can understand people voting against it.
I am supposed to be supporting it, but I find it somewhat incoherent.
If Parliament votes against it, then we will then have to vote for or against the amendment of the European Women' s Lobby.
Procedure does not allow for Mrs Scallon' s amendment to be reintroduced into the cycle since there is no compromise basis for an oral amendment to be submitted.
<P>
I simply think that the problems that have arisen on this occasion will certainly be examined by the Committee on Budgets, within the working party specifically set up by chairman Wynn to deal with the subject of this institution' s policy on subsidies as a whole.
I wish to reassure my fellow Member on that point, but, in my opinion, we can vote only on the two amendments which have been submitted: the Committee on Budgets' amendment and the amendment reintroduced by the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities.
<P>
Following the vote on Amendment No 443
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
Madam President, now that Parliament has voted down Amendment No 443, we have solved the problem.
In other words, it is the European Women' s Lobby which remains and which gets the 600,000.
It remains both in the nomenclature and in the remarks.
It was precisely that which each and every one of the Women' s Committee intended, and that is why we can withdraw Amendment No 10.
We are therefore withdrawing the proposal in Amendment No 10 because we have achieved precisely what we wanted to achieve with this vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="Virrankoski">
Madam President, draft Amendment No 503 concerning promotions is in this voting group.
I would like to propose that the remarks be removed.
Only the numbers remain, as the Council of Ministers has already dealt with the remarks.
The remarks are therefore unnecessary, and just the numbers should remain.
<P>
Report (A5-0030/1999) by Mr Bourlanges, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2000 - Section III Commission (C5-0300/1999)
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="President">
The resolution has been adopted, and I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges very warmly, as well as everyone who helped to make it a success.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Madam President, thank you for your congratulations.
It is a considerable task that we have completed with the help of the rapporteurs, the members of the Committee on Budgets, and all of you, and I am naturally rather excited to receive these votes.
<P>
I would like, ladies and gentlemen, to thank everyone who voted for this budget, and also those who voted against, thus contributing to democratic expression.
Above all, I would like particularly to thank the Secretariat of the Committee on Budgets which has carried out a truly considerable task.
<P>
<P>
You have to be a rapporteur to know the extent to which the life of all the Members of the Secretariat of the Committee on Budgets is disrupted by the infernal pace of this procedure, and I think this is something we must be aware of.
<P>
Besides that, I should like to say a couple of things, with your permission, to the Council and the Commission.
Council Member, Commissioner, I think that you have been able to observe the extent to which Parliament was united, united in fighting not only for its rights but also for a number of fundamental changes.
<P>
The year that we are currently living through has been characterised by two fundamental crises, the international crisis in the Balkans, and the crisis affecting our own institutions with the departure of the Commission.
On both these points, ladies and gentlemen, the votes you have expressed show the determination of this Parliament to lead the way and to find the necessary solutions to both these problems.
Tomorrow, we shall be open to discussion with the Council and with the Commission, but have no doubts, ladies and gentlemen, about dialogue between institutions, do not harbour any doubts about the determination of this House!
<P>
(Loud applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Gaulle">
Mr President, I wanted to say that, unlike Mr Bourlanges, I voted against this resolution and did not abstain.
<P>
Report (A5-0031/1999) by Mr Virrankoski, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft general budget of the European Communities for the financial year 2000.
<P>
Section I European Parliament - Annex: Ombudsman
<P>
Section II Council
<P>
Section IV Court of Justice
<P>
Section V Court of Auditors
<P>
Section VI Economic and Social Committee and Committee of the Regions (C5-0300/1999)
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
Report (A5-0032/1999) by Mr Pittella, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft ECSC operating budget for 2000 [SEC(1999) 803 - C5-0017/1999 - 1999/2072(BUD)]
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
Report (A5-0036/1999) by Mr Napolitano, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on the amendments to the Rules of Procedure following the interinstitutional agreement of 25 May 1999 on the internal investigations conducted by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF)
<P>
President.
I have received a request from the PPE Group for a referral to committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Poettering">
Mr President, this is a matter which requires a broad majority, which we hope to ensure.
But in the report, as it now stands before us, there are still some points of uncertainty with reference to two matters.
Firstly, there is no clear definition of members and elected representatives.
This is worth clarifying.
Secondly, there is uncertainty and a procedure, which we consider incorrect, stating that, in the event of errors in Parliament, officials should report back to other officials.
We, on the other hand, are of the opinion that, if there are irregularities, officials must report back to the President of the Parliament.
We must come back to these matters again.
We therefore request that the report be referred back to the Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
<P>
The Committee could call an extraordinary meeting in the course of the next week and, if necessary, in Brussels on Thursday of next week we could then finally proceed to the vote, making it possible to gain the broad support of the whole House, if the requisite clarifications have been made.
But, failing this referral to Committee, today unfortunately we are not in a position to give this report our approval, to our great regret.
<P>
With the intention of achieving a broad consensus on this important question, we therefore demand that the report be referred back to Committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Mr President, I will speak against the proposal, by Mr Poettering, to refer this report back to Committee.
<P>
In fact, it is an interinstitutional agreement which was signed by the previous President of this Parliament.
The political persuasion of the President does not matter. It was Mr Gil-Robles, the President of our Parliament.
And Parliament was in agreement.
And we have to honour our own acts.
<P>
I, today, have just found out about two new reasons to re-examine this report and it surprises me, because in fact it deals with something else, of another political approach, and I would welcome its being done clearly.
From the point of view, not of my political group, but of the previous Parliament, of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, which unanimously approved this report, there is really no lack of clarity.
<P>
And, furthermore, with regard to the possible lack of clarity between MEPs and officials, I must say that the Bureau of the Parliament which you, Mr President, form part of, clearly adopted amendment instructions last Monday for this regulation in accordance with their competences.
<P>
Therefore, there is no lack of clarity.
Furthermore, we have been subject to a summons by the Council for the last month because we have not honoured our word.
<P>
Therefore, there is no lack of clarity here.
Here there is a political will to create a conflict with the Council and not to respect our word.
My group therefore radically opposes this proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lehne">
Mr President, it is not a matter of being obstructive here.
It is not a matter of obstructing the work of OLAF, or not facilitating it.
We all want OLAF to be able to commence its work properly as soon as possible and work effectively for the benefit of the European Union.
But this proposal contains considerable legal weaknesses which require further consultation.
Articles 2 and 4 of the Annex to the Rules of Procedure contain conditions which are clearly in contradiction of the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities, which concern the status of elected representatives and which also, incidentally, lay down the rules governing the question of immunity aside from what is stated in the relevant regulations of the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities.
I am therefore convinced that this needs revising in the interests of the case, and would therefore like to request that we adopt Mr Poettering' s suggestion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Napolitano">
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Corbett">
Mr President, I believe that is not quite correct.
We have rejected.
We have not had the necessary majority to accept placing in the Rules of Procedure themselves a reference to the Annex, but we still have to take a decision as to whether we want to annex to our Rules of Procedure the interinstitutional agreement itself.
<P>
There are many interinstitutional agreements that are annexed to the Rules of Procedure without having the optional extra of a particular reference in the Rules of Procedure themselves to the text annexed.
The remaining part of the report of the committee can be taken - that only requires a simple majority - to annex the Interinstitutional Agreement to the Rules of Procedure.
That is perfectly in order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell' Alba">
Mr President, this is a very serious situation.
Without wanting, of course, to call into question the authority of the Committee Chairman who has just spoken, I would find it wise, in the light of a request made by the largest group, to proceed more cautiously because, clearly, the absolute majority required makes the vote at the very least difficult, as we have seen.
In my opinion Mr Corbett' s point is not acceptable.
We are dealing with an amendment to the Rules of Procedure and the seriousness of this vote necessitates the decision that you were just making.
I think that this is the wisest thing to do.
It is clear that this amendment to the Rules of Procedure is an essential element for the reference of a text which, having the importance of the Rules of Procedure, can only be adopted by an absolute majority.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="Corbett">
Mr President, you are absolutely right that to amend the Rules of Procedure requires an absolute majority of Members of the House.
We have just decided not to amend the Rules of Procedure and therefore, not to add this new Rule.
<P>
However, the rest of this report comes under Rule 186 of the Rules of Procedure which specifies that by a simple majority we are allowed to decide to add an item to the Annexes of the Rules.
It specifically refers to interinstitutional agreements; it even categorises them.
It is up to this House to decide - as for every other interinstitutional agreement - by a simple majority whether to add this as an Annex to our Rules of Procedure, without changing the Rules of Procedure.
We did not actually need the reference in the Rules of Procedure.
That was an optional extra which we have decided to dispense with.
We can still decide whether to add this interinstitutional agreement to the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="Martin, David">
Mr President, the first part of your ruling is absolutely right.
It is clear that a Rule change requires a qualified majority.
But Mr Corbett has a very strong point.
All we are doing now with the remainder of this text is annexing the implementation of the interinstitutional agreement to the modus vivendi of this Parliament.
<P>
I ask the House to think very carefully about what they are doing here.
We are now in a position that the interinstitutional agreement has been implemented as far as it affects the Commission. It has been implemented as far as it affects the Council.
By a decision of Parliament' s Bureau it has been implemented as it affects Parliament' s staff.
The only people left are Members of the European Parliament.
Do we really want people to be saying that Members of the European Parliament are scared about the OLAF regulations applying to them?
Let us not put ourselves in that position!
<P>
(Loud applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, as you can see, this is quite a difficult situation.
I now give the floor to Mr Nassauer too, because he has requested it, but I invite you to reflect on the fact that, in a situation such as this, it is difficult to press ahead using majority votes - we really should take into account this very delicate situation which must be addressed, if possible, with a broad consensus across this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Nassauer">
Mr President, the matter of the Annex to the Rules of Procedure will most certainly be determined by a simple majority.
But the addition of an Annex to the Rules of Procedure is quite clearly an amendment to the actual Rules of Procedure and, as such, requires an absolute majority.
We can never amend the actual Rules of Procedure by means of an Annex.
That is perfectly clear.
We have just decided, may I remind you, that the common regulation contained in the interinstitutional agreement, with the necessary measures to facilitate the trouble-free conduct of OLAF inquiries in accordance with the Parliament resolution, which is appended as an Annex to the Rules of Procedure, is applicable within Parliament.
This resolution did not achieve the necessary majority.
It cannot therefore claim validity on the basis of the Rules of Procedure.
I believe we would be well advised to refer this matter back to the competent committee for consultation now and discontinue the debate on the Rules of Procedure here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, in the name of the principle of transparency, I must make one observation on the course of events.
Namely, last Thursday, at the President' s meeting, two compromises were made among the leaders of the groups.
The first was that to which Mr Poettering referred this morning, which is to say that there is no mention of the name of Michelin in the resolution on the relocation of companies.
On this I agree with Mr Barón Crespo in an earlier discussion.
<P>
However, we made another agreement as well.
As certain groups feared the delicate nature of this report, we decided that a debate should be organised on it on Monday and a vote on it on Thursday.
In this way the groups had a whole week to debate the sensitive points in this proposal.
I do not understand why the chairmen of certain groups refer to the agreements in other connections, but in some cases these agreements do not mean anything.
I think we should have discussed the matter according to the normal order of events and voted on it today, with no undue incident.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, I shall speak with right on my side.
Personally, I believe that we are making a mistake, largely due to the way the original regulations of OLAF were put together, but that is another question.
Here we must have a very clear idea about why this Parliament requires an absolute majority for questions which affect MEPs.
You have given the reason, Mr President: because we are looking for a broad consensus.
We cannot hide behind a technical question that there are agreements which are not incorporated in the regulations.
This is a matter which must remain outside the regulations and therefore the logical and reasonable thing - and rules, when the law is the law and not just formal texts, must be reasonable - should be that this be supported by an absolute majority in this Parliament.
Any other approach would fundamentally contravene the very essence of the parliamentary Rules of Procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Buttiglione">
Mr President, the internal self-regulation of Parliament is one of the fundamental bulwarks of its independence.
Anything which affects Parliament' s right to self-regulation affects a core element which allows it, or rather enables it, to perform its sovereign functions as the people' s representative.
This is found in the constitutional history of all parliaments.
This is the reason why specific precautions are introduced to prevent this sovereignty being limited in any way.
If we take an impulsive, majority decision on a matter of this kind and interpret the annexes without taking into account how these agreements affect fundamental issues, we will in some way contravene the basic rationale, the objective of the legislation we are addressing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, I do not dispute the fact that the Rules of Procedure form the backbone of our sittings.
Neither do I dispute the fact that an amendment to the Rules of Procedure is to be approved.
But it was clear this week, having discussed this amendment extensively, that leading members from all groups were in favour of amending these Rules of Procedure now.
It completely staggers me to think that political rearguard action has led to a situation where the largest group of this Parliament is now prepared to give out negative vibes to the outside world.
We warned against this happening only this week.
We said: please do not hide behind formal objections.
Nobody has been able to prove that the formal objections will remain a reality after this amendment is adopted.
Rumour now has it that there is no majority for this amendment itself.
Well, I can tell you this much: we are repeating the same mistake we made in May.
We gave bad vibes then too, namely that, despite all agreements, there continues to be a majority here in favour of maintaining a privileged situation.
As far as I am concerned, these agreements are sacred.
I do hope that we can approve this amendment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, I agree absolutely with what David Martin had to say, and it would be a disgrace if we do not vote today.
But, at this stage, I do not wish to discuss content, I would just like to ensure, and you shall have to take responsibility for that too, that the matter is pursued.
For we are now faced with a difficult crisis regarding the Rules of Procedure, since the matter is to be referred back to Committee again, even though the majority in this House rejected that option today.
I therefore request that it is ensured that this resistance from a particular quarter, creating the present situation in which Members of Parliament alone are not monitored by OLAF, does not become a permanent state of affairs.
For that is precisely what you have achieved!
Please deal with this matter, Mr President, in accordance with the Rules of Procedure, so that we can settle it in a decent and dignified manner on behalf of the Members of this House.
Otherwise, we will no longer be able to look our fellow citizens in the eye.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, after listening to all the opinions, I do not believe that we can proceed to the vote on the draft decision, because the draft decision was drawn up on the basis of the amendment to the Rules of Procedure.
I therefore think that we must look at this subject again in the future, and I too hope that we will be able to do this very soon.
<P>
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0026/1999), on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council decision on establishing a single financing and programming instrument for cultural cooperation (Culture 2000 programme) [13328/2/1998 - C5-0023/1999 - 1998/0169(COD)] (rapporteur: Mr Graça Moura)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="De Palacio">
Madam President, the Commission accepts Amendment Nos 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9,10,12 and 14.
The Commission is prepared to partially accept Amendment Nos 7, 11 and 13.
And therefore it rejects Amendment No 3.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the amended common position)
<P>
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0038/1999), on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council decision establishing the Youth Community action programme [13175/1/1999 - C5-0022/1999 - 1998/0197(COD)] (rapporteur: Mrs Gröner)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="De Palacio">

Mr President, firstly, on behalf of Commissioner Reding, I would like to congratulate Mrs Gröner and all the Members of the Committee who have worked so significantly on the whole of this document.
<P>
I would like to say that the work is so positive that no amendment will be rejected and, to this end, I am happy to say that the Commission accepts Amendment Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13.
Therefore, the Commission practically accepts all of the amendments and with regard to Amendment Nos 7 and 8, it cannot accept them as they stand, but it accepts the spirit of their content.
<P>
I can say that the work has been magnificent, that we offer our congratulations on it and on the fact that no amendment has been rejected outright.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Gröner">
Mr President, I would like to express my thanks to the Commission for responding so quickly to our own quick work.
The principal task, however, still lies ahead of us, namely that of persuading the Council.
The chief problem area can be found in the Budget. With Parliament' s demands for EUR 980 million, we are now facing a Council proposal of EUR 350 million, and another EUR 490 million in the seven-year programme.
This is the area of the great debate which we face and, against the combined forces of the Commission and Parliament, it is now up to the Council to change.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the amended common position)
<P>
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0023/1999), on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Decision amending the basic Decision relating to the Socrates programme to include Turkey among the beneficiary countries [8076/1/1999 - C5-0024/1999 - 1996/0130(COD)] and the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Decision amending the basic Decision relating to the Youth for Europe III programme to include Turkey among the beneficiary countries [8077/1/1999 - C5-0025/1999 - 1996/0131(COD)] (rapporteur: Mr Gargani)
<P>
(Parliament adopted the two common positions)
<P>
Report (A5-0024/1999) by Mr Gargani, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning Community participation in the European Audiovisual Observatory [COM(1999)0111 - C5-0019/1999 - 1996/0066(CNS)]
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
Common resolution1 on the restructuring of firms
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Flautre">
As you will have understood, Mr President, there is a problem in this morning' s debate. We are not agreed on the compromise text.
<P>
It would therefore be advisable to find out, first of all, what this compromise text involves, especially in relation to paragraph 17 thereof.
Personally, I think that if we were to adopt compromise texts which are not those that the Members signed or to which they committed their Group, we would be setting an extremely dangerous precedent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="President">
All the Members who were present in the House at the start have already heard the debate and several Members have already intervened.
Clearly, we need to avoid a repeat of the debate which we had this morning, both as regards the agreement existing between the Groups on whether we should mention the firm we discussed at such length this morning and also as regards the specific question of whether the signatories of a specific compromise text were aware of the fact that a part of the text had been changed.
<P>
I would like to make two proposals. Firstly, I think that the Secretary-General of Parliament should carry out a swift investigation into what actually happened.
I think it is right for all of us to be informed for the sake of clarification.
Some Members say they signed one text, but other Members say they signed a different one.
I think that it is right for us to be informed as to what really happened.
The Secretary-General of Parliament will inform us as soon as possible.
<P>
As far as the point under discussion is concerned, I have the following proposal to make.
If there are no objections, I can also put to the vote the part of an agreed text with regard to which there is a difference of opinion over whether or not it exists in the compromise text.
However, I will only put this part to the vote if you all agree because, given that there are two versions, I cannot say that there is agreement.
It is, however, possible for everyone to agree that, despite this different interpretation, it is appropriate to vote separately on the part which is controversial.
I repeat - I can only go ahead with this vote if everyone agrees.
I will obviously not be able to put that part to the vote if any of you is against this working hypothesis.
<P>
To avoid restarting the debate, I would ask the Members who do not agree with the proposal which I have just made to say so immediately, so that we know whether, when we reach that part, we can vote on it or not.
If there is an objection, I repeat, we will not be able to put it to the vote.
Is there an objection to this proposal or do you all agree that that part of the amendment can be put to the vote anyway?
There are no objections?
Good. Well, when the time comes, we shall have a separate vote on each part.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Auroi">
Mr President, I spoke yesterday.
I wish to remind you that I am the representative for the town where Michelin has its headquarters, since we do not dare mention its name today, although Commissioner Diamantopoulou did have the courage to do so yesterday.
I believe that the union leaders from Michelin who were among us yesterday will be able to assess the manner in which the majority of this House is treating them at its face value.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Auroi, but the explanations of votes will follow shortly.
<P>
Joint resolution1 on the rejection of the Test Ban Treaty by the United States Senate
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<P>
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTES - General Budget 2000, Bourlanges report (A5-0030/1999), Virrankoski report (A5-0031/1999)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Cox">
Mr President, I want to give a brief explanation of vote with regard to the Bourlanges report and in particular our vote on Doc.
A5-30/99.
In that document Mr Bourlanges sets out in paragraphs 7, 8 and 9 the reasoning behind the conclusion that Parliament does not approve the Council' s proposals.
In particular, paragraph 8 was an important political signal to the Council.
<P>
My own group, which is of divided opinion on the matter, has a minority who intended to vote against paragraph 8, and did so.
However, I also led the majority of the group inadvertently into voting against paragraph 8 due to an incorrect voting indication.
<P>
I wish to place on record for Mr Bourlanges and for the House that the majority of my group was disposed to vote for the strategy in paragraph 8.
I should like that to be noted and duly recorded.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, I voted against the proposed budget of the European Parliament for the year 2000, as it seemed to lack rigour, unlike the Council proposal.
<P>
In this respect, I would like to draw attention to two specific points, which I think are extremely indicative of the spirit and the methods which predominate within the Union' s institutions.
Firstly, the stubbornness with which the European Parliament, despite all the regulations in force, persists in seeking to hand the taxpayers' money over to so-called European political parties.
The Council of Amsterdam which signed and approved the Treaty of the same name had looked into this question and explicitly refused to recognise the existence of European political parties, and still less to finance them from public funds.
We must therefore refer back to the current edition of Article 191 of the Treaty, formerly Article 138A, which only mentions, in a rather vague way, the action of political parties, I quote, "at European level" , which is a very different matter, or so the Amsterdam Council and the Treaty intended it at any rate, from the idea of a "European political party" strictly speaking.
<P>
So, in the Parliament budget, under Category 3710, we are surprised to read an entry relating to contributions to European political parties, with an explanation to the effect that the Commission is shortly to present a statute for European political parties.
<P>
Such a brief reference and yet it contains three instances of irregularity. There is no European political party, there is no provision for the allocation of public funds to them, and the Commission has no right to prepare a statute of this type, which is not in accordance with the Treaty.
In doing this, the European Parliament is moving its pawns in an illegal manner.
Admittedly, for the moment no appropriations have been allocated to this item, but, even so - and this is my second point - it has set aside an enormous appropriation, of EUR 60 million, in a reserve for the Members' Statute, which is rather mysterious, since the statute does not yet exist and, in any case, even if such a Members' Statute were to be adopted, it would certainly not apply within the present term of office.
<P>
These two problems, apparently unrelated, lead me to draw a common conclusion.
As recently as last year, the Court of Justice of the European Communities severely reprimanded the Commission for making budget expenditure commitments without a legal basis, with the collusion of the European Parliament.
I observe that these practices are continuing and even getting worse, since now the European Parliament itself is taking a direct part in it.
Thus the old European rule is still being applied here: every base act is permitted as long as it contributes to the construction of a federal Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Kauppi">
Mr President, unlike the vast majority in Parliament, I think that the Union should finance its possible activity in Kosovo, East Timor and Turkey with appropriations that remain within the excessiveness threshold for Category 4 of the Financial Perspective.
The same goes for the adoption of the fisheries agreement with Morocco.
<P>
As the Council has stated, no precise estimates of the aid requirements have been presented other than those regarding Kosovo.
It is thus too early to fix the total amount of appropriation needed for external operations next year.
Besides, funds have already now been reallocated to respond to the challenges that go with the relief operations mentioned above.
<P>
Regarding point 11 in the report, I think that Parliament, for its part, committed to reviewing its statute already last spring, so that travel expenses would be paid according to bona fide costs incurred.
Although I am also personally committed to reviewing the expenses arrangements on the basis of bona fide costs, I call also on the Council' s commitment to push through Parliament' s proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Manders">
Mr President, I would like to move on to the Virrankoski report.
I would like to indicate to the voters that we at the European Parliament are not just big spenders but that we also look after the pennies.
I was therefore disappointed to hear that Parliament did not adopt my amendment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
.
(EL) Budget 2000 marks a major turning point in the whole question of funding for Turkey.
The Council has introduced the amounts to be used for action to extend the EU-Turkey Customs Union and for the economic and social development of Turkey, but it has not set the usual political criteria which have to be fulfilled nor has it allocated any of the funds to action over the earthquakes.
<P>
For the first time in years, the amendment of the Committee on Budgets not only approves the Council' s appropriations but actually increases them, thereby making good the cuts the Council had previously made as a result of Kosovo.
Also, instead of stipulating the political criteria which the European Parliament had so rigidly laid down, it has simply confined itself in the "Remarks" section to mention of an institutional control mechanism, the actual effectiveness of which, from our experience with the MEDA programme, is somewhat questionable.
<P>
Unfortunately, the position of the European Parliament benefits neither democratic nor human rights in Turkey, does not encourage a settlement of the Cyprus and Kurdish questions and does not support the tragic victims of the earthquakes in Turkey.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fruteau">
- (FR) In today' s sitting, the European Parliament adopted the General Budget of the European Union for the financial year 2000.
<P>
The vote on the budget is a key point in the parliamentary calendar.
Throughout the process of drawing up the budget, the Group of the Party of European Socialists forcefully defended the principles of Union solidarity and political commitment with regard to the most disadvantaged in order to meet the objective of eradicating poverty.
<P>
As a member of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, I paid particular attention to the development of Category 4, intended to finance the Union' s external policies and to promote development aid.
Indeed, the Community' s historical and political responsibility towards developing countries must be fully taken up by this House and represents one of our absolute priorities.
Despite the rationale of the general reduction of appropriations allocated to development aid, the European Community is, and must remain, the main partner of the most disadvantaged countries.
In this respect, we cannot accept the Council proposal to implement a 10% reduction in the appropriations allocated for cooperation and development in order to finance the reconstruction of Kosovo and aid to Turkey following the earthquake, or support for East Timor.
The cost of these displays of solidarity, all perfectly legitimate, must not be borne by the poorest countries on earth.
Indeed, how could we sanction any reduction in the amounts allocated to the prevention of AIDS when it is known that 25 million people on the continent of Africa are already condemned to die from this scourge?
Industrialised countries in general and the Member States of the Union in particular must not withdraw from their development aid commitment as that would have social, economic, political and health-related repercussions on the ever fragile equilibrium of the most disadvantaged countries.
<P>
This is why, while being fully aware that the increase in Community spending is occasionally hard for the public finances of Member States to bear, I voted, in spite of everything, in favour of the resolution proposed by the general rapporteur for the budget.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Gill">
The European Women' s Lobby represents over 3,000 different women' s organisations across the EU.
It has represented the interests of women with competence and professionalism.
The group has provided invaluable information and support, particularly on the impact of European programmes on women' s lives.
We have also been able, as individuals, to access information, evidence and analysis when necessary.
The material produced by the lobby is high quality, as are the forums, seminars and conferences which they organise.
A clear example of this was a day conference involving women from all over the EU which was held in Cardiff to coincide with the summit during the UK presidency.
<P>
It is clearly inadvisable to distribute the funds between a variety of organisations which would, by definition, fail to identify the core objectives in terms of giving the service which EWL can so uniquely provide.
The agenda pursued by EWL is clear and incontrovertible - to promote the concerns, priorities and interests of women.
<P>
The accusations which have been made, that the EWL is a "single issue" body, is simply not true when it represents such large numbers of women through its 3000 member organisations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ilgenfritz">
- (DE) The Members of the Austrian Freedom Party will be rejecting both Mr Bourlanges' motion for a resolution (individual plan III - Commission) and Mr Virrankoski' s (further individual plans), since the principles of transparency and efficiency in the budget procedure were not respected.
<P>
Nor is it possible to carry out effective supervision of the Union' s budgetary procedure.
<P>
Apart from that, the Commission operates far too ponderously.
The processing of applications and payments to the citizens of the Union in some cases takes more than 18 months, leading to justifiable criticism of the administration of the Union.
<P>
Insufficient funds and programmes are provided in the Budget 2000 for real problems such as, for example, the high rate of unemployment.
The Union is somewhat helpless in the face of the effects of globalisation and the introduction of the euro.
<P>
Instead of developing employment schemes or programmes promoting small and medium-sized enterprises, the Union indulges in an administration which is far too expensive, with two parliament buildings, for instance.
<P>
The challenge for the future will be whether the EU can manage to draw up common principles which ensure that an economic recovery returns to Europe through which the problems of the labour market can for the most part, be eliminated.
To this end it will also be necessary, however, for the administrations of the Union and national states to be structured more effectively.
<P>
Since it cannot seriously be discerned that the Union can contribute to an economic recovery in Europe, the Budget for 2000 is rejected in its entirety.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Korakas">
.
(EL) The Commission' s draft and more so the Council' s draft EU budget for 2000 are marked by their austerity and drastic cuts, even in relation to the decisions reached at the European Council meeting in Berlin.
<P>
Budget 2000 is an austerity budget with drastic cuts in agricultural, structural and social expenditure.
It is a budget tailor made to the Stability Pact and to the drastic cuts imposed on Member States both within and outside the euro zone.
The victims of this policy are the public at large, workers, farmers, artisans, young people and women.
<P>
In the agricultural section of the budget, it is evident that even before the start of the multilateral negotiations of the World Trade Organisation, the EU wishes to join forces with the Americans and reduce protection and intervention by reducing the funds allocated to individual agricultural products. In turn, this will entail further cuts in producers' income and further restrictions on farming.
What is particularly worrying is the fact that, alongside the reduction in support expenditure for agricultural product markets, there is also an increase in and systemisation of expenditure under the second pillar of the CAP intended to wipe out small and medium-sized farmers.
<P>
We have noted a reduction in the Structural Funds, which proves that the heroic declarations to iron out social and regional inequalities were merely rabble-rousing tactics.
The same goes for the exceptionally limited social expenditure which is oriented not towards reducing unemployment or improving workers' lives, but towards facilitating measures to upset working relations.
<P>
We wish to denounce the efforts to activate the appropriations allocated to Turkey within the framework of the Customs Union and for the promotion of Euro-Turkish relations. We are equally against the tabling of proposals to approve the necessary appropriate legal bases, when it is a well-known fact that the human rights situation in Turkey has showed no signs of improvement, that the same policy is still being pursued on the Kurdish question and that Turkey is still occupying a large part of Cyprus.
We also wish to condemn the hypocrisy of the EU on the Kosovo issue.
On the one hand, it has totally destroyed the area with its unprovoked and criminal attacks on Yugoslavia and, on the other hand, it is now bending over backwards with its restructuring endeavours, without prejudice of course, while at the same time demanding that the perfectly legitimate government and the President of the country be overthrown.
<P>
Despite the report' s containing certain positive individual amendments, it embraces the restrictive and unacceptable agreements reached in Berlin on Agenda 2000.
<P>
It would be naïve of us to expect a different approach from the bodies of the EU, when both the community budget and national budgets have to operate within the unpopular and austere framework of the Maastricht criteria with tight cutbacks in public finances. It would be naïve to expect a different approach when the external policy of the EU is marked by crass hypocrisy, oppressive controls and the ever-increasing subjugation of countries, not to mention open and multiple intervention in their own internal affairs, as is the case with the enlargement process and the Stability Pact for south-eastern Europe.
<P>
For these reasons, we shall once again be voting against the draft budget.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Nicholson of Winterbourne">
. UK Liberal Democrats are voting with this budget line as proposed by the Committee on Budgets, but in anticipation that further discussion is to take place in order to meet the substantive points of Mr Jan Mulder, MEP, and to find more financial resources within the overall total without either depleting the reserves or calling upon the Council to provide new funds.
<P>
Reconstruction aid to Kosovo is essential but the pile-up of earlier unspent budget lines means that more discussion might be fruitful.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Scallon">
.
I raised the issue, put to me by European citizens, of an unacceptable monopoly within the process of European funding.
The "Scallon amendment" was not accepted by the Committee on Budgets.
My colleagues who belong to this committee drafted an amendment in order to broaden funding for women' s groups to a wider range of women' s groups.
Parliament today has debated this issue and the vote continues this monopolistic arrangement.
The issue will certainly continue to be debated over the next year.
<P>
It is a matter of principle that all women, and the groups that are campaigning for them, should have equal access to EU funding, most of all when its aim is to allow European organisations to be represented at UN level.
<P>
People are well aware that sometimes it is necessary to take a stand on the principle of transparency and fairness in our democratic structures.
Monopolistic arrangements cannot be allowed to continue.
While I acknowledge that a monopolistic arrangement has been allowed to continue, I welcome the continuing allowance of EUR 600 000 and would welcome future increases, hoping, of course, that it will assist in making all women' s voices heard.
<P>
Napolitano report (A5-0036/1999)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gil-Robles Gil-Delgado">
Mr President, I would like to state that I have voted against the referral back to Committee of the Napolitano report and in favour of the inclusion in the Rules of Procedure of the Annex which appears in the said report.
I have done so firstly for basic reasons of coherence because, when the text of the Annex was signed by me in the name of this Parliament, I did so in accordance with the mandate of the competent bodies of this Parliament.
Today' s vote seems serious to me because it entails the discrediting, not of me personally, which would not matter, but of the bodies of Parliament itself during the last legislature.
<P>
Secondly, because I cannot see anywhere, and nor did we see it at the time nor since, these supposed legal irregularities which would give rise to the rejection of the text.
<P>
Thirdly, for political reasons.
It seems to me to be a serious political error that, if the Council and the Commission have established a system through which its own members, the Commissioners, Ministers and Heads of State of the Member States, can be investigated in the event of irregularities, we MEPs cannot also be investigated.
<P>
For these reasons, I have voted in favour of the Napolitano report and against its referral back to Committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Martin, David">
Mr President, very much in the same tone as Mr Gil-Robles I voted against referral back and for the amendment which, sadly, was rejected.
I have to say that a section of the EPP Group were playing games on this issue.
<P>
There is a valid need to draw a distinction between staff matters, which are a Bureau responsibility, and Members' matters which are a plenary responsibility.
That would have been dealt with by Amendment No 2 had we reached that amendment.
I was disappointed because the Christian Democrats, as well as the Socialists, had put their names to Amendment No 2 and so it would have been carried and the matter would have been covered.
As Mr Gil-Robles has said, and as I said earlier, we are now in a position where the interinstitutional agreement as regards OLAF applies to the Commission, to the Council and to the staff of this institution but it does not apply to the Members of this institution.
<P>
Given that we are the institution that, quite rightly, has made great play of tackling fraud in European Community institutions, how are the citizens of Europe going to understand that the only people with whom OLAF has not reached an agreement in terms of internal investigations are Members of the European Parliament?
It puts us in an intolerable position.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Corbett">
Mr President, on behalf of the Socialist Group I would like to say that we supported approval of the interinstitutional agreement as an essential building block in re-establishing the credibility of the European Union in how it relates to fraud and deals with allegations of fraud.
<P>
It is highly regrettable that we have not been able to approve this today, for the reasons outlined by my colleague Mr David Martin.
It leaves Parliament in a highly embarrassing position and with a few honourable exceptions, notably Mr Gil-Robles, the attitude of the European People' s Party is highly hypocritical.
They supported this in committee.
They supported it in the debate on Monday in which they stated clearly and unequivocally that they would be supporting this proposal, and yet today they back out of it and they fail to adopt it.
<P>
How can we show ourselves to our electorate and how will the EPP be able to show itself to the electorate when it quite rightly makes a fuss about fraud in the election campaign yet, when it comes to delivering here, it fails to deliver?
<P>
The EPP Group needs to examine its conscience and to do so rapidly because the position it has created in Parliament today is an embarrassment for all of us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, I see that at the last minute there has been an avalanche of explanations of votes regarding referral of the Napolitano report to committee.
I have the impression that my own has been lost en route, and I would also like to give an explanation.
Thank you.
<P>
I believe that the question before us is not whether or not the expenses of Members of Parliament must be strictly controlled.
I am the first to say, and I explained this at length in my speech last Monday, that there must absolutely be supervision, but that this must be specific supervision, in line with our role as elected representatives, Members of Parliament.
In this respect I have just heard many rough approximations, in my opinion.
The institutional agreement explicitly mentions the members of institutions, true, but if you take this expression in context you see that it is more a matter of paid members, such as the members of the Commission, and that the terms established are not appropriate for elected members like those of the European Parliament.
The two categories of member must not be muddled.
In the Napolitano report there is, indeed, another strange confusion resulting from this, between the situation of Members of Parliament and that of officials.
Quite clearly, as far as officials are concerned, the decision could have been taken long ago.
Besides, Mr President, the Annex was, in my opinion, related to the main body of the text and, consequently, it was not possible, as you quite rightly decided, to vote on the Annex after rejecting the main body of the text.
Referral to committee is therefore perfectly justifiable.
The Napolitano report had been discussed too quickly, in haste, and many things had been overlooked.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
<SPEAKER ID=90 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="La Perrière">
- (FR) The project on which we are called upon to declare our opinion in the form of the report by our fellow member, Mr Graça-Moura, is hardly a matter for controversy and is one which can legitimately gain the support of Parliament in its entirety.
<P>
Indeed, the European Union has a central role to play in the development of culture and the arts in Europe.
In the vision of a Europe of the nations, which is the one I am arguing in favour of here, this is precisely the type of action in which European cooperation can contribute a significant added value.
<P>
But I must stress that we are not to be fooled, for all that. The fact that Parliament wishes to substitute the term "cultural policy" for the term "cultural cooperation" shows the temptation to standardise of a "European" cultural policy intended to replace those of Member States would have.
<P>
Culture must not be the test-bed used by ideologists for the creation of the "European nation" .
There is no European culture, any more than there is a European nation.
There are, and this is a formidable source of cultural wealth, many nations which participate in the European Union, and many national cultures.
This programme will, I hope, contribute towards permitting all citizens of Member States to discover this wealth and this diversity.
The Union for a Europe of Nations Group will always support programmes intended to promote exchanges, to develop the appetite for culture in the citizens of our Member States.
As long as this really means exchanges and discovery and not creating the Homo Europeus who knows the speeches of Jean Monnet off by heart.
<P>
This new expression of European cultural cooperation is of very special importance on the eve of the Seattle negotiations which will not, I fear, do anything to challenge American cultural hegemony.
<P>
This is why I am warning the Commission and Parliament against the temptation to use these programmes as an instrument for propaganda or standardisation. There is too much at stake.
<P>
Moreover, and in conclusion, it seems to me that the war of figures which Parliament, the Council and the Commission are waging regarding this case is particularly fruitless.
We all know that the European Union must face up to decisions, painful decisions perhaps, but crucial decisions, in order to ensure its enlargement.
So, please, ladies and gentlemen, let us learn to face up to our responsibilities, and let us not accuse the Council of stinginess, when it is simply facing up to the responsibilities which voters and tax payers in our Member States have entrusted to it.
<P>
Restructuring of firms
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
- (FR) The Union for a Europe of Nations Group co-signed the joint motion for resolution on the restructuring of firms in the face of globalisation, since it indicates the beginning of a new spirit, distancing itself from free-tradism, and encouraging one to think of international trade "in terms of the more complex objective of sustainable development" .
Indeed I believe that, even though it would be inappropriate to challenge the idea of international free trade, it should however now be forced to take account of a number of unquantified costs imposed on society in Europe.
We must somehow continue to reap the advantages of free trade while neutralising its disadvantages.
<P>
Among the unquantified costs are the social costs resulting from firms relocating.
Of course, the redistribution of the workforce internationally may contribute to the better use of the workforce, and thus ultimately benefit everyone.
But, at the same time, competition in terms of wages marginalises the least qualified personnel in developed societies, and this is something we cannot accept.
<P>
Michelin, who have just implemented some controversial redundancies in France, are in precisely this type of situation, since its main competitor produces tyres in Eastern European countries where wage costs are five times less.
The French Minister for Social Affairs, Mrs Aubry, put forward the idea of charging Michelin an exceptional unemployment contribution.
This proposal seems absurd, since, in the event, this firm is, if anything, the victim.
<P>
As far as I am concerned, I would propose the exact opposite. Firms who have their manufacturing operations in low-wage countries should be forced to pay an exceptional unemployment contribution when they import goods into France, or into Europe.
This contribution would be one element, but no doubt not the only one, in a system for balancing out social costs so as to better regulate international trade between heterogeneous areas, without however depriving us of the advantages of free trade.
<P>
We consider that this proposal is one that should be put on the table at the forthcoming trade talks of the Millennium Round which is about to begin in Seattle.
I would furthermore like to take this opportunity to recall the main objectives of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group at the beginning of these negotiations.
<P>
1) We would like the importance of the problems which were not resolved by the Uruguay Round to be stressed, problems whose harmful effects we are only just starting to perceive, in the fields of social costs, as I have just mentioned, but also those of the environment, public health, food, etc.
It should be remembered, even so, that, alone against the world, or almost, we refused to approve the Uruguay Round, both in the French National Assembly and in the European Parliament, for precisely this reason, i.e. we thought it extremely dangerous to agree to significant reductions in customs tariffs without first resolving the essential collateral problems.
And so now we have to try to make up for lost time by entering these matters of social, environmental and health costs on the agenda for Seattle.
<P>
2) We want an objective and complete assessment of the Uruguay Round to be drawn up, based on the transparent consultation of governments and specialist non-governmental organisations.
We refuse to negotiate in the dark, as at present.
It is inappropriate for negotiations to begin in such conditions, and a period of moratorium must be decided while waiting for the assessment to be drawn up.
<P>
3) We object all the more to a number of matters which the European Union presently proposes to add to the Seattle agenda, subjects whose consequences we shall absolutely not be able to control.
I shall cite in particular the question of international investments, which would lead to a second attempt to establish the ghastly Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI).
I shall also cite the definition of a world competition policy which, as presented today, even more surely than current European policy would lead to public services being compromised.
<P>
4) Finally, we demand that future negotiations openly acknowledge one fundamental principle from the outset, the principle that each nation has the right to choose its own laws, and international trade must respect them.
As a logical consequence of this, every nation has the right to express choices and preferences.
Areas of preference, be they regionally-based (European Community) or functionally-based (the Lomé Convention), must immediately be recognised as legitimate if they are founded on the democratic decisions of the peoples concerned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lienemann">
- (FR) Ridicule never killed anyone. Fortunately for the European Parliament, which should have strongly denounced the attitude of the Michelin management which has just announced a massive series of cuts in workforce and redundancies, even though the returns and profits for this firm increased substantially.
<P>
The simultaneous nature of the announcements, of course, blatantly exposed the scandalous and unfair aspect of current economic reasoning and this financial capitalism which has gained the upper hand in Europe and throughout the world.
<P>
Of course, in the first place, the European Parliament must, in this specific instance, strongly condemn the Michelin management, and request that the firm reconsiders these job losses, and assure the group' s employees of its solidarity.
<P>
But this House must also learn the lessons necessary to improve Community legislation, in order to provide some protection for employees against such practices.
<P>
Obviously, the directive on collective redundancy procedure must be reviewed and measures which afford greater protection for workers and for jobs must be included in it.
In particular, it is necessary for employees to be able to challenge the actual basis for these redundancies and the economic motives for these before they are actually implemented, and this at a very early stage of the procedure.
<P>
Moreover, the establishment of real group level works councils, European Committees with real powers, becomes ever more essential.
Once more, the European Parliament should review its directive on this point.
<P>
Our resolution is singularly lacking in determination and it is to be feared that, unless widespread forces are mobilised, Social Europe will go unheeded on a long-term basis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
, in writing.
(EL) The phenomenon of mass redundancies from large multinationals which seems to be having an 'avalanche' effect is a sharp slap in the face for the high-sounding proclamations on tackling unemployment and job creation in the EU.
<P>
Goodyear, Renault and now Michelin, having adapted themselves to the growth models created by the single market and integrated into the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties and EMU, have turned the climate of unaccountability to their advantage by gradually annihilating every form of social responsibility and protection of workers. This has created more unemployment and increased levels of social exclusion.
<P>
Extensive restructuring and company mergers have favoured increased profit-yielding activities at the cost of productive investments which, in turn, has led to mass redundancies.
Pretexts are hardly even needed now in the climate of rampant competition and unaccountability of big business, as is apparent from the announcements by the Michelin management of a 17% increase in profits and 7,500 redundancies, adding to the 15,000 redundancies in recent years.
This callousness and cynicism are not only endorsed by the EU and its various bodies; they are also being funded in the context of direct or indirect financial aid intended to safeguard competitiveness on a global scale.
<P>
The human factor has been largely overridden by the most barbaric form of capitalism.
Employees are expected, with a gun threatening unemployment held to their heads, to underwrite increased profits and to accept humiliating agreements on terms, conditions and salaries, as in the Michelin case, only to find that their jobs are eventually axed anyway.
<P>
EMU is a one-way street for monopolies whose only aim is to increase profits and consolidate their power.
Employees have nothing to gain by following this route which only leads to unemployment, a lower quality of life, marginalisation and eventual destitution.
Since employee protection is being violated and disregarded altogether and since employees' rights are being flagrantly trampled underfoot, the only way open to employees is to protest, fight, challenge the choices made by the monopolies and EMU and fight for full employment, improved living conditions, real social development and prosperity.
<P>
Today' s resolution, in effect, renders the European Parliament jointly responsible for implementing more unpopular policies to the detriment of workers.
It is an unacceptable resolution and, on behalf of all working people, we shall be voting against it.
<P>
Nuclear tests
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Figueiredo">
Throughout Europe, the restructuring and relocation of companies, particularly multinationals, has resulted in several thousand employees being laid off, a situation that is unacceptable and that is to be condemned for the serious economic and social consequences it has on the workers, on the region and on the country affected.
<P>
Cases such as that of Michelin in France, of Renault, Grundig, Siemens and Texas Instruments, amongst others, in Portugal, have made it clear that it is crucial to strengthen European legislation and legislation in the Member States in order to protect workers' rights, particularly their jobs, and to prevent multinationals from continuing to act in an arbitrary way, in order to achieve greater profits.
<P>
It is particularly important that special attention is paid to the granting of any kind of subsidy to these companies, which should always be conditional on jobs being maintained, and weighty penalties must be provided for as well as the return of subsidies received if this does not happen.
<P>
It is equally vital that the necessary measures are taken to give more rights and more scope for intervention to the European Works Councils established in the 94/95 directive, particularly in terms of the right to suspend licences.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Theonas">
- (EL) The arrogance of the American superpower, as demonstrated by its flagrantly murderous bombing campaign against Yugoslavia, is becoming all the more defiant and monocratic towards all the people of the world, with endless Senate decisions on the research and development of nuclear weapons.
Following the recent Senate decision to restart the famous "Star Wars" by voting for further funding, in contravention of the ABM Agreement, its refusal to ratify the Treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons demonstrates out and out contempt towards worldwide demands for a general and comprehensive ban on all nuclear testing.
<P>
At present, popular movements are fighting for the total abolition of nuclear weapons and, with the threat looming of a resurgence of nuclear rivalry, the general public is calling for a reduction in military defence expenditure to avert the danger of a nuclear disaster. Nevertheless, the USA is not only adopting an extremely defiant stance by blocking efforts to stabilise international relations but it is deliberately undermining endeavours to build a climate of international peace and security.
<P>
This move has evoked considerable concern over the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the extensive armament of certain regions of the world and the modernisation of weapons of mass destruction.
<P>
Recent revelations concerning the proliferation of nuclear weapons and warheads to third countries which are not nuclear powers, and unbeknownst to their citizens, have added a new terrorist dimension to the threat of a nuclear disaster.
Unfortunately, some EU Member States, Greece for example, are included in those countries.
<P>
To ensure that the aspirations of the peace movement are respected all over the world, we are calling for immediate and specific initiatives to be introduced to abolish all nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. We are also calling for a general and definitive end to nuclear tests, a ban on the deployment of nuclear weapons outside the boundaries of the countries that own them, in accordance with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the withdrawal of all atomic weapons which are either deployed or stored in other countries and a ban on the export of all nuclear waste.
<P>
If the funds for nuclear testing and armament were released and channelled towards more productive investments in economic and social cohesion, education, culture and the protection of the environment, then this could ensure conciliation and peaceful co-existence and enhance mutual relations and equal cooperation.
This and only this can encourage, strengthen and guarantee stability and peace.
The rest would simply overfeed the greedy interests of monopolies and imperialism, particularly American imperialism which is a constant threat to all the people on earth.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 1.18 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Transport of dangerous goods by rail
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A5-0027/1999) by Mr Hatzidakis, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directive 96/49/EC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States with regard to the transport of dangerous goods by rail [COM(1999)0157 - C5-0005/1999 - 1999/0087(COD)].
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Hatzidakis">
Mr President, as you said yourself, the report concerns a Commission proposal on the transport of dangerous goods by rail.
In recent years, this transport has expanded considerably, thus increasing the risks of accidents occurring.
The international transport of dangerous goods by rail is governed by the regulations concerning the international carriage of dangerous goods by rail, usually known as RID.
All the Member Sates are contracting parties to this Convention whose geographical scope extends beyond the European Union.
This Convention only applies to cross-border transport and does not cover the national carriage of dangerous goods by rail.
Therefore, and in order to ensure a high level of safety for national and international transport operations and to guarantee the elimination of distortions of competition, the European Union has adopted Directive 96/49/EC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States with regard to the transport of dangerous goods by rail.
<P>
The main purpose of this Community legislation is to extend the above-mentioned regulations concerning the international carriage of dangerous goods by rail (RID) to national transport, i.e., to transport operations within the national territory of each Member State.
<P>
The aforementioned directive entered into force in January 1997.
However, this directive provided for a certain number of derogations, restrictions and exemptions.
In particular, transitional provisions expiring on 1 January 1999 relating to the construction, use and conditions of carriage of new tanks and new receptacles for the transport of gas, allowed Member States to retain the provisions of their national legislation.
The reason was that the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) had not yet completed work to standardise the construction and use of tanks and receptacles.
<P>
The present proposal aims to extend the aforementioned transitional period until 1 July 2001, or even longer for the transportation of pressure equipment for which no detailed technical specifications or no adequate references to the relevant European standards exist.
In this case, the date of entry into force of the provisions of the directive is to be determined by the Committee set up on the basis of the directive.
The reason for the postponement is that, due to delays in the standardisation work being carried out by the European Committee for Standardisation, the 1999 version of the RID does not incorporate standards for the construction and use of tanks and receptacles for transporting Class 2 gases.
<P>
The second objective of the present proposal is to amend certain provisions in Article 6 concerning derogations and to specify their acceptance procedure in more detail.
In particular, it aims to define the conditions that must be met for the application of certain derogations authorising Member States, as an exceptional measure, to issue administrative authorisations valid on their territory alone to carry out "ad hoc" transport operations of dangerous goods.
<P>
The general public takes a great interest in the transport of dangerous goods and measures relating to such transport.
Ensuring quality and safety standards in the carriage of goods by rail must be the main objective of any EU legislation in this field.
<P>
The key problem is that standards for the construction and use of tanks and receptacles for transporting Class 2 gases have not yet been agreed by the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN).
In all Member States, there are various provisions in industrial and transport law concerning the packing and transportation of these gases.
The national regulations can be very different, in particular on technical grounds and also for climatic reasons, which leads to a fragmentation of the market within the EU which is incompatible with the single market.
<P>
It is therefore difficult to explain to the general public why the necessary common European standards have not yet been incorporated into the Annex to the EU legislation.
This is the reason why I cannot welcome this Commission proposal.
I understand, however, the need to extend the deadlines in Directive 96/49, in order to preclude the need for Member States to amend their national legislation for a brief period, entailing extra expenditure for the Member States and industry.
<P>
With regard to the second part of the proposal specifying the conditions on which a transport operation can be considered an "ad hoc" transport operation and also regarding the procedure for the acceptance of derogations, I personally welcome and approve the Commission proposal which is, in fact, more stringent than the legislation in force today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Piecyk">
Mr President, we have latterly been discussing technical regulations, technical details, regarding which one might ask whether such details are actually the concern of Parliament.
Transport safety in all transport operators has always been an important matter of concern to Parliament, particularly, of course, in the transportation of dangerous goods.
<P>
The annoying thing about the matter before us is that the CEN, the European Committee for Standardisation, is extremely dilatory.
We therefore find ourselves in the situation of having to concede an extension to the time limit for, as the rapporteur said, it would be senseless if all Member States were now going to have to issue further individual regulations for a set period of time.
<P>
We therefore need common regulations which are as strict as possible, also for the transportation of dangerous goods.
Consequently, one can only fully endorse the proposal of the rapporteur, our committee chairman, and also thank him for the work which he inevitably took on himself.
This would have been superfluous if the other authorities had completed their work in good time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Krivine">
Mr President, if we want dangerous goods and materials to be transported primarily by rail, then it would seem necessary, as a matter of urgency, to establish requirements for the conditions for this.
The fact is that the general population and the personnel working in this sector are being subjected to ever greater risk, and this is due to a number of reasons.
Firstly, the privatisation of rail networks, particularly in all matters to do with their maintenance, presents serious problems for safety, with an increasing number of accidents occasionally causing real disasters in human terms, such as we have just seen in Great Britain.
<P>
The need to make profits and competitivity are enshrined in European standards.
They demand drastic reductions in costs, always to the detriment of the employees who nonetheless play an essential part in the field of maintenance and safety.
This is done without any supervision.
Neither officials, nor users, nor citizens are called upon to give their opinion.
The diversity of the legislation within each State further complicates safety matters and increases the risk factor.
As far as we are concerned, it is important for the principle of precaution and of maximum safety to have priority.
This is true, particularly for the transportation of radioactive waste, which is dealt with in France with intolerable insouciance, particularly in the case at The Hague, with little respect for the health of railway workers and the general public.
<P>
Today, then, it is a matter of urgency to put an end to privatisation, to increase staff levels, and to give these people proper training, to enforce compulsory budgets reserved for the maintenance and supervision thereof, to set up user/professional committees to supervise traffic, to enforce an official right of veto with regard to goods transfers when real risks are involved.
This would make it possible to take preventative action rather than waiting for accidents to happen, as they will, more and more, if no action is taken involving the authorities and the general public.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Konrad">
Mr President, I wish to speak in favour of the report by Mr Hatzidakis, simply because we do need regulations on the transportation of dangerous goods in Europe.
I would, however, add at the same time that this report also describes the tense relationship of road and rail.
We have, in the agreements which we are to conclude here, repeatedly drawn attention, from many different points of view, to the fact that rail transport must be intensified.
This is as is should be, because we do need these transport operators, particularly in the case of dangerous goods.
There is no doubt about it.
<P>
But we must approach this subject honestly and ask ourselves whether we have the necessary capacity in this sector.
I have my doubts in this regard.
I think all of us here, getting up on our soap-boxes, have repeatedly discussed the capacity of the railway system, a capacity which just does not exist in reality, either because too few rail networks are available or because there is much too much passenger traffic on these rail networks.
<P>
I believe we need a touch more honesty in this discussion.
I myself come from a region in Germany, the Ruhr, in which there is a very dense railway network, but despite that we can observe in the same region that the capacity available is simply far from adequate, even if it was required.
<P>
Permit me to introduce a second aspect in connection with this, a matter which I believe it is very important to take note of.
Whenever the European Parliament discusses this theme or similar ones, it is clear to me that this is a field which we must deal with on the European scale, for example, on the subject of railways, or on the subject of the transportation of dangerous goods.
It is accepted that we should establish a common European transport policy.
It is accepted that we should establish a common European environmental policy, and these are precisely the areas where this Parliament and European policy are credible, in my opinion. So what use are national regulations, for dangerous goods on the road, for instance, if we need Europe-wide regulations?
This is precisely the point described in this report.
We do not need to justify to the citizens of Europe the fact that we need a common European environmental policy or a European safety policy in this field relating to dangerous goods.
It has been accepted and is understood.
It is applicable, besides, to other areas of transport policy.
<P>
Let me just mention, in connection with this, that there is no longer anyone in Europe who understands why we still regulate aviation safety in Europe on a national and not a European basis.
I am therefore grateful to President Prodi for adding this as a point and clearly emphasising it in the Commission' s intergovernmental programme.
We must put an end to petty national jealousies and say that, with five phases, we could guarantee safety in aviation in Europe.
<P>
In this area we need European solutions, not national solutions, and here the national state is yielding none of its sovereignty.
Instead, all one is trying to understand here is what is necessary in order to provide safety.
The sovereignty of national states was lost long ago in the fields of the environment, aviation, or safety.
This is an area where Europe must make a positive contribution.
That is why this report may be seen in isolation as dealing with a specific subject, but when it is examined in the European context, it becomes clear that this report is outlining more than the specific subject of dangerous goods on the rail network.
It exemplifies the fact that in this House we do see connections, and this is something I wished to stress clearly once more.
Let us approve this report, and on all matters let us keep in mind the big picture, seeing this as a document which contributes towards a Europe which is responsive to its citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="De Palacio">
Mr President, I would like firstly to thank Mr Hatzidakis, rapporteur and President of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, for the excellent report which he has carried out concerning the proposed amendment of the framework Directive on the transport of dangerous goods by rail.
<P>
The truth is that the framework directive entered into force in January 1997 and the current Commission proposal attempts to resolve the problems of application of the transitional provisions concerning containers for the transport of gases and tanks.
In fact, as has been correctly pointed out by Mr Hatzidakis, this directive lays down certain transitional provisions, valid until 1 January of the current year, in order to allow for the termination of certain work by the European Committee for Standardisation.
To this end, I would like to express my agreement with Mr Hatzidakis and with certain other speakers and to express my regret that the European Committee for Standardisation has still not reached an agreement which would allow Member States to legislate in accordance with what will be the final regulation, and not to find themselves in a position, if today and in the weeks to come we are not capable of amending the current directive, where they have to legislate to amend the legislation once again within a short space of time, with all the problems which that would entail.
<P>
We are talking in the short term about the application of paragraph 4 of Article 6 which refers to containers for the transport of class 2 gas, as well as the corresponding tanks.
The time limit for this provision causes problems and therefore we will have to see how this situation can be resolved.
We are simply trying to resolve a question which, if the Committee had done its work on time and correctly, we would not be facing now.
<P>
On the other hand, the second objective of the present proposal is the amendment of certain provisions concerning derogations, with the aim of making them more precise, as well as the amendment of the procedure for their approval.
Given the good reception in this regard, which amounts to an acceptance without amendments on the part of this Parliament, it only remains for me to thank you for your cooperation, study and work.
<P>
I would like, however, to make some comments about what has been said in the debate.
Firstly, it is clear that a directive is necessary because we are amending a previous directive.
In this case, the instrument necessary to amend a directive is another directive.
<P>
Passing on to other matters, I would like to reply to Mr Pohjamo that Directive 96/35 on safety advisers, which will enter into force on 1 January 2000, will contribute to the application of the legislation on the transport of dangerous goods, and make it more transparent and more in line with our intentions.
<P>
I would like lastly to comment briefly on what Mr Konrad said with regard to the capacity of rail transport and the promotion of railways by the Commission and the Member States.
It is true, as he has said, that in certain areas of the network we have a situation of overload, with infrastructures which are already very well used, particularly for the transport of persons, which is the form of use which is currently the priority of all the Member States in terms of their railway policy.
In recent years, when the Member States have supported the railway it has mainly been with regard to the transport of persons.
These magnificent and successful efforts mean that today we have high speed trains which connect, for example, Brussels and Paris in little more than an hour.
<P>
But in fact we still have the problem of the transport of goods by rail.
And I believe that in this area we still have work to do.
The forecast regarding the increase in the transport of goods in the coming years - which is good or bad depending on your point of view - is very significant.
This increase will be the result of increased development and growth in our countries and, in a way, if it did not happen, it would be a bad indication with regard to the performance of our economy and therefore of our society as well.
<P>
To this end, we must improve the infrastructures.
And above all the interoperability of our trains.
As Mr Konrad has explained very effectively, when you arrive at a border in a goods train, it probably takes six or seven hours to cross the border.
But this problem also has its equivalent in the field of air transport.
If, for example, you travel by car and cross the border between Germany and France, nobody asks you to identify yourself nor to say whether you are crossing the country.
However, if you travel by plane, you have to ask permission to cross from one side to the other and sometimes it is even granted when you are already in a third country because you have already crossed in the meantime.
<P>
Mr President, I wish to repeat my thanks and say that I hope that we will soon conclude the handling of this directive, which will allow the Committee for Standardisation to carry out its work correctly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
EC-Morocco fisheries agreement
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="President">
The next item is the oral question to the Commission (B5-0031/1999) by Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the EC-Morocco fisheries agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Varela Suanzes-Carpegna">
Mr President, Commissioner, I wish to express my regret, firstly at the fact that the Council cannot reply to this oral question which had originally been formulated by our Committee for both the Commission and the Council.
For whatever reason the Council is not going to reply to this question.
<P>
I am pleased, however, that this debate is taking place today instead of being, as is usually the case, one of the last items on the agenda of the last day of one of our Strasbourg part-sessions.
I hope that these debates can take place during the sittings on the "important days" in Strasbourg, because fishing deserves it, and an agreement of the importance of the one we will discuss today, even more so.
<P>
I would especially like to thank Mr Fischler for his punctual presence, and to thank him also for honouring the promise that he made to the Committee on Fisheries, in the hearing of 30 August, when he told us that he would give priority to the fisheries agreement with Morocco, which can be seen from the promptness with which he has drawn up a proposed mandate for negotiation.
I wish therefore for this expression of thanks to be noted.
<P>
We must also congratulate ourselves on the fact that the Council has approved, despite the storm clouds which had gathered, this proposed mandate.
Therefore, we now have a mandate for negotiation of the fisheries agreement with Morocco.
If we add to this the fact that the two budgetary authorities - that is, the Council and Parliament - have declared themselves in favour of the political priority of funding this fisheries agreement, we will conclude, Mr Fischler, that "all" that is left is to negotiate and sign it.
That is your challenge now, with no doubt whatsoever, but in this task you can count on the support of this Parliament and of course the help of the Committee on Fisheries which I preside over.
<P>
I would like to inform you that on the 29th in our committee we will have a wide-ranging audience with the sector affected by this fisheries agreement with Morocco and the participation of the European Commission would also be desirable.
<P>
I am sure it is not necessary, Mr Fischler, to emphasise once again the importance of this agreement with Morocco to certain Member States, such as Spain and Portugal, and to certain autonomous communities such as Galicia, Andalusia and the Canary Islands, all of which, as is well known, come within Objective 1, are very dependent on fishing and at the moment have no other fishing grounds for their fleets and have a business structure which does not allow certain types of cooperation.
Commissioner, you will have the opportunity to observe what we are talking about on your next visit to Galicia, which we await with open arms.
<P>
A significant amount of the supply of fish to the European market depends on this agreement, as do many direct jobs, as well as many more involved in the industry and services.
The proposed resolutions presented speak for themselves and I need no more evidence.
<P>
The recent seminar between Europe and Morocco which took place in our own Parliament highlighted the great interest, at the highest level, which Morocco has in Europe.
"Cooperation" has been the mostly commonly used word.
Well, the cooperation which the European Union is asking of Morocco at the moment is in the specific field of fishing.
In relation to fishing we have no choice but to understand each other and cooperate.
It is not a matter of exchanging one thing for another: fruit for fish.
It is a matter of cooperating in the area of fishing.
It is a matter of reaching the best possible agreement in terms of fishing cooperation.
When?
How?
Fortunately the European Union is an economic, financial and commercial power.
Fortunately we have structural mechanisms which provide for the negotiation contingencies.
And, at the moment, I call on the Finnish Presidency to go ahead in the next Council with the FIFG Regulations and on the Commission, Mr Fischler, to be flexible in this text so that it may come closer to the position of the European Parliament.
It is urgent that we foresee these contingencies in our structural aid and also, in exceptional cases, both for shipowners and for fishermen.
<P>
In this way, we should not be excessively hasty: our legislative and budgetary forecasts allow us to deal with a protracted negotiation.
It is better to have a prolonged negotiation, resulting in a good agreement, than a bad one achieved quickly.
<P>
What kind of agreement, Commissioner?
One which continues to allow the fishing activities of the different fleets which today fish in those waters.
What kind of cooperation?
The widest possible, which must also include extractive cooperation, since if Europe is the principal market for the export of Moroccan fish, to subscribe to cooperation in terms of marketing and processing is not what is necessary, given that the market is controlled from the centres of consumption rather than from the centres of production.
In any event, Mr Fischler, a genuine association policy should involve the opening up of that country to European investments, including in the field of extractive fishing.
This will allow us to compete under equal conditions, putting Europeans and Moroccans on the same footing.
<P>
Equality has to be both real and effective and therefore non-discriminatory with regard to measures for the conservation of resources.
Let us make sure, Commissioner, that what happened with the agreement with Argentina never happens again.
Effective measures concerning the monitoring and control of the issues agreed, equally applicable to both parties, will be necessary.
Nobody has a greater interest than the European Union in protecting resources and fishing responsibly.
Let us ensure that the other party guarantees that it will apply these measures in the reproduction areas of the various species, where European fleets do not fish, and in those areas where both parties fish, and that closed seasons and temporary fishing bans are also applied, without discrimination and with a mutual system of control.
<P>
Commissioner, the European Parliament will support you politically and financially.
That is why we have asked to be associated with this negotiation, which I hope will be approved in the coming tripartite meetings.
Therefore, Mr Fischler, now - as we say in my country, on which you will no doubt become a great expert - good luck and al toro [take the bull by the horns].
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Varela, as you know, on 15 October the Council finally accepted the mandate for the commencement of negotiations with the Kingdom of Morocco.
For our part, all the arrangements to be able to start these negotiations had been made a long time ago.
Thank you, Mr Varela, for the good luck you wished me in this matter.
Since it is more to do with ships, perhaps it would be more appropriate, rather than wishing for me to take the bull by the horns, to take the helm, using the more nautical expression.
<P>
The objective of these negotiations is to seek new forms of cooperation in the fisheries sector together, which are in harmony with the development of the Moroccan fisheries sector and with maintaining the catch capacity of the European fleet.
As you also know, in spite of all the efforts undertaken on the part of the Commission, and in part by my predecessor, Morocco has still not wished to hold any exploratory meetings.
Consequently, on the occasion of the meeting which you already mentioned, Mr Varela, on 21 October with Prime Minister Youssoufi, I offered to take up the negotiations in Morocco personally.
In the meantime, the Moroccan authorities have approached us with regard to setting a definitive deadline.
Since it has been mentioned, I would also like to point out that I have been invited to participate at the meeting of the Committee on Fisheries on 29 November.
That is the date that was set. To be perfectly frank I envisage some problems there, as at that time I am also required to be in Seattle for the opening of the WTO Millennium Round.
I would therefore ask you to understand that we shall either have to postpone this meeting or you will have to hold your Committee meeting without me.
<P>
I absolutely agree with you that we must spare no effort in order to successfully sign this agreement.
But we all know, too, that it is going to be tremendously difficult, and you mentioned the discussions on this matter with the Moroccans last week.
I attended some of these talks myself, and I had to observe that up to now the Moroccans' attitude towards us has been anything but positive.
I would also like to go into one other matter, and this concerns what should happen after November, after the agreement has expired, if the discontinuation of fishing activity is enforced.
The Commission intends accordingly to apply the possible terms of Community law in favour of the crews and fishery firms affected.
But the legal basis for applying these, especially after December, will be the new structural measures.
It will therefore be important for an appropriate decision to be taken in Council in good time so that we have a legal basis for having available, at least, an instrument to be able to guarantee financial support to the fishing firms and fishermen affected in that event.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cunha">
<SPEAKER ID=108 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Miguélez Ramos">
Mr President, on the initiative of the Socialist Group and with the support of other groups, the Committee on Fisheries has formulated this oral question to the European Commission and the, once again, absent Council of Ministers, so that European citizens may learn of the current situation with regard to the contacts with the Moroccan authorities, with a view to the negotiation of a future fisheries agreement between the European Union and Morocco.
<P>
You will be aware, Mr Fischler, that the current agreement will expire on 30 November and that the following day the activities of the Community fleet which is fishing in the waters covered by this agreement will come to a halt.
That is to say, Mr Fischler, that on 1 December 7,000 European fishermen will lose their jobs, 477 Community ships will remain moored in our ports, 10,000 jobs in the preserving and processing industries will be under threat, as well as many thousands more, relating to marketing and dockyard activities, will also be at risk.
<P>
And these are jobs, Commissioner - and I want to warn you of this - in coastal areas which are highly dependent on fishing, Objective 1 regions, where fishing is the principal activity.
<P>
In Galicia, which is my region, extractive fishing plays a part in 45 of the 56 Galician economic activities.
The Community fleet which fishes in this fishing ground, Commissioner, has been decreasing agreement after agreement in terms of the number of ships and fishermen.
This does not surprise me, but we cannot imagine that the ships and men who have fished there for decades, and of course long before the Jamaica Convention, will disappear overnight.
<P>
The aid to shipowners and fishermen which is going to result from the FIFG has already been mentioned.
I would like to tell you, Commissioner, that, firstly, neither the fishermen nor the shipowners wish to be subsidised.
They are hard-working sea-faring people, who just want to work in the job that they know and for which they take such risks.
<P>
On the other hand, these subsidies are never going to make it to a certain proportion of the population affected by this stoppage: to Mrs Manuela, who owns a fishmongers, to Mr Antonio, who sells electrical goods, or to the traditional boat-builders who are carrying out their work in the Galician training workshop in Rianxo because there will be no boats to repair.
<P>
And, furthermore, Commissioner, if these subsidies are paid with FIFG resources, which are scarce and which are aimed at the adaptation and renovation of fleets, there will be fewer resources for the objectives of this fishing fund.
Four years ago this Parliament declared itself in favour of creating a line specifically to deal with halts of fleets, unforeseen crises and circumstances such as a delay in the renewal of agreements.
<P>
After the expiry of the previous agreement, Commissioner, there was a halt which lasted seven months, to which we have to add the natural biological stoppages and other bans which were not so much biological as arbitrary, imposed by the Moroccan Administration on a European Commission which was not able to defend the interests of its people, which was illustrated by the numerous unjustified seizures including some which were outside the Moroccan exclusive economic zone.
<P>
I would like to ask the Commissioner what he plans to do with regard to preventing the re-occurrence of this situation because, until now, I have no idea what he intends.
Neither do I know - since the Commissioner mentions it - what the Commissioner' s position is and how fishing will be defended at the Seattle Summit.
I have seen how active you have been in the newspapers, Commissioner, in defence of agriculture, but I have heard nothing about fishing.
I believe it would be useful if you were to establish a line of defence for European fishing.
<P>
But the Council is also doing a dreadful job, especially in view of its incomprehensible inactivity with regard to providing the Commission with a mandate for negotiations with the Moroccan Government.
<P>
And I believe that the Council' s delay can only be explained by the lack of pressure from the Government of the Member State which should be most interested in this Agreement.
And further proof of this disinterest on the part of the Council is its absence today in this debate: disinterest in the fisheries agreement with Morocco and a lack of respect for this Parliament which represents all the citizens of Europe.
<P>
The European Parliament, which will have to express its opinion on the future agreement by means of the assent procedure, must - I believe - be involved with the other institutions during the negotiations with the Moroccan government.
There is no place here for a late and bad consultation, as is normally the case.
<P>
And I would like to say to you, Commissioner, that I believe that the current agreement already has the characteristics of a second generation agreement and that, therefore, you must not insist on that position, which you have indicated, of saying that the negotiation is going to be very difficult.
<P>
This agreement is not limited to mere financial compensation.
There are already joint Euro-Moroccan enterprises and these will continue to exist, but this cannot be an exclusive model.
Because we must not demand that shipowners get rid of their fishermen, with all their savoir faire, and we Socialists will not allow the continuation of certain companies to take place at the expense of their fishermen.
<P>
The existing agreement and the one to come are a sign of Euro-Mediterranean cooperation and benefit both parties.
Within the future agreement the Community must offer its technical services so that Morocco may also put its fishing fleet in order.
<P>
Mr Fischler, with regard to fishing, you have not yet begun your work, or at least, you have scarcely started and started badly.
You are still an unknown Commissioner, and I say "started badly" because of your unfortunate début of announcing the probable disbanding of the Directorate-General for Fisheries which, as you well know, caused a real storm in the sector.
<P>
But I would like to tell you, Commissioner, that we are not going to take that into account.
You were an acting Commissioner and I would like to borrow the metaphor of Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna and tell you that you have a good bull, a miura, to fight; carry out good negotiations, bring them to a satisfactory conclusion, defend the interests of the European fishermen as the Moroccan Government will defend the interests of theirs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, first of all our group did not sign this resolution for a number of very important reasons.
We find it very one-sided and a blatant demand for Morocco to give in to European demands regardless of what it wants.
We Greens believe it is up to Morocco to decide how best to benefit from its resources in its own waters.
<P>
One of the most deplorable aspects of this resolution is the failure to address the issue of the Western Sahara.
Last night a representative of the Saharoui people spoke to the Greens.
He told us of EU-flag vessels fishing off the coast of Western Sahara.
The border of the Western Sahara is established at 27º 4' .
North of that is Morocco and south of that is the Western Sahara.
We all know that the Saharoui people are supposed to vote in a referendum very soon on self-determination but of course many serious problems have been posed by the Moroccans.
<P>
There is no EU country that has recognised Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara, but according to the Saharoui people, at the same time the EU pays EUR 500 million to Morocco.
EU vessels fish hake and other species in waters off Morocco, and Morocco has no legal jurisdiction in these waters.
Many people believe this constitutes illegal fishing.
Some might even go as far as to call it piracy.
These are very serious allegations and I should also point out that similar allegations have been made as regards Somalia.
<P>
I would ask the Commission what assurances it can give that this is not happening.
Current agreements with Morocco have provisions for an experimental satellite system.
Can the Commission reassure us, through the results, that EU vessels are not engaging in illegal fishing.
I should add that the representative stressed that they had no problem whatsoever with EU/Morocco agreements.
Their concern was that it be "legal" , that is, restricted to Moroccan waters only.
<P>
Our problems with the resolution are not just on this point - although it is a very serious issue.
The Greens would like to stress first of all that we are not, as many people would have it, against fisheries agreements with third countries but we have very important conditions that we want attached to those agreements.
We want them to be more equitable, less environmentally and socially damaging and consistent with other Community policies.
<P>
There are specific criteria that we would like to follow.
First of all with regard to all EU fisheries agreements, not just Moroccan agreements: they should follow the precautionary approach.
Most people subscribe to this in theory but not in practice.
Simply put, in the case of agreements there must be clear scientific proof that added fishing pressure from proposed EU activities will not compromise sustainability of fish stocks.
If we cannot be sure that fish are available these particular species should not be put in the agreement.
<P>
The second criteria is that the regional approach should be followed.
All countries involved in fishing the relevant stocks, be they coastal states or distant water states, should be involved in assessments of stocks and negotiations over how much fishing is done and who has the right to do it.
This approach is followed very successfully in the South Pacific on tuna and there is no reason whatsoever that it should not apply here.
<P>
There is a consistent EU approach of negotiating with one state at a time.
This is not acceptable.
Control is also a very big problem in most of these agreements.
The third countries simply do not have the resources to ensure that the vessels from the EU and other distant water fleets respect the rules.
<P>
We know the problems that the Member States have in their own waters, so it must be very difficult indeed for these other countries to be able to tackle these problems.
Satellite systems are a very small but positive step, but a lot more needs to be done.
In 1997 the Council requested an in-depth analysis of the EU third country agreements.
The summary report is now available.
It was discussed on Tuesday at the Council meeting.
We welcome this study very much and hope that the Council will now conduct a wide-ranging debate, both within the Council itself and with other sectors of society, about these EU fisheries agreements.
<P>
Some of the conclusions of the report are questionable but at least it provides some hard information and figures on the agreements.
This is something that was sorely needed and has been called for for a long time.
<P>
Another point I want to make, as previous speakers have and, I suspect, most of the following speakers will, concerns the importance of this and other fisheries agreements to certain regions of the Community which are heavily dependent upon fishing.
The Greens sympathise with their plight and trust that appropriate compensation will be made available for those fishery workers who are put out of work in the eventuality of a halt in fishing activities.
But the current EU policy is doing them a disservice by continually holding out hopes that there are fish available for them somewhere.
It is fanning false hopes.
It is clear that there are limits to how much fish is available.
For many years the FAO has been warning of the problems, yet we keep looking for fish somewhere else until there is nowhere else.
If one looks at Community statistics on employment in the sector, it is clear that this is on the decline.
Much of this is due to the continued industrialisation of the sector, developing even larger vessels which require fewer people.
While this serves to make fishermen' s lives easier and safer, it does come with certain social costs in terms of employment.
The aspect of employment in all sectors of the fishing industry needs to be reviewed.
It is affected by many factors including structural policy which does not take employment into account in issues of vessel size.
<P>
Finally, to come back again to the point of Morocco' s right to make its own decisions.
On behalf of the Green Group, I went with the Committee on Fisheries last year to Morocco and the Moroccans were very clear: they did not want to sign the last agreement.
They did so only under extreme pressure from the European Union including a letter from Jacques Santer pleading and begging with the Moroccans to agree this last time; this would be the last agreement; the EU needed time to find another solution. But nothing has been done to find other solutions and this has to be done.
We cannot force our wishes on other countries.
We must respect their rights.
We must have equitable agreements with other countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Miranda">
Mr President, just a few brief observations - as Mr Salvador Jové Peres will be speaking next on behalf of my group - to say that this is an issue that is becoming extremely important and extremely relevant today, both in terms of what it means for fishing stocks, and in terms of the number of jobs that it involves directly or indirectly.
And also in terms of the unpleasant incidents that would ensue from a possible stoppage of the fleets working in Moroccan waters, with all the inherent tension and social costs.
<P>
And as far as this is concerned, I cannot fail to highlight the mistake made four or five years ago by establishing a fisheries agreement outside the broader framework of the cooperation agreement established between the European Union and Morocco.
At the time we drew attention to the dangers that would ensue, and now we have new and inevitable consequences, specifically the demands for more Moroccan fishermen on Community vessels, fishing licences restricted to new, joint ventures, the obligation to unload fish in Moroccan ports, more concessions in the agricultural area etc.
<P>
Of course we are in favour of and want to reach a rapid and efficient negotiation with the Kingdom of Morocco, which will be to our mutual advantage.
But we think that it is vital that the negotiations about to start, which may prove to be difficult and slow, are directed towards certain key areas at Community level.
Firstly, the fisheries agreement will definitely have to be incorporated into our overall cooperation agreement with that country.
Next, we cannot make more concessions or give more compensation in the area of agriculture, and the current jobs in the fisheries industry must be guaranteed.
And finally, but no less importantly, we must take every precaution and provide for appropriate compensation in case of a possible and undesirable stoppage of the Community fleet' s fishing.
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<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, Commissioner, the fisheries agreement with the Kingdom of Morocco is by far the most important ever signed by the European Union by virtue of the number of Community vessels which it affects, the fishing opportunities which it opens up and the jobs which depend directly on it, more than 8,000 fishermen and 20, 000 workers.
<P>
A number of regions within several European Union Member States are closely, if not totally, dependent on this fisheries agreement.
Everyone here knows that if this agreement were not renewed, then the whole European Union fishing sector would suffer indirectly from the consequences.
Effectively, the fishing vessels that could no longer fish in Moroccan waters would inevitably transfer their activities to other areas, thus risking causing dangerous chain reactions and imbalances harmful to everyone.
<P>
It should have come as no surprise to the Commission to find that the Moroccans are tough negotiators. It should have come to this conclusion before.
We already experienced considerable difficulties when negotiating the agreement currently in force.
It is, furthermore, perfectly legitimate for Morocco to seek to manage its fishing resources to the best advantage of its long-term interests.
It would be remiss of us to reproach them for this.
But it must be possible to integrate this requirement properly, and respect it fully, within the framework of a new agreement.
<P>
Yet, has the Commission made our Moroccan friends sufficiently aware of the formidable consequences that Member States of the Union would have to deal with as a result of the non-renewal of this fisheries agreement with them?
We have the impression that the Commission has not shown the necessary zeal in this matter.
The fisheries agreement expires on 30 November.
The Commission was very tardy in requesting its negotiating mandate.
New negotiations have not been initiated, even though the deadline is only one month away.
<P>
What mechanism is envisaged, Commissioner, if the situation becomes deadlocked, to prevent the vessels directly concerned, the fishing sector participants affected, the regions concerned and, most especially, Objective 1 and 2 areas which are dependent on fishing, as our joint resolutions specifies, bearing the brunt of the disastrous consequences in the event of non-renewal of the agreement?
Just now, Commissioner, you were rather vague on this essential point.
There is no question that the Commission has demonstrated passivity, incompetence and laxity, even though this is an essential task entrusted to it under the terms of the Treaties.
<P>
If the Commission does not now devote all the energy needed to preserve this fundamental pillar of the common fisheries policy which the fisheries agreements represent, then there will be great and justified pressure from those working in the fishing sector to demand that the common fisheries policy is challenged and a bilateral framework reintroduced enabling fisheries agreements to be signed directly between Member States and third countries, agreements which would better respect and defend the vital interests of our nations.
<P>
This is to say, Commissioner, that the issues involved in the negotiations with Morocco are particularly important to the very future of the common fisheries policy.
We therefore hope that in Brussels, Strasbourg or Seattle, you will give it all the priority attention which it demands.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Mr President, Commissioner, the matter of renegotiating the EU-Morocco fisheries agreement which is due to expire on 30 November has been referred to us.
This is one of the 29 fisheries agreements signed by the European Union with around fifteen countries of Africa and countries bordering the Indian Ocean.
These negotiations are going to take place in a specific context, characterised by two new elements, firstly, the death of His Majesty Hassan II, the last giant figure in the history of the twentieth century, and, secondly, the principle of Turkey' s candidacy for accession, accepted a few days ago.
When proposing to integrate a country which has nothing in common with Europe, it is hard to voice significant reservations with regard to Morocco which at least shares with Spain or France its language, history and economic relationships.
<P>
Technically, Morocco wants comprehensive negotiations on fishing, the preservations of fish stocks, on local industry and even, more generally, on our agricultural dealings with Morocco.
The position of our countries is essentially a budgetary position, with a cost of EUR 125 million per year.
The main beneficiary is Spain which carries out 20% of its fishing production within the framework of the agreement with Morocco, Mauritania and Senegal. As for Portugal and France, they benefit to a lesser extent, and Italy too would like to derive advantage from it.
Furthermore, Morocco wishes to preserve fishing resources within its economic area, and other countries, such as Great Britain, are announcing their concerns about the budget.
It is true that the Community budget allocated to fisheries agreements is not inconsiderable: EUR 300 million, or 5% of the budget for European external policies.
It is a not inconsiderable sum then, even if we lose nothing in the deal.
If IFREMER is to be believed, then, for every euro invested, the turnover generated for Europe would be around three euros, and the added value would be 900 million.
The Spanish are the main beneficiaries, with the Canaries where 91% of the fleet is dependent on this agreement, and with Andalusia where 75% of the fleet is involved, and there would be a cost to pay if there were to be no agreement.
And indeed Morocco does not lose out either since almost a thousand jobs are affected by this agreement, for an annual added value of 36 million.
But the Moroccans bring up, quite rightly, the risk of over-exploitation of fishing resources.
Forty years ago, fishing catches worldwide were less than 20 million tonnes, today they are around 100 million tonnes, even if Europe is not responsible, as we are fishing less and less in the Mediterranean, where our share is no more than 40% of the catch.
It is important, then, to monitor these fishing resources, which I know well, from the small ports of Oualidia or Media down to Mauritania by way of the Western Sahara, which I must remind Mrs McKenna is not independent, but has belonged to Morocco for centuries.
<P>
How are we to find a compromise with the Moroccan Minister, El Khyari?
On the European side, we could make concessions on the development of the local Moroccan processing industry, on aid for scientific research and on landings in Moroccan ports.
There are still two stumbling blocks: firstly, the matter of abandoning community preference in the field of agriculture, and we already know the problems affecting the sectors of tomatoes, early fruit and vegetables or horticulture, and secondly, another point, on which we cannot yield involves trading the Spanish fleet' s fishing rights for an increase in immigration in a Europe which already has 18 million unemployed.
<P>
Mr Fischler, you reminded us that you will be in Seattle. The problem must therefore be considered at a much higher level.
These are not negotiations regarding just fishing, but are far wider-ranging negotiations, Euro-Mediterranean talks, or even WTO talks.
If, in Seattle, we are going to give in to the United States on the subject of compensation funding in agriculture, then it will be difficult to refuse Morocco similar concessions in the agricultural sector.
Clearly, too, Morocco-Europe relations must be evaluated at the summit.
We must take advantage of His Majesty Mohamed VI' s forthcoming visit to Parliament to undertake comprehensive renegotiations, and we must ensure that Morocco is not destabilised by the sort of foolish remarks made just now by Mrs McKenna regarding some putative Saharan sovereignty.
We know full well what the consequences would be if Algeria had access to the Atlantic coastline.
<P>
Europe needs Morocco and vice-versa.
The agreement must therefore be sought with respect for our shared identities, for sovereignty and also for our separate identities, while acknowledging that history has made Morocco, if not a cultural exception, then at least a Mediterranean exception, for Europe in general and for France in particular.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fraga Estévez">
Mr President, the enormous pressure which the Council, this Parliament and the fishing industry had to put on the Commission has finally led to the achievement of a mandate for negotiation, hardly a month before the termination of the fisheries agreement with Morocco.
It is never late if the outcome is good.
And at least we have a good mandate, above all in view of its ability to seek different forms of possible cooperation and even new legal formulas which may allow us to maintain satisfactory fishing relations for both parties.
<P>
However, we should regret the delay, which has created public alarm and a nervous state within the fleet which could have been avoided, and the speculation and declarations which may do more harm than good to negotiations which, given the importance of the agreement, should be held in a discreet, calm and cordial environment.
But also because, at this stage, a halt in fishing activities seems inevitable, which will necessitate, as happened at the time of the expiry of the previous agreement, a search for extraordinary Community funds to finance time when the fleet is forced to remain in port.
<P>
I am not going to repeat the arguments which other Members have given and which illustrate the enormous importance of this agreement and its socio-economic repercussions.
But I do want to insist that, for all these well-known reasons, the fleet is in suspense, and since it also has to pay for an ever increasing proportion of the fisheries agreements, it has stated that it is not prepared to not receive information regarding the progress of the negotiations.
Natural discretion and reserve is one thing but secretiveness towards those who have everything to lose is another thing altogether.
<P>
Unfortunately, Parliament' s Committee on Fisheries knows very well what it feels like to beg for information from here and there amongst the negotiators, even in these times of transparency and cooperation which we have just inaugurated.
<P>
For this reason, like the industry itself, I believe that this time - and in this case I am particularly sorry that the Council is not here, because it is to them that I mainly address my comments - we must stand firm and show that, even though we have spent years asking and begging to be able to take part, as simple observers, in the negotiations of the fisheries agreements, this participation can no longer be postponed, Mr President.
It is the case that, within the meagre budget which fishing represents in Community funding, the agreement with Morocco implies a relatively significant amount, so much so, Mr President, that it is the only agreement for which we are asked for our assent.
We are therefore legally bound to the result of the negotiations and we have, therefore, the full right to first-hand information, without having to wait for the charity of representatives of the Council or the Commission who may come to inform us third-hand whenever they can or whenever it suits them.
<P>
The citizens also demand information and we are the representatives of those citizens, elected by them and, for this simple reason, we have acquired the responsibility, in this case, to at least be informed of what is happening.
<P>
Therefore, Mr President, I hope that the question of observers, which appears in at least one of the motions for resolution also signed by my group, is taken seriously for once.
And to this end I ask, as other Members have done as well as the motion for a resolution, that this be, once and for all, a priority issue in the next tripartite meeting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Seguro">
Mr President, Commissioner, the situation is well known and the Commissioner has had the opportunity throughout this debate to obtain further details about the difficult situation in which we find ourselves, especially the fishing communities most affected by this problem.
<P>
This is not only an economic problem. And if it were, that alone would have required the Commission to act more rapidly and to take the initiative in this matter.
It is also the problem of the relationship between two countries in a part of the world that needs peace and tranquillity. And this is why this Agreement is of strategic importance, not only in relation to these fishing communities, but also in relation to the balance, to the peace that can only be achieved by means of various types of cooperation, this being a case in point.
<P>
But now that we have reached this situation, we should work out why it is that we have done so.
And the Commissioner is not new to the Commission; he is a Commissioner who has joined us from the previous Commission. He has joined us with exactly the same portfolio and the same dossier, and therefore, he has a very specific and genuine political responsibility which is his alone, not only to resolve this problem, but also to resolve all the problems that will remain until the agreement is renegotiated.
<P>
I would like to tell you sincerely, Commissioner, that I was not very convinced by your speech a while ago.
I sensed little enthusiasm, and it seemed to me that you have come here to give an administrative response to what is a worrying situation.
This is a cause for concern not only to me, but certainly to my fellow Members in Parliament too.
What fishermen need to know on this specific point is not that the Commission will be implementing initiatives and not that the Commission is prepared to help them. What the fisherman need to know, Commissioner, is what kind of initiatives are going to be implemented, and above all, what amount of Community subsidy is going to be provided to help these fishermen, and for how long the Commission is prepared to maintain it.
Because, as Mr Miguélez said, what the fishermen need is not to be financed to remain inactive, but to be supported by the European Union so that they can carry out their professional duty, which means being able to work and thus contribute to the wealth of their country and to the wealth of the Community.
<P>
Therefore, Commissioner, I am asking you for concrete responses.
You know that you are already not very popular in Portugal because of the meat issue.
We hope that your popularity does not continue to decline because of fish!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sánchez García">
Mr President, Commissioner, within the global framework of relations between the European Union and Morocco, I would like to highlight, on the occasion of this oral question on the fisheries agreement which we are dealing with today, the regional dimension of that agreement.
I refer to a Community region, European politically speaking but African geographically speaking, which is called the Canary Islands and is situated on the Atlantic flank opposite Morocco.
<P>
In recent years, including Spain' s time as a democracy, we have experienced various situations where fishing has always been an unresolved issue between the parties because of the contentious issue of defining our territorial waters in relation to the neighbouring continent of Africa.
<P>
Nevertheless, we have recently managed to take cooperative positions, by means of the Morocco-European Union agreements, despite having other unresolved matters, such as agriculture (tomatoes), the environment (nuclear energy policy) and the Saharan referendum, which affects us significantly from a global point of view.
<P>
In fact, the Committee on Agriculture and Fisheries of the Spanish Senate has begun a visit to the Canary Islands in order to directly familiarise themselves with the problems facing the primary sector: agriculture and fishing.
<P>
The President of the Government of the Canary Islands has also expressed his desire to visit Morocco in order to hold a dialogue and often a direct channel of communication with the Moroccan Government, along the lines of the good neighbourliness which should characterise the relations between two neighbouring and civilised peoples, since frequently the viscosity of reality - as Mr Obiols said so well the other day during the debate in Brussels in relation to the common destiny of Europe and Morocco - does not always permit the most appropriate type of action.
<P>
We trust that peace and stability will reign in our Atlantic area and we have a good opportunity to use the fisheries agreement or other European instruments for transnational cooperation to achieve this.
<P>
I hope that Morocco will fulfil its international obligations, as indicated in the talks held last week in Brussels by the Moroccan authorities.
In any event, I hope that the diplomacy of the European Commission will adequately defend the general interests of the Community fishermen who are affected by this future fisheries agreement between the European Union and Morocco.
<P>
Lastly, I would like to remind you of a Spanish saying - which I believe is relevant today - which says: "he who wants to eat fish, Commissioner, must get his breeches wet" .
For this reason there are many of us here, Mr Fischler, who want to convince you of the social and economic importance of renewing the European Union-Morocco fisheries agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Nogueira Román">
Mr President, I am participating in this debate in order to demonstrate my position and also to demonstrate our desire to support any positions which will contribute, both in Parliament and in the European Commission, to the achievement of the new agreement between the European Union and the Kingdom of Morocco.
<P>
To this end, I support the resolution tabled by the European Popular Party, the European Socialist Party and the UEN Group, and I belong to the group of ten MEPs from the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance who have expressly supported it.
Logically, our position is a consequence of our conception of the relationships of the European Union and also the specific interests of the countries which we represent.
<P>
I wish to express our support for the signing of the agreement for two fundamental reasons.
Firstly, because we consider that the policy of reaching agreements with non-EU countries is a correct policy on the part of the European Union.
In this case it is a policy which affects an essential industry, which affects a significant section of our society as well as employment in certain countries.
It affects the way of life of our coastal populations, in the same way that agriculture affects the populations of our inland regions and - why not say it - it affects a fundamental part of the food requirements of the entire European Union.
<P>
We clearly want these agreements to respect the conservation of resources.
We clearly want them to defend and respect the interests of non-EU countries.
But I would like to say that the agreements should not only refer to poor non-EU countries, that is, Morocco, Angola and other countries, but that they should also refer, and this is also a European Union Policy, to agreements with Canada, the United States, Australia and Argentina, countries with which my country - specifically Galicia - has a direct relationship.
<P>
I would like to say that at last, agreeing with these arguments, the Spanish Economic and Social Council has said that European Union agreements with non-EU countries lead to seven times the benefit than the cost of producing them.
<P>
I said that this particularly affects the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese States: the Canary Islands, Andalusia and Galicia, in Spain.
In Galicia, specifically, you know that 120,000 jobs rely directly or indirectly on fishing and that the agreement with Morocco especially affects three very significant areas: Ribeira, O Morrazo and A Guarda, where there are approximately 150 ships and 1,500 sailors who depend on the signing of the agreement with Morocco.
<P>
I would like to remind you here that on 15 November 1995 the economic and social cooperation agreement with Morocco was only signed after Morocco had agreed that a fisheries agreement had to be signed.
I say this because these two agreements, which were considered essential if the Euro-Mediterranean Conference in Barcelona was to take place, shows that in our fisheries agreement, as we and Morocco want, all relations, political, economic and social, with the neighbouring Mediterranean kingdom should be taken into account.
<P>
I also want to say that no agreement will be valid unless it conforms to the fishing industry as it actually exists.
The fishing industry in the Kingdom of Morocco is made up of small businesses owned by shipowners for whom it is absolutely impossible to create joint enterprises which are largely Moroccan. Therefore, the new agreement must be an agreement which extends, while amending the necessary clauses, the current agreement, bearing in mind, of course, that we respect the fact that this agreement must benefit the economic and social development of Morocco.
<P>
On the other hand, we want a quick negotiation and in any event we want significant and sufficient economic support for the sector affected - shipowners and workers - to cover any transitional period during which there is no right to fish in those waters.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Jové Peres">
Mr President, my political group has tabled its own resolution and amendments to the resolution of the other political groups.
I am not going to insist on the different aspects of the resolution, which you already know, I am simply going to refer to certain specific points which - I am afraid - may be important in our future debates.
<P>
First point: joint enterprises.
It appears that Morocco would be prepared to sign an agreement in which joint enterprises were the principal element.
What does this mean?
Simply that it would be an agreement which would only benefit certain shipowners.
The small-scale and inshore fleet would be of no interest to Morocco in terms of establishing joint enterprises; this would mean, in areas such as ours where employment problems are very serious, the scrapping of small vessels and a reduction in employment.
On the other hand, joint enterprises would mean fewer Community crews and the demand by Morocco for more landings in Moroccan ports.
This would mean cutting jobs.
If this were the principal element of the agreement, it would benefit the type of fleet which is multi-purpose and larger-sized which, in any event, is already looking for other fishing grounds.
<P>
Second point: on the 26th, Commissioner Fischler - according to items in various parts of the media in my country - appears to have expressed his approval of considering additional concessions in the importation of fruit and vegetables originating from Morocco in the negotiation of the fisheries agreement.
In this regard, we should take into account three factors: firstly, fruit and vegetable are grown in the European Union in areas where there is also an urgent need for employment; secondly, fruit and vegetable are frequently used as an exchange currency in commercial agreements with non-EU countries and thirdly, in the last reform of this sector, important public instruments for market management were dismantled.
Therefore, it is not admissible for fruit and vegetables to pay the price for a large part of the European Union' s external policy.
<P>
I would like to remind you that, during the negotiation of the fisheries agreement which is about to expire, the Group of the European United Left opposed the signing of a fisheries agreement through the concession of additional quotas for the importation of fruit and vegetables within the framework of the parallel negotiation of the Association Agreement.
Initially it was a question of balance: while the fisheries agreement was in force temporarily, the conditions for fruit and vegetables were of a permanent nature.
<P>
Frequently, these concessions are granted as a contribution to the development of non-EU countries.
Nevertheless, the reality is much more complex.
And in the case of Morocco, 85% of tomato production and exportation is carried out by five companies; the largest of them is Domain Royal, which belongs to the royal family, and the other four belong to the Moroccan aristocracy.
<P>
The cuts to the fisheries agreement to favour the Moroccan fishing industry only benefited the main owner of the cephalopod-fishing fleet, a family relation of the former Minister for External Affairs.
This does not exactly favour a just and egalitarian development, but rather benefits certain interests.
<P>
And lastly, I would like to refer to the way that negotiations are carried out.
Traditionally, Morocco does not negotiate until the previous agreement has run out and the fleet is halted, with the social tension which that causes.
This time the same thing will happen.
This attitude cannot be permitted from a supposed partner.
My group wishes for a just and balanced agreement with the Kingdom of Morocco on the part of the European Union, but we also think that, in order to prevent this periodic bartering which causes our fishermen enormous anguish and places them in a difficult situation, the future agreement should be established within the framework of the Association Agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Portas">
Mr President, Commissioner, firstly let us address the situation in hand.
On 30 November, Portuguese boats that currently fish in Morocco will stop doing so.
As a result, many boat owners will obviously ask for vessels to be decommissioned, thereby adding even further to the graveyard for boats that the common fisheries policy has become.
And many fishermen will fall straight into unemployment, thereby adding even further to the poverty trap that the common fisheries policy has become.
Another two Portuguese ports will be badly affected if this agreement is not renewed: we cannot fish nor can we work, which is a denial of basic human rights and of citizenship.
<P>
Let us now address the situation from the political angle.
This situation reflects the incompetence of the Commission and of the Council.
The agreement expires on 30 November and the mandate for negotiation does not extend beyond October this year.
I have never seen such negligence, such delays, such inertia and such total lack of consideration for fishing countries and for the fishermen of Southern countries.
Do not deny it, Commissioner, because it is true.
<P>
Secondly, this is a case of negligence on the part of the European Union.
We have known of Morocco' s intention not to renew the agreement since the day the last agreement was signed.
Years have passed and neither Commissioner Bonino, nor Commissioner Fischler, nor the respective ministers have had the necessary diligence or agility to avoid the need to debate now, a month before a very damaging event takes place, what we can do about it.
<P>
On the other hand, the situation shows the foolishness of a certain vision of the European Union' s Economic Policy. We gave Morocco a trade agreement with no time limit.
We obtained a fisheries agreement with a time limit. This means that Morocco can place its products in European Union territory at will, but we can only fish in Moroccan water until 30 November 1999.
We are conceding much more than we are getting in return, and this is what you get for choosing an unchecked and unfettered globalisation in which you systematically prefer uncontrolled liberalism on a global scale, to the defence of national interests.
<P>
Finally, this case shows how mistaken it is to allow federalism into common policies.
Morocco' s problem is essentially with Spain. As everyone knows, the Spanish fleet is much bigger, the Spanish fish in competition with the Moroccans; the Portuguese fleet is smaller which means that our fishing does not compete with that of the Moroccans.
What is Portugal's situation at the moment?
Europe is not able to negotiate with Morocco because Morocco does not want to, and Portugal cannot negotiate with Morocco because Europe will not allow it to!
We cannot even guarantee our right to fish, we, who are a maritime nation, nor can we guarantee our right to handle our own affairs, we who are a neighbouring country of Morocco.
We entered Europe in order to be part of a solution.
In terms of fishing as well as agriculture, this Europe is isolating us as if we were part of the problem!
<P>
The only solution is to allow, within the framework of the common fisheries policy, each country to reach bilateral agreements with third countries which do not have agreements with the European Union.
And this is what I am asking for in the name of the principle of subsidiarity, with a view to a revision of the common fisheries policy: a member country of the common fisheries policy must be able to make bilateral agreements with third countries as long as an agreement is not already in place between the European Union and those third countries.
<P>
Commissioner Fischler, I have been here for three months and I have already seen you harm Portugal' s interests three times: over mad cows where your decision defies belief, over pig-breeding, where your desire to persecute us is unacceptable, and now over fishing where your Commission' s inaction is also unforgivable.
I would just like to say one thing to you: I am beginning to be convinced that you think that Portugal is just a beach.
If you have the misfortune to go to that beach one day, you will see that the Portuguese fishermen will tell you politely that you are a persona non grata in my country.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, I will speak this afternoon along the same lines as most of the MEPs who have spoken. I will not have much to add.
<P>
Firstly, I would like to congratulate Mr Fischler on his taking up of this fishing portfolio at a very bad time.
We have worked with him for the last five years, and I have confidence that he will move these issues forward.
<P>
I am not in favour of nationalist speeches.
We should not use this debate to look after our own national political interests.
It is a Community debate.
Fishing policy is a Community policy.
The Commission, the Council and the different institutions are obliged to defend this common fishing policy, which of course includes agreements with non-EU countries.
I come from one of the three Spanish regions which are most directly affected by the fisheries agreement. I am referring to the Canary Islands.
And I can tell you that we have always fished in these waters- my great-grandfathers fished in these waters - and it seems incredible to the population of these regions that this agreement could disappear.
<P>
But I believe that it would be a mistake at the moment for us to tell the Commission what the conditions for the negotiations should be.
Parliament, this very morning, fulfilled its obligation to include in the 2000 budget an item of EUR 125 million, which had not been envisaged in the Financial Perspective negotiated in Berlin, in accordance with the interinstitutional agreement between the Council and Parliament, but which is fundamental to the starting of the negotiations.
I believe that Parliament has fulfilled its duty and has offered the Commission the means to carry out the negotiations, and we hope that the Commission will carry this task forward.
<P>
But I also believe it would be a mistake, as some have done here, to impose any kind of conditions on the negotiations.
I do not believe that we should tell the Commission what it should or should not do.
I believe that, finally, this agreement is important and that must be concluded.
<P>
There is another important dimension: Morocco is a nearby country.
This European Community was not built to attack anybody nor to threaten anybody.
This European Community has to be concerned not only for its own future but also for the future of the neighbouring countries.
At the moment, we are dealing with the future of the neighbouring countries of Central and Eastern Europe by means of incorporating them into the European Union, but we also have to concern ourselves with the future of the neighbouring countries on the southern side of the Mediterranean.
It is not a matter of trading one thing for another.
I do not believe that the solution to the Moroccan problem consists of admitting Moroccan immigrants, but the reality is that every week twenty or thirty Moroccans arrive on my island in small boats - the so-called pateras - at great risk, and many of them drown.
We have a critical situation within a few minutes of our own shores, within an extremely short distance.
I believe that in the negotiation, the Commission, on behalf of the European Union, which is rich, is probably able to offer sufficient compensation to Morocco so that the fisheries agreement may become a reality.
<P>
It would be tragic if there was a re-occurrence of what happened last time, when there was a delay of seven months.
I hope that as a result of the ability of the Commissioner and the attitudes of the Commission, the Council and our Governments, a favourable agreement can be reached which will allow us to continue fishing, on the one hand, and, on the other, allow Morocco and the Moroccan people to profit from the privilege of administering waters which contain such an abundance of fish.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Buitenweg">
Mr President, today' s sitting has been dominated by talks about the Budget 2000.
The fisheries agreement with Morocco has also been on the agenda this morning in this context, when we talked about external action expenditure.
The majority of this Parliament was then of the opinion that this agreement would feature as one of its new priorities and that it belonged on the list comprising the reconstruction of Kosovo, East Timor and Turkey.
<P>
Whatever the opinion may be concerning the fisheries agreement with regard to the impact on the local population or the European fishing fleet, there will be very few people who will be prepared to put the humanitarian disasters of Kosovo, East Timor and the earthquake in Turkey on a par with this fishing deal.
<P>
Also, from a budgetary point of view, I find it completely irresponsible to agree on an amount whilst negotiations have not even reached the halfway stage.
In fact, we do not know if an agreement will be reached.
We do not know what the situation will be like then and we cannot gauge the financial implications.
But the funds are already available.
I would have thought it was acceptable to place an amount in reserve.
Then, at least Parliament would be able to vote again on the allocation of these funds after having read the content of this agreement more carefully.
<P>
Because how will this pan out?
Is the integrity of Parliament' s decision not seriously prejudiced if we have the funds available at this stage?
What happens now if you do not like the agreement?
Or would any agreement be acceptable a priori?
You will get another chance during the second reading of the budget in December.
It is therefore important that you grant more importance to the opinion of the Committee on Fisheries and not to consider it as a little added extra to a fait accompli.
<P>
What input will Parliament have?
There is no guarantee whatsoever that the agreement will be submitted to the European Parliament for approval.
The agreement with Mauritius was subject to a simple, consultative procedure.
Parliament objected to this and took the matter to the Court.
The Court ruled that it was unnecessary for Parliament to approve agreements.
As a result, we now have a situation where it is completely unclear what agreements have to be submitted to Parliament for approval and what agreements only require comments.
In this light, the agreement with Morocco might well bypass the European Parliament in terms of content on account of the consultative procedure and in financial terms on account of the blank cheque we provided this morning.
Parliament' s power should not only be fought for by government leaders at intergovernmental conferences but must also be asserted by ourselves in our daily work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Krivine">
Mr President, the question of renewal of the fisheries agreement between Morocco and the European Union perfectly illustrates the general policy of Europe enshrined in the budget which we discussed this morning and whose rationale we denounced.
<P>
We are opposed to the reduction of appropriations for aid to developing countries.
Europe is directly affected by the desperate situation in Africa.
Firstly, as a former colonial power, but also for having continued to plunder the wealth of these countries even after they became independent.
The very nature of this aid must be completely reviewed since, until now, it has served only to maintain neo-colonial relationships favourable to the establishment and the multinationals. Elf provides a particularly striking example of one of these.
As for the population, they remain entrenched in endless poverty.
Instead of setting the interests of workers in the fishing industry, the interests of European countries and those of African countries against each other, a way must be found to unite their demands and their campaign against powerful capitalist interests.
<P>
In the case of Morocco and this particular fisheries agreement, it is no longer possible to once again ignore the rights of the Western Saharan people, starting with their right to self-determination, their right to establish an independent state, if they so wish, and to protect the natural wealth of their territory, whether it be phosphate deposits or the specific resources of its shoreline which are threatened by this agreement.
<P>
I would, finally, like to draw your attention to the particularly tense social situation in the Moroccan fisheries sector.
A strike movement has been affecting most of the ports in the country for several weeks and is being violently repressed by the forces of law and order.
Once again, as in September 1998, it is a campaign to gain the freedom to exercise elementary social rights, paid leave, social security, retirement at 55 and a guaranteed minimum income.
But the fishermen of Morocco are also demanding justice following the murder of the founder of their union, Mr Mounacir, by the henchmen of Basri, and I would like to express our solidarity with them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Hernandez Mollar">
Mr President, at this point in the debate, I believe that nothing new nor original can be added but, as a member of the Committee on Fisheries and representative of the citizens and interests of Spain and Andalusia, I would like to make two brief points.
<P>
The first is that thousands of Andalusian and Spanish families are looking to us.
They hope to see evidence that, for the European Commission and especially the Council, the priority and the most urgent matter at the moment is to come to a sound agreement with Morocco.
It is difficult, Commissioner, as you have just said, but it is not impossible.
Employment is a priority objective of the European Union and it is not enough just to create it. We also have to prevent its destruction.
Andalusia, my region, has the highest rate of unemployment in the Union and almost 50% of the boats which fish in Moroccan waters are Andalusian.
<P>
The second is that Morocco is a priority country within the framework of Euro-Mediterranean relations.
Morocco and the European Union have a mutual interest and need, and intransigent positions and insults are the enemies of cooperation and understanding.
Parliament can and must help with this understanding insofar as we are the legitimate representatives of the citizens of Europe, who at the moment are naturally expectant and concerned with regard to the results of the future negotiations.
Neither is it good for the negotiation climate that, through an absurd desire for the limelight, spectacles should be made such as the one this morning with the resolution which various political groups have presented.
It does no favours for the workers in the fishing industry and their families if certain politicians are after a photo and a headline in a newspaper or, as they say in my region, want to confuse wheat with chaff.
I believe that there is no place in this debate for the Sahara question.
<P>
The Commission, the Council and Parliament must act together, in a coordinated and transparent fashion.
Nothing would offer as much advantage to the other side as a lack of unity amongst ourselves and contradictory debates on a matter which is so vital to our interests and also for Morocco itself.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Casaca">
Mr President, Commissioner, as has already been said here, it would be hard to say that the end of this agreement comes as a surprise, given that this scenario has been foreseen since December 1995.
<P>
This is why we are somewhat perplexed that the Commission has still not explained its plan to us for dealing with this situation.
By making the substantive part of the FIFG regulation an implementing regulation, the Commission will cause fisheries to be the only area in the agricultural and structural domain not to be decided on in the first six months of this year.
It is also worth pointing out that even if the Commission' s proposal for an implementing regulation had been adopted, it would not have helped us in the slightest.
In article 17(3), concerning financial compensation in case of a temporary stoppage in activity, it excludes fishermen from any compensation and imposes ridiculous limits on boat-owners.
<P>
I do not know if you have noticed, Commissioner, that one of the annual financial ceilings that you are proposing in order to deal with situations of this kind in Member States is lower than your own salary as a European Commissioner.
We know that when you assumed your new responsibilities for fisheries, you made a show of highlighting your distance from the sea.
Nevertheless, you should not forget that you are a Commissioner for Europe and that here, both on the coast of continental Europe and on archipelagos such as the Azores and Madeira, there are many people who make their living from the sea, and as a matter of fact, these people tend to be some of the most deprived and the least supported.
<P>
To conclude, I would like to say that I agree wholeheartedly with two things said here by my friend and colleague Manuel Medina Ortega.
We, the Portuguese Socialists, are radically opposed to any kind of nationalistic rhetoric or rhetoric about re-nationalisation.
More than this, we are also extremely concerned, as my friend António José Seguro has also said here, about the support to Morocco, and not merely in terms of its commercial aspects, as has been suggested by certain speakers.
But for this, Commissioner, you will need a radically different attitude to the one you have had in the past, particularly towards my country.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, Shakespeare wrote that Bohemia was located on the seacoast.
Bavaria lies in the neighbourhood of Bohemia, so perhaps Bavaria has a coastline too, and I may say that this has become true in the present-day EU, since today in the EU Morocco is in the neighbourhood of Bavaria and Spain shares a border with Poland.
All European problems are the problems of all EU states, and I therefore wish to say that this fisheries agreement is a problem for Europe as a whole.
It concerns the European Union as a whole.
It is not a local phenomenon.
Of course we must safeguard the interests of the fishermen concerned, but we must recognise that there are general ecological problems in connection with this fisheries agreement and general problems relating to both foreign and security policy, affecting the whole of the EU.
<P>
It is our task to support stability in Morocco, and I am therefore dismayed at the notes which Mr Jové Peres has introduced into this debate, in both his proposed amendments and his contribution today.
We must be glad that the remarks appropriate to the class struggle which he has expressed today have not previously led to the establishment of a socialist system in Morocco, like the ones in Libya and Algeria, with whose consequences we are having to fight a running battle today.
Instead, democracy is slowly maturing there under the new King, and we must try to support this tender shoot of democracy.
<P>
Spain has just achieved something exemplary for Europe, thanks to its intelligent policy of compensation for Morocco, in which Mr Medina Ortega, for example, also had a part.

I found his speech to be a very fine one and very important, and I would like to say quite clearly that it must be in our interests to safeguard the fishing interests of the Spanish and the other European fishermen affected, but to ensure that a sensible agreement is obtained in the near future, which includes the interests of ecological, foreign and security policies and which does not make the mistake of working with a demagogy which destabilises our neighbourhood, so that we do not wake up until it is too late, as in the Balkans or in the Caucasus today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langenhagen">
Mr President, thank you for your various efforts to track me down, and for the opportunity to be able to speak now!
Commissioner, because of the development of international maritime law in the 1970s, traditional fishing grounds were lost to European fleets.
Approximately 35% of world seas and 90% of fishing stocks are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of coastal states.
The European Community was therefore forced to conclude international agreements in order to retain access to fishing grounds and thus ensure the livelihood of the Community' s fishermen.
More than two dozen fisheries agreements with third countries are currently in force, ranging from a straight exchange of fishing rights to agreements for access to stocks in return for financial compensation payments.
<P>
I would like at this point to stress the vital significance of the fisheries agreements for the EU.
They finally constitute and facilitate a guarantee of job security in the EU.
Approximately 40,000 workers are employed in this sector, and thus the existence of an international agreement, such as the agreement with Morocco, also plays an essential role with regard to the supplying of consumers and the fish processing industries, and thus to sustainable prices.
We can see what a fundamental matter of concern the fisheries agreements represent for the EU.
The negotiations must therefore be driven forward until further agreements or renewed agreements are signed.
<P>
Today we are discussing the renewal of the agreement with Morocco.
This agreement - I still clearly remember the long drawn-out negotiations four years ago, which were the subject of many parliamentary resolutions - has exceptionally important social and economic consequences, especially, of course, as we have just heard, for the less favoured regions of Spain and Portugal.
Around 8,000 fishermen and 20,000 jobs in the processing industry are directly affected by this agreement.
The previously applicable compensation payments of over EUR 400 million to Morocco over the course of four years make the agreement the most significant fisheries agreement in the Community Budget.
Due to these considerable financial repercussions on the EU-budget, as we have just heard, the assent procedure comes into play.
This is a challenge to Parliament.
The effects of non-renewal would be catastrophic.
There would then be the threat that thousands of jobs would be lost, with widespread effects not only on the entire Iberian Peninsula but also on the status of Europe in this important sector of industry.
<P>
Unfortunately matters are not so simple.
Morocco is reluctant to start negotiations or to come to terms too quickly.
It is playing for time.
Nonetheless, the Community should not have the objective of striving to come to an agreement on any terms due to pressure of time.
On several occasions in the past, Morocco has unilaterally presented obstacles which were not covered by the agreement.
The situation where the costs of the agreement are continually increased while the fishing areas and seasons are continually reduced is unacceptable.
The European Parliament, and the Committee on Fisheries in particular, are generally very concerned about the renewal of this particular agreement.
Why did the Council take so long to give the Commission its mandate for negotiation?
Where, Mr Fischler, are the Commission' s long-announced cost-benefit analyses?
<P>
The economic and social consequences in the event of expiry of the agreement for Community fishermen are sufficiently known.
Why then this hesitation, which in the end is playing into Morocco' s hands, cutting the ground out from under the feet of EU fishermen?
Clarification is essential here, and in short order.
In the interests of EU fishermen, Parliament must make a clear statement (and that is what it is indeed doing, as we are just learning now) to put an end to this intolerable situation as quickly as possible.
If not, I fear a negative effect on international agreements per se.
This means, as Mr Posselt said, ultimately a negative effect on Europe' s foreign policy too.
I therefore consider it necessary as a matter of urgency, today and tomorrow, to give a signal and invite the Commission to actually initiate measures up now for the financial aid of those affected.
Moreover, I expressly ask that Parliament, represented by us, the Members of this House, should now actually participate directly in the negotiations on the agreement.
There can be no further doubt about our involvement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, firstly, many thanks for your contributions.
I believe this really is the way to make constructive progress in this certainly very difficult situation we find ourselves in with reference to the future agreement with Morocco.
Unfortunately Mr Portas is no longer here, as he expressed a rather different opinion.
Apparently there are always people who think that discussion and debate involve insulting the Commissioner and then disappearing!
<P>
You can be certain of one thing: even though I did not in opening mention all the elements relating to the significance of this agreement, particularly for the Spanish and also the Portuguese fisheries industry, I am nonetheless perfectly aware of its significance.
But I think we all know how important this matter is, and you can also be sure that I shall be lending my wholehearted support towards arriving at a solution to this matter.
I am even willing, Mr Nogueira, to wade in myself, if necessary.
This is not the essence of the problem.
I would like to stress, in particular, that it is essential to look upon 15 October and the formulation of the mandate for negotiation in the right light.
This is undoubtedly not a case of delay.
We started to approach the Moroccan authorities as early as February with direct contacts, a great number of letters, and a great many visits.
As early as February, we initiated preparatory talks in order to ascertain what exactly Moroccan future interests would entail.
For this would have considerably facilitated the task of drawing up a customised mandate in order to be able to have very precisely orientated negotiations.
You all know that these efforts were to no avail because, quite simply, our Moroccan counterparts were not yet ready to exchange even a word with us or even meet us to discuss the matter.
Our prime concern at the moment, therefore, is how to manage to start meaningful negotiations.
<P>
Our positions in the debate have become very clear.
When I am told that we must make no concessions, then you have to consider what our respective starting positions are.
As far as our starting points are concerned, ours is, as virtually everyone here emphasised, that this agreement is of exceptional importance.
Morocco' s current starting position is that they do not want this type of agreement any more!
At any rate, emphasising that we will not tolerate any concessions in the negotiations will not, I believe, succeed in making the Moroccan side more open towards us, as it were, and more prepared to come to an agreement with us.
<P>
So now, as has been said, it is really important to get things underway.
There is another thing you can be quite sure of.
It is also very important to me that these negotiations are handled in the most transparent way possible, and, obviously, I am willing to report back to Parliament at every stage on the further progress of negotiations.
<P>
It has been stressed how dangerous it would be if this agreement which is, incidentally, not part of the Association Agreement, as many people thought, were to be extended to include associations relating to agricultural goods.
<P>
We should be very, very cautious here, and we should try as far as possible to reach an agreement purely concerned with fisheries.
When, at some stage in the future, we know precisely what the Moroccan demands are, we can certainly come back again to a further debate on the matter.
<P>
I have also been asked whether there is any guarantee that the use of this agreement will guarantee sustainability for the future, and to what extent the satellite monitoring system actually serves to monitor fishing activities.
Well, again, to be frank, all the prerequisites have been met on our side.
All European vessels operating in this area can be monitored by satellite.
There is though still a problem on the Moroccan side.
We have proposed to the Moroccans that we are willing, within the framework of the MEDA Programme, to contribute towards resolving these problems on the Moroccan side, but, as has been said, definitive implementation on the Moroccan side is still outstanding.
<P>
On the matter of aid following 30 November: I have already pointed out, too, that we wish to proceed on the basis of potential support in principle, as we already did last time.
Therefore, fishermen can count on our providing aid.
But we must also obtain the necessary administrative prerequisites in good time.
Here too, no time is to be lost.
Here too, there is some urgency, I believe, and I would like to ask for the support of Parliament in this matter.
<P>
The last question, why at this stage have we applied for EUR 125 million in the Budget?
I am very grateful to see that this was accepted this morning.
It is a matter which I think can be seen from two points of view.
I do not think that anyone could realistically expect any future agreement to be obtained substantially more cheaply, or at a substantially lower price, than the previous agreement.
Therefore if we envisage an amount in the budget which is exactly equal to the previous annual amount we were prepared to allocate, then that is a clear sign that we are not going to let ourselves be persuaded to part with increasingly high amounts, but that we are setting a limit at this point for the amount of money we are prepared to assign to this agreement.
I believe this is a good sign to send to Morocco, one which will certainly be of support to us in negotiating.
<P>
A final point, something which certainly does not help us progress in this difficult matter is our tendency to continually pass the buck to one another, from Parliament to the Council, or Council to the Commission, or vice versa.
We can only be successful in this matter if all three institutions work together.
This is what I would request, and I find it a pity that the Council is not represented here today to be able to give this guarantee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Seguro">
Mr President, it has just come to our attention that the Conference of Presidents of the European Parliament has decided by a large majority to award the Sakharov Prize to Xanana Gusmão.
For this reason, personally, and on behalf of the European Socialist Party...
<P>
<P>
I would like to say how pleased we are with this action which pays tribute to Xanana Gusmão as a citizen, but above all, to the resistance, the tenacity, the courage and the determination of the people of East Timor.
In our opinion, this award is a good incentive for all the men and women who, in other regions throughout the world, are fighting for the establishment of peace, and in the defence of human rights, liberty and democracy.
<P>
We Socialists think that awarding this prize to Xanana Gusmão honours the spirit of the creation of the Sakharov Prize and also honours the European Parliament.
<P>
(Applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, very briefly and in support of Mr Seguro, I would like to say that the awarding of the Sakharov Prize by this Parliament to Mr Xanana Gusmão does honour to this Parliament.
<P>
I believe that we must be proud that people such as Xanana Gusmão exist.
He is a man who has suffered, and has done so responsibly, and who we hope in the coming months and years will be able to lead his country along the road to peace and democracy.
<P>
And I hope that the European institutions will cooperate with a new free population of East Timor with regard to its economic and social development within a framework of democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Portas">
Mr President, agreeing with the words of the previous speakers, I would like to say, on behalf of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group that it gives me enormous joy that in a world which is often driven by a hierarchy of interests and not by a hierarchy of principles, Parliament is recognising a man of great principle who fought for a principle, that of his people' s freedom, and is awarding him the Sakharov Prize.
<P>
This is a particular source of pride as this Prize bears the name of a scientist, Andrei Sakharov who, suffering all kinds of hardship, lent his prestige to the fight for the freedom of the people of Eastern European countries against one of the most horrendous forms of totalitarianism seen this century.
This is a source of pride for all of us and we Portuguese Christian Democrats are extremely happy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, I should just like to endorse what other people have said about giving the Sakharov Prize to Mr Gusmão.
I should also like to remind Members of this House that what has happened in East Timor after the referendum is something we should look at.
We have just discussed Morocco, and the Western Sahara was mentioned. A referendum will be taking place there.
The European Union needs to be extremely diligent to ensure the same fate does not befall the people who go out and vote.
We need to see that a fair and democratic procedure takes place in Western Sahara, that people have the right to vote freely.
We hope that what happened in East Timor, after the UN persuaded the people to go out and exercise their right to vote and they were subsequently persecuted and murdered by the Indonesians, will not happen when the people in Western Sahara vote.
The European Union needs to address this issue.
<P>
We are delighted that Mr Gusmão has received this award.
He deserves it and the people of East Timor deserve it.
They deserve their independence, their freedom and the right to live in peace.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="President">
I have received three motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 42(5) of the Rules of Procedure.1 2
<P>
The sitting is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 5.45 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Buitenweg">
Madam President, there was a great deal of confusion and uncertainty yesterday surrounding the voting on amendment 11 to the Virrankoski report.
The aim of the PPE' s amendment was to delete the second part of the text of the report, with the first part remaining intact.
The purpose of this amendment was clear, but the way in which the voting was to take place was not.
This was due to the fact that those who submitted the amendment also applied for there to be split voting with regard to the original text.
This was also requested by the socialists and the Greens/ ALE group.
The EDD requested voting by roll call.
The request of the latter was granted, the others were not.
As such, the amended text has been brought to vote in a way unlike that which many Members could reasonably have expected.
As a result, thirteen people in my group voted against their convictions.
The difference was 16 votes and I am quite sure that there are at least three others who voted in error.
I find it striking that an issue which is so close to many MEPs' hearts, namely absurdly high travel expenses, should be the cause of so much confusion.
I hope that the way in which the voting took place will be good enough reason to allow a repeat vote during the second reading in December on what was voted on in the original text.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
I shall give you an answer.
Your remarks will, of course, be recorded in the Minutes of today' s sitting.
<P>
There is a golden rule in Parliament.
We never go back on a vote.
I am sure that you understand that to hold a vote that has already been held would set a dangerous precedent.
However what you have said will be recorded in the Minutes of today' s sitting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Hulten">
Madam President, the Minutes contain the sentence: "Since different Members have asked to change their voting behaviour with regard to this last vote, the Members Mr Van Hulten and Mrs Swiebel have requested a repeat vote."
This concerns the same report that Mrs Buitenweg touched on.
In my opinion, this is not right.
The issue was not the fact that various members asked to change their vote, the issue was that many Members were unable to cast their votes.
I would like to see this minuted.
I should also add that the arguments brought yesterday for not having a repeat vote were not right either, in my opinion.
I understand the rule that the same issue cannot be subject to voting twice.
As far as I am concerned, however, this issue has not been voted on at all since many Members were unable to participate in the voting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
I have noted your remarks and, I am sorry, it is also the custom to stand when one has the floor.
You did not know this and now you have been made aware of it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Nogueira Román">
Madam President, I would like to point out that in my intervention concerning the incident with the groups who presented a resolution on the fisheries agreement with Morocco, it appears from the Minutes that I was speaking on behalf of the Greens-ALE Group and this is not correct.
At that moment I was only representing the ten MEPs who make up the ALE and I therefore ask for the Minutes to be corrected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
I remember perfectly well.
We shall correct the Minutes to show this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Madam President, you have quite rightly said that we should never have to vote a second time, yet this is precisely what we did yesterday.
There were certain reasons for this as the roll call vote had been forgotten.
However, yesterday afternoon, we had another attempt to take a vote for a second time.
I call upon you, Madam President, and your colleagues, to reiterate the fact that once we have taken a vote, then that should, in principle, be the end of the matter and we should not keep on engaging in further debate as to whether to take a second vote.
This principle, which you have made reference to here, should be stringently observed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="MacCormick">
Madam President, it is not a point about the Minutes but about the problem that was mentioned in the Minutes.
It does seem to me that the difficulties that many of us had yesterday were to do with the fact that the Vice-President in the chair was too quick to close the vote.
And people who had their fingers on the button discovered that it was not registering.
<P>
Could the President and the Vice-President take careful note and discuss with the sessional services the need for a reasonable space between calling the vote and counting it.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Madam President, I would like to clarify a point following my reference to last Monday' s regulation relating to the publication of a directory by the American Chamber of Commerce in Brussels which contained seriously erroneous information about me, about the MEPs in my Group and about several other MEPs.
I have just received a letter from Parliament' s Secretary-General who says that there has been a mistake and that he never imagined that this directory would contain such partisan information.
I take note of his words.
We have agreed that he will write to the Chamber of Commerce, requesting that the directory be withdrawn and that a corrigendum be issued concerning the copies already in circulation.
I thank him for reacting in this way which I think is appropriate, but obviously the matter is not over because we must now have this directory withdrawn from circulation altogether.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
Thank you Mr Berthu.
This information was indeed quite partisan and the Secretary-General tells me that the letter has already been sent to those concerned.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="- EC/Morocco fisheries agreement">
<P>
Poli Bortone (UEN), in writing.
(IT) The fact that the Commission has waited until the last minute to ask for negotiations is certainly regrettable, especially considering the overall course of the whole affair, which already, in recent years, has experienced a conflict created in the institutional consultation framework, with regard to Parliament' s role in an agreement which has significant budgetary implications.
<P>
We are fast approaching 30 November and the new agreement appears to be at the conclusion stage. The Commission has therefore given little attention to the economic level of the Objective 1 and 2 regions which, as they depend to a large degree on fishing, are seriously concerned about maintaining employment in the sector.
<P>
No-one wants to call into question efficient instruments for cooperation with Morocco through negotiations, which reinforce, where possible, the interests of both the Community and Moroccan operators and emphasise the sense of solidarity which, moreover, even in sectors that are not purely economic, has been shown daily, especially between the countries of Southern Europe in the Mediterranean area.
<P>
The European fishing fleet which, I may add, is so careful to fish in accordance with specific legislation concerning the environment - closed seasons, fishing groups, bans on fishing with sweep nets and trawl nets etc. needs socio-economic compensation measures following an agreement which further limits its activity, including compensation for the processing industry.
<P>
One thing must be clear: the compensation must not be to the detriment of the agricultural sector, which has already suffered notable cuts in its budget.
In this sense, the new FIFG regulation is fairly reassuring as it covers unforeseen events in the fisheries sector as well as the consequences of international agreements.
<P>
Finally, a remark on the role of Parliament, whose Members must act as observers in all the negotiation procedures in order to fully protect the interests of the European fishing fleet.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
British beef and veal
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
The next item is the statement by the Commission on British beef and veal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="Fischler">
At the Florence Summit in June 1996, the heads of government agreed to take any decision on lifting the UK embargo "only and exclusively on the basis of public health and objective scientific criteria and of the judgement of the Commission, in accordance with the existing procedures, that these criteria have been satisfied."
<P>
The conditions for the scheme are very demanding.
First the UK had to slaughter offspring, which could otherwise be eligible, of known BSE cases before the scheme could be operational.
This cull continues for new BSE cases.
Then, the only eligible products are: deboned meat and a limited range of derived products, from animals between 6 and 30 months of age and born after the effective feed ban, that is born after 1 August 1996.
In addition to that, there are not only stringent conditions concerning the identification and traceability of both the animal and its dam, but also the absence of any suspicion of BSE in the dam.
Finally, stringent specific controls and full compliance are required from the entire production chain.
<P>
These controls are under the competence of the UK authorities.
But, prior to setting the date at which exports under the scheme were to commence, a mission of the Food and Veterinary Office to inspect the operation of the scheme was carried out.
This led to a satisfactory conclusion and allowed that date to be set at 1 August 1999.
<P>
Just this year two inspections in the UK have already been dedicated to auditing the DBES controls, namely in April and again in October.
<P>
The opinion issued by AFSSA on 30 September 1999, concerning the lifting of the ban for bovine meat and meat products of UK origin, comes to an unfavourable conclusion on the basis of arguments related to scientific and control matters.
<P>
The scientific matters have been presented for opinion to the Scientific Steering Committee.
Preparatory meetings took place on 14 October and on 25 October in the framework of the ad hoc BSE group.
During these meetings, the scientific documentation provided by AFSSA was examined and supplementary hearings of epidemiologists from MAFF also took place.
<P>
A report of those meetings, in which a detailed analysis of the situation is provided, has been presented to the Scientific Steering Committee. This committee met in Brussels yesterday and is meeting today in order to discuss and draft an opinion on this matter.
This meeting is still going on.
<P>
Consequently, at this moment, I do not have any information on the outcome of the meeting.
I understand that my colleague, Commissioner Byrne, together with the chairman of the Scientific Steering Committee, will give a press conference in Brussels at 6 p.m. this evening on the outcome of the meeting of the scientists.
<P>
I can assure you that the European Parliament will be kept fully informed about the conclusions of the Scientific Steering Committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Parish">
Madam President, the reason I believe France should immediately lift the ban on British beef is because Britain has met the requirements of the Florence agreement.
<P>
The Florence agreement reached between the EU heads of state and government on 21 June 1996 sets out five preconditions which the UK must meet before the beef export ban can be lifted. They are: implementation of a selective slaughter scheme.
Introduction of an effective animal identification and movement record system, one that is fully in place. Legislation for the removal of meat and bonemeal from feedmills and farms.
This is complete in the UK and not in the rest of Europe.
Effective implementation of the Over Thirty Month rule, meaning that nothing over 30 months old can get into the food chain. Improved methods for removing specified risk material from bovine carcasses.
These conditions have been met through the implementation of the control measures outlined above. The European Commission inspection visits verify that they have been fully and effectively implemented in the UK.
This is the reason for my argument.
I believe that the Commission has passed UK beef safe for export.
<P>
The Commission lifted the ban on British beef on 1 August this year. The key issue is no beef animal over 30 months old is allowed into the food chain in Britain.
There has not been a case - and I repeat: there has not been a case of BSE - in an animal born after 1 August 1996 in the UK.
That is very important. Nothing over 30 months old and no case of BSE in anything born after 1 August 1996.
<P>
There has been a selective slaughter of cattle born and reared alongside confirmed cases of BSE.
There is a compulsory cull of offspring born to cattle with confirmed BSE.
<P>
The cost to British farmers is enormous.
UK exports to the EU alone in 1995 amounted to almost GBP 500 million, of which nearly half was to France.
Nearly half a million calves were exported from Britain to the rest of Europe in 1995 and that must deliver a message in itself.
<P>
The cost to farmers from the reduction of the value of the UK beef herd and by-products, along with the extra regulation, is estimated to be GBP 1000 million.
<P>
While the bureaucrats and the politicians argue, farmers and their families in Britain suffer.
On 1 August this year when the Commission lifted its ban, 12 out of 14 Member States to which Britain could export lifted their bans.
If France had new evidence as to the safety of British beef why did the French Government not bring this information to the Commission before the ban was lifted in August 1999 - why wait until now and delay and delay and delay?
<P>
People in Britain expect France to comply with European law and they also expect the European Commission to act decisively to end the illegal ban on British beef.
The single market is fundamental to the very existence of the European Union and the illegal action by France throws the whole single market into disrepute.
<P>
Having a war of words on whose food is safest in Europe will only result in one thing: the destruction of consumer confidence in food from Europe wherever it is produced.
We learned that lesson when BSE originally came in.
The longer this dispute continues, the more likely there will be a boycott of French food by British consumers.
Feelings are running high in Britain and the crisis must be resolved quickly, otherwise there will be tit-for-tat retaliation on both sides of the channel.
<P>
Three months after the lifting of the ban by the Commission, the Veterinary Committee is still considering evidence as to whether British beef is safe.
This is unacceptable.
The Commission accepted British beef was safe on 1 August when it lifted the ban. It must now act decisively and make France lift the illegal ban on British beef immediately.
<P>
Compensation must be paid to the British beef industry by the French government for the damage it has caused the industry.
The longer this illegal action by France continues, the more it damages the reputation of the whole of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Donnelly">
Madam President, first of all I would like to thank Commissioner Fischer for his statement, and say to him that on Wednesday of next week we want either President Prodi or Commissioner Byrne to come to Parliament to make a clear statement on what measures the Commission intends to take following the publication of the scientific conclusions later today.
<P>
This new Commission must be seen to be acting decisively and if public confidence is not to be eroded we need action within days, not within weeks or months.
Therefore I say to Commissioner Fischler that when you have discussions with your colleagues over the weekend, when you look at the scientific conclusions - when you meet as a College on Wednesday - we cannot have prevarication or fudge.
We have to have decisive action based on a clear decision that would be taken at the scientific committee later today.
Perhaps Mr Parish could send a copy of his speech to his own party leader because sadly in Britain his own party leader has been advocating a ban on French products in the United Kingdom.
What we want here, President, is the scientific evidence to prove or disprove the French case and we want an immediate resolution.
<P>
We do not want the xenophobia and the jingoism that we have heard on both sides of the English Channel in the last couple of weeks.
We want to make sure that farmers and their families are taken care of.
We want to make sure that the British beef ban is lifted.
<P>
All of the evidence demonstrates that British beef is now the safest in Europe and, we believe, the safest in the world.
It was this House, through its special committee of inquiry into BSE, together with the European Commission, that recommended the measures that have now been taken to guarantee the safety throughout the European Union of those who consume British products and British beef.
<P>
It is for the future of the European Union, it is for the future of our unity in the World Trade talks in November when we go to Seattle, that we need to have two of Europe' s major trading partners resolve this dispute.
Can anyone imagine what it will be like when we open the World Trade talks, if there is still a dispute between the French and the British on such a fundamental issue?
It will be used by our opponents to divide the European Union in these crucial talks.
<P>
I would pay tribute, President, to the National Farmers' s Union and to British farmers.
This week we had the Vice-President of the National Farmers' s Union, Tim Bennett, here.
He met my French colleagues from the Socialist Group and he put forward a compelling argument as to why the British beef ban should be lifted.
He did not use the gimmicks that we have seen recently: the Liberal Democrat dragging a sack of British beef through the airport, hoping that some hapless customs officer would arrest her for a photo opportunity, or the Tories storming the Bastille two weeks ago in Paris, again for a photo opportunity.
<P>
The National Farmers' Union came here to meet Parliamentarians and to meet representatives of the Commission because they have a compelling argument.
I want to thank those colleagues from Parliament who met representatives and British farmers and listened to that compelling case.
<P>
But I say to the Commission that the responsibility being shown by the National Farmers' Union can only last for so long.
If the Commission does not act next week, if this drags on for more than a few more days, then the argument in Britain will shift.
Those people who at the moment have been asking for calm and for no retaliatory action will not be listened to.
Inevitably, this issue will escalate and I think it will do permanent damage to British and French relations.
<P>
I say to the Commission and I say to this House that over the next few days, we need calm: we do not want a trade war, we do not want an escalating trade ban.
We want common sense and we want to base our decision on science because in the disputes that occur in the future - and there will be many on food safety because consumers are so concerned now about the food that they eat - the scientists, the objectivity and the independence of the scientists is absolutely critical.
Who knows what issue we will need to refer to that Scientific Committee.
It is critical that we base our decisions on the scientific evidence and if there is a clear majority today by the scientists to lift the British beef ban we expect the French authorities to act within days, and we expect the Commission to take the appropriate legal action if that does not happen.
<P>
Let me conclude on one final point.
The one issue that has been highlighted by this dispute is the fact that we now need a European Food Agency in place as a matter of urgency.
I would say to Commissioner Fischler that, when the College meets next Wednesday, please come forward more rapidly with a proposal to establish a European Food Agency because in my view, if that had been in place today, this dispute would never have arisen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Lynne">
Madam President, I should just like to say before I start that it is a bit rich of Mr Donnelly to say that people should not have a trade war.
Mr Brown, the British Minister for Agriculture, said himself that he would not be buying French food.
<P>
I am very disappointed that there is no solution today.
I hope there will be a solution quickly. It is not doing any good to any of our farmers, whether they be French or British.
<P>
British beef is safe.
Hygiene standards prove that British beef is safe; the scientific evidence has proved that British beef is safe.
Other countries lifted the ban on 1 August.
There have been no cases of BSE in the relevant age group - 6 months to 30 months old - since 1996.
No cases at all.
So why have the French not lifted the ban?
I suspect it is because they have picked up our trade.
<P>
Nearly 40% of our trade with the EU was to France.
No objection was raised by the French back in May when the International Veterinary Organisation adopted less rigorous conditions than those foreseen by the date-base export scheme.
But all this argument illustrates the need for an independent food standard agency at EU level. It would prevent the undue influence of national bodies who quite often have a political axe to grind.
It could look at EU practices across the whole of the European Union. It could point out the hypocrisy of France continuing the ban.
<P>
I have heard of some of the practices in France at the moment.
I do not know how true they are, but I have heard of: French beef being sold in markets with the spinal tissue and brain still attached - the food agency could look at that; carcasses not inspected in France by qualified vets, unlike in the UK; pigs still fed bone marrow - the food agency could look at those cases; lower standards of farm hygiene in France; French supermarkets do not insist on seeing pesticide records.
The list is endless, not to mention the sewage sludge. That has disgusted everyone.
But I am not as worried about that as I am, perhaps, about the reports that offal and bonemeal are still being fed to French animals.
<P>
Before any food safety agency is set up, the Commission must examine all these cases in France as well.
Stringent action must be taken against them if the Commission finds, through scientific evidence, that France is breaking any of the rules and that the food is not fit for human consumption, in the same way as it did on BSE.
<P>
I do not think the French were wrong to criticise Britain over some of the practices over BSE in the past.
I felt the Conservative Government should have acted sooner.
I felt they should have put more money into research sooner.
But now we are BSE-free in the 6 months to 30 months-old exports.
It is important to remember that.
<P>
But we must make sure that when the evidence comes forward tomorrow and when we hear the result, if there is no new scientific evidence - and I doubt there will be - that action is taken against France immediately if it does not lift the ban.
<P>
I hope France will see sense.
I hope it will see sense for the sake of our farmers, for the sake of the French farmers, for the sake of the European Union and for the sake of the Commission. The Commission has to be seen to be acting firmly.
If it fudges the issue, if it comes up with a compromise not based on scientific evidence, then the Commission will be brought into disrepute and consequently the whole of the European Union will be brought into disrepute.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Mr President, Commissioner, the French study confirms the finding that as regards BSE there are no definite scientific criteria regarding the cause, transmission and the incubation period, including for the human variant of BSE.
Rather, the only thing that is certain is that BSE cannot be transmitted horizontally.
This basic uncertainty and risk, including with regard to human health, not only applies in England but in France as well.
There is no scientific certainty that there is no risk of BSE either in Great Britain or in France or, for that matter, in other European countries.
In other words, the only absolute guarantee against becoming infected by BSE is if people do without animal protein completely or, qualifying that somewhat, if they purchase products where they can be sure that BSE has not occurred in the herd in question.
<P>
The tragic fact, however, is that those people who are affected today were most probably infected in the mid eighties to early nineties.
The risk of becoming infected with BSE in Europe today is considerably less, very slight indeed, although there are no guarantees.
<P>
An embargo or an export ban does not fight BSE, rather it is simply a means of containing the disease and a way of implementing the European safety standards which the Commission has enacted.
This has been the case in Great Britain, England and Portugal.
Our Group has always maintained that this is not an English disease but a European problem.
Thus, the criteria that are now leading to the lifting of the embargo are in keeping with the safety criteria which the Commission has laid down.
<P>
English beef is also eaten in England, and always has been.
The European institutions, those of us who are politically active at a European level, also have to provide care for English consumers as well as make provision for them.
Even if national provision is an overriding priority, it should also be a matter of concern for us.
One simply cannot say that they should be left to their own devices!
<P>
It is clearly not possible to limit the incidence of BSE to certain parts of the body, as has been discussed previously.
As you are aware, BSE or prions indicating the presence of BSE have been found in blood, even if these tests have not yet been validated.
In other words, even though removing risk material is no absolute guarantee of safety, it is a valid safety measure, since in the carcass, of course, we have a decreasing order of incidence.
<P>
Commissioner, I have two further points to put to the Commission.
You are also personally aware, through your exchange of letters with our Group, that we have always said that the lifting of the embargo must be associated with the introduction of tests.
You have three tests that have been validated, and yet you are not applying them.
It was a safety measure, Mr Fischler, but at the same time also a psychological one.
We could have spared ourselves this Anglo-French conflict, also involving Germany to some extent.
<P>
My second point is as follows: You know that, back in 1997, Parliament wanted to introduce the label I for beef, a measure that was designed to safeguard consumers and allow them to make a decision.
This was to have come into force on 1 January 2000.
Instead of enacting the implementing regulations, you are now putting proposals to us to defer this labelling for three years. That is not a measure that engenders confidence!
<P>
Finally, I would like to come to the question of the Agency.
An Agency is sensible and appropriate.
You may also choose to call it an Agency but let us not get onto the slippery slope in this discussion where we start saying that we should have an independent Agency which the European Parliament will no longer have supervisory access to.
We want to retain control.
We did, after all, also sort out the BSE problem here in the European Parliament!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Ainardi">
Mr President, I would nevertheless like to point out that by deciding not to lift the ban on British beef, France, in the case in point, is merely applying the Treaty which gives each State the opportunity to ban or restrict imports in order to protect the health and life of humans and animals.
Personally, I am delighted that the precautionary principle has taken precedence over free trade.
<P>
The reasons put forward by France to justify its decision are not false pretexts masking some kind of protectionism.
They are based on serious scientific arguments made by AFSSA, a totally independent scientific body.
Its studies show that the BSE epidemic is far from being under control.
I am not, of course, going to become embroiled in a war of figures, as there are quite a few other people who are ready to do so.
Moreover, the British committee of experts does not contest these figures, which have been taken up by the director of Public Health in Scotland, who has stated, "I am aware of the fact that there is a risk to human health in this country."
<P>
Too many cases of BSE are occurring in cattle born after the ban on animal meal.
How can this be explained unless we recognise the fact that the eradication programme implemented in Great Britain has still to be fine tuned?
Furthermore, animal traceability has not been guaranteed.
There is nothing to ensure that only animals born after 1 August 1996, aged between 6 and 30 months, are put on the market
<P>
France, moreover is not the only country to adopt this position.
Although Germany has not formally decided to lift the ban, it is dragging its feet over applying it. Indeed, has the Health Minister herself not just announced that the ban would only be lifted at some point before Christmas?
I think that the European Commission' s decision to lift the ban is more political than scientific, as the differences in interpretation and points of view within the European Scientific Committee demonstrate.
<P>
Past experience of the European Commission' s poor handling of, and shortcomings in, the BSE affair do not inspire me with any blind faith in its decisions, to put it mildly.
<P>
Of course, in the light of the campaign which has been conducted in the British press, I do not think we should stir things up as some here are doing.
I think that we should keep our heads and help to bring calm in order to guarantee the best protection of our fellow citizens' health by keeping the risks to a minimum.
Food safety has become something that society places great value on, something that I would say our fellow citizens are even demanding. This is why I feel that we should now ask the Scientific Committee to conduct more detailed scientific studies, taking the most recent data into account, whilst at the same time waiting for the screening tests which could be applied to live animals, and stepping up monitoring at all levels.
<P>
Only if these conditions are met will France be able to lift the ban with complete safety.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, nobody can dispute the fact that Great Britain is still the continuing source of an epidemic which has affected half of its beef herds.
There will be more than 3,000 cases of mad cow disease in 1999, in spite of the measures that have been taken since the ban was declared in 1996.
The persistence of this endemic raises a frightening question; whether there may be other means by which this disease is transmitted, apart from the ones we have seen so far, such as feeding animals with animal meal and transmission through the mother.
<P>
In the light of these fundamental questions, as in the case of GMOs, we must be as prudent as possible, and all the more so because we will soon have an effective scientific instrument - the BSE tests - which will enable us to judge the state of health of all herds.
The scientific validation of these tests is imminent.
So why should there be such a rush to force the lifting of the ban now, even though Great Britain has no beef that it can export and when these tests are about to be validated?
<P>
Nevertheless, the French government' s attitude is not entirely consistent.
If, instead of abstaining at the Council, it had, like Germany, voted in favour of maintaining the ban in the absence of elements which are essential for traceability, the ban would now be in force, consumers would be safe, the tests would be able to clarify things for us, the great British people would have been spared the blast of nationalism from across the channel and our Conservative friends would not have had to disown the principle of sovereignty for which they feel legitimate affection.
<P>
Having said that, issues that are just as vital for human health as those surrounding BSE would not stand up to most close examinations.
The whole issue of protecting our people' s health and food is at stake.
Indeed, the crisis is fundamentally a result of the obstacles created by both the European Union and the WTO to the implementation of the precautionary principle, and we will only be able to implement the precautionary principle appropriately by regaining genuine subsidiarity, not by subverting it in the name of federalist and free trade ideologies.
<P>
As far as food safety is concerned, given the current state of the European Union, we know very well that we can only expect it to provide a minimal level of protection, and to provide reduced value rather than added value.
Subsidiarity thus makes it a matter of urgency that we recognise that States have the right to derogate from any harmonisation measure as long as they intend to adopt regulations providing greater protection for public health, and for the environment too.
It is essential to add this as an emergency measure to the next IGC agenda, and this is, consequently, a point that must absolutely be renegotiated in the framework of the WTO, otherwise any attempt to apply subsidiarity at the European level would be susceptible to being bypassed.
<P>
In Marrakech, the Commission forced us to surrender our freedom in the area of health protection.
The burden of scientific proof, which weighs heavily enough on those wishing to protect the health of their population, puts a brake on applying the precautionary principle or actually prevents it.
It is crucial that these measures be revised if the current crisis is to lead us in these two directions, which are closely linked.
We cannot demand that the precautionary principle be taken into account at the WTO in Seattle when at the moment, we are denying this to Member States.
If we do this, Mr President, Commissioner, some good will have come out of this crisis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="Farage">
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Mr President, I understand the position of our British friends, just as I understand the position of our Portuguese friends who are also concerned, just as I understood the position of our Belgian friends in the dioxin affair and just as I understand even better the position of the French in the sewage sludge affair.
<P>
But this is not the same thing.
Atypical Creutzfeldt-Jakob is a terrifying disease which affects young men or women of around twenty years of age.
First they lose the ability to move, to walk, they are confined to an armchair, their muscles waste away, they find it more and more difficult to breathe, they can see themselves dying and then die after six months.
It is true that our British friends have taken precautions over traceability, that they have introduced a passport for cattle, that different types of meal have been banned since 1990, that conditions for the slaughter of animals have been changed, that lymph nodes, spinal marrow and lymphoid tissue are now removed and that only cattle less than thirty months old are exported.
They have seen to it that the consequences of the terrible mistake made by the Demulder brothers in Yorkshire, which was the original cause of the disease, have been mitigated.
It is nevertheless still the case that slaughter by means of a special pistol causes particles of the brain or lymphoid tissue to enter the jugular vein and from there they can reach the muscle mass.
It is also true that there are still 3,000 cases every year in Great Britain, and that there are 40 cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob, which is the upper limit for normal rates of occurrence.
It is nevertheless true that there are 650 cases of BSE per million head of cattle.
People say to me that the cattle that are exported are in perfect condition.
That may be true, but the disease incubates for 15 or 20 years.
There may be no clinical signs when the cattle are imported, but they may be incubating the disease, and so may the Englishman who has eaten the meat!
It is also true that the first results of the screening tests show that cattle that are clinically perfect may in fact already be affected.
I am sure you understand why there is still some doubt.
It was thought that the disease was transmitted by different kinds of meal.
These kinds of meal have been banned but the disease still exists.
It was thought that the disease was transmitted from mother to calf, and there is undoubtedly a third means of transmission perhaps through scrapie, through the soil or through fodder.
There are some accursed fields from which a herd is removed and then, two years later, a new herd is put there, which also contracts the disease.
Perhaps the same thing applies to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
You can understand then, why the French food safety agency recommended not lifting the ban.
People say to us that things would be different if it were a European Agency.
Would they?
So French biology is one thing and Brussels biology is quite another.
This harks back to Lysenko who, in the days of the Soviet Union, told us that there was one biology for proletarians and one for capitalists.
This is completely untrue!
The laws of biology apply to everyone.
Professor Dormond and Jeanne Bruger Picou are two of the greatest scientists around, as is Professor Dirringer in Germany, as is one of the Scottish consultants, who also has his doubts.
<P>
People tell me that the ban has been lifted, and that first Germany and then France is resisting.
I must remind you that at the beginning of 1996, when five German states refused to accept British beef, the European Commission tried to bring a liability action against them when all that these states were trying to do was to protect their citizens.
Then a few weeks later, the European Commission imposed the ban and admitted that the German states had been right.
We all agree on opposing meat containing american hormones and to the use of somatotrophin, a lactation hormone, when there is no scientific evidence to say that it is dangerous.
Somatotrophin can cause mastitis in cows, but if we were to inject ourselves with it, we might experience a swelling in the chest, but it would not kill us.
How can we refuse to accept meat containing american hormones and somatotrophin, when there is no clearly established risk, and yet accept British meat which presents a serious risk?
How can we make a case for Europe and the precautionary principle at the WTO, whilst refusing to apply the precautionary principle in the case of British cows?
There is a hierarchy of standards, and top of the hierarchy of standards is the health standard, then the standard of international trade.
After all, our British friends are just reaping what they have sown. It was an Englishman, Ricardo, who explained the laws of international trade and its comparative advantages to us.
He explained to the Portuguese that they should produce wine instead of cloth because the English were better at producing cloth.
Well, my dear British friends, you should realise that others are better than you at producing cows, and maybe you should stop producing cows.
In any case, you have been punished for your sins, which result from excessive free trade practises and from an excessively ultraliberal approach, for that is the fundamental cause of this pandemic and of this disease that can be transmitted from animals to humans.
We cannot take the risk of allowing young men of twenty to die just so that international trade may flourish.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Daul">
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Roure">
Mr President, Commissioner, it is crucial for all of us that we can guarantee the safety and quality of our food.
<P>
To this end, the French government has established the French food safety agency in order to make a better scientific assessment of the risks from food.
It was thought to be essential that France should have an authority which will enable it to make decisions on a rigorous, scientific basis, completely independent from any outside power.
<P>
Just imagine the things that people would have said if the government had not taken the scientists' advice when their conclusions were negative!
Nevertheless, we must not allow psychosis to take hold.
It is also quite unacceptable to stigmatise the British farmers who have suffered a great deal and who have made Herculean efforts.
We cannot ignore their desperate plight.
<P>
On the other hand, nobody will come out of a trade war unscathed, least of all the European Union.
Let us not give anyone a stick with which to beat us, and let us not play into the hands of the anti-Europeans who are shamelessly exploiting the situation.
Those people who do not want Europe are making shameless use of any pretext to set the public against Europe.
It is so easy to use emotion, but let us not forget that it is entirely thanks to Europe that we are able to have a free market and actually trade our products.
<P>
If the European Union did not exist, today, whenever we are confronted with a problem, our borders would close and that would be that!
We would not be here holding a debate today.
<P>
The European Scientific Steering Committee must express its views on the relevance of the French arguments because, on Monday, the ad hoc group, which gathers together European prion disease specialists, was not able to reach a unanimous conclusion and passed the results of its study to the European Scientific Committee.
This committee must take a decision, and we are all waiting to hear the opinion of the Commission, which must take responsibility.
It will take responsibility, and we feel sure that it will do so in a way that will not affect high standards of protection.
It was scientists' recommendations that triggered the crisis, and scientists will be the ones to get us out of the crisis.
<P>
We now have the opportunity to make use of a test which will allow us to screen incubating animals.
We will have to see if it is possible to set this up quickly, because although there is no such thing as zero risk in food safety, it is our duty to make use of all possible means to reassure our citizens that everything has been done to prevent mistakes, particularly where food is concerned.
The Commission could propose complementary measures which would allow us to feel completely reassured.
<P>
I would like to add that, of course, everyone should keep their own house in order, and that includes France.
All those who have led our countries into mad agricultural practises must be roundly condemned.
It is quite easy to see today that the race for profits leads to appalling events and terrible paradoxes.
At a time when manufacturers have had no misgivings about turning ruminants into carnivores, there is still hunger in the world.
<P>
Scientists make their recommendations and politicians make their choices, which are not always easy to make.
The problem is really one of knowing to what extent we can take on a risk when one exists.
This is exactly why the precautionary principle has been developed.
<P>
We will only come out of this crisis by working together, and we will come out on top, because we cannot allow our credibility to be damaged.
All our consumers want to know what they are eating, and they want to be sure that they can trust us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Pesälä">
Mr President, Commissioner, this debate and situation have come at the worst possible time for the EU and is causing a lot of harm.
Just think, ladies and gentlemen: we should and must defend the European agricultural model at the WTO talks in Seattle.
<P>
We have made a decision that there should be no import ban on British meat but, nonetheless, within the EU - an EU which should represent a free economic area at its best - a decision is being made to impose an import ban.
This is an absolutely inconceivable situation!
The English have had to suffer the inconveniences of BSE for quite long enough. They have done all they can to get the problem off the agenda and solved.
That was a very commendable thing.
It seems inconceivable that we should take a joint decision to lift the ban on the export of British meat, and yet we decide, for our part, that the ban on importing it has not been lifted at all.
<P>
Just think of the future, when we are discussing EU enlargement.
Let us take the example of Poland.
If Poland' s agricultural standards quickly reach the average standards in the EU, it will just about be able to feed the whole of the EU on its own.
That is why we must defend the European agricultural model at the WTO talks, so as to safeguard exports in the future since, in the years and decades to come, we will not find a solution to the problems of agriculture anywhere else but in exports.
These are basic principles.
<P>
In a way both England and France are guilty: it is a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
If, in Finland, my country, we were to make feed which had had sludge added to it, that plant would be closed down the next day - you can be quite sure of that.
There is no way you can produce feed from sludge.
We in the EU are allowing this situation to continue, although it was banned in 1991.
<P>
We will certainly have to take a good look at ourselves and contemplate what sort of image we want to present to the outside world, and how we should accomplish that, in this very difficult and delicate situation, when we join the WTO talks and when we consider the issue of EU enlargement and what the future will look like.
These sorts of crises have to be dealt with very quickly.
We can do it by ourselves, and only by ourselves, and we must do so as quickly as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="Hudghton">
Mr President, it is regrettable that again today we are having this debate in the absence of a decision from the committee currently meeting in Brussels.
It is also regrettable that this debate has taken such a hysterical tone in certain parts of Europe, fuelled by some of the London-based media in particular.
<P>
We would all agree that food safety and public health issues must be regarded as the highest political priorities throughout Europe, but British beef, as stated again today by Commissioner Fischler, has satisfied the public health objectives set by the European Union.
I wonder whether the Commissioner, in his summing up, can state that every other Member State now meets equally high standards in beef production and slaughter.
<P>
I also regret that this matter has been allowed to be portrayed as a battle between Britain and France, because it ought to be an issue between France and Europe.
Here we have just ended a period of the most difficult conditions being set by the European Union on the British beef production industry, conditions which have been met, and therefore action to implement the lifting of the beef ban should be taken decisively by the Commission.
<P>
My group colleague, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, referred once or twice in his speech to "English" beef but of course the UK consists of four distinct countries and in Scotland, where I come, from the beef farmers are rightly entitled to feel badly treated because we did not have a significant BSE problem in the first place.
These conditions set by Europe have been met and still we are not able to export.
Our farmers rightly wonder what was the point of all of the pain they went through over the last few years in order to meet the high standards which have been set and which have been met.
What would be the point of having more years of discussion and of setting up a European food standards agency if its recommendations were not to be implemented?
The issue here is that if we are to have European standards then surely we must be entitled to expect that these standards are accepted by the participating Member States.
<P>
Our consumers must be protected in relation to food safety, but consumers are also entitled and intelligent enough to make choices.
I am quite convinced, as a resident of Angus in the heart of Scotland' s Aberdeen Angus beef production country, that consumers in France, as elsewhere, would choose Scottish beef if they were allowed to do so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bordes">
Mr President, I would first like to state that I am in favour of the precautionary principle in an area where consumers' health is under direct threat, but the discussion taking place here between the supporters of the ban and their opponents is nothing but hypocrisy.
Everyone knows that both the good and the bad arguments in favour of consumer protection are used above all as weapons in a trade war and as arguments in shady manoeuvres in domestic politics.
It is therefore total hypocrisy to blame farmers and their interests and to set them in opposition, explicitly or implicitly, to the interests of consumers, without censuring the part played by the large capitalist groups which produce and supply cattle feed.
<P>
In Parliament we hear endless praise for companies' competitiveness, for their right and even for their duty to maximise profits.
Well this is the result of this race for profits in an area which affects health and food safety!
Along with the carcinogenic consequences of asbestos, spongiform encephalitis is yet another time bomb laid by industry' s capitalist management.
<P>
Whether the European Parliament adopts a position in favour of the embargo or of lifting it, the basic problems will not have been addressed.
There will still be companies that cut corners on the investment necessary for studying the danger posed by new products.
There will still be companies, such as those that produce asbestos, that continue to pass the dangers on to their workers and to consumers; companies which, in all conscience, will continue to run the risk of poisoning and even murdering people, in order to make a little more profit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, following the excellent interventions by Mr Souchet and Mr Martinez on maintaining the French ban on British beef, I would just like to add three observations, from the legal, moral and political points of view.
<P>
From the legal point of view, it is obvious that the French act of 1 July 1998, establishing the Agency for food safety, infers that France has sovereign power to safeguard the health of its citizens.
It is equally clear that Article 95 of our Treaty, in the way it has been reinforced since Amsterdam, says the opposite, out of an absurd desire for standardisation.
This kind of contradiction between national law and Community law also exists in the area of hunting and in many other areas, as if governments were signing abstract European commitments whose aberrant practical consequences they only discover later.
In this type of contradiction, the ultimate yardstick can only be the free choice of each nation; otherwise the whole European system will explode.
<P>
We must also consider the moral dimension of this business.
There is of course a superior moral principle which requires a government to safeguard its citizens' fundamental interests.
But neither must we lose sight of the fact that the catastrophe that was mad cow disease which struck our British partners could have struck in any one of our countries, as we all practise the same policy of high productivity in agriculture that goes against nature, and which is more and more subject to the worldwide doctrine of free trade.
<P>
As far as this policy is concerned, all Member countries share collective responsibility.
I would not say that this applies to all sectors of our relationships within Europe; nor would I say that about our relationships with third countries, but within the Union, there is undeniably a common agricultural policy and a joint responsibility with regards to this policy.
This is why we should find it understandable that the European budget gives particular help to British livestock farmers.
And whatever you say about it, there is no shortage of money!
Only yesterday, Parliament' s Federalists found the means to set aside EUR 60 million - yes, EUR 60 million - for a unified statute for MEPs which would be completely useless and which, moreover, has not yet been decided.
<P>
Finally, the political dimension and political thinking: how can we get out of this mess?
Well, beside the compensation that I have just been talking about, I think that the only solution to this business is to make screening tests available as quickly as possible.
Until then, the principle of prudence must prevail; otherwise, our citizens' trust will be broken a little further.
<P>
In broader terms, we should agree on the need for high-quality farming, which will respect the environment as well as consumers' health, and which will ensure our self-sufficiency in food production.
But this kind of farming requires Community preference, which we should now go and fight for in Seattle.
<P>
I think that a positive outcome of today' s debate would be to reach agreement with the British in recognising that this must be one of our main priorities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Keppelhoff-Wiechert">
Mr President, Commissioner, scientific checks in France have allegedly brought new findings to the subject of BSE.
Allegedly!
I am not a scientist, I am a farmer, a consumer, a politician, but I say to you quite candidly that I am not always ready to trust science for it is all too often the case that scientific findings come out in favour of the parties who commissioned the inquiry.
There are countless examples of this in everyday life.
I will give you one such example.
We are currently awaiting the findings of the Scientific Committee with some trepidation and I believe that we will be continuing this discussion this evening and next week in Brussels.
<P>
We all know the expression, "two lawyers, three opinions" .
Where I come from, it goes, "two scientists, two opinions" .
And for why?
We once had a case of trying to find a location for a waste disposal site, the application for which had been turned down.
The assessment of the district scientists was that the subsoil was watertight, while the local authority scientists maintained that the subsoil was as watertight as a bathtub without a plug!
<P>
I admit that this topic is now actually far too serious.
We can have a very emotional discussion here this morning on this subject of BSE, but this does nothing to help either British farmers or European consumers.
It is also of little help when we, as European MEPs, refer to current contraventions of internal market regulations.
An infringement of the Treaty is an important topic for all of us involved in European politics but, as an MEP in my constituency, I cannot use this at the moment as an argument to circumvent a political discussion on this topic.
<P>
While we sit here and discuss this issue, we are driving more and more consumers away from the meat counter.
As recently as the last plenary part-session, we made a renewed call for more stringent food safety and improved consumer protection.
Commission President Romano Prodi made it clear during the debate that he would make the safety of foodstuffs his priority and the Commission wants to, and must, set up a new chapter in consumer policy.
The most recent developments in the BSE crisis, in the "beef war" , involving not only France and Great Britain but Germany as well, where the federal Länder are currently adopting a very negative attitude, clearly demonstrate, Mr Fischler and Mr Byrne, too, the difficult task that we are faced with and the enormous challenge we have before us of creating a responsible and transparent consumer policy.
<P>
Economic interests represent one side of the coin, consumer protection the other.
I nevertheless believe, as I also said at the beginning, as a practical person I have a great deal of trouble with the results, that we should take the objections of the authorities very seriously.
I eagerly await the outcome of this evening.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="Whitehead">
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Isler Béguin">
Mr President, Commissioner, it is true that we are not proud of the situation in which the farming profession finds itself today.
But you can be assured that I shall not be speaking just as a Frenchwoman, but primarily as an ecologist and as a European.
This is why I am fighting for the environment, and particularly for the precautionary principle, as much for Great Britain as for France, Spain and the countries of Southern Europe.
This precautionary principle is, for us, a political line which must be followed in order to guarantee food safety itself.
In France, it was under pressure from the people, from consumers, and of course from ecologists and Greens, that this agency for food safety was established.
The agency made a recommendation, and of course the French government acted on it.
Therefore people cannot refuse to accept the French position, all the more so as we are calling for this type of agency to be established at a European level.
Of course, I hope that MEPs and the Commission will follow the recommendations of this future agency once it has been established.
But we must spare a thought for the farmers.
Mad cow disease dealt them a terrible blow and they barely recovered from it.
It is completely unacceptable today to allow the situation to become poisoned by letting citizens from the same profession within the European Union stand in opposition to one another.
The distress of British farmers is quite understandable.
It must, nevertheless, be pointed out that the farming that is responsible for the situation in which all European farmers now find themselves, or at least a large proportion of them, is a result of a farming policy that emphasises high productivity.
Therefore, it is our responsibility today finally to radically modify the European Union' s farming policy.
Moreover, we have assumed our responsibilities towards the WTO and is the European Union not in the same situation in relation to the United States that France is facing today in relation to the European Union?
We cannot reject, on the one hand, the supposed legality of the WTO' s position on meat containing american hormones whilst, on the other, invoking the European raison d' état in order to reject the precautionary principle that France is proposing.
The Greens are asking the Commission for concrete and urgent proposals even if today, the experts have not yet given their verdict.
<P>
Commissioner, you are familiar with the current situation, and you know that it has been going on for a long time. It is really crucial to put forward proposals in order to reassure European consumers as well as farmers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, cattle in England was fed with the ground carcasses of animals and foreign prions caused BSE.
In France sludge has been mixed with animal feed, which has also contained human waste, because of its urea content. In Belgium, fats have been mixed with animal feed, and the fats, when heated, have produced dioxins.
<P>
The EU and Mr Fischler, the Commissioner responsible for agriculture, are very much to blame for many problems, but the real guilty parties in these matters are the national governments.
The basic problem is animal feed.
It is the most important stage in the food chain.
The solution to this problem is not to establish an army of EU officials to oversee the work of farms.
The solution is a national one.
The national authorities must dare to monitor farms and their production.
Perhaps that way the illegal use of hormones will also be discovered.
In any case, this issue will best be resolved by adopting the practice of food labels that indicate the origin of the produce.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fiori">
Mr President, the embargo on UK meat imposed by France raises, in my opinion, two kinds of issue, both of notable importance and significance for the future of the Union.
On the one hand, there is the need to give substance to the very existence of the European Union by implementing in all the Member States the decisions made by the competent bodies on matters relevant to the Community, particularly in cases like the one we are addressing today which are liable to invalidate one of the fundamental premises of the Union itself - the free circulation of goods.
On the other hand, there is the requirement to protect consumers, which is one of the absolute priorities and which is so important as to justify even national choices that contrast with Community decisions, provided that they are justified on scientific, health and hygiene grounds.
<P>
The appraisal carried out on both of these kinds of issues cannot be reduced to specific for or against positions being taken in Parliament regarding the French decision.
It is up to the other institutions to decide on the validity of the legal premises and, in particular, on the health grounds given by the French authorities.
In this regard, we are waiting impatiently for Commissioner Byrne' s press conference this afternoon.
An in-depth Parliamentary debate leading to a political assessment on someone' s behaviour would be misleading, and, above all, it would not contribute to the overall smooth functioning of the European institutions.
On the contrary, what seems appropriate and desirable is for us to use these opportunities as well to continue the work of bonding the Community institutions together. This is something that Parliament, under the mandate conferred on it by all the Europeans it represents, must take responsibility for, incorporating the role performed up until now by the national governments in the construction of the Community.
Moreover, Parliament must, with increasing commitment, perform that function of acting as a counterbalance to the Executive, that is, the Commission, which is a characteristic of all modern democracies.
<P>
Returning to the case in hand, I believe that Parliament should not ask the Commission to investigate the existence of recommendations made by national agencies responsible for food safety that conflict with Community decisions.
Instead, I think that it should ask the Commission and other competent Community institutions to draw up reports on what has been done as regards these decisions, in order to enable Parliament to formulate critical assessments which are a preliminary step towards perfecting the Community legislation in force on this subject.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="Stevenson">
Mr President, I have certainly enjoyed some of the speeches today, not least the opening speech by Mr Donnelly where he seemed to be criticising the failure of the French and the British governments to achieve any solution to this escalating trade war.
I would remind Mr Donnelly that both the governments in France and the United Kingdom are socialist governments.
It has just been revealed that the Minister for Agriculture from his party in the United Kingdom has not even been in dialogue with his opposite number in France, which is ridiculous when you consider the way tempers are getting raised in the process of this trade war.
<P>
But I can understand some of the rage felt by farmers and consumers in Great Britain when they hear that sewage sludge has found its way into feedingstuffs in France, when they hear that the British Government has known about that since June but has not chosen to raise the matter with the European Commission and when they know that in Britain we are still slaughtering 60,000 cattle a month because they are over 30 months of age and cannot enter the food chain. Otherwise these are perfectly healthy cattle.
They are going to incineration after they are slaughtered and then their ashes are dumped in landfill sites.
This will be seen as one of the great mistakes of this entire century as far as agriculture is concerned.
<P>
There is rage when we know that in France there is also BSE - 22 cases so far this year.
Yet even injured and diseased animals which die on the farm are finding their way into rendering plants and the tallow from these animals is finding its way into the pharmaceutical industry, into the cosmetic industry and therefore into the food chain.
There is no level playing field, as other speakers have said.
<P>
I hope that we can find a diplomatic solution and we must do everything within our power to do that.
I appeal to the Commission and to the UK government to put pressure on France to comply with the findings of the Scientific Steering Committee, whatever those may be later today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Fischler">
Commission. (DE) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to thank you above all for the manner in which today' s debate has been conducted.
I believe that it was an exemplary debate which will contribute considerably towards allowing us to bring the discussion back to the realms of objectivity.
Essentially, I can draw the following conclusions from this debate: Firstly, I am deeply convinced of the fact that we have to base our decisions, and also the decisions of the Commission, on the judgement of independent, and this is an important point, independent scientists, as well as on the state of the art.
<P>
Nor should we overlook the fact that the cause of the entire BSE problem lay in the fact that this principle was disregarded, that decisions were taken for market reasons, for economic reasons, without appropriate consideration being given to the health issue.
We should therefore take care to avoid making a similar mistake again by heading in one direction or the other.
For this reason it would also be wrong for us to draw our own conclusions without being aware of the conclusions of the scientists who are at this moment discussing the issue in committee.
We must await the verdict from the Scientific Committee which is made up exclusively of independent scientists.
<P>
What we must then do, and I take this very seriously, is act immediately, so that we are doing more than just waiting and I am quite prepared to also communicate the message, which I am announcing here, to President Prodi and to my colleague David Byrne.
I am quite prepared to ask you if this debate could then be continued on Wednesday, incorporating the conclusions drawn by the Commission.
<P>
This French report essentially discusses four elements.
One of these elements is application of the tests that are now available.
I am not of the opinion that these tests should be used solely for placebo purposes, but in this regard as well we should base our decision, as indeed we have done, on scientific fact.
I am convinced that these tests can render a valuable service in supervising the events on a Europe-wide basis and they should also be applied to this end.
As to the extent that they may be used over and above this, we should certainly be careful on one point, and that is in believing that we have a one hundred percent guarantee, and that we can give a one hundred percent guarantee that we can distinguish between meat which may pose a risk and that which does not.
However good the tests are, they are not one hundred percent reliable.
In this regard as well, we cannot dream of a zero risk.
<P>
Should the scientists put forward new recommendations in this matter, we should obviously be more than ready to examine these recommendations accordingly as well.
As far as supervision is concerned, I agree with those here who have demanded that the level of supervision be comparable throughout Europe and that it is not sufficient to have a working system of supervision in Great Britain alone.
We are not, however, carrying out inspections only in Great Britain but in other countries as well so as to guarantee this at a European level too.
<P>
With regard to the calls for a Food Agency, I would like to point out that we would be well advised to make headway on this question.
In this regard, we must establish the preconditions laid down by my colleague, Mr Byrne, and in this connection I would like again to emphasise the following: I do not consider that we should go in the direction of a Food Agency along the lines of the FDA, but we should adopt the Food Agency which we already have for pharmaceutical products as a model, in other words, a European model for a Food Agency.
<P>
As far as the question of postponing the labelling is concerned, I would again like to draw your attention to the fact that the Commission' s interest is not in delaying this, but rather in ensuring that we do not get to the end of the year only to find ourselves without either a voluntary or a mandatory labelling system in place.
Do not overlook one point, namely that it is of no use to make a labelling system obligatory if the data required for this is not available.
After all, we would then actually be deceiving consumers with something that does not exist in reality, thus undermining our call for transparency and objectivity.
<P>
In conclusion, what we really should be concentrating on from now on is letting the facts speak for themselves.
In this way, we should also encounter various emotions and, in addition to these facts, we have to demonstrate competence and transparency in this regard.
On a final note, I would like to say one more thing, which is that the results of the Committee will be made available to all MEPs in electronic format today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Fischler.
I am sure you have the support of the entire House in trying to resolve this difficult situation.
<P>
Following Commissioner Fischler' s announcement, the Commission will be making the appropriate documents available this afternoon before the press conference. That will be made available to you on e-mail and it will also be on Parliament' s intranet.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
EC-Angola fisheries agreement
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A5-0022/1999) by Mr Cunha, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation on the conclusion of the Protocol defining, for the period from 3 May 1999 to 2 May 2000, the fishing opportunities and the financial contribution provided for by the Agreement between the European Community and the Republic of Angola on fishing off Angola (COM(1999)389 - C5-0170/1999/0169(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langenhagen">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in his capacity as rapporteur, Mr Cunha has called on me to present his report.
The Protocol to the EU-Angola fisheries agreement, as mentioned, already expired on 2 May this year.
A new Protocol was signed by both parties. This Protocol laid down the technical and financial conditions whereby Community ships are permitted to fish in Angolan waters in the period from 3 May 1999 to 2 May 2000.
Apart from the extremely short period of validity of the Protocol, one year instead of three, and the fact that the tuna quota was increased, the Protocol is identical to the previous one.
<P>
This Protocol is significant for the EU, however, from the budgetary viewpoint alone.
EUR 10.3 million is already a large sum in itself, and we do not even have a guarantee that we can interrupt payments in the event that Angola stipulates a closed season for shrimp fishing.
Moreover, we are not making the most of our fishing entitlement, with the exception of tuna vessels where 100% of permitted capacity is taken up.
Only 63% of shrimp vessel capacity is taken, and 0% of dredger capacity.
<P>
We also must give serious consideration to the funds allocated to scientific programmes (EUR 1.7 million), training (EUR 1 million) and studies (EUR 350,000).
There is no clause authorising the Commission to check whether these funds are used correctly.
For their part, the Angolan authorities are not obliged to account for how the funds are used.
In this area, the rapporteur recommends that all payments under the agreement should be dealt with by the Angolan Central Bank. This is valid for reasons of security and transparency, especially as Angola is still in a state of war.
<P>
The Commission made a sound choice in concluding a protocol with only a one year duration because Angolan fish stocks have been exploited intensively over recent years, particularly by the Soviet fleet, which has led to a spectacular drop in catch levels.
We have also heard that, as a result, licences will not be distributed to shipowners belonging to the EU.
If we consider the repercussions of this, we could conclude that fishing in Angolan waters is a rather risky matter as far as the EU is concerned.
Nevertheless, as the rapporteur says, we can be optimistic.
The number of tuna vessels and surface longliners has increased. This is generally a reliable indicator of the state of deep-sea stocks, and so can be viewed positively.
However, the Protocol does not contain any international standards regarding the conservation and rationing of fish stocks.
Having a closed season is certainly an effective means of preserving fish stocks, and this has been borne out in practical and scientific terms.
An international framework is necessary, however, otherwise the fear remains that Angola could abuse the close season to the detriment of the EU.
The Commission has to ensure in this regard that shipowners are informed in good time, i.e. at least three months in advance.
<P>
My conclusions are as follows: The negotiations are obviously important.
The current political situation in Angola is deplorable, all the more so given the fact that it is fundamentally a potentially rich and geopolitically important country.
What the Protocol lacks, however, is precise information on the state of fish stocks in Angola.
The Committee on Fisheries has submitted the appropriate amendments so as to obtain this information.
<P>
For this reason, we are not in a position to talk about a new fisheries agreement.
The results of the negotiations should be supported however and should serve as a basis for a comprehensive Protocol or a new fisheries agreement in the future.
In return, the rapporteur expects Angola to observe the interinstitutional agreement on budgetary discipline and to improve its budgetary procedure in connection with financing the expenditure arising from this fisheries agreement, which is extremely important as far as we are concerned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="Fraga Estévez">
) Mr President, the current Protocol to the agreement with Angola, which lasts one year, is in reality an extension of the previous one, in the hope that conditions may improve so that the Agreement may be renewed within the traditional period of three years.
<P>
We are in total agreement with this solution.
On the one hand, it allows fishing to continue, within the framework of an agreement whose formulation has been generally satisfactory to both parties and which has presented no apparent problems.
<P>
On the other hand, this Protocol provides a natural step towards the signing of the new agreement, which could be under threat given the political situation in the country and the possible presence of other fleets in the event that the European Union were absent from the area.
<P>
Another piece of good news is the increase in fishing opportunities for the tuna fleet, whose number of ships has almost doubled, which indicates the more than healthy state of the fish resources in those waters.
<P>
On the other hand, the maintenance of fishing relations with Angola is, at the moment, of great importance and the least the European Union can do is to help a country which is traditionally closely connected to certain Community areas and which is enduring worrying political and economic times.
There is no doubt that financial compensation is an important form of support but, nevertheless, the presence of the European fleet contributes to a greater sense of stability in the area, which can only be beneficial to international relations with Angola.
<P>
Furthermore, the presence of the Community brings a more responsible form of fishing to the area and may be an important factor in terms of balance given the presence of other fleets, particularly the Russian fleet, not to mention the aid to scientific research programmes which is included in this Protocol.
<P>
For all these reasons, and in the hope that, as Mr Cunha' s report requests, the Commission will inform this Parliament of the result of the application of this Protocol, our group, Mr President, calls for the approval of the Cunha report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, the PSE group supports the Protocol which extends the fisheries agreement with Angola.
<P>
Both Mrs Langenhagen and Mrs Fraga have summarised the content of this agreement.
It has been pointed out that it is not a new agreement, but rather an extension of the previous agreement which, in reality, was signed in 1987 and which the Community inherited from a previous agreement between Spain and Angola.
With regard to its importance, it is perhaps not one of the most important, but it is a useful agreement, both for the European Union and for Angola, as Mrs Fraga has highlighted.
This type of agreement - as long as they conserve biological resources, that is, they do not lead to over-fishing - also benefits those countries in which such activity is carried out, both through the financial contribution of the European Union, and through the aid which is provided, for example, in the field of professional training and scientific research.
<P>
I believe that the Commission is doing good work, but our main concern at the moment is the maintenance of fishing activity and, specifically, activity which does not lead to over-fishing, but rather the conservation of natural resources.
<P>
The European Parliament, in the amendments which the Committee on Fisheries has presented, asks the Commission to pursue the matter, to inform Parliament and the Council, at least three months before the expiry of the agreement, so that its continuation may be ensured.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, I would like to insist on the usefulness of the agreement, both for Angola and for the European Union, and we hope that the Commission will make the necessary effort so that this agreement may remain in force in the years to come.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Farage">
Mr President, yesterday we were urged to approve the renewal of the EU agreement with Morocco to give Spain and Portugal fishing rights in Moroccan waters.
Today we are being asked to review a similar agreement with Angola.
<P>
In my brief but eventful career as an MEP, and particularly after yesterday, I have noted a willingness of this Assembly which dares to call itself a "parliament" to act as a rubber stamp for the Commission and again I sense that this is our role.
But if this Assembly is to begin to behave as a proper review body with any teeth it must begin to ask some fundamental questions about the whole principle behind these agreements.
<P>
Such evidence as we have about their operation indicates that these have been responsible for conservation disasters of the first magnitude.
Effectively, an example of colonialist exploitation of the peoples of the Third World which should shame everyone in our supposedly civilised one.
<P>
In the past seven years the taxpayers of the European Union have paid out EUR 1.4 billion to the governments and elsewhere and, even in the neutral words of the Commission, it is difficult to trace where the money goes.
Yet all this is to fund Spanish and Portuguese fishermen, giving them a licence to pillage Third World waters, often in flagrant disregard of the basic principles of fisheries conservation.
We know from Morocco what despair this has aroused among local fishermen as they see immense damage being done to their fish stocks, simply to provide European markets with sardines and other common species on which their own livelihoods depend.
The horror of what is happening down the west coast of Africa was illustrated a few years ago by Namibia.
In the end it said it had had enough, so devastating was the impact of Spanish fishing there.
<P>
It is about time that we in this House said that we have had enough of it all.
The result of these policies has been a conservation disaster.
In fact the whole thing, it seems to me, is an insane catastrophe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Varela Suanzes-Carpegna">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, firstly I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Cunha, on the report which he has carried out.
I would like first of all to express my support for the Agreement and for the position held by the European Commission, as well as the opinion expressed by Mrs Langenhagen, Mrs Fraga and Mr Medina.
And I absolutely and radically disagree with the position of the previous speaker who has demonstrated a policy which shows very little solidarity with the Member States of the European Union and the fishermen. This policy fortunately has minority support in this Parliament.
<P>
With regard to this report, I would like to point out that the fisheries agreement with Angola means a continuation of the common fisheries policy of the European Union with regard to international fisheries agreements, which contribute to the consolidation of one of the fundamental pillars of said policy. This was pointed out by Mr Crampton' s report to this Parliament in the previous legislature, this report stating that these agreements were a fundamental condition in the effort to reduce the commercial deficit in the European Union in the field of fishing, in fish supply and in order to protect direct and indirect employment in the fishing sector and in the industries related to fishing in the European regions which are heavily dependent on it.
This was approved here during the last legislature.
<P>
In relation to the Cunha report on the conclusion of a new Protocol which defines the fishing opportunities and financial contribution provided for in the agreement with the Republic of Angola for the period from 3 May 1999 to 2 May 2000, I would like to point out that this is a classic Protocol, which allows for access to fishing resources during a certain period and sets a financial contribution.
<P>
Despite the fact that certain information and statistics must be borne in mind, and the Commission has promised to be very strict about this, and also bearing in mind the delicate situation that that country is in - it is in a state of war - we believe that the conclusion of this provisional Protocol is very positive, in the hope that it will be renewed for a year or that a new agreement will be reached.
This is a very important country geopolitically, with a very considerable potential wealth and which the European Union has to support, clearly helping it to put an end to the serious situation which it is in.
But it must help in the best way possible for both parties: Angola, on the one hand, and the Member States of the European Union and the regions involved in fishing, on the other, with the control of this Parliament and in accordance with the amendments which the Committee on Fisheries has presented with regard to this important Agreement which has, as has just been pointed out here, a considerable political dimension, as well as economic and financial dimensions.
<P>
Therefore, Commissioner, on this question and with regard to fisheries agreements in general, as was demonstrated yesterday in the important debate which we held in relation to the fisheries agreement with Morocco, you will always enjoy the favourable, generally majority, opinion of the Committee on Fisheries, and I hope that you will continue to enjoy the favourable opinion of this Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Seguro">
Mr President, I am taking the floor in order to lend my support to the fisheries agreement between the European Union and Angola.
I am doing so for economic reasons, which have already been explained by several speakers in this Chamber but, as in yesterday' s debate on the fisheries agreement between the European Union and Morocco, also in order to help a country that is rich in natural resources, but which remains poor due to its political situation, and particularly its on-going civil war.
This is why I think it important to see this agreement, in addition to the economic benefits that it brings to one of our country' s industries, also as assisting the development of an economic sector, as well as the consolidation of peace in Angola.
<P>
We agree that we must be vigilant in the way this agreement is implemented, specifically in the way funds are spent. Vigilance is also necessary in order to ensure the preservation of species and the sustainability of fishing.
However, we would like to point out, Mr President, that although the words exploitation and cooperation have the same ending, there is quite a difference between them; cooperation means both parties cooperating when they are in agreement, and we do not believe that Angola sees any kind of exploitation in this agreement, otherwise they would not have renewed it the day after it expired.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Fischler">
Commission. (DE) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to give my heartfelt thanks to this Parliament, on behalf of the Commission, for its all in all positive assessment of the new Protocol to the fisheries agreement with Angola.
Until tuna fishing is extended, this Protocol certainly assumes the potential catch quotas of the previous Protocol for the years 1996 to 1999 as well as the appendices thereto.
It must also be emphasised, as a number of speakers have already said, that the Protocol is only valid for one year and more than half of this period has already lapsed in any case.
This year, however, the Community and Angola will be able to redefine the future framework of their fishing relations, as has been proposed by Angola.
We should therefore use this time.
<P>
What the Community is paying Angola in return for the catching opportunities afforded under the Protocol and the contribution which Community shipowners pay in the form of duties have also remained at the same level as previously.
The financial consideration therefore corresponds pro rata for one year to the sum established in the previous Protocol.
<P>
As far as Parliament' s amendments are concerned, I would like, on behalf of the Commission, to assure the Committee on Fisheries that the Commission, as has been the case in the past, will inform Parliament in the appropriate manner as regards the implementation of the Protocol.
We should, however, choose the most suitable form for this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="President">
Commissioner, now that you have a new portfolio looking after fisheries you will discover that Parliament very often discusses fish on a Friday, but you have had a mixed menu this morning, for a change.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
Explanation of vote
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I wholeheartedly endorse this excellent report by Mr Cunha as it brings very much to the fore the principle of sustainability which is necessary for a forward-looking fisheries policy.
Angola is suffering under the consequences of the Soviet colonialism which plundered this country.
I therefore consider the role of the European Union to be positive and important and also regard this fisheries agreement as being an integral part of our foreign and development policy.
<P>
Mr President, to conclude, I would like to make one more personal observation: I am delighted that you have been chairing this sitting here today.
That puts me in a more conciliatory frame of mind.
I hope that one day you will be just as pleased to be the President of this Friday club as your predecessor, President Gutíerrez!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Posselt.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="President">
I declare adjourned the session of the European Parliament.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 11.10 a.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 29 October 1999.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Statement by the President
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to tell you how shocked I have been, as I know you have, by the tragedy that has taken place in the state of Orissa in eastern India, due to the terrible cyclone which, as you know, has caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people.
More than 200,000 houses have been destroyed and more than one and a half million people are now homeless.
<P>
I would simply like to express, on your behalf, and on behalf of the European Parliament, my sincere condolences to the victims' families.
If you agree, I shall write to the Indian Prime Minister to send him our condolences.
<P>
Furthermore, we shall be asking the Commission to implement an aid plan to address the most immediate and urgent needs.
I was anxious to make this announcement to you.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
The Minutes of Friday 29 October have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Madam President, last week Prime Minister Sarkisian and seven other leading politicians were murdered by terrorists in the Armenian Parliament.
An expression of sympathy from us would be appropriate.
<P>
In this context I would like to ask whether our own Security Service and the Belgian authorities are prepared for incidents of this kind.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Mr Rübig, that was not at all relevant to the Agenda.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Vander Taelen">
Madam President, I would like to make an observation regarding Friday' s voting in Strasbourg.
I think the fact that only forty MEPs voted on important issues on Friday has somewhat tarnished Parliament' s image.
I am aware that it is not unusual for only a few MEPs to attend certain deliberations, but if voting is involved, then I think that this is extremely detrimental to the image of our Parliament.
Forty MEPs voted on important matters.
I know that quorum is not an issue - this is in line with the Rules of Procedure and there is nothing that can be done about that - but we should avoid this situation at all costs.
I therefore wonder whether it might not be a good idea to refrain from scheduling any more votes for Friday in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Vander Taelen.
I have noted your words and, on a personal level, I can tell you that I entirely share the feeling you have just expressed and I do indeed hope that there will be many more MEPs present at the Friday votes than are here now.
We know that this is a longstanding problem, but of course we all share the same desire.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Isler Béguin">
Madam President, this is not really a point of order, but new events are constantly taking place, and I was obliged to take a decision on Friday because there was nobody who could answer my questions.
On Friday morning, the Armenian Ambassador to the European Union, Mr Chitechian, invited me to attend the funerals last week of those murdered in the Armenian Parliament.
Having checked to see whether I was able to attend, I then took the decision to attend these funerals and I tried to inform the Presidency and the Secretariat of my decision.
Unfortunately, it was between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. on Friday afternoon and there was no-one I could speak to.
So, I faxed you a letter to tell you that I would be attending in a personal capacity, but would nevertheless represent the European Parliament to some extent at these funerals.
I was therefore present at the funerals and at the official ceremonies held in the memory of those murdered in Armenia.
I wanted to inform you of this, Madam President.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Isler Béguin.
You were quite right to do so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Madam President, I would like you to inform us as to whether there is any truth in the rumour that - and if this were to happen, I believe it would be disastrous for the information policy of the European Parliament - the press reports covering the part-sessions in all languages of the European Union are to be discontinued.
These press reports have always been extremely useful as they reach a wide audience and make known in each language the activities of the MEPs speaking a particular language or from a particular national party. That is why it is something that we, if you like us older MEPs and Members of the previous European Parliament, are quite perturbed about.
If this is the intention, then we would like to know.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
Mr Alavanos, I shall answer you straightaway.
It is true that tonight, in the Bureau, we will be holding a debate on information policy.
I can also tell you that I have no intention of discontinuing this report.
I hope that the Members of the Bureau will follow me in this matter.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Agenda
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
The next item is the agenda.
<P>
I have received two proposed amendments to the agenda; firstly, the communication by the Commission, which has been tabled as the first item on the agenda, and which was due to address the fight against discrimination.
The Commission has informed us that contrary to what it had laid down, it is not able to adopt the proposals on the subject and therefore does not wish to make a communication on the matter.
<P>
On the other hand, the Commission is quite prepared to make a statement on the situation regarding British beef and veal following the meeting of the Scientific Committee.
<P>
I shall therefore ask you if you agree that the communication on discrimination that was tabled should be replaced by a communication on British beef and veal.
<P>
(Parliament gave its assent)
<P>
We shall have a communication on British beef and veal then.
<P>
A second problem now arises.
Some of you have requested that this communication be followed by a debate and not by the question time that had been envisaged originally for the first communication.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Madam President, on behalf of my group, I have requested that the communication proposed by the Commission concerning the case of British beef be followed by a debate.
This is for various reasons.
The first is that we are in the European Parliament and, last Friday, we held a debate without the Commission and without the report from the experts. During this debate I believe that Parliament, and certainly my group, tried to place the issue within its corresponding framework, that is, within our competences and duties as MEPs, towards our citizens.
I believe that Friday' s debate, without the Commission and without the report of the experts, was a positive step because we are obliged to create confidence and offer responses to the people' s problems; we should not always become embroiled in debates amongst ourselves which may be very interesting but only when a joint approach is required.
<P>
The second reason is that, in the past, and also very recently, this matter has lent itself to images which may have been amusing in some cases, such as the image of smuggling meat between two countries of the Community, but I do not think that we should re-awaken certain conflicts between our countries since this would seem a farce given the gravity of the issue.
We therefore believe - and of course my group is prepared to do this - that it is important that the Commission should give an explanation and that we, in the debate, should express the positions that we have taken as groups.
My group is prepared to do this and I believe that this would be more effective in restoring citizens' confidence, rather than holding a Question Time as we go along.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Poettering">
Madam President, our Group of the European People's Party and European Democrats has called for us to follow the system that we always use and debate BSE on a 'catching the eye' basis.
I must say, Mr Barón Crespo, that I am absolutely amazed that you are demanding an impromptu debate now.
You criticised me last week when I called for the Napoletano report to be referred back, for quite understandable reasons as we saw it.
You said that conflicted with the agreements. Fair enough, I had to accept that.
<P>
This morning our group considered this afternoon' s discussion.
Some Members in the group also felt that there should be a debate.
The Members who called for that will recall that I said that we had no idea what the other groups' positions were.
I said it would be unfair to demand a debate here, because we could prepare ourselves for the debate, whereas the other groups would be unprepared.
Therefore, as a matter of principle, we are not in favour of having an ad hoc debate which this House is not prepared for.
That is why I am in favour of sticking to the present procedure.
Commissioner Byrne will make a statement to us, and we will then discuss it using the 'catching the eye' system and ask our questions.
We should then deal with this serious topic at a later date in a very orderly and serious fashion, giving us the opportunity to conclude the debate with a resolution.
But right now we are most definitely opposed to having a debate sprung on us under the ad hoc procedure!
<P>
(Applause from the PPE group)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Madam Speaker, I do not see much cause for drama here.
I would like to think that we could organise a small debate.
It goes without saying that it has not been possible to prepare this matter properly in the groups or at the Conference of Presidents, as the news of this resolution came so late.
I really do not think this is much of a crisis; debate is a good thing, but the most important thing is that we get a chance to hear this announcement in the first place.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Cox">
It is very important that we have the opportunity to question the Commission on this sensitive issue and the issue between questioning and debate should not loom so large.
We have a procedure and that is that we should proceed now to questioning in depth.
Certainly in my group we have not prepared a list of speakers, nor do we wish to revert to that procedure at this moment.
But we would welcome the opportunity to question the Commission in depth and eventually we can have with due process a reflective debate on the matter.
We should not be discussing a sensitive question, such as this beef issue, on the hoof.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Madam President, with regard to Rule 1 et seq, it seems very unfortunate to me to compare the rights of MEPs with the situation regarding British cattle.
I believe they are unrelated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="President">
Mr Barón Crespo, are you standing by your request that we hold a debate and not a question time as usual?
<P>
I shall put this proposal to the vote, with a request for a vote by roll call.
<P>
(Parliament rejected the proposal)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
British beef and veal
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Byrne">
Madam President, I am pleased to have the opportunity today to update Parliament on the developments over the past few days in relation to BSE.
<P>
To begin with, I would like to update you on the opinion adopted unanimously by the Scientific Steering Committee last Friday. This opinion was on the scientific grounds of the advice of the French Food Safety Agency (AFSSA) regarding the measures applicable to British beef exports.
<P>
I arranged for the summary recommendations of the committee' s opinion to be issued to Parliament on Friday together with a copy of my statement to the press.
Yesterday, I also arranged for the full copy of the report to be issued to you.
However, you may not all have had time to digest their contents and I will, therefore, briefly summarise the main issues.
<P>
The opinion addressed in particular three questions from the Commission. These questions can be summarised as follows:
<P>
Is there any new evidence in the documentation provided by AFSSA?
<P>
Is there a need to re-examine any of the four Scientific Steering Committee opinions directly related to the scientific rationale of the date-based export scheme?
<P>
Is the date-based export scheme satisfactory with regard to the safety of meat and meat products concerned?
<P>
In its opinion, the scientific steering committee confirmed that there is no need to review the decision to lift the ban on UK beef exports.
<P>
Allow me to quote three of the more important conclusions of the committee:
<P>
"there is clear evidence of the continuing progressive decline in 1999 of BSE in the UK.
There is no justification at present to infer any new route of infection" ;
<P>
"the SSC concludes that there are currently no grounds for revising the overall conclusions of the SSC opinions directly related to the rationale of the DBES" ; and, finally:
<P>
"the SSC considers that the measures taken by the UK make any risk to human health from the UK DBES at least comparable to that in other European Member States" .
<P>
This followed a very thorough examination which focused on the concerns raised by the French authorities.
I was greatly encouraged by the unanimous view of the Committee.
It has provided the reassurance necessary that the DBES is sufficient to ensure that British beef exports are safe.
<P>
And let me be very clear: I have always insisted that the opinion of the committee would be instrumental in determining the Commission' s handling of this dispute.
I have gone on record several times, including in my hearings before Parliament, that my decisions on food safety will be science-based.
My priority is to ensure that there is no threat to public health.
Sound, independent and excellent scientific advice is essential in this respect.
<P>
In this particular case, we now have scientific backing for the existing systems of controls.
<P>
It is on this basis that I have called on the French and German authorities to take the committee' s opinion into account and lift their national restrictions on imports of British beef.
As I said on Friday, these restrictions are no longer necessary in the light of the safeguards in place.
<P>
However, we have to accept that this is a highly charged issue where we need to proceed cautiously.
This is why I also insisted on Friday that everybody needs a few days to reflect on the full implications of the scientific committee' s opinion.
My meeting last night with my French and British counterparts was held in this spirit: we need to discuss the best way forward to resolve this dispute.
<P>
The French authorities have now requested clarification on five key points.
Very briefly, they want further information on traceability, testing, derived products, controls and labelling.
I do not consider this request for clarification to be unreasonable.
Accordingly, a meeting of officials will take place this Friday to discuss the issues in question.
<P>
Let me quote the very short communiqué agreed by all participants last night which agreed this strategy:
<P>
"We have drawn up a method to emerge from the crisis as quickly as possible by identifying five points - which I have already mentioned - worthy of being looked at by our experts over the next few days.
Our experts will begin this work on Friday.
We undertake this work in a constructive spirit and a common will to assure public health of our citizens" .
<P>
I am very surprised at the reaction in the press to last night' s developments.
It is not a setback.
It is not a victory for France or a defeat for the UK.
It is simply a further necessary stage in resolving this difficult issue.
A few extra days in discussions is a very small price to pay for a successful conclusion.
I need not add that the alternative - legal proceedings - would be a far longer and more painful process.
<P>
Some additional reassurances or clarifications may be necessary to allow the French authorities to lift their restrictions on UK beef.
However, that should not prove to be an insurmountable problem and it is in that spirit that discussions should continue.
It is the clear implication of these discussions that the ban will be lifted.
<P>
However, I would like to make very clear that there is no question of re-writing the date-based export scheme. It has been upheld by the scientific steering committee as a set of reliable safeguards to ensure that British beef exported under the scheme is safe.
It does not need to be changed.
<P>
Finally, I will continue to insist on a very quick solution.
Let me remind you that today is the very first working day since the adoption of the scientific committee' s opinion.
We have all worked long and hard over the past several days and these efforts will continue until we have found a solution.
I will, of course, continue to keep Parliament fully informed of developments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Jackson">
Madam President, I should like to thank Commissioner Byrne for that statement.
He has had rather a baptism of fire as a new Commissioner.
Would he agree with me that the situation as regards beef has now tended, in the public eye, to throw into chaos the question of the acceptability of judgments delivered at the European level on food safety and that this bodes rather ill for Mr Prodi' s plan for a European food safety agency?
That is of great importance to my committee and will be of importance to this Parliament in the months to come.
<P>
Specifically on the ban and the judgment of the Scientific Steering Committee, could he say why, if the judgment is so clear and unanimous, there is any need for further negotiation . . .
<P>
<P>
. . . or should we call it clarification.
The boundary between clarification and negotiation seems - at least from the other side of the Channel - to be somewhat blurred.
Will he take action against France after the Commission meeting on 10 November if, by that stage, having had several days to digest the unanimous decision, the French Government has taken no action to lift this ban?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="Byrne">
In answer to the first part of your question, Mrs Jackson, I believe that the very opposite is the case.
Rather than throwing President Prodi' s plans for a food safety agency into chaos, it highlights the very need for such an agency at Community level.
We are working on that very point in my service at the moment.
Not only are we concerned to identify and establish its level of competence but also it would be of considerable importance to identify clearly and mark out the jurisdiction that the food safety agency would have at Community level and how it will interact with the agencies at Member State level.
It will be important to identify where the function of one begins and ends and dovetails with the other.
Once that has been clearly established, in my belief, the problem that we have seen over the last four or five weeks should not arise again.
<P>
I should emphasise also that, what we are engaged in now, and the exercise that is going to be undertaken on Friday and the subsequent days is, as I have said, a clarification.
It is not a negotiation.
A negotiation implies that two parties come to a negotiating table, each with their own views, and something comes out of it at the end which reflects both their views.
What we are engaged in here is an exercise in clarification of the five points that I have referred to.
The French authorities have not unreasonably requested more information in relation to these very important issues.
Most of them are a request for information as to how the date-based export scheme actually operates, both on a practical level and on a technical level.
My service is perfectly happy and willing to give that information to the French authorities.
Civil servants from the UK will also be involved.
There are practical considerations involved in how the issue works on the ground which are necessary to explain.
So I am perfectly satisfied that it is more accurate to refer to this exercise as a clarification.
<P>
In the event that my statement that the clear implication of this exercise is that there will be a lifting of the ban turns out to be incorrect, then, as I have said from the very beginning when we first saw this issue on Friday 1 October, there would be the initiation of infringement proceedings.
That remains my view.
I have said on numerous occasions since then that court proceedings would be the last option.
I believe it is much better to achieve a result by discussion with the parties so as to ensure that everybody understands what is involved.
That is the exercise we are engaged in at the moment.
In the event that does not yield results, then my view that it is appropriate to bring infringement proceedings will prevail.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth-Behrendt">
Madam President, Commissioner, do you agree with me that it really is astonishing that Member States are now seeking fresh explanations and clarifications when this has been the subject of discussions with the same Member States in the Standing Veterinary Committee for over a year and a half, and do you agree that Member States still imposing a ban on imports should present fresh scientific evidence, failing which it simply gives the impression that they want to push the internal market still further into some distant future?
<P>
Do you also agree with me that you should make it compulsory, immediately - or rather in the next four weeks - for those Member States and all others to universally apply the newly evaluated BSE tests. No doubt the two Member States who still have an import ban will support you in this!
Lastly, do you agree with me that even if there were - were, that is a subjunctive - if there were such an agency of the kind that Mr Prodi would like and which has not yet been fully discussed in this House, even if that were the case, a situation like this could recur again and again?
The reason being, of course, that there would still be national agencies that could, at any time, claim that there was new scientific evidence. Would you therefore agree that your hope that a European agency could avoid such a situation is quite simply an illusion?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="Byrne">
Not a lot astonishes me nowadays.
I believe, however, the clarifications that are asked for by the French authorities are not unreasonable.
They are related to the date-based export scheme itself.
They are related to five topics: traceability, further testing, issues surrounding derived products, further information relating to controls, inspection and controls by the Food and Veterinary Office on the single plant that exists in Truro, in Devon, which slaughters and exports this product, and finally, on the issue of labelling.
<P>
In relation to the labelling issue, there is EU-wide legislation in draft at the moment, intended to be implemented by 1 January 2000.
Those provisions have been put back for one year because Member States had not completed the preparatory work to enable the legislation to be implemented.
In the meantime, the UK authorities have in place their own beef assurance scheme labelling system and have indicated that this labelling system, on a voluntary basis, would operate in respect of exports to France and elsewhere.
That, I should stress, is being operated on a voluntary basis.
It is not being legislated for at EU level.
I would not have the competence nor the desire to do that.
As a transitional measure, pending the final implementation of the EU-wide labelling system, this proposal has been put forward by the UK on a voluntary basis and will operate in that way.
<P>
I agree fully with what you say, Mrs Roth-Behrendt, that there is no new scientific evidence being put forward by the French authorities.
That was confirmed by the Scientific Steering Committee last week.
There was up-to-date information but no new evidence to change the opinion of the Scientific Steering Committee.
<P>
In relation to the agency I can only refer you to the answer that I gave to Mrs Jackson that my belief is that the establishment of a centralised Commission level food safety authority will go a considerable distance to eliminating these kinds of difficulties.
There may be teething problems along the way but it will be the challenge of all of us involved in establishing the legislation for that agency to ensure that the competences of each of the various institutions - whether they be at Community level or at Member State level - properly interact and that each side knows exactly where their competence begins and ends.
In those circumstances one is in a position to bring more certainty, rather than less, into the situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Daul">
Madam President, Commissioner, together with the Scientific Committee, you have taken responsibility for the consumer and I believe that I myself was one of those who have experienced this crisis at first hand and I have always monitored the work of the Scientific Committees.
But I think that we must be particularly vigilant as regards the identification of cattle in the different countries of the Community.
Of course you have answered one concern in terms of labelling and traceability, and I beg you to do the same, especially in terms of complete transparency throughout the Community on the whole beef and veal sector, whose past we are all familiar with.
<P>
So what different control systems are available to you across the Community and how far have you got with the various tests, particularly the BSE test which has been accepted by the Commission?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="Byrne">
There are, at present, four BSE tests, three of them of the very highest reliability and the fourth one quite reliable.
They are post-mortem tests.
Further work is on-going to try and achieve a situation whereby these tests, or a development of these tests, might well be used in a pre-clinical situation.
We have not reached that stage yet but it is the hope that we will.
Work is on-going in relation to that at the moment.
Tests are being undertaken as we speak.
<P>
The control systems that are in place - the inspections and controls - are undertaken by the Food and Veterinary Office in respect of the DBES scheme.
That office has conducted two tests in the last six months.
Certainly the last one was as recently as the first week in October.
Whereas I have not yet got a written report from that particular inspection, I have a verbal report to the effect that the findings are satisfactory.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="Lynne">
Madam President, Truro is in Cornwall, not in Devon.
<P>
Can you give assurances that France is not just playing for time?
With the Scientific Committee having ruled on Friday that British beef is safe, it seems incredible that we have this further delay.
I believe it is probably just a face-saving exercise on behalf of France.
I am sorry that the Agriculture Minister, Mr Brown, seemed to cave in.
Whatever the reasons for it, it does not help consumer confidence.
We need to make sure the ban is lifted as soon as possible.
Can the Commissioner give assurances that it will be lifted in the foreseeable future?
Last Friday he mentioned a two week time span.
Can he tell us now what he feels the time span should be for the lifting of the ban by France?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Byrne">
Thank you, first of all, for your correction in relation to the location of Truro.
<P>
I am, as best I can be, satisfied that the French authorities are not playing for time.
They have asked for these clarifications.
I believe these requests are not unreasonable.
I believe my civil servants and those in the UK can reply and give the information that is necessary.
This can be done within a matter of days.
<P>
In relation to the delay, I should like to point out that the Scientific Steering Committee' s report was delivered on Friday night.
This is the first working day since then so it does not seem to me that there has been much evidence of a delay in the meantime.
<P>
In relation to Mr Brown, he and I have discussed this issue on a number of occasions over the last two weeks or more.
I have found in my dealings with him a determination on his part to resolve this difficulty as speedily and satisfactorily as possible.
You have raised the issue in terms of him having caved in, but that is far from the true position.
He has dedicated himself to this in negotiations with me and then with Minister Glavany most assiduously.
In my opinion the views and position that were adopted last night were the intelligent, rational, reasonable approach to adopt to this situation and, in my view, is far from a cave-in.
I hope that my judgment in this will prove to be right and that within the next ten days or so we will have a final resolution to this particular problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Isler Béguin">
Commissioner, I think - and this is not because I am French - that we must put this Franco-British squabble behind us.
We already had occasion to say so on Friday and I think that the work being done by the Agriculture Ministers shows that it is crucial to find a compromise that is acceptable to everyone and not only to us, the MEPs who are rather trailing behind the news, but especially to consumers.
If there is a problem today and French specialists have recommended that this ban should not be lifted, this means that there are some serious questions to be asked.
Personally I am trying to put myself in the shoes of consumers who must by now have an idea of the situation.
On the one hand you have a French food safety agency which says that there are in fact risks, and on the other, experts who tell us unanimously that there is no problem at all.
Personally, this raises serious questions in my mind.
I have read in the press that there are only three prion specialists on the Scientific Committee.
I therefore turn to you, Commissioner, in order to find out if these three prion specialists really abstained, in which case those who voted unanimously were not prion specialists and we would then be able to understand why the proposals, the compromises and the supplementary questions tabled by France have been accepted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="Byrne">
Like you, I am also concerned as to the protection of consumers.
That is part of the brief that I have been asked to undertake.
I have noticed with interest and already welcomed the statement made by the French Minister for Trade and Consumer Protection, Mrs Lebranchu, who referred to the unanimous report of the Scientific Steering Committee over the weekend saying it would provide a reassurance to consumers.
I welcome her statement in that regard.
<P>
There has been a little confusion in relation to the interaction between the Ad Hoc Committee and the Scientific Steering Committee.
I should like to shed some light on that at this stage, having been given the opportunity to do so by the last question.
<P>
The Ad Hoc Committee is made up of experts on BSE.
They met last Monday for the second time.
On the previous occasion they were given the evidence from the French authority, which I had asked the French authorities to provide.
They also asked for up-to-date information from the UK.
They got that information also.
They then met last Monday, considered all of that, applied their own experience to it and produced a report which, in effect, recited all of the issues involved and the aspects, dangers, risks and the pros and cons of the arguments relating to BSE.
There was no vote taken by that committee.
It is not their function to do so.
It is an advisory ad hoc group that feeds into the legally established committee, established to carry out the function of advising the Commission in relation to these matters - that is, the Scientific Steering Committee.
It is that committee that took the vote and it is that committee that was unanimous in its view, having reviewed all of the information that was contained in the Ad Hoc Group' s report and some other documents that were supplied by the Ad Hoc Group and obviously applying their own scientific knowledge.
These sixteen scientists are drawn from most of the Member States.
They are vets and scientists of the very highest calibre, at the pinnacle of their careers, people of the very highest reputation.
They formed their view - which we now know - which was expressed unanimously.
<P>
So there is not any confusion or contradiction between any ad hoc view and the Scientific Steering Committee.
That is the genesis of how the decision-making process actually takes place and the interaction between the Ad Hoc Committee and the Scientific Steering Committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Böge">
Madam President, Commissioner, do you think it is right that at the very point the export ban is being lifted - and there is no doubt that we belong to a legal community - earlier decisions about labelling and identification should be deferred?
Do you think that these are confidence-building measures?
<P>
My second point is this: what is your opinion about the fact that we have different measures in place within the Union for combating scrapie and BSE?
As a matter of principle, would the correct approach not be to eliminate and cull all herds infected with BSE in the case of incidences of BSE in all Member States, and would this not have been the correct approach right from the beginning as a means of preventative consumer protection?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="Byrne">
In relation to the issue you raise about scrapie in sheep and BSE, whereas they are similar diseases they are quite different in their forms of transmission and so on.
One cannot readily extrapolate from information available in relation to scrapie directly across to BSE.
It is informative but it does not directly extrapolate one from the other.
<P>
I believe the issue relating to labelling is an issue that builds consumer confidence.
I have spoken about this on a number of occasions, including at my hearing in September, that the provision of information to consumers must be the very first stop in any armoury of a Commissioner charged with consumer protection.
The provision of labelling obviously provides information.
I regard this as a good way forward.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Madam President, Commissioner, please give me a straight yes or no answer. Have there been more than forty fatal cases of atypical Creutzfeldt-Jakob due to mad cow disease, that is, a zoonosis?
Commissioner, did or did not the European Parliament' s Committee on Agriculture receive a draft directive one month ago saying that until 2003, we would not be able to show the cattle' s provenance on the label?
Commissioner, in what way is the scientific competence of the members of the Scientific Steering Committee superior to that of the German scientists, of the Scottish scientists and of the French scientists who tell you that there is a risk of zoonosis.
Commissioner, who chooses the members of the Scientific Steering Committee?
How are they chosen?
How independent are they?
Commissioner, how do you explain the fact that for seven years, two MEPs, the Belgian Socialist José Happart and myself said here, between September 1989 and March 1996, that there was a risk of zoonosis before the British Minister for agriculture admitted it on 24 March 1996 in the House of Commons?
What good is the precautionary principle, Commissioner, when, if there is any doubt, we do not refrain from selling cattle that are still suspect?
And finally, Commissioner, are you still prepared to say to the country of Fleming and Newton that Galileo was wrong to say that the earth turns, when the university and the Scientific Steering Committee say that the earth does not turn?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="Byrne">
My information is that there have been more than forty cases diagnosed of new variant CJD.
In relation to the provenance of animals from labeling, you are correct to the extent that the legislative regime that is to be established at Community level will ultimately provide that products which are imported from another Member State will identify that it is of EU origin rather than from a Member State origin.
What is happening in this situation is that on a voluntary basis the UK propose to keep on their beef the labelling that they have put in place under their beef assurance scheme.
It is a purely voluntary aspect and it is not governed by legislation at EU level.
<P>
I should say that I am absolutely satisfied as to the competence of the Scientific Steering Committee.
It is made up of the chairmen of the eight scientific committees dealing with such issues as food, toxicology and other issues, and then eight others who were selected and appointed by the Commission.
They are, let me emphasise, absolutely and completely independent.
The Commission cannot tell them what to do, either in relation to the substance of their reports or indeed as to their timing.
<P>
In relation to your reference to the Scottish scientists and so on, my understanding is that this issue relates solely to beef on the bone which is not part of the DBES scheme.
I am not at all convinced that anything that the Scottish scientists have said on that issue is relevant to exportation from the UK under the DBES.
<P>
In relation to your question on the precautionary principle, this is derived from a concept that was first laid down in the environment field.
It lays down the basis on which the precautionary principle will be applied.
It is quite specific in the way it says that it should be applied and one of the specific aspects is that there has to be an absence of scientific evidence in relation to a particular danger, or serious doubt as to the scientific evidence.
We have a unanimous report from the best scientists and vets in the European Union available to the Commission and they have expressed their view that the British beef exported under the DBES scheme is as safe as any other beef in Europe.
In those circumstances it is not appropriate to apply the precautionary principle.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="Whitehead">
Commissioner, would you agree that it is of paramount importance that we have a European solution to this problem and would you accept our congratulations that you have put your best efforts towards that in the events over the weekend.
<P>
Nevertheless, would you not agree that since the unanimous confirmation of the safety of the date-based export scheme, provided you personally endorse it in this House, as I hope you will, there is a very limited area for clarification of what more can be done.
<P>
Would you not accept that some of the issues now raised by the technical experts - and I particularly refer here to labelling, to improved diagnostic tests and so on - are incremental improvements in safety measures for Europe as a whole.
They are not a replacement or a supplement needed for the date-based export scheme.
If that is the case, would you not further agree that the debate about the safety of British beef ought to be concluded by 10 November next and on Wednesday, if the Commission has no word on that matter, will you bring forward, regrettable as they are, the legal proceedings which are then overdue?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="Byrne">
Mr Whitehead, thank you for those kind words.
I agree with you that it is of paramount importance that this issue be resolved at European level for the reasons that I identified earlier.
It is important for a number of reasons, not least consumer confidence, and it is to that end that I am trying to resolve this issue as I am sure also Minister Glavany and Minister Brown are doing.
<P>
In relation to the date-based export scheme, of course I endorse it.
I welcome the opportunity, in response to your question, to do so again.
You may have noted I did so earlier and I have done so on a number of occasions.
Let me repeat that it is not my intention to put forward any legislation to amend the date-based export scheme which itself is the subject of legislation.
It is not my intention to do that and I have made that situation clear over the weekend on a number of occasions and I did so again yesterday.
<P>
These improvements, as you describe them, are incremental.
Some of them are not related to the application of the date-based export scheme but I have to say that some of them probably are, particularly in relation to the issue for instance of traceability, to the issues surrounding derived products.
Some further information was requested as to how exactly the derived products scheme would operate under the DBES.
Of course I am perfectly happy to give a clarification in relation to that but I should remind you of something that I am sure you are aware of: there is no exportation of processed beef under the DBES from the UK because it is necessary first to identify and approve a plant for that purpose and no such plant has been proposed by the UK authorities.
Therefore there is no exportation of derived products under the DBES scheme but it may happen and in the event that it does, questions were asked of me yesterday to clarify exactly how it would work, how products might be segregated and so on.
These are not unreasonable questions which I feel perfectly happy to answer over the next few days.
<P>
In relation to when this should take place, the meeting is taking place on Friday, I would hope that it would conclude its deliberations and its explanations on Friday.
There may be other meetings next week.
I suspect that the French authorities may well have a further discussion with their food safety authority and I would expect a response from them certainly no later than Thursday of next week.
I would then be in a position to first of all give an up-date to the Commission next Wednesday and give a final conclusive version on the following Tuesday at the Commission meeting in Strasbourg.
It may all happen earlier.
If it does, so much the better.
If it does not, on Tuesday week I will be bringing a report to the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="Stevenson">
In my innocence and naivety I thought that when the scientific steering committee met last week and made their announcement, indeed the announcement was made by Mr Pascale, himself a Frenchman as President of that committee, indicating the unanimous approval of that committee that British beef is as safe as any other beef in the EU or possibly safer than any beef worldwide, that was the top of the pyramid.
I did not think you could go any higher than that.
Now we are told by Mr Byrne that we need just a few extra days of discussions.
Well, it appears to me that we have had three months since 1 August in which the French and the Germans have defied EU law.
Are you now telling me Mr Byrne that during those three months when a vast dossier was prepared by the French food safety agency that they did not examine the technical implications embracing traceability, testing, derived products, controls and labelling?
Are you telling me that only now at this last minute after the scientific steering committee has made its unanimous pronouncement they want further technical clarification of those points?
It seems ludicrous.
What exactly are they asking for?
<P>
We heard Mr Martinez questioning the competence of the Scientific Steering Committee.
Is Mr Martinez aware, and are you Commissioner aware, of the fact that the AFSSA, the French food safety agency, has an annual budget of EUR 52 million and has a board of governors of whom 50% are appointed by the French government, the other 50% representing farmers, food retailers and food distributors?
So let us ask some questions about their competence.
We were assured at the highest level in Paris that this matter was not being driven by protectionism but was being driven purely by science.
This smacks to me of pure commercial protectionism and now it has been exposed.
Are you aware this is the way that the AFSSA is being driven, Mr Byrne?
<P>
(Applause from the PPE group)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="Byrne">
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Byrne.
The use of my gavel was not aimed at you but at an MEP who was trying to interrupt you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Goepel">
Madam President.
<P>
(Heckling by Mr Martinez)
<P>
Oh, just shut your trap!
<P>
<P>
Commissioner, I believe that as long as we do not have consistent labelling, we will never be free of disputes about BSE in this House and in Europe in general.
The fact that you are now telling us that compulsory labelling going back to animals' place of birth will not be implemented until 2003 - Mr Böge has already touched on this - well, in my opinion that is partly to blame for this whole cankerous BSE crisis.
Now that the legal basis has changed - and that is the reason why we have this new regulation now - so that this is no longer to be dealt with under Article 37, that is by means of consultation, but under Article 152, under the co-decision procedure - we in this House damned well have a duty to bring this deadline forward from 2003!
Yes, that is our duty, and my question to you is this: you said that you would put pressure on these countries concerning this issue, which is to be the subject of a decision in the next few days.
I would like to know what scope the Commission has for exerting pressure so that these Member States bring in consistent labelling and identification of bovine animals before 2003?
If that could be done as quickly as possible, we in this House would not have to worry about BSE any more!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="Byrne">
Proposals in relation to labelling are before Parliament, as you say, under Article 152 which is a co-decision procedure and you are correct to say that those labelling provisions provide for information in relation to the animal from birth so that thorough labelling arrangements are a valuable tool.
<P>
They provide information but they will not, of course, provide absolute guarantees in relation to public health but they at the very least provide information.
Other procedures have to be put in place, which we have put in place, and we are examining so as to ensure public health safety and I am talking now in particular about the DBES scheme itself.
But yes, I agree with Mr Goepel, that the labelling issue is an important issue, it is before Parliament and we will obviously have an opportunity to discuss that in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Commissioner, throughout the crisis of the last few days, the Commission has, on several occasions, adopted a position in favour of a European food safety agency.
As far as this agency is concerned, it could take one of two forms.
The one that I find quite positive would consist of creating an authority formed by a group of European experts without detracting from the decision-making power of national states on the fundamental issues which are the closest to citizens' concerns. There is quite another concept which I feel is much more negative and this consists of establishing an additional feature which would take away a nation' s right to safeguard themselves, a right which is nevertheless inalienable.
This form would, because the Commission seems unable to act in any other way, immediately prioritise the free movement of goods over consumers' health, as we have just seen in the business of the ban on British beef and veal where, Madam President, we should really wait until the tests are available. Furthermore, this leads us to the following extraordinary conclusion that the precautionary principle is not being applied within the European Union, when we are trying to make it prevail in relations with third countries, particularly with the United States.
<P>
Well, Commissioner, what form would you choose for the food agency; one which takes a flexible and liberal approach towards countries, or one which takes an authoritarian approach towards countries?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="Byrne">
Yes, as I said earlier, I am in favour of the establishment of a European food safety authority and the work is on-going in my service in relation to this.
I have had a number of discussions with colleagues and with Members of Parliament also in relation to this on an informal basis.
So work is proceeding on this issue.
No final decisions of course have been taken and, as I said to you a moment ago, the constitutional structure of that authority has yet to be decided and how it would interact with the other institutions of the European Union and with the national food safety agencies of Member States.
It also has to be carefully choreographed because we want to rule out any difficulties like the ones we are faced with at the moment.
<P>
However, we have to be careful about, as you say, the removal of Member States' inalienable rights because any interference with the Member States' rights may very well encroach upon the rights of Member States' , thereby requiring Treaty changes.
I am not sure that we want at this stage to move quite that far.
I am not ruling that out, but I want you to understand that in addressing your question in that way you should be aware that for progress to be made in that particular area, if it is intended to reduce the jurisdiction or the rights of Member States, Treaty changes would be necessary.
<P>
Let me just finally address the issue of the precautionary principle you mentioned.
I have mentioned the precautionary principle in the context of imports from the United States and I am sure you are referring to beef and hormone-treated beef.
I have referred to that in this House and I have referred to that in the Environment Committee on a number of occasions.
I have to point out to you that the advice that I am receiving from the scientists in the European Commission is that the beef imported from the United States contains the hormone 17-beta-oestradiol.
I am advised that is a complete carcinogen.
In those circumstances, it is appropriate to apply the scientific evidence rather than the precautionary principle because with clear scientific evidence, it is open to me and the Commission to make a decision based on that scientific evidence.
It is only in the absence of scientific evidence, or where there is a clear uncertainty in relation to scientific evidence, that the precautionary principle comes into play.
So that is why we do not apply the precautionary principle to the hormone issue on the importation of beef from the United States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Murphy">
What British farmers, and in particular farmers in the English West Midlands region that I represent, are looking for is a speedy resolution to this particular problem.
<P>
The scientific committee has clearly demonstrated its belief that British beef is as safe as any other beef anywhere in the European Union and under those circumstances I am sure that the Commissioner would agree with me that a delay of perhaps another few days only is better than two or three years going through courts which ultimately frustrates everybody, satisfies nobody and in particular does not satisfy British farmers who have followed the rule of law, have done what has been asked of them and are now in a position to sell an excellent product throughout the whole of the European Union.
What I would like the Commissioner to go through just one more time again here now for total clarity is his belief that this delay will only be a few days and that at the very latest he envisages this process being completed by the Tuesday of the Strasbourg session, and preferably before.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Byrne">
Let me say to you that I have met Mr Ben Gill of the National Farmers' Union on a number of occasions, I have spoken to him on the telephone and I have seen what he has had to say on the subject over the last couple of days and in particular overnight.
I have kept in close contact with him and I can assure you I am conscious of the problems that this issue poses for farmers in the UK.
<P>
I fully agree with you when you say that a delay of a number of days, if it achieves a resolution of this difficult problem, is by far the better solution, rather than embarking upon litigation in the European Court of Justice.
I also further confirm to you, and repeat what I said earlier, I hope to bring a final report on this issue to the Commission no later than Tuesday week in Strasbourg.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Sturdy">
Thank you for addressing us so clearly.
<P>
I just wonder whether or not, having listened to all the debates, you are actually totally and utterly aware of the devastating effect of this decision on UK farmers.
You have said already quite clearly that the standing committee on scientific evidence is the highest authority.
<P>
Mrs Jackson asked you as the very first question if we have another committee to look at our food safety across the European Union will that actually be better than the present standing committee and will people take any notice of it.
It appears to me that they have not taken any notice of it.
You actually argued almost to the contrary that in actual fact the standing committee on scientific evidence is probably not as good as a food agency.
British farmers are suffering as a result of indecision.
It is about time the decision was ratified.
The previous speaker said in a few days; it was actually in August the decision was taken.
How many more days do we need to have a decision?
<P>
Can I also ask you: there is a practice within Member States, or some Member States, to feed what I would call banned substances to some of their beef cattle.
Is the scientific committee and the Commission going to look at that?
Or are we going to continue with a situation where the press are just going to use it to attack Member States?
<P>
Commissioner, all I say to you is that British farmers, the European Union and agriculture are suffering as a result of indecision.
We want to see the decision taken on Friday evening, not waiting until Strasbourg.
There is no more scientific evidence.
Did the French sign up to the Florence agreement?
Has the United Kingdom met all the conditions that were laid down in that agreement?
Why has a decision not been taken immediately?
<P>
(Applause from the PPE group)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="Byrne">
I am totally aware of the problems that all this has caused for British farmers.
This issue has been going on for a long time now, long before I came to the Commission.
The decision that was taken by the French authorities on 1 October is a decision that has had to be dealt with as best one can in the meantime.
Since then the one feature that can be pointed to is that there has not been any indecision on the part of the Commission or on the part of those who are involved in trying to resolve this difficult issue.
<P>
I have said on a number of occasions - and I have said it again here today - that I believe that the application of steady diplomacy, cool heads with firm determination, will make more progress than knee-jerk reactions resulting in the Commission ending up in the Court of Justice in Luxembourg two years hence.
It will not do the farmers of the UK any good, in my view, if the ban remains in place in the intervening two-year period.
<P>
I am firmly convinced that the view I take, the line that I have adopted, the decisions that I have made, reinforced by my colleagues in the Commission this morning, are the correct decision.
I look forward to a speedy resolution of this issue.
<P>
I have mentioned on a number of occasions over the last weekend in various interviews that it is my firm wish that this matter be resolved quickly and diplomatically.
Sometimes it is difficult to achieve both of those at the same time.
That is what I am trying to do. That is what I am trying to achieve.
Allowing me a week until Tuesday to do that is not unreasonable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Auroi">
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Byrne">
I fully agree with you when you say this is not an issue of losing face or winners and losers.
The characterisation of this difficult matter in those terms is quite unhelpful.
Also, those who address it in that way do not give full justice to the seriousness of the problem.
<P>
I also agree with you that assurance for consumers is of paramount importance.
It is the DBES scheme which has been devised by the Commission with the advice of the scientists which, in my opinion and the opinion of those scientists who advise the Commission in these matters, will give that assurance to consumers.
<P>
I also agree with you that it is extremely valuable to have labelling and traceability.
In relation to the labelling issue, you have asked me what will be put in place at Community level in the legislation regarding labelling.
From 2003, all beef will be labelled with place of birth, place of fattening, place of slaughter, breed and age of the animal.
<P>
It is not possible to provide this labelling and information at present because the Member States have not yet provided the information for that to happen.
But it is being addressed and that will be the situation from that date.
<P>
Again, I should like to emphasise the importance that I attach to this entire issue in terms of consumer confidence and, in particular, the issue of public health.
It is my intention to take this into account over the next number of days in the on-going discussions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Byrne.
<P>
This item on the agenda is now closed.
<P>
Before we continue with the agenda, I would like to point out that tomorrow morning, the reports by Mr Hughes and Mrs Smet will be debated together, as that is what the rapporteurs wanted and everyone agreed to do.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Macroeconomic dialogue
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="President">
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the macroeconomic dialogue in order to encourage growth and employment (Cologne process).
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<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Niinistö">
Madam Speaker, Members of the European Parliament, may I first say how pleased I am to have the opportunity to come here to meet you and especially to be allowed to contribute my views to the macroeconomic dialogue, which is only just beginning.
It is thus a new process.
The adoption of a single currency in Europe has increased the need for dialogue on economic policy.
Both the ECOFIN Council and the presidents for the euro area have seen evidence of this in their work.
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In order for the euro to quickly acquire the weight it deserves, not only as part of the international economy but also in discussions concerning the economic policy of the Union area, the common points of view on economic policy in the euro area in particular must be explored in more depth.
The European Council in Helsinki is expecting a report from the ECOFIN Council on the development of coordination with respect to economic policy, which again will help to step up this debate.
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The economic and monetary union opens many new possibilities for Europe.
We must seize this opportunity and do everything possible to safeguard economic growth and employment development.
The best way to do this is to ensure that the benefits of a single currency and a single market are fully exploited.
The economic and monetary union means a new beginning for Europe, both in terms of entrepreneurship and of economic policy.
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The European Employment Pact, which was signed last summer at the European Council at Cologne on the initiative of Germany, is an initiative which will promote mutual understanding and a reform of the European economies.
The macroeconomic dialogue is part of the European Employment Pact.
The implementation of this Pact begins with the organisation of the first macroeconomic dialogue, which will take place on Monday next week at the meeting of the ECOFIN Council.
For the first time, all the prime movers at Union level will be seated at the same table: representatives of the Council, of the Commission, of the European Central Bank and of the parties in the labour market.
Until now we have met up with representatives of the parties in the labour market twice a year, and been engaged in a separate dialogue with the ECB.
Now we are coming together at the same event.
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The participation of the ECB is a significant feature of this.
It is a clear indication that the bank is prepared, for its own part, to be involved in open and direct discussions, and to justify its reasoning and its actions.
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It is important to recognise the main principles of dialogue.
They ensure that the independence and autonomy of the parties involved are respected.
The dialogue will be based on confidentiality, which means that there is no intention of issuing joint conclusions or passing joint resolutions.
The time will be used for discussions.
There will be no public report on the discussions: each side will report to their own quarter on the content of the meeting.
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We may question the usefulness of the parties having confidential talks behind closed doors.
The answer is that this dialogue is primarily aimed at generating an understanding of the fundamental principles of economic policy.
It complements - but by no means excludes - public debate on economic policy, which takes place in any case.
It is a lot easier to begin discussions on the basis of a common viewpoint and a joint analysis of the situation.
It is not possible, of course, to arrive at anything as concrete as this at European level, nor is there reason to talk about negotiations or coordination.
Even so, we believe that the dialogue will make a positive contribution to the climate of debate surrounding the issue of economic policy.
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In Finland, the responsibility for dialogue on a political level lies with the Economics Council, whose duties and objectives are of a general and unofficial nature.
We have found how beneficial it is to maintain contact through discussions, especially in difficult times.
These discussions have concerned matters of principle regarding social and economic development.
Similar practices exist in several countries.
National experience and procedures, of course, are not directly transferable to European level but there is plenty to do at that level, too.
Macroeconomic dialogue at European level cannot take the place of national dialogue, either.
We need both.
We just have to find the right content and form for the dialogue at European level.
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In our presidential capacity, we have also wanted to make sure that this dialogue works.
It is for this reason that all 15 Member States are not present, only the representatives of the Council.
This, too, is significant. The debate should not focus on the situation and problems of individual countries - the matters on the agenda concern the whole area, a joint area of responsibility.
This provides significant parameters and policy guidelines.
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The participants in this dialogue were specified in the conclusions of the European Council at Cologne, and it was declared that the limited number of participants would ensure the success of the dialogue.
Naturally, we have acted accordingly.
The conclusions of Cologne also emphasised the fact that the macroeconomic dialogue is perceived as a sustainable and on-going process.
For this reason, in its arrangements, Finland has wanted to look ahead with an emphasis, above all, on continuity.
Therefore, future presidents of the Council will also be taking part in the meeting, whose tasks it will be to develop and further deepen the dialogue.
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The dialogue is not about coordinating economic policies; it is linked with those current challenges which concern the development of economic policy cooperation.
Much of the decision making that has an impact on economic development and employment still takes place within the Member States despite the introduction of the economic and monetary union.
Above all, it is a question of budgetary policy and determination of wages.
Can we be sure that the conditions and demands created by economic and monetary policy have been internalised?
From the point of view of individual Member States, there is a risk, not of inflation, but of excessive nominal pay increases, which will lead to a sharp decline in competitiveness and profitability in business and, consequently, to job losses.
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Still, there is no reason to paint such a sombre picture.
It is, however, vital that those who make decisions on economic policy - especially on monetary policy - can feel confident.
That is why we need dialogue and reassuring signals, just as we need the decision makers to act swiftly and decisively in potential problem situations.
This is a positive way of promoting the prospects of an economic policy which favours economic growth and employment.
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As part of the dialogue, we also have to improve the statistics on economic development - including wage and cost trends - and the flow of information.
The two levels of dialogue - technical and political - complement each other successfully.
Discussions must be based on facts, and it would be better still if we could agree on these facts.
It is, above all, a question of being realistic.
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<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Solbes Mira">
Madam President, I would like to point out that macroeconomic dialogue forms part of the complex process of the Employment Pact and that, as the Presidency-in-Office of the Council has explained, it is a consequence of the Cologne decisions, trying, through the establishment of this dialogue between social partners and the people responsible for economic and budgetary policy with the participation of the European Central Bank, to achieve our ultimate objectives.
In accordance with the broad guidelines of economic policy, these objectives simply consist of achieving stability in monetary policy through budgetary measures and wage trends which are appropriate and more favourable to growth and employment, including exchange rates and interest rates in the long term.
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The macroeconomic dialogue will be initiated in accordance with this philosophy.
Its significance has been clearly defined by the President-in-Office of the Council and I do not intend to insist on it.
I simply want to point out that the first technical meeting took place on 29 October and the next will take place on 8 November.
Despite previous experiences, such as the social dialogue established after Val-Duchesse, it is clear that the new macroeconomic dialogue has some different characteristics.
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I would like to concentrate - so as not to repeat part of what has already been said - on the contribution which the Commission made to the technical debate on 29 October.
Firstly, I would like to point out that the Commission' s Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs provided, prior to the debate, two working documents.
One related to the economic situation and the other was intended to prepare the informal exchanges on macroeconomic policies in the medium term.
Both documents should serve as technical contributions to the debate.
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The first Commission document aimed to present the general economic situation and the macroeconomic perspectives in the short term.
The diagnosis of trends for the European Union contained in this document is of a descriptive and analytical nature.
And its contents confirm that it is possible to have a more rapid return to growth than the one announced by the Commission in its macroeconomic forecast in the spring.
The growth announced for 1999 will be around 2%, similar to that established in the forecast.
But this 2%, as an annual average, reflects a different performance.
Performance was lower than expected in the first part of the year but, nevertheless, the upward trend which will occur in the second part of the year will favour growth of close to 3% as an average for the last two years, thereby reaching similar and even higher figures for 2000 than those which we had forecast in the spring.
The document also includes the possibility that growth may be higher in the future.
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The second document presented by the Commission must serve to prepare for informal exchanges on macroeconomic policies in the medium term.
The document presents the macroeconomic conditions needed to promote durable growth, drawing certain conclusions from the slow growth recorded in the past, especially since the middle of the 1970s.
A technical analysis allows us to reach the conclusion that the deceleration of the growth tendency in the European Union can be explained by a combination of external impacts, exacerbated by divergence in national policies, in a context of structural rigidity.
In particular, the lack of consensus on the content of macroeconomic policies in the period prior to the entry into force of the Treaty of Maastricht and of the initial guidelines on economic policy played a fundamental role in the increase in negative effects, external impacts and the development of greater obstacles to growth and employment.
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It is worth emphasising that the change to the rules introduced on the implementation of Economic and Monetary Union has lightened the load of those responsible for national macroeconomic policy and is helping to overcome these obstacles, so that growth may become more sustainable.
The document analyses the conditions necessary so that the policy mix may continue to be as balanced as possible, thereby allowing us to achieve longer-lasting growth.
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At the meeting on 29 October there was a discussion of this information which was very open and constructive, and I will tell you about this in a summarised fashion.
With regard to the diagnosis of trends, all the participants agreed that the perspectives had improved considerably, and that the negative external impact of 1998 had already been absorbed by the internal development of the European Union itself.
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With regard to possible risks to future growth, there were differences of emphasis, especially when some of the participants pointed out the risk that further external impacts may affect the Union' s economy.
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In relation to economic policy - the second document provides a response to the challenge of transforming the current upturn into a sustainable process of higher growth - each participant expressed their position very frankly.
However, I would like to emphasise some of the elements of the debate which may be very useful for the purposes of today' s debate.
Firstly, the broad guidelines of economic policy are confirmed as a fundamental element.
All the participants agreed on the need to maintain price stability and negotiate wage agreements which are compatible with the objective of continuing the process of consolidating the budgets - in accordance with each country' s stability programmes - and of completing the structural reforms in accordance with the Luxembourg and Cardiff processes.
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Secondly, I would like to point out that there was also absolute agreement on the key principle of the macroeconomic framework, which I referred to earlier.
That is, the more we promote the objective of stability of monetary policy through budgetary measures and appropriate wage trends, the more favourable monetary conditions will be towards growth and employment.
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Thirdly, I would like to point out that the discussion clearly demonstrated the usefulness of this type of direct exchange, which allows each of the participants to express, directly, their points of view and receive adequate answers from the other participants.
The role of the social partners was fully recognised as a third element of the policy mix.
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Fourthly, some of the ideas offered by the participants warrant special attention.
I would like to highlight the fact that there was an emphasis on macroeconomic policies, particularly monetary policies, having to take into account progress on the supply side of the European economy.
In this way, we will increase the possibility of sustaining, without inflation, higher growth in demand.
The combination of the complete realisation of the single market together with the single currency, in a context of structural reform and strong international competition, will allow for a reduction in the risk of bottlenecks that may arise in the event that wage and budgetary policies are inadequate.
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Lastly I would like to point out that the representatives of the Commission underlined the fact that the supply of labour currently seems to respond more positively than it did previously, but that there exists a significant reserve of qualified and available labour.
If we add to this the availability of existing capacity, given the high potential tendency towards inflation, the consequence of raised profitability, structural changes will be put in place which those responsible for economic policy must take into account when adopting their respective decisions.
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These are what seem to me to be the most relevant elements of the meeting of 29 October and which, today, as I said, I wanted to share with you so that you may then comment on them and debate them.
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<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Karas">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, by way of introduction, I would first of all like, on behalf of our group, to put it on record that we regard the macroeconomic dialogue as a welcome innovation, because for the first time it obliges all the key players in European economic policy to participate in a direct exchange of views with each other about the overall economic situation.
At the same time, we are delighted that Parliament has received this information so soon after the first meeting, although that should go without saying in my view.
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Secondly, I must add, however, as an Austrian, that this dialogue between social partners, between political institutions, between fiscal policy and those with a political mandate has been going on in a similar way for years in my homeland, Austria, and has made an important contribution to Austria' s present position as an economically successful and socially secure country with a high employment rate and lower jobless figures than others can boast.
That should encourage us to take heart for this dialogue.
There are a lot of things that we too need to reform and there is some room for improvement.
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The previous speaker touched upon this - the dialogue can only prepare, accompany and supplement.
It is no substitute for policies.
It does not relieve those in positions of responsibility from their specific obligations.
The dialogue is a supplementary component of the many and various measures for growth and employment.
And for precisely that reason I would also like to point out that this debate fits into the overall framework of these two plenary sittings.
Our debates during these two days include the Smet report on working time and the Menrad reports on employment policy in the Member States in 1999 and 2000.
And tomorrow' s agenda includes a debate on Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi' s question about the strategy for the European internal market, while last week in Strasbourg, in connection with the ECB report, there was a debate about how the macroeconomic dialogue with Parliament could be deepened and reinforced. That request has been taken on board in our report.
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I do not think that anyone would argue that comprehensive and coherent strategies are needed for growth and employment, and I am glad that the term growth and employment itself deals with the prejudice we so often hear from the left to the effect that growth can be set against employment, and that currency values and price stability can be set against employment measures.
The dialogue and the name of this dialogue show that we are all in the same boat.
It is a question of being willing to take an overall view and to accept overall responsibility.
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The macroeconomic dialogue is a constructive way of tackling urgent problems.
I therefore call on everyone involved to take part in this macroeconomic dialogue in a responsible manner and to accept this responsibility for the economic and employment policy future of Europe.
We must eliminate constraints on growth and on business start-ups.
We must fight the mood of pessimism and deliberate scare-mongering with a new intellectual, innovative, up-beat approach, and I hope that this dialogue will help us do what is needed at the right time, in an open and responsible fashion, and that it does not mean that mundane political opportunism or legitimate group interests will result in our obstructing each other.
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<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Goebbels">
Mr President, the macroeconomic dialogue that the European employment pact has established is a highly praiseworthy new exercise.
There is never enough dialogue between political leaders and economic operators.
I would nevertheless like to question the real impact of a dialogue which is fixed beforehand by abstruse procedural rules.
First of all, there is a technical level which allows fifteen experts to discuss matters and twenty-five other experts to listen; the political level will bring together twenty-four high representatives and 18 aides.
It is understood in advance that the aim of this two-level dialogue is not to reach agreement on common guidelines or binding commitments; this dialogue will therefore not result in an ex ante agreement for the coordination of different fiscal, budgetary, monetary or even contractual policies.
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Governments and the Central Bank will remain free to decide on their own respective policies.
Their social partners will continue their free negotiation on conditions of work and pay.
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What will be the added value of this exercise?
Whilst I hope that I will be pleasantly surprised, please allow me to remain sceptical.
To tell the truth, the European Union would gain from rationalising the different projects launched by successive Presidencies following the Amsterdam summit.
Who, apart from the professionals involved in Community policy, is still involved in the processes known as Luxembourg, Cardiff, Vienna, Cologne and tomorrow Lisbon or Helsinki?
The debates on employment guidelines which are, of course, always useful, overlap with discussions on the broad economic policy guidelines and now with the macroeconomic dialogue.
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Green papers and white papers come one after another and are all more or less alike.
The Commission' s communications pile up on top of reports and resolutions by Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions.
So many words, and quite often incomprehensible to the average citizen!
Community texts look more and more like the political literature that used to be produced by the former Soviet Union.
The bulk is made up of quotations and references to sacred texts adopted by the European Council or the Commission: replace plenum of the Central Committee with European Council and politburo by Commission and the texts become interchangeable.
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European citizens do not expect more words, rather concrete measures for employment.
Macroeconomic dialogue only makes sense if it results in macroeconomic action.
Maintaining price stability is still crucial.
Inflation affects the poorest people first but the Union' s sole ambition cannot be a policy of stability which is established as dogma.
Each Member State taken individually is too open to other markets to practise a policy of growth in isolation.
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The Union is a rather closed entity.
Intercommunity trade represents some 90% of the common GDP.
At a time when economic recovery might permit both a reduction of public deficits and a policy of maintaining growth, effective coordination of budgetary policies focusing mainly on infrastructural investments, research, education and training could achieve a sustainable economic revival.
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<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gasòliba i Böhm">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, on behalf of the Liberal Group we support this initiative which we consider to be very appropriate in terms of ensuring the necessary consensus in the economic and social field as well as absolutely essential in order to achieve a climate of stability, growth and greater employment in the European Union.
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While accepting this approach, I would like to make two observations.
The first takes up the observations of the Socialist representative with regard to the good sense in taking account of fundamental aspects, of structural reforms, which were already contained in the White Paper on Competitiveness and Employment.
The report of the European Central Bank explains that there are certain problems in achieving greater levels of growth - or greater stability in the European Union or greater competitiveness in a process of open economy, needs which are even more accentuated bearing in mind the coming Millennium Round - specifically because certain structural aspects still need to be dealt with in more depth: from the labour markets to, as has been said, the training system, or other equally important aspects such as, for example, an improvement in the levels of research and development.
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On the other hand, I would like to refer to the participants who must be taken into account in the macroeconomic dialogue and I would dare to suggest that three more should be added: the representatives of two institutions of the European Union itself, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions - two institutions which represent an extremely important economic and social dimension and, in the case of the regions, clearly, some of them have an absolutely essential role in guaranteeing these objectives - and finally the organisations of small and medium-sized enterprises.
All of us say that the SMEs play a very important and decisive role in ensuring greater growth and yet, I have not seen them incorporated into this macroeconomic dialogue.
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Having made these observations, I would like to reiterate our support for this initiative.
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<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="Lambert">
I want to speak about three areas: context, dialogue and democracy.
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Firstly, the context within which this macroeconomic dialogue is taking place.
There is a huge and vitally important factor missing although it is reflected in the Treaties and I refer of course, as you would expect me to, to the environment.
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Article 2 refers to sustainable development as one of the objectives of the European Union, although many of us might question the methods which are set down to attain it.
But certainly some of them are macroeconomic, as reflected in this debate.
And sustainable development I would like to point out is not the same as sustainable growth which we have been hearing a lot about this afternoon.
If growth is quantitative and not qualitative I would submit that we are actually creating instability by making money out of oil spills, clearing up after crime etc.
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Article VI, Title 2 of the new Treaty clearly states that environmental considerations should be integrated into all areas of European Union policy and practice and we believe that includes macroeconomic dialogue.
For example, climate change, if unchecked, is certainly destabilising to anybody' s economy as the European Union' s own research shows.
Our own research also shows that economic development in the conventional sense is becoming limited in some areas due to lack of fresh water and that the European Union already produces more toxic waste than it can deal with as a by-product of economic growth.
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The environment has therefore to be factored in and I would like to know how that is going to be done.
Who is going to be represented?
We would also like to ask for real dialogue within this, not just economic propaganda.
It is essential that we look for new ways and the best ways to meet the objective of balanced and sustainable development in a way which meets our own needs, those of the environment and which does not have a negative impact on the living standards of those in the poor parts of the world.
So how are we going to evaluate the wider effects of our own macroeconomic policy?
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Thirdly, I would ask for the democratic deficit in this process to be repaired, certainly at the next Intergovernmental Conference.
I listened to the list of those who were going to be present and it struck me that the process is actually similar to what happens down the pub on a Friday night where you get together with your mates, then go home and tell people what happened and if you are lucky other people might hear the best stories.
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I want to know how, as elected Members, we are going to be involved in this process, particularly if it is going to be as closed as has been laid out for us.
It appears to me that we are not being treated as parliamentarians here, as being grown-up and mature enough to participate in the process of dialogue on macroeconomic policy, and I would urge you to change that and at least open up in the meantime so that we know what is happening and can explain it to our constituents.
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<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, the declarations on employment from the European Union Summit meetings are continuing at a steady pace.
With the same steady pace, however, mass unemployment, underemployment and part-time employment are also continuing to torment the working people of Europe.
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Mr President, the European Employment Pacts, the Cardiff, Luxembourg and Cologne processes and their combined effects, the macroeconomic dialogues and the technical and political bodies engaged in those dialogues are doing nothing positive to boost employment levels for the working people in Europe.
This dramatic worsening of the unemployment situation is due to the initiatives being undertaken and the policy currently being pursued; that is, a policy which not only puts economic factors before social factors and price stability before social security, but also one which declares that the Stability Pact is the supreme law which must be applied at all times.
This is not a policy for the working people, rather a policy for capital gains.
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When the European Central Bank considers a growth rate of over 2.5% dangerous, whilst the Commission is calling for a growth rate of over 3% in order to reduce unemployment to 7% within 6-7 years, then this can only lead to greater pressure on the labour market which in turn will upset working relations. It will also lead to part-time employment, fewer jobs and reduced salaries, and it will cripple the social security system.
From this viewpoint, the only success that can come of macroeconomic dialogue with the participation of employer and employee representatives is to enforce collective bargaining and readjust salaries to suit the demands of credit capital, the euro and the ruling economic policy which is guided by EMU and the Stability Pact.
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The transparency which goes hand in hand with the procedures for macroeconomic dialogue and the continued absence of the European Parliament from this dialogue are giving rise to concerns that we are once again faced with attempts to overturn fundamental rights of workers and to undermine any social model still in existence in Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, at the European Summit in Cologne, the Council decided on a European Employment Pact with a view to cutting unemployment substantially and permanently.
One of the three main components of this Pact concerns the institutionalisation of the macroeconomic dialogue at European level.
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My political group would firstly like to state that this dialogue is the latest in a long line of hybrid "European talking-shops" .
As the proposals stand at the moment, four parties are involved in this dialogue: representatives of the European institutions, of various committees, of employers and employees, the latter two insofar as they are organised at European level.
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Secondly, this consultative body, on account of its tripolarity, embraces elements of both government and society.
Its corporate nature casts uncertainty on who should be held responsible for the realisation of the macroeconomic policy and its implementation.
In this way, transparency and the separation of powers, two key principles of our European democratic constitutional states, are not honoured at European level. Put more bluntly, they are being blatantly ignored and, as such, further jeopardised.
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Also, it is quite remarkable that the European Union appears to be assuming the dimensions of a state, whilst it is primarily a cooperative of national states and as such, could not be a state in itself and never will be.
With this proposal, the European Union seems to have become too big for its own boots and chooses to ignore the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality for the time being.
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A fourth point concerns the serious possibility of overlap with the Economic and Social Committee.
The transparency of the process for developing the general guidelines for economic policy and employment policy would benefit more from an official and public recommendation by the Economic and Social Committee than from tripartite-flavoured consultation, the outcome of which has, at best, the quality of obligatory effort. Could the Commission explain how it views the relationship between the proposed macroeconomic dialogue and the existing Economic and Social Committee?
Do European bodies not run the risk of endlessly repeating themselves?
After all, meetings cost time and money. Could the European Commission indicate how it sees the intrinsic role of the Economic and Social Committee once the macroeconomic dialogue has been set up?
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Fifthly, the macroeconomic dialogue concerns a field of policy with regard to which the European Union does not issue any legislation.
Macroeconomic policy and employment policy are primarily a matter for the individual Member States.
Needless to say, it is beneficial for Member States to exchange ideas and dovetail their policies, as far as the macroeconomic situation in the relevant country allows for this.
General agreements are reached via guidelines, within which the Member States have sufficient scope for a degree of policy freedom necessary to incorporate measures which will accommodate the specific features of their national economy.
Given this situation, a macroeconomic dialogue at European level is largely up in the air.
Efforts are, of course, required to reduce the unemployment levels which are still far too high.
We should, in particular, focus our attention on the long-term unemployed.
But talks at an abstract European level do not create jobs.
We therefore advocate freedom of policy at regional and local level because that is the level at which there is expertise in the actual labour market.
Exchange of information and good practices at European level are highly commendable but the official institutionalisation of a European macroeconomic dialogue hardly has any impact on this, if any.
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<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Della Vedova">
Mr Niinistö, Commissioner, if the millions of European unemployed had heard this first account of the macroeconomic dialogue promoting growth and employment, they would have despaired.
It seems that, apart from evoking the odd principle, there is nothing incisive, there are no proposals and there is no blunt analysis - and we need a blunt analysis of the state of many of the European economies, especially those of the European continent.
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Commissioner, when I hear talk of macroeconomic dialogue - given that the definition seems extremely evasive - the conciliation process in Italy comes to mind.
What I am afraid of is that this macroeconomic dialogue will try to export to European level the method and mechanism of the Italian conciliation process, which is the method that has given our country its lowest growth rates, its highest unemployment levels and its highest inflation rates.
In Italy, conciliation between social partners and the Government has become a pact between the representatives of established interests -unionist, political and those of Confindustria (the Italian Manufacturers' Association) - seeking to protect the established interests and revenues from the possibility of the unemployed and all those who are not represented by conciliation having a place in the new economy.
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In Italy, conciliation with the social partners has blocked all the strategies and the hypotheses for reform on the crucial points - I am thinking of the labour market, public spending and social security spending in particular, a labour market act which closely follows the one adopted in the seventies.
Both the representative of the Council and the representative of the Commission were right only about one thing, that is the request for pay moderation.
In Italy, starting with pay moderation, which the trade union oligarchs allowed, any plans for reforming the economy have been blocked.
I wonder why we have to tell European workers that only one thing is certain, that their pay will be moderated.
And I wonder why, on the other hand, we must not say that if - thanks to liberalisation and thanks to being able to accept the challenges of the new economy openly - we manage to reverse the downward trend in economic growth, there will be wealth and there will also be the prospect of salary increases. Instead of having collective national or European contracts, maybe these salary increases can be linked to productivity and the profits of firms.
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In conclusion, I think that we should use this dialogue, if necessary, to explain to the European citizens why employment has increased by 45% in twenty years in the United States but only by 4.12% in Europe.
I think that the European unemployed, and maybe even immigrants need liberalisation, less State interference, less taxes and less State intervention in the economy.
Maybe this would lead to economic growth and more employment.
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<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Brunetta">
Mr President, many things have already been said which I think can be summarised in this way: either the macroeconomic dialogue is sheer hypocrisy, hiding the lack of a real economic policy for the Union, and so it is completely useless, a mere imitation and a waste of time, as other Members have already said, or the macroeconomic dialogue is something real and substantial, and so there is hypocrisy on the other side and they are trying to use flimsy words to hide the danger, to my mind, of a trend towards State intervention in the European economy.
What does macroeconomic dialogue actually mean? What could it mean?
According to the sacred texts of the economy, it means conciliation and policy on revenues, which Mr Della Vedova has just reminded us have been around in Italy for some time, with the results he emphasised.
So macroeconomic dialogue and policy on revenues basically come down to wage policy and pay moderation policy?
Let us just admit it!
A group such as the European People' s Party - Democrats cannot agree with this because its aim is the free functioning of the market, which leads to the free distribution of revenues, starting with workers' income in particular.
Workers' income must be linked to productivity, and not to coordination strategies of varying degrees of obscurity decided upon by others.
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Furthermore, who are the participants in this macroeconomic dialogue? The Council?
The States?
The Commission?
The European Union?
The European Central Bank? Well, when free traders see the Central Bank in this group they go into a state of shock - a Central Bank can never be part of an assembly of this kind, never!
If, in fact, the Central Bank tells the truth, it commits harikari, so to speak. If it does not tell the truth when talking to the other participants - as indeed it should not because the Central Bank should do otherwise - then it is telling lies and wasting time.
Then there are the social partners.
Well, these four participants are a highly dangerous mix which, on the one hand, is trying to eliminate Europe' s real problem, which is the lack of a real economic policy and, on the other hand is doing its best to clog up the system with negotiating games of varying degrees of obscurity, and to hell with unemployment and to hell with the market.
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Just one more point.
Cologne had based its hypothesis for an employment pact on three pillars, but too little is said about the third pillar, the liberalisation of the markets.
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<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Hughes">
At the beginning of this year a macroeconomic dialogue became absolutely essential and no doubt the first meeting of the partners to that macroeconomic dialogue next week will be an historic step.
<P>
Sadly we here in Parliament will be witnessing it from the sidelines.
Despite an absolutely resounding rejection just last June in the European Parliament elections of the remoteness and secrecy of our institutions collectively, that first step next week will be adding to the democratic deficit in that Parliament will be excluded and there seems to be no good reason for this.
<P>
The partners to the dialogue are of two types.
First there are those like the social partners or the central bank who have a direct influence on facets of the equation such as wage formation or the level of interest rates and then secondly, in a class of their own, are the European Commission and the Commission advisers on the direction, for example, of the policy mix.
They do not directly affect any of the facets of the equation, they have not got that decision-making power.
They are there to advise and influence.
In this respect this institution is one of the Commission' s main interlocutors.
We might disagree with the advice and the direction they will suggest but we will not have the right to be there at the macroeconomic dialogue to say so.
<P>
I am told that these sorts of things are technical issues and that we in Parliament should remain above them, but to me the issues that will be discussed in the macroeconomic dialogue that have been touched upon here are not technical, they are highly political and we, as the democratically elected institution, should have a part to play in that macroeconomic dialogue.
<P>
That leaves the excuse of what some call the need for confidentiality, trust or even secrecy.
Some have used the word secrecy.
That is a retrograde step.
We have found all sorts of ways in the budgetary procedure to find a working arrangement for this institution together with the Commission to maintain confidentiality and that could be done in relation to this dialogue.
<P>
On the content, I hope the macroeconomic dialogue will call for and take note of evidence on the success of the active labour market measures we have been increasingly pursuing since Luxembourg.
Has that resulted in an increase in the effective supply of labour or do we need to hang on to the increasing unsustainable view that structural unemployment represents the bulk of unemployment?
Can we begin to abandon concepts like that, can we perhaps begin to take a more realistic view in the setting of interest rates, a view which would accept that conditions have changed and that we can now begin to hold back on interest rate increases as unemployment falls so as not to choke off a fragile growth?
<P>
These are the sorts of points I would love to be at the macroeconomic dialogue next week to make, but sadly neither I nor any other Member of this institution will be allowed to be present at that meeting next week.
That is a real retrograde step and an absolute shame.
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<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schmidt">
Mr President, the fact that so many of Europe' s citizens turned their backs on the EU at this summer' s election is largely due to the fact that they did not think that the EU and the Member States had succeeded in creating jobs in Europe.
Growth in the EU is still too low, and unemployment in the vast majority of countries unacceptably high.
Quite simply, not enough is being done by the individual Member States.
The tax system is still preventing new jobs from being created and, in fact, my own country, Sweden, is an example of one country where this is happening.
Laws and regulations in the labour market, too, are still an obstacle to job creation and, where this issue too is concerned, I can cite Sweden as an example.
According to a recent survey, it is Sweden and Germany which have the least flexible labour markets.
<P>
If the macroeconomic dialogue is to be fruitful and produce results, which is something we all want to happen, and if European countries together are to be able to provide better conditions for new job opportunities, then I am firmly of the view that all Member States without exception must participate in EMU.
<P>
In Sweden, there is a debate going on at the moment about whether Sweden, including the Swedish Government, has less influence within the EU because we are at present outside EMU.
Former Finance Minister Erik Åsbrink and - most recently, yesterday - former Commissioner Anita Gradin have expressed the view that this is the case.
I fully share their opinion.
<P>
To believe that a macroeconomic dialogue can seriously be conducted if some Member States remain outside EMU while the majority of countries are a part of it is, in my view, an illusion which cannot be maintained in the long term.
For the sake of employment and welfare throughout Europe, I am therefore looking for a clearer and sharper perspective upon EMU from the Commission and Commissioner Solbes Mira, as well as from the Council.
<P>
Mr Karas said that "we are all in the same boat" .
I should like to say to him, "no, unfortunately, we are still not all in the same boat" .
But it is important that, in future, we should in fact be so.
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<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Laguiller">
Mr President, complete or partial unemployment is a tragedy in human terms for millions of families.
It is a social catastrophe even in those European countries that claim to have the fewest unemployed people, and here we have the Cologne European Council and the European Commission, which are both content to gorge themselves on words as they talk about the European Employment pact. The measures that are envisaged though are ridiculous given the extent of the problem.
The worst thing is that they are cynically using unemployment as an excuse to give more money to employers.
The extra EUR 500 million that the European Central Bank is being asked to release on the pretext of stimulating job creation, as well as the EUR 1 billion for hi-tech SMEs are officially supposed to be used for investment.
<P>
Now I would like to take one recent example, amongst so many of those big companies who make their workers redundant at a time when they are experiencing increased profits.
The ABB Alston Power Trust is preparing to shed a large number of jobs in several countries within the Union, in England, France, Germany, Italy and Sweden, not to mention other countries in Europe or across the world.
Why then does the Commission not use its authority to oppose these kinds of job cuts?
It is deciding on a huge number of directives which have the force of law in the areas affecting competition.
<P>
I shall stop now.
How can we understand the Commission' s refusal to react to this attitude of big companies, which is irresponsible in human and social terms, unless the explanation is that it serves the interests of these big companies and that it does nothing for the unemployed apart from offering words of consolation?
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<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Gollnisch">
Mr President the procedure relating to the macroeconomic dialogue that has been presented to us is characterised by two dominant features at the moment.
The first is the fact that very vague aims are expressed, in terms that are much more emotional than practical.
The second is the way that they are formulated appears to be liberal but actually results in further constraints.
<P>
The first matter concerns the very vague aims of growth and employment.
These are things that we have been promised for years.
It has been discussed in Vienna, in Luxembourg, in Cardiff, and in goodness knows how many other places.
We now have to recognise the fact that until now the Europe of full employment has been the same Europe that has made unemployment worse. This is unemployment that does not exist to the same degree in developed countries that are not Members of the Union such as Switzerland or Norway.
To seriously address the problem of full employment would mean questioning the validity of removing borders but that will not come into the discussion, because that would mean opposing globalisation.
It would mean questioning the validity of excessive taxation and bureaucracy but that will not come into the discussion because that would mean opposing the doctrines of socialism. It would mean questioning the validity of our immigration policy which takes a heavy toll of employment not to mention the costs that it incurs, but that will not come into the discussion either because it would mean opposing the orthodoxy of the single-system Europe.
<P>
I fear therefore, that the real problems will not be addressed but also - this is the second aspect, as vague as it is - that the terms of this dialogue will result in further constraints.
We are being told that there will be dialogue, but the simple fact that certain subjects are being mentioned means that they will fall within the Union' s area of competence, and the Union is beginning to look more and more like the frog who ended up exploding because he wanted to become as big as a cow.
We are also being told of coordination, harmonisation and cohesion; even striking a balance is mentioned, never constrictive regulations and detailed laws which would restrict everyone' s freedom.
This, however, is the direction in which we are inexorably heading.
Currency standardisation has resulted in the standardisation of financial policies; the standardisation of financial policies has resulted in the standardisation of economic policies and the standardisation of economic policies in the standardisation of social policies.
We all know full well that this is the direction in which a hidden hand is leading us in this area.
Hazy arguments will not bring about the freedom of nations, as they would have us believe; they serve only to hide the aims to which they would like to lead those nations. These aims are undoubtedly already known, but only by a select few.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Mr President, monetary union binds the Member States of the European Union together in a permanent, mutually supportive community in which national approaches are possible but are not permitted to play a crucial role.
The regulatory policy necessary to supplement the European market on the road to a socially and environmentally sustainable European market economy cannot succeed in the European Union unless priority is given to community interest.
Hence, also, the importance of the macroeconomic dialogue.
The macroeconomic dialogue is not an end in itself.
It serves to bring about growth with a positive impact on employment in the European Union and to help to overcome mass unemployment.
It thus complements structural and labour market policies.
<P>
However, I wonder if we have really grasped the scale of this dialogue yet.
In a society with such a great division of labour, it is essential for the economic actors' activities to be coordinated, either by the market or through economic planning.
I believe that market-led coordination will not work.
We need political guidelines.
That is why the Maastricht Treaty rightly emphasised in Article 103 that coordination of this kind is necessary.
All we need now is the implementation measures. Unfortunately, national governments are either unwilling or unable to achieve the implementation measures, as mentioned in the Delors White Paper.
We know a good many national governments which have seen that there is a major interdependence between monetary, financial and wages policies and which, like Austria, the Netherlands, Ireland or Denmark for example, have drawn the obvious conclusions, with positive consequences for the labour market and for budget consolidation as well.
That is why I think it is incredibly important to make it clear that coordination means understanding the conflicting interests of the individual economic actors and getting them to act without having to limit their autonomy.
<P>
Even today there is no real insight into this coordination, and I think that the ECB contribution to the last sitting highlighted the dangers we need to be aware of and how great the fears here are.
We accordingly need a genuinely successful coordination of wages, monetary and finance policy.
This will provide the basis for coordination across the European Union.
It will not just imply good governance but also a European multi-level system of governance.
<P>
What actually strikes me is the failure to involve the European Parliament.
I would like to stress once again that the European Parliament was calling for the coordination of policies long before the Maastricht Treaty existed, as a means of genuinely achieving European added value.
I believe that nowadays transparency is a given for all democratic institutions.
Just as we demand it of the European Central Bank in the dialogue, we must also call for greater transparency on the part of the Council of Finance Ministers, the Jumbo Council, the Social Affairs Council and the European Council, and demand direct European Parliament participation.
It is not a question of confidential information or of keeping state secrets - although Members of Parliament are quite capable of that - it is really all about how we shape our future in the twenty-first century, and in that respect there should be no information, no analysis, no forecast that is dealt with sub rosa, no, everything must be genuinely accessible to the public.
That is why I believe that European Parliament participation should really be required again.
We are not talking about information like that at this sitting, or, following this sitting, at the joint meeting of the Council and the Commission with the two committees responsible.
This is actually about dialogue with Parliament, because we really must ensure that we are involved here, so that in the interests of our citizens the macroeconomic dialogue truly creates really concrete guidelines that can then be taken up in the employment forum under the Portuguese Presidency.
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<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, nobody can say that any form of dialogue, macroeconomic dialogue in particular, is useless.
But come now!
Let us not present this as an institutional reform or as a significant step forward in the evolution of the European Union.
What kind of dialogue is this?
A confidential and secret dialogue?
A dialogue with no flexibility, silent witnesses and no freedom of speech?
And whom will this dialogue affect exactly?
The European Central Bank which is not accountable to anybody?
Governments which, or at least most of which, cleave to trade unions and the automatic guiding of the EMU, which will effectively function as a mechanism which embodies and by-passes collective bargaining?
<P>
In my view, this is making us regress; it is a return to the Privy Councils of pre-Cromwell days when there were no records of proceedings and the people knew nothing.
From this point of view, I would like to congratulate Parliament for not participating.
In my opinion, in refusing to take part in such short-lived institutional fabrications, the European Parliament, which is a vehicle for openness and transparency, is showing dignity.
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<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van den Burg">
Mr President, last week, in plenary session here in this House, I enquired after Wim Duisenberg' s opinion and commitment regarding the macroeconomic dialogue which is about to kick off in the next couple of days.
His reply was courteous and obliging, albeit rather reserved.
He said that the exchange of information is fine, as long as absolutely no coordination of policy takes place beforehand.
This reserve, which is somewhat exaggerated to my mind, is also something that can be detected in the other partners in the dialogue.
If the leaders, the majority of whom are men, are in the least ambitious, then there will certainly be a healthy dose of scepticism at grass-roots level.
This is also true of the circles I come from, the trade unions.
There too, there is a rather sceptical attitude towards involving the government and central banks in wage development.
<P>
I think this is a serious case of getting cold feet.
Surely, there is a whole world of possibilities between preliminary policy coordination on the one hand and complete non-commitment on the other.
This world is what we refer to in the Netherlands as the "consultation system" , a set-up of frequent and reasonably structured consultations between the main socio-economic operators.
This is a joint framework of analysis where attempts are made to come up with solutions to shared problems.
<P>
A key element of this process is the organisation and guarantee of trust, as well as commitment among the respective grass roots.
The latter is essential but cannot be brought about overnight of course.
It is a world which is yet to be conquered at EU level.
In my opinion, this is one of the great challenges of this post-EMU era.
<P>
This is why I regret that at the start of the process, parties are threatening to hide behind the interests of their own autonomy on their own patch of authority: the government with respect to their budgetary policy, the two sides of industry with regard to wage negotiations and the European Central Bank with regard to monetary policy.
The very presence of this autonomy could make the dialogue so interesting.
<P>
I am also among those, as is Stephen Hughes, who would have liked to participate in last Friday' s meeting and who have had discussions with the European Central Bank on this rise in interest rates.
I am convinced that various colleagues here in this House would have made a brilliant contribution to this debate.
Whether this means that we could have made Mr Duisenberg change his mind is a different matter but this could perhaps be a goal for the future.
<P>
Also, I would like to take part in this coming Monday' s political debate on the effects of this rise in interest rates, which will probably be implemented soon after, and by that I do not just mean the effects on the current financial rates but also on the real economy.
There is a strong wish in Parliament to bring this about.
I feel we should not only focus on this but in particular that we should also endeavour, together with our colleagues in the national parliaments, to enter into this debate with our government representatives and the European Commission.
This is why it is so beneficial to have this debate now.
I do hope that there is no question but that this will be carried through at heads of government level and I feel optimistic about Prodi' s initiatives in this direction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Donnelly">
Mr President, it is very important indeed that the Council and the Commission think very carefully about the meeting that is being held and the meetings that will be held in the future on the macroeconomic dialogue.
It is absolutely pointless to exclude the European Parliament from that discussion.
We debate the annual economic report with the Council and the Commission.
Last week we had Mr Duisenberg in the European Parliament to oversee the work of the European Central Bank.
We have finance ministers coming before the Economic Committee of the European Parliament and we have the social partners also coming before the European Parliament.
I hope that at this stage it is an oversight in not involving the European Parliament in this discussion.
It seems to me a rather pointless exercise if we are not present.
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I want to talk about the outputs from the dialogue.
Frankly, that is much more important at this stage than who sits around the table at the first meeting.
<P>
It is called a macroeconomic dialogue.
I hope it is a dialogue and not a monologue.
Our experience from our discussions with the ECOFIN Council and the European Central Bank is that we are very much involved in a monologue.
We sit and listen to the orthodoxy from the ECOFIN Council and we listen to the orthodoxy from the European Central Bank.
They show absolutely no imagination whatsoever.
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The macroeconomic dialogue is critical.
At the moment we are operating in a very benign economic environment.
We have low inflation, we are returning to growth and things are reasonably stable.
What happens in the future when we have a problem in our economy and where there is a serious external shock or a serious internal shock and you have to talk to the social partners and the other economic actors about some perhaps unpalatable measures that need to be taken at a European level?
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I say to the president of the ECOFIN Council and to Commissioner Solbes Mira that what we set out in the macroeconomic dialogue in the next few days is not just for what is occurring at the present time, but to set the mood so that in the event of a problem or difficult issues we can actually sit together with the social partners and work out solutions to our problems.
Equally, we do not want this monologue - having listened to Mr Duisenberg it will certainly run the risk of being a monologue - to be a discussion only about wage levels.
There are many more things involved in the real economy of the European Union than the level of wages of people in employment.
We need to look at the reform of labour markets.
We need to look at the reform of the capital markets.
We need to look at the reform of the product markets.
All those things impact upon the social partners.
<P>
In conclusion, my group will look with interest at the conclusion of the macroeconomic dialogue.
We see this as a first step.
But please involve us in the future and understand that in times of difficulty this dialogue could be critical to the way in which European citizens accept the institutions of the European Union when difficult decisions have to be taken.
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<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bullmann">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the President-in-Office used the image of a relay baton to be passed on with the macroeconomic dialogue.
But it is not totally clear to us where he wants to run with this baton.
We are still afraid he will just do a few splendid laps of honour round the stadium for the gallery, and that we will have to make do with unproductive or inadequate results.
I would like to emphasise what has already been said here about Parliament' s non-participation.
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The lack of European Parliament participation in this dialogue is more than just a slight drawback.
There is a direct link between democratic productivity, the productivity of the results achieved through a dialogue of this kind, and the type of participation.
None of you involved in the dialogue, neither the Council nor the Commission, nor the European Central Bank, will be held directly to account if European solutions fail to emerge - unlike those elected to this Parliament, unlike those who sit in this House and are considered directly responsible by the electors who have voted for us!
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I warn you not to underestimate that point, because I believe that participation by Members will lead to better results in this case.
There are pivotal shortcomings in the thought process.
These relate to both the employment guidelines and to the key features of our economic policy.
What is more, in some important areas thinking revolves around out-of-date ideas that public budgets can be consolidated just by limiting revenue and at the same time cutting expenditure.
But that is not the sort of thinking that can eliminate remaining deficits.
<P>
Last but not least, experience in America has shown that you cannot save your way out of remaining deficits, but rather that you have to eliminate them through growth.
That is why it is necessary to support the economic development process in Europe, so as to tap all the available potential.
That is why we are asking you very directly as to when agreements will be reached in which concrete benchmarks will be negotiated on the contribution of public investment to steady growth, which is also bound to have a positive impact on the labour market?
When will you finally agree quantitative and qualitative employment targets to ensure that employment is raised to the level prevalent in Japan or in the USA?
And when will you enter into a concrete agreement with us so that we can implement a consolidated strategy to exploit all the economic potential of Europe' s countries as well?
There is no sign of that yet!
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<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Niinistö">
Mr Speaker, first I would like to thank you for this debate.
I believe that it is useful; it has certainly been interesting.
It is important that Parliament is involved in these deliberations.
I am obliged to confirm, however, that the European Council at Cologne very explicitly limited the number of participants in the dialogue proper, and that the country which holds the presidency of the Council cannot but comply with this restriction.
<P>
I believe that the macroeconomic dialogue will make progress and will bring results.
This is quite an opportune time, but also a very challenging one.
Economic growth seems to be underway, it is beginning to take shape.
It does not present itself, however, as some fundamental reduction in unemployment.
On the other hand, although there is unemployment, there are bottlenecks and a shortage of manpower in certain industries.
This sort of situation is very challenging.
It is important that we try to create confidence and faith in the future among the economy' s key players. In the private sector: those who provide employment; and consumers, who generate demand and opportunities for employment.
<P>
As was mentioned earlier, the single currency has increased our opportunities, but at the same time also produced new risk factors.
As far as the macroeconomic dialogue and its nature are concerned, I would like to express my agreement with what Mrs Randzio-Plath said earlier.
It is important that the economy' s main players can enter into confidential discussions in so far as their duties overlap.
Each one will have their own duties to perform, both the ECB and the social partners, but in places they are tangential to one another.
It is important that these main players understand one another' s reasoning and basic points of departure.
<P>
As the country to hold the presidency, Finland also wants to stress the importance of transparency in this matter, although the operative word here is confidentiality. This is very much due to the fact that all participants are likely to speak about their own issues and their own area and may not necessarily be seeking joint decisions, but mutual understanding.
I am convinced that Parliament will get its voice heard, and I for one will be very happy to convey news of this debate to the dialogue next Monday.
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<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Diamantopoulou">
Mr President, this has been a particularly interesting dialogue and I would like to begin by making an initial political comment.
I believe that it is in fact dangerous to glamorise and glorify the facts and create false expectations in the same way that it is dangerous to dash efforts and to generate feelings of emptiness and despair.
<P>
I therefore believe that we should see macroeconomic dialogue in its true light.
It is not a one-off event or even a process which will change the way things are in the European Union. It is, however, an innovation.
It is a new endeavour which will enhance communication between those members and leaders of economic life who have never before sat at the same table.
It is a dialogue between the masterminds of monetary policy, i.e. the European Central Bank, the political powers of Europe, represented by the Council and the Presidency, and the social partners, representing workers and manufacturers.
We have full participation.
All of us, the new Parliament and the new Commission alike, must act on a decision reached at the Cologne Council and it is important that we show the political will to develop, change and transform this dialogue since we are the ones who will be trying it out first, and with this first-hand experience we will be able to see where changes need to be made.
I would like to stress that macroeconomic dialogue, as was also stipulated in Cologne, focuses in essence on the need for both employment and growth.
<P>
A particularly interesting agenda has emerged through the various participants in this dialogue on both a technical and political level.
How effective can the action plans of the Member States and the employment policy with its 22 guidelines be in addressing the problems of structural unemployment, long-term unemployment and youth unemployment?
Can restructuring within the labour market and the restructuring and reforms which must take place pursuant to the Cardiff decisions in both the products and services markets create the preconditions for monetary policy to operate within another framework?
Alternatively, can the common currency, today' s low inflation rate and the anticipated growth rate create the necessary framework for job creation within the European Union?
<P>
When a dialogue at this level and with these procedures is only held twice a year, it is not possible for it to provide all the answers to such questions.
But I believe that politically we must look at its positive side and consider the major concern of the peoples of Europe- after all, MEPs do represent the peoples of Europe and speak on their behalf - which is why the interesting yet burning issue of employment and unemployment is at the heart of macroeconomic dialogue.
In other words, financiers, finance ministers and the unions of industry on the one hand, and the labour ministers and social partners in the area of trade unions on the other hand, are discussing employment and placing it at the top of the common policy agenda.
That is precisely the reason why it would be worth our while to give this dialogue some time, to see how it progresses and to see the ensuing results, before we begin casting stones and calling for changes before it has even got under way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Solbes Mira">
Mr President, both the President-in-Office of the Council and Mrs Diamantopoulou have made certain observations concerning the issues covered in this debate and, therefore, I shall simply introduce certain additional elements.
Firstly, we are aware - and this has been explained well - that the dialogue is aimed at preparing the political debate, not replacing it.
Therefore, it is an essential element of information which, unfortunately, cannot lead us, as some MEPs have suggested, to the definition of a different economic policy.
The coordination of our economic policy is not on that level at the moment.
Neither does the dialogue intend excessive consensus nor authoritarianism.
It is an exchange of information with the aim that the different economic operators should understand the reality better and be able to act accordingly.
<P>
The problem regarding the content of the dialogue and of the members who take part in it is, and will always be, contentious.
Should it include the issue of the environment?
Should other elements be included which clearly relate to the economy but not to the aspects of macroeconomic policy to be applied at a particular moment?
An increase in the content of the dialogue will possibly not make it more useful, but will cause it to lose some of its effectiveness because we will be causing greater dispersion.
<P>
The second problem, concerning who should or should not participate in the dialogue has been mentioned today.
Should the Social and Economic Committee and the Committee of the Regions also have their place in the macroeconomic dialogue?
They could undoubtedly make an interesting contribution despite the different nature of the participation of the businessmen and workers in, for example, the Economic and Social Committee.
<P>
Nevertheless, the essential point which has been put forward - and I understand this perfectly - is the possibility of the European Parliament itself participating in the macroeconomic dialogue.
Both the President-in-Office of the Council and Commissioner Diamantopoulou have referred to this issue.
You already know the situation, thanks to the decisions of the European Council.
Having said that, what can we do and what are we doing?
Of course, we can be here today, we can inform you of the work we have done up till now, and make ourselves available to you to carry on debating with Parliament the issues which are of interest with regard to the macroeconomic dialogue.
The fact that you are not physically at the dialogue table does not mean that it is out of the question that Parliament may maintain a presence, with the opportunity to communicate its ideas.
I believe that today, certain issues of interest have been highlighted.
Is it necessary to pursue a policy of greater demand in the present context?
Is it reasonable to continue to plan certain elements of the structural policies as has been decided?
Is it useful to envisage, in the long term, the presence of Parliament in the macroeconomic dialogue, given that it is very likely that, in the future, the conditions of that dialogue will turn out to be different from the present ones?
<P>
These are questions which we have taken note of, which we will study very carefully, and obviously we will remain committed to keeping Parliament informed and even holding a debate with Parliament on those points which are of special interest to it.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Seafarers' hours of work - Organisation of working time
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
the recommendation for second reading (A5-0042/1999), on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive concerning the enforcement of seafarers' hours of work on board ships using Community ports (8639/2/1999 - C5-0035/1999 - 1998/0321(COD)) (rapporteur: Mr S. Hughes);
<P>
the recommendation for second reading (A5-0041/1999), on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Council Directive 93/104/EC concerning certain aspects of the organisation of working time to cover sectors and activities excluded from that directive (8642/1/1999 - C5-0036/1999 - 1998/0318(COD)) (rapporteur: Mrs M. Smet).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Hughes">
As you said, the proposal for which I am responsible is that relating to the enforcement of seafarers' hours of work on board ships using Community ports.
<P>
This is just one element of an overall package of proposals that were brought forward by the Commission last November to try to plug the loopholes of the sectors that were excluded from the original working-time directive back in 1993.
I hope we are nearing the final chapters in this long saga and that soon we will have all sectors covered by arrangements on working time to protect worker health and safety.
<P>
Just as a quick reminder, the batch that was brought forward last year by the Commission included first of all an overall amendment of the 1993 directive, that is the subject of Mrs Smet' s report; a directive on road transport, sadly that one is totally blocked in the Transport Council at the moment I understand it; the third, a directive implementing the agreement between the social partners on seafarers, was adopted in the form of a directive in June this year so that element is taken care of, and then finally the proposal that I am speaking on today, a directive on the enforcement of working hours on board ships using Community ports.
The three proposals effectively need to be seen together in relation to the one proposal I am speaking on.
<P>
There is the agreement reached between the two sides of industry in the maritime sector, there is the specific proposal relating to seafarers having recourse to Community ports, but also there is ILO Convention 180 and in fact the agreement between the two sides of industry in the maritime sector was very closely based on ILO Convention 180.
These three proposals: the agreement, the directive on seafarers' hours and the ILO Convention are designed to come into effect together in mid-2002.
<P>
At the first reading on this particular proposal Parliament made no amendments but the rapporter, Hugh McMahon at that time, made the point that it was absolutely essential that these three instruments should come into effect at the same time to avoid any competitive disadvantage.
I am therefore very pleased indeed that seems to have been agreed and we seem to be making progress in that direction.
The fact that the ILO Convention now has a time limit set down effectively in the form of the other two directives means that we will, I am sure, have sufficient Member States with sufficiently large fleets ratifying the Convention to make sure that it too comes into effect in mid-2002.
The only significant difference in the common position compared with the first reading position is that the implementation date has been put back by one year.
That really is to allow Member States to overcome one or two technical difficulties they might have in ratifying ILO Convention 180 and thereby allowing the whole package to be brought into effect at the same time.
<P>
Perhaps I could also say that I have just met with the two sides of industry from the maritime sector and congratulated them heartily on the agreement they reached.
It took five years of negotiation to reach the agreement in the maritime sector.
These things do not happen easily, they do not happen overnight but they did work extremely hard and we are now seeing the fruits of the social dialogue in that particular sector.
I think it is very sad indeed that we have not seen similar progress in the road sector.
<P>
The difficulties we are now facing in the Transport Council over the legislative proposal the Commission brought forward stem directly from the fact that there was a failure to make progress on a framework agreement on working time in the road sector.
It reveals a real sharp contrast to the progress that was made in the maritime sector.
That really poses a danger; it poses a danger to the revision to the general directive that Mrs Smet is also dealing with and the danger is this: the rail sector is included in the general directive.
The two sides of industry there agreed to be included in the general directive so long as parallel progress was made in the road sector because they quite naturally fear a competitive disadvantage if they put in place wide-ranging arrangements to cover working time but the road sector does not.
I hope the Transport Council will hear that message and that we will see some progress to make sure that road transport is covered, otherwise we see a real danger to the rail sector element of the revision to the general directive.
<P>
For now, however, I can thoroughly commend the common position in relation to the enforcement of seafarers' hours at work on board ships using Community ports.
This will make sure that the workers on board vessels from third countries having recourse to our ports are covered by the same broad arrangements as the agreement between the two sides of industry.
It is a perfectly sensible and good proposal and I commend it to the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Smet">
Mr President, the PPE Group agrees with the rapporteur' s recommendation on the second reading and would like to thank the rapporteur for a sound and comprehensive report.
I think it is very important that if an ILO treaty is concluded which does not provide binding and enforceable legislation - this also includes inspections, sanctions and remedial measures - so we fail to succeed in this, then we have not done our work properly.
We would therefore back the rapporteur' s draft directive concerning seafarers on board ships calling at Community ports.
<P>
The other report concerns the organisation of working hours.
If you, Mr President, were to have a heart attack any time now, which of course I do not wish upon you, then I hope you will be treated and cared for by a junior doctor who has benefited from sound training and a good night' s sleep, because in a number of EU Member States this is by no means certain.
It could well be that this doctor has been on duty for 70 hours over the past five days or has carried out medical and even surgical operations for the past 14 hours without a break.
It could also be that this doctor does not have enough experience in order to carry out this type of work but will do so anyway out of necessity without the supervision of a competent senior.
<P>
Mr President, when you - in good health, I hope - make your way home by car immediately after this session, then you will still not be safe.
You will be sharing the roads with other vehicles and especially transport operators, including truck drivers.
They should only drive for 10 hours a day but they also carry out other duties apart from driving, such as cleaning or maintenance.
These working hours are not regulated in a number of EU Member States.
So on the way home, you may well have to face a transport operator who has only been driving for 10 hours that day but has spent 5 hours loading and unloading on top of this.
<P>
Consequently, it is important in terms of both public health and road safety that junior doctors and truck drivers respectively are given reasonable breaks and working hours.
Moreover, working hours form part of health and safety at work and of competition rules, both of which fall within the scope of the European Union.
<P>
Despite this, the entire transport sector, activities at sea and junior doctors are excluded from the scope of the working time directive of 1993.
In order to nullify this inadequate exemption rule, the Commission drafted a White Paper in 1997 and made an announcement in 1998 which included a draft directive reviewing the working time directive.
The European Parliament pronounced its opinion as early as the first reading and the Council has since established a common position.
Meanwhile, the institutional context has changed and we are now involved in a co-decision procedure with the European Council.
<P>
In the capacity of rapporteur, I have sought a balance, not only between the Commission' s draft directive, the first reading of the European Parliament and the Council' s common position, but especially between the safety and health of both workers and the other parties involved.
<P>
So the issue is restricting working hours to benefit the safety and health of employees at work, especially in the various transport sectors, for activities at sea and in the case of junior doctors.
The Council is right in distinguishing between mobile and non-mobile workers.
The Social Affairs Committee has adopted this distinction but not the definition issued by the Council.
According to the Council, mobile workers also include own-account transport operators and transport operators who work outside the transport sector, such as those involved in the transportation of concrete in the timber and construction sectors, for example.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs of our Parliament has rejected this definition, partly because these workers would then be partially excluded from the scope of the existing working time directive.
They presently come under its scope and no problems have materialised so far.
I therefore wonder why the Council is so keen to introduce a change, hence an amendment.
<P>
Not included in the description of mobile workers are rail transport workers.
There has been a European collective agreement in place since 1998 which advocates the wholesale inclusion of rail transport in the existing working time directive, barring a few exemptions.
This has been the case but this collective agreement also states that a solution needs to be found, not only for rail but also for road transport and other methods of transport for which there is, as yet, no solution.
I would remind the Commission that it has also promised to issue separate proposals for the air-transport sector and internal shipping.
Nothing has been tabled so far.
As far as road transport is concerned, as already stated by Mr Hughes, no agreement appears to have been reached within the Council, which I regret.
<P>
At any rate, all mobile workers in the transport sectors are guided by four basic principles which are embodied in the common position on the draft directive and which, in fact, also apply to seafarers and junior doctors; namely four weeks' annual paid leave, restricted annual working hours, appropriate breaks and medical examination in the case of night work.
This applies without any restrictions to all workers in the transport sector.
In addition, provisions need to be drafted for each sector with regard to daily breaks, weekly breaks, other breaks and night shifts.
This has been regulated in the railway sector and this is being regulated here for seafarers and junior doctors.
<P>
Amendment No 3 concerns exemption in the case of work activities where the employees live at considerable distances from their workplace or there is a significant distance between the employee' s various workplaces.
Needless to say, this deviation applies also, but not exclusively, to the off-shore sector.
Hence the need for a legal technical amendment.
Similarly, Amendment No 4 is a legal technical amendment on urban transport.
Amendment No 5 regulates the weekly working hours of junior doctors.
The Council and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs are aiming for 48 hours over a four-month reference period.
This is the goal we would like to achieve.
The Council, however, has accepted a transitional period of 13 years, I repeat 13 years!
<P>
According to the European Parliament, this is far too long and it proposes a four-year transitional period.
This is more than adequate.
A transitional period of 13 years cannot be justified from the point of view of health and safety.
There have been enough accidents in hospitals involving junior doctors to render the Council' s proposal unjustified.
So we are in favour of a limited transitional period.
<P>
Amendment No 6 relates to the reference period for calculating weekly working hours in the off-shore sector.
The Council authorises the Member States to extend the reference period of four months to twelve months.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs is in agreement, provided that the two sides of industry involved enter into consultation and negotiation with each other, although this consultation does not have to lead to any agreement.
<P>
Amendment No 7 provides for seafarers on board sea-fishing vessels to work an average of 48 hours per week over a 12-month reference period.
This is comparable to that provided by a collective agreement for seafarers.
The time which the Council gives the Member States and hence itself to transpose the directive amending the existing working time directive is, according to the common Council position, four years.
This is a huge exaggeration, Commissioner.
It is even the case that only three years were allowed for the transposition of the original directive, which was a great deal more detailed in those days.
A transitional period of four years is suggested here.
We would like to restrict this to two years.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, working hours are often a matter of give and take, with some flexibility around the edges.
But sometimes it is also a matter of life and death.
To conclude, for the millions of transport operators, seafarers, junior doctors, for the patients, the passengers and other road users, it is absolutely essential that a sound agreement is reached swiftly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I now have a heartfelt request for you.
We are very badly behind with the schedule for this meeting.
So my request is that you should really stick to your speaking time, and above all that you should actually conclude when the President wields his gavel, and not get carried away in the heat of the moment!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Pronk">
Mr President, I will indeed try to do this, although the issue in hand would probably merit 30 minutes.
Luckily, there is a stream of people from our group who will illustrate this issue.
I am also very pleased that so many people from my group have expressed an interest in this social issue.
I think that, in practice, this often means more to people than long debates on macroeconomic dialogues, etc.
<P>
I would like to start by thanking both rapporteurs, Stephen Hughes and Miet Smet, but I would also say a big thankyou to Raf Chanterie, who got the ball rolling in the previous Parliament, for his contribution.
As far as I can see, although there are few amendments to the documents from Stephen Hughes, this Parliament has invested a great deal of time and effort in the relevant sectors.
The sectors, however, are very complex indeed and especially with regard to road transport, it is extremely regrettable that no agreement has been reached.
It is now really up to the Council to reach some sort of resolution, because the minute strikes break out, the whole of Europe will go mad.
We now have time to solve this matter and this is the time to do it.
The Council is putting itself in a very vulnerable position if yet again something were to happen in the field of road transport.
This, of course, applies even more so to the Commission because it has failed to submit any proposals with regard to the other sectors.
<P>
I think that, in general, we have reached acceptable compromises.
The off-shore sector has proved to be a highly complex area but we eventually reached a sound compromise that is better than the one the Council proposed but not as far-reaching as some attempted to make it.
Also, I think we have found an extremely good compromise where junior doctors are concerned.
Here again, I would say that I hope the Council adopts this.
<P>
Actually, I have a proposal.
Let those individuals in the countries which do not wish to see this issue resolved over a twelve-year period seek treatment by doctors who have worked in excess of 48 hours.
If they need to perform brain surgery or something similar, let' s volunteer one of the Members of the Council.
Maybe this would help them realise that it is rather dangerous to have junior doctors work such long hours once the first Council Member has passed away following an operation that went wrong.
My concern is that this is not happening at the moment but that poorer people are being exposed to this experiment and I do not think that this is the intention.
<P>
All in all, I firmly believe that sound proposals are being tabled and that further negotiations with the Council are certainly called for.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Hughes">
I would like to talk just briefly about some of the amendments tabled in the report by Mrs Smet.
<P>
First of all Amendment No 5 relating to the working time of junior doctors in training.
I agree absolutely with the amendment that has been tabled here reinstating the first reading position.
I know certain Member States feel that a far longer transition period will be necessary.
It might well be that the maintenance of this amendment will take us into conciliation.
That will give us an opportunity to look at the circumstances facing certain Member States but for now I think it is absolutely right that we stick to this amendment.
Mr Pronk is absolutely right.
We should ask ourselves would we want to be receiving an injection from a doctor at the end of an 18-hour working day, which is not unusual.
<P>
In the offshore sector, Amendment No 6 - we have looked long and hard to try to come up with a formulation that will make sure that we get a collective agreement leading to the maximum flexibility available under the directive, that is annualisation of working time.
The formulation of the common position would have simply allowed the employers to walk away from attempts to reach negotiation on annualisation of working time and Member States could then have allowed annualisation.
We have built in an addition here that will ask for a review after five years involving the two sides of industry at European level to see how the regime is functioning in this sector with particular reference to the health and safety of the workers involved.
<P>
Amendment No 7 relates to sea fishing.
The effect of this amendment will be to try to limit to one year the reference period available for the annualisation of the calculation of working time, in other words making sure that annualisation of working time is possible but no more.
If we go to two, three or more years as the reference period for the calculation of working time it becomes absolutely meaningless and we feel that the maximum flexibility of one year annualisation should be sufficient.
<P>
In Amendment No 8 we look at the issue of the transposition period to be allowed to the Member States.
The common position proposes four years which I think is without precedent in the social area.
We have looked in this amendment to return to the first reading position of two years.
Perhaps again this is something that will be subject to conciliation but we will have to see if and when that is triggered following our vote tomorrow.
<P>
My final point relates to urban transport, Amendment No 9. We have also built in here a review in order to try to remove an anomaly.
The way things stand we would have a different regime applying to a person driving a tram to a person driving an urban bus.
That needs to be reviewed.
We think a five-year time period should be sufficient.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Lambert">
Mr President, we generally welcome these reports and their recommendations.
I particularly want to speak about doctors in training.
As others have said, it has been a concern in a number of Member States for many years and of particular concern for EU residents who travel, let alone those who reside in places like the United Kingdom or Ireland.
<P>
Some Member States have clearly not acted quickly enough on this.
Looking at some of the rates of pay for overtime one might understand their lack of incentive.
However, we believe that now is the time to up the pace for change.
<P>
The working time for more than one quarter of a million doctors in training in the European Union is an issue of health and safety for the doctors themselves, who should have the same rights to safeguard their health and personal lives as those they treat.
It is a similar issue for those who need treatment.
We want to be sure that those treating us are able to act effectively and efficiently, which we cannot be when we have research showing that 24 hours of sustained wakefulness reduces performance to levels associated with excessive alcohol intake without - I would argue - some of the pleasures.
<P>
Training doctors is a lengthy and expensive business, we are told.
It is a reason for giving a lengthy implementation time, some governments argue.
However, there is reason to believe that the harsh working hours contribute to a significant drop-out rate, with a particular impact on women junior doctors.
We therefore urge colleagues to support the four years proposed in this report because we believe we need to accelerate change through negotiation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Korakas">
Mr President, ensuring the same working hours for seafarers on board Community vessels as for seafarers on board vessels flying the flag of third countries using Community ports is undoubtedly a positive measure.
Of course, I do not agree with the date of implementation of that measure being postponed until the end of 2002.
It should have taken immediate effect.
<P>
May I take the opportunity, however, to denounce the unacceptable situation on ships at present.
My country is a country with an advanced merchant navy and so we know what we are talking about.
We have increased workloads and exploitation of seafarers by ship owners, and, at the same time, the situation with regard to health and safety of life at sea is worsening.
We have many fatal naval accidents making ship owners wealthier and seafarers fewer.
<P>
Of course, those responsible for this situation are the politicians who allow unrestrained action to ship owners who, in many ways, are forcing their crews to work very hard in exceptionally dangerous conditions, very often pushing them to the limits of human endurance.
Those same politicians are making reductions in the number of workers per ship.
Therefore, if the real cause of the problems facing seafarers is not identified or recognised, then it would be pointless to introduce measures and create control mechanisms, such as the one concerning the rest period for seafarers which will not only be ineffective but will also be hypocritical as it will only increase workloads and lead to even greater exploitation.
It is essential that demands for a five-day, 35-hour, working week with no more that 7 - 8 hours work per day, are met, and with pay rises. We must also put an end to regulations obliging seafarers to work a 12-hour day as standard.
It is imperative that the operational crew members on board ships be increased.
<P>
In any case, Mr President, we support the just demands of the seafarers and we shall stand by them. And regardless of how positive those directives may be or whatever improvements may come of it, we cannot vote for them since they will eventually perpetuate the current unacceptable state of affairs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Crowley">
Mr President, I, like my colleagues, would like to congratulate both our rapporteurs on the presentation of their work.
Also, as this is the first opportunity I have had, I should like to welcome the Commissioner to the House for this debate.
<P>
The whole area of working time and the directive have created a lot of difficulties for individual Members and also in Member States.
I feel that whilst each of us in this House would welcome the opportunity to ensure a safer working environment, not only for employees, but also for consumers and other users of transport and so on, we have to ensure that we do not over-regulate in any individual area.
Therefore, my group will be seeking separate votes on certain paragraphs, in particular within the Smet report.
<P>
When framing legislation we have an obligation to ensure that legislation is effective, that it can be easily enforced and that it does not impose an onerous burden on employees or enterprises.
I feel there are some areas within the present proposals which will create difficulties.
<P>
Firstly, with regard to mobile workers, the exclusion of own-account operators from the definition will subject this group to the full rigours of the original working time directive.
This will mean, for instance, that in the road transport area there will be three categories of operators: own-account, third party hauliers and self-employed.
<P>
Secondly, the deletion of mobile workers from Article 17 dilutes the opportunity for mobile workers to extend the reference period from 4 to 12 months.
<P>
Thirdly, the proposed sector-specific directive for working time in road transport, when finalised, will supersede this common position and will provide a more detailed regulatory framework for this area.
<P>
In the light of these issues we should be cognisant of the difficulties which will be created.
Therefore I am recommending a negative vote in relation to these areas.
<P>
There is one further point to bear in mind.
The intention of the introduction of this legislation, as I said earlier, was protection of health and safety.
However, I have in my possession a study carried out by University College, Dublin, which highlights the negative impact of this proposed extension of the directive, not only on the grounds of safety and competitiveness, but also on the grounds of damage to the environment.
The Commission already has a copy of this study.
I would welcome a response from it with regard to the points highlighted in it.
<P>
I should like to refer very briefly to some of the points highlighted.
Firstly, the overall cost of the directive would be far greater than that proposed under the impact assessment.
Secondly, the average cost increase for firms in this study would be in excess by about a hundred times that of the study carried out by the EC which stated that it would be 0.2%.
<P>
The impact of this directive will not be uniform across all sectors of the economy and therefore it will negatively impact on certain sectors, in particular those areas that are more heavily dependent on transport.
<P>
Thirdly, it is likely that rather than aligning competition, the application of a single standard across all road transport and other transport areas in some Member States will actually distort competition.
<P>
The proposals will also lead to a conflict with other goals with regard to the regulation of traffic to reduce congestion and other impacts.
<P>
Finally, we already have in place in the transport sector tachograph requirements which are rigorously enforced in all Member States and which may be one way of dealing with some of the concerns about the health and safety aspect.
We should look at modifying and solidifying those tachograph requirements.
In Ireland we have a road safety plan which has been in operation since 1998.
This is a five-year plan which aims to reduce road deaths, the amount of traffic on the roads and to ensure that the quality of vehicles on the road meet the highest possible standards to protect the environment.
<P>
The next point I want to cover is with regard to junior doctors and training.
This is an area that has been fraught with danger for the Member States.
I believe everybody in this House would welcome the opportunity to give a very positive and assertive vote in favour of the proposals put forward by Mrs Smith in her report with regard to reducing the transitional period to four years.
There is no reason why we need a 13-year introduction.
Even the common position proposal of 7 years is too long.
<P>
Each of us is fully aware that junior doctors in training carry out tasks which are virtually the same as those carried out by their so-called "masters" , the consultants.
Indeed, in 1994 the report commissioned by the European Commission which looked at this whole area of junior doctors in training highlighted seven points which need immediate action: the excessive hours of work in some countries; the question of on-call duties; unrealistic rostering periods; protracted periods of continuous duty; the distribution of duties between junior doctors and senior doctors; informal pressures on doctors in training; the vulnerability of breaks and time off in the face of the pressure of service needed.
<P>
I have had several meetings with junior doctors in Ireland over the last number of months with regard to this issue.
One of the areas that is of highest concern to them is that because of the existence in Ireland - and in Britain as well, for example - of the archaic feudal-type system whereby junior doctors in training are apprenticed - I use that word broadly - to senior consultants, they are afraid to raise too many issues of concern, because it might affect their future careers.
What we have to guarantee is that the proper level of health care and health protection can be given to patients in the health service and also, that junior doctors are given the highest possible level of training with proper standards for their working conditions and working time - this will mean a reduction in the amount of hours that are worked - and also, the other so-called duties which they are obliged to carry out merely to deliver the service.
We have a model in Australia and New Zealand which could usefully be copied in the European Union Member States.
<P>
Finally, with regard to the concerns of fishermen, special consideration has to be given to this special sector.
There is no other sector to which it can be compared.
The proposals put forward are unrealistic and impractical.
We must ensure that fishermen' s rights to earn their living are not hindered by ridiculous regulation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bigliardo">
Mr President, I will restrict myself to saying how extremely bewildered I am, not so much by the rapporteur' s work, but by what is happening in the maritime world.
This is an extremely important sector.
I come from a country, Italy, where this sector has always been of considerable importance because of the employment it has created, and it is a sector which no longer manages to give workers what it used to.
Workers in this sector have experienced a veritable regression; they have gone back in time. Today, they earn less and work more, victims of a liberal capitalism which makes them real victims in this sector.
Even moving the implementation of the agreements to 2002 has baffled us.
We believe that Parliament must do more, do it soon and do it well in order to rectify the situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Lynne">
Mr President, I congratulate Mrs Smet on her report.
I should like to concentrate on two specific categories: junior doctors and fishermen.
<P>
Concerning junior doctors, I was delighted that the European Parliament, in committee, has agreed on Amendment No 5 with regard to a transitional period of four years instead of the Council position of nine years, which I believe is too long.
Doctors have our lives in their hands.
It is important that they are included in the working time directive.
I was worried about the weekly working hours and how they should not exceed the 54 hours over a four-month reference period.
That is why I would like you, for the same reasons, to support Amendment No 10 tabled in my name.
<P>
I should like to mention here that on the order paper it looks as if I had taken out some of the recital 11.
In fact my amendment is purely and simply an addition, an add-on to recital 11.
I am not taking out anything in that.
I ask for your support.
<P>
It is important also with derogations on minimum daily rest periods that we still have adequate rest for doctors.
I know doctors in the UK who work 56-hour shifts consecutively; 9 am on Saturday to 5 p.m. on Monday is not uncommon.
We are not asking for an 11-hour rest period.
We are asking for, say, six hours within a 24-hour period.
That is not asking too much.
If doctors do not get that their judgment will suffer.
We do not allow people to drink and drive because their coordination is gone.
I do not believe we should allow junior doctors to be able to practice medicine.
I urge you to support Amendment No 10.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Dover">
Mr President, I want to raise one matter relating to the enforcement of seafarer' s hours, of their working time onboard ships using Community ports.
<P>
I do not really see how this measure can be monitored satisfactorily because the Community ports and the countries within the European Community have no real jurisdiction over those ships that are flagged or owned in overseas countries.
If we take it forward: Say, for instance, they had agreed that some monitoring was possible - surely they would not have certain working hours outside European Community waters and ports and then change once they were inside our geographical area.
<P>
I have been talking about this with American lawyers over recent weeks - personal friends, I have no interest to declare here.
They just feel that it is wrong that ports should dictate to owners of ships.
We want the maximum trade here in the European Union.
We want to make sure that cruise ships come here, spend money here and give employment to our various countries.
I do not see how it is possible to monitor a practice that would seem to be more a matter of international law.
Ship owners and the nations that have these ships flagged in those countries should be monitored elsewhere rather than by European countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="De Rossa">
Mr President, I want to address primarily the trainee doctors issue.
But I want to make a few points before I deal with that.
<P>
First of all, the original directive excluded six million workers from its remit.
It seems to me that was excessive and unfair.
I cannot see how you can make a distinction between trainee doctors who are fatigued, truck drivers who are fatigued or fishermen who are fatigued.
They all are a risk either to themselves, to those who work with them, their patients or other road users.
I do not see how Mr Crowley can make the distinction he has made.
I hope he is not reflecting the Irish Government' s position in relation to these proposals.
It is scandalous and unacceptable that trainee doctors in Irish hospitals are expected to work sometimes in excess of 80 hours a week.
It is scandalous and disgraceful that we have truck drivers who are falling asleep at the wheel, putting the lives of those who are working with them and other road users at risk.
We know that there is a fairly high rate of road accidents as a result of truck drivers who are driving hours too long.
<P>
For Mr Crowley to claim that the tachograph legislation is rigorously applied in Ireland or anywhere else is simply not true.
I do not know why that is the case.
I do not know why it is not rigorously applied but it is not.
We need to take steps to protect the public at large and patients.
It is not good enough for any Member State in the Council to say that it would be costly to implement these proposals.
Of course it will be costly but what price do you put on the life of a child who may be knocked down on the road, or a patient in hospital who may receive wrong treatment as a result of the fatigue of a doctor?
It is just not acceptable.
It is necessary that tomorrow we adopt the position as proposed by the rapporteurs and as proposed by the ESOC Committee and put it to the Council that it must finally come to grips with this issue and ensure that nobody has to work the inhuman hours that we are expecting our trainee doctors to work.
<P>
In relation to truck drivers, it seems to me that the only way to regulate this is to put it into law.
Own-account truck drivers will work all the hours that they get because they are not sure when they will get another job.
So it is necessary to apply the law so that they will be forced to take rest and forced not to be on the road when they are simply too tired to drive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Paulsen">
Mr President, I think the report in question is a quite good one, above all because Parliament' s first positions, especially in Amendment No 5, are being maintained.
<P>
For certain professional groups, establishing working hours is not only a question of doing the obvious and protecting the individuals concerned but also, and to a large degree, a question of our own general safety.
The roads are not going to become safer and better if those who drive heavy goods vehicles are not alert and wide awake but tired and irritated.
This is a matter which concerns all of us.
<P>
Young junior doctors' working hours must also be reviewed directly from a public health point of view.
Firstly, to demand from these young junior doctors an average of up to 60 hours' work per week during a four-month period is ruthless exploitation of young people, because they have to do these shifts in order to pass their exams. Secondly, it is the rest of us who are going to meet these young junior doctors out in health centres and casualty departments.
In those circumstances, one can only hope that they are fully rested and wide awake and can at any rate judge whether a particular case is one they can deal with themselves or one for which they need recourse to a colleague on duty.
Once again, I want, as a minimum, to support Parliament' s first position.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bouwman">
Mr President, the original directive dating back to 1993 on the organisation of working hours was necessary for the health and safety of people at work.
Also, the present additional directive tabled by Mrs Smet, which includes additional sectors and activities, is of great importance and we give it our full backing.
In addition to a few previous minor remarks made by my group, I would like to make a few observations.
<P>
In some EU countries, including the Netherlands, Belgium and Finland, employers in road transport have, within the framework of a strategy of contracting-out and more flexibility, rendered their wheels i.e. trucks and transport operators independent as it were.
They hire these zelfstandigen zonder personeel (staffless own-account workers), as they are referred to in the Netherlands, to carry out the same activities.
These own-account transport operators are no longer in someone' s employment but their role is virtually the same and the risks are to be borne by them.
Both trade unions and employers' organisations would like to see arrangements made for them.
So they fall outside the scope of this new directive.
Their health and safety is not protected because they are self-employed.
They hardly seem to be involved in the consultation between the European social partners in this respect.
<P>
In fact, this phenomenon can also be identified in other sectors, such as the building sector and a few others besides.
The social issues which we are facing here seem to reflect to a certain degree some of the guidelines from the employment policy.
We should think very carefully about what this means.
As far as I know, a number of guidelines are being drafted behind the scenes but there are also barriers to these activities and their implementation.
<P>
I would urge the Commission to raise this issue as soon as possible and make the necessary additional proposals.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schmid, Herman">
Mr President, the working hours in question are those for quite special but, nonetheless, very important areas.
Now that we have common legislation on working hours within the EU, it is in fact incomprehensible and unacceptable that key groups such as young doctors, train drivers and air crew, seafarers and other such groups should be exempt.
On the contrary, it might be thought that these particular groups might have a special need for legislation of this kind.
I believe that this situation is due to a number of factors, and partly to particularly bad traditions.
In the case of the mobile professions, for example, there are poor conditions for safety work of a practical and technical nature.
At the same time, employers have had a great need for continuity of service or production, and this has become the decisive factor.
<P>
It should also be remembered that, as we have mentioned here, there are also traditions of this kind where young doctors are concerned. One example - which a number of people here have mentioned - is that of young doctors' dependence upon senior physicians and professors.
Someone talked of feudal traditions, in which case what is meant is old traditions which force young doctors to work in a way and to a degree that is harmful.
Their professional future depends upon their doing this.
<P>
Traditions such as these must be broken.
Most people seem to be in agreement with this.
Where agreement breaks down is in the wish to postpone the necessary changes, perhaps for financial or practical reasons.
This is something which this Parliament must oppose.
We must attach much more importance to the protection of workers than is implied by this type of short-term, expedient reasoning.
I think we should also remember the need to emphasise that unusual, different and, in various ways, mobile labour markets should also be brought under the umbrella of this directive.
In fact, we are getting more and more professional groups who are working under mobile conditions, together with more and more individuals in the labour market who have mobile working conditions.
If we have a situation in which in which it is possible to have exemptions from the labour market directive, then we are going to have more and more groups who will be able to maintain that specifically their own workforce should be exempt.
<P>
I therefore think that it is a very good thing that we have obtained these two reports.
I want to give them my wholehearted support, but I want at the same time to draw attention to a third factor.
We have to think not only about showing consideration for employees and employers. There are also third parties involved.
A high proportion of the groups of employees concerned provide services to consumers or operate utilities on their behalf.
We are concerned here, for example, with passengers at risk of travelling in aircraft flown by tired-out pilots and of patients at risk of being treated by exhausted doctors.
This is naturally unacceptable.
We must therefore set limits upon what the general public can be expected to accept in this regard.
<P>
We cannot, of course, accept transition periods of seven or thirteen years.
My Group and I should like to have seen us go much further in certain respects, but we are nonetheless satisfied with the developments which have taken place and think that the two reports are excellent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Gallagher">
When the 1993 directive on working time was drawn up certain sectors were excluded from its remit and the reason is very clear. It is that the very specific characteristics of some of the sectors concerned required legislation that took these particular characteristics and needs into consideration.
<P>
I want to focus my remarks this evening on the fishing industry, and of course one of the sectors excluded is sea fishing.
I share the Council' s view that flexibility in this sector is absolutely essential.
Indeed I will go further and call for the exclusion of those workers who are involved in the processing of fresh fish - and I emphasise fresh fish - because there is no continuity of supply when we are dealing with fish.
I believe the health and safety of workers must not be compromised.
I am not suggesting that, but I believe that protection can best be accorded by an agreement between the two sides of the fishing and fresh fish processing industry.
I cannot therefore accept Mr Hughes' amendment which would place too many constraints on the fishing industry.
<P>
Fishermen must have sufficient holiday time and a maximum limit to working time but I am seriously concerned about the damage to the industry that could result from an inflexible attitude.
I would like to stress that neither the fishing industry associations nor indeed any individual fishermen have approached me seeking to be included in the directive.
This is an industry which I like to believe that I have a particular affinity to, and appreciation of, coming from a maritime constituency in the north-west of Ireland where fishing is a crucial part of the local economy.
My concern is with the families of those trying to make a living.
I would call on Mr Hughes and those who feel they want to vote for his amendment to take common sense into consideration.
<P>
In conclusion, I want to take the opportunity to refer to the other group - the junior doctors.
The hours that this dedicated group of individuals currently has to work in Ireland are unacceptably long.
They need to be brought under the correct protection of the directive and I fully support Amendment No 5 calling for a maximum transition period of five years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Skinner">
There have been some easy and pious words spread around tonight on working time.
As everyone knows, it is effectively about health and safety. Yet it is fraught with problems.
Nonetheless it should apply to all workers as an absolute principle, whoever they are.
It is easy to see how some people pick on some groups but will not highlight the need for it to be applied to others.
<P>
Of course, Mrs Smet, who has brought forward this report, having picked it up from the last Parliament, has to accept that as a former Council member she had to accept the common position of the Council which she now rejects.
Missing in all this debate quite clearly are the necessary staged processes by Member States.
It is after all an inelastic supply in certain circumstances, just as it is with doctors in training.
Missing also are the efforts already made in certain Member States.
In the UK, for example, proposals are in advance of this directive and have been welcomed by Andrew Hobart, chairman of the junior doctors' committee who says he is delighted that an understanding has been reached on a new contract for junior doctors which will guarantee safe working hours in advance in the United Kingdom.
Deep sea fishing -here is an area unique in its case which proves the rule that this working time directive is fraught with practical problems.
<P>
But, after all, perhaps I can afford a smile.
I agree with the principles of this report. I disagree with the estimated effects of all these amendments, but I think that is consistent with my position at all times.
It will be interesting to see how some who feel free to pick and choose who should have effective limits on working time and who should not can explain that to the workers affected.
Also, what about the emergency workers - paramedics and others.
Do not they deserve to be a special case too?
So before we get smug in our concern for just certain groups, what about sparing a thought for those others who carry out emergency health care at all times and are also derogated from certain aspects of the working time directive.
<P>
Less smugness please, more practical application.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Hudghton">

In general terms I find Mrs Smet' s report and most of the committee' s amendments wholly acceptable and worthy of support.
Others have referred to particular activities and sectors which are proposed to be covered for the first time by working time regulations.
For example, my group colleague, Mrs Lambert, referred to doctors in training and I associate myself totally with her remarks and support the proposals relating to that sector.
I do have a concern though that sea-fishermen, especially share fishermen, who are wholly self-employed, will be adversely affected by some aspects of these proposals and I seek some clarification of this.
<P>
Share fishermen jointly own their vessels and are paid solely by share of their catches.
Their work patterns are dictated by factors outwith any control, such as weather conditions and fish movements, and therefore it is difficult to imagine how restrictions on working time could possibly be practical in this sector.
<P>
Of course, health and safety issues are a major reason for limiting working time but fisheries is already subject to codes of practice and to regulations which are monitored by competent authorities.
<P>
Share fishermen up to now have been assured that their unique circumstances would be catered for through exemption.
I believe that share fishermen must continue to be regarded as a special case and not subjected to impractical regulations.
I will be taking full account of the potential impact on fishermen of the various proposals and amendments before casting my vote tomorrow.
I will be listening very carefully to the summing up of this debate for indications that the needs of share fishermen particularly can be accommodated satisfactorily.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Meijer">
Mr President, within a free market with unrestricted competition, the business that produces the cheapest product has the best chance of survival, even if the product can only be cheap on account of bad working conditions, poor wages, environmental pollution or cruelty to animals.
We can see this on a large scale in the fight for new agreements in the World Trade Organisation and on a small scale in the fight over working hours within the EU Member States.
<P>
Employers would like to think that workers are always available, even after more than 8 consecutive hours or in the evenings, at nights, Saturdays and Sundays.
Paid work is still seen as a commodity.
Safety and conditions at work, despite improved legislation, still leave a great deal to be desired.
In fact, the efforts required are invariably more demanding than before.
Working has increasingly become a type of top-class sport.
Only few will sustain it in the long term.
Many burn out long before their pensionable age due to overworking.
<P>
This is why we desperately need to protect all workers against wear-and-tear, accidents, overworking and lack of consecutive time off which can be spent as one chooses.
This should be a right for everybody, without exceptions.
<P>
Employers, however, keep pressing for exemptions: exemptions for weak industries which have grown big on the back of production costs kept too low and their nineteenth-century industrial relations.
As long as we tolerate this, there will be groups of workers who are discriminated against.
In the case of industries which rely on this, there is something wrong.
This applies especially to road transport which is far too cheap and passes an increasing amount of business risks onto the transport operators by forcing them to join the ranks of the vulnerable self-employed.
<P>
It is not a coincidence that the exceptions largely relate to mobile workers and people who earn their living at sea in either the fishing or oil industry.
After all, it is more difficult for them than their colleagues in other industries to stand up against discrimination, especially as they are not constantly together with their colleagues at a fixed place of work which is easily accessible for the trade-union representatives.
<P>
Only in the case of people with special responsibilities and high rewards commensurate with these could it be justified to require, if necessary, working hours that deviate from the norm.
If, on the other hand, workers in the weakest positions have to work longer hours, then there is something amiss.
This then only happens for the benefit of the competitive battle between companies that work at prices which are too low or that are aiming for profits which are too high.
<P>
I therefore urge that we do not refer the solutions to this problem back to the consultation between the trade union and employers' organisations since it is precisely the position of parts of these groups of workers that is still too weak.
Negotiations do not solve their problems fast enough.
This is why exceptions must be deleted, transitional periods must be short and the traditional rights to Sunday rest actively protected and maintained.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Vachetta">
The first thing that I would like to say is that the 1993 directive on working conditions is quite inadequate and leaves room for all sorts of excesses.
Nevertheless, the legal grounds speak of the need to harmonise social conditions with progress.
I deduce from this then that the overall aim is to bring working conditions into line with those of the more advanced countries of the European Union.
Now, forty-eight working hours per week, just one day of rest per week and an eleven hour break between two working days are proposals which already fall short of the gains made in some Member States.
<P>
This directive leaves room for all kinds of exemptions, which make the situation even worse and as a result, it is not acceptable.
If it is extended to railway and airline employees, it would even constitute a step backwards, as the legislation in some Member States is more advanced.
It is absolutely essential that measures which are favourable to workers and which are in force in certain European countries are not abandoned under any pretext and that includes on the grounds of competition in particular.
In France, for example, where women' s night work is very strictly regulated, no European directive should have jeopardised this right which, on the contrary, should have been extended to all European working women.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sacrédeus">
Mr President, I want to talk about Amendment No 5 which deals with trainee doctors.
The improvements which are being proposed are absolutely essential.
<P>
First of all, we are talking about the safety of patients, that is to say of ourselves, and of a situation in which doctors are alert and manage to fulfil their vital tasks.
Secondly, we are talking about public health.
Who among us, or who anywhere, would thrive on having the long working weeks, sometimes of over 100 hours in certain Member States, which some young doctors have?
Thirdly, we are talking about doctors as models for others and their life-styles.
Fourthly, what we have here is a central labour-market issue about the length of the working week.
<P>
It is only right that the European Parliament should be urging governments to act more quickly.
Thirteen years is an indefensibly long changeover period.
Four years is a more reasonable period.
I also see the European Parliament as having an important role in forming opinion and instigating change.
<P>
In a previous intervention, Mr Skinner took offence at the fact that a certain group, in this case young doctors, had had its case selected for discussion here in the European Parliament and that the debate should be focused upon this group in particular.
Remember, this should be seen as just one example among many of one group of employees' conditions being improved in such a way that other groups too will benefit.
Enough envy predominates in plenty of other contexts.
Let us see this as an improvement for one group from which other groups will also derive benefit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Doyle">
In relation to the working time directive on road transport operators, I have concerns about the exclusion of own-account operators from the definition of mobile workers.
For road transport we will now have three categories of operators, own-account, third party hauliers and self-employed with three different working time regimes under Directive 93/104.
I suggest that will be inoperable and unenforceable.
If tachograph legislation could be rigorously applied would we need the amendment before us, would we need to double the lorries and trucks on the road with the consequent environmental impact?
The jury is out.
<P>
In relation to Amendment No 5 I fully support it.
Indeed, in Ireland, we can hang our heads in shame.
We have 3,000 non-consultant hospital doctors, or junior doctors.
The voluntary maximum working hours negotiated by the Irish medical organisation and our department of health is 35 hours per week averaged over their rota period of 46 hours and not more than 72 hours work continuously.
Never mind an injection from a doctor on duty for 16 or 18 hours as another speaker mentioned.
Who would like to have their baby delivered by a doctor, a junior obstetrician after being on duty for 70 hours?
Working continuously for 70 hours is permitted.
It is appalling at the moment.
<P>
The Commission' s study at the time of the original working time directive stated that in Ireland non-consultant hospital doctors worked well in excess of the 65 hours permitted per week and they undertake tasks indistinguishable from that of their senior colleagues.
This study listed issues needing urgent resolution and I will list these briefly - excessive hours worked in several EU countries, on-call duties, - we by the way have problems in Ireland about the definition of on-call.
In Ireland, on-call equals on-duty, we need to be very careful of that.
The co-shape study also lists unrealistic rostering, protracted periods of continuous duty, the distribution of duties between junior and senior doctors, informal pressure on doctors in training, the vulnerability of breaks and time off and the pace of pressures and service needs.
<P>
In conclusion, thank you.
All I would like to say is in protecting our doctors, we are protecting their patients.
This is a health and safety issue of both doctors and their patients.
We must stop the exploitation of doctors in training for their sake and that of their patients.
<P>
Let me make an altogether separate point of order.
My colleague, Mrs Scallon is not here because we understood President Nicole Fontaine to say at the end of the beef debate that the Smet and Hughes reports would be taken tomorrow.
There probably is a problem in interpretation here.
I understood that, and Mrs Scallon and other colleagues who are not here have been confused by this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="President">
Clearly there is some misunderstanding.
I take note.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Banotti">
Mrs Doyle has listed many of the technical points I wished to make about the conditions of junior working doctors.
<P>
It is ironic on the eve of the millennium that we are discussing the working conditions of doctors who are working in what could only be described as Dickensian situations.
They have long working hours in difficult circumstances with little or no recognition in terms of government policy to the serious difficulties they are encountering.
I hope very much that Parliament will clearly indicate their support for the re-introduction of the original time of four years for the inclusion of junior doctors in this directive.
<P>
It is amazing that in this day and age people with such huge responsibilities are working under such difficult circumstances.
Mr President, would you get into a plane flown by a pilot who was exhausted and had worked more than 70 hours in a week?
I would not, and I am sure no other colleague would either.
I was a nurse, I dread to tell you how many years ago, but in those days the technical demands on both doctors and nurses were considerably less than they are now.
Now doctors - and, of course, nurses as well, I must make a point for them too - are expected to be highly technologically proficient.
We all know how dicey it becomes when we are exhausted doing something as simple as working on our computers. So how much more so dealing with technical issues.
These young doctors, these junior doctors, are dealing with serious emergencies in a condition of extreme exhaustion.
I hope very much, Mr President, and clearly from the debate so far, our colleagues also share this concern, that they will support all the amendments and I thank Mrs Smet very much for the amount of serious consideration she has given to this particular issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="De Palacio">
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Hughes, on the report on the organisation of seafarer' s working time and for his proposal to Parliament to approve, without amendments, the Council' s common position on the enforcement of seafarers' hours of work on board ships using Community ports.
The approval of the proposal without amendments will allow the procedure to be closed once and for all and therefore complete our work in the field of working hours in this maritime sector.
<P>
I would like to remind Parliament that last June the Council adopted Directive 99/63, which incorporates into Community law the agreement on the organisation of seafarers' working time, signed by the social partners in the maritime transport sector.
And I believe that one of the great successes of this measure is the fact that we are following up an agreement between the social partners themselves, which guarantees - I believe - the effectiveness of this agreement.
<P>
Therefore, Mr President, both the directive on the agreement and the current draft directive will enter into force on 30 June 2002.
This time period is considered necessary so that the Member States may ratify the relevant agreements of the ILO on the hours of work in maritime transport.
The ratification of the instruments of the ILO is in fact a necessary condition so that foreign ships which call at EU ports may be boarded for inspection, which will allow us, amongst other things, to prevent unfair competition within our own ports.
<P>
Mr President, lastly, I would to expressly thank the European Parliament once again, and especially Mr Hughes, for the work carried out and for your support for the proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Diamantopoulou">
Mr President, Members of Parliament, I would like to congratulate and thank Mrs Smet.
I must stress from the outset that today we are discussing the amendment to the directive concerning the branches of workers not included in the directive on the organisation of working time, which has been under discussion for 6 years.
It is a very important issue and it has been a political challenge for us to finally come up with a realistic and pursuable proposal. This is what we need.
<P>
Because of the discussions which have taken place following the action by Parliament and the Council of Ministers, I feel that we are now close to that goal.
The Commission may accept most of Mrs Smet' s proposals, either fully or in principle.
I would like to point out that Amendment Nos 2, 3, 4 and 8 will probably be accepted fully.
Furthermore, the Commission will probably agree in principle on Amendment Nos 6, 7, and 9, which may need further clarification in their wording, although we totally agree with their content.
Furthermore, it must be made absolutely clear that the Commission upholds the right of initiative as regards the proposals arising from the revisions.
<P>
There are therefore two amendments which are particularly problematic; those concerning practising doctors and those concerning Sunday as a rest day.
Most of the speakers referred specifically to junior trainee doctors and to their working conditions.
I must stress that there is a great discrepancy between the Council' s proposal and that of the European Parliament, and the Commission has a half-way house proposal to limit the working week to 48 hours within a 7 year transition period.
We believe that this proposal can help resolve and ultimately push forward this directive.
Of course, this is not totally satisfactory for working doctors, but for this particularly complex problem we must take into consideration the policies of Member States on local national health systems and the different practices as regards the training period for doctors and the required transition period in each country. Then we must endeavour in realistic terms, to find a half-way house solution which will finally allow us to make headway.
<P>
The second issue concerns Sunday rest.
If the Commission decides to revise the entire directive on the organisation of working hours and, from the outset, to put forward the issues of Sunday rest, which is now a major topic of discussion and one which the European Court of Justice has already delivered judgments on, then there is the danger that this issue may never actually be resolved and that we will again reach a deadlock in our search for the perfect solution.
<P>
I would like to express my gratitude to Parliament for supporting the efforts of the Commission on the issue of the directive, but it is clear that we need a conciliation procedure for those important outstanding issues.
These issues include transitional provisions for practising doctors, the date for implementation of the whole directive and working hours for the crew of boats working at sea.
For two of these issues, sea-fishing and the date of implementation, the Commission supports Parliament' s position.
As a result of the issue raised today under Amendment No 10 which is something which has only just come to our attention, I would say that from the initial recommendation of my colleagues, apparently this already exists and is covered in article 17 paragraph 2. However, to be more certain and because this is only our first assessment, I feel that we will be able to provide a concrete answer on this amendment by tomorrow.
<P>
Members of Parliament, I believe that the most important issue and also the most difficult one for this conciliation committee and for finding a favourable solution is the issue of the directive on doctors which I spoke about before.
It is my firm belief that, and I am appealing to you all, we must adopt a realistic approach on all sides so that we can all have an effective directive which will act as an initial safeguard for trainee doctors.
If, by adopting maximalist approaches and trying to achieve the impossible, we do not in fact reach the required compromise, then I fear that this directive will, for many years, remain on the table without us even making any progress on it.
I believe that through this whole conciliation procedure we will be able to make swift headway towards a directive which will, in due course, be voted for by the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Hudghton">
With your permission, in the debate I made specific reference to share fishermen and sought specific assurances about the position of share fishermen.
I detected no reference whatsoever to share fishermen and their position in the answers.
I wonder if you would permit a specific answer to be given.
<P>
In a previous debate on the subject when I made similar comments, the then Commissioner made it very clear in the summing up that share fishermen were not included in the proposals.
Can the Commissioner confirm whether that is or is not still the case?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Diamantopoulou">
Mr President, I did not entirely understand the question.
Could the speaker please repeat it?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Hudghton">
With your permission again, share fishermen, as I attempted to explain clearly, are self-employed due to the nature of their ownership and operation of their vessels.
Previously, share fishermen were specifically exempt from working time regulations in the same way that other self-employed people are or had been.
I just asked for clarification of whether the particular position of share fishermen has changed since the previous debate?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Diamantopoulou">
The article of the previous directive still applies here, according to which self-employed share fishermen are subject to national legislation as regards their licences and choice of working conditions.
The directive concerns only fishermen in an employer-employee relationship.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="MacCormick">
I was just saying that the issue is whether fishermen of that kind are regarded as employed or not.
This is critical to us and the Commission has still omitted to answer the question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Diamantopoulou">
I shall repeat, although I feel I was quite clear: the working practices of self-employed share fishermen are defined by national legislation.
We are talking here of a specific employer-employee relationship.
I do not believe I can provide further clarification.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="Banotti">
I would just like clarification as to when the Commissioner believes the conciliation process on the junior doctors will commence.
Obviously, this is of great concern.
I accept her point that there will probably have to be compromise on all sides but I would be interested to know when she anticipates conciliation starting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Diamantopoulou">
The conciliation process will begin over the next four months.
It will certainly depend on the Council and on the developments following on from the discussion in Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="President">
Mrs Lynne, please tell me on which Rule you are basing your request for the floor for a procedural motion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="Lynne">
With respect, we are still not very clear whether the Commission intends share fishermen to be included in this article or not.
We need clarification in some of the parties.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="President">
I am not prepared to break our rules.
This is a very elegant attempt to reopen the debate and I am not going to tolerate it.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
EC-China scientific and technological cooperation agreement
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0049/1999) by Mr Gahrton, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council decision concluding the Agreement on scientific and technological cooperation between the European Community and the People' s Republic of China [COM(1999)0287 - C5-0038/1999 - 1999/0123(CNS)]
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gahrton">
Mr President, it is of course an incredibly important event when the EU is to enter into an agreement on scientific and technological cooperation with the People' s Republic of China, because we all know that China is the big country which will decide a large part of our common future.
<P>
My own basic attitude to the agreement, as rapporteur, and also that of the Committee, is that this is a good Agreement.
It is important and positive that we should go through this process in order to reach an agreement.
<P>
The Chinese Authorities have recently introduced a number of reforms in line with the broad principles agreed at the 1992 United Nations World Conference on Environment and Development in Rio.
The European Union is prepared to offer further support to the Chinese Government towards achieving its objectives.
That is part of the agreement. This should especially improve environmental protection and limit the negative impact of industrial growth and urbanisation on the well-being of the Chinese population.
It is important that this should be stated clearly in the texts of the agreement and that we understand that our type of industrialisation has many positive sides, but also a number of negative sides.
<P>
For the EU' s part, we are funding joint research projects, especially in biotechnology applied to agriculture, medicine, health care and natural resources.
In this regard, concerns have been raised, and with some justice, about the lack of ethical constraints in China, especially in human genetic research.
It is very important indeed that we should be well aware of this when we enter into the agreements concerned.
Various organisations have also pointed out that there are risks of proliferation of bio-weapons technology.
<P>
The EU will supply technical assistance to develop energy resources and promote energy efficiency, energy conservation and clean or renewable energy supply, as well as promoting the use of environmentally friendly technology.
We are now becoming involved with China in aspects of this cooperative work.
This is important, not least when it is borne in mind that China produces 15 million tons of sulphur dioxide, causing acid rain, and over 13 million tons of particulate pollutants. These are some of the signs that suggest that our partnership with China is extremely important and could also lead to a better environment for ourselves and the whole world.
<P>
The Committee has made up its mind that this is, on balance, a sound agreement. We have accepted it, and I completely support our having done so.
I just have a few remarks along the way. They are not binding upon Parliament, as the decision process is, but I hope that the results of certain aspects of scientific cooperation are applied with caution and that, in view of the lack of ethical constraints in China, we avoid cooperation in the field of biotechnology.
I think it is very important indeed that we should be sure to check up on what would happen in China following this type of cooperation before we enter into any concrete agreements.
<P>
There is also a quite different aspect of the agreement which has a considerable air of secrecy about it.


I am assuming that when section 5 of the annex relating to intellectual property rights is applied, it will be ensured that it is not applied word for word but in a way that accords more with the general rules of openness which now happily apply more and more within our European Union.
<P>
To summarise, I recommend that we accept this agreement with China which is important for ourselves, for China and for our common future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Brok">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy supports the report of the committee responsible and the rapporteur' s presentation.
We hope that intensive scientific and technical cooperation will also enhance the overall dialogue between scientists and thus lead to greater freedom of expression, and that this will accordingly be a helpful step towards liberalisation in China.
We do not know of any cases where a scientist has been persecuted or arrested because of his scientific work, but I do know that in recent years any number of scientists have been persecuted or arrested because of their political beliefs, and we consider that this opportunity should be taken to make it clear that such people should be released.
<P>
Mr President, allow me to make one more brief comment, as this will shorten this evening' s proceedings: my committee also believes that the report on the scientific and technical agreement with Argentina should also be viewed in a positive light.
We have also reached a similar opinion regarding Russia.
If the rapporteur, should she touch on this subject, were to propose that this agreement should be abandoned, then the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy would totally support this request, as this would be a sensible step given the war in Chechnya, as a means of pointing the way to the future regarding this issue.
In any case, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy would support such an initiative if the committee responsible could see its way to come to such a decision.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Quisthoudt-Rowohl">
Mr President, my group fundamentally welcomes the Agreement for scientific and technological cooperation between the European Community and the People' s Republic of China.
The agreement forms part of the Commission' s policy, as described in various Commission communications in recent years.
China also needs to be included in the international research and development framework, and political and economic links need to be developed.
<P>
The EU and China need to conclude a separate scientific and technological agreement in order to improve and extend cooperation in fields such as energy, the environment, life sciences, abiotic sciences, transport, telematics, information technology and communications.
This will serve to strengthen the presence of European economic actors in China.
All the Commission representatives who know me will be aware that it is unusual for me to quote their documents at such length!
<P>
Not only will the presence of European economic actors in China be strengthened in this way, but also the presence of Chinese research institutions in the EU.
I accordingly believe that this cooperation will be of great benefit to both sides, and that the democratic process can in this way also be promoted through greater cooperation and an enhanced dialogue.
<P>
We are working on the assumption that the agreement could contribute to greater freedom of thought.
It is certainly unheard of for scientists to be persecuted for talking about science.
However, we do know that in many cases freedom of expression cannot always be taken for granted and I now appeal to China to move towards greater democracy and openness in this area.
<P>
However, on behalf of my group I would like to emphasise that we are not in agreement with the rapporteur' s conclusions, as described in his explanatory statement.
However, it is not customary for Parliament to vote on explanatory statements.
So we will vote for the report, which consists of one sentence.
But please do not assume, Mr Gahrton, that your statement reflects the views of this House.
At best it represents the views of a small part of it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Linkohr">
Mr President, the Group of the Party of European Socialists will also be voting for this report.
We believe that international cooperation is bound to benefit from research, without denying that there are also certain risks.
However, in the case of China, I would also like to point out that cooperation with this country in not a one-way process with Europeans bearing their fine gifts on a golden platter - we can also learn from the Chinese.
<P>
As we are going to discuss Argentina later on, I would like to remind you of something. The compass came to us from China via the Arabs, and if we had not been given the compass, we would probably not have discovered America either.
We could then forget about the report on Argentina!
So European culture has learnt something from China, and I hope that will continue to apply in future.
Our problem with China - which has already quite rightly been pointed out and which is not limited to this one country - is human rights. With China there is also the issue of Tibet, their threatening behaviour towards Taiwan, and so on.
<P>
Nevertheless, I would like to warn again using research as a political weapon, as a means of putting pressure on a country over such issues.
I do not believe that works.
In any case, we end up punishing the wrong people since, in general, scientists are our allies, at least in spirit.
The subjects listed here are quite reasonable - health, the environment, food and so forth.
Let me remind you that we are not talking about nuclear cooperation.
Nor are we planning joint development of arms, no, we are considering reasonable issues of benefit to people there and also, indirectly, to us in Europe.
<P>
To conclude, perhaps I could mention an idea of my own.
I can well imagine that in view of China' s great importance it would make sense to have an EU-China research institute or a facility where Chinese and Europeans could work on one or more long-term projects.
So Chinese and Europeans would work together on a single site, be it in China or in Europe.
An experience of this kind, learning each other' s language and understanding each other' s culture, could be extraordinarily attractive and stimulating for both sides.
There is no mention of this in the project, but I simply wanted to propose it here.
Perhaps we could consider this when we sign our next agreement with China.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the liberal group is delighted that scientific and technological cooperation between the European Union and China is being stepped up.
Collaboration between scientists promotes mutual understanding of each other' s cultures.
This could serve as a catalyst to intensify the dialogue with China and, in time, to improve democracy and the human rights situation.
<P>
Since the People' s Republic of China accounts for a quarter of the global population and has great economic potential, its involvement in European research and technological projects is of huge importance.
I agree with Rolf Linkohr, both sides can benefit.
But a lot can be gained in the field of environment and energy too.
Technical support for the promotion of energy efficiency, saving energy and clean and renewable energy sources will enable China to reduce the production of CO2.
If there is transfer of expertise then the European Union may be able to achieve part of its own CO2 objectives over there.
<P>
My second point concerns cooperation in the field of information and communication technology.
The problem in this context is access to the Internet.
The Internet is the first medium which enables worldwide, interactive communication.
But the Chinese government wants to monitor the free flow of information and the freedom of speech via the Internet.
This will not benefit the development of information and communication technology.
In order to continue to grant the Chinese access to the worldwide web, it is essential to cooperate with China in this field.
An honest dialogue will keep the door open for new developments, such as e-commerce, where China also forms a large potential market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, I would like to ask all those here to think about the process of democratisation in China.
I think that everything that we have seen over the last few months shows that the opposite is taking place: the huge increase in the arrest of dissidents, the persecution of the so-called sect, the Falun Gong, etc.
Obviously it is possible to maintain a strategic relationship with an undemocratic country, with a dictatorship.
The communist regime has many faithful friends here, starting with Mr Gahrton, who is endlessly asking us to resume and strengthen our links with the People' s Republic of China.
<P>
There is another country, Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, with a billion inhabitants, and which is the largest democracy on earth, India; and we always forget about that country and develop no strategy towards it.
Even though it is a democracy, we prefer to talk to dictators.
I deplore this, and all the more so because this report, and particularly the opinion of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy is being particularly hypocritical.
We state clearly in the text of the report that at least four people are being held in prison for scientific reasons, contrary to what we have been told by Mr Brok, Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy.
These four people are quoted in this opinion and yet we are not even demanding their release.
I think that this shows unbelievable hypocrisy.
Let us carry on then; let us close our eyes to India.
Let us carry on with China.
You will see that the process of democratisation in China leads nowhere.
Strength is the only language that communists understand, and in this case, we have no strength.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Busquin">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to say a few words about the three agreements that we will be debating this evening.
<P>
Firstly, these agreements have been speedily adopted, and I would like to thank all the rapporteurs, as well as the members of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy and the Committee on Budgets, for having studied the proposals in a very short time.
They are representative of a new generation of agreements for scientific cooperation with third countries.
The countries concerned of course are different.
Now we are talking about China and we will be talking about Russia and Argentina next.
I would nevertheless like to say that these offer real added value to the current situation; they will clarify aims to be pursued, strengthen and extend collaboration, and will provide a solid formal basis.
<P>
Next, I would also like to say, as Mr Linkohr emphasised, that there is a need for reciprocity which will be in our mutual interest.
The European team' s reciprocal access to, in this case, Chinese programmes and activities, is the very spirit of the fifth framework programme.
<P>
Finishing with the general aspects, I would also like to say that I know how much Parliament would like to be kept informed about the implementation of this programme and that the Commission will ensure that it supplies Parliament with regular detailed information on this matter.
<P>
As far as China more particularly is concerned, whilst thanking Mr Gahrton for his report, I would like to say that we know how crucial the human rights problem is and that it is a particularly complex issue.
I, as many speakers have said, consider it important to establish cooperation on a scientific level which encourages contact between our researchers and Chinese researchers.
In this context, I can only agree with the conclusions of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, because this will permit greater freedom of expression for those working in the scientific and technical fields in China as well as in general.
<P>
As far as the contribution that the Internet may make, we think that through this kind of contact, and also as you said, Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, regarding the problem of e-commerce, a certain kind of dialogue will be possible in the future, as a result of this type of scientific agreement.
<P>
As far as the issues of biotechnology are concerned, I must answer Mr Gahrton by saying that all research proposals in the area of biotechnology must completely satisfy the ethical conditions that apply to any framework programme project.
This compliance is an essential requirement if the project is to be accepted, which I think gives all the guarantees we would want in order to prevent, as you pointed out, abuses that we would not want to see.
Moreover, the framework programme covers only civilian research and the possible areas of cooperation do not lend themselves to its use for military ends.
<P>
Finally, I would like to point out that as far as the problem of the annex relating to issues of intellectual property is concerned, the same thing applies to the three draft agreements.
It is generally the same for all these types of agreements.
This text has been drawn up following in-depth discussions with all parties concerned and bears in mind the need to guarantee the best possible protection for the European participants.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gahrton">
, rapporteur.
(SV) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I just want to say very briefly that I do, of course, fully share Mr Dupuis' basic attitude.
We are dealing with a country which does not fulfil the demands for democracy and human rights which we have within the EU.
That is quite clear.
Do you not believe that we are continually talking with our Chinese friends about this?
That is precisely what we are doing.
We are, in fact, in constant communication with them about this issue.
Whether or not this has any influence upon them is a moot point but, on absolutely each and every occasion that we meet our Chinese counterparts, we tell them that we ourselves have a different view to them about what they are doing where human rights are concerned.
We say it openly and to their faces and we say it repeatedly and shall go on saying it.
We refer constantly to the resolutions which are adopted by the European Parliament.
We tell them that this is not some kind of campaign against China.
We tell them that we adopt resolutions against just about every country in the world, including our own countries, when human rights are not respected.
We do all this when we meet our Chinese counterparts.
<P>
I think that what we say possibly has very little influence indeed, but it can have influence.
We shall not, from our position here in the European Parliament, change China fundamentally - that is something we must realise - but we shall be able to ensure that when in fact China, of its own volition, becomes a more democratic country, we shall have supported the change by maintaining good relations with the country.
That is my aim as head of the delegation for cooperation with China.
It was also my aim when I wrote this report that we should engage in what would be positive cooperation with China but should definitely not in any way be less critical than the non-governmental organisations which work with China.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Gahrton.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
EC-Russia scientific and technological cooperation agreement
<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0048/1999) by Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council decision concluding the Agreement on scientific and technological cooperation between the European Community and Russia [COM(1999)0324 - C5-0083/1999 - 1999/0133(CNS)]
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Quisthoudt-Rowohl">
<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Pohjamo">
Mr Speaker, our group supports this report.
Cooperation between the EU and Russia should be continued and developed.
The agreement now under discussion will provide a better framework than ever for this.
The cooperation process has been slowed down by the fact that it has become fragmented and is being administered by many different authorities, especially on the Russian side.
The agreement now under consideration will bring the widespread cooperation activities within the sphere of a more effective coordination.
<P>
I would like to emphasise the importance of cooperation, particularly in the field of environmental and climatic research, and within the framework of information technology and telecommunications.
The cooperation that takes place in these areas also reflects positively on Russia' s neighbours.
Through techno-scientific cooperation we can also promote the exploitation of natural resources of North-Western Russia, which are of great importance for the future development of the economies of both Russia and the EU.
At the same time, I would hope that developing techno-scientific cooperation will direct practical cooperative projects to the right places and improve, inter alia, the implementation and success of the research framework programme and projects funded through the TACIS and the Interreg programmes.
<P>
Practical projects must be coordinated more efficiently; they must be increasingly target-oriented and their timetabling and scheduling improved.
We must also see to it that projects that have been started are brought to a conclusion within their allocated time span. We must also insist that the Russian side adhere to their part of the project.
In recent years, many projects have been implemented ineffectively, they have dragged on for an unreasonable long period, and some of them have even been abandoned.
To a certain extent, this has detracted from the interest in practical cooperation with Russia.
The results of research work must increasingly be utilised for improving the environmental conditions and economy of Russia.
I believe that the cooperation agreement will further the implementation of these objectives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, contact between scientists is important for the development of our civilisation.
I therefore fully agree with Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl and with the subsequent speakers in essence.
But I would nevertheless like to express two very specific reservations that I have.
<P>
We know that the nuclear aspect is excluded from this agreement.
Negotiations on this are taking place within the framework of Euratom.
A great deal of uncertainty remains in this respect, despite agreements between the Commission and Parliament - the KEDO agreement which is due for renewal.
Pursuant to this KEDO agreement, Parliament should be kept abreast of the state of affairs within the Euratom negotiations.
This was not the case.
The Chairman, Mr Westendorp, has therefore written to Mr Lamy whose reply was received today.
In his reply, he wrote that negotiations started in 1994 regarding the nuclear segment and nuclear fusion were completed but not signed.
We can only guess why.
There are formal objections, according to some. But we do not really know what is behind all this.
Official confirmation from the Russians is pending.
Furthermore, and this is something new, investigative talks on cooperation are said to be taking place regarding the trade in nuclear material.
You will understand that we are very concerned about this in our group and that this is raising further questions.
<P>
The ambiguities in the field of the nuclear segment and our concern with regard to this would, in fact, be sufficient to formulate a reservation and to say, for example: we want both finalised simultaneously.
But these days, there is an even larger problem looming. It has also been touched upon by previous speakers.
<P>
Incidents are taking place in Chechnya which are forcing us to rethink.
In view of the fact that Russia continues to terrorise Chechen citizens with bomb attacks and traps people, men, women and children like rats, we cannot sit by and watch or look the other way and preach business as usual.
The European Parliament needs to give a clear signal in the short term.
Pressure on Russia must be stepped up so that it respects the human rights in Chechnya.
We demand this as emphatically as we did for Kosovo.
We condemn the Russian military intervention and the humanitarian crisis it caused.
The fact that the civilian population cannot even take refuge flies in the face of all international rules.
<P>
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to consider and ask you to consider with me whether we should formally postpone this vote tomorrow to allow us to present our opinions tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Belder">
Mr President, in principle, we welcome the conclusion of a cooperation agreement in the scientific and technological fields between the European Union and the Russian Federation.
Particularly against the background of anti-western feelings being deliberately fanned amongst the Russian population, this specific agreement gives out a clear, positive signal to the citizens of Russia.
The EU hopes to serve their welfare and life interests just as well.
This is clearly evidenced in the list featuring areas of cooperation.
<P>
Within this framework of thought, there is space for joint regional and local research projects, as well as non-governmental ones.
However, quite the opposite can be observed on the Russian side.
The grip of the central government is becoming tighter in true Russian style.
This then begs the question as to whether in the event that this agreement is implemented effectively, European interests will be satisfactorily aligned with those of Moscow. For example, in all honesty, does the Russian government attach the same importance to ecological disasters as we do?
Past experience does precious little to put our minds at rest on this crucial point - after all, the health of people inside and outside our own borders is at stake.
<P>
In short, European persistence in elementary, humanitarian research fields is needed very urgently indeed within the framework of this agreement.
For the first time, relatively minor research programmes come into their own for this exercise, whereby we remind our Russian partners consistently of the mutual obligations entered into.
After all, if we are to avoid further western disenchantment in the East then we must take our own precautionary measures.
I thank you and the rapporteur, in particular.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kronberger">
Mr President, I believe that cooperation between Russian and the European Union is one of the most important conditions for creating peace in the twenty-first century.
This involves working towards cooperation from which both sides can benefit.
Russia will always be one of Europe' s main providers of raw materials.
That is why this is important for us, as we can only maintain our own prosperity by seeking such cooperation.
And of course we also have to consider, no matter how masochistic this might perhaps sound, that in the long run we will also have to offer fair prices for raw materials.
<P>
We cannot, of course, ignore Chechnya.
It represents a vital issue and an enormous challenge.
We should remember that it was precisely these Caucasian territories round the Caspian Sea that were the cause of conflicts a hundred years ago, because they were geographically strategic, just as they are today.
After all, these events shaped the twentieth century as we know it.
I believe that this area, research, provides a way of defusing one of the main causes of such conflicts - the battle for raw materials.
So the research aspect here is also very important as regards renewable energy sources.
<P>
My next point is that the non-nuclear component of these research projects must be given clear priority.
We have seen what is happening on the nuclear side.
We need to be aware whenever we are considering Russia that it represents one of the most important challenges for the next century in terms of strategic geography.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Busquin">
Mr President, I would first like to thank Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl for her fine report.
I think that you covered all the essential points.
I would just like to confirm that a very important aspect of this agreement is that of mutual interest, unlike in other agreements, such as TACIS, which are unilateral assistance projects
<P>
As far as women are concerned, we agree entirely with the Commission' s report of February 1999 on Women and Science, and we will ensure that we encourage the presence of women in the fifth framework programme.
<P>
Finally, you rightly spoke of the issue of private companies, and we also feel, as you do, that the presence of companies in the project for collaboration is a central element for the whole framework-programme and which is particularly important in this kind of agreement.
Of course there is also the question of the summary document on the different points that have already been made in terms of information.
I believe that you have already received a series of particular items of information, but I shall shortly be sending you a summary document, which will give an overview.
<P>
As for the more specific question on nuclear power and Mr Lamy, you know, as Mrs Maes alluded to it, that Mr Lamy has today sent a letter to the Chairman of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, Mr Westendorp, in which he sums up the situation and in which he says quite clearly, and I am answering Mrs Maes at the same time, that we do not yet have the official confirmation from Russia which we need in order to proceed to the signing of the decision of 12 December 1994.
Thus, as far as the answer that Mr Lamy has just given you is concerned, it is the Russians who are holding up this agreement.
<P>
I would also like to tell other speakers that electronic resources, both for information and for communication, are heavily used by researchers, and that they already use them as much as they can.
This use must obviously be developed even further.
This will moreover contribute to a greater exchange of information and of developments in common.
<P>
More fundamentally, as far as the political issue that has been raised over Chechnya is concerned, I obviously share your questions and your distress, but the question is this: until now, the European Union has neither suspended nor curtailed its diplomatic relations with Russia, because we feel that we must always maintain channels for dialogue with Russia in order to get our messages across, including those which express our concern about what is happening in Chechnya.
I would, moreover, like to remind you that the Union, through the Finnish Presidency, informed the Russian Government and its Prime Minister, Mr Putin, of its deep concern, at the European Union-Russia summit of 22 October 1999.
<P>
This is why, in this matter, whilst sharing Parliament' s concerns about the gravity of the situation in Chechnya, neither do I think, and I fully understand your position on this matter, that this agreement is the best way to show our concerns and our questions about what is happening.
<P>
Like all of you, I have been affected by the events that have taken place.
I think that this agreement is of great importance for dialogue and for the promotion of cooperation in the area of technological research and development.
This agreement is therefore a positive thing.
It has been questioned, but we think that it will be a positive step in our relations with Russian researchers, and from there, towards the construction of the best possible area of freedom and trade.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Busquin.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
EC-Argentina scientific and technological cooperation agreement
<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A5-0047/1999) by Mr Linkohr, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision concluding the Agreement for scientific and technological cooperation between the European Community and the Argentine Republic [COM(99) 0292 - C5-0040/99 - 99/0125(CNS)].
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Linkohr">
Mr President, fortunately we do not have the same problem with Argentina that we have with Russia or China.
I am happy to say that Argentina has put its military past behind it. It is now a democracy - to be taken with a pinch of salt, perhaps, but a democracy.
That is why as rapporteur I would also like to recommend that we include the democratic aspect in this scientific and technological cooperation, by which I mean that Members of Parliament from Argentina and also from the European Union should discuss research and science topics and perhaps point the way to the future.
<P>
In recent years, Argentina has made efforts to increase public expenditure on research and technology, but it remains at a relatively low level. 0.5% of GDP is spent on research.
That is far too little, even if, within Latin America, it is still one of the top-spending countries.
But that is no way to approach the twenty-first century.
Cooperation between Argentina and the European Union is therefore also a way of encouraging Argentina and other Latin American countries to increase the amount they spend on investing in future.
<P>
It is no secret that Latin America' s share of world trade - and thus Argentina' s share - has fallen significantly over the last 20 years.
This is associated with a lack of investment in the future.
We are witnessing a flight, not only of capital, but also of people educated either in these countries or in Europe or in the USA, who have left their country and sought work elsewhere.
In this respect - let me repeat this - cooperation with Europe is a form of encouragement to take the same approach as we do, that is to invest in the future.
<P>
Nevertheless, the funds involved are meagre.
In my report you will see a summary, provided by the Commission, which indicates that Argentina received EUR 18 million under the fourth framework programme of research. This consisted of nothing but small, yet very interesting programmes.
EUR 18 million is not a lot!
<P>
If you have that sort of money available, then you have to try to use it to attract larger sums.
I would like to encourage the Commission to consider using these modest sums to encourage private companies to invest more in research in Argentina, and, once again, in other Latin American countries also.
<P>
I have a figure in front of me which I find encouraging - and it ought to be extrapolated to the whole European Union: Germany' s chemical industry spends DM 12.3 billion a year on research and development, added to which there is DM 5 billion for research abroad, generally in the USA in practice, but also in countries in Latin America and elsewhere, and you will see that there are more and more investors in the research sector.
If you extrapolate that, European industry as a whole may be investing DM 20 billion or EUR 10 billion in research activities outside the European Union, and if the funds the European Union is making available here could be used to attract private research funding also, that would be a benefit, and would mean that countries like Argentina would not be just tantamount to extensions of Europe' s workshops, but could also participate in research and development themselves.
<P>
I would like to encourage the Commission to adopt that approach.
The committee for which I am rapporteur will approve that.
In addition, just as with China, I would like to remind you that research with these countries - with Argentina and other countries - is a two-way street.
We benefit from it too.
Given that this year is the two-hundredth anniversary of Alexander von Humboldt' s journey to Venezuela, I would like to recall that Alexander von Humboldt did not just take something out there - his curiosity - but he also brought something back, namely knowledge about tropical plants and about the geography of this interesting continent.
On that note, I also hope that research cooperation with Argentina and other countries will benefit the people of Europe, the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valdivielso de Cué">
Mr President, the report by Mr Linkohr is really good and I am therefore very happy to congratulate him.
The European Community and the Republic of Argentina have a great interest in cooperating in terms of mutual assistance because, despite the fact that Argentina is a young country, I believe that it is very important that this Latin American area should be fully associated with the fifth framework programme for technological research and development.
<P>
I agree with the rapporteur that this form of cooperation must be promoted in the Latin American region as a whole and that we should provide impetus for the negotiation of the agreement with Mercosur, an agreement which - I think we have to accept - I believe has come to a bit of a halt or, to put it another way, has not proceeded at the speed which we expected in 1995 when we approved it and when the Agreement on Interregional Cooperation was signed between the European Union and Mercosur in Madrid.
<P>
With regard to other possible forms of cooperation, we must follow a logical order of priorities, starting, as proposed, with member countries of the said area, that is to say, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina, and then moving on to their associated countries - Chile, Bolivia, etc - with which, as we all know, the European Union is discussing an interregional association.
<P>
I would also like to highlight the fact that we are looking at a good example of how a country which has still not achieved its maximum level of development will commit itself to a sustained form of growth which respects the environment through the use of renewable energy, by means of this agreement on scientific and technological cooperation.
<P>
Finally, I believe that it is very important to establish these regular contacts between the European Parliament and Argentina, not only in this area, but also in the economic, social and cultural fields, since it is an obligation of the European Union to consolidate our presence in that country with which we Europeans have so much in common.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Busquin">
I would like to thank Mr Linkohr for his significant report on this cooperation agreement with Argentina.
In fact this is the first agreement concluded with a Latin-American country and it fits perfectly within the guidelines for cooperation by the Union with countries with emerging economies, as laid down in the Commission' s communication in 1996 on this matter, and put into practise in the fifth framework programme.
<P>
Until now, as you pointed out, Argentinian researchers have only benefited from cooperation projects established in areas such as nutrition, health or the environment.
This agreement will enable both parties to exploit all the potential for advanced research skills in countries in terms of sustainable development, as has been pointed out, but also, as you can imagine, in the area of the specific Energy-environment programme, in the area of renewable energies, bearing in mind the commitments made in Kyoto.
We will also ensure that this constitutes a starting point for negotiations with other countries in Latin America.
I am able to inform you that preparatory work on the agreement with Brazil has already reached an advanced stage.
But as you pointed out, perhaps we should extend the issue to the whole of the Mercosur zone.
<P>
Next, as I indicated in my general presentation, it goes without saying that Parliament will be kept fully informed of developments arising from this agreement.
<P>
One final remark by way of a conclusion.
An important aspect of the Union' s cooperation with the countries of this region is, as you have pointed out, the interregional dimension.
In the projects undertaken until now, the emphasis was on the development of projects in collaboration with other Mercosur countries, an association in which Argentina plays an important role and is thus a sort of bridgehead for us to reach other countries in Latin America.
This aspect will thus continue to be the object of particular attention in terms of the Union' s relationship with the countries in this region.
The Commission, as well as Parliament, will be particularly attentive to it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Busquin.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Information on fuel economy in new cars
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0040/1999), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive on the availability of consumer information on fuel economy and CO2 emissions in respect of the marketing of new passenger cars [C5-0037/1999 - 98/0272(COD)] (rapporteur: Mr Sterckx).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Sterckx">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at the UN Climate Convention in Kyoto, the European Union accepted a target to reduce CO2 emissions by 8% by the year 2012, relative to emission levels in 1990.
If we now know that cars are accountable for 12% of these CO2 emissions, if we know that people who buy cars are completely unaware of the fact that the car is a polluting tool and to what extent it does pollute, although, for example, they do know what the maximum permitted level of alcohol in the blood is or I know that if I buy a car which uses three litres per 100 km then this is quite an economical car, then it is a matter of urgency to make the consumer aware of car pollution.
Only then can we ensure that the European Union will yield results when reducing CO2 emissions.
We have to impress on people that, at the moment, we emit an average of 186 grammes of CO2 per kilometre by car and this must be cut down to 120 grammes per kilometre.
So one way or another, we have to drum these grammes per kilometre into people.
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How will we do this?
The directive proposes we provide information in four different ways.
Firstly, it is suggested to introduce labels for new cars which specify information such as fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.
Secondly, we can compile a guide containing this information on all new models, which also includes a top ten of the most economical and environmentally-friendly cars.
A third suggestion is to display posters in showrooms with a list of data for all models on display and lastly, the fuel consumption and CO2 emission data should be included in advertisements for new cars.
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At the Commission' s proposal, the European Parliament submitted a number of amendments during the first reading.
We have noted that the Council has incorporated a large number of these in its common position.
Parliament had requested not to mention fuel costs.
The Council went along with this.
Parliament had also requested to make a fuel consumption guide available on the Internet and at European level.
Again, the Council agreed.
Mentioning CO2 emissions explicitly, as was suggested by Parliament, has also been complied with.
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There are two other points which the Council seems to have accepted to some extent, and one is that there should also be a "top ten" per category of cars.
Although the Commission has stated that this is a complex issue, the Council still requests that the Committee concerned with the revision of this directive should look into this and get on with this categorisation exercise.
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A second point relating to the revision is that Parliament had requested that the directive should also apply to second-hand cars, managers' cars and cars registered for the day.
Upon revision, it is possible to include second-hand cars, according to the Council.
Again, Parliament' s request has been met to some extent.
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Since the Council' s stance is so close to that of Parliament, I would recommend swift action, not tabling any amendments and approving the common position now so that, by the end of next year, the directive can enter into effect.
I think this is rather more important than trying to achieve perfection in every last detail which would not make any significant difference.
The Committee on the Environment has supported this proposal unanimously.
This does not mean that we think this regulation is now perfect.
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A number of observations made by Parliament are important, however.
From the very outset, it was clear, for example, that complete harmonisation was impossible.
As such, the Member States can elaborate on the provisions set out here.
We would ask the Committee to ensure that the internal market is not disrupted.
That on the basis of best practices in one or more of the Member States, the provisions in this directive are applied in a manner which is as uniform as possible and that red-tape is avoided for manufacturers or sales outlets.
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I would like to put forward another three points.
Parliament had also requested if it could be borne in mind that air-conditioning or other additional equipment can increase pollution levels, that the legal responsibility of manufacturers and dealers should be delineated more accurately and that, as such, managers' cars and cars registered for the day should be included.
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The directive is a mere starting point.
We now have to gather experience.
We need to find out whether the environment is really an argument for the consumer when they are buying a car, i.e. whether they decide in favour of an environmentally-friendly rather than a less environmentally-friendly car.
When the directive is evaluated, we will need to decide whether adjustments need to be made.
The intention should at any rate be to reduce CO2 emissions as efficiently as possible and to act swiftly.
This is why I would like to ask Parliament to adopt this directive.
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<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="Goodwill">
Mr President, there are many factors which purchasers may wish to take into account when choosing a model of car.
When I bought my first car my primary consideration was to be noticed in it by the opposite sex.
Now other considerations such as safety and economy are more pertinent.
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We welcome this legislation because it is important that the information outlined is made available to those purchasers for whom environmental and economy considerations are paramount.
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People in the United Kingdom are particularly interested in fuel economy because of the punitive fuel tax levels set by our Labour Government, which particularly pose problems for people living in rural areas like my own where public transport is often non-existent.
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My first reaction when I saw this directive was surprise.
Not only have we had such a scheme of publicising fuel economy data for some time in Britain, but most people assume that the existing scheme is the result of a European directive already.
In fact only Sweden and the United Kingdom have such a scheme.
It is good to see Europe following Britain' s lead.
The key to the success of the United Kingdom' s scheme is simplicity.
I hope that the directive, as outlined in the common position, does not confuse consumers by going further than our scheme.
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My first concern is that there is flexibility for Member States to extend the information available.
Whilst I realise that there are subsidiarity implications for this flexibility it is also true that by having different information and different formats in different Member States this could distort the single market and confuse consumers who wish to buy in different states.
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Secondly, the directive proposes to compile a top ten list of vehicles according to class.
How does one define these classes?
If it is based on the footprint of the car then we could see small saloons, four-wheel drive vehicles and two-seater sports cars listed together, clearly a nonsense.
It is also possible that a manufacturer could move a model up to a class containing larger vehicles simply by adding 15 cm of plastic to the front.
Top ten rankings may also differ in neighbouring countries.
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In welcoming this scheme, I hope that when it is reviewed in 2003, if any of the problems I have mentioned have arisen, these can be addressed.
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Finally, I congratulate Mr Sterckx on the way he presented this to the committee and for his cooperation.
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<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lange">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this directive forms part of the EU' s overall strategy for reducing CO2 emissions from transport, which is based on four pillars: consumer information, covered by this directive, tax incentives at Member State level, monitoring CO2 emissions from cars and the agreement between the Commission and the car industry.
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The directive does not entirely match Parliament' s expectations in all areas.
Nevertheless, I can go along with the rapporteur, and would like to thank him for his work.
We want to see this directive implemented as soon as possible.
That is why we do not want a narrow-minded debate here today.
For example, we could talk about whether we need realistic values, as everyone knows that air-conditioning or independent vehicle heating has a huge impact on a car' s CO2 emissions.
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Another obvious question is why, when someone from Denmark buys a car in Germany, or someone from France buys one in Italy, they do not get the same information about its design.
But we can put that to one side for now.
We want to have the directive as soon as possible.
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I would, however, like to say something about the centrepiece of the strategy - the voluntary agreements between the Commission and the car industry.
If we really end up with 140 g in 2008 as intended, that would be excellent.
However, and Parliament has already expressed its opinion on this at various critical junctures, there are certain risks.
Parliament, and in particular of course the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, which was responsible for this, was not exactly pleased that it was not involved in the work on the negotiations and the agreement between the European Union and Japanese and Korean manufacturers.I think, Commissioner, that once again you clearly need to find a modus vivendi to make sure that the legislature - Parliament - is in future properly involved in the voluntary commitments.
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The directive before us allows consumers to buy a car not only according to its horsepower, but also its CO2 emissions, by referring to a "top ten" list.
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While in Bonn people are trying to shirk their responsibility and avoid reducing CO2 emissions, we here are doing things properly, establishing law and giving consumers the option of cutting CO2 emissions themselves!
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<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García-Orcoyen Tormo">
Mr President, firstly, I would like to express my great satisfaction with this initiative, which is clearly an important step in the direction of transparency of information with regard to the environmental characteristics of cars and, in this respect, it will aid consumer choice.
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Nevertheless, I would like briefly to refer to the factor which gives rise to this directive: the energy efficiency of cars.
This doubled, effectively, between 1973 and 1986.
Consumption decreased, during this period, from 17.8 to 8.7 litres per 100 kilometres.
During this same period, the stricter provision of equipment contributed to a 4% saving and the use of a lighter chassis led to the remaining 96%.
Nevertheless, since 1986, fuel efficiency has increased by a mere 10%.
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In our opinion, this is due to the fact that technological development systems used in the car industry impede global improvements in the product as a result of the high level of specialisation of companies' R and D laboratories.
These laboratories - which are often physically a long way from each other and lack a coordination and communication strategy between them - invest a lot in improving very specific features of cars, and very little in improving the car as a system for moving from one place to another.
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To this end - and since directives such as the one which we are discussing today have been very well received - I believe that the European Parliament must promote and support initiatives which are aimed at an integrated product policy in which the R and D in design, in this case of cars, receives all the attention it deserves.
I believe that unless we deal with production in an integrated way, that is, from the moment that the car' s raw materials are selected, through its manufacture, the production process, the use and finally the recycling and final disposal of the car when the buyer is no longer using it, we will never really manage to introduce measures which are genuinely significant in the field of reducing green-house gases.
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I think that only in this way will we ensure that the car stops squandering between 80 and 85% - just imagine! - of the energy before it even takes to the road.
Therefore, I believe that this list we are talking about of the ten most efficient cars could also be, if we carry on like this, the list of the least inefficient, and in no sense will it be the list of the best.
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<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schnellhardt">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, for about two years now, ever since the Kyoto conference, we have been discussing how our commitments to cut CO2 emissions can be transposedinto European law.
Consumer information and awareness-raising are the third pillar of our strategy, alongside the environmentalagreement with car manufacturers and tax measures.
I believe that the common position submitted to us by the Council fully addresses this third requirement.
It is well balanced and takes account of the main requests made by the European Parliament at first reading - let me say that again, the main points.
Because we should be really grateful to the Council, and I am not just saying this to get a laugh, that so many of Parliament' s requests from first reading have been weeded out, given that they were adopted in a fit of over-zealousness and did not have my approval.
Mr Lange, I hope you will not take offence if I say that this request regarding petrol and fuel consumption in independent vehicle heaters and air-conditioning units is one of these.
If we start trying to limit that certain level of luxury, that element of quality that people have become accustomed to, we will just irritate consumers. We should not be deterred by this.
That is why I am happy that this directive is now somewhat clearer and that requests like this have been taken out.
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I think that we should limit our legislative texts to essential and comprehensible points, and that also applies to this directive.
This is all the more relevant given that in future we will increasingly have to deal with complex and technical subjects.
In Strasbourg we have plans for a similar directive on just such technical processes.
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The directive we are discussing is certainly an important part of our strategy for combating CO2 emissions.
However, I think that a certain scepticism about its effectiveness is not out of place.
I have my doubts about whether publishing consumption and exhaust gas figures will really influence consumers in their purchasing decisions.
Consumption figures are important anyway at a time of rising petrol prices.
In order words, customers will inform themselves out of pure self-interest.
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I also believe that mentioning CO2 emissions has more to do with awareness-raising.
For me, that is also one of the key points of this directive: raising consumers' awareness of the problem, so that they worry a little more about reducing CO2 emissions when it comes to their favourite toy, their car, and so that this becomes part of their way of thinking.
Because if we are really to achieve Kyoto' s ambitious targets, then we all need to get involved, not just governments!
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So what am I driving at here?
As the legislature of the European Union, we will in future continue to have no option but to set clear limit values and time limits for achieving significant reductions in emissions.
Some Member States have limited ambitions in this respect.
I believe, Commissioner, that we still have some persuading to do together.
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Finally, I would like to thank the rapporteur for taking on this report.
I am very grateful to him for that and he has our support.
I do not think there are any more problems!
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<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the objective of the common position before us is to provide potential purchasers of new cars with information.
They need to know what the fuel consumption and CO2 emissions are.
Great!
Tables, advertising brochures, guidelines, tips, that is all marvellous and Parliament adopted 29 amendments, of which 14 have been included in the common position.
I would like to take the liberty of praising the Austrian Presidency a little, because I think they were the ones who made this happen.
I also totally agree with the rapporteur when he says we should not waffle on!
We should accept the wonderful job done by the Council and make sure that it comes into force as quickly as possible.
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As someone has already said, there are few of us left, it is late, and we are tired, but perhaps we should nevertheless look at the facts of the case, which are that CO2 emissions from private cars are constantly rising, and will continue to do so.
So we should not act as if we have saved the planet here today!
We certainly have not.
We missed the boat long ago - or rather we missed a lot of cars.
We will not save the world with this directive.
It is necessary, it is important, and I am delighted that we have it, and perhaps we will all have a bit less of a guilty conscience the next time we get into our cars, but we should not imagine that we can really save the world with such minimal measures, even if there are a great many of them.
We need action of a quite different kind for that.
I wonder if we will ever adopt a directive along those lines!
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<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wallström">
Mr President, I want first to address the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and, of course, Mr Sterckx, and to praise the latter for his work on this recommendation for second reading and, above all, for the fact that it has been shown in this way that work can be done quickly and efficiently.
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Mr Goodwill has gone out now. Otherwise, I should have wanted to say that the goal must be for environmentally friendly cars also to be able to impress the opposite sex.
We hope that, one day, this will be the case and that there will be good grounds for maintaining that the car concerned is environmentally friendly.
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We support the rapporteur' s recommendation to accept the present common position without further changes.
It can also be seen from the recommendation for second reading and from Mr Sterckx' s intervention that the common position takes account of many of the European Parliament' s points of view.
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We consider that consumers should be informed systematically and without unnecessary delays about the fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions of new private cars.
In this way, consumers can be helped to make the right decisions.
True, this is not going to change the world but it can be a small move in a larger strategy.
Just as Mrs Flemming said, there is certainly a need for further measures in the future.
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We followed the discussions in committee very carefully.
Even though there were some proposals as to how one might be able to improve the common position, rapid implementation was considered to be the most important thing.
We are well aware of the fact that, in its current version, the directive is only the first step on the way towards a situation in which the consumer is better informed.
Here are two examples by way of illustration. Firstly, we intend as soon as possible to develop the directive further by applying Article No 9 in connection with the inspection process and Article No 10 in connection with establishing the relevant committee.
The Commission' s officials are at present working on the implementation of these articles.
In the course of the work, we shall in, all probability, be returning to some of the Committee' s remarks.
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Secondly, the Commission also has plans to create an Internet page with information about the fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions of private cars for sale within the European Union.
This demonstrates that we want the consumer to have this information as soon as possible.
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I want to say to Mr Lange - and this is in fact not the first time we have discussed this - that I take this question extremely seriously.
We must look again at the issue of how the European Parliament is to be involved and also kept informed about the work on voluntary agreements.
I also want to remind you that the European Parliament, the Council and the Association of European Car Manufacturers all maintained that it was a matter of urgency to reach agreements with car manufacturers which are not members of European associations.
But, as I say, I take the European Parliament' s points of view seriously.
I also want to say that I have no plans to introduce proposals for further environmental agreements as long as the issue of the European Parliament' s involvement has not been solved.
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Finally, I just want to say that the Commission is pleased that the common position received such a warm welcome from the rapporteur and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
We hope that, at the plenary part-session, the rapporteur' s recommendations will be complied with.
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<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
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The debate is closed.
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The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
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<CHAPTER ID=12>
European internal market
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="President">
The next item is the oral question (B5-0032/1999), on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, to the Commission, on the Commission Communication to the European Parliament and the Council on the Strategy for the European Single Market.
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<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, Commissioner, this is not the first time that I have taken the floor in this House to speak in my capacity as a citizen and would like to say that, for me, the most important thing is to speak as a citizen on behalf of the citizens.
And normally I have spoken on reports which affected the citizen' s main concerns: the issues of the third pillar, that is, justice and internal affairs.
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But today, reminding you of something I said here during the last part-session - after Tampere the European citizens have received the message that Europe is no longer just a market - I would like to say loud and clear that, with this strategic document on the internal market which has been presented to this Parliament and which I am speaking about today, the citizen is going to have a clear idea of the coherence of that market and the fact that the ultimate and main protagonist of that market is the citizen.
The ultimate and main protagonist of the internal market is the citizen and the small and medium enterprise.
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Why is there any confusion?
It is clear: the internal market is a wonderful achievement, a success story, without any doubt, but it is not perceived as such by the citizens nor small and medium-sized enterprises.
Today the impression is still that the internal market is the concern of the multinationals, the major companies, the bureaucrats, Brussels, the technocrats who are far from the concerns of the ordinary people, where many initiatives pile up on top of one another without order or harmony, with no guiding ideas, which, in many cases, are perceived as one more nightmare in the onerous task of living in a developed Community or having a small or medium-sized business.
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I believe, Mr President, that it is not only a matter of refuting the idea that everything bad in the Member States comes from Brussels and everything good comes from the governments.
It is not only that.
It is something that goes much further.
Until now, there has been a lot of very good legislation with very clear consequences, but it has been done without a strategy.
Now the strategy is here and the importance of this strategy is fundamental if we want the citizen to see that the internal market is not just a matter of legislative acts which relate to the four freedoms, but that it affects them fundamentally.
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Therefore, congratulations to the Commission and, naturally, we offer our unconditional support to this idea which seems to us, in Parliament, to be very interesting and deserves to be developed.
Now for our wishes.
Firstly, this Parliament wishes to be closely involved with each and every step in the process which is planned for the internal market, with the selection of strategies, the selection of second level objectives and the selection of specific objectives.
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We also wish to be closely associated with the balance given to legislative and non-legislative actions.
We are in favour of non-legislative actions, since often legislation is not necessary given that sometimes "soft law" is enough, but these initiatives should not cause us to lose sight of the fact that we must avoid the false idea of harmonisation and we have to avoid legal insecurity, as well as false expectations about the internal market.
The same thing happens with the choice between harmonisation and mutual recognition.
We also believe in the need to establish a fair balance and Parliament hopes that its points of view will be fully taken into account.
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And with regard to the citizens' more specific ideas, we are very much in agreement with this general strategic objective, but we want the citizens to understand their rights better and above all to be able to exercise them in a clear and concrete way.
We want more efficient and clearer systems for the settlement of disputes which would be better if they were extrajudicial as well as judicial, and all the better if self-regulation policies are created to discipline those markets.
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And, of course, we want the four freedoms to be fulfilled.
We want the fourth freedom - the free movement of persons, which stands between the internal market and the policies of justice and internal affairs - to be a reality.
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We want, above all, Commissioner, to insist on legal security and, to that end, we are calling upon you to develop an initiative - which is lacking in your strategy - for the creation of a genuine administrative procedural law for all types of infringement procedures, for all the procedures which involve the citizens.
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To sum up, we want Europe to speak with a single voice with regard to the internal market and to act as a model - why not? - in international relations.
And to this end we need a clear legal framework, a legal framework for the internal market, with principles, which radiates into other policies and by means of which the citizens may have a clear idea of what has been done over the last 50 years and which now, through these initiatives, we believe will have an absolutely guaranteed future role.
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<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bolkestein">
Mr President, I would like to start by thanking Mrs Palacio very much for giving me the opportunity of enlarging upon the strategic plan for the internal market and also for the preliminary remarks she has made.
I would also like to thank her for the congratulations she has extended to the Committee and, indirectly, the services which fall under my remit.
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The action programme is now behind us.
What we need next is a strategy.
The Commission' s announcement combines a strategic vision for the long term and priorities for action in the short term.
The strategy should provide a coherent framework for policy development.
The aim is to enhance the internal market' s efficiency, benefiting both citizens and businesses.
We need to make all interested parties, citizens, consumers, small and large businesses realise that the internal market is a good thing for them, that because of it, the conditions can be created for a thriving business world and a competitive position which focuses more on the challenges of globalisation.
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Also, and this might be an even bigger challenge, we need to convince the consumer that the internal market opens up a wider range of goods and services at lower prices without putting safety and quality at risk.
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The integration of fifteen national markets required a new legal framework, a framework which is supported by nearly 1,500 directives at present.
This work is on-going.
There will always be new decisions.
A number of important measures are currently being discussed by this Parliament, for example regarding e-commerce.
Your question, Mrs Palacio, highlights, however, quite rightly so far as I am concerned, the increasing significance of measures and initiatives of a non-legislative nature which need to ensure that the agreed rules function well in practice.
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The specific actions are not static or long-term.
They will be reviewed annually and replaced as soon as they reach completion.
It is essential that Parliament is involved in this revision in the capacity of co-legislator.
Actions will be adapted and adjusted largely on the basis of the scoreboard of the internal market which is compiled twice-yearly by the Commission and also on the basis of the Cardiff report on the operation of product and capital markets.
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Also, the Council' s conclusions concerning the Cardiff report, with regard to which agreement will be reached during the Internal Market Council of February or March, will make a huge contribution.
Input from Parliament running alongside this would be ideal.
Admittedly, the deadlines are short.
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The Cardiff report will be published in mid-January.
The Commission will need to table its proposals for new specific actions by April.
But I am convinced that your institutionalists are up to the task.
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Measures of a non-legislative nature encompass a wide range of activities.
There will be areas where the Community, invariably the Commission, will be in the forward line and three elements, by way of example, will prove to be useful in this.
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Firstly, the dialogue with Europe' s citizens and industry which provides information on the precise way in which rights can be exercised.
Secondly, simplification.
Initiatives, such as SLIM and the business test panel are intended to lighten the administrative load for industry.
Thirdly, promoting a common European administrative culture with high levels of services for the European citizen.
We need to encourage national officials to exchange good practices and solve problems swiftly and informally, thus obviating the need for legal remedies.
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The position of Parliament which is, of course, aware of the needs among citizens and within industry, is essential.
I would like to emphasise this point.
I promise that I will inform Parliament, maybe through its committees, of the development of this type of initiatives right from the start.
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Another form of non-legislative measures which can underpin and reinforce the operation of the legal framework is self-regulation or, better still, an approach in which regulation and self-regulation are integrated whereby many aspects are laid down in the legislation and alongside this, many groups of interested parties offer solutions upon joint consultation.
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It is only starting to dawn on us what scope this approach gives us in the fast-moving area of e-commerce, for example, with regard to on-line complaints procedures.
It cannot be left to the legislator, the Union or the individual Member State to deal with these issues.
We have to join forces with those who have most involvement: consumers and industry.
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Parliament is ideally positioned to initiate the discussion on initiatives of this kind, probably mainly to highlight the concern of the ordinary citizen whose voice is not always heard in Brussels.
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Finally, the new institutional equilibrium established by the Treaty of Amsterdam, requires that Parliament, the Council and the Commission cooperate in the field of legislation.
I hope that the strategy for the internal market will allow us the opportunity to extend this cooperation to the preliminary stage when the priorities for action will be established and to the implementing stage when it is to be ensured that rules function fully.
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I herewith conclude my response to the question raised by Mrs Palacio.
Mr President, perhaps you will allow me to say a few words more at the end of the interventions to complete my contribution to this debate.
Thank you for your time.
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<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lehne">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to thank the Commission for bringing this paper to Parliament so speedily and for informing us about its strategic intentions in such detail.
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Although it is a very general paper, it is still important.
The internal market itself is a wonderful thing, and has enabled us to make a lot of progress in Europe but, as Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi said earlier, it has not been such a success with consumers and the public as it should have been.
That is why there really is scope for improvement in our internal market policy.
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In particular, I consider it to be very important - and this is also made clear in a motion for a resolution which we have submitted today - that in future, internal market legislation should be more coherent than it has been in the past.
In my experience over the last five years in this House, the approach adopted has, unfortunately, always been a rather piecemeal one, failing to recognise links with other legislative issues.
In my experience this has also applied, particularly so in fact, to consumer protection legislation, where there have very often indeed been discrepancies between various directives, between various pieces of legislation at European level. For instance, this applies to specific cancellation deadlines and periods of protection for consumers: these have frequently been different.
In some cases there are deadlines or periods of seven working days, and in others just seven days.
In the end nobody knows where they stand any more.
This is just one example of a lack of consistency where more needs to be done.
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In any case, I believe that it was a mistake that at the beginning of the last parliamentary term the old Commission did not continue with the work on a European Contract Law - which Mr Lando and his commission had begun - despite the fact that Parliament had made funds available for this.
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We very often have a problem with internal market legislation these days in that there is no framework, no common structure for legislation.
I think that a process of rational, scientific advance preparation would have helped to ensure far more coherent internal market legislation today.
I therefore very much welcome the fact that the Commission has addressed the issue of coherence in its paper.
Commissioner Bolkestein drew attention to the need for this at the joint meeting of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs in Strasbourg.
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I also feel that the special attention being paid to improvements in judicial cooperation is extremely important.
Without better judicial cooperation, and if consumers are unable to have their rights guaranteed within the internal market, the internal market loses half its potential value.
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I am not enthusiastic about everything in this paper and in the motion for a resolution before us today.
For example, let us take the case of the requirement in the paper that a package leaflet should in future be used to remind consumers of their rights.
I think that is rubbish, to put it mildly! There is a big difference between going into a chemist' s and buying a medicine there, with a full explanation of any risks, and simply buying a normal product on the market.
I do not think it makes sense to explain every consumer' s rights in a package leaflet.
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I would also like to make a few comments about the amendments tabled on this motion for a resolution.
The Socialist amendments are largely unacceptable to the PPE Group, in some cases purely and simply because they are very Socialist! Amendment Nos 7 and 8 are just two examples of this.
I think that not even Gerhard Schröder or Tony Blair would be very enthusiastic about these amendments.
Neither are we!
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In addition, there are also any number of amendments that look reasonable at first sight, but which we actually consider to be out of place in this paper on internal market strategy, as they relate to social issues and should be dealt with elsewhere.
For that reason, we will not be voting for those amendments either.
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Finally, let me say something about that old chestnut "Do we want more harmonisation or do we want mutual recognition?"
You really have to answer that question on a case-by-case basis.
The principle of mutual recognition often has advantages.
But in cases where it is no longer practical because the systems are just too different, the only way forward is then harmonisation.
So it is not possible to settle this issue as a matter of general principle - a decision really has to be made in each individual case depending on what is at stake.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Berger">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we all know that in the world of politics - I am sorry to say this - politicians always find it more attractive to come up with new ideas and at least launch their initial implementation than to complete and improve on existing, tried and tested concepts that do not attract so much media attention!
I believe, therefore, that we should be all the more grateful to the Commission for not treating the internal market like an old hat that just has to have a few dents knocked out now and again, but rather as a project that constantly requires new political initiatives.
<P>
With this in mind, I welcome the Commission communication on the European internal market which we have before us.
I also consider that the four strategic objectives have been very well chosen and the right method has been adopted for evaluating and monitoring them.
<P>
Nevertheless, I think that I can allow myself a few constructive criticisms.
One of these relates to the structure of this communication.
I must confess, even though I am by no means a totally inexperienced Member now, that the complexity of this communication, with its strategic objectives, operational objectives, target projects, legislative and non-legislative measures, makes it really hard to follow and to grasp what the Commission is trying to convey to us. I hope that the European citizens whom the whole thing is ultimately intended to help can make more sense of it.
<P>
I also think that the Commission is in places too polite when it comes to identifying obstacles standing in the way of the internal market today.
It seems to me that the Member States' responsibility should be spelt out more clearly.
<P>
The communication also fails to address the system under which the European Parliament is tied in with the procedures and the tight time framework of the so-called annual cycle, to ensure that Parliament' s rights are fully respected.
In this case it seems that the schedule is dictated more by the Council' s timetable.
I also hope that the procedure under which we have had to consider this particular communication here in Parliament is not to be a model for future procedure. I say that, Mr Lehne, because it is precisely on account of this procedure that we have not had an opportunity to discuss amendments in committee, and that we have had to follow a procedure not at all typical of this House.
<P>
I believe that we should pay more attention to the fact that the internal market and other EU policies have, to some extent, led to developments which the public regard as absurd or off-putting.
Some product components are nowadays transported thousands of kilometres across Europe, only for some of them then to be returned to their country of origin. Not only are significant transport costs incurred, but there is something wrong about this whole system, for example with the export refund system or the marking of regional origin system.
<P>
If, in this day and age, the very same pesticide attracts 20% value added tax in one Member State and just 3% in another, whilst fully complying with the sixth directive on value added tax, something is obviously wrong!
We should not wait for the great day of fiscal harmonisation to dawn, we should do something about this with all haste.
I am presenting this as evidence that we urgently need a new strategy for the internal market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 NAME="Wallis">
Mr President, I am very pleased to be able to respond to this strategic document on behalf of my group.
Broadly speaking, we can welcome it as evidenced by the fact that we have not tabled any amendments.
We seem to be moving on with the internal market, hopefully to a position where we will get an internal market that functions properly and fairly for all our citizens and businesses.
<P>
I would like to highlight two challenges to the perfection of the internal market.
The first is striking a proper balance between a quest for harmonisation and respect for the subsidiarity principle.
I wish to draw attention to this in relation to the ultra-peripheral regions of the Union whose status has now been specifically recognised by Article 299 of the Treaty.
Our group will seek to support an inclusion of an amendment to the motion endorsing this.
<P>
The second and perhaps bigger challenge is that of the new technologies, the advent of e-commerce.
We have the biggest opportunity ever to make the single market a reality to many sole traders and SMEs in our Member States who may not previously have thought of selling outside their own immediate locality.
However, this commercial revolution in the way we do business will also require a revolution in our legal thinking.
As a lawyer I know that my profession is not particularly known for being revolutionary.
The systems of commercial and civil law that exist across our Member States were largely constructed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a response to industrial and commercial changes in those centuries.
We need our own new responses for the 21st century.
<P>
I have raised, as have other colleagues, our fears about the combined contents of the Framework E-Commerce Directive and the revision to the Brussels and Lugano Conventions.
There are fears that e-commerce may be strangled at birth by regulations which potentially expose traders to 15 different European legal jurisdictions whilst at the same time the very same regulations could fail to really give our citizens easy or affordable access to justice.
The old conventions and legal approaches need to be subject to some new and imaginative thinking if we are really to unleash the potential of e-commerce.
Some have suggested a new lex mercatoria.
Maybe it should be e-lex.
<P>
It is equally true, given the question tabled by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, that Parliament needs to be fully involved in this process.
With new legislative proposals, we should not be pushed to provide opinions and reports at breakneck speed which allow us little time for thought and consultation with interest groups and citizens.
Whether it be regulation by that way or by means of so-called new soft-law methods, again Parliament needs to be fully and properly engaged in the process.
<P>
There is no room for fudge or lack of clarity.
The new commerce will need a framework that provides certainty both for consumer and trader alike.
We have challenging times ahead.
Give this House the time and mechanisms which will allow us to respond in a way that meets not only the expectations of Europe' s citizens but also of those in the global marketplace who are waiting for us to take a lead.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="MacCormick">
Mr President, I thank the Commissioner for his good lead to us in bringing forward this clear, rational strategy document that helps us to see how the Commission means to bring forward the internal market strategy.
Thanks also to my colleague Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi for having made such an excellent job of putting together thoughts in a motion for a resolution on this strategy.
We are very happy with that but we will suggest one amendment: to clarify the position of artists in the Community, in particular in the areas of freedom of movement, establishment and taxation.
<P>
In the main paper we are particularly attracted - as are others - by the emphasis on the need for a coherent approach to Internet regulation and e-commerce; also, intellectual property, distance selling and data protection - taking them all together in order to protect consumer rights and ensure adequate rules of viability.
Naturally, in our group, we want to see that the achievement of the internal market involves a balance - as you said yourself, Commissioner - between market freedom and the need to protect the environment, consumer health and consumer confidence.
<P>
I should also like to mention our sense - like yours - that the ordinary citizens need to see an increase in the speed and efficiency of infringement proceedings against defaulting Member States where the rights of European Union citizens exercised within the internal market are impinged upon or denied.
<P>
I am very upset, as a member of the academic profession, to see yet again the issue of foreign language lecturers in Italian universities coming forward without yet a resolution after eleven years, after three judgments in favour of the rights of these ordinary citizens seeking to exercise freedom of movement, seeking to take advantage of that fundamental principle of the Union and the internal market of no discrimination on nationality grounds.
It really is disgraceful that this issue still remains open.
I hope that the Internal Market Commissioner and his colleagues will make it their urgent business to bring this to an end.
The Commissioner has shown himself wise and far-sighted in his strategy document.
I trust and am sure he will show himself no less resolute in pressing home cases which have to be brought to a conclusion speedily.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Peijs">
Mr President, the internal market idea is based on doing business in a competitive environment without confines where the same rules apply for everyone: a level playing field.
But I increasingly notice that the interpretation and enforcement of legislation in the internal market differs quite dramatically from country to country.
One country enforces nothing at all, whilst in another country enforcement weighs very heavily on industry.
Even the understanding of the outcome which needs to be achieved by means of a certain law can be totally different from country to country.
<P>
I can list many examples: the fresh meat directive, the liberalisation of telecom, environmental directives or the directive concerning slaughterhouses.
Customs offices too interpret EU decisions completely differently.
What can be done in one country is completely inconceivable in another.
A source of discrepancies are the minimum and maximum harmonisations.
On account of the uniform outcome, I would prefer maximum harmonisations in future, such as in the case of the directive on distance selling or even mutual recognition.
Any other approach will ultimately lead to a situation which covers so many variations that it will appear as if there has never been an internal market.
<P>
The postal services directive will prove my point.
In the Netherlands, we naively believe that the directive is one on liberalisation.
This is completely refuted by the French Secretary of State. The aim of the directive is to protect public property.
This will lead to a situation where the Dutch postal services will be extremely vulnerable to take-overs but the money involved will be earned in a monopoly.
Indeed, Commissioner Monti stated that it has never been verified whether the ban on cross-subsidy is observed when making purchases.
There can be very harsh penalties indeed for Member States and companies if European legislation is observed.
Fair competition is difficult, especially if one time-sharing company observes the legislation but another one does not, for example, and nothing is done about it.
<P>
Since this would obviously create an excessive amount of work for the Court of Justice, the Commission is planning to grant national judges power to rule on exemptions within the framework of article 85, para.
3. I can assure you, Commissioner, that judges in Naples and Frankfurt will interpret the article very differently indeed.
<P>
I believe in the internal market, but I am very concerned because I am convinced that the market is threatened in its very core by a lack of uniform enforcement.
There are too many different transpositions of directives, and as you also point out in your strategy, too many cases of non-transposition and non-enforcement.
<P>
You mentioned the SLIM programme, but Commissioner, the SLIM programme is completely ineffectual.
Simplified old legislation has a discouraging effect on companies which already comply with old legislation.
And what you do is to reward companies which never comply with legislation.
I do not think that we could subscribe to this.
Besides, SLIM does not even work in itself.
Enforcement is the priority.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, with this document, the Commission has tried to show courtesy towards us.
In a short space of time, the Commission and Commissioner Bolkestein have presented us with this communication on a strategy for the European internal market.
<P>
Now, as Mrs Wallis has highlighted, the problem is that we are acting at breakneck speed, perhaps because we have little time and we have to move quickly.
Clearly, the Commission has had little time to draw up this document, and we have had even less time.
Tomorrow we are going to vote on a motion for a resolution.
I believe that the Socialist Group will vote in favour of it, but it has introduced a series of amendments which, as you might expect, reflect socialist thinking.
<P>
And here I would like to point out to Mr Lehne that, without doubt, he has not read the Commission' s strategy if he thinks that social considerations were left out of it, because the strategic objective number 1 which the Commission has set is to improve the quality of life of our citizens.
And within this strategic objective, we should achieve, amongst the operational objectives, the promotion of employment and ensure the coordination of social protection and the broad protection of our citizens' rights.
Therefore, the socialist amendments aim to fill this particular gap.
<P>
And among the socialist amendments, there is one, which Mrs Wallis highlighted, which points out the special position of the outermost regions, which are totally separated from Community territory, a long way from it and which therefore, in the application of Community law, in accordance with the new article 299.2 of the Treaty, cannot be subject to the same regulations which are in force in the internal market in continental Europe.
<P>
I totally agree with Mr MacCormick' s observations on the situation of artists, which would have to extend to the whole field of intellectual creation, which suffers from a deficit within the European Community, especially in the field of external competition, and I also agree with his observation concerning the need to guarantee the free movement and free practice of the intellectual profession within the European Community.
<P>
And I would also like to point out that Mrs Peijs is very right to say that one of the difficulties which we have today in the Community field is that Community law is interpreted and applied in a different way in each of the fifteen Member States.
The problem is that the Community has to legislate because, if it does not legislate, the States will legislate for it.
At the moment, we have a broad set of Community regulations, fifteen sets of national regulations and in many cases, for example in the federal, or almost federal, States, many more.
If the Community does not regulate, if the Community does not provide a legal framework, this will continue along the worst lines possible.
<P>
I hope, therefore, that after this first Commission communication, the Commission will present Parliament with a strategic programme, with the necessary legislative package, with more time for the Commission and more time for Parliament, but I also hope that, during this legislature, the internal market will become a reality and that, in becoming a reality, it will do so to the benefit of the citizens and the workers and that it will allow for the continued consolidation of this European social model, which I would say at the moment is the envy of those countries which do not belong to the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fiori">
Mr President, I too would like to thank the Commission.
The strategic document which has been submitted to us certainly represents an important change in the single market and extends and consolidates the idea of a single market which is one of the main cornerstones of the construction of Europe.
Among other things, it gives us a glimpse of a series of scenarios where the single market is certainly also the bearer of new freedoms and opportunities for the citizens.
<P>
I do not want to dwell on some legal subjects which have already been dealt with sufficiently by Mr Lehne and Mrs Palacio.
I would instead like to talk about some political matters which have not yet been fully addressed by the document but which, I am sure, will be the subject of a debate in Parliament, because it is through these matters that the idea of Europe is developing.
Firstly, there is the question of how we are going to create a real single market where the States are currently tending to implement protectionist measures - we have seen some cases, even recently and how the Commission intends to make the best use of the infringement procedure, speeding it up and encouraging the citizens and their associations to report the breaches of Community law which occur daily in the various Member States.
<P>
A second area is the use of new technologies.
The European Union must provide a direct legal framework to allow the free movement and free provision of services and avoid conflicts and obstacles to free movement caused by too great a divergence in the legislation of the various countries of the Community.
The directive on electronic signatures will definitely be followed by directives on e-commerce and copyright in the information society and on consumer protection in distance selling of financial products and other kinds of products.
All the European institutions will have to be vigilant so that consistency of the common legal institutions is guaranteed.
In these areas, a fair balance between public regulation and self-regulation of those concerned will allow the market to function without infringing citizens' or consumers' rights.
Besides, these new technologies require consumers' trust in order to be fully used.
Giving your credit card details must not and cannot involve a risk.
<P>
Now we come to a third subject: how the Commission intends to act in the progressive extension of the single market to the applicant states.
This must happen without calling into question the acquis communautaire and guaranteeing the albeit delicate balance currently in place.
Applicant states' national markets must become integrated into the Community market smoothly, and it will therefore be necessary to provide for any transitional measures which may be necessary where these countries are not yet ready. Our goal, though, must be to help them be prepared right from the first day of accession.
<P>
One final subject: what does this document mean for international economic relations, which will soon have a crucial time in the Millennium Round.
We are living through a historic time which has no precedent and which calls for a far-reaching ability to adapt to changes, in order to prevent the European model leaving the international arena with its tail between its legs.
Ours is the time of interdependence. Different aspects of economic and social life at a global level are entwined together and with their respective interests.
Interdependence requires that diversities are taken into account, where possible, in the transition from plurality to unity, and it must be regulated by maintaining a balance in the relationship between the identities, diversities and co-existence of the models.
The inevitable confrontation with diversity requires the ability to adapt one' s own identity as far as is necessary in order to be able to compete on an equal footing with others.
<P>
So, in the sectors concerned with international trade, we are assessing how the mutual influence of systems on a global level is increasing with every passing day.
We know that the European model has already been taken as the basis of the transatlantic dialogue.
We must not allow our efforts to let us be conditioned by other models that are not our own.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Berenguer Fuster">
Mr President, Commissioner, any consideration of this communication by the Commission which we are discussing today should take into account the fact that it is a document which is being presented at the same time that the new Commission is starting its work.
This consideration obliges us to highlight its positive aspects and, to a certain extent, avoid any negative comment.
It would be unjust, therefore, to describe the document as unambitious, but it would nevertheless have been justifiable to level this criticism at the document if it had been carried out by a Commission which had been in action for longer.
<P>
This situation cannot hide the fact however that this is really simply a document of intentions, which we take note of. Meanwhile, we will wait to see whether these intentions become concrete measures, commitments which involve a time scale for their implementation.
Then, and only then will we be able to make a more accurate judgement of the Commission' s intentions.
<P>
Amongst the aspects which warrant our special approval, is that of protecting consumer interests.
If anybody should benefit from the construction of the internal market, it is the consumer, that is, all of the citizens.
And in this respect, Commissioner, there is a phrase in the communication which worries us.
It says literally that "a more intense trade in goods and services between the Member States could lead to additional risks to the consumer" .
This phrase raises the question of the view of consumer protection as an inevitable requirement to impede the free movement of goods, within the meaning of the judgement on Dassonville, Cassis de Dijon etc.
In other words it leads us to the principle of mutual recognition, which seems to be very dear to Mr Bolkestein.
<P>
I would like my position to be very clear.
Mutual recognition is a principle which was important in preventing barriers to the free movement of goods, but it is only partially valid for the construction of the internal market in the absence of harmonised legislation.
In order to move forward with the internal market, it will be necessary to insist on the principle of harmonisation.
Once legislation in the field of consumer protection is harmonised, I would not be in a position to make such a statement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="Harbour">
<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bolkestein">
Mr President, many thanks for allowing me to speak for the second time this evening.
I would especially like to thank the Members of this Parliament who have postulated their ideas this evening, as well as their criticisms regarding the document which is tabled for discussion this evening.
<P>
I will try to respond to a few points in more detail.
I will probably not be able to deal with all the points in detail, but I would like to stress, for the benefit of the Members of this Parliament, that both my colleagues and I have carefully taken note of all the points brought forward and I would like to underline that we will make every effort to incorporate the ideas and thoughts prevailing in Parliament into the document at issue this evening.
<P>
I would also like to thank the MEPs who have expressed words of appreciation for the Commission and who have welcomed this new strategy for the internal market.
The Commission is very grateful.
The Commission is new in this legislature.
We have tried our best to work as fast as possible to submit this document to Parliament, thus enabling Parliament to give its opinion at the earliest opportunity.
<P>
Needless to say, criticism can be levelled at many points and this is what some representatives did.
But I do not agree, on the other hand, with Mr Medina Ortega, who remarked that the internal market should become a reality to benefit all European citizens.
The internal market is a reality.
The internal market exists and all European citizens benefit greatly from this in the form of low inflation, low pricing and the large choice of goods and services which they want to buy.
In other words, I would like to say to Mr Medina Ortega: the internal market is a reality which benefits everyone, especially the consumer, albeit that they may not be sufficiently aware of this.
As far as this is concerned, it is up to both the Commission and the MEPs to make this even clearer to these consumers.
<P>
A number of representatives, not least Mrs Palacio, have mentioned what is termed these days as "soft law" .
In other words, these are not legislative instruments but instruments which relate to the use of the mutual acceptance of standards with regard to issues such as "peer group pressure" and to the adoption of the best working methods from other Member States.
This is a key element of this communication.
We are indeed making efforts to this effect and, as such, we are drawing on the original methods used to complete the internal market, namely the 1992 project by Lord Cockfield.
There are indeed many advantages to the mutual recognition of standards and we would like to continue in the same vein.
<P>
It is definitely the case that there is a difference between harmonisation and this mutual recognition of standards.
As far as this is concerned, I share Mr Lehne' s view of assessing on a case-by-case basis whether harmonisation or mutual recognition of standards should be applied.
Although it is something that has to be assessed case by case, I would like to stress - the proposed resolution, in fact, deals with this in one of the sections - the great importance of the mutual recognition of standards because they work faster, are more flexible in this fast-changing world and because they make sure they meet the requirement of subsidiarity.
This is something Mrs Wallis remarked on.
I could not agree more.
The right balance needs to be struck, of course, between harmonisation on the one hand and the principle of subsidiarity on the other.
I think that the mutual recognition of standards meets this requirement.
<P>
According to Mrs Berger, the structure of the document was somewhat chaotic.
I am pleased that Mr MacCormick claimed the opposite. After all, he spoke in English about a "clear and rational document" .
These are, of course, two conflicting opinions.
My own opinion is that the document is well-organised.
There are four strategic objectives, each of which is split up into three, four, five or six operational objectives.
And then, of course, there are still those objectives which require a practical plan of implementation.
So with the best will in the world, I cannot see why Mrs Berger claims that the structure of the document is chaotic.
<P>
She does seem to cut ice when she advocates involvement of the European Parliament in the annual cycle set out in the document.
This to my mind is a very important point.
I would also like to stress that, every year at the appropriate time for this, the Commission will gladly listen to the remarks and ideas put forward by the European Parliament when, in the course of its annual cycle, it can once again examine the actual target actions close-up and substantiate them further.
<P>
We find the involvement of the European Parliament a matter of the greatest importance. This is not only because in the European constitution, Council, European Parliament and the Commission form the three corners of the triangle which is to decide on all of this in a balanced way, but also because the representative body of the people that is gathered here is clearly best suited to interpret the opinions of Europe' s citizens, which is what it is all about, thus enabling the Commission to draw the right conclusions.
I would, therefore, like to impress on Mrs Berger and other Members of this representative body that we will listen very carefully to the opinions expressed by Parliament when, in the future, they are put forward once or maybe twice a year or through contact on a smaller scale with the Commission.
<P>
I would, furthermore, like to respond to the remarks made by Mr MacCormick on artists.
I recognise that Mr MacCormick has a valid point when he highlights the situation of travelling artists within a European context - i.e. those working in different countries such as, for example a concert pianist or a dance group - when he highlights the predicament of those who create and propagate the arts.
I myself would like to make an effort to raise the issue of the freedom of movement within the European Union but also to provide an improved basis for taxation.
But, as I am sure Mr MacCormick will agree, this is not easy.
There is no European income tax at the moment and it is not likely that there will be any in the foreseeable future.
This might be a good thing but, in any event, I share Mr MacCormick' s opinion that the tax situations of artists working in the different Member States require attention and I am quite prepared to look into any objective suggestions made.
<P>
As for lecturers at Italian universities of non-Italian nationality, I can inform Mr MacCormick that it so happens that I signed a letter on this matter today, addressed to an MEP who had lodged the same complaint.
As far as this issue is concerned, we are aware and it is in hand.
<P>
Mrs Peijs distinguished between minimum and maximum harmonisation.
She stated that she much prefers maximum harmonisation.
I agree, in principle, with Mrs Peijs.
Ideally, we should agree on a maximum level of harmonisation throughout the Union and each country should observe this.
There is, of course, room for defensible exceptions to the general principle.
Think, for example, of the social standards which are higher in some countries than in others. If we consider that some standards to safeguard, defend and protect the environment are higher and more stringent in some countries than in others, then surely we will not prevent these countries from exceeding the generally accepted standard.
Indeed, my starting point coincides with that of Mrs Peijs.
I too favour maximum standards, but we cannot prevent countries from going beyond the generally accepted standard in some areas.
As far as this is concerned, I think we need to try to strike the right balance between the internal market on the one hand and requirements with regard to the environment or social standards which exceed the general norm on the other.
<P>
She also spoke about the postal services directive, which is a very important point.
My department and, indeed, I myself, are examining how we can move this issue along.
It may be premature to give details at this stage but I do agree with Mrs Peijs when she says that it is by no means an ideal situation that companies are bought by certain postal services which have a monopoly position, in other words that some companies are bought by those bringing about a monopoly-like situation.
We do not welcome monopolies being used to purchase companies which are in the same line of business but which are independent.
Because then this is a clear indication that the liberalisation of postal services has not gone far enough, or at least that this liberalisation is not applied correctly by some postal companies.
We have to be very mindful of this because once again, we cannot accept this and this is also one of the reasons that I hope, in the not too distant future, to propose further ideas on how the postal directive can be further detailed.
<P>
I will skip over Mrs Peijs' observations on the decentralisation of decisions in terms of competition, but not because I do not want to discuss them.
In the dim and distant past, I myself have been involved in policies on competition in the capacity of minister in the Dutch government. Not wishing, however, to encroach too much on the remit of my colleague, Mr Monti, I will not go into this issue any further.
<P>
She closed her intervention with the words "enforcement is the priority" .
I agree with Mrs Peijs on that score.
To draft a policy is one thing, to enforce it is quite another.
This is, of course, also one of the key points of this document of the new strategy, namely that we acknowledge that legislation has been laid down in broad terms but that it is now a matter of implementation, enforcement and monitoring this implementation, so as to enable the Commission to lend its support to the correct implementation of provisions of the internal market by means of infringement procedures.
<P>
My penultimate remark concerns an observation made by Mr Berenguer Fuster, where he states that consumer protection should not jeopardise the internal market.
The document that we submitted and that is being discussed this evening, attempts in fact, in the first strategic objective, to create a balance between the internal market on the one hand and the protection of consumer and environment interests on the other.
We have made this attempt and hope that we have succeeded to some extent in creating this balance and hence in preventing the protection of consumer interests from jeopardising the internal market.
Because the internal market, of course, is also there for the manufacturer and industry although it mainly serves the consumer.
In other words, if consumer protection were to be detrimental to the internal market, we would shoot ourselves in the foot and this is not what we want.
And I believe that is not what the Members of this Parliament want either.
<P>
To finish off, Mr President, I really valued the observation made by Mr Harbour.
I know that Mr Harbour applauds the document on strategy with regard to the internal market.
I would also like to thank him for attending last Friday' s hearing.
In fact, Mrs Palacio gave a very valuable general introduction to that end and I would like to thank her too.
Mr Harbour stated that the internal market should mainly be responsive and flexible, in other words should accommodate the requirements of the consumers and of the citizens of the country in question and should also be flexible.
I could not agree more.
We live in a world which changes at high-speed.
The new electronic gadgets used in business are well-known, are gaining in popularity and create their own problems.
The Commission should react to this.
Will you allow me to impress on Mr Harbour and, in fact, all Members of this Parliament that it is the ambition of this Commission to be responsive and flexible, so that we can indeed, bearing in mind consumer interests, meet the needs at the time as flexibly as possible.
<P>
Mr President, I hope I have not spoken for too long.
I thank you for your patience and that of the Members.
I would also like to thank them for their attention.
It would be a pleasure, should opportunity allow, to have a further exchange of ideas with this Parliament on this important topic.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
I have received a motion for a resolution, tabled in accordance with Rule 40(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 10.05 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Haarder">
Mr President, I have wanted for a long time to comment on the bell which summons us to meetings.
We are very glad that it is rung, but is it necessary to ring it for several minutes at a time so that we get sick to death of hearing it?
Would you mind telling the department concerned to ring it in small doses.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Mr Haarder, as you know, it only takes a few minutes to decide on important strategies but we need more time for small matters.
You raised this issue during the last parliamentary term too.
We shall see if we can do something about this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Mr President, I think they did not ring the bell for long enough, and you can see what happened - no one is here!
So could you make sure they ring it longer and louder in future?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
As you know, Mrs Flemming, it is not the bell that makes Members hurry here, it is whether or not there are going to be votes in the House.
In this case no votes are envisaged, and consequently several Members are working in their offices.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Mr President, I only wanted to ask Mrs Flemming not to call me "no one" !
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Your clarification will be recorded in the Minutes.
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(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Speroni">
Mr President, I refer to Rule 43 and Annex II on the time periods for submitting a question.
I had already raised this point and the President has kindly sent me a reply which, however, I do not believe conforms to the Rules of Procedure because, if the Rules of Procedure says one week, then one week cannot be understood to mean seven working days. Seven days can mean seven calendar days or seven working days, but a week cannot mean this, just as a month, or a year, for example, cannot be considered to mean 365 working days.
Moreover, the deadline is fixed for the Thursday of the week before the week when the question will be discussed, but given that the questions are discussed on Tuesdays that makes eight working days, in which case the time period is exceeded however you interpret it.
Then, in my case, the question would have been discussed on the Wednesday. That would have made nine working days.
In any case, interpreting the Rules of Procedure should not be the responsibility of the Bureau - here a meeting of 22-23 November 1979 is referred to - nor of the Bureau at the suggestion of the President with the agreement of the leaders of the political groups as decided on 19 November 1992.
There is only one body in Parliament, the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, which can decide on the interpretations of the Rules of Procedure.
Therefore, I would like to ask, in accordance with the Rules of Procedure, for the matter to be referred to the competent body.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
I think that the President will certainly welcome your proposal.
In this way, there will be a response that is sure to satisfy both yourself and the rest of us.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Employment
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
(A5-0045/1999) by Mr Menrad, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Decision establishing the Employment Committee [COM(1999)0440 - C5-0173/1999 - 1999/0192(CNS)] and on the proposal from the Commission: Guidelines for Member States' Employment Policies 2000 [COM(1999)0441 - C5-0147/1999 - 1999/0816(CNS)];
<P>
(A5-0046/1999) by Mr Menrad, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission' s draft Joint Employment Report 1999 [SEC(1999)1386 - C5-0215/1999 - 1999/2139(COS)].
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Menrad">
Mr President, Parliament originally gave me the job of preparing a report on the proposed Guidelines for Member States' Employment Policies 2000.
The wide-ranging debate and the many suggestions raised in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs on employment policy in general encouraged me to divide my draft report in two, with conclusions and a legislative part concentrating on the proposals for guidelines for the year 2000, which the Council of Ministers must adopt in December 1999.
<P>
Here in Parliament we should try to focus on the essentials, so that the Council' s response is not "less would be more" .
On the day after the vote was taken in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, the Council also formally asked Parliament for an opinion.
A simple consultation was therefore necessary.
This means that legislative amendments may only be adopted without general conclusions.
So for procedural reasons it became necessary to present two reports today, one on the Guidelines for Member States' Employment Policies 2000 and on establishing an Employment Committee, and the other on the 1999 Joint Employment Report, which contains the conclusions adopted in committee.
This second report begins with a positive message.
The Community created 1.8 million additional jobs in 1998 by means of its employment-policy initiatives.
However, youth and long-term unemployment are still at an unacceptably high level in most Member States, and, in any case, every single unemployed person is one too many.
<P>
I do not want to look at the conclusions in detail now, but bearing in mind the debate at yesterday' s sitting on the macroeconomic dialogue, I would like to make one point: the European Parliament needs to be more closely involved in preparing and implementing the European Employment Pact.
We regret that at the Cologne Summit the word "Parliament" was not mentioned in the paper on employment.
That is really not on!
We represent the public and are therefore the most important institution of the European Union.
<P>
The opinions of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities are attached to this second report on today' s agenda.
Both opinions significantly enhanced the work of the Employment Committee.
I would like to thank the draftspersons of the opinions, Mrs Theorin and Mr Grosch, for their excellent work.
Many of their suggestions have found their way into both Employment Committee reports,but in order to keep things tight, we have had to make a selection.
This means that the chances of their being accepted by the Council of Ministers are greater.
<P>
The Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities worked very hard on the employment-policy guidelines, and we are now looking at the legislative section, that is at the first report on today' s agenda.
It in turn consists of two parts, the first on the proposal for a Council decision establishing the Employment Committee, and the second on the Commission' s proposal for Guidelines for Member States' Employment Policies 2000.
The Employment Committee is intended to play a consultative role in assisting the Member States' coordination of employment and labour market policy.
I have already mentioned the thrust of my report on the employment-policy guidelines: to concentrate on the essentials.
It would be wrong to increase the number of guidelines any further.
Instead, I would like to see practical implementation and verifiability of the guidelines and of the national action plans, based on concrete criteria.
Simply increasing the number of guidelines will not create one single job.
Quality not quantity should be the motto of modern employment policy.
<P>
With regard to combating long-term and youth unemployment, effective and continued participation in the labour market can be achieved by switching from passive to active measures.
Specifically, the percentage of the unemployed offered initial and further training or retraining is to be increased.
We are seeking a target of 25% instead of the 20% in the Commission' s proposal.
We need the most modern vocational training available.
In this case, the existing guidelines need to be adjusted to the changing requirements of the labour market, especially as regards equipping schools with computers and Internet access.
We need to pay special attention to female pupils and students here.
<P>
A second requirement is access to the capital market, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, which create the bulk of new jobs through innovation.
Promoting voluntary share ownership models for employees in conjunction with a clear reduction in administrative effort and a determined attack on the black economy could give a boost to job creation.
Non-wage labour costs need to be lowered, because they have a direct impact on the competitiveness of medium-sized companies.
<P>
Existing or new models for taxes on energy consumption should, however, be checked to see whether they are appropriate for maintaining balanced social security systems in the long run.
Another means of combating unemployment named in the report is greater flexibility on the part of companies, which involves ensuring that they are provided with information and consulted at the appropriate time, thus enabling them to adapt to change. One way of achieving this is through minimum standards.
<P>
Flexibility is also needed in working hours.
We need intelligent labour models, such as the "breathing factory" concept, in which working time is adjusted in line with the level of activity. Working time is generally - but not always - reduced, instead of introducing a unilateral reduction in working hours without cuts in payment.
That is no way to create new jobs, it just puts existing ones at risk.
In the Commission' s draft, the four pillars of the guidelines are kept intact.
The fourth pillar becomes the most important.
It involves strengthening measures to promote equal opportunities for men and women.
Coordination of European employment policy, especially by means of the employment-policy guidelines, should lead to a longer-term strategy of tapping the potential in society for creativity, innovation, entrepreneurialism, willingness to invest and a "can-do" attitude.
Reforms aimed at promoting dynamic competition and flexibility need to be coordinated with the need to maintain but also modernise the social security system.
That is how I see the European model.
On that note, I ask you to vote for these two reports.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Grosch">
Mr President, I would first like to congratulate the rapporteur on his report and also to thank the members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, who were really working in less than ideal conditions. And by the same token I would like to thank the administration for their support, as this is an important subject, because despite the continuing high level of unemployment, unemployment and employment policy is generally not accorded the position it deserves here in the European Parliament and at European level.
That is both my own view and the view of the committee.
<P>
Why are we so reluctant, when it is perfectly simple to express this issue in terms of quantifiable defined employment policy objectives, in training at least.
This kind of action would at least have the effect of forcing the Member States to utilise all the resources at their disposal to reduce unemployment.
And as we are actually talking about consolidating the guidelines here, continuity of the employment-policy guidelines is a good approach.
But efficient, performance-oriented action is only possible if these guidelines reflect an assessment of results achieved.
In that way, the process of drawing up the guidelines could take account of a comparison of the best methods found in the individual Member States, so that successful strategies could be applied throughout Europe.
<P>
In this context it is also important, as Mr Menrad has already just indicated, to have access to reliable quantitative data as a basis for comparison and trend analysis.
There is no miracle cure that will make unemployment disappear overnight.
It is more likely that a combination of different options and factors will be successful.
As I see it, alongside training one important option is a targeted reduction in charges in areas which have been shown to create jobs.
SMEs can play a key role here, as they make an important contribution to job creation and generally have enormous development potential, which must be promoted by creating optimum conditions.
<P>
Amongst these conditions are a simplification of administrative procedures and specific improvement of access to information sources and research programmes.
The services sector is above all widely recognised as the sector with the greatest potential for job creation.
The employment guidelines should be an incentive for Member States to create jobs.
But they should not degenerate into political dirigisme with companies subject to greater burdens than they can tolerate.
Instead, the objective of the guidelines should be to induce Member States to adopt a proactive employment policy creating an ideal framework for businesses.
With that in mind, we in any case hope that we will increase the potential to create jobs, with less subsidised public sector jobs.
The opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs is short and to the point, because we thought that was what was expected of us in this case.
We did not see it as being our role to produce an expert report, or to recite a political creed, but rather to provide the Member States with reliable, correct and simple guidelines and make a contribution in that way.
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<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
Mr President, the employment guidelines for 1999 emphasise that a concern with equality must permeate all action plans and measures which are proposed under all four pillars of the EU' s employment strategy.
So far, the results have been meagre.
A very limited number of measures concerning equality have been introduced.
Few (albeit some) budget resources have been made use of, and few quantitative objectives have been established.
European women earn, on average, 76 per cent of men' s hourly wages, and their employment rate is approximately 20 per cent lower than men' s.
<P>
It is not enough to make sweeping commitments concerning equality under the fourth pillar in the employment guidelines. What, instead, is required are clear references under all four pillars.
The opinion I have formulated on the report will ensure that a concern with equality permeates the employment guidelines for the year 2000.
Most of the proposals which I and the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities have submitted have already been adopted by the Committee, but a small number of central proposals were not adopted, namely Amendment Nos 37, 38 and 39.
These are now being submitted by a number of groups.
These proposals require the Member States to undertake to achieve a balance between women and men in any decision making, to ensure that there are as many female as male candidates for committees and working parties within the EU, to improve labour market legislation so that it reflects women' s needs and problems, and to ensure - not least - that those who draw up the guidelines for national employment policies are trained in such a way that they might more effectively integrate a concern with equality into their work. Finally, annual quantifiable objectives are to be introduced in the Member States.
<P>
My opinion is entirely in line with the Amsterdam Treaty which attaches much more importance to equality than did the Treaty of Maastricht and the Treaty of Rome.
Above all, the Amsterdam Treaty describes the achievement of equality between women and men as one of the EU' s central tasks.
Discrimination against women in the labour market is not only non-productive but prevents the development of women as individuals, of women as a group and of society as a whole.
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<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Pronk">
Mr President, I would very much like to thank the rapporteur and this is not just a formal thank you.
He managed to complete an extremely difficult report and a highly important task under adverse circumstances. I believe that the report as it stands now is basically sound.
There is, of course, always room for minor improvements.
But this, of course, also holds true for what the Commission submitted to us.
I would like to make two observations in this context, not so much regarding the Menrad report but regarding the report issued by the Commission itself.
<P>
Firstly, I very much approve of the Commission rating the Member States.
I know that Member States sometimes have difficulty taking the feedback on board but it is very important that this is done, because this spurs them on to achieve greater things than if there were no assessment.
<P>
Secondly, I do feel that there is something missing from the Commission report, namely the demographic aspect.
This aspect can be split into two components.
The first is demography in the actual sense of the word and the second is the impact migration and emigration have on the labour market.
Although there are statistics available for this, which are, in fact, also prepared by the Commission, these guidelines fail to take adequate account of them.
I would actually like to ask the Commission to reconsider this in future because this is such an important issue.
<P>
Then we had a long chat about the amendments in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
There were dozens and dozens of amendments, a large number of which have been resolved.
I regret that these amendments have nevertheless been resubmitted, especially since those submitting the amendments largely agreed on the Menrad report.
<P>
In particular, I am bound to say, when I hear my predecessor, Mrs Theorin, that I happen to know that the rapporteur has made every effort to incorporate as many amendments as possible, but it is no longer the case that all amendments as proposed, even if the same idea is repeated two or three times over, should all be included in a report.
We now have slightly different proportions of majority in this new Parliament.
It is unacceptable that if the socialist group feels that certain amendments need to be incorporated that these should be automatically included in each and every report.
We should take a vote on it in that case.
Quite frankly, the way the negotiations have been conducted, especially by Mrs Theorin, has caused some resentment and unnecessary friction with regard to this report.
I hope that this will no longer be the case in future so that it will be easier to reach the intrinsically sound outcome of the Menrad report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Lancker">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the European Commission' s Joint Employment Report clearly shows that the European employment strategy is slowly paying off.
Good progress has been made especially in cases where the Member States have reached clear-cut and common agreements.
But there is certainly no cause for resting on our laurels for the time being.
There are still too many long-term unemployed with no real prospect of finding jobs.
Women and the elderly often do not fare well in that same job market.
Jobs are still badly distributed and investment into services is still very much lacking for example.
<P>
What is more, there are alarming signs that the process which has been in place since Luxembourg is now grinding to a halt due to a lack of European convergence strategy.
Not all Member States have expressed the same enthusiasm to continue with this process.
We were therefore disappointed, Commissioner, to see how the proposals with regard to the new employment guidelines 2000 put forward by the previous Commission were lacking in ambition.
There has been no added pressure in this respect but perhaps we need it.
<P>
My group is not asking for new guidelines either. What we do need is to add substance by setting clear goals in the existing guidelines.
<P>
I would like to take this opportunity of thanking the rapporteur for his cooperation.
It was hard work.
We had to work fast but I should add that I regret that my group failed to reach agreement on a number of our high-priority points within the Committee and that we have therefore decided, Mr Pronk, to resubmit these amendments as we consider them to be essential.
I think my group is entitled to this.
<P>
I would like to point a few things out.
Firstly, under no circumstances should we restrict the European employment strategy to mere following-up of what is happening within the employment policy at national level.
As far as we are concerned, the European Union should take the matter into its own hands and push for change.
This is why we would like to see greater substance added to the employment guidelines by setting specific, measurable benchmarks at European level.
We noticed that a great deal of progress has been made in cases where the Member States had agreed on joint benchmarks, for example with regard to the integration of the young unemployed.
Consequently, my group would propose three new European objectives for the next couple of years.
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First of all, it seems important to us that we should reach an employment level of 65%.
This was the gist of Jacques Delors' White Paper and it was, in fact, also the text of the previous Commission in 1997 before the Committee on Censorship apparently took action.
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Secondly, we would also welcome benchmarks for the long-term unemployed and for halving the gender divide.
Both long-term unemployment and the gender divide between men and women should be halved within the next five years.
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A third important remark regarding our employment strategy is that we should be careful not to fall into the American trap where work and social security are played off against one another.
We are therefore hoping to create a link within the employment guidelines between creating new chances for the unemployed and new jobs on the one hand and the quality of those jobs and social protection on the other.
As is the case with European Economic and Monetary Union and, in fact, as is now the case with employment, we are of the opinion that the Member States should be guided by the three most successful Member States.
So in actual fact we would like a social convergence strategy in addition to the employment strategy.
In so doing, we would like to make the fight against poverty our priority.
I have to say, it strikes me as almost incredible that this proposal to set up a Luxembourg process for social security has also been rejected by members of the PPE in the Committee, especially in view of the fact that it formed the very core of the Pronk report which we voted on in the previous Parliament.
In my opinion, those who take the employment and social security issues seriously should perhaps finally take a stance on the matter.
<P>
Parliament got involved in the process exceptionally late this year. This was on account of the elections and the appointment of the new Commission.
But still, we have made some progress because, as the rapporteur has already pointed out, this year the Council officially asked us for advice for the very first time.
I urge us not to miss this opportunity of reinforcing the European employment guidelines and at the same of setting up a process of securing quality jobs and good social protection.
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<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Jensen">
Mr President, employment policy is a national concern, and it shall remain so.
We in the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party find therefore, that, with the employment package, a good solution has been found to the problem of how we combine the principle of subsidiarity with a desire to ensure that employment policy is properly coordinated.
The Member States' reports on how they are complying with the guidelines do not simply explain how the various countries are managing individually and in relation to the others but are also a source of mutual inspiration through which countries can learn about each other' s successes.
However, precisely how employment policy is put into practice is entirely a matter for the individual Member States.
A good deal of policymaking in the areas of employment and the labour market belongs at local level.
<P>
What is more, success in employment policy is crucial to sound development in the public finances, and it is reasonable to see the employment package and macroeconomic cooperation in an EU context.
The Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party is not, however, in favour of the employment guidelines' containing demands that the various countries organise their employment initiatives in accordance with a specific template and in terms of heavy-handed numerical objectives.
The individual countries themselves should decide upon the priorities for their employment policies and, in this context, we in the Group of the Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party feel free to take pleasure in the fact that a liberal employment policy which is particularly concerned with securing the correct incentives in taxation and social policy has been proceeded with in most Member States in recent years.
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In the EU countries, cooperation between parties in the labour market - in other words, the social dialogue - follows very different models characterised by different traditions and cultures.
This process is to be respected.
And it must also be ensured that the dialogue between governments and the social partners in the labour market does not overshadow the democratic process in the national parliaments and the EU Parliament.
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I want finally to say that, in its report on employment, the Commission has made recommendations to the individual countries.
That is not unproblematic, and it is very important that the Commission should openly describe the assumptions on which it is making its recommendations.
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<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Flautre">
Mr President, the European Union' s employment strategy states that the fight against unemployment is being taken into consideration in European-level policy.
This is desirable in itself.
It is realistic. For the broad guidelines of economic and monetary policy have a real impact on employment at European level.
And it is desirable if we wish to curb the sort of competition which is based on reducing social aspects to the lowest bid and also the growth of inequality between regions and between social groups within the economic Union.
European employment strategy, however, in the form in which it has been laid down, has been progressively implemented since the Luxembourg Summit and is characterised by dubious ideological foundations and a not particularly dynamic conception of institutional practices.
<P>
To hear some people speak, you might wonder why we even need a policy on employment.
Yesterday' s debate on macroeconomic dialogue showed this: you might think that a policy of monetary stability would be sufficient.
No one has yet proved the validity of the premise that it would be enough to guarantee monetary stability and overall competitiveness for employment to follow.
Our last debate in Strasbourg on the subject of Michelin and the restructuring of firms was an opportunity for us to develop our doubts on the subject.
<P>
Once it has been said that European economic policy should have employment as its goal, once this is laid down in law and is proclaimed loud and clear, without ever checking the validity of the affirmation in a realistic and pragmatic way, then the subordination of the social to the economic is being written in the stone of the Treaties, finally reducing the social aspect to the task of managing each and every one of us in our competition for a place in a labour market which is getting tighter and tighter.
The result of this economics-based, minimalist approach is that any debate on the means of creating jobs, running counter to this liberally inspired dogma, is ruled out, virtually prohibited.
Is it conceivable that out of twenty-two guidelines on employment, there is not a single one on the effective reduction of working hours.
Not one is on public investment.
And even the mention of active support for local initiatives on employment is limited and any attempts to examine the quality and sustainability of jobs created are eliminated.
We have to deal with the figures.
It is essential to bring about a reduction in the number of registered unemployed in a Europe where the number of men and women living below the poverty line is itself not getting any less.
<P>
Before mentioning the proposals of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, let me express one fear.
Some circles in Europe appear to be overcome by a feeling of blind optimism, with their eyes riveted on the upturn in growth and only the officially recorded and registered unemployment figures.
A considerable number of political leaders seem to forget that many of the jobs created are temporary, part-time jobs, are not chosen, are generally forced on women, and do not always afford the people employed in this way wages which take them above the poverty threshold.
If we do not seriously evaluate the sustainable and qualitative nature of growth, there is a risk that we will underestimate the efforts which still need to be made in order finally to give the construction of Europe a social aspect.
This is why we think it imperative to evaluate the success or failure of European employment strategy against the yardstick of the indicators measuring concomitantly the numbers of registered unemployed, standards of living and the quality of jobs created.
It is only when we increase job security and reduce unemployment that we can see the European Union as representing real progress for its residents in terms of civilisation.
<P>
As far as the Greens are concerned, the selection of an ambitious European employment strategy should instigate a number of actions, most of which are currently ignored by the guidelines proposed by the Commission.
The commitments undertaken in favour of the young unemployed and the long-term unemployed must be implemented at a faster rate, it is true.
Job creation must be promoted by combining a number of policies supporting the development of sustainable activities.
<P>
It is fundamental that local employment initiatives are favoured, that the cooperative, mutual and non-profit sector is supported by being guaranteed a status, that the third sector is truly recognised, including by means of public financing, this form of economy emerging between the traditional public sector and the profit sector, based on the creation of socially useful activities.
Broad consultations and public debate must be undertaken in order to decide upon major public works: public transport networks, energy saving programmes, renovation and construction of housing, projects which create a great number of jobs and which benefit everyone' s quality of life.
<P>
Finally, working hours must be reduced, that taboo subject, which we are not allowed to discuss in Europe.
We must find the resources to specifically evaluate the initiatives to reduce working hours which are being implemented in any case, in an equitable or inequitable manner, more or less across the whole of Europe.
And to make real progress, we must really bank on the intelligence of the community.
It is essential to implement a policy whereby community projects and unemployed people' s associations are acknowledged.
It is necessary, at the very least, to preserve their rights to allowances and grants in full.
We urge that you give your enthusiastic support to two amendments contributing towards this, numbers 30 and 31, on which I shall ask the presidency for voting by roll call.
<P>
Finally, institutional practice must be changed so that we really bank on democratic debate and the commitment of all the parties involved.
We must find legal bases at the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference for the whole chapter of social and civil dialogue.
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<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schmid, Herman">
Mr President, unemployment is one of our really big problems in Europe.
Even if it is macroeconomic policy which is the most important factor, an active policy concerning the labour market is also very necessary.
The labour market can no more chart its own course than any other complex systems can, but must instead be regulated and given direction.
It is just a question of how this is to be done.
<P>
In fact, labour markets in Europe all look very different from each other, and the conditions which need to be present before they can be directed and regulated vary from one market to the next.
In certain countries, levels of trade union membership are high.
There, the social partners in the labour market can themselves play the main role.
In other countries, it is the State and the employment agencies which play the main role.
Where future labour markets too are concerned, we must perhaps consider strengthening the rights of individual employees.
<P>
When the Commission and the Council now set about devising employment plans and guidelines, these national differences must be taken account of.
You can have common objectives, but the way of achieving these has to vary depending upon national and regional circumstances.
What is most important is that the actors at national, regional and local levels want to be involved in a constructive way.
There should not be any commands coming from Brussels. Instead, we must listen to the actors in the market and develop a dialogue.
I therefore think it is a good thing that the Commission has now seriously begun to emphasise the importance of local job creation.
I was very pleased to see that one of the main topics in the so-called employment week conference which is now going on in parallel with our own discussions is precisely the importance of local initiatives. This, then, is one of the main themes at this conference.
<P>
Whether or not the Luxembourg process functions effectively will depend in fact upon cooperation between local, regional, national and European actors.
Where this is concerned, I think that the planning and the tools need to be improved.
The Menrad report is a good step in that direction, even though I think that it largely accepts the existing form of planning.
In the future, we in Parliament must be bolder with our proposals and initiatives.
Personally, I think that the convergence philosophy ought to be replaced by an interest in variation, diversity, experiment and the mobilisation of local resources.
Workers should not be regarded as an abstract labour force but as active participants who are to be supported and strengthened by the planning process.
That is, in fact, much more important than individual detailed formulations in the written guidelines.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Hyland">
Mr President, the enactment of the Amsterdam Treaty on 1 May 1999 has certainly ensured that greater attention is given to the implementation of a common employment policy.
The central aspect to the implementation of new employment must be a need to guarantee a fair distribution of job opportunities throughout each Member State through the process of regionalisation and decentralisation.
This is only correct and proper in the light of the fact that 11 countries out of the 15 are participating within a common, single European currency regime.
This also takes into consideration the fact that within the workings of an internal market there are still many social problems which exist in both urban and rural parts of Europe and certainly in my own country, Ireland.
<P>
Unemployment is falling within the European Union and in Ireland it stands at a little over 6% of the population.
However, those people without skills seeking to integrate into the workplace have little or no chance of taking up remunerative and rewarding employment unless they learn a new trade or a different work practice.
National Member State governments must also take into account the provisions of the new European Social Fund regulations.
These regulations in essence will ensure that Member States support programmes that take account of the changing nature of work practices, the need to promote entrepreneurship, as well as supporting local job creation programmes.
This latter point is of particular importance to me and my constituents in the Province of Leinster.
Local job creation initiatives must be supported by national and European Member States.
Local communities, from the private, public and voluntary sectors must be allowed to pool their collective talents in an effort to create employment within the small and medium-sized enterprise sector in their respective areas.
That is why I supported the LEADER initiative both now and in the past and why I support the new EU EQUAL job creation programme.
This is also part of the process of decentralising the implementation of EU and national job creation initiatives.
<P>
The European Union and national Member States must implement programmes which take account of the ever-changing nature of employment, both in urban and rural areas.
This also means that we must address existing difficulties which act as an entry point for men, and particularly women, to take up jobs in the workplace, most particularly so in rural areas.
<P>
One such problem relates to the need to provide greater childcare facilities for women who take up jobs in rural parts of my country and indeed, throughout Europe.
From an Irish perspective I fully welcome the recent publication by the government of its White Paper on rural development.
The government fully recognises that a strategic programme must be put in place if more jobs are to be created within the small and medium-sized enterprise sector in rural parts of Ireland.
An intrinsic element of this relates to the need to put in place more expansive childcare facilities heretofore which simply have not been in existence.
The lack of childcare facilities is a very real and fundamental barrier to women taking up employment in the workplace.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Dam">
Mr President, the employment policy is an issue with regard to which the European Union does not issue any binding legislation.
And this should remain so. Indeed, the serious problem of unemployment justifies an approach which creates optimum impact.
As such, the policy will need to focus on the local or regional job market.
<P>
This approach requires the guidelines to be broadly-based so as to give the Member States sufficient free rein in terms of policy.
The Commission' s plans to monitor the policy efforts and policy results at national level more closely are well-intended but will probably have the opposite effect, especially if this is done by means of a quantitative approach: counting the number of measures, aid schemes and employment projects.
Adding the numbers up in this way tells us nothing about the extent, quality and inventiveness of the policy measures.
Peer pressure amongst the Member States is better addressed by consultation on matters of content, exchange of good practices and focused recommendations which are really what the Member States need.
<P>
Could the representative of the Council explain how the guidelines fit in with other EU policy.
Just before the summer, the Council turned down a regulation to increase the tax burden with regard to energy and to decrease that with regard to employment.
However, recommendation no 14 in the present guidelines recommends this very thing to the Member States.
Why do we have this conflicting approach?
<P>
Finally, I welcome the insistence on a more family-friendly policy in view of the individualistic tendencies which seem to pervade our modern society.
At the same time, I fear that as long as our culture adopts the idea that you only count as a human being if you have a paid job, we will be left fighting a running battle.
The emphasis on economisation within society and the introduction of market forces into virtually all social fields, in particular, have a family-unfriendly impact and put humanity under pressure.
I would ask the European Commission and Member States to undertake a radical overhaul of their policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Cappato">
Mr President, we are being called on to debate the proposal to establish an Employment Committee.
Often the establishment of committees is, in reality, a solution which is adopted in order to avoid addressing a problem, or when the ability, the power or the legal basis needed to address the problem is lacking.
I think that this in reality, the first issue we must address is who must decide on employment policies.
We have already said that the European Parliament was almost totally excluded in Cologne.
I think that at least, given that employment policies at European level are already policies that make suggestions, recommendations and push for coordination between the Member States - so there is no actual concrete, decision-making power, which, all things considered, I believe to be positive for the subsidiarity principle, although it is a somewhat limited power - Parliament should be fully involved.
However, a committee, an apolitical committee runs the risk of being a clearing house where there is the attempt to take the drama out of debates, to find alternative policies in the name of consensus, which is, of course, neutral and non-political, and which I do not think we can find when it comes to employment.
<P>
The system of committees, conciliation and social dialogue must not become a substitute for parliamentary prerogatives.
It must not become a substitute at European level, but obviously it must not become a substitute at national level either, because when we have social dialogue - which, in reality consists of dialogue between the large workers' unions, often in the more traditional sectors of the economy, and big business - it is often dialogue, cooperation and conciliation which result in the exclusion of those who today remain on the fringes of European economic systems, meaning the unemployed, immigrants and prisoners, and keep all those who are outside the system of guaranteed work outside the insiders' system.
And, in fact, there is something very important missing in the guidelines on employment policies, and that is immigration.
In reality we, like the European Union and the Member States, should find the courage to request and promote the entry of hundreds of thousands of people from outside the European Union, as this is the only way that we can fill the jobs with the highest staff turnover rates, because training the manpower, the current workforce in the European Union, is not enough.
A bold, active employment and immigration policy is what is needed to boost employment in the European Union.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Statement by the President
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Turco">
Mr President, I think the response to the investigation you initiated on the document which did not correspond to what had been agreed is just a little bureaucratic, in the sense that the matter which had been raised concerned a document which had been substituted without the knowledge of any of the signatories.
This was the issue, so the response has nothing whatsoever to do with the matter raised.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="President">
We are not going to reopen Thursday' s debate now. The response is the one I have just outlined, which recalls the terms of the inquiry which I had proposed and which everyone agreed to, which was carried out by the Secretary-General and which gave rise to this conclusion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Flautre">
Mr President, is the text which has been presented as the compromise text to the Members of this House the same as that signed by the political groups, yes or no?
The answer is no.
Personally, I find it extremely dangerous that the presidency should be ratifying practices of this type which cast suspicion on the credibility and democracy within the sessional services.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="President">
I refuse to accept your assessment, Mr Flautre, and I would ask you to read the letter that the Secretary-General has given me.
You can read it, as can all the other Members, and I am sure that when you do you will rethink your last remark.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Employment (continued)
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Cocilovo">
Mr President, I too would like to voice my appreciation of the rapporteur' s excellent work carried out in difficult conditions on a difficult subject.
<P>
Two circumstances have shown us that this is a difficult matter: an almost unanimous joint agreement on the urgency and importance of adopting efficient policies to combat unemployment and for this to happen within a framework where the necessary support for a positive economic process will safeguard social cohesion and the European social model.
<P>
That the conditions are complicated is shown by the way our agreement on these objectives often runs the risk of collapsing when it comes to establishing the solutions and strategies for action.
I will therefore concentrate on the things that I believe can be strengthened in the future and which can form one of the elements to be discussed in our debate.
<P>
Firstly, I think that, as regards supply policies to boost employment, our intervention, the joint intervention of the Community institutions of the Member States, is important but it is not enough.
I think there is insufficient coordination between the policies on labour, employment, and managing the job market and the policies which affect structural factors and in the macro-economic framework. There is an insufficient level of structuring and investment in efficient Community institutions capable of managing these processes where it is not enough just to respect the competences and the prerogatives of the national States.
Regarding this matter, I would mention only one problem for the Members who, on the other hand, always show this sensitivity in particular.
We consider unemployment to be an evil to combat, certainly not a circumstance to exploit even in the competition between countries' economic systems and production systems for instrumental competition based on social dumping.
I have never fully understood what is meant when reference is made to a job with a social content but, on the other hand, I definitely do know that a perspective of increasing employment by reducing the fundamental safeguards and fundamental objectives of social cohesion is not possible.
<P>
Finally, as regards active policies on the job market, training and retraining, all important guidelines, I think the level of consensus is insufficient, even on credible gauges of the effectiveness of these policies within national plans on employment, with regard to which the whole range of Community Institutions is, in any case, committed to assessing the successes and results.
When we abandon compensatory policies and passive polices in favour of active policies, we cannot be satisfied by a casual use of words. What counts in gaining qualifications, training and retraining is action.
When talking about the suffering of millions of people, statistics are often deceptive.
We cannot allow them to be used as drunkards sometimes use lampposts - as support when they are unsteady, instead of to light up the way forwards.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Andersson">
Mr President, cooperation within the EU on economic policy has now been taken further.
EMU has been successful in the sense that, once the various countries had established common goals concerning inflation, interest rates and budget deficits, it emerged that coordination of this kind led to the objectives also being achieved.
Inflation is now low, levels of interest are low and budget deficits are either low or have disappeared altogether.
However, cooperation of this kind in the economic sphere is much too one-sided.
We therefore pursued the question of cooperation in the employment field too, with a view to its having the same importance as cooperation in the economic field.
This became possible through the Amsterdam Treaty and by the fact that the Luxembourg process had been set in motion.
<P>
Now we are to discuss the guidelines for next year, that is to say for the year 2000.
The Commission has no doubt been right to base these guidelines upon last year' s and to ensure that no unduly large changes are introduced from year to year.
We still think, however, that increased clarity in a number of areas would be no bad thing.
Let me mention a few such areas.
<P>
Firstly, there must be more coordination between the formulation of the economic guidelines and that of the employment policy guidelines.
Secondly, as Mrs Van Lancker also mentioned, we must have clearer objectives when it comes to increasing the level of employment and reducing long-term unemployment.
It is important that, in these areas, we establish objectives and have a system of benchmarking for the future so that we can achieve the objectives concerned.
<P>
I want, however, to concentrate mainly upon the social security systems.
In Amendment No 1, we say that we especially urge that a strategy be created for social convergence which is analogous to the Luxembourg process regarding employment and with the help of which it can be ensured that the goal of social cohesion is given priority in the development of economic and employment policies.
That is not the first time we have said this. Rather, this Parliament said much the same thing in connection with the Pronk report too.
It was sensible then, and it is sensible now, to support this.
Mr Pronk said previously that we cannot always support Social Democratic proposals.
No, I can understand that, but one might at least support one' s own proposals.
Those which were sensible a year ago are just as sensible today.
<P>
What is the connection, then, between economic development, employment and the social security systems?
In fact, there is a connection in as much as economic stability is necessary for an increase in employment, and high employment is necessary to safeguard the social security systems.
<P>
Finally, does this not conflict with the principle of subsidiarity?
The answer is no.
If we look at the way in which employment strategy has been formulated, the objectives are shared but policy is formulated at local level.
The same will be true when we aim at social convergence.
We shall establish a number of common objectives in terms of combating poverty, establishing sustainable pension systems, securing good health care for all and designing a system which stimulates employment. None of this conflicts with the principle of subsidiarity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Sbarbati">
Mr President, I too would like to thank the rapporteur for his excellent work. It is imperative that we regard the irrefutable fact that unemployment has fallen by 10.1% to 9.4% as being a positive step forward and that we also regard the employment policy embarked upon by the European Union with its four fundamental pillars in the same light while adding to this linguistic training and the issue of immigration.
<P>
We also believe that we need to assess more thoroughly the creation of conditions at Community level whereby these processes can be monitored and regulated efficiently.
We also believe that Europe can and must do more, so that the Europe of the euro will be able to function if we construct a social Europe, a Europe of solidarity and a secure Europe with more incisive macro-economic policies, linked to structural reforms which will stabilise and reorganise the States' public finances.
<P>
It is true that employment policies are national policies, but it is also true that they must now be reproduced at European level, because only through conciliation and social dialogue will we succeed in consolidating the European Parliament' s power on employment policy, and this is the policy that will enable Europe, finally and decisively, to have a political, as well as an economic definition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lipietz">
Mr President, Commissioner, the guidelines rightly stress employability, i.e. the possibility for job seekers to actually do the job they are applying for.
But we must never forget that this is just a possibility.
Between this possibility and the reality of the job itself everything will depend on the state of job vacancies in society.
On this subject, the guidelines speak of enterprise spirit. They are right but, in order to flourish, the entrepreneur needs favourable policy, low interest rates, a competitive euro and, above all, he needs to know the relationship between a given business activity and the number of job offers.
This is the fundamental problem of the relationship between employment levels and growth.
<P>
You acknowledge that with growth at less than 2.4% there was no reduction in employment.
France is currently refuting this diagnosis thanks to its policy of reducing working hours, which is still too cautious.
Let us hope that this policy is intensified and that it is extended in a coordinated fashion to Europe as a whole.
<P>
Finally, there is one form of enterprise which is particular good at creating jobs; i.e. cooperatives, associations, the third sector.
This sector merits a special status, particularly as regards taxation, and this is the subject of the amendments which we are putting to you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Ainardi">
Mr President, Commissioner, paradox it may be, but the Menrad report has again brought unemployment to the fore within the European arena.
<P>
This is a bad time for employment in Europe, with seventeen million unemployed and sixty million people living in poverty.
If employment levels have remained identical to the 1994 levels within the Community, this is principally due to the massive loss of job security.
We are really far short of the target.
The Union needs to be ambitious in its employment policies, it needs voluntarist and binding policies, breaking away from the destructive rationale that is currently at work.
At a time when money should be used to meet the needs of men and women, the needs of society, the Michelin case is a symbol of the tyranny of the law of filthy lucre over the economy and over individuals.
<P>
The citizens of Europe are waiting for clear signals from Parliament.
In order to be effective, then, the guidelines should include quantifiable objectives enforcing job creation.
Reduction of working hours without reducing wages, without job flexibility or insecurity, should be the order of the day as we approach the year 2000.
The Union should be ambitious in using money in favour of employment, monitoring public funds awarded to businesses, with a credit policy which penalises destructive practices and promotes job creation.
<P>
Finally, declaring equal opportunities means that we must reject any form of discrimination against women, particularly with regard to wages.
<P>
Mr Menrad has done a good job in difficult conditions, to be sure.
The report includes many good points, but it does not, in my opinion, live up to our demands and expectations, despite taking a series of amendments debated in the Commission into account.
It is not surprising, therefore, that a series of crucial amendments have again been proposed here by my own group and others. Whether these amendments are taken on board by this House will demonstrate the real will of Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Nobilia">
Mr President, on behalf of the UEN Group, I would like to voice my appreciation of Mr Menrad' s report.
I must also say that, although his work does not define a Community law, it is impossible to ignore the importance of Parliament' s voice on a topic which is defined as a Union priority, employment.
Moreover, I think that Mr Menrad' s report, supplemented by contributions he has had the courtesy to take into consideration, is actually the best possible within the confines of the subject, Parliament' s competences and the constructive methods of Europe.
Nevertheless, the employment issue is not only found in the laudable work that Parliament can and will be able to do, but in a much broader field, sometimes with additional competences, sometimes with transient contents.
<P>
Parliament' s recommendations and assessments of this subject are, of course, valuable, but there are aspects of this undertaking which seem to conflict.
Yesterday, we heard the Council and the Commission talk about the impending start of the macroeconomic dialogue, but opinions and indications from this will not be published - this is what we were told.
But it is not so much this as the rather uncertain spirit which has emerged, full of hope but lacking the desire to coordinate.
The aim that was announced with the launch of the single currency seems to be to create confidence in the economic policies through the stability of monetary policies, prices and budgetary policies, as well as pay moderation and flexibility.
And yet, today, the national macroeconomic dialogues have been shifted to a regional level. Conciliation has affected the regions and the Union in general and their programming ability, including their use of structural instruments and when devising models of local growth.
However, I do not think that the Committee of the Regions is participating in the European macroeconomic dialogue, or that there are indicators in the assessment of the achievements of the States with regard to the creation of employment polices at local level, which are often entrusted only to the activism and will of the social partners.
<P>
Moreover, a fundamental role in employment strategies and social integration is reserved for these very social partners, and there is still no clear definition of the role of the social partners in their capacity as NGOs. But that is not all.
We cannot only deal with pay moderation and flexibility for their own sake, because this would misrepresent the nature and spirit of the national dialogues, the maintenance of social protection systems and all the planning instruments negotiated on the subject, sensitive not only to small and medium-sized businesses but also to those sectors that are more compatible with tradition and the characteristics of the territory.
Taxation and security are certainly not secondary considerations, on the contrary they are more important than moderation and flexibility.
The hope is to establish an exclusively European model that is more coordinated and more transparent but also more determined where the States, because of their diversity, are not only divided into the strong and the weak.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Krarup">
Page 13 of the Commission' s report on employment refers to the fact that the level of employment is highest in Denmark, and two other countries are also mentioned.
We are talking here about the three countries which are outside the euro area.
This is in itself worth noting.
I want to latch onto that graceful term "level of employment" .
This is one of those euphemisms which conceal the problem that, in this richest part of the world, we have 60 million citizens who are living under the poverty line and more than 20 million unemployed.
It is noteworthy and thought-provoking that the countries outside the euro area have higher levels of employment and, if we look outside the European Union, we find a still higher level of employment, namely in our neighbouring country, Norway.
The main cause of this problem area of employment, this blemish upon our society, is in fact macroeconomic.
It is the EMU convergence criteria which, in themselves, promote unemployment.
When we voted on the Amsterdam Treaty in Denmark, we were told that a number of decisive leaps forward in the direction of actively combating unemployment were being taken.
We never believed this.
On the contrary, the macroeconomic reality is the opposite.
The EMU project creates unemployment and, where active labour market policy is concerned, it is transparently obvious that this presupposes local and national initiatives, and this on the very grounds that the labour markets in the countries of the European Union are organised on such widely different lines that it is impossible to implement anything other than the quite general and non-binding measures specified in the proposals we have before us.
There are a lot of words, but there is a poignant gap between the words and the reality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lang">
Mr President, figures for unemployment and poverty in Europe are still disastrous, with 60 million people living below the poverty line, 9% unemployment and 25% unemployment among young people. It is not what you might call a positive result, especially if you consider that the slight upturn in 1999 was due, primarily, to an improvement in the economic situation in which neither governments nor the European Union played any part.
You might even say that, in France, the creation of jobs in retail was achieved in spite of government policy.
<P>
To tell the truth, reading the two Menrad reports, one cannot help thinking that the European Union is attempting to offer first aid, even though it is its own policy which is largely responsible for the social troubles affecting tens of millions of Europeans.
Since the Treaty of Amsterdam, Brussels has had official, full and legal access to a new area of interference in social and employment matters.
Indeed, it cannot be repeated often enough that it is its ultraliberal internal policies and ultra-internationalist external policies, its cult of the opening of frontiers and of the almighty market which have brought our economies to their present plight.
<P>
A number of guidelines proposed by the Commission may seem positive.
Surprisingly, one can even find common-sense proposals in them for a voluntarist family policy.
But the good ideas are limited to the chapter headings, whilst examination of the detailed measures reveals the true nature of the Union' s action on employment.
This action is just another pretext to extend the jurisdiction of Brussels to areas where its intervention can be nothing other than harmful - social protection, retirement, wage policy, taxation.
We will be spared nothing: harmonisation, unification of legislation, alignment to the lowest bid in social terms. We can expect loss of job security, the erosion of working conditions, widespread social decline.
It is indeed time for a change in policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="Bushill-Matthews">
There is much to be welcomed in this report and the messages that it is trying to give and I would join others in congratulating Mr Menrad on the skill with which he has put his report together.
<P>
As British conservatives we share the concern expressed throughout this House that the high level of unemployment in the EU as a whole is indeed a major problem and that a significant decline has to be the aim.
Specifically we welcome the references to equal opportunities including the old as well as the young unemployed and for the need to promote employment of the disabled.
We welcome the comments of the EMAC committee that the need for administrative costs and taxes and charges on SMEs to be reduced should be particularly stressed as these represent one of the biggest obstacles to growth in employment.
We also welcome the general call for a tax review for reductions in fiscal and social security burdens plus red tape, all of which increase unemployment and bear down on jobs.
<P>
However, we do not accept one key conclusion about the single currency, where it is stated to be fact that the implementation of economic and monetary union creates a good climate for new jobs.
It is not a fact.
The experiment has just begun and our views on the single currency are well known.
<P>
Finally, we do not accept that it is for the EU to lay down prescriptive rules for Member States on the key issue of unemployment and we regard as very ominous some of the suggestions from Members opposite this morning that the guidelines should become reinforced or indeed binding.
Different problems in different Member States require different national solutions to create the right climate for their businesses to create jobs.
So, if and when these guidelines become rules, dictating to national governments what they must do, then we would oppose them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Cercas">
Mr President, Commissioner, I believe that it is intelligent and necessary to begin this brief contribution to the debate on employment guidelines by congratulating ourselves on the positive European statistics and I would like to show my appreciation for the work of all those who have worked so intelligently so that we may finally have a procedure for coordination in the field of employment, as provided for in article 128 of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
<P>
But, at the same time, I hope not only to express satisfaction but also concern, because the project and the procedure, in my view, are ambiguous.
Together with the clear fact that it is very important that the Union has, as one of its objectives, a high level of employment and social protection, we can see that the data shows that there is still an enormous gap between the support given and the needs of those people whose families and themselves personally suffer from the scourge of unemployment.
<P>
And I would describe this procedure as insufficient, not because it is naïve to believe that it is easy to carry out, nor because it is puerile to ask the Commission and the Council to achieve objectives which are beyond their capabilities.
I believe that it is insufficient because we are still treating the problem as if it were a current problem when, in reality, Europe is suffering from a structural problem of an historic nature, born of a change in production methods, born of an increase in productivity in work which leads to increases in production and wealth which do not result in increases in employment and that this increase in wealth is distributed amongst companies and the workers who are in work, leaving those in a worse situation out of the picture: women, unqualified young people and the long-term unemployed.
To sum up, it is because we continue basically to believe that the market will resolve a problem which cannot be resolved by the market because it is not a current problem, but rather a problem caused by our model of society.
<P>
And I would like to take advantage of the few seconds remaining to say to the Commissioner - while thanking her for being here - that she should keep an eye on the figures provided by the Governments, firstly, to ensure that those figures are accurate and, secondly, so that they do not continue to provide data on active policies which are actually figures arising from taxes on employment and social welfare contributions.
We see, although we do not have time to illustrate it, that in the Governments' reports, figures are given on new initiatives on active policies, but they are being financed through taxes on employment and social welfare contributions.
I therefore think that the Commission should be more diligent so that, so to speak, "they do not have the wool pulled over their eyes" and let us see whether, finally, in the year 2000, we may have criteria and levels to measure our objectives, our means and our results in terms of quality rather than just quantity.
Only in this way will European employment strategy be more than just propaganda in some of our countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Ducarme">
Mr President, this is an interesting report and the proposals will no doubt be widely approved by the vote in Parliament, but going beyond the Commission proposals which simply, in my view, go over the Luxembourg process again, there is one question which arises and that is why attention is not focussed on the Monti Report even though it clearly demonstrates that it is the lack of social convergence or fiscal convergence which is costing jobs in all the countries of the Union.
<P>
The message I would like to convey to the Commissioner is as follows: let us not simply stay with the framework as it is presented, with interest in employment fading.
Let us get back to basics and realise that it is not possible to have a better employment policy if, after the phase of economic and monetary convergence, we do not wish to establish full social and fiscal convergence, with standards common to all the States of the Union.
<P>
I await proposals such as these from the new Commission, knowing, Mr President, that at this time we are to encounter the social objective of the Union, and that means greater social richness and employment which is not based on partial measures but on economic development and on businesses which are fully profitable and reliable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bouwman">
Mr President, following on from Mrs Van Lancker, I would like to say a few words regarding the modernisation of the organisation of labour, i.e. job improvement.
<P>
The outcome of the national plans of action in terms of modernisation is very disappointing indeed.
It partly deals with partnership and consultation of employees and partly with new types of work and working times.
The then Green Paper on the modernisation of the organisation of labour was an incentive to overcome the kind of labour organisation that is based on strong arm tactics.
It hardly had any impact at all.
<P>
The reports show that in some countries the low level of participation of people older than 55, women - think of the gender divide - seems to go hand in hand with relatively low unemployment.
The people' s opinions on their work in terms of stress and all sorts of other phenomena are extremely negative.
It is against this background, in particular, that the drafting of guideline 16, the modernisation of labour organisation, has been rather disappointing and it is likely that too much is being left for the European social partners i.e. employers to deal with.
<P>
If the next round of national plans of action still does not yield any progress then we feel that stronger measures should be taken.
I would like to appeal to the Commission to pay more attention to the quality of the work rather than just the quantity of employment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Brie">
Mr President, my views involve some important distinctions.
For example, I see the enhancement of regional and local employment initiatives and the greater emphasis on equal opportunities for women in employment policy as being positive, although I believe that Mrs Theorin' s criticism in this respect is still valid.
Nevertheless, I think that the basic positions are inadequate.
Each one of us has too many unemployed people amongst his or her constituents. We should have rejected that old chestnut put forward by the Commission that the unemployed ought to be encouraged, by deregulating the labour market and imposing social constraints, to look for work or seek assistance under employment policy measures.
I believe that the causes of mass unemployment are essentially structural and socio-political.
Sweeping references to service sector jobs in the USA make the picture quite clear: everyone knows that these are mainly underpaid jobs with no social security net.
Anyone who wants to follow this US model is accepting or even participating in the destruction of the welfare state in Europe.
<P>
I also regret that it has become fashionable to ignore macroeconomic analysis.
As long as financial markets are more lucrative than investing in business, then the problem of unemployment will no doubt remain unsolved.
I therefore urge you, ladies and gentlemen, to support the amendment that refers to this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hermange">
Mr President, I would like, in turn, to congratulate the rapporteur on his excellent contribution and also to thank the administrative staff of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs who, considering the conditions we had to work in, assisted us until late in the evening.
Thanks to the constructive proposals for employment policies of Member States for the year 2000, proposals based on a fair analysis of the joint report on employment, Mr Menrad' s report outlines the route to be taken for Europe to maximise the potential of its extraordinary human capital.
It is significant, too, that the report makes mention of demographic trends, as it is true that an ageing continent is a continent which is committing economic suicide.
The report falls completely in line with the Luxembourg Process, for which, personally, I would have preferred objectives giving specific figures, and it is also in line with our desire to receive the report proposed by the Commission on the annual national employment action plans.
<P>
In this respect I share the opinion of the rapporteur who stresses the need for our institution, jointly with the Commission, to supervise the implementation of European initiatives on employment within Member States.
It is essential for a transparent and democratic public debate to take place and I have no doubt that if the Luxembourg process took place it was because Parliament was to some extent instrumental in this.
But what I would like to say is that I consider it to be essential that this strategy which is just beginning to bear fruit should not be obstructed by rigid measures which are not adapted to the interests of businesses or of workers.
Yesterday, members of the French Parliament met with French industrialists, and they reiterated that they did not want to see rigid and unsuitable measures obstructing this movement in favour of employment.
<P>
Now to the second part of my intervention. I would like to stress the role of social dialogue within the framework of this policy.
Social dialogue must be renewed. It is essential for workers to participate in the decisions which affect them and if, at the time, Mr Schweitzer, the chairman of Renault, had consulted the European Advisory Committee, created and proposed by this House, we would no doubt not have had the Vilvorde affair, and we would not perhaps have had the Michelin case.
Secondly, the voluntary participation of employees in the production capital of their firm is also desirable and urgently needed, as the rapporteur writes in Amendment No 12 to the employment guidelines, for two reasons: firstly, for financial reasons, involving the need to improve businesses' allocation of equity capital, in order to withstand the dictates of the major investment funds and to safeguard employment, but also for a human reason connected with the evolution of jobs in the future, requiring an ever higher level of training and a personal commitment which is only given true worth and encouraged intelligently by profit sharing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Weiler">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would also like to thank Mr Menrad.
His report provides a helpful basis which, it also has to be said, has been very greatly improved upon by our shadow rapporteur Anna Van Lancker.
<P>
As for the Liberals who have spoken, I would like to tell them that their theory that Europe does not need an employment policy comes five years too late.
European employment policy has already undeniably demonstrated its value.
Various analyses have shown that the Member States have taken many sensible initiatives, that they are taking workers' initial and further training more seriously than before and that new jobs have been created by means of this employment policy, and above all, Mr Brie, in the services sector.
Our committee does not want to see new jobs in services with pay below the poverty level, as in America - we want quality employment in services also closely linked with production.
<P>
It is possible to criticise the policy adopted up to now, especially the measures taken by Member States. We are not being persistent enough in fighting the exclusion of older workers, and it is evident that in all Member States, even in Sweden, women do not participate to the same extent in working life.
<P>
It seems to me that despite the Employment Pact, despite the social dialogue, employers - businesses - are totally ignoring this issue.
There is an urgent need for them to become involved, and financially too!
It is not acceptable for the financing of employment policy to be a matter solely for the Member States and solely for the European Union.
<P>
Furthermore, both sides of industry must of course be involved in the process of renewing and modernising employment in the Member States.
Involving employees and keeping them informed is a prerequisite for this.
The Commission needs to play a more active role here, because there is still a great deal to be done in this area, as we saw in last week' s debate on Michelin.
<P>
It is essential for the European Parliament to be involved in the guidelines, that much we agree upon.
It is, however, also essential, as Anna Van Lancker has already said, to have specific, measurable benchmarks for the guidelines.
That is why we are tabling these amendments.
I have to say that I totally fail to comprehend why our Conservative friends do not want to support measurable benchmarks for the Member States, for example increasing the employment rate or achieving a specific reduction in long-term unemployment over five years.
You will even be helping the Socialist and Social-Democrat heads of government in a way that could scarcely have been expected!
<P>
Finally, I would like to mention - since our Conservative friend has already told us this - that the euro is probably also a successful example of employment policy.
All Member States have worked to comply with the stability criteria, as have those countries that wish to join the European Union.
We also need these specific criteria for employment policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Cacciari">
Mr President, the Commission proposal on guidelines for employment policies in 2000 does not really add anything new as compared with previous documents.
Nevertheless, it does contain some really crucial points, in particular on information systems and the policies facilitating the transfer of these systems to labour.
It is also right to emphasise, as do Amendments 2 and 3 to Guidelines 1 and 2, that long-term unemployment cannot be fought effectively with State subsidies.
<P>
I would also like to emphasise three limits which we still have to resolve concerning employment policies that the Commission proposal does not adequately address.
First of all, there is still not enough attention being given to small and medium-sized industry, which has other problems apart from an excessive tax burden, which is typical of large industry too.
<P>
Moreover, the document does not even mention the role of an active credit policy intended to support firms - the European credit system is still light-years away from the American system in this regard - and I think that the endeavours of the European Union and the Member States to redirect it have, until now, been very weak.
<P>
Finally, the main shortcoming of these documents concerns the definition of the role of the regions and local authorities in an active labour policy.
If we continue to think in terms of macroeconomic planning and we do not start instead with conciliation at local level and between administrators, trade unions and entrepreneurs in establishing concrete development plans based on actual resources, then we will never address the root of the employment problem.
To this end, Amendment No 15 to Guideline 12 is important, but still not sufficient.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Evans, Jillian">
Several Members have mentioned the need for measures to prevent discrimination against women in employment policies.
We should be explicit in the guidelines about the measures that can be implemented like parental benefits, childcare facilities and policies to combat sexual harassment.
<P>
We also need to call on the Member States to do more than promote equal pay.
The directive on equal pay was adopted over twenty years ago but there is still a 28% pay gap so we should strengthen the wording in the guidelines and urge the Member States to adopt measures to ensure equal pay.
<P>
The Commission' s report on the implementation of the employment policies stated that Member States had failed to go beyond token efforts at alleviating gender inequalities.
Successful mainstreaming requires that the people making policy understand how to implement it effectively.
So there is a need for training and awareness raising and a better balance of women and men in decision making.
Research just published in Wales that I represent has shown once again that women are hugely under-represented in management positions at work and do not move up the career ladder as quickly as their qualifications should allow.
We know this is a typical scenario and it merits specific attention in the guidelines.
So I would ask Members to support Amendments Nos 37 and 38 which would achieve this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Figueiredo">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as you can see from the reports on employment policies in the Member States, there is a high level of non-compliance with the guidelines on employment, and unemployment is still very high - particularly long-term unemployment - and this affects young people and women most of all.
This proves that what is essential, apart from employment guidelines, are changes to economic/financial and monetary policies.
The main barrier to the creation of good quality jobs with associated rights is the existence of a Stability Pact which has criteria for nominal convergence that impose restrictions on public investment and influence economic and social policies.
<P>
What is needed, then, is a change in these policies, so that the priority becomes to establish clear objectives and produce efficient instruments for the creation of lasting jobs with associated rights, and to achieve a significant corresponding reduction in unemployment.
I hope, then, that Parliament will adopt the proposals leading towards this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Karas">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the review process facilitates control, and we should, of course, exert that control to a greater extent.
I therefore think that both aspects covered in the Menrad report are important, because peace and security on the one hand and growth and employment on the other are key policy priorities for the European Union.
But the review process and target setting release neither the Member States nor the two sides of industry from their main responsibility for employment policy in their countries, because they are specific.
<P>
Benchmarking has been mentioned.
I would like to add a few thoughts here.
We are all talking about primarily structural unemployment.
There are several indicators of structural unemployment: excessively high labour costs, lack of flexibility in working hours and general employment profile, an underdeveloped services sector, an over-heavy state and bureaucratic regulatory burden, slow rates of innovation and long lead times between scientific findings and implementation in production.
<P>
So the first step we need to take along this path is to further reduce public debt.
In most countries, we are still taking on new debts to pay off old ones.
That means mortgaging the future, especially for the younger generation.
We need more scope for the investment required for the future.
Secondly, we have to combat structural indicators and step up the pace of structural reform, if we really want to bring down unemployment in the long term and not just increase employment figures.
Thirdly, we need to give innovation in education policy a boost, because many young people, and also the long-term unemployed, cannot find work on the job market with their qualifications, because they are not yet adequately qualified to cope with new developments in technology.
<P>
Fourthly, we must make it easier to start up new businesses, and we should support the small and medium-sized companies that provide and create 80% of the jobs in Europe with a harmonised and coordinated fiscal policy, and remove the constraints on starting up new businesses.
If we proceed in accordance with the guidelines and these principles, then we will not only increase the number of those in work, but also reduce existing unemployment, and that is our goal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Koukiadis">
Mr President, the rapporteur, Mr Menrad, had a difficult task and ought to be congratulated on the orderly way in which he has carried it out.
Most of the amendments express the anguish of us all over the most difficult problem of the single market - the problem of unemployment.
This has a bearing, although this has not been voiced, on the fate of our democracies because, as history has taught us, democracies are not maintained just by the production of wealth; they also presuppose distribution on a large scale to the large majority of the population which, in today' s society, presupposes guaranteeing employment.
<P>
One of the most interesting recommendations from the proposed amendments is the development of more analytical, comparative, quantitative objectives and parallel statistical data with a view to improving comparative evaluation.
However, it should be noted that, in acknowledging that unemployment is not just a quantitative but also a qualitative factor, the quantification of the qualitative aspects of employment must be more extensive in respect of levels of income, working hours and special working conditions.
After all, leaving aside for the moment the actual form of employment, this is by no means unfeasible.
Qualitative data of this kind are the spirit of our social model and, with this in mind, there should be some means of representing minimum protection and the rate of reduction in the invisible sector.
<P>
Also, employment growth must be linked to the type of activities which do actually stimulate it, because increasing employment using measures adapted to transitory working models is only a short-term solution and a waste of resources.
In this sense, Amendment No 9 in Guideline 7 is on the right track.
However, it does not fully accord with Guidelines 1 and 2, which specify vocational training with a view to effective integration into the labour market.
The amendment incorporates the term "lasting integration into the labour market" , which is an improvement.
The Member States should, however, interpret this to mean that the main part of the programmes should not be based on past activities but on those which aim primarily at achieving a capacity to create.
<P>
One further remark concerning the services sector.
Guideline 13 rightly mentions the development of the services sector and of industry-related services.
I believe that a broader approach should have been taken on these issues.
Developing the service sector can be effected in two opposing ways. On the one hand, we have the development of services within all sectors of production, including the agricultural sector, of which no mention has been made, thus breaking down the barriers between them and, on the other hand, we have the industrialisation of the service sector.
The former creates wealth and so mention should have been made of services in the agricultural sector, whereas the latter, banks and insurance companies for instance, will lead to job losses and therefore other measures will have to be taken.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Procacci">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the employment problem is not only an issue for the national States, but also for Europe.
Recognising this does not mean removing the Member States' competences, but asserting that with a broader and more cohesive view of the employment issue we can work with greater efficiency to address one of the most important matters of our time.
We therefore need an institutional balance split between the Union' s objectives and guidelines and the Member States' free choices.
The Committee is a first step in this direction, but it is not enough.
<P>
As regards the guidelines, I would like to talk specifically about the part which concerns the transition from school to work.
This aim is not pursued only by the albeit commendable proposals contained in Guidelines 7 and 8.
Certainly, it is good that schools are recognised as having a fundamental role in combating unemployment, but there is no reference to the need for schools to operate in the field of planning within Europe as a whole, encompassing the participation of social partners, local organisations and the business world.
Therefore, the Commission needs to refer to this aspect and undertake to promote support programmes which will encourage this perspective.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Thomas">
Mr President, for years the European Parliament has been putting considerable pressure on the Member States.
We are tired of woolly declarations of intent where tough decisions are called for.
Now, just before the turn of the Millennium, we are reaping the harvest that we sowed at the Luxembourg Employment Summit in 1997.
Under Christian Democrat leadership we were successful in persuading political, economic and social actors to join the practical battle against unemployment and for new work structures.
The group pressure predicted actually materialised.
Who would want to be one of the ones who have not done their homework?
Furthermore, there is added value at European level if the two sides of industry can also learn from each other how to develop new concepts and to implement pilot schemes.
<P>
It was absolutely right to nominate Winfried Menrad as rapporteur of the 2000 report.
All three committees that I belong to concur with much of his excellent work, which was produced under considerable time pressure. That certainly applies to the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and, with perhaps a few reservations, to the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities, where the maxim "less would have been more" applies.
<P>
The report indicates that much of the progress will not be sustainable.
In one case there is a lack of macroeconomic thinking, in another a failure to implement structural reforms, and in the third a lack of coordination between economic and employment policy.There has obviously been an increase in preventive measures such as integrating the long-term unemployed into the labour market, and in active measures such as incentives to seek work or create jobs.
But what is lacking is retraining leading to qualifications, and training facilities for young unemployed people.
There is also a lack of part-time work models for older employees who are capable of work and keen to do it.
<P>
We must not forget young people, who need access to practical experience with computers and the Internet.
In this case the Member States are responsible for providing knowledge about information technology.
Also, we must not forget those late developers who we need to give a second chance to by opening doors to our education and training systems.
I am pleased to say that the biggest progress has been with small and medium-sized companies, which are now working in an improved environment for new start-ups, as various administrative burdens have been lifted.
But we need action on access to risk capital and worker participation in production capital.
In short, the four pillars of employability, entrepreneurial spirit, flexibility and equal opportunities are stable components of a framework to provide secure jobs in the future.
My amendment, which has been accepted, seeks to ensure that we firmly adhere to the annual cycle for reviewing the guidelines, so that Member States do not let up in actively promoting employment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Ghilardotti">
Mr President, in its document on the guidelines on employment policies in the Member States for 2000, the Commission takes as its starting point a basic consideration: that after its launch at the extraordinary summit, the progress made in the development of the process towards employment has been considerable. It states that 1.8 million additional jobs have been created in Europe, and therefore confirms the four pillar structure and the main points of the guidelines.
<P>
We can agree on the need to keep the structure substantially unchanged. Nevertheless, despite Mr Menrad' s commendable work, both the Commission document and the European Parliament report could have and, above all, should have attempted more.
In particular, coordination between the macroeconomic policies and the guidelines for employment must change from being simple dialogue to agreement between the Member States, without invalidating the competences and responsibilities of the States themselves, which no-one is calling into question.
However, the guidelines and recommendations at European level need to be transformed into concrete, quantifiable objectives which the Member States must aim towards with their own national plans - concrete objectives which define targets that we can gauge in the medium term, converging in terms of employment levels and the reduction of the current gap between the employment of men and women, and also through investments in infrastructure and services and the promotion of youth employment.
We need to establish quantitative and qualitative indicators.
It is not a question of a solution at European level, as some fear, but it is, of course, a question of recommending a range of instruments which will effectively allow us to create employment and bring about social cohesion.
We need, then, to take a giant leap forwards. We need to be bold.
The launch of the single currency was possible because constraints were set down.
If we do not do the same for employment we will never achieve sufficient results.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Kauppi">
Mr Speaker, the reform of the Union' s employment policy that began in Luxembourg in 1997 is one of the biggest and most important projects the EU has launched during these past few years.
Although the main responsibility for the project naturally lies with the Member States, to carry through such a large-scale programme of reform without coordination at Union level would be politically impossible in the single market.
The European employment policy is, indeed, badly in need of reform!
The basic structures of the Member States are the biggest problems.
High taxes, enormous levels of welfare contributions and an inflexible pay policy often lead to a situation where society becomes demoralised and where work no longer is a financially motivating alternative for the individual.
<P>
The framework exists, however, for bringing about change.
The single currency offers a splendid environment for the promotion of employment.
Establishment of the internal market will inevitably add flexibility to the labour market which, in turn, will make the entire European economy more dynamic.
In addition, the convergence of the economic policies of the euro countries as a result of the single currency offers the opportunity to seek optimal models, a process known as benchmarking.
A prerequisite of this is, of course, that we have comparable indicators; these have already been mentioned a few times here this morning; and, why not - sometimes we should look for these models outside the borders of the European Union, as well.
<P>
The proposal for guidelines is very appropriate, and in particular Mr Menrad, the rapporteur, has done some excellent work.
I would especially like to emphasise the importance of the measures taken to improve the employment facilities of SMEs.
We simply have to try to reduce administrative costs, taxes and expenses.
At the same time, I would also like to refer to the VAT experiment in the service industries which the Member States, with a few exceptions, do not appear willing to join at present despite the fact that it was duly carried through in the Council, I wish this matter had had a different outcome, at least as far as my own country, Finland, is concerned.
<P>
I also consider it slightly worrying that the proposals for guidelines for the year 2000 are coming under discussion before the tangible actions regarding the old guidelines have been concluded or even started.
The Member States have committed themselves to implement these guidelines in their own national programmes.
They must also be given the opportunity to do this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Damião">
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fatuzzo">
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Howitt">
In congratulating Mr Menrad on his report I want to concentrate on progress or the lack of it in achieving employment guideline 9, promoting a labour market open to all.
<P>
It is precisely at a time when prosperity is returning to Member States across this European Union that those marginalised from the world of work can and must be helped.
If that is not achieved now, these victims of social exclusion will be left out altogether for all time.
<P>
The European Commission is quite right in its report to criticise lack of progress on employment for these disadvantaged groups within the Member States and to call for greater mainstreaming in our employment programmes linked to measures to combat discrimination.
This European Parliament is right in our Amendment No 13 to support the holistic approach and for the development of comparable targets, which I will refer to in a moment and which I call on all in this Parliament to support.
<P>
I welcome the examples in the report, in particular concerning employment of people with disabilities.
On this morning, when welfare benefits for disabled people are causing great public debate in my own country, the United Kingdom, I welcome our example of the new deal for disabled people which has sought to break down the barriers by providing personal advisers at the local level through what is known as a single gateway to use flexibly both employment and social security budgets with unemployed disabled people to genuinely find the measures which will assist them into work.
But here, at the European level, we can do more.
If it has been possible to secure performance targets from Member States in relation to both youth and long-term unemployed people, why do we not seek a similar target to improve the employment of disabled unemployed people too.
And, if it is the absence of reliable statistics cited as the problem, urgent action for adequate definitions of the information should be called for.
If we do not do this, perhaps the Commissioner could explain how we can possibly evaluate the success of our policies and how disabled, unemployed people can be helped back into work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bodrato">
Mr President, Mr Menrad' s report appears quite correct in giving the modernisation of labour a fundamental role in increasing productivity, competitiveness and therefore also employment.
Nevertheless, the conclusions have some limits.
There is competition between the Member States on labour policy and the standards of the European Social Model which does not contribute to the achievement of the objectives which we say we wish to pursue and the conditions which, in theory, are guaranteed.
<P>
When we state that the reduction of the tax burden on the cost of labour must not involve the reorganisation of public finances nor the balance of security systems, we are proposing a squaring of the circle that only strong economic growth can resolve.
In reality, there is a trend to regain competitiveness by putting some social costs onto family budgets.
In this way, though, the social divide will grow and, in some cases, marginalisation and fresh poverty will also increase.
In any case, Europe risks in particular, in the globalisation of the markets, having to endure competition from those large economies which have invested, and continue to invest, more in technology and research, as well as in professional youth training, that is, in the future of hi-tech industries.
So I think that Mr Menrad is right when, in his general conclusions, he emphasises the need for the Commission to harmonise the documents on the main lines of the economic policy and guidelines on employment.
I think that, in this area, the Committee could be a very important step.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Diamantopoulou">
Madam President, I would like to congratulate and thank Mr Menrad on his work.
I must also say that I listened attentively to, and would like to thank, Mr Grosch and Mrs Theorin for the opinions of their respective Committees on the issue of the Employment Package.
<P>
In my view, the outcome of this two-and-a-half hour discussion is extremely optimistic and it is clear that the European Parliament is following, debating and, above all, making proposals on the extremely sensitive issue of a European employment strategy.
I would like to stress, since we have heard many opinions and proposals from various MEPs on the role of the Commission as regards setting targets for effective action, that the European employment strategy will support and encourage national policies and, in this regard, we are trying to cooperate as closely as possible with Member States.
<P>
Today, the employment guidelines have been debated in the Committee on Employment and the Economic Committee, and intense deliberations are under way to get them to the Council, where we believe that they will be adopted in full. An official debate will be held on 29 November in the Joint Council between national finance ministers and employment ministers.
<P>
I would like to point out that apparently there is an agreement on how we should draft and implement guidelines for next year.
There are no major changes, the 4 cornerstones still apply and the changes made to the guidelines are very small and cover 4 points.
The first is greater focus on the transition from training to work, the second is in the area of information technology where strenuous efforts are already being made, including the forthcoming Commission initiative on the information society, to coordinate the issue of employment with information technology; the third is active involvement at local level, where the Member States should pursue and work towards increasing the role of local authorities and, of course, the role of the social partners.
Madam President, I would like to comment very briefly on the some basic principles which came out of the Menrad report and which were taken up by many of the speakers.
<P>
The first is that it is clear that successful implementation of the European employment strategy requires a stable macroeconomic framework which is why there is close and continuous cooperation in the whole of the process of macroeconomic dialogue.
<P>
The second serious issue is the issue of indicators and harmonisation of statistical services and indicators of the Member States.
It is an issue which, as was rightly said, is not technical and is not technocratic, but it is profoundly political.
It is extremely important yet extremely difficult at the same time to have a monitoring system for the Member States.
It is one of our priorities and we are trying to make a success of the process of harmonising indicators.
<P>
The next point concerns the concept of lifelong learning.
We have made some effort here, but it is clear from the recommendations to the Member States that not as much emphasis has been placed on lifelong learning as there perhaps should have been.
Our goal for the coming year will be to have a more vigorous and better organised policy on lifelong learning of workers in the Member States.
<P>
The next issue concerns information technology.
There was mention of a target and a proposal for targets at national level in the area of the information society.
I believe that we can be even more ambitious and set common European targets in the area of the information society because we cannot talk of the convergence of Member States unless there is convergence in the particularly sensitive area of the information society.
Furthermore, I would like to remind you of the decision taken by the leading States in Cologne to equip schools with access to the Internet.
<P>
I would like to mention the extremely important issue of the development and formulation of policies by local authorities at regional level within the Member States.
This was also one of the priorities and initiatives of the Finnish Presidency and we believe that the Council will consolidate such an approach.
<P>
Members of Parliament, the proposal for closer cooperation between the Commission and the European Parliament to promote the strategy for the European policy has once again been reiterated.
It is clear that from Cologne we do have specific procedures, such as the spring and autumn procedures, but of course, I am awaiting proposals and practical means of implementing closer cooperation, which should be initiated by the respective Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner, for your contribution.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place shortly.
<P>
Mr Cappato and Mr Costa have notified me that they did not wish to participate in the vote.
I take that to mean that they are in fact present.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Cappato">
Madam President, I would like to inform the Members that Rule 51 of the Rules of Procedure was, in fact, repealed by bureaucratic means. This is the Rule which should allow Members to sign written declarations which, if they are signed by the majority of Members, would be directly sent to the institutions mentioned in the declarations themselves.
Well, in my opinion, this right has in fact been taken from us.
In Strasbourg, I myself tried to sign Mr Parry' s proposal to transfer Parliament' s activities to Brussels, thereby giving Parliament, finally, one single seat. It took twenty minutes.
No-one knew where the office was, and it turned out to be on the second floor of the Tower, a long way from the Chamber, even further than it was during the last parliamentary term - and that was far enough.
<P>
Now look at the location of the relevant offices for the only signatures we are comfortably allowed, signatures to receive the money for our being here.
If they hid these offices somewhere inside the parliamentary maze we would probably rebel.
So I call upon our dignity as Members of Parliament, President, because we need to give signatures relating to politics and political declarations the same dignity and importance reserved for the signatures for our presence here and for our money.
<P>
I now come to my second point.
Only a Parliament which seeks to shut away political declarations and political signatures in basements, a Parliament which, in fact, is regulated by bureaucratic logic, can allow the months-old situation of discrimination against non-attached Members who have less rights than other Members to continue in this fashion.
We do not intend to collaborate with this discrimination, and therefore, neither on this occasion do we intend to take part in the votes until this matter...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Nassauer">
Madam President, during yesterday' s roll-call vote some other Members and I gave our names because our voting machines were not working.
I have now seen, much to my surprise, that according to the Minutes you did not see my request to speak.
I would be grateful if you have that corrected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="President">
Absolutely.
On the subject, as we are about to begin voting, I would like to tell you that, for our part, we have checked that all the machines are working properly, and I hope that you will check, for your part, that you all have your cards.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Costa, Raffaele">
Madam President, I feel obliged to support Mr Cappato' s requests on the assessment of the composition of the parliamentary group.
<P>
If the matter is not resolved, I think that there will be other Members who will not be taking part in the votes.
I hope this will not prove necessary.
<P>
<P>
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0042/1999) on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive concerning the enforcement of provisions in respect of seafarers' hours of work on board ships calling at Community ports (8639/1/1999 - C5-0035/1999 - 1998/0321(COD)) (Committee on Employment and Social Affairs) (rapporteur: Mr Hughes)
<P>
(The President declared the common position approved)
<P>
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0041/1999) on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directive 93/104/EC concerning certain aspects of the organisation of working time to cover sectors and activities excluded from that Directive (8642/1/1999 - C5-0036/1999 - 1998/0318(COD) (Committee on Employment and Social Affairs) (rapporteur: Mrs Smet)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Hudghton">
Before the next series of votes on the Smet report, could Mrs Smet be given the opportunity to clarify on the record a point which she was not given the opportunity to clarify at the end of the debate yesterday in relation to share fishermen, who are self-employed fishermen.
Can Mrs Smet confirm on the record whether or not the provisions of this proposal will apply or not to self-employed fishermen, please?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="President">
Obviously, there is no question of re-opening yesterday' s debate on this.
Mrs Smet did, however, request that she might be given the floor in order to propose, I believe, that the vote be postponed until the Strasbourg part-session. I shall give her the floor immediately.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Smet">

Mr President, in response to the question raised a minute ago regarding fishermen, if they are self-employed, they do not fall within the scope of the directive. If they are employed by someone else, then the directive will apply to them.
<P>
The request to delay voting until the next part-session in Strasbourg will hopefully enable the last few discussions between the groups to be resolved.
This is a second reading.
We still have sufficient time to organise the vote in Strasbourg.
In consultation with other groups, we would ask to delay this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="President">
Very well.
The rapporteur has just made a proposal.
<P>
Is there a speaker in favour of Mrs Smet' s proposal to postpone the vote until the Strasbourg part-session?
<P>
Is there a speaker against?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Crowley">
On behalf of my group I would like to propose that we do not agree with the rapporteur' s request to send this back to Strasbourg for voting.
There are more than enough competent Members of this Parliament sitting in this House to take this vote today and we should go ahead with the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Hughes">
I would like to support the rapporteur' s recommendation that we defer the vote.
It is a difficult week with lower attendance in the plenary.
Some critical amendments in this report will require, of course, 314 votes.
We have already had one question asked in the House concerning a point of controversy that arose only last night and which might well, because of confusion, jeopardise an important amendment.
In the light of that it would be sensible to take time until Strasbourg.
The clock is still ticking with Council, we have time to take it there.
We can be sure we will have the necessary number of Members present and we can make sure that any further confusion is eliminated by the time of the final vote.
<P>
(Parliament approved the request to defer the vote)
<P>
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0040/1999) on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of the European Parliament and Council Directive on the availability of consumer information on fuel economy and CO2 emissions in respect of the marketing of new passenger cars (5617/2/1999 -C5-0037/1999 - 1998/0272(COD)) (Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection) (rapporteur: Mr Sterckx)
<P>
(The President declared the common position approved)
<P>
Report (A5-0049/1999) by Mr Gahrton, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision concluding the Agreement for scientific and technological cooperation between the European Community and the People' s Republic of China (COM(1999) 287 - C5-0038/1999 - 1999/0123(CNS))
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
Report (A5-0048/1999) by Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision concluding the Agreement for scientific and technological cooperation between the European Community and the Russian Federation (COM(1999) 324 - C5-0083/1999 - 1999/0133(CNS))
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Quisthoudt-Rowohl">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as rapporteur I am convinced that the agreement on technical cooperation with Russia is a good thing.
Nevertheless, I would like to move a postponement of the vote, as a sign that we expect Russia to make serious and concrete efforts to achieve a peaceful solution in Chechnya as soon as possible.
<P>
In saying this, I am perfectly aware that postponing a technical agreement is not necessary the best way of adding force to such an appeal.
I am also very well aware that this postponement, as unfortunately so often happens, will hit the wrong people, in this case Russian scientists and researchers.
Nevertheless, although it pains me to do this, after many discussions with Members from many groups and committees I am now calling for us to give a signal, even if it is unfortunately only a very weak one!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
I gladly agree with the rapporteur here.
Yesterday, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, I argued in favour of being able to give out this signal.
I am convinced that the citizens of Europe would not be able to grasp why, however well-meant our intentions, we are today approving an agreement when the Russian Federation is bombing Chechnya and even preventing helpless refugees from fleeing.
Madam President, I gladly subscribe to the rapporteur' s point of view and I hope the other groups will do the same.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Speroni">
Madam President, in principle I would agree, because what Russia is doing to the Chechen people is disgraceful, but I do not think Parliament is being very consistent, because, a few minutes ago, it adopted an agreement with China, when China has been oppressing the Tibetan people since 1959.
<P>
At this stage, for reasons of consistency, we either vote for both of them or we should have refused both of them.
<P>
(Applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Diamantopoulou">
Madam President, I fully sympathise with the concerns of the European Parliament over the gravity of the situation in Chechnya.
Last night, the competent Committee was given the opportunity to explain the contents of this agreement and whom it concerns, that is mainly the universities and the research community of Russia.
The Commission believes that this dialogue is progressing in the right direction to develop the procedures and strengthen the forces we want to see in Russia.
We therefore believe that we would be sending out the wrong message if the agreement in question did not proceed in this direction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
You have clarified the matter for the House.
<P>
(Parliament approved the request to defer the vote)
<P>
Report (A5-0047/1999) by Mr Linkohr, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision concluding the Agreement for scientific and technological cooperation between the European Community and the Argentine Republic (COM(1999) 292 - C5-0040/1999 - 1999/0125(CNS))
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
Report (A5-0045/1999) by Mr Menrad, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the draft Council Decision establishing the Employment Committee (COM(1999) 440 - C5-0173/1999 - 1999/0192(CNS)), and on the Commission proposal "Guidelines for Member States' Employment Policies 2000" (COM(1999) 441 - C5-0147/1999 - 1999/0816(CNS))
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Menrad">
Madam President, I would like to make three preliminary remarks.
Firstly, I would like to make it clear that the opinion I am presenting represents the position of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, even if my own views are somewhat different. That sometimes happens.
<P>
Secondly, in some cases I am rejecting new amendments, where I think that they add nothing new in terms of content.
I am in favour of presenting focused proposals to the Council of Ministers.
<P>
Thirdly, there are, of course, other amendments that I am rejecting because of their content, such as Amendment No 46, which suggests reductions in working hours without cuts in payments are the only effective approach. I am in favour of flexible working.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Menrad, for your explanations.
You were kind enough to give us your opinion on each amendment and, as is customary, I shall announce your position to the House.
<P>
Relating to Amendment No 13
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Menrad">
Madam President, with regard to Amendment No 13, I have nothing against the proposal to take a joint vote on this, but I wish to point out that the German version is incorrect.
This amendment was also proposed as an oral amendment in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
That oral amendment from Mr Skinner is not included here, nor is Mrs Sbabarti' s statement on the policy with regard to disabled persons.
This applies to the German version.
Although the explanatory statement is once again correct, it is wrong in the original German version.
I would like to see a vote on what we agreed in committee.
Besides, the English version seems correct to me.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="President">
Of course, Mr Menrad, thank you for clarifying this important point.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Gollnisch">
Madam President, I have a brief point of order on the basis of Rule 29 of the Rules of Procedure.
In the voting which has just taken place, everyone was able to observe that a number of members of one group voted in a different way to the majority of their group.
This is indeed perfectly reasonable according to the freedom to vote enjoyed by the Members of Parliament.
This means, consequently, that it is indeed possible to have independent voting without the group being considered to be lacking in political affinity in accordance with Rule 29 of the Rules of Procedure.
If the same rule applies to the small groups in the same way as to the large ones, or to the large groups in the same way as to the small groups, then I think that the conclusion will not be that the PPE Group must be dissolved on the grounds that this or that national grouping has an autonomous vote in this Parliament.
But then, in order to be consistent, Parliament should review the decision which the majority thought proper regarding a group which permitted the independent voting of its members and enshrined this in its own rules of procedure, which does not preclude the possibility of political affinities in accordance with Rule 29.
<P>
Report (A5-0046/1999) by Mr Menrad, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission' s draft Joint Employment Report 1999 (SEC(1999)1386 - C5-0215/1999 - 1999/2139(COS)
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
Motion for a resolution (B5-0204/1999) by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the strategy for Europe' s single market
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<P>
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE- Menrad Report (A5-0045/1999)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Madam President, we have rejected the report on the employment policy.
Together with the Commission, we have established that a great deal is left to be desired in the Member States when it comes to implementing the employment policy, as laid down in the guidelines.
But we wonder whether the Commission has taken sufficient account of the differences in welfare within the Member States themselves and the large discrepancies in terms of employment between the various regions.
Take Belgium.
The unemployment rate in Flanders is 8.2%, that in Wallonia is 24.5%.
You will understand that Flanders and Wallonia have adopted one and the same policy on taxation and social security but this is inadequate.
There should be scope for clearly different regional policies to be pursued.
Regional statistics need to be made available in order to go in this direction.
I regret that the Commission does not use this regional reality as a basic principle, because I am convinced that both a regional and a European approach are necessary.
But then in order to do this it is also essential that we have regional figures at our disposal, as those supplied by the Member States distort regional reality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ilgenfritz">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, although we have all supported the reports on the employment situation, we believe that the unemployment rate is extremely high and that we have failed to find any really effective answers at either national or European level.
There are many different reasons for this.
One important reason in my view is that in comparison with Americans, Europeans are risk-averse, and there is also a lack of positive motivation in the public at large, which is needed if good economic growth is to be transformed into a positive employment policy at both European and national level.
<P>
This is also partly a reflection of the fact that, in Austria for instance, we have a very low proportion of entrepreneurs.
In Austria this proportion is about 8%, the second lowest level internationally.
For example, surveys carried out amongst school leavers and students about to start work have indicated that 60% of our young people want to become civil servants instead of embarking on an active career.
A simple analogy would be an employment teamin which out of 22 players, 13 want to be referees and only 9 want to kick the ball, with only two or three players wanting to be strikers, who are, in the end, the key to success.
<P>
That is why we need a better climate.
We need simpler laws and above all we should not make the mistake - and that applies to this House also - of over-regulation by means of European standards, regulations and directives, which the public see as an obstacle, and which ultimately encourage them to stop taking risks or setting up on their own, avoiding any really active business, and instead, just working in a secure area, which will ultimately lead, as far as economic recovery is concerned, to ...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Gillig">
Madam President, I would like to give an explanation of our vote on the Menrad report, especially as regards Amendment No 31, on which the French Members of the Socialist Group and I myself abstained when it was rejected.
<P>
I would like to specify that it was chiefly the radical nature of the wording which was behind this.
For, in fact, while we may share the idea that aid and incentives for employment cannot be totally subjected to conditions of rigid technocratic controls which are in danger of excluding one disadvantaged section of job seekers from this aid, our vision encourages us to propose positive and constructive support, rather than supervision, in the procedures which must be implemented, which are still, as we know, difficult ones.
<P>
The practices which have already been implemented for this type of support, especially for the most disadvantaged, show that it is not sufficient to allocate financial aid which would excuse us from having to do anything more.
This is related, in the final analysis, to the good conscience of someone who gives money to charity.
But real social support for the objectives to be set with regard to disadvantaged individuals in the context of the contract-based procedures is the only way for support and incentives for job-seeking to be effective, not only for access to work itself but also for the issue intimately associated with this, to wit, the lasting reintegration of individuals who have been totally undermined by the destructive processes of unemployment.
<P>
It was also in this spirit that we previously submitted an amendment on positive approaches which, unfortunately, was not adopted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
- (FR) Last week I expressed my view of the Michelin case and the absolute scandal of an otherwise prosperous firm proceeding with collective redundancies.
<P>
Today I wish to express my view of the guidelines on employment for the year 2000.
The Treaty of Amsterdam gives me this right, and I am taking advantage of it to say how important I think it is for the European Parliament to be formally consulted on this matter.
<P>
It is not a matter of adding new guidelines at the present time, when the basic rules adopted in 1997 seem to be working well. It is rather a matter of amending them on the basis of the joint report on employment 1999, adapting them to the new socio-economic order.
<P>
The report tells us that there has indeed been progress since 1998, as unemployment has dropped from 10.1% to 9.9% and there are 1.8 million more people in employment.
But these positive figures must not obscure the serious inequalities and problems which still exist.
Unemployment among young people, for instance, is around 20%!
Half of the unemployed in the European Union are long-term unemployed.
Many jobs are still insecure and 60 million people are living below the poverty line.
<P>
It is therefore essential to give new impetus to employment strategy in Europe, and to set ambitious goals, such as reducing unemployment by half within five years.
This can only be achieved by attacking on several fronts at the same time, using energetic, preventative and corrective methods.
<P>
In particular, this requires reform and modernisation of education and training which must be of benefit to everyone, without discrimination based on social environment or on the individual, and which must take technological and IT developments into account, and a ferocious fight against all forms of unemployment and job insecurity.
People must, at all costs, be prevented from "getting used to" being unemployed.
The unemployed really need support, guidance and motivation in order to be reintegrated into employment.
Imaginative measures must be found, which can be adapted to the diversity of the situations in different Member States and which respect the dignity of job seekers.
<P>
But beware lest we fall into the trap which some policies create, claiming that, just because they are unemployed, people should take any job going on the grounds that it is better to have a job which is not secure than no job at all!
The objective is to enable the unemployed to gain employment which is lasting, with full entitlement to their rights!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Cossutta">
- (IT) Unemployment is Europe' s main problem, and in Italy the situation is terrible, with unemployment exceeding 12%.
We must continue to fight unemployment with efficient, incisive measures that are swiftly implemented.
It is important that in this area, too, the European Parliament seeks the opportunity to intervene democratically in the choices of the European Union.
The Members of the European Parliament cannot be content merely to be present, as has happened in the past, at decisions made in other places which do not meet the real needs of the populations.
<P>
We do not agree with the document on employment policy guidelines as it draws on the ideas and principles of economic free trade. Nevertheless, the European Parliament is proposing some guidelines to bring about equal job opportunities for men and women, on the constant search for dialogue between the social partners and the necessary consultation of and provision of information for workers by firms.
<P>
In our country, Communists are fighting for the law on union representation to be adopted swiftly, and this too is a democratic act for the work place.
<P>
We have noted the European Parliament' s suggestion to bind the tax incentives to firms so that they will really contribute to job creation and not to restructuring and relocation which lead to redundancies, so as to avoid a repeat of the Michelin scandal.
<P>
With limited, inadequate alarm signals being given with regard to the job market, we tabled amendments which were wholly reasonable and responsible.
But they were not accepted.
This is why the Italian Communists have voted against the Menrad reports.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Darras">
- (FR) This report is a typical example of the type of debate which precludes political consensus.
This is an eminently political subject where one can see the conservative right flirting with lack of job security and the forces of the left seeking to establish social convergence, stressing the link between employment, job quality and social protection.
<P>
For the first time the advances of Amsterdam give us the opportunity to be involved in the discussion of the guidelines in the form of Mr Menrad' s report.
<P>
This is why we must insist on objectives which are expressed in definite figures, with a definite timetable.
Hence the importance of the amendments resubmitted by my group, with the following requirements:
<P>
1) the combined forces of Member States and the European Union should converge towards a 65% rate of employment within the next five years;
<P>
2) preventative measures should have the objective of reducing unemployment by 50% within each Member State over the long term within the next five years;
<P>
3) positive measures should be undertaken to encourage the young unemployed to find a job and to facilitate their integration into employment;
<P>
4) the deadline of 2002 should be set for equipping schools with computers and enabling students to access the Internet.
<P>
Employment cannot be assessed simply in terms of the creation of jobs. It is important, above all, to consider the quality of employment, of education and the quality of training for all.
<P>
It is on this project as a whole that we shall be judged, on quantitative but also on qualitative results, on a new way of living, of life at work and life outside work, and balancing the two.
<P>
Let us accept the challenge, and let us get all the weapons on our side, the side of life and integration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fruteau">
- (FR) I am pleased that the Treaty of Amsterdam accords the European Parliament the right to be more closely associated with the implementation of the European Employment Pact and that this House has, therefore, had the opportunity to express its opinion on the guidelines for Member States for the year 2000 on the subject of the fight against unemployment.
<P>
Improving integration into employment, developing enterprise spirit, encouraging the capacity of firms and of workers to adapt, strengthening equal opportunities for women and men, these are the main pillars of this policy.
In addition to these ambitious principles, we have asked the Council and the Commission to ensure that the guidelines become practical proposals necessitating implementation in the form of practical and effective measures within Member States.
<P>
Indeed, while I am pleased to see the lowering of the unemployment rate on the European scale (9.4% of the working population in 1999 as against 10.1% in 1998), the actual gross figures must, in no way, obscure the human and social aspects of the economic situation which are extremely hard to bear in the most disadvantaged regions of the Community.
<P>
The benefits of growth are not shared by everyone, far from it!
Thus, in the French overseas territories, there are dramatically high levels of unemployment: 27% in Martinique, 30% in Guadeloupe, 37% in Réunion.
Far from being resolved, this situation has, in recent years, been constantly exacerbated, with the unfortunate consequence that every year it is thousands of young people who have all hope taken away from them!
To "have your whole life before you" , as the saying goes, at 25 without any chance to make plans for the future, no prospects other than unemployment and a minimum subsistence income - surely this is worse than a death sentence?
Should we be surprised (or indignant, as some are), in such conditions, at the temptation towards violence which permeates our young people and, occasionally, blows the cover off our social boiling pot?
<P>
The situation is all the more worrying because it is not the result of the current economic situation. It is a situation brought about by our remoteness, our insularity, and the very structure of our societies, their demographic dynamic.
This means that the traditional remedies have no chance of success: growth returning and lasting in the long term will not be enough for the prospect of full employment to reappear!
<P>
But this current state of affairs must not be seen as inevitable!
Nothing is inescapable, and this is why an imaginative approach must be adopted, and the heart to find specific solutions to specific problems must be found.
<P>
In this respect, the new Article 299(2) of the Treaty of Amsterdam, by making a special case of the overseas departments as belonging to the outermost regions of the Union, gives us the opportunity to implement derogations to Community law in the interests of their development.
It is important to remember that the European Council of Cologne last June had invited the Commission to present by the end of this year a raft of proposals intended to substantiate this new legal basis.
This is the area where this House must apply its vigilance, ensuring that these measures are characterised by audacity and ambition.
This is the only means of tackling the problems that these regions experience; it is the only opportunity to avoid disappointing the great expectations of their populations, the extreme points of Europe at the heart of the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Laguiller">
I cannot vote for the report on the guidelines for the employment policies of Member States in its entirety.
<P>
These guidelines do not actually wish to change in any way the situation whereby the economy is dictated by the market and by the multinationals.
The fact is that the European Union has 20 million unemployed and 60 million people living in poverty and the guidelines do not envisage a single binding measure to prevent redundancies and lay-off plans.
The only remedies proposed are aid funds for firms, but this aid does not, generally, create jobs.
<P>
The so-called "employment" policy will continue to be, at best, restricted to a few empty phrases, or, at worst, it will continue to serve as a pretext for subsidising the employers with non-repayable funds, while no authoritarian measures are going to be taken to prevent major European firms implementing redundancies despite, at the same time, making profits.
The fact that, in this specific area, the European States of the Union are refusing to bring in binding measures indicate that its prime concern is to sweep the obstacles from the path of big business, and that includes the social obstacles, so that they may maximise their profits and do nothing to put an end to unemployment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
- (SV) In the discussion of the Menrad report, a lot of important questions concerning equality were taken up.
I support the proposals which emphasised that young women in particular should be taken into account when educational initiatives for the information society are planned.
Because I, for reasons of principle, oppose quantitative objectives as part of the employment strategy, I could not, however, support the objective of reducing the difference in wages by a certain percentage within a period of five years (Amendment No 22).
<P>
Quantitative objectives, especially within the EU, give a false picture of the options actually open to the European Union when it comes to employment, nor are they compatible with the principle of subsidiarity.
<P>
It is good that the Member States should be urged to strive for best practice, but this is not to be achieved by means of quantitative objectives.
Nonetheless, it is pleasing that a lot of attention is being devoted to the aspect of equality.
<P>
Internal Market (B5-0204/1999)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="MacCormick">
I wish particularly to make some remarks about my reasons for voting on the strategy for the internal market but before I do that could I also say that I voted against the procedural motion to defer voting on the fishing matter because I shall be absolutely unable to visit Strasbourg in two weeks time and would very much have wished to express my solidarity with the share fishermen in Scotland, particularly in the islands and remote parts.
<P>
In relation to the strategy for the interior market, I was very glad that Amendment No 1 was carried.
My distinguished colleague Mrs Echerer, put this forward in our group to favour the position of artists who have to travel throughout the Community, earning in many different countries.
I was very glad that the Commission showed willingness to take our point on board.
<P>
Finally, in the debate last night on the whole of that resolution, I drew Mr Bolkenstein' s attention to the points in the report which say we must remove barriers which are preventing the implementation of the internal market.
I drew attention yet again to the problem of foreign language lecturers in Italian universities whose rights have been denied despite three judgments at the highest level in Europe.
I hope the Commission, as Mr Bolkenstein indicated last night, is pressing vigorously ahead to prevent this injustice.
<P>
Thank you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="President">
That concludes the agenda.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="President">
I declare adjourned the session of the European Parliament.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 12.20 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 4 November 1999.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Statement by the President
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, since our last part-session, and particularly in the last few days, several terrible catastrophes have taken place, such as the new earthquake in Turkey and the floods in France, both of which have hit hard.
With your agreement, I would simply like to express, on behalf of the European Parliament, my deepest sympathy and condolences to the victims of these new tragedies and their families.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Napoletano">
Madam President, I would like to add that, on Friday, a United Nations aeroplane crashed. It was carrying 21 volunteers on the WFP programme for the reconstruction of Kosovo and 3 crewmembers.
I think that we should remember these victims too, and thank these people for the incredible and useful work they did and pass on our condolences to their relatives, as well as addressing the reason that caused this catastrophe.
I would therefore ask you, President, if you think it appropriate, to hold a minute' s silence as well in memory of these heroes of our time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President">
It goes without saying, Mrs Napoletano, that I shall pass on everything you have said and all our sympathy to those concerned.
It also happens to be the same plane that Mr Swoboda, Mrs Pack, Mrs Nicholson and I took when we went to Pristina.
It is a tragedy.
We shall request an inquiry to find the causes of this accident.
We shall discuss this with Mr Kouchner and once again, you can count on me to pass on all our condolences to the victims' families.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Agenda
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="Andrews">
I would just like to discuss the issue of Chechnya and our continued support for the Russian Government.
The genocide that is taking place in Chechnya seems to be ignored by the Western powers and certainly by the European Parliament.
I want to ask you, Madam President, if you would ask somebody from the Commission or one of the Commissioners to come here to address Parliament and say what exactly we are doing to stop the terrible brutality taking place in Chechnya.
The Russian Government is being supported by the Western states and in particular by the European Union, and it seems to me that we have a responsibility to bring to the attention of the Russians our abhorrence and our horror at what is happening there.
Russia has enough problems without confronting Chechnya, and it always strikes me that this House is reluctant for the most part to criticise Russia in circumstances such as this.
I would ask you, Madam President, to invite a Commissioner as urgently as possible here to tell us precisely what the European Union intends to do on the issue of Chechnya.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
Mr Andrews, I can tell you that your wish has been granted even more quickly than you could have imagined, because the debate on Chechnya has been included on our agenda on Wednesday afternoon and of course we shall hear statements both by the Council and the Commission.
<P>
The next item is the examination of the final draft Agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting on Thursday 11 November pursuant to Rule 110 of the Rules of Procedure.
This draft has been distributed.
<P>
Relating to Tuesday: President.
I have received a request from the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance and the Group of the Party of European Socialists for the presentation of the Court of Auditors' annual report to be moved from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m.
<P>
Does anyone wish to speak in support of this request?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Madam President, in my opinion it is enormously important that we include the Court of Auditors' annual report in the agenda.
This yearly best-seller is once more making its appearance, and it would be wrong if Parliament did not organise a plenary session debate on the subject, as the press already know about it.
Any leak of information is extremely unfortunate, but it has happened before.
I believe we must discuss this at a plenary session, and not leave it to the lobbying process, as we will be debating it in any case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Madam President, with regard to the presentation of the report of the Court of Auditors, it is clear that, at the moment, this report - which previously attracted very little attention - has become an important item in the press.
Certain Members and groups have expressed their concern at the occurrences of leaks to the press - a concern which I share - and I think that we should ask the Court of Auditors, as well as the other institutions, to respect the time limits.
But it seems to me that the punishment which some people have tried to impose on the Court of Auditors is absolutely out of proportion because if we remove from the agenda all the issues which have suffered from leaks, we will end up with no agenda at all.
We have to be more rigorous in our behaviour.
<P>
I believe that the reasonable thing to do, bearing in mind, furthermore, that the report of the Court of Auditors has a series of consequences for Parliament' s activities - and I am thinking particularly of the approval of its management - is to present what has happened to the President of the Court of Auditors and get him to commit himself publicly, apart from giving the relevant explanations, to an investigation to try to control this issue, and to improve the system of distribution and provision of information to Parliament. However, in any case, I think that in the end it we will be the ones who are penalised through this behaviour.
<P>
Therefore, I believe that the sensible thing to do is, tomorrow, after the presentation which the Committee on Budgetary Control is going to make today, to present this report to Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="Cox">
Madam President, I agree with the two former speakers that this is an annual report of the first rank and of the highest political order.
It is precisely because I agree that I believe this Parliament should use this occasion to signal to the Court of Auditors its intense disquiet at the fact that a document of substance of the sort prepared by the Court should, whether correct or incorrect in terms of its content, have found its way into Der Spiegel of 8 November.
<P>
This is not the way to do business.
In a matter as weighty as this it is not right, on whoever' s part - and I do not know who is to blame for this leak - to seek a route which chooses the sensational over the institutional management of this issue.
<P>
We are the body with the political competence to take into account the substantial and professional work of the Court of Auditors.
It does not make sense that we should now be negotiating with the European Commission, following all the events of the past several months, a new code of conduct which, inter alia, insists that where there are issues of importance the Commission first comes here to tell this House what they are and then to take a procedure, such as the annual Report of the Court of Auditors, and say: there was a leak, it is a bit unfortunate, but let us get on with business as if nothing happened.
No.
This is the moment to draw a line and say to the Court of Auditors - whom my group holds in very high esteem - that we have separate functions: they audit and we do the politics.
<P>
One of the tasks between now and December, if we choose to postpone this matter - as was the view of the majority of the Conference of Presidents - would be to invite the President of the Court of Auditors to undertake an extensive investigation as to whether it was to the Court or another institution that the leak could be traced.
<P>
It was the Committee on Budgetary Control of Parliament which began years ago to insist that we should give, as parliamentarians, this report the weight that it deserves.
In saying "postpone it" we are saying we want to take command of what is in it - not to sweep it under the carpet.
We are saying that from now on there are new rules of engagement, not just with the Commission.
The creeping propensity to find ourselves, as parliamentarians, on the back foot, explaining leaks that were inspired by one source or another is not the way to do business.
Let us claim our rights as the institution.
Let us stop sensationalising the work of the Court of Auditors.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Madam President, I believe that this issue is self-explanatory in the sense that we already debated in the previous part-session the importance of Parliament adopting the development and implementing regulations of an interinstitutional agreement, which was agreed during the last legislature and ratified by Parliament.
At that time the possibility arose that the issue would be returned to the Committee on Constitutional Affairs amid the reservations and doubts of some groups.
<P>
No reservation was made; the question has been referred back to the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and it seems that, finally, we are going to reach an agreement today.
<P>
I believe that it is an issue of maximum importance not only for the protection of our dignity as MEPs, but also in terms of respecting our promise.
This is the reason why we have requested that this issue be dealt with as quickly as possible, on the understanding that there may always be reservations, but that these reservations must be justified and, above all, they have to be debated.
<P>
We hope that this can be done today in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
<P>
(Parliament agreed to the amendment)
<P>
President.
This point will thus be the last to be debated on Wednesday' s agenda and we could then put it to the vote on Thursday.
<P>
Still on the subject of Wednesday' s agenda, the Commission has informed me, on the subject of the debate on Chechnya, which is due to take place between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m., that Commissioner Patten will have to leave Strasbourg at 4 p.m. and will therefore not be able to be present.
At the Conference of Presidents, we asked Mr Verheugen to guarantee that he would attend this debate, and today I have been informed that there is no guarantee that Mr Verheugen will be available and that another Commissioner may take his place.
I think it is very inconvenient, and I am sure that you do too.
I therefore propose that we table the statement on Chechnya by the Council and the Commission from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. which would allow Commissioner Patten to take part and which would not delay the other debates because we would in any case have to adjourn the debate on the IGC between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m.
That is my proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Poettering">
Madam President, I have a question about the agenda you are proposing.
On Wednesday, we also have the important Dimitrakopoulos-Leinen report.
How do things stand on timing?
Do we have enough time to consider this report as well, given how important it is for the future of the European Union? Both rapporteurs deserve to have a reasonable amount of time devoted to their report.
Could you comment on this, please?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
Mr Poettering, as the debate on Chechnya is in any case tabled for 5 p.m. to 6 p.m., we shall have to adjourn the debate you are talking about from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.
If we hold the debate on Chechnya at 3 p.m. and then we continue the debate on the very important report that you mentioned, I do not think that any harm will be done.
I think it would be very inconvenient to hold a debate on the situation in Chechnya without the competent Commissioner for the matter.
As you know, this is something we have never liked to do.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Madam President, with regard to the debate on the situation in Chechnya, I believe that the Presidency' s proposal is absolutely reasonable.
<P>
In relation to the Dimitrakopoulos-Leinen report, so that there may at least be an intervention by groups on such an important report, I would propose that in this case the Questions to the Council be cancelled, and in that way all of the groups could express their view, since this is a very important matter for Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wurtz">
Madam President, I would like to support your proposal.
Perhaps we can state, in order to enlighten everyone on the matter, as we discussed it at the Conference of Presidents, that in the expected absence of Mr Patten, we had suggested the name of Mr Verheugen not in a personal capacity, but because he is one of the Commissioners particularly involved with international affairs.
Now, on a subject as sensitive as Chechnya, we do not simply want a text written in advance by someone else to be read out.
Therefore, I entirely support your proposal.
I think that it is better to move the debate on the agenda and have the opportunity to hear directly from the Commissioner concerned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Dimitrakopoulos">
Madam President, your proposal to hold the discussion on Chechnya between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. is, in my view, the best solution. Instead of interrupting the discussion on the Intergovernmental Conference, we shall begin the afternoon sitting on that an hour later so that both issues may be discussed properly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
Thank you for your understanding, Mr Dimitrakopoulos.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Madam President, I just wanted to say that I am against Mr Barón Crespo' s suggestion that we should cancel Question Time.
I regard Question Time as a fundamental parliamentary right, which unlike other agenda items is specifically protected in legal terms, and I would like to insist that the full Question Time should be held.
I do of course understand that there are problems with time, but that is simply because we have relatively little time and a great deal to discuss, and the people who are now complaining about this are precisely the ones we wanted to shorten the plenary weeks a little while back.
At the time I protested against that unrealistic proposal and thank goodness that succeeded.
<P>
We used to have Council representatives here on two days: Wednesdays and Thursdays, and we had Council Question Time on Wednesday evening.
That worked brilliantly.
Somewhere along the line they cut Council attendance to one day, and that is the cause of the problems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, let us take one thing at a time.
We are concerned now with retabling the report on Chechnya.
I shall give the floor to Mr Leinen, the second rapporteur, and then we shall make a decision on this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Leinen">
Madam President, I agree that we should have the Commissioner here when we discuss Chechnya.
I also agree that we should discuss the situation in Chechnya at 3 p.m., but I would like to request that the debate on the Intergovernmental Conference should be taken in one go.
I support Mr Barón Crespo' s idea of waiting until we have completed the debate and then finishing with the "Questions to the Council" agenda item.
It would be wrong to consider a topic as important as the Intergovernmental Conference in bits and pieces, with a little bit on Wednesday and then perhaps another bit on Thursday morning.
We should be able to debate this subject without interruption.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Leinen.
<P>
I put to the vote that we move the debate on Chechnya to 3 p.m. instead of 5 p.m.
<P>
(Parliament gave its assent)
<P>
Now we have Mr Barón Crespo' s proposal to cancel Question Time to the Council, a proposal adapted by Mr Leinen, who proposes that this Question Time could take place during the evening sitting, at the end of the institutional debate, which I think is exactly what Mr Barón Crespo would like to see.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Madam President, after the debate on Chechnya, the debate on the Dimitrakopoulos-Leinen report would begin.
Therefore, what we could do is to postpone Question Time a little.
I think this is a reasonable request.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="President">
Mr Poettering, I think that the Council would entirely agree with Mr Barón Crespo' s proposal to hold Question Time after the Dimitrakopoulos-Leinen debate.
What is your position on this?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Poettering">
Madam President, it is as you have just said.
I just wanted to be sure that Question Time to the Council would actually take place.
Mr Posselt is quite right there.
It is the Members' right to hear the answers, and we should ensure - procedurally speaking - that they can be given to Members.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="President">
Who is in favour of keeping Question Time on the agenda by holding it after the Leinen-Dimitrakopoulos report?
<P>
(Parliament gave its assent)
<P>
Relating to Thursday:
<P>
With regard to the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance requests that two sub-items be added to item 3, Human Rights.
Firstly, the case of Alexander Nikitin.
Who would like to speak in favour of this request?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Madam President, it is very important that the European Parliament continues to support Alexander Nikitin, who is accused of endangering state security in Russia.
This has been a tradition for us; we have supported him in his trial and followed it on a regular basis, and it has come to our attention that now would be just the right time to adopt a position, as the action will be continuing very soon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Hautala.
<P>
(Parliament gave its assent)
<P>
The Group of the Greens requests that "Violation of Human Rights resulting from the project to build an oil pipeline between Chad and Cameroon" be added to the item "Human Rights" .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lannoye">
Madam President, Parliament has already voted for a resolution on this subject, but there is a problem today: the World Bank is due to make a statement shortly on the significance of the project and we feel that given the implications that it has for the people of Chad and Cameroon, a message from the European Parliament would be welcome today.
<P>
(Parliament rejected the request)
<P>
I do not have any amendments relating to Friday, or for the Wednesday or Thursday of the mini-part-session in Brussels.
<P>
(The order of business was thus adopted)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Emission of gaseous and particulate pollutants by vehicles
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0043/1999), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, concerning the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directive 88/77/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the measures to be taken against the emission of gaseous and particulate pollutants from diesel engines for use in vehicles, and the emission of gaseous pollutants from positive ignition engines fuelled with natural gas or liquefied petroleum gas for use in vehicles (5734/1/1999 - C5-0028/1999 - 1997/0350(COD)) (Rapporteur: Mr Lange).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lange">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this legislation represents the final piece of legislation stemming from the Auto-Oil programme.
Ladies and gentlemen, we collectively, the European Parliament, have made this legislation a success story.
We, the European Parliament, can take credit for the fact that air quality in Europe will be significantly improved.
We have succeeded in securing a 60% improvement in air quality in the future, specifically in cities.
This did not fall like manna from heaven: we achieved it in the Conciliation Committee.
Madam President, you were the Chairperson of the Conciliation Committee delegation.
You led the delegation in which we won this from the Council.
So we should not hesitate over the last component of the legislation, and we should opt for the Conciliation Committee route in this case as well, because the Council has obviously not dared to make that final leap and has been very cautious on a couple of points.
<P>
The Council has certainly incorporated some important points in its common position, such as the two-stage stipulation of binding limit values, stricter durability provisions for emission control devices in lorries and buses, an on-board diagnostics system, and roadside testing.
But it has been quite cautious with regard to four particular points, which I think we need to put right.
<P>
The first point is that the Council has deferred the reduction in nitrogen oxides from 2005 to 2008, and has also introduced a second phase for the 2005 stage, so that we now have a gradual reduction.
To my mind, this makes no economic sense at all, because we know that nitrogen oxides and particulate emissions are bound to follow the same curve, so that if we tackle one of these two pollutants, there is an automatic knock-on effect on the other.
So it also makes no economic sense to have two different limit values within three years.
Instead, we need to reduce NOx emissions in one fell swoop.
<P>
Some people say that there is only one technology that can achieve this.
That is clearly wrong.
There are several technologies for simultaneously reducing particulate emissions and NOx emissions to the level called for at first reading, either by using the ammonia process or else by using charge cooling combined with a regeneration filter.
So there are various options, and these options are not just theoretical, they are at the prototype stage.
That means that we do not need to worry about this not being technically feasible.
<P>
In addition, this would also be a waste of engineering effort, and would make economic nonsense.
But we also need to take this step for ecological reasons, of course.
Why?
We are, for instance, talking about a target ozone limit value for 2010 which is 80% below the current value in the European Union.
If we really want to achieve that, then it is specifically the NOx emissions from lorries and buses that we will also have to reduce.
In the European Union we have 168 million cars and 23 million commercial vehicles and buses.
These 23 million commercial vehicles emit as much as the 168 million cars, that is 50% of total NOx emissions.
So we absolutely must do something about it!
<P>
The second point on which the Council has been rather cautious is re-equipping older vehicles.
We know that lorries and buses have a long life and tend to clock up high mileages.
So it is of the utmost importance to encourage re-equipping of such vehicles, so that older vehicles become cleaner as well.
<P>
Thirdly, the Council has been rather cautious about introducing enhanced environmentally friendly vehicles - an area where we have proposed several additions - and about strict controls to prevent cycle beating, as has already happened in the USA. This means that manufacturers can simply get round limit values by electronic manipulation.
We need to add something here.
Emissions legislation aimed at improving air quality has been a success story, and we have an opportunity to put the icing on the cake.
Of course we also need to be highly ambitious with our proposals when we go into the conciliation procedure.
We want to emerge with a good compromise, so we cannot take a compromise as our starting point.
I therefore call on all of us to be courageous, to achieve a swift conciliation procedure and to work together to ensure that our success story - improving air quality in Europe - really is a success right to the end.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Madam President, may I first of all congratulate the rapporteur on the report he has now drafted.
I think - and Madam President you will know from your own experience - that the action taken by Parliament in the case of the Auto-Oil issue was very courageous indeed.
We have tried to clean up passenger cars as well as truck traffic, including heavy commercial vehicles, and not just the cars as such, but we have also tried to ensure that clean fuels are used.
This whole package will ensure that air quality will indeed improve.
The only encouraging thing I have read recently about the environment, in the Dutch press, is that this improvement in air quality owing to the use of cleaner cars is already in evidence.
<P>
I would be dishonest if I failed to mention that a few people in our Group do not fully agree with the report and the amendments proposed by the Environment Committee.
I think that, possibly, further negotiations need to take place where further compromises can be reached before the vote takes place.
The people who are of the opinion that the requirements now prescribed by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and its rapporteur, Mr Lange, for heavy commercial vehicles, are too strict, should consider the following.
In Europe, we still boast a sound automotive industry for heavy and light vehicles.
The same automotive industry exports vehicles to the United States which must already meet stricter requirements or, at least, the requirements as prescribed at present.
I think it is in no-one' s interest that we in Europe set lower standards than what would be perfectly feasible, even in the longer term.
This is why I urge that the proposals by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection actually be adopted in tomorrow' s vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Madam President, the legislative project under discussion is very important for the issue of air protection. It has a direct effect on the quality of the air we breathe, that is to say the air' s nitrogen dioxide content and the amounts of ozone being formed in the atmosphere.
All this also has an effect on acidification and eutrophication. It will also reduce the number of particles in the air that are hazardous to health.
<P>
All this can only succeed sufficiently well, however, if the action required under the directive is taken as quickly as possible.
The most difficult challenge is the rapidly increasing volume of transport, which is predicted to double between 1990 and 2006.
In my opinion, the rapporteur, Mr Lange, is quite right when he proposes that heavy goods vehicles should be included in a common strategy to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from road traffic as quickly as possible.
We have to respond to the race against increased emissions by speeding up the adoption of measures to reduce them.
I therefore offer my strong support to the rapporteur' s proposal that new limit values be introduced as quickly as the latest technology allows and certainly not only once the Member States happen to approve them.
<P>
In a market economy, money is the deciding force. Therefore we have to use financial pressure to push forward environmental values.
Tax incentives have had a major importance in encouraging the use of more environment-friendly fuels.
Using tax concessions as a carrot to replace heavy old commercial vehicles is well justified, as are tax benefits for environment-friendly vehicles. All this would serve to speed up the introduction of vehicles that pollute the environment less.
<P>
I would now like to mention a change that would cost nothing.
You yourselves must daily encounter situations where heavy vehicles such as buses and construction machinery leave their engine running at times when nothing is going on.
Imagine how much we could reduce air contamination if we did not let our vehicle engines idle in this way.
It really costs nothing.
It is just a question of attitudes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maaten">
Madam President, the topic of today' s sitting is making trucks more environmentally friendly.
In my book and, of course, in anyone else' s, this is a contradiction in terms. Trucks pollute.
This is what they do. And since freight transport, in particular the international variety, invariably takes place by road, we cannot do much more than endeavour to reduce this harmfulness.
As far as this is concerned, a compliment is in order for the Committee and the Council, but, above all, for the rapporteur.
Given the number of amendments adopted in first reading, his role as a rapporteur can be seen as an outright success.
<P>
We are very satisfied, even at this early stage, with the outcome before us.
We are now dealing with the second reading of a directive, aspects of which will need to be introduced as early as the year 2000.
This is why we are under a certain amount of time pressure.
<P>
The rapporteur is re-opening a number of previous proposals.
We can support him in many of those, but there is one section where we do not support the rapporteur but rather the Council' s common position, and this concerns the two-stage approach to the NOx limit value of EURO IV stage.
I heard very clearly what the rapporteur says about this.
However, the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reform Party considers that if this limit value for 2006 is laid down now, it will, in practice, force industry to apply one specific technology, whilst we are not entirely convinced of the environmental friendliness of this technology.
In our opinion, evaluation in 2002 and implementation in 2008 offer a better chance of using a more effective technology.
<P>
Moreover, the Council proposes introducing a category of very environmentally friendly vehicles.
We welcome this proposal in which these vehicles are linked with tax incentives.
We also listened with great interest to the rapporteur with regard to the improvements he is intending to incorporate in this proposal.
<P>
Also, we give our full backing to the rapporteur' s proposals to cut CO2 emissions so that we can achieve the Kyoto objectives, but also to the tax incentives for adapting older vehicles and the adjustment of test conditions, so that actual emissions of vehicles in use can be measured, albeit in the longer term.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Madam President, my colleague, Mr Lange, has again produced an excellent report, which will have a considerable effect on air quality, and our Group unreservedly supports it.
Trucks and buses contribute to air pollution in ever greater proportions, as we have actually done a lot to reduce car emissions, for example by using better quality fuels and tax concessions, as Mrs Myller said.
<P>
In the first reading, Parliament was very successful in getting through strict limit values for particulate pollutants, which are very dangerous for the health.
The Ministers of the Environment then adopted Parliament' s proposal and now our job is to demand that industry adopts just as strict a line on nitrogen emissions.
Industry needs sufficient time, and industry will certainly get the time it needs to prepare itself for this technological change.
The engineers have proved very inventive before, and I trust that the right technology will be in place by 2006.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
Madam President, in the discussion of the various parts of the Auto-Oil programme, we in the European Parliament have pressed for a tightening up of the requirements. We ought to continue to do so, both now and in the future.
As a result, we in the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left shall be voting for just about all the amendments from rapporteur Lange.
We think it is our role to ensure in this situation that the best possible technology is used as early as possible.
I am also convinced that some of the pressure which has been exerted on us as Members of the European Parliament in connection with this issue has exaggerated the difficulties involved in adjusting to the demands made in this recommendation for second reading.
<P>
I am rather hesitant about one section. This is section 11, about whether a time limit should now be set for financial incentives in connection with environmentally friendly vehicles.
However, this is a minor question in this context.
I should like to thank the rapporteur for producing a very good piece of work on a matter which is technically quite complicated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="Fitzsimons">
The European Union and national Member States must work closely together at all times with Europe' s motor and oil industry so as to guarantee that pollution is defeated once and for all in the near future.
<P>
The great car culture has been referred to before in European Parliament reports as the main culprit of air pollution in Europe and Parliament is now playing an active role in establishing limit values for various pollutants so as to bring this environmental problem under control.
It goes without saying that the European Parliament must support a whole raft of measures to control environmental pollution in order to comply with its obligations under the Kyoto Agreement to reduce the level of European Union emissions of six greenhouse gases by 8% by the years 2008-2012.
<P>
I would point out that the European Commission and the European Parliament have held extensive consultations with the European automobile industry on these various matters, and it has voluntarily agreed to accept a timetable to cut carbon dioxide emissions in new cars by 25% by the year 2008.
We have made extensive progress over the last few years in relation to meeting these problems, for example with the systems installed in cars which have completed 80,000 kilometres and which were built over five years ago, to monitor the durability of anti-pollution equipment.
We have tax incentives which must also be used to encourage the early introduction of vehicles containing advanced anti-pollution equipment.
We will support the phasing out of the sale of leaded petrol.
We have also supported measures which would guarantee that the sulphur content in petrol will be cut three-fold and that the sulphur content in diesel will be reduced seven-fold by the year 2005.
The Lange report this evening on the control of emissions of gases and other pollutants produced by vehicles continues the progress we have been making.
<P>
May I say in conclusion that since May of this year the European Parliament has the power of codecision on all environmental matters as a result of the enactment of the Amsterdam Treaty?
The European Parliament must and should use these new powers to push forward an even stronger legislation in the area of environmental control.
I support Mr Lange and congratulate him on his report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Madam President, first of all, I would like to congratulate Mr Lange on his report in second reading.
He has once again delivered excellent work with regard to making traffic more environmentally friendly.
After the Auto-Oil programme for passenger cars, a sound approach has been adopted with regard to heavy-duty vehicles too.
I am also pleased with what the Council adopted from Parliament in first reading.
It is clear that consensus within Parliament has led to good results in the Council.
However, I fail to grasp why, when agreement has been reached in the Council, Parliament should have to wait so long for the official common position.
I actually find this important enough to raise as an issue.
I fear, namely, that it will increasingly become a habit for common positions to be held up.
The Council could, of course, say that the procedure has become more complex since the entry into effect of the Treaty of Amsterdam and therefore requires more time.
However, I cannot see the difference in this respect.
A text had to be laid down prior to Amsterdam and this is still the case after Amsterdam.
<P>
Alongside this, I should add that such delays create huge problems for the implementation of the relevant legislation.
This is certainly the case for heavy-duty vehicles.
For the car industry, it is essential to know exactly what is going to happen and when.
If the decision-making process occurs much later than necessary, then it is impossible for the car industry to accommodate this adequately.
<P>
It is now the case that, regarding the strict NOx values, some car industries are aiming for 2005, first reading of the European Parliament, others for 2008, the Council' s common position, and some others still for 2006, the draft recommendation for the second reading.
This intermediate phase is creating a great deal of confusion as it is.
Timely clarity in this respect is what is called for.
<P>
As for my reaction to the content of the proposal, it is only natural that Mr Lange would like to see a few improvements made.
If we are serious about meeting the Kyoto objectives, then this sector certainly is important.
The vehicles concerned are large, have a high mileage and, as such, cause high levels of CO2 emission.
More far-reaching investment into more economical engines, and not just for passenger cars, will certainly have an effect.
I would therefore urge the Commission to take concrete action.
<P>
I am also in favour of tax incentives for the vehicle category of very environmentally friendly vehicles.
This will help ensure that the proposed emissions are achieved in good time.
Mr Lange is right in indicating that, alongside standards for emissions, standards will also come into play for other aspects of these environmentally friendly vehicles, such as noise and fuel consumption, which was mentioned earlier.
Certainly in terms of noise, heavy-duty vehicles play a key role.
Needless to say, test cycles for measuring vehicle exhaust gas values should mimic the real driving situation as soon as possible.
Negotiations on a worldwide harmonised dynamic test procedure is also a step in the right direction.
<P>
By way of conclusion, I would like to say that I fully agree with Mr Lange' s report.
I will therefore vote in favour of all his amendments.
It would be good if Parliament and the Council were to draft a sound directive without a conciliation procedure.
Unfortunately, over the past couple of weeks, the Council has clearly stated that it is not prepared to adopt draft amendments from the second reading.
This may well result in a conciliation procedure, which will, in turn, cause delays.
This is why I would like once again to urge the Council - and will do so via the European Commission if need be - to adopt the sound proposals tabled by Mr Lange.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="De Roo">
Mr President, Mr Lange has submitted a first-class report on behalf of the Environment Committee.
On 20 December last, the Council of Environment Ministers adopted sound amendments from Mrs Hautala. These comprised strict limit values aimed at preventing air pollution and carcinogenic particulate emissions from trucks.
Unfortunately, the Council has decided in favour of 2008, compared to Parliament' s 2005.
Mrs Hautala has already touched upon this.
<P>
I would like to discuss CO2 emissions from trucks.
The European Commission needs to table proposals fast.
With regard to ordinary cars, Parliament had expressed its preference for a three-litre car in 2010.
We have ended up with a feeble compromise of an agreement relating to a six-litre car in 2010.
No agreements have been reached at all for trucks, whilst the mileage of trucks is rising at an alarming rate.
It is expected that it will rise by 40% by 2015.
This is why I would ask the Committee to submit a directive for more economical trucks.
Otherwise, we will never meet the Kyoto objectives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Arvidsson">
Mr President, when, in the autumn of 1998, the European Parliament made a decision to continue with the Auto-Oil Programme, the matter was timetabled to return to Parliament in good time to facilitate a Council decision during the spring of 1999.
However, the German Government, which sat on the issue during its Presidency, clearly had other ideas.
The matter was seriously delayed and did not return to Parliament until the middle of the summer.
If the initial timetable had been followed, the manufacturers would probably by now already have certified the requirement in stage 3 of the Programme.
Environmentally more friendly diesel vehicles would already have begun to be driven on European roads.
Now, Mr Lange has drafted comprehensive amendments at this late stage in the discussion of the issue.
If Parliament complies with Mr Lange' s proposals, there will be further delays.
That would not be good for the environment in Europe.
<P>
Europe presents a variety of faces.
Sweden and Finland, especially their northern parts, are very much dependent upon efficient road transport.
It is quite right that we should impose tough environmental requirements upon motor vehicle manufacturers.
They should really need to employ absolutely all their skills and knowledge in accomplishing the tasks we set them.
We must not however draw up proposals in such a way that they contain aspects which are bad for the environment.
If our decisions lead to the simplest solution becoming general practice, which is to say that of basing exhaust purification technology on catalytic converters which require large admixtures of ammonia solution, then the distribution system alone, involving the distribution of this ammonia solution to all petrol stations throughout Europe, would mean that a not insignificant portion of the environmental benefits would be lost.
A technical solution like that would be especially problematic for us in northern Europe.
<P>
I want to say too that the EU cannot provide direction in Europe by means of directives which are not adapted to the real situation throughout Europe.
Let us make very high environmental demands, but let industry too have the time it needs to develop the best possible technical solutions for the future which are good for Europe' s countryside and for the environment in Europe' s large population centres.
From this perspective, the common position is a better alternative for the environment than continued delay.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Mr President, we are looking at a proposal for a directive under the Auto-Oil programme, with the aim of improving air quality by the year 2010 by reducing emissions from motor vehicles.
I personally feel that the Council has included many highly important provisions in its common position, such as reducing emission limits for carbon monoxide by October 2000 or 2001 by 30% in comparison with 1996.
<P>
We always face the same problem, and I can remember our discussing that, Mr Lange: you promised to come to an arrangement with the Council so that your amendments would be accepted in part.
The question now is this: what are we to do?
Are we to vote for your amendments tomorrow or the day after?
Will there be a hold-up?
I wonder what is really better for the environment now.
I very much regret that the arrangement with the Council has not worked out.
We are really faced with a decision on a matter of conscience, and this evening I will have another very good look at all this, because things have not worked out as we discussed in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
<P>
There is one thing we need to be clear about: the Council has accepted a great many important points here, but our cars are not yet clean by a long chalk, and they never will be.
Who would have believed that we would now be facing an explosion in traffic not only in the industrialised nations but also in the Third World?
It has not even begun to take off in those countries yet, and it is bound to grow further - and I can only wish for the population of those countries that it will.
Perhaps, Mr Lange, you could try again to reach some sort of compromise with the Council during an overnight meeting. In that way, we will all be relieved from having to decide on a matter of principle, that is whether to vote against your very good report - which I would dearly like to vote for - or else, I think it is fair to say, to vote against the environment, by procrastinating yet again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schnellhardt">
Mr President, as I see it, the report before us today on reducing exhaust emissions from heavy goods vehicles serves to carry forward our efforts to improve air quality in Europe whilst preserving our citizens' mobility.
No one has said so yet, but that is guaranteed too.
<P>
I would like to thank the rapporteur for his work.
The report largely addresses the critical issues and fits in well with existing clean air legislation.
At this point I would like to make a general comment about the formal structure of the report.
I wonder if the technical criteria set out in the annex really are a matter for us to discuss as Members of Parliament.
Without expert guidance, the annexes are simply impenetrable for most of us - that has been my experience at least.
I think perhaps that in future, with technical reports like this, the Legal Service should bring them into line with what we have already proposed and agreed upon.
<P>
I would also like to comment on the most difficult and controversial points of this second reading, in terms of content.
I agree with the rapporteur that the transition to new standards should be done in a single stage.
By setting the deadline for 2006, we are demonstrating to the Council that we are willing to compromise, as we too will be making a concession as compared with the first reading.
I consider that the Council proposal, which does not provide for this to be introduced until 2008, is not acceptable here.
The directive on improving fuel quality and the catalytic converter technology now available make it possible for the Council and Parliament to come up with a truly ambitious project, without burdening industry and the transport sector with charges.
Let me remind you of our experience with the Auto-Oil programme for cars.
We stuck to our guns then, and it has now turned out that we took the right approach.
<P>
Another important point, as I see it, is to encourage re-equipping of older vehicles by means of fiscal and other incentives.
I think there is enormous potential here.
Heavy goods vehicles have a very long service life.
We should most definitely look at the fiscal options, even if the conversion only meets one criterion.
This is an area where a lot more can be achieved.
By and large, I am very pleased...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="Liikanen">
.
First of all let me express my thanks to the European Parliament and in particular to the rapporteur, Mr Lange, for acting quickly to present the second reading of the report on this dossier.
<P>
The second reading of the report contains a number of amendments which the Commission can support, for example the amendments relating to the Enhanced Environmentally-Friendly Vehicles, the EEVs concept.
The EEVs provide for a fuel and technology-neutral concept based on the best available technology which will allow Member States or local authorities to encourage the use of the vehicles which qualify as EEVs through tax incentives.
EEVs will always be a concept which will complement future mandatory emission limits.
<P>
Therefore the Commission can accept in principle to study the possible expansion of the scope of the EEV concept to include perhaps other vehicle characteristics such as noise and fuel consumption and other propulsion technologies.
The Commission can also support the amendments relating to the expansion of the directive to include other alternative fuels, in this case ethanol, the amendment relating to tax incentives applied to the re-equipment of old vehicles, the amendment to include heavy-duty vehicles in the overall Community CO2 strategy and the amendment relating to the market quality of liquefied petroleum gas.
<P>
The Commission can also support in principle the amendment that deals with abnormal emission control strategies, but we would prefer to see the reporting date on this issue deferred.
A reporting date at the end of 2002 would enable the Commission to fully evaluate the effects of the new type-approval test cycles being introduced from next year on the regulation of in-use emissions from new European vehicles.
In adopting a common position with much more stringent limits for particulates, we should note that the Council moved a significant way towards the view expressed by the European Parliament in the first reading.
The Commission supports this precautionary approach towards the emissions of ultra-fine particulates.
<P>
Now the main issue in this package of amendments for second reading is the early application date of stringent limits for oxides of nitrogen, NOx.
The Commission believes that the state of development of the necessary technology to achieve such stringent NOx limits makes it difficult at the moment to accept a date earlier than October 2008.
In this regard the technology feasibility review is necessary, since the emission control devices to meet the ambitious NOx limits are still under development. While they have demonstrated great promise in laboratory trials, there is no certainty yet as to the long-term operational efficiency of such devices which will make them a viable and durable technical solution to achieve emissions controls in the longer term.
There are also important issues still to be resolved with respect to the quality of market fuels and notably sulphur content.
<P>
In conclusion, the Commission can accept the following amendments: the first part of Amendment No 3, Amendments Nos 6, 7 and 10, Amendments Nos 16 to 26 and Amendments Nos 29 to 47.



The Commission can accept in principle Amendments Nos 1, 4, 5, 13, both parts of Amendment No 12 and Amendment No 15.


The amendments which the Commission cannot accept are Amendment No 2, the second part of Amendment No 3, Amendments Nos 8 and 9, both parts of Amendment No 11 as well as Amendments Nos 14, 27 and 28.




<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Daphne Programme 2000-2003
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0056/1999), on behalf of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council decision establishing a Community action programme (the Daphne Programme 2000-2003) concerning measures to prevent violence against children, young people and women [9150/1/1999-C5-0181/1999 - 1998/0192(COD)] (Rapporteur: Mrs Avilés Perea).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Avilés Perea">
Mr President, in this plenary sitting we are presenting the Daphne Community action programme on preventive measures to fight violence against children, young people and women.
Violence is a social problem of regrettable topical importance which involves the violation of human rights and a physical, mental and social crime as well as a crime against people' s quality of life.
The Daphne Programme 2000-2003 will be an instrument of vital importance in the fight against violence and will provide added value to local, regional and national actions in this field through the creation of networks, the exchange of information, better practices and cooperation and greater awareness in society in general.
<P>
The common position expressly mentions the victims of exploitation and sexual abuse which would be covered by the programme, as well as the common establishment of priorities, promoting innovation and the exchange of experiences regarding actions taken by Member States, including the exchange of information on different legislation and the results obtained.
Non-governmental organisations should be promoted, in particular those which are concerned with the well-being and quality of life of children, young people and women.
<P>
The present programme will last four years, and an evaluation of its progress is planned for two years after its implementation.
The actions will also have the aim of improving public and media awareness with regard to this grave problem.
<P>
The budget for implementation will be EUR 20 million and the Community contribution to the funding of the programmes will vary, up to a maximum of 80% of the cost of the action.
<P>
In the implementation of this action, the Commission will be assisted by a committee consisting of representatives of the Member States and chaired by the representative of the Commission.
<P>
The programme will be open to the countries of the European Free Trade Area, the associated countries of Central and Eastern Europe, in accordance with the conditions laid down in the European agreements, and to Cyprus, Malta and Turkey by means of supplementary credits.
<P>
The aim of the Daphne programme is to support and recognise the work carried out by the non-governmental organisations, as well as other organisations - including the public authorities which are concerned with violence - and to ensure that they cooperate with each other, in the exchange of good practices - including pilot projects on a Community scale on the prevention of violence - and the support and protection of children, young people and women.
<P>
The networks will form a common front against violence by analysing it, in its different forms, its causes and consequences.
<P>
The real impact of the different types of violence on victims must be measured, in order to determine suitable responses, evaluate the types and the efficiency of the measures and practices in order to prevent and detect violence, support victims and prevent their future exposure to it.
<P>
This programme, as I have said, will be an important weapon in the fight against violence towards women, young people and children in terms of improving social and media awareness of the need to help and protect the victims of violence.
<P>
Six amendments to the common position have been presented, which have been approved by the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities and are in the annex to the text.
I would like to point out that amendments 3 and 5 will be replaced by new amendments which modify point 18 of the preamble and articles 5, 6 and 7 in order to adapt the text we are presenting to the wording drawn up by the Socrates Conciliation Committee and which will lead to a parallel solution for the committees in the majority of programmes.
It is therefore the wording which has to be adapted and we hope that Parliament will do so suitably.
<P>
I would ask you to vote unanimously for this programme, since it is of enormous importance.
And we hope that by approving this second reading with the amendments presented, if the Commission and the Council accepts them, the programme may be approved, avoiding conciliation.
<P>
I do not wish to end my intervention without mentioning the first rapporteur of this report, Mrs Benassar.
When she left Parliament, with the beginning of the new mandate on 15 June, I was appointed rapporteur and I continued with the work which she had carried out.
I continued with her efforts and have tried to work on this essential action which the Commission must take - the defence of women, young people and children - in order to prevent the violence which, unfortunately, is regularly directed at them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Klaß">
Mr President, we are talking today about the Daphne programme on measures to fight violence against children, young persons and women.
A decision is urgently needed on this programme, in order to ensure continuity when the present period of support comes to an end.
This is an important programme which complies with our commitment to achieve a high level of health protection in the European Union. I say this because we unfortunately still come across the effects of violence in our society all too often, and they represent a serious health risk.
<P>
This is not just a question - and let me stress that I would like to see that little word "just" in quotation marks - of physical and sexual forms of violence.
Protection against psychological violence, which occurs in many more different shapes and forms, and against which victims are even less well equipped to defend themselves, belongs in the Daphne programme.
You cannot define health solely in terms of physical well-being.
Every form of violence leaves a legacy of psychological damage which can only be repaired in rare cases or with difficulty.
We need to set up new networks here and to support existing ones.
<P>
However, it is equally important to support appropriate information campaigns, and in this case exchanges of experience play a big part.
These exchanges need to extend to criminal prosecution, where discrimination against the victim must be avoided when charges are brought.
It is important to give victims adequate information about their rights, and society must be made more sensitive in dealing with crimes of violence against women, children and young people.
<P>
Children and young people need our special protection, and unfortunately this still applies to women too. Only when well-being has been attained in all social structures in our society will we be able to solve the problems of the future.
Finally, I would like to thank Mrs Avilés Perea very much for her swift and competent work, which she did so quickly despite the changeover, so that this urgently needed report is before us now.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gröner">
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mrs Avilés on getting to grips with this difficult subject so rapidly, which meant that we in the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities have been able to present this report very quickly.
Nevertheless, I would have liked to see more men involved in this work.
Violence against women and children is after all a men' s problem, not a women' s problem.
<P>
I am convinced that with this programme we have taken a big step forward in combating physical, sexual and psychological violence against children, young persons and women.
However, we all need to be aware that it is only one step, and that there is still a lot to be done to effectively combat this phenomenon of violence.
In 1999 this House succeeded, in the face of persistent opposition, in initiating a campaign to counter violence against women.
The Eurobarometer poll published this May made the extent of violence clear and identified the gaps where we need to take action.
<P>
Europol and the STOP programme are instruments for combating trade in women.
The Member States have committed themselves to do a great deal, which has, for instance, emerged from the campaigns.
The complex interrelationships in the fight against violence have only really become clear because of the Austrian, German and Finnish Presidencies' Conferences.
My own country, for example, has as a result set up a national action plan against violence, and other countries are following suit.
I think that we have given an important impetus to this.
<P>
Mrs Avilés' report on the common position was adopted after a great battle about changing the legal basis from Article 235 to Article 152, with the codecision procedure.
But my own group only voted for it with great reservations and only because the World Heath Organisation definition, according to which health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, is now evidently recognised and taken as a basis by the Council.
<P>
My group would have liked to see certain other changes of emphasis in the Daphne programme, for example links with other Community programmes such as PHARE, TACIS and MEDA,because that is where the big money is, in order to initiate preventive measures and campaigns in the applicant countries.
However, as regards reaching agreement quickly and avoiding the conciliation procedure, we agree with Mrs Avilés here, and are only recommending six amendments to the common position.
In any case we recommend that the media should be involved in order to get the programme up and running.
I would like to thank you very sincerely for your work and hope that the Council will accept our amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Sanders-ten Holte">
Mr President, first of all, I would like to thank Mrs Avilés Perea for her thorough work.
She has resubmitted a number of amendments that will receive our Group' s full backing, especially the definition of health.
This is an enormous improvement to my mind.
Many people, men but also women, still think that violence against women has become a rare occurrence within the European Union.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
One in five women within the European Union has been a victim of such violence at some time, including in our immediate surroundings.
One does not have to look far.
There are probably more victims but they never reported the crimes to the police or relief centres.
In fact, most incidents of violence occur in the home, which means the phenomenon is less visible.
Many women still want to keep their dirty laundry inside. They feel ashamed.
<P>
The link between violence within the family and child protection is often overlooked.
For example, if the court allows contact between the violent partner or ex-partners and their children, then the woman will remain exposed to violence via the children.
I would once again draw attention to this fact.
The specific aim of the Daphne programme is to encourage and support non-governmental organisations and other institutions to combat all kinds of violence against children and women.
I welcome the fact that national measures are to be lent added value.
Great!
Liberals do not wish to harmonise Member State legislation on violence against women and children.
My group, however, is of the opinion that the Member States that are behind in this respect should be encouraged to bring their legislation up-to-date.
<P>
I also think that the perspective should be shifted.
Instead of trying to change the behaviour of women, the behaviour and attitude of men should be examined.
This is not about short skirts, Mr President.
Awareness and information campaigns on violence against women are desperately needed.
This issue should, as far as I am concerned, feature high on the political agenda.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Evans, Jillian">
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mrs Avilés Perea on her work.
The Daphne programme, we should remember, was an initiative of this Parliament in 1997 which recognised the need for action to combat violence against women, young people and children.
In the first year of the programme alone 428 projects were submitted by various organisations in Europe and this level of response reflected the need for programmes such as this.
<P>
In my own constituency I have seen the work of organisations like Welsh Women' s Aid which provides support, advice and practical refuge for women and children victims of violence.
It receives over 15,000 calls a year and the number is rising all the time.
Last year it housed over 2,000 women and over 3,000 children in refuges and they had to turn many others away because of the lack of accommodation.
<P>
This workload reflects the scale of the problem we have throughout Europe.
It also shows how important the role of NGOs and voluntary organisations is in this area.
There are specific examples of the way in which Daphne-funded projects have helped.
In just a few weeks' time an international seminar will take place in Leeds to look at issues of violence against women in conflict situations.
Speakers from many countries will be attending that seminar.
There have been many other projects linked to the important fight against child sex tourism which have been funded by Daphne.
<P>
On the issue of the legal base - this is a health issue of course, but it is also far more than that.
However, we can accept the World Health Organisation' s definition of health as not just being the absence of disease but a state of physical, mental and social well-being.
Any lesser definition would leave much of the problem unexposed and we hope that this will be agreed as the European definition for the purpose of this programme.
<P>
The Daphne programme, as others have said, has made a great deal of difference but there is a lot more to be done and it is vital that it is followed up.
I trust that the Council will decide on this before 1 January so that existing projects can continue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fraisse">
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Thomas-Mauro">
Mr President, the Daphne programme' s great mission is to raise public awareness, to ensure that there is an exchange of information, to try, in this way, to protect children, young people and women from all those situations of break-up and despair.
<P>
Underlying the texts of the recitals, there are the broken personal destinies of children and women who suffer physical violence, but also, and more insidiously, mental harassment.
This issue concerns Europeans' physical and mental health.
<P>
Direct or indirect violence towards anyone considered weak must be unequivocally condemned.
<P>
Personally, I have the impression that violence is on show between couples, in families, at work, on television or even in political and social life.
Perversion, aggression, and predatory behaviour hold more fascination for us and we pay too little attention to the victims of the law of the jungle that prevails in today' s world.
<P>
Our age has refused to establish standards.
It tolerates perversion because setting a limit today means an attempt to censure.
We have lost our moral or religious boundaries and we are not able to become indignant unless the facts are visible, such as bruises on a face, or unless they come into the public domain, relayed by the media.
Therefore we need information campaigns, and the Daphne programme will support these.
<P>
Violence takes place in a world without borders and is not something from distant, barbaric times.
We are in 1999, in this Chamber in Strasbourg and we are discussing violence perpetrated against women and children in Europe.
We are not in some mythical, cruel and obscurantist Middle Ages but on the threshold of the 21st century.
<P>
I firmly support the establishment of the Daphne programme; indeed we must support any initiative that aims to make this dark side of our society visible, as borders disappear in the face of all sorts of evil networks: prostitution, paedophilia and others, on the Internet for example.
<P>
Our States must therefore collaborate and exchange information.
The European Union can provide added value to the action of its Members.
But it is also incumbent on our States to protect these women and children and anyone harmed by society.
The State knows its citizens because it knows their mentality, the culture that they have in their mind and in their society that it has, to some extent, moulded.
It is up to the national States themselves to promote the family as a support structure and to create men liberated from these patterns of violence that they pass down from generation to generation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Ghilardotti">
Mr President, in my intervention I would like to stress the fundamental role played by the European Parliament, and in particular, the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, in, I hope, reaching the point where the final adoption of this programme will be debated.
It has already been mentioned in other interventions that, a few years ago, the European Parliament promoted pilot projects supporting non-governmental organisations and local authorities that, for some time, have been endeavouring to use actions to fight violence against women and children. This phenomenon of violence against women and children is, unfortunately, not only very widespread but is increasing, and is gradually taking on new, even more sophisticated forms, which are therefore more difficult to combat.
<P>
The programme we are debating today is the result of this previous work.
A very thorough discussion took place with the Executive Commission, especially with regard to amending the legal basis and therefore making the adjustments implied in the proposal to the original proposal.
<P>
I do not wish to return to this topic, but I would like, however, to express a certain amount of satisfaction, despite the change to the legal basis, that the Commission and the Council have in any case adopted some elements which are extremely important to us.
I am referring to the fact that the common position contains references to health in terms of physical, mental and social well-being, to quality of life and to violence as a violation of human rights, and, in particular, to the fact that this programme also covers victims of trafficking and sexual exploitation.
I also find it especially significant that there is recognition of the important role played by the NGOs and multidisciplinary networks as well as public bodies who are already carrying out valuable work, in particular with regard to the prevention of violence and the support and protection of victims.
To give this programme real added value, we must launch a major awareness campaign involving Parliament and the Commission, but, above all, the Member States, which must take complete responsibility for fighting violence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bordes">
Mr President, of course I have nothing against part of the budget being dedicated to preventive measures against violence towards children, young people and women, as long as it is dedicated to providing financial help to organisations working at grassroots level.
However, I think that the amount proposed is laughable and the Council' s desire to reduce it even further, shocking.
<P>
The European Parliament and the Council are easing their conscience on the cheap because, besides domestic violence and violence connected to sexual exploitation, we should also acknowledge the growth of social violence which results from the increase in poverty and from the growing destitution amongst the working classes.
The greatest act of violence is the serious effect of unemployment, but also the deterioration in the working conditions of those who still have a job.
<P>
Is it not an act of violence for example, to force women, mothers, to work on production lines at night in order to make the machines more profitable and to provide greater profits for shareholders?
Now, not only do the European institutions tolerate such violence, but they have even made it worse by removing measures in the social legislation of some countries which gave some protection to women.
And the mollifying speeches of the Daphne programme do not compensate for the rest.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Torres Marques">
Mr President, Commissioner, Mrs Avilés Perea, I would also like to pay tribute to Francisca Bennasar Tous, who worked very hard in the last legislature to ensure the success of this programme.
<P>
The European Parliament, and, particularly, the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, have played a vitally important role in placing the issue of violence against women and children firmly on the European agenda.
As the legal basis has now changed, we now face a codecision procedure on public health, because violence is really a physical and mental act that affects all social classes.
Parliament firmly supports the definition of "health" made by the World Health Organisation and so, for us, health can be defined as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not just the absence of disease.
<P>
The actions of the Daphne programme must still be supported by NGOs, and, as we ourselves have proposed in our amendments, by social communication, as women, who are some of Europe' s most sceptical citizens where the European Union is concerned, must be made aware and understand that programmes such as Daphne exist and that they are of direct concern to women.
<P>
In Portugal, for example, violence against women is statistically higher in areas which have a higher standard of living or higher levels of education, which does not necessarily mean that that is where more violence against women and children occurs. What it means - to my mind - is that there are more women in those areas who are financially independent, better educated and braver about making a complaint to the police.
One of the practical measures taken in Portugal, at least in urban areas, was to have women police officers deal with women making complaints, and that immediately made a huge difference.
<P>
Finally, I would like to take advantage of the fact that Commissioner António Vitorino, who attended the Tampere Summit, is here, to ask him to tell us how the Council' s final decision, which we applaud, to criminalise violence against human beings, particularly against women and children, will be put into practice.
What it is going to change, Commissioner, and how?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Prets">
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Avilés Perea for this report, because with it she has provided us with another instrument to combat violence against women and children, and also, above all, to identify how and where violence occurs.
The term violence is defined more precisely here, as violence can mean any type of exercise or abuse of power, injury or duress.
All forms of violence should be rejected, but all too often there is a very high level of tolerance amongst families regarding violence.
Violence against women should therefore be identified more actively, so that help can be provided.
<P>
We also know that acts of violence increase if no sanctions are taken.
It is difficult for victims to escape from violent relationships without outside help.
The women and children affected need active support, and above all protection.
It is society' s job - everybody' s job - to make available the best possible support measuresand protection instruments.
Daphne is a support measure that makes it possible for us to combat this.
However, legal measures will also be needed in individual countries.
Let me take Austria as an example.
Austria has been in the vanguard with a law providing protection against violence in force since 1997. This is known as the expulsion law, and under it violent men can be expelled and women can no longer be forced to flee with their children to women' s refuges and other similar establishments.
The expulsion law initially applies for seven days and can if necessary be extended up to the divorce date.
I would now like to invite other countries also to adopt a law of this kind, as it would help to ensure that women and their dignity are protected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="Vitorino">
Mr President, the Commission is delighted to take part in what is now the final step in the adoption of the Daphne Programme 2000-2003, a four-year Community action programme based upon the experience of the Daphne initiative established when the European Parliament included for the first time funds in the 1997 budget to combat violence against children, young persons and women.
<P>
The programme rests firmly upon the recognition of the need to uphold human rights whether those of children under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1989 or those of women as expressed in the Beijing Declaration and Platform of Action in 1995.
<P>
The Commission' s first proposal was made in May 1998 and during the last 18 months the procedure has survived not merely a change of legal base but also a change of Treaty, a change of commitology, a change of Parliament and a change of Commission.
It is, clearly, therefore, a hardy plant designed to thrive and grow as a potent weapon in the Community' s armoury against the evil of violence inflicted upon those most at risk in our society.
<P>
I would like to pay particular tribute to the parliamentary rapporteurs, Madame Bennasar Tous and Madame Avilés Perea for the work during the adoption procedure.
They have led the parliamentary side in often difficult negotiations.
I would also pay tribute to the work of the German and Finnish Presidencies without whose help we could not have achieved the second reading today in time for the programme to be adopted by 1 January next year.
<P>
Finally, I would like to pay tribute to my predecessor, Mrs Gradin, who throughout handled the Daphne dossier with great skill and expertise.
The Daphne Programme builds on the Daphne initiative, but with two important changes.
First, it is open for the applicant and EFTA countries to take part in the programme.
These will significantly help the victims of cross-border trafficking of women and children.
Secondly, the programme is now open to applications from other organisations than the NGOs.
In the light of the different traditions within the Member States these changes will I hope greatly increase its effectiveness.
<P>
The Commission accepts all the six amendments which are before the House today.
<P>
We therefore hope that the Daphne programme will be adopted as speedily as possible.
Once it has been adopted, the Commission will work with Parliament and the Member States to ensure that it achieves its goal.
The Commission will specifically ensure that this programme is a relevant tool to channel the synergies of public authorities and NGOs in order to preserve the physical and psychological integrity and the social well-being of children, young persons and women in all areas of activity.
I consider that coupling this initiative with the perspective opened by Tampere will lead in the near future to common definitions, common penal procedures and common sanctions that will be applied by Member States to the crimes of trafficking in human beings and to crimes against children.
<P>
The goals are therefore to establish networks throughout the European Union and within the applicant countries between organisations active in the fight against violence against women and children that know the field and to raise awareness among the European public as a whole of the nature of this evil and of the need and the means to eradicate it.
<P>
On the eve of the new millennium I may say, Mr President, that strong support in the European Parliament for this programme will be the best and clearest sign that the Union attaches the utmost political priority to effectively combating violence against children, young persons and women.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Rights of the Child
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="President">
The next item is the Commission' s statement on the tenth anniversary of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child.
<P>
I shall now give the floor to Mr Vitorino to speak on behalf of the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Vitorino">
I am sure that the issue that has been raised today merits detailed consideration by the Commission and by the Union as a whole.
<P>
As we have just seen from the previous debate, the Commission is already active in several fields involving children, though competence for action in the majority of relevant areas concerning children remains with the Member States.
<P>
Children constitute a particularly vulnerable group.
For example, for a number of years the Community has been providing support to countries in which there is a particular problem with regard to the economic exploitation, abandonment and prostitution of children through special projects aimed at fostering social assistance, protection, well-being, reintegration and education.
<P>
In 1999 to mark the tenth anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, dramatic priority was given to children' s rights under the European initiative for democracy and human rights, Chapter B.7-7 of the European Union budget.
<P>
The Commission is already implementing the Daphne Initiative to combat violence against young persons and children, and this will be succeeded next year, as we have just seen from the previous debate, by the Daphne Programme 2000-2003.
Through the STOP programme and through its work in the fields of police and judicial cooperation, the Commission is actively fighting the sexual exploitation of children including child pornography on the Internet.
<P>
In the field of police cooperation and of the third pillar, the Commission now has the power of joint initiative with the Member States and is actively pursuing the fight against the sexual exploitation of children.
In January a codecision was adopted establishing an action plan to promote the safer use of the Internet thereby protecting children from violence and pornography.
It followed a recommendation in 1998 on the protection of minors and human dignity.
The Commission is now implementing these measures.
In May the Commission adopted a communication on the implementation of measures to combat child sex tourism and it has now selected a number of actions to be co-financed in this field.
<P>
The Commission is also undertaking action in the social field and the educational field with a view to improving the quality of life of children and opportunities for their development and education.
The suggestion that sometimes has been put forward to establish a children's unit within the Commission is one that I recognise will require study in particular to ensure that full account is taken of the human and financial resources that are at present available.
<P>
The Commission will also give consideration as to the idea of publishing a communication on children to mark the tenth anniversary of the Convention.
This will clearly take a little time.
I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this matter in the plenary session of the European Parliament.
The Commission will study attentively the reports of this debate and will take all appropriate action to meet the concerns of the Parliament in order not only to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Convention but also to improve concrete policies in order to achieve the goals set by this Convention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Banotti">
Mr President, firstly I should just like to make a technical point.
The debate we have here today, which is very welcome, has been part of a long, difficult technical process.
First of all we thought we would have a proper resolution and then an oral question; in fact a great many Members signed an oral question.
I would hope that their names can be added to whatever resolution comes out of today' s debate.
We went to a lot of trouble to get colleagues to sign this.
I hope that their names will also be listed in the agenda.
<P>
I thank the Commissioner for his statement: "We demand that the EU listen carefully to the voices of its 90 million children and young people under eighteen.
We are concerned that the way in which Europe is developing creates real risks for the safety, protection and wellbeing of its young citizens.
Twenty percent of Europe' s children live in poverty despite the countries of the EU being amongst the richest in the world."
<P>
These are not my words but the words of children and young people from my country, Ireland, and other EU countries.
They put it better than I can, how children are excluded from EU policy and how laws and policies that the EU makes have a very real impact on children' s lives, an impact that is different from that on adults.
Children have a very low priority at European level.
The only really serious political response came following the horrific Dutroux affair in Belgium when MEPs were queuing up to sign my resolution on that tragedy.
Even then the EU' s institutional response has been largely focused on the issue of sexual abuse and trafficking and not on the wider set of EU issues that affect children.
<P>
The lack of a clear legal base in the Treaty has meant that children' s specific needs are ignored.
This week the world celebrates the tenth anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This is the most widely ratified human rights treaty in the world and the most comprehensive legal statement of children' s rights world-wide.
Except the US and Somalia, all countries in the world have ratified the Convention; but despite the fact that the EU Member States have ratified it too, the EU institutions themselves have so far failed to implement it.
<P>
We have an absurd situation in which Member States have to promote the best interests of the child in legislation and policy, but the Union is under no legal obligation to protect children' s best interests.
At present children are invisible in EU legislation.
Single market considerations often override children' s best interests.
For example, protection of children and children' s safety may be compromised by lack of regulation of services such as Internet and TV advertising.
Children are seen as burdens, dependants, victims or barriers to work in direct contradiction to their status in the Convention.
The strong focus on the citizen as worker in the Treaty means that the best interests of children are not considered. Children are only a target group in one action programme and very few temporary budget lines.
Children and children' s projects receive less than EUR 5 million directly from the EU' s vast budget.
Since the disappearance of the children and family budget line in DG V there is no budget line which has children as a general target group.
Children have become invisible in EU policy.
<P>
Most fundamentally, there is no coordination and no unit of the Commission, no Directorate-General which takes a lead in developing a coherent, overall policy on children.
I am glad to hear you say you are considering it, Commissioner.
We look forward to rapid action on this matter.
<P>
I would like to make the following recommendations to mark the tenth anniversary of the Convention.
The Commission should adopt a communication on children' s rights to mark the tenth anniversary of the Convention and create a children' s policy unit.
Member States, at the next revision of the Treaties, must adopt a clear legal base on the EU Treaties to promote the best interests of the child.
Parliament should ensure that children are more visible in budget lines and the Commission should improve its technique and develop mechanisms for dialogue with the NGOs representing children.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gröner">
Mr President, on 20 November 1989 the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted, and I think that the tenth anniversary of that event is a good opportunity to take stock.
Our Member States did indeed ratify the convention, even if in some cases it was with certain reservations, and they should now be removed as a matter of urgency.
<P>
We Social Democrats have over the last ten years worked hard to secure a better hearing for children' s rights, and have emphasised these rights with various important reports and resolutions.
This goes back to the Gröner report in 1991, in which Parliament for the first time dealt with children' s problems, and in which I was already demanding a children' s ombudsperson.
I should also mention the Bandres Molet report on a European charter for children' s rights and last year' s Zimmermann report on minors.
We have also given a very high level of political priority to children' s needs in various reports to the UN world conferences, in conjunction with third countries, and in particular with the ACP countries.
<P>
In the course of this year, Parliament has submitted a succession of proposals to the Commission, and it now expects the Commission to produce a communication in which all these initiatives are brought together.
The various tasks on the list of priorities should be tackled one by one.
Right at the top of the list is the incorporation of fundamental children' s rights into the new treaty.
Secondly, using the Daphne programme as a first step, as the first instrument for taking action to counter sexual exploitation and violence against children.
Thirdly, there is the situation of girls and young women, which merits special attention in all areas of policy, as they are still exposed to particular discrimination not only here in Europe, but all over the world.
Fourthly, we must do everything we can to ensure that children are not involved in wars, either as victims or aggressors.
We do not want to see any more child soldiers anywhere in the world.
<P>
Two minutes is very short and the list of tasks is a long one. Please take some action!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, as previous speakers have indicated, allowing this convention to become a powerful and important tool for the European Union is the best way of celebrating it, when it comes to both domestic and foreign policy.
We must do everything to ensure that the countries with which we are cooperating honour their obligations under the convention.
We know, as a lot of people here have mentioned, that many countries have ratified it. But how many countries are there really which honour their obligations, for example to report on what they have done.
We must make sure that the convention is an important tool in relation to the candidate countries.
I think that a step forward was taken when children' s rights were specified in the progress report on Romania.
As we know, conditions were in that way established for negotiations with Romania.
<P>
In the statement which most of us are looking forward to and which Commissioner Vitorino mentioned, we must also find out how much the European Union is spending on children under the PHARE and TACIS programmes.
Hans van den Broek was promising for a time that we should obtain such a report, but it has not been forthcoming.
I look forward to its arriving no later than with the statements.
<P>
Mrs Gröner mentioned child soldiers.
I think that is the most topical of the questions concerning children' s rights.
We must support all those who are working for the voluntary protocol, which will begin to be drawn up next year.
We must make sure that countries which sanction child soldiers really are not given the same advantages.
I am sorry that this Parliament could not have given the Sakharov prize to a woman who has fought against the employment of child soldiers.
I think it is particularly important that, not only before but also after the Tampere Summit, we investigate - under the third pillar - how children are treated and ensure that child refugees receive special treatment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Lambert">
Mr President, I would agree with much of what we have heard already in the debate this evening.
I, like many others here, will remember the enthusiasm and political excitement with which this convention was adopted, how many world leaders were keen to be seen with young people and to talk in glowing terms of the future they were offering.
I reflect with considerable sorrow at the dying-away of many of those fine words.
<P>
One of the main concerns of that convention is the right for children to live in peace.
People have already referred to some 300,000 under-18 year olds recruited as soldiers throughout the world.
Some of them are in our own Member States where they have no right to vote for the governments which decide their futures.
We see many children working in conditions of slavery and forced labour and we would urge all European Union states to ratify the ILO Convention dealing with these issues.
We would also urge Members States at the next IGC, to adopt a legal base to promote and protect the rights of the child as defined in the United Nations Convention.
<P>
We also need to take responsibility for the state of the world in which those children are growing up, not least the environmental conditions under which many of them have to suffer.
It is essential that we meet and surpass the targets that we have set ourselves to combat such things as climate change.
For far too many children, clean water, safe food and adequate shelter are still a dream, even for many in the so-called developing world.
<P>
We would also argue that we need to change the priorities of our international financial institutions so that priority may be given to safeguarding the environment and providing health care and education rather than open markets.
Lastly, cancelling the debt of the world' s poorest countries would also help the young people of those nations considerably.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hermange">
Mr President, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of this Convention, a text which recognises the child as an individual in its own right, by giving it its own rights (the right to life, the right to identity and to a family, the right of expression and the right to be fed and educated) it is nevertheless still true that on our continent every thirty seconds, a child is abused, raped or beaten up, is indoctrinated, and is the victim of inadequate policies, changes in family and financial circumstances, a victim too of the fact that we are not applying this international Convention.
<P>
It is therefore our duty, at the end of the century to ask ourselves why there are millions of children who are forced into prostitution, who kill themselves, who take drugs, and as our continent is only just beginning to discover the terrible effects of paedophilia, to which we have closed our eyes for such a long time, we must ask ourselves why, in our countries which are developed in terms of democracy and economics, which proudly celebrate the Declaration on Human Rights every year, these rights are flouted when the most vulnerable in our society, that is children, are concerned.
<P>
With this in mind, Commissioner, we hope that our children will become much more visible.
During the last Parliamentary term, I tabled a report on behalf of Parliament on the protection of children and the family in which I asked for a visible budget for our children and for the creation, within the Commission, of a special unit responsible for protecting children and the family.
In it I also highlighted the need to bring together, at our own behest, an extraordinary European Council on the future of policies on the family and on protecting children in the Union and to present an annual report to Parliament comparing legislation on this issue in our respective countries.
<P>
Finally, we hope, and I too hope, like many of my fellow MEPs, that we can contemplate, within the framework of the IGC, the introduction of an indisputable legal basis for actions favouring children and the family.
Whereas in 2001 a report will be made at the UN of the first World Summit on Children, I suggest that within our own Parliament, we create a European Children' s Parliament, established together with them, to celebrate this European World Summit in 2001.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Roure">
Mr President, Commissioner, every time children' s rights are not respected, an act of violence is committed.
Even if collective violence happens to be the most visible, daily acts of violence and problems between neighbours, which we might call small acts of violence, are very hard to bear for those who suffer them and it is in this climate that some children are born and grow up today.
Violence is indicative of social problems that must be urgently addressed.
Instead of corrective or repressive solutions, priority should be given to preventive solutions, creating a different kind of family setting, which would finally enable us to prevent pointless suffering on a personal and on a social scale and to practise a genuine policy of inclusion and socialisation from birth onwards.
<P>
The important thing is not to try to draw up a catalogue of rights, but to make everyone aware of the importance of early childhood, in order to avoid a future society where, because they were denied their rights when children, young people' s only means of expressing themselves is to rebel.
Humans are born helpless and in a state of dependence.
Babies have nothing but their rights.
They can have no obligations.
Obligations come only with awareness, and awareness is only stimulated by means of education and there can be no successful education without respect for the baby' s dignity and for that of the child.
We must support children' s rights in third countries, but also in our own States.
We must also start to collectively think about children' s living conditions in the various European countries particularly in urban areas, and initiate a form of collaboration as well as financial resources in order to help families in difficulty, particularly in the case of single-parent families or of vulnerable parents.
Our goal is nothing less than to have well-balanced children. It is therefore our duty to protect and educate them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Karamanou">
Mr President, this year' s tenth anniversary of the UN Convention is a very good opportunity for both the European Parliament and the Commission not just to deliver speeches in celebration of the anniversary but above all to press for further action, to make more resources available, and to take initiatives and measures to coordinate an integrated and binding policy which will prove effective in protecting human values and the human dignity of children.
<P>
Recent UNICEF statistics paint a gloomy picture of world reality.
Millions of children are suffering from hunger and a lack of basic medical care and education, whilst some 300,000 children under the age of 18 are currently being trained for and are taking part in military operations.
And whilst all this is happening in the underdeveloped world, in the civilised West violence against children, abandonment and the sexual exploitation of children through international networks is assuming terrifying dimensions.
<P>
That is why the European Parliament needs to send a strong message to all the institutional bodies of the European Union, to international organisations and to governmental organisations telling them that we must put an end to this scourge.
In light of the drawing up of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the creation of the area of freedom, security and justice, we must incorporate a separate chapter on the protection of the rights of the child.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Hecke">
Mr President, never before in history were humanitarian rights so well developed.
Never before have there been so many international treaties ratified by so many states.
Despite this, human rights are still being systematically violated on a large scale.
This also applies to children' s rights.
Nearly all countries have now ratified the treaty.
Although good progress has been made in certain areas, other forms of abuse against children are on the increase.
Over the past decade, the number of children on the streets has grown at an alarming rate.
Commercial sexual exploitation of children has become more international and more organised.
Children are more than ever the victim of wars.
<P>
It is estimated that since 1987, two million children have been killed in armed conflict.
Six million have been maimed for life.
Nearly 30 million are currently on the run from war and violence.
<P>
Treaties on their own do not suffice.
They also need to be implemented.
More mechanisms should therefore come into place in order to actually enforce these rights, more monitoring bodies to ensure that they are observed and more pressure tools for sentencing perpetrators.
<P>
We have already mentioned one of the cruellest forms of child abuse: child soldiers.
In fact, over the past two years, 300,000 children under the age of 18 have fought in conflicts all over the world, many of whom were recruited under duress.
Invariably, greater numbers of children than adults are killed due to a lack of experience and training.
Drafting in child soldiers not only threatens to lead to a criminalisation of society, it also turns all children into potential targets.
<P>
Mr President, we need more than fine-sounding declarations of intent.
As Parliament, we need to advocate the introduction of a minimum age of 18 for recruitment and taking part in armed conflict.
Presenting a united front on this, linking all European Member States without exception, will be more than a symbolic step in the direction of a more child-friendly society.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Bowis">
Mr President, many tragedies there are in the world but none more moving than those that affect children.
There are none worse than the ones we have heard about today involving trades in children.
I want to refer to one of those trades and that is the trade that takes place in adoption.
<P>
In the United Kingdom, in the 1960s, we had some 25,000 adoptions, with 12,500 under one-year-olds.
In the 1970s that figure had fallen to 13,000 and the under one-year-olds to 3,000.
By the 1990s that had dropped again to 7,000 with only 900 under one-year-olds.
Much of the differences stem of course from the wider and freer availability of abortion.
In Britain the figure is one in five pregnancies, in London it is one in three.
More children who are available for adoption have disabilities - mental or physical or behavioural problems - and so couples, not surprisingly, look further afield for babies to adopt.
And further afield, indeed, there are babies available for adoption.
<P>
The first duty for all of us should be to the child.
For any child that needs a family, the preference is for its own family and if that is not available then a family in its own community.
If that is not available then a family, perhaps with a different background, within its own country.
If that is not available, then, and only then, should one start looking for a home abroad.
But it must be a properly vetted and loving home and the couple taking on the responsibility for that child must show an understanding of the child's background.
Too often we have seen abuses in the system which puts couples' wishes before the child's interests.
So we have seen rackets developing in baby-selling, mothers having their babies stolen, mothers being bribed to part with their children, mothers being conned that the child is going to benefit from a good start in life and return to the family when, of course, there is no such intention.
<P>
That is why we have the Hague Convention on Inter-Country Adoption.
That is why I ask the Commission to make sure that Hague Convention is properly implemented throughout the European Union nations.
I ask for a report to be brought forward to show the state of law in each member country and the state of legal practice.
<P>
On this, the tenth anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, we must stand up for those children, for their rights to be children.
That means supporting children in need because of illness, or disability or hunger or poverty or lack of educational opportunities.
It means an end to child labour and exploitation and the awful trades in children.
So much of that is caused by the cruelty or neglect of adults and the least adults can do is to ensure that when a child genuinely has no family we apply the provisions of the Inter-Country Convention when giving that child another chance in life through adoption.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Vitorino">
.
(FR) Mr President, first of all, I would like to thank all the speakers and to assure you that, on behalf of the Commission, I have noted your concerns and your wishes.
<P>
I think, moreover, that we are facing a problem that can be seen from two different angles: on the one hand, from that of basic rights, and on the other, from that of the influence of children' s policies on the Union' s areas of action.
<P>
With regards to the first angle, fundamental rights, in accordance with Article 6 of the Treaty, we in the Union are committed to respecting fundamental rights, and specifically, the freedoms and fundamental human rights, in the way they have evolved in the constitutional traditions common to our Member States.
I think that the appropriate forum for debating the opportunities to enshrine a fundamental right for children must be the same as for the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
I would like to say, before Parliament, that I shall raise the issue there.
<P>
With regard to sectoral policies, I still hold with the suggestion of a communication on this subject by the Commission which must, by definition, be horizontal.
But I would also like to point out, before Parliament, that the Commission is already committed to developing specific measures concerning children.
I must tell you all that in my own area of action, more specifically, police and judicial cooperation, that the fight against the trade in children, the fight against the abuse of children and other crimes against them, as well as the prevention of juvenile crime are just as much priorities for action by the Commission which we will be developing within the framework of programmes for police and judicial cooperation that I shall inform you of when I give the presentation of the scoreboard system requested by the Heads of State and Government.
<P>
With regard to this opportunity for a horizontal communication by the Commission, I think that we can envisage therefore, its organisational consequences put forward in your suggestions: the creation of a unit within the Commission and the definition of budgets dedicated to the protection of children in order to improve public supervision of the Union' s participation as well as over policies of child protection.
<P>
Finally, I would like to point out that the responsibility for applying the Convention rests above all with the Member States and that that is an area in which we are strictly bound to apply the principle of subsidiarity.
But I would also like to think that we could envisage promoting, under the auspices of the Commission, a comparative study of the transposition of the Convention on the Rights of the Child into the national laws of several Member States.
I think that this kind of study could help to identify the extent to which the Convention is actually being applied.
I am a lawyer and I am very keen on laws and legal texts, but I am also a father, and I am especially keen on seeing moral, political and cultural rules being applied to protecting children.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Informing and consulting workers
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="President">
The next item is Mr Rocard' s oral question (B5-0034/1999), on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on informing and consulting workers in the European Community.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Ghilardotti">
Mr President, Commissioner, in April 1999, the European Parliament adopted at first reading its legislative resolution on the Commission proposal establishing a general framework for informing and consulting employees in the European Union.
The proposal for a directive establishes a framework which aims to remedy the gaps and counter the shortcomings of the national and Community legislation currently in force.
<P>
The objectives of this proposal are the following: to ensure that the right to regular information and consultation of employees on economic and strategic developments in the firm and on the decisions which affect them exists in all Member States of the European Community; to consolidate social dialogue and relations of trust within the firm in order to assist risk anticipation, develop the flexibility of work organisation within a framework of security and enhance employees' awareness of the need to adapt, encouraging this; to include the situation and anticipated development of employment within the firm among the subjects of information and consultation; to ensure that workers are informed and consulted prior to decisions which are likely to lead to substantial changes in work organisation or in contractual relations; ensure the effectiveness of these procedures by introducing specific penalties for those who seriously violate their obligations in this field.
In this regard, we have seen recently - judging by some debates held in this Chamber - how important it is to lay down a precise reference framework for information and consultation.
<P>
This proposal will ensure minimum standards for information and consultation to be applied throughout the Community, by harmonising the fundamental rights of employees - these are already in place in many Member States - and helping to strengthen the European social dimension, which is what we are all aiming for.
<P>
The European Parliament has adopted a series of amendments, aiming, in particular, to specify procedures and definitions for information and consultation, in particular as regards the moment at which information should be transmitted.
We believe, however, that it is important for this to be carried out during the planning stage so as to allow employees to anticipate change, extending the Directive' s field of application and ensuring that it contains minimum provisions at Community level, derogations from which may be allowed only if they are more favourable to employees, as well as extending the content to the areas which directly affect the workers and their future.
<P>
The Commission reacted positively to some amendments to our report and voiced reservations about others.
Nevertheless - and here is the reason for this oral question - it still has not tabled a revised proposal that clearly states its position on Parliament' s amendments, and also - and I must say this with regret, in that we had expected the Finnish Presidency to take this issue into account - the Finnish Presidency has not shown the political will to continue with this dossier.
The reason for this question is, in fact, to ask the Commission not just to express its position on Parliament' s proposals clearly, but, above all, to ask it for the procedures and time periods for the tabling of its own revised version on Parliament' s position.
<P>
On behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, the question I would like to ask the Commissioner - who moreover, has displayed great sensitivity on these subjects in other circumstances - is the following: can you tell us what the conflicting aspects of the matter are and the reasons why a revised proposal has not yet been tabled?
Moreover, can you anticipate the proposal to be tabled before the end of the year?
But above all, what measures do you intend to adopt to facilitate a political agreement on the issue, an agreement which is of prime importance for the Commission, Council and Parliament to be able to take a final decision on this matter?
We consider this to be especially important, and besides, it is part of a more wide-ranging issue which is concerned with preparing and accompanying the changes underway in the labour market, so that they do not produce negative results, especially as far as employees' job security is concerned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Diamantopoulou">
Mr President, without a doubt the European Parliament plays an important role in many significant issues concerning social awareness, but it must be said that particularly here, Parliament has played a forceful role in this directive.
<P>
Mr Ghilardotti described the facts.
I should just like to make four basic points on the issue of the Community directive.
This proposed Community directive is a framework which will enable us to adjust to industrial change.
It is an essential political framework which will enable us to welcome this inevitable change in a socially acceptable way.
In the last discussion we held in this Chamber on the Michelin case, I had said that such changes are by no means a smooth operation since we are living in an age of major restructuring, technological advances, changes in the work place, and expanding globalisation.
We must therefore prepare ourselves to welcome this change at a social level.
<P>
The next point I would like to make is that in this age of restructuring, Europe has been generally successful.
It has the internal market, which is deepening day by day, and it has Monetary Union, which is widening day by day. Now, the time has come for Europe to prove its social dimension.
Thus, this directive is indeed a very important political choice.
It was proposed following some three years of dialogue in April with the social partners and in November 1998 it was proposed both in Parliament and in the Council.
Parliament reacted with the resolution and the 35 amendments.
A year on, however, the Council has not even considered this directive.
<P>
As far as the amendments are concerned, the Commission accepts nine of them, seven of them are in principle acceptable, but we did not make further progress and I would like to explain why. Under the Finnish Presidency, which as you know is responsible for pushing forward directives and planning the six-month period, a strategy was announced in the Employment and Social Affairs Committee.
This strategy envisaged the first ballot on the European company statute directive to be followed by the ballot on the directive on consultation and information. Reasoning that if the directive we are discussing today were to come first, then the ballot on the employment directive, which as you all know has been on the table for discussion for more than 14 years now, would become extremely complicated.
<P>
The Finnish Presidency' s strategy was for there to be a discussion on the issue of the European company statute.
However, the directive we are discussing today did not make it to the negotiating table and I would like to reply to Ms Ghilardotti' s question regarding what issues are still controversial and what issues are still giving rise to disagreement among the national representatives.
Firstly, the companies' personnel threshold should be higher than the one we have been discussing for consulting and informing.
In my opinion, the issue of small and medium-sized businesses must be treated separately.
The situation regarding small and medium-sized businesses is different, but of course, there must be a threshold higher than the one we have been discussing.
The threshold of 50 people had been suggested.
I repeat that this is a major topic of discussion and there have been many differences of opinion over it.
The second issue concerns what is actually meant by the term 'consultation and information' .
There were some dissenting opinions which depended largely on the differing state of affairs in various Member States and, in many cases, on the political viewpoints we adopt.
The third issue concerns the degree of self-reliance and the terms of agreement between the social partners in each Member Sate and how far they can go. The final issue is that of sanctions.
<P>
Those issues are to a greater or lesser extent still open.
The question at present is what we will have to do and how we will have to proceed in order to achieve the desired result.
And the desired result is for us to be able to vote for such a directive as soon as possible.
It is not important for us to have a particularly sound directive on the table for discussion.
What is important is that we create the right framework with set preconditions and that it is voted for so that it can enter into force.
<P>
So, what is the timetable and what does the Commission propose to do hereafter?
Firstly, we are awaiting the completion of the Finnish Presidency' s term of office and to see if there will be some final agreement on the issue concerning the European company statute.
If there is no result at the end of the year, I intend to propose a new strategy to the Portuguese Presidency, a different approach to the issue and a different basis for negotiations so that we can make quicker headway with the directive in question, and, as soon as we have the Council' s initial reaction, proceed with this new approach which, in my view, is quite a straightforward one.
It is not difficult for us to readjust the proposal based on the amendments accepted so far and then to refer this to the Council.
I believe, however, that under the Portuguese Presidency we must adopt a very different approach from the largely unsuccessful one adopted under the existing Presidency, and proceed in the way I prescribed before.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Menrad">
Mr President, Commissioner, in April the PPE Group voted for the legislative resolution on the directive on a European framework for informing and consulting workers in the Member States.
Partnership and subsidiarity are the hallmark of the Parliament and Commission proposals.
Companies should be provided with a tailor-made solution for informing and consulting workers, based on agreement between the two sides of industry.
<P>
One of Parliament' s proposals is that existing national workers' organisations must be involved in drawing up this agreement.
It would be unthinkable to have an agreement that local works councils had not been involved in shaping!
Although the Commission' s initial reaction to the various amendments was positive, they have not yet put forward an amended proposal, as you yourself have said.
You cannot just put everything that was so carefully worked out in Parliament on ice!
It is high time that the right conditions for a Council common position were created.
There is obviously a lack of political will in the Council.
<P>
How does the Commission view the situation, Commissioner?
I did not entirely follow you.
Does the Commission believe that the Finnish Presidency and possibly also the forthcoming Portuguese Presidency should be concerned that the United Kingdom, for example, might switch back to the opposition camp in the dispute over workers' participation rights in the European Company, which has not yet been created?
After all, it is an open secret that the British Government was only persuaded to support a European Company with minimum participation rights because of a promise to hold back on the directive on information and consultation for one year.
<P>
When we have considered examples of company restructuring in this Chamber, we have often complained about management' s failure to provide information in good time, as with Hoover, Renault and Michelin.
But we have some good news now.
This relates to the success story of the directive on the European Works Council.
For it to work well, national workers' organisations at local level should be able to forward their information to the European Works Council, and they should have sufficient rights to react in good time.
This directive will ensure that.
<P>
I would like to state my question even more clearly, Commissioner: was I right in understanding you to say that the Commission does not intend to present an amended proposal before the end of this year?
I would deeply regret that. Timely information for workers means transparency, which in turn creates confidence and avoids friction in European companies.
Employers and employees stand to gain from this in equal measure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Damião">
Mr President, I am not going to repeat what the previous speakers have said about the need for this directive.
A few days ago, Commissioner, it was said on the subject of the Michelin debate that intelligent approaches to restructuring were required.
I shall give you the example of the restructuring of a company of European dimensions which has a European works council, which is intelligent, but only in one respect.
And this is exactly what we are trying to avoid: a lack of balance in social dialogue.
All of Parliament' s amendments have been very significant, and one that I consider to be extremely relevant is the one that expresses the need for ethics and good faith on all sides.
What happened, for example, with the restructuring at Ford in Portugal is a prime example of what happens when this good faith is missing. At the end of the 1980s, Ford in Portugal had twelve hundred employees.
The company moved the factory to Poland and promised investment in that country in return for state tax and other incentives.
That investment was never fully made in Poland.
And Ford is now announcing the closure of both factories: in Poland and in Portugal.
<P>
This kind of relocation and restructuring, Commissioner, is this century' s way of doing business.
It has nothing to do with introducing new technology or with companies' needs to maintain productivity levels.
According to Ford, they do not have problems with their productivity levels; on the contrary, they say that these two plants and their workers are enormously productive.
And the result is that because these employees are so highly specialised they will only be able to find work as unskilled workers.
<P>
We should be concerned by all of this social upheaval.
It requires a response, it requires steering through, and it requires legislative measures and more besides!
It was high time that the Commission started monitoring companies of this size because it is not the companies of fifty or a hundred employees that are under threat.
Let us begin, then, with companies of European dimensions, and let us begin by assessing what a necessary restructuring actually is.
We in the European Parliament represent both sides of industry, and one of them has no voice of its own, Commissioner.
It is crucial that we let it be heard.
<P>
I sincerely hope that the Portuguese Presidency will provide a response to this and I shall use all my influence to this end.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Jensen">
Mr President, I want to say that I too am sorry that the Commission has still not submitted a revised proposal on the subject of informing and consulting workers.
Even if, after the election, a new and different majority is formed here in Parliament, we support this inquiry into the issue, even if there are some amendments which we in the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party value more than others; yes, even if there are aspects of the proposal we should definitely like to have done without.
The political process should not be directed by delays.
<P>
We in the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party want to promote the cause of informing and consulting workers, but it is also important to us that the necessary respect should be shown for differences in traditions and culture in this area.
No new bureaucratic systems should be established which are out of harmony with labour markets where there is at present an effective dialogue between the social partners.
We attach particular importance to the fact that life should not- even with the best of intentions - be made more difficult for small and medium-sized businesses where, in the nature of things, management is close to the workers.
The amendments which Parliament adopted at the first reading in April mean, among other things, that the regulations governing the consulting of workers will apply to businesses with 50 or more employees and that it will no longer be possible for individual nations to be exempt from these.
We prefer the original proposal which makes it possible in certain circumstances to raise the limit to 100 employees.
On the other hand, we can support the tone of the amendments which clearly points in the direction of making the directive a minimum directive with the Member States having the option to go further.
<P>
As we say, we like some of the things in this proposal from Parliament, and some other things we like rather less.
However, a delay in the decision process is something which we definitely cannot countenance.
I think, however, that Mrs Diamantopoulou has provided a good explanation of the problems there are in implementing the proposal, and this shows in fact that there are real political problems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lipietz">
Commissioner, I come from a country where the boss of a multinational company, Michelin, decided to inform his shareholders first of his decision to make 10% of his employees in various countries redundant over the next three years.
<P>
In the course of last month' s part-session, Commissioner, you stated, in a warm and convincing way, the Commission' s determination to protect employees' rights in terms of information and consultation about their future.
We are delighted that you are determined to see this into the Portuguese Presidency.
<P>
However, and contrary to what the previous speaker has just said, the Greens think that these rights should be extended to all companies that are not part of the small-business sector and we propose a minimum of twenty employees.
If we adopted, as the Commission seems to want to do, a minimum of fifty employees, this would cause serious distortions of competition, affecting only 3% of European companies.
<P>
One day we will have to go further.
In several European countries, the participation of workers is something which society sets great store by.
Participation in decision making and also participation in the results.
The European Council did not want to follow Parliament' s advice on this matter.
Today however, by means of pension funds, pensioners are participating more and more in companies' capital, in their management and in their profits.
<P>
It would be paradoxical and would even threaten a war between the generations if current employees were to be excluded from this kind of participation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wurtz">
Mr President, Commissioner, during our debate on 27 October on the Michelin affair, I reminded all those present that Parliament had amended the directive on informing and consulting workers and that we were still waiting for the Commission to adopt these amendments.
<P>
The two main amendments - I shall remind you of them - covered two points: firstly, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs wanted the directive to apply to companies with twenty or more employees, and Parliament to companies of fifty employees or more, whereas the Commission is proposing the figure of one hundred or more, if I am not mistaken.
On the other hand, the second major amendment stated that any withholding of information from the employees' representatives by a company' s management should be penalised, and not only the withholding of information that the management considers important (far too vague an idea).
<P>
What does the Commission have to say today about these two points?
Nothing new, and we will get back to that in the year 2000.
Frankly, Commissioner, I do not think that we can do things this way.
This wait-and-see policy is completely turning its back on the way society is waiting for an answer.
We should not only listen to the message that was sent to us in the last elections, and adopt these two amendments, but I have also put forward additional proposals which strike me as being crucial today.
<P>
I proposed the introduction of a waiting period of six months for any restructuring plan in order to allow an independent trade union review to take place, and I also proposed that if the company had received public subsidies but is not complying with the rules which have been laid down, it should pay back the subsidies it had received.
I think that, now, you should present an amended draft directive, incorporating these further measures, this waiting period, and use your role to put pressure on the Council rather than falling in line as a measure of precaution with the lowest common denominator in our respective governments.
I also expect, Commissioner, that Mr Prodi will include these references too in the programme that he will be presenting to us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Pronk">
Mr President, I would like to extend my warmest thanks to the Commissioner this evening for her promise.
1 January 2000 is very close indeed, and a certain strategy has already been put in place by her predecessor for keeping an eye on what is happening as regards the European plc.
It is clear that something needs to be done about this.
I am delighted that the Commissioner has taken this so well.
Indeed, I think, as far as this is concerned, that we must go further from 1 January onwards.
I should also add that with this strategy, it has been the case before that we have lost sight of the fact that the European plc has to be voted on with unanimity, whilst this is a directive requiring majority voting.
We may well speed up in the long run by putting this directive back on track, rather than continuing endlessly with the European plc.
This may be an unnecessary consideration but I do think that we achieved our purpose tonight.
We have made some progress.
<P>
Mr President, of course it is not the Commissioner who is keeping a low profile - although they tried to play down the fact that nothing has been submitted yet, but that has now been addressed as far as I am concerned - rather it is the Council itself.
Then we have to shift our attention to the somewhat mysterious Prime Minister of Great Britain, Mr Blair.
Mr Blair who would very much like to join forces with Europe, yet is trying to stop Europe from bringing this issue to a satisfactory conclusion.
This is the problem we are facing, Mr President.
In all manner of ways, using traditional politburo tactics, attempts are even being made to thwart debate on this directive, that is people expressing their opinions as to the content.
Surely, this is not something we should expect to happen.
I can only say, Mr President, that the Blair administration and some other socialist governments are so frightened to admit how little they are prepared to do for the employee, that they cannot cope with this in debate, as they used to, but have to resort to all kinds of underhand politburo tactics.
This must end and I am really pleased that this has been highlighted this evening in this debate in one way or another.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Hughes">
Mr President, I could tell my good friend, Mr Pronk, that if he will have a word with Mr Aznar, I will have a word with Mr Blair.
It is a majority proposal.
We have problems with a number of governments.
<P>
I should like to thank the Commissioner for what she has said.
I see now the sense in the strategy that she is adopting.
I hope the delay in a revised proposal might lead to progress.
I would say this, however: please bear in mind that if part of this strategy is that a new proposal is brought forward after the turn of the year that is substantially different to the first then we, Parliament, would need to be consulted from the beginning once again.
Please bear that in mind.
<P>
One argument in addition to the list of crunch points that you mentioned in your introduction that has been deployed by my own government and others is that of subsidiarity.
It is not a very good argument in this particular area.
In the ten years up to 1996, following the introduction of the Single Act, there was a tripling in the number of mergers and take-overs in both the service and manufacturing sectors.
An interesting thing is that two-thirds of those mergers and take-overs were at national rather than transnational level.
They were, however, directly related to the completion of the internal market.
Therefore developments at Member State level are inextricably linked to the changes we have put in place at European level.
That is one of the strongest arguments against subsidiarity - denying progress in this area.
<P>
In the 1970s our governments, despite the unanimity rule, introduced a directive on transfers, one on collective redundancies and one on insolvency to try to bring about responsible restructuring following the oil shocks.
It is absolutely dreadful that the Council now seems to be paralysed when it comes to this directive, to the worker involvement in the company statute and indeed the Commission in relation to a revision of the Works Council Directive.
We need to get this moving once again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Bushill-Matthews">
May I start by saying, Commissioner, that I was very pleased with what you had to say and I am as surprised to be saying that as perhaps you might be to hear me saying it.
But given that there is a delay, which has already been deplored, I would hope that the period of that delay will be used constructively and that the Council and the Commission and indeed Parliament will reflect on how to get things as right as possible in what is clearly a key area.
I was concerned to read a comment in the Financial Times last week when you, Commissioner, were in London - where you made quite an impact - about you forcing the creation of workers' consultation committees and stating that Anna Diamantopoulou' s decision will dismay the UK Government and industry.
Whilst I accept that the fact that it may dismay such illustrious bodies does not automatically make your proposals wrong, I trust that you would also admit that it does not automatically make them right either.
I would like the Commission to bear in mind that at the time when Parliament put forward the amendments last April, the composition of this Parliament was indeed very different.
At that time the Socialists were the largest group; happily that state of affairs no longer applies and hopefully will continue to no longer apply long into the future.
But certainly the composition of this Parliament is very different and I would expect its conclusions to be different.
<P>
Clearly we will continue to work in a spirit of constructive consensus but the epicentre of that consensus has moved sharply.
So finally I would say that when the second reading comes up, if we are serious about creating jobs, if we are serious about keeping our industries really competitive, if we are serious about encouraging enterprise, then some of us may feel we have gone too far and that it may well be time to draw a line.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Diamantopoulou">
Mr President, I would like to say to Mr Matthews that, following my visit to London, there was a party statement accusing me of having "crazy ideas" .
I hope that this was not the general consensus.
In response, I must say that- and politicians too are always faced with such dilemmas - you have to decide between being a likeable individual or one that is effective.
I could quite easily be a likeable person.
Parliament' s amendments from April could have been accepted, incorporated into a text and referred to the Council and from there on I could quite easily have said that it was just a matter for the Council.
However, it was I who introduced the reform, accepted the proposals and forwarded them to the Council and left it in the hands of the Council to resolve.
<P>
However, I believe that for such a demanding directive - and Parliament is quite aware that it is not a straightforward one - we must take the current state of affairs of each country, the various aspects of social dialogue, the positions of the social partners and the various discrepancies in all the points I mentioned before, piece them all together and thereby find a very fine balance between them all, so that we can be as successful as we possibly can.
If we approve the amendments straight away, and take the new proposal to the negotiating table, then that will necessitate unanimity, which, as we all know, as things stand at present, will not achieve the desired result.
I believe therefore that we need to be more effective and I shall endeavour to do just that.
Already we are in constant communication with national representatives and governments, with all the individual ministers.
In my view, this directive is not merely a directive which will help workers.
I believe that it is of great social significance because of the major problems and reforms ahead of us.
And we all know that there are sectors, such as the banking sector, which will undergo radical change in the coming years.
<P>
We must therefore prepare a framework to make us all aware that it will facilitate competition, and that it will not be just a framework of social awareness, but one that will protect social equilibrium and social rest in Europe, and ensure stability and development.
We shall proceed on this basis, and on this basis, I shall also proceed, with the aforementioned timetable, in the belief that, under the Portuguese Presidency, we will indeed be able to find a new strategy.
<P>
I, like Ms Damião, note that there are such endeavours and laws at national level and two directives at Community level.
With this new directive, we wish to reinforce the right of workers to be consulted and informed, which to date has not been reinforced.
There is more to be done on a voluntary basis and this can be interpreted at will.
We want to see stronger reinforcement and greater responsibility being taken, but we also need to have the consensus of both Member States and social partners because acceptance from all quarters will play an extremely important role in its effective implementation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 8.15 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valdivielso de Cué">
Mr President, I simply wish to refer to the official status of Strasbourg, a wonderful city which nevertheless has a series of defects.
Yesterday, I left home before 1 p.m. and arrived here just before 8 p.m.
I had been moving from airport to airport.
Then, fortunately, the City of Strasbourg provides a service to bring us here, but it consists of a bus which picks up a large number of passengers and we end up wasting a lot of time.
I believe that this is a great city, where we should perhaps all meet once a year, but the rest of the time we should act in a pragmatic manner, take a practical approach to finances and work in one single headquarters, where we should all be located.
This is much more sensible, much more rational, and I believe that that is how we should view it and, while we should praise this great city for its official status, we have to operate efficiently.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="Doyle">
A similar problem.
I omitted to sign last night as I was travelling all day and arrived a bit late last evening.
I would appreciate it if you would consider me as having been present when it comes to the Minutes.
I was in Strasbourg yesterday evening but I omitted to sign.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I got to Strasbourg on time yesterday but last week my flight was delayed by several hours getting to Brussels, then I had to wait an hour and a half for a taxi, and to cap it all I fell victim to the train strike.
I would ask you to take note of that as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Esclopé">
Mr President, I would also like to support what has just been said, and indeed I would very much have liked to have been present at the start of yesterday' s sitting since, coming from the region that has just suffered this disaster in the south of France, I would have liked to have actually been able to hear the President' s words on the subject.
<P>
In addition to these few words, as a witness who is unfortunately very much concerned by this, I would simply like to ask if, in addition to expressing our sympathy - and the families of victims will undoubtedly appreciate it - we might, on behalf of the European Parliament, undertake a solidarity action in the form of aid which may be allocated to this region in the south which has suffered greatly, firstly for the families who have lost everything, but also for the economic resources which have been destroyed.
Right now, there are enormous requirements, and I would like my fellow Members in the European Parliament to join this surge of solidarity which is currently making itself felt.
<P>
I have here a special feature, which I shall pass on to you, from the local daily newspaper whose pictures clearly show the vast extent of the disaster, with over 30 dead and many more missing.
I believe it is one of the most serious flood disasters we have had in our country.
I hope that this wish will be followed up by the European Parliament, and I thank you for this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Esclopé.
On behalf of the European Parliament, may we also express our sympathy towards the victims of this natural disaster.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Vattimo">
Mr President, I would like to draw Parliament' s attention to the interview - published yesterday - that our President, Mrs Fontaine gave to an Italian newspaper, La Stampa, where she is openly and strongly in favour of state funding for private schools in Italy.
<P>
Now, at the moment this matter is the subject of a very heated political debate in my country and I think it totally inappropriate, if not intolerable, for our President to side so strongly with one party, given her institutional position, what is more, overlooking the fact that an article of the Italian Constitution talks explicitly about freedom for anybody to open a private school without putting burdens on the State.
<P>
I would therefore invite the President to take more care, at the time of a political debate in one of the countries of the Union, not to take sides and to respect, or at least take into account the existence of the constitutions in force in the various Member States of the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tajani">
Mr President, I have to say that what Mr Vattimo said is not a true representation of the facts. The President of this Parliament only stated the outcome of a vote in this House on a European Parliament resolution which called on all the Member States to respect the commitment to equality of school qualifications, i.e. to facilitate scholastic equality.
No position was taken: she only spoke of what was happening.
However, I think that this attempt to exploit, even in this House, a political battle that the left is fighting in Italy against equality of school qualifications is absurd and not relevant to this Parliament' s work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Tajani.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
System of own resources
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
The next item is the report by Mrs Haug (A5-0052/1999) on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the proposal for a Council Decision on the system of the European Union' s own resources (COM(1999)333 - C5-0092/1999 - 1999/0139(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Haug">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are getting down to serious business now, for this is about our money, or the European Union' s revenue to be precise.
The discussions we are having today on reforming the system of own resources are directly related to the discussions we had and the decisions we reached in the spring of this year.
I would like to draw your attention to the Commission' s comprehensive report, which presents a thorough analysis of own resources and has presented many of the options for reform which come up in discussion.
<P>
We established our position on the own resource system, as a Parliament in March, with full knowledge of this report and following very full discussions.
Unfortunately, the Berlin Council was unable to reach agreement on an actual reform step but contented itself with the kind of haggling for which it has long been famed.
The outcome of the Berlin conclusions has been further complication of the own resources system and restriction of the European Union' s financial room for manoeuvre.
<P>
This situation cannot be allowed to continue.
We must put an end to the situation in which each Head of Government and Finance Minister in the Council only has the short-term interests of their own country at heart when it comes to planning our revenue, regardless of the consequences.
This Community can only be sustained and developed if our common interests as a whole and our longer-term aspirations are taken account of, and if we are prepared to invest in this.
In this connection, it is the Council' s policy in particular that merits condemnation, for it persists in committing expenditure at international donor conferences, the burden of which falls to the European budget, without ensuring that the corresponding revenue is in place.
That being the case, the Council is not taking its dealings with the European Union' s revenue very seriously - and that is putting it mildly - and it may, in the forthcoming enlargement process, become a real handicap capable of obstructing our opportunities for development.
<P>
However, I am also disappointed with the proposal put forward by the Commission on changing the own resource system.
Of course, we are not under any illusions; we too are aware that the Council was not about to perform a dramatic about-turn at some point from the spring onwards, and initiate far-reaching reform.
Obviously, I recognise that where our proposals are concerned, the Commission, as must we as a Parliament, has to take into account the mood in the Council and the positions adopted there if we want to achieve a workable outcome.
<P>
Nevertheless, the Commission could have done more, in fact I would go so far as to say that it should have done more.
It has trailed snail-like behind the Council, only to now place before us as a proposal something that follows the Council' s agreement to the letter.
But it is also the role of the Commission to be the driving force of integration; at the very least, it must fulfil its role as guardian of the Treaties, warding off any regulations which could damage the Community.
In my view, it has failed to do so in the case of the present proposal.
However, I would not want to spare us as a Parliament a certain amount of self-criticism either.
We too could have been more courageous in our demands in respect of reform of the own resources system, and ought to have paid less attention to the discussions taking place at national level.
<P>
At all events, we are going to have to be more consistent in the next round of reforms - which ought not to be too long in coming - if we want to ensure that the Union still has the financial power to act after enlargement and once it has additional tasks.
That is why we want to commit the Commission to making the schedule tighter than it envisaged doing in its report.
Allow me to make clear in a few points the work that we can and must get under way if we are to change the own resource system in such a way that it will also be possible for there to be progress towards reform.
<P>
Firstly, planning the European Union' s revenue must be undertaken in accordance with a number of fundamental principles, without which the system would be unable to function indefinitely.
This means that we need a system that is transparent, uniform and balanced.
In the long-term there must be a direct link between the citizens of Europe and the European Union' s financing of its expenditure, and for the benefit of those individuals who are now calling again for there to be an increase in taxation, I would like to make quite plain that of course there must be no increase in the overall tax and contributions burden borne by the citizens, but then that was the position we took up back in March as well.
<P>
In the foreseeable future, as long as the budget is financed by the Member States, this principle means in practice that financing must take place under the same conditions for all concerned.
There must be no more derogations or rebates in the future.
We in the Group of the Party of European Socialists have reached agreement on this demand, and that includes those individuals from Member States that continue to benefit from such derogations or are hoping to benefit from them soon.
It represents a great step forwards and I am very proud of it. Indeed, I would call upon all the groups to support this compromise, which will be presented to them in the form of an amendment.
<P>
Secondly, securing and consolidating our financial power to act also means acquiring new forms of revenue that we can truly call our own and that will replace the previous ones.
But above all, it means not tampering with the only sources of income that are truly ours, that are the Union' s by right, that is to say, our traditional own resources.
But this is exactly what will happen if the Commission' s proposal is implemented.
If the refund - to be retained by the Member States - of the costs associated with the collection of these traditional own resources were to be increased by 150% then such fears would certainly be justified.
Unfortunately, the majority in the Committee did not support my request to leave this refund at 10%.
Personally speaking though, I am able to warmly endorse the present draft amendment, expressive as it is of the desire not to raise the amounts Member States are permitted to retain to 25%, for this would leave the traditional own resources intact.
<P>
Thirdly, if there is to be transparency, balance and manageability then the basis for financing must be unambiguous.
The essential pillar as far as the current financing framework is concerned, is the gross domestic product of the Member States.
This must continue to be the case for as long as the EU is financed by the Member States, for any other method would distort the system and render it illogical.
The own resources ceiling of 1.27% expresses what proportion of gross domestic product has to be devoted to the European budget.
This figure has become a politically reliable basis for cooperation based on partnership between Parliament and the Council.
That is why it must be maintained and must not be changed arbitrarily.
These are a few aspects of the proposal I am putting to you concerning changes to the own resources system.
<P>
Unfortunately, there is no possibility of doing more at the present time since we have only limited room for manoeuvre in our actions.
The consultation procedure in force here and, above all, the restrictive framework created by the Berlin Council' s agreements mean that we can only be moderate in our dealings.
I would ask you all though, to at least give me your support as far as these draft amendments are concerned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Mulder">
Mr President, Berlin may not be ideal, but the Committee on Budgetary Control deemed it the best possible outcome in the current climate.
Top of the agenda of the Committee on Budgetary Control was - what else can we do?: how can we monitor things in the best possible way?
We have decided to maintain our viewpoint, as Mrs Haug has just stated that we must maintain the own resources ceiling at 1.27%, provided that the old calculation method is maintained.
<P>
With regard to the cost of collection, the Committee on Budgetary Control has not objected to the increase in this cost from 10 to 25%.
As for the stand-by percentage of VAT resources, the Committee on Budgetary Control agrees with a reduction thereof and also approves of this reduction occurring one year earlier than planned in the Committee' s proposals.
<P>
We are also of the opinion, as has been expressed by the Committee on Budgetary Control itself, that it is necessary that a reserve is built into the expenditure for the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund so as to be able to cushion unforeseen expenses.
As I have already stated, it is obvious that the control on revenue is paramount for the Committee on Budgetary Control.
In this respect, we have attempted to refer to the work of this Parliament' s first Committee of Inquiry, the Committee of Inquiry which was involved in fraud in transit.
Since the publication of this Committee' s report, we have heard very little in this respect.
We would like to change this.
We would like to be kept informed by the Committee on a regular basis.
<P>
What is to be gained from having a situation whereby revenue is collected from the Union which belongs to the Union but the work involved is carried out by the national services?
We have therefore managed to have an amendment adopted which stipulates that in the year 2003, the Committee will need to submit an extensive report to demonstrate the level of improvements achieved since the work of this Committee of Inquiry.
Finally, Mr President, the Committee on Budgetary Control is of the opinion that, at the half-way stage, we should once again look into a new system of own resources because if new countries join, the current system could well prove to be too complex.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Garriga Polledo">
Mr President, the own resources system is the hub of European policy; it directly affects 370 million citizens with national and economic sensibilities of very different types.
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The rapporteur applies certain questionable criteria, for example she accuses the Commission of having limited itself to applying Council guidelines.
We must remind the rapporteur that that was the task which the Council entrusted to the Commission: to transform the political equilibrium of the fifteen into a concrete and viable proposal.
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We agree with the rapporteur' s request for a more transparent and simpler system, which is intelligible to all the citizens of Europe.
We also agree that there is a need to take account of the citizen' s fiscal capacity and a need to seek new sources of income.
The current system still contains regressive elements which should be modified.
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We believe, however, that this is neither the time nor the place to impose expiry dates on the British rebate and the reductions granted to certain countries in the funding of the said rebate, especially when these proposed decisions have still not been approved in the various national Parliaments.
It seems to us inappropriate to launch into this debate at the moment.
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The benefits of belonging to the European Union cannot only be measured in budgetary terms, since there is the possibility that imbalances will be created.
The Berlin agreements are a combination of the total level and the composition of spending, political reforms and the own resources system.
The said combination must guarantee equity within a budgetary framework which includes enlargement.
It is for this reason that it seems to us so inadvisable to modify the Berlin decision in the absence of a solid basis.
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Neither do we share your apprehensions concerning the application of the ESA(95).
It is an accounting system which allows for a broader base for GDP resources and, consequently, greater financial resources, without surpassing the relative index expressly laid down in the Berlin agreements and in the interinstitutional agreement.
Your fears concerning the modification of the 1.27% can simply be corrected by a downward adjustment of the ceiling on the said resources.
It is therefore an unnecessary amendment.
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Neither do we consider the amendments on the traditional own resources to be necessary.
The 25% which the Member States are going to retain for collection expenses will allow for an administrative improvement in customs efficiency and the fight against fraud, which is an aspect that is frequently pointed out by the Court of Auditors.
We also reject the idea of rewarding success in collection since this is incompatible with the principle of equity.
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Finally we cannot accept the amendments which modify the timescale for the entry into force of the decision on own resources.
Neither the political reality of the Union, nor the needs of enlargement, and much less the complexity of implementing a system which, in 1997 alone, cost EUR 82,469 million, make it advisable for Parliament to vote for changes to the said timescale.
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Finally, we appreciate the continued efforts of the rapporteur, at least over the last year, in bringing together positions and putting forward a common position on behalf of this Parliament.
There are already broad areas of consensus on the basis of which we can contribute to improving the funding of the Union, but the result of the vote in the Committee on Budgets shows that there are some ideas on which we are far from reaching a consensus.
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For many of us, our final vote will depend on the result of the voting on various amendments, but, in its current wording, we prefer the Commission' s text.
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<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="Gill">
I would like to start by congratulating the rapporteur, Mrs Haug, for addressing some of the key problems in the current system of own resources.
In her report, Mrs Haug is right to check the Commission' s arbitrary changes introduced through the back door, via a mathematical operation relating to the ceiling on own resources.
Now in the interinstitutional agreement, the Council entered into a binding agreement with the European Parliament on the percentage of GNP, i.e. 1.27%.
The Commission is now saying that this means cash value of 1.27%.
This is not acceptable.
The rapporteur emphasises that we should be striving to establish a more equitable system of financing the EU.
The Community budget should have a fair system of revenue collection.
The traditional own resources, for example, are a systematic source of inequitable burdens on Member States and, as has been said, are prone to fraud and excessive bureaucracy.
Instead, the EU budget should be funded on the basis of criteria which improve the fairness of the system and what I would like to see therefore is a fair system of net contributions.
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I am speaking here on behalf of the Socialist Group, but if I were speaking as a British member, I would question particular references to the British rebate.
If the budget is to be fair, there should not only be a fair system of contributions but also a fair system of spending.
Unfortunately, such a fair system appears to be a long way off.
I believe that a really serious attempt to reform the Community' s finances should start by making sure that all Member States get their fair share of expenditure.
Until this happens, attempts to reform the own resources system will not improve the situation.
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Therefore, what I want to see is a proper reform of the EU' s finances for the future.
But reform cannot be focused on single issues such as the rebate and I feel very uneasy about discussing this issue at this stage in the new Parliament.
It is too early to be making decisions on this subject and setting things in tablets of stone when all the facts are not in front of us.
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<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Virrankoski">
Mr President, first I would like to thank Mrs Haug for a very well prepared report.
It continues a series of reports in which Mrs Haug has meritoriously and comprehensively analysed the EU' s system of own resources.
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The report under discussion is based on the decisions taken at the Berlin Summit, which involve many compromises.
The most important basis mentioned were the estimates for Member States' contributions, reconciliation on which became more important than safeguarding EU financing.
The cornerstone of the system of own resources is still, however, the percentage a member pays out of GNP.
The ceiling for committed contributions remains at 1.27% of GNP, which guarantees that EU revenue rises with inflation and general economic growth.
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But this is where the system' s clarity ends.
First, the premium paid for the collection of traditional own resources, i.e. customs duty and agricultural levies, was increased to 25%.
This rise in the rate is, in fact, a clear concession to those countries that collect mostly customs duties, relatively speaking.
The rise was justified by the need to collect contributions more efficiently, but that is not sufficient justification.
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Politically, the most problematic issue is the rebate in respect of contributions by the United Kingdom.
The UK has been a member of the EU for 30 years, so it cannot be a matter of a transitional stage.
The same might be said for the agreement made on the payment of this rebate.
The reduced contributions by Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Austria do not have any proper justification either.
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Mrs Haug' s report contains a proposal whereby a report on amending the system should be drafted before 2004.
It should examine in particular concessions on contributions and the possibility of creating a new system of own resources that would relate directly to the public, without increasing their burden of taxation.
The Liberals support this reform, all the while stressing that the burden of taxation must not be increased.
Perhaps new forms of own resources could include environmental protection taxes, as environmental questions concern all, and not just the new Member States.
It is important, however, that the new system outlined in the report should come into effect in all respects from the beginning of 2007.
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<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Buitenweg">
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on her report.
She has hit the nail on the head with her observation that at the Berlin Summit, political ideals and ambitions had to give way to a short-sighted bookkeeping mentality.
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The European Union' s own resources have the feel of national contributions.
This is why the discussion on the system of own resources is being dominated by a net mentality: who are the net payers of the European Union and who make the net profits?
It will be clear that the economic benefits appeal to the individual Member States, to the detriment of values such as stability, solidarity and welfare in the long term.
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It is regrettable that the net payers mainly focus on the revenue side of the budget.
Consequently, a net mentality will mainly lead to missed chances.
For example, the Netherlands has turned its back on the fund for refugees, a fund which, by the Netherlands own admission, it would benefit from disproportionately.
But the Netherlands had prioritised "money back from Europe" over and above "value for money" .
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The Berlin straitjacket means, above all, that Europe cannot realise its responsibilities.
It leads to proposals in which Turkey, purely from financial motives, is offered a different political route of access.
It leads to transitional periods which are far too long for the other candidate countries in terms of the environment, for fear that otherwise this, and I quote from the government document, "would lead to an increase in financial strain" .
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Unexpected events - which are always to be expected - lead to unfortunate mishaps, to proposals where the reconstruction of Kosovo is at the expense of developing countries.
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The Berlin Summit could also be dubbed the Summit of national exemption positions.
Four countries were exempted from contributing to the United Kingdom' s exemption position.
The rapporteur adopted a very wise viewpoint in this respect and has formulated a goal which I support, namely the abolition of all these exemption positions.
The four countries which, rightly so, have rejected the British correction mechanism, should make an effort to rectify this situation.
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In respect of levies, it has been proposed that the Member States can now retain 25% instead of 10%.
Contrary to the rapporteur, I welcome this development, and I would even take it one step further.
As far as I am concerned, Member States should be allowed to keep 100%, as long as we increase the rebate via the percentage of GNP.
The GNP eminently reflects the economic development in Member States.
It is, to my mind, therefore, the fairest instrument to distribute Europe' s financial responsibility over the Member States.
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<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Markov">
Mr President, Mrs Haug, first I would like to offer my thanks.
Examining your report was a pleasure both for political and intellectual reasons.
I firmly believe that the report describes what is deemed to be politically feasible, but I think that in view of the challenges that lie before us, it is our responsibility to draw up fundamental reforms aimed not at what is deemed to be politically feasible but rather at what is considered to be politically necessary.
If one wants to change a system then one must establish clearly in one' s own mind what the disadvantages of the current system are, and I believe that these can be summed up under the following four main headings.
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Firstly, the existing EU own resources system has a very rigid framework.
The sources of revenue are limited in number, some are on the wane and additional expenditure can only ever be financed if expenditure elsewhere is cut to pay for this.
However, European integration has now reached such proportions that we have simply reached the limit of our capacity where this framework is concerned.
This means that tasks such as enlargement of the Union, upholding human rights worldwide, and creating basic conditions for combating severe unemployment can no longer be tackled using this framework.
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Secondly, if we want to be effective in our discussions on reform in this Parliament then ultimately, we as a Parliament must also be given the opportunity to have our say on all the aspects of the process.
In this respect, the powers of the European Parliament in budgetary matters do not go nearly far enough.
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Thirdly, the existing structures for budgetary decision making are such that it is extraordinarily difficult for fundamental reform to be carried out.
It stands to reason that the Member States will not exhaust the established ceilings when they are under pressure at home to have to overhaul their budgets and maintain the stability criteria.
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Fourthly, discussion about a fair and balanced structure is justified on the one hand but also absurd on the other.
Absurd because the Member States interpret the concept of fairness in such a way that, in the final analysis, they want to get out of the European Union' s budget that which they put in.
That being the case, I for one would be only too happy to spare us the detour via the European Union.
Fairness within the European Union can only mean one thing, namely that the original objectives of economic development, prosperity, and the balancing out of developmental differences constitute the criteria by which fairness is measured.
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Ultimately, every budget represents the financial implementation of political strategies.
The European Union has undertaken to do a great deal in the course of the next few years.
If, in so doing, we are only ever going to try and reduce expenditure, then it will simply not be possible to do justice to our political needs.
And if, in addition, rebates, corrections to contributions and so on are to be introduced, then it is only fair to say that any enterprise carrying on in this way would go bankrupt.
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This means that we must now concentrate our minds on how we can improve our revenue.
Europe needs a financial instrument that, aside from the funds arising from gross domestic product, is independent of the particularist interests of the Member States.
In other words, we need to raise our own taxes.
The first report in March cited a whole range of positive suggestions to this effect, i.e. an eco-tax, a CO2-tax, taxation on the creaming-off of short-term speculative gains, ECB profits.
This is the path we must go down if the European Parliament and European Union are to have sufficient own resources at their disposal in the future.
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<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Kuntz">
Mr President, the Haug Report, which is before this House, presents an eminently political problem, the problem of financing the Union by means of its own resources.
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In other times, French leaders would not have hesitated before adopting the policy of the empty chair on such a matter.
Today, unfortunately, our country is the great loser of the Berlin Summit where the Fifteen agreed upon the review of the Union' s system of own resources.
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In Berlin, we effectively acknowledged the principle according to which some rich countries, those from the northern part of the Union, were paying too much, hence the revised weighting of Member States' financing shares, resulting in the increased participation of France to the tune of several billion francs.
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It is, moreover, obvious that limiting the participation of some Member States in financing the UK rebate will have the effect of increasing the contribution of the others.
As far as this corrective mechanism in favour of the United Kingdom is concerned, we obviously share the opinion of the Haug Report, which proposes that this privilege is gradually phased out, whereas the Commission is proposing only technical adjustments to the reform.
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We are opposed to the Haug Report, however, when it proposes to gradually reduce the system' s dependence on Member States' contributions and to achieve financial autonomy in the long term.
Financial autonomy, fiscal autonomy, is this not all leading up to the introduction of a European tax by the back door?
At any event, financial autonomy of this type is still in line with that same rationale which we are clearly against.
Ever greater integration, ever greater federalism within Europe, always to the detriment of nation states, eliminating their last remaining area of sovereignty, their fiscal sovereignty.
We cannot accept this and we shall be voting against this report.
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<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, last March Parliament examined a first Haug report on own resources.
Now we have another, a sort of Haug II, Return of the Haug, but it is a poor sort of comeback.
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On 11 March, in our resolution, we voted in a paragraph stating: "believes that the revenue system should as a matter of principle be rid of exemptions and special arrangements" etc.
We are well aware of what the Berlin Council made of this and what the Council based its Berlin Agreement on.
Now, six months later in November, we are examining a report which makes no mention of this point except for a single amendment which, for my part, I would like to see adopted, but it is a Recital which attempts to say more or less the same thing in even vaguer terms.
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The fundamental problem before us may be summed up simply as follows: either the system of own resources is referred to us under co-participation, as part of the package of measures which Parliament is asking the IGC to deal with so as to make it, as it were, more democratic, with greater participation, or else, unfortunately, all we can do on this point is note that the ball is in the Council' s court and will stay there for a long time if our proposals are not taken into consideration.
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I believe and I hope, therefore, that Parliament may, on the basis of this report, be supported with revenue by this reference in particular as well as by others, and by the elements contained in it, and that Parliament will associate itself to a formal demand, according to which the Intergovernmental Conference will be authorised to tackle both the proposed reforms and also this fundamental aspect of the full participation of Parliament not only as regards the "expenditure" but also as regards the "revenue" of the Union budget.
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<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Costa Neves">
Mr President, almost thirty years ago it was decided to replace the system of revenues then in force, based on the contribution of the Member States, with a system of own resources.
The importance of this decision is obvious.
Now that three decades have passed, the weaknesses of the current system are only too well known.
It is not adequate and it is not simple, logical, transparent or fair.
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It is therefore unsustainable.
It is the result of successive, confused judgements which have been forced by the needs, pressures and interests of those who, in different contexts and historical periods, have had the ability to protect them.
The perverse relationship between the contribution from each Member State and its relative ability to guarantee it is unacceptable.
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The United Kingdom' s system of positive discrimination, based on the destructive concept of fair return is unjustifiable.
The idea of investing the European Union with own resources has, for this reason, remained a good intention.
Even now, instead of introducing urgently needed reform, the Berlin Council has limited itself to a new raft of small judgements that have resulted from major commitments.
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To insist on the current logic of expenditure in which the consequences of the common agricultural policy are increased, which, apart from jeopardising any aim for fairness which has been accepted as a principle of the Treaties, is political in name only. To insist on the system of revenues currently in force, the product of different, contradicting interests, is irreparably incompatible with the desire to develop the project of enlargement of our geographical area.
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All of this has been studied, known and discussed for far too long.
We are not even talking about disproportionate resources.
This is a sum that corresponds, in the Council' s proposal for Budget 2000, to only 1.10% of the Community' s GNP and this year could reach 1.27%.
This is a fundamental issue.
The success of the European Union' s pledge before its citizens and the world depends on our ability to show that we are facing up to the necessary reform.
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I know that this is a complex issue, as I know what a utopian idea it would be to try to start afresh.
The past cannot be erased and has produced many good things.
But to continue postponing decisions on this matter is to postpone much more than a difficult decision on the European Union financing system.
It would affect a project in which I consciously maintain confidence, as do so many of our fellow citizens, aware as I am of its problems and its potential.
Only a new approach to the issue of own resources which does not increase the fiscal burden on taxpayers, one which makes the system more transparent, simpler and more rational can provide the European Union with equitable conditions.
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<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Colom i Naval">
Mr President, listening to the spokesperson of the Group of the European People' s Party, I sincerely wonder why we exercise the right of consultation in this matter.
Berlin was a step backwards in the field of own resources and, in general, in the field of European solidarity and construction of the political union.
Both elements are probably linked, but I would not dare now to state which is the correct order of cause and effect.
In any event, Parliament criticised it severely in the Spring.
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The decision on own resources which we are discussing today, which is merely a translation on the part of the Commission of the European Council' s political decision, is the best evidence of this retrograde step.
All the features of the system which may lead to confusion between own resources and national contributions are highlighted.
I wonder, by the way, why these national contributions were abrogated in Maastricht.
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Parliament' s position is to condemn and rule out the application of the so-called principle of fair return to the European budget.
Well, Berlin has confirmed that principle, and without daring to admit it, naturally, they have sided with Mrs Thatcher.
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There was a disputed British rebate, for historic reasons which are becoming less apparent but which are understandable.
Berlin maintains it but also offers four small rebates to Germany, Austria, Sweden and the Netherlands, which are not exactly the poorest countries in Europe.
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It increases the already scandalous 10% prima de collection premium to an unspeakable 25%.
The only real justification for such an aberration is to lower the Dutch bill, despite the fact that the payment - to use the Council' s terminology - is inflated to the benefit of the Dutch coffers as a result of the Rotterdam effect.
And that is what they want to hide.
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The Commission' s proposal is completely unsatisfactory, as was the Council' s decision.
We will only resolve the problems of own resources when we accept that the contributors are not the Member States but the citizens.
What is unjust is the fact that two European citizens with an identical income make different contributions because of the mere fact that one lives in Frankfurt and the other in Seville.
That is where the injustice lies.
Therefore, it should be made clear that the objective must be that the citizens directly shoulder the burden of the Community budget without an opaque system of resources which will mask the process and prevent democratic accountability.
Meanwhile, temporary solutions should be aimed at ensuring a certain degree of justice and transparency and not the reverse.
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<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cauquil">
Mr President, the draft resolution proposes to increase the European Union' s own resources and to distribute them among the States in a different way.
The real problem is not between States, or between the States and the European Union. The real problem is between social classes.
Of course, the draft resolution states, hypocritically, that this should not lead to an increase in the burden of charge on the European citizen.
But it seems obvious that this is just an empty hope, and that future European taxes will be added to the others.
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I am all the more opposed to any idea of increasing taxes because taxation, whether it be national or European, bears down on the working classes in particular.
Throughout Europe the main taxation resource is the indirect taxes which are particularly unfair since they are paid by both the poorest and millionaires at the same rate.
Thus, the most badly paid employees and even the unemployed or the homeless, when paying VAT on their food, are contributing towards financing the European institutions which, nonetheless, have not undertaken a single measure in their favour.
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The basic raison d'être of the European Union is to favour large firms by sweeping the obstacles out of their path, unifying their market in Europe and supporting them on the international market.
And if it is necessary to pay more for the European institutions which are working on their behalf, well then, let the major firms pay, let us tax their profits and the dividends of shareholders, let them be forced to pay.
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<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ilgenfritz">
Mr President, more autonomy in raising own resources will automatically mean - and I agree with the previous speaker here - a heavier burden for the European citizens.
At the end of the day it will only lead to additional taxes being brought in and not to certain taxes being abolished.
We believe that it will only be possible to reform the system of own resources with the agreement of the national parliaments, for we will also have to take their ideas into account.
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It goes without saying that we are in favour of systems being simpler and more transparent, and that ultimately we are also in favour of the burden on the citizens of Europe being eased rather than increased, so that we in Europe can achieve greater economic growth and in this way raise more taxes for the Union, that is to say for the national Member States.
Before we advocate more autonomy though, we must exploit, that is to say fully explore, every available opportunity for making savings in the EU budget, and we must also explain to the citizens of the Union why we are permitting ourselves expenditure for two parliaments and are not coming up with simpler systems that would relieve the burden on the citizens of the Union rather than add to it.
We will advocate simpler and more transparent systems, but we will not advocate putting even more pressure on the citizens of the Union in the form of additional taxation.
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<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Mr President, a system of own resources gives rise to four questions: who must pay, what are the bases for payment, what must be paid and who must decide to enforce payment?
Neither the Commission nor Parliament have the power to provide an answer to these four questions.
In this affair, we are the imaginary actors in a play written by someone else.
Mrs Haug with her report has the great merit of doing this, by setting out a number of problems and heading in the right direction.
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Who must pay?
States or individuals and economic operators?
Current evolution is towards States and not towards individuals and economic operators.
It is a dangerous tendency, going towards intergovernmentalism, towards the UN-isation of our system of resources.
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What are the bases for payment?
Proportionality, progressive increase?
We may well hesitate.
Something that we can observe today is that if there is a step in the right direction, towards proportionality, we are in the process of inventing a new system, which involves making the contribution fit the expenditure. I pay, therefore I receive.
I receive, therefore I pay. I give you subsidies, on condition that you pay for them.
It is absurd!
The situation is completely surreal.
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What must be paid?
Is anyone considering how much longer we can continue with such a limited collection rate at a time when the European Union is taking on more and more new responsibilities relating to the continuation of monetary union and enlargement of the Union, and to the assumption of foreign and security policy responsibilities?
In this respect, our schizophrenia is rampant.
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Finally, who decides who must pay?
At the moment, it is the States, and States only.
This mechanism must absolutely be reformed.
It is essential for the matter of own resources to be the focus of the next Intergovernmental Conference.
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<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Guy-Quint">
Mr President, Commissioner, rapporteur, following the Berlin Agreement, and the interinstitutional agreement, it was mandatory to review the system of own resources of the European Union in order to weight the shares of each Member State correctly.
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The report by Jutta Haug recalls the objective of this overhaul.
It is fourfold: to simplify the system, to create greater transparency thus making it more comprehensible, to strengthen the financial autonomy of the European Union and to reduce the imbalances between Member States' shares in the budget.
The envisaged readjustment of the balance between the four types of resource and, in particular, the reduction of the VAT share in favour of the GNP-related share of each country is of particular interest, since it is far more equitable.
It is a better reflection of each citizen' s actual capacity to contribute.
We consider this important, and it must be pursued.
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While various elements have been underlined by previous speakers, I would like to return to two specific points.
Firstly, it is essential that the imbalances in the current budget shares due to rebates, which are perhaps justified in terms of previous history, should be gradually, progressively but persistently dismantled and that the contributions of each country are brought to what they should be in objective, accounting terms.
This simplification is essential for the equity of the system and for the transparency of management, two imperatives which will go towards ensuring the future of Europe.
Particularly on the eve of enlargement, current practices for rebates or reductions are no longer justified and must therefore be inexorably abandoned.
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The second point I wish to draw your attention to is one I find extremely strange.
It is the request made by Member States to deduct administrative costs for collecting this tax, which may go from 10% to 25%.
What justification is there for this usurious inflation?
The strengthening of supervision and follow-up tasks for food safety are perfectly standard activities for states.
The 10% basic rate must therefore be maintained, making it possible to amply cover the expenses incurred in this task.
On behalf of the Parliament, I expect the Commission to take up the requirements mentioned above, since they are essential to our political objectives of clarity, transparency and equity.
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<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Miranda">
Mr President, I believe that reform of the own resources system is necessary if we are to strengthen the principles of transparency, fairness, solidarity and cohesion, with the corresponding extension to the area of Community revenue.
And, in the same context, we reject concepts such as fair return or the false issue of net financial contributions.
I understand that such a reform will have to target national contributions that correspond effectively to the respective economic development, so the GNP will have to be strengthened as an essential indicator for such contributions.
This is what we have always maintained, in clear opposition to the repeated but inconsequential proposals for creating new jobs as a source of own resources.
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This is why, on this matter, we agree with the Commission' s current proposal.
We want to emphasise, though, that what is particularly relevant at the moment is the obvious shortfall in resources, a situation which is entirely due to the lack of political will and not to a need to reform the system of own resources.
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<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="McCartin">
I would like first of all to reject the argument made by a number of people here that to increase own resources is to increase the burden of taxation on the citizens of Europe.
That is, of course, not necessarily true.
The responsibilities of the European Union are based on the principle that there are some things we can do more efficiently at European level.
If we decide to transfer responsibility for agricultural industry from the Member States to the European Union and discharge that responsibility more efficiently, the end result could in fact be a reduction in the burden of taxation.
Similarly, if we decided to transfer responsibility, say, for development cooperation, from the Member States to the European Union, I believe we could achieve immensely more in the world with the same amount of money and we could increase own resources while at the same time not increasing the burden of taxation on the citizens of the European Union.
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We talk about democracy and transparency.
First of all I would say that anything that we decide in a democratic way, through the institutions of the Union, about own resources, is what own resources are.
If the European Union, in a democratic process, decides that own resources are simply a straight percentage of GDP collected by the Member States and passed over in a lump sum, that is fair enough: that is what own resources are and that is democratic.
The more elements we drag in, the more un-transparent we make the system, the more difficult it becomes.
That is why I am not concerned in the least by the 10% or the 25%.
If we have a fixed figure that the European Union needs as own resources, then obviously if we leave the Member States more of what we call the traditional own resources, we have to collect more of that as a percentage of GNP.
So this argument is not important all.
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The balance of advantage, or the balance of returns to Member States, is extremely difficult to calculate.
Let me make one further point on this.
If you look at Holland and Germany, on whose behalf there was so much crying in this Parliament, you will find that the single market has given them immense benefits and they have had extremely positive balances in their trade with the rest of the Union over the years.
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<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Stenmarck">
Mr President, the EU will be faced with having to make very large financial investments when, in different rounds, ten or more countries from Eastern and Central Europe and from the Baltic region become members.
Clearly, there is occasion for discussing the EU' s financial requirements if this process is to be managed successfully.
At present, the EU is not entitled to raise taxes itself. Nor, as I see it, should it be entitled to do so in the future either.
The Haug report does not involve our automatically introducing taxation by the EU, but it opens the door for taxation of this kind, which is bad enough.
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What is not spelled out is nonetheless what a lot of people are obviously thinking.
In the last few days, the Swedish mass media have been saying that the EU intends to introduce a tax on flights and mobile telephones.
It is perhaps no accident that it is precisely in Sweden, which has far and away the heaviest burden of taxation in the EU, that imaginations are running riot when it comes to finding new forms of income from taxation.
If taxes are to be directly discussed at all within the EU, then the Member States must first, in my view, show clearly and precisely which national taxes are to be reduced at the same time.
Otherwise, our citizens will just be afflicted with new forms of taxation, and the EU' s citizens do not need still higher taxes.
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How, then, is the enlargement of the EU to be financed?
Yes, the alternative to new income from taxation is still that of reduced costs.
This will involve better prioritising and concentrating on the major and crucial questions.
The enlargement of the EU is one such priority.
As long as almost half the EU' s budget goes on subsidising agriculture and as long as five sixths of it, including the Structural Funds, goes on subsidies of one kind or another, there can be no doubt that changes can still be made.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schreyer">
Mr President, Mrs Haug, ladies and gentlemen, it goes without saying that the revenue side of the budget is as important as the expenditure side of the European Commission' s budget, albeit we do not have an annual debate on the latter.
At the Berlin Summit, changes to the revenue side were agreed on in respect of the maximum proportion of VAT paid to the EU, the British contribution rebate and the financing thereof, and with regard to the proportion of customs duties and agricultural levies that can be retained by the Member States.
<P>
The Commission considers that we are justified in raising this amount to 25%.
However, I would also like to make quite plain the fact that in return, I would expect the Member States to step up the measures for supervising the own resources as appropriate and to stop trying to talk their way out of this, so that these supervisory measures really do start showing favourable results.
A decision was also reached as to when the Commission is to review the current financing system and report on the possibility of raising autonomous own resources.
<P>
I welcome the fact that Parliament has again had such an in-depth debate on the financing structure and I personally welcome still more the fact that I have been able to discern a great deal of common ground between my own basic position and the positions expressed today in the contributions to the debate.
<P>
In October 1998, the Commission presented a report on the revenue side of the budget and possibilities for reform.
Many arguments put forward in this report are the same as those ventured by Parliament in its earlier Haug I report and in the Haug II report that we have here before us.
All deliberations on reform ought to concentrate, above all, on making the revenue side transparent, effective and simple.
There is no longer transparency in the current system on account of the copious individual provisions relating to the VAT rate of collection, the British rebate and the financing thereof.
The citizens are no longer able to tell what proportion of their taxes is spent on the European Union.
This lack of transparency is a bad thing and as such is reason enough, in my view, for us to endeavour to make reforms.
<P>
I share the view - as I emphasised during my hearing before this Parliament back in September - that it should be our aim in reforming the financing system to strengthen the financial autonomy of the Community.
We need to create the opportunity to establish revenue without - and I want to stress this point - increasing the overall burden on the taxpayer.
I also share the view that an equitable approach to planning the budget is not something that should be reserved for the revenue side alone, and I share the view that we should not wait until the year 2006 to have a debate on reform, but rather that the debate, together with its administrative back-up, should take place in this legislative period.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="President -">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Budgetary discipline
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A5-0055/1999) by Mr Averoff, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on budgetary discipline ((COM(1999) 364 - C5-0141/1999 - 1999/0151(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Averoff">
Mr President, the 1994 decision on budgetary discipline is, without a doubt, outdated on several counts.
A great deal of water has passed under the bridge since it was first applied and numerous important changes have come to bear in the interim, the most important being the introduction of EMU on 1 January 1999, the pursuit of enlargement with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, Cyprus and Malta and, finally, Agenda 2000, which sets out, inter alia, the changes needed in the agricultural sector.
<P>
These changes and the strengthening of budgetary discipline apparent in both the conclusions of the Berlin European Council and the new interinstitutional agreement are the main reasons why this decision needs to be amended and supplemented with new mechanisms.
The Committee has referred to these developments and has drawn on experience to date in implementing the current decision in order to arrive at today' s proposal, which seeks to amend and strengthen the current guideline, which refers specifically to agricultural expenditure.
However, the proposal does not confine itself to adjusting certain provisions; it also makes changes to tighten budgetary discipline and to strengthen the procedure used to achieve it, as evidenced by the preventive nature of the proposed measures.
This marks a new approach and entails an increase in the management responsibilities of the European Commission.
<P>
The changes which accompany the report under discussion accommodate the majority of proposals relating to adjustments to provisions.
In addition, however, certain adjustments have been improved and rendered more functional, without detracting from their efficiency.
Certain measures which were automatic are now no longer so, while care has been taken not to over-react.
This means that the facilities provided for in the interinstitutional agreement must be used before these measures are applied.
It was also decided to reject the proposal to replace the decision by a regulation since the fact that the measures are adopted as a decision has no effect on their efficacy.
This change merely seeks to maintain a balance between the authority of the institutions.
In all, the fundamental arrangements are as stringent as before and there are no changes which affect the principle of budgetary discipline.
Budgetary discipline is indispensable and must govern both Community and national budgets, forming as it does the basis for sound budgetary management.
However, I would stress that budgetary discipline is not an end in itself and must not stand in the way of proper and efficient application of the basic provisions of Community law or, in this case, affect the basic principles of the common agricultural policy.
<P>
Mr President, I consider that the report under discussion and the proposals contained in it, as formulated by the Committee on Budgets, represent a strict but balanced and efficient way of strengthening budgetary discipline. Budgetary discipline affects all of us, but it can only be applied where there is basic cooperation between the institutions and with the Member States.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, I should like to point out that there was very little input in the procedure leading up to this report; apart from the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and a few fellow members who helped with the changes, I cannot in all honesty say that there was a great deal of input.
I realise that my report is far from perfect and that numerous other changes could have been included; however, I fear that Parliament finds the word discipline somewhat disagreeable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Rodríguez Ramos">
Mr President, for the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, the principle aspects of this report on budgetary discipline on which we have presented amendments are the following:
<P>
Firstly, the new coverage of the agricultural guidelines and their future revision.
The Commission includes within the scope of the guidelines the available amounts foreseen in the Financial Perspective for accession, which appear in heading 8 of the interinstitutional agreement.
This heading envisages a hypothetical scenario prior to enlargement for the purposes of mere illustration and orientation.
Therefore, we understand that it is not possible to include it within the guidelines.
In fact, the correct thing to do would be to re-examine the guidelines before the first enlargement on the basis of the real needs so as not to block a series of guideline appropriations with total uncertainty with regard to their suitability in terms of amount as well as timescale.
<P>
Secondly, the adequate funding of rural development and the accompanying measures.
In this respect, the Commission is urged to introduce sufficient flexibility in its management in order to respond appropriately to the multiannual and non-compulsory nature of these expenses.
On the other hand, we consider it necessary to also improve funding conditions and, therefore, we propose the possibility of carrying out transfers of unused appropriations from compulsory to non-compulsory expenditure.
<P>
Thirdly, the implementation of the principle of flexibility within certain limits for agricultural expenditure, proposing the transfer to the following budgetary year of unused expenses or resources.
We consider that this would not only improve the funding of the second pillar of the CAP, but that it would make it possible to deal with disasters or unexpected situations with the speed and efficiency that such events require.
<P>
Lastly, in relation to the increases in the management powers of the Commission, by means of which it can reduce the amount of direct aid or suspend the payment of monthly advances to the States, we consider that Parliament is not sufficiently involved in the adoption of these measures.
And we also believe that they cannot be used in a systematic way because that could lead to a budgetary overrun year after year at the expense of the real needs of the budget over which they are exercised, which could even result in peace itself being put at risk.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="Virrankoski">
Mr President, Mr Averoff' s report on budgetary discipline is excellent and it affects the implementation of the next budget.
The European Parliament has always been in favour of discipline.
This means that Parliament has refrained from increasing its expenditure, although there may have been sums set aside for this in the margins, the Financial Perspectives or the basic agreement itself.
Parliament has been very strict in the area of staff increases.
<P>
The report now under discussion concerns agricultural expenditure.
Agricultural expenditure is the EU' s largest item of expenditure, taking approximately 45% of the budget.
For that reason, agricultural expenditure is the major consideration when we are discussing the EU budget.
The ceiling for them is determined by a policy of agricultural expenditure.
In practice, the ceiling is an interinstitutional agreement, which is clearly lower than the expenditure policy. This is another clear indication of Parliament' s accountability in matters of the budget.
<P>
Agricultural expenditure is a rather sensitive issue within the EU, as agricultural policy is the only area where the EU has a direct influence on citizens' livelihoods.
In its practice of agricultural policy the EU has an exceptionally great responsibility.
This particularly concerns the reduction of direct subsidies mentioned in Article 5(7).
Such a situation cannot arise, as it concerns directly a reduction in the income of individual persons and is thus a curtailment of their constitutional rights.
It would be the same as withholding pay.
<P>
Agricultural expenditure now divides into compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure.
LFA aid and environmental aid, in particular, are important in many less favoured agricultural areas.
It follows that in future Parliament will have an even greater responsibility than before for agricultural policy.
In this regard, the spirit of the report, which stresses the importance of cooperation between the Council and Parliament, is very good.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schreyer">
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Mr President, Commissioner, would you support me in my observation that the proposal you are making means that the Council' s commitments will actually be eliminated from the compulsory funds but the Council' s rights, in particular those pertaining to the re-routing of surplus funds, will be preserved, which means in effect that there will be a switch from compulsory funds to non-compulsory funds without Parliament retaining its sovereign rights over this sector of the budget?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schreyer">
I do not share your view Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf.
However, you all know what my view is on the issue of the division between compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure.
This division is an existing state of affairs though and one that will certainly merit more and more discussion.
<P>
Regarding the matter of interchangeability between these two categories, I might point out that in the course of the debate on the next report we will discuss how those funds that were not required in the agricultural sector - i.e. in the 1A categories, in respect of market regulation measures - on account of price and market trends, can be re-allocated and made available for other measures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Colom i Naval">
Mr President, in my capacity as draftsman for the interinstitutional agreement from which this decision is derived, I would like to know the Commission' s position, because no statement has been made with regard to our proposal to exclude the expenses foreseen for future accession from the guidelines.
<P>
I say this because in the interinstitutional agreement they appear in a merely illustrative capacity and outside the Financial Perspective, in Annex II. The Financial Perspective appears only in Annex I. Instead, the Commission' s proposal includes expenses which do not form part of the Financial Perspective within the guidelines.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schreyer">
Mr Colom i Naval, the decision was taken in Agenda 2000 to create a separate heading for expenditure on enlargement.
In fact, the decision was also taken to establish measures for development aid in the agricultural policy sector now.
I believe that was an important decision.
<P>
When it comes to the question as to whether the expenditure earmarked for agricultural policy will be sufficient, it is certainly necessary to keep a constant eye on how the situation in the applicant countries is evolving and to establish what the assumptions were that the Berlin Summit based its estimate of necessary expenditure on.
If I conclude that these assumptions will need to be revised, then I will inform Parliament immediately and, I will, of course, make it my business to enter into discussion with the Committee on Budgets on how the situation should be handled.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="President">
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Supplementary and amending budget No 5/1999
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="President">
The next item is the statement on the report (A5-0061/1999) by Mrs Dührkop-Dührkop, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on supplementary and amending budget No 5/1999.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Dührkop Dührkop">
Mr President, I could limit my intervention to simply presenting the supplementary and amending budget SAB 5 and explaining my recommendation to vote in this Parliament.
<P>
But, Mr President, we have to understand that SAB 5 cannot be seen in isolation, but that it forms a whole with SAB 4 and what we call the global transfer and the Notenboom procedure.
Allow me, then, to begin with some thoughts which are directed at the Commission.
<P>
On presenting the SAB 4 and in the tripartite dialogue, on the 7th, before the adoption of that SAB 4, the Commission announced that the supplementary and necessary payment appropriations - EUR 650.5 million in particular for PHARE, TACIS, Obnova and FYROM - were covered, or were going to be covered, by means of three instruments: SAB 4, the global transfer and SAB 5, which today is the object of our debate and resolution.
And SAB 5 would also serve to increase the posts in OLAF from 15 to 30, as the supervisory committee recommended in its report on this body, so that OLAF may begin to work in accordance with the priorities which had already been identified.
<P>
On 15 September, Parliament discussed SAB 4 and it was then approved, both by Parliament and by the Council, in the vote in plenum.
Today SAB 5 is also being debated.
But with regard to the global transfer, which is one of the three instruments, and which the Commission had presented to increase the payment appropriations, part of this whole does not pass through this procedure in the Plenum.
It passes a little more unnoticed through the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport.
<P>
But you will allow me, since this is part of the whole, to make some observations and take this opportunity to quote directly the small gems of arguments which the Commission uses to transfer payments between the different lines and transfer them towards external actions.
<P>
I shall begin with a curious issue, which is the reduction in the line which is called "European Union Celebrations for the Millennium" .
The Commission' s justification for removing all the payments from there is: "The planned activities are not taking place."
<P>
Next I have three lines, "Special actions for the benefit of the Baltic region" , "Integrating gender issues into development cooperation" and "Preparatory actions by the NGOs in the campaign against child abuse" .
In these cases the Commission says: "No decision has yet been taken" .
We are in the middle of November.
It will be done, but we will see that as a result of taking decisions so late, especially in preparatory actions, which is what all these lines are, and they are priorities of this Parliament, payments may be removed on the grounds that decisions have not been taken.
<P>
I would like to ask, firstly: Who decides that it will not be done? (given that the political priorities, in my understanding, are set by Parliament).
And secondly: what is the reason for this delay in the taking of decisions?
I would recommend an improvement in 2000.
<P>
I do not want to be firmer with you, but I believe it is important, given that we said the 1999 budget was a bridge, not only with regard to funding, but also in the setting down of the political priorities for the new Millennium.
<P>
Lastly, of the three instruments, it is SAB 5 which we are examining today with an additional EUR 202 million in payment appropriations for external actions and these 15 additional posts for OLAF.
And the Commission proposal states - and the rapporteur is very happy about this - that they will be entirely funded by the EAGGF-Guarantee, since there are appropriations there which will not be used.
<P>
I would ask Parliament to approve the resolution which is short and concise.
It takes note of SAB 5 and indicates once again that the forecasts for agricultural expenditure have been excessive.
It is also indicated in this resolution - and this is perhaps the most important point, section 4 - that it asks Parliament to approve the decision to increase the amount of supplementary and amending budget 5/99 by EUR 25 million in payment appropriations intended for the PHARE programme, in accordance, Mrs Schreyer, with the urgent needs of this programme which the Commission has indicated.
<P>
Lastly, I also want to appeal to the Council.
I would like to ask the Council to approve without amendments this SAB 5, amended by Parliament, so that the payments are not subject to further delays.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Theato">
Mr President, the very first thing I would like to do is thank the rapporteur, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, very much indeed for this report on the Commission 's fifth supplementary and amending budget, and make it known that it meets with our approval.
You may find it astonishing that a fifth supplementary and amending budget is being put forward here, at the end of this financial year.
I would like to remind you though that Parliament, or rather the European Union as a whole, have, in recent years, developed the Notenboom procedure to such an extent that the carry-overs were practically indecipherable by the end of the year, and that we pressed for doing this by means of supplementary and amending budgets, in order to achieve greater transparency.
And look what is happening: the number is rising all the time.
I think though, that this has enabled us to bring about greater openness and also a situation that lends itself more readily to scrutiny.
<P>
It will not surprise you to learn that I am particularly keen to talk about OLAF and the fifteen additional posts.
OLAF, which came into operation on 1 July this year, thereby disbanding UCLAF, the previous anti-fraud office, is a new body and we want to do everything we can to make it run efficiently.
I assume that this is something that is a major matter of concern for the Commission every bit as much as it is for the other institutions, which are at present still engaged in deciding on accession via the interinstitutional agreement.
<P>
Originally, amending budget 4/1999 provided for 15 posts for OLAF, which was to have a total of 300 posts.
A total of 120 posts that were part of what used to be UCLAF - I will refer to them as posts rather than people - are already at the disposal of OLAF and we must now consolidate this position with all haste.
That is why we were most disappointed that people took so much convincing when it came to adding a further fifteen posts to the fifteen provided for in the supplementary and amending budget 4/1999, i.e. a total of 30 for this year.
I am very grateful to the Committee on Budgets for giving its unequivocal support to the Committee on Budgetary Control in this matter and that we now have these 30 posts for 1999.
The budget has earmarked 75 posts for the year 2000.
But the full staffing plan really ought to guarantee that OLAF is fully up and running by 2001 at the latest.
<P>
Mrs Schreyer, I would like to put a few direct questions to you. I believe you have been in touch with the monitoring committee, for which provision has specifically been made to reinforce its secretariat with high-flying personnel.
This monitoring committee, which is part of OLAF, comprises five independent experts who continue to pursue their normal occupations however.
They may not be undertaking this work on a voluntary basis - they receive a certain amount of money to cover costs, but this is not payment in the real sense - and they require appropriate support.
You will have had contact with the monitoring committee by now and in so doing also have allowed yourself to be persuaded that this work is necessary to guarantee the independence of OLAF.
<P>
Yesterday, we decided on the procedure for appointing the director of OLAF in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
I would like to ask you the following question Mrs Schreyer: on 28 October, I wrote to you to ask if you, indeed the Commission as a whole, could send me official confirmation of the list of eleven candidates for this office.
I am sorry to say that so far I have not received a reply to this letter.
I would like to take the opportunity in this plenary sitting to urge you most fervently to provide a response as soon as possible.
As soon as possible means that I am counting on it being this week - and I want to make that very plain - so that we can get the official referral under way, so as to enable us to make progress here in Parliament.
The Council is putting pressure on, as is Parliament. And so should the Commission, so that there is still time for us to appoint the director before the end of this year.
I would urge you, if you are able, to undertake to have the official referral together with the list of eleven candidates, forwarded to us straightaway.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Walter">
Mr President, Commissioner, first of all, I would expressly like to thank Mrs Dührkop Dührkop for the excellent work she is doing in the way of follow-up to Budget 2000.
I believe it has rarely been the case that a rapporteur has had to contend with in excess of 60 carry-overs and five supplementary and amending budgets in the course of one financial year. A multitude of amendments and additions to the original budget plan prompted her to say, in the course of the last discussion we had on supplementary and amending budget 4 that she no longer recognises her own baby, that is to say Budget 1999.
<P>
If what I am about to say has a ring of criticism about it, then it is not directed primarily at you Mrs Schreyer, for you are not the one who has had to take responsibility for this over the past few weeks, but when we as a Parliament draw up a budget at the end of a year, i.e. in the autumn, then we take for granted the fact that we are setting priorities in this budget and that these priorities are also the ones that will actually be applied in the course of the budgetary procedure and will be put into practice. Put another way, we assume that the things we consider to be important will actually be implemented in the form of policies.
<P>
What we are in fact seeing is this budget being amended rather drastically for the fifth time.
I am aware that we requested that the budget be amended a fifth time, directly on account of OLAF, and we stand by this, but all the same we must ask ourselves whether there is any point in setting priorities in the course of budgetary negotiations if they are only going to be revoked at a later date.
<P>
Here is an example from last year: ultimately, the Committee on Budgets and also Parliament pushed very hard for a line covering aid for Armenia and Georgia to be increased.
We were aware that not everyone was in agreement with this but pushed it through nonetheless.
What we have found to be the case is that in the course of this year the additional three million that we earmarked were not used at all, rather they were completely dispensed with because the measures could not be implemented or because the decision was taken not to implement them.
That is our problem.
<P>
In future, we would like to know - and this is why we intend to monitor implementation more closely than before - what becomes of our priorities?
We intend to ask you repeatedly in the course of the year what has actually happened in certain cases.
This is also a task that we will entrust to our committees when we say to them: when you outline policies and literally follow our every move in the course of the budgetary procedure and say we need another EUR 100,000 there, for example, then would you please continue to follow matters up when it comes to implementation.
I am also directing this comment at our own committees.
It is not enough just to make one' s presence felt here in the budgetary procedure.
What we have done in the course of the last few years is to incorporate an ever increasing amount of reserves into the budget in order to be able to improve control and become more heavily involved in implementation.
But that truly cannot be the right way of going about things!
<P>
Allow me also to direct a comment at the Commission on the subject of SAB5: you are of course aware that we were a new Parliament, - and I really must make our disapproval very plain at this juncture, as we approach the end of the year - yet still you introduced a supplementary budget in the summer recess, when we were completely unable to react to it because the new Parliament was not up and running at that stage.
That is no way to behave!
It is our intention - and you can rely on this being the case - to keep a very close eye indeed on this in future, that is to say on how you behave towards us and what prospect there is of us actually living up to our responsibilities.
<P>
There is one more thing I would like to say as what I have said so far relates to the current budgetary procedure.
We are now embarking on very difficult negotiations and there are figures in the frame again which none of us are very confident will actually form a sound basis.
We concluded an interinstitutional agreement at the beginning of this year which was to strengthen people' s faith in cooperation between the Council, the Commission and Parliament.
<P>
If this faith is to be justified, then what we produce in consequence of our decisions and in our discussions must have a firm basis.
I want to make that very plain and make specific reference to the figures that have been placed before us for Kosovo.
We must have very reliable figures for this, otherwise we will be constructing a budget that will grind to a halt in the course of next year.
This would mean us having to reallocate and redistribute from left to right again something in the order of hundreds of millions, and a budgetary procedure cannot be used to this end!
We want there to be a firm basis now; we want it to be made plain that the situation in Kosovo has gone on for several years now and that we must work together on this for several years to come.
We want there to be a firm basis that is long-lasting.
For we are not justified in undertaking an infinite number of reallocations and carry-overs and supplementary budgets when this gives the impression that we did not make a good enough job of our work to begin with.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fabra Vallés">
Mr President, I would like firstly to thank Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, as is customary, for her good report concerning SAB 5/99.
<P>
In addition to Mrs Dührkop' s report, we have already heard the debates on the issues of own resources and budgetary discipline and the truth is that none will be of any advantage to the tax-payer unless we improve the efficiency of the campaign against fraud.
<P>
Mrs Theato has just commented very effectively on the fact that we have replaced UCLAF with OLAF.
We are debating how to find the most suitable director. But none of this is of any use if we do not provide OLAF with the necessary resources.
Therefore, I am pleased that by means of this supplementary and amending budget of EUR 202 million the new posts can be increased from 15 to 30 and that, furthermore, it should be done this time with the agreement of the Council.
<P>
Every day, OLAF is having to deal with an increasing number of problems.
Every day, the geographic area is increasing and I therefore believe that every day, OLAF must be provided with sufficient means, both in terms of personnel and of material means, so that it may attend to the new issues.
For example, I believe that one of the parts which has still not been sufficiently studied is the proportionality of fines: I am referring to the fact that the worst fraud should be punished with the greatest fine.
We also lack knowledge of the details when a fine is lowered or waived.
<P>
Therefore, I have always said - and I repeat it here today - that in order to move forward, good will is not enough, but we also need the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament to move in the same direction.
And, as in this case, to be able to count on a strong and effective OLAF which will benefit the European tax-payer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bösch">
Mr President, this supplementary and amending budget 5/99 is an important step towards ensuring that the new anti-fraud office, OLAF, will soon have the power to act.
I welcome the fact that the expert recommendations provided by the OLAF monitoring committee were also taken full account of on this occasion. This was not always the case, as we have heard.
This has been put right, which is good for OLAF.
It underlines our desire to secure OLAF' s independence. The decision as to how these posts are to be filled will lie with the future director of OLAF.
<P>
Last night, the Committee on Budgetary Control established a hearings procedure for the candidates.
It is our intention to compile a list of three names which the President of our House will then be able to decide on in concert with the Council and the Commission.
As such, we are following the recommendations provided by our Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
<P>
What we still need from the Commission though, in order to be able to start the process - and I agree with Mrs Theato here and am specifically addressing this comment to you Mrs Schreyer - is a formal decision on the candidates to be considered for the post.
There were 450 applicants.
The OLAF monitoring committee whittled this down to a list of 11 names.
Vice-President Kinnock and you yourself informed us that the competent services of the Commission have endorsed the monitoring committee' s vote.
As far as I know, however, the Commission has not yet reached a formal decision itself and rumour even has it that the Commission is to decide on a list today that now comprises only four names.
Would you be so kind as to correct me if I am wrong.
<P>
It is quite clear that such a decision would be in violation of the OLAF Regulation, which sets out that you as a Commission, require a positive statement from the monitoring committee.
Parliament and the Council decided that this is how it should work, so as to ensure that the new director would be independent of the Commission.
But you only have a positive statement of this kind for the list of 11, not for a list featuring more names and not for one featuring fewer names either.
<P>
I am not nit-picking; the point is that as this process unfolds, it must be beyond all doubt.
Particularly in view of the incidents of the last few months and the crisis in the Commission, it would, to my mind, be a severe handicap if the new director were to be appointed without EEC legislative procedure having been fully complied with.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Dührkop Dührkop">
Mr President, I would like to reply to Mrs Schreyer, in a general way, on the comments we made.
Mrs Schreyer, I believe that you will have been able to deduce - from these and also from my intervention in September - that we are very concerned about the need to rectify and reassign the amounts within the budget itself.
<P>
Mrs Schreyer, I would like to ask you a simple question: has the Commission, given what we have heard here in September and today, addressed the question of how, in the budget for 2000, we can avoid the situation whereby, in the middle of November, we are still producing a supplementary, amending and transferring budget?
<P>
And a final question: is there anything else on the waiting list before the end of the year for the 1999 budget?
As rapporteur, I would like to know.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schreyer">
Mr President, rapporteur, ladies and gentlemen, this fifth letter of amendment for the budget of 1999 is in accordance with the directives proposed in May in budgetary conciliation.
The means of payment for the PHARE and TACIS programmes, for former Yugoslavia and for the macro-economic aid for Macedonia can now be increased, that is to say they can now be safeguarded.
As such, account is also being taken of the negative effects that the Kosovo conflict and the Kosovo war had on the situation in Macedonia, among other things, and we can at last come up with the budgetary aid this country badly needs and that was promised back in the spring or summer.
<P>
In addition, this letter creates 15 new posts for OLAF and it goes without saying that I would like to address the questions that have been put to me here on the appointment of the director of OLAF.
It is true: the independent monitoring committee - and I would like to place great emphasis here on the word "independent" in the context of the monitoring committee - picked out 11 candidates it considered suitable from the multitude of applications.
The Commission' s nomination committee then made a selection and I can assure you that at some point today you will receive the list of candidates that the nomination committee deems to be suitable.
<P>
I believe that the procedure can be interpreted in such a way that naturally the Committee on Budgetary Control is at liberty, for its part, to conduct hearings of the 11 candidates and reach a decision.
I very much hope that the Commission' s procedure and the one you use in your hearings produce similar outcomes.
In view of the eligibility of the candidates on the list, I am optimistic that it will be possible to find a very good candidate to hold this difficult office.
<P>
I would like to turn again to the matter of carrying appropriations forward.
Parliament had already transferred EUR 30 million less in the overall carry-over.
Consequently, the rapporteur proposes increasing the PHARE programme by EUR 25 million now.
Again, I can assure you, as I also did in the trialogue, that we support this amendment and request the Council to adopt it.
<P>
If this modified supplementary and amending budget is adopted, then it will be possible, in 1999, taking into account all the amendments, to make available and finance an additional EUR 670 million for the PHARE and TACIS programmes, for south-east Europe and other programmes, mainly from unused funds in the agricultural sector.
All in all, I welcome the fact that it has been possible, on account of this reduction in expenditure, to increase funds in the external action sector.
<P>
Several of you have criticised the fact that carry-overs of this order of magnitude are being proposed, and indeed that it was feasible to do so.
To this, I would say that surely the reality of budgetary policy is that there will always be developments in the course of a financial year, that is during the handling of a budget, that will debar full exploitation of all the budgetary lines.
This does not signify a failure on the part of the Commission to accept Parliament' s decisions.
I will make it my business to see that Parliament' s decisions are adhered to.
Nevertheless, we will always be faced with situations in which one or other development debars full exploitation of the lines.
I will inform you whenever it is possible to predict to what extent situations of this kind will arise, and I believe that what we must do then is to jointly consider neither freezing these funds, nor employing them, but rather reallocating them to precisely those areas where Parliament too agrees that this represents constructive use of these surplus funds.
As I said before, I am absolutely convinced of what a positive development it was that since less money was needed in the agricultural sector, i.e. less money had to be spent, on account of market and pricing trends, this is now available for such urgent and important external action programmes as are detailed in the documents we have before us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Theato">
Mr President, I have a specific question: Mrs Schreyer, you said that the list will be made available to us before the end of today.
Which list is that?
The list of eleven or a list of four?
Mr Bösch explained it in great detail.
I would like to warn of the fact that we are not pursuing the procedures properly.
They are clearly set out in Regulation 1037/1999 and in the interinstitutional agreement.
Parliament is not in a position to say "we will hear eleven ", or if there is another list, "we will hear four" !
That is not how it works!
We cannot afford to open up the possibility of those who were placed on the list by the monitoring committee taking legal action.
First of all you must reach agreement with the monitoring committee and then you must officially pass the list on to us so that we can then set our own procedure in train, come to an agreement with the Council and then make a proposal to you as regards who to appoint.
Ultimately therefore, you appoint in name only, but the procedure leading up to this must be conducted properly.
Could you please tell us exactly which list it is you intend to make available to us today?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Dührkop Dührkop">
Mr President, I congratulate you.
This is a genuine Parliament and we are embarking on a debate.
I believe that we should be grateful for that.
Mrs Schreyer, I agree with you and I am very pleased that agricultural expenditure will in fact have to fund this last SAB.
But I also take you at your word when you say that we are going to take great care in the budget to ensure that the reassignments do not alter the priorities that the European Parliament has set.
The examples which I gave earlier were, curiously, genuine priorities.
And I take your word so that in 2000, as part of a joint effort, which is much more intense and much more open, we may from the outset prevent priorities such as the Baltic regions or actions in favour of children from being the first to be affected, because there is a suspicion that it is perhaps not you who do not want to carry them out, but rather other powers which are behind it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schreyer">
Mr President, chairman of the Committee on Budgetary Control, my committee has also debated the matter of how we can guarantee to avoid committing formal errors.
Of course we have, in the appointment of the director of OLAF, a situation that is new to us.
A special procedure has been decided on.
At the same time, the decision does not cover every detail - understandably so I might say - and as such does not map out every single step.
Therefore, we must handle this together so that the existing procedures, which the Commission regards as formal procedures; i.e. the calling-in of the nomination committee and also Parliament' s right to conduct hearings of the candidates, and the role of the monitoring committee, can be included in the process.
<P>
The Commission now has to hand the recommendation of its nomination committee and this selection was made on the basis of the list of eleven candidates.
As such, there has therefore been a combination of procedures in this instance.
I can assure you that I will bring everything we have talked about in today' s discussion on how we are to proceed - you decided yesterday how all this is to be brought into line - into the Commission' s debate.
All I can say, and I really want to impress this on you again, is that I am very much in favour of us being able to reach this decision before the end of this year.
It is already relatively late, but the decision ought to be reached this year so as to enable the director to set to work without further delay, and I am actually very optimistic that we will be able to reach a sound decision here, on the basis of an interinstitutional procedure.
<P>
I would like to respond to Mrs Dührkop Dührkop as follows: of course the priorities this Parliament sets in the course of the budgetary process and for the budget itself are guiding principles for the Commission when it comes to the implementation stage of the budget.
That is why I referred to the fact that you could count on being informed in good time if difficulties should arise.
When it comes to the examples you have just cited, this is expenditure which I set great store by, I can assure you.
As such, I will, of course, ensure for my part, that foundations are laid here which will make it possible for this expenditure to actually be deployed.
But if, on the other hand, savings are made, on account of positive trends say, then there is no reason why we should not put our heads together and decide how this expenditure could be usefully re-deployed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Environment and Community energy policy
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="President">
The next item is the statement on the report (A5-0039/1999) by Mr Chichester, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and European Parliament on "Strengthening environmental integration within Community energy policy" (COM(1998) 571 - C4-0040/1999).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="Chichester">
Mr President, both the Maastricht and the Amsterdam Treaties focus on environment protection measures.
This communication from the Commission takes the issue forward within the energy sector.
<P>
Three objectives have been set out: firstly, to promote energy efficiency; second, to increase the share of production of cleaner energy sources - the target is 12% from renewables by 2010 - third, to reduce the environmental impact of the production and use of energy products.
<P>
Three priorities have been set for integrating these environmental objectives in energy policy.
First of all, they need to be implemented in a balanced way which takes account of competitiveness and of security of supply.
Then, they must be realistic and cost-effective.
Third, they must be flexible in their implementation to take account of rapidly changing markets and technologies.
Global warming is a major issue but, of course, it is not the only environmental issue that we confront.
In the energy and transport sectors there are major contributors to global warming emissions.
We, in Europe, must do our part and set a good example to the rest of the world, while recognising that the major pressure for energy consumption in future will come from countries like the United States, which is rather profligate in its consumption of energy, and also from developing countries which, as their economies grow and they raise their standard of living, will look for more energy consumption, which is likely to come from rather polluting sources of energy.
<P>
The report calls on the Commission to promote best practice, to encourage the exchange of views and experience, to encourage increased public awareness while respecting the principle of subsidiarity.
It must be recognised that energy policy is still determined largely at Member State level.
But there can be no doubt that energy efficiency is a matter that should be of concern to all of us.
<P>
The report also calls on the Commission to support the process of integrating these environmental objectives in energy policy through research into the impact of climate change, through research into all possible technologies, through research into identifying the best indicators to measure achievements in reducing emissions and through regular reports to Parliament.
<P>
In terms of possible legislative action, this report calls on the Commission to consider amending existing legislation or to introduce new measures which will strengthen those objectives, but it also asks the Commission to follow-up and study the effect of all legislative measures up to now and to report on their full cost and their full effectiveness to Parliament.
<P>
The report also calls for the environmental objectives to be taken into account in the enlargement process.
There are many concerns about energy consumption and electricity generation in the applicant countries, which need to be addressed.
The report reminds us that in order to achieve significant improvement in global environmental protection measures and reduction of emissions, we need dialogue and consensus with both our trading competitors and developing countries alike.
<P>
The Commission has made one major omission in not making any mention of nuclear energy in this report.
Whatever your views on this source of power and electricity, it is a fact that it supplies a significant part of our electricity in Europe and it does so in a way which does not produce CO2 or other greenhouse gas emissions and that is why - and the only reason - it has been mentioned in this report.
It would be a mistake for this reference to nuclear energy to distract attention from the main thrust of this report, which is about improving energy efficiency, drawing more supply from renewable sources, and integrating our environmental objectives in our energy policy.
It is a good start and there is much more to do.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mombaur">
Mr President, thank you very much.
Parliament has taken receipt of a report on this subject produced under the tutelage of Mr Chichester and I would like to congratulate him on it.
It is a good report.
Another way in which the European Union seeks to further environmental policy in the field of energy is by setting up programmes promoting the efficiency of installations.
<P>
But I want to again make clear today that the most important environmental policy measure we have taken to date was when we abolished the monopolies and introduced competition in the directives on gas and electricity of 1996 and 1998.
For it is only under such circumstances that the former monopolies are forced to shut down all their unprofitable installations and pass the consequences of this onto the consumer in terms of costs.
Only now do they have an incentive to operate their installations as efficiently as possible.
I also want to draw your attention to one aspect in particular.
It is only when a sector opens up to competition that variable rates can be set, something we are all familiar with in the case of the telecommunications sector.
Variable rates will lead to consumption over a 24 hour period being corrected and as such better use will be made of the installation capacity and fewer installations will be required.
In other words, it will not be necessary to produce as much energy and that is the most significant contribution to environmental policy to come out of these directives.
<P>
Hence the observation, incidentally, that the deliberations put forward by the previous Commission on the so-called integrated resources planning - an expression I really dislike - will die a death for this very reason, because there is no need for regulation.
For the energy suppliers and distributors will endeavour of their own accord to manage demand appropriately.
<P>
When it came to adopting the directives, the PPE Group stressed that as far as we were concerned there was still a lack of harmonisation of environmental policies.
That is why we have this report before us today, and we await further initiatives from the Commission.
I would also like to remind you that these directives provide for priority regulations with respect to the supply of electricity from renewable energies and combined heat and power systems.
These will all be of obvious benefit to the environment.
What we still lack though and what the previous Commission failed to achieve, and what we hope will be achieved in the end, is a European directive which does not just provide for the regulation in technical terms of the supply of electricity from renewable energy, but which also clearly sets out, in accordance with European competition law, models that show how electricity produced by this method can be promoted in a manner which meets Community requirements.
<P>
I see Mr Linkohr sitting just across the way.
We were unable to support the proposal he put forward at the time in every last detail, but we are agreed on the line of approach, i.e. that European legislation must be drawn up in this area.
I would also like to say in this context that we are soon to enter into very careful deliberations with the Commission, in Committee, on what else needs to be done in regulatory terms in the field of gas and electricity, for contrary to all declarations, we still do not have a European market, to a large extent we still have 15 individual markets.
This situation must change!
<P>
Finally, I would like to make an observation of a rather personal nature.
Whosoever believes that environmental protection can be achieved by introducing a CO2-tax will find no credence with me at any rate.
This is a quote from the Secretary-General of the IAEO who recently held forth before us all, stating that he knew of no examples to support the contention that linking taxation with the emission of harmful substances really does make a difference in terms of less energy being used and achieving reductions in the emission of harmful substances.
Consequently, and until there is evidence to the contrary, I will continue to regard all deliberations in respect of CO2 as nothing more than an increase in taxation by the backdoor, and I personally would only be prepared to support this if other taxes were to be cut in advance, rather than just an announcement made.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Linkohr">
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to compliment the rapporteur, Mr Chichester, on his report.
The Liberal Group agrees with the main thrust of the recommendations in the resolution, except for considerations C and L and sections 4 and 5.
<P>
Mr President, the benefits of nuclear energy are not as undisputed as these sections make them out to be.
Where nuclear energy helps us achieve our CO2 objectives, it also adds to the environmental problems of nuclear waste, which is completely opposed to the objectives of the communication of the Committee before us, namely a more powerful integration of the environment into the energy policy.
<P>
My second point concerns Amendment No 7 submitted by the Liberal Group with regard to section 1.
My group is delighted that the rapporteur has accepted this as a supplement.
Energy policy falls within the principle of subsidiarity but its transnational environmental impact is very much a European concern.
Since sustainable development has become a Treaty objective, it is only logical to include an energy section in the Treaty which enables an integrated approach to energy and environment.
<P>
Liberalisation leads to lower energy prices in time.
This will, however, not lead to higher energy consumption. After all, energy is a high cost item for companies and private people alike and this is set to remain so.
<P>
A further incentive to integrate policies on energy and environment is the introduction of an eco-tax, as is already in place in the Netherlands and Sweden.
The introduction of an eco-tax may lead to more energy efficiency and, as such, lower energy consumption.
My group calls on the committee and Member States to introduce such a tax in a coordinated manner, thus avoiding unfair competition within the Union. Needless to say, this tax should not add any extra cost to the European citizen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="Ahern">
The most vital requirement of energy and environmental policy as we approach the millennium is to meet our Kyoto commitments, and here of course a CO2 tax would have a major role to play.
Unfortunately, that has not yet been agreed, but we would ask the Commission to proceed in this direction.
<P>
We are not in fact meeting our energy commitments under Kyoto at all.
Energy conservation, rational planning and renewable energies are agreed to be the most important way forward other than the CO2 tax, about which, as I have said, no agreement has yet been reached.
They are indeed the right way to sustainability, but we are not pursuing them strongly enough.
The most recent statistics on energy intensity show that for 1996 we are at level zero.
We are in fact going backwards after seven years of trying to meet climate change commitments: this is not only unacceptable, it is completely scandalous.
I would refer you to those statistics - I am sure you know what they are, and we have to do better.
Our citizens expect and, indeed, demand that we do better.
<P>
The Commission and Parliament have indeed together sought to keep the already small budget for SAVE and ALTENER on target and for that I thank you and I hope we can continue to make progress.
<P>
What does not have a place in energy and the environment is nuclear power because it is not sustainable.
We do not have the ability to deal with nuclear waste although various fancy solutions have been proposed, including sending it to the moon, and we would be indeed on another planet if we agreed with Mr Chichester that nuclear power was a solution.
It is not, and I think that he was very ill-advised to add this discordant note to an otherwise more or less acceptable report.
I also feel that the Commission was most wise to avoid reference to nuclear power in its own proposals and I would advise you to keep to this approach because it is a most divisive thing to propose, and we will certainly not agree to it.
<P>
The recent nuclear accident in Japan has exposed once again the criminal negligence of the nuclear industry, and the recent falsifications of safety checks by BNFL at Sellafield are further evidence that we need to have great anxiety about the nuclear industry and how it operates.
What do we want, and what is the way forward?
We want the implementation of commitments in the White Paper on renewable energies, for example.
We want these commitments fleshed out by a Commission action plan on renewable energies.
Reference has been made to the internal market, and this is the most important environment in which we now operate: here the large subsidies for coal and nuclear energy must be ended and support for renewables as an important aspect of environmental policy must be made realistic.
Legally-binding targets for renewable energies are an important part of this strategy, but we must also have very clearly the externalisation of internal costs in respect of traditional energy production.
Finally, I think that if we have a level playing field and if we end the subsidies particularly for nuclear energy, we will see the other forms of energy coming forward.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Boudjenah">
Mr President, energy is at the heart of any economic or social activity.
All citizens are affected by the supply, transportation and distribution of energy.
There is still a lot to be done to ensure that the right to energy is a reality everywhere, both in the poorest countries and in industrialised countries, where all classes of the population do not have access on equal terms: needs are not therefore being satisfied and energy-related issues are becoming crucial.
<P>
The European Union is still highly dependent on energy.
CO2 emissions have not yet been stabilised and energy sources have not yet been diversified.
Designing an energy policy which respects the environment therefore requires determined effort.
In this respect, the fifth UN Conference on Climate Change has just confirmed the divergences between those with pro-active policies and those who are continually attempting to circumvent the Kyoto targets.
The European Union is itself undertaking to ratify the Kyoto Protocol by the year 2002 and is campaigning for measures which are different for developing countries and for industrialised countries.
Its CO2 emissions were reduced by 19% in 1997.
In this way it may contribute, I believe, to preventing the Americans' exclusively commercial liberal concept gaining the day, a concept which goes as far as to call into question the Kyoto targets.
<P>
Yet, Europe has not made sufficient effort, and there is no guaranteed response to all these challenges.
There is, therefore, cause for concern in the fact that the Commission and the Council continue to regard opening the energy market to free competition as an essential phase.
As the Chichester report indeed observes, there is a contradiction between liberalisation and the reduction of CO2 emissions.
But this is not the only contradiction.
Market pressure is also exerted on public service tasks: the most effective centres of resistance to unbridled free competition and public enterprises are under threat.
Furthermore, the call for competition restricts the capacity of States to intervene in energy policy choices and to guarantee equal access for users.
Energy is not like other goods for sale and must be treated as a special case.
Greater cooperation and the coordination of national policies are required, not an integrated European policy.
<P>
Finally, the rapporteur is astonished, rightly so, that the Commission makes no mention whatsoever of nuclear energy even though it contributes towards reducing CO2 emissions, even if this energy should be safer and more environmentally friendly.
Such key issues merit extensive public debate, enabling everyone to come to terms with the challenges and choices involved in energy policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Gallagher">
At the outset I want to compliment Mr Chichester on the preparation and presentation of this report.
<P>
The Commission' s communication on strengthening environmental integration within Community energy policy is very welcome in view of its realistic approach to the question.
Sustainable development is not just a lofty aim, it is an obligation imposed by the Treaties and must therefore form the central principle of any future European energy policy and at the same time a balance must be struck.
Certain clear targets have already been set by the Union in the energy field to reduce CO2 emissions by 8% by the middle of the next decade and of course to double the contribution of renewable energy sources from the current 6% to 12% by 2010.
<P>
The efforts at Community level complement those of Member States.
In my own country, Ireland, for example, EUR 160 m are to be spent on the development of an environmentally sustainable energy sector.
With the combined efforts of the Community and the Member States which have primary responsibility for energy policy, I believe that these targets can be attained.
We must be careful to allow sufficient flexibility to take account of the necessary adjustment of the energy market while in transition, and for this reason our targets must remain realistic and proposals must remain open as to details.
Mr Chichester recognises the limited role Parliament can play in energy policy, given that it is essentially a Member State competence.
We do have a clear and consistent voice when it comes to environmental matters, and the environmental considerations of energy generation are self-evident and considerable.
I support initiatives at European level which contribute to the efforts of Member States to meet their commitments under the Kyoto Protocol on limiting greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector.
We recently voted to renew the same programme with increased funding and this will make a valuable contribution to Member States' efforts.
<P>
In conclusion, I believe that much can be learned from an exchange of views between Member States on energy policy, and I support Mr Chichester' s call for the Commission to highlight examples of best practice in integrating environmental objectives in the energy policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Belder">
Mr President, the Treaty of Amsterdam stipulates that the environment should be integrated in other areas of policies.
This very clearly applies to the European energy policy, since it has a great impact on the environment.
<P>
A very one-sided view is taken of the CO2 issue both in the communication of the European Commission and in the motion for a resolution of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
The risk that other environmental effects will be neglected in the energy policy is considerable.
Think, for example, of the emission of acidifying substances and dust particles in the production of electricity, among other things.
In directives currently under way, such as the national emission limitation directive and the directive on large combustion plants - refer to the Oomen-Ruijten report - these issues are of key importance.
This is why I believe that it is necessary to bear the following considerations in mind with regard to the resolution.
In Amendments Nos 1 and 4, reference is made to the fact that in traditional energy production, alongside CO2, harmful substances are released which contribute to the formation of smog and acid rain.
The policy on CO2 reduction should not prejudice the efforts to cut down on the above-mentioned emissions.
<P>
In Amendments Nos 2 and 5, the application of total energy is recommended, so as to save energy and, consequently, reduce CO2 emissions.
<P>
Amendment No 3 highlights that in the application of nuclear energy, in addition to a possible CO2 reduction, various other environmental effects also play a role, such as the storage of radio-active waste.
<P>
In Amendment No 6, we request the Committee to consider all environmental effects when undertaking comparative research into different sources of energy.
I am quite convinced that this has not happened yet.
CO2 emissions and energy savings have been looked into, rightly so, and I fully support this.
But, as I already indicated, there are a large number of environmental aspects which have been ignored, and so there is definitely no sign yet of a more forceful integration of the environment and energy policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, I would like first of all, to congratulate the rapporteur, especially on his skill in extracting the nuclear issue from this report.
But, apart from that, like him I believe that the problem that Parliament has is that we cannot find the right time to tackle the matter of energy policy in a general and in-depth fashion.
This is due to the omissions in the Treaty, and also perhaps to Parliament itself.
In fact, with the recent preparation of a report on renewable energy sources, what we can see is a piecemeal approach to this issue, which nonetheless is a fundamental issue: once again, I agree with the rapporteur and with many of the speakers.
<P>
As regards this report, we cannot restrict it to the environmental impact related to CO2.
It is a very important aspect of the problem but, as Mr Belder and other speakers have said, there are many other aspects, in particular the nuclear issue, which have an ecological impact and which must be dealt with.
<P>
The problem also involves the appropriations.
Lacking a single policy on energy, the European Union is proliferating appropriations, especially those for research.
This is evidence that even today there is a hidden policy to promote nuclear power, which is no longer tolerable, in my opinion.
The 12% renewable energy target is totally inadequate and, even despite that, there is a risk that it will not be possible to achieve it.
It is essential, therefore, to unify the energy debate in order to determine exactly what our investment choices are, and to put an end to the contradictory situation whereby at least five members of the European Union, Austria, Italy, Denmark, Portugal and Greece, who do not actually use nuclear power, are obliged to finance a nuclear policy which is still subsidised, by more than 50%, by the European Union.
A debate must be initiated, I believe, as a matter of urgency, in order to have real discussion of the matter of energy, and to end the practice of tackling the subject piecemeal, which has been the case until now.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Kauppi">
Mr President, Members of the Commission, although the importance of environmental considerations has grown over the years, the aim of the Union' s energy policy in the future too must be to ensure that Europe' s industrial and household energy supply is kept at a competitive price.
In meeting this aim, the environment also has its own role to play.
The environment is, however, not the main objective of an energy policy, - and should not be.
<P>
In recent years, the European Union has done much to achieve a more sustainable energy economy.
We have committed to a considerable reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2005.
We have invested in the increased use of renewable energy resources, and we have expressed our firm desire to take account of the requirements of a sustainable energy economy in the enlargement process.
At the same time, we must, however, acknowledge that the demands concerning the Union' s energy policy are partly contradictory.
<P>
In connection with this report, there was a wish to discuss nuclear power, and how appropriate a means of production it will be in the future.
There can be no denying the contradiction there is between the speeches made here opposing nuclear power, which came from at least a couple directions, and the aim to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
The share of nuclear energy in electricity production must be kept at least at its present level, and it should perhaps even be increased, so that we can achieve the ambitious target for the reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, to which all of you, my good friends, including Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel and Mrs Ahern, and everyone else in this House, are committed.
If we are to take proper account of the environment, this requires that Member States allow sufficiently early on for replacement and renewal investments in their national strategies, this being a matter for decision making at national level.
<P>
Neither can the aim to have a common European energy tax be buried.
Reform must, however, be based on the notion that there will be no increase in the overall burden of taxation for European industry.
In this regard, I share the concern of my colleague, Mr Mombaur, that the possible threat of an energy tax should be offset by looking into other forms of taxation for business.
At the same time, we have to ensure that no model for an energy tax will prevent the very important exploitation of fuel peat in Finland in the future either.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, this is an important report and the work of a professional.
It is, however, very general in nature, and I would like to touch on something fairly concrete in this issue. I thus thought I would speak about gas, and a little about Russia.
The share of renewable energy in the European Union will have doubled in ten years' time from 6% to 12%, and in reducing carbon dioxide emissions an important and really decisive factor is held to be the development of combined electricity and heat plants using coal and natural gas as fuels.
In my own country, wood chip energy production from waste wood is now becoming very competitive and important.
<P>
Investigations show that the use of gas is growing in the Union, but at the same time the Union will have run out of this resource in 10 - 20 years' time.
Russia is our biggest importer, and it is there that the world' s largest deposits of gas are to be found, many of which are located relatively nearby, in northern Russia, Siberia and the Barents Sea region.
<P>
It is predicted that the additional need for gas will be approximately 150 billion cubic metres in 2020, twenty years from now.
Russia' s gas production will also start declining in a few years' time.
Production will therefore decline in both the EU and Russia, but our requirements will grow.
To meet the gas consumption requirement for this region we will perhaps need four or five pipelines of additional gas.
<P>
This is precisely the problem.
With Russia we have a partnership and cooperation agreement, which cannot be implemented without concrete objectives.
At the same time, the situation in Russia is confused, though, hopefully, after the elections it will have recovered to some extent.
We would have a common target for investment here: gas, which we badly need and whose new production and satellite regions in the north are quite near us.
In fact it might be said that Russia must turn to its resources in the north as in the south there appears to be an on-going period of fighting and wars.
In other words, Russia will turn to a region where these problems do not exist.
The European Union is also offering a cooperative hand in the light of the northern dimension.
<P>
I therefore propose that the Commission take forceful measures in this issue, and, at this stage, I would ask what the Commission has done to resolve the gas issue via Russia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Pohjamo">
Mr President, Mr Chichester has quite rightly stated in his report that environmental considerations must be taken better account of in the Union' s energy policy, but, by virtue of the principle of subsidiarity, the Member States bear the main responsibility for energy policy.
The environmental dimension must also be included in energy policy at regional and local level.
That too has been mentioned in this report.
<P>
The recently amended SAVE and Altener programmes are the cornerstones of a sustainable and environment-friendly energy policy.
Energy efficiency and the use of renewable sources of energy must be stepped up to meet at least the ambitious targets of the Union.
That will require research, pilot projects, exchange of experience and new technology applications.
We have to ensure throughout the whole Union area that the networks are also at the disposal of small companies that produce renewable energy.
<P>
The greatest barriers to the increased use of renewable energy and energy saving are attitudes and ignorance.
For that reason, communications have an important part to play in the promotion of more environment-friendly production and use of energy.
All this requires money.
Unfortunately the Union budget sets aside very little funds for the promotion of a sustainable energy policy.
This amount has to be increased if we mean to keep to our targets.
The Member States also have to seek bold taxation solutions and other incentives to boost energy efficiency and increase the use of renewable sources of energy.
Peat, as a renewable energy resource, must also gradually be included in the incentives package.
<P>
The report presents nuclear energy in too favourable a light.
In my opinion, nuclear power is not the solution to the environmental problems of energy production.
Nuclear power is still needed, but the safety factors involved and the storage of nuclear waste are still serious problems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
Mr President, it is extremely important that arrangements be made to introduce environmental considerations into energy policy, and I therefore welcome the Commission' s announcement.
The Kyoto objectives confront us with a significant challenge, and sustainability ought to be a general principle for the development of future energy policy.
Nuclear power is not the solution.
This form of energy might enable CO2 emissions to be reduced but, at the same time, it creates very many new environmental problems.
For the same reason, I support Amendment No 8 which is about giving due weight to the precautionary principle.
It is high time that the EU began to prioritise its own objectives in connection with doubling energy production from renewable energy sources.
<P>
As late as last week, the Commission was ready to submit a proposal for a new EU directive which would have set drastic limits upon national subsidies for renewable energy sources.
Now, the proposal has fortunately been withdrawn, partly because of Denmark' s commendable readiness to sound the alarm.
The directive established a situation in which it would be open to producers in all EU countries to supplement national subsidies for over and above the first 5% of energy from plant which uses renewable energy sources.
In practice, a proposal of this kind would have meant that the use of renewable energy sources would not have increased beyond 5% for there is no finance minister in any country who would want to finance the development of projects in other countries.
In that way, the Danish energy plan, the aim of which is that 20% of the energy supply should come from renewable energy sources by the year 2003, would have run into major problems.
I hope therefore that, when it comes up with a new proposal, the Commission will read its own announcement concerning the increased weight to be given to environmental considerations in the Community' s energy policy and that it will actively help ensure that more use is made of renewable energy sources.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, environmental considerations are very important in the field of energy and that is why I would like to thank Mr Chichester warmly for his report, which addresses the right questions in substance.
Approximately 50% of our energy requirement in Europe is met by mineral oil and 25% by gas, which means that ¾ of our energy currently derives from fossil energy sources.
If we take as read that we import more than 50% of the European Union' s total energy requirement then we definitely need to ask ourselves the following question: how can we guarantee reliability of supply in the face of climate change, which in view of the worldwide CO2 problem may, indeed will affect us, not just if there is a failure to take preventive action on our part, but, above all, if there are changes in the political climate?
<P>
Speaking of changes in the political climate, I would like to point out that we are extremely dependent on certain regions.
39% of the gas we use has to be imported and 41% of this comes from the CIS States.
Gas consumption is experiencing very rapid growth in the European Union and energy imports to the European Union are still rising at a rate of 0.9% per annum.
We have made good progress where the environment is concerned.
CO2 levels are constant to rising slightly, we achieved a 30% reduction in SO2 levels between 1990 and 1994 and a 9% reduction in the case of NOx.
Nuclear power cannot be the answer to our problems.
That is why the Austrian delegation intends to abstain when it comes to consideration L and section 5.
<P>
Increasingly, nuclear energy is being replaced by gas.
That is why we consider reliability of supply in this sector to be paramount and also why Parliament does not intend to give way in the negotiations with the Council on ALTENER and SAVE - that is to say with EUR 81 million and EUR 68 million.
We need reliability of supply, we need competitive energy!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Mr President, Commissioner, it is with great satisfaction that I receive the Commission communication on the inclusion of environmental aspects in the energy policy, even if, like many people, I must deplore the serious delays which have arisen in this field in Europe.
<P>
In fact, many Member States, with jurisdiction in this area, have too often chosen to overlook this issue, resulting in real ecological disasters.
For all that, now that the requirement has been established, apparently with general consensus, the problem of implementation arrangements remains and, here, the task of reconciling the policies proposed is far from being as easy.
It is a source, indeed, of a great deal of disagreement, on a par with any of the challenges which the European Union must meet.
<P>
As far as I, and others, of course, are concerned, the main challenges are as follows.
Firstly there is the challenge of the safety of our power supplies and the energy dependence of the European Union, a dependence which is going to grow and which is likely, we are told, to reach 70% in the year 2020, with all the consequent political risks.
Next, there is the commitment made at Kyoto to reduce CO2 emissions by 8% relative to their 1990 level.
Confronted with these two challenges, there are some arguing in favour of the all-nuclear solution, while others are arguing in favour of completely giving up nuclear power.
<P>
Personally, I do not think that either of these two extremes offers the solution to environment protection.
I would be more in favour of a balanced development of energy sources, retaining the nuclear share but especially developing renewable energies.
The European Union has set the target of increasing the share of renewable energies from 6% to 12% by the year 2010, but the financial resources must be found for this and, today, we are a long way off, to judge by the latest discussion in the Conciliation Committee.
<P>
A further challenge, an absolutely major one, is related to the contradiction, a particularly serious contradiction, I feel, between the liberalisation of energy networks, which, while it certainly affords a certain reduction in prices, also, by the same token, favours waste, and the promotion of rational and economic energy use.
To the pro-liberals I say that it is necessary to recognise that the market does not solve all problems and ultraliberalism has negative effects.
<P>
In order to meet these challenges and overcome these contradictions, what we need, very quickly, is cooperation at every level, in the Member States and with candidate countries, to enlist the assistance of candidate countries and to work within the terms of the fifth framework programme.
The rapporteur has done an excellent job and has produced some excellent proposals.
I would like, in conclusion, to congratulate him on this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schmidt, Olle">
<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wijkman">
Mr President, I also want to congratulate Mr Chichester on his report.
It is undoubtedly the case that, among the environmental problems we perceive as being serious, current energy systems probably account for at least 50% of the causes of these problems.
Therefore, it is naturally important that the European Union should get more of a grip on energy policy in the future.
<P>
Seven years after the Rio conference and the convention on climate change, and carbon dioxide emissions are still continuing to increase. This is something which has been touched upon by many speakers here today.
The main problem, as I see it, lies in the fact that the industrialised nations have done too little at home.
This especially applies to the United States which appears to be most interested in purchasing so-called hot air from Russia and Ukraine and in that way honouring its commitments.
<P>
This deadlock must be broken. As I see it, only the EU can do this, and by means of an active strategy.
On the one hand, it must emphasise efforts on the home front and active cooperation with, above all, the developing countries, as well as aid to these countries to enable them to adjust their methods of obtaining energy to environmental requirements. On the other hand, it must show that it is in fact possible to change course without incurring large costs because we obtain so many other environmental benefits when we limit our dependence upon fossil fuels.
<P>
In order to manage this successfully, a number of different means of control are of course required, for example norms and standards, but also economic means of control.
We must look very carefully at road traffic because emissions in this area are continuing to increase very considerably.
When energy becomes cheaper due to efficiency measures, there is unfortunately a tendency for savings to be eaten up through the so-called rebound effect; that is to say, we cause demand to be increased.
I therefore think that taxation is an important means of control.
A carbon dioxide tax involving a simultaneous reduction in the tax on work would be an excellent step in the right direction.
It would show the world that we are tackling these questions seriously.
It is my hope that, during the next few months, the Commission will take initiatives along these lines so that we might translate words into deeds.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="De Palacio">
Mr President, firstly I would like to thank and congratulate Mr Chichester on his positive and constructive report on the communication from the Commission to the Council and European Parliament on strengthening environmental integration within Community energy policy.
I would also like to thank all the Members of Parliament who have participated in this debate for their constructive and positive contributions.
<P>
At the Helsinki Summit, which will take place in December, the Heads of Government will deal with the issue of environmental integration and sustainable development in different policy areas, and especially energy.
Therefore today' s debate is particularly appropriate.
<P>
Firstly, I would like to point out that it is precisely the energy sector which has been the first to draw up a communication on environmental integration in its policy.
This reflects the significant role which it has to play given the environmental challenges which face us.
The energy sector has made a substantial contribution to improving air quality on a local and regional level as compared to previous practices.
The directive on large combustion plants with regard to the reduction of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides and the Auto Oil programme to deal with the problem of air quality in cities, are good examples.
<P>
I would like to highlight the existing cooperation between the energy and environmental sectors.
This confirms that there are ways of strengthening integration and, as a result, establish environmental quality standards at a cost which will not affect European competitiveness, which is an issue that should always be taken into account.
<P>
This cooperation is particularly important in the light of the challenge presented by climate change.
Energy continues to occupy a significant place in the preparation of international negotiations for the application of the Kyoto Protocol.
As a whole, the Commission receives the opinions of Parliament very favourably.
The insistence on the need to influence the instincts of the people and the habits of the consumer and to establish channels of communication with the citizens and small and medium-sized businesses confirms the importance which political leadership will have with regard to changing our consumer habits and promoting sustainable development.
As I often point out, we have to start by providing an example, by way of public facilities and public buildings, and by way of the public sector and the institutions, of how energy can be used in a more efficient and rational way.
<P>
Technology will play an important role, but the establishment of new and more demanding environmental standards will depend on the support of the citizens.
The search for cleaner and more viable technologies is one of the Commission' s main ambitions.
The resolution of Parliament reminds all of us of the external dimension, that is to say, the process of enlargement and relations with non-EU countries, especially the developing countries; it requires that we adopt a realistic, balanced and flexible approach to the development of policies, which is especially important when it comes to examining the combination of energy sources and its evolution over time.
<P>
The Commission agrees with Parliament that it is necessary to adopt a broad approach in order to promote the use of energy sources with low carbon content in order to satisfy demand.
In our programmes, we insist on renewable energy and energy efficiency.
These demand policies are a central pillar of our sustainable approach to energy policy aimed at addressing the major environmental concerns of our citizens.
<P>
Parliament also requests that we attend to the sector which has not received all the attention it deserves.
That is to say the development of the capacity to separate and store CO2, which is an option which should be studied in depth.
<P>
In conclusion, Mr President, we receive this resolution favourably.
It reminds us of the true definition of a form of development which can be maintained over time; a sustainable development.
The human dimension of our policies should also be borne in mind.
And we must carefully analyse the economic and social consequences of our political decisions in the energy and environment sectors.
<P>
And to sum up, Mr President, several speakers have referred to a broader debate which would take into account all the issues, not only demand and environmental issues but also the question of energy sources and energy dependency based on the forecasts.
Undoubtedly, this is a debate which we will have to lend all our attention to, and I hope that, throughout the coming months and, of course, before the end of this Commission' s mandate, we will be able to fully develop it, transparently, intensely and effectively in the discussions, as has been the case with the discussion of this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place in a few minutes, that is at 12 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Mr President, I have learnt that the services of Parliament - I do not know whether this was under the instructions of the President - have prohibited a press conference by the President of the Court of Auditors of the European Union on this Parliament' s premises.
I would like to register a strong protest, on behalf of my group.
I believe that this type of behaviour towards the President of another European institution is an outrage and an affront to this House.
I request that my protest be communicated to the President and I expect explanations with regard to it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="President">
I will ensure that your remarks are passed on.
I personally have no information about this but I will ensure that the President is informed of your concern.
Normally it is the Quaestors who give permission or not for such meetings so I do not know the situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Cappato">
Mr President, I would like to confirm that, once again, the Radical Members will not be taking part in the vote.
As you all know, this is because we intend to protest against our inferior position in terms of parliamentary rights and the right to take the floor.
I hope that this House will not start to think of our interventions as an annoying habit, or even something to be treated superficially and with amusement.
I think that it would be a serious situation if Parliament were to get used to conditions of continuing discrimination against some of its Members. And a sign from the Presidency that they are paying attention and are sensitive to this matter that we are constantly raising would not go amiss either.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bigliardo">
Mr President, I support what Mr Cappato said.
As a member of the Italian Socialist Movement, I too am continuing to abstain from voting in support of the Members' fight for freedoms and for improved conditions in the Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament.
I therefore declare that I will be abstaining from voting for the whole of the parliamentary term, in line with the Radical Members.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Vote
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="President.">
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="De Palacio">
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="McNally">
- I respect the reasons for which the British delegation has abstained on Amendments Nos 5 and 8 - junior doctors - but I have not followed this line since firstly, this is a negotiating position and secondly, my close family experience of a highly stressed and overworked NHS midwife do not allow me to impose long working hours on vital medical staff for any longer than is absolutely necessary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Morgan">
- Perhaps I should start with a historical, not current, declaration of interest on why I have voted in favour of Amendment No 5, Article 1(6), concerning junior doctors.
<P>
My husband, Dr Rhys Jenkins, currently a GP and working restricted hours, has in the past worked in excess of 100 hours a week whilst training to become a doctor.
This first-hand knowledge has highlighted for me the dangers of requiring doctors to work such long hours. This potentially endangers the lives of patients and certainly can have a detrimental effect on doctors' health.
I believe that a much delayed and staggered transition such as that proposed by the Council of Ministers is unnecessary and inappropriate.
<P>
In addition there is a particularly acute problem in Wales where the British Medical Association calculates that 30% of junior doctors are working longer than the recommended 40 hours a week.
The figure in Scotland by comparison is calculated at 10%.
There is a huge problem in terms of recruitment in the profession, and a haemorrhaging of trained doctors to other countries due to the excessive working hours.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Andersson, Färm, Hedkvist Petersen and Theorin">
The present situation in which large groups of workers are excluded from the EU' s basic working time regulations is unacceptable.
We therefore think that the Smet report constitutes an important step towards improving the work situation of hundreds of thousands of employees and preventing a situation in which working times are made into an unfair means of competition.
We consider however that the proposal to regulate Sunday working, originally a proposal from the Group of the European People' s Party, is unjustified.
We are therefore going to vote against Amendment No 1.
<P>
We also consider that Amendment No 7 concerning fishermen' s working times is too far-reaching.
We consider that the special conditions which apply in the fisheries sector are better taken into account in the Council' s common position.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Scallon">
- Commissioner Byrne, at his hearing stated that: the future of public health policies should not be linked only to the present crisis of the day; that there must be a high level of human health protection in all Community policies; that we must be proactive in public healthcare.
<P>
I repeated these words to the junior doctors of Ireland who, by the way, work the longest hours of any in their profession in the EU. They were greatly encouraged by them.
<P>
In light of Commissioner Byrne' s statements, let us look at the words of the Permanent Working Group of European Junior Doctors: "Research demonstrates that sustained wakefulness such as that experienced by junior doctors (working excessive hours), reduces performance to a level similar to excessive alcohol consumption."
<P>
These totally unacceptable conditions not only undermine the health of our junior doctors, they also undermine our health care system and endanger the patient.
I call on my own Irish Government to support this working time directive in line with the rapporteur' s suggestions.
I also call on the Commission to support Commissioner Byrne as he strives to be pro-active in public healthcare by ensuring that patient care and the health and training of non-consultant hospital doctors is protected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">

- (DA) The Danish Social Democrats have today voted for the Smet report on changing certain aspects of the organisation of working time.
We think it is a good idea that those employees who have not to date been covered by the Working Time Directive should now be so.
<P>
We have declined to vote for Amendment No 6 from the Committee.
We agree that the reference period for offshore work may be extended to 12 months.
A shorter period might compromise safety because it would involve more flights to and from the oil platform.
Consideration has also to be given to the welfare of employees on the oil platform, where there is very little space.
We think it is important that the social partners in the labour market should be involved in such important questions as the organisation of working time.
We think, however, that EU legislation must respect the structures and traditions in the national labour markets.
We cannot therefore vote in favour of this proposal from the Committee.
<P>
We have voted against Amendment No 7 from the Committee.
The background to our doing so is that this proposal removes the Member States' freedom to choose whether to regulate employees' hours on the basis either of working time or rest time, as established in ILO Convention no 180 concerning seafarers' working hours.
We think that sea fishermen will be able to achieve better protection if working time or rest time is regulated on a daily or weekly basis, as proposed by the Council, rather than by having a fixed limit of 48 hours in a reference period of 12 months.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Skinner">
- The European Parliamentary Labour Party abstained on Amendments Nos 5, 7 and 8 to the Smet report on the Working Time Directive.
Although the EPLP is committed to the extension of the WTD to the excluded sectors, it understands the need for this to be done in a rational way.
<P>
We are committed to reducing the working hours of junior doctors, but it is essential that this is done in a planned and structured way which does not undermine patient care.
This directive will require an adequate transposition period with staged reductions in working time.
<P>
The fishing industry required flexibility.
This amendment does not recognise the reality of the needs of the fishing industry and will adversely effect it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
- (FR) We are now finally making good an omission dating from 1993, the year when the working time directive was adopted.
This legislation represented definite progress but at the same time its application excluded six million workers.
This included personnel involved in the transport sector, but also in work at sea (offshore workers, in particular, and "doctors in training" ).
<P>
It was no longer acceptable to exclude these workers in so far as the nature of their work was no different to that of the workers covered by the terms of the directive.
The proposal under discussion today is intended to rectify the current situation.
There have been fierce discussions, especially on the question of the "offshore" sector and doctors in training.
<P>
Regarding the latter, the European Commission' s initial proposal was that the application of the directive should be extended to doctors in training over a transitional period of seven years.
We demanded that this period should be reduced to four years, with a maximum weekly working time of fifty-four hours (subject to negotiation) during that time.
<P>
This is the minimum that may be asked if the nature of this profession is taken into account.
It is the welfare of these doctors at work, and the health and safety of their patients, which is at stake!
This is why the Council' s common position on this, envisaging a nine-year transitional period, would be unacceptable!
<P>
Regarding offshore workers, we have demanded that working hours may be expressed by an annual figure subject only to collective wage agreements or employer-employee agreements.
This condition shall have to be reconsidered taking into account the health and safety of workers within a period of five years after the directive comes into force.
<P>
The organisation of working time and the improved reconciliation of working life and private life which it affords must be of benefit to the majority.
This is the condition on which we may start talking about Social Europe.
It is more than time for this.
<P>
Recommendation for 2nd reading by Mr Lange (A5-0043/1999)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Laguiller">

- (FR) I am abstaining from the vote on Mrs Smet' s report, which envisages limiting the working hours of doctors in training, even if it does represent some slight progress in relation to the current situation.
<P>
The fact is, I find it shocking that a transitional period is envisaged, even if it is less than that proposed by the Commission.
As far as I am concerned, I cannot see any objection to the measure being applied with immediate effect.
<P>
I am even more shocked by the fact that the road transport sector is excluded from the scope of the directive to limit working hours, and by the conditions stipulated for offshore workers in this matter.
<P>
Report by Mr Chichester (A5-0060/1999)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Andersson, Färm, Hedkvist Petersen, and Theorin">
Emissions from heavy goods vehicles are contributing more and more to carbon dioxide emissions due to the increasing number of consignments.
Our aim by means of this report is to reduce emissions of this kind in order to contribute to cleaner air.
In order to meet our commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, we must take decisions involving difficult commitments for industry, above all when it comes to carbon dioxide emissions.
That is one of the purposes of this report.
We are aware that the decision may be felt to be onerous for certain manufacturers.
It is nonetheless our conviction that Swedish industry, with its considerable technical know-how, is well placed to cope with these demands within the time frame proposed in the report, which is to say by 2006.
<P>
Our understanding is that the proposals in the report are not confined to one particular technology but contain a range of technological solutions to choose from.
To that extent, the report is neutral from a competition point of view.
We are convinced that, in the long term, Swedish companies will win out by being well ahead in adapting to environmental demands.
We are proceeding on the assumption that this judgement is shared by the companies concerned.
<P>
As Members of the European Parliament, we see it as our task to force the pace of such developments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Grossetête">
- (FR) This proposed amendment of Directive 88/77/EEC is based on the Auto-Oil programme concluded by the European Commission in 1996.
In this context, Parliament has already had occasion to adopt proposed amendments to a number of directives addressing the technical improvement of engines and fuel quality.
<P>
I would not like us to lose sight of the strategy behind the Auto-Oil programme: the objective is to reduce pollution of the atmosphere connected with vehicle emissions.
At the second reading stage, it is important for Parliament to clearly distinguish between the elements which it considers a priority and the rest.
<P>
Some might think, perhaps, that it is obvious.
However, the second reading of a text, referred under the codecision procedure, is all too often an opportunity to enter into a game of one-upmanship against the Council.
This temptation must be avoided at all cost, for a number of reasons.
Firstly, the European Parliament is in danger of losing sight of the general objective of the proposal before it.
Next, if it makes the text less clear, it is weakening its position.
Finally, it loses its credibility with the people and those directly concerned.
<P>
In presenting his reasons, the rapporteur explains that the amendments adopted at the first reading by the European Parliament have made a significant contribution towards improving the initial Commission proposal.
He specifies that the Council has, in its common position, taken on board some of Parliament' s significant amendments.
I fully share this point of view.
The rapporteur has, however, has started on the path of one-upmanship, and, in supporting 47 amendments, he was taking the risk of causing a delay in the entry into force of the best terms of this text.
<P>
The Council' s common position will make it possible to make real progress regarding pollution related to heavy-duty vehicle traffic.
I was not in favour of adopting the amendments on which the House had to vote, since this would have delayed the entry into force of this text and thus the implementation of investment and industrial strategies.
The sooner the directive can come into force, the greater the beneficial effect on the environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bernié">
Mr President, the Chichester report will certainly have important repercussions on European energy policy.
The Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities voted in favour, as we are committed to application of the principle of subsidiarity.
<P>
Energy is still a strategic and sensitive area for States.
It is indeed essential to allow them to select and define their policy on the subject, since Europe and in particular the Commission, have only a supporting role rather than a critical role.
This very realistic report demonstrates unquestionable open-mindedness.
Nothing is anathematised and no doors are closed, particularly that of nuclear power.
It lists the various energy sources, seeing them as complementary to, and not replacements for, the forms of energy currently used.
Realism on the subject of energy makes this necessary.
All avenues must be explored, none must be ignored or sacrificed.
The diversity of sources must be acceptable.
<P>
Finally, it is necessary to ensure that the most absolute transparency is applied, while respecting strategic technical safety regulations.
By means of serious and comprehensive studies and evaluations, everyone will be able to appreciate whether a given choice is appropriate, making it possible to make any operational changes necessitated in the light of the assessment of current knowledge.
<P>
We would like to see energy and the environment in intelligent coexistence, but we must, at all costs, avoid sacrificing energy on the altar of the environment.
The consequences of this would be disastrous for the Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Krivine and Vachetta">
- (FR) Despite its general title, once the gift wrapping has been removed, it readily becomes apparent that the draft resolution proposed by Mr Chichester is intended primarily to promote the nuclear industry on the pretext that it does not produce much CO2, at least as far as the power plants are concerned.
Indeed, while it remains extremely vague on most environmental matters related to the energy sector, this resolution proposes that, in future, in the countries of the EU, nuclear-based electricity production should at least retain the share which it currently has.
And this at a time when an increasing number of European countries are deciding to get out of nuclear power.
<P>
However, rather more than electricity production, the reduction of CO2 emissions involves the problem of the organisation of transport - a point of which the resolution makes no mention.
It is silent, too, on the considerable risks inherent in nuclear-based electricity production and the accumulation, over the very long term, of radioactive waste!
<P>
We can do nothing other than vote against this draft resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="President">
That concludes the vote.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 12.40 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Cashman">
I hope you will bear with me.
This is not a point of order, but I believe it is an historic announcement.
As the House is probably aware, there have been recent announcements by David Trimble of the Ulster Unionist Party and Gerry Adams of Sinn Fein.
Both have come out with statements which are committed to the peace process and to decommissioning for Northern Ireland.
I am sure that the President will want to write on behalf of the European Union to congratulate all parties concerned on their actions, their courage and their determination to carry the peace process and decommissioning forward, and I am sure that you will agree that peace in Northern Ireland offers hope to everyone everywhere.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="President">
Mr Cashman, I am grateful for that information.
I am sure that the Presidency and all of us offer our congratulations.
I do not know if you knew, but I personally was rapporteur for budgets for the first aid package for the peace programme in Northern Ireland, and in a way, I therefore feel personally involved.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Judicial cooperation
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on the following reports:
<P>
A5-0060/1999 by Mr Lechner, on behalf of the Committee on Citizen' s Freedoms and Rights, on the proposal for a Council Directive on the service or transfer in the Member States of judicial and extrajudicial documents in civil or commercial matters [COM(99) 219 - C5­0044/1999 - 1999/0102(CNS)];
<P>
A5-0057/1999 by Mr Gebhardt, on behalf of the Committee on Citizen' s Freedoms and Rights, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgements in matrimonial matters and in matters of parental responsibility of joint children [COM(99) 220 - C5­0045/1999 - 1999/0110(CNS)].
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lechner">
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Gebhardt">
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Wallis">
Mr President, both these reports before us today recognise the increasing mobility of persons and the rise in contractual and commercial transactions across our Union.
As the internal market develops, our citizens really need a legal framework that guarantees them access to justice wherever they are and whatever their problems.
<P>
I will confine my remarks mainly to the report on the service of documents.
I concur with Mr Lechner that the rules that formerly governed this are some 25 years old; they are complicated and out of date.
With the increase in commercial transactions across the internal market, we need new, simple and certain rules.
When our citizens or our businesses have to resort to the courts, they need to get past that first step, which is the service of documents, possibly in another jurisdiction, before initiating proceedings.
Here we need a simple procedure.
<P>
As a lawyer in private practice in the UK, I myself, have often wrestled with a pile of books to find the right rules and the right way to go forward for my clients in these circumstances.
<P>
The proposals that we have before us take matters forward but perhaps they do not go far enough.
My group will re-table certain amendments that were put to the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market to try to take matters forward even further, to make the systems that we are going to put in place more readily available and open to practitioners.
We need to take this area of law outside the remit of a few specialists who may be able to charge a lot for it.
We want to give our citizens across the Union real access to justice so that when they have to resort to the courts they can get things up and running quickly and without difficulties.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lehne">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I rise to speak about the Gebhardt report on judicial cooperation in family affairs.
Anyone who comes into contact with judges and registrars in the cross-border areas of our Member States will know that this is a problem that urgently requires solving.
For a long time, there has been an increasing number - and thankfully one that continues to increase - of marriages and familial relationships between people from different European countries.
Naturally, this often results in a number of problems.
There are also more and more people moving or emigrating from one country of the European Union to another in order to live and work there.
<P>
It is indeed the case that the current provisions pertaining to family law and also the international regulations on this subject are simply not adequate to deal with this problem.
I would therefore like to join Mrs Gebhardt in offering special praise to the Council and Commission for their initiative in taking a decisive step towards solving this problem.
This is indeed urgently necessary.
Moreover, in my opinion the shortcomings that the document reveals are positively limited.
There is a range of lesser aspects that have also been addressed in the committee discussions.
For example, I still to this day do not fully understand why negative judgements should have been excluded from the scope of this regulation.
<P>
In my opinion, this is particularly problematic, since the fact that negative judgements are not binding in all States may ultimately mean that a State in which a negative judgement is made may not recognise a positive judgement made in another state, with the result that we are once again faced with the disintegration of what constitutes law in the European Union, which, of course, we do not want.
<P>
I would ask that the Council to reconsider this aspect in its further discussions on this subject and that it consider whether this problem cannot indeed be resolved.
In all other respects, I support the initiative; I think that it is a good one and think that it should be pursued.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Klamt">
Mr President, the submitted proposal on matrimonial and custody cases represents a clear improvement for the citizens of the European Union and is particularly welcomed by the PPE Group.
For this, I would like to express my thanks to the Commission and the rapporteur.
<P>
The aims of the regulation are to ensure that judgements made in the Member States pertaining to divorce and other forms of separation are rapidly recognised by the other Member States, and also to provide up-to-date and uniform regulations governing parental responsibility for the joint offspring of spouses.
This was made possible by means of the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty on 1 May this year, which as part of heading IV in Articles 61 and 65 makes judicial cooperation in civil cases a firm part of the EC Treaty.
<P>
The sought-after aims cannot be achieved by the Member States alone and must therefore be realised at Community level on account of their transnational nature.
This will enable the creation of a European legal area finally granting European citizens throughout the entire EU a common feeling of legal security and guaranteeing them a standard of marital status that is the same across Europe.
Problems arising in the European Union in the past with regard to marriages between people of different nationality have been due to the fact that documents attesting to marital status used in connection with marriage ceremonies were not recognised in the same way by all the Member States.
<P>
Questions regarding the competence of the courts and the validity of their judgements for spouses of different nationality who wanted to separate proved to be even more problematic.
They revealed that one could not rely on judgements made at some point in the past and that judgements in custody cases frequently took no account of the children' s interests.
<P>
The purpose of the present regulation is to improve and accelerate within the internal market the free movement of judgements in matrimonial cases and in parental responsibility proceedings.
The aim of the European Union is to create an area of freedom, security and justice in which the free movement of people is guaranteed and in which citizens of the Union can assert their rights with the same guarantees that they could obtain from the courts in their own country.
The recognition of judgements in transnational family disputes should therefore be made easier by allowing the European Community to govern the recognition of divorce decrees passed by the competent courts.
<P>
In such a linguistically diverse legal area as the European Union, uncertainty and discrimination with regard to marriages between people of different nationality can also arise due to a lack of linguistic proficiency.
We therefore support the call of the rapporteur for the Member States to ensure that case records are drawn up in a language that both parties understand.
<P>
In addition to governing the jurisdiction and recognition of judgements on the dissolution of marriages, the regulation also covers the custody proceedings that in many cases accompany a divorce.
This point requires particular emphasis, as it represents a significant addition to the protection of the children in question, whose interests must be guaranteed.
<P>
In the past, only a very small amount of progress has been made in creating a European Legal Area for the citizens' benefit.
Recognising divorce decrees and judgements regarding parental responsibility will solve the legal and administrative problems with which citizens are confronted on a daily basis.
The entry into force of this regulation will fill a loophole that has existed in the field of international private law and represents an important step towards extending the Union into an area of freedom, security and justice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Marinho">
Mr President, this proposal, which we hope will, by means of a Community regulation, resolve the difficulties experienced by our citizens and their families due to failure to recognise judgements on ending the bond of matrimony and parental responsibility, deserves our applause and our sympathy.
<P>
Of course because on this important subject of family law, the very broad area not regulated by the law due to the way judgements cease to be effective across borders has had a legal and moral effect on thousands of our citizens, damaging families' social and psychological stability and particularly affecting the weakest members, that is, women and children.
<P>
We have all at some time been confronted with the tragedies and paradoxes that occur when there is no free movement of judgements, a situation which has resulted in justice being denied to individuals and the obvious absence and omission of obligatory and crucial European instruments, which, in terms of a common area, would eliminate the inconsistencies caused by the legal fragmentation that is the natural consequence of national legal systems.
<P>
This regulation is a sign of the creative development of the Community legal system and represents the introduction of a new series of common rules. Rules which are able to protect European citizens' civil relationships, turning a European area which is fragmented in terms of the protection of rights and the enforcement of obligations into a more organised and structured area in which all citizens will be able to avail themselves, not only of their own national laws, but also now of a common European law which will apply to families in all areas of the Union, unless that area has asked that an exception be made in this matter.
<P>
Mr President, the path that we are taking in the area of judicial and civil cooperation is the right one.
I therefore urge my friend, Commissioner António Vitorino, to continue along this path.
There is no formal European citizenship, but there will be when in the most relevant branch of law, civil law, Europe has the legitimacy and the strength to guarantee our citizens' rights and to enforce justice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, Commissioner, it feels important to debate this issue with you - an issue which, too, is about the best interests of the child.
We had the pleasure of discussing this yesterday with you, as well.
The fact that we have this regulation on the agenda is also a very good way indeed of celebrating children' s rights.
I know that rapporteur Gebhardt was thinking of just that point when drafting the amendments which I hope the Commission will adopt.
In these, she pleads that, whatever judgements are made and whatever concrete steps are taken in this area, they should be so expressly with children' s best interests in mind.
Thank you, Evelyne Gebhardt, for these amendments.
<P>
I also take the view, expressed by all the previous speakers, that this is needed in the mobile Europe of today.
It is needed in the mobile Europe of today where, despite this mobility, we still experience discrimination.
For example, articles 16 and 18 are needed so that cases of child abduction do not have to lead to judicial reviews.
We know of course that child abduction and the prospect of a subsequent judicial review can lead to tremendously heart-rending conflicts.
<P>
I also share the view of Mrs Wallis, a colleague from my group, that we must go further, partly through supporting her amendments but also, I hope, through the Commissioner' s seeing new possibilities in the light of the Tampere Summit as to how we might go further in this area.
Take, for example, maintenance disputes (an issue I understood not to be covered by this proposal), that is to say the financial aspect of the dissolution of a marriage, together with the issue of parental responsibility. These questions are not dealt with here but can in practice also involve problems which are tremendously difficult to solve.
<P>
I also want to ask for colleagues' support when our Group supports Amendment No 3, together with the corresponding amendment from Mr Lehne' s opinion as delivered to the committee responsible. In this way, we shall be able to reform the Nordic Convention in the same area.
I hope that it will be possible for the Nordic Convention to go further and support the same objectives, but in that case we shall also need the explanations which were to be found in the opinion delivered on this proposal by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
Finally, I want to say that the present partnership should aim to create a situation in which we begin to rely more upon each other in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ceyhun">
Mr President, after hearing the statement given yesterday by Commissioner Vitorino on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, I am happy that we are today discussing concrete issues from which children can really benefit.
On account of the increased freedom of movement, more and more marriages between people of different nationality are taking place within the European Union.
When these marriages take place or indeed are dissolved, particular problems frequently arise due to the different laws of the two States.
The people who suffer the most in these cases are the children, who have to cope with additional problems, as if the other problems were not enough.
<P>
The new proposal by the Council for a regulation on the jurisdiction, recognition and enforcement of judgements in matrimonial cases and parental responsibility proceedings now guarantees uniform marital status for the citizens of Europe.
Marriage and divorce documents as well as judgements should, as a result, be recognised in all countries of the European Union.
However, we must ensure that applying these principles does not continue to lead to differences and discriminations, something which unfortunately is currently the case.
<P>
In particular, the welfare of the children from these marriages must be ensured.
Custody proceedings should be coherent and conclusive, and the result recognised everywhere.
The basic interests of the children must come before everything else.
The individual child must have the possibility of being heard before a court and in this way of clarifying that his or her welfare is taken into account.
I hope that our colleague Mr Watson' s compromise solution does not create any additional problems, and that we are able to settle this important issue in the best interests of the child.
<P>
Only in this way can we avoid international legal proceedings lasting several years and prevent child abduction, which unfortunately often happens as a result of legal confusion.
We must tackle the problem of the various conflicts of laws that arise in matrimonial cases.
Only in this way can we achieve legal security in the international domain for the citizens and children of Europe.
For this reason, I would like to thank the rapporteur Mrs Gebhardt on behalf of myself and my group, for her splendid report, and I hope that we can now take a major step forward in the best interests of children.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Frahm">
The problem we are working on here is, in reality, not only a European problem but also a global, cross-frontier problem.
Really, we ought to be working for a global convention in this area, but the present proposal takes us some way down the road, for it is undoubtedly very important - as just about every speaker has agreed - that we recognise each other' s decisions on matrimonial issues and on matters concerning custody, especially at a time such as we are experiencing now where the structure of the family is undergoing tremendous change.
In this connection, I can only express my pleasure at the fact that there are still a number of countries - including EU Member States - which recognise marriages between two people of the same sex and appreciate that such couples may also wish to have children and that this is a wish they can justifiably demand should be fulfilled.
One can only hope that, in future where these matters are concerned, the motions of the heart will ever more be granted expression - as they have been in issues of divorce - and that the voices of religion and moralism will be hushed.
My group can therefore back the report.
As a Dane, I have a special problem, of course, when we talk about making decisions concerning legal questions under pillar 1, but I am certain that it is a problem which can be solved, for this is undoubtedly an area which Denmark also wishes to see put in order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Poli Bortone">
Mr President, I hope that what the Danish Member just said will never happen, and that families will retain their traditional structure.
No, no, I do not think there is anything to laugh about: in my opinion, families must not adopt a structure that is not part of the normal order of society.
We are talking about an extremely sensitive issue, relationships within families, especially as regards citizens' mobility within the boundaries of the European Union.
Essentially, what we are dealing with is the protection of minors, which is already very difficult when they live in families that we could define as normal, or rather traditional.
<P>
I think that a particularly sensitive aspect is that of listening to children.
Many of us, the different Member States of the European Union, have already addressed the issue of using children' s guardians at a time when families are going through a particularly difficult time in their lives, such as when couples separate, with all the repercussions - especially in psychological terms - that affect the children involved.
<P>
In the very short time I am allowed I would like to emphasise just a few points.
Something that is of particular interest is parental authority, especially in relation to nomadic peoples who are now present in large numbers throughout Europe.
Very often, as local administrators as well, we are faced with situations which are particularly regrettable and which are not covered by legislation.
<P>
This regulation certainly represents a significant step forwards - and we are grateful to the rapporteur for this - but we need to return to the issue with particular reference to nomadic children, to Roma children, and therefore to everything related to the internal problems of these families, including, precisely, with regard to mobility in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Mathieu">
Mr President, regarding Mrs Gebhardt' s report, I have no doubts as to the good intentions of our rapporteurs and I share their concern to reinforce the legal security of people involved in matrimonial cases which are as delicate as they are painful for the parties concerned.
But, since our objective is to contribute to an improvement, I wish to draw your attention to the draft amendment to Recital 10, which I consider problematic.
<P>
Is it proper to entrust the task of defining the notion of parental responsibility to the Court of Justice, whereas the proposal for a Regulation envisaged that reference would be made to the national law of the Member State concerned?
<P>
Would it be an easy matter for the Court of Justice, to provide a definition of the notion of parental responsibility in isolation without the existence of a common family law for marital cases, which is neither desirable, nor envisaged at the present time?
<P>
My fear is that with this amendment, the application of this text, whose aim is to strengthen legal security, may create vagueness, which is harmful.
Furthermore, attributing this new area of competence to the Court of Justice would surely increase the Court' s caseload, which is already excessive.
<P>
The rapporteurs themselves note the very marked differences between Member States as regards private law, thus explaining the serious reservations expressed within the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
<P>
I would suggest that the rapporteurs should be satisfied with resorting to a Community legal instrument without seeking to harmonise the fundamental legal concepts.
If these amendments were to be adopted, it would be difficult for me to support this proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Gollnisch">
Mr President, I would not like to tamper, no pun intended, with the enthusiasm of this House on the subject of the European legal area.
<P>
The solutions which we must arrive at must fulfil a twofold role.
Firstly, every plaintiff must be able to find a judge for his case, otherwise this would be denial of justice.
He should be able to find applicable law, and it must be possible to enforce the judgement.
This is the requirement of legal security.
Secondly, in the meantime, it is essential to ensure that the diversity of Member State legislation is respected. This is no more than the translation into the legal sphere of respect for cultural or national diversity.
<P>
We must get away from the unification of legislation which is too often pursued here on the pretext of harmonisation.
The obvious solution is to unify international private law rules exclusively, without unifying the fundamental rules.
Unification of international private law rules, i.e. regulations on conflicts of jurisdiction and rules on conflicts of laws.
It must be possible to clearly identify which law the court is going to apply, since a court with local jurisdiction does not necessarily apply its national law and in some circumstances this procedure is a fair one.
<P>
As for the development of enforcement procedures - the enforcement orders or "exequatur" for foreign judgements - this is no doubt useful in civil cases, such as divorce or custody cases, just as they are useful in some aspects of mutual assistance in legal matters, but care must be taken not to go too far along this route.
We must not arrive at a situation where, under the pretext of mutual assistance in legal matters, a wall of silence reigns over Europe in the name of political correctness.
I shall not mention Switzerland' s degrading handover of an old man, 90 years old, to France, since this is a matter involving a country which is not a member of the European Union, but I shall simply mention the increasingly repressive legislation which mean to dictate political and historical attitudes, a phenomenon I would not like to see spreading from one European state to the next.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Karamanou">
Mr President, without doubt the directive proposed by the European Commission is an important step towards the creation of a single area of freedom, security and justice. It organises judicial cooperation at Community level and introduces uniform rules in international private law, an area in which they were sorely lacking.
<P>
Standard treatment of all European citizens in connection with family disputes and the care and control of children in the event of divorce will spare thousands of families considerable anguish and bureaucratic obstruction, thereby bolstering the sense of security and confidence in the European Union of our citizens.
<P>
The proposed changes, such as giving the child an opportunity to be heard before taking a decision and full compliance with the Hague Convention, seek mainly to safeguard the rights and interests of children.
I hope that Mrs Gebhardt will use her considerable skills to draft a change which satisfies all sides.
<P>
However, this generally positive assessment of the directive notwithstanding, I believe that numerous matters still remain unresolved, such as full application of the new arrangements to third country nationals resident in the European Union and to persons living together outside close, traditional family arrangements.
The directive is a good directive; however, it needs to be more daring if it is to pave the way, in the foreseeable future, for a single European family law which takes account of the huge social, economic and cultural changes which are the order of our day.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hermange">
The construction of Europe has for too long ignored private law, and the Citizens' Europe, which we represent, must, as we said last night on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the International Convention, henceforth take into consideration the real concerns of families and the welfare of children.
We all have a recollection of a number of cases, such as the Lancelin-Thiemann case which last year contaminated discussions between Germany and France on the subject of the dramatic situation of the children of this couple.
<P>
The Gebhardt report rightly stresses that the increasing level of free movement within the European Union is causing and will in future cause an increasing number of marriages between nationals of different countries, hence the interest of examining this question.
Current European law has not managed to draw the conclusions of this development, thus placing couples, and more particularly children, in a very complex position.
<P>
The regulation submitted for our opinion today is therefore particularly welcome in so far as it includes unquestionable advantages in relation to the so-called Brussels II Convention, signed in 1998, but not as yet ratified.
If it is unanimously adopted in Council, this regulation may come into force very soon and shall be applied immediately and harmoniously throughout the European Union, thus enabling long drawn out wrangling over jurisdiction, which is harmful to everyone, to be prevented.
I would add that this proposal for a regulation specifically targets legal judgements relating to parental responsibility for joint children, corresponding to the requests made on several occasions by this House.
But, like other Members, I am concerned by two amendments, Amendment No 2 and Amendment No 5, which is going to attribute a number of responsibilities relating to parental authority to the Court of Justice.
I am afraid that this is not a matter for its jurisdiction and, moreover, that this may increase the caseload of this Court.
In my opinion, we should stick to the Commission text.
If this is the case, I shall support Mrs Gebhardt' s report, which I hope will be widely adopted by Parliament in these terms.
<P>
If there were just one thing to bear in mind, this would be the interest of the children, and I have my doubts as to whether it would be in the interest of the children if Parliament were to adopt these two amendments. Children are the ones with a lot to gain from the rapid implementation of regulations acknowledging their simple right not to have to endure the choice of their parents to live in different European countries.
Of course, major problems will remain, particularly the matter of the disparity of applicable divorce laws and the consequences of this, but this regulation is just an initial step and I congratulate the rapporteur on this initiative.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Vitorino">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Commission, I would like firstly to express my pleasure that the opinions relating to the proposal for a directive on the service of judicial and extrajudicial documents in civil and commercial matters have been adopted, as well as the proposal for a regulation on the competence, recognition and implementation of judgements on matrimonial matters.
I would particularly like to congratulate Mr Lechner and Mr Gebhardt for their excellent work as the rapporteurs of these two initiatives.
These two instruments constitute one of the foundation stones of the Community building that we are constructing, the main aim of which is to give all the Union' s citizens and legal operators easier, more rapid and more efficient access to justice with a safeguard from the rules of legal security.
<P>
As far as the proposal for a regulation is concerned, by reducing the time it takes to transmit judicial and extrajudicial documents from one Member State to another, we are adopting an instrument which will enable the judicial processes to progress in the best conditions of speed and legal security whilst preserving the rights of all parties involved.
<P>
I would particularly like to highlight the importance of adopting the proposal for a regulation which constitutes a cornerstone of the creation at Community level of a European legal area.
To this effect, the Tampere European Council made the mutual recognition of judgements one of the pivotal points in the development of an area of freedom, security and justice.
The Heads of State and Government themselves recognised the fact that priority must be given to family relationships and particularly to resolving issues of divorce and parental responsibility.
<P>
If the movement of people within the European Union is going to be more than an empty phrase, it must be accompanied by the necessary measures in the field of family law.
This proposal is the first, and only the first of these measures, because it provides standardised rules on the jurisdiction of courts in the Member States in matters of divorce and separation as well as in the matter of processes relating to the enforcement of parental responsibility, and even provides a clear and coherent framework for rapid, practically automatic recognition in every Member State of judgements made in another Member State within the scope of the regulation.
These are legal instruments that will open the way for the future adoption of other solutions that go further in the direction the Tampere European Council wanted.
<P>
As far as the directive is concerned, the Council can accept practically all of the amendments, except the amendments relating to Nos 3, 5 and 10, which we feel do not fit in with the proposal' s premise.
<P>
If I am not mistaken, Amendment No 3 brings nothing new to the measure in question, in that the Member States which will designate a single authority and then a central authority are precisely the ones whose legislation does not allow for the direct transmission of judgements.
As for Amendment No 5, we feel that it places an excessive burden on the central authorities in the context of a directive-based system in which these central authorities have only a subsidiary function.
And finally, concerning Amendment No 10, we feel that it contradicts Article 11(2) of the proposal for a directive.
<P>
As far as the proposal for a regulation is concerned, we can accept most of the proposed amendments, namely Amendments Nos 1 to 8, 13 to 18 and 20.
<P>
We feel that Amendments Nos 9 and 10 can be partially accepted, with a slight alteration which does not change them fundamentally.
We have objections to three amendments: Nos 11, 12 and 19.
Concerning Amendment No 11 - and I hope that a new oral proposal will be made so that I can comment on the new version - where it states that the best interests of the child must be taken into account, we feel that this would clear the way for a judgement to be made - with regard to the costs to be borne by the State due to receive the judgement - which is not appropriate for this kind of instrument.
We agree, therefore, with the principle of child hearings, but not with a new judgement on this basis.
We feel Amendment No 12 gives an advantage to the mechanical implementation of a possible, out of date judgement over a more recent one which may have been issued on the same matter.
Priority must be given to the most recent judgement, because that will be the one that best takes into account the child' s situation at the time the verdict is made.
And finally, in relation to Amendment No 19, I understand the meaning of the proposal, but I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the rule concerning the translation of decisions does not fall within the scope of a regulation on the competence, recognition and implementation of judgements; the proper place for the rule on translations is the directive on the transmission of documents, the other instrument that we are debating today, which lays down precisely this possibility of translation.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, I am convinced that by adopting these instruments we are giving a great boost to the free movement of persons today.
And we are providing a balanced boost, because, on the one hand, we are favouring the internal market and economic integration with the directive on judicial and extrajudicial documents in civil and commercial matters, but, on the other hand, we are also attempting to give primacy to people' s rights, to the rights of human beings and to the rights of children, because, in addition to having to suffer the trauma that a divorce always causes, they should not have to suffer the trauma of the bureaucratic nightmare that the recognition of judgements involves.
And this is at last proof that the Union provides added value for our citizens' actual lives.
And thus we honour a major principle of the project of European construction, which is designed to think of people, by people and for people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
<P>
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Checks on nuclear installations in the CEECs
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="President">
The next item is the Commission statement on the implementation by the Commission of the programme for checking nuclear installations in the Central and Eastern European countries.
<P>
Mr Verheugen has the floor on behalf of the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Chichester">
Mr President, I would like to thank the Commissioner for his statement this afternoon on the programme of work being undertaken by the Commission for improving safety in civil nuclear installations in Central and Eastern Europe.
<P>
I ask myself, having listened quite carefully to the Commissioner, whether there is any new information in the statement that he has made.
He has given us a fair amount of detail and a fair number of promises about what is happening or will happen.
I note the time-scale of some of his comments that reactors will be shut down early in 2006 and 2008 - I will come to the question of whether a reactor should be shut down or not and how quickly in a moment.
<P>
I must agree with the Commissioner and the Commission position on the primacy of safety issues.
I think we can all agree that where nuclear power stations and nuclear installations are concerned, it is absolutely essential that safety, safety of operation, safety of construction and design, be given top priority.
For obvious reasons, public opinion has to be assured that this is the case.
I also agree that it is essential for countries which are largely dependent upon nuclear power plants for their electricity and energy that closure programmes are phased to allow time to provide replacement capacity.
In some countries, when reactors have had to be shut down, there has been a loss of electricity which has caused severe hardship.
You have to weigh up that consideration with the debatable issue about safety.
We also have to bear in mind that we are still negotiating with countries which are sovereign, independent states and we have to respect their internal procedures.
We are in a slightly sensitive position in terms of telling them or asking them or assisting them to do things that we want to do, but that they may not be enthusiastic about doing themselves.
<P>
The question is that if a reactor is safe to run until 2006, why is it not safe to run for its full economic life?
If it is unsafe it should be closed down immediately.
That is the conundrum that faces us.
I feel, with respect to the Commissioner, that you have not quite addressed that conundrum this afternoon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, Commissioner, may I firstly say that I am sorry to hear that the Commissioner has a cold, which is hopefully real and not political, and that I hope he is soon feeling well enough to undertake the important trip that he would still like to go on this week.
I would also like to thank the Commissioner for his report, particularly for his basic statement that there can be no compromise as far as nuclear safety is concerned.
The Commissioner already made this quite clear at his hearing in the European Parliament, and it is a principle that must be observed.
Perhaps this has not been so clear in some of the comments made in the debates of the last few weeks, but I would like to emphasise it and very much welcome the statement.
<P>
Today, this House has voted on Mr Chichester' s report, and in so doing has clearly indicated that it will reject any pressure or any form of indirect recommendation to change its policy on nuclear safety.
On this understanding, we have voted by a large majority in favour of Mr Chichester' s report.
Naturally, we must acknowledge that the opposite also applies.
There is no pressure on any country to stop using atomic energy.
However, it is absolutely essential - and on this point the words of the Commissioner were completely clear - that nuclear safety be pushed to the forefront, and I hope that this, as you yourself said, Commissioner, is used as the guideline and basis for the talks with our neighbours in Eastern Europe.
The highest internationally recognised safety standard must indeed be the criterion.
<P>
In this respect, the decision as to whether nuclear safety is used as a criterion for the production of energy in a country lies with the national authorities.
However, the decision on the safety standard goes beyond this, as it does not just concern the citizens of the particular country.
In any event, there is now the belief that the countries want to and will apply strict safety standards for it is in their own interest.
However, we all know that the reality is that this naturally depends on economic problems and the standard of living, and that we could in inverted commas afford to worry more about our national safety than some of our neighbouring countries could.
It is for this reason that it is important and right that the European Union shows appropriate concern.
<P>
Naturally, what Mr Chichester has said applies in the general sense. Either the power stations are safe or they are unsafe.
However, approaching the issues from a realistic point of view, we must grant countries time to adapt to the appropriate safety standards and not proceed according to a system of either closing them down immediately or allowing the reactors to run until the end of their operating life.
<P>
I would like to clarify just one point, which is clear to the Commissioner but which I believe must be clear to this Parliament. It is not the case that our concern about nuclear safety is really a hidden instrument to prevent expansion.
But because it is perhaps sometimes perceived as such, I would like to state in plain and simple terms that in fact the opposite is the case.
The sooner our neighbours recognise that nuclear safety is our common concern, the sooner it will be possible to enter into constructive and open talks with our neighbouring countries and to conclude talks on expansion.
<P>
If this common safety basis is also recognised on the part of our neighbours, then this possibility will become meaningful.
The present issue is not therefore a question of, as it were, vetoing the talks if not everything is achieved before they begin.
Nor is it a case of stubbornly sticking to closure plans decided upon unilaterally by different governments.
Rather, it involves recognising that the decisions adopted by the governments can and indeed must be discussed.
<P>
In this regard, account must naturally be taken of the fact that the closure of nuclear power stations in various countries also leads to economic problems, affects energy provision, energy prices and export opportunities, and can obviously also lead to environmental problems if fossil-fuel power stations that are old and in poor condition are used.
In this sense, I would also like to offer my clear support to what the Commissioner has said with regard to financial aid.
If nuclear safety is to be our joint concern, we must also be jointly prepared to provide our neighbouring countries with financial aid if they recognise the appropriate standards.
<P>
In this respect, I am also very grateful for the donors' conferences.
It must be clear at these donors' conferences whether not only the European Union as a whole but the Member States as well are prepared to provide money towards ensuring nuclear safety.
We in the European Parliament support this, and want to help our neighbours so that they can re-equip their atomic power stations within the context of common safety.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, thank you, Commissioner, for the information.
Allow me to say that, after this, I was placed rather in the same situation as when one reads the news, for example in one' s own country, that a hospital which has just been renovated at a cost of millions is to be closed down.
You mentioned that EUR 200 million had been invested in the Phare partnership to improve safety.
I believe that, where this is concerned, we need an honest appraisal to be carried out.
What have we done previously?
What has proved to be unnecessary now in the light of the perhaps rather stricter line Europe has adopted in the membership negotiations?
I think we may have behaved a little stupidly here.
<P>
I also think that uncertainty in the matter of what we have had a legal basis for doing has shown that we in the Community could do with rather more in the way of conditions where energy supplies are concerned, something we shall be discussing over the next few days when it comes to the Intergovernmental Conference.
Where the Slovakian nuclear power plant, Bohunice, is concerned, it is obvious that we need more information about what the real situation is there in the matter of safety.
Unfortunately, we have the type of situation in which none of us knows anything about this; we do not have access to the same information as the Commission.
Where Ignalina is concerned, I want to say that I do not think that the information we have obtained is really satisfactory in the light of, for example, the so-called WENRA report where it is stated that we do not have any certain knowledge about safety in so-called reactor shutdown systems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Echerer">
Mr President, Commissioner, firstly I too would like to wish you a speedy recovery from your cold.
I would also like to thank you for your earlier comments that nuclear power stations must be treated politically and economically, that we cannot expect them to be taken out of operation overnight and that we need an exit plan and time to implement it.
I think that Bohunice had sufficient time.
I must remind you of the Hermes Agreement under which Bohunice was to be removed from the network by the year 2000 at the latest.
In the light of this, I was extremely surprised by your laudatory acceptance of the new shutdown dates for Bohunice in 2006 and 2008.
<P>
I shall now come to my question, Commissioner.
A study by the Vienna Institute for Risk Research has been available since the summer.
Although it has become somewhat dusty sitting in the drawer of the Minister for Consumer Protection, Mrs Prammer, thanks to good cooperation with the environmental non-governmental organisations we became aware of this study and since last Thursday have had the opportunity to examine its contents in detail.
We need not discuss the safety defects in Bohunice, although perhaps I may raise just three of the most important points: as before, there is no replacement for the missing reinforced concrete and no pressure suppression system or other safety systems; the upgrading is inadequate seismologically; and the reactor pressure container is so brittle that the possibility of bursting cannot be excluded.
<P>
Now for something funny: in 1995 the UJD, the Slovak Nuclear Supervisory Authority, stopped issuing the standard multiannual operating licence and has been issuing provisional one-year extensions in order to compel the operators to carry out the necessary upgrading.
In vain it would seem!
The currently valid safety certificate for Bohunice expires in the year 2000. In Austria, we say that from the year 2000, Bohunice will be spotless!
<P>
This study was submitted to the Slovak government at the beginning of September, but not to you, Commissioner.
This sort of neglect is not unique to Austrian politics; it also exists within the EU.
At the same time, however, Mrs Prammer' s office assures me that she did inform you of the unresolved safety issues relating to Bohunice V1.
So I ask you, Commissioner: were you aware of this study?
If you were, the behaviour of the Commission is scandalous! If you were not, I would urge you to reconsider the facts.
If you still do not have the documents, I have brought them with me from Vienna.
You yourself have said, if I may quote you, that the final words have not yet been spoken.
Perhaps the Commission could also exchange words with the Slovak Nuclear Supervisory Authority.
We demand earlier and binding shutdown dates for Bohunice as well as clear assistance with the exit plan.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Brie">
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to thank you for the clear way in which you have presented the Commission' s position, although this definitely does not mean that I am in full agreement with it.
I would like to protest at your assertion that nowhere and at no time is it possible to take nuclear power stations out of operation overnight.
You know, coming as you do from Germany, that if it is necessary, and I am thinking here of the Greifswald nuclear power station, it can be done overnight, provided, of course, that there is the necessary political will and that the necessary environment is created.
<P>
I am also not deluding myself that in the Central and Eastern European countries, there are some extremely difficult issues which are in part economic and even social.
However, I also believe that I am forced to protest, and perhaps this has something to do with the undecidedness of energy policy within the European Union, if in the cases in question you ultimately see safety in terms of shutdown, with which I agree, yet when it comes to comparable power stations in the CIS States you want to ensure safety by upgrading and by the European Union promoting safety measures.
I believe that our objectives within the European Union and in the candidate countries can only be achieved by shutting down power stations.
Setting another rule outside the Community, as in the cases under consideration here, I consider to be highly problematic and I believe that all in all we would be well advised to make shutting down the rule not just in Eastern Europe but for energy policy within the European Union as a whole and to not endanger the possibilities of this by carrying out further deregulation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Muscardini">
Mr President, the area of nuclear safety is of fundamental importance in pre-accession strategy.
One of the conditions placed on Bulgaria for opening accession negotiations is precisely to draw up a reasonable timetable for the closure of unit 1-4 of the Kozloduy nuclear power plant before the end of 1999.
This plant is actually obsolete, according to the distinction outlined by the Executive in Agenda 2000, where nuclear plants are divided into three categories: Soviet type or obsolete plants which must be dismantled because they are dangerous, other plants that need to be repaired to allow them to reach safety levels acceptable to the Union, and a tiny number of western type plants which can remain active provided their safety level remains high in the long term.
<P>
As draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Humans Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy on the report on nuclear sector related activities for the applicant countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the New Independent States, unanimously adopted on 27 October last year, I stressed the crucial importance of safety, defining it as a requirement for accession for new Member States of the Union.
<P>
In fact, nuclear safety affects the lives of millions of citizens of the European Union and Eastern European countries.
Abandoning civil nuclear power is not on the cards, and we need to bear in mind the economic and social implications of the decisions that the Union wants to be adopted in Central and Eastern Europe.
Nevertheless, whether they border on these countries or not, the Member States are expressing their concern and disagreement with an accession process that does not take nuclear safety into account.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Mr President, Commissioner, I find that I can sleep well next to a German, French or British nuclear power station.
As far as is humanly possible, an MCA ought to be excluded during routine operation.
I cannot sleep so well, if at all, next to the nuclear power stations in the candidate countries.
May I make a personal confession at this point, as Mr Swoboda did earlier: I am a passionate advocate of the swift expansion of the European Union.
All the States which have already submitted their applications for accession are a part of Europe.
They belong to us and we belong to them.
<P>
However, I believe that it not just our right, but also plainly and simply our duty, to point out that nuclear power stations in the applicant countries have very different standards of operation.
Nowadays, we do not get into a Zeppelin if we want to fly to Brussels or Strasbourg; we are delighted to have ultra-modern planes at our disposal.
Furthermore, we also need to know exactly how these nuclear power stations stand with regard to computer changeover difficulties for the year 2000.
<P>
Allow me to quote the Austrian Foreign Minister, Dr Wolfgang Schüssel, who said on 9 November: "if the candidate countries- Slovakia, Lithuania and Bulgaria - want to take up accession negotiations with the EU, then they must submit to the European Council of Helsinki by the middle of December specific closure plans for the three non-convertible nuclear power stations" .
And again on 11 November: "in the case of nuclear power stations which are already in operation, EU standards must be the guiding rule."
I in no way share the opinion of one Austrian socialist minister who considered that there should be no discussions until the nuclear power stations are shut down.
This is completely the wrong approach and I fully and firmly reject it.
<P>
I am convinced that we will not have difficulties with nuclear power stations in the west in terms of the changeover to the year 2000.
I do not have the same conviction for nuclear power stations in the east.
Something could go wrong and we need to offer assistance.
Chernobyl taught us that the term "neighbourhood" simply has to be redefined in the case of nuclear plants.
At that time we were all next-door neighbours.
Greater flexibility on the part of the applicant countries should be expected in the name of good neighbourliness.
I too would like to thank the Commissioner for his words and, as a Christian Democrat, I would like to offer him more than just good advice to take with him and to ask whether he perhaps needs an aspirin C. I should be happy to fetch him one.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="Martin, Hans-Peter">
Mr President, Commissioner, it is a truly momentous occasion in Parliament when bitter pills are handed out here and there in order to wish one another well.
I was very pleased, Commissioner, that you were recovered today and that it would be desirable if the reactors, in particular Yaslovske Bohunice, had been decommissioned earlier.
I think that the debate which we have been having for some time now could perhaps be moved forward a bit with a few specific questions.
In your evaluation, Commissioner, what do you think of the fact that relatively large sums of money from EU programmes, e.g. PHARE, have been poured into upgrading in the east and yet there are so few positive results to show for it?
<P>
What can be done, and this is my particular concern, so that the proposed and now accepted exit dates regarding all types of nuclear power stations, not just Yaslovske Bohunice, can actually be met?
What are the Commission' s plans, since we all know that there can be long gaps between an announcement and the actual decommissioning?
<P>
On another point: I also received the investigation by the Risk Institute of the Academic Senate at the University of Vienna, which puts the issue of Yaslovske Bohunice in a different light again.
The previous speaker, Madam Echerer, has already pointed out that there is no containment and also, according to the independent assessment of the atomic safety authority in Slovakia, no adequate operational safety of the plant.
What does the Commission intend to do about this?
<P>
Is it not also the case, if we once again refer to Yaslovske Bohunice, that it simply isn' t true that the Slovak Republic is so very dependent on these reactors?
I would like to quote from a report from a joint working group of the European Union and Slovakia on nuclear energy which states very clearly: "Even without Bohunice V 1, the country is in a position to cover its average consumption needs with national production throughout the period to 2015."
This means that the arguments which are continually produced by Slovakia that decommissioning would endanger independent energy provision are not correct.
<P>
By way of summary, I would like to conclude that I am still convinced that there must be a little bit more, specifically concerning the premature nature of decommissioning and realisability, where the EU will be able to make the necessary financial aid a little easier.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Morillon">
Mr President, I would like to thank Commissioner Verheugen for the very thorough report he has given us of the problems he is encountering in this field which is so essential to the future of Europe.
Listening to him and to my fellow Members throughout this debate took me back to the recent election campaign and to the answers that we were required to provide at that time to the voters regarding the need to establish and to complete the construction of Europe.
<P>
Clearly this is one of the fields - i.e. the threat constituted by the existence of so many nuclear power plants but also all the armaments accumulated on the territory of the former Soviet Union - where none of the Member States may, individually, claim to intervene on behalf of security of the entire continent.
Only Europe and - Commissioner, I thank you for having understood this - only a united Europe may go to the assistance not only of the countries which are applying for membership of the European Community, but also all those which have nuclear installations which do not comply with our safety standards, in solving this problem taking their own economic imperatives into account.
<P>
I would therefore thank Commissioner Verheugen for reminding us that it is only if each of the Member States makes a contribution to providing the necessary appropriations that we shall be able to achieve this objective which is common to all of us and which has been mentioned by all of us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Ladies and gentlemen, firstly may I thank you for your get-well wishes.
It is a genuine cold, not a political one.
I shall gladly take some aspirin C later, hoping that I do not also get stomach ache.
<P>
I feel vindicated by the debate which you have conducted and thank you for the full and unambiguous political support which was evident in your contributions.
It is very important for the Commission to be able to point out in its discussions that the European Parliament sets the most stringent high standards in the issue of nuclear safety.
This is an important factor for the States with which we are dealing because they are well aware that at the end of the accession negotiations the European Parliament must give its consent, that nothing, therefore, is possible without the European Parliament and that the wishes of the European Parliament in this matter are consequently of prime importance.
<P>
I would like to make clear that we are focusing on reactors which, according to the G7 opinion dating, I think, from 1992 cannot be upgraded, not because of their safety defects in operation but because of their design.
We are therefore talking about reactors which are constructionally unsafe and whose constructions cannot be upgraded, at least not at justifiable costs.
In all these cases there is only one reasonable solution to the problem, namely shutdown, and, without any doubt, shutdown as quickly as possible.
Anyone who sees these reactors as a safety risk, as we do, must be concerned to see them shut down sooner rather than later.
The difficulty is simply that the negotiations on the acquis communautaire, i.e. the accession negotiations, give us only a political means of exerting pressure and nothing more.
<P>
As I have already said, the European Union has only extremely limited competence in this area.
We are therefore exerting political pressure in this matter, which means that the result will be a political solution. This political solution must not just take into consideration our own wishes.
I am well aware that this subject is extremely volatile in some Member States and, as the debate also has shown, particularly at this time in Austria. In reaching this solution, we must, of course, realise that this subject has to a certain extent acquired an almost theological importance in the candidate countries.
In Bulgaria, for example, I can tell you that the issue of the closure of Kosloduj has been the number one topic for some months, the topic which sparks all domestic political antagonisms.
I must say that the steps which the Bulgarian Government has so far taken, given the balance of power in the country and the fact that the willingness to shut down Kosloduj will be used against the government in the forthcoming elections, as will also happen in Slovakia and Lithuania, must be seen in this light as brave decisions.
<P>
We will not fail to find a compromise, that is to fix a date which we can still accept at worst.
In each instance this date must be clearly independent of the projected time which each reactor has to run.
This is what we did with regard to Ignalina and Bohunice.
I would like to mention something else concerning Bohunice because for some time now there have been attempts to draw me into the Austrian dispute.
These will not prove successful, however, because I fully agree with the Austrian position that we should try to achieve something even better.
Wolfgang Schüssel and I both said this clearly in the Council yesterday.
<P>
The Austrian Foreign Minister raised this issue yesterday in the Council and I said that I supported it and, indeed, all the efforts being made to use the, in my opinion, considerable scope which exists; I firmly support this.
The problem is simply that when I entered office, as you know, I found a completed agreement with Slovakia; completed and sealed.
It was published only days after I entered office.
However, I severely criticised what the Commission had negotiated with Slovakia.
There was no alternative but to react in the way that I did.
However, from the outset, including here in Parliament, I have said on many occasions that in the case of Bohunice I believe that further discussion would be appropriate and that the Slovak position gives reason to believe that more can be achieved.
<P>
Some colleagues have voiced the question of whether it is really wise to invest in the safety of nuclear power stations which are to be shut down.
This is actually an incredibly difficult question and, as I see it, pretty much a question of conscience.
In recent years the Commission has also spent money on ensuring the operational safety of the nuclear power stations under consideration until such time as they are shut down, basically concentrating measures on the improvement of the safety culture in these countries, the creation of independent supervisory authorities and the training of the personnel who carry out this supervisory work.
We have not financed investments which would extend the life of these nuclear power stations.
That does not come into it.
<P>
Unfortunately, however, we must also distinguish between the Soviet-design nuclear power stations in the candidate countries which I have been talking about and the Soviet-design nuclear power stations outside the candidate countries.
Here we have a different lever.
In the first instance, the lever is politically very strong because these States wish to enter the EU and we can say plainly and simply that a precondition is that this issue be resolved in a way which is acceptable to us.
<P>
In the case of Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Ukraine or other States, we obviously do not have the same means of exerting pressure.
Nevertheless, I am convinced that the European Union must also be involved in raising the safety standard in these States.
It really is a dreadful dilemma.
We know that a nuclear power station must be shut down and yet we have a political situation in which this cannot be achieved.
We are faced with the question of whether to do something to at least ensure safe operation and perhaps gradually improve it, knowing full well that this might lead to the nuclear power station which you want to shut down remaining in operation longer than would otherwise be the case.
<P>
I have to say that these are questions which do not let you sleep peacefully.
The speaker who said that was completely right.
However, where nuclear safety is concerned we must, I believe, leave no measure untried which might lead to further increasing the level of safety which we already have.
I see no alternative other than, where we are dealing with power stations which we want to shut down but which, for the political reasons mentioned, we ourselves are unable to shut down, doing something to at least remedy the most serious safety defects, however difficult and complicated that might be.
This is my answer to the very basic question which was asked.
<P>
We will certainly be returning to this subject on frequent occasions.
I sincerely hope, and I say this with good cause, that on the next occasion that this matter is discussed I will be able to report on a situation which is considerably better than it is today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="Chichester">
President, I would just like to say to the Commissioner, if I may, that I liked his summing up much more than his statement at the beginning.
I congratulate him on it, particularly in the circumstances of his health, and I say well done, and come back and say more to us in that fashion Commissioner.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 4.49 p.m. and resumed at 5 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Ban on British beef - Production and sale of tobacco
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="President">
The next item is the Commission statement on the decisions taken at today' s meeting of the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="Byrne">
The Commission took a decision today on my initiative to initiate formal legal proceedings against France for not lifting the embargo on British beef.
This decision is without prejudice to the negotiations which are continuing on an amicable settlement to the current dispute.
<P>
Let me be very clear.
We are very close to a solution, and I remain convinced that an amicable solution is in the best interests of all parties, the UK, France and the Community.
Negotiations and contacts are continuing over the few outstanding issues which continue to block an agreement.
I am hopeful that with a little goodwill on all sides the ban can be lifted in the very near future.
I am aware that there are critics, including in this House, of the discussions that have taken place in this case.
However these discussions are the best means to reach an early solution.
<P>
In the absence of formal procedures to lift the ban within the EU, the situation is even more difficult. The British efforts to lift the ban in third countries, including the US, and in its Commonwealth partners, bear this out.
Nonetheless it is necessary for the Commission to formally signal that France has not fulfilled its obligations to lift the ban.
I am asking France therefore to submit its position in reply within two weeks.
<P>
I have also informed the Commission of the situation concerning Germany, the only other Member State which continues to impose a ban on the import of UK beef.
In this instance, however, the German authorities have not declared that they will not lift the ban.
Instead their position is that a number of constitutional steps have to be cleared, in particular the approval of the Bundesrat.
In Germany' s case also, however, there is now a need for positive action to lift the ban.
I will be reviewing the situation in the next few days with my services in this respect: in particular Germany will be asked for an indication of its timetable for lifting the ban.
I will be insisting on equivalent treatment for both countries, and a communication will be sent to Germany in this regard requesting its proposals on a timetable for lifting the ban.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Mr President, Commissioner Byrne, I welcome the fact that recognition will be given to Community law.
Legal awareness of Community law must be increased in the Member States.
However, I would like to ask you whether we are looking at a long time period if you initiate treaty infringement proceedings.
In the meantime, will the Commission ensure in negotiations and in any compromise decisions that what you announced during the hearings at your installation, by which I mean testing, will be applied and that beef labelling, which will become obligatory on 1 January 2000 unless other regulations are passed, will take effect in connection with the lifting of the import ban and its enforcement in the States which have adopted import bans?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="Byrne">
This is the first step under the old Article169 procedure which is now under Article 226.
Provision is made in that Article for sending a letter of this type prior to the actual institution of the proceedings.
But it is part of the infringement proceedings and is regarded as the first step.
It sets out in chronological form the present position, how we have reached this stage; it then sets out the legal position and then requests France to respond and set out whatever arguments it wishes to advance in its reply.
All this is to be done within a period of two weeks.
<P>
Within the discussions over the last few weeks, a number of issues were discussed, as you are probably aware, and one of the issues that was identified was the question of tests, as you rightly identify in your question.
You draw attention to the fact that during my hearings on 3 September before the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, I mentioned that it was my intention to establish diagnostic testing for BSE on an EU-wide basis.
That is still my intention.
That fact was also drawn to the attention of the parties who were involved in these discussions over the last couple of weeks.
<P>
As I mentioned on that occasion, one of the purposes of establishing such a testing system is to ensure that there is an equal testing system throughout the European Union so as to identify the levels of infectivity throughout the EU, and in particular to identify what further measures may be necessary.
The removal of SRMs would be one particular issue I have in mind in relation to that.
<P>
On the question of identification and labelling, one of the important issues that we discussed over the last few weeks was the requirement contained in the legislation for traceability.
That is an important issue.
It was discussed in Florence.
It also forms part of the DBES and is in the forefront of our minds in relation to this and has been incorporated into our discussions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="Jackson">
This is a very sad day for Parliament and for the rule of law.
I wonder whether the Commissioner can explain why he has not acted more firmly and insisted earlier that a unanimous scientific opinion is not negotiable.
This Parliament deals with laws; the people who elected us - certainly in the United Kingdom - are waiting to see the law enforced and have been waiting since October.
This is a very bad precedent for the European Commissioner, given that he is about to write a White Paper on a food safety agency.
Are all unanimous scientific committee opinions delivered to him in future to be negotiable?
We hope not.
Secondly, where exactly is France raising problems and can the Commissioner confirm that any problems raised by France must result only in clarification to the French and not in any changes to the British date-based export scheme?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="Byrne">
As I have said on a number of occasions, including in the committee that Mrs Jackson chairs, the DBES scheme is not a negotiable issue.
It has not been a negotiable issue nor has it in any way been undermined in the discussions that we have had over the last few weeks.
<P>
I believe that this is a good day for the rule of law, I believe that it is a good day for the Commission and I would suggest that it is also a good day for all the institutions of the European Union including Parliament.
A decision was taken in the Commission today to initiate infringement proceedings rather than not to initiate legal proceedings.
In those circumstances, I find it difficult to understand how this could be described as a sad day for Parliament or a sad day for the rule of law.
<P>
These proceedings, as I say, have been decided upon today and they will be initiated unless the discussions that have been taking place produce results within the next few days.
We came close to resolving these issues over the last few days - I had expected them to be resolved if not yesterday, then certainly this morning.
I was disappointed in that, but I believe that we may yet finally resolve this issue over the next couple of days.
<P>
I would also like to remind Members of the House that, as I have said on a number of occasions, problems of this nature are much better resolved in an amicable way.
The resort to litigation is necessary in circumstances where the parties to a dispute or a difficulty cannot reach agreement.
In the case of this dispute, it seems to me that if these two Member States can resolve this difficulty through discussion, in association with the Commission, that would be by far the best way forward.
It would also achieve a much faster result.
I would imagine that the people that Mrs Jackson represents in the UK would like to see this matter resolved quickly, rather than in two years time, by a verdict from the Court.
That is why I have pursued this particular line and will continue to do so despite the decision today to initiate infringement proceedings.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth-Behrendt">
Mr President, Commissioner, I share your belief that this is a problem which must be handled extremely carefully.
You rightly stated that we must take scientific opinions seriously and I assume that British farmers wish to sell safe beef as soon as possible and not wait two years until they can do so.
For this reason, no one in this House, nor indeed anyone at all, can really want to see treaty infringement proceedings which will take two to three years and create nothing but uncertainty in the European Union during this time.
<P>
Mr Byrne, can you tell me how you will be able to ensure that objections at a scientific level are investigated in the shortest possible time so that Member States are not able to repeatedly raise objections and to apply laws without needing to prove their case?
Can you also tell me that you will make clear to Germany that you are expecting constitutional barriers, such as a resolution of the Bundesrat at the earliest possible opportunity?
Mr Byrne, finally I would like to ask one more question which I have already asked in Brussels.
Would you please be a little clearer about the issue of testing?
When will you present the House with a proposal to prescribe BSE testing as compulsory in the European Union?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="Byrne">
, Commission.
In relation to scientific information and its evaluation and so on, this is an issue I have been considering, not only because of the events of the last few weeks when the food safety agency of the Member State in question took a different view from the Scientific Steering Committee.
That obviously was an issue of some considerable concern to me.
But also because the Commission and myself, and my service in particular, have been looking at the establishment of an appropriate structure for a food safety authority.
<P>
One of the issues that will be of paramount importance in considering such a structure will be its jurisdiction and how, in particular, it will relate to any food safety agencies established at Member State level.
<P>
Quite clearly, a controversy between these two agencies such as we have had over the last few weeks cannot be tolerated if we hope to have a unified harmonised market.
Confidence in such a food safety authority at Commission level will have to be such that Member States and the authorities and scientists in Member States, have full input into such an agency but also have confidence in it so that its opinions are fully and readily accepted.
<P>
In relation to the situation in Germany that you asked me about, as I said earlier, my discussions with the minister responsible in Germany lead me to the conclusion that the German Federal Government wishes to move towards lifting the ban and that the discussions arising out of the dispute involving France will ease any lingering concerns that may exist in Germany.
I have been in constant communication with the authorities in Germany - they have had an input into the discussions that have taken place over the last couple of weeks at observer status level, and I am confident that they understand what has been discussed over the last couple of weeks.
Therefore, I have every hope that the Federal Government of Germany will take the appropriate steps now to lift the ban.
<P>
In relation to the last part of your question, Mrs Roth-Behrendt, dealing with tests, it is my intention to have something in place in relation to this by the end of the year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="Watson">
Commissioner, I am grateful for your assurance that this is the first step of the procedure for infringement proceedings.
I have had here today beef farmers from my constituency. Those farmers have had to wait more than 14 weeks since 1 August and still their beef is not back on the market in France.
They have now been told that they have to wait a further 14 days until we get the French position.
<P>
May I put it to you straight.
Do you not already know what the French position is?
Has the time not come for the Commission to throw the book at the delinquent Member State?
Does not anything else make the Commission look limp and lily-livered and undermine public confidence in the European Union?
<P>
Will you make it clear please at your press conference that the full force of the law will be used against the delinquent Member State unless this ban is lifted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 NAME="Byrne">
I find it difficult to make it any clearer than I have already made it.
We have commenced proceedings, we have taken the decision to take the first step in initiating proceedings.
I do not know which book you think I should throw but it seems to me that the initiating of proceedings is the only step open to me to achieve compliance with Community law apart from negotiations.
I have been doing that for the last six weeks with considerable success and I expect to continue to negotiate in tandem with the institutional proceedings over the next few days.
<P>
My belief is, as I have said to Parliament on the last occasion I was here, that cool heads and firm determination are much better than adopting another approach.
This is the approach that I commend, it is the approach I have embarked upon, it is the approach I believe is going to achieve results and it is the approach I intend to continue with.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Isler Béguin">
Commissioner, obviously, I am still French and I am still in favour of the precautionary principle.
I have already had the opportunity to ask you a number of questions, which have still not been answered, particularly regarding the varying assessments offered by scientists.
Consequently, today, as a Member of the European Parliament, I find it hard to see the difference between your experts and the French experts.
<P>
Professor Dormont' s work on prions has, I believe, met with international recognition.
He is not a person who is working on behalf of a specific lobby or in opposition to a specific lobby.
He is simply doing what the consumers, the voters and people of France asked him to, i.e. applying the precautionary principle for the sake of food safety.
He is only doing his job.
The French Government which set up this food agency is doing nothing more than acting on the requests of the citizens of France.
<P>
We have not, then, had any response regarding the varying assessments of the scientists, and I would like to hear your answer to this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="Byrne">
I would like to draw attention again to the fact that we had a unanimous opinion from the Scientific Steering Committee set up at European Union level some weeks ago.
That committee is made up of 16 experts drawn from most of the Member States and is chaired by a fellow countryman of yours.
The opinion that it expressed was unanimous and reinforced two earlier opinions this same committee had reached.
So I am confident that the opinion expressed by them is a good opinion.
I am also confident that the agreement which is now close to being reached between all the parties will also be acceptable to the French agency.
In the event that we achieve that, which I earnestly hope we will, it may very well be the end of the difficulty that we have been faced with for the last six weeks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 NAME="Donnelly">
I am very interested in the statement the Commissioner made.
He is quite right to point out that we want to avoid legal proceedings or court proceedings if possible.
But if he is correct in saying that the two parties are only two days away from a possible agreement, it is absolutely inexplicable that he should be giving one of the parties two weeks in order to resolve this matter.
We were told several weeks ago that today was the deadline - and yes, the Commission has initiated proceedings.
But for heaven' s sake Commissioner, by indicating today and presumably also at your press conference, that there is another two weeks, you will make everyone read that as meaning that you have simply extended the deadline.
How on earth do you justify the fact that in instigating proceedings today you are also effectively sending a signal to the French that they still have another two weeks to take a decision on this matter?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="Byrne">
You have to understand the actual provisions of Article 226. It provides specifically for the sending of a letter of this type and it also specifically calls for a response within a period of two months.
I felt that a period of two months was too long; I felt that a period of one month was too long; I felt that a period of two weeks was appropriate.
In those circumstances, that is the period of time that I have included in the letter which is the first step in the initiation of proceedings.
<P>
I should say that this does not mean giving anybody a further two weeks.
The decision today has been to initiate proceedings.
That was a decision I said that I would put before the Commission some weeks ago.
That is what I have done.
It is the first step.
It sets out the chronology of the events and the legal position and requests the Member State in question to respond within a period of two weeks.
No further time has been given.
This provision is contained in the Treaty of Rome as amended and is something which I cannot change now - other than to shorten the period, which I have done.
However, I should say that the fact that the letter stipulates a period of two weeks within which to reply does not preclude further discussions taking place and an agreement being reached within the next couple of days, if that proves possible.
It does not in any way undermine that process because we are, as it were, moving on two separate tracks.
<P>
So I have to assure you that the inclusion of fourteen days in the letter does not, in my mind, suggest an intention to stave off negotiations or further discussions for a period of two weeks.
Those discussions continue in the hope that we can achieve a result.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="Sturdy">
I congratulate Mr Byrne on his position.
He may well remember that I asked him last week in Brussels to say whether he would instigate proceedings today and obviously he has done so and I am delighted at that.
But he must understand the feelings of this House.
Today, we have half the Conservative delegation in this Chamber to hear his responses - and I have to say very few of my Socialist colleagues from the UK party.
As of today, there are eighty-six infringement proceedings against France, so this is not something new to France.
One of those infringement proceedings concerns bovine products - could the Commissioner actually answer the question as to what that case involves.
Secondly, has the UK Government applied for compensation, because it should be doing so on behalf of the British farmers who have lost out?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="Byrne">
The procedure whereby anybody can apply for compensation arising out of infringement of European law comes under a different article.
The competence of an individual or State to bring those proceedings is not really a matter for the Commission.
So I would not necessarily be aware of any such proceedings.
But so far as I am aware, no such proceedings have been instituted.
But I may very well be wrong about that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="Ford">
According to my calculation, unless there are new members of the Conservative Party, the proportion of Members from our side and their side are almost the same.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, I consider that this is a black day for consumer protection!
Mr Byrne, you promised when you entered office that you stood for preventive consumer protection and for transparency.
I would like to ask you, as my colleague has already asked, how you tie that in with the precautionary principle and credibility.
In the hormone dispute we are taking the side of the precautionary principle, but not here.
This seems to be a form of force-feeding if consumers do not have the option to be informed.
<P>
How can you promise transparency for the consumer and also postpone the date for labelling?
How do consumers have the right to freely decide for or against this meat?
What do you think about Article 36 being violated?
Article 36 gives Member States the option, when there are health risks, to impose an embargo.
Where is there more doubt than here?
We know little about the incubation time.
You know that the advisers have expressed grave doubts, including doubts over the problem of transferability.
So that is my question.
I believe that that you are undermining Article 36 and that you are trampling underfoot the precautionary principle and transparency for consumers by taking this decision prematurely instead of actually ensuring that foodstuffs are exactly what they should be, suitable to eat and free from health risks!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 NAME="Byrne">
I have said since the time that I took up this position that it was my intention to make decisions on a science basis, examining the best scientific evidence available to me and making my decision on that basis.
I have available to me a unanimous opinion of the Scientific Steering Committee.
It is a further opinion expressed by that committee, following an earlier one.
I make the decision on the basis of that.
In my view it is a fully transparent process.
The decision is based, as I say, on the opinion of the SSC.
I cannot see that there is any lack of transparency in relation to that.
<P>
You raised the question of the precautionary principle.
The application of the precautionary principle is sometimes not fully understood.
It only applies in circumstances where either there is no scientific evidence or the scientific evidence that is available is so uncertain so as to be unreliable, and in circumstances where the damage that can be caused is of an irretrievable nature and the remedy that is proposed is proportionate, cost-effective and time-limited.
<P>
To compare the situation of BSE and hormones seems to me to be inappropriate.
The precautionary principle is not being applied in relation to hormones.
The decision in relation to hormones in beef and its importation is based on scientific evidence - that was supplied to the Commission before I came into office by the appropriate scientific committee - to the effect that one of the hormones in particular - 17 beta-estradiol - is a complete carcinogen.
<P>
Given that evidence, it seems to me to be appropriate to impose the ban.
It also seems to me to be inappropriate to lift the ban with that opinion in place.
<P>
In relation to the BSE issue, once again it seems to me that the application of the precautionary principle is inappropriate because we have a firm opinion from the Scientific Steering Committee.
Its members are drawn from most Member States of the European Union, scientists at the very pinnacle of their careers and abilities who advise on this issue.
Therefore, I follow their advice.
Since there is scientific advice on the issue the application of the precautionary principle is not appropriate.
<P>
In relation to the labelling issue, the whole question is currently being examined and is before Parliament.
It will be open to Parliament to amend the legal principles if it so wishes.
<P>
You raised the question of Article 36.
In my opinion Article 36 would be an inappropriate defence and would not provide a defence in the circumstances of this particular case.
It does not provide, as I understand it, for a situation where there is a harmonised market as there is in this instance.
<P>
In relation to transmission, there is no evidence of any other form of transmission of BSE other than the two that have been identified, which are feed and maternal transmission.
Until such evidence is available it is appropriate to proceed on the basis that these are the only two methods of transmission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell' Alba">
Commissioner, there are at least 47 very important countries, such as the United States and many countries of the Commonwealth, which are maintaining the embargo on British meat.
The question I would like to put, following the decision you made today, is this: will you get to the very bottom of this?
And will you ask, for example, the World Trade Organisation to state that it is against this embargo?
I think that this is a very important question.
Secondly, yesterday, the President of the Court of Auditors presented his annual report to us in which he points out serious deficiencies in the keeping of the registers of bovine cattle in Great Britain.
Did you take this into account today when you made your decision?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="Byrne">
Yes, it is, of course correct to say that there are a number of other countries that have maintained an embargo on the importation of UK beef.
I have to say that since taking up this job eight weeks ago I have concentrated on the European Union.
In relation to deficiencies in stock and so on, my understanding of the operation of the DBES scheme is that it protect public health and ensures food safety in relation to the exportation of UK beef.
I would also draw your attention to the statement contained in the communiqué from the Scientific Steering Committee that beef exported under the DBES scheme is as safe as any other beef in the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 NAME="Lynne">
The point of order is as follows: this is such an important issue which affects British farmers across the UK that we should surely have more time to question the Commissioner.
This is the first time that he has been able to come and tell us definitely that legal action is going to be taken, and we have a lot of questions.
Can I request that we have some other time to ask the Commissioner questions?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="President">
Mrs Lynne, we will see what we can do about that proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 NAME="McMillan-Scott">
I noticed just now that a Member of the Parliament was seeking to intervene rather more directly than I thought was appropriate.
I believe that she sought the floor and, like many Members, did not have a chance to put a question to the Commission.
I therefore share the view of Mrs Lynne that this Question Time has not been long enough given the importance of the subject.
<P>
Nevertheless, can I ask you to confirm that it is quite inappropriate for Members of this House - Liberals or otherwise - to seek to persuade you to hear them.
I think the staff ought to make sure that this is prevented in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr McMillan-Scott.
I hope that colleagues realise that there are still more than 20 people who would wish to ask questions on this issue.
I try to draw a balance between political groups and between nationalities to make sure that there is fair-play right the way round the Chamber.
I think the Commissioner has done very well in answering the questions this afternoon.
<P>
I give the floor to the Commissioner for a statement on tobacco.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 NAME="Byrne">
- Today the Commission also adopted a proposal for a very important directive on tobacco.
It is the end of a long consultation process involving the Council and Parliament.
Essentially it provides for the following: a lowering of current tar content in cigarettes; the introduction for the first time of a limit on nicotine content in cigarettes; the introduction of limits on carbon monoxide; improved and bigger labels on cigarette packs on the dangers of smoking and on the tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide content of cigarettes; controls on the misleading use of descriptions such as 'mild' and 'low tar' etc.; and new safeguards on additives to tobacco.
<P>
The case for such a directive is clear.
The Community has very important public health obligations, especially since the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty.
These include the obligation to ensure a high level of health protection in all Community policies and activities.
Smoking kills half a million citizens in the European Union each year and is the single, biggest, preventable cause of death.
We must therefore be seen to take strong measures to tackle the problem.
<P>
The directive, when adopted, will provide European smokers with the highest level of protection in the developed world.
They will be better informed of what is in their cigarettes and of the dangers of smoking.
They will also be afforded protection by the measures to limit tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide levels.
However, the directive is also proportionate.
We have been careful not to stigmatise smokers.
We need to avoid being over-prescriptive and interfering in citizens' day-to-day lives.
The aim instead is to put in place a framework, where there is full information on tobacco and its dangers. This will complement the Community ban on tobacco advertising which will combat industry-led efforts to attract new smokers, especially young people.
<P>
The combination of these measures should ensure that smoking will be a much less contentious issue in the future.
I am hopeful that Parliament will support the Commission' s proposal under the codecision procedure in the forthcoming negotiations.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Question Time (Commission)
<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="President">
The next item is Question Time (B5-0033/1999).
We will examine the questions addressed to the Commission.
<P>
Part I
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=152 NAME="José Salafranca Sánchez­Neyra">
Question No 42 by (H-0634/99):
<P>
Subject: Helms­Burton Act Is the Commission aware of the comments made by the US Secretary of State, Mrs Albright, ruling out any possibility that the US Congress might amend Title IV of the Helms-Burton Act, thereby failing to comply with one of the core aspects of the agreement between the European Commission and the Clinton administration, part of the new arrangements provided for by the Transatlantic Summit between the US and the European Union in May 1998?
<P>
Is it aware of moves by the US State Department to open an investigation or to seek information or recommendations with a view to reaching agreements involving the Sol-Meliá Group prior to applying the Act to the said group and other European undertakings, including Club Med and LTU, thus blatantly violating the agreements reached between the European Commission and the Clinton administration within the Transatlantic Summit framework granting European undertakings exemption from the scope of the Helms-Burton Act?
<P>
What measures does it intend to take to ensure that this Act is not applied to European undertakings?
<P>
Does it intend to stand by the undertaking given by Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan to Parliament=s Foreign Affairs Committee, whereby, in the event of a failure to honour the terms of the agreement in full, the European Union would once again ask the World Trade Organisation authorities to convene a panel?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="Patten">
The Commission recalls that the decisions and statements made at the European Union-US Summit of 18 May 1998 regarding the Helms-Burton and Iran-Libya sanctions acts, were intended to pave the way for a definitive solution to this major bilateral disagreement.
The Commission remains very concerned that no tangible progress has so far been made on the US side on their commitment to seek Congressional amendment to Title 4 of Helms-Burton, not least since the US Administration has regularly recalled that the President is obliged in the absence of such an amendment to enforce Title 4.
<P>
The Commission has for its part always made it clear that if action is taken against EU companies or individuals under the Helms-Burton Act it would request a new WTO panel against the US in respect of this act.
The Commission had urged the US Administration to accelerate the implementation of the May 1998 Summit deal.
The Commission is aware of the inquiries by the US State Department into the activities of certain of the companies mentioned by the honourable Member and is following the situation very closely.
The Commission will continue to keep the European Parliament informed of any new developments regarding the implementation of the 18 May 1998 understandings.
<P>
Let me just add this: I raised these issues at a meeting with Secretary of State Albright last week.
I also went to see Senator Helms on the same visit to Washington.
I stressed two points: first our commitment to opposing extra-territorial legislation, second our commitment to protecting property rights and the law of contract.
I pointed out that if a waiver enabled us to trigger the May 1998 undertakings, that would ensure a comprehensive attack on the expropriation of property, not just in Cuba, where the May 1998 understanding was strongly attacked.
I hope that the senator in particular and his colleagues in the Senate and the House of Representatives will reflect very carefully on what I said.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
Many thanks to the Commissioner for his reply.
<P>
I would like to say to you, Commissioner, that the fact that the Commission tells us that it is still worried about this situation is frankly not enough.
It also seems to me to be insufficient that the Commission, in its contacts with Mrs Albright, should say that she has to comply with the commitments which were agreed within the framework of the Transatlantic Summit.
This is clearly not enough.
<P>
I do not know if you believe that, after twenty months of non-compliance, the Clinton administration will persuade Congress to ratify and amend Title 4 of the law.
<P>
Therefore the question - and I understand and am grateful for your good will, Commissioner - is as follows: is the Commission prepared, in view of the harassment and pressures which European companies are suffering, to do more than express its consternation and concern, and to take some type of measure - and your predecessor, Mr Brittan, committed himself to this before this Parliament: I am well aware of this because I asked the question at the time - in the event that this non-compliance should continue to be absolutely evident and blatant?
In a pre-election year, the Senate of the United States is not going to amend the law: is the Commission really prepared to denounce this non-compliance to the authorities of the World Trade Organisation?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="Patten">
I do have an answer, which is that if possible it is still in everybody' s interest to have an agreement to allow the undertakings entered into in 1998 to operate.
It is in everybody' s interest to see a waiver to Title 4, it is in everybody' s interest including potential investors not to have a trade dispute that not just discourages investment but poisons our overall relations.
So far we have not been obliged to have recourse to a blocking statute, we have not had to go to the WTO panel, though it is perfectly clear that in certain circumstances we would have no other choice.
<P>
I happen to think that at the moment it makes a lot more sense for me to try to persuade American senators, for me to try to persuade the American Administration to behave sensibly, than to throw up my hands and say we are going to go to the WTO.
If the honourable Member has a better suggestion than going and trying to persuade Senator Helms - which I am not sure has been done recently - I would be delighted to hear in all humility what it is.
I think for the time being it is more sensible for us, provided there is no action which triggers a recourse to the WTO, to try to persuade the US Administration and the US Senate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Korakas">
Mr President, it is a fact that this disgraceful law, known as the Helms-Burton Act, has had catastrophic consequences both for socialist Cuba and its people, and for humanity as a whole.
Not only does it seek to subjugate a proud race which insists on its right to self-determination; it also signals the wish on the part of the American imperialists, manifested on numerous occasions, to impose their will and their laws on the international economy, on international trade and on international business.
This is why the Helms-Burton Act has met and continues to meet with general disapproval and demands for its immediate repeal, and rightly so.
<P>
What worries me is that the request for European undertakings to be exempted from the scope of this criminal legislation, however beneficial this may in fact be to European undertakings, fails to solve the problem.
In essence, it is tantamount to acknowledgement of the Act, thereby detracting from the very pressure which we are exerting for its repeal.
Do you not think, Commissioner, that the European Union should exert all its influence, using every means imaginable, to bring about the immediate repeal of this unacceptable Act, rather than confining itself to statements.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="Patten">
I want to assure the honourable Member straight away that the undertakings given in May 1998 did not in any way mean that we accepted the legitimacy of Helms-Burton legislation.
Our views on extraterritoriality are perfectly clear.
We have made them clear again and again.
We have also made clear - and you do not have to be a dyed-in-the-wool imperialist to take this view - that we are against expropriation of property.
I imagine the honourable Member is against the expropriation of property as well.
Sanctity of property rights has a great deal to do with the stability of plural societies.
If, at the end of the day we can have a waiver of Title 4 under Helms-Burton and the triggering of the undertakings we gave in good conscience in May 1998 then that will be in everybody' s interests, it will prevent any trade dispute with the United States and it will give, I hope, investors around the world - not just in Cuba - greater certainty about what they are putting their money into.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 NAME="President">
Exceptionally, I am going to accept a procedural motion by Mr Salafranca.
I fear that this may be a piece of parliamentary manoeuvring, but we are going to run that risk.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
No, Mr President.
The Commissioner asked me, in relation to the question which I asked him at the time, if there was any other option rather than convincing Senator Helms.
<P>
I would like to tell the Commissioner that here there have been agreements which have clearly established two obligations on the part of both sides: the United States committed themselves to amending Title 4 of the law and not to apply the law to European undertakings.
They have not amended Title 4 and - as you recognised in your reply, Commissioner - pressures are being applied on European companies.
Therefore, I believe that the only language that means anything is hard facts.
And the United States negotiated on the basis of the complaint which was presented to the GATT authorities.
<P>
Therefore Commissioner, I would ask you to expand somewhat, on behalf of the Commission, with regard to your concerns.
<P>
Thank you very much, Mr President, for your benevolence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 NAME="President">
Yes, I have been benevolent and I do not want to set a precedent because second questions are not allowed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Korakas">
Mr President, as the Commissioner raised the point as to whether I too am against the expropriation of property, I should like to tell him that, when it comes to colonial property, I am in favour of the expropriation of property.
The American installations in Cuba were colonial property and they were right to expropriate them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="President">
I would ask Members not to use this Question Time to establish a political, and sometimes ideological, dialogue with the Commissioners.
This is not the time.
Anyway, the Commissioner may reply to these atypical questions or interesting interventions, but it must be outside the Rules of Procedure, at your convenience.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="Patten">
- I would certainly enjoy a polemical exchange with the honourable Member on some other occasion and to share with him, as a former colonial oppressor myself, our respective views of the imperial legacy, but perhaps I can respond to the honourable Member once again.
<P>
It is absolutely clear that if, as we would like and as we have sought, Article 4 waiver is given, then we trigger the agreement of May 1998.
If we do not get that waiver then the agreement does not come into operation.
It still makes sense - and there has not been any of the behaviour yet which has required us to put in place a blocking statute or go to the WTO - if it is still possible for us to reach an agreement it would be in everybody' s best interest.
If it is not possible to reach an agreement, then it is perfectly clear that we will have to go to the WTO panel.
But for the time being I would still hope that we manage to reach an agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="Paulo Casaca">
Question No 43 by (H-0650/99):
<P>
Subject: East Timor At its sitting of 5 October 1999 the European Parliament was informed by Commissioner Patten that the Commission attaches very high priority to the humanitarian aid and reconstruction support plan for East Timor.
On the same occasion, Mr Patten spoke on the EU=s support for the actions of UNAMET and on the plans for sending a new evaluation mission to East Timor.
<P>
Is the Commission in possession of fresh data relating to East Timor=s needs in the matter of support?
Can it now state more specifically how it intends to act on its undertaking to support the reconstruction of East Timor?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="Patten">
Let me deal first with humanitarian aid.
ECHO' s on-going aid amounts to EUR 5 million in two tranches of EUR 2 million and EUR 3 million.
In addition ECHO is preparing a further decision to provide a significant amount for additional humanitarian assistance.
These projects will cover food distribution, logistic support, water and sanitation, medical assistance, protection and security for the returnees and the transport of returnees from Dili to their place of origin.
An essential element of humanitarian aid consists of food supply.
A few days ago, the Commission reached agreement with the World Food Programme to supply 10,920 tons of maize and 1,240 tons of vegetable oil.
This aid will cost EUR 8.5 million.
<P>
As regards our support for the UN administration the Commission intends to give EUR 10 million support to the new UN trust fund for East Timor.
Consultations with Member States are already under way.
The Commission should take a formal decision by the beginning of December.
Another visible demonstration of the Commission' s priorities in helping East Timor is the forthcoming visit at the end of this month of my colleague in the Commission, Mr Nielson, to East and West Timor.
<P>
As to the long-term prospects for rehabilitation the report of the Commission' s representative who participated in the World Bank-led assessment mission to East Timor will be evaluated as soon as he returns to Brussels tomorrow.
The Commission will keep the European Parliament informed about this.
<P>
I see, incidentally, from this afternoon' s news agency reports that the World Bank has calculated after its mission that between USD 260 million and USD 300 million would be needed for medium-term reconstruction in ruined East Timor and that it will be seeking most of the funds from donors in Tokyo next month.
We will be attending that donors' conference.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Casaca">
Mr President, Commissioner, on 5 October, when we addressed the subject of the reconstruction of East Timor and in your answer to the MEP Mário Soares, you said, in this Chamber, and I quote: "We have to put our money where our mouth is" .
And I must say that I did not doubt that that was your intention, because this Chamber is familiar with your CV, particularly your time in Hong Kong, which shows an unswerving commitment to the defence of human rights and of a democratic system that is not confined to Europe alone.
<P>
Nevertheless Commissioner, I would still like to ask you a question. In its budget, Parliament voted, at first reading, for an invitation to the Commission to set up a task force to manage the aid for the reconstruction of East Timor.
I would like to ask you if the Commission is actually going to set in motion this task force to organise all the aid efforts for East Timor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 NAME="Patten">
I think the honourable Member would think it sensible for us to have taken part in the World Bank assessment mission and to wait for our officials who have been taking part in that assessment mission to report before we actually come to the budgetary authorities and ask for specific amounts of money.
But I have no doubt at all that we will be expected to be sizeable contributors to the reconstruction of East Timor, though I imagine the honourable Member would agree with me that others should be contributors as well and I imagine that the honourable Member would also think it sensible for us to try to draw on the lessons of reconstruction activities elsewhere, not least in Kosovo to ensure that the money we deploy in East Timor is spent as effectively and rapidly as possible.
<P>
I have to say that it gives me very great confidence that Sergio Vieira de Mello is to be the UN administrator in East Timor - he is somebody that I worked with very closely in my previous occupation in Hong Kong dealing with the refugee and illegal immigrant problem there.
He is a man of outstanding qualities and we will all look forward to supporting him in the very important work he has to do.
<P>
I just add this to the honourable Member - there is also an obligation on us to give some assistance to the new government in Indonesia as it tries to make the transition from authoritarianism to democracy.
There are appalling social and environmental problems there - I would like to be able to help as much as possible.
Then I look at the size of our Asia programme which runs at around EUR 350 million per year and I scratch my head about how we are going to be able to provide the level of assistance required to what may well be one of the very largest and most important democracies in the world.
So I think we have to do our bit - in fact more than our bit - in East Timor and that we must also help in Indonesia about which we look forward to putting forward a communication to the Council in the early months of next year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="Ioannis Souladakis">
Question No 44 by (H-0608/99):
<P>
Subject: Protection of EU companies' interests in Kosovo The Greek Telecommunications Organisation (OTE) and the Italian company STET International, owners of 49% of Srbija Telekom, are being threatened and harassed in Kosovo by the KLA and >others= in a bid to oust the two companies B the sole legal owners of network rights in Kosovo B from the region, in breach of international agreements.
At the same time, Mytilinaios AE, which has invested more than $ 52 million in the >RMHK TREPCA= mines, is being obstructed and subjected to pressure with the ultimate aim of depriving the company of its contractual and real property rights in the mines.
<P>
Given that EU companies are involved and that there are indications of covert support from EU representatives for these aims, what practical measures have been taken to safeguard the interests of the above companies and what guarantees will there be that they can pursue their activities without hindrance so that they are not supplanted by other companies and organised criminal interests?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 NAME="Patten">
To date, the Commission has not actually received reports of any threats or harassment of EU companies with interests in Kosovo by the KLA; however, if that were to happen, it would be brought to the attention of UNMIK and KFOR immediately.
UNMIK which is responsible for the interim civilian administration of Kosovo is devoting considerable energy and resources trying to revive the Kosovan economy. This includes the reestablishment of a legal and institutional framework as well as coordinating the very considerable amounts of donor assistance that are supporting the economy.
There is currently little or no economic activity taking place in the Trebce industrial complex including the mines which are being guarded by KFOR.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Souladakis">
Commissioner, as to whether or not there are reports, I have before me a written reply by Mr Dickson to a written question on these matters which bears the stamps and seals of all the organisations.
However, that is by the by.
The point is, it is only to be expected that, in a region in turmoil, there will be no particularly official record of the action, legal or otherwise, of certain systems with no legal status or authority.
What is certain is that, if you were to inquire right now into the state of telecommunications in Kosovo, the answer would automatically come to light.
You know full well that telecommunications in Kosovo, as a part of Serbia, were jointly owned by the Greek Telecommunications Organisation and the Italian company STET International and you also know full well what the situation is now.
This investment is not therefore being protected.
You know full well that the TREPCA mines were owned and operated by Mytilinaios and you know what the situation is now.
And you should also consider in this respect that when the taxpayers of the European Union are asked to fund the reconstruction of Kosovo, while companies already established there are basically being threatened and have no protection, then this is a contradiction in terms and I would ask you to see it as such.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 NAME="Patten">
Can I make it absolutely plain to the honourable Member that if he has specific information about threats to a company, if he can let me have them, I will take them up as soon as possible with both UNMIK and KFOR, because I would regard those threats as being extremely serious.
I will be delighted to take charge of those papers.
The honourable Member is entirely correct to point to the importance of the telecommunications industry in the very construction of economic activity in Kosovo.
It is important to the whole economic future of that part of the Balkans, and I will certainly take notice of what he said in my contacts with Bernard Kouchner and with the UNMIK authorities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 NAME="President">
I would remind Members that this Question Time is for asking supplementary questions, not to explain doctrine to the Commission.
This may suit the Commission, I do not know.
But it is only for questions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alyssandrakis">
Commissioner, you said at one point in your reply that UNMIK was endeavouring to create a legal and institutional framework for Kosovo.
I should like to remind you that Kosovo has a legal and institutional framework and that it is still part of the Federation of Yugoslavia and that this has been acknowledged in a resolution by the United Nations Organisation.
Of course, it has not escaped our notice that KFOR is acting as an occupying force, but Kosovo is still, albeit formally, a separate part of Yugoslavia.
In the meantime, there have been numerous accusations of a series of infringements by KFOR which calls this status into question.
I would be grateful for your comments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 NAME="Patten">
Well the honourable Member has been extremely imaginative because he asked a question about something I did not say.
I do not recall using the words 'legal framework' at all in my answer but maybe there was some problem in translation.
However, let me deal with his question and say without any hesitation that Resolution 1244 of the UN Security Council has complete authority, there is no attempt to dilute it, as far as I am concerned, it is the basis of our activity in Kosovo, and I do not wish to depart from 1244 and its application by one centimetre.
<P>
As for KFOR, I must say that on my visit to Kosovo, I was impressed by the relationship between KFOR and the civil authorities.
KFOR is doing its best in extremely difficult circumstances and it deserves, for example, all our support in trying to ensure that there is no repetition of the sort of atrocity against both sides that has unfortunately disfigured life in Kosovo in the past.
KFOR I repeat has been working well with the civil authorities and I am sure that will continue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=178 NAME="Ria Oomen­Ruijten">
Question No 45 by (H-0619/99):
<P>
Subject: Implementation of the nitrate directive Is the Commission (in particular the Commissioners for the Environment and Agriculture) aware that the European directive on nitrates (91/676/EEC) provides no conclusive guarantees with regard to the quality of ground water, as the directive concentrates exclusively on nitrates from animal dung and thus overlooks a number of other sources of nitrate?
<P>
Does the Commission agree that at present it seems almost impossible to implement the directive in full and on time, as it will cause problems in nine Member States?
<P>
Does the Commission appreciate that there is no exact way of monitoring implementation of the directive, as various methods of measurement are used within the EU?
<P>
As the implementation of the nitrates directive is causing problems in so many Member States, is the Commission prepared to give renewed consideration to improvements and a phased implementation so that the required standards on nitrates can ultimately be achieved?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 NAME="Wallström">
This question is about whether the nitrates directive overlooks a number of other sources of nitrates.
It is about whether it is impossible to implement, it is about monitoring and there is also question about if the Commission is prepared to give renewed consideration to improvements.
<P>
This is my answer. The nitrates directive considers not only nitrogen from animal manure, but also from chemical fertilisers both as regards quantities supplied, see Article 5 and Annex III, and methods and periods of spreading and that is in Annexes II and III.
The Commission is aware of the difficulties faced by several Member States in the implementation of this directive, but considers it to be an important element of its policy to tackle water pollution.
<P>
In this context the Commission will continue to press for full implementation of the directive as requested by the Parliament resolution of 20 October 1998.
The Commission is preparing monitoring and reporting guidelines with Member States which will allow comparisons and the aggregation of results and maps from the year 2000 when Member States report on the impact of their first action programmes.
<P>
A complete study of eutrophication and groundwater problems and vulnerable zones designation by Member States has already been achieved by the Commission.
All the necessary tools for the sound management of nitrogen at field and watershed level can be found in the existing directive as soon as it is properly implemented in all intensive agriculture and livestock areas of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
I thank you, Commissioner, for your response.
But her response does not answer my questions.
I asked her whether, if it appears that a large number of Member States do not or cannot yet meet the objective of the directive on account of large discrepancies in nitrate sources, both animal and artificial, should a different approach then not be opted for?
I have not received a reply to this question.
<P>
Neither have I received a response to my question regarding infringement proceedings.
If it appears that out of the fifteen Member States, there are at least nine in respect of which infringement proceedings have been initiated and if the Commissioner presses for the implementation of the directive, what do we do then?
Do we then enforce the legal instrument, is this what you want?
Or would you withdraw this?
Or would you just continue pressing for it?
I would greatly appreciate it if I could have a clear answer to all these questions, as they have been submitted in writing, in addition to these supplements.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 NAME="Wallström">
Of course we will insist that the directive be implemented.
Now you could, of course, wonder whether the Commission would consider a short-term revision of the directive.
The Commission believes that the majority of measures that have to be taken by Member States, for example, transposition monitoring, designation and codes of good practice, action programmes and reporting are straightforward.
Most of the measures of Annex II and III are very efficient in reducing losses of, for example, phosphorus from agriculture, and the future water framework directive will complete this with a tool of management plans at watershed level.
<P>
So, there is no need for new interim directives or the revision of the existing ones; instead we need increased pressure for their effective implementation at vulnerable zones and farm level.
I think the directive could not be clearer, the problem still exists and is increasing, so we just have to continue along the same path.
We have increased our legal pressure - 11 countries are currently concerned by infringement procedures at high level - the Court of Justice has recently condemned Italy and Spain, and thanks to this pressure things are now moving in a positive way.
<P>
All countries must now transpose the directive.
A new designation of vulnerable zones has recently occurred for Spain, Greece, Italy and the UK and the action programme contents have been strengthened in a number of countries.
A general improvement in the situation can thus be expected within the next few years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Mulder">
I share my doubts with Mrs Oomen-Ruijten regarding the Commissioner' s replies but I do not intend to enlarge on this.
<P>
At first reading, this Parliament earmarked a sum of EUR 250 million for the budget to facilitate the implementation of the nitrate directive.
Even if Parliament only partly approves this at second reading, how does the Commissioner intend to spend this money?
I assume at least that she will take Parliament seriously.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="President">
Commissioner, you must explain how you are going to spend the money.
This is always a difficult question to answer, especially before this Parliament.
The other questions which Members want to ask, such as Mrs Oomen-Ruijten' s question, will have to be asked in the lobby in a bilateral fashion.
As you know the lobby is very important to political life.
In the Chamber, we are only going to answer this question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="Wallström">
I am glad to answer that question.
I know what is behind it of course and the Commission is aware of the important economic and social efforts required in Member States with highly intensive production to adapt the structures and practices in agriculture to the requirements of the directive.
Those difficulties were already anticipated in 1991 when the directive was signed under the Dutch Presidency.
That is why Member States were given five years to prepare for adaptation and four more to achieve it and ensure the necessary reconversions were undertaken in a progressive fashion.
<P>
In spite of this, we have some problems, but a new delay would not change the social consequences of the necessary measures.
So it is very important that the countries implement this directive.
There is a variety of funding at national and EU level - such as agri-environment and Structural Funds - and this may be used to help with reconversion and in the management of its social impact for a transitory period.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten should know that we are running out of time.
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, you have ten seconds.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
I only want to establish that our questions are not being answered.
In fact, what I would like to ask is: if eleven Member States are unable to implement a nitrate directive and the Commission instigates infringement proceedings, what conclusions would you draw from this?
I am just wondering about that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 NAME="President">
This dialogue will now carry on outside the chamber, in writing or in a bilateral fashion, unless the Commissioner wants to reply within fifteen seconds.
If not we will be depriving the other Members and Commissioners of the chance to speak.
You have 15 seconds, Commissioner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 NAME="Wallström">
If we decide on a directive to protect the environment against eutrophication, if we see that this is a very serious problem and that it is a growing problem, we have to take action.
We have decided on a directive and the directive should be implemented.
There are, of course, problems which were foreseen nine years ago when the directive was decided.
It has been a very slow process in some countries and much faster in others.
But the Dutch Government has to take measures to implement this directive, and that is what it is all about.
It is really important to realise that you cannot pick and choose what you like but you have to implement the directive.
Now we see that things are moving thanks to the legal instruments available to us and we just have to continue, because otherwise we will see much bigger problems of eutrophication.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 NAME="President">
In the interest of all the Members who have come here today to ask questions, there will be no points of order unless there is disorder and everybody will adhere to the Rules of Procedure.
I must fulfil my obligations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="Samuli Pohjamo">
<SPEAKER ID=192 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Barnier">
The question which Mr Pohjamo has asked affords me the opportunity of reminding you, ladies and gentlemen, of the method we use to draw up the list of Objective 2 eligible regions, as well as the programming arrangements, complying with the Regulations for the Structural Funds.
<P>
As far as the list of eligible regions is concerned, Mr Pohjamo, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to remind you that the Commission sent a letter to the Member States on 1 July 1999, asking them to present their proposals by 31 August 1999.
The least I can say is that we had not received many proposals by the time the deadline expired.
So, Mr Pohjamo, I understand the concern which you are expressing, one which has been expressed most forcefully elsewhere by Mr Hatzidakis, the chairman, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism.
<P>
Is there a risk that the delays of some Member States in putting forward their proposals will penalise those who made efforts to respect the time limits better than the others?
It is precisely so that we do not penalise the Member States who managed to submit their proposals at an earlier stage and in due form, complying with the terms of the Regulations, that the Commission has decided to approve the list in terms of groups of countries.
So the Commission' s decision on eligible regions for Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Finland was taken on 26 October.
<P>
Let me remind you, however, that this decision is a procedural one, since the Member States must be consulted via the committees, in accordance with the Regulations, before the final decision of the Commission may be taken.
And it is only after the final decision that the programming process may begin, in negotiation between the Commission and the Member States.
On this subject, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to say that the Commission shall exercise the utmost pragmatism in working in this programming.
So, for example, as I recently indicated to the Greek authorities in Athens, in programming the future appropriations, we shall be taking into account in quite a substantial manner the tragic consequences of the recent earthquake.
I may say the same, with reference to current events in France, regarding the equally tragic consequences of the floods which have just occurred in four French departments.
We can adjust or adapt the total appropriations allocated to each of the countries of the Union in order to take current events, particularly when they have such disastrous consequences, into account.
<P>
The Regulations stipulate a period of four months for the economic development plans to be submitted by the national authorities, and a further period of five months for these proposals to be adopted.
It is therefore expected that the first Objective 2 programmes shall be approved towards the middle of the year 2000.
An identical process shall be followed for the eight remaining Member States to which Objective 2 still applies.
However, due to the extended time limits for the approval of the lists - delays, as I have said, which the Commission is not responsible for - the programmes should be adopted in the second half of the year 2000, for most of these eight Member States.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, not one programme will be in force by the 1 January 2000.
I would, nonetheless, like to reassure the Members that may be concerned about this by specifying that there will be no interruption in the investment activity at local level since the resources for the current term, which has not yet run its course, must be committed in full by 31 December 1999.
The implementation of projects for the previous period, which is due to expire on 31 December, will be continued for the next two years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 NAME="Pohjamo">
Mr President, Commissioner, thank you for your reply.
It is extremely important that the programmes in the area under discussion commence immediately at the beginning of 2000.
EU aid will have an important impact on the development of regional industry and, for that reason, there should be no interruption between the old programmes and the new.
I would still like to check that I understood correctly that these new programmes can start to be implemented, with the risk taken at national level, right from the start of 2000, as long, obviously, as the proper applications have been made beforehand.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Barnier">
I believe, Mr Pohjamo, that we understand each other well.
As far as your own country is concerned, matters are in particularly good order, since the first proposals were covered by the procedural decision of the Commission, on 26 October.
We are at the stage of consulting the committees, made up particularly of the other Member States, and I shall therefore be able, by the end of the year, to propose a final, official decision for the approval of the Objective 2 zoning plan for your country, and also, probably, for the other three countries which were covered by the Commission' s initial decision on 26 October.
These were Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands.
So it will indeed be possible to make the investment commitments within the first half of next year, as soon as we have arrived, together with the authorities of your country, at the negotiations on the programmes.
<P>
I am, of course, obliged to comply with the Regulations of the Structural Funds, but I am in a position to reassure you as far as your own country is concerned, Mr Pohjamo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 NAME="Khanbhai">
My interest is to assess the efficacy of the EU in giving development aid to any of the third world countries.
So will the Commission answer my questions if I take one of the third world countries as a model and try to assess how effectual our aid is and what the delegation does?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 NAME="President">
Mr Khanbhai, I am sorry to say that only questions which are supplementary to the question may be asked.
Yours is a universal and all-encompassing question and therefore it cannot be asked today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Hatzidakis">
Commissioner, allow me to say, as Chairman of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism that what you have told us about Objective 2 is most reassuring and a step in the right direction.
With reference to what you said about natural disasters in Greece and France, perhaps you would be so kind as to clarify what you meant.
So far, all we know is that the legal services have been hesitant on the matter of aid, shall we say, for the areas stricken by the earthquake in Greece, as far as housing is concerned.
The legal services have agreed to provide aid for public infrastructures but they were hesitant on housing.
We know that, previously in Italy, aid was also granted for some housing damaged by earthquakes.
Does your statement mean that the Commission has changed its position and that there will be aid under the Community Support Framework for people whose houses were damaged?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Barnier">
It would be a great pity if I could not get my message across, because I have some useful things to tell you.
<P>
Mr Hatzidakis, there has been no change in the Commission' s position.
In tragic circumstances, such as those which some years past affected Portugal or Italy and, more recently, Greece - which I recently visited twice, once, a month ago, with my fellow Commissioner, Anna Diamantopoulou, and again just a few days ago - we are basing our attitude on the same Regulations of the Structural Funds and we are being accountable.
You cannot ask the Commission to do anything other than comply with the Regulations ourselves and ensure that they are complied with by others.
<P>
But, at the same, different responses are possible within the terms of these Regulations, and this is what I confirmed to the Prime Minister of your country, Mr Simitis, and to the other government ministers whom I met.
Damage to public property in Greece following the latest earthquake on 6 September, and I am speaking from memory, are evaluated at approximately EUR 2.5 billion.
In order not to compromise the considerable efforts undertaken in that country, particularly in terms of achieving budgetary stability, in preparation for its entry into the euro system, Greece called upon external appropriations of approximately EUR 1.9 billion.
<P>
We calculated that EUR 1 billion of public expenditure was eligible within the terms of the Regulations of the Structural Funds.
Right now, without any change to the Regulations, and this is the best way, EUR 1 billion in public expenditure was eligible for European aid, within the framework of the total appropriations allocated to Greece.
We are going to redistribute and redeploy these appropriations in order to carry out the works necessary in the aftermath of the earthquake, and these works shall be subsidised on average up to 80%.
For the rest, your country is probably, in the near future, going to receive a loan in the amount of EUR 900 million at an extremely advantageous rate from the European Investment Bank.
<P>
My impression, then, and I mention this because it involves the question of solidarity among all the countries of the Union, is that, following the earthquake in Greece, there has been a good response in relation to material damage.
It is not possible, naturally, to repair the human damage and the loss of life.
No more than it is possible to do so in the context of the floods which have just struck France and which have caused dozens of deaths.
I simply wish to say that in such cases I shall adopt a pragmatic approach in order to be able to adapt the programming of Objective 1 or Objective 2, according to the requests made by national authorities, in order to aid reconstruction in these countries.
This is indeed a matter for regional development.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
As regards Objective 2, Italy has had a great many problems if we are to believe the press reports about its initial list of eligible items and areas.
There was, apparently, a conflict between the Commission' s interpretation and that of the Italian authorities.
I know that you have had a meeting with the Minister for Economic Affairs and Finance.
Can you tell us what the state of affairs is?
Has Italy compromised the launch of Objective 2 or did this meeting result in a possible compromise between the respective positions of the Commission and the Italian Government?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Barnier">
Mr Dell' Alba, I mentioned that four countries out of the twelve countries concerned by Objective 2, were covered by the Commission' s first procedural decision. Of the remaining eight countries, the situation of the Federal Republic of Germany has been more or less finalised in the discussions which we are having.
As far as the other seven, including Italy, are concerned, we still have to check, on the basis of the proposals received by my department, country by country, that the proposed zoning plan in fact meets all the criteria of the Regulations of the Structural Funds.
This is what you must ask of the Commission, and this is what I strive to do in a pragmatic manner and in a spirit of cooperation with each of the Member States.
<P>
We are having a rather specific and difficult discussion with Italy, given the zoning plan which we have received and which actually, in one specific respect, does not comply with one of the rules adopted by the Heads of State and Government at Berlin.
I would like to specify, if I have time, that a great deal of flexibility for every Member State is acceptable, but, in the zoning plan which will be adopted definitively under Objective 2, we must find at least half of the population which was initially identified as resident in zones eligible according to Community criteria.
The zoning plan which I have received does not completely meet that criterion.
<P>
I therefore had a very serious discussion with Minister Amato several days ago, and we agreed to continue the discussion, in a constructive spirit, in order to reconcile our points of view.
I may say that this meeting was a very positive one and that we shall continue to work, in the weeks to come, to come up with a zoning plan for Objective 2 from the various regions of Italy, which is compliant with the Regulations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 NAME="President">
Commissioners and Honourable Members, we are already overrunning by more than 20 minutes and we have minimal time available.
I would like to ask all of you for your cooperation.
I think that we should do without one of the supplementary questions in each case, that is to say, that only one should be asked.
We must agree on this but, otherwise, we are depriving a Commissioner or several Members of the chance to speak.
We will try to deal with this lack of time.
<P>
Questions to Mr Vitorino
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=203 NAME="Maj Theorin">
Question No 47 by (H-0628/99):
<P>
Subject: Violence against women Measures designed to tackle violence against women are often of a curative nature and target women and girls, e.g. support for hostels where women can seek refuge with their children, and rehabilitation of victims of violence.
Such measures are necessary but we must go beyond the symptoms and the effects of violence in order to overcome the problem.
Combating violence calls for a dual strategy. Violence must be combated by addressing the structural causes of violence B by focusing on men=s attitudes and behaviour B and by legislation which prohibits all violence against women, including domestic violence.
Several Member States do not have such legislation at the present time.
<P>
What practical measures will the Commission take to bring about legislation banning all violence against women and to combat the structural causes of violence against women?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Vitorino">
Mr President, the Commission fully agrees with Mrs Theorin' s concern about the problem of violence against women and the need to give support to the rehabilitation of victims and their families.
<P>
The issue of making such violence a crime and punishing it really falls within the jurisdiction of the Member States.
All forms of violence, whether against men, women or children, are banned in all Member States by their respective criminal codes.
<P>
The Council of the Union, in its joint action of 24 February 1997 relating to action against the trade in human beings and the sexual exploitation of children requests Member States to revise the legislation and the practices in force in these areas in order to guarantee that the kinds of behaviour I have just referred to are subject to effective criminal punishment.
At the end of this year, the progress achieved by Member States in this joint action will be debated in the Council.
Since 1997, the Commission has been responsible for implementing the Daphne programme, which is specifically designed to combat violence against women, adolescents and children and which will be succeeded by the Daphne - 2000-2203 programme (approved this very day), which has the same objective.
<P>
Underlying these initiatives is the pressing need to defend human rights, especially those of women and children.
By means of the action I have just mentioned, the Commission has supported a raft of initiatives relating to the structural causes of violence, particularly the practises and behaviour of men, as well as actions assisting and rehabilitating the victims.
And the Commission will continue in its endeavour to develop initiatives to this effect.
<P>
The Commission is also responsible for the STOP programme, the aim of which is to provide the necessary training and information for professionals, particularly judges, for police forces and for social services departments in the fight against the trade in human beings and the sexual exploitation of women.
<P>
Our main concern, apart from continuing in this direction, is to implement the Tampere European Council' s decision to come up with definitions, prosecutions and punishments for crimes of trading in human beings and crimes of abuse against children.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
The background to my question is very clear indeed: 15-25% of all women are battered during pregnancy; 50% of all women who are murdered are murdered by their husbands or partners; violence is the biggest cause of harm inflicted upon women, responsible for more deaths and injury than robberies and car accidents combined; and only 2-3% of all rapists are sent to prison.
<P>
It is unfortunately the case that assaults upon women within the family are not illegal in all countries.
It is important that there should be legislation of this kind.
At the same time, it is also incredibly important to understand that it is men' s behaviour and attitudes which must be changed.
It is on this matter that I should like to see the Commission take action.
What, specifically, is one prepared to do to ensure that this structural cause of violence, that it to say, men' s behaviour, is changed?
What is one prepared to do to ensure that those countries which do not have legislation outlawing domestic violence against women in fact obtain such legislation?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Vitorino">
Mrs Theorin, my opinion is clear and unequivocal: domestic violence against women must be equally sanctioned by means of criminal punishment.
And this punishment is really the responsibility of each Member State' s legal system.
The time to assess the situation that you have just described will be when, before the end of the year, the Council evaluates the results of the 1997 joint action on combating violence against women.
<P>
As you have said, Mrs Theorin, and I agree with you, there are many different causes of violence: there are social causes, cultural causes, economic causes, and, at times, even political attitudes are to blame. And, of course, it is against the causes that we must act.
It is true that, not just at the national level but also at the Community level, the main strategy that can be developed is that of reporting incidents, alerting people and providing information, all of which must be done by non-governmental organisations; we feel that the aim to which we have dedicated ourselves is to raise the awareness of public authorities, the police, to whom complaints are made or not made, and the judges, who have to judge each specific case, so that they all understand the criminal significance of violence against women, even when it is perpetrated within the family.
And I think that some of the future Daphne programme' s concrete strategies will respond precisely to this concern.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="Martin, David W">
I wonder, if the Commissioner would agree that education is vital in terms of tackling violence against women?
I would ask him if he is aware of the project pioneered by the City of Edinburgh district council which is entitled 'zero tolerance on violence against women' . This has been taken up by many local authorities.
The campaign emphasises that violence, whether it be for social, cultural or economic reasons, is unacceptable and should be treated as such by local authorities, social workers and the police.
Would he look at this programme and consider disseminating it throughout the Member States as an example of best practice in tackling this very difficult, but nevertheless, important area?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 NAME="Vitorino">
I fully agree with the honourable Member of the House that we have to tackle the causes.
All such programmes are very useful to the Commission in evaluating the effective results of the actions that we are supporting with tax-payers' money.
We should not rely on the idea that all we need to do is change the law.
That is not true.
Changing the law is a very important instrument to fight violence against women and children, but we need to go further.
That is why we are laying great emphasis on the programmes on judicial and police cooperation to make the authorities - the policemen who deal with such cases every day - more aware of how to handle these kinds of incidents.
<P>
I know that the various cultures in the Member States differ in their handling of this issue.
In some Member States there is a certain tendency to regard as less relevant violence within the family.
We have to put great emphasis on the fact that violence against women is always punishable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="John Walls Cushnahan">
Question No 48 by (H-0631/99):
<P>
Subject: 1983 Convention on Compensation to Victims of Violent Crime The Commission recently called for all Member States to ratify the 1983 Convention on Compensation to Victims of Violent Crime.
Which Member States have already done so and what action does the Commission intend to take to ensure that all Member States ratify this Convention?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Vitorino">
Mr President, the Commission recently presented a communication to the Council, to the European Parliament and to the Economic and Social Committee, on the theme "Victims of crime in the European Union - a reflection on standards and measures to be adopted" .
<P>
In this text, the Commission puts forward ideas for a debate on standards for treating victims of crime in the European Union.
One of the fundamental ideas in the Commission' s communication is precisely the ratification by all Member States of the Convention of the 1983 Council of Europe, and I am able to inform you, Mr Cushnahan, that this convention has been ratified by Germany, Denmark, Finland, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Sweden.
<P>
Some Member States have already signed this convention but have not yet concluded the ratification process in accordance with their own laws.
This is the case of Belgium, Greece, and Portugal.
Finally, four Member States have not yet signed the convention. They are Austria, Spain, Ireland and Italy.
<P>
Before the presentation of any proposal for specific action in this area, on the basis of the communication I have mentioned, the Commission invited the Member States, at Council level, and the European Parliament to state their observations on the points addressed in the communication on protection for victims of crime.
I can tell you that this communication, made at the Council of Ministers of Justice and Internal Affairs of 4 October, was received very positively.
<P>
The Commission awaits the opinions of Parliament and the Member States in order to develop further proposals for action to implement the objectives of the communication to which I have just referred.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="Cushnahan">
I am sure you agree with me that a victim of serious crime endures great pain and suffering, and this is doubly traumatic in a foreign country.
I very much welcome the Commission communication.
I welcome the range of proposals, not only as regards compensation but also the emphasis on the need for the availability of medical, psychological and counselling services for victims of crime.
<P>
This Convention is dated 1983.
We have had the Amsterdam Treaty which talks about creating an area of freedom, security and justice.
We have had the Tampere Summit.
While I recognise that you want to use this communication and debate in Parliament as an instrument to increase pressure on the Member States, I would urge that you create that pressure now and not just wait until this document goes through all the necessary channels in the EU.
People have already waited long enough.
You should increase the pressure on the seven Member States which have either failed to ratify or failed to sign the Convention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 NAME="Vitorino">
I fully agree with the honourable Member.
If you examine Conclusion No 32 of the Tampere European Council, it is quite clear that we have a mandate to put forward concrete measures within the legal framework of the Amsterdam Treaty.
I hope that by the end of the year we can get reactions from Member States and this Parliament so that we can start immediately at the beginning of the year 2000 putting forward specific European legislation on this issue as well as continuing to put pressure for the ratification of the 1993 Convention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, Commissioner, are there any statistics on violent crime and, above all, on compensation payments within the European Union and, particularly, developments in recent years?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="Vitorino">
That is precisely the purpose of the evaluation that we intend to conduct with the Council by the end of this year.
At the end of the year, we will not only be able to evaluate the progress of national legislation to protect victims of violent crime but also the concrete measures that each Member State is willing to implement.
They include compensation, psychological and medical treatment, assistance to victims in debt collection, the transmission of decisions from one Member State to another in order to improve the protection of victims, or asking courts to accept the written testimonies of victims who cannot attend court cases against their aggressors because they now live in another Member State.
All those aspects will, I hope, be considered by the end of the year and will form the basis of the initiative that the Commission intends to take in the year 2000.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="María Izquierdo Rojo">
<SPEAKER ID=218 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Vitorino">
Mr President, the Tampere European Council set guidelines for a common policy on asylum and migration.
<P>
Its conclusions define the elements of a global approach, which it is important to put into practice straight away.
To this effect, the Commission will have a special responsibility, both with regard to providing appropriate initiatives and generally following up the implementation of guidelines through its "scoreboard" system.
<P>
One of the main political conclusions of the Extraordinary meeting of the Heads of State and Government targets the need, in aiming for a genuine migration policy, to move beyond the traditional limits of justice and internal affairs and to have recourse to a series of instruments within the scope of other Union policies, an idea that has been promoted by the Commission since 1994 and which has always merited the support of the European Parliament.
<P>
The same thing applies to relations with third countries of origin and of transit.
The European Council confirmed the renewal of the high level group' s mandate on asylum and immigration, whilst insisting that the plans already adopted be implemented.
<P>
You all know that one of these plans concerns Morocco and includes numerous recommendations, particularly in the area of economic development, which are in line with the concerns expressed in Mrs Izquierdo Rojo' s question.
<P>
Over the next few weeks, the Commission, in close collaboration with Member States, will be making an inventory of the measures currently in force or still to be adopted that are likely to contribute to the implementation of the measures to which I just referred.
I do not think, then, that it can be considered that this initiative constitutes the Commission' s only contribution in this area.
<P>
Indeed, the Commission has for several years paid special attention to the development of the provinces in Northern Morocco, at a time when technical and financial cooperation with the Kingdom of Morocco has been implemented.
In this way, around half the funds of the MEDA programme were allocated to these northern provinces between 1996 and 1999, and this represents projects to a total value of EUR 330 million.
<P>
Apart from this, under the third and fourth financial protocols as well as under other budget headings, several projects have been or are taking place in this region at a cost equivalent to more than EUR 80 million.
In addition to this, the Community initiative INTERREG-II has already financed cooperation actions between Spain and Morocco during the current programming period, including a specific cross-border programme between Andalusia and Morocco.
It is a matter of encouraging the development of cooperation between countries, under the auspices of the new Community initiative INTERREG-III for the period 2000-2006, which will continue to finance cross-border cooperation within the European Union and with third countries.
<P>
In the case of the cross-border region of Spain and Morocco, it is incumbent upon both the Spanish and Moroccan authorities, in partnership with the Commission, to identify common priorities for action for the period 2000-2006.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Rojo">
I am very grateful to Commissioner Vitorino for his very encouraging reply and I hope to see that list of specific items which he has said we will have before long.
However, I would like to ask the Commissioner whether the Commission has realised that there will have to be complementarity between the INTERREG and MEDA programmes so that the associated country - in this case Morocco - may have the financial means necessary for cooperation.
I would ask the Commissioner to deal with this issue, so that it may be possible to promote complementarity between the INTERREG programme and the MEDA programme, because otherwise, Morocco will not have the financial means intended for cooperation.
This is done with the CCEE countries and it will be necessary to do the same with this new form of cross-border cooperation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Vitorino">
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, I am in complete agreement with you and I believe that the conclusions of the Tampere European Council highlight the fact that there is a horizontal approach between pillars which includes immigration and asylum policies and the other policies of the European Union, amongst which we have development aid policy.
I am sure that the Commission will guarantee the cohesion of the Union' s external and internal policy - of cross-border programmes and development aid programmes - and also that it is in the interest of the States benefiting from cross-border cooperation - Morocco and Spain - that proposals be put forward which will address the same concern.
I believe that this new approach to the coordination of internal and external policies, and of the programmes which are related to one or other of those policies, may be a very positive step forward in terms of Union action in these fields.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="Purvis">
The border between Andalusia and Gibraltar has been the scene of absurd and inordinately long delays over the last several months.
What steps is the Commission taking or going to take to ensure that travellers can freely and easily move across this internal EU border without undue formality?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 NAME="Vitorino">
<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="Per Stenmarck">
Question No 50 by (H-0606/99):
<P>
Subject: Transport policy/aviation Delays are becoming an increasingly common feature of air traffic in Europe.
According to the latest IATA statistics, the number of air passengers in Europe has risen by 6% in 1999. This has been accompanied by a 74% increase in the number of delays.
The EU is not prepared for the twofold increase in the number of aircraft movements that is set to take place over the next ten years.
Events this summer gave an indication of the chaos that could soon be commonplace.
<P>
There are currently 66 national and local air traffic control centres in Europe.
What is needed is a common European airspace and a joint air traffic control system.
Given that there is little time left, the Commission must act immediately.
<P>
What does the Commission plan to do in order to prevent the air traffic chaos in Europe from getting even worse next year?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="De Palacio">
I have to say that both President Prodi in this Chamber, last July, and myself on other occasions, have stated that the air traffic situation in Europe is untenable.
<P>
We really need to make progress in this area if we want to provide real solutions to the problems we are faced with.
And I believe that all of you, as regular air passengers, know exactly what we are talking about.
<P>
The Commission is completing a communication to the Council and the European Parliament on the delays which have occurred in air traffic management.
To this end, I intend to present an action plan specifically to promote real changes which can respond to the demands which we have to address.
Without anticipating the Council' s final decision, it is clear that our objective is no less than that of creating a single European airspace: fifteen countries under one sky.
How can we achieve this?
<P>
Firstly, there are measures under way which must be pursued and promoted, such as the European Community joining Eurocontrol, a process which will not only call for greater political responsibility on the part of the European Union but also that the last convention will be implemented and therefore measures may be adopted by majority voting, by majorities and not the systematic use of unanimous assent.
We do not believe that this measure is a panacea, but we think that it is essential in responding to this issue.
<P>
Secondly, in the area of Eurocontrol, and not only in that of Eurocontrol but also in other areas, we must guarantee efficiency and transparency in the operations of air service providers and furthermore clearly separate regulatory responsibilities from the provision of services.
Air traffic management cannot be an exception in relation to the other public service sectors which have had to face up to the single market.
<P>
There is a third aspect to be dealt with: better distribution of the civil and military use of the airspace of the fifteen countries.
In that respect, there is a need for greater flexibility and greater cooperation in order improve management and the use of that airspace.
The ambition is to try to prevent the chaos which, according to all the forecasts, we are inevitably going to suffer during the next summer season.
To this end, I intend to deal with this issue at the next Ministerial meeting of the European Civil Aviation Authority Conference, which will take place on 28 January, and, as I mentioned before, the Commission' s communication on this subject will be presented to Parliament at the end of this year and to the Council of Transport Ministers, specifically at the meeting of 6 December.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Stenmarck">
Allow me, first of all, to thank the Commissioner for her answer which I think sounds very positive.
It is now really however a question of translating words into action.
Where this is concerned, we naturally have high hopes of the Commission.
<P>
It is a fact that air traffic over Europe has seen a period of very considerable delays.
This is to a very large extent due to the fact that the number of flights is increasing very dramatically just now. This year alone, the increase has been close on 6%.
If delays are to be avoided, what is now really required is the ability to take political action.
It is only to be hoped that the Commission has this.
<P>
The Commissioner is saying here that we need to ensure that we get a common system of air traffic control in Europe.
I think that is extremely important.
In the long term, we cannot have 66 different national or local bodies dealing with the matter. Instead, one body is needed.
I therefore think it is good that the Commissioner is now talking along those lines.
Allow me just to ask a short follow-up question. When does the Commissioner consider we are likely to have implemented such a system?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="De Palacio">
The intention is to obtain support firstly for the proposal which I am going to make - both to the Commission and in time, if the Commission accepts it, to the Council of Ministers and Parliament - so that we will not only proceed with the incorporation of the Commission into Eurocontrol, but will also forward in the area of the fifteen countries to try to achieve a single airspace and, therefore, common management of that single space by those fifteen countries.
<P>
If I obtain the support of the Commission, the intention would be to promote a high level group in which the main civil authorities would participate, and the military would perhaps have to take part, in order to help the Commission to develop suitable guidelines.
But that is not all. We would also need to promote a dialogue with the principal operators - not only air companies and users, but also air traffic controllers and all the airports etc.
That is to say, all those operators who participate within the complex world of air traffic.
<P>
As you have said, some of the delays can be attributed to air traffic control, to the management of air traffic, which accounts for more or less 50% of the delays, and the other 50% is shared between air companies and internal problems in the management of the airports themselves.
<P>
But I believe that we should act on all fronts.
We should act in the short term with urgent measures.
This includes achieving distribution and greater flexibility in the management of airspace in its civil and military uses - and in certain countries this can be achieved with a certain speed, we have to promote it and we are working on it - and, also in the short term, intervening in the management by airports and air companies of their flight forecasts and the organisation of their flights, in order to improve the use and efficiency of airport slots.
But we also have to act in the medium term, I insist, with a more ambitious measure; this single airspace and this common management of the single airspace by the fifteen Members.
And then we will make it more extensive, within the framework of Eurocontrol as well. It will cover wider European areas given that a larger number of these countries are asking to join the Union and will become part of it in the years to come.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, I would like to thank the Commissioner for her very bold replies.
<P>
Mr President, I would like to refer back to the questions.
Regarding the demarcation which the Commissioner would like to introduce between civil and military aviation, could she manage this before the coming holiday season?
My second question concerns the proposals of the high level group, could this be possible in the short term?
Could a date be indicated for this, if possible?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="De Palacio">
Competence for the civil and military issue lies with the Member States and, therefore, what the Commission can do is urge the Member States to implement this greater cooperation, promote it and assist in any every possible way: we are working with the different Member States one by one.
<P>
As for the high level group, if the Commission and the Council approve it - as I have already said, the Commission will foreseeably do so on the 24th of this month, and the Council on 6 December - the intention would be that it would start its work at the beginning of February or even at the end of January.
It would be useful if a measure of this type could receive some kind of support from the European Council in Helsinki.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=231 NAME="Konstantinos Hatzidakis">
Question No 51 by (H-0613/99):
<P>
Subject: Progress with reorganisation of Olympic Airways In October 1994, the Greek Government, in collaboration with the Commission, launched a programme to reorganise Olympic Airways. However, the programme does not yet appear to have yielded the anticipated results.
What are the causes of the problems involved in implementing this programme? What stage has been reached in talks with the Greek authorities and what are the plans for the immediate future?
<P>
I would ask the Commissioner to be as specific as possible - I know she is doing so - because we are out of time.
Our controls, not in terms of air transport but in terms of speaking, have not worked properly.
<P>
Questions to Mr Verheugen
<SPEAKER ID=232 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="De Palacio">
The Commission, through its decision of 7 October 1994, authorised the granting of considerable aid for the reorganisation of Olympic Airways.
As always, this authorisation implied certain obligations on the part of the company, obligations intended to guarantee the genuine recovery of the company and limit the impact on competition and the single market.
<P>
Unfortunately, these obligations have not been fulfilled and, consequently, the Commission had to reopen the case in 1996.
The Greek authorities once again made additional commitments so that new aid could be authorised during 1998 and thereby unblock the last batch of aid to Olympic Airways which is still pending.
<P>
Nevertheless, the report on the reorganisation presented in April of this year indicated that the financial results of the company were below the forecasts.
This led the Greek authorities to order the drawing up of a new reorganisation plan by a new team led by specialist managers.
<P>
As soon as the Commission receives that new reorganisation plan - we hope that this will be during this month of November - we will examine the content of the new commitments and we hope that they will give sufficient guarantees to allow the granting of the funds which are still pending.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Hatzidakis">
Commissioner, it is clear from your reply that difficulties still surround Olympic Airways, as they have since 1994.
In the meantime, Greece has granted the company several billion drachmas in state aid.
And yet the problem persists.
I think that the Greek taxpayer is entitled to know what difficulties the Commission has encountered with respect to Olympic Airways and what problems it has encountered, given that these problems have, at times, made it extremely hesitant with respect to the demands of the Greek authorities and, if I have understood your reply correctly, continue even now to make the Commission hesitant on the matter of the third instalment of aid for Olympic Airways.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="De Palacio">
Ladies and gentlemen, a series of decisions were taken in 1994 - specifically to grant aid to various European companies - with the aim of carrying out the reorganisation of those companies which would allow, on the one hand, their possible privatisation but, in any case, to put a definitive end to the State subsidies and aid which, to a certain extent, distorted the single market and free competition between the different operators in the deregulated air market.
This aid was given on the condition that the companies were managed commercially - and therefore that the administrations and authorities of those countries would not be involved - that a suitable process of reorganisation would be carried out and that, finally, we would have viable companies which could develop without the need for new public aid.
<P>
The reality is that - according to the information provided by the Greek authorities themselves - there has been an excessive involvement of the Greek administration in the management of the company, and the commitments of 1998 should have put an end, once and for all, to this situation.
<P>
The granting of aid other than that authorised, which has happened over recent years, has been aimed, above all, at the funding of the social element of the reorganisation plan, and specifically supplementary compensation for employees made redundant.
Therefore, there was a reduction in the aid authorised in 1998, in such a way that the total allocation did not increase.
It is considered that this aid for social purposes should be deducted from the total amount which was granted to Olympic Airways.
<P>
And lastly, I have to say that the financial results of the company in 1998 are disappointing.
They have led to the current Greek authorities taking a very important decision, specifically the appointment of a new board of directors, turning to experts from other companies - that is, Speedway, a subsidiary of British Airways - which must update the company' s recovery plan and which, I am sure, will be able to offer us over the next month, sufficient information and the necessary guarantees so that, once and for all, we can authorise the last batch of aid to Olympic Airways and ensure that it takes off correctly and takes to the air without any great problems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs De Palacio.
<P>
Given the total lack of time, we are obliged to move on to the questions to Commissioner Verheugen.
Therefore, Questions No 52 to 55 will be replied to in writing in the shortest time possible.
I ask for the Members' forgiveness.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=237 NAME="Jan Andersson">
Question No 56 by (H-0625/99):
<P>
Subject: Commission's efforts to further the applicant countries' preparations in the enlargement process The association of the Central and Eastern European countries with the EU and, thereby, their association with the internal market will entail competitive pressure precipitating structural changes in those countries.
To achieve political and economic stability, enhance social welfare for the citizens of the applicant countries and prevent the risk of social dumping in the present Member States, the applicant countries will need to modernise their social security systems if enlargement is to be successful.
The Union=s initiatives in this respect will in turn have a bearing on the applicant countries= ability to modernise and on our common interest in achieving an effective enlargement as quickly as possible.
<P>
Can the Commission provide a progress report on the applicant countries= preparations for modernising their social security systems and can it also report on present and planned measures to further the applicant countries= efforts in this respect?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, the Commission is clear about the importance of the reform of social security systems in the applicant countries in the context of their accession to the EU.
With the exception of the rights of itinerant workers and the coordination of regulations concerning them, the acquis communautaire relating to social security is not very extensive.
As the Commission' s Communication of 14 July 1999 on the modernisation of social security systems shows, efforts are being made to further develop the acquis communautaire.
The applicant countries must be incorporated into this process.
<P>
In its annual reports, which were presented to the Council and Parliament on 13 October, the Commission draws up a balance in this regard for the situation in the applicant countries.
The Commission establishes that although modernisation in the social sector and in health is generally only progressing slowly, efforts are being made to achieve strong social security nets.
<P>
Changes have recently been made in the social security systems and health insurance systems in Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Bulgaria and Poland.
These are considerable, but they are still not enough.
This leads the Commission to continue to implement the reform programmes for the social security systems in the applicant countries.
These programmes are known as Consensus 1 and Consensus 2.
They are to be continued in addition to the technical aid which most of these countries have already received in the form of national PHARE appropriations.
<P>
From the year 2000 the reform and modernisation of the social security systems in the applicant countries might also be supported with the Consensus 3 programme.
As of this year, i.e. 1999, this sector will be given EUR 18.6 million in support.
These funds are for institutional improvements in the social sector in the accession countries, the policy of partnerships playing an important role.
<P>
Within the framework of accession partnerships the strengthening of administrative structures for coordinating social security in the States of Romania, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Cyprus, Slovakia, Malta, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovenia has been given medium-term priority.
The European Commission has also repeatedly pointed out to the applicant countries the useful role which social partners could play in the accession process and has also reminded them that greater consideration for social problems means that it is necessary to develop social dialogue in the applicant countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Andersson">
I share the Commissioner' s view that these questions are important, that a lot remains to be done and that we ourselves must also modernise our social security systems and link the questions concerning enlargement of the Union to this process.
<P>
I have a follow-up question which can partly be linked to what the Commissioner said just now in his answer and which concerns the role of the social partners in the labour market in, among other things, preventing social dumping.
The question is this: is it true that the Commission is demanding of the applicant countries that they should establish some form of social dialogue, for example through the three-party cooperation which we have in the present Member States?
Are demands of this kind now being made of the applicant countries as part of the accession process?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
The term "promote" is probably not appropriate in this context.
We are negotiating here with sovereign states.
The ways and means with which we interact with our partners are not such that I would like to use the term "promote" , particularly concerning something for which there is no acquis.
We can of course expect, as it is the basis for association, that the accession candidates take on everything which is legally regulated in the European Union.
However, what goes on in terms of social interaction is not legally regulated.
In this case, political dialogue, which is also a part of the accession strategy, repeatedly makes reference to the need for intensive social dialogue.
We have done this in the past and we will continue to do it in the future, in which regard I would also like to point out to you that in this matter the situation is very different, that is in no way do the majority of the accession candidates fall short of the standard of the Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=242 NAME="Jonas Sjöstedt">
Question No 57 by (H-0627/99):
<P>
Subject: Enlargement of the EU and the Schengen Agreement The applicant countries must adopt EU rules on visa requirements and border controls on accession to the EU, which will entail considerable changes for several of those countries, in particular the possibility of requiring visas and stricter border controls in regard to neighbouring countries.
Has any analysis been made of the changes this will require of those applicant countries which have embarked on negotiations?
Is there a list of the neighbouring countries for whose citizens the current applicant countries will have to introduce a visa requirement?
Have any exemptions/transitional arrangements been discussed to facilitate the changes?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
In connection with the opening of the accession negotiations on 31 March 1998, the Commission, in tandem with the applicant countries concerned, carried out an analytical evaluation of the EU' s acquis communautaire.
The controls on external borders and the visa policy of the EU were treated within the framework of Chapter 24 of the accession negotiations concerning cooperation in the sectors of justice and internal affairs.
The evaluation showed that further progress is to harmonise the acquis communautaire.
An additional need for reform was also established in the course of the expert missions organised by the Commission, in which representatives of the administrative and justice authorities took part.
<P>
The applicant countries are obliged to take on and apply the acquis communautaire of the EU at the time of accession.
This also therefore applies to the visa list applicable at the time of accession, which the Council establishes after consultation with the European Parliament.
Concerning the issue of transitional regulations which might be applied for by the applicant countries within the framework of this Chapter of the accession negotiations, the basic negotiating stance of the European Union is that such measures are only possible in exceptional cases and only for a limited period and scope.
The transitional regulations must not entail any amendments to the provisions and policies of the Union, must not hinder their trouble-free implementation and must not have any significant impacts on competition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
Thank you for your detailed answer.
This is, in fact, quite a difficult and sensitive question which may also create a number of problems for those applicant countries which are compelled to introduce a more restrictive policy towards neighbouring countries which they would really like to be more open towards.
<P>
My follow-up question concerns whether, in the present situation, any of the applicant countries has requested exemption from the list of countries in connection with which visas are required, whether the matter has in any particular case been very specifically discussed.
I should also like to hear whether you consider it likely that it will be possible to remove internal border controls with the new Member States from the first day of their membership.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
But of course.
That is the whole point, but under certain preconditions.
Firstly, with regard to the visa obligation we do not want to allow any exceptions.
The Council regulation is clear on this.
If we make exceptions here, then we are giving up the basic principle of a uniform area of freedom, security and justice.
I must point out at this juncture, as you have rightly said, that the subject is highly sensitive.
The sensitivity is not just in the fact that it is difficult for the candidates to implement this.
The greatest sensitivity is in the fact that I know a number of Member States which will not accept enlargement unless there is total clarity in this matter.
We need not just the agreement of the candidate countries, but also of the Member States, and for most Member States this is a crucial point on which no compromise is possible.
<P>
With regard to controls on external borders, the applicant countries expect that on accession they will take on and apply the acquis communautaire of the EU, as I have said.
The controls on internal borders will only be abolished if the EU confirms that the applicant country can fully guarantee effective implementation of the acquis communautaire of the EU in this matter.
However, your question was whether internal controls will disappear?
The answer is a definite yes.
That is what it is all about!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=247 NAME="Bernd Posselt">
Question No 58 by (H-0638/99):
<P>
Subject: Alignment of laws in the Czech Republic Is the Commission aware of a study concerning the slow pace at which the transposition and alignment of laws is proceeding in the Czech Republic, drawn up and addressed to it by four Czech opposition parties? If so, what conclusions does it draw from that study?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=248 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mr Posselt, the Commission is aware of the study submitted by four Czech opposition parties on the alignment of laws in the Czech Republic.
However, I must point out that this study was first presented to the press and to the Czech public before a copy was given to the EU delegation in Prague.
I myself did not receive a copy, not even when I met the previous week in Prague with representatives of the parties which produced the study. Unfortunately, therefore, I cannot personally speak about the contents of this study.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I find that very interesting.
I was told that this study had been sent to you personally.
But irrespective of that I would like to say that I support these four opposition parties and also many social democrats who fully advocate European integration.
I also regret the resignation of Mr Lansky, who worked hard in this matter, but I do see the danger of a debate arising in the Czech Republic and I would like to mention this to you.
It has been said by another party which previously governed, a large opposition party, that there could be membership à la carte; there is talk of a status being accorded which is akin to that of Turkey, of a political discount, and I would like to ask you whether you consider such thinking plausible or whether you presuppose full implementation of the acquis communautaire.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
<SPEAKER ID=251 NAME="President">
Questions Nos 59 to 115 will be replied to in writing.
<P>
Mr Posselt has the floor for a procedural motion.
I would ask you to be concise and that another additional dialogue results from it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I would just like to say on a personal note that it was the furthest thing from my mind to suggest that the Commissioner had not received the paper and had lied, although it was stated publicly in the Czech Republic that this study had been sent to you and that you had not yet responded.
This was the reason for my question and I thank you for clearing up the matter.
I did not mean to suggest anything.
There must be reasons why you did not receive it, but I never suggested that you had lied!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 NAME="President">
We thank Mr Posselt for this clarification, which I hope the Commissioner has listened to very attentively.
<P>
That concludes Questions to the Commission.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 7.35 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=0>
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, some Members of the House did not hear me yesterday speaking about the terrible floods which occurred in the departments of south-west France.
I did actually do this, I said how affected we were by this tragedy and I added that, of course, we are going to ask the Commission to take appropriate action, both to provide assistance for the victims of these disasters and also to add to the arrangements set in place by the government concerned.
I did, in fact, also mention the terrible earthquake in Turkey.
I wished, then, to reiterate this message in your presence.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
Mr Barón Crespo wishes to make a comment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Barón Crespo">
I was welcoming Mr Solana.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President">
Yes, of course, we shall be welcoming him to the House presently.
<P>
You see, Mr Solana, what a welcome!
<P>
Are there any comments relating to the Minutes?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Nogueira Román">
Madam President, in the vote on amendment 7 of Mr Smet' s report, it is recorded that I voted against. This is an error and my vote should be recorded as being in favour.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
Very well, Mr Nogueira Román, we shall make that correction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Korakas">
The three Members of the Greek Communist Party will be leaving the Chamber in protest at the presence today of Mr Solana who, as Secretary-General of NATO, is one of those chiefly responsible for the crimes committed against Yugoslavia, and because of the fact that he has been appointed "Mr CFSP" .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
Mr Korakas, your comment has nothing to do with the Minutes.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Madam President, I am taking the floor in order to welcome Mr Solana, of course, but also to ask about the deadline for the submission of amendments with regard to the OLAF report which is on today' s agenda.
As non-attached Members, we find it particularly difficult to collect the requisite signatures, as you know.
We would therefore like to know when the deadline is for the submission of amendments to the Napolitano report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
For the moment we are waiting for confirmation that the report actually exists in all the language versions.
The deadline for amendments will be set as soon as we have this confirmation, and are thus in a position to debate the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
A period of 24 hours, as stipulated in the Rules of Procedure?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
Yes, of course.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Statement by Mr Solana
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
The next item is the statement by Mr Solana on the development of the Common Foreign and Security Policy.
<P>
We are particularly delighted, Mr Solana, to welcome you to this Chamber for the first time.
<P>
<P>
We are extremely keen to establish a relationship of very close cooperation with you and it is with great pleasure that I now give you the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Solana">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is a great pleasure and a great honour for me to appear before this plenary session of Parliament in my new capacity as Secretary-General of the Council and High Representative of the Union for Common Foreign and Security Policy.
This is not the first time that I have appeared before you - I have done so on numerous occasions in previous roles - but it is the first time that I have done so in my new capacity.
I recently had the opportunity to appear before the Committee on Foreign Affairs of this Parliament to deal with certain priority issues.
<P>
Madam President, I recognise that this new post will no doubt require me to deal with issues of interest and relevance, not only to certain Committees but also to the plenary of Parliament.
I therefore attach special importance to this opportunity to address you as a Parliament.
I am resolved and committed to working closely with all of you and to keeping you informed of any political issue which may be of interest to you.
I would therefore like to express here once again, Madam President, my firm intention to appear before this House whenever it becomes necessary.
<P>
My mandate as High Representative mainly consists of cooperating with the Member States and the Presidency and helping them to develop a common foreign and security policy.
This will be my main priority.
I will try - I hope - to cooperate closely with the Commission in particular, with President Prodi and with Chris Patten, who is also here with us this morning.
The three of us have committed ourselves to working together and to doing so effectively.
I have the support of the Member States and I hope that I will also gain your support.
<P>
The citizens expect us to respond efficiently and quickly in the event of crises and rightly expect their concerns to be taken into account.
You have a fundamental role to play in reflecting those points of view and contributing to the creation of a common foreign and security policy which is more efficient, cohesive and closer to the citizen' s concerns and which reflects the values and principles which have forged our identity as Europeans.
<P>
Madam President, this morning I would like to focus on two main questions.
Firstly, I would like to bring Parliament up to date on some of the main issues which I have been concentrating on since I assumed my new role almost a month ago.
Secondly, I would like to share one of my main priorities with you: the creation of a policy in the field of security and defence.
I will briefly evaluate the progress made in recent days and I will review our perspectives for the future.
<P>
One of my first commitments after taking office was to attend the summit held in Russia on 22 October.
I have had the opportunity to inform the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the most important points which were dealt with there, especially Chechnya, which I am sure is a source of concern for the majority of you.
<P>
As you know, last Monday, two days ago, the Council condemned the disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force in Chechnya, which has caused great suffering within the civilian population and which has unfortunately forced many tens of thousands of people to disperse towards other parts of the country.
The Council has asked the Russian Government to honour its obligations, laid down in international humanitarian law, to prevent civilian casualties and keep the border between Chechnya and Ingushetia open.
We must continue to apply the greatest possible political pressure on the Russian authorities.
They must seek a negotiated solution, a negotiated agreement through dialogue, since there is clearly no military solution to the crisis in Chechnya.
The only solution must be of a political nature.
<P>
I have communicated all these concerns - which I am sure you share - to Prime Minister Putin on the two or three occasions when I have been able to speak to him, and to Mr Ivanov, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the last time being on Sunday night.
<P>
Madam President, the other region which I consider to be of special importance is south-east Europe.
On 28 and 29 October I travelled to Kosovo with Commissioner Patten, which gave us the opportunity to meet with all the political leaders of both communities as well as with the representatives of the United Nations mission in Kosovo and also KFOR, the international security force in Kosovo.
We stressed the Union' s commitment to the reconstruction of Kosovo and to the creation of a democratic and multi-ethnic Kosovo.
We urged the local political leaders to support this process by showing firm leadership and we highlighted the importance of all the moderate leaders expressing themselves clearly and assuming their responsibilities so that there might be a chance of the reconciliation process succeeding.
<P>
As you know, yesterday the Council received the mandate of the Member States to evaluate the situation of the democratic opposition in Serbia and, as from tomorrow, by means of the OSCE Summit in Istanbul, I will begin to work to this end, holding any meetings that are necessary.
<P>
With regard to the Balkans, I will naturally pay special attention to the elements which make up the Stability Pact.
We are working together with President Prodi, Commissioner Patten and Bodo Hombach to improve the coherence and efficiency of our activities in the region.
In the coming sessions we will have the opportunity to develop these points more thoroughly.
<P>
Madam President, I would also like to mention another of the Union' s priorities: the Middle East peace process.
At the beginning of November I attended the ceremony in Oslo to commemorate the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin and I had the opportunity to talk to Prime Minister Barak and President Arafat.
There is currently a clear commitment on both sides to negotiate seriously with a view to the global agreement which should be reached soon, with a deadline in February.
I made it very clear that the Union is prepared, obviously, to offer any necessary aid and technical expertise so that this objective may be reached.
In any event, I asked the Union' s special envoy, Mr Miguel Angel Moratinos, to maintain and continue the close contacts with the negotiating teams and inform us of any progress in the talks.
In addition, tomorrow, I will once again be speaking with Prime Minister Barak at the OSCE Summit.
<P>
Madam President, since I took up this post I have also participated with the Presidency of the Council and Commissioner Patten in various meetings of the troika.
I would like to highlight the meeting which took place in Algiers a few weeks ago, the first for several years.
We had the opportunity to evaluate the situation of the bilateral talks and we agreed to move ahead with the negotiations on the association agreement.
<P>
Our request, with regard to human rights issues, received a response which I would be prepared to describe as encouraging, with the confirmation that invitations have been sent to non-governmental organisations, which are active in the field of human rights, to visit Algeria.
A call was also made to take advantage of the current situation to significantly improve relations between all the Magreb countries.
<P>
Furthermore, as you know, Algeria occupies an important position at the moment.
Currently, it has the Presidency of the OAU.
It will therefore have a decisive role to play in the preparation of the summit between the European Union and Africa which will take place next April in Egypt.
In my opinion, this meeting is of great importance since it will provide an invaluable opportunity to strengthen relations between Europe and Africa.
At the moment Africa is supposedly the forgotten continent and Europe cannot pretend it does not exist.
<P>
Madam President, I will end by telling you very briefly that I have had many other fruitful meetings over the last four weeks: with the President of Colombia, who was also received in this Parliament in plenary session, with the President of Latvia, with the Foreign Affairs Minister of Cyprus, to try to see how we can generate impetus for the meetings which are certain to start on 3 December in New York.
This afternoon I will travel to Istanbul to attend the summit of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
<P>
Earlier I referred to the question of Chechnya, which will unfortunately dominate the summit which begins tomorrow.
I am sure that we will continue to put pressure on the Russian Authorities to reduce the intensity of the conflict and to make an effort to reach a peaceful solution.
We will also do everything possible to persuade them to fulfil all their obligations laid down in both the OSCE Treaty and the current Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, the readaptation of which will probably be approved at the Istanbul Summit.
<P>
The adoption of the charter on security in Europe, if it is signed over the next few days, will no doubt reinforce the authority of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe and will make a valuable contribution to the development of a Union security policy.
<P>
Madam President, there are many other issues which I would like to discuss with you, but please allow me, for the sake of brevity, to deal with the matter of security and defence.
<P>
Madam President, I am prepared to describe the General Affairs Council which took place on Monday as historic.
For the first time, the General Affairs Council met with the additional participation of the Union' s Defence Ministers and held a debate - an important one in my opinion - on the creation of a European policy in the field of security and defence.
Its purpose was to prepare the conclusions to be adopted in this respect at the European Council in Helsinki, under the Finnish Presidency.
<P>
It has been clear for some time that, if Europe wants to occupy its rightful place on the world scene, it must have a European security and defence policy, as well as a Common Foreign and Security Policy.
The crisis in Bosnia, in the first place, and the crisis in Kosovo, have illustrated the fact that we need more than mere declarations of intention.
We need to be in a position to act.
And this means, undoubtedly, having the military capability to do so.
In my judgement, one of the decisive tasks of the Helsinki Summit will be to decide what these capabilities will be, how they must be achieved and how the Union will decide to use them.
<P>
Much progress has been made in the preparatory work, in Berlin, in Saint Malo, in Washington and in Cologne.
Important steps have, without doubt, been taken at these stages.
Cologne was not an arrival point but rather a departure point and I am sure that Helsinki will be a new, very important, stage in this process.
<P>
We have been moving progressively closer to a goal which I consider to be of transcendental importance.
Over time the debate on defence has been becoming less abstract and more specific, more concrete.
We are quickly reaching the point when we will take a decisive step forward and make our commitments a reality.
<P>
On Monday, at the General Affairs Council, the Ministers made it very clear that they had the political will to decide in Helsinki what Europe' s collective military capability should be for the purposes of the Petersberg Tasks.
Judging by the debate, I am confident that a specific, clear and concrete objective will be set at the European Council.
This will, in all probability, be a challenge which will demand that the Member States carefully consider the priorities and perhaps take some difficult decisions or, at least, decisions that will not be easy, on the allocation of resources.
It will surely be necessary to reassess certain priorities, the common provision of resources and the multinational distribution of tasks.
<P>
I believe, Madam President, that the debate on Monday also demonstrated that the Ministers wish the Union to have the appropriate means to assess crises and also to have clear and appropriate procedures for decision making in the event that it is necessary to take action.
In my opinion, this is an essential element.
<P>
We also need to take into account the contributions and interests of those allied countries which are not Members of the Union.
This means that we will have to reach agreements which will allow them to express their point of view when we assess a crisis situation and we will have to put in place suitable mechanisms which will also allow them to fully participate in operational decisions if we invite them to work with us.
<P>
Madam President, all these measures must also be taken - and I must stress this - for reasons of credibility.
Firstly, credibility in the eyes of our own citizens.
We will not be credible if we limit ourselves simply to improving institutional and bureaucratic mechanisms.
If we want our citizens and public opinion to support a European security policy, they must be convinced of our will and our ability to equip ourselves with the appropriate means.
<P>
Secondly we must be credible in the eyes of our transatlantic partners and NATO allies who are not Members of the Union.
If we want them to take us seriously, we must demonstrate credibility.
This means strengthening our military capabilities.
If we are serious and we act seriously, our allies will also be more prepared to lend us their resources.
<P>
Thirdly, we must also be credible at an international level.
We must show our capacity to respond in crises, which perhaps do not threaten our survival, but which do threaten something as crucial as our moral standing, our moral stature as Europeans.
<P>
I believe that the defence of our values, our way of life, our freedoms and our well-being will be achieved much more efficiently in a joint fashion rather than individually by each of our countries.
<P>
And finally, credibility also in our own eyes.
We will not be able to attain this objective if we ourselves are not committed in a clear, energetic and decisive way to this end.
<P>
However, I would like to stress that security does not just involve the military elements.
This is obvious.
The European Council in Cologne called on the Council to examine all the aspects of security, with a view to strengthening and coordinating all the non-military instruments for responding to crisis situations.
To this end, the Finnish Presidency has carried out an extraordinary piece of work, which will be reflected in a report to the European Council in Helsinki on the non-military instruments for the management of crises.
I consider it very important to continue this work.
We must create mechanisms which will cover the whole range, the whole spectrum of crisis management instruments, from those which are strictly humanitarian and civil to the other extreme, which relate more closely to military aspects.
<P>
Within this spectrum, we must make an effort to strengthen those instruments relating to the protection of citizens and compliance with the law, that is to say, the police instruments, the overwhelming need for which has been illustrated by recent crises.
You will remember that, both in Bosnia and now in Kosovo, the problem of an international police force is still great and remains unresolved.
And I know that this Parliament is particularly sensitive to this issue.
<P>
I am coming to the end.
If we adopt these measures and adequately resolve these problems, I am convinced that we will make a significant contribution to the development of our Europe, to the development of our continent.
We will be able, without doubt, to strengthen our security and guarantee greater cooperation from our partners and allies.
<P>
Madam President, I would like to end by repeating my deep-seated intention to work closely with this Parliament in all these areas.
My main task in taking up this post is to contribute to the creation of a Common Foreign and Security Policy which is more efficient, more coherent and more active.
This is the only way that we can guarantee that our Union has the influence which it deserves in any part of the world.
It is the only way we can defend our values and our common interests.
However, this will only be achieved through close cooperation amongst all the institutions.
The support of this Parliament will be essential.
Madam President, I trust that my presence here this morning is only the beginning of an effective and constructive dialogue, the results of which will benefit citizens more and more, both in the Union and in the rest of the world.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for your attention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Solana, High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy.
Thank you, once more, for attending the House in this capacity - since you have already attended in the past in another role - and thank you, too, for your contribution and for the desire which you have expressed and demonstrated, Mr Solana, for very close cooperation with this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Patten">
I am extremely pleased to be taking part for the first time in a debate in the European Parliament with the High Representative.
We are all extremely fortunate that he is the man charged with the key responsibility for developing a more effective and coherent European security and defence policy.
<P>
He has, as the House will know, a huge and wholly deserved international reputation for standing up for the values which have been responsible for the best of European history in this century and whose absence has been responsible for the worst of our history as well.
<P>
The High Representative and I have spent a good deal of our first weeks in our respective jobs considering together the terrestrial problems 30,000 feet below our aircraft seats - so much travel.
It reminds me that Lord Grey, the British Foreign Secretary for ten years at the beginning of the century, only ever went abroad once.
If my history does not let me down, that visit was shortly followed by the outbreak of the first world war.
I suppose Lord Grey was regarded as well-travelled.
Perhaps with all the travelling we do these days we are better informed than he was, but perhaps we are not.
<P>
I do not wish to repeat all the points which have been so well made by the High Representative, but since you have invited me to take part in this debate, something which I greatly welcome, I should like to say a few words about the Commission' s view of the building of a European security and defence policy.
<P>
Security and defence, which are at the heart of the Common Foreign and Security Policy, are also properly and inevitably close to the hearts of Member States.
As was clearly apparent at the historic meeting - it is the High Representative' s adjective and the correct one - at the beginning of this week of the General Affairs Council attended by defence ministers, Member States believe that enhanced cooperation in the security and defence area in the European Union will bring two major benefits.
First, it will enable everyone to make better use of their resources and, secondly, it will mean that everyone packs a bigger punch precisely because Member States are working more closely together.
<P>
These benefits are needed more than ever in the security field because more is expected of Europe today.
More is expected of us by the rest of the world because of our economic success and because of our success too in building peaceful and stable democracies.
More is expected of us, in my judgement, by our own citizens, who do not think of Europe just in terms of balance sheets and GDP figures.
How could they possibly do so given the tumultuous political events of the last few years - tumultuous events ever since an American political scientist told us that history had ended.
<P>
The European Union has to rise to the level of events.
It is as simple as that and as difficult as that.
The Amsterdam Treaty and the Cologne Declaration represent a formidable challenge.
But we, in the Commission, want to play our part in helping to meet it.
Of course we have no military role.
The sight, on Monday evening, of so many military uniforms in the margins of the General Affairs Council came as an interesting cultural development.
But what we do have in the Commission is the means and the experience to make an important contribution to the non-military dimension of security.
The so-called Petersberg Tasks suggest a comprehensive package of crisis-management measures where Community instruments can interact with traditional diplomacy and, if necessary, the use of military force.
<P>
Here we come to a crucial point.
Sometimes the military dimension is essential and decisive.
But the non-military dimension can also be crucial.
After all, the nature of conflict has changed so radically during this bloody century.
Eighty-five percent of the victims of the first world war were soldiers.
Only 15% were civilians.
The situation in conflicts today is almost the opposite.
It is equally the case that with the increasing sophistication and interdependence of our societies, economic measures, the free flow of information and so on have become ever more important in conflict and its prevention.
So the European Union has to envisage action right across the whole range of instruments at its disposal, both military and non-military.
<P>
If you want to know just what we can contribute as a Community, look at the multitude of our operations in the Balkans.
We are involved in obvious areas like humanitarian assistance, rehabilitation and reconstruction.
But the measures we can take with the aim of preventing conflict and human suffering include many other things as well, like law enforcement, institution-building and trade policy.
Those are the sort of things we are supporting in Kosovo, to which we will be pledging at the donors conference in Brussels today another contribution of EUR 500 million from the Community.
<P>
So what I want to make clear is that you do not have to strain or stretch your imagination, let alone strain or stretch the Treaties which determine our activities, to see the absolutely clear roles that can be played by the Commission and by Parliament.
It is not just in south-east Europe that we have seen the need for coordinated military and civil crisis management both at Union level and between Member States.
We can also see that in East Timor.
We have to improve our ability as a Union and as Member States to manage crises and to contribute to those international organisations which are also active in this, alas, all too necessary area.
<P>
The Helsinki European Council will discuss an integrated approach to conflict management and we are, as a Commission, making a full contribution to that discussion.
Let me make a point that some may regard as rather prosaic.
In conflict prevention and crisis management, time is of the essence.
The new Commission has begun work to try to improve the effectiveness and speed of response of the instruments that we have in crisis situations.
That is something which Parliament has frequently requested us to do, and absolutely rightly.
It is a big job.
In many respects, any progress we make in this area would represent by far the biggest contribution that I could make to our rather more heroic objectives.
<P>
I hope that we can count on the continued support of Parliament in developing more flexible and more rapid procedures, and as the High Representative I am sure would readily agree, I lose no opportunity to make the same point to the Council.
<P>
The Commission' s role in crisis management is clear, but our role goes beyond crisis management.
A European security and defence policy cannot be developed in the absence of a competitive and open European defence industrial and technological base.
This is also in the interests of the European Union' s partners.
We in the Commission can contribute to this with a range of instruments in areas such as public procurement, the internal market, research and competition.
<P>
I want to make one final point.
Sometimes people talk about the potential institutional conflicts in the foreign and security tasks which lie ahead.
I hope they will not take exception to these remarks but I think that the issues they are talking about are too important to allow them to get mangled by diplomatic lawyers.
Plainly, we have to build on the institutional framework of the Union.
Plainly, military and non-military matters cannot be neatly compartmentalised.
Plainly, the Commission must play its full part in crisis management even when there is a military component, because there will also be a non-military component.
Plainly, the new structures must enable the Commission to exercise its full right of initiative.
Plainly, the Commission is not a college of amateur chiefs of staff and plainly, we want to work successfully with the High Representative and with Parliament to ensure that Europe has the security and defence policy that it needs and that its citizens want.
And if there is another plainly left in the dictionary, it is this: so long as I have my present responsibilities, no cigarette paper, or perhaps after David Byrne' s announcement on tobacco yesterday I should say no piece of tissue paper, is going to separate the Commissioner for External Relations from the High Representative.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Poettering">
Madam President, this is the first time that the Secretary-General and High Representative, who is also to be the Secretary-General of the West European Union, has been here with us in the Parliament.
You bring with you, Mr Solana, exceptional credentials for these duties.
You have been President-in-Office of the Council and Secretary-General of NATO.
Our Group wishes you every success, both personally and in your work; if you are successful, it means success for us all and success for Europe.
The European Christian Democrats and Conservatives wish you a warm welcome to your new duties.
<P>
You said that if ever it was necessary you would attend Parliament.
I am sure that by this you also mean the relevant committees, to wit the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy.
We would be highly delighted if there could be a form of cooperation with you which, although institutionally different, is on the same basis as that with the Commission, which has stated that it will attend Parliament and the committees whenever it is asked to by the Parliament.
If you consider this to be necessary, then I believe we shall make good progress together.
<P>
I would like to say a word of thank you to the other Group chairpersons who agreed last Thursday that the European Commission, represented here by Chris Patten, should be allowed to speak today.
Under Article 18 of the EU Treaty, the European Commission must participate fully in the Common Foreign and Security Policy and for this reason our Group will always defend the interests of the Commission, which are also the interests of the European Union, and will always require that you work together prominently in the interest of Europe, as I think is wonderfully ensured by both individuals in question.
There is no place for competition and mutual ambition; rather, we must work towards the common goal of a strong and competent Europe.
<P>
With you as the Secretary-General of the West European Union and the West European Union integrated into the European Union, parliamentary supervision naturally takes on a new duty and, together with the national parliaments, which will retain a supervisory function, it is the European Parliament which must carry out this supervisory function.
We therefore believe that the Assembly of the West European Union, which has played an important role in the past, must transfer these duties to the directly elected European Parliament.
<P>
You mentioned some of the areas in which the European Union must operate, including Russia.
The security of our continent will depend on how things unfold in Russia.
We want a competent, democratic Russia, but we also believe that what is happening today in Chechnya is a disgrace for Russia and a disgrace for Europe.
By its actions in Chechnya, in Grozny and other towns, and in the countryside of Chechnya, Russia is distancing itself from the values of Europe and I would urge you, Mr Solana, and Chris Patten, to make your voice heard today, tomorrow and in the coming days at the OSCE meeting in Istanbul.
We must not remain silent!
Anyone who keeps silent now and fails to make his voice heard is answerable to men, to the Muslims of Chechnya.
<P>
(Applause)Allow me to make a final comment on security and defence policy.
We wish to have a European defence identity, but this must not mean that we uncouple ourselves from the USA.
Rather, we must understand it as a distribution of duties and not as duplicity.
We must ourselves be competent and, therefore, create the necessary preconditions in terms of transport, communication, news-gathering and modern satellites.
We cannot simply leave everything to the Americans.
It is also a matter of technology, as Chris Patten rightly said.
This must not take place in opposition to America, but additionally.
I think that if, as Europeans, we do our duty in this matter, we will generally strengthen the North Atlantic alliance and if, as Mr Solana and Mr Patten have said, we carry out these duties and you, Mr Solana, as the Commission does, undertake to seek dialogue with us whenever we consider it necessary, then my group will support you.
In this regard I wish you every success in your work.
<P>
(Applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Madam President, Secretary of the Council and High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Commissioner, firstly I would like to welcome the appearance of Mr Solana, in his three-fold capacity as Secretary-General of the Council, High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy and Secretary-General of the WEU, currently in pectore.
I imagine that in terms of the Community budget, they will be three jobs for one salary.
I wish you luck.
<P>
I am not going to sing the praises of Javier Solana.
We have shared a great friendship and many years of struggle, first for the freedom of my country and then for our integration into Europe.
And I expect that the defence of democratic values which he displayed in earlier incarnations will accompany him and inspire him in his new task.
<P>
For the first time the Council has a human face - and I hope this is permanent - and I am sure that Mr Solana will be able to confront this challenge, which I believe is important not only for the Council, but also for the development of the European Union as a whole.
<P>
Since much has been said about his duty as High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, I would like to mention an aspect which I consider to be important: our Common Foreign and Security Policy will be, fundamentally, a reflection and extension of our internal strength.
Our ability to create a Common Foreign and Security Policy, and also a defence policy, will depend on how united we are on the consolidation of our strength.
This means that Mr Solana will not only have to deal with the more immediate question of crisis prevention, but also - and he has some experience in this - that of our role in the world, that is to say, the United Nations, the Millennium Round and the future of the IMF and the FAO; it is also important in the sense that Europeans, in constructing Europe, are also doing something important for the future and stability of humanity.
I believe that this consideration must inspire his activities and, at the same time, as Secretary of the Council, I hope it will allow him to help in the task of reforming and giving coherence to that institution which, at the moment, is perhaps the institution which most requires the impetus of rationalisation.
<P>
Mr Solana has spoken at length on the security and defence question.
I believe that he is the person who has shown himself, in this historic process, to be the most capable of seeing through the complex evolution which involves the development of a European identity in terms of defence, in which NATO itself and our North American partners are coming to accept the need for a strong European pillar, not only in the field of defence, but also in terms of the industrial dimension which must support it and also in the role of stabilising and consolidating democracy in Europe and the Mediterranean.
To this end, I believe that he will have a decisive role to play at the upcoming OSCE meeting as regards the crisis in Chechnya.
<P>
My colleagues will comment on these issues later.
I would like to conclude my remarks by speaking of the need for close cooperation with the Commission - and I am not asking Mr Patten to stand shoulder to shoulder with Mr Solana.
We simply need them to understand each other perfectly.
And with regard to the role of this Parliament, I believe that in recent years we have shown our capacity to help and collaborate and I understand that, from the point of view of the form that the dimension and development of the Union' s defence and security policy can and must take, we can play an important role in relation to the rest of the world. I believe that, on this occasion, we must offer our cooperation and show the most positive of attitudes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Cox">
Madam President, I believe, as the other speakers have said, that this is a significant formal occasion today, because we have for the first time in plenary the High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy.
It has been said that he has three jobs but only one salary.
But an even greater marvel is that he has three such great, large, heavy hats and only one head to wear them on.
High Representative, we wish you every success in this task.
<P>
As regards your role, we hope, above all, that you may contribute to closing the gap between the aspirations and reality of European foreign policy.
The challenge that you undertake is at the core of what we do.
To take an example, in 1992 we as a Union drew up the Petersberg Tasks which offered comprehensive non-military and military security options.
The aspirations set out in those Tasks were perhaps most rudely challenged by Kosovo where the gap between aspirations and reality was cruelly exposed by an absence of an appropriate operational substance.
The highest priority for you now is to begin to give operational content and meaning to both the non-military and military challenges of Petersberg, not least, given the several hats you wear, particularly the military ones.
<P>
My own group, the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, is strongly committed to the general concept of developing a capacity for autonomous European action which correctly has been identified as a rapid response capability with the necessary logistical support.
This will perhaps require some re-allocation of resources.
This issue of cost will have to become a parallel priority in our debates.
We are committed to a capability for autonomous EU action in my group.
We are somewhat sceptical about the degree to which this should be autonomous of transatlantic relations.
In so far as you have dealt with the issue in broad transatlantic terms, my group welcomes strongly that emphasis.
<P>
A second point I would like to raise is the question of the European Union and the coordination of our aid policies and our foreign policies.
I should like to say to both Mr Solana and Mr Patten that there is an enormous challenge to bring greater political coherence to this task.
The Union or its Member States account for half of all the world' s humanitarian aid and half of all international development aid.
The Union gives three-fifths of all aid to Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States.
But we have nothing like a proportionate say and influence in terms of foreign policy.
This is a core challenge that we look to you and to the Commission to resolve in terms of foreign policy.
<P>
If we develop this operational capacity through the Petersberg Tasks, if we develop more coherence in aid and foreign policy, how can we then adopt more coherent policies in international fora?
We have a great density of institutional relations - we have touched on some of them in the debate already.
In particular, I want to signal on behalf of my group an interest in the non-debate that waxes and wanes every so often about the reform of the UN Security Council.
Without prejudice to the arrangements in existing Member States, it is a question that we must look at in due course.
If we are really to have a non-military as well as military capacity, an effective voice at the Security Council table would be important especially in our outreach beyond Europe itself.
This is therefore something we would put down as a marker.
<P>
In his hearing before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, Mr Solana talked about having a less declaratory and more active foreign policy.
We agree whole-heartedly with that, and I would say one of the tests that we would have in the back of our minds as a group is this: in five years' time will we have exported stability to south-eastern Europe, or will we still be importing the consequences of instability?
This is for us a core challenge.
<P>
Today is the tenth anniversary of the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia as it then was.
I hope, Mr Solana, that you will use your role to give an added sense of political urgency to the task of enlargement, rather than to promote procrastination.
I hope that you will use your voice to teach the lessons to be learned from the former Yugoslavia.
It is an ambitious, difficult task.
We wish you well.
You will have the full support and goodwill of my group.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Hautala">
Madam President, Mr Solana, Commissioner, I believe the crisis in Kosovo showed, among other things, that international crisis management cannot be left to NATO alone in the world of the twenty-first century.
In fact, the leading role played by the United States is not as unproblematic as some might think.
It was found in Kosovo that military personnel can sometimes be wiser and more realistic than politicians, so we need not necessarily fear military personnel.
On behalf of the Greens/European Free Alliance Group, I would say that the majority of our Group seem to have come to accept that the European Union could develop common crisis management strategies but we want to impose clear conditions and frameworks for this.
<P>
Firstly, foreign policy must be consistent; its different aspects must form a coherent whole that leads us in the same, and not different, directions. Foreign policy must also be open.
Mr Solana, I have to mention that I have personally fought against the Security Council, of which you are leader, in court for more than two years, using non-military means, to obtain a certain document which concerns compliance on the part of Member States with criteria relating to the export of weapons.
I hope that you will increase transparency in the work of the Council in foreign policy also.
<P>
Another condition that is very important is that the management of civil crises must be improved markedly.
What you said is quite right: progress has been made in this area during the Finnish Presidency.
Keep the two operations together.
It is not necessarily a good thing to divide the tasks, with the High Representative taking responsibility for military crisis management and the member of the Commission for civil crisis management.
They have to be kept together.
<P>
Thirdly, we want to lay down the condition that each operation must be independent from the others, and decisions on it must be able to be taken separately.
The Member States must be able to decide, on a case-by-case basis, whether they should become involved in these operations.
The criteria must naturally be the same for all.
We cannot accept a situation where different criteria have been applied in Kosovo and in Chechnya, for example.
<P>
Finally, the main question here is how relations between the European Union and NATO will develop.
Eleven of the present Member States belong to NATO, but four do not.
We have to avoid a situation where the European Union is becoming an actual pillar of NATO in Europe.
It is important that NATO and the European Union remain, in reality, distinct from one another.
Such an asymmetric structure can help promote peace in the world.
It does not imply weakness; it may also be a resource.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wurtz">
Madam President, Mr Solana, I opposed the action of the Secretary-General of NATO.
I welcome Mr CFSP' s taking office.
<P>
In fulfilling your new role, you will find my group a demanding partner, extremely critical, if necessary, but deeply convinced that the European Union must be represented to a much greater extent, more active and more proactive, in the international arena.
Wherever you go in Africa, in the Mediterranean, in Latin America, in Asia, everywhere you can gauge the degree of expectation there is for a major ally, which is capable and resolved to assist them in extricating themselves from the demanding showdown against America which is arrogant and too powerful.
<P>
What splendid challenges you could devote yourself to accepting on behalf of the Fifteen: establishing yourself as a protagonist in your own right in the Near East in order to contribute towards establishing a just and lasting peace, as now seems possible; launching the Lomé negotiations once again on new bases, integrating the concerns of our 71 partners in the south, in order to safeguard the spirit of this Convention which is unique in the world; addressing international financial institutions with an alternative opinion, for example, in favour of cancelling the debt of those countries which are today arrested in their development because of this infernal mechanism; starting a real international crusade in favour of disarmament, particularly nuclear disarmament, at this time when there is great danger once again of proliferation; establishing yourself as the spokesperson, the standard-bearer for the enhancement of the United Nations' system again, ensuring that the UN Charter is respected, promoting a form of civilised international relations, forever doing away with war as the means of settling disputes, and, in the short term, if you please, putting an end to the intolerable inertia of the Union as regards the savage war in Chechnya by some means other than a few purely formal communiqués.
<P>
Finally, I invite you, High Representative, to make a courageous and critical assessment of the war in the Balkans.
In Kosovo, we face a serious policy failure, as one form of nationalism succeeds another, as one form of ethnic cleansing succeeds another, this time with the Union, the UN and NATO in attendance.
In the rest of Yugoslavia, an Iraq-style scenario is in progress.
The power, which is legitimately censured, is still firmly in place, while the population, which is unfairly penalised, is enduring a martyrdom which is morally unacceptable and politically dangerous.
As for the region, it is anything but stabilised.
These realities cannot fail to be of direct concern to you.
<P>
So, do not take as the only lesson to be drawn from this terrible experience the need to be able to line up more troops, to increase military expenditure and to advance at the double towards the Europe of Defence within, what is more, the framework of NATO.
<P>
I am not seeking to draw a veil over the military aspect of security, but the key factor, in my opinion, is that this strategy continues to be obsessed by military matters, at the expense of a major pan-European policy for the prevention of conflict capable of dealing with the tensions and splits of the post-Cold War period on this continent.
To give just one illustration of this imbalance: tomorrow, as you very briefly mentioned, fifty European Heads of State are to meet in Istanbul at the OSCE Summit dedicated to drawing up a security charter for the twenty-first century. But how many people know about this?
How many people are talking about this?
The Council representative did not even consider the request I made for a debate in the European Parliament prior to this conference to be appropriate.
Revitalising the OSCE, re-establishing it, making its debates open to the public of European society, that is one more grand design, which is, in my opinion, inseparable from the prospect of enlargement of the Union.
<P>
This is the constructive message that I wished to convey to you today on behalf of my group.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Mr Solana, you specifically referred to your recent meetings in Pristina as well as some suitable general points regarding the future Balkan Stability Pact and the future multi-ethnic and democratic Kosovo.
<P>
I should have liked to hear you give a more explicit account, Mr Solana, of the heart of this key matter, telling us how, within the CFSP, you intend to contribute to correcting, inasmuch as it is still possible, the most disastrous consequences for this continent of the actions which you at least paid for in Yugoslavia, if you did not order them, in your capacity as Secretary-General of NATO, and which we must confront today.
<P>
How specifically do you plan to contribute towards assisting the civilian population, in a European country whose infrastructure we have destroyed, in getting through the ordeal of a winter which promises to be dreadful for them?
How do you plan, if there were still time for this, to contribute towards curbing the total exodus of Serbs from Kosovo, or to promoting their return?
It would indeed be iniquitous to be turning the prayer wheels for a multi-ethnic Kosovo if we are in fact letting it become mono-ethnic.
How do you plan to contribute towards preventing the Federation of Yugoslavia being completely dismembered at a time when there is increasing pressure in favour of Kosovan independence following NATO' s intervention?
<P>
In brief, High Representative, how do you plan to ensure that the CFSP contributes towards a situation where the actual consequences of NATO intervention are not the exact opposite of the objectives assigned to it, to wit, a Yugoslavia which is dismembered and ruined, and which is still governed by Mr Milosevic, and a Kosovo which is extremist, mono-ethnic and independent?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Krarup">
The EU' s combined defence chief and foreign minister, Mr Solana, said very clearly and plainly that Monday' s meeting in Brussels was historic, for - as the representative said - the EU is taking up its rightful place on the world stage.
In other words, the EU is to be equipped with a military capacity and to become a superpower.
This is plain talking compared to what the press and what government offices are saying, especially in the non-aligned countries which are Members of the European Union.
But is it a military superpower that the peoples of Europe need?
Both Mr Solana and Mr Patten, and most of the speakers, have revealed a sort of surrealistic Dr Strangelove-style logic surrounding this whole problem area, a logic which goes like this: shoot first and ask questions later.
The trial run for the so-called peacemaking measures, which is of course one of those splendidly misleading euphemisms, may be seen in the Kosovo crisis and in the attack on Kosovo this spring.
This is assumed to have been a success which has shown that NATO has a role which the EU should now take over because we can do so more cheaply and more efficiently than the Americans whom, moreover, we are supposed to follow through thick and thin.
It was not a success.
It was a disaster in every way.
Several of the speakers, among them Mr Souchet, have touched on this point.
In fact, something like the opposite of what was intended has been achieved.
People have a distorted and hypocritical stance on the question of Kosovo' s constitutional status and status in international law, and the action in Kosovo shows first and foremost that the small nations have been made to join forces with the Allies.
Their influence has been confined to that of being able to confirm decisions already taken by the large countries.
It has been, in every respect, a total fiasco. In fact, it has been more than that: it has been a disaster.
It is high time that the European peace movements were revitalised as a counterweight to the foolish militarisation that has been taking place in recent years, for which there is not much support to be found in this Chamber.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="President">
Mr Alavanos, I shall give you a reply straight away.
As Mr Solana has just said, he must take his leave in order to attend the OSCE Summit.
I can, however, assure you that Mr Sasi will be present at the Question Time to the Council and I can guarantee that he is perfectly competent to do so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Gaulle">
Madam President, the new political-military apparatus which Mr Solana is hoping and praying for is nothing but a watered down version of the European Defence Community which France discarded in 1954 in a far more threatening international context.
<P>
Now that the Soviet Union has disappeared and danger, less clear-cut but just as formidable, today threatens from the south, the rivalries between the major Western powers have become more pronounced.
Germany, rather like France in the 1960s, hopes to find in political Europe not only the opportunity to regain lost credibility but also the opportunity to find veiled resources of power politics.
The real issue which is hidden behind the Europe of defence is actually access to nuclear weapons or, failing this, the removal in the long term of the French nuclear deterrent which, as everyone knows, exists when it is not shared.
Although the United States did not seek the French supremacy to which it adapted extremely well, as Dr Kissinger wrote on several occasions, it would then adapt to the new situation by distancing itself from European affairs.
<P>
So, the on-going interest in short-term results at the expense of the long term, a certain French President' s need for personal glorification, a score of zero, and all these discussions and other protocols of Nuremberg are in danger of upsetting the subtle geopolitical balance of power which has existed for decades between the United States, France, Great Britain and Germany.
This tendency must be fought with all the necessary strength, particularly by the strict application of the rule of unanimity, without a legal get-out or differentiated cooperation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="President">
Before giving the floor to Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra, I would like to make an announcement on a question I was asked regarding the Napolitano report.
For the time being we have the translation in five languages, but we have every hope of having the report in all the official languages by noon, which means we could set the deadline for the submission of amendments at 8 p.m. today.
The text of the amendments would therefore be available tomorrow morning at 9 a.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Madam President, this morning you guaranteed us 24 hours for the submission of amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="President">
In that case, we will have to bring the deadline forward to before 8 p.m. in order to have 24 hours before the time of the vote, at noon.
If you would rather, we can try to organise things in this way.
At the moment we are waiting for the report to be available in all languages.
I think that is the first matter to deal with.
At present only some of the languages are available.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Madam President, I am sorry but the period of 24 hours starts from the time when the Members have the document in their own language, in this case at noon today.
The time limit for amendments would then be set at noon tomorrow, if I understand correctly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="President">
You shall have your 24-hour period.
We shall see how we may proceed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
I am sorry but I really do not see how you can, Madam President.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
Madam President, I would also like to wish Mr Solana every success in this difficult task of creating a Common Foreign and Security Policy which is effective, visible and coherent.
<P>
I had the opportunity to question him on this subject during his appearance before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, as to what the political means would be - and I was thinking fundamentally of the Intergovernmental Conference - to make use of the next Intergovernmental Conference to the benefit of the CFSP.
At that time, Mr Solana told me that he had not yet finished considering the issue and I would like to know whether he has made any progress in this respect.
I would like to know, Mr Solana, what the political, economic and budgetary means are - bearing in mind the principle that "he who pays is in charge" , which you know very well from your time as Secretary-General of NATO - to create a force which can maintain peace and prevent situations as dramatic as those which we have seen recently in the Balkans.
<P>
You have also spoken this morning of the problem of human rights.
In this respect, I would like to know your opinion with regard to relations between the European Union and China, especially in light of the recent trade agreement between that country and the United States.
<P>
And on the subject of the United States, I would like to ask you two very specific questions.
Firstly: What is your opinion of President Clinton' s statement that Turkey should become a Member of the European Union?
And secondly: What do you think about the pressure which the United States administration is putting on some European companies - I am referring to the Spanish Sol Meliá chain and other companies such as the Club Méditérranée and the German company LTU - and what measures, in your opinion, should the European Union take?
<P>
Lastly, Mr President, I would like to ask the High Representative, with regard to our policy and relations regarding Latin America, if you think that the new European Union priorities which have resulted from the Rio Summit would require new resources.
I understand that your answer is yes and therefore: What do you feel about the decision of the Council of Ministers which, on the first reading of next year' s budget, has reduced the amounts to a level lower than the amounts for 1996?
What will you say in this respect to the Mercosur Ministers with whom I believe you are going to meet next week?
Do you think that the new priorities on Latin America have to be dealt with using fewer resources, in opposition to what this Parliament approved in the first reading?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schori">
Mr Solana, you will not be a Lord Grey in any sense; you are very welcome here.
Mr Solana, wearing your two hats as "Mr CFSP" and Secretary- General of the WEU, you are going to have a great responsibility in our common endeavour to establish a European order of peace.
First on the agenda is the matter of complying with the Cologne decisions on crisis management and conflict-prevention initiatives.
These decisions also include the Member States' undertakings to establish a specific military capacity in such a way that the EU' s ability to take credible initiatives in accordance with the principles of the UN' s Charter is reinforced, and this without any Member State' s interests being compromised and without the EU' s taking on NATO' s basic tasks.
<P>
Right now, a lot of energy is being spent on crisis management, something you talked a lot about.
We are seeing more and more proposals on the way.
Against this background, I should like to ask you the following question.
You said that our citizens feel that we ought to be able to intervene in a crisis.
Yes, but I think our citizens want us to be able to intervene before crises break out at all.
My question is therefore as follows: do you share the view that measures to prevent conflict are at least as important as the crisis management which in fact kicks in at a stage where politics and diplomacy have failed?
What measures are you therefore going to take in the area of conflict prevention so that you can, as it were, start taking charge of preventing fires rather than turning out to fight them?
<P>
The Cologne decision ought not to lead to our one day finding ourselves in the same situation as my second home country, Switzerland, where, following studies of possible threats to the country over the next decade, the conclusion was reached that Switzerland is well equipped to deal with dangers which no longer exist.
<P>
I would mention in this context that the Conflict Prevention Network (CPN), established by Michel Rocard on the initiative of the European Parliament, warned, long before the Kosovo conflict, that war was going to break out, and that a variety of visiting delegations from Parliament did the same thing.
The CPN still exists, but the problem, then as now, is that there is no structure in the Commission or in the Council which can effectively utilise the experience and expertise of the CPN and others.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Lagendijk">
Mister President, the fact that most Members of my group welcome the creation of a European defence identity has a lot - but not everything - to do with the lessons we have learnt from the Kosovo war and the insight that, unfortunately, in some cases, it is necessary to use armed force if there is a mass violation of human rights.
Having said this, I would like to emphasise once more - this has fortunately already been done by many speakers - that, to my mind, the power of the European Union is, or should lie, in crisis management and the prevention of conflict.
I am therefore grateful to Mr Patten who has emphatically drawn attention to this very issue.
I think that he is right.
I think that the power of the European Union - as already referred to by the previous speaker - lies in the fact that, before conflict spreads, every effort should be made to prevent this from happening.
Within this context, I would again like to ask Mr Solana about his pledges in the Committee on Foreign Affairs following a feasibility study carried out by the European civil peace corps.
He confirmed this at the time and I would like to hear from him again, as this is one of the very situations in which the European Union could be effective in the prevention of conflict.
<P>
The question remains how autonomous this conduct of the European Union will be in future, how independent from the United States and how closely involved with Russia, for example.
Your successor, Mr Robertson, has stated in a number of interviews that the EU' s conduct will largely remain restricted to minor, less significant conflicts.
This remark has prompted three questions that I would like to ask here.
The first one is: in your opinion, what bearing does this have on the deployment of nuclear weapons?
Would you agree with me that the EU' s involvement in smaller conflicts then renders nuclear weapons completely unusable and superfluous?
<P>

Secondly, you mentioned the reorganisation of funds and the making available of appropriate tools. Would you agree with me that, at present, the reorganisation of funds within the European Union is far more important than consideration being given to raising the ceiling on defence?
<P>
Thirdly, cooperation with Russia: Could you be more precise about how the European Union should bring this about, independently of NATO?
After all, if the majority of potential areas of conflict are either in or bordering Russia, does this not raise the dilemma of us creating something which we will only be able to use in practice with great difficulty, precisely because Russia is involved?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bonino">
High Representative, the establishment of your post and, in particular, your appointment, have certainly created high expectations among those members of the public - and I think they are numerous - who think that Europe needs a Common Foreign and Security Policy if, as you said, it wants to be at all credible in areas other than trade or economic stature.
<P>
It is therefore a question of high expectations and, I believe, also high hopes, especially if - as Commissioner Patten said - a synergy really will be created between the two institutions.
<P>
Your task is certainly a very difficult one.
I do not mean it is impossible, but a host of good wishes - which we all give you (they are free and cost absolutely nothing) - will certainly not suffice. Maybe you need something more tangible.
<P>
The first steps, taken in the Council at least, do not seem particularly promising.
I am referring to a fact that might be considered to be of secondary importance by many, but that I think is very significant: you thought Monday' s Council meeting a historic occasion for defence.
Can this be true?
I, too, consider Monday' s Council meeting historic, but in a negative way and for other reasons. I refer to the incomprehensible attitude taken in respect of an initiative, promoted for once by the European Union, on the moratorium on capital punishment.
<P>
If I have understood correctly, this time the Ministers have decided to be particularly thorough.
They have decided to stand their ground and to withdraw the proposal for a moratorium, or at least to block it.
They have decided to make a huge effort to be verbosely and verbally maximalist and extremist and are refusing to give ground or negotiate ...
Basically, they have decided to lose.
<P>
This position is so astonishing that I wonder whether any of the Ministers have actually read the amendment and the facts, because this is completely incomprehensible, unless it is true, as some people suspect, that this strict, moralist position will serve to save the face of some of the great powers who are not especially interested in the proposed moratorium.
<P>
It does not take much to realise, Commissioner, that what we should have done was to use serious negotiations to bring moderate countries which do not use capital punishment over to our side, countries which had taken positions and which were sensitive regarding the preamble - I repeat, the preamble - based on an article in the United Nations Charter.
But why are we trying to amend the United Nations Charter, Commissioner?
What do we hope to gain with a proposal for a moratorium?
Are we trying to reform the Security Council or change the Charter?
None of this makes sense.
<P>
If I may say so, what happened on Monday was disgraceful.
As a consequence, the European Union will withdraw - so it seems - the proposal for a moratorium, or it will not even put it to the vote.
Just think about it: a freeze on the proposal.
And we want to talk about credibility?
The truth of the matter is that today, Mr Solana, Europe is very good at making empty, pompous announcements, but it is completely incapable of learning from history and seeing how and where we really can negotiate.
<P>
So again, my heartfelt good wishes, but these in the form of a simple suggestion on the Common Foreign and Security policy: maybe using the process of economic and monetary union to reach diplomatic and military union would be a good way of transforming declarations of intent into more concrete steps.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sakellariou">
Mr President, Mr High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, I would also like to congratulate you very warmly on your new post as High Representative and wish you all the luck that your new post requires in order that it may be a success, both for you and, above all, for the European Union.
And having said this in your language, I am afraid I will have to continue in German and I would ask you to put your headphones on.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="McKenna">
First of all, unlike many other speakers, I am not happy with the decision taken on Monday and, Mr Solana, as a former pacifist turned militarist, I would actually feel that your role within the WEU is a further compromising of neutral states.
<P>
Now there are a significant number in my group from neutral and non-neutral countries alike who are actually very much against the whole idea of the creation of a European defence identity, and the debate within the neutral countries is being conducted in an extremely dishonest fashion.
You yourself said that Monday was a historic occasion and that is true.
It was a historic occasion.
It was the first time that there was a formal meeting of defence ministers, and the decisions that were taken were historic.
However, within the neutral states, the public is being misled.
In fact, it is being brushed over as a non-event.
<P>
For example, our Foreign Minister said that he was quite happy with the decisions taken: he said that the interests of neutral countries were taken on board and that they were met within the opinion which was submitted by the EU Political Committee.
In that opinion, it states that your role will be confined to what is set out in the Treaty on the European Union and also on the decisions taken at the European Council meeting in Cologne.
That actually is quite a broad perspective and anything can happen within that.
<P>
Within the Western European Union the issue of the mutual defence guarantee is even stronger than within NATO; within the neutral countries the general opinion at the moment is that the mutual defence commitment does not apply.
But, I believe and many people within the neutral countries believe that when further decisions are taken, eventually the mutual defence commitment will be applied.
<P>
I also believe that, as Commissioner Patten mentioned, this involves basically the whole issue of a European arms industry.
His statement gives credence to our fears about the creation of a European arms industry.
The St Malo Summit concluded that the EU needed, and I quote, 'strengthened armed forces that can react rapidly to the new risks and which are supported by a strong and competitive European defence industry and technology' .
There are many Member States within the European Union which are not involved in the arms industry and do not want to be involved in the arms industry.
These decisions and discussions are not taking place at an honest level within the Member States, and especially within the neutral countries: the public is being misled.
<P>
Here, in this Parliament today, it was quite clear and most people were quite honest about it: they want a European defence identity, they want a competitive European arms industry and they want a European army; but the public in the Member States has not actually been consulted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Brok">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the joint appearance here of both Javier Solana and Chris Patten is symbolic since they will enjoy joint success or, if they do not work together, joint failure.
It is in our common interest that they succeed as this will also be our success and in this we must support them.
<P>
It is also an indication that the new troika is finally starting to work.
If I have understood things correctly, the Finnish Council Presidency has again sent the old troika to Russia.
The new troika to which you both belong should also, in future, take on representation abroad.
<P>
Since 1990 and the collapse of bloc confrontation, it has once again become possible to carry out conventional wars at regional level in Europe, which in turn facilitate the old classic struggle between ethnic groups, border disputes and the like, the old circle of violence.
We Europeans have not yet found an answer to this, as the former Yugoslavia shows.
The efforts which are now being made in the common security and defence initiative are an attempt to find the European answer, specifically in terms of prevention.
However, prevention, Mr Sakellariou, only works if it is backed by a credible military force.
For this reason, the two must be tied together.
Only then can prevention be genuinely implemented and I hope that it will work accordingly.
<P>
I think that, through joint efforts, it will be possible to achieve synergetic effects in gathering troops to combat crises with the aim of bringing about a common armaments agency.
We all know about the meagreness of the budgets and I think that with these synergetic effects the aim can be achieved.
We should not do this with independent expensive structures but, as far as possible, in accordance with the NATO Resolution adopted at Berlin in 1996, in tandem with NATO and with the NATO structures.
This seems to me to be an important route because it strengthens transatlantic ties whilst at the same time creating our own European capability where it is needed.
<P>
In my estimation, this would also mean that we will be able to carry out our duties jointly or separately, but not against our traditional partners.
The European Union, with its common currency, common internal market and common legal system, has a common interest in also implementing a credible common security and defence policy.
<P>
However, we must also realise that this picture cannot exist indefinitely in areas where there are varying degrees of security.
For this reason, at the Intergovernmental Conference, we should seek to make article 5 of the WEU Treaty a protocol of the EU Treaty to which each state can accede and, specifically, on the basis of an independent sovereign resolution.
This means that none of the neutral or non-allied states would be compelled to accede.
However, everything would then fall under the umbrella of credibility and common interests and we could further develop matters on this basis such that the appointment of Mr Solana as Secretary-General of the West European Union and the involvement of that Union could be fully effected without us needing to make allowance for article 5.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lalumière">
Mr President, Mr Solana, it is with very great pleasure that I can welcome you here in your new role, and I am delighted that in a few days you will be combining this role with that of Secretary-General of the WEU.
This all augurs well, and represents real progress.
An equally good augury is given by the desire for mutual cooperation expressed by yourself and by Mr Patten, who has also just made some very rational statements.
<P>
Let me address you in my capacity as rapporteur for the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, regarding security and defence policy.
This means I have listened to you with the utmost concentration.
In brief, today, permit me to stress the timetable or, to be more specific, the rate of the innovations and reforms which you are responsible for.
<P>
The Kosovo crisis has made Europeans aware of the gaps in the political and military resources available to them.
Furthermore, they have become more than ever aware of the risks they are running in letting a system continue which was designed at the time of the Cold War and which is no longer in any way suitable for the instances of instability which are proliferating around Europe and even within Europe.
<P>
This increased awareness provides an opportunity for innovation, as the Cologne Summit showed.
But I am afraid that this window of opportunity may close again all too soon under the pressure of national conservatism and budgetary constraints.
This is why my view is that things must get done quickly, as quickly as possible.
Institutional reforms still need careful consideration, of course.
It would be a mistake to rush.
The same goes for the fundamental question of the respective roles of Europe and the United States.
The solutions are not yet fully mature, but there are certainly already some practical steps which can be taken quickly.
<P>
For example, the enlargement of the General Affairs Council to include Defence Ministers, a formula which was already tested last Monday; setting up a permanent political body, "COPS" , responsible for monitoring all matters relating to common foreign and security policy, including defence; setting up a Military Committee; creating a rapid deployment task force of approximately 50,000 men, and so on and so forth. And I should take care not to forget the task which the Finnish Presidency, quite rightly, considered to be of great significance: improving our non-military security resources, particularly for preventive purposes.
<P>
All this may be achieved quickly on the lines of the guidelines established by the Fifteen.
I think the old adage of testing the ground by walking on it would be particularly wise in this case, Mr Solana.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="Cushnahan">
The uncoordinated and therefore ineffective response of the EU to the crises in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo was a serious embarrassment.
Thankfully, it would now seem that we are learning our lessons.
This week' s discussions at the General Affairs Council are to be warmly welcomed.
The intention to place the reinforcement of European security and defence policy high on the agenda of the Helsinki European Council is an appropriate one.
The positive approach of a traditionally neutral country such as Austria to these developments is to be applauded and I urge all other neutral Member States, including my own, to follow their lead.
Needless to say, I disagree with my Irish colleague, Mrs McKenna, because I believe that the establishment of an EU defence policy is as much an essential prerequisite of genuine European integration as the single currency.
If you subscribe to one, you should support the other.
Allied to these exciting developments is the emergence of a Franco-British proposal to establish a force of 40,000 by 2003 to cover all Petersberg Tasks on a permanent basis.
<P>
Before I welcome this proposal, I wish to see removed the ambiguity that has arisen in the wake of the remarks made by the British Defence Secretary, Geoffrey Hoon, namely is it a Franco-British force or an EU force?
If the EU is to act as one in the future then the force must be an EU one with components from all Member States who wish to participate, and operating on the initiative and under the political control of the EU.
I look forward to the Helsinki Council endorsing this vital principle and other elements which will strengthen the EU' s security and defence role.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wiersma">
Mr President, may I start by paying Mr Solana a huge compliment?
Since he has taken office, the second pillar has been a hive of activity.
The agenda is enormous.
In actual fact, all EU political issues are dominated by foreign affairs and the Finnish Presidency is certainly taking great strides forwards.
This is, in fact, worth two compliments if one considers the country' s historical neutrality.
I would like to discuss European security policy and put a number of issues before Mr Solana, a number of questions which he may not be able to deal with today but which should be given priority in future, to my mind.
<P>
First of all, I back the EU' s ambitions in this field.
The European security and defence identity should and shall emerge.
I will not enlarge upon the military aspect, the structure and the capacity required, but I would like to be informed of the extent of the so-called Petersberg Tasks because the answer to this question will determine a great deal.
Does the Union focus on minor or major crises?
And if it focuses on minor crisis situations, what happens if a minor crisis escalates into a major one - because we all know that this is not unusual.
According to the Washington Declaration, the European security and defence identity is open to all NATO countries.
How does this relate to the EU' s ambition to be able to take unilateral decisions?
What is to be done about the NATO countries which are not within the EU, namely Norway, Turkey and the three countries in Central and Eastern Europe?
Many would like to know what will happen after your appointment as Secretary-General of the Western European Union.
How can the WEU be fully integrated into the EU and what will then happen with the infamous article 5?
Although some people in the Netherlands would like to take over the British role when it comes to desperately hanging on to the Atlantic relationship, and I mean the former British role, this is surely not comparable with the issues at large in neutral, non-aligned EU Member States regarding the European security and defence identity.
I can respect this opinion.
But how can such respect be compatible with a progressive agenda when it comes to the European security and defence identity?
I know from my own experience that a broader approach to security and making conflict prevention a priority can be helpful here.
The Union could make headway on this score by improving coordination between the first and second pillars.
<P>
I would like to finish off with a pertinent question.
I think that we all, but also you, the Council and the Commission, should be concerned about how Parliament can monitor the system which we are developing.
I would like to discuss within Parliament, but also with you, the way in which we could, from within this Parliament, but also from within national parliaments, better monitor the coming into being of the European security and defence identity and the further elaboration thereof.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Van Orden">
First of all let me thank Mr Solana and Mr Patten for their statements.
It seems to me that in all this discussion of European security, two elements - defence capabilities and institutional arrangements - have been confused and one seems hostage to the other.
Of course we welcome any commitments by European states to modernise their armed forces in order to redress the present well-known deficiencies.
As Mr Solana knows from his previous appointment, many Allied states do not even fulfil their force commitments to NATO.
These issues are already being addressed by the Alliance as part of the defence capabilities initiative.
The British armed forces are world class but they have been desperately over-stretched over the past year.
I am not sure from where, therefore, the UK Government intends to find and sustain its contribution to some new European rapid deployment force that it has proposed, unless this is just smoke and mirrors, or at the expense of commitments to NATO.
<P>
I have to say that legitimate concerns about military capabilities are not resolved by the Europeanisation of defence, which responds to an essentially political agenda and is an aspect of the process of European political integration.
The danger is that there will be pressure for the EU to become the organisation of first resort when next there is a crisis to be dealt with and that NATO would increasingly be relegated to a purely residual role as a collective defence organisation.
NATO' s vitality and transatlantic solidarity will only be maintained if NATO remains closely and constantly engaged in current crisis management.
<P>
Of course, as the Europeans are not proposing any additional forces, the capacity for EU autonomous action refers primarily to the political decision-making process.
The key issue will be the interaction between the two centres of decision making, NATO and the EU, and the impact of this on the transatlantic relationship.
Can we really afford strategically or financially duplicated staffs and committees, the proliferation of Euro forces and the wastefulness and confusion of subjecting our armed forces to two separate operational doctrines and planning regimes?
Encumbering the European Union with defence responsibilities will do little to encourage it to make more effective use of its valuable non-military crisis-management instruments, which could genuinely complement the military forces of NATO.
This is where the EU' s emphasis should be as Mr Patten has indicated.
Improved military capabilities within the well-tried structures of NATO, not institutional geometry in Euro headquarters, are what is needed.
The requirement, the objective is for greater security effectiveness with the Europeans and North Americans each contributing more proportionately.
Our armies should not be recruited to the process of political integration, dressed up in other clothes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Titley">
Kosovo showed us four things above all else.
Firstly, that the European Union is capable of maintaining a common front during a crisis.
Secondly, the excellent work of President Artisari shows that the EU can take decisive diplomatic action.
Thirdly, it also shows us that NATO works well, and indeed works best, when the United States is focused and gives clear leadership.
But also it shows that when that leadership is absent Europe has to be able to have the capacity to act to preserve the security of its own continent.
And, fourthly, it showed us that, despite the fact that we spend 70% of what the Americans spend on defence, we are almost entirely dependent on American equipment because we have something like 10% of their capacity.
And part of that reason of course is that much of our military is based on the cold war principles of static defence and not the modern principles of rapid reaction.
Unless we address that question then the whole issue of a Common Foreign and Security Policy and a European defence identity is no more than a day-dream.
<P>
So, I welcome what has been said today, but I do have some questions and, unusually for these sorts of debates, I would actually like some answers.
Does Mr Solana agree with me that what we need primarily is a European defence review to assess our capacities?
Does he agree with me that conscription is incompatible with a modern mobile force?
Does he agree with me that we need to have a Council of Defence Ministers if we are to address these questions?
And does he agree with me that we need to have convergence of defence expenditure by Member States?
He also addressed the question of non-EU NATO members.
Is he saying, as I think he is, that Turkey is vital to the success of the European defence initiative and we should take that into account?
<P>
And to Mr Patten may I say I welcome what he said about armaments but will the Commission be following up its previous communications with decisive action in this field and does he agree with me that the Meteor Missile project is crucial to the future of a European defence industry?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Galeote Quecedo">
I am sure Mr Solana will agree with me when I say that the current goals of those of us who have a greater or lesser responsibility with regard to the process of European integration far outweigh the most optimistic ambitions of the European leaders at the time, for example, when you presided over the General Affairs Council of the European Community.
And within this framework you have taken on the important task of personifying the joint effort to put in place a foreign and security policy which concerns us all.
<P>
As you reminded us the other day in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, you are at the other end of that telephone which Kissinger spoke of.
And please be assured that, in your task, you can count on the stimulus and support of this House and my group in particular.
I am convinced that you will not disappoint us.
<P>
Since I am confident that you will make every effort to ensure that our foreign policy will respond to balanced criteria, which will, without doubt, confirm that you give priority to the political and economic convergence of all those countries which, like Spain, almost 25 years ago, are moving from an autocratic regime to a liberal regime and that you will ensure that peace will always reign on European soil. I am also sure that you will guarantee our prominent role throughout the Mediterranean region, another priority both in economic and in security terms, and that we will effectively safeguard our interests in Latin America, for example by ensuring compliance with the commitment made with the United States Government with regard to the application of the Helms-Burton law.
I am surprised that Mr Solana did not mention it this morning, although I have no doubt whatsoever concerning his convictions in that regard.
In any event, we wish him every success in his work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Souladakis">
Mr Solana, we have recently witnessed a meeting between Castro and the Spanish leadership and we are all aware of the position of the United States of America.
I would also conjecture that a leader of a European country went to Belgrade to see Milosevic.
What would your comments be on these two events?
<P>
I am raising this issue not to make things difficult for you, because we do not carry out foreign policy based on conjecture, but to illustrate the context in which you should operate.
You must not walk on a tightrope because, as we all know, tightrope-walkers are doomed to fall one day.
There are two strategies before us.
The first is for preventing tension and the second is for managing tension and crises whenever they arise.
The latter involves a Europe which is politically absent but economically present; it is a strategy for simply monitoring crises, which leads nowhere.
The former is a strategy for Europe and for peace, security and economic development.
Fifty years on, we once again witnessed war on Europe' s doorstep with the recent crisis in Yugoslavia.
It was a mistake with indeterminable repercussions.
<P>
Now we are confronted with a new phase of developments and hostilities in the Caucasus region.
I believe that there is a golden opportunity for you now in the Caucasus to prove yourself as a true Prometheus and not an Epimetheus.
You are probably familiar with the Ancient Greek tragedies of Aeschylus and the story "Prometheus Bound" which took place in the Caucasus region where Zeus punished Prometheus and tied him up in chains as punishment for stealing fire from the thunderbolt and giving it to Man.
<P>
I hope, Mr Solana, that you will, in any case, be a Prometheus, both in the Caucasus and in your forthcoming term of office, as that will serve the interests of Europe, of democracy and of human rights.
Once again, I wish you every success.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Solana">
Mr President, in the little time that remains I will try to deal with two or three issues of a general nature concerning the questions and matters which you have raised during this sitting.
But please allow me first of all to thank all those Members of the various parliamentary groups who have chosen to speak and have wished me, and wished us, luck in this enterprise.
I can tell you that I will put all my commitment, all my energy and all my political experience into making a great success of this enterprise, in cooperation with all the other institutions.
<P>
I believe that, as some speakers have expressed so clearly, the Europe that is moving into the 21st century is much better than the Europe that many of us dreamt of and it still perhaps has a journey to make for those of us who are dreamers.
We are without doubt succeeding with the common currency, we have made progress in the economic field and the moment has come to make progress in the political field, and specifically in the field of foreign and security policy.
And in this direction and in this effort you will find that I am working with you.
<P>
I would like to make three points in an attempt to deal collectively with the many questions you have put to me: firstly, foreign policy in the strict sense.
After the Cologne Summit, we now have new instruments - one relates to common strategies - which must, without any doubt whatsoever, lead to a profound change in the way we approach foreign policy.
Common strategies - some of which are already defined - must mean the pooling of all the Union' s and the Member States' capacities in order to implement a policy.
This has not happened before now.
This has come about as a result of the decisions taken in Cologne and, specifically, it has happened in the common strategy with regard to Russia.
That must be our centre of gravity in terms of action.
<P>
The second question I wanted to refer to - because many of you have raised this concern - is the concern regarding the management and prevention of crises.
I would like to say that I agree totally - and this was best expressed in the clear intervention by Mr Pierre Schori - that we do not only have to put an end to crises, but we should prevent them from the outset. That is what we are trying to do.
The Treaty of Amsterdam provides for an early warning unit whose objective is to be attentive to what may happen so that we can prevent it happening and not have to act either militarily nor collectively if we are able to do everything possible by diplomatic means or by preventive means.
<P>
Please allow me to share with you a very sad personal experience of mine.
When we began to take action on the Bosnia crisis we developed a military plan involving the deployment of troops - remember that 60,000 troops were deployed in Bosnia - which came a long time before the civil plan which we should have implemented.
That difference in momentum between the two plans had consequences which many of us regret to this day and which I personally regret.
<P>
I would like, in line with what we have noted, any crisis management or peace-keeping operation to be planned according to a global view of its civil, police and military aspects.
In this way we would be in a better situation in Kosovo now and, before that, in Bosnia.
<P>
And finally I would like to make a brief comment on the current issue which has been addressed - and I imagine this will be of interest to you.
This afternoon or tomorrow morning an important meeting of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe begins.
The honourable representative of the left group said that the OSCE must continue to be at the heart of pan-European security.
And he also said this in relation to the crisis in Chechnya.
In the hours to come we have a wonderful opportunity to try to make the OSCE into an important organisation and, at the same time, to persuade the Russian authorities to allow Europe to play a role which, up till now, it has not been allowed to play.
There is a degree of contradiction on the part of the Russian authorities who show the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe the greatest affection - so to speak - and at the same time do not allow it to play its rightful role.
I can tell you that, on the part of the European Union, tomorrow and the day after, we will do everything possible to enable the OSCE to play an important role, in accordance with its obligations, at a time when a new charter on security in Europe is about to be signed.
It would be really absurd if, just as we are about to sign a new collective charter on security in Europe through the OSCE, that organisation is not able to do what it has to do in the conflict which is now taking place in the Caucasus.
<P>
There have been a good number of questions and it would take too long to answer them all one by one.
I can tell you that I have taken note of all of them, that I will answer all of them promptly, and that, as I said at the beginning, I will be available to you at all times to try to realise our common dream.
Thank you for your support and your cooperation.
We will be in contact over the coming months and years to enable us to make a success of this noble endeavour which we are all taking on with great enthusiasm.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Solana.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
WTO Millennium Round
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A5-0062/1999) by Mr Schwaiger, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament: The EU Approach to the WTO Millennium Round (COM(1999) 331 - C5-0155/1999 - 1999/2149(COS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schwaiger">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the report of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy on the EU approach to the WTO Millennium Round is in line with the work of the previous Committee on External Economic Relations which adopted its position on each of the negotiating rounds in Marrakech, Singapore and Geneva with a large majority.
The constant dialogue with the previous Commissioner, Sir Léon Britain, in 1998 and at the beginning of 1999 also contributed to many of the ideas of the European Parliament being incorporated in the Commission' s communication of 14.7.1999 and to these ideas being fully taken up in terms of content.
<P>
The main concern in all this was always free and fair world trade in the interest of the European economy and those employed in it.
We are therefore keeping to the tradition of our earlier work.
At this point I would like to thank the current Commissioner, Mr Lamy, for his outstanding cooperation with the European Parliament during the last two months.
Since the new Commission began its work, we have been engaged in intensive and, I consider, thus far highly successful dialogue.
<P>
Today is about clarifying the comprehensive global negotiating approach from the perspective of the European Union, weighing it up and placing it in the political context of an overall strategy.
The entire Millennium Round should be accompanied by recommendations of a specific nature which, formulated in accordance with Rule 97 paragraph 5 of the Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament, give us the opportunity to influence the work of the Millennium Round before the new Agreement is concluded, to play our part and to bring our weight to bear accordingly.
<P>
A first series of recommendations could be made at the beginning of the year 2000 and we could return in detail to many of the proposals made recently in the Committee on External Economic Relations.
<P>
The Council and the Commission should vigorously defend the full negotiating approach of the European Union in Seattle.
In our report, we also demand that the Commission be successful in this matter and return with the right results.
Our negotiating approach must mirror our importance as the largest trading region in the world and, at the same time, meet our responsibility for worldwide economic balance of interests, above all vis-à-vis developing countries.
<P>
What should our focal points be in all this?
What is really important?
Should the expansion of the world trade system and the opening up of markets be the main focus or should the defence of our European economic and social model, of the social and ecological market economy and of the Community policies developed in the interest of citizens and consumers take a prominent position?
In my opinion we should do both, even if there is a certain tension between the two.
Both objectives are of equal importance to the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, as was shown in Monday evening' s vote.
We are now approaching a further opening up of the worldwide market.
Tariffs must be further reduced and technical trade barriers should disappear.
Our markets also should be further opened up to developing countries, in particular those which are least developed, and to the ACP countries.
The understanding of citizens must be promoted and increased through greater transparency of the WTO rules and its crucially important dispute settlement system.
<P>
On the other hand, the obligations of the European Union under other international agreements, for example the World Health Organisation or the international labour organisations, must also be made clear and be taken into account in the WTO negotiations.
However, we are moving towards the inefficiency which results from overloading the WTO rules with objectives other than the principle objective of trade liberalisation and non-discrimination against contracting parties.
So, for example, the basic working conditions and social clauses which were adopted in 1998 by the ILO must be kept current within the framework of a working forum drawn from the ILO and the WTO and must be brought into the discussion and taken into consideration without necessarily changing the WTO rules.
<P>
If we assume that fair and free world trading has been the basis for the increase in prosperity of many countries and their people, and particularly developing countries, then we must also realise that, as the largest trading power in the world, the European Union has a basic interest in building on this success story and involving more and more peoples and countries globally.
For this we need allies.
<P>
We must link our interests with those of the pre-accession states in Europe, of our neighbours in Europe and of the developing countries, in particular the ACP countries.
Furthermore, we need constant dialogue with the government, Congress and people of the United States, which will clarify our motives and build mutual understanding for a reasonable balance of interests with our partner.
Through increased trade we will contribute to the extension of world peace, to prosperity and, if we organise ourselves properly, to greater social justice.
<P>
The extent of our responsibility determines our strategy.
It must be comprehensive, it must strive for balance in the benefits gained worldwide and it must be convincing for our partners.
Market participants must have the easiest possible access to all markets in the world.
The rules in force for this must be fair and must be based on the mutual granting of advantages and imposition of duties.
The four basic freedoms of the internal market - the freedom to move, the free movement of goods, the freedom of services and the free movement of capital - must also be objectives which are valid worldwide.
We are in favour of the conclusion of a Multilateral Environmental Agreement, which should then be taken into consideration within the framework of the WTO.
In the area of services, which, above all for European suppliers, is the largest growth market, market access should be improved and new areas should be included, concerning which the European Parliament should certainly be clearly heard.
<P>
We are in favour of the permanent integration and promotion of electronic commerce within the framework of GATT.
The resolutions of the Uruguay Round on government procurement must be applied.
Long term, a large number of the bilateral investment protection agreements within the framework of the World Trade Organisation must be replaced by comprehensive multilateral regulation.
<P>
Competition within the liberated markets must become more effective and competition authorities must be set up accordingly.
The European agricultural model of rural sustainable agriculture, which is based on the preservation of rural areas, the environment and our quality produce, as well as the production of foodstuffs, should be retained.
Opposition should be met with reference to the rapidly increasing support practice of the US government.
<P>
Finally, a further word on development cooperation: it must be updated and expanded within the framework of the ACP Partnership.
The world trade system is based, in key areas, on the contribution of Europeans and Americans.
In the 60s, at the same time as introducing the common external tariff, we also adopted, in the various Kennedy Rounds and others, a consistent policy worldwide of reducing tariffs and opening up markets.
The result was the opening up of new markets in third countries, but also the opening up of our markets for other industrial states.
<P>
By way of conclusion, may I thank the Secretariat, our advisers and all those in Parliament who have worked together on this report.
We had very little time and our technical and other departments worked magnificently.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Mr President, Europe' s new role in the world will be conditioned by external and security policy, but also by the tensions between social, economic and political needs.
The world trade round is therefore exceptionally important in Europe speaking with a single voice in world trade negotiations so that social and environmentally-friendly growth can also gather pace through the contribution of world trade.
<P>
Since 1990 there has been a worldwide increase in mergers and also the market power of transnational concerns.
It is therefore very important that the Millennium Round creates multilateral rules against private restrictions in competition.
An international competition system must create minimum norms so as to prevent anti-competitive behaviour such as the forming of price and area cartels, the misuse of a market-dominant position or vertical and horizontal competitive restrictions which distort competition.
<P>
Part of these minimum norms must be the obligation for WTO Member States to bring their domestic competition law into line with multilateral agreements and minimum norms.
This means that the Millennium Round must not create a global cartel authority. It must, however, subject domestic competition rules to monitoring.
It would be contrary to the rules of GATT, CFSP and WTO if free and fair world trade between states were valid, but not for private economic players.
Monopolies and cartels damage consumers and societies. The Microsoft case in the USA clearly demonstrated this.
<P>
The increasing willingness for mergers between transnational companies and the impotence of the national state with regard to the formation of monopolies, oligopolies and cartels endanger the objectives of world trade to contribute to prosperity and peace worldwide.
<P>
Furthermore, it is also particularly important that we realise that the decrease in growth in the world economy is also linked to the instability of the international finance system, which is characterised by vast, rapid and worldwide financial transactions and which has detached itself from the real economy, yet still affects investments, growth and employment.
For this reason, the Millennium Round must contribute to coherence in the world economy between trade, economic, currency and financial policies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wuermeling">
Mr President, on behalf of the Legal Committee, for which I had the pleasure of being rapporteur, I would like to warmly welcome the rapporteur' s well-balanced resolution.
In my opinion, the rapporteur has succeeded in sending out three signals in the report: to our worldwide partners, a signal of the resolve of the European Union; to our people, a signal for a human face to globalisation; and to our citizens, a signal of the parliamentary dimension of the WTO process.
<P>
In this resolution, the Parliament is giving the Commission full backing for Seattle.
Our message to our partners is that we are solidly behind our negotiating leaders in Seattle - as solidly as the European Alps, I would say.
All the participants should be aware of this.
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Our second signal is to the people who sceptically oppose globalisation.
We want to give the markets a worldwide framework as well.
We can and we desire to bring about globalisation.
The market system will keep pace with its global development and so we are following a liberal and antiprotectionist tendency.
The losers in globalisation or those who support it should know that they have an advocate.
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Finally, we would like to state quite clearly that this Millennium Round also has a parliamentary dimension.
This is indispensable because it is no longer just about the reduction of tariffs and quotas; it is also about elementary matters such as social concern, environmental protection and fair competition.
We should also make this clear to the non-governmental organisations.
The place for political debate on the Millennium Round in Europe is the European Parliament.
The governments are not negotiating this with non-governmental organisations.
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<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ettl">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the closer we get to the Millennium Round, the greater the need for explaining to our people why exactly we want to have a new liberalisation round within the framework of the WTO.
Each of us who has recently had anything to do with the non-governmental organisations has had to constantly hear that the major liberalisation step since the Uruguay Round has not been the absolute non plus ultra.
And quite right!
There is greater dissatisfaction among the poorer countries because people are wondering where all the promised prosperity has gone, who has cashed in and how the poor have become even poorer.
This is shown by the facts of the UNCTAD and OECD reports.
This should not be the case!
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It is not for me at this time to elaborate on the advantages which we will gain from the next liberalisation step.
That will be done by my colleagues.
It is my job to point out previous failings and our inability to provide social balance in the world.
For this reason, we in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs naturally stand up primarily for the personal situation of those affected and for their rights and bring this to the debate.
This is of particular importance in the poorer countries especially; countries which have a worse democratic/political tendency.
We want free world trade to be tied in with the basic questions of future policy, our future, the questions of social harmony and environmental concerns.
We do not want to support any new protectionism - absolutely not; rather, we want the seven core Labour Standards of the International Labour Organisation to also be guaranteed for workers in the ACP and developing countries.
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Why the seven core Labour Standards?
These seven core Labour Standards are based on the four basic human rights in the workplace; the right of association and to organise freely and unhindered, the right to form trade unions, the right to freedom from forced labour and the right to a childhood.
We still have five-year olds standing or sitting at the loom whilst their parents have no work.
This is nothing new!
Or the right not to suffer discrimination on grounds of sex, religion, political persuasion or national or ethical background.
We want these rights to also be afforded to workers in the poorer countries.
At this very time when new partners such as China are joining us within the framework of the WTO, this is of particular importance.
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What I have been speaking about is the real concern of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, namely to provide the workers of these countries with a tool to defend themselves, the right to be able to defend themselves.
This in itself can provide more social balance.
This, Commissioner, also belongs on the negotiating table and is our concern.
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<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth-Behrendt">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if the Millennium Round and its opening is to be a success, then we must immediately address and pin down some basic problems.
These are of course areas - and I shall mention a few of them - determined by the Environment Committee where, in the past, we have found deficiencies, areas where there are loopholes, areas where we noticed snags and catches.
I will now mention a few of the most important of these areas which the Environment Committee has determined and which it considers to be important.
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For example, as regards the precautionary principle, this must be clearly defined and we must have a definition as adopted at the Conference on the Environment and Development in Rio.
This precautionary principle must be anchored in the WTO rules and regulations in a legally binding manner.
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Secondly, it must be possible to implement, for example, the Multilateral Environment Agreement without triggering conflicts with the WTO.
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Thirdly, the issue of providing information to consumers on preparation and production methods, commonly referred to as PPMs, and the possibility for Member States to take non-discriminatory measures.
These issues must be included in the WTO negotiations.
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Allow me to say something on the dispute settlement procedure.
The dispute settlement procedure, with which we have always had so many problems in the past, and many dispute procedures which we did have concerned the areas of environmental policy, consumer protection and animal protection, must become more transparent.
It must ensure that scientific expertise is independent and unambiguous and then it must also be recognised.
It must not be the case, as with hormones, that the European Union is able to provide scientific expertise on the danger of hormones whilst we are obliged to pay compensation.
Such situations must not be repeated in the future.
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I have only mentioned a few of the most important points which my colleagues designate time and again as being important, because everyone will keep saying that in the World Trade Organisation environmental issues and consumer protection issues must be cited as a central theme.
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I would like to thank the rapporteurs and my colleagues in the Industry Committee, and this does not go without saying and is not always the case, for incorporating many of the points which were determined in the Environment Committee in the final report, for including them in the amendments of the rapporteur and in the compromise amendments so that much of what the Environment Committee considers important for Seattle has been taken up in the report of Mr Schwaiger.
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Mr Lamy, I therefore now ask you and the Commission to take up these points which I have mentioned here, and also more comprehensive points, to cement these basic points in the opening round and to ensure that in the Millennium Round in the coming years we can further develop them so that the World Trade Organisation is what we would like it to be - a social, just, environmentally-friendly trade organisation which allows us to conduct trade whilst allowing our people and our environment to exist.
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<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cunha">
Mr President, the experience of implementing the current WTO agreement for five years and the conflicts and disputes that it has created between countries shows that free and fair trade cannot be confined to straightforward issues of price ratios, subsidies and tariffs.
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For this reason, I would like to highlight four points for the forthcoming negotiations.
Firstly, we must preserve the European farm model, which authorises precisely the plurality of functions that agriculture performs for society and which would be threatened if excessive liberalisation of the food processing industry were to take place.
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Secondly, we must establish a set of rules which are common to everyone with regard to areas currently not covered or insufficiently covered by the Marrakech Agreement, examples of which are health and hygiene standards, the effects on the environment and on health caused by certain methods of intensive production and the respect for consumers' feelings.
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Thirdly, we must ensure that the designations of origin of the Community' s traditional products are respected so that we do not see more of the real piracy that is taking place with impunity with regard to Community brand names, as is happening in South Africa, as a matter of fact, with regard to Port, Sherry, Ouzo and Grappa.
As far as this is concerned, I think that the decision taken on Monday 15 November by the Council of Ministers for Foreign Affairs constitutes a dangerous retreat and a dangerous act of hesitation in view of the negotiations that are about to take place.
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Fourthly, we need to ensure that all subsidies allocated to the agricultural policies' different objectives are classified according to the same criteria.
A scenario that must not be repeated, for example, is the classification of European export restrictions as yellow box, as a result of which, they have to be reduced in six years, whereas American export credits, which are exactly the same, are not subjected to any restrictions at all.
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To conclude, it is important to mention the fact that the Europeans have, for a while, been taking a more offensive stand in the negotiations on the WTO' s agricultural project.
Firstly, because we have implemented two major reforms in the space of seven years - a huge effort - and secondly, because unlike the sacrifices European farmers have been forced to make, the United States of America has increased its subsidies by USD 15 billion in the last two years in blatant contradiction of the line of arrogant propaganda that they are currently taking against the CAP.
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<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="O' Toole">
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Schwaiger for producing an extremely complex report and, in particular, Erica Mann, also for coordinating much of the work in producing amendments to the report.
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The Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport takes the view that as regards Seattle we need a holistic approach to audiovisual services.
In Europe, the audiovisual services involve the cultural industries and also have a huge impact on our economy.
Our cultural industries have nevertheless been seen, as I said last month, as an addendum to many of the serious trade issues that are going to be discussed at Seattle.
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However, I think that we must grasp the nettle and acknowledge that cultural industries are no longer an addendum to these discussions.
They will in fact occupy a pivotal position, a pivotal role in the world economy and as such should be treated as a driver of the economy rather than as an afterthought.
Now given this, the Committee on Culture thinks it is particularly important that the structural framework in which we now operate should be seriously examined.
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It is important nevertheless, given some of the incapacities and deficiencies that exist in the world market, that we maintain the position adopted at the Uruguay Round.
This is in order to give us an even playing field across the world market, in terms of the cultural industry.
While we maintain that it is important to look at the intermediate and the long term and to look at the way in which the networks are now impacting across different sectors, the complexity of these networks means that we also need to look at new instruments to deal with the global economy insofar as the structural industries are concerned.
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<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="Corrie">
Mr President, as a farmer I declare an interest.
I join in the praise for the rapporteur, Mr Schwaiger, who has put much work into this excellent report.
As draftsman for the Committee on Development and Cooperation, my interest is naturally on the effect a new WTO round will have on developing nations.
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A week ago I was convinced that, with hard bargaining, there was some hope a deal could be struck to give a fair balance between providing reasonable protection to the EU industries and agriculture on the one hand and market access for developing countries' goods on the other.
Now that an agreement has been reached between the USA and China, I wonder what chance small nations like Lesotho or Swaziland have in a globalised free trade market.
Only strong regional cooperation will give them a chance of survival.
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This round on liberalisation of trade takes place at a time when the gap between developed and less-developed countries is continuing to grow.
In fact, for large numbers of people in the least-developed countries, there are no benefits.
The agenda of the Millennium Round comprises only agriculture and services, but the Commission rightly wants a much more comprehensive round.
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As far as agriculture is concerned, the EU will be unable to avoid further concessions in market access.
The EU cannot pay compensation to its agricultural producers and at the same time block market access for third countries.
But, in return, the developing countries must improve their core environmental standards and accept that this is not yet another form of protectionism.
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The Development Committee wants to see WTO rules that do not hamper eco-labelling schemes and green public purchasing.
It also calls for a joint standing working party on trade, globalisation and labour issues to be set up by the ILO and the WTO.
It calls for an in-depth revision of the TRIPS Agreement and stresses that the patenting of life must definitely be excluded from the TRIPS Agreement.
It wants to see animal welfare included in discussions.
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The EU must not be bullied by the USA into accepting an agreement that is detrimental to the developing world.
US domination of the WTO must end.
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<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Sasi">
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Thomas">
Mr President, the WTO has certainly succeeded in significantly increasing international trade and worldwide economic production and in removing trade barriers.
But what about increasing quality of life, participation in growth development and the creation of new, socially acceptable jobs?
In order to reduce the gap between the worst and best developed national economies there must also be agreed social and environmental standards as well as consumer and health protection.
This is not a playground for illusionists; in fact, the opposite.
Here we are trying to gain the acceptance of the general public.
We must succeed in making an exception of those states which, for the sake of short-term gains, permit or even induce production which is damaging to the environment and cements social grievances.
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The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs is agreed that states which meet basic social and environmental standards should be especially protected during integration into the world economy.
We must bring about a situation where it becomes more difficult to sell products unless they have markings such as "resources obtained with care" or "produced in an environmentally-friendly manner" or "guaranteed not manufactured by children" .
We want to persuade consumers to prefer such products.
The WTO rules and regulations must be amended such that these voluntary declarations may no longer be hindered.
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Two further points belong on the agenda in Seattle: firstly, investment agreements on the basis of the ILO declaration on multinational companies and the corresponding OECD guidelines in which workers' rights are taken into account; secondly, the setting up of a permanent forum between the WTO and the ILO to consider the acceptance of basic workers' rights, i.e. the abolition of forced and slave labour, the outlawing of child labour and prohibition of discrimination.
The excellent report by Konrad Schwaiger, which deserves consensus and a majority, makes clear that this is about more than just trade policy; it is about the participation of all countries on the basis of equal rights, social progress and the enforcement of human rights.
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<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Erika">
Mr President, Commissioner Lamy, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, on Monday the committee approved the report of Mr Schwaiger with a large majority and I must say how pleased I am with the overall way in which Mr Schwaiger has lead the debate.
He has shown great openness which has, in turn, lead to us putting forward compromises which are not really compromises in the sense that they do not negate positions defended by individual groups; rather, we have genuinely fought and wrestled to find a European compromise, a European formulation which fully supports the position of the Council and of the Commission.
This is what it is all about.
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I am very grateful to the President-in-Office of the Council for pointing out the overall difficulties which exist in opening this new negotiating round in Seattle.
We ought to be realistic and not fool ourselves: it will not be easy, in Seattle and beyond, to steer the course which we plan and hope to follow in Europe, particularly where it goes against the interests of our negotiating partners.
Nevertheless, I wish you, Commissioner Lamy, and all those who are involved, the best of luck.
I can assure you that you have the support of my group.
We will give you our unqualified support.
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However, the difficult opening also means, and we should not fool ourselves, that the old consensus which influenced the interplay between open world trade and binding trade rules and which always assumed that there was an essentially positive influence on national developments has since begun to crumble.
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Even in the rich countries, in particular the United States, which have profited most from open markets, the increasing number of international competitors within the framework of the World Trade Organisation has lead, ironically I might add, to growing scepticism and concern that globalisation is also bringing with it impoverishment, destruction of the environment and the loss of national sovereignty.
And with the loss of foreign policy as a whole, the temptation is also growing to accept foreign economy as a replacement.
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The Socialist Group unreservedly supports the efforts of the Commission and the Council for a comprehensive negotiating round.
Only this strategy can ensure that all the issues which have a European interest are truly given full consideration.
Only in this way will it eventually become clear where the advantages and disadvantages for European states and European citizens lie.
This is why we are also in favour of a single undertaking process.
Nothing is decided until all the issues are on the table.
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It is also necessary for the Parliament to be fully informed and involved.
This is particularly important because so many issues, especially new issues, as many of my colleagues have already mentioned, are of an extremely emotive nature, for example, the issues of how we can include investments in the scope of the world trade round, new rules on competition, social and working standards and much more.
Parliament must be fully involved.
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The citizens and non-governmental organisations and companies of the European Union will follow negotiations in Seattle more intently than ever before and will focus their attention on the questions of whether world trade is generally becoming fairer, more socially-conscious and more well-balanced and whether it can take into account the interests of every party.
The feelings against an untamed globalisation process, which are marked by a basic scepticism, will come to the fore during the negotiations.
It is therefore necessary for us social democrats to make clear where the opportunities lie and where the globalisation process can have a more positive influence in the future.
But we shouldn' t fool ourselves: less WTO does not automatically mean less globalisation.
That is an illusion!
It means less globalisation which can be influenced.
In this respect, I would once again like to make it absolutely clear that the Commission and the Council have our support.
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<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Clegg">
Mr President, on behalf of the Liberal Group I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Schwaiger, on his outstanding efforts in forging a broad cross-party approach to this hugely important issue, which will have consequences for us all for many years to come.
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The ELDR remains unambiguously supportive of further trade liberalisation, of the strengthening of the multilateral trade system and of a broadly based negotiation covering a wide range of existing and new trade matters.
Our hope is that this report, when adopted by Parliament tomorrow, will serve as a clear signal of our political backing for a comprehensive round at a crucial stage in the preparations for Seattle.
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This Parliament also has a central role in allaying legitimate public fears about the consequences of globalisation.
In some quarters a misplaced view has arisen that the WTO is a malign agent for all the negative effects of globalisation.
In truth, without the WTO we would be unable to construct the global legal and regulatory architecture which is indispensable to any coherent political response to globalisation.
Without the WTO the law of the jungle and the power of might over right would prevail - hardly an outcome the critics of the WTO would welcome.
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For these reasons we have been active in tabling a series of amendments to the report, pushing for the development of new WTO rules in areas such as the environment, now directly affected by international trade policy.
We have supported all efforts to strengthen the place of developing countries in the world trade system, not least by underlining the inescapable need for continued reform of the EU' s common agricultural policy.
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We have also pushed, and will continue to do so, to ensure the WTO is more transparent and the European Commission more accountable to the European Parliament in the conduct of trade policy.
This must include, as a minimum, an automatic Parliamentary right to subject any WTO deal to assent and much greater access to the negotiating briefs discussed within the Council.
At the same time the ELDR has resisted all attempts to burden this report with a shopping list of sector-specific requests.
That is why tomorrow we will vote against those sections of the report which call for exceptional treatment for particular sectors.
We must accept the consequences of our support for a comprehensive trade round.
Comprehensive means all-encompassing; it does not mean riddled with exceptions.
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Finally, a word on China.
Late on Sunday night a bilateral deal was struck between the US and China on China' s accession to the WTO.
China' s entry into the WTO will, arguably, have as far-reaching an effect as anything which will take place in Seattle.
It is impossible to separate the question of China' s accession to the WTO from our wider consideration of the EU' s position in Seattle.
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The EU is in a delicate position as the last major WTO player not to have concluded a deal with China.
An optimistic interpretation would suggest that Europe is now in a strong position to exploit and build on the concessions already secured from China by Washington.
However, the fact that European Commission negotiating officials were reported a mere week before the US deal as discounting the likelihood of Chinese accession any time soon may suggest that the European Union has not been negotiating as convincingly as might be hoped.
There is clearly a risk that Europe will now be forced into a corner in the talks with China.
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The ELDR has always strongly supported Chinese accession to the WTO but not at the cost of legitimate European interests, which do not always converge with American commercial interests.
I therefore call on the Commission to give an urgent account of the Chinese accession talks to Parliament, and particularly as to how they may affect our preparations for Seattle, so that Parliament can vote tomorrow on Mr Schwaiger' s report in full command of all the relevant facts.
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With these important caveats in mind, I would like to confirm the ELDR' s broad support for Mr Schwaiger' s work and reiterate our warm thanks to him.
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<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Lucas">
Mr President, in his introduction Mr Schwaiger says that the goal of the World Trade Organisation is free trade.
But trade is not an end in itself.
It is a means to an end. That end must be sustainable development.
So even if the volume of world trade has increased 17-fold, what use is that unless it benefits poor people and promotes sustainable development?
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The uncomfortable truth is that there are losers as well as winners from international trade.
Many of the losers are poor people who find their land taken away from them by large commercial firms or their livelihoods destroyed by new and often unfair competition from cheaper imports.
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That is why our Group believes that before we rush headlong into yet more trade rounds in Seattle we first need a comprehensive impact assessment of the social and environmental effects of the liberalisation that has already taken place as a result of the last Uruguay Round of trade negotiations.
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We also need much bolder action to ensure poor people genuinely benefit from world trade.
Frankly, that is where this report is still inadequate.
We need tariff-free access for least-developed countries, not only for virtually all products - that is a phrase that leaves a giant loophole for the EU to continue protecting its own agriculture - but for all products from those countries.
We need an end to the hugely damaging dumping of subsidised agricultural exports on developing country markets.
We need industrialised countries to make legally binding their commitments to give special and differential treatment to poorer countries.
But, above all, when we see evidence that world trade rules are destroying poor people' s livelihoods or damaging the environment we need to change the rules.
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Let me say very clearly that free trade is not the same as fair trade.
Nothing demonstrates that more clearly than the case of the Caribbean banana farmers, some of the most vulnerable producers in the world, whose access to the EU markets has now been ruled against WTO rules, as a result of which they face a devastation of their livelihoods.
So, I repeat, if world trade rules are destroying people' s livelihoods and damaging the environment or animal welfare we need to change the rules.
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<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Morgantini">
Mr President, we are all aware that in Seattle the stakes are high and of exceptional importance for the lives of the world' s citizens.
It is not a question of technical matters that might concern groups of specialists from ministries of foreign trade.
This is also evident from the fervour of the debate underway in Parliament, although it is still weak in decision-making power, but there have been new events in recent years that are taking supremacy away from the specialists.
In Seattle, at the same time as the governmental meeting, thousands of NGOs will meet, thousands of men and women from civil society who are calling urgently for the WTO not to become one of the seats of that global government, based on the growth and supremacy of the most unbridled free trade, which does not take into account the growing poverty of the population of the least industrialised and weakest countries, the destruction of the environment, the protection of natural and human resources or the differences and diversities within each country, all in the name of globalisation, which is continuing to create wealth for a few and poverty for many.
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It is an exceptional fact of democracy that thousands of men and women have debated together and demonstrated in favour of a different kind of economy, directly linked to daily life and democracy, because the fact that 134 governments are members of the WTO does not in itself guarantee transparency or democracy in decision-making processes because, over and above formal statutes, what really exists is the contractual power exercised by the strongest governments and multinationals.
Because of these fundamental considerations, we do not agree with the Schwaiger report, although we acknowledge his thoroughness.
We would like the European Parliament to adopt a clear, firm stand to the effect that the right to dignity, health, a home, freedom and the elimination of poverty is more important than free trade and profits.
With regard to the United States' frantic rush to defend its own interests, we of course recognise that Europe is maintaining a position concerned with the defence of more human traditions, but we do not feel this is enough: it is not enough to state high-sounding principles - we must put them into practice.
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Many things in the Schwaiger report are positive: the defence of our agriculture, cultural diversity and more besides, but I will limit myself, because of time restrictions, to only mentioning some of the fundamental issues.
The issue of agreements on intellectual property rights is very important. We agree with the NGOs and many countries which have suffered through these agreements that there should be a moratorium to renegotiate them.
Just think of India, whose legislation does not provide for copyright on medicines or foodstuffs; yet India produces herbs that are used by multinationals and ourselves to treat illnesses; or Mandela' s South Africa, where, in retaliation for his attempt to make treatment for AIDS victims more accessible, the WTO imposed a withdrawal of cheaper medicines.
We support the south African countries' request not to negotiate whether plants and animals or human cells can be genetically modified and patented, which would take money from the weak and make multinationals bigger.
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We also consider the precautionary principle and the principle of food safety fundamental, because we do not want to be overrun with genetically modified food, and we therefore think it necessary to reverse the burden of proof and we consider that the experts must really be independent of the interests of governments or multinationals.
We want to safeguard workers' rights, the right to strike, and apply codes of conduct that this Parliament...
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(The President cut the speaker off)
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<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Montfort">
Mr President, if the Commission had not already accustomed us to this sort of vagueness conducive to the extension of its own power, the Schwaiger report would plunge us into a sea of confusion.
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Of course, the thinking displayed by the Commission and taken up in the report offers no grounds for concern.
There, one can detect only extremely virtuous motives, as on every occasion when general principles and noble ideas are being aired.
However, it is the overzealousness which is demonstrated, and which the Schwaiger report faithfully echoes, which prompts legitimate suspicions, especially if we choose to recall that these same principles have only recently been flouted in connection with bananas, GMOs and hormone-treated beef, on which the European Union, represented by the Commission, suffered a defeat which came about so quickly as to pass unnoticed.
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Given this recent precedent, and pending a proper assessment of the previous round, we thought it prudent to wait before throwing ourselves headlong into negotiations whose value still remains to be proven and where the rules of the game are apparently not the same for the European Union and for our main partner and competitor, the United States.
But if the Commission is eager to commit the European Union to these negotiations, it is because, once committed, the Member States cease to be free agents.
The Commission is claiming their support on the grounds that they have already exercised their sovereign prerogatives during the preliminary negotiations.
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What is the truth of the matter?
The Commission has been granted a mandate which is already the result of an intergovernmental compromise.
Yet it must be able to negotiate, and thus make concessions on that basis.
How can agreements be reached?
Is there a list of no-go areas and another of designated victims?
If the Commission' s wishes are granted, the WTO' s remit will embrace practically all human activities and will create a world in which everything is an item of merchandise, including our public services and our culture.
Can we seriously ignore the fact that the specific characteristics of our education, public health or welfare systems would not survive this?
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If the plan described here cannot be modified now or in future, what strategy is the Commission going to adopt?
President Clinton' s Trade Representative, Mrs Barshefsky, who successfully fought Washington' s battles on bananas, GMOs and American beef, has sought the help of the American business community, which has provided her with a 31-page document detailing the desiderata of their industries.
Do we have anything similar to set against this?
We believe that only the Member States are in a position to frame appropriate policies which would properly safeguard our interests in this area.
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<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Butel">
Mr President, we find the report by our fellow Member, Mr Schwaiger, regarding the WTO Millennium Round, completely satisfactory, since it goes in the direction of respect for differences, be they cultural or economic.
I wish to congratulate him on this considerable work on a subject as complex and polemical as the WTO.
<P>
In this Chamber we have already clearly expressed our concerns and reservations with regard to this new round of negotiations.
I am, however, pleased that French demands regarding cultural diversity and social standards have been taken into account.
<P>
Like the rapporteur, we share the concern of defending the specificity of the pluralist European farm model, based on family farms, which are often subjected to significant geographical and environmental constraints.
In the face of globalisation, it is essential to take account of these differences which considerably change the rules of the economic game, with drastic consequences in social terms.
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The urgent need to establish a more democratic negotiating system, operating in a more transparent way, seems justified, in my view.
It is indeed essential for parliaments to be involved in on-going consultation, with real respect for the procedures.
We are indeed very concerned about the Council and the Commission' s remarkable capacity to withhold information.
I also deplore the fact that the recommendations made to the Commission regarding small and medium-sized enterprises were limited to customs duties.
All procedures for these small and medium-sized enterprises should be simplified, since these are the only businesses capable of creating hundreds of thousands of jobs.
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Finally, I appreciate the fact that Mr Schwaiger stressed the precautionary principle, in order to integrate environmental policies into trade policies, and I share his concern regarding the risks of a putative eco-protectionism which has nothing to do with the protection of citizens' health.
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<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Raschhofer">
Mr President, Mr Schwaiger, I would like to thank your for dealing with this complex matter so thoroughly and for seeking to forge a path towards a broad consensus.
It makes no sense in this WTO Round to negotiate according to the motto "I might not know where I' m going, but I' ll be the first to get there!" .
It is about citizens profiting in the long term from the globalisation and liberalisation of trade.
It is therefore a personal concern of mine that the outcome of the negotiations should be understood and accepted by the people.
In Europe today we have extremely high standards, both with regard to environmental and consumer protection and to social protection of workers.
During the course of the forthcoming negotiations, these must not be dismantled, nor undermined.
Our trade partners must be persuaded of the importance of these matters.
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I support the call to apply the precautionary principle and sustainability in all sectors.
In the agricultural sector specifically, the results of Berlin must be the absolute lower limit in the negotiations since the situation of small rural family enterprises and of farmers in difficult geographical areas should not be disregarded.
In the matter of social standards we cannot afford any shipwreck.
I am therefore pragmatic.
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I am concerned that in reality the contents of the 1998 ILO Conference will crop up.
We should not make the mistake of alarming our negotiating partners with such massive demands.
I therefore advocate the institutionalisation of the cooperation of the WTO and the ILO.
Liberalisation has clearly had positive effects.
However, it cannot be the case that at the end of the day the rich get richer and the poor get poorer!
In this negotiating round Europe must truly speak with a single voice if we wish to assert ourselves against the USA.
However, this voice must not just be the position of the powerful or of a few globalisation fanatics, but must represent the interests of the small and medium-sized companies which form the backbone of our economic strength.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Vote
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Turco">
Mr President, I have asked for the floor to remind you once more that, since the start of this parliamentary term, the Radical Members have not been taking part either in the votes in the House or in the committees: this is to draw the attention of the Presidency and the Members to the fact that some of the Members are denied the chance to contribute to parliamentary life on the same grounds and by the same means as the other Members.
The indifference with which the Presidency and the Members have been listening, for around four months, to our protest and have been passively accepting the situation is a clear sign of the contradiction between their convictions and democratic practice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bigliardo">
Mr President, once again I support what Mr Turco just said.
I, too, as a member of the Italian Social Movement, am on strike, and will therefore not be taking part in any of the votes.
Yesterday I announced that I will be abstaining from voting for the whole session - and you can read this in the verbatim report of yesterday' s sitting - and this is for the reasons that Mr Turco has explained so lucidly.
<P>
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0056/1999), on behalf of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Decision adopting a programme of Community action (the Daphne Programme) (2000-2003) on preventive measures to fight violence against children, young persons and women (9150/1/1999 - C5-0181/1999 - 1998/0192(COD)) (rapporteur: Mrs Avilés Perea)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="President">
Before proceeding to the votes, in accordance with Rule 80(5) of the Rules of Procedure, I would ask the Commission to clarify its position regarding the amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lamy">
Mr President, the Commission was able to accept the six proposed amendments.
Now there are just four.
Having accepted all six, I therefore accept the four, Mr President.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the common position thus amended)
<P>
Report (A5-0052/1999) by Mrs Haug, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the proposal for a Council Decision on the system of the European Union' s own resources (COM(1999) 333 - C5-0092/1999 - 1999/0139(CNS))
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Casaca">
Mr President, I would like to raise three issues with regard to this report.
Firstly, I have been given a voting list on which Amendment No 9 is not identified as an amendment by the Committee on Budgets.
I would like this mistake to be rectified, at least on the voting list that has been attributed to my political group.
<P>
Secondly, there is an Amendment No 31 that only existed in the German version until yesterday afternoon, and the Portuguese and English language versions contradict each other.
The Portuguese version talks of the GNP whereas the English version talks about the GDP.
These are two completely different financial concepts which have completely different financial consequences. I have no idea what this amendment means.
<P>
Thirdly, I would like the Bureau to explain to me why it intends to proceed to a vote on Amendment No 31 when Amendment No 9 is established in our Rules of Procedure, Rule 130(2); in other words, why this amendment is moving further away from the original.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="President">
As for your first question, Mr Casaca, I must tell you that Amendment No 9 is a Commission amendment: it appears on the ballot paper and in the correct way.
The base text is in German. The reference text, which we are voting on, is the German one.
As for Amendment No 31, it is a compromise amendment tabled by the rapporteur, and therefore must be voted on first.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Heaton-Harris">
Mr President, on a point of order, I should like your clarification that when you are looking around the Chamber and judging how many people vote for or against, you are not taking into account any political preference.
I am sure you are not, but I would hate my British Socialist colleagues to be embarrassed by the way they have just voted, in some cases against the UK budget rebate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="President">
Mr Heaton-Harris, if you have doubts about what I announced then you must ask for an electronic confirmation of the outcome of the vote, as other Members do when they have doubts.
It is quite simple. The last remark you made, though, was offensive.
<P>
<P>
Report (A5-0055/1999) by Mr Averoff, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on budgetary discipline (COM(1999) 364 - C5-0141/1999 - 1999/0151(CNS))
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
Report (A5-0060/1999) by Mr Lechner, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Directive on the service in the Member States of judicial and extrajudicial documents in civil or commercial matters (COM(1999) 219 - C5-0044/1999 - 1999/0102(CNS))
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
Report (A5-0057/1999) by Mrs Gebhardt, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgements in matrimonial matters and in matters of parental responsibility for joint children (COM(1999) 220 - C5-0045/1999 - 1999/0110(CNS))
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE- Recommendation for second reading of the Avilés Perea report (A5-0056/1999)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Kauppi">
Mr President, in my opinion, it was very important for the European Parliament and the Council to reach a decision on the Daphne programme for 2000-2003.
To guarantee compliance with the common Treaty we should take a positive view of this kind of project.
<P>
In order to achieve a high level of health we must attend to physical, mental and social needs.
Violence against women and domestic violence are multidimensional problems, which have serious and wide-ranging effects on health.
This is not only about violations of human rights, but about barriers to equality and development.
The fear of violence and harassment is a hindrance to children, young people and women, making it difficult for them to participate fully in normal social life.
Violence is also responsible for considerable economic, social and health costs to individuals, Member States and the whole Community.
<P>
We must also remember that yesterday, in this House, an agreement on the rights of children was discussed.
This agreement, too, emphasises a child' s right to a safe life and the recognition of his or her human dignity.
In my country, Finland, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health has launched a project for 1998 - 2002 to prevent violence against women; the endorsement of the Daphne programme was very important also from this standpoint.
The project will focus on violence against women, a reinforcement of the attitudes towards violence, a reduction in the level of violence as well as the development and enhancement of services for victims and the perpetrators of violence.
<P>
One way to achieve these goals is to develop international cooperation, relying on an exchange of good working methods and experience, and on networking, especially within the EU.
Weeding out violence will only be possible through continued efforts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
- (DA) The Danish Social Democrats have today been delighted to vote in favour of Mrs Avilés Perea' s report on the Daphne programme.
Violence is an infringement of fundamental human rights, which we should oppose.
Efforts to combat violence against children, young people and women ought to have a high priority in our work.
It is an important political signal we are here today to send out.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Crowley">
- Madam President, I, of course, welcome the introduction of the new EU Daphne Programme.
This Daphne Programme will be put in place for the period 2000-2004.
Its primary function relates to the introduction of measures to combat violence against children, young persons and women.
This commands the overwhelming support of non-governmental organisations and women' s groups within the European Union.
Total funding will amount to £20 million and this will be allocated in two principal areas - the exchange of information and cooperation at Community level and the raising of public awareness.
<P>
The Daphne Programme will aim to promote information campaigns on potential risks of violence and ways of avoiding them, encourage pilot projects and innovative measures and help to create a Community information source to assist NGOs.
I support this programme because of its social values.
However, rehabilitation programmes for children, young people and women must be an intrinsic part of this new initiative.
<P>
On a broader level, I support the debate taking place today on the need to promote equality in our society.
It is important in the context of the next round of EU Structural Funds 2000-2006 that measures under the various EU programmes be screened so as to guarantee that they comply with all national and EU legislation in the field of equal opportunities.
The enactment of the Amsterdam Treaty on 1 May this year also substantially strengthens the legal basis for Community action in favour of the equality between men and women.
Equality between men and women is also at the heart of new European Employment Policies.
The European Commission, of course, analyses very carefully all action plans on employment which are forwarded to us on an annual basis by the EU Member States so as to ensure that comprehensive and streamlined measures to promote equality in our society are supported.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Darras">
- (FR) This Daphne programme is one which we, all of us, wished for, we, the Members of the European Parliament, but also all the organisations, both non-governmental and other types of organisations, and associations working in the delicate area of violence against children, young people and women.
The Council has curtailed the duration of the programme - 4 years instead of the 5 originally envisaged, but the budgetary allocation remains the same.
The rapporteur did an excellent job of negotiating with the Council, with the outcome that our three key amendments were accepted both by the Commission and by the Council.
These amendments primarily concern the necessary reference to the concept of the physical and emotional integrity of the individual and thus to the concept of dignity, such that inflicting physical, sexual or psychological violence is tantamount to depriving that person of their human rights. Secondly, the definition of "public health" , as defined by the WHO, i.e. not only the absence of disease or infirmity, but a state of physical, mental and social well being is taken up in the report.
Thirdly, the encouragement to be given to organisations and associations in general working in this sector is stressed. Fourthly, last but not least, reference is made to public and media information and awareness on these painful social matters.
<P>
There are, then, great expectations, and it is imperative for our House to vote on this matter and, according to the rules of codecision, we must mobilise the 314 votes necessary for the Daphne programme to be adopted.
This is why I can do no more than urge you to vote in favour of this report, unanimously, to avoid further procedural delays (conciliation), and to enable it to come into force in January 2000.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Figueiredo">
. (PT) It is well known that in the European Union, there are still high levels of violence against children, young people and women, which is a violation of their rights to life, to security, to freedom, to dignity and to physical and mental well-being, as well as a serious threat to the physical and mental health of the victims of violence.
<P>
It is therefore very important that this report has been adopted and our only regret is about the ups and downs throughout the process that have led to its delay, given that it follows the Beijing Conference of 1995.
We hope that the Daphne 2000-2003 Community action programme will at last be adopted and implemented so that we can support measures designed to prevent violence being perpetrated against children, young people and women.
<P>
Nevertheless, it is regrettable that the budgetary funds that have been set aside for this are so low.
We hope that they will soon be increased given the gravity of the situation and the fact that there is a vital need to contribute to reducing the suffering that violence continues to cause.
<P>
Haug report (A5-0052/1999)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, Mrs Haug' s report on the European Union' s system of own resources seems rather contradictory to us, and that is why we are opposed to it.
<P>
On the one hand, it declares excellent principles of economy, particularly the idea that the Union' s own resources must be limited to 1.27% of the GNPs of the Member States, a ceiling which the Commission proposal rightly sought to circumvent surreptitiously.
This position is perhaps due to the rapporteur' s German nationality and the special situation of Germany but, in any case, she is right on this point and we support her on this.
<P>
On the other hand, however, the self-same rapporteur contradicts her own desire for economy by calling, on the lines of the Berlin Council of March 1999, for the creation of new autonomous own resources, i.e. to put it plainly, European taxes.
I recall that the Pasqua-de Villiers list, on which I stood as a candidate, deplored the Berlin conclusions during the election campaign, but that our rivals managed to cover it up.
Thus, according to the Berlin Council, and today according to the Haug report, the resources of the European budget should henceforth be made up totally or partially not of State contributions but of direct taxes levied on citizens.
At the same time, we must expect the power of decision regarding these taxes to be passed quickly from the Council to the European Parliament.
This development would be in contradiction to our vision of a Union which is an association of states, to which the Members freely pay annual contributions.
<P>
But this is not just a matter of institutional philosophy, it is a practical matter, too.
Every year we are witness to confrontation over the budget because the Council seeks to resist the extravagant overbidding of the Commission, often with the support of Parliament.
If we create a European tax, the Council will gradually lose its capacity to resist, and we shall be giving the crucial advantage to those institutions which push to increase the budget.
I must therefore appeal to our German friends. Please understand that, in arguing in favour of a European tax, in the long term you are betraying that very desire for economy which you defend so ferociously in the short term.
<P>
And since I heard it said in the debate, by Mr Bourlanges, that the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference was to decide upon the creation of a European tax, I would say, on the other hand, on behalf of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group, that if the IGC is to discuss this matter, it must decide upon the creation of a system that is clear, transparent, fair and, above all, closely supervised by national democracies, by which I mean an annual contribution from Member States based on a percentage of their GNP, which is identical for all Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Andersson, Färm, Hedkvist Petersen, Hulthén, Schori and Theorin">
- (SV) We are voting against Amendment No 6 but for Mrs Haug' s report as a whole because we think that the way in which the EU' s own resources are constructed ought to be reformed.
We agree that we ought to have a more direct link between the European Union and its citizens when it comes to financing the EU' s budget and that we ought to be increasing the Union' s economic independence step by step.
<P>
In view of the lack of confidence in the European Union, as evidenced by, among other things, the low turnout at the election, and in view of the importance of preserving the EU' s character as a union both of citizens and of Member States, we consider that it would be wrong to aim now for a financially autonomous EU or one which is totally independent of contributions from the Member States.
Nor do we consider that the financing of the EU should lead to an increased burden for tax payers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Arvidsson and Stenmarck">
- (SV) The EU will be faced with having to make very large financial investments when, in different rounds, ten or more countries from Eastern and Central Europe and from the Baltic region become members.
Against this background, there is occasion for discussing the EU' s financial requirements if this process is to be managed successfully.
<P>
At present, the EU is not entitled to raise taxes itself, nor, as we see it, should it be entitled to do so in the future either.
The Haug report does not involve our automatically introducing taxation by the EU, but it opens the door for taxation of this kind, which is bad enough.
<P>
How, then, is the enlargement of the EU to be financed?
Yes, the alternative to new income from taxation is still that of reduced costs.
This will involve better prioritising and concentrating on the major and crucial questions.
The enlargement of the EU is one such priority.
<P>
As long as almost half the EU' s budget goes on subsidising agriculture and as long as five sixths of it, including the structural funds, goes on subsidies of one kind or another, there can be no doubt that changes still need to be made.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Eriksson, Frahm, Gahrton, Herman Schmid, Schörling and Sjöstedt">
We have voted against the Haug report.
We see the report in terms of a desire on the part of the Committee on Budgets to furnish the European Union with its own right of taxation.
This is in conflict with the general opinion prevalent within the EU and runs counter to the will of the Member States.
We understand this as another attempt by the European Parliament, characterised as it is by federalist sentiment, to take further powers away from the Member States.
<P>
In connection with Agenda 2000 and in the course of the Berlin Summit, the EU had the chance to implement a reform which would have distributed the financial burdens properly and fairly.
However, this chance was missed by the EU, which did not wish to carry out adequate and thorough reforms of agricultural policy and of the contributions to the structural funds.
These are a burden upon most of the expenditure under the EU' s budget.
To introduce "autonomous own resources" as the Committee on Budgets wishes to, would also require the EU to establish its own tax administration.
<P>
This week, the Court of Auditors has reported that at least 40 billion disappeared from the budget last year.
In light of this, it appears extraordinarily provocative to propose that the EU be given its own right of taxation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sacrédeus">
- (SV) The enlargement of the EU in the direction of Eastern and Central Europe brings the European Union' s financial requirements to the fore.
<P>
The EU is not at present entitled to raise taxes itself, nor should it be entitled to do so in the future either.
The Haug report does not involve our automatically introducing taxation by the EU, but it opens the way for a debate on the subject.
<P>
Enlargement ought to be financed mainly by means of reduced costs.
This would involve better prioritising and concentrating on the major and crucial questions.
The enlargement of the EU is one such priority.
<P>
As long as almost half the EU' s budget goes on subsidising agriculture and as long as five sixths of it, including the structural funds, goes on subsidies of one kind or another, there can be no doubt that changes still need to be made.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Dam">
At the Berlin Summit, the Council reached an agreement on the amendment of the own resources decision.
We agree with the thrust of this decision.
By maintaining the own resources ceiling at 1.27% of GNP, the Council sustains the necessary budget discipline within the EU.
Another major bonus resulting from the Berlin Agreement is the attention that was devoted to the unfair distribution of the load over the Member States.
The Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and Austria are the Member States currently contributing a disproportionately large sum in relation to their national income, in order to finance the EU.
A number of amendments, such as adjusting the financing of the UK rebate and increasing from 10 to 25% the deductions on traditional own resources, reduce the contributions of these Member States to the EU.
Following a compromise which was reached with great difficulty, we can accept these adjustments, but they are certainly not what you would call attractive.
At present, they are accommodating the four Member States in question.
They do not, however, offer structural solutions to the problem of net contributions.
It would have been better if a solution had been found in the form of a generic correction mechanism, for example, by introducing a band for national contributions to the EU.
<P>
We were unable to back the Haug report because it proposes a number of essential amendments which are incompatible with our convictions.
The report, for example, advocates rendering the Union less dependent on Member State contributions.
The rapporteur' s ultimate goal is complete financial autonomy with regard to the Member States.
We, however, support a continuous involvement of the national parliaments in financing the EU.
In addition, we voted against the rapporteur' s amendment in which he rejects the increase in the deductions on traditional own resources.
This puts enormous pressure on the equilibrium of the Berlin Agreement.
To the Netherlands, which has managed to secure this increase in order to reduce its net payer' s position, this is unacceptable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Lancker">
- (NL) In principle, I am of the opinion that the own resources decision should be based on equivalence and fairness between the Member States who all should play according to the same rules.
This is why I am rather disgruntled about the decisions reached by the European Council of Berlin, with Europe as the big loser.
<P>
The requirement that the Member States should be treated equally should be embodied in the present proposal from the Commission.
<P>
The starting point of the Haug report was that the position of March last, namely that all exemption provisions should be dispensed with, should now be substantiated.
Amendment 31, part 2, and amendment 32, however, mitigate this position with the addition of the term "from now on" .
In other words, the Member States can keep what they managed to secure in Berlin for now.
<P>
The purport of Amendments Nos 12 and 33 is to revise the collection costs down to 10% with regard to the amounts established after 31 December 2000, which can be supplemented by a flexible premium as a function of the results achieved by the Member States when collecting the traditional own resources and fraud control measures.
I agree with this, in principle.
The Member States must assume responsibility for collecting their traditional own resources.
<P>
What does rather disturb me is the impact that this amendment has on the decisions taken at the European Council of Berlin.
Berlin was a compromise which managed to accommodate every Member State.
In order to compensate both Belgium and the Netherlands for the additional cost which ensued from the gradual replacement of the VAT contribution in favour of the GNP contribution, the collection costs were increased to 25%.
This concession is now cancelled whilst the other benefits are maintained.
In this way, a new inequality is created to the detriment of two Member States, namely Belgium and the Netherlands.
As such, I voted against these two amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Wynn">
- As chairman of the Committee on Budgets, I am duty bound to vote for the amendments from the committee.
<P>
In the committee I voted against those amendments which jeopardised the UK abatement.
Had I been voting as a Labour backbencher in the plenary I would have voted in a similar way as I did in committee.
<P>
It is my responsibility as chairman to uphold the position of the committee and therefore I voted for the Haug report.
<P>
Averoff report (A5-0055/1999)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Kuntz">
The Council of Ministers' proposal for a regulation, on which we are to vote today, seeks to implement a number of amendments necessitated by the decision of the European Council of Heads of State and Government in Berlin in March.
<P>
The European Commission is, however, taking advantage of this opportunity to introduce new regulations which represent a new vision of budgetary discipline and which extend its administrative powers, and this is something we cannot accept.
It has also been proposed that these regulations be henceforth given the legal form of a decision rather than a regulation.
<P>
The French members of our Group are opposed to this amendment of the legal character of the legislation, insofar as a regulation makes it easier to take into account the impact of budgetary discipline on Member States and on Community institutions.
The Commission' s initial proposal indeed met with unanimous opposition within the Committee on Budgets.
<P>
In the context of the proposal before us there is another aspect which also strengthens the powers given to the European Commission: the possibility of reducing the amount of direct aid or suspending the payment of monthly advances.
Well, as soon as it is envisaged that the reduced or suspended amounts are to be paid out of the Community budget, in the next financial year at the latest, this intervention will necessarily take the form of yet stricter measures in subsequent years, with the risk of endangering the principles of the common agricultural policy.
<P>
So, the French members of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group are opposed to the proposal for a regulation, and also to Mr Averoff' s report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Dam">
<SPEAKER ID=92 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
- (DA) Out of respect for the Danish reservation in the legal sphere, the Danish Social Democrats have declined to vote in the final vote concerning the Directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Errikson, Frahm, Herman Schmid, Seppänen and Sjösted">
The Nordic Green Left (NGL), which consists of the Nordic members of the Group of the European United Left, has today voted in favour of the report concerning the service of legal documents in civil and commercial matters.
The purpose of the proposal is to ensure the protected and regulated forwarding of legal documents between the Member States' legal authorities, and this is something we can fully support.
<P>
The Nordic Green Left rejects, however, the idea that the proposal should be in the form of a regulation.
The Nordic Green Left prefers a convention.
In that way, the proposal would not be directly binding in the Member States, but it would be up to the countries themselves to decide whether they wanted to participate in the convention or not.
<P>
Gebhardt report (A5-0057/1999)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
- (DA) Out of respect for the Danish reservation in the legal sphere, the Danish Social Democrats have declined to vote in the final vote concerning the Directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Errikson, Frahm, Herman Schmid, Seppänen and Sjösted">
The Nordic Green Left (NGL), which consists of the Nordic members of the Group of the European United Left, has today voted in favour of the report concerning the recognition and enforcement of judgements in matrimonial matters and in matters concerning the custody of children born of the same parents.
We have done so because the aim of the proposal is to recognise decisions by the Member States and to protect children' s interests in connection with divorces across national frontiers, and this is something we can fully support.
<P>
The Nordic Green Left rejects, however, the idea that the proposal should be in the form of a regulation.
The Nordic Green Left prefers a convention.
In that way, the proposal would not be directly binding in the Member States, but it would be up to the countries themselves to decide whether they wanted to participate in the convention or not.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Titley">
.
Mr President, I welcome all measures designed to reduce pain and suffering in divorce cases, especially when children are involved.
These Commission proposals help address some of the holes of the Hague Convention, which is badly in need of updating.
<P>
As EU legislation makes it easier for citizens to live and work across Europe, so the number of cross-border marriages, and unfortunately divorces, is increasing too.
<P>
I, like my colleagues, receive an increasing number of letters from constituents asking for help in divorce cases involving partners from different Member States.
Often there are children involved and a seemingly never-ending custody battle ensues.
Furthermore, rulings, when made, can often be difficult to enforce.
Given the current legal jungle, some parents are even driven to break the law and, deplorably, snatch children from their ex-partners.
<P>
These proposals, however, will begin to replace heartbreak with hope.
By simplifying procedures and making judgements under EU agreements on matrimonial matters legally binding and directly applicable in all Member States, justice will be speeded up and an end brought to such long, drawn-out and heart-rending cases.
<P>
MEPs cannot pretend they can put a stop to the pain caused by separation and divorce, but they can at least try to put a stop to the legal circus that can often accompany it.
The welfare of children must come first, not the welfare of lawyers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Carlsson">
On one occasion during the last parliamentary term, one of my explanations of vote was not approved because I was not in the Chamber.
It was a question of a written explanation of vote, and the reason for the non-approval was that, if you had explanations of vote to deliver, you should be there in the Chamber, even if the explanations were in writing, so that the President could see that explanations of vote were in fact to be delivered.
<P>
I am taking this matter up because I think it is important that we have some accepted form of procedure in view of what happened in my own case during the last parliamentary term.
A lot of names have been read out now, you see.
There are a lot of Members of the European Parliament who very often take part in the votes but always, without fail, make explanations of vote.
That is why I am wondering: is it necessary to remain in the Chamber so that you can be seen to be there? Or can you proceed in this fairly lax way and continually add a whole lot of texts to the minutes about what you think or do not think?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="President">
Mr Carlsson, Members normally ask if they can make a written explanation of vote, they confirm it at the end of the vote, and once it has been confirmed, most of them leave the Chamber.
Your request is, in fact, legitimate, because the Rules of Procedure stipulate that Members who announce they wish to make a written explanation of vote must be present.
We shall see if we can give you a more precise, written answer to your query.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Casaca">
Mr President, I made a point of order with regard to the Haug report because the original version is in German and, unfortunately, I do not speak German, and the English version said something quite contradictory to the Portuguese version concerning Amendment No 31.
<P>
Mr President, when you presented the amendment to the vote, you read out "gross national product" , in other words, what you read out agrees with the Portuguese version.
I had to wait until the end of the vote to ask my German colleagues what was in fact written in the German version and they confirmed to me that "BSP" means "gross domestic product" .
This shows in fact that there is a contradiction, which is why I drew your attention to it. Given this contradiction, I feel that what you read out, which is "gross national product" must be right and not what was written in the original version which is "gross domestic product" , which is quite different.
In these circumstances, I think that this amendment should not be considered valid, given that it was voted on without knowing about the most essential part of this amendment which is this concept of "GDP" or "GNP" .
This is not a mere technical detail but is something that has extraordinarily important financial consequences.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="President">
Mr Casaca, I did indeed read out "gross national product" because the Italian version contained the acronym GNP, which means, as I said, gross national product.
Nevertheless, the services have informed me - and I confirm this information - that the original version, the authoritative version, is the German version, and therefore the versions in the other languages will be brought into line with the German one, with the consequences you pointed out.
This is the response that I have to give you: the original version, the authoritative version, is the German one.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 1.10 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Knörr Borràs">
Mr President, there has just been a very significant piece of news: the peace process in Northern Ireland, despite the difficulties which have surrounded it, has taken a step forward today with the decision by the IRA to hold negotiations with the Disarmament Commission.
The Parliament, which has played an important role in this process, as well as taking pleasure from the developments in Northern Ireland, should involve itself in the efforts to ensure that the other two violent conflicts in the European Union - that in Corsica and, above all, that in the Basque Country - move along the road to a definitive peace.
I would ask all the groups and Members of this House to assist in this effort towards dialogue so that these peace processes within the Union may reach a positive solution, as so fortunately appears to be the case, at last, in Ireland.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Knörr Borràs. Your statement has been noted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Doyle">
Mr President, I also felt you might wish to know of the very welcome development in the Northern Ireland peace process today: the announcement by the IRA that it intends to appoint a representative to coordinate the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons with General John de Chastelain.
This news is very welcome, as it means that the Good Friday Agreement can be fully implemented and government structures or an executive set up.
You know that the European Parliament has, over the past twenty years, given every political and financial support to encourage peace in Northern Ireland.
At last we dare to hope that lasting peace can now be guaranteed democratically.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Doyle, for bringing Parliament up to date.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Situation in Chechnya
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="President">
The next item is the Council and the Commission statements on the situation in Chechnya.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="Patten">

Mr President, I was just reflecting for a moment on those points of order. I am sure that Members of Parliament can imagine my own feelings about events in the last forty-eight hours in Northern Ireland.
I think we have a better chance for peace than has existed for some time and I for one would salute the courage of those parties and party leaders who have made these encouraging developments possible.
We must all keep our fingers crossed and, where appropriate, perhaps pray.
<P>
To move to the debate: I am extremely pleased to be able to participate in this important debate and I must say that I am very grateful to the business managers for arranging the timing before my departure to the OSCE Summit.
I hope the House will not regard it as a discourtesy if I am obliged to leave just before the end of the debate but I have to get to Istanbul, not least for a meeting on the Stability Pact.
The debate provides a useful opportunity for me to inform the House of our most recent contacts with the Russian authorities over events in Chechnya.
At the same time, I shall be able to participate in the discussions in Istanbul on these issues with a much clearer understanding of the views of the European Parliament.
<P>
I think it is fair to say that there is general consensus in the European Union - the Council, the Parliament and the Commission - on the following two propositions: firstly, whatever the understandable outrage about the appalling acts of terrorism in Moscow, in the northern Caucasus and elsewhere - which, as someone whose country has had all too much experience of terrorism, I totally condemn - Russian action over recent weeks has involved repeated disproportionate military force, repeated disregard for the need to seek a political solution and repeated disregard for the tragic human consequences.
Secondly, most people (I think this is also true across the European Union) agree that it would be a historic error to begin the next century by locking Russia out of European affairs as we did at the beginning of this century.
Because we want to avoid repeating the mistakes made after 1917, the European Union has been genuinely seeking a strategic partnership with Russia.
The concrete proof is the dialogue that we have built up under the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement and the common strategy adopted at the Cologne European Council.
<P>
It is equally obvious that the unfolding situation in Chechnya puts our relations with Russia under considerable strain.
The Russian authorities must understand that their present action has an impact on their acceptance by the international community and on Russia' s credibility as a political and economic partner.
They seek to justify their action in terms of domestic public opinion.
It is the same story when they refuse to give ground on the European Union' s legitimate trade concerns despite the EUR 10 billion trade surplus they now enjoy with us.
<P>
But we live in democratic countries with democratic institutions like this Parliament.
We too are affected by the strength of public opinion which is understandably horrified by what is happening in Chechnya and worried about simply standing on the sidelines.
So far, our response has been to try to exert growing diplomatic and political pressure on the Russians.
We have taken every opportunity to get the message across at all levels.
I participated in the ministerial troika led by Foreign Minister Halonen in early October.
The subject dominated the European Union-Russia Summit on 22 October and it dominated our discussion at the General Affairs Council on Monday.
At each stage the language has been hardened and the operational proposals reinforced.
<P>
The message from the Council this week could not be more clear.
The European Union has condemned outright all disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force in Chechnya and urged the Russian government to observe its commitments under humanitarian law.
There is no alternative to seeking a negotiated settlement based on a dialogue with the elected leaders of the northern Caucasus, including Chechnya.
The Council stressed that imposing a military solution in Chechnya would be a major political mistake.
What will be the situation in one month, two months, a year or two years from now?
There is apparently no long-term Russian strategy to ensure lasting peace.
More specifically, the Council urged a role for the OSCE and asked that a branch office of the OSCE assistance group to Chechnya should be immediately opened in Nazran and Ingushetia.
The Council concluded that the Istanbul Summit this Thursday and Friday could be used, inter alia, to drive home these messages to the Russian authorities.
I am obviously willing to return to Parliament after Istanbul to report on the message we delivered and the reaction we received.
<P>
Increasingly I am being asked whether the European Union should step up the pressure by moving beyond strong words to more direct action.
What might this involve?
Some suggest cutting off financial assistance under the TACIS programme.
Would this, I ask, put a stop to military action?
There would be no direct impact on Russia' s public finances because the money is all channelled through contractors mainly in the European Union.
But it would undermine the process of economic and social modernisation that we have been pressing for so hard.
<P>
What about suspending food aid?
The existing scheme is nearing an end.
By September over 90% of supplies had already been delivered to Russia.
It is now for the Russian authorities to ensure distribution.
The priority for us is to check that the proceeds of the scheme are properly used to repay pension arrears and for other social projects.
As for the future, we have anyway very grave doubts about the need and the economic rationale for any new food aid schemes.
Recent events in Chechnya add a strong political argument against meeting any new Russian request for food aid.
I told Madeline Albright last week that I did not believe that this Parliament would countenance any further delivery of new food aid this winter to Russia.
<P>
There have also been suggestions of withholding IMF assistance and EBRD lending.
These are obviously issues beyond the direct competence of the European Union, but would it be in our interests to provoke a political backlash against the international community in the run-up to the Duma elections in December?
<P>
The OSCE meeting in Istanbul provides an opportunity for progress, although I cannot claim to be very optimistic.
The Russians have made it plain that domestic public opinion is dominating other considerations in their handling of the crisis.
Our job must be to persuade them their present short-sighted approach will never deliver lasting peace in the Caucasus, and we need to be swift and generous in providing the humanitarian assistance that is so badly needed as winter sets in.
We will be more effective on both these fronts while channels of communication remain open.
I am therefore, like the Presidency and the High Representative, in close contact with Igor Ivanov, the Russian Foreign Minister.
We met in Helsinki last week in the margins of the Northern Dimension Conference and we have since spoken on the telephone.
<P>
On the urgent humanitarian situation, I have repeatedly stressed the need to ensure adequate access and security for international aid agencies.
Some progress has been possible through recent assessment missions by outside experts and donors.
This has allowed a better estimate of the extent of humanitarian aid needs.
There appear to be up to 200,000 Chechen refugees now in Ingushetia, most of them staying with families there, the remainder living in tents.
Meanwhile a large number of people are waiting to cross the border and many have returned to Chechnya, either to the area occupied by the Russian military or to that still under control of the Chechen fighters.
In total, we are talking about up to half a million people to a greater or lesser extent in need of humanitarian assistance.
The needs of the local population in Ingushetia who have been hosting the refugees must also be taken into account.
Identifying needs is only one part of the problem.
<P>
The physical delivery of assistance is another.
Continuing security worries have limited assistance efforts so far.
From the Commission ECHO has committed close to one million euros to the work of the UNHCR.
The large-scale assistance urgently required in this region cannot be delivered through remote control with donors excessively dependent on the Russian Ministry for Emergencies.
We must therefore maintain pressure on the Russian authorities to do much more to facilitate access for international donors and to look after their safety.
<P>
Finally, I should say that Mr Ivanov has suggested in his conversations with me that an intensification of the contacts between the European Parliament and the Duma might be helpful, including perhaps a visit to Moscow by a representative group of your Members.
Obviously you would want to see for yourselves what was going on and make your own judgements.
I know that under the admirable leadership of Mrs Krehl, your Delegation for relations with Russia is among the most active in the Parliament, but I would urge you to consider Mr Ivanov' s suggestion seriously.
<P>
The Commission is keen to see a constructive relationship between the Russian Federation and the European Union.
We have a shared interest in the future security and prosperity of our continent.
But I have to say that the present crisis in Chechnya is putting a severe strain on the partnership we have been trying to build.
On the other hand, we all know that it is only by trying to maintain that partnership that we have any chance of getting the Russians to heed our message, that is the awful dilemma that we face.
The Russians must recognise that they cannot dismiss our concerns out of hand.
We want closer friendship and understanding but they must recognise that those things are a two-way street.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, Members of the European Parliament, Commissioner Patten has given a very analytical and well considered presentation on this issue.
We can fully agree with the points he raised.
This autumn we have followed daily, with growing concern, the continued military action in Chechnya.
Of particular worry is the fact that the Russian government has still not - despite its promises - begun to look for a political solution to the crisis but, instead, relies solely on military action.
Moscow' s political goals regarding Chechnya in the longer term are still obscure.
<P>
I appreciate the European Parliament' s interest in the situation in Chechnya.
I would now briefly like to tell you of our assessment, firstly of the military crisis in Chechnya and, secondly of the humanitarian crisis there.
Thirdly, I will speak about the action taken thus far by the European Union and the international community, and the aims we have for Chechnya.
<P>
Militarily, Russia controls just under half the Chechen territory, and is advancing systematically.
On Friday last week, Russia took the city of Gudermes and may also in time take Grozny.
Russia' s apparent aim is to bring the whole of Chechnya back under Russian control.
For Prime Minister Putin, the war has also so far been an internal political success.
<P>
During the autumn the European Union has repeated its concern regarding the disproportionate use of force in Chechnya.
This has caused a number of civilian victims and an ever-continuing increase in the number of internal refugees.
The use of force against civilians is prohibited under international humanitarian law.
Through its action, Russia is in violation of the Geneva Convention and the Additional Protocol.
Indiscriminate bombing has been responsible for many civilian victims.
<P>
The European Union has underlined the need for rapid de-escalation of the conflict and urged Russia to commence negotiations for a lasting solution to the problem.
It is clear that a basically political conflict cannot be solved militarily.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="President">
Mr Sasi, I must interrupt the proceedings for a few moments in order to check whether or not there is some reason for the alarm which we can hear.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 3.20 p.m. and resumed at 3.30 p.m.)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="President">
Mr Sasi, please excuse us for this technical hitch, and please continue your statement on behalf of the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Sasi">
<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Morillon">
Mr President, Mr Sasi, Commissioner, it is with relief that my fellow Members and myself welcomed the statement from the European Union' s Foreign Affairs Council the day before yesterday, forcefully condemning the disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force in Chechnya.
<P>
It is with relief that we heard this morning the very firm position adopted on the matter by Mr Solana and his undertaking to bring his weight to bear, as of this afternoon in Istanbul, in order to ensure that international law and human dignity is respected in this part of the world, and it is with relief that we have just heard you tell us, Mr Patten, that you are shortly to add your contribution to that of Mr Solana in this area.
<P>
We were, in fact, in the majority in this House in condemning the methods adopted by the Russian army to quash under fire any sort of potential resistance to its advance without taking into consideration the losses thereby caused among the civilian population.
We were also in the majority in deploring, together with the majority of public opinion in Europe, the striking contrast between the din of the bombing and the sustained silence of the governments of the European Union.
<P>
I can bear witness to this because yesterday, I chaired a meeting of all the groups of this Parliament where a draft joint resolution was finalised which, unlike others, will not be a compromise text and will in no way be a compromise between divergent positions, but will indeed be a synthesis enriched by the proposals of each of the political families united in a common desire to offer Parliament' s contribution to a political solution of the tragic situation currently causing bloodshed in Chechnya.
<P>
In this resolution, which I have no doubt will be massively supported by my fellow Members, we are adding our voices to those of the Council in condemning the action currently being taken and in requesting that negotiations are initiated directly with the elected representatives of the population of Chechnya.
<P>
Together with you, we are requesting that the necessary humanitarian aid be deployed immediately, in order to provide assistance to the hundreds of thousands of people displaced due to this conflict, but we are requesting, Mr Patten, that provision is made for the suspension of economic aid to Russia, initially, if Russia continues with its indiscriminate attacks upon the civilian population and does not seek a negotiated settlement.
<P>
I fully understand, and we hope with all our hearts that the task of negotiation which you are going to enter into, together with Mr Solana, will be successful.
We also propose, and we are agreed upon this, I am sure, that a conference should be held, and that Parliament should participate in this conference.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Schori">
Mr President, I should like to welcome the stand taken by Mr Patten and Mr Sasi and compliment Mr Morillon, Mr Cohn-Bendit and others on this very strong motion we put together yesterday.
<P>
It is important to underline what we say in the motion for a resolution, namely that we are committed to strengthening the partnership with Russia because we realise that there will be no stable, peaceful Europe without a stable and democratic Russia.
We also underline the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation.
But it is the strategic partnership agreement that also gives us formal grounds, apart from our reactions as human beings, to question what is going on.
The Tacis agreement states specifically that Tacis assistance is provided on the basis of certain shared economic and political values and practices.
This is why we have also raised the issue of Tacis here.
We do it against the background that some weeks ago the Russian Duma gave Mr Putin an increase of USD 1 billion for the war effort in Chechnya.
<P>
Therefore we also demand the highest degree of transparency on the part of any financial institutions or donors of funds to Russia.
We also urge the Council and the Commission to consider freezing all new contracts under the Tacis programme, except the democracy line.
This is a warning.
We are not only concerned about the question of Chechnya; we are outraged, horrified.
We want to add our voice and express our strong concern about what is going on and use the weight we have in Parliament, which we can do, among other things, through the Tacis programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Väyrynen">
Mr President, the stand on Chechnya drafted by the political groups of the European Parliament is, in my opinion, well prepared.
The clear basis of the resolution is the support for Russian territorial integrity.
The Russian government is also supported to the extent that we condemn terrorism in all its forms.
On the other hand, we also condemn the excessive use of force and we are calling for a political solution to be sought for the Chechen question.
In addition, we wish to emphasise that the civilian population must be protected and the refugees taken good care of.
<P>
Our position complies with the resolutions we adopted earlier and it is also in harmony with the policy pursued by Western countries.
On the other hand, the line adopted by Parliament apparently contradicts public opinion among the citizens of the Member States.
The European Parliament' s policy on Chechnya is encumbered by the fact that Western countries have themselves acted in such a way that they have lost the moral authority to clearly condemn the blunders Russia is presently accused of.
This is shown, for example, in the article by Prime Minister Putin, recently published in the Herald Tribune, in which he defends his government' s action with reference to examples offered by Western countries.
<P>
The particular burden that the West bears now is the war against Yugoslavia.
The bombing began without sufficient consideration being given to the objectives and consequences.
In Kosovo a war of independence was going on, associated with violence against the civilian population.
The West interposed in this war with a bombing campaign against one side, and on behalf of the other, although they had not approved the objectives of the side on behalf of which they had started the war.
As no one wanted or was able to use ground troops in the war, the bombing meant that a humanitarian and political crisis became a humanitarian and political catastrophe.
If Western policy were consistent, these countries would now be considering the defence of Chechnya, even through military means, but nobody even thinks about it.
Now it is considered that Russia has the right to defend its own country' s unity, even through the use of very harsh measures.
On the other hand, Russia is now appealing to the notion that it has the right to use military force to achieve its own important political aims in the same way as Western countries did in Yugoslavia.
Despite our own moral burden, the European Union must use all its authority to solve the Chechen crisis according to the guidelines the representatives of the Council and the Commission have laid down here.
<P>
As we develop a common foreign, security and defence policy for the Union, we must see to it that it has a sound moral basis.
Only in that way will we have the authority to insist that others should act in accordance with these principles.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cohn-Bendit">
Mr President, Russian tanks are currently crushing a nation, just as they already crushed and attempted to crush the people of Hungary in 1956, of Germany in 1963, and we can give other examples, up to Prague in 1968.
Let us forget the hypocrisy and the double talk.
The Russian policy being carried out in Chechnya is an old tactic. It is founded upon the Stalinist policy which shoved whole populations behind the Urals, without the right to return home, twenty or thirty years ago.
And if we say that we do not wish to exclude Russia from Europe, that is true.
But when the Russians say that this is an internal problem, we must tell them that today we all live in the same world, with shared values.
And it is in the name of such values that we declare that we have an entitlement to political intervention, humanitarian intervention, in the face of this Russian barbarism.
<P>
Yes, there has been terrorism.
But who committed these acts of terrorism in Moscow?
Do we know?
Russian history claimed that Katyn was an atrocity committed by the Germans, until it was discovered that it was in fact committed by the Russians.
I do not know who committed the terrible criminal acts in Russia, but I do know that the women and children of Chechnya who are being massacred today surely did not commit acts of terrorism.
This is why, when we Europeans say that we are freezing aid to Russia, it is not with the intention of excluding Russia, but of integrating it into a shared system of values.
Let us not give in to the blackmail which says "if we do not help Yeltsin or Putin, then we will have worse", for what could be worse than the annihilation of Grozny and the annihilation of Chechnya?
Do you think that Mr Lebed or any other crazy man would do something other than this?
<P>
This is why I am asking the Council and the Commission to be honest in saying to the Russians that if they do not change their policy, then we shall change our aid policy.
Obviously, we shall provide the Russians with food aid, but we shall not assist a government which looks just like the old Russian Government.
The fact is, Mr Putin looks just like all the members and chairmen of the KGB.
<P>
I wished to say this in the presence of Mr Armatov, the Chechen Minister of Foreign Affairs, who will have, as he listens to us, an idea of what democracy in Europe is.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Markov">
Mr President, I am extremely worried that worldwide there are increasing attempts to resolve conflicts using military means.
Russia is no exception in this, which is particularly painful for the European Left; it is acting as it sees fit and no differently from NATO in Yugoslavia. I consider the applause which you gave Mr Solana this morning and now the applause for the speech made by Mr Cohn-Bendit to be opportunism of the worst kind.
I simply must say this!
<P>
To reverse the trend, that is away from the military and towards conflict prevention and peaceful conflict settlement, is the crucial challenge facing this European Parliament.
We have logically assessed the war in Chechnya and we have also deferred our decision on further expansion of cooperation with Russia.
We expect the same of the Council.
Yesterday' s declaration by the Council is a positive sign but it is too late.
It is to be hoped that the Council does not need as long to follow up our proposal to freeze the expansion of relations and the TACIS programmes for Russia until such time as the weapons finally fall silent.
<P>
The attacks on refugees and residential areas, the closing of the borders and the hindrance of international aid organisations providing humanitarian aid not only contravene the Geneva Convention on the protection of civilians in war zones and other international obligations but are quite simply inhuman and totally unacceptable.
I consider it self-evident and indispensable that the European Union increase its humanitarian aid for the people of this region.
However, we must not release Russia from its responsibility to protect and provide for refugees and itself to care for the people in the war zone.
The same also applies for the reconstruction of the country.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Muscardini">
Mr President, discussing Chechnya today reminds us of Kosovo and makes us wonder about that famous duty to interfere on humanitarian grounds, that principle which is, unfortunately, as vague as it is noble.
Indeed, it is used with excessive discretionary power, often owing to specific political or economic interests. The principle of humanitarian intervention has, until now, failed miserably because Milosevic' s regime is still firmly in power in a country that has gone backwards in time and economics by at least thirty years, while the majority of the Albanian people have returned to their land and 10% of Kosovar Serbs and all the gypsy peoples have been forced into exile.
In Chechnya, the situation is even worse.
Two months ago, the Russian army entered Chechnya, a land which had already been destroyed in human and economic terms and drained three years ago with more than 100,000 dead.
Today, we hear of the civilian population being shelled, which has caused over 3,000 deaths and turned 200,000 people into refugees.
And all of this while the so-called "virtuous" international community justifies the Russian intervention on the pretext of fighting terrorism, and the International Monetary Fund bankrolls unsecured funds to Yeltsin, despite the billions of dollars misappropriated by the Russian authorities.
<P>
It is true that Chechnya is a part of the Russian Federation, but the Russian troops do not have the authority to legally massacre men, women and children.
The international community, our Union, is duty-bound, if it is truly committed to safeguarding human rights, not to remain passive.
The region has been ravaged by war and, in the meantime, the European Union is increasing its commitment to humanitarian aid and funding for the TRASECA project to link the Black Sea and Central Asia.
And the fuel factor - gas and oil - has played an important part in the Chechen crisis.
American companies are interested in Caspian Sea oil as an alternative to Persian Gulf oil.
They asked the Department of State to draw up a strategic map of possible routes: the most important would be the section between the Caspian Sea and the Turkish port of Ceyhan, which affects the route between Baku and the Russian port of Novorossisk.
Thus, in 1994, the Russian army intervened to show that Russia controlled the operational oil pipelines allowing the Caspian Sea production to be exported so it would not risk being excluded from the power play dominated by America.
<P>
The Union must have one single objective: to contribute to re-establishing peace, to find a new status for Chechnya, as laid down in the agreement signed between Russia and Chechnya on 31 August 1996, and it must also remember that if Europe wants to defend human rights, it cannot continue to endorse the fact that Russia believes force and the army to be the only political tools.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Belder">
Mr President, why is President Yeltsin now repeating what he once described as the biggest blunder of his political career of 1994/1996: a large-scale military intervention in Chechnya?
And why does the Russian military apparatus provoke the Trans-Caucasian republics of Georgia and Azerbaijan by making wild accusations regarding cooperation with Chechen "separatists and terrorists" ?
<P>
Both operations are pretty disastrous anyway, both for the Russian Federation and the Caucasus.
Under the quasi-legitimate banner of "fighting terrorism and violent separatism" , the Kremlin is itself terrorising the Chechen people and is stimulating the very terrorist, fundamentalist elements amongst them.
<P>
It is likely that the Russian punitive expedition in Chechnya is largely founded on internal political and military motives other than the purging of "Chechen Wahabi headhunters" .
To the fraudulent "family" of President Yeltsin, this is a true gift by way of a diversionary tactic.
At the same time, the deeply aggrieved Russian army leadership can undertake bloody revenge for the humiliating defeat against the Chechen freedom fighters of only a few years ago.
Moreover, the horrifying war scene in the Caucasus offers the average Russian politician the chance par excellence to beat the popular national drum, especially in the run-up to the Duma elections.
<P>
The trouble-stirring from Moscow in the Caucasus is undoubtedly the result of the competitive rivalry with the West regarding the energy treasures of the Caspian Basin and is indicative of a revival of the imperial idea.
In this light, the Chechen tragedy is merely the overture for a larger, regional crisis.
<P>
Does Moscow have as little to fear from the West, including the European Union, now, as it did during the first, degrading showdown with Grozny?
Why not block all credit to Russia, for example?!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kronberger">
Mr President, just as the previous speaker stated, the last few weeks have shown that the actual scale of things in the Caucasus is considerably greater and also encompasses the entire Caspian Sea.
Of course, in the current phase of the war in and around Chechnya we need to see damage limitation as the most important issue and to provide the swiftest possible emergency aid for the population.
<P>
However, whilst the real interests in the Caucasus are not openly declared and remain undisclosed the attempts at resolution will not work.
Each person interprets the causes of the war using the arguments which best suit his own theory.
There is no admission that this area is one of the largest stores of raw materials in the world and that many multinational interests are focused on this area.
So long as greed for these possessions and for the resources in this area remains unconquered - and this applies equally to Europe and many other states - the conflicts in this region will not be resolved and, long term, we also have to consider finding a major, comprehensive solution to this problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I cannot share the opinion of Mr Väyrynen that this Parliament does not have enough credibility.
Two months ago we took up a clear position as a single international institution, albeit not every individual in the House.
I am pleased that everyone has now come on board and that the Council and Commission also now support what we in this House clearly declared on this matter with a small majority two months ago.
<P>
However, we have now moved on considerably, having come to realise that it is not enough to direct threatening words at the Russians.
Rather, we must reach conclusions.
We must stop financing this war, which is a bloody, colonial war for oil and an especially bloody form of electoral campaigning.
This means, Commissioner, that we must stop financial payments, including TACIS funds.
On the other hand, we must clearly say to our partner that, as far as we are concerned, a partner is no longer a partner when he becomes a murderer.
This should also be obvious between states.
<P>
I would also like to clear up a few myths.
No mention is ever made of the democratically elected government of Chechnya.
This is not another internal affair for Russia.
This government was elected under the supervision of the OSCE on the basis of a cease-fire agreement which the OSCE brokered.
We must resolutely support this government against the breach of this agreement by Moscow, which is a contravention of international law and which has come about as a result of the fact that Moscow has restored a KGB puppet parliament, which was in place in Moscow before the agreement, in order to have a comfortable negotiating partner.
<P>
We must also clear up the myth that this is a response to terrorism.
Mr Cohn-Bendit is right: we do not know who carried out the bomb attacks in Moscow, which we condemn. Much points to bogus machinations.
We must state quite clearly that anyone dropping bombs on civilians is not fighting terrorists; rather he is inciting terrorists by traumatising whole generations which will suffer the consequences of this particularly brutal form of colonialism.
<P>
We therefore need a wholly clear and energetic policy and not the assertions of alibis which we have had in recent months, including from our governments.
I would like to urge the Council and the Commission to use the same clear language at tomorrow' s OSCE Summit as the European Parliament has used in its resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Krehl">
Ladies and gentlemen, I have had the opportunity in the last few days to speak both with the Russians, in the person of Mr Rishkov from the Duma, and with Mr Achmadov from the Chechens.
The overall picture which emerges is incredibly complicated.
The Russians want to successfully conclude this military intervention using full force, whatever it costs.
They deny that there are civilian fatalities.
They say that the Chechen refugees, more than 300,000, are not facing a difficult situation. More and more, Russian politicians are using the Chechen conflict as an instrument of electoral campaign; and with some success.
95% of the Russian population support the war in Chechnya.
<P>
However, it is also true that Russia is claiming in principle that the entire Chechen population are terrorists and as a European Parliament we cannot and must not accept this.
We therefore demand political dialogue and a political solution and commit ourselves to the means of pressure we have at our disposal, even the blocking of new TACIS projects or the refusal to provide food aid to Russia.
Humanitarian aid yes, democratic projects yes, but nothing more!
Even though we acknowledge that the debate and negotiations on Russian non-compliance with trade agreements and the steel agreement will then become extremely difficult for the European Union, terrorism cannot, and must not, be waged against an entire population using military might.
<P>
In this regard, an entirely different discussion, indeed an entirely different issue comes to the fore: The European Parliament has always made it clear in all its resolutions that Chechnya is a part of the Russian Federation.
I cannot quite understand therefore how an appointed Chechen Foreign Minister who, under international law, should not even exist, can hold an official discussion with the President of the European Parliament.
<P>
<P>
I consider this to be an extremely difficult decision.
I agree that the groups should have access to information, and I was very grateful that I was able to speak on this matter with Mr Achmadov, but in the past there have not been official appointments of this type in this House.
This is a very unusual occurrence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Mr President, through the disgraceful policies being pursued today in Chechnya, the Russian Government is rigidly following the example set by the governments of the United States and of the Member States of the European Union just a few months back.
It is continuing to use excessive violence and to bomb civilians, both indiscriminately and with impunity, because it has neither the patience nor the stamina to find a political solution to the existing problems.
<P>
Just as the others did!
<P>
We are not convinced by the criticism being levelled at them either.
We are even less convinced by you saying that you cannot safeguard the rights of minorities in Kosovo, and that you cannot guarantee the integrity of Yugoslavia.
How will you go about convincing Russia that you can guarantee its integrity and how will you persuade it to respect human rights?
The whole thing is a shambles, blind hypocrisy.
Only those who uphold the rights and respect the integrity of the states of both the Yugoslavian and Russian Federations can convince us of the rights of those persecuted Chechens who are suffering greatly today.
<P>
Only them!
Nobody else!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, I would like to add just two points to the comments made by Mr Morillon, Mr Cohn-Bendit, Mr Posselt and Mr Schori, which I completely endorse.
We should remember that the Soviet Union of the time stirred up the processes of decolonisation, even when it was not always clear that the populations concerned actually wanted decolonisation.
<P>
Today, then, we are facing an empire, the only one, which has saved on the expense of decolonisation.
Historically, there is no doubt that the Russian Empire in fact colonised a large part of the Caucasus, i.e. non- Russian peoples.
This is the first thing.
I say this as a Federalist, and as somewhat not in favour of the multiplication of states.
<P>
In the second place, and I am addressing Mr Patten and the Council in particular, the European Union must, as a matter of urgency, have a policy in the Caucasus, the region which Chechnya is part of.
It must, as a matter of urgency, have a policy which guarantees stability, not only for Chechnya, but also for Chechnya in relation to Georgia, in relation to Azerbaijan, in relation to Armenia.
We know the problems there are particularly in this last country. It follows that a real European policy is urgently needed in this region.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
Mr President, the Russian government will be tempted to draw parallels between our action against Serbia to end the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and their action against Chechen crime.
This is strangely voiced at the extreme left of this Parliament.
I personally think that this comparison is rather far-fetched, but it is useful to remind ourselves of the discrepancies.
Our action and that of NATO in Kosovo and Serbia was undertaken with an extremely selective application of the least possible violence, sparing the civilian population as much as possible.
Therein lies the huge difference between our action and the action Russia is taking in Chechnya at the moment.
<P>
It is useful that the extreme left should remind us of this difference, although quite unintended.
Also, human life appears to be of no consequence and refugees are of no concern.
Long lines of refugees are kept waiting at the border and international aid organisations fail to offer real help due to a lack of cooperation.
This is another clear difference and it is really good that the extreme left have underscored these huge differences between Russia' s action in Chechnya and that of NATO in Kosovo.
<P>
Mr President, it is essential that clear-cut measures be taken and that we give the Russian population some sort of message.
Indeed, we received the delegation from the Russian Parliament here and we noticed that there is, in fact, a common opinion amongst the Russian representatives there and they were not all from the same party.
This stood out to us.
<P>
We will have therefore have to give the Russian population a message which is loud and clear so that they might start to question the events in Chechnya and their government' s action.
I am sure we will need to bring some pressure to bear in Russia if we are to put an end to these Russian crimes once again.
This is why I think, following on from what Mr Patten said during his hearing, that it is bad doing business with states which violate human rights on a massive scale - he was talking about China in response to a question raised by us - and that it is in fact beneficial to consider financial-economic measures when it comes to giving a clear message.
We may be able to call on our friends from the Council of Europe too to consider a suspension.
<P>
Mr President, I think we as a Parliament should take a clear stance and express our support for the Chechen population and, for this reason, it is important to my mind that the President of the European Parliament meet the Chechen Foreign Minister in order to explain our stance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sakellariou">
Mr President, I do not need to repeat what the Commission and the Council have said on the situation in Chechnya.
I would just like to emphasise one area which can serve as a justification for our joint resolution on Chechnya: the suffering of the civilian population; the hundreds of fatalities; the 200,000 refugees and their plight given the onset of winter; the overreaction of the Russian government and the indiscriminate bombing of the civilian population.
I have the impression that this is not a legitimate war against terrorist activity, but a political power struggle at the cost of the population.
<P>
For this reason our Parliament must clearly say what it wants and what it doesn' t want.
I shall summarise: firstly, we are not disputing the right of the Russian government to fight the brutal terrorism in Dagestan.
Secondly, we in no way wish to jeopardise the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation.
<P>
Thirdly, however, we cannot condone aeroplanes bombing the civilian population!
I condemn these bombings, just as months ago I condemned the bombings of Novi Sad, Belgrade and Nis, which were described as "collateral damage" .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lehne">
Mr President, what we are experiencing in the second Chechen war is a double tragedy, firstly because the Chechen people are the victims and secondly because the current Russian policy in the Caucasus will not lead to a solution to the problems, but will only aggravate them.
<P>
We are witnessing a destabilisation of the region which will have long-term consequences.
Today, so I have heard, a Georgian village is reported to have been bombed by Russian planes.
This means that there is a danger that this conflict will not remain a purely Russian conflict, but will perhaps extend beyond the Russian borders.
This would then undoubtedly be a problem and a further matter for the world community and, of course, the European Union to deal with.
<P>
I believe that in recent plenary part-sessions since the summer, this Parliament has tackled the problem of the second Chechen war in great detail, as indeed it has had to.
We have taken up a very clear position.
We will also, by the mutual consent of all groups, take up a position in the resolution before us today.
This is necessary and right!
<P>
However, I also share the view of Commissioner Patten that we must not in any way end communication with the Russians.
If we want to persuade, if we want to exert influence, then this can only be done by intensifying discussions with our Russian partners.
We were visited last week, as Mr Oostlander previously stated, by a Russian parliamentary delegation.
I can only say, and this is the major problem with this second Chechen war, that contrary to the first Chechen war the Russian parties in the Duma are nearly all united and, unfortunately, support the policy of the Putin government.
This makes it perfectly clear how important dialogue is and what we need to do.
<P>
I think that the idea which was put forward here of possibly improving contact with the Russian Parliament through an ad-hoc delegation is an important one.
And I also think that, since the Russians have asked us to act as electoral supervisors in the elections to the Duma, we must seriously consider whether to satisfy this request from the Parliament because this might be a further contribution to dialogue and to the development of more democracy and perhaps also better politics in Russia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, the situation regarding the refugees is intolerable, and it is not Russia' s internal affair.
Russia is creating a massive humanitarian catastrophe with its action against soldiers and terrorists that have carried out inhumane deeds.
However, we must remember that nobody has mentioned here that a separate Muslim state was being created between the Caspian and Black Seas.
That is a much larger issue, and one we have to bear in mind.
Cutting ourselves off from Russia prior to the elections would be very unwise, as we want to lend our support to Russia' s democratic strengths.
When we cut ourselves off before, it led to Stalinism and dictatorship.
<P>
I support the idea of a visit to Moscow in December, in connection with the elections, as I have proposed, and that we press for a pan-Caucasus peace conference to solve other problems apart from this particular one, as there are military operations going on in half a dozen states in the Caucasus, and the threat of the operations spreading is quite apparent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Volcic">
Mr President, I am wondering whether these documents are morally right, especially as I think they are rather useless.
The documents on the Caucasus and Chechnya contain the same elements found in the Council of Europe' s document that was dismissed two weeks ago.
It therefore appears to be a mandatory exercise in rhetoric, with the usual array of fine principles and high hopes.
<P>
The European Union expresses its concerns, stresses this and admonishes that, requests a dialogue that it knows is impossible and limits itself to condemning - and this is the first point I would like to talk about - just one thing: the disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force in Chechnya.
So you could say then, that a little bit of war is alright, as long as it is not disproportionate.
But tell me, what is a disproportionate war?
<P>
The second point is the following: the bombing strategy following NATO' s example is supposedly a response to the terrorist bombs in various Russian cities.
Is there any evidence, are there any suspicions that these bombs were planted by Chechens? What investigation confirms this?
Is it reasonable to kill thousands of people and turn 200,000 people into refugees based on a mere suspicion of guilt?
<P>
The European Union is asking for a negotiated solution - and if anyone really believes in the possibility of negotiations they are living in cloud cuckoo land - while the Russians in the Caucasus are making a distinction between the bad guys - those who are asking for independence - perhaps making them out to be Muslims, and the good guys, or rather only those people who are collaborating with them.
So where is the dialogue?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="President">
I must notify the House that Commissioner Patten has had to leave us in order to catch his flight to Istanbul in order to attend the OSCE meeting, as scheduled.
I am therefore going to give the floor to the Council in order to conclude the statements which, I am sure, will be followed with a great deal of interest by the citizens of Chechnya who are today present in the visitors' gallery.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, we have had an excellent debate on this matter here in Parliament.
In my opinion, Parliament' s concern is the right message the Union has to send out.
All of us, the Commission, the Council and Parliament agree on this situation.
It is important that we all send Russia a signal, and a clear one at that, that violence perpetrated against the civilian population must stop, that talks with legally elected representatives in Chechnya must commence, that humanitarian aid is needed, and that its access to the region must be allowed, with the OSCE having the main role to play in finding a solution to the crisis.
I can assure you that the Presidency of the Council will act with determination to achieve these aims.
At the same time I wish Commissioner Patten success in the talks at Istanbul.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I should just like to ask you to convey our thanks to the President of Parliament for receiving the representative of a government elected under the supervision of the OSCE who is also established in the area of the Council of Europe and who was elected under the Russian constitution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="President">
Your statement has been noted, Mr Posselt.
<P>
I have received five motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
WTO Millennium Round (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report (A5-0062/1999) by Mr Schwaiger, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament: The EU Approach to the WTO Millennium Round (COM(1999)331 - C5-0155/1999 - 1999/2149(COS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Ferrer">
Mr President, Commissioner, there is no doubt that the need to develop trade as effectively as possible and the new challenges posed by globalisation, as well as the need to consolidate a balanced commercial system which will contribute to sustainable development and whose benefits will also extend to the less developed countries, require a strengthening of the rules which govern international trade.
Hence the importance of the coming conference in Seattle and the timeliness and suitability of the proposals in the Commission' s communication as regards the upcoming negotiations.
<P>
In fact, given the challenges before us, it is clear that the next Round cannot be limited to simply widening the regulatory framework, however important that may be, nor must it only ensure that trade liberalisation contributes to economic and social growth in the less developed countries, although I share fully in that desire. Rather, it must also establish rules which will lead to the opening up of markets and guarantee compliance with them.
<P>
We have to bear in mind that for European industry - and I am thinking in particular of the textile sector - access to the markets of the developed countries and emerging economies on reciprocal terms is a fundamental priority.
To this end it is essential that the Commission achieves the harmonisation of tariffs and the elimination of tariff peaks and tariff progression, as well as the removal of all technical barriers to trade, on the understanding that the less developed countries should be guaranteed free access to the international market for all their products so that they can also benefit from trade liberalisation.
<P>
And now, Commissioner, I would like to ask you firstly if you can confirm your intention not to accept, on the agenda of the negotiations, any reconsideration of the agreement on the textile sector as regards the clothing industry and, secondly, how you consider that China' s membership of the World Trade Organisation will affect the European textile industry, bearing in mind that that country is the world' s foremost exporter of textile products.
<P>
Finally, I would also like to congratulate the rapporteur on his excellent report and his desire to reach the widest possible consensus on a subject as important as the coming Millennium Round, which we depend on to consolidate a balanced trading system which will ensure, on a global level, an economic order based on social justice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Garot">
Mr President, Mr Lamy, this morning the President-in-Office of the Council reminded us of the importance of the agriculture portfolio in the WTO negotiations, and I thank him for this.
<P>
You already know that farmers in Europe are going to have to make great efforts to adapt in order to apply the Berlin compromise which, last March, represented the acceptable balance for the fifteen Member States of the European Union.
You know that developing countries must be able to count on Europe in order to guarantee the legitimate rapid expansion of their own agriculture which is often the major sector in their economic development.
You know that the United States is demonstrating today that the market alone finds it difficult to guarantee agricultural revenue.
You must also know, then, that we are counting specifically on you to ensure that the WTO negotiations result in the outcome that we expect.
<P>
Regarding access to the market, how is it possible not to recognise that Europe is not the well-defended fortress that it is unjustly accused of being, since we are the leading importer worldwide with a deficit trade balance in the food processing sector?
<P>
This reality, Commissioner, must make it possible for you to campaign so that markets are opened up and tariff barriers are reduced according to gradual processes, varying according to sector.
As for market protection mechanisms, if they must be adjusted, should they not be retained or reinforced for particular countries, and I refer to developing countries in particular?
<P>
Regarding internal support, how is it possible not to make the most of the fact that Agenda 2000 is leading to a significant reduction in the overall extent of support, at a time when the United States are adopting a policy which goes in the opposite direction?
This situation must make it possible for you to ensure that the blue box and the green box accepted at Marrakech are retained, and that the peace clause is renewed.
<P>
Regarding export subsidies, how is it possible not to capitalise on the strategy of reduction which we are undertaking with the new common agricultural policy?
This development must give you the possibility of demanding transparency and handling of the various forms of export aid used by our competitors.
<P>
Commissioner, the Berlin Agreement was drawn up in order to give the European Union real room for manoeuvre in the Millennium Round.
We have no doubt that you will be able to make use of this by building on the concept of multi-functionality which makes it possible to meet the various expectations of our societies as regards food quality, employment and sustainable rural development, the protection and conservation of the natural heritage and also regarding the balance between regions.
<P>
This approach must afford Europe the opportunity to be open to interesting possibilities of alliance.
This is why we are counting on you to take the offensive in these negotiations, in which you may count on our critical support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Olsson">
Mr President, I shall very briefly set out the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party' s points of view on agriculture in anticipation of the World Trade Organisation negotiations.
The fact is that it is an increase in demand on the world market which is the most reliable guarantee of profitable European agriculture in the future.
It is a much more reliable guarantee than stubborn persistence with our own protective system.
Moreover, it is a liberalisation of world trade and improved competition which can lead to increased growth in the new industrialised countries and in populous developing countries.
It is this which can mobilise the world' s huge need for food and convert it into a level of demand with great purchasing power.
<P>
Naturally, we shall retain the European model.
We shall take account, perhaps to a still greater extent, of the environment, public health, animal protection and multi-functionality - that is to say diversity - in the countryside and in agriculture.
I think it is this and an open-minded attitude to the development of the information society which will be priorities in discussing the future shape of Europe.
It is important, and a responsibility on our part, to pursue the questions of increased growth throughout the world in the World Trade Organisation negotiations.
That is why I think that it is so important to say that demand is a more important consideration than the particular system we have here at home.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Mr President, Mr Schwaiger, true, your report is very comprehensive, but it is rather too non-committal, and there are a number of points it fails to address.
What, for example, has come of the demand for an analysis of the WTO' s influence so far upon, for example, developing countries, the environment, the EU and existing treaties before we get into the next round of negotiations?
To say, Commissioner Lamy, that there were no tools or methods for doing this and that these would first have had to be developed is simply laughable.
<P>
In revising the uniquely constituted Lomé Conventions, the refrain is always that that these ought not to remain in that form and that they are not WTO specific.
What we should be demanding, however, is that the ground rules governing world trade must be focused upon the needs of people here in Europe and in developing countries.
They must be enlisted in the service of sustainability and of social needs and not of the interests of corporations and their shareholders.
This must be the main requirement and not a new round of liberalisation which serves only to incite people worldwide to compete for the lowest wages under the worst social and ecological conditions.
In our opinion, the WTO needs to be fundamentally reformed before there are any further negotiations at all.
Our goal must be nothing less than a fairer and socially and ecologically more responsible form of world trade which honours the interdependence of nations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Ainardi">
Mr President, on the eve of the Seattle Conference, I still think it unfortunate that we are going into a fresh round of negotiations before making a serious assessment of the one before.
<P>
The fact that millions of individuals are affected by the consequences of the decisions which are to be taken there does, however, make this necessary.
Those in favour of the liberalisation of trade as the driving force for prosperity are all the less willing to undertake such a report, since there can be no real denial that the situation has become worse in recent years, and inequalities between underdeveloped countries and advanced countries, as well as the development of inequalities even within developed countries, have intensified.
<P>
When wealth is concentrated at one extreme and there is an increase in unemployment at the other, one may well wonder if the WTO has not primarily served to institutionalise the law of the jungle.
As a matter of urgency, a new concept of trade between nations must be promoted, based on solidarity, cooperation, democracy and the promotion of employment and social rights.
However, so that all of this does not simply remain a vain hope, decisions must be taken, I believe, in three areas.
<P>
Firstly, formalise the principle whereby these negotiations must be of use to disadvantaged countries and populations, affirming the right of the European Union and the Member States to defend their development policy and specific agreements with the ACP and the refusal to let the Lomé Conventions be challenged by the WTO.
<P>
Secondly, insist on the primacy of the interests of peoples in preference to commercial and financial criteria.
I have three proposals relating to this. Of course, they are not comprehensive.
Firstly, subject WTO regulations to the international charter and conventions governing matters of human rights and social, health and environmental issues.
In saying this, I am thinking of Kyoto, Peking and Copenhagen.
Next, refuse to continue to liberalise services and, on the contrary, assist the development of cooperation of public services in education, health and transport.
Finally, maintain the principle of cultural exception, affording the European Union and the Member States the possibility of preserving their capability of freely determining their audiovisual cultural policy in the name of development of a thriving and enriching diversity.
One more proposal: establish the precautionary principle for the environment, health and food safety as an absolute priority.
<P>
Finally, the third area. Radical democratisation of the structures of the WTO is essential.
There must be democratic supervision of the negotiations and of the implementation of agreements.
The presence of NGOs, representatives of society and of trade unions, with the status of observers, must be accepted in these negotiations.
What is more, all the points negotiated at the WTO must be ratified by the European Parliament and by national parliaments.
Today the WTO itself is decreeing the laws, monitoring their application, and settling disputes.
I think it is not possible to be both judge and judged.
The dispute settlement body must be radically modified.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="Hyland">
I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on his very objective report.
In the short time available, I want to add my voice to that of those in this Parliament who insist on greater protection of Europe' s vital interests in the forthcoming world trade talks.
<P>
We in this House have put our cards on the table in the Agenda 2000 agreement and must not allow or accept any dilution of that agreement by the United States of America.
I say that in particular from an agricultural perspective.
Part of the motivation behind Agenda 2000 is to conform in a credible way with world trade rules and in the process, of course, to make Europe a key player in world trade - and the Americans will not want that.
We enter this new round of talks with the benefits of hindsight and in the knowledge that the United States, in reaching its negotiating position, will have, as in the past, researched the hidden agenda of establishing ways to deviate from that agreement to help its own producers, while at the same time demanding that Europe adhere rigidly to its requirements.
<P>
In this House we have prioritised consumer protection, established the family farm as the agricultural model and the basic unit of production, and made rural development and the preservation of rural communities the second pillar of CAP reform.
This is in sharp contrast with American policy.
The time has come for us in this Parliament, on behalf of the European citizens, to establish our authority and leadership in this vital area of international trade.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Belder">
Mr President, I am awaiting the meeting in Seattle with mixed feelings.
It is important to further free up world trade but this should be accompanied by pre-conditions at world level.
In their policies, WTO Members should keep open the option of granting priority to public health, animal welfare, environmental protection and solidarity with developing countries.
<P>
I would especially like to stress the position of the least developed countries.
Their capacity to participate in the world trade system falls well below the mark.
This is poignantly highlighted by the fact that Geneva has more lobbyists from the American steel industry than government officials from developing countries.
<P>
Our negotiators should make every effort to bring about real participation of these countries by granting institutional support, free access to our markets, observing concessions made - when it comes, for example, to textile products - and preventing so-called "green protectionism" .
We cannot offer the western consumer the option of environmentally-friendly products without stimulating environmentally-friendly production processes in developing countries.
I would like to exchange further ideas on this issue within the European Parliament.
<P>
Finally, I would like to express my respect for the rapporteur, Mr Schwaiger, regarding his activities and his unstinting willingness to compromise given the flood of amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Mr President, Commissioner, by the year 2005 at the latest the trade talks opened in Seattle will have been completed.
Mr Lamy, you will again be there, in 2005, sitting in the same seat, and you will come and tell us that the European Union has enjoyed worldwide success in these global talks.
In the final text of the regulations you will have achieved some mention of the precautionary principle, of health, even phyto-sanitary matters, an ILO-OMC forum and the recognition of environmental principles, insofar as they have already been recognised at Kyoto.
The dispute settlement procedure will have been improved.
Developing countries will have obtained positive discrimination, financed, indeed, by the European Union, like the ACP bananas.
Chickens will have a few more centimetres' room inside their cages, in the name of the animal welfare which will have been recognised, and the world of cinema and television will have obtained support in the form of a few aid programmes.
<P>
In exchange, in order to achieve peace - and, indeed, a new peace clause - you will have made a number of concessions at Seattle.
So, the "European Market" share will go from 5% to X%, there will only be residual internal support, export aid will have been prohibited, customs duties and tariff peaks will no longer be in place, direct investment will have been obtained thanks to Mr Lamy, and no thanks to the MAI, and the world market will have been established, a sort of commercial Fukuyama, and the GATT story will be over.
<P>
Then what will we do?
The tenth round of the Uruguay Round will have no further business.
You yourself could perhaps always go back to Crédit Lyonnais or to some multinational which hands out stock options.
But what of the farmers, who will have been wiped out, the professions excluded from society, the textile industry, pharmaceuticals, shoes, heavy-duty vehicles, furniture, ships, toys, all that which will have been delivered up to competition from outside Europe, what is to become of them?
It is all very well for us to produce reports, books, television programmes and fine speeches.
The children of the Seattle negotiators will have their place in the twenty-first century and the children of the people excluded from society will, in turn, be excluded, since poverty is a socially transmitted disease.
But, in the end, all that is unimportant.
We are still strong enough to carry everyone else' s burdens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="Deva">
May I begin by congratulating Mr Schwaiger on an excellent report.
The Seattle round is being called the 'development round' for the millennium.
I represent the south-east of England, one of the richest parts of the European Union, having been born in a developing country in Asia, one of the poorest parts of the world.
I hope I can therefore span, understand and recognise the aspirations of the developed world, and of the developing world, recognising the enormous benefits of global free trade whilst also recognising the imperative need to manage the transition, to enable and empower the developing world to be an equal partner in globalisation.
<P>
The multilateral trading system was born in Havana in 1948 as the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs.
Eight rounds of trade globalisation have helped to promote global prosperity.
Since 1951, world trade has grown 17-fold, world production more than quadrupled, world per capita income doubled, average tariffs dropped from 40% to 4% in industrialised countries.
Today, a further cut of 50% in border protection, including agricultural subsidies, would add over USD 370 billion to global annual welfare gains.
Sixty per cent of this would accrue to developing countries.
However, globalisation must be a win-win situation.
There should not be winners and losers.
Everyone should win. It can be made to happen.
How can it be made to happen?
The multilateral system should be fair, transparent, accountable and link trade to development.
It should look at the impact of liberalisation on investments, competition rules, unfair subsidies, poor labour standards, environmental protection, intellectual property rights, trade facilitation, government procurement, improved access to agricultural markets, improved access to commercial markets including services, consumer protection and capacity building.
<P>
The European Union is unique in terms of the history of its relationships with countries around the world - Britain with the Commonwealth, France with its French francophone countries.
We can send a clear message to Seattle that this is the single contribution that this House and its Members can make to world global trade.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 NAME="Kinnock, Glenys">
Madam President, as others have said, I welcome Mr Schwaiger' s excellent work on what was a very complex set of issues to deal with.
I also particularly welcome the fact that in his text he describes the forthcoming WTO round as a development round.
It is a fact, of course, that of the 134 members of the WTO, two-thirds are developing countries, with another 32 in a queue waiting to join.
<P>
But it remains the case that the exchange of trade commitments favours the bigger traders.
They have much more to offer and their negotiating power is far greater.
Many developing countries feel that free trade has not in fact been as free for them.
Markets in the North remain restricted for many, as the most important developing country exports seek access.
<P>
Accelerating globalisation is, of course, a fact of life.
It nevertheless demands analysis and an acknowledgement that international trade is complex and is characterised by protectionism and by a system which fails to address the implications of subsidised agriculture for the poor.
While we need, of course, to support the agricultural sector in the EU, and that is made clear in Mr Schwaiger' s report, we also have to recognise the need for developing economies beyond reaching markets to have access to food security so that people have enough to eat.
And I hope that amendments along those lines will be accepted.
<P>
The EU already has binding commitments to developing countries.
These commitments, alongside international development targets, should be a central focus at Seattle.
We are now, Mr Lamy, at a critical stage in the negotiations for a successor agreement to Lomé IV and we will soon be embarking on complex discussions on trade relations with 71 ACP countries.
It is therefore very important now that we are negotiating a multilateral trade framework which respects that very critical relationship with the developing world that we continue to say that we will honour our obligations to the ACP.
I would also urge the Commission and Member States to pursue a WTO binding commitment to allow all exports from least-developed countries duty-free access to European markets by 2003.
There is also an urgent need to make sure that small and vulnerable states - landlocked states - are protected in future deals that are made.
<P>
A Director-General of the WTO very recently said that the WTO must be an organisation where the little guy not only has a say but feels that he is protected and defended.
I hope, Mr Lamy, that you will subscribe to that very important sentiment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Madam President, Commissioner, the liberal group sanctions the agreement reached on Sunday between China and the United States regarding the lowering of bilateral barriers to trade.
However, the European Union now also has to conclude the same agreement with China before actual entry into the WTO can take place.
Mr Clegg has already touched upon this.
There are a few sensitive issues, one of which is intellectual property rights.
<P>
The liberal group would bring up another condition for China' s entry.
The European Parliament has emphasised in various resolutions that Taiwan should enter at the same time as China.
Indeed, Taiwan is the nineteenth trading nation globally and has met all conditions of entry for years now.
I would therefore put two concrete questions to the Commissioner.
<P>
Firstly, what is the state of play regarding the Union' s negotiations with China, in particular with regard to intellectual property rights?
Secondly, is the Commissioner prepared to fully back Taiwan' s entry into the WTO at the same time as China?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schröder, Ilka">
<SPEAKER ID=145 NAME="Seppänen">
Madam President, the previous speaker finished by saying that nature and human beings are being exploited.
I can agree with him.
The new millennium simply represents the free trade ideology.
We have experience of the free trade in capital.
It is called globalisation.
It is electronic capitalism.
In fact, it is not free trade, as the IMF has given American investors guarantees regarding the risks they take, and paid them damages that have been incurred by the free trade in capital.
<P>
There are no rules in the capital game and politicians can no longer become referees.
However, it is now possible to negotiate rules for the trade in goods and services, and it is possible to act in such a way that capital freedoms do not spread their exploitative power on such a broad global scale as electronic capitalism.
I defend green protectionism because I want us to eat healthy food and I want it to be produced in a sustainable way.
That cannot be called protectionism, as it is a question of survival.
I also defend red protectionism, which tries to safeguard workers' rights and prevent malpractice, such as the use of child labour.
In this respect also this type of protectionism is, from the point of view of social security, a question of survival.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Turchi">
Madam President, first of all I would like to congratulate the rapporteur for the excellent report that we have all read.
In my opinion, the Millennium Round is taking place at a very special time for the European economy, and the international economy in particular.
Indeed, globalisation is now a subject that is discussed on a daily basis.
It has lead to the free market and to victory over any economic theory.
Having said that, I do not mean that we have a perfect market and, precisely for this reason, being aware of both the benefits and the corruption, we must seek to establish standards and regulations by means of agreements such as those proposed by the WTO in order to insure all of us against excesses of any type.
Just think of the financial speculation that can overwhelm entire geographical areas, reducing them to poverty or even causing institutional upheaval.
<P>
Having said that, the WTO round of negotiations is not being used to create something that is supranational, as is often feared, something that circumvents international rights or does not want to let the free market fluctuate, but it is being used to set out, in particular, specific rules for all of us, at the same time safeguarding certain fundamental rights such as the right to health, education and social duties in a framework that protects the rights of each individual citizen.
<P>
However, as far as the prices of products and services are concerned, we must ask for not only a tariff reduction but, above all, we should also make a request in terms of the quality of the products and services themselves, as a means of protecting small and medium-sized enterprises.
This will be increasingly important in the future, and there is also the increasing need to emphasise the central importance of agriculture within individual economies, and - and this is stressed in the report, but increasingly, each one of us needs to press forward resolutely with this - to protect small and medium-sized enterprises with appropriate legislation.
If we manage to comply with these obligations and improve quality of life with sustainable development, both in economic and environmental terms, we will have laid strong foundations for a better society in the next millennium.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Della Vedova">
Madam President, I would just like to say two things.
The first is that, too often during the daily debates in this Chamber, we have heard talk of international trade and the Millennium Round as if they were something that we Europeans should be wary of, something to fear.
Over the last few decades, over the recent quinquennia, international trade - Europe is the homeland of David Ricardo - has allowed us to create wealth, thanks to a new international division of labour. It has also brought about social inclusion and has defeated poverty which, given the growth in population, would have been much worse than it actually is today without international trade.
<P>
One final point: we are trying to include too many things, too many requests on different subjects in the Millennium Round talks, perhaps to ease our conscience, when - and I am referring to capital punishment - in its own forum and at the UN, Europe cannot manage to put up a united front or find the strength to impose certain things.
And then we want to debate capital punishment and other subjects in fora for trade agreements where it is inappropriate.
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<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maat">
Madam President, Mr Lamy, I would like to point out that expanding free trade also opens up scope for Europe.
We should not have any fears in this respect.
However, my concern is that the world, further to a new WTO agreement, may become richer economically speaking but poorer in the area of culture and environment or in terms of agriculture or horticulture, and that we may lose out on business in those areas which are essential for Europe.
It is important to find a balance in this respect.
This is why I am delighted with the Schwaiger report, because this very report indicates that we should hold on to what is essential to us, whilst keeping an open mind towards the world, and because this report links political reality and the issues we can defend on behalf of Europe' s citizens in our capacity as parliamentarians.
It is essential that we voice the issues that are apparent within Europe.
<P>
I would also like to make two remarks regarding agriculture and horticulture.
The representative of the Council said this morning that the Berlin Agreement forms the starting point for these negotiations, but he also mentioned that agriculture could well prove to be a sticking point. In this respect, I feel that Europe should be more on the offensive.
May I remind you that as a trading bloc, we are the largest importer and second largest exporter?
At the same time, in a couple of years, out of the total budget for agriculture, horticulture and rural development, a mere 10% will be earmarked for product support.
In other words, if we take into account the national budget, then we note that only 2% of government spending within Europe is set aside for agriculture, horticulture and rural development.
If we refer to the 10% of this amount for product support, this is a negligible amount worldwide.
To all those who advocate the dismantling of agricultural policy within the framework of the WTO, I would like to point out that Europe boasts its own standard in terms of the environment, animal welfare and consumer protection.
Whoever is in favour of scrapping the European agricultural policy, also favours the scrapping of all we have acquired in Europe in terms of rural policy, animal welfare and welfare in general.
This means that I also defend the European standard and we, as a Parliament, have to opt in favour of the Schwaiger report, because it offers guarantees for freer trade but, at the same time, also offers guarantees for preserving what we pride ourselves on, rightly so, within Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Miguélez Ramos">
Madam President, Commissioner, in a world which is becoming more and more interdependent, in which the problems which affect us usually have their roots in areas poles apart from us, we are obliged to work together with other countries in order to manage the planet' s resources properly, by respecting rules which are common to all of us.
Commissioner, fishing is a sensitive area which must be discussed in the Millennium Round in accordance with its characteristics and through an interpretation which links it to agricultural products, as laid down in the Treaty.
This is because agriculture and fisheries have similar characteristics for us Europeans.
Both activities are linked to the sustainable exploitation of natural resources and both affect the economic and social cohesion of Europe.
Fishing and agriculture guarantee the survival of our socio-economic fabric and contribute in a fundamental way to the supply of our food market.
Mr Lamy, fish are not shoes or screws.
They cannot therefore be treated as non-agricultural products in Seattle.
<P>
Agriculture and fishing provide us with food.
The inevitable globalisation of the market must not mean a lowering of our food safety standards nor of the social rights of our workers, nor must it lead us to forget our poorer regions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="De Clercq">
Madam President, Commissioner, the next trade round in Seattle should enhance and reinforce the basis for fair and free world trade in the next millennium.
We have to grab this unique chance with both hands to tackle the problems of the future.
This is why it is important not to restrict ourselves in the negotiations to two topics only, namely agriculture and services.
There are other important topics which require a solution at international level.
For example, we need stricter rules for the environment and labour, an effective competition policy should be drafted and it is important that appropriate measures be taken regarding food safety.
<P>
This is why I fail to understand why some take such a sceptical, or even hostile, stance regarding this coming trade negotiation.
This may well be down to an inadequate policy which lacks in transparency.
It is therefore time that the World Trade Organisation asserts itself and underlines its significance as the World Trade Organisation.
Free trade is not a dirty word.
Trade liberalisation based on equal and fair conditions gives globalisation a human face.
After all, fair and correct trade at world level implies attention to ecological and social aspects and takes into account all the players involved, thereby including the developing countries.
<P>
As such, I only hope that the EU negotiators stamp their authority on the discussions, thus immediately authenticating the WTO' s fundamental right of existence as an international organisation now and in the future.
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<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gahrton">
Madam President, following the agreement between China and the United States on membership of the World Trade Organisation, I ought perhaps, in my capacity as head of the China delegation, to be as jubilant as the international finance markets.
"China is becoming a modern country now," it is said. "Therefore, it is also becoming democratic" .
One commentator even believes that the Chinese Communist Party' s monopoly on power will be broken because membership of the World Trade Organisation means freedom of communication, including by means of unchecked Internet contacts.
We can only hope that this will be the case.
But might it not equally well happen instead that the regime will be reinforced by means of a form of economic growth which favours an urban minority but simultaneously creates tens of millions of new unemployed when state enterprises are left to go under, ruthlessly and without any networks of social protection, at the same time as millions of farmers become unemployed because of the new competition in the agricultural sphere?
<P>
Now, it is the case that China cannot become a member of the World Trade Organisation without the EU' s also agreeing to this.
I really hope therefore that, in its negotiations with China, the European Commission will take account of all the social and ecological aspects of the issue which the Americans clearly cared not one little bit about when they negotiated with the Chinese.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alyssandrakis">
Mr President, the way in which the global market has been divided up within the WTO is not based on the interests of the people or on the interests of workers.
In the forthcoming round of negotiations, the forces of capitalism are aiming to tear down the final barriers to their freedom of action and their world domination.
Full liberalisation of the market, the abolition of subsidies and the involvement of the WTO in negotiations for uncontrolled investment will make the smaller countries hostages to the larger countries and their peoples pawns at the mercy of monopolies.
The aim of the commercialisation of services, even of education, health and culture, is to deprive the working class and the people in general of many of their achievements gained over the century.
<P>
We do not believe that the governments of the European Union countries will defend the interests of their peoples.
They will, on the contrary, endeavour to make European monopolies compete better with the other imperialist interests in the USA and Japan.
The MEPs of the Greek Communist Party will be voting against the Schwaiger report because it sides with monopoly capital in its attack on workers and the people of the world.
Rules governing international economic relations and trade should respect fundamental social rights, serve the interests of workers, promote development in the less developed countries, respect the environment and create the conditions for the development of all peoples.
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<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Nobilia">
Mr President, what should be welcomed in the Schwaiger report is the attempt to reconcile what up until now has been irreconcilable, and the obvious efforts of the rapporteur can be seen right from the first recital, where recognition of the significant increase in world trade thanks to multilateral relations can only stand in contrast to the lack of any substantial reduction in the world' s economic inequalities.
<P>
Here, it is not a question of expressing our opposition to pursuing greater efficiency in the multilateral relations system, but rather a question of paying the greatest attention to some important aspects.
If the first is the continuation of the inequalities between developing countries and industrialised countries, then there is also the social dumping that is being created within these very industrialised countries.
It is undeniable that the process of European convergence for the launch of the single currency has led to occasions and opportunities for growth and development in all Member States.
Nevertheless, today, we are confronted by a different process of convergence that is underway, in particular, between territorial macro-contexts where Europe seems to present itself in positions that certainly are not strong, with the risk, therefore, that its economic characteristics - founded on small and medium-sized businesses - will be compromised, as well as its cultural and social characteristics.
In this respect, we do not think that public safeguards and duties such as schools, welfare systems - including health - and pension schemes can be part of the services to be regulated.
<P>
The second aspect relates to agriculture, for which, along with greater liberalisation of the market in favour of developing countries, there is the request not only for the Community principles to be upheld - support for environmental policy and the drawing up of a food policy for consumer protection - but also for typical national agricultural characteristics and products to be protected.
<P>
The third aspect relates to investments and related rules, but also to the local conditions for the implementation thereof.
The condition of tariff and fiscal advantage is one of the first conditions, and the premise should at least be to harmonise the financial institutions, if not the tax rates.
Moreover, the States' recognised prerogative on this policy should also be translated into the possibility of a differentiated application throughout the States' territories, otherwise - apart from the simplification of the processes - the only condition remaining would be the flexibility of labour.
However, we hope that in this regard, the principles of the ILO and related conventions will be taken on board, starting with the convention on the protection of working minors.
<P>
Finally, we hope that Parliament will be able to play an active part in the Millennium Round, starting with prior knowledge of the Commission' s study on the estimated impact of the effects of the new regulatory process.
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<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García-Margallo y Marfil">
Mr President, the previous speaker pointed out that this report tries to reconcile the irreconcilable.
I think he is right up to a point, which makes the rapporteur' s work all the more remarkable and meritorious and I thank him.
Furthermore it highlights the difficult nature of the task which we will have to face.
<P>
A few months ago, in this Parliament, we examined a report on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment which, in a very dramatic way, began by saying that we were discussing a world economic constitution.
If that was true then, it is even more true now, given that we are going to discuss issues such as agriculture, services, intellectual property and direct investment.
<P>
It is difficult when, as the rapporteur said at the beginning, it is not a question of simply opting for free trade, but rather opting for a just form of free trade.
And so that this free trade may be a just free trade, it is clear that we have to reconcile trading practices with the rules regarding the environment, workers' rights, the European agricultural model and consumer protection.
To sum up, we are going to discuss practically everything, every sector and every Community policy.
<P>
Therefore the important issue at the moment is the method which we must follow.
And in this report the rapporteur - and I am with him - opts for a Commission which will act as a major player.
We call on all the States to back the Commission, we call on the Commission to take account of the sensibilities and needs of the candidate and associated countries and we call on the Intergovernmental Conference to broaden the negotiating capacities of the Commission.
<P>
But, since love is rewarded by love, all of this will only be possible if the Commission responds to Parliament by treating it as a partner and accomplice in the negotiating strategy with regard to the recommendations of the various sectors, the negotiating guidelines and the approval of the Treaties.
Only in this way, Commissioner, will we be able to work together over these three years because - believe me - all of us have tables covered in documents and requests from the various sectors involved and we will only be able to satisfy them if the Commission is able to satisfy our demands.
As Tenorio said "If you do it like that, may God reward you or, if not, may he punish you" .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Désir">
Commissioner, Mr President, I think that Europe must state three main principles in this Millennium Round.
<P>
The first is that the aim of this round must be to reduce inequalities in development, unlike what has happened after previous rounds.
Today, the African continent has a less than 3% share of world trade.
The rules of the multilateral trade system must take account of the differences in countries' situations, resources and levels of development.
Free trade which does not take any other factors into account just makes the strong stronger and the weak weaker.
This is why we would not be able to accept a challenge to the principles of our cooperation with the countries of the south, particularly with ACP countries, and of course in this context I am thinking of the Lomé Convention.
<P>
I think, on the contrary, that we should restate the commitments that we made at the ACP-EU Joint Assembly which was held a few weeks ago.
Europe must go to Seattle with a concept of globalisation that is opposed to that of a unilateral world dominated by just one power.
Europe must, on the contrary, promote a concept based on a multipolar world and encourage the establishment of economically and politically integrated regional groups, as we have ourselves been trying to do for the last forty years.
How can we refuse others what we granted ourselves after the war, to reconstruct our industry, agriculture and economy?
<P>
Secondly, we must confine the WTO, strictly limit its role and keep isolated from the WTO' s sphere of competence those sectors which jeopardise society' s very identity and which must continue to remain the sovereignty of the citizens and of their elected institutions.
Education, health, public and social services, public transport and culture are all examples of sectors which cannot be brought into trade negotiations and cannot be dealt with by an international trade court.
We must refuse to join the race to make every sector subject to the market.
<P>
Thirdly, we must defend the principle of a hierarchy of norms.
The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the conventions of the International Labour Organisation, and those on the environment are, by their very nature, superior to the standards that govern trade.
We should not condemn a State on the grounds that it is applying the precautionary principle, that it is protecting its environment or that it is refusing imports which are proven to have been produced by child labour.
On the contrary, we must be able to bring an appeal against a decision by the WTO before the International Labour Organisation or before the competent bodies at the United Nations.
On the eve of this new round, we are struck by the way society at large and international public opinion have forced their way into the debate.
I think that this is an excellent development, because it is the best guarantee that it will not be possible to drop these issues during these negotiations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="Pohjamo">
Mr President, I too would like to thank Mr Schwaiger for a balanced report.
We are embarking on an important process at Seattle, from the point of view of global development and global controllability.
The world also needs rules and standards; competition alone is not enough, although our main aim with the WTO process is the more efficient organisation of trade.
It is an immense challenge.
The EU is promoting a solution to the challenges of Third World sustainable development and social justices.
We have to remain firm in this objective.
Although the liberalisation of world trade means economic benefits and prosperity, we also have to view it critically.
In addition to a freer market in the production of food, we should be talking not only about the precautionary principle, but also about supporting local production and encouraging regional food chains.
The best guarantee of food safety is transparency of the food chain and clear areas of monitoring and responsibility.
<P>
The EU must have a clear idea of priorities in the talks.
In brief, we could say that the viability of European family agriculture is a guarantee of the purity of food.
For that reason, the most important issue in the WTO talks will be securing adequate amounts of aid to ensure agriculture is profitable.
That is also why the existence of the blue box, alongside the green, is essential to preserve the European model.
There is no question of horsetrading when it comes to matters of agriculture and food safety.
Although we are trying to reduce import barriers for industrial products and services, it cannot be done at the expense of health.
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<SPEAKER ID=157 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Vachetta">
The WTO, which was created in order to speed up the liberalisation of trade, has become one of the essential pillars of the new world order.
Not only does it support globalisation, but it is also committed to giving it form and the force of law in order to impose dictatorship by the market.
It actively contributes to the establishment of neo-liberal policies which find their expression in attacks upon public services, the right to employment, health and food safety and upon the environment.
<P>
Unfortunately, the European delegation subscribes to the liberal way of thinking.
It advocates an extension of the WTO' s powers, which is completely rejected by the associations and organisations that have become involved, who are instead calling for both an assessment of the WTO' s last five years and a moratorium on the forthcoming negotiations.
We support this approach which is a first step towards radically questioning the capitalist world order.
This is why we cannot vote for the Schwaiger report.
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<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hansenne">
Mr President, a few weeks ago, I argued here that we Europeans should adopt a firm, credible and coherent position in order to give a social dimension to the liberalisation of trade.
And I am delighted at the convergence of views between the Commission, the Council and Parliament on this matter.
<P>
This convergence is based on respect for the Declaration on Workers' Fundamental Rights adopted by the International Labour Organisation in 1988.
This declaration takes into account both the interests of developing countries, and that is moreover why they, including China, adopted it, as well as the interests of workers, and that is why trade unions also accepted it.
We must now make this declaration truly effective, by guaranteeing respect for it, and that means in the corridors of the World Trade Organisation, too.
<P>
Minister, Commissioner, I do not think that achieving meaningful cooperation between the WTO and the ILO, by whatever means, is an impossible task.
All the more reason to try to succeed.
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<SPEAKER ID=159 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, the new round of trade negotiations will take place five years after the conclusion of the Uruguay Round.
And here we MEPs clearly have to communicate the concerns of our electors with regard to this round, which will be very important.
<P>
There is an aspect in relation to which we can say that our results are bad.
I refer to the dispute settlement procedure.
We have had two significant disputes - over bananas and hormones - which the European Union lost, and there has been one dispute which we have not even dared to put before the settlement system: I am referring to the American Helms-Burton and d' Amato laws for extra-territorial application to European companies.
I have the impression that this issue will have to be reviewed at the World Conference, at the World Round.
I believe that we will have to see how the mechanism for the settlement of disputes can be adjusted according to the needs.
<P>
There are also other legal aspects, because the Treaty of the World Trade Organisation is not a unique treaty.
There are other international treaties, such as those agreed within the framework of the International Labour Organisation, the World Intellectual Property Organisation and the multilateral agreements relating to the environment.
I hope that in the Seattle Conference these issues will be dealt with in such a way that the new agreements will, within the framework of the World Trade Organisation, bring about an appropriate legal framework.
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<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langenhagen">
Mr President, the new WTO round is sending out its subliminal signals.
For example, even America and China have come closer together over the WTO question.
It is precisely a rapprochement of this kind that we in the EU-China Delegation have spent long years trying to achieve.
So the wheel of history, for whose fashioning we are partly responsible, does turn constructively and progressively provided that traders' concepts and ideas, stamina and charisma have the power to convince.
That applies across the board but also to particular sectors of industry and, naturally and quite specifically, to the maritime sector, therefore.
<P>
Waterways bind routes and continents on our planet, and they are rich in as yet unexhausted natural resources.
Through new technological developments, shipping and shipbuilding can again be sectors of the economy which are aiming high.
Who would have thought so just a short time ago?
We are fighting for a similarly positive status for the fisheries sector, too.
In spite of the basically different methods of management, I am therefore appealing, for example, to Mr Cunha, as agricultural rapporteur, to also consider the fisheries sector, particularly since Mr Cunha is also my coordinator on the Committee on Fisheries.
<P>
Who would want to dispute the fact? In spite of the tiny budget allocated to it, an efficient fisheries sector forms a not insignificant part of any dynamic trade and budget policy for the EU and should be seen as a sector of the economy in its own right and as a significant branch of the food industry.
There are also a large number of jobs concentrated there - in the EU, in third countries and worldwide.
If we lose this sector, we weaken those regions which are already structurally weak anyway, and all in a quite irresponsible way.
Let us beware, therefore, of regarding the WTO as a panacea for our problems.
Only if we start from a healthy position at home will we make a convincing case to competitors on our planet.
Even a totally liberalised market may possibly mean the exploitation of fish stocks beyond their ability to replenish themselves.
<P>
I therefore want us to have a responsible and sustainable fisheries sector characterised by partnership, and I wish Mr Schwaiger and his team every success in the negotiations, not least for our own benefit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Seguro">
Mr President, Commissioner, Minister, I am taking the floor in order to reiterate some of the points that have already been made here by several of my colleagues from the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to the effect that we are in favour of a round of negotiations, but not just any old round of negotiations.
<P>
This can be expressed through our socialist philosophy: we are in favour of a market economy, but we are opposed to a market society.
And this philosophical train of thought is causing us to diverge from two opposing visions that are in play at this Seattle Summit. The first is held by those who think that the market does not create wealth: we, on the other hand, think that the market does create wealth.
We also disagree with those who think that the market solves all problems.
<P>
It is we socialists who uphold the idea that the market helps to create wealth, but that there must be regulation for there to be a redistribution of this wealth which is equitable and which respects sustainable development from which we should all benefit.
This is a different vision that is far ahead of the two I have mentioned. It is a demanding and critical vision that is at the root of the way we are acting with regard to the forthcoming WTO negotiations.
<P>
And this is why we are against sectorial negotiations and are in favour of all-encompassing negotiations. This is why we are in favour of seeing the WTO and its respective negotiations as an instrument for the creation of a fairer society, of a more sustained development, in which mankind is actually the focus of all decision making.
And from this point of view, we state here once again the need to respect environmental matters, the need to respect the consumer and the need to respect human as well as social rights.
And from this point of view, Mr President, and to end my intervention, we would like to offer all our support and all our cooperation to Commissioner Lamy on the objectives and the strategic viewpoints that he is well aware he needs to uphold in Seattle.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="Hieronymi">
Mr President, three brief remarks about the Millennium Round and cultural diversity.
First of all, the EU is a success story, an economic community which has put its faith in open markets and given people security in the social sphere, together with economic prosperity.
However, the European Union is not only an economic community but also a community of values.
To uphold these values and to secure the cultural diversity of Europe are indispensable tasks at a time when the economies of the world are increasingly interrelated.
<P>
I should therefore particularly like to thank Mr Schwaiger, the rapporteur, who has done an excellent job in the way he has introduced the subject of securing the cultural heritage of Europe into the report for the Millennium Round.
<P>
In the meantime, there are two goals.
On the one hand, the dynamic development of electronic services ought not to be impeded.
On the contrary, it must be facilitated for, like no other branch of industry, it guarantees jobs that are safe for the future, both in Europe and worldwide.
On the other hand, we shall have to be in a position to support and promote the diversity of our European cultural heritage in the future too, and this by means of promotional measures taken also by the Member States.
<P>
The Schwaiger report facilitates both goals. It has therefore earned broad support from us all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="Murphy">
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Schwaiger.
While stressing that we must have a WTO Millennium Round that is as comprehensive as possible so that everybody can get something out of it, there are three issues I would like to draw attention to.
<P>
I am very pleased that Parliament, the Commission and the Council have highlighted animal welfare in their presentations.
It is an important issue for citizens, it is an important issue for many of us here in this House and it is important that it is debated at Seattle.
I think we must also learn the lessons of the multilateral agreement on investments.
Yes, it will be possible for competition and investment to be dealt with at Seattle, but it is important that they are dealt with in a transparent and open way.
The WTO must explain to its citizens what it is doing or it will run the risk of undermining support for free trade.
It is equally important that as broad as possible a consultation is actually put in place to enable the different points of view to be heard and to be understood when we deal with competition and investment.
<P>
And, thirdly, there is the dispute settlement system itself.
It was an undoubted success of the Uruguay Round, but there are problems associated with it.
Seattle must close those loopholes, again on the basis of transparency and greater certainty about the rights and obligations of all those involved in the dispute settlement system.
That will offer us a key potential for unlocking world trade.
<P>
In conclusion we must never lose sight of the fact that globalisation is very much about human issues, it is about standards of living, the environment, cultural, moral and ethical issues.
Some fear the WTO, some fear globalisation, some fear the advance of growth, markets, technology and science.
But I believe by working together openly with the common goal of raising the quality of life for the whole world, we can actually confound the critics of globalisation and show that globalisation and liberalisation can genuinely be a decisive force for good.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Mr President, the world economy is now facing problems similar to those it faced before the beginning of the Uruguay Round 13 years ago.
We are confronted with generally slackening growth, and that in a world with an exploding population There are six billion people in the world; one billion are hungry; and more than 30 million people die of starvation each year, including - horrifically - many children.
And we, the rich of this world, have a duty to try to reduce this misery and hunger.
<P>
I am firmly convinced that a further liberalisation and expansion of trade in the framework provided by the WTO will contribute to promoting growth and employment in the developing countries as well.
<P>
As general rapporteur of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection for the WTO negotiations, I should particularly like to thank Mr Schwaiger for his clear words on the subject of trade and the environment.
It was not straightforward.
But if, by the end of tomorrow, Parliament has accepted the Schwaiger Report, then we shall have endorsed his words and decided that account must be taken of environmental protection as a condition for all areas of world trade; not a wishy-washy may or ought to be, but must be.
<P>
I believe we are heading for very exciting negotiations indeed and, as has been said very often today, we Europeans most certainly have an historic role to play in these.
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<SPEAKER ID=165 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lienemann">
Mr President, at Marrakech we were promised an assessment of the previous round of negotiations before entering into new negotiations.
Today, this assessment has still not been made and there is a simple reason for that: it would not be a positive one.
It would say that we should kill off liberal dogmas, as well as the old theory which says that wealth is created by developing trade.
In 50 years, the volume of trade has increased seventeen-fold, whereas we have only produced twice as many goods in the world.
It would also kill off the idea which says that the future of third-world countries would be improved.
Inequalities have continued to increase there as they have in our own countries.
It would say that we should change course, and that is what we are asking you to do, Commissioner.
Changing course means firstly obtaining, by means of the existing package, the one that has already been negotiated, real social and environmental regulations, instead of vague references to standards that are never applied.
Yes, that means setting up a logical approach in opposition to ecological and social dumping.
This assessment would say "Beware, so as not to open up Pandora' s box in other sectors and I am thinking here particularly of investments.
This Parliament has said "no" to the MAI for sound reasons and you, Commissioner, must uphold these arguments in order to prevent the investment sector experiencing the disasters we have seen happen in other areas.
<P>
Finally, this assessment would condemn the patentability of "living things" and the fact that plants and life itself are becoming saleable commodities.
The 20th century has been characterised by a fundamental crisis of humanism as a result of xenophobia and acts of genocide.
I would not like to see the 21st century also characterised by a crisis of humanity on account of the all-powerful principles of money and the market taking precedence over the development of mankind and over the fundamental values that make human life what it is.
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<SPEAKER ID=166 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wijkman">
Mr President, I too want to congratulate Mr Schwaiger on an excellent report.
A lot of people are now criticising the World Trade Organisation for looking too one-sidedly at trade, for seeing trade as an end in itself and for failing to see the complex connections between trade, human rights and environmental considerations.
I agree with parts of these criticisms but I do not draw the conclusion that we do not need a new trade round.
On the contrary, I believe that the status quo is not something we can profit by.
Instead, we have everything to gain from a new round because there is so much greater understanding today of these complex connections and of the fact that development questions and environmental questions have to be discussed in the one context.
I would remind you of the World Trade Organisation' s latest report which deals very perceptively with just such environmental questions.
<P>
Allow me to consider two special aspects of what we are discussing.
The Commission rightly says that the present round is to be a development round.
In a situation in which the level of aid is declining, I find it difficult to see, however, how this is going to be the case if we do not see a radical change.
There are some who see a contradiction between aid and trade.
They say that trade should help the poorest countries to get out of the situation they are in.
I think that the question has been put in the wrong way.
We need both: aid as well as trade.
We must therefore link these questions to our aid work.
<P>
Increased trade can, of course, have a positive effect on the environment, for example through the transfer of technology adapted to environmental requirements.
The opposite may, however, also apply, mainly because our economic framework is not good at taking due account of environmental consequences.
That is why it is so important that the trade regulations should take increased account of these factors.
The question, when we now read this report and make every kind of demand upon the World Trade Organisation, is simply that of whether the World Trade Organisation can settle all conceivable disputes in the future.
I believe - and this is an important conclusion - that, parallel to our making the World Trade Organisation "greener" , we must also strengthen the international conventions on the environment.
The fact is that they are far too weak at present.
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<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Carraro">
Mr President, I consider the Millennium Round to be an important opportunity to promote the opening of the international markets to competition, to extend the guarantees against anti-competition practices and to finally address the subject of investments as well.
<P>
The liberalisation of world trade is a positive process that generates growth and that can be hindered, not only by the protectionist practices of the States, but also by the creation of situations where competition is distorted, such as in the event of the abuse of dominant positions, cartels and dumping - think of the example of the shipbuilding industry - which are so harmful to Europe.
This is something that is largely new for the World Trade Organisation, but I think it extremely important.
<P>
Similarly, a new area for talks should be the quest to open up national markets to foreign investments.
It is important that the Schwaiger report and Parliament recognise the World Trade Organisation as the appropriate forum for serious negotiations on investments, seeking certainty and clarity of the law on the protection of investments, but also, obviously, the protection of state legislation in social, environmental and cultural fields.
<P>
The Schwaiger report understandably puts more emphasis on safeguards, but I think that it is generally in harmony with the Commission proposal and therefore expresses full confidence in Commissioner Lamy' s work with regard to this sensitive topic as well, in full awareness that the liberalisation of international trade, even in new fields - as with investments - is an important concern for the countries of the European Union and all the countries which have an interest in lasting and sustainable development of the global economy.
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<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Brunetta">
Mr President, the commitment of the European Union, repeated in the Schwaiger report, to the creation of a permanent labour forum between the International Labour Organisation and the World Trade Organisation on issues related to trade, globalisation and labour is the only way to accompany the liberalisation of commerce and trade in general with respect for fundamental labour rights, without slipping into egotistical, hypocritical protectionism or unfair, self-destructive competition.
In this respect, the bilateral agreement that the United States has signed with China to prepare the way for China to join the World Trade Organisation must be regarded by the European Union, aside from as an important contribution to the multilateral process, also, and above all, as a fundamental opportunity to monitor the substantial importance that human rights have and will have regarding the opportunities afforded by a market that enjoys such enormous potential as the Chinese market.
<P>
Let us remember, in this regard, that the 174 member countries of the ILO which, with the solemn declaration of 1998, undertook to comply with the four categories of fundamental labour rights, even where they did not ratify the conventions, are, in the main, also members of the WTO.
Now, since the international bodies are what the Member States want them to be, it is legitimate to ask these same States to behave in a consistent manner throughout the fora.
The desirable entry of China, which the European Union is also actively negotiating for, will certainly make the WTO more representative and will extend the potential ability to realise global free trade that is also regulated.
Nevertheless, that does not mean deluding ourselves that many of the problems regarding fundamental rights in China have now been resolved or are being resolved, nor ignoring the fact that, in the past, the United States itself has had double standards regarding the request for the social clause to be complied with.
It is, however, better that it is possible for the attempt to affirm these rights to be made within the walls of the international institutions, rather than in bilateral fora, according to what is convenient at the time.
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<SPEAKER ID=169 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Corbey">
Mr President, as the last in the line of socialist speakers, I would like to draw your attention to one aspect which has not yet been dealt with at length, namely the patenting of live organisms.
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Many third-world countries have objected to this, as this practice makes deep inroads into the very existence of millions of farmers.
If applications for patents could be made on existing agricultural crops, this would mean farmers becoming more dependent on large companies.
They would need to pay for sowing seed, which would affect their very raison d' être.
As a result of this, food safety would be in the balance.
<P>
A large group of third-world countries, Kenya being the spokesperson, has called for a review of the TRIPS Agreement.
In order to accommodate the developing countries, it would be a good idea to actually carry out this review.
But this is not the only reason.
From an economic point of view, there are major disadvantages attached to the current practice, as this can lead to a handful of companies being in unacceptable positions of power.
<P>
There are also ethical objections to the patenting of live organisms.
These objections have also been tabled in the Council when the Biotechnology Directive was laid down.
This is why I would like to ask Commissioner Lamy, and Parliament, to take seriously the objections raised by third-world countries, but also the ethical and economic objections raised within Europe.
An assessment of the present regulation would be a first step.
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<SPEAKER ID=170 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lamassoure">
Mr President, the Seattle Conference is not an invitation from the United States to the rest of the world to impose the vision of absolute and unbridled free trade.
It is exactly the opposite.
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The World Trade Organisation is a European idea, one to which the Americans were converted in Marrakech, after having opposed it for a long time.
With regard to Seattle, it is the Europeans, not the Americans who are proposing the greater agenda: the Millennium Round is our idea.
It is the Europeans, not the Americans, who have gained the most from previous negotiations.
Since 1995 the United States' trade deficit towards us has grown spectacularly: almost USD 30 billion last year.
Anyway, the issue is not unregulated trade, but quite the opposite, to ensure that the formidable growth of trade serves everyone' s long-term development and not just the predatory enrichment of the strongest.
<P>
We want increased levels of trade and the elimination of the many barriers that still remain in some countries for some goods and for most services.
We want fair trade for everyone and by that I mean equal conditions for competition.
They are not equal in agriculture, or in cultural sectors.
There must be rules for competition and a court to ensure that they are respected, and that means by the strongest, too, with regard to the weakest.
Finally, we want trade that benefits sustainable development, by creating a link between trade agreements and our other major international commitments on fundamental labour rights, on food safety and on environmental protection.
<P>
Basically, we have to undertake, on a worldwide scale, the course of action that enabled us to succeed in Europe when we moved from the Customs Union to the Single Area, and that is why Europe has the most to bring to the negotiations and has the right to expect the most from it.
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<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Liese">
Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council Sasi, Commissioner Lamy, I wish to add my voice to the many here who have expressed their thanks to Mr Schwaiger. He has presented a good report.
The report addresses the important points and says, above all, that we in principle support the Commission and the Council.
However, we are clearer about some points than the Commission and the Council have been so far.
I am speaking, for example, about environmental standards.
<P>
What we want, Commissioner, President-in-Office of the Council, is for attention not only to be given to environmental damage caused in Europe by products from other countries. We also want more thorough discussion of processes and production methods (PPM) in other countries and to talk not only about labelling but also about how, through trade sanctions, we can prevent worldwide damage to the environment from taking place.
In fact, the Liberals have submitted a very good Amendment to the Committee, and this may be found as number 47 in the resolution we have before us.
<P>
It is a question of being able to impose trade sanctions relating to production methods whenever there is a danger of worldwide damage to the environment.
The WTO' s Shrimps-Turtle judgement at least presents an attempt to argue along these lines, for the Shrimps look alike whether or not they have been caught in accordance with the rules concerning animal protection.
The WTO has said: in principle, this can be discussed.
<P>
It is important that we also discuss climate protection in this context, for the world decided in Rio in 1992 and in Kyoto in 1997 that this is a huge problem and that we must tackle it together.
There must, therefore, also be opportunities to implement climate protection measures in the WTO.
<P>
To conclude, I should like to support all those who have come out in favour of a courageous position in respect of the least developed countries, the LLDC.
I should like, however, to emphasise that these are not only ACP countries but that there are also many countries outside the ACP area to which we must provide better support.
I am among those who argue that all products should be completely free from customs duties and that we should not be defining so-called sensitive products, only then to make exceptions of them again.
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<SPEAKER ID=172 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Hecke">
Mr President, the drafting of the agenda for the coming Millennium Round raises quite a few questions with me.
I cannot shake off the impression I have that the desiderata of the developing countries threaten to be pulverised by the desiderata of the major economic blocs.
When elephants fight, the grass is trampled underfoot.
Africa is all too aware of this.
If Europe and the US argue today about genetically modified organisms and the use of hormones and antibiotics in cattle breeding, then improved market access for the developing countries and their involvement in the world economy will threaten to fade into the background.
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So it is up to us to ensure that in a world of liberalised trading, there is room for social and ecological corrections and a gradual and guided involvement of third-world countries in the world economy.
Otherwise, we might end up in an American world which only defends commerce with verve, but overlooks the other values of the European dream, namely solidarity alongside competitiveness and responsibility alongside economic growth. Surely it cannot be our intention to render everything subordinate to the one paradigm, which is to be disseminated from Seattle to the rest of the world?
Europe, and the European Parliament, in particular, must argue in favour of more equality in world trade relations.
<P>
The impact of liberalisation of the economy on the development of the third world should be that of the wind that kindles a fire.
The wind should be forceful enough, but not too forceful or else it will blow out the fire.
In Seattle, we will help blow the bellows of the world economy.
In my opinion, the excellent report of Mr Schwaiger indicates very well how we can reach out to the developing countries.
I will therefore give it all my support.
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<SPEAKER ID=173 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Carlsson">
Mr President, I am concerned about the attitude which is in danger of developing in the EU where free trade is concerned.
Attacks against the World Trade Organisation are significant, and the trade disputes we are experiencing and being drawn into are alarming.
To be one-sidedly passionate about one' s own region' s traditions and characteristic ways of doing things by imposing restrictions in the context of trade policy is to risk removing the basis for trade and development and for the dissemination of knowledge, culture and prosperity. In the longer term, it can also lead to suspicion, stagnation and conflicts.
<P>
When it comes to the Schwaiger report, which our excellent rapporteur has worked very thoroughly on, many Members of the European Parliament have devoted energy to tackling all the problems and disturbing elements which free trade is alleged to give rise to. I would therefore emphasise the contributions of free trade to reducing poverty and encouraging growth and the processes of democratisation.
The power for development entailed in free trade and competition is something we cannot turn our backs on in the era of globalisation.
The overriding task of the EU' s representatives in Seattle must therefore be that of continuing with the liberalisation of world trade.
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The new industries have relied upon the sets of regulations offered by the World Trade Organisation.
In this way, they have been able to create prosperity in a very much better way than they would have done by means of endless subsidies from the rich man' s table.
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Protectionist measures would now prevent imports from these developing countries and limit the latter' s opportunities to contribute to the international division of labour.
A policy of protecting markets therefore leads to a deterioration in working conditions in the poorer countries and runs counter to the kind of development we want to promote, that is to say improved living conditions achieved through growth and free trade.
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<SPEAKER ID=174 NAME="Korhola">
Mr President, what is especially gratifying about Mr Schwaiger' s report is that it shows that Parliament has, for its part, been able to increase coherence in the aims of the talks.
The Union, through its earlier decisions, has been committed to consistency in different areas of policy.
Thus, for example, trade policy must be in harmony with the Union' s policies on developing countries and the environment.
Both areas of policy are now emphatically raised in the report and, as a new Member of Parliament, I can say that it comes as a pleasant surprise.
Similarly, I could say that the proposed report gives a very balanced account of the position of the WTO in relationship to other multilateral treaties.
In addition, strong support for the cooperation that has begun between the ILO and the WTO promises an even better level of coherence in this area.
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Once a working model has been found, it should also be applied to the way the WTO relates to other international organisations, which have overseen the drafting of similar agreements.
It is also important that Parliament now outlines the importance of these multilateral agreements in the WTO' s dispute settlement procedure.
As a member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, I am satisfied that we are trying to include the precautionary principle in the set of rules of the WTO.
The Union' s negotiators must be able to convince the other sides that the EU goal is not protectionism but the safeguarding of the welfare of the consumer.
<P>
The Union would be wise to invite NGOs to discussions about the WTO while the round of talks is proceeding.
Not only would it strengthen the legitimacy of Union action on our own turf, but the global NGO arena itself could help our negotiators to achieve the goals of the Union.
Experience shows that debate in the NGO arena easily spreads from one continent to another.
As the other sides unfortunately lag far behind, the EU needs the backing of the NGOs in its work to transform the WTO into a sustainable organisation in the areas of the environment, health and social welfare.
At the Seattle round, the scope and power of the WTO will grow significantly, and that is why the EU should ensure that the effects of the liberalisation of trade and the action of the WTO are continually appraised from the point of view of ecology and fairness.
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<SPEAKER ID=175 NAME="McCartin">
Mr President, I am not absolutely convinced that the developed world needs free trade with the rest of the world in order to make economic progress.
The bigger EU States like France, Germany and the United Kingdom traded about 30% of GDP in the 1960s as against 60% today, but they enjoyed much faster economic growth at that time than they do now.
From 1950 to 1970 world economic growth and the expansion of world trade ran roughly in tandem, but since then economic growth has been increasing at only half the pace of world exports: so again there is no evidence there that increased trade leads automatically to further economic growth.
It is quite obvious, of course, that small countries like Ireland, Belgium and Luxembourg need free trade, but a European Union with a single market or a North American single market is an entirely different proposition.
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Nevertheless I believe in free trade.
Because of the way the world is changing, globalisation is unstoppable unless, of course, we erect iron curtains or bamboo curtains, and those too would be blown away by the winds of change.
Globalisation is happening and while there are risks it presents us with immense opportunities.
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The first opportunity is to create a partnership for cooperation and the management of the increased trading activities.
Decision making in this way is not to by-pass democracy, it is to extend democracy.
It is a new means by which to organise the activities of mankind.
Behind our trade barriers there is the risk that we will cultivate the seeds of more international conflict.
The rich could dig in behind their barriers, they could buy some essential things from the poorer countries but we would be back to the seventeenth century with the strong exploiting the weak.
Those who are concerned about human rights, animal welfare and the environment have a much better prospect of securing improvements in those areas within a legal framework and a World Trade Organisation than they have in a free-for-all, law of the jungle.
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I want to congratulate Mr Schwaiger on putting together what I regard as a decent framework within which to move forward.
There will be risks, but we have to explain to our people why we cannot do other than proceed.
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<SPEAKER ID=176 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lamy">
Mr President, I would first like to compliment the European Parliament on its sense of timing.
This debate on the Schwaiger report could not have come at a better time because we are right now in the middle of extremely lively discussions on the preparation of the Seattle agenda.
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Next, as the Union' s negotiator, I would like to express my pleasure at the Schwaiger report.
Its adoption will send a clear signal to our partners' , by confirming that the European Union will not be satisfied with a minimalist approach which only aims to improve market access in some sectors.
This would not provide a response either to our fellow citizens' concerns or to the legitimate demands of developing countries.
Going by what you have said today, your vote tomorrow will strengthen our hand and thus the Union' s hand in Seattle.
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We are all aware that the debate on trade has changed the approach that we are taking, as the Schwaiger report shows.
It is, admittedly, true that we want to continue to liberalise trade, which has been and still is a strategic factor in our prosperity.
But the next round of negotiations must also address new issues, such as development, the environment, health and food safety, fundamental social standards, competition and its transparency, minimal rules in terms of investment and the promotion of cultural diversity.
The addition of all these elements leads us to recommend a broader round of negotiations, and I am delighted to see the broad agreement on this matter between the Commission and Parliament which is shown in your report, Mr Schwaiger.
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Some of you do not agree with this approach and propose a kind of moratorium on negotiations.
I do not think that this is a valid solution.
Firstly because we have commitments that must be respected in the follow-up to the Uruguay Round.
Secondly, we must carefully weigh up the risks of a moratorium.
If we do not advance further along the route towards multilateral liberalisation, that means leaving the way open for unilateral action by the strongest.
Is this really the outcome that those calling for a moratorium want to see?
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Thirdly, why should we postpone negotiation on the rules which our society is rightly calling for and that developing countries are expecting in order to integrate the liberalisation of trade and sustainable development into areas such as health, the environment and workers' fundamental rights?
<P>
I am therefore convinced that these negotiations are necessary, but I recognise - and moreover I am delighted that this is the case - that the very conditions of these negotiations have changed in relation to the previous round.
Given the concerns expressed by a growing number of our fellow citizens with regard to globalisation, we must have a public debate that is more wide-ranging, more transparent and more interactive.
In this respect, I think that the discussions held when the Schwaiger report was being prepared, both within Parliament and between Parliament and the Commission, have been exemplary.
This is why I feel I must pay tribute to Mr Schwaiger who has accomplished a Herculean task by drawing up, from your many proposals, a compromise version that I hope you will vote for tomorrow.
<P>
In order to respond to the debate, I would like briefly to mention a few issues which have come to light in the preparation of this report.
On the subject, first, of developing countries, it has become clear that the countries that have benefited the least from the establishment of the WTO and from the results of the Uruguay Round are also, without exception, those who are the least integrated into the world trade system.
We therefore have to encourage their participation with a view to encouraging their integration, instead of delaying.
Where integration does not go ahead primarily because of a lack of resources or inadequate expertise, then developing countries must be given technical and financial assistance in order to increase their negotiating ability and to apply the measures decided on within the WTO.
On the other hand, when non-integration is a result of domestic policies or of poor development, extending deadlines for implementation or providing more and more preferential measures are not ideal solutions.
Special and differentiated treatment is, admittedly, essential for developing countries, but it must encourage these countries to implement strategies for sustainable development and not exempt them from such strategies.
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A new approach is necessary with regard to relations with ACP countries, for example, one that must, in particular, achieve convergence towards WTO rules, because the current system must be reviewed, in any case, even if we have to make the necessary transitional changes.
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On the issue of intellectual property, we are convinced that the regulations in this field must enable developing countries to themselves benefit from the resources available to them and that the current measures already go a long way towards achieving this.
A top-to-toe revision of the agreement would not therefore be a good idea.
On the other hand, if we take a coherent view of the link between intellectual property and development, we must, at the same time as extending its guarantees, ensure that we encourage direct investment as the principle means of transferring technology to these countries, as well as developing agreements with them for technological cooperation and perhaps, and this is just a suggestion, thinking about strengthening European investment in fundamental research on living things, in order to share the profits with them.
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In the area of the environment, there are many concerns focusing on the applicability of environmental measures in relation to WTO rules.
The ideal solution is to be found, of course, in multilateral negotiations on a hierarchy of norms.
As we well know, it is not within reach.
In the meantime, we must work hard to ensure that each of the new standards is linked to the previous ones so that, if needs be, the judges to whom disputes are referred are not given too wide a scope for interpretation.
One of our goals is to guarantee mutual compatibility in this context, which would allow environmental or other measures to be implemented in accordance with WTO rules.
<P>
The precautionary principle is another subject that concerns many of you.
It is obviously up to each member of the WTO to decide if there is a risk or not.
The precautionary principle must then allow that country to take the appropriate measures in order to avoid this risk.
The most important thing for us therefore is the clarification of the regulations and procedures governing the application of the precautionary principle.
<P>
As far as services are concerned, I note the concerns that have been expressed.
I would like to reassure you on this point.
In no case do I have the mandate to accept, by means of an international negotiation, a threat to the power of the Union' s governments to regulate these areas or to be active in them.
We recognise the essential and crucial role that these services play in our society.
<P>
With regard to agriculture, until now we have faced a position on the part of the Cairns group which aims to put agricultural products in the same category as other goods.
This is not the position we hold.
This is not what was agreed in 1994 by all parties involved and which we have respected.
We will have to start again from the idea that agriculture has other functions apart from producing goods for the market.
<P>
Let us finally examine the question of social standards.
In all countries, globalisation makes its effects felt in the social sphere, but it must also be pointed out that in a number of less advanced countries, international labour standards agreed on under the International Labour Organisation are not being sufficiently respected.
The mention of social standards arouses reactions in some of our WTO partners, particularly among developing countries, which are, and I can vouch for this, extremely heated.
It is crucial that, from now on, we begin by restating our opposition to the imposition of trade sanctions in the social sphere as well as to any use of sanctions for protectionist reasons.
To our mind, the very raison d' être of respecting workers' fundamental rights is the fairer distribution of profits from the growth that liberalisation of trade brings.
It is, moreover, bearing this concern in mind, that our plan of widely applied preferences allows us to provide free-standing reductions to countries that effectively apply the main ILO conventions.
<P>
The important thing for us in Seattle, and I think that we are all in agreement on this, is to make discussion of the matter possible in the context of cooperation between the ILO and the WTO.
By the way, I would also like to confirm our support for the presence of Mr Somavia in Seattle as a positive sign of the importance given to this subject.
<P>
I would like to say a word or two about China, Mr President, before I finish.
I have not spoken publicly on this matter while I have been waiting for this debate.
Is the signing by the Americans and the Chinese of an agreement on access to the WTO, as several of you have asked, good news or not such good news?
From the point of view first of those who question the whole WTO, it is not good news.
China, a country whose development is crucial for the future of the world, is giving a clear sign that it wishes to adhere to a multilateral trade system.
<P>
From the point of view of our multilateral interests as well as of our own interests, everything depends on the contents of the agreement that has been signed, as the American Congress wanted to be the first to hear the contents of this agreement, a procedure to which your Parliament should have been more sympathetic than hostile, even if it makes my life more difficult.
I am sorry to say that information about the details only reaches me in dribs and drabs.
Now the devil, or perhaps the dragon, in this case, is in the detail.
I have no reason today to doubt the good faith of the American negotiators with whom our people have been working hard and to good effect for the last two years on our common interests.
Nor do I have any reason to suspect that concessions on multilateral conditions that are important to us have been paid for in bilateral money that is not legal tender for us.
Supposing that this were not the case, we should still have to negotiate with the Chinese on matters in which the Union has a particular interest.
To sum up, it is probably good news, subject to receiving proper details of the contents, which are being prepared.
<P>
I shall conclude my intervention Mr President, by welcoming the members of your institution who are part of our delegation to the Seattle Ministerial Conference.
This is part of a tradition that I am happy to uphold.
Moreover, tomorrow, I shall be meeting those MEPs that you will be appointing as delegates for Seattle, and I hope that you will have done so by tomorrow, and we will be able to discuss in greater detail the courses of action that we shall carry out once we are there.
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<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Mr President, I asked Mr Lamy explicitly what he thinks of Taiwan joining the WTO in the context of the Republic of China' s joining.
He has not given me an answer.
May I have an answer?
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<SPEAKER ID=178 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lamy">
Mr President, to tell the truth, I did not answer this question because Parliament had already put it to me a few weeks ago and I answered it then.
We are in favour of Taiwan joining the WTO.
Furthermore, negotiations have not been entirely signed and sealed by all the countries concerned, and news of China' s rapprochement is, in fact, from this point of view, good news.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at midday.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Mr President, this is a question which I will pose under Rule 112(2) in relation to a request for the declaration of an urgent procedure which I tabled three hours ago with regard to the Napolitano report in accordance with Rule 115, in order that the presentation of this request for an urgent debate may be announced to the House and should go ahead accordingly, so that we may respect the timetable for debate and voting which is laid down in the agenda.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 NAME="President -">
Mr Barón Crespo, I still do not have any information at the moment.
However, we are waiting for this, and I think that what you are requesting will happen in the course of the debate which now follows.
At the moment, I cannot tell you anything.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Mr President, in any case I would like to make it clear that I presented this request three hours ago with my signature and that of the President of the Liberal Group and with the agreement of the President of the PPE Group, although he has not signed it.
I would like this to appear accordingly in the Minutes.
I would ask you to request that the services show diligence in the processing of this question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="President">
I take note of what you say, Mr Barón Crespo, and we shall ask the officials to deal with the matter quickly.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Treaty reform/next IGC
<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0058/1999) by Messrs Dimitrakopoulos and Leinen, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on the preparations for the reform of the Treaties and for the next Intergovernmental Conference (C5-0143/1999 - 1999/2135(COS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Dimitrakopoulos">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I would like to publicly thank my co-rapporteur, Mr Jo Leinen, for his cooperation.
I believe that the report you have in front of you reflects two things in particular.
Firstly, this report is an attempt to condense a range of views of a large majority, not only of Parliament, but of all European citizens, and secondly, it shows how the European Parliament invariably aims to play, and does indeed play, a role in taking big decisions and in procedures to further improve the European Union.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, it is clear that the next Intergovernmental Conference will become directly involved in perhaps the greatest challenge facing the European Union, i.e. enlargement.
Amongst other things, this means that the Intergovernmental Conference must aim to improve the institutions, the way in which they function and the European Union' s policies, before we can allow new members in.
<P>
This particularly difficult process means that the next Intergovernmental Conference must proceed on a two-tier basis.
The first tier, which I shall not say anything about since, when we divided up responsibilities, Mr Leinen assumed responsibility for that, concerns how we should introduce institutional reforms, how far we need to go with the reforms and what the actual goals of these reforms are.
The second tier concerns the equally important issue of European Union policies.
The European Union is having to cope with an increasingly wide range of topics on a daily basis - topics which are particularly important for the citizens of the Union.
Clearly, it would be very difficult in the limited time we have to address them one by one in a parliamentary discussion.
<P>
Therefore, the first issue the conference should address as regards policies is the external representation of the European Union.
This is an issue which has quite rightly concerned us on many occasions.
It is therefore necessary for the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference to aim to improve those policies which lead to a more unified European policy on security and defence.
The second issue to be addressed, which is also an important one, concerns the future of Europe on a global scale.
It is quite similar but it has an added dimension involving external economic relations, an issue which we have been discussing a great deal.
The third issue, together with the economy, is that of a "Social Europe" .
It would be tragic if we forged ahead with developing European Union policies without giving consideration to such an important area which encompasses the bread and butter concerns of European citizens.
<P>
Mr President, in such a report, we found it neither feasible nor necessary to introduce concrete political proposals.
These proposals do exist but this report is more to do with the agenda of the IGC and how it should be followed, and contains a very specific proposal from the point of view of Parliament.
For this reason, I am calling on you to vote in favour of the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Leinen">
Mr President, the Committee on Constitutional Affairs has discussed this report thoroughly at several meetings, and I believe we are presenting plenum with a report of substance concerning the reform of the Treaties.
I have my colleague, Mr Dimitrakopoulos, to thank for collaborating so well and for distributing the work in such a way that this extensive task could be carried out.
We are agreed that, before the European Union is enlarged to include new States, there must be a basic reform to maintain the efficiency of the European Union and also, I would say, to improve the transparency of decisions on European policy and the ability to supervise these.
<P>
We in Parliament urge that the reform now pending should go above and beyond the three Amsterdam left-overs.
True, these are important, but they are not enough.
I want to mention five points in connection with which demands are being made in my part of our report.
<P>
Firstly: we demand the reform of all institutions and of all organisations including, therefore, the Court of Justice, the Court of Auditors, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions.
All these institutions must be subjected to scrutiny.
Central to all this is the reform of the Council.
Parallel to the Intergovernmental Conference, the Council of Ministers must carry out an internal reform, as demanded in the Trumpf-Piris paper, and the essence of the reform must be to have majority voting in the Council as the rule and, as a concomitant of this, to have codecision making by this Parliament in the case of all legislative acts.
I believe that Parliament will judge the Intergovernmental Conference according to whether this reform of the Council is successful.
<P>
Secondly: the Intergovernmental Conference must make a contribution to the democratic supervision of European politics.
Parliament must have better opportunities to supervise the Commission and to hold it to account.
In this connection, we demand that the President of the Commission should have the ability to ask this Parliament for a vote of confidence and that the so-called Prodi procedure, whereby the President is able to dismiss a single Member of the Commission, should be incorporated into the next Treaty.
<P>
Thirdly: we think that the reorganisation of the Treaties, leading to a situation in which the European Union would have something akin to a constitution, has now become a matter of importance.
No citizen, and no expert either, understands the Treaties as they stand at present. They are unreadable.
If we are to remain close to our citizens, we need to have the Treaties combined into a single text and divided into two parts - a constitutional part, and a second part which would then also partly have to be subjected to a simplified revision procedure.
<P>
Fourthly: reform of the Treaties requires not only that these should be ambitious in content but also that a new method of reform should be employed.
Negotiating behind closed doors should be a thing of the past. Nor is it any longer acceptable.
Parliament must be involved in all phases of preparing for, and holding, the Intergovernmental Conference.
We request that the Community method as per Article 48 be used; we expect a concrete proposal from the Commission which will form the basis for the negotiations; and we also expect to reach a consensus with the Council and the Commission concerning the agenda and the procedure for the next Intergovernmental Conference.
<P>
This Article 48 itself belongs on the agenda for the Intergovernmental Conference.
We think that account must be taken of the European Union' s double legitimacy as a Union of States, on the one hand, but also as a Union of the Peoples on the other, while Parliament obtains the right, when it comes to future negotiations for the purpose of revising the Treaties, to participate in decision making whenever it is the content of the future Treaties which is being negotiated.
<P>
We here in Parliament are prepared to collaborate on a comprehensive reform of the Treaties and to ensure that, even following enlargement, our European Union is still able to take necessary decisions and, at the same time, also remain transparent to our citizens so that the latter understand this Union and also accept it.
<P>
The Commission presented its proposals last week, and now Parliament is doing the same this week.
A lot of colleagues wanted to go much further, to the point of demanding that a European constitution be drafted.
We have imposed a discipline upon ourselves and remained within the broad framework of what has been demanded in terms of institutional changes.
Now, it is up to the governments, meeting in Helsinki, to have the insight and also the courage to decide upon an agenda whose subject is that of sound reform.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Budgets.
(ES) Mr President, please allow me, although very briefly, to protest at the poor scheduling of such an important debate in Wednesday' s agenda.
I pointed this out on Monday and I reiterate my protest.
<P>
In this case I am taking the floor on behalf of the Committee on Budgets in order to mention the main points which that Committee considers to be important at the Conference on the reform of the Treaties, based on the principle that, in politics, it is a mistake to ignore budgets.
<P>
I will list the points very briefly: the reform of the budgetary procedure, involving its updating; the extension of budgetary codecision; the integration of the peripheral institutions into the Community system; the consolidation of the financial perspective in the form of a genuine medium-term financial programme; the reform of the own resources system with a view to ensuring the financial autonomy and efficiency of the Union, on the one hand, and the transparency of the Community budget on the other, which means that there will be codecision in the determining of the overall level of own resources; the introduction of the possibility of creating fiscal instruments at a European level; the possibility that the budgetary authority may intervene every year in relation to the mix of different categories of sources of revenue; and the extension of legislative codecision and decision making by qualified majority for financial regulations in all programmes or instruments which involve Community expenditure, the CAP regulations and any act which creates an executive agency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Theato">
Mr President, with the report of my colleagues, Mr Dimitrakopoulos and Mr Leinen, Parliament is delivering a first opinion on the tasks of the next Intergovernmental Conference.
Without going into all the details, the framework has now been outlined for the challenge which the Europe of the near future has to meet if it is to be better understood and accepted by its citizens.
<P>
The biggest challenge is undoubtedly presented by the enlargement of the Union, which is something we affirm and want to see.
This enlargement to include more than 20 Member States - perhaps 30 in a number of years' time - could lead to a strengthening of the Union but also, instead, to its weakening; to its strengthening because Europe is reinforcing its identity on the basis of its political and cultural history.
At the same time, however, such an increase in the number of actors on the European stage would throw up institutional problems and produce considerable operational weaknesses if relevant measures and radical reforms of the present system were not implemented in good time before enlargement.
<P>
The danger of crippling the decision-making ability of the legislature - of the Council and Parliament - as well as of making the Commission unable to translate the laws into effect is a significant problem.
A further problem lies in the difficulty of knowing how the Treaties are to be adapted to the ever more rapid development of Community realities.
The two rapporteurs have quite correctly set out these problems and linked them to specific areas of policy.
<P>
By means of the opinion it has delivered, the Committee on Budgetary Control wishes to answer the question of whether a further development of supervision, together with effective protection of Community finances, should be approached through the creation of a European public prosecution service, established on the basis of corpus juris but according to the spirit of subsidiarity, as also explained and clarified for us last week by Commissioner Barnier at the part-session in Brussels.
<P>
Overall, the draft presented here points in the right direction, and I should like to acknowledge my gratitude to both rapporteurs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="De Clercq">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the historic opportunity which the coming Intergovernmental Conference is offering us to prepare the institutions and the operation of the European Union in readiness for the 21st century has already been made abundantly clear here.
As such, the European Parliament needs to be able to take part in the preparations from close by and has to get involved in the drafting and approval of amendments to the Treaties in order to reinforce the democratic character of this procedure.
We should also consider a possible simplification of the Treaties.
<P>
At the Cologne European Council, it was stated that "during the Conference, other necessary amendments to the Treaties arising as regards the European institutions and in implementing the Treaty of Amsterdam, could also be discussed" .
So this also includes the Court of Justice.
<P>
In my opinion, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs, I emphasise that the organisational and procedural framework of the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance is due for an overhaul in order to digest the current backlog. This should, in my opinion, go beyond the redistribution of chambers and increasing the number of judges.
After all, the sound and timely administration of law forms a key component in each and every constitutional state and we need to ensure that within the European Union, the essence of the prejudicial procedure and general legal protection continue to be guaranteed.
<P>
Other proposals which have been tabled, such as the question as to whether the European Parliament should be involved in the appointment of judges and whether the authority of the Court of Justice should extend to the third pillar, are under examination.
<P>
So far, all Treaty amendments have increased the power for Parliament.
This should also be the case now.
The Committee on Legal Affairs proposes extending the codecision procedure to all areas of the internal market, with the Council still deciding by qualified majority.
In these areas, it could even be considered whether Parliament and the Council could acquire the right of initiative with regard to amending existing legalisation.
The introduction of a clear hierarchy of legal standards should, after all, ensure that a clear distinction can be drawn between all the various legislative and implementing decisions.
Mr President, these were some of the first proposals tabled by the Committee on Legal Affairs in its opinion.
The remainder will follow in a more detailed report next year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, on behalf of the Industry Committee, I would like to congratulate the rapporteurs on their report, but I would also like to voice some criticism.
<P>
The Industry Committee deems it extremely important that at the next review of the Treaties, improvements will be made in two areas, namely trade policy and energy.
Regarding trade policy, the Commission' s authority to deal with the WTO or in other forums on behalf of the Community should be extended to all services and rights regarding intellectual property.
In addition, Parliament must be able to monitor the Commission more closely, both before and during the negotiations on trade agreements.
It may be true that the contribution of the NGOs to the negotiation process is steadily increasing, but this could never replace parliamentary control.
Democracy cannot, and should not, be left to NGOs to deal with.
<P>
Including sustainable development as an objective in the Treaty of Amsterdam requires an integrated approach to energy and environmental policy.
This is why the Industry Committee is pressing for the inclusion of an energy chapter in the Treaty.
Alongside this, the European Parliament should acquire more influence regarding the Euratom Treaty.
Unfortunately, both rapporteurs and the Committee on Constitutional Affairs refuse to adopt the amendments tabled by the Industry Committee on energy policy and Euratom.
<P>
You will understand that I very much regret this as draftsperson of the opinion, all the more so in view of the fact that EUR 1.3 billion of research funding is tied up in the Euratom framework programme.
This is why the liberal group has now resubmitted my amendments.
My group supports the ambitions of the Industry Committee in terms of energy.
Indeed, now is the time for Parliament to give the appropriate signals to the Council and the Commission for an integrated energy and environment policy.
I do hope that the rapporteurs will still adopt these amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Wogau">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report we are discussing today contains Parliament' s proposals for reforming the European Union.
This is necessary because of the forthcoming enlargement. The reform is also necessary, however, due to the fact that now, for the time being, eleven countries have a common monetary policy.
This necessitates the Member States' at least pursuing their economic policies on the basis of common principles.
<P>
The economic system prescribed in the Treaty of Rome has remained the basis of the Community' s economic policy.
It is a system of open markets.
In a number of Member States, one particular concept has been adopted. It bears the name "social market economy" .
I would recommend that this concept of the social market economy be incorporated into the Treaty.
That is also the view of the majority of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
<P>
A significant part of the Member States' economic policy revolves around tax policy.
Here, through Europe' s internal market, competition between the economic systems has arisen which, in the area of VAT, for example, has led to tax rates' converging.
However, the internal market in this area is not complete because the anticipated changeover to the country of origin principle has not yet taken place.
This is one example of why the requirement of unanimity in the Council has led to paralysis in decision making and therefore to a reduction in economic performance.
As a result, our economic growth is lower and unemployment higher.
That is why it is necessary, at least when it comes to the procedures for collecting taxes effective across national borders (VAT in particular), to permit qualified majority voting in the Council.
<P>
A further problem area is Parliament' s still inadequate participation in the legislative procedures concerning competition.
Competition is the key to our industry' s competitiveness and therefore a prerequisite for Europe' s ability to embrace the future.
We therefore demand, where legislative procedures in this area too are concerned, that the European Parliament be involved in the decision-making process.
<P>
What we request is that, in a number of areas in which, in full adherence to the principle of subsidiarity, the Treaties now already accord Europe a key role, the role of Parliament should be strengthened and the principle of majority voting established in the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, I would like to thank Parliament for this report.
It will have an important part to play in preparations for the Intergovernmental Conference, and I have to say that I agree wholeheartedly with the general aims set down in the report to make the Union more effective, transparent and democratic.
<P>
Let me speak, however, of the progress that has been made during the Finnish Presidency in preparations for the Intergovernmental Conference in 2000.
A month ago, Prime Minister Lipponen came here to present you with an account of the outcome of the European Council in Tampere and, in so doing, he also touched on the IGC preparations.
It is now three weeks until the Helsinki Summit conference, and IGC preparations are entering their final stage.
<P>
Union enlargement will mean the reform of the institutional system.
The EU must freely acknowledge the fact that enlargement will bring about the need for changes that we have to resolve within the EU.
We must be politically courageous enough to seek far-reaching solutions and institute the reforms the Union badly needs.
<P>
As you will certainly recall, at the Cologne Summit at the beginning of June, the next country to hold the Presidency, Finland, was charged with the task of preparing for the next Intergovernmental Conference.
During the autumn, technical IGC preparations have been made at the permanent representative level.
Now we have moved on to the political level, and we are having bilateral discussions at different levels with the other Member States, the European Parliament and the Commission.
Next week, Prime Minister Lipponen is to begin the traditional tour of the capitals preceding the European Council meetings.
Preparations for the Intergovernmental Conference in 2000 are one of the main issues connected with this tour.
The resolution by the European Parliament thus comes at exactly the right time, also in light of this tour.
<P>
We have based these preparations on the Cologne mandate which, in practice, addresses three points in particular: the size and composition of the Commission, the re-weighting of votes in the Council and an increase in qualified majority decision making. In addition to these three areas, there are institutional matters that are closely associated with them.
<P>
The EU debate on reform has got off to a lively start, and this autumn there has been much heated discussion surrounding the IGC in the various forums.
A month ago the Group of Wise Men, set up by Mr Prodi, published a report that called for a broad set of institutional reforms.
On the basis of this report, the Commission last week laid down its own views on the Intergovernmental Conference in 2000, and what areas the IGC should handle.
<P>
Here, too, in the European Parliament the Intergovernmental Conference has been on the agenda in many committee meetings.
We are aware that there are plenty of real IGC experts among you, and we value Parliament' s contribution to the debate.
Tomorrow you will vote on Parliament' s position on the year 2000 conference.
I promise we shall look closely at the views you adopt then.
<P>
The way the European Parliament participates in the Intergovernmental Conference is a very important question.
I have heard from different quarters very positive comments on the invaluable and constructive cooperation offered by MEPs Elisabeth Guigou and Elmar Brok with regard to the IGC in 1996.
Regarding the Intergovernmental Conference in 2000, the Member States have not yet settled on the form the European Parliament' s participation will take.
<P>
Preparations for the conference have included, in particular, discussions on the scope of the agenda.
In addition to the three subject areas mentioned in the conclusions reached at Cologne, various parties have raised the following issues for debate, among others: the European Court of Justice, the Court of Auditors, the distribution of seats in the European Parliament, flexibility and the division of the Treaties into parts. We will present our own views in our report, after we have had discussions and listened to all points of view, on what we consider to be possible and desirable.
<P>
There are many points on which all those involved in preparations for the conference are effectively united.
Firstly, whatever opinion we have on the scope of the IGC agenda, the main theme must be enlargement and the reforms that this necessitates.
Secondly, nobody is questioning the fact that Europe must gain strength through enlargement.
Decision making in the European Union and its potential for action cannot be allowed to weaken as a result of enlargement.
Thirdly, all parties involved wish to commit to a timetable, meaning that the talks would be drawn to a conclusion by the end of 2000, during the French Presidency.
We must achieve unanimity on the reforms whilst adhering to a tight schedule, so that enlargement is not delayed due to internal problems with the timetable in the EU.
<P>
I have focused in my speech only on the changes required by the IGC.
We must bear in mind, however, that the institutions can also be reformed without amending the Treaties.
In my opinion, these reforms must be carried forward coherently and effectively at the same time as the IGC.
<P>
I venture to hope that modernising the institutions and changing the way we do things could bring the European Union and its citizens closer to one another.
Finland, as the country to hold the Presidency, has emphasised the need to improve the Union' s efficiency in its work, as well as its transparency.
During our Presidency, we have taken a step forward in this area.
Since its Presidency Finland has put into effect those recommendations in the Trumpf-Piris report that do not require a separate decision by the Member States.
We have tried to improve transparency in the Council and make it easier for people to have access to documents.
As an example of concrete action, we have made public the agendas and schedules relating to meetings of both the Council and the working parties.
We have also made a proposal that all agendas of meetings relating to Council legislation be made public.
<P>
This, then, has been a brief overview of the situation regarding preparations for the Intergovernmental Conference in 2000.
Next week I will have the opportunity to discuss the matter with you in more detail when I speak in Brussels to the Committee on Constitutional Affairs on the progress being made in preparations for the IGC.
We once again have before us important decisions to take on the future of the Union.
Making these decisions and eventually implementing them will require smooth and selfless cooperation on the part of all the institutions.
For my own part, I can confirm the Council' s desire to cooperate with the European Parliament to make the forthcoming conference a success.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 NAME="President">
Thank you, President Sasi.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Méndez de Vigo">
Mr President, I believe that the applause which followed the intervention of the President of the Group of the Party of European Socialists expressed very clearly the feeling of this Parliament.
We feel that this is not the right time to hold this debate.
And this, Mr President, is because this debate is very important, not only for the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, but also for the Union in general and for those people who want Europe to be effective, more democratic and more just.
<P>
Just the other day, another MEP asked me: "What solutions does the European Parliament propose for the Intergovernmental Conference?"
And I answered in the same way as I will today, that this is not the time for solutions or proposals, but rather the time to decide what the Intergovernmental Conference is going to deal with and what method it will use in its work.
And that is what the report drawn up by Mr Dimitrakopoulos and Mr Leinen has done, and furthermore it has been a good illustration of how two intelligent people can reach reasonable agreements.
<P>
I believe that the resolution tabled by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs is politically intelligent; it deals with the issues and takes a very clear and decisive political line.
And what is that line?
Well, Mr President, it is one which is dictated by common sense.
<P>
The Treaty of Amsterdam did not resolve the issue of the institutional questions facing us.
And the signatories of the Treaty recognised this since they added a protocol, the protocol concerning the institutions in preparation for the enlargement of the European Union, specifically to see how these questions should be resolved in the future.
That protocol envisaged a dual institutional reform.
The first one for a European Union of less than 21 Member States and the second for when it has more: an initial mini-reform and a second broader one.
<P>
The logic of that Protocol on the institutions tallied with the Commission' s Agenda 2000 document, which envisaged an initial enlargement which we will call 5+1.
Now President Prodi' s new proposal breaks with this logic, because there are no longer 5+1, but rather 12 in the race.
This new thinking has now broken with the thinking of the Protocol on the institutions.
<P>
Therefore, that first small reform, in which we only had to consider the Commission and the weighting of votes in the Council and to which the Cologne Declaration has also added the possible extension of qualified majority voting, does not make much sense and responds to a different political logic.
<P>
Therefore we are talking about the second part of the Protocol on the institutions; we are facing a more profound reform of the European Union, which prepares it for enlargement.
To this end, Mr President, I think that we should combine this demand, which before I called common sense, with what the President-in-Office of the Council said: that which is possible.
But I believe that the Presidency of the Council has a great responsibility at the moment, because assessing what is possible should not prevail over the dictates of common sense.
<P>
We already know that, as a general rule, the governments do not want to change things too much; they are happy to make do with what we have.
However, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, we must push them a little bit, because otherwise, what I fear you understand to be "what is possible" will be too little for the needs of the European Union.
<P>
I think that the report by Messrs Dimitrakopoulos and Leinen is full of good ideas, is absolutely reasonable and establishes the points which, in our opinion, should be considered at the upcoming Intergovernmental Conference.
<P>
My group, on whose behalf I am speaking, is very much in agreement with this report, but I am going to mention three amendments which may be added to it and whose vote I will request in this House:
<P>
My group' s Amendment No. 18 which requests that Parliament be consulted on the annual economic guidelines, the decisions involving budgetary short-falls and any other important decision which has to be taken within the framework of European Economic and Monetary Union, of course leaving to one side the independence of the European Central Bank.
It seems to me that this is an issue that this Parliament should be involved in.
<P>
Amendment No. 26 in which we also incorporate, with regard to the distribution of competences, the principle of subsidiarity.
<P>
And finally any of the Amendments, Nos. 47, 26, 27 or 28, which talk of flexibility.
<P>
I believe that we should open the debate on flexibility.
But all of this, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, should take into account an essential element: we should not forget what the European Community has meant over all these years nor the thing which is most important to the Community, which is the principle of integration.
That is what we have to preserve and that, if we do not carry out the appropriate reforms, will be very difficult to preserve in a Europe of 28.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Méndez de Vigo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Mr President, first of all, in relation to the Dimitrakopoulos/Leinen report, I would like to welcome the work of the rapporteurs, who I believe have produced a piece of work which reflects not only our concerns but also an approach which is very pertinent and reasonable with regard to the objectives which the Union must have.
The intention is to set a sensible attitude on the part of the Council, which would try to resolve what remains after Amsterdam, against a sort of Christmas card on the part of Parliament.
I would like to say that Parliament, as it did before the Treaties of Maastricht and Amsterdam, has opted for a line which consists of a short and precise list dealing with fundamental issues.
I believe that our ambition should be, firstly, to create a Union that works well and, secondly, we should be in a position to enlarge that Union.
It is simple: we cannot say that we need a small reform when this Union was designed for six and now, thanks to its success, has fifteen Members and we are willing to allow 25 or 30.
This cannot be sorted out by moving the furniture around. We will have to take a radical approach.
Therefore, I understand that the fundamental questions - and I have listened attentively to the President-in-Office of the Council - will raise other questions and this requires an Intergovernmental Conference, which must be sufficiently ambitious.
<P>
The second comment I wanted to make, Mr President, relates to the method.
We talk a lot about transparency and contact with the citizens.
It is difficult enough to explain an Intergovernmental Conference to them, but it is even more difficult to explain it if it is done behind closed doors.
At a time when we are trying to popularise the Euro and gain greater support for the Union, and when the Council - and I welcome this initiative - is embarking on the task of writing up and debating a Charter of Fundamental Rights with the participation of the European Parliament and the national parliaments, it seems rather shocking that a closed door procedure is being considered in which the Council has still not said whether the European Parliament will be represented.
I draw your attention to this issue because it seems absolutely contradictory and opposed to our own interests and needs.
We have to open up to civil society, we have to involve national parliaments and there must be an open debate within Parliament, otherwise it will be very difficult to gain sufficient support.
<P>
And the third consideration, Mr President, concerns the tasks which face us, because they cannot be left until the end of the Intergovernmental Conference.
We are carrying out a reform of our institution, for example with the work on the Statute for Members - and I welcome the Council' s good will - and also the reform of our Rules of Procedure.
The Commission is committed to a reform programme.
I believe that the Council - which of all our institutions is, in a way, the one which has been most fragmented by the increase in specialised Councils and a myriad of related committees - must lead by example. But it should not only think of the future but also of the need for a democratic and effective Community.
To this end, I welcome the words of the President-in-Office of the Council and I hope that, while we prepare the Conference, we are capable of advancing along this road.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 NAME="Duff">
Mr President, this IGC will be supported by two parallel processes: the brave new world of a European defence policy and the defining of European citizenship within the drafting of the charter.
I trust that these separate but closely related processes will galvanise the IGC, just as the drive towards the single currency stimulated the Maastricht conference.
We certainly need stirring up.
At present, despite the good work of the rapporteurs, Parliament' s draft position is in danger of being more conservative than the Commission' s, and the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party has tabled various amendments to seek to sharpen the focus of the report and to speed up the development of a parliamentary Europe.
<P>
Firstly, we want a real process of conciliation between Parliament, the Commission and the Council in preparing the IGC.
Secondly, we wish to change the Treaty revision procedure in those areas where power is already transferred to the European level.
It is crazy for us to be obliged to undergo this ponderous and protracted Treaty revision procedure when we wish merely to reform a common policy.
It is also wrong for Parliament to be excluded from that process.
Thirdly, we wish to improve access of the citizen to the European Court so that the citizen will be a privileged litigant with ourselves, Member States and companies.
Fourthly, we want a further look at the flexibility clauses so that certain Member States are able in practice to deepen their relationship without threatening the acquis.
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I commend the Liberal proposals to Parliament.
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<SPEAKER ID=198 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Frassoni">
Mr President, here we are on the eve of a new round of reforms and the umpteenth Intergovernmental Conference.
Unlike the Millennium Round, we have still not managed to stimulate public opinion, non-governmental organisations or even the MEPs on this subject, which remains fairly far removed from the thoughts of all of us.
However, we have an opportunity and we must make the most of it.
On the other hand - as emphasised in the report by Mr Dimitrakopoulos and Mr Leinen, whom I would like to thank here - we are talking about how to turn this muddled machine into a modern democracy, how rights, policies and decisions can be made transparent to everyone and how this European home can become more open and welcoming.
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With this resolution, the European Parliament has decided to embark upon the process of revision and the agenda of the Intergovernmental Conference.
Frankly, I do not know if we shall succeed.
Parliament is in a position of objective weakness in the dialogue with the governments, and it is therefore not very easy.
My group considers, however, that some things must be explained more clearly and has tabled some amendments to this end, which I hope will arouse the interest of this House.
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The governments must not be the European Parliament' s only partners in dialogue - as they often are for the Commission - and Parliament must therefore try to open and introduce a perspective of a, shall we say, constitutional nature, so that the instruments for an efficient democracy are clear for all and not just for a few specialists.
As for the method, we do not believe that sending two observers is sufficient: two MEPs who observe a diplomatic conference and who, furthermore, are bound by an obligation of discretion, cannot be anything other than an alibi displaying weakness and modest ambitions.
If the objective is to start the intergovernmental process, we must move towards a political agreement on the contents of the reform between Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
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Secondly, the agenda must not be restricted to technical points and to the issues not settled in Amsterdam.
Codecision with the European Parliament and majority voting must become the rule, even in difficult sectors such as agriculture and taxation.
The citizens must emerge from the fog they now find themselves in.
Besides, I wonder, why mention specifically in the report the need to keep unanimous voting?
There is no need.
What we want today is greater democracy, greater codecision and majority voting in the Council.
There is no point in reassuring the governments: they do not need to be reassured because it is they who decide in the end.
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Finally, Mr President, even if today talking about defence is very fashionable, my group, albeit with its differing opinions, is convinced that discussing security in an exclusively military context is not positive.
At the Intergovernmental Conference, if discussions are limited to the best way to integrate fifteen armies, then they will hold very limited interest.
We think that we will only be able to talk about security and defence within the context of a general communitisation and democratisation of foreign policy.
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<SPEAKER ID=199 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kaufmann">
Mr President, I should like first of all to thank the rapporteurs. They have certainly carried out a complicated and difficult piece of work.
I think that Parliament, as the representative of our citizens, will continue to have some intensive work to do within the framework of the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference so that it might in actual fact do justice to the high expectations of people both in the European Union and also in the applicant States.
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Our Group will actively involve itself in the debate by making a number of proposals of its own.
We are fighting above all for the creation of a genuinely social and democratic Europe, a Europe which retains the European model of the social State, a Europe in which public services are not deregulated away and in which everything is done to prevent social dumping.
It is clear to us that the Amsterdam left-overs ought not to remain the only subjects of the Intergovernmental Conference.
In view of the enlargement which we all want to see, the European Union and its Member States must finally summon up the courage to undertake radical reforms so that a still politically divided Europe might grow together democratically and in terms of the social contract between citizens.
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What is unsettling, indeed thoroughly alarming, is what has been set in motion in the field of foreign and security policy and the vehemence with which hitherto civil European integration is being shelved and a military Union is being created.
In Parliament' s report, for example, it is proposed that the European Union must finally acquire the ability to act - an ability to act based upon credible military resources.
I would ask you all, please, what are credible military resources supposed to include.
Personnel mines, tanks or even nuclear weapons?
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On Monday, in Brussels, the foreign and defence ministers defined where we are headed.
This was an historic step.
By 2003, a rapid strike force is to be created under the umbrella of the EU, in effect a European army of 50,000 men for crisis operations in and around Europe.
Yesterday, the German daily newspaper, "Die Welt" characterised the plans as follows: the traditional defence of Europe would remain solely the responsibility of NATO; the EU strike force is not to compete with it but instead become its new trump card.
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Against this background, our Group had already submitted a motion to the Committee to the effect that the European Union should repudiate war as a means of solving international conflicts.
I find it downright incomprehensible that this proposal should not have found majority support in the Committee.
Our Group will again submit this motion tomorrow in the Plenum.
We shall request a roll-call vote for we are of the opinion that citizens are entitled to know who in this Chamber regards war as legitimate.
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<SPEAKER ID=200 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Queiró">
Mr President, the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference will take a stand on two interrelated issues. One is the issue of the so-called institutional triangle, a question that was not answered in Amsterdam.
The other issue concerns enlargement into Eastern Europe.
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Firstly, it is crucial that the reform that is drafted is democratic and that it has a democratising effect. In other words, that it subordinates bureaucrats to elected officers and subordinates the latter to public opinion in each country, and that its democratic legitimacy is strengthened through the participation of national parliaments and is not replaced by organisations of dubious representativeness or by supposed wise men.
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Secondly, we are fighting for an institutional reform in which there is a balance, not just between the Community institutions, but between the Member States, and for this balance to be expressed in the durability of this reform.
We therefore think that adopting new federal powers at Union level will do nothing more than highlight this imbalance and increase the distance between the Union and its constituent peoples, as happens a little with each reform - and the high rates of abstention throughout Europe in the European elections show this to be true.
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We are also opposed to the idea of the constitutionalisation of the Treaties as well as to the integration of a future Charter of Fundamental Rights in some kind of European constitutional process because we still think that European citizenship merely complements national citizenship and that therefore, the definition of the duties and fundamental rights of each nation' s citizens falls to the citizens of that nation.
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Respect for the European people' s will leads us to state with complete conviction the need to institutionalise the Luxembourg compromise.
We do not really see how we can increase the range of matters that can be decided by qualified majority unless the Member States, especially the smallest, have the means to oppose them by invoking their pre-eminent national interest.
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Mr President, we share the conviction that with the forthcoming enlargement into Eastern Europe, the Union can continue to create the right conditions for the States to enrich each other instead of causing the ruin of some in order to give others more help in succeeding.
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We think that the economy and the competitiveness of European countries can be developed in a context that favours the modernisation of social systems without giving up the fundamental requirement of solidarity.
We even think that Europe could acquire an external political dimension which matches its economic importance, and that this can be done whilst respecting the national interests of each Member State.
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However, the construction of Europe does not mean taking away from peoples and nations the scope for autonomy that enables them to control their own destiny. By this I mean that we can only undertake this construction if we support respect for national sovereignty, if we support approval by the people, social and political consensus, the openness and transparency of the processes and respect for all the constituent countries.
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<SPEAKER ID=201 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
Mr President, the essence of democracy is being able to go to the polls and obtain a new majority and subsequently a new law.
Laws are not sacred cows.
They are texts which can be changed by a new majority in Parliament.
The voters always have the final say.
That is the case in all our countries but, when we legislate in the Community, democracy goes by the board, so that the voters no longer have the final say where the laws are concerned.
Officials and ministers have taken over from the legislature.
Each new majority decision in the EU is an erosion of parliamentary democracy, and that is why, yesterday, we set up an intergroup for parliamentary democracy.
Its working title is SOS Democracy or Democracy First, and we shall be gathering people together from every group for the purpose of securing democracy in the next Treaty and of bringing about complete openness within the EU.
The intergroup is broadly based, its members ranging from British Conservatives to left-wing socialists.
We have members from all political groups in this Chamber.
We vote differently here on most questions, but we are in agreement about the fact that our differences should be settled in democratically elected parliaments and among the electorate.
Officials and ministers should not decide which of us are right.
We do not accept that a Commission in Brussels should decide whether or not elected representatives of the people can receive a proposal for debate.
We certainly cannot accept that the EU Executive should now be preparing for another Intergovernmental Conference whose essential aim is to shift power from the voters and their elected representatives to behind the closed doors of offices in Brussels.
There is a need for SOS Democracy because democracy comes first.
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<SPEAKER ID=202 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Brok">
Mr President, I should like to thank the Finnish Presidency of the Council, together with Mr Sasi, for the commitment with which they are approaching this difficult task of establishing a mandate and also say thank you to the rapporteurs for the really excellent work which is being done.
I should also like, however, at the same time, to point out to Mrs Kaufmann, who has just quoted the class enemy' s newspaper, "Die Welt" , that the party to which she has belonged was the only German party following the Second World War to issue the order for a war of aggression, namely against Czechoslovakia, and so one might do well to refrain from making remarks such as she has made.
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This Intergovernmental Conference has a very difficult timetable to comply with, for the Conference must be completed within the period prescribed, so ensuring that enlargement of the European Union is not delayed. At the same time, it must equip the European Union for the enlargement.
In other words, it is subject to strict time limits and is faced with a great challenge. Equipping the Union in this way means tackling not only the Amsterdam left-overs but also many questions concerned with foreign and security policy, a lot of issues which my colleague Karl von Wogau may have addressed in relation to monetary union, and much more besides.
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The question of majority voting is the key issue for the success of this Conference if our European Union is to be in shape for enlargement and if our European Parliament is also to agree to enlargement.
There must therefore be clear definitions in a range of areas as to where majority voting is necessary.
There must be majority voting in the field of tax policy, but not where all taxes are concerned.
There must be majority voting in the field of social policy, but not for social policy in its entirety.
This must be clearly laid down, just as it must be made clear that, when it comes to the European Parliament' s participating in decision making on agricultural policy, not all agricultural policy really constitutes legislation in any material sense, but only a small proportion - perhaps 20 or 30 - of the 3,000 legal documents. In those areas, however, Parliament must obtain the right to participate in decision making and, in addition, the right to full decision-making powers where the agricultural budget is concerned.
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In the field of structural policy, it is, for example, becoming clear that the more Member States there are, the less likely it is that we shall make sensible decisions on the basis of the principle of unanimity and so ensure that scarce funds and resources are invested in such a way that they benefit the really poor regions and poor groups of this European Union.
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In the area of foreign and security policy, too, we need rights of supervision, but we must find out - in the framework of implementing the Cologne decisions - which areas may still lead to changes to the Treaty.
Here, I should like to mention in particular that incorporation of the WEU into the European Union cannot be agreed before Article 5 has also been put in order.
Out of consideration for our neutral Members, Article 5 may only, however, be regularised in the framework of a protocol to the Treaty so that each country can decide for itself whether or not it wants to accede to this part.
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I do not believe that the European Union essentially needs new powers but, in connection with the powers it has, it needs the tools really to avail itself of these.
Only then would we be in a position to combine transparency, efficiency and democracy, for these three things combined are the conditions of acceptance by the population of Europe.
As proposed in the Dehaene report, the Council of Ministers would be divided, as part of this process, into an Executive Council of Ministers, which could meet behind closed doors, and a Legislative Council of Ministers, which would have to meet in public.
For it is not acceptable in a democratic community that a legislative body should shut itself away from the population.
This is a unique situation in the world and it is no longer acceptable.
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I therefore think that the proposal to divide up the Treaties, as presented by Mr Dehaene, is important.
In the spirit of transparency and efficiency, we ought to combine the constitutional parts of the Treaty, including the regulations relating to the powers which can be exercised, and combine the remaining parts in another Treaty of lower status.
This too is important so that citizens can see how this Europe of ours is organised.
Here, there may perhaps in the longer term be a point of contact with the convention which is to draw up the Charter of Fundamental Rights, and this convention might perhaps develop into a constituent assembly, for a constitutional Treaty must be the goal for which we are striving in the longer term.
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<SPEAKER ID=203 NAME="Corbett">
Mr President, my group welcomes this report, mainly because of two key points that it contains.
Firstly, it makes the case for a wider IGC than the three so-called Amsterdam left-overs.
Although those are key points, crucial points, we believe that it is right that the IGC ranges beyond just those three issues.
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This view is indeed gaining ground, thanks partly to the Dehaene report and the Commission' s own proposals - and I pay tribute to Mr Barnier who is here with us - but it is also gaining ground and rightly so among the national governments.
Nobody wants an all encompassing IGC dealing with every subject facing the Union in the Maastricht style, but there is a strong case to add to the agenda half a dozen key subjects which must be resolved if our Union is to work efficiently, transparently and democratically and is to be capable of facing up to having nearly 30 Member States.
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The second reason is that it makes the case for more democratic procedures.
Amsterdam was already better than previous IGCs to a limited degree, in that it was prepared by a reflection group in which Parliament participated and which published its full report, in that every proposal tabled in that IGC was published and put into the public domain and in that Parliament was able to send two representatives to at least some of the meetings.
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The time has now come, though, to be able to send Parliamentary representatives to all the meetings and to participate in the IGC on the same basis as the Commission, as a Community institution, to make our case, to advocate our proposals and at times to argue against the proposals made by others.
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Mr President, my group has tabled only two amendments and two requests for a split vote on this report.
That is because in the main we think this report strikes the right balance between ambition and realism.
One amendment seeks to re-establish in the report a request that the IGC should re-examine the issue of flexible cooperation.
It is unthinkable that we should move to nearly 30 Member States without the IGC re-examining that question.
With nearly thirty Member States we need a clause on flexible cooperation that is actually workable.
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The second amendment looks at the issue of having two parts to the Treaty: the constitutional part, looking at the main principles and the institutional provisions, and the small print dealing with policies.
This idea has widespread support.
Views differ, however, as to whether that second part should be amendable by a simplified procedure.
Our amendments suggest that sections of that second part should be amendable by a simplified procedure - maybe not all of it, that may cause insurmountable problems, but at least part of it.
There are many cases in the existing Treaties - different protocols, parts of the European Coal and Steel Treaty for instance - that are amendable by simplified procedure and the IGC should look constructively at this.
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Mr President, the Treaties are the European Union' s constitution.
They need to be made clearer, more transparent, more effective and more democratic.
The IGC must take on board that challenge.
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<SPEAKER ID=204 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Malmström">
Mr President, when, on 9 November 1989, freedom-loving people climbed over the Iron Curtain, history was changed dramatically.
It finally became possible to unify Europe and to create a broad, pan-European partnership, founded upon freedom and democracy.
A week ago, we commemorated the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The tenth anniversary reminded us that it is high time that we got to grips with the enlargement of the European Union and sped up the process.
It has already taken far too long.
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For us liberals, there is nothing more important than creating a unified Europe in which we solve problems together in a civilised way.
Enlargement of the EU is a moral imperative.
Enlargement, but also the fact that our citizens have a crisis of confidence in the EU, are factors which demand reforms of, and changes to, the European institutions.
All too many people feel that the EU does not engage hearts and minds.
The mistrust is sometimes almost palpable.
We need to take this state of affairs very seriously.
The Intergovernmental Conference ought therefore to have the ambition of thoroughly reforming the EU institutions.
Simplification, openness, clarity and public scrutiny must be the watchwords.
If a Union of 30 members is going to be able to function, it must concentrate on the genuinely cross-border questions and only act in those areas where European cooperation produces the best results.
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A careful review of the division of labour is required, and this will require courage and a willingness to roll up our sleeves and set to work, in other words vision but also pragmatism.
The debate ought not however to be carried on in isolation behind closed doors.
All democratic forces must be involved and citizens must have the opportunity to participate and say their piece.
They are entitled to expect results and also to demand that they be achieved.
If we fail in this, they may perhaps turn away from the European project, which would be a major catastrophe.
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<SPEAKER ID=205 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Onesta">
<SPEAKER ID=206 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
Mr President, the turnout at this year' s election for the European Parliament fell in almost all Member States where other elections had not been arranged at the same time.
If seats were to be left empty in this Chamber to represent all those who did not vote, 322 places would be unoccupied.
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This just goes to prove that democratic support for the European Parliament is weaker than that for the national parliaments.
In spite of that, the report which we are discussing proposes that precisely these national parliaments are to lose a very great deal more influence over both their own national policies and over the EU' s treaties and policies.
Power is to be transferred to bodies for which democratic support is weaker, for example, the European Parliament, or else non-existent, for example the Commission or the European Court of Justice.
We on the Nordic left are therefore going to vote against most parts of the motion for a resolution which demands, among other things, that more decisions should be made at supranational level, that national influence over the Treaty should be limited and that the dominance of the big States should be increased.
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<SPEAKER ID=207 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Dam">
Mr President, the turn-out at the elections in June illustrated that Europe' s citizens are still too far removed from the European Union.
Strangely enough, many still fail to learn any lessons from this.
The greatest enlargement of the Union is pending, but with this report, Parliament is further progressing towards reinforced integration in Europe.
Nobody has given me any arguments as to why a stronger Europe should involve its citizens more in policy.
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This report should turn the IGC into a success, but it overlooks the notions which are fundamental to Europe' s future.
A thorough discussion regarding subsidiarity is urgently needed.
This is why we have resubmitted the amendment on this topic.
Only the clear demarcation of the Union' s tasks is a basis for a correct distribution of power.
The policy should be drafted as closely to Europe' s citizens as possible.
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We welcome a broad IGC agenda, although it is difficult to tie up the loose ends of Amsterdam.
The right of veto for matters which affect national sovereignty remains necessary.
We find it unacceptable that enlargement would be postponed because the Union has not put its own house in order.
This enlargement is the very reason why a dynamic approach should be adopted.
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We do not deem it necessary for there to be a proposal from the Commission for the IGC agenda; they have more than enough to deal with.
Following consultation with the Commission, it is up to the Council to draft this agenda and to make its own preparations.
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<SPEAKER ID=208 NAME="Beazley">
I would like to thank the President-in-Office Mr Sasi for the comments he made earlier on during this debate.
Firstly, he confirmed the continued cooperation between the Council and the European Parliament and his forthcoming visit to the Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
But he also confirmed that in the IGC enlargement would remain at the core, at the heart of the envisaged Treaty reforms and, secondly, that the timetable would be adhered to.
I believe both of those are important aspects.
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First of all, on enlargement, we are talking here about enlargement of a very different scale and nature to anything that has happened before, and that has implications for the nature of the IGC which prepares for it.
We are talking in the main about countries from Central and Eastern Europe which have enjoyed, as we all know, 40 years of dictatorship when civil society was emasculated, driven underground and destroyed.
Although ten years have elapsed and great strides have now been made, I believe that a good deal of confidence-building is still required and that we need the openness that many of us have called for in the preparation and the implementation of these reforms.
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As the IGC takes place there are two aspects, therefore, that we in the European Parliament should remember.
One is that in the past, IGCs have not prepared public opinion until the Treaty reforms had actually been agreed, particularly in reference to Maastricht.
This had unfortunate consequences in a number of Member States.
I believe we should learn the lessons from that mistake of the past and realise that the importance of this particular enlargement, the re-uniting of the European family, is something which our public at home needs to be made aware of while the IGC is actually taking place.
And I believe that openness should also extend to the applicant countries themselves.
It would be most unfortunate if we as the institutions of the EU saw this merely as a bureaucratic or a constitutional exercise to our own interest and our own advantage.
It is specifically for the purpose of enlargement that openness is necessary.
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Therefore I believe that, where possible, not only should our own domestic public opinion be engaged at all stages but also the public opinion of the applicant countries in Central and Eastern Europe.
I appreciate that that is a break in tradition from the nature of a governmental conference as we understood it in the past.
But as I say, this is a very different type of IGC and therefore we have to be imaginative in the way that we present ourselves to the public.
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<SPEAKER ID=209 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Napolitano">
Mr President, this report has won the consensus of a large majority in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
In my opinion, this is a significant confirmation of those shared Europeanist objectives that have, in the past, characterised the European Parliament in its relations with the other Community institutions, with national parliaments and public opinion.
We have played - and we have shown that we wish to continue playing - an important part in supporting the process of European integration, and its continual and coherent development.
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The political tensions that characterised the start of this parliamentary term are therefore not obstructing the necessary agreements between various, important - the most important - parliamentary groups on the subject of consolidating the Union, its institutions and its policies.
It is important to agree, at this time, on the proposal that must be drawn up on the reform of the Treaties, on the convening of the new Intergovernmental Conference and on the drawing up of the agenda and the method.
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The positions taken in the Dimitrakopoulos-Leinen report have been supported by those in the communications by President Prodi and Mr Barnier on behalf of the European Commission, explained to Parliament the day after the vote in our committee.
This is now a sure point, which everyone must take into account: Parliament and the Commission are moving in the same direction and are equally convinced that the Intergovernmental Conference must not restrict itself to a limited horizon, simplified guidelines or a minimal agenda.
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The wide-ranging discussion in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs showed that Parliament is concerned with being, at the same time, far-sighted and realistic, demanding and practical.
We should stop seeing Parliament as if it were advancing goodness knows what dangerous demands and impossible requests.
Our proposals are not a reflection of an abstract scheme and are not a luxury, but reflect objective, inescapable requirements for a comprehensive reform of the institutions of the Union.
We need to go beyond Amsterdam and look further in order to be able to realise the historic commitment to enlarging eastwards, and to guarantee further progress in the integration process that is working against the risks of dilution and stagnation.
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No one can overlook the problems of strengthening the political side of Europe and institutional change but, in addition to this, we have had to deal with the launch of the euro and the European Central Bank, the lesson to be learnt from Kosovo, the widespread aspiration for a guaranteed area of security and justice and the disenchantment of too many European voters.
This is an appeal we are making, in particular, to governments and national parliaments, with whose assistance we must build a stronger, more united and more democratic Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=210 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Barnier">
Mr President, thank you for having given me the floor for a few moments at this point in the debate during which I have been able to listen closely to the rapporteurs whom I had already heard, but also to the representatives and the speakers of the different groups that sit in Parliament, that is to say, many of you.
I hope that the speakers I will not be able to hear due to the way this debate has been re-organised as well as to the constraints of my own schedule, will forgive me.
I can only promise them that I shall remain attentive to what is said throughout the debate today and of course later.
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Honourable Members, Mr President, institutional reform is not a political project.
It is a tool.
Our project, as many of you have said, and it underlies our thoughts today, is the uniting of the peoples of European States in a political, economic, social and cultural Community.
The great political project for the very start of the next century is therefore the welcoming of many new Members.
This is why the distinction made in Amsterdam between limited adjustment, minor enlargement and a broader reform is already an outdated distinction.
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You are already aware of the Commission' s contribution to the preparation for this Conference.
I am delighted today, as was President Prodi, to see the contribution your Parliament has made and to note, and I would like to thank your two rapporteurs, Mr Dimitrakopoulos and Mr Leinen most sincerely for this, a broad convergence of views, at this stage, between our two institutions.
And I think that this convergence of views is a major trump card that we should hold on to both in terms of the issues at stake in the reform and of the working method that we should adopt.
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I would like to say a few words about the issues involved in this reform.
As your two rapporteurs so aptly emphasised, this forthcoming Conference must concentrate on institutional issues, on all institutional issues with the notable and politically necessary exception of the discussions currently taking place on a European security and defence policy.
I think that if institutional reforms are to succeed, they must be placed, and I say this to you, bearing in mind my experience of the last negotiations, in a broader political perspective, and they must together attempt to provide an answer to the fundamental question, "How should we speak to each other?
How should we work?
How should we move forward and take decisions in a Union which will contain 27 countries?"
Because that is what there will be around the table. And that is the only question that we should be asking as we seek answers, all the answers, whichever institutions and processes are affected by seeking this answer.
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The first issue that we have identified together is that of functioning well when there is a large number of states.
Just now, I heard the President-in-Office of the Council mention enlargement which, he said, means "change" .
And, in direct response, I shall reply to him that what we are dealing with is a major enlargement, not a minor adjustment.
And we must respond to this major enlargement with real reform which must first, therefore, address the decision-making process.
This is why I believe that the majority of us will agree on making it clear that qualified majority voting within the Council should become the rule, with exceptions limited to a few fundamental and very sensitive issues.
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As many of you wanted us to, we have also put it in writing that where an issue of a legislative nature is concerned, the qualified majority must be linked to a codecision procedure between the Council and the European Parliament.
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The second issue is that of developing the Treaties.
I mentioned this idea during my hearing in your Parliament.
It has been taken up and stressed in the report by Jean-Luc Dehaene, President von Weizsäcker and Lord Simon and it merits being dealt with in more depth.
It consists in fact of reorganising the Treaties by separating the basic texts on the one hand and the implementing provisions on the other.
This reorganisation would allow the Treaties to continue to develop because the implementing provisions could, if necessary, one day be amended by a simplified procedure.
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I think that this new revision procedure could contribute towards linking the European Parliament more closely with the revision of the Treaties.
I would like to say however that I do not think that this reorganisation should lead to a change in the Union' s or the Community' s current competences.
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Another point is the representation of the States in the Council.
The decisions of the Council should be more representative of the relative weight that the Union' s different Member States carry.
Whilst respecting the spirit and the balance of the Treaty of Rome, decision making itself should also be made easier.
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And then there are the other institutions.
With enlargement, we will have to define the number of elected representatives from each State within your Parliament.
The Commission, with its power to issue guidelines, the new authority conferred on its President, will have to preserve - I hope you do not mind if I say that it will not be easy, now that I am a Member of the Commission - its collegial character, its efficiency, and its decision-making process which requires a simple majority of its Members.
The Court of Justice or the Court of Auditors will have to adapt to enlargement.
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By mentioning all of these institutions, I am attempting to show that there are many answers to the fundamental question that I raised just now, that is, how we will work when there are 27 of us, and these are answers that must be looked into at this Intergovernmental Conference.
The functioning of the institutions does not necessarily imply a revision of the Treaties.
In their daily work, there are important reforms of internal structures for the European Parliament, for the Commission and especially for the Council, which must be implemented before enlargement.
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The second major issue, Mr President, is to prevent the risk of dilution; the risk of dispersion that enlargement entails for us all.
I repeat that when a risk presents itself, it can either be overcome, accepted as if it were inevitable, or prevented.
We hope to prevent this risk of dispersion.
The Treaty of Amsterdam has established the legitimacy of certain forms of cooperation between Member States within the Union' s institutional framework in order to move beyond the level of integration that has already been achieved.
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On behalf of the Commission, I shall say quite clearly that the acquis must, under no circumstances, be considered to be a form of strengthened cooperation between the Fifteen Member States.
The objective is really to improve the current conditions of strengthened cooperation and to make them easier.
If we do not achieve this at this Conference, the current right of veto would only encourage the States that would like to achieve a deeper level of cooperation between themselves not to do it within the Community framework but to do it more and more outside this framework.
In order to strengthen the Union' s coherence, the Commission, like your Parliament, hopes that the question of the Union' s external representation will also be raised.
<P>
The third issue is that of continuing the political construction of Europe and, when the moment comes, we will then have to accept the consequences for the institutions of the work in progress on the Common Security and Defence Policy.
We are not forgetting that there is also the question of the way the Charter of Fundamental Rights relates to the Treaty.
<P>
I would like to bring this intervention to a close by thanking you for your attention and by mentioning the preparations for the negotiations.
Our objective is to bring these negotiations to a successful conclusion and to achieve this before the end of the year 2000 with significant results.
Our objective is not to delay enlargement but to accomplish it successfully.
This is why we hope that the procedure laid down by the Treaty, in Article 48, is implemented as soon as possible after Helsinki.
<P>
I would also like to express our agreement to the involvement of the European Parliament taking place in the best possible conditions, with greater participation than there was, as I can testify, when we were preparing for Amsterdam.
<P>
I would finally like to say that this reform throughout the year 2000 must provide the opportunity for genuine public debate between us, the institutions, but also with national parliaments and with our citizens.
It is our place, and indeed my own, to see to it that we take part in this public debate.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, the Commission is convinced that powerful institutional reform, adapted to the requirements of enlargement, can be achieved before the end of 2000.
We know that the Union will emerge from this enlargement completely transformed.
It must not emerge from it weakened.
But we will only succeed if this reform is achieved with sufficient ambition and political will, which means that many of us will have to give priority to the long-term vision over caution or national interests.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, I would like to raise a point of order.
I heard Commissioner Barnier say that he is intending to leave, that he needs to go early because he has other commitments.
Can I just say that I was minister in my own country for five years but not a single minister in our parliament would have considered walking out on a debate where spokespersons were still waiting to speak.
Mrs de Palacio, who is responsible for relations with Parliament, has also promised - at least in our Group - that Commissioners will remain present in all debates from now on.
The last speakers are just as important as the first ones. They may even have more voters behind them than the first ones.
I urge Mr Barnier to respect Parliament and to stay.
Otherwise I would ask you to write to Mr Prodi to observe the agreements with Mrs de Palacio.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Maij-Weggen.
In any event, the Commissioner has said that he will be with us until eight o' clock.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 NAME="Väyrynen">
Mr President, the report by Mr Dimitrakopoulos and Mr Leinen does not take adequate account of the fact that the European Union is fast taking on pan-European proportions.
A decision may be taken at the Helsinki Summit to expand talks to include twelve countries.
When official applicant country status is accorded to Turkey too, we may soon be receiving new applications for membership from the Balkans region and elsewhere.
<P>
In the plenary part-session in October, I said that the conflict between EU expansion and deepening could only be solved by the internal reorganisation of the Union on the onion skin model, or a system of concentric circles.
I proposed that the whole Union should develop as an association of states, but its core should develop into a full-fledged federation.
I proposed that the outer circle of cooperation and integration would be the European Council, to which we could give new duties.
<P>
I am glad that this idea of mine has met with a positive response in principle.
It has not had time, however, to be reflected in the amendments that our Group has tabled for this report.
For my own part, I cannot support the report by Mr Dimitrakopoulos and Mr Leinen.
It is an attempt to continue to develop the Union into a federation, and it in no way takes account of how the robust enlargement process should influence the Union' s institutional development.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Knörr Borràs">
Mr President, one of the founders of the current European Union said that, if they were to begin European construction again, they would start this time with a consideration of the people and their cultures.
But the European Union, far from rectifying the situation, seems to abide by the theory expounded by Livy, that is to say, it forgets what has happened and therefore can complain but cannot put anything right.
In the texts which have been proposed for the reform of the Treaties and the next IGC, not even with the most powerful magnifying glass can we find a sentence which refers to the European peoples and regions and the role that they should play in the Europe of the future.
<P>
It is time for the regional question to occupy the place that it deserves.
The European parties which are stuck in the past have shown that they are incapable of overcoming the short-sightedness which makes them blind to the internal national and regional realities of the current Member States.
When will we talk about nations such as Scotland, Wales, Galicia, Catalonia and the Basque country, which are not even allowed to sit together with the Governments on the Council?
What is going to be done about regions such as Andalucia - with 7.5 million inhabitants - which is treated like a second class country, while representatives of Member States which are a twentieth the size sit in the Council?
<P>
New countries are going to join the Union, some of which are very small and we are in favour of their accession, but if it were not for their recent emancipation, they would not be candidates for Membership.
The accession of these new countries, Mr President, will mean the under-representation of internal nations and regions of the current States.
<P>
García Márquez said that wisdom comes when we no longer have any use for it.
Let us hope that this is not the case with our political vision and sensitivity towards the role of the nations and regions of Europe!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, in this debate on the agenda and procedures for the upcoming IGC, I would first of all like to express that I, like the rapporteur, would advocate taking a wider approach, at least wider than proposed at the Cologne Summit.
The reasons have been spelt out loud and clear.
During this Summit, the accession, in the short-term, of four or five countries from Central and Eastern Europe was discussed. This number has since grown to ten or twelve.
This has the immediate effect that a root-and-branch reform should be undertaken and this is more than a few institutional reforms.
<P>
As far as I can see, there are six points to this argument.
Firstly, there are the institutional reforms as planned in Cologne, the make-up of the Commission, one Commissioner per Member State as far as we are concerned, the weighting of votes, which should be proportionate to the size of population and qualified majority voting.
This should encompass the budget but also agriculture and legislation.
<P>
Secondly, there is the integration of the second and third pillars, more integration in the Treaties.
In order to achieve this, more of a Community approach needs to be adopted.
<P>
Thirdly, the new Treaty should contain a sound legal basis for a European regulation on the openness of government and transparency.
<P>
Fourthly, we also need a legal basis for the European Union itself so that we can act autonomously in bodies such as the United Nations and the WTO.
And I agree with those who say that the constitutional aspects in the Treaty should be separated from those components relating to the executive.
I think this is a sound line to take.
<P>
Finally, this Charter of Fundamental Rights, to be laid down in future, should be embedded in the new Treaty.
<P>
These seem to me to be the salient points.
As for the procedure, our most important wish is, of course, maximum involvement of Parliament.
Two MEPs seems just fine but they will need to be able to play a full part.
<P>
We give our full backing to the reports of Mr Leinen and Mr Dimitrakopoulos.
They did a marvellous job and let us hope that the summit in Helsinki will indeed decide to incorporate the wider agenda we are proposing in the IGC
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berès">
Mr President, in our debate on the mandate for the forthcoming IGC, I would firstly like to say a few words on an issue which is not on this Conference' s agenda but that, I think, our Chamber will have to consider, when the day comes, in order to study and evaluate the results of the whole exercise.
<P>
This is the issue of the reform of the Council, of the whole package of reforms which, we have been told, must and can take place in addition to a reform of the Treaties.
Fine.
Let us set out on this path, but let us do so with a reasonable timetable that is the same timetable that the IGC has.
My group has tabled an amendment to this effect and I hope that, tomorrow, our Chamber will be able to vote for it.
<P>
With regard to the three "left-over" questions, do we think today that we are in a position to answer the question to which the Amsterdam Summit could not find a solution? What is this question?
We must have the courage to ask it.
It is perhaps less a question of how to function than of what it is that we want to do together when there are sixteen or twenty-seven of us.
If we do not answer this question, we will not find a solution to the three questions "left over" from Amsterdam.
<P>
At any event, preparing the Union for the forthcoming enlargement opens up a question outstanding from Amsterdam, and that is the question of strengthened cooperation.
Because, apart from the three institutional questions, which are already part of the IGC' s mandate, nobody in the context of the Amsterdam assessment has been able to tell us if the solutions that we had arrived at concerning the operation of this strengthened cooperation were satisfactory.
<P>
We must work towards a reform of this strengthened cooperation which will allow the Union to establish a real vanguard, open within the Union, in order to continue to make progress towards the security, democracy and stability of our continent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schleicher">
Mr President, you will not believe this, but exactly 200 years ago, namely in 1799, there was the first discussion of a constitution, not for Europe but for Bavaria.
This was partly for the purpose of establishing responsibilities but also because of the radical shifts in territory due to an almost 83 per cent increase in the area of Bavaria.
The person with the big idea of having a constitution was the then Bavarian prime minister, Graf Montgelas, who did himself great credit by establishing a French administration in Bavaria.
However, he was at the same time also the fiercest opponent of a parliament, because this could supposedly introduce unpredictable factors into politics.
The arguments for and against went on for a further 18 years until at last the constitution was established and its opponents were finally quashed.
And there were then already democratic elements in this constitution.
<P>
Now, something else that is astonishing: the basis of the constitution was, at that time, a preamble which was drafted in 1799 and which was to set out the fundamental rights, and all this 200 years ago!
I think the parallels between then and now are quite amazing.
History shows that the doubters' arguments, both then and now, are almost the same.
Let us learn from history not to allow further decades to go by before Europe has a constitution.
This is something for the future that we must prepare for.
<P>
I should therefore like to encourage the Council not only to respect Parliament' s proposals but also to make them its own.
We need a Europe which is able to act and which can also take necessary decisions.
For we must also take democracy seriously, and the responsibilities which the national parliaments have given away must pass into the hands of the European Parliament, that is to say become part of the process of codecision making.
We need codecision making by the European Parliament, for the European Parliament is the biggest factor favouring the integration of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=218 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Tsatsos">
<SPEAKER ID=219 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Seguro">
Mr President, we already know about some of the issues that will be discussed at the forthcoming WTO negotiations: they are the so-called "left-overs" from Amsterdam.
However, at the moment, we are not fully aware of what issues will feature at the start of the forthcoming IGC and these are issues that must be discussed, particularly with a view to achieving efficiency and with a view to an enlargement that it is thought will happen and which is greatly desired.
I would like to say here that reforming a Treaty with a view to achieving efficiency strikes me as a very unambitious exercise for the European project, and I fear that this exercise may be nothing but a power game which will allow a small group of countries to set themselves up as a board of directors and to lead and direct the European project.
<P>
A Europe led by a board of directors would be a negation of the stimulating process of European integration that we have had - it is true that it has its imperfections, but all countries have taken part in it - and, in our opinion, strengthened cooperation must be the exception and not the rule in the European Union. This is because often, the political will to cooperate exists, but the conditions are not right from the economic point of view or from some other point of view, in order to achieve this very will for strengthened cooperation.
<P>
Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, let me give you an example of this: if there were a change to the weighting of votes within the Council, which would mean that the countries with a higher population as well as the larger countries would in fact have more power, and if the extension of qualified majority voting, extended to the codecision procedure, meant that this tendency in the European Parliament also became more marked, my question is: what role will the European Union' s small or weak countries have in Europe?
<P>
I prefer cohesion to efficiency, and as Commissioner Barnier raised the issue a while ago of there being 27 of us in Europe, I would like to say, Commissioner, that I think that in the decisions of this Europe of 27, it is more important that all countries feel involved in the decision-making process, than discussing whether, when there are 27 of us, it will take us one hour, less than two hours or three hours to take decisions.
<P>
Cohesion is more important than efficiency if we are in fact to have a European Union with as cohesive and generous an enterprise as the one that we have seen and in which we have participated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fiori">
Mr President, the Ancient Roman jurisconsultants used to say that ex facto oritur jus (the law is formed from events).
I think that credit must be given to Messrs Dimitrakopoulos and Leinen for laying the first foundations of a new foedus (treaty), a kind of pact on European unity which is organised around differences and which attempts mediation and, in particular, to find basic principles and unities.
Europe still has a lot of work to do in order to build a democratic future.
However, some points have now been identified: a foreign and security policy needs to be a truly common one.
Indeed, I think that, in addition to banks, the economy and social and structural policies, the common foreign and security policy will be another driving factor towards true integration.
We need a European Parliament that is the general legislating body of the Union - like the Council - that participates fully in appointing members of the other institutions and is able to establish a relationship of trust with the European Commission, which is no longer weakened by the double qualified majority now necessary for a motion of censure.
We need a Council of Ministers that decides by a majority.
I think that other issues, such as the greater integration of the national parliaments in the Community' s decision-making process, are useless elements that just complicate matters.
<P>
Local regions and communities should also participate with more dignity at the stages of creation and implementation of Community law.
The part provided for by the provisions on the Structural Funds could become the basic principle for the new European construction.
<P>
The European Parliament must play a truly constituent part, and continue the spirit of Alcide De Gasperi, Schuman, Adenauer and Kohl to stay in the tradition of a people' s Europe - but it has had important supporters in other political families as well, such as Altiero Spinelli, François Mitterrand and Henry Spaak.
We are approaching a time that will be decisive for Europe' s survival as an entity and as a model.
The attacks are no longer military, but economic and political, and the adversaries are no longer those of the Cold War.
If we want to equip ourselves in order to overcome the challenge of the new millennium, then we will have to equip ourselves with the necessary legal and institutional instruments, in the belief that Europe will remain Europe only if it is prepared to carry out self-examination and accept this giant leap towards the future.
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<SPEAKER ID=221 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Poos">
Mr President, we are preparing to vote on the European Parliament' s first resolution on one of the great issues of the present legislature: the IGC in 2000.
<P>
In accordance with the Treaty, the principal players at this Conference will be the governments of Member States and then the national parliaments.
But the other institutions, the European Parliament and the Commission will not, for all that, be resigned to the role of mere onlookers.
Parliament, by means of its resolutions or through its two representatives at the Conference, will have to lead the project in an ambitious direction.
This influence will only meet with success if the European Parliament concentrates on the essential points, "the priorities" , and if it deliberately refrains from presenting a long wish list of points which are as unrealistic as they are unlimited.
Our two rapporteurs have attempted to avoid this trap, although I must say that they have not entirely succeeded.
<P>
As we are developing in the constitutional area and as the Treaty represents the highest standard of our internal laws, in the future, we will have to force ourselves to be more precise in terms of the law.
A constitution cannot be produced on the spur of the moment.
For example, when, on the issue of qualified majority voting, we have to say precisely to which articles of the Treaty the general rule is to apply and for which ones exceptions can be made, you will realise that the current Treaty leaves very little room for manoeuvre.
<P>
That is why, once we know the European Council' s mandate, we will have to go back to this document and make improvements to it.
As the President of our Committee, Mr Napolitano, pointed out, it is not a question of dividing ourselves into extremists and reactionaries, but of being perfectionists, whilst remaining progressive as far as the future development of the European Union is concerned
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pirker">
Mr President, Commissioner, I believe that this forthcoming summit can undoubtedly be a success if the factors stemming from Parliament' s debates and which are written down in this report are in fact taken account of.
<P>
I should like here to seize quite specifically upon one particular point.
I was particularly pleased to see that the report has dealt not only with the reform of the treaties and of procedures, and therefore was not just worded in general terms, but has in the last analysis declared itself in favour of setting and specifying priorities to the effect, for example, that progress must be achieved in the interests of the security of Europe and its citizens in connection with the further development of the area of freedom, security and justice, and that relevant procedures must be established so that this becomes a reality.
In that way, citizens will be given a signal and main focus.
<P>
In the report, a goal is also formulated which I consider to be particularly important, namely that Europe must be seen by its citizens to be transparent and to be conducting a more open debate.
This, too, I consider to be absolutely necessary, as well as being a good opportunity, especially in connection with the development of the area of freedom, security and justice.
We can show here that, in circumstances where the Member States are at their wits' end, Europe can, in the last analysis, be helpful to the individual.
<P>
If it is a fact of life that organised crime earns billions which, by being introduced into the legal economic cycle, damages our legitimate systems, indeed society as a whole, then we need Europol and we need European cooperation in the field of justice.
If the drug trade already constitutes 8% of the volume of trade worldwide, then we must develop Europol as a European institution.
If 400,000 asylum seekers are already coming to Europe each year, then we need relevant European regulations.
By that, I mean that this report addresses something very real and contains elements which signify a genuine opportunity for the Helsinki Summit.
We shall see whether, at this summit, Europe' s representatives can in actual fact avail themselves, in the interests of our citizens, of this chance to create more transparency and more opportunities for the individual.
We can only hope so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Mr President, as the rapporteur, Mr Leinen, explained very effectively, there are many of us who think that the Intergovernmental Conference should begin a genuine constitutionalisation process for the European Union.
In that way we would surely be in a position to deal with the circumstances, with the real demands and we would be able to respond to the challenge of restoring the citizens' interest in the European construction process, an interest which was statistically proven to be low after the poor turnout at the elections of 13 June.
<P>
To accompany the undeniable success of Monetary Union, we must also make progress with Political Union and in fields which broaden the competences of the European Union in order to prevent the current imbalances; I would describe these imbalances as enormous.
<P>
There is no doubt that the agenda of the Intergovernmental Conference must go much further than the fine words of Amsterdam, even though they are very important.
I talked before of constitutionalisation and, personally, I believe in a federal perspective.
The Treaties should also include that Charter of Fundamental Rights which is to be drawn up in the coming months; lay down majority decision making - as a general rule - and, logically, and simultaneously, the codecision procedure. It should also increase the powers of the European Parliament, for example granting it the power to ratify all the international treaties, whatever their type or nature may be, and, of course, ensure that the coming reforms are carried out according to a method which is much more open, transparent, democratic and participatory than the current one.
<P>
However, when we talk about methods and institutions, we must not forget politics.
For example, we must integrate the functions of the Western European Union into the Union in order to prevent new Kosovos, but we must also promote the coordination of economic policies, fiscal harmonisation and the creation of employment and a genuine social Europe which will allow us to confront the concerns of the citizens.
<P>
The current method is rather worn out but, in any case, it is essential that the Council commits itself to taking appropriate account of the proposals which the Commission and the Parliament make in turn.
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<SPEAKER ID=224 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langenhagen">
Mr President, the main themes are now generally known, and it is not only since the Dehaene report that everyone has been talking about them.
But, in addition to these main objectives, without whose attainment an enlargement of the European Union would scarcely be conceivable, a number of basic questions, relating naturally to policy on fisheries, ought not to be forgotten. With the Amsterdam Treaty, no satisfactory solution was found for the fisheries sector.
<P>
Firstly, I demand - as I also did in 1996 - that fisheries be mentioned specifically in the Treaties.
Fisheries must no longer be regarded as a mere appendage of agriculture.
The importance of fisheries as one of the few existing sectors for which there are Community policies must at last be emphasised by fisheries' being given their own chapter.
This chapter must state the goals of the common fisheries policy, its principles and, above all, the legal procedures governing its regulation.
<P>
Secondly, Parliament must be more thoroughly involved than it has been so far in defining the most important themes in the fisheries sphere.
I demand genuine decision-making powers in connection with the basic aspects of the common fisheries policy and the regulations governing, for example, market organisation, the preservation and management of stocks, supervisory regulations and the tools of structural policy; in other words, nothing less than codecision making by Parliament.
<P>
Thirdly, it is also necessary in the field of international politics to strengthen the role of Parliament and to introduce the procedure for agreeing to the conclusion of all international fisheries agreements.
My final point is that Parliament' s participation is also to be desired at meetings of bodies forming part of international organisations.
<P>
The points mentioned, which take account of the importance of fisheries in Europe, must therefore be picked out as central themes at the next Intergovernmental Conference when the role of Parliament is being considered.
Happily, I have just heard from Giorgos that a compromise Amendment is being submitted which also refers to the subject of fisheries.
Thank you for that.
I trust that the House will support this.
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<SPEAKER ID=225 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Mr President, thanks are due to the two rapporteurs.
Finland' s Portugal' s and France' s Presidencies of the Council are to be requested to comply with the proposals in this report which is quite rightly based upon the criticism, partly by this European Parliament, of the decisions in Amsterdam.
For no other reason than that Mr Tsatsos has again referred to the matter, I should like to emphasise that the proposal in subparagraph 5 is really of central importance.
It is important that we obtain a package proposal for global reform in which the important questions relating to majority voting are dealt with just as much as those relating to reform of the institutions and other important themes.
I think that the most important thing here is that we consider how the European Union might be provided with a constitution.
This demand can hardly be emphasised enough, for Europe can only come of age when it provides itself with a constitution.
<P>
The purposes and goals of the European Union are too unclear at the moment.
The European Parliament has quite rightly already submitted several draft constitutions, and I think that these ought to make it clear that Europe is more than a market.
We must therefore be thinking in terms of a Brussels Republic, a unique community of States without historical precedent.
<P>
Whether the discussion of a European constitution will imbue Europe' s citizens with more enthusiasm for Europe is unclear.
On account of the problems entailed in legitimising an area or a market without the structure of a State, the attempt does need, however, to be made to inspire such enthusiasm. This must also go hand in hand with the development of a European civil society and of a European public.
We are seeing a change worldwide in the essential character of national sovereignty because States do not have unlimited freedom of action, either at home or abroad, and their ability to form policies and solve problems is limited by the realities of international relations and of trans-national forms of interdependence and interaction.
This is particularly apparent in connection with the economy, trade and competition.
It is precisely in this area, too, that it is very important to move from the principle of unanimity to majority voting.
The European Union must become better able to act and it therefore needs a new separation of powers through a catalogue of competences.
<P>
In view of the changed circumstances, a new system for the separation of powers must be devised which augments the classical separation of powers as prescribed by Montesquieu with a new form of separation of powers at different levels.
We need integrated multi-level decision-making processes.
The coordination processes at present prescribed are inadequate to the task of organising European added value.
That is particularly clear from the difficulties between economic union and monetary union and the difficulties between the political union and the economic and monetary union.
Since we cannot boost democracy, through interinstitutional agreements in this area, we also, in fact, require a revision of the Treaty in this regard.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Boetticher">
Mr President, the Dehaene report contains a proposal of historic importance, namely the division of the Treaties into two parts: a part concerned with fundamental rights and the institutions which, as hitherto, can only be changed through the unanimous decision of the Intergovernmental Conference and through a procedure of ratification by the Member States; and a special part for specific policy areas which, instead of ratification, would require the agreement of the European Parliament.
<P>
In view of the fact that the Commission - and I am very grateful to Mr Barnier for this - has accepted in its proposals a division of this kind for the Amendment procedures too, it would appear faint-hearted if now Parliament' s Committee on Constitutional Affairs were to accept the two-fold division but not the distinction between the procedures.
It is also necessary to introduce different procedures because, following enlargement, the European Union would otherwise lose its ability to act.
To that extent, I would thank rapporteur Leinen for his remark on this subject, but I cannot unfortunately find it in his report.
<P>
I am in favour of introducing such a two-fold division of procedures, but only under a specific condition.
It must be guaranteed that the abolition of the ratification procedure for specified areas of policy would not entail any weakening of the rights of the Member States and that the European Union would not acquire for itself a right to extend its powers at the expense of the constituent Member States.
This can be guaranteed by means of a motion submitted by a number of colleagues and myself in which we conclude and demand that a catalogue of competences be incorporated into the basic part of the Treaty, clearly defining the competences of the European Union, clearly limiting those competences as well as encouraging application of the principle of subsidiarity.
<P>
Only in this way can the European Union, without at the same time eroding the rights of the Member States, become more able to act and efficiently limit its work to specified policy areas.
I would therefore particularly ask the rapporteurs - partly in order to ensure that their report obtains a broad majority in the House - to examine these two motions sympathetically.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Leinen">
Mr President, this debate has shown that a lot more would be necessary than we have incorporated into our report.
Budget policy, trade policy, tax policy and competition policy have been mentioned.
Everywhere, in fact, there is a need for reform; to that extent, Parliament was very focused.
I nonetheless think that we ought to be as ambitious as the Commission and carry out a further two improvements tomorrow.
The latter I am happy to take up - a duly facilitated revision of the second part of the newly divided Treaties and also a clause concerning strengthened cooperation in a Europe with 27 or 30 States.
I also hope that this will obtain a majority in the House tomorrow.
<P>
Lastly, I should like to thank the Commission whose demands are almost identical with those of Parliament.
Now, it is a question of conducting a public debate with the governments but also with the populations of Europe so that we might also implement the results at the Intergovernmental Conference in the year 2000.
I would like to thank everybody who has contributed to this task.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wuermeling">
Mr President, Mr Leinen, you now have the misfortune of having to speak between Mr von Boetticher and myself.
I would therefore take the liberty of again reminding you of one aspect of what Mr von Boetticher quite correctly pointed out here, namely that it is also a part of this package that a clear framework of competences of the European Union is to be laid down in the general, basic part of the Treaties.
<P>
Perhaps the same is true of yourself as it is of me: through the opening of accession negotiations with a further twelve potential Member States, the scales have, as it were, fallen from our eyes and we have seen what immense consequences and effects the enlargement is going to have on the European Union itself.
Basically, this is not a traditional accession of States.
With the union of twelve new and fifteen old Member States, we are, rather, facing the situation of a re-establishment of the Union.
The necessity of comprehensive reforms has therefore been emphasised quite rightly here.
<P>
I should just like to issue one warning.
We ought not now to be tempted to repeat the old demands which we have always made, but now under the banner of the enlargement of the Union, for that would basically prevent us from seeing that we must consider completely new visions of our European Union.
<P>
I should like briefly in this regard to consider one idea.
I am convinced that, with 27 Member States, it will be impossible for the European Union to be as active in the same breadth and depth as it is with the present fifteen Member States.
We must therefore also concentrate on the key competences of the European Union and, in this connection, consider in which areas it is indispensable for the European Union to be active.
I am certain that, with some good will, we can find a whole range of other areas where that is not the case.
<P>
I want to add one last remark.
I should not like here to associate myself with the general European chiding directed against centralism, but I should like to canvass for a comprehensive, honest critique of the European Union' s tasks so that we do not need to be afraid that our achievements will be jeopardised through enlargement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, on closing this debate, this important debate, with an important and excellent report, what could be better than to talk of justice.
Until now, justice has been rather absent from the general debate.
I believe that all political communities are judged by the justice they provide.
<P>
The reality is that our justice system is not sufficient for the competences which have been transferred to the European institutions, the Community competences, especially the competences which have to be reviewed from a legal point of view.
<P>
Therefore I believe - and this should include the strict current mandate for the Conference with regard to the revision of the institutions in accordance with the Treaty of Amsterdam - that we have to deal with the necessary and thorough reform of our Court of Justice and our Court of First Instance and the reform of the appointment of judges - in which the Parliament should have a significant involvement - as well as the reform of the distribution of competences between the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance, so that citizens may have an accurate and clear idea of what this European justice, which is their direct form of justice, really is, and the reform, finally - and this is another chapter - of the actionability of the acts.
<P>
I will end by saying, Mr President, that all of this will become all the more necessary in view of the other great mandate, the launch of which will be the finishing touch of the Finnish Presidency - the excellent Finnish Presidency, whose many successes it is a great honour to recognise in this Chamber and which has been a turning point in the behaviour of the Council.
There is a "before and after" of the Finnish Presidency with regard to the daily treatment of this Parliament.
<P>
That other challenge is to launch the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
There is also a problem here between the Court of Luxembourg and the Court of Strasbourg.
Mr President, as I said at the beginning, a political community is judged by the justice it provides.
Let us be aware of this and let us deal with this reform.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Palacio.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, I am delighted to make this point of order in the presence of the Commission and the Council, because the issue in question is particularly serious.
At 5 p.m. today, a text signed by Mr Barón Crespo and some of his accomplices requested that the debate on the Napolitano report that was due to take place at 7 p.m. should be postponed until tomorrow.
It was asked, in the form of a topical and urgent motion, that a debate tabled for 8 p.m. this evening should be postponed until tomorrow morning.
Kindly explain to us the reason for this urgency.
Furthermore, this request was formulated according to Rule 112 of our Rules of Procedure which refers back to article 60 whereas Mr Napolitano' s report, as it is quite clearly stated in the legal grounds of the aforementioned report, is a report which is covered by article 181, since it concerns the internal Rules of Procedure of our Parliament.
It is therefore not a legislative proposal or an assimilated text at all, as the justification made by Mr Barón Crespo claims.
<P>
Mr Barón Crespo has accustomed Parliament to his Stalinist methods, to this Soviet way of treating Parliament for fifteen years.
What we want, apart from any fundamental issue that we will address tomorrow, is to try to enlighten MEPs about a mistake that has been made, so that we do not continue to make this mistake.
We are driving ourselves into a dead end by flouting MEPs' prerogatives, by flouting the European Union' s history of parliamentarianism and that of all its Member States. And because we do not want to rectify mistakes that we made six months ago, we are prepared to institutionalise informing within our Parliament, which allows any assistant or official in Parliament to inform on someone because he suspects that so and so' s brother-in-law' s cousin may have committed fraud!
It is absolutely scandalous!
I request that this decision by Parliament be revoked.
It is unacceptable.
I request, in accordance with article 115, that the debate be included in the agenda 24 hours after the different versions have been made available to MEPs, that is, not before mid-day tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 NAME="Corbett">
I think that before Mr Dupuis gets so excited and starts making such exaggerated accusations he should first verify what has actually happened.
<P>
The fact is that the Napolitano report was not available in all the languages 24 hours before the debates and before the vote, as required by Rule 115.
In order, therefore, to safeguard the Rules of this House and the Rules governing every Member, to ensure that Members have the rights they enjoy under these Rules, the Socialist Group and the Liberal Group, with the support, as was announced earlier, of the EPP Group, requested that to make sure we were in conformity with our Rules, Rule 112 on urgent procedure should be applied.
This will be put to the House tomorrow morning to vote on.
It will be a sovereign decision of this House to decide whether we can apply urgent procedure to this report.
There is nothing undemocratic about that.
It respects the Rules of Procedure and it respects what the majority in this House wants.
<P>
A question I think one could ask is about the motives of those who have tried to filibuster this report from beginning to end, of those who have tried to block it, of those who have tried every trick in the book and everything in the rule book to try and have it postponed.
I wonder what it is that makes them fear OLAF having the right to verify that Members are conducting their affairs properly in this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, firstly, I would like to say that Mr Corbett' s intervention may have been a politically-motivated speech, but it did not refer to the Rules of Procedure either, except to answer Mr Dupuis.
I would like to say...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 NAME="President">
Mr Dell' Alba, you are not tabling a procedural motion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Rule 112 must be applied in accordance with the Rules of Procedure.
Rule 112 refers to Rule 60.
Mr Corbett knows the Rules of Procedure too well not to know that this rule does not apply to modifications to the Rules of Procedure concerning the Treaties or the interinstitutional agreements.
I therefore support Mr Dupuis' request.
I suggest that we return tomorrow morning having considered Mr Dupuis' arguments and my own with the aim of deeming the request formulated by the three groups unacceptable.
Mistakes can happen.
By the way, the matter is obviously unacceptable because they are not basing their arguments on the Rules of Procedure but on a rather inappropriate interpretation of the rules governing Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 NAME="President">
The Presidency notes these procedural motions and the Bureau will decide accordingly.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Question Time (Council)
<SPEAKER ID=237 NAME="President">
The next point on the agenda is Council question time (B5-0033/1999).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 NAME="Marie Anne Isler Béguin">
Question No 1 by (H-0548/99):
<P>
Subject: Rail route across the Pyrenees The route crossing the Pyrenees via the Aspe Valley and the Somport Pass has for several years been a subject of controversy within local communities and the public at large and the national authorities affected by the choice of mode.
The road link is being modernised and expanded even though there is still an old partly disused railway line linking France and Spain.
On account of various protests and environmental considerations, the road-works were halted, and the national authorities and the Commission began discussions and to reconsider the strategies in terms of modes, the idea being to treat the rail link as a future key trans-European network.
That notwithstanding, the road-works resumed in the valley on 13 September. The Union, however, is already financing a feasibility study on the rail route, and the programme of the Presidency-in-Office states that revitalisation of European railways must be treated as a priority.
<P>
Can the Presidency say why the road-works have resumed?
Has the Union entered into other financial commitments regarding the Aspe Valley route across the Pyrenees, apart from the above-mentioned study?
Will not the Presidency take steps with a view to coordinating the positions of the French and Spanish governments so as to permanently rule out any road development project, since that option would remove the future need for the rail route, especially where freight carriage was concerned?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, I would like to say to the honourable member that the Council does not have the information you are asking for.
Regarding this matter, I should point out that monitoring the trans-European transport network is within the competence of the Commission.
<P>
Under Article 18 of the decision taken by the European Parliament and the Council on the Trans-European Network, the Member States regularly provide the Commission with national plans and programmes drawn up to develop the Trans-European Network, particularly regarding projects concerning the common interest, as identified in this decision.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Isler Béguin">
Mr President, thank you for your answer, but I do not find it very satisfactory because the Somport issue is ancient history.
I am therefore astonished that the Council is not up to date on this, given that several questions have already been asked on this subject.
<P>
I am equally astonished that you can speak of the trans-European Network whereas the Members concerned, France and Spain, do not consider this stretch of road to be part of the trans-European Network at all.
If it were the case, I would immediately request that a study of the impact of this matter be made.
I asked you this question because works have started again in Aspe valley.
These are huge works just to make a small bypass around the small village of Bedous.
They are having a considerable impact on the environment and we know very well that in the long run in France, the usual piecemeal approach will be adopted, like slicing a salami, and that tiny slice by tiny slice, we will end up with a motorway or a dual carriageway in the Aspe valley.
<P>
Today, then, I would like to see the Council ask what France' s real commitments are in this matter and what means for crossing the Pyrenees the authorities really want to put in place, and I am directing these words to the Finnish Presidency, which has committed itself to the rail crossing and which has spoken in favour of it.
If you do not mind, I suggest that you launch an initiative to promote alternative means of transport to the road transport in ecologically sensitive areas, otherwise we will continue to ask you this kind of question and we will only be able to say...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, firstly, I wish to repeat that this matter falls more within the competence of the Commission, and the Commission' s last question time was here in Parliament yesterday.
As the following question referred to a rail connection between France and Spain in the Pyrenees, I would, however, like to say that this rail connection is not at present part of the Trans-European Network, as approved by the European Parliament and the Council in 1996.
For that reason, financing may not come from the budget heading relating to the Trans-European Network.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 NAME="President">
This issue is of great interest to me, but since I am acting as President for the sitting, I am not going to allow a supplementary question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=244 NAME="Jan Andersson">
Question No 2 by (H-0550/99):
<P>
Subject: Council's plans for combating drug abuse in the context of an area of freedom, security and justice During the Finnish Presidency, particular priority has been given to the area of freedom, security and justice.
Within that area, the fight against drugs is especially important in view of the scale of drug trafficking and the drastic social consequences of drug abuse for individuals and society.
<P>
Will the Council say what measures it envisages to combat drug abuse in giving priority to establishing an area of freedom, security and justice?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sasi">
On the basis of the European Union' s strategy for the period 1995-1999, the European Council urged the institutions, in Vienna in December 1998, to further develop an integrated and well-balanced anti-drugs strategy for the period after 1999, taking account of the new opportunities provided by the Amsterdam Treaty.
The Commission subsequently submitted to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, its communication concerning the European Union' s action plan for combating drugs during the period 2000-2004.
<P>
On the basis of the guidelines from the European Council, the work carried out by the previous country to hold the Presidency, the communication from the Commission and the contributions which the Member States and different working parties within the Commission have made to the Commission's communication, we have drafted a proposal for the EU's drugs strategy for the period 2000-2004.
In so doing, we have taken account of the views of both the European Parliament and of the above-mentioned institutions and bodies.
<P>
This new anti-drugs strategy is needed now because the existing EU strategy will have run its course by the end of this year.
Through the Amsterdam Treaty, a great many new opportunities have arisen which must be examined and utilised, both in the area of protecting people' s health and in the areas of legal cooperation and of cooperation with the police and customs.
The purpose of this new strategy is to confirm that the EU' s fight against drugs in the future will be broad in scope.
The new strategy includes measures to reduce supply and demand, together with measures at an international level.
<P>
At the special meeting of the European Council in Tampere in October, on the subject of establishing an area of freedom, security and justice, the emphasis was partly upon the importance of an overarching approach to tackling the drugs problem.
New guidelines were also provided for future work in the fight against drugs.
The European Council encouraged the Council to adopt the EU' s anti-drugs strategy for the years 2000-2004 before the European Council in Helsinki.
<P>
The European Council in Tampere urged that, in accordance with the Treaty, joint research groups be established without delay as a first step in the fight against the drugs trade, trade in human beings and terrorism.
<P>
It was also considered that, with regard to national criminal law, efforts to come to agreements regarding joint definitions, sanctions and bases for prosecutions should, at the initial stage, focus upon a limited number of sectors of special significance, such as the illegal trade in drugs.
<P>
The decision made in Tampere concerning extended powers for Europol, together with intensified measures against money laundering, will contribute to the European Union' s fight against drugs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Andersson">
I should like to begin by thanking the Council for its answer.
I asked this question quite a long time ago, in fact before the Tampere Summit.
I think that the questions concerning drugs were dealt with at the Tampere Summit in a useful, more integrated way and with a view to developing a future strategy, especially in regard to combating the drugs trade and adjacent areas such as money laundering.
I am satisfied with the answer and can only hope that the process we have now set in motion through the Tampere Summit will continue and result in concrete measures so that we might together be able to tackle criminal behaviour of this kind and the major problem constituted by the drugs trade.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 NAME="President">
There has not really been a question, but if Mr Sasi wishes to respond, he may do so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=248 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sasi">
Allow me to say just briefly that, as the Tampere Summit shows, the fight against the drugs trade is one of the priority areas of the European Union' s policy.
There is an extremely long list of objectives and fundamental features for the next plan of operations, covering the years 2000-2004.
I believe that, with these guidelines, very effective measures in this field of work can be produced fairly soon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 NAME="Newton Dunn">
Europol, which you mentioned, is only an information collection and exchange centre.
Do you think that it should be given operational powers to follow drug traffickers moving across Europe?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sasi">
This is a matter which is still being looked into.
However, it is at the same time a fact that cooperation between the police authorities and also between police, customs and legal authorities must be increased.
Clearly, the first step must be an exchange of information between the police authorities and via Europol.
I believe however that, in the future, we are going to see a development of the kind which the Member predicts in his question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=251 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=252 NAME="Marco Cappato">
Question No 3 by (H-0557/99):
<P>
Subject: Appropriateness of financing UNDCP programmes The UNDCP has published the results of an annual survey of opium production, which show that estimated total raw opium production in Afghanistan has more than doubled in a year, rising from 2,100 tonnes in 1998 to 4,600 tonnes in 1999.
The area devoted to opium cultivation has increased by 43%, from 64,000 to 91,000 hectares.
97% of opium production in 1999 is in areas under Taleban control and the number of Afghan districts where it is grown has risen from 73 to 104.
Global opium production has increased from 3,750 tonnes to 6,000 tonnes B an increase of 60%.
<P>
For some years the UNDCP has been engaged in costly intensive programmes to eradicate the cultivation of opium poppies in Afghanistan, which are directly managed by the Taleban, who are known for the violent and segregationist system they have forced on the country.
The EU budget provides funding for the UNDCP and its programmes, including the one involving Afghanistan.
<P>
Does the Council not consider that the EU should suspend its support, including financial support, for the >Taleban project= and carry out a thorough investigation into the effectiveness and management of the funds by the UNDCP?
<P>
Does the Council not consider that the use of EU funds by the UNDCP for programmes carried out by regimes which do not respect even minimum human rights constitutes a serious infringement of the principle of conditionality which inspires EU action?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 NAME="Sasi">

Mr President, the European Union is very concerned about drugs production in Afghanistan. Its direct and indirect effect extends geographically far and wide.
The country to hold the Presidency has decided that close monitoring of the situation in Iran and Afghanistan will be the focus point of the action it takes on drugs.
<P>
The negative effects on civil society, for example in Europe and Russia, Central Asia and Iran, cannot be underestimated.
The European Union finds it alarming that the majority of heroin used in the Member States comes from the poppy fields of Afghanistan.
The Union has noted the recent report by the UN drugs control programme, the UNDCP, according to which Afghanistan is, at present, clearly the largest global producer of opium.
Its world share of production is 75%.
In 1999 opium production grew by 100% on the previous year, reaching the highest volume so far, with a figure of 4,600 tons, which is partly due to the considerable expansion of the crop-growing sector.
<P>
The Council proposed an overall EU policy in an amended EU common position on Afghanistan, which was adopted on 25 January 1999.
The main aims for Afghanistan are inter alia to achieve a lasting peace and promote an internal dialogue for Afghanistan by offering specific support for the key role played by the UN; in addition, to promote stability and development for the whole region through peace in the country, and to make the prevention of illegal drugs production and terrorism more effective.
<P>
Owing to the politically unstable situation in the country and the civil war, not one Member State recognises the Taleban government.
A common position by the Union, however, urges Member States to maintain relations with all Afghan groups.
The European Union has condemned the many violations of human rights that have occurred in Afghanistan, especially the continual and systematic discrimination towards women and girl children, executions carried out without trial and a system based on harsh discipline and tyranny.
<P>
Because the political situation in Afghanistan is critical, and conditions are not right for the creation of bilateral relations, it is difficult, in the opinion of the European Union, to participate effectively in drugs control activity in Afghanistan.
The European Union has noted that the UN drugs control programme, the UNDCP, began its pilot programme in Afghanistan, one that made slow but steady progress, in 1998.
The programme is based on the UNDCP' s commitment to financing development in special poppy field areas, to which the Taleban have responded by agreeing not to allow the cultivation of opium poppies in new areas, and to permit the UNDCP to control the opium poppy crop and commence action to prevent the illegal traffic of drugs and pull down illegal laboratories.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=254 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Cappato">
Mr President, I can well believe that the Council is concerned by what has happened.
My question, however, was different and was about past results.
Past results tell us that production has doubled.
With the commitment of the common position of January 1998, the Council said that the Union would support all the efforts of the UNDCP in Afghanistan, and you have done this with your financing. The problem is the result of that financing.
The result is that production has doubled.
My question is therefore whether you are going to continue along this same ruinous path, that does not only affect Afghanistan: in fact, the problem is that the European Union is continuing to finance the UNDCP even on programmes such as the consolidation of penal codes in countries such as China and Burma, countries where simple drug addicts are condemned to die, and indirectly, we, through the UNDCP, are collaborating and financing this type of project.
<P>
Therefore, faced with a specific failure which is documented in these policies, the question is: are we going to continue to finance this type of project even though it actually makes totalitarian regimes stronger, regimes that are in fact criminal and oppress human rights?
That is my question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=255 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, I will be happy to answer the honourable member' s new question, which concerns UNDCP funding.
The UNDCP is not financed out of the European Union budget.
The European Union supports the work of the UNDCP on a general level, which it does in a well established and effective way in the area of drugs control, and it is also very satisfied with the cooperation that has taken place with the UNDCP in other areas.
<P>
As the honourable member stated, operations in Afghanistan are hampered by the lack of any broadly based government and, thus, a suitable and reliable partner in cooperation.
The European Union is working with Afghanistan' s neighbours, mainly in Central Asia as well as Iran, to enhance anti-drugs cooperation conducted with them.
The Union considers Central Asia to be strategically important in the control of drugs and is at present drafting an action plan for the region.
<P>
One cause of the critical drug situation is the lack of any proper border control between Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Khirgizia, Uzbekistan and Russia.
The European Union is attempting to resolve the problem by promoting the TACIS projects implemented within the context of customs cooperation and of justice and home affairs.
The projects aim, among other things, to make border controls more efficient between Iran, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, improve the training of customs officials, and increase drugs-related expertise in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Khirgizia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Russia.
<P>
Regarding Iran, the European Union has been informed that the UNDCP has just approved a drugs control programme for that country, and opened an office there.
Member States are at present exploring ways in which they can participate in financing this programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=256 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=257 NAME="Charlotte Cederschiöld">
Question No 4 by (H-0609/99):
<P>
Subject: Joint drugs action centre International action is required to combat the problems posed by drugs.
European, national and local efforts alone are not sufficient for dealing with global problems.
The public in the EU has a direct interest in preventing the spread of drugs.
<P>
Efforts to curb the influx of drugs are being made by EU Member States and by the USA.
More organised forms of cooperation could help to make such efforts more effective.
<P>
What is the Council's position on forming a partnership with the USA in order to set up a joint drugs action centre in Bangkok?
Have steps been taken to enhance the prospects of such an alternative approach?
<P>
I apologise for my inaccurate pronunciation of your surname but at last we know who you are!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=258 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sasi">
In the joint action plan for the EU and the United States, signed in Madrid on 3 December 1995, the following are prescribed under the heading "Reaction to Global Challenges" : increased cooperation in the fight against illegal drug trading, measures of cooperation between competent American authorities and Europol, cooperation in supporting the UN' s drugs monitoring programme, coordination of alternative development programmes designed to counteract drug manufacture, and the setting up of channels of cooperation between appropriate bodies, for example the EU' s European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction and the Inter-American Monitoring Commission for Drug Addiction.
<P>
For the purpose of implementing this action plan, an agreement between the EC and the United States concerning the monitoring of chemical precursors was signed in The Hague on 28 May 1997.
Further opportunities for strengthening cooperation are being investigated within the EU-USA project group.
<P>
American authorities have approached the European Union with a view to possible cooperation within the international police college in Bangkok, which is a body like the one in Budapest.
The proposal is currently being dealt with by the Council' s departments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=259 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cederschiöld">
I have only praise to give.
I think this is very good indeed and I want to thank you very much for your answer.
My only problem is that these questions do not get out to the public.
Just as the discussion earlier today showed, providing information is a part of the development process for creating understanding for the fact that a variety of measures are required.
We must try, I believe, both in the Council and the European Parliament, as well as in other EU bodies such as Information Offices, to make the importance of providing information more widely understood.
Our citizens would then have a better understanding of the need for increased legal and policing measures which are necessary on an international basis. We are certainly in agreement about that.
My next question is therefore this: are we going to get any information later on about the results which emerge at this centre in Bangkok?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=260 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sasi">
As I said, there is no decision as to whether we are to participate in this partnership in Bangkok.
This proposal is being discussed by the Council' s departments at this moment.
As I see it, the discussions should take place in a positive spirit.
As the Member says, there are clearly quite a few questions being discussed and answered here today during the sitting, but there is relatively little information about these questions for the public.
Where results are concerned, it is in both the Council' s and the Commission' s interests, as well as those of the EU as a whole, to report on progress in this work because this in itself strengthens measures to achieve better results in the fight against drugs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=261 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Della Vedova">
Mr Sasi, in the United States the annual USD 18 billion spent in the fight against drugs is increasingly being called into question.
Very recently, the Financial Times invited the European public to reassess prohibitionist policies.
I wonder whether, in the appraisals we have been told the Council is making, a cost/benefit assessment has been included of how much these contributions to the so-called fight against drugs are costing European taxpayers and what practical benefits they are bringing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=262 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sasi">
<SPEAKER ID=263 NAME="President">
As the author is not present, Question No 5 lapses.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=264 NAME="Manuel Medina Ortega">
Question No 6 by (H-0555/99):
<P>
Subject: Nuclear power stations in territories bordering on the EU In view of the severe damage caused in the EU by the Chernobyl nuclear accident, what policy does the Council propose to follow as regards providing advice to neighbouring countries and cooperating with them in the development of alternative energy sources?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=265 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, the Council is concerned, just as the honourable Member is, about nuclear safety and would like to reconfirm that it follows the situation very closely.
The Council would like to remind everyone of the conclusions reached on 25 May 1994 in this matter, which concern nuclear safety in the electricity industry in Central and Eastern European countries and the newly independent states, and in which the Council defines its approach to this question.
In its conclusions, the Council reconfirmed its commitment to promote nuclear safety in the countries in question, and repeated that it was aware that the improvements spoken of must be implemented by means of reliable short- and long-term energy strategies.
<P>
In the Council' s conclusions regarding nuclear safety in connection with EU enlargement, it was emphasised that the countries in question use reactors that are impossible to modernise at reasonable expense to comply with internationally approved standards of safety, and that strategies for the energy industry should include preparations to decommission these reactors as quickly as possible, in accordance with an agreed timetable for our accession partners, and in compliance with the agreements relating to nuclear safety bookkeeping.
In addition, the Council has said it is ready to support the development of alternative energy sources with the means the EU and the Member States have at their disposal in order to replace the more unreliable nuclear power plants, at the same time taking account of the situation as a whole as well as each country' s special situation and needs.
<P>
In recent years we have regularly taken into consideration the fact that the European Union' s neighbouring countries, whether they be the associated countries of Central and Eastern Europe or the countries in the European Free Trade Association, and those belonging to the European Economic Area, participate in important Community action concerning the development of the use of renewable energy sources and energy efficiency.
The countries in question may participate in the ALTENER II programme, which is a programme to promote the use of new sources of energy, and in the SAVE II programme, which concerns energy efficiency.
We should also point out that this opportunity has been exploited on a large scale in the SAVE II programme, participation in which has been decided by the competent Association Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=266 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
I am glad that the Council has responded positively to this question, specifically with regard to the countries of the Middle East.
I live in the Canary Islands, 100 kilometres from Tan Tan, a Moroccan location where the Moroccan Government has now begun a nuclear programme.
My supplementary question to the Council asks whether it would consider the possibility of contacting the Moroccan Government with a view to preventing this enterprise which is dangerous for Morocco and, of course, for us, who are its closest neighbours.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=267 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, I would like to say that nuclear power, when used reliably and safely, and when properly supervised, is not dangerous.
As for the associated countries, among others, the threats their nuclear power plants pose have been carefully examined.
Any action the Commission has requested or ordered has concerned plants where safety problems have been discovered.
Unfortunately, I do not know much about the Moroccan nuclear power project, and I cannot judge whether it will present risks or whether it will be implemented without paying sufficient attention to possible risk factors.
We shall try to ensure that such a project fulfils all the necessary demands of nuclear safety and, that being the case, it would not present any kind of danger to the Canaries region either.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=268 NAME="Purvis">
Mr President-in-Office, I am delighted to hear that you say safe nuclear energy is indeed safe to use, because it is impractical to expect countries that are currently producing 30 and 40% of their energy from nuclear power to replace this with renewable energies on any financial or economic terms or with the burning of fossil fuels without considerable further damage to the environment in these already polluted countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=269 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, it is absolutely clear that we can assess the disadvantages of various forms of energy production.
Obviously, there is no fully standardised method of gauging them, but it is very clear that the greenhouse phenomenon has nothing to do with nuclear power, which does not produce carbon dioxide emissions and, that being the case, it is totally superior to coal or gas, for example.
But I would like to point out that when nuclear power is used, it must be used safely in all respects.
I would also remind everyone that in many EU countries nuclear power is used on a massive scale and, regarding my own country, Finland, I can state that we have two nuclear power stations with Russian-built reactors which, according to statistics, are among the world' s best in terms of efficiency and safety.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=270 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Your answer was interesting.
I should like to refer to a debate we had yesterday about nuclear safety in Eastern Europe.
I wonder: do you consider that the Commission has a legal basis for what it has said in its progress reports about, among other things, making it a condition of membership of the European Union that the nuclear power station in Bulgaria and the Slovakian one with the difficult name beginning with a "B" , Bohunice, should be shut down?
Do you consider that there is a legal basis for this?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=271 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sasi">
I am a lawyer, but I must say that, as far as I know, there is no legal basis for being able to demand that any reactor be shut down.
Where accession to the EU is concerned, it must be pointed out that this is always in the end a political decision.
Each Member State must approve the accession of new Member States.
Each country' s parliament must also ratify any such agreement.
As I see it, there is, however, no special legal reason for requiring applicant countries to take measures such as those described, but political realities may be the basis for making certain demands.
<P>
Clearly, the Commission must take account of problems which may arise if, for example, reactors are used which may present a danger to health.
Obviously, the European Union cannot tolerate our having forms of energy production which may cause health problems for citizens within the Union' s borders.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=272 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=273 NAME="Astrid Thors">
Question No 7 by (H-0559/99):
<P>
Subject: Creating openness through a regulation In the Spring of 1999, COREPER urged the Commission to submit the proposal required to give practical expression to the provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty concerning openness.
Has the Council also urged the new Commission to do so?
Would it not be most expedient to submit a specific proposal for a regulation and not a communication as planned last Spring?
Which working party will draw up the proposal in the Council B an ad hoc working party of representatives from the Ministries of Justice, for example, or the existing information unit in the Council which currently deals with inquiries concerning documents?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=274 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sasi">
As the honourable Member knows, Article 255, formerly Article 191a, of the Treaty establishing the European Community reads as follows:
<P>
"1.
Any citizen of the Union, and any natural or legal person residing or having its registered office in a Member State, shall have a right of access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents, subject to the principles and the conditions to be defined in accordance with paragraphs 2 and 3.
<P>
2.
General principles and limits on grounds of public or private interest governing this right of access to documents shall be determined by the Council, acting in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 251 within two years of the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
<P>
3.
Each institution referred to above shall elaborate in its own Rules of Procedure specific provisions regarding access to its documents."
<P>
To date, the Commission has not submitted any official proposal for an Act.
Nor has the Council under such circumstances yet been able to begin discussing the matter.
In view of the fact that the general principles and limits relating to the public' s right of access, in accordance with Article 255, to the above-mentioned institutions' documents are to be established with the European Parliament in accordance with the relevant decision-making procedure by no later than 30 April 2001, the Council will begin discussing any proposal for an Act as soon as it has received this.
No decision has yet been made as to the working party which is to be responsible for examining the Commission' s proposal.
<P>
In his programme document on transparency, the chairman of the working party concerned with making information available presented the idea of an ad hoc group consisting specifically of experts on making documents available to the public.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=275 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
As you said in your answer, 30 April 2001 is the last date for approving this.
It is a long and difficult process.
As citizens and as Members of the European Parliament, we are extremely concerned that there are no concrete signs of the Commission' s putting forward such a proposal during the Finnish Presidency when we should like to have begun the preparation.
<P>
We know, as I mentioned in the question, that COREPER urged the Commission, which is to say the Interim Commission, to submit a proposal.
What do we know about the situation?
It is up to the Commission to put forward something.
I think we ought to put some pressure now upon the Commission. Quite a long time has passed.
We know that there has been a discussion document which has been circulated and debated in various quarters.
I am extremely concerned that we shall not be able to comply with the timetable if we do not now urge the Commission to be more pro-active.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=276 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sasi">

As has been said, openness is one of the absolute priorities for the Finnish Presidency We have therefore been in close contact with the Commission in connection with this issue.
As the Member says, COREPER too has urged the Commission to come up with a proposal.
<P>
We last discussed this question today with the Commission' s President and the Commission' s secretary-general.
The information we had today was to the effect that the Commission unfortunately could not submit its proposal this year but that it will be doing so in January of next year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=277 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=278 NAME="William Francis Newton Dunn">
Question No 8 by (H-0564/99):
<P>
Subject: Access to Council documents by the public How much progress has been made with the register of Council documents which would be accessible to the public on the Internet B which I believe was planned for January 1998?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=279 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, on the basis of a Council decision made on 19 March 1998, a Council document register was made available to the public on the Internet on 1 January 1999.
During the first half of 1999 the web site was visited by more than 35,000 people.
Within six months it held information relating to 43,000 documents.
The register is proving a reliable and effective tool, which the public can use to acquire information on Council documents.
Consequently, the number of requests for documents has considerably increased.
It is now more than double the figure for 1998.
<P>
The document register has thus been on the Internet at the disposal of the public since the start of this year.
At present, the Council is looking into ways of improving how the registers work, for example, so that other than confidential documents would be available to the public directly from the Internet.
Let it be noted that so far the Council is the only institution to have made an open register of its documents available to the public, according to the recommendation of the European Ombudsman.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=280 NAME="Newton Dunn">
I am very disappointed by what the Council has done.
If you boast about 43,000 documents I wonder if you have actually visited the Internet site?
This is a very small mouse that you have managed to produce so far.
Forty-three thousand sounds like a lot. But anybody can produce 43,000 documents.
It is what they say that matters.
They are very slow in arriving.
You cannot find out how votes went in the Council.
That is still secret.
You cannot find a compte rendu of what people actually said in the Council.
That is still secret.
It is deeply inadequate what you have done.
<P>
In answer to the last question, Mr President, you said that transparency was one of the great priorities of the Finnish Presidency.
The Finnish nation is famous for its openness but so far we have reached November in your Presidency and this is still a disaster.
Would you please try and improve the register which is, as I said, a very small mouse.
There is still a long way to go.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=281 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, according to my information on the present situation there is a monthly summary of voting results available, allowing the public to see how things have gone in the Councils.
I would also like to say that the public can presently consult a directory of Council documents on the Internet containing reference information on them.
I would, however, repeat that the competent bodies of the Council are investigating the possibility of improving public access to its documents, so that all documents other than those classified as confidential will be available on the Internet.
The country to hold the Presidency in any case endorses this position, and I believe that the Council will do its utmost to make its work as open as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=282 NAME="Jackson">
I should like to ask the President-in-Office of the Council for confirmation that information on which country voted in which way is not at the moment given when the Council issues its press releases at the end of each Council meeting.
Would the Finnish Presidency not agree that there are still a number of Council meetings to be held before the end of its Presidency and that it could use them as a very useful precedent for establishing its credentials in terms of openness - which at the moment, I am afraid, do not exist - by making sure at the very least that when press releases are published at the end of Council meetings, those press releases list exactly how each country voted on each issue on which there was a vote?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=283 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, it is true that the bulletins issued after Council meetings do not make immediately clear which countries voted which way.
However, I would like to repeat that information on how the Member States voted is made public in monthly reports.
I would also like to say that the press normally carry stories, often before the meetings, on how the various states intend to vote on different issues in the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=284 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=285 NAME="Caroline F. Jackson">
Question No 9 by (H-0563/99):
<P>
Subject: Political prisoners in Burma Could the President-in-Office report on any recent debates and decisions taken by the Council of Foreign Ministers on the subject of the EU's policy towards Burma, and in particular on the possibility of securing from the Burmese government an amnesty for political prisoners?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=286 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, the Council has expressed in many connections its concern to the Burmese authorities regarding the situation in the country, and most recently at the plenary part-session on 11 and 12 October, when it extended the period its common position was to remain in force by six months, once more appealing to the Burmese government to embark on swift and concrete action for the promotion of respect for human rights and democratic and national harmony.
The Council has declared its full support for the UN Secretary-General' s special envoy, Alvaro De Soto, in his forthcoming duties, and decided to review its common position on the basis of the results of his work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=287 NAME="Jackson">
The Council is not doing terribly well, is it?
That is a very disappointing reply.
I was asked to raise this question by the Penzance branch of Amnesty International, which has taken under its wing a particular prisoner of conscience, Thet Win Aung.
I mention his name because he is a very good example of what is happening in Burma.
He is a student leader who was recently sentenced to 52 years of imprisonment, and this has now been increased to 59 years.
He was arrested in October 1998.
His place of detention is not known and his family is being put under terrible pressure.
<P>
My question to the Council is, given this awful background, is it willing to consider putting pressure upon Burma to declare a total amnesty for such political prisoners and, very much to the point, has the Council ever discussed the possibility of economic sanctions against Burma until it adopts a more humane policy?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=288 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, as I have already said, Burma' s internal political situation is by no means acceptable to the Union, as there is no acknowledgement in that country of fundamental human rights.
At present the Council is monitoring the situation and, as I stated, we have a common position on Burma, which - if I am not entirely mistaken - also includes certain economic sanctions.
I can assure the honourable Member that the Council will do all it can and put pressure on the Burmese government, so that the situation in Burma can be normalised and improved, and so that human rights will be respected in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=289 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=290 NAME="Alexandros Alavanos">
Question No 10 by (H-0572/99):
<P>
Subject: Conditions for the inclusion of Turkey among countries eligible for membership of the European Union The European Union refused to embark upon pre-accession negotiations with Slovakia and the Baltic States because they did not fulfil the Copenhagen criteria concerning democratic freedoms and respect for minorities.
Their impending recognition as countries eligible for accession comes after significant constitutional, legal and political reforms.
Will the European Council meeting in Helsinki also pursue the same policy towards Turkey?
Does the Finnish Presidency consider that the basic conditions for recognising Turkey as eligible for membership of the European Union should at least comprise dropping the demand for international recognition of a >Turkish-Cypriot state= in the occupied territories of the Republic of Cyprus in order to launch intercommunal talks, Turkey=s agreement to seek settlements of the differences between Greece and Turkey on the basis of international law and its institutions, and the opening of talks on the democratic and cultural rights of the Kurds?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=291 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, the Council would like to stress that the criteria agreed at the European Council in Copenhagen affect in the same way all countries seeking EU membership.
The Council would remind everyone that the European Council in Luxembourg stated that Turkey would be assessed according to the same criteria as the other applicant countries.
The European Council furthermore reminded everyone that, in order to strengthen relations between Turkey and the EU, there would be a need for political and social reforms, such as respect and protection for minorities, the creation of satisfactory and stable relations between Greece and Turkey and support for the talks being conducted under UN protection on a political solution in Cyprus.
<P>
We are aware that decisions on enlargement taken at the European Council in Helsinki, which will be made with reference to the Commission' s annual report will have a powerful impact on relations between the EU and Turkey.
Although we cannot predict the outcome of the talks in Helsinki, and although there is still much scope for improvement with regard to Turkey, it seems reasonable to reflect on the many important areas of progress that have been made, which should be taken into consideration.
The outcome of the informal meeting of foreign ministers at Saariselkä, which was set forth on 13 September in the conclusions of the General Affairs Council, and Foreign Minister Cem' s presence at the General Affairs Council' s lunch are, in the opinion of the country to hold the Presidency, signs of a constructive new beginning in relations between the Union and Turkey.
<P>
Improved relations between Greece and Turkey, not just as a result of the earthquakes, but as an issue in itself, and a discernible change in attitude in Turkey with regard to legal and constitutional reform, human rights and the Turkish Kurds are very welcome steps forward, as are also the commitments and recognition of realities contained in Bülent Ecevit' s letter to Chancellor Gerhard Schröder last May.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=292 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
The representative of the Council' s response is ambiguous and somewhat schizophrenic in nature. On the one hand, he says that we need to implement the criteria but, on the other hand, he says things are running smoothly in Turkey and so we can proceed.
This is clear to us all.
Nevertheless, I would like to take the discussion a little further.
At one point, he referred to a number of things Turkey must still do. "there is still much scope for improvement with regard to Turkey" , the Minister said.
How much scope for improvement is there in Turkey?
Is Turkey really ready to be granted applicant status on the basis of what it has done today and the declarations it has made?
As regards fundamental issues such as the Greek-Turkish dispute over the Aegean Sea, should the criteria not be for Turkey to recognise the opinions of other countries, but for it to respect international law, to refrain from using violence or threatening to use violence and to refer any disputes it may have to the International Court in The Hague.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=293 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, this autumn I myself went to Turkey and had talks there on the state of human rights in that country.
I expressed the Union' s clear position on the unsatisfactory situation we see regarding human rights there.
I would like to say, however, that a constructive attitude to Turkey is likely to be a much better policy for the Union than would be the case if Turkey turned its back on the Union entirely and did not even try to embrace those principles that we have incorporated as conditions of membership in the Copenhagen criteria or in other decisions we have taken.
I firmly believe that if Turkey were accorded applicant status in Helsinki, it would increase Turkey' s willingness and its efforts to put its own house in order relatively quickly, especially with regard to human rights and the police.
We must remember that, before a state can join the Union, the human rights situation in respect of those living there obviously has to be impeccable.
<P>
I also want to point out that the Cyprus question is naturally an important part of all of this.
I believe that this perspective on membership has contributed to the fact that talks will probably very soon begin on how to solve the Cyprus problem.
It is my understanding that Rauf Denktash has promised he is ready to come to the negotiating table in New York, and this would obviously be a very positive sign.
I believe that we will achieve better results through constructive cooperation than by cutting the ties of cooperation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=294 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Hatzidakis">
Mr President, I rise not because of the topic of Mr Alavanos' question, but to comment on Minister Sasi' s answer and to put a question to him.
Minister Sasi, perhaps you should have said that this was more of a political debate and that a conclusion would be reached in Helsinki.
Instead you addressed many different issues under the same heading and no clear conclusion can be drawn from what you said.
I would like to ask a question.
You made the particular point about Turkey being judged on the basis of the Copenhagen criteria. If Turkey is therefore accorded applicant status in Helsinki, are we then to assume that it has fulfilled those criteria?
Please answer us that.
We should not be bothering ourselves with all these other factors. Instead, we should try to talk some sense here.
I am saying all this, Mr President, because I believe that when the Council comes here, it should have more respect for this institution.
We are parliamentarians after all!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=295 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, firstly, I wish to say that Turkey at present does not meet the Copenhagen criteria, but neither do we intend to make a decision in Helsinki on commencing talks with Turkey, which is what is being planned at this moment for Slovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Bulgaria.
In other words, it is not a question of actually starting talks, but of establishing applicant status and taking subsequent action.
I believe that it is realistic to say that Turkey still has a rather long way to go before concrete negotiations on membership can begin.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=296 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alyssandrakis">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I would not describe the response as being schizophrenic in nature, I would just like to know, as we all would, whether the strengthening of relations between the European Union and Turkey is a high priority for the Council, and whether it is such a high priority that those conditions set by the Council to ensure this strengthening of relations are actually being brushed aside.
You said, Mr President-in-Office, that Turkey' s position had changed.
How has Turkey' s position changed exactly?
Turkish forces still occupy the northern part of Cyprus, political rights are still being violated, Öçalan is still in prison and Kurdish people are not even given recognition.
You also talk of some promise of negotiations.
Indeed, there is such a promise, as regards the Cyprus issue, but it would cost Turkey nothing to begin negotiations, to talk for 15 minutes and then to have done with it.
At the same time, this would give the Council good enough reason to say "There! We have now made some progress on the Cyprus issue" .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=297 NAME="Sasi">

Mr President, I would like to say that Turkey certainly has implemented action this year to try and improve human rights, but the truth is that it obviously still has a long way to go in this area, and change does not come quickly in any society.
On the whole, I believe that cooperation is a better way to build peace that an unwillingness to practise cooperation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=298 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=299 NAME="Ioannis Marinos">
Question No 11 by (H-0602/99):
<P>
Subject: Restrictions imposed by Turkey on freedom of navigation On 27 May 1997 the Turkish authorities issued Decision No 2646, signed by Mr Nazmi Kumral (Minister of State of the Marine) prohibiting merchant vessels flying the Cypriot flag or belonging to citizens of Cyprus or of other countries, including the 15 Member States of the European Union, from entering Turkey if they are proceeding from or to any port in the unoccupied area of the Republic of Cyprus.
The Republic of Cyprus, on the other hand, which is a victim of Turkish aggression, 37% of it being under illegal Turkish military occupation, has not imposed any limits on entry into its ports by vessels from Turkey.
Does the Council consider these restrictions imposed by Turkey to be in accordance with EU principles and does the Council consider it acceptable for a country aspiring to EU membership to take such action against vessels flying the flags of EU Member States?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=300 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, the Council believes that the Turkish action affects the interests of merchant vessels flying a Member State flag and operating between Turkey and Cyprus, and private vessels owned by shipping companies in the Community.
In addition, these restrictions do not accord with the basic principles of trade and free competition at sea based on integrity and commercialism as accepted by Turkey within the framework of the OECD.
For this reason, numerous official communications have been sent to the Turkish authorities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=301 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Marinos">
Mr President, I consider it a positive sign that there have been remonstrations against Turkey but I would also like to stress my disappointment that what Turkey is doing to the detriment of merchant fleets around the world, including the merchant fleets of the European Union, is being played down.
Since Turkey has taken no direct action, it is in violation of international law, the rules of free navigation and the treaties of the European Union.
What Turkey is in fact doing is prohibiting vessels proceeding from Cypriot ports from approaching Turkish ports.
This does not just refer to vessels which are actually from Cyprus or Greece, which would have roused particular interest, but it also refers to European Union vessels.
I would like to ask what response Turkey gave to the European Union' s remonstrations and if it gave no response at all, why then does it not take the matter to the International Court in the Hague?
I also wonder why the European Union is prepared to tolerate such unlawfulness and harm the interests of European shipping for a country which does not even have any qualms about threatening a superpower, i.e. the United States, just to defend its banana trade.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=302 NAME="Sasi">
<SPEAKER ID=303 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Zacharakis">
Mr President, the contentious decision of the Turkish Government is yet another example of Turkey' s total disregard for and blatant violation of maritime law following the Turkish Grand National Assembly authorising the Turkish Government to claim casus belli and to declare war on Greece should Greece exercise its rights to extend its territorial waters in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea which only Turkey has refused to sign. In light of this, I would like to ask the Council if it intends to address this particular issue in its remonstrations to Ankara as well as at the forthcoming European Council in Helsinki in the discussions on EU-Turkey relations and the criteria which, as the Minister said, must be fulfilled.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=304 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, as I said, the Commission intends to raise this matter in the bilateral discussions on reaching a preferential agreement on the liberalisation of services and public procurement between the EU and Turkey.
Furthermore, the Council can take up this matter in discussions with Turkey, but there will not be any negotiations as such with Turkey at the Helsinki Summit, so the matter will hardly be brought up there.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=305 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=306 NAME="Anneli Hulthén">
Question No 12 by (H-0576/99):
<P>
Subject: Substance abusers and methods of treatment An increasing number of substance abusers also have mental problems which, quite clearly, entail difficulties for themselves and difficulties finding effective methods of treatment.
<P>
In the Council=s view, how should we tackle this growing problem?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=307 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sasi">
- (SV) There has been no proposal submitted to the Council relating to the question asked by the honourable Member.
Finding suitable methods of treatment is, moreover, a matter which falls mainly within the Member States' area of responsibility.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=308 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Hulthén">
Thank you very much for your answer.
I am aware of the fact that this matter falls within the Member States' area of responsibility, but we nonetheless know that it is a shared problem which is not just a question of methods of treatment in general but precisely about the combination of substance abuse and mental illnesses.
I know that the Finnish presidency has had mental health as one of a number of topics in its programme.
I am therefore wondering now whether one might contemplate opening the doors to more explicit cooperation in connection with the problematic situation in which many people are diagnosed as having a combination of substance abuse and mental health problems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=309 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sasi">
As has been said, this matter comes within the Member States' area of responsibility.
At the same time, there is no reason why it should not be possible to discuss the issue at the meeting of the health ministers and, in that way, then try to create some type of, not perhaps cooperation, but contacts, and perhaps exchange information from different countries in an attempt to develop the methods concerned in different EU countries.
I must admit that I am no expert in this area of responsibility.
I cannot unfortunately give a clearer answer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=310 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=311 NAME="Esko Olavi Seppänen">
Question No 13 by (H-0578/99):
<P>
Subject: Growing federalism in EU decision making Speaking in Strasbourg in July as a representative of the country currently holding the Presidency of the Council, Finland=s Foreign Minister stated one of Finland=s objectives as being to ensure that the Union had a common will, a common policy and a common voice.
On this basis a policy is being developed within the Council which will increase the federalisation of the EU: common decision-making bodies in which supranational decisions are taken.
What is the Council=s position on a federalism which would compel countries to surrender their right of veto and qualified-majority requirements in order to facilitate supranational decision making?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=312 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, the Council, like the other institutions, exercises its powers according to those conditions and for those purposes that are defined in Article 5 of the EC Treaty and in the provisions of later agreements and documents relating to amendments and additions, on the one hand, and the provisions of the Treaty on the European Union, on the other.
<P>
The voting rules contained in these agreements apply when decisions are made in the Council.
Extending the scope of application of decisions based on a qualified majority in the Council is one of those issues to be discussed at the conference of the representatives of Member State governments, which is to convene at the beginning of 2000.
The European Council took a decision on the matter at its meeting at Cologne on 3 and 4 June 1999.
In the Protocol relating to the institutions and EU enlargement and which is annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam, there are provisions for convening this Intergovernmental Conference.
The honourable Member' s question thus does not fall within the area of responsibility of the Council but of that of the conference of representatives of Member State governments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=313 NAME="Chichester">
I would just like to follow up the response from the President-in-Office of the Council to this question by mentioning the Luxembourg Compromise which we do not hear much of now.
The question is asked - the opinion of the Council about federalism - about surrendering sovereignty to majority voting.
Is the Luxembourg Compromise still regarded as being in force and being respected and would you not agree that it should be?
<P>
I mean the compromise by which it is understood that the vital national interests of a Member State will not be overruled by a majority vote in Council.
That is my understanding of that compromise.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=314 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, a compromise was made in Luxembourg at the time, and it is in principle still in force, although it might be said that no one has recently insisted that it be applied.
Perhaps we should also mention that after that the Ioannina compromise was made.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=315 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=316 NAME="Inger Schörling">
Question No 14 by (H-0583/99):
<P>
Subject: Brominated flame retardants There have recently been alarming reports in Sweden of high levels of brominated flame retardants in fish in the Baltic.
The Swedish government has promised to ban brominated flame retardants in 2004 and to press for reductions in their use.
How does the Council intend to deal with the problem of brominated flame retardants?
Does it intend to seek a ban at EU level, and if so, when?
Would a unilateral Swedish ban on brominated fire retardants be regarded as hampering the free movement of goods and thus as an infringement of EU law?
<P>
The President-in-Office of the Council has the floor to respond to this question.
We trust in the wisdom of the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=317 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sasi">
- (SV) The honourable Member has asked a question concerning the high levels of brominated flame retardants in fish in the Baltic.
As the Member is aware, the Council has promulgated legislation which makes it possible to assess and reduce the risks to the environment and to people' s health constituted by hazardous substances.
<P>
Furthermore, the Council' s conclusions concerning the further development of the European Community' s policy on chemicals were adopted by the Council - that is to say, the Council on the Environment - on 24 June of this year.
In these conclusions, the Council urges the Commission to submit a document concerning the new strategy on chemicals before the end of the year 2000.
This document ought to include an outline of a new strategy for improving the identification and assessment of all chemicals.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=318 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Thank you for your answer, which it was also very nice to have in Swedish.
I perhaps understand why the answer was as it was, but this business with fish in the Baltic is just one example of how brominated flame retardants can cause problems for the environment and for people' s health.
We know, you see, that these flame retardants have been used quite freely since the beginning of the seventies in electronic equipment, TV sets, computers etc, and they have just proliferated.
This is an enormous problem because Swedish studies, and other studies too, show that we are going to see precisely the same thing happen as we saw happen with PCBs, namely that these chemicals will find their way into the food chains and it will gradually emerge that a big problem has arisen.
<P>
I should like an answer to the question of whether Sweden would be able to take a decision to prohibit these substances by the year 2004 and whether the EU would be able to agree to this; that is to say, would the precautionary principle prevail?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=319 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sasi">
- (SV) Since I am not familiar with the investigation concerning the dangers to which these substances give rise, I must say that I cannot, unfortunately, reply directly to the question of whether arrangements should be made to prohibit the use of such substances.
I should like, nonetheless, to refer to the Council' s conclusions, to which I also referred in my first reply and which I can also send to you if you wish.
<P>
In accordance with the general programme in Council Regulation no 793/93 concerning the assessment and monitoring of risks presented by existing substances, three brominated flame retardants are at present under investigation.
If required, the Commission will submit proposals concerning Community measures to reduce the risks to which these substances give rise.
<P>
Other specific questions which have also been asked in this context fall within the Commission' s area of authority, and the Commission, in its capacity as administrator of the Community' s policy, also has access to the tools and information which are needed if reliable and up-to-date answers are to be given.
When it comes to being able to prohibit these substances, I believe, finally, that the Commission must be asked for its answer to this question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=320 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=321 NAME="Ioannis Theonas">
Question No 15 by (H-0585/99):
<P>
Subject: Ban on fuel supplies and looming humanitarian disaster in Yugoslavia The European Union=s opposition, expressed notably at the meeting of EU Foreign Ministers in Luxembourg, to providing fuel and emergency aid for the inhabitants of Yugoslavia to enable them to face the coming winter and the final decision to export heating oil B a plan called Energy for Democracy B to two Serb cities, Nis and Pirot, which are under opposition control, has provoked strong reactions.
This decision not only condemns the inhabitants of Yugoslavia to spend the winter entirely deprived of essential heating fuel, following the massive damage inflicted on state infrastructures by NATO bombing, but it is also an insult to the pride of an entire people who are the victims of extortion and who are facing annihilation because the West does not approve of their political leadership.
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The Danish Foreign Minister, Mr Petersen, recently stated that this decision sends the right message that democracy and a desire for reform are rewarded.
Does the Council consider that statements of this kind reflect the position of the European Union and the so-called international community as regards respect for fundamental democratic freedoms and values? Does it consider further that the blackmailing decision of Luxembourg is a message which promotes democracy, in view of the fact that it seeks to bludgeon a people and its political representatives into adopting anti-democratic practices in order to survive, instead of ensuring that the institutions function in a smooth and democratic manner in the forthcoming elections?
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<SPEAKER ID=322 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, on 15 November the General Affairs Council declared its support for the democratic opposition in Serbia, and its attempts at unification.
In addition, it said once more that the Union was ready to offer reconstruction aid to a democratic Serbia.
The General Affairs Council noted with satisfaction that the first deliveries of heating oil for the two cities of Nis and Pirot under the "Energy for Democracy" programme would take place before the end of November.
It requires the projects to be swiftly implemented, and the Council reconfirmed its readiness to consider extending the initiative to other communities.
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The Council also reminded everyone of its readiness to continue to help destitute Serbs and of the humanitarian aid granted by the European Community and the Member States for this purpose.
The 'self-help aid' granted by ECHO to Serbia will total EUR 62 million, which the Council welcomed at its meeting.
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Regarding the elections to be held in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the Council thinks that, under the present circumstances, the idea of free and honestly conducted elections is impossible.
Police attacks at peaceful demonstrations, which were carried out repeatedly in Belgrade in October, clearly show that the basic values of democracy, such as freedom of speech and opinion, will not be respected in Serbia as long as Milosevic and his government are in power there.
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<SPEAKER ID=323 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, if I am not mistaken, the Council called its programme "Energy for Democracy" .
Now we are saying that it is simply humanitarian intervention.
The phrase "Energy for Democracy" itself denotes shameless extortion of the Serbian people, since in order to get heating fuel, they must accept the ideas of European Union democracy.
Secondly, I would like to comment on and ask the representative of the Council the following: he says that the European Union will not recognise the Milosevic regime and that fair elections cannot take place until judgements have been passed on the political powers of Yugoslavia, of Serbia.
So, what are your plans?
Have you reached a deadlock?
Do you have any other plans in the pipeline that you are not telling Parliament?
What are we to make of your intentions since, in your view, elections are not the answer?
Even rallies have been banned....May I tell you that in Greece today, with the visit of President Clinton, half of Athens has been cordoned off for two or three days?
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<SPEAKER ID=324 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, it is absolutely clear that free democratic elections in Yugoslavia are the only solution to the situation there.
But in reply I would say that, at present, circumstances in Yugoslavia, taking into consideration, for example police action and the aggressive attitude towards demonstrations, as well as the Milosevic administration' s attitude towards the press and freedom of information, are such that the conditions for holding free democratic elections in Yugoslavia do no exist right at present.
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The basis of Union policy is that it has no desire to support the Milosevic administration in any way whatsoever.
As the Union considers humanitarian factors to be very important, however, and does not accept that the deeds of leaders should mean that ordinary citizens have to suffer, it has embarked on a trial project, whereby heating oil will be delivered on a trial basis to Nis and Pirot, but possibly later on to other places as well.
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We await with interest that the Yugoslavian government and administration approve these aid measures, as at present we do not have any good experience whatsoever of the government.
Passage along the Danube should be freed up as quickly as possible, but achieving cooperation in this respect has not been possible, and Yugoslavia has not embarked on any action to open up the Danube, although it has an obligation to do so under international agreements.
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<SPEAKER ID=325 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, may I thank you for the clear opinion you have expressed. I can really only register with indignation the fact that Mr Theonas is displaying sympathy here for a war criminal.
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I should like, however, to ask you quite specifically what the Council - apart from these sanctions, which I fully and completely approve of - is planning to do in order to provide concrete support to the Serbian opposition this winter.
Is a meeting planned, and are there concrete measures to support the Serbian democratic opposition?
For that would be of use to the Serbian people!
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<SPEAKER ID=326 NAME="President">
I would ask Members to address the Council with questions and not to make statements regarding the likes or dislikes of other Members because these naturally call for a response.
I am going to give Mr Theonas the floor for 15 seconds and I would ask him not to cause a parliamentary incident.
I know that he will not cause one because I know him.
I would ask all Members to adhere to the Rules of Procedure and address questions to the Council.
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<SPEAKER ID=327 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, I would like to invite Mr Posselt to retract his congratulations, otherwise I shall be forced into thinking that he despises an entire people for not accepting his views on democracy.
We should not hate the Serb population just because he wants the right to determine who should lead the country.
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<SPEAKER ID=328 NAME="President">
I am sure that Mr Posselt has no intention of showing disrespect for Mr Theonas' positions and has no difficulty in expressing it.
This is a purely political debate.
Has everybody received an answer and are you satisfied?
The Council will take the floor to answer this supplementary question.
Mr Sasi has the floor.
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<SPEAKER ID=329 NAME="Sasi">
<SPEAKER ID=330 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=331 NAME="Jean­Claude Fruteau">
Question No 16 by (H-0586/99):
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Subject: Financial Instrument of the OCTs (Overseas Countries and Territories) One of the objectives set by the Amsterdam Conference for the Council was to increase the effectiveness of the financial instrument of the OCTs.
The EDF mechanism no longer seems to be able to meet the needs expressed by the OCT authorities.
The main criticisms voiced are that they do not receive sufficient funding compared with the ACP countries, and that the procedures are excessively bureaucratic and totally untailored to local structures.
Parliament had called specifically for the establishment of a European Development Fund for the OCTs (OCTDF) in its resolution of 11 February 1999.
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Does the Council intend to take into account our demand in the new association agreement which is due to enter into force on 1 March 2000?
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<SPEAKER ID=332 NAME="Sasi">
<SPEAKER ID=333 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fruteau">
I would like to tell the Minister that I do not find his answer very satisfactory.
What we are actually facing is the need to have a new association agreement that must come into force on 1 March 2000 and I am a little surprised that, at this stage, no decision has yet been taken on the three guidelines, on the three paths that have been sketched out.
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I would like to ask the Council how, when these paths are sketched out, it intends to link, as it were, Parliament with the definition of this new financial instrument, because there is no doubt that a new financial instrument will be needed because what exists at the moment is no longer suitable for the situation of the overseas countries and territories and does not match up to these countries' requirements.
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<SPEAKER ID=334 NAME="Sasi">
Mr President, I would just like to say and assure the honourable Member that the Council is fully aware that it is necessary to simplify the financial instrument for Overseas Countries and Territories and make it more efficient but, as I said, at present, we only have a communication from the Commission that proposes three different possible approaches.
For this reason, it will be some time before a final decision is taken on the matter.
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<SPEAKER ID=335 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Sasi.
Questions 17 and 18 were not going to be dealt with because they refer to the matter of Chechnya, which was included in today' s agenda.
Since the time allocated to Questions to the Council has elapsed, questions 19 to 41 will be replied to in writing.
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That concludes Question Time.
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Thank you very much, good night and I hope that you will enjoy Strasbourg after a hard day at work.
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(The sitting was closed at 10.05 p.m.)
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<CHAPTER ID=0>
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="Doyle">
Madam President, I should like to ask you to protest vehemently on behalf of all of us at the savage and brutal public execution on Tuesday of a mother of seven children by the Taliban regime in Kabul.
I will say no more, but I am disgusted - we must all be disgusted - at this savagery.
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Please protest on behalf of all of us.
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(Loud applause)
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<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
Mrs Doyle, I read this report myself and I must tell you I was outraged and shocked.
I believe your applause is a clear indication of the fact that we are all in agreement that I should announce the indignation of this House to Afghanistan.
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<CHAPTER ID=1>
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
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Are there any comments?
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<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Kauppi">
Madame President, I have a problem with yesterday' s Minutes. They refer to me as 'Mr' .
I gave an explanation of vote on Avilés Perea' s report on the Daphne programme, I am referred to in the Minutes as 'Herr' Kauppi, and I would prefer it to read 'Madame' .
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<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Well, I am quite dismayed at all these errors, which are obviously technical errors.
All the same, they are not acceptable, and we shall straighten all this out.
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<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell' Alba">
Madam President, on page 20 of the Minutes, it is announced that I spoke in support of Mr Dupuis.
Well, we are colleagues, and often agree, but that is not the point.
Both Mr Dupuis' speech and my own were intended to challenge the request made by the chair, Mr Barón Crespo, regarding the application of Rule 112.
Hence the request I made was addressed to the chair so that its validity could be evaluated and we could be told this morning what the state of affairs was.
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<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Very well, Mr Dell' Alba.
That is what I am here for.
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<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Corbett">
Madam President, yesterday's Minutes in the English also seem to indicate that they were the Minutes of Thursday 17 December.
I am sure that Parliament would not be writing today's Minutes before we have actually had our debates and votes.
I hope that will be corrected.
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<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
No, of course, I can assure you immediately that that is not the case.
It is indeed an error.
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<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="McCartin">
Madam President, I want to refer to your expression of sympathy with the people of France who are affected by severe flooding.
It was very appropriate that you should raise this matter yesterday morning. But you not only expressed sympathy, you also requested the Commission to provide some assistance.
Sometimes in Parliament the right hand does not know what the left one is doing.
A couple of years ago we took away the possibility of extending assistance to people in such instances in the European Union.
We expressed the same sympathy with the Greeks and requested the same assistance, but there is no money available.
We ought therefore in future to either provide the money and the conditions under which it is paid or cease to ask the Commission to give assistance.
What we gave the Greeks was an empty cup.
We are offering the same thing to the people of France.
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<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr McCartin.
Indeed, I had to mention the same problem when opening yesterday' s sitting.
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<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Vander Taelen">
Madam President, I would like to table a procedural motion.
I failed to notice that we had moved on from the procedural motions to the report.
I would like to raise a minor motion on something that could be deemed insignificant, but as each day passes, I get increasingly frustrated at the crazy amounts of paper being wasted in this establishment.
It is not just a lot of energy on words that is being wasted here, there is an incredible amount of paper wasted and there is no sign of any kind of recycling scheme.
At the other Parliament based in Brussels, we at least have cardboard boxes where we can deposit the massive amounts of paper which we no longer need.
At this end, despite the ultra-modern and sophisticated design of this building, I have as yet been unable to detect the existence of such practical, inexpensive cardboard boxes which can play a key role in the recycling of paper.
I would like to ask you to make a little effort here.
Surely, the budget could stretch to a few cardboard boxes for the Members where we can stock paper for recycling purposes.
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<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Vander Taelen, for this contribution which is indeed not strictly relevant to the Minutes.
But that does not matter.
It is a perfectly valid point which I shall pass on to the College of Quaestors this very day to see if we can find appropriate solutions to the problem you have brought up.
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(The Minutes were adopted)
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<CHAPTER ID=2>
Decision on urgent procedure
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lienemann">
Madam President, I was waiting for the vote on the Minutes to be completed before responding to Mr Vander Taelen.
You will all have noted that each of the waste bins is marked to show what it is to be used for, so there is in fact a specific paper and card bin.
So we do have this kind of sorting of waste in Parliament at Strasbourg.
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Report (A5-0066/1999) by Mr Napolitano, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on the amendments to the Rules of Procedure following the Interinstitutional Agreement of 25 May 1999 on the internal investigations conducted by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF)
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President.
I have received a request for urgent procedure, in accordance with Rule 112 of the Rules of Procedure, from the Group of the Party of European Socialists and the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party.
The request for urgent procedure is motivated by the fact that it is imperative to respect the interinstitutional commitments on OLAF, implemented by the other institutions concerned.
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<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Barón Crespo.
I think that Mr Dupuis will have the opportunity to respond to you, since he has signed up to speak against this request.
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Mr Barón Crespo has just presented the request.
Mr Poettering is asking for the floor to speak in favour of this request.
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<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Poettering">
Madam President, I must comment here.
First of all, I can say that our colleague Barón Crespo, whom I would describe not as an accomplice, but in all our political differences as an esteemed colleague, has given a correct account of the situation, as I explained orally to him, that we also, the Group of the European People' s Party and the European Democrats, wish for a vote to be taken on the Napolitano report.
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I gave this explanation orally to Baron Crespo, but did not sign the proposal, because just before his request that I sign it, I had a conversation with a representative of your Office.
As the Group of the European People' s Party and the European Democrats, we said that we could and wished to help to carry it, if the problems in the Napolitano report are resolved to a certain extent and they are indeed at the limit so that we can also vote, although in no way are we really happy with the situation.
We said that we wished to conclude this tiresome business in November.
And we keep to our word.
But it is of course the responsibility of the President of the Parliament to ensure that the procedures run properly.
We assume that the urgent procedure can be dealt with in accordance with the rules.
On this basis we support the vote on Thursday, that is to say, today, so that we can bring this tiresome matter to a close.
But we expect that everything is in order with regard to the formal procedure.
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<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Poettering.
Yes, I believe that if the vote were to take place tomorrow, on Friday, we would have some trouble in mustering the 314 votes necessary.
But you never know!
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<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Madam President, I think that Mr Voggenhuber wishes to speak against this proposal.
I am myself speaking to say that this request in inadmissible, insofar as Rule 112 refers to Rule 60, which is about Commission proposals and legislative texts.
Mr Barón Crespo has a very flexible view of our Rules of Procedure.
Yesterday he spoke of Rule 60, today he is talking about Rule 61, on constitutional matters.
Those present may observe the rich nature of Strasbourg nights and their capacity to cause our internal regulations to increase in number.
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In the preamble to Mr Napolitano' s report, there is explicit reference to Article 199 of the Treaty of Amsterdam and this Article refers explicitly to the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament.
This is, then, further evidence that the procedure that Mr Barón Crespo requested yesterday has nothing to do with Rule 112.
I therefore request, Madam President, that there should be no vote and that Mr Barón Crespo' s request is considered inadmissible.
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<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="President">
Very well, thank you, Mr Dupuis.
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Mr Dupuis has just spoken regarding the admissibility of this request.
Mr Dupuis, you will not be surprised to hear that I spent some time last night studying this matter.
And I came to the conclusion that the request was perfectly admissible according to the Rules of Procedure.
Well, we have heard your views.
I now give the floor to Mr Voggenhuber, to speak against the request.
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<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, matters seem clear enough, as much as they can be.
Rule 112 of our Rules of Procedure refers to Rule 60(1), "A request that a debate on a proposal on which Parliament has been consulted pursuant to Rule 60(1) be treated as urgent..."
And Rule 60(1) specifies, "Proposals from the Commission and other documents of a legislative nature" .
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The problem of interpretation is focused on the nature of Mr Napolitano' s report.
As far as I am concerned, I consider - and once again this is what has influenced my thinking, but I shall ask Mr Napolitano if he agrees with me - that the subject of Mr Napolitano' s report is the application of a text of a legislative nature, since it is to do with the Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament and of the Council relating to the inquiries carried out by OLAF.
Considering that Mr Napolitano' s report concerns a text of a legislative nature, it seems to me that we are in the situation covered by Rule 60(1), as referred to by Rule 112 of the Rules of Procedure.
I hope I have made this sufficiently clear.
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Mr Napolitano, could you tell me if you share my opinion?
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<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Napolitano">
Madam President, I completely agree with the definition that you gave of the mandate given to the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, a very specific and limited mandate.
It is simply a question of inserting the interinstitutional agreement into our Rules of Procedure, and I therefore agree with what you said about the nature of the report.
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<CHAPTER ID=3>
Agenda
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, we are not going to spend all morning on this.
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We have heard Mr Barón Crespo presenting the request, and Mr Poettering speaking in favour of this request.
Now I would like to know if there is any Member who wishes to speak against this request.
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If there is no speaker against, I shall put the matter to the vote directly.
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(Parliament agreed to urgent procedure)
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This item is now entered as the first item on today' s agenda.
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<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I believe that we are going to hear from the rapporteur on the establishment of EURODAC, Mr Pirker, who has asked to be given the floor.
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<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pirker">
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="President">
I quite understand what you have said, Mr Pirker.
I think that Mr Watson, the chairman of the Committee concerned, now wishes to make a statement.
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<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="Watson">
This proposal for a Council Regulation is an important proposal.
My committee has worked very hard to prepare Parliament's response to this proposal in time for the deadline set down by the Council and in time for the Council to discuss it on 2 December.
If we have time to debate this report this morning, then we must vote at lunch-time.
This will enable Parliament to give its response in time for the Council to discuss it.
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However, if we are not able to have this debate this morning, if there are too many speakers down for the Napolitano report and the Giannakou report, then I would support Mr Pirker's proposal that we not vote on the matter tomorrow.
It is too important a matter to be voted on a Friday, even though I personally will be here.
I am not sure whether those who, as I understand it, have a problem with the report, such as the French delegation in the Socialist Group, will still be here tomorrow - we might ask them that.
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However, if it is not to possible to vote on it today, might we ask the services of Parliament whether it would be possible to have the debate this evening and the vote on the Wednesday of the December part-session to allow us to forward the results to the Council by the Thursday; and might we also ask for the assistance of the Commissioner in intervening with the Council on this matter?
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<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="President">
Mr Watson, indeed I have been told that the timing is likely to get us into this sort of situation, such that we cannot vote on the report today.
And this could cause problems, tomorrow morning, for many more delegations than you just mentioned.
Indeed I feel this is not a matter for any specific delegation, and I felt I must make that clear.
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<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Vitorino">
Madam President, the Commission wishes to stress the importance of the instrument which we are proposing to Parliament.
We would like to have political support that is as wide as possible for it.
From the Commission' s point of view, and as far as the timetable is concerned, in order for the dossier to be examined by the Council on 2 and 3 December, Parliament' s vote must take place today.
If not, we shall have to renegotiate the entire timetable with the Council, and I cannot tell you what the results of such renegotiations will be.
Indeed that is probably the most disruptive aspect of work in the Union: one can never predict the outcome of negotiations with the Council.
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<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="President">
Commissioner, would it still be acceptable it we were to vote on the report on 1 December?
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<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pirker">
Madam President, we have now heard the Commissioner as well.
That confirms to me and to all of us that we must vote today. We need Eurodac.
We have had Tampere, and we have had a clear statement from the Council and have always had the full support of the Commissioner.
As Parliament, we cannot afford in the public' s eyes, to deliberately cause delays.
We need the system.
We should therefore amend the agenda so that the vote can take place today, as otherwise there would be excessive delays.
I would therefore ask you to take a vote on whether the vote takes place today or whether it is adjourned.
We need the vote today!
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<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="President">
Mr Pirker, I feel the best course of action, in fact, is to move on quickly to the report.
The faster we go, the greater the chances that it will be possible not only to debate but also to vote on the report this morning.
I am keeping in mind what the Commissioner has said.
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Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou, I must come to you. Would you agree to my proposing to the House, if the House indeed accepts, to rearrange the agenda and deal with the Pirker report immediately before your own?
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<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Giannakou-Koutsikou">
Madam President, I agree, although I hope that there will be sufficient time to discuss my report this morning.
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<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="President">
Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou, thank you very much indeed.
This is very generous of you. I now turn to the House.
Do you agree to debate Mr Pirker' s report immediately before Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou' s?
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(Parliament gave its assent)
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<CHAPTER ID=4>
Internal OLAF investigations
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A5-0066/1999) by Mr Napolitano, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on the amendments to the Rules of Procedure following the interinstitutional agreement of 25 May 1999 on the internal investigations conducted by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF).
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<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Cappato">
Mr President, I would just like to remind you that Rule 115 of the Rules of Procedure, already used for the Napolitano report, stipulates that "except in the cases of urgency referred to in Rules 50 and 112, a debate and vote shall not be opened on a text unless it was distributed at least twenty-four hours previously" .
Now, I would inform you that the last amendments to the Giannakou-Koutsikou report were distributed yesterday evening.
The last translated amendment, the French version of amendment No 20, was distributed at 9.52 p.m. yesterday evening.
Therefore, the requisite 24 hours laid down in the Rules of Procedure have not passed, either for the debate or for the vote, so I would like to ask the President whether we are going to enforce an urgency that completely violates the Rules this time as well, because, in that case, we can throw the Rules of Procedure away and decide that we can do everything that is urgent as long as we establish that it is urgent.
I do not believe that there have even been any proposals tabled on the urgency of this report.
I would therefore like to know whether this debate and the vote will take place in exactly the same way as the debate on the Napolitano report, in contravention of our Rules of Procedure. This is the issue.
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<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Cappato, for invoking the Rules of Procedure, even if we have already discussed the matter and a decision has been made.
I do not think that we can reopen the debate on whether or not the Rules of Procedure are being complied with.
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<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Napolitano">
Mr President, I hope that the small number of Members who are still present in the Chamber will pay some attention to this report.
To tell the truth, given that the issue is considered very sensitive by many, I regret the fact that the debate and what I am about to say on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs is not being broadcast in any way.
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What I am about to say is quite important. The text, which did not obtain the required qualified majority during October' s part-session in this Chamber, has been amended on the initiative of the largest political group, which at the time expressed reservations and demanded further clarification.
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The Committee on Constitutional Affairs has, in fact, adopted three amendments by Mr Méndez de Vigo, which, for the purposes of the implementation of the interinstitutional agreement within Parliament, give a special role to Parliament' s President herself, to whom all information regarding the Members will be sent.
In addition, the Committee has adopted an amendment by Mr Nassauer and Mr Brok, that is the new Article 4 of the model decision, and I shall quote the amendment word for word - "Rules governing Members' parliamentary immunity and the right to refuse to testify shall remain unchanged" .
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Thus, we have further strengthened the guarantee, which was already present in several parts of the text, of full compliance with the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities - and, in particular, I want to mention Article 10 of the Protocol, which is very precise and exhaustive - and full compliance with the related Rules, in particular, Rule 6 of the Rules of Procedure, which, in implementation of the provisions of article 10 of the Protocol to the Article I have just mentioned, regulates Members' immunities even more closely.
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So allow me to say to those Members who have expressed doubts and concerns that, thanks to these amendments tabled by Members from the European People' s Party, they can vote for this text with peace of mind.
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However, I must immediately recall and reaffirm what the mandate given to the Committee on Constitutional Affairs was - President Fontaine reminded us too - and the subject of the decision that Parliament has to take.
The mandate was, and still is, simply the following - the decision to be taken is this: to include the interinstitutional agreement in the Rules of Procedure, i.e. our internal regulations, so that it can be applied within Parliament, on the basis of an opinion of the Committee on Budgetary Control; to amend the Rules of Procedure by introducing a new Rule 9b and not to amend the interinstitutional agreement.
I would point this out, in particular, to those Members who were not Members of the previous Parliament.
Personally, I am in the same situation: Parliament gave its President the mandate to sign this interinstitutional agreement on 6 May last year, and it was signed on 25 May.
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I respect the opinion of those Members - newly elected or already Members of Parliament - who have expressed reservations and concerns about this Agreement, but I had to consider those amendments that seek to change the interinstitutional agreement, which we are simply required to implement as it is, to be inadmissible in committee.
What you perhaps consider worrying, what you will read, is not a Parliamentary decision; it is the model decision that is part of the interinstitutional agreement, already published - with the identical wording - in the Official Journal of 31 May last year.
We have limited ourselves to introducing technical adjustments to allow proper implementation within Parliament.
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I would like to conclude by pointing out that, if the experience of implementing this interinstitutional agreement suggests that that some of its aspects need to be discussed with the other institutions again, this can easily be done in the future. Nevertheless, today, I think that we have the duty not to deny the signature with which we confirmed our commitment to implementing the interinstitutional agreement.
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<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bösch">
Mr President, two questions need to be answered with regard to the new proposal in the Napolitano report.
The first question is: is the proposal in accordance with the rules of the OLAF European Parliament and Council Regulation of 25 May 1999?
And the second question is: is the proposal in accordance with the interinstitutional agreement between Parliament, the Council and the Commission?
<P>
The answer to the first question is an obvious "yes" .
The proposal is in accordance with the Regulation.
The answer to the second question is not so easy.
It was the intention of the agreement to find a solution to the whistle-blower problem, that is to say, to the question of what an official should do if he obtains knowledge of fraud or clues suggesting corruption but - for whatever reason - does not want to confide in his superiors.
We have said that he should then approach OLAF directly. This possibility is now excluded in the proposal before us in the case of Members of this House.
That is justified because the Members are protected in a special way by the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities in the performance of their duties.
This protection goes further than the protection enjoyed by the Members of the EU Commission through this Protocol.
<P>
My concern is only that the proposal that officials should approach the President of the Parliament directly, will create more problems than it solves.
It is foreseeable that the press will then regularly ask: How many cases are there and which ones?
If there are none, they will say that they have intimidated their officials to such an extent that nobody trusts himself or herself any more.
If there are some, then they will try to drag each of these cases into the spotlight.
I would have preferred to take up the original proposal by the Committee on Budgetary Control in its opinion for the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, in which this whole series of questions is ignored and only the rights and obligations of the Members is covered.
That would have left us time to consider other questions in peace.
<P>
I believe, nevertheless, that given the difficult circumstances, Mr Napolitano has drawn up a very good report and I should like to support him in the vote this lunchtime.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Méndez de Vigo">
Mr President, I would like to refer to the closing words of the draftsman of the opinion, Mr Bösch.
I believe he is right, that this is an issue that was difficult to incorporate into our Rules of Procedure and that, in the end, it has been resolved satisfactorily.
Of course, there were perhaps other possibilities, but in this Parliament there was, above all, one concern: to fulfil the objectives which we had set.
That is to say, fight fraud, corruption and any illegal activity which harms our Community.
<P>
But we are a political Assembly and politicians - as we know well - are subject to all kinds of influences.
We have tried to prevent a healthy, specific political objective from being misinterpreted and misused.
That discussion which we held in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs on the means by which any possible illegal activity could be brought to the knowledge of OLAF, I believe has led us to a suitable means, because a political body must have a filter which can examine whether this information is well-founded or not and whether or not it contravenes the immunity and inviolability of Members.
<P>
Therefore, Mr President, I believe that the amendments which we have introduced in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs fulfil the objective of reconciling the decision of the three institutions with the characteristics of our own decision.
<P>
Please allow me to congratulate two people in particular.
One is the President of the Committee on Budgetary Control, Mrs Theato, who is in a way the mother of OLAF and of all these regulations.
The other, who I consider to be the father of the current regulation, is Mr Napolitano, who has shown great moderation, intelligence and, above all, courage, in the quest for this difficult solution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Corbett">
Mr President, the overwhelming majority of my group is fully in support of this report which we consider to be one of the essential building blocks in restoring the credibility of the European Union in questions of how it investigates and deals with allegations of fraud; if it does nothing else it will perhaps prove that many such allegations are often, but not always alas, unfounded.
This report applies within Parliament a text that was agreed by the last Parliament, was approved in principle in plenary when we authorised our President to sign it, signed by all the institutions and now applies within each of them except, until today, within Parliament.
<P>
In Parliament it met with unanimous support in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs the first time it was discussed and the first time we debated it here, every single one of the major political groups said that it supported the proposal.
At the last minute there were some difficulties and the matter was reconsidered in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, but I believe that the difficulties and concerns that were raised have been adequately dealt with.
May I remind you that the provisions which would apply to Members of the Parliament are, to quote the text itself, "without prejudice to the provisions of the Treaties and in particular the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities".
There is a specific reference also in the preamble to the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities and there is a reference to the fact that the relevant article is without prejudice to the confidentiality requirements that may be laid down for Members of the European Parliament.
<P>
Our position as Members of the European Parliament is safeguarded in this respect, and Members who had genuine fears that this would be some sort of snoopers' charter or some sort of a new right given to officials to report confidentially on MEPs with wild allegations can rest assured that this is not the case.
The reports would go to OLAF, be properly investigated and would protect the position of MEPs.
If we failed to approve this today, we would be in the untenable situation that only MEPs would be above the law in this respect: a text that applies within the Council to politicians and officials alike, in the Commission to politicians and officials alike, would apply in Parliament only to our officials and not to Members of the European Parliament.
That would be totally unacceptable and would destroy the credibility of this Parliament.
It is essential that this report be adopted today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Duff">
Mr President, I have to say that I fully respect the sincerity and the passion of those who find themselves opposed to this report.
Serious cultural problems have emerged inside this Parliament as we have debated the issues involved.
My group has considered it very carefully and we conclude that it is a technical putting into effect of the agreement that the Parliament has signed on parliamentary immunity, and privileges will not be removed without due process.
All the points expressed in the various amendments are already sensibly covered.
Parliament's assent to this agreement is already five months late, and the public simply would not appreciate a further refusal to make progress and to create a strict but fair regime for the Parliament as for the other bodies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Mr President, if we decide on this Rule of Procedure then it will be easier to combat fraud and to include the Parliament.
That would be good, as we have fought for it.
However, what we have not fought for and are most resolutely against and where we see the position of Parliament and of the independent mandate jeopardised to a great extent, is if investigations can be initiated against freely elected Members of Parliament, not only on suspicion but on mere supposition if a system of compulsory informing is set up here, if not for fraud and corruption but for overall authorisation, and I quote, "to intervene in serious incidents in the performance of one' s duty".
<P>
Just imagine, that investigations against Members of Parliament for serious incidents in the performance of their duties - a completely fabricated undefined legal concept that contradicts the constitutional tradition of each of the fifteen Member States - could be introduced, that investigations could be initiated if Members of Parliament contravene duties comparable with the disciplinary law for career public servants, a disciplinary law we do not have and comparable duties that do not exist!
That is an overall authorisation of an authority that not only exposes the Members of Parliament to all kinds of informing but which opens a system of informing and political agitation that makes a mockery of an independent mandate and a free Parliament.
That has nothing to do with combating fraud.
The Council has attacked the position of the Parliament at its core and damaged it!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Brok">
Mr President, up to now there has been a succession of procedural errors which I hope will not work to the detriment of the Parliament in possible court cases.
I should like to say to Mr Corbett that a Member of the European Parliament has never been above the law, even if these Rules of Procedure are not changed.
We are always subject to the law and also to criminal law.
That must be stressed quite clearly, independently of our internal Rules here.
<P>
What we are dealing with here is the method by which the controls, checks and investigations are carried out.
I am of the opinion that we must ensure that the freedom of the individual Members of Parliament, including those who belong to a minority, must be protected from political pressure from outside and from within, so that they are not overrun with proceedings so that they are in the end so involved that they cannot deal with the situation any more.
That is the classic principle of the independence of the mandate that has been fought for over many centuries, particularly as protection from the executive.
Only in this way is the Member of Parliament able to exercise control.
He must have the right to refuse to bear witness, without any 'ifs' or 'buts' .
This already applies to us but the ways in which it applies partially negate it.
A Member of Parliament can then only if he has this right to refuse to bear witness, keep information to himself and only then will people come to him and tell him something if they know that he must not inform on them.
Only then can we exercise control within the meaning of Parliament vis--vis the executive and we should not ruin this by linking everything - whether officials, the executive or the Members of Parliament in one and the same Article.
<P>
If this is adopted here today and the anger dies down, we would perhaps then again have the strength to check whether with a proper goal the inclusion of the Members of Parliament in control mechanisms can protect this independent mandate and perhaps lead to some other phrasing.
This is not possible just now in the heat of the moment and I would ask my colleagues to remember this if it comes up again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, I just wish to observe for the record that, in addition to the consequences of this scandalous interpretation of the Rules of Procedure, I have also lost my speaking time.
I had entered my name, I had a lot of things to say, but as a result of this outrageous rigging, I no longer have the right to speak.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 12 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Eurodac
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A5-0059/1999) by Mr Pirker, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Regulation concerning the establishment of "Eurodac" for the comparison of the fingerprints of applicants for asylum and certain other aliens (COM(1999) 260 - C5­0082/1999 - 1999/0116(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pirker">
Mr President, I am speaking here not only as the rapporteur but also in my capacity as the spokesman of the European People' s Party, but first of all as the rapporteur.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, I earlier appealed to you all to discuss Eurodac and to vote on it today, because Eurodac is a system that finally enables us to implement the Dublin Convention.
In this Dublin Convention, that was concluded in 1990, the responsibility is established of a Member State' s competence to deal with an asylum procedure - according to this agreement, the State responsible is the one in which a refugee first finds safe haven.
Up to now control has not been possible because it has not been possible clearly to define a person' s identity.
In Eurodac, almost ten years later, we have an instrument that makes possible the clear identification of asylum-seekers and also of illegal immigrants.
<P>
What is its purpose?
The aim of Eurodac is to help implement what was agreed in Dublin.
The aim of Eurodac is to establish once and for all which Member State is responsible for the asylum procedure.
The aim of Eurodac is to prevent multiple applications and thereby also to stop social abuse and indirectly it has the effect of sharing the burden.
And that too is something quite essential.
<P>
Therefore under Eurodac, every Member State is bound to take the fingerprints of all asylum-seekers, all illegal immigrants who are picked up at the border in order to compare whether an application for asylum has already been submitted anywhere else.
The Member States also have the opportunity of fingerprinting illegal immigrants who are found in the Member State itself for the purpose of comparison.
<P>
In the discussion, that was very long, very good and very pragmatic, a solution was also reached.
On the vote in the Committee on the Eurodac system there was full agreement, only the Group of the Greens was against the system as a whole and introduced proposals for amendment that were such as to completely destroy the Eurodac system.
They were rejected. There was also full agreement with the Social Democrats on the system, which we were pleased about.
There were proposals for amendment, which aimed to raise the age from 14 to 18 and early cancellation was planned if refugee status was attained.
There was a majority here, which was against my opinion as the rapporteur.
<P>
The report as a whole was deemed positive and was adopted in plenary session.
That is, in the view of the Committee, with the full support of the Social Democrats as well, in Eurodac we have an instrument for an orderly asylum procedure in Europe and for combating abuse.
That is all I wish to say with regard to my function as rapporteur.
<P>
Now, I will speak in my capacity as the EPP spokesman as well. I am against political groupings always trying to present Eurodac as a system that does not help this monitoring, but is a form of criminalisation because fingerprints are taken.
It is not a matter of criminalising somebody, but giving the Member States the responsibility, giving them the duty of dealing with the asylum procedure and also of protecting young people when fingerprints are taken from the age of 14.
Because only if we know that they are this age do they of course fall under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child or under the Hague Convention and under the protective measures of the Member States.
It therefore has a protective function if we also take the fingerprints of young people and this is in full accord with all the Conventions that we possess.
<P>
The Greens are against the system and I think that they are simply refusing to face up to reality!
They will bear the full responsibility if this system and a proper asylum policy for Europe fail.
<P>
Let me just say something else, that I consider to be especially important.
I have received from Minister Schily - he is the Minister of the Interior in Germany and a Social Democrat - an urgent plea and an appeal for this Eurodac system to become a reality, with which he went against his own Social Democrats here in the House and against all the others who are attempting not to accept this system.
It is remarkable when one is asked as a Christian Democrat to undertake something here against the Left in this House.
<P>
We need the Eurodac system.
I am most fervently in favour of it because it takes us towards achieving a common asylum policy for Europe and the Member States are at their wits end over this problem.
<P>
We also have here a system against asylum abuse, against illegal immigration.
If the Social Democrats and the Greens vote against Eurodac, then they will bear full responsibility if there is further asylum abuse and illegal immigration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Watson">
Liberals in this House have a number of concerns about the draft protocol that was put forward in this draft regulation.
It carries a risk that it may blur the distinction between asylum-seekers and other types of immigrants.
It carries the risk that it may diminish the protection of those who need it by mistakenly channelling them through normal immigration procedures rather than asylum procedures.
There are certain "legal grey areas" .
The extension of EURODAC to persons who are not seeking asylum is, conceivably, outside the competence of the Dublin Convention, for example.
There is the risk that this protocol, this regulation, may be unworkable.
Member States will have little incentive to fingerprint third country nationals whom they find illegally on their territory, if there is a risk that they may become responsible for them.
<P>
Finally, there is a certain lack of clarity in some of the definitions used, like 'irregular crossing', 'illegally present' and so on.
Nonetheless, we believe that the debates in this House, in our committee, have been such that we have a good report drawn up here with the support of most political groups and I congratulate the rapporteur on it.
The Liberal Democrats will support this report.
We will not support amendments 13 to 20: although we share concerns about finger-printing, we believe that the attempt to stop a register being created will fail to deal in realistic terms with the challenges that we face.
<P>
Let me say one thing to Mr Schulz who raised the question of liberality.
This is a time for cool heads and good argument.
Mr Schulz cannot deny that we face a challenge in the Union with the number of people illegally present.
We have to find a way of tackling that problem while at the same time protecting civil liberties.
We believe that this report achieves that, and that is why we will be happy to give it our support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Sörensen">
Mr Prodi, Mr President, with regard to Eurodac and the viewpoint of the Greens and the European Free Alliance, I must say that I welcome the subtle distinctions made by the previous speakers after rapporteur Pirker' s introduction.
There are quite a few reservations and observations with regard to this report, including its lack of a social and human dimension.
Many police staff and criminal investigation services will of course welcome this report with open arms as it simplifies their work.
We need to be realistic and we do not deny that there is abuse.
Neither would I wish to see the Greens held responsible for the organised crime in this world, as people will shortly be saying we are responsible because we are unwilling to do anything about it.
This is untrue.
<P>
A house is built on solid foundations.
This report hardly constitutes a foundation, in fact, it is even a little reprehensible, in my opinion, although the amendments submitted make it more acceptable and tone it down somewhat.
However, we should not lose sight of the fact that asylum seekers look for safety, need a roof over their head and money to buy food.
The proposal' s point of departure is that asylum seekers are actually suspects.
It is assumed that they abuse the right of asylum.
And this is not proper.
Asylum seekers are criminalised here but they are not criminals.
Applicants are having a criminal role forced upon them, but are, in actual fact, victims, victims of the situation in their country of origin.
<P>
Turning now to minimum standards: a control policy as proposed is only acceptable if minimum standards apply across all states with regard to the handling of asylum applications.
Applications should be dealt with correctly and uniformly wherever they are submitted.
The gap is still too wide at the moment.
Needless to say, someone will apply for asylum where he hopes he will find recognition, a listening ear and humane treatment.
<P>
Finally, I would like to touch upon protective measures for personal data.
These measures do not apply to refugees at the moment.
This discrimination also promotes criminalisation.
Within our Green group, a discussion has been opened on the principle of fingerprinting in general.
When investigations are undertaken into organised crime, it is necessary to be completely clear on people' s identity in order to track down the criminals and for the benefit of the victims.
Every effort must be made to stop organised crime in its tracks.
Fingerprinting can help us achieve this.
Asylum seekers look for safety and a sense of security and do not wish their name to be on display across Europe.
Maybe in future, a debate could take place on the role of fingerprinting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Frahm">
Mr President, in our Group we view Eurodac as a drastic departure from the Dublin Convention.
It is now being proposed that illegal immigrants as young as 14 years of age should also be covered by the arrangements in question, while the Dublin Convention is concerned only with asylum-seekers.
In our view, Eurodac is not a prerequisite for enabling the Dublin Convention to function.
It just gives the authorities increased opportunities for exercising control and, in any state based on the rule of law, very serious attention must necessarily be given to the balance between control measures and the rights of the individual.
This is absolutely crucial.
So let it be stated immediately that our Group is opposed to Eurodac.
We hope that Parliament will again dig in its heels over this frontal assault on the UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, as well as on the legal rights of third-country nationals within the borders of the European Union.
<P>
Taking fingerprints from people, just because they are not citizens of a Member State, is tantamount to wholesale criminalisation of foreign nationals.
To mix immigrants and asylum-seekers together in a fingerprint register is a departure from the basic idea of the UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.
Asylum-seekers are entitled to ask for protection.
It is not a criminal offence to request asylum.
And the Dublin Convention in fact relates only to the first country of refuge.
<P>
If a fingerprint register is to be established, we do not under any circumstances want asylum-seekers to be mixed together with either legal or illegal immigrants, and we want to propose that, under such a system, fingerprints are taken only from people who have been sentenced for having committed criminal acts.
It is proposed that 14 year-olds should have their fingerprints taken and stored in a register.
We think that this is a departure from the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which requires that we protect children and which recommends 18 years as the age at which, generally, a child is deemed to become an adult.
If a register is to be established, we want it to be possible to take fingerprints only from people of 18 years of age and over.
Fingerprints are something which you take from criminals, and even criminals are entitled to protection.
The rules on the erasure of records and the disclosure of information are far too vague in the Council' s proposal.
<P>
If a register is to be established, we propose that it should be possible for a person' s records to be erased as soon as that person has received a residence permit from a Member State.
Let me repeat this once more: we are opposed to Eurodac.
We consider this proposal to be a huge boulder in the wall around Fortress Europe, a wall we want to see broken down.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Krarup">
I can essentially go along with what Pernille Frahm has just said, and we shall also support her amendment which, in spite of everything, does nonetheless mitigate this dreadful piece of legislation we are debating, albeit to no great legal effect, because this is a simple consultation procedure.
I have two points to make.
First of all, I have some questions for the Commissioner.
It is, of course, evident from Protocol No 5 to the Amsterdam Treaty on the position of Denmark, that Title IV of the Treaty does not apply to Denmark, but this is not apparent from the proposed regulation.
I should like to see this matter clarified and would ask that the clarification be included in the proposal.
Next, I should like to ask the Commissioner if this is to be viewed in connection with what is dealt with in Article 5 of the Protocol I mentioned, namely a decision to build upon the Schengen acquis.
If so, there is a definite procedure for how Denmark is to be incorporated into the system.
Is it this rule which is to be followed, or others?
And finally: if it is this rule or other rules which are to be followed, what would be the consequences of a Danish accession?
Is it the case that decisions by the EU authorities, including the European Court of Justice, are binding upon Denmark?
<P>
The second point is the fundamental and most important one.
As Pernille Frahm rightly said, this proposal concerns an extension to Fortress Europe.
It is an effective defence mechanism, and what is being put in place is a complete and consistent absence of legal rights for one large group of people, namely asylum seekers, and for a group of other foreigners without, moreover, there being the right to differentiate between them.
There are no elementary rules concerning legal rights in connection with the registration procedure and in connection with the right to pass on this information held by the Member States and the Commission.
I want to say that this is the most repressive system we have experienced in Europe in this century, at any rate in the perspective of the Nordic legal tradition, and we have had our share of repressive systems.
And what is interesting and sinister is that it is wrapped up in phraseology which would have made the late propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, turn green with envy.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would remind you that this total absence of legal rights is to be established by virtue of conditions in the Treaty which concern and proclaim an Area of Freedom, Security and Justice and which guarantee freedom of movement.
What, in fact, we are dealing with here is the very opposite and, to crown it all, Mr Pirker' s report also attaches importance - and this is the only real amendment proposed - to replacing the concept of a foreigner with that of a citizen of a third country.
Is the reason for this that the concept of a foreigner has negative connotations?
What the realities of the situation are is not so important. What is important is the packaging.
You are welcome to it, is what I say.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Vanhecke">
Mr President, in my own small country alone, we will have between 35,000 and 40,000 alleged asylum seekers this year, in addition to tens of thousands of asylum seekers of the past few of years who are still waiting for their cases to be resolved, and on top of this, there are an estimated 150,000 illegal immigrants, which means that the problem which we are focusing on today can hardly be overestimated.

<P>
We therefore give our full support to the Eurodac database for fingerprinting being set up.
We will gladly approve the Pirker report and I would ask the rapporteur to consider the criticism that follows as minor criticism of an otherwise sound report which represents a good step in the right direction.
After all, it must be clear that the Eurodac database should not just serve the purpose of establishing which Member State might deal with a particular asylum seeker' s case, but rather it should make it more difficult or impossible to abuse the asylum system in the future.
I therefore regret that Parliament has further mitigated the already weakened and moderate Council proposals in its various amendments.
<P>
It is completely beyond me why both the Council and Parliament are still a great deal laxer on illegal immigrants than on alleged asylum seekers.
After all, the fingerprints of illegal immigrants may not be kept ten but two years, may not be compared with each other - one wonders why - and may only be used for comparison with new asylum applications within the two-year period.
I fear that this illustrates that, according to some, the Eurodac system should serve, perhaps not exclusively but largely, at any rate, to assign a particular Member State the responsibility of footing the bill for a certain level of illegal immigration and abuse of the asylum system, rather than to render such abuses completely impossible.
<P>
Finally, I would put a big question mark over the fact that it appears that some sort of office of the European Commission will manage the system.
In my opinion, it should be assigned to a European police body such as Europol.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Terrón i Cusí">
Mr President, I would like to ask you to take note of the fact that in this building there are meeting rooms with no screen.
And while there are plenary sittings and meetings under way at the same time, it would be a good thing if all the rooms had screens, if that is not too much trouble.
<P>
Mr President, our Group has significant doubts, and reasonable doubts, in relation to the EURODAC report presented.
We have already rejected a report which intended, in unclear terms, and for who knows what reason, to take the fingerprints of the illegal immigrants who arrive in the European Union.
We have a new proposal, this time from the Commission, which makes important advances.
<P>
This new proposal says that the fingerprints of illegal immigrants - because we are talking about the extension of the existing EURODAC programme to illegal immigrants - will only be taken in application of the Dublin Asylum Convention, that is to say, only in order to find out whether these immigrants have asked for asylum in another Member State of the European Union.
<P>
We are not opposed to this idea, on the contrary, we are not against clarifying whether there is a Member State responsible for the handling of the case if it is shown that a person has already applied for asylum.
But we have many doubts about this massive taking of fingerprints - because we believe it will be massive - of people who have crossed borders illegally or who are in an illegal situation in a Member State.
<P>
Therefore, we believe that a little more time is needed to carry out the proposed extension of the EURODAC system.
<P>
What we are clear about is that it is not acceptable to apply it to minors.
In this respect we will stand firm.
We will demand that this system be applied only to adults, because minors require other legal provisions if they are not accompanied.
And if they are with their family, that family will enter the system.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Terrón i Cusí.
We take note of your request.
There is no doubt that an intelligent building must show intelligence throughout.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, the whole principle of fingerprinting asylum-seekers, as far as I am concerned, is intolerable.
It is basically criminalising victims, people who are seeking asylum and refuge.
Instead, our priority should be to improve the situation of asylum-seekers in the Member States.
In my own country at the moment the situation for asylum-seekers is completely intolerable.
Just this week the Minister for Justice has announced that he is going to prosecute taxi drivers who carry illegal immigrants.
<P>
Basically what we are doing is promoting the whole attitude of xenophobia and victimising people who are already victims.
The report tries to make the protocol sound less threatening, but the principle is exactly the same.
We are criminalising victims.
Fingerprinting is something that is normally done to suspected criminals.
Suspected criminals at least have the advantage that they will have legal representation, they will know their rights.
These people will not know their rights, not have legal representation.
The protocol does not explain where and how fingerprinting will be done.
Will it be on entry into the country, before the border is crossed?
If this is the case does that mean that anyone, anywhere, can be stopped?
<P>
This is basically in line with the Dublin Convention.
It was something set up in secret, behind closed doors, unfortunately in my own country - which I am very sorry about.
It basically promotes the whole idea of a fortress Europe, keeping out the so-called undesirables, whereas we should be looking at why people are seeking asylum, not victimising them.
One of the improvements aimed at here is on age.
The idea is that fingerprinting 14-year-old children is completely unacceptable. But even at the age of 18 or 21 it is still unacceptable because these people are not criminals.
You are making the assumption they are.
The whole principle of the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty seems to have been done away with here.
The attitude within the European Union towards asylum-seekers has to change.
What we are doing is encouraging the xenophobia that is growing throughout the Member States of the European Union.
That is a tragedy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Krivine">
Mr President, the Eurodac project shows the true face of liberal Europe.
A fortress of suspicion and police repression aligned against the persecuted people of this earth.
<P>
The computer database of fingerprints is an infringement of individual freedom.
It systematically treats asylum seekers as suspects.
It calls into question the inviolability of the documents held by the bodies responsible for handling asylum requests.
It contravenes the legal protection to which refugees are entitled. Applying even to children as young as 14, it contravenes the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, specifically article 10 thereof.
<P>
Who here would dare take the fingerprints of a fourteen year-old kid?
The Eurodac project makes criminals of the immigrants who find themselves without proper papers, without status, often because of the diversity of laws between countries.
Basically, it contravenes all international conventions for the protection of human rights.
With this, fortress Europe is committing the crime of failing to assist refugees in danger.
Is this so surprising for a liberal Europe which arms the Ankara dictatorship with combat helicopters, while at the same time rejecting Kurdish refugees?
Eurodac must of necessity be rejected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Mr President, the report provides me with the opportunity to comment in this House on the unjustified rebukes against us non-attached Members case by case.
The assertion that we are adopting a restrictive position on asylum, of which the rapporteur was also accused today is simply wrong. Our position is quite clear.
Although it is not necessary to mention it, I should nevertheless like to say to all those who agree with the criticism without knowing the position, that of course our policy is based on the Geneva Convention relating to Refugees. Of course we consider it absolutely necessary to provide temporary protection for displaced persons.
Anyone who needs protection should be protected.
<P>
What we do say, however, is that the unsuitable migration policy has led to social problems in conurbations, which we as serious politicians should not ignore.
This criticism must be permitted in a democratic structure.
Because we consider that a fair sharing of the burden is an important aspect of asylum policy, we are also in favour of introducing all relevant measures just as for the Dublin Convention and Eurodac.
We shall therefore vote in favour of the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Evans, Robert J">
The rapporteur in his introduction said that the objective is to implement the Dublin Convention and have a system of fingerprinting.
My group agrees in principle with that, but we want some safeguards.
Mr Pirker also said that the purpose was to ensure that there are no social abuses of the system.
Again, my group would agree with that, but we want to make certain of this, which is why safeguards are necessary to ensure that there are no abuses by the authorities either.
<P>
I believe that there are some on the right of this House who wish to muddy the waters and to draw no distinction between asylum seekers and illegal immigrants, third country nationals.
I shy away from the use of the word 'foreigners', or indeed the word that was used in the translation of the English text.
In English 'aliens' are people from another planet and to be perfectly honest we do not have much of a problem with that at the moment.
There seem to be, though, Members of this House who have no sympathy with either group - and if there were aliens from another planet, they would probably have little sympathy with them either.
The safeguards and the amendments that we are asking for are designed to ensure that any data collected is processed properly and that where people are granted asylum or achieve legitimate status the data collected is deleted.
On the age limit, it is sometimes very difficult to tell the age of a young person, but there seems to be a consensus that 18 is a fair compromise.
<P>
Mrs McKenna in her impassioned speech a few moments ago said that we must ensure that asylum seekers and others are not treated as criminals.
Certainly we want to ensure that this new system is used to assist the most vulnerable in our society.
I accept, as I am sure we all must do, that people do not leave their homes and families and travel half-way across Europe thousands of miles away for no reason at all.
They do not do just it on a whim, they do it for a real reason and we must accept and respect the fact that they need support and they need help and assistance.
I hope - and I am sure the Commissioner is listening - we can make certain that when this system comes into full operation, it is used positively, humanely and with considerable compassion to help and support the most vulnerable in our society.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Vitorino">
First of all, I would like to say to the honourable Members that in the view of the Commission, the EURODAC Regulation is instrumental to the implementation of the Dublin Convention which determines which Member State is responsible for considering an asylum application lodged in one of the Member States.
The Tampere European Council has called for work on EURODAC to be concluded rapidly, and the Commission considers in fact that EURODAC is an important instrument.
<P>
If governments and citizens can be confident that we have effective arrangements in place to decide which state is responsible for considering an asylum claim and to tackle the problem of multiple asylum applications, it will make easier our task of promoting high and fair standards of asylum.
<P>
Once the EURODAC Regulation has been adopted, it will be incumbent upon the Council to make similar progress in respect of other asylum instruments.
I, myself, will shortly unveil a proposal for a legal basis for the European Fund for Refugees.
This will provide financial assistance from the Community budget for the reception, the integration and the voluntary return of refugees, displaced persons and asylum-seekers which is a relevant instrument to give a human dimension to the asylum policy of the Union, as one Member of the House requested just a few moments ago.
<P>
I shall also be unveiling a proposal for an instrument on asylum procedures after we have received the opinion of Parliament on our working document towards common standards on asylum procedures.
I shall also unveil a new proposal on temporary protection which will draw on our experiences during the Kosovo crisis.
Progress on the EURODAC Regulation must be accompanied by real progress in other areas so that we can gradually attain our goal of creating a common European asylum system.
A proposal which provides for the systematic fingerprinting of asylum seekers and certain other categories of third country nationals clearly raises sensitive and difficult issues.
We therefore need to ensure the highest standards of fairness and transparency for all those affected by the regulation.
In particular the most rigorous of data protection standards are required.
<P>
When we converted the EURODAC Convention and Protocol into a Community Regulation, we amended it to bring it fully into line with Community law on data protection including the new Treaty Article 286 on data protection arrangements for the Community Institutions.
It is up to the authority provided for in Article 286 to ensure the appropriate and adequate use of these data and the application of Community rules.
<P>
We also introduced new provisions on monitoring and evaluation under which the Commission will report regularly to the Parliament and to the Council on the concrete functioning of EURODAC.
<P>
I am grateful to the Committee on Citizens' Rights, Justice and Home Affairs and to their rapporteur, Mr Pirker, for the report on the EURODAC Regulation.
The report contains a number of useful amendments which I believe will help us to improve the text of the Regulation.
<P>
The Commission can accept amendment No 1 to avoid the term 'alien' and instead refer to third country nationals, although we will have to make it clear that the Regulation also covers stateless persons.
We can also accept amendment No 2 to the title which introduces a reference to the Dublin Convention.
We can also accept the principle of amendment No 6 which makes it clear that there is only a match if fingerprints are identical and not if they are just similar, and we accept also the principle of amendment No 12 which is intended to make it clear that data must never be sent to an asylum applicant's country of origin or used within a Member State for an unrelated purpose.
I take this opportunity to assure Mrs Terrón i Cusí that illegal immigrants' fingerprints are only used for the specific purpose of the Dublin Convention - which means for analysis - if they have requested a demand for asylum in another Member State.
<P>
The two issues which have been of most concern to the Parliament are the minimum age-limit for fingerprinting and the rules on erasure of data from the central database.
<P>
On the minimum age-limit my approach is to stick to the compromise minimum age-limit of 14 years which was agreed in previous negotiations, but to accept your amendment which makes it clear that fingerprinting must be carried out in compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
<P>
Migratory movements of people seeking protection unfortunately involve minors.
We need to ensure that our arrangements for determining responsibility for asylum applications take account of this reality.
<P>
In addition, the age-limit of 14 years was a compromise reached after difficult negotiations.
I do not want to reopen the discussion and risk ending up with an even less acceptable solution.
<P>
As far as the rules on erasure of data are concerned, the amendments approved by the Committee on Citizens' Rights provide for the erasure of data as soon as anyone covered by the regulation has obtained legal status.
I can accept this in relation to people who are apprehended irregularly crossing the external border of the European Union and who are fingerprinted under Article 8 of the regulation.
Indeed, the intention behind the current text is that this data should be erased as soon as the person concerned obtains any kind of residence permit.
This would include someone who has been admitted as a refugee or under a subsidiary form of protection.
<P>
I cannot go that far in relation to data on asylum applicants, but I can accept some of the amendments that have been put forward.
If we were to erase all data on asylum applicants as soon as they were granted any kind of legal status, EURODAC would no longer cover situations where an asylum applicant is granted permission to remain in some other capacity for a short time and, at the end of this period, moves to another Member State and claims asylum there.
But I can accept the amendment which provides that data on asylum applicants should be erased when the person concerned is recognised as a refugee.
<P>
Some Member States consider that a problem arises if people who have been recognised as a refugee in one Member State travel to another Member State and claim asylum there.
They have therefore argued that data on recognised refugees should be blocked in the central unit so that statistical data can be compiled to measure the scale of the phenomenon.
<P>
I believe that we should take a different approach.
If people who have been recognised as refugees in one Member State seek asylum in another Member State this is likely to be because refugees do not enjoy the right to reside in a Member State other than the one in which they were recognised as such.
We should seek to remedy this by including refugees within the scope of an instrument defining the circumstances in which a third country national who is legally resident in one Member State may reside in another Member State.
I therefore agree that we should now provide that data on recognised refugees should be erased from EURODAC.
<P>
Finally, the regulation will not apply to Denmark.
This results directly from Denmark's protocol to the Treaty.
The Commission does not consider that EURODAC is a measure to build on the Schengen acquis under Article B of the Danish protocol.
We understand that Denmark nevertheless may wish to participate in EURODAC, but it remains to be seen what legal formula could be adopted in that case.
<P>
The amendments which I propose to accept will strengthen the text of the regulation and I am very grateful to Parliament for the important contribution it has made.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
EU action plan to combat drugs
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0063/1999) by Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou, on behalf of the Committee on Citizen' s Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Internal Affairs, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions concerning a European Union action plan to combat drugs (2000-2004) [COM(1999) 239 - C5-0093/1999 - 1999/2095(COS)]
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Giannakou-Koutsikou">
Mr President, this debate follows the communication to Parliament of the European Commission' s action programme to combat drugs between 2000 and 2004.
This programme is not of course a magic recipe which will solve the drugs problem.
However, the debate here today may help to raise Parliament' s awareness of the massive threat which drugs represent, on the basis of real rather than imaginary data, and help bring about both short- and long-term improvements to the current critical state of affairs.
<P>
Let me say straight away, Mr President, that we approve and endorse the Commission' s programme; however we have formulated a number of reservations, the same reservations formulated by the Commission itself, as regards the inadequate evaluation of programmes and more general shortcomings in relation to the threat which actually exists.
Over the last fifteen years, Mr President, drugs have not just been a vague threat: the number of synthetic drugs has increased, as has the quantity of cocaine imported into Europe, while heroin is still the main problem. They have become a deliberate threat derived from the relationship between organised crime and drug trafficking, the trade in arms and nuclear materials and the emergence of new criminal organisations from Central and Eastern Europe.
<P>
Unfortunately, communications and the information society help the drugs trade.
Clearly, there is no unequivocal solution to this tremendous problem.
What is important is that we understand that, if we are to aim for long-term prevention, we must implement policies to abolish the drugs trade and provide treatment for and rehabilitation of drug addicts, so that we can help make prevention a success or at least stabilise the situation.
The proposal of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs is therefore quite clear.
We consider that greater political will is needed, Mr President, and greater political will mean that we declare war on drugs and drug traffickers without compromise.
<P>
Secondly, we have noted that there is a lack of fundamental coordination. The Portuguese presidency therefore needs to take the initiative and create an inter-pillar council which will meet on a yearly basis in order to coordinate all the action taken within the Union and establish a climate of international coordination.
There must be full and correct application of the resolutions of the United Nations Organisation and the Special Session and, Mr President, Commissioner, a special anti-drugs clause which commands the same respect as and is on a par with the human rights clause should be included in all agreements with third countries.
Without greater political will, without this type of initiative and without a more general policy at European and worldwide level, there will be no results.
The increase in the drug problem cannot be blamed solely on present economic and social circumstances, poor standards set by parents or television.
It is a far more complex, far more widespread problem.
Any unequivocal solution or any solution of an administrative nature which fails to take account of the full extent of the real public health problem and the medical aspects of the matter would therefore be a serious mistake.
<P>
Organised crime, Mr President, Commissioner, is running at a faster pace than its prosecutors nowadays. It is precisely, therefore, at the political level that we must step up our action.
The policy on drugs must be mainstreamed.
It is not only a policy matter for the Ministers of Health.
It is not only a policy matter for the Ministers of Justice.
It is a major political problem which basically accounts for or is linked to 80% of international crime, while 50% of transactions throughout Europe relate solely to the trade in and movement of drugs.
<P>
If the Summit, which we feel should deal directly with this matter, fails to understand that this is a most serious political issue, which stretches far into the future and that our inability to deal with it multilaterally, as we should, has started to become more and more apparent, creating disappointment among our citizens, then we shall be unable to stabilise the situation in due course.
Because drugs, Mr President, will be with us for a long time to come.
What is important is that we improve the indicators, improve the public health aspects and give a larger number of citizens the chance to realise the extent of the threat and stand up to it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Corbey">
Mr President, the plan of action on drug control has been discussed within the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
I would like to establish here once more that the plan of action met with a great deal of appreciation in our Committee.
The prevention of drug abuse is necessary and it is essential to bring down the demand for drugs.
<P>
Many within the Committee on Industry are also of the opinion that the fight against addiction cannot be undertaken without respect for the drug user but the Committee on Industry deemed it not to be its task to go into this aspect in any depth.
Hence, the opinion focuses on the Committee on Industry' s key topics, namely trade and research.
<P>
As far as external trade is concerned, the Committee on Industry is aware that the trade policy can only do so much in the fight against drugs.
Driving back poverty in the producing countries is an important part of the fight against drugs.
Trade instruments should therefore be deployed, in addition to other aid programmes.
<P>
The Committee on Industry is also aware, of course, that the drugs topic within the Union and within this Parliament is a controversial one.
There is not really a European approach.
There are different approaches of Member States and there is a multilateral strategy within the UN context.
It is because of this controversy that the Committee on Industry is of the opinion that headway can be made by means of independent research.
Research can indicate which strategy and programmes proved successful and which did not.
Based on these facts, maybe we can bridge our differences.
<P>
One of the points of difference concerns the approach adopted at UN level.
This approach is viewed by many as too repressive. Others, on the other hand, are of the opinion that this fight cannot be fought hard enough.
The fight against drugs equals war.
The Committee on Industry concludes that the general principles of the UN approach are undisputed, but all the more so the policy.
This is why the Committee on Industry is urging a thorough evaluation of the multilateral policy and the treaties based thereon.
It is regrettable that this conclusion is not included is Mrs Giannakou' s report.
<P>
Finally, the Committee on Industry would like to express its appreciation to the Lisbon Observatory.
Thanks to the findings of the observatory, we may well be able to look beyond our national preferences.
The Committee on Industry hopes that the Observatory can remain a base for further development of a European approach to the drugs problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Corbey.
<P>
The Commissioner has requested the floor now because he cannot attend the debate.
Therefore, Commissioner, you have the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Vitorino">
The Commission will of course be present during the debate this afternoon, but I will not be there personally.
<P>
Despite considerable efforts to prevent drug abuse and addiction the drug problem continues to pose threats and challenges on the eve of the year 2000.
The most serious health problems are caused by the use of opiates and, in particular, heroin, amphetamines and multi-drug use.
Cannabis is still the most commonly used illicit drug in the Union.
Infectious diseases such as HIV and Hepatitis B and C have reached high prevalence amongst intravenous drug users.
Organised crime plays an increasingly dominant role in drug production and trafficking.
We have to respond to these challenges.
<P>
I should also extend my sincerest gratitude to Parliament, particularly to the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs and the rapporteur, Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou, for the quality of their work and the speed with which they have commended the Commission's communication on combating drugs for the period 2000 to 2004.
This will allow the Helsinki European Council to adopt an efficient strategy against this disturbing phenomenon.
<P>
The main general targets for the European Union's strategy against drugs for the next five years can be summarised as follows: to reduce significantly the prevalence of illicit drug use among young people under 18 years of age; to reduce substantially the number of drug-related deaths; to increase considerably the number of successfully treated addicts and to reduce substantially the number of serious drug-related crimes, including money laundering and illicit traffic in precursors.
<P>
In the field of demand reduction, preventive measures and programmes for children and young people should, instead of focusing exclusively on illegal drugs, address addiction in general, including aspects of alcohol and tobacco use.
Training of professionals from social, health, education and law enforcement sectors is a prerequisite for effective action.
<P>
In the field of supply reduction, the emergence of new synthetic drugs makes it necessary to find ways to respond quickly to the appearance of new substances and consumption trends.
The establishment of voluntary monitoring mechanisms for new chemicals used in the illicit manufacture of synthetic drugs, as well as enhanced cooperation with trade, will constitute the major priorities in this area.
Efforts to curb money laundering have to be intensified through the rapid adoption and subsequent implementation of the recently proposed amendment to the money laundering directive.
Following the Tampere European Council, priority has to be given to the prevention of juvenile, urban and drug-related delinquency and to the progressive harmonisation of European Union legislation on illicit drug trafficking.
<P>
In the past, Member States and the Commission have given insufficient priority to the evaluation of anti-drugs activities.
This must change.
Evaluation must become an integral part of the European Union approach.
The Commission has already begun this evaluation and hopes to do more in the future.
The observatory in Lisbon can contribute by issuing guidelines for the evaluation of demand and supply reduction activities.
<P>
The implementation of five harmonised key indicators - demand for treatment by drug users, drug-related deaths, mortality and causes of death among drug-users, the incidence of drug-related infectious diseases, the comparability of surveys of drug use, behaviour and attitudes towards drugs in the general population and finally, the comparability of the prevalence estimates of problem drug use - plays an important role in this context.
<P>
Adoption of the European Union drugs strategy for the first years of the new millennium is not the end of the debate.
I understand that the coming Portuguese presidency will implement the European Union drugs strategy through the presentation of more concrete priorities for the years 2000-2004.
We will, as well, have the possibility of working together with European institutions on the organisation of an interinstitutional conference to discuss the implementation of the European Union drugs strategy, possibly at the beginning of next year.
I hope that on that occasion we will be able to evaluate the inter-pillar Council meeting that has been suggested by the rapporteur.
<P>
The Commission's communication represents, in my opinion, a good starting point for a global, multidisciplinary and integrated European strategy to fight illicit drugs on the line that was approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1998.
<P>
The observatory in Lisbon and Europol in The Hague are two important instruments that can contribute significantly to our strategy.
I am, therefore, confident that we have the potential and will find the political will to respond to the new challenges in the perspective of the 2000-2004 European Union drugs strategy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
We will interrupt the debate at this point to proceed to the votes.
This debate will resume at 6.00 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Vote
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Della Vedova">
Madam President, I would just like to remind you and the Members that the Radical Members present - Mr Della Vedova, Mr Cappato, Mr Dupuis, Mr Dell'Alba and Mr Turco will not be taking part, although they are present, in the votes today either.
I think that a Parliament that is not brave enough to resolve a situation where some Members and millions of European citizens are patently discriminated against, is a Parliament that cannot teach democracy, as it would like to do and should do, to many countries that, this very morning, we have condemned.
<P>
Report (A5-0061/1999) by Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on draft supplementary and amending budget 5/1999 to the budget of the European Union for the 1999 financial year (C5-0257/1999)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schreyer">
Madam President, rapporteur, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission very much welcomes the report by the rapporteur and it especially welcomes the proposal for an amendment, which has been submitted by Parliament, to reallocate EUR 25 million in the financial framework as opposed to the overall transfer proposal.
The Commission regrets that the Council has not yet approved Parliament' s proposal.
It would therefore request the Council to support this proposal in order to smooth the way so that by restructuring and reducing expenditure this year EUR 670 million can be made available for urgently needed foreign policy programmes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Schreyer.
I am sorry that the Council is not represented here.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
Report (A5-0066/1999) by Mr Napolitano, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on the amendments to the Rules of Procedure following the interinstitutional agreement of 25 May 1999 on the internal investigations conducted by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF)
<P>
(Parliament adopted the decision)
<P>
Report (A5-0062/1999) by Mr Schwaiger, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the Communication to the Council and the European Parliament: The EU Approach to the WTO Millennium Round (COM(1999) 331 - C5-0155/19 - 1999/2149(COS))
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Chichester">
Madam President, before we proceed to the Schwaiger report vote, could I raise a point of clarification?
A split vote has been requested on recital C from our side, but looking at the voting papers, I think that a word may have been included that should not have been.
The words in the English text that we want to vote on separately are "and socially balanced": those are the separate words.
Some versions suggest we should also vote on the word "fair", but that should be in the main part of the text.
I hope that is clear.
<P>
Relating to Amendment No 11
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schwaiger">
Madam President, I have the impression that the vote should first be taken on the phrase "that free and fair world trade" etc.
Is that correct?
Have you included that?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="President">
Mr Schwaiger, I have received requests for split voting, and for separate voting, and I have been asked to take the words "fair" and "socially balanced" separately.
I am therefore complying with the requests which have been made.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Madam President, this proposal is for us Greens an essential proposal.
If "fair and socially-balanced" is omitted, then unfortunately the majority of us will have to vote against this report.
If it is dropped, then an essential part of the entire negotiations is missing from the whole report.
I just wanted to make that clear once more.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Madam President, since the second part is decisive for all of us as to whether we can vote on the first part, I would ask you to vote on the second part first.
Then we will know whether, as far as the first part is concerned, we can vote together with the large group which proposes this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="President">
Mrs Maes, you will acknowledge that it is rather difficult to vote in order to introduce words into a text on which we have not yet voted.
I feel we must be logical and consistent in our approach.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="McNally">
Mr President, can I make clear that the Socialist Group wants the words "free, fair and socially-balanced" included.
We are now voting on Amendment No 11 which deletes them.
Have I understood correctly?
So we will vote against this amendment and in favour of the original recital.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Erika">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, don' t get so worked up!
This is an essential point which is really important.
From the voting point of view, Mrs Maes is quite right.
Mr Chichester, I am surprised that you of all people wanted to have the point "socially-balanced" voted on separately.
We voted for it by a large majority in the Committee.
However, the only thing that I should really like to see is that the voting procedure runs properly.
I would therefore ask you to grant Mrs Maes' request.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Schwaiger">
Madam President, I believe we are dealing with three adjectives.
Free and fair world trade is the basis for the WTO Negotiations - that was my original text.
A proposal for an amendment was then agreed in the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, where "socially-balanced" was added.
The opinions differ as to which adjectives should be added.
I feel in any case that it should be "free and fair world trade" .
Everyone agreed to that. The question of "is socially tolerable" or "socially acceptable" was disputed.
We should therefore vote on the original text saying "free and fair world trade" and then vote separately on "socially-balanced" .
Then we would have a result on the third point.
<P>
I should in any case like to point out that "free and fair world trade" was the basis of all our work and an addition was appended here on which we should now vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wurtz">
I think there is some muddle.
The amendment is not the text you read out, Madam President.
The amendment concerned involves removing some words.
What we have to do is make a decision as to whether or not these words are to be removed.
That is the amendment.
And the second part, is the sentence that follows on and not the sentence which was read out.
What we are voting on, then, is whether to remove or keep these words.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="McNally">
President, we can only vote on the amendment in front of us and the amendment in front of us asks for four words to be deleted.
We will vote against that amendment.
No other amendment is possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="McNally">
I will explain as carefully as I can.
The original text says, and this is the original text as voted in committee: "Whereas free, fair and socially-balanced world trade must be further developed and consolidated" etc.
Amendment No 11 says in its first part: "Whereas (delete four words)".
We are ready to vote on that. I have said that we will vote against it.
There is then a further amendment to Amendment No 11, which is in two parts. But I think we can vote the whole of Amendment No 11 now, which deletes the four words "free, fair and socially-balanced".
No-one has agreed to an oral amendment of any sort.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schwaiger">
Madam President, I should like to repeat once again that there was a proposal for an amendment by the PPE.
There was an oral explanation by Mr Chichester, that against the amendment he wished to keep the words "free and fair" in any case and that we should take a vote on that.
The third question is "socially-balanced" , "yes" or "no" ?
We should vote on that.
I have now understood what Mr Chichester said to me.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Chichester">
Madam President, my request was a clarification.
If we get to vote on the original text of that paragraph, if we get past the vote on the amendment, at that point I want to propose a vote on the words "and socially-balanced" separately from the rest of the text.
I am not proposing an oral amendment.
We should proceed to vote the amendment first.
Depending on the result of that, my point is that I am proposing a separate vote on the original text.
So I am not proposing an oral amendment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="President">
I think that that clears matters up.
We have this Amendment No 11 from the PPE Group for the removal of these words, and this is what I shall now put to the vote.
This is not the opportune moment, I feel, in the middle of a sitting, to want to put the finishing touches to an oral amendment.
Indeed I can see that Mr Chichester has the wisdom to abandon this course.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Friedrich">
Madam President, I am speaking now because I believe that I can propose a solution that is quite correct.
We are dealing with three terms: fair, free and socially-balanced.
Both the words "fair" and "free" are as far as I can see desired by a large majority.
The only disputed point is the term "socially-balanced" .
That was also what Mrs Maes said first of all, so it would be easiest if we voted separately on each of these three words, then we shall have the majority opinion of the Parliament on each of the three words.
The request itself is unclear.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=93 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Madam President, our Rules of Procedure do not allow for a secondary market in amendments.
The Group of the Party of European Socialists strongly opposes...
<P>
... the underhand introduction of an oral amendment, with the excuse of clarifying an issue.
Oral amendments require the acceptance of the groups and this group is opposed.
Voting cannot be done à la carte.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="President">
Mr Barón Crespo, if I have understood properly, there is a request for an oral amendment.
But there is no need for Members to stand up, matters are perfectly clear.
The request for an oral amendment is rejected.
We take good note of this.
<P>
I shall now put to the vote Amendment No 11 tabled by the PPE Group. This involves removing the words we have been talking about.
<P>
Relating to Amendment No 25
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cunha">
Madam President, this is about Amendment No 25.
I would like to say that the text of this amendment is entirely compatible with the rapporteur' s text, and, for this reason, I think that it should be voted on as a supplement.
And, because it is entirely compatible, we should vote in favour of it.
<P>
Relating to Amendment No 18
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="McNally">
Madam President, there is in fact a very serious translation problem because the English text says the following: "Believes that the EU should ensure that WTO rules relating to the agricultural sector do not have an adverse effect on the economies of developing countries and that security of food supply should be considered as a multifunctional aspect of agriculture".
You will see that the French version says the opposite!
This may happen more often than we think but fortunately this was noticed on this occasion.
Please vote bearing in mind the English original.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="President">
Absolutely, Mrs McNally.
My impression is that the Members of this House are very attentive.
Indeed they often point out problems of this kind, which are of course most regrettable.
<P>
Following the vote on paragraph 29
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Coûteaux">
As a point of order, Madam President, Rule 117 stipulates that either one language or the other must be used.
But the French version is peppered with English expressions which make the text quite incomprehensible.
So, admittedly, in the case of an operation such as Seattle, since it is entirely American, it is only to be expected that the language of empire is going to pervade everything.
But if you are going to claim to be using the French language, then French terms must be used.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="President">
Mr Coûteaux, I think I am going to disappoint you, because I am going to put to the vote the first part of paragraph 30 which goes from "Proposes that the ILO' s Declaration" to "WTO agreement on investment" .
I am terribly sorry.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
Report (A5-0058/1999) by Mr Dimitrakopoulos and Mr Leinen, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on the preparation of the reform of the Treaties and the next Intergovernmental Conference (C5-0143/99 - 1999/2135(COS))
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Madam President, so as not to delay the debate too much, I would like to make an overall comment regarding all my amendments.
<P>
I submitted a great number of amendments in French and signed them myself.
Now, I see that the French version which has been distributed officially is not identical to the version I gave to the services.
This is not right.
It is not a translation problem.
Somewhere in the sessional services there is an anonymous reviser who goes around correcting the ideas of the Members of Parliament.
<P>
I should like the version which I signed and submitted to the sessional services to be restored.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="President">
Mr Berthu, there is no wicked anonymous reviser.
The truth is that two of your amendments were not in fact very clearly expressed, and I shall read them out, when the time comes, so that the Members of the House may see the facts for themselves.
<P>
I have been fully informed of this problem, and we apologise for it.
<P>
Following the vote on Amendment No 70
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Corbett">
Madam President, to save time, now that Amendment No 70 from the Europe of Nations Group has been rejected by an overwhelming majority, could you apply the provisions of Rule 130(7), which states that the President may decide, following the adoption or rejection of a particular amendment, that several other amendments of similar content or with similar objectives be put to the vote collectively.
You may seek the agreement of Parliament before doing so.
Such a set of amendments may relate to different parts of the original text.
<P>
This was introduced into our Rules precisely for this sort of situation.
We should now be able to vote en bloc on the rest of Mr Berthu's amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="President">
Mr Corbett, I have examined the problem thoroughly.
In all sincerity, I do not think I am entitled to do so, since that would force me to put the subsequent amendments to a vote en bloc.
<P>
On the other hand, Mr Berthu who has asked for the floor is perhaps going to tell us that he is withdrawing his amendments.
This would be the simplest solution. The decision is, of course, his.
<P>
Following the vote on Amendment No 50 Berthu (UEN).
(FR) No, Madam President, we did not request voting by roll call in order to facilitate the voting.
Having said that, I wish to retain my amendments.
There is no text prohibiting a Member of Parliament re-submitting amendments he considers politically important in plenary, even if they are rejected in committee.
I am therefore entitled to do so, and I wish to retain them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Corbett">
Madam President, this is the fourth time that an amendment from the EPP Group has been voted against by the EPP Group.
I should like to ask that group in future to check how many of individual Members can table amendments in plenary - 15 different Members of the EPP have tabled amendments to this report, supposedly in the name of the group before wasting our time in plenary.
<P>
(Mixed reactions)
<P>
Relating to paragraph 17
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Corbett">
Madam President, before we go on to Amendment No 5, I should like to point out that we have not quite finished voting on paragraph 17.
There was a request from our Group for a split vote on the last few words.
I agree those last few words have now been modified by one of the amendments we accepted, but we would still like to have a separate vote on those last few words of the paragraph.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Méndez de Vigo">
Madam President, I believe that Mr Corbett, instead of concerning himself with the amendments of the Group of the European People' s Party, should concern himself with clarifying the situation of the members of his Group.
This would surely be a great improvement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, this late in the morning, we need a little humour.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
Madam President, we already mentioned this earlier this morning: The important report by Mr Pirker, according to what we have now voted on, although we proposed something else this morning, must in the normal procedure be voted on this afternoon or early tomorrow.
The same applies to Mrs Giannakou' s report.
Two unusual things that will hopefully not be left to some chance majority.
<P>
I would therefore request that we adjourn the vote on the Pirker and Giannakou reports and the debates until the December part-session in Brussels and would request that we vote on this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="President">
Mr Schulz, we heard the Commissioner this morning speak on the subject of Mr Pirker' s report.
As far as I know, this evening and tomorrow too, most certainly, many of the Members of the European Parliament will be in attendance, as we have been able to note in the past.
I shall ask Mr Pirker. You wish to vote this evening of course.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giannakou-Koutsikou">
Madam President, the same applies to my report.
We have to go to Helsinki with this.
So, tomorrow, we need to proceed to a final vote.
This is the reason why the committee worked so quickly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="President">
Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou, we shall not be voting tomorrow, we shall be voting this evening, but since the debate on Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou' s report has not yet been concluded, the case is slightly different.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pirker">
.
(DE) Madam President, we discussed Mr Schulz' s proposal this morning and voted on it.
For good reasons there was a clear majority in favour of taking the vote today.
Otherwise we would have not had Eurodac by the beginning of next year but the next debates would have been held sometime during next year and Eurodac would maybe have come a year later.
That would be irresponsible and there was therefore a clear decision by the Parliament to take the vote today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="President">
Mr Pirker, I must interrupt you, as I have a proposal to make to you.
Since we have now considerably overrun our time, more or less. I propose that we vote immediately on the Pirker report.
We can do this very quickly, in fact.
Count on me!
<P>
Report (A5-0059/1999) by Mr Pirker, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the Proposal for a Council Regulation concerning the establishment of "Eurodac" for the comparison of fingerprints of applicants for asylum and certain other aliens (COM(1999) 260 - C5-0082/1999 - 1999/0116(CNS))
<P>
Relating to Amendment No 3
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pirker">
.
(DE) Madam President, we asked for a split vote here, on the one hand, with regard to the amendment on raising the age limit from 14 to 18 and for the rest with regard to the expression "national of a third country".
I would ask that there be a separate vote here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="President">
We are putting Amendment No 3 from the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs to the vote, excluding "third country national" and "18 years of age" , and we will re-introduce these, if necessary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
Madam President, we shall now have to work very accurately, otherwise the report will have a completely different meaning.
If I have understood Mr Pirker correctly, he would like to reject the definition of a "national of a third country" and the age of 18.
Is that correct?
Please could he just explain that?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pirker">
Madam President, may I explain?
I should like the expression "national of a third country" to remain in the text.
We had it just now in a paragraph.
I should nevertheless like the opportunity of voting in one paragraph on the age limit.
Because we have declared that we support the age of 14, but there are other opinions, namely to retain the age of 18.
That is to say, I therefore request a separate vote.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, I have been trying since before the last vote to get the attention of the Chair.
It seems I have to come down to the very front to do that.
It is ridiculous.
I wanted to put that on the record because normally, if I make a mistake on a vote, I put it in writing afterwards.
I made a mistake.
My vote registered that I was in favour of the resolution on the Intergovernmental Conference.
I was very much against it.
I would like that put on the record now, rather than tomorrow, because it is of fundamental importance to me, coming as I do from a neutral country.
<P>
I find it very difficult to get the attention of the Chair.
When you are up there you seem to just look at the front and the centre.
It is very difficult to get attention, which is quite frustrating.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rothley">
Mr President, the result has come about after a whole series of infringements of the law.
The provisions of the Rules of Procedure have been infringed on many occasions by the departments and by the majority of the Parliament.
Moreover, the result is a black day for the Parliament, because through it, what the majority of the Parliament has decided, the Parliament becomes an authority and the Members officials.
I shall, however, not let my own Parliament make me into an official.
If I think about it, the fact that the Members of Parliament according to this text are bound to assist in the work of OLAF and if they are moreover obliged to inform on people, then such a rule affects the independent mandate most profoundly.
<P>
I should like to state that such a decision that destroys the parliamentary system can clearly not be accepted but that we, and not myself alone, but many others too, will submit this matter to the European Court of Justice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bordes, Cauquil and Laguiller">
- (FR) We have no intention of sanctioning the European Anti-Fraud Office.
Although this office has been established with the excuse of supervising the officials and elected representatives of the European institutions, the way this office has been designated and the lack of any indications as to how the Office itself will be monitored do not inspire the slightest confidence in us.
<P>
We are in favour not only of total transparency regarding the operation of all European institutions, but also of the election and the admissibility, at any time, not only of all those elected today, but also all those who have any responsibility at whatever level, from the top of the scale to the bottom, including the Commission in Brussels.
Given the non-democratic nature of the European Union' s decision-making bodies, the establishment of OLAF appears to be a derisory measure intended to provide a semblance of supervision even though there is no real, democratic supervision.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Eriksson, Frahm, Herman Schmid, Seppänen and Sjöstedt">
- (SV) If we had had the opportunity to devise the Rules of Procedure and the interinstitutional agreement on our own, we should have tried to create an open and simple administration, for that is the best kind of administration for the purposes of discovering irregularities and acts of fraud.
<P>
We should also like to point out that the freedom to provide information which we have in Sweden for civil servants is also a good way of preventing illegal occurrences from being swept under the carpet.
<P>
In the situation which has now arisen, we have chosen to vote in favour of the report as a whole in the final vote, for to vote against it could be interpreted in terms of our not wanting to regulate the fight against fraud at all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Gollnisch">
- (FR) The Members of the Front National within the European Parliament are staunch in their condemnation of corruption be it corruption of elected representatives, officials or members of governments.
They also condemn fraud or the misappropriation of public monies, the money stolen from European taxpayers.
It is a matter that we know something about, we French, who have to contend daily with the repercussions of the cases involving the Mutuelle nationale des étudiants de France, the Paris Mayor' s office, Elf or Gifco.
This list is, alas, far from complete.
<P>
They will, however, be voting against the Napolitano report.
Because they are sick to death of the self-flagellation that this Parliament indulges in, alternating with lessons in morality and a haughtiness that is just as hard to bear.
Because they think that OLAF is an excuse to recruit yet another team of officials, costing more than the cost of the fraud itself.
<P>
Because, above all, they consider that there already is a structure capable of taking on the role which OLAF is expected to fulfil.
The solution, obviously, is to give the Court of Auditors jurisdictional power and adequate human and material resources to take on this role.
This is the case of many national audit authorities, not only in France, but in other Member States.
<P>
It is true that the Court of Auditors does not get a good press in this House since the President refused it a press conference room, even though he happily gives one to the most eccentric associations, to individuals whose representative nature is highly dubious, or to any old watchdog in favour of the philosophy of the Single Europe on condition that he barks loud enough.
In this matter, as in many others, Parliament has made itself look foolish.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
- (DE) The fact that fraud control must be taken seriously is beyond doubt because of recent events and also because the interests of the citizens concerned need better protection.
With this in mind, OLAF should finally be able to commence its work.
We are so concerned about the monitoring of the institutions by OLAF and so little can we identify with the "informing provisions" proposed in the inter-institutional agreement between the Commission, the Council and Parliament and moreover attacking the independent mandate of the individual Members of Parliament.
If it says in Article 2, that "any official or servant of the European Parliament who becomes aware of evidence which gives rise to a presumption of the existence of possible cases of fraud,...shall...inform without delay..." then this compels them to inform.
<P>
The planned form of monitoring by OLAF can only be a transitional solution and our agreement will only serve to set the necessary monitoring in motion.
Our agreement does not mean that we approve of the methods criticised, for, as with any compromise, you have to make concessions here in order not to jeopardise the goal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
- (FR) There is indeed corruption.
Both in the left wing in power and in the right wing in government.
The names of the cases tell the whole story: Agusta in Belgium, Urba in France, Palermo in Italy, fictitious jobs in the Parisian public transport network - RPR, the Mutuelle nationale des étudiants de France or Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
<P>
But, because we in the Front National do not suffer the anxiety affecting the potential accused in the other parties, we are rejecting the extension of police powers to that tool of the Brussels Commission that goes by the name of OLAF.
<P>
Firstly, because OLAF contravenes the idea of the separation of authority, which is the bedrock of Western democracy, with officials who have no legitimacy supervising the representatives of the sovereign states.
<P>
Secondly, because OLAF is the thief set to catch the policeman, since the European Commission, at the centre of the suspicions of corruption, is in fact, by means of OLAF, going to be supervising the Parliament, whereas it is Parliament which should be doing the supervising rather than being its target.
<P>
Finally, OLAF does not attack the causes of corruption, which lie in the removal of national borders allowing freedom of movement for drugs money, fraud and financial crime.
<P>
If we really wish to fight the simple symptoms of corruption, while respecting the foundations of legitimate societies, then there are just two ways:
<P>
either the technical route, by transforming the European Court of Auditors into a court of law and a court of budgetary discipline;
<P>
or the democratic route, by creating a body at the heart of the European Union, as in Great Britain and the United States, which is the equivalent of the British "National Accounting Office" (NAO) or the American "General Accounting Office" (GAO).
<P>
The latter are powerful autonomous supervisory bodies, but are located at the heart of the parliaments, and have a staff of up to 5,000.
<P>
So, the expert body does exist, but with a connection to the representatives of the people who alone have the right to ask for explanations regarding the use of their taxes.
<P>
Report: Schwaiger (A5-0062/1999)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
In our view, the preparations for the forthcoming round of international trade negotiations is not at all satisfactory as regards procedure, and this is due to at least three reasons.
<P>
Firstly, we can see the European Union weakening its own position, according to the familiar process, by means of its internal discussions, even before the start of negotiations.
For example, the final mandate granted by the Council on 22 October, makes no mention of defending the principle of Community preference, a principle which had however been adopted by the Agriculture Council of the 27 September, which was itself only partly satisfactory since it omitted the principle of Europe' s autonomy in terms of foodstuffs.
We come down a notch at every stage.
There are many more possible examples.
Thus, regarding our preference system for importing bananas from overseas, the Commission has just made proposals which meet with American demands even before the opening of the Seattle Conference.
In every field, one might say that the internal concessions made in order to arrive at a unified European position, declared beforehand to be desirable, are leading us to reduce our claims even before starting discussions with our competitors.
<P>
Secondly, the Commission was given a comprehensive negotiation mandate on a whole series of issues, some of which come under Community jurisdiction, but others, such as services or investment, which are clearly in the remit of national authorities.
Admittedly, it is a mandate for the framing of negotiations and not for the consequences of these negotiations.
Nonetheless, the Council, without explicitly saying so, has just set in train a process which may lead it, if it is not stopped, to an absolute negotiating mandate being granted to the Commission and thus, in application of the new Article 133(5) of the Treaty of Amsterdam, to the ultimate power of ratification being taken away from the national parliaments, but still without clearly declaring this, obviously.
We are currently drifting off our course in the fog, without knowing exactly at what point we are going to go over the edge.
Then we will be told that it is too late.
Such methods are perfectly reprehensible.
<P>
Thirdly, despite our requests, we note that the Seattle negotiations are going to be undertaken before a clear, specific and comprehensive report has been made of the consequences of the Uruguay Round.
There too we shall be advancing in the dark.
The Commission did, admittedly, give in on one point, since it is going to proceed to the evaluation of the impact on sustainability, as I was saying, i.e. on the environmental consequences of liberalisation.
That is all very well.
But this study should have been carried out on many other points, such as the impact of liberalisation, in its current form, on the preservation of cultural and social models.
<P>
For these three reasons, in these circumstances, we are unable to approve the opening of the Seattle negotiations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Auroi">
Mr President, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance abstained on the report, which it considered rather wet.
<P>
As far as we were concerned, the objective of this report was to give Commissioner Lamy a specific negotiating mandate for the Round due to open in Seattle.
Well, such a specific mandate has not been adequately asserted.
That being the case, we would have liked Parliament to propose a very political specification to the Commission, instead of drawing up a more diplomatic report which deplores, stresses and considers but does not give any sort of mandate.
The tone of the report is still too liberal, then, for us to find any reflection of our own views, especially since none of our amendments is included in it.
<P>
The report, thus amended, has significant weaknesses regarding TRIPS.
We can find nothing acceptable to us in it on the subject of intellectual property rights relating to trade.
As regards the MAI, which was rejected by the OECD and which is coming back again, a reinforced code of conduct must be drawn up for investment and strict regulations must be drawn up in this field, and this is equally applicable to the settlement of disputes.
<P>
The report does, however, include some fundamental principles which we consider essential such as the precautionary principle, regulations on production methods and procedures. It stresses in particular the labelling of foodstuffs in order to ensure the implementation of food safety, and the necessity of adopting a stance that is more favourable to developing countries.
<P>
At any event, we shall follow with great interest the way in which the Commission conducts the negotiations, and even though we still find this amended report too liberal in tone, you will find that we Greens will defend this text most fiercely if Commissioner Lamy should step below the recommendations made here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Andersson, Färm, Hedkvist Petersen, Hulthén, Schori and Theorin">
- (SV) Free world trade is necessary in order to increase worldwide growth and help reduce the gulf between rich and poor.
However, large numbers of the poor in the developing countries have still not benefited from free world trade.
We therefore share the view expressed in section B that the developing countries' interests and problems must have priority in any extended system of free world trade.
The free trade system is urgently required if we are to reduce poverty and create a more just world.
We therefore consider that the overarching strategies and objectives, as described in the report, for the forthcoming round of World Trade Organisation negotiations are a step in the right direction in relation to the Commission' s communication.
<P>
If, however, the objectives are to become a reality, we should particularly like to emphasise section I, to the effect that agriculture must be one of the areas in the multilateral trade negotiations where new possibilities are opened up in Seattle.
We think that what is prescribed in this section must become a reality in relation also to sections 5, 6 and 7.
If this agreement is really to become the development agreement which helps reduce the gulf between the world' s rich and poor States, it is not acceptable to reject, in advance, demands from the other Member States in the World Trade Organisation for a change in our agricultural policy at the Millennium Round
<P>
To help achieve this objective of reducing the gap between rich and poor States, frontier defences must be lowered and export subsidies phased out.
The overarching objective in section 37 ought therefore to be that of completely phasing out customs duties on non-agricultural products.
A development like that would be of greater help to the developing countries than the marginal preferences they at present have.
<P>
The World Trade Organisation should support the work being done in terms of the global environment by, for example, incorporating basic principles of environmental policy, such as the precautionary principle, into its practice.
It is therefore important that weight be given to section 10 in the negotiations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bordes, Cauquil and Laguiller">
- (FR) The European delegation to the WTO negotiations claims to be the defender of the interests of Europe.
In fact, it is merely the representative of the most powerful industrialists and financial groups in the European Union, rivals to the American or Japanese trusts in systematically bleeding the planet dry, but all concerned exclusively with increasing their profits at the expense of the workers in their own countries and peoples in poor countries.
<P>
In mentioning the "workers' fundamental rights" and "protection" of these, particularly in poor countries, the Schwaiger report introduces a touch of cynicism to all the rest.
But what of the protection of workers, particularly against the tragedy of unemployment, even in the richest countries of the European Union, precisely those which would easily have adequate means to eradicate unemployment if their governments were not concerned primarily by the profits of big business and by making owners and shareholders wealthy?
<P>
As for the claim of being interested in the working conditions and inhuman wages in underdeveloped countries, this is pure hypocrisy.
Any number of multinationals who employ a workforce with a practically zero wage, without the advantage of any form of social protection, in Africa or Asia, have their headquarters in France, Germany or the United Kingdom.
Instead of forcing these multinationals to comply with minimum social legislation, they are going to be content with inviting a few ILO officials as observers to the WTO negotiations.
<P>
We shall not vote in favour of the proposed report, nor shall we amend it, since it is the capitalist organisation of the economy, with or without the WTO, which basically is not amenable to amendment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caullery">
- (FR) The Millennium Round, which is due to start shortly within the World Trade Organisation, the WTO, must provide an opportunity for Europe, since we are bound by the condition of speaking with a single voice, not only to present itself as unified for the duration of the negotiations, but also to demonstrate the utmost firmness with regard to the outcome, particularly as regards agriculture and the cultural exception.
<P>
While, however, the Fifteen have recently adopted a joint negotiation policy in the context of the new round, which promises to be an ambitious one, it must be acknowledged that this basis which looks like the lowest common denominator shared by the Member States, will of necessity suffer a decline in the course of the negotiations.
<P>
Indeed, there is no doubt but that this compromise text, whose birth was so painful, will be subject to many pressures from the American side in the negotiations, even though the homogeneity of the Union is only a façade, and the Union has no legal arsenal available to it comparable with that in the hands of the United States, one that is likely, if necessary, to deter the American side.
<P>
While the organisation of free and fairer world trade must be encouraged and reinforced within the framework of a multilateral commercial system, it must also ensure that all nations, rich and poor, and I am thinking in particular of the countries of Africa, are guaranteed the possibility of making the most of the advantages which this round of negotiations is supposed to be bringing.
<P>
Indeed, although we must wait for the round of negotiations to be completed before passing judgement on the content as far as the results achieved are concerned, the fact remains that, as far as this context is concerned, the overall result could not be deemed completely negative if the nations of Europe were to manage to obtain stricter control of the international regulations regarding competition.
The establishment of universally recognised common minimum standards intended to oppose any action to restrict competition would already represent significant progress.
<P>
The European Union' s starting negotiating position, which is ambitious in its objectives, is bound not to emerge stronger from a round of negotiations which is in danger of dragging on and on and getting bogged down, particularly given the foreseeable attitude of the United States, which will not rest from attempting to progressively undermine the mandate which has been given to Mr Lamy and which merely constitutes a unified façade that does not successfully conceal the differences in the interests of the Fifteen.
Furthermore, the content of the final resolution adopted by the European Parliament today includes many points that are not acceptable to France.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Désir">
- (FR) the debates on the WTO which have just taken place in this Parliament on the occasion of the Schwaiger report have clearly shown that, as far as Europe is concerned, the forthcoming negotiations are concerned with the future of its social model at least as much as its trade.
Similarly for the countries of the third world, the question is knowing whether they will still be able to escape the clutches of the mega-multinationals produced by the mega-mergers and stay in control of their own development.
<P>
For the problem is not knowing whether rules are necessary in world trade.
Everyone is agreed on that.
The question is knowing whether the rules promoted by the WTO ever since its creation permit fair and sustainable development for all the regions of the world.
<P>
I shall make two observations:
<P>
Firstly, the liberalisation promoted in the previous rounds and the increase in the volume of trade have been associated with an intensification of inequalities in development on a world scale.
In theory, the leaps forward achieved by some should drag others along behind, but in fact the opposite has occurred.
The African continent' s share in world trade is less than 3%.
Liberal globalisation has proved incapable of providing a solution to the problem of development and still less of promoting fair and sustainable development.
<P>
This is the reason why an assessment of the social and environmental impact of the previous rounds was essential before engaging in a new wave of all-out liberalisation.
If it has been rejected so consistently, it is because the outcome would have been negative.
However, for the European Union, the establishment of an analysis shared with the countries of the third world could have been the foundation for the alliance which we are seeking to build with them on the occasion of these negotiations.
<P>
Secondly, the DSB (Dispute Settlement Body), created within the WTO, has demanded that the European Union give up its own standards in fields as fundamental as health and food safety or even its policy of cooperation in the case of the bananas from ACP countries and the outermost regions.
The question from now on is knowing if it is possible to accept a situation where, if one thing leads to another, decision after decision, ruling on everything on the pretext of settling commercial differences, the DSB may end up establishing itself as a sort of world-wide Supreme Court, imposing its views in all areas on elected governments and parliaments.
We would then be witnesses to a real seizure of democratic power.
<P>
This is why, in the Millennium Round, Europe must champion another vision of the organisation of commerce and world trade.
To do so it must assert three main principles:
<P>
The first is that the objective of this round must be the reduction of inequalities in development between north and south.
In order to achieve this, the rules of the multilateral trade system must take into account the differences between countries in situations and resources.
Free trade without taking anything else into consideration means that the strong get stronger and the weak get weaker.
This is why we cannot accept challenges to the Lomé Agreements and our policy of cooperation in the form in which we have constructed it in the Lomé Agreements with ACP countries, including 39 of the poorest countries in the world.
On the contrary, we must reassert the commitment undertaken towards them during the recent ACP-EU Joint Assembly.
Europe must go to Seattle with a vision of globalisation which is opposed to that of a unilateral world dominated by a single power.
It must promote a vision based on a multipolar world and encourage the formation of regional associations integrated both economically and politically, as we have been doing ourselves for 40 years.
How could we refuse others what we granted ourselves, after the war, in order to rebuild our industry, our agriculture and our economy?
<P>
The second principle should be that the WTO must be "confined" to a strictly defined role, and sectors which should only come under the remit of the sovereignty of states and the institutions established by citizens, because they concern the very identity of each society, should be kept out of its area of competence.
Public and social services such as education or health, but also those where consumer safety and collective interests are involved, such as public transport or air traffic control, culture and artistic creation, may not be taken into account as part of trade negotiations.
We must resist the onward rush towards treating everything in society as saleable commodities.
In the agreements on intellectual property, Europe must resist the patenting of living organisms, it must guarantee that derogations to the general trade regulations for medicinal products used to fight AIDS and other serious diseases indicated by the WHO are maintained.
<P>
Finally we must defend the principle of the hierarchy of standards.
Fundamental human rights and the Universal Declaration of 1948, the conventions of the ILO (International Labour Organisation) or conventions on the environment, are in essence superior to the standards governing trade.
It must not be possible to condemn a state for applying the precautionary principle, for protecting its environment, or for rejecting imports proved to be produced by child labour.
On the contrary, it must be possible to take an appeal against a WTO decision to the ILO or to the competent bodies of the United Nations.
We must reverse the unbalanced situation arising from the fact that having multilateral commercial agreements alone has led to the creation of a legal-style body, whereas this was not the case either for the conventions on the environment or the ILO conventions.
<P>
Some of these concerns were taken into account by the rapporteur at the end of the debates within the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
Unfortunately, in the course of the plenary sitting, the rapporteur and the PPE and ELDR groups introduced a number of amendments into the text which tone down the social and environmental requirements.
Considering, furthermore, the unfavourable outcome reserved for the amendments proposed by myself and my fellow members of the French Socialist delegation and the GUE/NGL and Greens/ALE Groups, I abstained, Madam President, in the vote on Mr Schwaiger' s report.
<P>
But I believe that one of the most significant elements, on the eve of this new round, one which distinguishes it from the previous rounds, is the intrusion of society, of NGOs and international public opinion into the debate.
I believe that we should be pleased at this, since it provides the best guarantee that it will not be possible to omit these issues in the course of these negotiations.
For their entire duration, they will remain at the centre of the debates of the European Parliament, I am sure.
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<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fruteau">
- (FR) The new round of negotiations of the World Trade Organisation, due to open in Seattle on 30 November, should provide an opportunity to establish better control of the liberalisation of trade.
But I doubt that this will be the case.
The doubt concerns our capacity, and our real determination, to make the WTO an instrument of regulation in order to make the transition from globalisation sought by the few and inflicted on all to truly regulated world trade which is of benefit to the whole planet.
<P>
Indeed it is this doubt which gives rise to my concern that if we do not succeed on this point, then we shall be forced to renege on longstanding commitments to developing countries, particularly towards ACP countries, to which we have been linked for 20 years by the Lomé Conventions.
At the risk of denting our clear conscience, I would at this point like to mention the example of the banana dispute, or the multinationals (Del Monte, Dole and Chiquita) which, with the support of the United States, are flooding the European market with bananas which are the product of slavery, produced, what is more, in conditions of the most dubious food safety and have managed to force us to our knees; a matter in which we are on the verge of unconditional surrender, abandoning hundreds of thousands of growers, not only in ACP countries, but also the farmers of our own Community in Guadeloupe and Martinique, to bankruptcy!
<P>
And recent statements by the Commission are not such as to allay this concern, saying, for example, that it is necessary to put an end to the banana conflict since it is poisoning transatlantic relations and because the Union would be sending an unfavourable message to the world as the new trade negotiations are dawning.
Who could possibly be against putting an end to the conflict?
No one, of course, but not at just any price, not by surrendering unconditionally.
The same applies to rum, since we have signed a unilateral agreement with the United States on the import of colourless spirits, and that includes rum, which will inevitably lead in the short term to the economic destabilisation of the entire Caribbean!
What will happen tomorrow, unless we are particularly vigilant, in the case of sugar, which is a crucial element in the economic balance of ACP countries such as Mauritius or a European region, such as Réunion, which I know well?
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The truth is, I am afraid, that whatever our fine statements, often with a touch of paternalism, we are on the verge of writing off our policy with regard to the poorest countries and to ACP countries, in particular, abandoning the farmers in our own outermost regions in the process.
And yet we have historic links with these countries.
Let me tell you, it is not just a matter of generosity.
For many of our countries, which are in fact former colonising powers, it is a very powerful moral commitment which we are honour-bound to respect!
<P>
Therefore, even though the resolution put to the vote this morning is a text which is perfectly acceptable in terms of the general objective which we have set ourselves, particularly thanks to the many amendments proposed by the members of my group, I did not vote in favour of this text, so as to fulfil the commitments which I have undertaken with regard to the voters in the French Overseas Departments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 NAME="Howitt">
- In the weeks leading up to the agreement of this resolution, many MEPs have sought to ensure Europe's stance is one which genuinely makes this a "Development Round" in the WTO, that developing countries are enabled to be full partners in the negotiating process, and to underline that the benefits of trade must be focused to combat increasing poverty in our world.
The European Commission and Council should heed our clear intentions in this respect.
<P>
On the extension of the WTO too include investment, I welcome the fact that the European Parliament has reiterated it strongly held position that the mistakes of the MAI must not be repeated, that investor responsibilities according to ILO and OECD guidelines must be dealt with alongside investor rights, and - by a clear majority - a European Code of Conduct for multinationals (amendment 15) be established.
<P>
I condemn the Conservative group in this Parliament who sought to remove development considerations from the proposed Standing Forum with the ILO, and incredibly sought to remove from our objectives, achieving "fair and socially balanced" as well as free trade.
I am glad they were defeated.
<P>
But the fact that they were prepared to vote for protection of "strict legal requirements" met by European farmers, but against the destructive dumping of agricultural goods by us in Europe against peasant farmers in developing countries is scandalous.
I call on European negotiators to respect our resolution in favour of the principle of food security and for no adverse effect for developing countries in the agricultural negotiations.
<P>
Protectionism by the European Union against the developing world is morally unacceptable and economically short-sighted.
It is time for it to end.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="Martin, David W">
- The WTO Millennium Round is an opportunity to manage the process of globalisation.
Globalisation must be managed in such a way that global challenges are translated into global progress.
<P>
Specific actions are needed in favour of developing countries, in particular the least developed countries, using partnerships to reduce inequalities between rich and poor countries.
<P>
Increased coherence between trade, labour, environmental, animal welfare and other internationally accepted regulations and principles of 'corporate governance' through improved cooperation between the WTO, the ILO, the United Nations, the Multilateral Environment Agreements and other international institutions must be mandatory.
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I therefore support the view that the Round be concluded as a single undertaking with results being considered globally.
I would prefer no agreement to an unfair agreement.
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<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Miranda">
- (PT) The importance of the negotiations about to take place under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation, which will open in Seattle on 30 November, is of course due to an agenda that covers huge areas of human activity: from agriculture to cultural activities, transport to education and health, copyright and designations of origin to foreign investment, and all of this combined in a global perspective as if these were all nothing more than simple "saleable" goods.
<P>
Some issues are particularly important - and they become particularly serious - because the guidelines which it is being sought to impose on them are obvious, such as liberalisation and the total control of world trade, the systematic privatisation of the public sectors and services which still claim to be public, deregulation and free access to public markets.
<P>
What this means is that we are facing an obviously neo-liberal perspective, which we are not only trying to uphold but also trying to consolidate and strengthen.
This type of objective is cropping up in such topical matters as food safety, public services and "intellectual property" , always in favour of a blind liberalisation of capital and in disregard of ILO working standards and of environmental rules that have been accepted throughout the world. This objective has dangerous implications for people' s cultural identity and for the actual development of dozens of countries, particularly the poorest.
These facts, of course, are causing growing movements of public opinion which are expressing reasonable concerns and seeking new directions.
<P>
There is, of course, no question as to the need for international economic regulation.
It is, nevertheless, obvious that there other ways of achieving this, ways that are quite different from those currently in force and to those being planned, and this places the need for a moratorium on negotiations on international trade relations on the agenda.
<P>
Apart from this, this regulation will always need to be guided by principles of cooperation and development; it will need to include respect for social and environmental standards adhered to throughout the world; it will need to respect the wishes, interests, specific differences and different degrees of development of the States concerned; it will need to respect and promote preferential agreements such as the Lomé Convention, and it will need to reject the treatment of some human activities such as education and culture as mere goods.
As it is so vital, it must be made completely transparent. New MAIs must be stopped and some laws must be definitively revoked, such as the Helms-Burton law blocking Cuba, as they are illegal from the perspective of international law.
<P>
Now this is quite obviously not the guideline that is currently being proposed to us.
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This is why, of course, we are voting against the Schwaiger report.
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<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Mulder">
With regard to the Schwaiger report, a number of amendments have been adopted which condemn the subsidised export of agricultural products from the EU to developing countries.
The VVD (Dutch People' s Party for Freedom and Democracy) recognises that this export can, in some cases, have a detrimental effect on developing countries.
<P>
This problem, however, cannot be solved by unilateral restriction of the EU Member States alone.
Other countries also subsidise their export and will immediately take the place of the EU when it discontinues the practice of subsidised exports.
<P>

A multilateral approach to this problem is required, whilst nothing is stopping the developing countries from adopting a sound agricultural policy, that is to say preventing or restricting, by means of import levies, the import of these cheap products at the expense of their own agriculture.
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<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
- (FR) Like all my colleagues, I voted against Mr Schwaiger' s report.
<P>
As our chairman, Mr Pasqua, specified in the course of the general debate which took place during the part-session at the beginning of October, and as my colleague, Mr Berthu, has just mentioned, it is essential, before undertaking a new round of negotiations, to make a clear and specific assessment, one that is objective, and thus independent and takes into account the views of both sides, in order to determine the economic, social, environmental and food safety-related consequences of the previous agreements of the Uruguay Round.
But we observe that, unfortunately, the Council has just given the Commission its negotiating mandate to go to Seattle, and this makes no mention of any such assessment.
When pushed, they are prepared to undertake a study, only a very limited one, on sustainability, but nothing to do with the preservation of our economic and social identities.
<P>
The failure to carry out an assessment may be analysed as the wish to hide the very mixed reality of the effects of the deregulation of world trade from the peoples of WTO member countries.
In the course of the years of the Uruguay Round, European agriculture has undergone the most significant reduction in workforce that it has ever known, thus causing the virtual breakdown of rural society.
A number of developing countries are starting to suffer from the head-on competition to which agricultural products of the Latin America zone and of the Africa zone are subject.
In the industrial sector, the concentration of some operators brings about situations of dominance over some markets, and small and medium-sized businesses (most particularly those which form the rural fabric of our country), bear the brunt of the unfair competition produced by the relocation of some multinational, or even transnational, enterprises.
<P>
While the need to defend a given European farm model is being asserted, we are avoiding giving it a precise definition by means of Community preference, autonomy in terms of foodstuffs and public health protection.
It is essential to define very quickly a European farm model based on diversified, traditional and healthy food, produced from essentially European agricultural products.
The principle of Community preference must be defended and, by the same token, the system of export refunds including for products described as "outside annex 1" , i.e. food products produced from European agricultural products whose market price is higher than the world rate.
<P>
The provision of healthy foodstuffs means that the primacy of the precautionary principle should be clearly established in the context of these negotiations.
This aspect of fair trade based on the absence of dumping for quality, environmental, social and fiscal reasons, if it is mentioned at all among the principles, is not asserted, with all the consequences of this, as a priority objective for European negotiators to attain.
The prime objective for the Europeans, if you listen to the Commission, would be to get ready to make concessions.
And indeed that is what the Commission is already doing, even before the negotiations have started, to the detriment of vital European interests.
<P>
I am extremely worried about the European Commission' s attitude.
Indeed, following the Uruguay Round negotiations, we have had a few conflicts with the American authorities.
The three main conflicts concerning the banana sector, the production and the incorporation of genetically modified organisms, and the importation of American beef, have all been negotiated by the Commission itself, against the interests of European and ACP banana growers, against the interests of European consumers and, of course, against the interests of our farmers and producers.
<P>
The Commission has acted and is continuing to act in these three case as if it wishes to ensure that there will be no outstanding disputes between the European Union and the United States when the negotiations are due to begin.
This is playing into the Americans' hands.
Instead of proclaiming the need for European concessions from the rooftops, the Commission would do better to forcefully assert the need to set right the errors and omissions of the Marrakech Agreement with regard to fundamental social rights, the environment, public health, in the general interest, indeed.
But this would mean acknowledging that the Commission handled the latest GATT agreements badly, and obviously that is just unthinkable.
The Commission therefore prefers, whether its representative is called Mr Brittan or Mr Lamy, to undermine our positions in advance regarding the precautionary principle, health safety and environmental protection, as well as economic interests in rural areas and, in the case of bananas, to make light of the special historic relations which our countries maintain in the form of international agreements with the ACP countries.
Special, do not even think about it.
The adjective is one that will make Mr Lamy jump with fright!
<P>
Report: Dimitrakopoulos/Leinen (A5-0058/1999)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, in the first draft of the Dimitrakopoulos-Leinen report on the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference, the following preliminary clause could be read, "Considering the rate of abstention from the last European elections, testifying to the growing disaffection of the citizens with regard to the current running of the Union, etc."
The Committee on Constitutional Affairs, no doubt aghast at such an admission, deemed it more prudent to eliminate this clause, with an overwhelming majority.
And my group has not subsequently managed to have it reintegrated.
<P>
I feel this anecdote is significant since is clearly shows the spirit in which this report was drawn up.
There is a refusal to see that the more federal Europe is becoming, the more distant it is becoming from the peoples of Europe, and the more disaffected they are becoming from it.
Sweeping aside this niggling detail, and many others too, the Commission feels more comfortable in proposing yet more federalism, extending majority voting to the Council, and constitutionalisation of the Treaties.
<P>
It is the same attitude of deliberately closing ones eyes to the facts which prevailed when it came to discussing enlargement.
People are acting as if extending qualified majority voting, i.e. extending the powers of coercion over minority countries, was going to solve all our problems.
This is serious self-delusion.
Standardisation has already gone as far as it can within the Europe of the Fifteen.
This can be clearly seen with the embargo on British beef and it is unrealistic to believe that it is possible to go further, with yet more constraints, within a Europe of thirty members.
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Two years ago, the Amsterdam Council already came up against this problem and did not manage to solve it.
The forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference will be no more successful in solving it if it continues to work on the same bases.
<P>
The fact is, we need a Europe which is more flexible and accords greater respect to its nations.
I gave the principles of this in a minority opinion appended to the Dimitrakopoulos-Leinen report, and the Union for a Europe of Nations Group developed the consequences of this by proposing twenty-one amendments, all rejected, alas, by the majority in Parliament.
But the day will have to come when this House acknowledges the impasse in which it is trapping itself by championing a monolithic Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bordes, Cauquil and Laguiller">
- (FR) We consider that the European institutions are infinitely more concerned with representing the interests of capital than those of the people in general and the working classes in particular.
Consequently we shall not adopt a stance on enlargement.
It is our conviction that the future belongs to a Europe without frontiers between peoples unified from one end of the continent to the other and freed from the de facto power of industrial and financial groups, this being an essential condition for the people to have real control over their institutions.
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<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sacrédeus">
<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alyssandrakis">
The matters left unresolved by the Maastricht Treaty and then by the Amsterdam Treaty, despite its mandate, have now come to the fore once again under the Damocles' sword of enlargement.
Who stands to gain from further integration of the European Union?
The people of Europe who, with every day that passes, watch their democratic and social rights eroded and their democratic victories corrupted in the name of competitiveness and by pressure to support a more and more autocratic structure?
I think not.
<P>
With the threat of deferred enlargement or even the withdrawal of the Union behind its original borders and in a bid to win new markets and share the plunder, provided that this can be done without rules, the capitalist system of the monopolies is trying to reconcile its internal differences, which were and which still are significant, in order to serve the common interest: i.e. overexploiting workers and achieving maximum profits.
<P>
Both the proposals of the so-called Wise Men and the Commission' s proposals lead in the same direction.
Even greater inequality between the peoples of Europe, between the Member States of the European Union and between the candidate countries.
What other purpose can there be to all these proposals which we hear and which, generally speaking, are incorporated into the report, on voting changes in the Council, on changes to the number or responsibilities of Commissioners, on reduced grass roots representation in the EC following the increase in the number of Member States, other than to strengthen the position of the rich countries of the EU, to strengthen the position of monopoly undertakings, the majority of which are established in those countries and to play down grass roots or national opposition to EU decisions which adversely affect the grass roots and which might even affect national interests?
<P>
What purpose can there be to the attempt to generalise the voting rule and the substantive, perhaps even formal repeal of the veto, despite deceptive grievances deliberately expounded to the contrary, other than to restrict the potential for grass roots intervention, at least where it opposes the choices made by the forces of capitalism in "smaller" countries?
<P>
How can the people of Europe call for the international role of the EU to be reinforced in the form of a new political and monetary union and a common defence and security policy when the EU is responsible, together with NATO, for the first act of war since the Second World War, i.e. the attack on Yugoslavia, in violation of every concept of international law?
Everyone understands that a currency, in the capitalist world, needs an army to defend and impose it.
This is the purpose behind the proposals for a common foreign and defence policy and an armed wing in the Union.
So that arms can be used to support the interests of the monopolies against the people of Europe itself and of non-EU countries.
This was proven by the campaign against Yugoslavia which, in addition to being illegal, was also unnecessary, at least for the reasons quoted, because it was made glaringly clear by the UNO itself, that all the government and mass media claims were shamefaced lies.
<P>
The clearest proof of the type of security being promoted is provided by the Amsterdam Treaty itself, the incorporation of the Schengen acquis, the creation of a Community prosecution service and the keeping of records on citizens' political convictions, ideological stance, trade union activity and love life.
<P>
We are opposed to this EU, this lackey of imperialism and big business, and we are opposed to the reversal which this autocracy means for democracy.
The EU cannot change with Intergovernmental Conferences, nor do the proposed negative institutional changes represent a change for the better for the people of Europe.
The people themselves will oppose, intervene and change the power ratios in order to bring down this anti-grass roots, anti-democratic, autocratic structure which exists to serve big business and create a Europe of peace and collaboration, friendship and equality between peoples, real democracy and freedom and economic prosperity for the benefit of the workers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Andersson, Färm, Hedkvist Petersen and Schori">
- (SV) We consider that the report concerning the preparations in anticipation of the next Intergovernmental Conference is a welcome initiative by the European Parliament.
The requirements in the report extend beyond what the European Council considers ought to be on the agenda for the next Intergovernmental Conference.
We also consider that it is far-reaching on a number of points.
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Section 13 (on providing the EU with a constitution and dividing the texts of the Treaties into two parts): We want to point out and clarify the fact that the only acceptable procedure when it comes to the constitutional part is unanimity.
<P>
Section 14 (on the revision of the Treaties): We consider that unanimity shall prevail when the Treaties are revised in accordance with section 13 a.
<P>
Section 17 (last part): We consider that unanimity shall apply not only in the constitutional part but also, for example, in the case of foreign and security policy.
<P>
Section 26, last part, may be interpreted in terms of the provision of reciprocal military guarantees.
We consider this to be unacceptable.
The EU has neutral and non-aligned States among its Member States.
For these, it would be inconceivable that resources should be created for reciprocal military guarantees within the context of the European Union' s security and defence policy.
Moreover, we do not consider that a precise and binding timetable for the common foreign and security policy is required over and above what was stated in the Cologne document.
<P>
Where section 27 is concerned, we view as considerable progress the fact that the so-called Petersberg Tasks in the Cologne document (humanitarian and rescue tasks, peace-keeping tasks and tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peace-making) are to be incorporated into the EU' s range of tasks.
This demonstrates that the EU is, in the first place, a political, social and economic project, including when it comes to conflict and crisis management.
The Petersberg Tasks mean that non-aligned and neutral States have an opportunity to participate in conflict and crisis management and, for that reason, there is no basis for integrating the WEU fully into the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">

- (DA) The Danish Social Democrats have today voted against Mr Dimitrakopoulos' s and Mr Leinen' s report.
<P>
The enlargement of the EU is an historic opportunity to create a peaceful, stable and cooperative Europe.
At the same time, it is the EU' s greatest challenge to date.
A change to the Treaties is a prerequisite for preparing the EU to admit the new Eastern and Central European countries.
It is now 10 years since the Berlin Wall came down.
We agree to the timetable which has been proposed so that the Intergovernmental Conference might be concluded by the end of the year 2000.
It must not be formalities such as changing the Treaties which postpone admission of the new countries.
That is why we must also be careful not to place obstacles or stumbling blocks in the way of the Intergovernmental Conference's ending on time and of its results being approved in the individual countries in accordance with the regulations in the respective countries' constitutions.
<P>
Mr Dimitrakopoulos' s and Mr Leinen' s report paves the way for a very thorough overhaul which we do not think it will be possible to implement within the established time frame.
We have therefore voted against it. The many amendments and the many different opinions which have been expressed in connection with the vote today illustrate as clearly as one could wish the problems which a very comprehensive agenda would entail.
<P>
As members of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, we have voted, together with our fellow party members, for and against a range of amendments.
We have done so because we want European development to move in a characteristically social democratic direction.
This does not however alter our general view of the report.
There are however a number of points which we must clearly reject, including initiatives which remove the basic principle that it is the Member States which, in accordance with their respective constitutions, should enter into and amend the Treaty concerned.
We must also clearly repudiate the idea of the EU' s being made into a defensive alliance.
This is not a task for the EU but for NATO.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Camre">
- (DA) I have voted against this decision for the reasons contained in the minority prior opinion delivered by Mr Georges Berthu of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group.
For technical reasons, it was only possible for Mr Georges Berthus' prior opinion to be delivered in the Committee on behalf of the French members of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group.
<P>
However, the minority prior opinion fully covers my points of view, a fact which I should like to be noted in the relevant record and minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Eriksson, Frahm, Schmid, Seppänen and Sjöstedt">
- (SV) The Intergovernmental Conference is a conference between the Member States' governments.
It is the Member States' parliaments which are to decide whether its results are to be approved.
We cannot therefore accept that the European Parliament should be given any form of right to make decisions on questions concerning the Treaties.
<P>
We also oppose the proposal in the report to the effect that the EU should become a legal entity.
In the same way, the report' s ideas about creating a military EU are alarming and unnecessary.
<P>
The last election to the European Parliament, in particular, showed that EU citizens are some distance away from sharing many Members of the European Parliament' s ideas about a federal EU.
EU citizens are still focused on the political debate taking place in the national arena.
The EU debate is reserved for a small political élite.
We therefore reject the fundamental features of the resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
- (DE) The proposals in the Dimitrakopoulos-Leinen report with regard to the reform of the Treaties in their institutional core areas provide for an extension of the qualified majority decision in the Council.
Moreover, according to the report, international law as such should be amended, as the Parliament should be granted a right of approval with regard to the conclusion of future Treaties.
This and many other problem issues fundamentally question the role of the Member States of the European Union as "Masters of the Treaties" .
We non-attached Members therefore reject this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Marinho">
- (PT) I do not think that the report which has been approved by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and submitted for the approval of this plenary sitting merits a positive response because:
<P>
1 - It makes requirements for revision beyond those that are laid down in the Treaty of Amsterdam, in such broad and general terms that it is not clear what a new "full" agenda is.
Particularly because it omits points for revision that I consider to be essential and that were agreed on in the opinions of other Parliamentary Committees, such as a revision of own resources, a revision of social cohesion, reform of the CAP, the extension of first Pillar competences in terms of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice, reform of the legal system etc...
<P>
2 - The revision centres on an agenda that essentially only concerns issues of decision-making power and a corresponding new balance between Member States, which will reduce, in the name of fairness, the weight of economically less developed States in favour of the more economically powerful ones, to which it is being attempted to give the mechanisms for strengthening their influence.
<P>
3 - Consequently, it accepts, by giving the Commission carte blanche to propose it, a redistribution of the weighting that each State holds in the wake of what can already be seen in the administrative and operational organisation of the Community executive, which threatens the historical and constituent principle of the European project which has always successfully stood firm on there not being proportionality between population and the weighting of votes.
<P>
4 - Consistent with the positions that I have always maintained in Parliament, regarding a revision of Maastricht and Amsterdam, with the aim of keeping sacrosanct the founding historical balance between large and small countries, I cannot approve this resolution which will open up a "Pandora' s box" for a Treaty that accepts as fair the supremacy of some States over others in breach of the principle of the equality of all European citizens.
<P>
That is why I voted against it!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Miranda">
- (PT) The new Intergovernmental Conference which is due to open at the beginning or in the middle of next year' s first term obviously takes on great importance for the Community agenda for the near future.
Not so much because the issues are new - some of them were included in the last IGC and not resolved - but certainly because of the complexity and sensitive nature of the issues that constitute the raison d' être of the forthcoming conference.
<P>
With the argument for enlargement, the realisation of which does not present us with any fundamental problems, but which we do not envisage being achieved without consequences at various levels - and in the name of efficiency and democratic behaviour, an amendment to the Treaties, particularly in the institutional domain, is being aimed for. This means giving up unanimity and extending decision making by qualified majority to new areas; it means a new weighting of votes in Council decision making by qualified majority; and it means changing the composition and functioning of the institutions in terms of the number of Commissioners, the Council Presidency, the composition of the EP or even the choice of working languages.
These are, in fact, changes that essentially target issues of power and influence within the EU and, where possible, aim to make viable or consolidate political boards of management around the largest and richest Member States.
<P>
The marginal role that, in this context, it is sought to give to smaller, less developed countries causes us, naturally, to take a very reserved position, one of concern and even outright opposition to the solutions that are being recommended.
Our position is further reinforced by the solutions sought by some people in the area of security and defence and which aim for a militarisation of the EU, which would thus be consolidated as a European pillar of NATO, a position that we also reject.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
- (SV) I cannot vote in favour of the Dimitrakopoulos/Leinen report for reasons which include the following.
<P>
The report has a clear supranational character.
I support cooperation between States, but not the supranational dimension which the rapporteurs advocate and which was clearly rejected in the latest EU election.
<P>
I also oppose the demands for common military defence, especially in sections 26 and 27 which require a "binding timetable" for a common defence and security policy which is to guarantee the EU' s external borders.
Nor can I accept that the WEU should be integrated in such a way that the EU might in the future take measures with the help of credible military resources.
No exception is to be made for Article 5 which prescribes a mutual responsibility for intervening militarily if another Member State is attacked.
Sweden is militarily non-aligned, aiming at neutrality in times of war, and may in no circumstances take part in common military defence.
<P>
I consider that it should only be possible to revise the EU' s statute through a unanimous decision in the Council of Ministers.
<P>
Finally, I consider that Parliament ought to concentrate on the changes which must take place if we are to cope with decision making in an enlarged EU.
<P>
Report: Pirker (A5-0059/1999)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, I abstained in the voting on the Eurodac report.
I did not vote for it because I do not find the procedure and a number of regulations acceptable.
Of course I regret that people have not seized the opportunity of acquiring a wider consensus on this important issue. Because it is necessary for us to be able to take action against those who cross the borders of the European Union with criminal intentions and fingerprints may well offer a solution in this respect.
This is why I have abstained in a number of crucial amendments, although I agree with the fundamental attitude of my group, who are unhappy about the fact that everyone is being tarred with the same brush.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Andersson, Färm, Hedkvist Petersen, Hulthén, Schori and Theorin">
- (SV) We should like to emphasise that introducing a system for comparing asylum seekers' fingerprints is not in itself a guarantee of achieving the humane and generous asylum policy we are aiming for and which would mean that Member States showed solidarity in giving asylum seekers the right to sanctuary.
In order to achieve an asylum policy of this kind, other measures and far-reaching efforts are required to further agreement between the Member States on the need for a generous and humane asylum policy.
We consider however that the establishment of Eurodac should be seen in the light of the opportunity to achieve such a humane and generous asylum policy within the European Union.
<P>
In the changes to the Commission' s proposal, which find expression in the report, we see reasons for backing the report. These changes will mean that it will not be possible for minors to be subjected to registration and that the right to personal integrity will be strengthened.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
- (DA) The Danish delegation wishes to express its full support for the establishment of Eurodac for the purposes of comparing asylum seekers' and certain other foreigners' fingerprints.
Eurodac will be a significant tool for ensuring that the Dublin Convention functions efficiently.
Given the selected legal basis for the agenda, we have declined - out of respect for the Danish reservation in the legal sphere - to participate in the final vote.
We have noted with great satisfaction that, at the meeting in the Council (legal and home affairs) on 29 October 1999, the Danish government announced that it would participate fully in the Eurodac partnership on an intergovernmental basis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Figueiredo">
. (PT) With the argument that we need to simplify the implementation of the Dublin Convention, the Council is trying to revive previous attempts to restrict the fundamental rights of citizens of non-EU countries by means of the creation of a mechanism for collecting fingerprints controlled by a central unit, which will cover not only refugees and asylum seekers but all citizens of third countries who are illegally present.
<P>
The Council' s endeavour to address fundamental rights by including children aged 14 and above is therefore blind.
<P>
But even with the minor amendments that have been approved by the European Parliament, including a minimum age limit of 18 years and a limit on the number of comparisons made of fingerprints to prevent more opportunities for error, this proposal that aims to create a Fortress Europe, closed to other citizens is unacceptable.
<P>
As the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market states, in normal circumstances, fingerprints will only be allowed to be taken from criminals or from individuals suspected of having committed crimes and not from asylum seekers, refugees or citizens of third countries who are illegally present within the territory or on a Member State' s border.
<P>
Thus, the protection of the fundamental rights of the individuals concerned requires that we do not proceed with the creation of a central control system for personal data because, in principle, none of those people may be treated as a criminal or be suspected of being one.
<P>
To make the situation worse, no measures for monitoring and protecting data are being proposed, which leaves open the question of how we can guarantee the implementation of effective sanctions which will serve as a deterrent against actions which are not authorised by the central unit.
<P>
This is the reason I have voted against this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lang">

- (FR) We voted against Mr Pirker' s report for, essentially, three reasons.
<P>
Firstly, because the amendments to the proposal for a regulation are far too liberal.
Next, because, at the insistence of the Socialist/ecologist/Communist government of my country, to my great shame, the regulation itself scandalously omits the filing of the fingerprints of illegal immigrants monitored on the territory of the Union.
Finally, because the text entrusts the management of Eurodac to a handful of Commission officials.
<P>
You have done away with internal borders.
In building the Europe of Brussels, Maastricht and Amsterdam, you have created an area of high insecurity where illegal immigrants, drugs, trafficking of many different kinds, and crime may circulate freely, any old how.
The steps you are proposing today not only through the Pirker report, but also through the reports on drugs or on the counterfeiting of travel documents are pathetic, given the real extent of the dangers to which you are exposing the citizens of Europe.
<P>
The only solution is to re-establish checks at the internal frontiers of the Community; to give the Member State police services adequate human, financial and material resources to fulfil their role of protecting honest citizens, and to cease giving the irresponsible parties of Brussels any sort of jurisdiction over matters of the police, justice, immigration and residence of aliens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Swiebel">
- (NL) The Dutch delegation in the PSE would hereby declare that it is unable to agree with the Pirker report approved today, on the proposal for a Council regulation concerning the establishment of "Eurodac" for the purpose of comparing fingerprints of asylum seekers and of certain other aliens.
We are quite convinced that extending the Eurodac system to cover groups of aliens other than asylum seekers is not the right way forward.
<P>
(The sitting was adjourned at 2.35 p.m. and resumed at 3.05 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Topical and urgent debate
<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Millennium Bug: military, civilian and nuclear sectors
<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on four motions for resolution on the Millennium bug: military, civilian and nuclear sectors:
<P>

B5-0268/1999 by Ms Plooij-van Gorsel, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the year 2000 computer problem and possible Europe-wide consequences;
<P>

B5-0268/1999 by Ms Theorin, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the year 2000 computer problem and de-alerting all nuclear forces (B5-0276/1999);
<P>


B5-0268/1999 by Ms Hautala, Ms Lucas, and others, on behalf of the Greens/ALE Group, on the year 2000 computer problem and possible Europe-wide consequences (B5-0292/1999);
<P>
B5-0303/1999 by Mr Chichester, Mr Morillon, and others, on behalf of the PPE/DE Group, on the Year 2000 computer Bug and its possible effects.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Mr President, Commissioner, only 43 days to go to 1 January 2000.
A date which many are looking forward to.
But before we can open the champagne with peace of mind at the turn of the millennium, specific European action in the civil and military nuclear sectors is desperately needed.
<P>
Within the European Union and the United States, the problems have been identified in good time. However, this has been the case to a lesser extent in Central and Eastern Europe.
The millennium problem in the nuclear energy sector should primarily be tackled by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
This UN organisation is the designated body for worldwide nuclear issues.
However, the IAEA has indicated that it has no funding for specific support to solve problems in Central and Eastern European countries.
The question remains as to whether these countries are themselves putting enough money into tackling the millennium bug.
Russia, in particular, is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.
<P>
Earlier this year, Parliament quizzed the then Commissioner, Mr Van den Broek, concerning the EU' s role in this transnational problem.
His reply was that the IAEA has drawn up an inventory of potential problems.
I now have three questions for the Commissioner.
<P>
Firstly, does the Commission have the results of this inventory?
If so, I would like to ask the Commissioner to provide an outline thereof.
Secondly, is the Commission conducting negotiations with governments in Central and Eastern Europe?
What concrete action has ensued therefrom?
Thirdly, what is the cost involved to the European Union?
I thank you and await your reply.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
Mr President, nuclear weapons are the weapons of the Cold War, but in spite of the fact that the Cold War is over, nuclear weapons are still there.
Thousands of these weapons are to be found on aircraft, on aircraft carriers and on land, ready for firing, despite the fact that there are no threats to use nuclear weapons.
To have nuclear weapons ready for immediate firing is a very dangerous situation, mainly because nuclear weapons can be released by mistake.
This has come close to happening on a number of occasions.
As recently as 1995, the Russians mistook a Norwegian test rocket for American nuclear weapons and went onto a full-scale war footing in Russia.
Mr Yeltsin had to be woken up in the middle of the night but, very fortunately, the mistake was discovered before he decided to fire any nuclear weapons.
<P>
The risk of nuclear war by mistake was one of the reasons for the Canberra Commission' s proposal that no nuclear weapons should any longer be held in readiness for firing.
This view was promoted in particular by the man formerly responsible for the United States' strategic nuclear weapons, General Lee Butler, who himself literally had his finger on the nuclear button for many years.
He knew how near we had been to unleashing a nuclear war by mistake.
<P>
The second demand we made in order to reduce the risk of nuclear war was to the effect that all nuclear weapons should be separated from their weapon carriers so that sufficient time might be made for serious political deliberations.
These two demands ought to be put into effect immediately.
The reasons are that computer errors in nuclear weapons systems precisely at the turn of the millennium can by mistake lead to nuclear war.
The early warning systems, which consist of a complex network of satellites, infra-red detectors and horizontal radar rely mainly upon the commercial electricity network.
Even if the Pentagon has double-checked millions of computer components, full safety cannot be guaranteed; nor can it be guaranteed in Russia.
Because of these serious defects in its early warning system, Russia cannot detect American intercontinental missiles for a period of three hours per day.
<P>
Nuclear power too relies upon the commercial electricity network in order, for example, to maintain the supply of cooling water and to cool down the radioactive core and the spent nuclear fuel.
If only a part of this protective network is knocked out because of computer errors, an estimated 100 metric tons of heavy uranium core in the reactor will melt down within two hours if the two reserve diesel generators do not function.
Unfortunately, these reserve diesel generators are only 85 per cent reliable.
<P>
What must happen now is for the world' s nuclear powers no longer to have their nuclear weapons primed for firing and for them to separate the warheads from the weapon carriers, at least for the period of the turn of the millennium.
Great Britain has already taken the decision to do this.
Nuclear power stations too must be temporarily closed down or supplied with protective mechanisms at the turn of the millennium.
It is this with which the resolution is concerned.
A decision no longer to have any nuclear weapons primed for firing and to remove their warheads (that is to say, to separate the nuclear weapons from the weapon carriers) may at the same time be the beginning of serious nuclear disarmament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schröder, Ilka">
Mr President, I support this compromise resolution on the year 2000 computer problem.
Unfortunately, this resolution is not sufficient to do justice to all the important aspects of this subject.
For this reason, I would mention three points in particular that are of great importance.
<P>
The Japanese government has called on the people to stockpile purchases.
That shows that the risk associated with the millennium bug is incalculable, and that also applies to Europe of course.
It is a matter of great urgency that instructions be issued on how to act and that we discuss what could happen.
<P>
Secondly, where is the reply from the EU to the desperate call for help from 27 African states on 21 October this year?
They are also asking the industrialised countries for help in overcoming their Y2K problem.
<P>
Thirdly: The main question is, however, where did they get this problem from?
This not only applies to Africa but to other countries in the "developing" world.
In all analyses of and discussions on this subject, the developing countries do not play a part.
But in fact they will be the hardest hit by the change in the date because they have been given old computers from the rich Northern countries that are not year 2000 compliant.
The serious effect of this will be that food supplies will not be guaranteed and the internal stability of many countries will be threatened.
<P>
43 days before the turn of the century and we are still far from a solution to this problem.
Here we see the dark side of the so-called global village of information technology.
Old computers are handed over, along with responsibility.
I expect rapid action.
That not only applies to the Y2K problem, because the next problem is almost upon us.
Many computers have not stored the date of 29 February in the year 2000.
Everyone is talking about the Y2K problem, the millennium bug, but this problem is not being prepared for at all and it could have much more serious consequences as a result of nobody being prepared for it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Morillon">
Mr President, when I was asked to take part in this debate, my initial response was to decline, since I considered that the alarms raised were the result of some millennium phantasmagoria blown up out of proportion by lobbies with a lot to gain from it, including, occasionally, by exploiting the credulity of their clientele for financial gain.
<P>
If, in the end, I have agreed to associate myself to the resolution to be put to the vote in this House, it is because I have been able to gauge the real feeling of some part of public opinion world-wide. These concerns, combined with the statements of our fellow Member on the subject of the reaction of the Japanese Government, and of other international bodies, inviting people to take precautions and to lay in stocks in expectation of the anticipated end of the world, have convinced me that the precautions advocated by this Parliament are, in their wisdom, likely to soothe fears and may therefore prove useful.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="Doyle">
Neither the age of a plant nor its location, nor indeed the state-of-the-art design are any guarantee of Y2K date compliance.
I would not like to be in this building at midnight on 31 December - a mere 43 days from now.
Lifts, fire alarms - what would work, if anything? There is a serious point to my jesting.
We only have to think about it.
This is a modern state-of-the-art multi-million plant.
<P>
In Ireland successive governments have expressed their concern to UK governments concerning the accident rate at the BNFL institutions, particularly the accident rate at Sellafield on the UK's least-populated west coast, only a few miles across from our most populated east coast.
You may laugh, Mr President, but I am serious.
It is not a major credible accident I have in mind and I do not mean to be alarmist. But I have to put on record my lack of confidence in the British nuclear industry's safety record.
As a sovereign, non-nuclear nation, we in Ireland have a right to self-determination in terms of our people's health and environment.
Consultation and communication between our two countries over the years regarding the British nuclear programme have not been good.
A certain high-handed arrogance has been apparent despite public relations by Sellafield in recent years.
<P>
I conclude by saying that all nuclear nations need to state clearly and honestly their programmes for Y2K date compliance, to assure their own and neighbouring nations of their readiness.
Even at this late stage it is better we know the problems than adopt a head-in-the-sand approach.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="Lucas">
The first thing I want to say is how warmly I welcome this Parliament resolution.
This will send a clear signal around the world about how seriously we take the Y2K issue, and it will hopefully act as an example for others to follow.
Time, however, is clearly running out.
That means however good intentions are now there is bound to be a risk of failures.
In particular, the high level of computer interconnections between countries, particularly in the western world, makes it impossible to predict exactly what the failures might be and where they could occur.
The higher the level of integration, the higher the level of unpredictability.
<P>
The situation in Eastern Europe is also far from reassuring.
The lack of information coming from there worried the Commission as late as June this year, and the further east you go, the more worrying the situation gets.
The safest approach is to turn off these plants at the millennium, but how does Lithuania turn off 75% of its generation capacity from Ignalia?
By leaving people in the dark without water?
The West must offer assistance, so I particularly welcome this resolution's call on OECD countries to provide resources for this.
<P>
I will finish very quickly with an anecdote that would be funny if were it not so serious.
The US and the Russians recently set up some hotlines them so they could liaise together over Y2K problems, and in all but one of the seven hotlines they set up, they discovered Y2K problems!
Nothing will be certain in the weeks ahead, we must act now to reduce the risks around the world and I welcome the contribution this resolution will make to the process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lamy">
Mr President, I shall answer your questions and contributions on those matters which fall within the jurisdiction of the Commission.
<P>
The way we see the situation in the Member States, the nuclear candidate countries with nuclear facilities and in the newly independent states is as follows.
Let me first point out that very few nuclear power plants do in fact use a computer-based system for the essential part of their safety system.
<P>
The Member States which have nuclear power plants have been working on this question for at least two years, and the information in our possession indicates that the necessary corrective measures have by now been practically completed, as have all works to do with emergency planning.
In this matter, the Commission has promoted exchanges of know-how and of good practice, but we did not consider it useful to intervene further with our activities in the actions of Member States.
<P>
The case is rather different for some countries of Central and Eastern Europe and some new Independent States, whose response to the problem has been less prompt.
Some of them, in fact, did not start to concern themselves with this problem until the end of 1998.
These countries have been supported in their work by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which reviewed their analyses of the extent of the problem in the cases of a considerable number of power plants.
Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel referred to the operations carried out to date, and my answer to her is this: the operations of the Agency and of countries using nuclear power plants did not reveal any "bug" problems in the essential safety systems.
<P>
The Commission provided additional assistance to a number of nuclear power plant operators.
We financed European Union expert missions to 3 power plants in Russia and to 3 power plants in Ukraine.
In addition, we offered our assistance to the nuclear regulation authorities as of the beginning of this year, and we are now supporting projects of this type in Bulgaria, Slovakia and Russia.
<P>
Although none of the elements in the crucial safety systems are affected, a number of other systems, particularly the operator display systems, may be affected and failure of these systems may indirectly threaten nuclear safety by increasing the burden on the operators, as has been mentioned.
According to the information available to us, we think that the countries of Central and Eastern Europe have generally made good progress in correcting these systems.
In comparison, the new Independent States of the former Soviet Union are making undeniably slower progress in their corrective operations, but they are all claiming that the work will have been completed by the end of the year.
We are supporting these rehabilitation projects by contributing to the activities of two international scientific and technical centres, in Moscow and Kiev, and we are prepared, if necessary, to provide additional assistance to these programmes in consideration of the fact that, as you have said throughout this debate, we are getting extremely close to the transition to the year 2000 and the main thing has been to begin to address the problem in good time.
<P>
This is my answer, and this is our contribution to solving this important problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m. today.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
East Timor
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on five motions for resolution on East Timor:
<P>
(B5-0271/1999) by Mr Maaten, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the situation in East Timor;
<P>

(B5-0273/1999) Ms Figueiredo, Mr Miranda, and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the situation in East Timor;
<P>
(B5-0280/1999) Mr Seguro, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the situation in East Timor;
<P>
(B5-0289/1999) Mr Queirò, on behalf of the UEN Group, on the situation in East Timor;
<P>


(B5-0299/1999) Ms Hautala, Ms McKenna, and others, on behalf of the Greens/ALE Group, on the situation in East Timor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Seguro">
Mr President, it has, in fact, been possible once again to reach an agreement between all the political groups and to present a single motion for a resolution on Timor.
<P>
This motion for a resolution is a clear signal to the international community that, in spite of the fact that news about Timor has disappeared from the major European newspapers and that it is no longer the leading item on the most important European television news broadcasts, the international community and the European Union must continue to be attentive to this problem.
<P>
Firstly, because abuses of the human dignity and of the human rights of the Timorese who are refugees in other parts of Timor, particularly in West Timor, and who want to return to East Timor are still taking place. The Indonesian authorities must, as a matter of urgency, make humanitarian action possible, particularly on the part of non-governmental organisations.
<P>
Secondly, there must be greater vigilance by the peacekeeping forces at the border so that those Timorese who do have the right to return to West Timor can do so safely.
On the other hand, those responsible for the massacres and for the attacks on human life must be punished, not just to ensure that justice is done in Timor, but, indeed, to set an example for other parts of the world where, sadly, attacks on dignity and, above all, on life, which we feel is an inalienable right, still exist and continue to take place.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, our intention is for the Commission and the Council to match the condemnations and political speeches with an appropriate expression of financial and technical support for the process of independence and the reconstruction of East Timor.
This is why the Socialist Group supports this resolution and this was what I wanted to say.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 NAME="McKenna">
I would like to support very much what the last speaker has just said.
With regard to the situation in East Timor we really need to put as much pressure as possible on the Indonesian authorities, because they seem to be turning a blind eye to a lot of what is happening there.
The Indonesians must try and halt the militia and their activities in the area.
There is also the UNHCR fear that the situation is actually going to worsen.
It is not just in East Timor, but also in West Timor where there are still a huge number of refugees - an estimated 250 000 refugees.
As regards the international agencies, we have to ensure that the UNHCR's repatriation programme is allowed to continue without any kind of disruption, because there have been a number of incidents in recent times which point to a deliberate attempt to try and disrupt the UNHCR's repatriation programme.
It is essential that this programme is allowed to continue.
Indonesia itself must facilitate the work of relief agencies and the international forces so as to ensure that peace and stability return to the area.
<P>
We in the European Union, along with the United Nations, all encouraged the East Timorese to exercise their right to vote in the referendum.
What happened after that was completely and totally unacceptable, though predictable.
In fact it was predicted long before it happened, and action should have been taken much earlier to prevent the atrocities and the murder of innocent people.
Unfortunately, a huge number of people lost their lives because of the irresponsible attitude of the international community.
Since then, some countries have woken up to the fact that they can no longer stand by idly and watch Indonesia with the support of the militia organisations in that area murdering and chasing the East Timorese out of their country.
It is about time that they had the right to independence - it is what they voted for.
Member States of the European Union have to support them - not just with words but also financial assistance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Figueiredo">
Mr President, the developing situation in East Timor must continue to enjoy the complete attention of the European Union' s institutions.
In spite of the positive measures that were taken following Parliament' s resolution on September 16 last, specifically the entry of the international peace and security force under the auspices of the UN and INTERFET, the humanitarian safety situation remains serious both in East Timor itself, which it is essential to provide with resources to support reconstruction, and for approximately 250 thousand people forcibly displaced to Indonesia and, particularly, to West Timor.
<P>
Therefore, it is crucial that the European Union, the Member States and the whole international community maintain firm pressure on the Indonesian authorities so that they disarm and control the so-called "militias" with the utmost urgency and they create the necessary conditions of safety for the refugees to return to East Timor, whose territorial integrity should be respected in its entirety.
<P>
It is equally vital for words to be replaced with action and humanitarian and financial aid to East Timor to actually be provided.
The delay in the arrival of the aid promised by the European Union, despite the promises made by the Council and the Commission, is unacceptable.
And as approval of the budgetary line for the next few years has been positive, it is vital that the necessary sums be provided for economic and financial support for the reconstruction of East Timor and for its transition to independence.
<P>
Finally, it is important to reiterate the fact that the decisions on the East Timor independence process are a matter for its people. This means respecting its sovereignty, so decisions on its present and its future must be taken in close collaboration with the National Council for Timorese Resistance, as it is not for international organisations to replace the people of East Timor but to give them all the necessary support.
<P>
Therefore this is an appeal for all Member States, the institutions of the European Union and the whole international community to keep support for the people of East Timor on the agenda and to take the first steps towards the international recognition of the State of East Timor Lorosae and the respective establishment of diplomatic relations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Costa Neves">
Mr President, this week sees the start of the United Nations transfer of authority in East Timor to UNTAET.
They do not have an easy task.
The situation of delay, made worse by the vindictive destruction perpetrated by the Indonesian armed forces, the small size of the territory together with the fact that there is another half to the island, the coexistence with neighbours and powerful interests and the lack of an administration are all factors that contribute to the complexity of the task and show the need for the involvement of the Timorese and the importance of international solidarity.
<P>
The next two years must be won.
We must build basic infrastructures, establish bases for production, install an administration where none currently exists and do so taking into account the will and the involvement of the Timorese people.
They know what they want and have the right to participate from the outset in their country' s construction.
<P>
With regard to international solidarity, it is clear that the joint assessment mission, coordinated by the World Bank and in which elements of the Commission participated, has finished its work in the area.
An estimate of the costs of reconstruction has been made - EUR 250 million over three years - and a conference of donors will be held on 17 December.
<P>
The data that has been made available is very useful for Parliament too.
I must point out that after the referendum on August 30 we were already expressing our desire for the European Union to become actively involved in the tasks of reconstruction.
In line with this desire, when, at first reading, we took a stand on Budget 2000, we established a specific point of a multiannual nature with EUR 30 million allocated to the reconstruction of East Timor, an amount that should be increased in view of the information provided by the joint assessment mission.
<P>
In conclusion, I would like to highlight the tragic situation of the 250 thousand refugees outside East Timor: the whereabouts of several dozen thousands of people is not known and many of those we do know about are women and children. The refugee camps are dominated by those militias who, having terrorised East Timor, are continuing to do the same in Indonesian territory.
In the meantime, Indonesia is keeping its land borders closed.
The situation is intolerable and is affecting a third of East Timor' s population, which has the right to a free and informed choice as to whether they stay in Indonesia or return to East Timor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Queiró">
Mr President, on behalf of my group, the Union for a Europe of Nations, I would like to state that I am one of the authors of this report and to say that this is our best opportunity to keep the issue of East Timor on the international agenda.
<P>
There is no doubt at all that there are still many problems, both in the area of humanitarian aid and in that of support for reconstruction, and also because we are still seeing serious violations of human rights, particularly in West Timor, with the activity of the militias which have prevented the refugees from East Timor regrouping and returning to their homes and to their land.
<P>
These are the reasons that lead me to agree wholeheartedly with this resolution, and also even to highlight again the need for there to be a specific investigation into who is responsible for the massacres that have taken place and for the appropriate judicial authorities to punish those responsible.
I would also like to highlight the proposal that has been made to send a new delegation from the European Parliament to East Timor precisely to verify in loco how this process of reconstruction is taking place and being handled, and in order to have all the necessary facts to enable us to continue maintaining East Timor as an issue that deserves the unanimous attention of all European Members of Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, the situation in East Timor may have taken a turn for the better thanks to the change of power in Indonesia and thanks to the arrival of the peacekeeping force, but for the ordinary citizen in East Timor and also for the refugees still in West Timor, the situation is still very alarming indeed.
This may not apply to the political situation - indeed, East Timor' s independence is now being respected - but it very much applies to the humanitarian and judicial situation, for which a solution has not been found in any shape or form.
<P>
Although the UNHCR are making every effort to bring the people back, there is a great deal of opposition.
UNAMET are trying their utmost to protect the people but the militia groups are still active.
What is really required is a swift international inquiry into the past events, an international tribunal to administer justice and, in particular, to punish the killers.
<P>
What is also required, is aid for the reconstruction.
This is needed quickly as the rainy season is on its way.
Exactly how much money has the Commission earmarked for this situation?
Mr President, as we are on the subject of Indonesia and dramatic events there, could I also receive feedback on what was laid down by resolution in early October, namely that the situation on the Moluccas is also becoming untenable.
This area too is having to deal with 70,000 refugees, 500 killed and a judicial system invariably staffed by militia groups.
We have asked for help and we have not really had any reaction to this.
<P>
Mr President, the Indonesian government appears to be sensitive to international criticism.
I therefore welcome the fact that both the Commission and this Parliament are taking action in respect of Indonesia.
It would be a good idea for the Commission to pay a visit there to have a look and talk to everyone.
I also agree with what has just been said, namely that a delegation of the European Parliament should also go and visit East Timor once again, and maybe the Moluccas too, to gain an insight into the events in these areas.
At any rate, this item should not be taken off the agenda for a long while, because the people over there are still going through a very tough time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lamy">
The redevelopment of East Timor, in terms of its extent and its political specificity, is an important task for us and for the entire international community.
<P>
Within the framework of the United Nations, we must all contribute towards finding an overall solution to this problem, including issues relating to human rights and the establishment of a new state.
In this context, I am pleased to see that Mr Sergio Vieira de Mello, the new United Nations coordinator, arrived in East Timor last Tuesday.
I feel we can wish him nothing but success in this difficult assignment on behalf of the Commission, for my part, and on behalf of the Parliament and the European Union.
<P>
You know that the Commission is fully committed to shouldering its responsibilities as regards humanitarian and redevelopment operations.
In response to Mrs Maij-Weggen' s question on humanitarian aid, ECHO has to date committed EUR 5 million and there is a further decision concerning EUR 10 million "in the pipeline" , as it were, in order to complete the work we are currently undertaking on the spot.
We have responded to international appeals and have currently made commitments up to the equivalent of approximately EUR 8.5 million in food aid.
This is not a negligible amount, and we are attempting to measure out this aid to suit the local capacity to absorb it.
<P>
The priority that we give to aid for East Timor will be clearly expressed, and I believe that this complies with your suggestion, Mrs Maij-Weggen, by the visit which Commissioner Nielson is going to be making at the end of the month to both East and West Timor.
The Commission will be represented on the spot, at the end of the month, by the Commissioner responsible.
<P>
According to our information, the United Nations is managing the large-scale operations in East Timor efficiently.
The repatriation of displaced persons is in progress. As of the day before yesterday, approximately 65,000 of all the persons displaced had returned, and the Indonesian Government gave us assurances that the process of voluntary repatriation would be completed within 100 days.
<P>
Subsequently, it shall, of course, be of the utmost important for the East Timorese themselves to participate in all aspects of the process of redevelopment and development.
As you have pointed out, in addition to establishing the foundations of the economy, the emergence of a political power that is up to the task and the development of the necessary institutions will be key elements.
After independence, the government will have to determine its foreign policy stance, particularly as regards membership, if appropriate, of the Lomé Convention.
<P>
This is the information I wished to give you in response to your questions.
<P>
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m. today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, Commissioner Lamy has not responded yet to what happened to the resolution we submitted in early October regarding the area north of Timor.
There were a few questions regarding this area too.
I would like to know when we will receive a reaction because people are in fact waiting for this.
The situation there is not as serious as it is in Timor but it is getting increasingly worse.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 NAME="President">
Mrs Maij-Weggen, you have been a Member of this House for a long time.
You know the Rules.
We have a very strict period of time for urgencies.
It is not a Question Time, it is a debate.
The Commissioner can choose to reply to those parts of the debate he wishes to reply to.
I am sure that in private he would be happy to give you an answer to your question.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Human Rights
<SPEAKER ID=176 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Sylla">
Mr President, I would like to tell you briefly that I belong to a generation which was fortunate not to live through the massacre of Algerians in Paris in 1961, not to experience, on 9 November 1938, Kristallnacht or the start of Jewish persecution in various European countries and fortunate, above, all to see the end of apartheid in South Africa.
If, at every stage along the way, there are people who rose up and said, "Never again" , it is quite simply because they are convinced that there is nothing worse than physical harm inflicted on individuals.
<P>
This founding principle of Europe is today being challenged, indeed, by the application of the death penalty in a considerable number of places throughout the world.
China, the self-styled democratic Republic of the Congo, the United States and Iran have the sad record of coming at the top of the list of the countries which apply the death sentence.
According to Amnesty International, there are 3,500 prisoners waiting for execution in the United States, where 68 prisoners were executed last year.
In these countries, the right of life or death over prisoners is all the more intolerable in the light of the ridiculously limited budgets allocated to crime prevention policies and social matters.
I prefer to think that, as Victor Hugo said, to close one prison, it is enough to open one more school.
There is absolutely no doubt that the seventeen years that Mumia Abu-Jamal has just spent rotting on death row following a travesty of justice are linked to the fact that he is black, to his fight against institutional racism, to the freedom of thought which this journalist practised by having the courage to denounce the corruption prevailing in the ranks of the Philadelphia police.
In the same way, Iran, which executed 66 people last year, would have us believe that the dozens of students arrested and the 13 Jews, were spies.
<P>
The mobilisation of international opinion, as we have seen, prevented the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal, scheduled for 2 December.
But, for the time being, there has only been a stay of execution.
We must now seek to have the order of execution revoked definitively.
We must widen and intensify our pressure on these countries and hit them where it hurts.
It is important that European businesses should refuse to invest in the states of the United States or anywhere else in the world where the death penalty continues to be applied.
The Member States of the European Union must refuse to extradite any person to a country where it is known that their death sentence is automatically programmed as soon as they set foot there.
Demanding the immediate and unconditional abolition of capital punishment throughout the entire world today does not just mean promoting human dignity but also validating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
<P>
Mr President, I belong to a generation which thinks that conventions against torture and discrimination should not be signed just for the fun of it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Frassoni">
Mr President, the events that led up to the withdrawal of the motion on the moratorium are described and evaluated, in the resolution we are preparing to vote on, in a fairly neutral and rather polite way.
<P>
I am afraid that the reasons behind the withdrawal of this resolution are, at the very least, suspect, and have more to do with a kind of boycott than the defence of principles.
I truly hope that Parliament will be attentive to this subject, because it is clear that the attitude of some of the Member States has been ambiguous, to say the least, and it is therefore logical that Parliament - which from this point of view has always been quite consistent - must continue to be vigilant.
<P>
As the Group of the Greens, we have taken note of these events, as well as the somewhat half-hearted wording of this resolution, which, however, we consider it important to adopt, at least in order to indicate that there is a problem that we must continue to be active on.
Nevertheless, I would stress once again that, from this point of view, the European Union' s ambiguity is apparent to everyone, and I therefore think that we should express ourselves in a much clearer way than we have in the resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
Mr President, we are always complaining and regretting - rightly in my opinion - that the European Union does not speak with one voice on the international stage.
Despite what our colleague has just said, I think that on this occasion there is more than sufficient reason to congratulate ourselves on the fact that the European Union has unanimously presented a resolution to the United Nations requesting a moratorium on the death penalty.
It is sad that this initiative has not come to fruition and we hope that it will do so during this legislature.
<P>
What I would like to say, Mr President, is that we have done this because we are convinced that everybody has the unalienable right to the respect for life and this right cannot go unrecognised or be violated.
We have all seen the horrendous pictures of the last death sentence passed by the Florida Court and it will therefore not surprise any of you that the first person to appear in the text of the joint resolution should be the Spanish - and hence European Union - citizen, Joaquín José Martínez, whose sentence we ask to be reviewed and whose death sentence we ask to be suspended.
<P>
In this case there has been a series of coincidences which have inspired an enthusiastic solidarity movement in our country in which the Government, all the political parties and the rest of society have taken part.
I would like to say that there have been a whole series of irregularities in the trial and it appears that the defence lawyer has not fulfilled his commitments.
However, Mr President, what is serious - and his case is serious enough as it is - are not the conditions of this trial, nor the fact that the United States holds the tragic and regrettable record for executing people who are later proved to be innocent.
What is most tragic and regrettable is the fact that the death penalty exists at all.
I therefore believe, Mr President, that as a European Parliament we have to show, in this and all other similar cases, a firm and resolute commitment to the right to life, as we have done in this joint resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Malmström">
Mr President, the death penalty is in fact a repugnant relic of a vanished age.
It is founded upon an Old Testament "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" mindset which is not worthy of humanity now that we are approaching a new millennium.
The Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party has played a forceful role in the fight against the death penalty.
In one after another of the applicant States, it is either in the process of being, or already has been, abolished, which is a very positive development.
In spite of that, the death penalty is still applied in all too many States.
Only last year, 1,625 prisoners in 37 different countries were executed, and there are thousands on death row.
In the United States alone, several thousand people are waiting to be executed.
<P>
Some of the prisoners condemned to death throughout the world have committed odious crimes, but that does not justify their being executed.
All too often, the death penalty is used for political purposes, and there can be legal confusion and innocent people can be executed.
That alone is an argument against this barbaric form of punishment.
Nor does the death penalty have any proven deterrent effect.
<P>
The resolution we are debating is really quite remarkable.
It names three citizens who, over the next few days, are to be executed in the United States.
Obviously, we are urging the American government not to carry out these death sentences.
But what the resolution really ought to be concerned with - a subject which my colleagues too have taken up - is the memorandum concerning the death penalty throughout the world. The Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party wholeheartedly supports this memorandum, which the UN has initiated.
We would encourage the Commission and the Council to pursue this issue vigorously and to unite the European Union in unanimously condemning the death penalty in every forum so as to give rise to a worldwide moratorium on its use.
The abolition of the death penalty would be a fantastic step forward in the fight for human rights and also a big step forward for the recognition of human dignity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Díez González">
Mr President, every year hundreds of human beings are executed in the world - often in the so-called civilised world - at the hands of other human beings.
In 1998 it was noted that there were at least 1,625 executions in 37 countries and almost 4,000 death sentences in another 78 countries.
These figures refer exclusively to the information which Amnesty International has been able to collect.
The true figure is, without doubt, much higher.
Every year an unknown number of people are declared innocent after being executed.
According to a report released recently, since 1973 and in the United States alone, 75 prisoners condemned to death were released when it was discovered that they had been wrongly convicted.
We will never know how many innocent people there were amongst the approximately 7000 prisoners executed in the United States of America during this century.
According to Amnesty International, for every six prisoners executed since the restoration of the death penalty in the United States, one innocent person was condemned to death and later pardoned.
<P>
Therefore, it seems to me that the Council' s proposal to the United Nations, however important and positive the initiative may be, is very timid because calls on those States which retain the death penalty - and I quote - "to progressively restrict the number of crimes for which it is imposed" .
<P>
Does that seem to us to be sufficient?
Do we want to be a diplomatic Assembly or a political Parliament?
That is why we ask the Council, in section 9 of this resolution, in the negotiations with third countries, to examine the possibility of incorporating the abolition of the death penalty into the clause on human rights.
Perhaps the Council is not in a position to do any more, but what about us?
Should we not be more demanding?
Should we not be more ambitious?
The answer is yes.
This is why we are sending this message to the Council and all the nations of the world.
<P>
The case of the Spanish citizen, José Joaquín Martínez, is a clear example of justice with no guarantees.
That is why he is calling for real justice, and that is why we support him today.
He wants a new form of justice so that he can demonstrate his innocence, and he has the right to it.
But I declare, we all declare together, that no death sentence is a just sentence.
None is.
<P>
I will also end with a biblical quote which is more positive than the one quoted by my colleague.
It is a quote from Genesis.
Cain killed Abel and nobody disputed his guilt in this horrendous crime.
He spilled the blood of his brother and the Lord cursed him and expelled him from his house and condemned him to live as a fugitive and a vagabond: "And Cain said to the Lord: 'every one that findeth me shall slay me' .
And the Lord said unto him: 'Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold' .
And the Lord set a mark upon Cain lest any finding him should kill him" .
May nobody touch Cain, that was the message.
May nobody touch Cain.
<P>
That should be our ambition: that nobody can execute any human being ever, in any part of the world, for any reason.
Nobody.
Not even the United States of America.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, we probably do not always feel comfortable in this Parliament, because what is approved is not what we wanted to be approved.
However, once again, this Parliament is going to speak to the rest of the world against the death penalty.
I therefore feel proud to be here this afternoon and to be able to vote, unanimously, for a condemnation of the death penalty.
<P>
The death penalty is barbarous.
As other Members have said, it is a terrifying fact that many innocent people have been executed.
And I do not understand how anybody can live with that on their conscience.
<P>
In reality today' s resolution talks about three specific cases: firstly, the case of José Joaquín Martínez, a Spaniard, in whose trial enormous irregularities have occurred.
I have here a copy of a letter which one of the witnesses sent.
He is in prison, it is true, but he sent a letter to the court saying that he had heard somebody claiming responsibility for the murder which José Joaquín Martínez is convicted of.
With this simple source of doubt, it is impossible to condemn a defendant to death.
Therefore we ask in the resolution for a new trial and that under no circumstances the death sentence be passed.
<P>
The second case is that of Abu Jamal.
There are many reasons to believe that the trial and death sentence on Abu Jamal were motivated by political factors, above all, because he was a leader.
For the moment he has been spared.
His execution was set for 2 December.
We also demand that this death sentence not be carried out.
<P>
And we also take up the case of a person who is mentally ill, who was about to be executed and who has been spared.
It seems to us an enormous and terrifying cruelty that anybody should consider executing ill people of this type and that people should be kept in prison for 21 years, as is the case with a Canadian who was due to be executed and, half an hour before his execution, had his appeal accepted in court.
<P>
This is tremendously cruel and the world cannot accept it.
This Parliament must champion the demand for a universal moratorium, if this is not approved now.
And to this end we must display our moral authority.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, I am in complete agreement with Mrs Díez González on the need to seek to convince the Council to introduce a clause on capital punishment and the abolition of capital punishment into agreements with third countries.
But, no doubt, it would also be necessary to seek to convince the members of the Socialist Group that they should be firm on this point.
This has not been the case to date, and I therefore wish Mrs Díez González good luck.
<P>
Having said that, I think that the heart of the matter was raised by Mrs Frassoni and Mr Salafranca.
What we are talking about here is not the issue of capital punishment.
This House has shown on many occasions that it was convinced of the need to establish a universal moratorium.
What we are talking about here is foreign policy and, more exactly, once again, the matter of the European Union' s lack of foreign policy.
<P>
I would go further than Mrs Frassoni.
There is no ambiguity.
On Monday, the Council decided to withdraw the motion it had proposed on the pretext that it reiterated a fundamental article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. On Tuesday, it voted in the texts with the same reference to the fundamental articles of this declaration.
The problem clearly, therefore, lies in the lack of political will, and we can imagine the reasons for this: pressure from some major countries, such as the People' s Republic of China, the United States and Japan, who succeeded in ensuring that this policy, upon which the Union had already decided, was literally betrayed at the last moment.
The central problem before us, then, as a Parliament, is the problem of a necessary joint European policy on security and foreign affairs.
<P>
One of the first things to ask for is that this dossier is handed over to Mr Solana.
It is no longer possible for this dossier to be placed in the hands of presidencies which, as we know, change over every six months; we need a permanent spokesman who can, on his own authority, organise the work of the various Member State delegations in New York so that, next year, we have a position which is consistent from beginning to end, thus avoiding this truly tragic situation, one that has made things difficult for a number of third countries friendly to the European Union, starting with Mexico, which had made a very firm commitment to defending our perfectly acceptable compromise position.
We must therefore amend today' s motion for a resolution in order to firmly condemn the Council and ask it, as firmly, to entrust this dossier to Mr Solana, and to him alone.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Êaramanou">
Mr President, Parliament has today, for the umpteenth time, expressed its repugnance of the anachronistic, anti-democratic methods of punishment of dubious efficacy which continue to be used throughout the world, including by countries such as the United States of America, which have recently starting championing human rights.
However, even underage children are executed in the USA and, according to statistics, the criminal justice system operates selectively at the expense of the weakest economic and social groups, especially if they are dark-skinned.
We are horrified by the frequency with which the innocence of citizens condemned to death is subsequently proven.
And while all this is going on, the 54th General Assembly of the UN has rejected the motion by the Finnish Presidency of the Council of the European Union for no more death penalties to be carried out.
<P>
It goes without saying, Mr President, that the death penalty has no place in a democratic society.
No-one has the power of life or death over anyone for any reason whatsoever.
On the contrary, the death penalty is the preferred weapon of totalitarian regimes because it is a symbol of the power of the state and of the humility of the individual in the face of the power of the state and, as we know, it is often used to annihilate opponents.
<P>
This is why, on the basis of our European values and in the name of respect for human rights, we call on the governments of all the countries in which death sentences are pending to suspend them immediately and to repeal the death penalty.
We also call on the USA to allow a retrial of the journalist Abu Jamal in Pennsylvania, of Martínez in Florida and of Robinson so that they may have a chance to defend themselves properly.
<P>
Finally, the European Union and the Council need to impose the repeal of the death penalty in the form of a special clause in economic and political agreements with third countries, as called for by other Members.
In addition, an immediate worldwide campaign is needed and a worldwide moratorium on capital punishment pending the final repeal of the death penalty throughout the whole world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Laguiller">
I shall vote in favour of the resolution asking for a moratorium on capital punishment, since it is the best on offer, but I consider that not having the courage to take up a stance in favour of the immediate and unconditional abolition of capital punishment is an abdication of responsibility in the face of barbarism.
<P>
Among the many cases of death sentences where the sentence is so unfair that carrying out the sentence would be a heinous act, I wish to draw attention to the case of the Iranian students condemned to death for taking part in the demonstrations last July.
These sentences come in addition to the equally ignominious sentences of 13 Iranian Jews, not to mention here the thousands of victims of repression in the past.
<P>
All those under threat of capital punishment for political reasons should be released immediately, as should the great numbers of students sentenced to imprisonment.
And if these sentences show the worth of the regime of oppression and terror which is that of Iran, they are just as indicative of the essence and worth of trusts such as Shell, for example, which has just signed a USD 800 million contract with the Iranian Government.
It also shows the worth of the pronouncements on human rights by Europe' s Heads of State and Government who received the President of Iran with great pomp and ceremony, so that other trusts could sign other just as fat contracts.
<P>
Finally, while I am delighted to see that Mumia Abu-Jamal, the victim of the schemes of a corrupt and racist police force, was not executed, I consider that the fight is not yet over, and it is his release that we have to achieve.
<P>
<P>
Respect for Serbs and other minority groups in Kosovo
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Malmström">
Mr President, what has happened in recent years in Kosovo is a profound tragedy.
On many occasions, we have condemned from this Chamber the outrages perpetrated upon the Kosovan Albanian people.
Their suffering is inconceivable, and none of us can ever understand the scale of what they have experienced.
We in the European Union are also guilty of not having succeeded in time in preventing Milosevic' s insane excursions so close to our own territory.
The EU also has an important role to play in the reconstruction process.
All democratic forces must be supported in order to facilitate the reconstruction and create a functioning and democratic civil society.
<P>
The collective rape which has been committed against the Kosovan Albanian people cannot however justify the actions which have been reported on against civilians belonging to, among other groups, the Serbian minority, but also other minorities.
If any kind of normality is to be achieved, all affected parties must feel secure in returning or in staying where they are.
This applies to both the majority and the minority.
The persecutions, and in certain cases murders, of Serbs which have occurred are therefore entirely to be condemned and must cease. They do not carry the peace process forward.
The outrages committed against KFOR personnel are also unacceptable and, on behalf of my Group (the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party), I should like strongly to condemn these.
I should also like to appeal to all parties to cease committing such outrages and to lay down their weapons and together embark upon the long and difficult road to peace. I plead for all parties and organisations to work together for a better and brighter future in Kosovo, a future where all can hopefully live together.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Marset Campos">
Mr President, it is an insult to our conscience and political ethics that, after the military intervention by NATO and the European Union against Yugoslavia, under a humanitarian flag, as a result of the unforgivable ethnic cleansing by Yugoslavia against the Albanians, we are now remaining calm and accepting the violence against the Serbs, gypsies and other minorities, this time on the part of the Albanians, which, furthermore, is of an even higher proportion.
<P>
Therefore, we think that, if the European Union does not condemn and put an end to this criminal behaviour, the conclusions would be clear: firstly, the European Union would become an accomplice in the killings of Serbs and gypsies organised by the criminal and mafia groups of the KLA; and secondly, it would demonstrate that the West has two different yardsticks; and thirdly, the impression would be given that the objective of the intervention was to destroy the Serbian people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sakellariou">
Mr President, at the beginning of this year, anyone who was no longer able to stand by and watch the murders, expulsions, looting and pillaging by the Serbian army and militia in Kosovo and for that reason spoke out in favour of so-called humanitarian intervention, must now wonder whether the war - that was unfortunately not waged against those who committed the crimes, but against the Yugoslavian population, - the war that we conducted for over two and a half months and that cost several billion euros, really brought about the result that we expected.
<P>
Have the murders, expulsions, looting and pillaging in Kosovo stopped?
Unfortunately not.
Unfortunately the crimes are continuing, with two differences.
First: the victims of the crimes are no longer the Kosovo Albanians, but Serbs, Roma and even Bosnians.
Secondly, it is no longer the Yugoslavian army in Kosovo, but our armies, which on the one hand are completing a fantastic undertaking in reconstruction, in protecting people, bringing law and order, in every respect and on the other hand are despairing because they are not able to really protect the people that they should protect and that they would have wanted to protect.
Who is to blame?
Unfortunately those for whom the international community waged a war, the first war on humanitarian grounds.
The former KLA - I say "former" because it supposedly no longer exists, because it was supposedly disarmed - believes that it has won a war and that it therefore has the right to commit exactly the same crimes as those who led to this war.
And that is the disgrace!
<P>
The international community has until now just looked on at what is happening.
We would assure the UN representative, Mr Kouchner, and his former colleagues, of our full support, if he would finally begin to set up an administration in Kosovo and not leave that to the bogus and illegitimate government of the KLA, even if the local authorities and the city and local councils were not formed by the KLA, but actually - if not other Kosovans - other UN officials could complete this work and the various different tasks that need to be performed in Kosovo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, Mr Sakellariou, I can immediately endorse what you have said.
I was there in October.
I can confirm that the military power could not resolve the problems on the spot.
On the contrary, the old principle is being borne out: violence breeds violence.
The international community in fact has no solution to the Kosovo conflict that exists just as it did before.
The conflict is there as it was previously.
The international community does say that Kosovo is part of the rest of Yugoslavia and we are creating a multi-ethnic society.
But the reality in Kosovo is completely different.
Everyone who is there and everyone who works there knows that, and that includes the EU officials.
<P>
The former KLA, Mr Sakellariou, I can stress, feels that it is the victor and, through the mainly economic international aid, feels that this victory is confirmed.
All the parties theoretically declare that the Serbs, Roma and Albanians can live together but in practice the situation in Pristina is different.
You can no longer see the Cyrillic alphabet.
It has all been destroyed, because the Slav language may no longer be spoken.
For all Serbs who live in Pristina this means that they can really no longer take part in public life.
This is Pristina, a city full of international organisations!
In Mítrovica the situation is much worse.
The city is completely divided and is becoming more markedly so day by day.
<P>
Why is that?
The reason is simply that we only concentrate on economic aid and forget the crucial things, that is to say, the practise of tolerance, the practise of democracy and aid in the social field.
There is no money available for these things on the spot.
Mr Kouchner knows that reconstruction in Kosovo will fail on the very matter of the protection of the minorities.
He is not receiving any help from the EU in that regard.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
Mr President, the situation in Kosovo is marked by great uncertainty and violence and even by murder from time to time and in the end, as we have heard, that discredits us all.
In many cases in which I have tried to help since 1989, I have felt myself to be personally compromised.
Why did we intervene as an international community?
We decided to help the Albanians because their basic and human rights were being infringed.
For that reason we went in and I still believe that it was the right thing to do.
<P>
Over eight years of an apartheid regime in Kosovo the Albanians did not do anything to anyone, neither to the Serbs nor to the Roma, nor to the Croats, nor to the Bosnians.
But they have suffered dreadfully and we must not forget that.
The mass graves, more of which are found every day, are proof of this.
I therefore believe that it will be very difficult for them to live together.
Wounds heal extremely slowly.
We in Central and Northern Europe know that too.
I therefore believe that we must demand something, that they can contribute and that is, coexistence on the ground.
And we must help them.
These criminal acts must also be denounced by the Albanian leaders.
We must help with the means at our disposal to find the perpetrators and convict them.
<P>
We want to prevent injustice and now some of those we have helped are turning out to be liars and are themselves driving out minorities.
The Roma, Serbs, Croats and Bosnians, anyone in fact who might not speak this language, belongs to this group.
I should not like the oppressed people to become oppressors themselves.
We must therefore ensure that in the communities where there is persecution, even the reconstruction be suspended, so that every single citizen in this country takes responsibility himself and ensures that such criminal acts do not occur again.
KFOR cannot be everywhere, it cannot stand behind everyone and so every decent Albanian - and there are more of them than we think - really must feel that they themselves are taking responsibility.
<P>
The problem is also that the Albanian leaders or those people who think they are, are not really in a position jointly to build the future for this land, for their homeland, and so we must also appeal to them.
I believe that we need an interim government - and more quickly than Mr Kouchner is able to establish one.
<P>
Secondly, at local level, we need really responsible people and if these people cannot be Albanians or Serbs where they are in the majority, then it must be someone from the international community so that we have a contact to talk to.
Everywhere, where things are going well in the communities, we must react positively and say that we are helping you more than we help those who do nothing.
<P>
Now - this is of course a difficult task which must be carried out by UNMIG - the problem is that this is something that is easier to solve on paper than in reality.
But I am not of the opinion that we can do all of that merely by installing democracy.
We must do that, but the first need is to create jobs, we must create infrastructure, so that the young people who are now going around with Kalashnikovs, can finally hold tools in their hands and do something for their country.
Then we shall be on the right path and Mr Kouchner must also be a little more effective than he is at the moment, whoever may be hampering him in carrying out his task.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, today' s debate has until now unfortunately been really one-sided as we have forgotten to be self-critical.
We have for years ignored the oppression that went on for 10 years in Kosovo.
Doris Pack and others did not do so, but a large majority did.
We are ourselves to blame, at least those who held this attitude, for the fact that Rugova was frozen out, because he was left alone for 10 years with his non-violence.
It is quite clear that in a desperate situation, in which hundreds of thousands of people were driven out by systematic state violence - and that is the big difference with the current isolated acts of revenge that are of course despicable - Rugova lost control of the forces.
<P>
We should for a start see clearly that condemning others can be a good thing, but it would also be a good thing to exercise some self-criticism: We have above all failed in this way.
Of course we must send out a strong signal against any expulsions.
I myself come from a family who - collectively innocent - on the basis of state decrees 50 years ago, were expelled.
Any expulsion is an expulsion too many and this 20th century is likely to go down in history as the century of genocide and expulsions.
We therefore have a duty to stop every expulsion, including those in Kosovo, and we have a duty to speak up so that the ban on expulsions and the right to a homeland become the foundations of international law, so that such dreadful events are not repeated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, the fact is, and I can only endorse what my colleagues have just said, that we are running a considerable risk of missing the goal and failing to create a multi-ethnic Kosovo, which was our goal, and of creating a ethnically pure Kosovo, i.e. a purely Albanian Kosovo just before we reach that goal.
Mr Posselt, you are right in your criticism.
In this very House, Mrs Pack and many others including myself have for years pointed out what could happen in Kosovo if we continue to look on and thereby contribute to Rugova being frozen out.
<P>
When we were in Kosovo a short while ago - the President of this House and Mrs Pack -, we saw that where "ethnic cleansing" occurred, the situation is going fairly well.
But where the ethnic groups meet, the conflicts are very acute and they have become more acute.
It is unacceptable that if Serbs or Albanians need to go to hospital, they actually run a risk of being more injured once they get there than they would have been before they got to hospital.
The language of the international community must be clear here.
It is unacceptable that every Albanian who has a liberal, open attitude, like the former speaker of the delegation at Rambouillet, is threatened because he speaks out in favour of the Serbs, the Roma, the Sinti and other ethnic groups being accepted in his country.
<P>
As was already mentioned, it also has to do with the fact that we unfortunately have Albanian politicians in Kosovo who do not conduct policy that is geared to the future structure, but are working in a one-sided way according to which side they are on.
It was the speaker of the delegation in Rambouillet who made a great impression on us when he said: "Ask an Albanian politician any minor date, any minor event in history and he will tell you a lot about it.
If you ask him how the social security system of the future will be extended, you will not find anyone who can give you an answer" .
So it is all the more important - and I should like to stress this - that UNMIK and Bernard Kouchner make rapid progress in setting up a government.
The government must of course have contact with the population.
It must work together with the population.
But it must also examine very carefully who it is and then it must become clear and unambiguous that it is the UN that is also at stake along with its mandate and its authority and of course the European Union as well.
<P>
We must help the Albanian population to build a multi-ethnic society.
That is the great task before us.
The battle for freedom in Kosovo has not yet been won.
There is still a lot to do!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 NAME="President">
It is most gratifying to note that all the Groups in this House are clearly in agreement on this subject.
That is certainly a great help.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Coûteaux">
<SPEAKER ID=195 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Belder">
Mr President, Hashim Thaçi, the leader of the KLA (the Kosovo Liberation Army), recently postulated: "I am the President of Kosovo.
People who support my government are welcome in Kosovo. Anyone who creates hassle should leave."
<P>
This misplaced display of power, deserving of condemnation to say the least, follows in the footsteps of the execrable oppression regime adopted by Slobodan Milosevic.
This political line is just as diametrically opposed to pacification, let alone a social renewal process, within the legendary battlefield of Kosovo Polje and its surrounding areas.
In fact, Thaçi' s words are inviting the remaining members of the Serbian minority to leave if they have not done so already.
Words which have been reinforced in the past couple of months by downright acts of terror, committed by the victims of yesterday, by Albanian Kosovars.
<P>
Significantly, Albanian journalist Veton Surroi sharply condemned this reprehensible attitude as being "organised and systematic terror which can only be described as fascist" .
The minority Roma group too suffered badly under a pogrom-like Albanian attitude.
I would like to make a special appeal for the Kosovar Roma, one of the oldest communities there.
Today, it is collectively paying the price for being a so-called accomplice in the Milosevic regime.
After all, Belgrade gave Kosovar Roma the jobs which it no longer gave to the Kosovar Albanians between 1989-1999.
<P>
Mr President, thorough, unbiased historical investigation should show to what extent the Albanian allegations of atrocities carried out by Kosovar Roma in respect of their Albanian fellow citizens are true.
One thing is for sure, from both a Christian and general, moral perspective: crimes do not under any circumstance justify new crimes!
<P>
Well now, those have definitely taken place since the arrival of the UN and KFOR in Kosovo on 12 June.
What is more, they were already occurring in the Macedonian refugee camps.
The outcome was obvious: an estimated 20,000 Roma fled from Kosovo, most of whom ended up in refugee camps in neighbouring Montenegro and Macedonia.
However, according to my sources, these camps will be closing by the end of the year.
If this information is correct, what does the EU intend to do to help these displaced Kosovar Roma?
<P>
In this context, I would also like to raise another pressing question.
In Montenegro, large numbers of Kosovar Roma are falling into the hands of unscrupulous people smuggling refugees into Italy.
What can the European Union, in close cooperation with the Montenegro authorities, do to stop this?
<P>
Finally, it was recently stated in a report in the Chechen weekly "Tyden" on "the covert Roma exodus" from Kosovo that Roma do not give much thought to their future.
Why should they?
After all, they do not have one, not a dignified one that is, "wedged between Albanian terror in Kosovo, dislike and discrimination within other countries and dwindling humanitarian aid within the central Balkans" .
All the more reason why the international community should now join forces to protect the Roma who are still in Kosovo.
<P>
Alexander Nikitin
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, on 23 November, Alexander Nikitin will appear in court again.
He still has to face trial on an old case of "spying" .
It became clear a long time ago that he has the information in the Bellona report from sources that are accessible to the general public.
However, his expert knowledge made it possible for us to be made aware of an enormous hazard that is heading for us and is slumbering in the Arctic Ocean.
He acted with a great sense of humanity.
The EU has a special responsibility here because until now it has used the material that Alexander Nikitin compiled.
One of the essential components of the Northern dimension that was decided on in Helsinki is the issue of cleaning the Arctic Ocean and averting the danger that could affect us all.
We must therefore intervene more forcefully here so that Alexander Nikitin can finally be released and so that the accusations are dropped, because we all know that these proceedings are purely political and therefore the laws in Russia will also be infringed by these proceedings, because the old nomenclature will win again.
<P>
I believe that Alexander Nikitin has acted with enormous consideration for others and with remarkable responsibility in making this material available to us.
It is therefore necessary for the EU Mission in Moscow at least to observe this case, but also to intervene in the political dialogue, so that it is declared a political case and Alexander Nikitin can finally be released.
Alexander Nikitin should be free and honoured!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, the European Convention on Human Rights that also applies to Russia as a Member State of the Council of Europe, has, as it were, its headquarters here in Strasbourg.
On the other side of the river is the European Court of Human Rights, to which Mr Nikitin has appealed.
That means that what is happening in Russia is not an internal affair of a far-off land but that it is an internal affair of a European institution at whose heart are the fifteen Member States of the EU.
<P>
We therefore have an important duty to speak up for Mr Nikitin and his release so that he can finally live in humane and constitutional conditions.
We, as the EU, are also bound under the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, which not only commits Russia but ourselves too and it contains a human rights clause, to speak out most fervently on behalf of Mr Nikitin for an improvement in his conditions of detention on the spot, for his release and as I said, for fair and constitutional treatment.
It would be a disgrace if we gave way, because - as Mrs Schroedter put it so well - Mr Nikitin also acted in our interests.
We have often dealt with it here in the Parliament.
He acted on behalf of the European environment.
He acted for the rule of law on the whole continent.
We should in fact award Mr Nikitin one of our prizes here in the European Parliament.
I should therefore like to endorse this motion for a resolution most emphatically and the appeal it contains.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 NAME="Chichester">
Mr President, I rise on behalf of my group but also on behalf of my colleague Lord Bethell, who takes a particular concern and interest in this matter.
The fate of Alexander Nikitin is particularly relevant to a topical and urgent debate.
Next Tuesday he is due to appear in court in Russia.
I believe this is the sixth time that he will appear in court.
He is indicted on a charge of high treason, which is a very strong and extreme charge and for what?
For addressing a matter of public interest, of environmental interest to the whole of Europe.
Under this charge he faces a possible death sentence.
This is an extreme sanction and this House and the European institutions should send a very powerful message to Russia that it should re-think this issue, the charges should be dropped and it should respect our call for his immediate release.
<P>
In the context of the earlier debate on ending the death penalty, it is very relevant that we should call upon the Russian authorities to respect our views, the views of Europe, as to whether he should be indicted and what the sanction should be.
So I very much support the calls for Mr Nikitin to be immediately released and found not guilty of the charges.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 NAME="Lamy">
I shall answer briefly the three points which have been raised: capital punishment, the minorities in Kosovo and the Nikitin case.
<P>
Firstly, as regards the matter of capital punishment, I would like to devote a few words not to the substance of the question, which you deal with in your draft resolution and which, plainly, meets with the approval of the Commission as far as the position adopted on capital punishment is concerned.
This does not, I feel, merit extensive comment, as we are in agreement on this point. What I wish to bring up is a specific point which was mentioned in the course of the discussion, i.e. the matter of the draft resolution on capital punishment which the Union proposed to the Third Committee of the General Assembly of the United Nations.
<P>
This is, in fact, a matter of foreign policy.
By means of this resolution, the European Union was proposing to the international community that it undertake to establish a moratorium on capital punishment.
Indeed, as far as we are concerned, the abolition of capital punishment is an intrinsic part of our human rights policy, whereas for many countries this is exclusively a matter of criminal law, or so they claim, at least.
<P>
We did indeed withdraw this draft resolution, on mature reflection, and this decision is presented for your evaluation.
We withdrew it because the debates in this Third Committee of the General Assembly of the United Nations were, in our opinion, going badly.
In fact, we felt that some of the many amendments submitted by the countries for whom our position is a problem are, in our view, unacceptable, particularly the amendment to introduce into the resolution a reference to article 2, paragraph 7 of the United Nations Charter, in the terms of which, "Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorise the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state."
This amendment was indeed inconvenient, insofar as it shifted the debate into another sphere, that of the national jurisdiction of a state.
As far as we were concerned, the inclusion in the resolution of a reference specific to the principle of sovereignty of states would have entailed a risk of challenging the body of legislation in the system of the United Nations, and, in particular, of the World Conference of 1993, which said that the promotion and protection of human rights was a "legitimate concern" of the international community.
<P>
Moreover, accepting an amendment of this kind could have had a very negative impact on the work of the United Nations in the human rights field.
It was not therefore, as I have heard, in order to yield to some sort of pressure that we preferred to close the debate in this way, at least for the time being, but rather in order to maintain a position of principle.
You must not, therefore, see this decision as indicative of a lack of a foreign policy, or that we caved under pressure, but of the Union' s assessment of the risk, considering the proposed amendments, of finding ourselves, for the sake of the legitimate campaign we share, some way behind the positions we have gained earlier.
This is the explanation I wished to give you.
<P>
I shall now come to the second subject, Mr President, regarding the rights of the Serbs and other minorities in Kosovo.
I believe that the Commission and, with it, the entire European Union has made it clear, from the start, that we condemn any sort of ethnic violence, regardless of who is inflicting and who is suffering it.
Such violence is just as unacceptable today against the Serbian and Gypsy minorities as it was when it was inflicted upon the Kosovars several months before.
Thanks to programmes of assistance in democratisation and human rights, the Commission continues to provide support for measures intended to re-establish confidence and to promote dialogue between the different communities.
We were already active in this way, without much success, unfortunately, even before the conflict, and I share, from this point of view, the suggestions that some of you made that we must all meticulously take stock of the situation.
From now on, in the new circumstances, we are nonetheless trying pragmatically to continue to act according to these objectives, particular in selecting aid and assistance projects.
<P>
We support fully and absolutely the action undertaken by KFOR to maintain law and order in Kosovo and to protect all the citizens.
In addition, we support fully and absolutely the action undertaken by MINUK in order to set up an operational civil administration, capable of taking on the police functions which are currently handled by KFOR, and to create a peaceful multi-ethnic society, capable of taking on both the reconstruction of Kosovo and the restoration of its society.
MINUK approached the Commission with regard to the financing of the Kosovo protection force and the Member States shall take a decision, in the weeks to come, regarding the programme we suggested in response to this request.
We are also offering our support, in the form of twinning, to the actions agreed by MINUK at local administration level.
In this context, we are asking all people of goodwill in Kosovo and outside, to also work towards these objectives in order to help us to ensure that MINUK and KFOR achieve them themselves.
I may remind you, if you need reminding, that we are opposed to Kosovo being partitioned.
It must become a multi-ethnic society, without distinctions or discrimination for ethnic or other reasons.
<P>
And if I may switch to English for convenience without breaching the rules of this House, I will answer that the European Commission has been following very closely and with a great degree of concern Alexander Nikitin's trial.
Representatives of EU Member States attended the court session in St Petersburg in October 1998 and were present when the Supreme Court delivered its latest decision in February 1999 to send back the case to the lower court for further investigation.
<P>
In line with previous statements, the European Commission has made it clear that any further judicial proceedings regarding the contribution made by Mr Nikitin to the Bellona report should be in full conformity with internationally agreed principles and standards of justice and human rights.
I am aware that Mr Nikitin's lawyers have lodged an application to the European Court of Human Rights and I am certain the Council of Europe's institutions will pursue this application accordingly.
<P>
While respecting the judicial procedures of a sovereign country, the European Commission will remain vigilant to ensure that Mr Nikitin is granted an impartial and public trial based on the principles of the European Convention on Human Rights and the Russian Constitution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner Lamy.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place today at 5.30.p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Rwanda/Burundi
<SPEAKER ID=201 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>
B5-0267/99 by Mrs Ries and Mr van den Bos, on behalf of the ELDR Group;
<P>
B5-0276/99 by Mr Miranda and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group;
<P>
B5-0285/99 by Mr van den Berg, on behalf of the PSE (Social Democratic) Group;
<P>
B5-0293/99 by Mrs Maes and others, on behalf of the Greens/ALE Group;
<P>
B5-0294/99 by Mrs Maes and others, on behalf of the Greens/ALE Group;
<P>
B5-0300/99 by Mr Van Hecke and Mr Khanbhai, on behalf of the PPE (Christian Democrats)/DE Group;
<P>
B5-0301/99 by Mr Van Hecke and Mr Khanbhai, on behalf of the PPE (Christian Democrats)/DE Group;
<P>
on the situation in the Great Lakes region and in particular on Rwanda and the situation in Burundi.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Ries">
Mr President, Commissioner, the recent release of Jean Bosco Barayagwiza by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has scandalised the government and population in Rwanda.
Their anger is perfectly legitimate: the defendant was released on a technicality despite the extremely serious charges against him, charges of genocide.
Going beyond this particular episode which the Rwandans see as traumatic, what is involved here is the culture of impunity.
<P>
It must be clearly established that all those who committed crimes as heinous as genocide or crimes against humanity, or who were accomplices to these, will be pursued tirelessly.
In order to do so, international institutions, and that includes ourselves, must provide the international courts with sufficient resources to accomplish its task.
<P>
Would the European Union be prepared, Mr Lamy, to play a role in this regard, in order to, in future, prevent this type of blunder which is catastrophic in the opinion of the populations who are waiting for truth and justice?
<P>
Finally, being particularly attentive, of course, to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, so that the duty to remember this conflict which already seems far off, some people think too far off, is maintained, it is the role of the European Union, I feel, to stand by the people of Rwanda on this occasion.
A people that has today been truly betrayed by the release of Jean Bosco Barayagwiza, who was, need one be reminded, the founder of hate radio, the notorious Radio-Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM).
The reaction of the Kigali authorities is understandable, but I invite them to resume their cooperation with the ICTR which is still, in spite of everything, the best instrument to establish justice and, hence, peace.
<P>
It is essential for the international justice system to regain control if it wishes to ensure its own credibility, but we must also give it the resources it needs to fulfil its ambitions.
This is the price of what we owe to the memory of the Rwandans.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van den Berg">
Mr President, we visited Nassau in the capacity of MEPs together with some colleagues from the ACP countries and two days prior to our visit, Saskia von Meyenfeldt, a UNICEF worker and a number of civilians from south-east Burundi had been murdered.
We asked for an inquiry to take place following a general resolution; this was originally to be an independent inquiry. A Burundi representative, however, lodged objections and after that, we had to use the term "inquiry" .
<P>
Well, in this resolution, we mention an independent inquiry, and this enables us to make it clear that we would like not just the parties involved, so not just the Burundian government, to give their opinion but we would also like to see the actual facts surface.
<P>
We would appreciate it if the Commission could ensure that its EU ambassadors in the region could collate information on this matter and duly inform us.
<P>
My second point concerns the fact that the conflict in question is far more extensive. Since 1993, some 200,000 have been killed and 800,000 displaced.
Sometimes it is good to quote these figures, because in the light of what is happening on our doorstep in Kosovo, we sometimes forget that a conflict of such dimensions is still taking place in an area of Central Africa.
<P>
It remains an urgent requirement to promote a stability pact using all contacts we have through the European Commission' s links with the United Nations and to promote the political awareness and energy of those who work there, so as to arrive at a stability pact.
<P>
I hope we succeed in sending out a clear message from within Europe that human rights cannot and should not be split up, and that we do not only attach importance to them in relation to Kosovo, but also where this Central-African region is concerned.
I hope that both resolutions go some way towards achieving this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Rod">
Mr President, once again we are called upon to discuss the situation in Rwanda.
Yesterday we were deploring genocide and violations of human rights.
Today, indeed, we can only be outraged at the release of Jean Bosco Barayagwiza, supposedly for technical reasons, even though he was one of the most significant parties in the incitement to genocide.
His release, indeed, is quite symptomatic of the lack of will to make an evaluation of the genocide and, more especially, of the wish to hush up the involvement of European countries, particularly France, where a recent parliamentary inquiry revealed complicity that was, at the best, passive.
<P>
Let us also stress that the Rwandan situation, as worrying as it is, more particularly affects the stability of neighbouring countries, and the situation in the Congo is quite tragic from this point of view.
<P>
It is essential today for the European Parliament to assert clearly that, in order to ensure stability in this region, the conditions must be created for a peace which is based on justice and the prosecution of those responsible for ethnic violence.
<P>
This is why we are asking the ICTR to review its position regarding Mr Barayagwiza' s release, in consideration of the seriousness of the charges against him. Without some action of this sort, the populations of Rwanda are likely to feel they have been wronged and ethnic conflict is likely to start up again with renewed vigour.
We also ask the Rwandan government to resume its relations with the ICTR.
This is why it is essential to put an end to the conditions of impunity which are prevailing in these countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to subscribe to what the previous speakers have said and at the same time express my indignation at and disappointment with our own attitude.
We wait until a white person is murdered before we take renewed interest in a conflict in Burundi that has taken so many thousands of people into their graves.
I would also like to mention the camps which, in Dutch, we refer to as "hergroepingskampen" (regrouping camps).
This term stands for concentration camps, this is what they really are.
In these camps, they section people off based on their ethnic origin so as to facilitate covert genocide.
I would therefore urge that the European Union take the situation in Rwanda, Burundi and Congo a great deal more seriously.
This week, I heard the advisor of the Council, the High Representative for the common foreign and security policy, and I hope that we will be able, at some stage, to help create for others the stability that we want for ourselves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 NAME="Khanbhai">
Mr President, Commissioner and Colleagues, as someone who has worked in and known Rwanda since 1984, as someone born in Tanzania where I lived for many years, as someone speaking the main African language of the Great Lakes region, I speak on this subject with experience and knowledge.
<P>
Genocide in any country is evil and must be condemned without reservation.
Whoever is responsible for such genocide must be indicted, and justice must be seen to be done.
There cannot be any immunity for anyone from such prosecution.
The International Criminal Tribunal in Arusha must do its work efficiently, and we hope that those doing this work will take measures to bring this process to a just and speedy end.
<P>
Only four trials have been completed in five years, and this delay has allowed some perpetrators of genocide to go free on technicalities.
This is not acceptable.
We need to evaluate the work of the tribunal to identify the weaknesses so that we can furnish appropriate assistance to ensure high standards of justice without wasting time and resources.
The innocent victims of genocide and conflict cannot wait for ever to rebuild their lives in order to live in peace in their own villages and in their own homes.
<P>
This resolution, agreed by all political groups in this Parliament, expresses clearly our concerns, hopes and expectations.
It is now up to the government of Rwanda and those of neighbouring countries to take serious action to bring about genuine peace in the area.
They need to cooperate fully with the EU special envoy, the EU, the United Nations, the OAU and all humanitarian aid agencies in doing what is needed to support peace and stability in Rwanda and the Great Lakes region in general.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Hecke">
Mr President, Burundi, as has been stated earlier, is on the brink of another catastrophe.
Rebel attacks, army cleansing, hundreds of thousands of refugees falling prey to starvation and disease and an economy which is ruined beyond repair.
Some even claim that the situation is comparable to that in Rwanda just before the genocide in 1994.
<P>
Despite this, Europe is adopting a back-seat approach again.
Because the Member States apparently cannot agree on how to tackle the crisis in the Great Lakes Region, we leave Burundi to African countries, some of which are involved in the crisis.
We link our aid to the Arusha peace process where Tanzania acts as mediator but at the same time condone the fact that rebels carry out attacks on Burundi from the same country.
We refuse to cooperate for fundamental reasons with a government that has managed nonetheless to acquire Parliament' s support.
<P>
The question is very much whether, in this way, we are not playing into the hands of the extremists, both amongst the rebels and within the army.
Do we want Hutu extremist movements to seize power in Burundi and commit renewed genocide on a minority?
Or are we waiting for a new coup and Tutsi extremists from the army to start renewed cleansing?
If we do not want this, let us then give our full support to the peace process in Burundi.
Let us bring the moderate parties round the table and isolate the extremists.
Let us give unconditional aid to the population and kick-start the economy.
Let us finally take Burundi' s problem seriously.
In any case, we will never be able to say: we did not know.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Berend">
Mr President, of the great number of problems affecting Rwanda and Burundi I should like on behalf of my Group to speak about the latest events, that is say, what took place on 6 November, i.e. a few days ago, when the Rwanda government announced that it would refuse further cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal in Arusha.
<P>
We took some pride in the fact that this Tribunal was set up at all - with our assistance too - whether it was adequate is a more complicated matter - in order to clear up these inhuman crimes and to punish the respective perpetrators.
As an initial reaction, this attitude of the Rwandan government is even understandable, but the conclusion that it drew from it, i.e. now to refuse further cooperation with this Tribunal, is entirely the wrong one.
We cannot understand - and I express myself carefully here - that the presumed architect of the genocide, Barayagwiza, on the basis of procedural issues - and this is hard to swallow - was released and not brought before the court at all.
He was, after all, the political director in the foreign ministry of a regime that was responsible for the deaths of 800 000 people - we should really say for the slaughter of 800 000 people.
This person, who has now been released, was a leading official in the state radio at the very time when the radio was urging and inciting people on to racial hatred.
<P>
Our Group has a two-fold demand: on the one hand to the Rwanda government, to cancel its decision and on the other hand to the Tribunal to revise this decision.
In particular, it is not acceptable that the Tribunal refer to the fact that a further charge in the same case is inadmissible owing to the "not guilty" verdict.
For charges of this kind there can be no immunity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lamy">
Mr President, I shall take the statements that I must answer in order, first on the subject of Rwanda, then Burundi.
<P>
As far as Rwanda is concerned, the Commission shares the concerns which have been expressed regarding the effectiveness of the system of justice, if I may use this diplomatic term, to judge those responsible for genocide.
No national reconciliation is possible without proper court procedures, and that involves both the Rwandan national justice system and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
<P>
To answer Mrs Ries, regarding the Rwandan national system of justice, the Commission targeted its interventions at institutional support to the government departments in the area of reinforcement of defence rights and civil cases, in the area of improving living standards in prisons and in the area of support for the survivors of genocide, as well as in the area of respect for human rights.
Nonetheless, there are still 130,000 prisoners in prison, accused of crimes related to genocide, awaiting trial.
<P>
The Rwandan Government is looking for alternative formulae which do not leave room for impunity, and which go in the direction we would like.
It is working on defining a system of courts of arbitration along the lines of traditional practice, where the courts are made up of citizens elected to the various levels of local administration, and they would be established to judge three categories of defendant: firstly, ordinary murderers, secondly, those who assaulted but did not kill, and thirdly, finally, the looters, leaving the instigators and ideologists of the genocide and massacres to be judged effectively by ordinary courts, which must be organised in some way to be able to take on this task.
<P>
With the other backers, the Commission is currently assessing the opportunities and methods to contribute to the establishment of this system within the framework of our cooperation.
As far as the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda is concerned, the Commission allocated finance from the very creation of this tribunal, totalling EUR 1.5 million to date.
The Commission is going to initiate an evaluation of human rights programmes in developing countries.
Particular attention will be paid to the countries or projects we have supported, such as the one I have just mentioned.
This evaluation will include support for the International Criminal Tribunal and its conclusions will enable us to identify any new support according to the methods we shall assess in the light of this investigation.
<P>
As far as Burundi is concerned, we, too, are extremely concerned at the situation of increasing violence in this country.
What are we doing in response to this?
I know and I can see that it is always ridiculous to cite aid figures in the face of such calamities.
I nonetheless believe that these are the only real proof we can offer to show what we are doing to act on these concerns of yours.
The real criticism you might make, which would hit home, is that we are passive in this type of situation.
I believe we are not being passive in this particular instance.
I should like to give you some examples of this.
<P>
We have supported the peace process by financing the talks taking place in Arusha, with a contribution of EUR 2 million, which is far from being the largest contribution and which should, along with other external finance, be sufficient for the successful conclusion of these talks.
It is true that the passing of the facilitator, ex-President Nyerere, is one more obstacle to add to the complexity of the process itself.
We think that it is essential for the talks to continue while seeking a new facilitator at the same time.
<P>
The intensification of the confrontations, in recent months, has given rise to the displacement of some tens of thousands of people who have, in effect, as has been mentioned in this debate, been forcibly detained in camps by the government since last July.
We intervened immediately to provide humanitarian aid, with aid of more than EUR one million over three operations, and we are prepared to continue to intervene in order to meet the most urgent needs next year.
The total ECHO contribution to Burundi reached around EUR 10 million this year.
At a meeting in New York at the start of the year, the backers of Burundi decided to contribute towards improving the living conditions of the most vulnerable sectors of the population and to target their support at the rehousing of displaced persons.
<P>
In the context of these positions, the Commission approved a redevelopment programme of around EUR 50 million, which may be implemented according to the security conditions in the country.
We feel that the complete resumption of cooperation is linked to the results of the peace process, and to the establishment of a political and constitutional framework which will lead, finally, to democratisation.
This is the answer which I wished to give you, Mr President.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner Lamy.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place today at 5.30. p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=13>
Pakistan
<SPEAKER ID=211 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolution:
<P>
B5-0269/99 by Mr Van den Bos and Mrs Thors, on behalf of the ELDR Group;
<P>
B5-0277/99 by Mr Vinci and Mr Brie, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group;
<P>
B5-0278/99 by Mr Thomas Mann, on behalf of the PPE (Christian Democrats)/DE Group;
<P>
B5-0286/99 by Mr Schori, on behalf of the PSE (Social Democrats) Group;
<P>
B5-0296/99 by Mrs Lambert and Mrs Lucas, on behalf of the Greens/ALE Group
<P>
on the declaration of a state of emergency in Pakistan.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="Duff">
This resolution sets out the concerns that must be shared by the world-wide community about the deterioration of stability in Pakistan and in its neighbouring territories.
We are certainly right to regret the military take-over but it would be sensible to recognise that the new military regime is so far extremely popular within Pakistan.
Pakistan clearly expects General Musharraf to succeed in stopping a long series of corrupt and illiberal factions.
The Sharif and Bhutto regimes have misruled their country for many years.
Certainly the military are tackling the financial fraud that exists on a massive scale with vigour.
<P>
This motion speaks wrongly of the need for democracy to be reinstalled or reinstated. It should be a calling for progress towards democracy and proposing a practical programme for the European Union that will facilitate that progress.
Fighting corruption is an essential first step.
<P>
I trust that the Portuguese Presidency will use its renowned skills and experience to develop European Union appreciation of the problems that confront Pakistan and I would welcome Mr Lamy's opinion on the current status of the Cooperation Agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Thomas">
Mr President, the military coup that took place in Pakistan in October immediately after the army Chief-of-Staff, General Musharraf was stood down is condemned in the strongest possible terms by the PPE/DE Group.
The constitution was declared to be invalid.
The national parliament and the provincial parliaments were temporarily suspended.
Even if the take-over of power by the military occurred without great protests from the population, there is no alternative to a properly functioning democracy brought about by free elections.
The attempt to prove that the former Prime Minister Mr Sharif had participated in a criminal conspiracy and had built up a system of nepotism, should not become a show trial.
Any legal proceedings must be fair and transparent to the general public.
<P>
On meeting the EU' s special envoy, Walter Sari, on 2 November, General Musharraf rejected a timetable for the establishment of democracy.
There is therefore no reason why the EU should be prepared to follow other states, which think that the stability programme that has been announced has a good chance of success.
The first signs are quite hopeful: the assurance of a climate favourable to investment, tax relief, the thinning out of the bureaucracy and the ending of the personal enrichment of those in charge.
The national banks must stop the custom of awarding generous loans to officials.
The new, stricter anti-corruption legislation is a step in the right direction.
<P>
The loss of confidence and flight of capital can only be stopped if democracy is restored and human rights are guaranteed.
International investment has been suspended until the IMF accepts Pakistan as a full partner.
We therefore demand that the military government return to constitutional rule.
Politics must be taken over by a democratic legitimate civil government.
The suspension of both Commonwealth membership and the European Union Cooperation Agreement can only be reversed when all the conditions for the urgently needed economic, social and humanitarian reforms in Pakistan are met.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sakellariou">
Mr President, our colleagues have already spoken about the military coup.
I should once again like to emphasise what Mr Duff and Mr Mann have said.
For decades elected, but altogether corrupt governments and most recently that of Mr Nawaz Sharif, have allowed violations of human rights, slave labour, social disasters and a foreign debt that is out of control to be part of daily life in Pakistan and all this has led to the ruin of the country.
<P>
The same governments supported the fundamentalist murderous regime of the Taliban in Afghanistan and represent a constant incalculable risk to peace in the region because they support and stir up terrorist activity in the border region of Kashmir against their Indian neighbours.
Despite everything, we should not allow ourselves to consider the military coup as a possible alternative to the incompetence and corruption of an elected government.
We condemn most strongly the military coup in Pakistan and urge those in power to restore the rule of law and constitutional order immediately by setting up a civil transitional government in accordance with a clear timetable to restore parliamentary legitimacy by holding elections.
<P>
These should be the preconditions to be fulfilled before the Council signs the suspended Cooperation Agreement with Pakistan.
The EU as a whole must adopt an unambiguous position towards Pakistan, which stresses that for us, democratic principles can neither be negotiable nor the subject of compromises and that any future would-be dictator must prevent such dreadful behaviour.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="Lambert">
I too like many colleagues was interested in the response of many people of Pakistani origin and background to this coup - people who are themselves involved in democratic politics and concerned about good democratic practice.
They were not appalled.
So that reaction adds weight to our awareness of much that was wrong under the previous regime, for example the lack of protection for the rights of religious minorities and the increasing abuse of the blasphemy law which was introduced after the military take-over in 1958.
Under the previous regime we also saw a growing abuse of human rights, of people such as the Sindhi.
We look at what will be happening to political prisoners under this regime as a clear indicator of its intentions.
<P>
I am also concerned at reports that the military were motivated by the feeling that the Sharif government was not doing enough to protect and maintain the Federation of Pakistan.
I find that particularly worrying when I remember its developing nuclear capability.
We believe that the conduct of the trial of the former prime minister will also be a clear sign as to the military's good intentions to return to, or rather not to return but to introduce good democratic government to Pakistan.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lamy">
Mr President, as regards Pakistan, as you know, the situation was discussed in the General Affairs Council on 15 November.
The Union, and I believe this is clear to everyone, is extremely concerned at this coup d' état and fervently hopes for the restoration of democracy in the near future.
The Council is waiting to see that the assurances given by the interim administration, as it is called, relating to respect for human rights and civil liberties, are respected unconditionally, and that all charges against the deposed Prime Minister, Mr Nawaz Sharif, are heard according to proper legal form in a civilian court open to the public.
<P>
As regards the specific points you have raised in the resolutions relating to the Commission' s development aid programmes and projects in Pakistan, it must be stressed that these are directed almost exclusively at the poorest and most disadvantaged levels of the population.
Many of these projects are implemented by NGOs and are intended to improve the scope and quality of social sector services, particularly in the fields of primary education and health care.
<P>
The commitments for Community projects currently amount to some EUR 180 million in total and the Commission proposes to continue to implement these projects.
We feel that suspending aid to underprivileged groups would be an inappropriate sanction upon them.
We are perfectly aware of the deplorable situation of a great many children in Pakistan, especially girls, but we feel that the most effective means of improving this situation is to contribute towards ensuring good quality, accessible, universal primary education.
We are also participating in a project with the International Labour Organisation for the rehabilitation of children employed in dangerous work in Pakistan.
<P>
Work on the new projects to be financed under next year' s budget has currently been suspended, while waiting for developments in the evaluation of the new situation over there.
We acknowledge the need to assist the NGOs and civilian sector associations in order to strengthen the democratic institutions of the country, and you doubtless know that the capacity for absorption and the size of the many NGOs in this field in Pakistan are, unfortunately, limited.
In addition, we have established contact with several NGOs and associations, but we feel that care must be taken not to overload these organisations with funds and assistance, which may not subsequently be managed in the most efficient way possible.
<P>
In order to reply specifically to Mr Duff' s question, following the coup d' état, the Union cancelled the signing of the new cooperation agreement between the Community and Pakistan, and we suspended our political dialogue so as to send a message, loud and clear, to the new masters in Pakistan regarding our concerns about the coup d' état and its consequences.
<P>
I believe I have answered your question specifically, Mr Duff.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner Lamy.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 5.20 p.m. and resumed at 5.30 p.m.)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="President">
We shall now proceed to the vote on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=14>
Vote (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=219 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
I should just like to say that in principle of course I was in favour of this resolution, but that I do feel that something very dangerous has been started here, that is, the systematic abuse of resolutions for an ideological debate on the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
We should take this Charter of Fundamental Rights so seriously that we prepare it with a considerable, almost constitutional majority here in the House by consensus and not by half measures in resolutions.
I believe that this Charter on Fundamental Rights must be discussed carefully and that it should not detach the rights of the child from the parents' rights, the rights of the family and the parents' right to educate their children in the family.
These are elementary points that must be discussed in depth and not superficially and at top speed.
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<SPEAKER ID=220 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
- (FR) At this time when we are about to vote on the resolution on the rights of the child, I wish to declare the importance which I attach to this legislation.
<P>
This vote has nothing to do with any others in which I have participated during this session.
It reminds me of my motive for taking up politics, which may be summed up as follows: to improve, as far as may be possible, the daily lot of human beings!
This may seem presumptuous, given the scope of the task, but it is my profound conviction.
<P>
And even though I know that this vote will not radically change the tragic situation of thousands of children here or elsewhere, it does testify to the political will of this Parliament to make progress!
<P>
Declaring that it is intolerable for children to be forced to go to work instead of to school, for children not to be able to eat their fill, for children to be sold as if they were marketable goods, for children to be the victims of adult physical or moral violence, already represents a great step forward, one which must of course be put into effect in our policies and our daily life!
Let us act like responsible men and women (politicians)!
<P>
The Convention whose anniversary we are celebrating today has made it possible to achieve considerable progress since it places the child at the centre of the debate!
Children are human beings; they are people with rights.
We must respect them, protect them, educate them and love them!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="Foster">
.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child represents the most successful Convention in international law, with signatories in all countries of the world except Somalia and the USA.
The aims of the Convention account for the unprecedented international reaction: measures to be implemented in international law to protect the rights of the most innocent, most vulnerable of the world's citizens.
<P>
The draft resolution which we have voted today seeks to ensure that the elements enshrined within this convention are protected in other legal bases and frameworks.
In doing this, we are seeking to be a voice for the voiceless, and protect those who are unable to protect themselves.
Children must be protected by those who have their interests at heart.
<P>
We must emphasise, therefore, the role of the family in safeguarding children, especially parents.
The state, in its attempt to provide a legal basis for the protection and treatment of children must bow to the pre-eminent right which parents have in protecting, raising and safeguarding their children.
We must ensure that the family, to quote the Convention on the Rights of the Child, is 'afforded the necessary protection and assistance so that it can fully assume its responsibilities within the community'.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 NAME="Sacrédeus">
Promoting the rights of children is a topic dear to the hearts of all of us here today.
It is at the same time a great privilege and a grave responsibility to work to create legislation and legal instruments for the protection of children.
Ensuring the protection of children must go hand in hand with measures which promote and protect the family.
A strong family unit is essential to ensuring the protection of children.
The preamble to the Convention states that the child, in order to realise 'the full and harmonious development of his or her personality, should grow up in a family environment'.
Articles 5, 7, 9, 14, and others enshrine the responsibilities and rights of parents in relation to the raising of their children.
It is absolutely crucial that parental rights are enshrined and ensured in order to protect the full rights of children.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="Scallon">
.
I welcome the focus in the House today on the rights of children.
Children, as the most vulnerable and defenceless members of society need extra rights and extra protection.
It is a privilege for me to be part of a process that can begin to ensure that this protection is provided.
<P>
The family, as was recognised by the drafters of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, is fundamental in protecting and promoting the rights of the child.
It is in families that children learn the values of 'peace, dignity, tolerance, freedom, equality and solidarity' (preamble), as well as the skills necessary to implement these values in society throughout their lives.
<P>
The Convention on the Rights of the Child recognises the responsibilities of parents in providing the proper care and attention to their children, as well as the child's right to receive this care, guidance, and love.
I am happy to support the motion on the floor today which will ensure that these rights are supported - the rights of parents to raise their children, and the rights of children to that protection and support.
<P>
Chechnya
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Ortuondo Larrea">
Mr President, those of us who represent the Stateless nations of Europe passionately denounce the latest aggression which, at this turn of the century, is being committed by the Russian army in an abusive manner against the small country of Chechnya.
Russia is causing destruction, and the death of civilians - including old people, women and children - as well as an exodus which exceeds that of Kosovo.
All of this because a new Rasputin wants to gain popularity in Russia and take power as a new President, and to this end he thinks nothing of seriously endangering democracy, the Rule of Law and the economic reforms of the Russian Federation.
We cannot accept it and therefore we condemn it outright.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, this resolution on Chechnya is the most far-reaching there has ever been at international level and that is a credit to this House, for in the first war too, we contributed decisively to a peace agreement being signed.
However, I am disappointed that our amendment, which on the basis of the human rights clause in the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement of this agreement will be placed on ice in the context of this war, will not be adopted by the House.
I have the impression that we need much stricter measures than in the resolution we have so far shown to arrive at a cease-fire at all and to ensure that the bombing of the civilian population can finally cease and for it to be declared an internal problem.
<P>

I believe that today at the OSCE meeting - this subject is being discussed at the same time over in Istanbul -, it is necessary for there to be a real possibility that will lead to peace negotiations, for the problem in the Caucasus cannot be resolved in the way the Russians want and I therefore feel it is very important for us not to just stand still, but that in particular the Commission also takes up this appeal and threatens to take action such as freezing new TACIS agreements so that it actually affects them and is not just something here on paper.
It is a matter of great concern that I should like to make quite clear once again on behalf of my Group.
For us the resolution does not go far enough, but it is a first step - hopefully to a peaceful solution in the region.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bordes, Cauquil and Laguiller">
- (FR) On the pretext of attacking fundamentalist terrorism, the leaders of Russia are conducting a despicable war in Chechnya.
The Russian army is chiefly making attacks on the civilian population, an increasing proportion of whom are being forced to flee to neighbouring regions, only to be packed together in inhuman conditions.
Once again it is the civilian population which is suffering from the consequences of the destruction of towns, villages and infrastructure of a country which is already very poor.
<P>
The war is also a criminal one as regards the Russian people itself.
Thousands of young men are forced to wage this dirty war which can have no positive outcome for either themselves or for their parents and elders.
At a time when the transition to a capitalist economy is having the effect of causing a fall in production levels and the considerable impoverishment of the majority of the population, considerable sums of money are being swallowed up by the war effort, not to mention the cost of the corruption associated with it.
<P>
We denounce the Russian leaders who are responsible for this war, but we also denounce the leaders of the Western world who make do with a mild reproach, while supporting Yeltsin and his clan, anxious as they are to protect them.
In bombing the towns and villages of Chechnya, the Russian army is doing what the Western armies did a few months ago in bombing Kosovo and Serbia.
Two wrongs do not make a right, but these crimes do shed light on the deep complicity of the governments, to the detriment of the peoples concerned.
This is the explanation for our abstention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="President">
That concludes the vote.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=15>
EU action plan to combat drugs (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=228 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report (A5-0063/1999) by Ms Giannakou-Koutsikou, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on a European Union Action Plan to Combat Drugs (2000-2004) (COM(1999)239).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pirker">
Mr President, first of all let me thank Marietta Giannakou most warmly because she has opened up the opportunity today by means of an exchange, to deal with the vote on Eurodac and thereby to create the conditions under which we can introduce this fingerprint checking.
This is a very important report.
<P>
I should first like to quote some figures so that you have an idea of the scale of the drug trade.
First, we are dealing with the drug trade that in the meantime represents 8% of the volume of trade and makes billions in profits at the expense of young people and our families.
Within the European Union we annually seize some 600 tonnes of cannabis.
As far as the consumption of drugs is concerned, it is a fact that as many as 5 million young people take synthetic drugs and some 20% have tried cannabis.
The legal position in Europe is extremely unsatisfactory.
In the eyes of the citizens of Europe the battle against drug crime should be treated as an absolute priority.
I therefore believe that Marietta Giannakou' s report is especially important and the action plan is something really fundamental that can help us in this field.
It contains broad strategies, from prevention to repression to reintegration.
It does not allow for any liberalisation or legalisation and sets priorities and brings domestic and foreign policy together in order to be able to combat drugs successfully.
<P>
These are ambitious goals, but in reality it will not be easy, as up to now it has not been possible to obtain comparable data for individual Member States and to compare the methods and as long as we do not have this comparison of methods and dates it will also not be possible to achieve 'best practice' as a model.
Prevention has little support and the youth programmes are not designed for support in combating drugs.
The European Union makes relatively little money available.
<P>
So what are the feasible and absolutely essential demands that we must make?
The first thing for me is that it is vital for the prevention policy to be intensified.
I can see that there is quite a good chance of us attempting on a voluntary basis to declare schools as drug-free areas, to make it clear to schoolchildren through education that a life without drugs should be their main goal.
We therefore need the support of the European Union programmes such as SOCRATES and LEONARDO.
<P>
Secondly, we must urge the Member States most emphatically that we should finally obtain a standardised system of data and method registration so that it is possible to find the best models in the battle against drugs We must encourage cooperation between the police and the judiciary in the countries of Europe in the battle against drug crime and to protect young people.
We must make the European Union programmes such as FALQONE, GROTIUS or OISIN more productive, organise them more efficiently and make more funds available.
<P>
So with the action plan we have a good programme.
It is, however, a matter of getting to work on turning this programme into action in the battle against drugs and for young people and for a drug-free society as a whole.
That must be the aim, even if it is very difficult to achieve.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
Mr President, we would have liked the debate and the vote on this report not to have to take place today because - and I should like to say this right at the beginning - owing to the circumstances that led to the agenda being amended today and because of the fact that the voting time took so long because of the long Napolitano, Leinen, Dimitrakopoulos and Schwaiger reports, we will be voting on Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou' s report tomorrow morning.
<P>
Friday morning in Strasbourg is the day when there is the most pressure.
Tomorrow the plenary sitting will be bursting with Members crowding in to vote on the Giannakou report.
If there are fifty, that will be a lot.
I venture to make this comment because it is a glaring contradiction to the other assertion that Mrs Giannakou' s report is so important and it should therefore absolutely be discussed and voted on this week.
There is no logic behind that.
<P>
In fact, our colleague' s report is an important report and must be discussed very carefully, among other reasons because the debate on the report has once again shown that drugs policy in the European Union is one of the most controversial subjects that we have ever had to discuss.
<P>
I would first of all address a comment to the rapporteur.
I believe that Mrs Giannakou has taken a lot of trouble to give an opinion on the action plan in a form that was geared to a consensus and was determined in such a way as to integrate the different ways of looking at the situation that not only go right through the political "families" but are also characterised by national traditions, by different factors and by partially conflicting interests.
So our Group wishes to thank the rapporteur most warmly.
<P>
I will say on behalf of my absent colleague Jan Andersson, who as a Swedish Member of Parliament - I shall speak about that again in a minute - was in a very difficult position, because Sweden is one of the Member States that has a very special approach to drugs policy, owing to its national experience and national tradition and which despite this I believe, as you do, Mrs Giannakou, with the compromise amendments have ensured that this report is actually structured in such a way that it will receive broad approval.
<P>
128 amendments were submitted and you finally formulated 17 or 18 compromise amendments that should help to focus this profusion of amendments so that in the end a logical and conclusive report by the Parliament emerges on this action plan.
The words "logical" and "conclusive" really mean that three essential aspects have to be taken into consideration.
<P>
Firstly, all of us, whether on the right or left of this House must be clear and I do believe that the approach to drug policy must start from one premise: drug addicts do not on principle need punishment and persecution but help and support.
That is really self-evident.
Why do I have to mention that again here?
Because the way in which we help these people to reintegrate into society, the way in which we reduce their personal, individual suffering must derive from specific regional, local and national experiences.
So there cannot be an officially prescribed European drugs policy but there must be a European framework within which help can be provided to the people affected who are the focus here, on the basis of the specific experiences of the local and regional authorities.
<P>
The second aspect is that in our drugs policy we must bear in mind that in hardly any other branch of crime in Europe is more money earned than in the drug trade.
That means that we can talk about reducing the supply, which is a very important factor but it still means that those people who supply drugs on the market must be pursued regardless.
For this we need criminal law and the police.
But we also need a factor that I feel has not been touched on adequately in the debate. Those people who deal in drugs generally do so if it is on a large scale, intending to make a profit and to enrich themselves.
Everywhere we succeed in preventing illegal income from drug dealing from being converted into legal income, we have made great progress, that is to say, the battle against the drug trade and money laundering are phenomena that are linked.
Policy on combating drugs - I address this to the Commissioner for internal security - therefore means that by reducing the supply there will be the resulting prosecution of the drug dealer, particularly in the area of money laundering.
<P>
This is the third and final aspect, with which I will conclude. We all have different experiences.
In one country in the European Union there is a rather permissive approach, in another a rather restrictive one.
Overall if we consider the results of the Drug Monitoring Centre in Lisbon - almost everywhere there is an equally high drugs rate.
This means that whatever the approach we adopt at present we are equally successful or unsuccessful.
This means that we should set the parameters at a European scale and that implementation should be subsidiary and based on the respective national experiences.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wiebenga">
Mr President, it has to be said, the European Parliament has been divided over the drugs policy for years.
By and large, there are three shades of opinion discernible in this House.
Firstly, the followers of the Swedish model which, apart from treating drug addicts, emphasises the control of narcotics.
Secondly, there are the followers of the Dutch model, which tends more towards the treatment of drug addicts than control.
The Dutch model which allows drug shops, which in the Netherlands are given the unfortunate English term "coffee shops" , presupposes a division between soft drugs, namely marihuana, and hard drugs, such as heroin and ecstasy.
<P>
These two groups, the followers of the Swedish model and those of the Dutch model, do not want too much European cooperation in this field because they fear that their national policy might be affected.
Alongside these two groups, there is a third trend represented in this Parliament, namely those who do advocate more extensive and intensive European cooperation in the drugs policy, so that the various approaches which I have described above can grow towards each other.
This means that countries like France and Germany should do more to treat their drug addicts but that a country like the Netherlands, for example, should focus on controlling the drugs nuisance created by the "coffee shops" and on drugs tourism.
<P>
These three trends are also represented in the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party.
I am therefore pleased to say that most of my group colleagues can vote in favour of Mrs Giannakou' s report.
We find it an interesting report which fortunately disregards the issue of legalising narcotics and looks at the measures to be taken by the European Union.
<P>
On 6 November last, the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, advocated stronger European cooperation in the field of drug control.
He did this further to reports of Italian youngsters using ecstasy which largely originated from my country, the Netherlands.
Mr Prodi' s remarks caused a huge commotion in the Netherlands.
I personally agree with Mr Prodi.
If the European Union is intent on dealing with transnational crime forcefully, then this should also include the control of drug trafficking.
In fact, that is Europol' s first task.
Ecstasy is a hard drug which is lethal, as recent events in Italy have shown.
<P>
Those supporting the legalisation of soft drugs should also be open to European cooperation.
Indeed, a Member State could not legalise drugs on its own, this could only be done at European level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Buitenweg">
Mr President, if there is one issue for which we should keep our heads cool and our wits about us then it must be the drugs policy.
The present report drafted by Mrs Giannakou is not exactly a shining example of this clarity.
The debate is not being conducted in a very level-headed way.
There is too much bellicose rhetoric and frankly, too much hullabaloo.
<P>
We have noticed that slowly but surely this House has made some prudent steps in the right direction when it comes to dealing with this complex issue.
This is certainly evident if we compare the present debate and text with those of a couple of years ago.
At that time, hellfire and damnation were not punishment enough for Members who dared mention the words harm reduction or a therapeutic approach.
To most people in this House, it was completely inconceivable that, apart from a repressive approach to the drugs policy, other, more effective strategies could also be developed.
<P>
The Giannakou report represents a clear improvement on a number of points.
It recognises the importance of urban and regional policy experiments, refers to harm reduction and is prepared to evaluate different pluralistic therapeutic approaches.
Not very revolutionary and only a small step forward. But it gives cause for hope that bad practices can be compared on the basis of accurate data and that a humane and effective drugs policy will become a likelihood in an integrated European Union.
<P>
The way in which these positive elements are formulated, however, leaves too much scope for opposing interpretations.
Positive developments evident from the text cannot compete with the repressive mood which is still prevailing.
Think, for example, of the enforced rehabilitation of drug addicts in prisons.
This leads to inhumane situations and is not very effective if not taken on board out of one' s own free will.
<P>
The objective of the aid policy should not be restricted to achieving total abstinence in the long run.
One can live with drugs, as is the case - to many people' s delight - with alcohol and tobacco and as is the case with Prozac and Valium.
Does the rapporteur' s ferocious war declaration apply here too?
After all, research has shown that a good joint is less harmful and addictive than some socially accepted drugs.
<P>
Possibilities other than rehabilitation are still not mentioned in this report, although it is established practice in more and more Member States to supply drugs in a controlled manner, sometimes with very promising results.
<P>
The rapporteur is of the opinion that a fatalistic outlook encourages drug abuse.
This is a fallacy intended to sharpen the senseless war against drug abuse.
It exacerbates marginalisation and crime and will lead to more crime.
It is a repressive instrument which, unlike the addict, profits from this approach.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Camre">
Mr President, when I was 18 years old, there were no problems with drugs.
We had of course heard that there were such things as drugs, but they were substances we were unfamiliar with and had never encountered. It was said however that some people got their doctors to supply them with substances they would otherwise not have had access to.
Nor did we have open borders.
We had no traffic from Third World countries, and nor did we have very much money so, even if the supply of drugs had been there, we would not, I am sure, have been able to buy them. The main point, however, was that we did not see any need for them.
Today, the world looks rather different.
It is open, and the Schengen Agreement has opened the borders between our countries to such a degree that we do not have much opportunity to exercise supervision.
<P>
The fact which has to be faced is that the criminal forces which are involved in the manufacture and trading of drugs have a network, resources and powers which have far overtaken the constitutional states' ability to stop the drugs traffic.
That is why there is a need for a Community policy for, in the situation in which the European Union finds itself, we must necessarily work together to combat cross-border crime.
<P>
The report we have before us is quite excellent in what it says on a number of matters, and it points out with some clarity that, if we do not step up the war against the drug barons and financiers and their money laundering, then the constitutional states, our populations and our youth will lose out in this war.
But the report also contains forms of words which were voted through by the Committee and which must look perfectly harmless, especially to those unfamiliar with these matters.
They are concepts like harm reduction. And who would not want to reduce harm; who would not want to help people overtaken by a form of suffering as serious as drug dependency.
Naturally, we all of us want to, and what we immediately think about in this connection is treatment, which is to say efforts involving a variety of social and medical provisions.
But that is not what in fact lies behind the concept.
Harm reduction means something quite different in the mouths of those who do not want to see a strict drugs policy pursued.
May I say that I am completely at a loss to understand that philosophy, for drug abuse is not nowadays an isolated problem, affecting only the socially needy.
I am well aware that it affects people who feel isolated or who are in social need, but these in fact constitute only a few of the people who today are victims of drug abuse.
What our problem today is, is that young people, who may have good home lives, at the same time feel that their lives are so empty that they need an extra lift or trip on Saturday at the discotheque and to have their mood raised with the help of a drug they are lured into believing is harmless.
<P>
In this connection, I cannot refrain from saying that I think that the speech which Mrs Buitenweg made here a moment ago is dangerous.
I think it is dangerous for young people because it tempts them into believing - and I quote her - that "one can live with drugs, as is the case with alcohol and tobacco" .
I am well aware that you can become dependent upon tobacco.
It also takes a relatively large number of years before you get lung cancer from it.
I am well aware that you can become dependent upon alcohol, and I also know that there are people who lose their lives through alcohol abuse. However, there is a crucial difference in the case of tobacco and alcohol because, in the vast majority of cases, it is possible for people to control their use of these substances to a different degree than young people who have got mixed up in drug abuse are able to control their use of drugs.
I therefore want to say that it is important that, in the work that is being done within the EU, we give a very central place to having an information campaign for young people, who may today all too easily be enticed by friends of their own age and by others to try substances which are presented to them as being harmless and as things no worse to take than an extra glass of beer or an extra little whisky.
It is in fact something different we are talking about here, and it has not become dangerous because it is forbidden; rather, it is forbidden because it is dangerous.
So let us get away from this nonsense about decriminalisation and this tendency to trivialise the whole problem area by closing our eyes to the criminals who exploit our young people and destroy their health.
<P>
My group is a keen participant in the work which has been taking place in the Committee, and I should like to thank Mrs Giannakou for the sterling work she has done in this connection.
We do not consider that, with the report we have before us and with what it contains, the definitive and best outcome has been obtained, and we very much hope that the Commissioner will be able to find still more effective and more powerful methods of combating this alarming misuse of drugs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, the report of the rapporteur, Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou, describing the Commission' s plan of action regarding drug control is a powerful document in which the European Parliament strongly opposes drugs.
The European Commission does the same in its plan of action.
It has opted for a two-pronged approach: to control and prevent the demand for drugs and call for a hard-line approach regarding the supply of drugs.
<P>
Over the past couple of months, the drugs issue has been in the limelight rather a great deal.
The Tampere Summit underlined once more that the problem in Europe should be approached in a comprehensive manner.
The President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, indicated last week that an "internal market for the trade in drugs" has come about in the Union.
He claimed that this clearly calls for coordination of policy, even legislative harmonisation within those countries which, on account of their diverging policy, are playing into the hands of the trade.
Given the many irritated Dutch reactions, this remark really hit home.
<P>
Unfortunately, however, Mr Prodi denied that he was talking about the Netherlands.
Alas, my country does not only have the dubious honour of being known as a transit country for drugs, it is now also building itself a reputation for producing synthetic drugs.
Several young people have since died of the effects of these synthetic drugs.
This is really scandalous!
I would urge Mr Prodi to call a spade a spade; the Netherlands is one of those countries that play into the hands of the trade on account of its diverging policy.
<P>
I can certainly see the benefits of the Dutch policy.
For example, the care for addicts is excellent.
On the demand side, many sound initiatives have been developed.
But this serves little purpose if we continue to be blinkered regarding the supply side.
It is about time that the Netherlands draws up a balance sheet; at international and European level, the Dutch policy does not fit in and creates problems.
So time then for a change of course.
It so happens that cooperation at European level is aimed at constructive confrontation.
For this purpose, the plan of action is offering some useful instruments.
Let us undertake this challenge as a matter of priority!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Turco">
Mr President, as the rapporteur pointed out, the European Commission affirms that neither the regulatory instruments nor the programmes for the Action Plan on the fight against drugs 1995-1999 have been sufficiently assessed.
It is therefore impossible to determine to what extent the objectives laid down have been met.
<P>
Given that we are talking about the fight against drugs, the Commission' s Communication is not included on the agenda of the Court of Auditors or even OLAF, but on Parliament' s agenda.
Therefore, illogically, you are preparing to reconfirm the previous plan' s strategies for the next five years.
<P>
You will all agree - right as well as left - because when we discuss drugs you restrict yourselves to having simple differences of opinion, and no group is brave enough to put forward alternative strategies.
Indeed, when drugs are under discussion, the vast majority of you renounce your role as a government Member who, when faced with a problem, takes a lead on the issue and tries to resolve it, and, if the solution does not provide positive results or is counterproductive, as in this case, adopts a different policy.
<P>
You do not want to examine the possibility of changing the prohibitionist policy on drugs, because, when it comes to political choices, you impose moral convictions and beliefs which are a matter for each individual' s conscience.
In short, on this subject, you prevent true, scientific, secular debate by choosing an ethical approach which proves to be frustrating, ineffective and disastrous: disastrous because you try to justify things with the lack of financial resources.
But how much would it cost to eliminate drug trafficking, a trade that the United Nations says accounts for 8% of world trade?
You refuse to carry out a cost-efficiency assessment because you would have to admit that with your policy you have handed over control of the production and trade in certain substances to a criminal monopoly.
<P>
None of this surprises me: during this century crazy and incomprehensible things such as Nazism, Fascism and Communism have managed to gain power.
Prohibition of drugs still remains: ethical, inhuman and anti-scientific madness.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cederschiöld">
Mr President, the European Parliament is now establishing a policy, that is to say a drugs policy, which has emerged in fits and starts over a period of many years.
It is a firm drugs policy.
Thanks are due to all who have contributed to formulating it including, naturally enough on this particular day, the rapporteur Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou, but also Sir Jack Stewart-Clark who has worked with these questions in previous years.
<P>
May I perhaps emphasise that it is rather striking that I in particular, as a Swede, am very impressed indeed by this Parliament' s ability to produce what I consider to be a firm drugs policy. In fact, we Swedes have a fairly definite view of these questions.
<P>
I think we can now count upon seeing good results in the field of drugs policy.
I am particularly pleased that it is the Group of the European People' s Party' s drugs programme which in fact forms the basis of the present compromise.
There are features which will mean that we embark upon a common road towards fewer drugs and with the goal of leading both society and individuals away from drugs and towards the long-term goal of a society without drugs.
<P>
Once these measures which are now being proposed have taken effect, I believe that there will emerge in the Member States a greater sympathetic understanding of the differences between their respective policies.
It is therefore important that it should be precisely that policy which is the best policy which should stand as an example.
I should therefore like to urge the Commission to ensure in particular that the new Member States also have the opportunity to be present when the project is devised.
In my own country, many people, it is true, feel rather discriminated against in this area.
If we are bad at carrying out projects, we should like to improve.
We should, however, also like to be present when assessments of on-going projects are carried out so that we might see which road the European Union will continue to go down.
<P>
It is also important that we should comply with the laws of the different countries.
We cannot, in this European Union, step into some kind of grey area of a community governed by law and not comply with our legislation.
If we do not want to comply with our legislation, we must change our legislation and not pursue some kind of policy which does not follow the rules of a State governed by law.
<P>
I should like to thank you for the efforts which have been made and urge us all to be very much more committed in the future. We are not there yet by any means.
Rather, there is a very great deal of work which remains to be done.
Unfortunately, many of the amendments on the table here in this Chamber place obstacles in the way, so I hope that many of them will be rejected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van den Berg">
Mr President, given the fact that there are so few of us left and given the concerns for tomorrow morning' s vote, we should perhaps think about the significance of Fridays and their future.
<P>
Unlike my colleagues from the Netherlands, Mr Wiebenga and Mr Blokland, I am proud of the Dutch policy.
A hard-line approach on hard drugs, including XTC, is, at the same time, an effective way of lifting victims from the criminal circuit via a health-care approach and is also a policy which, fortunately, is attracting more and more followers elsewhere in Europe.
<P>
What is the logic behind it?
The rationale?
One may well wonder following this discussion.
What we have before us is the product of a long and emotionally-laden process and we have not finished by a long way because we are about to vote on this, that is tomorrow morning at 9.00 a.m.
<P>
What is the issue?
The Commission has made an announcement regarding a European Union plan of action concerning drug control for the years 2000 to 2004.
Compared with a previous plan of action, this document is clearly a step forward.
We are now on track for a kind of mainstreaming of the drugs policy with the emphasis on prevention, but hardly any guiding choices are being made.
Instead of making choices, we have mainly looked at the fantasy image of what avenues would be open to us once the war against drugs is over.
Until such time, until we have won this war and our society is free from drugs, we are conducting an uncompromising battle against not only the drugs Mafia but also the poor coca farmers in Latin America and also the poppy planters in Asia.
The militarisation of these societies, together with the fact that these poor people are not being given any effective help, means there are no truly sustainable prospects for the future.
<P>
Is it not about time we drew up a cost-benefit analysis of what we are doing, which is in fact at the insistence of the US war on drugs?
Are drugs really at least as important as human rights, as suggested by the rapporteur, and why do we not learn from an effective approach as adopted in the Netherlands, for example?
Luckily, further to the Commission' s communication, we are making some room for users and some more room for potential users, young people, by pointing out the harmful effects.
<P>
All in all this still has very little bearing on reality.
After all, the Commission has repeatedly highlighted that the plan of action in this respect is merely a supplement.
Perhaps it is so that the call made to the Presidency for an inter-pillar council could be seen as signalling a new opportunity, because this document still feels like a missed opportunity to me.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 NAME="Watson">
Few issues so highlight the differences of cultural approach between Member States.
I feel this report reflects a good consensus and I congratulate Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou on the work that she has done in putting it together.
<P>
I belong to a growing minority in the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party and also in this House which believes a radical change to our approach may be needed.
Why?
Quite apart from the ethical flaw in the prohibitionist argument - the state has no right to prevent a responsible adult from taking drugs - the fact is that prohibition is not working.
Our approach, which is based on controlling the supply of drugs, is using up massive resources.
The police in Bristol in my constituency tell me that 85% of all crime is drug-related.
This is destroying our inner cities, where drug dealers find a large market and sometimes even become role models for disenchanted young people.
It is filling our prisons with people who need care rather than incarceration, and it discriminates disproportionately against ethnic minorities, some of which have cultures in which drug abuse is less frowned upon than in others.
But, more importantly, it is helping to fund other forms of criminal activity and strengthening international organised crime.
<P>
We need at least to consider switching resources away from attacking the supply of drugs and towards attacking demand.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schröder, Ilka">
Mr President, rapporteur, this drug programme primarily concerns people who are drug addicts and their families.
They desperately need help.
I therefore feel that it is very important to undertake an honest analysis of the results of the programme and to draw the necessary conclusions.
<P>
The aims of this drug control programme are first and foremost to reduce the supply and demand.
Neither of these aims has been achieved.
Irrespective of the age group, country and drug concerned, drug taking is increasing or stagnating despite the harsh penalties and much greater number of prosecutions at national and increasingly at European level.
The same applies to the reduction in the supply of drugs.
For a long time only 10% of the drug trade has been caught by the police.
These shattering results are hushed up.
Instead, the drug programme before us just contains a copy of the previous programme with cosmetic changes.
Fortunately the Commission is undertaking an evaluation. However, an external assessment would clearly be better on this sensitive subject.
In any case, the appropriate action will have to be taken.
<P>
Despite the lack of success of the programme, a large part of the financial resources in the context of the drug programme goes into combating drugs.
For anything that is aimed at minimising the damage, there is a very small amount left over.
The question remains, however, why this programme is not clearly aiming to achieve the hidden goals.
We cannot escape the conclusion that the very fact of this programme' s existence is all that matters, and that in fact it serves different aims to those that have been stated.
What does this mean?
The drug programme is used to increase the legitimacy of the EU.
Drug programmes therefore have a purely instrumental character. And because that is at the expense of the addicts, we urgently need to think again.
<P>
There is no ideal solution in drug policy, we all agree on that.
But action must be taken.
The urgent aim must be to minimise the damage and that must be firmly established in the drug programme.
What that means in practice I shall show in four demands with which I shall now conclude.
<P>
Firstly, supply should be reduced to the minimum.
Secondly, methadone programmes should be expanded in the EU and the tried and tested controlled practice of the handing in of heroin should be introduced.
Thirdly, drugs users should be able to test drugs for their content and mixture.
Only in this way can further damage be prevented; we therefore need EU-wide drug checking.
Fourthly, city cooperation should be promoted, taken from the idea of the European Cities Drug Policy as a prime example of a project that recognises - legal and illegal - drugs as belonging to society and lends support to people dealing responsibly with these drugs.
We urgently need such a drug programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Meijer">
Mr President, without alcohol, tobacco and drugs, we would live a healthier life and cause each other less nuisance. But a world without unhealthy stimulants is an unattainable utopia.
Two groups of people are attracted to these: adults who, because of the free market, are at the mercy of social insecurity and tension and young people who want to explore all that is risky and forbidden.
Strict centralised European rules banning the use of drugs and regulating prosecution do not solve this problem.
<P>
Small-scale projects for the support of addicts, including training, housing, employment and income and also the provision of information regarding the effects of drug abuse are much more important.
I am somewhat alarmed at President Prodi' s recent announcement that small-scale, customised solutions will be prohibited in future.
In the Netherlands, the use of soft drugs has been permitted for the past twenty years.
This safeguards the users against sliding into crime and hard-drug addiction and offers the best chance of returning to a life without drugs.
This important public-health measure has since been adopted in many towns and regions in other European states.
It would be bad management to ban this policy, which can be held up as an example, in the name of European unification.
As far as I am concerned, Mr Prodi' s statement is actually an important reason why I would reject this proposal out of hand, despite all the balanced views contained in it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Coelho">
Mr President, Commissioner, I must confess that I am no fundamentalist where this matter is concerned and I respect those who hold different opinions.
I particularly respect the opinion that has just been expressed by Mr Watson, whom I hold in great esteem.
<P>
But I do not believe that in the name of efficiency, we can lay aside principles, and I shall start with such just such a matter of principle: we believe that drugs are an evil that must be fought.
They are a vice that weakens the will, which ensnares the individual in a dependency which enslaves and depersonalises him or her, which destroys social bonds and relationships, which creates delinquency and makes society less safe, and which sustains world-wide criminal networks that defy States' power and law.
<P>
We think that it is obvious that we have to wage an uncompromising war against drugs.
This message is clearly made in Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou' s report and deserves our applause.
Indeed, this is a problem of this day and age and is extremely worrying.
We know that drugs affect all countries and all social classes, and we also know that Europe' s enlargement towards the East dramatically shows the urgent need for efficient measures now that monitoring, which is already difficult, is going to become even more difficult. We know that this is a growing problem.
According to the report by the European Monitoring Centre, cannabis is still the most widely consumed drug throughout the European Union, although it is heroin that causes the most problems in terms of requests for treatment, drug-related deaths, HIV infection and social exclusion.
<P>
The same report, furthermore, shows an increase in the consumption in Europe of new synthetic drugs such as ecstasy, as well as an increase in the consumption of more traditional drugs such as LSD and amphetamines.
And all of this becomes more frightening if we consider that, at the moment, drug-related crime and the scale of drug trafficking represent around 8% of world trade.
<P>
We agree that this problem must be tackled from three angles: by reducing demand, by controlling drug trafficking and by combating drug addiction.
We agree that public awareness campaigns must be implemented and, at the same time, that we must strengthen prevention networks.
In the area of treatment, we must give support to high-quality programmes aimed at the whole community, using educational methods, including those targeting the prison population, together with initiatives designed to promote the reduction of risk, one example of which is the needle exchange programme.
<P>
With regard to reducing the availability of drugs, we must continue and increase our support to producing countries, so that they include in their priorities the reduction of demand and programmes for destroying crops, the destruction of laboratories and the prevention of trafficking.
For this reason, the political will required by this report must become reality.
If we limit ourselves to fine words, the conclusion will have to be that there has not been the political will.
This can be measured by the efficiency of the actions and the public resources placed in the service of this fight.
The report highlights the fact, and rightly so, that the budgetary resources are inadequate.
This Parliament does not have the right to ask the Member States for greater commitment and greater investment in the fight against drugs if it does not lead by example on an issue for which it has responsibility.
The main European instrument in this struggle is the European Monitoring Centre in Lisbon.
We expect a great deal from its work, in terms of a better understanding of the phenomenon, in terms of the existence of data and comparable information, and, above all, in terms of monitoring, identifying and proposals to ban dangerous substances placed on the market.
<P>
This is why we proposed amendments to this report. They were, in essence, accepted and seek to strengthen the role of the Monitoring Centre and to provide it with the necessary financial means for its work.
The other thing that our citizens are asking from us here is clarity.
Giving fine speeches is not enough.
We must take decisions and release resources which correspond to the commitment that we claim to have in this vital fight against organised crime for the sake of human dignity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Karamanou">
Mr President, Commissioner, the Commission communication on the Union' s action plan to combat drugs is an important and positive communication.
This plan covers all aspects of the problem and opens new prospects for a more mainstream, efficient approach.
However, and this goes without saying, more resources are needed.
I would like to congratulate Mrs Giannakou on her highly substantive report, especially the emphasis on international collaboration and the introduction of a systematic, yearly inter-pillar Council meeting to improve the monitoring and evaluation of action intended mainly to reduce the supply of drugs.
<P>
In the light of the international agreement concluded by the Special Session of the United Nations Organisation in June 1998 for a balanced approach to the problem which aims to reduce both supply and demand, I would like to highlight the potential offered by Article 152 of the Treaty.
This article allows the Union to complement national policies with action directed towards improving public health, preventing illness and reducing drugs-related damage to health.
The European Union action plan for the period from 2000 to 2004 must therefore include, over and above what is mentioned in the report, practices and programmes directed towards breaking the habit and restricting damage to the health of drug users.
<P>
Similarly, we need to focus our attention on and give priority funding to programmes to evaluate practices aimed at prevention, treatment and reintegration and in connection with the consequences to society and public health, so that Member States and applicant countries can use the conclusions as a guide when deciding their national policy.
Finally, I would like to point out that the European monitoring centre in Lisbon is carrying out important work and I trust that the information and data collected by it will prove how efficient European and international collaboration has been in this difficult fight.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Ojeda Sanz">
Mr President, I am speaking in place of my colleague, Mr Hernández Mollar and, on his behalf, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou on the excellent work which she has done.
It is clear that the drug problem, not only on a European level but also on a world level, requires the special attention of politicians, institutions and the whole of civil society.
On 26 October, in this Parliament, the President of Colombia, a country which unfortunately has strong links with the drug problem, told us: "Drug trafficking has been the great creator of violence and has led to assassinations of the highest possible human cost to our country" .
And we are not talking here about an issue which only affects the Member States nor the European Union, but an issue which directly affects human beings in any country of the world.
<P>
Our first concern in this Parliament should be to point out that the responsibility is collective, that it requires collaboration, cooperation and coordination between the judicial and penal authorities and between the different continents, whether they be the European Union, Latin America, South East Asia or African countries.
<P>
The second concern is that the European Union must play a greater role in the field of reducing the demand for drugs.
To this end, the European Parliament, in this resolution, has highlighted and strengthened the role which the European Observatory on Drugs and Drug Addiction must play by giving it greater means and resources to fulfil its objective efficiently.
I would like particularly to stress the importance of the fight against traffickers who use and exploit illegal immigrants, especially on the Southern border of Europe, in Andalucia, Ceuta and Melilla, which have become a channel for drug trafficking.
<P>
I would like to dedicate the third consideration to the group which is most affected by this social scourge; our young people.
A recent survey carried out in my country indicated that the second greatest social problem in the eyes of our young people was, after unemployment, the drug problem.
As the resolution says, drugs give rise to family problems, work problems and road accidents.
If we add to this the considerable increase which has been observed in the consumption of alcohol by young people, which in many cases goes hand in hand with drug-taking, especially synthetic drugs, we can see the need to adopt urgent measures which will reverse this trend.
Action in the field of education and families, economic cooperation with associations and NGOs, especially in the field of leisure and sport, will complement the actions which must banish this "pressure valve" from the lives of our young people which sometimes means that they are destroyed by something which starts out as a means of escape.
<P>
But we cannot solve these problems by talk alone.
Resources are required.
Both the Member States and the European Union itself must prioritise, in their budgets, the economic means which will allow the implementation of the measures proposed, including prevention, suppression and rehabilitation.
And unfortunately this is still not the case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 NAME="Bowis">
Mr President, congratulations to my colleague on her report.
In my part of Europe 3 million people are on illegal drugs, that includes 28% of 16-29 year-olds and 14% of 14-15 year-olds.
12,000 new, notified addict cases come each year; we have 70,000 drug offenders a year and we lose 1,200 people through drug-related deaths per year.
This is a battle which we may not be winning now, but which we must not lose.
We need a multi-pronged policy, we need to act together to stop the growers and the traders and the pushers, but we also need policies on education and health and we need to encourage research.
If we simply cut the supply and not the demand, then we will end up with a higher price for the drugs on the street and with more crime being committed to pay for people's habits.
<P>
Many of the amendments to this report before us are therefore right.
We need to educate young people.
We need role models from music and fashion and film to get the message across to young people: not just by saying "no", that does not work, but by telling them the truth.
The truth is that drugs can bring pleasure but also the truth is that they can damage health.
Damage in the form of cancer and heart disease, in memory and concentration loss, testicular problems and so on, and young people need to understand that, too.
<P>
Drug-taking is wrong, but we need to help those who are willing to accept help.
I shall never forget, as a minister responsible for fighting drugs, going and meeting a young man who had lost his health and his friends and his relationships, his family, his jobs, his prospects and his self-respect.
He was being helped to help himself come out of that deep black hole of addiction.
I stupidly asked him "Do you feel you are beating it yet?" and he said to me "I have a lifetime struggle ahead of me - if I ever think that I have beaten it, then I am lost".
He deserves our support.
He needs the research to make sure that we have effective treatments and we need to give him that help and that confidence. But how much better if we could destroy this evil by persuading future generations of young people that it is simply not for them; it is simply not worth taking the risk.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Lisi">
Mr President, in my intervention I will attempt to summarise the opinions of my Italian colleagues, Mr Costa and Mr Nisticò, too, who were previously down to speak, but are unable to be here due to the postponement of this debate.
<P>
As the Italian delegation, too, we wish to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou, on her excellent work.
As many Members have reminded us, we are dealing with the difficulty of finding a balance, which, nevertheless, has been achieved.
The difficulty stems from the different experiences and policies of the Member States.
At the same time, we must also initiate different types of relations between the Union as a whole and the activities of the individual states, and between the principle of subsidiarity and the need - which has also, rightly, been expressed - for the Union to equip itself with a common policy on this phenomenon which is a real concern for our present, but also for our future.
<P>
From the point of view of values, I am convinced of this and I totally agree with the ideas expressed by Mr Coelho, and therefore I will not repeat them.
Frankly, I am uneasy listening to some positions that send this message to young people: get used to living with ecstasy, get used to living with valium, i.e. get used to a life full of drugs.
I refuse to accept that politics should give way upon this issue.
<P>
I said that the report is excellent, not just because it rightly puts the two elements of the matter back into the spotlight - a combined action to reduce demand and to reduce supply - but also, may I say, because of the frankness with which Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou criticises what is still insufficient in the Commission proposal, both from a financial and economic point of view - we cannot state the importance of a battle and then not follow through in financial terms - and from the point of view, shall we say, of the political half-heartedness regarding the initiatives that the States still have not made.
Therefore, this excellent idea to convene an "inter-pillar" Council is one we should support.
<P>
In conclusion, I would just like to emphasise two points that, in our experience as Italians, are particularly important and significant: firstly, the importance of supporting basic scientific research as well so that we gain a greater understanding of the phenomenon, and, if possible, receive early warning of what the alleged drugs of the future will be, especially finding out the devastating effects of synthetic drugs; secondly, the importance of involving in these actions those principally concerned, those who are in the front line every day, who help drug addicts, that is, the experiences of treatment centres.
I think that these should be supported and encouraged.
Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou willingly accepted this request from the Italian delegation.
I think that, in future, when we address this subject again, it will be useful to come back to the point of who is managing and helping drug addicts today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=16>
Counterfeit travel documents
<SPEAKER ID=247 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A5-0050/1999) by Mr Newton Dunn on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs on the initiative of the Federal Republic of Germany with a view to adopting a Council Decision on the improved exchange of information to combat counterfeit travel documents (8457/1999 - C5-0011/1999 - 1999/0804(SNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=248 NAME="Newton Dunn">
.
This is a very uncontentious, uncontroversial report except for just one single point, which involves everybody who is listening.
The proposal is to develop a computerised image archiving system to help detect forged travel documents.
I imagine that we all agree that is worth doing.
So what is the single point of controversy?
It is whether this decision is going to be made behind closed doors in Brussels by officials and ministers, or whether there will be parliamentary scrutiny.
Fifteen national parliaments cannot do so, because it is a European proposal and this task will fall to us if to anybody.
<P>
Now the history of this proposal is that in January of this year, the Commission put forward the same proposal and said its purpose was to detect documents brought in by illegal immigrants.
The proposal lapsed when the Amsterdam Treaty came into effect in May.
It has now been retabled by the German Government, as a national government is entitled to do, under the Amsterdam Treaty.
However, the problem is that the German Government says its purpose is to deal with I quote 'crime' and leaves out the word immigration.
Why?
Because under the Amsterdam Treaty, immigration questions are transferred from the third pillar to the first pillar and become the responsibility, for the first time, of Parliament.
However, criminal matters remain in the third pillar and we have no area of scrutiny, no responsibility at all.
Therefore, the German Government in my submission is seeking to avoid parliamentary scrutiny of its proposal.
<P>
The committee did not like that.
The Committee on Citizens' Freedoms invited the Finnish Presidency and the German Government to come and answer our questions about the proposal.
The Finnish Presidency replied in a letter to the committee that it would not come, it would not answer our questions.
However, it did say that we could ask put questions in plenary.
Well, here we are in the plenary - where is the Council of Ministers?
Everybody can see that the seats are empty except for one charming lady in grey who is an official and is not allowed to speak.
But I hope she will take away this message.
The fact that the German Government has sought to avoid parliamentary scrutiny altogether by keeping this under the third pillar and the fact that the Finnish Presidency has not even turned up to answer our questions either in committee or in plenary is, I am sorry to say, a great stain on the reputation of the Finns, who previously had a wonderful reputation for openness and democracy.
I am also very sorry that they are not here to answer my accusation.
<P>
To conclude, the committee has voted to change the legal base so that this matter comes back under the first pillar, because this proposal is primarily about detecting forged documents carried by illegal immigrants.
I am asking everyone who is here to vote tomorrow morning to support the committee, to establish parliamentary control over this new area of policy, which is our remit under the Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pirker">
Mr President, Commissioner, I should first like to congratulate the rapporteur.
In his request to speak he referred to an important field, that is the institutional field and everything concerned with it.
<P>
What I should like to do is to refer to the opportunities that this system offers us.
The paper deals with combating the counterfeiting of travel documents.
It is a system for registration and comparison and thus an instrument that also helps to combat illegal entry and illegal immigration or the committing of criminal acts under a false identity.
That means that in order to be able to combat this phenomenon, which is partly a phenomenon of organised crime, we need new and very effective instruments.
<P>
One instrument is the system discussed here to combat the counterfeiting of travel documents.
After all, it should also help us to combat the crime of smuggling, which is on the increase.
If the figures are correct, then we have in the meantime learned that almost the same criminal earnings are obtained from smuggling as from drug crime and with considerably less risk than with drug-related crime.
I have been given access to figures that show that of the 400,000 to 500,000 illegal immigrants who come to the European Union every year, at least 200,000 are brought into the European Union by smugglers.
These counterfeit documents are very often used in smuggling cases.
<P>
In other areas too, where there is asylum abuse, there is counterfeiting of documents that are passed on from one person to another.
Unfortunately this has become part of a system.
In this regard, the system that Mr Newton Dunn described should be welcomed and supported.
<P>
I should, however, like to mention one point with which we are not happy.
That is the fact that in parallel we have developed the FADO system that allows us to compare original documents and counterfeit documents pictorially.
In reality, we therefore have two systems that should be amalgamated in one system.
Because rather than coming across counterfeit documents it is of course better if we have previously compared original and counterfeit documents via the FADO system.
That means that the aim should not be to run two parallel systems side by side, but to unite both of them in one system in the interests of efficiency.
<P>
Overall this action to combat counterfeit documents by comparing information that is not person-related is to be welcomed.
But we should try to be more efficient so that two systems do not run in parallel but are associated with each other so that something is achieved: so that with the Schengen information system and the EURODAC information system together we can contribute to a safer Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gebhardt">
Mr President, allow me to welcome the initiative by Germany to improve the exchange of information on counterfeit documents.
This exchange of information is of great importance for the protection and security of people in Europe.
<P>
Europe needs a legal area in which its citizens feel at home and protected.
An essential contribution to this is the cross-border regulations and protection systems that make life difficult for criminals.
The German initiative endeavours to achieve such a system.
<P>
By exchanging information on counterfeit documents the counterfeiting itself is contained.
That is an essential contribution to combating smuggling and other crimes and - I think this is very important - all other kinds of crime.
So it is quite sensibly in the proposal for a Council Decision.
<P>
The rapporteur wants to amend paragraph 3 of the preamble and limit the crimes to the offence of illegal immigration.
He implies that illegal immigration is the greatest crime that we have to combat.
My dear colleague, where do you actually live?
Have you never heard anything about drug dealers and the couriers of the money launderers with suitcases full of bank notes?
Do I really have to make you a list of travellers' crimes?
<P>
Amendment 6 is a disgrace!
It mocks our citizens who expect protection and security from the European Union.
We must vote by a large majority against this amendment.
We cannot allow ourselves the intellectual freedom to be afraid of a few poor creatures who sneak in with forged documents and at the same time guarantee serious criminals the freedom to travel.
The Legal Committee that has dealt with this matter was also unanimous and, I repeat, unanimous, in this opinion with all the other Groups after an in-depth examination and, as I said just now, I want this measure to apply to all crime.
That is the reason why my Group will vote against all these amendments in the vote tomorrow morning.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=251 NAME="Tannock">
Mr President, I too would like to support the substance of the German Council initiative to improve on the exchange of information on counterfeit travel documents and to strengthen the security of the European Union's borders both for Member States such as my own, the United Kingdom, which are outside of Schengen as well as those that are at the EU perimeter.
<P>
Recently my country, the United Kingdom, has been subject to an enormous rise in the inward flow of peoples and in my previous job as a Central London hospital doctor I witnessed a significant degree of illegal immigration and fraudulent abuse of our generous asylum policy.
We in the UK are currently witnessing something of the order of 7,000 new applicants for asylum every month and over 80% of these eventually turn out after investigation to be bogus.
This represents some 100,000 people per year including their dependants coming into my country.
<P>
I personally have come across a Nigerian asylum seeker being granted asylum on the strength of a false Liberian passport, an Albanian family who passed themselves off as Kosovans, another Nigerian who had loaned his British passport to his cousin who was able to enter the United Kingdom under the identity of his cousin and then commit a crime, and an Algerian who was living under the identity of a French citizen and who had bought his ID card on the Parisian black market.
These are just some of the many abuses of which I have personal experience and we know that for the immigration authorities these examples are a daily occurrence.
<P>
How can we expect our own immigration and police authorities to be able to crack down on the systematic abuse of our system?
We have a duty to remember that this constant flow of illegal immigration is posing an enormous burden, in particular in inner cities, on our national health service, social services and social security system as well as putting huge pressure on our limited housing stock.
Unfortunately, there is evidence that large numbers of asylum-seekers have been waved through Continental Europe with a suggestion that they head towards our Channel ports in the knowledge that we have a permissive policy with instant rights to housing and social security benefits.
<P>
Although the British Conservative Party is formally opposed in principle to commissioning under Article 63 of the Treaty of Amsterdam to the first pillar of policies on visas, immigration and asylum - and I therefore have to disagree with our rapporteur on this issue - nevertheless we welcome intergovernmental cooperation under the third pillar through Council joint action on the exchange of such information, including that relating to forged travel documents in order to crack-down on crime, particularly international crime which respects no national boundaries.
<P>
There is evidence that organised crime has spotted a soft and lucrative target in the illegal traffic of human beings who are often prepared to spend their life savings to gain entry to wealthy western countries in the hope of making a new life for themselves.
This initiative is, therefore, in my view, a step in the right direction with the use of modern computer image digitalising technology to aid law enforcement agencies and interior ministries to cooperate throughout the Union.
It is a good example in my view of the sort of European Union venture that my party in the United Kingdom can support so long as it is done on a flexible, intergovernmental basis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
Mr President, the comments by the previous speaker, Mr Tannock, should show Mr Newton Dunn why Mrs Gebhardt rejects his amendment.
The German government has taken an initiative to restrict and gain better control of the counterfeiting of travel documents - and that is in the context of the freedom of movement in the European Union.
Mr Newton Dunn has now, on the pretext that the Parliament could not have such a strong influence under the third pillar as with his legal base, chosen the approach to amend the legal base and in doing so he has limited the target group taken into consideration to those who are affected under the first pillar within the meaning of the security policy of the European Union.
That then led to a Member such as Mr Tannock giving an inflammatory speech about immigration!
That goes together very well if you have the philosophy of a British Tory, which amounts to an anti-European view!
<P>
However, this only marginally concerns Germany' s initiative to strengthen the security structures in Europe.
But it does provide pretexts for the politicians who in the meantime colour every debate on security in Europe with the subject of illegal immigration.
I should just like to say something here to our colleague from London: having heard your speech, I must ask you a question in return.
Is Europe now really an immigration continent or not?
If you answer in the affirmative with your lively description that Europe is an immigration continent should we not finally take action and create legal structures on immigration?
You would be the first to say 'no' , I am quite sure of that!
We are not a continent of immigration and we don' t need any immigration rules!
<P>
But what does the whole debate show us?
Mr Newton Dunn has perhaps chosen a sensible approach from the viewpoint of the European Parliament in order to increase our influence.
We have already seen the political effects that that has.
Remaining under the third pillar does integrate more groups of people, as Mrs Gebhardt has just said, that is to say, all criminals who forge travel documents.
But we have not integrated the Parliament as strongly as with the Newton Dunn legal base.
Overall, that shows that neither the third pillar nor the marginal transfer of responsibilities to another pillar are sufficient to create efficient security structures in Europe.
Commissioner, you must together with us make that clear to the Council.
You did so in Tampere, you did it before, and you must do it again.
<P>
The debate here shows that not all of our efforts bear fruit, because the government cooperation is not sufficient to convert the needs resulting from the internal market structure and the associated speed of integration into new legislation on security structures in Europe and it does not operate in accordance with Amsterdam.
We must draw the necessary conclusions from this, otherwise it will not work in practice.
Because we are arguing here about the legal bases, we are conducting some stupid debates about illegal immigration - that is something for the Tory Party conference, but ineffective for Europe - and we are completely neglecting what we should do, that is, create effective legislation to restrict the counterfeiting of documents, both by those who illegally provide access to Europe and those who, as Mrs Gebhardt rightly said, travel thorough Europe with a suitcase full of heroin but with counterfeit documents too.
<P>
Mr Newton Dunn, because we are of the view that in weighing up your proposal, that is a very worthy one, and the intention that the German Council Presidency had in its time, we must decide in favour of the greater target area, we shall reject your amendment, not only because of the legal base, but as a consequence of all the others, which does not alter the fact that you have undertaken a careful piece of work.
You have indeed done that, but on this subject we differ greatly in our political views!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fatuzzo">
Mr President, I have to give the House some good news, and I am sure you will welcome it as such.
<P>
Yesterday' s newspapers, published today in press reviews across Italy, said: "Long-life gene discovered: life could be increased by a third" , or by 35% to be precise.
Therefore, I think that, if at the moment I am hoping to reach 90, I will actually reach 130.
<P>
You will say, what does this have to do with counterfeit travel documents?
I will tell you straight away.
You know that I am the representative of the Pensioners' Party, elected to Parliament from that list.
The pensioners are always asking me what they are cooking up in the pot in Brussels.
They are aware of the fact that in Brussels - but above all in the fifteen Member States of the Union - they take these pensioners and they throw as many of them as possible into boiling water.
This is what has been happening for some time, and, with this new piece of news, I think that the pot will be heated even more so that even more pensioners can be boiled, if possible all together.
<P>
In addition to the serious harm that they know they have to suffer, there is also the fact that, unfortunately, being elderly, they more than other people are more likely to be the targets of the criminal acts which, throughout the European Community, are sadly being perpetrated by many people who illegally enter the Union and then commit them once they are in.
<P>
I would therefore like to say to my friends and fellow Members, Mr Gebhardt and Mr Schulz, that, firstly, in the amendments tabled by Mr Newton Dunn, the need to combat crime and the trade in human beings is not avoided but confirmed.
I would also like to say that if these criminals do not enter illegally, then they will not commit crimes either; if, on the other hand, they are decent people and have their travel documents in order, then we are quite happy for them to enter.
It is precisely for this reason that we are saying that what this measure is doing is positive - even if it reminds us of Arsène Lupin, the gentleman thief - but it would be much better to have a European electronic identity card which is the same in all the States.
Above all, it would be much better for supervision at European borders to be increased, on the borders of Spain, Greece and Italy as well as Eastern Europe...
It is pointless to invest money, effort and hard work for other reasons.
We must prevent large numbers of people illegally entering the European Union who then go on to commit crimes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=254 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Vitorino">
<SPEAKER ID=255 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=17>
Losses under loans for projects outside the Community
<SPEAKER ID=256 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A5-0051/1999) by Mrs Rühle on behalf of the Committee on Budgets on the Proposal for a Council Decision granting a Community guarantee to the European Investment Bank against losses under loans for projects outside the Community (Central and Eastern Europe and Western Balkans, Mediterranean countries, Latin America and Asia and the Republic of South Africa) (COM(1999)142 - C5-0039/1999 - 1999/0080(CNS).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=257 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rühle">
I wish to thank you all for waiting so long as we have been relatively busy today and for a long time we did not know when the report would come up.
However, today and tomorrow I should like to be able to vote on the procedures of guarantees by the Community for the European Investment Bank, the EIB for short, because if possible, we want to decide before the Council and because we also want to make certain changes, which I shall refer to in detail.
<P>
The provision of these guarantees concerns the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean, Latin America, Asia and South Africa.
It relates to the period up to the year 2003 under my proposal, to be precise until 31 January 2003, then there will be a review half way through and we shall then deal with it again or extend it until 31 January 2007.
It involves a sum of EUR 9 475 million and the provision of guarantees amounting to a maximum of 60%.
There are few inconsistencies in this regard. The inconsistencies are to be found in other areas.
The main problem area with which my report deals, which became clearer as I worked on the report, is that the European Investment Bank, as far as modern business management, transparency and public work are concerned, is trailing rather far behind.
<P>
Some of the people I have spoken to have explained that the European Investment Bank is trailing some twenty years behind the World Bank as far as modern business management is concerned.
I therefore believe it is important that we deal with this subject more intensively.
The European Investment Bank is the largest public bank in Europe, its general owners are the Member States and it works primarily with low-interest loans.
Owing to the fact that its shareholders do not expect high interest rates and the thus possible low gearing rate, that is the ratio of the lending volume to equity capital, of 2.5 - market rates are usually over 10 - the Bank enjoys considerable confidence on the capital markets.
This high level of confidence on the capital markets enables it to take up loans under favourable conditions and to on-lend at accordingly favourable rates.
Furthermore, the Bank enjoys tax exemption and not least, guarantees from the EU budget for political risks too.
<P>
Despite this direct and indirect assistance to the Bank from the European Union, the EIB is keen to appear to the public as a quite ordinary bank and in the past that was how it justified its relative inaccessibility for cooperation and monitoring to the public compared to other public institutions like the World Bank.
In our view, that should and must now change as a matter of urgency.
My report therefore also deals first and foremost with the subjects of accountability and transparency, that is, modern business practice.
<P>
Over the last few years there has been a lot of criticism of the internal administration and business management of the EIB.
Nevertheless, for a long time the Bank refused to allow the Court of Auditors or OLAF to inspect its books, invoking its special nature as a bank.
The particular "constipation" of the EIB in matters of public monitoring and transparency even led the ECOFIN Council on 8 August 1999 to state the following, and I quote: "In view of the important financial task assigned to the European Investment Bank by the Treaty and a series of Community regulations, it must take an exemplary attitude to fraud control and allow OLAF, where necessary, to undertake inspections.
The Council does not doubt that the governing body of the Bank will shortly submit a proposal to their board of governors for a decision in accordance with the inter-institutional agreement."
<P>
We are now seeing the first signs that the Bank will open its books.
However, in my view they are not yet adequate and there is still mistrust.
This mistrust is increased further by its dealings to date with Mr Blak, the rapporteur of the Committee on Budgetary Control, who has been waiting for a long time to answers to his questions.
I should like once again to thank the Committee on Budgetary Control for its preparatory work in this regard, which has allowed me in the short time available to draw up this report, and I should especially like to thank Mr Blak and Mrs Theato.
<P>
In the future we shall also have to watch the development of the EIB with regard to more transparency and for all sceptics, it is also a matter of economic efficiency.
A business that cuts itself off will be taking its decisions on a very narrow basis.
Dialogue with society in general, as the World Bank, among others, has been practising in the meantime, also provides information for investment decisions.
Here, also, the Bank has been criticised in the past, both regarding its investments in the health sector in my own country, that particularly consolidate antiquated structures and in the transport and environment sectors in Eastern Europe.
It cannot and may not suffice in the future for the Bank to restrict itself to the isolated inspection of individual projects - such as, for example a section of motorway -, it must also inspect the projects in context - for example within a transport development plan in a particular country, in order to be able to identify duplication and to develop an acceptable and financially sustainable alternative.
For this reason the Bank should undertake a public relations offensive in the regions that have received assistance.
<P>
The European Parliament should therefore in the next few years direct its attention to the development of the EIB.
The bases are set out in my report and I hope that they will be adopted tomorrow.
Thank you very much! I have overrun a little, but I wanted you to understand what this report is all about because the report is all Greek to most people!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=258 NAME="President">
I note, Mrs Rühle, that it is very difficult to stop you.
You have overrun your allotted speaking time by 25%.
That' s a huge amount!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=259 NAME="Khanbhai">
Mr President, Mrs Rühle has produced an excellent report on this subject.
I am the newly appointed rapporteur on the EIB, the European Central Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
<P>
I agree with the amendments proposed by Mrs Rühle as they express clearly real concerns about the EIB's transparency, efficacy, accountability and conformity with the Community's objectives and policies.
I will address briefly each of these concerns.
<P>
Firstly, there is widespread concern about the EIB's transparency.
My predecessor from the Socialist Group, Mr Freddy Blak, Mrs Rühle, the author of the report, many Members of Parliament and the Court of Auditors have all expressed their opinion about the lack of transparency in the operations of the EIB.
Even the World Bank and the East European NGO called Bankwatch have publicly stated this view.
<P>
Secondly, let me turn to efficacy.
Mrs Rühle states the need to evaluate the effectiveness of EIB operations.
I, as the new rapporteur for the Bank, requested Sir Brian Unwin, the President of the EIB, for an initial meeting to set out a framework to assess the efficiency of the Bank.
I am sorry to report to this House that Sir Brian has not even bothered to ring me or arrange to meet despite numerous telephone reminders.
Such disregard for this new European Parliament will erode, yet again, public respect and confidence in the European Union.
<P>
Thirdly, what about public accountability?
In May 1999, my predecessor, Mr Blak, Vice-President of CoCobu, asked 26 specific questions about alleged fraud, mismanagement, corruption and cover-up - I mean cover-up - in the Bank's activities, including in treasury operations, over the period 1993-1998.
The questions are specific, detailed and relevant.
They require a written response from the Bank.
I have asked Sir Brian for such a response but, once again, he has chosen to ignore my request.
I have been told by Mr Martí, one of his vice-presidents, that the EIB is owned by the Member States and, as such, according to the Treaty, it is not an EU institution obliged to respond to the European Parliament, the Court of Auditors or OLAF.
Only matters relating to loans to non-EU countries where the Community gives loan guarantees can be discussed with Members of Parliament.
<P>
I ask this House, what are the Member States?
Are they not the governments of the people who live, work and pay taxes in the countries that we call Member States?
Are we not, as the only elected representatives of the people of these Member States, expected to safeguard the interests of the people who live in the Member States?
Does the Treaty specifically forbid the European Parliament from having access to information?
Certainly not.
Therefore, if the EIB is confident that it functions well and has nothing to hide, why is Sir Brian Unwin, its president, denying access to Parliament, the Court of Auditors and OLAF?
<P>
Clearly, the Treaty needs to be amended to specify such access in bold print.
I suggest that those involved in the IGC take note.
Clearly there is support for this as Ecofin, in its meeting on 8 October in Tampere, reinforced its previous criticisms of the EIB's management and performance by directing it to open its doors to OLAF and the Court of Auditors.
I have seen the decision taken by the EIB concerning this directive and according to paragraphs 5 and 6 of the decision taken by the Bank it will not open its doors to OLAF.
It is about time this House told the Bank to open its doors to OLAF and the Court of Auditors.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=260 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Casaca">
Mr President, the succession of earthquakes that have wrought destruction on north-eastern Turkey have led us to consider it crucial to increase the sums allocated to that country, and therefore, we voted, on the first reading, in favour of a revision of the financial perspectives which include emergency support for Turkey on a par with the priority that we gave to the reconstruction of East Timor.
In addition to this budgetary boost, it is also essential to strengthen support for Turkey by means of credit on favourable terms, and we therefore support the rate of risk cover by the Community budget.
<P>
At the same time, it was with a certain amount of pleasure that we received the news, recently, that the European Investment Bank has finally accepted the scrutiny of its management by Community institutions.
In any event, we think that it is essential for the forthcoming revision of the Treaty to establish the European Investment Bank as an institution under the full control of the Community, under the supervision of the Court of Auditors and the European Parliament, so that it does not merely answer to a general assembly of Member States, as it seeks to do at the moment.
<P>
As soon as all the Bank' s activity is supported by a considerable Community budget effort, which guarantees the risks linked to banking activity, the scrutiny of its accounts must be developed with the utmost rigour and care.
When both Parliament and public opinion were surprised at information published in the press, according to which an institution that we thought was involved entirely in structural investments had lost very considerable sums in short-term speculative operations, it became clear that there was a need to scrutinise the EIB' s investment policy thoroughly.
<P>
The multiplying effect of a banking guarantee means that investments resulting from EIB credits are of crucial importance in the context of policies subsidised by the Community budget.
It would not, therefore, be reasonable, through this guarantee, to support different policies from those decided on by the European Union.
This is not a question of interfering in commercial lending policy, a matter which is the sole competence of the EIB' s management, but merely of guaranteeing respect for democratic decisions and for stringent, transparent rules.
The EIB is the trustee of a valuable Community inheritance, both from the point of view of the actions that it has helped to implement and from the point of view of the amounts of money that it has accumulated.
We are sure that the EIB will continue to play this role in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=261 NAME="Virrankoski">
Mr President, this report by Mrs Rühle is excellent, as it underlines the principles which the European Parliament has held as important when we have tried to improve our administration.
The reports by Mrs Rühle and Mr Seppänen both concern the same issue: guarantees against loans granted to the European Investment Bank.
In itself, the European Investment Bank is an excellent instrument for financing specific projects.
As the EIB has a high degree of creditworthiness, it can acquire cheap capital from the markets and target it at those areas the EU considers necessary.
In this way the direct need for financial aid diminishes.
There is a budget guarantee for those loans for which the EIB is responsible on behalf of the EU, which amounts to 70%.
Now the matter being raised is the reduction of this figure.
The Commission is proposing 60%, but the Council has decided on a provisional rate of 65%.
For that reason, Parliament must first determine its position on what the correct rate should be.
<P>
In determining the percentage figure our starting point is that the EU should bear the principal political risk relating to the financing of projects.
This means that if the political situation in a country in which a project is to be carried out continues as predicted, there is only a financial risk attached to lending. That is normally the responsibility of the party granting the loan.
In fact, the EU guarantee has also borne part of the financial risk, as these two different factors cannot be clearly distinguished from one another.
The percentage rate obviously has a bearing on how many loans can be guaranteed by a sum that is contained in the financial perspectives and which is at present EUR 200 million.
In practice, changing the rate may not have an effect except as a means of regulating the overall amount of loans, as the guarantees do not often have to be paid.
<P>
Mr President, with these remarks I would like to express my support for the reports by Mrs Rühle and Mr Seppänen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=262 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Färm">
Mr President, the European Investment Bank' s activities are becoming ever more important, especially now that Eastern and Western Europe are to draw closer to each other.
Bringing new countries from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean area into the EU, like developing cooperation with other neighbouring countries, is not just a question of reaching good agreements.
It is at least as much a question of in actual fact developing these countries' societies and economies so that they can manage the new environment they are to be integrated into.
It is therefore a serious matter that it is now so unclear how much confidence can be placed in the Bank.
<P>
The content and consequences of the EIB' s programmes must be developed in such a way that loans vigorously support the European Union' s political objectives.
The rapporteur and the Committee on Budgets particularly point out that the Bank' s projects must support important objectives, including the European Parliament' s decisions concerning, for example, the fight against poverty, the defence of democracy and human rights and the protection of the environment.
<P>
Clearly, the European Union must continue to back the EIB and guarantee its loans, especially against political risks.
We take a favourable view of the desire that now exists to carry out assessments in such a way that differentiation takes place on the basis of how risks and financing opportunities appear in different parts of the world.
It is also important, however, not only to make improvements to the programmes themselves. Instead, there must also be improved public scrutiny of the Bank' s activities.
For example, it is important that the Bank should work with clear, assessable objectives so that we might in actual fact ensure that the resources are used efficiently.
This is also important in order for us to be able to learn from the results of the Bank' s activities and use our analyses to develop activities in the future.
<P>
Many of my colleagues have spoken of the importance of openness.
I shall just touch briefly upon this issue.
All EU institutions, like the EIB, must now subject themselves to more stringent monitoring and supervision.
That is why we are now demanding increased openness.
It ought to be obvious that both OLAF and the Court of Auditors should have access to all documents which are required for the purposes of good supervision.
That is the significance of the important amendment No 5, and something which I understand that the Bank has now in fact begun to consider agreeing to.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=263 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
Mr President, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Budgetary Control, I should like to thank Mrs Heide Rühle for the excellent teamwork.
It has been a real pleasure to work together on this matter.
The European Investment Bank is an important tool in connection with aid to developing countries but, in order to help, the Bank needs loan guarantees provided by the EU.
The guarantees are necessary if the Bank' s potential is to be used fully.
I should therefore like to recommend the report, but I also have just a couple of remarks about the Investment Bank.
<P>
Combating fraud, muddle and incompetence in the EU' s systems is incredibly important.
If we do not overcome the fraudulent use of taxpayers' money, the population of Europe is never going to regard us in a positive light.
It makes cooperation more difficult.
Combating fraud is therefore something which should be given the highest priority everywhere.
This also applies to the Investment Bank.
In the Committee on Budgetary Control, we have fought a hard struggle over six years to obtain an insight into the Bank' s affairs and, yesterday, we finally got an agreement in regard to supervision of the Bank by the fraud office, OLAF.
I think, however, that it is incredible that it should have been necessary to exert pressure on the Bank in connection with its guarantees from the EU before it became at all possible to talk with its officials.
It ought not to have been necessary for us to take steps of that kind.
I will put it like this: it would have been easier to enter Fort Knox in the United States than it was to enter the doors of the Investment Bank.
The fact that the Bank has now been opened up means that OLAF can ask for information from the Bank.
It also means that the Bank should turn to OLAF whenever it discovers fraud. Then, things will really have started to move.
<P>
Basically, the Investment Bank has now undertaken to cooperate to the maximum with OLAF in order to get to grips with fraud involving taxpayers' money.
The only way in which we can obtain a better relationship with the population of Europe is by being open and showing that we are using their money honestly and properly.
The Bank has therefore decided that OLAF must begin an investigation when it comes to the matter of EU resources.
This is in actual fact a tremendous victory for Parliament, and I therefore want to say that it has been a pleasure for me to lead this struggle. Now, my colleague can take over, and I am quite sure that he will be a very popular man throughout the Bank.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=264 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Solbes Mira">
Mr President, I would like to make two comments, one concerning the main objective of the subject of today' s debate, the guarantee by Union budgets of the external loans of the EIB, and another on the issues which I know concern this Parliament especially, those of transparency and the efficient use of the Bank' s resources.
<P>
First point: In the ECOFIN of 8 November, a political agreement was reached on the Commission' s proposal of 23 April.
It is true that the Member States still have some reservations.
With the favourable opinion of the European Parliament we hope to approve this Council decision in the next meeting of the Council on the 29th of this month.
The issue is especially relevant, given its urgency, insofar as we do not have a lot of time to implement the new procedure, since the current system ends at the end of January and we need to reach a bilateral agreement between the Bank and the Commission.
<P>
Therefore I would like to thank you for the work on the budget, especially Mrs Rühle, for her invaluable cooperation on this specific issue of the forecast of the issues.
Having said this, I would also like to tell her that, with regard to the report, many issues have been accepted, while others we have not been able to accept for either technical or economic reasons.
Our positions are perfectly well known and I do not know if it is worth repeating them.
I would simply insist perhaps on the last proposal, which refers to amendment 11.
As we have already told you, we think that it is much better, on the subject of the definition of policies, to speak of a solution by means of a Commission declaration to the Council rather than a modification of the decision.
<P>
However the problem which has been of most concern in today' s debate is that of transparency and the efficient use of Community resources.
It is clearly not a new issue and many of you have worked on it for many years, and I would like to be a little less negative than some of you.
Less negative in the sense that the framework of EIB relations with OLAF and the Court of Auditors is beginning to become clearer.
<P>
It is true - and some of you have said so - that, with regard to relations with the Court of Auditors, there is a problem of primary legislation which will clearly have to be amended, if the European Investment Bank is receive the same treatment as the Community institutions.
<P>
I insist once again that this issue is well-known, but no less important for being so: the Member States are the Bank' s shareholders and the Member States must take some decisions which, logically, do not correspond to other Community institutions.
We are not talking about a greater or lesser degree of representation but rather simply a distribution of competences which at the time were defined in a particular way.
<P>
Secondly: Having said that, in what respect do I believe we have moved forward?
I believe that we have moved forward greatly in the sense that the European Investment Bank has accepted that OLAF has all the information and means necessary to analyse the loans subsidised with Community funds, which must undoubtedly be our main concern.
<P>
It is true that we are still debating what will happen to the Bank' s activities in the cases where it uses own resources.
And when we talk of own resources we are in fact talking about two different realities: loans with own resources and guarantees from the Union or loans without guarantees from the Union.
<P>
I would like this principle of openness which has developed in relations with the Bank to move forward and that finally we may arrive at a result which is satisfactory to the Parliament and the European Investment Bank, without forgetting, as I said before, that the EIB is a financial institution which can provide information with no restriction on any kind of issue.
It can provide information, with some restriction, to OLAF and, of course, with regard to the Court of Justice, the final position will have to be that which is decided in accordance with the amendment of the Treaties.
<P>
In any case, the debate has been enormously interesting and I hope that what I have heard today will not be an obstacle, however, so that we can move forward with the approval of the distribution of resources, the distribution of loans, as from next year and that Community procedures are not delayed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=265 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner Solbes Mira.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=18>
EIB loans to Turkey
<SPEAKER ID=266 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0054/99) by Mr Seppänen on behalf of the Committee on Budgets on the Proposal for a Council Decision granting a Community guarantee to the European Investment Bank against losses under loans for projects for the reconstruction of the earthquake-stricken areas of Turkey (COM(1999) 498 - C5-0247/1999 - 1999/0212(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=267 NAME="Seppänen">
<SPEAKER ID=268 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alyssandrakis">
<SPEAKER ID=269 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Solbes Mira">
Thank you, Mr Seppänen, for your presentation and your report.
I would like to make a few comments about your report.
<P>
Firstly - and here I would like to address Mr Korakas' concerns - we are talking of humanitarian aid, of a process which is different to any other Union aid programme, whether a financial protocol or any other type.
This humanitarian aid was initially granted as a result of the earthquakes which took place in August, but the Commission would also like to extend its scope to the most recent earthquakes which have happened in Turkey.
We believe that the quantity will not be altered significantly, but we do think that it would be difficult to differentiate between the damage caused by one earthquake or another in a programme of this type.
<P>
Having made these initial comments, I would like to deal with the two problems mentioned in the report.
The first problem is the risk of exceeding the type or total amount of the loans from the reserves and the loan guarantees.
According to our information, this is not the case.
We have carried out a thorough and detailed analysis, and, according to the information available, on the basis of the maximum use envisaged there is still a surplus in 1999 of Euro 33 million, of 8.7 in 2000, of 7 million -approximately- in 2001 and, although it is clear that in 2002 the situation will be completely different, there will also be surpluses in 2003.
This leads us to believe that there is little sense therefore in modifying the system of reserves at the moment, because this difficulty would only arise in the event that we use the maximum forecast.
Clearly you may ask me what would happen in the event that new situations such as this one may arise and we have to take further action.
For this reason the Commission always has the margin to confront this possibility of an increase in the reserve Fund, although we feel that it is not necessary to do so at the moment.
<P>
With regard to the possibility of the 60 or 65%, we could agree with your idea of accepting 60 rather than 65%, which seems to us to be a coherent idea.
This would require a modification of the regulations which are currently applicable, which in turn would lead to a delay in the decision-making process on humanitarian aid, one of the principal characteristics of which is urgency, so that we may quickly relieve the existing problems in Turkey.
<P>
Therefore I would hope that my explanations are satisfactory, that Parliament may reconsider its requests, that the acceptance of this decision may be dealt with as a matter of the greatest urgency with the guarantee that, if there are financial problems in the future, the Commission would bear in mind the need to go further with regard to the reserve Fund.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=270 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner Solbes Mira
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
<P>
I should like to thank all of you who have waited so long!
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 7.55 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Poos">
Mr President, with reference to the Minutes for the sitting of Thursday 18 November, item 11 "Treaty reforms and the next IGC" .
Amendment No 19 is listed with the amendments adopted under item 11. It consists of an addition to paragraph 19 of the draft resolution.
Well, this addition has not been included in the version of the text adopted as printed in the "Texts adopted" section of the Minutes distributed this morning.
I should, therefore, like to ask you to amend the "Texts adopted" , in accordance with the votes which were taken in yesterday' s sitting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
We shall check the text in all the language versions and, if there is a mistake, it will of course be corrected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Poos">
It is not a mistake to do with the languages, since the addition is missing in all the language versions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
It will therefore be corrected, Mr Poos.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
- (DE) Mr President, according to the Minutes, we concluded voting yesterday at 2.35 p.m. whereas according to my records it was 2.45 p.m.
Irrespective of this, however, I would like to say that we were subject to an inhumane three and a half hour voting procedure on account of some lazy individuals wanting to get away early and we therefore came under extreme pressure.
I request that this procedure no longer be enforced in future.
If someone leaves, that is nobody' s fault but their own or, to quote Lenin and Gorbachev, life will punish whoever leaves early.
That person does not have a majority and will hopefully also be punished by the electorate one day.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Yes, Mr Posselt, I take note of your comment, and I congratulate the brave people who are here this morning.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Heaton-Harris">
Mr President, on a point of order, or a point of concern almost, a number of Members on this side of the House have noticed that you may have lost your jacket and on a snowy day can we offer you one of ours just in case you get cold.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
I shall check the Rules of Procedure to see if the colour and size of jacket are stipulated and I guarantee that I shall adhere to these conditions in future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
On the subject of yesterday' s Minutes, Mr President. Yesterday, before the vote on the Dimitrakopoulos-Leinen report, I made a protest because the amendments that I had submitted in French were not identical to the French version which was officially published.
It was not, therefore, a translation problem.
My amendments had actually been reworked by an anonymous reviser.
Well, I read in the Minutes that the President explained to Mr Berthu that two of his amendments had not been very well worded.
It sounds as if I worded my amendments badly.
Well I disagree, my amendments were very well worded, and some anonymous reviser has taken it upon himself to amend the text.
I must protest. It is a matter of principle.
The officials of the European Parliament have no call to be altering amendments submitted by a Member of Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
I take good note of your comment, and the correction you wish will be made.
<P>
Are there any other comments?
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Vote
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Lisi">
Mr President, this is an additional amendment which, in our opinion, specifies the role and the help that therapeutical communities can give more clearly.
I will read the Italian text out for the Members: "believes that rehabilitating drug addicts constitutes, in the same way as other areas, a fundamental aspect of the fight against drugs, in that action is targeted at demand; to this end, it supports and encourages the important social contribution as regards rehabilitating drug addicts on the part of the therapeutical communities, whose means should be increased" .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="Seppänen">
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="President">
Does the Commission wish to make a comment?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, I shall pass on Mr Seppänen' s comments to my colleagues, and I assure you we will discuss the matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
The amendments are therefore withdrawn, at the request of the rapporteur.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<P>
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE - Giannakou-Koutsikou Report
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Kauppi">
Mr President, in my opinion it is vital to make the prevention of drug dependence a main priority in the EU' s internal and external action.
That must also be clearly evident from Union acts.
The rules will, however, be useless unless they are actually effective.
Therefore it is essential to focus both on cooperation between developing and industrialised countries and on networking among the countries of the EU.
<P>
There is no lack of excellent plans and programmes within the EU.
Examples we could mention are the drug prevention group in Finland that operates under the supervision of the National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health, and the Pompidou Group, a European Council cooperation group on drugs that was established in the 1970s on an initiative by the French President and that is planning several projects to reduce the supply and demand of drugs.
Now we also need a strong and clearly expressed political will to render the exchange and comparison of information as efficient as possible.
We will not achieve results merely through acts and plans, but it is through practical action that we can maximise the welfare of our people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fatuzzo">
Mr President, following the adoption of the amendment tabled by Mr Lisi from the Group of the European People' s Party, who was elected from the Forza Italia lists, I have greater satisfaction in giving my explanation of vote, having voted for this measure.
Therapeutical communities are certainly extremely important.
As for my reasons for signing this as the pensioners' representative, I have to say that, unfortunately, we rarely find pensioners who are drug-addicts, because young people die prematurely from this terrible scourge.
I would like to emphasise that this measure is very positive, but we must be the first to set young people an example, because only examples that lead them back to the family unit and to the sound principles of yesteryear will overcome the scourge of this century.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
- (DE) Mr President, I, along with many of my colleagues, have approved Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou' s report.
It should be emphasised here this morning, though, that controversial discussions on this report have been held in this House for months.
In committee alone, there have been 130 amendments to this report.
Weeks of compromise discussions were needed and such a report is then voted on here on a Friday morning with a relatively modest number of people present.
<P>
As I listened to the debates here yesterday, in particular the comments of Mr Poettering, as to how dramatic and important it all now was and saying that a vote definitely had to be taken here this week, that is not now borne out by the presence of his own group here this morning.
I therefore regret that a procedure as important as this should enjoy such limited attention.
What is even more splendid is when the authors of this matter become embroiled in intensive talks afterwards.
In any case, we have given our approval so that Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou can then see the report home with an extensive majority.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Meijer">
I have voted against the Giannakou-Koutsikou report.
It is a very lengthy document which represents all shades of opinion and contains a multitude of considerations and objectives.
It gives enormous scope.
It is opposed to trafficking and profiteers, rightly so.
It endeavours to help people fight their addiction, again rightly so.
But this means that it is spreading itself rather thinly and the thrust of the document is that with more funding and tougher prosecution, we can knock the problem on the head.
Quite interestingly, Mr Schulz' s proposal to give urban and regional experiments more of a chance, has been rejected.
I fear that this text will now be used incorrectly, namely to support those, in particular, who advocate more repression against drug users and think that they will solve the problem in this way.
As such, the PPE viewpoint has, in principle, dominated after all and this was a reason for me not to go along with it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Figueiredo">
- (PT) Each Member State has a crucial role in defining its policy on combating drug addiction.
We feel that we are upholding a policy which genuinely attacks its causes and effectively combats drug trafficking and the associated money laundering.
We are also upholding a policy that does not penalise those who suffer from drug addiction or their families, who should be supported by means of adequate public services, which are free, in terms of treatment and reintegration into society.
<P>
But the fight against drug trafficking and money laundering also requires action and coordination at EU level (and at UN level) in the fight that must be developed against powerful criminal organisations which, through illegal activities and money, undermine and tap into the economic and financial system.
In order to achieve this, we need a genuinely "strong political will, expressed without any ambiguity" . We also need to turn words into deeds, by mobilising the necessary Community financial resources to combat this tragic situation that affects thousands of drug addicts and their families.
We cannot continue to reduce "social costs" in order to meet the criteria imposed on national budgets by the Stability Pact, whilst repeating fine words about social support that are then never actually put into practice.
We are convinced that if it has adequate resources, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction based in Lisbon can make a major contribution to deepening the study and the proposals for measures to combat the scourge of drugs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
- (DE)Briefly, I would like to have it put on record that our Group has rejected the Newton Dunn report on account of the fact we did not agree with the legal basis to this report.
What we have here is a classic ruling on the establishment of a process in one of the various pillars of our Treaty principles.
Mr Newton Dunn chose the first pillar whereas we were of the opinion that the procedure should be left in the third pillar. The reason for this is that in the third pillar the group of offenders who are guilty of counterfeiting travel documents is more wide-ranging than in the first pillar where Mr Newton Dunn had established it, where the focus is exclusively on the tracking of the counterfeiting of documents for illegal immigrants.
That may be appropriate from the ideological viewpoint but is politically wrong because someone who, as a drugs dealer, counterfeits documents must also be criminally prosecuted.
In this respect, we did not want to vote against Mr Newton Dunn' s practical proposals with regard to the combating of document counterfeiting - which we support - as far as we are concerned it is exclusively a matter of the legal basis.
Thank you for your attention.
I would also like to thank Messrs Poettering and Pirker for their attention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fatuzzo">
Mr President, I would like to explain the vote in favour of the Newton Dunn report by highlighting that, with its provisions, it fits into the fight against illegal immigration and the numerous criminal acts committed by many illegal immigrants, whether purposefully or not, to the detriment of all the citizens in the European Union, particularly the elderly.
I would nevertheless like to draw your attention to the fact that it would be a good idea for all the expenditure, all the personnel and all the means used in the past to supervise the borders within the European Union - for example, between Italy and France, France and Germany etc., that is, between the European States which now have a common border - to be relocated to the external borders of the European Union in order to combat this phenomenon of crime and illegal immigration more effectively.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Turco">
Mr President, I would like to take the floor regarding the Giannakou-Koutsikou report, in order to remind you that yesterday the Presidency was informed that that this debate would be opened contrary to the provisions of Rule 115 of the Rules of Procedure.
I am only saying this so that it will be recorded in the Minutes.
This Presidency does not know what to do with these Rules of Procedure any more.
I hope that, at least in the future, some sort of order can be re-established; if this is not the case, then tell us clearly that Parliament' s work is in the hands of the Presidency and not the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
In any case, the fact remains that the debate and the vote have taken place contrary to Rule 115 of the Rules of Procedure, in that the last French version was distributed at 9.52 p.m. on Wednesday, and we opened the debate well before the 24 hours had passed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="President">
Mr Turco, your comment will of course be noted, but the sessional services inform me that the deadlines were, in principle, respected, and that all the language versions were distributed in due time, but we have taken note of your comment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Turco">
Mr President, I did not ask a question and did not want a reply.
I simply protested that Rule 115 of the Rules of Procedure was not complied with.
I do not need a reply because this has already happened and can no longer be prevented.
You did not comply with Rule 115 of the Rules of Procedure, full stop.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="President">
This has all been noted, Mr Turco.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Application of Community law to the Canary Islands
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A5-0053/1999) by Mr Medina Ortega, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 1911/1991 on the application of the provisions of Community law to the Canary Islands (COM(1999) 0226 - C5-0127/1999 - 19990111(CNS))
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, the Commission has presented a proposed regulation intended to amend another Community regulation, Regulation (EEC) 1911/91, which established a special legal status for the Canary Islands.
<P>
Regulation (EEC) 1911/91 is in turn a regulation which amends the statute established for these islands by the Act of Accession of Spain and Portugal to the European Community in 1985.
The Act of Accession of Spain and Portugal to the European Community - in article 25 and in Protocol 2 annexed to that Act - provided the Canary Islands with a special status which was designed to reflect the fact that those islands were not integrated into the Common agricultural policy and, furthermore, because it was not subject to the Community Customs Union, the Community customs rules, nor Value Added Tax.
In this way, the Act of Accession intended to maintain as far as possible the special status which the Canary Islands had had within the Spanish State since their incorporation into the Kingdom of Castile in the 15th Century.
It was a region which was not subject to the ordinary tax regime nor, therefore, the customs rules, owing to its great distance from Peninsular Spain.
<P>
The Act of Accession of 1985 contained a future development clause - section 4 of article 25 - which was aimed at preventing the Canary Islands, as a result of European Union development, from being excluded from European construction.
I would say that public opinion in the Canary Islands was, on the one hand, in favour of maintaining this special status but, on the other hand, had no desire whatsoever to remain outside the sphere of European construction.
<P>
When the Single Act was adopted in 1986, it became necessary to amend that special status and this was done by means of Regulation (EEC) 1911/91.
That amendment establishes three or four very important changes: firstly, the Canary Islands were incorporated into the Common agricultural policy and the Common fisheries policy; secondly, they were incorporated into the Community Customs Union, and are therefore subject to ordinary customs duties; and thirdly, it removed the special tax rules which they had, specifically the island taxes - the so-called special licence tax arrangements - which were designed to protect local industry.
<P>
Regulation (EEC) 1911/91 has led to the progressive dismantling of the Canary Islands' special tax rules and their incorporation into the Community' s common rules.
But this has caused difficulties, because the problem with the Canary Islands, as with the other outermost regions - the Azores, Madeira and the French overseas departments - is that they are a long way from European territory, divided into small island areas, with very small markets, with enormous transport problems and, furthermore, with problems due, for example, to over-population, very irregular rain patterns and poor soil, which hinder the development of normal activities.
This explains why, in the past, the Canary Islands always enjoyed a special status within Spain.
<P>
The dismantling of the Canary Islands' special tax status, in terms of customs duties, would threaten to dismantle a series of small local industries - food, tobacco and small commercial industries - which would disappear if we were to remove that small degree of protection provided by their special taxes, specifically the tax on production and imports.
<P>
The Commission has been thorough and has taken account of this, and has therefore begun a negotiation of an adaptation of the tax on production and imports, in order that that tax may not disappear.
There has also been another issue: the Treaty of Maastricht of 1992 included a declaration recognising the special status of the outermost regions - the Canary Islands, the Azores, Madeira and the French overseas departments - and section 2 of article 299 of the EC Treaty, after its amendment by means of the Treaty of Amsterdam of 1997, provides for special status for the outermost regions.
The Treaty of Amsterdam is now in force.
<P>
In accordance with the thinking behind the new status for the outermost regions - which was also confirmed by the Cologne European Council which asked the Commission to present measures for the outermost regions before 31 December - at the moment the incorporation of these regions into the European Union does not necessarily require tax and customs harmonisation, but rather allows differentiated treatment, for example the maintenance of the port charges in the French overseas departments and the special rules for the Azores and Madeira.
<P>
Although the Commission' s proposed regulation began to be negotiated before the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, in the Committee on Legal Affairs - which in general approves the proposed regulation, since it is aimed at delaying the removal of the Canary Islands' taxes and therefore plays a protective role - we believe that, after the entry into force of article 299.2, rather than a simple easing of the limits of the special treatment, we need to paralyse the removal of this special treatment because it is possible that, in the measures which the Commission must propose for the outermost regions in accordance with the said article 299.9, which provides for special measures in the field of fiscal policy, the Commission may allow a limited reinstatement so that the relevant small local industries do not suffer.
<P>
As I said before, Mr President, the Committee on Legal Affairs unanimously approved the regulations, but proposes a series of amendments intended to indicate that article 299.2, which is already in force, establishes an additional basis for the Commission' s proposed regulation.
We are not trying to oppose the Commission' s regulation, which establishes an additional basis.
That additional basis would justify a measure which one could describe as containing and detaining the removal of customs duties.
As a consequence of that reference to article 299.2 and the thinking which I am explaining at the moment, the Committee on Legal Affairs has proposed a series of amendments to the annexes of the regulation to halt the removal of customs duties in any of the areas where they are currently in force.
It is a question of maintaining the current protectionist structure of the taxes until the Commission presents its new proposals in the field of tax policy.
<P>
As the Commissioner knows, next week in Brussels a partnership meeting will take place in which the Commission will discuss the proposals with the governments of France, Spain and Portugal, the governments of the Autonomous Regions and the MEPs from those regions.
Therefore, it would seem appropriate that the Commission approve and express its agreement with Parliament' s proposals - the proposals of the Committee on Legal Affairs - which are very reasonable and are in accordance with the Commission' s thinking but reinforce it by referring to the new article 299.2, which will provide for and allow the development of a special status.
It does not make much sense now to totally remove the system when in a few months it is possible that the Commission will have to propose its reinstatement.
This is the thinking, this is the problem, and I hope that Parliament will follow the recommendations of the Committee on Legal Affairs, approve the regulation and also approve the 19 amendments which the said Committee has proposed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Ripoll y Martínez de Bedoya">
Good morning, Mr President.
Firstly I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market and the Members who have presented amendments.
<P>
I believe that the words of Mr Medina Ortega have clarified the approach and position which the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market has agreed unanimously, on this essential issue, an issue which is important for the Canary Islands, but which affects all the other outermost regions of the European Union.
<P>
With reference to the subject of today' s debate, the Canary Islands, I must say that few regions have lived or are living through such an intense process of European integration.
<P>
Since their incorporation in 1986, the Canary Islands have held significant and intense debates.
There have been public demonstrations for and against the full incorporation of the islands, there have been governmental crises and even the resignation of the President of an autonomous government, the specific cause of which was the conditions for the accession negotiations.
<P>
After thirteen years, it is time to make an assessment.
To this end the regulation which we are debating at the moment in Parliament is very useful, since from this assessment we can reach conclusions which will allow us to determine the position we must take.
The assessment is clearly positive, although we must recognise that there are enormous worries and concerns attached to it, as the rapporteur has explained effectively.
These concerns stem from what we are debating here, but also from other issues which are being studied and dealt with by this Parliament.
<P>
I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that at the moment in the Canaries there is a lot of uncertainty with regard to the future of bananas, since the Canary Islands are Europe' s top producer of that fruit, which is so important from economic, social, scenic and environmental points of view.
<P>
However - and I repeat - today we are talking about Regulation 1911/91 concerning the application of Community Law to the Canary Islands.
The arguments and explanations which the rapporteur has given us today are clear and describe the long journey made by the Canary Islands to arrive at the process of incorporation into the European Union.
<P>
Nevertheless it is essential in our opinion that this reform is carried out within the time frame laid down.
This is an absolutely essential issue.
We should remember the mandate of the Cologne European Council to the Commission; we should remember that before the end of 1999 there was supposed to be specific and special treatment which has still not happened; we should remember that at the moment we are debating the Commission' s legislative agenda for 2000.
It is important that in this legislative agenda we include the special treatments laid down in article 299.2 of the EC Treaty for the French overseas departments, the Azores, Madeira and the Canary Islands, because, otherwise, we would reach a situation or position in which these European regions, which are vital to each of the Member States and to the European Union, are put at an absolute disadvantage in relation to the European Union as a whole.
<P>
To end, I would like to say that our Group supports the 19 amendments and the legislative text, but asks that we do not proceed to a second reading, but that this regulation be approved within the time limits laid down. We ask the Commission to be sensitive to the rapporteur' s views, to the views of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market and that, please, the regulation be approved within the envisaged time limits because, otherwise, the situation in the Canary Islands would be of great concern.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Martínez Martínez">
Mr President, I am taking the floor at this point to express my support, and that of the Socialist Group, for the work and the conclusions regarding the proposals presented today to this Parliament, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, by my good friend and colleague Professor Manuel Medina, in the well-founded hope that this Assembly will fully approve the proposals in question.
<P>
Of course our intention is not simply to support a colleague.
In reality our position - now through this intervention and later through our vote - is that of Spaniards and Europeans, and perhaps even more as Spanish and European Socialists, who are expressing their solidarity with the Canary Islands and their men and women.
I am speaking of a solidarity which the Canary Islands require in a specific and particular way, precisely because of the specific and particular characteristics of their geography and history.
<P>
Let it be clear therefore that what we want is to give a little more to the Canaries, to compensate for adverse conditions, and thereby prevent a situation where they have a little less than the other Europeans.
<P>
The rapporteur, Manuel Medina, has explained in a rigorous and full way the legal arguments which explain how the Canaries has been defended for centuries, within a Spanish context, by means of different mechanisms which allowed those distant islands to overcome the negative circumstances which I spoke of earlier, and, with the skill, tenacity and efforts of their men and women, firstly resist and then gradually build reasonably modern and prosperous societies.
<P>
We were aware of the problems of the Canary Islands when we negotiated the accession of our country to the European Community and the successive Treaties, up until Amsterdam, and the constant concern to always take that special situation into account was reflected in the special Protocol 2 of the Act of Accession of Spain and Portugal, back in 1985, in Council Regulation (EEC) 1911/91, which approved the said Protocol, and in section 2 of article 299 of the EC Treaty, which describes the outermost regions of the Union, with special mention of the Canary Islands and lays down the very flexibility in the application of general rules in certain vulnerable cases which we are discussing today.
<P>
It was precisely Protocol 2, which I referred to earlier, which, applying traditional formulas to the new rules, established the so-called "APIM" (Tax on Production and Exports), a modest duty applied to certain products entering the Canary Islands, many of which originate from the Spanish Peninsular and others from other States.
<P>
At the moment there is a process under way which will lead to the negotiation between the Spanish Government and the Commission, with a view to amending the said Regulation (EEC) 1911/91, which specifically regulates the APIM in question.
The concern which this amendment has caused in the Canary Islands - and which we are recognising here - has increased as a result of a certain lack of confidence in the ability of the government of my country to appreciate the true nature and gravity of this problem and in its desire to tackle that problem in the said negotiation with the Commission.
<P>
In reality there are only three alternatives.
The first is the complete removal of the APIM, which would have very negative effects for the many small and medium-sized businesses on the islands which, although they make little profit from their production, survive thanks to the fact that similar products arriving from outside are taxed, and it is therefore still viable to continue producing them in the Canaries.
<P>
The second alternative is less harsh but ultimately just as harmful.
It would consist of eliminating the APIM gradually until it disappears completely after a few years, perhaps maintaining them partially for a few products.
<P>
The third solution is the one which Professor Medina proposes and which we understand that the Canary Islands requires and wants, the one which this Parliament will probably vote for in a few moments.
Based on the legal considerations of the EC Treaty, we argue that the APIM be kept as it is for now, and that it be consolidated within the obligatory reform of Regulation (EEC) 1911/91.
We hope that this Parliament is up to the job and does not disappoint our fellow citizens ...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sánchez García">
Mr President, Commissioner, for five centuries of European history, the Canary Islands have always enjoyed special consideration in terms of shaping their presence in the Spanish and European worlds.
<P>
In fact, when the Kingdom of Spain acceded to the European Community in 1985 the door was left open for an amendment of the status of the European model for the Canary Islands.
In 1991, when Regulation 1911/91 was approved, we experienced Community adaptation with regard to the application of the provisions of Community Law in the islands.
<P>
At that point a transitional period of ten years was set so that the integration of the economy of the Canary Islands into the Community would not be traumatic for some local production sectors and, de facto, amongst other things, a tax on production and imports, the APIM, was established with a view to protecting the integration of small basic Canary Island industries into the Community Customs Area.
<P>
The said tax, which protected local industry in relation to imported goods, would be gradually dismantled between 1995 and the end of 2000.
Curiously, this removal of the APIM has not had the desired effect amongst the sensitive industries in the Canary Islands and therefore the Spanish authorities, the Canarian authorities and the economic operators affected have requested that the Community authorities amend Regulation 1911/91 in order to stop the removal of the APIM until June 2000, which the European Commission appreciates.
<P>
Nevertheless, some of us, as Members from the Canary Islands, as well as considering it reasonable to extend the validity of this tax in accordance with the Commission' s proposal, have requested by means of amendments that it affect the most sensitive products, all the sensitive products produced in the Canary Islands.
<P>
We also request that this customs approach be applied to a new tax with a structure similar to the old APIM, with the aim of incorporating it into a package of specific measures of a fiscal nature which the Council, on the proposal of the Commission, must implement next year - as Mr Ripoll y Martínez de Bedoya and Mr Medina Ortega have just said - by means of the proposed permanent statute for the outermost regions - which include the Canary Islands - in implementation of article 299.2, which provides for differentiated treatment, as you know, with regard to the application of the provisions of the Treaty.
<P>
This very week the Autonomous Parliament of the Canary Islands, during a political debate on this issue, unanimously approved an agreement which includes fiscal measures and asks Europe to provide for the establishment of a tax similar to the APIM.
<P>
Congratulations to Mr Medina Ortega on his report and on his receptiveness to the amendments presented.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="Liikanen">
I would like firstly to congratulate Mr Medina Ortega on his report on the proposal for a regulation concerning the Canary Islands.
<P>
Following its examination of the APIM/Arbitrio on production and imports in the Archipelago, the Commission concluded that even if the majority of economic sectors could adapt to the requirements of the single market, the disappearance of the APIM on 31 December 2000 could irremediably affect certain product sectors.
This point has already been made in this House.
<P>
The Commission, in collaboration with the Spanish and the Canarian authorities, has identified the most sensitive products in a number of sectors.
For these products the Commission considers it necessary to suspend the dismantling of the tax for a transitional period which will not go beyond 30 June 2000.
<P>
I note with satisfaction that Mr Medina Ortega's report largely supports the approach proposed by the Commission.
However, he considers it regrettable that the measure proposed is reserved to a limited number of products and that it does not refer to the legal basis provided by Article 299(2) of the Treaty.
I can assure you that the Commission understands this position perfectly.
<P>
I would like nevertheless to draw your attention to the fact that this constitutes a time-limited adaptation of the current rules.
It must therefore be distinguished from any measure which could be taken on the basis of the new Article 299(2) of the Treaty.
<P>
This proposal stipulates that the Commission, in collaboration with the Spanish authorities will examine before the disappearance of the APIM the effects of this tax on the sectors concerned.
The Commission will submit, if necessary, a proposal to the Council based on Article 299(2) on the measures which would be necessary in order not to compromise the existence of certain particularly fragile local activities.
The products included in the annex to this proposal are the result of work by the Spanish and the Canarian authorities and the Commission.
Consequently, any amendment to the list of the products must, on the one hand, be justified economically and, on the other hand, be subject to a study by the Commission services in order to check the consistency of the measures with its other policies.
The Commission has not yet received such justification which would enable it to study an amendment to the Regulation's annex.
It is not therefore in a position to accept those amendments concerning the extension of the list of the products.
However, I can assure both you, Mr President, and the rapporteur that in future negotiations on a proposal concerning the Canary Islands on the basis of Article 299(2) of the Treaty that the Commission will take account of your comments on the matter and the comments of Parliament during the debate.
<P>
I wish to thank you for your support for this proposal and I will undertake to draw the attention of the Commissioner responsible to this whole debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament approved the draft legislative resolution)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Shipbuilding
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="President">
The next item is the statement by the Commission on the shipbuilding industry.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Liikanen">
The Council Regulation of 29 June 1998 stipulates that: "The Commission shall present to the Council a regular report on the market situation and appraise whether European yards are affected by anti-competitive practices.
If it is established that the industry is being caused injury by anti-competitive practice of any kind, the Commission shall, where appropriate, propose to the Council measures to address the problem.
The first report shall be presented to the Council no later than 31 September 1999" .
<P>
In line with this requirement the Commission prepared its first report which concludes that the shipbuilding industry in the global market is facing serious over-capacity problems.
The situation continues to deteriorate as capacities continue to grow, competition is becoming stronger and prices fall.
<P>
The report examines in detail nine contracts awarded to Korean shipyards and finds that none is concluded at prices covering full costs and that injury is caused to EU yards.
The report suggests that action should be taken by Member States and the IMF World Bank fora in order to verify whether the conditions and assumptions under which the IMF-led rescue package was given to Korea are fully respected in the case of shipyards.
The industry, Member States and the Commission should collect all the necessary information that could form a basis for the preparation and lodging of a trade barrier regulation complaint and assess the appropriateness of resorting to a WTO action, the Commission should continue its market monitoring efforts in cooperation with the industry and, finally, all parties concerned should make an effort to establish a level playing field for the sector.
<P>
The Industry Council discussed the Commission's report at its meeting of 9 November 1999 and issued a Council conclusion on the situation in world shipbuilding.
It shares the Commission's view on the critical situation of the shipbuilding sector worldwide and calls for continuing action to address the situation.
<P>
Following the Council meeting, bilateral discussions have been held with the Korean Government at the level of the Korean Deputy Minister for Trade Affairs and the corresponding officials in the Directorate-General for enterprise and the Directorate-General for trade.
A bilateral meeting of the Korean and the EU industry and administration is under preparation for mid-December 1999.
The intention is to organise a meeting on shipbuilding in the context of the OECD.
<P>
The Commission will continue its own monitoring efforts with the help of the industry and will collate and evaluate all the information and evidence collected, in line with the Council's conclusion.
If necessary, further meetings will take place.
The Commission will present its findings to the Industry Council and to the European Parliament in the spring of next year.
My colleagues, Mr Lamy and Mr Solbes Mira are cooperating closely with me on this issue.
<P>
On the basis of this report the appropriate action will have to be decided.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langenhagen">
- (DE) Mr President, Mr Liikanen, please listen to the case I am about to make.
The Council of Ministers for Industry met on 9 November and I made the following comments in this regard at home. Europe has finally found strong words but deeds must now follow.
We are now giving a clear signal to South Korea to abandon unfair methods of competition in shipbuilding.
We will not accept domestic, i.e. European, shipbuilding being driven out of the market by unfair practices after it has been painstakingly modernised.
<P>
In Germany alone, 21,000 jobs are threatened in shipbuilding along with 125,000 more in the supply sector.
The irony of the situation lies, above all, in the fact that the hidden subsidies were facilitated by credits from the International Monetary Fund to surmount the financial crisis in the Far East.
<P>
Mr Liikanen, following the interesting report from the Commission of 13 October, the shipyard action day, Europe, through the Council of Ministers for Industry, has given Korea a yellow card.
Any continuation of Korean dumping practices must be punished with a sending off.
<P>
The European shipbuilding industry finds itself in a serious crisis, one that has not just come about today.
An urgent decision must now be taken as to whether to support shipbuilding in Europe and in so doing support the preservation of the entire maritime industry or to leave this hi-tech branch of industry to others.
There can only be one answer to this: a clear declaration of our belief in European shipyards.
Anyone who has been closely involved with shipbuilding knows that what we are dealing with here today is high technology, a branch of industry which is very much part of the future.
Europe cannot, and must not, give it up.
<P>
There are also critics, however.
Firstly, there are those who consider shipbuilding to still be an antiquated heavy industry, whose artificial preservation in Europe would come at too high a price, although a glance at, or visit to, one of the highly productive and efficient European shipyards tells a different story.
I would be very pleased to arrange visits along these lines because I can tell you that it would be worth it.
<P>
Secondly, shipbuilding is sometimes classified as a hi-tech industry, but then it is implied that shipbuilders are over-dramatising their situation somewhat.
It is said that they are just after financial benefits at a national and EU level, as happens in other branches of industry.
<P>
Thirdly, Who gets the money?
The shipowners or the shipyards?
The image of the shipyard has, on the whole, changed dramatically.
The number of people employed in coastal regions or monopolistic ports that are already depressed has declined dramatically as a result of structural change.
New technologies, fields of work and areas of management in particular as well as new tasks have overtaken the nostalgic Kon-Tiki and the warship.
Road to sea transport projects to relieve the traditional road networks require all types of ship, including just in time feeders and modern container ships, rapid ferry-boats and high-speed yachts, multi-purpose ships for the fishing industry and the coast guard service, large and small cruise ships and so on.
<P>
Europe' s maritime know-how in traditional roles and new market segments is a reliable, sustainable and natural resource and thus constitutes an added value for Europe.
Europe' s medium-sized shipyards, in particular, have developed a high level of inventiveness in this field, but research and development, not just production and acquisition require money, and this is where aid comes in.
<P>
Anyone who knows me knows that I fight furiously against subsidies of all kinds, for distortions of competition follow hard on their heels, as a rule.
It is not for nothing that I am, in addition, a member of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
It is clear that if Korea continues to act in this way, it will undercut itself and will slide into financial ruin, with only itself to blame.
<P>
Secondly, the Korean economy is part of the global market.
We are on the verge of new WTO negotiations.
<P>
Thirdly, Korea needs support to lift itself out of national bankruptcy.
The IMF payments are making a clear statement.
<P>
Fourthly, Europe needs Korea.
Just look at the order books and the volume of investment, in spite of the worldwide overcapacity which has been mentioned.
This means that until a trade policy is developed by both Korea and Europe by means of bilateral negotiations and/or multilateral negotiations within the scope of the OECD, IMF and the WTO, as mentioned already by Mr Liikanen, enabling fair competition, we need various measures which are valid for a determined period until the present critical situation has been overcome.
In my opinion, direct but contract-related support could be part of this, temporarily.
This is the only instrument that has a direct effect, is transparent and, furthermore, strengthens competition.
Returning to so-called European individual solutions, on the other hand, can mean that competition inside Europe, in addition, is distorted yet further, as in the past.
We therefore need a strategy of different approaches.
We would like to assist the Commission and the Council of Industrial Ministers in this approach with all our strength and energy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Commissioner Liikanen, for many years, firstly as a member of the "economic" committee and now as a member of the "industry" committee, I have been dealing with issues involving the shipbuilding industry.
<P>
More particularly, over the last three years, I have, on several occasions, expressed concern to the Commission about distortions of competition at world level, made worse by the fact that Europe has always set itself strict standards which our competitors prefer to ignore.
What is more, in many cases the only response I received from the Commissioners and their departments was a blunt refusal to acknowledge the problem.
<P>
The Commission seems now to have become aware of the situation, and I am delighted to see this because, while one may regret the thousands upon thousands of jobs in Europe which have been lost in the meantime, as we say in French, "better late than never" .
Today there no longer seems to be any point in going back over past problems and that is why, this morning, I shall ask you some specific questions about the future which are not just concerned with Korea.
<P>
The first question concerns the United States.
I have learnt that an American shipyard, one which has not built any vessels for more than forty years, has received the order for two passenger boats intended to serve the islands of Hawaii, since American law reserves the construction of boats serving internal routes for American shipyards.
What do you plan to do about this?
What does the European Union plan to do in order to open up the American market to European products in this field?
<P>
This is my second question. If my information is accurate, a proportion of the wages of workers involved in the construction of these passenger boats is paid by the United States Navy, on the grounds of the preservation of shipbuilding capacity.
What do you plan to do, Commissioner, on the matter of this American aid which does not seem to be compatible with the regulations in force in this field?
<P>
My third question is to do with Korea.
Since 1997, the Korean Gas Company has been restricting tender competitions for the construction of methane carriers to Korean shipyards only, again constituting, in my opinion, an infringement of the international regulations on the opening up of public procurement.
I ask you once again, Commissioner, what do you plan to do in order to open up the Korean market and fight against these decisions which do not appear to me to be legal?
<P>
My fourth question relates to the matter you referred to in your preliminary speech.
We have learnt or, to be more precise, we have received confirmation that the European Commission had in hand the first part of the report on the market situation drawn up in application of the Council Regulation which you mentioned.
This report indicates an anti-competitive practice by Korean shipbuilders, of between 13% and 14% of Korean costs of production.
As you mentioned, the question arises as to who pays the differences observed by the Commission between Korean costs of production and sale prices?
The answer seems obvious.
It is the Korean banking system, supported moreover by the IMF and the Korean State.
Until now, in spite of a number of reminders in this field, since it is not a new matter, the European Union and the Commission have taken no effective action to put an end to these indirect subsidies in Korea.
What tangible action do you plan to take today in order to act rapidly?
<P>
I shall conclude, Commissioner, by telling you that it is true that the European shipbuilding industry still receives aid.
Not a lot, but some.
In any case, it is scheduled that aid for orders will come to an end in December next year and I do not think we can reconcile ourselves to a laissez-faire policy.
<P>
That is why I am asking you, Commissioner, to at last draw up a trade policy worthy of the name.
That is why I am suggesting that you do not carry on saying, or having people say, that we do not have the instruments which would enable us to defend European jobs better in this sector.
That is why it is no longer possible to let constraints be placed on Europe which are not placed on our industrial competitors elsewhere in the world, in the shipbuilding sector as in many others.
<P>
That is why, finally, it is time to quite simply have done with the laissez-faire attitude which characterised the Brittan era.
Are Europe and the new Commission prepared to do so today?
Permit me, Commissioner Liikanen, to ask you the question once again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, there has been a lot of criticism here this morning about the fact that contracts have been awarded to Korean companies and the damage that this has done to the European industries.
However, as in many other areas, the reason that contracts have been awarded to countries like Korea is surely because of the conditions that apply: for example workers in such countries get very low wages, working conditions and safety measures are very poor and unsatisfactory, because the health and safety of workers is not a priority.
Like in many industrial sectors, businesses are relocating to countries where they can exploit workers to their own advantage.
<P>
This is something that has to be addressed when we talk about, having a level playing field for the sector in Europe; in fact what we need is a level playing field internationally for workers.
We have to protect workers' rights.
We cannot exploit workers in some countries while protecting their rights in Europe.
Someone mentioned the EU imposing stringent measures in this sector in Europe.
But what should we do?
Lift those stringent measures?
They were applied for a reason.
There were reasons for imposing such stringent measures in the first place.
<P>
When it comes to shipbuilding itself, I also think that we need to look at what kind of shipbuilding takes place.
For example, as regards shipbuilding for the fishing sector, we have an over-capacity of fishing vessels within the European Union, so what kind of vessels should be built?
I think that emphasis should be put on the building of coastguard or marine protection vessels to control and monitor the common fisheries policy.
The vessels being built must support local industry and local coastal fishing.
Safety must be given priority.
When it comes to the building of vessels, we must ensure that the most advanced technology is used to ensure that they are as environmentally-friendly as possible.
<P>
A lot of vessels are used for transporting live animals.
First of all, the export of live animals is unacceptable.
In fact, it is completely wrong, especially when they are going to be slaughtered.
The kind of conditions they have to endure in large vessels are not acceptable, so if new vessels are being built we should ensure that the best standards possible are complied with and that measures are taken to ensure that, where live animals must be transported by sea in large vessels, all measures are taken to optimise conditions for them.
<P>
Another issue that has to be looked at in the building of new vessels is the whole issue of waste and waste facilities - and not just the waste derived from the operating vessels but also the waste produced during the trip, because marine pollution is a very important issue and a lot of marine pollution is caused by ships.
<P>
To come back to the issue of dumping vessels discarded within the European Union on other countries, we have to be very careful that we are not dumping unsafe and ecologically unsound vessels on countries at cheap prices.
This is unacceptable - it is just shifting our problem to other parts of the world, and the marine environment has no borders so anything that happens in one area eventually comes back to roost here.
The whole issue of unfair competition which people are criticising is caused by the fact that the industry itself is exploiting workers in certain parts of the world.
This has to stop.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Figueiredo">
Mr President, the European Union' s shipbuilding and ship repair industry is facing serious problems, as has been mentioned here, which shows that the recipes provided a few years ago are not giving the promised results.
The liberalisation of the industry and the policy of privatisation that has been pursued in various countries have not resolved the existing problems.
In the last two years, the situation has grown worse as a result of constant anti-competitive practices - as has already been mentioned here - particularly on the part of South Korea.
<P>
Employers' organisations and employees' organisations have both drawn attention to the serious consequences of this situation.
On 5 November, a day of action was held across Europe in which many dockyard workers in Portugal took part.
From Viana do Castelo to Margueira and Mitrena, via dockyards in the areas of Oporto, Aveiro and Figueira da Foz the workers are demanding a policy of upgrading the shipbuilding industry, of protecting jobs that are stable, worthwhile and that offer proper wages and a policy of promoting the exploitation of existing potential.
<P>
In order to understand the current situation, we must remember that the 1994 international agreement on the elimination of aid for shipbuilding in the context of the liberalisation of the industry is not being fulfilled.
This agreement should have come into force in 1996, but did not do so because it was not ratified by some countries, notably the United States, which was one of its main proponents but which, in the end, chose to continue supporting its own shipbuilding industry, as has also already been said here.
<P>
Contrary to what the European Council said in 1998, when it drew up the new rules on aid for shipbuilding, conditions of international competition did not, in the end, improve.
Support for the industry has ceased in the European Union but it has continued and even increased in other countries, amongst which South Korea stands out.
We know that this country has been concluding contracts at prices that are below the real costs of production, by benefiting from international subsidies via the International Monetary Fund, after the Asian crisis, which is destroying the order books of countries in the European Union, as the industry' s employers' organisations have stated.
<P>
The recent position of the Council on 9 November, despite being too little, too late, naturally shows that the fight put up by the shipbuilding industry is having an effect.
It is therefore crucial that the Council and the Member States thoroughly examine the measures that are necessary to protect this very important sector of industry in the European Union.
It is important to promote a policy which will stimulate shipbuilding and ship repair and, as is vital in the case of Portugal, to combine this with renewing merchant navy and fishing fleets and, at the same time, to promote the improvement of the living and working conditions of those involved.
<P>
It is also vital that the Commission makes this problem and its resolution a priority, that it recognises the need to review long-held positions and that it provides the European Parliament with full information on the damage that the European shipping industry has suffered.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, Commissioner, the question of shipbuilding must, quite obviously, be tackled comprehensively, taking one area of production at a time.
<P>
The Member States have acknowledged expertise in the field of military shipbuilding.
This is a field in which the Commission obviously does not have to intervene, but in which intergovernmental cooperation should be stepped up, so that Member States can safeguard and increase their expertise and independence, at acceptable cost.
It would be very dangerous to allow disinvestment in this field and one can only regret the recent problems afflicting in particular the Horizon frigate programme and the abrupt withdrawal of some partners, which upset the overall balance of the programme.
<P>
As regards the construction of passenger and merchant vessels, both highly competitive, labour-intensive sectors, here too the Member States' remarkable expertise and outstanding capabilities must be protected and developed and not allowed to go outside Europe.
As regards heavy manufacturing units affected by significant technological developments, Member States must be able to implement a policy fostering the technological conversion of their shipyards, so that the latter can become active in market sectors which allow them to exploit their know-how.
The closure of any shipyard represents an irreparable loss of expertise for the Member States and for the European Union.
The Union must not, therefore, on the basis of ill-advised notions of free competition, prevent states from promoting the conversion of manufacturing units with a view to preserving both know-how and jobs.
In this respect, the example of the shipyards on France' s Atlantic coast, whose brilliant recovery following a period of crisis has been particularly spectacular, and the role the French State played in this process, should be pondered.
<P>
We must be very careful to ensure that the forthcoming WTO negotiations make it possible to put an end to the unacceptable dumping practised by a number of countries and do not endanger a sector in which world competition is intense, since it is highly labour-intensive, difficult to automate, and therefore prey to strong pressure in favour of relocation to countries where labour costs are far lower than those we have in the European Union.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, I wish to mention the subject of the construction of fishing boats.
This sector, which may, in the overall scheme of things, seem a rather marginal one, does however play a crucial role in the balance of the economic and social fabric of our coastal regions.
The European Community plays an essential role in this field. This sector is, in fact, almost totally dependent on the common fisheries policy.
But for two years now the European Commission has frozen Community aid for the construction of new vessels and, by the same token, that of Member States, until the objectives for the destruction of boats outlined in the multiannual guidance programmes have been reached.
<P>
This deadlock, which has serious consequences, was compounded by a refusal to take the sale of boats to third countries into consideration in calculating the reduction in capacity of the European fleet.
In considering only the boats destroyed, the Commission is thus behind a considerable loss of earnings to the detriment of fishermen and ship-owners.
What is more, the Commission is today proposing to prohibit any renewal in the sectors which are not advancing as quickly as others and is making it compulsory to find and destroy any capacity which exceeds by more than 30% the renewed boat capacity in the sectors which are up to date with the MAGP objectives.
<P>
This situation and these proposals entail a worrying ageing of the European fishing fleet, discourage young people from investing their energies in it, cause a significant loss of sales for the specialist shipyard sector, making some of them dangerously vulnerable, and entail a clear risk for our seafarers as far as safety is concerned.
<P>
We hope that the Council will be able to make the Commission see reason and carry through the proposals which the European Parliament made at the time after close consultation with Member States, in the report by our fellow Member, Mr Arias Cañete.
Whenever a shipyard disappears, particularly valuable know-how built up over time, linked with the seafaring history of a region, disappears along with it.
Everything must be done to prevent this.
<P>
The Commission must also show consistency.
After urging the construction of netters, on the grounds of the selectivity of the drift net, the Commission then, under pressure from some lobbies and some Member States, without scientific basis and in a discriminatory fashion, prohibited the use of this same drift net in some seas only.
It recommended experimenting with alternative gear, but did not envisage a specific financial chapter or a specific kilowatt package enabling boats to be built in line with the new regulations which it had issued.
Now, it has been confirmed, after analysing the results of the first experiments, that existing netters cannot be adapted to comply with the new conditions, and new boats will have to be built.
<P>
I would therefore be grateful to you, Commissioner Liikanen, if you would point out to your colleague, Mr Fischler, that shipowners are having trouble understanding this logic, or rather this absence of logic.
The Commission shall obviously have to make the necessary arrangements to enable the construction of ships required by the changes in regulations which it has decided on.
<P>
In conclusion, Mr President, Commissioner, if the European Commission really wishes to make a contribution to the expansion of the shipbuilding sector in Europe, it is enough for it to clearly defend the principle of fair trade at the WTO talks, to leave Member States the freedom to intervene directly in this strategic sector in order to convert shipyards, by means of technological modifications, for activity in profitable market sectors, to promote cooperation between businesses in order to contribute towards improving the overall efficiency of each type of shipyard and, finally, in the context of the common fisheries policy, to take the necessary decisions to enable the controlled renewal of our fishing fleet, the continuation of the expertise of our shipyards and the vitality, Mr President, of our coastal regions which are dependent on fishing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, the shipbuilding industry within the EU Member States has been undergoing an overhaul for many years now.
This has coincided with a subsidy race at world-market level.
Taxpayers and shipyards in various Member States are at the receiving end of this, whilst shipowners who can purchase ships at far below their cost price come out on top.
I think that the Commission, the Council and the ladies and gentlemen here present will all agree that this situation must be brought to an end as soon as possible.
Opinions on how this should be done vary.
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Consequently, this debate should not be restricted to the practice of unfair competition, something that the South Koreans are guilty of.
Everyone within the shipbuilding industry knows that there is no level playing field within the European Union either.
The Council is therefore right in deciding, for the time being, not to make any changes to the agreement to end the generic support to the shipbuilding industry as of 1 January 2001.
This request is mainly expressed by the Member States that have been paying out most of the support per order for years now.
As far as tangible support is concerned, this amounts to 3.5 times the amount given by the least generous government.
Subsidy policy is always bad policy because it sustains bad management and often even rewards it.
<P>
A far better alternative would be a well-thought out industrial policy for the shipbuilding industry aimed at innovative production methods, which are intensive in terms of the knowledge involved and which enhance efficiency.
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The current shipbuilding directive contains various obscure support schemes in respect of research and development, environment, innovation and regional support policy, which result in the "good" shipyards being punished and the "bad" ones rewarded.
Any government should do the opposite in fact.
<P>
The OECD agreement, which provides for abolishing order support, in particular, is not a panacea.
South Korea and also the EU Member States are clever enough to keep supporting their maritime industries in a non-transparent manner.
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The European Commission should lodge a complaint with the WTO against South Korea without delay and at the same time continue the inquiry into the orders placed with South Korean shipyards.
If ships are sold at approximately 20% below cost price, then this is a sure case of dumping.
Pressure must be exerted at the same time.
<P>
The Daewoo shipyard, which has been bankrupt for some time, but is still launching ships, should be dismantled and not resold.
I would also ask the Commissioner to institute an inquiry into the actual subsidy level per order within the European Union.
The transitional regulation to abolish generic order subsidies should also be reconsidered.
Countries that make an unlimited budget available for this create a run on subsidies.
The consequence will be that excellent ship yards - these are often the most efficient ones - will go under in the course of 2001-2002 and it will be much harder to compete with Japan, South-East Asia and the United States with the least efficient ship yards which will then be left in the European Union.
A possible delay in the discontinuation of generic order subsidies can be considered if the transitional period is abolished. I would appreciate it if Commissioner Liikanen were to take this into serious consideration.
<P>
Could the Commissioner ask the IMF to investigate where the subsidies to South Korea eventually ended up?
<P>
Finally, I would like to reiterate what I said on 31 March 1998.
The strategic significance of the European shipbuilding industry is evident.
We want to be able to continue to build our own ships, even if we are forced to help the sector out due to external circumstances.
But let us not make a mess of it within the European Union by having all sorts of obscure regulations and by blowing taxpayers' money in the process.
I am sure that that would not do the sector any good whatsoever.
The end goal should still be the same: the abolition of all kinds of government subsidies so that each shipyard gets the price it deserves.
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<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Kauppi">
Mr President, Commissioner, it is altogether excellent that the Industry Council at its meeting last week unanimously approved a list of measures to eliminate the situation of unhealthy competition caused by Korea.
Hopefully these measures will work, as South Korea' s operations really weaken the prospects for success of European shipyards in the face of already intense competition from elsewhere.
As the Finnish Minister for Trade and Industry clearly stated at the meeting, the EU, however, must not give as good as it gets when it comes to South Korea; in other words, it must not return to the idea that it is not prepared to give up its shipyards.
To borrow the Minister' s words, continuing such support would be tantamount to the EU shooting itself in the foot.
This is precisely what the South Koreans must be hoping for.
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For a long time now the Commission has aimed to give up shipyard aid in its present form, and this aim should absolutely be maintained.
The idea is to replace shipyard aid with newly designed investment and environmental aid schemes and grant more aid to research and innovation, which is what Mrs Langenhagen so eloquently spoke about.
With the new schemes the Commission aspires to support a more environment-friendly, safer European fleet, as was decided in 1997 in connection with the guidelines for state aid for maritime transport.
I gladly welcome this policy, as long as it is also implemented in practice.
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I would especially like to remind the Commissioner that the Union promised Finland, when we were negotiating membership, that it would take account of our remoteness and climate when deciding its aims for navigation policy for the whole continent.
In July 1999, the Finnish Ministry of Transport and Communications notified the Commission of the interest subsidy programme for vessel acquisitions, set up to promote the purchase and basic repair of safe and environment-friendly cargo ships which can sail easily through icy waters, these being essential in Northern Europe.
There is broad national consensus on the issue in the Finnish Parliament, as shown by the fact that, exceptionally, on its own initiative, the parliament increased powers to solicit acquisitions in the 1999 budget.
As a former Minister of Finance, Commissioner Liikanen will understand the significance of this.
Now, however, it would appear that officials in the Commission' s Directorate-General for competition have a firm intention to interpret the programme in question as aid to shipyards, although the programme does not affect the competitive position of shipyards, as a ship receiving aid can be ordered from any country whatsoever.
This is also what was stated in the Commission' s letter of 4 August 1999 by officials in Directorate-General VII when they pointed out that the aid had no connection with shipyards in the EU.
<P>
I would also like to take the opportunity of asking the Commissioner how the Commission intends to ensure environmentally friendly developments and greater safety in maritime transport in Northern Europe, if it does not allow the implementation of the action framework it created itself.
Although we have clearly decided to abandon shipyard aid, the recent events in South Korea cannot be allowed to lead to a situation where the Union starts to confuse the old-fashioned shipyard aid with the action based on the 1997 guidelines, which did not relate to competition policy but were purely in line with sustainable development and the 'safety of the seas' doctrine.
Finally I would ask you, Commissioner Liikanen, how it is possible for a Member State to create a policy on navigation if it cannot trust in the directions given by the Commission? How has the Commission in its recent exchange of letters with the Finnish Government taken account of the protocol on navigational policy in our negotiations for membership?
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<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, I find this debate very depressing because we seem to be covering the same old ground, discussing an issue we have dealt with many times before in this Parliament.
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I find it depressing because I was born in a small port town where, at the time, there was a boatyard on practically every corner.
They were wooden boats.
There was a profession, that of boat-builder, which was a proud profession.
I realise that progress is inevitable and that it is not possible for such a profession to be maintained today, but the situation is alarming.
The fact that Europe will end up with no shipbuilding industry is worrying.
It was we Europeans who opened up the world through navigation: the Scandinavians in the North, the Portuguese and Spanish towards America, Africa and Asia, the Dutch, the Danish, the English and the French have sailed all the oceans in ships built on our lands and in our shipyards.
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At the moment we live in a globalised economy, which means that rationalisation is needed and that is why a series of restructurings has been undertaken.
However, I believe we are reaching a limit.
Specifically, the disappearance of all types of aid on 31 December 2000 is going to cause a problem.
Although I agree with some of the previous speakers, such as Mrs Kauppi, that it is not good to maintain a subsidy system, in the long run this situation clearly harms the sector itself.
Furthermore, we have been abolishing subsidies in the shipbuilding sector, yet it has continued to fall apart.
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At the moment the shipbuilding sector is in tatters.
Wherever you go there is a closed shipyard and thousands of people who have lost their jobs.
For example, since 1984, Astilleros Españoles (Spanish Shipyards) has undergone three restructurings.
Last Wednesday there were worker demonstrations in Spain, in all the shipbuilding cities - Bilbao, Cádiz, Puerto Real, Seville and Asturias - accompanied by a considerable degree of violence, because we are threatening the lives and security of many millions of homes.
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There is another problem.
In this globalised economy, it is good that subsidies should disappear, but not when there are some countries which still have them.
This also raises another question - as some speakers such as Mrs McKenna have said: Is it a good thing that some countries such as Korea maintain this policy?
I believe that if we look at the figures properly, it is clear that if ships are sold at less than they cost to make, the country is losing out.
Therefore, that policy harms that country and its workers.
Let us remember that a few years ago the Korean workers took to the streets to ask for equal status.
The general theme of globalisation - as the Commissioner knows - is being discussed at the moment or will be discussed in the World Trade Organisation.
I think that this is one of the questions which should concern us.
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The European shipbuilding industry is threatened from all sides.
Some of the speakers - Mrs McKenna herself I believe - have referred to the crisis in the fishing industry.
It appears that the ideal is the destruction of the Community fishing fleet.
For transport - including oil-tanker traffic - there are flags of convenience.
But even the few ships which sail under the European flag have to be manufactured outside Europe, because it appears we are not capable of withstanding distorted competition.
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Therefore, on behalf of the Spaniards who at the moment are enormously worried about this issue, I hope that the Commission will communicate our concern to the Council, our disagreement with the latest resolutions of the Council of Ministers for Industry - which seems prepared to adopt a meekly laissez faire approach and abandon the little which remains of the European shipbuilding sector - and our hope that either measures will be taken to prevent the unfair competition which is occurring or, if not, that steps will be taken to restore Community aid to compensate for the cases of inequality, incompetence and bad practice which are occurring today in all shipbuilding centres.
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<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, to follow on from Mr Medina Ortega, I would like to remind you that the Commission and the Council almost always propose employment plans to the governments. They propose that we fight unemployment and say that we must put an end to unemployment in Europe.
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Commissioner, employment plans are not much use if, on the one hand, jobs are constantly being lost in many of our sectors and, specifically, in the sector which we are talking about today, the shipbuilding sector, which involves 300,000 jobs in Europe and around 45,000 in Spain.
This seems to us to be an impossible equation.
If you remove the subsidies to our sector, if the Korean sector continues to be subsidised, if working conditions in Europe are to be as they should be, that is very advanced, and in Korea they are terrible, the equation is impossible.
It is going to be impossible to maintain this sector.
And I do not want this to happen in the future.
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In Spain there are seven regions with a shipbuilding sector.
Commissioner, I come from a small region of a million inhabitants.
In recent years, as a result of European policies and the policies of successive governments, we have lost 6,000 direct jobs in the steel industry, 6,000 direct jobs in mining, 10,000 small agricultural businesses, we have lost jobs in the arms industry and we have lost jobs in the shipbuilding industry.
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When measures are introduced in the European Union - and I know that what I am going to say is out of fashion with many of my colleagues - much account is taken of the laws of the market and of competitiveness.
The human factor is never, or almost never, taken into account.
And the human factor is fundamental in the European Union.
I am afraid to say, Commissioner, that if we continue to lose jobs in the fundamental sectors of our industry, our institutions will no longer have any credibility.
If the aid stops in December, if aid is maintained in Korea, if in Spain furthermore it is proposed that 18,000 million pesetas of aid, which was granted to the shipbuilding sector, be returned, we are destroying the sector.
Let us not fool ourselves, let us not use rhetoric.
I am very sorry to say this, Commissioner, but if we do not adopt urgent and energetic measures, this sector, as well as other industrial sectors in the European Union, is going to go to ruin, to put it politely.
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<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Varela Suanzes-Carpegna">
Mr President, Commissioner, I think we must first congratulate and thank the Commission for the fact that we are today holding this debate on the serious situation of the European shipbuilding industry.
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After the Council of Ministers for Industry, on 9 November, and the Commission' s report to Parliament on the situation of the world market in the shipbuilding industry, today we have heard this Commission statement to Parliament, which indicates that there is generalised concern within all the European institutions.
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But I agree with Mr Medina Ortega that this should not be a "remake" , because the concern and the measures announced, while significant, do not seem to us to be sufficient at this particular moment.
Although this Parliament totally supports these measures, we ask above all for more urgency, more efficiency and more thoroughness.
Free trade, but also fair trade, because everybody knows about the unfair practices in Korea, which make it impossible for our shipyards to be competitive, as has already been pointed out.
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The European Union, Commissioner, with all the political, economic, financial and commercial means at its disposal, must ensure that international rules are obeyed and put an end once and for all to Korean dumping, because the European sector can be viable in an environment of fair competition.
Commissioner, we must also take advantage of the current unity in the European sector - I am referring to employers and unions - which has been shown in recent times and in recent days, to relaunch the European shipbuilding sector.
We have to look for and find a European solution.
<P>
Please allow me, Commissioner, to say that I believe that the future of the shipyards in Europe is a political question which requires brave, clear and unequivocal decisions on the part of the Commission of course, but also on all our parts, especially after the conclusions of the latest Council of Ministers for Industry.
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The aid which we have talked about today is also an instrument which the Commission must clarify, especially if it is a future strategy erga omnes.
Parliament and European industry must know this as soon as possible, since we believe - and after this debate I believe it too - that while the world markets are not stabilised, transitional protective measures are still necessary.
And we ask for these measures - and I insist - urgently, since many of our shipyards run the serious risk of disappearing, despite being technically and economically viable.
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Finally, since I am also from a peripheral region, I would like to mention the enormous impact on regional development which the shipbuilding industry has, since that industry is based in many of these regions, many of them also included in Objective 1 of the European Regional Policy, with very significant shipyards which generate much direct and indirect employment, a social equilibrium which the countries undergoing cohesion need so much, which demands European solidarity.
On their behalf I ask, in the case of the shipbuilding industry, for special consideration within the European Union' s regional and competition policy.
<P>
I will conclude, Commissioner.
I believe that Parliament' s message today is one of support for energetic action by the Commission in this field.
Thank you for your statement and for the efforts which the Commission has been making, but do not be afraid to apply measures energetically and urgently, as we have asked you today in the European Parliament.
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<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, the problem we are discussing is a product of globalisation.
The South Koreans have, in six years, trebled their shipbuilding capacity.
They have not done it with their own money, but with loans.
American loans were pressed on them, and the American banks did this in order that they might receive back the largest possible profits.
Later the South Koreans left these loans, which had been pressed upon them, unpaid.
The debts, however, were guaranteed, so that the International Monetary Fund sent South Korea money to pay off the American banks.
In other words, the IMF has itself contributed to the current situation.
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The South Koreans were also advised to devalue their currency, as it was a way for them to free themselves from this economic crisis that we have caused them.
They have devalued their currency by many tens of per cent and, as a consequence, their prices have become more competitive.
They did not have to cut wages to reduce their price competitiveness; they only did what we advised them to do, which was to devalue their currency.
South Korea is thus operating in a world that we have made for them.
<P>
All those politicians who are now complaining about the problems South Korea has caused us are wrong if they claim that globalisation is irreversible and that we can do nothing about it.
Globalisation is something which politicians can do nothing about if they do not want to.
If pay in South Korea has gone down from six euros an hour to four euros an hour, it is not the South Koreans who are to blame.
We are to blame, because we caused the economic crisis in South Korea.
Now that crisis is simply spreading from South Korea to our shipyards.
I hope that politicians will show more credibility in this matter and look into the basic causes of the problem, and not just those effects which have been spoken of a good deal here.
We have wanted to ease the effects of the problem, but that will not happen if we do not do anything about its causes.
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<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cunha">
Mr President, in a debate which is as specific and as objective as this one on European shipbuilding, it is not easy to avoid repetition.
As a matter of fact it is impossible to avoid it, but we are talking about an extremely sensitive political issue and that is why it is important that the Commission and the Council know that there is a broad consensus in Parliament on this matter and great concern to find a solution to the problem.
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As Mrs Langenhagen said, the crisis in Europe' s shipbuilding industry has not appeared overnight, but has been with us for more than 25 years.
In fact, as the official statistics available to us show, in the last 20 years this industry has lost four-fifths of the jobs that it had in Europe, which is in fact a huge proportion.
And it is becoming particularly tragic because this massive loss of jobs - in an industry that once employed half a million people - is generally taking place on the periphery of Europe, as you can tell from the nationalities of almost all of the Members who have been speaking here.
And it is on the periphery of Europe that, as we all know, there are the fewest opportunities for employment.
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But now, in the current state of play, the situation is becoming particularly unsustainable.
Korea is not the whole problem.
As several Members have pointed out, the Korean problem has occurred as a result of a combination of situations and factors, some within our control and others outside it: there was the Asian crisis, hyper-devaluation by more than 30% of the national currency - the won - and there was the concomitant support from the IMF which led to this unique - I would call it bizarre - situation in which Korea finds itself, not to mention the unfair way it has competed with us in recent times.
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But we must not forget that this is also the case with the United States.
The United States, whose propaganda image is as the champion of free trade, of the free market, only takes this position because of what it can gain from it: on the audio-visual industry, on the food industry, on anything that is of interest to them.
But when it comes to other industries, such as this one, they are highly protectionist.
We would do well to keep this in mind!
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This Council position must be followed up.
It is indeed important for the Council to take a political stand, but it must be followed up.
I think that it is crucial that the European Union exerts considerable pressure in order to have Korea make a voluntary production agreement in addition to everything that has already been discussed in terms of rules designed to prevent this kind of distortion to competition.
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For one thing is essential: it is not just the jobs that Europe could still lose in this industry that are under threat.
The problem is that the shipbuilding industry, covering all the kinds of ships that we have discussed today, is an industry of strategic importance for Europe.
And so, of course, it is undergoing a structural change: the type of ship is going to change certainly, but in an industry of such strategic importance, Europe cannot remain in foreign hands in terms of the building and the supply of these ships.
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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on the eve of the opening of a new trade round in which everyone will be talking about free and fair trade, what is happening in the shipbuilding industry is really quite ironic.
And that is why I think that we in the European Union must be prepared to remember this industry in Seattle, because there is no reason why this industry should remain outside the GATT rules.
If this does not happen, if this is globalisation, then there is nothing more to say.
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<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Liikanen">
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner Liikanen.
<P>
The debate is closed.
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<CHAPTER ID=5>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="President">
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
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(The sitting was closed at 11.20 a.m.)
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<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday 19 November 1999.
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<CHAPTER ID=2>
Tribute
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, many of you are new to this House but I am sure that all the re-elected Members will have a very clear memory of Carmen Díez de Rivera Icaza.
You will remember that she had to resign due to illness. She fought against this illness with great courage but I have to tell you that she died yesterday.
She was a wonderful colleague who opposed conformism and fought for all noble causes, bringing passion to her work and a radiant smile which you all knew.
I would ask you, ladies and gentlemen, to think about Carmen now and to observe a minute' s silence in her memory.
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(The House rose and observed a minute' s silence)
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<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
Madam President, at the beginning of the last parliamentary term, and as the result of a misunderstanding, there was a public incident between myself and Mrs Díez de Rivera.
I am not going to comment on her political career for you have just done that admirably, but I must highlight, in public before this House, her human qualities, her personal values, her dignity and the fortitude and courage with which she faced her illness right to the very end.
I must also emphasise what she did to overcome a difficult situation between us which ended in a warm and loyal friendship which allowed us to sign initiatives together before this House.
I now feel proud to have been able to put my signature next to hers on those initiatives adopted by this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Barón Crespo">
Madam President, I must firstly thank you for your tribute to Carmen.
If the cancer had not beaten her, I can assure you that she would have been here today, in her seat among our Group, in this House.
As I have already told the President, I had the opportunity to visit Carmen in hospital two weeks ago and she asked me to say goodbye to all her colleagues.
In particular, I want to thank two Members, her nephew Íñigo Méndez de Vigo and Paca Sauquillo, for their efforts to help her throughout the long and difficult process of her final days.
<P>
I must also say that Carmen Díez de Rivera was a woman with a fascinating personality. She was also an excellent MEP and played an absolutely pivotal role in the history of my country and in its transition to democracy.
I hope that history will one day pay tribute to her for this.
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<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="Valdivielso de Cué">
Madam President, as we all know, the terrorist group ETA has decided on a return to criminal activity, the indefinite cessation of which it announced 14 months ago.
As a Basque, I want to humbly, simply but firmly express to this House my feelings regarding the shattering of the hope for peace which the Spanish people and the Basques in particular have clung to throughout this period.
<P>
It is tragic to think that there are still people in the European Union today who are helpless in the face of the sectarian violence of a few others and who are having to pay an extremely high price for remaining true to their beliefs in the face of terrorist blackmail.
<P>
I therefore ask this House, which represents all the peoples of the European Union, to show its solidarity with the Basque people in defence of the freedom, respect for the law and peaceful coexistence which we have all craved for so long. We have to believe that, through tolerance towards others and a love for life, we will achieve peace.
<P>
Finally, I ask you to help personally in ensuring the victory of this desire for peace which all the Spanish people share. Together, we can make this road to peace a reality.
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<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="Doyle">
Madam President, on the historic occasion of the convening of the Government of Northern Ireland, there is a certain irony in my taking the floor with good news when our colleague has such problems to report from the Basque area.
But this is a historic occasion for Northern Ireland.
<P>
It is just twenty years since my colleague, Joe McCartin, first raised Northern Ireland and our conflict here in this Parliament.
Over the last twenty years thousands have been killed, thousands injured and thousands of families shattered.
Could I ask you to convey to all political leaders in the North of Ireland and, as we say in Ireland, 'across the pond' , to the British Prime Minister and all his colleagues, and indeed to the Irish Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern and to their predecessors, the predecessors on both sides, our sincere thanks for what they have helped to achieve.
Above all, our thanks go to the political leaders in the North of Ireland, all those who are now part of our new executive in the North of Ireland, particularly to the Deputy First Minister, Seamus Mallon, and perhaps I may single out the First Minister, David Trimble, for particular mention. He has shown courage and leadership, which is what politics is all about.
<P>
<P>
May they have many years and decades of successful democratic politics in the North and could you, and indeed through our colleague here, Jim Nicholson, whom I include in the leadership of the North of Ireland, convey the very best wishes of this Parliament to them all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Doyle.
I have in fact anticipated your wish. On behalf of this House, I have already written to all the leaders of the major parties in Northern Ireland to express our admiration for what they have achieved and to send them our best and warmest wishes for the favourable continuation of the peace process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Gallagher">
Madam President, coming from Donegal, a border county in the historic province of Ulster, I, like my Irish colleague Mrs Doyle, have a very special appreciation for the progress that has been made in Northern Ireland in the recent past, and in particular the developments of the last few days.
A government has been formed and the transfer of powers and devolution is only hours away.
<P>
The courage and perseverance of the political leaders in the North of Ireland, together with the contribution of the Irish Taoiseach, his predecessors, the British Prime Minister and his predecessors, is only to be commended.
And there is one person who has played an integral part in all this, Senator George Mitchell, whose contribution to the peace process is immeasurable.
<P>
I also want to wish David Trimble, First Minister, and his Deputy First Minister, Seamus Mallon, their government, the Assembly members and the people of Northern Ireland, peace and prosperity into the next millennium.
I believe that the entire island of Ireland can only benefit from the developments of the last few days.
<P>
This Parliament, and I thank you for having sent your good wishes to the respective leaders, has played a very important role in the peace progress.
We have at all times supported the peace process in a positive and practical way through financial support.
Our decisions were taken here unanimously: support for the International Fund for Ireland, support for the peace and reconciliation programme and, of course, Interreg.
While I welcome this Parliament' s contribution, I also want to acknowledge the contribution of the European Commission over the years, and in particular former Presidents, President Delors, our colleague and former President, Jacques Santer, and now President Prodi who, in his statement yesterday, committed himself to the continuation of funds towards the various programmes in Northern Ireland.
Let us all work together for the benefit of those people and hopefully other parts of this continent would look towards Northern Ireland and strive to resolve their problems in a similar way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="McCarthy">
Madam President, much has been said, but as a child who grew up in Belfast and spent thirty of my thirty-nine years in the violent conflict in my homeland, I personally want to mark today' s historic occasion.
It is a historic day.
I am deliberately sitting in John Hume' s seat today because, as a Nobel Prize Winner from this Parliament who has devoted his whole life to securing the peace process, I think it is important that we honour him since he is recuperating at home in Northern Ireland.
<P>
It is important to say today that the will of the people has been done in Northern Ireland.
71% of the people voted for peace, the politicians on all sides have been big enough to deliver that will of the people for future generations.
I have to say in my case perhaps it was too late.
I left Northern Ireland because there was no future, no jobs, no opportunities for young people, but I am delighted that today the future generations will have those opportunities, and Europe has played a critical role in that process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="Barón Crespo">
Madam President, I want to add my voice to celebrate this historic agreement.
You have already sent a letter conveying our best wishes to the Northern Ireland authorities.
Could you send another letter to invite our Northern Ireland friends, the executive, to pay a visit to the Parliament.
I feel that it is our duty to mention the role that one of our colleagues, Mr John Hume, has played in this process.
He is in better shape after four operations and a long convalescence and I hope that he will be back among us very soon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="Nicholson">
Madam President, can I say I am very pleased to accept the glowing tributes paid to my colleagues for the success achieved at the weekend.
I would stress the credit that should be given to my party leader, David Trimble, for his courage and fortitude.
There are very few times you see a political person putting everything on the line.
He put his entire future on the line. I just hope he succeeds.
<P>
There is still a long way to go.
Do not be over-enthusiastic, but I have no doubt that he would be delighted.
I will pass on to him the best wishes of this Parliament for the future.
There was a delegation from the European People' s Party in Belfast on Monday who were able to witness the historic happenings on that particular day.
David Trimble expressed his wish and desire to come to Europe again, hopefully in the middle of January, and I would look forward to that happening, as I am sure, Madam President, you will too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Åfthymiou">
Madam President, may I ask you to take action on an issue which is just as important as those mentioned and which concerns my country, Greece.
As I was preparing my proposal on the Morillon reports yesterday, I was amazed to find in a Parliament document by the Secretariat of the Working Party on Enlargement, from the international and institutional affairs section of DG IV headed by Martine Chariot, the following totally unacceptable reference under point 6 concerning relations between Turkey and the European Union:
<P>
It is entitled "The Situation in the Aegean" and the draftsperson of one of our documents, of a European Parliament document, presents the Aegean islands, which are part of Greek territory under international treaties, as a region of disputed sovereignty between Greece and Turkey.
To put it bluntly, Mrs Fontaine, it is akin to describing Alsace and Lorraine to you, a European and French citizen, as regions of disputed sovereignty between France and Germany.
<P>
I request, not only for the record and for the sake of historical accuracy, but for material reasons, because you will understand the political significance of such texts, that this unacceptable and extremely dangerous wording be taken out of the document.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
Mr Efthymiou, I can promise you that we will look into this very carefully and, if necessary, a correction will be made.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="González Álvarez">
Madam President, we too welcome the peace in Northern Ireland and the new Executive which has been established. We also join Mr Valdivielso in expressing our concern about ETA' s threat to return to violence.
<P>
However, I actually asked for the floor in order to join Mr Barón Crespo in expressing my feelings about the loss of Carmen Díez de Rivera.
Instead of referring to her role in the transition to democracy, as my colleague has already admirably done, I want to mention the personal relationship which we enjoyed for six years in the Committee on the Environment.
We too feel her loss greatly.
She worked extensively to defend the Spanish and European environment and her death at such an early age is terrible.
I therefore join Mr Barón Crespo in expressing my feelings of loss.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Nogueira Román">
Madam President, naturally I welcome the start of a hopefully permanent process towards peace in Northern Ireland and Ireland as a whole.
We must applaud the work of all the political leaders who have participated in this process.
<P>
I must highlight here and now the historic role played by John Hume who had the foresight, some years ago, to ensure that Sinn Fein and Gerry Adams joined him in the search for a political solution to Ireland' s historic problem.
<P>
I must also stress the concern which we all feel about the abandonment of the truce by ETA.
In this respect, I must say that I consider the use of violence to achieve political agreements to be absolutely unacceptable nowadays, whether in Europe or in any other part of the world.
However, a political agreement is now absolutely essential in the Basque Country, as it was in Ireland, and the narrow-mindedness and reactionary attitude of the Spanish Government in refusing to accept a political agreement with the Basque national parties within the peace process is totally unacceptable.
<P>
Having said this, the European Parliament, as the highest institution in Europe, should also adopt a position on this issue in order to facilitate a process of political agreement in the Basque Country.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Ortuondo Larrea">
Madam President, I am a Basque and I belong to the Basque Nationalist party.
However, firstly, I congratulate the leaders, political parties, intermediaries and, in particular, the people of Britain and Ireland, on having found a road to peace by all giving ground on their original positions.
<P>
I, too, join in the condemnation expressed by this European Parliament with regard to ETA' s abandonment of the truce. I can confirm my total rejection of the use of violence to achieve political aims.
<P>
However, I must also say very firmly that we have a problem in the Basque Country for we are in political conflict with the Spanish State.
From this Parliament I call on the Spanish Government and the Spanish political parties to have the same tolerance as the British and Irish so that we can all find the road to peace and a solution to the Basque conflict which is as much a European matter as the Irish conflict.
<P>
We Basques want peace and we want to find a lasting solution which is acceptable to everyone.
However, to achieve this, we must all make an effort to find common ground for the future and for peace.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
Thank you.
We really cannot start a debate and you must appreciate that all these points of order are turning into one.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Díez González">
Madam President, I too am a Basque and I am also a woman and a Socialist. I am one of the 92% of Basque people who voted in the Basque Country in favour of the Statute of Autonomy and in favour of democracy.
<P>
Madam President, there is a democracy in the Basque Country.
There are elections which are free and democratic.
There is a Statute of Autonomy for which the vast majority of Basques voted.
The Basque people and the Basque institutions have risen to the occasion.
Yet, in the Basque Country, there is a terrorist organisation which wants to control our lives, which has returned to blackmail and to which the Basques and all those in favour of democracy have said 'no' .
This is basically all I wanted to say.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Gorostiaga Atxalandabaso">
Madam President, I would just like to say that it is inadmissible in a democracy to let people of one political persuasion speak about the Basque country and not to allow anyone of a different political persuasion to speak.
That is inadmissible in any Parliament.
It is not a parliament, if that happens.
So I protest very strongly.
I would like to have three minutes, which is a fraction of the length of time this subject has been discussed, just to explain my point of view.
I know many people here are very fond of democracy and the ways of parliamentarism.
Could I speak, Madam President?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="President">
No. I really do not think that would be right.
This is not a debate on the issue and you have already spoken for one minute.
We just cannot continue in this way.
This is not a scheduled item on the agenda.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Poettering">
Madam President. You are quite right in what you have just said.
It is, of course, most encouraging to hear different views on this important issue but then, as you see, other Members ask for the floor and we really should turn our attention to the agenda and get down to work.

The Commission is here, Mrs Reding is waiting to report and we really should get down to work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="President">
I particularly agree with you, Mr Poettering, because, in addition to that, I have some information to impart and some delegations to welcome which will all take time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="Cohn-Bendit">
Madam President, I disagree with the Member except for one point on which he is right.
When three or four people have been allowed to express an opinion, basic democracy would say that another opinion should be allowed, even if they disagree with this.
The representative of a large group cannot be permitted to speak for three minutes while the representative of a small group is refused, even if you disagree with them and even if what this person is going to say is deplorable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="President">
Mr Cohn-Bendit, this is the problem, as well you know, with points of order.
When a Member asks for the floor on a point of order, which they are not always - and you may also have been guilty of this - the President cannot guess what this Member is going to say.
I cannot allow a debate to start.
If I did, then every single group would have to be given the chance to speak.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="Perry">
Madam President, I wish to raise a point of order under Rule 179 dealing with relations with the Ombudsman.
On 29 July this year the Ombudsman wrote to this Parliament on an own-initiative inquiry on his part calling for a code of good administrative behaviour and asking for a response by 30 November.
Up to yesterday, he had not had a reply.
I understand that you have today written to the Ombudsman but I wish to know when the Members of this Parliament are going to have the opportunity to respond to the Ombudsman' s request for comments in his own-initiative inquiry.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="President">
Quite right, Mr Perry.
I have in fact signed this letter today.
A draft has been prepared on this matter and is currently being finalised.
I believe that it will be submitted for approval by the Bureau of the European Parliament in December.
I can therefore fully reassure you in this respect.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="President">
It is my great pleasure, on behalf of the House, to welcome all the Presidents of the Parliaments of the twelve applicant states who are seated in the public gallery.
<P>
<P>
They are here to participate in the eighth meeting between the Presidents of the national parliaments of the applicant states and this House.
These meetings were started by my predecessors, Klaus Hänsch and José Maria Gil-Robles.
We worked very hard yesterday and they will be leaving us in a few moments to continue this work which has proved extremely fruitful in terms of our common goal to unite our extensive European family.
I therefore welcome them very warmly.
<P>
We also have a delegation from the Estonian Parliament led by its President, Mr Tunne Kelam. I must emphasise the role which the joint parliamentary committee is playing in the current negotiations which should also lead to Estonia' s accession to the European Union.
I welcome you very warmly.
<P>
(Applause)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Statement by the President
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, the Court of First Instance of the European Communities gave a ruling on 25 November which, in the action brought by Mr Martinez and Mr De Gaulle against the European Parliament, closes for the time being the interim proceedings started by these Members.
In this ruling, the President of the court ordered that the Act of the European Parliament of 14 September 1999 adopting the interpretation proposed by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs of Rule 29 of Parliament' s Rules of Procedure should be set aside.
<P>
The effect of this order is that the mixed Technical Group of Independent Members is permitted to exist and is acknowledged as a political group in every respect.
With regard to parliamentary activity, the TDI Group shall immediately enjoy all rights accorded by the Rules of Procedure to duly constituted political groups. With regard to finance and administration, this group has the right to sufficient staffing to enable it to function and to the appropriations allocated to political groups according to the current scale.
<P>
At its meeting this morning, the Bureau of the European Parliament took the necessary steps to ensure that the provisions of the aforementioned order are correctly applied.
It is quite clear that these provisions are of a provisional nature pending the final judgement of the Court of First Instance on this case.
<P>
The Bureau has also decided to ask the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market whether an appeal should be lodged with the Court of Justice against the order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="Bonino">
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="President">
I have one final piece of information.
Mrs Britt Theorin, chairman of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, has taken an initiative with which I personally fully agree. She has sent all male MEPs a letter encouraging them to wear a white ribbon as a sign of their public commitment not to perpetrate violence or to excuse or remain silent about violence against women.
<P>
I believe that we can very heartily encourage this initiative.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Agenda
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="Medina Ortega">
<CHAPTER ID=6>
The Community and sport
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="President">
The next item is the Commission communication on preserving current sports structures and the social function of sports in a Community framework, the Community support scheme for the campaign against drugs in sport and Commission participation in the World Anti-Doping Agency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="Reding">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this is an important time for sport in Europe because it is now firmly on the agenda.
This has come about quite simply because sport is a popular phenomenon.
Europe is responsible for its people and must therefore look after and preserve what is good in sport and try to solve the problems which arise.
You may remember that, in Mr Prodi' s inaugural speech to this House, he spoke of the new Commission' s desire to be on close terms with the people and, in this context, he emphasised the importance of fighting the scourge of drugs.
<P>
This is now being achieved. The first stone has been laid today of a structure which will be built to ensure that fair play once again becomes an integral part of sport.
The anti-doping campaign will be in two stages.
Firstly, the Commission has helped to set up the World Anti-Doping Agency.
This was not easy, to say the least.
In fact, it was very complicated, but we fought hard and finally achieved this goal.
I have been appointed by the Commission to negotiate with the Council and the President of the International Olympic Committee, Mr Samaranch, to ensure that this new anti-doping agency is established on a sound basis.
<P>
What is this basis?
Firstly, it must be transparent and independent.
Secondly, it must equally represent the worlds of sport and government. Thirdly, all its members worldwide must make solemn the commitment to implement the decisions taken by the agency in their own area.
Finally, this agency clearly must be responsible for drawing up the list of banned products, monitoring the laboratories, setting up control systems, establishing out-of-competition tests and enforcing the law.
This last item involves combating the gangs which sell banned products. The agency must also be responsible for prevention so that young people dissociate themselves psychologically and actively from the scourge of drugs.
<P>
Madam President, I can inform you that the decision makers of the IOC have listened to both the Council and the Commission.
Europe' s demands have been entered word for word in the statutes of the new agency and, on 10 November, these statutes were signed.
In future we will have two representatives on the board of this agency, as will the Council of Europe.
Furthermore, the latter asked us to negotiate on its behalf, so we negotiated not just for the European Union but also for the Council of Europe.
<P>
It is due to the actions of Europe that this agency has come into being.
Whether or not it succeeds in its mission no longer depends on us, as we will be but two of thirty to forty partners.
We must take the fight forward together and jointly establish the foundations for an anti-doping campaign.
We have done our best in this first step and the next steps must be taken together with our worldwide partners.
<P>
We do not have total freedom of movement to make this world agency succeed although we will do everything in our power to ensure this happens, but the other partners must be in agreement. We have therefore decided at the same time to draw up a European plan of action against doping in which we will be totally free to meet our obligations.
This plan of action was decided upon this morning by the Commission, bringing together several Commissioners, each responsible for their own area.
The Research Commissioner will use the basic or applied research programmes of the Fifth Framework Research programme, as well as other options, in the anti-doping campaign in order to reinforce the means available to this campaign.
The Education and Youth Commissioner will allow the Socrates, Leonardo and Youth programmes to be used for providing training and establishing cooperation between young people so that the anti-doping campaign becomes something that is sought after by European youth.
The Health Commissioner will ensure that the existing directives, for example, on labelling of medicines for human use, are also developed in terms of anti-doping.
He has also promised to submit a recommendation covering all the issues of public health, health of young sportspeople and health of sportspeople in general for wide-ranging and concerted action by the Member States in the campaign against doping.
On the enforcement side, the Commissioner responsible for third pillar issues, namely internal policies, will use existing plans and programmes to make the forces of law and order aware of this anti-doping campaign.
<P>
Madam President, you know that from next year, at both world and European level, we are going to make the anti-doping campaign a spearhead of our sports policy.
<P>
We also have a second plan.
During the Vienna Summit, the governments asked us to submit for the Helsinki Summit a document on sport as an element of society, or social sport.
This House, on 17 December last year I believe, adopted a resolution on this same subject.
We are about to fulfil our mandate because the Commission has decided to submit a plan concerning a communication on preserving current sports structures and the social function of sports in the Community framework.
<P>
It is clear that the Commission and the EU have no legal basis for starting to lay down regulations.
We will not do this, because we do not have the power to do this.
However, in all the political areas where we do have a legal basis we will use the existing means to work for sport.
I can give you a very specific example.
In the Structural Funds, a significant part of the money can be allocated to projects in favour of sport.
<P>
We also need a new approach with regard to the people of Europe.
The Commission does not want to appear to be shut off in its ivory tower devising regulations to impose on the good people.
Absolutely not.
We believe that our role is to find a consensus between those who, in the Member States, have political responsibility and those who, in the world of sport, have responsibility for organising sport.
We are all going to get round a table to discuss, listen and find out what is not working and propose solutions which respect the independence of sports federations and the subsidiarity implemented in our fifteen Member States.
<P>
Before then we will start to look at the benefits and obstacles to sport in European legislation.
<P>
For example, some practices have nothing to do with the rules on competition.
Therefore, the fact that a football team has eleven players has nothing to do with competition.
This aspect is completely outside the area of competition.
There are also practices which are, in principle, prohibited under the rules on competition.
For example, if, during a major championship, tickets are sold only to nationals and sales to non-nationals or other European citizens are refused, this contravenes the rules on competition and positive action must be taken against this.
<P>
However, where there is an apparent conflict with the rules on competition but the sports federations undertake in their actions to use the funds raised to bring education and social action to sport, some practices are then likely to be exempted from the rules on competition.
I can give you a specific example of this.
Some federations have up to now collectively sold audiovisual rights.
If this monopoly action only benefits the business world, it is clear that this comes under business.
However, if the money raised is distributed to the clubs which provide education and training to youngsters, this action is in the collective interest and an exemption from the rules on competition is allowed.
<P>
I have briefly explained how we will act in the future with regard to the new sports policy to be introduced.
From next year, a wide-ranging dialogue will be held with all the federations, large or small, and the politicians in our Member States so that together we can decide how to 'regulate' . The aim will not be to draw up new rules but to establish barriers and safeguards so that everything is clear.
We must work together in the interests of our young people, fair play and the commitment of sport to society in its fight against racism and xenophobia. Sport must be positive and accessible.
This is something we all want but which is rarely the case at the moment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="Cohn-Bendit">
I have a question for the Commissioner.
In order to combat doping, there is one thing which we must do as a European Union. This is to fight against the over-commercialisation of sport which has led to a threefold increase in competitions.
This is the reason for all the doping.
While the Tour de France and the Giro d' Italia are as long as they are, and there are three matches per week for professional football teams, drugs will be used.
While sport and the number of competitions are left unregulated, drugs will be used.
If we do not do our duty by preparing a European directive on the protection of sportspeople, including professionals, we will not be tackling the root causes of doping.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="Reding">
The Member is absolutely right.
I have discussed this with many professional sportspeople and the main reason they give for being virtually forced to take drugs is exactly the reason given by Mr Cohn-Bendit.
However, he should know that, without a legal basis to prepare a directive on sport, we cannot act in the way he wishes.
The only thing we can do, in this round table with the federations, is ask them to bring good sense into play and to re-establish the prestige of sport.
<P>
Given the equal representation of the worlds of sport and government in the World Anti-Doping Agency and given all those who will sit on the board of this agency - all the federations and all the National Olympic Committees - who have all undertaken to implement, in their own area, the decisions taken by the agency, there is real hope.
If the agency were to adopt a directive, for example, so that sporting events could be returned to a scale which was humanly possible for sportspeople, this would be a major step forward, but I cannot go further than I am authorised.
It will be up to the agency to act in this respect.
However, I can tell the honourable Member that the European authorities will work in this direction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="Barón Crespo">
Madam President, first of all I want to welcome the communication from Commissioner Reding.
It must not be forgotten that sport in Europe was born of the oldest known truce, namely the sacred truce which gave rise to the Olympics.
This means that it also has a political value of peace.
<P>
Hundreds of thousands of young people, both male and female, start and develop their education through sport.
I have a question concerning the last comment made by the Commissioner.
In addition to being a social and training activity, sport is currently part of the world of big business and is actually one of the most important business activities.
My question is as follows: Does the Commission intend the policy which must be developed on sport, particularly in view of the concentration of power which is occurring in the audiovisual media, to lead to a joint action between her Directorate-General and the one responsible for defending competition?
I believe that this is one of the key questions for Europe and the world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Reding">
. (FR) Madam President, this is a very complex question and the answer can only be given once dialogue has been held between the worlds of politics and sport.
We are keen to see order restored and balance re-established in sport and to ensure that sport as fair play and true competition regains its prestige.
This will not be easy as this is an enormous task, but I believe that, with the help of politicians and through public assistance and pressure, we can achieve these goals.
<P>
It is also very clear that we can act on sport only in its social and educational aspects.
When sport becomes a purely business matter, there can be no exceptions.
Sport will, at this point, be dealt with like any other business activity.
That is plain and clear.
It is only when sport fulfils an important social function that we can give it a helping hand in order to restore order.
Sport as a business will be regarded and dealt with like any other business.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
Madam President, Mrs Reding, allow me to congratulate you on your initiative on the issue of doping.
We can only hope that you will make some proper headway with the people who always make out that they would fight doping.
I think we are on the right track and I wish you luck.
<P>
However, I would like to come back to what my colleague, Mr Cohn-Bendit said.
We cannot legislate because, as you said, there is no legal basis in the Treaty.
As you know, in my 1996 report, I called, on behalf of Parliament, for sport to be included in the Treaty at long last.
We wanted it to have its own line in Article 128 - under culture.
But we failed.
There is something like a declaration attached to the Treaty, but it is not enough to prevent our having to ask ourselves every year when we debate the budget, should we or should we not fund sport?
I think that if what you have said, if what you submit to the Council in Helsinki is to make sense, then we must conclude that the European Parliament is not confined to making statements on Bosman judgements or competition issues in sport, but can give sport a true value by paying more than mere lip service to it in the Treaty.
Only then will we be able to do what my colleague Mr Cohn-Bendit said, only then will we be able to use the budget to give constructive support to cross-border sporting events.
<P>
I urge you from the bottom of my heart to persuade your colleagues at the Commission to take a real step forward with the Council in Helsinki by including a sub-section on sport in the Treaty.
Only then will we be able to make any real progress on this issue!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Reding">
Madam President, Mrs Pack has spoken from the heart.
Unfortunately, she is right.
My life would be far easier if I were able to construct a sports policy on the basis of an article in the Treaty.
But, unfortunately, I have no such facility.
Only the Intergovernmental Conference could give me this facility if they were to sit down and include an article on sport in the Treaty.
Could, if etc. etc.
Will it happen?
I hope so, I pray so, I dream so.
But, as things stand, I can only say that most governments are against an article on sport in the Treaty, although there are governments which want to move in this direction.
I would like to see Parliament extend its lobbying activities on sport by helping and convincing the various governments to vote for a legal basis for sport in the Treaty similar to, and this would be most satisfactory for the purposes of subsidiarity, the legal basis for culture.
That would make our life much easier, but it is just wishful thinking and pie in the sky.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Goebbels">
Madam President, although I welcome the Commissioner' s statement, there is a contradiction in what she has just said.
She answered Mr Cohn-Bendit' s question by saying that she has no legal basis to act against this over-professionalisation of sport. Yet, in answer to the question of Mr Barón Crespo, she said that she intends to act when it is a matter of business.
<P>
The EC Treaty gives the Commission very few means of proposing directives, but it is clear that organisations such as the Tour de France, the Giro d' Italia, the Tennis Masters and many others are pure business.
These are profit-making activities and, seen from this perspective, the Commission could therefore at least try to regulate the sector and its working conditions to a certain extent. As Mr Cohn-Bendit very rightly said, if sportspeople take drugs, it is because the competitions require this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="Reding">
. (FR) I must clarify my words, Madam President.
I never said that I will not act when sport becomes commercial, in fact I said the contrary.
I said that when sport is a purely economic and business activity, this is when the rules on competition will fully apply to prevent any deviations in sport.
I will indeed act when sport, as a social activity, is threatened by the rules on competition.
This is when the Commission will be ready to introduce corrective measures.
<P>
We know full well that sport is being blown off course on account of its business aspect.
This is why we must help sport at the level which is of interest to all the people of Europe, not just as entertainment, but also as an educational activity, promoting solidarity between people, both young and old, and also between the various nations.
At this point we can do something.
When sport is a business, it must be regarded like any other business in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Zabell">
Commissioner, I must firstly congratulate you on the promotion of sports issues within the Commission.
As you have just said, sport has a very important place in daily life in Europe and must therefore be afforded this same status in the European Parliament, as Mr Prodi said in his inaugural speech.
<P>
Congratulations are also in order for your work in setting up the World Anti-Doping Agency. However, as a sportswoman, I must also ask that, as well as taking the positive step of imposing strict rules on athletes with regard to doping, we should listen to them and put their interests above economic and business interests.
This has not always been the case to date.
<P>
Furthermore, it seems that the Council wants to eliminate the budget heading on sport at second reading.
As a sportswoman, a European citizen and a Member of this House, I must very firmly indicate my disagreement with this Council proposal. Also, what steps is the Commission intending to take to ensure that sport has a budget in the European Union, so that we can work from here for European sport?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Reding">
. (FR) I made an appeal to this House for all the sportspeople who are Members to help me develop a proper sports policy which is robust, realistic and productive.
Of course, if we have some great champions in this House, which we do, I thank them in advance for giving me a hand.
<P>
I fully understand the frustration at not being able to do more.
Believe me, I am the first to be frustrated because, if I had a legal basis, I could demand a budget. I could, together with this House, press forward and develop programmes for our youngsters and for our sportspeople.
Unfortunately, I have no legal basis.
Without this, I will have no budget heading.
I am therefore forced to be creative, to innovate and to find sources other than direct sources.
This is why our anti-doping plan intends to use all the policies which, in one way or another, can help to fight this scourge, such as research, health, education and the third pillar.
<P>
I would like nothing more than to escape from this impasse. So if this House can persuade the governments of the Fifteen, during the Intergovernmental Conference, to introduce an article into the EC Treaty allowing us to establish a proper sports policy, I will be the first to cheer and applaud.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner, and ladies and gentlemen.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Preparation of European Council of 10-11 December 1999 in Helsinki
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="President">
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the preparation of the European Council of 10 and 11 December 1999 in Helsinki.
<P>
Without any further delay, I give the floor to the President-in-Office of the Council, Mrs Halonen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="Halonen">
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Prodi">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union' s Heads of State and Government will shortly be gathering in Helsinki with a very busy agenda in front of them.
First of all, I would like to congratulate the Finnish Presidency on all the hard work and careful planning it has put into preparing this European Council.
Thanks to these efforts, the Summit will, I am sure, be a great success.
<P>
One of the main items on the agenda at Helsinki will, of course, be enlargement.
In the composite paper issued last month, the Commission argued strongly for the need to maintain the momentum of reform in the candidate countries.
These countries have already made considerable efforts in order to meet, with time, the Copenhagen criteria.
Our task is now to reward their great efforts in such a way as to encourage further progress while dispelling complacency.
If we fail to give our recognition, some of these countries may become disillusioned and turn their backs on us: their economies would start to diverge, progress towards democracy and respect for human rights may mark time and an historic opportunity will have been lost, perhaps forever.
This is why we need a swift but surefooted accession process, and I certainly hope the Helsinki Summit will adopt the accession strategy we recommended in October and will decide, provided the necessary conditions are met, to start accession negotiations next year with Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Romania and Slovakia.
<P>
What I am hoping to see emerge from Helsinki, therefore, is a fully flexible, multi-speed accession process under which negotiations with each of the twelve candidate countries proceed in parallel with its political and economic progress.
This system, which has been compared to a regatta, allows each country to move at its own pace, be assessed on its own merits and join when it is finally able to meet all the obligations of membership.
<P>
I hope that the European Council will grant Turkey the official status of a candidate country.
Clearly, accession negotiations cannot be opened with Turkey until it meets the Copenhagen political criteria, with their clear emphasis on human rights, respect for minorities and complete religious freedom.
I, too, in this respect, would remind you of what the Finnish Minister for Foreign Affairs said about the serious Öçalan case.
However, by granting it candidate status, we would be giving Turkey a definite incentive to continue moving in the right direction.
<P>
Another important item on the agenda at Helsinki will, of course, be the Intergovernmental Conference which must carry out the institutional reforms needed to prepare the EU for enlargement.
I hope the Summit will agree to launch this conference very soon, because the enlargement process will be beginning in about three years' time and it will continue, uninterrupted, for a good few years after that.
In practice, this means the necessary reforms must be in place by the end of 2002 if we are to be ready on schedule.
Therefore, since a long time is needed for ratification, our time is short.
<P>
What are the necessary institutional reforms?
The major ones were outlined in the conclusions of the Cologne Summit and discussions on their scope began with the report I commissioned from Mr Dehaene, Mr Von Weizsäcker and Lord Simon.
Parliament has tabled contributions, as has the Commission in the document we issued on 10 November The Presidency is due to report its findings to the European Council.
I believe there is a growing agreement among us on the question of which reforms are needed.
First, there are the issues specifically referred to at Amsterdam, namely the number of Commissioners, the representation of Member States in the Council and the extension of qualified majority voting.
These three issues are, in any case, interrelated.
<P>
Secondly, there are matters arising from those issues. For example, enlargement will have an impact on all the other European institutions and bodies, such as the Court of Justice and, indeed, this House which, as new Member States join, will have to make room for up to 700 representatives, and not more than 700.
Furthermore, the codecision procedure will have to be extended to legislation for which qualified majority voting itself has already been extended.
<P>
Finally, there are matters for which preparatory work is to be done outside the IGC but which might, towards the end of the conference, be included in the Treaty or affect it in one way or another.
I am thinking, for example, of specific issues: firstly, discussions on security and defence. The European Council will adopt important decisions in this field and on the management of the non-military aspects of international crises.
The Commission has been closely involved in the policy-making process, as a result of which new operational structures will be set up. They will enable us to travel further along the route towards integration, already traced in Cologne.
<P>
I welcome these important developments and I undertake to do all I can at Helsinki to help bring them about and to ensure that they are consistent with the EU's institutional framework.
The Commission intends to commit itself to fully implementing the decisions adopted by the Heads of State and Government, particularly the decisions on procedures for providing assistance during international crises.
Implementation will involve not only providing financial assistance, which must be guaranteed, but also sending experts to carry out emergency work on the ground.
This will call for our services to put a lot of effort into its organisation and management. These are certainly issues that cannot be ignored.
More generally, I would like to point out that a common foreign and security policy requires the creation of a European defence industry that can compete efficiently in both technological and financial terms.
The Commission intends to promote this by using all the instruments at its disposal relating to the internal market, commercial and competition policies. I am in favour of the changes that are now taking place.
<P>
Then there is the work begun at Tampere on drafting a Charter of Fundamental Rights and the possible restructuring of the Treaty, separating its basic, essential texts from its implementing provisions. This would make the essential texts simpler to read and allow the less essential ones to be amended via a less cumbersome procedure.
I do not underestimate the difficulties, both technical and political. As a first step, the Commission will ask academic experts to carry out a detailed feasibility study on this project.
In this respect, I intend to ask the European University Institute of Florence - which has specialists in this subject from all European countries - to study this matter.
Once this has been done we shall have to carefully consider how to proceed with this idea.
<P>
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, all these issues must be tackled if our institutions are to function effectively in an enlarged European Union. Above all, it is essential that we scale down the number of decisions that still have to be taken unanimously.
Maintaining unanimous voting will result either in complete paralysis or in everything being reduced to the lowest common denominator, a luxury we cannot afford in today' s world, where immediate action is called for in areas of vital importance to the European Union' s future.
<P>
Finally, one more example: trade talks are beginning in Seattle, and the EU must punch its full weight in these negotiations.
In the wake of the Tampere Summit, the Heads of State and Government are including justice and home affairs as a priority area.
The European tax package is now in great difficulty. Yet it is not only an important initiative to combat harmful tax competition but also an essential aspect of our employment strategy.
If we continue to burden our jobs with taxes, as we have done until now, our employment policy will certainly be contradictory.
On all these three fronts, Europe is handicapped by the unanimity requirement. It is like a soldier trying to march with a ball and chain around one leg.
I hope that Helsinki, by launching the reform process, will clearly show we have the ambition and the political will to rid ourselves of this encumbrance and to tackle the other crucial issues before us.
<P>
The European Parliament will, of course, be fully involved in the IGC.
The European Union exists for its citizens, whom you represent, and the reforms we are planning must serve their interests.
That is why I look forward to seeing this House play a key role in the reform process and in building the enlarged Europe of tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Poettering">
Madam President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, the Helsinki Summit on 10 and 11 December is highly significant for Europe in the 21st century in general and for the European Union in particular.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, we wholeheartedly welcome the decision to start negotiations with Latvia and Lithuania and with Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and Malta.
I hope that it will become clear when we embark on discussions with the three Baltic states that the security of these three states is in good hands in the European Union.
<P>
I have held discussions with representatives from these three countries over the past few days.
They are most concerned at Russia' s behaviour in Chechnya and by opening negotiations with Latvia and Lithuania, rather than just Estonia, as we did at the beginning, we are sending out the right signal and the Baltic states will know that they belong to our Community and will soon enjoy the security which membership of the European Union brings.
<P>
<P>
We in the PPE-DE group take Turkey seriously and we make no secret of the fact.
We always were, and continue to be, Turkey' s friend.
We were the group in the European Parliament which pressed, before anyone else, for Customs Union.
But, there is also a strong minority in our group which does not share the majority view.
The majority of the group takes the view that, if Turkey becomes a member of the European Union, and we must be clear on this, then the European Union will take on a different political, economic and cultural quality.
I know, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, that you have been highly committed in the past to monitoring and discussing the Kurdish problem and you know full well to what I refer.
<P>
I would urge the other groups, if we are to subscribe to this compromise text as a European defence policy, to accept a motion for a long-overdue debate on the geographical enlargement of the European Union.
We are waiting for the Council of Ministers to nail its colours to the mast and tell us exactly what the geographical enlargement of the European Union will look like.
That will give us plenty to debate over coming weeks and months.
<P>
Then there is the Intergovernmental Conference: Madam President-in-Office of the Council, I have every confidence that you will succeed in making it clear in Helsinki that we do not intend to confine ourselves to the three Amsterdam leftovers.
Obviously, the extension of majority voting is crucial.
But it is also crucial for the European Parliament to be given codecision powers on all matters decided by majority vote in the Council of Ministers.
If we, as a European Union, want a place in the global economy and on the increasingly globalised political scene, then we must make up our minds to give the European Union a legal capacity so that representatives of the European Union can act on behalf of the European Union.
<P>
At the moment the European Union is a non-starter.
It cannot even buy a house.
These are the facts and this is the root of the problem.
There are numerous other issues too.
What worries me is this, and I would ask you to take this very seriously in the Council of Ministers and in the Commission: the European Union can only be enlarged subject to certain conditions.
I am a passionate advocate of enlargement because, having shaken off Communism, the countries of Central Europe have a right to join our community of values.
However, and I am equally resolute on this point, if there is a danger that enlargement will lead to the break up or the dilution of the European Union in the sense that, in the end, we will merely be an economic and financial institution and not a political union, if this is the danger which enlargement holds, then we should say no to enlargement.
What I mean is that we need to make reforms first.
I can only urge the Council of Ministers to make every effort to give this Intergovernmental Conference a comprehensive mandate and to ensure that the European Parliament' s two representatives are allowed to attend the conference on equal terms.
<P>
We are debating defence policy, an issue which we have supported here in Parliament for decades.
We need European defence.
But when we talk of European defence, we also mean practical measures.
For example, I am most worried by the cuts in defence spending in my country. In other words, we will not achieve what we say we want to achieve and that really would be a pity.
Talking about European defence and including European defence in the Treaties makes no sense if we put no flesh on the bones, which is why it is important to put flesh on the bones, to create the capacities, but without standing in opposition to our American partners and our allies in the USA.
We do not want to oppose America, we want to stand on an equal footing and we want to act in partnership.
If we take this approach, the western alliance also stands to gain.
<P>
(Applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Barón Crespo">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, President of the Commission, I hope that Mrs Halonen will have time, before the Summit, to read our motion for a resolution on this Summit, together with the report on the Intergovernmental Conference which we approved in November. I am saying this because I missed some of her thoughts on certain points which are absolutely vital in our opinion.
<P>
We are certainly now facing an historic challenge in terms of advancing and consolidating the Union and reorganising it in order to cope with enlargement.
My colleague, Mr Hänsch, will talk specifically about enlargement in detail.
I will restrict myself to the over-enlargement caused by our relationship with Turkey.
I can say that the Socialist Group is unanimous on this.
We do believe it is advisable to adopt a positive position with regard to Turkey.
However, firstly, Turkey must show willing.
It cannot just expect and it is therefore vital how it acts in the Öçalan case.
Secondly, a plan of action must be prepared.
<P>
Returning to the very balanced position of this House on the Intergovernmental Conference, the Council must not adopt a low-key approach to this issue.
Enlargement is a major political ambition and we have to know how to respond to this. We cannot simply say that there are some reforms to be made on a few remaining points or that this is an issue to be resolved only in terms of costs.
We have to be capable of providing the major political impetus needed for this process.
<P>
I also place great importance on something which has hardly been mentioned. We are carrying out a parallel exercise of constitutionalising the Treaties, by preparing a Charter of Fundamental Rights, at the same time as planning the Intergovernmental Conference.
<P>
We have an obligation to our fellow citizens - and note that the President-in-Office of the Council comes from a Nordic country which is always boasting about transparency - to achieve a transparent process in which this House is duly represented. I would like Mrs Halonen to reject the view expressed that the Council Presidency is opposed to full representation of the European Parliament, with two representatives, at the Intergovernmental Conference.
We must also explain to our political forces, to our national MPs and to our people, why we are holding the IGC, why we want a Charter of Fundamental Rights, why we want enlargement and why we have the responsibility of ensuring that the Community operates as a community.
<P>
On defence there is one point about which I am very pleased. The President-in-Office of the Council, who comes from a tradition of neutrality, has become an expert on security and defence.
She is to be congratulated on this.
<P>
Finally, I must refer to the absolutely fundamental issue of growth, stability and employment.
This is an issue on which the line taken in Luxembourg, and then in Cardiff, Cologne and Helsinki, must be consolidated at the next Summit under the Portuguese Presidency. We realise that, to have a prosperous future in the Union, we must be capable of being more competitive and generating more economic growth, but with the emphasis on employment and social cohesion which are, and must be, our first priorities.
These are the challenges which my group wants the Helsinki Summit to respond to in a positive manner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Duff">
Mr President, the President of the Council says that she always appreciates the trips she makes to the Parliament, so it is rather extraordinary that she failed during her speech to respond to any of the proposals of Parliament for the IGC. This rather reinforces the press reports, which give cause for concern, that the European Council has chosen a narrow agenda for the IGC and a merely voluntary charter.
<P>
If that is so, it says a lot about the way the Union is squaring up for the challenge of enlargement.
An IGC that failed to amend the way the treaties can be revised in future and in policy sectors to soften them would be an IGC that threatened to paralyse the Union when it tries to modernise itself following the accession of new Member States.
An IGC that failed to grant the citizen improved access to the European Court means a charter will be more of a public relations exercise than a powerful re-definition of European citizenship.
And a Union that is frightened to reinforce its liberal and parliamentary character will be an unattractive Union for the acceding Member States and an unreliable player upon the world stage.
Where Europe stops should not be a question of geography but of liberal values and democratic practices, clearly defined and brightly illuminated so that the candidate countries know where the European journey will bring them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="Hautala">
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Mr President, we have heard a great deal about this new enlargement strategy, which Mr Prodi has also proposed to us in the past.
Some aspects of it are appealing and sound, some are threatening.
Mr Prodi was not in the least convincing when it came to the following question: is political unification the price for the new strategy?
We are particularly worried about this.
We are worried that this strategy will somehow lead to a twin-track Europe - i.e. the 15 versus the rest - and that many aspects of unification are being sidelined.
<P>
The second reason this worries us is on account of the Intergovernmental Conference: there is an air of vagueness and stubbornness about it and its narrow agenda only addresses procedural issues.
What about the political issues, what we might call the intergovernmental economic management of EMU, Mr President; in other words, what about political intervention?
What about the common policy on unemployment, or on employment for that matter?
Are these not issues which are relevant to unification, issues which concern the very people from whom the Union is apparently distancing itself?
<P>
The third issue is Turkey.
Do the Council and the Commission know exactly what Turkey wants?
We are convinced by numerous declarations that some people in Turkey just want 'symbolic recognition' , purely for internal reasons, and do not take their future in Europe seriously.
That is no good to anyone, either in Europe or in Turkey.
If we want to make ourselves clear and if we want to stop bandying words and leading Turkey up the garden path, then we should send it a signal which says that, of course, Turkey will not be discriminated against, that goes without saying; however, we need to be clear as to what Turkey' s future within Europe will actually entail.
We need a material policy which Turkey can verify and which allows it to head along the right path: the path towards the rule of law, good neighbourliness and peaceful coexistence, as well as towards a withdrawal from military operations everywhere, especially in Cyprus and on the Kurdish question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="Collins">
Mr President, all Members of the European Union can take solace from the fact that the European Union economy is performing well and that we have permanent democratic structures operating in all our respective jurisdictions.
<P>
This is not the case for all countries in Europe at this time and that is why I welcome the efforts of the Finnish Government to pursue the adoption of a strategy on the Western Balkans at the forthcoming Helsinki Summit.
A permanent stabilisation of the region is in the interests of the European Union as a whole.
The European Union and the Member States together constitute the most important donors in the region and besides humanitarian aid, the region has received this year EU aid amounting to EUR 2,100 m.
We support democratic change in Yugoslavia and the European Union has rightly started to implement pilot projects based on the energy-for-democracy initiative.
<P>
EU enlargement will be another central theme at the Helsinki Summit.
During the Finnish Presidency, accession negotiations have been opened in respect of seven more chapters of talks.
These concern EMU, social policy and employment, the free movement of capital, the free movement of services, taxation, energy, transport, all of which are very demanding social and economic sectors.
I am particularly pleased to see that the chapter dealing with energy has now commenced.
I say this because the safety of nuclear plants in Eastern and Central Europe has been a cause for great concern in recent years, and will continue to be.
The Union cannot hide from the naked fact that the EU itself, together with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, will have to play a key role in terms of financial contributions and technical support to make safe all these nuclear reactors sooner rather than later.
<P>
We all know that the enlargement process cannot take place unless there is some internal reform in the decision-making processes within the EU.
The Presidency is independently preparing a comprehensive report on questions to be examined at the IGC and on the various options for resolving them.
The deadline being set down for the next IGC is very ambitious indeed.
I support working towards reaching agreement by the end of next year, but equally we must not, and should not, hurry possible fundamental reforms to existing EU treaties without due consideration and evaluation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Cappato">
Mr President, I am, of course, only speaking on behalf of the Italian Radical Members.
<P>
We understand that the Council is disgracefully preparing to exclude the European Parliament from the Intergovernmental Conference and, above all, that it is preparing to ensure that the conference will only tackle three items related to the improvement of the functioning of the institutions, thereby leaving that incomprehensible house of cards known as the Treaty of the Union entirely intact.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen of the Council and the Commission, today the Union is an institution which does not respect the minimum parameters of democracy and the Rule of Law, and for us Radicals, European federalists, advocates of the United States of Europe as envisaged by Altiero Spinelli, it is difficult to consider the minor - and they really are minor - reforms on the agenda as real progress.
Of course, we are utopians and you are realists, such realists that the Berlin Wall has been down for ten years, and ten years on we are still unable to enlarge eastwards, just as we were unable to intervene to stop the genocide, first in Bosnia and then in Kosovo.
This is because the European Union' s strength is increasingly bureaucratic power, a pervasive bureaucracy that desires to take control of everything, under the ideological illusion that the law and the parliamentary process are obstacles that needlessly slow down reform.
I believe that Parliament should not be satisfied with just asking to participate in proceedings at the conference, such as the work on drafting a Charter of Fundamental Rights, but that it should demand the right to be able to act as a real parliament and it should demand that its right to decide independently on its own seat be restored at the Intergovernmental Conference so that it is not forced to work with its secretariat spread between three different locations.
This could be a first tangible step towards allowing Parliament to be a real parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Krarup">
In fact, there is no doubt about the agenda for the Summit.
It will be planning the Intergovernmental Conference with a view to the enlargement of the European Union.
A drastic extension to the Union' s powers is on the agenda.
These are the crucial building blocks for a United States of the European Union, that is to say for a real federal State.
There is one significant point I want to concentrate on in my speech, namely the Commission' s remark in its contribution for the Summit to the effect that, if the political will is sufficiently strong, it will be possible to conclude the planned Intergovernmental Conference successfully before the end of the year 2000.
One wonders whose political will are we talking about?
Earlier, I heard one speaker say that we must be careful not to lose our citizens.
Yes, but is that not putting the cart before the horse?
Is it not our citizens who govern our society, or is it ourselves, sitting here and fashioning democracy?
What kind of absurdity is this?
If the people of Europe were to be asked whether they wanted the kind of empire-building that is on the agenda, extremely different answers would be obtained.
We have asked this question in Denmark, for example.
On the few occasions we did ask the people - and we also asked the French people in 1992 - we received an answer indicating very serious public reservations about such a development.
But our citizens are not being asked, and my advice to this Intergovernmental Conference, before the empire-building gets too well under way, is: ask the people of Europe whether they want developments to take this course.
I personally am sure of the answer.
This is something they do not want.
We have already lost our citizens, as may be very clearly seen from the results and the turnout at the last elections to this Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kronberger">
Mr President, numerous aspects of enlargement have been raised, together with the economic, social and democratic implications.
I am certain that all these issues will be resolved in the medium or long term.
But one problem calls for immediate resolution.
I refer to the closure of high-risk nuclear reactors.
An accident would affect the whole of Europe and the longer these reactors are working the greater the likelihood of total meltdown.
It is therefore imperative that binding arrangements for the decommissioning of high risk reactors be agreed before accession negotiations begin.
<P>
Allow me to give you just one example of the nuclear policy of an applicant country: Slovakia' s technocrats and bureaucrats promised under the Communist regime to decommission Bohunice in the year 2000.
Obviously they recognised the risk.
Now, no-one knows anything about any such promise.
Just as past promises have not been honoured, there is a danger, if guaranteed decommissioning is not demanded in advance, that they will once again be forgotten.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="Suominen">
Mr President, Mrs Halonen, Mr Prodi, we Finns know that we do not give thanks when there are good grounds for doing so, but we are quick to criticise.
I will surprise the Finnish representatives of the country to hold the presidency by saying that the Finnish Presidency can already now be termed, in the positive sense, historic.
At the Summit conference in Tampere, we included internal and police affairs among Community issues in an attempt to increase citizens' security.
The fight against organised crime, above all against the spread of drugs, will become more effective as the decisions are implemented.
At Tampere, we decided to draft a Charter of Fundamental Rights, in which the European Parliament will also be fully involved.
<P>
The meeting at Helsinki will deal with joint crisis management and the resources to be allocated to it, along with a timetable for this joint action.
According to a new opinion poll, this enjoys the support of a clear majority in my country.
This step towards a common foreign and defence policy, in close cooperation with NATO, is an important part of civil, economic and political crisis management.
The Intergovernmental Conference, at which next year will be decided the institutional changes that are required within the Community as a condition for enlargement, will have its roots in, and receive its agenda from, Helsinki.
At Helsinki, the status of the new applicant countries will also be decided, which means that the artificial division in Eastern and Central Europe into better and poorer candidates will end.
<P>
But is our own house in order at present, and what must the people of those countries trying to join the Community think about this patent protectionism, which undermines the basic work of the Community in the economic sector?
What measures might be imposed in time on their relatively low-income citizens and on their companies competing in the Community?
For example, Spain still holds back from the all-important creation of the European limited company, the United Kingdom safeguards City jobs by refusing to accept the harmonisation of taxation even as regards the taxation of capital, France would rather go to the Community court than liberalise its electricity market as required by Union legislation, the German Chancellor breaks all the rules of the market economy and rescues a construction company on the brink of bankruptcy in order to gain political kudos in his home country, and the beef war against England continues far beyond the requirements of health.
How can we be contemplating enlargement if we are still fighting in the current EU area in a manner that goes against the rules of the Single Market?
European competitiveness is not strong now either, the markets in the Community are not functioning correctly and the process whereby differences in consumer goods prices in the EMU area would be evened out has ground to a halt.
<P>
My examples in no way mean that I exclude the possibility of the rules being broken in my country as well.
I only wish to say that the future aims in Helsinki are good ones, but our own European house must also be put in order in accordance with the rules of the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hänsch">
Mr President, the whole house agrees with Mrs Halonen: Helsinki must inject new life into the process of enlargement of the European Union.
The individual negotiations which we want to conduct with 12 applicant countries should not become mere routine.
The last Intergovernmental Conference of the century marks the end of a millennium of European wars and you must ensure, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, that the foundations are laid so that there will never again be another millennium of wars in Europe.
That is the aim of enlargement, to unite the whole of Europe in a European Union.
<P>
Mrs Halonen, we support what you have said regarding the negotiations and how they are to be conducted and are also in agreement with what Mr Prodi has said on the matter.
We find that all well and good, but what you have said about the preparation of accession, about the so-called Amsterdam leftovers, that is not enough for us.
We want comprehensive reform of the European Union.
If we are to open the doors of the European house, of our European Union, in order to take in another 12 lodgers in addition to the 15 already living here, then one visit from the cleaner is not enough, we need to convert the whole house.
That is something I have heard too little about, not only from you, but also from the other governments of the European Union.
I know what you are thinking and perhaps what your intentions are: let us just begin with a few minor reforms at this Intergovernmental Conference and then, after next year' s Intergovernmental Conference, there will be another Intergovernmental Conference and so on and so forth.
<P>
I put it to you that the people of the European Union are tired of seeing the EU stumble from one Intergovernmental Conference to the next, taking so many tiny steps that they no longer know which direction they are going in.
We must show them once and for all what our image of the European Union and of the future of Europe is, instead of watching the EU constantly stumbling from one conference to the next.
<P>
With regard to the common defence policy, we welcome the statement which you have made today, but there must be more to European summits than statements and papers.
We want you to take the decisions needed in Helsinki so that concrete initiatives can be introduced into both military and non-military aspects of the common defence policy and to stipulate the operational capacities needed and the institutions in which the decisions are to be taken.
<P>
Finally, we want, on the day after Helsinki, on 12 December, to be able to talk about a real European Summit, a Summit from which we can look out into the new millennium and not just a mole-hill without a view.
You have the responsibility and the opportunity to ensure that the Finnish Presidency at the end of this century goes down in history as a great presidency!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Väyrynen">
Mr President, there are two particularly important issues to be debated at the Helsinki Summit: Union enlargement and setting the IGC in motion.
As we adopted the broad resolution on the IGC in the previous part-session at Strasbourg, we should have focused this time mainly on Union enlargement.
Unfortunately, the joint resolution drafted by the groups only contains a few paragraphs on enlargement.
<P>
The group of the European Liberal Democrats has tabled some amendments that would complement and improve the jointly prepared draft.
We hope that the Commission and the Council will draft an overall strategy, in which enlargement of the Union and its future reforms might be linked to a broader pan-European scenario.
In our opinion, we should consider various models of differentiated integration and try to achieve an ever-developing, concentrically conceived Union, in which there would be a federal core and a less integrated outer perimeter.
We furthermore propose that the Union should use the European Council and the OSCE as forums for pan-European cooperation.
We hope there will be support for our proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, I welcome the fact that the Commission has made a long overdue move towards revision of the enlargement strategy.
But that should not blind us to the fact that the enlargement strategy has still not actually been revised in certain areas, namely with regard to aid, transparency and parity.
There is still no public debate in these countries, no social dialogue, no involvement at regional or local level; what we take for granted cannot happen there because the EU instruments do not allow it.
<P>
I would also like to point out how important it is for the presidency to inject new life into this forum with a new European conference and to involve these future EU members equally in the new configuration of the European Union.
This applies both to institutional reforms and to the common objective of meeting the Kyoto objectives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Berthu">
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Belder">
Mr President, the Helsinki Summit would like clarity on the matter.
The European Union must ensure that the enlargement process is not slowed down because institutional reforms have not taken place within the Union.
The European Commission' s transparency concerning candidate countries should be adopted by the European Summit.
<P>
What will a Union comprising more than 25 Members actually look like?
Moreover, Turkey requires special treatment in the accession strategy.
It also remains unclear what will change for Turkey now that this State is being treated as a candidate country, although there is absolutely no question of accession taking place as yet.
<P>
The agenda for the IGC in 2000 must list more items than the three leftovers from Amsterdam.
The attitude regarding the accession process displayed by people within candidate countries remains worrying.
In this respect, it is important to develop a clear information strategy.
In fact, the same applies just as much to public opinion within the EU Member States.
Otherwise, the value of an enlarged Union will remain vague to the average European citizen.
<P>
The composition of the European institutions must be changed in good time.
It is hoped that the Summit will draw up a schedule for this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
Mr President, as former rapporteur on the enlargement strategy I of course welcome with open arms the new proposals submitted to the Council by the Commission once and for all to eliminate the unfortunate dichotomy between candidate countries, once and for all.
<P>
Also, I could not agree more with the reason given in this respect.
We used exactly the same reason for promoting the so-called "Regatta model" which did a great deal more justice to the own merits and efforts of the countries that wanted to join the European Union.
Indeed, if we say to the most developed of the candidate countries: you are already in really, then they will sit back and no longer put in the same effort.
We witnessed this in the case of the Czech Republic: policy stagnated.
Other less developed countries, such as Bulgaria and Romania, will be discouraged and will lose the backing of the people for hard-line measures.
Thankfully, this bizarre division into two groups is also being rescinded.
I highly commend the Council, in anticipation that is, for the fact that it is going to implement these changes and this strategy in accordance with the original Parliament position.
<P>
It is extremely important that the European Parliament puts its own house in order too.
We need a swift victory during the Intergovernmental Conference in 2000.
We need to start reforming our institutions ourselves, to democratise ourselves.
We require candidate countries to develop their institutions and ensure that they operate democratically.
Imagine if we did not need to meet these requirements ourselves.
I am, therefore, extremely taken aback by what Mr Van den Berg, from the [Dutch] Labour Party, wrote in a letter published recently which stated, in so many words, that the Union' s reform should no longer be a prerequisite for enlargement. How can it not be?
I am extremely pleased that the leaders in the socialist group here do not subscribe to this view.
Indeed, only if one does not operate with the best of intentions for the European Union can one say that we do not need to put our own house in order.
We could easily offer the new Member States a house which will turn into a heap of rubble.
They are entitled to more.
They are entitled to democratically functioning institutions within the EU, of which they want to become members and which can take effective decisions.
We should not offer them anything less.
<P>
Anyone who wants to focus only on the EU' s achievements as a free trade zone should just continue making this type of proposal.
The reproach implicit in his letter that the Union actually regulates far too much at national, regional and local level, is also striking.
Only hardened supporters of Mrs Thatcher talk in this way about decentralisation of Union policy.
It is genuinely not the case that we rob national, regional and local governments of duties which belong there. Quite the opposite, in fact; subsidiarity is held in very high esteem here.
Anyone who denies this is making a mockery of our work.
<P>
In my opinion, all Member States should make a proper and sound contribution to the public debate on the European Union and we can bring this about, for example, by ensuring that insignificant issues which take us away from the real issues dealt with by the European Union are abandoned, the type of issues raised by the entire delegation brought by Mr Van den Berg.
<P>
I applaud the fact that we are going to develop a European Security and Defence Policy without weakening transatlantic relations and the link with NATO.
I am extremely happy that we both, that is Mr Hänsch and I, also clearly agreed on this point, highlighting nevertheless that the European Union really prefers non-military means.
This is simply a fact.
But we also know that non-military means and diplomatic means often only really work if a credible, military threat is present in the background.
I think that as far as this is concerned, we have learnt our lesson.
The European Union has been dangerous because it was unable to split sovereign power in terms of security and defence policy.
This is now changing, fortunately.
<P>
Mr President, I herewith wish the Council the best of luck with the proposals we are submitting and I hope that the Council will, in good time, listen to the European Parliament regarding these other issues as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Myller">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Europe has undergone substantial change over the last ten years.
The development that began with the turning point in autumn 1989 has reached a stage of controlled progress, thanks to the determined policies of the European Union.
We have laid down clear guidelines for Europe' s development, but there is work still to be done.
<P>
The Intergovernmental Conference, the reality of a common foreign and security policy and the controlled realisation of enlargement are matters that have to be thoroughly prepared for, both in the applicant countries and in the European Union.
These areas form an important whole on the agenda of the Helsinki European Council and, as has been said here, this whole is so dynamic that if everything succeeds, the Helsinki meeting will be an historic event.
The importance of these matters means that it is vital that Parliament also debates the issue thoroughly.
We are now in a situation where, for the first time, full consideration must be given to the Treaty of Amsterdam in a meeting of the European Council.
<P>
The President-in-Office of the Council' s excellent speech fully covered the questions and challenges of a common security and defence policy for the Union.
We should point out that the Helsinki Summit will focus on the European Union' s policy on the northern dimension and hence bring about more solid tools of stability and security for the northern part of Europe.
<P>
When we speak of security, peace and stability in Europe, we should not forget, however, the factors that have an impact on internal security in society.
A respect for fundamental rights and aspirations towards social equality are the best defence policy for ensuring social stability.
The European employment policy and the guidelines on employment for the year 2000 to be discussed at Helsinki as a part of that policy still belong at the top of the Union' s agenda.
The defence of democracy and the prevention of extremism are the basis of social justice, which means, among other things, combating unemployment.
<P>
Finally, I would like to express my sincere congratulations to the country to hold the presidency for having succeeded, with no amendments to regulations, this has not yet been possible, in clearly increasing transparency in the decision-making process in the European Union and especially, in the European Council.
Hopefully, future countries to hold the presidency will carry on the good work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="MacCormick">
Mr President, my remarks will concern security aspects of today' s debate.
Members of the House may not be aware of an ill-judged intervention into national politics by the Secretary-General of NATO today.
Lord Robertson just recently attacked as isolationist the Scottish National Party' s policy concerning NATO membership.
That policy, I should tell you, is equivalent in effect to the stance of Austria, Finland and Sweden, and also Ireland, though the occasion of Lord Robertson's intervention was Ireland's accession to the Partnership for Peace Programme.
I hope that the President-in-Office of the Council would deplore, as I do, a party political intervention by the Secretary-General of NATO, the logical implication of which is an attack on the defence policy of Finland and other Member States.
<P>
For the record, I should like to make it clear that, in common with all our colleagues in the Green European Free Alliance, we in the SNP are committed to the idea of collective security in Europe and welcome developments the Council will pursue to this end.
But we are rootedly opposed to the maintenance of nuclear weapons in Scottish coastal waters, or coastal waters anywhere in Europe, or the land of Europe.
This is a determining factor for defence policy as far as we are concerned, and I do not for a moment imagine that Ireland is in the process of developing a policy aimed at giving hospitality to nuclear weapons in their waters.
Indeed, Mr Collins assured me that this has nothing to do with NATO membership.
<P>
I hope that in developing our crisis management policy, we in Europe will think carefully as to where, if anywhere, nuclear weapons belong in it.
I do not think they belong at all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Segni">
Mr President, here, in this Chamber, I would like to express strong concern and, if I may say so, some pessimism regarding the developments that are taking shape regarding the forthcoming Summit.
<P>
Parliament has expressed a very clear position.
It has voiced the hope that some major institutional reforms will be unalterably implemented before enlargement takes place if we do not want Europe to turn into a large area of free trade and nothing more, where regulations and internal rules that are now obsolete leave it distinctly incapable of making decisions; it has also stated that decisions on majority voting and membership of the committees are not sufficient to give fresh impetus and new strength to Europe, but that some other avenues should be taken, such as the Charter of Fundamental Rights and certain other elements that should have united the whole of the great European movement: all this, of course, must be in full respect for the nations, their feelings, their history and their traditions, which I consider to be extremely important.
However, what I think I have understood - since we are not blind - is that at the forthcoming conference, caution and realism are likely to prevail over audacity and courage.
But at an historic time such as this, when we either have the courage to take a giant step forwards or else risk being condemned to a lengthy period of impotency, I think that audacity and courage count for more than realism.
I therefore extend an invitation to all those who believe in these goals, in these objectives, to be firm and determined, and we have here with us President Prodi who has declared this several times, and I know he believes it. I also invite the European Parliament to meet immediately after Helsinki - if, as I fear, the conclusion will be progress, but too limited - and with a very open mind and great courage to take responsibility for all of its decisions, saying and thinking, as at other times in European history, that Parliament has great possibilities and a significant role to play.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Dimitrakopoulos">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, I would like to confine myself to two comments regarding the Helsinki Summit.
The first concerns the Intergovernmental Conference.
It seems clear from what the Minister has said that the Cologne conclusions will not be the only three items on the agenda of the Intergovernmental Conference.
In my opinion, it is only right that issues relating to common foreign policy, defence and the economy should be discussed.
However, it would be wrong just to stick to these few issues and ignore matters relating to the future structure and legal identity of the European Union, or social and cultural issues.
I should like, at this juncture, to point out that the Charter of Fundamental Rights is of the utmost importance, and we should ensure that it evolves into a binding text and does not just remain a simple declaration of intent.
<P>
My second comment concerns the position of Turkey.
We must tread very carefully on this issue at the Helsinki Summit, because this ties in closely with the fact that Turkey has yet to demonstrate in its policies that it has understood that close relations with Europe depend on its fulfilling certain conditions, as laid down in EU texts and decisions.
The question which arises here concerns the extension of the borders of Europe, especially with enlargement in the offing, and of whether or not the borders are to be extended to include Turkey.
These are, in my view, important issues which we must bear in mind.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Seguro">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, I would also like to express my satisfaction with the strategy, which is generally sensible and coherent as far as enlargement is concerned.
However, although this vision, which is held both by the Council and the Commission on the issue of enlargement, may be ambitious, the same cannot be said about the content of the forthcoming IGC.
In fact, what we have on the table now is merely a continuation of what could not be achieved in Amsterdam.
I would say there is "plenty of ambition for enlargement and yet very little ambition for a revision of the Treaty of the Union itself" .
There is even greater cause for concern when what we want to revise, that is the famous institutional triangle, is defended on the basis of an argument for efficiency and not on the basis of an overall vision of the European project.
I do not think that anyone will be happy if the Intergovernmental Conference at the end of 2000 results in the Commission or the Council taking decisions in two hours which they previously took in five, six or seven.
The project of European construction does not rest on the criterion of efficiency but on the criterion of cohesion and what we all hope is that, in Helsinki, a political agenda is set, and not a technical agenda with complicated political consequences.
<P>
In this regard, I would like to welcome the Portuguese Presidency' s willingness to grant the European Parliament' s representatives at this IGC the same status that will be given to the Commission as far as the personal representatives of the Ministers for Foreign Affairs are concerned.
It also appears important that we take advantage of the Portuguese Presidency' s willingness to have the IGC start not in March but, if possible, as early as January.
<P>
As for the Charter of Fundamental Rights, it is important that it is able not only to extend the rights that are already laid down in Charters and Treaties but also that it recognises rights in the social and economic spheres and, above all, that it is able to be innovative and creative in the area of new rights concerning environmental issues and the protection of consumer rights.
<P>
I shall now address a third point to which President Barón Crespo has already referred, concerning employment issues. The Union cannot only attempt to deal with employment issues when we are going through periods of economic slowdown.
Our policies should be active, not reactive.
We must take advantage of the current economic cycle and of the declaration that the Finnish Presidency will be making on the Millennium and the new information society, so that we find a creative way of recording sustained growth and so that the goal of full employment is actually achieved and does not remain a rhetorical phrase.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, I also support you in your intention to have the strategic lines that were laid down in the Tampere Council conclusions approved, specifically in the fight against drug trafficking, and I hope that the Portuguese Presidency will be willing to adopt its own action plan in the next six-monthly term.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Boumediene-Thiery">
) Mr President, it is a real pity that the Intergovernmental Conference will not be considering certain essential elements on the area of freedom, security and justice, none of which can be achieved at the expense of the others.
<P>
I also regret that our joint motion for a resolution does not mention the problems linked to Eurodac, even though the Council has just announced, contrary to the Treaties, that this body should remain purely intergovernmental. This would, of course, exclude the European Parliament and the Court of Justice from any control in this area.
Similarly, faced with the multiplication of information systems such as Europol and Eurodac, this House should have repeated its demand for an independent commission on data processing and the protection of privacy in order to preserve our individual freedoms, in addition to democratic and judicial control.
<P>
The idea of citizenship is also most notably absent from this text.
Yet this is a subject of vital importance. It is a cornerstone of the negotiations on the Charter of Fundamental Rights and also on the constitutionalisation of the Union.
When the Union is enlarged, it is this citizenship which must be at the heart of our European project in order to ensure human and sustainable development.
<P>
To conclude, we must realise that such a pale and insipid text cannot satisfy the people of Europe.
We must take care that we do not distance ourselves too much from their aspirations if we are to build a fairer and more democratic Europe with a greater sense of solidarity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
Mr President, I wish the Finnish Presidency every success at the Helsinki Summit as this will conclude a range of important work undertaken during its term.
<P>
With regard to the issues mentioned by the President-in-Office of the Council, the shape of the Union following enlargement raises no problems for this House, for the Commission proposal or for the Council of Ministers.
<P>
On the issue of the Intergovernmental Conference, such an optimistic situation is not appropriate in view of the tour by the Finnish Prime Minister. It would be a pity to miss this opportunity of giving a boost to the project of European integration and we will regret not having taken due advantage of this occasion.
<P>
I completely agree with Mrs Halonen' s assessment that it is absolutely essential to reaffirm the international presence of the European Union. This is particularly true in the fields of security and defence to which the Finnish Presidency - and this can be said with legitimate pride - has given a decisive boost with this historic meeting of Defence and Foreign Ministers.
This is the first time that this has occurred in the history of the European Union.
<P>
Furthermore, we must stress the need to consolidate the achievements made at the Tampere Summit, referred to by the previous speaker, on an area of freedom, security and justice.
<P>
As mentioned by the President-in-Office of the Council, it is essential that we confirm and prepare the work of the Portuguese Presidency with regard to employment.
We are at an all-time low in the short history of the euro so the Helsinki European Council should devote some time to the issue of the external representation of the euro zone.
<P>
Mrs Halonen, you referred to the need for us to promote a more open, democratic and transparent European integration project.
I noted with satisfaction the comment made by the President of the Commission on the presence of the European Parliament at the Intergovernmental Conference, but I would like you to say this as well.
We cannot achieve a more open, transparent and democratic Europe if the European Parliament is not fully involved in the work of the IGC.
<P>
I hope and pray that the European Council in Helsinki can give us a Europe which is more judicious, more united and much more community-spirited, and therefore much less intergovernmental.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Napolitano">
Mr President, I have taken the floor to express, first of all, my surprise at what the President-in-Office of the Council said about the Intergovernmental Conference: Mrs Halonen did not even mention the European Parliament' s resolution of 18 November and the proposals it contains on the agenda of the Conference.
They are serious and justified proposals, not escapist flights of fancy or vain utopian desires.
I do not think it is right to take this attitude towards an important stance adopted by Parliament.
We already know everything about the three leftovers from Amsterdam: all that remains is to make the choices that were not made during the previous conference.
We should take a year just to do this.
May I say that it is ridiculous to uphold this.
Take heed: if the Council, if the governments do not open up the agenda of the Helsinki Summit to essential institutional issues that are now more than ready to be addressed, the debate on enlargement will lack credibility and we will show ourselves incapable of having a far-sighted view of the development of all aspects of the Union.
<P>
President Prodi, I do not understand what the preparatory work outside the Intergovernmental Conference you spoke of should be.
You seemed to be entrusting to this strange forum some of the issues that were put forward here by the Commission on 10 November.
I hope that you will keep all those Commission proposals on the agenda and the conference approach unchanged, and will contribute in this way to a positive outcome of the Helsinki Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Gawronski">
Mr President, I think that President Prodi did well in his intervention, all of which we should agree with, to say that enlargement is the main and essential point for Helsinki.
Parliament had already been stressing for some time the inadequacy of the approach adopted by the Commission and the Council on enlargement.
I think it was a question of a strategic and political error, the consequences of which were fortunately limited by the Commission' s change of mind, even though, I must say, it is sad to think that perhaps it was only the war which we experienced on our doorstep that pushed them towards this new strategy.
It is right to begin negotiations with all the applicant states, but there is no doubt that we must differentiate between these countries, given that the levels of adaptation to Europe vary greatly between them.
Of course, it seems difficult to talk about accession dates, even if it would be useful, very useful, in order to facilitate public opinion in the countries concerned, given that it is increasingly obvious that it is a risk: negotiations that are too lengthy may cool enthusiasm, both in Member States as well as applicant states, as shown by the recent opinion polls carried out in Poland and as I personally saw in this country from where I returned yesterday.
We would therefore lose an historic opportunity, to quote President Prodi again.
I am absolutely convinced that the accession of a new Member State must be the result of a broad consensus between political groups but, above all, the majority of the populations concerned should be in agreement.
Therefore, we need - and this is my invitation to Parliament - to draw particular attention to the information campaigns which keep support for the European option in these countries at a high level.
In this respect, I think that the PHARE programme may be the appropriate instrument, and I therefore think that it must be consolidated precisely in this area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schröder, Jürgen">
Mr President, allow me to pick up where my colleague Mr Gawronski left off, namely the acceptance of Europe among the people of the various countries seeking to join the European Union.
It is not only Poland; other countries, such as the Czech Republic, also keep their enthusiasm for the European Union in check.
I should like to point out that the Commission' s progress report on the Czech Republic refers to a medium-sized town in the Czechia where a fence has been built down a street to separate the Czechs from the Romas.
That is hardly progress.
I have been there twice, I have spoken to the mayor, I said the fence must go and what happened?
The tabloid press of Europe is calling this fence a wall, as if it were not only the Berlin wall but the great wall of China.
It has been so blown up that the people there are, understandably, extremely angry because they assume that there is sauce for the goose and sauce for the gander in the European Union.
We have one set of rules for ourselves, and we are far from whiter than white, and we have another set of rules for applicant countries and we expect everything of them which we ourselves fail to deliver.
<P>
When we in the European Union take a look around us, at ethnic conflicts and terrorist attacks, I think that, if the boot were on the other foot, for example, if the Czech Republic were already in the Union, then it would say to a certain Member State: friend, if you do not get your house in order, then you must wait another twenty years before you become a Member State.
I simply mean we should make sure that the people are not put off.
The point is, we do not need to get on with the politicians in the applicant countries, but with the people.
That is all that counts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Carlsson">
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Mr President, the European Parliament will summarise this debate on Helsinki in a resolution.
As always, it will be a compromise resolution.
There is nothing wrong with that, it is the nature of the beast.
But, in this case, I fear that the willingness of the joint authors of this resolution to reach a compromise has gone too far.
I am not referring so much to what is said, although I do have, to a greater or lesser extent, some difficulty with that, such as on the subject of Turkey.
My criticism applies mainly to what is not said in the resolution.
We set too much store by the principle of hope and too little on hard facts as far as enlargement is concerned.
<P>
The Commission refers again and again in its status reports on the level of adaptation to the acquis communautaire to the fact that candidate countries, and this includes both the first wave and the second wave, are very slow in transposing and adapting to the acquis in numerous areas, such as social affairs, the environment and energy, as well as in human rights and living democracy.
That is not enough.
We should not be content to hope that a death sentence in Turkey will perhaps not be carried through.
We should not be content to hope that sometime, somewhere, what are clearly unsafe nuclear power stations will perhaps be closed.
We should not pretend that the extremely long transition periods which, in the 1980s, did not cause any real problems, may not cause any problems to the internal market.
<P>
Do we really want to accept transition periods of fifteen years or more for basic freedoms in the movement of people and in the service sector and still keep our borders open?
We are in favour of enlargement; it is the answer to the question of the future of Europe, which is precisely why we must speak a clear language, even in compromise resolutions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Harbour">
Mr President, it is my privilege to speak again in a debate with Mrs Halonen.
In fact, my first ever speech in this Chamber was back in July when I commended the Finnish Presidency on giving priority to information society and its work programme.
Tonight, as we draw towards the close of that presidency, I want to commend the Finnish Presidency for working on this, but also to express some disappointment that it has not made more of the opportunities.
Mrs Halonen only just managed to fit in a mention of information society - I think right in the last sentence of her speech - and yet, according to a paper that I received from the Commission last week, we are to have an e-Europe initiative presented at Helsinki, a paper entitled "Information Society for All" .
So far, we have not seen that.
"All" clearly still does not include Members of the European Parliament, so not many people know about it.
Indeed it barely rated a mention in your speech, but I hope that the Council is going to spend some time on this vital topic.
<P>
Could I also say on the broader topic of completing the internal market that, during the Finnish Presidency, we have had some very important strategy papers and they actually require a much higher priority than they are receiving in the Community at the moment.
Indeed, the motion for a resolution I saw this morning contained no mention of any internal market or information society initiatives at all, despite the work that has been going on under your Presidency.
I tabled an addendum in the name of my group this morning to include those items and I hope very much it will receive the support of this House.
<P>
In conclusion, I also hope that the Finnish Presidency will remind Member governments at the Helsinki Council that creating a single market requires that cross-border takeovers and the restructuring of key industries must be allowed to proceed without political interference by Member governments.
I am sure that Members of this House will know that there is a crucial takeover battle under way at the moment in the telecommunications sector.
I have to say I am disappointed to see that some of the comments by senior politicians, and even Members of the Commission, suggest that the whole philosophy of an internal market has still to be fully accepted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Halonen">
Mr President, first I will admit that when we tried to meet both the demands of time and adhere to priorities we chose as the basis of talks certain of those issues which we knew would be the most important topics at Helsinki.
Thus, I have touched less in my speech on certain other matters, attention to which has been drawn here quite justifiably.
However, I can reassure and console the Members of the European Parliament and say that these issues have not been forgotten.
<P>
Firstly, as regards the question of employment, we regard this as very important, and we have made preparations, as I said in my speech, to ensure that history' s first Summit conference on employment is a real success during Portugal' s presidential term.
The special theme in matters of employment during the Finnish Presidency has been, inter alia, the status of the aged. There was an informal meeting of the Employment and Social Affairs Council on this subject, and we have also had a conference at ministerial level specifically on the topic of equality.
In addition, we have raised the issue of the information society in the area of employment.
A Council resolution was adopted on 29 November regarding employment in the information society and the social dimension.
<P>
I will give my replies in a slightly different order from the speakers, but as Mr Harbour seems to be here still, I will say to him too that the Commission is presenting its extensive information society initiative to the European Council in Helsinki.
The document will only be published on December 8.
The issue is to be debated properly at the special Summit meeting in Portugal.
The main focus of information society matters at Helsinki will be the consultation between the information society and competitiveness.
This is an angle that has achieved prominence during the Finnish Presidency and will probably now be discussed in connection with issues to do with the economy, employment and competitiveness.
Thus, there is also an intention in the conclusions to speed up the development of a regulated environment for electronic commerce.
During the Finnish presidential term we have made progress in major projects for regulation, but the finishing touches will be undertaken during the next presidential term.
So the results are somewhat better, or I might even venture to say, substantially better than was perhaps evident from my speech.
<P>
Then I would like to answer one separate question, which is linked to the subject of enlargement.
With regard to the question of the Roma people, which was raised here, I would like to say for my own part that I think it is right to focus attention on human rights, both generally and, in particular, regarding the rights of minorities, both in the European Union, but especially in those countries seeking membership.
We have had experience of applicant countries during the Finnish presidential term, particularly with regard to the poor treatment of the Roma people, to the extent that large numbers of them have left those countries to apply for asylum.
There are already nearly one thousand of them in Finland, if memory serves.
The country to hold the presidency has not wished to draw the conclusion that the cause of this might only be found in Slovakia, Romania or in some other individual country.
This is a common problem, and, for that reason, we intend to raise the issue, not in connection with enlargement, but as a general part of the Summit conference agenda, that Member States and applicant countries must improve the implementation of the rights of minorities.
The country to hold the presidency is also offering to cooperate in this regard.
<P>
Then I will turn to what are actually the main issues.
Firstly, I will say in all honesty, regarding the Intergovernmental Conference, that we are unanimous on the issues omitted from the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Many of us here have tried to suggest that it would take just a little effort to try and solve these problems.
Members of Parliament, they were not omitted from the Treaty of Amsterdam because they would have been minor issues.
They were left out because they were very difficult questions and they have not got any easier in the meantime.
However, a clear definition of the task will give us the chance now to succeed, as will the pressure to ensure the matter is put right.
<P>
In addition, I clearly listed for you those issues that are closely connected with these subject areas, and that can possibly be added to the agenda.
The third group is those issues that one or more Member States have raised.
I venture to say that, although Finland is still a young Member State, I am at present one of the oldest foreign ministers in terms of years in office.
There are only a couple of us ministers left who were at the previous Intergovernmental Conference.
At that IGC we gained the support of 12, 13 or 14 Member States in quite a number of areas.
But we did not receive support from the full 15, which would have been required for example for these majority decisions.
In this connection, I am not at all sceptical, but I am realistic with regard to the fact that, if we want to get certain issues through quickly, we have to concentrate on those that are to some extent ready.
Then there is this other process, whereby the big, longer-term plans are addressed.
We can make progress just as soon as we are unanimous on them, but they are not vital with regard to enlargement.
<P>
Regarding the participation of the European Parliament, I still cannot say what the solution will be at the Helsinki Summit, but I have said it already once before, and I will say so again, that our experience of their involvement on the previous occasion was a positive one.
This is therefore the position of the country to hold the presidency.
<P>
With regard to enlargement, that will be the topic of debate in the last General Affairs Council to be held on 6 December.
At this Council meeting I shall try to put together those elements concerning Turkey that at least will enable us to believe we can make progress.
I have had on-going discussions on this matter with my colleagues.
I am not quite sure whether we will yet be able to achieve unanimity on the subject at the General Affairs Council.
Should there be sufficient unanimity to make a joint decision, the country to hold the presidency can still use the days it has left before the Helsinki Summit to put the finishing touches to the issue.
Our common desire seems to be that the issue should be solved somehow through consensus before the Helsinki Summit and, as the representatives of the country to hold the presidency, we will work hard to achieve a positive solution.
<P>
I am grateful for all the comments made regarding the speed of enlargement, the Copenhagen criteria and everything else.
Most of them reflected our opinion very closely when we were preparing the paperwork in the Council of Ministers.
There were fewer remarks about foreign and security policy, but I would like to perhaps comment on one point.
I have not mentioned the northern dimension issue at all this time.
A meeting at ministerial level was held in Helsinki on the issue of the northern dimension, as we promised. Attendance was poor on the part of the foreign ministers of the other EU Member States - I was the only one there - but certain other ministers were present as well as all those ministers who are involved in the issue of the northern dimension.
The response was very encouraging.
The Commission promised to move things one step further and make an action plan, and thus we achieved what was perceived as the goal relating to the Portuguese presidential term.
I agree with those who have spoken here that, if we increase stability, that, in its own way, increases security in Europe.
<P>
With regard once more to enlargement, we have endeavoured to remind the applicant countries, just as has been said here, that we are not accepting new governments as members: we are accepting new countries.
It is very important to say to the governments of applicant countries that they must also involve the opposition and the whole population in their plans, just as has been asked of them.
I have said that the European Union cannot just accept young, well educated males living in cities, but we are taking everyone, including the elderly, those who live in rural areas, the less well-educated and women.
The plans must thus also take account of that.
Hopefully, we shall also be able to speak with them about social cohesion, nuclear safety and security, as well as many other things.
I have tried to convince the applicant countries of these matters by saying that although not all these points will be dealt with at the negotiations, it might just be that they will attract so much attention in the parliaments of Member States that the applicant countries would be assured of swift acceptance if they began to attend to these matters right away, matters that will, in any case, be very important when they eventually become members.
<P>
A final word about the IGC: if we acquired a legal character for the European Union at the next IGC many issues would be resolved.
A legal personality, which is a matter that has been raised here in many speeches, was one of the questions that the majority supported but, where, unfortunately, consensus was not forthcoming. This was just another example of that problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Barón Crespo">
Mr President, I have a specific question for the President-in-Office of the Council. What is her opinion on the full participation of the European Parliament at the Intergovernmental Conference?
This is an important question as it is contained in the report approved by this House and is vital to us.
I would be grateful if she could answer this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Prodi">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in this Chamber I have heard some pessimistic words regarding the forthcoming Summit.
I do not agree at all. It is an extraordinarily important Summit that we - Parliament, Commission and Council Presidency - have prepared very carefully and vigorously, and the challenge of enlargement is an historic challenge of decisive importance.
At Helsinki, enlargement will take root, get going and completely change Europe' s appearance.
I agree with what many of you have said, that we must proceed towards enlargement with gusto and energy, a process which will look at each country' s case closely but seek to prevent them losing faith in us.
Our programme for enlargement is therefore not at all minimalist.
The theory of the 'regatta' , the image of each country running and improving as it does so, is the concept we have favoured.
<P>
Along with this, it is clear that we want to see an effective Intergovernmental Conference.
We therefore believe - as Mr Seguro just said - that we must start as soon as possible.
I think that we can and must start in January because there are many areas to be addressed: Amsterdam, issues arising from Amsterdam, cohesion, codecision, the issue of security and defence, the Charter of Fundamental Rights and also the reform of the Treaty.
It is not a minimalist agenda.
Mr Napolitano, I would also like to reassure you regarding the proposal to carry out accompanying preparatory work, and I stress the word accompanying: since the reform of the Treaties involves extremely detailed and special technical aspects, we cannot let ourselves be accused of not having carried out a thorough study and a complete analysis of these aspects.
This is not a postponement: accompanying means that we will start work ourselves and that technical work will be carried out at the same time. This technical work is indispensable in order to avoid any delay in this area that could reduce the effectiveness of our action.
<P>
We are starting by closely following the document tabled previously, with firm proposals and also a sense that, after enlargement, we shall be faced with the real issue that must be carefully and attentively defined, with a very far-ranging debate - the nature and borders of Europe.
Many of you have mentioned this, and I have already asked Parliament several times and I am repeating it again now: I think that, alongside the implementation of enlargement - which will definitely take place, since the enlargement process I hope we will decide on in Helsinki will have no room for doubts, problems or hesitation - we will have to open a debate on the nature and shape of Europe, since we are the ones who will have to shape these borders and decide on the nature of Europe. We cannot simply meet the requests of countries asking to join Europe, however legitimate.
Where would these requests end?
Why should countries in Asia, for example, not apply?
We will nevertheless be the ones who decide.
I could give you a whole list of countries which, basically, would be interested and eager to join Europe, thereby changing its very nature. Europe is not a customs agreement; it is not an area of free trade.
Europe is a Union of countries, and indeed we have called it the European Union. It is clear, then, that together we must undertake major institutional reform so that we can make positive decisions, while pressing ahead with this debate on the borders and nature of Europe.
<P>
To conclude, I would just like to add, in relation to the nuclear power stations, the efforts regarding the Balkans and the social and cultural questions that have been raised here, that we really have studied and analysed these matters thoroughly.
Agreements are in place that lead should to a strategy being developed to close these plants, which will make things safe, while, at the same time, giving these countries the realistic chance to leave their problems behind together.
This is what we are doing and we are therefore setting off for the Summit with a huge challenge and a complex agenda before us.
<P>
I would like to thank Parliament for the way that, in recent months, the Commission and Parliament have been able to act in unison as regards these issues.
What we said on the first day we met still stands: our challenge is not one with zero gain but, by cooperation, both Parliament and the Commission will gain from it.
Indeed, I believe that it is our responsibility to bring continuity to Europe' s development, the development of Europe in the long term, not just on a day by day basis.
For this, I think that, apart from these areas, we will have to undertake a debate on tomorrow' s Europe, its borders and its nature, subjects which I have mentioned many times because I believe that this is a great task that we must perform together.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Halonen">
Mr President, I will say again that it has been the opinion of the country to hold the presidency that our experience with regard to the participation of the European Parliament in the previous Intergovernmental Conference was a positive one.
Since then, the Prime Minister of the country to hold the presidency has toured, and continues to tour, the Member States to ask for opinions with regard to this matter, prior to the Summit in Helsinki.
Currently, opinions appear to differ.
Some think this development should go further while others would keep the situation more or less as it is.
However, I think that Parliament will retain at least the same rights as it had in the previous IGC.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Statement by the President
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="President">
Mr Karlsson, the President of the Court of Auditors, who was to present the Court Annual Report, has to leave Brussels at 7 p.m.
Given the way we are proceeding with our agenda, it will not be possible to take this item before then.
It will therefore have to be postponed to another part-session.
The matter will be discussed later by the Conference of Presidents, when it establishes the final draft agenda for the December part-session.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Annual report on human rights
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="President">
The next item is the Council statement on the annual report on human rights followed by a debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Halonen">
Mr President, Members of the European Parliament, first I would like to express my thanks for the opportunity to present the European Union' s first annual report on human rights.
My intention is not to repeat the content of the report, but to take a look at the future.
<P>
Developing the EU' s policy on human rights is a huge challenge that requires courage combined with forbearance.
To be effective, the EU must be able to achieve cooperation at many levels.
Cooperation has first to be enhanced among the institutions of the EU.
The EU must also be ready to cooperate more widely with civil society and the NGOs.
The EU supports the work of human rights defenders everywhere in the world.
For this we need the input of the NGOs.
<P>
The EU must also act in cooperation with international organisations such as the Council of Europe, the OSCE and the UN.
This will also require a willingness to embrace transparency.
On the other hand, the EU' s aspirations with regard to visibility must not lead to a situation where there is overlap or its cooperation with other organisations becomes problematic.
<P>
The annual report on human rights must be seen, on account of what I have said before, as part of a process to strengthen the position of human rights in the Union.
I believe we all want to develop the Union in such a way that it can act more effectively on behalf of human rights throughout the world than has been the case thus far.
Speaking in the European Parliament, I do not have to single out the reasons why this work is necessary.
You know this: reports on violations of human rights are common in the media.
I am convinced that our work on behalf of human rights will also have the steadfast support of the people of Europe.
<P>
The annual report on human rights replaces the Council' s former annual memorandum on human rights to Parliament.
The purpose of the change is to increase and broaden information on the work and priorities of the Council.
In this way we are trying to create a forum for deeper and more analytical discussions on the work done by the EU for the issue of human rights.
<P>
In this connection I would also like to refer to the EU' s first human rights forum which ended earlier today, and which many of us also attended.
The forum witnessed an intense debate, and one that looked to the future, on many of the themes of the annual report.
The forum was intended as the start of a more regular and broader dialogue than was the case previously on the priorities and challenges associated with the EU' s policy on human rights.
This approach also earned the support of those attending.
I am myself also convinced that the forum has a future.
Feedback on how the forum might be developed further and improved will obviously be welcome.
<P>
But why should the EU publish a report on human rights every year?
<P>
Firstly, the Council sees it as a way of strengthening transparency with regard to the EU' s human rights policy.
The enhancement of transparency has been one of the main areas of focus during the Finnish Presidency, as you know.
When we speak of human rights, transparency is of particular importance.
It is necessary to reinforce dialogue and cooperation, as we all have our own role to play in this issue.
The annual report covers the period from the beginning of June 1998 up to the end of June 1999.
This period was chosen so that the EU June Summit meetings could be included in the report.
This is the timeframe that we intend to cover in future annual reports as well.
<P>
Secondly, through this annual report we are trying to increase consistency in EU human rights policy by means of this annual report.
I myself think that the main challenge to the EU policy on human rights is consistency and credibility in different forums.
For the first time, the report combines the work of the EU in different international organisations with our relations to third countries.
The report discusses the work in respect of the first and second pillars.
In drafting the annual report we realised that no corresponding information had been systematically compiled anywhere before.
We also learnt that we really had to establish consistency in the work of the Union beyond the boundaries of the pillars.
<P>
The annual report this time focuses on the EU' s external relations.
This first annual report, however, already includes a section that discusses EU action to prevent racism within the EU' s own territory.
For the work of the EU to gain credibility, we must ourselves observe those same principles with respect to human rights that we demand from others.
In future, there will be a need to examine the situation within the Union more broadly, as we said when we were preparing the report.
We must be fully prepared for this.
For example, in future, greater consideration might be given to the topics of asylum and refugees as they constitute an essential aspect of human rights.
<P>
The purpose behind the annual report is to describe the work of the EU and its thematic content over a given period.
It does not therefore attempt to be a comprehensive depiction of the human rights situation in different countries.
It may be that this will prove to be necessary later.
It may be justifiable to examine the situation in different countries more closely.
However, that would require more developed mechanisms and facilities for coherent monitoring and analysis than the EU possesses at present.
<P>
The first chapters of the report describe the bases of the EU' s policy on human rights.
These include the principles of universality and indivisibility.
After this we have tried to describe the key players and systems in the EU arena and with regard to international organisations.
There is also a section on priorities and questions of human rights according to theme, such as the rights of women, children and minority groups, and opposition to the death penalty and racism.
We also, justifiably, attach weight to the importance of economic, social and cultural rights.
<P>
I am quite aware that the content and form of the report need improving although we have already tried to make it concise and readable.
Since the annual report was approved in the Council it has also been available on the Internet.
In addition, it is to be published in all EU languages in the Council' s series of publications and it will be circulated far and wide.
This is because we think it is an important part of the promotion of human rights to ensure that people know what these rights are all about.
<P>
The Treaty of Amsterdam and the regulations on human rights that have recently entered into force will improve the EU' s chances of promoting human rights.
These increased opportunities must now be backed up by something tangible and meaningful.
In this regard, the EU policy on human rights is at a dynamic development stage.
Feedback from Parliament on this first annual report and its recommendations will also be most welcome.
As a result, we could make headway in the next annual report in a direction that we will have decided upon together.
<P>
I would like to mention one point as a separate item.
As I said at the start, we need deeper and more analytical cooperation with other European organisations, such as the Council of Europe and the OSCE.
This is no mere polite expression of a wish, but a very important area to focus on when the EU contemplates its action in this area.
We have to avoid duplicating the work.
We will not tolerate the creation of double standards, which would be a problem for the applicant countries as well as ourselves.
Monitoring human rights in practice means monitoring the application of these human rights standards.
The development of these standards is an area in which the experience of the Council of Europe is greatest.
We in the Union should thus make use of the experience of others.
<P>
I believe that the working party set up to produce a Charter of Fundamental Rights is also now in a very important position.
In putting it together efforts were made to take different areas of expertise into account.
Hopefully, we will receive sound advice from the group on how we can increase the amount of work the EU does to improve human rights, in such a way that we acquire some genuine added value and it is not just a question of putting our initials to these issues.
<P>
My vision is that human rights will, in future, become more prominent in very different areas of debate.
The active discussion on human rights at the preliminary round of WTO talks at Seattle is a good indication of this.
Furthermore, it is worth mentioning the outcome of the meeting at Tampere.
In the future, the EU has to take more obvious account of the impact all its work has on the implementation of human rights.
The European Parliament, you yourselves, have an important role to play in this.
I appreciate it that Parliament closely monitors human rights issues and passes comment, sometimes forcefully and using colourful language, on the actions of governments.
In so doing, Parliament significantly complements intergovernmental cooperation.
I hope that the first annual report on human rights for its part will facilitate the realisation of this welcome development.
<P>
I have purposefully shortened my speech somewhat, as we are behind schedule and, unfortunately, the airline I am travelling with will not delay the departure of my flight just because I am late.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission welcomes the publication of the first annual report on human rights.
I think that this publication will strengthen the visibility of the European Union in the field of human rights considerably.
The Commission was actively involved in the drafting of the report and worked closely with both the German and the Finnish Presidencies.
The Commission feels that a stronger balance should be struck between the three pillars of the European Union in future reports, in order to give a more comprehensive overview of the human rights situation at European level.
This report concentrates mainly on questions of common foreign and security policy.
One way of achieving greater balance in the future might be to take a more thematically structured approach focusing, for example, on particularly vulnerable groups, such as women and children, or specific questions, such as the monitoring of elections.
The Commission will, of course, continue to help the Presidency-in-Office to draft these reports.
<P>
Finally, I should like to point out that my colleague Chris Patten, who is very sorry that he is unable to be here today due to a foreign policy commitment, and Poul Nielson and I shall issue a communication on the promotion of human rights and democratisation in our external relations.
This communication will be adopted by the Commission in the first half of 2000 and will supplement the Council report on the human rights situation in that it will detail what specific action the Community can take in order to promote human rights in third countries, so that our declarations are backed up by serious, concrete initiatives and support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Bethell">
Mr President, it is a very great joy that we have at last a report from the Council of Ministers on human rights.
I can remember making this request in December 1979 when the Russian troops were getting together to invade Afghanistan.
For some reason, over these past twenty years the Council of Ministers or the ministers meeting in political cooperation have been unwilling to put together a document.
Now at least we have a document, although I have to say that it is rather thin soup.
The careful balance the Commissioner mentioned needs to be made very carefully, but we need facts and details on how the human rights situation throughout the world is being handled.
I trust that this first document will be just one step along the way towards bringing us together and helping us to tackle human rights.
<P>
It has been an abominable year after all.
We have had war, murder, genocide, racism, xenophobia, and I wish we could have had something a little bit more powerful in this document, which was, I have to say, distributed very quickly.
It found itself in our pigeon-holes today and it was there for debate with the human rights forum which the President referred to.
<P>
These things are in need of quick action.
At the human rights forum this morning I spoke to one of the President-in-Office' s Finnish colleagues from the Finnish Foreign Ministry, about a particular case mentioned by the European Parliament recently, the case of Alexander Nikitin, a man who is on trial just a few miles away from Helsinki, for high treason.
He is facing the death penalty because he reported on the ecological disaster of nuclear submarines in the Murmansk area.
I take it this matter is of interest to the Finnish Government, but even though I raised this question with a member of the Finnish Foreign Office, we still do not have any information and the man is on trial today, and tomorrow.
I imagine it is familiar to those who are sitting with the Council of Ministers.
I hope someone can tell us something about it.
<P>
Mr President, this is, I suppose, the parliament in Europe that takes human rights the most seriously, and we have great possibilities in dealing with countries that violate human rights.
I believe that we have to look much more carefully at this question, to tackle those countries that behave disgracefully; the so-called fingernail-pulling governments need to be taken to task, and the European Parliament must be the institution that takes the lead in making sure that human rights are top of our agenda.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Lalumière">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I too welcome this first annual European Union report on human rights.
Obviously, we have had Commission documents and many European Parliament reports in the past, but this is the first time that the Council of Ministers has given us this type of text.
This demonstrates a welcome desire for transparency. It will, I hope, improve the information given to the public on the specific actions carried out between June 1998 and June 1999 and on the instruments and means available to the EU.
<P>
My only criticism is that this report is probably over-optimistic.
Inadequacies and grey areas are hardly mentioned.
However, the publication of this document encourages me to look to the near future and the preparation of an EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
This project, which must be part of the IGC' s work and which could be completed by the end of the year 2000, is of major importance for the Union, for all those living within the Union and for the applicant states.
<P>
Yet we currently have no guarantee that this text will meet expectations.
In particular, we fear that the European Council and the Council of Ministers have only very limited ambitions, namely to draft a mere declaration without any legal or binding force.
If this were to be the case, the European Union would lose all credibility in its own eyes and in the eyes of the rest of the world.
<P>
In addition, there is a concern about the risks of competition and even contradiction between this future Charter and existing texts which have indisputable force.
I am referring, of course, to the Council of Europe' s European Convention on Human Rights.
<P>
I hope, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, that the Helsinki Summit will reassure us on all these points.
You are personally well acquainted with these issues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Malmström">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, we in the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party have a mainly positive attitude to the present report on human rights.
Parliament has been wanting to see a report like this for a long time.
We are therefore looking forward with pleasure to the tradition which the Finnish Presidency has now initiated.
There is a need for specific detail, further development and more thorough analysis We shall be returning to these questions, from Parliament' s point of view, in the report for which I have the honour of being rapporteur and on which there will be a vote in March of next year.
<P>
I want to take up a number of questions, however.
One of these relates to the policy on minorities, of which there is little mention in the report.
The EU quite rightly makes tough demands on the applicant countries where policy on minorities is concerned.
We have also reacted very strongly when the rights of minorities in the world around us have been infringed.
However, we ourselves are not always as good at putting our own house in order.
The EU needs to strengthen its own policy on minorities.
Quite a few of the Member States (including my home country, Sweden) have not signed the international declaration on the rights of minorities.
This is an example of why the European Union must have a credible internal policy if it is to be credible externally.
<P>
The European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party also welcomes the strategic perspective offered by the report, together with the ambition it expresses to work for a more integrated policy within the field of human rights.
The EU, and especially the European Parliament, in fact has a very high profile and very high ambitions in the struggle for human rights.
This Chamber has emphatically condemned the death penalty, discrimination, torture and other acts of cruelty.
We know that our citizens care deeply about these issues.
<P>
The problem is that our policy is not always consistent and integrated, and this sends out some odd signals.
Measures must be taken to combat this problem and ambitions need to be raised significantly.
If it is to be credible, our perspective on human rights must permeate the European Union' s entire policy, that is to say foreign policy, trade policy, policy on aid etc. What is required, therefore, is to raise the profile of human rights.
These ought not to be seen in terms of some incidental ad hoc initiative but must be founded upon a well thought-out, consistent, clear and open policy.
We must therefore be better at coordinating internal and external policies.
This will mean collecting facts and acquiring better data and engaging in analysis and regular follow-up.
It will require cooperation between the EU' s various institutions, between the EU and the Member States, between the EU and the voluntary organisations and between the EU and other countries.
The failure to bring about a worldwide moratorium on the use of the death penalty is both tragic and deeply embarrassing.
<P>
If this can become a common policy and a common strategy for the years to come, then I look forward to further constructive and fruitful work within this important sphere.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Wuori">
Mr President, the annual report in question is a welcome and important beginning, and its value is underlined by the fact that independent NGOs were equal partners at the human rights forum which has just ended and which was organised on the initiative of the country holding the presidency.
This is the start of what must become a tradition.
<P>
With human rights there is always the question of weighing up different values against one another: 'horizontal tensions' exist between the various human rights.
Since the end of the Cold War they have manifested themselves more dramatically than before in the balance between classic basic freedoms, on the one hand, and collective rights, such as economic, social and cultural rights, on the other.
The development has rapidly taken a direction which will weaken collective rights, which have been characteristic, for example, of the welfare state.
<P>
Of all the human rights, however, it is freedom of speech that holds a special position, as without free and independent communication the other human and fundamental rights cannot be established and even serious violations of human rights, such as crimes against humanity, cannot be effectively exposed.
As the President-in-Office of the Council said, reports on violations of human rights are an everyday occurrence.
A free and independent media is also a vital prerequisite of civil society.
For this reason, it would be advisable to accord greater emphasis in human rights monitoring and reporting by the Union to freedom of speech and to safeguarding, improving and monitoring the rights of journalists and their ability to work, for example, by devoting a special chapter or section to this area.
<P>
As we develop the Union' s own position on human rights we must, as the Foreign Minister, Mrs Halonen, said, be consistent.
But we must also maintain a balance.
There must be balance between the different types of human rights, the pillars, as mentioned by Mr Verheugen, and the institutions.
The European Union cannot complacently and regardless of others develop its own human rights culture in such a way as to upset the balance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Krivine">
Mr President, in general terms nobody here dares argue against respect for human rights.
We should therefore move from the rhetorical to the practical.
What has happened to the right to work in a Europe with 18 million unemployed and 50 million living in poverty?
What has happened to the right to housing, health or education when millions of people are deprived of these?
What has happened to the right of asylum and freedom of movement when countries such as Belgium are expelling gypsies or, just yesterday, fifteen or so Nigerians?
The same is true of my country, France, which is refusing to legalise the situation of tens of thousands of illegal immigrants, in many cases packed into detention centres, and which is extraditing Basque refugees.
<P>
What has happened to the right to life when the armies of Europe agree to participate in bombardments of civilian populations in Serbia or Kosovo?
What response have the Member States given to questions from Amnesty International about having violated Article 5 of the Declaration on Human Rights banning torture and ill-treatment with impunity?
<P>
Finally, what has happened to human rights when, as is occurring now, the financial markets are allowed to make people redundant, exclude them and pollute them, all in the name of profit and good returns?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Gollnisch">
Mr President, I must take the opportunity afforded by the presentation of this lengthy report on human rights to highlight the constant violations of these rights which are being committed, on the basis of Stalinist-style legislation, against intellectuals in all fields who dare to give critical or simply independent opinions of the history of the Second World War. The media and the educational world are increasingly obsessed with the tragedy of the concentration camps in the name of interests that have nothing to do with the defence of the victims' memory.
<P>
In Europe, there are currently thousands of historians, sociologists, researchers, experts and ordinary people who are being hounded, persecuted, harassed and condemned. Their only crime is to have assessed, in an independent manner, the ever-changing but sometimes hysterical dogmas imposed on them by hired authors benefiting from full official collusion.
<P>
In my home town of Lyons, a young historian with no means of support whom I did not know - Mr Plantin is his name - has been sentenced simply because in the bibliography of a scholarly review which he publishes he included works which correct historical errors which no serious historian of whatever persuasion now accepts.
He has been arrested, his computer has been confiscated and each of the usual associations has sued him and extorted large amounts of compensation from him.
His former tutors at university have had to apologise, in a show of loathsome cowardice, for the qualifications which they awarded him.
<P>
His printer, a rural craftsman, has also been sentenced.
He was charged under the act on publications corrupting youth, which could usefully be applied in other areas, and under the legislative act brought in by the French Communist Gayssot according to which, for example, the Germans must still be held responsible for the massacre of thousands of Polish officers at Katyn, even though the Soviets have admitted to this.
The magistrates in Lyons who delivered these judgments have simply participated in a witch-hunt.
<P>
This is an issue which should be examined by this House, given that it is so keen to guarantee freedom of expression and civil liberties.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Halonen">
Mr President, I would like to answer the question about Mr Nikitin.
His trial is taking place in Russia and some time before the trial got under way, the European Union appealed that the person in question should have a trial that met the proper standards.
This trial is now also being followed by the Finnish representation in St. Petersberg.
We have likewise tried to have an influence on the proceedings through frequent discussions with the Russian authorities.
The EU practice is obviously that we take a position on the action of the court when a decision has been made.
I would like to point out that we have tried to follow the trial in its entirety.
This is one of those examples of issues which we could monitor more in the future, either in terms of subject matter or on a country-by-country basis.
<P>
I thank you for the debate thus far, and I will leave our worthy diplomats to follow the rest of it, in which I too would have liked to participate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, like the previous speakers, I was going to start by welcoming this initiative from the Finnish Presidency.
It is therefore a pity that the President-in-Office of the Council left in the middle of the debate.
It does not seem right that we cannot have a proper debate when such an important document is presented. All we are going to get now is a continuous monologue without any response from the other party.
In that respect, my words are rather pointless.
<P>
However, following on from what was said by the two speakers who came before me - and with whom I disagree - I must say that the fact that Europe, and the European Union in particular, is making human rights its banner - in fact its only banner - is a marvellous thing.
This does not mean that everything is perfect and that there is nothing to correct; indeed, the report says as much.
The text could be improved upon in many respects - from the internal point of view, for instance -and certain paragraphs concerned with racism and xenophobia provide perfect examples of this.
An improvement could also be made by including in the text the EU' s contribution to the fight for human rights in the international sphere.
We are faced with a number of challenges and all of this is mentioned in this document which, I must repeat, is an excellent initiative and constitutes a remarkable inventory. I am only sorry that the President-in-Office of the Council is not present to hear this.
<P>
There are various initiatives which we could comment on if we had the time.
I will mention just one in which I think the European Union should be actively involved, namely the establishment of the International Criminal Court which would end the current situation in which the judicial instruments available to us are quite incapable of dealing with international requests for legal proceedings.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Veltroni">
There is no doubt, Mr President, that with the tabling of this report, too, the public' s awareness of the importance of the topic of civil and human rights shows that we have taken another step forwards.
We have been considering, over the course of recent months and years, Article 6 of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the reaffirmation of the importance and role in the European Union of the principles of freedom, democracy and respect for human rights, and also the creation of the International Criminal Court and the need we all feel to give greater authority to Article 7 of the UN Charter in order to guarantee respect for human rights, eliminating any humanitarian intervention from rationales which are not based purely and simply on respect for these rights: all of this tells us that a great deal of progress has been made.
<P>
Nevertheless, fifty years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we know that no rights are won all in one go and once and for all: I am thinking of Tibet, Burma, Timor and Asian countries where child and women workers are exploited; I am thinking of Kosovo, Chechnya and Africa, a continent that is too often far away and forgotten; I am thinking of the 790 million people in the world who are suffering from hunger or the 300 million children who have to work; I am thinking of the 1625 executions carried out last year in the 72 countries whose legal systems still provide for capital punishment. Finally, I am also thinking of the fate of the Kurdish leader, Mr Öçalan, whose life has to be saved, I truly believe, through all of our efforts.
<P>
The very fact that capital punishment is so widespread is one of the most intolerable breaches of each individual' s dignity and right to life: a breach which we feel deeply and which we want to fight, for example, by pointing out that the actual enlargement process of the Union is proving to be not just a factor of peace and security for the continent, but also the way to make applicant states overcome such barbarity.
We know that it will be a long and difficult process; this was shown by the UN' s failure to debate the European Union resolution on the moratorium on capital punishment.
It was a serious and painful setback, and it is up to us, Members of Parliament, and the Commission, not to let this commitment lie: on the contrary, we must take it up with renewed vigour.
<P>
Mr President, at the moment, in the United States, in Virginia, the life of a young Italo-American who has been condemned to die but continues to declare his innocence is just one of the many lives which must be saved.
I am taking this opportunity to ask you, the President of Parliament, the President of the Council and the Commission, to take urgent action in making an appeal to the United States to suspend the execution of Derek Rocco Barnabei, because the battle against capital punishment is a battle for civilisation which must be fought every time it is necessary and in every way possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Hecke">
Mr President, according to Amnesty International, there are still 142 countries which ride roughshod over human rights, ranging from excessive police violence to tortures and killings.
This sober fact overshadows, I believe, the unmistakably positive developments in some countries.
More than anything, it places in perspective the memorable fact that an increasing number of countries are abolishing the death penalty and are signing major human rights treaties.
<P>
Never before has so much lip service been paid to human rights.
Never before has there been so much verbal condemnation without being followed up by sanctions.
Human rights violations are a blot on our civilisation, impunity even more so.
Nevertheless, we see, thinking of Rwanda for example, that the law is very slow in catching up with those responsible for the most gruesome violations of human integrity - if it does so at all.
As such, impunity causes more violations.
The truth is that human rights are still too often subordinated to commercial and other interests of Member States.
Unfortunately, there is no common strategy as yet.
This partly explains why we are so often overtaken by events.
Why did disaster have to strike East Timor, Kosovo and Rwanda first before something was done?
The international community often watches helplessly.
<P>
Our policy for human rights should be credible.
There is no room for double standards.
China and - to a lesser extent Russia - often remain out of harm' s way a lot longer than certain African regimes.
Some will term this selectivity.
I prefer to call it opportunism and a lack of courage.
<P>
The present report, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, the first of its kind, deserves all credit and is a first step towards a consistent and coherent human rights policy to which the Council, Commission and Parliament, in a joint effort, should give their all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Swiebel">
Mr President, this Council report deserves credit and there is every reason to compliment the Finnish Presidency on its commitment, although I have to add that I deplore the fact that the Finnish presidency delegation has just left the Chamber.
<P>
There are mainly three reasons why I welcome the publication of this report.
Firstly, it is based on a coherent vision, a vision which rejects a hierarchy of types of human rights, but which emphasises their very interdependence.
The report also makes a first attempt to create coherence between the external and internal human rights policy of the European Union, especially the latter being a real innovative step.
It has to be said that, compared to Parliament, the Council appears to be leading the way.
<P>
Secondly, the report does not fall into the trap of presenting human rights as a European achievement but presupposes universality and adopts a global approach with a great deal of attention being paid to the EU' s action within the scope of the United Nations.
<P>
Thirdly, the report is the product of an organised dialogue with the social organisations involved in human rights issues.
The forum held here in Brussels over the past couple of days deserves a regular spot in the Union' s consultative network.
<P>
There are, however, also a few minus points to be noted.
The attempt within the EU to include self-evident human rights issues in the report is very biased to say the least. Why does discrimination on account of race or ethnic origin receive preferential treatment over, for example, discrimination against women and homosexuals, which does not feature or hardly features as an issue at all?
Could this be a taste of how the Council will handle the package of anti-discriminatory measures which the Commission proposed last week?
Why is no attention being given to other human rights issues prevalent within the Union, such as abuse in prisons or at police stations, killings by armed political groupings and the situation of conscientious objectors, to name only the most obvious issues?
<P>
The Council needs to summon up the political courage to spend more time on the internal human rights situation within the EU in the next annual report.
In this context, the proposal for a so-called "observation centre" must also be kept on the agenda.
After all, experience has taught us that collecting and analysing information is a prerequisite to achieving a sound human rights policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sacrédeus">
Mr President, in Belarus, the Christian Democrat parliamentarians Andrey Klimov and Vladimir Kudinov have disappeared without trace.
What has happened to these colleagues of ours?
<P>
One contributory and forward-looking feature of this report is the fact that it acknowledges the role not only of political decisions but also of civil society in creating an environment where human rights have the profound and enduring support of the people.
The value of this insight cannot be underestimated.
The right to life and respect for its inviolability are the basic human rights and therefore both the essence and goal of democracy.
At the same time, they express the Christian view of human life which, for two thousand years, has formed a precious part of Europe' s cultural and spiritual heritage and which, as we confront the new millennium, is a valuable asset for Europe to further build upon in the struggle for human rights.
<P>
The fact that the European Union has now started preparing annual reports on the ways in which human rights are respected within and outside the EU' s Member States is something which we Swedish Christian Democrats warmly welcome.
With the right to life as its theme, the EU should continue to maintain a consistent line on the death penalty and, especially via the United Nations, to challenge those countries which consider it to be ethically and morally acceptable to defend the State' s right to take another person' s life.
In the pressing work of extending the EU eastwards, demands for a moratorium on, and future abolition of, the death penalty have, in our own part of the world too, influenced ethical thinking and legislation in the direction of affirming human life.
<P>
The present report illuminates the frightening developments affecting the smallest among us, who are also those most precious to us, representing our own future, namely our children.
The fact that one million children on this earth work as prostitutes at the same time as dark forces disseminate child pornography is deeply alarming and causes a vast amount of bitterness.
On the basis of the right which children have to a father and mother and to secure conditions in which to grow up in a family environment, it is our common challenge, in the face of the new millennium, to allow children' s needs to be our guide in all the work that is done in society.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gahler">
Mr President, of course, like many of those who have already spoken, I welcome the fact that the Council has now submitted a first annual report on human rights, as called for repeatedly by Parliament.
One important point which I would like to raise is the human rights clause in treaties with third countries, which has already been implemented on numerous occasions since 1995.
Human rights clauses are a fundamental part of these treaties.
People and their basic rights are therefore removed by means of a treaty from the powers of disposal of the other party to the treaty, despite the fact that we have always taken the view that insisting on human rights does not represent interference in the internal affairs of a country.
<P>
What is important as far as the practical implementation is concerned, is that both the EU Commission and the Member States have the political will in this particular instance not only to identify violations of human rights and hence of a fundamental part of the treaty, but also to apply the legal consequences provided for, which generally start with consultation and may lead to the suspension of parts or even the cancellation of the entire treaty.
But we all know what happens in practice.
Time and time again, human rights issues are pushed to one side or even considered to be counterproductive for irrelevant reasons.
Either a lucrative transaction hangs in the balance or the agreement or support of some government or other is needed, for example in a particular committee at UN level.
<P>
Luckily, non-governmental organisations working in this area cannot afford to take account of such false considerations and I would like to take this opportunity of thanking them with all my heart for their work.
And we Members of Parliament, both here and in our national parliaments, should likewise shun such considerations.
Denunciations of human rights violations are not merely sound bites in daily politics.
We have seen time and time again that the targets, i.e. the governments which are publicly accused of human rights violations, find such denunciations highly embarrassing and try to prevent them.
<P>
If we were to ensure that neither governments nor individual undertakings were willing to jeopardise the solidarity of the democratic community of states for the sake of concluding a treaty, these governments would have no opportunity of playing one off against the other.
A country such as China, to name one example, still needs our technology.
We should not ignore the plight of thousands of prisoners of conscience or suppressed national groups such as the Tibetans just so that we can build a new railway or ensure that a State visit proceeds smoothly.
<P>
I, too, therefore support the idea of adding another report to the report here and to the numerous other reports on the same subject.
I would like to see more details on individual countries in the next report, for example, on which occasions the Council or the Commission approached which government on a specific matter.
One might also offer during such discussions to refrain from mentioning the matter if it is cleared up by the time the next report is published.
We can afford to be flexible in form, but not in content!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Korhola">
Mr President, coordination and consistency are essential to a policy on human rights.
The Union should now be focusing on the effective implementation of agreements.
Implementation should cover three important areas: the monitoring of human rights, the establishment of human rights and the structures of a policy on human rights.
The EU must develop monitoring mechanisms to observe the human rights situation both within the EU and in third countries.
Monitoring must lead to a comprehensive assessment of the situation with regard to human rights.
That assessment must include an analysis of the human rights situation, a decision on measures to improve that situation, a programme to monitor the impact of the measures on the situation, an evaluation of their success and a public report on the assessment and its results.
It is important that we report on the problems within the EU as effectively and openly as on those in third countries.
<P>
In recent years, the EU has witnessed within its borders police violence, which has often been targeted against persons from outside the EU, cell deaths and discrimination against sexual minorities.
The lack of protection for refugees is perhaps the biggest human rights problem within the EU.
The Union policy on refugees, like that of the Member States, lags behind the standards we could expect from economically developed countries.
Matters relating to refugees and asylum are for us primarily matters of security and control.
The practice clearly contravenes the obligations of the Geneva Convention.
<P>
The common EU strategy on Russia should emphasise the importance of human rights.
Establishing human rights is one of the greatest challenges in the attempt to increase Russian prosperity and stability.
The human rights situation in Russia today is alarming.
The aims of security, stability and sustainable development associated with the northern dimension will only be of secondary importance if we neglect the issue of human rights.
<P>
It is time we realised the European Parliament' s idea of a monitoring body to be set up within the Commission to promote an efficient human rights policy and report on questions relating to human rights.
A respect for human rights and the protection of the rights of minorities are major requirements for accession to the Union.
Taking criteria relating to human rights and minorities as serious conditions of membership would require that these criteria and the obligations of applicant countries towards their minorities be accorded the same status as other fundamental criteria in the negotiations on membership.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="President">
Thank you.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Turkey
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
(A5-0071/1999) by Mr Morillon, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council regulation regarding the implementation of measures to promote economic and social development in Turkey;
<P>
(A5-0070/1999) by Mr Morillon, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council regulation regarding the implementation of measures to intensify the EC-Turkey Customs Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Morillon">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my reports follow on from the report published last year on Turkey by Mr McMillan-Scott and Mr Swoboda and from the resolution of this House of 6 October which concluded on the importance of expanding the European strategy for Turkey. This House should therefore be able tomorrow to adopt these two proposals for European Parliament and Council regulations on the implementation of measures, on one hand, to promote economic and social development in Turkey and, on the other, to intensify the EC-Turkey Customs Union.
<P>
The first proposal involves financing, over the next three years, up to a total of EUR 135 million based on Article 130 of the EC Treaty.
This requires the codecision procedure to be used. The second proposal which, over the same period, provides for a commitment of EUR 15 million, may come under a simple consultation procedure.
<P>
The EU is therefore prepared to resume the financial aid decided on in March 1995 under the Customs Union agreements. This aid has been blocked since then due to a lack of unanimity in Council.
<P>
I will not expand on the reasons for this blockage other than to say that the crisis in the Aegean played a major part. European concerns in the essential areas of respect for human rights and the protection of ethnic minorities were also very much taken into consideration.
In this respect, the forum which was requested by this House should have an important role to play. It could use the existing structures, particularly within the Economic and Social Committee of the European Community.
<P>
The proposals for regulations submitted for our approval will, under these conditions, help to encourage the continuation of the current political development.
They contain a clause authorising the Council to take the appropriate steps if it were proven that the most basic rights were being violated in Turkey.
This clause stipulates that either this House or the Commission could propose suspension to the Council.
<P>
I must stress that if we care about the coherence of the strategy adopted and approved by this House in recent months, we should avoid introducing, through our amendments, any measures which would block the process that has been started.
We must not lose sight of the importance of encouraging a fruitful dialogue with Turkey, if only, for example, for obvious geostrategic reasons.
<P>
Finally, as a reminder, although the provisions establishing all this aid involve financing over three years of EUR 150 million, the European Union' s trade surplus with Turkey has doubled since the entry into force on 1 January 1996 of the Customs Union agreement, thereby increasing in four years from EUR 4 billion to EUR 8 billion.
<P>
I truly believe that the Community must now honour its previous commitments so as not to discourage all those in Turkey who are resolutely committed to the Customs Union route and who have therefore decided to attach their country to the European Economic Area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Jensen">
On behalf of the Committee on Budgets, I want to recommend the Morillon reports.
The Committee on Budgets' amendments have been integrated into the reports, and one could wish for nothing better.
In the Commission' s proposals concerning resources for promoting economic and social development in Turkey and for extending the Customs Union between the European Community and Turkey, it is proposed that the period 2000-2002 should be covered, because the year is now so far advanced that it is too late to establish new budget headings for this purpose in 1999.
The Committee on Budgets also wishes reference to be made to the interinstitutional agreement of 6 May of this year and for it to be stated that the recommended amounts for the period 2000-2002 should constitute a portion of the multiannual financial framework for the MEDA programme so that it is apparent that we are not concerned here with a new expenditure item.
<P>
Ever since the European Council confirmed in December 1997 that Turkey could apply for membership of the EU, efforts have been made to create the opportunity to provide financial aid with a view to promoting economic cooperation and bringing Turkey closer to the EU.
This, then, is the background to these proposals, on the one hand, for a three-year subsidy of EUR 15 million when a start is made on implementing the Community' s regulations and developing the Customs Union between the EC and Turkey and, on the other hand, for the subsidy of EUR 135 million for developing the economically backward regions of Turkey.
These resources therefore have nothing to do with the special subsidy, proposed in the budget for the year 2000, for reconstruction and aid in connection with the earthquakes in Turkey.
<P>
In 1998 and 1999, Turkey was allocated grants under the MEDA programme, the European Parliament' s having approved the Commission' s programmes following participation in an interinstitutional working party. The Committee on Budgets also decided that this working party should be maintained during the reading of the Budget for the year 2000.
<P>
I have just one technical remark on Amendment No 15 in the report concerning economic cooperation where it is stated that the Council (with a qualified majority) or the European Parliament can decide to suspend the partnership.
We are talking here about joint decision making, so the Council cannot decide without Parliament' s being heard.
This is just by way of clarifying the interpretation of this proposal.
<P>
Finally, I should say that, this year, the policy-making process has been delayed by the parliamentary election and by the special circumstances in connection with the Commission' s departure.
It is good that a resolution can now be adopted to press ahead with the financial aid in accordance with the political conditions linked to the grants.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
Mr President, Mr Morillon is to be congratulated for producing these reports in very difficult circumstances and with very little time. We are all in his debt and his reward has been the favourable vote in the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
<P>
These reports clearly respond to commitments made by the European Union.
The Customs Union with Turkey has to be accompanied by special budget aid and a series of special loans from the European Investment Bank, in addition to the programmes provided for under the MEDA programme and procedure.
<P>
This aid consists of two types of measure.
The first is aimed at strengthening economic and social cohesion and overcoming the regional development inequalities within the country.
The other is intended to help Turkey gradually gain access to the Community market, take on the acquis communautaire and intensify the Customs Union.
For this last objective, a three-year multiannual framework of EUR 15 million is provided.
As no budget cover exists for these amounts in 1999, the multiannual financial framework of the programme will have to be extended by one year to 2002, as mentioned today by the rapporteur. The appropriations for 1999 will also have to be included in the draft supplementary and amending budget.
<P>
It is impossible to separate the Morillon report from the general context of relations with Turkey.
We have today debated with the President-in-Office of the Council and the President of the Commission the problems which have occurred, the proposals made by the European Commission in its report on the Helsinki Summit and also the position which the Council of Ministers will presumably adopt.
<P>
This House adopted a resolution in October which clearly marks the line which should be followed by the European Parliament. However, as stated today by Mr Poettering, on behalf of my group, there are some disagreements within our group as to the importance, nature and scope to be attributed to Turkey' s application.
<P>
I particularly believe, and I said this in the debate in October, that for the first time all the pieces of the Turkish jigsaw are on the table, namely the problems of the Aegean islands, Cyprus, human rights and ethnic minorities.
A major debate is currently in progress on the ratification of the death penalty imposed on Mr Öçalan.
<P>
I agree with the rapporteur that the vote on these reports should not now be taken off the agenda.
This House has made an inescapable commitment to a moratorium on the death penalty, as we did in the debate in the last plenary part-session, on which I understand the President has written to the Turkish authorities. I therefore feel that the European Union must honour its commitments and, at the same time, recognise that nobody has been executed in Turkey for fifteen years.
<P>
This must not lead us to forget the commitment we have made to the defence of human rights, fundamental freedoms and the ethnic minorities in Turkey.
In my opinion, we must be very clear and send an unambiguous message to the Turkish authorities about what they can expect from us and what their corresponding rights are.
We must be extremely clear in this respect, by stressing that they are entitled to apply but that it is not in our interest to start these accession negotiations until the Copenhagen criteria, and the political commitments in particular, have been met.
<P>
The European Union' s commitment must be to therefore very firmly support the excellent reports presented by Mr Morillon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schori">
Mr President, these two reports which the Group of the Party of European Socialists supports - and we should like to thank Mr Morillon for the work he has put into them - is an important contribution to Turkey' s rapprochement with Europe.
I agree, however, with Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra that these reports are part of a larger pattern in our relationship with Turkey.
I think that the most important message which is coming out of the European Union at the present time is that Turkey is entitled to apply for membership of the Union.
It might well be said that this is an opportunity which Turkey has had for almost thirty-five years, ever since the Association Agreement.
It is, however, important that we point this out at the present time.
<P>
We need a democratically stable, socially and economically developed Turkey in the European partnership.
That is important for our security and our future in Europe.
For us, the views of the democrats in Turkey and of those struggling for human rights within organisations dedicated to that purpose are obviously very significant. Almost all of these people are in favour of Turkey being regarded as an candidate country.
The Kurdish question, the issue of Cyprus, torture and breaches of human rights are also, at a serious level, European matters which will be discussed, examined and dealt with at different monitoring stations within the European Union.
In this way, resolutions and the war of words will be translated into the genuine work of reform involving clear and agreed goals.
At a big international seminar two weeks ago, arranged by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, all the Turkish parties, including the old Welfare Party, declared themselves in favour of applicant states such as Turkey becoming members of the European Union.
<P>
For Turkey, this now means that matters have become serious.
The move must now be made from ambitions and intentions to the purposeful work of reform in accordance with the Copenhagen criteria.
For our part, we now want to challenge the Turkish government to translate their words into action and show that they are serious in their endeavour to enter the European partnership.
We should then demonstrate that we too are serious about their efforts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Nicholson of Winterbourne">
Mr President, it is a pleasure to welcome the two outstanding reports put forward by Mr Morillon, and I turn first to the report which he has prepared on Customs Union to say how much we welcome that report in which we must remind Turkey that she too has to play her part.
The European Union has made major efforts over a number of years to ensure this Customs Union is successful, and Turkey herself must now ensure that she fulfils the role that she is called upon to play.
<P>
I also support what is perhaps the more contentious report.
It is a welcome report on economic and social development in Turkey and was supported in the Committee for Foreign Affairs this week.
Here the joint forum has to be of major importance, and again both sides must fulfil their role.
We are, of course, confident that we will do so. We remain confident that Turkey will also.
<P>
In this period of time before Helsinki, it is vital that we look too at the rule of law, human rights, respect for minorities, protection and recognition of their cultural identity and support for measures seeking to abolish capital punishment, one of the amendments that came before our committee to the Morillon report this week.
<P>
We have, of course, the unhappy fact of one death penalty upheld in Turkey at this very moment.
But I believe there is good news that we can focus on even in that tragic situation where the possibility of a citizen losing his life at the hands of the State is upheld by the Court of Appeal.
May I remind my colleagues here today that Turkey has not used the death penalty in practice since 1984.
There has been an effective moratorium in place since then with the result that 53 people who were defined as subject to what we would call cruel and inhuman punishment, have had their cases put on one side.
<P>
At the moment the Minister for the European Council and Human Rights, is reported in today's issue of Milliyet, the daily paper, as being firmly against capital punishment.
There is a new law coming to the Turkish Parliament in the year 2000, put forward by academics, in which for the first time ever the proposed criminal justice bill does not contain the death penalty.
Let us hope and believe that in this year 2000, Turkey's commitment to our millennium year globally will be the abolition of the death penalty once and for all through the democratic parliamentary process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ceyhun">
Mr President, the European Union is about to take a major decision which may change relations with Turkey radically.
The Commission has proposed that Turkey should be accorded candidate status.
If the Council in Helsinki accepts this proposal, it would lay the foundations in Turkey for a new form of dialogue with the European Union, in that Ankara would then have the prospect of future membership.
It would also mean that the Union would have to keep its promises.
The rapporteur' s proposals allow the mistakes of 1995 to be corrected, when the European Union intensified relations with Turkey, without guaranteeing the necessary financial aid.
Financial aid for Turkey cannot be divorced from obligations in the fields of social development and democracy, rule of law and respect for human and minority rights.
<P>
This is referred to equally in both reports because it is important that participation in the European economic system should go hand in glove with democratic development.
Another important point is the involvement of the European Parliament.
Its debates can provide further transparency and raise the political and democratic profile of relations between the European Union and Turkey.
The case of Öçalan - I am referring to the death penalty - raises the question of how we will have to deal with such issues in the future.
There can be only one response from all the political groups in this House and that is the demand that capital punishment be abolished.
It is not a question of making an angel of peace of Öçalan.
On the contrary, we need to demonstrate that respect for human rights means much more than empty rhetoric, of course it does, and not just in Turkey.
<P>
This House should call on Turkey to comply with the judgement of the European Court of Human Rights, which is incompatible with the execution of Öçalan.
I can read Turkish and I am pleased that, so far, I have seen no reports of negative reactions from the government in Ankara in the Turkish press or in other Turkish media.
That gives me reason to hope.
<P>
Despite everything said about Turkey today, it is important for us to pursue the new Turkish policy of the European Union.
In this sense we support the two reports as a contribution to the democratisation of Turkey.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Brie">
Mr President, as far as the content of the two reports is concerned, I would find it relatively easy to support them, despite certain shortcomings.
They succeed in presenting the political requirements of cooperation with Turkey clearly and consistently, especially the need for compliance with, and development of, human rights, including the rights of the Kurdish people, the demand for the abolition of capital punishment, the strengthening of the civil society, greater involvement by non-governmental organisations and the abolition of social deprivation and regional under-development.
<P>
The fact that these changes were necessary reflects badly on the Commission.
The fact that they were possible reflects well on the parliamentary committee and the work of Mr Morillon.
Nonetheless, my decision has been made extraordinarily difficult.
The Commission maintains in its proposal that a process of democratisation and promotion of human rights has been introduced in Turkey and we heard similar words from Mr Prodi this afternoon.
The committee, on the other hand, only talks clearly of the need for such a process, but not of an allegedly positive development already under way.
Not only does that appear to be decidedly more realistic to me; it also tallies with the evaluation which the Commission itself made in a communication to the Cologne Summit on 3 and 4 June this year.
Twice it says that it sees no noticeable improvement, at least on the Kurdish question, and it rates any chance of further improvement as doubtful given the rise of, in the Commission' s words, the ultra-nationalist MHP party.
I am most baffled as to what our optimism is actually based on and why the Commission has circulated two contradictory assessments.
<P>
From where I stand, it appears perfectly clear that there has been no real, positive development in the issues raised.
The Turkish Vice-Premier Bahcelý of the MHP stated in connection with the upholding of the death sentence on Öçalan - perhaps it only appeared in the German newspapers - that Europe should not be encouraged to interfere even more boldly in Turkish affairs and President Ecevit expressed the view that a judgement by the Court of Justice in Strasbourg need not be accepted.
That clearly contradicts the commitments entered into by Turkey as a member of the Council of Europe.
Their own international legal commitments continue to be openly disregarded by Turkish officials when it comes to human rights.
<P>
I consider the honest offer of membership of the European Union to Turkey to be strategically correct and necessary.
The European Union must have room for and an interest in including Turkey and must clarify that unequivocally once and for all.
However, there can be no cutting back on demands for democratisation of the constitution and political realities, fundamental improvements in respect for human rights, a political solution to the Kurdish question and an end to the occupation of northern Cyprus.
All this is still outstanding.
<P>
Tomorrow we must adopt either the Commission version or the committee version of Article 3(2).
Both versions contain terms for suspending cooperation in the event of fundamental violations of human rights.
I see these violations and therefore consider that it is wrong to pass this text at this point in time. That would push our own paper and our own credibility ad absurdum.
My group therefore is in favour under these circumstances of deferring both reports.
We sent a proper signal to the Russian Government in a similar situation two weeks ago.
We should handle this matter in the same way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Queiró">
Mr President, at a time when the European Parliament is deciding on new forms of support for Turkey, we would like to point out that we are amongst those who say that Turkey must be helped and deserves to be helped in its process of transition to full democracy.
I would even go so far as to say that the European Union should encourage cooperation between its Member States and Turkey.
The reports that we are debating here today nevertheless give us the opportunity to reflect once again on Turkey' s progress in terms of human rights and the protection of minorities.
In this context, we were extremely concerned to hear of the confirmation by the Supreme Court in Turkey of the death sentence on Öçalan.
<P>
I am a Member of the European Parliament for Portugal, a country that abolished the death penalty as long ago as the 19th Century.
We were, moreover, the first European Union country to do so.
Personally, I reject this form of punishment, both out of conviction and because I do not think that it achieves any of the aims that punishment seeks to achieve.
Consequently, we feel that it would now be timely to give yet another very clear signal that the preservation of human rights and the protection of minorities in Turkey are still an essential condition for the European Parliament to show its solidarity in terms of cooperation and support for that country.
<P>
Mr President, I would like to point out that just yesterday, here in Strasbourg, the European Court of Human Rights accepted a request for a stay of execution for Öçalan whilst it examines the case.
I was also pleased to read that President Nicole Fontaine reacted speedily to the confirmation of this sentence and I also read that she would intervene with the President of the Turkish National Assembly in order that it should not confirm the carrying out of the death sentence.
I do not know if she was able to obtain any guarantees from him or not.
My feeling is that the European Parliament should look with the utmost caution at developments, not just in this case but also in Turkey' s human rights situation, and in the protection of its minorities, and this caution should be matched with an equal degree of firmness.
<P>
To this effect, tomorrow I shall propose - contrary to what others here appear to think should be done - that we postpone voting on the two reports until a later sitting, and I would therefore ask the President of the European Parliament on behalf of the institution over which she presides, to formulate a clear request to the Helsinki European Council that if the decision by the Turkish authorities stands, the Council should adopt a firm position with regard to Turkey' s application to join the European Union.
I think that only in this way will the European Parliament be effectively and unambiguously defending principles and values rather than just stating them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Speroni">
Mr President, I have spoken out several times in favour of Mr Öçalan, but I have to say that the debate on Turkey must not focus solely on the case of President Öçalan' s death sentence, because Turkey as a whole is undemocratic; in Turkey, human rights are not respected.
I visited Turkey as a member of the Committee on Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and I therefore think I am speaking after due consideration.
It is not only the Öçalan case which leads me say that Turkey is not yet ready to apply: Mr Öçalan, among other things, was practically handed over by the D' Alema Government - a black mark against Italy' s name - but on the other hand, it was precisely from the Italian Penal Code that Turkey borrowed article 155 of its own Penal Code, which permitted Mr Öçalan to be condemned - article 155 of the Turkish Penal Code was copied from article 241 of the Italian Penal Code - and therefore I was not in the least surprised by the position of the Italian Government on this case either.
Be that as it may, Turkey still has the death penalty: well, while it is hard to change the mentality of the police and change the situation in the prisons, a law is, nevertheless, sufficient and a parliamentary vote is sufficient to abolish the death penalty, which is what many countries in the European Union have done.
How one can have capital punishment and at the same time ask to join the European Union is something that still astounds me, but I am even more astonished that there is talk of granting candidate status to a country that has not yet abolished capital punishment.
For this reason too, therefore, I am in favour of postponing the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Belder">
Mr President, we support the reports drafted by Mr Morillon on the promotion of economic and social development in Turkey and the strengthening of the Customs Union between the European Union and said country, especially in light of the fact that this country was twice struck by earthquakes this year.
<P>
Indeed, it is the exactly the latter circumstance which threatens to thwart the Ecevit Government' s opportune intention of starting to eliminate the grinding socio-economic disadvantage of the Turkish south-eastern provinces.
The rapporteur is right in stipulating that EU-financed projects and programmes, in particular, should benefit those sections of the Turkish population who are lagging behind.
<P>
However, we do not wish to conceal the fact that we certainly would not want to interpret this helping hand from Brussels to Ankara as a political gesture pointing towards candidate status vis-à-vis the EU.
In our opinion, the agreed Customs Union offers plenty of scope for Turkey to be given opportunities for development.
As far as we are concerned, the highest level of European cooperation with Turkey has been reached with this effort.
<P>
Quite significantly, the appeals made to Turkey by the rapporteur and other submitters of amendments, to finally walk the difficult path to becoming a democratic constitutional State, are in line with our fundamental objections to confirming Ankara' s candidate status. Why does the European Union not speak in plain terms?
False hope on both sides would, in any case make us fear for a speedy relapse into the old situation of "cold friendship" .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Van Orden">
Mr President, I wish to congratulate General Morillon on his report and also recognise the important contribution made by his predecessor in this work, Edward McMillan Scott.
<P>
Let me just take a slightly different tack to that pursued by a number of the previous speakers.
I really believe that we should be talking in more encouraging tones to Turkey at the moment.
Many of us wish to see positive progress in the development of the Union's relations with Turkey, and it is most important therefore that obstacles to the provision of EU financial aid for Turkey are removed as soon as possible.
Not only that, but in recognition of Turkey's candidate status, which we trust will be endorsed and taken forward shortly by the European Council in Helsinki, we should be thinking in terms of a more ambitious programme of assistance.
<P>
After all, the measures proposed are aimed at enabling Turkey to put in place the necessary structural adjustments resulting from the Customs Union which operates very much at the moment in the European Union's favour.
Mr Prodi, when he was speaking to this House on 13 October, suggested that an accession partnership similar to the partnerships established with the official candidate countries would also help Turkey move steadily towards meeting the membership criteria.
It is recognised that accession negotiations cannot commence until the political criteria are met but we must give Turkey every assistance to get to this stage.
<P>
In Parliament's resolution of 6 October, we resolved to work speedily on the technical and financial assistance necessary to complete the Customs Union; and we called on the Council to support the necessary measures.
We have now reached that stage and trust that Council will be wholly supportive of our proposals.
We should also be prepared to begin consideration of measures that will help bring Turkey closer to our values and our economic approach.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Efthymiou">
Mr President, I should like, first of all, to congratulate General Morillon on his excellent report.
The Morillon report provides us with a good opportunity to discuss a European strategy for Turkey without beating about the bush.
<P>
I am sure we all agree that, in the European Union, no issue has been as controversial and given rise to as much tension and opposition as that of relations between the European Union and Turkey, and this is understandable, because Turkey has nothing in common with any other country involved in the enlargement process.
The other twelve countries together create fewer problems than Turkey does alone: economic and social problems, problems relating to human rights, democracy and respect for minorities.
In short, it has created problems of security and stability in south-east Europe by basing its foreign policy either on open violence, as in Cyprus where it continues to occupy the northern part of the island, or on the threat of violence, as when the Turkish parliament officially stated that if Greece exercised its sovereign rights in territorial waters in the Aegean this would be a casus belli.
<P>
The question of a European strategy for Turkey is basically quite simple.
The European Union is not going to change for Turkey' s sake, but Turkey is going to battle to become a European country.
Europe is not going to become Turkish; Turkey is going to become European.
The European strategy for Turkey must make clear to the Turkish political classes and to Turkish society that there is not going to be a separate set of rules for Turkey and that Turkey must meet all the criteria set in Copenhagen and Luxembourg if its European prospects are to prosper.
<P>
The Union must make it clear in the run up to Helsinki that it should respect international law on Cyprus.
The Union must make it clear that the integration process for Cyprus will continue, regardless of any form of blackmail by Turkey.
The Union must ensure that all applicant countries, Turkey included, respect international treaties and international law and cooperate with neighbouring countries to promote peace, and that any disputes are resolved through international law and international judicial bodies, such as the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Yes, Turkey should become a member of the Union but it should leave violence, unlawfulness and autocracy outside Europe' s door and enter in peace and democracy.
That is what the Turkish people want and it is what its neighbour Greece and its fellow citizens want.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, Commissioner, the European Free Alliance has not approved of Customs Union in the past.
The majority in this Parliament did approve following tortuous debates since approval would encourage the Turkish Government to arrive at an acceptable human rights policy, true democracy and a political solution to end the Kurdish issue.
<P>
We find that the outcome is not altogether convincing.
With the sentencing to death of the Kurdish leader Öçalan and confirmation thereof, we are once again faced with the tragic consequences of an unresolved request for respect and right of self-determination on behalf of a people, the Kurdish people, in Turkey.
<P>
In Turkey, a great deal of pressure is being exerted by various parties and groups on Turkish society to demand the execution of Öçalan.
Turkey is not yet ready to abolish the death sentence by a long shot, even if the death sentence is not actually carried out.
Turkey has to provide us with a guarantee that the life of Öçalan will be spared.
If this is not the case, the hope that a political solution will be reached for the Kurdish issue in Turkey will once again be dashed.
The despair of the Kurds will not do much for stability in our countries either.
We know that thousands of Kurds live here.
<P>
I would nevertheless like to join in the congratulations extended to the rapporteur, as the text of his report is, in many ways, an improvement on the Commission' s proposal.
One could say that the financial support follows on from earlier decisions reached by us.
But think it through: if we vote on the text, the report stipulates that financial cooperation can be suspended in the event that the democratic principles of the constitutional State, human rights or fundamental liberties are violated. Does this not imply that, if we grant financial benefits today, the goalposts for human rights, etc. have already been set and that, consequently, only a deterioration of the current situation could lead to suspension?
As far as we are concerned, the goalposts of these measures do not go far enough.
We would like to see the situation in Turkey drastically improve in terms of democratisation and human rights and in terms of a solution to the Kurdish issue, but we hope that this is possible without having to exert financial pressure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Korakas">
Mr President, because of our feelings of solidarity and fraternity with the people of Turkey, we oppose that country' s accession into the European Union because, as the experience of the Greek people has shown, the Turkish people have nothing positive to gain from it.
However, we are being urged to vote in favour of the two regulations and the release of the relevant appropriations to Turkey, both because it has made significant progress towards democratisation and in order to encourage it to go still further in that direction.
Contrary to claims by the Council and the Commission to the effect that democracy is progressing in Turkey, claims which demonstrate that the first to benefit from progress are the multinationals, it is blindingly obvious that the situation has, in fact, deteriorated.
<P>
So what is happening today?
Turkey is still illegally occupying 38% of Cyprus in full contravention of international law, it is continuing with its provocations against Greece; it is still engaged in barbarous ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Kurdish people; it still insists on resolving the Kurdish issue through military intervention and it is continuing its military operations against the Kurds in Northern Iraq.
Over 12 000 political prisoners are being held in its prisons where torture and murder are an everyday occurrence.
Leila Zana, winner of the Sakharov prize, is still in prison, as are three Kurdish parliamentarians and famous writers and journalists.
Recently, twelve political prisoners protesting against inhumane prison conditions were murdered.
<P>
Then there is the case of Mr Öçalan who, aside from the inhumane way in which he was abducted and imprisoned, was sentenced to death in a mockery of a trial, and whose sentence was unanimously upheld two days ago by the Turkish Supreme Court of Appeal.
That shows just how sensitive the Ankara authorities really are to appeals for democratisation.
Secondly, we are told that if we accept these regulations and release these appropriations, it will help the democratisation process.
We were told the same thing when the Customs Union was signed five years ago.
However, neither the constitution nor the criminal code has been democratised. The death penalty has still not been abolished, nor has the Kurdish issue been resolved politically and, according to statements by Turkish ministers, the Cyprus question "is no longer an issue" .
So, believe me, if we vote in favour of the two regulations under discussion, despite their positive aspects, then this will certainly encourage the Turkish regime, which claims that Turkey is the most advanced democracy in all of Europe, to tighten its existing policies.
We do not want to hit the forces fighting for true democracy, we want to send a message of solidarity to prisoners and push for real democratisation of the regime, which is why we urge you to vote against these two reports or, at least, to refer them back to the committee until such time as Turkey shows tangible evidence of democratisation and respect for international law.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Musumeci">
Mr President, once again, a few weeks after the debate on extending the SOCRATES programme to young people in Turkey, Parliament is going back to addressing the controversial issue of relations between the European Union and Turkey.
This time, instead of culture, the nature of the European intervention is intended to support the social and economic development of the Mediterranean country and, for the umpteenth time, the question that we are all silently asking ourselves remains: can, and indeed should, the European Union in any way support a State that is geographically close, if not contiguous, surrounded by the same sea that washes upon the coasts of Southern Europe, even if that State appears extremely distant as regards respect for human rights?
We are disappointed to note that since 1996, the year when the Aegean Sea crisis led the European Community to block the agreement on the Customs Union with Turkey, no headway has been made towards obtaining total respect for civil rights and the protection of minorities.
While the Turkish Government has made some half-hearted attempts in recent years, the recent death sentence placed on the Kurdish leader, Mr Öçalan, has made any possible political rapprochement between Turkey and the European Union more remote.
And yet, as we have maintained several times in this Chamber, the process of a community' s democratic growth also occurs through its economic and social development.
To deny the financial aid proposed by the Commission for the next three years for the development of the Customs Union would, especially at this tragic time when this Mediterranean country is on its knees following a terrible catastrophe, contribute to exacerbating a downward spiral with unimaginable consequences to Turkey.
<P>
To conclude, the Italian delegation from Alleanza Nazionale thinks it more sensible to have a carefully considered acceptance of cooperation with Turkey, subordinating it to specific, tangible actions to bring its government into line with western European democracies.
Democracy has a price, Mr President: asking Turkey to pay it is an act not of weakness, but of great responsibility.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, Commissioner, allow me to start by thanking Mr Morillon for his extremely factual report and his conscious effort to stick to the point.
Commissioner, because we have heard some criticism of the Commission, I would like to congratulate you and your officials, who are with us today, for the committed approach which they take to this issue, and for always communicating and discussing matters with Parliament.
<P>
Of course, assessments sometimes turn out differently in various Commission documents and papers.
But perhaps that has more to do with erratic Turkish policy, which sometimes makes more and sometimes makes less progress.
But anyone who sees things as they really are will note that some progress has been made over recent months and it deserves acknowledgement.
We must not fail to take the matter seriously, as some previous speakers have said and done, for to do otherwise would only give succour to the Turkish government!
What I wonder is: how come Akim Birdal is in favour of introducing a new strategy, how come other Kurdish representatives are in favour of our introducing a new strategy, how come the entire opposition to the government and civil society are in favour of our introducing a new strategy if all it does is support the government?
<P>
I should like to extend my special thanks to the Greek government and to foreign secretary Papandreou; that was a courageous step, especially in light of domestic political relations.
It was also a highly risky step which was clearly also motivated by the situation in Cyprus and the attempt to bring Cyprus closer to the European Union and find a political solution to the Cyprus question.
<P>
So we are not uncritical of Turkey; on the contrary.
I repeat, Turkey would be a lot further down the road to Europe if it had applied fundamentally different measures in the field of human rights and minority rights in good time, at the right time, especially with regard to the Kurdish question, democracy in relation to Greece and a contribution towards solving the problem in Cyprus.
But if the Council decides in the next few days - I say if - to officially recognise Turkey as a candidate, then Turkey must realise that the ball is in its court.
Then it will be up to Turkey to make the next move, because we will have made a move, partly in response to the minor changes which we have seen, partly in anticipation of what might, should and must follow.
But then the ball will be in Turkey' s court and it is up to Turkey to make the next move if further progress is to be made in bringing Turkey and Europe closer together.
We want to have Turkey in the European Union, but Turkey knows full well that only a Turkey which recognises the Copenhagen criteria can become a member of the European Union.
Every candidate country knows that and Turkey should know it too.
I trust that it will soon take steps to meet these criteria.
It will, without doubt, take a number of years, but the more quickly Turkey acts, the more quickly it will become a member of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, I do not know if it is symbolic in any way that the report on these issues was put forward by one of our colleagues, who happens to be a General.
This distinguished colleague endeavoured to improve the Commission' s proposals.
However, we should refer both these texts back, because we are not a schizophrenic parliament which says one thing for Chechnya and another for Turkey.
We cannot afford to be a parliament which is politically dead.
<P>
The Helsinki Summit takes place in a few days' time.
And what will our message be?
Everything' s fine?
We have adopted the regulations?
Never mind about Öçalan?
Never mind, look at it from a tourist' s perspective!
In Greece, Turkey and the Eastern Mediterranean, we slaughter a cock and daub its blood over the foundations of a new house.
Never mind if Öçalan is sacrificed or is in danger of being sacrificed over the foundations of Turkey' s accession to the European Union?
<P>
Is that what we are going to say to the Summit? And for what?
For two regulations, one of which is illegal and pure sleight of hand. It has made Turkey, an applicant country, out to be a developing country so as to get round the unanimity rule in the Council of Ministers of the European Union.
In my view, the European Parliament should stand its ground and should allow not only Turkey but also the Turkish people into the European Union and, in the process, it should intervene to give the Turkish people the rights they have so far been denied.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Napoletano">
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Morillon, because the Turkey dossier, as we have seen, is not an easy dossier.
We have discussed it a lot lately; today we are debating two proposals for regulations on strengthening the Customs Union and on interventions that aim to improve Turkey' s economic and social development.
We are doing this on the eve of the Helsinki European Council, where Turkey' s possible application to join the European Union will be decided, and we are doing this in a context in which we have seen Mr Abdullah Öçalan' s death sentence confirmed by the Turkish Supreme Court, followed by a request for a stay of execution from the European Court of Human Rights and a declaration by the Turkish authorities, delivered by Prime Minister Ecevit, that they would prefer the legal process to be completed, including the appeal by the defence lawyers, before making the government' s position known and before putting the issue before parliament.
Therefore, the matter is not closed and, once again, it falls to us to choose a strategy.
<P>
I believe that Parliament has decided to invest in the democratic growth of this country.
But our alternative is not a choice between, on the one hand, a position where there is a complete refusal to cooperate, as is currently the case, and on the other hand, an uncritical acceptance of events.
I would remind all Members of parliamentary Amendment No 11, which lets us keep control of the way this cooperation will develop.
The fact remains that, together with the wider picture, mentioned by many Members, and Mr Swoboda was the last person to do so, the fate of Mr Abdullah Öçalan is still a pressing matter that must be resolved once and for all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Morgantini">
Today, President Prodi told us that, so as not to sour Turkey' s attitude, its application to join the Union will be legitimised at Helsinki.
This is a major step forwards, but it is a shame that Turkey has not taken any such positive steps.
We are all indignant at the confirmation of the death sentence on President Öçalan, we are all united in asking for a gesture from the Turkish Government, and then there is the moratorium on capital punishment: it is likely that the sentence will be suspended, despite the government' s grave decision not to respond to the request from the Court in Strasbourg.
Of course, this is not without importance, but is it enough to convince us that Turkey has its house in order so it can join the Union?
No.
Every day in Turkey human rights are violated: there are thousands of political prisoners, and union and religious freedoms, freedom of opinion and minorities' freedoms are repressed.
In the light of the extraordinary event and unilateral actions for peace, whereby the PKK chose to abandon the armed struggle and implement a ceasefire, and in the light of numerous leaders of the PKK choosing to turn themselves in to the Turkish authorities in order to reaffirm their choice of wishing to negotiate for peace, the Turkish Government gave only negative and scornful responses.
Some young Kurdish refugees visiting the European Parliament asked us: will you help us return to our villages?
They have been destroyed - will you help us rebuild them?
As much as I welcome and am grateful for the content of the Morillon report, I think that we must send out a strong signal by postponing this decision until the Turkish Government confirms the stay of execution and begins talks to find a solution to the Kurdish question.
There can be no double standards when it comes to the right to live.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, although the two regulations being debated here today have in fact nothing to do with the debates which will be held in the General Council next Monday and in the European Council in Helsinki a few days later, I am of course aware of the fact that the political context and timing cannot be ignored here and that we must naturally discuss the overall problem of relations between the European Union and Turkey in conjunction with these two regulations and that is what most speakers have done here this evening.
<P>
I am most grateful for the debate which has been held here because it was a highly factual debate which made very valuable and important points, especially for the attention of Turkey, because Turkey will have to gauge the political mood which prevails in Europe towards its application to join the European Union.
Firstly, however, I would like to extend my most sincere thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Morillon, for the two reports which he has submitted and to express my appreciation to him and to Mr McMillan-Scott and Mr Schwaiger for their contributions.
<P>
I think the report is so important because the European Parliament subscribes in it to the view that the European strategy represents a suitable way of extending relations between the European Union and Turkey and that financial support is needed in order to implement the strategy.
<P>
Allow me to take this opportunity to explain once again the change in strategy towards Turkey, and I certainly do not take what Mr Brie said as a reproach.
If a new Commission is not to be allowed to change the position of previous Commissions which it considers wrong, then we have no further need of a Commission.
We could use robots which just keep on applying whatever was said once at some time in the past.
I think that Mr Brie of all people will understand that you are not always willing to be arrested for something which your predecessors did.
Otherwise we could have an interesting debate on your own predecessors, couldn' t we?
<P>
I just wanted to make that clear.
What the change involves is something quite different.
The fact is that we must recognise that our previous strategies towards Turkey have not had any visible success.
We can hold endless discussions as to the reason, but the fact remains that the findings made here, that progress in Turkey is unsatisfactory, are correct.
So the question which arises is: can we do anything to change this?
The proposal made by the Commission, and which I hope Helsinki will support, is to set a parallel process in motion so that the two processes dovetail.
On the one hand, we want to bring Turkey into the European Union using precisely the instruments used to bring other candidates in and, on the other, we want to see, in parallel, a fundamental change in Turkey itself.
I repeat, a fundamental change.
I can report from my discussions with the Turkish Prime Minister and from several meetings with the Turkish Foreign Secretary over the last few days that the Turkish Government is fully aware of the need for this fundamental change in the political, economic, social and cultural areas.
More than that, I am convinced that the present Turkish Government and the parliamentary majority behind it also want this fundamental change.
<P>
At some point now we must break the vicious circle.
There is no sense in saying: once Turkey has already done certain things, then maybe we will say yes, because then Turkey will give the standard response: as Europe does not keep its promises, we have no clear European prospects and we cannot therefore negotiate the risk-strewn path to reform.
<P>
We could carry on like this for years and nothing would change, which is why the attempt being made now is reasonable, bodes well and is under our control at all times.
That is important because we do not of course want to bring a country into the European Union which, we must one day admit, will not meet the political criteria.
For the rest, it is wrong to say that there have been no interesting developments in Turkey recently.
I would like to quote just three.
As far as foreign policy is concerned, there is no question that we are witnessing a rapprochement between Greece and Turkey which we would have considered impossible six months ago.
That is not only thanks to the contribution of the Greek Government, which I have a very high opinion of and hold in great esteem; it is also thanks to the Turkish Government.
I would like to mention just one of the minor consequences of this rapprochement: when Greek and Turkish journalists work together to stop the propaganda which we have followed for years in the main media in their countries and to stop people from being wrongly informed about what is happening in their neighbouring country, then I call that very real progress indeed.
<P>
The second point is that we shall probably witness the passing of a very important law on human rights in Turkey before Helsinki.
For the first time in the history of Turkey, there will be a law which allows members of the civil service, i.e. officials, to be brought to trial for violating human rights. For example, people allegedly responsible for torture will be brought to trial.
We take that for granted in our countries, but for Turkey it is unprecedented.
<P>
The third point I would like to make is that the Turkish Minister responsible for European integration and human rights - an interesting remit, but one which goes well together - has officially stated, following the upholding of the death sentence by the Court of Appeal, that it is not in Turkey' s interest to carry out this death sentence.
Without wishing to betray confidentiality, I can go so far as to say here that my impression is that, while the proceedings in Strasbourg are under way, the Turkish Government does not want, under any circumstances, to take a decision on the execution; their strategy is rather to use the time gained by the proceedings in Strasbourg to abolish capital punishment in Turkey.
<P>
I should like at this point to appeal again most urgently to Turkey to do so as quickly as possible.
It is not just a symbolic gesture.
The death penalty is something so final, something so final and so barbaric that we in Europe cannot sanction it.
Turkey knows full well that the abolition of capital punishment must be one of the first hurdles on the road which I referred to.
<P>
So I would be most grateful if you would vote in favour of the rapporteur' s report and uphold an old commitment which Europe entered into towards Turkey.
We too are not always in the most credible position, including vis-à-vis Turkey.
I always find it very difficult to demand something of a country, to make demands on a country to which we have made promises which we have not honoured.
A vote in favour of the two regulations would considerably improve our moral position in relation to Turkey and I consider that most important at this stage.
<P>
The ideas developed by the European Parliament in the form of the amendments tabled during the discussions tally fully, for the most part, with the Commission and I shall support most of them.
There are only a few minor points on which I cannot accept the proposed amendments as they stand and that is where the institutional balance is affected.
You must and you will understand that the Commission must take care to ensure that the distribution of roles is not changed, that the tasks are allocated as stated in the Treaties and that responsibilities cannot be mixed.
But I think that there is overall agreement on the matter itself.
I again expressly offer to provide the European Parliament with comprehensive information in advance on specific action taken and on the projects which are developed and implemented jointly with Turkey on the basis of the funding regulations, thereby guaranteeing the involvement of the European Parliament in the development of relations with Turkey at all times.
<P>
I do not know this evening what the decision will be in Helsinki next week, but I am firmly convinced that the decision which the European Parliament has to take on these two regulations will impact on the outcome of future discussions and on the decision taken by the European Council in a week' s time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Limit values for benzene and carbon monoxide
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A5-0065/1999) by Mrs Breyer, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive relating to limit values for benzene and carbon monoxide in ambient air [COM(1998) 591 - C4-0135/1999 - 1998/0333(COD)].
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, this directive is the second daughter directive within the framework of the directive on ambient air quality assessment and management and the proposal is part of an integrated raft of measures aimed at combating air pollution.
I think we all agree that the people of Europe should be able to breathe cleaner air and indeed the latest publication by the European Environment Agency states that the level of air pollution in most cities poses a threat to health and that almost 40 million people in the 115 largest European cities are exposed to at least one pollutant which exceeds the WHO air quality guidelines.
<P>
Despite political initiatives aimed at reducing pollution and improving air quality, it is assumed that passenger transport needs will increase drastically over the next ten years and that the number of vehicles will increase by 25%, increasing air pollution still further.
In a report this year, the WHO comes to the conclusion that air pollution caused by traffic kills even more people than car accidents and that the economic costs are high.
It is therefore important to reduce the level of air pollution, to limit the consequences for particularly vulnerable groups and to ease the burden on the health systems.
<P>
The important point about this second daughter directive is that it is the first time that a limit value has been set for benzene and carbon monoxide in the EU.
This is an important step, I would even go so far as to say that it is a milestone in air quality legislation now that, for the first time, a limit value has been set for benzene, a carcinogenic substance which can cause leukaemia.
We know that petrol and oil are sources of benzene and 80% to 85% of the benzene in the European Union comes from the combustion of petrol by road traffic.
<P>
Until now there has been no threshold value as far as health risks are concerned and therefore no level of benzene is free of risk.
The precautionary principle in the EC Treaty makes a limit value with an extremely low risk of illness compulsory, however.
The Commission has proposed an annual limit value of 5 micrograms per cubic metre of air for benzene, to be attained by 2010.
This is fully endorsed by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
However, the Committee on the Environment does not support the Commission' s intention to give carte blanche in the form of unlimited derogations by proposing that, in the event of so-called socio-economic problems, countries may apply for a transition period of five years, which can then be extended for a further five years.
The Committee on the Environment expects the directive to be properly implemented and proposes that no more than one five-year derogation should be allowed, during which a ten microgram limit must be observed.
<P>
Other amendments have been tabled in plenary, coupling this derogation to other conditions in order to ensure - and this must be made quite clear - that these regulations are not a loophole for non-transposition of the directive.
The Committee on the Environment therefore makes it quite clear that it cannot be assumed that a twin-track environmental policy will be operated.
I think that it is extremely important, also in view of enlargement, that we set a good example and do not send out the wrong signal to applicant countries.
The Committee on the Environment would therefore like to make it clear in its proposal, which is more precise and more strict as far as derogations are concerned, that there can be no question of a twin-track environmental policy and that the aim must be to achieve a high level of protection for everyone in the EU.
<P>
The Committee also proposes that the public should be better informed in future and that the proposed measures should be extended still further by other measures.
I think that if we can manage to get the Commission to support the Committee' s proposals, then we will have reached a real milestone on the way to better air quality and we will have helped considerably to make it clear that carcinogenic substances have lost in the environmental stakes.
We want to improve the air quality in Europe, thereby making a major contribution to health protection.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schleicher">
Mr President, let me say on behalf of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and the European Democrats that this proposal for a directive is another brick in the edifice of European air quality policy.
The air quality framework directive is implemented by issuing daughter directives on a series of air pollutants.
This is the second such daughter directive and it relates to the limit values for benzene and carbon monoxide in the air and the corresponding control and information requirements.
<P>
The purpose of our proposed amendments is not only to stipulate strict environmental protection requirements but to format these requirements so that they can be transposed and complied with by all Member States.
In order to achieve this objective, certain compromises need to be made, especially with regard to our southern Member States.
From this point of view, the specifications of the European Commission and the extensive amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection are very demanding.
The Finnish Presidency is making a serious effort to make use of the new legal possibilities afforded by the Amsterdam Treaty and to bring this proposal into force after the first reading with the amendments of the European Parliament.
We all know how urgent the problem of reducing air pollution is, also with respect to climatic change.
<P>
As Mrs Breyer has already pointed out, the real aim is to improve health protection for our citizens.
On these grounds, I welcome the plan of the Finnish Presidency.
But that also means that we in the European Parliament must responsibly create the right conditions.
It is precisely for this reason that I am unable to agree with certain proposed amendments adopted by a majority in the Committee on the Environment and tabled mainly by Mrs Breyer and her group, because some are superfluous and do not help to improve the text while others have no place in this proposal for a directive because they do not concern the scope of the proposed directive.
It is for this reason that we reject a series of proposed amendments.
<P>
My proposed amendment of Article 3(2) was adopted by a large majority in committee.
In consultations with advisers, our rapporteur, Mrs Breyer, and experts, we again supplemented and tightened up this amendment.
This is proposed amendment 22, which I would ask you all to support.
I would like to thank Mrs Breyer.
She was at pains to find a consensus and it was not easy, but I think that if we confine ourselves to the basic proposed amendments which improve the Commission proposal, and this refers mainly to Amendment Nos 1, 5, 7, 10, 11, 15, 16 and 22, it should be possible to pass this important directive quickly.
I imagine, hope and expect that, in its reply, the Commission will support this directive and really pave the way for it to be implemented as quickly as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Scheele">
Mr President, Commissioner, I should like to start by thanking and congratulating the rapporteur on her excellent report.
I particularly welcome the fact that provisions are geared at several points in the report to particularly vulnerable groups of people and the extensive duty to provide information.
The second daughter directive within the framework of improving air quality in Europe must, of course, like previous directives, meet the following objectives, namely to define and stipulate air quality objectives at European level and to create air quality assessment criteria based on standard methods.
Care must be taken to ensure that useful information on air quality is available and provided to the public.
The objective - and I think that this is the fundamental objective - is to maintain and improve air quality.
<P>
If this directive is transposed consistently and quickly, I think that we really will be one step closer to this objective.
Of the two air pollutants in the report, you will certainly have noticed that there is less discussion of carbon monoxide.
The proposed limit value of 10 micrograms/m3 over a period of eight hours, which tallies with the WHO guideline, is accepted by all parties.
This acceptance no longer applies to benzene, as you will have gathered from the previous comments.
I think that it is hugely important that, for the first time, we have an EU-wide limit value for a carcinogenic substance and it is precisely because of the high health risk, i.e. the cancer risk, and because of the precedent which it will set for other as yet unregulated carcinogenic substances, that it is important for the limit value set in this directive to be transposed into practice as quickly as possible.
<P>
My group therefore supports the Commission proposal, i.e. 5 micrograms/m3.
As far as the content is concerned, we support working towards a future reduction of this limit value, but we feel that a realistic objective will result in faster implementation at this point in time.
The real political priority as far as I am concerned is to comply with limit values in all areas, including so-called hotspots, and we must avoid overly generous derogations which will provide a loophole for non-compliance with the limit values for benzene.
Regional and local agencies must be involved in finding a solution so that air quality can be improved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="Davies">
Mr President, like many British Members, I live in two worlds.
One is the place that I read about in our national newspapers.
Some of them, at least, feed their readers a diet of lies and half-truths to whip up hatred of all things European.
And the other is here; the place which actually exists, where I find myself working amongst colleagues and others trying to make this continent a better place for its citizens.
<P>
This draft directive belongs to the second of these two worlds.
Its simple aim is to cut pollution and improve the air we breathe, which circulates from one country to another without respect to national boundaries.
Who can be against that?
<P>
The public information insisted upon in the draft directive is vital and gives the opportunity to back up legal measures with the right of the public to name and shame those governments which fail to take the necessary measures to comply with this directive.
And, if we fail to achieve the targets for reducing benzene and carbon monoxide emissions, it will not be the fault of industry.
They have done their part through technological change.
It will be the fault of governments for not having the political courage to curb the use of cars in our cities.
<P>
The Liberal Democrats welcome this measure.
I anticipate us supporting all the amendments which have been tabled.
We are pleased to be sending a strong and practical message to eurosceptics everywhere that we are in Europe to make this continent a better place for us all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="Isler Béguin">
Mr President, Commissioner, I too congratulate Mrs Breyer on her excellent work.
We hope that this will be taken up by the Commission so that ambitious measures for fighting pollution can be quickly established.
We know that benzene causes leukaemia and that the incidence of leukaemia among children is increasing.
We also know that road transport causes considerable air pollution and, in particular, that this type of transport is unfortunately on the increase rather than on the decline.
This directive has therefore been long-awaited and must be a priority.
<P>
Although we support this report, we have sponsored some amendments, two of which I must defend more particularly.
The first is Amendment No 17 in which we ask for the removal of the derogation which, in our opinion, deprives the text of its substance and which can only delay the application of the directive.
This is the main weakness of this directive.
Also, in Amendment No 20, we suggest that the Commission lowers the benzene emission limit from five micrograms per cubic metre, as proposed by the Commission, to four micrograms per cubic metre.
This threshold must be lowered in consideration of the toxicity of benzene.
We are, of course, still a long way, perhaps a very long way, from the precautionary principle which should be guiding our policies, but I accept that this is progress and it is a start.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, clean air is a vital necessity for life.
I therefore support a daughter directive being drawn up concerning the substances carbon monoxide and benzene.
Given the high toxicity of benzene, there is a direct link between air quality and public health.
The proposed standards are ambitious: a 70% reduction in benzene emissions and a 30% reduction in CO emissions.
It is hoped that these objectives, as well as the first daughter directive for air quality, can be achieved.
Huge efforts will be required in the process.
<P>
Combustion processes in both industry and transport will need to run their course in order to restrict the emission of carbon monoxide.
At power stations, waste incineration plants, cement furnaces and in cars, there are ways of reducing the emission of carbon monoxide.
In the case of forest fires, however, very little can be done.
Preventing forest fires and other uncontrolled combustion processes could, therefore, make up a large component in the policy when this directive is transposed.
<P>
In order to prevent the emission of benzene, the use of car fuels, among other things, will need to be handled with care.
I do wonder therefore if the standard for petrol stations will be met.
If no measurements are taken at petrol stations, no action will be taken.
If measurements are taken, on the other hand, it is highly improbable that the standard for benzene will be met.
Therefore, Commissioner, I would urge the European Commission to study the section on measurements more closely.
Representative measurement is necessary here, otherwise air quality will not improve.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="Goodwill">
Mr President, reduction of air pollution and, in particular, benzene and carbon monoxide is a legitimate objective of the European Union.
Therefore, this directive must be generally welcomed.
<P>
Air sampling must be organised to give an accurate assessment of annual personal exposure levels, and I am concerned that some amendments that call for roadside inlets would give a distorted picture of the problem.
Individuals are not exposed to kerb side concentrations continuously.
It is the building line which is important and that may be more than five metres from the kerb.
<P>
The unqualified derogation for benzene levels, referred to by Mrs Breyer for socio-economic reasons, at first seems bizarre.
One would have thought that communities living in our disadvantaged areas, with all their associated health problems, would be those most in need of cleaner air.
However, if this regulation were to result in the closure of a major industry in that area, the results would be counter-productive and would exacerbate the social and economic problems.
<P>
Although petrol engines are the primary source of benzene, metallurgical coke-works are also implicated.
If the most stringent aspects proposed are implemented, this part of the steel-making industry could be forced abroad, probably to eastern Europe, which brings me to my last point.
<P>
The Commission proposal does not specifically address the problems of air pollution in applicant countries; and I think it is irresponsible, given the eminent enlargement, for Parliament not to be given any information regarding pollution levels in countries like Poland and the Czech Republic; and the likely cost and time scale involved in bringing them up to exacting new standards.
<P>
Could I suggest, Mrs Wallström, that in future, when environment legislation like this is considered, the full implications regarding applicant countries be taken into account and publicised.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="Patrie">
Mr President, Commissioner, I support the report presented by Mrs Breyer which is excellent in many respects.
<P>
Firstly, I must stress the positive effect of her public health proposals.
The Commission' s proposal, supported and furthered by this report, establishes the principle of ambient air quality assessment and management with regard to two major sources of pollution: benzene and carbon monoxide.
These are both produced by road traffic. It has rightly been emphasised that benzene is a carcinogen which causes leukaemia and that carbon monoxide can lead to toxic lesions on the heart and brain, and even to death in high concentrations.
<P>
We must not make people' s fears worse but we must ourselves realise and make others realise the dangers of not adopting realistic and necessarily stringent measures. These must allow as little derogation as possible so that we can assess, control and restrict to the minimum polluting emissions of these two noxious gases.
This is even more vital as these gases are more dangerous for children, the elderly and anyone suffering from heart or respiratory problems.
<P>
Secondly, the Breyer report is of great interest to the consumers which we all are.
Although the initial aim was to ensure that the public has easy access to up-to-date information, the rapporteur has gone further by specifying not only the frequency with which information must be made available, but also the range of media to be used in distributing this information. This is not unimportant.
<P>
The people of Europe are entitled to know about the quality of the environment in which they are living.
They must be able to judge the measures taken by the competent national or local authorities to provide the scientists with quantified data so that the air which they breathe can be improved.
These measures constitute a strong political signal about the political choices made on transport.
<P>
I would therefore invite you all to support the rapporteur without hesitation. Her proposals are both ambitious and realistic and clearly show the Council how demanding the European Parliament can be on the environment, public health and consumer protection.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 NAME="Wallström">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by thanking the Environment Committee and in particular, of course, the rapporteur, Mrs Breyer, for her valuable report.
Thank you also for your valuable input into this discussion.
<P>
The proposal before us is the second that the Commission brings forward under the Framework Directive 96/62 on air quality assessment and management.
It will set new limit values.
These limit values are based on the latest advice from the World Health Organisation.
<P>
There are many areas in which the Commission can agree with the constructive amendments proposed by the Committee.
We accept amendments that bring this proposal into line with the final position on the first air quality daughter directive, 1999/30, which was adopted in April this year.
We, therefore, accept Amendments Nos 1 and 6.
<P>
I share the Environment Committee's view that the most critical area for discussion is the limit value for benzene and the timetables for meeting it.
Benzene is difficult since there is no identifiable threshold for effects.
The Commission can, in principle, accept Amendment No 2, which makes this clear.
We suggest a slight rewording in line with standard terminology; that is: "Whereas benzene is a human genotoxic carcinogen and there is no identifiable threshold below which there is no risk to human health;"
<P>
Where the limit value is concerned, the Commission believes that its proposal for an annual average concentration of 5 micrograms per cubit metre is well balanced.
It will provide a high level of protection, but should be generally achievable throughout the Union over the next ten years.
The Commission can therefore not accept the part of Amendment No 20 that would set a limit value of 4 micrograms per cubic metre.
However, it is clear that limit values for carcinogens must be kept under constant review.
<P>
The Commission will report on benzene as part of a new integrated clean air programme in 2004.
As the proposal makes clear, we will then consider whether to propose a new limit value for the longer term.
Although the Commission considers that its proposal is generally achievable by 2010, there are some uncertainties.
This is largely due to the fact that at present there is no limit value for benzene and no consistent monitoring across the Union.
It is, however, clear that the ease with which problems can be tackled depend to some extent on climate.
The Commission has, therefore, asked Parliament and Council in Article 3(2) whether this should be taken into account.
<P>
Having listened to the debates so far, the Commission feels that Member States should be able to request longer time scales for meeting the limit value for benzene, where the 2010 deadline would cause serious socio-economic problems.
It does, therefore, not accept Amendment No 17 nor the remaining part of Amendment No 20.
We do agree, however, that conditions for obtaining a derogation should be made more clear and be tightened.
On balance, the Commission now considers that it may be feasible to limit extensions to a maximum of five years.
It therefore accepts most of Amendment No 22, which we prefer to Amendment No 5.
It does not, however, feel that it can support a temporary limit value of 10 micrograms per cubit metre without information on feasibility.
The Commission cannot accept that part of Amendment No 22.
Amendment No 11 is partly related to Amendment No 22, and the Commission accepts it in part.
The Commission does not accept the part of Amendment No 11 which would insert a requirement that a more stringent limit value for benzene should be proposed in 2004.
The proposal already makes clear that the aim of the review will be to look at the latest evidence and, if necessary, to improve protection still further.
We should leave such decisions open until we have all the evidence in front of us.
<P>
The Commission can accept Amendment No 10 which points out the importance of looking at effects on sensitive populations.
The Commission agrees with the Environment Committee that indoor conditions have significant effects on health, but we do not think this proposal is the vehicle for considering how to tackle this issue.
The subject is much wider than benzene and carbon monoxide and needs, therefore, to be looked at in a wider framework. From a technical point of view, Directive 96/62 defines ambient air as 'outdoor air' only.
The Commission cannot therefore accept Amendments Nos 3 and 12 nor the partly related Amendment No 18.
Indoor air, as I also know that Mrs Breyer is engaged in this issue, could be taken up within the framework of a new environmental action programme.
<P>
Providing good up-to-date information to the public is the key element of the new framework for improving air quality.
The Commission can accept that part of Amendment No 7 which would add to the list of means that Member States might use to inform the public about air quality.
It does not, however, accept that part of the amendment that would require Member States to make lists of organisations that get information and send them to the Commission.
It was decided during discussions of the first daughter directive that such lists would be too bureaucratic and could even be misleading.
The Commission accepts Amendment No 8, which requires better public information on carbon monoxide as an improvement to its proposal.
It can also agree in part with Amendment No 9.
Annex 6, part two, deals with data on pollution levels.
This should actively be made available to the public in line with the Aarhus Convention.
The documentation referred to in Annex 4, part three, is, however, highly technical and potentially voluminous.
It should be available on request but should not be actively disseminated.
<P>
The Commission agrees with the rapporteur that Member States should take particular care to provide information to the public in any area with extended timetables for meeting the limit value of benzene.
We can, therefore, accept Amendment No 19 in principal.
We would propose adding to Article 6(2): "Member States should pay particular attention to providing information on concentrations, plans and programmes to the public in areas referred to in Article 3(2)".
The Commission can also accept Amendment No 4 in principle.
We suggest, however, replacing the words 'measured data' by the word 'concentrations'.
This shows that information must be forwarded whether it was obtained by measurement or by some other method.
<P>
A third objective of both the Air Quality Framework Directive and this proposal is to ensure that Member States assess air quality in a consistent and comparable way.
The Commission does not, however, accept Amendment No 13.
There are technical problems with the amendment as drafted, and it is unnecessary.
Member States will have to inform the Commission about measurement methods, numbers and locations of measurement stations every year.
This is already stated under the general reporting requirements of Directive 96/62 and the related Council Decision 97/101 on a reciprocal exchange of information on air quality.
<P>
The Commission also does not accept Amendment No 14.
It is not compatible with decisions of the first air quality daughter directive.
General technical advice is that for annual average limit values, measuring close to the building line better reflects the exposure of the population.
The Commission can accept Amendment No 15 in part. It considers that this proposal should be brought into line with Directive 1999/30 by inserting the words 'where there is more than one measurement station within the zone or agglomeration at least one should be placed close to traffic and at least one should be oriented to the urban background'.
It thinks, however, that the additional requirement that at least half the stations should be traffic-oriented is over-prescriptive.
<P>
Finally, the Commission agrees with the intention of Amendment Nos 16 and 21.
Directive 96/62 allows the use of random measurement if it can be shown to be sufficiently accurate.
These amendments seek to say what that means for benzene.
Amendment No 16 follow closely the first daughter directive.
The Commission considers, however, that in the case of the annual average limit value for benzene, it is possible to demand a higher standard of accuracy equal to that set for continuous monitoring.
It can, therefore, accept Amendment No 21 in preference to Amendment No 16.
<P>
I shall close by saying that I hope it will be possible to reach a rapid agreement on this proposal.
At present, there are no Community limit values for benzene or carbon monoxide.
It is essential to get this legislation in place so that proper monitoring can start, and Member States can identify the problem areas.
This is a crucial factor to assure that public health is properly protected throughout the Union.
<P>
A final word to Mr Goodwill on enlargement, because you really have a point there.
At the moment, it is difficult to have good information on these matters and good measurement from the applicant countries.
We have to follow this very closely.
We already work together with the applicant countries and we have done screening reports as you already know.
So we have to do a great deal of work together with the applicant countries and you have an important point.
This should be added to our list of work that we have to pursue from now on.
So, thank you for that; and thank you for the discussion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner, for your full and documented answer.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Carbon dioxide emissions from new cars
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5­0064/1999) by Mrs González Álvarez, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council decision establishing a scheme to monitor the average specific emissions of carbon dioxide from new passenger cars [COM(1998) 348 - C5­0041/1999 - 1998/0202(COD)].
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as indicated by the President, this is the second reading of a common position established by the Council on the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions from new vehicles.
We must remember that the intention behind this second reading is to meet the Kyoto objectives, subsequently approved in Bonn, of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. We continue to feel that these objectives are modest.
Given the Environment Agency' s report which stated that emissions must be reduced by 30%, the proposed objectives are definitely modest.
However, we are pleased with this common position which is heading in the right direction of preventing new cars from emitting increasing amounts of carbon dioxide.
<P>
At first reading, 45 amendments were tabled in the Committee on the Environment. They were approved by a large majority.
Of these 45 amendments, 29 were adopted in plenary. The Council should be thanked for having included a large proportion of these 29 amendments in the common position.
However, there are 10 amendments which we are tabling again as they were approved, with just one abstention, by over 40 votes in the Committee on the Environment.
These amendments concern some of the issues which, at first reading, seemed important to the majority of the Committee on the Environment.
Some only involve a change of words, such as Amendment No 1, which states that greenhouse gases, in this case carbon dioxide, should not just be stabilised but also reduced.
<P>
Amendment No 2 proposes monitoring on an objective basis.
We have made a small change to this at the Commission' s suggestion.
<P>
In Amendment No 3 we indicate the legal framework which should be provided in case the voluntary agreements fail.
I would remind you that this House in general, and the Committee on the Environment in particular, has little faith in effective results being achieved by voluntary agreements.
This is why we propose establishing a legal framework.
<P>
We also mention tax incentives and the inclusion of commercial vehicles. The latter must not be omitted from the proposal given that they are responsible for a significant proportion of carbon dioxide emissions.
<P>
We propose a change to the method of data collection if results are not achieved within a certain period of time.
The Council' s common position itself mentions that the Member States have a variety of data collection proposals.
<P>
In addition, we ask for a report on the operation of this method for December 2002.
At the suggestion of the Commission, we have also made a small change to this.
We would have liked this report by June 2002 but we have accepted December in order to allow more time.
<P>
In the report which the Commission must present to the Council and the European Parliament, we also want an analysis of whether the reduction in carbon dioxide emissions is due to the technical measures of industrialists or to consumer habits.
<P>
Amendment No 10, which the Commission and Council accept, refers to the weight and size of cars.
<P>
We thank the Council and Commission for having accepted certain amendments.
However, we must insist on some of these 10 amendments which we are tabling again because they were approved practically unanimously, with one abstention, in the Committee on the Environment.
Even the Commission and Council representatives have said that they are still studying some of these amendments, for example the one on tax incentives and the inclusion of commercial vehicles.
<P>
We therefore feel that these amendments are simply supporting this study process of the Commission and Council on, for example, tax incentives and commercial vehicles.
These are easy amendments for the Commission and Council to accept.
We are perfectly well aware of the difficulties faced by the Council in convincing the fifteen Member States of a proposal of this nature.
Yet we must say that, having consulted practically all the groups, they stress that we must keep these amendments and so I defend the proposal from the Committee on the Environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schleicher">
Mr President, I am speaking on behalf of the PPE group and, more importantly, on behalf of my colleague, Marlies Flemming, who is attending the WTO negotiations for the Committee on the Environment and is therefore unfortunately unable to take the floor here today.
The original Commission proposal sought to set up a monitoring system to provide reliable information on CO2 emissions from new cars.
The proposal forms part of the European Community strategy to reduce CO2 emissions and fuel consumption.
Other elements of this strategy are an agreement with the automobile industry on reducing CO2 emissions by a certain deadline and a fuel consumption labelling system in order to make it easier for consumers to choose a new car.
<P>
This strategy is certainly a logical one because we know that about half of all CO2 emissions are caused by traffic; however, we should also note that about 12% of all CO2 emissions are emitted in the European Union and about 88% in the rest of the world.
The Council of Ministers has adopted a number of amendments tabled by the European Parliament at first reading which strengthen the original Commission proposal.
These amendments refer, for example, to the Kyoto protocol, the importance of collecting data so that the voluntary agreement to reduce CO2 emissions from cars by 2003 can be properly monitored, the European Commission' s undertaking to report on the monitoring data forwarded by Member States to the European Parliament and, finally, some additions to the information to be forwarded.
We therefore welcome the Council' s common position.
If we are to create an efficient monitoring system without too much delay, we need to adopt this proposal as quickly as possible.
The decision could then enter into force this year.
That would mean that the year 2000 would be the first year for which data then needed to be compiled.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lange">
Mr President, Commissioner, I think that there are still three controversial points in this directive which we also need to discuss. In order to do so, we need to consider briefly why this directive has even been tabled.
Surely not because it is fun to collect data; enough data is being collected already. No, it is because we have concluded a voluntary agreement with the motor industry.
That is the first time that we have done so at European level. We need to have instruments so that we can monitor this undertaking.
That is why we have tabled this directive and that is why this directive needs to be a suitable instrument which really can be used for monitoring purposes.
<P>
There are therefore three points, I think, which need to be included in the directive and in this respect I support the excellent work carried out by the rapporteur.
First: we must make it clear that if the monitoring data show that the voluntary undertaking does not work, then legislation will follow.
In other words, there needs to be a link between monitoring and legislation if the figures prove unequivocally that the undertakings are not being complied with.
That needs to be added.
<P>
Secondly: we also need clear rules on using the data.
It is no good filing the data and leaving the files locked away in a cupboard somewhere. They must be the basis in 2002 for monitoring the voluntary undertaking.
We need an independent data register for monitoring the voluntary undertaking and I feel that this needs to be clearly stated in the directive.
<P>
Thirdly: the voluntary undertaking by the motor industry, both in Europe and in Japan and Korea, refers to technical measures to reduce CO2 through better engines, lighter vehicles etc.
That also needs to be monitored.
If CO2 consumption drops due to changes in purchasing patterns, because suddenly we all want to buy three-litre cars, then that is something else.
We therefore need a clear division between technical measures and consumer patterns and this too needs to be integrated into the directive so that this instrument really can be used in line with the intention which brought about the directive in the first place.
<P>
So let us add these three points to the directive so that we have a proper, efficient instrument for monitoring this voluntary agreement which, after all, is an experiment for the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wallström">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I want to begin by thanking the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and, in particular, its rapporteur, Mrs González Álvarez, for dealing with this matter so quickly.
It is in fact in all the parties' interests that this decision should be taken without further delay so that we might set in motion an objective monitoring of the environmental agreements which have been made with the car industry.
<P>
Mrs González Álvarez pointed out in her recommendation that the common position contains many of the points of view which the European Parliament presented in its first reading.
As Mrs Schleicher said, Mrs Flemming has stated that she could accept the common position without any further changes.
<P>
It is important that we should be clear that it will only be possible for this decision to come into force during 1999 if the common position is accepted in its current version.
Otherwise, we shall lose a whole calendar year in which we could be collecting data.
<P>
Where the Amendments which have been submitted are concerned, we can give our full support to three proposals for possible improvements to the common position, namely Amendment No 3, part 1, together with Amendment Nos 7 and 10.
We can also support a number of further Amendments in principle: Amendment No 2 and Amendment No 4, part 2, together with Amendment No 9, even if we consider that they need to be reformulated.
<P>
I want briefly to talk about the justifications behind the position adopted by the Commission.
First and foremost, I want to comment on Amendment No 2 about also allowing other motor vehicles to be covered by the decision.
As a consequence of the desire expressed by the European Parliament at the first reading, the Commission is at present taking the first steps to include light goods vehicles' fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions in the legislation concerning type approval. This applies therefore to vehicles in category M1.
The Commission will then see if it is possible to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from such vehicles.
The Commission agrees that vehicles in category M1 are the most important target group for such measures.
There are therefore no plans at present to look into the question of whether other types of vehicle might be included, mainly because vehicles such as lorries are expected in any case to be highly fuel-efficient or because the contribution of, for example, two-wheeled vehicles to local carbon dioxide emissions is not great.
It is the Commission' s intention to take account of these factors and to reformulate the proposed text in the following way: "The Commission is to investigate the possibility of submitting appropriate proposals concerning harmonised procedures for measuring the specific carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles in category M1 in accordance with Annex No 3 to Directive 70/156."
<P>
When it comes to Amendment No 4, part 2 concerning other parts of the strategy in respect of carbon dioxide and vehicles, we consider that the first part of that Amendment is almost entirely covered by justification 6 in the common position.
We cannot accept this part of the Amendment because it ought to include a reference to the Community objective of 120 g/km.
The year by which this objective is to be achieved, namely 2010, has however been left out of the European Parliament' s Amendment.
In the second part of the proposed justification, reference is made to the second and third pillars in the strategy concerning carbon dioxide and private cars and, specifically, to consumer information and the employment of tax measures.
The directive concerning consumer information was adopted by the European Parliament at the second reading on 4 November of this year and may therefore be considered to have been accepted in accordance with the common position. There is therefore no reason to refer to this matter again.
Because tax measures are an important factor in the strategy, it may well be worth including a reference to these.
In view of the fact that the Commission is already in the process of investigating the possibility of a frame of reference, the proposed justification ought to reflect this situation in a correct manner.
The Commission proposes another variant, worded as follows: "The Commission is investigating the possibility of introducing a frame of reference for tax measures which may encourage the use of fuel-efficient private cars."
<P>
With regard to Amendment No 9 concerning the content of the annual report, the rapporteur wants to add a new Article to clarify what the annual report is to contain. The report is to include an analysis of the extent to which changes in carbon dioxide emissions depend upon manufacturers' initiatives or upon factors which have to do with the strategy concerning carbon dioxide and cars.
An analysis of this kind is important for discovering whether manufacturers are in fact carrying out the tasks to which they have committed themselves within the framework of the environmental agreement.
This is the case, for example, in relation to the partial objectives which have been set for the year 2003 and naturally also in relation to the final objectives for the year 2008.
However, an analysis of this kind requires a major effort in developing relevant methods and technical research, as well as intensive discussions with the manufacturers.
It will also take some years before it is apparent whether any developments worth mentioning have in fact taken place.
The Commission will therefore probably not act upon the first assessment until the time limits for the partial and final objectives have expired.
This ought to be reflected in the text of the decision. We therefore propose the following reformulation.
I quote: "In the reports for the year by which the partial objective is to have been achieved and for the year by which the final objective is to have been achieved, it shall be stated whether the reductions are due to technical measures taken by the manufacturers or whether there are other reasons, such as a change in behaviour on the part of consumers."
<P>
We have difficulty in accepting the remaining Amendments, that is to say Amendment No 1, Amendment No 3, part 2, Amendment No 4, part 1 and Amendments Nos 5, 6 and 8 which neither improve nor clarify the text.
<P>
Finally, I want to say a few words about Amendment No 3, part 2.
Here, it is prescribed that the Commission is to compose a legal framework for environmental agreements.
I want to emphasise that the European Parliament' s involvement in the environmental agreements is a crucial issue for me.
As I have already explained before the plenary sitting on 3 November, I do not intend to present any new proposals for environmental agreements as long as the European Parliament' s role remains undecided.
We are therefore now putting together a general document concerning environmental agreements, their legal framework and the institutional procedures relating to them.
When it comes to such agreements as have already been made, or are in the process of being made, for reducing carbon dioxide emissions from private cars, the Commission has, on a number of occasions, pointed out that legislation concerning the limits for carbon dioxide emissions will be considered if the car industry does not fulfil its commitments.
Now would not be the appropriate time, however, to introduce the technical preparations for such legislation.
This would be to send out the wrong message to industry.
<P>
To summarise, I should like to say that I am very satisfied with the fact that the common position has, on the whole, obtained such a positive reception from the rapporteur and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
I hope now that this House can offer its support so that the decision can be taken as quickly as possible.
We shall then have the opportunity to monitor in sufficient detail the way in which the environmental agreements concluded with the car industry are being implemented.
If plenary considers it necessary to submit more Amendments, the Commission is, in certain cases, prepared to support them, either in full or in principle.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner, for your detailed replies to the rapporteur and speakers in this debate.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=13>
Safety and health of workers at risk from explosive atmospheres
<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A5-0074/1999) by Mr Pronk, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council Directive on minimum requirements for improving the safety and health protection of workers potentially at risk from explosive atmospheres (Fifteenth individual Directive within the meaning of Article 16(1) of Directive 89/391/EEC) [C5-0221/1999 - 1995/0235(COD)].
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Pronk">
Mr President, this is a report on health and safety.
There have been many, but this report stands out because it will be the first report to be adopted under codecision, provided that, tomorrow, the House agrees with our recommendations to indeed approve the agreement with the Council.
I believe that this is what is of such historic importance about this report.
In fact, it is also the first report in the social sphere that has ever gone through under codecision.
Parliament has always made a fuss about the fact that not enough emphasis has been placed on the social dimension in legislative practice.
<P>
We did not encounter a great deal of problems with the Council regarding this report.
This is also reflected in the number of amendments which this Parliament brought at second reading.
We do have to note, of course, that all this took rather a long time.
This special directive implements the framework directive which was adopted in 1989.
Our first reading was in 1996.
It is now 1999.
The directive will not enter into effect until 2003.
This illustrates that it sometimes all takes longer sometimes than expected.
If we consider the numbers of people still being killed due to unsafe working conditions, then more urgency is needed.
<P>
So what was the key point in the negotiations with the Council?
This is when codecision proves so important.
It mainly concerned the publication of what we have agreed upon here.
We at the Parliament requested right from the outset that companies be informed of European legislation.
This legislation is, of course, also included in national legislation, albeit in a covert way.
Moreover, national legislation is far from adequately disseminated.
Initially, the Council was strongly opposed to this.
We went through some tough negotiations.
It is, of course, a little ironic that a provision which may prove important to all companies should be kept more or less concealed.
<P>
This brings me to my second point of concern.
We now have more or less an actual framework of minimum directives in terms of health and safety.
This is of great importance.
A number of countries have not yet implemented certain directives.
The Commission should be commended for bringing a number of these countries before the Court of Justice over the past couple of years and also for the fact that changes have been made.
But it appears that it still takes much longer to tackle countries in this sector than it does in others.
This is regrettable.
Practical benchmarking, however, which is very important, is still not up to scratch because, after all, what it comes down to is that more or less the same minimum requirements apply within a company, be it in Denmark or in Spain.
This benefits competitive relationships but it mainly benefits those employed within those companies.
<P>
If there is no exchange, if the practical benchmarks are not equal, then something else is still lacking.
We have the strong impression that this still has not been regulated terribly well.
This is the very reason why this vade mecum, as we called it initially, is so important.
It may be of interest that this vade mecum has now turned into a guide. Why is this?
It is because the Council could not come to terms with the word "vade mecum" for some unknown reason.
The term vade mecum is understood in most European countries without any explanation, without a translation and a complex, long, reasonably procedural title will, of course, be less easily understood.
But Parliament made this concession.
We will not dwell on this any further.
<P>
It remains important, however, that everyone is informed of these directives and, above all, that they can apply them.
A whole raft of companies do not apply those directives properly. This is not because they refuse to, it is simply because they are not sufficiently aware of the possibilities for applying them.
Such a guide may be helpful in this, and this is how we voluntarily reach not harmonisation but minimum standards.
I think that this is how we will gradually grow closer together.
<P>
I would ask the Commission to take a much harder line on this practical benchmarking than it has done in the past.
We have a new Commissioner and I know that she has a great deal of experience in this field.
Maybe we can expect fresh momentum in this respect too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="Skinner">
Mr President, I am a great believer in health and safety, but I am also a great believer that we are not going to change everything by legislation.
If we could legislate away things like poverty, accidents, illness and death, then we should have done it yesterday, but we are not going to do that.
<P>
That being said, there are things we can do at European level, which include changing the culture, the culture where we work, the culture we live in.
This report by Mr Pronk goes some way towards doing that and doing it very well.
He should be congratulated on all that, because he has brought excellent conclusions into this report.
He has made history as well, by having the first report to go through under codecision and the first report on health and safety.
It augurs very well for the future of what we should hope to achieve through this process, because Parliament has been very responsible in its approach to using codecision.
Parliament is not always pointed to as being responsible or informed, but in this particular area we were better informed and, in some respects, I feel, more responsible.
<P>
It has made spectacular progress in the area of small to medium-sized enterprises, by far the biggest sector we could ever hope to address.
This is where most accidents occur in the workplace and yet there is undisguised dismay amongst myself and other colleagues at the fact that we take very little account of this.
You are 50% more likely to have an accident at work if you work for a small to medium-sized business.
The information which will be provided, which was a vade mecum in this report, to small businesses and which they now have a right to be informed about, will go a long way in helping to change the culture in the workplace.
It should be used in other reports in other areas, and we should learn from that.
<P>
On the other hand, as a participant in the conciliation process, I was pleased at the very real response of the Council to Parliament' s amendments and take note for future reference about how we can achieve the various amendments and positions we wish.
Under the former procedure of cooperation of course we had our successes and the Commission was very much a part of that, and we still enjoy that acceptable relationship.
Safety is one of those areas where we can always find middle ground to achieve what we really want.
<P>
It is time now for governments to listen to what this Parliament has to say 100% of the time and for those governments to act.
Parliament is not in opposition to other institutions, it is a balance and it is a brake.
It is unfortunately precisely because ministers were too close together, too keen to have cosy relationships away from scrutiny at European level, that we now have this process. It introduces transparency and clarity, and that can only be good for the trust of the people of Europe.
<P>
Many lives will be affected by this report and the work that has gone into it, many businesses will be pleasantly surprised by the balanced outcome, and if there was more work like this, perhaps even Europe would become popular in places like Britain, who knows?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Manders">
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Pronk on the constructive way in which this report came into being.
It is vital to protect the safety of employees anywhere in Europe, or anywhere in the world, for that matter.
It is regrettable that I did not get involved in this report until later because I was elected for the first time in July.
As Mr Pronk indicated, they have been working on this since 1996.
<P>
Why did I say this?
It is an excellent report and we give it our full backing, but it is regrettable that, in my opinion, the warning panel, in particular, is still rather unclear: a triangular panel with a red border and black letters spelling "EX".
To someone like me, a layperson in the field of explosive atmospheres, this could mean anything.
Is it a warning concerning my ex-partner who can be rather explosive?
Are they explosives or whatever?
I think it would be a good idea if the same panel, the same warning sign or pictogram, could be used as is used throughout the international world of transport. In fact, I also brought this to Committee, I even sent a letter questioning this very point.
I received a reply, upon which I do not wish to elaborate.
I do hope, however, that in the short term, the same warning panel will be used across the board.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bouwman">
Mr President, I too am new.
I shall stand up anyway, although I am far too tall for this device.
<P>
First of all, I would like to thank the rapporteur for the work he has done. What did occur to me, however, even as a new Member, was that the original proposals have been toned down quite considerably and that he is actually deeply regretful, despite what has been achieved.
<P>
Unfortunately, the need for this type of directive is underlined regularly, and especially the fact that it is an evolving process.
In the Netherlands, for example, there have been a number of explosions at the same factories year after year, caused by dust.
The knowledge as to how exactly this happened is lacking.
<P>
Another repercussion is that repair activities are carried out by hired companies. As a result, the overall business layout is unclear, especially to these temporary staff.
This is exactly why it is important to characterise and classify companies, workstations and suchlike effectively, and to divide these into areas, etc.
This is included in the proposal.
<P>
It is, however, a cause for great concern that, although there are minimum directives, no obligations have been laid down pursuant to the guide we discussed, let alone the provisions to be included therein.
I would therefore ask the Commissioner how the new practices will be developed technically and how the effects of hiring temporary staff will be dealt with.
In other words, have an evolving process but still ensure that there are substantial obligations in respect of minimum directives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Diamantopoulou">
<SPEAKER ID=147 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=14>
Helsinki Convention
<SPEAKER ID=148 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A5-0044/1999) by Mr Sjöstedt, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council decision on the approval, on behalf of the Community, of the amendments to the Annexes to the Convention on the protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area (Helsinki Convention) [COM(1999) 128 - C4-0218/1999 - 1999/0077(CNS)].
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
Mr President, this report is concerned with developing and improving international cooperation with regard to the marine environment in the Baltic.
In 1974, the States around the Baltic got together to form what is known as the Helsinki Convention in order to safeguard the marine environment.
The Convention was developed further after 1992 following the extensive political transformations which had occurred at that time.
Of the European Union countries, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Germany at present subscribe to the Convention.
Moreover, the European Union is itself one of its signatories.
The three Baltic countries - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - together with Russia and Poland are also involved in the work.
<P>
The Baltic is an inland sea with very significant environmental problems.
The areas in which the rivers that run into the Baltic originate are extensive and are located in several different countries.
The outlets into the North Sea and the Atlantic are small, and discharges from agriculture, industry and private households are significant.
The salt content of the Baltic is relatively low compared with that of other seas.
What is more, there are major problems involving low oxygen content in large parts of the Baltic. This creates a special environment, and it also creates quite a few problems for marine life.
One example is the very large variation to be found in fish stocks from year to year.
<P>
Very extensive work is already being done to clean up various sources of discharges around the Baltic.
In particular, clean-up facilities are at present being constructed in a variety of locations in Eastern Europe. These are largely being financed by the European Union.
<P>
This report is about revising two of the Helsinki Convention' s Annexes, namely Annexes 3 and 4.
Annex 3 concerns agricultural discharges.
The changes which come about through this revision are to be implemented partly in order to reduce discharges of nitrogen, phosphorus and pesticides.
This can have a big effect, especially upon the situation regarding eutrophication and lack of oxygen in the Baltic.
Annex 4 is aimed at reducing discharges from boats and ships.
This part regulates, among other things, equipment for gathering up oil, waste and waste water in various harbours.
Both these changes are very welcome, and it has been self-evident to me as rapporteur that we should support them and say that we should vote for them.
<P>
When it comes to dealing with waste from ships, work is in progress within the European Union on a proposed Directive concerning plant for receiving waste in harbours.
It is, however, important to appreciate that there remain a very great many problems within the framework of Annex 4. This especially applies to the monitoring of waste at sea.
Even when such monitoring in fact takes place, for example from the air, it has proved to be very difficult indeed to hold those responsible to account and to penalise them for the offences against the environment which are in fact being committed in the Baltic.
<P>
Where agriculture is concerned, I have looked for some kind of description of the effects which the new requirements are having upon the European Union' s sets of regulations, partly in relation to the expected enlargement of the EU to include a number of countries bordering the Baltic.
I have not found any such descriptive report at the Commission, but I believe it would have been useful to see one.
<P>
The changes to these Annexes will come into force at the end of the year.
It is therefore high time to take the decision in question.
It would have been an advantage if the European Parliament had been involved in this work earlier.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="Korhola">
Mr President, it has been shown that the amount of nutrients in the open sea area in the Gulf of Finland and in the vicinity of the shore generally increase as one moves eastwards, which is a reflection of the impact Russia has on the nutrients of the Baltic.
Quite recently, however, extensive new data has been collected covering areas right in the vicinity of the coastline, in the shallow coves of the Baltic.
No corresponding eastward growth in the amount of nutrients is discernible, but instead the areas with high levels of nutrients clearly point to local causes: agriculture, industry and the presence of summer cottages.
There are especially high levels of nutrients in the vicinity of rivers flowing into the sea, which shows that large amounts of nitric and phosphoric compounds are being carried from the land to the sea.
<P>
Nutrients have a greater effect on the fairly closed ecosystem that exists along the coast than they have in open sea areas.
For this reason, many areas of inland water near the coast need revitalising.
The coastal areas are particularly strategic from the point of view of human activity and enjoyment.
For this reason, it is vital to take action to substantially reduce the volumes of local effluent due to agriculture, housing or recreation.
<P>
For the protection of the Baltic we thus need on-going fine-tuning, with smaller-scale measures, which are also dealt with in Annexes III and IV of the Helsinki Convention now being discussed.
The report that has been prepared recommends, in addition, that the Commission should produce an analysis of the possible effects of the changes on Union legislation.
Furthermore, we should clarify whether the legislation that is being drafted, for example Agenda 2000, can have an impact on Union action under the Helsinki Convention.
<P>
The harmonisation of environmental considerations, viable agriculture, policies on livelihood, recreation and, for example, enlargement in a manner that is sustainable for the Baltic area, will naturally be a great challenge, both administratively and politically.
We need a conscious attempt at coherence.
Perhaps an initiative on the northern dimension could provide the comprehensive angle on the Baltic region we need to consider all these important areas of policy simultaneously and in a mutually compatible way.
<P>
I would also like to believe that, if it works well, the northern dimension would provide a forum to which the EU will find it appropriate to invite other key players as well, for example from the Baltic region.
For example, the Nordic Council has a long history of shaping environmental policy in the Nordic countries and in neighbouring regions.
The Nordic Council is involved in organising a parliamentary Baltic Conference, for all the countries of the Baltic to attend.
It would be natural for the EU to embark on closer talks with these countries.
The Nordic Council has shown initiative and expressed the wish to start such a dialogue with the EU.
I hope that that the northern dimension will prove to be a good, viable model for an ecologically sustainable and comprehensive development of a policy for these areas, which can be used for other areas of the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 NAME="Myller">
Mr President, the Convention that replaced the agreement on marine protection in the Baltic region in 1992 was an important step towards improving the area' s environmental state.
The new agreement covers the whole of the Baltic Sea up to the coastlines of those states surrounding it.
In addition, and this is important, the states to sign the agreement are committed to action throughout the entire catchment area of the region, which considerably extends the impact of the agreement.
<P>
The Helsinki Convention has been a pioneer in the multilateral cooperation process among the Baltic countries.
At present there are a good number of players in the region involved in a cooperative arrangement that extends to every sector of life, from the economy to culture.
The tradition of bustling interaction that existed in the Hanseatic era is thus being revived, and before long the Baltic Sea will be an internal sea of the Union.
<P>
The programme of environmental cooperation in the Baltic region is a part of the Union' s northern dimension policy.
As we are often asked what the northern dimension policy in practice means, it is, for example, taking care of the delicate environmental conditions that exist in the Nordic regions.
<P>
The commitment in the Convention to protecting natural diversity is a necessary addition to the Convention on Fishing in the Baltic Sea.
With regard to the future, we should consider how the structures underlying the protection of the environment in the Baltic region could be organised efficiently and simply.
I myself believe that the Helsinki Commission could provide a framework, not only for the main area of focus, the protection of the marine environment, but also the implementation of the Baltic Sea Agenda 21 programme, and the possible coordination of sound regional planning.
The long-term aim on the whole could be to extend the Helsinki Convention to cover the whole of the Baltic region with the objective of applying in practice the principle of sustainable development.
The revised Convention could also serve as a model for other regions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, these are true and important things which all the previous speakers have said, to the effect that the Baltic is a sick sea and that the EU has a major responsibility for this.
Every necessary measure needs therefore to be taken in order to improve the situation.
I think that Mrs Myller expressed a lot of points of view in her statement which we must make good use of.
I think it is important for us to see what opportunities we have to renew the Baltic Commission' s work in conjunction with the water planning directive, which we are also discussing here.
I have tried on a number of occasions to bring together these two areas of expertise on the basis that we should be looking at both at the same time and at the ways in which effective use might be made of the Helsinki Commission for this purpose.
My hope is that it might be possible to bring together at least those who are now here in the Chamber in order to look into this.
<P>
Annex 3 itself, relating to agriculture, does not perhaps inspire particularly great hope that it might entail anything new compared, for example, with the environmental strategies and programmes we already have.
On the other hand, I hope that, next week in Helsinki, we can, as has been said, approve ambitious objectives for agriculture and the environment.
<P>
As we think of renewing the work, it is also important that the Helsinki Commission' s efforts should be open to public scrutiny.
We were therefore very disappointed to see that the results of the work carried out a good year ago on hot spots was not published because Sweden opposed any such publication.
This was a small blemish on what was otherwise very sound work.
<P>
I would add that the work on creating plant for receiving waste is extremely important.
I believe that we must watch our step so that we do not jeopardise what we have here in this Convention and that we should not in any way be trying to achieve something else - a 'best' which would in actual fact be the 'enemy of the good' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Mr President, I can see that we have a Nordic dimension to the Chamber this evening.
Just as the rapporteur pointed out in his report, and also here, the changes to Annexes 3 and 4 to the Convention on the Baltic' s marine environment have already been adopted and will come into force in a month' s time.
Consulting the European Parliament is therefore a procedure which cannot have any real effect.
That is naturally a little odd and also rather annoying.
Fortunately, the changes to the Convention are very good indeed for environmental work.
They are aimed at reducing agricultural discharges of nitrogen and phosphorus and, especially, pesticides and at reducing discharges from ships and pleasurecraft.
We know that some very single-minded environmental work and some purposeful political decisions are required in order to restore the ecological balance of the Baltic.
<P>
Changes to the Helsinki Convention contain general rules which will also certainly have an effect on EU legislation, especially with regard to agricultural policy.
It would have been interesting if we had had an opportunity to discuss this issue and express views on it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wallström">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like first of all, of course, to thank the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and also rapporteur Sjöstedt for the work he has done on elucidating the changes to Annexes 3 and 4 of the Helsinki Convention.
<P>
As you know, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection adopted the report on 19 October 1999.
I think it is good that we have had the opportunity to discuss this in the House today.
It is with satisfaction, of course, that I note that the rapporteur welcomes the proposed changes to the Convention.
The proposal in fact moves that the changes to the two Annexes should be adopted by the European Community.
<P>
As mentioned, Annex 3 is mainly concerned with agricultural discharges.
The proposed changes are, in fact, aimed at reducing discharges of nitrogen, phosphorus and pesticides used in agriculture.
The purpose of the other Annex is to reduce discharges from ships.
<P>
Regarding Mr Sjöstedt' s concern that the Commission would not look adequately at the changes that need to be made and his concern about the effects which this would necessarily have on EU legislation, he is worrying unnecessarily.
There are no major problems.
The Commission has naturally made sure that we can make these changes and shall do so.
If the Commission signs a Convention, we must also ensure that we can honour the commitments in such a Convention, something which will not cause any problems.
<P>
There was also a Finnish front here which I have to say I agree with.
I think there is an important link with the northern dimension and that we should ideally be marrying the Helsinki Convention and the work that is being done under the heading of the northern dimension.
I therefore think that remarks of this kind are in order.
The Commission is also working along those lines, that is to say to ensure that we can coordinate, and benefit from, the work that is being done in different places.
This can reinforce the environmental work being done in connection with the Baltic.
In addition, the Helsinki Convention ought to support the work by means of sustainable development for the Baltic.
Discussions to this effect have begun.
We in the Commission are therefore aware of the need for increased environmental cooperation in the Baltic region.
We are convinced that the changes to the Convention constitute an important, albeit small, contribution towards achieving that goal.
<P>
The report criticises the way in which the adoption procedure was carried out.
The rapporteur maintains that the changes had already been adopted on 1 January 1999 and that the work carried out in the European Parliament was therefore meaningless.
It is true that the Convention' s executive body, HELCOM adopted the changes on 29 March 1998 and that the parties to the Treaty were given the deadline of 1 January 1999 to produce changes.
However, the Commission lodged an incidental objection to make it possible to consult with the European Parliament and the Council.
That objection still applies.
The Commission' s interpretation of the situation is therefore that, as long as the Commission has not withdrawn its incidental objection, the changes have not come into force.
The consultation procedure is therefore valid, and I should also like to thank you in the European Parliament for your contributions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=15>
Marketing of forest reproductive material
<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A5-0072/1999) by Mr Pesälä, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council directive on the marketing of forest reproductive material [COM(1999) 188 - C5-0128/1999 - 1999/0092(CNS)].
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Pesälä">
Mr President, this directive on the marketing of forest reproductive material is really based on the merger of two earlier directives.
In addition, there has been considerable progress made in research and development over the decades and, for that reason too, it is naturally a good idea to review matters.
Furthermore, the accession of Sweden, Austria and Finland meant that the EU' s forest resources immediately doubled.
On account of all this, it is excellent that these reviews and adjustments are being undertaken.
In addition, there is the matter of harmonisation with OECD schemes.
That is also a good thing and will enable us in future to trade in this material beyond the borders of the EU, which should also be taken into consideration.
<P>
The material in question has now been classified into four categories, whereas previously there were two.
This now guarantees there will be a sort of certificate, a guarantee that the right goods get to the right place.
It ensures that no errors - which the large afforested countries of the north have also experienced - occur.
Details relating to the area of provenance must also be defined on a map.
The maps are to be sent to the Commission and a comprehensive list of goods associated with forest reproduction must also be kept.
<P>
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development tabled numerous amendments, and they were mainly targeted at the timetable for implementation.
The Commission had proposed too tight a schedule and, for that reason, the entry into force of the directive has been postponed until 2003, so that the Member States can revise legislation as called for by this directive.
The transition period for some countries was also taken into account and thus the period of transition was increased by a couple of years for those countries whose period of transition would otherwise have expired.
In some countries there are rather large stocks because good seed years only occur at intervals of 10 to 15 years, and so the seeds have to be stored for very long periods of time in order that stocks are not exhausted.
The possibility of utilising and exhausting stocks was a very important issue, as has been remarked upon in this report.
In addition, we spoke a lot about genetic resources. That is a very sensitive issue at the moment and, naturally, we tried to bring this proposal in line with EU practice.
Similarly, this proposal also consider the health of plants and changes in their health.
<P>
As I understand it, there will be two more amendments to this report in tomorrow' s vote, if I may be allowed to comment briefly on them.
As rapporteur, I can agree with Amendment No 23 if three words are added to the recital where the amendment will appear: "special climatic conditions of certain regions, such as the Alps, the Mediterranean and northern regions" .
If this is added I will be able to agree to it, as rapporteur.
As for Amendment No 24, which has also been made for tomorrow, I can state that this amendment is now already incorporated into Article 4(3)(a), which is a new subparagraph and which was added for precisely this purpose.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Paulsen">
Mr President, I am very pleased about this new proposal concerning forest reproductive material because it offers new opportunities or, rather, gives the old opportunities a new lease of life, above all with a view to there being several categories of material.
The expression of known origin will make it possible to maintain the genetic and biological diversity of the forest in local regions and on land given over to forests.
True, our forests are certainly producers of renewable material, but they are also infinitely more than just raw materials.
The forest is also home to a great diversity of biological life. It is also an important means of trapping carbon dioxide and it is perhaps the earth' s most important regulator of the climate and water supply.
<P>
The forest also has a spiritual dimension.
It represents peace and quiet, silence and tranquillity for stressed-out urban men and women, especially if they were born in the northern dimension.
It is therefore important that forests be treated as diverse in their own right and as having a diversity of functions.
I therefore repeat that I am very glad that, as the proposal now reads, there exists this opportunity to maintain the genetic and biological diversity of the forests.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schierhuber">
Mr President, Commissioner, rapporteur, allow me to start by thanking the rapporteur for his excellent cooperation in drafting the report.
I speak on behalf of my group when I say that we fully support the rapporteur.
Europe is a continent rich in forests and forests are tremendously important.
We should all bear in mind the fact that the use of forests is not only in the economic interest, it is, above all, in the environmental interest of all of us.
What I mean is that forests have a multi-functional role.
<P>
I should like to remind you today of the major avalanche catastrophe a year ago in Galtür because it demonstrates how important it is for all of us to treat nature with respect; the alpine area in particular is a very sensitive zone, as people who know the area are obliged to testify time and time again.
Not only the people who live in the Alps, but everyone who likes to go on skiing or walking holidays in the Alps each year, appreciates an intact mountain environment in which the dangers are kept to a minimum.
The reforestation of the Bannwald is particularly important.
That is why reproductive material, which guarantees that forests will withstand the harsh climate, is absolutely essential and indispensable to the safety of the Alps.
<P>
I consider it absolutely essential for the reproductive material to come from the very area where the climatic conditions apply genuinely, and for the reproductive material to be appropriate to the climatic conditions.
Member States must therefore have the facility to stipulate the selection criteria for reproductive material in a non-bureaucratic manner, because nothing will be more devastating than when it is too late to prevent damage to the forest land as a whole.
I should like to point out that it is not only the Alps but, above all, the Nordic areas, the polar areas and also the southern areas which have special requirements in this respect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 NAME="Redondo Jiménez">
Mr President, Commissioner, we welcome this proposal for a directive for several reasons, one of which is the extension of its scope.
It now encompasses not only wood production but also other forest objectives such as cork and the protection of genetic resources.
We should also congratulate ourselves because it now identifies different categories and encourages the protection given by reforestation and not just wood production.
It allows maximum variability from the genetic viewpoint, thereby guaranteeing adaptation.
<P>
In the main the proposal responds to the differing needs of the Member States and includes the principle of subsidiarity.
The accession of the Nordic and Mediterranean countries to the European Union is the main reason for updating the current directive which regulates the marketing of forest plants and seeds and which has not been substantially amended since 1975.
<P>
The text of the directive coincides on the basic aspects of objective, number of categories, definitions of basic materials and so on with the world' s other main system of marketing forest reproductive material, namely the OECD.
Work has been carried out in recent years to update this system and an improved text is now pending approval by the Council.
Coherence between these texts can only assist the marketing of these materials.
<P>
I must also congratulate Mr Pesälä on his report.
I agree that the date set for the entry into force of the directive cannot be 1 January 2000 but must be postponed by at least three years to give the Member States time to comply with the directive.
<P>
Other amendments by other Members, such as those tabled by Mrs Schierhuber, must also be welcomed.
They include an amendment on the strengthening of the control of trade flows by an official certificate of origin. However, there is one very important point which we must consider.
The explanatory statement specified that the external quality of materials was guaranteed, yet point (d) of Annex VII deals with this in a very general manner.
<P>
This is not a trivial issue.
Plant quality is essential in the Mediterranean environment where reforestation is carried out under very difficult conditions.
Experience has taught us that plants of certain sizes cannot survive in a particular environment. This is true in many areas of southern Europe where the drought conditions are extreme.
In order to assist their establishment, this means using container-grown plants with good root systems, whereas in other countries plants without any roots can successfully grow.
<P>
The external quality of plants has a big impact, not only on the percentage which survive, which can range from 20% to 85%, but also on their future development in the extremely harsh conditions of their transfer to this climate.
External quality is one of the factors which determines the quality of the woodland of the future.
A lack of regulation of the external quality of plants may therefore cause very serious problems as this will allow all sizes of plant to be placed on the market.
<P>
You should bear in mind that some Member States already have laws on this subject.
It is in the interests of the whole European environment to ensure that plantations are correctly established so that a large proportion do not fail.
The plants must be suitable and adaptable because, unfortunately, in many corners of the European Union, you cannot plant what you want, only what is practical.
<P>
To ensure that adequate consideration is given to this unresolved problem in the text of the proposal, the Council is trying to reach agreement on the incorporation of a new point 7. This will contain the external characteristics which must be satisfied, for their marketing in the Mediterranean areas of the Community, by the forest species best adapted to the difficult soil and climate conditions of these areas.
<P>
I applaud and encourage this solution to which I hope the European Commission will agree.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Keppelhoff-Wiechert">
Mr President, Commissioner, I am reminded in this context of the saying: they cannot see the wood for the trees.
It is reasonable that this directive needs to be updated as a result of the accession of new Member States and the development of the single market and forest research.
It is reasonable that EU labelling should be harmonised in order to facilitate trade within the EU and with the OECD.
But the directive takes no account of the differing needs of the Member States.
In the view of our specialists in Germany, in the view of the German forestry industry and the forest nursery industry, this new directive will have a lasting negative impact.
Monitoring should be confined to forest undertakings and should not, as the report provides, apply to all undertakings, as these requirements would then affect undertakings which produce no forest reproductive material at all.
<P>
The willingness of successive farmers to plant forests in my region is receding sharply.
This increasing prevalent basic attitude is dictated by financial considerations.
I would just like to say to the House that I know what I am talking about because the forest economy has longed played an important role in our own undertaking and I would like in this context to point out the life-threatening situation in the Germany forest nurseries.
Given the change in forestry in my country towards natural regeneration, massive cutbacks in planting requirements and a lack of public funds, I feel that I really must draw the House' s attention to this.
The monitoring system is now supposed to be up and running by 2003.
Our experts tell me that they think this deadline is too short.
The directive is unacceptable in this respect; it fails to take account of geographical and regional differences within the EU.
In northern countries we have to cope with huge forest areas with a single registration number, so that the new regulation holds no problem whatsoever in store for these areas.
<P>
I would like to more or less keep to my allotted time, but we should bear in mind during the overall debate that we must not only take account of the Nordic point of view and we must not only consider the enthusiasm of mountain lovers in Austria; we in the middle of the EU, and this includes Germany, set great store by open clauses, so that the whole system can remain truly practicable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="Wallström">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by thanking the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and of course its rapporteur, Mr Pesälä, for the very positive approach adopted towards the Commission proposal; and the Commission appreciates the broad acceptance of its proposal.
<P>
The present proposal aims to update the current legislation on the marketing of forest reproductive material to take account of the accession of new Member States since 1975, the internal market and scientific advances.
Twenty-two amendments have been proposed.
I can accept the large majority of them as they stand or with minor modification in respect of their drafting or presentation.
The Commission can accept the Amendment No 23 proposed now by Mr Pesälä.
I would like to comment on the four amendments which the Commission cannot accept.
<P>
Firstly, I will comment on Amendment No 4.
According to the proposed amendment, an explicit reference to the principle of subsidiarity should be inserted within the recitals.
The Commission is not in favour.
The proposal is based on Article 37 of the Treaty, and therefore falls within the exclusive competence of the Community.
However, the Commission proposal has fully recognised the specificity of the conditions of certain Member States or certain parts thereof and the text explicitly reflects this position.
<P>
Then we come to Amendment No 7.
The Commission provides in the first part of Article 5(2)b that the procedures ensuring the environmental risk assessment and other relevant elements should be equivalent to those laid down in Council Directive 90/220.
They will be introduced in a future regulation.
According to the proposed amendment, the generic expression of the relevant elements should be replaced with a positive list of elements.
The Commission feels that this is inappropriate taking into account that any exhaustive list would limit unnecessarily the scope of the provision.
Insofar as the second part of the amendment is concerned, I can agree to the addition of a reference to the European Parliament in the future regulation.
<P>
Amendment No 10: according to the proposed amendment, an official certificate of origin should accompany each consignment of forest reproductive material during marketing.
The Commission agrees with the aim to ensure that trade flow should be controlled but the introduction of such a certificate would represent an unnecessary burden for trade.
According to the Commission, it would be preferable to introduce appropriate amendments in respect of the existing master certificate.
<P>
Finally Amendment No 17: according to the proposed amendment, Member States shall specify the requirements their reproductive material should meet in order to be considered well adapted to particular climatic conditions or exposed upland situations.
The Commission is in favour of justified derogations when they are well defined in respect of their content, for example, for a Community region with specific climatic conditions and in respect of the procedures to be followed.
The Commission feels that the proposed amendment is too broadly based and introduces the possibility for Member States to unilaterally prohibit the marketing of forest reproductive material.
<P>
Those are my comments, and I would like to thank you for your attention and thank once again the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=16>
COM in processed fruit and vegetable products
<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A5-0068/1999) by Mrs Ayuso González, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 2201/96 on the common organisation of the markets in processed fruit and vegetable products [COM(1999) 376 - C5-0140/1999 - 1999/0161(CNS)].
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="Ayuso González">
. (ES) Mr President, Commissioner, Regulation (EC) No 2201/96 provides for the payment of aid to the tomato processing industry with a view to compensating it for the difference between the raw material price on the Community market and that on the world market.
This aid is granted for a global EU quota of nearly 7 million tonnes, distributed at five-yearly intervals by product group of peeled tomatoes, tomato concentrate and other products.
It is also distributed at yearly intervals, by Member State, on the basis of the average minimum price over the three marketing years preceding the year of distribution.
<P>
Under this Regulation, quotas were allocated for the marketing years 1997-1998 and 1998-1999. These were slightly modified in 1997 in terms of the distribution between the various product groups.
Subsequently, for the next marketing year, the distribution was carried out on the basis of the quantities in compliance with the minimum price over the previous three marketing years, as specified by Article 6.4 of this Regulation.
<P>
More than just amending the Regulation, the proposal adopts a Council of Ministers' agreement. This is actually a derogation from the Regulation as Portugal did not produce the quota which it was allocated for the marketing year 1997-1998, apparently due to bad weather.
It is proposed that, for calculation purposes, Portugal is allocated a supplementary amount of 83,468 tonnes for 1999-2000 and, for 2001-2002, the difference between the quota calculated on the basis of the amount actually processed in 1997-1998 and the quota resulting if that figure is replaced by 884,592 tonnes.
<P>
This will have no financial repercussions for the other Member States as the Commission has made provision for an ad hoc budget to finance this supplementary amount for Portugal.
<P>
However, this Council of Ministers' agreement has caused some concern among producers in the other Member States, particularly Spain, Italy and Greece, which are very competitive in tomato processing and production.
As the President is aware, there have even been demonstrations at the Ministry of Agriculture in Spain by those who feel that Portugal is being accorded an advantage.
<P>
A fairer, clearer and more transparent method of contracts and allocations would be the threshold system, rather than the quota system. To a certain extent this would satisfy the producers of those countries which are more competitive.
However, neither the Agriculture Committee nor this House intend to deny Portugal this supplementary amount to enable it to adapt and become increasingly competitive in its tomato production.
Yet this would be a good opportunity to move from the quota system to the system of thresholds for individual Member States. This is the line taken by the amendments which I have tabled on this proposal to amend the Regulation.
The first two amendments are to the recitals and state that the aid for tomato processing is important and that the quota is insufficient. The third amendment states that the Commission will submit, before the start of the next marketing year, a proposal for moving from quotas to thresholds.
I hope the Commission accepts this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schierhuber">
Mr President, Commissioner, allow me first to congratulate my colleague on her first report.
I should like to include a few thoughts in my contribution which, I believe, not only deal with a purely technical matter but also offer a basic starting point, in that I think we should take a much more global approach to agricultural policy from the outset.
<P>
European agriculture, and we all support a European agricultural model, must be configured so that farmers throughout Europe have a chance of survival.
Agriculture and the whole of rural society must be viable, so that the generations which follow us inherit a habitat that is intact.
This means that farming must be possible both in favoured areas and in disadvantaged and climatically exposed regions and peripheral areas.
One of the remarkable features of our agriculture is its multi-functionality in the rural society and it must be configured so that farmers find optimum conditions for all manner of crops.
<P>
One of the outstanding features of Europe is its variety and I am referring here not only to the variety of regions and cultures but also to the variety of products and foodstuffs which make Europe unique.
Farmers make a huge contribution to the cultural identity of a region or a country because the products cultivated, the primary production, colours not only the cuisine but also the customs and philosophy of life of the people down through the generations.
<P>
It also gives us close ties with our homeland.
Without regional roots from which to develop, there can be no foundation and no basis for the future.
Traditional cuisine, which has developed from regional crops, and these crops must of course be suited to the climate, is a delight to the palate, both of the local people and of anyone who enjoys trying different foods.
It is precisely this wealth of local and regional specialities which is unique to Europe and it must be preserved because it is a treasure trove which compares with no other region in the world.
Europe, I say it again, is and must remain in the future distinctive, famous and loved.
<P>
So I ask you: have you ever been to southern Europe and tasted the tomatoes which flourish there?
They are distinctive.
I think that we should ensure within the framework of European agricultural policy that these tomatoes can continue to be cultivated, harvested and processed in these regions.
Suitable regulations must be laid down so that, when there are crop failures, there are also reasonable, flexible quota arrangements and a non-bureaucratic approach.
One thing must be made clear at the same time, however, and that is that all these actions must go hand in glove with strict control and monitoring measures. I think that this would be a positive starting point for numerous sectors in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 NAME="Izquierdo Rojo">
Mr President, Mrs Ayuso has carried out an important piece of parliamentary work with this report.
I, too, am in favour of the benefit to be gained through this measure by a fellow Member State as dear to me as Portugal.
This is all positive.
On the other hand, I am against and in fact I condemn the way in which the Council has proceeded.
It is reprehensible that the Council of Ministers should have decided on these disgraceful advantages, aimed at softening the blow of Agenda 2000.
<P>
I am not surprised that the Council is absent. It dare not show its face for it is ashamed by this grand finale, this final distribution of shameful perks, or should we say this muddle to end all muddles?
For this is the way in which the Council of Ministers has proceeded with regard to the how, when and why of this measure.
We said as much on 14 June when we told President Aznar that he was failing to defend the interests of Spain and that he was damaging Spain' s representation with this attitude.
This is still true.
<P>
As far as this House is concerned, these are facts confirmed by the vote in Council and we are left to point out that this measure has caused great concern among producers in the other Member States. We must also stress that this exceptional measure is not provided for in the Regulation and that other Member States have also suffered bad weather at times but they have not had the advantage which Portugal is now enjoying.
This advantage amounts to an increase in the Portuguese concentrate quota of 83,468 tonnes for the marketing year 1999-2000, plus other benefits for the marketing year 2000-2001, including retroactive quota increases, for example those of 1997 and 1998, of 83,468 tonnes as supplementary amounts.
<P>
An ad hoc budget is authorised for all this.
For the year 2000 this will amount to over ESP 500 million - ESP 532 million to be exact - which is equivalent to EUR 3.2 million.
<P>
So, congratulations to Portugal and shame on the Council.
The rapporteur has been very explicit but has no understanding of why we have a regulation which is a tangle of incomprehensibilities and exceptions.
The Council has worsened it instead of improving it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Figueiredo">
Mr President, we support the Commission' s proposal for a temporary increase in the Portuguese processed tomato quota as a means of compensating for the low levels of production in the year 1997-1998 due to bad weather.
It should also be noted that this additional sum does not even compensate for the whole potential production in normal weather conditions; it merely mitigates the loss that has been mentioned, which was incurred when the Member States distributed the quotas.
<P>
Concerning the proposals put forward in the report, we also feel that there needs to be reform, given that the current situation has harmful effects - as experience has already shown - but we must bear in mind that any reform will still have to take the results of the current year into account and the potential levels of production in Portugal under normal weather conditions.
<P>
We therefore think that it is more sensible to increase and improve the current system for calculating quotas with increases in line with the total amounts of production aid and not to move towards a system of guarantee thresholds that could penalise all farmers and not just those who exceed their quotas.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank the rapporteur for her excellent report. She was willing to make proposals in the second part and she also formulated suggestions for future policy.
We are discussing production aid for processed tomato products.
This aid is based on processing quotas which correspond to a specific quantity of fresh tomatoes.
The regulation makes provision for quotas to be distributed between Member States every year on the basis of production in previous years.
<P>
The weather in Portugal was particularly bad during the 1997/98 marketing year.
This resulted in a net drop in tomato production, which in turn led to a reduction of 83,468 tonnes in the Portuguese tomato concentrate quota when the quotas were distributed for the 1999/2000 marketing year and a concomitant increase in the quotas of three other Member States.
A similar situation will arise when the quotas are distributed for the 2000/01 marketing year.
<P>
The purpose of the present draft regulation is to solve this problem; in other words, it increases the Portuguese tomato concentrate quota by 83,468 tonnes for the 1999/2000 marketing year and includes special provisions for setting quotas for the forthcoming 2000/01 marketing year.
What we have is a one-off change to the quota distribution system which is limited in time.
Its purpose is to solve a specific problem which has arisen in one Member State.
This amendment notwithstanding, the Commission intends to conduct a comprehensive review of this regulation.
The Commission will forward the results of this review to the Council during the year 2000.
Any amendments needed to the regulation and subsequent amendments to the regulation could then be applied with effect from the 2001/02 marketing year.
<P>
The Commission will look into the recommendations in the three proposed amendments in detail as part of this comprehensive review.
The purpose of the amendments tabled is mainly to replace quotas with a guarantee threshold, to be divided between the Member States, and to increase these quantities.
<P>
Until such time as the results are available from this comprehensive review, which will also take account of budgetary constraints, the Commission cannot accept these proposed amendments.
I say this because these proposed amendments go far beyond the very limited specific problem on which a decision is needed today, but I would like to stress that the Commission acknowledges that the proposed amendments are most constructive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 10.50 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="Morgan">
Mr President, I would like to express my extreme disappointment at the fact that the President of the Court of Auditors did not give his report yesterday.
He should have given his report.
He should have cancelled any other engagements he had.
He should have prioritised giving that report to Parliament.
We only ask him to do that once a year, and any other engagement should have been secondary to this very important opportunity to let us know exactly how he feels about the European institutions.
I am very disappointed, and I would ask you to write to the President of the Court of Auditors to express the disappointment of the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Thank you very much for your comments, Mrs Morgan.
I shall do so.
I must also say that I have noted your comments and that the Conference of Presidents will also be taking note of this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Theato">
Mr President, I have a point to make on the same subject.
Time was obviously in short supply, yet the agenda went out on time and we knew how things were to proceed.
I deeply regret that this happened and that the impression has now been given that Parliament was not prepared to accept the report.
I would urge that we take up contact with the Court and arrange things in such a way that there is enough time for the Court' s report at the next part-session in Strasbourg. However, we also need to ensure that the President can attend and present his report.
It is not acceptable for us to be forever postponing this.
I would not wish there to be a major interinstitutional fall-out over this.
It is quite usual for us to receive this report at the end of the year, normally in November.
This could have been done in this part-session.
It is a matter of deep regret to me that it could not be so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Theato. Your comments are relevant and fair and I think that in the next part-session, in Strasbourg, things will be done and organised in accordance with your protest, or rather, your comments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="Gorostiaga Atxalandabaso">
Mr President, when a Parliament, in a most irresponsible way, closes the door to political opinions, as happened yesterday among us, it is opening wide the door to armed struggle.
We, Euskal Herritarrok, believe that political conflicts have to be settled by political means, but what we have seen in this House was in fact support for violence.
<P>
This Parliament undoubtedly backed the Northern Ireland peace process, and I also wholeheartedly congratulate the Irish people and everybody inside the United Kingdom for their success.
The 1993 Downing Street Declaration, recognising the right to self determination of the Irish people, shows us better than anything else that only through political negotiation can a real and lasting solution be found anywhere.
Could we expect a similar analysis from the European Union to the on-going political conflict existing in the Basque country?
Could your European Parliament, Mr President, highlight the example of John Major and David Trimble to show Mr Jospin and Mr Aznar the path they have to embark on immediately?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="García-Margallo y Marfil">
Mr President, I asked for the floor yesterday but was not allowed to speak by the President at the time.
I simply wanted to say, firstly, that the Spanish Constitution establishes a model of self-government which is infinitely more generous than that achieved by Northern Ireland.
Secondly, this self-government has mainly been exercised by nationalist forces and, at the moment, is exclusively so.
Unlike Northern Ireland, the ministerial posts are not shared between nationalists and non-nationalists.
<P>
There are political forces - we have just seen them here - which disagree with the constitutional model given to us by the Spanish.
However, our Constitution allows this disagreement to be voiced by peaceful and democratic means. The parties aiming to destroy constitutional order enter the elections under the flag of independence.
What has to be decided at this point is whether or not it is legal to eliminate those who disagree.
<P>
Mr President, I would like to end by saying that, for 40 years, the children of my generation listened wearily to a rhetoric which asserted that ballot-boxes were better off destroyed and that words should be replaced by fists and guns.
The children who left Spain with clean hands will not return to hear this rhetoric again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
Mr García-Margallo, as you know, and however important what you have said may be, this debate is clearly not on the Agenda, and I must keep to the Agenda.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Introduction of the Euro
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A5-0076/1999) by Mrs Torres Marques, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the report from the Commission to the Council: Duration of the transitional period related to the introduction of the euro (COM(99) 174 - C5­0108/1999).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Torres Marques">
Mr President, I have here an illustration on the subject of my report that I would like to be distributed to all those present.
I would be grateful if you would instruct that this be done.
I would like to begin my intervention by thanking Commissioner Pedro Solbes Mira for being here today in the Chamber.
I was told that the Commissioner had prior engagements, a meeting with the Central Banks, but that when he was told this debate was to take place at the same time, he chose to be here in Parliament today.
I would like to acknowledge his choice and to thank him.
<P>
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the scope of this report is the duration of the transitional period of the euro.
On my proposal, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs agreed to broaden its scope as the subject that had been proposed had, in the meantime, been superseded by various events, one of which was the European Parliament' s own electoral process.
<P>
Now, we have other real problems.
The more hearings I have attended and the more reports I have read on these matters, the more convinced I am that the general tendency is, on the one hand, towards a drastic curtailing of the transitional period for the dual circulation of national currency units and euros and, on the other, towards having a frontloading period which it is anticipated will start from 1 December 2001.
<P>
The more we look into this problem and the more we talk to those directly involved - consumers and retailers - the more we see that the predominant idea is that the longer the period of dual circulation, the more complicated things will be.
The idea that 'extending the transitional period will make things easier' is finding fewer and fewer supporters.
The illustration that I asked to be distributed gives a better explanation than many arguments can of the difficulties that we may have to face.
Accepting as we do that the transitional period should last until 1 January 2002, it is now important to raise the other problems, the proper resolution of which is of great importance to the credibility of the euro that we all wish to see.
<P>
Therefore, in this report, Mr President, Commissioner, only maximum periods are referred to and preference is given to periods which are as short as possible so that all scenarios might be viable, even the legal 'big bang' if, by 2002, this is accepted as the best solution.
Our main proposals are:
<P>
firstly, a period of dual circulation of national currency units and euros which is as short as possible;
<P>
secondly, a period of advance feeding or "frontloading" to banks, retailers, public administrations and consumers from 1 December 2001;
<P>
thirdly, to set prices in euros with their equivalent in the national currency, preferably by 1 January 2001;
<P>
fourthly, information campaigns of increasing intensity until 2002, particularly for the most vulnerable groups, through systematic action together with the education system, NGOs and the media in general; particularly prime time television, television news broadcasts and sports programmes with high viewing figures;
<P>
fifthly, the increased use of electronic money, credit and debit cards and the creation of an electronic card or purse which can be used throughout the euro zone as soon as is technically possible and that its use is widespread enough for the cost to be minimal;
<P>
sixthly, the adaptation of vending machines for the use of charge cards until 2002 which will enable them, as far as possible, to work with coins and notes;
<P>
seventhly, the creation, to be postponed until 2002 at the latest, of an integrated payment system which will enable us to transform the euro zone into a market with the same rules as domestic markets.
<P>
Mr President, each one of the issues addressed in this report requires more detailed and deeper examination, as their application needs to be completely secure, clear and fully accepted by our citizens.
We therefore hope that the Commission will introduce the measures that it feels must be adopted in this area.
On account of its implications for the lives of our citizens, this issue must be closely supported by the European Parliament, the direct representative of the electors.
I hope that the Commission, the Council and the European Central Bank only take decisions that are fundamental to this issue, having consulted us first.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Thyssen">
Mr President, the third phase of Economic and Monetary Union entered into effect on 1 January of this year, as detailed in the Madrid scenario.
Also, in accordance with this scenario, the Council, backed by this House, has decided that euro coins and banknotes will be circulated as legal tender as from 1 January 2002.
One of Madrid' s key contributions is that it drafted a clear schedule early on, which was preceded by extensive deliberation.
<P>
My group supports the Commission in its viewpoint that the so-called transitional period should ideally be maintained, despite the fact that its lapsing coincides with the frantic Christmas shopping period.
Preparations are now too far advanced to be able to successfully implement any changes.
<P>
On 1 January 2002, the euro will become legal tender within the euro zone.
National currency units will remain in circulation for a maximum of six months, but national legislators may decide to shorten this period within their territories.
<P>
Many will not be fully aware of the advent of the euro and monetary union until they have to make the changeover in their own purses.
Whether or not the general public will accept all the work involved in Economic and Monetary Union will be determined by the way in which the actual changeover around 2002 will pan out.
All predictable and avoidable complications and hitches must therefore be ironed out beforehand.
<P>
In my group, many fear the confusion, lack of security, feelings of uncertainty and waste of time brought on by dual currency circulation.
The 'big bang' scenario remains attractive to us, but not all Member States share this opinion, hence our appeal to at least keep periods of dual currency circulation to a minimum.
<P>
At any rate, a smooth transition accompanied by a short period of dual currency circulation or not, as the case may be, is impossible without frontloading.
To our great relief, the European Central Bank has abandoned its previous stance against frontloading.
Frontloading is a must in order to make the practical introduction of the euro a success.
In the resolution, we recommend frontloading subject to cautious conditions.
<P>
I would also like to comment on two other aspects.
Firstly, we share the rapporteur' s vision that in the case of dual circulation, change in the retail trade should be given in euros.
This will, in fact, help shorten the period of dual currency circulation within Member States.
<P>
Secondly, we are convinced that dual price display is a good thing.
Alongside euros, we definitely want to see pricing in national currency for a period after 2002.
This is mainly beneficial to the consumer but the retail trade too realises that it stands to benefit from this.
However, to talk about imposing statutory obligations concerning these two aspects now does not seem appropriate to us, certainly not at this early stage.
<P>
You will have realised that, according to the PPE Group, Mrs Torres Marques has done a sterling job and we fully endorse her report.
We will only suggest a few refinements when the amendments are discussed at the vote.
We hope that the Member States and also the European institutions will continue to bear in mind that we are also to be consulted at future stages, so that the introduction of euro coins and banknotes in 2002 will be a huge success.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Goebbels">
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating Helena Torres Marques on her excellent report.
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Mr President, the euro is already the second most important currency in the world.
The actual introduction of the euro from 2002 will dramatically increase the demand for euros.
Although the euro has depreciated over the last few months in relation to the dollar, this is not only due to the current difference in the dynamism and the performance of the American and European economies.
The fact that, for the moment, the euro is only a representative currency and will not become a paper currency until 2002, also explains the certain lack of interest among the European and international public in this new currency that you cannot yet feel or touch.
<P>
Nevertheless, the financial markets in general have welcomed the euro.
Since it was introduced at the beginning of this year, the volume of private bonds issued in euros has increased by over 50%.
For the first seven months of this year on the international capital markets, issues in euros represented 27% of international issues.
Meanwhile, issues in dollars over the same seven month period fell from 57% to 50%, which shows that there is already a very strong real demand by the markets.
<P>
There is another problem, to which I should like to draw the attention of this House, and that is the huge money supply of Deutschmarks, French francs and other European currencies circulating outside the frontiers of Europe.
According to a report by the German Bundesbank, over one hundred billion Deutschmarks are used as a daily reserve currency by the citizens of Eastern Europe.
There are also billions of French francs circulating in French-speaking Africa and all this money must be changed into euros.
For the moment, the people holding these banknotes are trying to move towards the dollar, which also perhaps explains, to a certain extent, the fluctuation to the detriment of the euro.
<P>
I should like to ask the Commission whether it should not take the initiative in drawing the attention of the Central European Bank and the national central banks to this problem, that is to say, the necessary exchange of all the European currencies that will disappear in 2002 with the actual introduction of the euro.
I believe that there is a real problem here which has not been adequately discussed and in respect of which the Commission would be well advised to take an initiative in order to organise this exchange with dignity.
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<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="De Clercq">
Mr President, Commissioner, we remain convinced that the euro is a good thing.
The euro is not a goal in itself, but a means to serve the European citizen, a strong economy, employment and the international status of the European Union.
It is a means to promote more stability, more transparency, more clarity, more convenience of payment, more saving options and better investment opportunities.
<P>
I will not repeat what the honourable rapporteur has already stated as to how we need to tackle the changeover of national currency units to euros in practical terms, but I would like to make two observations regarding her report.
<P>
Firstly, the euro probably has only one drawback, namely the inevitable transitional period; that is to say, all the adjustments required to fully integrate the national currency units into the new tender.
If we wish to limit the damage, then it is indeed important to keep the period of dual currency circulation to a minimum.
If it is based on sound framework measures, there is no need for initial hesitation before taking the final and definitive step towards the euro.
I therefore back the technical measures proposed by the rapporteur.
I would congratulate her on the level of clarity displayed.
<P>
Secondly, we are responsible for keeping the attention given to, and interest in, the euro alive.
The present situation is not conducive in this respect.
The introduction of the euro on 1 January this year enjoyed a great deal of attention, even a certain euphoria, but it all went quiet after that for the single currency.
The euro is still too far removed from the European citizen.
It is still a while before 2002, when the euro will be introduced as actual currency.
This is too long according to public opinion.
The appetite has gone.
Moreover, this interim phase creates far too many insecurities.
<P>
In short, we need to be able to maintain our belief in and enthusiasm for the euro during the warming-up stage as well, although ensuring at the same time that people do not lose interest before the euro actually takes off.
After all, the euro needs to remain a success and we need to make every effort to achieve this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Speroni">
Mr President, the euro has aroused great expectations but it has also created many problems, for example, for businesses in the north of Italy that are being burdened with extremely high taxes and whose competitiveness can no longer be ensured by means of changes in the exchange rate.
Moreover, investors who have decided to convert their money into dollars or pounds sterling have undoubtedly reaped greater rewards up till now than those who invested in the euro.
One final point: today the currencies of the various countries could be viewed as subcurrencies of the euro, but the banks do not see it this way.
Today, even on small amounts there is much more commission when buying and selling lira, Belgian francs or French francs than when buying dollars or pounds sterling.
I think that we should take action on this.
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<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, the closer we get to the introduction of the euro, the more reasonable the viewpoints and wishes of the European Parliament become with regard to the introduction of the euro in circulation.
Meanwhile, virtually everyone in this House shares the view that 1 January 2002 is really the earliest date and that government offices, banks and mint establishments have to pull out all the stops in order to meet this deadline
<P>
Recital K, which contains a complaint to the effect that the electronic euro is lacking in immediate practical benefits, is still a leftover of the unrealistic expectations which were - and apparently still are - prevalent among a majority of MEPs.
The fact that the euro propaganda campaign is not delivering the goods is entirely down to a lack of sense of reality which is playing tricks here.
<P>
I strongly object to the proposal to provide the European citizen with euro coins and banknotes before 1 January 2002.
This contravenes the Treaty and also plays into the hands of counterfeiters.
They too will then be provided with the material to be copied sooner and will be able to better exploit the confusion easily created among the citizens.
We would much prefer it if the European Central Bank and the European Commission, in tandem with the commercial banks, were to ensure that the general public receives sound, detailed information on the design and security features of the euro coins and banknotes, starting no later than 1 November 2001.
<P>
Mr President, except for paragraphs 7, 8, 10, 12 and 16, we can support the motion for a resolution.
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<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Karas">
Mr President, Commissioner, we are all agreed that the single currency is a prerequisite for a functioning internal market, that the stable currency also contributes to social and economic security within Europe and that the euro is a success story, due not least to the fact that it has led to a reduction of deficits in our Member States and to low inflation.
<P>
A new chapter in this story is now opening and must be characterised by the following elements: public confidence in, and acceptance of, the euro must be further strengthened.
The measures taken must result in legal security and must be transparent, the citizens must be given comprehensive information, and a smooth-running changeover is an essential prerequisite for this.
<P>
The changeover will only run smoothly if there is adequate frontloading for banks, commerce, citizens and the requisite machines from where citizens obtain their cash.
I would like to pick out one aspect alone.
It seems to me that the concept of commerce has not yet been clearly defined.
For example, will the tourist industry come under the heading of commerce, i.e. will frontloading apply, bearing in mind that a great many citizens of our Member States visit tourist areas and ski resorts during the Christmas and New Year periods in particular.
I would therefore ask that we organise these elements - acceptance and confidence, a smooth-running changeover and frontloading - so as to increase citizens' confidence in the euro in this phase, and this will entail frontloading and ensuring that adequate information is provided in the euro campaign.
If this comes off, then the changeover will be another chapter in the euro success story.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Mr President, the 1995 changeover plan has proved to be worthwhile.
The rapporteur rightly emphasises the careful preparations leading up to the introduction of the euro, and we must ensure that the euro does indeed enjoy the confidence of the citizens and not just that of the markets, where it is now established.
The first year of the euro' s introduction and life with monetary union is associated, then, with a lack of awareness of the euro on the part of the citizens, that is to say the consumers.
It is not without reason that as yet, only 1% of transfers and 4% of credit card transactions are performed in euros.
This would suggest that we really do need information campaigns.
Not only did we need to have these campaigns in the years before monetary union started, we also need to pursue them now that it is in force, and this is not a task that we should just leave to the European Central Bank.
We, too, in our capacity as European Commission, European Parliament, and governments of the Member States, must launch a new initiative in this respect, so that political discussions on the value of the euro do not cause the citizens to suddenly start thinking that, although they may inhabit a monetary union, this has lent no added value to Europe. Rather, they must be made aware of the fact that they are living in an age of new monetary reform.
<P>
This false assumption, which is still very much prevalent because the exchange rate between the euro, the dollar and the yen has, I regret to say, developed rather differently than appeared would be the case on 4 January, must not, however, lead to a situation in which erroneous ideas as to the value of the euro hold sway.
The internal value of the currency is decisive and the fact that we can record values for the euro 11-zone that truly inspire confidence is of historic importance.
It is a good thing that it is becoming clear, and is made transparent time and time again in the monetary dialogue between the European Parliament and the European Central Bank, how important price stability is for this independent, monetary authority; and it is a good thing that the ECB should see that this goal is accomplished in a manner accessible to ordinary citizens.
<P>
I believe it would be wrong to break out in a panic now, here in this Chamber, on account of exchange rate trends.
I think the exchange rates are exhausted in any case.
The important thing to do in these circumstances, though, is to support the development of the euro by having more coordination of economic policy within the European Union.
Monetary policy will not be in a position to enhance the credibility of European integration for the benefit of growth, employment and also investment, if the Member States of the European Union do not, coincidentally with the harmonisation and centralisation of monetary policy, join forces more resolutely in giving out signals against tax dumping and social dumping, and in favour of increased employment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Naranjo Escobar">
Mr President, the excellent Torres Marques report marks the end of a debate which started 10 months ago.
Fortunately, the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament are in agreement about ratifying the timetable for the introduction of the euro agreed at the Madrid European Council of 1995.
This consensus demonstrates that careful management of the various periods is the key to the success of the operation.
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Our efforts must be concentrated on ensuring that this transition goes smoothly.
Our role is to protect the interests of the people, particularly those who are disadvantaged.
Respect for the timetable will provide the time needed for the information to reach everyone and may also allow the dual circulation period to be reduced.
<P>
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs maintains that this period should not exceed two months.
The ECB, the Commission and the national authorities will therefore have to adopt a series of measures, some of which have already been mentioned. For example, they will have to provide consumers, traders and banks with the necessary quantity of coins and notes before 1 January 2002.
They will have to ensure that dual price display is in general use for 1 January 2001.
They will have to use this process to modernise our payment systems and they will have to adopt the necessary measures to ensure adequate legal protection against fraud.
<P>
If the euro is to bring greater freedom to individuals and companies and increased rationality in their decision making, they must previously have become familiar with the new system.
In this respect, the recommendations on communication and information policies contained in the Torres Marques report have a vital role to play. However, we should not imagine that the euro will perfect the single market or that it will allow, for example, easier price comparison or a reduction in transaction costs.
The benefits of the euro must be more than just material for they must help to strengthen the political union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Kauppi">
Mr President, Commissioner, the most important step with regard to the future of the euro is the moment European citizens start handling euros physically.
We will try to facilitate the switch to the new currency in terms of cash by allowing the euro and national currencies to exist side by side for a few months.
Parliament also supports frontloading and would, in this way, like to remove the barriers to the swift introduction of the currency.
It now appears that the European Central Bank is also gradually beginning to endorse this aim.
<P>
We cannot, however, underestimate how important it is for the citizens of Europe to be prepared for the change.
When Germany reunited, the West German mark was introduced into the former East Germany immediately with no major catastrophe occurring, such as those the big bang sceptics are currently describing with regard to the introduction of the euro.
In many countries, the euro, with few exceptions, could be adopted within a short period of time.
For example, in my country, Finland, the number of coins and notes in relation to GNP is the smallest in Europe.
In addition, the ever-growing number of credit cards in relation to the population is by far the greatest.
For example, I would support the big bang model for Finland.
The big bang would actually only cause problems for cash dispensing machines.
It will not be possible to change all the machines in one night, so the old currency should continue to be used as legal tender at least for some period of time, in cash dispensers at least.
<P>
Our citizens must have the real feeling that the euro is of benefit to them, and not something that is going to make life difficult.
At present, there is a dearth of direct practical benefits, since, for example, developments in the euro zone as far as cross-border purchases and currency exchange services are concerned have not been to the satisfaction of the public.
The introduction of the euro must be made easy for the public and consumers. Problems for special groups must be minimised.
Everything possible must be done in remote areas to ease the introduction of the euro.
Supplies of the new currency delivered early on would support these aims. What is essential for the public is not how long dual circulation lasts, but how long the banks will exchange former currencies for euros without charge.
The banks should offer a free currency exchange service for at least six months, even though dual circulation might have ceased.
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<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
EMU is not a construction to be ranked with the seven wonders of the world.
Rather, it is in the running for the title of world' s largest folly, for it is designed to give the world' s largest trading block a single currency built upon a foundation which, until the introduction of this currency, it had only been possible to hold in place for a period of five post-war years in Germany.
In every other year, the rate of inflation has been more than 2%.
To make an idol of this rate is not only stupid but also a direct assault upon the many families in which the father or mother is now coming home with a redundancy notice instead of a wage slip.
EMU' s holy cow is worse than the holy cows of India.
The latter do not in the least prevent opportunities from arising to create growth and employment.
<P>
The absurdity becomes apparent when Danish economic policy is compared with that pursued in the eleven euro or EMU countries.
Over the last five years, growth in Denmark has been twice as great: 20% instead of 10%, and the rate of unemployment has been halved.
That should be considered good by any ordinary person' s standards but, in EMU, such a policy would be downright illegal; in fact, more than that, unconstitutional, because it was put in place with a Budget deficit of 3.9%. The policy would have incurred a fine of EUR 500-600 million.
Some people say that the policy can be changed when politicians sit together round the table, but that is somewhat non-sensical because the policy may only be altered by amending the treaty itself, the basic law, the Treaties of Maastricht and Amsterdam.
This is where the errors arise from.
The Central Bank may be criticised for raising interest rates instead of reducing unemployment, but it is only doing what the Treaty says it must do. It is the Treaty which should be altered.
The single currency ought at least to be converted into a common currency allowing countries to have their own rates of exchange for the purposes of pursuing economic policies which benefit employment.
In that way, one economic policy or the other might be pursued.
The countries themselves should be allowed to decide which.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="Solbes">
Mr President, firstly I must congratulate Mrs Torres Marques on her report and thank everyone who has participated in this debate today.
My presence here reflects the importance which the Commission and I myself, as the Commissioner responsible for economic and monetary affairs, continue to place on the whole process of the introduction of the euro.
<P>
As emphasised by several speakers, the introduction of the euro has so far clearly been a great success, despite the debates which we may be having on certain specific points.
It is also clear, again as highlighted throughout this debate, that the moment of truth will be when the coins and notes enter into circulation on 1 January 2002.
<P>
I must comment on the practical problems which are bound to arise, as indicated in the report.
If we had to describe what is to happen, we would not use the terms 'big bang' or 'dual circulation' .
The proposed shortening of the periods is actually intended to ensure a rapid introduction of coins and notes and perhaps this is the new description which we should be using.
Yet this rapid introduction cannot occur overnight.
There can be no big bang, but neither are we talking about a long period of dual circulation.
We are therefore concerned with the minimum time needed so that the introduction is rapid. This is positive.
<P>
This clearly leads to the second problem of frontloading.
This has been debated, as you well know, by both the European Central Bank and ECOFIN.
The latter has already discussed frontloading with coins but frontloading with notes, outside the financial system, poses legal and practical difficulties.
However, these difficulties, particularly where linked to the type of coin or note currently being supplied by cash dispensers, could be solved.
<P>
We are therefore facing some specific problems which have been mentioned.
What will happen in the period at the end of 2001 and the beginning of 2002 when many people will be travelling around Europe?
How will we solve this problem?
This is clearly a specific point which must be carefully considered and for which an answer must be sought.
We cannot ask travellers using their national currency to change this in a place which is not their country of origin as this would cause practical problems of all kinds.
<P>
With regard to the problem of dual price display, I agree with the idea that we should set a date from which the dual display of prices is absolutely compulsory. This is the only way to start making any comparison.
However, we are all aware that only in the last months of 2001 will people really start to make comparisons. In my opinion, the price difference will involve such a substantial change that the references to the old prices will quickly disappear.
We will all have to adapt to the new prices.
<P>
The report raises one particularly important point on the problem of the communication policy and the people who will find it more difficult to adapt to the new situation.
Some speakers have also referred to the need to continue this communication policy with which I totally agree.
The Commission is currently preparing a new plan of action on the communication policy. This plan will, of course, involve this House.
We believe that this operation must be carried out by all the institutions involved in the process, and particularly the European Parliament, as the institution most directly in contact with the people.
We have already discussed this in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs but I will repeat my offer that I am prepared to start examining how to resolve most effectively the communication problems arising between everyone.
We will have to include in this plan the people who will have more difficulty in gaining an adequate understanding of the new currency.
These will be the people who, for one reason or another, will have certain specific problems.
<P>
The electronic money issue will not cause any particular difficulties.
However, one interesting point to be stressed is the problem of payment systems, particularly in retail operations.
The payment system for major transactions has worked very well but we all agree that the problem of the excessive charges currently imposed on money-changing is generating ill feeling. This is because we expected a reduction in the costs of money-changing during this period and these expectations have not been borne out.
<P>
The priority is to set up compensation systems or payment systems allowing us to reduce these costs.
Initiatives have already been taken in this respect which the Commission supports.
However, we have to achieve a system which prevents these costs from being as high as they are at the moment and we must therefore set up common standards allowing us to deal with any difficulties which may arise.
<P>
Thank you for this report.
It is an important element in the whole process of the introduction of the euro and I hope to carry on discussing this issue with you as we have done to date.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place today at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Fisheries
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A5-0067/1999 by Mrs Fraga Estévez, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation on the common organisation of the markets in fishery and aquaculture products (COM(99) 55 - C4-0141/1999 - 1999/0047(CNS)).
<P>
A5-0025/1999 by Mr Gallagher, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation amending for the third time Regulation (EC) No 850/98 of 30 March 1998 for the conservation of fishery resources through technical measures for the protection of juveniles of marine organisms (COM(99) 141 - C4-0224/1999 - 1999/0081(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="Fraga Estévez">
Mr President, the current common organisation of the markets has been showing signs of running out of steam. This is due to its inability to meet the new challenges of a highly globalised and competitive market in fishery products, in a European Union very dependent on imports.
This House has, on many occasions, highlighted this problem and called for substantial changes.
<P>
We are now finally debating the Committee on Fisheries' report on a proposal for a regulation which does not just reform the COM but establishes a completely new system.
This is not just any old debate but one which affects one of the four pillars of the Community fisheries policy. It must therefore be as productive and responsible as the debate we had in the Committee on Fisheries because this report, which I ask you to approve, is the result of a hard-won compromise between the political groups and the various sectorial and national interests.
<P>
As rapporteur, I believe we should acknowledge that the Commission' s initial proposal significantly improved the current COM.
In particular, it reinforced the fundamental role played by the producers' organisations in the marketing of products. It also granted them increased and improved mechanisms for ensuring correct operation and more responsible fishing and marketing.
<P>
However, our committee had to change the text of the proposal on two major aspects.
In both cases this was achieved through the compromises which I have mentioned. The first compromise was reached by including aquaculture products and shellfish gathering for which no marketing aid was provided.
Yet these are both subsectors which, like fishing, must be fully included in a system whose aim is to match supply to demand. They are also developing sectors in which production must be well planned so that crises, such as those which are periodically suffered by salmon producers, can, as far as possible, be avoided from the outset.
<P>
The other aspect which we corrected is even more serious, if this is possible.
As I mentioned at the beginning, this type of regulation should be prepared very carefully, particularly when proposing a change from a quota system to a system of indefinite tariff suspension for imports. Yet the Commission acted not just thoughtlessly but even frivolously and irresponsibly.
<P>
Please understand that the Committee on Fisheries is not opposed to the system of tariff suspension.
However, we must be certain that this system, which actually involves the voluntary removal of tariff duties, will not threaten Community companies which produce and market the same products.
The Commission' s proposal included several products which are produced in the Community on a large scale. This is proven by the study being prepared at the request of the Council because the Commission' s figures lacked justification.
<P>
For example, for one of these products - tuna fillets - this study establishes deficit levels of between 1 500 and 3 000 tonnes.
Without considering any comparative information, the Commission was therefore recklessly prepared to stifle a Community sector which provides thousands of jobs. This would also have blocked its own systems of aid for the development of GSP-Drug and ACP countries just because of an actual import requirement of less than 3 000 tonnes which can be completely covered by the current system of tariff quotas.
Although the compromise reached by our committee on this issue was particularly difficult to achieve, the facts seem to justify this. Following the political agreement achieved in the last Council of Ministers, both tuna fillets and herring now fall outside the tariff suspension system, in addition to another set of corrections affecting other products contained in Annex V.
<P>
I therefore feel that the Commission' s proposal was not well prepared. In fact, it was dangerous and we are pleased with the Council' s correction which matches ours in making the compensation for withdrawals more flexible.
With these two major changes incorporated in committee, together with others such as greater precision in labelling and information to consumers, this House is helping to prevent a text which has its good points from being ineffective due to its lack of realism. I therefore ask you all to approve this report.
<P>
It only remains for me to thank all the Members who helped to achieve this compromise for their hard work and assistance. I ask you again to approve this report.
Thanks should also go to Mr Gallagher for his excellent report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="Gallagher">
Mr President and Commissioner, in introducing this report on the conservation of fishing resources through technical measures for the protection of juveniles of marine organisms, I can be confident that the proposals are based on sound scientific advice.
As my European Parliament colleagues will know, the Fisheries Committee has been a strong supporter of technical conservation measures based on technical and scientific data.
<P>
This is particularly so where efforts are made to cross-reference scientific data with fisheries observations.
Fishermen spend more time at sea than scientists and the sea is their natural environment, which they observe on a daily basis.
They have a better understanding of fish movements and factors affecting fish stocks than people give them credit for, quite simply because it is essential for their livelihood.
The House will recall the positive opinion on the substance of the measures and resolution of 25 October 1996, the Gallagher report, and its opinion of 26 April 1998 on the implementation of technical measures in the common fisheries policy.
On 30 March 1998, the Council of Ministers adopted Regulation 850/98 for the conservation of fishing resources through technical measures for the protection of juveniles.
This regulation replaced 894/97 with the exception of Articles 11, 19 and 20 which related to driftnets and which were dealt with separately.
<P>
After the adoption and publication of this regulation, data brought to the attention of the Commission necessitated its incorporation into this regulation.
The regulation of 13 March 1998 is due to come into effect on 1 January next year.
However, it is imperative that the additional data and developments which have come too late be incorporated in this regulation and ensure that it is part of the regulation coming into force on 1 January.
The present proposal for a Council regulation provides for changes to the area and timing of restrictions designed to protect the spawning of the Douglas Bank herring in the Irish Sea.
In view of the current healthy state of herring stocks, the proposal changes allow for a reduction in both the area and the time period of fishing restrictions.
This will increase fishing opportunities while, at the same time, protecting the stocks and ensure that there is no repeat of the collapse of the stocks which we recall in 1970.
<P>
I am pleased to note that the scientific, technical and economic committee have supported the proposal, having examined the report of the advisory committee of fisheries management during its November 1999 session, in addition to the specific provisions on the use of Danish seine nets in the plaice box.
This merely corrects an oversight in the original text.
The conditions agreed within the international dolphin conservation programme for the use of purse seines which commonly will apply provisionally within the Community incorporate into this regulation a revision of mesh size for two species of spotted dogfish.
Technical conservation measures will play an important role in the conservation of stocks by protecting juvenile fish and will reduce the threat to further yields.
<P>
A clear message must go out from this Parliament, from the Commission and from the Council to the fishing industry that honest endeavours will be respected and those fishermen who abide by technical conservation measures that are devised by accredited European scientists in partnership with fishermen will benefit most.
If amendments are necessary in the light of new developments, no doubt the Commission will come back with further proposals and I am quite certain that the Committee and Parliament will respond expeditiously.
<P>
I want to thank my colleagues, the officials in committee and the officials in the Commission for their assistance in drawing up this report and I want to congratulate Mrs Fraga Estévez on the presentation of her very comprehensive report.
But I must say that I am disappointed here today that the Council have already decided and that we are debating a report when a decision has been taken.
<P>
I must pose the question: are we ordering our business in a correct fashion?
Commissioner Fischler told us we had no co-responsibility, but that our views would be taken into consideration.
How can our views be taken into consideration when we are debating a report which has already been decided on by Council?
I would sincerely hope the Council and the Commission have taken note of our views.
<P>
They were obviously monitoring the progress of this report through the committee, and I am pleased that they have rejected a proposal to allow unlimited quantities of herring into the Union, quantities of fresh, chilled and frozen herring at preferable rates of duty.
Now it has been restricted from 2001 to 20 000 tonnes.
It is still too much in view of the fact that the prices of herring in the Community at the moment are at an all-time low. This is because of the overloading of the EU market with low-price fish and frozen herring from Norway and the setting up by German companies of low-cost production units in Poland for processing duty-free Norwegian fish for export to Germany.
We must remember, we have a duty and a responsibility to the Community fishermen and we must ensure that their rights are protected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langenhagen">
Madam President, Mr Gallagher, I am only too pleased to second what you have just had to say about the modus operandi.
Something has to change there.
But first I have something to tell you on a more cheery note.
Yesterday, following the trialogue between the Council, the Commission and Parliament, I was reassured in the Committee on Budgets that the financing for the important fisheries agreement with Morocco was secured at second reading.
We have taken a significant step forward and a sound foundation has been laid for the forthcoming negotiations.
<P>
It was possible to discern the beginnings of a change of direction in the debate in the Committee on Fisheries on the report by Carmen Fraga, and this change will take hold in the new year.
The joint struggle has forged bonds between us within the Committee, both on general and more specific issues.
It was, and continues to be, about supplying the European market with fish and about targeted production for export so as to preserve direct and indirect jobs at sea and on land.
We are a Community based on solidarity and it should stay that way.
<P>
Now there is a new Parliament and a new Commission with many new personalities and new emphases.
The market situation in general, not just in relation to the WTO negotiations, and the different understanding new personalities have of traditional practices, also bring about changes in the issues dealt with in committee, both in respect of content and the weight they are given.
In future, therefore, we must also examine other viewpoints more closely.
The rapporteur has presented a very well thought-out report. It received a majority vote.
However, the outcome failed to satisfy several Members, which means that discussions in committee will now become livelier. The Committee on Budgets has long been asking for this.
At the same time, no one wants to give up the solidarity we have with an endangered but important economic and policy arm of the EU.
<P>
Solidarity cannot, by definition, be called for from one side alone, though.
The unanswered questions on the GMO report are as follows: how many subsidies and customs tariffs does the fisherman need and to what extent can the industry sustain a liberalised, global trading zone?
To what extent is free competition compatible with fair competition? Grants give way to helping people to help themselves.
But the net must not be closed in so tightly that those concerned no longer have to make any effort at all to maintain their independent position on the market of supply and demand.
Where do we draw the line between private enterprise and planned economy measures?
Questions upon questions.
What is more, the EU budget is tight.
<P>
Why is it necessary for financial support to be extended to aquaculture as well?
It is a new market segment in the breeding sector which, in view of efficient management, is able to guarantee greater stability of planning and supply than the fishing industry is capable of.
Ought it not to be the fishing industry and its market prospects that attract an increased level of financial support?
It is understandable that the Member States do not say no to receiving EU subsidies for this sector.
As I see it, the upshot is as follows: the Commission's proposal was amended to a considerable extent.
Votes against and abstentions must therefore be respected for the reasons cited earlier.
The discussion on the common organisation of the markets does not end there.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Miguélez Ramos">
Madam President, I too congratulate Mr Gallagher on his excellent work.
We have spent two years extensively discussing the Community fisheries market. It is now finally the turn of the whole House to adopt a stance through this report which was approved by a large majority in the Committee on Fisheries.
<P>
Our market has a deficit of fishery products.
Some 60% of the fishery products consumed in Europe are imported.
The Community fisheries sector is extraordinarily active and competitive and plays an important role in maintaining economic and social cohesion in Europe.
Our duty is therefore to ensure and guarantee its future.
The European market is not a closed market.
It is open in that products from GSP countries enter free of tariffs or at low tariffs.
We make strict demands on our fishermen in terms of gear, conservation and handling of catches which are not compulsory for foreign fleets.
For us as Socialists, the Community preference is therefore our commitment to the Community fisheries sector, to our people, fishermen, fishing industry workers and shipowners who hope to be able to continue their activities and keep their jobs.
<P>
We should not therefore, as proposed by the Commission, replace the current and flexible tariff quota system with the total or partial suspension of tariff duties.
We oppose this removal of tariffs because we believe that we do not need to protect, as Mrs Langenhagen said, but at least defend a competitive and modern sector which is still not prepared for total liberalisation. The same is true of many other sectors.
<P>
Many questions continue to concern us.
These include the cut in financing which excludes important growth sectors such as aquaculture, the lack of definition of the information to be received by the consumer, as specifically mentioned by Mrs Fraga Estévez, with regard to the distribution of areas proposed by the Commission, and the lack of other relevant data such as minimum sizes.
<P>
As Socialists, our priorities include consumer protection. The defence of quality is one way of protecting these rights.
We therefore want to encourage measures which emphasise quality fishery products and, at the same time, we ask for sustainable management of resources to ensure the future of fishing.
Fishing must be allowed, but in accordance with the requirements of the market and the respectful management of the product.
<P>
To sum up, we Socialists want to defend European producers, consumers and importers and we believe that with the report approved by the Committee on Fisheries, with the excellent work carried out by Mrs Fraga Estévez - who I congratulate - and with the agreement reached by the Council of Ministers, we can, in the main, be satisfied.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="Attwooll">
Mr President, our group very much welcomes the proposal on the common organisation of the market in fisheries, because it will improve information to consumers.
It will strengthen producer organisations giving them incentives to better resource management and it will introduce greater stability into the supply of fish for processing.
<P>
We also consider that there are many respects in which the report introduces major improvements to the original proposal, and we congratulate Mrs Fraga accordingly.
There are, however, some areas in which we continue to have doubts.
First, there are various articles, notably 11(2), where we believe that the original Commission proposals provide greater security against over-fishing than do the amendments in the report.
<P>
Second, we take the view that guide prices should be fixed by reference to national ports rather than to representative ports simply because the latter idea is too lacking in specification.
<P>
Third, a number of us consider that the additional costs involved do not warrant extension of some of the measures to aquaculture, though I would add this is not my own view.
Aquaculture is of such major importance to Scotland where many fragile local economies depend upon it.
<P>
Finally, we have very mixed feelings about Article 28 and the amendment to it.
On the one hand, we fear that the amendment might delay implementation, and we also have certain concerns about its precise content.
On the other hand, we accept that there should be a rational basis for tariff suspension rather than it resulting simply from a shopping list provided by Member States.
We look to the Commission to provide such a rational basis.
<P>
All in all, we believe that the measures being undertaken fit well with the projected regionalisation of the common fisheries policy to which we are firmly committed, and we hope that proposals to this end will be put before Parliament soon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Piétrasanta">
Madam President, I am delighted to be making my maiden speech today in this House, as I am a new Member of Parliament, and I am happy to do so with regard to fisheries and the excellent report by Mrs Fraga Estévez, because I am the mayor of Mèze, in the French department of Hérault, in the south of France, which is a small town, one of the main Mediterranean coastal fishing ports, near Sète, which is the principal fishing port.
<P>
I should tell you that since yesterday and again today, all the fishing ports along the Mediterranean coast have been on strike because the fishermen are protesting against the price of diesel oil and the collapse in the prices of bluefish, tuna, sardines and also eels that are not sold any more.
A real market problem exists and it is the whole of this profession that is being ruined.
And they are protesting against the European directives that they find too restrictive.
In the context of discussions like these, we need to show our support for the fishing trade.
<P>
I will raise three points with regard to Mrs Fraga Estévez' s excellent report: firstly, traceability.
The Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance is in favour of detailed labelling on the products, from first sale to the last, so that people know where the product has been caught, how and also whether it is a product of fishing or aquaculture.
We wish to go even further than the proposals made by the Commission.
<P>
Secondly, on the questions relating to withdrawal and destruction, a reference price, a guide price, is fixed and subsidies are granted when the fishery products are not sold.
Subsidies are also granted to conserve and store products.
Our group is in favour of this when it is a matter of conserving products and not wasting them, but if it is a matter of increasing the amount of fishing undertaken only to then destroy the fish, we are not in favour.
We believe that the producers' organisations should be made aware so that the fisheries plan is well established throughout the year and so that intensive fishing is not favoured only to subsequently destroy the fish.
It is very important and perhaps requires an increase in the reference price and, in the end, a whole procedure, but we should like the resource to be well managed.
<P>
Finally, I will conclude by saying that as far as the customs duties are concerned, we are not in favour of these duties being systematically abolished.
An impact study should be undertaken, as Mrs Fraga Estévez proposes, and objective criteria should be established before deciding which customs duties will be abolished.
<P>
Our group supports Mrs Fraga Estévez' s report and Mr Gallagher' s report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="Jové Peres">
Madam President, the common organisation of the markets in fishery and aquaculture products is one of the most important elements of the common fisheries policy.
I hope, even with the commitments made by the Council, that the latter takes due regard of the results of the debate and the Fraga Estévez report in particular.
<P>
With regard to the contents of the report, I must congratulate Mrs Fraga Estévez.
As usual, she has worked very hard and I particularly want to acknowledge the effort made to achieve compromises.
As is to be expected, compromises do not satisfy everyone and this case is no exception.
I am unhappy with one aspect of the report in that it proposes an extension of the limits set by the Commission for fishery withdrawals.
Faced with increasingly scarce fish stocks, it seems absurd to fish to destruction and immoral to waste quality protein.
This reflects one of the shortcomings of the Commission' s proposal which should have supplemented the COM framework with a mechanism to maintain the income of fishery workers. This would allow the effect of price falls to be limited and would therefore make recourse to the withdrawal and destruction of fishery products unnecessary.
<P>
The Commission' s proposal lacks maturity and is dominated by inertia.
There is inertia towards budget restrictions and in the regulation of foreign trade.
This opportunity could have been used to establish a clear and transparent system of foreign trade regulation.
For these reasons, I feel that the Fraga Estévez report is much more useful and my group therefore totally supports not only its efforts but, despite the reticence indicated in my speech, the compromise as a whole.
<P>
Finally, we will also support the report by Mr Gallagher who I also congratulate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Musumeci">
Madam President, the new proposal for a regulation on the common organisation of the markets in the fisheries and aquaculture sector puts forward new and interesting aspects that need to be thoroughly considered, which I cannot, unfortunately, discuss in this forum.
Being the representative of the largest island in the Mediterranean - Sicily - and head of the province of Catania, where large numbers of people work in the fishing industry, I would have been in a good position to talk about day-to-day experiences.
<P>
Today though, I would like to make some constructive criticisms, which I hope can contribute to improving the proposal for a regulation in question.
As far as consumer information is concerned, I fully agree with the Commission when it proposes compulsory labelling indicating the designation of the species, the production method as well as the catch area.
Nevertheless, with the aim of making consumers more responsible and making the market more transparent, other details should be included, for example, the minimum legal size, which would allow fishery resources to be respected.
As far as producers' organisations are concerned, it is true that we need to make them more responsible, as regards both the organisation of the market and the efficient management of resources; however, it would be appropriate - and in this respect I stress the relevance of Amendment No 67, tabled by my political group - for the Member States to be able to grant additional aid to producers' organisations that develop measures which valorise the species caught and measures to adapt supply to demand through structural actions of the FIFG.
In view of the fact that - and it has been reaffirmed here this morning - according to data provided by the Commission, 60% of fishery products consumed in the European Union are imported, we should support aquaculture, which constitutes a major economic opportunity for maritime communities, in a substantial and comprehensive manner.
Often, people do not enter this sector due to a lack of knowledge.
<P>
Finally, I would like to conclude by thanking Mrs Fraga Estévez for upholding the amendments tabled by the UEN Group in the Committee on Fisheries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="Varela Suanzes-Carpegna">
Madam President, Commissioner, I firstly want to congratulate both rapporteurs of the Committee on Fisheries for their reports which are before us today.
The Gallagher report concerns a technical amendment to the ever sensitive protection of juveniles which we always support in our committee.
<P>
I must highlight the consideration and receptiveness of our rapporteur with regard to the request to the Commission for further information. The delay in this vote on his report was caused by the Commission not having dealt with his request for the most recent scientific reports to assess the coverage of the geographical area delimited in the Douglas Bank Box and the redefinition of the conditions and their scope.
As Mrs Fraga Estévez had also asked for this information, I hope that this has allowed us to completely fulfil the role, reserved specifically for our Committee on Fisheries, of minutely scrutinising the activity of the European Commission and the application of the corresponding scientific reports by the Community institutions.
<P>

With regard to the Fraga Estévez report, this concerns a fundamental issue and a pillar of the common fisheries policy, namely the common organisation of the markets. As this clearly covers all fishing activity, this is why this magnificent report has taken some time in its progress through this House and its final adoption in our committee on the twenty-second of last month.
<P>
The final result is an excellent report. Many of its important sections were the subject of a consensus due to compromise amendments made by the rapporteur which substantially alter key aspects of the Commission' s proposal.
The removal of Article 5, which was the Commission' s attempt to create new tariff suspensions on products as sensitive as tuna fillets, the request to create reference laboratories, the inclusion of aquaculture, the improvement of the regulation of consumer information on the labels of fishery products, the percentages of the compensatory allowances for tuna and the increased flexibility of withdrawals are, to mention just a few examples, very important improvements introduced in this report. I must therefore congratulate the rapporteur once again.
We must also congratulate ourselves on the development and achievement of this report which lends prestige to the role of the Committee on Fisheries as well as this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kindermann">
Madam President, it is as the Commission says in its explanatory statement.
This proposal on the common organisation of the markets in fisheries and aquaculture products is of central importance for the common fisheries policy in the European Union.
If we take a look at the general aims in the explanatory statement of the proposal, then we will see that we can give these our full and unequivocal support. Responsible stock management, improving the competitiveness of the sector, liberalisation of the market etc.
I am completely in favour of all these statements.
What does give cause for concern though is the question as to which methods the Commission, and in particular the rapporteur, intend to employ in their efforts to maintain these principles.
I would like to comment just on three points.
<P>
Firstly, I consider that, in future, one issue to be addressed will be that of establishing extensive, direct grants for the fisheries sector, as previous regulations failed to do.
Now, of course, no one has anything against grants.
But still the question must be asked as to whether this approach will, in the long term, achieve the goal of boosting the competitiveness of the sector.
Even when a deadline is proposed, this always has certain consequences and so we should not rule out maintaining this state of affairs indefinitely.
In my view, we could look to the structural funds policy for a more suitable option.
<P>
Secondly, I wholeheartedly endorse the efforts being made to adapt the regime governing trade with third countries.
The only question in this respect is whether they actually go far enough.
After all, the fact of the matter is that we in the EU are highly dependent on imports.
To a certain extent, the fish processing industry is dependent on tariff reduction and suspension arrangements for its survival.
<P>
Thirdly, I am unable to support the rapporteur in her desire to include aquaculture products in the intervention regime.
<P>
Notwithstanding all the efforts made on the part of the rapporteur, who has, as always, produced a thorough piece of work in order to improve the Commission' s proposal - and I have a great deal of respect for that - I am only able to lend my support to some of her conclusions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Nogueira Román">
Madam President, as the rapporteur, Carmen Fraga Estévez, has said, the introduction of the proposal for a new Council regulation establishing the common organisation of the markets in fishery and aquaculture products is taking place at a time when the European Union countries together constitute one of the largest markets for fishery products in the world.
As there is a shortfall in our internal supply, we import 60% of the products we consume.
<P>
In this context, the regulation of the supply and demand for fishery products must respond to a dual consideration: it must meet consumers' needs and safeguard the development of the fisheries sector itself.
As we all know, the fisheries sector, which is concentrated in certain countries such as mine, is one of the major contributors to economic activity.
<P>
The report by Mrs Fraga Estévez responds adequately to this dual consideration and deserves the support of this House.
In any event, it will certainly have ours.
The regulation would doubtless improve if her thoughts and criticisms concerning the limited budget allocated to the regulation and the exclusion from the common organisation of the markets of almost all of our aquaculture, amongst other things, were taken into account. It will also improve if her partial criticism of the standards relating to consumer information and to its defence of tariff suspensions when there is Community production, is heeded.
<P>
We also ask for your support for the report by Mr Pat Gallagher.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Figueiredo">
Madam President, the Commission' s proposal for a new COM for fishery and aquaculture products does not meet the needs and specific requirements of the sector in the various Member States. Nor does it take account of the potential that still exists, which is all the more incomprehensible, as the Commission itself admits that the European Union imports 60% of its consumption of fishery products.
<P>
There is, of course, an obvious lack of ambition which is quite visible in the proposed budgetary reduction that has been proposed: with less than EUR 20 million per year, we cannot expect the fisheries sector in the European Union to be able to develop.
Furthermore, this COM does not guarantee fishermen' s incomes, nor does it take into account the fact that in some countries such as Portugal, where small-scale coastal fishing, which supplies consumers with fresh fish caught in their own waters, predominates, producers' organisations are very weak, which means that they cannot be given such heavy responsibilities without considering the necessary financial resources.
<P>
Finally, as the report by Mrs Fraga Estévez states, it is not acceptable to change the system that has been laid down for exchanges with third countries because of the implications that this may have for European production.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="McCartin">
Madam President, I want to thank Mr Gallagher for his report and to say that I agree completely with him when he makes the point that we have to accept the scientific information that is provided to us, and that it is on the basis of scientific information rather than political expediency that we must make decisions relating to conservation.
We should remember that we have evidence to suggest that if conservation measures are properly carried out and control is exercised we can increase the take for European fishermen by something like EUR 5,000 million worth of product a year.
At least that would go some distance to compensate fishermen for the loss and fishing areas for the loss of jobs they have experienced.
<P>
I want to thank Carmen Fraga for her report: a very comprehensive statement and advice to the Commission and Council on the whole business of marketing.
One of the extraordinary things about fish is that while fisherman have been finding it difficult and jobs have been reduced, the price of fish, almost alone as a food product, has been increasing continually over the years to the consumer in Europe.
At the same time, margins have been squeezed for fishermen.
So, we have to recognise that in the whole area of marketing and processing, there is an important job to be done.
I do not think that the annual allocation is sufficient to undertake that task.
<P>
Fishing is very different from other occupations.
Nobody produces fish.
The fish are there.
They are a public resource.
Why should we over-fish and at the same time contribute to withdrawals from the market?
Why should we over-fish and, at the same time, import a product which creates a price that is unacceptable?
The herring sector referred to by Mr Gallagher is worthy of special consideration at the moment.
Herring is being sold at 20% lower prices than last year.
It is about or less than 20% of the price that we consider the minimum price for beef in the European Union; a high-value product, immensely valuable for health and normal maintenance of human life.
Why should such a product be taken out of the seas and then given away?
It is a mistake for the Commission to propose that they should readjust the regulation to further exacerbate that particular problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Poignant">
Madam President, we voted in committee on the reform of the common organisation of the market in fishery and aquaculture products.
It is a sensitive subject, but this report was especially necessary.
The text on which we voted is a good text and we arrived at a good compromise.
I believe that it is a compromise of the kind that the European Union is capable of achieving when it is able to both transcend national interests and defend the common interests.
<P>
We know that the fisheries policy is one of the great European policies, even if it concerns very few Europeans, at least as producers, though many more obviously as consumers.
Since it was established in 1970, the Community fisheries market has changed a great deal.
Its regulation has adapted to this and this report must be defined as an additional stage in building a balanced organisation between the protection and the management of fishing resources.
Today, the report submitted to us strengthens the place of the consumer and the producers' organisations in the organisation of the market.
<P>
Let us not forget, however, that this reform will have consequences for the fisheries sector.
I shall refer to two of them briefly.
Where will our auctions fit into all this, in view of the pre-sale contracts included under Article 12?
This development should not involve a kind of 'shift' of our territories.
Secondly, what will happen in the event of an economic crisis in the fisheries sector, if no provisions for exceptional circumstances are adopted?
It would be better to make provision for all possible scenarios.
<P>
This report does not deal with the questions of the future, or at least with some of them, but I believe that our committee has done a good job and your report, Mrs Fraga Estévez, deserves considerable support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="Hudghton">
I welcome and fully support Mr Gallagher's report: another good job done by that rapporteur.
In general terms, I welcome the thrust of Mrs Fraga's paper which should help to encourage market stability.
<P>
This use of forward-looking methods of adaptation of supply and demand by producer organisations should be of great assistance to the overall competitiveness and efficiency of the fishery sector as a whole.
The recognition of the importance of the processing sector is also welcome.
This is a sector which generates very significant employment and income, very often within otherwise fragile communities.
<P>
Stressing the importance of basing decisions on scientific and technical data and studies is fundamental, not just concerning the COM in fisheries, but also in general fisheries management.
Moreover, the fact that the proposal will bring improved transparency and knowledge of the market and products, especially for the consumer, is a positive move.
<P>
I also support the committee's amendments which seek to include aquaculture within the support mechanism.
The recent and on-going crises in the Scottish salmon industry as a result of the infectious salmon anaemia virus demonstrates more than amply that the aquaculture sector can also be volatile and unpredictable.
Therefore, careful planning and support is vital.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="Ford">
Madame President, can I congratulate the two rapporteurs, Mr Gallagher on the protection of juveniles of marine organisms, and Mrs Fraga on the common organisation of the markets in fishery and acquacultural products.
Both reports are generally worthy of support, and with Mr Gallagher' s report I have no fundamental problems.
<P>
On Mrs Fraga' s report, although I welcome the general thrust of the report, there are a couple of problems.
We welcome the common organisation of the markets and strengthening of the producer organisations, but I have problems firstly where there is a danger that costs are being pushed up unnecessarily and while we recognise that the level of intervention age needs increasing, maybe not in the way it is actually put here.
<P>
With regard to tariff suspensions, we believe the criteria are rather over-strict, and we would like a more liberal system.
We want to ensure that we can benefit the processing industry without affecting producers.
With respect to herring, we agree that the tariff suspension should be turned into an annual quota, and we accept the recommendations for cod, Alaska pollack and shrimp.
<P>
In terms of the amendments, we will certainly be opposing Amendment No 47 and I have to express some reservations on Amendments Nos 35 and 41, which we may be unable to support.

<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Reding">
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 11 a.m.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 10.55 a.m. while awaiting voting time and resumed at 11.05 a.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Vote
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 2596/97 extending the period provided for in Article 149(1) of the Act of Accession of Austria, Finland and Sweden (COM(1999) 412 - C5-0172/1999 - 1999/0179(CNS))">
<P>
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)
<P>
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0085/1999) drawn up on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Decision amending Decision No 210/97/EC adopting an action programme for customs in the Community (Customs 2000) and repealing Council Decision 91/341/EEC (9601/1/1999 - C5-0183/1999 -1998/0314(COD))
<P>
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
<P>
Report (A5-0074/1999) by Mr Pronk, on behalf of Parliament' s Delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text, approved by the Conciliation Committee, for a European Parliament and Council directive on minimum requirements for improving the safety and health protection of workers potentially at risk from explosive atmospheres (Fifteenth individual Directive within the meaning of Article 16(1) of Directive 89/391/EEC (C5-0221/1999 - 1995/0235(COD))
<P>
(Parliament approved the joint text)
<P>
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0064/1999) by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council decision establishing a scheme to monitor the average specific emissions of CO2 from new passenger cars (5621/2/1999rev2 - C5-0041/1999 - 1998/0202(COD)) (rapporteur: Ms González Álvarez)
<P>
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
<P>
Report (A5-0071/1999) by Mr Morillon, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation regarding the implementation of measures to promote economic and social development in Turkey (COM(1998) 600 - C4-0670/1998 - 1998/0300(COD))
<P>
Marset Campos (GUE/NGL).
(ES) Mr President, while welcoming this regulation, our group has a proposal to make regarding these two reports by Mr Morillon which are about to be put to the vote. This proposal arises from the importance which the Helsinki Summit will assume with regard to the consideration of Turkey as a candidate country.
While issues like the death penalty, in particular that imposed on the Kurdish leader, Mr Öçalan, are still pending, I would request the referral back to committee of both reports so that the Turkish Government can give a positive signal to the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Morillon">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as you can imagine, I followed the debates yesterday very attentively and the unanimous praise of the content and form of this report slightly worried me, as it is impossible, whatever the qualities of any compromise, to please everyone.
<P>
Today, as a last resort, it has been proposed that we reject the implementation of these two texts for two reasons that were put forward yesterday in the debates.
The first is that the European Union has not been recompensed for its efforts and that we certainly cannot hope for anything from the Turkish Government on account of the fact that since the implementation of the Customs Union agreements, no real progress has been made, according to some of our colleagues.
<P>
I will say to this House that in this agreement on Customs Union, it is the European Union that has been, by a long chalk, the beneficiary of the commitments entered into, since the balance of trade between the European Union and Turkey has doubled in favour of the European Union since the implementation of these agreements.
<P>
The second reason is the confirmation of the fact that Mr Öçalan has been condemned to death by the Turkish Supreme Court of Appeal and the fact that some of our colleagues now fear for Mr Öçalan' s life.
I would comment that there has been a de facto moratorium on the death penalty in Turkey for fifteen years and that the aim of the report we are voting on is precisely to urge the Turkish Government to change this de facto moratorium into a de jure moratorium and that, in any case, I wonder what our colleagues' reaction would be if, in their own country of origin, there was, as they desire, interference by the political power in the judiciary, since Mr Öçalan' s case is currently before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
<P>
So, for all these reasons, I would say that if you want to hang your dog you give him a bad name first, and I would therefore ask the House not to take account of this request for a referral.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Frahm">
Mr President, I should like to advocate that we defer the decision concerning this proposal.
Unlike the rapporteur, I do not think that this agreement should depend upon whether or not we ourselves stand to gain from such an agreement but upon whether human rights and democracy in Turkey will benefit from it.
That must be the crucial point for us.
Since we began to discuss these matters, the Turkish Parliament has confirmed its death sentence on Mr Öçalan.
We oppose the death penalty on principle.
We think that abolishing the death penalty is fundamental to safeguarding human rights.
I would therefore recommend that we defer the discussion of this point until such time as the Turkish Parliament has shown that it is willing to respect basic human rights in Turkey.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, in the past, this House has spoken out quite frequently and in no uncertain terms against the death penalty, be it in relation to Mr Öçalan or other individuals.
The death penalty should be abolished, and that goes for Turkey too!
This House has expressed its support for more human rights, for respect for the rights of minority groups, for improved relations between Turkey and Greece and for a resolution of the Cyprus question.
None of that is on the agenda today.
There is a predominant and overwhelming majority in this House.
Two specific reports are on the agenda today concerning the promises and pledges we have made to Turkey and, in particular, concerning the fact that those who incline towards the West, those of European outlook in Turkey, are gaining in strength.
I am therefore in favour of these reports being dealt with.
However, this has no bearing on the heavy criticism we will continue to levy at Turkey and its human rights record!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Queiró">
This is a point of order, specifically to protest at the President for not giving me the floor when I requested it, when I was the only Member to announce yesterday that they would be proposing this request for referral.
I would now like to express my satisfaction with it because it is obvious that the European Parliament must give a very clear signal that it will defend the values in which it believes, particularly to a country which is not just any country, but one that has embarked on the process of accession to the European Union.
<P>
(Parliament rejected the request for referral back to committee)
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
Report (A5-0065/1999) by Ms Breyer, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive relating to limit values for benzene and carbon monoxide in ambient air (COM(1998) 591 - C4-0135/1999 - 1998/0333(COD))
<P>
(Parliament approved the legislative resolution)
<P>
Report (A5-0070/1999) by Mr Morillon, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council regulation regarding the implementation of measures to intensify the EC-Turkey Customs Union (COM(98) 600 - C4-0669/98 - 1998/0299(CNS))
<P>
(Parliament approved the legislative resolution)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="President">
It is my great pleasure to welcome to the official gallery, the delegation from the Moroccan Parliament led by the President of the Council of the Moroccan Parliament, Mr Jalal Essaïd.
<P>
(Loud applause)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Vote (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cauquil">
- (FR) Despite its very limited nature and the fact that it is clearly inadequate with regard to the problem, we shall vote in favour of the directive on "minimum requirements for improving the safety and health protection of workers potentially at risk from explosive atmospheres" , inasmuch as it could represent progress in countries where workers are least protected.
<P>
However, in view of the fact that there is no provision either for real control - that is to say, carried out by the at risk workers themselves and more widely, by the population - or a sanction against employers guilty of negligence, the directive is likely to go unheeded.
The resolution, however, while claiming to place the safety and health of workers above considerations of a purely economic nature in Article 3, contradicts itself in Article 2 by refusing to impose constraints that would thwart the creation and development of small and medium-sized undertakings.
It will therefore remain up to the workers themselves to impose this minimum protection to which they should be entitled and which the directive does not even pretend to impose.
<P>
Morillon report (A5-0070/1999 and A5-0071/1999)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Boudjenah">
- (FR) Turkey' s application for membership of the European Union will probably be on the agenda of the next European Council meeting in Helsinki.
There is a strong movement developing, particularly in France, for Turkey to be recognised as having candidate country status on an equal footing with the other applicant countries for enlargement.
I should like to draw your attention to the risk of finding ourselves in the same situation as with the Customs Union.
According to those promoting it, the Customs Union between the European Union and Turkey should favour democratic reforms, human rights and the rights of minorities.
Against the opinion of our Group and many human rights associations such as "France Liberté" , which is chaired by Danielle Mitterrand, the Customs Union has been ratified and implemented.
Today we are discussing dealing with it in greater depth.
<P>
We have no choice but to note that human rights violations have continued.
The problem of the Kurds has still not been resolved.
The fact that Öçalan has been condemned to death has been confirmed.
Leyla Zana is still in prison.
The European Commission itself has been obliged to acknowledge that since the implementation of Customs Union, no significant progress has been made in Turkey in the field of human rights and democratic reform.
<P>
Let us learn from the experience of the Customs Union.
Encouraging Turkey' s "attachment to Europe" , as Jacques Chirac put it in Istanbul on 18 November, by recognising Turkey as a candidate country will be taken by the Turkish authorities as encouragement to continue the same policy.
<P>
I do not propose to rule out Turkey' s application to join the European Union for good, but we must first require of Turkey firm and definitive commitments and check that they are observed: the recognition of the rights of the Kurdish people, the abolition of the death penalty and a new judgement for Öçalan, the release of Leyla Zana and of all political prisoners and the application of United Nations resolutions to resolve the Cyprus problem.
<P>
The report by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy takes care to refer to the matter of human rights, but, after having amended the Commission proposal, it comes out in favour of continuing and increasing the Customs Union with Turkey.
I cannot approve this step because it is time to send a clear signal to Turkey by blocking or suspending the implementation of the Customs Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cauquil">
- (FR) We shall not vote in favour of the resolution by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy as, despite the convoluted wording, the claimed concerns about human rights ill conceal purely mercenary interests.
Moreover, the rapporteur himself emphasises the fact that the balance of trade is increasingly in favour of the European Union.
<P>
The reason for our refusal to vote in favour of the resolution is to protest both against the conditions that the workers of this country have to endure, against the oppression of the Kurdish people and against the failure of the Turkish State to respect basic freedoms.
<P>
Having said that, it is not only in Turkey that the rights of workers and basic freedoms are trampled underfoot.
In no way do we consider membership of the European Union as an honour that a State should deserve, or indeed a guarantee of democracy.
<P>
Also, if the incorporation of Turkey into the European Union meets the requirements of the large industrial and commercial groups, which are European primarily and Turkish only as a secondary consideration, it will in no way improve the fate of the working classes in this country, any more than the European Union has protected workers in the countries already integrated from unemployment and the deterioration of their living conditions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Krivine">
- (FR) This discussion is the opportunity for us to express our solidarity with the Turkish and Kurdish workers and people.
<P>
It is up to them to decide whether or not they join the European Union and if they decide to do so, it is not up to us to oppose their membership.
However, that will not stop us continuing to condemn the repression of this regime, which was inherited from the military dictatorship in 1980 and which today threatens to execute Öçalan and refuses to allow the Kurdish people self-determination.
<P>
Before they start preaching about democracy, European governments should set an example and begin by granting voting rights to three million Turkish and Kurdish immigrant workers who live in EU countries.
This is the same EU, which exploits Turkey via the Customs Union without financial compensation.
The aid must benefit the destitute populations in Turkey.
In order to achieve this, the priority must not be economic or customs relations, but relations between the ordinary people and organisations in Turkey and those of other European countries.
<P>
It is for these reasons that I shall abstain on the report on economic and social development and I shall vote against the report on EC/Turkey Customs Union.
<P>
Breyer report (A5-0065/1999)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Rovsing">
.
(DA) Air pollution as a result of discharges of dangerous materials into the atmosphere is a cross-frontier environmental problem which has a drastic effect upon public health.
It is therefore gratifying that the Commission has taken the initiative to prepare a draft directive concerning limit values for benzene and carbon monoxide.
It is, however, tremendously important that the proposal also deals with the requirement to provide the public with information about air quality, published on the basis of a very careful monitoring of benzene and carbon monoxide levels.
<P>
I also welcome the fact that, in its report, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has tightened up its demand for absolutely comprehensible and easily accessible data so that the public is kept informed at all times about air quality and any pollution problems stemming from dangerous emissions.
<P>
Sjöstedt report (A5-0044/1999)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="Kauppi">
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="MacCormick">
I abstained on this resolution, and I have two points of particular reservation.
The issue of the Euro-bond market is of general concern to all people in Europe; it is not just a London issue.
It is certainly one with which we have concerns in Scotland and I was disappointed in the way that vote turned out.
<P>
Last night, in the debate, I referred to remarks made yesterday by the Secretary-General of NATO.
I would like again to draw attention to the fact that he deliberately engaged in party-political debate within the United Kingdom, particularly in relation to Scotland.
In doing that, he appears to me to have misrepresented both the position of Ireland as confirmed by Minister Andrews in this morning' s Irish Times and the position of my own party in this argument in the United Kingdom.
Senior civil servants of international bodies ought not to engage in that kind of party-political dialogue.
On that account, I was very disappointed with the remarks about NATO here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak and Lund">
- (DA) The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of the joint motion for a resolution concerning the preparations for the European Council meeting in Helsinki on 10-11 December 1999, because we are generally in agreement with the motion' s recommendations concerning the important themes relating to employment, the environment, enlargement of the European Union etc. which are on the agenda.
<P>
This explanation of vote does not, however, alter the attitude we expressed earlier regarding the European Parliament' s discussion of the report from Messrs Dimitrakopoulos and Leinen concerning the preparations for the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference.
We remain of the view that Heads of State and Government should first and foremost be setting a realistic agenda which will make it possible to conclude the Intergovernmental Conference before the end of the year 2000 in such a way that the Treaties do not present obstacles to the forthcoming enlargement of the EU.
We are also still of the view that the EU should not be expanded into a proper defence alliance. This ought to remain NATO' s role.
The EU should, on the other hand, play an expanded role in connection with humanitarian tasks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
- (DE) The non-attached Members will endorse the joint resolution in the final vote but would like, at the same time, to point out that the position on the question of reforming the Treaties and on the preparation and holding of the Intergovernmental Conference, which your voting behaviour in respect of the Dimitrakopoulos/Leinen report gave expression to, remains unaltered.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
- (SV) I have voted against the resolution, mainly because the European Parliament is again offering its support to a militarisation of the EU.
<P>
I had wanted to vote in favour of the original text of the resolution from the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance but, unfortunately, that was not possible.
The text reads in terms of emphasising that further development of the CFSP ought primarily to be based upon the principle that conflicts and crises must be prevented and handled by peaceful and civil means, that there should only be recourse to military means as a last resort and that this ought to be adequately supported by a UN or OSCE mandate and not lead to increased defence expenditure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
- (SV) I cannot support the resolution because I do not support the demands for common defence or for a common tax policy.
<P>
Torres Marques report (A5-0076/1999)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, the report by the European Parliament on the length of the transitional period for the introduction of the euro is an opportunity for us to recall some disturbing truths.
<P>
Firstly, although there has been a great campaign to promote the euro, particularly at the time when it was launched, although it is now legally in force and it has even experienced some nerve-racking misfortunes on the international markets, people seem to have completely forgotten that it exists.
They continue, in great numbers, to use the national currencies to which they are accustomed and they only use euros very rarely. What is worse, it seems that they are becoming less prepared to use them in the future.
<P>
The opinion polls, at least in France, show that the percentage of people who envisage opening an account in euros in the near future has been falling regularly since 1 January 1999 and today only constitutes a small minority.
That really is the last straw, because the closer we get to 31 December 2001, the more this percentage should, on the contrary, be increasing.
<P>
Everything seems to show that our fellow citizens do not see any point at all in actually changing to the euro in their daily lives.
However, the European Parliament wishes to disabuse them of this and once again recommends an information campaign which, according to the resolution, should cover both the practical aspects and the basic significance of monetary union.
Well, there we are: once again, reminding those people who think that it serves no purpose how useful the euro actually is.
<P>
For my part I am going to ask a controversial question: what if, by chance, our fellow citizens were right?
And what if they really had got to the bottom of it?
And what if the entering of the euro into daily life really did serve no purpose?
Well, the transitional period of three years would have at least had the merit of showing us that we can very easily live, on the one hand, with a euro that is living its own rather chaotic life on the international markets and, on the other hand, with national currencies still in circulation, to the great satisfaction of consumers.
<P>
Let us have the good sense to remain in this situation, Mr President, and let us have confidence in the modern means of payment like charge cards or the electronic wallet to make life easier for travellers and those living near borders.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Meijer">
Mr President, I voted against the Torres Marques report with regard to the introduction of the euro because my group, the Dutch Socialist Party, has always campaigned against the introduction of a single currency.
We will remain opposed to it as long as this currency is to the detriment of investment in a sound social policy, sound collective provisions, an active environmental policy and an income policy for the benefit of the lowest income bracket.
The introduction of a single currency is too soon to say the least.
This is why I do not agree with a number of accompanying measures intended to shape and facilitate this introduction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
- (FR) I welcome the report by Mrs Torres Marques with great satisfaction.
She has made a relevant study of the technical difficulties that we still have to resolve in order to prepare properly for the introduction of the euro.
We should not bury our heads in the sand and ignore the problems that are far from being completely resolved and public opinion is far from being ready.
<P>
That is why, today, following the example of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council of the European Commission and of our rapporteur, I also believe that the reduction of the three year transitional period could give rise to very considerable technical difficulties that may jeopardise the process of the smooth transition to the euro.
<P>
The technical obstacles that would present the greatest difficulties in reducing the transitional period are, in particular: the time limits for manufacturing the notes and coins in euros; the considerable scale of the changes to be made to computer systems and also the fact that the change to the euro for public administrations was planned for 2002 in order to take account of the complexity of the changes to be made in this sector.
<P>
Beyond these technical obstacles, making the transitional period shorter would jeopardise one of the strengths of the success of the euro which is the confidence associated with the economic and social factors (whose preparation is still inadequate) around a timetable that is precise and respected.
I even say this myself as someone who was initially in favour of a tighter timetable.
<P>
With the same concern for the smooth transition to the euro, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs made a proposal, one that I support, which aims to allow the consumer to start changing his national currency into coins and notes made out in euros from the beginning of December 2001.
In the same way, the supply to the banks of coins and notes should start well before January 2002 and the supply to retailers and public administrations should occur from the beginning of December 2001.
<P>
Furthermore, from the second week of January 2002, retail businesses should only give change in euros rather than in the national currency.
I also agree with Mrs Torres Marques when she rejects a legal obligation and only advocates a recommendation in this regard.
<P>
As far as the period beginning 1 January 2002 is concerned, where two currencies will be in circulation at the same time, a period which, under the terms of the Treaty could run for up to six months, I share the opinion of the rapporteur and the Economic and Financial Affairs Council that this period should be reduced to two months.
For this, we should step up the active information campaigns for our citizens.
<P>
I shall conclude by stressing a problem that is continuing intolerably and which concerns bank charges and exchange charges.
This contributes to creating unease among our citizens as to the actual advantages of the euro.
I have, moreover, warned the Commission and the Council by means of written questions, but I have not received any reply to date.
This is serious at a time when the euro is going through a crisis of confidence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Krivine">
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="President">
That concludes the explanations of vote.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="President">
I declare adjourned the session of the European Parliament.
<P>
(The sitting closed at 12.25 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 2 December 1999.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Madam President, I should like briefly to raise one matter which concerns me.
You know that I hold you in high esteem and I also fully supported very many of the points which you made in your speech in Helsinki.
There is one point which could create a misunderstanding.
Twice in your speech you spoke of cultural integration in connection with Turkey's possible membership or candidate status.
Given that this issue is highly sensitive and that a parliamentary delegation has just returned from a short trip to Turkey, I wanted to ask you, Madam President, to clarify this matter, in particular with a view to the fact that official statements have already been made that the European Union is a Christian community.
<P>
Did your reference to cultural integration encompass this aspect?
Perhaps you could shed some light on this because I have no desire to move closer to the Islamic religion or culture, nor is it likely that we can demand movement in the opposite direction.
In any event, it would appear that for some of us, at least, this concept of cultural integration in connection with Turkey requires further explanation.
I would be very grateful if you could clarify this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Swoboda.
We are not going to start a debate to explain my speech at Helsinki.
I believe I said exactly what you have just said, i.e. that it was a problem for some parties.
I also said, if you read the text attentively - I hope it has been translated properly - that Parliament was divided on the issue, and that there were several opinions, that discussions had not yet been completed.
If you examine my speech carefully, you will see that I did not permit myself to bring things to a conclusion.
I said, besides, that there may also be a problem of boundaries, and that a broad debate is already in full swing within the European Parliament.
That is quite simply what I meant to say.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wurtz">
Madam President, I would like to express in this House my amazement and my indignation at the fact that Commissioner Fischler should find himself, at the invitation of Mr Haider, at the inauguration ceremony of Carinthia House in Brussels last week.
I think the presence of a Commissioner by the side of a man whose racist and xenophobic ideas are notorious is equivalent to an endorsement, and moreover an endorsement that is an infringement of Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
I would like to see the Commission providing an explanation of this matter, Madam President, within this part-session.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Wurtz.
I note your comment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Désir">
Madam President, our regulations stipulate that Members of Parliament must be able to meet freely, within the European Parliament, any person resident on Union territory, and the quaestors are responsible for this, pursuant to the terms of Rule 25.
The fact remains, Madam President, that it is still necessary to actually make it possible for such persons to have access to Parliament.
<P>
Last week, a group of schoolchildren from a school in France was unable to pay a visit to the European Parliament in Brussels, as expected, because some of its pupils, nationals of a country outside the European Union, did not receive an entry/exit visa to the area concerned in sufficient time.
<P>
Would it be possible, Madam President, for you to refer the matter to the Member States, in order to establish an automatic simplified visa which may be made available within far shorter time limits so that all the schoolchildren invited to meet us when they come on school trips may actually be permitted to make the trip to the European Parliament, be it in Brussels or Strasbourg.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
We shall indeed look into this matter in order to find a favourable solution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Berger">
Madam President, the Austrian Member of the European Commission, Franz Fischler, has been criticised here for taking part in an event with Jörg Haider.
I should like to say that this event was excellent, that the Austrian Commissioner Fischler made a very clear statement on nationalism in Europe and that his words had a great impact in Austria, because, of course, the question of whether Mr Haider's party might form part of an Austrian Government has been the subject of much debate.
<P>
I should, therefore, like to ask you not to criticise the fact that the Austrian Commissioner attended this event and instead to lend your full support to what he said.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Berger, for adding this important detail.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Seguro">
Madam President, I rise to speak for a very sad reason.
Last Saturday, an aeroplane belonging to the SATA airline from the Portuguese autonomous region of the Azores crashed, killing the crew and 31 passengers.
This intervention would be justified by this accident alone, but the fact is that the people of the Azores have been punished over the years by natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, tidal waves, which means in fact that suffering is part of their everyday life.
Therefore, Madam President, I would like to express, in my own name and I think on behalf of everyone, my sympathy with the people of the Azores, and I would like to ask you, Madam President, to convey, on behalf of the European Parliament, our deepest condolences to the Portuguese authorities, to the people of the Azores, and particularly to victims' families.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Seguro.
I shall do so very willingly, on behalf of the whole Parliament, and I believe that the applause shows that your request is well supported.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Madam President, I should simply like to assure Mr Swoboda that there most certainly is a European culture.
If there were not then there would be no Europeans, and there would be no point in building a European Union.
I should like to thank the Italian MEPs concerned for setting up the wonderful Christmas crib opposite the Chamber and I would invite all colleagues to take a look at this piece of European culture.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Madam President, with your permission I too will comment on the criticism made of the Austrian Commissioner Fischler.
Mrs Berger has, of course, already addressed this matter.
To my knowledge, Commissioner Fischler has so far visited all nine of the Austrian Provinces' liaison offices in Brussels.
You should be aware that Mr Fischler is a Tyrolean farmer: he goes where he sees fit to go and when he is there he says what he sees fit to say!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, we cannot start a debate on the subject, especially if the party concerned is not present.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Manders">
Mr President, I would very much like to bring to your attention the problems we are facing in Brussels, in particular those arising between the Members' chauffeurs and the security service.
We are currently facing enormous problems in this regard, which are causing a great deal of delay.
The Members have to wait in a basement full of exhaust fumes, which delays them and which does not do their health much good either.
Further to this, I would also like to bring to your notice the matter of the drop-off point next to this Parliament, since I can envisage problems, especially in winter, when one has to walk the 150 metres across the courtyard.
Perhaps it would be possible for the point to be set up on the other side, near the entrance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="President">
We take note of your comment and we shall ask the quaestors to look into ways of providing a favourable solution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Camre">
Madam President, a remark on the question concerning European culture.
All Members of the European Parliament have had some very attractive UNICEF Christmas cards handed out to them to use for their Christmas and New Year greetings.
These cards are supplied with a paper insert showing the EU' s blue flag and a text in eleven languages.
This reads as follows: Best Wishes, De bedste ønsker, Frohes Fest, Meilleurs Vux, Migliori Auguri, Beste Wensen, Boas Festas and, in Swedish, Med bäste lyckönskningar, as it has become.
Now, these are not phrases you would normally write at Christmas.
So what is going on?
In fact, it looks as if the European Union has become so self-effacing in its response to other cultures that we dare not acknowledge the fact that it is Christmas and our culture' s New Year which we are to be celebrating shortly.
It is obviously considered that we might offend against other religions if we were to emphasise that we are in fact a Christian part of the world and that in Europe we therefore say Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, Joyeux Noël et Bonne Année etc.
Madam President, this is not first and foremost a question of religion or faith.
For me, it is a matter of daring to stand by one' s own culture.
A people or nation or Europe which, out of a misguided sense of protocol, does not cherish its own culture is in danger of dying out, so I would call on my colleagues to throw away the EU' s insert and just use UNICEF' s beautiful Christmas cards.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Camre. I do not think we can easily undertake a debate on European culture.
It would take us the whole night.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sichrovsky">
Madam President, as a Member from the Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (Austrian Freedom Party), I was elected just as democratically as any other Member of this House.
Dr Haider was elected with 42% of the vote in Carinthia in a free, democratic election.
If Members of this House, who are trying to build a united Europe, believe that in this Europe, some voters are respectable and some are not and that, therefore, some Members are respectable and some are not, then they should study the history of Europe this century.
We cannot exclude people from here, because by so doing we exclude those who elected them in democratic elections.
All of us have the right to sit here because we were democratically elected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Roure">
Madam President, I would just like to address you on behalf of the Members of Parliament who stay behind on Friday morning.
We have the impression that we are being left very much to our own devices in this building.
<P>
Let me give you just one example. On the Friday of the last part-session, I wanted to access my mail.
I tried, but it was impossible.
I attempted to contact an official.
Honestly, I did everything I could, but there was no one who could help me.
I discussed this with other Members who were also still here with me on Friday morning, and the general opinion was that we felt that we had been utterly deserted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Roure, I take due note of your comment, and we shall attempt to overcome your feeling of abandonment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ceyhun">
Madam President, I myself have two children who are Protestants and I always celebrate Christmas in the proper way.
I wanted to say this to my fellow Members. However, personally I am not a Christian.
Jews, Muslims and many people of other faiths live in Europe. For this reason I should like my colleagues to accept, at long last, that Europe is not populated solely by Christians.
Although I am not a Christian, I am still a Member of this House.
Some interventions make me wonder where on earth I am.
Does this mean that I am not a European?
Perhaps Mr Posselt might like to answer that question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Ceyhun.
You see, Mr Swoboda, when I said cautiously in my text that the debate was far from over, I believe that ultimately I was quite right, and that this is indeed a major debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Ripoll y Martínez de Bedoya">
Madam President, in a short intervention on this matter, I would like to ask Mr Swoboda not to make this kind of racist and xenophobic statement.
It is to the Arab world, to Arabic culture, that Europe today owes its entire Greek heritage; it is to the Arab world that it owes all its understanding of Greek culture.
Mr Swoboda, please stop using this kind of language, because I do not think that it has any place in today' s Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Ripoll y Martinez de Bedoya.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Agenda
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Madam President, what the PPE-DE Group has actually requested is, since this is a very short report, if it could go before Mr Rothley' s report on vehicle insurance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="President">
So you would like it to be presented before Mr Rothley' s report.
<P>
(Parliament gave its assent)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="President">
Still relating to Monday, i.e. today, regarding the recommendation for the second reading on substances depleting the ozone layer and the motion for a resolution on the labelling of foodstuffs produced using genetically modified organisms, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy has requested that these two items be tabled at a different time on the grounds that their examination in plenary session would coincide with the committee meeting, which would not be very practical.
<P>
Given that these items can not be brought forward on the agenda, I would propose that they be entered at the end of today' s agenda, i.e. after Mr Aparicio Sánchez' s report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="Jackson">
I think that is all we can do.
The committee meets at 7.30 tonight, because we have to deal with a proposal which has come late to us from the European Commission.
We understand that we cannot accelerate the procedure so that we come first on the list of subjects for debate, so we will debate this, as usual in a crowded House, at about 11.15 tonight.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="President">
Is there a Member who wishes to speak against this request?
<P>
(Parliament gave its assent)
<P>
Tuesday and Wednesday: no amendments proposed.
<P>
Relating to Thursday: President.
We now come to Mr Chichester' s report, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on units of measurement.
The PPE-DE Group has requested that this should be voted without debate, and the vote should be included in voting time on Wednesday.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="Chichester">
This report was adopted in committee by an overwhelming majority of 47 to 1 without amendment.
It concerns a small but important modification of an existing directive which needs to be implemented before the end of this year in order to prevent many European companies from being in breach from January onwards.
<P>
The Finnish Presidency would very much like to adopt this proposal in Council this week.
The last meeting of the Council this year is on Thursday and, if the House wills it and is agreeable, I would like to make a formal proposal that, instead of a debate, we have a vote on the report on Wednesday.
This would enable the Council to go through its procedures very swiftly and make a lot of European industries happy.
<P>
I understand that it would be something of a first to achieve agreement with unanimity in the Council on the first reading.
I should therefore like to propose a vote without debate on Wednesday.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="President">
Is there a Member who wishes to speak against this request?
<P>
(Parliament gave its assent)
<P>
I must point out that the deadline for the submission of amendments must be brought forward to 10 a.m. on Tuesday 14 December.
<P>
Regarding the subjects for the debate on topical and urgent debates of major importance, we have received several requests for amendments.
<P>
Firstly, the PPE-DE Group wishes to have the sub-item "Prison conditions of political prisoners in Djibouti" replaced by a new sub-item entitled "Arrest of the President of the Court of Auditors in Nicaragua" .
<P>
Who wishes to speak in favour of this proposal?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
Madam President, the arrest of the President of the Nicaraguan Court of Auditors is indeed extremely worrying.
This is a case of someone who is currently in prison just as presidential elections are about to be held in Nicaragua.
We feel that the European institutions must now draw attention to this matter.
<P>
We will be approving next year' s budget with considerable amounts earmarked for the plan for the reconstruction of Nicaragua after the damage caused by hurricane Mitch, and I think that our role must be to support and uphold democratic institutions, which are seeking to ensure that the rules are properly observed.
Therefore, Madam President, we feel that for all of these reasons, given the situation, we must adopt this matter for a topical and urgent debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="President">
Is there anyone who wishes to speak against this proposal?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wurtz">
Madam President, I would just like to say that the case brought up by Mr Salafranca is unquestionably a serious one, and that his proposal is one worthy of support, but not at the expense of the case of political prisoners in Djibouti, who are sick, have been left untreated and are detained in utterly inhuman conditions for a very long time now.
I believe that in this matter a great deal is expected of the European Parliament, and we would be giving out quite the wrong signal if we were to strike this topic from our debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="President">
I shall now put to the vote the PPE-DE proposal with a view, therefore, to replacing one item by another, given that it is not possible to add another item since the number of subjects is limited to five.
<P>
(Parliament approved the request)
<P>
I have received three requests for additions to the "human rights" item.
As you know, Annex 3 paragraph 4 of the Rules of Procedures stipulates that the "human rights" item may include only five items.
We already have four items entered on the list given in the final draft agenda, which means that we can only add one of the new items proposed.
The requests for additions shall therefore be put to the vote in order of their submission, and they shall be mutually exclusive.
<P>
These requests are as follows.
Firstly, the request from the PPE-DE Group for a sub-item entitled "Restoring civil rights to members of deposed European royal families" .
Next, the request from the PSE Group for a sub-item on the "Fiftieth anniversary of the Geneva Convention" and finally the ELDR Group' s request for a sub-item on "Angola" .
<P>
We shall now put to the vote the proposal on the restoration of civil rights to the members of former European royal families.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Tannock">
Madam President, you were very kind to receive me and His Royal Highness Prince Victor Emmanuel of Italy this afternoon, so I believe you know the full details behind the case.
But just to refresh the memories of colleagues, the motion which was circulated to Parliament was about restoring the rights of former royal families of Europe, in particular those of Austria and Italy, who are still denied their full civil and political rights as citizens of the European Union.
Prince Victor Emmanuel has been in exile for 50 years now.
He is an old man. He is asking to be allowed to go back to his country of origin.
<P>
Why is this urgent?
Because this law to amend the Italian constitution has been before the Senate three or four times and the left have always obstructed it, although they have paid lip service to the idea that it is possible to make a new law to allow him back in.
<P>
I want this Parliament to call upon the Commission to look at this issue from a European Union perspective for the first time and reinstate these families' full civil and political rights.
My case rests there.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Katiforis">
Madam President, I do not have anything against Victor Emmanuel as such or against anybody from Austria referred to in the motion, although I am old enough to remember the Italian occupation of my country during the reign of Victor Emmanuel.
<P>
In any case, this is not the issue, the issue is the extremely general wording contained in the motion, i.e. "civil rights for members of former royal European houses, any former royal European houses" .
We too have a former royal house, whose misdemeanours are a lot more recent. I should like to declare, therefore, on behalf of the PASOK representatives, that we find it totally unacceptable that these issues are being discussed as it is an intrusion into an extremely delicate matter which should be discussed in our country before being brought to bear at European level.
Besides, as regards the basic matter of the status of the ex-Royal Family, the Greek people expressed their opinion quite clearly in the 1974 referendum.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="Corbett">
Madam President, I draw your attention to Annex III of the Rules of Procedure which lays down the guidelines and general principles to be followed when choosing the subjects to be included on the agenda for topical and urgent debates of major importance.
It specifies in paragraph 1 that these matters ought actually to be urgent and relate to an event such that the current part-session is the only part-session of the European Parliament at which a vote can be held in time.
<P>
This is an important issue.
It has been on the agenda of many national parliaments for many years.
But I fail to see why it is urgent in the sense of our rules.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Muscardini">
Madam President, I would like to take the floor in regard to the order of business, and to refer to history.
As regards the order of business, I would like to stress that the matter is, in fact, urgent. And so I am responding to the point of order the Member was making because if we do not consider something urgent after 55 years then there is something wrong with us.
<P>
I would also like to refer to history for the benefit of Mr Katiforis, a defender of Greek culture.
I would like to remind him that when Prince Victor Emmanuel was exiled from his native country he was four years old which, in my opinion, makes it unlikely that he could have invaded Greece.
The most he could have done was invade his back garden!
Therefore, I am asking the Members to brush up on the cultural history of our peoples and of Europe.
I think it is important to keep to the subject and not to hold political and ideological prejudices which are so strong that they prevent us from keeping calm when considering human rights in this Chamber.
The request Mr Tannock has made concerns human rights, and, a few days ago, fifty years of human rights in Europe were celebrated.
I think it is quite obvious that this request is relevant, especially for this part-session which is ending a century of war and, we hope, ushering in a millennium of peace.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, we cannot start a debate on this subject.
Mr Corbett' s contribution was indeed a point of order since it raised the question of the urgent nature of the proposed sub-item, and Mrs Muscardini responded.
Now we are going to put the PPE-DE request to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament rejected the request)
<P>
We shall now move on to the request on the fiftieth anniversary of the Geneva Convention.
<P>
Who is to speak in favour of this request?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Madam President, I do not think that we should miss this opportunity to commemorate this anniversary, which marks a very important milestone for mankind.
We have achieved a great deal.
We could dispense with a debate because we have already achieved everything we set out to do.
However, since much remains to be done both within and outside Europe, we should at least draft a clear opinion on the subject in this Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="President">
Is there anyone who wishes to speak against?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Heaton-Harris">
Madam President, a point of order.
It is kind of Mr Corbett to raise the points under Annex III of our Rules of Procedure.
Given that this is a fiftieth anniversary, we could take this at any part-session, rather than at this particular one.
Therefore we could put it under a motion for debate at some point in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wurtz">
I agree entirely with your proposal. I only regret that it should come so late.
I imagine that Mr Swoboda and his friends would have voted differently just now on the proposal regarding political prisoners in Djibouti if they had know that the item on Nicaragua could have been on the agenda.
<P>
I therefore suggest that the vote on the Djibouti prisoners be repeated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="President">
<CHAPTER ID=3>
WTO Millennium Round
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="President">
The next item is the Commission statement on the WTO Millennium Round (Seattle, 30 November to 3 December 1999).
<P>
May I welcome Mr Pascal Lamy and immediately give him the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lamy">
Madam President, the Seattle Conference ended in failure.
Why?
I can see two circumstantial reasons and one intrinsic reason.
The circumstances are familiar to you.
Firstly, the conference failed due to lack of time.
Only Friday afternoon remained, i.e. too little time to come to a conclusion within a reasonable period.
This can be explained by the way the conference itself was run, since it did not enable any real negotiation until the last two days.
There was also, another circumstantial reason, a manifest inability on the part of some delegations to engage in a real process of negotiation on the order of business and, in this respect, one has to wonder if the fact that the opening of the conference coincided with the launching of the election campaign in the United States was a good thing.
It indeed appeared that this country was scarcely prepared to shift position on any subject whatsoever, which by definition makes it hard to conclude negotiations successfully.
<P>
As for the intrinsic reason, I believe that the failure of the conference can be explained by the gap between the ambitions of the World Trade Organisation and its resources.
WTO procedures proved to be inappropriate to the simultaneous requirement to integrate new parties, i.e. an increasing number of developing countries who are demanding their place around the table, and new subjects, which goes beyond our traditional agenda.
These new subjects are ones that you are aware of: the environment, social standards, for example.
Considering the number of parties and subjects involved and the fundamental differences between a number of participants, the chances of arriving at an agreement were extremely slim.
<P>
If we dwell for a moment on this intrinsic reason, I believe it must be acknowledged that the WTO must no longer henceforth supervise the negotiation of liberalisation between industrialised countries and that this order has been changed in two ways: firstly, it is no longer possible to limit ourselves to lowering some tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade.
We must concern ourselves with the impact of this liberalisation on the main parameters of our development models, the fundamental rights of workers, environmental and health protection, cultural diversity, multifunctionality in agriculture and quality of the environment.
Secondly, it is no longer possible to circumscribe negotiation to just a few participants, the Union and its friends, the United States and the Cairns group.
In Seattle, it was necessary, more than in the past, to take into account the chief third world partners, India, Brazil, South Africa, Egypt, plus the emerging economies, particularly in South East Asia, and also our partners, the ACP countries.
Tomorrow, we shall probably also have to take China into account.
The combination of new subjects and new participants opens up very good prospects of progressing towards controlled globalisation, but the difficulty of such an enterprise is readily apparent.
<P>
As far as the issues were concerned, the Union had made good preparations for Seattle, advocating a broad agenda which complied with the expectations of society, and which was championed by Parliament, the elected body, the legitimate representative of this society.
In addition to extending the negotiations to all the partners, including developing countries, the European Union also took the initiative to open up the conference by means of an offer to guarantee the least advanced countries broad zero-duty access to the markets of the industrialised countries.
It succeeded in aligning, first, Japan with this initiative, and then also perhaps the United States and Canada.
But let us make no mistake and let us keep our eyes open wide.
In return for their support of our agenda in terms of society, the environment, health and workers' rights, developing countries with average revenue and emerging economies are going to be asking for substantial improvements in access to our markets.
And Seattle has demonstrated that we still had to convince these countries that our concerns, your concerns, are something other than reflexes in defence of our own well-being which often seems so much of a privilege to them.
<P>
Let me just briefly mention the European Union' s strategy in Seattle.
The Community is well positioned to build bridges between the positions of industrialised countries and developing countries.
We showed this clearly at Seattle, where we were well prepared both politically and in terms of content and we enjoyed the support, the precious support, I believe, of both the Council and of Parliament.
We remained united and, at the same time, open.
Occasionally, we shifted position if it was deemed necessary in order to move the negotiations on.
This was the case, for example, regarding the biotechnology group, which I considered appropriate to accept at a certain time. This gave rise to sharp criticism from some Member States, and indeed from some Members of Parliament.
I take full responsibility for the risk
<P>
taken at this time, given that the European Union was the only delegation which was pushing an ambitious agenda on the subject of the environment.
I remain convinced that a biotechnology group focussed on factual analysis and not on negotiation would have been a small price to pay in order to get a considerable raft of environmental proposals through.
<P>
We also made a major effort as regards information and participation in order to put into practice the intentions I expressed before this House during the parliamentary hearings in September.
A delegation of representatives of the European Parliament was part of our Community delegation.
We kept in contact on an on-going basis, enabling an exchange of views and information, which proved to be extremely useful to me in my capacity as a negotiator.
This positive experience strengthens my conviction that we should continue to involve the European Parliament more closely in framing our common trade policy.
<P>
In the interests of increased transparency, we also, for the first time, brought in a group of consultants representing management and unions, the Economic and Social Committee and NGOs.
Through them, we maintained contact with society and economic and social interest groups.
Daily briefings were organised for the economic organisations and the NGOs accredited by the WTO.
<P>
On the whole, we return from Seattle with the feeling that we did much to make this conference a success.
Now we have to continue the work which has been started.
What direction should we be going in and what do we have to do now?
<P>
The Commission considers that initiating a new round on the basis of a broad agenda remains our priority.
We must now, however, proceed with caution.
A second failed attempt would, of course, be disastrous.
<P>
It is not clear at present at what time we will be able to recommence the round of negotiations.
You have to realise that there is a real feeling of discontent in developing countries, and that any attempt to restart the process must necessarily involve repairing the damage caused in this area, which may take some time.
<P>
What are our options?
I can see three possibilities.
The first scenario is to convene another ministerial conference quickly.
The people in favour of this scenario claim that there was, after all, substantial progress in Seattle, for example, concerning questions of market access, the promotion of trade or services.
From this point of view, the subjects which were not successfully concluded in Seattle, such as agriculture, anti-dumping and fundamental social standards, should now be tackled quickly.
<P>
The President of the United States has just declared that the round may be quickly recommenced.
The bilateral Summit at which we are to meet this week will afford us the opportunity to check whether this is a sign of flexibility or just a repetition of the well-known American positions which favour a round limited to market access.
<P>
The second scenario is rather more gloomy.
It takes account of the hypothesis which says that the United States will not, in any event, make any moves during an election campaign.
If that should prove true, there would be no progress before the year 2001.
The implications of this scenario are worrying ones.
Not only would we lose precious time, but that would also mean that the inability of a single partner to move would be enough to paralyse the entire multilateral system.
<P>
There is a third scenario, one I would call an interim scenario.
If we do not wish to wait for 18 months before resuming negotiations, let us try as of now to move things forward step by step.
An interim package might make it possible to restore confidence in the system and to create conditions favourable to the launch of a new round as soon as possible.
It would therefore be necessary to continue the preparations in progress at Geneva, particularly our process of alliance moving towards broader negotiations.
<P>
In this context, the following steps could be envisaged.
Firstly, institutional reform of the WTO.
Well before Seattle, we had submitted detailed proposals on the transparency of WTO activities.
We must go further and determine precisely the causes of the practical problems which slowed down the process in Seattle, and then propose some practical solutions which are centred on the efficiency-transparency axis.
<P>
As regards transparency, it is clear that decision making and negotiations must be legitimised in the clearest and most consistent manner.
As regards efficiency, the organisation of work, the procedures, the bodies, and the ministerial conferences must be reviewed with a view to obtaining practical results.
<P>
One of the suggestions put forward by the Members of the European Parliament present at Seattle and reiterated last week by a number of Member States was to convene a parliamentary assembly.
This idea appeals to me, since it would make it possible to strengthen democratic control over work within the WTO.
<P>
The third crucial element is developing countries.
These are among the countries most disappointed and most affected by the lack of results.
Restarting the process leading to a new round must by necessity represent substantial progress for them, if we wish to obtain their support.
One of the ways to obtain this support would be to maintain our offer to the least advanced countries and to examine together the coordination between the action of the WTO and that of other international institutions in order to ensure that trade liberalisation results in sustainable development for all developing countries, beginning with the very poorest peoples.
<P>
These interim steps which I have just outlined would enable us to keep the process alive and to be ready, when the time comes, to resume work for a complete round.
We must therefore combine two approaches.
Firstly, regarding the content, in striving to form alliances and to retain support in favour of a broad approach to the round, and secondly, on the form, the institutional plan and the procedures, in order to set in place all we shall need throughout future negotiations.
<P>
This is the direction we will work in, if the Council and Parliament are in agreement.
<P>
(Loud applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schwaiger">
Mr President, Commissioner, no result is better than a bad result.
That is the conclusion which we too believe should be drawn from the unsuccessful negotiations in Seattle.
May I thank you, Commissioner Lamy, and the entire Commission Delegation for being so well prepared and for leading the negotiations so skilfully.
By taking such a dynamic lead - in close cooperation with the European Parliament Delegation - the Commission showed, with its comprehensive negotiating strategy, that it had set the course for a possible success.
<P>
The poor level of preparation on the part of the WTO, but also the tactics of the United States and other countries, did not, however, permit a successful conclusion.
It is with satisfaction that we also not only take note of your support - which you have just reiterated - for the WTO parliamentary assembly which we have called for, but also express the hope that you will give us practical support as far as those responsible in the WTO are concerned in our efforts to make this a reality.
In this process, cooperation between the European Union, North America, Mercosur, ASEAN and the ACP countries should allow this parliamentary assembly to be organised effectively, with the regional groupings able to play an important role in the interests of greater efficacy.
Now, what needs to be done in the months, and perhaps in the year, ahead?
<P>
We too believe that we need to keep the global negotiating strategy and consolidate it further in the coming months.
We need to open and pursue an active dialogue with those countries, including the newly industrialised and developing countries, whose positions still diverge widely from ours.
Our chances of winning over these countries should be all the greater if we remain consistent.
The focus here should be on the following core areas of trade in goods and services: further reductions in tariffs and the gradual elimination of non-tariff barriers to trade; investment; competition and services; intellectual property; public procurement and e-commerce.
<P>
They are essential components of further trade liberalisation and will benefit most of our negotiating partners.
In addition, reform of the WTO is urgent and imperative.
Secondly, in this process, European environmental and health policies, minimum social standards and development policy should retain their status.
Thirdly, at the forthcoming negotiations on agriculture, emphasis should be placed on the multifunctional reasons for our European model of agriculture - the further development of rural areas, the provision of high-quality agricultural products and the environment - with reference being made also to Article 20 of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture.
<P>
In the negotiations with China, which are now beginning, we should concentrate on our own interests, which are in part also contrary to those of the United States.
Reducing the high Chinese peak tariffs, protecting intellectual property and facilitating investment are the most important points here.
Increased market access for the least developed countries - and this is something which we need to consider together - should in any case be achieved very soon as part of the negotiations on the new ACP convention, although I do not know whether this will work on a unilateral basis.
These countries should be granted waivers of between eight and ten years to allow them to adopt the comprehensive WTO body of legislation slowly and gradually, without neglecting their programme of sustainable development.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Seguro">
Mr President, Commissioner, we have listened closely to your intervention on the Seattle Conference and we appreciate your adherence to the debate, to the commitments that you made here, specifically in the November part-session in which this issue was discussed.
<P>
It is nevertheless true that, as you yourself pointed out, no agreement was reached in Seattle, and the problems remain.
They remain, and for us Socialists, the failure is not just that no agreement was reached.
The failure can be seen in the fact that following the Uruguay Round, the volume of trade in the context of this agreement has increased but unfortunately, so has the gap between developed and developing countries.
For those who see trade as an instrument for making society more harmonious and prosperous, as we Socialists do, this situation can only be of grave concern.
This is why our points of view are still valid in relation to the content, the strategy and the nature of the agreement.
It is worth stating once again that where the content is concerned, we are still fighting for environmental issues, for consumer protection, for social and human rights, for cultural diversity and for the multifunctional role of agriculture.
This is not with a view to indulging in a pretty protectionist strategy where the markets are concerned, but with a view to guaranteeing the kind of global society that we can now glimpse.
<P>
In terms of strategy, we would like to see the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament combine their efforts and unite in the same direction.
I also think it important, as your words imply, that we should not be totally dependent on the United States and that we are able to find new partnerships, not only in terms of trade with other regional blocs and with other world trading powers.
<P>
Thirdly, in relation to the nature of the agreement: it is true that we all wanted an agreement, but failure to reach one is better than an agreement which will have an unsatisfactory outcome.
This is why we are once again arguing for an overall agreement and not sectoral agreements, which is what the United States is once again seeking.
We feel that the market is not a solution to all problems but neither is it the source of all evil.
The market is essential to wealth creation and it is with this in mind that we want to argue for five more points here:
<P>
firstly, a new agenda for Geneva that is not just the "leftovers" from Marrakech;
<P>
secondly, to uphold the European Union' s common strategy of seeking out numerous new partnerships;
<P>
thirdly, greater transparency and more legitimacy in the decisions, which is why we support the proposal for a Parliamentary body which would monitor the democratic nature of proceedings;
<P>
fourthly, that the European institutions understand why non-governmental organisations should be present in Seattle and specifically that the European Parliament should be able to find fora for discussion, debate and ideas so that we can be spokespeople for this civil community whose concerns are exactly the same as ours.
<P>
And finally, Mr President, I would like to end by saying that we support institutional reform that enables developing countries to be given greater consideration in the WTO' s decision-making process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Clegg">
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Lamy for his interesting and helpful remarks this afternoon and to reiterate on behalf of the ELDR Group our gratitude to him and his staff for the close cooperation which we successfully established in Seattle.
<P>
One general remark if I may.
Much has been said since Seattle about the procedural and organisational shortcomings of the WTO.
Whilst all proposals to improve WTO procedures are naturally welcome, there is a danger that we might be embarking on the reinvention of the wheel.
The WTO is an intergovernmental organisation with over 130 members, so it will remain, by definition, a somewhat cumbersome decision-making forum.
That is, unfortunately, the unavoidable nature of the beast.
<P>
A concentration on procedural and organisational issues should not blind us to one simple fact: if the political will had existed in Seattle, particularly within the US Administration, the procedural flaws of the system would have been overcome.
<P>
Thus our primary task remains a political, not a technical one, namely to rehabilitate the public case for further trade liberalisation, not only for the benefit of European businesses and consumers, but most particularly because open trade offers the only viable long-term solution to poverty in a developing world.
That is why the ELDR Group hopes that the Commission, the Council and this Parliament will embark on a proactive attempt to remake the political case for further trade liberalisation in general and for a new comprehensive round, rather than an intermediate round, in particular.
<P>
The EU/US Summit which takes place the day after tomorrow is exactly the right place to start since it is the US which has been found to be most politically wanting in recent weeks and months.
The need for EU political leadership which was amply on display in Seattle in international trade affairs is now more acute than ever.
Whilst to focus on procedural details is essential, no amount of organisational improvements will compensate for the biggest loss at Seattle, a loss of political conviction in the merits of open, multilateral rules-based trade liberalisation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lannoye">
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wurtz">
Mr President, following the Seattle failure, we still have all the same problems, but nothing is the same as it was before.
Our first task, therefore, is to make a lucid diagnosis of what happened in order to assume our responsibilities in full knowledge of the facts.
<P>
I have heard the analysis which Mr Lamy has given, as it were, from inside the institution.
I would like to offer an outsider' s point of view.
In Seattle, I had the opportunity to have discussions lasting many hours with these men and women, the representatives of society, as it were, who came from all four corners of the earth.
I was also able to hold talks with some of the main organisers of this mobilisation of forces.
They naturally gauged the influence and the support they enjoyed throughout the world: they were, therefore, enthusiastic and determined, but in no way violent, populist or nationalistic, as some observers saw fit to caricature them.
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They were well informed, thoughtful, adult in their attitude.
They meant to be involved in decisions as responsible citizens, and no longer just treated as passive consumers.
They were not challenging opening up to the world, but the globalisation of a mercantile attitude.
Far from identifying with the champions of their own countries in the world-wide economic war, the different people involved were together censuring the capitalism of the multinationals, the relentless quest for profits, treating the natural world as a commodity, going as far as to patent living things, the levelling of cultures, the entrenchment of inequalities practically everywhere, especially between the North and South.
Their ambition was quite simply to make the modern world more civilised, to make globalisation more human.
"People before benefits" was one of their favourite slogans.
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We must listen to them, as Mr Somavia wisely noted, the present Director General of the International Labour Organisation, which four years ago was the moving spirit behind the International Conference in Copenhagen, where all the world' s Heads of State undertook to reduce poverty by half by 2015.
Listening to them would involve changing the WTO radically.
This starts, in my opinion, with the current framework of the WTO, a framework which is not really universal but is truly unequal, as Mr Lannoye very clearly depicted.
It also involves the current tasks of the WTO which set the objective of capturing market shares in precedence to absolutely everything, including the commitments made by the international community as regards social, environmental or health matters, or the development of the south.
Changing the WTO, finally, involves its current mode of operation, which is still based on Summit diplomacy and secrecy at a time when citizens are becoming actively involved in world affairs.
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This is why I am arguing, Mr President, in favour of a proper study offering a critical analysis of past experience, followed by the Union taking the offensive in favour of a more democratic organisation, open to society, which is truly universal and which steadfastly overcomes the divide between commercial considerations and the demands of sustainable and socially cohesive development.
This would be one more fine ambition for Europe' s emerging policy on foreign affairs and security.
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<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Della Vedova">
Mr President, if the failure of Seattle really were to lead to a standstill or slow down the trade integration processes at global level, it would be a disaster.
It would be a disaster for the producers and the workers of the weakest countries, and not, as was said, for the multinationals, which would find, as they have always found, ways to penetrate industry and trade more deeply anywhere in the world.
It would be a disaster for the consumers in European countries, in particular for the weakest consumers who would be frustrated in their hope to have a wide choice of products from all over the world at lower prices than those found in the national markets.
It would be a disaster for the environment, as the poorest countries, whose products would be denied access to European and American markets, would continue to exploit natural resources.
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Seattle did not fail, Commissioner, because of the WTO' s inadequacy or the United States' electoral campaign, although this did contribute to the failure. Seattle failed because the political desire of the main countries was to slow down, instead of accelerating international trade.
Europe, Commissioner, added its problems, thus overburdening the agenda with subjects unrelated to the specific field of international trade and providing an excuse for those who stood to benefit from applying pressure to slow down the process of integrating world markets, but certainly these benefits - I repeat - did not extend to European consumers or Indian or Pakistani workers.
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Mr President, Commissioner, I think that Europe, with its age-old tradition of the market economy, free trade and economic freedom - freedom which does not need to be qualified by adjectives - must assert that the objective of integrating the markets and of free trade is a goal in itself, which we must attain for ourselves and all the other countries.
Let us leave the other matters to the competent bodies!
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<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="Elles">
Mr President, I do not agree with those speakers who said that the Commission as our negotiator did us wrong so far as the European Union was concerned.
On the contrary, I would support those who have said that not only did they have a coherent delegation to lead but that the practical arrangements for us - the largest Parliamentary delegation which had ever attended international trade talks - were to our mutual benefit.
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It looks as though we will have to wait for the new millennium now for a Millennium Round.
Was it a victory, a disaster or an unexpected welcome break in Seattle?
People are right to say that the procedure should have been better.
We need better decision making.
We need quicker dispute settlement procedures.
However, it was the substance which was the problem: an overload of a traditional trade agenda with non-trade issues.
Globalisation has led to a number of issues which touch the sovereignty of Nation States being put on a trade agenda.
President Clinton's call for the enforcement of trade labour standards for developing countries and elsewhere in the world was the death knell of these talks.
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But linking these two together - procedure and substance - I welcome the Commissioner's support for a parliamentary body of some kind.
This will not only help the democratic accountability of the WTO, help to provide an on-going interface with non-governmental organisations, but also help the gradual evolution of the non-trade concerns on the agenda.
These are, after all, concerns of elected representatives.
In this respect, it is an unexpected welcome break.
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But let us have no illusions.
The US Administration is not going to change its position before the election.
Nevertheless, when we were in Seattle we had excellent talks with US legislators.
I ask the Commission to help us develop our contacts on discussion of specific issues such as agriculture in the intervening period so we can assist this intermediate solution.
I believe they are willing to have dialogue with us on a number of specific issues.
Maybe dialogue between transatlantic legislators can help in this area.
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<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="McNally">
Mr President, I think Members should realise what an excellent negotiator we had in Pascal Lamy.
Of those taking part in the discussions, he was far and away the most skilful and appeared to show the most stamina.
That is important to recognise.
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The discussions in Seattle were perhaps more complex than could have been anticipated: they were certainly over-ambitious, and that should have been anticipated.
There was a quite absurd concentration of time limits, particularly since some of the time was lost because of extraneous events.
There was a hysterical press interest, not in what was happening in the discussions, but in what was happening on the streets, which was largely due to complete clumsiness by the local police.
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There was a complexity because of the sheer number of participants, not only from the countries concerned, but from NGOs, from lobbyists, from national government delegations and from others.
The issues themselves were complex.
This was not a game of poker, it was a complex game of chess with completely justifiable but contradictory claims taking the stage.
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The European Union was, in fact, very well placed.
Over the years of our existence we have managed to put in place environmental and social rules alongside trade rules.
It can be done in international discussions.
It is not easy but it is essential and we are well placed because we have, to a limited extent, managed that.
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We were well placed because of our links with the ACP countries, although there was an issue over their waiver which clouded the discussions, and because we have always worked well with NGOs.
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We were well placed in having a large parliamentary delegation.
I am pleased that our socialist amendment calling for a parliamentary assembly was taken up world-wide.
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The issue of agriculture: The United States and other countries refused to understand, even though it is a very simple notion, the multifunctional reasons for our common agricultural policy.
They refuse to admit that they subsidise their agriculture in a much less transparent way than we do.
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As far as environmental issues were concerned, these are not and should not be simply concerns of rich countries, but they were portrayed as such and there is a great deal of work to do in bringing those issues to a State where they are not thought of as protectionism.
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Mr Lamy says that the biotech working group was fact-finding, but the widespread perception was that it would interfere with the setting-up of the bio-safety protocol and colleagues will say more about that.
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Animal welfare was perceived by poor countries as a rich person's interest which, to some of them, was almost obscene where we are confronted with starving people.
That is something again we will have to work on and similarly with core labour standards.
It is important that the WTO is restored in a reformed way.
The alternative is the United States making bilateral agreements from a position of strength with the poorer countries of the world.
That is not what we want.
We, in the Parliament, must follow this issue along with Mr Lamy and other Commissioners until we get something that is appropriate to the age which we are moving into.
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<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Olsson">
Mr President, Commissioner, the EU did a good job in Seattle.
The cooperation was good, which I am grateful for.
The problem is that the WTO basically lacks popular support, and the developing countries, even if they are present there, feel left out.
I therefore believe that it was very important indeed that we agreed to demand greater openness and to make room for popular influence on decision making by means of a parliamentary forum.
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When it comes to the failure in Seattle, I do not however believe that we should "cry over spilled milk" , as we say in Sweden.
Instead, we should use the time to do some forward thinking.
We have been made aware of the problems and we have also, I think, glimpsed certain possibilities.
Unlike Mrs McNally, I perceive, rather, a slight opening-up on the part of the Americans, not least in the sphere of agriculture.
America has trebled the amount of its agricultural subsidies since the last farm bill was adopted and, although the multifunctional reasons for our policy may not be recognised, large parts of its content nonetheless are in fact acknowledged, which I think is positive.
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As a relatively liberal, perhaps very liberal, European politician where agriculture is concerned, I should like to say that we ourselves within the EU ought to reflect upon how we can change the CAP, Agenda 2000 and what follows Agenda 2000 and consider how we might get rid of subsidies which drive down the level of trade.
It would be good to discuss this with the developing countries because these are very dependent indeed upon exporting raw materials.
It would also be good for other exporters.
In fact, an enlarged EU, which we hope we are making great strides towards, will also become more and more dependent precisely upon being able to export agricultural products.
It is in specifically this situation that I think that the present talks and the reflections we can engage in will be extremely useful.
I believe there are good opportunities for making further progress.
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<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Lucas">
Mr President, Commissioner Lamy and others have spoken of the Seattle meeting as a failure but I still believe that, if the EU and the US in particular learn the lessons of the past few weeks, the meeting in Seattle could still go down in history not as a failure but as the moment when world leaders finally realised that they need a radically different approach to international trade.
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First, they must learn that rich countries can no longer get something for nothing.
If they want rightly to link social and environmental concerns with trade they will need both to prove that their motives are not protectionist and to deliver substantial gains for developing countries in return.
Those gains could include tariff-free access for all goods from the poorest countries, the abolition of tariff peaks and agreements to stop export dumping.
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Second, it is clear that trade deals can no longer be secretly stitched up between the more powerful WTO members.
Developing countries have shown a new determination to resist such marginalisation.
The playing field between the richer and poorer countries is anything but level.
If you look at negotiating capacity alone, the EU and the US were present in Seattle with whole armies of lawyers and advisors.
The poorer countries were there with very few.
I have also heard - and I would be grateful to know if this is true - that 30 countries, members of the WTO, could not even afford to be at the meeting to negotiate.
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The WTO process needs to be made far more democratic and transparent.
I believe that we need a forum to discuss proposals for radical reform with the environmental and development groups who have been working on this subject for a great many years.
There is no need to re-invent the wheel.
There are good proposals out there.
We need to learn from them.
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Finally, WTO members must at last listen to the 1 200 non-governmental organisations from nearly 100 countries who signed a declaration demanding no further trade liberalisation until the social and environmental impacts of existing liberalisation have been addressed and the problems put right.
The stalling of the talks in Seattle gives us an opportunity to do just that.
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<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alyssandrakis">
Mr President, Commissioner, the most important issue of the negotiations of the Millennium Round were the grass-root reactions.
It was the first time that protests on that scale have been held in the United States since the war in Vietnam.
The awakening of people' s movements all over the world proves the objection to the principles of the World Trade Organisation.
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Indeed, trade liberalisation, the abolishment of subsidies, free investments, the commercialisation of services, even education, health and cultural services, serve the major interests of the monopolies to increase their profit margins. However, it is not at all appealing for the workers or the people.
Even the much-publicised complete abolition of tariffs on products from poorer countries will precipitate the pillaging of wealth of those countries, while on the other hand it will deluge the market with cheap products replacing corresponding products from countries such as mine.
The World Trade Organisation was not formed to protect the interests of workers and the people, the proof of which lies in the fact that the main decision-makers are the few wealthy countries and in the widening of inequalities between rich and poor countries, and also within those countries.
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The Commissioner made no mention of the grass-root reactions.
Obviously, he wants to downplay them, and tell us that whatever the people do, the American, European, Japanese monopolies and the rest will impose their will and overcome these reactions together.
We are certain that the grass-root reactions all over the world were probably the sole cause of the failure of these talks not just because the demonstrators thwarted the formal opening ceremony but because they created a climate which cannot be ignored even by those who think they control the world.
And we have only just begun.
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<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Angelilli">
Mr President, as has already been said, unfortunately, overall, Seattle was not a great success: the only real participants were the protestors, who, while their demands were supported by many extremely valid grounds, wrongly thought that the failure of the Summit itself would constitute a victory, a solution to the serious problems in question.
In reality, the problems and contradictions of the global economy are still there, unresolved and still relevant: doubts about genetically modified organisms, child labour, the negative social effects of unbridled, unregulated globalisation.
But that is not all: perhaps these protests served as a pretext for the official participants at Seattle - those with the right to sit round the conference table - not to have to fully assume the political responsibility to negotiate, which, although certainly very difficult is absolutely necessary, precisely as regards social rights and safeguarding our citizens' health. These are negotiations that cannot wait any longer.
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Of course, we are dealing with a complicated process, but Europe has to be equal to the challenges facing it.
Talks within the World Trade Organisation have to start up again, and Europe has to be very aware of its role, a role of balance and responsibility, with a view to globalisation with a human aspect that is open and welcomes changes and acceleration in the economy but is also able to safeguard equal employment opportunities, the environment and health.
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Finally, Europe must not forget to defend our own specific differences, not just economic but also cultural and social, because globalisation that leads to uniformity, levelling out and exploitation must have no place at all in the European growth model.
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<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cunha">
Mr President, the Seattle negotiations enabled us to see a small political opening up of the European Union' s positions on agriculture as is the case with environmental concerns, food safety and the development of rural communities.
This is nevertheless very little when compared with the very negative aspects that our trade partners are trying to impose on us in the text of the Agenda.
I am referring to two points in particular:
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The first was an obsessive reference to the substantial reduction of internal aid for agriculture without taking the slightest account of the diversity of different countries' structures of production and without taking account of an objective and consistent classification of the different types of subsidies allocated to agriculture.
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Secondly, and most importantly, the rejection of the idea of multifunctionality which is the main pillar of the European farm model and the basis for upholding the principle of the specific nature of agriculture.
In fact, if this deliberate reference is not featured, it means that agriculture will be treated as a normal economic activity, whilst there is ever greater pressure from our competitors to end any kind of aid obtained and I stress "any kind" .
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Now we all know that without special treatment for agriculture we will not be able to guarantee a minimum of Community preference nor as a result, the primary producing role of agriculture.
If the producing role of agriculture comes to an end, then all its other functions or multifunctions will end with it.
This is why it was a good thing that no agreement was reached in Seattle.
In fact, the agreement that was envisaged was very damaging for agriculture and would have left us at the outset in a weakened negotiating position for the future whereas we are now in a stronger position than we ever have been to make an offensive stand in the new Round.
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I would like to make two final comments. Firstly, that it is crucial that the Commission and the Council establish an initiative with developing countries in order to make them our allies.
Secondly, that a joint project with the United States would be extremely useful - as James Elles pointed out - in order to clarify the positions of both parties and to be able then to encourage future understanding.
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<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Erika">
Mr President, Commissioner Lamy, you rightly referred to many points and I am grateful to my fellow Members for saying how indebted we are to you for the way in which you led the negotiations in Seattle.
This was done with consummate elegance, and I must say that I was present at many press conferences and I also went to the events organised by the non-governmental organisations.
You also explained the European Union's negotiating position and its strategy with the utmost clarity.
I believe that you made it clear that the European Union is in a position not only to take on a leading role in this and the forthcoming world trade round - and that we do not come here as poker players to secure our own interests - but also that we are prepared to bring the other countries, in particular the developing and least developed countries, on board with us.
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This message has been heard, and I am proud to have been part of the delegation in Seattle.
But we should not labour under any illusions.
Two things have become apparent: one is that this accumulation of interests is something that we will continue to see in international negotiations in the future, and I should like to endorse the position of many leading economists who are saying that this was just the beginning.
We will see that this conflict of national and regional interests will be even more pronounced in the future than it has been in the past.
Here, of course, it will be important for us not to line up against each other in blocs - the European Union against the United States, the European Union/the United States against the developing countries, or perhaps also some of the developing countries against others - as we have seen in Seattle and also in other contexts.
In the future, it will be much more important for us to adopt a more sophisticated approach with greater emphasis on preparation, so as to make it clear which interests we actually stand for together in these world trade rounds and why we need them: namely to bring globalisation under control, taming the rank growth which would otherwise proliferate without a world trade round, in order to implement a sound strategy to overcome global problems.
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The second phenomenon which we saw - and here too, I do not believe that we should have any illusions - was that the interest which civil society showed in the proceedings in Seattle was not only an interest in the world trade round, but also a demonstration against all those things which people do not like.
This started with the healthcare system in the United States.
I spoke to many people on the streets.
The issues ranged from future Chinese participation in the world trade round to the policies pursued in Cuba, and there were many other issues besides.
Increasingly, politicians are being asked to explain - and to do so in greater depth than they have in the past - what the World Trade Organisation actually does and why it exists.
Of course, it also needs to be reformed and to be made more transparent, but it must also be explained better.
Here I am particularly glad that parliamentarians have now been included; other speakers have referred to this.
The role which will fall to us, as a parliamentary forum, in the world trade round will not be easy.
However, I believe that this is the only way to introduce greater democracy into such a complex bureaucratic machine.
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<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Krivine">
Mr President, the official European Union delegation to Seattle defended the principle of a broad agenda.
It received a mandate to include an extensive range of new areas in the Millennium Round, but in fact it intended to grant the WTO an increased range of responsibilities and powers.
As far as we are concerned, it is not a matter of organising the continued extension of free trade better, but of prioritising the defence of social and environmental rights and of enabling all peoples to be self-determining and to decide their own future.
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The delegation would also have us believe that they fought for the countries of the south.
But they did nothing of the sort.
As regards agriculture, the European Union defended only European agro-industry exporters against their North American competitors and the exporters of the Cairns Group.
They did not stand up for the demands of European family-run or group-operated farms or the demands of the farmers of the south.
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The demonstrators from all over the world who hindered the Seattle conference represent the first counterattack by the world against the dictatorship of markets and financial profits.
They represent a hope for millions of workers, unemployed people and landless agricultural workers, and for all the victims of this capitalist world order that the WTO wishes to force on us.
The interests of the peoples of the world are antithetical to the development of liberalism.
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<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Thomas">
Mr President, in Seattle we experienced the failure of the WTO Conference, but not of the philosophy behind it.
What do we learn from this?
Firstly, it makes little sense to meet in countries where an election campaign is underway.
Anyone for whom public opinion at home is more important than international agreements should not be surprised when their guests take an invitation as an invitation to go home.
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Secondly, it makes little sense to reduce world trade to the concept of fair; the two concepts of fair and socially balanced need to go hand-in-hand.
The international community is tired of protectionism, barriers to trade and being dictated to by a few global players.
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Thirdly, on the other hand it does make sense, in spite of all the differences between delegations, to speak with one voice.
I very much welcome the way in which the Commission conducted itself.
Your morning briefings to us Members of Parliament, Commissioner Lamy, were characterised by openness and a willingness to take account of our views.
The result was that this time the EU sat not in the sin bin, but in the mediator's chair.
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Fourthly, it makes sense to work more closely with the NGOs.
However, at their day-long symposium in Seattle they hardly had a chance to speak.
I was forced to realise that only a few people are aware of how close Europe is to them.
Whether it was protecting the environment, animals, health or consumers that was being discussed, the dialogue was broken off before it had had chance to start.
The demonstrations paralysed the conference.
What began as a good-natured event degenerated into a state of siege with a high degree of aggression and violence.
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Fifthly, it makes sense also to deal with controversial matters.
The taboos of today can be workable compromises tomorrow.
Admittedly the subjects have to be handled sensitively.
The American President's statement that if labour standards were not implemented then sanctions might be imposed was far from helpful.
This reached us conference participants not by chance but by design.
The EU will, however, be capable of winning a majority on the proposal for a permanent WTO and ILO forum, on questions of fundamental rights and on rules of the social market economy.
Despite Seattle, therefore, there are definitely grounds for hope.
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<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ettl">
Mr President, in Seattle it was not possible to dispel the underlying disquiet with the world trade situation.
Many non-governmental organisations spoke of a victory being won in Seattle.
Many of the ACP countries spoke of a victory being won for their cause in Seattle.
If we are talking in terms of victories then I have only one thing to say: nothing was won in Seattle except time, and as yet it is completely unclear to us how little time we have to devote to this matter.
The issue which we need to address is the underlying disquiet.
The fact that worldwide the environmental and social situation has not taken a turn for the better concerns us.
At the weekend, I attended a symposium with non-governmental organisations, with farmers' representatives from Honduras and employees' representatives from South America.
All of them - all - were extremely unhappy with the situation.
This did serve to show me, however, that what we actually wanted out of this world trade round was not at all clear and transparent either.
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Hand on our heart then, if we glance through the newspapers, we realise that even within the European Union our concerns - whether related to environmental policy, social policy or the core labour standards - were portrayed as protectionist; even at home in the European Union we were not able to communicate our concerns, let alone within the group of States of the World Trade Organisation.
One lesson which we should draw from this would be to find answers to the following questions: how do we integrate parliamentarianism with the concerns of the non-governmental organisations?
How do we handle the new sensitive situation in which people are starting to fight back?
How do we make this work?
What platform can we offer for it?
I believe that we have laid the best foundation for successful future cooperation within the European Union, within the European Parliament.
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<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Auroi">
Mr President, Commissioner, I am not going to reiterate what has already been said.
The WTO is a failure in its present form because the WTO is no longer appropriate nor is it transparent.
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The first lesson we must draw is in fact the one the NGOs were demanding, i.e. there must be fair trade, not free trade, and in this respect, we must realise that nowadays no international organisation can escape the watchful eye of the citizen and that this is to be expected.
The next deadline is already quite close.
Geneva must not be allowed to go stealthily by.
We, of course, have Marrakech, we, of course, have no obligation to achieve results, but we must remain vigilant in order to ensure that separate agreements on agriculture and services do not allow the things we shut the door on to get in by the back door.
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One of the lessons of Seattle, and Commissioner Lamy started to draw conclusions, is that we must find allies.
We do, admittedly, already have a few allies.
The most important ones will no doubt be, as Paul Lannoye emphasised, the ACP countries.
To take European agriculture as an example, it cannot go on saying that it is doing fine, that it is multifunctional, that it is operating in a positive way, that it will henceforth protect its consumers, while at the same time maintaining a selfish attitude with regard to the countries of the south.
In order to be heard, we must find the resources to enable these poorest countries to also have quality food, and quality products.
The whole world today has the right to show solidarity and to have the resources to live better, to get out of this state of international self-centredness.
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<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth-Behrendt">
Mr President, I shall not now echo the compliments paid to Mr Lamy or he will start to blush.
I take it that he is aware that this House is also grateful for the part he played and for the way in which he involved the European Parliament delegation.
With your permission, I shall comment on the consequences of the failure of this ministerial conference.
What conclusions should we draw in terms of continuing the work?
One thing is certain: whether there is another ministerial conference now or whether work has to proceed on a step-by-step basis, never again can another working round be allowed to open without there being a clear agenda which has been put to the vote and agreed.
This must surely be one of the consequences.
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If we are now to continue the work solely on the basis of Article 20 of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture, what then are our responsibilities under the agreement?
I am convinced that they are perfectly obvious: Article 20 of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture contains the condition that, amongst other things, non-trade-related concerns are also to be taken into account.
For this reason, at every step, at all the negotiations, the precautionary principle must be constantly reiterated; it must be put repeatedly on the agenda as if this were a Tibetan prayer wheel.
Each of the speakers here keeps repeating the words: consumer protection, precautionary principle and environment policy, but then we also need to make this clear.
We also need to make it clear that environmental standards and food safety are often hotly disputed here, that it is only with difficulty that we achieve this here in the European Union, that the legislation is controversial, and that if we have adopted it, it is because of our responsibility to the people of the European Union - to whom we are accountable as elected parliamentarians - and not for reasons of tactical protectionism.
We also need to make this clear.
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From now on, it must go without saying that extending individual parts of the WTO rules or overhauling them completely can only be possible once this institution is at long last democratic, once it is transparent and once it is less authoritarian.
Perhaps the failure of this first WTO Ministerial Conference is also a huge blessing in disguise because the arrogance and lack of democracy has been exposed and now we have an opportunity to change it.
The time is right to do so!
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<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Kinnock, Glenys">
Mr President, we should not be too worried about allowing a Commissioner to bask in the glory of congratulations from the European Parliament.
It is a rare occasion so he should enjoy it.
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As he suggests, we should be looking forward rather than backward now.
We should welcome talk of modernisation and reform of the WTO and the recognition that we need seriously to modify the perception that is held elsewhere of the protectionist stance of the industrialised world.
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A key objective for us must be for all 135 members of the WTO to have a part to play in that process of reform as well as what goes on afterwards.
I can confirm that 30 members did not have the capacity or the ability to go to Seattle.
My abiding memory was of the sense of exclusion felt by developing countries.
They all remained adamant throughout that there was a great deal of post-Uruguay Round unfinished business - on textiles and agriculture in particular - that needed to be addressed.
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I was heartened by the fact that three-quarters of the WTO members could no longer be ignored.
It was they who were able to call a halt.
Should we be surprised that they wanted to do that on the grounds that they have only 0.4% of the share of world trade?
There are choices: either we allow globalisation to roll on without guidance or we rein it in to ensure that it brings benefits to all.
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We have an opportunity to address the concerns raised in Seattle.
That means identifying the problems and then acting.
Of course, we did have the difficulty of the 135-page draft you took with you to Seattle, upon which you have no broad agreement, so it was hardly surprising that difficulties were encountered.
At the end of the week, the developing countries were simply not prepared to accept a "done deal" made in secret rooms by the big players.
Of course we recognise the fact that we need a rules-based system to regulate world trade but let us see more openness, let us see more and better ways of achieving and building global consensus.
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<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lamy">
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank all the men and women among you who gave me their support both during the Conference and today.
I am particularly appreciative of this, since I think it is a method and style of working rather than personality which is involved, and this method of working is one that will prove useful in future.
In any case, the conclusion that I draw is that this is the way forward.
<P>
I shall now make a few comments about the essential points.
Firstly, as many of you have said, this failure at Seattle was probably a source of disappointment primarily to developing countries.
If we acknowledge this fact, which I believe is now proven, looking back on it a week later, it is thus once the liberalisation of trade has been decided, managed and brought under control, that developing countries see the value it has for them, and no doubt they consider it better for them than the status quo with the development of bilateral relations which do not work in their favour.
I believe that this is worth thinking about for the future, and is certainly something that we need to think about.
<P>
My second comment concerns the institutional business of the WTO.
I do not belong to that group of people which believes that this is where the main problem lies.
I do, however, believe that part of the problem lies here.
We should not be reinventing the wheel, admittedly, but what use is it if it has stopped turning properly?
Let us at least take action to get the wheel turning again, or to adjust the load it is carrying.
I think that this is the main thing, while taking account, as I believe the Commission is doing, of the extreme difficulties in getting 135 contractual parties to agree on an institutional system which is different to that which currently exists.
<P>
A third comment on the environment.
I have listened to and taken in what you have said.
Let us simply be aware that, in this area, we have considerable ambitions in relation to those of the other partners around the WTO table.
Everyone can understand why developing countries may have a less ambitious environmental agenda to our own.
But that the United States should have an environmental agenda less ambitious than our own, as is the case, is something which definitely presents us with a more difficult problem, for if neither developing countries nor the Americans agree with our agenda, we shall then have great difficulty in moving it forward.
I believe that is something worth thinking about.
<P>
I stick to our credo, the Council conclusions, and the mandate which I was given.
We must still, however, be quite aware that all this will not prove easy and that it will be necessary, at some point, either to be more convincing or to be more active.
<P>
I now come to my fourth and penultimate comment.
Like many of you, I believe that it is now towards developing countries that we should direct our efforts to convince and our ability to form alliances.
This will require persuasion, political effort and the presentation of arguments. Without doubt, it will also require some additional work which we shall have to think about.
I am not currently in a position right to outline this support, but it is certain that these additional efforts will have to involve the increased opening up of our markets to developing countries.
<P>
I believe it is not worth discussing this at length until the details are clearer, but I know too that as soon as the details do become clearer then enormous problems will arise.
We shall have to think about this, and, when the time comes, present our proposals on the subject to the Council and Parliament.
<P>
In concluding, I shall mention the issue of transparency.
Yes, Seattle was a transparent event.
One might reflect at length as to whether the fact that intense media activity, as there was at Seattle, always coincides with active transparency.
Personally, I must tell you that just occasionally I feel some doubt and a little unease as to this coincidence, which we all too often try to perceive, between a massive media presence and active transparency.
<P>
Leaving that aside, in Seattle the WTO was, nonetheless, subjected to an ordeal of transparency for which it was obviously not prepared.
If that was the case then so much the better.
What we have to say regarding liberalisation, globalisation, our own concept of it and the question as to whether it is good or bad for the citizens you represent and to whom we are accountable, well, that is so much the better.
This debate is one that I am happy to see take place in public.
I think, as a number of you have said, that Europe has a stake in this debate since, as far as it is concerned and in this area, it is accustomed to it: why not share the benefit of our experience?
<P>
(Loud applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner Lamy.
<P>
I have received six motions for resolutions, pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12 p.m.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Annual Report of the Court of Auditors
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="President">
The next item is the presentation of the Annual Report of the Court of Auditors.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Karlsson">
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Theato">
Mr President, I should first like to thank President Karlsson for introducing the 1998 Annual Report.
We Members of the European Parliament have now been able to take an initial look at the report, which is almost 500 pages long, after having been alarmed by premature press reports.
Not knowing the content of the Court of Auditors' report, we were unable either to confirm or to deny these reports.
The issue of the Court of Auditors providing Parliament with information in good time is one which the two institutions need to resolve as a matter of urgency.
<P>
President Karlsson, I am sure that you agree with this request and that for your part you will see to it that Parliament - in its capacity as the people's representative and as the control authority - is given information first, before the results of the Court's audit reach the press.
I also refer to the report of my colleague, Mr Wynn, which the European Parliament adopted in spring 1998.
Since then, I hear that the Court has identified the office in its house from which the report - and possibly also the confidential preliminary report - was clearly leaked.
There has also been a suspension.
In this case, the pressure exerted by the European Parliament to find out where the leaks had occurred has led to success.
<P>
The audit report on the table will not only provide us with a basis for our forthcoming work on the 1998 discharge; it will also serve as an important document for reforming the administrative structures in the Commission and will be used constructively to bring about the necessary improvements.
We now have the opportunity in this Parliament to monitor this significant process of reform in the Commission constructively, but critically.
Once again, the Court criticises the unacceptably high incidence of errors in budgetary management in 1998.
It refuses to confirm the legality and regularity of the Commission's accounts and thus - for the fifth time in succession - does not give its statement of assurance.
This is very serious.
<P>
On examining the report, it is striking that once again cases of mismanagement, irregularities and fraud are described, and that they occur in nearly all of the areas investigated, on both the revenue and expenditure sides.
Every year evasion of duties and VAT payments causes significant losses to the Community budget.
There are serious shortcomings in the Member States' management and control systems here.
We ask, when does the Commission finally intend to remind the Member States of their duty? And, do the Member States not realise that by allowing funds to decline, they are cutting off their nose to spite their face?
<P>
In the agricultural sector, the situation remains disturbing.
Overall, it is here that the most serious cases of incorrect utilisation of funds are found.
Here too, the Court refers to the Member States' carelessness.
In the important sector of research and development, mismanagement and a lack of transparency associated with advance payments and the final account caused losses.
Over 50% of payments are said to be incorrect, with around two thirds even containing serious errors.
The same applies to the Structural Funds.
Let us get down to work, together with the Court of Auditors and the Commission.
In the on-going enlargement process this is absolutely essential!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Morgan">
Mr President, I welcome the fact that at last, we are discussing this report.
I would condemn the other groups for not allowing us to discuss this in November: That was a wrong decision.
It was outrageous that we did not allow the Court to have a press conference.
We lost the opportunity of an important public platform.
I was also extremely disappointed that the President of the Court of Auditors did not remain in Brussels earlier this month.
<P>
The report proves beyond all doubt that the reform process is long overdue.
We need radical reforms if we are to see improvement of a very serious situation.
This is the fifth time the Commission has not given a statement of assurance and it is clear that the Commission needs to understand that it is engaged in reform and it will be judged not by its words and its reports, but by its actions.
It is clear that in efforts to reform itself, the Commission needs to concentrate not on where the money is spent but the extent to which policy goals are met, and that with a minimum cost.
As Mr Karlsson said, we need to tackle the spending culture.
That means we need clear, precise and measurable goals from the Commission.
In my own country of Wales we receive significant money from the structural funds, but the line between creating a job and safeguarding a job is unclear and therefore it is difficult for us to assess how effective those structural funds have been.
<P>
The Commission needs to make fundamental improvements to its own internal control mechanisms.
One of the main problems, highlighted again, is that of passing the buck.
Nobody is taking responsibility and the responsibility for spending money well is shared between too many people.
That clearly needs to be reformed.
We expect to see rigorous new management and control systems in the forthcoming reform.
In particular, we need to see a reform of the Financial Regulation.
<P>
But let us not forget that over 85% of the money that comes from the EU budget is spent within the Member States and they need to put their own house in order.
Human resources is also an issue which clearly needs to be addressed.
<P>
This report has vindicated the forced resignation of a sloppy, slapdash Commission and revealed a catalogue of irresponsibility by Member States who are prepared to criticise but not act on fraud and irregularities.
The new Commission is heading in the right direction and we hope that we will see an end to these kinds of reports.
We can put them behind us once we see an improvement in terms of the reform process.
<P>
I should like to finish by putting a clear question to Mr Karlsson: does he personally think there is anything specific in the 1998 report which should stop Parliament from granting discharge?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Van der Laan">
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Staes">
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Eriksson">
<SPEAKER ID=83 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Dam">
Mr President, Mr Karlsson, this Annual Report demonstrates that the supervision of EU expenditure still leaves a great deal to be desired.
To a large extent, the problem lies with the Member States, but the Commission should not hide behind this fact.
The Court of Auditors is right to point out that the Commission must ensure that any shortcomings on the part of the Member States are properly dealt with.
What is more, the Commission' s housekeeping has a lot to answer for too.
It is most revealing that the highest percentage of material incidences of error has been detected within the internal management department. After all, it is the Commission itself that has exclusive responsibility for financial management within this department.
<P>
The Annual Report underlines once again that we must work out, in structural terms, what the added value of the various European programmes amounts to.
Up until now, the Commission has focused too heavily on high levels of expenditure.
There has been little or no testing of effectiveness on the basis of clearly measurable policy objectives.
The Commission must also keep a closer eye on whether individual projects abide by general community objectives.
Accordingly, we must call an immediate halt to financing from structural funds projects that are at odds with objectives relating to environmental protection.
The Court of Auditors is right to put its finger on this serious problem.
<P>
Finally, the whole state of affairs with regard to the leaking of the draft report raises questions as to the independence of the Court of Auditors.
It is right that the Commission should be allowed to inspect the Annual Report before publication so as to correct any factual errors beforehand. But did the Commission confine itself to this?
Or is it true that the Court of Auditors toned down the report under pressure from the Commission?
In order to clear this up, the European Parliament ought, in the process of the discharge procedure, to analyse the differences between the draft report and the definitive report in detail and assess them on their merits.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pomés Ruiz">
Mr President, although I welcome the Court of Auditors' report, which is extremely useful and which this Chamber should support, because in so doing, we will be supporting Europe as a whole, I cannot avoid mentioning the unease caused by the fact that some of the media have recently leaked partial and biased versions of the report. Mr Karlsson, this is something that apart from causing our citizens, officials and institutions unnecessary harm, gives the impression that the Court of Auditors is a political body that is accountable to the electors through public opinion.
<P>
These leaks, Mr Karlsson, do not occur in the great majority of the Courts of Auditors in the Member States or in the European regions.
Therefore, it should not be impossible for you to prevent them either.
<P>
It shows a lack of respect for this House and for yourselves, because it shows that those whose duty it is to monitor are not actually monitoring the process itself.
<P>
Therefore, Mr Karlsson, if these leaks occur again, my group will demand a reform that goes beyond merely postponing this debate.
<P>
Secondly, I would like to say that the problem of the irregularities and of the way the budget has been misused is not a geographical problem, but one that cuts across all divisions.
Here there is no North, South, East or West. There are no rich countries or poor countries.
What we have here is simply a problem of the inadequacy and the misinterpretation of national and Community legislation.
<P>
I would like the countries who bear the burden of the effort towards internal economic and social cohesion not to use this kind of argument as, of those countries, it is the countries that receive funds from the European Union that have the most to gain from the effectiveness of this effort.
<P>
Finally, I would like to stress the fact that the Commission still intends - as the report that you have presented to us states - to use the degree of use of the financial credits allocated in the annual budget as the main gauge of the success of their financial management.
What the Commission must in fact do is to measure its success by the degree to which it manages to achieve the objectives that it has been given, at the lowest cost.
This change of philosophy is what, by supporting the report that you have presented, we demand of the reform that President Prodi promised this Parliament he would carry out.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bösch">
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="van Hulten">
Mr President, the 1998 report of the Court of Auditors, which has been debated all over Europe except - until today - in this House, clearly demonstrates the need for the Commission and Member States to redouble their efforts in the fight against fraud.
Both have a duty to ensure that tax-payers' money is well spent.
If we are to keep the people's trust and win their support for the ambitious plans outlined at Helsinki this weekend, three steps are essential.
<P>
First, Member States themselves must do more to detect fraud.
Cooperation between the European Court of Auditors and its national counterparts must be strengthened, if necessary by means of legislation.
<P>
Second, as Mr Karlsson just made very clear, the Commission's financial management must be improved.
The Commission has announced a programme of reforms.
If these are to be successful they must be radical, comprehensive and based on a very clear timetable.
<P>
Third, Parliament must put its own house in order.
We can only be credible as the people's watchdog if the recommendations of the Court of Auditors which relate to this institution are implemented without delay.
Parliament must do everything within its powers to demonstrate that it is serious about eliminating waste.
It is for this very reason that, like many of my colleagues, I shall not be attending tomorrow's opening ceremony of this expensive and obviously flawed building that nobody asked for.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schori">
Mr President, for us Socialists, the Court of Auditors is basic to the European Union. That may be seen from the large number of Socialists who are speaking here today.
It is also a very important tool which citizens have for scrutinising and supervising the European Union' s activities and holding it accountable.
<P>
As has been said here on a number of occasions, that is also why we were irritated by the fact that the President of the Court of Auditors was not previously able to appear here before Parliament.
At the same time as the annual report of the Court of Auditors was being presented, an incident occurred at the Commission' s official office in Stockholm.
It emerged that inadmissible wage payments had been made there.
One wonders how it is going to be possible to keep the whole of the European Union in order if a small office of 20 people cannot be kept in check.
That is where the Court of Auditors comes in.
I should like to say that how this small office and the way in which it has carried out its duties and managed its finances is to be dealt with will be a test of the European Union' s credibility in this context, that is to say of its openness and accountability.
<P>
I should like to ask the President of the Court of Auditors, who has visited Stockholm, what impressions he has obtained of the incident there and what measures might be expected to be taken.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
Mr President, the Court of Auditors' conclusions resemble those we have seen in many recent years.
It is not possible for them to come up with a positive opinion.
There is a need for the Member States to take greater responsibility.
They administer approximately 80% of the budget and they do not do it particularly well.
I am naturally pleased that Denmark is not singled out for attack this year.
I am a little surprised, however, that the Court of Auditors should again have volunteered a remark about the feta issue.
In fact, that matter was closed a long time ago.
<P>
In February, Mr Kinnock will be submitting a proposal for a reform of the Commission.
This is perhaps one of the things we are to be tackling.
One of the most important changes concerns the staff culture.
It happens too rarely that employees are suspended or fired if they are incompetent or corrupt.
There does exist the opportunity to dismiss incompetent employees on the basis of Article 52 of the staff regulations.
This Article ought to be made use of, and in general it never is.
This practice ought therefore to be changed.
If we are to stamp out irregularities and fraud, we need to change the staff culture and the tendency for people' s being able to get away with murder if they have the right friends to cover for them.
We should be cleaning up our act after previous scandals.
What signals are being sent out to future leaders of the Commission if those responsible for the scandals can just carry on in good jobs?
In this way, we shall never see a positive opinion from the Court of Auditors.
We need to put our house in order following the mistakes of the past, both internally within the Commission and also in the Member States.
<P>
Mr President, it is also an historic day today in so far as we for once witnessed one of our colleagues seeing the light, namely Mr Dell' Alba.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schreyer">
Mr President, Mr President of the Court of Auditors, ladies and gentlemen, to use taxpayers' money in accordance with clear political priorities and in accordance with principles of economy and efficiency are objectives which all those who deal with a public budget should be determined to achieve, and these are the objectives which the new Commission is determined to achieve.
The Court of Auditors has the task of checking to see whether these objectives are met; it has the task of ascertaining whether public funds are being managed in accordance with the provisions of the Financial Regulation, and it tells the Commission what changes need to be made to ensure proper financial management.
<P>
In its report on the 1998 financial year, the Court of Auditors has explained in how many areas urgent changes need to be made.
And Mr Bösch, I am not aware of any statement by the new Commission saying that we had found it reassuring that once again the statement of assurance could not be made.
On the contrary, we said that it is disturbing - as has also been stressed here - that for the fifth time the regularity of the payments effected could not be confirmed.
That is why the Commission will, of course, also be setting about implementing these changes with vigour.
<P>
In some areas, changes have already been put in train by the old Commission; this is the case with the Structural Funds, for example.
For the new aid period there will be new rules governing the financial steps which the Commission can take if the provisions under which grants are awarded and implemented are infringed.
<P>
President Karlsson emphasised in his speech that wide-ranging reforms are necessary in order to achieve better financial management.
I am, therefore, very pleased that the Commission is resolutely planning a process of reform and is committed to pursuing it.
I should like to mention three components of the reform, which are of great significance for financial management.
<P>
The first is activity-based budgeting.
In the future, beginning with the 2001 budget, it is intended that when the EU budget is drawn up, it should more closely reflect political priorities than has been the case in the past, and that the decisions on priorities should not only affect operating appropriations but also the required staff appropriations, so that more staff are deployed in the areas of political priority.
<P>
The second key aspect of the reform is strengthening the financial responsibility of all the departments which administer EU funds.
The Commission will adopt the approach which has long since been advocated by Parliament, which Mr Karlsson has also outlined once again just now and which I also announced in my written answers to parliamentary questions in August. This consists of devolving responsibility for financial control to the departments in charge of the spending programmes, thus decentralising and at the same time increasing the level of financial responsibility in the administrative departments which effect the expenditure.
<P>
The third important component is amending the Financial Regulation.
A new, extensively amended version is required and work on this is underway.
It will take account of very many of the Court of Auditors' criticisms, including, for example, the issue of recording advance payments and final payments separately in the accounts.
It will be an important step towards greater transparency across the accounting system.
<P>
I should also like briefly to comment on the premature publication of the Court of Auditors' report and the anger felt about this in Parliament.
I think that we should reflect together on the timetable for publication and the debate in Parliament.
In my opinion, it is right for there to be an interval of time between publication and the debate here in this House, so that all Members are able to familiarise themselves with the full report beforehand.
I think it is a matter of urgency to initiate a consultation procedure here so that a better solution can be found.
<P>
Mr President, Mr President of the Court of Auditors, ladies and gentlemen, it is my intention to go through the Court of Auditors' report sector by sector with the departments, and, above all, with the Member States, and to find out why the mistakes were made in the first place.
Who ought to have acted differently?
What instruments are available to avoid mistakes of this kind being made in the future, and how quickly can improvements be achieved?
A systematic follow-up of this kind is essential.
I will do my utmost to implement this kind of systematic follow-up and I am very pleased that the Commission has decided - as part of its reform package on financial management - to formalise the structure of this systematic follow-up, so that in the future the observations of the Court of Auditors really can be used to improve financial management, and I would ask the European Parliament to support this comprehensive project of reform.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Karlsson">
Mr President, I shall try to comment on all the interesting contributions to this debate.
Some have commented that Parliament must be the first to receive the material the Court produces, be it our annual report or the special reports we produce throughout the year.
Let me make an unequivocal and clear statement that this is absolutely the rule we shall obey, that this Assembly will be the first to receive our reports.
<P>
If I may add one thing immediately to the point made by Mr Pomés Ruiz: I entirely agree with him that you must make very special requirements of a Court of Auditors, that it must be like Caesar's wife.
But what has happened in this case is that the Court has found out who was guilty of leaking the draft annual report to the press, and has taken the appropriate measures.
All of us know that this is not the only time that information on classified material has been passed on.
What has happened hitherto is that the Court has established this.
I hope we can continue to do the same in every case but I would not deny, as President of the Court of Auditors, that special demands could be put on us as a result.
<P>
Many speakers have pointed out the responsibility of Member States.
I can only confirm that this is a positive response to the challenge of Member States' willingness to fight fraud, to put their house in order, to enhance control systems, a challenge that we have pointed out in the annual report may be even greater this year, while not for one minute diminishing the role and the responsibility of the Commission in this context.
The Commission must, at the same time, dare to impose clear demands and requirements on the Member States' control systems.
<P>
Ms Morgan asked me a clear-cut question: is there something specific in this annual report that should make Parliament not grant discharge?
Let me underline what the Court's role is in this context: it is to give you all the material we find it appropriate and advisable to put forward, and leave it to you to make the political decision on discharge.
<P>
I will only say that the question that needs to be asked is whether the Commission has done everything in its power to remedy the shortcomings that have been pointed out.
I would certainly not make any specific detailed remark on any one point.
It is the overall material that has been produced both in this annual reports and in the special report we have produced, and will produce, that should be the basis for Parliament's decision on this point.
<P>
I would underline what Mrs van der Laan pointed out concerning fraud in the Union, and would point out that, judging from press reports about fraud in general and attacks on public budgets, you would think the European budget was more vulnerable than any.
<P>
This is, of course, not true.
What has been stated many times is that this is a problem that all countries, both in their regional and national budgets, have to fight.
<P>
May I take this opportunity to point out that the Chairman of the Committee on Budgetary Control, Mrs Theato and myself addressed jointly a contact committee of all the presidents of Member States' national audit offices and the Court of Auditors, just to point out to these key people that fighting fraud in European funds is also a national task.
This is a clear example of Parliament and the Court of Auditors working to draw this to the attention of the Member States.
<P>
I agree with Mr Staes that this is no bedtime reading and I was very worried when they started to put out the lights, but because of Mr Dell'Alba's courageous intervention this was stopped.
<P>
I would also stress that the work undertaken in constructing OLAF has to be continued.
In the Court's special report on the UCLAF activities we have pointed to a number of proposals that we think both Parliament and Member States should undertake, concerning a European prosecutor and other measures to continue the fight against fraud.
<P>
To Mrs Eriksson I would say that it has been customary for me to speak English.
This is the first time I have spoken in Parliament.
I am making my maiden speech, just like Mr van Hulten.
My speaking English has to do with the fact that we have English and French as working languages.
When I was to begin this speech, I was far too nervous to dare to express myself in the language of honour and chivalry.
I nonetheless believe that I should have managed if I had really put my mind to it.
<P>
I think that, following a habit already established in the Budgetary Control Committee, I will stick to my second language and I hope that you will forgive me for this national treason.
<P>
Mr Bösch, I agree with you and I think everybody agrees with you that there are special requirements to be placed on those parts of the budget which are managed by the Commission itself.
<P>
I have already underlined that it is important that the Commission should also shoulder its responsibility concerning the Member States; but when it comes to internal policies, external aid and personnel administration, we can put clearer demands on the Commission and we can also deal with it differently when it comes to the statement of assurance, something which we have started to do and will continue to do.
<P>
I congratulate Mr van Hulten on his first speech here.
I agree with him as regards the need in our work to reassure tax-payers that their money is being spent well and I also underline, as Mrs van der Laan has done, the need for Member States also to fight fraud.
<P>
Mr Schori asked me about my conclusions, or the conclusions of the Court of Auditors, concerning events in the Stockholm representation of the Commission.
I have two reflections to make; one being that this shows that the only way to cope with problems of this kind is to have functioning internal control systems.
There has to be, whenever expenditure of European money is concerned, an internal control system which is efficient and reliable so that the external controller can ascertain whether systems function and not go through every detail of administration.
The other is that I have also publicly stated that this is a test case for the Commission's willingness to reform its disciplinary procedures, of which we are very critical and which I know that the Commission also intends to do something about.
<P>
I have already pointed out in my first speech the same problem that Mr Blak brought up - that staff administration has to be improved.
As for Mrs Eriksson, who asked me why we do not audit the European Investment Fund, we asked the Council when it was established whether we should do so and the reply was "no" and that is why.
I do not agree with the Council but it is the Council that decides.
<P>
Finally, I will make a general comment on what Mrs Schreyer pointed out in her speech.
As you can hear, the attitude of the Commission to this annual report is to take it to its heart and to start embarking upon the reform programme we are discussing today.
<P>
Let me say, on behalf of the European Court of Auditors, that we hope that we can, in a climate of dialogue and openness, work together to see to it that this new Commission can carry out the reform that we are eagerly looking forward to.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Karlsson, President of the Court of Auditors.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 8.20 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Socrates (second phase)
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A5-0097/1999) by Mrs Pack, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European and Council decision establishing the second phase of the Community action programme in the field of education, 'Socrates' (C5-0267/1999 - 1998/0195(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
Mr President, of course I should not like to confine my comments to the work of the Conciliation Committee, because this would surely not go far enough.
I think that we should also use this second reading once again to hold a general debate on education in the Europe of the future.
At the end I will come back to the outcome of the conciliation procedure.
<P>
The issue of education in the Europe of the future is also the issue of the future of Europe itself.
This is actually a fact which the members of the Council ought finally to take on board.
<P>
Europe can only continue to grow together if the people of Europe accept this process and are prepared to play an active part in it.
This is particularly important in the light of the enlargement of the EU towards which we are working.
Our hopes are centred first and foremost on the young generation in our countries.
They are the ones who will shape the future of Europe.
That is why we need to win over young people to the European project.
That is why we need to meet them, at least to some extent, where they already are in terms of their present knowledge and expectations.
Many of them think in much more global terms and often have considerably more personal experience of being abroad than we had when we were young.
But, of course, there are many others who lack this personal experience, who - like their parents - are frightened of this large Europe because they do not understand it, and who have never had the opportunity to spend time with people from other countries.
This is why I believe that the European education policy is one of the key tasks within the European Union.
<P>
As more aspects of European society become intertwined, communication and therefore mastering foreign languages will become increasingly important.
Economic integration owing to the internal market makes mobility a key factor.
Closer integration inevitably forces us to confront different views.
The pluralism of cultures and world views means, however, that greater mutual understanding and thus more knowledge about others is required, which means that information needs to be exchanged.
<P>
Imparting all this knowledge and experience needs to start early on.
That is how the first comprehensive European programme for cooperation in all spheres of education came about in 1995; it was called Socrates.
Since then, I have been the rapporteur and am glad that this programme has been really extremely successful.
Now we are launching the Socrates II programme for 2000 to 2007.
This programme consists, firstly, of the opportunities offered to schools under Comenius, which encourages school classes from different countries throughout Europe to work together on projects.
Its second part is Erasmus, which addresses student mobility, and then the third component - called Gruntvig - is adult education, an initiative which has finally led to progress being made in an area where action had been necessary in the European Union for some considerable time.
Adult education became part of the Socrates I programme in 1995 by a circuitous route, through an amendment which I tabled. In the course of the year, this led to people throughout Europe developing a desire for adult education and lifelong learning and we believe that the response to this in the shape of the Gruntvig part of Socrates is the right response.
I am proud that we have achieved this.
It is precisely this incorporation of Gruntvig in the Socrates programme which actually shows how Europe works.
<P>
This was an idea which had always had a foothold in the northern countries - in Austria, in the Scandinavian countries, in Germany; in England too the concept of adult education has always existed - but in the southern countries it had not taken root to such an extent.
In Europe we managed to establish this everywhere.
I am proud of this.
That is why I believe that here too, we have achieved something important precisely for the next seven years.
<P>
I now come to the subject which concerns us all, namely the result of the Conciliation Committee's deliberations.
In terms of content, we have achieved all that we set out to achieve.
I should like very much to welcome the fact that the Council has agreed that when we award mobility grants we can at long last, consider the possibility of only giving them to those who really need them, so that those who might not otherwise be able to take part for financial reasons can perhaps also take part after all, because the money is made available to them in this way.
<P>
I also welcome the fact that the Council has agreed to step up support for learning our neighbours' languages.
I very much regret that the Council was not in a position to join us in including the term "European educational area".
They hummed and hawed as if this European educational area did not yet exist.
It does exist, but in the end for the sake of keeping the peace we gave in, so that there will continue to be a European dimension in education.
<P>
As far as the budget is concerned, Mr President - you were there, but I must repeat this - I am not happy.
We wanted EUR 2.5 billion, which is the amount which we would have required for this major undertaking.
Unfortunately, we only obtained EUR 1.85 billion, but with an assurance that a review clause would be incorporated after two years.
I believe that we can be satisfied with this.
I hope that this programme is just as successful as Socrates I.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gutiérrez Cortines">
Mr President, I would firstly like to congratulate Parliament and the Commission for having brought the conciliation to a successful conclusion.
I do not, however, wish to congratulate the Council because I feel that there has been no response from the Council in terms of the generosity needed for future programmes.
Therefore, I would like to congratulate the two main protagonists though because they have furthermore ensured that everything will function normally in January and the budgets are ready for the start of the meetings.
<P>
In this context however, I would like to say a few words which should be included in the Minutes rather than disappear into thin air.
I would like to talk about a problem that I observed throughout the negotiation: that of the difficult, complex and rather vague concept of culture and education that most of the European Union' s institutions seem to hold.
<P>
I shall highlight some of the contradictions.
Strangely, the educational and cultural programmes tend to be fully agreed on, to be voted for most enthusiastically by all parties, and yet, these are, nevertheless, the programmes that receive the worst treatment in budgetary terms.
This is the first contradiction.
<P>
On the other hand, the cultural programmes, and specifically "Socrates" , are the ones that benefit the most people and, moreover, involve few intermediaries.
"Socrates" directly reaches those who gain from it.
We are not talking about lobbies here, but about people who are benefiting from something that is by no means a subsidy, but a life-long investment.
<P>
On the other hand, this is a budget that accumulates and attracts broad cooperation from all countries.
For the "Socrates" programme for example, the European Union only pays 10% in my country, Spain.
The rest is made up by the institutions, the Spanish State and the families themselves.
We can see then that there is an 80% increase in all educational programmes in general.
What do I mean by this?
Simply that we have wasted a great deal of money on education.
If the Council had been more generous, many institutions and individuals would have put money on the table.
<P>
I would like to say something else that I think is important: education cannot be guided by the principle of subsidiarity alone.
Does the exchange of educational methods affect the principle of subsidiarity?
Can getting to know another country, understanding it and experiencing it be considered an attack on the principle of subsidiarity?
Countries will never be able to implement the Socrates programme on their own.
This is a programme that transcends and surpasses the stature of individual nations.
That is its greatness, its power and its strength, and that is why everyone believes in it to the extent that we can speak of thousands of good results.
Above all though, there is one result that must never be forgotten: the capability for cohesion and unity that this programme gives us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Prets">
Mr President, I think that we have already heard much about the opportunities and possibilities which the Socrates programme will offer us over the next seven years.
I do not believe, however, that we have fully discharged our responsibilities here for the near future.
Precisely the opposite is true.
Now the countries, but also the European Union, are asked to implement this programme so that we can see, above all, how it develops over the next two to two and a half years and so that we can make adjustments to it and alter or reassess various aspects where it proves to be necessary.
<P>
I am convinced that it provides an opportunity for young people in Europe and that it is proof that Europe must not only be a Europe of figures and economics, but that education and culture actually form the foundation stone on the basis of which we understand each other and regions - as diverse as their cultures are - complement each other and are tolerant of any differences between them.
In turn, this teaches us to show solidarity with people who are different, who are less well-off and who, above all, have a harder time of it than we do.
<P>
I should like to call on all those who have the opportunity to take advantage of the Socrates programme, who are able to use educational opportunities, who are going to be able to continue their education in the future, who contribute to Europe growing together, also to recognise in the course of their education that we are setting a fast pace at the moment in our process of development and in all our programmes, that there are those who cannot match this pace, and that we should take them by the hand and take them with us because quality, standards and education also require us not to sideline those who are weaker than ourselves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Sanders-ten Holte">
Mr President, Commissioner, the future belongs to the young.
This well-known [Dutch] expression perfectly embodies the spirit of the Socrates programme.
Europe is the future and in order to achieve this future, we need the young.
They need to get to know each other and gain an understanding of each other' s cultures and how better can this be achieved than by studying together, having fun together and by learning each other' s languages. In this way, we can achieve more understanding and solidarity among the young within the European Union.
<P>
Mr President, this is important now but this will certainly be important in the future too, with a view to enlargement.
I would therefore like to touch upon two additional aspects which have been highlighted in a conciliation.
<P>
Firstly, I am delighted that we have finally managed to convince the Council of the fact that more funding should be made available for such an important and successful programme.
This is mainly thanks to the rapporteur, Mrs Pack, who I could not praise enough for her commitment and tenacity, in particular, and also you, of course, Mrs Reding, for the intelligent and frank remarks you contributed.
It was not easy to make the Council see that, in view of the pending enlargement, this programme will be used a great deal more.
But governing is all about anticipation and this means that, if necessary, the programme should be able to be adapted sooner if more countries would like to take part in it.
I would hate to exclude the young from candidate countries.
<P>
Secondly, I am pleased that the selection procedures for the projects too have been somewhat simplified, but there is more room for improvement.
I hear many complaints about the fact that the application procedure is both complicated and lengthy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Echerer">
Mr President, Commissioner, I should like firstly to thank all those who have fought so hard.
My personal thanks go in particular to Mrs Pack, who has been the driving force behind the fight for our cause in the Conciliation Committee.
In Germany we have a proverb which says that you live and learn.
I am glad that a few years ago this concept was enshrined in the policy: now we call it lifelong learning.
<P>
The importance of education, whether it be quantitative or qualitative, general or subject-specific, is sufficiently well known to us all.
We are also now laying the foundation stones for the future of Europe.
In my opinion, Socrates is one of the most important building blocks.
I only need to mention mobility and European educational policy.
With your permission, I will draw your attention to one module which caters for cultural diversity: Action 4 or "Lingua".
Here, I should like to place particular emphasis on less widely spoken and less widely taught languages.
I call on the Council to take on this responsibility and not to confine its support for attractive policies of culture or lifelong learning to election campaigns, but to assume full responsibility for this task.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Angelilli">
Mr President, Commissioner, I think that we need to congratulate Mrs Pack, the rapporteur, for her work on the second stage of the Socrates programme.
I would also like to thank the whole of the European Parliament delegation which, with a lot of patience and determination, secured an increase in the financial provision of at least EUR 300 million.
This is a valuable resource for our young people, who have great confidence in the educational and training potential of this programme.
<P>
I will take this opportunity though, to remind the House that whether or not Socrates will be completely successful depends largely on the publicity this programme will be given within the individual Member States and the speed of the selection process.
Indeed, many European young people often complain of the difficulty of finding timely information on the programmes that concern them.
More widespread information and less red tape will certainly ensure real equal opportunities and more democratic access to the programme.
In this way, young people, above all, those least well-off and most disadvantaged will be able to consider Socrates as a chance for integration, for cultural enrichment and professional training, but above all, as a chance to have personal experiences and life experiences, in order to gain the flexibility and open-mindedness necessary to address, in the best way, employment challenges in the world of work: this is why SOCRATES is an important investment for the young people of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hieronymi">
Mr President, the results achieved by the Socrates programme are indeed impressive.
In all, 500 000 students have spent time studying in another Member State as part of their course.
110 000 young people have taken part in exchanges.
Overall, 1 500 universities and over 10 000 schools throughout the European Union have participated in this programme over the last four years.
Parliament and the Commission wanted to build on this success for the years 2000 to 2007.
<P>
The younger generation should have the opportunity not only to continue being involved in Europe but to become more involved.
Above all though, young people in the applicant countries should have the opportunity to take part in the new programme on an equal footing from the very beginning.
It is certainly hard to understand why the Council - which extended such a warm invitation a few days ago in Helsinki - denied the young people of Europe the funding which we considered necessary in the Conciliation Committee.
That is why my particular thanks go to the rapporteur, Mrs Pack, and Commissioner Reding, who together with the Conciliation Committee have squeezed EUR 300 million out of the Council.
I think that the Council can be sure that over the next few years the Commission and Parliament will continue to fight for young people in this way so as to obtain sufficient funds.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="O' Toole">
Can I first of all thank and congratulate Mrs Pack for leading us through this process, and also the Commission for standing by in what was a hard-fought, long and, in Parliament's view, a responsible negotiation, following which we are very happy to vote for the programme.
<P>
We all agree that Socrates I has provided us with a vital building block in the lives of young Europeans.
I have seen young people in areas of particular social exclusion in my own Member State, who did not know very much about the south-east of England, let alone the south-east of France or Spain, blossom and come forth in terms in confidence and educational capacity as a result of their interactions with other students from other Member States.
<P>
In terms of the ability of the programme to spearhead the values of Parliament, it is a tremendous success. Socrates is vital to the expansion of the educational capacity of our young people, not only in terms of their cultural capacity but in terms of their economic foundation as well.
We have seen that it is very much at the frontline when it comes to providing a future for a solid European Union.
<P>
We will benefit from the experience of Socrates I and the new coherent and comprehensive approach that we will see in Socrates II.
However, our job does not finish there.
In the next few years we have a vital role to play in examining the financial framework and the framework with a view to the enlargement, because that is when we will see the strains on Socrates II and its ability to deal with a new enlarged European Union.
We must provide for those incoming Member States the tremendous opportunities it is currently providing for our students.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Andreasen">
Mr President, Socrates II has now arrived, even though it cost a certain amount of effort.
Negotiating with the Council into the early hours of the morning is not always too exciting, but it was worth it this time.
Throughout the process, Mrs Pack has done a lot of good work, and I want to take the opportunity to thank her, just as I want to thank Commissioner Reding for her collaboration.
<P>
We have obtained a good Socrates programme containing some sensible initiatives which take account of the fact that the EU is on the brink of enlargement.
As a Dane, I cannot help but comment, in particular, on the Grundtvig initiative.
In Denmark, we have had a distinguished tradition of lifelong learning since the nineteenth century, and it is precisely the poet, priest and co-author of the Danish constitution, N.F.S. Grundtvig, who stands out as one of the founders of the entire folk high school movement in Denmark, a movement which helped educate ordinary people at a time when this was unusual.
The Danish folk high schools also play an important role in offering education to people of all ages.
It is good that we have got ourselves a scheme designed to give a boost to lifelong learning.
<P>
It is no secret that, when we insisted to the bitter end in Parliament that the Directive should include a review clause, this was in order to ensure that the programme would also be able to function properly following any enlargement of the European Union.
Mr President, all I can do is warmly recommend people to vote in favour of this report.
In fact, I cannot imagine anyone voting against it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Gallagher">
Mr President, at the outset I would like to commend Mrs Pack and Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee for their dedicated efforts to secure the best agreement on the second phase of the Socrates programme.
But I would have liked to have seen the Council move a lot closer to Parliament's figure of EUR 2,500 million.
I nevertheless welcome the increase on the common position of EUR 300 million.
This means that a total of EUR 1,850 million will be made available over the seven year period of the new programme.
<P>
I, like most of my colleagues, am an ardent supporter of the aims of the Socrates programme and have witnessed its benefits to education and to local communities.
Education must always be a priority of spending programmes as it is the way in which we build the future.
If we want the next generation to be enthusiastic European as well as national citizens we must be prepared to put our money where our mouth is and invest in high-quality education.
<P>
I particularly welcome the fact that the second phase of Socrates places such an emphasis upon promoting knowledge of EU languages.
As a Member of Parliament representing the largest part of Ireland's Irish-speaking Gaeltacht region I am very pleased to see that this extends to the Irish language which is a Treaty language.
I firmly believe that the granting of financial support for the teaching and learning of Irish and also Luxembourgish sends out the right signals that Parliament clearly and positively supports minority languages.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Iivari">
Mr President, in the end we can thank three people for completing the Socrates programme.
The most credit obviously goes to Mrs Pack.
Maija Rask, the Finnish Minister of Education, also demonstrated passionate feelings during the night' s negotiations to reach conciliation. And everything was crowned by the diplomatic skills of Renzo Imbeni, chairman of the committee.
<P>
It is excellent that we can now adopt this programme, which is so important for the citizens of Europe.
At the same time, I would like to draw attention to the flaws I observed in the handling of multiannual programmes to be approved by means of the codecision procedure.
There was no official cooperation between the Special Committee and the Committee on Budgets with regard to the second reading and conciliation.
This weakens Parliament' s negotiating position, as agreement on the demands of Parliament for the financial perspectives can be called into question.
In my opinion, there should be a review of the procedures with regard to these matters.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Karas">
Mr President, Commissioner, first of all I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Pack, and the Members of the Conciliation Committee on their success in the conciliation with the Council.
We have managed to secure an additional EUR 300 million for Socrates.
A further achievement is a review clause which means that in 2004 at the latest, the financial implications of the future accession of applicant countries will be reassessed, and that the Commission will have to submit a report.
Thirdly, we have ensured that the procedure for selecting projects is simplified and shortened.
<P>
It has already been said that we wanted more money because we believe that education and continuing education are particularly important for reducing unemployment, creating new jobs and making Europe more attractive to business in terms of its economy, labour market and social conditions, as well as for an effective internal market, a prerequisite for which is a European educational area.
For us, the European Parliament, the creation of a European consciousness - a European identity - and respect for the diversity of cultures, languages, ideas and religions in a unified area are inextricably linked to a proactive educational policy in Europe.
<P>
For us, the Socrates programme is a means to add a European dimension to the education on offer in the many different kinds of schools, universities and adult education institutions.
We believe that the mobility measures contained in the Socrates programme foster social skills, language skills and understanding for other cultures.
<P>
This programme, though improved in the negotiations, also has weaknesses of course.
One weakness is the low level of funding provided by the European Union, which means that the Member States have to make a significant contribution from national funds if they are to take part.
Applicant countries may take part but often they lack the resources to do so.
Other sources of criticism are the high administrative costs and the lengthy application and selection procedures.
<P>
We will make every effort to ensure that more and more young people are able to participate in the Socrates programme, because this programme is an investment in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Taylor">
Mr President, I should like to illustrate the past success of Socrates through soup.
Yes, you heard me correctly.
This was not my idea but the idea of Whitfield Primary School in Dundee, Scotland.
These people came up with a "Soups in Europe" project, working with partner schools in Austria, Denmark, Italy and France.
Their idea was that soup is a common food amongst people and that soup transcends boundaries.
Through this project, which was directly related to the Scottish curriculum, they organised a parents' soup day and, with their other partners, produced a book with 25 soup recipes.
Through soup and the support of Socrates the outcome of this project was more motivated pupils and staff, a greater awareness of their own environment as well as other places, and increased understanding of information communication technology.
<P>
I hope that the next Socrates programme produces more projects like that of Whitfield Primary School and maybe the next time you tuck into a bowl of soup, you will remember the educational value Socrates has across the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Reding">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to see that after so many months of discussion and struggle Socrates has finally become a reality.
<P>
As Mrs Pack explained so well in her speech, we have arrived at an agreement which is for all of us, as the Members of Parliament have said so clearly, a cornerstone in the construction of the citizens' Europe.
<P>
The agreement between Parliament and the Council was reached following a difficult, and indeed, even arduous, conciliation procedure, but, problems aside, it can be said that a successful outcome was reached and that is what counts.
In this respect, I am pleased to see the constructive spirit in which negotiations on this programme were held.
We have come a very long way since the Commission presented its initial proposal in May 1998. I would like to express my thanks for all this work.
First and foremost to your rapporteur, Mrs Pack, of course.
The quality of her work is widely acknowledged, especially among those who have had seats in this Parliament for any length of time, and indeed this is not her first report on Socrates, which is her baby to some extent. She was actually the rapporteur in 1994 on the first Socrates programme, and also on the budget review in 1997.
<P>
It is no exaggeration to say that thanks to you, Mrs Pack, thanks to your own personal commitment, Community education policy has been able to make extraordinary progress over the last five years.
I feel that it is not the Members of Parliament or the Commission who should be thanking you, but rather that the young people, the youth of Europe will thank you, and their thanks will be the greatest you can receive.
<P>
<P>
Mr President, I should also like to thank your fellow Member, Vice-President Imbeni, who headed the Parliament delegation during the conciliation process, and that was not always an easy assignment with discussions lasting until half past three in the morning.
It was no picnic, but Mr Imbeni managed, in his own inimitable, elegant Italian style, to stop the project being scuppered, and for this I am grateful to him.
<P>
I would next like to tell the PPE-DE Group that my thanks go to the chairman of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, Mr Gargani, who contributed greatly to the positive outcome of the conciliation process.
I should also like to thank Mrs Prets for the quality of her work as shadow rapporteur.
I should finally like to address the Council Presidency, since my fellow Minister who was Council President had no easy task.
She would have gone further herself, but unfortunately she was surrounded by ministers who did not wish to do so.
So please express my thanks to her for her courage and commitment.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, the two action programmes - grouping together Socrates and Leonardo which was approved last April - constitute an integrated package of measures intended to promote lifelong training.
These two programmes will be resourced by a total of EUR 3,000 million for the period 2000 to 2006.
I prefer to group the two programmes together so as to increase the total appropriation somewhat.
Our intentions have quite simply been frustrated: we would have liked to allocate more money to young people, but with reality, or Realpolitik being what it is, we have still managed to obtain, as the Members of Parliament have stated so clearly, a perceptible advance.
<P>
The fundamental objective shared by both programmes is to contribute to the gradual construction of a Europe of knowledge, capable of enabling young people and adults to gain the qualifications and skills they need to enter the labour market and, just as importantly but something which is sometimes forgotten, to be integrated into society.
A person with little training is not able to integrate himself into society, whatever his hidden or visible skills, and I think this is a loss not only for the labour market but also to society in general.
<P>
Furthermore, the two programmes form an integral part of the citizens' Europe since they enable the young people of Europe to gain experiences which make Europe a practical proposition and which engender their confidence.
Indeed, when one is in contact with schools, whether primary schools or universities, it can be seen that the European educational area is a reality, whatever some ministers say.
There is thus no need to quibble about terms, since reality tells us that this European educational area already exists in practical everyday terms.
And there is something I must tell you, ladies and gentlemen. This morning, I attended the opening of the academic year at the University of Turin.
Well, I was impressed. Every year, 600 students from the University of Turin are enabled to travel.
Since Socrates does not allocate sufficient funds, it is the University of Turin itself, even though it has scarcely adequate resources, Mr President, which subsidises their travel.
All this is achieved because there are intelligent men and women who have quite simply understood that we shall not build the Europe of tomorrow without the contribution of young people who have had the opportunity to familiarise themselves with other cultures and other educational systems.
As I said in Turin, a city which is built on two rivers crossed by many bridges, I see myself as a builder of bridges.
<P>
May I request your assistance so that together we may manage to build bridges between the educational systems of our various countries, as well as between these and the systems of other nations, so that many more students than in the past may cross these bridges and enter into the Europe of knowledge?
Mr President, and this will be my final remark as I know that you are very quick to wield the gavel, it should not be forgotten that education is not the only issue involved.
Culture is important as well. Culture requires knowledge, and knowledge of others means not being afraid.
The lack of fear forms an extraordinary defence against exclusion, xenophobia, and the rejection of aliens.
What we are involved in here is a truly European endeavour, perhaps the finest and greatest in terms of the success it may achieve.
<P>
The fact, ladies and gentlemen, that we have not obtained all the money we wanted, is not, I feel, so important.
The important thing is to replace the lack of money with intelligence and innovation, with fresh ideas.
If you have ideas, please help me out and pass them on to me.
We are going to endeavour to include new ideas in this new programme available to us and available to the youth of Europe, so that young people may become what we all would like to see: the Europeans of tomorrow.
<P>
(Applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Multilateral cooperation in North-East Atlantic fisheries
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A5-0092/1999) by Mr Busk, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation laying down certain control measures applicable in the area covered by the Convention on Future Multilateral Cooperation in the North-East Atlantic Fisheries (COM(1999) 345 - C5-0201/1999 - 1999/0138(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Busk">
.
(DA) Mr President, the aim of the current Commission proposal is to bring Community legislation into line with the recommendations adopted by NEAFC in 1998.
In this way, earlier measures will be incorporated into a comprehensive and reinforced new control scheme designed to ensure respect for the conservation and management policy agreed under the Convention.
The proposal has two main objectives: firstly, a scheme of control and enforcement is to be established for the Contracting Parties; and, secondly, a programme promoting compliance by non-Contracting Party vessels with NEAFC' s regulations is to be carried out.
The recommendations are reminiscent of the rules which are applied within the organisation governing fisheries in the north-west Atlantic, NAFO.
Through consultation and cooperation, NAFO contributes to the optimum utilisation, rational management and conservation of the fisheries resources within this Convention Area.
The Commission has tabled a proposal for converting NEAFC' s recommendations into Community legislation which, in a simplified and coherent way, incorporates all the acquired experience from NAFO and is in keeping with Parliament' s previous position.
<P>
The proposal has two aspects to it which ought to be emphasised.
First of all, the implementation of Community policy.
The present proposal contains only the general guidelines for the Community' s initiatives in this area.
It was left to the Commission to adopt the technical aspects after having submitted these to a Management Committee.
Nevertheless, the Commission may be assured that Parliament will closely monitor decisions taken under this procedure, and it will in particular ensure that the same methods for the reporting of catches and fishing effort are applied by all Member States.
<P>
Secondly, the financial burden.
When it comes to distributing this, the Commission believes that it is up to the Member States to provide adequate resources to meet their obligations of control within NEAFC.
I would again draw a parallel with NAFO, where inspection and control are funded from the Community budget.
I should like to see increased Community involvement in inspection and control in order to ensure that the rules are applied even-handedly.
Openness and fairness are vital elements in obtaining fishermen' s support, and it is only through obtaining their support that any reinforcement of inspection and control arrangements will really be effective.
<P>
Increased Community involvement in the future will naturally have budgetary implications and demand a reallocation of resources.
This ought not however to deflect the Commission from taking the lead in pressing for change or to deter the European Parliament from calling upon the Commission to do so.
Provided that the appropriate increased financial resources are made available, there is no reason why the Community cannot play a much more active role.
<P>
The recommendations came into force on 1 July 1999.
They were therefore already binding on the Community before the Commission tabled its proposal on 12 July 1999.
The European Parliament has not therefore had the opportunity to make a contribution to the debate, and I should like, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, to criticise the Commission for this.
This is an outrageous way of going on, to use one of the words employed during the debate in the Committee on Fisheries.
<P>
Finally, I should like to emphasise the importance of informing the fishing industry of the purpose of the proposal and of making it clear that the rules are to the industry' s advantage.
Despite the aforementioned reservations and criticism about the timing of the Commission' s proposal, this important legislation should be approved by Parliament without delay.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Stevenson">
I congratulate Niels Busk on his report.
Mr Busk is a very sensible member of the Fisheries Committee and I think that Parliament can have confidence in his report.
<P>
While I have no hesitation in supporting this important legislation and recommending that it should be improved by Parliament without delay, I nevertheless have two brief comments I would like to make.
<P>
First of all the Fisheries Committee was presented with a fait accompli by the Commission in respect of this proposal.
These regulations actually came into force on 1 July this year, although the Commission tabled the proposals before this Parliament on 12 July.
We were therefore left in a position where we had no alternative but to support the proposals.
I find this behaviour extraordinary.
I recall Commissioner Fischler stating during his hearing before the Fisheries Committee on 30 August that he wished to cooperate closely with Parliament and the standing committees of Parliament in a working partnership.
I hope that such a working partnership will indeed manifest itself in future and that we will not again be treated in such a cavalier fashion by the Commission.
We are the democratically elected representatives of the people of the European Community and we are not here simply to act as a rubber stamp for regulations that have already been implemented by the Commission in advance of consultation.
<P>
Secondly, although I do not intend to recommend that we vote against Mr Busk's report, I feel it is worth sounding a note of caution that the rapporteur has called for more Community financial involvement in inspection and control of fisheries.
Such involvement implies additional budget resources and, as my colleagues on the Committee on Budgets never cease to point out, the cake is limited in size so that every time we cut off another slice it means less for some other equally important sector.
<P>
Only last week, in the context of the report by Carmen Fraga Estévez on the common organisation of the market in fisheries and aquaculture products, this House voted to allocate subsidies to the aquaculture industry for the first time, once again eating into the limited fisheries budget.
We must be financially realistic and prudent and I trust that the House will note my concern at this latest threatened raid on the fisheries budget.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langenhagen">
Mr President, there was a report in the newspaper recently - and we examined it in the Fisheries Committee - about the cod catch in the North-East Atlantic and a bilateral agreement between Russia and Norway, two States which - together with other States such as Iceland, Poland and those of the European Union - are equal contracting parties in the North-East Atlantic Fisheries Commission.
All the States, including Russia and Norway therefore, have committed themselves in this Commission not only to multilateral cooperation but also to obeying a common code.
This is based, amongst other things, on technical data recommended by ICES, the scientific organisation, and now Russia and Norway want to break away and, on the basis of a bilateral agreement, fish possibly three to four times the quantity recommended by the scientists.
This is incredible!
Whenever anything connected with the misuse of resources has gone wrong in the EU in the past, we have always looked admiringly at the Norwegians and their fisheries management, but now we see that the Norwegians are no different from anybody else.
<P>
That is why this report by Mr Busk is so important.
It is about a significant legal instrument which seeks to establish a coherent and permanent system of control measures involving all contracting parties in the areas mentioned. The experience of the fisheries commissions in the north-east and north-west Atlantic must be transferred into EU Community law.
The EU can be the forerunner here.
Is it? Can it sharpen its image as a driving force?
If so it would be well on the way to marketing itself and its policy better than in the past.
This is precisely what Commissioner Fischler has in mind; he is calling in general for an improved marketing strategy in the fisheries sector.
Control measures at EU level and at Member State level need to be balanced out.
This buck-passing game has to stop!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="McCartin">
We are dealing with cold waters late at night in the middle of December and it seems that only the EPP has the nerve to go swimming.
For that reason there is not very much left to say.
My colleague Mr Stevenson has been complaining bitterly about the fact that we are dealing with something that is already in effect.
Nevertheless, he was not here in the last Parliament and when he has been here as long as I have he will learn to have a little bit more patience.
It was a particularly bad season for the Commission and a particularly difficult time to proceed through all the normal channels since we had elections, Commission difficulties, and so on.
<P>
Of course, I am impressed by the quality of the legislation and by the fact that this is the way to solve problems internationally, that everybody sits down and makes agreements.
But, of course, if the Commission, representing all of us in ensuring that this agreement is put into good effect, does not have any resources to do it with, then we are back to the original situation as far as the Member States are concerned.
Nobody has absolute confidence that anybody else is carrying out the supervision and enforcing the law as they should and we will end up in the same situation with this agreement.
If we do not agree, having adopted common policies, to give ourselves the resources to ensure that these policies are put into effect, then we are really stretching ourselves too far and we are only bringing the Community and its laws and regulations into disrepute.
That is the major reservation that I have about what we are proposing here tonight.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Reding">
May I thank the rapporteur, Mr Niels Busk, and congratulate him on the excellent report he has presented on the Commission proposal with a view to integrating the NEAFC scheme of control into Community legislation.
<P>
In the area of control, the NEAFC scheme provides a model, based on the terms of the agreement on straddling stocks and highly migratory fish, or New York Agreement.
It is a model which concords broadly with the viewpoints defended by the Community in the context of this agreement.
The measures on the conservation of fish stocks and the monitoring of fishing activities must be dealt with in agreements signed in the framework of regional fishing organisations, and these organisations must serve as a platform for international cooperation.
<P>
The Community has contributed actively to the preparation of the NEAFC scheme of control.
The measures laid down are totally compatible with our point of view and our priorities regarding the improvement of the monitoring of high seas fishing activities.
<P>
In this context, it is of the utmost importance that the conditions of the NEAFC scheme of control should be integrated into Community legislation.
The Community must strive to ensure the success of this scheme of control, which will then serve as a model for other regional organisations, and the support which Parliament has given this proposal shows that, in this field as in others, as you know, Mr President, we share the same point of view.
<P>
The matter of financing and the distribution of financial burdens must be the subject of a debate in the wider context of the regional fishing organisations.
In order to bring about a debate of this kind, Mr Fischler sent you a communication on Community participation in regional fishing organisations, and this was also sent to the Council.
And Mr Fischler wishes to take part in the debate to be held on these points at the appropriate time, at some time next year.
On the basis of the conclusions which will be drawn from this wide-ranging debate, the Commission will then present fresh proposals, on which Parliament will be invited to give its opinion.
<P>
Mr Stevenson made a very pertinent comment, Mr President, and I have to say that the Commission acknowledges the criticism which has been levelled against it.
The fact is, however, that his remarks were directed not at the Prodi Commission but at their predecessors, and I must point out, on behalf of Commissioner Fischler, that we shall be doing all we can to ensure that such criticism is not justified in future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Verification of the credentials of Members elected in June 1999
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A5-0084/1999) by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the verification of credentials of Members following the fifth direct election to the European Parliament on 10 to 13 June 1999.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, I have the honour of presenting this report on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market which appointed me institutional rapporteur.
<P>
This report on the verification of credentials has its roots and legal basis in Article 11 of the Act concerning the election of the representatives of the European Parliament annexed to the Council decision of 20 September 1976.
<P>
In accordance with this legal basis it falls to the European Parliament to verify the credentials of its Members until the uniform electoral procedure comes into force.
<P>
This report on the verification of credentials relates to the outcome of the fifth direct election to the European Parliament, which took place on 10 to 13 June 1999 and is based on the official notifications by all the Member States of the full election results and the names of any substitutes together with their ranking in accordance with the results of the vote.
<P>
However, in accordance with Article 7(5) of our Rules of Procedure, any Member may attend sittings of Parliament and its bodies even if his credentials have not been verified or a ruling has not been given on a dispute.
Accordingly, pending adoption of the report on the verification of credentials, - I hope with an overwhelming majority tomorrow in the plenary sitting - all of us, all Members elected in the fifth legislature, have been able to exercise our rights in full and with no restrictions.
<P>
The Rules of Procedure also lay down that, should an elected Member resign from Parliament before this report has been adopted in plenary, the vacancy and the name of the new Member shall be verified, pursuant to Rule 8 of the Rules of Procedure in conjunction with the relevant provisions of the Act of 20 September 1976, in a separate procedure independent of this report and which will take place at a convenient time.
<P>
Therefore, this report relates only to the acquisition of a mandate as a result of the fifth direct elections to the European Parliament.
<P>
The competent national authorities of fourteen Member States sent their official notifications on 20 July 1999.
As far as Luxembourg was concerned, there was a delay in declaring the candidates elected due to the fact that a general election was held at the same time as the European election.
In these elections, some candidates stood for the European Parliament as well as for the national parliament and some were also potential Members of the future government of Luxembourg, which is incompatible, pursuant to Article 6(1) of the Act of 20 September 1976, with Membership of the European Parliament.
Because the Luxembourg Government was not formed until early August 1999, the mandate of the now Commissioner Viviane Reding could not become effective, following notification from the competent Luxembourg authorities, until 7 August 1999.
In turn, Mrs Reding' s resignation will be subject to verification in a separate decision as I previously stated.
<P>
On the other hand, Rule 7(2) of the Rules of Procedure lays down that it is not possible to confirm the validity of the mandate of a Member unless the written declarations required on the basis of Article 6 of the Act of 20 September 1976 and Annex 1 to the Rules of Procedure have been made.
These declarations - it is worth pointing out - are to the effect that the Member does not hold any of the offices listed in Article 6 which are incompatible with membership of the European Parliament. They also contain precise information on the Member' s professional activities, any other remunerated functions or activities and any support, whether financial or in terms of staff or material.
I have to say that making these declarations is the sole responsibility of the Member, who must make them to the best of his or her knowledge.
In this procedure and in the report that I am presenting today, what will be verified is only whether the formal requirements have been met.
<P>
Therefore, Mr President, this is the background to the report on which we will vote tomorrow in plenary sitting in Parliament and for which, as rapporteur, I have presented two amendments which are justified by my explanation about the elections in Luxembourg and by what I have said.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gebhardt">
Mr President, the present report by Mrs Palacio marks the successful completion of a laborious task.
We can adopt it, put it to one side and everything will take its course.
Is it just routine then?
Not for me!
Because this report forces us to confront an issue which the European Parliament debated in the last Parliament and brought to a proper conclusion.
I am talking about uniform electoral law in Europe.
Do you remember the Anastassopoulos report in which we laid down a basis for electing Members of the European Parliament in accordance with the same principles in all the Member States?
The new Members of this House will have to look it up.
Presumably it is slowly starting to resurface in the minds of longer-serving Members.
No wonder, because this tends to be an everyday occurrence where the democratic foundations of the European Union are concerned.
Or am I wrong to say that the best proposals made by Parliament of all the nations of Europe - legitimised by virtue of being directly elected - are all too often of little value?
Often they fall victim to the idleness of the Council and the governments of the Member States.
This is the case with the Anastassopoulos report and uniform electoral law. Parliament has adopted it.
Unfortunately, there is no sign of it being transposed.
In my opinion, this is catastrophic.
<P>
It is precisely in view of the European Union's enlargement that the public expects its democratic foundations to be consolidated.
This includes uniform electoral law with all the possibilities it has to offer, which we have described in the report.
<P>
As we vote for the Palacio report, let us express the hope that after the next European elections the relevant report will be based on uniform electoral law.
This would make the work easier and would be a substantial contribution to greater democracy and transparency in the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Wednesday at noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Civil liability in respect of the use of motor vehicles
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0086/1999), on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the common position established by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to insurance against civil liability in respect of the use of motor vehicles and amending Directives 73/239/EEC and 88/357/EEC (Fourth Motor Insurance Directive) (rapporteur: Mr Rothley).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rothley">
Mr President, it all sounded so terribly technical in your announcement, but in reality this legislation significantly improves the protection of those who are victims of a road accident in another country.
I mention this because we are obviously no longer capable of expressing ourselves in such a way that people can understand what we are talking about.
We can be proud of this directive.
It is a joint effort on the part of the European Parliament, which took the initiative, but also the Commission which improved the original Parliament proposal considerably with the addition of the compensation body.
We can, however, also be grateful to the Council for accepting the essential points contained in the proposal.
<P>
As far as the recommendations for the second reading are concerned, I should like to concentrate on two points.
The vast majority of the amendments concern drafting points and the legal text itself.
Parts of the Council's common position are virtually incomprehensible.
I am even convinced that the authors themselves do not know what on earth they have written.
I should like to remind both the Commission and the Council of a very fine quotation from a 19th century German jurist, who said that the legislator must think like a philosopher and speak like a farmer, simply and clearly and so that people can understand.
The artistry involved in trying to find a compromise is usually reflected in the legislation, and the principle of speaking simply and clearly becomes out of the question.
<P>
Admittedly, there remains a problem of substance, where we in the European Parliament hold a different opinion from that of the Commission and the Council.
I should like to remind the Commission and the Council that in this matter we have the support of the profession, the insurers, who incidentally are the ones affected by the provisions of the whole directive.
We also have the support of the automobile associations and we have the support of the organisations of accident victims.
The only people in the whole world who still oppose this are the Commission and the Council.
What is it about?
It is about this directive also applying if the accident has not taken place in a Member State of the EU but in a third country.
There is not the slightest reason for excluding this case from the scope of the directive.
<P>
Let us take the example of a Frenchman and an Italian who have an accident in Switzerland.
Why should the directive not apply in this case?
Why not indeed?
The insurers shake their heads and say that of course it can be done.
There is one insurance company which disagrees - a British company - but all the others are asking, why not?
By adopting this directive, we are not making any changes to substantive law, we are not in any way changing the court of jurisdiction, we are not in any way changing judicial procedures.
The one and only difference is that the accident victim from France - to use the same example - does not have to contact the Italian insurance company in Italy directly but the representative of the Italian insurance company in France.
That is all.
Wherever the accident has happened - for example in Switzerland - any further procedures, if there is no agreement, are not affected one jot by this directive.
It only regulates the settlement of disputes before they reach the courts, not in court.
<P>
Commissioner, that is why I am making this request.
Clearly specific interests have been at work here.
It was even claimed by the Commission in a trialogue that European insurers were against my solution.
The truth is different.
They are in favour of this solution.
Hence my recommendation, Commissioner: I urge the Commission to rethink its position.
It is untenable.
I assume that the Council would then also accept this solution.
<P>
I wish to emphasise once more that this is not a proposal which has been dreamt up in a bureaucratic ivory tower.
This proposal is the result of countless discussions with all of those involved.
That is also why I think that it is practicable, because those who have to deal with it in practice are after all telling us that it works, it works extremely well, and that is what they want.
Usually the Commission takes account of the interests of those involved.
Ask those involved then, and you will see that the solution proposed by the European Parliament meets with their approval.
There is, therefore, no reason for the scope of this directive to be restricted.
This is in fact only to the detriment of accident victims.
We should not forget that!
Surely what we want is to improve the protection of accident victims.
That is why I make this plea: we should all reconsider this matter in the forthcoming conciliation procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, this is an important directive.
It is important firstly because - as the rapporteur said - it is one of these completely successful cases of taking advantage of the opportunities made possible by the former Article 138B of the Treaty of Maastricht, in other words, this Parliament is launching an initiative that will be taken up by the Commission and followed up by the Council.
<P>
The rapporteur said that this is also an example of good cooperation between the three institutions.
However, I would like to highlight the hard work, which has been notable and entirely praiseworthy, almost Herculean, of the rapporteur, Mr Rothley, throughout the process, from the conception of the basic idea to the follow-up, full of passion and rigour, of the legislative work that has been carried out.
<P>
This is also an important directive, however, because now, when we are so concerned about the indifference of European citizens - who do not turn out to vote, who feel that Europe is very distant from them and who do not know whether Brussels is anything more than a place which produces what they perceive to be obligations - this is a good example of what our citizens really feel and understand to be the case.
This is something that they will notice in their daily lives because any of them may have a car, and any of them, even if they do not travel abroad much, will have the idea that "well, if I do go abroad at least I will be covered" .
It offers some security.
<P>
It is important for another reason.
Mr President, I would like to say most emphatically on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party, that the large majority of us support the rapporteur, Mr Rothley, on the only point of real controversy which, as he has made very clear, is its field of application.
There is a, shall we say, technical problem in the way it will apply but we will have to resolve these issues from a technical point of view.
We utterly refuse to change the philosophy of it.
This Parliament has shown itself to be clearly opposed to moving from the idea of a binding law to the idea of a voluntary pact between people who are insured with a voluntary subscription on their part.
<P>
From that starting point, we can discuss the matter.
If it is true - and it is true, and I was the first to recognise this as I was quite opposed to this idea, defended from the outset by Mr Rothley -, that some technical modifications will need to be made, then so be it.
Let us not forget though that these modifications are to some extent an unnecessary clarification - and Mr Rothley is right in this - because in no case can a directive affect private international law or the rules of procedure.
<P>
If these clarifications need to be made, we will make them.
If an item needs to be revised, it shall be revised.
If we need to make a modification, we shall do so.
However, Mr President, in any event, the Group of the European People' s Party maintains that we will not change our philosophy.
We are not prepared to replace this philosophy of binding law with another one that is completely uncertain and not very favourable to the European citizen, to a voluntary subscription scheme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="Wallis">
I would like to start also by congratulating the rapporteur on this report.
A motor vehicle accident in any circumstances can be traumatic, all the more so if it involves personal injuries.
If we add to that an international dimension where the victims find themselves in a foreign country, the problems may be multiplied: differences in language, procedure, inability to identify or trace the third party, let alone deal with insurers.
The mere identification of the third parties is often lengthy and time-consuming.
Once the insurers are in touch, matters are often settled by negotiation.
This directive would be a welcome step in ensuring that the respective foreign insurers get in contact quickly and the proposals for settlement are promptly forthcoming.
<P>
So far, so good.
But our rapporteur wants to go one small step further and I feel, as others have already said, that we should support him.
This relates to accidents in third countries.
Let me spend a moment to share with you a case I had in private practice as a lawyer before I was elected to this Parliament.
It concerned a German national who had an accident in Turkey, caused by a UK national.
That claim was being negotiated by insurers in two Member States, and if it had been litigated, it would have been litigated in the UK, probably according to UK law.
So tell me where the problem is.
This is what happens in practice.
There really is not a difficulty with including the small further step which the rapporteur is asking for.
The difficulties that have been thrown up can be overcome if there is a will to do so.
<P>
Lastly, I would just like to say one small thing on the question of damages.
I hope that we will come back to this in the future.
The measures or the methods of calculating damages across the European Union differ vastly.
We would do our citizens a great service if we could move towards harmonising this area as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lehne">
Mr President, essentially I can endorse what previous speakers have said.
We have here a good example of a Europe which is close to the people.
I should like to say quite clearly that the changes resulting from the transposition of this directive will ultimately benefit all the people of Europe and will also be experienced by them firsthand; they will not - as is often the case with other legislation - perhaps constitute an indirect benefit or not be entirely transparent.
This is a problem which it is highly probable that everyone in the European Union will experience once at some stage in their life, and then they will obviously benefit accordingly from the directive.
I think that this also needs to be mentioned explicitly here.
<P>
I should like to express my thanks to Mr Rothley, the rapporteur, for preparing this report so thoroughly and for taking the initiative - it was of course also Parliament from whom the initiative came at that time - but I would, however, also like to thank the Commission and the Council for agreeing to this in principle.
<P>
I do not, however, understand why the problem which has been mentioned here should continue to exist, because so far I have not heard one single comprehensible argument against accidents involving EU citizens in third countries being included in this directive.
<P>
So far every argument against this has been unsatisfactory.
Sometimes it is simply incorrect information - this also became clear in the last debate in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, as far as the attitude of the insurance industry is concerned.
I would simply ask the Commission and the Council to make an effort in this matter and go along with Parliament's position.
<P>
Since the trialogue's preliminary discussion was inconclusive, at present we simply have no choice but to insist on our good and reasonable amendments and to adopt them once more here at this second reading.
This will then give the Council and the Commission the opportunity to be more shrewd in the conciliation procedure.
They should use that opportunity!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fiori">
Mr President, this directive is the first case where the European Commission is responding with an initiative to a request made by the European Parliament under the indirect power of legislative initiative conferred on it by the Treaty of Maastricht.
It is an important element in the interinstitutional balance because it shows that, when it asks the Commission, in accordance with the usual paths laid down by the Treaty, to carry out one of its well-founded requests, Parliament will find the Commission to be an attentive and willing partner in dialogue.
This is also in line with the demands made by Parliament and the Group of the European People' s Party in particular at the time of Romano Prodi' s appointment as President of the Commission.
<P>
I think that Mr Rothley' s report should be adopted in its entirety: it is a high-level compromise, the synthesis of a series of stimuli and innovative concepts, and the result of the cooperation between the various institutions.
<P>
I would like to talk for a moment about, for example Amendment No 4, which deletes Recital 26.
It is obvious, in fact, that, if a legal person, in the performance of one of its duties, should compensate a prejudiced party, it may not be denied the right of subrogation in the claims of the injured party against the compensation body.
Also, Amendment No 11 should be emphasised.
<P>
It is true, the problem remains of the accidents that occur in third countries: I hope that we can manage to find a solution that safeguards Parliament' s decision, which aims to extend the scope of the of the directive' s application to these cases but at the same time, without prejudice to the Council' s concerns regarding respect for the principles of international private law.
We should all work on this point, primarily the rapporteur, Mr Rothley, and the Chair of the committee, Mrs Palacio.
<P>
A future legislative initiative could address the insurance sector once again, in particular, regarding some degree of harmonisation of the regulations regarding the compensation of harm occasioned to persons, which is creating many disparities and injustices in the European Union.
The Spanish example, once suitably adapted, could be an interesting base to work from.
I invite everyone to carefully consider this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bolkestein">
<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner, for your detailed answer.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Wednesday at noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Heavy goods vehicles in Switzerland
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A5-0075/1999) by Mr Aparicio Sánchez, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation on the distribution of permits for heavy goods vehicles travelling in Switzerland (COM(1999) 35 - C5-0054/1999 - 1999/0022).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Aparicio Sánchez">
Mr President, two years after the negative result of the referendum in Switzerland on its integration into the European Economic Area, the Council authorised the Commission to negotiate bilateral agreements with that country in the necessary fields.
The draft regulation which has now been submitted for Parliament' s approval complements one of the agreements that has been reached, specifically the one on the transport of goods and passengers by rail and road.
In accordance with this agreement, a maximum number of lorries from the Community weighing over 28 tonnes will be authorised to transit Switzerland until 2005, when this country, in aligning itself with Community law, will not require permits for lorries of up to 40 tonnes.
<P>
Thus, as soon as this regulation comes into force, the current situation, which does not allow lorries of more than 28 tonnes to travel through Swiss territory, will end.
In 2000, 250 000 permits have been allowed for lorries weighing over 28 tonnes with a full load registered in the European Union.
From 2001, permits will be granted for lorries weighing more than 34 tonnes, with free transit for those weighing between 28 and 34 tonnes.
This number will rise to 300 000 per year in 2001 and 2002 and to 400 000 per year in 2003 and 2004.
On the other hand, lorries allowed to transit empty has been fixed at 220 000 per year.
<P>
The current regulation - which I think is totally correct - proposes a system for the allocation of these permits between the Fifteen Member States.
Each one will receive 1500 per year and the rest will be allocated according to current, real or theoretical figures for bilateral traffic and transit traffic.
<P>
I must express my reservations about two negative circumstances.
Firstly, the present proposal is being debated and voted on in this House before we know the overall Agreement with Switzerland so we are being asked to approve one part without knowing the whole thing.
Secondly, we lack reliable and up-to-date statistics on current flows of goods transport between Switzerland and the European Union even though this study is about to be completed and the same regulation lays down that in 2000, the current allocation figures could be modified if the true figures differ significantly from those that are currently envisaged.
<P>
With regard to both of these factors, I think that the desire that this regulation which must be adopted by the codecision procedure should come into force on the same day as the Agreement, is a sufficient argument to explain the need for haste.
<P>
I declare my complete agreement with the basic issue, that is, with the proposed method of calculation for allocating the number of permits to the different Member States and that, given the circumstances, it is the most objective, rigorous and fair method possible.
Furthermore, the regulation lays down, as I said, a system for the annual allocation of any permits that have not been allocated.
It is to be hoped that in turn, each Member State will allocate the permits that it has been allocated with equally objective criteria to its hauliers.
<P>
By way of a summary, I shall give you some figures.
If we apply the proposed system, the distribution of the 1,650 000 permits allowing the circulation of heavy goods vehicles over the five years gives a result of 36% to Germany, 20.5% to Italy, 15.5% to France, 7.8% to the Netherlands, 6.6% to Belgium, 3.8% to Austria with the remaining 10% to be distributed amongst the remaining Member States.
<P>
Mr President, a few amendments put forward by the two Parliamentary Committees that have been debating the draft improve on some details and contribute to the overall fairness of the regulation and to the ease of managing it.
I think that it is very important that, as the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism has decided by means of a vote, we maintain the Commission' s proposed minimum allocation of 1500 permits for each Member State.
I must point out that this number is very low, equivalent to two trips per day for each country, and that the total of all these permits to be allocated automatically over five years does not even represent 7% of the total.
<P>
I shall thus end by highlighting once again the overall quality of the draft project.
I congratulate the Commission on it and ask the honourable Members to approve this draft regulation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferber">
Mr President, Commissioner, I would of course also have been glad if the Commissioner responsible for transport policy had been present, but I suppose that this is not possible.
What are we talking about here?
We are not discussing transport policy today; we are discussing the worst aspect of a market economy, quotas.
How can we distribute what Switzerland has graciously allotted to us - all because the former Transport Commissioner was careless when he negotiated with the Swiss Minister for Transport on Europe's behalf - how can we share out these concessions amongst the Member States?
<P>
We need to be aware of this.
That is what this is all about.
The proposal tabled here by the Commission is actually quite shameful.
I should like to make that perfectly clear.
Why do we need basic allocations?
Do we really want the same to happen with these quotas as we have seen happen with milk for at least the last ten years and for them to become tradable assets?
I have already heard countries on the periphery of Europe say today that they will be glad if they can enter into quota-trading.
No, of course that cannot be the case!
The quotas belong to the European Union and they must also be returned to it.
Only the European Union has the right to reallocate them.
<P>
Surely it would be better to leave them where they belong - that is, where freight transport really takes place - rather than first scattering them in a happy-go-lucky fashion across all the Member States and then engaging in a laborious process of collecting them in again and reallocating them.
We ought to realise that this is not a sensible strategy.
I should also like to state quite clearly that overall the rapporteur has certainly produced a very good piece of work, and I should like to thank him for this.
However, I have to say that I would have been glad if, given the narrow majority - of one vote - which we had in the committee, the rapporteur and his group had shown a little more willingness to compromise because - and I am saying this quite clearly today - if, when we vote on Wednesday, our Amendment No 7 to reduce the basic allocations to 500 is not passed, we will vote against the whole report.
On this point, I would add that if our group, the PPE-DE, had not abstained in the committee we would not be having a debate now.
There was a majority against the report.
That is why I should like to ask that at long last we be prepared to negotiate on this and not dig our heels in and simply refuse to discuss anything with each other.
That is neither in the interests of those who have goods to transport either through or within Switzerland nor is it in the interests of the neighbouring countries.
When I consider that 30% of the traffic going through the Brenner Pass alone is traffic diverted from Switzerland, then surely we really must use the quotas here to ensure that the shortest route once again appears an advantage instead of placing an excessive burden on the surrounding countries, a burden which is far greater than any statistics show.
<P>
I should therefore like to ask that the time until midday on Wednesday be used for further discussions on a compromise.
I have abandoned the hard line I took in the committee, I have been willing to compromise on this and would be glad if this willingness to compromise were forthcoming from the other side; otherwise we will vote against.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, firstly I should like to thank Mr Aparicio Sánchez for the excellent report and also confirm that he has the full support of my group.
Of course, the issues mentioned by Mr Ferber were discussed; we simply reached a different conclusion.
Firstly, Mr Ferber, I should like to say quite clearly that this is about transport policy.
Of course this is about transport policy. You used the adjective "socialist" here and that is precisely the underlying problem.
Thank God the cat is now out of the bag and we know what this is all about.
What is happening here is that whenever a sensible policy is pursued, for example in the interests of the environment, it is simply labelled socialist, and the whole thing is thus discredited.
<P>
I believe that this is unacceptable.
This is about drafting transport policy.
Policy-making means taking decisions about the way in which the market can and should work, but of course under certain basic conditions.
This is what has happened here.
<P>
Secondly, this is about putting in place transitional arrangements.
As Mr Sánchez has already said, the transitional rules are a difficult phase in the process, in the course of which we have also tried to keep the Swiss on board.
The negotiations were long and hard.
I should like to say - not because it is a Commissioner from our side, I have expressed my thanks to enough Commissioners from the other side - that Mr Kinnock conducted tough and prolonged negotiations and that a good result emerged from them.
It is a good result, and you also mentioned yourself that this is not about making sure that some countries obtain assets, because if the countries cannot use these assets - as you put it - they go back to the European Commission - to Europe - and then have to be reallocated.
<P>
Speaking also as an Austrian, I would say that this is surely about reducing the amount of traffic transiting France and Austria.
This is of course not just traffic which originates in Austria or Germany; it is also traffic which has come, for example, from Greece and other parts of Europe.
For this reason I believe that this is a good report.
I should like to thank our colleague, Mr Aparicio Sánchez.
I also believe that the vote on the report here should be handled in the same way as it was in the committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Mr President, we have a saying at home that what God has divided by a mountain man should not join together by a tunnel.
I do not doubt that this is far too strict an interpretation of divine will, and the people of Europe agree.
Over the course of many years they have removed many obstacles on the routes between them.
This has allowed people to get to know each other, boosted the economy, promoted tourism and given people an opportunity to live together.
The conclusion of this Agreement on transport with Switzerland means that after many years a dividing line across Europe will gradually be bridged.
This is to be welcomed, in spite of the problems which this process of course also entails.
This is good for the general public, who will now no longer, as they did in the past, have to take sometimes extremely long detours on roads which were in any case already congested and for which they also paid handsomely.
The new possibilities are also good for the people who live in the Alpine region and for the environment there, which has been seriously damaged by the so-called environmental transit traffic.
Of course there were, and still are, sensitive Alpine areas in Austria and France as well, not only in Switzerland, although obviously there are some there too.
<P>
As the process of implementing the Agreement on transport between the EU and Switzerland gets underway, we look forward to it being easier to cross the central Alpine region in the future.
We hope that the package of agreements between the European Union and Switzerland will perhaps also lead to Switzerland's becoming a member of the European Union.
<P>
However, above all we look forward to the proposed regulation making a significant contribution - in the short or long term - to a new, better, more efficient, but also humane and environmentally friendly transport policy in the Union.
<P>
Finally, with this in mind, I should also like to make an appeal in support of Mr Ferber's Amendment No 7.
He is proposing to delete - with no replacement - the first sentence of Annex 3, which states that "each Member State shall receive a basic allocation of 1500 permits" .
The geography of Europe is not such that each Member State has the same need to pass through Switzerland on the way from A to B. This solution is a bureaucratic nightmare.
Let us do away with it!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Mastorakis">
In his report the rapporteur, Mr Aparicio Sánchez, addressed the Commission' s proposal for a regulation which has been largely based on statistical evidence and concessions.
<P>
As regards the statistical evidence on which the proposed distribution of permits for heavy goods vehicles is based, the figures to date relating to foreign trade cannot possibly be correct since with the existing 28 tonne limit in Switzerland, long haul road transport, for example from Greece, is just not profitable and is therefore not practised.
It is just like distributing visual aids to a group of people, some of whom are blind, according to the amount of printed material they read per annum.
Obviously the blind, who would need visual aids more than the others, would get nothing simply because they do not and cannot read.
<P>
The situation is not helped by the fact that foreign trade and the use of transport services do not necessarily go hand in hand. For economic reasons, vast quantities of goods are exported in vehicles from other Member States and not from the Member State which produces them.
Of course, full liberalisation of the internal transport market makes it virtually impossible to keep tabs on all this.
Assessing the needs for transit permits is based on the current traffic flows through the Alpine Region, particularly through Austria, and takes no account of the fact that this traffic flow is largely regulated by the restrictive system of housepoints according to which other allocation quota for Member States have previously been calculated.
Mr Aparicio Sánchez obviously took this factor into consideration when drawing up his report, but, as we all know, the figures are only indicative in nature and are based on available existing figures; they do not accurately reflect the reality of the situation.
We should not forget either that the proposed changes are transitional in nature since the liberalisation of 40-tonne vehicles will only take effect from 1 January 2005.
Furthermore, it seems likely that the EU-Switzerland Agreement will not enter into force before 2001 or even later because of the procedures involved in the relevant areas, in which case the transitional period will be shortened significantly.
<P>
Mr Aparicio Sánchez has obviously studied the issue carefully using all the above figures and, together with other members of our committee, has come up with some substantial improvements.
The return for reallocation of any unused permits by 15 September instead of 15 November as the Commission had proposed, will ultimately reduce the possibility of unfairness in the final distribution, which must be based solely on real needs and will help companies plan their operations better.
<P>
I would like to thank the rapporteur for his sterling work and we should honour him by approving his report.
As regards the agreement concerning the report under discussion, and any other agreement with Switzerland for that matter, where will they lead?
Perhaps when a final agreement for Switzerland' s accession has been ratified, all this will no longer be an issue to us.
Thank you for listening so late in the evening to my maiden speech in this Chamber and I wish you all the best for the new millennium.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Stenmarck">
Mr President, the transit of goods and people through Switzerland has been a major problem for many years.
Following intensive work by the Commission, especially by rapporteur Mr Aparicio Sánchez whose efforts we have cause to be grateful for, we now have the opportunity of obtaining an agreement for heavy goods vehicles, which is extraordinary progress.
In the future, it will be a question of achieving more such agreements between the EU and Switzerland, and in connection with other types of vehicle too.
However, the agreements on which we can now adopt a position on behalf of the EU concern transit through Switzerland for lorries of 40 metric tons.
It could presumably be argued that the fee payable for this kind of vehicle is high.
Before the year 2000, it amounts to CHE 180.
Clearly, this is expensive, but the cost of instead driving around Switzerland would presumably be a great deal higher.
This would also be a considerably worse alternative from an environmental point of view.
<P>
As I see it, there is only one significant weakness in the agreement, namely the allocation of the quotas which have been negotiated and which increase in the course of the years leading up to the agreement' s coming into force.
The proposal, which others too have considered, involves a basic quota which is the same for all countries.
The only problem is that certain countries have no need of such a large quota while others need access to a significantly larger one.
You have only to look at a map of Europe to realise that the flow of traffic from north to south signifies a great deal more for some countries than for others.
For countries such as Sweden and Finland, another system of allocation would be extremely significant.
Mr Ferber has tabled an amendment which involves our looking in a considerably more flexible way at the present allocation, and I support this amendment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bolkestein">
.
(NL) Mr President, I would like to start by thanking both parliamentary committees and not least both rapporteurs, Mr Aparicio Sánchez and Mr Brunetta, for their time and effort invested in the proposal.
This motion for a resolution aims to establish a method for dividing two types of licences for trucks from the European Union which use the Swiss road network.
So this proposal encompasses a regulation and a number of licences, the so-called permits for heavy goods vehicles, and will for the first time offer the opportunity to carry out a prescribed number of journeys on Swiss territory using EU lorries of the maximum permissible weight of 40 tonnes.
<P>
The other type of permits, the so-called 'empty permits' , entitles lorries with a maximum weight of 28 tonnes to a prescribed number of journeys through Switzerland at a reduced toll tariff.
<P>
It gives me pleasure to be able to inform you that the Commission, which holds in high esteem the good work which both parliamentary committees delivered in this field, prepared as they are to compromise, can accept Amendments Nos 1 to 6 and Amendment No 8.
This means all amendments but one. However, the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 7.
<P>
Mr President, Commission proposal intends to allocate 90% of the licences to the Member States which account for the lion' s share in Swiss traffic and at the same time, guarantee all Member States a basic quota of 1500 licences annually.
The amendment reduces this minimum quota to 500.
It is said that the outcome will benefit the quotas of the three major Member States which border Switzerland; to wit France, Germany and Italy.
So this would be to the detriment of the other Member States.
Since the licensing system contains a mechanism to distribute unused permits across the countries, I can reassure Parliament that there is no risk that permits allocated as part of the basic quota will be wasted or will go unused.
<P>
Consequently, the Commission would prefer it if all Member States were allocated the same minimum quota and, as such, cannot accept Amendment No 7.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Substances that deplete the ozone layer
<SPEAKER ID=136 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0077/1999), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the Council common position with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council regulation on substances that deplete the ozone layer (5748/3/1999 - C5-0034/1999 - 1998/0228) (Rapporteur: Mrs Hulthén).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Hulthén">
Mr President, even though the time is getting on, I am pleased that we are finally to debate this recommendation for second reading.
It is in fact a regulation which really needs to be adopted and implemented, for the situation we are facing is quite serious.
<P>
The depletion of the ozone layer is becoming more and more obvious.
The Commission' s first document describes the depletion over Scandinavia, Greenland and Siberia as being a record.
Unfortunately, we now probably have to say that this record has been beaten again.
Last week, measurements were presented which showed that the situation has never been more serious than it is now.
I would especially emphasise this for the benefit of those Members of the European Parliament who have had doubts about the value of hastening the phasing out of ozone-destroying substances.
I would also emphasise this for the benefit of other people who say that it costs too much to achieve so little as a percentage or two reduction in the depletion of the ozone layer.
That is not the case!
The hole in the ozone layer is not an invention. Nor is the fact that it is getting larger!
<P>
We therefore now have a unique opportunity with the adoption of this regulation and of the amendments to which the majority of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has said yes.
These measures are not enough to "repair" the hole in the ozone layer, but they are a step in the right direction which it is necessary to take.
We are aware of the causes of the problem, we are aware of the consequences and, in the vast majority of cases, we also have alternatives.
In those cases where there are no alternatives, the regulation provides acceptable margins for industry to succeed in making the required transition. It is we who are to decide whether this is to become a reality.
<P>
I would emphasise that this proposal is not an attempt to prevent alterations to on-going climate change.
Arguments of this kind have been put forward but, as far as I am concerned, these are just attempts to cloud the issue.
We need to solve both problems.
A number of the substances which are nowadays used as replacements for the HCFC substances that the debate has come to revolve around have an effect upon the environment.
So too, however, have the substances we use today, a fact of which we are well aware.
There is therefore no reason for reintroducing the HCFC substances into processes in which they have been prohibited for the last five years.
This is taken up in Article 5(3) in the Council' s common position, of which I am strongly critical.
<P>
There is a ban in place, and relaxing this can hardly be in keeping with the objective of the regulation.
I would therefore address the Commission and ask if they are really serious about this.
Large parts of industry operating in this sphere have already adapted their production methods and found alternatives, and yet the European organisation for this branch of industry, EUROFEU, is quite unable to see the point of the change.
I would ask the Commission why.
What is behind this U-turn?
I hope that, in its vote on Wednesday, the House will comply with the proposal of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection to remove this Article in its entirety.
In this connection, I would also mention Amendment No 34 which has been introduced into the plenary sitting.
As far as I am concerned, this proposal is just as unreasonable.
<P>
The other matter I consider to be crucial to this regulation, if it is to be forward-looking, is the continued use of methyl bromide.
We know that methyl bromide is one of the biggest villains where the ozone layer is concerned.
It is also a very poisonous substance which affects those who work with it and which does not only exterminate unwanted noxious insects but also all organisms in the earth.
It affects water, air and people.
The time is ripe for a ban.
Moreover, we have for a long time now had alternatives available in this sphere which are in many cases much more profitable than what we make use of today.
I would therefore emphasise the importance of Amendments Nos 2, 3, 4 and 10 which reduce the opportunity for continued use of methyl bromide, except in certain extreme circumstances.
I would also mention Amendment No 12 concerning quarantine arrangements in connection with shipments.
The regulation does not provide for any clear phasing out of these.
<P>
I would also direct the House' s and the Commission' s attention to Amendment No 9 which provides the opportunity to use chloroflourocarbons in certain extremely special cases, for example to offer pain relief to people who are seriously ill.
I should also like the Commission to review the narrow time limits which are given in the regulation.
The discussion of this matter has, however, been delayed.
In this context, I would therefore put in a word for the small and medium-sized companies which have done their utmost to comply with the intentions of the regulation but which have nonetheless still not achieved their objective.
A certain understanding of the situation in which they find themselves is to be desired.
<P>
At the plenary sitting, further amendments were also tabled which have not been adopted or discussed by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection; one of these I have already mentioned.
These are Amendments Nos 30, 31, 32 and 34, which are scarcely in keeping with the regulation.
I would put a question mark over Amendment No 32, which has clearly been mistranslated both in the Swedish version and in other versions.
I would therefore move the rejection of these amendments.
Amendment No 35 is covered by Amendment No 39 and is therefore superfluous.
Otherwise, applause for all the amendments which the majority of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has adopted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Mr President, Mrs Hulthén has already said a great deal.
I do not wish to repeat it all.
She did not emphasise the fact that the present common position probably represents the maximum which is possible at the present time.
I know from the Austrian Presidency that people fought to the bitter end to ensure that the ozone layer was properly protected.
Mrs Hulthén, you know how strongly I have urged you to withdraw amendments so as to allow the common position to take effect quickly.
I also said to you that amendments would be tabled which did not seek - as your amendments do - to move forward even more rapidly and quickly, but even to find a way back.
As an Austrian, I have no problem at all with moving forward more rapidly and quickly.
But we have to learn that there are other countries which have not come as far as the Nordic countries, Austria and Germany and that we also have to give them an opportunity to move forward together with us on this.
I am sorry that you did not do this because, of course, moves are now afoot which we perhaps do not like at all.
<P>
The European Union has always taken the lead on phasing out the production and use of ozone-depleting substances, and in terms of environment policy Parliament has been the European Union's conscience.
This is the only way in which we can exert pressure on other States in international conferences; to show them what works, what is possible and what demands can be placed on industry - and industry in Europe has in many cases switched to new technologies.
<P>
With your permission I will examine a small example in more detail.
It is Amendment No 34.
Halons are very dangerous.
HCFCs are not as dangerous by far in terms of ozone-layer depletion.
Nevertheless, surely it would be ludicrous to replace a dangerous substance with a less dangerous one.
We only need to produce this less dangerous substance in sufficient quantities and we have the same potential for causing damage.
Do you not finally see that this is the wrong approach?
You cannot replace halons in fire protection systems with HCFCs!
There are several alternative substances available in the form of natural gases, such as nitrous argon and inergen.
Austria has a very, very valuable library, the Austrian National Library.
We have a fire protection system of this kind there which manages without any of these dangerous substances.
<P>
I can only hope that none of the amendments put forward receives the 314 votes.
Because if we are serious about this, if we want to take a quick step forward, then the common position needs to bear fruit very soon.
You see, whether it is CFCs, HCFCs or halons, today's emissions will do their damage up there in twenty or thirty years' time.
In thirty years all of us - or many or most of us - will already be dead.
But the destruction, for which we share the responsibility here today and will do at the vote on Wednesday, will also be our fault.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="Bowe">
Mr President, I would firstly like to say how much I admired the work of the rapporteur as regards this report; it was difficult enough bringing it through Parliament first reading. It has been even more difficult at second reading as we have had a lot of competing views, conflicting scientific opinion and lobbying from various interested parties in the industry on specific substances.
Nevertheless, the rapporteur has done a marvellous job and what we have in front of us now is a coherent set of amendments, a coherent position that goes further than the common position, further than Mrs Flemming thinks we can go.
I am surprised at what she says as we went further than the common position a week ago in Beijing.
We must give it our support.
<P>
There are very serious issues at stake here.
If the ozone layer is not repaired as quickly as possible and damage halted, there will be widespread skin cancer, widespread eye damage among the human population around the world.
This is already starting to happen in some places.
<P>
We, as Europeans, have to maintain our lead and set an example.
There can be no going back on any particular substances, despite some pleading to do so.
We can only allow the continued use of certain other substances where there is a genuine threat of smuggling into the Union of other supplies that might be used to continue supporting existing equipment.
<P>
We must recognise that the Montreal Protocol has progressed step by step.
Last week we saw it take another step in Beijing.
We have moved on to getting rid of CFCs, moving on to deal with the other substances - HCFCs and halons.
We must continue to ensure that process carries on.
In the European Union we must help in assisting Third World and developing countries to move quickly into new technologies that do not harm the ozone layer, that do not use ozone-destroying chemicals.
In that sense, we must support the rapporteur's amendments and look very carefully at some of the amendments which I hope we will see in conciliation in order to achieve further progress.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="Davies">
Mr President, through mankind's own folly we have damaged the ozone layer which protects life on this planet and now we must do everything we can to undo that damage.
<P>
There has been very little opposition to the principle of phasing out HCFCs and methyl bromide.
The question in committee has been about the timescales which should be involved.
All Members have been presented with a great deal of conflicting factual information which has made reaching a judgement difficult.
<P>
Like the rapporteur, the Liberal Democrats want to ensure that rapid progress is made, that we see the maximum benefits in the shortest possible period.
But the choices are not simple.
There is a real fear that some of the well-intentioned amendments which have been tabled by the rapporteur may actually make the situation worse; in particular, that it will make it difficult for us to phase out across the world, and especially in the developing nations, the harmful CFCs which are so much more detrimental to the ozone layer than the items mentioned in this report.
The benefits to be gained from these proposals are too small for us to take that risk.
<P>
We support the rapporteur's aims and will be supporting most of her amendments but we are not convinced that she has addressed our concerns for the environment in their entirety.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="Evans, Jillian">
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate Mrs Hulthén on her work on this report.
Action to tackle ozone layer degradation is considered to be one of the very few success stories of international environmental legislation, and since the mid-1990s ozone depletion does seem to have slowed down, mainly due to efforts to reduce emissions of ozone-depleting substances.
<P>
But there is no room at all for complacency.
We are a long way from achieving our goals.
According to the European Environment Agency, in the summer of 1998 the ozone over Antarctica reached a record low level over an area the size of Europe, and the same thing is happening in the northern hemisphere. So ambitious targets must be set and they must be met.
<P>
The Commission's original proposal is along the right lines.
However, we believe that the Council weakened the text and so I would like to call on colleagues to support the amendments which were adopted in committee to improve the common position.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
Mr President, as late as about a week ago, an alarming new report came out about the depletion of the ozone layer.
This time, a study shows that the protective layer of ozone has reached worrying and record-low values over Scandinavia.
We know what we need to do.
Where this particular environmental issue is concerned, we know what is causing the problems.
We know precisely which substances destroy ozone.
We know what the effects will be upon people if levels of ultra-violet radiation increase, including effects in terms of significantly more cases of cancer.
We also know how the natural environment is being damaged.
<P>
What is more, there are nowadays perfectly acceptable alternatives to the vast majority of ozone-depleting substances, and these are used in a variety of spheres.
Ozone-destroying substances have a deleterious effect over a very long period.
In spite of the fact that international cooperation in this area through the Montreal Protocol has been successful and that emissions have declined considerably, it will not be possible for the ozone layer to be restored before some time round about the year 2040 at the earliest.
Until this happens, it is estimated that there will also be an increase in the damage caused, for example in the form of new cases of cancer.
There is, then, no good reason for postponing further measures which we can take right now. It is therefore important that Mrs Hulthén' s report be adopted in its entirety.
By means of the proposals submitted in this report, more powerful measures can be taken against ozone-destroying substances such as methyl bromide and chloroflourocarbons.
<P>
Our group is therefore going to vote in favour of all the amendments from the rapporteur.
On the other hand, we are not going to vote in favour of most of the amendments which have been put forward by others, because these amendments would weaken the report.
<P>
In the Committee, the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats voted against many of the rapporteur' s proposals.
There has also been vigorous lobbying by industry on this issue.
Hopefully, national declarations exist, or else there are individuals within the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats who put environmental considerations first and who will have the courage to vote in favour of the important proposals in the report.
It will be interesting to see the results of the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, partly thanks to the Montreal Protocol, ozone-depleting substances can be phased out quickly.
This will not take the desired effect i.e. filling the ozone hole until 100 years from now.
We also hope that the number of cases of skin cancer will have dropped.
<P>
As was already the case at first reading, the phasing-out process can be accelerated.
There are alternatives available and the benefits clearly outweigh the drawback of transitional costs.
<P>
I therefore support the proposals submitted by Mrs Hulthén to improve the common position.
CFCs and methyl bromide can be phased out more quickly.
In the Netherlands, the use of methyl bromide has been banned for years.
This does not pose any problems within the agricultural sector.
Quite the opposite, in fact.
There is no loss of harvest and it is better for the health of the workers within agriculture and horticulture.
It must be possible to stop using methyl bromide as from 2001.
Hence, exceptions for emergency situations seem completely redundant.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García-Orcoyen Tormo">
Mr President, I think that in this final debate, before voting on this regulation, the following points must be stressed:
<P>
My country, Spain, fully enters into the spirit of the Montreal Protocol and is committed to fulfilling its terms in a completely responsible and active way.
It accepts, in general terms therefore, the common position and in this sense, I fully agree with the intervention by my colleague Mrs Flemming.
<P>
Nevertheless, this is no obstacle to Spain, with its firm desire to carry out the eradication of the use of specific toxic substances that damage the ozone layer, which regards itself as being particularly affected by the banning of one of them, methyl bromide, which was referred to a while ago.
This substance, which is used as an agricultural disinfectant mainly in clearly defined farming zones in the Mediterranean regions is already strictly limited in my country in terms of its marketing and use and has already been replaced in all cases for which suitable alternatives have been found.
Work has been done for quite a while on investigating replacement substances in order to meet the deadline laid down in the Protocol.
<P>
Precisely because we want to comply with the standard, we have to be very careful when it comes to weighing up our ability to do so, if Parliament approves a regulation that makes the conditions and the time-scales tougher.
It would be more honest and above all more practical to state clearly that we see that there is a possibility that we will not be able to comply where methyl bromide is concerned.
At the very least this will cause us to suffer serious financial and social consequences and the competitiveness of some of our agricultural products will be damaged in relation to other countries that do not apply the same restrictions.
We will not be able to ensure that the use of methyl bromide stops by shortening the time-scales. Instead, we run the risk of unwillingly failing to comply and the possibility of fraud which will produce the opposite result to the one we all want to see.
<P>
Therefore, the Spanish delegation of the European People' s Party feels that it is necessary to uphold in the plenary sitting the amendments relating to the first paragraph of Article 3(2) and the last paragraph of Article 21 in which the exceptions and conditions for the use of methyl bromide after 2006 are specified.
We think that Parliament must set standards that all Member States should be able to fulfil without experiencing serious damage to their economic, social and environmental conditions.
It is this spirit, not an emotionally praiseworthy but unrealistic environmental good will, which leads us to put forward these amendments today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Sacconi">
Mr President, there is no doubt that the regulation in question is extremely important.
With this regulation, the European Union is establishing the means and time periods for the progressive elimination of the substances which deplete the ozone layer, and I can assure you that I do not underestimate the danger of the current situation at all.
<P>
The drive to further speed this up, set in motion by Parliament at first reading, has been broadly accepted by the Council.
Despite this, Mrs Hulthén' s report again re-submits amendments which were not adopted, which indiscriminately anticipate the dates of bans on the production, marketing and use of the various substances.
In general, it is a question of an approach, or rather, a commendable intention consistent with the Montreal Protocol which, however, at the same time, does not take some facts into account: firstly, the fact that the other countries that are signatories of the Protocol, including the United States, anticipate longer time periods for ending the production of hydrochlorofluorocarbons; secondly, hydrochlorofluorocarbons are, given the current state of knowledge, the only real alternative in the field of fire-fighting, to halogens, the main destroyers of the ozone layer, which are still widely used in developing countries.
<P>
We are not convinced either, by the inflexibility that the report wants to maintain regarding methyl bromide.
I am sorry that the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection did not want to seek a reasonable compromise based on the principle of realism.
At times, we have the impression that, according to one interpretation of protecting the environment, the asserting of principles, if not flying the environmental flag, is ultimately more important than the actual result.
The European Union has to be at the cutting edge, it has even been said this evening, but, as regards restoring the ozone layers in the stratosphere, and similarly, controlling the greenhouse effect, the result cannot be measured on the basis of Europe' s speed, but only by taking an overall view.
For these reasons, the common position of the Council, even if it is not completely satisfactory, certainly seems more balanced.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Turmes">
Mr President, to avoid further destruction of the ozone layer we need above all to restrict our remaining exemptions.
An exemption of this kind is granted for CFC-11 to the firm Du Pont in Luxembourg for the manufacture of polyolefin fibres.
Du Pont itself has developed an alternative to CFC-11.
This alternative is currently being examined by the competent authorities in Luxembourg.
There is therefore no reason at all to continue to maintain this exemption.
I would therefore ask you, in particular Mrs Flemming and the other Members of the PPE-DE Group, to vote for Amendment No 28.
We are not dealing with a developing country here; this is sophisticated technology in a highly developed country.
<P>
Environmentalists in Luxembourg have campaigned for this exemption to be abolished.
The Environment Minister is behind them.
If we in the European Parliament do not vote for this then the people of Luxembourg will have the feeling that Europe is a step backwards rather than forwards.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller, Emilia Franziska">
Mr President, increased levels of ozone and UV radiation have become risk factors throughout the world in which we live.
I agree with the rapporteur that the effects of this are now clearly visible.
Preserving the ozone layer is one of the main aims of our environment policy.
We are all responsible for preventing damage to mankind and animals as well as to the entire ecosystem.
That is why substances which destroy the ozone layer need to be replaced with alternative substances as quickly as possible.
However, realistic transitional periods need to be set for switching to alternative substances.
I wish to stress the word "realistic".
<P>
Where it is clear that alternative substances are available which do the same job, the procedure needs to be carried out within the period prescribed.
However, there are exceptions too and we also need to have a clear picture when we address these.
In the chemical industry certain refrigeration equipment is indispensable for processes of chemical manufacturing.
These refrigeration units are self-contained cooling systems and use a coolant for which no alternative is available at the present time.
The size and complexity of self-contained cooling systems also make it necessary to grant an exemption.
That is why I have tabled Amendment No 30 to the report, and I would ask for this to be taken into consideration.
These cooling systems - I should like to point out once more - are self-contained systems and the coolant does not penetrate into the atmosphere.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Nisticò">
Mr President, I would like to express my disappointment and regret, and in saying this, I think I am speaking for the way other Members from the first legislative phase feel.
At the second reading stage, the Members from the first legislative phase cannot make any contribution to improving the content of provisions which will then be adopted by Parliament, which clearly creates a deep sense of frustration.
But this frustration becomes deeper still, more bitter when, in the light of new scientific evidence, such as in the case of ozone-depleting substances, bureaucracy and emotion take priority over politics and science, and do not render admissible amendments that are new and sound from a scientific point of view.
<P>
This is why I am asking all the Members to adopt Amendment No 34, already tabled in committee by Mr Bowis and Mr Sacconi and signed today by 32 Members.
The amendment that we intend to have adopted regarding the inflexible and closed position of the rapporteur, Mrs Hulthén, and those who blindly support her, calls for a short postponement, until 1 January 2004, of the ban on HCFCs in fire protection systems.
These substances exhibit a very low potential for depleting the ozone - 1200 times less than halons - and they are much better tolerated by the environment than substances such as HFCs and PFCs, which are unfortunately permitted by Parliament despite the fact that they are more detrimental to the environment because they have a high potential for global warming and linger in they atmosphere, for as long as six to seven thousand years.
<P>
These conclusions are shared by high-level scientific bodies at international level, such as the Cairo Conference of 1998, the contracting parties of the Montreal Protocol, the Panel on Ozone Depletion of 1999 and the Ministry for the Environment of Great Britain.
The gradual banning of HCFCs called for in the amendment, along with the well-founded scientific reasons, also recognises social reasons, because a lot of people risk losing their job.
This is why I am asking for your support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 NAME="Liikanen">

I should like to thank the Committee on the Environment and especially the rapporteur, Mrs Hulthén, for its careful consideration of the common position.
<P>
Many of the amendments are designed to accelerate the phase-out schedules for HCFCs and methyl bromide, an objective which the Commission certainly shares in the light of their significant and increasing contribution to ozone depletion.
<P>
European SMEs which are leading in the development of the alternatives have proved that rapid phase-out of remaining ozone depleting substances promotes sustainable industries and additional ozone layer protection.
<P>
Complex negotiations in the Council led to the adoption of an acceptable common position last February.
Its quick adoption is the Commission's priority.
The Commission cannot go as fast as it would like in some issues, as we are rapidly approaching some of the proposed phase-out dates.
It is important to avoid the introduction of the new ozone depleting substances.
Amendment No 27 would introduce an expedited procedure for adding new ozone depleting substances to the regulation, which would be useful in deferring unwise investments while benefiting the ozone layer.
The Commission can therefore accept this amendment in principle.
<P>
Amendment No 9 is also acceptable since it allows time-limited extensions for the use of very small quantities of CFCs in a specialised type of medical devices for pain relief.
Other amendments that the Commission accepts, either totally, in principle or in part, are Amendments Nos 1, 4, 11, 12, 15, 17, 24, 25, 26, 29, 31, 32 and 35.
The Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 2 and 10 as they would bring forward the first cuts in production and use of methylbromide to unrealistically early dates - 1 January 2000 and 1 January 2001 respectively.
This would cause procedural difficulties and problems for farmers.
<P>
Similarly, the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 3 which would remove any exemptions beyond 2006.
This would penalise individual farmers or certain crops disproportionally.
<P>
Strict controls on HCFC production and trade with non-parties to the Montreal Protocol are part of the Community ozone policy.
Two weeks ago, in the Beijing meeting of the parties to the Montreal Protocol, the Community succeeded in introducing such measures into the Protocol.
However, excessively harsh measures going beyond the common position could shift the market to overseas producers.
<P>
Amendments Nos 5, 6, 7, 8 and 23 advancing the phase-out schedule and imposing an immediate trade ban cannot therefore be accepted.
<P>
There are several amendments that bring forward the controls on HCFC uses.
The current position represents a careful balance between what is environmentally desirable, technically feasible and economically achievable.
The Commission cannot, therefore, accept Amendments Nos 13, 14 and 16 which would tighten the deadlines further for the phasing out of HCFC use in solvents, air conditioning and polyurethane foams.
This could bring increased problems and lead to cash flow problems for companies.
<P>
The Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 18 and 34 on the possible use of HCFCs as a replacement to halons in fire fighting.
Expanding it is unnecessary and limiting it is of little, if any, practical consequence.
Such changes would affect a crucial part of the common position compromise.
<P>
Amendment No 28 relates to Article 5 and bans the use of CFCs and HCFCs as a processing agent immediately in a specific application.
The Commission cannot accept this amendment because there is a need to provide for transitional time for phase-out.
Nor can the Commission accept Amendment No 19 banning sales of used HCFC-containing equipment within five years after the respective use ban as it would increase the probability of illegal dumping and venting of HCFCs to the atmosphere.
<P>
While the Commission has sympathy for Amendment No 20 that would ban the production of HCFC-containing products for export over the three years after respective domestic use ban, we have to maintain the balance between environmental desirability and the risk that manufacturing would relocate elsewhere.
The Commission cannot therefore accept it.
<P>
Similarly, while we support the intention of Amendment No 21, it would be incompatible with the exemption in Article 5(6) for specific cases and therefore cannot be accepted.
Furthermore, the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 22 as exemptions would in any case be granted in full consultation with Member States, and thus it cannot accept it.
<P>
The Commission cannot accept Amendment No 30 which seeks to expand the possibilities to grant exemptions for substances that have already been phased out.
It is important to send the unambiguous message that when a substance is phased out no further exemptions should be allowed except those that qualify as essential uses.
<P>
Finally, may I thank Parliament for its work and careful consideration of the common position.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Wednesday at noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Labelling of foodstuffs produced using GMOs
<SPEAKER ID=151 NAME="President">
The next item is the motion for a resolution (B5-0313/1999), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the follow-up to Parliament' s opinion on labelling of foodstuffs produced using genetically modified organisms.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 NAME="Jackson">
I do not know about you, but its seems to me that this evening is rather reminiscent of the Titanic.
I have a horrible feeling that the whole ship is sinking.
I hope that I am not right, but if we go on like this, perhaps we should join in a chorus of "Nearer my God to Thee", standing in the middle and singing it.
<P>
I hope, when the Commission replies, that the Commissioner will be kind enough to reply to the debate in English.
It is extremely helpful when he does so, because this is an issue where a number of us have constituents who are very anxious to find out what is going on, and it is extremely helpful if he can reply in English if at all possible.
<P>
This is a deeply unsatisfactory issue dealt with unsatisfactorily by the Commission.
Parliament's Environment Committee has put together a short resolution in order that Members can debate it with the Commission and we can attempt to get some clarification from them.
It is unsatisfactory in the approach that the Commission has had to adopt and indeed in the content of the proposal coming before us.
What we are doing this evening is commenting on a draft Commission regulation.
There is no chance for the European Parliament to propose amendments to it through our normal procedures.
We can only object and if we do object, that would hold up agreement.
We do not really want to hold up such agreement, so we are taking this opportunity of having this debate.
<P>
We underline in the motion before you that we believe that this kind of issue should be dealt with in future through the codecision procedure.
In fact, members of the committee find that the whole European Union approach to genetically modified food at the moment is in a rather confused state.
Indeed we have a number of Commissioners who seem to be dealing with it, although Mr Liikanen is taking the lead.
Legislation has been brought forward piecemeal.
We have already had the novel foods regulation, but this is another part of the jigsaw.
We feel that consumers may well be very confused about exactly what the European Union is proposing and how it will impact on them and on the food that they eat and the labels that they read.
There is still nothing from the European Commission on the labelling of genetically modified material when it is contained in animal feed and we look forward to proposals on that.
<P>
On the whole, the committee received rather conflicting signals about the recommended maximum 1% content level.
I really would ask the Commissioner when he replies to the debate to take this opportunity to clarify as publicly as possible why the European Commission has chosen the 1% level.
<P>
I understand that the Commission was under considerable pressure to go for a much higher level, 5% was the level which some American interests wanted the Commission to go for.
On the other hand, there are some members of the committee who argue that a 0.1% level would have been perfectly feasible and pointed out that some supermarket chains around the European Union are insisting on a 0.1% level.
I believe that the Commission's answer to this is that the 1% level is the only level at which we can be absolutely sure that the testing methods are available so that they can be firmly based in Community law.
If that is the case, then how can supermarkets chains argue to us that a 0.1% level is perfectly feasible?
Are the testing methods available, and what about the supermarkets claims?
<P>
The committee was so unhappy about this that it wanted to make absolutely clear to the European Commission that it wants to review of this proposal in short order.
I hope that the Commission will comment on the feasibility of this.
If the 1% level is found to be perfectly technically feasible, there are many in the Community who want to make sure that it is possible to review that level downwards, and we would like to have the Commission's view on that.
<P>
Finally, we turn to the question of enforcement and paragraph 6 of the resolution.
Can the Commission state absolutely certainly that it is going to be possible to apply this maximum 1% content level to very small quantities of ingredients?
As we read the regulation, it says that the maximum 1% level may apply to ingredients of a product, not necessarily simply to the product as a whole.
If that is the case, we are looking at very small quantities indeed, and there are a number of members of the committee who feel that essentially this proposal that we are looking at tonight is unenforceable and represents another occasion where the European Commission has produced something which looks good but which will not actually work out in practice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Trakatellis">
Mr President, first of all I would say that the Commission proposal is but a small part of the current legislative vacuum on the labelling of foodstuffs which contain or are produced from genetically modified organisms.
<P>
The labelling of these foodstuffs is important for two reasons. Firstly, it is not known just how dangerous foodstuffs containing genetically modified organisms or their products are to public health and so it would be well worth monitoring their progress within the market.
Secondly, it is important that consumers know exactly what they are buying. Only then can we ensure the smooth operation of the market and win consumer confidence.
The Commission has only really dealt with the accidental and, therefore, occasional presence of genetically modified foods and has set an arbitrary 1% tolerance level on just two products, soya and maize.
<P>
Granted this may be at least some progress but the question is this: is it really possible to measure and determine precisely what compound foods such as hamburgers and chocolates, contain and secondly, is it possible to accurately measure below the 1% content level?
In my opinion, the Achilles heel of this regulation, which in itself will open the floodgates to corruption, violations and distortions of the law, is that it is impossible to assess exactly what compound foods actually contain and how much is derived from a genetically modified product.
We would have to think long and hard before adopting the Commission' s opinion. We expect to hear from you that through the codecision procedure you will review the proposal for a regulation as soon as possible in the light of new scientific and quantitative detection techniques so as to enable us to better address issues such as compound foods containing genetically modified organisms or their products.
<P>
I would like your opinion, Commissioner, as to whether you are indeed committed to reviewing this regulation soon, within 12 months, in the light of new data.
Only then will the Group of the European People' s Party be able to approve its adoption.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="Bowe">
Mr President, I should like to begin by agreeing with Mrs Jackson that we are sinking, perhaps not as fast as the Titanic, but I understand this building is built on very soft ground.
It may happen long after we have left, but I am sure it will eventually sink into the mire it was built upon.
It has already flooded on the ground floor during construction.
I expect that will happen again before too long.
<P>
Getting back to the matter at hand, Mrs Jackson has essentially asked all the right questions in the right order.
This proposal was supported unanimously in committee because we believe something has to be done, and done quickly, to meet consumer demands for labelling and to meet consumers' justified concerns about knowing what they are eating.
The consumer has a right to know.
The Commission has made a brave attempt to put something on paper, limited in scope though it is, to help the consumer.
I will support that.
<P>
But how practical is it?
Is it going to work?
The 1% limit on any ingredient - which I and others have been informed is already being exceeded by supermarkets etc. in terms of their requirements for food - is also a limit which I am told can quite easily be met by anyone wishing to avoid having to label foods containing GMs, because of adventitious contamination, whatever that means.
It therefore seems to me that an early review is going to be extremely necessary.
The net result of this regulation will be, when we bring it in, that the vast majority of food in the supermarket will be exactly as it is now - unlabelled - because the vast majority of food may contain a small amount of GM, below the limit.
That will be what happens.
<P>
We are making a brave attempt here.
The Commission is making a brave attempt here.
I would like it to clarify exactly what the scope of its proposal is.
I am told that at the moment it only applies to those products derived from soya and maize.
I would like the Commission to tell me just how practical it thinks its measures are going to be and how quickly it will be able to change them if they do not work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Sterckx">
Mr President, it is Parliament' s intention to give consumers reassurance and also to provide a firm and clear legal framework for companies which work with GMOs.
The Commission' s regulation is not clear on either front.
Firstly, I would like to say that, to my mind, there is an injudicious use of terminology.
You are using the word contamination, whilst, in my opinion, what you mean to say is "presence" .
This is why I have submitted an amendment to our text to delete the word contamination.
<P>
Then there is also a lack of clarity, as mentioned by Mrs Jackson and Mr Bowe in this respect.
Up to one percent is permitted in unforeseen circumstances, so by accident.
I would like to know from you what constitutes these unforeseen circumstances, when it is and is not permitted.
How is this evidenced?
You also require proof.
I am wondering how this is done.
Case by case: how should I interpret this?
So if, for example, a lorry has loaded 20 tonnes of corn, then 200 kg of this may be genetically modified corn.
This is one percent.
Or is this not permitted?
So if a ship is loaded with 50,000 tonnes of soybean - I hear the largest ships can hold 50,000 tonnes - this may contain 500 tonnes, 500,000 kg of genetically modified soybean.
Or have I got this wrong?
Do you then say: if there is only 500 tonnes of GM soybean in this ship that this ship is GM-free?
I must say, this sounds rather absurd to me.
So I would like to find out from you what you mean by one percent in ingredients.
Where and when will you check this?
<P>
Under those circumstances, I do wonder if a label makes sense and the situation becomes completely absurd because the literature and circumstances show that a number of varieties can be imported and others cannot.
How can you check up on this because it may involve hundreds of tonnes of goods which you are unaware are being imported.
The Commission should take measures as a matter of urgency, clarify its proposals and shed more light on the whole matter.
If food companies wish to offer commodities to their customers which are GMO-free, they should be able to do this and this is not possible under the current circumstances.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, Commissioner Liikanen, the questions have actually been asked, and there are a great many questions about this regulation.
We too welcome the fact that there has been some movement at last.
But it is regrettable that the Commission has only reacted to pressure - pressure from the Austrian Government - and has been proposing legislation piecemeal for years.
Where, for example, is the novel feed regulation?
How, Commissioner, can you reconcile this with the new Commission slogan that there should be greater transparency, when for example more than 80% of soya production goes into animal feed?
<P>
I would have liked you to tell me this evening whether you are prepared to announce your support for a moratorium until we have a novel feed regulation.
Because anything else means misleading packaging with the result that our consumers are secretly sold quasi-genetically manipulated food under false pretences.
<P>
I would have liked to learn from you this evening how long these tactics of submitting to the pressure of the feed industry are going to last, or whether you are finally going to deliver on the promise which Mr Prodi made here of greater transparency for consumers.
<P>
Incidentally - but you know this already - we also think that the 1% is far too high.
The level ought to be at least as low as half, as this is possible to analyse.
If you are going to assume that there is unintentional contamination then, Mr Liikanen, you will have to explain to me how, in a shipload of soya, 3000 tonnes - that is 1% - becomes unintentionally contaminated!
I do not believe that this has anything, anything at all to do with it.
<P>
We expect you to do what you have already said you would do in the committee, which is to endorse Parliament's vote, finally invite everyone to a round table and propose a new threshold as quickly as possible.
<P>
Secondly, I expect a clear statement from you this evening on how long the Commission's delaying tactics on the novel feed regulation are going to last, and whether you consider it appropriate, with a view to consumers finally having a clear picture, to support this proposal - part of which was also of course drafted by the Council of Ministers - to declare a moratorium.
For I believe that this is the only way to achieve some degree of clarity here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Vachetta">
Mr President, this 1% GMO content limit which does not require labelling, presented here from a purely technical perspective, seems to be a very high level compared with the commitments already made by large-scale distributors. So why is it 1%?
In our opinion, the firms involved in the mass production and use of GMOs are seeking to establish a fait accompli by spreading GMOs across the whole of the food-processing market.
They are making it virtually impossible to set up sectors capable of offering consumers GMO-free products.
<P>
Next, it is impossible to guarantee that GMOs will not, in the long term, have any impact on public health and on the environment, especially given that mass production causes them to be dispersed throughout the countryside.
The social impact of the widespread distribution of GMOs has been clearly identified: producers and consumers will become ever more dependent on the giants in the food processing sector.
<P>
In our opinion, in order to foil the policy of the fait accompli, the maintenance of complete sectors of production without GMOs must be guaranteed.
Both producers and consumers must ultimately be able to identify whether the products they are using contain GMOs or not.
Means for control exist. They can be effective if the public authorities have the political will to use them.
<P>
As far as we are concerned, there is no justification today for the existence of a tolerable GMO level within which the risk would be zero or at least acceptable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, the threshold value of 1% in the Commission proposal has one advantage: after years of lack of clarity, producers can no longer make their own interpretations.
But I also have some criticism: the percentage is not justified because it is apparently a political compromise.
A percentage to be selected must be achievable and acceptable.
At any rate much below 1, for example under 0.5%.
This is why I would ask the Commission to develop procedures to review the percentage in the very short term.
We have to prevent this 1% threshold value from becoming a precedent and being applied to the labelling of other products in future.
<P>
In addition, I find the undemocratic and non-transparent way in which the Commission dictates this standard unacceptable.
This is a topic for fundamental discussion which enjoys a wide popular appeal.
Furthermore, in this field, the codecision procedure must be applied to the introduction of these measures.
Legislation concerning genetically modified products should be transparent, should come about by democratic means and be coherent.
I support a democratic and comprehensive policy for genetically modified products.
<P>
With regard to labelling, I would like to note that it is time to give serious thought to the symbols used for GMOs.
Using minute phrases and words does not offer the consumer sufficient clarity.
<P>
A practical question addressed to Commissioner Liikanen concerns the recommendation of the Scientific Committee to draft a black list.
Does the Commissioner share the Committee' s opinion that it is impossible to do this?
<P>
Finally, I would like to point out to the Commissioner that standardisation alone does not suffice.
The European Commission and national governments should also apply other instruments to maintain the GMO-free chain.
I particularly have inspections in mind.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, Commissioner, since the coming into force of the novel food directive, the European Commission too has made a bit of a hash of things, to put it mildly.
This is how we would put it informally.
The European food industry is partly to blame for this because they were not prepared to make any concessions in the past.
<P>
Mr President, the argument which has led the Commission today to include the 1% level here in this implementation was the fact that that which was held impossible in the past, namely identification and detection under the one percent threshold as well, is now possible. Mr President, because measuring methods are available.
This means that in fact, anything can be detected at present.
<P>
However, the regulation which is now in place means that we will soon have four types of food.

Firstly, GMO-labelled food; secondly, food which is not supposed to contain any GMOs; thirdly, the category with the maximum 1% tolerance level and fourthly, all the supermarket chains which say that they can guarantee 0.1% although with the best will in the world they could not even guarantee this 0.1% because even in the identity preserved-chain foods will always contain more than 0.1% of GMOs.
<P>
Mr President, this legislation shows up two deficiencies.
Firstly, regulations are not just in place for maize and soya.
I wonder when the rest will surface.
Secondly, as Mr Sterckx has already mentioned, the term 'contamination' will need to be replaced by 'presence' .
<P>
Mr President, I would also like to mention another issue.
Whatever will we be faced with next?
At present, we are only dealing with food available to the consumer.
But if, for example, I consider the foodstuffs or the food for our livestock, then we would need to refer to this novel feed directive and I would also mention the comments made by Mrs Breyer.
Mr President, it would thus mean that if you know that all the proteins originate from abroad, say from South America, that you will soon also need to label absolutely everything with GMO identification within the framework of this novel food directive.
<P>
Mr President, I wonder if we have to put up with this Dancing Procession of Echternach for much longer?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Lund">
I should like first of all to say that the proposed 1% limit is actually, in my view, a sign of capitulation.
It is in fact a very striking result of the fact that, for years, we have seen a lack of overview and cohesion in GMO legislation.
We have not made the necessary demands when it comes to distinguishing between GM material and non-GM material.
We are therefore now forced to accept a certain quantity of GM materials in all produce, without our being informed as consumers about these.
For the citizens of Europe, this really is quite a depressing development in terms of consumer policy.
<P>
I can support the present motion for a resolution, but I also think it is worth emphasising that the 1% limit set by the Commission is definitely too high.
It opens the way to carelessness and indifference on the part of suppliers and producers.
There is every reason for thinking that the limit will be eroded in future.
I should therefore like to request four things of the Commission. Firstly, that a lower triviality limit than 1% be set.
If this is not desired, then a one-year review clause, as proposed here by Parliament, might at any rate be agreed to, in anticipation of reducing the triviality limit.
Thirdly, the claim of adventitious contamination due to GM materials must be carefully defined.
This is a very elastic concept that has been built into the proposal here, and I believe it needs to be defined very clearly.
Fourthly, and finally, I would ask that a very efficient supervisory system be established so that we might counter the worst examples of carelessness in this sphere.
<P>
I hope that Commissioner Liikanen will be able to respond positively to these four questions and requests.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
Mr President, it is not enough that it cannot be proved that there is any risk from GM foods.
There must be clear advantages for consumers, and there must not be any danger to the environment or to animals' welfare.
It is, and remains, the legislators' task to establish rules and guidelines to ensure that the market develops in such a way that the concerns and requirements of consumers too are taken seriously, and that is not the case with the EU' s labelling requirement.
It has already been said many times now that a figure of 1%, set as the threshold value for the adventitious presence of GM materials in food, is way beyond what can and should be accepted as the triviality limit.
It is possible to separate GM crops both in the fields at harvest time, in the course of transportation and during processing.
This requires a good system of consultation from field to table and, therefore, higher costs too, but it can in fact be done.
If, against all expectations, this is not the case, then this is merely another argument for prohibiting the cultivation of GM crops.
The next best solution, involving GMO-free labelling, I regard as defeatist, except as a supplementary, voluntary option.
<P>
Until now, GM foodstuffs have only had advantages for producers.
The costs of labelling and supervision should therefore be borne by the producers of GM foods.
The risk in eating the products and the long-term consequences for environmental and biological diversity ought to go on being investigated.
A direct result of this is the de facto moratorium which five countries have introduced into the EU' s procedure for approving new licences to release genetically modified organisms to the environment and which is to remain in force while the relevant directive is being revised.
I am therefore surprised at the reports that Commissioner Wallström does not want to wait for the final revision but has instead backed industry' s offer to comply with the revised GMO Directive even before it is adopted.
This is a treacherous attack on the Member States' moratorium. Moreover, the Council of Ministers' common position does not go far enough.
All I can do, therefore, is call upon the Member States to stick to the moratorium.
It is imperative that the GMO legislation should be revised and tightened up - and preferably now rather than in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="Bushill-Matthews">
Mr President, this is obviously a very important issue that needs to be addressed with some urgency.
Not only do consumers need to be reassured, but the industry also needs a climate of certainty within which to operate.
May I say that I speak with a background in the industry, though since joining this House I have of course severed all ties with it.
<P>
In my previous life I was managing director of a snack food company that made tortilla chips.
It also made an excellent British delicacy called pork scratchings - which I just toss in so as to keep the interpreters on their toes.
Tortilla chips are made of 100% American maize; and certainly when our customers asked for guaranteed GM-free identity-preserved maize, we had very great difficulty in securing that.
All the tests we did, in testing that was widely and commercially available, showed even such maize occasionally contained between 1 and 2% adventitious GM material.
<P>
So to those such as Mr Bowe who say 1% is a target that can easily be met, I say from experience that it cannot easily be met.
It is a very challenging target.
I believe that the industry has accepted that target, but with some trepidation.
If that target is reduced, what is quite likely to happen - because industry will not meet it - is that increasingly it will just label everything 'May contain GM material' - which completely undermines the purpose of this labelling.
That is the first point I would make: the target is already tough.
<P>
The second point regarding a review is that the industry needs certainty: so constant changes every 12 months are no good for the industry, and indeed confusing for the consumer.
<P>
The final point, going back to a point that Mrs Jackson made to begin with, is that we must ensure, when labelling comes in, that equal rules are applied with certainty across the EU.
As we approach a new millennium, maybe we can start a new trend towards ensuring that such laws will be universally enforced and applied.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="Liikanen">
Thank you for this important discussion even though the circumstances are not the best at the moment.
This subject has already been discussed by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy on 15 November.
I stated then that it is not only an issue of whether we like or authorise GMOs or not or whether we label them or not.
We are simply trying to implement the existing legislation and make it operational.
<P>
With the proposal amending Regulation No 1139/98, laying down a de minimis threshold for the adventitious presence of authorised GM material, we are responding to the Council's mandate on labelling of GM foodstuffs.
The Commission was obliged to do so at the time of adopting the regulation.
<P>
The draft aims to solve the problem of labelling foods when operators have tried to avoid using GM material and can prove this but nevertheless small amounts of GM material are found in them.
This adventitious contamination can occur during cultivation, harvest, transport, storage and processing.
After our consultations with the Joint Research Centre and Member States in particular we concluded that a value of 1% is a compromise that best serves two things: firstly, the purpose of establishing a very low tolerance level which implies an effort for operators; secondly, that it takes into account the necessary feasibility along the production chain.
<P>
We will shortly have methods that do not pose competent authorities unjustified problems for implementation.
I would also like to mention that this value is stricter than thresholds applied by other countries like Switzerland, Norway and Japan.
As you know, unlike the EU, the United States of America and Canada have no compulsory labelling of GM foods.
<P>
The wish of the committee is that we should reassess this issue.
I am ready, on behalf of the Commission, to make a commitment: "The Commission will review the draft regulation amending Regulation 1139/98 within one year of its entry into force.
The Commission will propose any necessary amendments in the light of improvements in quantitative detection techniques and practical experience gained with implementation of the proposed 1% value.
Moreover, the White Paper on food safety will also allow the opportunity of a wide debate on labelling if it is wished by the European Parliament."
<P>
The Commission has not exceeded its executive powers by proposing these regulations.
The two draft measures are consistent with current legislation.
We will use the codecision procedure when the European Parliament calls for the GMO-free scheme.
So far as the novel food regulation is concerned, Mr Byrne's department is preparing a proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Wednesday at noon.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 12.15 a.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the sitting
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
For technical reasons, the Minutes for yesterday' s sitting will not be available until just after noon, and so will be presented for approval by the House at 3 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Vote on requests for urgent procedure
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="President.">
Last night, the Committee on Agricultural and Rural Development adopted the report by Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert on this subject.
I would like to hear the opinion of the committee responsible regarding this request for urgent procedure.
<P>
Who will speak on behalf of the committee?
<P>
Graefe zu Baringdorf (Greens/ALE), chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
(DE) Madam President, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development recommends that the request for urgent procedure be accepted.
Firstly, this is an urgent matter which needs to be agreed this year. Secondly, we agree with the objective.
The great majority of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development is convinced that the use of BST should be banned this year.
<P>
(Parliament approved the request for urgent procedure)
<P>
Proposal for a Council regulation on Community financial contributions to the International Fund for Ireland (COM(99)0549 - C5-0285/99 - 1999/0221(CNS)) (Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism)
<P>
President.
The Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism shall give its opinion on this request for urgent procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Dam">
Madam President, the request for urgent procedure on this matter can itself be put down to negligence on the part of the Council Secretariat.
We could see this coming for a long time now.
But it is the opinion of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism that the people of Ireland must not be the ones to suffer on account of this and that is why we are in favour of this matter being treated with urgency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="McKenna">
I just wanted to check whether there will be an opportunity to discuss this issue later in the week because one of the things that has not been discussed in this Parliament is the role the arms industries are playing in the peace process in Northern Ireland.
<P>
Some years ago in this Parliament, when a report was put forward in committee, I tried to get amendments through to say that the arms industry should not have a role in the peace process.
Yet the only job opportunity that has been provided in Derry so far on foot of the peace process has been by Raytheon, the third-biggest arms manufacturing company in the US. So I think it is a contradiction in terms to talk about a peace process and to provide jobs in the arms industry for people who have been decimated by violence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Colom i Naval">
Madam President, I have requested the floor for a procedural motion.
Numerous Members are stuck in their hotels in the centre of Strasbourg, at least in the area where the Novotel and Ibis hotels are located.
When the first car left, half an hour late, they asked me to pass on this protest because at least 15 Members were in the same hotel and will not be able to take part in the vote because of the transport delay.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
I am very sorry, Mr Colom i Naval.
We shall see what we can do to ensure that this does not recur, and we shall see how they may join us as quickly as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="Gallagher">
Lest the wrong impression be given here this morning in relation to the peace process and the international fund for Ireland, as a Member of Parliament for the border counties I want to put on record here - and I think I speak for all Irish people - that they fully appreciate the important, positive and practical role that the European Parliament and the European institutions have played in the peace process; and I think that to claim otherwise does not reflect the view of the Irish people.
<P>
(Parliament approved the request for urgent procedure)
<P>
Proposal for a Council regulation on the implementation of operations in the framework of the pre-accession strategy for Cyprus and Malta (COM(99)0535 - C5-0308/99 - 1999/0199(CNS)) (Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sakellariou">
Madam President, we have discussed this in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy.
We see no case for urgency and we would prefer to draft a report in which we can work out the accession strategy and state the position of the European Parliament.
We therefore oppose the urgency tabled by the Council.
<P>
(Parliament rejected the request for urgent procedure)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Galeote Quecedo">
Madam President, I would like to ask you, today being a special day, to apologise to the President of the Republic of France for the absence of some Members since, in the case of those who come from countries a long way from the centre of the European Union, their absence is not due to a lack of will but rather the lack of the means to carry out their parliamentary duties properly.
I am sure that he will understand very well that there is no justification for the fact that from certain parts of my country, for example, it is more difficult, and takes longer, to get to Strasbourg than to Caracas.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Galeote Quecedo, I am already aware of the problems that a number of Members are having in getting to Strasbourg.
As you know, I try to do all I can to improve communications.
Indeed, it is one of my objectives.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
European Council/Finnish Presidency, Chechnya, OSCE
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="Sturdy">
To help Mr Galeote and one or two other Members in the state-of-the-art plenary that we have here, I wondered if it would be possible at some future date for Members actually to be able to keep the same seat.
We seem to be continually rotating and it is often difficult for Members to find their seats.
Even in the old chamber when we did not have places allocated, we were at least able to continue to sit in the same places.
One wonders how long we will have to keep printing new seating orders.
Could this be rectified?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
Yes, indeed, Mr Sturdy. The reformation of the Technical Group of Independent Members has caused a few problems, but this is something that we shall solve quite quickly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the meeting of the European Council held in Helsinki on 10 and 11 December, and the statement by the President-in-Office of the Council regarding the results of the six-month term of office of the Finnish Presidency, including the situation in Chechnya and the OSCE Summit.
<P>
I have had word from Mr Lipponen to say that he has been delayed.
Since Mr Prodi is already present, I shall give him the floor first, if he is in agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Prodi">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to report to this House today that the Commission is highly satisfied with the overall results of the Helsinki European Council.
<P>
Let me begin by congratulating you, Madam President, on the way you opened proceedings at this Summit.
Your contribution was very well received and paved the way for a really constructive debate, especially on Parliament' s involvement in the Intergovernmental Conference.
<P>
There were three main topics of discussion at Helsinki: enlargement, defence and the IGC.
Let me take these in order.
<P>
First, enlargement.
I am very pleased that the European Council decided to open accession negotiations next year with the six candidate countries in the second wave.
This means we will be preparing to welcome twelve new Member States, and we should be ready to conclude negotiations with the first of them by the end of 2002, provided we have successfully reformed our institutions and completed our revision of the Treaties.
A successful IGC is indeed an essential precondition to any enlargement.
I am also delighted that the Heads of State and Government took the historic step of recognising Turkey as an official candidate country.
We want to help Turkey along the road towards full compliance with the Copenhagen criteria, and now that the European Council has given its green light, we shall be able to devise specific ways of doing so under a pre-accession strategy for Turkey.
<P>
Second, defence.
I am very glad that the European Council has decided on the broad outlines of the new European Security and Defence Policy, particularly by developing the Union' s military and non-military rapid response capabilities.
A rapid intervention force of 50 to 60 000 troops will enable us to deal effectively with brushfires in our own back yard, especially on occasions when our NATO allies do not wish to become involved.
The need for security in Europe and for a wider European area of peace is amply illustrated by the situation in Chechnya, on which the European Council has adopted a detailed declaration.
Among the specific measures recommended is the proposal that TACIS funds be redirected towards humanitarian efforts, and the Commission will be taking timely action to implement this proposal.
It is a good example of an area in which the Commission has direct responsibility and can make a specific contribution to resolving the Chechnya crisis.
<P>
Chechnya was also the main topic of concern at the OSCE Summit in Istanbul in November.
The political declaration signed at that Summit makes it clear that a political solution to the Chechnya dispute is essential, and some OSCE principles were reasserted despite very strong pressure, particularly from the Russian Federation, to water them down.
These include the OSCE' s right to adopt positions on conflicts that undermine commitments entered into by all participating States on human rights and the rule of law.
At the Istanbul Summit, I reaffirmed the European Union' s firm commitment to rebuilding south-east Europe and integrating it into the European mainstream.
I also emphasised the substantial assistance we are already giving, and will continue to give, to the region.
Istanbul also saw the signing of the revised Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, the adoption of the Vienna Document 1999 and the signing of the Charter for European Security.
This sets out the common challenges and foundations for European security in the new millennium and proposes new instruments to enable the OSCE to tackle these challenges.
President Ahtasaari and I signed the Charter on behalf of the European Union, and I am glad to say it enshrines the Platform for Cooperative Security proposed by the European Union.
<P>
Let me now return to Helsinki and to the third main item of discussion, the IGC.
Very wisely, in my judgement, the European Council decided to launch this Conference as early as February next year, as we had repeatedly requested, with open minds regarding the agenda.
We are all just beginning to realise what it will mean to have a Europe of more than 25 Member States, and it would certainly have been imprudent to close the agenda at this early stage.
Fortunately, good sense has prevailed and the IGC will be tackling not only the issues left over from Amsterdam but also the corollaries of those issues - such as the redistribution of seats in this House after enlargement.
It will also consider any other relevant institutional issues arising from enlargement, and the Commission has already made a few suggestions as to what these issues might be.
I expect Parliament and the Commission to return to these matters in our formal opinions on the Conference, to be delivered next January.
None of the items on the IGC' s agenda is simple, and others may have to be added as the Conference proceeds.
It is therefore time for us to roll up our sleeves and get down to work, and I think that this work will need a lot of attention from us all.
However, I am pleased to say that the Commission has been successful in its efforts to ensure that the European Parliament can play its proper part in the IGC: Parliament will have full observer status in the Group of Personal Representatives.
<P>
In closing, let me say how disappointed I am that Helsinki delivered no progress on the European tax package - beyond an agreement to work on it for a further six months.
It was not one of the main items but it was nevertheless an important item, and above all, it has a high profile in European political journalism.
This is indeed a feeble outcome after two whole years of intensive effort, and I want to stress how important it is that we reach a firm conclusion on the package soon. It is important that our citizens realise what this package is really for.
It is not simply - although this is important - about preventing damaging tax competition or ensuring the smooth operation of the internal market - which, I repeat are important but which to most people must seem remote, bureaucratic concepts. It is, in fact, about something extremely relevant to everyday life in Europe: creating jobs.
If there is indeed complete evasion of any form of capital tax, as occurred in the last decade, all taxes concerning labour will increase.
And I do not consider this to be the best policy to fight unemployment.
<P>
There is another, much simpler fact: tax evasion is unfair and it is detrimental to employment and we must fight it with all the means at our disposal.
If we cannot find effective ways of taxing return on capital, the entire tax burden will have to be borne by labour, and that will simply make the biggest problem we have even worse.
<P>
So I shall personally be following the tax package negotiations closely over the next six months, giving Commissioner Bolkestein, who has worked extremely positively over the last few months, every assistance possible.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, there is much to be done in the wake of the European Council.
We must work at it together, and for the first time, we really have a wide area to work on together.
We shall do this with determination, in good faith and in a true spirit of cooperation, and I would like to thank you for this spirit that has developed between us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="President">
My thanks to the Commission President, Mr Romano Prodi, and may I now welcome Mr Lipponen.
<P>
We have heard that your car was delayed.
You need make no apology. Prime Minister Lipponen, I shall give you the floor immediately.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Lipponen">
Madam President, Members of the European Parliament, I would first like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to come and have discussions with the European Parliament on the most outstanding events of the Finnish Presidency so soon after the Helsinki European Council.
First, I will give an overview of the most important results the Finnish Presidency has achieved, focusing in particular on the decisions of the European Council at Helsinki.
In accordance with the wishes of Parliament, I will also give an account of the Presidency' s views of the situation in Chechnya, and I will give an outline of the most important results of the OSCE Summit in Istanbul in November.
<P>
I would like to warmly thank the President of Parliament, Mrs Fontaine, for the views of Parliament that she expressed at the start of the European Council.
The discussions we had were fruitful.
I would like to express my warm thanks, on behalf of both the Finnish government and the Council, to the whole of the European Parliament for its excellent and constructive cooperation.
<P>
The first decision of the European Council in Helsinki was to adopt the Millennium Declaration in the Friday morning session.
The Declaration gives a concise account of the values that underpin the European Union and the challenges and aims of the start of the new millennium.
Of the Declaration I would just like to mention here what must be done to meet the challenges of the millennium: only an open, democratic, effective Union will be able to succeed in realising these commitments.
<P>
The first sitting of the European Council concentrated on Union enlargement.
These decisions are historic with regard to Europe, as the new phase of the enlargement process that began in Helsinki will in time lead to thirteen new Member States joining the Union.
In Helsinki, we agreed to open accession talks with Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Malta.
As the Extraordinary European Council meeting in Tampere had been unanimous on the matter, hardly any further debate was needed.
Intergovernmental Conferences are to commence in February of next year with the six countries invited to the talks.
It was reconfirmed in this connection that each applicant country would progress towards membership on the basis of its own merits.
There were no time limits imposed for accession.
Instead, the Union set itself the goal that it must be ready to accept new members from the end of 2002.
This is the time-scale we need before the next Intergovernmental Conference has brought its work to a conclusion and the amendments to the Treaties have been ratified in all the Member States.
<P>
In its debate on enlargement, the European Council paid special attention to the importance of good levels of nuclear safety in Central and Eastern Europe.
The European Council expressed its satisfaction with the fact that talks on Cyprus were to begin in New York on 3 December and said that a political solution would facilitate Cyprus' accession to the Union.
It should be pointed out, however, that this solution is not a precondition of Cyprus' accession.
<P>
The decision the European Council took to approve candidate status in respect of Turkey can, in my opinion, be considered a historic one.
The joint decision was made possible by the courageous and constructive efforts of the Greek Prime Minister, Costas Simitis, in particular, while the Presidency was trying to establish the chances of achieving a favourable decision.
As soon as the European Council had approved the conclusions on Turkey, intense and illuminating negotiations with Turkey began.
Relations were reinforced by a letter I wrote, as representative of the country holding the Presidency, to the Turkish Prime Minister, Bülent Ecevit.
The European Council also sent a delegation to Ankara.
The delegation included a representative of the Finnish Presidency, the Secretary-General, High Representative Javier Solana, and Commissioner Günter Verheugen.
The delegation explained the substance of the decision taken at Helsinki to the Turkish Government.
<P>
The decisions of Helsinki made it possible for Turkey to attend a joint luncheon with the other applicant countries and Heads of State and Governments at the European Council meeting in Helsinki.
I wish to stress that Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit clearly reconfirmed, at Helsinki, Turkey' s commitment to reform and meet the Copenhagen criteria.
With the decisions of Helsinki, Turkey is to be treated in the same way as the other applicant countries.
But it will not be possible to open accession negotiations with Turkey before she meets the Copenhagen political criteria.
The biggest problem is the defects in Turkey' s internal situation: shortcomings in the democratic system and violations of human rights, including those of minorities.
With Turkey we are embarking on a sort of preparatory and advisory phase in a process in which the country' s progress will be examined with regard to complying with the acquis.
In our political dialogue with Turkey, we are stressing the importance of making progress, especially in matters of human rights.
<P>
The Helsinki conclusions urge all candidate countries to resolve outstanding border disputes and other related matters.
Otherwise they should bring the dispute, within a reasonable period of time, to the International Court of Justice to decide.
The European Council will have re-examined the situation by the end of 2004 with regard to any unsolved disputes.
The European Council will examine any special consequences of disputes for the accession process and try to push for disputes to be solved in the International Court of Justice.
The decision to acknowledge Turkey' s status as a candidate State and closer dialogue between the Union and that country are important for regional stability and for a solution to the Cyprus question.
In inviting Turkey to make an even firmer bond of cooperation the Union is acting in accordance with its basic function of establishing peace and promoting human rights.
<P>
Madam President, the European Council responded with profound concern to events in Chechnya.
To persuade Russia of the benefits of a political solution, the European Council issued a separate declaration on the situation in Chechnya and its effects on relations between the European Union and Russia.
Only a political solution can end the crisis in Chechnya.
Russian efforts to find a solution have thus far been inadequate.
In these circumstances the European Union and the international community must continue to exert political pressure.
The declaration condemns the bombing, the ultimatum to the inhabitants of Grozny, and the treatment of internal refugees.
Russian territorial integrity is not being questioned, nor its entitlement to combat terrorism.
The action Russia has taken is, however, contrary to international humanitarian law and is in violation of the obligations that Russia, as a member of the OSCE and the Council of Europe, agreed to honour regarding human rights.
<P>
The declaration also notes that there is a danger of the crisis spreading in the region, and it also poses a special risk to Georgia' s territorial integrity.
The European Council concluded that the situation would affect the implementation of the joint strategy for Russia, and that that strategy would have to be re-examined.
Discussions on this will start this week.
The declaration adopted on Saturday in Helsinki was made known to the Russian Government the same day by means of a letter from the President of the European Council and the High Representative.
<P>
It was the European Council' s opinion that parts of the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement should be suspended and those parts to do with trade policy should be rigorously applied.
The Presidency is asking the legal departments of the Commission and the Council to report on the legal aspects of the issue in a Working Group this week.
The year is nearly over.
After the Union' s internal decisions have been taken, the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement will move on in accordance with the regulations.
It was also decided at Helsinki that we should ask for a proportion of TACIS funds to be set aside for humanitarian aid.
But that should only affect Russia.
TACIS concerns the whole of the Confederation of Independent States area, and the Union has thus no cause to sanction any CIS States or Mongolia.
<P>
I would also like to say here that the Union must not undermine the long-term programme of cooperation we are putting into effect, which we must do to support democratic and stable development in Russia.
This would not be to the Union' s advantage.
The European Council underlined this by saying it was vital to continue with projects to support human rights, the rule of law and civil society as well as nuclear safety.
<P>
The European Council is at the same time asking, in line with the common strategy on Russia, the OSCE and the Council of Europe to examine the shape their strategy on cooperation with Russia takes in their different areas.
The visit by the Chairman of the OSCE to the area this week, right now, in fact, will show whether there are any changes in the Russian position.
We must focus particular attention on this visit and its outcome.
We have to discover whether the Council of Europe can intensify efforts relating to Russia in the areas of human rights and civil society.
The aim is not to exclude Russia from the work of the Council of Europe.
<P>
It is not in Russia' s interests, so I believe, to isolate itself from Europe and the rest of the world, particularly if that scenario were extended beyond the time of the Russian elections for quite a long time into the future.
We must hope that a realistic attitude will soon take shape in Moscow.
Neither is Russian isolation in the interests of the European Union nor anyone else in Europe.
<P>
Madam President, the European Council approved the Presidency' s report on the Intergovernmental Conference.
The Intergovernmental Conference will start in February next year and would end in December 2000.
The agenda covers the issues left unresolved at Amsterdam; that is, the size and composition of the Commission, the weighting of votes in the Council, and the possible increase in qualified majority decisions in the Council as well as other issues relating to the Union institutions in connection with these matters.
The next country to hold the Presidency, Portugal, will give the European Council a report on progress in the IGC arrangements and the addition to the agenda of any other issues.
The General Affairs Council has the overall political responsibility for the IGC.
Responsibility for preparations lies with a Working Group made up of a representative of each Member State' s government.
There will also be a representative from the Commission at the political and preparatory levels.
<P>
We are expecting good levels of cooperation with Parliament as the reforms are drafted.
The position of the European Parliament will be strengthened compared to the previous Intergovernmental Conference as two observers from Parliament will be invited to attend the meetings of the preparatory Working Group.
Each meeting at ministerial level will be preceded, in accordance with earlier practices, by talks with the President of the European Parliament.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, the European Council also debated the development of the European common security and defence policy, with particular reference to crisis management.
The development of facilities to cope with both civil and military crisis management was discussed, on the basis of reports produced by the Presidency.
The conclusions remind us that the on-going process does not mean the creation of a European army.
<P>
A common objective was agreed in Helsinki on all the military resources needed for rapid deployment to implement the Petersberg tasks with regard to crisis management.
Common resources are rapidly being developed for the Union in the areas of systems of command, intelligence and strategic transport.
In developing civil resources for crisis management it is especially urgent to improve police facilities and arrangements for prompt funding arrangements.
<P>
In the conclusions of the Presidency, it was stated that the first progress report on the document now adopted would be presented at the European Council in Lisbon.
We should be satisfied that the Member States have been able to make rapid progress in improving the Union' s readiness for crisis management during the Finnish Presidency.
<P>
The European Council noted with satisfaction that the recovery in the economies of the Member States has gathered pace and is spreading all the time.
The basics of a healthy economy - good opportunities for investment, low inflation and improved public finances are the basis of this recovery.
The introduction of the euro has helped to make the outlook favourable.
Our challenges include changes in the population structure and increased competition as a result of globalisation and the need it creates for the encouragement of innovation and structural adaptation.
The European Council said that the coordination of economic, employment and structural policy must be enhanced in accordance with the recommendations in the Council' s report.
In the Union we must focus on the effective application and streamlining of current processes and arrangements.
The general objectives and trends in policy will be determined through broad guidelines drawn up for economic policy.
The debate on these issues will continue at the Extraordinary meeting of the European Council in Lisbon in March.
In my view, it could turn out to be a very important meeting.
<P>
As is well known - and the President of the Commission referred to this in his speech - Helsinki also failed to achieve progress in one area.
We were unable to reach consensus on the taxation package.
In the conclusions on taxation, however, it was reconfirmed that people residing in the Member States of the Union would have to pay tax on all income from savings.
A High Level Working Group is examining how this principle can be put most effectively into practice.
The tax package is thus holding together, and it cannot be said that anyone got away scot-free in this matter.
This, along with items in the tax package, will be reported to the European Council no later than June 2000.
<P>
In environmental policy the European Council stressed the need to intensify the work being done in this area in the next few years.
The European Council decided to attempt to make it possible for the Member States to ratify the Kyoto Protocol before the year 2002.
In addition, the conclusions ask the Commission to draft a proposal for a sixth Environmental Action Programme by the end of 2000.
Similarly, we are asking the Commission to draft a proposal for the European Council convening in June 2001 for a long-term strategy, in which policies for economically, socially and ecologically sustainable development are dovetailed.
<P>
The main event of the Finnish Presidency in the context of the work of the OSCE was the Summit held in Istanbul on 18 and 19 November.
The European Union is mainly satisfied with the outcome of the Summit meeting.
At the meeting a Charter for European Security was signed.
The Charter is founded on earlier commitments and reinforces the establishment of democracy, peace and human rights.
The Charter will also strengthen the OSCE' s ability to fulfil its functions attend to its duties.
The Charter also includes the EU proposal for a Platform for Cooperative Security between international organisations, especially in conflict prevention and crisis management, and reinforces the rapid-deployment civilian crisis management capabilities of the Organisation.
It is particularly important - given, also, Russia' s action in Chechnya - for the Charter to reinforce the notion that commitments also have to be complied with in internal conflicts of States.
<P>
At the meeting we also approved a declaration on topical political issues.
In the declaration a stand is taken on the situation in Chechnya and Kosovo.
In addition, the parties to the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, the so-called CFE, also signed an adapted Treaty at the Istanbul Summit.
That agreement ensures there are limits to conventional armed forces on a country-by-country basis, corresponding to the post-Cold War situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Poettering">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, I should like first on behalf of the Group for the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and the European Democrats to extend my warmest thanks to the Finnish Presidency of the Council for its work and its good intentions.
Mr President of the Council, your work and the work of your foreign secretary and your minister Kimmo Sasi demonstrate that smaller Member States are also capable of excellent work and we would like to extend our special thanks for that work, especially as this is the first time that the Republic of Finland has taken over the Council Presidency.
So please accept our thanks and our recognition.
<P>
Participants at the Summit and you, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, have spoken of historic decisions.
I find this description somewhat premature.
Time will tell if the decisions taken at Helsinki were in fact historic in the positive sense or, possibly, historic in a negative sense.
Only historians will be able to say if Helsinki was a Summit of enlargement fever and mini reforms or if it really helped to strengthen the European Union and give Europe the power to act in the 21st century.
We hope that it will be the latter and that the Helsinki Summit will become a symbol of Europe' s strength and power to act in the 21st century.
That is our hope, but it will depend on action, not the words in the presidency' s conclusions.
<P>
We welcome the fact that enlargement negotiations are to commence with Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and Malta.
This has always been the policy of the PPE-DE Group.
Europe needs to grow together now.
<P>
As far as the question of the reform of the European Union is concerned, we welcome the fact that the way has been opened for further reform beyond the three Amsterdam leftovers and we hope that the Portuguese Presidency of the Council will also do the right thing.
But we are concerned, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, to read in point 16 of the Council' s conclusions that the question of the possible extension of qualified majority voting in the Council will be examined.
The possibility!
No, we do not need to examine the possibility; we need to extend majority voting so that the European Union can continue to expand.
We say this quite clearly in the run-up to the intergovernmental conference.
<P>
<P>
We are also waiting for the European Union to be given a legal personality.
We are also waiting for the European Parliament to be given codecision powers on all legislative matters.
We are also waiting for the European Parliament to be given the right to vote on amendments to the Treaty and we agree with the proposals by Dehaene, Weizsäcker and Lord Simon that the right thing to do would be to create a basic treaty and an enlarged treaty, so that the citizens of Europe also know which level is responsible and what the European Union will look like in the 21st century.
<P>
On Turkey: The President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, rightly says that we need a debate on the geographical borders of the Union.
We would have welcomed such a discussion before the decision to grant Turkey candidate status, rather than starting it now.
<P>
(Applause)
<P>
As far as Turkey' s status as a candidate country is concerned, we do not wholly agree with the majority of our group.
The same applies in the other groups.
It is an important question, and there is no harm in having differences of opinion.
But the great majority of our group is sceptical because we know that Turkey' s membership will change the political, economic and cultural face of the European Union.
We hope, because we regard Turkey as a friend, that it will succeed in building up a real civil society, that it will succeed in giving the ethnic Kurds a real identity, as part of the Turkish federation and the Turkish nation, and we hope that the Turkish military, which is allied with the west - and that is the real tragedy, will moderate its action in relation to the Kurdish question and stop using military intervention rather than dialogue in order to overcome problems which arise with the Kurds.
In other words, we hope that Turkey will succeed in building up a real civil society.
<P>
My final point concerns foreign, security and defence policy.
We congratulate the Finnish Presidency, as a traditionally non-aligned country, on having taken a courageous step.
But actions speak louder than words.
It would be a sorry day for the European Union if we were to talk of European defence without giving the European Union the means to implement European defence and if we were to end up driving a wedge between us and our American partners in NATO.
Words must now be backed up by action to strengthen the European Union as a whole and give it the power to act.
It must be given a really democratic, human rights-orientated policy so that the European Union can be a stabilising factor, a factor for peace, development, human rights and democracy in the Europe of the 21st century.
This is the real task ahead of us and we hope that Helsinki has laid the foundations for it and that words will now be backed up by action.
<P>
(Applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I would like to offer my heartfelt congratulations to the Finnish Presidency on the success of their debut.
It has been a fine debut, because you have been able, at this historic and symbolic moment, at the dawn of the new millennium, to draw up a creative approach for the European Union in the light of the challenges it is facing.
I believe that Prime Minister Lipponen and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mrs Halonen, who is absent today due to other work commitments, have truly worked effectively and seriously.
<P>
Our fundamental criticism of the Finnish Presidency and the Summit is that, clearly, and in the eyes of our citizens, their substance has been more impressive than appearances would suggest.
I think this concern should be expressed through our comments and criticisms here in the European Parliament.
Why?
Because, with regard to enlargement, an open and political principle has been displayed by offering all countries the possibility of acceding, of competing with us, with a desire to emulate us and of participating in our adventure.
It is also clear that a significant and genuine step forward has been taken in relation to Turkey.
I have to say, on behalf of my group - where we have debated the issue at length - that our positive attitude towards Turkey is unanimous.
And now, at a time when this step has been taken - and we must remember that relations with Turkey did not start yesterday, but in 1963 -, we hope that Turkey will also respond in a positive manner, both with regard to its internal process of democratisation as well as its relations, not only with the Community, but essentially with the country which has taken the most important step and which I think should be congratulated: Greece and its government.
<P>
Next, with regard to the Intergovernmental Conference, which is the preliminary step we have to take in preparing our shared Community for enlargement, I believe that we are moving forward significantly, but I am extremely aware that the Council systematically tries to undervalue what it does.
There is always talk about the leftovers of Amsterdam; leftovers are normally thrown in the bin.
These are very important decisions.
Confirming the principle of majority voting as a general rule in the Community, as the basis for the political functioning of the Union (which is very important for the Parliament insofar as we can make codecisions), being granted legal personality, which includes, in the Conference, decisions which the Council has taken, such as, for example, drawing up a Charter of Fundamental Rights... What is the point of all this if it is not included in the Treaties?
<P>
A significant step has been taken with regard to security and defence policy, and in this sense I would like to underline the fact that the Community spirit is winning us all over.
Who would have said a year ago that Finland would be the country which would preside over the European Union at a time when it was taking such a decisive step in terms of security and defence identity?
I believe this shows that, together, we are doing things and taking positive steps.
<P>
Curiously though, we do not explain them and we do not sell them.
And nor do we accept an important task in this Parliament which is, in the name of transparency and through clarification, to try to create Treaties which are comprehensible to the citizens.
I would remind you that this appears in the Treaty of Amsterdam, but has not been mentioned since. This opportunity, which is so important, has never been taken.
I must also say that the Summit statement with regard to the European Parliament' s participation may well be positive to an extent, but we do not like to be described as parliamentary observers.
We want to have 'representatives' of this Parliament, because that is the role of our institution.
<P>
And remembering what happened at the Seattle Summit, I believe that we have to make a considerable effort to explain to the citizens what we are doing.
Otherwise, we run the risk of producing unwanted reactions.
<P>
A final word, Madam President, regarding an issue which concerns my group very much.
It seems to us absolutely essential that we are able to move forward in relation to capital-gains tax.
The European process cannot be seen as a process in which there is less and less capital gains tax and more and more tax on wages.
If we continue along these lines, we may find that those in work will react against the European process, especially within a framework of financial globalisation which lacks rules.
Therefore, Madam President, I believe that the Finnish Presidency has taken an enormous step forward.
What is now required is a sustained, hard, arduous and persistent effort to keep things moving forward.
But, above all, we have to carry out the task of explaining the process to our citizens, and I believe that that is our principal mission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Cox">
I would like, on behalf of the Liberal Democrat Group, to warmly congratulate the Finnish Presidency.
You have completed a very successful first presidency for Finland but you have done it with a capacity that does enormous credit to the tasks which you addressed.
<P>
The Summit has produced a result which is worthy of the times.
We are at the end of a century, we are contemplating a new millennium and it is a time of review, a time of outlook and a time of new optimism.
I believe, in a certain way, the Summit has captured that.
I believe that the major decisions that have been made in respect of enlargement, reform and defence show that there is a sustained vitality in our common European vocation.
That is an important message and the central message that has emerged from your successful presidency and on that you deserve rich and proper congratulation.
<P>
I should like to say, in respect of enlargement, that my group, as the others too have expressed here today, is extremely pleased to see that negotiations will open soon with the six additional States of Central and Eastern Europe.
It is important that we inject a new political dynamic into the enlargement process.
The enlargement process itself is essentially a political process and we must not lose sight of that, notwithstanding the many technical dimensions that attend it.
<P>
On the question of Turkey: my group welcomes the decision to extend candidate status to Turkey and regards it as positive.
We hope that the modernising influences within Turkish politics and society will now take hold of this opportunity and build on it in a positive way.
But in welcoming the decision as we do, we insist that those modernising forces must make determined progress towards European norms of respect for human rights and of the relationship between civil and military society; towards the abolition of the death penalty; towards a clear respect for minorities, especially the Kurdish minority in Turkey.
The European Union has also made through your presidency a wise choice in insisting that the reform process in the Treaties must be over and operational by the year 2002 so that it will facilitate early accession because it is important to ensure that the reform process should not become the enemy of the enlargement process.
<P>
The IGC has the opportunity to enhance efficiency and effectiveness and to deepen the democratic character of the European Union.
However, we are disappointed that the IGC agenda which has been contemplated at Helsinki has been limited to what has been described as the Amsterdam leftovers.
I accept that these are not merely crumbs on the table, they are significant slices of reform but we must grasp this opportunity to do more.
My group, through this House, will work with other parliamentarians and with the Commission to try to convince the incoming Portuguese Presidency to be more ambitious in the reform, all the while respecting the timetable.
<P>
I share the view of other colleagues that it is unfortunate to describe the role that this House can play as one merely of observer.
I welcome the fact that we will participate but we participate as equals and not merely as observers.
<P>
On the question of defence, we warmly welcome the establishment of the rapid reaction force and its significant and necessary progress - Kosovo has taught us dearly the need for that.
My group, however, again wishes to stress the importance that this should be seen in the context of a strong Atlantic Alliance.
We must not give any succour to the forces in US politics who show a tendency towards isolationism, many of whose voices are now raised in the current US Presidential election.
<P>
In this regard, one suggestion is that we contemplate the establishment of a political and security committee and military committee.
Could the Defence Minister of the incoming Presidency come to this House at an early date and make a statement to us?
We need to clarify a number of things such as the role of EU non-NATO members in such a force and the role of non-EU NATO members in respect of such a force if they wish to participate.
This and other issues should have a democratic airing and this is the place to do so at a European level.
<P>
A final comment: I could not sit down without mentioning our deep concern about Chechnya.
We welcome the fact that this is occupying the attention of Helsinki.
We would urge the IMF also to act vigorously in this regard because, although each State has a right to defend itself against terrorism, what we observe in Chechnya is grossly disproportionate to the scale of the perceived threat and we have to deplore and condemn it at every opportunity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, my group would first like to acknowledge to those representing the Finnish Presidency that you, as compared with the European Parliament, have improved transparency and the flow of information.
The Finnish Presidency has kept us better informed than former presidencies, which is obviously important, as it strengthens relations between the European Parliament and the Council with reference to the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The conclusions of the Summit meeting declare, quite satisfactorily, that the Commission at last intends to issue a proposal in January regarding the conditions on which the public will be able to access the documents of the institutions.
I would like to tell you that this draft regulation has been leaked to the public, and that is worrying.
That does not make for a spirit of transparency; on the contrary, it might even weaken it, so I would ask you to give this matter your attention.
The final proposal can surely yet be amended in such a way that it would really increase transparency.
<P>
Regarding enlargement, I wish to say that we are very satisfied that the Council has now finally agreed that each candidate country must be assessed on their own merits.
This is exactly the strategy we proposed from the outset.
Now we have to ensure that we also achieve a balance in the progress we make in negotiations and that candidate countries give sufficient consideration to the issues of social security, equality between men and women, employment and environmental protection.
<P>
With regard to Turkey, our opinion is that the European Council should mean what it says, in other words, that the same criteria should apply to Turkey as with the other countries that have been accorded candidate status.
We call on you to look seriously into the question relating to the status of the Kurds.
Islam is obviously already a European tradition, and so we have no fears of the European Union becoming more religiously diverse.
We were not inclined to agree with those in the European Parliament who have been keen to narrowly define the borders of Europe in the belief that Islam is somehow non-European.
On the contrary, we think it can indeed be a part of European culture.
<P>
Th majority of our group would seem to agree that the European Union should also develop a system for military crisis management, to prevent humanitarian catastrophes.
We are very dissatisfied with the way in which the European Council and preparatory discussions have paid little heed to public debate and public opinion.
We want to point out that foreign and security policy, as any other, must be democratic, and you must open up this debate, so the public know what the next phases of the process are to be.
We do not want the European Union to become NATO' s European military pillar.
We want you to strengthen civil crisis management, because, as we all know, it is the wisest thing to do.
The non-military prevention of conflicts is always more important, and for every euro invested in military crisis management at least as much must be spent on civil crisis management.
<P>
Finally, your position on Chechnya was a step in the right direction.
I am certain the European Parliament' s calls to put economic cooperation on ice have had an effect, and we believe that you will remain firm in your opinion that this is not a situation in which we can act as if nothing has happened.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, a quarter of a century ago, at the time of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the spirit in Helsinki was one of peace and cooperation.
Now it is a spirit of European militarisation.
At the Helsinki Summit, the EU expanded its role to include the militarisation of the Union.
We are to establish our own European army for the EU, although it will not be called that officially.
The Member States committed themselves to releasing troops from their own authority to form a fifty thousand strong European army and assigned troops equivalent to a whole corps for the joint deployment of the EU.
In addition, they are going to create rapid deployment forces for wars lasting no more than a year.
<P>
At Amsterdam a common foreign and security policy was referred to.
At Cologne it was already a common security and defence policy that was mentioned.
Since then, many, following the lead of the Commission, have started talking about a common defence.
The ideas expressed speak for themselves.
The EU has started to become a war alliance and a military alliance.
At Helsinki, the attendance of defence ministers at meetings of the General Affairs Council was officially approved.
The EU will thus acquire a Council of Ministers of War.
In Helsinki a standing committee on political and security matters was set up.
Since Helsinki, the commanders of the defence forces of the various countries have formed an EU Military Committee, which is free of any kind of democratic scrutiny.
It was also decided at Helsinki to establish a Military Staff, which will be an EU military planning body for spying operations and mobilisation.
Consequently, talk has begun of the need to increase military appropriations.
Via the new institutions, a new defence dimension is being created, despite the fact that no agreement has been made in the Treaties that joint military operations fall within the scope of the EU.
These decisions should be taken to the EU Court of Justice.
Can Heads of State and Government extend the role of the EU without the approval of Parliament?
<P>
The NATO countries doubtless intend to put the decisions of the fiftieth anniversary conference of the "Alliance" into effect.
Since the decisions taken at Washington the NATO countries have been able to act outside the territories of their Member States.
They have assumed the right to attack other countries without a mandate from either the UN or the OSCE.
In NATO this is called humanitarian intervention, as it has no mandate under international law.
In the EU, it is called crisis management, which also includes forcible peace-making.
There was no decision at Helsinki to mandate crisis management or forcible peace-making.
As the EU is being militarised, it would seem to be happening with a mandate from NATO.
<P>
The Finnish Presidency has ended wretchedly from the point of view of preserving the non-alignment of a non-aligned State.
If the meeting were historic this was mainly in the sense that the EU is being militarised.
There were no surprises at Helsinki as far as EU enlargement and the Intergovernmental Conference were concerned.
In the opinion of our group, the Russian attack on civilians in Chechnya is to be strongly condemned, and it was at Helsinki.
In the fight against unemployment, we wish Portugal better success that Finland had.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Collins">
Mr President, the Helsinki Summit of EU leaders has been quite accurately billed as the European Union's enlargement Summit, and there can be no doubt that this European Council meeting has lived up to this particular expectation.
<P>
The EU leaders reaffirmed the inclusive nature of the accession process which now comprises 13 candidate States within a single framework.
In essence what this means is that the countries, including Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and Malta, will now open negotiations on membership of the European Union in March of next year.
These new countries join with the original six that are already engaged in extensive talks with the Union covering 38 different chapters of negotiations concerning the enlargement process.
<P>
All the countries seeking to accede to the EU regard the prospect of membership of the Union as an essential ingredient in achieving the transformation of their economic and political structures.
The leaders of the 15 countries presently comprising membership of the EU believe that there will have to be substantial changes to the internal decision-making processes within the EU if the enlargement process is to take place in a structured and streamlined fashion.
<P>
EU leaders have agreed to set the end of the year 2002 as the deadline for the EU's internal preparations, notably the ratification of any institutional changes which are agreed at the future IGC.
<P>
We all know that the enlargement process cannot take place unless there is some reform in the decision-making procedures within the European Union itself.
However, the deadline being set down for the next intergovernmental conference is very ambitious indeed.
<P>
I support working towards reaching an agreement by the end of next year, but equally we must not and should not hurry possible fundamental reforms to existing treaties without due consideration and evaluation.
Certainly it would be extremely difficult and impracticable to secure the support of the European public to introduce unanimity for tax harmonisation changes or for decisions concerning foreign and security matters at European Council level.
We must tread carefully on the matter of treaty reform for the simple reason that we have to guarantee that we can carry the support of the 340 million citizens in the EU for any such changes.
<P>
Turkey has also been designated as having candidate status for membership of the EU although it will have to meet the political criteria laid down for prospective accession, which of course will include proving that respect for human rights is an intrinsic part of Turkish life.
<P>
On the issue of Chechnya the European Union leaders were right to bring home to Russia the force of their anger at the brutality of Russian behaviour in the region.
A negotiated settlement is still the only real long-term solution for the securing of a peace settlement in Chechnya.
The European Union must continue to use every diplomatic avenue open to it to help halt the war in Chechnya.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Vanhecke">
Mr President, I fear that time will tell that the decision taken in Helsinki to accord Turkey candidate status for membership of the European Union is a political miscalculation that threatens to have dramatic repercussions for our Member States and for Turkey.
Whilst acknowledging that Turkey must indeed be accorded respect as an important and culturally-rich nation and friendly neighbouring country with which we want to remain on the best of terms, Turkey still does not belong in Europe.
That is only logical historically, geographically-speaking and from the point of view of common sense.
We must pluck up the courage to tell this friendly neighbouring country as much.
For historical, cultural, religious and political reasons, Turkey has never been part of European civilisation.
Quite the opposite in fact.
In Helsinki, the European countries bent over backwards yet again for American geo-political interests and for nothing else. Do I need to produce a map to remind you that only three percent of Turkey is on European soil?
How can people undermine Europe in this way and strip it of its historical identity by continuing even to consider extending candidate status to a country that lies in a different part of the world.
<P>
Finally, I would just like to say something about the logic of common sense, for a number of Member States are already struggling with a massive, almost unmanageable immigration problem.
If Turkey accedes to the European Union then the problem will grow to gigantic proportions.
This will result in an invasion of the kind that the French President Valérie Giscard d' Estaing once warned about.
That is why my party, the Flemish Block, will continue to oppose any possibility of Turkey acceding to the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
Mr President, the Helsinki Summit was an event of historic significance.
The EU is to get its own military rapid reaction corps. The world' s largest trading power is to begin establishing its own military force, and the world is on the way to acquiring a new superstate in addition to the USA.
To be sure, it has been agreed that the EU army is not really an EU army at all because it is not on a permanent basis, but then nor are NATO armed forces or a Eurocorps on a permanent basis either.
The EU army is the same, in having a command structure of troops and hardware to be deployed on a variety of tasks.
Let us call a spade a spade and an EU army an EU army.
With its own currency, police force and military, the EU is to dispose of the resources normally pertaining to a Nation State.
The EU already has more legislative power than other federations, and the essence of the next treaty will be more majority decision making.
We are on the way from a confederation to a federal State, but this is still only the last but one treaty before the drafting of a constitution for just such a federal State, for no-one is going to give up the right of veto in regard to the amendment of the Treaties, the levying of new taxes and the sending of soldiers off to war.
<P>
The next treaty too will contain familiar echoes of the nation States of old.
France and Britain will not be submitting their nuclear weapons to EU control.
We are to get a quasi-federal confederation dominated by the three biggest countries, Europe' s former great powers.
Enlargement will not take the form of negotiations concerned with creating a common, democratic Europe.
The first requirement of enlargement is that the Eastern and Central European countries discard everything they themselves have decided and replace it with the European Union' s common legislation, the sacred and universal acquis communautaire.
Their newly won right to deliberate on new laws in elected parliaments is to be transferred to negotiators behind more closed doors in Brussels.
Their electors and elected representatives are to surrender power to officials and ministers.
Democracy, for them, is to become the exception rather than the rule, as has also happened in our own case.
<P>
Matters need not reach this pass.
We must hope that there are people who dare to say no to the penultimate treaty before the drafting of an actual constitution and who dare to prepare the ground for replacing regimentation and centralism with a Europe of democracies and diversites.
Following this criticism, I should just like to commend the Finnish Presidency for having promoted the cause of openness by means of the Presidency' s new home pages.
These have been very useful, and I hope that the Portuguese Presidency will take its cue from this initiative.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Mr President. What struck me first as I studied the final document last weekend was its order of priority.
I understand perfectly well that the enlargement of the Union must be given priority in the wake of the upbeat tempo adopted by the Commission for the new accession strategy.
However, I would have considered it wiser for an enlargement Summit to give precedence to the matters facing the intergovernmental conference, thereby emphasising that even the tiniest enlargement will not work unless outstanding institutional questions are solved.
<P>
However, I was pleased to see that Helsinki resisted both the temptation and the intensive lobbying of the Commission and Parliament and basically concentrated the agenda of the intergovernmental conference on the famous Amsterdam leftovers.
This should ensure that other topics will not be dealt with until these have been wrapped up.
Improvements on Amsterdam in the institutional area not only concern fundamental matters, they also call for tremendous effort.
<P>
Whether or not the decision on Turkey was for the greater good of the Union and Turkey, only time will tell.
We very much doubt it.
By contrast, the progress made with the CFSP was extremely positive, even if it failed to answer a number of fundamental questions, including some of significance to Austria.
The current situation shows how vital progress is in this area.
The Union may well be seething inwardly, but in truth it stands paralysed and helpless in the face of events in Chechnya.
<P>
As far as employment policy is concerned, I expect more from the promised economic recovery, from the upswing, than from the action plans on paper.
<P>
But, all in all, Helsinki achieved an interesting result!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Suominen">
Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council Lipponen and Commission President Romano Prodi gave us an excellent summary of the main decisions taken during the Finnish Presidency and of future tasks that lay ahead.
Although I am therefore satisfied with the Finnish Government' s strong grasp of leadership and the fact that either considerable progress was made with the key issues or they were finally resolved, it is clear that the good results of the Presidency stem from the desire by the whole of the Union to develop a common European structure.
If I also mention various disappointments, I am not blaming the Finnish Presidency for them: certain matters simply need more consideration; along the same tracks run trains of varying speed, and the heaviest loads are often the slowest.
<P>
I am very satisfied with the progress made on a common dimension for crisis management and defence.
The bases for the security of people in a democratic Union that is committed to a market economy and respect for the principle of the rule of law are economic growth, increased employment, internal security to combat crime, and a common foreign, political and military security system.
<P>
The extension of Union enlargement to all thirteen countries ended the artificial split between the applicant countries.
I would say that the decision on Turkish candidacy for membership will furthermore induce this large and important country to determine for itself whether it will ever achieve membership.
<P>
The northern dimension was overshadowed by the open crises in Kosovo and Chechnya.
I share with Mr Lipponen' s hope that Russia will become a more successful member of the global community, which would make cross-border cooperation possible on Russia' s northern border with the Union and thus give substance to the northern dimension.
<P>
The decision to promote all the possibilities of information technology to improve the Union' s competitiveness and the aim to take Europe to the number one position in the world as an information society player are both essential ingredients in the promotion of economic security.
In this area, Commissioner Liikanen will have both an interesting and mighty task ahead of him.
<P>
Among the disappointments we must once again include certain important issues with regard to the development of the single market and the Union' s decision-making system.
The tax package, even a nodding glance at the harmonisation of taxes, failed.
The idea of a European limited company could not be taken forward, and the illegal beef war in Europe continues.
<P>
Finally, I would like to raise a small but, in my own area, important matter.
Where did WADA (the World Anti Doping Agency) disappear to, beyond the reach of the Union, and the watchdog on sports-related illness and the doctor, which Commissioner Viviane Reding reported on 1 December, and in which the Union was to have a key role?
Do the Member States not fear the present and future skeletons in their own cupboards in wishing to keep the main responsibility for themselves within the territory of the Union?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, President of the Commission, the Helsinki Summit will go down in history because of the decisions that were taken there.
The meeting showed the way for development in Europe far into the future.
The European Union will move beyond its borders once and for all at the start of the next millennium.
The progress made from the start of talks with the six new candidates for membership, and the acceptance of Turkey as a candidate for membership has been an inevitable part of the European policy to reinforce stability and strengthen prosperity in our continent.
<P>
At the same time we have to give yet more consideration to how ready the EU itself is for enlargement and what sort of timetable might be involved.
The pace of enlargement has to be in accordance with how prepared both the applicant countries and the EU itself are. Otherwise, we will all be sorely disappointed.
The future challenges of an enlarged EU, or even one the present size, will not be solved at the next IGC.
We have to prepare for a wider agenda now.
However, it was important to decide on a new IGC to resolve the questions which were unresolved at Amsterdam.
The Helsinki meeting also bore witness to the fact that there is a need for a broader adoption of the rules for qualified majority voting.
<P>
Despite failures at Helsinki, we have to move on quickly to find a solution to the tax issue.
We will not be able to prevent even greater inequality in societies and among people unless profits from capital are subject to a minimum rate of taxation within the entire single market area.
The European Parliament has continually called for greater transparency for all the EU institutions.
A lack of transparency has been a particular source of trouble for decision making in the Council, and Finland, as the country holding the Presidency, has initiated new practices to increase transparency, practices which we would hope will become established before proper rules are drafted.
We also made headway on environmental matters.
The integration of environmental policy with all policy areas and making it feasible to sign the Kyoto Agreement more quickly were important steps forward.
But one disappointment has to be recorded for this autumn: the failure to review the rules for Members and assistants.
I know, of course, that the Presidency is not to blame for this.
The Presidency has been active and willing to find compromises; the problems and guilty parties are unfortunately to be found in this Chamber.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="Duff">
May I welcome the reform of the Council itself and especially the agreed programme designed to improve the performance and coordinating role of the General Affairs Council.
The extension of European Union competence into the defence field accentuates the need for improvements of the working of the Council.
It also requires the European Parliament to extend its own scope to the defence field, especially when the Western European Union Assembly is closed down, so that proper democratic scrutiny of this sensitive and controversial field will be provided.
<P>
What plans does the Presidency have to start a dialogue with Parliament upon security and defence questions, and when will the Presidency's Minister of Defence make a statement upon the development of a common policy for European security and defence?
I should be extremely grateful for a response from the Presidency upon these questions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Frassoni">
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Frahm">
When you read the papers and reports from the Summit, you have to admit that George Orwell did not live in vain.
At any rate, his Ministry of Truth or the principles behind it have survived him.
Now, we no longer talk about war; we talk about humanitarian campaigns.
And an army is not called an army; 60 000 armed soldiers are a humanitarian rapid reaction corps.
In spite of the fact that the Finnish Presidency has been genuinely enthusiastic in its efforts to promote openness, the Commission has produced a document containing its own, Orwellian, notions of openness.
Openness applies only to a very limited extent and not if you ask for it too often, for example as a journalist, and intend to publish the information in question and thus actually sell newspapers. In that case, openness does not apply.
<P>
Turkey has also been processed by the Ministry of Truth.
It has now become more democratic, even if the Kurds and Turks continue to be oppressed.
Yesterday' s debate here in the Chamber concerning European culture was quite a disagreeable experience.
It was the debate which arose out of Turkey' s status as an applicant country.
What is our common European culture?
I want to say at once that I have very little in common culturally with Jörg Haider in Austria or Mr Le Pen in France or, for that matter, with my own countryman, Mogens Camre in Denmark.
I feel I have much stronger cultural ties with progressive Turks and Kurds who are fighting for justice, freedom and democracy, and I am looking forward to the day when they can be welcomed into a European working partnership.
I am looking forward to Europe' s beginning to take its multi-ethnic culture seriously, but as long as the death sentence against Mr Öçalan is still in force, this is quite the wrong moment to send the Turkish Government a signal to the effect that Turkey is welcome as an applicant country
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Muscardini">
Mr President, while it is positive that the European Union wants other countries to accede so that it can consolidate the growth of democracy there and reinforce their economic capabilities on the world market - where, let me say yet again, we must defend the distinctive character of national products, by combating type-approval and standardisation, which undoubtedly lead to the decline of individual cultures and product quality - it is just as necessary that Parliament clearly reasserts that a new country' s membership is dependent on the requirements laid down in Amsterdam actually having been implemented in that country.
<P>
In this respect, we would point out moreover, that the issue of dangerous and obsolete nuclear power plants is still unresolved. Moreover, Parliament has already taken a position on this.
It is just as obvious though, that enlargement in the envisaged timeframe does not allow either for the immediate creation of a common foreign policy or the drawing-up of an economic policy programme, even though the latter is very urgent, especially in the light of the recovery of the dollar against the euro and the disappointing results of Seattle.
<P>
Therefore, it is with regret that we must tailor our former hopes to current requirements, and the only solution seems to be to undertake a new type of agreement, within the Union and before it accepts new members, countries which have the same interest in a Common Foreign and Defence Policy, in common laws that will guarantee the fight against crime, drugs, uncontrolled immigration, countries that want to regain their common right to campaign against violations of human rights by taking active steps to combat cruelty and genocide.
<P>
The choice made at Helsinki to set up one of the first units of a European army is heading in the right direction and must be supported by Parliament, in the hope that the initiative will not stop at this first step.
This hypothesis, which we are putting forward in the hope that those who agree with the same objectives are finally starting to discuss possible new agreements, must not be confused with the notion of a multi-speed Europe, but should instead be thought of as a two-tiered Union.
We are proposing a political level for the current Member States which choose to make a great leap forward in this sector, and a second, economic level for the fifteen current Member States and the new members.
<P>
Obviously, with time, anyone who makes the request and meets the requirements will be able to take their place at the political level, but today, if we do not proceed quickly in this direction and consider enlarging by almost doubling the number of Member States without well thought out and tested institutional reforms - there is no time left to test them out - we are sounding the death knoll for the dream of a political Union which is able to respect identities, cultures and traditions, but nevertheless contributes to the creation of a new model of European citizen.
It is clear that for some, enlargement does not mean strengthening the Union but watering it down, marking the end of the hopes of our founding fathers.
<P>
Finally, I would like to extend an invitation to the Commission so that it avoids continuing to propose measures on asparagus and lupins and instead seeks to give us a political and economic plan before it becomes a laughing stock.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, firstly a premise which, I believe, is true for every one of us, but most especially for our President, Nicole Fontaine.
I feel the matter of the status that the two Members of Parliament will have at the Intergovernmental Conference is quite intolerable.
We cannot accept it, and our President should make this known.
This is the status of NGO.
Do we wish to be and to continue to be an NGO?
We would be, like the NGOs, mere observers.
I think it high time that Parliament knew how to say no to this state of affairs.
<P>
More generally, I find your memory rather selective, ladies and gentlemen.
At Amsterdam, the conference concluded with the fact that if we were to number more than 20 members, we should have to implement at least three reforms.
This is no longer the scenario.
The current scenario envisages 27 Member States and yet more in the years to come, requiring much, much more far-reaching reforms.
By accepting these conclusions, we are making ourselves, Council and Parliament, accessories to a policy which will prove to be extremely serious in the years to come, and which will bring the entire European Union to a halt.
<P>
This Parliament cannot pretend it does not understand or that it is not aware of this policy.
We cannot, as some of my fellow Members have said, consider that we can discuss matters with the Portuguese Presidency when we already know there is a majority in the Council ready to oppose adding items to the agenda.
We must use the only weapon available to us, and if Mr Barnier does not agree to call it an all out strike, then let us call it resistance.
In any case, we cannot defer until June the battle that we must wage in January.
<P>
Our problem is the opinion which we must deliver prior to the start of the Intergovernmental Conference, i.e. as early as January.
We could, of course, act complacently, we could pretend to close our eyes and to believe that we might convince the Portuguese Presidency, which in turn may convince the other Member States.
We can delude ourselves.
We have already done so often enough. Now, perhaps, it is time for Parliament to wake up.
<P>
As regards enlargement, I think we are insulting a number of countries, without even being aware of it. We extended candidacy to Turkey.
This is fine, even if, as always, it was done too late. But we are abandoning countries such as Albania, Macedonia and Croatia, even though there is no reason to abandon them, since we decided that each country might enter the Union when it has implemented the necessary reforms.
We must extend candidacy to these countries as a matter of urgency, just as, as a matter of urgency, we must recognise that Chechnya is not located somewhere on the moon, but in a region of Europe, in the Transcaucasus.
It is a matter of urgency that Europe should have a policy worthy of the name in this region, otherwise, just like the Balkans over the last ten years, we shall see it becoming a region of war and destruction, as is already the case in Chechnya today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Belder">
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sichrovsky">
Mr President, the Finnish Presidency has, without doubt, taken the development of the European Community forward.
However, European security policy must be seen as one of the failures of the European Community in the light of its reaction to the centres of conflict in Chechnya and Grozny.
We as a European Union will only gain credibility with the outside world and with our own people once we stop making too much of a distinction between various centres of conflict.
<P>
One of the problems as I see it, however, is in relation to the human rights of the various minorities within the Union, especially with regard to freedom of worship.
There are still huge differences within the European Member States as far as the recognition of religious minorities is concerned.
For example, it is at present practically impossible for Orthodox Jewish communities in Germany to set themselves up as an independent community.
The incoming presidency will have a special responsibility to regulate the rights of religious communities within the EU.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Velzen">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, President of the European Commission, I am only too happy to second the positive statements made by our group chairman Hans-Gert Poettering and Mrs Suominen.
I am not going to repeat them.
But, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you also said that the Helsinki Summit did not deliver the goods.
I thought that was a very apt way of characterising the situation.
I shall just cite three disappointing outcomes.
<P>
My first example is the IGC.
Mr Poettering has rightly already pointed out that the three Amsterdam leftovers do in fact represent a very minimal package, and in particular, that the question of qualified majority decision making is still a major point of discussion in the Council.
The door is already slightly ajar, but on no account must we lose sight of the fact that the Helsinki Summit failed to adopt the recommendations of the Committee of Wise Men under the direction of Mr Dehaene following the excellent proposals prepared by the European Commission under the direction of Commissioner Barnier.
This was a very disappointing development in my view and so I really hope that the Commission and Parliament are in a position to convince the Portuguese Council Presidency that we need to go a little further than is the case at present.
<P>
Of course security is another area that still needs to be properly resolved.
What exactly is Mr Solana' s role and what is the European Commission' s role?
If you take a look at the annexes then what you will see are numerous questions relating to the whole issue of democratic control. What does the European Parliament intend to do?
What do the national parliaments intend to do?
<P>
The taxation package certainly was not a key issue but then how can you face the citizens with the news that after so many years the slight increase in taxation of capital that we need is still outstanding.
Three thousand jobs are given priority in one Member State but not in others.
That is not what solidarity is all about and neither is it something we can defend.
I therefore hope that Mr Prodi will take the lead during the next Presidency, so as to ensure that the Member States get the message at long last.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hänsch">
Mr President, an historic decision has indeed been taken in Helsinki.
It is a cheque made out to the future and, to be frank, neither you nor we know how we can honour it.
After the unanimous vote on the enlargement process, no further doubt can or will be cast on the seriousness of our intentions and of Turkey' s intention to meet the Copenhagen criteria as quickly as possible.
It is the will of the Helsinki Summit that the European Union should number 28 Member States in a few years' time.
However, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, a number of questions then arise as to the scope of the decisions which have been taken.
<P>
Do you really believe that, once the Amsterdam leftovers have been cleared up, our Union will still have the power to act and will still be transparent and democratic with 27 or 28 Member States?
<P>
Do you really believe that we can maintain the present language rules in our institutions with 15, 16, 17 or 18 languages?
Do you believe that we can maintain the present internal modus operandi of our institutions, of the Council, the European Parliament and the Commission and the balance between them with 27 or 28 Member States?
<P>
Do you really believe that Turkey, the European country with the largest population and a long history its own, will merely join the European Union as its 28th Member State rather than changing the very nature of it?
Do we not need a plan for moving the Schengen borders to the Euphrates and Tigris?
Do we not need a plan for dealing with accession applications received by the European Union from the States of Eastern Europe and the Caucasus in the wake of the Helsinki decision?
And for dealing with Russia if we receive accession applications from the States of that region?
I trust that we will find the flexibility within the European Union, the flexibility which has so far completely eluded us - what we previously described as flexibility notwithstanding - in order to safeguard the cohesion of the European Union.
I trust that we shall, over coming years, find the strength and the courage to answer these questions and to find answers of our own before others find them for us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Haarder">
Mr President, we hoped that, after the Berlin Wall came down, certain limits could be placed upon the atrocities committed in the world.
That is why we intervened in Kosovo where an odious regime was in the process of driving out a whole people; and that is why we were delighted when Indonesia' s atrocities in East Timor were eventually brought to an end.
But now we are seeing, in Chechnya, ruthless state terror directed against an entire population.
We see an army combating terrorism by razing towns to the ground and causing hundreds of thousands of people to flee.
We see a government and a presidential candidate courting popularity by pounding what they perceive as the Chechen enemy into the ground, and we see how, in the election campaign in Russia, there is almost no opposition to this cruel strategy.
<P>
In the EU, we have been too weak in our protests and with our sanctions and, in that way, have betrayed the liberal and democratic forces in Russia.
Thanks are due to the Council for the fact that it is now finally speaking plainly about Russia' s flagrant breach of a whole range of international obligations.
It is now a question of the Council' s honouring its words. Everything must be done to enable us to help bring this barbarism to an end and to ensure that vital humanitarian aid is provided to hundreds of thousands of civilians.
This century has been terrible enough, but the end of the century has also been full of promise.
The issue where Chechnya is concerned is really one of whether this is to be the last tragic convulsion of an unhappy century or the start of a new century which is just as tragic.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Lipponen">
Mr President, I thank every one for the kind comments they have made here regarding Finland, as the country holding the Presidency, but at the same time I would also like to thank people for the criticisms that have been made.
Much attention has been paid in the discussion to the Intergovernmental Conference and the need to reform the Treaties.
At the European Council in Helsinki it was the Council' s opinion that a decision on the Intergovernmental Conference should be arrived at quite quickly, and, if possible, by the end of next year, so that there will be time to ratify the agreements and enlargement can get under way.
<P>
I think there are two considerations here, which I want to focus attention on.
Firstly, the three issues left over from Amsterdam are by no means trivial matters.
There has already been talk here of increasing qualified majority decision making.
The fact that it is on the agenda means, as I understand it, that we have to go in that direction.
But that too is a huge question of principle, and after we have drafted this agenda it will then be met with the differing opinions of Member States.
However, the door has been left open a crack and at the Intergovernmental Conference the discussion will turn to whether we need to raise other important matters relating to amendments to Treaties, so that the European Council can debate this issue again.
<P>
I would like to mention another consideration here: do we believe that enlargement should be postponed?
As I understand it, we are facing such constitutional questions with regard to Treaty changes that, as national parliaments ratify these sorts of decisions, we will have to have sufficient time to debate the issues in the Member States and we will have to involve national parliaments in these reforms.
That will not be an easy task.
I fully acknowledge this and I would like to thank Romano Prodi, the President of the Commission, for having had the courage to raise these matters.
They are important for the future of Europe.
They have to be discussed in the near future but we cannot do everything at once, and that is the problem here.
The issue of language is an example of something that must be discussed with maturity and courage.
As a representative of a small country I can say that we have to be prepared.
<P>
There has been much discussion here on security and defence policy.
To the question of whether defence ministers should come here, I cannot say no, but I would point out that the General Affairs Council handles these matters, and so defence ministers can participate if need be.
It is quite understandable and necessary that the European Parliament should wish to focus attention on these matters, and I agree with Mr Poettering that we should not dilly-dally in this.
For that reason, in Finland we are most satisfied that we were able, during the Finnish Presidency, to have a decision on this in such a ready state that we will have a policy on the matter from now on.
Perhaps Mr Seppänen has not read the Treaty of Amsterdam.
We are acting within the framework of the Treaty of Amsterdam in this matter.
The Helsinki conclusions state that there is no question of a European army, and we are not really creating any sort of crisis management capability or crisis management force that would go out warmongering.
<P>
Mr Suominen raised the issue of the northern dimension.
In this matter we achieved Finland' s goal, as the country to hold the presidency, which was that agreed by the Member States and the partnership countries at a conference in Helsinki on a previous occasion for the drafting of an action programme.
The European Council in Helsinki reconfirmed this.
In Finland, we are obviously satisfied with this, but once again I would like to stress that in Europe we have a southern, eastern and western dimension, just as much as a northern one.
They are all issues we have in common.
The northern dimension is very much about long-term effective cooperation with Russia, which is a great advantage for us both and absolutely irrespective of what is happening in Russia and Chechnya at the moment.
<P>
The subject of sport has been raised here.
Where did sport get to at the Summit?
Sport is without doubt socially significant and an important thing for millions of Europeans.
I consider it necessary to return to this subject.
It is obviously a question of competence and the fact that here issues are discussed from many points of view.
There is the point of view of the single market - we will recall the Bosman case - and there is the point of view of health, which is related to the issue of dope testing.
On the whole this matter should be prepared for debate, and the European Council, for that reason, did not want to adopt a position on this in the conclusions, as the necessary preparatory work and debate were lacking.
<P>
Finally, as a sort of legacy of the Finnish Presidency, I hope that all the institutions of the Union will take the issue of transparency and good governance seriously.
I understand that we are dealing with different cultures.
No country can say that they do things best.
We must understand one another, but the direction must clearly be towards greater transparency.
When we were putting the Treaty of Amsterdam together, Finland' s idea and suggestion, which was accepted, was that transparency should be the first principle, and there should be exceptions made to it and not the other way round.
It is also in this spirit that we should prepare matters for debate in the future.
<P>
Interinstitutional balance is very important.
We Finns, in discharging our duties as President, gained a lot of experience of this, and I would hope that instead of the institutions competing with one another regarding who has achieved what and who was first, we can concentrate more on cooperation, because that is what we need.
Each institution has a very important job to do.
From the point of view of a small country we need a strong Commission.
We should have the sort of Council that functions well and in which the main objective is the common interest.
The European Parliament then has to oversee all this.
Here new ideas can be put forward.
This is a forum in which Europeans meet to discuss the important issues of the future.
On behalf of Finland, I would again like to thank everyone for all the support we have been given by all the institutions and all the Member States of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="President">
I should like to take this opportunity on behalf of Parliament, through you, to express our thanks to your officials for all the good cooperation we have had during the last six months.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Prodi">
.
(IT) I will take the floor again very briefly, Mr President, to make some points about the previous debate.
<P>
I can see that there is an almost unanimous feeling of disappointment over the failed agreement on tax matters, and I believe that the reasons for this are broadly shared.
There was also almost universal agreement about Chechnya and the need for us not to have double standards in our foreign policy, but to reassert the principles which are the cornerstone of the European Union.
Moreover, there is a generally favourable opinion of the European Union' s rapid intervention force, even if there were some who disagreed over this. It has always been the tradition to disagree, not only in the European Parliament but also in many national parliaments, when it comes to issues relating in some way to military matters, and the possibility of having a European army.
<P>
Nevertheless, I would like to comment briefly on the more controversial subject of the Intergovernmental Conference.
I have to say that the Commission is not in any way being excluded from decisions on the Intergovernmental Conference, and I also have to say that Parliament' s role has been increased, with respect to Amsterdam, even if the progress is less than stated by the Commission and the President of Parliament during the Helsinki debate.
But some progress has been made, and we can analyse it objectively: two representatives of the European Parliament will participate in all the talks and will be able to intervene at the beginning and end of each meeting at the Intergovernmental Conference; in addition, in each meeting of this type there will be talks between the President of Parliament and the Heads of State and Government.
This is minimal progress, but I assure you - and this is the important message I want to give you - that in this area, the Commission and the President of Parliament have taken the same line on increasing the presence of Parliament itself.
I think that this is a route we should pursue.
We must therefore say that the direction we have been heading in is the right one, even though the pace is extremely slow compared with the pace we had set ourselves.
However, we must not only look to the past: this is some advice, a lesson with a view what we have to do in the coming six months.
<P>
Leaving the door open as regards the agenda for the Intergovernmental Conference also provides an opportunity for the Commission and Parliament to cooperate in bringing in the reforms that we want via that door.
Before the Helsinki Conference, the door was closed; its opening is not, of course, a particularly significant result, but it is a lot more than we had expected and a lot more than was going to be allowed before the start of the Conference.
We must therefore learn a lesson as regards working together over the coming months.
We need to cooperate closely, precisely because it is through this door that the necessary reforms can come.
<P>
As for the rest, I will conclude with an observation on enlargement.
It is true, as Mr Poettering said, that time will tell whether or not it will be historic, but the decision is an important one.
As a consequence of this decision, we shall have to change a large number of our rules and current points of reference; we shall have to change a lot about our life, our culture, our budgets, our positions - everything we are doing.
It is a decision which has yet to be implemented.
On the other hand, it is clear that it will take years and a thorough analysis, because we need to reassure the public in the countries that are joining the Union, by showing them the real situation here, and making an accurate and serious comparison of legal, economic, political and transparency issues.
In short, we have started a process that will take us to an historic conclusion.
We have not yet reached it, but what we decided at Helsinki will have an enormous bearing on the work of Parliament and the work of the European Commission.
This is another area we must work on together so that a virtuous circle will come of it, and so that politics as well as the economy - both ours and of the countries that have applied for membership - can grow together and expand in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Napolitano">
Mr President, I rise to say that this has been an extremely short debate.
We have heard the replies of the President-in-Office of the Council and the President of the Commission, who replied to the speakers who had already taken the floor.
I cannot see the point in continuing this debate.
I do not think it wise to proceed in this way in Parliament.
<P>
<P>
In my opinion, the debate closed with the replies by the President-in-Office of the Council and the President of the Commission, so I request that you remove my name from the list of speakers.
<P>
(Applause)
<P>
(The debate was suspended for a formal sitting at 10.30 a.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Annex: Inauguration ceremony for the Louise Weiss Building
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Chirac">
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, I am glad that at least Mr Patten is here to follow this important debate, because there are urgent matters which require discussion.
The Council has at last joined the flock and declared sanctions on Russia.
But given the length of time the war has already been waging in the Caucasus, this decision is, of course, far too late to bring any real solution to the conflict.
Given the massive expulsion of the civil population, it is far too weak a measure.
<P>
We have to imagine what is happening over there.
Ingushetia currently has more refugees than the indigenous population, with no humanitarian aid to compare with Kosovo.
Kosovo had humanitarian aid, here there is nothing.
That is the situation.
Which is why the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement must be suspended immediately.
Russia must be excluded from the G8 Summit and its government must not receive any more credit until a peaceful solution to the conflict has been found.
<P>
Exactly what sort of a foreign policy do we have at the moment?
It is true that military forces are being planned, but a decision on an early end to the crisis has been delayed for weeks.
Europe must not just be the Europe of oil multinationals; it must also become the Europe of human rights, which is why we in the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance are calling for a conference on the Caucasus in collaboration with the OSCE so that a contribution to peace in this region can finally be made.
We shall continue discussions with human rights representatives from Chechnya, including discussions of projects.
I hope that the Commission will give proper support in this matter by making a contribution to peace and prevention in the region, because that is far more important than the military forces decided on in Helsinki.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alyssandrakis">
Mr President, Commissioner, the Council has taken a significant step towards the militarisation of the European Union with its decision to develop the military crisis management corps.
The European Union has shown just how well it understands these crises by contributing to the disintegration of Yugoslavia, particularly with its barbarous and murderous attacks on the Yugoslav people.
It has shown its understanding by taking part in the occupation of Kosovo and in its continuing efforts to overturn the democratically-elected Yugoslav leadership.
<P>
The Council has decided to curtail democracy still further by abolishing the unanimity rule, even on extremely important issues.
The decision to extend candidate status to Turkey is, without a doubt, a political gesture towards the Turkish regime, despite the fact that it has made no move whatsoever towards fulfilling the conditions set by the European Union itself.
The Council is encouraging Turkey to continue with its violations of human rights, its genocide of the Kurdish people, its occupation of 38% of Cypriot territory and its territorial claims in the Aegean.
At the same time, it is thwarting the struggle of the Turkish people, for whom we feel solidarity.
<P>
The decisions in Helsinki illustrate quite clearly that behind the show of democracy and behind the lofty words on human rights lurk the creeping fascism of imperialist interests and violence against anybody who resists the new order of things.
However, the people of Europe are gradually overcoming their torpor following the overthrow of socialism in Europe and are preparing for a counter-attack.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
Mr President, I think that what took place in Helsinki can be interpreted in a number of very different ways.
For example, in the field of enlargement, some will be pleased that Turkey has been granted applicant status and others will not be so pleased.
But it surely cannot be denied that the Presidency-in-Office of the Council has made significant advances in the field of common foreign and security policy by reorganising the duties of the Council, by clearly promoting non-military crisis management, by adopting a common strategy with regard to Ukraine and also by approving a statement on Chechnya, although we would have liked it to have been a little more forceful and I believe that in time we will be proved right.
<P>
Nevertheless, it must be said that, from the point of view of the institutions and the Intergovernmental Conference, the results are nothing to boast about and they prompt us to adopt one of two possible attitudes.
The first, clearly, is, as we say in my language, "to cry over spilt milk" , whilst the second - somewhat more realistic - would be to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the Summit statement and to try to persevere in our objectives.
<P>
I would take this approach and, to this end, I think that we should try to re-establish that amicable partnership between the Commission and Parliament, who were unable to secure acceptance of their views at the Helsinki Summit.
<P>
I really believe that this Parliament, with the assistance of a slightly bolder and more ambitious Commission and, (to be frank), one which is a little more committed to reforming the institutions, could ensure that the misunderstandings of the past give way to more harmonious relations in the future and that we will all be able to promote the reform of the European Union, knowing, as we do, that if we ignore the concerns of the general public, these reforms will never come about and will never be a success.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Mr President, the logical starting point for the key decisions by the European Council was enlargement.
So what did the Council do?
It completely overturned the enlargement doctrine applied hitherto. Now, we no longer have teams of candidates one after the other but just one race for all the candidate countries together, with Turkey as a candidate country now included.
<P>
My group, the Coalition, and I personally feel that, in principle, this is a change for the better. Nevertheless, both the Commission and the Council must remember that relations with Turkey are now Euro-Turkish relations and not Graeco-Turkish relations, as they have either hypocritically or maladroitly maintained in the past.
I would also point out, Mr President, that as the Union' s borders are expanding, a large black hole is forming in the Balkans.
This black hole includes both Serbia and many other countries and is right at the heart of the new geographical area you are building.
Is this political short-sightedness or pure vindictiveness? I, for one, do not know.
<P>
Finally, yet another intergovernmental conference and reform of the Treaty have been announced to address the issue of enlargement.
Yet another reform, yet another intergovernmental conference, with no Community approach, no role for the Commission and a meaningless role for Parliament, with no consultation with national parliaments and, finally, with no transparency and no accountability towards the civil society.
Is this how we are to increase the prestige and appeal of European unification?
Have the Heads of State and Government and the Community bodies not learned anything from Seattle?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Ludford">
Mr President, the Summit was indeed historic, especially regarding defence and enlargement, if not the IGC.
The Union is at last facing up to challenges to security in Europe.
I should like to refer in particular to Turkey.
I now accept that making Turkey a formal candidate will help speed up an improvement in Turkey's record on democracy and human rights, concern about which reflects not hostility towards Turkey but attachment to its future in Europe.
<P>
Turkish failure to recognise the rights of the Kurds is the biggest single reason for its breaches of European democratic and human rights norms and the pretext for its military-dominated state.
So it is astonishing that neither the OSCE Summit declaration nor the Helsinki conclusions make any reference to the Kurds.
<P>
Turkey cannot meet European values or ensure security while it denies the different identity of its Kurdish citizens.
I welcome signals that Abdullah Öçalan's death sentence may be lifted; but the EU must make clear that if he is executed, accession negotiations cannot proceed.
We must insist the Turkish authorities respond to the PKK cease-fire and make moves to political settlement, recognising Kurdish cultural and democratic rights.
<P>
Finally, the UK Government must not give export credit funding to the Ilisu dam, which threatens to be a human rights disaster for the Kurds as well as an ecological disaster.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van den Bos">
Mr President, the European Summit was less of a success than has been suggested here this morning.
The decisions on enlargement, the intervention force and Turkey' s application for EU membership are positive, but the words used to describe the IGC conceal a great lack of political will.
The agenda is still open in theory, but there is nothing to suggest that the governments really want fundamental change.
On the contrary, so far none of the Commission or Parliament proposals have been followed up.
I would very much like the Finnish Presidency to explain why this is so.
<P>
It is essential for there to be general majority decision making and increased cooperation.
The lack of political will to make this unequivocal choice will paralyse the decision-making process as soon as Europe undergoes enlargement.
Those who block fundamental reform want to keep Europe small, even though they might claim otherwise.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="MacCormick">
Mr President, the Helsinki Summit took account of the proposal for a charter of rights.
Today President Chirac made clear his view that an enlarged Europe must be built around respect for rights.
We agree with that, but we insist that a democratic European Union must be built on the rule of law as an equal partner with a charter of rights.
My SNP colleague Mr Hudghton and I did not join in the discourteous and petulant walk-out from President Chirac's speech this morning.
As a result, Mr Hudghton was able to put to President Chirac our point of view and get an undertaking for a possible reply to a letter we sent yesterday.
<P>
Another issue alive is that of enlarging the Union.
We share enthusiasm for enlargement provided proper institutional reform goes ahead.
It should, however, be remembered that there are not only nations in Eastern and Central Europe seeking entry, there are ancient nations in Western Europe too, represented here by the European Free Alliance, which seek fair recognition as members in Europe.
Our claims deserve better than an embarrassed silence that contrasts with the welcome others receive.
Reform of the institutions must create space for due recognition of existing regions and unrepresented nations.
<P>
We used to hear a lot about the Europe of the regions, a phrase less in use nowadays than a few years ago.
Not only did the Helsinki Council make paltry progress toward curing Europe's democratic deficit, but it did nothing at all about what ought to be recognised as a regional deficit.
Our task in the European Free Alliance is to get it recognised and cured with the help of our colleagues in the Greens/European Free Alliance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, Commissioner, unfortunately there are no ministers here!
I should like to describe the Summit in maritime terms.
The launch was a great success when it came to the major projects which were got under way. There was no friction in the launch.
But even though the launch has been successful, it is not known whether the ship is seaworthy and whether it will survive the storms to which it is exposed.
I am thinking especially here of the enlargement of the European Union.
How will this succeed?
In the Summit' s conclusions, clear reservations are expressed about the applicant countries to the effect that several of them do not even fulfil the Copenhagen criteria in the medium to long term and that, in March, an assessment should be made of how the economic criteria are being fulfilled.
<P>
I think it is important for the future of the enlargement that we look to how the applicant countries achieve good administration and combat corruption and whether they have stable institutions. The most important thing is not therefore that we should go through the acquis communautaire in detail.
You see, it is not doing this which will decide whether the Union can be enlarged and whether the applicant countries are ready to enter the EU. Rather, it is the answers to the basic questions I have just listed.
We really need a different approach to that which was adopted during the last enlargement when Sweden, Finland and Austria became members.
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<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Dimitrakopoulos">
Mr President, in my view, the problems and issues to be addressed following the Helsinki Summit fall into two basic entities.
The first is the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference and it is particularly sad that, following the Helsinki Summit and following the extensive debates held here in the European Parliament, the Presidency conclusions concerning the Intergovernmental Conference are so brief.
Perhaps they are not quite as brief as we had feared but they are much briefer than what we consider necessary for the European Union to prepare itself sufficiently for the passage from the 20th to the 21st century.
<P>
Mr President, it is clear that, this time more than ever, the Intergovernmental Conference and the review of the founding Treaties of the European Union are directly related to another important European Union decision: enlargement.
And since the European Union is about to take on board a large number of States - 13 in total - it would make sense to begin preparations to receive these States.
<P>
The question which arises from the Presidency conclusions is whether or not the commitments, yes the commitments, and the opinions in those conclusions allow the European Union to prepare itself to receive these new States.
I am afraid the answer is no.
In a number of resolutions, the European Parliament has already indicated how extensive these changes and reforms of the Treaties would have to be.
And the European Parliament will, of course, continue to indicate the way forward given that, as I said before, the decisions of the Helsinki Summit on the Intergovernmental Conference are clearly, and unfortunately, far too limited in scope.
There was no mention of the direction the European Union should be taking nor of the vision it should have.
There was no mention of the approach it should be adopting.
There was no mention of a number of new issues which are, if you like, the main goals and problems facing us in the 21st century.
<P>
As for enlargement, which is clearly a very important process and one which must be continued, integrated and completed, a new candidate country is now involved in this process: Turkey.
At this point in time, Turkey has been granted a new status, that of a candidate country.
However, at the same time, a number of conditions have been laid down which Turkey must fulfil before it can become a member of the European Union.
It is important that these conditions be fulfilled.
It is important that Turkey shows, in its desire to become a member of the European family, that it really does respect human rights, democracy and its neighbouring countries and that it truly wishes to find a calm and peaceful solution to any issues or problems which exist in relation to it.
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<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wiersma">
Mr President, the President-in-Office of the Council has given scant attention to the OSCE Summit Conference that was held recently, this morning.
Other Helsinki matters took precedence.
The OSCE has to operate in the shadow of the EU and NATO, which have a much higher public profile.
The most important person to take the floor - in inverted commas - during the Istanbul Summit was President Yeltsin, who came to explain his policy towards Chechnya.
This explanation was unsatisfactory, it is true, but the Russians appear to regard the OSCE as the only organisation in Europe that they should give account to and which should be given access to the region.
In point of fact, the President of the OSCE has gone to Chechnya today.
The Russians obviously feel that they have equal standing there.
NATO is unpopular in Russia, which means that the Partnership for Peace Programme is too.
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Opinion polls would suggest that the majority of Russians do have respect for the EU though.
That will probably change after Helsinki.
The OSCE is based on certain principles that were expanded on in Istanbul.
In some internal conflicts and where there are grave violations of human rights, the OSCE can and may take action before actual violence breaks out.
On this basis the OSCE can start playing a more wide-ranging role as a non-exclusive and civil pan-European organisation, also as a forum for open dialogue with Russia.
The OSCE affords a preventative instrument that can be employed where there is the potential for crisis.
The High Commissioner has carried out a great deal of good work for minorities, the OSCE is mediating between government and opposition in Belarus and is helping to find a solution to the problems in Moldavia. The OSCE is also encouraging further reductions in conventional weapons.
The EU ought to pay more attention to OSCE values.
Together we can achieve a great deal.
<P>
Chechnya is an example of a conflict that could spread to the whole Caucasus region.
I believe we are failing to give this enough attention.
The European Union' s policy with respect to the countries in this region is fragmented. Why does the EU not use the OSCE in order to achieve a stability pact for the Caucasus with these countries, the Russian Federation, the United States and Turkey?
If another war breaks out there we must not be able to reproach ourselves for yet again having been too late.
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<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Menrad">
Mr President, hardworking Finnish diplomacy has also endeavoured over the last six months to make progress on the employment and social side of the Community.
The creation of an Employment Committee increases the potential for Member States to improve coordination between their policies in this area.
On behalf of the PPE-DE Group, I welcome the fact that the presidency has prepared proper employment guidelines for 2000 at various councils of ministers and ministerial conferences.
Nonetheless, several national governments and the Council have not come fully on board.
<P>
As a result, only a small proportion of Parliament' s proposals on the guidelines was adopted in Helsinki.
Parliament wanted to achieve more in the fight against unemployment among the young and long-term unemployment than the Council was proposing; above all, we wanted to achieve permanent integration into the job market by reinforcing the ratio of active to passive measures, in other words, by increasing the proportion of the unemployed in training, further training or retraining, because a lack of jobs is only one side of the coin.
The other reason for unemployment in the European Union is the lack of professional qualifications.
<P>
I should like to thank the Finnish Presidency for helping to improve the coordination of European employment policy.
But the Community still has no long-term employment strategy to develop Community potential in terms of creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship, the willingness to invest and the work ethic.
Reforms to bolster dynamic competitiveness and flexibility need to be reconciled with the need both to maintain and to modernise the social security system.
We see the European model as a social order for the social market economy.
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<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Katiforis">
Mr President, the economic factor has always taken precedence in the building of Europe.
Without a doubt, its greatest achievements are the single currency and the creation of the European Central Bank.
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Aside from their strictly economic significance, which is huge, these institutions are positive proof to the people that the creation of new Community institutions, entrusted with exercising integrated policies in place of the governments or the national bodies of the Member States, is not a betrayal but a more efficient way of jointly exercising national sovereignty.
The lesson learned from the single currency gives us an invaluable weapon for deepening our institutions further, which is essential if we wish to promote enlargement of the Union without endangering its cohesion.
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These new and necessary institutional developments or completely new institutions, such as the particularly important military corps that has just been decided on, could lead to dilemmas as to how to divide power between national and Community authorities. But let us not forget the message of EMU: Community institutions are only successful when the principle of subsidiarity is applied and when the power of the larger partners is counterbalanced by protecting the rights of the smaller partners.
All this is arming us for the unusually ambitious enlargement process.
It is not about patching together new pieces of territory, it is about assimilation and transformation under the influence of a Union of truly integrated human societies.
<P>
It took a great deal of courage on the part of the Turkish Government to accept the challenge of becoming a candidate country, as a result of which huge social changes are inevitable and will certainly include satisfactory restoration of the rights of the Kurdish nation.
It also took a great deal of courage on the part of the Greek Government and of Prime Minister Costas Simitis to bet on the success of this change, to trust in the possibility of a good outcome and to put out its hand to Turkey and agree to do business with it just as it does business with its European partners, the members of the Union.
Undoubtedly, the fact that Cyprus has been guaranteed unimpeded accession played a large part in the Greek Government' s decision.
All this gives us hope that a new chapter was opened in Helsinki and that this new chapter will be crowned with success.
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<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
Mr President, needless to say, I am extremely pleased that the Council has confirmed the viewpoint which was also posited by the Commission, namely that the enlargement of the European Union will be a process in which all Central European countries which have applied for membership will be involved without any discrimination and on the basis of their own merits.
I am pleased that the old biased approach is no longer being pursued.
Although we used to be a European economic community, we now realise that the essence of our alliance is that we are a union of democratic constitutional States.
This is a significant change in our way of thinking and reverts back to the original ideals of European integration.
I think it is important that the Central and Eastern European countries should know that they are joining a smoothly-running Union.
This is why it is so vital that we do our homework and that we cannot get out of it by some excuse like: are we not holding the candidate countries hostage to our reforms?
Formulated in this way, it is viewed in completely the wrong manner because those who wish to offer the Central and Eastern European countries a heap of rubble generally tend to object to European integration.
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Mr President, Turkey needs a great deal more attention and I am willing to allow for that.
It has now been granted official candidate status.
We have noted this with little enthusiasm.
It appears that it is difficult to change Turkey' s political culture.
The Turkish Government has already stipulated demands before Turkey can accept its Member State candidacy.
This is the culture of brute force, the culture of the big mouth and not the type of culture that we want. Not from a Member State and certainly not from a candidate country.
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In our opinion, the European Union should also make it very clear to Turkey that the treatment it will receive will certainly not be more flexible than that of Slovakia, for example, where the change-over from one government to another was, in fact, a great deal more relaxed.
Turkey will have no choice but to make drastic changes and make steps towards the European Union. There is as yet no evidence of such steps being made.
The European Union should not make the same mistake as the Council of Europe which accepted Turkey some time ago whilst Turkey blatantly contravened the criteria to become a member of the Council of Europe, such as the criteria relating to the protection of minorities and human rights.
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Mr President, although it is said that Turkey falls outside the EU borders, in my view, the borders of the European Union coincide with those where democratic constitutional states exist.
It is not so much a new territorial Yalta as an underlining of every effort to bolster the constitutional state.
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<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schori">
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, Commissioner. I am most glad to see Commissioner Patten here today because we were in Turkey a few days ago as the official Parliament delegation.
His interview in Der Spiegel caused a furore.
Perhaps as the result less of what he said than of what Der Spiegel added.
Since meeting him for the first time in Hong Kong, I have held Commissioner Patten in the highest regard on account of his open, unconventional approach.
However, I feel that perhaps a few matters need to be cleared up.
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Firstly, I am most grateful to the Commission for preparing the Summit, the outcome of which showed that it had made a clear statement and had not dodged the issue.
Turkey is a candidate.
As far as I am concerned, that means quite unequivocally that Turkey has to start behaving like a candidate; in other words, the necessary changes must be made.
As Mr Oostlander said, Europe stops where human rights violations begin; at least, I know what he meant.
I also trust that human rights are accepted outside Europe. But the reverse is of course true.
A country can only belong to the Europe of the European Union if it accepts human rights.
No other way forward is possible.
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Our task is to prepare, support and help Turkey along this path.
But we at least made clear in our discussions with all the party chairmen and other politicians in Turkey that Turkey has to do the work.
These changes are in Turkey' s own interest.
They want and hopefully they will be able to function better, more quickly and more comprehensively with Europe.
But we cannot do the work for Turkey.
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I believe that the Commission should now draw up specific annual programmes - I hope with maximum input from Parliament - containing indications as to how Turkey can set about this work and how we can help.
Turkey must state clearly that it intends to abolish the death penalty next year or in two years' time and that it intends to release its political prisoners over this period and deal with the Kurdish question during this period.
The fact is that Turkey has only acknowledged in discussions over recent weeks and months that there even is a Kurdish question.
How it intends to solve this problem, it does not yet know, that is not yet understood.
But I believe that there has already been a great deal of progress.
<P>
The Helsinki Summit, at which Greece above all behaved in an exemplary manner and at which, in the end, Turkey too behaved in a reasonable manner, went very well on this question but the work is not yet finished.
In fact it has only just begun.
The best decision to come out of Helsinki is that we are now able to start work.
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<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, today is a great day for Strasbourg.
I would disagree with Mrs Maij-Weggen.
I believe that Strasbourg is the independent and parliamentary face of a cultural Europe which has freed itself from bureaucracy and, in this respect, I am very happy about events here today.
We could put an end to the travelling circus without changing the Treaty, by doing away with the superfluous mini plenary sittings in Brussels.
We can do so quite independently.
We would start saving money almost immediately.
I invite Mrs Maij-Weggen to support me in this.
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As far as the Council is concerned, I take the view that Helsinki was a Summit of peaks and troughs.
One peak was, without a doubt, the clear signal to the second group of central and eastern European countries that they were no longer isolated and that negotiations would be started with them.
I welcome this in particular in the case of Slovakia and the Baltic States.
<P>
However, the decision on Chechnya was also extremely important.
Parliament demanded quite clearly two and a half months ago that the Council suspend parts of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement and transfer financial aid and the TACIS programme to humanitarian assistance in order to bring home to Russia that it can no longer continue this genocide.
We were opposed at the time in no uncertain terms.
I am very glad that the Council is now living up to the standard which we in Parliament tried to set two and a half months ago.
<P>
I would ask the Council and the Commission to ensure that TACIS aid is transferred at once, because we can no longer back a mixture of bloodthirsty election campaigning and bloodthirsty colonial war.
We want Russia as a partner, but only as a partner which respects human rights.
This Parliament stands for a Europe of human rights, as Mr Oostlander said.
Russia can only be a partner if it ceases this genocide immediately.
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<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Brok">
Mr President, measures and other resolutions on enlargement, on security and defence policy and on the convening of an intergovernmental conference were taken in Helsinki.
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All three together may have an historic dimension; however, they may also jeopardise the political project called Europe if we fail to answer the question of where overstretching may mark the end of political union and when the incapacity to act cannot be rectified.
It is precisely for this reason that the intergovernmental conference is so important because only if it demonstrates that it has the power to act and is transparent and democratic in the eyes of the people will it be possible to overcome both the danger of overstretching as the result of enlargement and the incapacity to act.
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In my view, it is for this reason that the intergovernmental conference stands at the apex of the enlargement, intergovernmental conference, foreign and security policy triangle, whereby it must be made perfectly clear that at no stage, be it with 12 or with 13 candidate States, can the Copenhagen criteria be watered down and that this Parliament will not permit any such watering down and will not ratify any such treaties.
<P>
I believe that the more the Union is reinforced at the intergovernmental conference, the quicker enlargement will be possible.
But, at the same time, this means that the stronger the European Union is made, the more candidate countries must consider if they are prepared to accept the concomitant waiver of sovereignty.
<P>
This aspect must also be stressed in connection with Turkey. Allow me to make one last comment.
Excellent progress has been made with the foreign and security policy.
But for me, one thing is missing; namely both the real involvement of the High Representative in the decision-making structures of the fora and the involvement of the Commission and the External Relations Commissioner in these structures.
These matters have already been raised in the run up.
We must ensure that this functions in practice, otherwise we will have a new intergovernmental event which has nothing new to offer and which only gives rise to new headlines because something is not quite right.
Parliament must ensure that this is put in order.
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<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Seguro">
Mr President, I shall make three very straightforward points.
The first concerns the European Parliament' s relationship to this forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference and its role therein.
Progress has certainly been made by comparison with the previous Intergovernmental Conference, but the most worrying aspect is that the Council had on the table a proposal which would give the European Parliament a greater role, a proposal which would grant it a role similar to the one the Commission will have in these negotiations, and it did not approve this proposal.
As we know, this is the fundamental problem, because it concerns the very nature of the European Parliament. This is not a parliament that functions within the normal constitutional systems of our countries.
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It is worth stating here though that we do not accept that the European Parliament should be given a lesser role in a discussion process as important as such a large-scale revision of the Treaty on European Union.
We consider it vital that there should be two representatives of the European Parliament in the preparatory group but we feel that it is less fitting for the European Parliament that the President of the European Parliament, instead of dealing directly with Heads of State and Governments, should be put into a situation in which she is heard before the meetings of the General Affairs Council Ministers. This is not treatment befitting the European Parliament.
<P>
The second issue concerns the content, and we have had occasion to say this in the Brussels mini-session.
The Commission has shown great ambition where enlargement is concerned and little or no ambition in the revision of the Treaty.
We have the Amsterdam leftovers, we have the Treaty' s implications for defence issues and possibly, for the Charter of Fundamental Rights, although this is an open door - or rather an open window - through which the Portuguese Presidency must perform a miracle.
I would say that it is a miracle that could not be performed after Amsterdam.
And this is what concerns us.
If only the leftovers from Amsterdam remain, the discussion will be about efficiency and not about the European Union project.
The discussion could be about political manoeuvring and could lead to rule by a board of management.
From this point of view, the Commission has a crucial role in ensuring that the agenda of the IGC is not dictated by the lowest common denominator of each State' s interests, but rather that it has a global vision of the European Union project.
This is why the Commission cannot abdicate its responsibilities and must present specific proposals to this effect.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, I would like to highlight two issues concerning the forthcoming Portuguese Presidency: the Summit on employment, which I consider to be very important and which should have been studied more carefully by this House, and the fact that priority should be given to the protection of public health and food safety.
Finally, I have a question for the Council, although I am not sure if it is represented here today, Mr President, to answer this question: what is the future of the Euro-African Summit scheduled for the next six-month term?
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<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langen">
Mr President, the presidency has set out two propositions in the Helsinki conclusions, namely that an efficient and credible enlargement process must be sustained and that applicant countries are participating in the accession process on an equal footing.
When this is set against the fact that candidate status has been granted to Turkey and the simultaneous statement that there will be a conference in the spring of 2000, in which Turkey will not take part, then it is clear that this candidate status has been granted prematurely and is a blank cheque which will come bouncing back.
Even the improvements within Turkey noted by the Commission and the Council presidency must be subject to cautious appraisal when you think about the death penalty being upheld for Mr Öçalan, the fact that the Sakharov prize-winner Leyla Zana is still in prison because she stood up for her right to freedom of speech, the fact that the Kurdish question has not been resolved and all the other aspects of this document in connection with progress in Turkey.
Discussions on stage and in the wings clearly show that Europe is not being frank when it comes to Turkey.
<P>
The Helsinki conclusions are extremely positive in other areas, such as foreign and security policy and defence policy; but when it comes to Turkey' s membership, they are contradictory in the extreme.
There is a danger that far too much is being expected of Europe as regards this part of the enlargement process and that too much is being expected of Turkey itself.
<P>
Anyone who wants to be a member must be prepared to become a member on our terms.
I read that Mr Ecevit stressed at the conference that Turkey had a fundamental right to membership of the European Union.
I consider that a very risky statement.
I am not sure that the political classes in Turkey have any idea of what is in store for them when they have to waive sovereign rights.
<P>
We therefore consider that this decision by the Summit was rushed and inappropriate.
If you read the conditions, which state that negotiations with Turkey will still not begin and that Turkey will just have candidate status, i.e. no separate legal instrument has been opened, then this means - as it says here - that the UNO must endeavour to settle disputes, which should be settled by 2004 on the basis of UNO resolutions.
These are all things which, in our view, do not justify giving Turkey candidate status at this point in time.
<P>
Once Turkey joins, Europe will have to undergo a radical change of face and objectives.
Mr Prodi himself said that we must urgently discuss values and borders.
For us, an independent approach is the best alternative: security partnership, further development of customs union and permanent political dialogue, rather than announcing candidate status which, in the final analysis, is worth nothing and is more likely to create than to solve problems.
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<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="President">
I have received 14 motions for resolutions, in accordance with Rule 37(2), to close this debate.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 p.m. and on Thursday at 12.00 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
2000 budget
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Siimes">
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Virrankoski">
Mr President, the budget for the year 2000 is, for the institutions other than the Commission, very simple.
The Council has adopted all of Parliament' s amendments.
It has also given its approval to Parliament' s own budget through a gentlemen' s agreement, which means they have not interfered in it at all.
I would like to express my sincerest thanks for that.
<P>
In the reading of next year' s budget, however, a position has to be taken on the change which was not in the original estimate.
I refer to the situation which was caused by the fact that the Court of First Instance approved the TDI group as a parliamentary political group.
According to parliamentary rules, this group has the right to a staff of 14.
The Secretary-General obtained the staffing resources by reallocating twelve of the fourteen staff necessary.
To make good the difference the Council of Presidents finally proposed two new temporary C5 posts and one A6 post.
So that this issue would be debated according to Parliament' s agenda, the Committee on Budgets called for compliance with Article 183.
The President sent a preliminary draft for the budget, which the Committee debated yesterday and adopted by virtue of the report on the proposal.
This report is now being debated in connection with next year' s budget, and we intend to vote on it tomorrow, Wednesday, when it is hoped the Commission will also present its preliminary letter of amendment in accordance with practice.
In this way the Council could debate and approve these matters on Wednesday, so that the issue might be dealt with in connection with the rest of the budget on Thursday 16 December.
<P>
What has happened does not mean that more money is being asked for next year' s budget, but only to create posts.
However, it shows how ponderous and cumbersome our administrative procedures are.
There is a total of 1700 different C posts in the European Parliament. Of these, some are vacant and some are to become so.
For that reason, it is urgent that we make the current administrative rules in Parliament more flexible, as they hamper the smooth and proper flow of administration.
The European Parliament is now adding new posts in connection with the budget now being discussed, which is not consistent with disciplined financial administration - not, at least, if we compare the additions to those in the previous five years.
We cannot nor must not, however, leave disciplined budgetary policy to the responsibility of the Committee on Budgets: it is naturally the Council of Presidents and the chairmen of the political groups that bear the greatest responsibility, especially where Parliament is concerned.
<P>
Finally I would like to say a few words in general about budgetary procedure.
The biggest problem this year was category 4: external action. During the debate new items of expenditure were added to it.
First there was the EUR 500 million proposed by the European Union Summit conference for Kosovo. Then, later, we had the fisheries agreement with Morocco; and then Turkey and other headings totalling 190 million euros or nearly EUR 700 million altogether, which represents 15% of the financial perspectives.
As the budget for 1999 had already very nearly reached its ceiling, it was really quite difficult to suppose that such great degrees of flexibility might be found in other areas of expenditure.
Among the members of the Council there had been no desire to alter the financial perspectives, at least up till now, and then not even now, not even by means of transfers between categories.
Furthermore, as a counterweight to the use of the flexibility instrument, immense reductions in other areas of expenditure were being and are being asked for.
Thus, the task of the Committee on Budgets was a very simple one: to adapt the budget to the financial perspectives.
As a result, only EUR 100 million were allocated to Kosovo in the budget at this stage.
The Council dropped its earlier estimate of EUR 500 million to 360 million.
From this we may draw at least two conclusions.
Before aid is promised in the name of the European Union, it would perhaps be in order to check whether the promises can be kept.
Such promises, which mean making corresponding cuts elsewhere, have clearly to be considered carefully.
The same also goes for long-term programmes.
If the EU means to spend EUR 5.5 billion on the reconstruction of the whole Balkans area over the next six or seven years, which is to say EUR 800 - 900 million a year, it would be useful to know how the promise is going to be backed in terms of finance.
In this respect, the report by the Committee on Budgets now under discussion is relevant, as it emphasises the need to be realistic.
<P>
Secondly, the European Union has two budgetary authorities, Parliament being one of them.
Parliament has not accepted this duty and these obligations: the Member States have imposed them.
As Parliament is one of the budgetary authorities, it also bears a responsibility, and this is a fact that cannot be ignored in the workings of the EU.
During the last few days and weeks, the negotiations have been - at least in my view - talk about very minor matters, as nearly each one of the finance ministers of the Member States and even their state secretaries handle certainly much larger sums on their own.
In so saying, I do not want to criticise the country holding the presidency, which has certainly done everything necessary to achieve harmony.
We need a budget for next year, and it must be achieved.
If we do not get agreement we will have to continue the talks in January.
<P>
Finally, I would like to congratulate the main rapporteur, Jean-Louis Bourlanges, for his excellent work, which is obviously still continuing, and thank him and the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, Terence Wynn, for their good and constructive cooperation and the diverse range of support they gave.
Likewise, I wish to thank the group' s coordinators, especially Mr Böge of the PPE-DE Group and Mr Walter of the PSE Group for their good cooperation, and all the members of the committee.
My special thanks go to Suvi-Anne Siimes, for her role as person responsible for the Council' s budget, and who has really got to grips with her job and applied herself to it conscientiously.
I would like to especially thank Heikki Joustie, who was involved as official representative, and who made his own splendid contribution in circumstances that were unusually awkward as far as the international situation was concerned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schreyer">
Mr President, Madam Minister, ladies and gentlemen, the results of the Helsinki Summit were presented and debated this morning.
The decisions to come out of Helsinki have far-reaching consequences for the future of the Union, namely the resolutions on the enlargement strategy, on the intergovernmental conference and on the common foreign and security policy.
The Finnish Presidency dealt with a huge agenda; the Summit was a success, a good conclusion to 1999 and, with the Millennium Declaration, a good start for the future.
It would be therefore be a great pity if we were unable to announce a satisfactory conclusion to the budgetary procedure.
The new budget for 2000 will serve as a clear basis for sound policies.
The budgetary procedure has involved difficult negotiations but I have no intention of reviewing the entire process.
We have now reached the point where there is fundamental agreement on fundamental points.
The Council and Parliament have agreed, as Minister Siimes has just explained, that the entire flexibility reserve may be used for financing expenditure on Kosovo.
Most importantly, it has been agreed - and this was particularly important to Parliament, quite rightly, in my view - that an important political statement is being made, namely that the tasks of the European Union in Kosovo and in the Balkans are tasks which extend over several years and that, in order to honour these tasks financially, we may need to increase expenditure on foreign policy in comparison with the expenditure forecast at the beginning of this year, when we based our assessment on a somewhat different political situation.
In order to be able to finance these additional requirements over coming years and, above all, in order to remain within the overall framework decided in Berlin for coming years, the financial perspective may need to be changed or reviewed. It is precisely the combination of new priorities, together with budgetary discipline, which may mean that we need to change the financial perspective.
<P>
At present the Commission - and this has been stressed here - is unable to submit the exact financing requirements for the Balkans as a whole.
The Commission, my colleague Mr Patten in particular, and the administration are still hard at work on this.
However, the World Bank and the Commission have produced a very accurate study of reconstruction in Kosovo, which shows that a total of 2.3 billion dollars or euros will be needed in external aid over the next few years to repair not only war damage but the cumulative damage which has arisen as a result of the fact that the political situation in Kosovo over recent years has led to a disaster in human terms.
There is an immediate need for a large sum of money, because we cannot in fact say that rebuilding houses or restoring schools and the power supply is a task for tomorrow. No, it is a task for today.
There is an urgent need, and I hope that we are still able to find a solution which does not put these needs off until tomorrow but tackles them today.
<P>
Agreement has been reached on entering EUR 300 million under the budget for the year 2000, in addition to the EUR 60 million redeployed from this year, and on considering the EUR 140 million granted at the donor conference as part of the funds promised for the year 2001.
<P>
Important decisions were also taken at Helsinki on the enlargement of the European Union.
Negotiations with the six candidate States are continuing and negotiations with six new candidate States have commenced.
The budget includes pre-accession aid which will rise from EUR 1.3 billion this year to EUR 3.1 billion next year.
New programmes are being funded in agriculture, infrastructure aid and transport and the environment, thereby paving the way for the candidate countries to join the Union.
<P>
The deployment of these appropriations will be very closely observed by my services in the form of financial control.
The financial control system forms a separate chapter in the negotiations.
<P>
In order to be able to estimate expenditure which may accrue for enlargement - the Berlin financial framework includes expenditure from 2000 onwards -, I shall suggest to the Commission that there be permanent screening of the economic situation and the enlargement expenditure needed as a result.
The peoples of the Member States must also be clear that enlargement is not a financial roller coaster.
<P>
The budget 2000 includes EUR 32 billion in commitments to support structural policy in the Member States.
The new programming period for 2000 to 2006 can therefore start being funded and it is starting with a new programme which emphasises that aid from the structural funds should, at the same time, help to improve gender equality, environmental protection and the employment situation.
I can assure you that we shall remind Member States quite clearly of their duty to deploy the appropriations so that these objectives can be achieved.
<P>
The budget 2000 includes EUR 41 billion for agricultural policy.
I should like to draw attention to the appropriations deployed for the second pillar of agricultural policy, namely for programmes to promote rural development.
The European Parliament fought intensively for this second pillar of the agricultural policy.
I shall do my very best to ensure that the programmes in this area get off to a good start.
<P>
I should also like to mention that the number of posts at the anti-fraud office will be increased under budget 2000 - this has already been mentioned - so that the OLAF is equipped to carry out its task.
<P>
I should also like to stress - and the credit here goes in particular to the rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges - that the Commission is to examine its entire system for outsourcing activities to Technical Assistance Offices.
More importantly, Mr Bourlanges has proposed that a new administrative unit be set up which is similar in structure to the agencies.
The Commission has agreed on a timetable for reforming the system used hitherto.
<P>
I should like at this point to extend my warmest thanks to the rapporteurs, Messrs Bourlanges, Virrankoski and Colom i Naval - even if your report has not been tabled for discussion today - and, above all, to the chairman and members of the Committee on Budgets for their intensive work over recent months.
<P>
I should also like to thank the Council and to congratulate you, Minister Siimes, on your Finnish Presidency of the Council.
I understand that you proposed a solution to the final differences between the Council and the European Parliament in the overall process, namely that payment appropriations be reduced by EUR 2 billion.
I think that this should be stressed here once again.
<P>
The strength of the European institutions lies in finding compromises and in forging compromises.
The negotiations were long, but we are now at the point at which agreement can be reached.
It is now a question of seizing the opportunity to get the budget 2000 and the new year off to a good start and I urge Parliament to do so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, could I first of all say on behalf of my committee how much I welcome the remarks by the President-in-Office, which raise the prospect that we might be able to reach agreement on the budget very quickly.
I would also like to congratulate the Finnish Presidency on taking us so far.
<P>
At this moment I can only give two cheers for her statement because I do not understand what she said as regards Heading 4.
She said that the Council does not want the ceiling for Heading 4 to be amended permanently.
Does that mean therefore that we will continue to operate Heading 4 on an ad hoc basis, that we will use a flexibility clause every year and therefore have a pretence that we have no change to the financial perspective when the reality is of course different?
I would advise caution in this case because, as Mr Bourlanges has said, we are dealing with an unpredictable situation in the Balkans, not only in relation to Mr Milosevic but also the death of Mr Tudjman.
These events raise questions about the long-term feasibility of the course we are pursuing at the moment.
I would like some clarification on that point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Morgan">
It has been a historic year in many ways, as the Commission, I am sure, would rather forget some of the more dramatic moments back in the spring, in the same way as some of us would rather forget some of the more dramatic election results of the summer!
But let us not forget why the Commission was forced to resign: fraud and mismanagement, those were the main points.
That is why this year's budget really had to reflect the need to tighten up procedures for budget control; and as the rapporteur for the 2000 budget, and on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, I would like to welcome once again the establishment of the new body to fight fraud and the new OLAF posts reflected in this year's budget.
The process of appointing the OLAF director is now well advanced.
The Committee on Budgetary Control held hearings with the candidates and produced a shortlist of three people, and I understand that tonight there will be a meeting to try to thrash out a decision between the representatives of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
<P>
Let us not forget that the technical assistance offices were also a big problem in the forced resignation of the Commission.
The Commission's strategic issues paper adopted on 10 December concluded that core public service tasks should not be outsourced and that the Commission should have at its disposal a much more flexible set of arrangements for non-core public service tasks.
That is something with which I wholeheartedly agree.
The Commission now performs such a wide variety of diverse functions that non-core public service tasks could be carried out in very many different ways.
There is no point in having a one-size-fits-all model for carrying out such tasks.
What we need to do is to reform the Staff Regulations so we can have flexibility in hiring contractual staff to service these offices.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Görlach">
Mr President, if we have understood the President-in-Office of the Council correctly, then this message, that the Council is moving towards Parliament' s position, is an important one.
After the events of the last few weeks, I am pleased to hear the message but I lack faith.
Which is why we need an exact overview of what this message in fact means.
Parliament has taken great pains to move towards the Council' s position over recent weeks.
Until the end, any such effort on the part of the Council was minimal.
And if there is any now, we must ask, why not a moment earlier because, if the situation really is as we have understood it - and I still have my doubts - then we now have problems with how, technically, we are supposed to ensure that everything goes according to plan.
Until that has been clarified, as far as I am concerned, the decision of the Committee on Budgets taken yesterday evening still stands.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="McNally">
Specialist committees are very dependent upon the rapporteur to do their business for them.
I am happy to say that Mr Bourlanges this year has been a reliable colleague and negotiated well on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
He has pursued his own ideas and those of the Committee on Budgets at the same time, in particular his wish for administrative expenditure to be clearly identified so that monitoring can be carried out.
We are happy to support him in that.
<P>
We are pleased with the compromise on the fifth framework programme which allows us to monitor effectively but does not mean that managing the programmes becomes impossible for the Commission.
<P>
As far as energy is concerned, we are disappointed with the relatively small sums allocated for renewable energy and energy efficiency.
We shall be back with suggestions next year.
<P>
On the whole we are satisfied.
We will monitor very carefully the money that we shall be voting for on Thursday.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jöns">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am speaking now as the rapporteur of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs. I must say that the budget which has now been tabled is indeed a social budget because this time, with our corrections, it takes clear account of employment policy measures.
This means that anyone who wants action in favour of families, anyone who wants young trainees to be able to gain experience abroad and anyone who really wants to combat social exclusion will vote in favour of our proposed amendments the day after tomorrow.
<P>
Anyone who wants the European employment strategy to be paid more than lip service and to be more than an item on Summit agendas but who wants the European employment strategy to be anchored at local level will vote, I am sure, in favour of our new employment policy initiatives.
A social Europe also has strong trade union and employer associations in permanent dialogue with each other.
It is never too early to start exporting this model of success to Central and Eastern Europe.
Which is why we have reversed the Council' s cutbacks here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Bowe">
Mr President, could I first join with some of my other colleagues in thanking the rapporteur for the work that he has done this year.
As someone who was responsible for the budget on behalf of the Committee on Environment for the first time, I found him very helpful and very considerate of the points I made - not agreeing with everything but nevertheless being very fair-minded.
<P>
I would also like to welcome the decisions taken by the Council and the Commission.
The decision with regard to the money for Kosovo is helpful and their other agreements have, generally speaking, made the Committee on the Environment relatively happy.
<P>
I am glad Mrs Schreyer mentioned earlier the additional monies for the Veterinary Office which are particularly important if we want them to deal with the problems that have arisen because of the BSE crisis, the dioxin crisis in Belgium and of course the continued work in Portugal.
That money is necessary and we are very pleased that you agreed to it.
<P>
In the area of health, we have had some very small and moderate improvements.
The budget headings for the Committee on the Environment generally concern very small amounts but they have enabled us to start the preparatory research that will help us develop the issue of health competence under the Amsterdam Treaty.
The sum involved is small but it is important.
<P>
As regards consumers, there we are pleased to see that the agreement reached on the Whitehead report and the conciliation on the Whitehead report last year has been honoured and the money will come through.
We are looking forward to that bringing general benefits in the coming year.
<P>
As regards the area of the environment, the most important outstanding measure of course is the Lienemann report and the conciliation on LIFE and we are optimistic that we will get a reasonable result there.
<P>
I would however make one final plea.
The question of the money for the drugs agency is urgent now that we will approve the orphan drugs regulation in February.
Something must be done quickly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Watts">
Could I, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Transport and Tourism, acknowledge the progress that is being made by the Council and in particular by the Committee on Budgets in addressing our concerns.
We, as a committee, fully endorse the approach adopted by the Committee on Budgets in all areas but in particular would highlight their efforts to increase the payment appropriations under the structural funds.
<P>
Secondly, we would highlight their attempt to restore the cuts in the INTERREG programme by some EUR 33 million in the payments, restoring that heading to the budget.
Thirdly, we would thank them for their efforts to restore the unacceptable cuts in the transport safety heading; we welcome the progress made there.
Fourthly and finally, we welcome progress in restoring the cuts in the environmentally sustainable transport heading.
We endorse all their efforts so far and would also add our backing to their insistence that 20% of the payment appropriations go into reserve for the Community INTERREG and URBAN initiatives, pending the satisfactory adoption of the guidelines.
<P>
You have our full support, Mr Bourlanges, and we hope that Parliament endorses the Committee on Budgets' proposals in the vote this week.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Perry">
This is the third time I have had the responsibility of being draftsman on the budget for the Committee on Culture and I would particularly like to thank Mr Bourlanges, the budget rapporteur, for his help and cooperation.
I have time to make only two points.
One is regularly made: culture and education are important for Europe, not just for the past but for the future of our continent.
We neglect them at our peril and, by continuing year after year to spend less on our cultural and educational programmes than we spend on growing tobacco, we are not just neglecting them, we are turning our priorities completely upside down.
With so little to spend, it is important that we spend it efficiently and effectively.
<P>
Secondly, are you aware that today, 14 December 1999, the European Youth Orchestra, the European Youth Parliament, the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation, to name just three, are yet to receive the subsidies that we voted for them for this year?
They are told the cheques are in the post.
I am afraid their bank managers are not so ready to accept that excuse.
Much is promised but, sadly, not a lot of it is delivered.
This is a comment that I think applies just a shade too often where Europe is concerned.
I urge the Commissioner never to let this happen again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Carlotti">
Mr President, Mr Bourlanges, the proposal you put forward is, shall we say, reasonable.
It makes it possible to release EUR 115 million to finance Kosovo, while waiting for a realistic evaluation of requirements, covered, if necessary, by the vote on a SAB next spring, and this is no bad thing.
<P>
We have also had to effect savings of EUR 150 million, i.e. further budget cuts to the lines of heading 4 in order to finance new priorities: Timor, Turkey and the Fisheries Agreement with Morocco, which are not in the exclusive domain of external action of the Union, but which we have accepted.
<P>
It must be pointed out that these are heavy sacrifices, especially since this proposal envisages taking EUR 35 million out of ECHO appropriations, a deduction which is presented as a loan, one whose repayment seems highly uncertain. Nonetheless we shall be fighting for that.
<P>
So, of course I support your proposal but, as you will understand, I support it without enthusiasm.
I simply wish to express, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, my concern regarding this budget 2000 which, if the financial perspectives are not reviewed, places the burden of all the sacrifices on the poorest countries.
<P>
We join forces, however, with the position of the Committee on Budgets and I wish my fellow Members on that committee good luck in the forthcoming three-way dialogue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, we shall adjourn the debate on the budget which will resume this evening at 9 p.m.
Shall I ask the Commission if it is prepared to make its declaration?
<P>
Meanwhile, and until the Commissioner arrives, I give the floor to the Council, which would like to speak - I think - about Helsinki.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, Members of the European Parliament, I just wish to refer to the speech I gave.
I actually said that at present the Council believes there is no need to amend the frameworks of the 2000 budget permanently, and we have proposed the use of the flexibility instrument with regard to category 4.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Madam President-in-Office of the Council.
<P>
We shall adjourn the sitting for a few minutes while we wait for the representative of the Council to arrive.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Commission communication - Decisions taken at that day' s meeting
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="President">
The next item is the communication by the Commission on the decisions taken at today' s meeting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Vitorino">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much, and I would firstly like to congratulate the President.
The Commission met here in Strasbourg this afternoon and took the following decisions, which I shall now relay to you.
<P>
Firstly, it decided to give France a reasoned opinion with a deadline of five days in which to respond concerning the ban on British beef.
The Commission took three further decisions on the application of Regulation No 4064/89 concerning merger control and on Regulation No 17/62 in application of Articles 85 and 86 of the Treaty, imposing fines ranging from EUR 100 000 to EUR 3 000 for each company that has supplied incorrect information in response to requests for information that have been made to them.
<P>
The Commission also adopted a communication which defines the objectives and the principles of the Community medium-term audiovisual policy and which establishes a strategy for the so-called "digital" age.
The communication contains several principles that in the Commission' s opinion should be applied to the regulation of the audiovisual sector and to its support mechanisms.
<P>
Closely linked to this communication, the Commission approved another one, together with a proposal for a decision by the European Parliament and the Council and a proposal for a decision by the Council relating to a programme of support for the European audiovisual industry, which is the MEDIA PLUS 2001-2005 programme.
The communication contains a renewed vision and principles for intervention relating to the MEDIA PLUS programme.
The first proposal concerns the formalisation of a training programme for professionals in the European audiovisual programme industry, the so-called "Media-Training" programme, which will be funded to the value of EUR 50 million for the period 2001 to 2005.
The objective of the second proposal is to establish a programme of support for the development, distribution and promotion of unequivocally European audiovisual works.
This is the MEDIA-PLUS programme - Development, Distribution and Promotion, which will be funded to the value of EUR 350 million for the period 2001 to 2005.
<P>
Following the Helsinki European Council meeting, on which a debate was held here this morning in plenary sitting, in the presence of the President of the Commission, the Commission approved a proposal for a decision by the Council which seeks the formal adoption of the guidelines on the Member States' employment policies for 2000.
In the framework of the internal reform of the Commission and following its statement of commitment to review the policy of outsourcing services, the Commission also approved a communication containing guidelines and the timetable for the implementation of this outsourcing policy.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, the Commission approved a proposal for a decision by the Council that aims to create a European Fund for Refugees.
This is an instrument that aims to last for five years and which, thus, within a framework of multiannual programming, will enable us to give effective support to measures designed to improve conditions of reception, to promote integration and to make voluntary repatriation easier, as well as reintegration into refugees' and displaced persons' countries of origin.
The fund will also contribute to the financing of emergency measures in the event of a massive influx of people who are in desperate need of international protection.
A sum of EUR 36 million has been earmarked for the first year of this fund' s operation: EUR 26 million for the structural policy and EUR 10 million for emergency situations.
<P>
On this last point, I would like to add that the tradition of sums being earmarked for supporting refugees was started by the European Parliament in 1997 and annual decisions have been taken on it.
Therefore, the time has come, following the Tampere European Council meeting to adopt a permanent legal base, which will give rise to a multiannual-type programme.
The Tampere European Council asked the Commission to look into the creation of a financial fund aimed at resolving emergency situations.
The Commission worked on the basis of the lessons it learned from its experience of Kosovo.
This fund is therefore both a fund that has an emergency component but whose objective is, at the same time, to guarantee the financing of structural policy measures of support for the reception, integration and voluntary repatriation of refugees and asylum seekers.
<P>
There are, therefore, two interlocking budget lines, which nevertheless have different objectives.
Firstly, the structural objective for the next five years is to allow the development by the Member States of policies for the reception and integration of refugees and asylum seekers, policies which must concentrate above all on priority actions of a very tangible nature.
We see the Member States' need to provide themselves with equipment and infrastructure for support for the reception, integration and voluntary repatriation of refugees and asylum seekers as a priority in this area.
<P>
The objective of the Commission' s proposal is that the sum of EUR 26 million should be distributed amongst the Member States based on a criterion, on a distribution scale that, above all, takes into account the number of requests for asylum that each Member State has received in the last three years and the number of refugees that have been in each Member States over the last three years.
The first component will make up two-thirds of the fund' s national financing component and the second component will make up one third.
In terms of the management of this fund, the Commission proposes that it should, above all, be co-financed by Member States with the specific aim of committing each State to implementing concrete actions that will lead to improving the situation of asylum-seekers and refugees in the States of our Union.
<P>
The Commission is reserving the management of 10% of the funds for itself with the aim of supporting the development of innovative, transnational projects.
In its proposal, the Commission adopts the system of the constant commitology of a consultative committee and aims, with this, to replace the system of the Technical Assistance Offices that was in force during the 1998-1999 period.
I am Mr President, at the Chamber' s service.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner António Vitorino.
Firstly, I would like to say that your slight delay is quite justified by the importance of your communication. I would also like to say that Parliament is delighted that this almost immediate and instantaneous form of debate between this House and the executive is possible and hopes that this new practice will really create a space for topical political debate, which can only enhance this House and its relationship with the Commission.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Thank you, Mr President.
My question relates to the Media Plus Programme 2001-2006.
The elections for the European Parliament had a turnout, unfortunately, of less than 50%.
This programme should make provision for a focus on information and, more importantly, for a focus on training for journalists on the subject of the European Union.
<P>
I think that there is an increasingly urgent need to maintain good contacts with the public.
We have seen from the example of the WTO that European broadcasters could have been represented much more intensively and that it is important for us to be up to date in media reporting if we want to play a leading role in the world.
Which is why I am interested in knowing if it would be possible to invite journalists here from Europe and the rest of the world in order to explain our work to them and show them the advantages of European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Vitorino">
Firstly, Mr Rübig, I would like to say that I share the concern you have just expressed about whether the European Institutions as a whole, are able to draft a policy on information and communication which will enable us to provide all European citizens with not just the contents of our debates but also with the added value that the decisions of Parliament, the Commission and the Council itself have for their daily life.
<P>
Nevertheless, the context of the Media Plus programme does not apply best to conducting information campaigns or communication aimed at our citizens.
In reality, the central aim of these programmes is to support the training of professionals in the European audiovisual industry and to promote European artistic creation and research in the audiovisual sphere.
They are, therefore, not information programmes in the strict sense of the word, but are rather programmes of support for creative initiatives by audiovisual professionals, which are markedly European in nature.
<P>
We are all aware that the percentage of audiovisual products originating in Europe and consumed in Europe is tiny, even if we take the value of the production of each of our national States together as well as those considered to be European productions because they involve the collaboration of more than one Member State.
We hope that through this programme, there will be a significant increase in the worldwide quota of audiovisual products originating in Europe by means of a policy of supporting the creation, production and distribution of authentically European audiovisual products.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
My second question relates to employment policy for the year 2000, which you voted on here today.
The same question comes up time and time again: to what extent is the budget of the European Union examined in order to ascertain which budget lines foster employment?
Some expenditure certainly fosters employment by creating new jobs and new undertakings, some budget lines secure existing jobs and some budget lines destroy jobs.
<P>
Has any provision been made here for a scientific study or are there any studies which illustrate which expenditure or income we can use to make a positive impact on European employment policy?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Vitorino">
I must confess to the honourable Member that employment is not my specific area of expertise.
I would therefore not be able to give a straight answer to your question as far as global policy of the Commission is concerned.
What I can guarantee is that the issue of the restructuring of the Union budget concerning contributions to employment policy was not discussed by the Commission today.
<P>
What we did approve was the contribution of the Commission to the guidelines for the national employment plans for the year 2000 in the follow-up to the so-called Cardiff, Luxembourg and Cologne procedures.
We consider that a major opportunity to discuss the concrete contribution of the Union to the creation of new jobs in Europe will be provided by the coming Lisbon Summit in March, which will be the time and the place to make an evaluation of the three processes I have just mentioned, Cologne, Luxembourg and Cardiff on one hand; and on the other to define the strategy, the synthesis of macro-economic policies, micro-economic entrepreneurial innovation and the challenge of the new information society.
<P>
From the Lisbon Summit I hope we will get a clearer idea as to how the Union budget can contribute to our common objective of creating new jobs in the continent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Mr President. I do not wish to encroach on members' time, but you reported at the beginning that you are now instituting Treaty infringement proceedings against France.
But the argument does not relate solely to France, it relates to Germany as well.
<P>
In the compromise forged between France and the Commission and Great Britain, it was agreed that the tests should also be used for diagnostic purposes and that English beef from this export programme should be labelled.
These requirements were also imposed by Germany.
My question is this: if you institute Treaty infringement proceedings without waiting for the results of the tests, when the tests have not even been carried out - we are still waiting for a proposal from Commissioner Byrne - and if the logistics for labelling have still not been set up, how then can you expect France and Germany to lift their import restrictions with this state of affairs?
<P>
Should the Commission not put the conditions in place and monitor them first, so that this can be done?
Mr President, we await further explanation from the Commission on the matter tomorrow.
Perhaps then we can go into it in greater depth.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Vitorino">
Mr President, I shall be brief.
The issue raised by the honourable Member will be adequately addressed by my colleague, Mr Byrne, tomorrow morning here in Parliament.
I would suggest that he raise the question tomorrow, when he will get a much better answer than any I could give you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Marinos">
Mr President, since we are holding a free debate, I read Mr Ecevit' s statement following Turkey' s acceptance as a candidate country of the European Union in this morning' s Libération. In it he said, "the borders of Europe will inevitably move more and more eastwards....they will encompass Central Asia and eventually the whole of the Asian continent" .
In his second statement, he brought up the Cyprus issue and stressed that Turkey would not brook any discussion of the current state of affairs in Cyprus, thereby ignoring what was said in the Helsinki decision.
<P>
I should like to ask the Commissioner, given that the Commission enthusiastically supported candidate status for Turkey, if these statements are in keeping with the spirit in which the Council and the Commission recommended that Turkey be granted candidate status and if this is an indication of how Turkey will conduct itself in future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="President">
Mr Marinos, just a brief observation.
We all have to adapt to this new and, I think, encouraging method of working with the Commission, - the free debate - but as you know, according to the Rules of Procedure, this free debate is connected directly and in this particular circumstance - and that is why it was created - to the declaration that the Commission has just made and to the issues addressed in it.
Obviously, the Commission has not made a declaration on these matters even though they are, I admit, of the utmost political importance and extremely topical. However, the Commission has not made such a declaration.
It is up to Commissioner Vitorino to decide if he should reply or not.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Vitorino">
Mr President, I would just like to say that I agree with your interpretation.
The Commission' s position on the interpretation of the Helsinki decisions was expressed here, this morning in plenary, by President Prodi and it is to this declaration that I would refer you for the Commission' s position.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Soares">
I missed the beginning of the sitting, for which I apologise, but I was at a meeting with Xanana Gusmão.
I am extremely curious to find out, as the press has barely covered the matter, how things went in Helsinki in terms of the third pillar, which falls precisely within Commissioner Vitorino' s competence.
<P>
At the Tampere meeting, much was said about third pillar issues, about internal security, justice and all the rest, and the Commissioner was supposed to take to Helsinki something that was already tangible.
I would like to know what happened in Helsinki, if he is able to give me an answer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Vitorino">
Mr Soares, the Commission' s commitment was, in December, to present the first version of the scoreboard to the Council of Justice and Home Affairs.
And this is what the Commission did at the beginning of December.
Not to the Helsinki European Council but to the Council of Justice and Home Affairs.
The Commission hopes that this scoreboard will be adopted under the Portuguese Presidency at the Council of Justice and Home Affairs next March in Lisbon.
<P>
At European Council level, what was decided was that the Heads of State and Government will once again go into issues of Justice and Home Affairs at the European Council meeting in June 2000, the Santa Maria da Feira Council, in order to study the so-called external dimension of Justice and Home Affairs in greater detail. These are the implications for the European Union' s external policy of the new priorities adopted by Tampere for the area of freedom, security and justice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Lage">
Commissioner Vitorino, I appreciated the communication that you just made on behalf of the Commission on the Media II programme for support for the creation and production of European culture.
I simply feel that the funds are too small for the ambition that the Commission has for this programme and for this strategy.
Nevertheless, the intention is good and should be applauded.
<P>
I feel however, that the greater consumption of European audiovisual products will occur through educating Europeans themselves, through stimulating their taste and their appreciation of European culture and by rejecting the many poor-quality products that come from other parts of the world.
This educating process is obviously not within the Commission' s competence. It is up to Europeans themselves, in the way they raise and educate their children and in the way they run their media.
<P>
Nevertheless, I appreciated your communication and I support it.
What I asked you just now though is this; is this programme positively compatible with the Commission' s other position according to which we should protect European audiovisual products from competition, especially television, which the French call a "cultural exception" ?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Vitorino">
Mr President, thank you very much for the question that I have been asked.
I would like to begin by saying to Carlos Lage that what the Commission has approved today - the Media Plus programme - is entirely consistent with a strategy that has been developed by this Commission within the framework of the so-called I-Europe programme.
And this will culminate - we hope - in the decisions of next March' s Extraordinary European Council meeting in Lisbon.
<P>
What we need to do is to prepare Europe, both in terms of infrastructure and of the content production industry, for the challenge of the information age which means of course that we are assuming that Europe has the ambition to participate in the new digital economy and in the new society of culture and information on a global scale.
<P>
As for the specific question that Mr Lage asked, we are not trying to establish a strategy based on the logic of protecting competition.
It is a question of establishing a strategy with which, whilst accepting the rules of free competition, we can support European creation as well as distribution in order to be able to face this competition more successfully.
Therefore, it is not a question of there being less competition, but of fairer competition which is given greater support by the European courts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gutiérrez Cortines">
Mr President, during Commissioner Vitorino' s hearing, I told him that I was pleased to see that he was the only Commissioner who had taken the trouble to mention education as an important element to be incorporated into the third pillar.
He replied enthusiastically and even with a degree of passion which struck me as extraordinary.
<P>
In Spain we are adopting a law on aliens which fully supports integration and the recognition of all rights.
But we also need Europe to take a step forward with regard to education because a new wave of illiteracy is appearing, a new group of marginalised people, as a result of the fact that people are unable to understand the language of the country into which they are being integrated.
These new illiterates cannot even understand safety instructions at work.
They cannot understand road signs.
This is a new type of illiteracy, a new kind of basic poverty which is currently becoming part of the social make-up of Europe.
This problem is getting out of hand, perhaps through lack of information and research.
<P>
Would it not be possible to carry out a systematic study of what the conditions and needs really are and where the essential points lie?
Because without information it is not possible to draft a policy and without a knowledge of the true state of affairs it is not possible to create proper programmes.
We need to lay firm foundations in this field, since nobody is taking responsibility for education.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Vitorino">
I shall gladly reply to the Member by saying that education is a central element in integration policies, and I offer you two examples.
<P>
First example: the Commission has proposed a directive for the reuniting of legal immigrants with their families in the Member States of the Union.
Under this directive, children who are reunited with a relative who is a permanent legal immigrant in the countries of the Union will have the right to full education under the same terms as the children of the citizens of the Member States.
<P>
Second example: under the EQUAL initiative, research is to be carried out into the use of the education system as a means of integrating immigrants into the host societies.
I can guarantee that both the Directorate-General for Justice and Home Affairs and the Directorate-General for Employment and Social Affairs are fully aware that it is strategically important for the children of legal immigrants in the countries of the Union to be guaranteed access to education.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Question Time (Commission)
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="President">
The next item is Question Time (B5-0036/1999).
We shall examine the questions to the Commission.
<P>
First Part
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="President">
Since the author is not present, Question No 33 lapses.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="David Martin">
Question No 34 by (H-0689/99):
<P>
Subject: EU Charter of Fundamental Rights In the Commission=s view, should the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights being drawn up on a mandate from the Tampere Summit have legal force?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Vitorino">
The Cologne European Council decided that a Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union should be drawn up in advance of the European Council in December 2000 and that such a charter should be drafted by a body composed of 15 representatives of the Heads of State and Government, 16 Members of the European Parliament including the honourable Member, 30 Members of national parliaments and myself representing the President of the Commission.
The composition of the body was fixed in Tampere and its first meeting will take place next Friday, 17 December.
<P>
The nature of the Charter is a very fundamental question, nevertheless the European Council left the question open.
According to the conclusions, it will have to be considered whether and, if so, how the charter should be integrated into the Treaties.
Although it is up to the Heads of State and Government to decide the definitive status of the Charter, in its proposal the body will have to consider how to combine two open questions: a legally binding text ready to be inserted into the Treaty, or a solemn political declaration.
These reflections will also take into account the close connection with the IGC preparatory work.
<P>
In the Commission's view, the European Union Charter should respond to two different concerns: visibility and security.
As far as visibility is concerned, one could argue that a political declaration solemnly proclaimed by the European institutions and relayed by all channels of communication will be enough.
On the legal security aspect, we must consider how the European Union Charter can contribute to improving the degree of protection of fundamental rights within the European Union and it is difficult to see how a non-binding text could contribute to clarifying and transcending the current system of protection.
<P>
In the Commission's view, the Charter to be presented to the Heads of State and Government must carry real added value and the best way to achieve this is to focus on the fundamental rights arising from the Union itself.
The body will have to find a way to attain a politically significant text compatible with insertion into the Treaty.
There are clear indications that drafting of the Charter is broadly welcomed and that citizens expect it to be a founding text on the matter.
The Commission is convinced that those expectations should not be disappointed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Martin, David">
The Commissioner has surprised me by going as far as he has done and I very much welcome the response that he has given.
I look forward to working with him on the drafting body.
<P>
I wonder whether you would agree that if, at the end of the day, we end up with a mere political statement, we will have wasted a year of our activity?
It is not necessary to have 62 people working to draft a political statement.
If this is what we are going to end up with we might as well send away a couple of officials to make a draft of the rights that we currently have in the Treaty.
What we must have at the end of this process is a legally binding set of rights for the citizens of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="Vitorino">
I would just add that I am confident we will be able to find the necessary consensus to make the charter capable of having a real influence on the daily lives of our citizens.
There are of course difficulties ahead of us - political difficulties and some technical ones.
We have to address very clearly the question of the judicial enforcement of this charter.
I am confident that in close cooperation the Commission, the Council, Parliament and the national parliaments will eventually come up with a good result if we bear in mind above all the interests of the citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Theodorus J.J. Bouwman, which has been taken over by Mr Messner">
Question No 35 by (H-0670/99):
<P>
Subject: Renewal of concessions for motorway companies in Italy The Italian government intends to renew the concessions of the 20 companies which currently manage the Italian motorways.
After approving the concession for Autostrade, a stock company which manages approximately 50% of the Italian motorway system, it is proposing to renew the concessions of the 19 other, smaller companies.
In exchange, the companies propose making enormous investments worth some ITL 20,000 billion in new motorways.
Does the Commission not feel that renewing the concessions is an infringement of the directives on the awarding of public supply contracts (92/50/EEC, 93/37/EEC and 89/440/EEC), given that there was no public European call for tenders and any other EU company was therefore excluded from this important market?
Does the Commission not think that the companies' offer to create new infrastructure is a means of defending their monopoly position, and that the construction work runs counter to the EU' s policy of a more responsible balance between the different forms of transport?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bolkestein">
In response to the question raised by Mr Bouwman, I would like to make the following observation on behalf of the Commission.
The Commission would point out to the honourable Member of Parliament that there are three infringement procedures currently running concerning these issues.
The procedure concerning Autostrade s.p.a. could well have a positive outcome in the light of the fact that the Italian authorities have expressed their willingness to work together with the Commission in unison and have taken steps towards privatising the company.
Given the major consequences which this case might have, the Commission will, however, continue to monitor the process and the dossier will not be closed before the Commission has ascertained that the principles of transparency and equal treatment are upheld.
<P>
With regard to the other concessions, the Commission has initiated two infringement procedures and is investigating the issues related to them.
Given their economic, political and social significance, these matters will also be discussed at a meeting with the Italian authorities which will take place very soon.
<P>
In order to tackle this general issue in a more structural way, the Commission has, in fact, recently launched a horizontal inquiry into the current situation within all Member States, to identify common problems and problems which are only specific to a certain Member State.
If this inquiry will bring possible infringements to light, then the Commission will take further steps to solve these problems.
<P>
The new investments in infrastructure undertaken by Italy do not necessarily contravene the EU' s transport policy.
Although the Member States are responsible for taking decisions regarding such investments, the Commission is of the opinion that these must be based on the positive outcome of a complete social cost and benefit analysis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Messner">
Mr President, Commissioner Bolkestein, I am of course delighted that the Commission is looking into these problems and that these three infringement proceedings are now under way.
We are all waiting for an answer.
But I would ask you to consider in this connection that we should perhaps take this opportunity to provide for dovetailing the Commission services responsible for transport and the services responsible for competition if we are to make progress with transport policy decisions in Europe in general.
<P>
We must and we want to shift heavy traffic onto the railways.
The positive example here of the award of the Brenner motorway concession for the purpose of investing in a basic Brenner tunnel could perhaps be used as an example throughout Europe.
I would like to digress briefly to point out that the Brenner motorway concession is to be awarded, but has not yet been awarded on condition or with the promise that money from the motorway will be transferred to the basic Brenner tunnel, i.e. to the railways.
If the Commission services responsible for transport and competition were to work together, we could take an important step forward in a policy to shift heavy traffic from the roads to the railways.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bolkestein">
I would like to extend my warm thanks to Mr Messner for the additional remarks he has made which the Commission will take very much to heart.
I do not only say this on my own behalf, but also certainly on behalf of fellow Commissioner Loyola de Palacio, who, as you know, is responsible for the transport policy.
This matter undoubtedly has our undivided attention.
I would very much like to respond to Mr Messner' s question and reiterate that the onus is on the Member State to adopt its own transport policy.
Naturally, we hope that, as far as possible, this policy will be in line with the transport policy of other Member States and that of the Commission itself.
<P>
As for the shift of freight from road to rail, I would like to observe that the point made by Mr Messner deserves a great deal of attention.
I can assure him that in various Member States, an opinion-forming process is under way which aims to ensure that the shift which he advocates is carried out.
It is, of course, a fact that the transport of freight by road carries an element of flexibility which rail does not have.
This does not take away from the fact that rail transport is eminently suitable for long-distance transport, also because - and this will be very dear to Mr Messner - the surroundings and the environment suffer less damage as a result.
Concerning the concession regarding transport over the Brenner Pass, as mentioned by Mr Messner, this concession is still outstanding.
The Commission will find out how this concession will be granted because - and this is also the topic of current discussion - of course, concessions cannot be granted until the conditions which should be tied in with the granting of concessions in general, are sufficiently met.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, Commissioner, in the final analysis, concessions are being used more and more as a way of financing urgently needed projects.
When do you expect to complete a directive on road pricing in Europe which could be used to carry out urgently needed motorway renovations and extensions?
I think that, in the final analysis, road pricing might also reduce mobility costs, if the objectives are achieved, namely fewer traffic jams, fewer accidents, and above all, more environmental protection, not only in relation to air pollution and noise but in many other areas too.
Do you think that this sort of directive will be tabled in the foreseeable future?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bolkestein">
With regard to this additional question, I would like to remark that the topic of road pricing is a very contentious one in certain Member States.
One could, of course, reason from the liberal principle that anything scarce should become expensive.
In this case, it is road space which is scarce so one could say that this scarceness must be translated into higher prices.
The total cost remains the same, of course.
The total cost is what it is.
But there is a shift from public funding of these expenses towards the private user of this road space.
I can assure the honourable MEP that, for example, in a Member State which I happen to know best, the topic of road pricing should receive a great deal of attention but is politically also very controversial.
<P>
In other words, the topic is definitely on the agenda but has not yet reached the stage where decisions can be taken and as far as I know - but the honourable MEP is aware that this is not within my remit, so I am speaking with some circumlocution and caution - such a directive is not in the pipeline at the European Commission as yet.
<P>
However, if I am mistaken, then I give the undertaking that further news will follow in writing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="President">
As the author is not present, Question No 36 lapses.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="Juan Andrés Naranjo Escobar">
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
As the honourable Member who has put down the question will know, political cooperation between Member States on quality in education has strengthened during recent years.
The recommendation on quality evaluation and higher education adopted in September 1998 and a proposed recommendation on quality evaluation in school education give evidence of the importance of discussing quality of education at a European level.
<P>
At the Council of Education Ministers on 26 November, the theme gained further importance as one of the priorities to be treated during the next years through the adoption of a resolution on a rolling agenda.
<P>
Following the Conference of European Ministers of Education in Prague in June 1998, a working committee on quality indicators was set up.
It includes representatives from 26 European countries and it has prepared progress reports for the attention of Ministers - one in June and one in October of this year.
<P>
The first European report on quality of education will be presented for the education council for the Conference of European Ministers of Education in Bucharest in June 2000, and for this Parliament.
In the light of the discussions on the report, the Commission will propose how to treat indicators and benchmarks of quality of education within the framework of the rolling agenda and the yearly Conference of European Ministers of Education.
The present working committee has proved to be an important forum for discussion and for exchange of information and experiences about quality policies between Member States and acceding countries.
The Commission intends to propose that the committee continue its work.
<P>
The European work on indicators and benchmarks will lead to discussions about reasons for differences in performance between education systems.
Explanatory factors like the curriculum, teacher-training, resources, evaluation and so on are discussed within the working committee on quality indicators and at a ministerial level.
Countries participating in the working committee profit from the exchange of information and experiences on these issues.
<P>
The Commission welcomes the active participation of the European Parliament on the issue of quality of education, particularly in the forthcoming discussion on indicators and benchmarks of quality education.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Naranjo Escobar">
I am grateful for the courtesy of your reply, Commissioner, but I have to say that it does not fully respond to the very specific questions which I have put to you.
<P>
I believe that the legal basis of Article 149 provides us with the opportunity to move forward a little more than the cautious Prague mandate.
The concept of quality in education is more than a quantitative measure of the resources of the different systems or an evaluation of performance in certain academic disciplines.
<P>
To my mind, the agenda of the Council of Education Ministers of 26 November could have made use of the proposal of a permanent committee on quality in education.
<P>
In the light of the results of the first European report on quality in education, which this Parliament will take good note of, would it be possible for this committee or some other form of committee to provide common benchmarks in the area of the curriculum?
<P>
I urge the Commission to face this challenge with political courage.
We must go beyond the Prague mandate.
We must go beyond the old debate between uniformity and national idiosyncrasies.
The debate on quality in education must help us to duly open up European consciousness to the younger generations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
I hear what the honourable Member says and I acknowledge that he has worthwhile motives, but he will be aware that the Treaty actually states that the Community shall contribute to the development of quality education.
We are confronted with the reality of having to respect the responsibility of the Member States for the content of teaching and the organisation of the education system.
Consequently, it is better for us to continue to pursue a strategy of encouraging Member States to make full use of the opportunity of learning from and applying initiatives taken in the European countries generally rather than to set ourselves a more ambitious agenda which would probably strike difficulties of subsidiarity and maybe have the effect of reducing general enthusiasm.
<P>
The honourable Member will know from his interest in the subject that we are really in the early period of development in this area.
The Commission wants to ensure that progress is stable and continual and I am sure he shares our view on that.
<P>
<P>
Questions to Mr Kinnock
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="María Izquierdo Rojo">
Question No 38 by (H-0728/99):
<P>
Subject: Male chauvinism in the administration Bearing in mind that the problem of women's under-representation in and exclusion from senior posts is not resolved by the presence of well-intentioned men, what measures will the Commission propose to change the present situation, where 90% of senior posts are not held by women?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
The Commission agrees with the honourable Member that women are still under-represented at the higher levels of management in the Commission as well, indeed, as in other institutions.
However I have to say with the very greatest respect to the honourable Lady that it is not accurate to say that women are excluded from those posts, nor is it accurate to attribute chauvinist motives to the Commission.
<P>
Since 1988, the Commission has adopted three action programmes with the aim of promoting positive actions and equal opportunities for women within its services.
Special attention has been attached to increasing the proportion of women in management and in middle-management posts.
In 1996 an evaluation of the impact of the two positive action programmes on achieving equal opportunities in the Commission revealed that there had been significant changes in the situation of female staff in Category A and in management posts, particularly as a result of the annual targets adopted by the Commission.
<P>
While women accounted for 11.5% of Category A staff in 1992, they represented 19.3% of staff in that category in September of this year.
Women occupied approximately 2% of A2, that is to say director, posts in 1992.
That rose to 11% by September of this year.
The third action programme for equal opportunities for women and men at the Commission, 1997-2000, should consolidate what has already been achieved and go further along the same lines.
<P>
Whilst noting these advances I emphasise very strongly that the Commission is not complacent.
On 29 September, the new Commission expressed its commitment to taking further positive action to ensure that a higher number of women obtain posts in senior management positions.
Specific proposals will consequently be made in the course of the forthcoming reform strategy.
Meanwhile the honourable Member will be interested to know that last Wednesday the Commission adopted a policy proposal which I put forward on merit, equal opportunities and geographical balance.
That policy includes positive action to be taken to improve the career prospects of women civil servants.
The college resolved that when there are male and female candidates for senior posts the woman candidate will be given preference.
In addition, the Commission will strive to double the proportion of senior posts taken by women by the end of this mandate.
<P>
In short, progress is being made.
My colleagues and I would like it to be faster and broader.
We are working on that.
We hope that other institutions - maybe including this one - will take a similar course, especially so far as senior management positions are concerned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Rojo">
I am grateful to Commissioner Kinnock for this reply and the positive attitude which underlies it and also - I am sure - the work which he is carrying out.
Nevertheless, Commissioner, I have to point out that in this area of making women' s representation the norm, the Commission has had a hypocritical attitude for more than twenty years.
Its attitude has been a hypocritical "I would like to, but I cannot" , and this hypocritical impotency sends a very damaging signal to the world as a whole.
<P>
My question did not talk of exclusion, as you know very well; it talked of the fact that the number of women in high positions stands at barely 10%.
The figures which you have offered - emphatically - here in the plenum of the European Parliament, are ridiculous and shameful.
An institution such as the European Commission, which has for years claimed to be in favour of women also at the highest levels of administration, cannot be satisfied with that exclusion which the figures demonstrate.
And the photographs of the European Councils are a horrific illustration of the sexism of European decision making.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
. I would be doing the honourable Member less than justice if I did not respond to her very directly, in the terms in which she phrased her supplementary question.
<P>
First of all, if she has a complaint about the lack of women representatives at ministerial level in Member States, I suggest she takes it up with them.
<P>
Secondly, I have specifically said, not only in this House now, but over many years and also in the actions I have taken in the twelve weeks I have been the person responsible in the Commission, that we are definitely not satisfied with the number of women in senior posts or indeed in the "A" categories generally in the Commission.
But instead of just talking about it I am trying to do something about it.
<P>
I should like to say that in an institution like Parliament where just one director - I repeat, one director - out of ten is a woman then there is some reflection on the situation in this institution too.
I will provide whatever help I can with counselling about the promotion of equality between the genders, and then I do not think the Commission could be accused of hypocrisy.
There has been a consistent effort to increase the numbers of women; there is evidence of that.
Maybe the honourable Member would like to take it up with the various Member States, to encourage participation at the lower grades of "A" category in order to ensure that, as the years go by, there will be more women available to take up management posts.
Here again, I am working in practical terms instead of merely waving my arms around, in order to try specifically to encourage that.
<P>
As for the 10% being ridiculous and shameful, I would suggest that whilst the Commission could and should have done more, that is not a result of any lack of motivation or effort.
A Commission which, twelve weeks into its term of office, has made the absolute commitment to strive for a doubling of the numbers over five years is one that deserves patience, if not praise.
<P>
Questions to Mr Patten
<P>
President.
As the author is not present, Question No 39 lapses.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="Paul Rübig">
Question No 40 by (H-0683/99):
<P>
Subject: Bridges across the Danube in former Yugoslavia As well as military installations, numerous civil targets were damaged or even destroyed during NATO's bombing raids in Kosovo and/or Serbia, including the bridges across the Danube, the collapsed sections of which are still obstructing navigation on the Danube and thus significantly hampering economic reconstruction.

<P>
It is likely that, in the coming winter, the collapsed concrete sections will cause further problems, as they are still resting on the river bed, and many experts fear they could cause accumulations of ice which they have prevented from flowing downstream.
<P>
The logical consequence would be for the barriers of ice to cause the level of the Danube to rise considerably, which could cause severe flooding, which in turn would increase reconstruction costs, and this cannot be in the Commission's interests.
<P>
Is the Commission aware of this situation and has it already come up with proposals or promised financial assistance to help resolve this specific problem?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="Patten">
I would like to put on record my gratitude to Mr Balfe for his courtesy.
The Commission is aware of the important economic implications of the destruction of the bridges over the Danube for the riparian countries.
It affects not just the bilateral economic relations between Serbia and neighbouring countries, but also other countries along the river, which have traditionally used it as a navigation route between the Rhine and the Black Sea.
Concerns have also been expressed regarding the potential for flooding upstream.
These concerns were recognised by the General Affairs Council at its meeting on 15 November.
<P>
The honourable Member is no doubt aware that the authorities in Belgrade are attempting to put pressure on the international community to lift the sanctions against the FRY and rebuild the destroyed bridges by making the re-opening of the Serbian sections of the Danube to navigation conditional upon assistance from the international community to rebuild the bridges.
This is unacceptable.
With the Danube Commission, the Commission is examining the possibilities for clearing the Danube.
We want to be able to help, difficult as the task may be, but we are determined to prevent any clearance of the Danube from being manipulated by the FRY authorities into support for Mr Milosevic.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, Commissioner Patten, I think that the infrastructure in this area in particular represents a very important opportunity for the future.
We are discussing reconstruction in this area.
We are talking about EUR 500 million or a billion, an enormous amount of money, which needs to be invested.
What will you focus on?
On restoring the railways, the roads, air traffic, energy, telecommunications?
Does the Commission have a plan, if agreement is reached, on where investments should focus here?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="Patten">
. As the honourable Member will know, there are a number of projects in the Stability Pact which have been identified for substantial investment in the next few years.
<P>
The honourable Member is perfectly correct to say that infrastructure - both repairing damaged infrastructure and providing new infrastructure - is going to be crucial to the economic regeneration of the region.
But I should add this: however much one invests in the infrastructure - and we will be looking at specific pledges at the donors' conference early in the new year - however much one spends on infrastructure, what is crucial is to encourage greater and freer trade between the countries of the region, and even in one or two countries within the countries of the region.
So I totally endorse the honourable Member's reference to the importance of infrastructure investment; but I think encouraging more sensible trading relationships between those countries is also absolutely crucial.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alyssandrakis">
Mr President, from what I can gather from the first part of the Commissioner' s answer, the Commission is totally indifferent to the negative impact the damaged bridges over the Danube will have and is only concerned about how it can make use of this natural disaster - which it in fact helped to bring about - to overturn the legally and democratically elected leadership in Yugoslavia.
This does not create a very good impression.
It is in keeping with the more general policy which the European Union has pursued on this issue.
I would like to hear the Commissioner' s views on this or perhaps some statement to the contrary if I have misunderstood what he said.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="Patten">
I will try to make myself a little clearer to the honourable Member.
We want to make the Danube navigable again by clearing the rubble from the damaged bridges, from the river and the riverbed.
If we are not able to do that then there will be real problems, including flooding of surrounding areas, so we look forward to receiving a proposal from the Danube Commission on which we hope to be able to act as rapidly as possible.
<P>
I also hope that, in due course, we can provide reconstruction assistance in Serbia and not just for bridges but for other projects as well.
That will depend on free and fair elections in Serbia and, I hope, on the departure of Mr Milosevic.
It is Mr Milosevic whose policies and presence prevent investment in his country, not those who are declining to invest while he is there.
There is an easy way of helping Serbia back into the mainstream of decent life and economic success and that is to get rid of Mr Milosevic.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="Ioannis Souladakis">
Question No 41 by (H-0704/99):
<P>
Subject: Action by the EU against illegal trafficking in nuclear, biological and chemical materials Despite serious evidence of illegal trafficking in nuclear chemical and biological (NCB) weapons-grade materials, no serious steps are being taken to combat the problem.
At the same time multilateral deliberations on this matter and agreements on the monitoring of NBC materials are proving inadequate. According to many rumours and reports, these networks are situated mainly in the Ukraine, the Czech Republic and Russia and the illegal trading activities are centred mainly in Constantinople and Budapest, while much of the trafficking is carried out through channels in the Balkans many of which go through Kosovo.
What view does the Commission take of this major problem and what is its attitude towards those countries within whose territory this dangerous and illegal trafficking is taking place, particularly where there is evidence of a cover-up and especially in view of the fact that some of the countries involved are seeking EU membership or association?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 NAME="Patten">
. The Commission does not accept the statement that no substantial initiatives are being taken to tackle the problems of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons smuggling.
A good deal has in fact been done.
But the Commission's legal powers have been limited to civilian aspects of nuclear accounting and control under the Euratom Treaty.
This means that the Commission does not have any mandate to deal with the accounting and control of weapons of mass destruction per se.
It is only under the evolving CFSP that Member States are considering expanding EU action to include some initiatives to reduce stocks of weapons of mass destruction.
Member States and the Commission are currently discussing a joint action due for adoption before the end of this year to implement the security and non-proliferation aspects of the common strategy on Russia.
In this joint action, which includes concrete action to destroy stocks of chemical weapons, the Commission has been asked to coordinate European Union action.
We stand ready to take this important additional task on board in consultation with the Member States and Mr Solana and working closely, we hope, with the Russian authorities.
The Commission is heavily engaged in efforts to combat smuggling of nuclear material and radioactive substances.
The Commission initiated a series of special actions to support national authorities involved in combating illicit nuclear traffic from both EU Member States and candidate States, including seminars, training programmes and technical assistance.
<P>
The Euratom safeguards office in Luxembourg, in addition to its specific control tasks on the territory of the European Union, has undertaken a series of related outreach activities since 1992.
There is close coordination under the auspices of the G8 and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
<P>
Preventative actions in the form of cooperation programmes have been carried out since 1992 with central and east European countries, including Russia.
There are areas such as training and strengthening national nuclear material accounting and control systems.
<P>
As regards our cooperation with EU candidate countries, cooperation with customs, border control and police institutions is well established under the PHARE horizontal programme on justice and home affairs.
These measures help to reduce the dangers stemming from uncontrolled nuclear weapons material.
However, the Commission recognises the formidable and rapidly-evolving challenge in this field and hopes to be able to address the issue more comprehensively once we have been given the appropriate legal mandates.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Souladakis">
Mr President, I used the term trafficking even though it is not quite the right word because there is no trafficking without trade and I do not think that there is any trade in these materials, they are raw materials which go where they can.
However, we all know that, unfortunately, the silk routes were followed by the oil route, then the cocaine route and then the heroin route and now, unfortunately, we are witnessing the emergence of a trafficking route for these materials which are a serious threat to the peace and security of all citizens.
<P>
In this sense, and because it seems that these trafficking routes run through countries which have applied for membership of the European Union, the issue has now become a political one and one which merits particular attention.
In this sense, apart from protecting expert scientists with the relevant know-how who must not be led astray due to their specialist knowledge or financial weakness, it is a sine qua non that we adopt a rationale for setting political conditions for applicant countries as to what should or should not happen in their territories.
This has nothing to do with new forms of terrorism, as some people are saying, but rather with new forms of threats and new forms of peace and security for all citizens.
This is a pressing political issue which should be a multinational priority and not just the priority of a few policing mechanisms which may operate within a different culture and which do not understand the new dangers from which Europe must protect its citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="President">
I would request that Members wait for me to give them the floor, since this ritual allows the President to direct the debate and also allows the Commissioner to hear the beginning of the question through the interpreter.
This is the second purpose.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 NAME="Patten">
. I totally recognise the importance of the issues which the honourable Member has raised.
They are a matter of considerable concern to the Commission and of course they will be issues that we have to pursue vigorously during the enlargement negotiations.
<P>
Perhaps, I can just add a couple of points to the rather extensive - perhaps too extensive - answer I gave to the honourable Member's question.
First of all, it is absolutely imperative that there should be the closest possible coordination under the auspices of the G8 and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
It is absolutely crucial that we should work together in this very important area.
<P>
Secondly, given that the honourable Member referred in particular to candidate countries, I referred of course to what can be done under the PHARE horizontal programme.
I would like to refer to one particular scheme which promises well.
That is twinning partnerships between European Union Member States and respective national institutions.
They represent a valuable way forward.
They too can be backed by PHARE and they should be part of the programme of action we pursue in order to deal with what is, as the honourable Member said, a very serious problem indeed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="Luisa Morgantini">
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="Patten">
For several years Colombia, as the House will know, has been plagued by civil war, by kidnappings, by violence and by drug trafficking which have seriously undermined the rule of law.
I am deeply concerned, as I am sure all honourable Members will be, about the recent murders including that of a young Spaniard who was working on a European Commission-financed project.
He was killed, together with a priest, apparently by a group of paramilitaries.
The Commission has urged the Colombian authorities to carry out urgent investigations into the circumstances of this crime.
<P>
President Pastrana is currently engaged in the struggle to find a negotiated settlement to a conflict which, as the honourable Member underlines, is extremely complex.
The Colombian Government is currently working on the details of Plan Colombia.
Colombia will continue to need strong backing from the international community.
The specific areas where Colombia would like support, including financial support from the European Union and others, still need to be agreed more precisely.
The Commission has already indicated its willingness to support a peace process in Colombia within the framework of Plan Colombia, as it has done in several countries in Central America in recent years.
The Commission would of course take all necessary steps before delivering Community aid to ensure that all parties respect their commitments.
<P>
At present, the Commission is focusing on aid for internally displaced persons, on average between EUR 7 million and EUR 8 million per annum, and financially supports a series of initiatives intended to promote human rights in the country.
The Commission covers the bulk of the costs of running the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights in Colombia and has just approved a multiannual programme to support human rights in the Andean region with funding of approximately EUR 11.5 million, the bulk of which will be dedicated to Colombia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Morgantini">
Commissioner, thank you for your reply.
I also very much appreciate your statement on funding a plan to support Colombia, provided that the commitments that were made are met.
Unfortunately, according to Human Rights Watch, some high-level military representatives, who are recognisable, whose names are known and who are responsible for military training and have been involved in various massacres, have still not been removed from their posts, while the terrible collusion between the military and paramilitary groups continues.
I therefore think what Commissioner Patten said is important: these things must not be allowed to go unpunished and they must not be shrouded in silence.
<P>
I am also very pleased to learn - and I confess my lack of knowledge on the subject - that there are plans, even important ones, regarding evacuees, humanitarian aid and committees on human rights.
I wonder whether, in view of the peace talks, the Commission can massively increase the aid given to social movements in Colombia and to associations for human rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="Patten">
. As the honourable Member well knows, Colombia is a country in the middle of an exceptionally damaging civil war.
I am not sure that the government has very much control over more than about half of its territory and I am not sure how much influence it has on the warring parties or on the human rights violations committed by them.
<P>
Our aid goes primarily to the people who are themselves the victims of human rights violations, or refugees who have had to flee from their homes and from their land.
It is precisely these people who most need our support and precisely these people whom we are trying to support the most.
President Pastrana was in Europe a few weeks ago.
I think I am right in saying he gave a speech in this Parliament about Plan Colombia and I enjoyed my conversations with him during that visit.
He indicated that he will be putting forward concrete proposals next February for how the European Union could support Plan Colombia.
When we receive those proposals I will be happy to discuss them with Parliament and to do so in the context of Parliament's understandable concern about some of the reports of human rights violations which alas continue and continue to be reported by reputable organisations such as the one the honourable Member referred to.
<P>
We will continue to take the most serious account of human rights violations.
We will do what we can to help those who have had their human rights abused.
I want to refer once again to those who have suffered or even been killed in trying to implement our own European programmes in Colombia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
We are naturally grateful for the information which Mr Patten is giving us.
It is true that there is an office for the defence of human rights in Colombia.
For several years Parliament asked for it, and finally the Commission, together with the United Nations, finances this human rights office in Colombia.
<P>
However, those of us who have been here for years know what the words "displaced" (800 000) and "murdered" mean in relation to Colombia.
As well as the Spaniard Egiluz and the Colombian priest Mazo, two journalists have been murdered in recent days.
150 journalists have been murdered in the last ten years.
In many cases, it is perfectly clear that it is the paramilitary groups who are carrying out these murders.
<P>
We know that this is a difficult and complex matter, but, Commissioner, I would like to ask you two questions.
Firstly, do you not think that, as well as talking and maintaining dialogue - which in my opinion should always be done -, we should put pressure on the Colombian Government so that, once and for all, it will try to get rid of the paramilitary groups responsible for these acts?
<P>
And secondly, is there any truth in the rumours that, in the name of the fight against drug trafficking, the United States may be planning an intervention strategy in Colombia?
<P>
And I believe that the European Union should act decisively in that event, because such an intervention would lead to a spiral of violence which none of us want to see.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="Patten">
On the last point that the honourable Member mentioned, we have in fact taken a number of actions to try to help the Colombian Government deal with the very serious drugs problem, including trade preferences, and we will continue to do so.
<P>
On the first point that she mentioned, I do not think that the Colombian Government would disagree with the importance of dealing with the paramilitaries.
It is its capacity to deal with them militarily which has been one of the problems over the years.
I very much hope that the present negotiations will deliver to the people of Colombia the peace which they deserve.
In the meantime, what worries me, and I think worries the honourable Member, is the very serious security situation for human rights activists in Colombia.
They have to be extraordinarily brave to do the important work that they do.
There is a limit to the amount we can do ourselves to increase their personal security though we continue to press our concern about that matter on the Colombian authorities.
We will go on doing so.
We also try to monitor the situation very closely with the Member States' embassies in Bogotá.
So we do our best, but it does remain a subject to me of very great concern that so many people, young people for instance, are having to put their lives at risk to try to secure human rights in their country.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=145 NAME="Bernd Posselt">
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="Patten">
First, let me sum up what we have done this year.
The European Community has demonstrated its strong commitment to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
In purely financial terms, in addition to technical assistance under PHARE - EUR 22 million - and the financial protocol, an interest subsidy for EIB loans representing EUR 20 million, we have devoted EUR 143 million of exceptional assistance to help the country to cope with the consequences of the Kosovo crisis.
<P>
Just as important, FYROM is the first country to become actively involved in the European Union's stabilisation and association process.
The Council should adopt the negotiating mandate for a stabilisation and association agreement in January.
The year 2000, therefore, augurs well for a substantial increase in cooperation between the European Union and FYROM.
It will be a year of negotiation and, we hope, a year which will culminate in the signature of an agreement.
<P>
At the same time, the Commission will continue to accompany the political and economic reform process in this country under the existing cooperation agreement and through the PHARE programme or through the new financial instrument that will replace PHARE.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Thank you very much, Commissioner, for your positive and specific answer.
Macedonia was the victim first of the Communists and their successors, then it was the victim of two different boycotts and then it was the victim of the war in Kosovo.
It now has a highly multicultural government which is making a conscious effort to forge links with the Albanian sector of the population.
But it needs economic success, otherwise nationalism will break out there again.
Hence my question: first, do you believe that you personally could visit Macedonia in the foreseeable future and, secondly, do you believe, although you have already almost said as much, that an association agreement could be signed by next year?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 NAME="Patten">
First of all, I have already threatened the Foreign Minister of FYROM with a visit.
He seemed to welcome that prospect. So I am looking forward to going in the early months of next year.
I have also said that when I go I want to be in a position to open a European Union office in FYROM, because we need a more substantial full-time presence there than we have at present.
I very much hope that we will be able to launch the negotiations for a stabilisation and association agreement in earnest next year.
The sooner we can complete those negotiations with FYROM the better; the sooner we can then proceed to ratify the agreement with the Member States.
<P>
FYROM is just the first country with which, as the honourable Member knows, we are seeking to negotiate an agreement.
I very much hope that not long after we have begun these negotiations we will be able to move to negotiations with other countries, perhaps first of all, Albania.
But I believe we still have more progress to make there.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 NAME="Titley">
Earlier on today we were debating the budget for next year and the difficulty of the European Union finding sufficient finance to fund the operation in Kosovo.
I therefore ask the Commission if it has done any analysis on what the cost would be if there was to be instability in Macedonia; and to what extent - to take him up on his last point - it is true that we need to ensure there is stability in Albania in order to maintain stability in FYROM.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="Patten">
What we should have learnt from the fairly grim experiences of the last few years in the Balkans is that it is much better to prevent instability by early political and economic action than to have to pay later on for the costs of instability knocking on into disaster, not just in one country but in several countries.
That is the story of the last few years.
We talk a good deal about conflict prevention and crisis management.
If we want a very good indication of what would have been the benefits of conflict prevention, again we should look at the Balkans.
<P>
I have no doubt at all that instability in Macedonia, Albania and Montenegro would have consequences for the whole region.
I therefore want to see us in a position proactively to support capacity-building, to support economic and social development that, we hope, will prevent that instability.
<P>
At the risk of being suspected of reverting provocatively to earlier discussions in Parliament, I very much hope that the important programmes that we are trying to launch in the Balkans will not be held hostage as Parliament and the Council argue and disagree about funding for next year.
I can understand what the constitutional arguments are, what the political arguments are; but try explaining them to somebody without a roof over their head in Kosovo; try explaining them to a pensioner who wants to receive welfare benefit in Montenegro; try explaining them to somebody in FYROM who thinks that the difficult steps that have been taken in that country in the last few years deserve rather more support from the European Union.
<P>
I understand that these political arguments rage.
I am sure they are way above the head of a mere Commissioner for External Relations; but I hope I do not find myself next year having to explain these complex constitutional issues to people on the ground in the Balkans or elsewhere in the world who are not getting the support they deserve.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 NAME="President">
We are grateful to Mr Patten for dedicating his time to this Parliament this afternoon.
<P>
Since the time allocated to Questions to Mr Patten has elapsed, Question Nos 44 to 47 will be replied to in writing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="Sebastiano (Nello) Musumeci">
Question No 48 by (H-0677/99):
<P>
Subject: Gaming houses The Court of Justice has ruled that the organisation of games of chance is an economic activity constituting the provision of services and falling within the scope of the EC Treaty and that the measures adopted by a Member State with regard to the award of licences to open gaming houses must be proportionate and non-discriminatory (Case C275/92, Schindler). The Italian Government requires proof of effectiveness as a tourist attraction and of the sound financial standing of applicants.
It does not however define those criteria, which leads to arbitrary decision making in many cases. Up to now only four casinos have opened as the result of all the licences granted in Italy (in the United Kingdom there are 119 casinos and in Germany approximately 102).
All the casinos are located in Northern Italy.
This clearly leads to discrimination against the regions coming within Objective 1. In terms of tourist revenue and economic expansion, those regions could benefit greatly from the opening of gaming houses.
Does the Commission believe that the conduct of the Italian Government amounts to an infringement of the Community rules against discrimination and on free competition, having regard in particular to Articles 12 and 86 of the Treaty?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Monti">
The Commission considers that the position of the Court of Justice is clear as far as the special rights in the games of chance sector are concerned.
The Court recently confirmed that, even if a Member State authorises games of chance, it still has the power to impose limits on the availability of these games and this is in consideration of public interest objectives, such as controlling the desire to play games of chance, the prevention of fraud or crimes occurring and using the profits thus obtained in the public interest.
Each Member State has the power to determine the extent of protection in its territory as regards games of chance.
The Commission is therefore unable to object to the fact that currently in Italy, only four gaming houses have been authorised and that they are located in Northern Italy, since there is nothing that leads us to believe that foreign businesses are being discriminated against, with regard to national businesses.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Musumeci">
Commissioner, I believe that this issue holds particular importance within the Member State because the Italian Government' s attitude is not fair but clearly discriminatory.
Recently, the Italian Government denied the request made by a clearly tourist-oriented local authority, Taormina, to establish a gaming house and, at the same time, it authorised Venice casino to open a branch in Mestre.
According to the Commission, does all of this not constitute clear discrimination within a Member State, and moreover, does it not force the inhabitants who would like to play in central and southern regions to go to other Member States - there are hundreds of gaming houses in Europe - rather than staying and playing in Northern Italy, which does not hold great appeal?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Monti">
Mr Musumeci, I can only repeat the context I have just outlined.
In fact, the situation of gaming houses is different in the various Member States.
We have seen that the Court has confirmed the Member States' power to decide in this field, and I must add, as regards the point you stressed on the distribution within a State' s territory, that competition rules and the principle of non-discrimination do not require Member States to take into account regional considerations when awarding licenses for gaming houses or other permits for the organisation of games of chance.
Competition rules do not raise objections to the criteria that a Member State may use and therefore based on those rules, we cannot consider the decision a Member State makes on the distribution in their territory to be arbitrary, and consequently, a violation of these rules.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=158 NAME="Eduard Beysen">
Question No 49 by (H-0684/99):
<P>
Subject: Communication pursuant to Article 5 of Regulation 19/65/EEC of the Council of 2 March 1965 Has the Commission given due thought to the peculiar nature and diversity of the catering sector in Belgium, which is renowned for its wealth of congenial cafés with countless different types of beer, and the impact which introduction of the regulation would have, in particular the fact that managers of small establishments would suffer?
In the absence of brewery contracts, firms with a large share of the market will stop investing in the cafés where they sell their products; instead they will spend the money on mass advertising to consolidate their market position.
There will obviously be a bitter price war which would have a detrimental effect not only on the smaller breweries but also on managers of establishments.
Is the Commission aware of the fact that the market leaders not only sell their products but often also provide financial support (attractive loans), material support (dispensing equipment, furniture and glasses etc.) and technical support (refrigerating engineers)?
<P>
This means that the question is about the sale of beer in Belgium in such mysterious quantities.
The Commissioner has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Monti">
Despite the mysterious quantities, your question was very clear.
I think I have understood what Mr Beysen' s question is.
The Commission is aware that breweries often provide café owners with financial, material and technical support.
Nevertheless, the Commission does not share the fear, voiced by Mr Beysen, that the proposed new policy on vertical restrictions could harm Belgian breweries or the hotels, restaurants and cafés sectors.
On the contrary, effective competition will guarantee consumers good service in terms of numbers of bars and the variety of beers they offer.
<P>
Firstly, the proposed exemption per category of agreements exempts contracts on the supply of beer that contain a clause prohibiting competition, entered into between brewers who have a market share lower than 30% and owners of bar or commercial concerns.
For Belgian breweries, this means that they will all, with the exception of Interbrew, be able to continue to operate on the basis of the current distribution agreements.
Moreover, the proposed exemption per generalised category allows these breweries greater contractual freedom compared with their freedom on the basis of the current specific exemption in the sector.
<P>
Secondly, the proposed exemption per category does not presuppose that non-competition agreements, entered into with a brewery with a market share greater than 30%, are illegal.
A brewery that reaches this market share can notify the Commission of its network of non-competition agreements.
The Commission will then, firstly, evaluate the actual impact of the competition agreements; if the impact is considerable, the Commission can in any case take into account the economic benefits of these non-competition agreements in its evaluation of the possible applicability of an individual exemption under Article 81(3) to the agreements.
<P>
Thirdly, if an individual exemption is not applicable to the agreements, the Commission will examine the possible solutions within the existing distribution system.
In other words, the Commission will attempt, as a matter of principle, to resolve any competition issues that might occur, firstly by amending the existing agreements, taking into account the economic benefits they bring.
Mr Beysen will certainly agree that because of its role as the European authority on competition, the Commission must assess very carefully the agreements entered into between operators who benefit from considerable market force.
Indeed, because of their possible effects of closing the market, these agreements can jeopardise competition, not only with regard to producers in other Member States, but also with regard to small Belgian breweries.
This is another reason why the Commission recently launched proceedings against Interbrew.
<P>
In conclusion, Mr President, the Commission does not believe that the new policy on vertical restrictions is liable to bring about major structural changes, in the beer, hotels, restaurants and cafés sectors in Belgium, which would put the beer culture in that country at risk.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Beysen">
I would like to thank the Commissioner for the thorough answer he was willing to give me and from which it transpires that, naturally, further elaboration was required regarding the policy currently adopted by the Commission.
Nevertheless, I do not fully share the view that competition would therefore not be disrupted, although I have taken note of the fact that you now also provide for a contractual exemption clause.
<P>
As far as I am concerned, Commissioner, there is still great concern not only from me but also from within the sector with regard to the lack of clarity which currently - fourteen days prior to the coming into force of this regulation - exists regarding the guidelines on what is and is not allowed.
Although your explanation has shed some light on the matter, I think it is appropriate to also inform the sector of this.
<P>
My question in this respect is why should the system be changed if so far, its application has not resulted in any complaints?
Is there too little belief in self-regulation and does one want to push this regulation through at all costs within a sector which, in fact, is already having a hard time?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Monti">
Mr Beysen, I agree with you that information, in this area as in any other, is important.
For this reason, when drawing up the proposal for a regulation in question, the Commission followed a policy of being open with information.
We are in fact now studying the responses we have received from all the parties concerned following the publication of the proposal in the Official Journal.
Once this assessment has been carried out, we will again consult the Member States and we are counting on adopting the new regulation before the end of the year.
We have communicated fully on every stage, which is the reason why we believe we have performed our duty to inform and consult.
Obviously, the Commission is always willing to clarify any points that might still be unclear.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="President">
As they deal with the same subject, Questions Nos 50 and 51 will be taken together.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="Robert J.E. Evans">
Question No 50 by (H-0688/99):
<P>
Subject: Car prices Thanks to widespread publicity, the Commission will be aware that motor car manufacturers are charging considerably more in the UK than in other EU countries for identical cars.
<P>
What action does the Commission propose to take to counter this and similar examples of extortion by large companies?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="Arlene McCarthy">
Question No 51 by (H-0747/99):
<P>
Subject: Car distribution and competition policy The Commission will be aware that the UK remains the most expensive market for 62 out of the 75 best selling car models and that UK citizens encounter problems on purchasing cars in other Member States.
<P>
Can the Commission comment on whether this is a breach of EU competition rules?
<P>
What action will the Commission be taking as regards the forthcoming report on the motor vehicle distribution trade with regard to price differentials?
<P>
What action can the Commission take so as to remove restrictive practices and to ensure that UK consumers get a fair deal?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="Monti">
I am indeed aware of the price discrepancies between the United Kingdom and other Member States and I share the honourable Members' concerns.
The Commission has found that these differences are partly due to the strength of the pound sterling, while they must in part be attributed to low net prices in Member States with high car taxation.
That is the case in particular in Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands.
<P>
I consider that a growing price transparency and the introduction of the euro are increasingly inducing customers from so-called high price markets to acquire their vehicles in other Member States.
This parallel trade is an important market-related factor which should contribute to a better convergence of prices throughout the Community.
<P>
The Commission has undertaken a number of initiatives to ensure this freedom for consumers.
In its report on the application of Regulation 1475/95 concerning car distribution, due before the end of the year 2000, the Commission will evaluate the impact of the exempted distribution system on car prices.
It will indeed provide an essential basis for the forthcoming discussion about the future legal framework for car distribution after the expiry of the current regulation on 30 September 2002.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="Evans, Robert">
Thank you, Commissioner, for your answer.
In my question I referred to similar examples and whilst car prices are perhaps the most widely publicised, there are other examples of companies that are making a mockery of the single market.
<P>
The Swedish Ikea furniture company, with which you will probably be familiar, provides two examples in their recent catalogues: a mirror cabinet which costs less than GBP 70 if purchased in Denmark costs GBP 94 in the United Kingdom.
A corner sofa which costs less than GBP 600 in Denmark costs nearly GBP 875 in the United Kingdom.
These are just two examples taken from one company.
There are plenty of others where people in the United Kingdom and, for all I know, other Member States, are being exploited by companies.
I wonder if the Commission can consider some action to protect consumers who are looking to the European Parliament, looking to the European Commission to protect them as citizens.
Can you consider some action in this area, not just limiting it to cars, which is perhaps the most publicised example?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 NAME="President">
You will see, Commissioner, that they want to ask you about sofas, not only about cars, but I am sure you will have an answer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 NAME="Monti">
Thank you for this supplementary question.
Indeed I believe that serving the interests of consumers is the cornerstone of competition policy in the European Union.
<P>
Should we claim that a single market is really single only when there is unity of prices?
I would not say so, because there will always be factors explaining certain price differentials.
Indeed, we might even perhaps consider that perfect unity of prices in a given market may be an indication of some sort of cartel prevailing in that market.
Having said that, I agree with you that a lot of price divergences in the present-day single market are explained by the frictions and obstacles that still exist.
<P>
Two powerful factors are at play today to help the market overcome those divergences and this will be increasingly the case.
One is of course the introduction of the euro.
That of itself is going to make price comparisons easier.
And the second, which is having a powerful effect on the distribution of goods and services, is the Internet.
<P>
You ask whether the Commission should not take action vis-à-vis certain instances of considerable price divergences.
Yes, we should and do: in particular if we consider the car sector, you will be aware of a number of actions taken in the past and also very recently in the Commission against limitations imposed by car manufacturers on parallel imports of cars.
The publication of the comparative list of car prices also goes very much in that direction.
The latest edition was published on 22 July 1999.
<P>
We agree that the Commission should also use its competition policy instruments for these purposes; and may I submit that it does so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="McCarthy">
I am pleased to see that the Commissioner has, along with my own Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Mr Byers, formed the impression that the European car industry has indeed taken UK consumers for a ride. But I have to say that I cannot agree with you that it is a simple exchange rate issue because it would not account for the fact that some cars cost around four thousand pounds more in the UK than they do, for example, in the Netherlands.
<P>
If it were only a question of the exchange rate, then prices should also go down with exchange rate variables.
Why then, for example, do imported cars - which now represent over 70% of the UK market - get dearer as the pound is getting stronger?
How do UK car manufacturers export record numbers of cars to the continent at a time when exporting is more expensive?
Why are cars built in the UK cheaper on the continent just as our pound is making our exports more expensive?
I am afraid I do not accept the logic of this wholly.
<P>
I believe - after an 18 months' investigation by a UK newspaper, following your investigation - that time is running out and the car industry now wants to find a settlement to this issue.
If I were to arrange a round table with the industry - with dealers and manufacturers - would you be willing to come along to it and discuss with them how we can find a way through the problem while, at the same time, resorting to competition instruments if we have to?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="Monti">
Thank you, Mrs McCarthy, and for the emphasis on urgency in using competition instruments, which indeed we do.
May I draw your attention again to the fact that we have opened a considerable number of investigations concerning restrictions on parallel imports and, in some cases, we have already reached a conclusion by imposing quite considerable fines.
<P>
Of course it would be inadequate to attribute price differentials, in cars in particular, only to exchange rates.
I mention that as one factor - it is not the only one.
Divergences in the taxation of different types of cars are of course a factor but this brings us to the question of how easy or how difficult it is for the European Union to make any decision concerning tax matters.
<P>
I also appreciate your offer of an invitation to a round table.
I will be glad to consider that in the context of the various invitations a Commissioner receives.
<P>
You are no doubt aware that we are in the process of preparing a report on the application of the current block exemption regulation which is our main area of reflection at present.
We have received many questionnaires in response to our consultation exercise.
The report which is due at the end of the year will not as yet contain any proposals but will analyse the impact of the exempted distribution system which is due at the end of 2000 and will contain a fully-fledged analysis of the impact of the block exemption and this should be the basis for subsequent decisions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 NAME="Newton Dunn">
I wonder whether the Commissioner would agree that the last two questioners who were asking the Commission for action would do better to ask their own party leader, Mr Blair, to get the over-high level of the pound - which has been kept too high by high interest rates in the UK - down to a realistic level; and also try to get Mr Blair to start campaigning to join the euro, when there would be extra transparency.
Would that not help?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="President">
You will see, Commissioner, that this is a British question, but you have a right to reply if you think it appropriate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 NAME="Monti">
I would be delighted to do so if this important subject were to fall within the competence of the Commissioner responsible for competition which, I am afraid, is not the case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=175 NAME="Karin Riis-Jørgensen">
Question No 52 by (H-0693/99):
<P>
Subject: State aid for the German timber­processing industry What action has the Commission taken, or will it take, in view of the increasing amount of state aid Germany is granting to sawmills in what used to be East Germany?
The mills in question are small or medium-sized businesses which are very efficient and thus require so few employees that they meet the EU criteria for the allocation of state aid to SMEs, yet this means they are able to compete on unequal conditions and distort competition on the market.
<P>
Does the Commission consider it right that German sawmills which are highly automated and particularly efficient should be granted such huge amounts of state aid that other market operators are forced out of the market owing to unfair competition?
Will it also say whether it still considers the existing rules on the allocation of state aid to SMEs to be adequate, in particular the 250-employee ceiling?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Monti">
The Commission is aware that the sawmills in what used to be East Germany are granted considerable state aid.
While it is possible that the aid in question is compatible with the German systems and the Treaties, the Commission is very concerned by the distortion that it causes through the concentration of growing levels of production capacity in this particular industrial sector.
As regards the acceptability of this aid, the Commission is carrying out a particularly detailed study of the compatibility with the common market of a series of aid measures for numerous businesses, in particular KNT, Klenk e Pollmeier.
<P>
It must be pointed out that this new capacity is to be found in areas that are assisted pursuant to Article 87(3)(a) of the Treaty, that is to say, in regions where the standard of living is abnormally low or where there is a serious underemployment problem.
The assessment of the compatibility of all the aid granted has not yet finished, due to the information being incomplete.
The investigation addresses in particular, the issue of respecting the criteria laid down by the relevant regional systems.
<P>
Moreover, the Commission has adopted initiatives with the intention of clarifying whether the beneficiaries are complying with all the criteria concerning the definition of small and medium-sized businesses, set out in its recommendation of 1996.
In particular, I would like to stress the importance of ensuring that there is no evasion of the regulations.
Businesses which formally respect the criteria for the definition of small and medium-sized businesses - particularly because they have less than 250 employees - but are in fact controlled by a large business, or by a group of large businesses, should not benefit from special incentives intended for small and medium-sized businesses.
Finally, as regards the question of the adequacy of the current rules on the authorisation of state aid for small and medium-sized businesses, an overall study of the subject would be needed.
<P>
As for the specific characteristics of the forestry sector, the Commission recently issued a communication on the competitiveness of forestry product industries and related industries in the European Union.
This document, issued in October of this year, states that among other things, with the aim of ensuring the overall, sustainable competitiveness of the European Union forestry industry or related industries, it will be necessary to guarantee an environment that promotes fair competition and to encourage European Union industry to adapt to fiercer competition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Riis-Jørgensen">
Many thanks to Commissioner Monti for a very thorough answer.
I look forward to the Commission' s continuing, first and foremost, with its investigation into extensive state aid and, especially, to its conducting a general investigation into whether the conditions of state aid to small and medium-sized enterprises should be changed.
I hope to be, and look forward to being, kept up to date on this matter, which means an incredible amount to industry not merely in Denmark but also in other countries, including the western part of Germany.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 NAME="Monti">
.
This is just to confirm to Mrs Riis-Jørgensen, whose continuing and deep interest in state aid matters is well-known to and appreciated by the Commission, that the investigation is going to continue; that the effective applicability of the provisions concerning SMEs is one of our concerns; and that in all state aid investigations the question of the effects on trade between Member States is at the forefront of the analysis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Monti, for being here this afternoon.
<P>
Since the time allocated to Questions to the Commission has elapsed, Questions Nos 53 to 107 will be replied to in writing.
<P>
That concludes Questions to the Commission.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 7.10 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Statement by the President
<SPEAKER ID=180 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, before we start work, I should like to make two comments.
My first comment is addressed mainly to our new members.
Please speak slowly enough to allow our interpreters to follow your speeches.
If you do not, you will be poorly interpreted, if at all, and the point of your speech will be lost.
<P>
My second request is this: please, if at all possible, keep to the time allowed.
I say this not for my benefit, I have all the time in the world, but because new members in particular are not aware of the fact that a plenary session does not only involve us here in front and the interpreters whom you see in the booths; behind the scenes there is a whole apparatus which is responsible, for example, for ensuring at the end of the day that the Minutes are ready for you early tomorrow morning.
These people have homes to go to!
You will be doing us all a favour if you keep more or less to the time allowed.
Thank you for your attention to these preliminary comments.
<P>
President.
Mr Gorostiaga, you have a point of order to make?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 NAME="Gorostiaga Atxalandabaso">
I would like to make a point of order under Rule 108 related to Rule 112.
In various Spanish and French prisons 18 Basque political prisoners have been undergoing hunger strikes since 1 November.
They are revolting against the denial of elementary human rights by the French and Spanish authorities.
One of the hunger strikers, after 44 days of fasting, has today been transferred to the Hôtel de Dieu Hospital in Paris in extremely poor health after losing 24 kilos.
<P>
Eighteen years have passed since the courageous Westminster MP Bobbie Sands and 10 other Irish political prisoners staged a hunger strike to death.
Only when the hunger striker was out of the way did the Thatcherite Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, James Prior, acknowledge that the British Government was ready to accept reforms.
<P>
We need, right now, very urgently, before it is too late, a similar statement from the Spanish and French Governments.
We ask this House under Rule 112 to accept this question as an urgent matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="President">
Mr Gorostiaga, as far as the procedure for urgent debate in Rule 112 is concerned, strict rules apply and the deadline has already expired.
As far as Rule 108 is concerned, you need the backing of one tenth of the members of the House and clearly they have not assembled.
I shall pass your request on but I fear that we can do nothing about this matter at present.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
2000 budget (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="President">
The next item is the resumption of the joint debate on the Budget 2000.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Böge">
Mr President, I should like first to extend my group' s warmest thanks to the two rapporteurs.
If we look back to where we stood at the beginning of the budgetary procedure, then we can see, in our view, just how far we have come during difficult, at times extremely difficult negotiations.
<P>
I also appreciate the fact, Commissioner, that you too endeavoured to mediate in the difficult and, in the final analysis, unsuccessful budgetary conciliation, although the conduct of the Commission itself during this whole procedure was not, of course, without its contradictions.
<P>
On the one hand, it took too timid an approach to the declaration in the minutes of the interinstitutional agreement and entered into international multiannual commitments while wanting to solve the financial problem for the year 2000 alone during the initial stage.
That was too little as far as we were concerned.
At the same time, we realised that Mr Prodi was already making preliminary plans up to the year 2006 - a decided lack of coordination, Mr President of the Commission.
<P>
For the rest, the question naturally arises in the wake of the decisions by the European Council as to what will happen in future with heading 7 of the budget?
Should we not also review the financial perspective, given the option, the option dynamically pursued by the European Council, to enlarge the circle of candidate countries?
No, what we in the European Parliament want is to retain international credibility and a serious budgetary policy in this budgetary procedure even when financing the new priorities.
Parliament is conscious of its responsibility as part of the budgetary authority.
President Chirac' s praise this morning with respect to the budgetary and supervisory function of the European Parliament emphasised this yet again.
We do not want to repeat this year' s experience of acting as a repair shop, with a plethora of supplementary and amending budgets and transfers of appropriations!
<P>
I therefore say quite clearly to the Council: by failing to act this week, by failing to endorse the proposals tabled by Parliament under option 3, you have put us in a very difficult position and have pushed us almost to the limit of what we can do under the Rules of Procedure.
Please do not do so again.
We stand today by the offer made by Parliament as a symbiosis between budgetary discipline and the readiness to consider precise reductions rather than all-inclusive reductions, as you intended and, at the same time, to enter into and finance the necessary political priorities.
I would also say on behalf of my group that if you, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, are able tomorrow morning to table the written declaration which we have demanded, we are prepared to support and implement the compromise.
<P>
I want to be perfectly clear on this: with the relevant declarations by the institutions, including on the question of the limited review of the financial perspective which we expect from the Commission by April, and the corresponding statements from the Council, you are all, to borrow an expression from the money markets, accepting a bill of exchange and anyone who fails to honour the bill will lose their credit rating.
Hence, in view of past experience and in view of today' s discussion, a very clear warning to the Council: if we fail in the spring to reach an adequate solution for the multiannual programme for Kosovo and the western Balkans, combined with a corresponding commitment by the Council, you will end up in extremely dangerous waters as far as the budgetary procedure for the year 2001 is concerned.
We here in Parliament want to avoid this.
It is up to you to ensure that we get both the Budget 2000 and a reasonable multiannual programme to finance these priorities under way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Walter">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, the Budget 2000 is the budget which will take us into the next millennium.
It represents a gesture.
It represents a gesture in terms of political content; but it must also be a gesture of how we should actually have to deal with each other.
<P>
I would like to start by saying that we as a Parliament must thank our two rapporteurs in this respect, with respect to the debate of the Budget 2000, for carrying out excellent work, for getting things under way which have been discussed at length in this House.
I remember the new regulation in connection with the Technical Assistance Offices which Commissioner Schreyer referred to this morning.
We had a meeting of the Committee on Budgets last week at which very clear commitments were entered into as far as the future is concerned, so that we can expect to make progress here and exercise control.
We shall support you in a constructively critical manner on this question of the future development of the Technical Assistance Offices.
As far as past experience is concerned, namely the proper deployment of appropriations, we have made a gesture by increasing OLAF staff numbers.
<P>
We have made quite unequivocal gestures as far as one of the largest items of budgetary expenditure is concerned, namely agricultural policy.
We want to break away from mere market price support and move towards rural development and additional appropriations will be provided in forthcoming budgets in order to do so.
<P>
We have made it clear that only consumers are important in our Europe, which is why we have strengthened the Food Safety Agency, in order to make a gesture at this point, and we have entered relevant appropriations to make up for social weaknesses in the budget, so that progress can be made in combating unemployment.
<P>
These are things which have been discussed in this Parliament with great unanimity and on which progress has been made on the initiative and with the support of our rapporteurs.
The decisive point in this discussion or rather the point which caused us the most work and the most worry was of course the question of how to finance properly one of the greatest challenges facing Europe in the coming years?
I refer of course to the Balkans and, more specifically, to Kosovo which will be targeted as a priority next year.
<P>
You can rest assured that we in this House will do everything to lay solid foundations.
We made this very clear during the budgetary procedure.
We are interested in having sound foundations so that we do not just lurch from one problem to the next, but so that we can work together on a solid basis for years to come, because the problem in the Balkans is not a problem which can be solved in a year.
We have shown very clearly that we do not just want to demand more here; we also want to do our homework.
We have made transfers in the budget, very specific transfers.
We have not made any general reduction; instead we have said we will make reductions as and where possible.
We have expressly made an exception for non-governmental organisations or aid programmes, such as those to combat AIDS in third world countries, which need all the support they can get.
We have done all this with a great deal of unanimity. This also demonstrates how important these matters are to us.
You have seen for yourself that there is a great deal of unanimity in every debate and in every vote in this House.
Completely irrespective of our ideological backgrounds, we have conducted ourselves in a manner which must have made it clear to you that we take the matter and the manner of our dealings with each other very seriously indeed.
And this will be our motto for the coming years.
I must support Mr Böge all the way on this.
<P>
We shall also endeavour in the future to create a basis of trust in our dealings with each other, a trust which was perhaps lacking at several junctures this year, both on our part towards you and on your part towards us.
So we are holding out our hand, as Social Democrats and Socialists, as a sign that, if tomorrow morning you in fact table the declaration as described, we shall support it.
And we shall ensure that there is a proper budget for the year which also offers a perspective.
But we shall also work consistently towards ensuring in the coming years that again we do not lurch from one problem to another but that we have a serious plan on which everyone can build, especially those who really need the money.
In other words those now living inside the European Union and those living outside the Union who have a right to our solidarity.
We shall continue to do our homework in the future.
We shall take our potential as a Parliament very seriously, on that you can depend.
But we shall also make an effort to work more closely with you, so that we do not need, as in this year, to find a solution so close to the end of the year.
When you have trialogues and conciliation, you should use them for their intended purpose so that compromises can be found before the eleventh hour.
<P>
We call on you to move towards us and we will move towards you.
But, as we have said, you can be sure that we also know what we can do if we are trifled with!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Mulder">
Mr President, I would also like to start by thanking both rapporteurs for their hard work.
It was not easy this year.
<P>
The first lesson we can draw from this year' s budgetary discussion is that the Commission and the Council need to be careful about making statements in public regarding how much money is available for a certain cause without knowing how exactly it will be funded.
This does not seem to bear repetition.
<P>
I would like to move on to the budget itself.
Firstly, I would like to focus on the agricultural budget itself. Category 1 A. I question the benefit of the exercise which we started three years ago, the so-called ad hoc procedure that we would refer to the most recent estimates for the following year and establish the budget for compulsory expenditure accordingly.
I can only note that the Council has adhered to July' s budget. The Council' s perspective is, of course, unique, but I fail to comprehend why one should always adhere to what one has established in July.
I do admit that some shifting has occurred between different budget headings.
<P>
With regard to category 1 B, I appreciate that the Council has adopted Parliament' s amendment in order to achieve a quality policy for European agricultural products.
At a time when consumers are increasingly anxious about the quality of food, I think that this is urgently needed and therefore meets with my appreciation.
<P>
As for the other amendments in category 1 B, my group will support these. At a time of WTO negotiations, when everyone talks about a sound rural policy, it is positive that the European Union pursues an active policy in this field.
<P>
Then I would like to comment on category 4 of the budget, including Kosovo. Firstly, I think that Parliament has shown its goodwill by finding the necessary funding for Timor and Turkey within the budget itself.
This has clearly been down to the Parliament' s goodwill.
<P>
Another noteworthy fact with regard to category 4 is that we have established that on 30 September of every year, a project surfaces which ties up about 10% of the money and then miraculously, two months later, around 100% of the money is allocated.
How does this inventiveness come about so swiftly?
Would it not be possible to space it out a bit more and, in this context, to take into account the Court of Auditors' observation in this respect?
<P>
The group can agree with the method of financing such as it has been regulated provisionally for Kosovo.
It differs quite significantly from the original amounts specified by the Commission.
We look forward to establishing a new budget as soon as possible, should this prove necessary.
The objective of my group is not to dash the financial perspectives as such. We are more than willing to discuss any well-defined proposals, provided they are accompanied by sound arguments.
<P>
I am also awaiting the compromise which will hopefully materialise tomorrow regarding payment appropriations.
My group is divided on this matter.
According to some Members, the payment appropriation level should definitely be lowered.
If I have interpreted the noises in this respect correctly, then this will also happen.
<P>
As far as we are concerned, Kosovo should not be the cause of an inter-institutional war.
We should be able to solve this matter on the basis of arguments.
Peace in the Balkans is worth a great deal to us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Buitenweg">
Mr President, we are now into the last stage of the budget for 2000.
It is the first European budgetary discussion in which I am involved, and I must say that in my inexperience, I have grossly overrated the rationality employed to spend taxpayers' money.
The first party at which we can point the finger must surely be the Council of Ministers. They were so much more concerned with their own national purses than about the people in Kosovo that previous pledges were fiddled.
<P>
In Berlin, a protocol was concluded, on the basis of which financial perspectives could be adapted if so necessitated by the reconstruction of Kosovo.
At two Conferences of Donors, the European Union committed itself to contributing EUR 500 million.
According to a report by the World Bank, it is possible to absorb this amount.
A frontload approach (a great deal of money in the first couple of years) is said to be the best way of kick-starting the economy.
<P>
The EUR 500 million are necessary, they have been promised and they can be found within the current budget.
It is, however, necessary, so as to prevent developing countries from being presented with the bill, to use margins from categories other than foreign expenditure.
There is, for example, a generous margin in category 1 B, rural development.
Proposals to apply this margin and offer Kosovo prospects for the future, were not even considered by the Council.
The hard lesson of the significance of conflict prevention, the Berlin Protocol, ... rational arguments were discounted when the national ministers defended the agreements of Berlin selectively and undoubtedly worked out in the mean time how much unused funding from the margins they would recover at the end of the year.
<P>
Surrealism reached yet another level when negotiations were held regarding this couple of hundred million when Commission President Prodi committed the European Union to the tune of EUR 5.5 billion in political terms for the reconstruction of the entire Balkans.
It is to the credit of the rapporteur that these statements did not remain airy fairy but were given substance in a declaration.
I would explicitly like to extend a warm thanks to Mr Bourlanges for this.
<P>
This declaration has in the past couple of weeks been much deliberated and has even today created a lot of dust.
I believe that this will be topic of conversation tomorrow and the day after that.
It is a rather awkward situation.
It is not exactly a model of a rational decision but rather a case of panic stations.
I personally, for example, support Ajax but they manage to marry beauty, speed and tactics rather well.
<P>
Since it is as yet unclear what exactly we will be voting on on Thursday, I will indicate which issues meet with agreement within my group.
Firstly, until such time as figures are available regarding the needs in Kosovo, I will keep referring to the World Bank' s report and the EUR 500 million which have been pledged.
I am prepared provisionally to discuss a maximum amount which is under this amount, but I would like to receive confirmation that the multiannual programme which is to be drafted in April, is to apply to the entire Balkan region, including Kosovo, and will run from 2000 to 2006, inclusively.
If necessary, Kosovo should receive the whole share, even as early as the year 2000.
<P>
The second point is that the timeframe for allocating funds to Kosovo should also make it possible for the entire share to be spent wisely.
To me, this means that April seems to be the ultimate date for reaching a decision.
The timeframe, together with the possibilities of adapting the present budget, should this appear necessary in April, are therefore crucial to the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wurtz">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner. Like Mrs Buitenweg, I too am new to the budgetary procedure but, like everyone else, I know that any budget is, by definition, the expression of political will.
Having seen the final propositions notified to us at the end of weeks of laborious negotiations between Parliament and the Council, I greatly fear that our political will appears, to say the least, blurred and wavering, especially as far as external action is concerned, which is the main bone of contention.
<P>
There is a marked gap between the Union' s loud proclamations of its ambition to play a more active role in the settlement of major international problems and the haggling which we are forced to engage in with government representatives when it comes to finding money to fund the new priorities.
<P>
My group voted at first reading against any reduction in the appropriations allocated to old but still equally important priorities, especially appropriations allocated to cooperation with and the development of southern countries, in order to fund new expenditure. Robbing Peter to pay Paul has never been an indication of great political imagination.
<P>
We therefore voted in favour of a reasonable review of the financial perspectives over several years and the proposal made by our general rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges, went in the right direction, calling for a reasonable review of heading 4.
My group therefore supported his strategy to make the Council face up to its responsibilities: either we were to obtain the funding which would allow us to honour our political commitments or we would have recourse to Article 272 of the Treaty, which authorises us to determine non-compulsory expenditure ourselves, albeit within strict limits.
<P>
Having made one concession after another, we are now back at square one and, in the name of the cast iron logic of the budgetary stability pact, we now have the following situation: firstly, estimates and financial requirements for the reconstruction of Kosovo which have mysteriously dropped from EUR 500 million - the figure put forward by the Commission, the World Bank, the Member States and the media - to 420 and then to some 300 million; secondly, a reduction in the appropriations which we voted for East Timor and for the victims of the earthquakes in Turkey; thirdly, cuts in appropriations for cooperation, food aid and aid to Palestine and the countries of the southern Mediterranean, the TACIS programme for eastern Europe and support for human rights and, lastly, cuts totalling some EUR 2 billion in payment appropriations.
<P>
The result is, without doubt, an improvement on the Council' s initial position but, even so, what would our responsibility be if we were to accept such a compromise?
Let me quote just one example: tomorrow we are going to honour Mr Gusmão the head of the resistance of the people of East Timor.
Shall we, at the same time, tell him that we agree to reduce reconstruction aid for his country by one third?
That is why, Mr President, my group feels that this compromise is unacceptable and we are unable to back it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Turchi">
Mr President, first of all, I would like to say how much I appreciate the report by Mr Bourlanges, who has done a commendable job throughout this period, regarding the budget but also, in my opinion, regarding two of the main issues we are faced with.
<P>
The first concerns Kosovo.
Kosovo has become, objectively, an important political message for the Commission - and quite rightly so - with the aim of relaunching the political proposal put forward by Europe on the international stage, in order to show that there is in fact a serious intervention by Europe, a Europe that is not just about the economy.
We have all approved this political message, but right now, we are discovering that the funds, for their part, do not exist.
My disapproval is aimed precisely at this type of behaviour, because the responsibility cannot be off-loaded onto the House for expenditure which should have been budgeted for.
We do not agree, either myself personally or my delegation.
I would like to emphasise this, so that we will not be given this responsibility in the future, a political responsibility that should not be seen merely in economic terms.
<P>
Secondly, I would like to emphasise the promise we were made not too long ago, at the start of the presentation of the budget, on administrative reform of the so-called TAOs.
In my opinion, we might manage to find funds to allocate in the future for the various budget lines if we manage to carry out a fair reform meant to support the various departments which provide praiseworthy support, both on a personal level and for research.
The reform must be carried out straight away, immediately following the adoption of this budget, in order to allow us to proceed to fair planning.
If this is what happens, we will have the chance to intervene, to influence our economies and reach one of our objectives as MEPs: relaunching and developing our countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell' Alba">
Mr President, I should like first to send a message of appreciation to our rapporteur, a message of support and friendship for the work which he has managed to carry out up to this very afternoon.
<P>
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, you should know that this Parliament, which was prepared to say that the intergovernmental conference should be revised and make a multitude of demands, will tomorrow probably welcome the fact that you decided at Helsinki to allow us two observers, rather than two representatives, and that you wish to confine yourselves to matters which Parliament considered were absolutely out of the question.
<P>
It will be the same with the budget, Madam President-in-Office.
Our rapporteur had the vision and the courage to bring us to the point where, for the first time, we were going to have an in-depth discussion of what we would consider fair.
If you want to fund Kosovo, if you want to honour the somewhat hasty commitments which the President of the Commission entered into vis-à-vis this region, then give us the budget resources so that we can be responsible and consistent and give us the chance to revise the financial perspectives.
<P>
What you are in fact doing is giving us a little and throwing some ballast overboard.
You agree to give us a few minor flexibility instruments and, needless to say, this Parliament will be prepared tomorrow morning to discredit itself, to abandon the route which it had mapped out and which was the right one, in order to engage in confrontation with the Council on matters of principle.
You stand to gain on this ground too.
It is sad for our institution because once again it has shown that it does not have the other "b" word, it does not have the bravery to make this gesture and stand by it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Saint-Josse">
Mr President, the budget for the financial year 2000 will inevitably take the form of an increase, and this increase will be higher than the increase in national budgets.
How is it that the Union budget is exempt from the discipline which Europe imposes on its Member States?
I am happy to talk about the unusual nature of the European structure, but we must avoid having one sauce for the goose and another for the gander.
<P>
Have we forgotten that the same citizens finance both the national and the Community budgets?
As always, the demand for efficiency has again been put to bad use in order to justify action by the European Union. I shall not refer to the political choices which have been made or the haggling which has formed the basis of the budgetary discussion between the Council and Parliament.
We denounced them at the first reading of this budget.
<P>
I make this point because we feel that this is a constant factor in Community policy.
Agriculture is a perfect example.
Agriculture was a hallowed common policy; it was the cement which held the European edifice together and today it is the main loser in the budgetary debate.
We cannot accept that.
This is the price which Europe is paying, once again, for its lack of consistency.
The race towards world prices and increased yields have jeopardised what was most precious to us: the quality of our food and the survival of rural employment.
Our quality of life is being sold off and this too will have to be paid for tomorrow.
<P>
These are priorities which we think should be financed, rather than increasing programmes which some of us at least find obscure.
The President of the Court of Auditors yesterday drew the attention of this House to the, I quote, "persistence of the 'spending culture' within the Community, more concerned with the volume of expenditure than with its quality" .
<P>
In fact, by wanting to do too much, Europe does nothing properly, which is why the French members of the EDD Group will be voting against this budget, which does not meet the expectations of the citizens of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Garriga Polledo">
Mr President, the budgetary discussion this year has been so strange that, even during the time which has passed between the speech by the general rapporteur, at the beginning of the debate, and my own intervention, the following have taken place, in chronological order: an informal meeting of the Committee on Budgets, a meeting of the budgetary Council and a meeting of the political groups.
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This is happening because the interinstitutional negotiation has been very bad.
We have debated the ancillary clauses while the Council was delaying the basic decisions.
And now, when there is hardly any time left, we are negotiating with the clock stopped.
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In May, this Parliament experienced a serious confrontation between those of us who wanted Agenda 2000 and the Berlin financial perspectives, and those who, for budgetary reasons and for reasons of domestic politics, did not want the agreement.
In the end we approved it by a simple majority.
But there was still Kosovo and a Council statement which contained a commitment to review the financial perspectives in category 4 for extraordinary reasons.
A war in Europe is always an extraordinary reason, the most extraordinary of all reasons to justify a partial review of the financial perspectives.
In this discussion Parliament has been more up to the job than the Council.
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I am sure that the recourse to Article 272 was excessive, and would even have been counter-productive if it had been brought into effect.
But it is also true that it is the extraordinary rigidity of the Council in negotiation which has led us to take this action.
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Finally, and simply, under the pressure of having to confront a high level of payments, the Council has performed a U-turn and now accepts what the Parliament requested in the first reading.
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Would it not have been simpler to accept these requests by Parliament beforehand and to have prevented all this last-minute panic, which does absolutely nothing for the serious and efficient image which the European institutions are supposed to have?
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I welcome this agreement and this commitment.
Parliament is going to finance all its political priorities, including the fisheries agreement with Morocco, which is of prime economic interest to my country, Spain.
But make no mistake: the commitment which we have all made is very serious and a disagreement on the part of the Council would have disastrous consequences not only for interinstitutional confidence but also for the 2001 budgetary procedure.
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It is up to you, Council, to see to it that this does not happen, and remember that not even those of us who defended, defend and will defend the Berlin financial perspectives, could accept the ceiling on external actions not being raised, if the figures require it, in April of next year.
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<SPEAKER ID=193 NAME="Wynn">
chairman of the Committee on Budgets. Mr President, let me get the customary thanks to the rapporteurs out of the way first in case I run out of time at the end.
It is always the right thing to do but on this occasion it is genuine thanks to Mr Bourlanges, to Mr Virrankoski and an additional one on this occasion to Mr Colom for the work they have done in a very difficult procedure.
I would also like to thank those people within Parliament who helped make this budget a success.
Mr Bourlanges mentioned at our first reading the staff of the Committee on Budgets, the long hours they work, not only at nights but at weekends also, to make sure that we can function.
Also thanks to all the political group staff. That includes Mr Westenbroek who sometimes gets right on my nerves but thank you to all those who have helped us get this far.
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Let us not lose sight of what is in this budget.
We are talking about one issue which is how to fund Kosovo but there is a lot in this budget that we should be proud of, as Mr Walter and others have already reminded us.
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The last time we were in a budget debate, I think, I saw the Council benches absolutely empty.
This must be a very serious debate when I see the number of people who are here from the Council.
If we put their numbers together, and the Commission numbers together, they probably outnumber the Members in this Chamber, which signifies that they are looking forward to something being said.
Whether that be from our side or from your side, Madam President-in-Office, I am not too sure, but they are here to keep their eye on somebody.
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I intend to ask questions, Mr President, and I hope we can find a solution to them tomorrow.
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Yesterday when we voted in our committee we took a position which I, and I think the vast majority of our committee, are quite happy with.
Let me say this: we have no problem.
You do.
And now you are looking to us to get you out of a problem.
I do not blame the Finnish President at all. You have been quite honourable in your dealings with us.
It is the ones behind you who have been giving you a lot of problems.
We know that.
Quite frankly, we have got into this mess and now we are being asked to bail you out.
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Let me try and get some clarification on what you said in your speech, Madam President-in-Office.
I have called a special Budgets Committee meeting for tomorrow at 9.15 a.m. or thereabouts when the votes are finished and we will vote on the Colom report and we will vote, if need be, on changes to Mr Bourlanges' report.
But we need some clarification on some issues.
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I turn to the Commission because within the text there are three declarations and the first is a declaration from the Commission.
The original text had the figure EUR 5.5 billion which has been mentioned by Mrs Buitenweg.
The Council has actually taken that figure out.
I am asking the Commission to clarify that it is a figure of about EUR 5.5 billion we are talking about when we talk about the aid that is needed for Kosovo and the Balkans in the light of what President Prodi and Commissioner Patten said.
So, some clarification is needed from the Commission.
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In category four, and before I request clarification there, when the President-in-Office mentioned help for places like Kosovo and East Timor, let me remind the Council that it did not put any money on the line for East Timor - we did.
Even at the second reading it did not put money on the line - we did.
If you had not agreed the EUR 125 million for Morocco - even before we had an agreement - we probably would not be in the position we are in now.
But that is another matter.
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I need clarification on three things for our committee meeting tomorrow.
We have had a chat about this, but I want to hear you say it here tonight.
When I was noting down what you were saying, in English you said that the ceiling for heading 4 should not be amended permanently.
You clarified that by saying: the words 'at this moment' should also be added.
Let me try and simplify it.
Can you confirm that in that phrase you are talking only about the year 2000?
When you talk of no revision for category 4 being necessary are you talking only about the year 2000?
That is the first thing we need to have clarified.
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The second thing we need clarified is this: on the EUR 2 billion in payments of compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure, can you confirm that this is the position of the Council - meaning the Member States and not just you?
Can we assume that will not be challenged before we take our vote tomorrow morning?
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Thirdly, can you produce in writing your position for our meeting tomorrow so that Mr Colom i Naval can make proposals?
If we get those things clarified I think we can get the solution the Council is looking for.
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Let me say one last thing.
We all have to learn lessons from this and the one that the Council must learn more than anything else is, not to take Parliament for granted.
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<SPEAKER ID=194 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rühle">
I too should like to start with a thank you to my colleagues in the Committee on Budgets.
As Greens, Mrs Buitenweg and I are both new to the Committee on Budgets and we had some difficulty settling in.
But I must say that, in contrast to national politics, what is striking in Europe is that practical politics are not party political and the European Parliament is aware of its responsibility on material matters, a responsibility which was, of course, heightened or highlighted by the poor turnout at the European elections.
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We all know that we must present the citizens of Europe with a solid policy on the budget and on budgetary control and that we must ensure that both are efficient and transparent.
I consider that the European Parliament has been successful on this point in these budgetary negotiations.
I think that we leave these budgetary negotiations a stronger Parliament, in my view a very important point.
The Council must finally get it into its head that there is one thing you cannot do and that is to take on more and more at European level without entering into serious negotiations with Parliament as to how these additional commitments are to be financed.
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The matters at issue this year were not only Kosovo, East Timor and the earthquakes in Turkey.
We all know that enlargement to the east was also an issue.
We all know that the conclusions of Helsinki in relation to Turkey, and in relation to enlargement to the east in general, mean that we will be taking on even more sooner or later.
That is why we need to fall back on serious negotiation as far as the budget is concerned and the Council can rejoice in the fact that this European Parliament has grown in stature and political awareness with its responsibility on budgetary matters.
We shall ensure much more emphatically in the future that there is proper implementation of the budget at European level.
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<SPEAKER ID=195 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Markov">
Mr President, the European Parliament came out clearly in favour of a review of the interinstitutional agreement at first reading of the budget in order to be able to honour the commitments in connection with the fisheries agreement, aid to Kosovo, aid to East Timor and support for the victims of the earthquakes.
We made it clear by a large majority that new political priorities must not be financed at the cost of other, unfinished tasks.
The compromise negotiated between the Council and Parliament which lies before us today takes no account whatsoever of this basic position of Parliament.
I seriously wonder where exactly the compromise lies, what justification we have for using this term.
We are struggling for social justice in the world. That does not mean taking appropriations from the poor in one part of the world and giving them to the poor in another part of the world.
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Reducing appropriations for social tasks in order to fund foreign policy challenges is not a solution.
A budget which is designed on such lines and which, moreover, does not even provide sufficient appropriations for the so-called new priorities, takes all our political declarations and resolutions to the point of absurdity.
Parliament must therefore say no to this pseudo compromise.
What is needed is the courage to draw the obvious conclusions from the development of European integration and to provide the EU with sufficient funds to carry out its tasks.
It is high time that we really started thinking and acting as Europeans and establishing fully justified individual interests in this context.
It is unacceptable to continue acting in this upside-down way in budgetary and fiscal matters.
Parliament should stand firm on its demand for a review of the financial perspective.
The financial room for manoeuvre needed to do so can be created within the framework of European Union decisions, namely by setting the use of own resources from gross domestic product at a higher level.
If we want to stop patching things up every year, then we must turn our serious attention to the question of the reform of European own resources.
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<SPEAKER ID=196 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, between the first and second readings of the draft budget for the year 2000 we have added EUR 3.5 billion, in other words another three and a half billion in taxes.
This would not be much if the money were not squandered in and, above all, outside Europe.
In Europe, appropriations for the reconstruction of Kosovo would have been saved had we not destroyed Kosovo on the basis of alleged massacres ascribed to the Serbs as the OSCE has now admitted.
Especially as we are redirecting EUR 110 billion allocated to rural development in order to finance Kosovo. In other words, we are robbing our own farmers in order to pay the Albanians in the name of the principle of "you first" .
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It is as unhealthy as the fact that half our debates here this afternoon have been devoted to a province of the Serbian State which is not even a member of the European Union.
It is true that, as far as the European budget is concerned, the worst offences are committed when we pour money outside the continent of Europe: EUR 10 million for Central Asia, EUR 14.5 million for the displaced people of Latin America, EUR 4 million for human rights in South Africa and Timor etc., etc.
That would be all well and good if, at the same time, we were not planning to cut EUR 5 million from appropriations for our beekeepers who face competition from adulterated honey from abroad.
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While we are spending money here, social austerity is being imposed in our 15 countries.
Doctors and nurses in French hospitals, who are among the most qualified in the world, are today on strike because budgetary austerity has just cut back hospital expenditure and health expenditure.
This situation is all the more disgusting in that, at the same time, we are paying EUR 45 million to ACP banana producers, some of which are American multinationals established in Cameroon and the Ivory Coast and which are being paid EUR 45 million under this European budget.
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This, then, is stupid spending on top of customer spending on top of ideological spending. It all adds up to a lot, it adds up to much too much and that is reason enough to vote against it.
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<SPEAKER ID=197 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Dam">
Mr President, if there is one issue on which the Council and Parliament should follow the same line of action, then surely it is the reconstruction of Kosovo.
But this is not in the offing as yet.
Parliament and the Council have turned Kosovo into an affair of honour over the financial ceiling of category 4.
This is taken to such an extreme that the rapporteur even threatened to include only EUR 115 million into the budget instead of the EUR 500 million which is required.
If this were to happen, then the Kosovars would be the big losers.
The only lifeline which then remains is a supplementary and amending budget later on in the year.
But the negotiations for this budget will also be extremely difficult, especially if they are linked to a debate regarding a multiannual programme for the entire Balkans.
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It is therefore of key importance that a compromise is reached between the Council and Parliament regarding Kosovo before next Thursday.
An agreement is within reach, especially now the Council seems to agree to a smaller reduction in the payments for the structural funds.
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Alongside an agreement on Kosovo, the Council and Parliament will also need to agree, in time, on an aid programme for the entire Balkans.
How can this be financed?
The extent of the financial package for the external policy, as laid down in Agenda 2000, seems to suggest that the European Union, in this respect, only has a subordinate task.
This is also true of the Balkans.
Consequently, the Council' s attitude is one of ambivalence.
On the one hand, it refuses to raise the financial ceiling for category 4 and this is only right.
But on the other hand, the willingness of the Member States to contribute to financing the Balkans falls far below the mark.
As a result, the European Union budget is stretched, which will have a detrimental effect on the developing countries.
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<SPEAKER ID=198 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferber">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, one may well say, a good thing is worth waiting for, but we have waited almost too long for this still to be good.
I only have to think back to this afternoon and I must say in no uncertain terms that the situation is highly unsatisfactory and that we, the European Parliament, are now being more or less forced to circumvent our own Rules of Procedure in order to rescue and salvage what can be salvaged.
I should like to repeat once again that the situation as a whole is highly unsatisfactory.
It is unsatisfactory because - and this was also apparent at the Summit in Helsinki - we have a Council which blithely makes promises and then the budgetary authority, to which the Council also belongs, after all, then has to consider how everything can again be brought under control.
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In addition, it is the first budget which we are required to implement in accordance with the decisions taken in Berlin on Agenda 2000 and we are already in a situation in which these decisions, yet again, cannot translate the Council' s wishes in financial terms.
More and more problems will arise in the coming years when everything decided in Helsinki - and I am thinking in particular of enlargement - finally impacts on the budget.
So what I expect, and this has been addressed by previous speakers here this evening, is a bit more consistency between what the Foreign Secretaries decide and what the Finance Ministers decide.
I think this can be established by each government in its own Member State, and that we can then find a joint solution to the problems.
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The second matter which I would like to address is that of the Technical Assistance Offices, which have also played a special role in the past.
We here in Parliament have already clearly shown where the responsibility lies and have proposed clear solutions.
I should like to extend my particular thanks on this matter to the rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges, who has been firm in making clear proposals with the support of this House.
If anyone has done justice to their responsibility in the procedure for Budget 2000, then it was the European Parliament.
I should like to stress once again at this point: we cannot keep on moving hand over hand, as it were, from one budget to the next and from one crisis to the next; on the contrary, the Council must pave the way so that we can put an end to such problems once and for all!
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As far as the small budgets are concerned, and here thanks go to Mr Virrankoski, we are on the safe side and everything is under control.
I think that Parliament too, with its own budget, must do as it would be done by.
That too is a very important point.
I refer in particular to travel costs for officials on active service, another problem which requires an urgent solution, and all the other points which, in my view, we solved at first reading and which we can now clear up once and for all.
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<SPEAKER ID=199 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Colom i Naval">
Mr President, to be a rapporteur or not to be rapporteur?
That is the question, if you will allow my immodesty.
Rarely have there been so many supporters of a Colom report in the Council.
I wonder where I am going wrong.
The Berlin European Council was obsessed with budgetary cuts, and not only gave rise to a reduction in the funds for structural policies compared to levels reached in 1999, but also forgot that there were other Community policies.
It appears that the Council deliberately daydreams about a European Union which will cost them nothing.
After a struggle, in six weeks of Council-Parliament negotiations, we tidied up headings 3 and 5.
But although we were negotiating while Kosovo was being bombed, the Council refused to adapt category 4 to something so obvious as the fact that, within a few months, the Union would be involved in its reconstruction, would have to provide humanitarian aid and would certainly have to compensate Romania and other countries, as well, for the losses suffered in trade on the Danube.
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I believe that this a problem of short-sightedness.
Apparently, the Council cannot tell the difference between the financial perspectives, the multiannual framework for the budget and the budget itself.
To my mind, the Council is like one of those people whom you cannot ask to post a letter, because they cannot tell the difference between a letterbox and a drain-hole.
Exact figures are requested for something that can only be estimated approximately.
I took part in the negotiations and the Council' s only coherent argument is that we should not prejudice the Union' s negotiating position in the Conference of Donors.
For this there was a proposal and it seems that we have adopted it and this is the solid position we have taken.
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The figures are confused.
The Commissioner spoke of EUR 500 million for 2000, on the same day that the President-in-Office of the Council spoke of EUR 12 billion for a period of seven years.
This clearly has to be resolved.
But we can wait, if necessary, for better figures, although we could make perfect use of the budgetary framework.
I believe that there is a time for everything, but we could deal with this problem perfectly - and much better - by means of an amending budget I/2000.
In that way we would also fulfil the wishes of the Council which aims for permanent budgeting.
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<SPEAKER ID=200 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Miranda">
Mr President, we endorsed the European Parliament' s strategy at first reading of the budget for 2000 and we now believe that the European Parliament cannot and must not lose face, because that would risk it losing credibility as well.
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I say this in the context of the perspectives that are being presented to us in the current phase of the process.
I have no doubt that the latest proposal for a solution adopted by the board of the Committee on Budgets does not carry the negative burden from which the Council' s proposal suffers.
Even so, it does not provide any grounds for enthusiasm and all the indications are that it might even be made worse by new, unacceptable commitments.
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In fact, and in the way this proposal for a solution was adopted, it can already be deduced from it that it is dropping the idea of a revision of the financial perspectives relating to heading 4 as well as the principle of new objectives being matched with new means.
It is therefore and inevitably resulting in an extremely arbitrary cut under the same budgetary heading of a sum of EUR 150 million, which particularly affects food aid, cooperation, the Mediterranean and the TACIS programme.
Apart from this, the ECO programme itself will also lose EUR 35 million in comparison to the first reading.
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It is obvious that we cannot be satisfied with this kind of solution and our vote will certainly reflect this.
This is not a retreat by the European Parliament, but it will result in some priorities for the present financial year continuing to be paid for at the expense of previous objectives.
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I shall also add that this kind of solution will also reduce sums destined for some priorities that have already been stated, specifically for Timor, which has gone from EUR 30 million to EUR 20 million.
We are obviously delighted that the heading that we proposed for Timor has been adopted and provided with appropriations, but as we stated at first reading, and now for even more reasons, we think that the appropriations earmarked for it are clearly insufficient.
These are the reasons that cause us to see the present budgetary process as clearly unsatisfactory.
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<SPEAKER ID=201 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Pronk">
<SPEAKER ID=202 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Färm">
Mr President, the EU' s Budget for the year 2000 is a genuine step in the right direction.
Let us not forget that the priorities we are setting relate to important matters.
We are investing in environmentally friendly agriculture, in the protection of animals and plants and in safe food.
We are increasing our efforts in support of vulnerable groups and in the fight against poverty in Europe.
We are investing in the fight against unemployment and, especially, in local employment initiatives.
We are preparing for the enlargement of the European Union to include new Member States and we emphasise that this process must be given a broadly citizen-oriented dimension.
The dialogue between the two sides of industry in the labour market must be extended to include the applicant States, and we want the Committee of the Regions to have the chance to develop a dialogue at local and regional level.
I myself have tabled a proposal concerning a means of achieving decentralised cooperation around the Baltic.
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In spite of setting these priorities, we have nonetheless succeeded in reducing our budget commitments.
It was therefore naturally depressing that, as late as yesterday, we had not reached a final conclusion, despite the significant degree of essential unity.
I personally have been hoping for a compromise all this time.
We ought of course to be able to reach a compromise because, in my view, Parliament has already moved a long way in order to achieve this.
We have set aside the position we had adopted on principle to the effect that we ought now, before the year 2000, to revise the budget ceilings. This is because the Council wants to add major new items of expenditure in connection with Kosovo, East Timor and Turkey, among other issues.
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We have accepted large reductions in payments in spite of the fact that we already have a mountain of payments before us.
It is not possible to decide upon major commitments year after year and then not, in fact, to pay out.
In spite of our opposition to linear cutbacks in aid, we have agreed to make substantial reductions, but of a more targeted nature.
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It is important to note here that there is not in fact any prevailing disunity on the subject of Kosovo. I am therefore pleased that the Council now seems to be coming back to Parliament and approving our proposals.
The people of Kosovo ought not to continue to suffer because we cannot agree about the Budget.
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Now, there is one more thing that is important. If we are going to cope successfully with the future, with the enlargement of the European Union and with developments in the Balkans over the next few years, then we must find a better way of cooperating.
Let us learn from the debate we have now had.
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<SPEAKER ID=203 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cauquil">
Mr President, whatever the budgetary sleights of hand to finance aid for the reconstruction of Kosovo, the Council, like Parliament, is refusing to address the real issue, which is that the reconstruction of Kosovo, like Serbia, which is in equal need of reconstruction, should be financed from the military budgets of the countries responsible for the bombing.
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The military budgets should likewise pay the sums needed to compensate the neighbouring countries of Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, which all suffered from the war waged in the region by the West.
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Even though there is no excuse for Milosevic' s past and present policy with regard to the Albanians of Kosovo or with regard to his own people, the few crumbs which have been thrown to reconstruct Kosovo alone, crumbs which bear no relation to the money spent during the actual war, cannot hide the fact that, once again, western intervention in the Balkans has not only failed to solve the problems in this part of the world, but has made them worse.
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The countries in the region which were already poor are now poorer still, the living conditions of their people have deteriorated and the bombs certainly did not put an end to the chauvinism at which they were targeted.
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The purpose of our refusal to vote in favour of the Bourlanges report is both to denounce the limited and derisory aid envisaged and, above all, to denounce the policy of the western powers in the Balkans.
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<SPEAKER ID=204 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Costa Neves">
Mr President, as European construction evolves, it is only natural that the mechanisms of democratic control should be strengthened.
Some of this responsibility falls to the European Parliament, specifically through the assessment that precedes the approval of the budget.
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It is important that we do not limit ourselves to carrying out a series of formalities, without content or consequence, because that would entail the risk of reducing ourselves to a type of democratic alibi.
This would be a betrayal of the citizens we represent.
The message given at the discussion phase for the 2000 budget must then be taken seriously.
The European Parliament wants the assumption of new responsibilities by the European Union to be matched by new financial resources.
This applies to Kosovo, to the Balkans and to any budget heading.
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It makes no sense to maintain recourse to initiatives completely lacking in transparency, such as the under-budgeting of new commitments or of payments for them, or both, linked to linear cuts in old commitments or payments, the inevitable consequence of which is delays in both as well as dozens of transfers throughout the year.
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If the problem is a result of the European Union system of revenues it appears that the solution must be to change the system of financing the European Union.
I shall finish by referring to three situations which I shall continue to highlight: firstly, the intolerable delays in the fulfilling of payments relating to the implementation of the policy of cohesion.
Some delays I am aware of result in the negation of the principle of economic and social cohesion.
Secondly, there is also the support for the reconstruction of East Timor, because we have to adopt resolutions which draw attention to the situation there.
Finally, we are right to award Xanana Gusmão with the Sakharov Prize, but at the same time, let us be aware that the EUR 20 million that the 2000 Budget has earmarked for East Timor merely represent the starting point.
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Finally, I hope to see the commitments given to the outermost regions, identified at Amsterdam by Article 299(2) of the Treaty on European Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=205 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Souladakis">
Mr President, we are the only true political think-tank in the European Union and so we ought to safeguard the priorities set out in Agenda 2000 which the first budget endeavoured to override.
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It was wrong to introduce cuts in agricultural and social expenditure and in external actions concerning third countries.
New policies need new resources.
A total reform of the financial perspectives is essential.
Sadly, we failed to include appropriations for natural disasters in the budget just as we failed to allocate appropriations for the accession procedures of Malta and Cyprus.
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I am not an economist, I am a politician; however, I would just like to make mention of the exceptional work of Mr Bourlanges and the other corapporteurs which I hope will help in reviewing certain issues so that we can assess the extent to which the Commission implements those political decisions in the budget and whether their implementation does in fact achieve the desired results.
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<SPEAKER ID=206 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, a happy circumstance: two ladies at the head of two institutions deciding a matter of the utmost importance. For the first time, women are in the majority at European level.
My congratulations!
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They say that new brooms sweep clean.
We are facing a major problem. The Commission discussed and decided its employment policy 2000 today.
The question which must be asked time and time again in connection with the budget is: how can we ensure that the employment situation in Europe improves?
I think there is an urgent need to consider which budget lines can be used to create employment in Europe, which budget lines can be used to secure jobs and which budget lines destroy jobs.
I think these considerations need to be analysed more seriously in research programmes and the necessary conclusions drawn from them.
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A second important confirmation is the confirmation of the posts for OLAF.
The fight against fraud must be a priority for us.
We have noted that our budget is in fact about the same size as the fraud perpetrated in numerous cases.
We are talking here, perhaps in inverted commas, about a few million, while several billions are being lost through fraud, which is why I see the creation of OLAF as being of prime importance.
I hope that, with OLAF, we can manage to ensure that honest and decent people on the market will again be given a better chance, as will those who dutifully pay their taxes and help to ensure that our social system functions properly.
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I too should therefore like to thank the members in particular for increasing the budget line for the promotion of small and medium-sized enterprises by 15 million euros.
I think it is the right way forward, because this sector creates new jobs, presents the greatest growth and pays the most taxes.
When we talk of giving, we should also think about what we will be taking.
Small enterprises make a very special contribution here, which is why the START programmes and support programmes are particularly important, because they show that we sympathise with small enterprises.
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We have also set aside 10 million for digital applications.
This is the sector which will have the highest employment in the future.
Commissioner Liikanen has told us that, up to the year 2002, some 1.2 million jobs will probably remain vacant in the multimedia sector due to a lack of training.
That should give us food for thought.
We should focus on the sectors in which we can earn money, the sectors which guarantee that the European Union too will have enough money in the future to be able to tackle the problems of this planet.
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<SPEAKER ID=207 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, Mr Wynn asked me three questions, which I briefly answered.
Firstly, he asked what I meant in my speech today when I referred to the category 4 financial framework.
My almost exact words were that it was the opinion of the Council that the financial framework for category 4 should not be amended permanently at the moment.
I was obviously speaking about the budget for 2000, in which the Council' s proposal for compromise involves the use of the flexibility instrument with regard to category 4.
In the future, obviously, the Council will investigate all the proposals the Commission will make.
Mr Wynn' s second question concerned the two billion cut in compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure.
The basic principle here is that the rules of the Council lay down that the President-in-Office represents the position of the Council and that, as the person to hold that position, I am therefore presenting the position of the Council and replying on its behalf.
Thirdly, the document based on the compromise has now been sent to Parliament' s Secretariat.
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<SPEAKER ID=208 NAME="President">
Does that answer your question Mr Wynn?
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<SPEAKER ID=209 NAME="Wynn">
Mr President, it clarifies points 1 and 3 but I am not sure about point 2.
I will settle for clarification on point 2 at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning if that is necessary, but I was not sure exactly what you said on the second point.
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<SPEAKER ID=210 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Mr President, I did not understand a thing; I especially did not understand about point 1.
Mr Wynn asked a specific question.
You were asked to clarify your solemn declaration at the end of this afternoon' s debate when you said, if I correctly understood the translation which I heard, that the Council opposed a permanent review. (I am not about to say what a permanent review is but as you were the one who said it, you should know what it means.)
You said that the Council opposed a permanent review "at this moment" . "At this moment" does not mean a thing.
<P>
Mr Wynn asked you, Madam President-in-Office, if "at this moment" meant that the Council was opposed to a review of the financial perspectives for the year 2000, which would appear to us to be perfectly in keeping with the compromise which is being forged, or if "at this moment" meant something even vaguer?
You were asked to reply, and you said that you would reply but your reply was incomprehensible.
<P>
So please clarify, enlighten those of us who are not clever enough to understand when others speak in tongues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 NAME="President">
In order to clear up this point, I shall call upon you once more, Madam Minister, and then the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, with regard to the declarations which have been spoken of, they have been adopted in just the form that Parliament proposed them.
I do not see anything vague here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schreyer">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, once again, to clarify the point, the text is ready.
To answer the question, it is the text which was negotiated and which you had before you at the last sitting on Monday.
<P>
Mr Wynn asked me a question about the figure of EUR 5.5 billion.
At the OSCE Summit in Istanbul, the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, addressed the political task in the entire region of the western Balkans for the period from 2000 to 2006, announcing that the Commission was considering a sum in the order of EUR 5.5 billion as the support needed.
You, the Parliament, have now called on the Commission to submit specific estimates for this region and this period in the form of a multiannual plan.
We are working on this.
I would ask you not to make any preliminary commitments but to bear in mind that the Commission must submit a precise and specific estimate for this period and this region which can and, of course, will then be checked by the Committee on Budgets or rather the budgetary authority and Parliament.
<P>
Allow me to finish by saying that the debate this evening has illustrated once again that the negotiations were difficult.
The Commission appreciates the efforts made by Parliament, and the rapporteur and the Committee on Budgets in particular, and the efforts made by the Finnish Presidency of the Council.
But I think that, if the result is a good one, then the effort will have been worth it and I hope that a good last-minute solution really can be found tomorrow morning.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 NAME="President">
Thank you, Madam Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Thursday at 10 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Appointment of 8 members of the Court of Auditors
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A5-0090/1999) by Mrs Theato on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control on the appointment of eight members of the Court of Auditors [C5-0231/1999, C5-0232/1999, C5-0233/1999, C5-0234/1999, C5-0235/1999, C5-0236/1999, C5-0237/1999, C5-0238/1999 - 1999/0820(CNS)].
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Theato">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the term of office of eight members of the European Court of Auditors will expire at the beginning of next year.
I am sorry that the Finnish Presidency of the Council is now leaving us because the Finns also wish to reappoint their present member of the Court of Auditors.
<P>
Under Article 247 paragraph 3 of the Treaty founding the European Community and other similar provisions in the ECSC and EURATOM treaties, Parliament must give its opinion on the candidates before the Council unanimously appoints or reappoints the members of the Court of Auditors for a period of six years.
The Council asked Parliament to give its opinion in a letter dated 3 November 1999, which also contained the names and curricula vitae of the candidates.
The candidates for new appointments were Mr Reynders from Belgium, Mrs Geoghegan-Quinn from Ireland, Mr Caldeira from Portugal and Mr Fabra Vallés from Spain and the candidates for reappointment were Mr Mohr from Denmark, Mr Salmi from Finland, Mr Clemente from Italy and Mr Karlsson from Sweden, in alphabetical order of the proposing countries.
<P>
As required under Article 35 of our Rules of Procedure, the Committee on Budgetary Control interviewed and questioned the proposed candidates individually on 22 and 23 November 1999 on the basis of the provisions of the Treaty which require that candidates must hold or have held or be particularly suitable for an auditing office.
Impartiality is the most important requirement.
We also based our deliberations and appraisals on the guidelines in the 1992 and 1995 parliamentary resolutions by Mr Lamassoure and Mr Bourlanges.
<P>
As a result, I am in a position to inform you that, having conducted a detailed examination, the Committee on Budgetary Control has come to the conclusion that the candidates meet the criteria for high office at the Court of Auditors and has returned a positive opinion on all eight candidates.
We particularly welcome the fact that, if Parliament gives its assent, the 15 members of the Court of Auditors will include two women.
I recall that our condition at the last appointment was that at least one of the candidates for appointment should be a woman and that Parliament would not otherwise give its assent to the appointments.
We had one woman then, and another has now joined her.
I think we are making good progress.
<P>
If plenary votes as scheduled, i.e. on Thursday, we in Parliament will have fulfilled our duty to state our opinion on time, thereby allowing a smooth changeover in the composition of the Court and ensuring that the necessary collaboration with it continues.
These are the conditions which govern the procedure.
But, looking to the future, there is more to it than that for Parliament.
On Monday we discussed the Court of Auditors' report for 1998.
It highlighted a number of very important tasks which we must now tackle.
<P>
I refer mainly to the fact that the Court states quite clearly in its report, and I can only emphasise this, that we must change the spending culture.
The Court of Auditors gave some very important indicators here.
Having discussed the Budget 2000 in great detail in Parliament and paved the way so that in crisis areas, such as the Balkans, there is multiannual planning of funding, we must now gear ourselves to that perspective, instead of frittering money away on small, individual programmes and projects, which are not conducive to efficient control and where more is spent on staffing than on the objectives to be achieved.
What we want is to work in a target-orientated and not an expenditure-orientated manner.
I therefore readily agree with the Court of Auditors: we need better financial management.
Some of the Commission' s proposals as to how this should be done have now been tabled and Parliament must also give a detailed opinion on them.
We can no longer afford for large swathes of the people in the European Union to say no to Europe.
We must all work on this; we must listen to what the Court of Auditors has to say and include it in our appraisals so that we again hear a positive response from the people of Europe to what it is that joins us together.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stauner">
Mr President, as the authority of the European Union increases, so too does the importance of the European Court of Auditors, which has been an independent body of the Community since the Maastricht Treaty.
However, the quality of a body or an institution stands or falls with the people who bear the responsibility in it, which is why it is particularly important that candidates with the right specialist skills who are strong and independent of character be elected as members of the Court of Auditors.
Because the task of the Court of Auditors is not always a pleasant one.
The members of the Court of Auditors must monitor careful spending of European funds and be ruthless in pointing out irregularities.
<P>
As far as spending by the European institutions is concerned, the confidence of the citizens of Europe has gradually been shaken in the past.
It is, above all, thanks to the Court of Auditors that shortcomings have been uncovered.
Now, however, we need to restore the confidence of the citizens of Europe in careful spending by the EU.
The work of the Court of Auditors and its members will therefore be even more important and difficult over the coming years than ever before.
All the challenges - enlargement, international competitiveness, sustained high unemployment - are linked to the question of funding and the remit of the Court of Auditors could change as a result.
I think that its preventative work will increase.
In my view, the eight members who were interviewed long and hard in the Committee on Budgetary Control have the qualities needed to carry out this work to the satisfaction of all concerned.
<P>
I hope that you have the courage and strength to touch unerringly on sore points in the future, should it prove necessary.
A strong Europe also needs a strong Court of Auditors.
However, I make no bones about the fact that the Court of Auditors is weakened because the proportion of women is not high enough, let alone representative.
This is a considerable fly in the ointment of the composition of the Court, even though the present candidates include a very impressive lady.
The appeal to the Member States to propose women for this job therefore stands. It must have got out even in Europe that women too can count and they certainly have no problem in pointing out shortcomings!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="Morgan">
Mr President, under the Treaties, Parliament has the right to be consulted on the appointment of members of the Court of Auditors.
The Committee on Budgetary Control held hearings on 22 and 23 November and adopted by secret ballot a favourable opinion on each of the candidates.
However I was disappointed, like Mrs Stauner, that we had very few members who were women.
Of the eight candidates put forward by the Council only one was a woman.
That will mean that as of next year, two of the Court's 15 members will be women, which is an improvement but still not enough.
I would therefore appeal to the Member States to put their own house in order.
<P>
I would also like to make some broader points about the composition of the Court of Auditors.
The system of appointing one member to the Court of Auditors from each Member State will have to be reformed with enlargement.
In the same way that the Commission and Parliament cannot be allowed to grow indefinitely, neither can the Court.
That will be considered at the IGC.
But in terms of the Court it is important to get away altogether from the system of appointments by nationality.
The role of the Court is to examine all Community revenue and expenditure to see whether it has been spent in a lawful and regular manner and whether financial management has been sound.
<P>
I see no reason why that role needs to be carried out by Member State appointees.
That system is simply not sustainable in such an institution.
Members of the Court should be appointed on the basis of their ability and specific skills, not on the basis of their nationality.
There is a danger that Member States' appointees may still feel some loyalty to their national capitals and may be seen as trying to water down criticisms of their own Member States.
What is needed is a court that is, and is seen to be, independent of Member States' interests.
<P>
Ultimately that should mean a system where we appoint proper, qualified auditors to the Court.
The events of the past year make it all the more important that we have a Court able to make criticisms where necessary, both of the Commission and of Member States, which, after all, are responsible for the management of about 85% of the funds.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bösch">
Mr President, the Committee on Budgetary Control has passed all the candidates being discussed here.
And we do mean passed, not just automatically rubberstamped.
There have been candidates in the past that have been rejected by this House because there was some doubt as to their qualifications or impartiality.
<P>
Luckily, we have avoided such a turn of events this time even though, and I am betraying no secrets here, ex ante confidence has been placed in two of the candidates passed.
<P>
Allow me therefore to make a few basic comments on the Court of Auditors.
The Court of Auditors too is in need of urgent reform as the result of enlargement.
As Eluned Morgan has just said, the clearest way of going about this is on the basis of the number of members, as with the Commission.
At present, the Court has 15 members, traditionally one per Member State, even though the Treaty does not expressly prescribe this.
Fifteen members is five fewer than the Commission but, in the case of a relatively small institution such as the Court of Auditors, any further increase will make the Court much too top-heavy and unwieldy. That the Court is already unwieldy is clear from the overly prolonged procedure preceding the publication of its report.
This needs to be addressed at the forthcoming intergovernmental conference.
I should therefore like to argue for no further increase in the number of members of the Court of Auditors and, in this case at least, for the reverse, i.e. a reduction in the number of members, to be considered.
<P>
On the other hand, I take the view that the number of auditors available to the Court needs to be increased.
In other words, to coin a phrase, fewer chiefs, more Indians!
<P>
In addition, and this is the second point which I should like to raise here, we must consider if the Court should not be allocated new tasks in connection with budgetary discipline.
The crisis in the Commission now behind us demonstrated abundantly clearly that there is no effective mechanism for calling to account EU officials guilty of serious management errors or worse.
This is mainly because the disciplinary procedure is an internal matter at the Commission, with officials sitting in judgement on other officials.
So we cannot really blame those involved for taking a very, and unfortunately even excessively, lenient and forbearing an approach to cases from the outset.
The only way out of this is to outsource these procedures to an external authority.
What we need is a budgetary discipline division and such a division could well come under the Court of Auditors.
It has the necessary competence in financial matters and it has the necessary independence.
Mind you, this sort of reform would entail amending the Treaties.
However, without such reform, all the announcements being bandied about to the effect that stricter action will be taken next time will just be empty words.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Casaca">
Mr President, with the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the European Parliament' s responsibilities increased considerably, as it assumed new powers of codecision in the area of preventing and fighting the fraud which harms the Community' s financial interests.
<P>
The new Article 280 of the Treaty also gives the Court of Auditors new responsibilities by creating a legal body which will afford effective equivalent protection against fraud and any other illegal activity in the Member States.
<P>
Harmonisation in the area of the application of national criminal law and of the administration of justice in the Member States presupposes, necessarily, the harmonisation of legislation on fighting fraud and any other illegal activity in the Community budget.
This means that it also falls within the competence of the Court of Auditors to guarantee that the protection of the Community' s financial interests is done on the basis of a single corpus juris and is no longer done, as it has been until now on the basis of vague, disjointed and contradictory legislation, which deals with the various attacks on the Community' s financial interests according to the policy they relate to and not according to fair principles.
<P>
It is therefore time to end the narrow divisions between the Common Agricultural Policy, the Structural Funds, the Community' s own resources and the Community' s internal and external policies and to guarantee that there is one weight and one measure for all of these.
It is time to end the administrative and bureaucratic feuds and chapels and show that everyone has the same will to practice justice and rigour.
We think that this is the way to better control and manage the Community budget in an ever more efficient, balanced and impartial way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Casaca.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Thursday at 10 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
NIS and Mongolia: economic reform and recovery (TACIS)
<SPEAKER ID=222 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A5-0081/1999) by Mr Valdivielso de Cué on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy on the proposal for a Council regulation (Euratom, EC) [COM(1998) 753 - C4-0038/1999 - 1998/0368(CNS)] concerning the provision of assistance to economic reform and recovery in the New Independent States and Mongolia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valdivielso de Cué">
Mr President, the TACIS programme has dedicated its greatest efforts to supporting Mongolia, Russia and the other New Independent States in the carrying out of reforms and the political and administrative restructuring of their social and economic institutions in order to facilitate the construction of a democratic society which is based on a free market economy.
<P>
As we all know, this is an ambitious programme which will require a great economic effort on the part of the European Union, in the order of EUR 4,000 million in seven years.
Consequently, the text of the proposed regulation has taken a long time to draw up, and even then it has been judged to be unspecific and incomplete, since it does not include implementation procedures.
<P>
This has been a complex report and it has taken us time to reach an acceptable degree of consensus.
Furthermore, there is no need to stress that, on sending these funds to Russia and the New Independent States, we were not convinced that they would be administered properly.
In fact, we were rather worried about their administration and distribution.
<P>
Initially, it was the Committee on Budgets that requested greater control and rigour in the implementation of this aid programme.
Today, more than six months after those first exchanges of opinion, I think that we should be proud of the modifications made to the proposed regulation, mainly by this Committee, which increase the guarantees that these funds will be put to good use.
<P>
There was also a problem with the commitology of this programme within the old REX Committee, but, after the Council decision of 28 June 1999, to standardise the different Committees, this obstacle was overcome.
<P>
On the other hand, the discussion of the legal basis of this report has also been polemical, although in the end the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market approved it, finally defining it under Article 235, a decision which did not please many of us.
<P>
Another problem which has faced us is the fact that, until now, there have been no harmonised implementation procedures in the proposal for a regulation.
I would like to take this opportunity to ask the Commission representative when we will have harmonised procedures, which will guarantee more transparency, and efficiency, as the second report of the Independent Experts recommended.
<P>
Neither do I wish to end my speech without drawing attention to the unfortunate events in Chechnya and I therefore propose an oral amendment regarding the suspension of aid to Russia while this conflict continues.
I would like to make it clear that I do not intend to change the basis of Amendment No 39 of my report, but I do wish to adapt it to recent events, to which end we have reached agreement amongst the PSE representatives in our committee, thereby achieving greater coherence, consensus and technical quality.
<P>
The text of the amendment which we are proposing would be as follows: "In accordance with the European Parliament resolution of 18 November 1999, the conclusions of new contracts covering measures for the benefit of Russia to be funded in the context of the budget for the 2000 financial year shall be suspended, with the exception of the TACIS line for democracy, until a satisfactory solution has been found in Chechnya, in accordance with the European Union' s recommendations and on the basis of the procedure established in Article 13 of the present Regulation" .
<P>
Finally, I would like to ask the representative of the European Commission, with regard to this last point as well as to the report in general, if he is really going to take account of the recommendations made within the framework of this consultation, once they have been approved by this Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Krehl">
draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Budgets.
(DE) Thank you Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to start by congratulating Mr Valdivielso de Cué on his excellent and politically balanced report on the new TACIS regulation.
I should also like to thank the Commission for their excellent cooperation in the preparation of this report.
TACIS is an important political instrument of the European Community, not only in Russia but in all the republics of the former Soviet Union, with the exception of the Baltic States and Mongolia.
The philosophy that funds should be used more for the benefit of both sides has finally permeated through to TACIS. This means that we should shift from demand-driven payments by partner countries to the deployment of funds by both sides.
This deployment will, in my opinion, prove to be much more effective and we in Parliament should also make sure in future that the European side can influence the deployment of funds.
<P>
This will give the entire programme the flexibility which it has been lacking hitherto and help to prevent funds being misplaced.
In past years I and many of my colleagues who are active in Eastern Europe have noted that EU budget appropriations for TACIS are not always used as efficiently as they might be.
I do not want to dwell here on our tiresome experiences with hundreds of studies.
This has been due in part to limitations in the regulation itself and to problems in the management area.
The most significant shortcomings in this area have, in my view, been reduced in the new proposed regulation; more importantly, concentrating on two rather than 12 priorities per partner country as in the past will show a greater degree of professionalism and improve visibility.
<P>
New provisions on potential investments are geared to the development of either the embryonic or non-existent SME sector.
SMEs form the backbone of the economy in a modern economic system, which is why I have tabled the idea in a proposed amendment that we gear investments to the capacity of the partner country in question, rather than capping them at 25% of the total volume.
<P>
I also feel that visibility and hence the widespread impact of our programmes is a problem which we in the EU need to address in areas other than TACIS.
We could learn a lesson from the USA here.
The new TACIS regulation allows us, as did the first regulation, to use appropriations for humanitarian purposes in crisis situations.
That this flexibility is extremely important is demonstrated by the fact that, on the one hand, the EU wants to stop certain TACIS projects in Russia, as decided in Helsinki while, on the other hand, humanitarian aid is urgently needed.
Mr Valdivielso de Cué, I hope that I have misunderstood only as the result of misinterpretation; I consider it imperative that the TACIS Democracy Project should continue, especially in Russia, and that that we should choose the areas in which we really need to stop TACIS.
We did this in the case of Belarus and we should do the same in Russia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, this speech is unexpected and comes as a result of non-attendance.
I did not have time to write it down, and so I will speak without a text, although it is a subject I know something about.
We are all wondering today what to expect of Russia after this crisis.
Wars always end, and I imagine this one will end when the Russian presidential elections are over, at the latest.
But, ladies and gentlemen, the question of whether Russia will cooperate with us in the future, and what form that cooperation will take, will depend on the skills we demonstrate today.
If we chose a policy of humiliation, the outcome may be a bad one, and dangerous too.
The TACIS programme is good in the sense that it is practical and gets close to the ordinary citizen.
<P>
I would like to make a few important points.
Firstly, it is important that Russia holds the elections in five days' time.
Secondly, we must continue with the sort of cooperation that aids the development in Russia of democracy and civil society.
That is important both for the Russians and for ourselves. Thirdly, in my opinion, aid should be allocated more precisely than at present - so that it reaches the ordinary people, the impoverished Russians, rather than Moscow.
Fourthly, we should establish a massive, long-range project within the framework of the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement to create smaller projects to cover a timeframe of 20 years.
By then - irrespective of who is leading Russia or the European Union - we will need Russian resources. The first of these is Russian gas, as Norwegian gas will run out.
In addition to gas, Russia has, for example, the world' s largest forest and mineral resources.
We must take the development of the infrastructure and the environment into consideration.
We should implement projects which look to the future in this area and which will carry us through this present crisis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="Clegg">
Mr President, I wish to make two relatively brief points.
<P>
Firstly, a request addressed to the Commission.
I spent some hapless years working as a junior official in the TACIS programme some years ago.
What I experienced, as I tried to interest everything from local transport authorities in Kishinev through to energy ministries in Uzbekistan was the following: just as in so many other EU policy areas, in TACIS projects we perhaps try to do too much across too many geographical boundaries in too many sectors.
I think we are all aware of this danger of the dispersal of EU assistance in far-flung places.
Could I make a plea that when this regulation comes into place the many loopholes which still remain in the regulation and which would allow a continued proliferation of small and excessively multiplied projects are closed and that a real, and perhaps in some cases ruthless, concentration of implementing projects is enforced.
<P>
On the second point I address the rapporteur. It concerns the political issue of the partial suspension of at least the TACIS programme under the budget year 2000.
I am glad to hear that the rapporteur has very much moved towards the amendment which the ELDR group tabled.
Many of us are instinctively still not convinced that any form of suspension is the right way to respond to present circumstances but nevertheless that seems to be the drift of debate.
In those circumstances, I would suggest that we at least make our words on the partial suspension of the TACIS programme under the budget year 2000 entirely compatible with what was decided in Helsinki, mainly and most particularly, that if we are going to save the democracy budget line we should also equally save the budget line which applies to nuclear safety projects.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Piétrasanta">
<SPEAKER ID=228 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Gemelli">
I would like to thank my friend and the rapporteur, Mr Valdivielso de Cué, for the wonderful job he has made of mediating and reconciling the various yet justifiable interpretations of the validity of the new instrument for economic cooperation with the New Independent States and Mongolia.
It was a difficult job but the competence and tenacity of the rapporteur means that we can approve this measure.
<P>
The new financial programme for the development of the New Independent States and Mongolia that is replacing TACIS is bringing in mechanisms that are more precise than the previous ones.
Partnership and competition between the partner States in gaining funding encourage them to play an active role and they aim to enhance existing professionalism and therefore to create a ruling class which will be based on meritocracy.
<P>
The need to continuously monitor the implementation of the plans, as laid down in the document, protects the European Union from the blatant attempts at fraud noted in the past, and aims to put in place obvious and thus verifiable initiatives.
The choice to undertake visible interventions complies with the condition of emphasising the positive role of the European Union with regard to the wreckage left by communism ten years ago, and puts to the test the effectiveness of the western democratic method with regard to the failed dirigisme of the past.
<P>
It will be necessary, as anticipated, to carefully consider interventions in the civil, economic and social areas of the various New Independent States and Mongolia using two parameters: the solution of the issue of humanitarian intervention and social and economic marginalisation, without privileges and ranking, and the assessment of strategic civil, economic and social value with the aim of bringing the peoples of the new Independent States and Mongolia closer to the European Union.
Therefore, we need to proceed with the interventions in order to create a security framework between, on the one side, the new Independent States, and on the other, the European Union, so that we can establish ever greater peace and stability.
<P>
An essential demand that the European Union must make is that the new Independent States respect human rights, so that democratic principles and cultural, religious, political and ethnic pluralism will increasingly take root, in order to improve people' s quality of life.
The possibility of suspending the intervention in the unhappy event of a crisis occurring is certainly a strong deterrent which will lead the new States and Mongolia to seek a negotiated solution to disputes, thereby turning them into everyday political dialectics.
<P>
The European Parliament should debate and approve the new instrument that is replacing the TACIS programme, even if currently Russia, the largest of the new States, is the focus of a just European Parliament initiative that has suspended the technological cooperation agreement following the war begun against Chechnya.
But the Russia question is not solely about this: it is a large country experiencing an extremely serious political, economic and social crisis and it is preparing for presidential elections.
It is a large country undergoing a difficult transition and, in my opinion, it should not be left to its fate nor should it be isolated in punitive terms; instead, it should be helped and reassured by means of a close political and economic relationship, even if the political relationship is dialectic and the economic relationship is competitive.
<P>
Russia needs a lot of help from the European Union, based on caution, encouragement and when necessary, objections, but without the possibility of breaking off relations, which we actually need to intensify, in areas such as the creation of a new legal-administrative system which will do away with any temptation to behave improperly.
<P>
It is up to us to create the conditions for peace, cooperation, support, aid and partnership, and we must put the onus on the New Independent States, Mongolia, and above all, Russia, to make sure they deserve our help, by complying with the objective conditions of defending the fundamental principles of citizens and governed communities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, Commissioner, I should first of all like to say to Mr Paasilinna that he perhaps ought always to speak without a script.
It would then be easier for the interpreters, because he talks at such high speed when he has a script.
<P>
I want to say that it is with great humility that I am taking part in this debate because I believe that there are few people who know what is right in this matter.
We may feel extremely brave when we are about to cut off aid.
At the same time, we must recognise, however, although we do not say it straight out as the Council does, that there are many in Russia who want us to stop providing the TACIS aid.
We are perhaps turning our backs on this section of the Russian population, upon those who might need us now, something which illustrates just how blunt a weapon sanctions are in general.
I therefore think it is extremely important that we adopt the compromise amendment which was indicated by Mr Clegg and which means that we can help with a development which begins from below and works its way upwards.
The need to help young people in the future is also emphasised in one of the amendments and, in the longer term, this is the only right thing to do.
We must teach young people who do not know what is meant by a market economy and who cannot in any case know anything about the matter because they do not have any books about it.
The opportunity must be there of learning.
We cannot go in there and just apply US economic models, but I am very clear on this point about helping young people and promoting a better future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Pohjamo">
Mr President, because of the events in Chechnya, we have to push for a political decision, but that should not be, in my opinion, at the expense of the TACIS programme.
Putting it on ice or reducing it in some way will hit ordinary Russians and our most important partners in cooperation.
Russian cooperation has to be seen in the longer term.
Russia must not be isolated, nor must it be allowed to cut itself off either.
Through cooperation we must help social conditions to become established in Russia and democracy to gain strength. The flaws that became visible when the earlier programmes were being implemented have to be corrected.
Now projects have all too often been left half-finished.
There have been few practical results, and the greatest benefits have been reaped by western consultants and local middlemen.
A lack of coordination in the Interreg programmes has also meant poorer results.
We have to choose who we help, through these projects, more carefully and become more effective when implementing projects on a practical level.
Our local partners in cooperation must also be called on to commit to closer cooperation, and the commitments have to be kept on both sides.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 NAME="Patten">
<SPEAKER ID=232 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
<P>
Mrs Thors, a supplementary question, but please be brief.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 NAME="Thors">
I noted with regret that the Commissioner did not support Amendment No 7.
Yet we know that this is also a kind of obligation for the Union under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, that you should be able to report what you are doing in favour of children.
<P>
Secondly, I was also very concerned that you did not really propose much support for the NGOs, and this is exactly what many people working with democracy projects say, that they go to the budget line for democracy and human rights instead of being streamlined into other projects.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 NAME="President">
Madam, you have taken advantage of my generosity.
That was not a supplementary question. You tried to take the floor again.
May I say, that is not quite in order.
<P>
Commissioner, allow me to make a personal comment.
You referred to the House of Commons.
Permit me to say that experience in the House of Commons cannot always be transferred wholesale to the European Parliament.
My experience after 20 years' membership of this House has taught me that, in the long run, the popularity of a speaker at the end of an all-night sitting increases in inverse proportion to the length of his contribution to the debate.
That does not, of course, in any way restrict the Commission' s right under the Rules of Procedure to speak for as long as it likes!
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Technical regulations for wheeled vehicles
<SPEAKER ID=235 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation (A5-0079/1999) by Mr Bodrato on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy on the proposal for a Council decision [10167/1999 - COM(1999) 27 - C5-0073/1999 - 1999/0011(AVC)] concerning the conclusion of the agreement concerning the establishing of global technical regulations for wheeled vehicles, equipment and parts which can be fitted and/or used on wheeled vehicles ( "Parallel Agreement" ).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bodrato">
Mr President, this recommendation invites Parliament to express an opinion in keeping with the Council proposal on technical harmonisation in the automobile sector, by considering it to be an important factor in the development of the global market.
The process of harmonisation aims to attain the highest levels of safety and environmental protection and is an important stimulus for quality, with advantages both for industry and for consumers.
<P>
This recommendation originates from the agreement, concluded in 1958 within the framework of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe.
This agreement was then broadly amended, and it was extended to States outside the Union.
The European Community has thus become part of an amended agreement which now includes Japan.
Nevertheless, because of a different certification system, but also for procedural reasons, the United States could not adopt a similar decision.
<P>
A Parallel Agreement was negotiated to overcome this difficulty, which allows harmonised technical regulations to be adopted, but only unanimously and without the contracting parties being obliged to mutually recognise certificates and permits.
In this way, the European Community has taken on an important intermediate function, insofar as it is a contracting party of both of these agreements.
<P>
The rules laid down by the Parallel Agreement coincide with those in the UNECE agreement, but a specific decision-making procedure is anticipated when a draft regulation is not considered within the framework of the 1958 agreement.
In any case, in order to include technical regulations in Community legislation it is still necessary to have a corresponding Commission directive that is adopted by Parliament under the codecision procedure.
Parliament' s role is thereby guaranteed and it is anticipated that the Commission will provide Parliament with the draft regulations it wants to implement on a global scale.
<P>
I will conclude by pointing out that an opinion in keeping with this recommendation would put the European Community in a position to fully support the Parallel Agreement, and confirm its position as a leader in the harmonisation and policies of expanding the markets.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 NAME="Harbour">
I would like to warmly welcome Mr Bodrato's report and the very clear presentation he gave.
This is an important step that matches the regulatory regime with the realities of a global car industry.
<P>
I just want to insert a word of caution.
Europe has to negotiate from a position of strength in this global regime.
In the United States the market is moving in the opposite direction from the rest of the world.
American consumers are in love with larger, heavier and more thirsty vehicles.
The European model of lighter, economical cars is becoming more and more significant in the rest of the world apart from the United States.
We have to make sure that global regulation does not compromise Europe's market strength in the type of vehicles that most world consumers want to buy.
<P>
I would like to take the opportunity to raise another issue about the global competitive environment in the car industry apart from regulation.
The reality of today's industry is that every operation - every factory - has to compete for long-term investment globally.
In Eastern Europe, in South America, in the United States, aids are being given to encourage local investment.
In that context, I particularly want to ask Mr Liikanen tonight to take up the question of the uncertainty facing thousands of my constituents who work at the BMW-Rover factory at Longbridge in Birmingham, where major investment is planned to produce new small cars for the global market.
<P>
I declare with pride a personal interest in this, because I began my career in the car industry 32 years ago working at that factory.
We heard last week that a decision from the Commission on an aid package from the British Government which responds to that need for the plant to be global has been delayed yet again, and that this delay is affecting consumer confidence and the future of the plant.
So in asking you, Mr Liikanen, if you can get that quickly resolved with your colleague Mr Monti, can I also ask the Commission to set up a fast and fair mechanism to deal with these future issues; because until we have that, Europe's global car industry's competitiveness will be affected and we will not be able to take full advantage of the regime that Mr Bodrato proposed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lange">
Mr President, Commissioner, a few comments on the Parallel Agreement.
The assumption that we need to agree on common standards in the face of a globalised economy and globalised environmental protection requirements is correct.
However, and this is perhaps a requirement of this agreement, we need to start from a common political philosophy rather than taking an approach whereby management experts agree on standards beyond politics.
<P>
We held a symposium here two weeks ago with American members of Congress at which precisely this question was discussed, namely the development of a common philosophy for harmonising technical standards based on economic and ecological requirements.
As with music, harmony here does not necessarily mean that everyone is singing exactly the same note, but that the overall effect is harmonious.
And, in this respect, harmony also means taking account of the different requirements in the USA and in Europe.
And this has to happen at the political and not just the technical level.
<P>
The second requirement is this: we are concluding an agreement which is not in fact necessary because, in theory, everything can be regulated under the 1958 agreement.
An additional agreement is being concluded here merely to accommodate specific interests on the other side of the Atlantic, one which may lead, inter alia, to delays in the process of establishing common standards, for example, because unanimity is required here.
And that begs the question of whether we are paying too much attention to the requirements of a specific country
<P>
The third point concerns us very closely.
In discussions on accession to the 1958 agreement, we had intense discussions in the Kittelmann report on the extent to which Parliament' s joint political rights, to be specific, its right of codecision, was called into question.
This is, of course, exacerbated by this Parallel Agreement, because the mechanism is taken yet another step away from us, the European Parliament.
<P>
Commissioner, your predecessor, Mr Bangemann, assured us at the time that we would be regularly informed about discussions in relation to the 1958 agreement and included in decisions.
So far this process has yet to get off the ground.
I invite you to state clearly how Parliament can be involved in the decision-making process, what can be done to ensure that we are involved in time, what can be done to ensure that there is continuity in reporting, for example by having standing rapporteurs or by having small specialist groups, and how the Commission and Parliament can jointly set themselves the objective of monitoring the 1958 agreement.
In other words, how will the Commission ensure that Parliament' s right of codecision will not be circumvented by this agreement?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 NAME="Liikanen">
.
I am pleased to note that the European Parliament has proceeded speedily with the examination of the Community's accession to the parallel agreement and seems prepared to give its assent today.
This will contribute decisively to an enhanced competitiveness of our automotive industry on a global stage while ensuring higher safety and environmental requirements for the benefit of consumers.
<P>
In response to the question from Mr Harbour, I would say, as you know, that this concerns state aid schemes which belong to the competence of Mr Monti. I will inform him of the issues you took up here.
<P>
And to Mr Lange: as you know, every new piece of Community legislation to be adopted through the Geneva process must be approved by Parliament, either through assent under the 1958 Agreement or codecision, the Parallel agreement.
I am open to any discussion where you have interests to follow up.
I hope we will find a way to talk informally or in committee later on the proper formula.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
One can see that you have been acquainted with this House for quite some time.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 p.m.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 11.35 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Statement by the President
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I would like to notify you that this morning a suspect package was found near the Louise Weiss Building and that the French police, in collaboration with our security services, denied access to the building and carried out a test which, fortunately, proved to be negative.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="Watson">
Those of us who were in the building before 8 o'clock were very much aware that there was a suspect package in the courtyard of the Louise Weiss Building which was the cause of a bomb scare.
Quite rightly, access to certain parts of the building was denied and Members and staff were evacuated from one part to another.
I do not know whether this was a fiendish attempt by my Italian friend Mr Dell'Alba to move us from Strasbourg, whether it was my UK Conservative colleagues who had mistaken the day of President Chirac's visit, or whether it was a Christmas gift of Belgian chocolates now sticking to the walls of the courtyard.
But, whatever the case, there was a lot of confusion and an evident lack of knowledge of the procedures for the evacuation of this building.
I should like to ask whether a note could be circulated to Members and staff outlining normal evacuation procedures and whether, in the case of an event like this, the screens which are dotted all around the building could be used to give Members information on what is going on.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Mr Watson, I think that your request is not only justifiable but sacrosanct and we must ask our services to organise a drill as soon as possible, as soon as we are all here for a plenary sitting.
Hopefully, we need only wait two or three months for the temperature and weather to allow us to carry out this drill in the best possible way.
<P>
I would also like to inform you that what was found was not an item belonging to Mr Dell' Alba or his friends, but is definitely a piece of equipment belonging to a photographer.
This was revealed after it was found. However, when it was first discovered, there was some uncertainty and therefore they had to take this unusual step.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, I just wanted to point out that the security arrangements for the visit by the French President this week were exemplary and that we were all extremely satisfied with the order and security surrounding the visit.
<P>
However, I would like to say that security at the European Parliament has long been a matter of discussion and that it would perhaps be advisable to set up a working party in which Members are also informed as to what security arrangements have been put in place for them in the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Mr Rübig, I think that your request should be carefully considered by our Quaestors so that they can propose measures to the President' s Office and to the Conference of Presidents, if necessary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="Poos">
Mr President, you are quite right.
The College of Quaestors is due to meet this afternoon and a note on the procedures for evacuating the building will be sent to all Members before the next part-session.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Poos.
Your remark has given an indirect reply to Mr Watson and Mr Rübig.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Poettering">
Mr President, I have asked to speak because you have already turned your attention to the agenda.
I thought that you would make an announcement about the members of the convention working on the Charter of Citizens' Rights.
I had asked for the names of the Members of Parliament appointed by the Conference of Presidents to be officially announced to Parliament.
I was assured that the President in the chair this morning would make this announcement and that the names of the Members of the European Parliament who are members and deputy members of the convention would be included in today' s minutes.
I am therefore somewhat taken aback to learn that you have not received this list of names so that you could announce them to the House.
An official public announcement of the Members of the European Parliament appointed to the convention must be made because the convention will officially start work on Friday.
<P>
Please ensure that an official announcement is made.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
Mr Poettering, I will be able to read you the communication as soon as I receive it.
You have been informed before me; however, as soon as I have the communication, I will, of course, make you and all the Members in the House aware of it.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Climate change
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
The next item is the statements of the Council and the Commission on the results of the fifth Conference of the members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
<P>
I invite Minister Hassi, representative of the Council, to take the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Hassi">
Mr President, Members of the European Parliament, a policy on climate issues has been one of the main environmental concerns of the Finnish Presidency.
I think it is important to bear in mind that a policy on climate issues will, I imagine, be one of the greatest challenges for the entire planet and all mankind in the next century.
The European Parliament is quite right when it states in its resolution that the commitments that have been made up till now are still not sufficient to limit the rise in temperature to one and a half degrees a century: we need new commitments in addition to the present ones.
<P>
Nonetheless, it will be a hard job to realise the present commitments.
Preparing for the COP 5 Conference in Bonn was an important issue for Finland.
Generally speaking, the Union has also been satisfied with the results of COP 5.
Progress was made in a good number of areas.
In addition, an action programme was agreed on, which I believe will enable us to make the necessary decisions at the sixth conference (COP 6) of the parties to the agreement on climate, which is to be held next autumn in the Hague, to make the process of ratification of the Kyoto Protocol possible.
At Community level, Finland has worked to integrate climate policy with other areas of policy by drafting, for example, environmental strategies in the areas of energy, transport and agriculture.
We must remember that these strategies are only the first step in what will hopefully become an on-going process of implementing and developing climate strategies.
<P>
One of the most important decisions reached during the autumn was the commitment made at the Helsinki Summit by the Community and the Member States to ratify the Kyoto Protocol before the Rio+10 Conference, which is to be held in 2002, and that the Community should do everything required to make ratification possible.
Finland has also been involved in a wide-ranging dialogue with NGOs and representatives of business.
In our opinion, multilateral commitment to a policy on climate will, in the long term, guarantee optimum results.
<P>
Although I said that the decisions that have already been taken will enable us to achieve the results we need at the sixth conference of the parties to the agreement on climate to be held next autumn, there is still much work to be done.
It is particularly important for the Union to build bridges with developing countries and try and find solutions that they also regard as fair: win-win solutions in which both development and the environment are winners.
Important issues for developing countries include how to create facilities to make it possible for them to report on levels of emissions, the development of their facilities in general and technology transfer.
In this we have to pay special attention to the poorest countries of all.
<P>
We still have much work to do, furthermore, to develop the rules of the Kyoto mechanisms.
Important questions include how natural depressions and hollows relate to the Kyoto mechanisms and the so-called flexible ceiling, which the European Union has proposed.
Next year, the EU must do all it can to find solutions that are as effective as possible for the environment and the reduction in emissions and which can be widely adopted so that an agreement on the rules for the Kyoto mechanisms and the rules on compliance with that agreement can be reached.
<P>
I consider one fundamental issue to be the fact that nuclear power cannot be accepted as a method to be applied in the CDM and Joint Implementation projects.
The Ministers for the Environment that convened at COP 5 had very strong opinions on this, but it is obviously going to be an especially challenging task to arrest the trend in the Community' s own greenhouse gas emissions, which is rising at present, when it ought to be falling.
We still need new measures throughout the Community and the Member States. For example, bringing in an environment tax would be a major achievement.
The suggestions of the Council for an action programme and the proposal under consideration to develop a system for emissions trading within the Community are steps in the right direction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Hassi.
<P>
I now invite Mrs Wallström, a member of the Commission, to take the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="Wallström">
Thank you for inviting me to give the Commission's assessment of the results of the Bonn Conference on Climate Change.
<P>
One year ago the parties to the Convention on Climate Change decided on a two-year work programme, the Buenos Aires plan of action.
It should lead to decisions on the outstanding issues under the Kyoto Protocol by COP 6, which will take place one year from now in The Hague.
In this context the expectations for Bonn concentrated on the need to make substantial technical progress.
It was clear from the outset that the major political decisions would have to wait for COP 6.
I believe such progress has been achieved.
<P>
The aspect of COP 5 of greatest political importance was Chancellor Schroeder's call for entry into force of the Protocol by the year 2002.
I am very pleased that the European Union, along with many other parties, expressed its support for that idea.
This means that a clear timetable is now set which increases the pressure on all parties to make COP 6 a success.
I urge all parties to ensure that they are able to launch the ratification process immediately after COP 6.
In this context, the decision of the parties in Bonn to speed up the process during the coming years was important.
<P>
Allow me to comment on some of the issues that were discussed in Bonn.
The most important unresolved issues under the Kyoto Protocol are the rules and modalities for the Kyoto mechanisms and the design of a comprehensive compliant system.
The Kyoto mechanisms - emissions trading, joint implementation and the clean development mechanism - are a part of the Protocol.
<P>
It is generally recognised that they have the potential to make climate action more cost efficient.
Of course, it is vital that such a system is complemented by a strictly compliant system including provisions for cases of non-compliance.
<P>
In view of the difficult international negotiation process, it was quite a success that, on the Kyoto mechanisms and on compliance, we succeeded in getting de facto draft negotiating texts.
These will continue to constitute the basis for further negotiation in the coming months.
Without this achievement, the prospects of reaching decisions at COP 6 would have been bleak.
<P>
Good progress has also been made on issues such as capacity building, technology transfer and adaptation to the effects of climate change.
The meeting highlighted once again how important it is to make equal progress on issues of importance to the industrialised world as much as to the developing countries.
That is why we need a balanced process between issues relating to the Kyoto Protocol and issues relating to the underlying Climate Change Convention.
<P>
We have to keep in mind that COP 6 can be successful only if we can deliver significant results on both issues, building a bridge between the industrialised and developing countries.
<P>
Another success was the continuation of the so-called activities implemented jointly.
These projects financed by industrial countries cannot but enhance capacity building and technology transfer in developing countries and economies in transition.
<P>
This brings me to a very important matter that Parliament has also raised in a resolution, namely the question of nuclear energy as an option for clean development mechanism projects.
I am of the opinion that the environmental and safety problems surrounding nuclear energy are too important to encourage its proliferation in developing countries under the header of the clean development mechanism.
There are excellent alternatives such as renewable energy sources and energy efficiency measures that fit much better with the purpose of the CDM to promote sustainable development.
<P>
Let me turn to some of the other divergence issues.
The EU proposal for a concrete ceiling on the use of the Kyoto mechanisms has not been addressed formally at COP 5 but was very much the subject of discussion in the corridors.
<P>
The intentions underlying the proposals stand as firm as ever, guaranteeing that every party achieves at least a substantial part of its emissions target at home instead of relying heavily on the Kyoto mechanisms.
This should allow the first behavioural and technological changes with a view to preparing for the much more ambitious emission cuts of the future.
<P>
In addition, the Kyoto targets must be achieved through real emission reductions and not by buying other countries' quotas that have become over-generous due to economic decline - the famous hot air.
Hence the need to limit the amount of its quota of emissions that a party can sell.
A decision on how to ensure this environmental soundness must be taken at COP 6 as part of the overall package of decisions and the Community's position on the ceilings issue has not changed.
<P>
Another important feature at COP 5 concerned the voluntary commitments of developing countries and it is commendable that developing countries such as Argentina and Kazakhstan are taking the initiative to reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions.
In view of their economic growth prospects their involvement in international climate change action is of the utmost importance.
However, it is crucial that we get the process right.
We must avoid inflation of the environmental permits available in the Kyoto mechanisms as this would work against real emission reductions.
<P>
I hope to come back to you in a year or so to report positive results from COP 6.
In the meantime the Commission will continue not only its active role in the negotiations but also its work on Community measures.
Under the climate change action programme, which I announced in this House in October, the Commission's work is currently focusing on the establishment of a list of priority measures in the area of climate change to be presented to the Environment Council in March.
I am also working hard to have a Green Paper on emissions trading within the European Community adopted by the Commission in March.
It will allow a wide debate of all stakeholders on an approach which should further reduce the costs to our economies of reducing greenhouse gases.
<P>
A tremendous amount of technical and political work still lies ahead of us in putting the Kyoto Protocol into effect as a first step in fighting global warming.
I appreciate your commitment to help in conveying the importance of combating climate change throughout Europe and to your counterparts in other countries, in particular the United States Congress.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Liese">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, at the end of this century, the subject of environmental protection is being accorded the importance which it actually deserves, given the major challenges at stake.
It is true that we have made progress in numerous areas and that some environmental problems, such as water pollution, have been sorted out.
But the greatest environmental problem facing our planet in the next century has not been sorted out; on the contrary, it is increasing day by day.
Man is currently producing twice as many greenhouse gases, detrimental as they are to the climate, as the world can cope with in the long term.
The countries of the European Union account for a large proportion.
If we do not act now, the next century will be dominated by dramatic problems.
<P>
We are not talking solely of rising sea levels and the disappearance of small island States and the flooding of low-lying areas in Bangladesh or the Netherlands, which we are all aware of.
We are also talking about the spread of deserts and an increase in tropical whirlwinds, the devastating effects of which have been clearly felt in recent years.
This will all lead to an increase in the waves of refugees.
We already have more environmental refugees than war refugees, which is why this is also of paramount importance here in Europe.
<P>
The catastrophic floods in France and elsewhere have also shown that problems arise if we fail to act quickly.
Some experts are even warning of an increase in tropical diseases such as malaria in our temperate zones.
Every serious scientist is saying that we need to reduce emissions by 50% in the long term.
That means that we in the industrialised countries and in the European Union need to reduce them by far more than 50% in order to take account of legitimate development interests in developing countries and population growth.
I therefore consider that the Kyoto Protocol is just the first step in the right direction and it must not, under any circumstances, be undermined by loopholes.
<P>
We in the European Parliament support the stand taken by the Council and the Commission that emissions must be reduced mainly in the industrialised countries close to home.
The flexible mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol are merely additional mechanisms. That applies above all to the so-called clean development mechanism.
Of course, it is a good thing if industrialised countries or undertakings in industrialised countries invest in energy efficiency and renewable energy in developing countries, but that cannot replace commitments at home.
<P>
Per capita emissions in industrialised countries, including the Member States of the European Union, are several times higher than the levels which the earth can cope with in the long term.
The Council and the Commission played a constructive role at the Bonn Conference.
We particularly welcome the commitment to ratify Kyoto by 2002.
<P>
The Bonn Conference was not a failure, even if the dramatic situation in fact calls for greater progress.
In particular, I was pleasantly surprised in Bonn by the constructive attitude being taken by the business world.
Many sectors of the business world recognise that the undertaking to protect the climate also offers businesses the opportunity to earn money and create jobs.
However, much still needs to be done before the all-decisive conference in the Hague.
<P>
It is particularly important for the European Commission to be credible.
We can only be credible if we too do our homework.
Some countries have indeed reduced emissions to some extent, but there are no true paragons.
I find it particularly worrying that emissions are currently rising sharply in what are in fact environmentally-friendly countries such as Denmark and Sweden.
In Sweden, this is perhaps mainly due to diversification out of nuclear power.
I feel that we should address this quite openly.
I do not take the view that nuclear power is a universal panacea but, more importantly, we do not want nuclear energy technology to be exported to unsafe countries in lieu of commitments at home.
<P>
The diversification out of nuclear power currently being planned or implemented in some countries in Europe exacerbates the problem.
We must not overlook the fact that rising CO2 emissions are hardly likely to increase our credibility.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Hulthén">
Mr President, Representative of the Council Hassi and Commissioner, I believe that most of us were very pleased indeed when, as early as at the hearings of the Commissioners, we learned that one of Commissioner Wallström' s priority areas was work to combat climate change.
I believe that this is an environmental issue of a kind to which the majority of citizens and the broad general public can also feel committed because people do in fact feel real anxiety faced with the climate changes that are under way.
All the environmental disasters that we have witnessed make us reflect more often upon the world we are living in, and also upon our own influence on it.
<P>
The problem is scarcely one of people' s not being aware of climate change. What is in fact missing, however, is the concrete implementation of measures to combat this.
We are constantly knocked off course whenever we try to move on in our discussions. Many are the conferences in which the world' s leaders have convened in order to find a common strategy, but so far relatively few concrete measures have been taken.
This is not perhaps so odd after all, because climate change is not, of course, the only issue in the world which needs to be solved.
Famine, poverty and injustice in the way in which burdens are distributed remain acute problems in many parts of the world.
In other parts - the richer part of the world, our own part of it - we ourselves find it hard to give up our well-being in order to get to grips with the problems.
These become ever more complex, and decisions are conspicuous by their absence.
<P>
Just as Mr Liese said, we were not perhaps expecting too much progress at the latest COP Conference in Bonn, but it would still of course have been desirable for the EU, the United States and everyone else to have achieved a more constructive result than was actually achieved.
This is also why we are tabling this resolution, by means of which we want to speed up developments.
We are convinced that more must happen more quickly, both in the individual Member States of the European Union, but also of course worldwide.
In the future, we also want to be an instigative force within the Union in order to ensure that more in fact happens.
We therefore support the wish expressed by the European Union to the effect that the Protocol should come into force by the year 2002.
We also consider that, even if the decision to ratify the Protocol is a long time coming in certain countries, this should not prevent us from seriously considering the possibility of ratifying the Protocol alongside those who have made up their minds anyway.
We may possibly be in danger of leaving behind someone who does not dare to take up a definite position, but we must nevertheless try to go forwards.
<P>
In this regard, I should like, nonetheless, to ask Mrs Wallström and Mrs Hassi, who are present in the Chamber, for their opinions regarding our Amendment No 2 in which we demand that we should ratify the Protocol at the latest during COP 6. What will this entail?
Will it entail the EU as a Union ratifying the Protocol? Or does it mean that we believe that every individual Member State will also ratify it by this date?
I am pleased that Commissioner Wallström and Representative of the Council Hassi emphasised that nuclear power is not a sustainable energy source.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Ries">
Mr President, Mrs Hassi, Commissioner, the issue under discussion concerns the outcome of the fifth conference on the Kyoto Protocol in Bonn.
As clearly stated in our motion for a resolution, the results of the Kyoto Protocol are unsatisfactory on several accounts.
Climate change is continuing, for which reason further strict measures for reducing greenhouse gases must be taken by 2010.
It is already seven years since the Earth Summit in Rio where firm commitments were made without any really positive consequences having resulted to date. Regrettably, there is still a major element missing from this motion.
This is the people. We should not forget that, regardless of the measures which may be taken by individual Member States or the European Union as a whole, it is the people as consumers who, through their habits and behaviour, will promote change and impose this on decision makers.
There is therefore a real urgency for wide-ranging measures to now be adopted in order to involve the people in decision making on this subject. In this way, they will feel more responsible for the climate change phenomenon.
This could be achieved, for example, through wider information campaigns bringing pressure to bear on people' s behaviour. Our resolution on the Kyoto Protocol, adopted in October, was clearly heading in this direction by demanding a coordinated strategy for informing the public in a clear, understandable and accessible manner.
I am thinking, for example, of certain aerosols which we use extensively in our daily life.
It is through these concrete and tangible measures that Europe will enter our homes and our habits.
<P>
Finally, I must comment on the subject of a CO2/energy tax which the motion mentions in paragraph 14.
Although I am not against the principle of taxing polluting emissions, I do believe that these measures must respect two principles. On the one hand they must try to guarantee tax neutrality and, on the other, they must cover the whole of the industrialised world, or at least the OECD, so that ecological dumping or competition distortions do not arise.
<P>
Climate change is not inevitable, yet it is only by involving the main actors - people and industry - and by making them responsible that we will overcome the obstacles.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="De Roo">
Mr President, climate change is one of the most important environmental issues but also one of the most difficult ones to solve.
It impacts greatly upon economic processes.
The breakdown of the WTO round in Seattle has taught us that the EU should be convincing in its endeavours to achieve global environmental policy.
We need to set a good example ourselves.
So far, Europe has made fancy declarations but greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union will be in excess of 8 percent instead of under 8 percent if no additional measures are taken.
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This is mainly due to the fact that the transport sector has got out of hand: more cars, more trucks and more aircraft clocking up more miles.
This is why I urge the European Commission, in the next plan of action for combating climate change, to address the most difficult issue, namely traffic.
For example, zero emissions for traffic and a ten percent reduction for households, industry and energy production itself.
EU measures to restrict CO2 emissions by trucks are necessary, as is the promotion of economical cars, such as hybrid and electrical cars, or at last a European energy/CO2 tax imposed by those 12 or 13 countries which want to impose a hefty levy.
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Only if the European Union manages to reduce greenhouse gases can we be credible.
Then we will be able to reach a breakthrough at the sixth conference of the Groups in The Hague.
The most difficult tangles in the trade in emission rights and clean development mechanisms can then be cut through.
Needless to say, for the Green group, nuclear energy does not even enter into the picture as far as reaching a solution is concerned.
In Europe, but also worldwide, we need to focus on renewable energy, such as wind energy, solar energy and biomass.
In the case of a windmill, the cost of making and erecting one is covered after only four to six months.
Compare this with nuclear energy where it takes as much as ten years before nett energy finally exceeds the cost of building a plant.
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<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, I believe that both the Commissioner and the representative of the Council are perfectly aware of the threats hanging over the planet because year after year this Parliament has warned them of these threats.
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The increase in temperature by two degrees - as other Members have said - which is expected between now and 2010, if no measures are taken, the rise in sea levels, the disappearance of small islands and many of the catastrophes of the last two years which, according to the experts, are related to climate change, are facts which should oblige us to adopt immediate and concrete measures.
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The resolution adopted by the Committee on the Environment moves in this direction, as do the amendments which were presented and approved unanimously.
Amongst these - and we are happy that Commissioner Wallström has pointed this out - is the clear criticism of the pressure exerted by the nuclear industry on Bonn so that nuclear energy may be used in the strategy to reduce CO2 emissions.
It seems to us that industry brings with it risks, as the Commissioner has said, in terms of safety and the subsequent use or recycling of waste. These risks are unacceptable to us.
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For this reason, in the Committee on the Environment, we still propose renewable sources of energy and the adoption of clear measures with regard to transport; not only in road transport which is the form of transport which produces most CO2 emissions, but also in air transport which also produces many emissions and which, until now, has not been controlled as it should be.
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We also agree with the Council that we should build bridges with developing countries, but building bridges with these countries means two things: not trying to do deals with them with regard to the buying and selling of quotas and not cutting development and aid funds so that they can adopt measures which will lead in the direction which we are proposing.
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In one of the amendments we also propose that countries draw up clear and concrete plans for reductions in the different sectors - transport, agriculture, etc. because if no plans or concrete measures exist, then we will still be here talking about the same things far beyond 2000.
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<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Thomas-Mauro">
Mr President, at a time when globalisation is filling us with uncertainty and everything is in the short term and disposable, it is very difficult to have an overview of the future.
The new millennium is a great marketing product which seems to be concentrated on one night of partying without opening our minds to grand projects and ideas.
Is climate change the major challenge of the next century or a good New Year' s resolution without any significant value?
It is difficult for us politicians to sell to our electors political decisions which are planned over ten or twenty years.
Yet have we not agreed to take responsibility?
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The debate on climate change is not a trivial affair.
It is our industrialised countries which created this world and we must therefore lead by example.
Can Trade, with a capital T, be more reasonable?
Can the countries of the world reconcile economic development with health without seeming naïve or demonstrating worthless good sense?
We in the European bubble must not forget developing countries. We must achieve a balanced partnership between all the countries of the world and between all economic actors.
The applicant States must be involved given that they have to conform to European environmental standards.
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The question of climate change and the resultant apocalyptic visions are a forceful and global way of drawing attention to the dangers of pollution.
The melting of the polar ice-caps and tropical storms are deemed to be the result of greenhouse gases which, in the main, are directly produced by our factories.
We therefore should have increased people' s awareness.
Floods and storms have been promised for those who are currently sat comfortably in front of their televisions and who believe themselves to be protected by economic development and temperate climates.
Climate change and the reawakened anger of nature are frightening concepts to countries which are now declaring that this situation cannot continue.
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In order to stabilise the climate and reassure the world' s inhabitants, without overusing the concept of environmental protection which should be left to the ecologists, the issues of the Kyoto Protocol - mad cow disease, dioxins and the debate on GMOs - are being paraded.
Climatic disasters and food scares are of the same ilk and make societies distrustful faced with uncertainty and events they cannot control.
Business and governments now know that the only way forward is to include the environment and the principle of sustainable development.
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<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, I would like to start by thanking Mr Hassi and Commissioner Wallström for their declaration.
I share their opinion that the problem of climate change requires a global solution.
It is therefore regrettable that so few countries have ratified the Kyoto Protocol.
In the resolution, the criticism is expressed that the United States is so unwilling.
It is more important to assess our own behaviour.
The EU Member States have not yet ratified the Kyoto Protocol.
If countries at a climate conference reach an agreement, then it is understood that every effort is made to reach sound implementation and execution.
The fact that this environmental problem needs to be solved worldwide does not detract from the huge responsibility incumbent upon each individual Member State.
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I fully agree with the focus of the resolution being put on energy efficiency and renewable energy sources.
The measures involved have a beneficial effect on the environment.
However, there are also CO2 reducing measures which, besides said beneficial effects, also cause negative environmental effects.
In other words, a reduction in CO2 emissions can never be a licence to emit other harmful substances instead.
Therefore, the EU' s energy policy must specifically embrace all environmental effects caused by a specific type of energy production.
Then environmental policy will actually be integrated into the energy policy, as laid down in the Treaty.
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The environment needs to be integrated into the transport policy too.
The transport sector accounts for no less than 40% of total CO2 emissions.
It is evident that journeys and flights should be reduced.
The introduction of excise on kerosene remains a necessary measure, so that flight traffic is no longer given undue preferential treatment in financial terms over other types of transport.
Responsibility very much applies to the elected Members of Parliaments.
Yesterday, the new building of the European Parliament was opened.
I, like many others, cannot explain to the electorate that monthly journeys between Brussels and Strasbourg are necessary.
This is, unfortunately, a reality for the time being, but the climate in the European Council will hopefully change.
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<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Grossetête">
Mr President, everyone in this House agrees that reducing or at least stabilising CO2 emissions is an environmental imperative for our planet.
In 1992, at the Rio Convention, and then in 1997 at the Kyoto Conference, the European Union led the way.
We must now continue to propose a bold and ambitious policy on this subject, and the EU must also remain capable of convincing its partners, which means convincing its own Member States first.
For although Europe is talking about this issue, are the fifteen Member States ready to make the necessary efforts and to respect and implement the numerous directives approved here in this House?
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We must therefore raise awareness among the Member States and among our partners.
It has already been mentioned that the United States of America is still reticent about this kind of policy and ambition.
The European Union must therefore be resolute in the face of the US Congress and Japan and it must also be able to convince countries such as Russia.
You can appreciate the enormous task facing us in this respect, a task also facing us in our discussions on enlarging the EU and our need to convince the applicant States that our environmental ambitions must be heeded.
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Finally, the people must be made aware for it is through them that progress will be achieved.
I do not really favour energy taxes as I do not believe that environmental problems can be systematically solved with taxation.
The EU therefore has a real duty to raise awareness and provide information so that behaviour in the EU can change.
This is our ambition for the Europe of tomorrow.
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<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lange">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, you have made a very positive appraisal of the Bonn Conference which, from your point of view, I can understand.
In all honesty, however, although there has been progress in secondary theatres of war, as it were, for example how negotiations should be conducted, what working parties should be set up, no progress has been made on the main issue, i.e. what should be done about emission rights and emissions trading.
That is a pity because, as far as I can see, that is the main issue, especially in view of the fact that one large country, one contracting partner, is saying we want to be able to buy ourselves out of all our emissions obligations.
That this country is able to use internal political debate, i.e. the imminent election campaign in the USA, to block us and the other contracting States from making further progress on this central issue is scandalous!
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As far as I can see, the decisive question is this: how can we inject new momentum into this process and encourage greater involvement on the part of this large contracting State on the other side of the Atlantic?
How can we achieve progress in coming years and involve the United States in this?
As far as I am concerned, there can be no question of allowing countries to buy their way out of all their emission obligations, because what that means, in essence, is that we and the USA are able to absolve ourselves from our own obligations at the expense of less developed countries.
We overcame imperialism in the 19th century; surely we are not going to pave the way for imperialism in the 21st century!
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<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="Isler Béguin">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, thank you for your perceptive comments on global warming.
However, like my fellow Member, I do not totally agree with what you said about progress in the fight against this phenomenon.
We keep having conferences on global warming and they all turn out much the same. We should ask ourselves how many more so-called natural disasters it will take before the harmful effects of global warming, and their consequences, particularly on the economic and social development of European and world society, are really taken into account.
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You do not need to be a scientist to realise that global warming is a fact.
The floods which are causing increasing amounts of damage are enough of a signal to be taken seriously.
The insurance companies, which obviously are directly and financially involved, have sounded the alarm about these natural disasters which seem to be beating all records this year.
We should regard these indisputable signals as stop signs for they remind us daily of the urgent need to act and to adopt specific measures to combat global warming.
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Yet it is astonishing how little attention is paid to all these conferences.
Apart from a few environmentalists who are deeply concerned about global warming, total indifference is the norm.
Even worse, under pressure from powerful nuclear lobbies, nuclear energy has nearly succeeded in being recognised as a renewable source of energy. This would be a disaster in itself.
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To conclude, I believe we really are a long way off success in the fight against global warming.
This is why we have to set an example in this House, particularly as we appeared to be in the vanguard at Rio.
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<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="President">
I would like to reply to Mr Poettering who made a request at the beginning of the sitting: the European Councils of Cologne and Tampere established a body responsible for drawing up a Charter of Fundamental Rights.
This body is made up of representatives of the European Parliament, of Heads of State and Government, of national parliaments and of the European Commission.
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<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
Mr President, one of the greatest challenges in the fight for sustainable development is to reduce the all too high levels of CO2 emissions and, to begin with, I should like to emphasise that nuclear power is not a renewable energy source and that it ought not therefore to be included among Kyoto' s flexible mechanisms, such as the mechanism for sustainable development.
The use of nuclear power must not stand in the way of the transition to a more sustainable energy supply.
In order to honour its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol, the EU must, however, be involved in promoting renewable energy and seeking environmentally correct solutions so that the present level of CO2 emissions is reduced.
In this connection, I should like to refer to an investigation carried out by the Federation of European Contractors which shows that total European CO2 emissions can be reduced by a whole 12% by means of improving energy efficiency in buildings.
By insulating buildings, it will be possible, in addition to improving energy efficiency, to also create up to 300 000 permanent jobs in the EU over a 10-year period.
Both the Council and the Commission have previously acknowledged that some of the biggest potential for saving energy is to be found in the building sector.
I am therefore surprised that no-one has since mentioned this fact in the concrete proposals tabled with a view to fulfilling the Kyoto obligations, and I should like to ask the Commission whether this consideration has been quite specifically included among the matters to be deliberated by the Commission.
I can see that the Commission is not paying attention but I hope, all the same, that the question was heard.
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<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Moreira Da Silva">
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="Lienemann">
Mr President, Commissioner, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Kyoto is clearly one of the major challenges for the 21st century, yet the way that we resolve the issue of climate change may greatly affect future civilisation.
Parliament must therefore repeat its formal reservations about the right to pollute system, otherwise known as the flexibility mechanism. If we really want to solve the enormous problem of the greenhouse effect, we cannot operate a system in which everything can be bought and sold, including the right to pollute.
This is not true to our values and it will create profound inequalities.
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We could take as an example the situation in the former Soviet Union, in what is now Russia.
This country is in decline and its development is threatened. There is therefore enormous potential for it to trade its rights to pollute.
So the Americans, taking advantage of their status as a rich country, and despite having imposed this mechanism on us, supposedly to ensure the application of the Kyoto decisions, are not only not applying these decisions themselves but are also manoeuvring to trade these infamous rights to pollute with Russia.
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The richest countries can therefore pay to keep the rest under-developed so that they themselves do not have to make the efforts which they could.
This is unacceptable and Europe must say so.
Regardless of the Americans, Europe must say that it will ratify the Kyoto Protocol without getting involved in the right to pollute system.
The Commission must talk to Russia to ensure that it does not engage in these talks with the Americans and so that we can find other ways forward together.
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Finally, Europe must act within its Member States and at Community level.
I would suggest that Europe and the Commission pursue two initiatives.
The first concerns the excellent work initiated by Jacques Delors on piggyback transport and the major non-polluting transport infrastructures to replace the lorry and the car. This work must finally be taken forward with financing from the European Union.
The second, in the car sector, involves establishing a renewal strategy for old cars, in addition to the standards which we have adopted, given that these cars produce considerably more pollution than newer vehicles.
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<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Mr President, unfortunately, the international solution to the problem of how the greenhouse effect is to be handled is a long time in coming. I think it is very disheartening indeed that, after Kyoto, there is only one country, a small island in the South Pacific, which has ratified the Kyoto agreement.
Now, it is also a reality, and not only in statistics and in the world of conference venues, that emissions must be reduced and the greenhouse effect mitigated.
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Just as the resolution says, I believe that now is the time for the EU to really show the way and to dare to move forwards, to leave the reluctant and sluggish United States behind it and, together with others, to try to ratify the Kyoto agreement.
I think it is time for the EU to take the initiative and do this.
I hope that the present resolution, which I think is very good indeed, will be of use in this work in preparation for the COP 6 Conference.
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I should also like to thank Commissioner Wallström and Representative of the Council Hassi for what they said, because I thought this was extremely hopeful.
If it were they who were to have their way, I think things would get much better, for we are in fact playing roulette with our future; and the future has already shown itself to have arrived, what with all the disasters that have occurred in recent years.
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I believe that we must use political will in order to reduce emissions and utilise the renewable energy sources which do, in fact, exist.
It is not a case of our having to wait for these resources to appear, rather, they already exist.
It is just a question of using political will and ensuring that they are cost-effective and competitive.
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<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wijkman">
Mr President, it is of course interesting to listen to Commissioner Wallström and Representative of the Council Hassi.
You express a certain optimism when it comes to the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol, which I appreciate that one has to do in your position.
I personally am not so optimistic.
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Greenhouse gases continue to increase throughout the world more than seven years after the Climate Convention was signed.
I have been participating in a worldwide energy analysis which is just now being carried out. This shows - and, unfortunately, this has perhaps to be emphasised - that there will be plenty of fossil fuels for the foreseeable future.
Even if demand increases in the future, we shall be more or less swimming in oil and gas, and it will be cheap oil and gas.
It is therefore absolutely necessary to take political measures.
The market cannot put the environmental consequences in question into the equation.
We must levy taxes and charges, and we must devise norms and standards if we want the alternatives which exist in the energy sphere to have a chance.
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The United States' s passive attitude thus far has already been mentioned. I have come to the conclusion that the European Union must very much take a leading role in this work.
The resolution states a number of steps which could lead to the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol if Europe were to take the lead: a reduction of emissions here at home; concrete plans to reduce emissions in the most important sectors, above all within the transport sector where emissions are increasing most quickly; the introduction of economic instruments of control; early ratification of the Kyoto Protocol; and intensified dialogue, both with Japan and with the developing countries.
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I realise, like earlier speakers, that we must involve America in this, but we cannot wait for their leadership.
My question both to Commissioner Wallström and Representative of the Council Hassi is this: you have expressed a general optimism; now where is the conclusion?
My other question to Commissioner Wallström is this: are you prepared to give pro-active leadership a chance and, if so, how will it be possible for this to develop in the current political climate?
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<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Arvidsson">
Mr President, in common with other speakers, I should like to begin by emphasising the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and to reduce the effect upon the climate.
The present resolution is a good one but, following the discussion by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, two flaws have become apparent.
Firstly, there is a reference to nuclear power which is not directly connected to the resolution' s main purpose.
In my opinion, it would have been better to leave out completely the lines about nuclear power in the resolution but, since this has not been done, I would ask to support Mr Liese' s amendment.
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Secondly, the resolution is deficient when it recommends general energy taxes and carbon dioxide taxes.
The majority of the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats have their doubts about an EU tax of this kind and, on the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, voted against the proposal in this part of the resolution.
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General taxes on industry are a blunt instrument for obtaining measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
To present energy taxes as the most important measure is simply to engage in empty rhetoric.
I believe instead that we should be encouraging the individual EU States to take responsibility for achieving the required level of reductions in carbon dioxide emissions.
It is therefore up to the individual Member States to find the most effective tools, best suited to their own national circumstances, for achieving the objectives in question.
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Specifically targeted charges on carbon dioxide emissions should be more effective than general taxes, but there are also other options for individual Member States.
If need be, general EU taxes can be given an overarching dimension.
In my opinion, the prerequisites for devising tax instruments and tax legislation differ very considerably from one EU country to the next.
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By supporting the proposal for EU taxes in the energy sphere, I do not want to be a party to adopting a principle which limits the individual EU countries' autonomy in tax matters.
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There are members of the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats who, because of the above-mentioned contents of the text of the resolution, intend to vote against the resolution in its entirety.
I personally am going to vote in favour of the resolution, but with the reservations I have just mentioned.
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<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="Kauppi">
Mr President, Commissioner, the series of climate summits that began seven years ago with Rio has produced some fine resolutions which have been full of aims ever more ambitious than those that came before.
The time for real action has not yet got under way, however, nor has it even begun.
Achieving demanding aims is not childsplay, as some people in this Chamber seem to assume.
In its resolutions, Parliament should not give priority to certain types of measures at the expense of others. All possible means of reducing emissions have to be adopted immediately.
In particular, this means trading emissions quotas, which is an effective way of reducing emissions, if clear rules based on the mechanisms of a market economy are established.
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It is also very important that we do not limit our range of options by excluding the flexible mechanisms of carbon dioxide-free nuclear power.
The argument that says nuclear energy is not a sustainable means of producing energy, on account of the waste it produces, and cannot thus be included in the clean development mechanisms, is simply not tenable.
The nuclear power industry is the only energy business sector that has incorporated the costs associated with the entire lifespan of its product in its prices, and thus takes full responsibility for the safe depositing of its waste.
I would like to remind those Members here who continue to speak against nuclear power from one debate to the next that, but for the current level of nuclear energy being used, carbon dioxide emissions would immediately grow by 800 million tons every year.
We will not mention what sort of effects there would be if the world' s additional needs for energy were fully met without building more nuclear power plants.
Giving up the use of nuclear power may be a subject for populists in the developed countries of Europe, or here in Parliament, where it really is a populist subject, but the realistic alternative is nowhere else to be found, not even in those countries the Union is going to embrace in the future.
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<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="Hyland">
Mr President, if the overall social human and environmental benefits of clean air are to be secured, then the standards laid down by the EU's recent directive on vehicle emissions and fuel quality must be strictly adhered to.
There must be maximum cooperation between the EU Member State governments and all interested bodies so that a reduction in the use of CO2 becomes a reality.
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I welcome the debate that took place this week in Parliament on the uses of alternative energy resources.
The Irish Government has brought out a Green Paper on sustainable energy, which is to be given special status within our national development plan for the period 2000-2006.
This Green Paper discusses the framework for reducing CO2 emissions within all sectors of our society.
More funding must be put aside for alternative energy resources and there is also an anticipation that there will be a switch from the use of solid fuel and oil to natural gas and renewable energy sources and power generation in the future.
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This plan also proposes measures targeted at various consumer sectors which are designed to enhance energy awareness, expertise and practice in such areas as appliance purchasing, use of energy in the home, building installations, heating systems and energy management in industry, the services sector and also the public sector.
The publication of the Green Paper on sustainable energy in Ireland should be viewed as a positive contribution to the debate on how we deal with the climate change threat within the energy sector.
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<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="President">
Various Members have asked questions and raised points, to which both the representatives of the Council and the Commission intend to reply.
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<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="Hassi">
Mr President, Members of the European Parliament, I have been listening to this debate with great interest, and it must be said that that I have nothing but respect for the high level of knowledge the European Parliament has regarding this subject.
Many MEPs have mentioned examples of problems, such as floods, storms and various meteorological catastrophes, which show that climate change is already happening.
I agree with what everyone has said here.
I also agree with what many have pointed out, that Kyoto is only the first step.
After the commitments of Kyoto we will have to be able to commit to greater reductions in emissions to be able to prevent global warming, which is happening dangerously fast.
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There are two main aspects to this as far as the European Union is concerned. The first is the European Union' s action to reduce emissions in its own area, which is also a key issue with respect to the EU' s international credibility.
The Union really still has much to do in this area, which is something many MEPs have also mentioned.
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I would like to comment briefly on the question of an energy tax.
It is absolutely right, as Mr Wijkman, as far as I remember, said, that there are too many fossil fuels in the world, in other words, market forces are not sufficient to limit their use.
The consumer behaviour patterns we all show affect the climate, and an energy tax, a carbon dioxide tax, is one way to make the price an eco-label.
We all know that it has been difficult in the European Union to take a decision on an energy tax but, for example, the conclusions of the Cologne Summit state the importance of this issue.
In my opinion, this question should be high up on the agenda of the Ecofin Council.
One step in the right direction is that achieved on Monday in the Environment Council, which is for a Council common position on a 'strategic directive to assess environmental effects' , which will be a good tool to evaluate the impact on the environment, including the effect of emissions on the climate, of different programmes and action.
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The other aspect of our huge and difficult task is progress in international negotiations.
As I said in my opening speech, it is now essential to build bridges with the other players; many who have spoken here stressed quite rightly that we must build cooperation with players other than just the United States.
This is absolutely true, but I myself would certainly not see the USA in quite such a gloomy light as might have been inferred from some speeches.
I have the impression that the thinking is also changing in the USA.
Public opinion in the USA reveals concern about climate change.
This is also seen in the changing attitudes in business in the USA, and I myself have noticed this is also having an influence on politics.
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Although we as yet have no certain proof that the rules for compliance with the Kyoto agreement and the mechanisms will turn out to be good rules, it is still completely feasible to establish sound rules in the planned timetable.
To the question of why the Union should not ratify the Kyoto Protocol during the sixth conference of the parties concerned, I would say that this will not be possible as we will not have any clear picture before that meeting of what we should be ratifying.
If we were to commit to ratification beforehand, it would also weaken our position in the talks and our chances of successfully addressing those issues which we aim to cover at the talks.
In spite of the fact that I consider ratification to be very important in itself, I still do not think it is yet possible.
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In my opinion, the European Union has constantly demonstrated leadership with regard to this issue.
It is not at present as striking as it was, for example, at Kyoto, as we are now at the stage of the operation where we are plodding through the very many technical details.
Outwardly, this may not seem impressive, but it is absolutely essential.
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<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wallström">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, what made the biggest impression on me during the conference in Bonn were the speeches by representatives of small island States.
The combined effects of climate changes affect, and have already affected, their respective countries in such a way that they are aware that the issue is important to their future and to their survival.
The anxiety about the future which they expressed in Bonn and the zeal with which they urged us to translate our words into actual deeds made an incredibly strong impression upon me.
I also listened to an old man from another island on which I had had the privilege to live for a short time.
He said to me: "I believe it is us ordinary people, who are thinking about our children and grandchildren, who are taking a longer-term view rather than you politicians.
You ought to reflect upon that fact.
Do not just think about your own periods of office, but contrive to raise your sights and look to the future which we ourselves face."
This was also a warning.
I do not, Mr Wijkman, want to be too optimistic and I hope it did not sound as if I believed this would be an easy fight.
An easy fight is just what we do not have at the moment.
We have made climate change into a concept which is politically correct and which is to be found in wordings, in documents and at the top of agendas. Unfortunately, however, we can see how the trends are in quite the wrong direction.
This means that we must act and that we must act now, because the effects will not perhaps become apparent for fifty or even a hundred years.
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I agree with a lot of what has been said here about the value of integrating the environmental dimension into the whole of the transport sector and transport policy We in the Commission have also taken a number of important first steps. However, there is still much to be done in this area.
I believe that, if we are to succeed, then we must also provide ourselves with the tools and instruments which will enable us to make a difference.
We shall need more in the way of financial instruments of control. We must, in actual fact, put a price upon the environment so that we can actually see the alternatives developing.
We must involve all the various interested parties in a much broader way.
We shall need the help and cooperation of industry in order to achieve this. If we are to obtain sufficient political power and support for the purpose of taking the measures required, then we shall need to mobilise our respective citizens in all the Member States.
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To reply, nonetheless, to the question about the ratification process: it is clear that the Commission and the European Union must continue to play a leading role.
I nevertheless regard ratification by the EU alone as a second-best alternative.
I think we must concentrate on getting the United States to join us in ratifying the agreement and that it should preferably do so at the same time as ourselves and as quickly as possible in connection with COP 6.
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I also think that we must state clearly that we are concerned here with obtaining coordinated ratification from the EU. Otherwise, we shall not achieve that distribution of the burden which we have already agreed upon within the European Union.
We in the European Union ought therefore to ratify the agreement on a common basis and with all Member States on board.
We need to put more pressure upon all the Member States as they set about preparing their national plans.
We must show the way and take a more positive lead. We also need more power at our disposal throughout this process.
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I hope that the documents which we in the Commission are to present at the beginning of next year will help us obtain the power to drive forward all the work on combating climate change.
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I should like to thank you for all your valuable and constructive contributions.
I can also say that, from the Commission' s point of view, I cannot see us doing anything but support the amendments and the progressive resolution which Parliament has tabled.
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<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="President">
I would like to notify you that I have received a proposal for a resolution pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
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The debate is closed.
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The vote will take place today at 12 p.m.
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<CHAPTER ID=4>
Situation in Macao
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="President">
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the situation in Macao.
<P>
I invite Mrs Hassi to take the floor on behalf of the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="Hassi">
Mr President, I am sorry that Mrs Siimes, who would be the right person to speak on this matter, is not here.
She is at present having talks with the European Parliament' s Committee on Budgets.
In any case, she is in the European Parliament building.
I shall therefore read the Council resolution.
<P>
On 20 December this year Macao returns to Chinese rule by virtue of the agreement made between Portugal and China.
Talks on effecting the transfer of power have been going on between Portugal and China.
In a spirit of friendship and cooperation the Portuguese/Chinese liaison group has prepared the transfer of power and regular meetings have been held over the last twelve years.
Macao will become a special administrative area, with broad autonomy except in foreign policy and defence.
All the other administrative matters of the area will thus be in the hands of the local people, and will be their responsibility.
<P>
The European Union has had a special relationship with Macao, via Portugal, and the Union' s institutions have themselves prepared for the forthcoming transfer of power.
The Commission presented the Council and Parliament with a report on Macao entitled "The European Union and Macao: Relations after the Year 2000" .
The Council approved the conclusions on Macao with reference to the report in its meeting of 10 December 1999.
In addition, the Helsinki Summit delivered its opinion on Macao as part of the Presidency' s conclusions.
<P>
The European Union supports Macao' s status as a special administrative area, and will be following developments there closely.
The bonds are old and strong between Europe and Macao, making the relationship a special one.
The legal system, the rights of citizens, freedoms and values are similar in the Member States of the European Union and Macao.
They have important trade and investment connections and they enjoy very strong cultural links.
After the transfer of power, the European Union will monitor the reality of the 'one country, two systems' principle.
The European Union wishes to emphasise the importance of this special identity for Macao and holds it to be important to maintain citizens' rights and freedoms in accordance with the Community resolution of 1987 and the special administrative areas' constitution as laid down by China and Portugal.
The European Union will monitor the implementation of the international conventions that Macao is party to.
The European Union regards it as being especially important that the UN Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on Civil and Political Rights, and the basic standards established in the conventions associated with the ILO are applied in all their respects in Macao.
<P>
Trade relations between the European Union and Macao are important.
The EU is the third largest investor in Macao and the region' s second largest trading partner.
It has been agreed to continue with the agreement on trade and cooperation made between the EC and Macao after the transfer process is completed.
This agreement will create a lasting framework for cooperation between the special administrative area of Macao and the EU, and will help to maintain regular dialogue on economic matters and matters of commerce and cooperation.
This link will be further reinforced by the accreditation of Macao' s economic and trade office to the European Communities and the accreditation of the Commission' s Hong Kong delegation to Macao.
<P>
The example of Hong Kong will give us cause to believe that the transfer of power in Macao will proceed without conflict.
Macao' s small size and unity, as well as the international support she receives, will safeguard the future development of the special administrative area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="Patten">
This weekend I will be travelling to Macao to represent the Commission at the hand-over ceremonies.
As honourable Members might imagine, there is a certain sense of déjà vu for me in all of this.
Some might say that I am becoming rather an aficionado of hand-over ceremonies.
I have been referred to by some as the last Governor but that has never actually been true.
Certainly, my great friend and former colleague, Vasco Rocha Vieira, has more claim to the title than I do.
<P>
In making this statement this morning I want to place on record my admiration for all he has done in Macao in his long tenure as Governor.
His distinguished record as a public servant of skill and integrity is, I am sure, recognised in his own country as it is in Macao, and in this Parliament as it is in the Commission.
I am much looking forward to being able this weekend to salute that service as my gubernatorial colleague leaves his office.
<P>
Macao, like Hong Kong before it, will begin a new era after 19 December as a special administrative region of the People's Republic of China.
It will be different but, in crucial respects, life must and will stay the same.
That is what is meant by the concept of "one country - two systems" under which Macao, like Hong Kong, will retain its freedoms and fundamental rights and enjoy a high degree of autonomy as a special administrative region of the People's Republic of China.
Those rights and freedoms, as the Presidency said a few moments ago, are set out in terms in the Sino-Portuguese Joint Declaration which both parties have solemnly pledged to uphold.
<P>
The European Union will continue to take a close interest in Macao after 19 December.
The Commission has recently published a communication entitled "The European Union and Macao beyond 2000".
The Council endorsed the communication last week and welcomed and reinforced the commitments it makes.
In particular, the communication underlines the central importance we attach to the full implementation of the joint declaration. It makes clear that, as in the case of Hong Kong, the Commission will take a close interest in this matter and - again as we do for Hong Kong - we will publish an annual report on Macao.
We will follow the implementation of international conventions of which Macao is a member, in particular the UN Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural rights.
<P>
We also intend to work to strengthen EU-Macao relations, notably by encouraging EU companies to continue to invest in the territory.
The trade and cooperation agreement between the European Community and Macao, signed in 1992, will remain in force.
The Commission welcomes the accreditation of a Macao economic and trade office to the European Communities.
It will help to maintain and reinforce our dialogue on trade, economic and cooperation issues.
<P>
I feel strongly, as honourable Members will understand, about our continuing interest in Macao, about our continuing obligation.
We want to have as good a relationship with the future chief executive of the special administrative region as we have had with my friend the present Governor.
I would like to invite the chief executive to pay an early visit to Brussels; and it would also be good to welcome the chief executive of the Hong Kong special administration here when he can manage it or, alternatively, his internationally renowned deputy.
<P>
What is happening in Macao next Sunday is an important moment in Portugal's history, in China's history, in Europe's history.
<P>
Portugal, like the country I know best - or used to know best - has done its own best to discharge the responsibilities bequeathed by history honourably and well.
We all have to take account of different circumstances, of different challenges; nothing is ever quite the same.
But when I was in Hong Kong I always felt that when I talked to my colleague across the Pearl River Delta I was working with someone who shared my values and who had a profound sense of duty.
<P>
We all run our course.
Portugal has run her course in Macao and is fortunate that her honour during this passage has been in the hands of Governor Vieira and his officials in the Government of Macao.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
At times I was not sure whether you spoke in your capacity as Commissioner or as Governor, but in this case both problems are very much linked.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Graça Moura">
Mr President, the European People' s Party has repeatedly stated that it considers the Council and the Commission' s adoption of a public position before 20 December to be of fundamental importance. That is the date on which the transfer of sovereignty of the territory of Macao to the People' s Republic of China will take place.
<P>
I would therefore like to show my appreciation and approval of the positions adopted here by the representatives of the Presidency of the Commission and my wholehearted agreement with the tribute paid by Commissioner Christopher Patten to Governor Vasco Rocha Vieira.
The other political Groups have finally accepted the position of the European People' s Party and we therefore consider it essential that this debate takes place here and now, by happy coincidence on the day on which a delegation from the Chinese Parliament is visiting us.
<P>
The intervention of the European Parliament, of the Council and of the Commission will not only contribute to providing a more substantial safeguard for a combination of interests that were stated in good time, but will also reaffirm a genuine leading role for the European Union, which will ensure that China continues to see it as a favoured partner in discussions on a global strategy for peace, to the building of democracy, to the safeguard of human rights, to development, to dialogue and to modernisation on a worldwide scale.
<P>
For more than four and a half centuries, the presence of the Portuguese in Macao has almost always been peaceful and has almost always been as important for Portugal and for Europe as it has for China.
Therefore, what is about to take place in this quite unique case must involve the European Union in a very special way.
It is worth recognising the importance of the fact that Macao was the first permanent point of contact that Europe established with the Far East, in the middle of the 16th Century.
Macao is therefore a symbol of almost five centuries of peaceful coexistence and of mutual advantages in a framework of the most varied diplomatic, cultural and commercial activities. This has facilitated contact between the European and Chinese civilisations, the promotion and protection of China' s external trade and a significant assertion of European interests.
All of the following has contributed to Macao' s uniqueness - its history, its traditions and cultural forms and the racial mix and coexistence which have held sway there for such a long time and which are an extraordinary asset to the new relationship between the European Union and China.
<P>
This is also why it makes perfect sense and presents a major political opportunity for us to adopt a clear position, one which will express the well-founded expectations and the commitment of the Union' s citizens concerning the future of the special administrative region of Macao in the political context of China and concerning Europe' s relations with both, with regard to defence and the promotion of human rights, of other constitutional values and those of the specific legal framework which applies to the region by means of its new statute and of the principle of "one country, two systems" .
<P>
Let the same thing also be said for the principle of autonomy and Macao' s current economic and social systems as well as, on a wider scale, for the European Union' s relations with that part of the Far East, once the experience brings to an end certain possibilities, which may be of extraordinary relevance to this part of the world.
As far as these and other aspects are concerned, some of which involve my country more specifically, it is to be hoped that the conclusions of this debate will make an appropriate contribution to achieving the aims that have been stated.
<P>
On the other hand though, the proposal to produce annual reports on the European Union' s relations with Macao, which has been put forward by the Commission and which should also be welcomed, should not preclude the European Parliament itself from paying the closest attention to the matter, particularly by following its development from 20 December. It could do this by broadening the exchange of information and interinstitutional cooperation in this area, by creating its own interconnecting contact group, by analysing and debating the periodical reports that are presented to it, in short, by studying the development of all aspects of Macao' s overall situation.
This should be done in view of the transformations in international relations in the Far East and in view of the changes due to take place in this area, not forgetting the new situations which will eventually result from China' s entry into the WTO and by the development and/or qualitative change in its relationship with the United States of America.
<P>
Mr President, the motion for a joint resolution, the draft of which has been presented and the substance of which will progress very quickly if it is favourably received, will be able to make a significant contribution to achieving all of the objectives that have been mentioned.
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<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Soares">
Mr President, on behalf of the European Socialist Party, I would like to say that we are delighted with the declaration by the President-in-Office of the Council and also with Commissioner Patten' s very pleasant and intelligent statement concerning Governor Rocha Vieira.
<P>
I have personally been connected with the issue of Macao since the revolution of 25 April.
I remember that, as Minister for Foreign Affairs, I met my Chinese counterpart at the UN immediately following the revolution, and he expressed his feelings by saying "for us, Macao is not a colony; therefore, although you are shedding your colonies, do not touch Macao; it will sort itself out in its own time" .
<P>
The process was actually settled in a fairly cordial manner and in line with the friendship that has traditionally existed between Portugal and China.
The joint Sino-Portuguese Declaration - which Commissioner Patten has already referred to here - is a good declaration and contains, on the whole, the broad ideas that should guide Macao for the next fifty years as a special zone, with its own uniqueness in the overall context of China, that is, by respecting the legislation established by the Portuguese in Macao.
<P>
Macao, as has already been said, has always been a melting pot of cultures and of new meetings of cultures, of religions too, and has always been a territory where peace, tranquillity and coexistence between peoples of the most diverse ethnic backgrounds have reigned.
This must continue.
The role of the European Union, the Commission and the European Parliament is crucial in this regard, given that, as has already been emphasised, many conventions between the European Union and Macao have been signed, and it is right that over the next fifty years, the European Parliament and our European Institutions should be able to follow Macao' s development, which I think will be a happy one.
I also feel honoured that I shall be present in Macao on 20 December.
I am sure that the ceremony will be exemplary and I must say that, as a Portuguese Member of this Parliament, I am delighted with the circumstances in which, at the end of the century and of the millennium, Portugal' s cycle of imperialism is coming to a close.
<P>
Portugal was the first European Empire and will be the last European empire and we might say that the cycle is being closed with a "golden key" , to the extent that, on the one hand, Portugal is conducting a peaceful and friendly handover of the territory of Macao to the People' s Republic of China and, in the same sense, that Timor gained its independence in a fortunate way.
These were the ideals of the democratic revolution, which transformed my country in 1974.
Portugal is a different country today, a free country, a country in which people coexist peacefully, one in which human rights are respected and whose main objective is peace.
It is in the spirit of peace and respect for human rights that we shall be sincere in handing over the administration of Macao to China, as it now falls within China' s competence, in the hope that China will respect the commitments that were signed jointly in the Sino-Portuguese Declaration.
<P>
I am grateful for the way in which the Governor of Macao was spoken of, whom, moreover, I had the honour of appointing to this post when I was President of Portugal, and I can say that Governor Rocha Vieira is truly a man who has honoured Portugal and who has enabled Portugal to leave the territory of Macao with its head held high and with a clear conscience.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="President">
Thank you, President Soares.
I am sure that you will represent the European Parliament well in Macao, even if, as a Portuguese person, your heart will be slightly heavy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Watson">
Mr President, I welcome the Commission's communication and today's statements.
Macao offers an opportunity for trade, dialogue and engagement which is the way to bring freedom and democracy to the Communist dictatorship of the People's Republic of China.
I welcome too Commissioner Patten's honourable personal commitment and record of success in this regard.
However, for the Union to talk of a shared legal system between Europe and Macao stretches credibility.
Recently, a private commercial dispute involving the financial interests of the mainland's political leaders led to the kidnap in Macao of an innocent Australian-Chinese businessman, Mr James Pang, and his jailing on the mainland for seven years on trumped-up charges.
Since China has refused to agree to the establishment of a court of final appeal, Macao has barely even the semblance of an independent judiciary which Hong Kong has.
<P>
Today's news from Hong Kong in this regard is not good.
The court of final appeal has reversed the judgement of a lower court and convicted two young men for defacing a flag at a peaceful demonstration, despite the incorporation of the ICCPR into the territory's law.
It shows how supposed safeguards on freedom in Hong Kong are being quickly eroded.
<P>
Let us keep talking to China on Macao and other issues but let us not fool ourselves that the Christmas gift we give Macao next week will protect the freedoms of its people.
<P>
In the communication, the Commission talks of "a solid relationship in terms of culture and civilisation".
I hope the Council and Commission will assure us that they will not shrink from expressing Europe's outrage at the continued assaults on human rights and human liberties which pose a major challenge to us in the next century.
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<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Nogueira Román">
Mr President, after the transfer of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to China, with the admirable leading role played by Commissioner Patten, the transfer of Macao, by agreement between Portugal and the People' s Republic of China, is a necessary and inevitable act that must be welcomed.
However, as the joint resolution that has been presented states, the necessity of this act does not mean that the European Union is no longer interested in the future of a territory which has such close links with our history and even our culture.
<P>
Macao is a current symbol of that Portuguese, Hispanic and European spirit of adventure, which led us to establish human and trade relationships on every continent.
Today, Macao can and must serve as a democratic door or window which will enable us to continue a new type of relationship with this huge country China, to our mutual benefit and to that of all humanity.
To this end, particularly on behalf of my Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, and although we agree with the joint resolution, I would like to emphasise the need to safeguard Macao' s autonomy by consolidating its civil society and its democracy with freedom of political association, by keeping the Union open to the territory' s inhabitants and by strengthening trade relations with it.
<P>
Taking advantage of this opportunity to speak and of the opportunity provided by the presence here of President Xanana Gusmão, I would like to state my belief that, taking into account its pressing needs and our common identity, the European Union must immediately establish special links with Timor in order to guarantee its economic and social development and independence.
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<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Figueiredo">
Mr President, we are delighted with the way in which the preparation for the region of Macao passing into the sovereignty of the People' s Republic of China on 20 December has taken place.
<P>
We hope that no doubts remain as to the climate of mutual understanding and of political will shown by Portugal and by the People' s Republic of China and that no one still feels ambiguous about the outlook for the future development of the special administrative region of Macao.
<P>
We think that conditions have been created for economic and cultural relations to develop on a basis of cooperation and mutual benefit between the People' s Republic of China, specifically through Macao, and the European Union and its Member States.
We agree with the joint resolution presented here despite some differences of opinion, which shows our firm desire to work together in developing these friendly relations at this historic moment, which we welcome wholeheartedly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro e Castro">
Mr President, four days away from the transfer of power in Macao, the resolution, with which we agree, is extraordinarily valuable because it is confident and because it provides guarantees for the future.
Over these few days, there are two other curious coincidences taking place here in Strasbourg.
Firstly, with us here we have Xanana Gusmão, who has just arrived from East Timor.
Although in different circumstances, which are painful and very harsh, Timor is like Macao: it represents another promise of progress for human rights, freedom and for the rule of law in Asia, another beacon of hope with links to European culture through Portuguese culture and experience.
<P>
The second coincidence is that the interparliamentary meeting with the People' s Republic of China is being held now, which gives us the opportunity to communicate the depth of our feeling and the strength of our expectations for Macao and its future.
<P>
Portugal takes pride in the efforts that have been made in the territory of Macao and in the hopeful signs that several centuries of peaceful coexistence have left there.
One of the lasting symbols that should now be highlighted is the utter uniqueness of Macao, the open cultural tolerance between peoples and cultures, religious freedom, traces of unique symbiosis and a legal culture founded on the principles and values of the rule of law and human rights.
<P>
In this peaceful process, one of dialogue between Portugal and China, it was essential that China clearly embraced Macao' s unique nature.
It also had to give solemn guarantees that it would preserve and value it in the context of its autonomy, enshrined in law.
For China, this is how its policy known as "one country, two systems" works.
For us, it is the direct expression of the inalienable rights of the citizens of Macao.
<P>
I am delighted at the broad convergence that we have been able to obtain on this joint resolution as well as on the positions stated by the Presidency, by the Council and by the Commission.
They are a very positive and promising sign for which the citizens of Macao are grateful and which we Portuguese, still speaking on their behalf, also appreciate.
This collective attention on the part of Europe is the best additional, practical guarantee that we can give, the best way that we have of guaranteeing that Macao' s unique nature is safeguarded, and of continuing to deal with Macao in a unique way, not by putting it into the pot with every other country.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Speroni">
Mr President, like slaves in Ancient Rome, Africans in the plantations in the Americas or, better still, like serfs, the inhabitants of Macao change master without anyone having consulted them, without them having been able to express their views on the subject.
Once again, a people' s right to self-determination is being trampled underfoot, just as it was in Chechnya.
I have heard - and I regret this - Mr Soares and others likening East Timor to Macao.
This is a completely shameful parallel: East Timor is going to become independent, whereas Macao is moving towards a communist dictatorship.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Gollnisch">
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Hassi">
Mr President, I have nothing else to add other than to say that the Finnish delegation will be led by the Finnish President, Mr Ahtisaari, who will also be representing the country holding the Presidency of the EU, in the ceremony to mark the transfer of power.
I am pleased that the European Parliament representation is also a prestigious one, as the former President of Portugal will be representing it.
The Council would like to add its voice to the hopes expressed here that the transfer of power will be a peaceful and splendid occasion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="Patten">
First of all I would like to recognise, as I am sure the whole Parliament does, the role that the honourable Member Mr Soares has played, not only in the restoration of democracy, decency and human rights to one of the greatest European countries, but also the role he has played historically in the end of empire, and in the ending of empire as decently as could be managed, not least in Macao.
<P>
It is true, as the last speaker Mr Gollnisch pointed out, that Macao represents a free society: a free city on the edge of China, on the edge of Asia, as Mr Graça Moura pointed out at the beginning of our debate; an extraordinary crossroads between east and west ever since the 16th century.
I have enough faith, enough belief, in the values which Macao and Hong Kong represent to believe that, whatever the style of government in the region, those values will survive and prosper, not least because they are rooted in people's hearts.
<P>
Mr Gollnisch spoke of his concerns about future freedom of worship in Macao.
Well, if I take Hong Kong as an example, I do not think Mr Gollnisch should have too much to worry about.
I will be attending mass next Sunday morning in the cathedral in Hong Kong with my friends in the parish, as I used to when I was Governor.
There has been no sign of anything in Hong Kong other than the continuing vitality of the Christian churches.
I am sure that will be the case in Macao as well.
<P>
But we do have to be concerned about the survival of the rule of law, the survival of civil liberties, the survival of human rights, as Mr Watson pointed out in his valuable corrective.
Issues like the James Pang case did cause concern to the international community.
The international community was concerned about the earlier decision taken by the Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong, or rather the reversal of that decision by the parliament in Beijing.
We are concerned to speak out when there seems to us to be actions taken which threaten the continuance of the rule of law; and we would not be true to the promises we have made to people in Macao and Hong Kong, we would not be true to our own values, if we did not speak out when those values appeared to us to be under threat.
<P>
What sensible leaders in China will recognise is that the return of Macao, like the return of Hong Kong, did not just mean an extremely rich and prosperous asset returned to the motherland, but represented something more than that.
Hong Kong and Macao are both great international cities; they can play a very important part in the continuing development and successful opening of China to the rest of the world; and in playing that role Macao will have all our best wishes for the exciting period of history which I am sure lies ahead.
<P>
I would like to close, as I closed my earlier remarks, by referring to the outstanding record of the present Governor.
I would like to say that I am sure the best wishes of Parliament go to his successor, the Chief Executive, who has a difficult job, but one which I am sure he will carry out to the very best of his ability.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Patten.
<P>
I would like to inform you that I have received six motions for resolutions pursuant to Article 37 paragraph 2 of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Thursday at 10 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Beijing Action Platform
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on the oral questions
<P>
(B5-0035/99) by Mrs Theorin and
<P>
(B5-0037/99) by Mrs Theorin
<P>
to the Commission and the Council, on behalf of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, on the European Union follow-up to the Beijing Action Platform.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Theorin">
All the European Member States adopted the Beijing Platform for Action.
We committed ourselves to 12 areas. They are all indispensable for women's full enjoyment of their human rights.
Five years later it is time for an evaluation.
<P>
The first area is poverty.
We pledged to adopt macro-economic policies for the needs of women in poverty and to ensure women's equal access to economic resources.
But single mothers and older women remain the main victims of poverty.
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The second area is education.
We promised to ensure women's equal access to science and technology and life-long education.
Unfortunately, education of women and men still follows a stereotyped pattern.
<P>
The third area is health.
We agreed to increase resources for women's health.
Yet middle-aged and elderly women remain beset, more than men, with health problems.
Maternity and child mortality are still too high.
<P>
The fourth area is violence.
We promised to eliminate gender-based violence, yet violence against women remains the single largest injury to European women.
Between 15% and 25% of women are battered during pregnancy and sexual trafficking is increasing, while only 2% to 3% of those men who commit rape go to prison.
<P>
The fifth area is armed conflict.
We promised to increase women's participation in conflict resolution and protect women in armed conflicts, yet women still make up the overwhelming majority of those affected by armed conflict but are absent from peace negotiations and peace transition initiatives.
<P>
The sixth area is women and the economy.
We pledged to promote women's access to employment and control over economic resources.
Women remain virtually absent from or are poorly represented in economic decision making.
Women earn, on average, 75% of the hourly wages of men and their employment rate is about 20% lower.
<P>
Decision making is the seventh area.
We promised to ensure women's equal access to, and full participation in, power structures and decision making, yet nowhere is the gap between de jure and de facto gender equality greater than in the area of decision making.
<P>
The eighth area is institutional mechanisms for the advancement of women.
We agreed to mainstream gender in legislation, public policies and programmes.
Unfortunately, the political will has been absent.
Gender mainstreaming and gender impact assessment are far from a reality.
<P>
Women's human rights is the ninth area.
We promised to fully implement the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.
Today there is still insufficient recognition of the principle that human rights apply equally to women and men.
<P>
The tenth area is media.
We pledged to promote a non-stereotyped portrayal of women in the media yet, as a result of massive male domination of media power, the media continue to project negative and degrading images of women.
<P>
The eleventh area is environment.
The European Members pledged to involve women actively in environmental decision making.
Women's experience and skill remain insufficiently used in environmental policy actions.
<P>
The twelfth and last area is the girl child.
We promised to eliminate all forms of discrimination against the girl child, yet statistics show that a girl child is discriminated against from the earliest stages of life, through her childhood and into adulthood.
<P>
This is the discouraging result five years after Beijing and after 25 years of effort since the United Nations incurred the responsibility for promoting women's rights at national, regional and international levels.
It is high time for the UN "Beijing plus five" special session in June next year to take concrete action to implement the Beijing platform.
An action-oriented plan for advancing the Beijing goals is necessary if all governments are to implement strategies for gender equality in all 12 critical areas of concern.
<P>
The European Union must play a truly active role.
The preparatory work at European level is already far advanced.
The European Union work must be speeded up so it can have a real influence before positions are fixed at international level.
Our question is: how will the Commission and the Council ensure that Parliament becomes a real partner, both in the preparatory work on the European Union input to "Beijing plus five", and in the European Union's official delegation to the New York Conference?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Hassi">

Mr President, we thought that the honourable Member, Mrs Theorin, would ask her question in Swedish, and we have therefore prepared our answer in Swedish.
Thank you, in any case, for having taken up this very important question.
<P>
As Mrs Theorin is certainly aware, the European Union' s preparatory conference, which was planned for December of this year within the framework of the European Commission, will now take place in February of next year.
The intention is that the applicant countries, non-governmental organisations and, of course, Members of the European Parliament who have already been invited as lecturers and mediators should also take part in this conference.
Since this falls within the sphere of the Commission' s activities, it is only appropriate to turn to the Commission for more information.
To confine ourselves to the latest development within the Council, the Finnish Presidency has prepared a questionnaire addressed to all the Member States and to all the European institutions on the subject of "Women in the Decision-making Process" . Their answer has made it possible for the Finnish Presidency to prepare a report containing nine indicators, together with recommendations.
This report was debated in the Council (Employment and Social Affairs) on 22 October of this year.
<P>
Parallel to the debates based on the Presidency' s above-mentioned report, the Council has adopted a number of conclusions in which account is taken of the Finnish Presidency' s report.
The nine indicators it is proposed should be used when next monitoring implementation of the Beijing Action Platform are included in these conclusions, and a reminder is provided of the Member States' commitment, in accordance with the Beijing Action Platform, to achieve the equal participation of women and men at all levels where power is exercised and decisions taken.
The Member States are urged to take any necessary measures.
Furthermore, the Council is following with interest the debates which are taking place in Parliament, particularly in the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities in which the honourable Member is chairperson
<P>
My personal comment is that I agree with Mrs Theorin that violence against women is the greatest individual violation of women' s rights.
When it comes to the conference in New York, it ought to be pointed out that this is an Intergovernmental Conference and that there is therefore no official delegation as such from the European Union but, instead, delegations from the Member States.
Moreover, the Commission has observer status.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Diamantopoulou">
Mr President, my answer has two parts: the first part concerns what has been done so far following the Beijing Conference and how the European Commission has supported the action decided on the joint platform, and the second concerns the role of the European Parliament with regard to the United Nations Conference in the summer of 2000.
<P>
I agree with Mrs Theorin that the situation is particularly dramatic for women in many places on the planet and is becoming critical.
Unfortunately, globalisation, development, technologies, the free movement of capital, goods and, above all, people often have negative rather than positive implications for women and children in the Third World.
<P>
I should like to refer to some of the action taken by the Commission; however, I would stress that there is, I believe, a great deal of room for further mobilisation by both the Commission and the Member States and, of course, a special policy to support these issues is needed, both in the run up to the conference and afterwards, within the fifth women' s action plan.
As you know, the European Commission drafted an announcement in 1995, in parallel to the Beijing Conference, in which it adopted gender mainstreaming in all development policies.
<P>
A vote on gender mainstreaming in all individual policies was held in 1995 and guidelines were drafted for the Commission services to follow.
A budget line was allocated to increasing awareness and supporting action for women in developing countries.
It was agreed to create indicators and, in April 1999, the first announcement was made of the results of these joint indicators, which take account of the place of women in the economy, in politics and in society in relation to the development programmes approved.
The first two-year report evaluating the results of these policies will be presented in 2000.
I repeat that some action has been taken since Beijing, but this needs to be stepped up and consolidated with much more specific measures.
As far as the participation of the European Parliament is concerned, we must acknowledge that, for years now, the European Parliament has been instrumental in raising public awareness both in Europe and throughout the world and in the decision-making process; i.e. it has affected the decisions taken by the Council and the Commission.
The European Parliament therefore has an exceptionally important role and it will have a great deal of input into this procedure up to June.
As you know, a committee in which the European Parliament is involved is responsible for pre-conference planning.
The Member States are helping to organise the United Nations Conference.
As the Presidency has stressed, we shall be taking part as observers.
We have the previous experience of Beijing but that will not prevent continuous and fundamental cooperation throughout this period so that we can arrive at common positions in the fifteen Member States. This will be particularly important for the positions which we will put forward and in giving us the strength to put these positions forward in June.
<P>
Mr President, would it be possible to conclude the debate now?
This should last about ten minutes.
Otherwise we shall have to stay here for the whole day.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="President">
Commissioner, we have to prepare the room for the formal sitting.
That means that we will continue the debate until Mrs Gröner and then break off.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Avilés Perea">
Mr President, in 1995 at the fourth World Conference of Women in Beijing, organised by the UN, 189 countries adopted a platform for action and a declaration in which the participating governments committed themselves to improving the situation of women.
<P>
If we examine the results after almost five years and with a view to the June meeting in New York, we should ask ourselves: What progress have we made?
What has improved and what has got even worse?
<P>
We are witnessing many armed conflicts, violence against women and extreme poverty in many cases.
On the borders of the European Union, we have endured the wars in Bosnia and in Kosovo, which have still not returned to an acceptable state of normality.
There are currently conflicts in Chechnya, in other regions of the Caucasus, in Afghanistan, especially the Panjshir Valley, in Africa and other regions.
Violence and terrorism have been present in Algeria and still no solution has been found to normalise life and allow progress in all areas.
<P>
In many parts of the world, women are victims of violence and traditional practices which do not take account of their personal dignity or their human rights.
They are barred from professional life and even access to health care.
<P>
The trade in human beings particularly affects women, who are victims of organised mafias and prostitution.
This particularly affects younger women and, unfortunately, does not only happen in the less developed countries, but also in the wealthy countries.
<P>
Women are reacting, however.
They are reacting more and more and they are rebelling against those situations which degrade them and marginalise them.
They want to participate in professional life, in political life, in the education of their children and in the training of young women.
Numerous laws have been implemented to protect women and allow them to fight inequality, as well as allowing them to participate in political activity.
Women are reacting: they make use of the laws in their favour, they organise themselves into cooperatives and manage to bring about a form of development which allows them to improve their quality of life.
They want to participate more and more in technological innovations; they have discovered the opportunities offered by organising themselves and establishing associations in their places of residence, in their work-places and in their regions.
They are getting better and better at fighting the old problems and achieving better lives.
<P>
However, despite the progress made, we have to continue working so that many women may have more dignified and fair lives.
The meeting in New York, following on from the conference in Beijing, will be a good opportunity to continue working along this line.
I therefore ask for more participation by the Parliament and support from the European institutions so that our presence there may be effective.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gröner">
Mr President, the European Parliament was, and is, the driving force behind the implementation of the Beijing Action Platform, as the Commissioner has just acknowledged.
We considered the fourth action programme on equal opportunities to be the consequence of it.
We have tried to include the gender mainstreaming policy in all policy areas.
We have launched specific measures such as those to combat violence against women.
<P>
I was present as rapporteur for the European Parliament at both the NGO Conference in Beijing and at the Intergovernmental Conference of the 189 countries and I have, of course, followed developments over the last five years very closely, both in the European Union and in the developing countries.
I recall that the EU spoke out for women with one voice under the Spanish Presidency of the Council and was able during negotiations to argue important points and include them in the Action Platform from this position of strength.
That was the happy experience.
<P>
That the Members of the European Parliament had an undetermined status and were not fully integrated in the European delegation was the less happy experience.
The situation was different at subsequent negotiations, for example, at the WTO in Seattle.
We should therefore continue to follow this new practice at future international conferences.
This brings me to my specific question, which is directed mainly at the Council, and we expect an equally specific answer: what status will MEPs have at the next conference, the Beijing plus 5 Conference in New York?
We are already involved with the Commission in preparing the content for the conference in February but we are still waiting for a clear message from the Council, since the question of if and how many members are to represent the European Parliament in New York has not yet been clarified.
Time is running out.
The ECE Conference, i.e. the UN Commission on Europe, is being held in Geneva in January and it is not clear whether we have been included in the delegation to it.
<P>
We need a straight answer here today.
Preparation of the content by the Commission, in which we have been included, is well under way.
Firstly, the content of the twelve crucial areas defined in the Action Platform is being dealt with. Secondly, strategies are being clearly discussed.
We do not want to formulate new objectives; what we want is a clear analysis and evaluation of where progress has been made in our Member States, where we should concentrate and where we should step up efforts so that the European Union can achieve progress in New York for the women of Europe and throughout the world?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Gröner.
<P>
The debate will continue after the Commission' s statement. Unfortunately, this will be after the reports by Mr Papayannakis and Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert, but before question time at 5.30 p.m.
Does that perhaps answer your question Mrs Theorin?
<P>
I must now suspend the sitting for the formal sitting at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
As rapporteur, Mrs Theorin would like to ask a further question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
Mr President, although I fully appreciate that we have to break off in order to award the prize to Xanana Gusmão, whom I fully and completely support, I should nonetheless like, on behalf of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, to ask whether we are to see as discrimination against women the fact that we do not get to continue our debate at three o' clock on the dot, which I think would have been quite the natural thing to do.
I would appeal to you, Mr President, to alter matters in such a way that you also respect the women here in Parliament and in such a way that we might have the final part of our discussion at three o' clock, with the other subjects discussed afterwards.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="President">
Mrs Theorin, that was the arrangement from the outset.
The agenda was set under the auspices of a lady President, so certainly no thoughts were voiced in that direction.
We have indeed often had cases in the past where debates had to be adjourned for formal sittings.
It is normal procedure here in this House and, thank God, has nothing to do with the report.
<P>
I should now like to suspend the sitting so that the room can be prepared for the formal sitting for Mr Gusmão, the Sakharov prize-winner.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 11.30 a.m. and resumed at 12.05 p.m.)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, we have just presented Mr Gusmão with the Sakharov prize in an atmosphere charged with emotion.
I hope that Parliament will not stop at applause but that it will also actually follow up the promise of solidarity with the people of East Timor and those responsible.
I would remind you - and Madam President has said this, something I am pleased about - how deeply ashamed I feel as a Member of this Parliament when I consider that former Sakharov prize-winners, including Mrs Leyla Zana, are still in Turkish prisons, whilst we make such a song and dance about welcoming Turkey as a candidate country.
I find this unacceptable.
<P>
<P>
Parliament must ensure that winners of the Sakharov prize are not just honoured on the day itself but that their fate is monitored afterwards as well.
It should be made absolutely clear that this needs to be done.
I blame both the Council and the Commission for overlooking this when Turkey was admitted.
<P>
(Loud applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="President">
Strictly speaking, that was not a point of order but it was apposite in the circumstances.
In my view, when Parliament undertakes a solemn presentation, it is also engaging in a solemn undertaking at the same time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
Mr President, I just want to have it confirmed to everyone beyond all doubt that the debate by the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities concerning questions of equality and the Beijing Action Platform will continue at three o' clock.
I want this confirmed so that everyone knows about it, because it was previously intended to continue the debate later.
However, we must inform all Members of the European Parliament of this so that everyone can be here by three o' clock.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="President">
Yes, I am told it will continue at 3 o'clock.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Vote
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="President">
The next item is the vote.
<P>
Procedure without report (Rule 158):
<P>
Proposal for a Council and Commission decision relating to the conclusion of a protocol on the adaptation of the institutional aspects of the Europe Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States, on the one part, and the Republic of Hungary, of the other part, to take account of the accession of the Republic of Austria, of the Republic of Finland and of the Kingdom of Sweden to the European Union (9725/1999 - C5-0190/1999 - 1997/0272(AVC)) (Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy)
<P>
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)
<P>
Proposal for a Council and Commission decision relating to the conclusion of a protocol on the adaptation of the institutional aspects of the Europe Agreement between the European Communities and the Member States, on the one part, and the Czech Republic, of the other part, to take account of the accession of the Republic of Austria, of the Republic of Finland and of the Kingdom of Sweden to the European Union (9726/1999 - C5-0191/1999 - 1997/0273(AVC)) (Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy)
<P>
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)
<P>
- Proposal for a Council and Commission decision relating to the conclusion of a protocol on the adaptation of the institutional aspects of the Europe Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States, on the one part, and the Republic of Slovakia, of the other part, to take account of the accession of the Republic of Austria, of the Republic of Finland and of the Kingdom of Sweden to the European Union (9727/1999 - C5-0192/1999 - 1997/0274(AVC)) (Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy)
<P>
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)
<P>
- Proposal for a Council and Commission decision relating to the conclusion of a protocol on the adaptation of the institutional aspects of the Europe Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States, on the one part, and the Republic of Poland, of the other part, to take account of the accession of the Republic of Austria, of the Republic of Finland and of the Kingdom of Sweden to the European Union (9728/1999 - C5-0193/1999 - 1997/0275(AVC)) (Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy)
<P>
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)
<P>
- Proposal for a Council and Commission decision relating to the conclusion of a protocol on the adaptation of the institutional aspects of the Europe Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States, on the one part, and the Republic of Bulgaria, of the other part, to take account of the accession of the Republic of Austria, of the Republic of Finland and of the Kingdom of Sweden to the European Union (9729/1999 - C5-0194/1999 - 1997/0276(AVC)) (Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy)
<P>
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)
<P>
- Proposal for a Council and Commission decision relating to the conclusion of a protocol on the adaptation of the institutional aspects of the Europe Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States, on the one part, and Romania, of the other part, to take account of the accession of the Republic of Austria, of the Republic of Finland and of the Kingdom of Sweden to the European Union (9730/1999 - C5-0195/1999 - 1997/0277(AVC)) (Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy)
<P>
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)
<P>
- Proposal for a Council decision adopting a supplementary research programme to be implemented by the Joint Research Centre for the European Atomic Energy Community (COM(1999) 578 - C5-0286/1999 - 1999/0232(CNS)) (Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Ahern">
Mr President, on a point of order, I have tabled amendments to this because it is a very unusual procedure.
The same thing happened four years ago, which is why I protested in committee.
It was suddenly placed on the agenda without proper documentation and without the proper procedures, and in this amendment we have asked the Commission to bring it forward three months before the end of the budgetary period so that it can be discussed properly in future.
<P>
It is about the Petten reactor in Holland, which we are always assured is for medical research.
However, we discovered when looking at the Commission documentation, which as I said was provided very late - in fact, only this week - that it actually deals with military-grade plutonium and research into that.
That is a very serious topic and we need to be properly informed on such research within the boundaries of the European Union.
I have tabled amendments to that effect.
We were not able to discuss it or to debate it either in committee or in plenary, which is why I am drawing it to your attention now.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="McNally">
Mr President, the Committee on Industry agreed to vote on this item only on condition that the Commission would come to the Chamber and give an explanation as to the procedure, and would give us certain assurances.
I see that the Commissioner responsible, Mr Busquin, is in the Chamber.
Commissioner Lamy gave that undertaking.
We will not vote until we have had a statement from the Commission, because of the very strange procedure being adopted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Busquin">

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I appeared before the Committee on Industry on 6 December to present the results of the Research Council of 2 December. I informed the Committee that the ministers had agreed to a new supplementary research programme up to 2003, for the Petten High Flux Reactor in the Netherlands.
<P>
The Euratom Treaty does not provide for Parliament to be consulted. However, in accordance with the interinstitutional agreement between this House and the Council, the latter undertook to formalise its agreement only after having requested Parliament' s opinion.
<P>
This is the procedure which the Council has followed and in which the Commission is not involved.
However, in view of its desire to keep Parliament informed, the Commission was careful to send its proposal to this House at the same time as to the Council.
I now understand that the urgency with which this procedure has taken place has not actually allowed Parliament to satisfactorily express its opinion on this proposal.
However, the Commission, as the body which will be responsible for implementing this programme, can only hope for its formal adoption.
<P>
The importance of this research reactor in the medical field in recent years cannot be ignored.
The Petten High Flux Reactor has produced 60% of the isotopes needed for cancer diagnoses and therapies in European hospitals and other medical centres.
Over six million diagnoses are made annually in Europe due to this work.
In addition, the Community is conducting medical research in this reactor, particularly on the development of new brain tumour therapies.
<P>
Finally, I must point out that this programme is being financed by three Member States only, namely the Netherlands, Germany and France.
Community financing is not being used. The High Flux Reactor also receives major financing from the European pharmaceutical industry.
<P>
On behalf of the Commission, I can only hope that Parliament will add its support to the Council' s.
Having said this, I am happy to discuss this matter further with this House at a future date.
<P>
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)
<P>
Proposal for a Council regulation (EC) apportioning the quantities of grain provided for under the Food Aid Convention 1995 for the period 1 July 1998 to 30 June 1999 (COM(1999) 384 - C5-0258/1999 - 1999/0162(CNS)) (Committee on Development and Cooperation)
<P>
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)
<P>
Procedure without debate (Rule 114):
<P>
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0080/1999) by Mrs Grossetête, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council regulation on orphan medicinal products (9616/1999 - C5-0182/1999 - 1998/0240(COD))
<P>
(The President declared the common position approved)
<P>
- Report (A5-0088/1999) by Mr Miranda, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council - Effects of the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty on current legislative procedures as at 1 May 1999 in the field of development and cooperation (SEC(1999) 581 - C4-0219/1999) Confirmation of first reading: COM(1994) 289 - C4-0090/1994 - 1994/0167(COD) - former 1994/0167(SYN)
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
- Report (A5-0091/1999) by Mr Chichester, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Council Directive 80/181/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to units of measurement (COM(1999) 40 - C4-0076/1999 - 1999/0014(COD))
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
Report (A5-0097/1999) by Mrs Pack, on behalf of the Parliament Delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text, adopted by the Conciliation Committee, on a European Parliament and Council decision establishing the second phase of the Community action programme in the field of education "SOCRATES" (C5-0267/1999 - 1998/0195(COD))
<P>
(Parliament approved the joint text)
<P>
Report (A5-0084/1999) by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the decision on the verification of credential following the fifth direct elections to the European Parliament on 10-13 June 1999
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
Report (A5-0100/1999) by Mr Virrankoski, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the supplementary estimates to Parliament's budget estimates for 2000
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0086/1999) by Mr Rothley, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to insurance against civil liability in respect of the use of motor vehicles and amending Directives 73/239/EEC and 88/357/EEC (Fourth Motor Insurance Directive) (14247/1/1999 - C5-0027/1999 - 1997/0264(COD))
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Bolkestein">
The Commission considers that the common position is a pragmatic and efficient solution which solves in a satisfactory manner the problems of most accidents involving two European parties, that is to say, those which occur inside the European Union.
I should therefore like to sum up the Commission's position on the amendments suggested by Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, as follows:
<P>
Firstly, the Commission accepts Amendments Nos 10, 11, 12 and 13, which will contribute to clarifying the common position.
<P>
Secondly, the main problems concern Amendments Nos 1, 2, 8 and 9, which are designed to extend the directive to accidents between two European Union parties insured by European Union insurance companies which occur in third countries.
These are only a small minority of cases and, for reasons explained during the debate yesterday, these amendments cannot be accepted at this stage and in their present form.
However, the Commission may be able to consider an extension of the scope of the directive which takes account of considerations expressed during yesterday's debate.
However, any compromise should duly identify the third countries to which the directive can be effectively extended.
Furthermore, any solution would have to avoid a conflict with third countries' legislation.
<P>
Thirdly, concerning Amendments Nos 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19, the Commission considers that the draft amendments detract from the legal certainty of the proposal and will work to the disadvantage of the injured parties.
The Commission is therefore regrettably not able to accept them.
Given that conciliation seems unavoidable, the Commission will play a full and constructive role in facilitating a compromise in order to avoid a failure of the directive which would affect all of us and be of considerable detriment to motorists visiting the EU.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Harbour">
Mr President, I would like to draw attention in Amendment No 13 to an important difference between the German text - which of course is Mr Rothley's source text - and the English and I believe also the French versions.
<P>
In requiring response to claims, the German text uses the word "unverzüglich", which means "without delay", whereas the English text uses the word "immediately".
That is a significant difference in terms of how the insurance companies have to respond.
I would ask that in Amendment No 13 - and I have discussed this with the rapporteur and he agrees with me - the English text should read "without delay" and not "immediately".
<P>
In view of Mr Bolkestein's statement that Amendment No 13 will be accepted by the Commission, I believe this is a very important clarification and I would ask that it be accepted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rothley">
Mr President, Mr Harbour' s interpretation is correct.
The text should in fact be translated in English as "without delay" .
For the rest, I would ask for a vote in favour.
The conciliation procedure is unavoidable. But I am highly confident that we will find a compromise on the basis of the Commission' s explanation yesterday.
<P>
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
<P>
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0077/1999) by Mrs Hulthén, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the Council common position with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council regulation on substances that deplete the ozone layer (5748/1999 - C5-0034/1999 - 1998/0228(COD))
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Patten">
As regards the Commission position with respect to the amendments tabled by Parliament I would like to confirm what my colleagues stated during the debate held in this House on Monday evening.
In particular, the Commission can accept in full Amendments Nos 1, 4, 9, 11, 17, 25 and 29.
We can accept in principle the second part of Amendment No 12, provided that the deadline is set at 30 June 2002, and Amendment No 15, on condition that the date for the ban on the use of virgin HCFCs is set at 2008 and that the ban on the use of recycled HCFCs is set at 2010.
<P>
We can also accept in principle Amendment No 26, provided that the text specifies that reports be sent to the Commission by 31 March each year, and Amendment No 27, subject to the addition of a reference to the Scientific Assessment Panel under the Montreal Protocol.
Equally, the Commission can accept in principle Amendment No 32, subject to redrafting of the text specifying that any essential use for a substance banned under the Montreal Protocol will also have to be approved by the parties to that Protocol.
<P>
The Commission can accept Amendment No 31 in part and in principle, subject to redrafting that makes the text clearer.
The Commission can accept the first part of Amendment No 12 and the part of Amendment No 24 that makes reference to Articles 12, 13 and 14.
<P>
Unfortunately I have to say that the Commission cannot accept Amendment Nos 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 13, 14, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 28, 30 and 34, the reference to Articles 6, 7 and 11 in Amendment No 24, and the last paragraph of Amendment No 31.
I am very grateful to Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner, and we are very grateful to you.
<P>
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
<P>
Report (A5-0075/1999) by Mr Aparicio Sánchez, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on a proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation (EC) on the distribution of permits for heavy goods vehicles travelling in Switzerland (COM(1999)35 - C5-0054/1999 - 1999/0022(COD))
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
Recommendation (A5-0079/1999) by Mr Bodrato, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council decision concerning the conclusion of the agreement concerning the establishment of global technical regulations for wheeled vehicles, equipment and parts which can be fitted and/or used on wheeled vehicles ("Parallel Agreement") (10167/1999 - COM(1999)27 - C5-0073/1999 - 1999/0011(AVC))
<P>
(Parliament adopted the decision)
<P>
Report (A5-0092/1999) by Mr Busk, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation laying down certain control measures applicable in the area covered by the Convention on Future Multilateral Cooperation in the North-East Atlantic Fisheries (COM(1999) 345 - C5-0201/1999 - 1999/0138(CNS))
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
Report (A5-0081/1999) by Mr Valdivielso de Cué, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council regulation (EURATOM, EC) concerning the provision of assistance to economic reform and recovery in the New Independent States and Mongolia (COM(1998)753 - C5-0038/1999 - 1998/0368(CNS))
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valdivielso de Cué">
Mr President, I would like to hear the opinion of the Commission on the amendments which we have just adopted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Patten">
I spoke at some length yesterday evening in the deepest hours of the night about Parliament's views on TACIS and I set out those amendments that we were able to accept.
I pointed out that we agree with many of the ideas underlining the amendments Parliament has put forward.
I said these would be reflected in the text.
I noted that reasons of form prevented me from accepting the specific wording now advanced in many cases, but in particular I noted that we fully agreed with Amendments Nos 4, 5, 8, 22 and 32 as well as parts of Amendments Nos 1, 14 and 19.
<P>
I should like to make one point which I hope Parliament will take in good faith.
The conclusions of the European Council at the weekend met the sort of views that were being expressed in this Parliament the last time we debated Russia and Chechnya, at the last part-session.
We have proposed a way of taking TACIS forward which does not penalise other countries and which makes a distinction between the development of democracy and human rights, on the one hand, and other programmes, on the other.
We are not talking about suspending TACIS.
We are talking about targeting TACIS on those areas of activity which we think we should still be sustaining.
It is a sensible message for this Parliament, the Commission and the European Union to be sending.
We can make this work, though as I say there are one or two problems with precise wordings that we will want to come back to.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valdivielso de Cué">
Mr President, the Commission' s reply seems very reasonable and I have no objections.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
Motion for resolution (B5-0316/1999) tabled by Ms Caullery and others, on behalf of the UEN Group, on the WTO Millennium Round
<P>
(Parliament rejected the motion for resolution)
<P>
Joint motion for resolution on the Third Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation in Seattle
<P>
(Parliament adopted the joint resolution)
<P>
Motion for a resolution (B5-0313/1999) by Mrs Jackson, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the follow-up to Parliament's opinion on genetically modified food labelling
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
Joint motion for resolution on Chechnya
<P>
<P ALIGN="JUSTIFY">
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sakellariou">
Mr President. I should like to table an oral amendment with regard to recital C on my behalf and on behalf of the Members with whom we negotiated this joint motion.
The German version says "in acknowledgement of" . We move that this be amended to "in the knowledge of" .
That is the only oral amendment which I wish to table.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro e Castro">
Mr President, I raised this issue before, at the other sitting.
I do not think that we have the correct procedural conditions for voting on this motion for a resolution.
The Rules of Procedure clearly state, in Rule 115, that texts must be made available 24 hours in advance.
This is a decision for which it will be difficult to achieve a balance.
I draw your attention for example to clause f).
The very broad deadlines which follow do not allow some Members to make suggestions for amendments and I would therefore suggest that we postpone the vote on this resolution until tomorrow and that a new deadline is set, which would be an attempt at a compromise, just until the end of the day, for the presentation of proposals for amendment.
<P>
But the reality is in fact that this 24-hour rule for the distribution of texts is not being observed in many compromise resolutions.
On very delicate matters such as this one, I think that this is extremely serious and dangerous.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="President">
The point you raise is a genuine matter but the House is sovereign in terms of its own deadlines.
The easiest way to resolve this is to put, firstly, the principle of whether we move to vote, to the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro e Castro">
I would like to ask, as politely as possible, if we may interpret this vote as an irregular amendment to our Rules of Procedure?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="President">
The House is free to set the deadlines and timetables as it wishes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro e Castro">
No it is not!
There are procedural guarantees that have...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="President">
We are not having a debate on this.
We are moving to the vote.
We have a joint motion by five political groups.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the joint resolution)
<P>
The House has made its decision.
We are not discussing it.
<P>
(Mixed reactions)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Gollnisch">
Mr President, I wish to raise a genuine point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="President">
Perhaps you could start by telling me under which Rule you wish to make a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Gollnisch">
It concerns Rule 51 and also Rules 180 and 181, Annex 6 and Annex 15 which deal with amendments to the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="President">
This is clearly not a genuine point of order.
Rule 51 deals with written declarations.
I can see nothing on our agenda today dealing with written declarations.
<P>
Joint motion for resolution on the OSCE
<P>
(Parliament adopted the joint resolution)
<P>
<P>
(Mrs Muscardini rose to protest) President.
Mrs Muscardini, if there is a problem with the spring in your chair we will get an usher to come and deal with it.
Otherwise, please sit down.
<P>
(Loud applause)Please resume your seats.
Take your seat.
Take your seat.
Sit down!
<P>
If you are not prepared to take your seat I will ask for you to be removed from the Chamber.
It is as simple as that.
<P>
(Commotion in the Chamber)Take your seat.
This House wants to get on with its business.
I want, at this stage...
<P>
Oh, just a minute!
Sit down!
<P>
(More heckling)(Several Members left the Chamber)
<P>
Colleagues, this is that last vote that Mrs Green will take part in before she moves on to a new career as Chief Executive of the Cooperative Union.
I am sure, given the service she has given to this House, the whole House will wish to join me in wishing her every success in the future!
<P>
(Loud and sustained applause)
<P>
Motion for resolution on climate change
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Speroni">
Mr President, the point of order I am making is based on Rules 142 and 180 of the Rules of Procedure.
As President, I believe you have the right to interpret the Rules of Procedure, but certainly not to contravene them, yet your decisions must be complied with.
However, I have not found any Rule that says that it is the House that can decide to derogate from a Rule in the Rules of Procedure.
You asked for a vote on the failure to comply with the deadlines and this procedure is not provided for in the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="President">
Let me read Rule 19 to you: "The President shall direct all the activities of Parliament and its bodies under the conditions laid down in these Rules.
He shall enjoy all the powers necessary to preside over the proceedings of Parliament and to ensure that they are properly conducted."
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Zimmerling">
Mr President, I too should like to make a complaint.
I have been trying to make a point of order for the last ten minutes.
It is not right of you to lump all of us sitting up here in the last two rows together and to refuse to acknowledge points of order.
<P>
I wanted to point out that the German translation was, unfortunately, lost in the commotion.
It makes no sense to turn the public address system in the House up so loud that we can no longer hear anything over our headphones.
That is my first point.
<P>
On my second point, I should like to ask that the seating arrangements be changed in future.
If you look at the seating plan, you will see that the four members of the PPE group up here in the last two rows are sitting between other groups.
It is not a very happy arrangement and it should be changed, especially in view of what has happened here today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="President">
Mr Zimmerling, I would like to respond to your point.
<P>
Firstly, regarding your point about seating, that is a decision between the groups.
The Presidency has no say over the seating arrangements in the Chamber.
It is the groups who decide the seating.
<P>
On your first point, I agree with you, but it was very difficult to tell between genuine points of order and false points of order.
In that event I decided to try to proceed with the session rather than interrupt it.
But you are right, it is difficult to discriminate between different people sitting together.
I apologise for not noticing you earlier.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schierhuber">
Mr President. I should like to endorse what Mr Zimmerling has just said.
In the uproar, I withheld my vote on proposed Amendment No 3 of the last resolution, whereas I actually wanted to vote against it.
I would be obliged if you could take note of that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="President">
We will ensure that is changed.
<P>
That concludes the vote.
<P>
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE - Hungary (C5-0190/1999)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fatuzzo">
Mr President, I asked to take the floor for the explanation of vote on the Hulthén report too.
I did not hear it announced, and in any case, it does not matter, I can have a reply afterwards.
I voted for this attuning of the institutional aspects of the European agreement between the Communities and their Member States on the one hand, and the Republic of Hungary on the other.
I would like to emphasise that this once again shows that, before proceeding to enlarging the European Union, we need to consolidate existing relations between the Member States, even political ones, after which we can consider extending them.
Even here, we find ourselves in the position of having to revise some institutional clauses in order to take into account the enlargement we have already carried out.
<P>
Grossetête recommendation for second reading (A5-0080/1999)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Rod">
Mr President, the Grossetête report on orphan medicinal products responds to an important requirement.
It is to be congratulated for providing an immediate although imperfect solution to this problem.
<P>
The absence of proper research into these supposedly rare diseases is prejudicial to thousands of patients.
<P>
However, this report has several shortcomings.
Firstly, it takes into account only private research and research carried out by the pharmaceutical industry, as if only these were capable of finding therapies to research medicinal products.
No support is given to public research or to non-profit-making bodies which may also be capable of finding therapies.
<P>
The second and most important shortcoming is that, although mentioned in the preamble, the text does not provide a solution for one vital problem. This involves research into diseases which are common but for which there is no market for the pharmaceutical industry, in particular diseases affecting people who cannot pay for their treatment.
This is particularly the case with tropical diseases and even malaria and tuberculosis.
<P>
No incentives for research into these diseases and no regulations are suggested which is astounding in view of the millions of deaths caused by these diseases.
Parliament and the Commission must consider this issue in the coming months because the lives of millions of people are just as important as the profit of a few businesses.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fatuzzo">
Mr President, I voted for Mrs Grossetête' s report, just like very many other Members, because it is important to contribute in every way to ensure that cures for rare diseases are found scientifically, even when the pharmaceutical industry is not involved.
Obviously, it is equally important to increase the Community' s commitment to scientific research to find cures for all types of disease.
Indeed, there are many diseases which affect mainly the elderly and pensioners and which, unfortunately, lead to millions of deaths throughout the world: I am referring to respiratory diseases and heart diseases.
We must further increase scientific research into cures for diseases, whatever their nature.
<P>
Pack report (A5-0097/1999)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fatuzzo">
Mr President, I voted for the SOCRATES programme.
The education of citizens in the European Union is very important.
I would like to stress that in this programme it is necessary to provide for those who have completed their compulsory education, therefore workers too, to have access to education, which is important for everybody' s cultural development.
Moreover, I would also like people to take into account the fact that the behaviour of States, which depend on individuals' willingness to learn and, by extension, their culture, has shown that the more educated a population is, the fewer external wars, civil wars and injustices there are in areas where culture has made headway.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Caudron">

I am pleased to see that we have finally emerged from the impasse reached in the discussions between Parliament and the Council on the Socrates II programme. This House has managed to remain very firm on its position during this long conciliation procedure.
<P>
The Commission' s basic proposal on the renewal of the Socrates programme dates from May 1998! It has therefore taken over a year and many meetings of the Conciliation Committee to reach agreement on this programme.
Its purpose is to encourage high-quality, general education by supporting cooperation, strengthening mobility and developing the European dimension in all spheres of education. This will supplement the actions of the Member States in this area.
<P>
I do not need to remind you of the enthusiasm generated by this programme!
It has developed the educational mobility of hundreds of thousands of European university students and lecturers, headmasters, schoolteachers, pupils and educational decision makers.
In addition, the programme has supported hundreds of transnational projects developing the European dimension and improving the quality of school and higher education, language learning and so on.
<P>
The allocation of an additional budget to renew and develop this programme is therefore justified.
This is what Parliament was proposing when it suggested an overall budget of EUR 2 billion for this multiannual programme, whereas the Council was proposing EUR 1.55 billion. After long negotiations, the Council has agreed to EUR 1.85 billion over seven years.
<P>
The Council has also agreed to insert a review clause on the financial consequences of the accession of new Member States. This will allow the financial effects of enlargement to be defined through the codecision procedure, with Parliament having an equal say with the Council on the matter.
We have also agreed on an assessment report to analyse the specific results achieved by this programme.
<P>
Furthermore, it is planned to simplify the procedures for selecting projects.
This is essential as it will prevent programmes from being held up for more than two weeks in the event of an objection being made by a Member State.
The original provisions did not specify any time limit which meant that projects could have been delayed for up to two months.
<P>
The Conciliation Committee has also achieved a compromise on how the Socrates programme will contribute to the development of a "European dimension in education" rather than a "European educational area" , as Parliament had requested or "educational cooperation" , which was the weaker wording favoured from the start by the Council.
<P>
I must say that I deplore the lack of commitment among our ministers.
This is even more incomprehensible as the concept of European citizenship must be developed among our young people and the educational system has a key role to play in this!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Kauppi">
The experiences we have had of the Socrates action programme have been extremely good, especially with regard to the Erasmus student exchange scheme.
There have been practical problems with arrangements for those taking up exchange study places that have been organised on an individual basis, problems that we have managed to avoid with the focused student exchange programmes.
<P>
We should be encouraging cooperation among the countries of the EU in every possible way in areas that are important for our citizens, by supporting them in their acquisition of the knowledge and information that promotes active citizenship and, what is more, employment.
In my opinion, many European citizens derived immense benefit when Parliament and the Council adopted the conciliation solution.
<P>
Hulthén recommendation for second reading (A5-0077/1999)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fatuzzo">
Mr President, this time I voted against the Hulthén report.
The European Community has the delicate task of deciding how best to proceed as regards making further progress on the one hand and considering the care, health and environment of our great great great grandchildren on the other.
I therefore think that before adopting any measure, we must ascertain, by consulting scientists and experts who are constantly making scientific progress, whether it is right to continue with the ban on certain substances in the future and whether, on the basis of the research carried out by scientists, every step we take really is important.
What I mean is that we have to realise that we are not as good at predicting the future as we unfortunately think we are.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
It gives me great satisfaction to welcome this proposal for amending Regulation (EC) No 3093/94 regulating the production and use of substances which deplete the ozone layer.
<P>
In my opinion, it was high time for new measures to be adopted to protect the ozone layer given the alarming figures being reported.
The depletion of the ozone layers in the stratosphere is one of the most momentous environmental problems we are facing.
There has been a 6% to 10% decrease in ozone since 1980.
The ozone hole over the Antarctic covered an area of 20 million km2 for over 40 days in 1996, and the depletion of the ozone layer over Scandinavia, Greenland and Siberia reached a record 45% level.
<P>
The depletion of the ozone layer has adverse effects on human health by reducing immune defences and increasing skin cancer. It also affects the ecosystem in a particularly worrying way.
We must react as quickly as possible, particularly as we know which substances deplete the ozone layer.
Firstly, there are the hydrochlorofluorocarbons or HCFCs.
These are used mainly in refrigeration technology and air-conditioning systems, as solvents and in the production of insulating foam. Secondly, there is methyl bromide which is primarily used for soil fumigation to combat pests and plant diseases.
It is classified by the WHO as "highly toxic" .
Thirdly, there are the chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs which are now only contained in refrigeration systems but which were originally used in the production of plastic foam, solvents and aerosol propellants. Lastly, there are the halons which are used in fire extinguishing systems, especially in critical applications, such as aircraft, where there are now harmless alternatives.
<P>
We must therefore make every effort to eliminate these substances and to use alternatives.
This is the essence of the proposal under discussion today. However, it is not as forthcoming on the timetable as we might have hoped, as noted by the rapporteur.
This is why amendments have been tabled which, in the main, have been rejected by the Council.
The latter' s attitude is truly regrettable.
The targets proposed by the Committee on the Environment can be achieved because there are alternatives.
For example, the Council proposes that the production of the substances in question should not exceed 35% of 1997 production levels by 2008.
Yet, also with reference to 1997 production levels, the Committee on the Environment demands that production levels be reduced to less than 75% by 2001, less than 55% by 2004 and less than 30% by 2008.
By 2014, the Committee demands a level below 15%, whereas the ceiling proposed by the Council is 20%.
<P>
I deplore the Council' s lack of ambition.
This is even more regrettable because it is in an area in which not only the protection of the environment is at stake, but more particularly human health!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Ries">

The fight against the ever-increasing hole in the ozone layer is of major concern to the people of Europe and the world. The studies provide enlightening reading.
For example, ozone has decreased by 6-10% in 20 years. In 1996, the hole covered an area of 20 million km2 for over 40 days and a record depletion of 46% in the ozone layer over Scandinavia, Greenland and Siberia was recorded.
<P>
Yet recent studies show that the efforts made to combat greenhouse gases are far from adequate.
There is no point in compiling figures: these issues are crucial and our health and long-term survival are at stake.
<P>
Is there any need to highlight the increasing frequency of cancer and the acute immune disorders caused by this depletion of the ozone layer?
This is why we unreservedly support this proposal which sets deadlines for eliminating a range of toxic substances.
<P>
To be effective, these measures must deal with two concerns.
Firstly, they must be justified in the eyes of the people. This means that the changes which will occur in our daily life with regard to HCFCs, CFCs and halons must be correctly explained.
We must tell people why and how the EU has come to legislate in this very technical area.
<P>
Secondly, we must respect the capacities of our enterprises to adapt.
In the main, these have incorporated the environmental dimension into their product development policies.
However, we must pay specific attention to the small and medium-sized enterprises which, due to their smaller size, sometimes have fewer opportunities or facilities than others for diversifying.
With this regulation, enterprises are being confronted by new challenges which they must meet successfully and dynamically.
<P>
Aparicio Sánchez report (A5-0075/1999)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Ortuondo Larrea">
Mr President, I refer to the report by Mr Aparicio Sánchez on the distribution of permits for heavy goods vehicles travelling in Switzerland.
<P>
Firstly, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Aparicio Sánchez, on the work which he has done on this matter, and I would like to protest at the fact that we have not received the full text of the agreement between the European Union and Switzerland before the section on the distribution of permits, which is only one part of the whole agreement.
<P>
The Group of the Greens and the European Free Alliance has rejected the proposal to reduce the number of permits to be distributed amongst the Member States, which had been proposed by the Group of the European People' s Party.
<P>
We support the idea that taxes on heavy goods vehicles should be applied in accordance with the real level of contamination and that this revenue should be invested in the railways and combined rail/road transport and, finally, we agree with the idea of distributing the 91% of the permits which are not distributed according to an equal quota amongst all the Member States, not only in accordance with actual transport needs, but also taking into account the origin and destination, for example, of goods which are passing through Switzerland originating from airports and ports such as Hamburg, Rotterdam, Genoa or Marseilles.
I believe that this would make things easier and make the distribution of permits fairer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Meijer">
Mr President, I have voted against the Aparicio Sánchez report.
The Treaty remains very controversial within Switzerland.
The chance is great that it will as yet be rejected during a referendum.
In Switzerland, the protection of the environment is high on the agenda and rightly so.
This is why, so far they have opted for the transport of goods by rail and for banning large articulated lorries on transit roads.
This is the only way of preventing more and wider motorways from being built in the Alps and of protecting mountain valley air from further pollution as a result of exhaust fumes.
<P>
This has also been Austria' s standpoint in the past.
But since it has become a Member of the Union, the Swiss are on their own.
The Union has exerted a great deal of pressure on a small non-Member State and has, in the process, set aside the internal democratic decision taking in that country.
In this way, more scope was created for a transport method which, if the environment is taken seriously, has no future.
<P>
Furthermore, the scale of apportionment is being submitted to Parliament before the latter has been consulted on the agreement itself.
In short, this proposal is not yet ripe for discussion and has unacceptable consequences for the environment and democracy in Switzerland.
If I were Swiss, I would vote against in the referendum and as a non-Swiss, I will show my solidarity by voting against.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Vachetta">
A few years ago, the people of Switzerland decided to control the heavy goods traffic through their territory.
<P>
This kind of traffic is now strictly regulated. This has allowed the people in the Alpine valleys to choose real quality of life and is a positive measure for the environment and for the people.
<P>
Far from welcoming this effort to protect the environment, the European Union has only one objective in the bilateral negotiations with Switzerland. It wants to make Switzerland repeal its regulations on the pretext that these form an obstacle to free competition and cause European countries to be treated differently.
Actually, the EU' s goal is for profitability to gain the upper hand over ecological and social considerations.
<P>
We examined with great interest the proposals aimed at developing alternative, non-polluting means of transport such as piggyback transport.
In its current state, the report comes out firmly in favour of the use of lorries in Switzerland to the detriment of other means of transport.
<P>
As we do not approve of this goal, we will vote against this report.
<P>
Recommendation Bodrato (A5-0079/1999)
<P>
WTO millennium round
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
.
(EL) Events at the World Trade Organisation Conference in Seattle confirm the important and justified reactions to the way in which globalisation is being promoted.
<P>
The European Union, shaken by the resignation of the Santer Commission during preparations, pursued a policy of seeking compromise with the other major powers which was far removed from the claims of developing countries and the concerns of civil society.
<P>
The policy of the European Union needs to be fully reviewed so that it comprises and includes: the democratisation of the World Trade Organisation, support for the family farming model, mechanisms for improving the lot of workers in the Third World without damaging their productivity or trading status, environmental protection, the dissemination of technology to poorer countries, action on the international debts of weaker countries and finally, protection of the multi-cultural identity of the world from the American superpower of entertainment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
I can only agree with what has just been said.
The Seattle fiasco was far from being a victory and we can therefore make only a very modest assessment of these aborted negotiations.
<P>
Clearly, we should welcome the emergence of popular concerns in the discussions on international trade. This was due in particular to the mobilisation of the NGOs, trade unions and other associations.
Viewed from this angle, the Interministerial Conference in Seattle was a real turning point in the operation of the WTO.
Previous rounds have been conducted with the greatest discretion between well-informed negotiators taking into account only the trading interests of their countries. However, the next round, whose starting date is still unknown, must now be transparent and include in the debates all trade-related issues, namely social standards, the environment, consumer protection and culture.
In order to cope with these changes, the WTO must be reviewed.
It was not actually formed to manage so many areas but was created by nations to serve their own interests.
The new order requires an assurance that the developing and least developed countries will be able to participate fully. This was not the case in Seattle, hence their legitimate discontent.
The good intentions must now be enshrined in the operation of the WTO.
<P>
We must therefore properly examine the review of the WTO.
The European Union must play a leading role in future discussions as it is clear that it was able to act as an essential intermediary between the United States of America and the developing countries.
We must also stress the European Parliament delegation' s initiative to create a parliamentary body within the WTO.
This clearly constitutes just one element of the future reform but is one which will allow the characteristic lack of democracy in the WTO to be tackled.
<P>
The European Union must also prepare for other negotiations which will start from next year.
It was very well prepared for the WTO discussions and its position remained very consistent. It therefore did not give any ground on the agenda which it wanted to see adopted, namely a broad agenda going beyond the issues of agriculture and services to which the USA wanted it to be restricted.
However, it is on these two issues alone that discussions must start at the beginning of next year in accordance with the provisions of the Marrakech agreements.
We must therefore be very vigilant with regard to these negotiations which look like being difficult.
<P>
A final very positive point is that our negotiator, Pascal Lamy, was outstanding in terms of his clear-sightedness, his sensitivity, his knowledge and his authority.
<P>
This is an extremely positive sign for the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Désir">
During the pre-Seattle debates, some of us in this House said that Europe should start by demanding an assessment of the previous rounds and a joint diagnosis with the developing countries, before embarking on a new round of liberalisation.
We were told that time was short and that nothing could delay the start of the Millennium Round.
Yet surely we would have saved time by beginning at the beginning. We should have been slightly more modest and slightly more receptive to the opinions of the people who are not particularly convinced by the results of the WTO or by the results of its work, given the ever-widening gap in development between North and South.
<P>
Some of us warned against an impenetrable and over-greedy WTO trying to impose its decisions and its choices on everyone, in all areas, according to its own clearly unjustified criteria.
We warned about the refusal expressed by numerous countries in this respect.
Europe should have started by demanding a revision of the organisation and its operation and a clearer demarcation of its area of competence to ensure respect for other international bodies and conventions, on the environment and social rights in particular.
We said that the WTO could no longer simply be followed without understanding the need to place the precautionary principle, cultural diversity, social rights, environmental protection and the reduction of gaps in development at the top of the agenda.
We must now consider these issues.
<P>
Seattle was a failure for those who wanted to continue charging blindly towards generalised free trade and global merchandising. It was a victory for the various branches of the popular movement, similar to the one which rejected the MAI.
<P>
A powerful protest movement raised its voice against a WTO which, through its rules and structure, has favoured private interests at the expense of collective interests.
The challenge was not against the existence of rules aimed at organising world trade or the existence of a world trade organisation as such. It was against the fact that the WTO claims to be the source of all rules, the arbitrator of all disputes and the supreme judge of tomorrow' s world.
The social movement formed by many NGOs, civil associations and trade unions has demanded a new type of globalisation, one which is not dominated solely by the logic of blind profit with no regard for people and societies.
<P>
Europe must support this movement and this new world public opinion in order to promote a different type of world economic regulation. This should be based on the redistribution of wealth and a new balance between markets and democracy and between free trade and cooperation.
Europe must promote a multi-faceted view of tomorrow' s world. It must encourage the formation of large regional assemblies which are economically and politically integrated and which allow the people to control their future, to influence globalisation and not be subject to the domination of mega-multinationals resulting from mega-mergers.
<P>
If Europe fails to become involved in this movement, in this refusal to treat the world like a piece of merchandise and in the hope expressed in Seattle, the only option left to the people who reject this destructive globalisation will be to withdraw into nationalism.
In this respect, the differences of opinion which arose on the subject of biotechnologies and which formed a potential challenge to the protocol on biodiversity are even less acceptable as they in no way corresponded to the European mandate and the position adopted by this House.
<P>
A new balance between the international bodies must be developed.
A world environmental organisation must be created with real powers.
The ILO must be made the appeal body for decisions involving basic social standards.
UNCTAD is the most legitimate framework for dealing with the issue of direct foreign investments while respecting the democratic right of countries to legislate on environmental and social matters.
<P>
As for the WTO itself, it must be brought under the control of the people.
NGOs, trade unions and parliamentarians must be able to exercise this control. Is it not natural and normal, in view of the ideas and beliefs which we all represent in this House, for the Left and the Right not to be able to completely agree on these issues?
What is the point of aiming for convergence at any price when this ends up being artificial and is achieved to the detriment of clarity in our positions?
It would certainly have been preferable for all the left-wing groups to try and speak with one voice, while respecting their plurality, and I am convinced that a united European left, whose voice is needed in Europe, could have been formed on these issues.
<P>
Yet I regret the choice of a PPE­PSE­ELDR compromise resolution which allows nothing to be learnt from the lessons of Seattle and which prevents preparations from being made for the future. I will therefore vote against this text.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dehousse">
I voted against the motion for a resolution for the reasons indicated by Mr Désir.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Miranda">
. (PT) We must draw the right lessons from the lack of results at the Seattle Ministerial Summit, which was supposed to fix the agenda for the "Millennium Round" at the World Trade Organisation.
<P>
The failure of the negotiations, which we see as something positive, is not simply the result of chance events that were more or less forced by circumstance.
<P>
In good time, we stated the need to provide a balance sheet of the effects of the Uruguay Round.
We even suggested a moratorium on the start of negotiations with a view to being able to produce this kind of balance sheet and to produce a subsequent study of the routes that international trade relations are taking.
<P>
We were thinking about the obscurity of the methods that have been followed.
The negative consequences for the world' s poorest countries were - and are - particularly obvious.
<P>
We were aware of their concerns and finally, the reason behind them.
<P>
We were also aware of the growing concern among world public opinion in general about a form of globalisation that creates inequalities and injustices because it is fundamentally determined by the rules of the market and consequently by the interests that control it.
<P>
Today, as we are aware of the failure to which I referred, the study, which we have previously suggested, becomes even more imperative, before any negotiations are restarted.
The WTO must be reformed from top to toe. It has become crucial to move towards a limitation in the power of its rules.
It is crucial that we build a serious and deep alliance with developing countries, an alliance that respects their right to economic and social progress.
It is also becoming inevitable then to envisage a new trade order - in the context of a globalisation based on progress and solidarity - which respects fundamental political rights, social progress and the environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Vachetta">
The Bonn Conference was held several days before the WTO Conference in Seattle.
The frantic liberalisation of trade orchestrated by the WTO and the major industrialised countries is in total contradiction to the policies needed to protect the environment.
It is not therefore surprising that, as noted by the motion for a resolution, the Member States of the European Union have not adopted the measures needed to meet their Kyoto undertakings while, at the same time, systematic deregulation is underway in Europe.
<P>
The European Union must sort out its own problems first. Although we have regulations on local atmospheric pollutants or even products depleting the ozone layer, there is no regulation aimed at limiting emissions of carbon dioxide.
The opening of rail freight to competition which has just occurred goes against the European development policy needed for this means of transport.
<P>
GMO (B5-0313/1999)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fatuzzo">
Mr President, I voted for the proposal for a resolution and I have nothing against putting a label on genetically modified food products.
However, I would like to ask you if it would not be more correct for the European Union, that is, Parliament, to decide that if these genetically modified products are harmful, their production and trade should be banned, or if they are not harmful, they should be allowed on the market.
Putting them on the market with a label amounts to putting the phrase "harmful to health" on cigarette packets, which does not prevent anyone smoking as they do not attach any importance to what is written on the label.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="Bowe">
Mr President, on behalf of myself and the other Labour Members, I want to point out why we voted against today.
It was in no way because of the resolution presented to this Parliament by Mrs Jackson, which we fully supported.
But we have to bear in mind that, although this resolution was only advisory, the Commission had specifically said that it would take careful account of what we said in it.
It specifically said that, whilst under the present modus vivendi this resolution could not have any binding impact upon its actions, it would be taken fully into account.
<P>
Regrettably, some Members of this Parliament have not taken up the serious responsibility that the Commission has put in their hands and have not acted sensibly, particularly with regard to Amendment No 4.
This contains labelling proposals for products derived from animals that have been fed GMOs.
This is something which is bound to happen to almost all the animal livestock within the European Union and is happening now.
The consequences would be that the vast majority of meat products in our shops would be labelled as having been derived from genetically modified organisms.
This would not give beneficial information to the consumer but simply cause confusion and create an atmosphere in which the whole issue of genetically modified organisms would take a new and more confusing turn.
It seems to me that, whilst Labour Members are fully in support of the resolution, we have to accept our responsibility and acknowledge the maturity of our position.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
- (FR) I voted against the draft resolution on the labelling of foodstuffs containing genetically modified organisms, because its sole aim was to give a green light to the Commission to propose a regulation establishing that labelling indicating that GMOs are present would not be compulsory in the event that a food product contains less than 1% GMOs.
<P>
This measure would be contrary to the position adopted by the European Parliament on 14 May 1998, which requested that labelling be compulsory when GMOs are present, regardless of their percentage proportion.
<P>
Today, the Council is requesting that the Commission relax the rules on the pretext that, in certain cases, industries cannot prevent a minimal accidental contamination of their products by genetically modified material during transportation or processing.
The problem is a real one, but the solution proposed seems to me to be unacceptable, even on a temporary basis.
<P>
The true solution is not to tolerate the absence of consumer information, but rather to increase the efforts to separate genetically modified products from conventional products throughout the production process.
I maintain that labelling should be compulsory, regardless of the quantity of GMOs present in the food, even if it is minimal.
If the producer is in doubt, the following statement should be affixed: "this food product may contain genetically modified organisms" .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
I must congratulate the members of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, and particularly its chairperson, for this motion for a resolution on genetically modified food labelling.
<P>
I share the opinion given in this text that current legislation within the European Union on this particularly controversial subject does not meet the requirements of consumer protection and information.
<P>
Given the uncertainties which surround GMOs, we must be extremely vigilant and use the precautionary principle where necessary at all stages of our action.
<P>
On the subject of genetically modified food labelling, the Council has adopted Regulation (EC) No 1139/98 on foods and food ingredients which are to be delivered as they are to the final consumer, produced in whole or in part from genetically modified soya beans covered by Decision 96/281/EC, and genetically modified maize covered by Decision 97/28/EC.
<P>
The specified foodstuffs are subject to the additional labelling requirements laid down in this Regulation.
<P>
However, foodstuffs which contain neither protein nor DNA resulting from genetic modification are not subject to these requirements.
<P>
The new Commission proposal aims to fill in these gaps.
It covers the accidental contamination of a product by DNA or protein originating from genetically modified soya or maize crops.
Labelling should become compulsory as soon as a component of a product contains more than 1% of this type of substance.
<P>
As indicated in the motion for a resolution, the text proposed by the Commission is far from sufficient.
It has an overly sectorial view of the labelling of foodstuffs containing GMOs whereas this issue actually requires a comprehensive and coherent approach.
The European Commission must submit new proposals on novel foods for animals and on foods without GMOs, in order to allow the consumer to choose with full knowledge of the facts.
<P>
I totally support the demand that this regulation should contain a review clause accompanied by a deadline so that the maximum tolerance level of 1% can be lowered within 12 months.
The European Commission does not actually give any justification for this figure.
<P>
At a time when European consumers have been traumatised by food scares, we must adopt all the measures which can reassure them and give them the means to control their food.
Their confidence in the European consumer protection policy depends on this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Figueiredo">
- (PT) As the motion for a resolution presented by Mrs Jackson states, current legislation in this field is fragmentary and inconsistent.
Consumer protection demands extremely accurate and complete information on food, including information relating to new animal feed and to the labelling of GMO-free products.
<P>
Moreover, we need to review all the legislation concerning food and products derived from genetically modified organisms in order to be able to guarantee an advance assessment of the risks, with the aim of protecting consumer health.
<P>
Thus, it is crucial that the Commission proposes new criteria for the testing and labelling of all new foods and processing aids derived from genetically modified organisms, paying particular attention to products obtained from animals fed with products containing GMOs.
<P>
It is also essential that the figure of 1% as the minimum tolerance threshold can be revised after 12 months in the light of relevant scientific and technical studies and opinions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="Morgan">

- I believe that consumers have the right to know when GMOs are used in products in all circumstances; this pertains not only to food consumed by human beings but also animal feed. This requires clear labelling in all circumstances.
<P>
Chechnya
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
The European Parliament must condemn the savagery of the Russian military attack on Chechnya, which does not strike a handful of terrorists; instead it strikes tens of thousands of women and children who have been forced from their homes in the harsh conditions of a Caucasian winter.
<P>
The European Union should support efforts by the OSCE to stop the bombing, repatriate refugees and find a political solution.
<P>


We should, however, stress that the European Union, together with the USA, are not without responsibility because they set the precedent in Kosovo, with their disdain for international organisations and for the peaceful settlement of differences and they gave cause for concern with aggressive enlargement to the east which is reflected in the rise of nationalism and violence within Russia.
<P>
Climate change
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">

This is a major issue but I will not at this stage repeat all the arguments used to demonstrate its importance.
Instead I will just express my pessimism. Yet I refuse to give up hope because in life there is always room to act and to change things.
Today I will just mention two points.
<P>
Firstly, the pre-eminence of money is not acceptable as this allows countries which have the means to do so to buy the right to pollute from poorer countries!
This is unacceptable, immoral and criminal for the future.
<P>
Secondly, at a time when we are making great efforts to reduce pollution from new cars, we should be developing a proactive European programme for rapidly eliminating old cars which are often major sources of pollution, but excluding vintage cars.
In this area too, I believe that where there is a will, there is a way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="Kauppi">
- I just want to say that I strongly oppose the Liese resolution on climate change as it was approved by the Parliament.
Nuclear energy has been, is and will be a very important part of decreasing CO2 emissions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="President">
That concludes the explanations of vote.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 1.38 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="President">
I give the floor to Mr Gollnisch on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="Gollnisch">
Thank you, Madam President, I will be as brief as possible.
In a spirit of appeasement and without wishing to cause any controversy, I want to return to the incident which occurred at the end of voting time. This concerned the point of order which I raised based on Rules 180 and 181 of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
What actually happened?
A Member pleaded a provision of the Rules of Procedure.
After listening to him, Mr Martin decided to move to a vote of the House.
I am not questioning Mr Martin' s extensive ability to conduct our business swiftly but, like other Members, I am questioning a general practice which seems to completely contradict the letter of our Rules of Procedure and the spirit of the parliamentary institutions.
<P>
The Rules of Procedure guarantee the rights of the minority groups.
An amendment should not therefore be made by a majority of Members present but, under the very terms of our Rules of Procedure, according to extremely strict conditions.
An amendment must be made through a proposal which must be discussed in the committee responsible.
This committee must appoint a rapporteur who must produce a report and the amendment, if adopted, can be approved in this House only by a qualified majority consisting of over half the Members.
Even then, this amendment can only apply from the opening of the next part-session.
<P>
These guarantees are absolutely essential to ensure the correct operation of this House in particular and any parliamentary institution in general.
I consider that the rather Anglo-Saxon practice, in terms of legal sociology, of submitting perfectly clear provisions of the Rules of Procedure to a vote of a majority of Members present is absolutely detestable.
<P>
This is what I would have said to Mr Martin if he had not immediately decided, without even listening to me, that the comment which I wanted to make under Rules 180 and 181 was not a point of order. I must say that he acted in a manner rather lacking in courtesy and which ignored the requirements of democracy, respect for the rights of minorities and parliamentary practice.
In my opinion, Mr Martin contravened the rules governing his position with regard to myself, the Member who spoke previously and other Members who wanted to speak, particularly Mrs Muscardini whom he refused to allow to speak and even threatened with expulsion.
<P>
Mrs Lienemann, I wish to protest very firmly but very calmly to you, and to President Fontaine and, I hope, to the Bureau about what I consider to be an abuse of power.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="President">
Mr Gollnisch, I take note of your statement which will be examined by the Bureau and which will certainly appear in the verbatim report of proceedings of this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Cappato">
Madam President, I would like to draw the Presidency' s attention to the increasingly difficult working conditions as regards Parliament' s computer services.
For two weeks, the computers and their Internet connections have been incredibly slow and, what is more, a lot of Internet sites cannot be accessed.
This is due directly to the system chosen by Parliament' s computer service, that is, to protect the MEPs and screen their access to the Internet, with the upshot being that it has been impossible to connect for a couple of weeks.
Now we have even heard that the Internet connection of the European Parliament' s computer in Brussels will be down from 22 December to 4 January: this means that the Members will, in fact, be prevented from using it, so it will be completely impossible for them to work in their offices in Brussels from 22 December until 4 January.
I think that the Presidency should urgently ascertain the reasons behind this interruption.
I would like to think that such a long interruption can only be caused by very serious, insurmountable problems.
However, I fear that it is in fact down to the bureaucratic stupidity of the computer services.
Unfortunately, since there is no other formal way to request verification, I am asking you to do this directly, in this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="President">
Mr Cappato, your concerns have already been voiced by other Members and even at times by the services.
Your comments will be forwarded to the IT department and the President will also look at this problem with the Bureau.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Beijing Action Platform (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the oral questions to the Commission and Council, on behalf of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, on the EU follow-up to the Beijing Action Platform.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Dybkjær">
Madam President, I want to begin with six words which in Danish all begin with an "m" , as in men.
The six words are: muren [der faldt i Berlin] (the Wall which came down in Berlin), markedet (the market), mainstreaming (mainstreaming), magt (power), mæslinger (measles) and menneskerettigheder (human rights).
These words are used in the following question: did the fact that the Wall came down, that the market took over and that we, as a result, seriously accepted the word mainstreaming in Beijing, mean that men stepped - if not a little into the background - then at least a bit to the side, so surrendering a little power and being willing to take care of the children when they have the measles?
Does it also therefore mean that human rights are respected so that women, like everyone else, are not discriminated against and exposed to violence?
The answer is no.
<P>
I would call attention to this situation because women such as ourselves in the rich countries of the world, that is to say also in the EU, should always remember that those who make the decisions and so who also decide the fate of our sisters in the developing countries, in Kosovo, in the Balkans etc., continue to be men and that there is therefore a risk of the results of our work and of the programmes as a whole not representing women' s wishes and needs in a balanced way.
We still need a discussion about equality and change in the EU but, above all, there must be active efforts in respect of the developing countries and in connection with aid to Kosovo, the Balkans etc. to ensure that women are part of the process and are also involved in development and reconstruction.
The stability pact, which has a shortage of women in its leadership and in which women generally are not involved, shows that there is still a lot to be done.
There is a great need for the men and women in the European Parliament to support their fellow Members of the European Parliament, together with the NGOs, in their endeavours to become involved at all levels of the societies concerned.
<P>
I would end by thanking both the Commissioner, for a speech which demonstrated her commitment, and the President-in-Office of the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="Evans, Jillian">
Madam President, the political groups are agreed on the main question here, as are those of us in the Committee on Women's Rights.
The "Beijing plus five" Conference is of major importance and the European Union has to be very well prepared to take part in the most effective way possible if it is going to have the impact that we want.
As a Parliament, we owe that to all women in the European Union and beyond - in fact throughout the world - in view of all the commitments that were made before Beijing and following it.
<P>
We need very clear guarantees that we, as Members of Parliament, will be fully involved and be taken seriously in the planning of the pre-conference before the New York meeting.
As Members of Parliament we are the direct democratic link with the people of the European Union, and the Committee on Women's Rights itself is a direct link with many women's organisations and representatives.
As was said earlier, the preparations for Seattle were a good example of the way this could be done, and I hope we will achieve this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Eriksson">
Mr President, we have in fact observed that, everywhere in the world, women are the subordinated sex.
In view of this fact, this Beijing Action Platform was created.
Here in the European Community too, it has been said that the overarching goal is to promote equality between the sexes in all political programmes and areas of policy.
<P>
Scarcely a year ago, we were discussing a report monitoring how the concept of gender mainstreaming had been implemented specifically in the institutions of the EU.
We noted on that occasion that the Beijing Action Platform says that a series of measures must be taken which ought to lead to fundamental changes.
We ascertained in February that this had not happened.
It was noted that there must be clearly defined goals and mechanisms of accountability, but we do not have those either.
It was noted that women ought to be actively engaged in applying and following up the Action Platform. Nor is that happening, either.
It was observed that a proper application of the Platform would also demand changes to the inner dynamics of institutions and organisations, including to such values, forms of behaviour, rules and routines of theirs which damage the position of women.
<P>
When we in the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities then looked at this issue, we saw that a lot of small steps forward had been taken in all the institutions of the European Union and that none of these had changed anything overall.
Now we are to see how the Beijing Action Platform has been implemented.
Unfortunately, the European Union is not going to be able to demonstrate any major positive successes, not even if we were to send a delegation of Members of the European Parliament.
What we are going to do is to go to the conference and affirm what was already affirmed in 1995 in Beijing.
I think that is incredibly sad.
We from this Chamber urged the Commission at that time to give priority to overhauling all its advisory and decision-making structures, so as to obtain a proper balance between women and men, and to encourage the Member States to implement fully the Council' s recommendation of 2 December 1996 to the effect that there should be a proper balance between women and men in the decision-making process.
Obviously, this exhortation still stands.
<P>
We also urge the Commission to pursue, and to work more intensively on, its strategy aimed at achieving a proper balance between women and men on the staff.
Obviously, this exhortation too still stands.
We urged the EU' s institutions to submit plans for achieving a situation in which equality was practised and pursued in their own particular activities.
This is also a demand from this Chamber which still holds.
<P>
To put it briefly, we have not taken more than the tiniest step forward.
This is something we regret but, if we are now to go to New York, we hope that we shall be able to obtain good advice from people there - that is to say, sisters from other countries - and see if anything positive has happened anywhere else.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
Madam President, it is regrettable that the EU' s Conference is only taking place after the regional conferences in Europe, especially when it was unfortunately decided at these conferences to only discuss four of the twelve themes included in the Beijing Action Platform.
The four themes were violence, economics, decision making and institutional mechanisms, and this means that one of the most important themes, namely health, will only be discussed at the EU' s Conference.
I therefore hope that, in its preparations for the conference, the Commission will focus strongly upon this subject, and especially upon the issue of reproductive health.
<P>
In the Beijing Action Platform, women' s health was singled out as an area in which there is cause for critical concern.
Reproductive health was linked with human rights, while it was stated clearly that, for women, human rights include their right to have control over, and freely and responsibly make decisions about matters related to their sexuality, that is to say to their sexual and reproductive health, too.
The statement from Beijing goes further than that which was employed in Cairo in connection with reproductive rights.
There is a risk, moreover, that this hard-won victory may be jeopardised in the course of the "Beijing plus five" process, even if the pre-conference planning committee has given an assurance that the Beijing Action Platform is not open to renegotiation.
We in the EU ought to be involved in ensuring that this is in fact the case.
<P>
The European Parliament' s representative group concerned with reproductive health has repeatedly called attention to the connections that exist between the fight against poverty, women' s equality and reproductive health.
We have emphasised that reproductive health is in fact a prerequisite for the fight against poverty and is to be conceived holistically.
It is also necessary to tackle the question of HIV/Aids.
The proportion of HIV-infected women and, therefore, of the number of cases of the virus being passed from mother to child are steadily increasing.
<P>
I therefore hope that the Commission can today assure me that reproductive health will be given a prominent place at the EU' s Conference and that, in one way or another, the European Parliament will be able to participate in the New York Conference, just as it did in the arrangements for the WTO negotiations where we were in fact represented.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
Madam President, Beijing 1995 was a special event.
Never before did so many countries, NGOs and journalists take part in a UN Conference.
The Beijing Declaration and the Beijing Action Platform were adopted by 192 government delegations.
The Beijing Action Platform serves as a major catalyst worldwide and in all areas policies have been tightened up, reviewed and renewed.
Despite this, the problems have not yet been solved and the emancipation policy has not reached completion.
<P>
In the ' 70s, the European Community and the United Nations placed the topic of 'women' on the map for national governments.
Attention has now waned.
It is therefore up to Europe to generate renewed interest.
I hope that we can accelerate implementation with the same energy and power which typified Beijing at the Beijing plus five Conference in June 2000 in New York.
I strongly urge the EU to maintain the momentum and keep the interests of women at heart internationally.
<P>
In this context, I would like to raise the following questions, Madam President.
Firstly, the PPE deems the importance of NGOs and of women' s movements extremely high.
They carry a special significance and strength by their activities at grass-roots level.
Decisions do not take effect automatically.
There are always inspectors required to ensure that decisions are transposed into policy and that policy is adopted.
NGOs play a key role in the mobilisation of the political will to transpose policy.
In most countries, the national emancipation support networks are also formed by the government.
Hence my question: how does the Commission see the role of NGOs, including women' s movements, and the concerted action between these and the national government networks?
<P>
Secondly, a European preparatory meeting had been planned for December 1999.
This has now been postponed to February 2000.
There is a great deal of confusion about this at the moment.
The confusion which pervaded the previous preparatory conference should be avoided.
Hence my second question: could the Commission indicate which NGOs will be invited and what will be expected from them?
<P>
Thirdly, there is an ECE Conference in Geneva in January.
The results of Beijing will once again be tabled there. Could the Commission give an indication as to what the EU' s input will be in this ECE Conference in relation to the Commission' s opinion of how much we have achieved, what hurdles still need to be overcome and what action is required?
<P>
Finally, my fourth question concerns one of the results of Beijing that agreements have been reached regarding gender mainstreaming.
This means the inclusion of emancipation objectives and the implementation thereof in regular policy.
My question is: can the Commission indicate what it intends to do to 'mainstream' the results of Beijing and those of New York in the fullness of time, in European policy?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Karamanou">
Madam President, Commissioner, without doubt the fifth UN Conference on women held in Beijing was an important step on the road towards equality of the sexes, culminating as it did with the surprising agreement by the representatives of all the UN countries to a joint worldwide platform for action.
Five years on, we need to take stock, evaluate any progress or reversals which have been made in the twelve areas of action, take any corrective action needed and lay down policies which will allow us to achieve the objectives established in Beijing.
<P>
The European Union, or rather the European Parliament, must not just be present during this procedure; it must make a decisive contribution, both to the evaluation of the five years of action and to future plans.
It is a fact that, in comparison with other parts of the world, such as Afghanistan and Kuwait, where millions of women are still deprived of fundamental human rights, women in Europe lead a privileged existence.
It is true that a great deal of progress has been made in all areas in the Union and, if we look back at our achievements during the 20th century, we should perhaps be celebrating the huge victories which women have achieved.
To mention just one of the many victories: education, where women surpass men, both in numbers and in achievement, at almost every university in the European Union.
<P>
The European Parliament and the Union have made a decisive contribution in promoting equal opportunities.
The application of the Amsterdam Treaty, action programmes and mainstreaming have strengthened European policy significantly.
However, despite the progress made, serious problems of inequality and discrimination against women still need to be resolved: higher unemployment, violence, sexual exploitation and, above all, the exclusion of women from the centres of policy and decision making.
<P>
In view of the forthcoming UN Conference in New York, we need to speed up the European Union' s preparations if we really want to make a fundamental contribution to pre-conference planning and to the conference itself which is commensurate with the prestige of the Union.
I was pleased to hear the Commissioner and the Presidency representative this morning express their intention and commitment with regard to the organisation of the European conference and participation in the pre-conference planning for the Beijing plus five Conference in New York.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="Ainardi">
Madam President, I am to give the speech which should have been made by my fellow Member, Geneviève Fraisse.
She joins the protests made by Mrs Theorin this morning.
<P>
I am pleased that the European Commission feels responsible for following up the Beijing Conference.
Yet we need precision in order to ensure effectiveness.
The same applies to the situation of women today, as much in terms of equality - education, citizenship and employment - as freedom - habeas corpus, the fight against violence and the trading of women.
<P>
We must therefore be precise.
In order for this European meeting to be successful and not just the scene of some fine words, the following conditions must be met.
A European conference may be held in parallel with a UN meeting if, and only if, this works to produce an internal European policy and demonstrates a common determination within the UN dynamic.
<P>
The Finnish Presidency must be thanked for having identified nine indicators for assessing the access of women to decision making.
Would it not be judicious to generalise these quantitative methods?
Gender-based statistics must be provided in all areas.
Additional indicators must also be identified to measure the situations of inequality in fields other than politics.
<P>
Could we not also comprehensively assess the means which Europe, as such, has had for several decades to develop equal opportunities, particularly in terms of compatibility between family and professional life, and to combat all violence against women?
Without any common indicators, no serious assessment can be made of the measures taken by the Member States.
The conference in February 2000 could have this specific and formative policy as its objective.
<P>
The future enlargement of Europe, confirmed by the Helsinki conclusions, poses the problem of the applicant States respecting the requirements of developing equal opportunities and promoting women' s freedom.
In these countries as elsewhere, the role of the NGOs, particularly since Beijing, has become indisputable.
The Commission must be a capable participant in the work undertaken by these associations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Swiebel">
Madam President, the 1995 World Conference on Women has given the worldwide fight for freedom and equality for women a shot in the arm.
I would like to briefly outline three milestones.
<P>
Firstly, the right to sexual self-determination has been recognised as an inherent component of the human rights of women.
Secondly, it has been established that the argument of cultural identity cannot justify the on-going suppression of women.
Thirdly, it has been stated that women' s policy is not about fancy things for women and a place in the sun, rather the gender dimension should be added to all policy-making decisions.
<P>
These achievements, most of which I have listed, must be translated into concrete action.
National governments carry most responsibility here and their commitment must be assessed.
But hang on. What about the European Union?
How is the common position on the follow-up to the World Conference on Women determined?
How can the European Parliament carry out its task in this respect?
<P>
The conference which the European Commission will organise next February can only help form opinion, it cannot determine policy.
Under the rules of the Common Foreign and Security Policy, under which, indeed, the Member States coordinate their action in international organisations, initiative and power of decision lie entirely with the Council, in practice a small group of specialist officials who have the natural tendency to focus on their own mutual problems.
I dare say this because I belonged to such a set-up myself for years, namely during the Beijing period.
<P>
Such bodies move in the twilight zone of secret diplomacy.
Openness and political responsibility, however, should be top of the agenda.
This is why I ask the Presidency, by referring to Article 32 of the Treaty on European Union, to brief Parliament as fully as possible, but mainly also to consult Parliament in time.
"In time" in this case means in any event before the so-called "preparatory conference" , to be held between 3 and 17 March in New York, because we are probably too late already for the ECE Conference in January.
The Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities of this Parliament has the explicit responsibility to monitor the follow-up and implementation of international agreements, such as the Beijing Action Platform.
This Committee cannot wait to give its input.
It would preferably do this on the basis of tangible, current information and in a constructive dialogue with the Council and the Commission.
Talking to a brick wall is, after all, not very productive.
This is why I somewhat regret that, because of the strange set-up of this debate, we are having to make do without the Finnish Presidency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
Madam President, here, at the end of the debate, I just want to say that I do not think it has been negative but that it has been very realistic indeed.
It has been clear-sighted, and we have shown where the problems lie. There is a clear consensus between the Commissioner, who is dealing with these questions, and Parliament' s Committee on Equality.
The Commissioner has emphasised Parliament' s position and Parliament' s important role and said that the action plans are inadequate, that these must be developed further and that a clear political stance is required.
I believe we should see this as being very important indeed.
<P>
May I just warn against the Commission and the Council confining themselves to just four areas when they now produce the concrete programme following the Beijing Conference. I say this after 20 years' experience of the United Nations.
As soon as you begin to unpick any of the twelve points we laid down in Beijing, you have also begun to dismember the whole of the Beijing document.
It is therefore incredibly important that the EU should have a very clear policy and that all twelve areas of policy carry due weight.
It is all twelve areas which have to be established and for which action plans have to be prepared, and not merely three of these.
Otherwise, the whole of our Beijing document might be forfeited.
<P>
I want to say as well that we have also quite rightly demanded that it should be possible for the Committee on Equality and the women in Parliament to also be present at the conference which is to take place in New York in June.
Just as representatives from Parliament participated in the WTO Conference, the women in Parliament ought also to be involved in this one.
<P>
Allow me finally to turn to the men here.
Do not see this as being something especially for the women.
Do not look askance and with irritation at the fact that women are raising those problems which, right around the world, are problems faced by women.
See it as an important task for you, as our male colleagues here in Parliament and as our male colleagues in the Commission, to accept your responsibility and ensure that these questions are raised to such a high level that they also become real issues in the national parliaments and the national governments and in the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Diamantopoulou">
Madam President, I should like to thank all the lady MEPs who took part in this debate.
There is no doubt that the Beijing Conference continues to have a widespread effect, as we see every year.
I think that, when we make our first evaluation in June, apart from the negative conclusions which we will draw on the basis of statistics, numbers and data on the situation of women at worldwide level, we shall also draw some positive conclusions on several developments worldwide.
<P>
I shall try to reply specifically to all the questions which have been asked.
Following the Beijing platform and the commitment of the 189 countries to the platform, there have been three levels of action as far as our region, the European Union, is concerned: first, at Member State level, secondly, in the form of political strategy at European Union level and, thirdly, at the level of European Union policy vis-à-vis developing countries.
Conclusions have already been drawn at all three levels and the planning will shortly be presented.
All three are particularly important.
However, I wish to stress, as certain speakers have said, that the commitments to the Beijing platform are mainly binding on the Member States, they are mainly binding on governments, with the European Union coming in at a second level with a horizontal strategy.
<P>
What are we doing and what procedures have been programmed?
We have three events on the agenda before the conference in June: the Economic Commission for Europe, which will meet in January, the European conference on the Beijing issues, which will be held in February, and the meeting of the Women' s Committee of the UN, which will be held in March.
We must combine these events in the best possible way if we are to have an efficient presence in June.
<P>
First, as far as the regional conference is concerned, it is most important that we arrive at specific, unanimously accepted results which will be discussed and taken into account at the February meeting of the European conference.
Who is attending the European conference in February?
First, the European Parliament, of course, then the non-governmental organisations and, as the question was asked, allow me to say here that the women' s movement and non-governmental organisations have played, and continue to play, an exceptionally important role and have acted as a real driving force behind the policies formulated at European level, together of course with various services from the Commission, the Member States and the Presidency.
During the preparations - you already know about the committee to which I referred - the twelve areas of interest selected at Beijing will be discussed.
As Mrs Theorin pointed out, we are not able at this stage to select four or five areas, given that we are required by the Beijing platform to give equal priority to the twelve areas but we could, of course, focus our attention on the fifth action programme when we discuss the selection of priorities at European level.
These twelve individual areas of interest will be examined in the following groups under the general heading of "mainstreaming" : gender issues in development policy, in other words, how sexual equality intervenes in all cooperation agreements between the European Union and developing countries, the involvement of women and human rights.
There will be a horizontal and vertical link between these groups and the twelve Beijing areas of interest.
The results and the extent to which we agree and take a common European Union position at the June conference is vitally important.
<P>
Since certain parallels have been drawn with Seattle, I should like to remind the House that the institutional framework is not the same, nor does the Commission have the same institutional role in New York and at the Beijing Conference as it did in Seattle. However, provided that the political will is there, nothing prevents the Presidency, the Commission and the European Parliament from collaborating and joining forces during the six months up to June.
I, of course, give my word that the Commission will not only collaborate continuously and provide a continuous flow of information but will also accept proposals and studies from the European Parliament up to the very last day.
I believe that by June we will be able to find the final formula which, as you know, is not based on a Commission decision or even really on a Council decision, because it is a matter which comes under the auspices of the United Nations Organisation and participation is at national level. However, I repeat that there is the political will and the political conditions are in place for us to proceed jointly, given that we have totally concurring views on numerous matters.
<P>
Finally, I should like to make one last comment: movements, political initiatives and campaigns can often play an extremely important role.
I would like to single out the last initiative of the Women' s Committee on the strategy against violence.
It is interesting how a simple movement, a simple idea can take on huge proportions and catch the public imagination.
I think that the European Parliament could act in this area and the Commission is ready and waiting to support such campaigns or initiatives at worldwide level, provided that they relate to the matters to which you have already referred.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Thursday at 10 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Ban on British beef and veal
<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="President">
The next item is the Commission statement on the follow-up to the French Government' s decision to uphold the ban on British beef and veal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="Monti">
I would like to begin with a word of apology on behalf of my colleague David Byrne.
Unfortunately, owing to the cancellation of the morning flight from Brussels to Strasbourg due to exceptionally adverse weather conditions, he is not able to be here in person.
I will therefore speak to you instead on the important issue of the Commission action in relation to the continued refusal of France to lift its ban on imports of British beef.
<P>
Commissioner Byrne will, however, be arriving in Strasbourg later this afternoon, and will be in a position to take any questions when he speaks on the draft regulation on the labelling of beef products.
He will also be happy to meet interested Members of Parliament individually or as a group to discuss the issue further.
In these unavoidable circumstances I am only in a position to deliver Commissioner Byrne's script on his behalf.
<P>
The Commission yesterday, as you are already aware, adopted a decision to issue a formal reasoned opinion to the French authorities over their continued refusal to lift their national restrictions on imports of British beef.
The French authorities have five working days to reply to this letter.
In the absence of a decision to lift the ban, the case will be filed with the European Court of Justice.
<P>
The failure to resolve the dispute in an amicable manner is a huge disappointment to the Commission.
I think it fair to add that it is a disappointment to all the parties concerned, given the huge efforts that went into finding a solution without recourse to legal action.
The Commission has always made clear its preference to solve this dispute without legal intervention. This approach is in the interests of all parties.
I would add that it is especially in the interests of the parties most affected - British beef producers.
The reality is that legal action to lift the ban is likely to be a lengthy process, very much a second-best solution as compared to an amicable agreement.
<P>
The Commission's efforts focused on establishing that the original decision to lift the ban on UK beef posed no threat to public health.
The decision was based on a series of important safeguards which were firmly rooted in scientific advice.
They also followed the orientations of the European Council in Florence in June 1996 on the procedures, timetable and safeguards required to lift the ban.
<P>
Unfortunately, the French authorities, on the advice of their National Food Safety Authority, AFSSA, were still unprepared to lift their national restrictions.
The Commission took the precaution of referring to its Scientific Steering Committee these concerns for an opinion on whether they called into question the decision to lift the ban and the terms of the date-based export scheme in particular.
<P>
The unanimous opinion of the SSC that there is no need to review the decision to lift the ban on UK beef exports was hugely reassuring in this respect.
Unfortunately, however, this reassurance did not prove sufficient to allow the French authorities to lift their ban.
<P>
Efforts have subsequently focused on additional reassurances and clarifications on the provisions of the date-based export scheme.
<P>
These efforts led to the agreement between the UK, France and the Commission on a memorandum of understanding on 23 November, which provided the reassurances and clarifications required.
It is fair to say there was an expectation that this memo would prove to be the key to lifting the French embargo.
<P>
The opinion of AFFSA on the memo, however, again did not prove sufficient for the French authorities to lift the ban.
On 9 December they officially informed the Commission of this decision. This, in turn, has led the Commission to adopt a reasoned opinion yesterday.
<P>
There have been criticisms that the Commission's efforts to resolve the dispute in a diplomatic manner were a waste of time and effort.
The argument, instead, is that the Commission should have immediately resorted to legal action.
These criticisms are unfounded, and are indeed dangerous.
As I pointed out earlier, they are especially contrary to the interests of the most affected party, British beef producers.
These criticisms also ignore the very determined action the Commission has taken to uphold its treaty obligations to ensure compliance with Community law.
<P>
In effect, the Commission has adopted a carrot and stick approach: the carrot was the very intensive effort to bring the parties together and to get them to agree a solution through negotiation.
The stick, on the other hand, was to take action when it was clear that these efforts were not proving sufficient.
It is useful to bear in mind that the Commission's letter of formal notice issued on 16 November allowed a period of only two weeks for reply, rather than the normal two months.
Similarly, the reasoned opinion adopted yesterday also allows five days for reply rather than the normal two months.
In effect, therefore, there has been no slippage in the legal calendar in ensuring compliance with the decision to lift the ban on exports of UK beef.
<P>
The intervening period has also served to provide much-needed reassurances and guarantees that the original decision to lift the ban was soundly based.
In particular it has established that the scientific basis for lifting the ban was sound.
<P>
I am sure that if we are ever to find an amicable solution to this dispute, which I hope can still be found, it will have been due to the efforts which took place over the past several weeks.
<P>
Thank you for your attention.
Once more let me apologise on Commissioner Byrne's behalf that he is not here in person, but he will be available to take questions later.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Wogau">
Madam President, I should like to make a point of order and table a motion.
We in the European Parliament have asked time and again for the debates held here to be held in the presence of the competent Commissioner.
We understand that Commissioner Byrne has been held up by transport problems and that Commissioner Monti has read the Commission' s opinion.
However, I consider it absolutely necessary that the competent Commissioner should hear what Members have to say before being given the opportunity to reply, since otherwise the debate which we wish to hold does not in fact take place.
I should therefore like to move that we adjourn this debate and begin the debate on competition, as suggested, so that the Members concerned with the beef question can speak in the presence of the competent Commissioner.
I therefore move that this debate be adjourned now and that we proceed to the next item on the agenda.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Goepel">
Madam President, I should like to add to that.
I thank Mr von Wogau for his motion on a point of order.
We have learned that the Council passed a decision yesterday evening.
I deliberately repeat: passed a decision to postpone labelling for one year, before Parliament has formed an opinion or made a decision on the matter.
I move that the Council representative also be present at the debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth-Behrendt">
Madam President, it distresses me greatly to have to contradict Mr von Wogau and it perhaps distresses me even more to have to contradict Mr Goepel, but let me take the formal part first.
The formal part is that we agreed and decided on the agenda this morning.
Mr von Wogau, you are a great stickler for procedure, even more so than I. I am perhaps on occasions somewhat more relaxed, which is why I think it is important that we keep to this agenda.
<P>
The second argument is that, apart from the fact that Mr Byrne will probably arrive at any moment, we should be clear Mr von Wogau - and this is a fact, as you well know - that nothing which we say today will come as a surprise to Mr Byrne.
We can always ask Mr Byrne questions afterwards.
As to the first part of what you said, Mr von Wogau, I would ask you to have a little respect for Members' engagements, i.e. the engagements of those of us who have perhaps put off other things in order to be present here and the engagements of other Members who have not yet had time to prepare for a different debate.
<P>
Now to what Mr Goepel said.
Mr Goepel, as to what the Council is doing, allow me to say to you quite plainly that that is the second part of the debate which is to follow, namely the report by Mr Papayannakis on beef labelling.
What the Council is doing is a matter of indifference to me.
This Parliament has the right of codecision on this proposal.
This Parliament has the right to decide alone.
If the Council thinks it should be present, fine.
If the Council does not think it should be present, so much the better, because we shall take the decision here which we consider to be right; if necessary, we may even go to the European Court of Justice and then decide.
Then we shall consider how to deal with the Council.
I do not need a Council representative here in order to tell them that I think they are undemocratic.
We can say that afterwards in the debate.
I think it is important that we proceed with the agenda as it now stands.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 NAME="Whitehead">
Madam President, I am more distressed to have to disagree with Mrs Roth-Behrendt than she is to have to disagree with Mr von Wogau.
There are precedents for delaying the debate for some period of time.
Commissioner Monti will remember that on one occasion in the last Parliament he had to come in when a debate had already begun, because of transport problems.
These are problems endemic in our meeting in Strasbourg in the way we do.
It is a good week for this point to be brought to our attention.
<P>
I would like to support the suggestion that this full debate takes place in the presence of Commissioner Byrne.
I mean no disrespect whatsoever to Commissioner Monti, but Commissioner Byrne has been the honest broker in this terrible dispute from day one.
We need to have him here when we attempt to reach some conclusion on it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="Cashman">
I too believe that we should not hold this debate without the relevant Commissioner here.
It is far too important.
We want the debate settled, we want the Commissioner to act, but we want him to act having heard all of the debate and not on the basis of information passed on second or third hand.
<P>
We must adjourn the debate until the Commissioner is here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 NAME="Sturdy">
Unfortunately, Mr Whitehead has stolen my line.
I totally agree with him that if a Commissioner, with today's modern transport methods, cannot get to a meeting in time we should be holding all our part-sessions in Brussels.
<P>
<P>
However, I would like to move on to the point made by Mr von Wogau and also Mr Goepel' s very important point.
The suggestion that Council may have taken a decision already without Parliament is particularly important.
I am not sure about that.
I have the conclusions here from the Presidency and the Council meeting.
When the Commissioner arrives, I would like to have a clear statement from him saying whether or not the Council has taken a decision on beef labelling.
Otherwise, there is no point at all in our debating it and making fools of ourselves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cunha">
Madam President, I would just like to say that this question of the labelling of beef, in political terms, is one of the most sensitive issues in relation to agricultural and agro-food policy.
Therefore, it is unthinkable to hold a debate on such a delicate issue without the Commissioner responsible being present.
It makes no sense!
It is a question of respect for the issue and for European consumers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="Jackson">
I support the appeal made by Mr von Wogau but I would also like to elaborate on the request made by Mr Goepel, because he has made a very interesting constitutional suggestion, namely, that the representative of the Council should speak in connection with the Papayannakis report.
I would like to support that and I hope that the Council, which, under the Finnish presidency, has professed to be as open, transparent and communicative as possible with the Parliament, takes up this suggestion.
<P>
Last night, I understand, the Agriculture Council not only adopted a position on the Papayannakis report resolution, which it was rather beforehand in doing - but it also, I believe, altered the legal basis of the text on which Mr Papayannakis drew up his report.
We would like a full explanation of that, but it makes sense to have it from the Council, which carried out this decision, rather than from the Commission, which was, I suppose, only a spectator.
So please could we put off this debate on the French beef ban, and could we also make sure that the Council speaks in the Papayannakis report?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="Papayannakis">
Madam President, it is never too late, as they say.
<P>
I have here the text of a decision made by the Agriculture Council.
The Council is therefore making decisions and, apparently, deftly transferring the responsibility for these to Parliament' s Committee on the Environment.
This is very interesting.
We had a rather confused debate in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and we are having this debate here today.
The Council claims that, as soon as we wanted to make amendments, it distanced itself and went down another route, in league with the Commission.
It even says in its decision that it believes that the Commission has another proposal to make which will circumvent Parliament and lead the Commission and Council to decide on their own.
All this appears in the document which I have here.
<P>
We clearly need an explanation because you could say that the debate on my report is pointless if the Council is allowed to decide what it wants.
The Council should therefore be here.
I am not sure whether we have the power to force its presence.
The possibility of an agreement certainly exists, but we need the Council here in order to find out.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="President">
I have a proposal to make.
I have just learnt that Commissioner Byrne will not be here for at least another half an hour.
We therefore have two options. We either continue the debate started in his absence or, and this is what I suggest, we adjourn the item we have started to discuss until 9 p.m.
I will put this proposal to the vote and everyone must decide with full knowledge of the facts. Either we keep to the agenda or we resume at 9 p.m. to debate the Council' s statement.
Mr Papayannakis, your report will, of course, follow this statement which will therefore inevitably be later this evening.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="Papayannakis">
Madam President, you are holding my nightlife to ransom! However, as it is for a good cause, I accept.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="President">
I am only suggesting 9 p.m. because it is traditional. I believe the Rules of Procedure state that when a joint discussion involves three reports, as is the case with the von Wogau, Rapkay and Jonckheer reports, we must continue to the end of the discussion.
I am in no way trying to cut short the debate, but I must ensure that our Rules are respected.
<P>
As my proposal seems to have caused as many reactions as if I had not made one, I suggest that we resume the points of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maat">
Madam President, I take exception to the fact that a Commissioner arrives late for a meeting in Parliament, never mind where it takes place.
We did not choose to be here in Strasbourg.
In my opinion, if he is half an hour late, the debate should start then.
I find it in any case unacceptable that he is late.
<P>
I would like to address my second point to Mrs Roth-Behrendt of the socialist group who referred to the fact that we should start as we would all be making similar points in any case.
I am from the Group of the European People' s Party.
We are not a record which you play over and over again.
We hold original views and our input will bear witness to the fact that our ideas are clear and that we act on current situations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Wogau">
Madam President, I fear that we may waste a great deal of time on this debate on a point of order.
I moved, quite clearly, to adjourn this debate and to resume it after the debate on competition.
We have heard at least one speaker in favour and one speaker against.
We know the arguments.
I should now like to move to put it to the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langen">
Madam President, I raised a point of order some time ago.
According to the original agenda, the competition reports should now follow.
The order of this agenda was specifically amended by the Conference of Presidents in order to give Commissioner Byrne the opportunity to attend.
That was why the original agenda was amended on Monday.
As he is not yet here, I urge the House to deal with the competition reports.
Commissioner Monti has been here for some time.
He can deal with Mr Byrne' s reports in this regard.
I therefore support the motion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I must inform you that it was the Conference of Presidents which suggested the change to the agenda.
This change was approved by Parliament on Monday.
It is therefore as a result of this vote that we have this agenda for today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="Bowis">
I think if we go on for a few more minutes then these points of order will get Mr Byrne here in time for the debate.
If we have to adjourn and take up another subject, we should have an urgency debate on transport to Strasbourg!
It is quite intolerable that this House should be messed around by Commissioners who are unable to come here to respond to debates, particularly when, as we have already heard, the agenda has been changed to suit their convenience.
That is not acceptable, and with the greatest respect to Commissioner Monti, he is not in a position to answer this debate because, for example, when I asked Commissioner Byrne in the Committee on the Environment whether it would be possible not to waste a lot of time on legal procedures but simply go straight to a legal injunction, he said that would be possible.
That was not in the statement we heard from Mr Monti just now.
<P>
I want Mr Byrne to be here to explain the position with regard to injunctions.
That is not possible if he is not here.
We should adjourn - if we have to move beyond the competition debate that is fine, but we should not have to wait until 9 o'clock because of the incompetence of whoever is responsible for the travel arrangements of Commissioners.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="Martinez">
Madam President, if this is a question of legal competence, then Mr Monti is as competent as Mr Byrne to give the Commission' s collectively decided opinion.
If this is a question of scientific competence, then Mr Byrne is as incompetent as any scientist who knows nothing about prions.
We know nothing about these particles.
If this is a question of good sense, then it involves French consumers not wanting the few kilos of British meat in question and discussions will make no difference.
So this must be a question of psychoanalysis.
The British Members are upset.
The quicker they are able to vent their feelings, the quicker we can start the psychotherapy by listening to them and the quicker they will be able to calm down.
We should therefore start the debate straightaway in order to calm them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="Donnelly">
Mr Byrne has left the airport - I assume that is Strasbourg airport - and is on his way here.
Therefore under Rule 146, 32 Members can set the specific time and date when this debate should resume.
I am therefore proposing that the debate should resume at 4.45 p.m. today, and I would ask 32 Members to support this.
If they do, then that ends the matter until 4.45 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="President">
I suggest that you decide on the proposal which has just been made.
<P>
Do 32 Members support this proposal?
<P>
(Parliament gave its assent) (The sitting was suspended at 4.15 p.m. and resumed at 4.45 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Ban on British beef and veal (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the Commission statement on the follow-up to the French Government' s decision to uphold the ban on British beef and veal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langen">
Madam President, I refer to Article 142, paragraph 1 of our Rules of Procedure, under which an infringement of the Rules of Procedure can be pointed out to the President.
In this case it is Article 147 of the Rules of Procedure, which states that a motion to suspend must be put to the vote.
You have not allowed us to vote.
You declared the vote of 32 Members to be a vote.
That was a clear infringement of the Rules of Procedure.
We cannot allow our Bureau to push us around whenever we have a tight agenda.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 NAME="President">
Mr Langen, I acknowledge my mistake.
You can put it down to the fact that this is the first time I have acted as Vice-President.
I should have put it to the vote.
However, it appears that the House would probably have confirmed the decision which was taken.
Nevertheless, I apologise for this flouting of the Rules of Procedure and I will try not to do this again.
<P>
Commissioner Byrne considers that, as his statement was read by Commissioner Monti, we can immediately start the debate at the end of which he will answer any questions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="Stevenson">
Madam President, it is now 18 weeks since the European Commission ordered the lifting of the ban on British beef; 18 weeks during which time France and Germany have prevaricated while blatantly defying the law; 18 weeks during which naive attempts at appeasement by the Commission and the hapless UK government have been rebuffed in circumstances which have caused deep humiliation to both; 18 weeks during which British beef farmers have continued to suffer catastrophic losses, exacerbated by the titanic efforts of the French government to blacken the good name of British beef internationally.
<P>
The time for dithering and delay is now past.
In the face of clear evidence that the French government has engaged in a devious game of cat-and-mouse with the Commission and the UK government and clearly never had any intention of removing the ban on British beef from the outset, they must now be held to account.
They must be made to answer in the European courts and the procedure must be fast-tracked to ensure compensation is paid to the British beef industry, not only for the loss of trade to France, but also for the loss of our trade worldwide as a result of the damage done to the reputation of our high-quality products.
<P>
Can I also deal with the red herring that Prime Minister Jospin has introduced into this debate.
He claims that last October he made an offer to Prime Minister Blair to lift the ban on grass-fed Scottish beef.
Let me say this to Prime Minster Jospin: all British beef is safe.
It has been judged safe by the European Commission and by the Scientific Steering Committee.
Under the chairmanship of a French scientist, that committee unanimously approved the safety of British beef and unanimously rejected the French position.
It is preposterous, therefore, for Mr Jospin to endeavour to drive a coach and horses through the European directive and the British date-based export scheme by introducing his own conditions.
It is Mr Jospin who is in the dock and it is not for those who break the law to attempt to revise the rules.
<P>
Can I also ask the Commission what action they intend to take against Germany?
The German Government has been content to hide behind the French coat-tails throughout this dispute, blaming the intricacies of their federal system of government for the delays in lifting the ban in Germany.
I would remind this House that the German Government was able to introduce the ban on British beef in a matter of hours.
It is therefore quite unacceptable that they continue to apply this illegal ban 18 weeks following the directive ordering that the ban should be lifted.
<P>
On my final point I would point out to this House that on an issue of this crucial importance there are very few Socialist Members sitting here taking part in this debate - and that is a disgrace.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth-Behrendt">
Madam President, at this moment in time, Socialist members have been debating BSE far longer than most of you and, in all events, far longer than Mr Stevenson, but that is just a brief rejoinder to the last comment.
<P>
As chairman of the last BSE committee, I have probably spoken more frequently in this House and in other fora on BSE than most of you since 1996/97.
I believe therefore that many of you will already have heard much of what I have to say here today from me on previous occasions.
Permit me nonetheless to summarise the background to the lifting of the export ban.
The lifting of the export ban on British beef followed long scientific debate, long reports and numerous inspection visits to the United Kingdom and was approved by this Parliament.
We now have a legal situation where there is an internal market and free movement of goods.
Only where there is scientifically substantiated and provable cause for concern can the free movement of goods be excluded and suspended in order to protect consumer health.
This applies to all Member States and it also applies in other respects.
<P>
However, as this scientific proof always takes the form of an up-to-date expert opinion based on the information available, we must all take an interest in the latest scientific knowledge.
Like most of you, I am no scientist.
I must refer to the expert opinions of the scientists and I am interested in any new information which may cast fresh light on the situation.
I was therefore most interested and curious to know what new information was available.
Unfortunately, no new information has come to my attention either from France and other Member States or - and this remark is addressed directly at Mr Stevenson - from Germany.
The reaction is therefore quite clear and unequivocal.
Commissioner Byrne and the Commission have chosen the only correct reaction.
Member States call time and again for legal security in the European Union, Member States call time and again for everyone else to respect the law when their own interests are at stake.
And so there should be no exceptions for them either and there should be no arbitrariness in the European legal systems.
<P>
Nonetheless, it would have been nice if the Commission had made the BSE test evaluated several months ago compulsory, i.e. if they had made it a duty incumbent upon all Member States.
That would have given some Member States additional security and additional reassurance and all the Member States would at last obtain a clear and unequivocal picture.
Then we would finally know exactly what the BSE situation is.
My question therefore to Commissioner Byrne is this: when will we have a proposal on compulsory BSE testing in the Member States?
Apart from BSE testing, we also need a record of provenance.
We shall shortly be debating the Papayannakis report on beef labelling.
This, too, would simplify and improve the situation of the Member States and help to protect consumers.
Here too, and I say this loud and clear, the Member States have been dragging their feet.
They have been dragging their feet since 1997 and the Commission has also failed to take the necessary action.
That is inexcusable.
<P>
Allow me to conclude with a few words on consumer protection as a whole.
I have been in the European Parliament for 10 years, during which most of my time has been taken up with environmental policy and consumer protection.
I do not always have the support of the Member States, despite hearing so much from them about consumer protection.
May I remind you of the legislation on product safety and product liability, where I tried to obtain legal security.
However, I was ignored by countries such as Germany, France and others when it came to protecting victims of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in the longer-term.
I would have wished for more consumer protection and more support than I mustered.
Perhaps there is now a new trend in consumer protection.
I call on the Commission and on you, Mr Byrne, to pass your homework on to the Member States.
The Council is usually pretty dozy.
All the members of the Council are usually pretty dozy.
Make BSE testing compulsory and ensure that beef is labelled with its origin, that would be a major step forward.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Madam President, Commissioner, the partial lifting of the embargo is valid law. However, it is also valid law for a Member State to take precautions to protect its people if there is a risk to public health.
What interests me in this respect, in the short time available to me, is this: if you state in this compromise, in these two recitals, that testing will be carried out and that there will be a facility or duty to label, then we must be sure that this testing and this labelling will indeed be carried out if the import ban is lifted.
There are no logistics in place for either and no results from the possible application of this testing, including in Great Britain, have been submitted.
<P>
I therefore consider it premature to step up the debate.
You for your part, at the Commission, should implement and test the measures agreed and then reintroduce them into the negotiations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="Lynne">
Madam President, this is not only a crisis for British farmers, it is a crisis for French farmers as well.
But above all it is a crisis for the European Union.
France has to decide whether it is in the EU or not.
If it is in the EU it must play by the rules.
<P>
In the UK our support in the European elections was very shaky.
There was a very low turnout, as was the case in a lot of Member States.
I believe that if we had an election today that turnout would be even lower because of France's refusal to lift the ban and the fact that the European Union is brought into disrepute.
<P>
The results of the Scientific Steering Committee back on 1 August ruled that British beef was as safe as any other beef and that was led by a French chairman.
I happen to believe that it is safer than other beef because we have got some of the highest hygiene standards in the world now.
The Food Standards Agency in France did not come up with any new evidence at all.
I believe it was purely a political decision by France but we must now move forward.
I would like to see a fast-track legal procedure.
I would like to see, if possible, an injunction taken out against France before the legal process has run its course.
I would like to see interim compensation and I would like to see when a fine is imposed, that high compensation is given to British farmers.
<P>
British farmers are fed up.
The British public are fed up with France refusing to lift the ban and I am sure the Commission is fed up as well.
It is about time that France obeyed the rules.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 NAME="Ainardi">
Madam President, in refusing to lift the ban on British beef and veal, the French Government has decided to face a limited and short-lived crisis with its European partners rather than risk a scandal breaking in a few months or years linked to Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.
This decision is based on the scientific conclusions of the French Food Safety Agency which, while acknowledging that progress has been made, has identified continuing and serious potential risks, as demonstrated by the persistence of the disease.
Seattle has also affected this decision, with the growing importance of the precautionary principle and the pre-eminence of health over the market.
There is no point today in making things worse or in exacerbating Francophobe or Anglophobe feelings.
We are right to be careful.
It is the inadequacy of the guarantees on the definition and implementation of testing programmes and, in particular, the lack of European regulation on labelling and traceability, which has led France to this decision.
In addition to these elements, the efforts made in recent weeks, which no one disputes, must be clarified and supplemented in particular by the establishment of a compulsory labelling and traceability system from the producer to the consumer.
This would clearly allow the consumer to be reassured and would also combat the re-routing of products in the context of triangular trade.
Beyond this specific case, should we not be working to impose the pre-eminence of the precautionary principle over all other considerations in trade, both within the EU and with third countries?
Are the Commission and Council not using a similar approach to that of the French Government in rightly opposing the lifting of the ban on hormone-treated meat originating from the United States of America, despite the WTO injunctions?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 NAME="Martinez">
Madam President, my British colleagues must realise that this is a scientific, political, legal and moral problem.
On the scientific level, first of all this disease is due to an unknown agent.
It is not a bacteria and it is probably not a virus, even though the German Professor Diringer believes otherwise. It is due to a mysterious prion.
Secondly, there is no ante-mortem test.
Thirdly, the disease is not disappearing despite the ban on meal.
Fourthly, acarids full of prions are being found on fodder.
This shows that the disease can be transmitted through fodder or grass and might mean that your soil is blighted forever and should not be used for breeding cattle.
For the moment therefore, science cannot settle the matter.
<P>
You have played the ball into the political court and it is therefore a question of whether trade or health takes priority.
Is selling or living more important?
The majority of the world' s countries, including your American and Canadian cousins and even your Australian and New Zealand friends in the Commonwealth, are saying that they want to live first and then sell.
Yet you are demanding sanctions and creating a legal problem.
<P>
Legally, there are two problems, the first of which is the priority among regulations.
Should we give priority to the principle of free movement or to the precautionary principle?
On the issue of BST, which does not present any danger to human health, we gave priority to the precautionary principle which we pleaded in Seattle.
The second legal problem is one of legal responsibility.
You are the guilty party because you created this disease from start to finish.
In financial terms, we assumed the risk for two years but we cannot accept this risk in terms of health.
<P>
There is also a moral or theological problem, as previously identified by Saint Thomas Aquinas, Antigone and Creon. Should human law come before natural law?
It appears that, using human law, you have created an epizootic disease and a zoonosis.
I would remind you that the latest child to be dying from your disease is only 13 years old.
Well, we do not want to die.
Finally, on the religious level, your Agriculture Minister told us two years ago in the Committee on Agriculture that this disease was due to God. As Christmas approaches, you should pray to God and hope that Father Christmas brings us a diagnostic test.
You should try to ask forgiveness from God. Yet to do this, you need to repent your sins ...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maat">
Madam President, first of all, I would take exception to the previous speaker who wrongly quoted Thomas Aquinas, but this is just by the by.
We are now in the middle of a crisis which has been going on for eighteen weeks and a beef conflict between France and the United Kingdom which, as I have noticed, has taken on a suspect nationalist dimension.
It appears that we still to this day battle out national conflicts by means of soccer and beef.
Especially the latter aspect is very detrimental as this is on the back of farmers and consumers.
This is simply not acceptable.
<P>
The second point which becomes clear is that Member States appear to be unable to handle this sort of issue.
It is completely clear why this is the case because we have one internal market, we have an open market.
If we do not solve this type of conflict at Community level, then this sort of problem will emerge.
<P>
When Mr Prodi made his declaration here, he said that a food safety bureau should be set up at the earliest convenience.
I would like to find out from Commissioner Byrne when this will eventually happen so that we have a powerful and independent bureau in the European Union which can actually take action and which can adopt powers from national Member States.
<P>
The second point which has struck me in this whole political debate is that, first of all, a solution is being sought between two key Member States and that maybe after that, the Commission will be able to have some input.
I find this a dangerous tendency in EU politics.
It is not acceptable that key Member States are increasingly solving problems amongst themselves.
I also say this as a representative of a smaller Member State.
<P>
We have opted for a common market, for a common approach and there is no room for a culture in which major Member States thrash out issues amongst themselves.
In this respect, I am concerned about the Commission' s position and I would like to know where the European Commission stands and if it is actually able and prepared to take the lead in conflicts like this.
Once again, however, in Europe, we live in an era in which food in Europe has probably never been safer and the consumer' s confidence in food is actually diminishing by the day, not only in France and Germany but also in other countries, because this discussion is dragging on due to a lack of political decisiveness.
In this light, I would like to know exactly what the Commission is going to do about establishing a food safety bureau on a European scale which is independent and has far-reaching powers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 NAME="Whitehead">
Madam President, I want to speak here today as a Member of the European Parliament, and not in terms of nationalist rhetoric.
I do not personally believe that British bluster is as exportable or as healthy as British beef.
I want to look today at the decisions which have been taken in the light of the Commissioner's earlier statement, to which very few have so far referred.
<P>
The facts on this matter are quite simple.
The decision to lift the ban followed the scrupulous adherence of the UK to the Florence Agreement.
When that ban was challenged by the French Food Safety Agency, as they had the right to do, I guess, in terms of their own remit, it was referred to the Scientific Committee, which unanimously endorsed the safety of British beef.
That was, as the Commissioner's statement says, "immensely heartening".
<P>
So what went wrong after that?
With the Commissioner's help - and I pay tribute to him, and I can share his sense of exasperation - we went into a process of negotiation when many said we should not.
The result of that was the memorandum of 23 November, which we believe was the beginning of the end of this wretched dispute.
What happened as a result of that?
We got the decision on 9 December by the French Government that it would continue with the ban; and that did come to most of us as a complete surprise.
<P>
I want to say a word to Mr Jospin, and I do so in no nationalist spirit.
I believe that his subsequent briefings on this matter have deepened this dispute in the most serious way.
Mr Jospin was a party to the memorandum of agreement, which accepted the date base scheme in its entirety.
Now he says he would take, or would have offered to take, some beef from some herds in some parts of the UK, irrespective of the date-based scheme.
That is a total misunderstanding of the position as he knows it to be.
<P>
He has also said that he would rather be crucified by British public opinion than by French public opinion.
That is a ludicrous thing for a statesman whom I have always respected to say.
The former Prime Minister of France, Mr Mendès-France said: "Gouverner, c'est choisir" - you have to make choices.
You cannot always drag behind public opinion.
<P>
Mr Blair took a risk, and I think sensibly so, in taking the route of negotiation when others argued for confrontation, crisis, boycotts and bans.
I think he was betrayed by what has happened in the wake of that, and I do not personally believe that is the way to proceed.
The alternative, if you are going to choose not what is right but what is popular, is to pursue a process of confrontation between two Member States which threatens this whole institution.
We have to be based on the rule of law, we have to be based on some form of arbitration, which allows us at the end to say: "There we are, that is the best opinion we can get. It is unanimously in one direction.
Let us endorse it".
If we do not do that we are going back to the kind of rhetoric that we have heard from one or two Members in this debate today.
Surely this Parliament and this continent have gone beyond the days of Henry V and Joan of Arc?
What we need now is a sensible way out of this situation.
I would like to end with one question to Commissioner Byrne directly.
We do not want this dispute dragging on in the courts for years.
Nobody, I think, sensibly does.
Therefore, what interim measures can he propose which would make it possible for a temporary lifting of the ban, up to the point where this can be settled between the two governments in an amicable manner?
His job is to be an honest broker. I believe he is trying to do it.
I think this Parliament should support him in that effort and should talk down those who want to widen the division between our two countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 NAME="Hudghton">
I very much regret that France continues to maintain its ban on beef from the UK and, as I have made very clear in previous debates here, I expect the European Commission to urgently proceed with enforcement action.
However, I also believe that political representations should continue to be made, and for that reason my SNP colleague Neil MacCormick and I remained in this Chamber yesterday rather than sulking outside in the corridors.
We took the opportunity to personally draw President Chirac's attention to the quality of Scottish beef.
Since the start of the beef crisis, SNP members here have consistently advocated that the situation in Scotland should be assessed separately with a view to a phased re-introduction of export trading.
I am challenging the Scottish Minister for Agriculture to bypass London and support the SNP's request, which I delivered yesterday to the French Government, that the French authorities study in detail and with urgency the scientific evidence, the traceability and labelling situation in Scotland; and I call upon French colleagues in this House to advocate that line with their government.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 NAME="Cashman">
On a point of order, I really must protest.
This is an extremely important debate.
We adjourned it for the Commissioner to come here, and now we have other meetings taking place inside the Chamber.
Quite frankly, this is unacceptable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 NAME="President">
I propose that we continue the debate. We will ask our colleagues to interrupt their confabulation which is, however, connected with the agenda problems which have arisen due to the adjournment of the current debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 NAME="Sturdy">
Madam President, do you want to wait until the meeting has finished here or not?
Could I first of all address my comments to the Commissioner?
Commissioner, I have attacked you vociferously on three previous occasions for not taking a decision, because I thought you were weak.
I would like now to first of all extend my thanks to you for the way in which you have at long last taken a decision and are going to take the position you are with the French.
<P>
We know that it is extremely difficult.
I actually believe that you have been - and I will use British words here, "stitched up"; and "stitched up" not only by the French.
I also think you were used by the British Government.
I look forward to seeing a quick response to your actions.
<P>
I might add to Mr Whitehead that I speak here now not just as a Member of this august Parliament but as a farmer.
It is particularly important that people understand that this crisis has affected every individual farmer, not just in France, but right across Europe.
I have with me today - and I risk being arrested, I brought them for you, Mr Byrne - two British prime steaks.
They are from a local butcher and farmer who lives next door to me, who will almost certainly not be in business by the end of the week.
<P>
I have to say, after hearing what Mr Martinez had to say, that I am deeply concerned that BSE may now be transmitted to human beings.
I would just like to add, since you are about to announce a White Paper on food safety, that, whatever people say, food right across Europe can never be 100% safe.
I would just like to suggest to Mr Martinez that last year over 20 people died from listeria in France - more people than caught BSE.
Therefore I do hope that you use objective scientific evidence when it comes to food safety, and not just a precautionary principle, which is understood under Article 30 (ex-Article 36).
I look forward to hearing your reply later on.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berès">
Madam President, Commissioner, Mr Monti has just told us that the criticisms made of those who sought dialogue were unfounded.
I fully share this point of view.
<P>
At this stage in the debate, I want to mention the three parties in this affair, with the first clearly being the British Government.
We should congratulate the efforts towards dialogue made on both sides of the English Channel. The efforts made on the British side since the start of the BSE crisis to improve the situation and food safety should be welcomed.
Part of the task has been completed but only part. I would cite as proof the rumour that parents are still being told that beef is not on the menu in British schools.
Confidence has clearly not yet been totally restored.
The action taken by France with others and against others must help to definitively resolve this crisis.
<P>
The second party in this affair is my own government.
What principle has France sought to promote?
The answer is the much-vaunted and much-discussed precautionary principle which we are collectively seeking to define.
We are also trying to ensure essential food safety which cannot be sacrificed to the market logic.
<P>
You may imagine that it is easy to pander to public opinion.
I believe that the decision taken by my government was a decision to be made by politicians and this is how a government must act.
I agree that governing means making choices, and so my government has made its choice.
What would all your governments have done if, following an expert opinion, your national agencies had indicated that there was still a risk?
The political authority must choose, so this is what my government has done. It has taken a political decision based on an assessment of the risk.
<P>
On the subject of agencies, I wish for one thing. We should have at our disposal the expertise of a proper European agency so that in the future the conditions for conducting this type of debate will be better.
<P>
I must inform the previous speaker that we do apply the precautionary principle in France.
Have you noticed that, following the opinion of the French Food Safety Agency, we have withdrawn some cheeses because of the cases of listeriosis?
You will remember that we had five points in the negotiations.
We are now satisfied on three of these points but we still need guarantees on the other two.
<P>
Others before me in this debate, like Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf and Mrs Roth­Behrendt, have said this.
Is there any sense in testing if we do not understand its effective implementation and the application of its results?
This is what we demand of you, Commissioner.
<P>
I am aware that behind the fight being conducted by France there is also a fight going on in the interests of the British and the whole European Union.
<P>
Today in this debate, Commissioner, you are our partner in dialogue and we have four demands to make.
Firstly, you must face up to your responsibilities.
My country did not happily enter into its current position of being condemned and hauled up before the Court of Justice.
<P>
We understand.
However, your responsibility is also to effectively implement the testing and labelling without which, free movement is just an illusion.
You must also set up this food agency to which Mr Prodi is committed and which we will support in all the actions which it may take.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="Byrne">
May I commence by extending my regret to all of you for not being here at the commencement of this debate.
I know how important it is and I had had every intention of being here.
I had booked a flight this morning, but due to the weather conditions in Brussels that flight was unfortunately cancelled and indeed the later flight I was on was also delayed.
Please accept my apologies for being late and having to have my statement on this issue read to you by my colleague, Mr Monti.
<P>
Let me now deal with the many important questions you have raised on this issue.
First of all Mr Stevenson and a number of others have raised the question about the delay in instituting the proceedings that were launched against France on 16 November.
That was the formal notice, the more factual part of the proceedings, and then yesterday the reasoned opinion was agreed by Parliament to be sent to France with a response time of five days.
<P>
Let me say this.
I am firmly convinced that the line I followed in attempting to resolve this in the manner in which I did was the correct way to proceed.
I do not have any doubts about that whatsoever.
There are many reasons for this that I have rehearsed here in the committees of Parliament before.
A negotiated settlement that is agreed between the parties is always a better settlement than the one that comes about as a result of court proceedings.
However, the charge has been made that by adopting that course of action a delay has occurred in the institution of proceedings and that by implication the court hearing will take place later than would otherwise have happened.
That is not correct.
The true position is that France's position on this situation was not made clear until 1 October.
At that time I was just short of two weeks in office.
That was the first opportunity the Commission, or rather I, had to give serious consideration to France's response to this issue.
<P>
I attempted to deal with this in the manner I believed appropriate.
For instance, having regard to the fact that I have responsibility for consumer protection, public health and food safety, my first reaction was to see if there was anything in this allegation.
Was any evidence available to the French authorities which should be examined at Commission level by the scientists in the Scientific Steering Committee?
You will remember that I asked the French authorities if they would send that evidence to the Scientific Steering Committee for further evaluation and to see if there was anything new.
They did that and the Scientific Steering Committee also asked the UK authorities if they would forward such up-to-date information as they had.
They also complied with that request.
<P>
This gave the SSC an opportunity to fully review all the evidence in this unfortunate situation. The result of that was they came up with the unanimous decision that we are all aware of.
<P>
With regard to my own responsibilities that I have just identified, I felt that this was an important first step for me to take in this issue.
<P>
The advice that I got, which I was happy to act upon, was that the beef exported from the UK under the DBES scheme was as safe as any other beef in the European Union.
Further discussions took place following that.
My belief is that the further discussions and the protocol of understanding that was reached between all parties and experts involved give further assurance to consumers in the European Union - and they are not just French - that the beef exported under the DBES scheme is as safe as any beef in the European Union.
That also was a valuable exercise.
<P>
To address the question of whether there was a delay or whether the proceedings will ultimately come to court later than they would otherwise have done in the formal notice proceeding, the first letter sent by the Commission normally requires a response within a period of two months.
In this instance that was shortened to two weeks, extended by a further week at the request of the French authorities.
<P>
The reasoned opinion, when that is sent out two months after the formal notice procedure, normally also gives a period of two months in which to reply.
These periods have been shortened by the procedure that has been adopted by the Commission.
In many respects we have therefore caught up and are no later in the proceedings than we would have been in normal proceedings.
So not only do I believe that we adopted the right course of action with the good results that came from that, but I also firmly believe that we are not in any delay as a result of taking that particular course of action.
<P>
Mr Stevenson also raises the question of the position of Germany.
My understanding is that this will be discussed in the German Parliament on 17 December.
There is every expectation that the parliament will come to the conclusion that the embargo in Germany should also be lifted.
<P>

To come to some of the issues that were raised by Mrs Roth-Behrendt and Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, particularly with reference to the tests that are to be undertaken: you will remember that these were among the issues raised by the French authorities and addressed in the protocol of understanding.
I said in my hearing last September that it was my intention to establish a proper EU-wide testing system for BSE to determine the levels of infectivity in various Member States.
It is still my intention to do that.
Progress has been made.
A working party has been established in my directorate-general, working in association with Member States, to come up with the procedures necessary to put this provision into place.
It is my intention to proceed with that.
<P>
Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf and others also mentioned the necessity of putting into place labelling systems and, in particular, mandatory labelling systems.
We are going to discuss this later in the evening.
Let me just say at this stage that labelling is an issue that is focused on consumer information and consumer choice.
It is not a public health issue.
We must focus on the public health aspect of this.
That is why, in my belief, the test aspect of it is important and must be distinguished from the need for labelling.
<P>
Others asked questions in relation to the actual procedures in the Court; how quickly they can begin and when we can expect to get a result.
Like all court procedures anywhere in the world they move at their own pace because it is absolutely essential that all parties put their arguments on paper.
In litigation before the European Court of Justice not only do the proceedings take place between the immediate parties - in this instance, the Commission and France - but also Member States are perfectly entitled to intervene in those proceedings: the UK or indeed any other Member State.
The consequence of that would be that further documents would have to be drafted whereby those Member States set out their position.
All of that has to be filed in the Court, it has to be translated.
All of this takes time.
<P>
The question has been raised whether there are any fast-track procedures that can be applied in this instance.
There is an interim measure procedure and the criteria that are laid down for the application of interim measures are quite strict and quite narrow.
<P>
I have asked the Legal Service in the Commission to advise me whether the circumstances of this particular case fall within those narrow criteria.
In my view this will be, to some extent, an uphill battle but nonetheless I intend to seek advice and if I am advised that it is an appropriate way forward it will be my intention to do that.
In the event that the embargo remains in place, and the proceedings are launched next week, it will, of course, require the launching of proceedings before we make any decision on interim measures.
Equally it will be necessary for me and for the Legal Service to determine the appropriate response, having regard to the response of the French authorities to the reasoned opinion that was agreed to be sent yesterday because that in essence is a legal document setting out the legal position and I expect that the response will be in similar terms.
No final decision can be made on the issue of whether interim measures can be sought until those papers have been filed.
<P>
There is one other, very rare procedure, which is the accelerated procedure.
I have made inquiries as to whether this procedure is available.
This is a procedure whereby the Commission could apply to the Court to have the case heard in an accelerated manner - or fast-track manner.
It requires once again certain criteria to be present.
It would also require the abandonment of the Commission's right for instance to file certain documents at certain crucial stages of the case.
I have to make a judgement on whether it is worthwhile seeking to fall within those criteria if we can and, if so, whether it is a good balance to seek an early oral proceeding or whether it is better to have all the arguments on paper before the Court.
That is a judgement call that I will make after I have read the reply to the reasoned opinion that has been sent to the French authorities.
However, I should say that if I feel it is the appropriate way forward, that is the course of action that I propose to adopt.
<P>
Let me just go back to the issue of compulsory labelling and traceability that was mentioned earlier by one of the Members.
The DBES scheme itself provides for traceability. It provides by implication for labelling.
The scheme was not devoid of this requirement and therefore to approach this debate on the basis that the DBES did not require these issues to be put in place would be misleading, because it would be unfair both to the scientists who determined what was necessary to make sure that the exportation of UK beef was sound and safe and it would also be unfair to the Commission in the approach that has been adopted so far.
This scheme provides for traceability and consequently for a form of labelling.
<P>
I was also asked by a number of speakers about the progress of the Food Safety Agency and the White Paper on Food Safety.
A number of Members said, and I agree, that this appears to be the way forward in relation to these issues.
I think most of you will agree that to have a situation where scientists are disagreeing with one another on issues so important as food safety is a very unsatisfactory situation.
It is unsatisfactory from a public health point of view but it is also unsatisfactory from the point of view of consumer confidence.
This is an entirely undesirable situation.
<P>
From the beginning of this Commission you will remember that President Prodi made this an issue that he regarded as being of the foremost importance.
Before any of the rest of us were sworn in he made this a clear priority.
He asked me to deal with this.
We have been working on this in my DG since then.
The White Paper has been drafted, it has been in interdepartmental consultation in the Commission and it is now just about to be presented to my colleagues in the College of Commissioners.
I expect that to happen on 12 January.
That White Paper includes many of the issues that I have raised here and in the Environment Committee on a number of occasions but it also includes a chapter on the issue of a food safety authority.
<P>
I believe that in the establishment of a food safety authority it will be necessary to determine what competences it has.
It will obviously have a competence in the area of a risk assessment and in assessing that risk it will be necessary for the scientists employed in this agency not only to rely on their own opinions and advice, but also to liaise with the scientists in Member States, because an agency such as this - agency or authority or whatever - will have to be not only independent but will also have to liaise with scientists in Member States.
It cannot be established in such a way that its work is going to be in the form of a series of dictates issued from Brussels as to what the appropriate way forward is.
<P>
Such an agency will not have the confidence of Member States and consumers unless there is a broad degree of consultation between scientists in the European Union.
But once that consultation process has taken place and once the scientists in the Member States and in the agency have come to a conclusion on the appropriate way forward in any given situation, particularly with regard to a food scare, the opinion of the agency should stand, should be respected, should be followed and should not be challenged.
Once the consultation process has taken place there should be no need for such a challenge.
It is in those circumstances that the authority of such an agency will permeate throughout the European Union and will not only be a good authority in the area of safety and public health but will also provide a degree of consumer confidence that I believe is absolutely essential and will be a bedrock in the way forward.
<P>
I might refer just very briefly to the other issue that we have been talking about a moment ago - courts.
The hierarchical system that exists in the court procedures are such that you could not imagine for a moment a court of appeal in any one of the Member States seeking the opinion of the Court of Justice in Luxembourg under an Article 177 reference and then, having got the opinion, not liking it and saying "we will not apply it".
It is an unthinkable proposition.
Such a situation does not exist in the scientific world.
<P>
Here are in fact two areas of expertise.
One I accept is more static, or the analysis is of more static facts - that is the law, the legal process.
The other is an examination of a more evolving situation. The analogy is not a very accurate one but nonetheless it is valuable in the sense that in circumstances where it is necessary to have the evaluation by experts, whether it is in the legal world or in the scientific world, we need finally to have an authoritative voice on the issue and that is where I expect we will get that - from the establishment of this food safety authority.
<P>
I have to say that I am heartened to hear so many of you express yourselves on this subject here this afternoon and say that it is also your belief that this is the appropriate way forward.
<P>
I have been asked about the structure of this agency on previous occasions.
I am not going to go into it in detail this afternoon other than to say to you that I am aware that concerns have been expressed by many of you on the issue of the relationship between the concept of independence, on the one hand and accountability, on the other.
Of course, such an authority has to be accountable in some way to the political process, to those of us who are engaged through codecision in making laws, because we after all are accountable to the people, the scientists are not.
<P>
Risk assessment has to be undertaken by those who are qualified and expert in that area - that is the scientists.
They have to be independent and be seen to be independent.
Once they have made their risk assessment they pass their judgement then to the Commission, when the law-making would be initiated by the Commission.
It would then be discussed in the codecision procedures with Parliament and with Council.
In that way it is our responsibility to initiate and pass laws that give effect to the concerns that are expressed by the scientists.
<P>
Let me just say finally that I believe it will be necessary to have an interaction and a relationship between the scientists and the law-makers and between the risk assessment and the risk management so as to make absolutely certain that those drafting the laws understand what the scientists are saying, and that the scientists are satisfied that the law-makers are drafting the laws in such a way as to deal with the concerns expressed by them in their opinion in the area of risk assessment.
<P>
I think that they are the issues that were raised and I hope I have dealt with all of the questions satisfactorily.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="President">
Commissioner, thank you for your statement.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Question Time (Council)
<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="President">
The next item is Question Time (B5-0036/1999).
We shall examine the questions to the Council.
<P>
Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf has the floor for a procedural motion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Mr President, we have adjourned the debate on beef labelling until late this evening.
I should like an assurance from Mr Byrne that he will be present at it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="President">
We are going to ask the Commissioner whether he can be present at tonight' s debate.
<P>
(The Commissioner replied in the affirmative) Mrs Jackson has the floor for a procedural motion.

<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 NAME="Jackson">
Mr President, this is a point of order.
It follows from what Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf has said.
We notice that the Council is in its place in order to take part in Council questions.
Could we have an assurance that the Council will remain in its place at 9 p.m. in order to take part in the debate on the Papayannakis report?
We appreciate very much the huge efforts the Finnish presidency has made to work very closely with Parliament.
We would therefore appreciate the Presidency being present at 9 p.m. in order to explain to us what happened at the Agriculture Council last night on the issue on which Mr Papayannakis' report is based.
Could we please have that undertaking from the Council now, in the interests of the transparency which Finland no doubt wants to be the hallmark of its presidency?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 NAME="President">
Mr MacCormick has the floor for another procedural motion, which I hope will be the last one.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 NAME="MacCormick">
Mr President, I was interested in what Mrs Jackson said.
I had heard a report that the debate on second reading on the late payments directive would also happen at 9 p.m.
The timetable has clearly become extremely disrupted.
Many of us have other engagements to try to fit in this evening.
Can the President give an authoritative ruling on the timing of events later today, please?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 NAME="President">
Mrs Siimes has listened to you attentively and to your desire for the Council to be present.
<P>
Mr MacCormick, can you repeat your procedural motion in more detail?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="MacCormick">
Am I to understand that you either will not, or are unable to, tell us what the timetable is for later this evening?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 NAME="President">
As you know, Questions to the Council will take place next, as it is the next item on the agenda, and the sitting will resume at 9.00 p.m. when there will be an announcement on the issues which you are asking about.
If you come at 9.00 p.m., you will have the opportunity to participate in that part of the agenda.
<P>
Mrs Jackson has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 NAME="Jackson">
Mr President, on a point of order, we would very much appreciate it if you could ask the Finnish Presidency - which is sitting over there - whether it can be present at 9 o'clock this evening in order to help us with our debate on the Papayannakis report.
The Council, and only the Council, can give us the background to what happened last night in the Agriculture Council.
Could you please, so as to preserve the interests of the Members of this Parliament, put that question to the Council for an answer?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langen">

Mr President, I should also like to make a point of order and move that the Bureau consider calling the important debate on the four related reports on competition policy - which was originally scheduled for Wednesday morning, was then postponed to the afternoon and is now to be postponed to late evening - for the Tuesday of the January session if need be.
I would ask the Bureau to examine this motion so that we can duly complete the other items by midnight.
This is a motion which the President can examine.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 NAME="President">
Mr Langen, the agenda has been set.
At 9.00 p.m. we shall resume the sitting, which will begin with a joint debate.
I will now ask the question to Mrs Siimes which was put by some Members: whether she can attend at 9.00 p.m. to inform this Parliament and to guarantee it the greatest possible transparency.
<P>
If you wish to speak and reply to these Members, Mrs Siimes, you have the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, as the Council did not receive a request for this in time, the relevant Minister will not be here, and I myself am prevented from being here at 9.00 p.m..
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 NAME="President">
You have listened, as have I, to the Council' s options.
In any event, at 9 o' clock at night, which is a tranquil hour, and also in a Christmas spirit, surely you can hold this debate without Mrs Siimes.
<P>
If you will be so kind as to allow me, we shall begin Questions to the Council, since Mrs Siimes is currently here with her great capacity for replying to our questions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 NAME="Ioannis Marinos">
Question No 1 by (H-0668/99):
<P>
Subject: Economic refugees in the EU In recent years the Member States have taken in thousands of economic refugees from central and eastern Europe in addition to the thousands from Turkey and other countries in the Middle East and Asia who have found sanctuary in the EU over the years.
This development is having severe effects on unemployment within the Member States and is a further burden on their already stretched social security systems, particularly in Member States (such as Greece) sharing borders with countries which have recently opted for a free market economy and which are now facing crisis on several fronts with huge numbers of unemployed.
<P>
Will the Council say whether it has raised this issue during the EU=s contacts with those countries which have expressed a desire to join the Union and what measures does it propose to implement to stem the uncontrolled flow of economic refugees into the EU, which has pronounced economic and social repercussions (e.g. an increase in crime) in its Member States?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, conditions for the arrival and residency in the Member States in respect of citizens from applicant countries are normally laid down in Member States' legislation and practices pertaining to immigration on the part of nationals of third countries.
The relevant instruments, which the Council adopted before the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam within the framework of Chapter VI of the Treaty on European Union, constitute the first phase in the harmonisation of legislation and practices in respect of immigration.
Further harmonisation is being implemented on the basis of Chapter IV of the Treaty establishing the European Community in its amended form by virtue of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Against this background, it is important to have cooperation among the Member States in order to ensure that immigration is controlled and that it is in accordance with the provisions in the laws on immigration in the Member States.
<P>
In the Council, this cooperation is assured in two ways.
Member States are regularly urged to adapt their legislation and practices to the EU laws on asylum, immigration and border controls and, in addition, there is the Schengen Convention, which became a part of European Union law with the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The Council informed the Member States of this by means of a list with reference to EU law in May 1998.
The implementation of the law would lead to more effective border checks and reduce illegal immigration on the part of the nationals of applicant countries and nationals of third countries coming via these countries.
The Council would like to remind everyone that the partnership agreement made with every applicant country included a survey of the special needs of that country with regard to the areas of legislation and practices, as well as those targets each applicant country should achieve.
In addition to the regular contact made in association with enlargement, the Council is monitoring the situation in applicant countries in a Working Group on joint evaluation, which was set up by the Council on 29 June 1998.
On the other hand, applicant countries participate regularly in the workings of the CIREFI, which is a Council Working Group in which Member States exchange the latest information on illegal immigration and immigration routes, either on a routine or an ad hoc basis.
This participation has itself promoted understanding with regard to the effects of illegal immigration and the need to work together to prevent it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Marinos">
I should like to thank the Council representative for her reply to my question; however, I fear that my approach to this issue has not been understood.
I do not think, at least from the discussions held so far - I am a new MEP - that the economic and social repercussions of illegal immigration or the de facto immigration of the present influx of illegal immigrants and the imminent influx from countries which will join the Community when the European Union enlarges are fully appreciated or taken into serious account, even in a legal procedure.
Allow me to quote an example from my own country: Greece, with a population of 10 million, already has one and a half million immigrants, economic refugees or other types of immigrant, meaning that the working population of the country has increased by 20%.
This is causing huge economic and social problems and crime problems.
Think what will happen when Turkey joins the European Union and at least another 20 million unemployed enter Europe.
This is why I wanted to know if there are any Council or Commission studies on the matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, the Council is obviously aware that we have to strive to both improve and guarantee employment in the Member States in Europe, to preserve Europe' s social security systems.
One important issue here is that we should prevent employment in the black economy, which thwarts or weakens efforts to improve the employment situation.
Furthermore, I would remind everyone that at present the rules that apply to immigration on the part of nationals of applicant countries or third countries in the Member States of the European Union clearly fall within the competence of the officials appointed for this purpose at national level.
In addition, border controls and the border police in those Member States having common borders with third countries come exclusively under the authority of the Member States themselves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 NAME="Martin, David W">
I wonder if the Council would agree that the best way to stem the flow of economic migrants is by improving economic conditions in the host country?
In other words, if enlargement works, if the Agenda 2000 programme is successful in improving the economic situation in Central and Eastern European countries, this will of itself reduce the flow of economic migrants from those countries to existing Member States of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, this is precisely what the Council thinks.
An important part of EU enlargement is the various current programmes of cooperation with those countries seeking membership of the European Union, and the basic principle is the improvement of the state of the economy in those very countries, leading to the creation of employment opportunities there, so that people would not need to move for economic reasons.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 NAME="Dupuis">
Are you sure, Mrs Siimes?
In addition to the arguments raised by Mr Martin, I would say that banning migration adds to the flow and traffic in labour which almost inevitably leads to crime.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, there are two kinds of immigration: that which takes place legally in accordance with the rules of each country, and illegal immigration. In no way do we regard legal immigration in the territory of the European Union unfavourably.
The problem is precisely the fact that illegal immigration from third countries is taking place and people are even being smuggled in from them, and we have to address these problems. But there has been no attempt whatsoever to impede legal immigration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="Monica Frassoni">
Question No 2 by (H-0671/99):
<P>
Subject: Compliance with Community policies and access to information held by the European Investment Bank (EIB) In March 1998 the European Investment Bank granted a loan of about ITL 60 billion to Gardaland S.p.A., for the purpose of enlarging the leisure park of the same name.
The author of this question harbours doubts about the advisability of granting the loan to a company which has substantial assets and is located in a region which is flourishing economically and which is particularly valuable and very important in ecological terms.
When it was asked about the nature of the investment planned by Gardaland, the Bank argued that it was unable to forward the relevant documents on the grounds of the confidential nature of relations between the Bank and its customers.
<P>
In view of the links between the ECOFIN Council and the EIB Board of Governors, could the Council state whether it intends to take measures to make information relating to decisions by the EIB more transparent and accessible, particularly where such decisions have major repercussions on a region's development? Does it not also consider that the effectiveness of the EIB's activities needs to be improved by introducing financial accounting and management procedures which will take environmental costs fully into account?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, the Gardaland project, approved by the Board of Governors of the European Investment Bank in December 1997, is a subject that has already been raised in Parliament in the Commission' s Oral Question Time.
The justification for the project, and its benefits, were gone over in detail then.
It evidently has to be stated again that one important precondition for the approval of project funding is that environmental considerations are taken into account in all projects assessed and formulated by the European Investment Bank. This was the case with the Gardaland project as well.
Again, with regard to the question of transparency in the Gardaland project, as with other project documents within the territory of the Community, it is most essential to bear in mind that the EIB is actually a bank.
Its documents are therefore not public in the same way as, for example, the documents of the bodies in the Council that draft legislation.
To preserve confidentiality on all sides, the EIB cannot make public documents and information it holds on borrowers or other agencies that are involved in the formulation and implementation of those projects sponsored by the Bank without their express consent.
<P>
We must also remember that, although the ministers appointed to the Board of Governors of the EIB are normally the same as those who attend the Ecofin Council sitting, the Ecofin Council has no authority in itself to lay down rules for the EIB with regard to its lending policy or information on it.
The EIB Council adopted rules on public access to documents on 26 March 1997, which were published in the Official Journal of the European Communities C 243 on August 1995 on page 13.
The European Investment Bank therefore publicly releases documentation and information within the framework of these rules, although the aim must in general be to maximise exchange of information and the principle of transparency as far as is possible without jeopardising business secrecy.
Again, if the Community grants the EIB a security against certain loans out of the Community budget, for example, to grant loans for projects in third countries, the Council has stipulated that the EIB must, in these cases, produce an annual report to both the European Parliament and the Council on the action achieved with the help of the secured loans in question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Frassoni">
Madam President, if what you say is true, we have been particularly unfortunate because, although we requested these environmental assessments, we have not received a reply insofar as we have only been told that this is confidential information.
It is therefore clear that there is something that does not add up in what you are telling us.
We did not ask for information on the reasons why the EIB granted the funding. We simply asked what the general criteria which justified it were and which assessments were used when considering and granting the funds for the project - which, moreover, affects one of the richest areas in Italy, and which has a delicate environmental balance.
According to what you are saying, these assessments should be public but, according to the EIB, this is not the case.
Therefore, there is a slight discrepancy between your assertions and reality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, as the Council stated in its reply, the European Investment Bank is a bank, and it therefore cannot function in accordance with the same rules on public access as the European Union institutions that enact legislation.
There is a lot of business secrecy involved in making decisions on loans and, as I said in my reply, it can be divulged to outsiders only with the express consent of the opposite party.
As regards decisions on loans made by the EIB, the Gardaland project affair has already been dealt with in the Commission' s Oral Question Time in Parliament and it was at that time, according to the Council' s information, that the justification for the project and its benefits were explained in great detail, and I shall therefore not return to the matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="William Francis Newton Dunn">
Question No 3 by (H-0673/99):
<P>
Subject: Opening up the Council of Ministers to transparency What is the latest situation with the case taken by Swedish journalists to the European Court of Justice regarding the conflict between the undemocratic secrecy of documents of the Council of Ministers and the open transparency of all documents as required by the excellent two-hundred-year-old Freedom-of-Information law in Sweden?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, on 17 June 1998, the Court of First Instance abrogated Council Decision 174/95 of 6 July 1995, according to which the plaintiff is not entitled to access certain documents associated with Europol concerning the public' s right to access Council documents, by virtue of Council Decision 93/731/EC.
The Council re-examined its own decision on the basis of this judgement and stated in a new decision made known to the plaintiff on 30 July 1998 that it could release the documents in question with the exception of one.
No legal action was taken as a result of this new decision, and the matter can now therefore be considered resolved.
Under Article 255 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, the Council must establish in a codecision procedure with the European Parliament general principles and limitations regarding access to documents to take account of the public or private interest within two years of the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
According to information available, the Commission is to deliver its proposal to the Council in January 2000, in compliance with the provision in the Treaty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 NAME="Newton Dunn">
I am sure that the President-in-Office has noticed that five of the first 16 questions on the order paper, the previous question from Mrs Frassoni, and so on, are all about transparency.
Since we represent the public - the people of Europe - I hope that the Council notes that there is a wish for transparency in the Council.
<P>
My question is this: is it correct that the decision within the Council on which documents are to be released to the public and which are kept secret is made by a committee of the 15 press officers from the national representation offices by a majority vote?
I was told this by one of the 15 press officers.
They sit there, completely unelected, and decide what is going to be published and what is not.
Is that really true because it is very hard to believe?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, I will state here just very briefly that the Council Working Group represents the Council.
It is a legal body and makes its own decisions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
The legal case which is being referred to here, the so-called Journalists' Case, is of great significance as an issue of principle.
One of the key points in the case is that of whether a Member State, in this case Sweden, has the right to abide by its own constitution and publish EU documents.
I would point out that, in its address, the Council of Ministers disputed that right.
Now, the proposal for a set of regulations in accordance with Article 255 is on the way.
I have a draft from the Commission which is very worrying.
This says that the Commission wants to use Article 255 to limit the right of national authorities to publish EU documents which have not otherwise been made public.
<P>
My question to the Council is this: does the Council intend that, with Article 255 as a basis, it should be possible to limit the Member States' right to publish documents in accordance with their own national legislation?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, as I stated in my original reply, the Commission is actually to deliver its own proposal on this matter to the Council in January 2000, and after the proposal has come from the Commission, the Council will debate it and determine its own position on the matter.
As there is no proposal yet, there is no fixed Council position either.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=218 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, I am interested first and foremost in how relations with Parliament actually stand?
Do you envisage the possibility of allowing Parliament to inspect all Coreper and Council documents on the Intranet?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, during the Finnish Presidency the decision was taken that the agendas for the Coreper meetings would be made available, and this is a step in the direction that the honourable Member would like to see.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="Manuel Medina Ortega">
Question No 4 by (H-0674/99):
<P>
Subject: Air traffic control in Europe What action is the Commission planning to take in order to put right the chaotic state of affairs prevailing within Europe=s air traffic control systems?
<P>
Could the Commission propose that a single body be set up to control airspace throughout Europe?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, the Council is aware of the increasing delays in Europe' s air traffic.
This subject was discussed in the Council on 19 July 1999, and it was decided to adopt a resolution.
The Council expressed its concern over the problems being caused by delayed flights, which are becoming more serious, and considered that action needed to be taken to find a solution to these problems and in this way respond to the demands by the citizens of Europe for a better service.
The Council urged the Commission in particular to produce a report on recent and current measures in place to try to reduce air traffic delays and congestion in Europe.
The problem was further discussed in the Council sitting of 6 October 1999, and it was decided that a thorough debate should be held on the issue in the next sitting of the Council in December, on the basis of a report currently being drafted in the Commission.
The Council asked the Member States to do their very best before then to reach a positive decision in their current talks on the question of the Community joining Eurocontrol, the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation.
Eurocontrol is a key coordinator in Europe' s air traffic control system.
<P>
In its sitting of 9 and 10 December 1999, the Council held a large-scale debate on the Commission' s new report on air traffic control, which was delivered to the Council and the European Parliament on the Single European Airspace.
That report analyses the situation with regard to delayed flights and proposes some short-term measures to address the problem and puts forward some ideas about how the problem should be tackled in the longer term.
The Council noted with satisfaction the Commission' s proposals for short-term action to try to ease the situation that resulted from delayed flights in Europe.
The matter will be addressed by Eurocontrol and the Ministers responsible for civil aviation in their meeting to be held on 28 January.
In addition, the Council noted the Commission' s approach to the structural reform of air traffic, which was broader in scope and which set out to create a single European airspace. At the same time, it noted with satisfaction the Commission' s intention to set up a high level Working Group to look into the matter and report back to the Council next June on the issues involved.
The Council also urged the Permanent Representatives Committee to examine the Commission' s report and agreed to return to the issue at the next meeting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Thank you very much, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, for the reply you have given me.
It is clear that the Council is currently considering this issue, which is of concern to all European citizens.
In this case, as an MEP, I have asked you a question which corresponds to the worries of my electors.
<P>
I come from a country, Spain, which depends very much on air transport and, in recent years, in Spanish airports, particularly Barajas and Barcelona, delays have been extreme.
<P>
Is there any possibility of some kind of accelerated aid from the Council to the current Spanish government and the airport authorities to eliminate this horrendous inconvenience to our citizens resulting from the poor functioning of the Spanish air traffic control service?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, as I have already said, the Council has looked into this problem of flight delays and called on the Commission to act accordingly and, as I said in my reply, we have also already made headway this autumn in this matter.
The fact that congestion and delays are more common in some parts of Europe than others is obviously very unfortunate, and perhaps the quickest way to deal with the problem is for the national authorities to find out what can be done to improve the situation in the individual Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="President">
I hope that the national authorities of our shared country of origin, that of Mr Medina and myself, take good note of this advice from the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Casaca">
Mr President, on mainland Europe delays of several hours are quite common, but in the outermost regions such as the autonomous region of the Azores, delays can last days or sometimes even weeks.
This is because there is an obvious shortfall in resources for air traffic control and for aid for airports and aerodromes in the outermost regions such as the Azores.
<P>
I would like to ask if the Council, which is quite rightly concerned about the situation in mainland Europe, also retains some concern for the situation of regions such as the Autonomous Region of the Azores, which is currently experiencing major problems, particularly following last weekend' s air disaster.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, it is certainly true that problems such as these are critical in smaller, outlying areas.
If I can now add something to my previous replies, I might say that one reason for delayed flights is obviously that, with the present system, an aircraft is cleared for take-off only after making sure it can land at the destination airport.
This is obviously annoying for the passengers sitting on board the aircraft or waiting at the airport for the aircraft to be cleared for take-off but, on the other hand, this procedure is more environment-friendly than having the planes take off on time and not being able to land when they get to their destination.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 NAME="Bowis">
Mr President, may I ask the President-in-Office a question of a different sort on air traffic control.
I appreciate she may not have been briefed on this, so if she does not know the answer perhaps she would be kind enough to write to me in such a way that we can publish it for our colleagues.
<P>
It concerns the issue of the regulation which is shortly to come in which will enable airline pilots between the ages of 60 and 65 to fly freight traffic throughout Europe, with one exception.
The one exception is France.
That means, because of the extent of French airspace, pilots over 60 will effectively be out of a job.
Will she take that back to the Council of Ministers, raise it with her French colleagues in particular, and answer me, perhaps in writing later, unless she is able to do so today, about what can be done to ensure that these older pilots' jobs are made safe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 NAME="President">
We are not sure, Mr Bowis, that this is a supplementary question.
You have suggested it already.
And there is always the epistolary relationship, which is so interesting, between the Council and the Members, but the President-in-Office of the Council has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, it would be wiser to answer this question in writing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=232 NAME="Laura González Álvarez">
Question No 5 by (H-0678/99):
<P>
Subject: Referendum on self­determination in Western Sahara On 3 November 1999 the Moroccan Minister for Internal Affairs, Driss Basri, said in El Aaiún that the referendum on self-determination in Western Sahara, which is due to be held on 31 July 2000, >will be postponed for two or three years= on account of the 71 420 appeals which have been lodged against the provisional list of voters which is being drawn up by the UN mission responsible for the referendum in Western Sahara.
The UN has not recognised the authors of those appeals as being entitled to vote in the referendum.
<P>
What view does the Council take of the statement by the Moroccan Minister for Internal Affairs, to the effect that the referendum is to be postponed?
<P>
Is the Council planning to make representation to the Moroccan authorities in order to persuade them to stop holding up the referendum?
<P>
What attitude and what political initiatives is the Council planning to adopt in order to help ensure that the referendum does indeed go ahead on the date set by the UN, i.e. 31 July 2000?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, the Council cannot comment on the statement by the Moroccan Minister for Internal Affairs.
However, with regard to the referendum, the Council has noted the report by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, which refers to the careful consideration given to all the consequences of the affair, including those relating to the timetable for the referendum.
The Secretary-General of the UN also stated that he would make a realistic assessment of future action when he delivers his next report to the UN Security Council in December.
The Secretary-General has given his special envoy instructions to continue talks with the parties involved. With regard to the enforced hearing of the 79 000 appeals, the UN Secretary-General cannot give precise details of the timetable or the additional staff needed to bring the hearing to a close.
This will not affect the commitment on all sides to comply with the UN peace plan for the Western Sahara.
The Council has offered its support to Mr Igleton, who is the UN Secretary-General' s special envoy in the Western Sahara, and the Council is prepared to push for a peaceful solution, based on the thorough assessment contained in the UN' s next report.
All sides should work together in an atmosphere of cooperation built on trust and refrain from any action that could jeopardise finding a solution to the Western Sahara problem that is based on a respect for human rights and democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Madam representative of the Council, we have listened to Kofi Annan' s report on the most recent information regarding the referendum and we attended the 25th Conference on the support by European NGOs of the Saharaoui people a few weeks ago in the Canary Islands.
<P>
The main complaint raised there was that Europe is not sufficiently involved in this issue.
It is true that it supports the peace plan, it is true that it sends letters and other things, but Europe has a specific responsibility because my country, Spain, and other countries have a close connection with the current situation in the Sahara.
<P>
We have listened to Abdelaziz who has described again the unsustainable situation of the Saharaoui people in the Tinduf camps.
It is a situation in which they are making an enormous effort to maintain the education of their children and to feed their population, but which has already lasted more than 20 years.
The referendum should have been held in 1992.
It is not acceptable that now, as a result of 79 000 appeals by Morocco, it might be delayed by two more years.
We cannot judge the parties equally.
The Saharaouis are not hindering the referendum.
It is Morocco that is making things difficult.
<P>
We ask Europe to become more involved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, the EU has not been particularly involved in the hearing of the case, but it is considering ways of constructively influencing the progress of the peace process in the Western Sahara.
In addition, the Finnish Presidency has been in contact with Mr Igleton to discuss EU participation in the preparations for, and organisation of, the referendum.
Mr Igleton has himself requested such participation, and he has also appealed to the governments of the EU Member States to send representatives to the region.
In a meeting with the Finnish Presidency held on 14 September, Mr Igleton urged the EU to convey a message to Morocco and Algeria that the international community is aiming for a sense of equilibrium in the Maghreb, and to make it clear that it will be difficult to provide financial aid for the reconstruction of the region without this sort of stability.
Furthermore, the Finnish Presidency adopted a resolution on 21 June 1999, in which the EU' s promise of support for the UN peace plan and related action was reiterated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Siimes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=238 NAME="Alexandros Alavanos, which has been taken over by Mr Papayannakis">
Question No 6 by (H-0679/99):
<P>
Subject: Implementation of ECHR judgement against Turkey Last month the Council of Europe's Committee of Permanent Representatives condemned Turkey for failing to comply with a judgement handed down by the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Mrs Titina Loizidou, thereby breaching its fundamental contractual obligation under Article 46 of the European Convention of Human Rights which specifically enjoins the implementation of judgments by the Court.
The ultimate sanction for a state which is a signatory to the Convention but which refuses to comply with Court judgments is expulsion or the suspension of its participation in the bodies of the Council of Europe.
<P>
Top Turkish officials have specifically declared that they will not implement the judgement by the Court of Human Rights.
Thus, on the one hand, we have a scenario in which the EU Member States may expel Turkey from the Council of Europe while, on the other, its candidature for EU membership is being discussed in Helsinki.
Is the Council aware of this?
Before any further proposal is made to accept Turkey's candidature, will it call on Turkey to provide a specific commitment to implement the judgement of the European Court of Human Rights in the Loizidou case?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, the Council naturally follows the human rights situation in Turkey closely.
Although the Council is not inclined to interfere in the work of another international organisation, it keeps a close eye on whether Turkey is complying with decisions of the European Court of Human Rights.
The Council is aware that, in the case of Titina Loizidou, the European Court of Human Rights considered that Turkey was in violation of the European Convention of Human Rights when that country was found guilty of depriving a person of the rights to property in Northern Cyprus. Turkey was ordered to pay compensation.
The Council is furthermore aware that the deadline for Turkey to implement that judgement ended in October 1998 and that Turkey has still not paid the compensation specified.
The Council wishes to point out that all EU Member States voted in favour of a provisional resolution on the issue, which the Committee of Ministers in the Council of Europe adopted on 6 October 1999, and which stated that the terms of payment proposed by the Turkish government could not be considered to be in compliance with the obligations in respect of the court decision taken, and forcefully urged Turkey to re-examine her position.
However, nothing in this provisional document alludes to the far-reaching effects that the honourable Member mentions in the second part of his question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Madam President, thank you for your reply.
The problem is precisely this: nothing has been said as to what will happen if Turkey does not comply with its obligation to compensate Mrs Loizidou.
However, the question which was put to you - to you in the Council - is this: what political response do you, as the Council, intend to make to this conduct since Turkey has stated on numerous occasions that it does not intend to comply?
As we are now entering into new relations with Turkey, perhaps the question of respect for the decisions of the Court could be raised - and I think that it should be raised - within the framework of these relations?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, as I said, the Council does not wish to interfere directly in the work of other international organisations but, naturally, it will be following the development of this case as it proceeds, and it will then contemplate the possible outcome.
I have already described the current state of affairs in my reply.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=243 NAME="Mihail Papayannakis">
Question No 7 by (H-0685/99):
<P>
Subject: Humanitarian aid for Serbia With the onset of winter, will the Council take action to ensure that humanitarian aid is sent to the Serbian people, following the reservations expressed by the Stability Pact coordinator himself, Mr Bodo Hombach, concerning the continued embargo, which is causing greater hardship to the Serbian people than to the Milosevic regime?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, for the sake of clarity I would like to mention firstly that humanitarian aid is sent to the Serbian people via the European Commission' s ECHO programme.
EUR 62 million was set aside for humanitarian aid projects for Serbia in 1999 alone.
In addition, ECHO is at present considering granting EUR 20 million in aid, inter alia, for heating in special institutions such as children' s homes and homes for the elderly.
Furthermore, the Council has made a decision to send heating oil for the winter under the Energy for Democracy programme.
The cities of Nis and Pirot in Serbia are involved in trial projects, and they were the first to take delivery of the consignments of oil.
The Council has also reconfirmed its readiness to consider including other cities in the initiative.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, forgive me.
I ask you about humanitarian aid and you respond by talking about plans of a mainly political nature, such as the famous programme - the last one which you referred to - in certain towns which is, permit me to say, a quasi-political programme.
I am not well versed in religious matters, but I think that humanitarian programmes are directed not at friends but at those who have a problem of a humanitarian nature, be they friends or enemies.
Politically, I have no particular sympathies with the regime of Mr Milosevic - on the contrary - but I cannot understand what the position is regarding humanitarian aid to the Serbian people, the final consequence of which would, of course, be the lifting of the embargo.
You did not reply to that, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, and I would like a clearer response.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, this year the European Union has given or will have given Serbia a total of EUR 62 million for different humanitarian aid projects.
This is an example of aid reaching its destination.
In addition, it is planned that EUR 20 million in aid could be granted under the ECHO programme to special institutions, that is to say for heating for all those who are worst off, such as those in children' s homes and homes for the elderly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Korakas">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, all of us here must have realised that we are witnessing an unprecedented act of blackmail against the Yugoslavian people, especially the Serbian people.
To be specific, these people suffered merciless bombing by NATO for 78 days, with the active participation of the European Union; today they are subject to inhumane blackmail on the pretext of the democratisation of the Federal Democracy of Yugoslavia, in other words, they must overthrow their legitimate government in order for the fuel embargo to be lifted and they are to be given the funds to reconstruct what was flattened by NATO and European Union bombs.
As far as we are concerned, this is a policy of de facto genocide.
The issue therefore is not whether a few tonnes of oil will be given to orphanages and old peoples' homes, but whether the necessary funds will be given to Yugoslavia, to its legally elected government - let us once and for all respect international law fully, and not selectively - so that we can restore the damage and stop the political genocide of the Serbian people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=248 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Korakas.
I do not know if you have asked a specific question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Korakas">
Mr President, I am asking if the funds needed to reconstruct everything that was flattened will be released and if the embargo will be lifted and the money will be given to the Yugoslavian Government, the legally elected Yugoslavian Government, with the involvement of foreign observers, etc.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 NAME="President">
Your question is now clearer: whether the money is arriving and whether the embargo can be lifted.
The President-in-Office of the Council has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=251 NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, I have already said that money is being used for humanitarian aid.
That is a different matter from reconstruction aid proper.
In addition, the Council supports democratic forces everywhere, and would point out that the current government in the region has not been democratically elected.
It is still too early to examine the trade embargo; we do not yet know what should be done about it in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=253 NAME="Elly Plooij-van Gorsel">
Question No 8 by (H-0694/99):
<P>
Subject: Overlapping of European Parliament part­sessions and meetings of the Council of Ministers Of the 41 meetings of the Council of Ministers scheduled between September and December 1999, 18 took place or will take place when Parliament is holding plenary sessions in Strasbourg or Brussels.
Important Councils such as the Internal Market, Ecofin, General Affairs and JHA Councils fairly often meet during part-session weeks.
<P>
Does the Council not agree that this overlapping is undesirable, given that the Commission has to attend meetings of both the Council and Parliament?
<P>
Is the Council aware that press coverage of Parliament=s part-sessions suffers as a result, in that journalists cannot be in two places at once and usually give priority to Council meetings in Brussels?
<P>
Dos the Council not share the view that public opinion on Europe in general and the European Parliament in particular would benefit if the institutions took account of each other=s calendar of meetings?
<P>
Does the Council intend to take greater account in future of Parliament=s presence in Strasbourg each month, particularly since it is the Council that has obliged Parliament to meet there?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=254 NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, according to Article 1(2) of the Council' s Rules of Procedure it falls to the competence of the Presidency of the Council to announce the dates of Council sittings planned to be held during its term of office seven months before that term of office commences.
The problem that arises from the situation raised by the honourable Member could be brought to the attention of the Member States, which succeed each other as countries holding the Presidency of the Council.
However, I shall be more specific and say that the country holding the Presidency generally has little leeway when you consider that 15 ministers convene in the Council, all of whom have very pressing schedules.
Furthermore, the Council' s working efficiency could suffer significantly if it neglected to have sittings each month lasting a week and they were, as a result, squeezed inevitably more tightly into the weeks left over.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=255 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Mr President, I have to say that this reply is entirely unsatisfactory because I am not bothered about addressing the Presidency.
I do want to address the Council.
At the end of the day, the current Presidency embodies the Council.
It is also a question addressed to the Council and the issue is that very often meetings take place these days when we are in Strasbourg and that the press cannot come to Strasbourg.
I do believe that the Council will have to realise that the extent of support for the European Union amongst its citizens is of key importance.
Finland too, as one of the 15 Member States, is affected by this.
So as far as I am concerned, this does not answer my question and I hope that this will be discussed in a broader context within the Council at some stage.
<P>
Mr President, this bears out once again that it is crazy that we are banished to Strasbourg time and again by the same Council.
Indeed, if this was not the case, this problem would not arise.
I would like to ask the Finnish President to check with her colleagues in the Council and with all 15 Member States whether this could be taken on board in future?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=256 NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, it is obviously true that the Presidency represents the Council and that the organisation of Council meetings is the specific task of the Council.
In practice, however, matters proceed in such a way that each successive Presidency makes its own schedule for its forthcoming term.
I understand very well that Parliament' s work here in Strasbourg is very important, and it is indeed to be hoped that the overlapping of meetings can be avoided.
As there are a lot of Councils, and they are made up of 15 members, who should all be present, and as there are many issues to discuss, it is virtually impossible to imagine that some weeks might be left entirely free, as the Councils are quite busy enough as they are.
It is clear, however, that the organisation of Council meeting timetables has to be looked at seriously.
Finland, as the country that will soon be handing over the Presidency, will carry on with the message that we should always try to avoid overlapping, if circumstances allow.
Unfortunately, however, it is not always possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=257 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Siimes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=258 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=259 NAME="Miguel Angel Martínez Martínez">
Question No 9 by (H-0697/99):
<P>
Subject: Fiftieth anniversary of the Geneva Conventions In the light of the fiftieth anniversary of the Geneva Conventions, and in view of the armed conflicts that have taken place in the world over the past few years, particularly in continental Europe, what opinion does the Council hold on the level of compliance with the International Humanitarian Law laid down by these Conventions?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=260 NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, when the fiftieth anniversary of the four Geneva Conventions was celebrated in August 1999, it was an opportune time for the EU to strengthen its commitment to promoting International Humanitarian Law in all armed conflicts.
In this connection the Finnish Presidency reaffirmed that the European Union considers compliance with the four Geneva Conventions and the two protocols to be important, as they are the general agreements relating to International Humanitarian Law.
The European Union has urged countries, which have not yet done so, to be a party to the Geneva agreements and other agreements relating to humanitarian issues.
The EU, where necessary, has also stated to countries involved in conflicts that the provisions of the Conventions must be fully taken into consideration.
<P>
At the twenty-seventh international conference of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent held between 30 October and 16 November, the EU for the first time adopted a resolution which stressed that recent and current conflicts have shown that war is ever more making victims of civilians, especially women and children, or that they have been used as pawns in war situations.
The European Union said it was concerned about how serious the situation had become, and regretted the fact that International Humanitarian Law continued to be violated.
In relation to this, the EU took a positive view of the UN Secretary-General' s recent report on the protection of civilians in armed conflicts.
Many of the major recommendations of the Secretary-General should be looked into right away, as they offer a good basis for active commitment on the part of the Security Council in this matter.
<P>
To make the implementation of International Humanitarian Law more effective, the EU gave a general assurance on handheld weapons, light weapons and anti-personnel land mines.
In addition, the Council expressed its grave concern, at a recent meeting on 11 November 1999, over continued military action in the northern Caucasus.
In this connection, the European Union condemned all the disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force in Chechnya, which has caused severe suffering to the civil population.
The Council also reminded everyone that all sides in a conflict have to comply with International Humanitarian Law.
Furthermore, the Council urged the Russian Government in particular to avoid civil casualties and ensure that international humanitarian aid gets to its destinations unhindered, including the growing numbers forced to abandon their homes and cross the border into Ingushetia.
The Geneva Conventions have an in-built preventative effect, and any who may be in violation of humanitarian legislation are more aware than ever that it can no longer be taken for granted that transgressors will go unpunished.
The EU has said on many occasions said that the practice of impunity is not acceptable.
If national systems are not effective enough, the international community ultimately has the responsibility to see that the law is enforced.
<P>
Trials involving violations of International Humanitarian Law are thus an important means of encouraging compliance with the Conventions.
International courts hearing cases from the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda have emphasised the importance of the Geneva Conventions by increasing credibility in the notions of responsibility for war crimes and personal responsibility.
In this connection the European Union has taken a positive view of the adoption of the statute for a permanent International Criminal Court.
That will go further to promote the commitment to a speedy entry into force of the Rome Statute and the effective and credible establishment of an International Criminal Court.
<P>
The EU wants the international community to aim in the future, above all, at closing the widening gap between the existing international standards and compliance with them.
The European Union is determined to include this special angle on humanitarian matters on the agenda at international forums.
The Finnish Presidency, at the fifty-fourth sitting of the UN General Assembly, called on the international community to find the right solutions and answers to the new and unforeseeable challenges of humanitarian law.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=261 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Martínez Martínez">
Mr President, last Monday the Socialist Group tried to include a motion for a resolution in the agenda of this plenary sitting which would have highlighted the 50th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions, demonstrated the commitment of the European Parliament to the principles of international humanitarian law and expressed our support for the International Committee of the Red Cross.
<P>
As a result of a mix-up amongst the Groups in this Parliament, and we think that this was more a matter of procedure than a disagreement over the content of the motion, it was not included in this debate. In later sittings, however, we will insist on attention being given to the importance of this issue, which has been well highlighted in the reply of the representative of the Council.
<P>
In fact, the basic principles of international humanitarian law, which are contained in the Geneva Conventions, are values which must be maintained as a basis for European construction and promoted through institutional activities.
In any event, the European Union must be an agent for peace and international humanitarian law and it must assist the ICRC in its task of guaranteeing that this law is upheld.
Furthermore, the European Union must provide as much aid as possible to relieve the suffering of victims and we must, at last, contribute to the education of our citizens in terms of respect for peace.
<P>
For all these reasons, on the 50th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions, at a time when we must all commit ourselves - Parliament, Commission and Council - to promoting awareness of international humanitarian law and supporting the organisations responsible for its protection, does the Council propose any specific initiative to promote the knowledge of international humanitarian law amongst the citizens of the Union?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=262 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Martínez.
I hope that there are no more procedural motions, because in the end you have asked a question after a statement of principles.
However, if Mr Dupuis wants to table a procedural motion, he has the right to do so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=263 NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, I wanted to know if this was a real question or a spoof question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=264 NAME="President">
No, in the end, surprisingly, there has been a question, although I did not know initially whether it was a question or not.
In fact, it was a question.
What has happened is that firstly there was an explanation of the question in the form of a declaration.
There has been a question, to which the President of the Council may reply.
Perhaps, the President has heard more of a declaration.
I would ask you to repeat the question since it has been so brief that we hardly noticed it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=265 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Martínez Martínez">
I do not know if Mr Dupuis is a parliamentarian or a false parliamentarian, but I would like to say that I ended with a very clear question, which asked whether the Council proposed any specific initiative for promoting awareness of international humanitarian law.
That was my question and I have justified it with arguments which you have all heard.
I repeat that I do not know whether others are parliamentarians or false parliamentarians, but my question was not a false question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=266 NAME="President">
We are all real parliamentarians, Mr Martínez, Mr Dupuis, but this type of parliamentary manoeuvring happens and it is quite normal.
<P>
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, there is a specific and clear question and you may reply.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=267 NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, the EU thinks that this gap between the standards that exist and compliance with them must be closed in future.
One concrete move in this direction was made when the Finnish Presidency at the fifty-fourth sitting of the UN General Assembly called on the international community to make a real effort to find the right solutions and responses to the new and unforeseeable challenges of humanitarian law, and it is the EU' s intention to raise this issue in different international contexts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=268 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=269 NAME="John Bowis">
Question No 10 by (H-0699/99):
<P>
Subject: Transport of live animals Does the Council support a limit to the transport of live animals of a total journey of not more than eight hours?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=270 NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, the Council would remind the honourable Member that it issued Directive 91/628/EEC on the protection of animals during transportation, and its amended version, 95/29/EC, which established rules for the transportation of animals within the territory of the EU, including maximum time limits for the transport of different types of animal.
Furthermore, the Member States are urging the Commission to introduce a proposal for a directive to limit the overall time for the transport of animals to a maximum of eight hours.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=271 NAME="Bowis">
Mr President, the Minister has given the right answer.
The problem is that the second part of the answer should be to say what she is going to do to make sure that it is implemented.
Would she agree that a sign of a civilised society is humane treatment of its animals?
In Europe today we still see animals suffering agonies and animals dying in transit as a result of the inhumanity of transport conditions.
Too many animals are transported in cramped conditions, without adequate food and water, without opportunities to turn round, to get out, to exercise on their journeys.
Eight hours, as she has rightly said, should be the legal limit throughout the European Union for live animal transport.
It should be the limit, under the directives; it is not in practice.
I ask the President-in-Office of the Council to talk to the Council, talk to the Commission, and say why this is not yet being enforced.
Animals are suffering and therefore Europe is not yet a civilised society in this regard.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=272 NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, the reference to the Commission in this question is very much in order since, by virtue of the acts based on the Treaty and its provisions, it is specifically the task of the Commission to see that Community legislation is being properly applied.
In this capacity, the Commission must also make proposals it sees as fit to correct possible distortions.
The Council for its part is prepared to give special attention to any proposals made to it by the Commission that concern the area the honourable Member refers to.
If the honourable Member would like to know more about the actual conditions relating to the transport of animals or bring the matter to the attention of the Commission it would perhaps be better if he put his questions directly to the Commission, as the express job of the Commission is both to monitor compliance with the provisions of directives in force and act if compliance is not taking place.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=273 NAME="President">
. -
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=274 NAME="Ioannis Souladakis">
Question No 11 by (H-0703/99):
<P>
Subject: Action by the EU against illegal trafficking in nuclear, biological and chemical materials Despite serious evidence of illegal trafficking in nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) weapons-grade materials, no serious steps are being taken to combat the problem.
At the same time, multilateral deliberations on this matter and agreements on the monitoring of NBC materials are proving inadequate. According to many rumours and reports, these networks are situated mainly in the Ukraine, the Czech Republic and Russia and the illegal trading activities are centred mainly in Constantinople and Budapest, while much of the trafficking is carried out through channels in the Balkans, many of which go through Kosovo.
What view does the Council take of this major problem and what is its attitude towards those countries within whose territory this dangerous and illegal trafficking is taking place, particularly where there is evidence of a cover-up and especially in view of the fact that some of the countries involved are seeking EU membership or association?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=275 NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, the prevention and control of the illegal trade in substances that can be used in the manufacture of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons is the aim behind customs, legal and police cooperation in the Union in matters of crime, an aim that we are attempting to fulfil both directly and via Europol.
As the problem mentioned is an international one, crossing the borders of the Union, international regulations have also been established regarding this issue.
<P>
In 1996 the Council adopted a decision on the participation by the Member States of the EU in strategic action planned by the World Customs Organisation for the Balkan channels to speed up the process of international cooperation and develop the control of illegal commerce, particularly in the Balkans.
The joint operation, called "Roadrunner" , was set up in 1998, and the same sort of operation has also been planned for the Balkan channels in 2000.
In addition, the EU' s customs administration each year sets up joint operations to stop illegal commerce.
Third countries, especially the Central and Eastern European countries, are invited, as required, to take part in these operations.
Furthermore, the Council has agreed on certain joint police operations aimed at the prevention of international crime, which will make it easier to control the routes used by criminals more comprehensively.
One of these operations is a route control project, to prevent the illegal trade in weapons.
<P>
To bring control into more precise focus, the Member States of the European Union are working to improve the efficiency of risk assessment methods and the exchange of information process that makes prevention possible.
We are convinced that the more efficient use of computer systems to circulate information will make it easier to identify consignments that constitute a risk, the dealers and the countries of origin and the destinations.
The Member States of the EU are committed to an effective block on weapons policy and participation in operations relating to the control of exports, i.e. action by the nuclear exporters' group, the Zanger Committee, the Australia Group and the Wassenaar arrangements.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=276 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Souladakis">
Thank you for your reply.
I asked you and the Commission this question purely and simply so that we would all sit up and take note of an issue which has always been dealt with in the past either as a question of crime or as a question of international terrorism.
I want to use this point of view to draw your attention to the fact that, when the political decision to enlarge the European Union was taken in Helsinki a few days ago, the political criteria of the Europe of the 15 were included, the Copenhagen criteria, were included, and rightly so; however, you should take account of the fact that there are problems in the new applicant countries which did not apply in the past to the fifteen.
In this context, when the question includes the matter of what the European Union is doing in relation to applicant countries where these materials are transported through their territory or these situations are covered up, what it means is what policy will it follow or what political commitments will it impose on these countries so that progress can be made with accession procedures.
This is the political issue, over and above any others in relation, for example, to the manpower which has know-how on these issues and which has remained unemployed, in relation to the laboratories of the Soviet Union and certain other matters.
<P>
My question referred to this political issue and that is why I asked it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=277 NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, firstly, the problem mentioned in the final part of the honourable Member' s question was that there are many former military personnel who are unemployed, both in the applicant countries and the other third countries close to the EU.
The EU has tried in part to address this problem through its programmes to specifically support alternative models of employment for these people.
With regard to smuggling and the applicant countries, what I said in my reply is clearly the case, that the EU' s customs administration now establishes joint operations, on an annual basis, to stop illegal commerce, and, if necessary, third countries are also invited to take part in these operations.
Through these operations and during the general process leading up to membership, we clearly have to tighten up cooperation and our common ability to also function in those areas that fall within the jurisdiction of the EU.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=278 NAME="President">
. -
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=279 NAME="Piia-Noora Kauppi">
Question No 12 by (H-0706/99):
<P>
Subject: Practice of the European Court of Justice with regard to openness Recent events in the European Union have shown that EU decision making must be public.
The EU institutions have made considerable efforts to create a climate of openness with regard to decision making.
However, unlike the courts in many Member States, the European Court of Justice has a policy of only limited openness.
No statistics are kept of the outcome of votes in connection with its decisions and judges do not express views at variance with Court judgments.
<P>
Does the Council intend to take steps to ensure that after a reform of its activities the European Court of Justice complies with this principle of openness by introducing more transparent decision making?
Does the Council intend to urge that the outcome of votes in connection with decisions should be published and that judges should be allowed to express views at variance with a given judgement?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=280 NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, pursuant to Article 321 of the basic instrument of the Court of Justice of the European Communities, Article 33 of the basic instrument of Euratom, and Article 29 of the basic instrument of the ECSC, deliberations in the European Court of Justice are secret, and remain so.
In its current practice, the Court of Justice is simply applying those provisions.
Pursuant to Article 245 of the Treaty establishing the European Communities, Article 45 of the Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community, and Article 160 of the Euratom Treaty, the Council can amend the rules on secrecy only at the request of the European Court of Justice.
<P>
The idea expressed by the honourable Member is naturally one of those approaches that may be adopted when considering theoretically how to solve the problem of openness regarding the deliberations of a body exercising judicial power.
However, as the honourable Member quite rightly points out, this is not a question of a practice that might even be adopted in the internal systems of all the Member States.
The approach suggested by the honourable Member has both its advantages and drawbacks, as does that adhered to in compliance with the legislation in force that applies to the European Court of Justice.
We might, however, imagine that the delicate balance that is being aspired to in this area will duly take account of the different principles to be acknowledged in this case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=281 NAME="Kauppi">
Mr President, I might say in response to Mr Bowis' question that not only animals but MEPs also suffer in this Chamber, when timetables change and it is sometimes quite boring to have to wait.
However, my thanks go to the representative of the Council for still having answered my question.
<P>
The European Court of Justice exercises power in a remarkable way.
For the public to really be able to see that the Court' s application of the law meets all the criteria of independence and objectivity traditionally associated with a court of law, the application of law must be undertaken openly.
I would like to thank the Presidency of the Council for being of the same opinion as I am on this but how significant would you say the justifications for decisions are, and the fact that the individual opinions of the judges and the bases of interpretation, especially regarding the sorts of cases that have given rise to debate, will remain forever in the dark?
Should we not include the future status of the European Court of Justice on the IGC agenda, so that these clauses in the Treaty can be amended insofar as this matter is concerned?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=282 NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, I will start with the final part of the supplementary question.
With regard to the IGC agenda, this is something that is still alive and well, and it is obviously possible to return to the question raised by the honourable Member on that agenda.
This secrecy regarding deliberations which exists in the current versions of the Treaties is, in any case, justified to the extent that it is an effective means of preserving the independence of the judges, the adoption of decisions and, furthermore, the consistent interpretation of Community law.
If the varying opinions of the judges were to be made public, that would, at least for the present, be at odds with the structure of the Community' s legal system.
This practice, which exists in some Member States, is accounted for by those countries' legal histories and is the result of the distinctive features of their judicial systems.
The practice, which exists in one or more Member States, would, however, be quite difficult to transfer to a Community court, without making agreement on decisions harder as a result of the change.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=283 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
Earlier this evening we discussed a concrete case before the European Court of Justice under question 3, the so-called Journalists' Case.
What amazed me, in following the discussion, was the fact that the address by the Council of Ministers too - it was of course the Council of Ministers which stood accused in this case - was classified as secret.
<P>
I really do think it is unreasonable for a particular institution' s opinion on a political issue to be classified as secret if there are no very special reasons indeed for this.
I wonder if the Council of Ministers considers that the increased openness which is now hopefully to come within the EU ought also to embrace the Council of Ministers' addresses to the European Court of Justice.
<P>
Finally, I want to say that it is especially pleasing to have a minister from the Left Alliance here too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=284 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="President">
Mr Sjöstedt, I realise that I have infringed the Rules of Procedure because you had already asked one supplementary question and on Council days you can only ask one.
This mea culpa shows that errors are committed in relation to the Rules of Procedure, but it was a pertinent question and so the Council may reply.
Mrs Siimes has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=285 NAME="Siimes">
Mr President, I believe the Council has already answered the question about the case of the journalist, and I would like to point out that the Council altered its own position in this case regarding public access to documents so that in the end there was just one document, information on which was not to be given out.
In that sense, obviously, the Council itself - how can I say this? - corrected its procedures to make for greater transparency, which has been spoken of here.
Regarding the original question, I would say that the decisions of the Court and the documents associated with them are obviously rather a different matter from that of decisions of a body drafting legal provisions.
In this sense also, the criteria for openness regarding whose varying opinions should be made known and whose should not - as those of the judges are not - are obviously different matters for consideration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=286 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, for your willingness to answer our questions.
<P>
Since the time allotted to Questions to the Council has elapsed, questions 13 to 32 will be replied to in writing.
<P>
That concludes Questions to the Council.
<P>
Mrs Kauppi has the floor for a procedural motion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=287 NAME="Kauppi">
Mr President, I am completely satisfied with the Council' s reply but, before this part of this sitting ends, I would like to ask the Bureau when it intends to decide on the issue, as we are having a debate on Mr von Wogau' s report on the important issue of competition policy and state aid policy, which was meant in fact for this morning, but which today was put back by several hours.
Now it has been said that it might even be moved to January.
I would like to know at what time it might be safe to leave if I want to give my opinion in the debate?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=288 NAME="President">
Well, I thought I would have to call on the Holy Spirit to guide me, but luckily the officials tell me that the debate will take place tonight.
I did not know, but with full confidence in the team of officials, I can tell you that tonight, in all probability, you will be able to stay because we will be able to discuss it.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 7.10 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
State aid and competition policy
<SPEAKER ID=289 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=290 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Karas">
Mr President, I would just like to give a brief justification for this motion.
As you know, we have had several timetabling problems and postponements today and not only today but also in the run up to the debate of these four reports.
Everyone who attended the preliminary discussions of the von Wogau, Rapkay, Jonckheer and Langen reports in committee is aware of the importance of competition policy and of future internal market policy to the future development of the economy and to growth and employment in Europe.
Our view is that, given the importance which the work of the European Union and which our relations with Member States, undertakings and workers will have in the future, all four reports should be debated in detail in plenary and substantiated vis-à-vis the public at a more convenient time.
<P>
These four reports do not, primarily, represent the culmination of processes; they are important contributions to the future debate on development.
I therefore move, on the grounds of timetabling problems and the importance of these four reports to competition policy, that we deal with them during the first part-session next year, i.e. in January, preferably on Tuesday in Strasbourg and I ask you on behalf of all the rapporteurs to support this motion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=291 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Karas.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote on the request of the PPE-DE Group.
<P>
(Parliament approved the request)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Late payment in commercial transactions
<SPEAKER ID=292 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on the recommendation for second reading (A5-0099/1999) on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council directive combating late payment in commercial transactions [8790/1999 - C5-0125/1999 - 1998/0099(COD)] (rapporteur: Mr Murphy)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=293 NAME="Murphy">
I would like to commend this second reading to the House.
It is very much about prosperity, and about creating jobs in the European Union, particularly for our small and medium-sized enterprises, by creating a better business climate for those businesses.
<P>
Paradoxically, I do not want this report to be used.
In fact I would like to see it go out of fashion very quickly indeed.
This sort of Directive should be changing the climate of our business economy, away from late payment to prompt payment.
We actually want a culture in this European Union, in our single market, of prompt payment, not late payment.
<P>
I would like to place on record a number of thanks before I address the substance of our second reading: thanks to Parliament's services for working so quickly on this report; to the Commission for all its support; and to the Finnish Presidency for the courteous and careful advice it has given through this process.
Thanks also to colleagues on the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy with whom I have worked very closely, several of whom I see here in this Chamber this evening.
In particular, thanks to UEAPME who are very much the voice of small businesses in the European Union and who have given wholehearted support to this proposal.
<P>
One further vote of thanks is also due, and that is actually to a ghost of this Chamber: that is, to my former colleague and good friend Lyndon Harrison, who was rapporteur at first reading, now Lord Harrison of Chester.
It was Lyndon Harrison who, as rapporteur on 16 September 1998, said to this House: "It is time to outlaw cheating practices and give small and medium-sized enterprises the confidence to go boldly into the single European market knowing that they will be paid on time and in full."
I could not agree more.
<P>
I have to say, from our position as a Parliament, that the Council's common position was a disappointment - especially when you consider that we share the same aim.
Yet because we share the same aim, and because there is goodwill on both sides, I am confident that we will have an effective and efficient directive that will eventually be adopted.
<P>
However, it is important to point out that there are large areas of difference between us.
These include the rate of statutory interest to be charged when a late payment occurs; the length of the trigger period for interest if no contract has actually stipulated a payment period; retention of title in the course of late payment; the role of the public sector and the treatment of public procurement; and compensation claims arising from late payment.
All these areas are very difficult and could cause problems between Parliament and Council.
Nevertheless, it is my belief that they are integral to our aim and are broadly safe and sound, and will help create a better business climate for small and medium-sized enterprises as they develop to realise their full potential within the single market.
<P>
Shortly after I was elected to this House, Mr President, one of my first pleasurable duties was to bring to the Parliament representatives from Dudley Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which was then in my constituency.
They came to a hearing on late payments that was being organised in the Parliament and gave some very good expert advice, recognising that we had problems with late payment in the single market.
Those problems have actually got worse, which is why we currently have a directive and a proposal before us this evening.
The importance of this directive is that it will help us address that business climate, to have a cultural change so that we move away from late payment to prompt payment as the norm within the European single market and not, as it currently is, the other way around.
<P>
The small and medium-sized enterprises of the European Union are watching very closely to see how we react to this particular proposal and the common position.
They will expect from this House tomorrow a strong vote backing the vote that was carried in the Industry Committee unanimously on Monday of this week.
With those opening remarks, Mr President, I would commend our position to you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=294 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Folias">
Mr President, at this moment in time millions of small and medium-sized enterprises are watching us and the eyes of even more millions of workers in the European Union are turned anxiously towards us.
We are being called upon to deal with a most serious matter.
I too should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Murphy, for the excellent spirit of cooperation which we had and to congratulate the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy for its full and unanimous support for our joint effort.
We must all, Parliament, Commission and Council, reflect on the responsibilities which face us.
We must bear in mind that one in four SMEs which goes bankrupt does so because of late payments.
We must be aware of the fact that 450 000 workers have lost their jobs at a time when the main problem facing the European Union is how to combat unemployment.
We must bear in mind that every citizen in the European Union owes 65 euros due to late payments.
We must bear in mind that we owe it to this society and to the entrepreneurial spirit of the European Union to give them the chance to develop on a sound basis.
We must also understand that we cannot permit the unfair practice whereby companies or even the public sector, which is the worst payer there is in the European Union, are financed free of charge, thereby condemning thousands of enterprises to death, stagnation or entrepreneurial castration.
<P>
What we are now being called upon to do is to restore conditions of healthy competition.
We do not intend to protect anyone.
However, we do intend to set up a framework of fair practices, to try and lay down rules of healthy competition so that we can all use our abilities and skills to face the future with better prospects.
I want us all to understand that several more thousand jobs are at stake if we back-pedal on this report which we are being called to vote upon.
I received a call today from an organisation representing thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises to say that they wished to congratulate the European Parliament on behalf of European business people.
That is precisely what we are waiting for here.
That is precisely what we are attempting to do and I call on the European Parliament, where we have the honour of sitting, to vote by a large majority in favour of the text tomorrow, I call on the Commission to do justice to the text which we give it during its evaluation and, above all, I call on the Council to understand that we cannot proclaim left, right and centre that we are above the law, that we cannot proclaim left, right and centre that we are sensitive to the issue of job creation, that we cannot proclaim left, right and centre that small and medium-sized enterprises are the backbone of the economy and, at the same time, refuse to vote in favour of and adopt the positions of this European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=295 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Cacciari">
Mr President, the globalisation of our economy that is underway, and of which completion of the single market is a part, is made up of regional districts and energy centres which, by managing to form a network, become international.
In order to achieve completion, globalisation needs clear, simple and effective rules which, until now, our businesses and our craft industries have not been able to take advantage of in an area as important as commercial transactions.
<P>
The Council' s position, which was presented at second reading, is still weak on this point and, in particular, it does not shield small and medium-sized businesses and craft industries from the inefficiency of public machinery and from the excessive power of big businesses.
The amendments that Parliament has tabled are intended to fill this serious gap and have an ambitious objective: the creation of a legislative structure which, while careful not to create pointless bureaucratic complications, will allow the sizeable productive forces of the Union to flourish in the internal market, thereby facilitating their activities on the global market too.
<P>
The most significant innovations we wish to introduce are the following: careful consideration of the consequences of late payment for perishable foods; recognition of the right to demand compensation for costs incurred from debt collection too; retention of title clauses by the vendor; to ensure that an enforceable title can be obtained normally within 60 days of the lodging of the creditor' s action; and finally, greater transparency in the relationship between the contracting authority and the contractor, and also in a subcontractual relationship.
This group of amendments may mark the beginning of a real cultural change in the current relationship between debtor and creditor.
<P>
My final observation is of a purely political nature.
In the last few days there has been a lot of talk about the role and future of the Community institutions, but I would like to remind you that the credibility of a structure such as Parliament or the Council is closely linked to its ability to resolve the problems that trouble citizens in their everyday life, or to take positive action on these matters.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=296 NAME="MacCormick">
I would like to compliment and congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Murphy, and the committee, on the work they have done on this.
Although we are a small House tonight this is a terribly important subject.
It cannot be said too often that small businesses do not have deep pockets and so have greater difficulty riding out cash-flow crises than bigger ones.
They often have to wait for money to come in before paying their own suppliers.
If payments are delayed it has a knock-on effect.
Sometimes they are dependent on one large customer.
If this client delays or defaults on payments, that can mean the equivalent of a whole month's work lost, with potentially catastrophic effects.
Worse still there is often no real redress.
Though there is a statutory right, for example in the United Kingdom, to impose interest on late payments, there is practically no way to enforce this and court action is impractical to recover small debts.
We need to have some form of enforcement machinery.
There is also the difficulty of different payment terms across the European Union - 30 days in some places, 90 in others.
The compromise of 60 days seems to me a sensible arrangement.
<P>
It is grand that the Commission has put its shoulder behind the wheel of speeding up commercial payments but it is far from the case that the Commission is beyond reproach itself.
The Ombudsman' s report highlighted many instances of late payments to suppliers by the Commission.
This point was addressed in the communication from Commissioner Liikanen and another concerning time limits.
I am glad that the Commission is seeking to improve its own procedures to reduce late payments as I would like to see it put its house in order.
I had a letter from a distinguished academic the other day pointing out that persons coming to give reports are often kept waiting for their expenses money for several months.
This is unacceptable.
We must make sure that the Commission does as well as it expects others to do.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=297 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Thyssen">
Mr President, when the common position arrived here, as the former shadow rapporteur of my group, I felt slightly abandoned by the rapporteur of first reading who had left this House.
When it also transpired that the file of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs had been passed on to the Industry Committee, then I felt completely orphaned, but the coordinator and the new EPP shadow rapporteur have adopted me in the Industry Committee for a short while, which made up for a lot of things and for which I would like to express my thanks to both.
<P>
I would also like to say a word of thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Murphy, who has done a sterling job.
<P>
Mr President, the common position is better than the original proposal.
The Industry Committee, however, has incorporated a few more amendments and I hope that they can be conciliated swiftly because the SMEs are desperate for the entry into effect of this directive, but quality should come before speed.
The report meets with my full approval.
I still have questions but only with regard to the bill of exchange, Amendment No 18.
I am aware that the bill of exchange is used in one of our Member States as a means to counter excessive payments.
However, I do think that the bill of exchange is too strict an instrument.
It is an unconditional order to pay a certain sum on a certain day and even if there are serious reasons for challenging the claim, one cannot refer to them as the debtor.
If the bill also needs to be guaranteed and accepted by a bank, then this becomes an expensive business.
Personally, I hold the opinion that we should confine ourselves to judicial review on account of unreasonable terms.
I would like to know the Commissioner' s opinion regarding this Amendment No 18.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=298 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, first of all I want to thank you.
A few parliamentarians will know the file very well.
The Commission's proposal for a directive on late payments contains a package of measures to combat late payment in commercial transactions in the European Community.
The directive applies to late payment between all enterprises including the public sector.
It provides the legal framework to deter late payers from paying late or from imposing unduly long payment periods on their partners.
Moreover, it renders the procedures for recovering debts quicker and more efficient.
<P>
The common position agreed by the Council in July of this year has cut six operational articles of our proposal down to two.
I am conscious of the fact that it is not easy for Member States to agree to changes in their legislation.
However, the Commission has indicated that it would like to see a more ambitious approach to late payment.
Without ambitious provisions, the directive will not reach its objective.
I therefore welcome the interest Parliament has taken in our proposal and I congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Murphy, and the coordinators of the other political groups, on their excellent work.
<P>
Turning now to the proposed amendments, I welcome most of them as they revive many of the Commission's original proposals and try to correct deficiencies in the common position.
In this respect the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 1, 3, 4, 5, 7 to 17, 19, 21, 22, 24 and 26.
There are other amendments where the Commission agrees with most of the substance but would prefer to reformulate them.
This is the case with Amendments Nos 6, 20 and 25.
In particular we would like to reduce the number of reports that the Commission is being asked to produce in Amendment No 25.
It is better to use that time to pay bills more quickly, as was said by Mr MacCormick.
<P>
Finally, there are a very few amendments which the Commission cannot accept for specific reasons, and these are Amendments Nos 2, 18 and 23.
Mrs Thyssen has just spoken about Amendment No 18.
We do not think that Amendment No 18, concerning a debtor' s obligation to furnish a bill of exchange in the case of a long contractual payment period has a chance of being accepted by the Council.
In fact it seems that this amendment is inspired by the law of one Member State and that the proposed rule has not worked well so far in that state.
As a result, 15 Member States have opposed the proposal.
<P>
We would also prefer not to modify Article 4 on the duration of recovery procedures.
The discussion in the Council was a difficult one.
We believe that the result is satisfactory.
Reducing the duration from 90 to 60 days, as proposed in Amendment No 23, would have the consequence of causing the Council to revert to the old version of the Commission proposal and exclude the period needed by the debtor for his defence. This would add some 30 days for most countries and the result would be similar to the one we now have.
<P>
To summarise, the Commission expects that this proposal will bring significant benefits to businesses, in particular small and medium-sized enterprises.
Reducing late payment will improve businesses' cash flow.
It will also reduce financing costs caused by being paid late and the heavy administrative cost of pursuing debts.
<P>
I hope that early next year we can come back to the broader issues of enterprise policy.
We need a new enterprise policy atmosphere in Europe and an environment where creating small and medium-sized enterprises will be easier and cheaper, and will be encouraged.
That is the only chance for Europe to guarantee that our unemployment figures, which are too high, will be reduced.
We need a lively, growing SME sector.
Let this proposal be one part of this new approach.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=299 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=13>
Bovine animals and beef: identification, registration and labelling
<SPEAKER ID=300 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0101/1999) by Mr Papayannakis, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation amending Council Regulation (EC) No 820/97 establishing a system for the identification and registration of bovine animals and regarding the labelling of beef and beef products [COM(1999) 487 - C5-0241/1999 - 1999/0205(COD)].
<P>
Mr Goodwill has the floor for a procedural motion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=301 NAME="Goodwill">
Mr President, on a point of order, although we are not joined by the Council representative tonight, could I ask whether the Commission or a representative of Parliament's secretariat are aware of press agency reports I have seen which state that the decision to extend the voluntary scheme for 12 months was actually made in the Council yesterday, circumventing the codecision procedure and making this debate and the vote tomorrow irrelevant?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=302 NAME="President">
Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf has the floor for a procedural motion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=303 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Mr President. I wish to speak on the same point.
I do not take the view that the debate here and hence the vote tomorrow are irrelevant. Quite the contrary.
What I would like clarified for the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, and because the Council is not here I would be happy to hear it from Commissioner Byrne before the debate, is this: how are we to interpret these announcements and the Council conclusions before us.
Obviously the Council has decided that, if we react to the regulation presented by the Commission with proposed amendments, it may not agree to the simplified procedure, i.e. to accept this postponement under the codecision procedure.
It would then approve another proposal from the Commission, drafted in accordance with the old Regulation 820, article 19 of which establishes implementing provisions which allow a postponement of one year.
The Council has apparently decided, should the Commission make this formal proposal, to agree to it.
<P>
So, obviously what we have here is a twin-track approach by the Commission and we are naturally curious to know, Commissioner Byrne, now that we are in the middle of a codecision procedure, if the Commission is using a twin-track approach to circumvent this codecision by announcing a different approach to the Council.
<P>
I would be most obliged if you could tell me if you condone this approach by the Council, whereby a simplified codecision procedure can only be approved if Parliament does not exercise its right to amend the text presented by the Commission to the Council, in which case we must conclude that, if we exercise that right we are, to all intents and purposes, out of the codecision procedure!
We would like this point cleared up by the Commissioner before the debate.
I am sorry, Commissioner, but I must put this question to you; the Council is not here and we would like this cleared up before the debate and before tomorrow' s vote.
I repeat that I consider that this debate and tomorrow' s vote, i.e. the postponement, are urgently needed.
I disagree in this respect with the previous speaker, but I share his view that this needs to be clarified.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=304 NAME="Byrne">
Mr President, I am not quite sure what I am being asked to do at this stage.
If it is agreeable to you and Members of Parliament I could address you on the issues I have come to address you on or alternatively answer the question that has been asked, in so far as I can, by the two previous speakers in relation to the issues raised in the Council yesterday.
As Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf very rightly points out, I am not here to answer on behalf of the Council, but in so far as I can assist Parliament I would be very happy to do so.
<P>
I have with me a copy of the conclusions which were suggested by the Presidency yesterday.
Before I read that document I should point out that what I am about to read amounts to a political orientation taken by the Council yesterday.
The Council recognised that this issue was being discussed today in Parliament.
Therefore, they deferred any decision on this issue until after Parliament had discussed the issue.
The matter will then go back to the one of the Councils before the end of the year, taking into account the decision of Parliament today.
However, if it is of assistance to Parliament I would be very happy to read this document which amounts to a political orientation rather than a conclusion or a decision of the Council yesterday.
<P>
The Council, after having examined the Commission proposal aiming at postponing for one year (from 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2000) the introduction of a compulsory beef labelling system and maintaining during this period the voluntary labelling scheme provided for in Regulation (EC) No 820/97, has adopted the following conclusions:
<P>
(1) The Council agrees on the following common orientation: the Commission proposal is acceptable without any other amendment than the addition of Article 37 to Article 152, paragraph 4(b) as a legal basis;
<P>
(2) Should the opinion which will be delivered by the European Parliament within the first reading of the codecision procedure correspond to the above common orientation, the Council shall accept this outcome and therefore adopt the proposed act thus amended;
<P>
(3) If this were not the case, the legislative act could not be adopted before 31 December 1999;
<P>
(4) The Council notes that in this hypothesis the Commission intends to submit a proposal having the same objective, but based on Article 19, paragraph 1 of Regulation (EC) No 820/97;
<P>
(5) The Council has considered a working document prepared by the Commission services in this perspective - 14015/99 - and noted a large majority in favour of the substance of the text;
<P>
(6) Should the Commission submit a formal proposal for a Council regulation corresponding to the text of the working document which received the support of the Council, the Council shall adopt such proposed regulation before 31 December 1999;
<P>
(7) The Council will do its utmost in order to have a decision on a labelling provision as soon as possible in consultation with the European Parliament.
<P>
That is the orientation of the Agriculture Council yesterday.
They have refrained from making a decision in deference to Parliament's discussions here today and the decision is open to Parliament to take tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=305 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Mr President, having heard the text read by Mr Byrne, of which I have a copy here before me, there is indeed little point in this debate.
Mr Byrne, it is not true that the Council has not taken any decisions.
The Council has decided on a year' s postponement.
It says so.
The Council has decided that it knows that the Commission - in other words you - will present another solution which we know nothing about.
You know what it is, they know that you will present it to them, that it will be a good solution, that it will approve it by 31 December and that it will approve it without codecision.
That too is a Council decision.
Consequently, you are trying to fool us here.
<P>
Despite all this, I still have to present my report to you.
We approved Regulation No 820 in 1997.
It makes provision for the identification and registration of bovine animals - this was during the "mad cow" crisis - and it was decided on and entered into force on 1 July 1997.
It makes provision for labelling of beef and beef products: voluntary labelling until 31 December 1999 and compulsory labelling as of 1 January 2000.
I should point out, just so that we are clear on this, that the voluntary scheme in each country or in certain countries will obviously not become the compulsory system throughout the Union.
The transition from the voluntary to the compulsory scheme is effected by approving implementary regulations which should have been drafted by the Commission and which should be approved by 1 January 2000.
As yet, nothing has been approved.
Consequently, as of 1 January 2000 we must expect to have a sort of legal vacuum and chaos and confusion on the market.
Why?
Because the Member States have been late sending in the reports which they were required to send to the Commission and the Commission has failed to do its work.
Then the Commission comes along on 15 November and tells us, "We are unable to complete, please can we postpone for a year" , adding that this will be on a new legal basis, Article 152 of the Treaty, which is quite right following the Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
This development puts Parliament in a very difficult position, Mr President.
Either we accept exactly what the Commission tells us, i.e. we postpone for a year and then codecide on the implementary regulations, or we make amendments, in which case, the Council tells us, these amendments cannot be accepted.
It has already told us.
If they cannot be accepted, then again we have a problem.
What did we do in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy?
We of course voiced the right criticism which, I believe, should be particularly forceful of the Commission and the Council.
We do not accept a year' s postponement.
We say it should be reduced to no more than eight months and, of course, with the amendments which the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy has approved, we have, Mr President, to all intents and purposes, agreed with the proposals to sideline codecision, in order to save time and ensure that a compulsory agreement is reached quickly.
We have seen what the Council has decided, it has discounted all of this as impossible.
It has already said that it is going to postpone for a year and that it is waiting for the famous proposals which the Commission is hiding up its sleeve and which will solve the problem of implementation.
<P>
I think, Mr President, that things have come to a pretty pass.
I do not think that any of the procedures being proposed guarantee that we will proceed more quickly towards compulsory labelling.
I imagine that the Council will soon meet in extraordinary session, probably before Christmas, and will do something to ensure that there is no vacuum, chaos and confusion.
However, codecision has been sidelined and perhaps we are partly to blame.
I think, Mr President, that it is only logical after all this to envisage the possibility of going to Court, because these are clear infringements of the legislation.
<P>
I personally think that there is no guarantee that we will proceed more quickly.
However, I recommend the solution proposed by the Committee on Environment and I hope that we will proceed more quickly, albeit using dubious methods, towards compulsory labelling.
We have seen today how important it is in resolving differences between Member States and, above all, and much more importantly, and this is what interests us, how important it is to consumer protection.
If we see that even with this dubious method there is no progress towards an urgent solution, I think it is unavoidable that we shall end up taking recourse to Court, if, of course, there is a majority in the House which has the political courage and resolution to do so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=306 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kindermann">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we discussed the question of beef labelling here in plenary as early as February 1997.
At the time we, as the European Parliament, voted in favour of the immediate introduction of the compulsory labelling system.
However, the Council decided on an initially optional labelling system and postponed the compulsory system until January 2000.
We are now being asked to agree to a further postponement of one year, as there has been a delay in the implementation of the applicable regulation 820/97.
The Member States and the Commission alone are to blame for these delays.
<P>
The Commission justifies the delay by saying that the progress reports from the Member States, which form the basis for the general rules governing a compulsory system, were received too late.
In our opinion, the Commission and the Member States did not make a conscientious effort to ensure that the compulsory beef labelling system would enter into force as planned.
The Commission must therefore be prepared to answer the question of why it did not take the Member States to task earlier.
After all, the Member States were obliged to ensure that the conditions needed for complete proof of origin for cattle were in place and that their electronic data bases were up and running by 31 December this year.
<P>
The Commission' s contention, that the presentation of its proposal was delayed because the outcome of the case pending against the Council before the European Court of Justice on the legal basis for Regulation 820/97 has not yet been decided, is also unacceptable.
Even if the judgement had been made, it would still have been extremely difficult to complete a codecision procedure on this matter.
<P>
We cannot sanction a further postponement of one year without reservation; otherwise we may well be forced again this time next year to agree to a further postponement because some Member States have again failed to do their homework.
We will give the Member States a further eight months to catch up but the compulsory system must be definitively introduced in all Member States and for everyone marketing beef on 1 September 2000.
The Commission has time until then to submit implementing provisions for the compulsory system.
At the same time, the European Parliament and the Council will decide on a new version of Regulation 820/97 under a codecision procedure.
This approach will enable the compulsory system to be introduced earlier than envisaged by the Commission in its proposal and will give all those concerned sufficient time to find a lasting and satisfactory solution.
<P>
In conclusion, I should like once again to thank my colleagues in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy for taking account of the amendment proposed by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development; I think it is important, here and now, for the European Parliament to speak with one voice and to send out a clear signal on this matter of fundamental importance to consumers.
I would also like, once again, to thank all those who have worked on this and the services for their fast work and self-sacrifice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=307 NAME="Goodwill">
The last decades of the twentieth century have been punctuated by a series of food scares.
In many cases genuine concerns are blown out of proportion as the media indulge in a feeding frenzy, seldom letting the facts get in the way of a good story.
Maybe we do not have enough journalists with a scientific background able to quantify issues like risk or possibly, as I suspect, a sensational front page headline which will sell a newspaper is more important than giving consumers information on which to judge their buying decisions.
<P>
Product labelling is one important way in which this misinformation can be countered.
It is, of course, possible to go too far and give technical data that confuses rather than informs.
When the details of this and other directives are considered I hope we can have at the back of our minds the mother trailing two or three irritable children around the supermarket. She does not have time to read a detailed data sheet.
She needs to see at a glance the information on the origin, production method and other details in a simple, unambiguous way.
<P>
At present food labelling is at best vague, at worst deliberately misleading.
For example, one could be forgiven for thinking that bacon labelled "packed in the UK" was produced in Britain under our most stringent welfare standards; not so.
And shepherd's pie labelled "product of the UK" may contain beef from Botswana, Zimbabwe or anywhere else in the world.
This is not good enough.
Labelling rules should address these problems.
<P>
I now come to the intolerable situation we find ourselves in today regarding the extension of the voluntary beef labelling scheme.
What would be the attitude of the EU if it were a company, not a country, that chose to ignore legislation which other similar businesses were complying with?
The full force of the law would be unleashed of course.
We have the situation that 12 of the 15 Member States have not introduced a voluntary system of beef labelling and are therefore not in a position to move to a compulsory scheme in January.
The Commission blames the Member States for not providing information about the lack of action in time for the proper democratic procedures to ensue.
They should, however, have been aware of how the situation was developing and I am sure a few telephone calls would soon have put the Commission in the picture.
Today, despite the fact that both the Committee on Agriculture and the Committee on the Environment of this Parliament were asked to consider this extension, the Council has decided to ignore this House and change the legal basis for this decision, despite the fact that the amendments proposed were both practical and reasonable and could have been adopted under codecision.
This is an insult to the Members of the European Parliament.
<P>
It is particularly important, finally, that consumers know where the beef they are consuming comes from.
In the wake of the BSE crisis we must make it simple for people to identify the safest beef available, which is, of course, British.
<P>
Could I also urge Commissioner Byrne to introduce a compensation scheme for British beef farmers who are being hit by the illegal action of the French Government?
The cost of this scheme can be recouped from the French when, as surely as day follows night, they lose their court case.
British farmers need help now, not the promise of compensation later when some of them will be bankrupt and beyond help.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=308 NAME="Whitehead">
Mr President, we return for the second time today to the grave crisis over beef, its safety and circulation within this Union under the rule of law.
All of us believe that we need the measures which were promised by the Commission back in 1997.
We need them especially because of the crisis through which we are passing.
The issue of the identification of beef products and the certainty that they can be relied upon is as much at the heart of the dispute between France and the European Union as it is at the heart of the concerns of safety which have preoccupied both the Committee on Agriculture and the Committee on the Environment over the last two years.
<P>
I want to congratulate Mr Papayannakis on his patience over the last few weeks.
We are all concerned about the apparent fait accompli in the statement by the Council.
We are having this debate in a legislative vacuum if we have no flexibility of amendment.
We see Regulation No 820/97 slipping away from us into a morass of half-observed voluntary practices with no immediate prospects of the compulsory scheme which every Member of this House knows is necessary.
That is partly a result of Member State inertia, but I cannot exempt the Commission from its own responsibilities.
They far pre-date Mr Byrne's arrival in office.
But now, as he has to clear up this mess, we ought to hear from him how he will do so.
<P>
The amendments of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy set out to remedy this with a remission of eight months maximum.
Some of our amendments clarified and strengthened Article 152 as the legal base.
<P>
Today the Council is urging that Article 37 be added to the legal base.
This is surely an issue of health and consumer protection.
I want to hear from Commissioner Byrne that he will be the defender of everything that was implied in Article 152 once it is added to the Treaty.
The whole point of this is that it gives us a right to intervene, a right to be consulted and to be participants in the process of codecision.
That right, so recently granted to Parliament post-Amsterdam, is now being snatched away.
That has been the cri de coeur of Mr Papayannakis throughout our discussions in the Environment Committee.
It is an absolutely scandalous state of affairs that we are sitting here in a nine-tenths empty parliamentary Chamber, one week before Christmas, seeing a regulation which will come into effect no-one knows when or how, with a Council which is treating us with an aloof contempt.
I do not believe it is good enough.
I do not believe Mr Byrne thinks so either.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=309 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Busk">
Mr President, it is morally reprehensible and completely unacceptable that the EU Commission is to shelve consumers' justified demands to know about the origin of the foods we all eat.
The EU Parliament ought to put the screws on and ensure that all EU countries label beef and register cattle.
Back in 1997, the governments of the EU countries resolved in the Council to implement labelling and registration.
This has unfortunately only happened in fairly few countries, and there is a tremendous amount of trouble getting the resolution implemented in a number of other countries where not even a start has been made on setting up a labelling system.
<P>
For the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, it is crucially important that consumers' confidence should not merely be preserved but also increased, that public health should be protected and that the quality of foodstuffs should be high.
It is therefore completely unacceptable that the Commission should not have put this important area in order.
Consumers should be able to rely upon the quality of the beef they buy, and they can only do that if it is possible to monitor the animal concerned from its birth until such time as the beef ends up on the dinner table.
That is to say, the animal' s country of origin, the country in which it was slaughtered, the name of the abattoir and the identity of the butchers should be known.
<P>
The Commission' s proposal to postpone compulsory labelling and registration is quite unacceptable.
We can support Mr Heinz Kindermann' s opinion and we also expect at least EUR 15 million to be allocated for the purpose, for it is an urgent matter to get these arrangements in place.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=310 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Mr President, Mr Byrne, you have presented the Council decision to us here today.
I agree with you that this is really the task of the Council, but I would like to refer to the seventh point, which says that there must be a labelling provision as soon as possible in consultation with the European Parliament.
I consider this passage to be cynical, given that this paper again excludes the European Parliament from codecision.
It is the same approach as that taken in 1997 when the Commission proposed codecision to us and Parliament and the Commission tabled a proposal.
We made a great deal of effort only to see the Council unanimously reject the proposal and decide without Parliament.
<P>
That meant that the Council had taken over responsibility.
The Council failed to fulfil its responsibility to implement what it itself had decided in Article 19, namely to issue implementing provisions on 1.1.2000.
Then Parliament was again taken to task and again it fulfilled its obligation.
We have not moaned and groaned, we have sat down and got on with the work - on the subject of which, Mr Papayannakis, heartfelt thanks to you as rapporteur and to Mr Kindermann, the rapporteur for the Committee on Agriculture, and to the administration and legal service.
Everyone has made an effort!
There was good coordination between the Committee on Agriculture and the Committee on the Environment.
We negotiated with the Commission.
We put our cards on the table and said, excuse me, but we have a contribution to make to this procedure.
The result: do or die!
If you want to be part of the procedure, then you must divorce yourself from it as far as the content is concerned, otherwise we will not accept your case!
<P>
Mr Byrne, you said earlier that the decision now rests with Parliament.
This means that if we adopt what you have submitted to us, then it will go through.
If we table amendments which really are justified, over which we have taken time and trouble, then you will decide without us.
This is a snub to Parliament by the Council which we are not prepared to accept.
<P>
Now to the role of the Commission.
The Commission has told us that there is no longer any time for implementing provisions.
Please, indulge us!
We are indulgent and where does it get us?
Since the way in which we have amended it obviously does not suit you, you go on to the next proposal by introducing the compulsory system under Article 19, saying at the same time that the voluntary system will be extended by one year, thereby excluding Parliament from the process.
That too is a snub to Parliament which we cannot accept.
We take the view that Article 19 does not legally allow this postponement.
We have been involved in a procedure since the 1997 decision and we shall most probably find ourselves involved in a procedure again after this decision, which means, furthermore that it would be in the consumers' interest to draw up an urgently needed timetable with us in order to ensure the reasonable and timely application of this compulsory labelling system.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=311 NAME="Hyland">
Mr President, I welcome this opportunity to make a brief contribution to this debate and to open with the comment that an early and satisfactory resolution of the controversy surrounding food safety is of paramount importance to consumers, to our farmers and indeed to the food industry.
<P>
Already the fall-out from BSE has cost farmers millions of pounds and left consumers both confused and bewildered.
While not detracting from the seriousness of the situation, the impact on consumer confidence has been far greater in my view than the actual threat to public health.
It is for this reason that we must quickly put beyond doubt the safety of all food, including beef, through a credible and totally transparent traceability programme.
Delays at this stage are unacceptable and Parliament must keep up the pressure on the Council and on Member States to conform fully with our revised food laws.
<P>
It has been agreed to accept the recommendations of the Scientific Committee as the basis for all decisions on the public health aspect of food production.
To do otherwise in my view would be to politicise unnecessarily what is now a priority EU agenda and indeed would do nothing to restore consumer and farmer confidence.
I sat through an earlier debate relating to this today and one might wonder whether Parliament is united in accepting the basic principle of the recommendations of the Scientific Committee.
<P>
From a consumer perspective, labelling is, of course, part of the resolution of this problem.
It must be clear, it must be understandable: a point that has been made here on many occasions, but it is not the answer to the public health aspect of food production.
<P>
I believe our farmers - and, if I may say so, particularly Irish farmers - have no difficulty in producing a product of the highest quality and safety.
In many respects they have been made the scapegoats in the present controversy and are certainly paying a high price for a crisis that was not of their direct making.
<P>
I very much welcome the leadership provided by the new Commissioner, Mr Byrne, and his commitment to the establishment of an EU food safety agency.
I know, Commissioner, that you are doing everything possible to bring this proposal to fruition as quickly as possible and it is very important that you do so.
<P>
The European agricultural model, based on family farms, in my view provides the infrastructure necessary to give our consumers quality and choice.
That particular concept of the agricultural model has been debated and agreed on by our Committee on Agriculture and indeed by Parliament too. It has been reflected in the Agenda 2000 proposals.
<P>
I want to make the point that in our anxiety to protect consumers we must be equally careful not to over-regulate a sector which has the capacity to produce a diverse range of quality food.
In my view there is no substitute for the quality of beef, lamb and pork produced by European farmers.
This fact must be fully reflected in the trade talks still to get under way in Seattle, where our competitors in world trade will have a vested interest in frustrating our efforts to put our agriculture and food sector on a sound and competitive footing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=312 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Keppelhoff-Wiechert">
Mr President, Commissioner, as far as the labelling of beef is concerned, we are not debating the substance here today but the timetable, which needs to be laid down.
We are also debating the highly topical issue of the Council' s approach and the Commission' s behaviour and position.
The Commission has submitted two proposals to us on beef labelling, one which makes beef labelling compulsory in Member States as of 1 January 2001 and one which is drafted as a transitional regulation up to 31 December 2000, i.e. voluntary labelling.
<P>
The timetable submitted by the Commission must be rejected in the interests of the consumer.
Mr Kindermann has submitted what I consider to be a convincing timetable.
The European Parliament should agree to voluntary labelling up to 31 August 2000, with compulsory labelling to be introduced as quickly as possible.
Only in this way can we send out a clear signal to anxious consumers.
There can be no question of continuing to allow the slowest link in the chain to set the pace.
Nor can there be any question of the new Commission continuing to hide behind what to me look very like the old delaying tactics.
The delay in the implementation of the regulation cannot be ascribed solely to the Commission and individual Member States.
In other words, this approach would have been totally unnecessary if the Commission had acted promptly at the time.
Then there is the point that the applicable Regulation 820/97 still contains the obligation to introduce the compulsory system by 1 January 2000.
The Commission' s excuse for the delay is that the Member States were late sending in the necessary reports on the implementation of the labelling system.
I really do wonder if the model pupils in the Member States are again being punished here.
<P>
We must not tolerate this cat-and-mouse game by the Commission any longer!
You should know, Mr Byrne, that none of us can afford to put on such airs and graces.
You should bear in mind that we really want to decide on this proposal under the codecision procedure.
Consumer interests must come first.
Consequently, we should, in my opinion, support the timetable suggested by Mr Kindermann in tomorrow' s vote.
With this timetable we really can send a signal to our anxious consumers and we should all bear in mind that we sit here as the representatives of the people, that we have been elected by the consumers and that it is we Members of Parliament who must lay ourselves open time and again to discussions with our citizens.
I have the impression that the Council has already distanced itself from them by quite some way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=313 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Rojo">
Mr President, the European Parliament is in favour of these measures and has also shown that it is in favour of operating in a flexible way so that these measures are implemented effectively.
But the European Parliament is against the use of deadlines as an excuse for this measure never being implemented.
<P>
The manoeuvring of the Council and its secrecy with Parliament, Mr President, are increasing our suspicions in this respect to the point where we almost want to accuse them of having something to hide.
<P>
Neither do I share the euphoria of those who think that, by means of labels, we are going to do away with food fraud, nor do I share the fears of those who think that this is a form of renationalisation.
It is simply a measure which will offer the consumer more information, and that is significant, Mr President, at a time when, in the European Union, confidence in food safety has been eroded.
<P>
Therefore, we believe that the Council has made a big mistake and must put it right as soon as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=314 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Staes">
Mr President, Commissioner, only last week did the annual BAMST workshop take place at the University of Ghent.
BAMST stands for Belgian Association for Meat Science and Technology.
This year' s theme was traceability, a means to guarantee the quality of meat and meat products.
Professor Jan Van Hoof gave a clear overview of the situation in Belgium in terms of traceability of meat and it should be said: there is finally some good news from the Belgian federation.
Together with France and Finland, we are the only country which has completed the implementation of the present directive.
However, what the Council and Commission are trying to dish up here today beggars belief.
I support the observations made by all those who have intervened in the debate so far.
This joint protest from our Committees on Agriculture and the Environment ensures that we want to put a stop to the Commission' s proposals and rightly so.
A three-year delay for a compulsory regulation is unacceptable to us.
Even a one year delay is.
Let there be no mistake: we want the compulsory regulation in place by 1 September.
Let this be a warning to the Council.
If necessary, we will call on the Court of Justice.
This is a violation of Community Law; a gross insult.
I therefore urge all those present to fully approve rapporteur Papayannakis' report.
We will take a hard line on this.
After all, we want to use compulsory labelling as a means to help those who want to restore consumer confidence in meat.
This should happen sooner rather than later.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=315 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Daul">
Mr President, as I am the last to speak, I shall not repeat what everyone else has said.
I would first like to answer the English Member this evening, as there are not many of us and we are all friends here, without stirring up any controversy.
<P>
I have already said in this Chamber that British and Irish farmers are in a difficult situation and we must help them.
We must work out who should pay and we must make the calculations together.
If France has to pay - and perhaps the courts will decide that it must - French politicians will accept their responsibilities, but neither should we forget that those who have not respected the rules on the treatment of meal and who have placed us in this situation must also pay.
We must certainly not forget them.
<P>
Commissioner, my only concern is that the 1997 political commitment not be jeopardised.
Why is the Council taking a step backwards?
Who are the pressure groups?
Knowing, as we do, what has happened throughout the European meat industry and what is still happening in other countries, I wonder.
Are there pressure groups forcing it to move backwards, to go back on what has already been done in this industry in terms of labelling and also in terms of the consumer in order to clarify things?
<P>
Can you tell us Commissioner, what proposals you have presented to the Council?
Because normally, unless I am mistaken, the Commission makes several proposals to the Council when discussions are held, as was the case yesterday.
<P>
How do you expect the citizen and consumer to understand this backwards step?
Why is the Council rejecting Parliament' s proposal?
These are certainly not budgetary measures.
As far as abattoirs and traceability are concerned, I think that the Council is adopting a contrary attitude, and will have to accept sole responsibility.
I agree with today' s speakers that Parliament must make the Council aware of this.
I am therefore counting on you, Commissioner, to act rapidly - and this will be our New Year present for the end of 1999 and in that way Parliament will not be disappointed at the beginning of 2000.
You can still intervene and you can still change the Council' s mind.
<P>
The second point which I would like to draw to your attention before the start of 2000 is this: let us not wait until December, as we have waited this year until November, to put a definitive regulation on the table. This will enable us to apply it as rapidly as possible, for which, moreover, Mr Papayannakis' excellent report makes provision.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=316 NAME="Byrne">
Let me begin with a word of apology for my delayed arrival this afternoon.
Unfortunately, weather conditions in Brussels led to the cancellation of this morning's flight and therefore I was unable to be present in person to update Parliament on the BSE dispute.
This has led I know to a change in the schedule of Parliamentary business with this important debate now taking place late in the evening.
I have been informed of all the work of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development on this proposal.
I would like to congratulate Mr Papayannakis, the rapporteur, and Mr Kindermann, draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
<P>
The business before us is the Commission proposal to extend the existing voluntary labelling requirements under Regulation (EC) No 820/97 for a further year.
I am very aware that Parliament is deeply unhappy that a compulsory labelling regime is not in place as envisaged with effect from 1 January 2000.
I note that there is a proposed amendment which criticises the Commission and certain Member States for this delay.
However there were good and justifiable reasons for this delay.
Firstly, Member States did not submit the required reports on existing arrangements in sufficient time.
Secondly, not all Member States will be in a position to establish reliable registration and identification systems for all animals.
Finally, the last Commission took a decision, following its resignation, not to present any major new political initiatives and I understand that Parliament agreed with that proposal.
<P>
This Commission was therefore faced with a very difficult situation.
There was a very tight deadline, 1 January 2000, within which to agree a proposal laying down general rules for a compulsory system to apply from that date.
Quite simply, with the best will in the world, this deadline cannot be met.
The proposal has been made under the codecision procedure but full agreement between the Community institutions cannot be expected for several months.
This is the minimum time necessary to agree such important issues.
<P>
In these circumstances, the Commission also presented a second proposal to prolong the existing voluntary arrangements provided for under Regulation (EC) No 820/97. This is also in accordance with the codecision procedure.
It therefore is also confronted with the very pressing deadline of 1 January 2000.
The challenge is to reach full agreement within the next week or so.
<P>
Yesterday the Council discussed this second Commission proposal for a prolongation of the existing regime.
The Council agreed an orientation on this proposal with only one amendment - the addition of Article 37 alongside Article 152 - to the legal base.
This is, of course, a major amendment which, in my opinion, does not favour a quick conclusion to the codecision procedure.
Any amendment by Parliament to the Commission's proposal, which is contrary to the orientation agreed by the Council yesterday is equally certain to block any progress towards agreement before the end of this year.
<P>
This puts both the Parliament and the Commission in a very difficult situation.
You will be very aware of the implications.
In these circumstances, the Commission has a responsibility to act.
As already signalled, the Commission would be obliged, in order to avoid a legal void, to present a third proposal. This third proposal would be based on Article 19 of the existing Regulation (EC) No 820/97 and would prolong the existing arrangements providing for voluntary labelling.
<P>
My intention would be to examine carefully your amendments with a view to seeing in what measure they can be considered.
On this point I must underline that certain amendments which aim to shorten delays go in the direction of improved consumer protection, which of course is an issue that is close to my heart.
I can in this context accept amendments which aim to shorten the period during which the existing arrangements can continue for a period of eight months.
<P>
However, I cannot accept your amendments concerning bringing forward the labelling of place of slaughter with effect from 1 January 2000.
I have a lot of sympathy for this amendment and signal to the Council a strong wish to have it considered in their common position.
Indeed, yesterday in Council I drew the Council's attention to the fact that there was an amendment put forward by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy on Monday.
However, there was virtually no support.
It is also a provision which would perhaps be better addressed in the main proposal on the general rules. This proposal is also currently before the Council and Parliament.
<P>
The Commission cannot accept the proposed amendment to drop the requirement for real debate between Parliament, the Council and the Commission on the main proposal based on Article 152 of the Treaty.
This would be the consequence if this amendment is adopted: Parliament would give up its important obligation to participate in this debate.
<P>
I should like to add that the debate is still open in relation to the Commission proposal on the general rules applying an obligatory regime.
It is in this context that the main debate should take place.
It is unfortunate that discussions of these very complex and important issues have had to take place in the context of an emergency decision with a near-impossible deadline.
<P>
The Commission is of the view that Article 152 is the appropriate legal base.
This is an extremely important and contested issue which is currently before the Court of Justice.
On this question the Commission cannot agree to the addition of Article 37.
<P>
There is little or no appetite in the Member States for a fully compulsory system from 1 January 2000.
We cannot ignore this reality, nor can we assume that we have a better idea of the obligations involved than the Member States.
Member States can choose to impose compulsory labelling for beef cattle born, raised and slaughtered on their own territory.
Only three have chosen to do so.
<P>
The Commission is in favour of full, compulsory labelling.
It is therefore proposed that it should take place from 1 January 2001 for place of slaughter and, in addition, from 1 January 2003 for place of birth and fattening.
I can assure you that I am committed to this particular proposal and to the question of compulsory labelling.
It is my intention to pursue that in the period of time I am in office, and to do so quickly.
<P>
Turning to some of the questions that were raised by some of you, I will try to give you some answers in relation to these issues.
<P>
In relation to the question raised by Mr Papayannakis when he said: "You are trying to fool us here". I am not sure if the interpreters made some kind of mistake.
I would like to place a benign interpretation on those words rather than a malign one, because they are open to the interpretation that I am attempting to mislead Parliament.
That, as you know, Mr Papayannakis, is one of the most serious charges that can be laid against anybody.
If that was your intention I reject it and resent it.
I have always been open with Parliament.
On the first day I came here, when I spoke at my hearings in September, I made it absolutely clear that it was my intention to be open and transparent with Parliament.
I have appeared in Parliament in plenary session on many occasions in the short time that I have been Commissioner.
I have appeared before committees of this House on a number of occasions also.
Never once in that period of time was any such suggestion made to me.
I do not accept it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=317 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Mr President, it would be the easiest thing in the world for me just to apologise.
I think you misunderstood what I said.
It is not in my nature to be insulting when discussing politics.
I do not know what the interpreter said, but under no circumstances did I mean that I had a problem with you, not by any stretch of the imagination.
<P>
However, Commissioner, the essence of my political question remains and, if you would care to, please reply to it.
Did the Council decide yesterday to postpone for a year without waiting to see what we wanted, yes or no?
Did the Council decide yesterday to circumvent Parliament' s opinion, yes or no?
These are not insults, Commissioner.
They are serious conclusions based on the Council' s action.
Obviously, you have no reason in the final analysis to act as Council' s advocate.
<P>
I therefore repeat that under no circumstances did I intend any slight on your honour or your reputation and if you think that I did or if you were given any cause to do so, I apologise.
However, I repeat, the problem is how you interpret what the Council did yesterday.
You have no reason to try and defend it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=318 NAME="Byrne">
I am happy to say that I accept the explanation and apology offered by Mr Papayannakis and the gracious way in which he has done so.
Let us put it down to interpretation difficulties.
<P>
In response to his question, he is perfectly right.
I am not here to answer for Council and all I can say is that I read out the conclusions of the Council yesterday.
I should say that the Council did not adopt this as its decision, but rather said that this was its view, its orientation, but made it clear that it would have to await the outcome of Parliament's decision tomorrow on this particular issue before finally voting on the issue and adopting a position.
For that reason I understand that this issue is going back to one of the Councils before the end of this year for finalisation, having regard to what Parliament said today and what Parliament will vote on and decide tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=319 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=14>
BST
<SPEAKER ID=320 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0098/1999) by Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council decision concerning the placing on the market of bovine somatotrophin (BST) and repealing Council Decision 90/218/EEC [COM(1999) 544 - C5-0250/1999 - 1999/0219(CNS)].
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<SPEAKER ID=321 NAME="Keppelhoff-Wiechert">
Mr President, Commissioner, as the ban on placing BST on the market and administering it expires at the end of 1999, this matter has become a matter of urgency to us.
This proposal is designed to definitively prohibit the marketing of BST and its administration to dairy cows.
The Commission refers to scientific studies which confirm that the use of BST inflicts unnecessary pain on animals.
Consequently, I reject the marketing and administration of BST in the European Union, as formulated in the report, on the grounds of animal welfare.
May I remind you that all the Member States have approved and ratified an agreement on animal welfare on livestock holdings.
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BST use increases the incidence of mastitis and foot and leg disorders and adversely affects reproduction in cattle.
There is also evidence of loss of profitability, premature culling and death.
The numbers speak for themselves.
BST increases the risk of mastitis by 25%, the risk of infertility by 18% and of paralysis by as much as 50%.
However, there are not only animal welfare considerations; there are also health and economic considerations which justify the withdrawal of BST.
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BST is also rejected by consumers.
It is reasonable to suppose that BST could lead to a change in consumption patterns and exacerbate the imbalance in the milk, milk products and beef and veal sectors.
What is even more ridiculous is that surpluses are produced even under normal conditions.
BST is not a treatment; its only purpose is to increase milk production.
The milk quota system was introduced precisely in order to reduce milk production and now we are to take it ad absurdum with BST.
That cannot be!
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Exports would also suffer.
No major buyer or producer of milk and milk products anywhere in the world has permitted the use of this hormone, apart from the USA.
We have been elected to represent our citizens and hence our consumers.
We must therefore take our duty seriously and fight on behalf of the electorate.
BST is a genetically engineered hormone.
No Member State has yet carried out field tests with BST.
It has not been established what changes could potentially occur in the composition of milk and the effects of genetic engineering on human health cannot yet be assessed.
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The fact that a small number of countries have allowed the hormone to be used must not lead to a watering down of international health standards.
However, even more decisive is the fact that BST is rejected by consumers.
It is not by chance that leading supermarket chains stated, following a consumer survey in 1994, that they would not sell milk from cows treated with BST, even if the EU moratorium were lifted.
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What we cannot, however, explain to consumers is that all the Member States of the European Union import a lot of BST milk products from the USA, together with products from the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Bulgaria, and that these products, for example, cheese from milk obtained this way, have been landing on our consumers' tables for a long time.
As third countries in which this hormone is permitted are not obliged to notify this officially, the Commission does not have an exhaustive list of these countries.
I think this is another challenge facing the Commission.
The Commission should check, first, if BST is harmful to human health and, secondly, how imports of BST products can be made really transparent.
The Commission proposal has no effect on the production of BST in the Member States or on imports of this substance, provided that it is to be exported to third countries.
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Allow me, as your rapporteur, to conclude by saying that we all naturally find it difficult to explain to our voters that BST is already being manufactured in some Member States but that it is not used here.
I am not sure if we should go into this point too critically in public, given that jobs are at stake.
I hope - and we are at one with the Commission on this - that we can agree on this urgency and wrap the whole thing up tomorrow.
Thank you to all those who were involved.
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<SPEAKER ID=322 NAME="McCartin">
Mr President, I am not speaking on behalf of my group.
I will vote with the majority of my group as I always do when they decide in a democratic way, but I am afraid I do not hold the same view as Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert.
She made her case very well and she "threw the book at it".
There was no conceivable argument against use or about the possible dangers that might occur that she did not invoke.
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I find myself in the same position I found myself in many years ago when, on the initiative of Parliament, we banned natural hormones in the production of beef. We cost the European beef producers something like EUR 12 to 15 billion.
In the meantime we did not enhance the safety of beef.
We based our decision on political ideology rather than scientific investigation.
The truth is that we ban American beef today because those hormones are there; but the truth is also that we know that, if we allowed the Americans to sell that beef into our market, at good value to our consumers, and if we were to put a label on it saying those hormones were there, they would still buy it.
We know that.
If we did not know that, why would we ban it?
Let them come with their beef and if our consumers are so concerned they would not eat it anyway.
But I do not believe they are so concerned.
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It is the same with this product we propose to ban today.
It is motivated by ideology rather than science.
I believe we have a committee called the CVM.
This committee for veterinary medical products which works within the European Medicines Evaluation Agency concluded that BST was safe, efficacious and of suitable quality.
As such, they recommended that the product was suitable for release.
They found that it did not affect the health of animals and that it was a natural product that did not affect the health of human beings.
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We had another committee which gave a different point of view.
My understanding is that it is the committee that gave the all-clear which is the committee on which we are relying.
The only thing I want to say to the Commissioner is, could he please tell us which advice he is taking?
Does he regard the committee whose advice he rejects as incompetent, unable to judge what is good for animals or dangerous for human health?
Is he going to dismiss them and refuse to accept their advice or opinions any more?
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<SPEAKER ID=323 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kindermann">
Mr President, today we are at last discussing the definitive ban on the administration and marketing of BST in the European Union and, hopefully, this will mark an end to the ten-year process during which the final decision has been postponed time and time again on the grounds, of course, that there was no conclusive scientific evidence which justified a definitive ban.
We are now in possession of this evidence and it confirms that the use of this hormone pushes cows to their physiological limits.
The consequences are leg and foot injuries, stomach/intestinal malfunctions and impaired fertility, not to mention the increase in mastitis.
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Cows are therefore subjected to unnecessary pain.
This is unacceptable for reasons of animal welfare, but have all the risks to human health been excluded?
What about BST residues in the body which have not been broken down, what about the possible change in the composition of the milk, not to mention the increase in the antibiotics administered in order to treat the sick cows.
I would therefore like to support the rapporteur' s request that we step up efforts to clear up the question of the effect of BST on human health once and for all.
On behalf of the group of the Party of European Socialists, I would like to thank Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert as rapporteur for her rapid work and we, of course, emphatically support her report.
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<SPEAKER ID=324 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Busk">
Mr President, we are able to support the rapporteur' s opinion, but I should like to make a few comments.
We agree that the investigations which have been made into animals' health are of decisive importance to our resolution and are also of decisive importance to the fact that BST ought not to be used here in the EU.
That is to say, we support Article 1.
When we talk about public health, however, I must however say that we still have a number of problems with the results of the seventeen scientific investigations which were not able to distinguish the naturally produced BST hormones from the artificially manufactured ones.
We ought not to push these scenarios further than can be justified by the scientific evidence.
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Articles 2 and 3 deal with continued licence to produce the BST hormone here in the EU.
In my opinion, we are coming close here to practising a double standard.
When I think about everything that was said here this evening and in recent months about BST hormones, of the trade war with the United States and about American beef produced using hormones, I feel we are near to courting a double standard, when these hormone preparations are manufactured here in Europe and subsequently sold to the United States which then uses the BST hormone.
I cannot therefore support the wordings of Articles 2 and 3.
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<SPEAKER ID=325 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Mr President, I endorse the statements made by the rapporteur and Mr Kindermann and there is no need for me to repeat them.
I would like to express my satisfaction at having reached the point where, after years of discussion, we can consider the matter closed.
I should like to stress once again that we must be very careful when it comes to using genetically engineered drugs for preventative purposes.
Unlike in the health sector, no side effects can be tolerated in agricultural applications.
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I should like to make another point as chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
We have agreed on Amendment No 3.
There was also an oral proposal for an amendment which was agreed with the Commission.
I will not go into the details, but it was not included in the report.
I should like my request for this to be clarified, entered in the Minutes and for us to have the version that we have in fact agreed upon at tomorrow' s vote.
As I have said, it was agreed with the Commission.
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<SPEAKER ID=326 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Redondo Jiménez">
Mr President, firstly I would like to congratulate Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert on the report and the urgency with which she has carried it out.
I would like to stress to the Commission - which only now is delivering us a document which was drawn up at the end of October - that Parliament has had to work against the clock.
In fact, we only have a few days before the expiry of the deadline for the most recent extension of the deferral of the Regulation whose derogation by the Commission we are going to vote on.
This deadline expires on 1 January of the coming year.
Therefore, I would ask the Commission - so as not to repeat all the arguments expressed by the previous speakers - to send us documents more quickly so that we do not have to work against the clock.
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I would like to stress once again that the consumers do not want BST.
Consumers refuse to accept the idea of cows producing milk containing BST. This hormone is never used for medicinal reasons.
It is only used to produce more milk, and this can cause us problems, since we have a surplus of dairy products. Furthermore, problems may arise with regard to our agriculture, as well as negative reactions to it and there may be contradictions in our new Community Agricultural Policy guidelines.
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I would also like to point out to the Commission that it must continue to investigate the possible effects of BST on consumers' health.
At the moment they do not seem to be harmful, but nor do they seem to be entirely harmless.
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Therefore, Commissioner, Parliament, which is working rigorously and is taking its work ever more seriously, requests that you do not make us work against the clock and that, furthermore, you take account of the reactions and proposals which we make, which often end up in the waste paper bin.
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<SPEAKER ID=327 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Rojo">
Mr President, the greatest problem I have with the text on which we are going to vote tomorrow - I have just acquired a copy - lies in article 3 of the Commission proposal, according to which we would ban these substances in the European Union. I ask the Commission to listen because I am going to ask for clarification; according to this article we would vote for a ban on these substances within the European Union, but this ban would not affect their manufacture or marketing within the European Union, since we could send them to another Member State with a view to their export to third countries.
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Mr President, this is not acceptable to me, since if we ban these substances and their marketing within the European Union, as the agreement says, it would not be legal to be able to send them, within the European Union, to another Member State.
Nor would it be legal, as we are currently doing, to produce them in a Member State.
Therefore, I would ask you to clarify whether this is the case because, according to this text and according to the Commission, this ban would not affect marketing or exporting to third countries.
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Mr President, I believe that this would be extremely hypocritical.
What we do not want for ourselves, we allow for others when it is a question of earning money.
I believe that everything has its limit, and if we have principles for ourselves, we must hold the same principles with regard to non-EU countries; and, of course, within the European Union, we cannot produce, manufacture or market these substances.
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<SPEAKER ID=328 NAME="Byrne">
I should like to thank Parliament for having admitted this proposal as an urgent point so it would be dealt with before the end of this year.
As you know, the Council has already banned - in 1990 - the placing on the market and the use of BST on dairy cows under Council Decision 90/218/EEC.
The moratorium was extended by the Council in 1994 until 31 December 1999 by Council Decision 94/936/EC.
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Article 2 of Council Decision 94/936/EC provided that the Commission had to entrust a working party of independent scientists with the task of assessing the effects of using BST.
Before putting a new proposal on the table of the Council the Commission was waiting for the opinions of the two scientific committees which were delivered on 18 March 1999.
The Scientific Committee on Veterinary Measures Relating to Public Health recognised that there could be possible links with prostate and breast cancer and, in view of the lack of evidence, indicated that further studies were necessary.
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Secondary risks are possible: allergic reactions and an increased use of anti-microbial substances.
The lack of evidence will oblige the Commission to follow very closely all scientific research into the potential adverse affects on human health of dietary exposure to products derived from BST-treated cows and, if necessary, make recommendations for further preventative measures.
The Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare adopted on 10 March 1999 its report on animal welfare aspects of the use of bovine somatotrophin and stated that BST increases the risk of clinical mastitis as well as the duration of treatment of mastitis, it increases the incidence of foot and leg disorders and it can affect adversely reproduction and induce several severe reactions at the injection site.
Therefore it follows from that opinion of the SCAHAW that BST should not be used in dairy cows.
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The protocol on protection and welfare of animals annexed to the Treaty establishing the European Community calls on the Community and Member States when formulating and implementing the Community's agricultural policy to pay full regard to the health and welfare requirements of animals.
By Decision 78/923/EEC the Community approved the European Convention for the protection of animals kept for farming purposes.
All Member States have also ratified this convention.
Council Directive 98/58/EC concerning the protection of animals kept for farming purposes states that no other substance, with the exception of those given for therapeutic or prophylactic purposes, shall be administered to an animal unless it has been demonstrated by scientific studies of animal welfare or of established experience that the effect of the substance is not detrimental to the health or welfare of the animal.
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BST is not used in cattle for therapeutic purposes but only to enhance milk production and has detrimental effects on the animals.
In the light of this opinion of the Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare, the Commission - moved by me at its meeting of 28 October - adopted a decision proposing a permanent ban on the marketing and use of BST in the Community as from 1 January 2000 in accordance with the provisions laid down in Council Decision 98/58/EC on the protection of animals kept for farming purposes.
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For the purpose of clarification I should say that BST is not for sale in Europe, but it is manufactured here.
There is one company manufacturing BST in the European Union.
It is authorised for export to third countries only.
It is not authorised for sale in the European Union.
I should also say that any further steps to ban its manufacture for sale outside the European Union would not have a legal base and would be something outside the competence of the Commission.
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<SPEAKER ID=329 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Rojo">
Mr President, I would like the Commissioner to clarify whether a piece of information that I have is correct. It appears that this substance is manufactured in Austria, from there it goes to Holland and from Holland it is exported to non-EU countries.
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Commissioner, is it true that it is manufactured in Austria, from there goes to Holland and from Holland is exported?
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The Commissioner' s words confirm that this is the case, that within the European Union we are manufacturing it and marketing it.
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<SPEAKER ID=330 NAME="Byrne">
Yes, for clarification purposes, I can say that it is manufactured in a factory in Austria; that it is, I am instructed, bottled in the Netherlands for export to third countries, but not for sale within the European Union.
I should say that there is no legal base for preventing that particular manufacture or trans-shipment through the Netherlands for sale to third countries.
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<SPEAKER ID=331 NAME="President">
<CHAPTER ID=16>
Award of the Sakharov Prize to Mr Xanana Gusmão
<SPEAKER ID=332 NAME="President">
Mr Gusmão, on behalf of the European Parliament and myself, I must say that it is an honour and a very great pleasure for us to welcome you to this House.
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We were overjoyed to hear of your release just three months ago on 7 September.
You showed admirable and unyielding courage throughout your detention which began on 20 November 1992.
You managed to retain your inner freedom despite the ill treatment which you endured, particularly in psychological terms, and which was intended to prevent you from making your defence.
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During your trial, you had the skill and found the strength to denounce before the world' s press the genocidal nature of the occupation of East Timor.
Despite the extremely difficult conditions of your imprisonment, you found the courage to take advantage of these circumstances to develop strategies for resistance, to study languages and law and also to write wonderful poems and paint pictures which you very kindly gave to me just now.
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I trust you will permit me to give a brief resumé of your life for the benefit of the House.
Originally from East Timor, the eldest child of teachers, you studied mainly at the Catholic mission of Nossa Senhora di Fatima.
You started work at a very early age as a schoolteacher.
Before the age of 30, you joined the team of the A vos de Timor newspaper.
At the same time, you became actively involved in the central committee of the Fretilin resistance movement or the Revolutionary Front for the Independence of East Timor.
During the invasion of your country by Indonesia, you went into hiding.
After three years, you became the head of the guerrilla unit Falintin which was the armed wing of the resistance movement.
According to the press, the repressive occupation claimed 200 000 victims, a third of the population.
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You worked tirelessly to find a peaceful solution.
You proposed a peace plan to the Indonesian Government and talks under the auspices of the United Nations Organisation.
You wanted to take the fight for a free East Timor beyond party politics and so you brought together the various forces within the National Council of Timorese Resistance.
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You can be sure that this House is proud of having helped, by participating in the pressure exerted by the international community, to prompt the Indonesian President, Mr Habibi, to release you on 7 September. This came just after the referendum of 30 August in which 70.5% of the population of East Timor voted in favour of independence.
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The European Parliament, in its work chaired by Vice-President Pacheco Pereira, has been delighted with the courage shown by the Timorese people to the whole world.
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Like Mr Mandela in South Africa, you are the spokesperson for peace, justice and freedom in your country.
Your compatriots and people around the world know that it was with solid conviction that you declared on leaving prison that as a free man, you would undertake to do everything in your power to bring peace to East Timor and to your people.
You said to me just now that everything must now be built or rebuilt, in terms of logistics and training, in the health, justice and public service sectors.
The temporary administration which the UN is going to establish will form a basis for this.
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You have declared that you want a pluralist democracy with open institutions, a diversified economy and a role for the press and non-governmental organisations.
We hope that the experience of 25 years of suffering will enable your people to realise this dream.
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I am particularly pleased to be able to highlight the favourable influence which the Sakharov Prize has had on the fate of its candidates.
Among these I can think of Mr Ksila of Tunisia and Mr Birdal of Turkey who were released a few days after having been nominated, as well as Mr Mandela in South Africa and Mr Dubèek in the Czech Republic.
With regard to Mrs Suu Kyi and Mrs Zana, I have again spoken to the authorities in their countries to protest about the draconian conditions imposed on their freedom.
All these illustrious people have taken up the torch carried by Andrey Sakharov in making the defence of human rights and fundamental freedoms their life' s goal.
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So, Mr Gusmão, on behalf of the whole European Parliament, I am delighted to give you this extremely symbolic prize.
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(Loud applause)
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<SPEAKER ID=333 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Xanana Gusmão">
Madam President of the European Parliament, Mrs Fontaine, honourable Members of the European Parliament, ladies and gentlemen, I am greatly honoured and moved to be here with you today, with you, the elected representatives of the citizens of Europe.
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I must confess that when I returned to East Timor, I was devastated by the havoc caused by the systematic destruction and I could scarcely have imagined that I would come to Strasbourg and that I would have the rare opportunity of seeing and walking through the corridors and halls of the seat of democratic power in Europe, a Europe that shared with us the pain and suffering of genocide, but also the courage and the strength to resist a campaign of destruction and murder.
I would like to take this opportunity, on behalf of my people, to thank you for the attention and solidarity that you have shown by adopting numerous resolutions supporting my people in exercising their right to self-determination.
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By giving the name of Sakharov to this prize, you are paying tribute to a man who fought vigorously for the freedom of thought.
Nothing characterises human beings as much as the ability to think.
To deprive someone of being able to think freely and to express his or her ideas is to deprive that person of their dignity as a human being.
Freedom of thought then, is a fundamental right of every human being and in Europe, it has become one of the fundamental pillars of citizenship.
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In totalitarian regimes, the oppressors repress and suppress freedom of thought.
In Indonesia, our experience showed that through the regime of the Orde Baru (New Order), led by Suharto and his generals, which occupied my homeland for more than two decades, a system of repression and suppression was implemented through the imposition of a doctrine, Pancasila, which regimented thought and consequently human behaviour, in an attempt to destroy the ability to think in an individual, collective and, above all, free way.
This doctrine permeated the whole of Indonesian society, was transposed to East Timor and was carefully backed by a campaign of physical torture and mental conditioning.
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Ironically though, these acts caused the opposite effect: they strengthened the identity and the determination of our people.
After the fall of Suharto in May 1998, ways opened up for the resolution of the conflict in East Timor and for the democratisation of Indonesia.
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I would like to take this opportunity to pay sincere tribute to all winners of the Sakharov Prize, particularly Aung Sang Suu Kyi, one of the greatest fighters for freedom and democracy in the whole world.
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(Loud applause)
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Madam President, by exercising our most basic right, that of determining our own future as a free and independent country, it was easy to foresee tragic consequences, but our people did not hesitate to show, once again, that it is staunchly determined to defend its freedom.
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Now that the terrible months of pain and suffering are over, with the murders and the irrational destruction of our homeland having been inflicted in a particularly brutal way, the Maubere people are preparing for reconstruction.
The tasks ahead are countless and the responsibilities that we all face are enormous.
The period of transition will begin with the first phase of rebuilding infrastructures that have been completely destroyed, in a year which we are calling "the year of emergency" , the year 2000.
Reconstruction will not be of a merely physical, material nature.
Reconstruction will also target social aspects, the political sphere, the economic domain and, above all, human and psychological problems.
Only the interaction of these various components will be able to guarantee a gradual recovery by Timorese society at all levels, in real and universal preparation for independence.
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It is also important that what independence means for us is not just having a President, a flag and a national anthem.
Independence must guarantee the benefits of freedom for a people that has fought so hard and suffered so greatly.
The massive participation of 30 August must continue if the Timorese people are to feel that they themselves are the agents for development.
There will be no development without democracy.
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(Loud applause)
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Apart from the material reconstruction, we are committed to promoting civil society, education about human rights, education about democracy and the precise notion of justice, and we need your support.
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East Timor is not only going to need financial support.
We are in a difficult, even crucial phase, because at the moment we are, or we feel that we are, very fragile and weak in terms of preparing ourselves for an independence that represents a new life for our people.
In this sense we remain confident in Europe' s support, a support that has continued to aim to prepare the Timorese, with a precise notion of universal values, so that, at the last hurdle, we do not betray the suffering of our people.
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We are entering the phase of transition to independence with UNTAET.
Since the arrival of the UN Secretary-General' s special representative, we have been consolidating the mechanisms for consultation so that the Timorese have a say in this transition process.
I must say though that we still feel insecure.
We still feel weak and it is in this sense that the European Parliament and all the other institutions can help us; with other kinds of support rather than that of a merely financial nature.
We want to learn to be responsible towards the international community in the development of our country but, after a long period of political activism and of fighting, we feel today that we are carrying a huge burden on our shoulders because we are responsible for the happiness and the freedom that we have promised our people.
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This prize shows the European Parliament' s recognition of my people' s courage in fighting for a free homeland where freedom of thought is guaranteed as a right that is inherent to the human condition.
My people deserve this recognition and it is on behalf of my people that I would like to thank you for the honour that has been conferred on me.
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(Sustained applause)
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<SPEAKER ID=334 NAME="President">
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
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Are there any comments?
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<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Poettering">
Madam President, I had asked the administration to ensure that the Members of the Charter Convention be officially notified to Parliament and I was assured that this would be done.
Then, contrary to the information given to me by the administration, the President in the Chair yesterday morning - it was not you - did not announce the Members of the Convention here orally.
I then asked the President in the Chair to rectify this, which he later did, and announced the ordinary Members of the Convention.
However, I felt that it was important that both the ordinary Members and the deputy Members should be announced and entered in yesterday' s Minutes, so that the whole House and the public know who the Members and deputy Members are.
The Minutes today only contain the names of the ordinary Members, as announced here yesterday.
My request is that, as the names of the deputies can probably no longer be inserted, they should be notified to Parliament and to the public in the Minutes of today' s sitting which will be distributed tomorrow.
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<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Mr Poettering, I too have noticed that only the names of the full members appear in the Minutes.
I propose that the names of the substitutes be announced at 3.00 p.m. These will then appear in the Minutes of the present sitting.
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<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro e Castro">
Madam President, I would like to make a comment to the services because of a certain confusion about the seating arrangements for the Chamber.
The plan that was distributed shows that my colleague Luís Queiró and I, Ribeiro e Castro, should be sitting here.
Therefore, in the Minutes and in the verbatim report of proceedings, both concerning my intervention on Macao and also on the subject of the question to the Bureau at the time of the resolution on Chechnya, I was incorrectly identified as Luís Queiró, my colleague who sits in seat 571, and not by my own name, Ribeiro e Castro, and I sit in seat 662.
I would be grateful if these corrections could be made and if the plan could also be corrected because it shows two Members sitting in the same seat, which is obviously not right.
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<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
We will put this right, Mr Ribeiro e Castro.
In any case, it is your card which is recorded when voting.
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<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Martínez Martínez">
Madam President, in point 38 of the Minutes, which is Questions to the Council, I have noticed that there is an error in the Spanish and German versions, at least, in that Question 9 is missing.
Question 9 has been omitted in printing.
However, it does mention the speakers on Question 9, but we must correct the fact that it passes from Question 8 to Question 10 without mention of Question 9, which I directed yesterday at the Council. The intervention which appears here by Mr Martínez Martínez is clearly not related to Question 8, but rather to Question 9, which has not been included.
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<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Mr Martínez Martínez, this mistake is in the French version as well as the Spanish version.
We will, of course, correct this and reintroduce question 9.
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<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Johan Van Hecke">
Madam President, I have noticed that in a number of reports, my name has been consistently mixed up with that of Frank Vanhecke.
I would point out that this gentleman, like myself, is Flemish but that this is where the similarity ends.
I would appreciate it if, in future, the correct Christian name were mentioned after the surname.
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<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
We will be very careful about this.
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Are there any other comments on the Minutes?
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<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Cappato">
Madam President, yesterday myself and other Members drew your attention to the suspension of the computer service in the Members' offices, which is anticipated to last for thirteen days.
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Later yesterday, we received the communication that the Parliament in Brussels will actually be totally inaccessible from 27 December to 2 January.
Such a long suspension of the computer service really does seem excessive.
I would therefore like to ask you if it would be possible to get round this inconvenience by working on one sector at a time, thereby making it possible for the Members to access Parliament even during the Christmas holidays.
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<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
Mr Cappato, I can only suggest for the moment that if, for specific reasons, Members wish to enter their offices over this period, they must say so and the necessary steps will be taken so that they can have access to the building and their offices.
I will see if it is possible to go further.
However, for the moment, you know that if you wish to come in individually and you have reason to do so, this can be arranged.
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(The Minutes were approved)
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<CHAPTER ID=2>
Vote
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
We shall now proceed to the vote. However, we will have to postpone the vote on the budget because, as you know, we are still awaiting confirmation of the agreement with the Council which is giving the matter some final consideration.
We hope it will be inspired. We will only be able to vote on the budget once we have the Council' s response so that we can take this into account.
<P>
Report (A5-0090/1999) by Mrs Theato, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the appointment of eight Members of the Court of Auditors (C5-0231/1999, C5-0232/1999, C5-0233/1999, C5-0234/1999, C5-0235/1999, C5-0236/1999, C5-0237/1999, C5-0238/1999 - 1999/0820(CNS))
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fabra Vallés">
Madam President, I simply want to say that I would like it to be recorded in the Minutes that, for obvious reasons, I am going to abstain from this vote, since it affects me directly.
Furthermore, not only am I not going to vote, but I am actually going to leave the Chamber.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Fabra Vallés.
We wish you good luck.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the eight resolutions in successive votes)
<P>
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0099/1999) by Mr Murphy, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on combating late payment in commercial transactions (8790/1999 - C5-0125/1999 - 1998/0099(COD))
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Poettering">
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Poettering. Your intervention is totally justified and I am very happy to enter this item on the agenda of the Conference of Presidents' meeting which is scheduled for this afternoon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Murphy">
Madam President, I have no comment to make.
That was a procedural matter not actually related to the report itself.
We should vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="President">
I agree.
Mr Poettering was not actually opposing the vote on this report but, as you wished to speak, I gave you the opportunity to do so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro e Castro">
Madam President, following on from Mr Poettering' s intervention, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that, yesterday, on the subject of Chechnya, I raised precisely the same kind of problem and drew attention to the need to strictly adhere to the Rules of Procedure.
I regret that, at that moment, Mr Poettering was not as sensitive...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="President">
Mr Ribeiro e Castro, we will look at all these questions in the Conference of Presidents' meeting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Madam President, a brief comment on what Mr Poettering has said.
In principle, we take exactly the same view.
I should just like to point out that, if we adhere strictly to this principle, we shall have huge problems at the January plenary because a great deal has yet to be decided in the committees.
I would ask Mr Poettering to use his influence in his group to ensure that the committees are able to vote on time.
However, it is a perfectly tenable principle for the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="President">
We will consider all these questions in this afternoon' s Conference of Presidents' meeting.
<P>
Commissioner, pursuant to Rule 80(5) of our Rules of Procedure, please tell us the Commission' s position on the amendments proposed by the European Parliament to the Murphy report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schreyer">
Madam President, as my colleague Mr Liikanen explained during yesterday' s debate, the Commission is able to accept the following Amendments: Nos 1, 3, 4, 5, 7-17, 19, 21, 22, 24 and 26.
The Commission can also accept Amendments Nos 6, 20 and 25 in principle.
The Commission does not agree with Amendments Nos 2, 18 and 23.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
<P>
Report (A5-0101/1999) by Mr Papayannakis, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation amending Council Regulation (EC) No 820/97 establishing a system for the identification and registration of bovine animals and regarding the labelling of beef and beef products (COM(1999) 487 - C5-0241/1999 - 1999/0205(COD))
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Papayannakis">
Madam President, I should like to take advantage of the fact that certain members of the Council of Ministers are present.
The Council was not represented during the debate yesterday although its presence had been requested.
<P>
Would they please clarify the contents of the decisions taken yesterday or indeed the day before yesterday? These were of course taken before the European Parliament could give an opinion on the report now before us on the labelling of beef.
According to my sources, the Council has decided to postpone the application of compulsory labelling for one year, whereas we believe this postponement should only be for a matter of months.
It has also decided not to work on this issue with the European Parliament through the codecision procedure.
<P>
As the Council is now present, I should like an explanation because it is clear that this vote does not make much sense now.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="President">
Absolutely, Mr Papayannakis.
This is an excellent suggestion and I shall give the floor immediately to Mrs Siimes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Siimes">
Madam President, I can confirm that yesterday, the Council, for its part, formally and finally adopted the compromise package which was offered to COBU.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="President">
Mrs Siimes, what you have just said is very encouraging but it relates to a later matter.
<P>
Mr Papayannakis' s question concerned another issue, namely his report on the registration of bovine animals and the labelling of beef.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Papayannakis">
Madam President, for the benefit of all our colleagues, I shall tell the Council and our Members about the two decisions which it took yesterday.
<P>
Firstly, the Council decided by qualified majority to postpone the application of compulsory labelling for one year, before Parliament had a chance to give its opinion.
Commissioner Byrne did not formally tell us this.
Secondly, and this is absolutely extraordinary, the Council says in its text that it believes the Commission has a third proposal. This is in addition to the proposal which we are now discussing and concerns the application of this regulation without consulting the European Parliament.
This proposal is based on another article allowing a Council decision to be taken directly with the Commission, with the European Parliament' s opinion being disregarded.
These are the two decisions taken yesterday.
<P>
Commissioner Byrne told us very clearly yesterday that these were merely guidelines.
The text which I have read does not allow such an interpretation and is actually quite categorical.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="President">
Does the Commission wish to give any further clarification?
<P>
(The Commissioner present did not wish to speak)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Madam President, if the Council and the Commission are not in a position to clarify this, then I shall endeavour to do so.
The Council did not decide to postpone for a year, but a conclusion was accepted whereby if Parliament accepts a proposed amendment in this report on labelling and does not pass the Commission proposal without proposed amendments, then the Council will not accept any such amendments and will not proceed under the simplified procedure.
<P>
If we dare to accept a proposed amendment, the Council will agree to the Commission' s tabling another text which has already been dealt with in the Council.
If it is tabled as an official Commission proposal in accordance with our procedure, then the Council will vote in favour of it.
This proposal will state, in accordance with the procedure in Regulation 820/97, that compulsory labelling is not in fact postponed but that it is allowed, for the purposes of implementation, to continue using voluntary labelling for a further year.
<P>
This means that, to all intents and purposes, Parliament has been levered out, although the conclusion is such that we cannot say that they have already made a decision.
A dirty trick has been used to keep us out of the codecision procedure.
This is the second time because this was the case in 1997 when the Council bowled us out of the codecision procedure with a unanimous decision.
We complained about this before the European Court of Justice.
This time, where codecision applies quite clearly under Article 152 of the Amsterdam Treaty, it has used this procedure to bowl us out a second time.
Most probably we shall again discuss renewed recourse to the European Court of Justice to protest against this illegal procedure by the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, for this very clear yet very worrying explanation.
<P>
Mr Papayannakis, do you consider that we can vote on your report or do you wish to request its referral back to committee?
Please indicate your position.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Papayannakis">
Madam President, we cannot allow my report to be referred back to committee because a decision must be taken by 31 December.
If nothing has been decided by 1 January, there will be a legal void which will cause chaos on the market.
<P>
A decision must therefore be made.
It will probably be taken without us but it is right and politically correct, if I may use this term, for Parliament to make a decision.
The Council will likely do whatever it wants but at least we can vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="President">
I completely agree.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="Whitehead">
Madam President, on behalf of my group I would like to say that we should have recorded a protest vote.
We have to vote on this, we have been put in an impossible position, but it should not be left as an ordinary vote of this Parliament.
It is a vote under protest and of protest.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="Jackson">
I am sorry to delay things, Madam President, but there is another possibility.
I understand that the Fisheries Council will be meeting tomorrow and that our opinion on the Papayannakis resolution will go to the Fisheries Council.
Now, it is possible for the Fisheries Council, with some goodwill on their part, to take into account our amendments and to adopt the legal text with our amendments. I suggest that we vote on the Papayannakis report and then you select the most poisonous pen that you have in your armoury and you write on behalf of the Parliament to the Council with the expectation that the Fisheries Council will not simply nod through what was agreed yesterday but will take our amendments into account.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Siimes">
Once again, I can confirm that the Council, for its part, has formally and finally adopted yesterday the package compromise which was offered to COBU.
<P>
(Loud applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="President">
Thank you, Madam President-in-Office of the Council.
I now give the floor to our rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
I thank Mrs Siimes for this very clear statement.
It should be noted that her early delivery of this statement represents the only time in the budgetary procedure when the Council has succeeded in being not only on time but actually in advance.
I have rarely witnessed a budgetary procedure like this in which, until this positive statement allowing the agreement to be concluded, we were still faced with two lists of possible votes. One list would have been made in agreement with the Council and the other would have been established without agreement with the Council.
<P>
As soon as we have voted on the Colom i Naval report implementing the flexibility instrument, we can vote on the list agreed with the Council. No one will be happier than me at this point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Bourlanges.
<P>
Report (A5-0103/1999) by Mr Colom i Naval, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning the revision of the financial perspective annexed to the Interinstitutional Agreement of 6 May 1999 on budgetary discipline and improvement of the budgetary procedure (SEC(1999)1647 - C5-0322/1999) and on the proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning the mobilisation of the flexibility instrument (paragraph 24 of the Interinstitutional Agreement of 6 May 1999 on budgetary discipline and improvement of the budgetary procedure) (SEC(1999)1647 - C5-0314/1999)
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
2000 General Budget, as modified by the Council
<P>
Report (A5-0095/1999) by Mr Bourlanges and Mr Virrankoski, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2000, as modified by the Council (all sections) (C5-0600/1999) and on Letters of Amendment Nos 1/2000 (11568/1999 - C5-0313/1999) and 2/2000 (13482/1999 - C5-0311/1999)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Buitenweg">
Madam President, since an agreement has now been reached with the Council, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance will withdraw its three amendments.
They are Amendments Nos 7, 8 and 9.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="President">
Thank you, we will note this.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Wynn">
I was not expecting to speak but, as you have asked me, I will do so.
First of all, I am mightily relieved that we have got the vote through.
It has been a tortuous process this particular year for everyone concerned, especially the rapporteurs, Mr Bourlanges, Mr Virrankoski and Mr Colom i Naval - because of the agreements with the Council.
It has been, at times, as Mr Bourlanges said earlier, rather nerve-wracking.
Now that we have got it through I want to thank the Council for the decision that they have taken and thank the Commission for their help.
<P>
As a matter of information for Members, with the vote which has gone through now, the total payments will be 1.11% of Europe's GNP which is under the ceiling for the year 2000 of the financial perspective of 1.13% and under the ceiling for own resources of 1.27%.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Madam President, I have three points to make.
<P>
Firstly, you have conducted this vote extremely well.
Thank you for having made the effort to preside when your state of health should have kept you in bed.
You have seen this vote through and will sign the budget for which I thank you on behalf of the whole House.
<P>
<P>
This vote illustrates once again that a difficult procedure can lead to an easy vote.
The more difficult the procedure is, the better the solutions reached by the time we come to the vote.
This has been true in this case and I must say that all those who participated in this procedure are experiencing some amazement at the ease of this vote given the conciliation difficulties.
<P>
On the substance, I believe that Parliament has gained about 75% of what it wanted.
As we represent 50% of the budgetary authority, this seems a reasonable percentage!
<P>

I must say to the President-in-Office of the Council and the Commissioner that, given the difficulties and problems in the procedure, I am profoundly grateful for the efforts made by their institutions, and also by ourselves, to achieve this result.
It is the result which counts and we can be satisfied at having reached an agreement.
<P>
Finally, I would repeat what I said at the conclusion of the first reading. We all have deep respect for the services of the Committee on Budgets which expended all their energies in both the first reading and the second reading.
This House owes them a great debt of gratitude.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Bourlanges.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Virrankoski">
Madam President, this budgetary procedure has shown throughout that the European Parliament, together with the Council, can work constructively and observe good budgetary discipline.
The last few days and hours have shown, in particular, that we have a sense of responsibility when attending to the European issues we have in common.
I would especially like to thank the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, Mr Wynn, and the main rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges, for their excellent, constructive and patient cooperation in achieving our common objective.
Similarly, I wish to thank Mrs Siimes, President-in-Office of the Council, and Michaele Schreyer, Commissioner responsible for this area, for their excellent show of cooperation with Parliament.
Finally, I would just like to express my thanks also to all the officials on the Committee on Budgets, who have had to work very long hours and, at the same time, I thank Parliament as a whole and my own group in particular for their steadfast and energetic support at every stage.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Virrankoski.
<P>

The Commissioner wishes to say a few words so I gladly give her the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schreyer">
Thank you, Madam President. I should like to thank the House for its extraordinary staying power.
It still looked on Monday evening as if numerous wishes would not come true.
It was touch and go with a very important declaration by Parliament, funding to reconstruct Kosovo had not been secured and the Council would have had to pay a great deal more.
Now we have a situation where funding for the reconstruction of Kosovo has been secured, where Parliament has achieved a great number of important objectives and the cost to the Member States has been reduced.
So we have a situation in which a no-win situation has quickly turned into a win-win situation and I think that is a wonderful position to be in for Christmas.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Colom i Naval">
Madam President, this is the first time in fourteen years that I have acted as rapporteur for a budgetary procedure.
I shall be brief.
I simply want to express my agreement with the words of previous rapporteurs and remind you of a political rule: prudence will never make us traitors, and therefore I very much appreciate the solidarity and resolution of the Committee on Budgets, which has allowed us to safeguard the interests of this Parliament as an institution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Siimes">
Madam President, you have just completed your second reading of the 2000 draft budget.
There remain a few differences between our institutions on the classification of expenditure.
However, the Council can accept the amendments you made to the Letter of Amendment No 2/2 000 as well as the maximum rate of increase which results from your second reading.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="President">
Thank you, Madam President-in-Office of the Council.
<P>
I too very warmly congratulate the Committee on Budgets and our rapporteurs for the excellent work which has been accomplished.
<P>
For my part, this is the first budget which I will have signed as President of the European Parliament and I must say that I am overjoyed by the remarkable result which has been achieved.
Once again, I heartily congratulate and thank those who have contributed to this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gröner">
Madam President, I do not know if you are aware of it, but this is an historic moment in the budgetary procedure of the European Union.
For the first time, each of the three institutions is represented here by a woman.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="President">
I had not noticed that but it is true.
<P>
<P>
The Millennium is ending on a high note.
<P>
(The 2000 General Budget was signed immediately after)
<P>
(Applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fatuzzo">
Mr President, I voted for the Colom i Naval report as well as the one on the budget.
The Commission representative said in conclusion: "this is a wonderful position to be in for Christmas" .
Well, I hope that next year too we will vote on the 2001 budget a few days before Christmas, with at least an equivalent increase with regard to this year' s budget.
Let us therefore hope that this type of Christmas present will become a tradition.
<P>
2000 Budget
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, the signature of the budget was a scene of satisfaction, adulation, peace and joy.
However, because of a small cutback in funds, about which I wish to protest, I am not totally happy with this budget.
I voted against the budget repeatedly during the last parliamentary term because, despite unanimously approved reports on the worrying situation of beekeepers in Europe, the Commission was simply not prepared to provide the appropriations for the measures which we demanded in order to preserve beekeeping.
Since 1998 we have had a mini-heading of EUR 15 million in the budget to finance 50% of the national programme to improve the production and marketing of honey, based on a regulation which we have criticised as inadequate.
Now we have seen this mini-heading of EUR 15 million for 15 countries reduced by a third to 10 million.
I fail to understand how this could happen, given that the Commission itself quoted a funding requirement of 15 million per annum in its justification of the regulation.
<P>
I am grateful to the rapporteur for the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr Görlach, who also protested about this reduction in his letter to the chairman of the Committee on Budgets.
I should like here to register my protest that the Committee on Budgets has failed to take account of this.
I hope that a way can be found in the Council of Ministers of increasing this budget line to EUR 15 million, as in 1998 and 1999.
I shall, of course, continue to lobby steadfastly until the Commission finally proposes the various measures demanded unanimously by this Parliament to preserve beekeeping in Europe - pollination premiums, inclusion of beekeeping in the structural programmes ...
<P>
(Interruption by the President)
<P>
... cost EUR 65 million.
That is peanuts in a budget of 90 billion, a mere 0.072%.
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Carlsson">
Mr President, I am staying here because I have been told that, if one is to hand in explanations of vote, one should be present in the Chamber.
I therefore demand that explanations of vote from those who are not present should not be valid.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="President">
Strictly speaking, that is true.
We generally ensure that Members who ask for an explanation of vote are in attendance at the vote.
Normally, provided they have attended the vote we are liberal in the interpretation of the Rule.
Strictly speaking, however, they should be here for their name to be read out.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Färm">
Mr President, I am presenting a written explanation of vote on behalf of seven Swedish and Danish Members.
We were never told that everyone had to be here when we hand in the explanations of vote so I suggest that this should be valid for all those seven Members.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="President">
On this occasion, I am happy to accept that, although I should remind Members that technically they should be in the Chamber to hear their name read out.
We have this procedure at the end of votes where I read out the names of those who have asked for written explanations.
Members do not have to stay through the whole process but they should be here until their name is read out.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Mr President, the President of the European Parliament has just signed this budget for over EUR 90 billion.
It would be good if she could also sign the rather more modest payment orders for the taxi drivers who bring Members here to this House.
<P>
I would remind you that these taxi drivers earn about FF 10 000 per sitting or roughly EUR 1 500.
However, they do not receive this payment until three or four months later!
During this time they have to pay VAT at 20.6% and so are effectively giving Parliament a cash advance.
Over three or four months this amounts to about EUR 5 000. By not being able to invest this money, given the free movement of capital which we have authorised, they are losing in the order of FF 1 500 per month.
I am delighted that everyone is rejoicing, including Mr Colom I Naval and Mrs Fontaine, but our taxi drivers and chauffeurs cannot rejoice.
I would remind those who were driven here by these taxi drivers in November that they will not be paid until March.
<P>
Mr President, I believe this affects you as much as the rest of us.
It would be good if the taxi drivers, like the beekeepers, could also participate in the joy of Mrs Fontaine and the European Parliament which has achieved what we could call a victory over the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Andersson, Blak, Färm, Hedkvist Petersen, Lund, Schori and Theorin">
- (SV) We are supporting the Budget adopted by Parliament for the year 2000, the interinstitutional agreement and the Berlin Agreement concerning the long-term Budget.
Following today' s decision in the European Parliament, the EU' s Budget for the year 2000 is an important step in the right direction, that is to say in the direction of the EU taking ever greater responsibility for its citizens.
The Budget provides for significant investments in what are, for us, important areas.
<P>
We are delighted to note that our proposal for establishing a separate Budget item for local and regional measures for the areas of the Baltic and the Barents Sea have been voted through by Parliament.
<P>
We support the efforts made by Parliament' s Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities during the Budget debate when it comes to financing the EU' s equality programme.
Among other things, it is important that non-governmental organisations such as the European Women´s Lobby should not see a deterioration in their opportunities to operate at European level.
<P>
We are pleased about the increased resources for dialogue between the two sides of industry, especially with a view to the importance of beginning to construct a well-functioning labour market in the applicant countries, with strong trade-union organisations and good social conditions.
<P>
The efforts made in the Budget to reform the common agricultural policy and reduce its costs are a step in the right direction.
We nonetheless call for further efforts to make agricultural policy more oriented to the environment and the consumer, as well as better adjusted to the market.
We call for far-reaching reform, not least with a view to the forthcoming enlargement.
The EU' s agricultural and consumer policies must accord better with one another, especially when it comes to measures in the veterinary area and to measures for the protection of plants.
It must be possible to guarantee food safety throughout Europe.
<P>
We are also definitely against the support being given to tobacco cultivation.
Support for tobacco cultivation must be phased out and replaced by support for the cultivation of alternative crops.
<P>
When it comes to refunding the travel expenses of Members of the European Parliament, we maintain our view that only actual expenses which have arisen in connection with journeys on official business should be refunded.
<P>
We look especially positively upon the resources which have now been allocated to the reconstruction in Kosovo, Turkey and East Timor.
We have worked hard to ensure that it might be possible to procure these resources for the whole of next year.
With a view to financing these initiatives, which are so important, we have in the first place endeavoured to revise the Budget plan, especially in view of the fact that the reconstruction of Kosovo in the course of the next few years will require a lot of aid from the EU over a period of several years.
<P>
The Budget process has nonetheless been very complicated and entailed major examinations in cooperation with the Council of Ministers.
In the run-up to next year' s Budget negotiations, it is important that cooperation between Parliament and the Council should be strengthened for the negotiation process. Better cooperation in the Budget negotiations is a prerequisite of the European Union' s activities being as effective as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Arvidsson, Carlsson, Cederschiöld and Stenmarck">
With today' s decision, the European Parliament is adopting the EU' s Budget for the year 2000.
This is happening within the Budget framework established at the Berlin Summit in May of this year.
This has been our moderate objective throughout the Budget process.
Had a decision of a different kind been made, there would have been a risk of negative consequences for the EU which would have damaged the EU' s reputation.
If it had been decided to introduce a new financial framework, there would have been a danger of this too proving expensive for the Member States.
<P>
With this Budget, the reconstruction of Kosovo will be successfully financed during the year 2000 within the Budget framework.
Before the end of April, the Commission is to come back with proposals to finance the long-term reconstruction work in Kosovo and the western Balkans.
<P>
In the first reading of the Budget for the year 2000, the Council of Ministers proposed a 10 per cent linear reduction in category four.
This made it possible to finance the unforeseen expenditure on Kosovo, Turkey and East Timor.
In certain cases, however, there were less than welcome consequences for those Budget items affected by reductions.
In a number of cases, these reductions were subtly modified in the second reading. This is the result of the Budget authorities' jointly having set necessary priorities.
We view this as something positive.
<P>
We are afraid that, at the same time as the needs in Kosovo demand sacrifices and purposefulness, many will want to expand the EU' s Budget and introduce new Budget items.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sacrédeus and Wijkman">
- (SV) The Budget compromise for the EU' s expenditure for the year 2000 which has been reached between the institutions of the Union is relatively well balanced and therefore welcome.
What constitutes a success, above all, is the fact that a solution has been found to the question of financing the reconstruction in Kosovo.
The previously agreed Budget framework is being maintained, and the same applies to the interinstitutional agreement.
Reductions in Category IV - External Measures (principally Aid) - are now significantly smaller than in the Council' s original proposal.
<P>
It is, however, unfortunate that there is an inbuilt rigidity in the Budget negotiations which makes it impossible at this stage to redistribute resources between different Budget categories. This also applies in the case of unforeseen and exceptional occurrences in the world around us.
It would, of course, have been more reasonable to have financed the reconstruction in Kosovo by means of reductions in categories of expenditure other than that of External Measures.
We must ask ourselves what kind of solidarity we have with the world around us when aid to a neighbour is increased by reducing aid to other countries in need.
<P>
It would have been possible to achieve significant savings within both the areas of agriculture and of structural and regional policy, as well as within other areas affecting the domestic market, if the preliminary Budget proposal had been complied with to a greater extent.
<P>
In spite of this, we see the compromise as a solution which all parties can live with.
We accept that a review of the long-term Budget framework may become necessary during the spring of the year 2000 when a more thorough and stable calculation of the costs of reconstruction in Kosovo and the Balkans will be available.
It is important to combine Budget discipline with a flexibility which allows the European Union to act with solidarity in the case of unforeseen events in the world around us.
<P>
Bourlanges/Virrankoski report (A5-0095/1999)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Coûteaux">
- (FR) For the second time this year, the EU' s credibility is at stake in the Balkans.
The budget for the reconstruction of Kosovo has emerged as the main difficulty at second reading.
<P>
The conflict has been extensively discussed in recent weeks by Parliament and the Council but there are certain essential aspects which we must not forget. With regard to the aid granted to Kosovo, it is surprising that this is not conditional on the definitive restoration of peace which has unfortunately not yet been achieved, as indicated by a recent OSCE report.
As for the sums allocated, the members of the Committee on Budgets have participated through the committees in some real bargaining.
The institutions have juggled with millions of euros without anyone really taking the trouble to assess the region' s needs, yet everyone agrees that Kosovo could not actually absorb such sums which are equivalent to half its GNP.
<P>
In this respect, we must deplore the lack of rigour shown by the Commissioner responsible for the budget. When questioned by the Committee on Budgets, he was incapable of estimating the amounts needed in euros and could only give these in dollars.
<P>
This is not particularly serious and would even raise a smile if, at the same time, the EU' s budget policy and the risk of a review of the financial perspective did not seem to be so contrary to national interests.
The same is true of the rigorous budgetary discipline imposed on the Member States even though the EU is not so strict on itself. This budget 2000 will cost the Member States very dear and the agricultural line is once again the main reason for the increase in external actions.
<P>
You can understand the anxiety of European farmers faced with the new priorities set by all the institutions.
Who can they turn to?
Certainly not the Commission, as it clearly showed in Seattle, nor the Council, which at second reading trimmed EUR 450 million off compulsory expenditure. Yet, unfortunately, nor can they rely on Parliament which, through its rapporteur, intends to challenge the existence of compulsory expenditure.
<P>
The budget is a fundamental act which makes political choices.
We reject these choices and so will vote against the 2000 budget.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Kauppi">

I think it would be sensible if next year the financial needs of the crisis in Kosovo are addressed by demonstrating flexibility now, and we should not yet start to amend the financial perspective in Category 4.
The maximum figure for Category 4 does not have to be amended permanently other than by using a flexibility clause to the full.
On the other hand, the position of Parliament that was adopted here today will mean enormous challenges for Portugal, as the final decisions on the financing of external actions are being left until next spring.
<P>
Theato report (A5-0090/1999)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Malmström, Paulsen and Schmidt">
- (SV) In connection with the account of the Court of Auditors' annual report, it emerged that the Court of Auditors' current President, Jan O. Karlsson, had taken steps against the person who had supplied the mass media with information about the content of the annual report.
<P>
We Swedes have a lot to learn within the European partnership.
The EU in turn has something to learn from the way we handle some things in Sweden.
Openness and public access to official records are one such area.
It is therefore unfortunate that, instead of upholding our traditions, Jan O. Karlsson should have chosen to adapt to what unfortunately applies in Brussels.
<P>
There may be different views as to how far it was right or wrong of an official in the EU' s Court of Auditors to reveal in advance the contents of the annual report.
What is really important, however, is that we should together fight for the right to do this.
We are concerned here with the freedom to supply information which the Government so often says it wants to uphold in the EU context.
<P>
It is, to say the least, worrying that the Swedish head of the EU' s Court of Auditors should choose to adapt to the worst aspects of the EU administration' s culture, namely secrecy and the desire for revenge upon employees who choose to speak out.
<P>
In the Swedish constitution and in Swedish debate, the freedom to supply information is acknowledged as an indispensable part of any effective supervision of the democratic and public system.
We believe that this is important for democracy.
We think there is a need for more EU employees who dare to reveal cheating and irregularities.
For each time an EU official is reprimanded because of his openness, we lose ground in our work for an open EU.
<P>
Against the background of the above, we have not been able to support the re-election of those Members who are at present Members of the Court of Auditors and who obviously consider that it is perfectly correct to act in this way.
We have therefore chosen to abstain from voting when it comes to appointing Giorgio Clemente, Jørgen Mohr, Aunus Salmi and Jan O. Karlsson.
<P>
Murphy recommendation for second reading (A5-0099/1999)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fatuzzo">
Mr President, I voted for the Murphy report.
It is right and proper that the European Parliament is trying to avoid delays in the payment of commercial transactions.
As the representative of the Pensioners' Party, I nevertheless hope that one day, Parliament will also address public administrations which must pay pensions to eligible people in the fifteen Member States.
In Italy, for example, 10, 15 or even 20 years go by before an elderly person, even a 90 year-old, receives their due.
It would not be amiss if public administrations in the fifteen Member States were subject to the same attention as private administrations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Ferrer">
.
(ES) Strengthening small and medium-sized enterprises and favouring measures which will contribute to improving their competitiveness has been one of the objectives of this Parliament, because of the fundamental role they play in the creation of jobs and because any actions aimed at small and medium-sized economic operators promote European economic growth in general and provide a safe path towards achieving economic and social cohesion in the Community.
<P>
The proposal for a directive combating late payments in commercial transactions is, in this sense, an effective instrument in terms of ending the excessive and often abusive time limits for payment which are used in certain fundamental sectors and which are the main cause of bankruptcy and financial and investment difficulties which SMEs have to face.
<P>
This is why I have a very positive view of the Murphy report and have voted in favour of it, since it reintroduces aspects which the Council had eliminated in drawing up the common position, but which are of unquestionable benefit to SMEs, in particular the obligation to legislate for the establishment of standardised payment terms in commercial transactions and for this obligation to also be incumbent upon public entities.
Let us hope that the Council listens to Parliament and that we can at last lay down harmonised contract rules at a European level, which will put an end to late payment and the dominant position of some creditors with regard to payment terms, and thereby improve the competitiveness of SMEs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Titley">
- Mr President, I strongly support this excellent report by my Labour colleague, Simon Murphy.
It offers yet further proof of Labour's commitment to create an environment across Europe where entrepreneurs and businesses can flourish.
<P>
Late payment regularly throttles many viable businesses, especially small businesses.
Many, through no fault of their own, are tragically forced into receivership as a result.
Entrepreneurs are needlessly ruined, jobs are lost, needlessly lost, economic vibrancy is needlessly deadened.
<P>
This measure, however, will help allow small businesses to fight back.
Creditors will be entitled to charge a statutory interest rate on their debts, encouraging debtors to pay early.
Furthermore, if debts are not repaid, creditors will also be able to recoup their costs for collecting bad debts.
<P>
By introducing greater certainty in business transactions Europe-wide, small businesses will feel more confident to trade not just across Britain but also right across the European Single Market.
<P>
Membership of the Single Market, the largest trading bloc in the world, is crucial for jobs in the north-west.
Nearly 40% of small and medium sized enterprises in the region have trading links with other EU Member States.
As a part of the EU Single Market, they have access to over 370m potential customers - over 6 times more than in Britain alone.
In a few years time, following the enlargement of the European Union, they will have access to a potential 500m customers - as big as the American and Japanese markets put together.
<P>
The Labour Government is determined to make the Single Market work for British business.
By giving UK businesses the confidence to reach into these markets, this measure will help in this task and increase trade, growth and employment across both the north-west and all of Britain.
<P>
Papayannakis report (A5-0101/1999)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, the Commission could not have produced anything better than this text on labelling as evidence that France is right to keep its ban on British beef.
<P>
We have at times been told that this ban is not really necessary and that beef only needs to be labelled properly to ensure that the reasonable consumer does not buy British beef.
Yet this is strange reasoning given that it is tantamount to accepting the deaths of those consumers who misread the labels and is clearly an unacceptable abdication of the State' s responsibilities.
However, this reasoning is now invalidated by today' s text as we are being told that the beef labelling obligation is to be postponed.
<P>
What is going on?
At the beginning of 1997, in the middle of the mad cow crisis, the Council decided to implement an identification system for bovine animals from the place of production. It also decided on the labelling of beef which would initially be optional but would become compulsory from 1 January 2000.
With this fateful date now approaching, the Commission confesses that nothing is ready and the obligation cannot be applied for another year.
<P>
This means that, after years of negligence, we are still incapable in the European Union of ensuring the effective traceability of beef.
A French consumer who buys ravioli from Italy cannot be absolutely sure that this does not contain meat from mad British cows.
<P>
In view of such negligence, we are stunned that the Commission is daring to bring France before the Court of Justice for having kept its ban.
We have never before realised to what extent the free movement of goods predominates over any other consideration in the single market.
<P>
It is true that the French Government has allowed itself to become legally trapped by accepting the Treaty of Amsterdam which deprives France of its right to protect itself.
Yet this right is sacred.
It is not too late for us to pull ourselves together and win back this right from the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fatuzzo">
Mr President, I am very pleased that this measure on the labelling and identification of beef has been approved, but I hope that the citizens, those poor souls, are labelled too, particularly the pensioners.
I would like it to be known when they were born and what they are like, given that - and this is something I often notice - they are considered as numbers.
Yes, bureaucracy views elderly citizens who want their pensions as numbers - I would remind you that I am the representative of the Pensioners' Party and I have seen this many times - which is why I hope that the photographs of these citizens will be put onto documents and that our citizens will be labelled and considered to be at least equal to livestock.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
- (FR) The beef labelling proposal is now before us as the labelling of GMOs was previously.
Labelling has become the wonder tool.
Through it, food safety will reign, the consumer will be protected and our Green colleagues will be satisfied at having ensured the survival of humanity, at least in terms of food ...
<P>
In reality, labelling is one of those tricks so well loved by the leaders of Europe for calming people' s anxieties without actually solving any problems.
<P>
The labelling of GMOs should already be ringing alarm bells.
We have no idea what to put on the labels.
For example, do we put 'product of biotechnologies' ?
If we put both 'bio' and 'techno' on a product' s label, consumers will fall over themselves to buy it.
<P>
This beef labelling proposal is therefore revealing the length of the Commission' s nose like a Community Pinocchio.
This is the Brussels institution which, in 1997, decided on labelling for beef. Yet it is only now telling us that it is not technically capable of identifying the origin of bovine animals.
<P>
If the origin of bovine animals cannot be identified, how can we be sure that British beef presents no risk? We have to go one way or the other.
If we know the provenance of bovine animals, then the lifting of the ban on British beef can be guaranteed and these animals can also be labelled. Yet, if we cannot label these animals because we do not know the origin of the meat, how can we then lift the ban?
In other words, in the same week, France cannot be forced to lift its ban because the meat is traceable to a certain extent, while the request for labelling has been turned down on account of the technical impossibility of tracing the animals.
<P>
Who can actually believe that in the three years since 1997 we have not managed to label meat by indicating the origin of the animal?
Despite the fact that we can already indicate the location of the slaughterhouse, we cannot give the provenance of the slaughtered animal.
<P>
The European Commission really does not care about consumers or the people.
Brussels wants one thing only which is to ensure the free movement of products, capital, people and now contaminated British beef, at any price and without any obstacles.
It is clear that labelling would result in the de facto boycott of British beef by consumers who do not want to compromise what remains of their brains after being fried by television news.
<P>
In essence, the slogan of the European Commission and of the whole concept of European construction is 'profit before life' and has been so since 'the Europe of our brainless forefathers' .
This is so obvious that the only label which might ensure safety would be one which read 'official from Brussels' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schnellhardt">
- (DE) The regulation to be amended at the Commission' s proposal was described two years ago in the wake of the BSE crisis as a central issue and an important decision within the context of European consumer protection.
<P>
The stated purpose of the regulation is to protect animal and human health and to increase or restore consumer confidence in the quality of beef and meat products.
<P>
What was it that persuaded the Council to adopt this regulation when it did?
Was it perhaps a way of saying to the public, look here, we are doing all we can to end the BSE crisis, while never really having any serious intention, either then or now, of implementing the regulation.
Unfortunately, it was just that. The public has been cheated and, on top of everything, a disservice has been done to European consumer protection.
To be sure, some speakers voiced their concern during the first and second readings that the text of the law was perhaps too strict and that there would be problems with its transposition.
So there were signs.
If that was the problem, we had the chance to rectify it but, unfortunately, we did not make use of that chance.
The errors on the part of individual Member States, and I would be most interested to know which Member States, is only one side of the coin; the irresponsible conduct on the part of the Commission is the other.
Allow me in this context to remind the Commission of a few agreed dates: the Commission should be managing an electronic data base on 31 December 1999, i.e. in 16 days' time. Is this data base up and running?
The same question arises in relation to the Member States' reports on the implementation of the beef labelling system; these reports were supposed to have been sent to the Commission by 1 May 1999.
Are they available?
<P>
Obviously the delay with all the stages of transposition has not come about overnight.
The Commission must have been able to see at the beginning of the year that the deadlines set could not be kept.
Why then was Parliament not informed of these developments earlier, as it could have been in July.
<P>
Today we are discussing postponing the entry into force of the regulation without really knowing how transposition is progressing in the individual Member States, without knowing how long implementation will still take and, more importantly, what action has yet to be taken.
<P>
The original intention of the regulation, which was to generate confidence in European consumer protection, would be reversed by this sort of measure.
The Commission' s present proposal is, in my eyes, confusing and lacking in background information and I am therefore unable to support it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Titley">
- Mr President, I am all in favour of the labelling of beef.
Reforms in beef production introduced in Britain following the beef crisis now make British beef among the highest quality and safest in the world.
In time, I am confident that consumers not just in Britain but throughout the EU will recognise this fact and actively search out British beef.
Full labelling will therefore work to British beef farmers' advantage.
<P>
If such a confidence-building measure also speeds the end of the illegal French ban on British beef, then so much the better.
<P>
EU citizens will recognise good beef when they see it.
They will also recognise law-breaking and hypocrisy when they see it.
The French beef ban, as everyone but the French Government agrees, is illegal and totally unjustified.
The French beef ban is also hypocritical and unworthy of a French Government that claims to be at the heart of Europe.
Hence Labour MEPs dignified walkout during the official opening of the new Parliament building on Tuesday.
MEPs should not make EU laws in a country that breaks EU laws.
<P>
In contrast, I can only praise the restraint and respect for the law shown by farmers in the north-west and Britain as a whole throughout this crisis.
I urge them to continue to show such responsibility.
<P>
I also urge the Commission to institute fast-track proceedings against the French Government as soon as possible.
Furthermore, I urge the Commission to investigate the possibility of compensation for hard-pressed British beef farmers, many of them driven almost to the wall by the beef ban.
In this connection, I welcome new proposals by my Socialist Group colleagues for a European Small Claims Court to help people facing ruin due to EU disputes in future.
<P>
We should never forget, however, where ultimate responsibility for this crisis lies.
It was the Tories who, through lax regulation, caused the crisis.
It was the Tories, who, through their ludicrous beef war, escalated the crisis.
And it is the Tories now, who, through irresponsible calls for illegal retaliatory boycotts, are trying to extend the crisis for their own party political gain.
While the Tories continue to play politics, however, Labour continues to work, with the support of the NFU, to get the ban lifted.
<P>
Helsinki European Council
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, the Members of the European Free Alliance have also approved the text concerning the Helsinki Summit.
Nevertheless, by way of an explanation of vote, I would like to make a few observations.
Parliament has taken note of the fact that Turkey has been included as a candidate country.
This turn of phrase clearly hints at the wave of criticism this has met within this Parliament.
On behalf of the European Free Alliance, I would like to explicitly subscribe to this criticism.
We thought it was far too soon, given that the Kurdish issue is nowhere near a stage where it could be resolved in the light of the right to self-determination of the Kurds and human rights are still being violated with no end in sight.
The fact that the winner of the Sakharov prize, Leyla Zana, is still in prison herself, clearly indicates that the right to freedom of speech in Turkey and human rights are still being neglected.
This is why it was not the right time.
We do wonder if there is ever going to be a right time.
<P>
My second observation concerns our disappointment regarding institutional reform.
As far as we are concerned, regions which have sovereign power, based on their own constitution, should also be able to execute it within Europe.
Europe is not just a sum of Member States.
Democracy within Europe must gain more depth.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, in our opinion the most striking feature of the Helsinki European Council was the absence of any long-term political vision among the Heads of State and Government. They decided to enlarge the Union to a previously unimagined extent, possibly adding thirteen new members, without giving any consideration to the conceptual tools which would make it possible to envisage the institutional structures capable of coping with this enlargement.
<P>
The contradiction has now reached its limit with the inclusion of Turkey on the list of official candidates. The Turkish Prime Minister declared the day after the Summit that membership of the European Union was, and I quote, a "birthright" for Turkey.
This gives us an idea of the restraint which he is ready to show in pushing open the door to the European Union. Yet it is clear to all freethinking observers that the arrival of Turkey will profoundly alter the nature of the Union.
<P>
Can you, for example, imagine the free movement of persons between Turkey and the countries of western Europe, virtually without any controls as is now happening within the EU?
The Heads of State and Government who are supposed to be responsible must be very far removed from reality to imagine for one instant that this could happen.
<P>
Yet they continue to advocate an almost unique solution with the extension of qualified majority voting, as reiterated the day before yesterday by the French President, Jacques Chirac, before this House.
The federalists are simply reeling off the same old recipes by rote, without thinking about what they are saying.
<P>
We have the impression of an institutional system that is going downhill and which has no concept of its future, unless the Council has one without daring to tell us. It seems to be a prisoner of the consequences of an enlargement decision which it cannot control.
<P>
The Turkish Prime Minister has boasted of having been supported by Washington in his attempt to accede to the European Union, and it is true that this intervention was effective.
He has even added that less time will be needed than was thought for Turkey to become a full member of the Union.
At this rate, it will also take less time than we thought for the Union to self-destruct.
<P>
(Some applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Nassauer">
Mr President, it is with great regret that the CDU/CSU group acknowledges the decision to grant Turkey candidate status.
We consider this Council decision to be a fatal error because it will permanently encumber rather than foster relations with this important and reliable ally.
Even the Council knows that the criteria for integration have not been met and will not be met in the foreseeable future because Turkey is not even prepared to amend fundamental clauses in its constitution, such as the influence of the military.
The expectations raised in Helsinki are therefore bound to end in disappointment.
<P>
This is why we want relations with this important partner to be based on a partnership within as close an economic framework as possible, i.e. by meeting the obligations of customs union, rather than on illusionary prospects of membership.
<P>
Relations with Turkey are too important to be founded on the hypocritical act of Helsinki!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak and Lund">
- (DA) The Danish Social Democrats have today voted for the resolution concerning the results of the European Council' s meeting of 10-11 December in Helsinki.
<P>
The most important result of the Summit was that the EU has confirmed the ambitious plans for the enlargement of the EU, meaning, among other things, that an Intergovernmental Conference is now to be called to facilitate the accession of new Member States.
Throughout the preparations for the Summit, as well as with a view to the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference, we have attached importance to a realistic agenda being established which will make it possible to achieve a result before the end of the year 2000.
We are therefore very satisfied with the conclusions which were reached in Helsinki in this area.
It is important that, in the course of the Intergovernmental Conference, a lot of new matters should not be brought up which make it impossible to comply with the very tight timetable.
The best example of the difficulties that can be caused by introducing new subjects is probably the issue of the so-called tax package.
It is annoying that a result in this area should not already have been achieved in Helsinki, but it will hopefully be possible to solve the matter no later than at the forthcoming Summit in Lisbon in the summer.
<P>
In the period leading up to the Summit, we warned against the EU turning itself into a fully-fledged defence alliance on a number of occasions.
We therefore noted with satisfaction that the European Council resolved that no European army should be established but that the focus should be upon conflict prevention and civil crisis management.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Figueiredo">
. (PT) We wish to highlight four decisions taken at the Helsinki European Council meeting of 10 and 11 December, regardless of latter considerations, which merit the following comments:
<P>
We are concerned to note the definition of the outlines of the next Intergovernmental Conference, which may clear the way for the reality of "boards of management" and for the deepening of the EU' s federalist tendency.
<P>
Whilst we regret the fact that the Council decided to accept Turkey as a candidate for accession, we hope that at least no new steps are taken until its government takes the necessary measures in the area of human rights, international law on the fixing of borders, the application of the UN resolutions on Cyprus and a political solution to the Kurdish question.
<P>
We criticise the decision to develop the European Union' s resources for military crisis management, in the framework of a strengthened European common policy on security and defence, conceived as the development and strengthening of NATO' s European pillar, as we also reject the militarist vision of resorting to warfare in order to resolve international conflicts.
What was necessary was to have created initiatives for disarmament and the banning of nuclear testing.
<P>
Finally, we feel that it is crucial to pay greater attention to the quality of employment, to reducing working hours and to giving dignity to workers and that we do not continue to insist on flexibility at work and on moderation in wages.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Queiró and Ribeiro e Castro">
We voted against the motion for a common resolution on the Helsinki European Council because it rejected amendments - particularly those proposed by the UEN Group - which would have improved, it in the chapters "Enlargement" , "Intergovernmental Conference" and "External Relations" .
<P>

We agree specifically however with paragraph nos 19 to 27 (competitive economy and employment) and nos 29 to 34 (environment, public health and combating organised crime and drugs).
<P>
For our part, we take pleasure in the fact that the European Council has maintained and seems to want to maintain the intergovernmental method at the centre of the Union' s international system; and we reject the blindness that has led many to claim all the glory for the European Parliament, scorning the role of national governments and cutting them out of the European process, which is an unacceptable mistake.
<P>
We also disagree with the urgency where Turkey is concerned.
<P>
In terms of external policy as well, we particularly regret the lack of any mention of the very grave situation in Angola as well as the fact that no reservations have been expressed about the agreement reached with Mexico, which could give a worldwide advantage to NAFTA countries, exacerbate the disequilibrium in reciprocal access to the markets and seriously damage the interests of European industries.
We also regret the fact that nothing has been said about Russia to correct the tone of some obvious exaggerations in the resolution on Chechnya.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="President">
That concludes the explanations of vote.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Book prices in Germany and Austria
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="President">
The next item is the Oral Question (B5-0038/99) by Mr Rothley and others on fixed book prices in Austria and Germany.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rothley">
Mr President, Commissioner, you were somewhat indignant that Parliament is addressing this question, but is it really just an administrative act?
Is it really only a question of applying current law?
I think not.
You had the opportunity to grant an exemption. You failed to do so.
That was a political decision.
In France, for example, the legislator has decided in the light of bitter experience to set book prices by law.
That is a political decision.
When we talk of cultural diversity and the promotion of literary and scientific production, then we are talking politics.
When we sense that some people - I do not mean you, but others in the Commission - have replaced Our Father with Our shareholder value, then we are talking politics.
<P>
We have since gone into the question in greater detail.
I have said that there is a case for the decision not to grant an exemption.
But then we need national fixed book prices which work.
I am most grateful that you accept that export and re-import rules are needed.
In the final analysis, that is a general legal principle that a legal situation cannot be circumvented.
What we need, however, are import rules.
That is the decisive point which we still need to discuss.
<P>
How should import rules be worded so that national fixed book prices are not circumvented?
If we can reach agreement on this point, then I think we will have solved the problem.
<P>
My proposal is that we seek a solution on the basis of French legislation.
There is no point in having a patchwork quilt of different legal regulations in the European Union.
My request to the Commission is this: we have a legal regulation in France which works.
Please allow the others, including Germany and Austria, to find a regulation on a legal or contractual basis which works in a similar manner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Monti">
I would like to thank Mr Rothley for his question and intervention, and I would like to mention that I have already discussed this subject with him at some length.
<P>
First of all, I would like to point out that the Commission started to address the cross-border system of fixed book prices in force in Germany and Austria a long time before the protest made by the Austrian company Libro in 1996.
In fact, the proceedings in question began in 1993, with the Commission being notified of the cross-border agreements between German and Austrian publishers.
This was followed in 1994, 1995 and 1996 respectively, by the protests of two sellers of German books and the Austrian federal workers' association, an organisation which also has the task of defending consumer interests.
The Commission has not yet completed its consideration of the cases in question and therefore cannot bring forward the decision that will be taken on the proceedings currently underway.
It is the Commission' s duty not to discuss, apart from with those involved, an individual case on competition law where proceedings are open, but it can talk about the general points raised in an oral question, which is something I am very happy to do in your presence in this House.
<P>
National systems of fixed book prices may be based on national regulations or an agreement between companies, and in the case in point, between publishers and booksellers.
It is impossible to make an exact comparison of such regulations and an agreement between companies: indeed, different provisions of the Treaty are applied.
Systems based on regulations must be considered on the basis of Article 28 of the Treaty, whereas agreements between companies must comply with Article 81 of the Treaty.
In both cases, the case-law of the Court of Justice must obviously be respected.
The Commission believes that national systems of fixed book prices, based on agreements between companies, are compatible with Community competition rules if they do not significantly affect trade between Member States.
In these cases where trade is affected, Article 81 is not applied.
As for systems based on regulations, each Member State is free to adopt regulations as long as they are compatible with the principle, sanctioned by the Treaty, of the free movement of goods.
This choice is left to the national authorities.
<P>
More particularly, as far as French legislation is concerned - which Mr Rothley has mentioned - and as it was drafted at the time, in the judgement of 10 January 1995 on the Leclerc case, no. 229/83 "Au blé vert" , the Court of Justice decreed that, in the sphere of national legislation establishing a fixed book price system, rules which establish that the publisher' s fixed price must be observed, as regards the sale of books published in the Member State itself, and which are reimported prior to export to another Member State, constitute measures with an effect equivalent to import restrictions, which are prohibited under Article 28 (ex Article 30) of the Treaty, unless there are well-grounded reasons to believe that the aforementioned books have been exported with the sole aim of reimporting them with the intention of evading the aforementioned law.
<P>
Finally, I would like to point out that such legislation, in Germany and Austria, would not contribute to the harmonisation of European law.
Indeed, there are various Member States that have never had a system of fixed book prices and there are other Member States that had such a system and put an end to it, for example Belgium, Ireland and the United Kingdom which, as we know, have the same language as another Member State.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ebner">
Mr President, Commissioner, the question of fixed book prices is primarily a question of cultural policy.
The fact, Mr President, Commissioner, that I am addressing you here and now in German demonstrates that fixed book prices are not just a national problem; they are a cross-border issue which also affects a series of linguistic enclaves outside Germany and Austria.
<P>
Books are cultural assets, writing is the first recorded form of the language, of linguistic identity, and I think that, however important it is to comply with competition standards, the cultural aspect must be considered equally important and given equal status.
Even if current legislation within the framework of the European Union does not yet allow for cross-border regulations in this area, I hope that we shall arrive at this form of regulation in the future, especially since the German and Austrian Ministers for Culture defined and documented this issue as such for cross-border action in February last year.
<P>
I think that a regulation needs to be found to protect authors and to protect publishers, if not in the form of current cross-border measures, then in the form of national regulations.
The problem of imports, be they of a contractual or legislative nature, is a crucial element in this respect.
I hope that the rapprochement to date between the Commission and the European Parliament, which has already taken up this matter several times during the last parliamentary term, be it in the Committee on Culture or in plenary, will continue.
And as Mr Rothley has already said: it will not do to have a patchwork quilt in Europe in the future; on the contrary, we need a sensible regulation, which may not be optimal but which meets the demands of the professional organisations in question.
The French model could offer a workable, viable solution for the immediate future.
<P>
In this sense we hope, Commissioner, that you and the Commission will be able to grant Parliament' s wish, the wish which it has expressed here and in the documents of this legislation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Prets">
Mr President, Commissioner, I should like to confine myself to three points.
There is much which needs to be said, but my colleagues have already contributed a great deal to the debate on fixed book prices.
As far as I am concerned, the first point is that we need to stress the importance of the specialist book trade, we need to build on quality, not quantity, we are in immediate need of a specialist trade, a supply of specialist literature, as far as the sciences and technical books are concerned, and of personal service and advice.
I also believe that it is in the interests of the promotion of SMEs, the preservation of which is an important factor in the European Union, and which is practised in the case of the specialist book trade in a very positive and demonstrative manner.
<P>
Secondly, I think it is very important to refer to the cross-border language area.
We are always talking about the diversity of European culture and about the diversity of languages, which are growing together but which still need to retain their own identity.
It is therefore imperative to be able to sell these books easily across borders.
<P>
The most important point for me is the cultural aspect of books and society' s obligation towards literature and art; it is precisely now, in an era of new media, that books need to be specially promoted and supported.
Art and culture are, as we know, a very important economic factor and so therefore are books.
When we look at printers, publishers, translators, the trade and much more besides, then we know how important the book trade is, how important art is, including for employment.
That should not mean, however, that we regard art and culture as purely economic factors.
Art and culture need social support.
They are a necessity, we have a responsibility towards them and we cannot deal with them in that respect under the normal rules of competition.
<P>
I should therefore like to urge you, Commissioner, to put the interests of large undertakings after culture, cultural diversity and the specialist trade. Make your decision in the case of books in accordance with the principles of French law and allow the German and Austrian book trade sufficient time to adapt fixed book prices to these principles.
I believe that this will fulfil a very important cultural brief, whereby the economy is perhaps only left standing temporarily.
I think that this, too, is a gain.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Sanders-ten Holte">
Mr President, Commissioner, I very much appreciate the fact that you have joined us here in Parliament to discuss the matter with us.
In my opinion, and I think I can speak on behalf of everyone here present, the availability of information is essential to our democracy and, as has been stated before, to maintain our level of cultural development.
I think that I would especially like to highlight this cultural aspect i.e. the cultural significance of books.
This is exactly the reason why books should have an exemption position in cultural policy.
<P>
In most countries, books are not subsidised, unlike other forms of culture, but this is not necessary.
In my opinion, the government should mainly play a stimulating role.
This is why in a large number of countries, including the Netherlands, which I represent, a decision has been made in favour of fixed book prices.
In this way, we can avoid a scenario where mutual competition is so unfair that the wide and varied supply would diminish and that the easy access to information would be lost.
<P>
You too have just noted yourself that Member States need to indicate themselves what measures they will take, whether they will conclude agreements or adopt legislation, but, Commissioner, language transcends boundaries.
This is why I would also like to ask you three questions concerning the cross-border fixed book price.
For various countries in Europe, this is an urgent matter.
Some things have just come to light regarding Germany and Austria, but also in the Netherlands, activities in this sphere are closely monitored.
This is important for the Dutch linguistic region but also, of course, for other linguistic regions.
<P>
The first question concerns the large-scale mobility of people and new developments via e-commerce, which lead to a gradual fading of the borders.
Do you not share my view that the lack of cross-border price fixing or, for example, its abolition, especially for small businesses - and with this I am back on the subject of employment - entails the risk that national regulations will be cancelled out by extensive importing? There is a risk that small bookshops will disappear, especially in the countryside and in smaller towns, and that with it, accessibility will decrease.
<P>
My second question to you concerns the key significance of cultural integration, as is also included in the preamble to the oral questions.
I actually feel that this aspect is given too little consideration.
Cultural integration which transcends national borders is restricted if the fixed book price were to be scrapped and it is of particular importance to promote it in countries which share the same language.
I think that fixed book prices are exactly the right instrument in this case.
I fully agree with the ladies and gentlemen.
The rules which are being drafted now should not be a hotchpotch.
Each country is coming up with something but it would be preferable to find better solutions for this.
I would like to urge you too to take swift action.
This is a very long-winded affair.
In my own profession, I have experienced exactly that for years and years.
I think the time is right to take some decisions.
<P>
Thirdly, I would like to express my concern regarding these detours because do you not think that because of these detours, it is easy to undermine the fixed book price from other Member States in the same linguistic region and that it is not a very effective means of safeguarding the special value of the book as a cultural object and the special significance of the book market for culture?
<P>
These are three points which I would like to highlight.
I believe that the consumer is not at all interested in lower prices.
The consumer wants quality which should be sound and widely available.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Echerer">
Mr President, Commissioner, for a member of the Greens, seven and a half minutes speaking time is a real shock to the system - I do not think we have ever had so much time.
You understand the importance of the subject.
I shall not repeat everything that has already been said and I may therefore not need the full seven and a half minutes.
You may perhaps even see that as an advantage.
<P>
For me personally, cross-border fixed book prices would represent a possible answer to the possible question: "What exactly is a European cultural policy?
What does it mean and what could it do?"
Apart from the market and competition, we also have Article 151.
This article, as we know, contradicts Article 81.
As Mr Rothley has already mentioned, an exemption would have been possible.
There was a transition period, but there was no exemption.
My question is, was that a political or was that a purely legal decision?
Is this Europe of the regions, are the slogans "cultural diversity" and "the Europe of common language areas" no more than election promises?
Is no serious work being carried out on them? From a purely legal point of view, Commissioner, you must intervene in this case, in the case of cross-border fixed book prices.
I do not understand, however, why Article 81 is valid for culture, but Article 151 is not valid for competition.
The paragraphs have different weights, legal texts are interpreted and the side which has more weight also has more merit.
Such is life.
<P>
But I see politics as an attempt to even things out, as an effort to strike a balance.
I am against neither the market nor competition, even if it may appear so.
As an artist I was exposed to competition day in, day out, I still am and sometimes it is a matter of keeping one' s head above water.
Perhaps that is precisely why I am in favour of competition, but I am also in favour of a European cultural policy.
<P>
However, I now have a problem Commissioner.
Sometimes we are not talking about the same things because we are using different studies.
You have just reminded us that the United Kingdom, like Ireland, has no book price fixing, despite the fact that they are the same language area.
You are forgetting that the huge American market also dominates these two countries to a large extent.
You are also forgetting the culturally different approach to books and that there is now a different approach to books in each Member State.
I am countering with arguments from a French study, which the Commission has only accepted in part, if at all.
You have been so kind as to promise to let me have a list of your studies, the studies on which you base your information and make your decisions, because as long as we are using different studies, we will be talking about different things and will not arrive at any conclusions.
<P>
In my view, neither the Council nor the Commission has taken over the cultural brief in this European Union in toto.
This is not meant as a slight on the promotion programmes, God forbid.
They are wonderful, they are a huge step in the right direction.
That is a hackneyed phrase, but I really mean it.
It is not enough, however; a European cultural policy is missing.
The European dimension of the promotional culture programme is embodied in books to the highest degree and it does not cost the Union a penny extra, it only costs the consumer or rather the 'dear reader' .
<P>
Books are not therefore just goods; they also have a cultural value, on that we are all agreed.
But what is the Commission doing about this?
I too am unable to absolve you, Commissioner for Competition, from responsibility for cultural policy.
We must not all decide strictly in a single direction without looking first to the left or right for ways of bringing things together.
I understand that a book is not a car and I thought that we had a legal basis for that.
However, that appears not to be the case.
<P>
I therefore ask you, Commissioner, to consider our motion for a resolution jointly.
We are all agreed that this could be a sign that competition does not behave as culture' s adversary, but as culture' s partner and that it can behave in support of cultural policy.
It can also be a sign that what we might call, on the basis of the French law, 'European' fixed book prices also give the Nation States a clear hint that they should assume responsibility rather than giving the standard response: 'that is being decided in Brussels' .
Then you could also take a huge step in the right direction!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Boudjenah">
Mr President, in 1998 the European Commission started a procedure intended to conclude a cross-border book price agreement between Germany and Austria.
<P>
Through this procedure, which was based on respect for European competition rules, the Commission was actually aiming to challenge the fixed book price system. Among other benefits, this system allows literary production to be supported and the survival of small publishing houses and bookshops to be assured.
The European Parliament reacted strongly by adopting virtually unanimously, on 20 November 1998, a resolution which defended fixed book prices and which called on the Commission to bring its Community policy on book price agreements into line with cultural requirements.
<P>
Under pressure from the French and German Governments, the Council used Parliament' s position to adopt a resolution on 8 February 1999 demanding, in particular, the continuation of the existing fixed book price systems.
The steadfastness shown by the Council and Parliament led the Commission to acknowledge that competition rules could not be systematically applied in the book sector.
It therefore confirmed that it had no intention of challenging the contractual agreements concluded in certain Member States or national laws such as the Lange Act in France.
Nevertheless, some months later, and after the installation of the new Commission, the Directorate-General for Competition is once again pushing the Commission to act against cross-border agreements and fixed book prices.
<P>
Faced with this new offensive by the Commission, which is bent on deregulation, it was important to react very quickly.
I am therefore delighted about this debate and the new position being taken by the European Parliament on this issue.
In its motion for a resolution, my group stresses that books are primarily cultural assets and must not therefore be subject to the competition rules in the same way as all other goods.
Their unique nature must be fully recognised in the context of the EU' s cultural policy which we are trying to develop.
This is why we hope that Parliament will confirm its position of November 1998 in order to defend cross-border agreements and fixed book prices.
Why will the Commission not take up our proposal to extend the fixed book price system to all Member States?
In order to take account of technological developments, the directive on e-commerce should also include the requirements indicated by the various national laws on fixed book prices to prevent this system from being circumvented.
<P>
To conclude, I hope that the Council will show the same steadfastness as this House in protecting and promoting the fixed book price system. This system, as noted by our motion for a resolution, is better than any other at improving the production and distribution of literary works without eliminating competition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, Commissioner, the Dutch poet Lucebert wrote "Everything of value is defenceless."
These words are of great value in the debate on fixed book prices.
<P>
In fixed book pricing, there is certainly no 'sacred cow' for book lovers.
With words to the same effect, former Commissioner Van Miert once lashed out against those advocating the maintenance of fixed book pricing.
He very conveniently overlooked the fact that those against fixed book pricing very probably selected the market mechanism as if it were their "golden calf" .
<P>
The instrument of fixed book pricing and the corresponding restriction in exploiting the opportunities afforded by parallel importing reduce competition.
Cross-subsidisation will occur between good and bad expenditure.
The abolition of fixed book pricing results in increased competition and lower prices.
This would be in the interests of the consumer.
<P>
This line of reasoning seems to be sound, but it falls short on two important counts.
In the first place, the government is responsible for running society as a whole.
In carrying out this responsibility, it is completely unacceptable to society as a whole if it honours certain specific interests unilaterally and neglects others.
In this discussion, the government cannot just have the consumer' s partial interests at heart.
<P>
Secondly, the reasoning is based on the implied assumption that price is the only thing that matters to the consumer.
This is a rather one-sided view.
I have never met a consumer on the street with such blinkered views.
He only exists in theory.
Indeed, the real consumer also takes into account quality, diversity, accessibility and adequate distribution of the total supply of books.
That fixed book pricing only benefits publishers and bookshops is thus a fable and anyone who has read a story in a children' s book will know that fables are not entirely true.
<P>
People in favour of the abolition of fixed book pricing should also be aware of the consequences.
It is highly likely that diversity in the supply of bookshops will suffer.
Mass culture will be promoted.
This is, in the long run, fatal for the cultural education of citizens.
In my country, the Netherlands, there is also the consideration that fixed book pricing protects our relatively small linguistic region.
<P>
You could, in defence, bring up the argument that it is not up to the government to tutor or stimulate its citizens into cultural education and it therefore has no responsibility in terms of the richness in the variety of books supplied.
The government should abstain from exercising any influence and the market mechanism will balance out supply and demand.
This sounds neutral but it is not.
Implicitly, this point of view sees the effect of market forces as being the only right outcome.
In our society, the introduction of market forces seems to be the highest goal in virtually all areas of policy.
This viewpoint is a direct result of reversing ends and means.
The outcome of a liberal, strictly market-conforming policy is, by definition, not free from value judgement.
With such a policy, the government is making just as much of a value statement of what it believes is right or wrong.
It is especially important in the cultural sector that factors other than financial ones are part of the equation because things of great value also happen to be very vulnerable.
<P>
If the free market forces take over, we will soon have to switch Lucebert' s words around to "Everything is once more without value" .
We need to avoid this situation at all costs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Inglewood">
Mr President, in my own country, the United Kingdom, we had a long political debate over the value of resale price maintenance applied to books.
That debate ended with the abolition of the book price-fixing agreement.
There is no evidence from the United Kingdom of less choice, higher prices or of any reduction in specialist bookshops.
Indeed, the number of books sold and the number of publishing houses producing them appears to be increasing.
This is surely a good thing.
At least it seems so to me since I think that books exist to be read, or certainly that was the conclusion I reached when I studied English literature at university.
<P>
Certainly, under the principles of subsidiarity, if a Member State wishes to impose resale price maintenance on books, so be it.
Moreover, if two or more Member States wish to create an internal area of joint resale price maintenance in respect of books, good luck to them.
But this has to be compatible with the single market.
<P>
Any such statutory system must have no effect as regards books sold outside the limits of the Member States' jurisdiction.
Nor should it affect books brought in or brought back into it, an increasingly widespread and popular means of book-selling developing in conjunction with e-commerce, which is entirely in accordance with the principles of the single market, and provides enormous opportunities for small niche businesses.
<P>
Any suggestion that this should take place is illiberal.
It is contrary to the principles of the single market and, in my view, is de facto a form of censorship, and artificially rationing the supply of books in favour of the better-off.
Furthermore, I believe that it prejudices a proper and legitimate aspect of intra-European trade, threatening to reduce the movement of literature across Europe to the level of pornography sent through the post, so I am reliably informed, in unmarked brown manilla envelopes, and in the free world reducing the legitimate trade in books to the level of smuggling in and out of eastern Europe of so-called subversive literature.
I, for one at least, am not in favour of that because I believe it is old-fashioned, illiberal, reactionary and, in its longer-term effect, philistine.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Junker">
Mr President, please believe that I know what I am talking about because my father owned a book shop.
My parents had a small book shop in a small town.
There was not much to do there, but anyway.
I can assure you that, without book price fixing, we could not have survived, which is why, Commissioner, your statements can only be felt as a disappointment and your presentation has made it clear that the question of cross-border book price fixing threatens to turn into an endless saga.
<P>
It is a truism to say that books are not goods like butter, eggs and cheese and that they are a cultural asset which cannot be dealt with under competition law like butter, eggs and cheese.
That does not alter the fact that there is printed matter which does not meet this claim.
However, the exception should not be seen here as the rule, nor should we take as a yardstick the fact that there are books which earn a great deal of money. Best-sellers are, indeed, the exception to the rule.
<P>
It is not right to see books merely as an economic asset.
Luckily, your predecessor, who represented this view, was clearly unable to make it stick.
So we still have reason to hope, but the danger has clearly not been averted, far from it.
Hence our urgent request, to which we expect a clear answer, Commissioner, that books should be seen as cultural products.
Obviously, national book price fixing systems are, thankfully, not disputed; consequently, the possibility must be granted for regulations such as those which now exist, for single cross-border language areas.
What has been preserved over a hundred years in the German-speaking area between Austria, Germany and Switzerland, what has permitted a large diversity of titles and has ensured that competition is not excluded and that there is a comprehensive supply of large and small bookshops in both town and country, should not be sacrificed to the unbridled and extortionate pressure of the market leaders, not in book shops, not in the mail order business and not in e-commerce.
<P>
As a cultural asset, books have the right to equal status in the various channels, including sales channels, to the reader.
The French regulation which, in addition to the national price fixing system, also includes regulations on imports, exports and re-imports, offers a way forward which is compatible with the EU and which has proven its worth in practice, which is why, Commissioner, the European Parliament is waiting, across the group divide as you will no doubt have seen, for the go-ahead for a similar legal or contractual regulation for Germany and Austria, in order to bring this endless saga to a happy ending at last.
Or do you prefer to expose yourself to the reproach that the Commission is a committee of philistines?
You should spare yourself this sad reputation.
You have to decide between culture and commerce.
Please opt for culture.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langen">
Commissioner, we have often discussed this matter in the past in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
Listening to the debate here today, I can see that what was agreed between the Austrian and Germany book trade and the Commission has still found no place in this debate.
I can see, including from the speeches this week, that there is obviously a rapprochement here, on the basis of the recognition of the national book price fixing system and a regulation based on French law, which demonstrates, Commissioner Monti, that you are prepared to weigh the cultural aspect, which has formed part of the EC Treaty since Maastricht, against Article 85 of the EC Treaty, which requires you, as Commissioner for competition, to ensure that there are equal conditions of competition, thereby helping to ensure that consumers do not lose out in this respect.
<P>
The question is, how can it be done?
I am convinced that we are on the right track here.
We do not need to accuse the Commissioner of philistinism, because he is just doing his job as keeper of the treaties.
I think that if we can find an economically reasonable solution which the publishing houses agree with, if we can find a solution which recognises cultural language areas, if we can find a solution which does not incorporate the maximum limitation on competition within the level playing field required under Article 85, then we are on the right track towards a reasonable regulation.
<P>
In principle, therefore, I support the motion for a resolution as tabled here by Mr Rothley.
However, reference to the Commission' s obligation to comply with competition regulations is missing.
This should be added, otherwise we shall lose credibility and we shall put Mr Monti in an awkward position which he certainly does not deserve, because I have confidence in your informed judgement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Karas">
Mr President, Commissioner, we have discussed this issue on many occasions in the past and views have been exchanged.
Account has even been taken of recent developments.
I should therefore like to stress just a few points once again.
<P>
First, politics means shaping; politics means shaping the habitat and coexistence of people.
Secondly, the book trade is more to us than simply a sales network for books.
It creates identities and books create identities.
Thirdly, the question at issue for me is not merely cross-border trade between Austria and Germany, although that is the starting point; it is the question of the role of language areas and the role of cultural areas.
For us the relevant market is the market to which the book relates and it cannot be reduced to national borders.
For us it is, in this respect, the language and cultural area, hence the importance of cross-border fixed book prices.
It is obvious to us Austrians that a national regulation alone is not enough and that we also need an import clause and an export clause and to use the French model as a basis, because the language area and the cultural area transcend our national borders.
<P>
Commissioner, you said that you had never seen the need for conflict between culture and the market.
I share this view, provided that we state clearly what we mean by market and what we mean by the purpose of competition policy.
You said at your hearing that you were striving for competition policy and the market to further develop into a social market economy.
A social and ecological market economy includes protection for cultural assets and signals market definition.
This is precisely our debate, which is why I appeal to you to define clearly the relevant market in this context as a language and cultural area, to clarify import clauses together with the possibility for national regulation and to apply the French law to your judgement and considerations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
<SPEAKER ID=97 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Monti">
Mr President, I would like to thank all those who took part in this debate, which I found worthwhile both from a political and a cultural point of view.
I would like to assure the participants in the debate that the Commission, and myself personally, attach a lot of importance, as you do, to culture and books, and we recognise the cultural importance of books and are ready to take into account these specific features.
Mr Karas mentioned that I have already stated that I wish competition policy to be an element of the social market economy: I confirm this and ask you all not to consider competition as an abstract concept and the citizens' enemy.
<P>
Competition is the main ally of individual citizens.
Competition' s main aim is to safeguard consumer interests from the point of view both of prices and quality, as well as to safeguard small and medium-sized businesses against the excesses of large businesses, in many cases.
For this reason, just as I am prepared to give full recognition to the importance of culture, I am asking you not to become intellectual victims of an approach whereby competition is not a major ally of citizens.
The task of competition is to combat cartels, the abuse of dominant positions and mergers, and to create more possibilities for economic freedom, and we know that economic freedom is often accompanied by civil freedom too, as shown by the past experience of countries which did not have economic freedom.
I therefore believe that there is room for a harmonious interaction between cultural policy and competition policy, without creating futile and forced counter-stances.
<P>
The evidence provided by Lord Inglewood, which can be found in other countries as well, shows that the abolition of a fixed price system does not necessarily bring about disruptive consequences in terms of prices and quality of books.
Yet I want it to be very clear that the Commission is not working for the abolition of fixed price systems for books as such.
Frankly, Mrs Juncker, I wonder whether you and I were in the same room when I spoke because I am very surprised that you say that the Commission wants to eliminate the price maintenance system.
May I repeat literally what I said in Italian:
<P>
"The Commission believes that national systems of fixed book prices, based on agreements between companies, are compatible with Community competition rules if they do not significantly affect trade between Member States."
I also said: "As for systems based on regulations" - that is, the other possibility, not agreements but regulations - "each Member State is free to adopt regulations as long as they are compatible with the principle, sanctioned by the Treaty, of the free movement of goods" .
Therefore, please, let us not depict the Commission as an institution which sets out to do things that in reality it has no intention of doing.
I have repeatedly said that we will not oppose, nor can we oppose, fixed book price systems at national level.
We must only prevent telling distortions arising from the fact that this is a cross-border issue.
<P>
I have already said, as regards the specific German/Austrian case, where proceedings are on-going, that unfortunately I cannot discuss it in detail here. I can, however, assure you that I made an enormous effort, in my first three months in office, to meet the parties concerned and pinpoint prospects for a positive outcome.
In this respect, I found Mr Langen' s intervention constructive, as he seems to recognise that such a prospect exists.
<P>
(EN) Finally, Mrs Echerer reminded us all in this room that we have different backgrounds.
She is right.
Unfortunately, my background is not that of an actor.
I would not dare to define myself as a man of culture, far from it, but I spent my life until five years ago as a university professor and my life has been spent between books as an instrument for work and they are something I deeply respect and love.
I believe I am as sensitive as anybody here to the importance of books, of culture.
It is simply my job to try to preserve all the positive values that are embedded in them, avoiding at the same time some excesses that may be to the detriment of the reader.
<P>
Thank you very much for your attention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="President">
That concludes the debate.
<P>
The vote will take place this evening.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 12.40 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Topical and urgent subjects of major importance
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Indonesia
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>
B5-0339/1999 by Mr Titley, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the situation in Indonesia and East Timor;
<P>
B5-0350/1999 by Mrs Lynne, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on Indonesia;
<P>
B5-0366/1999 by Mr Nassauer and others, on Indonesia and East Timor;
<P>
B5-0377/1999 by Mrs Hautala and others, on behalf of the Greens/ALE Group, on the situation in Indonesia and East Timor;
<P>
B5-0382/1999 by Mr Miranda and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on Indonesia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Titley">
I would like to begin on a positive note.
I think we should recognise that there is now a new democratically-elected government in Indonesia and that, for the first time in 40 years, there is now a civilian defence minister.
Therefore, we should, as the international community, be seeking to support that democratic government in Indonesia.
However, in the same week as we gave Mr Gusmão the Sakharov Prize, we must be careful not to drop our guard too far.
We must consider that although there is a civilian defence minister in Indonesia, the defence ministry is still heavily militarised.
Clearly we would want to see greater democratisation of the defence ministry in Indonesia.
<P>
We must also recognise that there is still considerable abuse by the armed forces against those who wish to express a desire for autonomy in parts of Indonesia.
Clearly while that persecution is going on by the Indonesian military we would not also be wanting to support that or give any message of support.
<P>
We also know that in West Timor, the Indonesian military have not disarmed or disbanded the militias yet.
They are still terrorising something like 200 000 East Timorese refugees who are trapped in West Timor.
They are obstructing UN efforts in order to repatriate these people to East Timor.
We want to see those militias disarmed and disbanded as soon as possible.
We also know that the Indonesian military are opposed to cooperating with the UN International Commission of Inquiry set up to investigate crimes against humanity in East Timor.
We want to see the Indonesian military cooperate fully with UN investigations.
For that reason the EU should be extending its four-month old arms embargo on arms sales to Indonesia because if we were to lift that arms embargo the signal we would give to the military is very clearly that they are acceptable and have been rehabilitated, whereas, as I have just outlined, that is far from being the case.
<P>
I recognise there is a strong argument for saying that if we do not provide arms to Indonesia they will go elsewhere to buy them, to China or to Russia, for example.
Nonetheless, it is important for us to make a clear statement that we want to see reform of the Indonesia military.
We want to see greater civilian and democratic control and we want to see greater respect for human rights in Indonesia.
That has not yet happened and now is not the time to lift the arms embargo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Lynne">
I put this resolution forward on behalf of the ELDR Group because I believe the EU arms embargo should not be lifted on 17 January.
What we should have instead is an extension of that arms embargo.
It would be definitely unacceptable to lift it.
The army have failed miserably to disarm and disband the militia.
They have been terrorising between a hundred and two hundred thousand refugees in West Timor.
They are not allowing aid workers into the camps.
In one camp 160 have died.
90% of those were children under five.
As has already been said, they are not cooperating with the UN International Commission for Crimes Against Humanity and they are also committing crimes and atrocities in Aceh and West Papua.
One case I heard of recently was that the police and the army together beat up a young man. He was going to look for his mother.
They beat him up and interrogated him and kicked him to the ground.
After that they poured gasoline over him and burnt him alive.
That was in North Aceh.
It is still happening.
The Indonesian Army and the militia and the police are still committing these atrocities.
To raise the embargo would give totally wrong signals.
<P>
I heard also recently about a secret defence intelligence report from Australia.
Some of the EU countries did not want to agree to the ban in the first place.
Some EU Member States put financial gain above human rights and I do not believe that that is acceptable.
While the Indonesian army is still engaged in acts of repression, the embargo must stay.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Nassauer">
Mr President, the key question is whether or not the arms embargo decided by the Council in September of this year as part of the restrictive measures against Indonesia should be extended beyond January next year.
I think, having weighed up the pros and cons, that the right decision is to maintain the embargo.
This allows us to send out two different signals.
First, we want to bolster the development of democracy in Indonesia.
It has, without doubt, maintained momentum with the democratic change of power in Indonesia and we want to and we must encourage the democratic forces in Indonesia.
We must also recognise that the role of the army continues to be highly problematic, to put it mildly.
There have been atrocities not only in East Timor, which is now to gain independence, but also in Aceh and other parts of Indonesia.
<P>
What we have to do is make it clear to the army that it is now being closely watched by the public worldwide, especially in the EU, and that we take the liberty of drawing our conclusions from the behaviour of the military.
At the moment, these conclusions must be that we are not prepared to supply this military with any more weapons, irrespective of whether or not the fear that they will now obtain these weapons from China is justified.
We, in all events, should not render ourselves guilty of this arms supply.
I therefore advocate, after careful consideration, that we vote to maintain this embargo, because it is a signal to the army in Indonesia and we hope that it is also a signal to the democratic forces in Indonesia which, we may assume, will be encouraged by our stance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="McKenna">
Like other speakers, I would like to support the call for the arms embargo to remain.
As has been said already, it would be completely unacceptable that the arms embargo be lifted, especially in the light of the fact that the Indonesian military have failed to disarm.
<P>
We should send out a signal that what they are doing is unacceptable.
The only justification for lifting the arms embargo would be in the interests of profit.
Many Member States of the European Union have a lot to answer for as regards their own support in the past for the Indonesian authority while it was oppressing the people of East Timor, and also for the fact that these countries and their arms manufacturing firms have made huge profits at the expense of innocent lives and the wellbeing of people and the right of people to live freely without oppression and human rights abuses.
<P>
What is happening in East Timor as regards the aid workers is unacceptable.
What the Indonesian authorities are doing there has to be challenged.
As Mrs Lynne has already said, it is not acceptable that the aid workers do not have access to the camps where people are dying.
We stood idly by for too long after the referendum.
We should have done something long before.
The signal was already there.
Despite our past failure to ensure that people were not killed, the onus is now on us to ensure that in future no message of support goes out to the Indonesian authorities as it stands.
They are showing contempt for the wish and will of the international community as regards the right of people to live in peace, the right of people not to be oppressed, the right of people not to be killed with weapons made by western countries.
If China is going to supply weapons to Indonesia that does not justify the European Union lifting its arms embargo.
Two wrongs do not make a right.
<P>
What we should also be doing is challenging the fact that China may in fact provide arms.
This is also unacceptable.
China gets away with a huge amount of wrong-doing and it is about time we stood up to them as well.
A clear signal has to go out to the Indonesian authorities that we are no longer going to accept their contempt for the wish of the international community for human rights and peace.
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<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Costa Neves">
Mr President, like the previous speakers, I would say that the signs of change in Indonesia are obvious.
The search for new paths, marked out by the universal values that characterise constitutional States, that is being led by Mr Wahid' s government deserves the appreciation of the international community.
<P>
It is nevertheless too early to assess how well their intentions will succeed.
There are fundamental questions that still need to be answered.
How is Indonesia going to address the problems of Aceh, the Moluccas and West Papua?
How will it resolve the problem of the Timorese refugees who are now just currency in the hands of pro-Indonesian militias?
What will be their attitude towards the crimes committed by Indonesian soldiers in East Timor, where they were the occupying force, as well as in some Indonesian provinces?
What role will the Indonesian armed forces play?
Will they be able to adapt to a constitutional state or will they continue to be a force within a force?
<P>
In terms of the relationship between the European Union and its Member States with the Republic of Indonesia at the moment, the only sensible course of action is to uphold the decisions of the Council of 16 and 17 October, when restrictions were established that included a ban on the sale of weapons.
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<SPEAKER ID=106 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Belder">
Mr President, since his official appointment over one and a half months ago, President Wahid has already made fifteen foreign visits.
However, the Indonesian Head of State did not visit a single one of the many acute hotspots at home until earlier this week.
Moreover, the national political elite had to make a detour in Ambon in order to reach the civil governor' s residence by warship.
It seems that President Wahid travels more safely abroad than in his own archipelago - a fateful sign!
<P>
Such an impossible situation requires political decisiveness.
After all, we know what the consequences were: an estimated seven hundred casualties on the Moluccas this year alone.
Add to this more than one thousand victims on East Timor, and this is not taking into account the massive unrest and bloodshed in Aceh, Sulawesi and Irian Jaya.
<P>
We could reasonably expect the new Indonesian government to take action in three fundamental areas: restoring public order, prosecuting and punishing those who have blood on their hands and entering into a political dialogue with the opposition.
After all, blunt military repression of opposition forces only leads to a nigh hopeless spiral of violence.
<P>
The present resolution thus makes an emphatic appeal to the Indonesian authorities.
This is why we gladly subscribe to the resolution.
<P>
We have since received reports that one of the key culprits of the East Timorese tragedy, the militia leader Tavares, has suddenly decided to disband the murderous gangs and wishes to walk the path of reconciliation.
The timing of this 'U-turn' seems highly suspect.
Indeed, today sees the start of the International Donor Conference for East Timor in Japan.
Surely the looters of yesterday could not be the subsidisers of tomorrow!
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<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission welcomes this debate with open arms, as it does the contributions made to this debate so far, for they demonstrate that the European Union is conscious of the responsibility it has for developments in Indonesia and that it wants to continue in its endeavours to bring about a stable and democratic order there.
This is the principle on which our policy is based and nothing will change in this regard.
<P>
I quite agree with those who have pointed out that, all problems aside, there have also been some extremely positive developments in Indonesia, which are deserving of support.
The new government has been democratically elected.
It appears to be committed to tackling the urgent problems.
It is endeavouring to resolve the aforementioned regional unrest in Aceh and Irian Jaya and the ethnic tensions in the Moluccas, by means of peaceful dialogue and constitutional reform, and I believe it is crucially important that there is a national commission on human rights that is dealing with human rights issues.
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As far as the Commission is concerned, it will only be possible to tackle regional tensions and demands for more autonomy or for independence if a regime, a system, is introduced in Indonesia, that truly guarantees unambiguous political accountability and transparency of statecraft, and lives up to the expectations of the large, democratically-minded majority of citizens.
<P>
The Commission is aware that there are still huge challenges to be met in Indonesia.
Firstly, I might mention the fact that the army needs to be reformed, secondly that a stable system of law and order needs to be introduced.
Continuing in that vein, there is a need to put a stop to corruption, to resolve the social problems arising from the economic crisis in Asia and to give renewed impetus to the badly affected Indonesian economy.
<P>
Permit me to make a few further remarks on East Timor in this connection, and then I also want to say something about the arms embargo.
I believe that reconstruction in East Timor presents the international community with a very special challenge.
Timor stands out on account of the scale of damage and violence and the singular political situation there.
That is why we want to, and must, help achieve a comprehensive solution to the problems there, under the auspices of the United Nations.
Then there is also the question as to how this state is to be constructed and how human rights are to be secured there.
<P>
The Commission has already involved itself here and will continue to involve itself.
Supporting East Timor is a high-priority task as far as we are concerned.
This was illustrated by Mr Nielson' s visit to East and West Timor a few weeks ago.
So far, the Commission has made a total of EUR 33.5 million available for humanitarian aid and reconstruction measures.
The Commission is also to participate in the Donor Conference due to take place in Tokyo tomorrow and which has already been mentioned here.
A concrete programme is to be decided on there.
The Commission intends to see to it that technical assistance is provided in Dili, with a view to ensuring effective implementation of the programmes.
<P>
I believe that what we need to do in the very near future in East Timor is to implement the necessary humanitarian measures efficiently.
The repatriation of refugees has begun.
The Indonesian government has assured us that the voluntary repatriation process will soon be concluded.
We intend to keep a very watchful eye on this and, if we detect any hold-ups, then we will bring pressure to bear on the Indonesian government.
<P>
In our view, it is up to the United Nations to take the leading role in coordinating all the donors' endeavours.
That is why the Commission believes that all donors should work closely with UNTAET.
The East Timorese should play a part in all aspects of the reconstruction and development process.
The Commission believes that the advisory council, which also contains representatives of various political groupings, has an important role to play.
And so, all in all, although there are positive signs in Indonesia and East Timor, still there is cause for concern and unease.
It is for this very reason that the European Parliament considers this debate to be a necessary one and this is completely in line with the Commission' s intentions and deliberations.
<P>
You are aware that the Council has sole responsibility for the arms embargo issue, which has been discussed on a number of occasions here.
Consequently, I only have a certain amount of room for manoeuvre where this is concerned, but I believe that I can say this much: the Commission hopes that the Members of the Council will not only be notified of the arguments that have been presented here but also act on them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place this afternoon at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Peace process in Sierra Leone
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>
B5-0333/1999 by Mrs Lucas and others, on behalf of the Greens/ALE Group, on Sierra Leone;
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B5-0340/1999 by Mrs Kinnock and Mr Howitt, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the peace process in Sierra Leone;
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B5-0352/1999 by Mrs Thors and others, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the peace process in Sierra Leone;
<P>
B5-0367/1999 by Mrs Ferrer and others, on behalf of the PPE/DE Group, on the situation in Sierra Leone.
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<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, after eight years of infernal civil war, the situation in Sierra Leone is desperate.
Although a peace agreement was signed in Lomé in July, on 22 November, a UN investigation team sadly noted once again a significant deterioration.
The terror against the civilian population in certain parts continues, as do the killings, rape, incarceration and arming of children.
This leads me to raise two specific questions, Mr President, Commissioner, which we need to ask ourselves in all honesty, both as a Commission and as a Union.
Can we allow this arms trade to continue?
We know that diamonds - smuggled diamonds, in particular - play a crucial role in this.
Can we continue to turn a blind eye?
<P>
Secondly, for the sake of maintaining the peace agreement, a pledge was made to deploy UN peace-keeping troops.
Is the mandate of these troops powerful enough or should we not find out as a matter of urgency what this comes down to in practice other than paying a few mercenaries to be stationed in safe zones?
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<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Nicholson of Winterbourne">
The situation in Sierra Leone continues to be extremely unstable.
The peace agreement offered improved conditions to only a very small number of the RUF hierarchy.
As the rains in Sierra Leone have come to an end, the campaign of violence and terror against the civilian population has resumed.
<P>
To improve things we need to change the quality of government.
It is a country which was highly educated and highly law-abiding.
It is being ruined by international money laundering: diamonds are more easy to exchange internationally than money.
But the poor respect both education and humanitarian values and they respect democracy.
Soon there will be another general election.
We should support that push for democracy.
They have earned their chance to vote.
I call upon the European Parliament and the European Commission to give funding for education, basic justice and democracy immediately.
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<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Ferrer">
Mr President, after eight years - as we have been reminded - of a bloody civil war, the peace agreement signed on 7 July of this year provided the opportunity to end this tragic period and resolve, in a peaceful and lasting way, a conflict which has caused immense suffering to the population.
Nevertheless, the hopes which gave rise to this agreement have not been fulfilled and today, five months later, we must note with great concern and sorrow that the rebel attacks against civilians, the killings and rapes, have not only failed to diminish, but have actually increased.
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Therefore, we Christian Democrats, who have always defended the use of dialogue and reconciliation, wish to repeat our complete condemnation of the acts of violence and violations of human rights which are still being carried out and deplore the delay in the development of the peace process.
However, above all, we wish to call on the parties in the conflict to abandon arms for good and respect the commitments contained in the agreement.
Since words are not enough, however, and actions are required, we earnestly request that measures be adopted and means provided that will allow compliance with the agreement.
In particular, the Security Council of the United Nations must decide to go ahead with the deployment of international peacekeeping forces.
Also, the necessary funds must be provided so that the agreement may be put into effect; particularly - and this has already been mentioned - with regard to the promotion of development and education, of all those measures which will finally allow the population of Sierra Leone to come together and live in peace, freedom and democracy.
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<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Hecke, Johan">
Mr President, I think that the current situation in Sierra Leone sets a dangerous precedent, not only for Africa but also for the rest of the world.
In July, a peace agreement was concluded between the government and the RUF rebels.
This is laudable, if it were not for the fact that we are dealing with one of the world' s cruellest rebel groups, without a political goal other than gaining control over the diamond.
One of the goals of the peace agreement is to provide general amnesty, for crimes against citizens as well.
It offers the rebels various ministerial posts and also the important presidency of a committee authorised to exploit and export minerals.
This is a worrying sign: a sign that terror works; that the mutilation and killing of citizens not only remains unpunished, but even pays; that any warlord could take up arms against a democratically elected government and be rewarded into the bargain.
For the government, the peace agreement is a pragmatic solution.
Indeed, President Kabbah does not have his own army.
He completely relies on the West African peace-keeping force ECOMOG and on the Nigerians, in particular, but they have already announced that they wish to retreat from this bloody war.
This means that the President now has his back against the wall.
This is why the European Union must urge the UN to deploy the peace-keeping force quickly in order to end the terror.
This is why more should be invested in the programme for the disarmament of rebels.
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Finally, we need to continue to advocate a form of justice on behalf of the thousands of victims of this terror movement.
If not, a scenario similar to that in neighbouring Liberia is likely to present itself, where people choose a warlord for fear that he would otherwise take up arms again.
This is, I think, totally unacceptable.
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<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van den Bos">
Mr President, to term these on-going brutalities in Sierra Leone as bestial is an insult to animals.
After eight years of civil war, the road to peace seemed finally clear but the abhorrent brutalities, in particular those against women and children, carry on relentlessly.
Child soldiers are abused on a large scale to pander to the malafide interests of adults.
It is impossible to stabilise and reconstruct the country as long as citizens continue to be slaughtered.
Europe should make a financial contribution to implement the DDR Programme.
Diamond smuggling must be addressed efficiently.
European support for rehabilitation programmes is also essential.
Indeed, good mental and physical guidance of the victims is urgently required.
It is also vitally important for enduring peace that the guilty parties are brought to justice rather than being appointed to ministers.
When are the animals returning to their cages?
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<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, as many previous speakers have said, Sierra Leone offers the absolutely worst example of what happens when a country uses child soldiers.
In our Finnish newspapers, we could read a week or two ago about an eighteen year-old girl who had been compulsorily recruited, had suffered an amputation and had been raped.
She could see no future and no hope.
For me, her story represents everything that is so horrific about the use of child soldiers and forces us to think about what we can do about this.
We should also note that a third of the child soldiers who have been recruited in Sierra Leone are still mere girls.
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We should demand - and I hope that the Commission also does so - that the President should respect the agreement once entered into with Unicef.
This means that Unicef should be allowed to work in the country in order to rehabilitate children who have suffered psychological damage.
I believe that Unicef is the organisation which has far and away the greatest experience of this work.
I therefore believe that, in the future, we should in every way support precisely this organisation, for it is psychological damage above all that the children are suffering from and which makes many of them want to return to the military forces.
It is this that is one of the most serious threats for the future.
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<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, here too, I should like, on behalf of the Commission, to welcome expressly the fact that the European Parliament has turned its attention to this subject this afternoon.
I think it is very important that we make it clear that the horrific human rights violations such as those which we have seen and which we are seeing in Sierra Leone are a matter of concern to all Europeans because it is our understanding that human rights and human dignity are indivisible throughout the world and we will not tolerate a selective perception which results in our taking a closer interest in acts of violence in our own region than in the eruptions of violence which we have witnessed in Sierra Leone for several years now.
<P>
I agree with those who have said that there are few conflicts in the world which are as barbaric, as bloodthirsty and, unfortunately, as hopeless, as far a political solution is concerned, as this conflict in Sierra Leone.
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The peace agreement concluded in July was welcomed at the time by the European Union.
We called on all parties to help implement it and stated that we ourselves were prepared to do so.
We could see that it would be very difficult and we could see that, in the final analysis, all the conditions for a working, stable, democratic rule of law in Sierra Leone would have to be created anew and that there was only limited willingness to cooperate.
Like Parliament, we are therefore extremely worried about the latest violations of the ceasefire and we are concerned that the peace agreement is only being implemented slowly, if at all.
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Nonetheless, we must ask ourselves what we can do to help the tormented victims of this conflict.
Merely stating that the situation is horrific does not help, which is why we are starting by offering concrete help with reintegration with the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration programme.
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Since 1997, the Commission has been financing reconstruction of the social and economic infrastructure destroyed by the war through its rehabilitation programme.
With the help of this programme, families settling there and former fighters are obtaining jobs and an income.
We are currently working on a bigger programme to the tune of some EUR 20 million to support reconstruction and reintegration.
This programme should replace the current programme, which expires in the middle of next year.
<P>
Further help to resettle rural communities is being given in the form of agricultural resources and is being funded under the food security budget line.
<P>
ECHO will also provide further humanitarian aid.
In 1999, non-governmental organisations and UN organisations received EUR 14 million for the benefit of the people who had suffered during the war.
It included aid for Sierra Leone - refugees in neighbouring Liberia and Guinea and, as referred to here, help for NRO, which gives psychological and social support in the refugee camps, has initiated aid programmes for demobilised child soldiers and is addressing the particularly gruelling problem of mutilated children in order to give them some prospects in life.
The lady Member just said that these children had no prospects.
I do not think we should accept that so readily. I think that we should do everything we can to give these children a dignified life.
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I should like to remind you that the scope of humanitarian aid in Sierra Leone does not depend on the funds available but on the security situation in the country itself.
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At present, the aid organisations are severely hampered in their work by the insecurity which prevails in the northern and eastern provinces of the country.
Whether or not there is additional impetus in the disarmament process and hence an improvement in the security situation will depend this month on the arrival of the UNAMSL forces, the UN mission to Sierra Leone.
<P>
The Commission is currently preparing further help for the year 2000.
We are, in fact, discussing further aid for the children affected by the war with UNICEF, the Ministry of Social Affairs and with various groups from civilian society.
I should like to stress here that the Commission will always be prepared to examine proposals from these groups for action in the human rights sector.
The Commission is also prepared to examine funding for the Truth and Reconciliation Committee being set up under its budget line for human rights and democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
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The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place this afternoon at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Human rights
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Messner">
Mr President, I am pleased that we in Europe can say that the death penalty has been abolished.
The abolition of the death penalty belongs, as it were, to our culture.
Unfortunately, however, we did not see the abolition of the death penalty in the UN in 1999.
We all know that the death penalty is still on the agenda in Iran, Turkey, China and Yemen.
I find it particularly tragic that America, the land which champions freedom and human rights, has maintained the death penalty.
At the moment, two European Union citizens are on death row, a Spaniard in Yemen and an Italian in the USA, a Mr Barnabei, who is due to be executed in the year 2000.
Mr Barnabei, who was previously a respectable man, is accused of having killed a young woman.
This is my cause for concern insofar as, like me, he is an Italian citizen.
<P>
I urge the Commission and, of course, this Parliament, to do everything it can to get this death sentence commuted to life imprisonment or postponed, not just because leading American legal experts have indicated that there may be a miscarriage of justice, as is often the case, but also because he is an EU citizen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Díez González">
Mr President, it once again falls to the European Parliament to condemn the death penalty, the greatest violation of human rights which is still being committed in the world, often and to all our shame, under the protection of laws which have been created by men who represent the sovereignty of the people.
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Today we are talking about the sentencing of two European citizens, a Spaniard and an Italian, who have been condemned to death, as has already been said, in Yemen and the United States respectively.
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In the case of the Spanish citizen, Nabil Nanakli, furthermore, there is no sufficient information regarding the trial, arrest and current situation of the prisoner, which has mobilised the entire Muslim community.
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We have stated in this House that they is no such thing as a just death penalty, that no human being may condemn to death or execute another human being, that there is no recourse to any law, to any sovereignty, to the independence of any State, which can justify this violation of life itself.
The defence of human rights is at the very heart of our Union.
To globalise the respect for human rights must be our prime objective.
I am not making - and this Parliament is not once again making - a humanitarian declaration.
It is a political commitment, it is Politics with a capital 'P' , and it is the European Union' s foreign policy.
<P>
Therefore, I would like to draw attention to point 5 of our Resolution, which says that we repeat our request to the Council to incorporate into negotiations with third countries - with all of them - "the abolition of the death penalty as part of the human rights clause" .
We expect a response from the Council in this respect; a response and a commitment which is also political.
<P>
I have received a book which has been published to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Council of Europe, a book whose title reads "Europe, all of us under the same roof" .
Let us be ambitious, let us extend the European roof, let us extend our civilisation, let us put into practice a phrase which, fortunately, this book quotes.
In the words of Albert Camus: "Neither in people' s hearts nor in the customs of society will there be peace while the death penalty remains legal" .
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<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Gemelli">
Mr President, for a Christian, requesting a moratorium on capital punishment and its abolition is not just a duty or a proper act, but an ethical choice made out of respect for people who have done wrong and who can and must redeem themselves.
We are opposed to deaths caused by man' s interference, such as abortion and euthanasia.
<P>
A guilty verdict is irrelevant to this request.
We would ask for this moratorium even if the person were a confessed criminal and there is all the more reason for us to do it when there may be reasonable doubt about their guilt.
If, on the basis of formal documents on civil rights, we ask for humane conditions in prisons, there is all the more reason for us to oppose the death penalty and we cannot therefore understand how countries that are recognised as civilised can still have cruel and uncivilised regulations.
<P>
Finally, I would like to stress that, taking the modern view of studying the consequences of criminal judgements, the punishment should fulfil a rehabilitative function, enabling the citizen who has done wrong to take up his place in civil society again.
Knowing these values, we are firmly reasserting our request for a moratorium on capital punishment for the two condemned citizens in Virginia and the Yemen.
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<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Sacconi">
Mr President, we are not today invoking an abstract principal but are intervening on behalf of a young Italo-American, Derek Rocco Barnabei, 33 years of age, who has been living on death row in a prison in Virginia for six years, with the daily nightmare that he may die for a crime that, in all likelihood, he did not commit.
How many others are in the same position?
How many others, like him, do not have the necessary funds to pay for lawyers or the expensive analyses which could, perhaps, completely exonerate them?
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It is our duty to continue protesting about the death sentence, and as the Pope did last Sunday, to continue to clearly call for the moratorium proposed by Italy to at least be applied to the member nations of the UN.
We are keeping the hope alive that the third millennium will start with this proposal being accepted.
<P>
In the meantime, we are continuing to do practical work, by backing initiatives such as the one in Tuscany which aims to raise funds to allow Rocco Barnabei to carry out DNA tests to prove his innocence, and inviting you, President, to use all the means at your disposal to ensure that the message of Parliament and the European institutions gets through to the American authorities.
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Right of women to vote in Kuwait:
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Karamanou">
Mr President, it is regrettable that, at the close of the 20th century, a century symbolised so positively by the peaceful women' s revolution, there are still countries, such as Kuwait and Afghanistan, where half the population, women that is, is still denied fundamental human rights.
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In Kuwait, at the end of November, the parliament rejected the proposal to recognise a woman' s right to vote or to stand for election with 32 votes against and 30 votes in favour. This is not only a violation of human rights for women and an abhorrent political act but, paradoxically enough, it is an infringement of the Constitution of Kuwait, Article 29 of which stipulates that "all citizens are equal before the law, regardless of gender, religion, race or ethnic background" .
What is more, Kuwait is a signatory to the UN' s International Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women.
It appears that the members of the Legislative Assembly - all men of course - are not bound by the country' s Constitution or by laws or international obligations, or by the political will of the leadership of the country which submitted the relevant decree for adoption.
However, this decision, apart from its antiquated misogynistic and deeply antidemocratic nature, is a clear message of resistance against any attempts to modernise and democratise the country.
<P>
That is why the European Parliament needs to send a strong message of support and solidarity to the women of Kuwait who are fighting for their fundamental rights.
We also call upon the representative of the National Assembly to make all possible efforts to review the issue and to restore justice for women so that by the next elections in 2003, the women of Kuwait will have full political rights to vote and to stand for election.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="Nicholson of Winterbourne">
Mr President, the state of Kuwait offers many opportunities for able women today.
Dr Rasha Al-Sabah, the long-serving Under-Secretary of Higher Education, is joined by Dr Fayezah Al-Khorafi, President of the University of Kuwait; Her Excellency Nabila Al-Mulla, who is Ambassador of the State of Kuwait to Austria; Siham Ruzuqi, the Assistant Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Oil; another Assistant Under-Secretary: Sarah Duwaisan at the Ministry of Planning; and in civil society: Shaikha Hussah Al-Salim Al-Mubarek Al-Sabah, the President of Dar Al-Athar Al-Islamiya, the Islamic Museum of Kuwait.
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It is not surprising with this record of achievement of highly able women in Kuwait that, on 16 May 1999, His Highness the Prince of the State of Kuwait issued an official decree giving the Kuwaiti woman the right of voting and of nomination to parliament, but it is parliament who has turned this down.
Despite this, the Kuwaiti Parliament is different from the other parliaments of the Arabian Gulf.
The 50 Members of Parliament are directly elected, not nominated, not appointed as is the case in other Arab Gulf States.
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The Members of Parliament can question ministers in parliament at any time.
That questioning can be so fierce that it can even lead to the resignation of ministers.
Also, the parliament controls the government's annual budget.
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I believe that there will be another vote before too long, perhaps within two or three months, because this is a democratically elected parliament.
It is unthinkable that universal suffrage in a democracy will not be achieved in the end.
As a parliamentarian, therefore, I call upon my fellow parliamentarians - here and in our national parliaments too - to urge Kuwaiti parliamentarians to give women that right to vote and stand.
That is an historic step forward and one that I believe they will not regret.
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<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
Mr President, I would like to say a few words on the resolution concerning the right of Kuwaiti women to vote, a situation which is extremely worrying.
It touches fundamental human rights.
This right is also laid down in the Kuwaiti Constitution, as is stipulated in the resolution and it is, of course, commendable that the Kuwaiti government and parliament have implemented the same.
It is, however, unfortunate, how this came about.
The bill was not passed for two reasons.
Firstly, it was not submitted correctly as the emir did this during recess and secondly, the rank and file did not subscribe to it, so there is also an issue with the rank and file.
So the emir submitted the bill during recess.
This is why MPs who agreed with the content voted against it out of protest against the procedure.
The same was true for fifteen ministers who have voting rights in parliament.
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The second issue which forms part of the larger picture is mainly an issue to do with the local government officials.
They are all men and they have shown little enthusiasm when it comes to women joining them in the local government.
This is why the MPs have voted against, often for fear of their own rank and file - there is no party structure but people are elected directly - and for fear of their own positions.
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Hence my plea, Mr President.
If a clause is added to paragraph 4 in the resolution that a delegation is to go to Kuwait, then the issues of local government will also need to be addressed, as well as the procedural issue, because it is extremely awkward if such an important bill were not to be passed due to a procedural error.
I look forward to a positive outcome to the vote on this resolution.
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<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="Evans, Jillian">
Mr President, every time we hear in this Parliament about the denial of basic human rights, like the right to vote or the right to stand for election, it should serve to strengthen our own resolve to promote and improve democracy in all parts of the world.
So, although the vote of the Kuwaiti National Assembly on 30 November to deny those very rights to women in Kuwait was a deep disappointment, it offers some hope for the future.
The closeness of the vote in November has strengthened the resolve of the women and men in Kuwait who are working for this change in the law.
They have pledged not to give up the campaign.
They have set the 2003 general and municipal elections as their target for the first time that women will ever vote in Kuwait.
They are going to put forward a women's rights bill every year in the National Assembly until they succeed in doing that.
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While we condemn the decision of the Kuwaiti National Assembly on 30 November it is also important for us to use our elected positions as parliamentarians to encourage and support those who want to bring about change.
After all, it is not so long ago that women in many European Union countries were engaged in years of campaign and protest to win the right to vote and stand in elections.
This was what brought about that change.
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In the United Kingdom, for example, the suffrage movement was set up in 1860.
It was not until 1918 that some women - not all - got the right to vote.
It was not until 1928 that all women in the United Kingdom got the right to vote.
So we have been through these campaigns before in other countries.
If we look at an international level, by 1990 women had the right to vote in almost every country where men could vote as well.
Only Kuwait extended the vote to men and not to women.
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While it is difficult for most of us even to comprehend this kind of system, we have a responsibility to the people working there to support them in every way we can.
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Situation of women in Afghanistan:
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<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sornosa Martínez">
Mr President, I would like to thank the other parliamentary groups for their support and for their contributions to this initiative in favour of Afghan women.
I believe that the whole world is aware of their situation and for this reason has supported this initiative.
By defending their rights we also defend our own.
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The resolution which we are debating today must be one more contribution to the ending of the situation of women in a country, Afghanistan, where the Taliban regime, through its authoritarianism, is causing terror throughout the population and international alarm.
The public execution of Zaarmeena, the obligation to wear the burka, the denial of the right to healthcare and education for women are but a few examples of the flagrant violations of human rights committed in that country.
Serious violations of women' s rights are committed every day, unpunished by a government which supports and encourages acts of repression and torture against them.
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This Parliament, the European Parliament, has the moral obligation to express its solidarity with the Afghan women, to request that the UN intervene more actively, to ask the Member States to continue to refuse to recognise the Taliban regime until it respects human rights and puts an end to its discrimination against women.
The approval of this resolution may be a step - however small - in that direction.
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Women currently make up 52% of the world population and, nevertheless, we are one of the groups which is most discriminated against and marginalised.
The case of the Afghan women illustrates the problem of the lack of respect for human rights which takes place every day in all corners of the planet and also in this Europe of ours.
We all know about the white slave trade, murders and abuse etc..
Perhaps there is little we can do from this House, but we have the duty to put pressure on the UN and the Member States.
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<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="Nicholson of Winterbourne">
I rise to speak about the women of Afghanistan.
At a time when Christmas is approaching, this offers one opportunity, among the multiplicity of human rights abuses globally, for Muslims and Christians to come together against the forces of evil.
For Islam and Christianity both uphold the rights of women, and the abuses of human rights against women that are taking place in Afghanistan, and have been taking place for so long now, are against the ethics of Islam.
No proper Muslim in the world will support the treatment of women that has been meted out by the bestial Afghan sadists and torturers.
It is an unbelievable situation but it is one in which we can join hands, bring forces to bear upon the Taliban society and free those poor women.
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Why have we held back?
I am ashamed of this.
I call upon us all to intervene in Afghanistan with Islam, with Christians, with Jews, with the entirety of the world.
There can be no hanging back in the millennium: free these poor women now!
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<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Ferrer">
Mr President, we are living through an era full of contrasts and contradictions and while, in the European Union, women' s rights are fully recognised, in some countries they are even denied the right to be, the very right to exist.
While this morning a Member pointed out the fact that the three institutions of the European Union responsible for signing the budget were presided over by women and saw this as an illustration of what the third millennium may represent for the consolidation of equality of rights and opportunities for men and women, in Afghanistan we see how the Taliban regime not only denies women - millions of women - their most basic rights - such as rights to education, healthcare and a profession, not only does it commit violence against them for the mere fact of being women but, through the denial of these rights, it is also denying them the freedom to live their own lives, it is denying them their status as human beings.
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The European Parliament, which is always sensitive to the cause of human rights, cannot remain inactive in the face of the greatest violation of these rights: the systematic discrimination and violence which women are today suffering in Afghanistan of which the public execution of Zaarmeena is just one tragic example.
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Therefore, once again, we want to roundly condemn the Taliban regime.
We want to demand that the international community, in particular the United Nations, but also the European Union and its Member States, intervenes with all the means available to it, to put an end to the extreme discrimination suffered by Afghan women.
And, above all, we want to send evidence of our solidarity with the women of Afghanistan and communicate to them our commitment to continue working with them so that they may regain their full dignity as human beings.
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<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="Evans, Jillian">
Mr President, I echo the sentiments of the two previous speakers in wholeheartedly welcoming this motion unequivocally to condemn the appalling human rights record of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and in particular the persecution of Afghan women in the name of religion and culture.
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Women have borne the brunt of tragedy in Afghanistan through years of war.
They have suffered a multitude of human rights abuses: rape, sexual assault, forced marriages and prostitution.
The intimidation of women has been used as a means of dishonouring and dehumanising entire communities.
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Since the Taliban regime took over in 1996, the plight of Afghan women has continued.
A barbaric social code has been imposed, based on intimidation, humiliation and coercion of a female population that has been stripped of all its fundamental human rights.
For Afghan women freedom of expression, freedom of employment, freedom to attend health and family-planning courses, access to education, all those things as we know them simply do not exist.
Yet it was not until 15 October this year that the European Council took action on an air embargo and a freeze on funds to the Taliban.
That was not as a result of the apartheid-style policies of the regime vis-à-vis women, but as the result of the Taliban protection of Mr Bin Laden.
Nevertheless, I believe that this action should continue until the unacceptable discrimination against women in Afghanistan comes to an end.
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The first speaker put it very well in saying that this resolution can play a part in that process.
It may be a small part, but we certainly have a responsibility as a Parliament to play some part in bringing this regime and its inhumane policies to an end.
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<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Morgantini">
Mr President, an extraordinary 21 year-old Afghan girl, who miraculously escaped from Taliban inhumanity and is now a refugee, together with hundreds of other women, told me when I was in Islamabad: "Now you are at the European Parliament, talk about us!
Here, take this, it is my burka.
Show it to them, show the world this symbol and the reality of our denied existence, our imprisonment, our violated, dead and stoned bodies."
This is why today, speaking in this Parliament, I will wear this burka just for a moment.
This is a gesture on behalf of all the women who have been killed, raped and denied their rights in Afghanistan and the world.
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The rights of women in Afghanistan are continually being violated.
Women in Afghanistan and their cause need our solidarity and commitment.
So we are asking Parliament, the Council, the Commission and the United Nations not to recognise the Taliban regime and to promote an action plan on behalf of the NGOs working in Afghanistan for the fundamental rights of Afghan women and their economic and social emancipation, and on behalf of the NGOs which help female Afghan refugees.
However, there is something else we must do together: grant the right to asylum and aid to women who are forced to flee from Afghanistan.
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(Applause)
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<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Boudjenah">
Mr President, why has the situation of women in Afghanistan been raised in this debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance?
The answer is that, although discrimination against women has become a common problem in today' s world, the discrimination being experienced by women in Afghanistan is unique and without precedent. This is the explanation given by one of the courageous women who is standing up and telling the world about this abominable situation.
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There is therefore no doubt about the urgency of this issue and this has been the case since 1996.
Terror and fanaticism have swept through Afghanistan since the arrival of the Taliban.
Women are their bête noire and the hatred which they have unleashed against them is expressed in inhuman violence.
All females, including young girls, are subject to a strict regime of segregation.
They have no freedom of speech, no access to healthcare and no right to work.
They are forced to cover themselves from head to toe which is like living in a walking prison.
They can be beaten in the street simply for not covering their faces and hair correctly.
In addition to physical cruelty, there is every evidence that almost all the women living in Afghanistan are subject to psychological pressures which are leading them to depression and suicide.
This situation can only get worse because girls are not allowed to be educated beyond the age of nine.
The direct consequences on all children are terrible for one child in five is dying before the age of five.
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These conditions are even less acceptable given that, in the past, Afghan women participated in public life as students, professionals, officials or even parliamentarians.
This treatment, which is impossible for a human being to even conceive, is not a religious issue or a question of cultural tradition, as some would have us believe.
It is a barbaric system which forces women into a sub-human status.
We must react against this apartheid.
We must stop these fanatics who are greedy for power and secretly supported not only by the regime in Pakistan and its Koranic schools but also, unfortunately, by American services.
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Several women' s organisations have been calling for some time for all the countries of the world to increase pressure on the Taliban.
The UN and the European Union have rightly made their aid conditional on respect for human rights.
As indicated in the motion for a resolution which, like Mrs Morgantini, I ask you to support en masse, I call on the Council not to recognise any regime in Afghanistan until sexual discrimination is eliminated. The Council must be more active and at least as active as it was with regard to Bin Laden.
NGOs are also present in part of the country.
We must help them and ensure that a proper action plan is implemented to support their work.
We must also help the Afghan women who are in Europe organising themselves. They must receive our support and help.
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Prison conditions of political prisoners in Djibouti:
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<SPEAKER ID=133 NAME="Khanbhai">
Mr President, Djibouti has a population of half a million comprising two Muslim tribes, the Issas and the Afars.
Djibouti's national assets are its port and its strategic position in the Horn of Africa.
Western powers, including France, exploit its strategic position.
Ethiopia uses its port.
Trapped in the conflict between the Afars and the Issas and the problems of the neighbouring countries, and with the desires and strategic policies of countries which dominate its strategic position, it is caught in a situation where it is desperately poor and, of course, undemocratic.
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The leader of Djibouti today is doing things that we absolutely abhor.
The Afars' leader is in jail, without trial, with his supporters in abominable conditions.
He is going blind.
Such conditions exist in Djibouti today that we really have to look at our policy because it is part of Lomé, it receives aid from the EU and one of our Member States, France, is very strategically placed and has considerable influence in Djibouti.
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This sort of dictatorship, this sort of terror of civilians and abuse of resources by unnecessary expenditure on arms for a country of that size is totally inexcusable.
It ought to be like the Singapore or Hong Kong of Africa.
It should really be a very prosperous place.
So I hope that you will all support this resolution condemning the abominable conditions of prisoners and civilians in Djibouti.
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<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Sylla">
Mr President, we were all delighted yesterday when the Sakharov Prize was awarded to Mr Gusmão who was imprisoned by the authoritarian regime in Djakarta.
Through him, the Sakharov Prize honours the struggle of all those men and women throughout the world who are fighting for more justice, democracy and freedom.
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This is why I am asking you to look closely at the attacks on human rights in Djibouti and specifically at the situation of the political prisoners.
This is particularly justified given that, as already stated, many Member States have very close relations with Djibouti.
Yesterday, several associations in France strongly protested when France again prepared to grant aid to this country.
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You should know that for the last nine years the bulk of this country' s own budgetary resources has been devoted to financing the civil war.
Wages and pensions have not been paid for seven months.
Despite the previous resolutions of this House, reinforced by the International Federation of Human Rights League' s report confirming the precarious conditions of detention of the political prisoners, acts of violence, humiliation and attacks on the physical integrity of individuals are still standard practice in the prisons of Djibouti, particularly in Gabode Prison.
Here in May, forty-five hunger strikers were refused access to medical care and some died.
The families of prisoners are subject to constant pressure and threats. Women are raped and tortured.
The army and police are carrying out military operations in the districts of Tadjoura and Obock and are subjecting the population in the north of the country to a suicidal food blockade.
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I would remind you that Djibouti is a signatory to the Lomé Convention which stipulates in Article 5 that aid for development is subject to respect for human rights.
Nowadays, aid should also very definitely be subject to respect for freedom of thought and expression, fair trials, access for detainees to basic medical care and the requirement to return refugees and displaced persons to their region of origin.
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The Council and the Commission must make every effort to ensure that Djibouti respects the conventions which it has signed.
A peaceful political solution must be found as quickly as possible.
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Finally, it is essential that our President forwards this motion for a resolution to the Council, the Commission and the ACP-EU Joint Assembly.
This century started with the Great War and ended with terrifying images of ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
I firmly hope that we will now be intransigent towards all these daily attacks on human rights, for it is these small acts of cowardice which lead to genocide.
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<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Boumediene-Thiery">
Mr President, the human rights situation in Djibouti is giving us great cause for concern.
The political prisoners are being held in terrible conditions for they are either packed into cramped cells or kept in isolation.
Hygiene is totally lacking and they have no access to medical care.
A tuberculosis epidemic has broken out on several occasions and two prisoners have already died due to lack of care.
The political detainees have held hunger strikes to protest against the conditions of their detention and to demand access to medical care and their release in the absence of a fair trial.
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We should remember that most of the prisoners are being held in preventative detention without having been brought before the courts. Among the prisoners who are ill is Mohamed Kadamiousouf.
He is the European representative of the Front for the Restoration of Unity and Democracy. He was illegally extradited from Ethiopia in 1997 and, in the absence of medical care, risks losing his sight.
As respect for human rights constitutes an essential element of the cooperation and development between the European Union and the Republic of Djibouti, we demand, in accordance with these principles, the release of all political prisoners and access to medical care for all detainees. We particularly want emergency medical care to be given to Mohamed Kadamiousouf to prevent him losing his sight.
We also demand a guarantee of freedom of expression and political pluralism which are essential for any democracy and the end to repression against opponents of the regime. Finally, we ask the Commission to use all the means in its power to ensure respect for human rights in Djibouti.
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<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bordes">
Mr President, I am incensed by the conditions of detention of political prisoners in Djibouti. Yet I am just as incensed by the hypocrisy of the leaders of France who could, if they wanted, immediately end the authoritarianism and violence of the regime in Djibouti.
Everyone knows that this regime is being kept going, only with difficulty, by the French State.
Without financial help from Paris and without the presence of one of the main bases of the French army abroad, this regime would not last a month.
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The leaders of France of all political persuasions may protest loudly in Paris about human rights, but in Africa and Asia they are supporting regimes which are trampling all over the most basic rights and freedoms.
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Attacking the government of Djibouti alone will therefore at best conceal the responsibilities of the French Government and will at worst prop up a policy of support for an authoritarian and repressive regime.
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We can join in the protests against the conditions of detention of prisoners in Djibouti only by clearly stating that, although the gaolers are in Djibouti, some of those who are really responsible have seats in the French Government.
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Arrest of the President of the Court of Auditors in Nicaragua:
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<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Liese">
Mr President, Commissioner Verheugen, the arrest of the President of the Court of Auditors in Nicaragua, Mr Agustín Jarquín, and the institutional changes which must be seen as undermining the Court of Auditors fill us with great concern.
We agree with the representatives of the Member States in the Council and, if I have understood correctly, Commissioner Verheugen, we are in agreement with the European Commission.
We have just learned that the ambassador of Nicaragua in Brussels has resigned because he no longer wishes to represent this government in Nicaragua following the incidents of the past week.
Mr Agustín Jarquín is an upstanding democrat and has carried out his work as President of the Court of Auditors in a highly efficient and impartial manner.
This view is shared not only by those of us who knew him personally, but also by his colleagues at other courts of auditors in Central America and the Caribbean who elected him as president of the OCCEFS.
Even the representatives of the International Monetary Fund and the Interamerican Development Bank supported his appointment.
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Obviously his work was too efficient for the liking of some members of the present and previous Nicaraguan government.
The government has been systematically undermining the Court of Auditors over recent months. This undermining culminated in a pact concluded between the government and a previous governing party.
This pact resulted in the abolition of the office of President of the Court of Auditors and the installation of a party-politically dominated committee.
On 10 November this year, the former President of the Court of Auditors, Agustín Jarquín, was arrested on grounds which, in our view, do not, under any circumstances, constitute grounds for arrest.
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The European Union and the European Parliament in particular cannot accept the systematic undermining of the Court of Auditors.
We in the European Parliament forced the European Commission to resign because it was unable to defend itself against accusations of the inefficient management of funds levied by the Court of Auditors and others in Europe.
Imagine what would happen if the President of the Court of Auditors or a prominent representative of an auditing authority were thrown into jail on such flimsy grounds!
I think the outcry would be enormous.
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As far as are aware, there is no cause for concern at the moment about Mr Jarquín' s health, but we shall monitor the situation closely to ensure that he is treated properly. We are particularly worried at reports that his family, and his daughter in particular, have been physically attacked.
I would ask the Commission to monitor this very closely.
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I would now like to address the President of Nicaragua, Dr Arnoldo Alemán, in Spanish.
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Mr President of Nicaragua, we would like to help your people.
The Nicaraguan people, having suffered so many natural disasters, need help urgently, but European Union cooperation with the Government of Nicaragua is only possible if basic standards in terms of human rights and democracy are respected and if the administration of funds is safeguarded in accordance with the law.
To this end, a strong and independent Court of Auditors is required.
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Mr President, if the welfare of your people concerns you, please stop systematically weakening the Court of Auditors and its members and reverse the decision to remove the post of General Auditor, the so-called "Pact" .
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(DE) Thank you.
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(Applause)
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<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Casaca">
Mr President, human rights, freedom and the democratic functioning of a state are fundamental and unquestionable values.
Therefore, we do not accept any limitation of these values by criteria of national sovereignty or respect for geo-strategic balances.
The establishment of international criminal courts, the refusal to allow crimes against humanity to lapse and the refusal to submit human rights policies to a state' s commercial interests are principles and objectives that we consider to be fundamental.
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The fact that the possibility of a judicial trial is being used for political objectives deserves our concern and justifies particular attention in terms of the situation in Nicaragua.
We feel, therefore, that the European Parliament must continue to follow this process and that if this suspicion is confirmed, by us or by reputable and credible human rights organisations, we will have to use the full weight of our force to end this situation.
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Having said this, and in accordance with the principles for which we are fighting, we must be rigorous and cautious before casting doubts on what is a judicial decision by a sovereign state.
On the other hand, our interference would not be justified by the way in which the system of politicians supporting their own interests and holding incompatible political posts is put into practice in Nicaragua.
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We cannot intervene on the basis of the popularity polls of the various Presidential candidates and in relation to the main electoral issues under discussion in a sovereign state on which Nicaragua' s voters will soon pass judgement and on which they, and only they, have the right to do so.
With regard to this, we would like to know what your reaction would be if we proposed a resolution requiring an ex-Prime Minister of a Member State to declare his income with regard to commissions received for arms deals, on the basis of opinion polls and bypassing the institutions of that country.
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It would make more sense to pass this kind of resolution on a Member State of the European Union than on a third country, but even in that case, it would constitute an attack on the functioning of that state' s institutions and on the ability of its citizens to resolve the problem internally.
This is why we appeal to the EPP to postpone this vote until our next part-session and that if, in the meantime, the political nature of Mr Jarquín' s sentence is confirmed, we shall act properly.
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<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maaten">
Mr President, the liberal group had severe doubts as to whether or not to declare this resolution urgent.
Indeed, the issues concerning the treatment of the President of the Nicaraguan Audit Office, Agustín Jarquín, by the Nicaraguan government have been around for over a year.
It is, of course, a very serious matter which deserves in-depth discussion, but as far as we are concerned, we would prefer it if this was dealt with by the competent committee and not in this hasty manner.
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It is a political issue.
Indeed, one cannot help wondering whether there was a political motive behind the Audit Office' s accusation that the democratically elected government is corrupt?
Quite possibly.
After all, Agustín Jarquín, now under arrest, is a possible candidate for the presidency.
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There is also another question.
Does this corruption inferred by Jarquín actually exist within the Nicaraguan government?
That too is possible because many say that Jarquín is unimpeachable.
It is not up to us to make a party-political choice in Nicaragua.
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Mr President, the matter is now in the right hands, namely the courts in Nicaragua, and should therefore not be dealt with by this Parliament.
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<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Knörr Borràs">
Mr President, as a member of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance and as a Member of the Basque Parliament, I must point out firstly that the European Union communicated to the Government of Nicaragua, by diplomatic means, on 18 November, the need for a rapid solution to the issue we are dealing with today and to remove the obstacles suffered by the Republic of Nicaragua' s Court of Auditors and to tell them, very categorically, that if there is no transparency, they may lose European Union funds.
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We can clearly question the means which Mr Jarquín has used to an absolutely legal end, that is, investigating the rampant corruption in Nicaragua, a corruption which extends to the very highest authorities and which, for example, has multiplied the assets of the President of the Republic by a thousand.
What is absolutely obvious to any impartial observer, however, is that, in this case, the intention has been precisely to prevent the investigation of corruption with the collaboration, furthermore, of the Sandinistas, and to get rid of the person who was going to be leader of the opposition in the Republic of Nicaragua.
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I hope that the European Union will intervene in this matter. That is what is required.
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<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, this debate on human rights highlights yet again the need for us in the European Union to remain vigilant on this issue.
All the individual cases discussed here this afternoon point to fundamental human rights violations.
In the case of the death penalty in the USA and Yemen, the issue is the basic right to life.
In the case of discrimination against women in Kuwait and Afghanistan, it is the right to civil equality.
In the case of Djibouti, it is the right to freedom of opinion and freedom of political activity.
In the case of Nicaragua - and here I differ with some speakers here today - it is clearly about the rule of law as such and the fact that people must be protected under the rule of law from arbitrary acts by the supreme state powers.
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Given the time available, I should just like to make a few comments on these individual issues from the Commission' s point of view.
As far as the death penalty is concerned, we all agree that it is incompatible with our European standards and must be vehemently condemned.
The carrying out of a death sentence is an inhumane act which has no place in a civilised society.
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So we know how we must react when death sentences are imposed or executed in individual countries.
We must then examine what we can do in each individual case to prevent the death sentence from actually being imposed or executed.
That applies to the cases referred to here.
The European Union has set itself clear rules on how to proceed when not even minimum standards are respected.
In such cases, the European Union must intervene.
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I would like to mention two of these minimum standards, namely when the death penalty is imposed against people who were not even 18 years old at the time of the offence, and when the death penalty is imposed on people who are mentally handicapped.
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Allow me to say briefly on the question of women in Kuwait that, like the Members of the European Parliament, the Commission is very disappointed at the result of the vote in Kuwait on 30 November.
Nonetheless, we can say, and this point was raised here that, with a directly elected Parliament, Kuwait is still one of the most democratic countries in the Gulf.
That does not alter the fact that this vote contradicts the UN convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination and the international pact on civil and political rights.
Both pacts have been signed by Kuwait.
The Commission is very worried that Kuwait is not complying with this internationally ratified convention.
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We must say that this development is particularly alarming in the light of the fact that it was the Emir of Kuwait, the head of state, who took the courageous decision, which the EU also welcomed, to grant women active and passive voting rights.
This is an unusual case in which an authoritarian head of state is more progressive that the elected representatives of the people.
The European Union will do its best to help achieve a breakthrough on this issue in Kuwait.
<P>
As far as Afghanistan is concerned, the position has been clear for a long time.
The European Union set out its point of view on Afghanistan in a common position on 25 January 1999 in which it said quite unequivocally and clearly that we demanded respect for human rights in Afghanistan and that, in particular, we defended the rights of Afghan women.
This common position was shared by all the political groups in Afghanistan.
The European Union has consistently repeated its rejection of the gender policy of the Taliban movement.
<P>
We really must say that the most regrettable aspect of the Taliban regime is the way in which women are treated.
Not only is the entire female population denied access to education, but women are not allowed to take up independent work.
In all the contacts which we have been able to make with the Taliban - and as you know, they have been quite limited - we have never left them in any doubt as to the fact that we condemn this behaviour and shall continue to do so in the future.
<P>
The Commission is following the human rights situation in Djibouti very closely and with great concern.
We have noted that the fundamental freedoms of those opposing the present regime in Djibouti are being violated time and time again.
The Commission will do its utmost to ensure that the Djibouti authorities respect the fundamental rights of prisoners.
We have expressed our point of view with regard to respect for the fundamental freedoms of man in contacts with the authorities in Djibouti time and again.
Respect for human rights is one of the fundamental facets of our cooperation with Djibouti within the framework of the Lomé Convention.
<P>
The Djibouti government must know that there will be consequences if, as a participant in the Lomé Convention, it fails to respect human rights.
Cooperation between the European Union and Djibouti cannot remain divorced from this.
We shall therefore support any initiatives designed to encourage the Djibouti government to take a stance in line with respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
<P>
My final point concerns Nicaragua.
The Commission has followed the events leading up to the arrest of the comptroller-general of Nicaragua, Mr Jarquín, with mounting concern and we endorsed the initiative taken by the Troika of the European Union on this issue on 18 November.
I should like to say quite clearly with reference to the discussion held here, the political background to which I do, of course, fully understand, that even if the actions of the comptroller-general were politically motivated, that was no excuse to put him in prison.
I think we are all in agreement on that.
Our concern is that a political argument, irrespective of whether or not it was justified, and I do not want to go into that here, has been countered by the supreme power in the country by throwing the head comptroller of the country into prison.
In the Commission' s view, the European Parliament should not remain silent on this.
<P>
I should like to point out that the European Union has been a donor of non-repayable aid to Central America in general, and Nicaragua in particular, for many years.
Following the new form of cooperation between the EU and central America decided at the San José Conference in Florence in 1996, and the strategy paper for cooperation between the EU and Nicaragua adopted in 1999, I must point out that the European Union in particular has been concentrating mainly in development cooperation with Nicaragua on strengthening the rule of law and supporting a fair social policy.
<P>
If this cooperation is to be able to have full effect and the objectives are to be attained, we must agree to abide by democratic rules of play and common values and this necessarily includes respect for independent institutions, as provided for in the constitution.
The Commission is confident that the Nicaraguan authorities will take account of the considerations voiced by the European Union and other members of the international community and that the measures taken against the Bureau of the Comptroller-General and the comptroller himself will be reversed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
That concludes the debate on human rights.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
International criminal court
<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>
B5-0337/1999 by Mr Wuori and others, on behalf of the Greens/ALE Group, on the ratification of the Rome treaty on the statute to establish the permanent international criminal court;
<P>
B5-0344/1999 by Mr Sauquillo Pérez del Arco, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the ratification of the Rome treaty to establish the permanent international criminal court;
<P>
B5-0349/1999 by Mr Malmström and others, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the ratification of the Rome treaty to establish the permanent international criminal court;
<P>
B5-0373/1999 by Mr Oostlander and Mrs Grossetête, on behalf of the PPE/DE Group, on the ratification of the Rome treaty to establish the permanent international criminal court;
<P>
B5-0381/1999 by Mr Muscardini, on behalf of the UEN Group, on the ratification of the Rome treaty to establish the permanent international criminal court;
<P>
B5-0386/99 by Messrs Puerta and Di Lello Finuoli, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the ratification of the Rome treaty to establish the permanent international criminal court.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Mr President, it was an historic event when, in July 1998 at a conference in Rome, it was possible to adopt the treaty to establish the international criminal court.
It was a treaty which would make it possible for an independent court to judge people who had committed war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.
Unfortunately, we know that there is a great need for such a criminal court.
Ninety States signed the Rome treaty, but so far only six countries have ratified it.
That is precisely the problem.
If we are to progress further and if the Court is really to be able to begin its work, then at least sixty countries must ratify the treaty and hand this over to the UN.
<P>
We must all work towards the goal of obtaining a functioning court within a few years.
My group urges the Council and the Commission to do their utmost, politically and diplomatically, to bring this about.
At the same time, one ought not to forget the applicant countries which I believe require a lot of support if they are to be able to be involved in this.
Paragraph 5 of the resolution is, furthermore, a very important paragraph indeed when it says that the developing countries must be given economic aid if it is to be possible for them to be involved in the process of establishing a criminal court.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Martínez Martínez">
Mr President, genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and acts of aggression involving actions against third countries are the four types of crime which could be tried in the international criminal court.
<P>
The four Geneva Conventions of 1949 for the protection of victims of armed conflicts already oblige States to pursue and try the perpetrators of such crimes.
The plan for an international criminal court is another step forward in the creation of an international humanitarian legal system.
<P>
I am reminded here that the preparation period for the statute of the international criminal court was long and tense.
I had the honour of participating in that process on behalf of the world parliamentary community in my capacity as the then President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
I can therefore bear witness to the fact that, in that very complicated negotiation, many concessions had to be made in order to draw up a text which, although falling short of our initial aspirations, achieved the necessary consensus and was finally able to come into play as an acceptably effective instrument.
<P>
It would be irresponsible today not to publicly recognise our disappointment at the fact that, a year and a half later, only 91 States have signed it and just five or six have ratified it when - as Mrs Schörling has said - 60 ratifications are necessary for the court to come into effect.
<P>
Therefore, by means of the resolution we are about to approve, the European Parliament is coherently maintaining the support which it always expressed for this initiative.
However, to sum up, what we are going to do here in these final debates of the year and the century is to publicly and formally recognise that this issue is still outstanding, and that we also have the commitment to persevere with our efforts to fulfil the objective which we set on approving the court' s statute, also urging the Council and the Commission to act to this end.
<P>
In all these actions, we Socialists are guided by the awareness that, in a world which is being globalised, it is essential that the Rule of Law is globalised as well and this is what we should work towards.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, in many contexts the EU is de facto sitting upon quite a lot of countries' ratifications.
I am especially pleased that Commissioner Verheugen is here today and hope that he can use his influence to ensure that we have the applicant countries, as well as other countries which want to cooperate, alongside us on this issue and that we obtain a significant number of ratifications.
It is also a shame that we are forced to note that only six Member States have signed this treaty.
If, however, we involve more Member States, applicant countries and cooperating States in this work, then we shall make some progress along the road. The destination is certainly a compromise, but we have to start somewhere.
<P>
Secondly, I hope that we can work for those resources which are needed if the treaty is to be able to function.
This, I believe, will be an important priority for us in this Chamber in the future. I also hope that, in the future too, Members of the European Parliament will have the opportunity to be involved in working parties, as we were at an earlier stage.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
Mr President, this is about the reconciliation of nations.
It is also a legal instrument to guarantee this reconciliation.
We know that reconciliation is only possible if justice is done.
This insight helps form the basis for the international tribunal for ex-Yugoslavia: do justice, not as a victor but from a supra-national viewpoint and with a view to living together in future.
Our group, therefore, warmly welcomes the fact that an international court has now been set up with a more universal authority which complements national courts where they fall short.
Member States and candidate countries of the European Union should, of course, lead the way.
This includes the thirteenth candidate country, Mr President, Turkey.
One can hardly suppress a smile if one talks about Turkey in this context.
<P>
I hope that the Commission and Council succeed in exerting pressure on other countries in order to achieve ratification of the EC Treaty.
Financial support is needed to enable poor countries to take part in these court activities.
This will play an important preventative role, irrespective of political considerations of an amoral nature and immune to political blackmail.
Big criminals can no longer expect that their crimes will go unpunished.
The Milosevices, the Karadices, the Mladices of this world, they will know.
The international criminal court constitutes a breakthrough in politics.
It confirms that politics is not a question of power where legislation serves to cover our embarrassment, but quite the opposite, that the central role of politics is to create legislation where power is of benefit.
<P>
Mr President, this Parliament will need to be acutely aware of this, also with regard to the most recent debate on Nicaragua.
It is downright scandalous if matters which are totally unacceptable in terms of human rights are covered up out of party-political considerations.
Mr President, I hope that this Parliament and the groups which, based on their own convictions, can muster a better position, will take a clearer stance in this respect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I believe that this criminal court is of tremendous importance and I should like to say to Mrs Thors that the Member States of the European Union should do their own homework before asking others to do it for us.
That does not mean that others should not do theirs, it means that we must ensure as a matter of urgency that this criminal court is up and running soon.
<P>
There are two reasons for this.
The first reason is prevention.
I was at a conference held by our group a few days ago in Banja Luka.
There was much to see that was encouraging, such as the Serbian opposition, which has got off to an auspicious start.
However, I also met a man who sat trembling with fear as he related all the crimes which he had committed in this period in the Republic of Srpska.
I found the conversation extremely interesting because it more or less proved that, if he had known that he might appear before an international criminal court, he might perhaps have behaved differently.
<P>


I think that this preventative aspect is tremendously important, not on account of the criminals at the top, those who possess criminal energy which transcends everything, but on account of the criminals at second or third remove who must know that, in the end, they cannot escape punishment for their crimes, even if they considered themselves as temporary vicarious agents of very powerful figures.
<P>
That is why this criminal court is important for prevention, but it is also essential for another reason.
Right is right and wrong is wrong, irrespective of who has committed it, and the problem facing specific criminal courts is that they are always a little on the lookout for triumphant justice.
It is therefore extremely important for there to be a uniform criminal law against genocide and crimes against humanity throughout the world and for there to be uniform sentences and a common criminal court throughout the world, where everyone knows that wrong is always wrong and must be prosecuted, irrespective of the charge, irrespective of the ideology and irrespective of the nationality under which they appear in court. Injustice is still injustice and injustice must not go unpunished.
This will avoid a situation in which the one-eyed is king and will help the concept of the law on which the European Union is founded to take hold throughout the world.
That is why action on this criminal court is one of the most important tasks facing the European Union in the immediate future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission unreservedly supports the purpose of the motion being discussed here and considers the European Parliament' s initiative to be beneficial and useful because we too take the view that further important steps are needed if the international criminal court is ever to get off the ground.
The Commission welcomes the fact that more and more contracting parties are signing the statute decided in Rome and that some at least have already ratified it.
However, to be fair, we should point out that, in numerous cases the constitutions of some signatory States, including some Member States, prohibit the extradition of their own citizens and constitutional amendments are therefore needed before this agreement can be ratified. This applies, for example, to Germany and that is the reason for the delay.
<P>
I am more than willing, Mrs Thors, to bring applicant countries' attention to the need for them to sign and ratify this agreement, but I think that Mr Posselt was right when he said that my position on this matter would be more credible if all 15 had already ratified it.
Ratification and proper transposition of the Rome statute into national law is an important task.
The EU is aware of the complex issues which surround it.
I have already referred to the constitutional problems and we are prepared to share our experience with ratification procedures and the relevant know-how with interested states.
<P>
The Member States of the EU have already offered the other States financial and technical assistance in ratifying the statute and they stand by that offer.
The Member States of the Union and the European Commission have also taken, or are supporting, a series of other initiatives to promote the statute.
We also appreciate the important contribution made in this area by non-governmental organisations, who are devoting themselves to raising awareness of the Rome statute and its imminent ratification.
<P>
The Member States of the European Union and the European Commission have proven their commitment to furthering international criminal justice by working closely with the war crimes tribunals for Rwanda and former Yugoslavia and supporting them strongly.
We are stepping up our willingness to examine how we can contribute to the future work of the international criminal court through cooperation, aid and support in all areas.
The Commission shares the view put forward in the debate here that this criminal court will not, under any circumstances, have a purely symbolic significance but that it can have a direct, preventative effect and will help to ensure that perhaps the most horrific crimes will no longer be committed in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="President">
Thank you for that statement, Commissioner.
<P>
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Íatural disasters
<SPEAKER ID=151 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>
France - B5-0334/1999 by Mr Piétrasanta, on behalf of the Greens/ALE Group, on the floods in the south of France on 12 and 13 November 1999;
<P>
B5-0338/1999 by Mr Pasqua and others, on behalf of the UEN Group, on the disastrous floods in the south of France;
<P>
B5-0345/1999 by Mrs Berès, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the floods in November 1999 in the south of France;
<P>
B5-0374/1999 by Mrs De Veyrac, on behalf of the PPE/DE Group, on the floods in the south-west of France;
<P>
B5-0387/1999 by Mrs Ainardi, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the serious floods in the south-west of France.
<P>
Denmark, Germany, UK and Sweden- B5-0376/1999 by Mr Rovsing and others, on behalf of the PPE/DE Group, on the hurricane disaster in Denmark, Germany, UK and Sweden.
<P>
Vietnam- B5-0336/1999 by Mrs McKenna, on behalf of the Greens /ALE Group, on the floods in Vietnam.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Savary">
Mr President, I want to speak about the natural disasters which hit the south of France in the night of 12 to 13 November 1999. These were totally exceptional in their violence and the extent of the damage caused and have led to 35 deaths and FRF three to four billion worth of damage.
<P>
I know that the EU budget does not provide for any credit line for natural disasters occurring in the territory of the Union.
It has also not escaped me that it was this House which wanted to delete this credit line.
However, I must ask you to intervene and ensure that the European Union does something, because it can in two ways.
<P>
Firstly, it can authorise France to reallocate the outstanding balance of the Structural Funds not committed from the 1994-1999 programming period.
Much of the funding still remains with 54% of credits not committed under Leader, 38% under Interreg, 49% under URBAN and 88% under RETEX.
In order to quickly intervene, the Commission simply needs today to authorise France to redeploy part of these credits.
Secondly, it can help by ensuring that, for the new programme of Structural Funds for 2000-2006, the zoning for reconstruction is properly in place and the most affected zones are included under Objective 2.
<P>
Finally, is it not ironic that our Union can act totally legitimately in countries outside the EU but that it does not have the means or the ability to act within the EU?
At a time when everyone, particularly Mrs Fontaine, is making rapprochement between the people of Europe and the European Union the key issue for this Parliament, I feel it is important for the EU to be able to act in a positive manner when our people are in difficulty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="De Veyrac">
Mr President, if we want the people of Europe to feel an attachment to the European Union, then the EU must show solidarity with its people when they are struck by misfortune, as in the south of France.
In the night of 12 to 13 November, this region experienced rain and floods which have caused deaths and devastated the daily life, economy and agriculture of the region.
<P>
As soon as these events occurred, I wanted this House to show its solidarity with the victims by tabling a motion for a resolution on urgent subjects on 15 November.
As the Rules of Procedure unnecessarily delayed this, I have joined my motion to those tabled in this sitting on the same subject by other groups.
I hope that this motion gains a firm following. I ask the Commission to examine the measures which could assist the people of Tarn, Aude, Pyrénées-Orientales and Hérault.
In particular, the EU aid allocation zoning should take account of this situation.
<P>
In the future I will, of course, vote for motions for resolutions on urgent subjects tabled by my fellow Members when similar events occur.
Obviously, I hope that these are few and far between but, in each case, it seems essential that we, as the elected representatives of the people of Europe, should show our solidarity and our humanity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Stenmarck">
Mr President, I think there should be proportion in everything.
Natural disasters are occurring around the world.
There have been a large number of these in recent years.
Thousands of people have been killed and been made homeless as a result of hurricanes, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. It is these that are natural disasters!
It is only right that the EU should try to help in these different contexts.
<P>
I happened to be in southern Sweden in the course of the twenty-four hours we are talking about here.
It is true that the wind was blowing. It was even stormy.
It sometimes is in southern Sweden.
This is not something the European Parliament can do anything about.
Individual people were affected and there was serious damage to the countryside, but there was no natural disaster.
This is a question for Sweden and Swedish insurance companies and not something the European Parliament should be devoting time to.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Piétrasanta">
Mr President, I want to speak along similar lines to Mrs De Veyrac.
The catastrophic floods which have occurred in the south of France have levied a very heavy toll with 39 deaths and widespread chaos in the region.
In the four départements affected by the floods of 12 and 13 November, namely Aude, Hérault, Pyrénées-Orientales and Tarn, the bill will be in excess of EUR 0.7 billion and compensation to individuals will amount to EUR 0.5 billion.
The damage to public services is estimated at over FRF 1 billion because of the extensive damage to roads and railways, power and telephone lines, buildings and public facilities.
All sectors have been affected, with over 200 craftsmen having been caught in the disaster, 260 businesses having suffered serious damage and 1,518 employees having been affected.
<P>
I would draw Parliament' s attention to the fact that this is indeed a natural disaster for these floods and this rain were twenty times greater than normal.
This is not therefore the result, as we would sometimes like to believe, of carelessness in local development.
This is truly a natural disaster.
This is why I would urge Parliament to act in this region.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="McKenna">
I would like to draw Parliament's attention to the situation of the people in Vietnam as a result of the floods.
The International Federation of the Red Cross has said that hundreds of thousands of people in Vietnam are likely to be short of food over the next nine months.
It has also been reported that there have been violent protests by peasant farmers in the Thai Binh province.
<P>
This seems to be very much in relation to the fact that the Vietnamese are trying to modernise and the modernisation costs are being basically borne by the peasant farmers.
This situation has to be tackled because taxes on the peasants have increased dramatically over recent times because of the need to modernise.
The farmers themselves are in a very, very critical situation, where they are extremely short of food and the excess taxes on them makes the situation even more catastrophic.
We should listen to the appeals from the International Federation of the Red Cross and pay attention to the plight of these people who have, in the past, been decimated by such things as the Agent Orange used by the US. Now natural disasters are causing even greater problems for them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Esclopé">
Mr President, Commissioner, I, of course, support the joint motion for a resolution tabled by my fellow Members. I must, however, return your attention to the floods which have occurred in my region, the South of France.
This is clearly a natural disaster which has caused nearly 40 deaths and whose consequences are continuing to severely test some of our citizens today.
<P>
One month after the event, the drop in the water level has revealed a scene of desolation and confirmed the extent of the disaster. This, together with the loss of human life, means that prevention efforts must be reconsidered.
In terms of private and public property such as buildings and heavy infrastructure and in terms of the economy, the requirements are enormous and are in the order, as has been mentioned, of FRF 6 billion.
<P>
Faced with such an urgent demand, the State, local authorities and community groups are mobilising throughout France.
For example, FRF 42 million in aid has been approved by the Departmental Council of Pyrénées-Orientales, FRF 50 million by the Languedoc-Roussillon region and FRF 400 000 by the Senate. Finally, the French Government has announced aid of FRF 1.2 billion.
<P>
You are no doubt aware of the proposals made by Commissioner Barnier in terms of structural policy.
These will help to ensure long-term risk prevention, but I must again ask the Commission to demonstrate its propensity for solidarity on an urgent subject.
This House, too, must demonstrate its legitimacy to the people of Europe, which is a principle we all, including the President, very much support.
<P>
Finally, I wish to draw your attention to the pollution which is once again threatening the coast of Brittany and which will also require an additional financial effort to be made by the European institutions through the urgent procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Verheugen">
Mr President, Mr Michel Barnier explained here on 16 November that the Commission is following the problems caused by the floods in four départements in southern France very closely, that it deeply regrets the loss of life and that it will do its utmost, as and where it has the authority and means to do so, to ensure that the damaged areas obtain suitable support.
Solidarity will certainly not be lacking.
Nonetheless, we must be allowed and we must be able to exercise it.
<P>
The motions for resolutions call on the Commission to intervene in various forms in order to repair the tremendous material damage.
This is also in keeping with the wishes recently expressed by the responsible politicians in the region to both President Prodi and Michel Barnier.
<P>
I have to tell you that it will not be possible to provide extraordinary emergency help for families in the damaged regions.
That does not require any special justification here in Parliament, given that no-one except Parliament need defend its budget rights.
As you know, there has been no specific budget line in the budget of the European Community to pay for natural disasters in countries of the Union for years now.
I do not think, given the protection of Parliament' s rights, that we can simply act as if this situation did not exist.
<P>
The motions to support farmers in the form of disaster aid can, however, be examined within the framework of Article 33 of Regulation (EC) No 1257/99 of 17 May 1999 on support for rural development from the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund.
On the other hand, the deployment of resources left over in the Structural Funds from the programme planning period 1994 to 1999 is hardly worth considering as the available funds have already been allocated to specific measures, in this case in close collaboration with the relevant French authorities.
We have already re-programmed at the request of the relevant French authorities.
In the view of the relevant Commission services and French agencies, this will account for all the Community funds provided.
<P>
For the new programming phase from January 2000, the damaged areas in the four départements in question, which currently qualify for support as Objective II or Objective V areas for the period from 1994 to 1999 or which belong to the new Objective II areas, could obtain money from the Structural Funds.
<P>
As a result, the Commission can grant financial aid to restore infrastructures and equipment which qualifies for support as well as aid to agricultural structures within the framework of the forthcoming programme planning for the period from 2000 to 2006, which is shortly to be discussed with the French authorities.
Account must be taken in this respect of the fact that aid to build or restore housing will not qualify for intervention by the Structural Funds.
<P>
It should also be borne in mind that the provisions of the regulation require an ex ante environmental impact study for all forms of intervention by the Structural Funds.
Here again, Parliament, with its particular emphasis on the environmental aspect, would certainly not understand if we were to waive this.
<P>
Allow me to say a few more words about the problem of the risk area.
Once the French authorities have finalised estimates of the damage, the Commission will be able to provide specific support to protect against natural dangers within the framework of the new programme planning for 2000 to 2006 in the form of cofinancing for investments.
That applies in particular to soil protection, the regulation of watercourses and the local water systems.
<P>
Allow me to conclude with a brief word on Vietnam because I think that there is definitely a difference when a leading industrial country or one of the poorest developing countries in the world is hit by a natural disaster.
The European Commission is well aware of the dramatic situation in which the victims of the floods in Vietnam find themselves.
They have been the worst for forty years.
The European Union has provided emergency aid.
ECHO is currently analysing the situation in the areas affected in order to assess the extent of additional damage and the requirements of the provinces affected.
Then we will answer the question of whether European aid for Vietnam should be increased.
The European Union is working with all the international organisations dealing with the situation in Vietnam in a spirit of cooperation and trust.
We are trying here to coordinate disaster aid as sensibly as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Mr President, I do not want to prolong this sitting.
However, I must say to the group of very welcome visitors who have just arrived that it is not through any spite on our part that we are suspending the sitting for a quarter of an hour just when they have arrived.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 NAME="President">
That concludes the joint debate.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 5.10 p.m., and resumed at 5.30 p.m.)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Liese">
Mr President, may I request, if the Members agree, that we vote en bloc on all the proposed amendments to the resolution on Nicaragua, given that they all go in the same direction.
I should like to say two words about why this is not a joint resolution and why the PPE has tabled proposed amendments to its own resolution.
The reason is that we held a meeting on Tuesday with a view to finding a joint resolution and the other groups, especially the Liberals and the Social Democrats, warned us that they would be unable to support certain clauses in the resolution.
So we said, let us take the controversial points out and just leave the essentials in.
We therefore only have things in it which are unanimously supported by Parliament.
Commissioner Verheugen also clearly stated that Parliament should express a view on this matter.
<P>
As the Liberals and Social Democrats were still unable to sign the joint resolution which we negotiated, we said we will table proposed amendments which water down our own resolution somewhat, in order to give Members the possibility in the end of voting in favour.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Liese.
Are there any objections to the suggestion that we make this an en bloc vote?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Markov">
Mr President, I am sorry, but our group objects to an en bloc vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="President">
I acknowledge your objection and we shall vote on one amendment at a time.
<P>
After the vote on the motions for resolutions on the international criminal court:
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Haarder">
Mr President, I merely want to say that we Liberals do not want to participate in these votes concerning natural disasters because we think that they do not belong in this Parliament. We also believed that we had reached an understanding that we should no longer discuss resolutions of this type.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="President">
I have acknowledged that Mr Haarder.
I would ask you to discuss that in the meeting of political group chairmen, which is where it belongs.
<P>
After the vote on the motions for resolutions on the natural disasters in France:
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, I did ask for the floor before we proceeded to the vote. I wanted to say that our group tabled a specific motion for a resolution on the natural disasters in France and that we are naturally co-signatories of the joint motion.
You did not mention this.
I would be grateful if the corresponding correction could be made.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 NAME="President">
Thank you, the correction will be made.
I apologise, as I did not see you. It was an oversight.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Speroni">
Mr President, yesterday, at the end of the vote on the budget, there was a moment when the three institutions concerned were represented by women and the President concluded by saying that the Millennium was ending on a high note.
I just wanted to mention that, as the authoritative Greenwich Observatory has also pointed out, the Millennium will end on 31 December 2000.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Mr Speroni, I am aware that, from a rational and Cartesian point of view, you are absolutely right.
Scientifically you are right.
However, according to popular belief, the Millennium ends in 14 days.
Therefore, your comments will appear in the Minutes, but I believe that everybody will hold celebrations, at least, on 31 December of this year and then, possibly, a second time.
<P>
<P>
I would like to take this opportunity to tell you that the President would have liked to have been with you today but, unfortunately, as you know, she is not very well at the moment and therefore, on her behalf, on behalf of the Bureau and on my own behalf, I would like to wish you all the best for this Christmas, this new year and, I was going to say, this new Millennium.
In any case, personally, I was convinced that I was going to be the last President of the Millennium.
In any event, on behalf of the Bureau, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and, on this one occasion, allow me to wish you, in my own Catalan language: 'Bon Nadal i feliç Any Nou' .
<P>
(Applause) (The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
International Fund for Ireland
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President.">
Mr De Rossa has requested the floor for a procedural motion.
<P>
De Rossa (PSE).
Mr President, on a point of order, I wish to raise the question as to whether or not the amendments which have been tabled in relation to this proposal are in order.
This is a proposal without debate and we will not have any opportunity therefore to debate the amendments being put forward.
I happen to oppose the amendments but it seems to be that we have been put in an invidious position, asking us to vote on amendments which we have not had an opportunity to debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, on a point of order, I should like to inform the House that the amendments are in order.
They are in line with the procedure. It is true that it would have been much better had we had an opportunity to debate this in committee and, as was said at the beginning of the week, that would have been a much better opportunity to have the issue debated.
Unfortunately, the decision was taken that this would be put without debate and the amendments are in order.
They are extremely important.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="Doyle">
Mr President, like Mr De Rossa I also question the fact of the amendments being in order.
The sensitivities of Northern Ireland are too important for any ill-informed bandwagoning on the International Fund for Ireland.
<P>
I would ask you to consider very carefully how we proceed here, particularly as we are not in a position to have a debate.
I share this concern with my colleagues, Mr De Rossa and Mr McCartin.
<P>
Raytheon has been welcomed to Derry by no less than Nobel Peace Prize winners, John Hume - one of our own colleagues, and David Trimble.
Raytheon will be funded by the Industrial Development Board in Northern Ireland.
Not one euro nor one Irish pound from the International Fund for Ireland is going to Raytheon.
The amendments are totally inappropriate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, Messrs Cashman and Simpson have also requested the floor, but I would be grateful if we could concentrate on the task in hand.
The truth, and this may remove the need for the Members' procedural motions, is that it was Parliament that decided on Tuesday not to hold the debate.
Therefore, this President, although he might like to reverse this decision, is not going to do so.
This is clear.
This is the decision of Parliament, and furthermore, incidentally, Mrs Doyle, I was rapporteur when this fund was approved for the first time and there was a long debate at the time about its creation.
Therefore, I am sorry to say that we cannot make changes now.
<P>
Mr Simpson has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Simpson Brian">
Mr President, it is not my intention to delay the House any longer than we have to.
I do not want to get into the argument about the amendments because that can be sorted out by a vote.
One point should be made, however; the process is not ideal.
Mrs Doyle and other Members are right but the problem we are faced with in the Regional and Transport Committee, which is the committee responsible, is that at the very last minute we were asked for urgency by the Council because somebody, somewhere, realised that we needed a resolution from this House to carry on the particular fund in question.
Therefore, the only way we could do that was by this very quick procedure, through the committee on Tuesday, by a letter from the President.
<P>
We thought we had an understanding that there would not be any amendments.
Sadly, that has not been the case.
It is only fair to point out that given the time we had to do this, the committee and the Parliament have worked as effectively and as quickly as we possibly can in what proved to be difficult circumstances so that the money could be released next year for this very important fund.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Simpson.
<P>
Before the plenary session, both the services and the Presidency examined the comments on the admissibility or otherwise of the amendments.
Political evaluation is one thing but the technical possibility of admitting amendments is another thing altogether.
In accordance with the Rules of Procedure, they are perfectly permissible.
<P>
Therefore, we shall now proceed to the vote on the proposed regulation.
<P>
(Parliament approved the Commission' s proposal) EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="Cashman">
- The amendments are inadmissible on the following grounds: the objectives of the Fund do not include promoting large-scale inward investment.
The Fund exists to promote urban and rural development, community development, to enhance skills and to improve the environment; the justifications cited in the Green amendments are spurious.
The Fund has no role in the Raytheon project, nor could it have.
The amendments simply seek to prevent the Fund from doing something which it could not do anyway; the purpose of the proposed Regulation is to permit the continuation of the financial contribution of the EU to the Fund; it does not in any way seek to amend the substance of the existing Regulation EC 2614/97, which is why the urgency procedure was agreed in the first place.
<P>
On the matters of substance, the projects referred to in the Green justification are not military projects.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="De Rossa">
- The vote on the fund which was tabled late by the Council was facilitated by the EP without debate, on the understanding from all groups including the Greens that there would be no amendments.
It would seem that at the instigation of Ms Patricia McKenna, the Greens broke this understanding.
<P>
As a consequence of this I was being asked to vote on amendments which I had not had the opportunity to consult about or research and on which I would be precluded from debating on the floor of the House.
<P>
The company criticised in the amendments (Raytheon) was in fact welcomed by two Nobel Peace Prize winners (Hume/Trimble).
In addition, if we are to shut down or refuse investment from every company which may have an association with the arms industry, then we would have to close virtually every American and Japanese software company on the island of Ireland with catastrophic consequences.
<P>
I am opposed to the arms industry but we must not put at risk the economic prosperity of Northern Ireland with ill-conceived and badly researched amendments in the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Doyle">
- The EUR 45 million to the IFI is most welcome, and a continuing recognition of the European Union's support for the cross-border communities in Ireland.
Any attempt to sully the reputation of the IFI is totally unacceptable and amounts to ill-informed political bandwagoning on the sensitivities of Northern Ireland and are not worthy of this Parliament.
<P>
For the record, Raytheon, a high-tech software plant to which the amendments are directed, is to be funded by the IDB, the Industrial Development Board in Northern Ireland, not the IFI.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Community agricultural statistics
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0089/1999) by Mrs Redondo Jiménez, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council decision amending Decision 96/411/EC on improving Community agricultural statistics [COM(1999) 332 - C5­0042/1999 - 1999/0137(COD)].
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Redondo Jiménez">
Mr President, the Commission proposes extending Decision 96/411 until 2002, removing certain articles in order to simplify its implementation and bringing forward the payment of 30% of the Community contribution to the Member States, and to do all of this in accordance with the codecision procedure.
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In 1997 an amendment to this Decision was presented which extended by two years the deadline for Member States to send their reports and the deadline for the Commission to draw up a progress report for Parliament and for the Council.
<P>
Given the importance of the common agricultural policy, the availability to everybody of reliable information for the purposes of decision making is essential.
<P>
Therefore, it must be a priority for the institutions to provide the means for this information to be ever more complete, reliable and quick, and therefore agricultural statistics must be ever more flexible, harmonious and coherent with other statistical fields with the possibility of incorporating new sources.
To this end, we have to identify, firstly, the areas in which it is possible to implement rationalisation measures, secondly, areas where there are new and increasing needs, and thirdly, general principles in accordance with which actions are carried out.
<P>
Having said this, it should not be necessary to point out that all the Member States should act in accordance with these intentions.
However, this is not the case: this is a voluntary programme for the Member States.
I would like to stress that it is not at all easy for this Parliament to understand that any Member State might say "I am not interested, I am not taking part" .
The common agricultural policy belongs to all the Member States. It affects all of us.
Therefore, I would like both the Commission and the Council to reconsider the matter and for the next proposal submitted to this Parliament to establish the obligatory nature of its application in all Member States, with a single legal basis in the statistical field.
<P>
There is another aspect which I would like to point out to the Commission and the Council with regard to amendment 5, which I hope will be taken into account, given that the information requested in it, according to Regulation (EC) 1390/99, which entered into force on 23 November 1999, establishes in article 2 that "each Member State will provide the Commission with all the information classified by budgetary items which will be forwarded at the request of the Commission within 30 days" .
Therefore, I request a specific commitment by the Commission that it will define each year, amongst the priority plans for technical action proposed to it by the Standing Committee on Agricultural Statistics, the things requested in our Amendments Nos 4 and 5, since otherwise, the codecision procedure would be delayed and it would become more difficult for the Member States to draw up their statistical reports.
<P>
Therefore, I would like to hear the Commission' s opinion with regard to this point in the debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="McCartin">
Mr President, I want to thank Mrs Redondo for her report and for her excellent explanation of what all this is about and why it is important.
One of the things that I miss from the information we were given is the cost of this operation or what the cost would be if every Member State involved themselves in it.
I do not suppose it is very big.
Nevertheless the information is necessary for a Parliament discussing the subject.
<P>
Of course, as the common agricultural policy develops from a situation in which we pay subsidies at the point of export or at the point of entry into intervention into a situation where we pay subsidies for individual animals on an acreage or the hectarage of crop planted, obviously it is extremely important that we know exactly how many animals there are in the Union, how many hectares and how many olive trees and all the rest of it.
All that information is extremely important.
It is extremely regrettable if we, at European level, the institutions who organise the common agricultural policy on which the farmers of the Union depend for their livelihood, cannot obtain correct information on which to base an effective policy.
It is very hard to understand why we do not have better cooperation from all the Member States.
<P>
When we expand the European Union, or even without expansion, we will not retain all the provisions of the present policy.
Nevertheless, we will need this information so that we are able to extend some sort of assistance on a reasonable basis to the new countries of the Union where food production and agricultural production will increase by 50 per cent what we have in the Union today.
<P>
It is also advisable to remember that in the Court of Auditors' report, which has just come out and which was debated this week, we did not find in the whole agricultural sector any indication of massive racketeering or fraud on a large scale but we notice that there seem to be an awful lot of little problems with the number of livestock and the amount of hectarage for area aid and so on.
There are small errors over a very wide area and that is a serious problem that we have to address.
<P>
Finally, I would say that in the new Europe it is going to be important for farmers to base their levels of production on the projected quantities that will be produced in the Union.
That cannot happen if we do not know the statistics of the agricultural industry.
Increasingly, rather than screaming at the institutions of Union to solve the problems, farmers will have to come together and try to calculate what the needs of the market are and produce for those needs.
That does not mean that we want to bring an end to subsidisation.
For example, there is the pigmeat industry where we produce 18 million tons of pigmeat annually and we end up in a situation where there is a million tons in surplus.
Prices collapse, there is terrible hardship and indeed terrible profiteering by middlemen.
If we had good statistics, we would be able to deal with a problem like that before it arose.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Pesälä">
Mr President, I would first like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Redondo Jiménez, for this report and her excellent display of cooperation as chair of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development this autumn.
<P>
A viable system for statistics is an important basis for making good decisions. Statistics have to be comprehensive, reliable and consistent.
The report quite clearly explains the legal basis of statistics, especially in Amendments Nos 2 and 3, which specify the Community' s share of the advance.
Politically, the most important message is contained in Amendments Nos 4 and 5, which urges the practice of cross-tabulating subsidies received according to, inter alia, farm surface area.
This information will be especially important when we consider the social side of agricultural subsidies. It would be difficult to support a subsidy scheme that channelled most of the aid to the large farms in the best agricultural regions.
We have no data on this, but have to be content with the rumours that 80% of aid would go to 20% of farmers.
<P>
Amendment No 1 emphasised the importance of statistics in connection with enlargement towards the east.
This is a very important consideration that still means much work for the EU and the applicant countries. The problems over statistics for the applicant countries will not be resolved through this report.
Problems have continued since the land register began to function.
Embarking on eastward enlargement without any information on its effect on the budget would be political suicide.
It does not help much, though, if our current data on expenditure is based on mistaken or unreliable data.
<P>
The most important aspect of statistical data on the European farmer is the reference yield.
When Finland became a Member, as a result of poor yield in previous years, we had to be satisfied with a figure that did not reflect the truth in normal years.
These reference yields should be raised to a realistic level as soon as possible, or we should start to reconsider the whole basis of their use and the idea of a drop in the price of grain as compensation for hectarage aid.
We cannot undertake to subsidise producers in regions of highest yield in Europe for years and years on account of price reductions that have sometimes taken place in the past. The most obvious answer would be to harmonise hectarage aid as closely as possible within the whole territory of the EU.
Mr President, the ELDR group supports this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, rapporteur, everyone here agrees that we should highlight the need to have statistics for agriculture, at a Community level, that are as precise, as reliable and as coherent as possible, so that we can effectively assess the consequences of decisions taken under the CAP, particularly on rural areas.
<P>
European agriculture is not uniform. On the contrary, it is extremely diverse.
It is therefore essential that statistics are accurate enough in terms of land, and compiled in a harmonised way, for us to be able to obtain judicious analyses by production type and by ecosystem.
In 1996, the European Parliament adopted a report by Mr Jové Perez whose proposals aimed to make European statistics much more accurate and reliable.
<P>
Unfortunately, the Commission' s rather unambitious proposal that has been submitted to us has taken no account of it.
This is why we shall support all of the amendments put forward by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development as well as the one by Mr Jové Perez.
Indeed, it seems essential to us that the wealth of information stemming from the implementation of the CAP aid should be made use of as a source of statistics.
The cost to the Community budget would be almost nothing and statistical secrecy would be guaranteed through the data being incorporated.
<P>
This is the concern that led our group to table an amendment yesterday concerning the traceability of beef and veal because, as a result of the CAP aid, all animals in the European herd must be identified.
This applies to abattoirs, too, for reasons of food and animal safety.
I have not yet understood why the Commission has not accepted that, as of 1 January, these two facts, which have already been made compulsory across the Community, should be used to enable the operational start of traceability.
It is quite inconsistent to postpone the establishment of compulsory labelling of beef and veal for another year and, at the same time, to condemn France' s application of the precautionary principle, precisely because there is no such compulsory labelling.
<P>
If the free movement of products is not accompanied by rigorous labelling, consumers will think it is a confidence trick.
It is regrettable that Commissioner Byrne does not employ his zeal in the service of the health and the interest of European consumers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Baltas">
Mr President, I too was under the impression that I would be talking about the regulation on hops but, since the issue of statistics has arisen, I feel it is my duty to address it.
<P>
As we all know, statistics often have different interpretations which can mean just what we want them to mean.
If this is the case, then inconsistent statistics will only exacerbate the problem.
This is why I also agree that statistics on the movement, policies and trade of agricultural products must be as consistent as possible. It would be ideal if each State did not, statistically at least, paint a different picture of our agricultural economy.
Then, despite any diverse interpretations, we would at least have one true common version of the facts which would help those wishing to examine in closer detail what those statistics actually represent.
<P>
I agree, therefore, that we should adopt the regulation, and I also agree with the comments on the amendments which have been made so that the Commission can see to it that the statistics paint as uniform and reliable a picture as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Busk">
Mr President, technical action plans were established for statistics in 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999.
This is a sign of foresight, but it also shows that developments have been so rapid in recent years that standing still really means going backwards.
This area can justly be described by the phrase 'never finished, always on the way' .
The European Union ought, as quickly as possible, to be in possession of common statistical material which is comprehensive in all areas.
The Commission says that the Community' s agricultural statistics should continue to be adapted in the years 2000-2002.
This means that we are talking here about extending these.
If for a moment we look back to 1957 when the Treaty of Rome came into being, it was in fact the agricultural sphere which was the first big area upon which agreement was reached.
Today - nearly 43 years later - no completely satisfactory statistics have been established for this area.
The debate this week about the registration of animals showed very clearly that 12 out of 15 countries had not even begun preparations for this work.
Things are naturally interconnected.
Without registration, careful statistics cannot be kept and there are therefore, of course, opportunities for a series of errors regarding payments.
<P>
The Community makes contributions to offset the Member States' expenditure in connection with implementing the relevant arrangements.
It is therefore necessary that the Commission should now do some tightening up.
It cannot be the slowest countries which are to set the pace.
The Commission ought to set the agenda to a much greater degree and lead the Member States in accordance with the common resolutions.
How can we envisage re-establishing consumer confidence in food following all the scandals when the EU cannot even implement its own resolutions?
Food safety, risk assessment and the very concept of safety are such important areas that there is no avoiding them nowadays.
Allow me, therefore, quietly to ask: when are we to put our own house in order?
<P>
Finally, ladies and gentlemen, there is no reason to hesitate.
The future belongs to those who prepare themselves for it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Mr President, a little while ago another speaker again brought up the fact that the compulsory labelling system for beef is not to be introduced until 1.1.2001.
I am able to inform you that the Council has obviously adopted our demand to introduce this system by 1.9.
This represents a small victory for the European Parliament as far as the timeframe is concerned.
However, it did not reach this decision under the codecision procedure.
This would have meant it also having to adopt all the other proposed amendments that we voted on here yesterday in the simplified procedure.
Then all our proposed amendments would have been adopted in the codecision procedure.
Instead of which, the Council decided, under the old regulation 820/97, in accordance with Article 19 of the implementing rules, that the Member States now have the facility to continue with the voluntary system until 1.9.2000. I do not consider this to be the right strategy either.
It does, however, go some way towards meeting European Parliament requirements.
<P>
Apart from that, we are now going to continue with the codecision procedure for the other proposed amendments, which we voted on yesterday, for this process will run on after 1.1.2000.
The Council must give its reaction to this.
If it fails to adopt our proposed amendments then we will become involved in a conciliation procedure.
All the other matters that we want to include in this regulation will therefore still be a matter for debate.
I hope that we will be able to persuade the Council to adopt our proposals in this area too, and that it allows reason to prevail.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="Wallström">
Mr President, following the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty the proposals concerning statistics, including agricultural statistics, are based on Article 285.
It foresees adoption according to the codecision procedure.
The proposal submitted today for your approval is the first example insofar as agricultural statistics are concerned.
<P>
I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Redondo Jiménez, for her excellent work and, in particular, for her cooperation with the Council and the Commission on this dossier.
<P>
The Commission is very pleased about the global support expressed in the report for the draft Council and Parliament decision.
The background is Council Decision 96/411(EC) on improving Community agricultural statistics. It has put at the Commission's disposal a flexible tool which allows it to adapt statistical applications to changes in information needs.
This has helped to adapt the system of Community agricultural statistics to changes in the common agricultural policy.
<P>
In its report to the European Parliament and the Council the Commission has presented an overview of the actions undertaken during the period 1996-1999 in different areas.
The overall assessment of these actions by the Commission is positive.
However, the process of adapting national statistical systems to the needs arising from the reform of the common agricultural policy has not yet been completed.
The Commission has therefore proposed to extend for a further three years, with some minor changes, the validity of Decision 96/411(EC). The changes are mainly aimed at either simplifying the implementation of this action programme or at reducing the delay for paying the Community contribution.
<P>
It is important to ensure that this new decision enters into force as soon as possible in order to avoid a vacuum in the present legislation.
An effort should be made to adopt this proposal after first reading.
<P>
As concerns Mrs Redondo Jiménez's report, the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 3.
The Commission cannot, however, accept Amendment No 4, even in its new, modified version. This amendment would still imply some new obligations for Member States which have not yet been discussed in the Council.
This would certainly prevent the adoption of the proposal in the Council at first reading.
Nevertheless, the Commission agrees with the rapporteur that the additional information requested by this amendment would indeed be useful in order to have a better idea of the distribution of aid paid in the context of the common agricultural policy.
<P>
The Commission will therefore commit itself to include such actions in the next technical programmes, starting from 2001, in view of encouraging progress in this area.
We hope that this may reassure the European Parliament about our intentions and may lead Mrs Redondo Jiménez to withdraw this amendment in order to allow the proposal to be adopted at first reading.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Redondo Jiménez">
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="Wallström">
Mr President, just a short comment on Amendment No 5.
Unfortunately, we are not able to accept Amendment No 5 because we know that the Council would not accept it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament approved the legislative resolution) EXPLANATION OF VOTE
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fatuzzo">
Mr President, as the applause for the rapporteur, Mrs Redondo Jiménez, confirmed, this is one of the most important measures we have voted on.
Indeed, in my opinion, statistics are fundamental and in Italy we are in the most terrible chaos as regards the statistics on milk from our cows.
Therefore, I voted for the report and I would like to express the hope that statistics will also be gathered on the number of pensioners in the fifteen Member States.
Many people say there are too many of them, but I say there are too few: statistics will allow us to ascertain their number.
For my part, I would like there to be more and more of them, because 'it is great being a pensioner' .
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
COM in hops
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0083/1999) by Mr Xaver Mayer, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council regulation (EC) amending Regulation (EEC) 1696/71 on the common organisation of the market in hops [COM(1999) 302 - C5­0081/1999 - 1999/0128(CNS)].
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mayer, Xaver">
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="President">
Mr Mayer, I trust that after the sitting you will offer us a tasting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mayer, Xaver">
Mr President, I sent an invite for a beer-tasting session about three weeks ago and it was very much to the taste of all those that received and took up the invitation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="President">
I have no doubt, Mr Mayer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Redondo Jiménez">
Mr President, I simply wish to thank and congratulate Mr Mayer on the report he has carried out, which affects all the hop-producing countries of the Community and which, in the case of Spain, affects my region, Castilla-León, in the León area.
<P>
I agree with everything Mr Mayer has said.
The report has been unanimously approved in the Committee on Agriculture.
I congratulate Mr Mayer and I hope that he receives the support of this Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Baltas">
Mr President, Mr Mayer was so charming that I would like to extend the offer by suggesting that we have that beer in Bavaria itself, not here.
<P>
I shall now come to the point.
Hops are not a typical enough example for us to understand the importance of the common agricultural policy for farmers in the European Union. They do, however, show the extent to which it actually helps our farmers.
As Mr Mayer said, hops are a traditional product which is particularly important to the quality of beer produced, although production is very limited; some 4 000 hectares of land throughout the whole of Europe.
Yet a sufficient number of farming families in the countries where hops are produced, particularly in Bavaria, make their living from that product alone. These families should not be left to the mercy of continual price falls, neither should they be forced to desert specific rural areas because of difficulties arising from irregularities within the market.
There have been a number of changes to the main regulation relating to this particular product as a result of the market fluctuations and the changing needs of farmers, the most recent being the Council decision to set a uniform level of aid to producers for a period of five years.
<P>
This latest decision alters the obligations of the Commission arising from the previous regime, that is of having to grant annual aid, and Members States no longer need to grant aid for setting up production teams.
This development means that certain articles of the old regulation need to be revoked which, rightly so, is carried out in the new regulation for which we will be voting, together with Mr Mayer' s amendments, noting that the proposed regulation will not in any way affect the budget.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Busk">
Mr President, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on the report. I can inform you that the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party will support the report when it is put to the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wallström">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I first of all want to thank the rapporteur, Mr Xaver Mayer, for a valuable report - and perhaps especially for his enthusiastic presentation of the hop paradise of Bavaria - together with the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development for its constructive attitude.
<P>
I am very pleased that our proposal for changing the way in which the market for hops is organised has met with a positive reception.
The Commission' s proposal is, of course, aimed at removing those stipulations which are no longer valid, either because deadlines have run out or because of previous changes to the common regime under which hops are organised.
These changes must be implemented before the basic regulation is consolidated.
<P>
Owing to the fact that the Council has resolved that the level of support is to remain constant for a period of five years, the Commission does not consider that it is necessary to submit a report every year on the situation concerning the production and marketing of hops.
The Commission therefore considers that Article 11 can be removed.
According to Article 18 of the proposal, we shall, however, be presenting, by 1 September 2000, a thorough assessment of the situation regarding the production and marketing of hops.
I am therefore afraid that the European Parliament' s two amendments complicate the text unnecessarily and that the requirement to receive information each year is already covered by the new proposal. This information will also be made available on the Internet.
That is why the Commission cannot adopt these amendments in this situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, firstly, I would be pleased to invite the Commissioner to Kloster Andechs in Bavaria, a place where seven different types of beer are brewed...
<P>
Secondly, I would like to make it known that next ...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fatuzzo">
Mr President, before leaving for Strasbourg, the pensioners who took me to the airport asked me "Is there going to be a debate about beer on Friday morning?"
I replied "Yes, certainly."
"Well, you have to give an explanation of vote and say that we pensioners are in favour of the production and development of beer."
<P>
We are in favour not just because ten years ago, the Pensioners' Party put forward as candidate for Rome' s mayor the model Solveig Tubing, who was born in Berlin and was a great connoisseur and lover of beer, but also because my own personal studies on beer show that drinking it makes you younger.
I know that welfare institutions and governments are against developing beer, because this means that they have to pay out pensions for longer, but as representative of the Pensioners' Party, I am in favour.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Extension of exceptional financial assistance to Tajikistan
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0093/1999) by Mr Savary, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council decision modifying Decision 97/787/EC granting exceptional financial assistance to Armenia and Georgia in order to extend it to Tajikistan [COM(1999) 391 - C5­0171/1999 - 1999/0172(CNS)].
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Savary">
Mr President, I thought, since I represent the Bordeaux area, that you were giving me the floor so that I could answer my Bavarian colleague on the subject of Bordeaux wine.
However, it seems that you are asking me to speak on Tajikistan instead and, as I have five minutes, I shall try to be as clear as possible about an issue that is perhaps rather esoteric and complicated.
It concerns exceptional aid to Tajikistan which is, as you know, a small country located between Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, China and Afghanistan.
<P>
There is a history to this issue and really what I would like to do today is to close a subject that began in 1991 with a loan of EUR 1200 million to the Newly Independent States when the Soviet Union collapsed.
The loan has been repaid by all of the States apart from three.
In 1997, three States were experiencing difficulties and were seriously behind in their repayments: Georgia, Armenia and Tajikistan.
Thus the Parliament was informed in 1997 of a proposal by the Commission, which aimed to reschedule and restructure these three countries' debts.
It was therefore decided to put in place two types of financial assistance. On the one hand there would be loans - at the time EUR 245 million had been earmarked for loans to these three countries - and on the other hand, a gift of EUR 130 million, whose main objective was to reduce the burden of debt and to improve the ability of these countries to repay.
<P>
1997 was also marked, and this is the crux of the issue, by a civil war in Tajikistan, a terrible civil war between the reigning power and the Islamic opposition.
Parliament then proposed, on the basis of Mr Kittelmann' s report, to defer aid to Tajikistan and that is why, two years later, now that the situation has returned to normal, we are being asked today to reopen the matter.
In fact, although the situation in Tajikistan has remained highly critical and worrying, in terms of politics as well as economics, it has gradually become more stable.
There has been an agreement between the different parties, which has been implemented and universally respected, even if security in the country is still subject to caution due to the presence of warlords and the powerful wave of Wahabi fundamentalism in Afghanistan.
In terms of economics, the country has made great efforts under the auspices of the IMF and is benefiting from a structural adjustment facility provided by that organisation.
<P>
We, the European Union, are therefore being asked to re-establish contact with Tajikistan and to implement a restructuring of the debt as today, around EUR 73 million is still outstanding.
What the Commission is proposing is actually to repeat what was done for Georgia and Armenia, which was to make provision for a new loan which would enable Tajikistan to repay the previous one but on much more favourable terms in order to give this country some breathing space, and to make provision for a gift of EUR 35 million for the period 2000-2004, in order to reduce the burden of debt.
<P>
Unfortunately, I have to say that the Commission' s proposal is extremely contradictory.
We are in fact being asked to make a loan of EUR 75 million and a gift of EUR 35 million and now we see that no more budgetary funds are available for donations and that, in 1999, we only budgeted for the donations granted to Armenia and Georgia, donations which are due to end in 2001.
<P>
As a result and quite logically, we, the Committee on Industry, within whose competence this matter essentially falls, have been told by the Committee on Budgets that under no circumstances could we endorse donations which have not been budgeted for today and which have not been provided for in the financial perspective, particularly in Category 4, which, as you know, is already under pressure through trying to finance Kosovo.
Therefore, the compromise which we have reached with the Committee on Budgets consists effectively of only keeping the loan of EUR 75 million whilst agreeing - a position of the Committee on Industry which I think has been understood by the Committee on Budgets - that Tajikistan should also be able to benefit from supplementary aid in order to reduce the monthly debt repayment of EUR 200 000 which it cannot afford.
<P>
Tajikistan is, in fact, the poorest of the Newly Independent States and the one that we absolutely have to stabilise because, rather like Chechnya and for other reasons besides, it is a country that could endanger the whole region, particularly because of its strategic position with regard to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, which are very rich countries.
<P>
We have consequently tabled a series of amendments.
Firstly, amendments that endorse the donation; then amendments which point out to the Council and the Commission their contradictions by telling them that it would be desirable to grant direct aid, but by financing it under another line, and here I am thinking of TACIS; and finally, amendments concerning conditions: monitoring the way the funds are used, the political and democratic conditions and the monitoring of the Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schwaiger">
Mr President, Commissioner, Tajikistan is not only the poorest of all the countries formed from the Soviet Union, it has also been the one to suffer the most on account of the turmoil caused by tribal feuding, which ultimately escalated into civil war.
The country failed to grasp how to employ the financial aid provided so far in a targeted manner.
The situation has only calmed down to some extent over the last few months, once the warring parties had ceased hostilities and resolved that their next step would be to form a coalition government.
<P>
General free elections are set for March 2000.
The international donor community, which includes Swiss organisations for the most part, is now prepared to carry on where it left off delivering financial aid, but with certain provisos.
Now that the situation has abated and there are more favourable prospects for future progress overall, the Savary report now attempts to provide renewed support for the macroeconomic financial aid for this country in the form of loans.
We hope that this will make it sufficiently clear to Tajikistan that it needs to improve its state machinery by embracing democratic development and undertaking the necessary reforms.
<P>
However, the financial aid in the form of loans should only be granted if there is a real possibility of the European Union being able to properly monitor the situation, if the process of national reconciliation continues and the elections, in particular the parliamentary elections set for March, are free and democratic.
As Mr Savary rightly said, this is also what we aim to achieve with proposed Amendments Nos 8 and 9, to which we give our unequivocal support.
If Tajikistan' s creditworthiness is to be restored, then the proposal in Budget 2000 is also to be welcomed. The rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges, has just confirmed to me that as far as this is concerned, a commentary is to provide for a particular form of financial aid to be made available again under the TACIS programme.
<P>
On a final note, I would like to say that the PPE group supports this report notwithstanding all the associated risks.
It represents a renewed, hopefully successful attempt to resume and promote economic and technical cooperation with Tajikistan.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Meijer">
Mr President, the loan which Tajikistan will receive equals this small and poor country' s share in an outstanding debt to the former Soviet Union.
As such, this will not solve any problems within Tajikistan.
The loan only prevents the outstanding debts from continuing to exist.
<P>
Central Asia, the majority of whose population is Turkish-speaking and a small part of which is Iranian-speaking, was conquered in the previous century by the Russian tsarist empire.
This empire did not look for colonies far from home or overseas, like most Western European States, but close by.
Although they were decolonised in 1922, they have remained linked to Russia in the form of Federal States of the Soviet Union.
<P>
The boundaries drawn by Stalin between the various linguistic and cultural regions in the ' 20s and ' 30s are now state borders.
This prolonged European influence means that we in the European Union should feel especially responsible for the vicissitudes of the five States which appeared after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
<P>
The economy and environment are in a sad state of affairs in all fifteen States.
Authoritarian regimes have come to power and leave little or no scope for political opponents.
By means of referendums and intimidation, some presidents have their periods of office extended by ten years, without there being rival candidates.
In this respect, Tajikistan is no exception.
<P>
Should European money be spent on a country like this?
In general, my group is not in favour of funding undemocratic regimes.
All too often, we have noticed that they receive funding in the expectation that they will regard this money as a reward for taking small steps towards greater democracy and human rights and as an encouragement to take further such steps.
In practice, however, this method does not work, as we have since found out in Turkey and Russia.
The funding is received, but the situation does not improve.
<P>
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Tajikistan has reverted to the situation in the nineteenth and at the beginning of the twentieth century.
There are several, regionally powerful families and groups which are fighting each other in a situation where warlords seize upon political and religious differences as an excuse to justify armed action.
The fate of Tajikistan largely depends upon what is happening in its immediate surroundings, such as the hopeless, violent conflict in Afghanistan.
A large proportion of the Tajikistani population lives in north-east Afghanistan, the area which is not in the hands of the Taliban.
<P>
The North of Tajikistan stretches out as far as the densely populated Fergana Valley which is partly located in Uzbekistan and is completely integrated into the economy and road network of this neighbouring country.
As a frontline area flanked, on the one hand, by the Russian sphere of influence and, on the other hand, by Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan, the present Tajikistani State has little chance of survival.
<P>
The only reason to inject European funding into Tajikistan despite all this is that funding increases the chance of survival of the Tajikistani population and offers more chance of peace than there would be without such aid.
This is the reason why my group can nevertheless agree with the proposals made in the Savary report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Coûteaux">
Mr President, for our part, we will not be voting for the Savary report.
This is both for reasons concerning the choice of this country and out of more general considerations involving financial aid.
<P>
Although, of course, we have nothing against the sovereign State of Tajikistan, we nevertheless do not think that European States should drop their priorities, or to be more precise, the priority that they set a long time ago on the subject of cooperation.
This priority has now been in force for more than a quarter of a century through the Lomé Agreements.
<P>
For obvious reasons, which concern history as well as geography, Europeans felt it necessary to embark, throughout the 1970s, on a major course of cooperation with the countries of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific in a way which is, moreover, highly original, known as the Lomé Agreements, which enable us to offer our Southern partners the benefits of stable prices for the produce which constitute their essential resources, protecting them from all-out free trade. Today we see only too well how this ruins the weakest economies.
<P>
Now under the battering, not from globalisation but from the globalist ideology, which European countries have accepted without closer examination, we have seen the ACP agreements being slowly dismantled over several years, their basic principles denied and, above all, we have seen reductions in several European countries' contributions to the EDF.
<P>
Now, at the same time, so-called exceptional financial aid to the most diverse countries in the world is multiplying, without any overall plan emerging, which means that our cooperation policy is nothing but a vague, huge scratching of the surface or, to sum it up, it is no longer a policy at all.
<P>
To this particular consideration we can add a second.
Tajikistan may have been spared the economic problems described in the report, moreover like so many other countries in the world, but it is nevertheless the victim of an ill-considered opening up of its borders and of the huge game waged by empires.
<P>
For our part, the best solution we can see would be to restore a new world trade order, which respects the sovereignty of States, their pace and their modes of development, and which also respects their traditions, traditions which we will not be able to make vanish with a wave of a magic wand just by imposing an election, human rights and what we quite hastily call democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, the political tide in Tajikistan seems to be turning.
Only last week, President Ragmanov called for parliamentary elections to be held next spring.
After months of tug-of-war between the government and the opposition, agreement has finally been reached regarding the new electoral law.
I should point out, however, that these developments mark only the beginning of the democratisation process.
Tajikistan still shows features which are incompatible with a democratic constitutional state.
Indeed, the downside of the present positive developments is that during the next elections, a number of parties will remain on the sidelines.
They are excluded from participating.
This is hardly surprising as permission to participate in elections is still in the hands of former communists.
This remark regarding Tajikistan' s democratic status does not detract from the fact that quite a few changes have already taken place.
As such, international organisations and bilateral donors no longer see good reason for suspending aid to Tajikistan.
Even the European Commission, with the proposal it is making, seems to think it should put its oar in.
However, the Commission is losing sight of one important factor.
Earlier this year, the three institutions of the European Union concluded the interinstitutional agreement for a period of seven years, stipulating the financial ceilings for the various policy areas.
I would like to remind the Commission of this.
<P>
In the proposal to grant aid to Tajikistan, this agreement is not given much consideration.
Neither the urgent appeal by the IMF and World Bank to the European Union to increase aid to Tajikistan nor the argument of moral duty in the light of Tajikistan' s debts to the Union are in themselves good enough reasons to grant aid.
We are first of all faced with the European Union' s financial limitations.
The above agreement does not allow for making gifts to Tajikistan.
<P>
Moreover, we have recent experiences of entering into financial commitments which we cannot honour, as illustrated in the reconstruction of Kosovo.
The Commission has pledged a sum of EUR 500 million while the Member States do not want to make the necessary increase in the European budget at this stage.
A vague declaration of intent has since been drafted by the Council to prevent similar problems from occurring in future, but it remains to be seen what will come of this.
Kosovo is no better off at the moment.
Aid has been reduced to EUR 360 million and also spread over several years.
<P>
This incident has given me grave concerns regarding the Member States' willingness to make concessions once again within the context of aid to Tajikistan, even if only relatively small amounts are involved.
Member States find it hard to sell the idea within their own countries if the outcome of the negotiations at the Berlin Summit are undermined by reality.
Apart from a limited budget, the European Union has little political interest in Tajikistan.
The geographical remoteness makes it impossible to have any real influence on the democratisation process.
<P>
Although the European Union has an interest in being surrounded by large, stable regions, the tools it has available in order to achieve this are still very limited.
All this does not mean that we cannot do anything at all for Tajikistan.
On humanitarian grounds, I do agree with special aid as far as the loan component is concerned, but the gift component should be scrapped for the reasons I have outlined above.
<P>
I would also like to urge the Commission to ask Tajikistan' s bilateral donors and the Member States to grant special aid to this country on an individual basis.
After all, the scope of the budget of the national Member States is, politically speaking, less of a sensitive issue.
<P>
Finally, I would like to strongly advise the Commission, out of moral considerations, to resume the projects under TACIS for Tajikistan as soon as possible.
In this respect, we have to monitor the situation closely in order to ensure that the money ends up where it is needed, namely with the Tajikistani population, which is suffering under grinding poverty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, were it not for the people of Tajikistan I would not be standing here today.
During the First World War, in 1916, my grandfather was a prisoner of war working on the railways in what used to be Russia-Central Asia, and he has often told me that he was only able to survive these difficult years on account of the hospitality and helpfulness of the people of Tajikistan.
<P>
But this is not why I am so keen to support Tajikistan' s cause, rather, unlike Mr Blokland, I believe that it is an issue that is of direct concern to us.
Tajikistan is situated in an area enclosed by China and Russia, which are at odds in this region, and by the Islamic world and the Caspian Sea, where there are immense deposits of raw materials.
<P>
In my view, this region represents the Balkans of the future, a Balkans in microcosm, and that is why it is in our vital interest, particularly as a number of nuclear powers are established there, to stabilise this region and prevent ethnic conflicts taking place there from having an impact on the entire world.
<P>
That is why I believe that we need to help Tajikistan on its difficult way ahead by providing it with a loan, but also with outright grants, it being clear, in this respect, that we will have to call upon the Member States as our own budget will not accommodate this.
<P>
Of course, we must demand democracy and the rule of law but, at the same time, we must not apply uncalled-for standards.
For centuries, Tajikistan was subjected to colonial exploitation and for eighty years it was brutally suppressed by Soviet Communism.
Today this small mountain race is making its way with difficulty and must not be made subject to European standards.
We must apply the same standards that we apply to developing countries; after all, we have been supporting the countries of Africa on the road to democracy for decades now, and the situation there still leaves much to be desired.
<P>
We have only been supporting Tajikistan for a few years now.
Therefore, whilst we must demand certain rules of the game, we must also be patient towards the people of Tajikistan, heavily promote the elections to take place in the spring and recognise that this is not just an act that will do honour to Europe, rather it is in Europe' s own best interests to bring peace to this region.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Karas">
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wallström">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, a warm thank you to rapporteur Savary.
The Commission is very pleased to note that its proposal to grant exceptional financial aid to Tajikistan has obtained wholehearted support from Parliament' s relevant committee.
The Commission is supporting quite a lot of the proposed amendments, especially those relating to stricter Budget supervision (given the possibility of retrograde political developments in the country) and is also supporting the proposal that a final report should be delivered to Parliament in the year 2004.
<P>
The Commission cannot, however, accept the proposals regarding that part of the aid relating to subsidies.
It is impossible to implement this part relating to subsidies on existing legal bases, especially TACIS, because the resources included in the aid cannot be related to special projects or programmes.
The aim is in fact to reduce the country' s debt towards the Community.
This proposal is also aimed at confirming the subsidy of EUR 95 million available to Armenia and Georgia in accordance with Council Decision 97/787/EC of 17 November 1997.
<P>
The Commission finds it difficult to accept a reduction of the subsidy to EUR 50 million. The reasons for this are as follows.
The Community' s financial exposure will continue to be high in an area whose stability has deteriorated, both because of the Russian financial crisis and the current situation in the northern Caucasus.
A significant reduction in the EU' s exposure has already been achieved, with the figure concerned going down from EUR 212 million initially, including interest on outstanding debts, to EUR 123 million at present.
A further reduction may, however, occur over the next few years if the aid is implemented as planned.
<P>
Armenia and Georgia will have difficulty understanding the fact that the Community is reducing its aid, in spite of the major efforts which these two countries, with support from the IMF and other contributors, have made to reduce their financial liabilities towards the Community.
This would put the Community in a difficult situation regarding both these two countries and the international community.
<P>
The Commission considers that it would be unfortunate if the Community were to refuse to confirm its financial aid to countries whose strategic importance to the Community is obvious.
Moreover, we ought, in the light of the present difficulties in the Caucasus, to send out political signals indicating that we want to continue to support the considerable efforts which are being made to achieve stabilisation and democracy, as well as to introduce reforms.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
Following the vote on the amendments
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Thyssen">
Mr President, after the voting, I would like to raise a point of order concerning the texts adopted yesterday.
If you would allow me, I would like to take up a few minutes after the votes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="President">
You may do so.
<P>
(Parliament approved the legislative resolution) EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fatuzzo">
Mr President, I would like to say how pleased I am to give this last explanation of vote of 1999 on the Savary report, which I voted for.
I am very much in favour of this European Community initiative which aims to grant practical aid to the most deserving regions, such as Tajikistan.
I would like, as Mr Blokland said in his statement, to say to Commissioner Wallström - who is disturbing the sleep of Italian, Greek and Spanish pensioners because of superannuated cars which have to be quickly taken off the roads - that I would appreciate verification as to how the aid is distributed once it has been granted to Tajikistan and other States.
I would be pleased if it was given to people who need it, such as pensioners.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, despite having some serious concerns, I voted in favour of the financial aid package because I see in it an opportunity to establish a market economy, democracy and peace using financial incentives, of the kind put forward by Mr Karas, rather than force.
I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to all those fellow MEPs who gave me their support in this and would like to wish you all a merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Thyssen">
Mr President, very briefly on a point of order regarding the texts adopted yesterday.
During the debate, I was watching what exactly was written down regarding the vote for the Murphy report on late payment.
I would like to ask you to get your department to look at Amendment No 20 again, as I am 99.9% certain that this is not the text we voted on or at any rate not the text which should have been submitted because this is not what the Industry Committee provided.
I have asked to be given the floor officially because I fear that we will be unable to reach the departments during the Christmas break and in order to avoid problems during the conciliation procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Thyssen.
We will make the appropriate checks because, evidently, the Minutes have been approved; therefore, there will have to be a technical correction where appropriate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, I do not know if this is a technical correction, but I have just discovered that I am not included in the Members from Luxembourg in Wednesday' s Minutes, concerning Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi' s report on the verification of credentials.
Mrs Reding' s name is there instead.
I know that I owe my seat to her being appointed a Commissioner but I do not understand, since I have been a Member of this Parliament since 16 September, why my name does not feature in the Minutes covering the verification of credentials.
Would you please rectify this?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="President">
Mrs Lulling, I cannot rectify this because this report does not affect you.
You were elected on 16 September - as you quite rightly said - and this report concerns those who were elected on 13 June.
You replaced Mrs Reding.
There will therefore be another report, which will, I hope, confirm your mandate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, as it is now Christmas, I would be grateful if you would allow me to speak for a moment.
I would like to thank you and clear up a misunderstanding.
The President is entitled to allow an MEP to ask a question of the Commission.
I wanted to ask the Commissioner a question and also answer a question that you asked of Mr Mayer. I wanted to say that in the spring there will be a large beer-tasting session for Bavarian beer in the Parliament courtyard here in Strasbourg.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="President">
Mr Posselt, I am very pleased, but in any case, I would remind you that, when requesting a procedural motion, you actually have to indicate the Rule to which you are referring.
<P>
Having said that, Parliament has reached the end of the agenda.
<P>
The Minutes of the present sitting will be subject to Parliament' s approval at the beginning of the next part-session.
<P>
Mr Manders has the floor for a procedural motion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Manders">
Mr President, I would like to take this opportunity to wish you, the Bureau and all Members, a good transition into the new year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, before you leave me alone, I would like on behalf of the Bureau, once again, to thank all the Members, all the services, officials, assistants and other co-workers and, if you will allow me - although all the co-workers work for us - perhaps a special mention should go to the language services which help us to understand each other here.
I would also like, although they are absent, to mention the Commission and the Council.
I am not going to re-open the 'Millennium or not the Millennium' debate, but I am going to wish all of you, and by extension, all the citizens of Europe which we represent, a happy year 2000.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="President">
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 10.50 a.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I wish you all a very happy New Year, and declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday 19 December 1997.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=3 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Galeote Quecedo">
Mr President, at the start of our last Parliamentary part-session, various Members from various political groups condemned the murder of José Luis Caso, a local councillor in the Basque Country. Also during that week, this House received a visit from the family of another local councillor, Miguel Ángel Blanco, who was also murdered some months previously, 48 hours after having been kidnapped.
<P>
On Friday, Mr President, José Ignacio Iruretagoyena, a local councillor in Zarautz, was murdered.
All of them were Basques, "guilty' of having been democratically elected to represent their people - the Basque people.
<P>
In recent days there have also been acts of terrorism in other regions of the European Union. People are demanding that we, the representatives of the European peoples, should not just issue a condemnation, Mr President, but also commit ourselves to initiative and to boosting Community policies to combat terrorism.
What is at stake is the most basic of all human rights, Mr President: the right to live.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, I do not want to spend too much time on this, but obviously, the loss of a human life - the despicable murder of a representative of the Partido Popular , Mr Iruretagoyena, in Zarautz last week - means that we in the Group of the Party of European Socialists are forced to repeat our condemnation of this type of act. Europe needs to develop an awareness of pacifist issues, in order to avoid a repetition of such acts.
<P>
The Spanish people have repeatedly held demonstrations on this question.
I believe that the rest of Europe supports us, as do the governments of the European countries, in our struggle against terrorism.
Let us hope that in the building of Europe such acts - which are totally unjustified - can be completely eradicated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gutiérrez Díaz">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is painful to have once again to begin one of our part-sessions by reminding ourselves that, using the force of the word, we are pitted against the force of arms and the force of murder.
<P>
Once again, Mr President, intolerance, violence and fascism have destroyed a life.
The destruction of a life is always painful, but this was the life of a democratic representative of the people.
It is a double murder: the murder of an individual and the murder of democracy.
<P>
However, I would like to take this opportunity to say that there is an ample majority in the Basque Country who are opposed to violence and fascism. They are witnesses to the fact that in the Basque Country and in Spain all opinions can be upheld, through democracy and coexistence.
We have to tell the fascist minorities that we have already experienced fascism this century, disguised as the Right and also as the Left, and it does not fool us when it comes disguised as nationalism.
<P>
We respect the wish of each and every people to defend their identity, as long as it is done by democratic means.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Imaz San Miguel">
Mr President, as a Member representing the Basque Country, I should also like to comment: firstly to express support for the family of the murdered man, José Ignacio Iruretagoyena, and also, on behalf on my party, for members of the Partido Popular , to which he belonged.
However, he was not just a member of that party; he was an elected representative of the Basque people. Therefore, not only has ETA committed the heinous act of murdering an individual, but it has also committed the additional crime of killing a representative of the people.
<P>
Nobody - not even ETA - can succeed in silencing the voice and the will of a people, not even using guns and bombs.
So, besides expressing support for our colleagues in the Partido Popular and for the victim's family, I would also like to end on a note of hope: the voice of the people, democracy, liberty and human dignity can in the end defeat violence, bombs and guns.
Thank you very much, Mr President.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Mr President, the Group Union for Europe fully agrees with the comments just made by our Spanish colleagues.
<P>
We share their emotion and their indignation.
We have never ceased to repeat that no political cause justifies murder, and we of course stand in solidarity with all those who, elected by the people, by democracy, are savagely assassinated by those who challenge the very roots of democracy, as Mr Gutiérrez Díaz has just said.
<P>
Mr President, we request that you send our very sincere condolences to the victims' families and to the Basque people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Wynn">
Mr President, since we last met we have seen the arrest of former President Kenneth Kaunda in Zambia and the rather shabby treatment which has been dished out to him.
<P>
Several governments have asked the Zambian Government to release him or charge him and, at present, he seems to be in a state of limbo.
I should like to ask if you would consider writing a letter to Mr Kaunda, expressing the support of this Parliament, and also to the Zambian authorities voicing similar concerns to other governments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Wynn.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Order of business
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="de Vries">
Mr President, we all know that, politically, the European Commission is accountable to the European Parliament.
It is an essential part of the democratic relationship we have in the Union.
It is in the light of this democratic relationship that I would like to ask the Commission to give a short statement this week.
It is stated in various newspaper reports that a difference of opinion exists within the European Commission about whether Members of the Commission have the right to accept political mandates during their membership of the Commission.
To be more specific, according to newspaper reports, Commissioner Silguy is alleged to be going to stand in Brittany in March.
According to these same newspaper reports the President of the European Commission, Mr Santer, is alleged to be opposed to Mr Silguy's seeking and accepting a mandate of this kind.
My question is whether the Commission wishes to make a statement in which it clarifies its position in this matter.
The question is the more important, Mr President, as it does not only concern relations between the Commission and this Parliament.
According to the Financial Times of this morning, the French President, Mr Jacques Chirac, is alleged to have intervened personally in favour of Mr Silguy's right to seek a political mandate.
If the French President gets involved in this discussion it seems to me that the Commission as an institution cannot remain silent.
I would like to ask the Commission to make a statement by way of clarification.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
The Commission may have the floor, to express their view on this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
Mr President, I wish to simply inform the House that it would be appropriate to put the business down for consideration.
That would serve the interests of this democratic Chamber and also, of course, the requirements of courtesy as far as the Commission is concerned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
Mr President, all I know about this case is what I have read in a few press agency telexes this afternoon.
I think it is important that the European Commission gives an explanation of this in the European Parliament.
I have read that consultation will take place in the confines of the European Commission, at least between the President of the Commission, Mr Santer, and Mr Silguy.
But it is extremely important that we in this Parliament are informed as soon as possible.
So I agree with the question, but I must insist that the European Commission is given the opportunity to define its position.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="President">
As you know, the Commission has the right to make a statement, according to Rule 37 of our Rules of Procedure.
Clearly, at least two political groups - the Group of the European People's Party and the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party - have requested the Commission to avail itself of that right.
I am informed that the Group of the Party of European Socialists and the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left also support this request.
The Commission will come to its own conclusions, and it is up to them to make that statement when they are ready to do so.
<P>
I feel sure it is important for this to be done as soon as possible, for the sake of good relations between Parliament and the Commission.
<P>
(The order of business was adopted)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
White Paper on railways and rail freight freeways
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0412/97) by Mr Sarlis, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the Commission's White Paper "A Strategy for Revitalizing the Community's Railways' , and the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, "Trans European Rail Freight Freeways' (COM(97)0242 - C40269/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Sarlis">
Mr President, the Commission's White Paper is a comprehensible, clear and comprehensive text and has been constructed on firm foundations.
This commendation does not of course detract from the fact that there are disagreements about the analysis and the recommendations that the Commission makes.
<P>
Firstly I must emphasize that the views, the proposals and the conclusions of the White Paper should not be surprising, given the fact that, to a large degree, they are in keeping and in harmony with the principles laid down for the first time in the 1965 Council Resolution No 271 and Regulation 1191/69.
How and why both these statutes, which were made law 25 years ago, have to a great extent not been put into force is another story.
<P>
There are two main points on which the Committee on Transport and Tourism disagrees with the proposals of the Commission: firstly, the Committee on Transport does not accept on the one hand the Commission proposal for immediate and unlimited liberalization of access to the railway network, and on the other, the proposal for a posteriori settlement of any problems that may arise on account of total Big Bang-like liberalization.
Quite the contrary, the Committee on Transport is of the opinion that open access to the railway network must come about not all at once but progressively, step by step, in parallel with the taking of necessary accompanying measures such as those implemented in air and sea transport and telecommunications.
<P>
The second point on which the Committee on Transport disagrees is on social policy: the Committee on Transport feels that the White Paper is short on recommendations of how to face the problems that will arise for working people, and also on the safety of rail transport following the completion of open access.
<P>
With the resolution that you are being asked to rule on, the Committee on Transport is proposing various measures for the further training of personnel, for the mutual recognition of degrees and diplomas, and for the harmonization of working conditions, which we hope the Commission and Parliament will accept.
<P>
However, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Transport agrees with many of the proposals of the White Paper, such as those relating to economic measures and to the revitalizing of the railways, those relating to services of mutual benefit, to the integration of national systems and, above all, those relating to rail freight freeways.
Particularly as regards freeways, while we are in favour of creating such freeways with all possible speed, we would nevertheless wish to draw the attention of the Commission, but above all that of the Council, to the fact that particular care needs to be taken over the choice and backing of the first freeways, so as to exclude the possibility of the dissection of the rail network in the European Union.
For this reason and in this regard, in our resolution we stress the necessity of there not being a beginning or an end point which would be determined by a single port of call, especially in the initial phase of the creation of rail freeways.
We believe that rail freeways should be open to all, and they should have the possibility of being linked either from north to south or from east to west.
For this reason we repeat once more that the issue of the railways, which we regard as urgent and about which we are in sympathy with the Commission study, must be looked at very carefully and very assiduously, since it is very easy for these rail freeways to prolong the dissection of the railways of the European Union.
We must also be aware that the rail network of continental Europe still essentially reflects today the disagreements and differences that were prevalent in Europe in the nineteenth century.
Therefore, by creating rail freeways, we must make very sure that this is the nucleus of the creation of a unified European rail network and not, as I said before, the beginning of the dissection of the railways on our continent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Ettl">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has been studying the social issues connected with the general revitalization of the railways.
As draftsman of the Committee's opinion on this subject I am pleased to see that the Sarlis report has dealt with the general social aspects of the public transport sector and has also included personnel issues.
<P>
Let me make a few general comments on this subject.
To do this, we must go back a little way into the history of the European railway industry to see the many instances of neglect which have led to the current need for revitalization and for the proper management of the social aspects involved.
I would like to say something about this.
Fundamental to any revitalization process is the ability to face up to economic reality - and this is an area in which the public authorities of the different Member States have often been lacking.
Without doubt, this has in turn led to unfair competition between rail and road transport.
We are attempting to rectify this situation at a time when environmental compatibility is at least being properly understood, when the advantages of rail transport are incontestable and when the appropriate framework conditions for freight transport in Europe have not even yet been laid.
To me this seems absolutely absurd.
<P>
Furthermore, I ought to mention that now the EU's eastwards enlargement has been given de facto approval, it seems to be essential that this project be given a pan-European dimension.
This question is of special significance for the environmental management of the forthcoming transport agreement, particular the freight traffic agreement, as we anticipate the growth rates currently being forecast for this sector.
As well as appreciating the full extent of this problem and the real need for a revaluation of the EU's railway services, we must not forget that safety has a vital role to play in all this.
Better training of railway personnel must therefore be high on the agenda, and this must have a trans-border dimension.
Such improvements are only sensible, yet the White Paper still makes no mention of them. This oversight also applies to many supporting measures and to those personnel who are involved in major revitalization projects - and it is one which must be remedied with immediate effect.
Commissioner, this is not just wishful thinking, it is something which should be reflected in the policies we implement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Simpson">
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Sarlis for the hard work that he has put into this report.
I would also like to thank the Commission and Commissioner Kinnock for the work they have done.
<P>
The fact remains that whilst we all love railways and recognize the need for railways, there are severe problems within the European rail industry, problems that need to be addressed by us all.
<P>
There are many areas in which we can agree with both the Commission and Mr Sarlis.
We can agree that there is a need to revitalize our railway network, particularly in the freight sector.
We can agree that we need to assure open access to that rail network, particularly for international cross-border freight.
We need to wholeheartedly support the principle of the freight freeway, and the Commission has done very good work in establishing that particular principle.
We also agree that we need to ensure that the existing directives, particularly Directive 91/440, which I have a personal interest in, is implemented in national law and implemented in the railway sector.
<P>
The only point on which we differ slightly with the Commission is the speed or the timetable for introducing these proposals.
In that regard we very much support Mr Sarlis' step-by-step approach, because we must ensure that any liberalization is accompanied by the social measures that are needed to protect those within the industry.
<P>
Let us be under no illusion here. Unless we take action in the rail sector we are in danger of having no rail freight at all in 20 years time within our continent of Europe.
That is a situation we cannot let go without taking the drastic actions that are needed.
If we can get this balance right we could be at the beginning of a much needed renewal of the railways, we could be instrumental in giving the railways back the priority that they deserve.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Camisón Asensio">
Mr President, the report we are debating today represents a great leap forward, because we are now closer to the highly desirable aim of liberalizing Community railways, in such a way as to permit their revitalization in terms of competition with other methods of transport.
That is what the Commission is advocating in its White Paper, and we agree.
<P>
The rapporteur, Mr Sarlis, deserves to be congratulated, because his work combines sensible doses of realism with the headstrong eagerness felt by many of us to see our railways modernized as quickly as possible.
Proof of that realism is his insistence, and the fact that he concludes that such liberalization must be carried out gradually, to avoid setbacks due to counterproductive haste.
<P>
By the same token, his proposed order of priority is entirely reasonable, dealing successively with international freight transport, national freight transport, and international passenger services.
This point needs to be stressed: it will never be possible to achieve a high quality international passenger service, worthy of a modern European Union, without developing the relevant infrastructures.
It is impossible to picture the European Union as a world pioneer, in keeping with the demands for progress which are to be expected of the twenty-first century, if we do not manage to achieve high-speed passenger links between the capitals of all the Member States, at the very least.
<P>
Because of where I live, I regularly experience the deficiencies of the rail link between Madrid and Lisbon, and there are other capital cities within the Union which could be mentioned as further examples.
Until we succeed in converting routes like Madrid-Lisbon to high speed, our railways will fail to enter the twenty-first century.
<P>
To conclude, Mr President, I want to place on record that the rapporteur is also right to attach so much importance to social aspects, especially with regard to adapting the railways for the convenience of children, the disabled and the elderly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Santini">
Mr President, Commissioner, once again we have the opportunity to cry out in pain and also, if we want to, to try to find a solution to several problems, in connection with Mr Sarlis' excellent technical report.
We all know that in Europe in general and, unfortunately, in my country in particular, the railways are facing ever deeper crises.
The statistics bear this out: over the last 25 years, the railways have lost 58 % of goods and passenger transportation, while road transportation has increased by 150 %; the passenger share has dropped to 4 % of overall transportation, and the goods share to 9 %.
<P>
In view of this situation, I believe that the full and demanding transport plan for the trans-European lines can no longer be sufficient to point out the paths to be taken.
So we have to ask ourselves: how have we reached this situation?
First of all, the initial cause is the appearance of other means of transport, certainly faster and also more economical; then the lack of management independence; and also bad management, particularly when assigned to public bodies.
So what are the solutions?
It is difficult to mention them all in the space of a few seconds.
Firstly, the sector should be opened up to free competition and to private operators; then we need to carry out business improvement and a general reorganization of the sector, and, in several amendments, my group gives a few specific indications on how to act; we also need to ensure the full implementation of Directive 91/440, favour the development of railway passes for goods transportation, provide greater inter-operability between the system and, finally and above all, implement works such as railway tunnels and trans-European projects, that are the keystone to many other problems.
With regard to the central European region, I am thinking in particular of two main lines, Lyons-Turin-Venice and Monaco-Verona, of the north-south route, which would solve many problems But all the governments need to get involved in this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, senate deliberante perit Saguntum . We are here together, and beneath us the entire plan which the Commission presented so beautifully, which we have talked about so often and on which we actually agree, is falling to pieces.
We in Europe are suffering from a traffic infarction, we agree overwhelmingly that we want to move traffic away from the roads onto the railways as soon as possible, and yet nothing happens.
The freight freeways, assuming the Commission is right, are already doomed to failure, because every railway company continues with its own line, as ever, and says: no, we are not going to participate.
<P>
You are shaking your head, Commissioner.
SNCF does not want to participate. Ferroriale Statale , which owes the Italian State L6000 billion, does want not any stops on any part of its network, but wants journeys to be continued straight through to southern Italy.
The Rotterdam-Genoa freight freeway is now doomed to failure.
The previous speaker said it: road transport has increased by 150 % and rail transport has decreased by 75 %.
<P>
With all due regard to Mr Sarlis' report, despite the Commission's good intentions, and despite the fact that we all agree (with the exception of Mrs Moreau, whose amendments amount to nothing and are wide of the truth) we are not achieving anything.
The responsibility is yours, Commissioner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Moreau">
Mr President, the revitalization of the railways is a necessity, given the structure they provide within our societies.
This revitalization is essential to provide an alternative to "everything going by road' . The environmental damage and danger to safety that road transport represents are reaching limits which are unacceptable to the public.
<P>
Unfortunately, the only way the Commission has envisaged revitalizing our railways is by completely liberalizing them.
Mr Sarlis' report proposes achieving this in two stages which, apart from opening them up to competition, will leave only national passenger transport in place.
We cannot agree to this.
This liberal fixation, whether it be in one or two stages, is not likely to provide an answer to the challenge which has been raised.
The rail transport sector has already lost 500, 000 jobs in Europe since 1985.
Yet the White Paper only devotes a few anodyne lines to the social consequences of the policy to be followed, which Mr Sarlis rightly criticizes.
<P>
In this regard, a balance sheet of how Directive 91/440 has been applied is necessary, and we are in agreement with the demand in Mr Sarlis' report that this balance sheet should be democratically drawn up, in coordination with the unions and passenger associations.
<P>
By favouring more profitable services, opening up to competition risks shattering the coherence of national networks, and open access to freight freeways for all operators - which is demanded in the report - moves in this direction.
A completely different orientation must be taken by substituting the destructive logic of competition with the constructive logic of cooperation.
That is where efficiency lies, and it is not by chance that the first freight freeway in service - opened today, I believe - is the fruit of cooperation between French, Belgian and Luxembourg state networks.
<P>
It is in the interests of the European Union to promote this perspective, enabling both the service and the supply of transport to improve.
In this regard, just like the French Government, we are opposed to moving beyond Directive 91/440.
Furthermore, the rail workers reject the ultra-liberal orientation of the Commission.
Many workers' actions have taken place, with public support, and last November 10 000 rail workers from the European Union demonstrated in Brussels against the direction the White Paper was moving in.
<P>
Our group will continue to relay constantly these demands, which highlight the urgent need to come up with a transport policy based on the development of public services and on cooperation, which encourages a quality rail transport system, accessible to the greatest number, and which respects the environment and creates jobs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dijk">
Mr President, the revitalization of the railways is of crucial importance to the sustainable society in Europe.
The developments in transport do not make us feel very optimistic, even though we have recognized for years the importance of changes in transport and of finding a way for us to organize it.
In the densely populated centres of Europe, traffic grinds to a halt daily.
The emissions of CO2 in particular are not getting any less, as we think they should, but in fact are increasing.
In the near future, it is not only passengers who should get out of the car and onto the train, but freight which should go off the road and onto the railway.
Unfortunately, our still extremely national railways are simply not ready for such an operation.
<P>
Total liberalization looks like a an elegant solution, but causes tensions, particularly in the transport of passengers, as regards the responsibilities of public services.
Besides, liberalization will not have a positive effect until all modes of transport actively foot the bill of the costs actually produced, including social and environmental costs.
We should not have a situation in which one mode of transport does not have to pay VAT or taxes, whereas the other one does; because that leaves a big discrepancy.
<P>
The White Paper's proposals for freight freeways can be called thoroughly positive.
Their development will have a positive effect on the increase in the amount of freight transported by rail.
For it requires - although we are not there yet - the demolition of national barriers and the creation of space for this form of transport.
Priority for the development of these freight freeways will have to be primarily centred on transalpine transport, and on increasing freight transport between eastern and western Europe, so that there will finally be a proper solution to the problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, the White Paper conveys very clearly the precarious position of the European railway companies.
In 1970 the share of rail transportation in the total movement of goods within the European Union was still 31.7 %.
In 1994 this share had dropped to 14.9 %, less than half!
The growth in freight transport has ended up entirely on the road.
<P>
This development must be reversed.
Citizens in EU countries are increasingly confronted with the harmful effects of road transport on the environment.
What's more, in large cities, road transport is reaching its spacial limits. Roads are simply getting full up.
In addition, in the near future, an even greater increase of goods transport is to be expected.
<P>
We have to conclude that rail transport's biggest problem is the way in which the railway companies operate.
Despite the fact that there has been one internal European market since 1993, the railways are still of a very markedly national orientation.
Besides, they do not always work with the best interest of the market and customers in mind.
I therefore support the remedy recommended in the White Paper, which is for there to be more competition on the railways.
<P>
The Sarlis report, more so than the Commission, rightly points to the social consequences of restructuring the European railway companies.
On 19 November 1996, tens of thousands of railway workers from the European Union demonstrated in Brussels against the European Commission's White Paper. They would not have done that without a reason.
But we have to bear in mind two issues.
<P>
Firstly, restructuring is necessary for the survival of the railways and the preservation of jobs.
Secondly, the social consequences should not be absorbed by the European Union, but by the Member States.
The Sarlis report does at least suggest that a European solution to the social problems is required, but it thereby raises false expectations.
<P>
Setting aside the long time the rapporteur took to produce the report, another point of criticism against the report is the restrictions it wants to impose on road transport.
The restriction requested in paragraph 7 on freight weight and the speed limits for road transport does not make rail transport any more efficient.
Restrictions on freight weight is harmful for the environment as it will mean an increase in the number of journeys.
<P>
The most remarkable proposal by the Commission is the plan for freight freeways.
The first, from Rotterdam to Milan, was supposed to have started about now.
When other Member States remain uninvolved, the Commission should take measures for limited liberalization, to which the Member States were bound back in 1991 by means of the directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Castricum">
Mr President, the Commission's White Paper is full of the necessity for great foresight.
The plans resulting from the White Paper for freeways for the benefit of freight transport is proof of the notion that words and paper are no longer enough.
The report by the Committee on Transport and Tourism to which my colleague Mr Sarlis has given his best efforts, shares the analysis made in the White Paper, but displays some reticence when it comes to the speed of the necessary restructuring.
<P>
I want to say that the measures the Commission has in mind, and which in themselves are supported in Mr Sarlis' report, may be able to give the railways a new place on the map.
In this, governments will play a different, but no less important role.
<P>
What should not be allowed to happen in the meantime, is for the doors which are now ajar to be quietly closed.
The splendid cooperation Mrs Moreau spoke of just now could be an example of this.
This may have disastrous consequences for freighters, transporters, and also for society.
<P>
Mr President, it goes without saying that I am very sympathetic to fears of the social consequences of such farreaching restructuring.
But Commissioner Kinnock is right.
Without the measures he has in mind, jobs will be lost on a very grand scale. Not only from the railways themselves, but also from the industrial railway complex that lies behind it.
However, noblesse oblige .
The call for reform may put the concern about social consequences in the shade.
When the Member States, the Commission and this Parliament all wish to give rail the future suggested in important speeches and important policy documents, employers should not be the ones to suffer, and suitable solutions must be found.
An antisocial market economy has no place in the profile of a European Union.
<P>
To conclude, political discussion about transport policy is interesting, but no less interesting are the opinions of other participants in the debate.
In the magazine of the Dutch freighters' organisation EVO, the mouthpiece of tens of thousands of small, medium and large businesses, I read the following in a survey of trends within the transport sector, under the heading of "rail transport' .
I quote: ' ' European rail policy finds itself in a crucial phase.
The freighter can expect little from rail transport over the coming years.
Politicians should therefore stop going on about the increase in road transport.'
They are mere words, but they are words which emerge from the corner which carries the freight, Mr President, and it is this freight which is the subject of this debate.
From now on we should realize this more than ever.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="McIntosh">
Mr President, I should like to welcome the Commission White Paper and the Sarlis report.
In particular, I support the main objectives with the aim of encouraging the transfer of traffic from road to rail.
All of us in this House would welcome the environmental benefits that such a transfer could bring.
<P>
Further liberalization of the rail sector is necessary.
As Mr Simpson has mentioned, we are awaiting the implementation into national law of the Commission directives already adopted.
In my view, there should be a clear separation between the management of infrastructure and the operation of services to ensure transparency.
Perhaps the Commission might like to take the UK model in this regard.
Open access should be extended to all freight and international passenger services.
It is especially important that we insist that normal state aids criteria should apply in restructuring railway finances.
It is absolutely vital that there should be no distortion of the market in this regard.
<P>
In supporting the introduction of rail freight freeways, I see this as a first step towards the creation of open access on Member States' rail networks.
However, it is important that this be accompanied by proposals on financial restructuring and the development of methodology for access charging.
<P>
I commend the Sarlis report to the House and congratulate the Commission on introducing its White Paper.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="Andrews">
Mr President, as the late Tip O'Neill said: ' All politics is local' .
I want to address this paper on that basis.
Ireland's urban transport is in chaos.
In my own constituency of Dublin, transport congestion must be tackled as a national priority.
Gridlock is the order of the day.
<P>
With the Irish economy doing so well we cannot stand by and allow transport inefficiencies to become a limiting factor in that growth.
Hard political decisions must be made now.
It is time for firm political leadership.
It is imperative that the work begins on the Dublin light transit system known as Luas before the millennium.
New structural funds have been allocated to it and will be re-routed away from the project if work does not commence by the year 2000.
The Luas tribunal must begin as a matter of urgency.
<P>
The light transit system should be part of an integrated transport system.
It would not succeed without other mainstream transport infrastructure projects such as the major C ring road, the Dublin port tunnel and the upgrading of the main roads out of the city.
More than 30 % of the traffic into Dublin is in transit and it is time to take a firm political decision to sort out the transport problems once and for all.
<P>
All these systems should be linked to a modern rail network with up-to-date rolling stock.
Irish Rail needs major investment and modernization.
In my view, it is unfair to blame the workers for constant breakdowns and delays in the train service.
The reality is that we have neglected our transport and rail systems at a national level.
We must ensure that while the economy is buoyant we invest wisely in rail and road networks and in other transport infrastructures.
It is of the utmost importance that we in Ireland do not get left behind our mainland European neighbours on the economically and socially vital issues of transport.
<P>
Finally, I find it intolerable that in a major capital city like Dublin we still have an inefficient bus service from the airport to the city centre.
That is part of what is wrong with our transport system.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
Mr President, railways and environmentally-friendly and long-term sustainable means of transport must be one of the most important areas which we as elected representatives can devote ourselves to in the European Parliament, and of course in other parliaments too.
But we must, as representatives of the peoples of the EU, decide whether we want to concentrate on railways more than on aircraft, motorways and bridges, such as the Öresund bridge in Sweden.
We must prioritize railway investment.
But we are not doing that. Instead we are treating it as part of all the other means of transport.
<P>
We should prioritize energy-saving, environmentally-friendly, sustainable means of transport.
That includes railways.
However, I am not so sure that deregulation is the best way to do that. There are other measures which are much better.
We must also ensure that old railways are improved.
In addition, we must take into account a number of different factors, such as efficiency, regional considerations, energy aspects, environmental aspects and employment aspects, so that railways become a competitive means of transport in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, the Commission's White Paper is aimed at the immediate liberalization of rail transport, and especially the unlimited access of private businesses to rail networks.
Our rapporteur, Mr Sarlis, apparently worried about the consequences, is making an admittedly notable attempt to slow the speed down and to raise a number of problems which, in his opinion, call for the gradual promotion of liberalization.
<P>
However, such intense anxieties cannot be confronted in this way.
When all is said and done, at some point in time there needs to be a rundown of the consequences of total liberalization in all sectors, such as air freight, sea freight, the European ship repair industry, etc..
The citizens of Europe need to realize the repercussions in both the public and the broader service sector, the dramatic deterioration of freight safety and of quality of service.
They need to be aware of the enormous repercussions on employment, on working conditions and on the social rights of workers.
If we look at things in this way, then we will realize the dangers involved in liberalization, which is being pushed forward by the Commission, and of course we will assume our own responsibilities and react accordingly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berès">
Mr President, I argue in favour of an efficient and modern railway system.
Clearly, there are many ways of achieving this and I am not sure that we are all in agreement with the method proposed in the White Paper.
<P>
Why plead the case for an efficient rail system?
Because, in balancing up the different methods of transport, we give an essential priority to rail as opposed to road, for social reasons, for ecological reasons, for reasons of town and country planning, for coherence of transport policies.
From this perspective, Directive 91/440 establishes what we consider to be a sufficient starting point.
When, however, a discussion came before the Council to go beyond this Directive, certain governments, including quite clearly the French government, were opposed to this direction.
This is why the idea has been put forward in a White Paper enabling the question of liberalization to be considered as a whole.
<P>
Unfortunately, not only does the White Paper maintain fully the amendments to Directive 91/440, it goes further.
It now seems that the White Paper, as it is presented, is not a realistic way to handle the future of the railways.
How could anyone think that the White Paper will enable the problems of this sector to be solved? The social consequences are vast - we have been reminded of the figures: 500 000 jobs, being one third of all staff, have been lost between 1985 and 1995, and the Commission confirms this tendency for the future, although it suggests no solution, preferring to leave responsibility with individual Member States.
It seems, however, that recent experience has shown us that to deal with the question of transport from a position of competition and liberalization only, deliberately ignoring the social dimension, may be a serious error.
<P>
In his report, Mr Sarlis does not approve of the White Paper as it stands.
Rather than an immediate liberalization, he proposes a gradual liberalization.
This does not seem realistic to us. At least for the moment, all further liberalization should be rejected, given that there has been no evaluation of the results of Directive 91/440 on an objective basis.
All the possibilities of Directive 91/440 must be explored before it is amended, and cooperation must be encouraged between rail operators.
This is the reason why, along with a number of my colleagues, I have signed many amendments and we will refuse to vote for certain paragraphs in Mr Sarlis' report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schiedermeier">
Mr President, let me first express my sincere thanks to Mr Sarlis for his careful and comprehensive treatment of the subject matter and for his excellent conclusions, with which I agree.
I would just like to look at some of these issues in more detail.
<P>
It is regrettable that the Commission has excluded the social question, despite the fact that some 500 000 jobs have already been lost throughout the European rail industry. Commission proposals are urgently required to provide assistance in the following areas.
<P>
Firstly, requirements and procedures for the common recognition of contracts and diplomas awarded to railway staff.
Secondly, retraining of personnel for the new jobs being provided by the new railway companies.
Thirdly, the general harmonization of working conditions for railway employees; and fourthly, the necessary formal and fundamental qualifications and the guarantee of a professional training scheme for personnel who are taken on by the new railway companies.
<P>
I would further urge the Commission to propose the necessary structural amendments to the operation of the European social fund so that it can deal with the problems arising in respect of unemployment and early retirement in the railway industry, which in many Member States have been the result of restructuring in the rail transport sector.
I would emphasize that rail transport has a vital role to play in allowing socially disadvantaged citizens, who cannot afford private transport of their own, to assert their right to freedom of mobility.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Kaklamanis">
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Mr President, good though unification and the attempt to revitalize the railways may be, there are nevertheless other alternatives apart from those emphasized by my colleagues, especially in the social sphere.
<P>
Firstly, the rail network is literally facing scandalously unfair competition from trucks.
What direction is the Commission going in?
Will we burden trucks with the cost of motorways or will we deduct from the railways the cost of infrastructure?
But then the states will get hold of it and what will become of their deficits?
I want a clear direction.
Or will we place tolls on the railways?
Things must be simplified at some point or other.
<P>
Secondly, railways in Europe have problems, administrative for the most part in the west, but also problems of development and integration in the east and, chiefly, the south.
I am thinking here of the Balkans, of Greece, etc.
There, and I repeat, the problem is not so much administrative as the organization and completion of its network. What is the direction of the Commission?
Mr President, I am not convinced by the Community support frameworks that I have seen.
Priority is still given to the car and to motorways, while crumbs are given to the railways.
Policy needs to be changed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldarelli">
Mr President, Commissioner, I think we know that the social issue should not be ignored.
But if we leave the railways as they are, we will lose credibility.
We need to take into account the degree of difficulty faced by the railways in Europe and in the individual Member States at the moment.
We need to restore the competitiveness of the railway system, which is possible in the light of the analysis proposed, but naturally we cannot just consider the railway system and railway transportation; we also need to take other means into account, the role this competitiveness can play in trade and in combined transportation and, naturally, how the various means of transport are integrated.
<P>
From this point of view, we cannot isolate the revitalization of the railway system from the other issues being examined by the European Union.
I am thinking, for example, of the subject that has been rightly raised regarding the internationalization of costs.
I think that, from this point of view, we need to tackle the subjects of possible incidents, congestion, pollution and noise.
The methods of transport will become competitive once again if we deal with these aspects as well as the White Paper on Railways, so as to enable the various means of transport to compete fairly.
<P>
In this connection, I therefore think we should not consider this project in isolation, but we should take into account the fact that serious problems exist in Europe. I am thinking of the 50 thousand killed in road accidents, the 7, 800 killed in Italy every year - again in road accidents - and the serious problems of atmospheric pollution.
<P>
We also have to face the social issue, otherwise it risks being faced alone, because if the railway system is no longer competitive, we will no longer be able to guarantee jobs for those currently employed on the railways.
We therefore need to assume this responsibility, and we should do so above all as the left.
From this point of view, the answer may be more significant.
Who is going to run the railways?
This is a very important point.
We should ensure that, with competitiveness and competition, access to the railways is not reserved just for the large companies and large groups.
We should also ensure that access to the management of the railways is democratic, and that it is also possible for small and medium-sized companies, cooperatives and social structures to take part, providing guarantees against social dumping, observing working hours and safety.
Only in this way can the railway system be revitalized.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
Mr President, thank you very much, can I begin by wishing you and the whole of the House a very happy New Year.
<P>
The Sarlis report before the House today, Mr President, is a truly valuable contribution to the debate about revitalizing the railways of the European Union.
As both the Commission and Parliament agree, major changes are essential if the railways are to survive as a significant and essential means of transport throughout Europe, as we all want for every sensible economic, employment and environmental reason.
<P>
The report is, as we would have expected from its author, positive and constructive about revitalizing rail transport and while I am glad to say it supports the general policy that the Commission has proposed, it also makes valuable recommendations about how the change should be brought about.
I therefore warmly congratulate the rapporteur Mr Sarlis for a report that has strengths of strategic vision and practicality.
I assure him and the House that the proposals which he makes will be given careful and positive consideration.
<P>
I do not think that I oversimplify when I say that there are two basic messages in the report.
One is that liberalization must be progressive and the other is that accompanying measures to facilitate change must be adopted as that liberalization takes place.
<P>
On the first point, I accept that market forces should be introduced progressively in order to give the railways time to adapt and for the Community to be able to put a comprehensive framework in place.
There has never been any intention therefore, nor is there any proposition, for what has been described as a 'Big Bang' approach to the liberalization of European rail.
I also emphasize however, that change cannot be too slow or too gradual, simply because time is not on the side of the railways.
It has to be said, that if change is not made with a greater sense of urgency than is presently the case, there may be no Big Bang and that the only sound that we will hear is the funeral bell tolling at the demise of the railways.
This is not even a twenty-year prospect; this is a dozen years ahead unless change is urgently embraced and urgently implemented.
<P>
In the course of some contributions today, which I greatly respect, including the contribution from Mme Berès, it was said that half a million jobs have gone from rail in the last fifteen years.
That is a tragic truth.
Part of our strategy, indeed central to the social consciousness of our strategy, is an absolute determination to implement policies that will save at least a substantial part of the million jobs that remain in rail and rail-associated industries over the next dozen years.
Without change, the casualty list over the next twelve years could be even bigger than it has been over the last fifteen years.
That is how grim the situation is; that is how urgent the need for change must be.
<P>
Most of us would agree that there is urgency and that change must be introduced in a progressive fashion - not with great drama or with brutality but the direction must be absolutely certain.
It is imperative therefore that we make an energetic start, for instance by opening up international rail freight as soon as possible, as both Mr Simpson and Mr Baldarelli and Mr Castricum have emphasized, not only today but on many previous occasions.
<P>
The precise timing of the implementation of liberalization will, of course, have to be considered very carefully.
Once the Commission has produced all its proposals and the Council and the Parliament have begun discussion, that will be the time to decide where transitional periods are needed and which measures should be introduced in parallel.
Clearly, it is too early to discuss a precise timetable now since we do not know what the eventual opinion of the Council and the Parliament will be in reaction to the Commission's proposal.
All I would say is that anyone , and I choose my words, who really values the contribution and the potential of rail in Europe, and certainly anyone who wants rail to thrive in the future, will not cause unnecessary delay in introducing the essential advances.
<P>
Mr Sarlis' report rightly stresses that various measures must accompany rail liberalization.
As he acknowledges, the Commission's approach makes broad provision in this respect and we are now moving forward toward action which will give practical effect to the proposal set out in our White Paper.
This year therefore I will be presenting three packages of railway measures: the first in the spring will relate to infrastructure and will include proposals for the further separation of infrastructure management and transport operations.
It will also include proposals relating to guidelines on infrastructure charges and guidelines on the allocation of train paths.
<P>
The second package to be produced in the summer will cover public service contracts in particular.
It will also cover state aids not only in the rail sector but in land transport generally.
Then, towards the end of the year, the third package will deal with railway inter-operability and the integration of national systems more generally, including the qualifications of railway staff.
In addition, in the first half of this year there will be two proposals covering transport as a whole with particular relevance obviously for rail: one relating to the extension of the working time directive to all transport workers and one in the form of a White Paper on infrastructure charges in transport generally.
<P>
Finally, I would like to take this opportunity of responding to Mr Sarlis' report to inform the House with some pleasure that the first rail freight freeways have opened despite the prophecies of gloom and doom which we have heard repeated from some parts of the House again this afternoon, for reasons I understand but do not necessarily accept.
It is necessary to travel in hope and with energy because if we adopt any other attitude then we guarantee the demise of rail.
<P>
Of course, there are different models to be pursued in the reform that is now under way in rail and as yet there are no complete and conclusive arrangements, for instance, on pricing.
No one in this House or elsewhere could have reasonably expected such perfection in these very early days of rail freight freeways.
The fact that freeways are operational and capable of showing their potential for making rail freight competitive with other modes, despite the inhibitions of tradition and the reservations still held in some quarters, is a tribute to all who have worked for progress.
It is also a source of encouragement towards further steps in the future.
<P>
Naturally, I agree that the freeways should extend throughout the Community wherever the need exists and links to the ports are important, as has been registered in the course of this debate again today.
The Commission will continue to stress that, whilst recognising that policy decisions on freeways must be made by the Member States and by infrastructure managers and not by the Commission, whose role is to promote the idea and to help to overcome the difficulties.
If we were to advocate the degree of centralization that would make responsibility for the allocation of train paths rest in the Breydel building in Brussels, we would be properly inviting a description of our attitudes as absurd.
We are enablers, we simply strive to ensure that others take full advantage of the changes that we are striving to make.
<P>
To conclude I warmly welcome this report and I am sure that this Parliament will consider the forthcoming proposals in the same positive way as it has the White Paper on revitalization and indeed the communication on rail freight freeways.
I am grateful for that and that this House shares the determination of the Commission to try to help to create railways that are capable of competing with other modes, of winning back markets and meeting the demands of people and businesses in this modern age.
If railways succeed in doing all that, they will succeed in giving themselves a full and prosperous future. Those working for the railways will share in that future.
If change is not made along the lines again set out in this report, and indeed in the Commission's White Paper the future is very bleak.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="Sarlis">
Mr President, first of all I would like to thank the Commissioner for the kind words he has addressed to me concerning the report.
I would just like to add that the report, as presented to the partsession, is the result of the collaborative work of my colleagues in the Committee on Transport and Tourism, who really worked hard on the issue of railways, and took part in meetings and debates, so that we were able to come up with this result.
I should also add that I am delighted with the Commission's response to the report, and that Parliament recognizes this response, from what I have gathered from the interest shown in the Committee on Transport.
<P>
I have two points that I would like to put to the Commissioner, if you would allow me.
One is that the amendment to the extending of working hours in all sections of the transport industry is very good news.
I regard this measure as extremely important. It is a measure that will smooth out the distortion of the competition that exists at the moment between road transport and the railways.
<P>
Finally, I would like to request that careful consideration be given to the issue of guidelines, if they are being contemplated, as regards the work agreements which will be signed by the network administrators.
There is a delicate issue here: that these work agreements may be judged to contravene article 85 of the Treaty.
<P>
Commissioner, these are two points that I would like you to bear in mind.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, it might be that I have missed something, or that we have completely different definitions of what a freight freeway is. If we are talking about a rail infrastructure where there is free access and price competition, then, indeed, it might be that there is one freight freeway.
I do not want the Commissioner, by the way, to sit in the Breydel. He should go out and persuade the operators to open up....
<P>
(The President cut off the speaker)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
Mr President, very briefly to Mr Sarlis, I wish to express my gratitude to him for the reference he made to the extension of the working time directive.
He can look forward to further progress in this respect in the near future.
<P>
So far as guidelines relating to cooperation agreements are concerned, it is quite probable that such formality will not be needed.
It is enough - heeding a point made by Mr Wijsenbeek - that working in practical conjunction with infrastructure managers, we can secure the progress necessary.
Naturally, that will be very closely scrutinized.
If we think further developments could assist the more rapid development of rail freight freeways, we will respond to that urgently.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Operation of aeroplanes
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0404/97), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Council Directive amending Directive 92/14/EEC on the limitation of the operation of aeroplanes covered by Part II, Chapter 2, Volume 1 of Annex 16 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation, second edition (1988) (C4-0530/97-96/0209(SYN)) (Rapporteur: Mr van Dam).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, Directive 92/14 prohibits the operation of all Chapter 2 aircraft in the European Union as from 1 April 2002.
For the noisiest Chapter 2 aircraft, those that are more than 25 years old, and the so-called "narrow bodies' , this ban entered into effect on 1 April 1995.
<P>
A review of the Directive is not only necessary in order to amend the list of aircraft from developing countries.
In addition, it appears that Member States interpret the transitional period differently, and that exceptions are abused.
This abuse entails, amongst other things: subleasing or hiring an aeroplane with an exemption by another airline; the wrongful application of exemptions, which were intended for airlines within the Union in connection with gradual replacement by air carriers in third countries; and granting exemptions to air carriers within the Union.
<P>
The common position deserves positive response on the point of uniform interpretation of the Directive in all Member States.
In accordance with the amendments adopted by the European Parliament during the first reading of the Van der Waal report, subleasing will be prohibited.
Granting transitional terms to airlines outside the Union will also be prohibited.
The United Kingdom will not be required to suspend the licences granted to American companies who provide for gradual replacement.
<P>
Furthermore, granting exemptions to air carriers which are not airlines is prohibited.
The consequences of the ban on subleasing should not be underestimated.
It will lead to serious problems for a number of cargo airports within the Union, and for a number of developing countries.
Reports appeared in the press, for instance, saying that Ostend airport in Belgium is losing 45 000 tonnes, ie. about half of its cargo despatch, because only 11 out of the 43 African aircraft which now fly to Ostend appear on the list of exemptions.
Moreover, INZET, a Dutch organization for development cooperation, warned that it will become difficult for some African countries to continue to export their products to the Union by plane, because their cargo planes are no longer to be given exemptions.
<P>
In view of the total ban on Chapter 2 aircraft from 1 April 2002 and the serious noise pollution caused by aeroplanes, the rules must under no circumstances be stretched.
Great care has to be taken to ensure that these rules are complied with uniformly throughout the Union, considering the consequences of stepping up the rules against subleasing.
My question to the Commission is therefore whether they are prepared to supervise this compliance strictly.
In this context, I should point out that Ostend is accusing two French airports of trying to attract aircraft which are banned.
<P>
The European Parliament had also proposed in the first reading to give airports the opportunity to restrict access for all Chapter 2 aircraft before the commencement of the total ban on 1 April 2002.
As a result of rapid growth in aviation, noise space has become the determining factor at some airports.
This is particularly the case at the Dutch national airport of Schiphol.
The takeoff or landing of one Chapter 2 aircraft takes up the noise space of five comparable Chapter 3 aircraft.
In the evening this comparison works out at one to ten.
<P>
The Council did not accept the amendments from the European Parliament on this issue.
The common position refers to Directive 2408/92.
In this context, I ask the Commission whether this Directive offers airports the opportunity to refuse entry, not because the airport is physically full, but because the noise space has been used up.
Does the Commission agree with me that the reference to this regulation 2408/92 is not enough to push back aircraft noise?
Are the opportunities for this not limited to issues like a night ban for Chapter 2 aircraft, day and night quotas and higher landing rights?
I would love to hear from the Commission whether this does not leave a gap in the rules which makes it more difficult for airports to combat noise pollution.
<P>
On this point of amendment of the annex, the common position deserves sharp criticism.
It is really unacceptable that the Council and the European Commission wish to place Saudi Arabia on a list of exemptions.
Council and the Commission refer wrongly to the OECD's list of developing nations.
In the original Directive 92/14 no reference to this list was made whatsoever.
If we do want to work with this list, then it offers the opportunity to differentiate between richer and poorer developing nations, as proposed by the European Parliament in the Van der Waal report.
<P>
By placing Saudi Arabia on the list of exemptions, it may get an exemption for nine more of these out-of-date, environmentally harmful aeroplanes in the year 2000.
The rightful stepping up of the rules to ban subleasing presents problems to African countries, as I have said.
The fact that Saudi Arabia is allowed to continue flying to the European Union with a large number of equally noisy aircraft is all the more totally contrary to the spirit of Directive 92/14.
I call on this Parliament to support these amendments, which aim to put an end to this unjust preference.
Perhaps we can stir Council and the Commission to return from their digressions.
I would like to thank the members of the transport committee who have supported me unanimously.
Let us be serious about combatting unnecessary aeroplane noise.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldarelli">
Mr President, the report proposed is the result of an exhaustive debate in committee, and it seems to me that the further amendments proposed take into account several inconsistencies that have not been accepted by Council.
I am of course also referring to the Saudi Arabian navy, which is basically classified as a navy of a developing country, something which seems very anachronistic to us.
In this connection, an amendment is tabled that refers to the OECD classification, and should therefore exclude the Saudi Arabian navy from the benefits resulting from the measure relating to polluting aircraft that do not make a noise and that are more than 25 years old.
Consequently, from this point of view, a positive requirement would be restored: the motion would essentially relate to those countries actually in difficulties and would guarantee the safety and, naturally, the quality of life of citizens living near the airports.
<P>
One further point, which seems important to me but which has not been raised, is of course competition.
I would like this point to be made, and not just by the Commission, that landing rights should not be the object of transfer because, naturally, the possibility of having a slot with an authorized aircraft is very important today in competition between the various countries. There may also be the risk of this slot being transferred to third countries, and therefore the risk of a real marketing of slots on aircraft that are basically authorized and are polluting and also noisy.
All this could end up in an incorrect market mechanism.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Grosch">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as was the case in the first reading, we now find ourselves caught in an area of tension between efficiency and the environment.
We in the Group of the European People's Party welcome the current report and the amendments which are being proposed, although we regret that only two of the nine proposals submitted in the first reading are being considered; these two amendments are in my view very important ones.
They prevent aircraft leasing and therefore have a direct effect on the problem of competition, which has just been mentioned.
I would also be pleased if the Commission could clarify this point and explain that there is now absolutely no possibility, no matter what the circumstances are, that the exemptions which certain countries have in respect of competition and the environment, can be used in a manner which is contrary to that intended by the Directive.
<P>
In all events, we regret that certain proposals aimed at tightening up this legislation have not been generally adopted.
In our view, what the Member States propose doing in this sector should on no account fall short of the provisions of the directive, and at best should exceed what is intended in this directive.
I therefore consider that this cannot be prejudicial to the directive in the strained situation which exists in respect of efficiency, the environment and also free competition.
<P>
The current wording is a reasonable compromise.
It includes a number of minor corrections.
However, it would be in everybody's interest if we could in some way clarify the definition of "developing countries' .
What has been submitted in this proposal seems, I believe, already to have met the approval of the Commission.
I would be pleased if the Commission could briefly comment on this again today.
It would be a good thing for all of us if the Council could incorporate into this definition the meaning of "developing countries' , so as to prevent any wider interpretation here.
After all, we are talking about aeroplanes which are not just a noise nuisance, but which are on the whole more than 25 years old, and in this context I am of the opinion that even a country like Saudi Arabia should not receive special treatment.
<P>
As far as the other countries are concerned, one should not really judge the problem according to the freight situation at the different European airports, but rather one should see to it that perhaps within the framework of various actions - and does this House not also distribute aid for development - certain countries which are directly affected could be provided with support in this area so that European airports, as well as those of the countries concerned, can be afforded some relief from the problem of noise nuisance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
Mr President, if I could very briefly refer to the background to the particular measure that is before the House today and is the subject of the debate.
<P>
At the time of the adoption of the 1992 directive, a number of aircraft from developing nations had not been notified to the Commission under the appropriate procedure and were therefore not included in the annex to the law, so in order to identify those aircraft the Commission entered into negotiations with the appropriate regional organization - the Arab Air Carriers' Organization.
<P>
The subject matter of these negotiations was of course the technical eligibility of the aircraft on the basis of the criteria laid down in article 3 of the directive, and the designation of countries as developing nations is completely in accordance with criteria laid down by the relevant international organization, the OECD Development Assistance Committee.
<P>
Against that background I would like to respond to the amendments presented by the rapporteur, Mr van Dam and supported by several other Members.
<P>
First, the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 2 and 3 which are useful technical adjustments to the annex.
The House may also be interested to know that they have the support of the Council too.
<P>
Whilst I completely understand the motivation behind Amendments Nos 1 and 4, I have to say however that the Commission cannot accept them for the very simple reason that Saudi Arabia is included in the official international list of developing nations which was used in drawing up the original annex to Council Directive 92/14.
<P>
In addition, the aircraft included in the annex meet the criteria laid down in Annex 3 of Council Directive 92/14 as amended by this directive.
If we did want to change the rules, as has been suggested, for reasons that I totally understand, we would, for the sole purpose of this directive, have to compile a new definition of what a developing nation really is, an activity which would be disproportionate to the effort involved, given that in this case we are talking about no more than 7 aircraft.
<P>
Finally, the Commission would like to point out that because of the limited use of the aircraft concerned, the inclusion of Saudi Arabia in the list has a very marginal effect in terms of increased noise nuisance around airports, although naturally we regret any impact of that kind.
<P>
I can, of course, understand the motivations which have inspired the amendments relating to the aircraft registered in Saudi Arabia. However, I hope that the House will accept that we really cannot renege on agreements previously reached in good faith with partners and we cannot reasonably change internationally recognized definitions when that would affect about half a dozen aircraft which are in any case being phased out of use.
<P>
With those considerations in mind, and whilst thanking Mr van Dam for his very competent report, the first that I think he has formally presented to this House in the short time that he has been here, I hope that the House will, on reflection, come to share the Commission's view.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Industrial competitiveness
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0384/97) by Mr Desama, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament entitled: "The European Union and Space: fostering applications, markets and industrial competitiveness' (COM(96)0617 - C4-0042/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Desama">
Mr President, Commissioner, it is a very unusual sitting today.
Having talked about the inherent problems of the railways, and air transport, we are now looking at European space policy.
In spite of this brilliant ascent, I fear that given our current knowledge of space physics, we will soon be obliged to come back down to earth.
<P>
I will do my best to give a rapid outline of the space report.
First of all, we must remember that Europe is not an amateur in the area of space conquest.
Indeed, over the years we have managed to maintain our autonomy and our independence regarding space access, and this has been largely due to two efforts: firstly, intergovernmental cooperation thanks to the European Space Agency, and secondly a policy of willing public investment on the part of a certain number of European states.
But in spite of these efforts, and this independent access, it has to be noted that compared with the United States, we are the space dwarf.
The space industry employs 200 000 people in the United States, as opposed to around 40 000 in Europe; 7 % of the financing of space policy in the United States is covered by private investment and commercial interests, as opposed to 38 % in Europe. In other words we have a great deal of readjusting to do.
<P>
It is not necessarily a question of putting a tiger in your tank, but rather of adding something to European policy, of adding a little community policy, even supranational policy, to the intergovernmental in order to avoid raising up a number of old demons.
The European Union now needs its own space policy, not only in relation to others, but to bring that European added value to European space cooperation policies as a whole.
<P>
Of course, it will not be Parliament that defines this policy, but the Commission, who have made the first step through this interesting communication, and the Council.
We would like to see a European Council devoted entirely to the issue of space.
The British Presidency will perhaps hear my plea.
<P>
This policy, this European added value must, it seems to me, be based on two fundamental conditions.
The first condition is that all the issues must be considered, both strategic and commercial. This means admitting, once and for all, that a space policy is necessarily a global policy, that there is not, on the one hand, a strategic policy and on the other, a commercial policy, but that the efforts as a whole must cover all the issues of this space policy.
The second condition is that the Member States and the European Union must devote more public funds to the establishment and development of space policy.
For although private investment is essential, it is not enough.
<P>
By respecting these conditions and gaining inspiration from the excellent report of my colleague, Mr Malerba, we will have placed a certain number of milestones along the path of space policy.
<P>
Firstly, the maintenance of a high level of technological competence through an instrument such as the Fifth Framework Programme, but also through our participation in a number of great scientific adventures, such as the space station, for example, and many more.
Secondly, the concentration of the space industry.
This does not mean setting up one great big European space business - an elephant will never run as fast as a zebra - but to federate all of the organizations which, today, devote themselves to pathetic competition on a world scale, into integrated projects: the conquest of a number of large commercial markets, and the provision of a good service.
Thirdly, the consolidation of our strong points, the launcher and satellite business.
Fourthly, the guaranteeing of our means of independence, in particular by putting in place a European navigation system which would be the fruit of European technology.
And, finally, the organizing of cooperation with third countries, not only with the long-standing space powers like Japan or Russia, but with the newly emerging space powers.
I am thinking in particular of China and India.
<P>
Finally, I would like to draw the Commission's attention to the need to develop the means for space education.
If we want to follow an ambitious policy, we need the support of public opinion.
But the public needs to be informed, and education is the best way of doing this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Malerba">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this discussion in this House has come rather late with regard to the Commission's communication times and, in some ways, the reports being discussed now (Mr Desama's excellent report and my own) are beginning to be almost overtaken by events.
There have been moments of great interest in recent months, such as the Mars Pathfinder voyage, the successful launch of ARIANE 5 and, now, that of Lunar Prospector.
<P>
On the wings of the Pathfinder success, noting the success of the planetary exploration and the enigma of life in the universe in American public opinion, NASA is now planning to use the space station as an outpost for the manned flight to Mars as well, and is considering an inflatable module that will be attached to the space station, called a trans-hub.
Space is the place of innovation and creative imagination par excellence.
<P>
One example is satellite navigation.
Ten years ago, we did not know what it was.
Today, this application ensures safety in air navigation, offers solutions for the efficiency of taxi fleets in cities, and we are asking for a European satellite navigation system.
In this sea and space of the next millennium, the leading characters are the United States, as stated by Mr Desama, and their world leadership in the economic, military, technological and cultural sector is also shown in their scientific and industrial dynamism in the space sector.
It is not easy to draw a comparison between the American and European space sectors: the United States' annual investment is around four times that of Europe, and the largest European industrial firm in the sector comes after the three American giants, Lockheed, Hughes and Boeing.
<P>
The Commission's communication does not delve into the problems of a real European space strategy and proposes a series of specific measures which can broadly be divided into three sectors in which space applications are opening up new markets with a high economic and strategic value: multimedia telecommunications, satellite navigation and observation of the Earth.
These trends are largely shared by the European Parliament and have also been the object of a communication on telecommunication satellites, for which Mr Hoppenstedt was the rapporteur, and are to an extent also included in the Fifth Framework Programme.
<P>
Here, however, I should point out that, following the revisions to the many amendments to the report, always with tight deadlines, we have ended up by consolidating most of the space research subjects into an aeronautical and astronautical action rather than into the various sections such as transport, environment and information society, general materials technologies, and I think this consolidation should possibly be reconsidered when we get to the second reading, maintaining the assignment to the various sections.
<P>
Many political and strategic questions remain to be answered and I would like to dwell on these for a moment.
Over the last three years, the American companies have merged into just three groups of worldwide dimensions, while the European consolidation process is slow.
Do the national space agencies still have a role to play in the future?
And what about the European Space Agency?
And the role of the Commission?
<P>
My reasoning leads me to see the Commission assuming a more purposeful role in the near future with regard to space strategies, towards the Council and Parliament, and even internationally to take part in negotiations for frequency allocations and satellite positions.
I have suggested in my report that the Commission ask for a European Council on "space' , at least to sound it out.
<P>
We are waiting to discuss these subjects again in Parliament and we are waiting for a communication on navigation systems, while the Intergroup on space travel and the space-travel Task Force are continuing to increase contacts with the Commission, the ESA and industry.
This chapter has really only just begun!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="McNally">
Mr President, firstly, may I congratulate the rapporteur.
He has shown his usual willingness to incorporate the ideas of colleagues, which is appreciated.
We appreciate too the expert views of Mr Malerba.
This report emphasizes the importance of space, the need for support from public funds - commercial interests will be totally inadequate - and the real added value that comes from European Union work.
<P>
He contrasts the position in the United States and the European Union in terms of jobs, spin-offs and the development of a scientific culture.
We are not talking about military research and development. That point is quite clearly made.
Principally we are concerned with satellite applications.
We are not recommending any encroachment on the role of ESA.
We talk about telecoms, navigation and Earth observation.
This is of tremendous value to European Union citizens and beyond that to the third world.
Mr Desama quotes regional planning, agriculture, fisheries, transport, combatting fraud and the symptoms and difficulties related to climate change.
<P>
I share his view that the space industry must 'boldly go along the path towards a concentration which will enable it to compete with American manufacturers.'
I like the reference to Star Trek in the 'boldly go' .
Although there is an emphasis on satellites, we need to realize there are tremendous synergies with manned or, more politically correct, peopled activities, which is essential.
<P>
We have to tackle the problem of space debris.
There are all sorts of things going round in space from space vehicles to hardware to power tools to teapots.
This is going to become a big problem and must be addressed.
On the question which some of the amendments raise about the problems of plutonium, we must do research into solar cells.
They will help us here on earth with energy and there will be spin-offs. But it is not yet possible to abandon the use of nuclear power for the generation necessary for some of the instruments in deep space.
<P>
Like my colleagues I would like to emphasize the role for space education.
Please, everybody, go to Toulouse and see Space City.
It will inspire you.
And of all the sciences which inspire young people, space is paramount.
It is one which has driven people in the past into physics, and it is very serious if we have a diminution in the number of people studying that subject.
It is fascinating to all humans and it could be the key to the survival of our planet.
<P>
I very strongly support the strategy outlined in both the Desama report and the Malerba opinion, in particular the need for the Council to take on board the need for a Council meeting devoted to space in the European context.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferber">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is a matter of real importance that the European Parliament is discussing aviation and space travel here this evening, since this is without doubt a European issue.
I myself come from a region which has always played an important role in the aviation and space industry and where today everyone recognizes that only through European cooperation will we be able to maintain our competitive position vis--vis the United States, or at least have a chance of recovering it.
On behalf of them, and also speaking for my own group here, I would like to thank the rapporteur for his comprehensive report.
I believe that all aspects of the problem have been examined here in an appropriate manner.
We in the Group of the European People's Party will also lend our full support to this report.
<P>
We have deliberately refrained from submitting any amendments because we do not want to jeopardize the resolution which was adopted by majority vote in committee.
I do not wish at this point to go over again all the major problems facing the aviation and space industries.
Mr Malerba, Mr Desama, as rapporteur, and also Mrs McNally have all addressed the problem in a very articulate way.
<P>
However, at this juncture I should like to refer to another matter, namely the need to achieve full equality of opportunity, particularly with the United States, in the growth markets of aviation and space travel.
It is not right that the USA should be basically funding research and development through its defence budget, thereby giving it an advantage over the European aviation and space industries.
Parliament has already dealt with this matter in connection with another report drawn up by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
I myself have proposed various amendments in the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
While these proposals were unfortunately rejected, this is still a subject which merits our attention.
<P>
It is unacceptable that we in Europe - and indeed this is the basis of a communication from Directorate-General XII - should have no standard procurement system, while the United States obviously combines its research, development and procurement activities and ensures that many developments from the military sector are adopted by the civilian industries, a fact which gives that country clear advantages over the European aviation and space industry.
We must have no delusions in this respect.
We have to find a European answer to this challenge.
I hope that with the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty and the development of a common foreign and security policy we will be able to find a European solution to this problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-Van Gorsel">
Mr President, Commissioner, colleagues, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party I would like to congratulate Mr Desama on his excellent report.
<P>
The European space market is fragmented.
Many small companies are actively involved, but they do not cooperate sufficiently.
The restructuring of the space industry - that is, the integration of several companies into one company or grouping - is needed in order to be able to compete in the global market.
European and transatlantic cooperation in space activities is an absolute must.
The Fifth Framework Programme could play a encouraging role in this, especially now the cooperation agreement in the sphere of science and technology has been signed with the Americans during the most recent summit in Washington.
<P>
My second point concerns the position of the European satellite industry.
The strategic importance of our own satellite industry has been of commercial interest since the end of the cold war.
The sector has been growing by 10 % each year, and contributes to the creation of jobs.
If the European Union does not want to miss the boat, the Commission and the Member States need to promote the competitiveness of this industry.
My group is not really thinking of sector-specific support, but of stimulating joint research and cooperation.
<P>
Satellite systems are the way to break into the globalization of the information society.
But in Europe, investments are primarily made in regional terrestrial networks.
What is more, the European satellite industry works too much in isolation, without much interaction with the industries which produce computers, networks, software and peripherals.
As a result of this, the satellite industry is losing an increasing market share to the United States.
More cooperation and merging between companies, and political support for technological development, are necessary, as well as tackling risk management.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Mr President, we in the Green Group in the European Parliament have felt obliged to put forward five amendments to this report by Mr Desama in order to clarify, and in some paragraphs also to strengthen, certain points of principle as far as the European Union and space are concerned.
<P>
Firstly, is Mr Desama not using the wrong word when in sentence b of the preamble he says we shall 'conquer' space?
To my ears the word conquer has the wrong associations.
It should be about us exploring what space has to give and nothing else.
The word conquer is used for ideas in a military context, that something shall be conquered .
But that is not what this is about, it is about us exploring, because that should be the idea of the EU's space policy.
<P>
Secondly, as far as large international cooperation projects in space are concerned, on the question of the Casini space project and its 'sweep' past the earth, we think the European Parliament should call on the ESA and NASA to cancel this planned 'sweep' past the earth for safety reasons, since the probe is in fact equipped with 32 kg of highly radioactive plutonium.
Several reports from Parliament in the past have said that this is dangerous on safety grounds.
This probe is going to pass the earth at a distance of 500 miles and at a speed of 68 000 km/h.
I think we in the European Parliament should prevent that.
<P>
Thirdly, in paragraph 10, as well as saying that we should not use the space programme for military research, it should be added that we should also not use nuclear material in space.
<P>
Fourthly, we must do much more research on solar energy than we have done so far.
This is something on which the ESA has come a long way, and we could go further in this research.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Taubira-Delannon">
Mr President, Mr Desama's report largely covers the field of scientific, ethnological and financial problems by usefully - in terms of our own education - emphasizing not only the communication from the Commission, which is the least important, but also the resolutions adopted by the European Parliament between 1979 and 1994.
The density of this report is an advantage because it enables us to focus our comments.
<P>
Allow me first of all to state two preconditions.
The first is that there still seems to be a strong temptation to compare European space policy with that of the United States, in particular by comparing public commitments and by noting the private sector's contribution.
Perhaps we should remember that the United States is one single state, albeit federal, and that the European Union is made up of fifteen countries, with all the cultural differences that this entails, as well as differences in terms of representative role and weight in science and technology, in research and development relations, and in priorities.
<P>
The second observation is that it seems difficult to separate the components of a dynamic discourse which specifies spheres of cooperation and spheres of competition - in terms of healthy competitiveness - as well as policies of partnership, in particular with the United States but also with Russia, on the question, for example, of very heavy launchers, or with emerging countries such as India, China or Brazil.
<P>
That said, I would like to mention the need to strengthen the social dimension of European space policy.
We know that the technological orientations are not neutral.
The current debate relating to manned flights is not simply a debate on the question of whether, on the one hand, we should choose a combination of robots and humans or, on the other, the "fully automatic' . It is also relates to the problem of the outlook we are giving to society for the coming decades.
The question of application is therefore essential, and the question of social utility crucial in itself.
If we make progress in earth observation it is to improve our awareness of the balances in the ecosystem and of the need to conserve them.
If telecommunications develop, it is primarily in order to combat isolation and to make progress in the area of distance medicine.
If remote sensing expands, it will be because it is a tool for town and country planning.
Finally, if navigation develops, it will be because the oceans are a favoured place for geostrategic issues.
<P>
A former head of division at the European Space Agency reminded us that there is a one to fifteen ratio between, on the one hand, the market for satellite launchers and on the other, land-based facilities and employment.
For my part, I see that in Guyana and in Kourou, all along the road, there are billboards proclaiming, "Kourou, European space terminal' .
I can assure you that the one to fifteen ratio is not born out by the facts, nor by the land-based facilities, nor by employment.
It is probably not the case for other space bases either.
I think we must look for an integrated programme.
The social conditions in our countries demand it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Desama's report illustrates the different approach to space travel on either side of the Atlantic.
The number of employees in this sector alone - 200 000 in the USA as compared with about 40 000 in Europe - tells its own story.
The growth of the commercial sector in Europe is certainly impressive.
But technological advance and the development of new activities in the field of space research will certainly not be financed by the commercial sector.
We can be absolutely sure of that.
<P>
I support the idea that European space policy should be regarded in its entirety, something which is advocated in the report.
I wish to emphasize that science and the technology of manned space travel are of vital importance, and we should not merely restrict ourselves to their commercial applications. It is therefore essential that the Fifth Framework Programme should focus on the funding of space research for the benefit of the information society, earth observation and navigation.
The British or Austrian Presidency could demonstrate its receptiveness to the technological development of Europe by convening a separate meeting of the European Council, in addition to that of the ESA-Council of Ministers, in order to discuss the theme of a European space policy, as recommended by the rapporteur.
<P>
The urgent need for European industry to improve its competitiveness makes space policy a compulsory subject for the European Council.
Earth observation is particularly important in this respect.
When employed in a responsible manner, this activity will stand our citizens in good stead.
It is a science which guarantees progress in many areas, including environmental research.
The need for intensive public funding is therefore obvious.
It would be foolish to think that earth observation will sooner or later be nothing more than a commercial operation.
Here Europe is on the point of losing out to the United States.
The European Union must therefore not slacken its pace but must rather make earth observation a key part of its space research policy and to this effect should devise and submit a well thought out action programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start my comments on Mr Desama's report on Europe and space by thanking and congratulating him for the enormous amount of work he has put into this within the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
<P>
Along with some of our colleagues, in spite of certain lobbies, fashions and, above all, caution, he defends the industrial and technological interests of Europe, its research and its appropriations, not to mention the safety of our energy.
<P>
As a member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, I very often come into contact with these issues during the writing of my own reports and during my own work.
I am, furthermore, working at this moment on industrial competitiveness in Europe, and I know the importance of public appropriations for research and the importance of space in our operations, our strengths and our European industrial hopes.
<P>
As a European, as a socialist and as a Frenchman, I therefore unreservedly support all of Mr Desama's proposals.
Firstly, on the need for the revival of investment; on the delays and the catching up needed in some areas; on the need for concentration of the industry; on the place of the Fifth Framework Programme for research in its operations; and on the strengthening of our technological and economic potential in order to improve the technological competence and the financial capacity of the space industry, both military and civil.
<P>
I also obviously support his requests for the utilization of the space industry in the protection of man against natural disasters and other major risks.
Finally, like him, I am aware of the actions necessary to control and eliminate the pollution caused by space debris.
<P>
Yes, Madam President, I will say once again that it is a good report, and very important for Europe.
Let us hope the proposals will be voted for, taken up and followed through.
<P>
I would like to finish as I started, by insisting that European public financing of this sector must not be reduced.
Do not forget that the Chinese launchers are largely financed by the Chinese State.
Without going that far, we must avoid distortions caused by competition and therefore the European Union must not withdraw.
Simply put, it is better to concentrate our efforts, better to target our objectives and not miss the small firing window in front of us.
<P>
Let us never forget - I am finishing, Madam President - that if the European space industry is flourishing commercially today, it is because, in its time, there has been some true political and public will, particularly in France.
This will, and these appropriations, remain just as necessary today in order to prepare the space industry for tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hoppenstedt">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as a Christian Democrat and member of the Group of the European People's Party I naturally welcome the report which has been presented by Mr Desama and Mr Malerba because like my colleague Mr Ferber I too perceive that it contains elements from our contributions in committee.
Of course, I also welcome the excellent collaboration which has taken place with the Commission, in this case with Mrs Cresson, Mr Bangemann and Mr Kinnock, on the subject of guidance systems
<P>
I believe that the small interest groups to be found in this House - here in this Chamber, in the Intergroup on space travel and also in the space-travel Task Force, which has been formed from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy - will develop into a major movement, and that the fascination which emanates from space travel will, I hope, attract greater attention both within this House and indeed from the wider public outside.
On the way home this evening you have only to gaze at the clear, starry night sky and at the wondrous full moon to be convinced of the fascination of our universe.
Unfortunately we are meeting here in a windowless room and cannot appreciate the magnificence of it all.
<P>
I do not want to repeat what has already been said. It has all been said already.
I believe that the most important issue for the future - to be dealt with in the next report, which has already been submitted (and of which I am the rapporteur) - namely the position of the European aviation and space industries, will provide us with answers to the global challenges we have to meet.
How big should our factories be?
What should we be manufacturing in them?
What sort of businesses do we need as Europeans in order to remain competitive in the global marketplace?
<P>
I think we should point out clearly that in future the development of guidance systems and aircraft navigation systems, which have already been touched on, and the work of successor organizations to GLONASS and GPS, will constitute a valuable contribution from the European Commission.
We eagerly await an action plan which will allow us to make a start on these projects this very year.
<P>
Let me close with the following remarks. Mention has been made of the problem of space debris.
In this context, we really should find a European scrap materials company capable of dealing with the problem of orbiting scrap, and we should also raise a warning finger to the various attempts being made by a number of people to have their own ashes scattered on the moon.
Moon-dust is strange enough on its own without being further altered by the addition of the cremated remains of human beings.
I do not want to see our moon becoming the favourite stamping ground of Mr Malerba.
I really believe that this particular subject merits our attention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Madam President, the UN is now taking ten years doing research into natural disasters partly with the aim of developing satellite charting applications for the prediction, charting, and avoidance of natural disasters, and to aid relief and rescue operations.
It is appropriate now to declare EU support for this work.
As Mr Desama stresses, the space programme must be seen in its entirety. It involves scientific and technological considerations and civil and military applications.
<P>
However, I do not believe we should support civil and military notions of inhabited space, as manned flights are tremendously expensive, and are not any more important for Europe than unmanned flights equipped with robots and automated equipment.
The concept of living in space is, besides, a long way off, as we are only now starting to prepare for the first international space station.
It will presumably only come together in the first half of the next millennium, and the possibility of building stations on other planets is still a very distant one.
<P>
It is especially important for the small European countries that satellites are not too large.
The risks of big, long-term projects are also very great, and the results only begin to show after many years.
It would be better to put more money into smaller carrier rockets - booster systems - and small-scale satellites.
Every European country would be able to contribute to projects like these.
Furthermore, with small booster systems we will get reasonable results in the shorter term, and money will not be spent on mere scientific exploits.
<P>
The role of the Fifth Framework Programme for research funding is important and necessary.
The framework programme must be granted appropriations for space research, for example by evolving operations that are connected with the information society and remote surveying.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
Madam President, my Commission colleagues and I welcome the excellent report by Professor Desama and Mr Malerba on our 1996 Communication on a European Union policy for fostering applications, markets and competitiveness for our space industries.
<P>
The report properly reflects the sustained interest which this Parliament has taken in space policy issues over the last 19 years.
Some would argue that it is a pity that there has not been such widespread and determined commitment from other quarters over that period.
The report also has the virtue of asserting the importance of an effective European role in the variety of activities that are needed to ensure, in the words of paragraph 6 of the report, that our Community and industries can 'boldly go' towards development which is commensurate with modern needs and opportunities.
That, very obviously, is in our economic, industrial and security interests, and as several Members of this House have pointed out in the course of this very good debate, it will also help to improve the quality of life of people everywhere in a very great variety of ways.
<P>
As our Communication and this report made clear, responding to the challenges of developments in space policy will require leadership and vision, and everyone involved in national governments, industry, research and in the European institutions needs to be imbued with a sense of urgency.
The difference in the scale of activity in Europe and the USA is illustrated by the fact that just 39 000 people are employed in space-related activities in the Union - a fifth of the number currently employed in similar activities in the United States of America.
The fact that in satellite navigation alone there are reliable estimates of a global market that will be worth US$50 billion within the next seven years should inspire an avid desire to exploit the possibilities of growth.
<P>
Clearly, space issues involve a very wide variety of interests and institutions, and the role of the Union and the Commission is not to substitute for these different interests but to help to provide a vision around which they can organize and combine efforts.
To that end we will continue to use regulation and legislation.
We will exploit external relations activities to promote European interests bilaterally and in international bodies, a dimension which, as Professor Desama has made clear, is obviously crucial since these markets are, by definition, global and not European, and we need common standards.
<P>
We will further employ research and development resources in the framework programmes and in the telecoms trans-European networks and, of course, we will provide the modest support that is available for infrastructure development through the trans-European networks' budget.
<P>
As the House will know, the primary contributor to space research and development is the European Space Agency, whose annual budget for this specific area is equivalent to that of the whole of the European Union's framework programme.
Community research and development work in this area therefore needs to be closely targeted on Community priorities, and it needs to be complementary to the activities of the ESA and of Member States.
Together with my colleagues Edith Cresson and Martin Bangemann, I am therefore committed to ensuring that the Fifth Framework Programme will focus on supporting activities in the three main areas dealt with in the Commission's Communication and, indeed, focused on in the report being considered by the House tonight: satellite communication, navigation and Earth observation.
<P>
One of the key points in the report now being considered is that the private sector should not be expected to substitute for public money in the development of major space-related technologies.
I strongly share the view that there must be a continuing and substantial public investment in those areas that reflects their strategic importance to society as a whole.
<P>
It is also clear, however, that, as in many other cases, there is a need for imaginative forms of public/private partnership, partly to mobilize complementary sources of financing and partly to improve the quality and the costeffectiveness of projects by bringing in private-sector expertise.
<P>
Meanwhile the action plans which the Commission Communication promised on each of the three main policy areas are under way.
Indeed, as honourable Members will know, and as Professor Desama said, the one on telecommunications is already available, the Earth observation plan will be available later this year and I am happy to say that the satellite navigation action plan, for which I have responsibility, will be produced later this month.
<P>
That document has two main aims: the aim of catalysing a firm political commitment from Member States for a European contribution to satellite navigation so that the private sector can have the confidence to invest in the future, and, secondly, the aim of demonstrating that the European Union is in a position to take the action necessary to turn vision into reality and make secure practical progress - not a moment too soon, several honourable Members could justifiably add.
<P>
As many honourable Members here will be aware, there are several sensitive areas to deal with, including financing, the question of how the European contribution should relate to the existing United States' and Russian military base systems, and what forms of organization we need in order to run and to regulate the European component of satellite navigation.
I look forward to discussing that action plan in this Parliament, especially in view of the support given to a European approach to satellite navigation in Professor Desama's report.
<P>
The Commission fully shares this Parliament's commitment to an active and comprehensive European policy for space, with the European Union and its institutions promoting a forward-looking European perspective and cooperating with Member States and other institutions to make a reality of the vision which is increasingly shared.
<P>
I thank this Parliament for its continuing efforts to stimulate and to guide that vision and I express the gratitude of the Commission and particularly my colleagues, Mrs Cresson and Mr Bangemann, for the quality of this report, and my gratitude to those who have compiled it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Kinnock.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
New Rule 79a of the Rules of Procedure
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0006/98) by Mr Fayot, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on inserting a new Rule 79a on the procedure for delivering opinions pursuant to Article 109j of the EC Treaty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Madam President, I am raising a preliminary question to this debate, in accordance with Rule 128 of our Rules of Procedure.
In fact, the proposal for a decision in the report and the amendments of the Rules of Procedure included are inadmissible, both for reasons of procedure and for reasons of substance.
<P>
On the level of procedure, the text proposed to the House is not in keeping with the text adopted in committee.
In fact, the text we had adopted in committee reads as follows, at the end of Paragraph 2: "Parliament will then vote on the recommendations, with no amendments; there will be a single collective vote for this proposal' . The text submitted to us today is, "Parliament will then vote en bloc on the recommendations, with no amendments' .
Thus this totally different text is, moreover, an amendment - Amendment No 11 - which had been removed by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure as it was an oral amendment.
Article 150 has therefore not been respected.
<P>
On the substance, the proposed text takes up once again the current drafting of Article 80, Paragraph 1, of the Rules of Procedure, which provides for an assent but not for a consultation of Parliament, whereas Article 109j of the Treaty provides for a parliamentary consultation and not for an assent.
<P>
That is why I am raising this preliminary question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy. The rapporteur, Mr Fayot, will now speak against the motion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Fayot">
Madam President, I request the rejection of this preliminary question for two reasons.
The first concerns the text proposed to the House.
According to Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, it is not the same as that voted for by the Committee.
In effect, the Committee voted for the addition by saying that Parliament would vote en bloc and it was clearly stated, at the time of discussion and decision by the Committee, that this addition should be integrated into the text.
This is therefore exactly what has been done.
<P>
As regards the second argument, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy says that it is a question here of an assent text, but the Committee on the Rules of Procedure was not of this opinion.
This discussion has already taken place in committee; that is why the text presented to you corresponds perfectly, in spirit and in letter, to that which was voted for by the great majority of members of the Committee.
I therefore ask the House to reject this preliminary question.
<P>
(Parliament decided against referral back to committee)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Fayot">
Madam President, Article 109j of the Treaty defines the procedure by which a decision will be made on the countries to participate in monetary union.
It will be enforced on 1 and 2 May 1998.
<P>
Given the importance of the political issue, it is essential that the institutions involved in this procedure act with the utmost clarity possible.
The solidity of monetary union, along with its credibility in the eyes of the financial markets and the public, depends upon the transparency and rigour with which key decisions are made.
The European Parliament will have a role to play in this procedure.
The Treaty foresees, in Article 109j, Paragraph 2, last subparagraph, and I quote: "The European Parliament is consulted and conveys its opinion to the Council, which will meet at the level of Heads of State and of Government' .
<P>
It is not for me to comment here on the quite specific nature of the whole of the procedure.
But I would like to underline that Parliament intervenes on two occasions and that, in my opinion, this double intervention constitutes a whole, from a political point of view.
<P>
The first intervention takes place when Parliament expresses its opinion on the reports of the Commission and the European Monetary Institute, which will be ready on 24 March 1998.
This first intervention is "good policy' , since Parliament, through public debate on respect for convergence criteria and on the whole of the monetary situation, gives a guarantee of democracy to the process.
On this subject, there is an agreement between the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament.
This first stage enables Parliament to establish a detailed report in which normal parliamentary rules will play a full role.
There will probably be a vote on the conclusions on 30 April, or even earlier, but in any case sufficiently close to the weekend of 1 and 2 May 1998 to be available for the Ecofin Council on 1 May.
<P>
If this first intervention on the part of Parliament is not anticipated in the Treaty, then the second, on the contrary, most clearly is, as I emphasized at the start.
It is, in fact, obligatory and it must therefore take place according to a procedure that must be marred by no uncertainty, due to the risk of invalidating the whole of the process towards monetary union.
It must, furthermore, take place within time constraints the like of which apply to no procedure currently anticipated in our Rules of Procedure.
It has therefore been necessary to improvise, and amend the Rules of Procedure by introducing a new procedure.
<P>
These constraints are not born of our imagination, but they have been imposed on us as a precondition that cannot be ignored, following the exchange of letters between the President of Parliament, duly mandated by the Conference of Presidents, and the Presidents of the Council and the Commission.
They are the result of a political will to sort everything out during the weekend in question, whilst the financial markets are shut from the Thursday evening to the Monday morning.
For the success of the operation, it is an essential condition.
In this way, Parliament will not have access to the recommendations of the Ecofin Council until the morning of 2 May.
Given that the European Council is being held that afternoon, it is physically not possible to use the procedure of a written report with amendments.
<P>
The vast majority of the Committee therefore opted for an oral procedure, without amendment, with a block vote on the list of countries to take part in monetary union.
The text adopted is absolutely clear and unequivocal and is not open to any debate on procedure.
<P>
I am therefore convinced, Madam President, that the text we are proposing to Parliament is in complete accordance with the wishes of the vast majority of our Parliament to bring this extraordinarily complex and important task of completing monetary union to a successful conclusion.
<P>
Madam President, the deadline for submitting amendments has been extended until this evening, even if the political groups had at their disposal, and I wish to emphasize this, the text of the amendment last Tuesday afternoon, after the vote of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure that same afternoon.
I was told, at 7 p.m. this evening, that only one amendment had been introduced.
This amendment is an amendment by the Green Group requesting, instead of a block vote, a separate vote on each country on the proposed list of monetary union participants.
<P>
As rapporteur I must oppose this amendment because Parliament cannot, at this stage, start giving out individual marks to countries agreed by the Ecofin Council.
I think that if Parliament wishes to do so, it can do this during the first stage but, once at this stage of the procedure, to want to comment separately on one country or another would only confuse the political message we have to give.
<P>
Madam President, I request that the House kindly approves the text as proposed by the vast majority of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, and I would like to end by highlighting the excellent collaboration of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure with the Legal Service, but above all with the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
The Conference of Presidents had asked us to deal with this amendment of the Rules of Procedure together with this Committee.
I would like to thank in particular the chair of this Committee, Mr von Wogau, and also Mrs Randzio-Plath, chair of the Monetary Sub-Committee, for their very interesting contributions.
Once again, I ask that the House kindly approves in its majority this amendment to the rules.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Ford">
Madam President, I will be brief.
I congratulate Mr Fayot on his report.
The Socialist Group, of whom I am the spokesman, will be supporting it in its entirety and without amendment.
It was necessary to amend our rules to incorporate our ability to be consulted, swiftly and speedily, on opinions pursuant to article 109j with respect to economic and monetary union.
Mr Fayot's report is a mean, lean and green report.
It is short, sharp and to the point.
<P>
Parliament will debate on the basis of an oral report by its responsible committee.
It will then take a single collective vote on the recommendations with no amendments.
This will enable Parliament to speak with a sharp, clear voice and at the same time frustrate those prepared to use all means possible to hinder Europe's forward march.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="von Wogau">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by saying that speaking for the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs as well as for the PPE I both welcome and support the rapporteur's report.
Within the Group of the European People's Party and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs there is a large majority in favour of the Fayot report and I would like to express my own personal thanks for the cooperation shown by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
Why do we need to amend our Rules of Procedure?
Because, for one thing, the process we use to make this resolution is of enormous importance, and, for another, we are going to be in a situation which is relatively new to us.
<P>
What does the Treaty stipulate?
It stipulates that the European Parliament is to make known its position on the Finance Ministers' proposal.
However, this proposal will not be drawn up until the evening of 1 May.
As a result of this, a written procedure will not be possible and we shall be obliged to state our position to the Finance Ministers' proposal at this special sitting of the European Parliament on 2 May, which will presumably take up the whole morning.
<P>
For this reason, we have opted for a two-part procedure.
On 25 March, the European Monetary Institute and the European Commission will submit their recommendations.
On this basis, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs will then draw up a report giving all the possibilities for the submission of amendments in committee.
The European Parliament will subsequently adopt an initial position at its part-session of 29-30 April.
<P>
As Mr Fayot has already said, this position is not expressly provided for in the Treaty, yet neither is it expressly ruled out.
At the same time, the national parliaments of the various Member States will also be adopting a position on the proposals of the European Commission and the European Monetary Institute.
When these possibilities have been exhausted and Parliament's position has been made clear, we shall examine the proposal of the Finance Ministers and make our position on it known by verbal process.
In view of the fact that we previously had a period of one month in which to prepare our position by a truly democratic procedure, I consider it entirely justified that we should concentrate on voting either "Yes' or "No' to the Finance Ministers' proposals.
This is a process which on the one hand will satisfy all the democratic requirements, and on the other will also ensure that the European Parliament properly discharges its duty in this historic situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Madam President, I cannot be as enthusiastic as the previous speakers.
My group will of course support the report, but we have to ask ourselves if we as Parliament are not giving away a little bit too much by saying that this is right.
We are having a first debate on the basis of a report by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, but as Parliament, we will then still have an important vote on Saturday 2 May.
It is a special article for a special occasion, because I cannot see us using it much thereafter.
<P>
We can ask ourselves what will be the use of this Parliament's recommendations, and we may assume that the Council will take note of these.
But must we really restrict ourselves by saying we will vote for or against, and we will not be able to make any amendments?
I find this all the more regrettable, because we can only work with oral recommendation in the present version of the Fayot report.
I would prefer to have seen this oral recommendation as optional.
We will also consider whether we will have a separate vote on this.
<P>
We know that one Member States meets all the criteria for membership of EMU, did not enter a condition in the Accession Treaty, but yet does not want to participate.
Formally we should really say that this invalidates the Ecofin Council recommendation, as this country will not be included.
We will nonetheless be in favour of starting EMU, but are not able include the qualifications that this country should actually belong.
I regret this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the weak position of Parliament within the legislature is the main flaw in the EU's democratic structure.
This deficiency also lies at the heart of a further problem, namely the failure of our citizens fully to accept European integration.
In view of this deplorable situation it must seem absolutely incomprehensible that Parliament of its own accord should opt for a further curtailment of its rights.
Here I am in no way underestimating the urgency of the situation, and the special circumstances which mean that Parliament very quickly has to adopt a position on the recommendations of the Ecofin Council.
However, it is quite unjustified that we should forgo a written report on this matter and spontaneously remove the fundamental right of the Members of this House to submit amendments in plenary session, as well as having to vote en bloc .
This is tantamount to Parliament cutting its own throat.
<P>
It seems to me to be very important that Parliament is able to adopt a discriminating position prior to the final resolution of the Council on the introduction of monetary union.
I therefore implore this House, politely yet forcefully, to support our amendment and allow a split vote on the recommendations of the Ecofin Council, so that we can vote individually on this issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Group of the European Radical Alliance will also vote in favour of Mr Fayot's report, thanking the rapporteur for the speed with which we in the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunity have carried out what seemed to be in the general interests.
I told that Committee, and I confirm it now in Chamber for it to be put on record: I think that, in these proceedings, obviously faced with a series of general contingencies and in the interests of the Union, we have gone beyond the limit of the autonomy, the independence of the rights of the MEPs and Parliament which are guaranteed by our Rules of Procedure.
We have certainly tried to take into account the requirement that these proceedings should be swift and enable the Union, without upsetting the markets, to take a decision that contemplates Parliament's opinion, but, in doing so, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy is basically seeking to interpret it but, in my opinion, he is exaggerating when he says that some rights have been violated - we actually have fewer guarantees of rights, certainly on two or three points.
<P>
That is why, when voting on Mr Fayot's report, I believe that, in the trialogue and in the dialogues we are having with the other institutions, the President should assert our wish for fair cooperation, and should, however, also inform all the other institutions: for example, Council should be told clearly that Parliament is also prepared to do this provided Council is prepared for other forms of cooperation, such as cooperation with the Committees of Inquiry or with other sectors deserving fair cooperation, the cooperation we are prepared to provide and which we would also like to see from the other institutions, from Council and - if Commissioner Kinnock will allow me - from the Commission as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the report proposed to us by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, is legally questionable and politically inappropriate.
I have given two reasons in a minority opinion, which appears in the report.
<P>
On a legal level, I maintain that the opinion requested from Parliament is different to an assent.
The opinion that is requested by article 109j of the Treaty, an opinion given on an Ecofin Council text, in this case, conveyed to a Council meeting at the level of Heads of State and of Government, must be pronounced by Parliament on the basis of a written report including a preamble, a proposal for a resolution and a right to amendment, which is the same whether within the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy or within this House.
It is not possible to disregard this without deliberately violating article 109j of the Treaty.
<P>
I was told: Parliament will sit and give its opinion at the stage of recommendations to the Commission, but the Commission is not the same body as the Council of Ministers.
The text that it will draw up is legally different.
The opinion that Parliament will give - which is a non-obligatory opinion - is legally different.
<P>
The report is politically inappropriate.
It is inappropriate because Parliament - and it is paradoxical that our group should end up defending the rights of Parliament on such a serious matter - in reality refuses to exercise the authority it draws from the Treaty.
Technical arguments do not exist.
You can find a procedure permitting Parliament to have its say.
How can you imagine that such a serious decision as the implementation of economic and monetary union can be carried out on the basis of an oral report?
How can you imagine that MEPs, either together or individually, would not have the right of amendment?
How can you imagine that the representatives of the people of the Member States of the European Union are not able to comment on each one of the recommendations that the Ecofin Council's conclusions will cover?
<P>
They want to gag Parliament.
We will not accept this, and we will use all the legal means possible to enable us to gain satisfaction in this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Donnelly, Alan">
Madam President, I found the last contribution rather surprising because anyone who has observed the process of economic and monetary union over the last 7 ½ years knows that this House has followed the whole process very closely.
Anyone would think that the debate that we are going to have on 2 May is the first and only time that Parliament has ever looked at the question of economic and monetary union.
We debate it every month in the Economic Committee.
We debate it at least every other month in this Parliament and we have done so for the last 7 ½ years.
I think that some of the contributions today show that those people who have spoken simply do not understand the process that we have undergone since 1990 when stage one of EMU began.
<P>
There are two opportunities for the European Parliament to look at the process of EMU.
The first will be in the report that Karl von Wogau writes for us where he will look in detail at the information that comes from the European Monetary Institute and the Commission.
Parliament can then make all of the political points that it needs to make.
It can build into that report all the new ones that it wants to incorporate.
We can debate at length in the various committees and in Parliament all of the aspects of the convergence criteria - the effect on employment, the effect on the external exchange rate.
All of these other points can be debated and I have no doubt that the groups that seem so quick to run for further legal advice will take part in that debate.
But the most important thing for us to do, having passed the von Wogau report during the Brussels plenary session on 29 and 30 April, is to realize the historic decision that we then have to take on 2 May.
What the Rules Committee and Mr Fayot have done - and I would like to thank him on behalf of the members of the Economic Committee; I would like to join with Karl von Wogau in thanking him and his colleagues - is to provide an opportunity for Parliament to give its historic seal of approval, after all the lengthy and detailed debates that we have undergone, and make that historic decision.
If there are political groups in this Chamber who choose to try and make cheap political capital out of 2 May, we will not forget them in this House and I certainly hope that people in Europe do not forget them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wibe">
Madam President, let me first say that I think Mr Fayot has produced a very elegant solution to a very difficult problem.
In fact I believe this is the only possible solution given the pressure of time under which we have to work.
However, I would still like to complain that through this accelerated procedure we are turning our opinion into a formality which in practice cannot result in anything but an approval of Ecofin's recommendation.
As the situation stands, I believe it would have been better almost if we had not given any opinion at all before the Council's decision, quite simply for the simple reason that I am afraid this is going to be seen and represented as an empty gesture from the European Parliament and not as a real exercise of Parliamentary power.
I am also afraid that it is going to strengthen the impression that the whole EMU project has a very dubious, if not to say bad, democratic basis.
That is of course not something which Mr Fayot can control.
His report and solution are the only possible ones, and I can only hope that as many of us as possible vote for the report tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Amendment to Rule 75 of the Rules of Procedure
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0400/97) by Mr Ford, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on amending Rule 75 of Parliament's Rules of Procedure (Delegation to Conciliation Committee).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Ford">
Madam President, I promise I will not take anything like five minutes for my report.
<P>
As you said, this is a report on amending Rule 75 of the Rules of Procedure, on conciliation.
It has been argued in the past in this House that Parliament has not been punching its full weight with respect to conciliation and its role in the Conciliation Committee.
Following a referral by the President of Parliament to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, the Committee has looked at the matter, and it is not our view that Parliament's representatives have in any way been lacking in their efforts to make Parliament's position clear on the Conciliation Committee and, as it were, to ensure that Parliament has the maximum possible say on that important committee.
<P>
However, it was clear that there could be a number of small procedural changes in our rules which would actually help Parliament's side of this work.
Members will see in front of them three proposed amendments to the procedure, one of which incorporates two small changes.
<P>
Firstly, with respect to Amendment No 2, we propose changing 'may appoint substitutes' to 'shall appoint substitutes' because there have been problems in the past when groups have not had named substitutes available.
<P>
The second amendment removes restrictions on substitutes actually attending meetings when a full Member has attended for part of the time, in other words we would follow the same procedure as laid down at the moment in our committees on the Conciliation Committee.
<P>
Thirdly, we are proposing that the meetings should be not in camera, but merely not public, which would allow the participation of representatives from other institutions and, on occasion, the substitutes who may be called on later.
<P>
Finally, we call on the Conference of Presidents to lay down procedural guidelines because we think that there are other points which are not the purview of the Rules Committee which could aid the functioning of the Conciliation Committees.
<P>
I urge Parliament to support these changes to the Rules for now and to come back and look at this matter after the next European Parliament elections to see if further changes are required.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Corbett">
Madam President, it is a great pleasure to rise in support of Mr Ford's report.
These are only small amendments to the Rules of Procedure, but they are highly significant.
They will put Parliament on an equal footing with the Council in the conciliation procedure itself.
The Council, up to now, has had an advantage in that the Treaty specifies that the Council or its representatives attend the conciliation meetings and in practice, when necessary, in cases where meetings have gone on longer than expected - as they often do in conciliation, with extra meetings called at short notice - the Council has been able to change its representatives.
<P>
We in Parliament have tied our hands somewhat in not making full use of the possibility of using substitute Members in the Conciliation Committee.
Very often it is necessary to change representatives at the last minute because of the very nature of negotiations that take place in conciliation.
These small changes will make it possible for Parliament to do that and thereby place us on an equal footing with the Council in the Conciliation Committee.
It is timely to introduce that change at this very moment because the Amsterdam Treaty changes the procedure under the Codecision Procedure of the Treaty - the Codecision Procedure which is actually the culmination of Parliament's legislative powers.
Amsterdam will make it impossible to adopt any legislation that falls under the Codecision Procedure without the explicit agreement of the European Parliament.
<P>
Most codecision, even now, does not require conciliation.
The two readings in each institution suffice to reach agreement. But where the matter does have to go to conciliation, under the Amsterdam Treaty agreement in the Conciliation Committee will be necessary in order for legislation to be adopted.
Under Maastricht it was possible for the Council to opt out and unilaterally adopt its own text, challenging Parliament to reject that text.
That will no longer be possible.
Therefore the significance of the Conciliation Committee is enhanced still further.
It is absolutely right that at this stage we get our procedures into line to make sure we can take full advantage of that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Donnelly, Brendan">
Madam President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on an excellent report.
The Group of the European People's Party will be supporting it in its entirety.
Since it is late and there are few of us present I can be short and brutally frank.
It is my view that the European Parliament spends too much time wishing it had more power and not enough time effectively implementing the powers it has.
<P>
There is a symbolic and institutional importance in what Mr Ford is doing.
He is making it easier for us to make coherent and consistent use of the powers we have.
That is a genuine contribution to closing the democratic deficit.
It is not as intellectually and politically seductive as all the things we talk about in the Committee on Institutional Affairs but perhaps in the long term it is going to be even more effective and even more important.
So not merely for administrative and technical reasons but also for political and institutional reasons, we in the Group of the European People's Party will enthusiastically be supporting this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Evans">
Madam President, I offer my congratulations to Mr Ford and to the other speakers in this heated debate.
My contribution to the air of unanimity will be to agree with everything that has been said so far.
Conciliation and codecision were long fought for by Parliament and were a recognition of Parliament's role.
They were a significant step forward.
Generally speaking the Council's attendance at these meetings was good, whereas, for whatever reason, Parliament delegations have sometimes been poorly attended.
<P>
This rule change both facilitates and encourages greater participation.
As Mr Ford explained, the logic behind it, the reasoning and the very clear wording put pressure on political groups and oblige them to provide a substitute so that Parliament will be better represented and can play a full part in all the debates.
Attendance will be better as will decisions.
In the end, for parliamentarians, it will be seen as one of the best reports to come before Parliament so far this year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12 noon.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 8.05 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García Arias">
Mr President, yesterday there was an unfortunate accident in Asturias, Spain, which caused the death of a miner.
I raise this matter here because the stoppages and strikes in the Asturian mining industry may get worse, because tension is rising.
<P>
The European Union is involved in this, because the underlying problem in the conflict is that the European Commission has not accepted the plan which had already been negotiated between the Spanish Government and the unions.
Mr President, would you please ask the Commission to give very careful thought to what is happening in Spain, because I fear tension is rising.
<P>
I would like our sympathy to be expressed, and also a call to the Spanish mining unions and Government to remain calm.
However, the Commission must realize that it has to respect what has already been agreed between the unions and the Spanish Government. Otherwise, because of the geographical distance between Brussels and the areas in question, it will seem as if the Commission is hiding behind an authoritarian attitude.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Mrs Garcia Arias, we read about this distressing incident in the newspapers today.
I have made a note of your comments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, to be brief I will just say that I completely agree with what Mrs García Arias just said.
Those of us who live in Asturias are very concerned about the Commission's attitude to the mining plan signed by the Spanish Government and the unions in Asturias.
When you pass on our condolences, could you please also tell the European Commission how worried we are about what is happening.
The conflict may get worse, and who knows what that might lead to.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="McMahon">
Mr President, concerning the Minutes, page 15, the issue raised by Mr de Vries and Mr Martens.
I see Commissioner de Silguy in the House and I wonder if he is now prepared to make a statement on what is happening or at least consider the request from Parliament to make a statement.
Will he make a personal statement today or will President Santer inform the House why it is important at this time of great unemployment in Europe that Commissioners should hold two jobs?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
Mr McMahon, since we are approving the Minutes, I should inform the House that with regard to the Commission's position on the issue of whether its Members have the right to take on political commitments when they are also Members of the Commission, the Commission has advised me that its President is proposing to make an announcement during our next sittings, on 28 and 29 January in Brussels.
Consequently, the request of Mr de Vries and of Mr Martens, with which the Group of the Party of European Socialists and the Confederal Group of the European United Left- Nordic Green Left agreed, will be granted.
This announcement will be made in Brussels.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schiedermeier">
Mr President, I seem to have been missed out of the Minutes as the last speaker on Item 11, the White Paper on Railways and Rail Freight Freeways.
I would be grateful if my name could be included in the list of speakers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Cox">
Mr President, I simply wish to return to the matter raised yesterday by Mr de Vries which you have dealt with.
I hope the Commission will use its discretion to make such a statement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="Hyland">
Mr President, I was present at yesterday's session but I forgot to sign in.
<P>
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
The euro, the capital markets, the consumer and EMU
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="Friedrich">
Mr President, the euro is coming, and when it does it will be a stable currency.
All the indicators both inside and outside Europe suggest that we are entering a phase of above-average currency stability, and there can be no objections to that.
Nevertheless, we cannot totally ignore the warning note sounded by Mr Greenspan, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank: there is a danger of deflation.
<P>
We need neither deflation nor inflation, in Europe or in the world at large.
The introduction of the European currency is likely to have several consequences for Europe's finance markets.
Firstly, Europe's bond market will become the second largest in the world.
Secondly, as far as we can judge, the euro will become the world's second most important reserve currency, roughly on a par with the dollar.
Thirdly - and this is something we must support - the euro may well encourage a share culture to flourish in Europe.
This trend is very important for us, because the lack of broad share ownership in Europe, and especially in Germany, has put the burden of pension provision very much on the state, rather than on taxpayers.
<P>
An effective and growing share market is essential for any private pension fund and for the capital stock accumulation for future pension provision that this clearly involves.
This allows broad sections of the population to participate in economic growth.
This represents a long-overdue and much-needed change in the way property has up to now been distributed - inequitably - among our citizens.
To this extent, a flourishing share market driven by the euro could result in positive change.
<P>
My fourth point is that the euro will of course lead to a process of stock market concentration.
There are at present 32 stock exchanges and 23 futures exchanges in Europe, compared with only 8 stock exchanges and just 14 futures exchanges in the USA.
So we in Europe and our financial centres will have to be prepared for greater cooperation and specialization by our stock exchanges, if they are to survive in the new euro-world.
<P>
Fifth, we have not yet really solved the question of how much harmonization and regulation of Europe's financial markets is actually needed.
There is of course no argument about further tax harmonization, adoption of the European Company Statute, and the need to block tax loopholes, but our report requests that any further control and regulation should proceed gradually here in Europe, and that we should learn from the experience of the USA, the other major financial market.
<P>
As far as possible, the markets should regulate themselves without state intervention.
This would be ideal, but we know of course that a total absence of state, or rather European Union, involvement is not possible.
In this connection I would like to comment on the complaint of unconstitutionality lodged against the euro by the four professors in Germany.
If this really jeopardizes Germany's ability to join European monetary union as scheduled, that would of course be a dramatic setback for the development of a financial area comparable with the USA, with adverse consequences for all our citizens.
I personally do not expect the complaint to be successful, because the central claim was satisfied at the time of the first judgement by the Constitutional Court in Germany.
The central claim was that Germany may not join an unstable union.
Germany may only join a stability community.
However, I believe that the last few years have demonstrated, and I intend this as a compliment to our southern neighbours, that Europeans are serious about stabilizing their currency, and there has been an undeniable success story.
All the usual indicators suggest that a stable currency community is developing in Europe.
<P>
Here today, before the European Parliament, I make an appeal to the German Constitutional Court. A judgement on content should not be delayed unnecessarily.
Germany and Europe need this issue, which is central to our development, to be clarified.
If the German Constitutional Court were to reject the complaint at this stage on purely formal grounds, namely that it is premature, but then in accordance with its treatment in the Bundestag were to go on to set a date for deliberation on content, my country's scope for action would be severely impaired, with adverse consequences for all concerned.
It is essential that we avoid this. That is why I am appealing today to the Constitutional Court's sense of responsibility, and asking it to make a prompt and proper decision on the content of the complaint, so as to clarify matters and allow further progress.
You have to adapt to survive.
We want a stable euro so that we as Europeans can retain a central place in the globalized world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Ruffolo">
Mr President, the introduction of the euro raises two fundamental problems: that of its internal value and the stability of prices within the European Union; and that of its external value and the stability of its exchange rate.
The second aspect is the subject of this report.
It then examines the foreseeable consequences of the introduction of the euro on the markets; the problems it raises for the EU's exchange policy; the prospects it opens for a new phase of international monetary cooperation; and the specific problem of the use of dollar reserves that may be considered surplus.
<P>
With regard to the first point, it is not possible today to have a clear idea of the market reactions to the introduction of the euro, particularly in the short term.
Opinion is divided today between those who believe the euro will acquire the characteristics of an international currency capable of rivalling the dollar right from the outset, owing to the extent and power of the economic area it represents, and those who anticipate that it will have to face a phase of distrust and debility owing to the heterogeneity of the area.
Any forecast is not only difficult, but useless; as the credibility of the euro will be connected with EU monetary policy to a large extent, it is far more useful to concentrate on this.
<P>
The report makes a distinction between two viewpoints in this connection: the short and medium term, and the long term.
It refuses to raise the question of EU monetary policy in terms of a choice between a strong euro and a weak euro, as this is a false problem.
The real problem is to ensure a stable euro, without artificial reinforcements and without attempts being made in the opposite direction to promote the competitiveness of the European economy through the weakening of its currency.
A stable and credible euro, providing a stable balance for the public finances, will enable interest rates to be controlled and therefore the development of investment to be facilitated, reabsorbing the surplus savings that have so far been used to finance public deficits, thus promoting a broader rate of growth.
<P>
Naturally, the stability of the exchange rate depends on American monetary policy and unforeseeable external shocks.
This poses two problems: that of promoting close monetary cooperation with the United States in our reciprocal interests, and that of ensuring a clear responsibility for the exchange policy within the European Union.
On this second point, the report notes that there is still an area of institutional ambiguity.
<P>
In the long term, it is to be hoped that EU monetary policy will facilitate the gradual ascent of the euro from European regional currency to world currency with the same dignity as the dollar.
This will depend on the extent to which the exchange rate between the euro and the dollar reflects the fundamental economic relations between the two areas, and the extent to which it is used in currency and financial transactions by operators outside the European Union.
<P>
The third question relates to the implications of the euro on the international monetary system.
The elimination of a substantial part of international trade and currencies and the introduction of a totally new currency will radically change the world currency landscape by simplifying it to three fundamental currencies, which will open a totally new chapter in the history of currency, with high risks of volatility and conflict but also with great opportunities for cooperation.
These opportunities may be collected in a new agreement that promotes a more systematic framework for world currency.
The report suggests that the European Union should adopt a political initiative to this effect.
<P>
Finally, with the introduction of the euro, a substantial part of the dollar reserves held today by the European central banks will probably become objectively available.
So it is a question of choosing between a policy of overprotecting the euro that would decree the sterilization of these resources, and a policy of wise functional use of the objectives of developing and extending the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Pérez Royo">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are 352 days left before the start of the third phase of EMU.
So far, the successive phases of the timetable fixed in the Treaty are being achieved on time. Today we can say that in all probability the euro will begin to function on 1 January 1999 under the conditions laid down at the European Council in Madrid, and eleven Member States will participate in this third phase right from the outset - that is, virtually all of them except those that have chosen not to do so.
That means that from that date the euro will become the common currency for about two hundred million European citizens.
Their attitude to the single currency is crucial in ensuring the final success of this enterprise.
<P>
Throughout the different phases of EMU, its protagonists have been fulfilling their commitments: the Member States have prepared their convergence programmes; the Commission and the Council have carried out their supervisory tasks and elaborated regulatory instruments; the European Monetary Institute has been set up and has started to work properly; Parliament has made the euro one of the priorities of its debates; industry, the credit institutions and the capital markets are getting ready for the new situation which will be created when the euro is introduced.
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Nevertheless, a whole set of unknowns exists in relation to consumers, who are the euro's end users.
Money or currency is not just an economic concept, but is also symbolic and social - a fundamental part of life within society. The ultimate users are the citizens, who are used to their national currencies, and who are very diverse, having varying levels of education, and a wide range of habits and customs relating to money usage and methods of payment.
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For these citizens - for consumers in general - the introduction of the euro raises a series of problems: use of the euro during the transitional period; exchange between national currencies participating in the euro during that transitional phase; finally moving to euro notes and coins at the end of that phase; the continuity of contracts, especially the so-called accession contracts with telephone and electricity supply companies, etc.
<P>
In tackling these questions, we have tried to favour the views of consumers, as conveyed to us by their representative organizations. In some cases, amendments have been presented to reinforce this position, and we are willing to vote in favour of them.
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Our starting point must be to stress the importance of the change which will happen on 1 January 1999.
Although notes and coins will not enter circulation until three years later, in 2002, the big change will already have taken place in 1999.
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We need to use the transitional period to ensure that the introduction of the euro is efficient, and to get consumers used to thinking in euros.
From 1 January next year, it will be possible to use the euro as a means of payment, by cheque or credit card, or in the form of electronic money. We need to promote such usage and guarantee that it does not involve additional costs to users.
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One particular concern is the question of exchange charges or commissions in the final conversion to the euro. We think it should be clearly established that conversion will not be subject to charges or commissions.
It has to be said that the Council's ruling is ambiguous on this point, and therefore in our resolution we ask that the Commission should propose the appropriate amendment to make this clear. This is a question that has repercussions not just for consumers as such, but also for the very credibility of the new currency.
<P>
Similarly, we propose that precise rules should be established for dual pricing in the final phase.
<P>
In conclusion, I should like to stress something which has often been repeated in this Parliament: the success of the euro as far as the European people are concerned depends on them seeing the single currency as being linked to progress in the functioning of the economy, in their own wellbeing, and in solving the basic problems which worry them - starting with unemployment.
<P>
I should just like to finish by saying that I am confident that this is the spirit which will dominate our debate on this report and the others we are considering this morning.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
Given the fact that he is the rapporteur, I shall now call on Mr Stevens to speak.
He was delayed, which is unusual for him. Members of this House must be here when they are called upon, otherwise this will create problems.
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<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Stevens">
Mr President, I apologize for being delayed.
I was held up by an interview on this report and my watch was wrong.
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This report is about the limitations of technology which is, perhaps, appropriate.
There is a curious coincidence that the timetable for Europe entering the single currency coincides with a technological revolution in the provision of financial services and, indeed, perhaps even in the definition of money itself.
The advent of electronic money is as big a revolution as the single currency itself.
The question which my report has looked at, but I fear not resolved, is whether these two processes could be combined.
There is obviously a huge prize to be gained from doing so.
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European businesses are going to be investing very heavily in information technology for the introduction of the euro.
It would be logical to combine that investment with a further step forward towards electronic money, either in the form of Internet money or smart-card electronic purses.
<P>
From the point of view of the citizen, the difficulties of moving from their national notes and coins to the new euro notes and coins might indeed have been reduced by creating conditions whereby notes and coins scarcely matter any more, with money largely being held in electronic form.
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In addition, in the case of electronic smart-cards, there would be the possibility of having a calculator function for citizens, to allow them to see the German mark or French franc equivalent of the new euro amounts that they see in the shops in front of them.
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Of course, electronic money has a whole range of other implications for central banking and for banking supervision.
However, the opportunity that undoubtedly exists in this area is one that, I regret to say, the Commission, the European Monetary Institute and national governments seem very reluctant to take up.
They seem to have concluded that the shift to the single currency is such a big step for our citizens to go through that to complicate the issue with a technological revolution is altogether asking too much.
They have concluded that the pace at which electronic money is likely to come into European economies is not sufficiently fast for it to be a factor by 1 January 2002.
They are probably right in that assessment if they adopt a passive attitude towards this development.
However, I would say that if they had adopted a more active attitude and recognized the huge potential of this technology the story might have been different - but so be it!
<P>
The function of my report, therefore, is a rather modest one.
What was initially envisaged as a spur to action by the Commission, the Council and the European Monetary Institute should now be regarded merely as a warning shot.
The euro is going to revolutionize the European economy.
It is going to massively increase the competitive capacity of our economy in global terms, but the introduction of electronic money has that potential too.
The pace at which Europe becomes an electronic market-place is going to determine the pace at which Europe becomes a true information society.
And ultimately, Europe's competitive position in the world is going to depend on how fast we do that.
So I feel an opportunity is being lost here.
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I, myself, believe that the rather modest calculations of the pace at which electronic money is going to come into the economy may well prove to be mistaken.
If you look at Internet money in the United States that has come through much more quickly.
<P>
My task is the modest one of warning our partners in the Commission, the Council and in Member State governments that this interface between the introduction of the euro and the advent of electronic money is something which we have to watch very carefully.
I hope that my rather pessimistic assessment is not proved correct by events.
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<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Porto">
Mr President, with the interests of the EU primarily in mind, the creation of the euro may also be of great significance to the other areas of the world.
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This may be the case, for all the indications are that it will be a widely established currency.
Already today, around 30 % of world payments are made with all the various European currencies.
But the significance of a single currency will certainly be greater, with an added attraction, apart from payments, of financial applications and the formation of reserves by the issuing banks.
This is in line with the growing use of the main European currencies in recent years, with the simultaneous weakening of the world prevalence of the dollar: from 50 % to 42 % in payments between 1990-95, from 67 % to 40 % in financial applications between 1981 and 1995, and from 76 % to 6.5 % as a reserve currency between 1973 and 1995.
<P>
The prospects open to the euro are thus an additional reason for making the EU take responsibility, making it important for it to be a strong and stable currency with the correct balance, avoiding penalizing our exports by overvaluation, while, if undervalued, it would lose credibility and have inflationist consequences.
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In view of the desirability of its world-wide acceptance, we need an immediate broad dissemination campaign in the various areas of the world, a point to which I would particularly like to draw the Commissioner's attention, as we suggested in the report we made to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
The European campaign is obviously important, but we cannot put off a world campaign, accompanied by other appropriate measures.
This campaign and these measures cannot be uniform, in view of different situations, with the overall numbers mentioned in the report on the general use of the euro saying little on that account.
<P>
More specifically, we should not, for example, confuse areas such as non-euro Europe and a large part of Africa (which by fact or law forms part of a large euro area) with Latin America, North America or Asia, where the prospects opened in the fields of payments, financial applications and the formation of reserves by issuing banks are in some way significant, as is the intention already shown by the Bank of China of holding 30 % of its reserves in euros, in a continent where the yen does not take priority.
Measures aimed at all areas of the world are therefore important.
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To conclude, the prospects being opened up on a horizon where the euro will give Europe a greater role, in its interests and in the interests of the world economy, are significant.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Cot">
Mr President, I am addressing Mr Friedrich's report, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
I would like to congratulate the Commissioner for the work he has accomplished, and perhaps even more congratulate the Giovannini group which, it appears to me, has comprehensively staked out the ground covering the question.
Mr Friedrich is putting forward an ambitious, long and substantial resolution. So much the better!
<P>
There are few legal questions raised in connection with this report.
The problem of continuity of contract was already settled by the regulations which we examined some time past, and the report now basically deals with regulations to be adopted, either by the national authorities of the Member States, or by professional organizations.
Hence, our comments relate mainly to the wider legal framework which is to accompany the introduction of the euro and which, in the financial markets field, clearly has to deal with the issue of European company statutes.
It is high time that this question should come out into the open, and along with it, mutual investment fund organizations, and at a later date, tax harmonization.
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As regards consumer protection - we are dealing here with paragraph 23 of Mr Friedrich's resolution and this subject was of course touched on in the report from Mr Pérez Royo - I would like to come back to you, Mr Commissioner.
You know that I am very concerned about the protection of consumers against fraud, but I am just as opposed to confusing consumers, and I believe it is important to give incentives to Member States to introduce efficient structures for small claims settlement.
Furthermore, it will be unavoidably necessary, at one time or another, to get back to work on the problem of repressing criminality through the third pillar, or by means of conventions.
Now that the euro is off the launchpad, we should be looking at this.
I would therefore like to hear your views.
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<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Donnelly, Alan">
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteurs for their work.
I joined this Parliament in 1989 and I was Parliament's first rapporteur, along with Mr Cox, on economic and monetary union.
We have travelled quite a distance in terms of the technical work to finally complete this important project.
If you look at these reports and the work that we have undertaken on economic and monetary union, despite the difficulties that we have had, including the economic downturn in the early 1990s, we have now reached a point where the momentum behind economic and monetary union is unstoppable.
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If you look at the biggest players in the financial services sector they have based their strategic decisions over the past few years on the assumption that EMU will indeed go ahead.
We have seen recently a wave of mergers and restructuring that spread throughout the financial services sector.
In the private sector as a whole there has been large-scale investment in the updating of information technology systems and the retraining of staff.
All this marks the transition to economic and monetary union on 1 January 1999.
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This demonstrates that when the European Union sets itself clear targets and when it sets itself realistic timetables, we can achieve great things in this Europe.
Since it started its first phase in 1990 the EMU project has had clear targets.
It has had a manageable timetable and, of course, that is why we will achieve the single currency on 1 January 1999.
In less than four months, the Council will take that final important decision, and as a Parliament we have to look beyond that decision of 2 May and the start of the EMU on 1 January 1999 and set ourselves a new agenda within the European Parliament.
It is no good sitting here self-satisfied with the fact that we have created the single currency; we have to see how we apply that single currency and what role it is going to have in our lives.
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Today I would like to set out some of the priorities for my group over the coming years.
We need to learn an important lesson from the financial turmoil in south-east Asia.
A currency must be stable and we must be able to demonstrate its stability.
Therefore the pact for stability and growth is extremely important indeed.
We in this Parliament must make sure that it is applied rigorously so that we can protect the stability of our currency.
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Secondly, our group wants to see greater steps made in economic coordination.
I would say to the Commissioner today, because I know that his services are working on the annual economic report at the moment, that we would like to know exactly what the new annual economic report will look like.
What will the broad economic guidelines look like in terms of building this new strengthened economic coordination?
We would like to have a dialogue with you over the next couple of weeks to ensure that the broad economic guidelines for the future are what we actually require in this new European environment.
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We want to ensure that the European Bank is independent.
No one in this house would challenge that, but there is no reason why an independent bank should not also be accountable.
We need to apply ourselves very carefully, particularly in the context of Mrs Randzio-Plath's report, to how we make that bank accountable.
It is our job here in the European Parliament to do that.
That means, President, and I say this to you because you are a member of Parliament's Bureau, we need to restructure the committees of the European Parliament.
We need a Banking Committee in the European Parliament that deals with financial services and which will deal with the European Central Bank in the same way that nations like the United States of America have a powerful Banking Committee.
We in our group will pursue this over the next few months.
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What will be the role of national parliaments in this whole new environment?
Will we be so arrogant as to believe that we do not need to have a relationship with national parliaments?
We need at least informally to build a relationship with national parliaments and I will be taking steps in the next few weeks to do this, hopefully with colleagues from across the Chamber.
We should set up a European Economic Forum where national parliaments and Members of this European Parliament can meet to monitor carefully economic coordination and the role of the European Central Bank.
I hope that some in this room will join in that endeavour.
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My last point is in relation to the citizens and the consumer.
We have done the technical work but we have not yet sold the message to the public.
Our job as a European Parliament, your job as a Commission and the job of the Council is to make sure that between now and 1 January 1999, and particularly 2002, the citizens accept and welcome all the work that we have done and the creation of that single currency.
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<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herman">
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Group Union for Europe, I wish to address the excellent report by our colleague Ingo Friedrich.
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The Commission's proposal is based on the principle that market harmonization, which will accompany the introduction of the euro, is a subject of great interest for the financial markets.
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This proposal has come at just the right time, and I would here like to congratulate Mr Friedrich for the contents of this report.
In paragraph 11, the resolution rightly raises the fact that dividends and redemptions of pension funds, life assurance and property funds are made in local currency, which means that a substantial portion of the funds must remain in the country of origin according to the principle of congruence.
In reality, thanks to monetary union, the whole of the monetary space of the EU will become a single territory.
This considerably enlarges the field of action for invested capital, and it is at this point that the full scope of the challenge faced by the EU with regard to the United States arises, as regards the capital markets and the future of the savings and investment sector at the global level, both in the medium and longer term.
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It is vital for the future of Europe that the Member States, for example, re-examine the question of a strict, quantitative limit to be placed on the value of their pension funds, in the run up to the introduction of the euro.
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If I take the example of France, a tool such as the internal market for financial instruments is visibly of particular importance.
The MATIF, which is one of the most important futures markets in Europe, if not the most important, should be able to continue to develop and compete with the futures market of the United States.
We need also to bear in mind the determining importance of the euro with regard to the monthly scheduling of debt.
On the other hand, the internal capital market, now euro denominated, depends clearly on the continuing good quality of the loans already issued, which is ample justification for the stability pact, whose purpose is to guarantee repayment of loans already contracted to lenders at constant value.
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Mr Friedrich's report specifically deals with the impact of the introduction of the euro on the capital markets.
In the light of the recent problems affecting NAFTA, one can draw the conclusion that limiting oneself to a free-trade area can lead up a blind alley.
This shows that the Community's approach, one of an integrated economic and monetary space, on the basis of a whole set of precise and coordinated policies, is quite justified, an approach indefatigably advocated by Commissioner de Silguy.
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We need to regard EMU both as a logical follow-up to the single market, and also as a teaching tool, popularizing European integration and enlargement.
For the western European countries, the euro represents the dynamism associated with the completion of the ordered competitive market place.
The decisive initiative here is membership of monetary union.
Monetary union also assumes - and here I have in mind our eastern European friends, who are all called on subject to certain conditions to join the EU in the longer term - that pan-European convergence will be the result both of international flexibility and of the planned approach to economic and monetary union adopted by the countries of Europe who have been able to overcome their scepticism and have resolved to go down that path to the future.
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<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="Cox">
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party I wish to address the report by Mr Ruffolo.
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The Union has come through quite a long period of introspection in economic terms as we have sought to create the required convergence for monetary union.
This report has come forward now that we are on the threshold of achieving our objective and it is entirely timely to ask what should be the external purpose of and role of the euro.
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One thing is very clear: the new European monetary area, though it is wholly open to trade, will have a very different degree of openness to the separate Member State economies.
In fact, it is in that context, in a global market, that the euro perhaps offers its greatest potential to Europe for the future and to the single market in particular.
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With regard to the exchange rate, I agree with the rapporteur.
A central issue for the external role of the euro is stability.
In that context, the role of politicians is to look at economic fundamentals in the real economy; the role of politicians is to achieve an appropriate level of convergence; the role of politicians is to define what is the desirable level of price stability internally.
But when those elements are set, it is the role of the Central Bank to call the monetary policy mix, and we need not at this stage reopen old debates.
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The unknown quantity in regard to the external value of the euro is clear: it is the speed and extent to which the euro has the market-base capacity to become a reserve currency and what the implications of that would be in feed-back terms for internal policy, which at the moment is conjectural.
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In summary for the Liberal Group I would say, as between the politicians' role and the Bank, let us render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto the Bank what is determined in the Treaty.
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<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, Mr Ruffolo speaks of the exchange rate balance between the euro and the dollar.
We should not close our eyes to the fact that the balance mechanism operating on 1 May this year or the 1 January next year is not a constant; it is variable.
National economies are dynamic because they are bound up with their history and dependent on structures related to a nation's finance and society.
Today's basic stability will mean considerable instability for some countries.
Thus, the exchange rate is right for some and wrong for others.
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The desire and demand for simultaneity in the trade cycle is groundless.
It cannot come about in practice, as all countries are different.
So now we are headed for an administrative and not an economic exchange rate and mechanism.
I represent the Finns, a nation that regards the advent of EMU the most negatively of all Member States.
Finland will be brought into EMU only through political force, which our political elite is prepared to use in the spirit of commitment to the Dublin Treaty.
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Different countries' parliaments, in ratifying the Maastricht treaty, have not taken decisions on the Dublin Treaty.
Its obligations and disciplines are new to Europe.
That is why we should have a national referendum on EMU in all those countries which intend to join.
Democracy is called for here.
<P>
EMU is a step backwards for European democracy.
Because there is just no parliamentary or democratic supervision of it.
The irremovable six-strong membership of the board takes decisions for 370 million people, who have not accorded them the power to do so by means of any referendum.
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<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that we face a revolution.
Its elements consist of what we speak of here today, the advent of the euro and electronic money.
To these, I would add two more: the growing trade taking place on the Internet, which might cause problems for individual states to collect taxes and thus fund the welfare state; and the fact that the year 2000 might cause some computer systems to fail.
All these factors together will bring about changes in the behaviourial patterns of the economy.
There is also the psychological question. This will certainly be something that companies, the public sector and educators will have to deal with.
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Hence, there are many unknown factors which can endanger the EU economy.
That is why I support totally Alan Donnelly's proposal that there should be some kind of Banking Committee in Parliament to discuss these matters.
It would also be important as a factor in improved risk awareness, because there is a special need for risk awareness in this area.
<P>
Mr Friedrich mentions something in his report that may raise our hopes on this issue: when the national currency risk disappears, so too does one factor that affects differentials in interest rates. This may have a stabilizing effect.
<P>
Finally, I would like to say that the EU must now dare to create a counterweight to monetary union in the shape of a common economic policy, particularly in the area of taxation, but also to be able to defend the European economic policy model.
It will differ, obviously, from other regional models.
It would thus be very important to create mechanisms to ensure that the European partners, at various times in their recent history engulfed in recession, do not get into inordinate economic difficulties.
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<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Scarbonchi">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am particularly addressing the Stevens report.
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There is virtually nothing to stand in the way of the take-off of electronic money in Europe, except the deafening silence and "wait and see' attitude of political and economic decision-makers in Europe.
I therefore congratulate the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and its rapporteur, Mr Stevens, for this initiative, in which he has reflected on what could indeed be one of the great challenges of tomorrow's society - the control of electronic money.
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In the light of the two revolutions which are currently causing a radical upheaval in European financial practice - and here I mean the introduction of the single currency and the development of digital moneys of account - how can we not conceive of the introduction of new forms of payment, and more particularly, of the re-definition of money and currency itself, and of the role of the banks and the supervisory authorities?
<P>
In the last few years, the maelstrom affecting the telecommunications sector has profoundly changed banking.
Electronic banking has become part of day-to-day consumer practice in Belgium, with the massive use of the 'Proton' card.
The same will soon be true of France, with the electronic purse sold by the Post Office.
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As my colleagues have already said, we can but be delighted at the move from the magnetic strip to the on-board chip card, whether disposable, re-chargeable, or re-programmable.
The virtual purse should have a tremendous future ahead of it, as the advantages it presents are many and varied.
It works both for customers and for European retailers. It also has the advantage of providing users with greater security, by supplying the virtual account with money transferred from the account-holder's credit card.
Disclosure of the number of one's carte bleue -style banker's card can be avoided, and there will be no need to dispose safely of the ticket issued by the cash dispenser when money is paid out.
<P>
But while Europe is currently in the lead of on-board chip technology - as the rapporteur reminded us in his introduction - is it not true that the very sinews of electronic money are the manner in which it is to be controlled and supervised?
Contrary to the rapporteur - and here I am referring to Paragraph C - I believe the commercial battle will rage on the Internet rather than in the field of the virtual purse, for the simple reason that the whole thing is at present firmly American orchestrated.
<P>
Is there not a tremendous risk that the national banking authorities, or the future European Central Bank, will be stripped of their supervisory power by the telecommunications multi-nationals over the next twenty years?
Even now as we reflect on the question, our governments are staying quiet, and major manoeuvres have already begun on the other side of the Atlantic, alliances are being struck between the major American multi-nationals in the multimedia field and the main global institutions specializing in bank card-mediated and processed banking transactions - the alliance between Netscape Communication and First Data, or Microsoft and Visa International, for example. They have but one objective, which is to bear down on all of us, Europeans that we are, with their hegemony.
<P>
In the United States, the multi-nationals, with the support of the White House, have long since understood that control of the cyber-economy, by means of technological mastery, will give them victory in the only battle they seem to care about - the information revolution.
<P>
I am sounding the alarm while we still have time. The proper operation of the single currency, the competitiveness of the European Union, and the stability of our European financial system, are so many reasons for governments to take urgent measures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Rose">
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Féret">
Mr President, this report, which is brimful with optimism, should not blind us to the fact that the introduction of the single currency has forced our countries to adopt the policy of austerity, a policy which was welcome after the years of budgetary laisser faire and which - particularly in Belgium - led to astronomical public debt.
But this austerity has severely penalized the most disadvantaged, those for whom the euro provides no prospect of improvement in living standards.
<P>
At the same time, if we are to believe the promises made last summer by the President of the French Republic to the Prince of Monaco, the Council and the Commission are seriously envisaging granting the Principality the benefits of the euro - at a time when the Principality is promoting tax evasion on a gigantic scale, to the detriment of the interests of the Member States - without there being any requirement on the residents of Monaco to make the slightest financial effort.
Such a gift to the wealthy would be an act of immorality and an insult to the financially disadvantaged, who will have to continue to tighten their belts for a very long time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a year from now we will be living in the euro era.
This should be a golden era in which international currencies are linked together in a climate of monetary stability.
I agree with Mr Ruffolo, the rapporteur, that it will be very difficult to achieve balanced and stable monetary relations in the short term. Nevertheless I believe, as the crisis in Asia has made very clear, that we will very soon have to create political control mechanisms in the world, to help ensure that the real economy is not jeopardized by turbulence on the currency markets at the cost of workers and the economic development of world prosperity.
That is why I believe European monetary union can make a contribution not only to achieving a reasonable situation as regards competition between today's world currencies, but also to developing international monetary stability and also normality in the significance of world currencies to each other in relation to trade and economic conditions.
So the European Parliament and the European Commission are right in attaching great importance to stability and to the international dimension of the euro.
<P>
I deeply regret that until now the Council of Ministers has not made it clear that the European Union will speak with one voice on monetary matters in the euro era.
We cannot have a monetary union and yet continue to voice differing views in international financial organizations or at G8 or G10 meetings.
We have already had painful experiences of the downside of this, during the Uruguay Round and also in the World Trade Organization.
We should not repeat this mistake in monetary matters.
I hope, therefore, that the role of the Commission will be enhanced in view of the international dimension of the euro.
<P>
Moreover, the European Parliament has rightly demonstrated in today's debate that it is important not just to want European monetary union, but also to carefully prepare the way for it. This is necessary to allay people's fears, fears easily exploited by opponents of European monetary union by creating the impression that monetary union is actually monetary reform, leading to concerns about the value of their money and their purchasing power.
By preparing the way, we must make it clear to people that EMU involves bringing together equally sound currencies, so that we can pay all over the European Union with equally sound money.
And this will reassure citizens, who are worried about the stability of their money and who want to see their savings and income safeguarded, that their concern is being taken into account in the run-up to EMU.
That is why it is so important that we as a European Parliament should take up arms for consumer protection as part of the debate on EMU.
<P>
It is also high time the Commission brought forward a further euro regulation, to ensure that there is no cost to the consumer in converting from national currencies to the euro, that any kind of conversion fraud or abuse is ruled out, and, above all, this regulation should provide for dual pricing.
We really must take our citizens with us on the road to EMU, not stir up their fears.
This will only be possible if, during the euro's introductory phase and during the phase when the euro and national currencies are used side by side, it is really possible to check and to understand the cost of goods, services and even charges for public services, both in euros and in the national currency.
<P>
Commissioner, the European Parliament requested this last year.
I think it is in the interest of a successful monetary union, which will be judged not only by the reaction of the markets but also by the reaction of our citizens, that the Commission should finally present us with a regulation of this kind.
After all, the euro is for everyone, and we need to speed up the process through European legislation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langen">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to continue where Mrs Randzio-Plath left off, that is on the issues dealt with in Mr Pérez Royo's report, the euro and consumer protection.
I think it is right for the Commission to pay sufficient attention to consumer protection from the Commission's point of view, but we must not overshoot the mark.
<P>
Mrs Randzio-Plath, you yourself know as well as I do that if dual pricing is to extend - as suggested in Mr Pérez Royo's report - from the beginning of the third phase, that is from 1 January 1999, possibly on an optional basis initially, but then if this is not satisfactory, backed up by the force of a regulation, this will of course have a big influence on costs in commerce and may push them up.
So I should like to sound a warning note about the extent of consumer protection.
Paragraph 14 of Mr Pérez Royo's proposal, which is right on many points and which I generally fully support, asks the Commission to establish regional observatories.
What kind of suggestion is that?
Do we need regional observatories?
Anyone suggesting this, and they may indeed get a majority for it in the vote at noon today, has failed to understand that the EU regulation under Article 235 of the EC Treaty already deals with all matters of civil law: continuity of contracts, the conversion from ECU to euros at a 1: 1 rate, rounding rules and so on.
I believe that wherever there is competition, and that is the case in commerce throughout Europe, and wherever suppliers have to prove themselves on the market, there will not be any funny business, because consumers would soon notice.
<P>
I am rather unhappy about the idea of everyone engaged in commerce being labelled as potential criminals and all consumers as potential idiots.
Every consumer will have only one conversion rate from his or her old national currency to the euro.
Just one rate!
Consumers will be told that rate on 4 May 1998, and there is no question of that being settled by some voluntary arrangement.
There will be pocket calculators with an extra button - they already exist, in fact.
So that simply will not be a problem, and I am willing to bet that within 48 hours, perhaps just 24 hours, consumers will have caught on to the conversion rate, and nobody will be able to hoodwink them after that.
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There is one exception, namely monopolies, especially public sector monopolies.
In that area we will have to watch that the introduction of the euro is not used to sneak in price increases.
But, necessary as consumer protection is, we must not overdo it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="Gallagher">
Mr President, first of all I want to congratulate the various rapporteurs on their reports.
<P>
I believe that the success of economic and monetary union will largely depend on the way in which our citizens are prepared for the introduction of the single currency.
We have only to talk to our constituents to recognize this.
Our people have concerns.
There is therefore a need to ensure that the euro is explained and that any misunderstandings are dealt with.
This obligation is naturally on the Union and the Member State governments.
I call on the Commission today to agree to, and to finance, a national and European 'euro hotline' to protect consumers' and business' interests as we embark on this great initiative.
It is essential that information, training and education campaigns are put in place for all our citizens as well as businesses.
European citizens need to be convinced that the single currency will not be against their interest, nor that of their country.
They need to be reassured that the euro will strengthen our economies and that it will demonstrate the real strength of Europe in the world, resulting in lower interest rates which will put more money into our peoples' pockets.
<P>
On the introduction of the euro it will be essential that there is an assurance that the cost of introducing it will not fall on the consumer.
There must be a rounding down in favour of the consumer.
When prices are converted consumers must also be shown how to easily calculate the conversion from the Member State currency into the euro.
Dual pricing is essential and should be introduced prior to January 1999.
It is important that consumers become accustomed to the pricing before 2002.
It is vitally important that counterfeit money be detected, including the use of counterfeit coins in machines.
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One of the distinctive advantages of the euro is that it will enable consumers in my country and elsewhere to compare the prices of goods and services, including tourism products.
The cost of a holiday in the west and north of Ireland indeed will show up very favourably.
It will also help cross-border sales.
I believe that the euro will provide a positive boost to competition.
It will ensure transparency in pricing; it will ensure exchange rate and interest rate stability; it will stifle currency speculation and will stimulate growth in employment.
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I believe that the national authorities must ensure that there is adequate and intelligible information on the real cost of introducing the euro, together with adequate information for consumers in order to guarantee competition and to detect and stop unjustified price rises - hence my call for a 'euro hotline' .
<P>
In conclusion, as I have already stated in this House, the euro notes must be friendly to the visually impaired.
There is an obligation on all of us to ensure that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Nordmann">
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="President">
I would like yet again to clear up one thing.
I understand that it is impossible, in one minute, even for an orator like you, Mr Nordmann, to develop your thoughts.
However, I have repeatedly requested the political groups not to allocate their members one minute of speaking time.
I regard this as a matter of dignity.
Unfortunately, you are given one minute of time and we are in a difficult position, both you and the presidency.
We also have a programme which is not being adhered to.
But one minute must not turn into two minutes.
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<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, all four reports under debate are characterized by a general euphoria about the introduction of the single currency.
However, we must not lose sight of the fact that our effort to promote and secure the euro as an international currency and to ensure its stability on international markets is being carried out in the context of the implementation of austerity programmes, strict monetary discipline, the dictates of the stability pact and, finally, in the context of total upheaval in the jobs market and the dwindling of workers' security and social rights.
At the same time, developments on global money markets simply confirm the intense anxiety regarding the economic progress of those countries that do not conform.
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The Commission is under an obligation to study the repercussions and the powerful side effects on the weaker economies, such as in Greece for example, but also in other countries outside and inside the euro which are more vulnerable to international speculative pressures.
The workers and people of Europe cannot accept having to mortgage their future for the sake of the euro and the aspirations of European credit finance capital to obtain a hard currency in order to win speculative games on the capital markets of the world.
For this reason, Mr President, they will react, and for this reason account must be taken of their anxieties.
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<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, we need to say something here about the economic substance of the revolution which we are signing up to on all sides.
I have in mind the immediate de-localization of credit money, whose localized vulnerability we are currently witnessing.
The fact that credit money is now being jeopardized all over the world by the present crisis in Asia is just one indication of this.
We are thus witnessing a new degree of separation of monetary cycles from the real economy and from the primary income that can only be derived from that economy, and accordingly also from the material reproduction capacity of economic structures as a component of a complex world society with increasingly global problems and planet-wide responsibility.
This is the context in which we are preparing to introduce the euro.
<P>
Mr Ruffolo, a stable and credible euro will not, in the medium and long term, be a consequence of monetary policy, either solely or even primarily.
It will be determined by the credibility of the European Union, by which I mean here the extent to which it can find democratically workable answers for the future.
<P>
I am still not convinced that the neo-liberal plan for a revolutionary micro-economy society which Mr Stevens has presented to us, which tries to turn all interaction into buyer/seller, creditor/debtor or quite simply market-related interaction, is the right model to guarantee this future capability.
We cannot just see our citizens as consumers.
Mr Donnelly, we know that the plan has now become unstoppable, and that the euro will be introduced.
What is at issue now is what is still possible, even if Luxembourg I and Luxembourg II have only yielded unsatisfactory results, by revising the conditions for the introduction of the euro.
<P>
I can only describe this in headlines here.
We need an effective European employment policy.
We need economic policy coordination which amounts to more than generating paper but instead establishes a real framework and sets real objectives.
We need to end all forms of dumping and competition for the location of investment projects in the internal market, whether it takes the form of taxation, environmental standards, social security arrangements or subsidies.
We need to allow the European Central Bank and also the European Central Banking System to establish themselves as part of a wide-ranging social and economic policy process.
In other words, instead of a micro-economic revolution, we need the courage to introduce greater democracy, especially in economic and social policy, so that our citizens, who are now becoming more active, are given greater power and fresh perspectives.
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<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, this Parliament might be able to make a good impression with this debate on EMU.
In an economic sense Europe is flourishing, after all.
The number of nations forecasted to join EMU has never been so high.
For Italy, Spain, and Portugal, membership is on the horizon.
France and Germany have to pull out all the stops, but will manage, as they are indispensable EMU participants in a political sense.
<P>
The jubilant mood about EMU is very understandable, but also very dangerous.
It is politicians, civil servants and bankers who primarily feel that way.
But Dutch voters think differently: 47 % of them expect it to be delayed, while only 18 % expect EMU to start on 1 January 1999 with a large group of countries.
This means an enormous gap exists between the decision to be made on 2 May 1998, and what the people think the decision will be.
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Those who think EMU will go ahead because there is proper economic convergence are wrong.
Formal Treaty criteria are met.
But in reality, there are big differences in economic and conjunctural developments.
Nor by any means are all results in the sphere of public finances based on structural measures.
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EMU will not take place as a result of convergence having been achieved, but because important politicians have thrown their lot in with it.
Four German professors recently made public their opinion on this point.
They warn of unstable exchange rates if the euro loses its credibility as a result of the participation of economically weaker countries.
<P>
The effects on employment are also painted too rosily.
They will be positive for prosperous regions, but for weaker regions a negative effect is more to be expected.
Likewise, other economic risks of EMU are ignored.
If these become manifest, then EMU has a problem.
Faith in the euro will be tested.
It will be difficult as an MEP to explain why the euro is good for the European consumer.
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<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, my comments are limited to Mr Stevens' report.
I consider the initiative underlying this report to be extremely valuable, but it should not be viewed simply in connection with introducing the euro.
Europe is a leader in the field of smart-card technology, and we must exploit that situation.
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Increased use of electronic money would be a further step in the information society, and would have a positive impact on our citizens' lives.
The versatility of smart-card technology could also be used to rationalize administration in the public services sector, allowing substantial budget savings to be made in the medium term.
It would have extremely important consequences if this Parliament initiative boosted willingness to cooperate within the Council, and if the various national initiatives in the field of smart-card technology at least became compatible.
Promoting electronic money is an investment in development in tune with the spirit of the times.
<P>
So it is even more amazing that this technological revolution in the payment systems our citizens use has so far scarcely featured in the overall strategy for introducing the euro.
Developments in information and communications technology will also soon have an impact on the way we use money.
Progress in electronic payment systems affects the very idea of money, and we shall have to face up to the consequent fiscal, legal, economic and even political challenges.
I accordingly welcome Mr Stevens' report.
However, it would be helpful if at least part of the budget set aside for advertising the euro could be used to prepare our citizens for the imminent technological change in our money system.
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<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="Harrison">
Mr President, in 11 months time 11 countries will enter economic and monetary union here in Europe.
The goal of our single currency aspirations will be scored by this first team of 11 players with four countries on the substitutes bench, limbering up, ready to join the fray later, perhaps before the next World Cup in 2002.
But even at this eleventh hour there is much to do to ensure that the goalposts are up and not moved, that the pitch is level and fit for play and that the ball is hard enough to score goals for Europe right from the kick-off.
<P>
These four reports before us today deal with some of the last-minute anxieties and hopes.
The Pérez Royo report rightly identifies concerns of some of the single currencies-watching spectators.
Consumers will need to be assured, for instance, that once the ball of the single currency is in play, the double pricing in the euro and in the home money is the rule, not the exception.
If retailers are not prepared to help customers orient themselves to these historic changes, then Parliament should blow its whistle and be prepared to legislate to ensure double pricing.
<P>
So too with potential conversion costs associated with the advent of the euro.
Whether we are talking of phase B where national currencies might be exchanged, or phase C where the new euro coins could be exchanged for dying denominations, charging the man or woman on the street or boulevard for exchanging currencies will be a disaster, especially since we have sold the euro to the citizens as the currency which eliminates such wasteful exchange costs.
We must guard against just such an own-goal.
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In addition, it is imperative that the public authorities monitor closely the change over to the euro.
Suspicions by the consumers that the euro will be used to mask price hikes must be zealously tackled and tripped up.
There are many older people in Britain today who recall 1971 decimalization as a time to cry foul against the ticket touts making money out of those unfamiliar with a new currency.
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I hope that the Commission will agree to draw up proposals for regulations concerning cost reconversion of such coins and notes.
If the Pérez Royo report deals with the near future, Mr Stevens' essay on electronic money treats of a future which is fast moving towards us.
Using smart cards and electronic purses will soon be second nature to us all.
Perhaps, as the rapporteur has argued in earlier debates, acceptance of EMU might have been promoted by linking it to new technologies like electronic money.
Less sound is his proposal that a single private sector organization might have been entrusted with the responsibility for issuing such encrypted money.
Whatever the future of such developments, Parliament should insist from the issuers of electronic money, as with a bank or other institutions, that the requirement of public confidence, interoperability and the continuing stability of the financial systems should be met by the competent authorities.
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With reference to the Ruffolo report on certain external aspects of the euro, I would corroborate the rapporteur's concern regarding the external representation of the European Community on bodies like, for instance, the IMF.
Clarification of the responsibilities between Ecofin and the Central Bank is required sooner rather than later.
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One concluding comment: the current severe disruption of the Asian financial markets makes it all the more imperative that EMU is launched on a solid basis.
A stable euro will be good for Europe and good for the world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fourçans">
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cardona">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to refer to the Friedrich report and congratulate the rapporteur for dealing with one of the most important areas of institutionalization of the capital market.
At the moment, it is fragmented and there is competition between each of the European financial markets, and between these and the world financial markets.
This report indicates that the introduction of the euro in stock exchange transactions and listings as from 1 January 1999 will solve all the problems and distortions which exist between the various investors of the Member States of the Union, and marks an important stage in the harmonization of the process of establishing the European market.
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It is a very optimistic report because not all the problems of the financial markets will be resolved.
We do not fully share this nominal and formal view, but we share the idea that the various convergences must exist.
And in fact legal and tax barriers still exist that cannot be overcome, as the report recognizes and which, on that account, cannot mean that only the euro can overcome them.
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With regard to the tax barriers, we wish to point out that each country handles and wants to continue to handle internal taxes and the respective collection systems for withholding at source or, finally, solely on the basis of their needs to attract public loans, through State securities or debentures.
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Will the euro answer this question?
I think not.
They will say: "It is a result of the rule of unanimity' .
Will it be?
Since when have common interests been unresolved, even if consent and unanimity are required?
What is happening, and this report does not deal with this issue, is that each of the countries attracting investment raises its interests above those in need of it.
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When these objectives are met, the aims of this report will then be achieved.
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<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="Watson">
Mr President, electronic money is a serious issue and it really deserved separate consideration rather than being lumped in a general debate about the euro.
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I am pleased that Mr Stevens and the Group of the European People's Party eventually felt able to accept the Liberal amendments, which were endorsed by the committee, because without those changes, it was doubtful whether we would be in a position to support his report today.
<P>
This report comes at an important time in the development of electronic money.
The new technology, already under development in many Member States, is the subject of discussion within the Commission, the European Monetary Institute and the Member States.
But by adopting his report now, before the other institutions, the European Parliament can send a strong signal that the development of electronic money must not be impeded by excessive regulation and incompatible standards.
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The purpose of my amendments was to send that signal and to remove anti-competitive elements present in the rapporteur's first draft.
The report now provides a regulatory framework which will ensure the confidence of the public in electronic money, the stability and the soundness of issuers and the smooth functioning of the single market.
We must ensure that such a framework allows all appropriately regulated entities, banks and non-banks, to issue electronic money on a competitive basis, and does not restrict competition through a franchise system or by limiting the market to banks alone.
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Interoperability will be a crucial factor in the development of electronic money.
We must ensure that different electronic purses and smart cards are based on interoperable standards, to prevent fragmentation of the market and the development of an anti-competitive cartel.
<P>
Finally, a regulatory regime must not interfere in pricing policies.
If companies have invested in the development of this money, they must not be obliged to issue products for free.
The market should determine the pricing, leaving customers free to choose.
<P>
With those provisos, I am happy to endorse this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Svensson">
Mr President, I have three comments to make.
Firstly, with the euro, crises and disturbances in the economy are going to spread more rapidly on the capital markets, and Europe risks having an Asian situation.
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Secondly, democracy is being eroded.
Elected politicians are being converted into lackeys with the task of serving and facilitating movements on the capital markets.
We are getting a system which nobody will control and which will never control itself.
<P>
Thirdly, this debate shows a massive conformity of views.
What kind of parliament is it where 95 % of the debate consists of eulogies to one and the same idea?
There is no room here for a deeper critical scientific analysis.
This orthodoxy is frightening in view of the fact that all attempts from 1873 to 1993 to create these kinds of currency structures have led to depression and then collapse.
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<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Blot">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the prior question has not been dealt with.
Before coming to technical aspects, we would need to be assured that the peoples of Europe really wish to join the euro.
This would require national referenda in all countries on a reform of this importance, if only out of respect for the electors.
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Furthermore, the consequences of the extension of the deutschmark to the former East Germany are only too visible in the shape of unemployment in the East and rising taxes in the West, at enormous cost down the years.
This is what happens when a single currency is imposed on two countries which differ in competitiveness.
And I am not talking about the moral aspect of this experiment, the scorn of the East by the West in a society where money is the measure of all things.
The scenario risks being the same in Europe.
The countries in which companies have competitiveness problems will experience rising unemployment.
The more productive countries will sooner or later have to sign up to giving a minimum of assistance in solidarity payments, and taxes will rise.
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Changing the denomination of the currency will also hit the consumer's pocket with inflation.
In eastern Europe, the creation of national currencies in Estonia, Slovakia and Slovenia or in other countries was experienced at the time as a liberation.
It enabled these countries to move over to the market economy in the best conditions.
Curiously, in western Europe, people are doing the opposite.
However, the sound monetary health of Switzerland or Norway demonstrates all the attractiveness of national currencies.
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In a word, it serves no useful purpose to get into a technical debate without resolving the prior question of the creation of the euro in principle, a question which can only be truly settled by democratic debate, in the form of the organization of referenda.
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<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, albeit to the displeasure of the extreme right and its allies, the euro is now into the home straight.
In a few weeks, everything will be in place, and in one year the euro will be the legal currency for more than 200 million Europeans.
This is the reason why today's debate is very important, and I would like thank and congratulate our rapporteurs for their work and contribution.
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Like Mr Friedrich, I believe that we have to permit a complete integration of the financial markets.
But I also say that it is necessary to harmonize the tax and legislative framework, and take care that we do not restrict ourselves to giving satisfaction to speculative markets.
As regards ourselves, which must be a prime concern, we need to favour direct investment, which generates employment, while we need, if not to eliminate, at least to reduce the tax breaks and havens which are in the very heart of our Europe.
This is one of the conditions of acceptance of the euro by citizens.
<P>
As regards the euro and consumers, I agree with the proposal from Mr Pérez Royo on dual price display, but I would like this to happen as soon as possible, and the system to be introduced in as short as period of time as possible.
Still on the question of the citizen and the consumer, I support the very firm and very clear demand for home currency to euro conversion to be free of charge to the citizen.
This requires careful supervision, as we have heard from certain banking quarters that there was a real temptation to make their customers pay for this service.
<P>
With regard to the Ruffolo report, on behalf of the defenders of European industrial competitiveness, which is the dossier on which I am currently working, my sincere wish is that everything be done to avoid an over-valued euro, which would have a negative impact on employment.
Of course, the politicians will not be fixing parities, but the decisions that we shall be taking may have an effect, whether upwards or downwards, on the exchange rate.
Furthermore, I am of course in favour of democratic control of the European Central Bank, and hence at the very minimum of control by the Ecofin council on the exchange rate policy.
<P>
Finally, regarding relationships between money and new technologies, which is the subject of Mr Stevens' report, I wish to say that I too wish and hope that this will lead to a reduction in the time required for the minting of coins and printing of banknotes, and hence to the bringing forward of the date of 1 January 2002.
Three years is really too long.
<P>
Before concluding, I would like to take advantage of these reports to ask Mr de Silguy, who is present, to outline to us his position on the consequences of the Asian crisis, as regards the prospects for growth and the euro timetable. Does he not believe that the crisis might bring the timetable forward?
Does he still think that we can wait until 1 January 1999 to fix the euro parity, when the euro zone and monetary parities will be fixed on 2 and 3 May?
It would be nice, Mr Commissioner, if you could say something here to us all, and not just to the radio and television stations where you feature so frequently.
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<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hoppenstedt">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have already heard a lot of words, and we shall hear a lot more this morning and this afternoon.
This Parliament's Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs and its Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy have done some excellent work in recent years.
The insight shown by the chairmen has always made it easy for us to deal with representatives from the financial sector, those with an interest in policy affecting finance and also with associations, including consumer associations, trade associations, and so on.
<P>
The information we have acquired is exemplary by the standards of this Parliament, and the general accessibility of today's debate is important if it is to lead to positive decision-making by the middle of this year.
I think we can allay people's fears here.
There is nothing to be gained by frightening people, either by what we say here today or through the attempts of the professors in Germany to frustrate the introduction of the euro.
What we say and do today must serve to build up trust.
<P>
We have four reports before us.
The report on the euro and world markets and the Ruffolo report have become highly relevant because of the turmoil in south-east Asia.
I believe that we must press for a further, more thoroughgoing debate on monetary, interest-rate and subsidy policy in the context of the world economy.
It is in our hands what we do here in the European Union, and must do because of the Maastricht Treaties, and we do it gladly. Developments in south-east Asia have affected our labour market and competitive situation for years, and trends there in subsidy, low interest and monetary policy have cost a great many jobs.
We have not paid enough attention to this topic, and now we are deeply involved, as we are having to pump massive amounts of money into those markets - both from Europe and via the IMF - in order to avoid even greater turmoil, if that is possible now.
<P>
Quite a lot has already been said about the Pérez Royo report.
Werner Langen made it very clear in his speech what consumers want and the respect we should have for their wishes.
But he was equally clear - and I am sure Mrs Thyssen will support him in this - about the steps we must take to inform our citizens.
It is important that with 50 % state participation and the options open to Member States over the next three years, they should make dual pricing clear now.
<P>
I also consider it highly important, as stressed in the Pérez Royo report, that standard quality paper and printing should be used to reassure consumers that there is a minimal risk of counterfeit banknotes.
This a serious issue on which we can ask for action.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, the joint debate on these reports presupposes the citizen to be a Europhile, but to my mind this is not by any means yet the case.
It is true that the introduction of the euro is the crowning glory of the internal market.
It is true that with the euro Europe has gained itself an important role on an international plane.
It is true, competitive relationships will be clarified and the consumer will be able to take advantage of this.
<P>
But the rapporteur, Mr Pérez Royo, rightly pointed out that success as far as the people is concerned depends on the public's perception of the euro, and the wellbeing it adds to their lives.
What I pick up from discussions with people is that they see the euro primarily as a technocratic measure which politicians, us in other words, want to push down their throats.
So, Mr President, the issue at the moment is primarily the information of the public.
The public already finds globalization difficult, as well as loss of identity.
Proper support of the euro process by the national governments is an absolute must.
<P>
The success of the euro offers the opportunity for very necessary and increased political cooperation within Europe.
Failure may mean chaos and an end to harmonious common cooperation in several areas.
In other words we should stick to the criteria, informing the public, and taking them along the euro road, especially those, like myself, who enjoy or will soon enjoy pensions.
Then I will be able to recommend the euro to our citizens with confidence and enter the twenty-first century as a Europhile, although we might need a euro hotline, as suggested by Mr Gallagher.
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<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I will limit myself to the Pérez Royo report.
My colleagues have already discussed other points, or will do so.
In his meritorious report Mr Pérez Royo has pointed out various facets related to the euro and the consumer.
The Commission meanwhile, in its statement on the practical aspects related to the implementation of the euro, has promised to make a number of proposals.
<P>
Commissioner, I quote two important points which still raise questions and have not been given an adequate response, namely dual pricing and the cost of conversion.
As far as dual pricing is concerned, I would like to know what stage decision-making is at. The Commission was to determine before the end of 1997 whether there was a need to introduce a common regulation in all participating countries.
I agree with those who think that dual pricing must not be imposed in a compulsory fashion.
Let the market do its work; leave room for flexibility, voluntary agreements, or codes of conduct.
<P>
Mr Commissioner, I have a second question. To what extent will the banks charge conversion costs to the customer?
On this subject this, too, the Commission promised to determine before the end of 1997 whether either a common regulation or national legislation is desired, or on the other hand whether the issue can be left to market players. Could the Commission prohibit charging for possible conversion costs?
Our preference would be for the banking sector to formulate a code of conduct itself.
I would like to thank the Commissioner in advance for his reply.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Mr President, one of these reports is dedicated to consumers.
And, despite the justified concerns it reflects, the report does not clarify how consumers will not have to bear the costs.
It seems right that consumers should not be asked to bear them but, as these costs will exist and will be substantial, who will bear them?
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It is not enough not to want the consumers to bear them, and to approve resolutions containing this religious statement.
Nor should we forget that consumers are mainly employees, and in this process it is more important to study the impact on actual wages and on the transparency resulting from better comparability.
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There is a whole problem of credibility and trust that is well equated in the explanation of reasons when the warning is given that people may have the idea that the euro is just for the rich, or that it will only be of use to them, whether at consumer or company level, with the small and medium-sized businesses having greater difficulties with regard to administrative and accounting management and managing the costs of introducing a single currency in several countries.
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On the other hand, no serious thought has yet been given, at least here in Europe, to the consequences of introducing the euro in the countries and regions with monetary areas set up as a result of motherland/colony relationships, even extended to former colonies of other motherlands, as is the case with the CFA area and Guinea-Bissau.
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One final point: we are late in devising an offsetting mechanism that could deal with disproportionate shocks, necessarily different from those created by the IMF, which has consequences worldwide and is usually unaware of the causes and makes them worse.
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<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ettl">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the introduction of our new single currency calls for optimal accompanying monetary-policy measures. We must also bear in mind the impact on the capital markets of all the relevant parameters, and make due allowance for the effect of the external aspects of economic and monetary union.
But in addition, and most importantly, we must make the euro as acceptable as possible to the people of Europe.
The euro will be all the more acceptable if it can be made obvious how it is going to function. In this respect it is particularly important to ensure in the capital market that profit distribution and repayments - in the case of pension funds for example - are subject to workable investment principles.
We also need to take account of the competition principle, according to which a major part of funds has to remain inland, in the European Union - I am thinking of the Friedrich report now - and all the more so right now, because investment in the European Union is more important than ever, if we are to get a grip on our employment situation.
That is a priority.
Quite simply, that is how the euro and the future of our money economy will be judged.
The money economy cannot just be something abstract.
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Furthermore, the consumer policy aspects are also highly important.
The introduction of the euro should not cost consumers anything during the transitional phase.
Conversion costs - in both senses of the word - should not be charged to consumers.
The continuity of existing contracts must be guaranteed, and accompanying measures are needed for this purpose.
One of the key accompanying measures is dual pricing.
Dual pricing also requires a legal framework, a regulation.
This kind of regulation is necessary to provide consumers with transparency and means of checking.
It is not a question of not being able to trust the market, it is a question of getting consumers to trust the euro, and the force of law has a part to play here too.
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We also need to encourage people to feel good about the single currency.
This will provide credibility and will also contribute to the reputation that our institutions, particularly the European Central Bank, need to have.
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If stability is to be achieved, it will require many accompanying measures, but above all enormous sensitivity.
That is the essence of the political challenge.
It cannot just be left to the money technocrats!
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<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Secchi">
Mr President, a very important debate is being held this morning that highlights the active role played by the European Parliament in this stage of development of the final, definitive stage of economic and monetary union.
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I would like to raise a few points, which to a certain extent relate to the excellent reports presented by Mr Friedrich on the capital markets and Mr Ruffolo on the external role of the euro. I want to start with a question: is it enough to establish the objective of stability as the fundamental mission at the basis of the independence of the future European Central Bank, to insist on the requirements of accountability to have a good system of governing the European economy?
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There is no doubt that monetary policy interacts with the rest of economic policy and is conditioned by it: it interacts in particular with fiscal policy, budgetary policy, tax policy, with what we can call the non-monetary government of the economy.
And so the basic subject we have before us is that of the future system of economic governance for the European Union in economic and monetary union.
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I believe that the decisions taken at the recent Luxembourg Summit, generally in favour of the formation of the socalled Eurocouncil, are going in the right direction and summarize the requirement for a non-monetary government authority for the economy, which to a certain extent matches the monetary government of the European Central Bank.
This will be a system based on two independent economic-policy authorities, which are inevitably interconnected in the link that exists within the economic policy in general in a system such as the European one. Not only that, they will be two authorities with the same dignity and authority that have to establish the need, particularly for the Eurocouncil, to speed up the solution to several basic issues presented.
Economic and monetary union consists of two essential sides, like a medal: the monetary side and the non-monetary side. Within the latter, I will point out the subjects relating to the internal market, the need to speed up the implementation of the so-called action plan, and the tax subjects.
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From this point of view, the decisions taken by the Ecofin Council on 1 December are very encouraging and I think the European Parliament will have the opportunity to come back to these and stimulate further progress.
To conclude, I would just like to mention one aspect that interacts with the point raised by Mr Friedrich, that is the agreement on a directive on the taxation of financial income for non-resident natural persons, a subject of fundamental importance to enable the future capital market to operate appropriately in the presence of the euro.
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<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Fitzsimons">
Mr President, I welcome the main thrust of the Pérez Royo report because it recognizes that real and tangible measures must be implemented to protect consumer interests in the run-up to the introduction of the single European currency.
May I say from an Irish perspective that we do not want to see the errors which arose when decimalization was introduced in the early 1970s and when there was vast confusion all over the place.
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While I recognize that the actual euro notes and coins will not be put into the pockets of the 340 million consumers until the year 2002, time is still of the essence with regard to the European-funded information campaigns which need to be orchestrated in this regard.
In advance of the date of 2002 many banking and commercial transactions can be carried out using the euro denomination.
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The European Commission, together with the national governments, must fund information campaigns relating specifically to the pricing of products in both the euro and the currency of the host Member State in the run-up to EMU.
Dual-pricing campaigns must be part of this process, and such campaigns must take place in all key supermarkets and shopping outlets across Europe.
Finally, the prices of products should be displayed with the price denominated in euros and in the national currency.
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<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="De Clercq">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the external aspects of economic and monetary union are often overlooked in the discussions on the euro.
Wrongly, because the external implications of EMU will have important consequences for both the EU and for our direct partners, as well as for the entire web of international economic monetary relationships.
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The euro will undeniably play an important part as an international currency, and will create more balance within the international monetary system, especially in relation to the dollar.
EMU will enable the EU better to offer resistance against external shocks such as the ones caused by speculative capital flows.
EMU means an important step towards a new and more balanced international monetary system, from a unipolar to a multipolar system, in which the European Union will be able to play a leading role, and, it is to be hoped, will actually do so.
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EMU will give the European Union a greater responsibility within the international financial economic organizations.
Concrete interpretation of this, within the IMF and the G7 amongst others, is therefore urgently required.
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Finally, I would like to point out the danger of wishing to regulate and frame too much in advance of the start of the third phase of EMU.
In particular the market, influenced by a convincing and effective macro-economic policy, must determine the rate of the euro, rather than our advance management of it - a rate which has a positive reverberation in the outside world as well as on Europe's economic position and its global, economic and monetary cooperation and stability.
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<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Willockx">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, ten years ago the political will for this ambitious project of the euro came into being.
During the past years economic convergence has improved rather spectacularly, despite sometimes difficult conjunctural effects.
Today we are on the eve of a transitional period which may be important and of great significance for the credibility of the new European currency.
For the present, the ball will soon be in the court of the national governments.
They will give the new currency more credibility by not only issuing new loans in euros, but by converting the outstanding national debts as much as possible into the euro.
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Secondly, the euro will offer an answer to several countries who would like to differentiate reserves more.
I am not saying that the euro will take the place of the dollar, but I am saying that the euro may become an important factor of diversification.
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Thirdly, it is clear that the sum of the reserves of the participating countries is greater than the sum necessary to support the European currency.
I therefore support Mr Ruffolo's request that the European Commission should look into how these surplus reserves might be best used.
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Fourthly, during the transitional phase everything has be to be done to inform the public.
The time of uncertainty will be over once 2 May has passed.
We must direct all resources, all budgetary resources that we have for information, towards informing the public about the introduction of the euro.
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Fifthly, an important role awaits banking, which in the recent past has proved in my country, too, not to have earned any trust in its behaviour towards the customer.
I therefore do not rely on market forces, as Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens and Mr De Clercq just said.
I think that the European Commission and, if necessary, the national Member States must make legal provisions and guarantee free conversion of national currency into the euro.
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Lastly, the introduction of the euro offers new opportunities and perspectives in a broader sphere.
Let us try today to make a start on European coordination, as agreed on 1 December. Let us use this beginning of economic coordination to map out one route which may incur the risk of the disadvantages and consequences of the crisisridden Asian markets today.
This is the first test case, as far as I am concerned, for better economic coordination which has to be linked to the introduction of the euro.
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<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, the smaller the amount, the higher the costs are.
This summer I was on holiday with my daughter in Italy, and she changed 100 schillings in a money-changing machine.
It gave her 9, 600 lire.
When we got back to Austria, I gave her back the money, rounded up to 10, 000 lire.
Commissioner, just guess how much money she got from the Austrian machine - she got exactly half, just 50 %!
I think this sort of thing costs a lot of money in tourism and in other areas.
When you consider that we have about 50 % more bank employees than in America, and at higher staff costs at that, and that all this is partly necessary to grapple with the whole area of foreign currency exchange and risk, then we will certainly have to keep an eye on our banks in Europe and consider what banking supervision arrangements we shall need in future.
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The fact that the banking system has been one of the main reasons for the crisis in the ASEAN states means that we need to be particularly attentive about a healthy banking system in Europe when we switch to the euro.
At the end of the day, the larger the amounts are, the greater the risk, and I believe that one of our chief tasks should be to limit that risk.
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If you consider that between 1985 and 1995 the dollar led to the loss of some 1.3 million jobs in Europe, according to a study by the Austrian Institute of Economic Research, then you will appreciate just how important a single currency is for us.
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As for the strength of the euro, I have to say that it is perhaps stronger than many exporters would like.
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<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Mr President, I will focus on Mr Friedrich's report, and on behalf of my group I can say that we agree with Mr Friedrich that it is conceivable that, once the euro has come into being, Europe will have the second largest bond market in the world.
So there are opportunities for Europe in this field.
But it is not enough to observe and note this.
Particularly in the area of condition-creating policy, the Union will still have to initiate a great deal, for example, in the sphere of company law, regulations for accounting, and stock market rules.
It is truly scandalous, and I have said so before in this Chamber, that we still have not managed to bring about a statute for businesses.
Enormous effort has also been made by the Davignon Committee, and yet it continues to drag.
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Finally, I, like Mr Friedrich, would like to call for attention to be paid to pension funds in the various Member States.
As a result of existing obligations whereby they have to invest the largest part in the country of residence, opportunities are missed.
I will personally call for attention for this point in my report to the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs on the Green Paper on pensions.
But here, too, I believe the European Commission will have to take action to make the Member States see that they can no longer hang on to outdated policy on this front.
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<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Torres Marques">
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Pex">
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the euro must be strong and dependable.
Confidence of the markets is not enough. We need the confidence of the people.
That means better democracy and monitoring of the Central Bank, which is responsible to the democratically-elected bodies.
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Major companies in Finland will be switching to the euro at the start of the third stage.
Already 64 % of the larger Finnish concerns have said they are getting prepared for the switch.
But the situation is more problematic for small companies. Only 7 % have begun preparations.
And the situation is even less promising in the service sector.
The SME sector is Europe's most important employer. The SMEs, however, do not have the resources to create new information systems nor always the staff skills or money to acquire them.
The Commission should therefore produce an advice pack for them.
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In order that the costs of transition do not overburden the taxpayer, the introduction of the euro must not mean consumers having to pay for it.
The euro may be the project of the century, but it seems to be making a very sleepy entry among Member States.
Education and information on the euro is absolutely essential for ordinary people, and it has come late in many areas.
Confusing and inadequate information has led to an image of much dithering and secrecy, and in times of mass unemployment this has increased opposition to it.
Memories of massive postWar devaluation lead us to regard money seriously.
It is more valuable the less there is of it.
That is why the information on the new money must be solid and comprehensive.
I suggest that every Member State has a popular-style series of programmes on television, to follow on from the news, showing the latest on the euro.
It cannot be possible that the appeal of a common currency is harder to get across than the absorption rate of babies' nappies.
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I agree with Mr Pérez Royo that the electricity, gas, water and telephone companies must get involved by stating their customers' bills in euros as well as local currency.
We cannot, however, suppose that commercial companies, for example, - and I do not mean supermarkets - would be able to train up staff members as experts on the euro, as has been hinted at here.
That is the duty of the government, and it is obviously ours too.
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<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Thyssen">
Mr President, the introduction of the euro will obviously bring about change for all market players, and we are convinced that the positive effects will amply outstrip the negative ones.
We should not worry too much about the positive effects, but we should explain them to the public.
A great deal still needs to happen on that front.
As far as the inconveniences are concerned, we have to make sure that they remain as few as possible, even if they are principally a transition issue.
In order to succeed, we have to inform the public, but we also have to realize that information is indeed necessary, but not enough. We must realize that we need a legal and balanced framework, a framework which ensures that notes are not counterfeited; that conversions take place at the right rate, and according to the right method of calculation.
We have to make sure that the introduction of the euro does not affect the continuity of contracts, that the period of concurrence of charter money in different denominations is as brief as possible, and that information is given in such a way that the consumer knows there are reasons to be confident.
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Most of the issues, Mr President, are arranged by law, but unfortunately, not optimally.
My group is convinced that accession contracts should not deviate from the continuity principle.
We have therefore submitted an amendment in which we ask the Commission to submit a proposal to amend Regulation 1103.
I would be interested to know if the Commissioner is prepared to consider an initiative to this effect.
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Then there is the issue of dual pricing.
The polarization of the interests of the consumer on the one hand, and retail trade on the other, is in our opinion not realistic.
These interests run much more parallel than some people would have us believe.
It is out of this philosophy that we have submitted Amendment No 8, an amendment in which we ask to wait and see for a bit - wait and see until after 1999 to see what the markets will do spontaneously.
Then, on the basis of actual reactions from the market players, we will be able to determine what is needed, whether we need detailed regulation for dual pricing, and if so, how we can make these fit the realistic needs of all the players.
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<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Hendrick">
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Garosci">
Mr President, we have heard four very interesting reports on a subject of fundamental importance.
The future credibility of Europe will be staked on the euro and the arrival of the single currency.
The single currency is both a means and an end to make the citizens understand that they form part of a community in which they can travel, buy, move and so on, thanks to the single currency.
The rapporteurs have to face practical problems, and we thank them for their speeches. There are other problems which have not yet emerged and which the single currency will inevitably clarify better in the next few months, if not in the next few weeks.
The euro is a peaceful end-of-century revolution; it is an essential condition for providing a uniform and collective economic system which the European Union has to use as a great means of making its function understood.
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There are practical problems obviously connected with the functioning of the relationship between those circulating the euro and the final user, who is the citizen, particularly as consumer.
It has been recalled by other colleagues that it will be in the banks that the citizens will discover the euro, but particularly in the commercial distribution system. It will be in the shops, supermarkets, restaurants and travel agencies that he will encounter the euro, and he will have to have a commercial contact there - a small businessman, an assistant - prepared to explain, and enable him to understand how the euro operates.
And so we will have to work together to provide information for the consumer and training for business.
In the same way, we should not make the citizens bear any bank charges in switching from national currency to European single currency.
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Finally, we would like to recall several aspects that are connected with the operation of the single currency.
It is in the commercial system that the euro will be most widely circulated and known by the citizen as a consumer.
Business will have to deal with the requests for information on this great monetary innovation in brief, clear, concise terms.
We should therefore enable the small or large trader to provide clear answers, otherwise the cost of introducing the euro will end up becoming disruptive for all parts of the economic system: industry, production and consumer.
What we want to avoid - and indeed must avoid - is that the final cost of introducing the single currency should fall on the consumer alone.
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<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="de Silguy">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the present debate follows on from the last European Council in Luxembourg.
It has been particularly rich: I counted 48 speeches, which I classify as falling into two categories. First, speeches of a general and political nature, raising questions as to the appropriateness of the euro, and second, speeches of a practical nature, in response to the aims of the four reports discussed by yourselves.
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I shall therefore content myself with replying to the practical questions, although I shall make two exceptions, since Mr Caudron and Mrs Torres Marques are right in front of me.
With regard to the Asian crisis mentioned by Mr Caudron, the Commission considered that it should not have any impact on growth other than marginal.
Of course, we must remain vigilant, as we are not crystal-ball gazers.
However, we must note that the foundations of the European economy are still sound.
The euro has already been allowed for by the financial markets and plays its protective role, as testified by the stability of the European monetary system, which dates back several months now, contrary to what happened in 1995.
In my view, the Asian crisis - although developments must of course be closely watched - will not have any effect on the launch of the euro on the scheduled date.
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Mrs Torres Marques raised a question of a general import, which appears to me of considerable value, alluding to a plea laid by German academics before a German court.
It is not the business of the Commission to interfere in a debate on internal policy.
In our countries, every citizen fortunately has the right to seek legal redress before the courts.
But I can assure you that the euro will see the light of day on 1 January 1999.
The decision will be taken on 2 May by the Heads of State and of Government.
This will follow on from a sitting of your parliament, and the decision will be taken on the basis of the strict application of the one or more treaties.
I believe that a majority of Member States should be in a position to participate in the euro on 1 January 1999.
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Having said that, the present debate shows that this House is, quite rightly, concerned with the practical procedures and consequences of the introduction of the euro, and with the proper conduct of economic and monetary union from 1 January 1999 onwards.
Rightly so, because this is the point at which the real problems and the real debate take place.
I shall make every effort to reply briefly to all the problems raised, by successively reviewing the four reports presented to your Parliament.
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Firstly, the Friedrich report on the impact of the introduction of the euro on the financial markets.
Yes, Mr Friedrich, the Commission, like you, considers that the introduction of the euro and the development of a true European capital market should go hand in hand.
That is why we have asked the Giovanini Group to draft a report, resulting in the communication of 2 July last, which you mentioned.
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This document from the Commission examines a number of changes which, in the final analysis, will affect the financial markets, and describes the technical preparations necessary.
These changes should guarantee the transparency and optimum fluidity of the euro markets.
Among the questions raised, I would like to cite the conversion into euros of the commercial paper traded in national currencies, and of market conventions, for example, the calculation of interest due or periods of settlement, as well as benchmark issuances.
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In these fields, regulations are above all a responsibility of the national authorities, and of course depend on the markets as such.
The Commission has drafted recommendations, in response to a request frequently raised by market operators.
Furthermore, if I have understood your rapporteur correctly, this was also his wish.
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The harmonization of capital markets must be carried out by the markets themselves, on the basis of the two regulations on the legal status of the euro adopted in the wake of the European Council in Amsterdam in July.
The operators have already reached a considerable degree of consensus. Here I am in particular thinking about market practices.
Progress has also been made in the field of debt conversion, on the basis of benchmark indices.
In my view, it is now accepted that tradable public debt will be converted at the beginning of January 1999, across all of the euro zone.
That is also the wish of your rapporteur.
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Furthermore, the organizations with responsibility for calculating national benchmark indices have made every arrangement to implement the necessary changes on 1 January 1999.
The European banking associations and the international foreign exchange association are in particular, at this very time, defining the future European money market benchmark index.
This index will I believe be known as Euribor, the European interbanking offered rate.
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Other questions will require further in-depth examination.
I am thinking in particular about investor protection, the regulatory framework on new financial products and the typology of financial institutions.
All these questions will be given an appropriate response in the next few months.
It is very important indeed to create a regulatory framework which will allow for effective market operation.
This is what the Commission is working on at present.
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I now turn to the second report, from Mr Ruffolo, on external aspects of the forthcoming economic and monetary union.
Since the Commission, on 23 April last, put forward a communication on the consequences of the introduction of the euro on the economic and monetary relationships of the Union with third countries, the European Council meeting in Luxembourg in December clarified the procedures for the implementation of the provisions of the Treaty, and here I am thinking of Article 109, relating to exchange rate policy, the definition of the external position of the Union, and the representation of the euro zone.
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As regards the exchange rate policy - and here I take advantage of the situation to respond to questions which have often been raised outside Parliament on this subject - the European Council, by emphasizing the responsibility which will be laid upon the Community due to the introduction of the euro, is insistent on the necessity for full application of the provisions of the Treaty to ensure that, as between the Council and the European Central Bank, there is an exchange of views and information on the euro exchange rate.
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The Commission will provide for the permanent tracking of market developments.
The question will be regularly examined in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy which, from 1 January, will take over from the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs.
On the recommendation of the Commission or of the European Central Bank, the Council may in exceptional circumstances formulate general orientations for exchange rate policy with regard to non-Community currencies, in accordance with Article 109 Paragraph 2 of the Treaty.
Similarly, on a proposition from the Commission, the Council will be required to draw up the Community position on international questions which have a particular bearing on economic and monetary union, pursuant to Article 109, Paragraph 4 of the Treaty.
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I believe the conclusions I have just formulated very broadly answer the question raised by your rapporteur on the interpretation of Article 109.
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After hearing this morning's debate and the opinions from various quarters, I wish only to lay emphasis on two aspects of Mr Ruffolo's report.
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Firstly, with regard to the need for evaluation of the surplus dollar reserves of the European central banking system, I would say that the existence of this surplus has yet to be proven.
At all events, the Commission believes that it is not its responsibility to give instructions to the European Central Bank on the manner in which it is to manage currency reserves, as that could well be perceived as an attempt to limit its independence.

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The second aspect which I would wish to emphasize relates to the particular wish expressed by some of you this morning to fix a benchmark value for the euro to dollar exchange rate. I would remind you that the parity of a currency cannot be decreed.
Of course, there is no question of setting up an over-valued or under-valued currency, Mr Rübig.
What we should work hard to introduce is a stable currency. I agree with Mr Ruffolo's speech, and I also agree with the comments made by Mr Fourçans and Mr Harrison on this point.
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At all events, the Commission considers that the introduction of an exchange rate regime based on bands of fluctuation seems to be more than premature with regard to the current configuration of the international monetary system.
I agree in this respect with Mr Fourçans' comments on target bands.

I believe that current developments in Asia should prompt us to be particularly prudent in this field, and we should never forget that the exchange rate is the result and not the prime object or instrument of economic policy.
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Nobody here this morning, it would seem, raised the representation of the Community at the international level.
I wish nevertheless to say a word about it, because it is an important point. The Heads of State and Government emphasized in Luxembourg that the Commission would be associated with the external representation insofar as this was necessary, so as to enable the Commission to exercise the role assigned to it under the Treaty.
These conclusions of the European Council, in accordance with the wish of your Parliament, confirm the need for a common approach to the euro zone on the question of its representation in international monetary meetings and authorities.
The European monetary union must speak with a single voice. This objective, which in my view has been reaffirmed by the European Council, needs to be translated into reality, by determining on a case-by-case basis the best possible representation of the Community in each of the international bodies, depending on its interests.
This is the work of the next few months, and I can assure you that the Commission has not been idle, and will continue to spare no effort to ensure it has a proper place within the representative bodies - in spite of contrary attempts from certain Member States, I might add.
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The third report is from Mr Stevens, on electronic money and economic and monetary union.
The reflection proposed by Mr Stevens on the concomitance between the emergence of electronic money products and the introduction of the euro is particularly interesting, although I do not share his pessimism.
I would say to Mr Nordmann that it is not possible to shorten the three year forward period between 1999 and 2002. I shall not go into details.
Simply remember that there are seventy-two billion coins to be minted, and twelve or fifteen billion bank notes to be printed.
Materially and physically, we need the time to do this.
<P>
Mr Stevens' thinking appears to me to be very much in line with the current work of the Commission.
It is an observable fact that the development of electronic money is a matter for market choice and, like your rapporteur, the Commission believes that the most important questions are the following ones.
Firstly, there is the question of control and supervision. Mr Scarbonchi emphasized this point and rightly so.
The development of electronic money raises the problem of the scope and procedures for supervision by the competent authorities, particularly with regard to monetary policy.
An appropriate framework for supervision must be defined.
In 1998, the Commission will make a proposal for a directive on this subject.
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Then the question of acceptability is an issue.
It is essential to ensure public understanding and confidence in the new means of payment. Similarly, the stability and integrity of existing systems must be guaranteed.
Then there comes the question of free competition. This principle, which is the basis of the proper operation of the internal market, should also prevail here.
Any potential prerogative, granted on a de facto or de jure basis to an institution of one kind or another with regard to the issuance of currency should be very attentively examined.
There is no question of restricting competition, Mr Watson: it is a question of being clear about the application of competition rules. This will also be the subject of a proposed directive next year.
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Finally, there is the issue of security. The development of electronic commerce and security of payments requires products to be reliable, user friendly, efficient and secure.
In these four fields, as your rapporteur suggested, we need protection against fraud.
Such protection is mentioned in the Commission communication of April 1997 on the European initiative in the field of electronic commerce.
Like your rapporteur, the Commission is in favour of the principle of a regulatory framework for interoperability and stability in the financial system, while also assuring public confidence and guaranteeing the plurality of issuers of electronic money.
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In July 1997, the Commission adopted a recommendation setting out a number of rules in the field of transparency, responsibility, and avenues of legal redress in the context of the relationship between the issuer and the holder of an instrument of payment.
While promoting electronic commerce and the information society, the Commission intends at the beginning of 1998 to draft a proposal for a directive on the issuance of electronic money, which will be a response to the criteria I have just alluded to.
Furthermore, we are thinking about questions relating to fraud and forgery in the field of new means of payment. Some of these questions are delicate.
Discussions are continuing.
They are taking place not only in Europe, but also in the United States and Japan. Having said that, the existence of transparent and reliable electronic money products will undeniably make the move over to the euro easier, and constitutes a positive aspect.
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Finally, the fourth and last report, from Mr Pérez Royo, concerns the euro and the consumer.
Mrs Randzio-Plath, I agree with you: the euro is not a currency for the rich; the euro is not a currency for the financial markets; the euro is a currency for Europeans and for all Europeans.
They must be able to identify with their currency.
This is why the report from Mr Pérez Royo is a useful part of the current work being undertaken on practical aspects of the euro. I would draw particular attention to a twin concern expressed in Mr Pérez Royo's report, regarding consumer information and the risks involved in moving over to the euro, which have been raised very often this morning.
I want you to know that the Commission shares the same concerns as your rapporteur, and that is why it decided to hold a new round table on 26 February, with all the social partners and interested organizations in Parliament, the Commission and the Council, in order to reach a consensus approach to a solution to the problems and positions which are still pending.
<P>
Let us look at the first concern, consumer information. Mr Gallagher, Mr Fitzsimons and Mrs Cardona raised the problems of information campaigns.
These campaigns, which were launched by your Parliament with the Commission, are precisely a response to the concerns raised with regard to satisfying the requirements and requests of consumers, and in these campaigns, all sorts of ideas could be dealt with, such as the telephone lines which you mentioned.
Mr Paasilinna, if nappy manufacturers are as good at selling their wares as is suggested, we could perhaps call them in to rescue us and help us promote the euro! We need to be able to draw on goodwill from every quarter, but, like Mr Hoppenstedt, I believe it is important to underscore the need for trust.
In this respect, your rapporteur has raised three questions: training, education and information.
In addition to its recommendations to national public administrations, the Commission will present the recommendation on the euro and the educational world.
This will, I believe, reassure Mrs Torres Marques. This initiative will indicate to the Member States the type of actions that could undertaken.
<P>
Dual price displays were much mentioned this morning.
Of course this is important, but this is not the only means of consumer information.
Having said that, the Commission has taken note of your suggestion, according to which legislative measures should be taken if voluntary dual price displays were found to be lacking.
Even so, at this stage, I wish to state clearly that we have a preference for a voluntary and non-bureaucratic approach, for the voluntary one is the only one which can take account of the special features of each business sector and retail distribution system.
Of course, there must be no unnecessary disruptive burden on small retailers, due to the imposition on them of costs which might in the final analysis, at least in part, be passed on to consumers, or which might cause consumer confusion.
You should also be aware that at present retailers and banks are intending to use dual price displays, using methods which differ according to the products and technologies used.
<P>
This morning several of you spoke about observatories, whether local or national, and the Commission will examine this proposal, with which there was not unanimous agreement, if Mr Langen's words are anything to go by.
These observatories would track the introduction of the euro from the point of view of price developments, and the provision of proper consumer information.
I nevertheless wish to state that these observatories and their remit lie within the scope of the national legal systems.
Therefore, some care must be taken to ensure that the observatories are compatible with individual Member State structures.
<P>
Finally, I come to your rapporteur's second concern.
This morning many speakers emphasized, many times, the need to keep down to the minimum the costs to the consumer of moving over to the euro.
This is of course the Commission's objective, and we proposed it in May 1995 in our Green Paper.
Consumers should not in any way be adversely affected by the introduction of the euro. I agree with Mr Harrison on this point - and there should be no cost to the consumer with regard to anything which is in the nature of being unavoidable in the move over to the new currency.
<P>
The Commission notes your suggestion of an approach based on legislation for all matters involving the exchange of coins and banknotes, the number of states participating in the transitional period, and the swapping of national banknotes and coins into euros on 1 January 2002.
The Commission has set up a group of experts to study the question of the banking expenses relating to the conversion of home currencies into the euro.
At this stage, while I share the objective of your rapporteur, the group is moving towards a more flexible solution, based on a commitment from the professionals, and particularly on the eventuality of a code of conduct subscribed to by the credit institutions, on the basis of a recommendation of the committee on credit establishments, and which the banks might agree to on a voluntary basis.
However, on all these questions, the approach of the Commission is a pragmatic one.
The players must be offered the possibility of devising the appropriate solutions themselves.
This a principle of devolved responsibility, and it is only if solutions are tardy or are unsatisfactory, that stricter measures should be envisaged.
<P>
Finally, consumer protection was mentioned many times this morning.
With regard to criminal sanctions, I would remind you that there is no European criminal law.
For this reason, the responsibility for sanctions lies essentially with the Member States, even though the third pillar opens up new perspectives in this field.
The two regulations on the legal status of the euro, in the unanimous opinion of the Member States and the competent professionals, offer every necessary guarantee in the field of contract law.
It is now necessary to see to it that transparency and the prohibition of unlawful contractual clauses are assured and, if consumer protection directives have to be adapted, let us do so - which is something I suggested and proposed in October 1996, by the way.
<P>
In conclusion, permit me to say that the Commission is delighted at the active participation of your Parliament in the analysis of the practical consequences of the introduction of the euro and in the search for appropriate solutions for citizens. The Commission will take great account of your ideas and suggestions in its continuing work.
We need to set ourselves the target that, by 2 May, when the Heads of State and Government draw up the list of countries, all European citizens will have had comprehensive information on all the consequences and all the solutions to be brought to the practical problems which they are raising.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Commissioner, I would just like to emphasize again that in the course of this debate all the speakers who have called for dual pricing in the interests of consumer protection have in no way been suggesting that the interests of consumers and the interests of small and medium-sized companies and individual retailers should be played off against each other.
Although we consider it fundamentally important that practical and inexpensive arrangements should be put in place with a minimum of red tape, the Commission also has a duty to protect consumers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Thyssen">
Mr President, I asked the Commissioner a very specific question, and I do not believe I received a reply.
I asked specifically whether the Commissioner is prepared to take an initiative to amend Regulation 1103 of 11 June 1997.
This regulation makes a number of provisions on the introduction of the euro.
It establishes the principle of continuity, but it does leave space for accession contracts which deviate from this principle, for accession contracts which affect continuity.
We have problems with this.
We submitted an amendment to this effect.
Parliament requests that this regulation is amended, and I would be grateful if the Commissioner could tell me if he is prepared to take an initiative in this direction.
I think it is absolutely vital if we want to keep or win the customer's trust.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="de Silguy">
Mr President, I have taken good note of Mrs Randzio-Plath's comment.
I am in agreement with her on the objective and, I hope, on the means to achieve it.
<P>
I would like to respond to Mrs Thyssen.
I believe that today we need to realize that, firstly, the regulations on the legal status of the euro - adopted unanimously - are in my opinion beyond all amendment, as there would be no unanimous position within the Council for any amendment.
<P>
Secondly, I note that there is convergence of opinion from all quarters regarding the satisfactory nature of the regulations, and on the necessary guarantees they offer in terms of continuity of contract.
<P>
Thirdly, Mrs Thyssen, if this raises a problem with regard to unlawful contractual clauses, I believe I have said that I am ready to look into a modification, or an adaptation of the consumer protection directives, in such a way as to ensure the transparency of contracts, and the prohibition of unlawful clauses contained in them.
If you have practical problems, do not hesitate to lay them before us in writing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place today at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Sarlis">
Madam President, I have to say that concerning paragraph 17, the Greek translation contains certain errors which I would ask the Parliamentary services to correct.
The same is true for paragraph 31.
The Greek translation of the text must be corrected.
Consequently paragraph 17 and paragraph 31 require a corrigendum as regards the Greek translation.
<P>
I would also like to make an oral amendment to Article 33 to correct an error there: in paragraph 33 the text that the Members of this House have says: "I remind you that the aforementioned joint agreements between rail companies 'must contain provisions'...' .
I would ask that this be corrected to "must not contain provisions...' .The Committee on Transport and Tourism voted on the text as I am proposing it to you now, that is "must not contain provisions...' . Now the text says "must contain provisions..' , which totally changes the sense of this sentence.
I therefore propose orally that paragraph 33 be amended by adding the word not .
In English it is "must contain' while it should be "must not contain...' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="President">
Mr Sarlis, we have all understood, and in all languages.
Simply, when you say to us that it is just a question of adding a negation, everybody is fully aware of the fact that this totally changes the way we are going to vote.
I would like to know, and Mr Wijsenbeek will certainly enlighten us on this point, whether this is a correction, that is to say, whether what should be submitted to the vote does effectively include the negation, and that therefore the text that we have has no negation simply as a result of an error, or if this is an oral amendment, the aim of which is to introduce the negation, in which case the oral amendment is a very substantial one.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
I am in total agreement with the rapporteur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="President">
Are there any objections to taking into consideration the oral amendment of Mr Sarlis, supported by Mr Wijsenbeek?
<P>
(Parliament accepted the oral amendment)
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Ahlqvist, Theorin and Wibe">
The report embraces the deregulation and liberalization of access to the railway infrastructure.
There is no way that we can support the political line which the report depicts.
Deregulation would adversely affect employment, reduce efficiency, damage 'public service' interests, destroy a supportive division of costs between rural and city consumers, and adversely affect the legal employment position of the personnel concerned.
As Social Democrats, it is totally impossible for us to support such a political alignment of society.
Railway transport is a social service where the profit motive should not be everything.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Bébéar">
The obstacles to the free movement of persons in the European Union have been progressively eliminated.
The move towards the dismantling of borders has accelerated.
<P>
To accompany this irreversible legal process and complete it, we need today to develop an ambitious and high quality policy in the field of rail transport in Europe, for persons and goods.
<P>
Here it is no longer possible to reason on the scale of our national companies, which are often heavily in debt.
<P>
Trans-European networks, branching out as extensively as a nervous system, must be developed on the European scale, in the spirit of Directive 91/440, involving the interconnection of existing networks (including in the Scandinavian countries), the extension of the great axes, transit and access to traffic.
<P>
All this will only be possible in practice if orientations supplementary to the current provisions are defined.
A more flexible management better adapted to customer requirements, with open competition in a free market, must gradually be introduced.
<P>
Unless these measures are rapidly taken, we will not be able to guarantee European citizens the survival of their rail transport, under financial conditions acceptable to the taxpayers.
<P>
I therefore share the conclusions of the European Commission's White Paper, and I approve both the orientations and the provisional timetable for the Sarlis report.
<P>
The introduction of a minimum of competition, in particular for long-distance freight transport, would rebalance the single market, and create the conditions for rail which road already has in its favour.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Bernardini">
With its White Paper on the revitalization of the railways, the European Commission is returning to a philosophy which is dear to its heart: only immediate and unconditional liberalization will ensure the viability of the rail sector.
<P>
We cannot subscribe to such an analysis. Competition must not be an absolute criterion, or an end in itself.
<P>
At the time of the publication of the White Paper, very strong reactions were heard in condemnation of the determined pursuit of free-market objectives by the Commission.
In my view, the report which is submitted to us for our scrutiny has not taken legitimate measure of the concerns of professionals in the rail industry.
<P>
This report recommends liberalization by stages - as has been done in the air sector.
However, this approach is not appropriate.
By forcing the pace of liberalization - even if it is staged - there is a risk of damaging the rail sector rather than revitalizing it.
<P>
The Commission must - in collaboration with the interested parties - undertake an assessment of the application of the basic directive before envisaging its modification along more free-market lines.
<P>
Finally, I am concerned at the absence of provisions relating to the social and labour relations dimension.
In ten years, the sector has lost 500, 000 jobs.
To accept the principle of liberalization, as set out in this report, would only increase job losses.
<P>
For all these reasons, I can only condemn this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Caudron">
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Darras">
As a French socialist, I cannot vote for the Sarlis report, just as I cannot approve the European Commission's proposal.
<P>
Indeed, we grant an essential priority to the development of the railways, particularly for social and ecological reasons, and for reasons of planned use of space.
<P>
That being the case, how can immediate or even staged liberalization be accepted, which would inevitably bring with it its load of redundancies and exclusion?
<P>
This is a purely economic vision, which absolutely fails to take into account the human dimension, and in this respect I cannot accept it.
<P>
The SNCF is just beginning to climb out of the abyss, and this is certainly no time to push it back down again.
<P>
Can we still take the risk of increasing the unemployment figures in Europe?
I am raising the question, but in my view the reply is clearly "no' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Holm">
The report raises several important structural issues relating to railways and transport as a whole within the EU.
It is quite clear that railways must be expanded and improved to be able to meet competition.
There is everything to gain by increasing rail transport in EU countries, in terms of both freight transport and passenger transport.
<P>
On the other hand, I do not think deregulating the market is the best solution to the current problems of rail transport.
Instead I believe that people should put some concrete action into all the empty words about favouring the railways which we are always hearing from the Commission and the Council.
Turn these empty words into action by, among other things, greatly increasing financial support so that railways get as much financial support as roads, and by letting road transport pay for all its costs - including environmental costs - as we in the Green Group have previously proposed.
<P>
Railways are a superior form of transport when you want minimal environmental impact, particularly where freight transport is concerned, and the cost of the railways today would be easily recovered if you included what it costs to restore the environment after all the pollution from road traffic.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Novo">
Despite the alarming loss of jobs on the European railways (around 500, 000 in ten years, one third of total employment in the sector); despite the fundamental role this means of transport may play in the preservation of the environment; despite the loss of importance of the railways, with the increase in options available, with the increase in unfair competition from road transportation and with the lack of investments, at national and Community level, that have made it impossible to improve or renovate infrastructures, that have disregarded management adaptations to the new requirements and allowed the quality of services rendered to decline deliberately; despite indicating the situation and some of these causes, the Commission wants the "strategy to revitalize the European railways' to study and speed up the privatization and liberalization of the sector.
<P>
The Commission does not propose to attack the causes, nor is it thinking of proposing any alternatives.
It is not paying attention to the social consequences of the direction it wishes to take, although it admits that unemployment will get worse.
It is basing its strategy on the enthusiastic support given by the great patronage of the sector, eager for the enormous profits in sight, broadened with the prospect of the Union's expansion eastwards.
It is advocating the immediate amendment of Directive 91/440/EEC, refusing to make the balance, to permit not only an accounting separation between the management of the infrastructures and the management of the transport, but also a legal separation speeding up the privatization of transport operation - the profitable sections of the current railway companies.
It does not wish to reflect on recent experiences of privatization of the railways (in Thatcherite England) where, along with unemployment, no improvements in quality have been recorded and public services have got worse despite the fact that the private companies have received subsidies for their respective implementation.
<P>
The Sarlis report, in turn, limits itself to supporting the strategy of the White Paper.
It does not study or propose alternatives that might pass through an increase in public investment at all levels, an increase in cooperation from the national companies in the establishment and operation of high-speed passes and in an improvement in the quality of the supply.
The Sarlis report limits itself to introducing phasing into the Commission's privatization strategy and advocating further social measures to reduce the disastrous consequences on employment.
<P>
In this context, we can only vote against the report and reject the strategy proposed by the Commission, hoping that it will not be approved by Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Rovsing">
It is satisfying to note that the corresponding committee has succeeded in reaching a sensible and balanced line on the Commission's White Paper on a strategy for an efficient and modern railway system.
It is gratifying that Parliament and the Commission are already united from the outset in wanting to ensure the survival of the railways.
The railways are now on the verge of losing the fight against cars, lorries and buses.
But Europe cannot afford to lose rail as a means of transport, out of consideration for the environment and because of the increased freight transport between the EU, eastern Europe and central Asia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Schlechter">
First, I would like to congratulate Mr Sarlis for his report.
He has put his finger on a number of problems which should prompt reflection by all interested parties.
<P>
It is important to push on with the railways policy inside the European Community, and well beyond.
<P>
It is absolutely necessary to accelerate rail transport if it is wished to develop it as a means of transportation.
For this reason, there are 'freight corridors' , and I am delighted that, for once, some of the European railways have been able to get ahead of the political world, by creating 'freight corridors' .
As we now discuss this report by Mr Sarlis, some of these 'freight corridors' are already operating between Belgium, France, Luxembourg and Italy, with extensions towards Spain, and it should be pointed out that a similar agreement between Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden has been signed.
It should come into force in a few months.
This new approach of collaboration between railways presages well, and I would like to congratulate the managers for their courage.
I hope they will receive the support of governments and also the trade unions.
<P>
I continue to believe that the White Paper on the revitalization of the railways recommends a liberalization which I cannot accept.
When you read that since 1985, 500, 000 jobs have been lost in the railways, and that the intention is to eliminate still more jobs, I think we have reached a point where the railways, till now a very dependable means of transportation, see their safety put at risk.
<P>
On the other hand, I regret that the Commission has limited itself to a sketchy outline of the repercussions of restructuring.
I even believe that the Commission considers these repercussions as a lesser evil, when compared to the possible alternative of continued deterioration in the sector.
Consequently, the Commission passes over in silence the fact that the repercussions risk being very different in the various Member States, as liberalization benefits companies working in environments where the social benefits of the workforce are curtailed.
The result will be a substantial flight of rail business away from the countries where the levels of social and worker protection are high.
<P>
I therefore believe that the Commission should provide for support actions for liberalization in the EU rail sector, with bottom-up harmonization of conditions of competition, and in particular of social and labour conditions.
<P>
In spite of these comments, I shall vote in favour of Mr Sarlis' report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, I am supporting this report today as it can help our railways survive and prosper into the future.
This is vital not only for those who work in the rail sector, but also as part of our efforts to move freight traffic from our congested roads onto more environmentally friendly rail.
<P>
The report strikes a sensible and fair balance between granting free access to railways for companies operating international freight business, and ensuring decent working conditions and training for staff.
<P>
The report is also right to call for equal VAT treatment for all forms of transport, so that rail gets a fair chance to compete for transport business.
<P>
In future we should also ensure that there are connections between the various freight freeways so that a genuine network for international freight can be created.
Our economy, our environment and the jobs of our railway and transport workers can all benefit if we act now to ensure the viability of rail freight business.
<P>
Desama Report (A4-0384/97)
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Caudron">
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Lindqvist">
Space projects should not be carried out if they require the use of nuclear material, if they could involve effects on the climate through the destruction of the ozone layer or problems with waste products in space.
<P>
Friedrich Report(A4-0383/97)
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Ahlqvist, Theorin and Wibe">
Sweden has decided not to join EMU, even though it qualifies for membership.
This is a decision which we support.
The single currency project is an immense gamble being made with the employment, social security and welfare of the citizens as the stake.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Berthu">
The Commission communication on the impact of the introduction of the euro on the capital markets, like the European Parliament's Friedrich report, is somewhat disappointing, as it deals with this vast subject from a rather over-simplifying technical angle. No-one doubts that there will be problems 'redenominating' debt in euro, in ensuring the continuity of benchmark indices, in harmonizing market conventions and in altering the values of securities.
But there is no doubt either that the technicians will be able to solve these problems.
<P>
We would have wished that the documents submitted to us today contained a wider vision of the impact of the introduction of the euro on the capital markets.
It is clear that if the single currency is introduced on schedule, the work of the professionals in the financial industry and in the operation of the capital markets, and the centre of gravity of the financial marketplaces, and the European financial landscape itself, will all be changed.
<P>
Of course, this will not mark year one in a new era of the European management of savers' investment portfolios, as some pretend.
For many years now investors have been diversifying their investments, and OPCVM mutual funds have ensured that diversification is within the grasp of each individual.
Many owners of investment portfolios, even on a limited scale, now own European SICAV mutual funds.
<P>
What is true, on the other hand, is that the introduction of a single currency can be a spur to financial innovation, and make diversification a little easier, by eliminating exchange risks and providing an incentive to the levelling down of legal and tax differences between markers.
For this reason, I was expecting the European Parliament's report to contain, as in the past, glowing demonstrations of the ability of a wider and more liquid capital market to reduce the cost of borrowing, for example.
No such thing!
<P>
If we try to adopt an even broader viewpoint, we are forced to the conclusion that the financial innovations and economies of scale in the management of the capital markets, after the introduction of the euro, will be of little interest if, at the same time, the economy falls to pieces.
That is the real question.
We need to guard against the illusions fostered by the technicians, as reflected in the Commission communication and Parliament's report.
When all is said and done, monetary union will make us more losers, in terms of new rigidities and economic turbulence, than we are gainers, as a result of technical simplification.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling">
From today's report and the subsequent debate it is clear that engineers and economists are working flat out to solve the practical problems caused by the structure of EMU.
This is in spite of the fact that the idea of a single currency is unwanted and very abstract for the people of Europe who are instead concerned about social welfare and the possibility of establishing an environmentally sustainable society.
<P>
The only right thing to do would be to immediately stop the process and instead initiate an in-depth debate with the citizens.
Changing to a single currency is an issue of such magnitude that it should definitely be the subject of a referendum.
<P>
Because the above-mentioned reports concern the - in our opinion - mistaken introduction of a single currency, we cannot vote for them.
<P>
In conclusion, I would like to say that we share the view of the Swedish economist who compared watching the introduction of the single currency with standing on the quay and watching the Titanic sail off into the distance to its fate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted for the report by Mr Friedrich concerning the impact of the introduction of the euro on Europe's capital markets.
When EMU is implemented it will create the third largest stock market after the USA and Japan, which will therefore be a very attractive market for investors both inside and outside the EMU area.
The report mentions that there will be a flourishing share culture as a result of the euro.
The Danish Social Democrats are able to support the report, but point out that Denmark is not taking part in the third phase of economic and monetary union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Lindqvist">
Economic and monetary union is a high-risk project.
The EU is not an optimal currency area, and the economies of the different Member States are far too different to be able to implement a single currency.
The single currency is also more of a political project than an economic one, leading to increased centralization in the direction of an 'EU State' .
There is also a high risk that EMU, with its one-sided preoccupation with fighting inflation, will lead to increased unemployment and increased regional imbalances.
In the accompanying resolution, the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party has said no to participation in EMU.
<P>
Against that background, I have abstained or voted against the four reports on the euro.
<P>
Ruffolo Report (A4-0338/97)
<SPEAKER ID=87 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Madam President, I wish to speak more generally on the problem of the euro at a time when, in a world market, the currency will be regional, and even so not completely regional, as Great Britain at least will not be participating.
In other words, we will be dealing with continental currency, a sort of monetary Anschluß, and I would remind you that, in the case of the Anschluß, there was at least a referendum.
<P>
Currency is rather like Buddhism, it is a small vehicle for the transmission of information.
In this particular case, the euro will be a vehicle for conveying information for a society of 17 million unemployed people, 50 million impoverished people, on an ageing continent which is subservient to the United States. Just look at the World Trade Organization.
How will the euro change the position of the European Union in the world commercial negotiations of the year 2000?
<P>
Basically, Mr de Silguy is a little bit like the Africans: he confuses the symbol and the symbolized.
If you are a consumer of powdered rhinoceros horn, your virility is not thereby improved.
The symbol may be heightened, but not that which is symbolized.
The euro, at root, may in hormonal and media terms prompt a degree of fantasticism. But in economic reality, nothing will change.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Ahlqvist, Theorin and Wibe">
It is interesting to note that this report reinforces our argument in Sweden against joining EMU.
Economic and monetary union is going to lead to increased demand for a more common financial and tax policy.
In paragraph N the report raises the need for a coordination of tax policies, and in paragraph 8 it talks about the harmonization of tax obligations.
<P>
We are convinced that a coordination of the common financial and tax policy would result in the Scandinavian model of universal welfare losing out to the Christian Democrat policy of a low tax burden to provide a 'freedom of choice' which is only going to benefit the well-off in society.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of the report by Mr Ruffolo concerning the external aspects of economic and monetary union.
The report points out the desirability of conducting a monetary policy which moderates long-term interest rates without weakening the demand for price stability.
The rapporteur has stressed that the value of the euro against the currencies of third countries shall correspond to the real intrinsic value.
The Danish Social Democrats support this report, but point out that Denmark is not taking part in the third phase of economic and monetary union.
<P>
Stevens Report (A4-0417/97)
<SPEAKER ID=90 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Madam President, the Stevens report draws our attention to the twin revolution facing the European financial environment in the years ahead.
One of these revolutions, under the control of the authorities, is likely to be the single currency.
The other, and spontaneous, revolution is electronic money. This second revolution, a private enterprise initiative, could rapidly gather pace if it were given an appropriate regulatory framework, as the services it will render in everyday life are great.
A single chip card can make everyday payments in several currencies, and provide a number of other functions.
<P>
In fact, however, the two revolutions are, in the eyes of the European authorities, far too ambitious an undertaking if pursued simultaneously. It was too risky, as they saw it, to fundamentally change citizens' habits, and make so many demands on people as to provoke rejection.
The authorities therefore preferred to concentrate all efforts on the single currency, even at the expense of a delay in the introduction of electronic money.
<P>
This choice appears to be highly regrettable, as the developed countries are at present locked into ferocious competition for leadership in this market.
Europe has a great deal going for it.
It is even at the cutting edge of smart card technology.
But in the absence of mobilization by the authorities, we risk being overtaken by the Americans.
<P>
There is worse to come.
If we had encouraged the development of electronic money, we would have realized that it provides an answer to the many questions that the single currency is intended to solve, notably problems of foreign exchange for people travelling from country to country.
While eliminating the practical difficulties of handling many currencies, including currencies well beyond the euro zone, the electronic purse would ensure the continuing flexibility of national exchange rates, which in our view is indispensable if our economies are to adjust flexibly, which is precisely what the euro is intended to prevent.
<P>
Hence, the single-currency mistake may well delay the revolution in electronic money in Europe, for the sake of a single currency which will, with hindsight, be seen for the illusion it is.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Ahlqvist, Theorin and Wibe">
Since Sweden is not going to participate in the introduction of EMU, we have decided to abstain from voting on this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Cushnahan">
The introduction of the euro will greatly benefit consumers, leading to greater competition and ultimately lower prices for goods and services.
It will also obviate the need for currency transactions and costs.
Greater efficiency in financial transactions will also be inevitable.
<P>
As a consequence, the single currency provides an ideal opportunity for the greater use of electronic transactions and smart cards.
I therefore welcome Mr Stevens' report as a useful contribution as to how a proper regulatory framework can be established to ensure a smooth transfer for the introduction of electronic money on a Europeanwide basis.
<P>
However, it should be acknowledged that despite the benefits of the single currency, some consumers are considerably apprehensive.
The one way to assuage these fears is to ensure in relation to the use of electronic money that the most stringent safeguards exist to prevent fraud and abuse of privacy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted for John Steven's report concerning electronic money in the countries which take part in the third phase of economic and monetary union.
The report deals with the problem of who should have permission to issue payment cards with electronic money within the EMU area.
The view in the report is that institutions other than banks should be able to issue these payment cards, which shall, however, be done according to specific rules which the Commission is being asked to draw up.
The report stresses that the European Central Bank together with the competent authorities should keep a close watch on the electronic money market in Europe. The Danish Social Democrats agree with the above points of view, but point out that Denmark is outside the third phase of economic and monetary union.
<P>
Pérez Royo Report (A4-0415/97)
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Ahlqvist, Theorin and Wibe">
This report does not mention the great risks consumers are being exposed to by a single currency in an area which is not optimal.
<P>
Nor does the report mention the high conversion costs which the introduction of a new currency involves with regard to the conversion of vending machines, computer systems etc.
It is clear that it is the consumers, the citizens, who will have to pay for all this in the form of higher prices and taxes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Berthu">
The Pérez Royo report presents the consumers with a balance sheet of the costs and benefits of the euro, but is short on inspiration.
In practice, the personal benefits are apparent only for persons living on national borders (some 40 million out of around 370 million across Europe) and for people who frequently travel as part of their work.
For others, who go abroad on average once every five or six years, the savings on foreign exchange appear to be of less interest.
The same applies to the 'easy comparison of prices of goods and services in the various Member States' , as the Pérez Royo report puts it.
Although a degree of acceleration in cross-border purchases with the euro can be expected, we should not lose sight of the fact that the financial and other intermediaries are already well acquainted with price differentials between countries, and exploit them insofar as they can.
Finally, the report cites a third advantage: the low interest rates resulting from a sound monetary policy.
On this point, the sales pitch needs to be rewritten, because this benefit, although attractive at the time of Maastricht, seems to be somewhat off the point today, when interest rates have fallen to a very low level.
<P>
Overall, however, the euro will certainly be an incentive to competition, and the consumer, at least initially, should gain.
But it should not be forgotten that, as far as the consumer is concerned, the balance sheet does not stop here.
On the one hand, the consumer is being asked right now to give up his or her national currency, at some personal cost, something which apparently had not always been understood.
On the other hand consumers, who are also producers, and unfortunately sometimes unemployed, wonder what will be the impact of the euro on the overall economy.
On this point, the claims which were so enthusiastically made at the time of Maastricht, when we heard promises of millions of jobs, are being prudently watered down.
Very serious economists are publishing cautions against the risk of disorganization between countries, and increasing unemployment, as a result of the euro.
<P>
It is therefore likely that the closer we are to the switch-over date, the more citizens will raise questions, and the more they will express their qualms.
The difficulties imposed on them by the transition period may well be a focus for all their discontent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Carlotti">
The European Council in Madrid decided in December 1995 on the scenario for the move over to the single currency.
These demands are before us now, as we prepare the citizens of the European Union to the best of our ability.
<P>
As the rapporteur has emphasized, we have every right to expect many benefits from the single currency, and one in particular: increased transparency in the pricing of the various goods and services in the Member States.
This transparency should result in an acceleration of competition, and as we hope, a fall in prices.
On the other hand, consumers who go to another Member State will benefit from the elimination of foreign exchange costs.
<P>
Even so, we must be conscious of the fact that introducing the single currency raises a number of questions about the way it is implemented.
Moving over to the euro will actually result in fundamental changes in the lives of each and every one of the consumers in the Union.
<P>
It is within a context of some scepticism from our fellow citizens that we enter the most delicate phases of the introduction of the single currency.
We must bear in mind the emotion and affection felt for their national currency by citizens in their respective Member States.
<P>
It is fundamentally necessary to ensure that the euro does not, in this period, become a scapegoat for all the evils in our society, and here I am thinking in particular about unemployment.
<P>
The fact that some may, during the transition period, have access to the euro on the financial markets and in the stock market, at a time when other citizens are unable to do so, may give rise to a certain frustration, and the feeling that there is a two-speed currency.
The report before us today lays particular emphasis on the directions we need to go in, and on the measures which are absolutely essential.
<P>
Firstly, emphasis should be placed on the critical components of education and training in all sectors of social life, beginning with schools, universities, consumers' associations, associations of older people, etc.
<P>
Secondly, like the rapporteur, I believe that the dual price display system of the euro alongside national currencies should be introduced as soon as possible in the retail trading environment.
We should accustom our citizens to think in euro terms.
<P>
Thirdly, during the transitional period we need to pay close attention to keeping down expenses related to currency conversion between national currencies.
In this respect my wish is, as has been emphasized by the rapporteur, that the Commission should propose regulations laying down that the conversion of bank notes from national currency into euros should be cost-free for citizens.
<P>
As a symbolic act of unification, the euro requires of us European parliamentarians, more than ever before, to be out in the field, as the advocates of a Europe that is on the move.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Cushnahan">
The report of Mr Perez Royo makes a cogent and convincing case for the introduction of the single currency.
However, the European Parliament does not need to be persuaded on this issue.
It is European citizens at large who need to be informed about the benefits of the euro and we must do more to present the arguments and issues before them.
<P>
I am alarmed at the widespread ignorance and lack of preparation that exists, including in my own country and especially among SMEs.
We must rectify this immediately.
<P>
I agree with Mr Perez Royo's proposals, especially the early introduction of dual pricing in retail outlets and the use of 'dual billing' by major service providers and banks.
<P>
Educational institutions also have a role to play, and I believe we could do much more by way of providing information in our schools and colleges.
<P>
Consumer confidence is vital to the success of the single currency.
However, the message at the moment is that we need to do much more if we are to achieve this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We in the Swedish Left Party have voted against this report.
We are opponents of EMU and the introduction of a single currency.
We think the advantages of EMU for consumers which are being pointed out are greatly exaggerated.
We are also opponents of the EMU propaganda which the EU is conducting through its so-called information campaigns.
EMU is an anti-democratic project whose fate should be decided by the people themselves in referenda.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Fayot">
I thank Mr Pérez Royo for having drawn my attention to the many problems to be encountered by consumers when the euro is introduced.
<P>
For my part, I would wish to comment on two particular aspects.
<P>
The first relates to the expenses borne by euro users from 1 January 1999 onwards.
<P>
We all agree in saying that one of the conditions of the successful move to the single currency is to make sure, as soon as we can, that a maximum number of consumers uses the euro in the first stage, which in practice means having a euro-denominated bank account, using euro cheques, making bank transfers in euros from 1 January 1999.
<P>
In Luxembourg, the banks have announced that the necessary conversions of the Luxembourg franc into euros, and vice versa, will take place free of charge.
This is a good thing.
I do not know what is happening elsewhere, but this example should be followed everywhere.
<P>
Furthermore, from 1999 to 2002, the costs of foreign exchange transactions within the union area should be minimal. At all events, the amount should not exceed current costs.
However, it would be good for euro users to be convinced here and now that the new currency is more advantageous than the old system.
<P>
Finally, it is important to say from now on that the conversion of national fiduciary currency into euros after 1 January 2002 should take place at no cost to users.
<P>
These are the responses which are of interest to the consumer.
Even if the expenses caused by moving over to monetary union are to be borne in one way or another, success in monetary union terms depends on the very widespread exemption of final users from such charges.
<P>
The second aspect which interests me is what Mr Pérez Royo says about the strategy with regard to disadvantaged groups.
<P>
A good third of the population, if not more, is unaffected by advertising campaigns, the Internet or the media.
<P>
Special strategies must be developed for these people.
I welcome in this respect the efforts of the Commission's Directorate-General XXIV, which has introduced pilot projects intended to develop means of information on the euro for people who are highly disadvantaged, often unable to read and who find it difficult to calculate.
For these people, material intended to be read is no solution.
By the way, attention must be paid to provision for such projects in the Commission's budget, no later than 1999.
<P>
The ideas developed by Mr Pérez Royo with regard to the dissemination of information on the euro through direct economic practice are essential.
The principle of getting those who actually use the currency involved in the information exercise, at the grass roots of the economy, is also particularly important.
<P>
After all the political and rather theoretical considerations, we will need to get down to practical considerations, and be as concrete as possible, in order to anchor the euro firmly in everyone's consciousness, and to elaborate a new common monetary culture.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Fourçans">
Overall, I am satisfied with Mr Pérez Royo's report.
It makes a contribution to highlighting the benefits from the introduction of the euro which are directly tangible to consumers.
As our rapporteur states so very rightly, the initial benefits will consist of easier price comparison, thanks to the introduction of the euro, so making consumers' lives easier.
The second advantage will be greater ease of travel throughout the whole of the Union, without the need to go through labourious and, above all, costly foreign exchange transactions.
Finally, the fall in interest rates caused by healthier public finances and by a well-balanced monetary policy will give a vital boost to investment in Europe, which is a source of employment.
<P>
Having said that, for a smooth passage to the euro, consumers need to be properly informed, and in particular prepared to think in euros.
In order to do this, Mr Pérez Royo says that, from the outset of the third phase, that is in less than one year from now, companies should be publishing their pay slips in euros, and banks publishing accounts in the European currency.
Similarly, he wishes a special emphasis to be laid on training in schools.
These are ideas which I share.
On the other hand, I permit myself some reserve with regard to the need, via a directive, to impose the practice of dual price display, because of the cost it may entail for some retail outlets.
Of course, I am of the opinion that dual price display will be necessary, to help citizens adapt smoothly to the new currency.
<P>
In spite of this minor reserve, I shall vote in favour of Mr Pérez Royo's report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of the report by Fernando Pérez Royo concerning the euro and consumers.
The report stresses that the changeover from the national currencies to the euro must not cost the consumers anything.
The rapporteur recommends that the conversion of notes and coins in the national currency into euro notes and coins should be free of charge for the citizens.
The Danish Social Democrats support this point of view, but point out that Denmark is not taking part in the third phase of economic and monetary union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Rovsing">
In spite of Denmark's reservations about EMU's third phase, there is no doubt in my mind that the euro should be welcomed throughout Europe.
There are many small and medium-sized companies, especially in Denmark, which have problems with the uncertainty which trading between different currencies entails.
But, of course, the consumers and citizens of the European Union also need to get used to using the euro.
I therefore agree with the rapporteur when he calls for better transitional arrangements and, for example, recommends that invoices be written in both euros and the national currencies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="President">
That concludes voting time.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 12.53 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Transatlantic relations
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0410/97, by Mr Souchet, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council - Europe and the United States: the way forward (COM(95)0411 - C4-0411/95); -A4-0403/97, by Mrs Mann, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on transatlantic trade and economic relations.
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, European - American relations are a closely knit web of connections woven by history from the time of the original independence of the United States, a web of close connections expressed in a whole series of bilateral and multilateral channels.
<P>
How can these relationships between the European Union, the Member States and the United States be renewed in today's geographical context, which has been radically changed by the disappearance of the Soviet system, so contributing to the definition of a new international order?
This was where our thinking started, taking the communication from the Commission and transatlantic action plans as our starting points.
<P>
A characteristic of the relations between Europe and the United States today is that they are assymetrical, being between two entities which are by nature dissimilar.
In the new post-Cold-War situation, the United States are the only ones with a firm hold on the main levers controlling the development of international relations, and are naturally exposed to the temptation of abusing their dominant position.
<P>
We have reviewed and denounced a number of recent manifestations which are expressions of what is somewhat euphemistically called 'American unilateralism.'
This consists, first, of a very tight determination to exercise leadership in all sectors and geographical areas of foreign policy, beginning with the major problem areas such as Dayton, a striking demonstration of what is at issue, and including the Middle East, Iraq and the Go meeting in Denver.
Europe is invited to attend to the lessons it is being taught, and to foot the bill.
Rapid and determined strides towards unilateralism have also been taken in the field of defence and in the choice of the new and excluded European members of NATO, as well as in the failure to take concrete measures to give body to the European pillar of NATO, in spite of the general commitments made in Berlin.
<P>
In the economic field, there is the de facto maintenance of barriers to the development of trade in practically all sectors, in spite of the general commitments made with regard to the dismantling of the "Buy American' Act.
There was the determination to impose on the Europeans by political pressure the Boeing-McDonnell Douglas merger, tied up with contracts of exclusivity in one form or another, and American food standards in the fields of hormonetreated meat, genetically modified organisms, and the quality of bananas.
<P>
Finally, we have condemned the determination to confer an extraterritorial character on some American legislation, such as the Helms-Burton and Amato-Kennedy Acts, and we have called on the Commission to take the firmest stance possible.
<P>
The relationship is assymmetrical, and it is a relationship between two entities of a different nature.
The European Union is a construction sui generis formed by Member States who maintain very substantial national prerogatives in the field of foreign policy.
The United States sometimes has difficulty and is at odds with these two tiers of decision-making, and remains puzzled by the complexity and delays which are inherent to Community policy stances.
<P>
The United States, for its part, is a classic federal state, marked in terms of its recent institutional practice - and the Europeans should never forget the consequences which arise from federalism, in the conduct and financing of foreign policy - by a weakening of the executive with regard to the legislative power.
<P>
What objectives, therefore, can be assigned to transatlantic dialogue?
<P>
On the political level, the terms of dialogue must be adjusted to take into account the changing nature of the future threats weighing on international stability, and which arise as a result of the opening of borders, the deregulation of international trade and the liberalization of the movement of capital.
A precise inventory of the new priority sectors, where closer and more organized cooperation could be of mutual advantage, should be drawn up as a matter of urgent necessity.
Issues include preserving the environmental, combatting terrorism and serious, organized crime, trafficking in human beings and illegal immigration, trafficking in narcotics and money laundering, the development of Mafia networks and trafficking in fissile materials.
<P>
On the economic and commercial level, the importance of solid transatlantic dialogue hardly needs demonstrating.
In spite of the disparity in economic situation and differences in unemployment levels between the United States and the European Union, the European Union is at present the leading regional partner of the United States in terms of trade and investment - if we exclude the sales of subsidiaries - and the only partner with whom it has a balanced trading relationship.
<P>
The flow of American investments into Europe is also continuing at a very high level.
<P>
With regard to the future, we note with satisfaction the prudence with which the Commission is dealing with the concept of the free trade areas.
The concept of free trade is perhaps not ideally suited to the transatlantic context, as the tariff barriers existing between the United States and Europe are the expression of interests of a social and political importance which is not necessarily commensurate with the economic benefits which would arise from their elimination.
<P>
It appeared to us preferable to give priority to regulatory obstacles to trade and investment.
It also appeared to us to be essential, on the European side, to draft clear negotiating objectives.
The Commission is not always best placed to formulate such objectives, as the priorities are largely dominated by the institutional aspects of free trade.
For this reason, the contribution from the business environment is in our view a critical component of transatlantic dialogue.
Community competence in the field of commercial policy in no way excludes the initiatives of the various capital cities, and of the business environment, prior to negotiations.
<P>
We should not, Mr President, fear to undertake substantial, vigorous, forthright and concrete dialogue with our partners, and we should not limit ourselves to agreed topics, on which consensus is easily obtained, but should deal with delicate matters in a spirit of complete frankness.
It is only on such a condition that the Americans will show any sustainable interest in transatlantic dialogue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="Mann, Erika">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Souchet has already addressed a good many points. He has already pointed out how wide-ranging the Transatlantic Agenda is.
In fact it covers both political and economic issues, it is highly relevant as regards science and cooperation, and it is also relevant to how citizens can cooperate in future, in the same way as employees, the business world and small companies.
It covers a very diverse range.
<P>
We need to be clear that we are not talking about a treaty.
There is no joint treaty between the European Union and the United States, desirable as I would consider that to be.
Nor are we talking about establishing a free trade area.
That is another interesting option, but it is not on the agenda at present, it is considered politically taboo.
We have before us an agreement signed in 1995 by the President-in-Office of the Council at that time, Felipe González, by President Clinton and Mr Santer, and which represents a totally new form of cooperation.
We should recognize this and we should grasp the opportunities it offers, both figuratively and in practice.
<P>
There are also many good reasons to praise the Commission, which has done excellent work in many areas.
However, there are certainly failings as regards political cooperation.
One great handicap we face, and I am amazed that Mr Souchet did not mention this, is that up to now inter-parliamentary cooperation has only been organized according to individual areas of cooperation and coordination.
This cannot be allowed to continue; what we need here is a firm basis for inter-parliamentary cooperation.
This also concerns our cooperation with our American colleagues in Congress.
Alan Donnelly, who is with us today, has really done excellent and innovative work on the role of delegations, but we need a structured system, Mr Bangemann.
I have in mind, for example, how we can cooperate within the framework of international agreements, such as GATT.
But I am also thinking about all the forms of cooperation and coordination which the various Directorates-General have set up by way of agreements with their American colleagues.
I would like to see an annual report presented to us on all the work being done on both sides of the Atlantic, giving us an opportunity to become involved.
In future, I would also like to see the European Parliament having an opportunity to express its opinion before summits, so that our preferred topics find their way onto the agenda.
I think this is very important.
That brings me to another request on our part, a request for involvement in parliamentary and Commission work when mutual recognition agreements are being drawn up.
<P>
So what is actually so new about the New Transatlantic Agenda?
I would like to mention a few points.
It is visionary, by which I mean that it seeks to establish a transatlantic form of cooperation aimed at global objectives rather than simply focusing on a bilateral agenda.
At the same time it is pragmatic, in that for the very first time it gives governments and administrations on both sides of the Atlantic the option of direct cooperation, eye to eye as we say in German.
What is, however, lacking - as I have already said - is the parliamentary counterpart.
<P>
It is designed to be bilateral, but it is geared towards the international calendar, the global agenda.
That means that it is not one-sidedly concerned with coordination, but rather that it is configured to fit in with the GATT calendar, and with the calendar of other international organizations, which is vital.
It provides for close economic and political cooperation, and we have a sort of flagship in the form of the Transatlantic Business Dialogue, which really has achieved excellent preparatory work in policy terms.
But I would like to make a very small criticism of Stuart Eizenstat here - I really do not think the Transatlantic Business Dialogue should be the engine of the new relationship and to some extent assume responsibility for the future formulation of transatlantic relations - that is a job for politicians.
But that is just a small, incidental criticism, and I hope he will agree with me.
<P>
Another point is that for the very first time it will be possible to resolve trade disputes by direct contact.
These tools were not available before, so we used to end up in conflicts without a structured strategy for resolving them.
This alone demonstrates that it is worthwhile developing transatlantic relations despite all the difficulties and differences we have experienced.
<P>
We have the new Transatlantic Market Place as a model.
This is not a free trade area; it is a new concept.
However, I would like to ask the Commission as part of the current study of trade barriers between the EU and the US also to look at a model for the Transatlantic Market Place and to bring a report on this before the European Parliament in the coming year.
<P>
We have created a new instrument in the framework of the Transatlantic Market Place, namely the mutual recognition process, which we are already familiar with from the internal market, where it has proved its worth outstandingly well. We are now transposing it to the transatlantic zone, not without problems - I would not want to pretend otherwise.
Of course there are varying criteria, various safety issues, and various ideas about how health protection standards affecting car safety and so on should be defined.
The fact that we are considering something like this at all and are looking at the possibility of moving closer not through harmonization, but by recognizing differing standards, demonstrates that this is a powerful and important instrument.
We know how important it was in the European internal market as a means of improving market access.
<P>
I am firmly convinced that if we make use of these tools and instruments now available to us, across the board, combined with the preparatory work and cooperation of the European Parliament and our American colleagues, then we will be able to create a sound basis for relations between America and Europe.
We can then move on to discuss how we can also reinforce the political dimension on the European side.
And I am quite sure that we will succeed!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Donner">
Mr President, it is always nice to speak to a big audience.
My short term as a European diplomat in the United States revealed some peculiarities in their relationship to Europe.
Here are some observations.
<P>
US foreign policy is based on the fact that Europe does not speak with one voice and acts even less as one country.
No common European policy exists except in folklore.
US foreign policy does not want a strong European involvement in the Middle East or anywhere else despite some verbal assurances.
On the West Coast of the US where I was stationed, China and the Far East were the primary concerns for the US. Being the only military superpower in the world investing nearly US$ 300 billion yearly in secret and not-so-secret operations, the US wants to retain its military leadership and does not intend to renounce it.
<P>
With regard to the economy one can say the following: American business, having heavily invested in Europe, will welcome the advent of a single currency in Europe.
On the other hand, in the US itself protectionist thinking is still rife.
The US intends to keep its dominance in computer software, audiovisual software, films and TV.
<P>
The European Union maintains a high profile in Washington and New York but, except for occasional visits to the West Coast, there is no presence there.
Hence the amendment to the Souchet report about a West Coast presence.
It seems to me that few Europeans understand the fragmented nature of American society.
Compare Florida, Texas, Alaska, Minnesota and California; they are very different worlds.
<P>
Last but not least, Americans in general have no knowledge whatsoever of the European Union.
I understand that very well after having experienced the sloppy way in which many of the many Union diplomats in Washington manage their tasks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Lambrias">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, there is no doubt that Europe owes much to America.
Nor is there any doubt however that America owes much to Europe.
As both share the basic principles of the free world, they worked together to defend them and to preserve them throughout the long and dangerous period of the Cold War.
<P>
Their relations have not always been honest.
The United States often complained that it was shouldering very heavy burdens without receiving the appropriate understanding.
The countries of Europe often detected a certain arrogance in America's behaviour towards them.
With the ending of the Cold War, bipolarization and the rivalry between the two superpowers, after the earthquake of 1989, the need to free Europe and the United States from what has stood in the way of a more open relationship is becoming more and more insistent.
God help us if the United States, as the only remaining superpower, were to step up what the Europeans - and not just the Europeans - describe as arrogance.
<P>
The arrogance of power had already been denounced, during the Cold War, by a famous American, Senator Fulbright.
And, quite aptly, it was recently invoked in Washington by the President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel. God help us if, on the threshold of a new globalized era, the United States believed it had sole responsibility for the whole world, and a duty to play the role of police constable of international order and security.
Because neither is it legally entitled to do this, nor is it possible for it to act in this way.
Fortunately the signs that emerged from the 1995 Summit Meeting in Madrid between President Clinton, Mr González and Mr Santer were that enhanced cooperation between Europe and the US, rather than rivalry and the crushing of efforts, can strengthen the institutions and the conditions of international law and order to everyone's advantage.
<P>
The report we are debating today, after quite some delay, specifies - perhaps in rather too much detail - the issues on which we will be able to judge the development referred to above: the honesty, reciprocity and parity of European - US relations.
And over and above the smoothing out of the current economic problems in which these contrasts are revealed, it will emphasize the tremendous importance assumed by the general framework which must contain long-term efforts for an honourable understanding, from the other side of the Atlantic as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Malerba">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in the new world geopolitical framework following the fall of the Berlin Wall, relations between the United States and Europe can and should be strengthened.
The United States enjoy world leadership in the four strategic sectors - economy, military power, technological competence and culture in a broad sense, but, both for geographical and for idealogical reasons, their leadership model is based on networks of cooperative and competitive alliances across the world. The alliance with Europe has been and is the strongest and most stable of all, particularly owing to the common foundation values of our societies: the protection of human rights, the model of a free society based on equal opportunities, market economy and free trade.
<P>
It is therefore of interest to the United States that Europe should grow stronger, for example, with the single currency, which is extending eastwards, broadening the area of democracy and market economy. It is in the common interest that the NATO region should expand in line with the expansion of the Union, increasing the undertaking and the European position in the Alliance, and for positive relations to be established between the European Union and the Russian State.
There is therefore a convergence of global interests between the United States and the European Union, which we can try to rebalance in a more united fashion, and which should not encounter obstacles in the bi- or multilateral disputes connected with specific economic interests of the two parties.
For this reason, the draft New Transatlantic Agenda, enriched by Mrs Mann's report, broadly indicates and covers the many sectors in which cooperation needs to be intensified.
<P>
I would now like to mention two particularly topical points, along with cooperation in the traditional sectors (the campaign against organized crime, the settlement of commercial and customs disputes and dialogue between companies).
Firstly, I would point out the commitment to build the information society together, this as yet not wellestablished society that represents our future: the rules on the networks, infrastructures and accesses, standards, intellectual property protection, electronic trading procedures, and rules on investments and cooperation between companies. Secondly, I want to mention the commitment to monetary cooperation between the United States and the European Union, all the more so in the now well-advanced stage of the European single currency, to ensure stability for markets and to reinforce the common prospects of growth and development.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for the second time in two months this Parliament is adopting a resolution about the relationship with the US.
It is extremely important that we remain consistent in the line of our policy with regard to the US.
In its present form, the Souchet report does not contribute to this.
Quite wrongly, the report concentrates one-sidedly on the problems in this relationship. Instead, we should make use of the opportunities for cooperation, and solve differences of opinion in a dialogue, not through threats.
<P>
This Parliament should first and foremost welcome the intensification of the transatlantic relationship. The New Transatlantic Agenda and the joint action plan constitute useful instruments to make this happen.
We must seize the opportunities which these instruments offer.
One voice from both sides of the Atlantic may have a decisive impact.
Where Mr Souchet blames the Americans for the fact that a European security and defence identity does not yet exist, he should really search his own conscience.
Europe itself did not take the opportunity during the Council of Amsterdam.
The Liberals argue for a strengthening of the relationship between this House and the United States Congress on the subject of human rights.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, there is the arms trade.
Now that the British Presidency is developing plans to step up common export regulations concerning arms, we should intensify our dialogue with the US in this area, too.
Arms export policy is an integral component of foreign policy.
Individual attempts from both sides to regulate the arms trade will have more chance of success if they are attuned.
I call on the British Presidency to include this topic in the transatlantic dialogue.
<P>
To conclude, Mr President, the Liberal Group has submitted a fair few amendments, and I hope these amendments will be approved.
Otherwise we will have to withhold our support from the Souchet report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Manisco">
Mr President, the overall clarity, depth of analysis and foresight of these reports on the communication from the Commission on Europe and the United States are such as to overcome some of our initial reservations and objections.
<P>
We cannot but appreciate the pragmatic, critical approach to the growing imbalance in the transatlantic relationship.
The remedy suggested the urgent need to rethink, on more equal terms and on more serviceable parameters, the great design of a properly functioning partnership between Europe and the United States of America: particularly at the present juncture where the dogma of globalization is producing social and economic upheavals; the Asiatic flu is turning into pneumonia for the financial markets of the world and the usual formula of privatizing profits and socializing losses through the International Monetary Fund does not seem to work and presents costs unacceptable not only to Europe but also to the United States Congress.
<P>
The Souchet report should be highly commended for its criticism of some egregious cases of American unilateralism in many fields that are already regulated by international agreements or where cooperation with other partners should have been the order of the day.
The most ominous case is the arbitrary and unilateral decision by Congress, accepted by the Administration, to cancel a large part of United States arrears in financial contributions to the United Nations and to subject its operations to the control of American institutions like the General Accounting Office (GAO).
This is, of course, the work of Senator Jessie Helms of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs.
<P>
The main purpose of the amendments we are presenting is to formulate unequivocal European support for the alternative reform of the United Nations promoted by the Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, to preserve independence in the universal role of the organization as enshrined in its own Charter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, dialogue is certainly one of the most important and finest political tools.
So I can only say how wholeheartedly I support our having the New Transatlantic Agenda on our agenda instead of NATO.
World peace, social justice and economically sustainable development in a world where links are becoming closer every day cannot be achieved by deterrence. Instead, what is needed is careful joint negotiation.
Because of their economic power, the EU and the USA have a special responsibility for wellbeing on this planet.
They are also in a position to take practical initiatives.
<P>
But it is not a question of circumventing international fora such as the WTO and the UN, and thus undermining their credibility.
The Helms-Burton affair is an extremely negative example of what dialogue can entail.
The EU should denounce this example, loud and clear, as an example of the extraterritorial application of national legislation.
<P>
What we need is legal certainty, not the arbitrary use of power.
The EU should also use the NTA to make it clear to the USA, that economic giant, that on issues like bananas or BSE it is not economic growth or the interests of companies that should count, but the health and social welfare of our people.
The WTO, which is without doubt a fruit of the union of the EU and the USA, certainly needs considerable reform in this respect.
The WTO is in urgent need of social and ecological restructuring in view of its new areas of work, and must be made transparent for all members.
<P>
The NTA could do some useful preparatory work in view of the forthcoming ministerial conference.
The NTA should not be a club for major industrialists who dictate the agenda to politicians behind closed doors.
Quite the contrary, it should open up means of transatlantic communication to civil society.
In an era of multinational companies, workers should also be able to communicate, to promote their ideas about education and training, social protection and healthy jobs.
<P>
Erika Mann's report shows which direction we should be heading in, and we shall be supporting it with a clear conscience.
Unfortunately, Mr Souchet's report on external relations does not reflect our views, in particular the parts concerning crisis management and the use of the armed forces, even if the latter are euphemistically described as peace-keeping operations.
<P>
The human rights field could certainly have been given more attention, and not just on the death penalty in the USA.
We hope that the relevant amendment will gain sufficient support here.
Nor can we comprehend why measures such as those taken by the State of Massachusetts to counter human rights abuses in Burma will be prohibited in future - quite the opposite.
State regulation mechanisms relating to human rights must also remain a legal option.
As I have already said, human rights should have priority over business interests.
It is misleading to give the impression that the freedom to choose between 27 different kinds of headache pills is the same thing as the freedom to opt for an affordable health care system with equal and unrestricted access for all.
We shall be abstaining on the Souchet report but very firmly supporting Erika Mann's report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would also like to congratulate Mrs Mann and Mr Souchet for these two very good reports.
I would like to say that personally, I rather agree with Mr Bertens insofar as I rather think - and here I differ somewhat from Mr Lambrias' suggestion - that we owe our American friends a little more than they owe us, at least in the course of the last 40, 50 or 60 years.
I think it is important to remember that.
<P>
I believe - unfortunately I fear this may make my friend Mr Manisco a little more irritated with me than he already is - that we cannot reproach the Americans with their unilateralism.
I believe that, only too frequently, they have found themselves facing important responsibilities alone, and fortunately they were there to do so.
The problem, here again, is that we lack a Europe with the ability to speak with a single voice, a Europe with a single policy. We saw this again with important cases such as the attitude towards the People's Republic of China, where the position which still prevails is the pitting of one European Member State against another, and that is the real problem.

<P>
I would like to hold Mr Souchet to his words quite literally when he says that we should not hesitate to deal with delicate subjects head on.
I believe - and I think that here Mr Manisco will agree with me - that there is one delicate subject which is of great concern to me and at all events to many of my colleagues in this House. This is the question of the death sentence in the United States.
My group has put down two amendments, one to Mr Souchet's report and the other to Mrs Mann's.
The amendment to Mr Souchet's report invites the United States to abolish the death penalty, not that the death penalty is incompatible with democracy - I believe that, and we say in the amendment that it is important to emphasize it - but because the abolition of the death penalty would be an extension of the sphere of fundamental rights, and it would be desirable for our American friends to integrate this into their constitution, which remains an example of democracy.
<P>
I also believe we owe this to ourselves and to our Parliament.
We cannot allow ourselves to make this sort of request only of the so-called poorer countries, the developing countries: we must also have the courage to make such a demand of a great country such as the United States, and I therefore most vigorously invite Mr Souchet to accept this amendment.
<P>
The amendment to Mrs Mann's report is a little more complicated.
There are ten or twelve states in the United States which have abolished the death penalty, and here we would need to go down a more difficult road, namely to favour not only investment by our enterprises, but also the presence of our institutions and of representations from our Member States, and through these representations from our regions, promote cultural and economic relationships with those states which have abolished the death penalty, in order to make others understand that abolition is a matter of importance to us Europeans.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, in 1963 President Kennedy spoke the historic words: "Ich bin ein Berliner!'
They conveyed the flavour of the special relationship between the United States and Europe during the Cold War.
The United States safeguarded the defence of freedom in western Europe.
<P>
This automatic identification with our interests is over, although this is no cause for alarm.
The United States and Europe will continue to be closely involved with each other.
Neither economics nor security can do without American partnership.
In order to optimize the relationship with the United States, the following priorities could be set: the New Transatlantic Agenda, especially the lifting of barriers to trade; harmonization in new areas such as the environment, health and energy; solving trade differences by both the United States and the European Union whilst respecting the WHO pronouncements; and finally, drawing the line against evil regimes, without European countries putting their own trade interests first, with the risk that the European Union and the United States are played off against each other.
<P>
A greater contribution of European nations to the security of our continent is best achieved by transforming the Western European Union into a European pillar within NATO.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Antony">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Souchet is presenting us here with good, balanced work. Its merit is, while keeping to diplomatic forms, to reject the current bond of subservience of our nations with respect to the United States.
This happens infrequently enough in this Parliament for it to be emphasized.
Who, indeed, with the exception of my elected colleagues of the national right, rejects such subservience?
<P>
In France, the self-proclaimed inheritors of General de Gaulle, just as they have rallied to Eurofederalism, now wish to place the French army under US command, at a time when the Soviet threat has disappeared.
They are furthermore followed in this by the communists, who clearly cannot do without foreign supervision.
Thorès and Marchais went to Moscow for their orders.
Hue now goes to Washington.
We, the French patriots, have no trouble distinguishing between the real American nation, among whom we have many friends, and the Government of the United States, which is directed by believers in the ideology of globalization.
<P>
This Government, with, alas, the complicity of our own Governments, intends to lay down a new world order in which nations and families would be crushed, and human beings become objects to be cloned at leisure.
To impose this best of all possible worlds, the United States leaders are ready for anything.
They have been starving the Iraqi people for nigh on eight years, and in reality are doing so to preserve their oil interests.
Similarly, it is hardly surprising that Clinton and his administration are supporting the bureaucratic and supranational Europe, which bends to his every diktat.
This federal Europe of the regions destroys nationhood, and is in tune with the wishes of the supporters of the global economy.
<P>
Of course, the reality of the relationship between the United States and France is not quite that described by François Mitterrand when he said: ' France does not know this, but we are at war with America, a war without fatalities' , and added heavily, ' apparently.'
Those hard words, as reported by Mr Georges Marc Benamou and cited by Arnaud Aaron Upinsky in his remarkable work 'The Ortolan Syndrome' , nevertheless contain a considerable element of truth.
<P>
What are we to do?
Continue the current policy of subjection?
Certainly not.
But to advocate total separation of the United States and Europe would also be a deadly error, a mistake first made by the United States, whose leaders from 1776 onwards have never ceased to want to sever their links with European civilization.
The Monroe doctrine in 1820 forbade the American continent to Europeans.
Then there was the War of Secession in 1863.
Today, in addition to its goods, the US is exporting all its worst aspects into our countries, although the real American people reject them: fast food, rap, ethnic bands, and to sum it up in a word, the 'raptaglang' culture.
<P>
However, the two Americas, North and also South, have for 500 years been linked, willy-nilly, to the European nations by a community of civilizations.
Our peoples were those who created the New World, and in particular the Spaniards and Portuguese in Latin America and the French in Canada.
On the other hand, as Dominique Souchet notes, balance must be re-established in our relationship with America.
This must, of course, be a relationship of equality, but dependent on a balance within America itself.
America has become a world under Anglo-Saxon domination.
However there are other Americas, with whom we must reinforce our links and help them to free themselves from Washington rule. There is a French America, which has been able to keep its identity in Quebec from 1763 onwards, thanks to its faith and vitality.
There is a Latin America. Permit me to say that with our Latin sisters, Spain, Portugal and Italy, France must take the lead in this policy, which is based on both reason and the heart.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Karamanou">
Mr President, the European Parliamentary report on commercial and economic relations between the European Union and the US cannot fail to incite special interest, much more so indeed since it has been elaborated with such great care by our discriminating colleague, Erika Mann.
<P>
It is a fact that the new reality emerging from the globalization of the economy and of politics imposes new ways of working together, multilateral agreements and the strengthening of economic, social and cultural ties between peoples.
From this standpoint, no-one has the right to oppose the bridging of the Atlantic, if indeed there is to be a common perception of viable development and social cohesion, promotion of peace and democracy, equality of the sexes, guarantees of prosperity and security in the world, progress in science and technology, and protection of life and the environment.
<P>
However, our partner on the other side of the Atlantic does not give a good external account of itself, since it is weighed down by a whole host of deeds from the distant and more recent past which demonstrate that it often contravenes international conventions while at the same time seeking and generally obtaining leonine agreements at the expense of less developed countries.
<P>
With great ingenuity on a world-wide scale, the US is still attempting to impose its law and order on third country operations.
I am talking in particular of the extraterritorial Helms-Burton and d'Amato-Kennedy Acts, which find their best implementation in the economic embargo of Cuba, and this in spite of a world-wide outcry and the condemnation of the US by the UN General Assembly.
However, not only is the United States Congress unmoved by these protestations, but on 11 June 1997 it reinforced even more this preposterous web of legislation with eight amendments that were approved by its part-session.
<P>
In addition to the above, it is attempting to dodge the overruling of the commercial policy of the US by the mechanism of the World Trade Organization for the settlement of disputes.
These actions are indicative of the mentality of the US, a mentality which has been recorded in all its international dealings, even with its neighbours, its next-door neighbours, Central and Latin America.
It is clear that the US is accepting and adopting for itself a double system: legislative protection for its own operations and interests, while at the same time demanding respect from others for the rules of competition and the free market.
How can we therefore not be mistrustful of such a partner?
<P>
At a social level the increased polarization caused by the US labour model is driving large sections of the population to become marginalized and the society of the USA, slowly but surely, to become a third-world society.
There has also been another paradox: the rate of unemployment in low-paid work has increased in parallel with the number of those who live below the poverty line.
This is yet another American paradox which we hope will not be exported to Europe as one more transatlantic product among the many which are flooding into the Union.
<P>
There is also the issue of the death penalty. I would like to say that it is impossible for the European Parliament to ask for the abolition of the death penalty in the Gulf States and to vacillate about asking the same of the United States.
<P>
Finally, I would like to say that Parliamentary control should be exercised in matters relating to the relationship between and to cooperation between Europe and the United States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kittelmann">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to thank the two rapporteurs for their reports.
I am delighted at the optimism expressed by Mrs Mann, and I essentially agree with her, so I need not repeat anything there.
<P>
Anyone who complains about the US should be fully aware that annual trade between the European Union and the US is over $250 million.
Just try converting that into jobs!
We are the most important investors in each other's markets, and the European Union and the US have derived the greatest benefit from the liberal world order.
On the other hand, it is clearer with EU-US relations than in any other area of policy that a Common Foreign and Security Policy for the European Union is of momentous importance.
With all due respect to the efforts made by the European Parliament and by the Commission, be it by you, Mr Bangemann, by Sir Leon Brittan or by many others, the importance of European institutions in the foreign policy of the US is only secondary.
<P>
As long as individual EU Member States are competing with each other in the US, and as long as the US has the impression that on matters of substance it is hard for European politicians to speak with one voice on current foreign and security policy, it will be difficult for American politicians to recognize our political will.
Conversely, we have had ample opportunity in recent months to witness the smugness and even arrogance with which the US Congress in particular approaches important decisions on foreign trade policy, without caring a jot about what the rest of the world thinks.
<P>
Helms-Burton-d'Amato is just one example.
But it is not just we Europeans who are shocked by this kind of policy; the US can also pick on Canada, Mexico, South America or anybody else without meeting any resistance worth mentioning.
Since the collapse of communism, the behaviour of the US has become increasingly high-handed, not least because it has become the only remaining long-term world power and automatically assumes responsibility for solving problems, as if it is expected of the US.
<P>
We even call on the Americans for help in solving European problems, because we are so reticent.
We must agree to speak with one voice in future if Europe's interests are to be defended in the numerous transatlantic organizations.
We proved how good this can be at the WTO meeting in Singapore, but by the time we had reached Amsterdam we seemed incapable of finding an answer to foreign trade problems that went beyond the immediate, and instead fell back on tolerance and experience.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, this is one of the options, and Mr Donnelly is pushing for some kind of contact between this Parliament's delegation in the US and the US Congress.
But we really have to ask ourselves if any country or organization has any chance of influencing Congress' foreign and foreign trade policy, if even their own US President has the greatest difficulty in getting his views heard and implemented.
Experts on the US would say that Europeans' greatest mistake in the past was to be too respectful and too quick to compromise in various dealings.
I believe that we should realize that with 370 million consumers and with the interests that the US has in Europe we can take a firmer line than in the past and say quite brutally what our interests are, and not be too hasty to compromise, which gets us nowhere fast.
<P>
The fact remains that the US and Europe are dependent on each other.
The third world, Asia and Africa need us to take a common stance so that we cannot be played off against each other or approach our responsibility for events there differently.
I hope that both the reports before us will contribute to this recognition, that we can undertake much more together than we have in the past, and that the Commission will succeed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Daskalaki">
Mr President, George Washington bequeathed to his countrymen the principle of not allowing anyone to become involved in their internal affairs, and not becoming involved in the affairs of the rest of the world.
This was the famous doctrine of American isolationism from which the Americans emerged for the first time during the First World War, and which they completely abolished with the Second, which resulted in the United States, following the fall of the walls, becoming a world-wide and ubiquitous superpower.
<P>
We have often spoken of the imbalance that exists in Euro-American relations.
It is true that the United States takes the decisions and Europe pays enormous bills.
And not only in regions such as Yugoslavia or the Middle East.
The lack of a common foreign policy and the lack of political security in the Union is, to a large extent, at fault, but it can also be blamed on our inability to establish parity of economic relations with the United States, perhaps because there are such great differences between us.
<P>
These weaknesses are all underlined in Mr Souchet's report, which stresses the need for strengthened and equalranking cooperation, as well as the need for there to be a European identity on security and defence.
There is a proper emphasis on Europe's obligation to express its opposition to the one-sided way in which the new members of NATO were chosen, to the unwillingness of the United States to sign the Ottawa Declaration on landmines, to the undermining of the UN on the part of Congress, to laws such as the Helms-Burton and d'Amato-Kennedy Acts, as well as to the unwillingness of the United States to accept the decisions taken for the protection of the environment.
<P>
The crucial point to which the European Commission is now called upon to address itself is the demand to wipe out this imbalance at all levels of EU-US cooperation, as far as possible of course.
And, if it is unavoidable, at least at this historic conjuncture and until further orders, that the United States must take precedence world-wide - and we do not know what will happen as the next century approaches - at least Europe must at this moment in time be able to have the decisive word in matters concerning its own affairs and play a greater role at a global level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Väyrynen">
Mr President, Mr Suchet's report is in many respects a creditable one, and I agree with much of its content.
The report is, however, less than perfect in that it dwells on the problems we experience in our relations with the US.
For this reason I have drafted, on behalf of the Liberal group, certain motions for amendments, which contain positive and constructive attitudes towards the development of cooperation between the European Union and the US.
<P>
On another note, I would like to mention such cooperation in the Nordic regions.
The US and three EU Member States have been collaborating on the foundation of an Arctic Council, and we are now creating a Nordic dimension to EU policy, in accordance with the Luxembourg Summit resolution.
<P>
The report before us cannot, however, be improved upon in any fruitful way.
That is why I would, finally, like to express the hope that in future reports we endeavour to get to grips with relations between the US and the EU.
The EU and the US together must take the main responsibility for the future of humanity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Ainardi">
Mr President, if there is to be a developing partnership between the United States and the European Union, we have to recognize that in many fields, the Union has acted with angelic sweetness with regard to what must be more properly named the American determination to achieve hegemony.
<P>
As an example, I shall deal with problems involving three sectors.
In the agricultural field, US commercial aggressiveness has not abated one whit, in order to both sell on the global markets at any price, and maintain discriminatory and protectionist measures.
Two recent affairs have demonstrated this: bananas and hormonetreated meat.
The United States have made the World Trade Organization an instrument of the defence of the interests of their companies.
In the audio-visual field, the deficit in the European Union is continuing to worsen, and the United States are increasing their pressure.
This is the case at present with the negotiations of the AMI agreement within the framework of the OECD, which carry with them serious threats against culture in general and the audio-visual world in particular.
That is why our group is insistently demanding, on the one hand, that a true public debate be organized about these AMI negotiations, and that, on the other hand, the fields of audio-visual and intellectual property should be excluded from any possible agreement.
<P>
The final point is the aerospace sector.
After the merger with McDonnell-Douglas, Boeing owns 70 % of the world market.
The guarantees and concessions that the Commission claims to have obtained prior to giving its approval to the merger appear to us to show that we have made a fool's bargain.
Contrary to the commitments given, Delta Airlines is already announcing that it will not give up its exclusive contract with Boeing.
<P>
I shall draw a conclusion from this brief examination.
The European Union must show proof of more firmness.
From this point of view, I am delighted that the report from Mr Souchet, which proposes a rebalancing of relations with the United States, has come down in favour of a legal arrangement for the purpose of better defending European interests.
I also believe that the European Union should take appropriate initiatives from the democratization of international bodies, such as giving a greater role to the General Assembly of the United Nations, and the revision of the WTO mechanisms.
This is a necessity, in my view, in order for social, cultural, health and environmental questions to be taken into account.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="Nicholson">
Mr President, I would first of all like to congratulate the rapporteur on his report.
It has been well thought through, with full regard to the many issues that affect European Union and United States relations.
The collapse of communism in eastern Europe was welcomed by democrats everywhere, not least in western Europe.
We realized that unless international relations were adapted to take account of the situation, it would pose great problems for world stability.
<P>
With the end of the Cold War the established order of European and US relations was bound to change. We are currently going through this change.
At times it is rather difficult.
We should recognize that the goodwill of national governments in the European Union and that of the American administration has ensured that developments have been generally positive.
However, in Europe there remains a perception that the United States continues to dominate the relationship of what should actually be a partnership of equals.
Too often it appears that the US prefers to put self-interest before good relations with the European Union.
This is most obvious in terms of international trade, where we contrast US policy with the determination of other Member States in the European Union to contribute to a fair international trading environment.
<P>
The US can certainly do more to build fair trading conditions.
I would hope that we, along with them, can work in conjunction to achieve that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sichrovsky">
Mr President, as probably the only Member of the European Parliament with dual residence in the US and in Europe, I would like to sound a note of warning about clichés and the arrogant assumption that Americans understand nothing about Europe.
That may once have been true, but it is certainly no longer the case today.
The basis for improved cooperation between the EU and the US is our common interest in economic policy and security.
That means fair competition in the world market on a level playing field, and it implies special responsibility for exchange rate stability between the dollar and the planned euro.
<P>
Poorly planned introduction of European monetary union would result in the dollar extending its present dominant position still further.
The inferiority complex that Europeans feel towards the US, which has repeatedly come through in the various speeches here, cannot be talked away: we can only overcome it by real economic strength and an unambiguous security policy.
As regards linking economic relations with individual countries to their human rights record, we Europeans should not be criticizing this, we should instead join forces with the US.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, George Bernard Shaw once remarked that England and America are two countries divided by a common language.
I increasingly believe that the EU and the US are two political entities divided by a common political and economic system.
Far too often our relationship is characterized by misunderstandings and confusions.
I agree with Mr Donner that this is perhaps more so from the American side than from the EU side.
We saw this during the enlargement debate where the American approach to the speed and nature of EU enlargement, particularly to the role of Turkey in this, was, quite frankly, extremely simplistic.
I was amazed to hear senior American politicians talk blithely about Turkey joining the European Union, as if it was a very simple matter.
I suspect that part of the reason for Turkey's total over-reaction to the conclusions of the Luxembourg Summit was that it has been encouraged by some American politicians, at least, to believe that it would get more out of the European Union.
<P>
It is for this reason that this dialogue is so important.
I would endorse Mrs Erika Mann's remarks about ensuring there is an effective parliamentary element to this dialogue, so that we can make clear to each other exactly where we stand.
This is certainly true of the foreign affairs field where the old certainties of the Cold War are now at an end and have been replaced by a situation of much greater uncertainty and insecurity.
Clearly we need closer cooperation, although that cooperation has to be within an international framework.
Some of today's debate has smacked, quite frankly, of EU-US imperialism. We should be operating in a security situation which is multinational and international, and not simply bilateral.
<P>
Bosnia, more than anything else, showed where things can go wrong, unless we get this relationship right.
It also showed that once we get the relationship right we can actually make considerable progress.
But for that to happen, Europe has got to stop spending so much time developing strong rhetoric and a little bit more time acting in the foreign affairs field.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Brok">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, like many previous speakers I would like to say that transatlantic relations now have to be seen in a new light.
This is generally recognized, but the corresponding conclusions have not always been drawn.
<P>
In this century, transatlantic relations have been notable for the United States of America playing a decisive role in preserving order in Europe.
The question is how the Americans will continue to use their power in Europe and how we can use our own power to become a partner of the US on equal terms.
I consider that the Souchet and Mann reports provide some good starting points.
Things are not as simple as in the past, when the fear of danger in the minds of our two peoples welded together the nations on either side of the Atlantic.
This awareness of danger has dramatically declined since 1990, and there is accordingly now a danger that minor trade policy disputes will escalate to such an emotional level that they could widen the gap between Europe and America.
<P>
For this reason we need to link the great community of values based on the rule of law and on democracy with a renewed community of interests not limited solely to security matters.
That is why I believe that the Transatlantic Agenda, the efforts of the Commission and the American administration and the initiatives that you, Commissioner Bangemann, have kicked off in recent years in the field of commerce and industry, in order to achieve progress towards a Transatlantic Market Place, are all important signs that differences of interest need not lead to a widening of the gap. On the contrary, they demonstrate that in a world based on multilateral trade we see each other as partners on equal terms engaged in fair competition, not as opponents.
<P>
We accordingly need not only to develop our ability to act as equal partners through improvements in foreign and security policy, but we also need the US to understand this.
The use of extraterritorial legislation, as with HelmsBurton or NATO, proves that the United States have still not discovered how to play their role as the sole world power in a fair manner. Indeed, it suggests that they think they can now play a dominant role.
<P>
It is my belief, therefore, that besides trade policy initiatives, we must also seek to strengthen the means available to us at political level, but not as an alternative to NATO.
I believe that the Washington treaty and its provisions must endure, and that we must ensure that all this complements NATO, in accordance with the new, wider powers of the European Union.
And for the same reason I believe we should take advantage of the momentum generated by the Transatlantic Agenda, the Transatlantic Business Dialogue and the development of a Transatlantic Market Place.
We should exploit this momentum in order to enter into an EU-US treaty which binds the US Congress, because only then, if Congress and the entire political machinery in the United States are committed, can we succeed in bringing about such a treaty via a cooperation and consultation mechanism, a treaty that would unite us Europeans and Americans in such a way that we could jointly exercise our values in this world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="Hyland">
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating the rapporteur on producing an excellent report.
<P>
As an Irishman I am mindful of the work carried out by the United States in promoting peace and stability in the world, not least in its support for the peace process in Ireland.
I should like to take this opportunity to commend the work of the United States, and President Clinton in particular, in seeking to resolve the tragic conflict on the island of Ireland.
<P>
I have a particular concern, however, regarding differences in agricultural policy between the European Union and the United States, which have served to put European agriculture and European farmers at a disadvantage.
For example, the European consumer is firmly opposed to the use of hormones in meat production and European agriculture has adopted its practices accordingly.
Similarly, there seems to be more vocal opposition to the use of genetically modified organisms in Europe than in the United States.
There are differences of emphasis on the use of biotechnology in food production also.
<P>
In addition, the common agricultural policy places certain restrictions on production which do not apply to American farmers.
In the context of the application of world trade regulations, I call for greater transparency in the application of these measures.
America always seems to be very well - if not too well - briefed in relation to what is happening in European agriculture, and I am not always sure if we in Europe are aware of what is happening at all times on that side of the Atlantic.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-Van Gorsel">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would first of all like to congratulate Mrs Mann on her excellent report.
For years and years there have been strong ties between the European Union and the United States.
The bilateral economic ties generate the largest trade flows in the world.
In addition, the Union and the United States are each other's biggest investors.
The EU represents 58 % of foreign investments in the United States, and 44 % of American investments are made in the European Union.
On both sides of the Atlantic these investments are worth 3 million jobs.
It is a pity, therefore, that there is so little awareness amongst the European and American people of how crucial our cooperation is for their employment, and thus their prosperity.
American and European citizens should be much better informed on the importance of our trade relations for both economies.
Consultation at government level is essential, but without support amongst the public and their representatives - the United States Congress and the European Parliament - this will not produce any results.
That is why parliamentary control by the European Parliament is so necessary.
<P>
The building of bridges in the context of the New Transatlantic Agenda, as aimed at and already achieved by the Ties project, involves the public directly in transatlantic relations.
The quality of this relationship has great impact on world trade, now and in the future.
<P>
That is why it is extremely important that the Union and the United States settle their differences.
Under no circumstances should the Union accept the extraterritorial operation of US legislation.
<P>
I will make this clear again during the talks with the American Members of Congress next Friday in Brussels.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, of course the different aspects of the relations between the European Union and the United States are not at the same level.
There are aspects such as the commercial or the economic aspects where we can see that the European Union does have a claim. There are aspects such as the environment, where we saw in Kyoto the attempt of the European Union to formulate a separate strategy.
But in central position, in the nucleus of the relations, where we find the political and strategic relations, we can say that the United States is totally dominant and that there also exists American hegemony.
This hegemony is fuelled less by the feeling of power of the United States, by its nuclear arsenal, by its global presence, and much more by the inferiority complex of the European Union which is due to the fact that top-ranking leaders in Europe operate as employees of the United States, by the inability of the European Union to fashion an identity of its own and to formulate a strategy of its own on the basis of which it can have talks with - and not be compared with - the United States.
<P>
I agree with Mr Titley that we have seen this recently mainly over the issue of Turkey. What was the position of the United States with respect to all that happened in Luxembourg?
To insist that Turkey could accede to the European Union in spite of its lack of democracy, which indeed exists.
What was the position of the United States on the important issue of the Kurdish refugees?
Total silence, tolerance and the shielding of Turkey.
What was the position of the United States on Greek-Turkish differences?
The other day we watched in amazement as the representative of the US Government supported the most extreme expansionist ambitions of Turkey in Aegean air space and spoke of Greece's lack of right to a 10 mile air exclusion zone.
I would like to hope that the European Union will have a stronger presence and, Mr President, I think that the absence of the Council in such a serious political matter shows the seriousness with which the European Union takes this issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Mr President, we are discussing the transatlantic agenda, a broad spectrum agenda which was adopted in December 1995, when President Clinton came to Madrid and identified 150 questions in the framework of relations between Europe and the United States.
<P>
These relations are ambiguous ones, like all family relationships.
When one of the members is the poor relation, when it has been defeated, when it has been subjected to the charity of the Marshall Plan, clearly dialogue becomes more difficult, and to such an extent that, to date, the two expressions which best sum up our relationships are 'spontaneous mimesis' and 'imposed war' .
<P>
Mimetic and unilateral alignment by Europe on the United States has taken place in all fields.
We have culled from the United States: violence in society; widespread use of drugs; multi-ethnic suburbs; city centres and their ghettos; an agricultural model based on chemicals; food practices which are giving our adolescents the shape of Boteros statues; procedural pettifogging in lawsuits; the single-track orthodoxy in thought; the moral order; sects, including the sect of ultraliberalism; and class-ridden, ethnic-ridden, lobby-ridden policies - starting with the Prussian lobby surrounding Nixon, the Irish lobby surrounding Kennedy, the firearms lobby, and the lobby of all lobbies, the proIsraeli lobby which is at work in the Middle East and in the Gulf War.
We have even taken up the American flag. The European flag is the Paramount flag, used by the American movie company Paramount, with its stars.
<P>
The second key to our relationship is imposed war.
We had imposed on us the wheat war, the meat war, the cereal substitute war, the banana war, the protein war, the food-weapons war, the aerospace war (with the Comet, the Franco-British Concorde, MacDonnell Douglas and Boeing), the image war in the audio-visual field, the movies, the patents war, the commercial war of the Uruguay Round - all this to such an extent that Agenda 2000 is possibly a good thing, provided we can become adults at last, that is put an end to the infantile disease of the Atlanticism which struck down the Italian, French and Belgian political classes, an example of which is the recent speech by one of our colleagues from the radical party, adopting an Uncle Tom approach.
<P>
We all support balanced relationships, but these should be balanced by setting aside the imperialism of the d'Amato Act, the imperialism of the Helms-Burton Act, without the unilateral taxing practised by the Californian state on our companies, a balance which is free of any ambiguity about Islam and the pro-Islamic nature of the foreign policy of the United States, which sometimes basks in the sun of Allah.
We are in favour of a transatlantic bridge, but it should be a bridgehead.
<P>
Dialogue implies that there be two people, two languages, two verbal approaches.
We first of all need to reconquer our own identity - our cultural, artistic and linguistic personality.
Our civilization is a great civilization, which should enable the United States in the final analysis to avoid the fate which is in store for them, the fate of being the only nation in history to have passed in one century from the stage of non-existence in legal terms into decline, without having gone through the intermediate stage of civilization.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="Donnelly, Alan">
Mr President, I thought this had been a reasonably well-informed and intelligent debate, until I heard the last contribution.
<P>
I would like, particularly, to address the report of Mrs Erika Mann, but to thank both rapporteurs for their work.
I would like to address some comments to the Commission.
<P>
The first thing I would like to say to Mr Bangemann is: I think it would be very helpful if the Commission could provide some information packs for all Members of the European Parliament about the New Transatlantic Agenda.
It was established in 1995 and some of us who are very interested in US-European affairs have followed it very carefully.
But I suspect that many Members of this House do not realize the depth of participation and, indeed, the leadership role that the European Union has played in many of these negotiations.
<P>
Similarly, on the new Transatlantic Business Dialogue that Mrs Mann referred to in her address, it would be very helpful again if, in that pack of information, we set out exactly what has happened and, again, the important leadership role that the European Union is playing in this sphere, too, and the leadership role we played particularly on the mutual recognition agreements.
That would not have been possible without the leadership role of the European Union.
To those people who seem to say that we are slaves of the United States, I say please read the information and understand the crucial role that we are playing in pushing forward this agenda.
<P>
I want to look to the future rather than looking to the past.
We have had a relationship in the past based particularly on security policy.
That will continue with the enlargement of NATO.
But I want to refer to a couple of other issues.
For example, the collapse of the financial markets in the Far East will mean that the stable and balanced trading relationship between Europe and the United States is going to be absolutely pivotal over the next few years.
The Americans, who have perhaps been turning their attention to the Far East - and indeed some investors in the European Union who turned their attention to the Far East - are going to come back and rely very heavily on the stable relationship between the United States and the European Union.
<P>
We should use that as an opportunity for deepening the transatlantic business dialogue and also deepening the investment relationship.
We then have the creation of the euro.
Within about 4 or 5 years, 40 % of all invoicing in world trade will be in the euro.
We need to look at the relationship between the dollar and the euro.
What mechanisms are we going to establish in order to have this relationship?
Let us look to the future and make sure that this is the sort of dialogue we have in the future.
<P>
Regarding Third Pillar issues - fighting drug trafficking, fighting international crime - how can we strengthen the dialogue in that area too?
What suggestions has the Commission to deal with that question?
<P>
I should like to talk briefly about the transatlantic summit meeting.
That is a very special summit meeting that is held twice a year.
We need to find a way of making it even better.
I suggest to the Commission today: please find a way of involving parliamentarians in some dimension of that summit.
There is absolutely no reason why representatives of Congress and the European Parliament should not be involved twice a year in the summit.
If we do that, then it means some of the nonsense that we have had out of Congress on Helms-Burton and the ILSA legislation can be countered because Congress representatives would have to sit at the table and take part in that dialogue.
Let us, in May, invite Members of Congress and of this House to the transatlantic summit meeting in London and make sure this special relationship extends beyond just the Commission, the Council and the administration to involve the legislators, too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="Cushnahan">
Mr President, the end of the Cold War and the growing strength of the European Union inevitably has led to a redefinition of the relationship between ourselves and the United States.
<P>
For historical and cultural reasons there has been a common bond between the United States and Europe, particularly where there was a common foe to fight or a common objective to pursue.
Nowhere is it more true than in the case of my own country where the US has consistently supported the Irish and British Governments in their quest to find a peaceful resolution to the age-old conflict in Northern Ireland.
We in Ireland sincerely appreciate the personal commitment given by President Clinton to the Northern Ireland peace process.
<P>
However, as regards the relationship with Europe in general, it must be acknowledged in all truth that it was a relationship of unequals.
In the past, for perfectly understandable reasons, Europe was overly dependent on the United States and, as a consequence, our independence and freedom to act differently from our US allies was seriously compromised.
<P>
Any future relationship, if it is to be successful, must be based on a genuine partnership between equals, irrespective of whether the joint action is in the field of world security, peace-keeping, crisis management, tackling the international drug barons or combatting terrorism.
It must be joint action jointly agreed on the basis of mutual respect with full consultation.
<P>
The EU cannot simply play the role of a subordinate paymaster.
Furthermore, given the United States policy of reducing its military presence in Europe and other parts of the world, we have to reassess the new European role and responsibility.
We need to develop a European identity in security and defence.
Although a decision on this issue was regrettably avoided in the recent Amsterdam Treaty, we cannot run away from making such a decision for much longer.
<P>
A European defence pillar must be established in the context of the Western European Union which should ensure that we have available in the event of a crisis our own military means of intervention, independent of the stance adopted by the United States.
<P>
Europe must continue to maintain a warm, constructive and cooperative relationship with the United States.
We must proceed to put in place the institutional mechanisms which will copper-fasten this.
However, we must also feel able to pursue the policies which give Europe the freedom to disagree with our US friends in areas, for example, where we must act to protect European Union trade, not least in the field of agriculture; or foreign policy areas - such as our differing views on banning landmines, abolishing capital punishment or the role of the United Nations.
Friends should be able to disagree with one another on the basis of mutual respect, while at one and the same time, working together on global issues such as the preservation of world peace, security and democracy and the protection of human rights.
When we can do that then we will have achieved a true relationship of equals.
<P>
Let me conclude by paying tribute to the two rapporteurs for producing these reports and contributing to this debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, the transatlantic bridge is showing cracks.
The US, as a federal state with one voice towards the outside world, is awaiting what the outcome will be of the institutional reforms in Europe, and what will become of the euro.
That is why it is a good thing that the rapporteurs, Mr Souchet and Mrs Mann, emphasize active interpretation of the Transatlantic Agenda.
It is clear that the contrasts between the old and new world will come up with increasing frequency in the economic and trade areas, especially when the euro appears to be a success, and the adjustment of the Common Agricultural Policy and enlargement are successful.
<P>
The European Parliament resides in Brussels in a building which, in its design, at least to my mind, has clearly been inspired by the Capitol in Washington.
How nice it must be for our American colleagues to be able to have further talks with us in this building about how we can prevent a repeat of extraterritorial legislation.
<P>
Why can we not agree here that before the end of 1998 we will discuss with our American colleagues what the future of SFOR in former Yugoslavia should be, or discuss with them and convince them of the fact that allowing European audio-visual cultural products fits in with free global trade?
<P>
The relations between the United States and Europe still constitute a substantial basis for stability in the world.
This relationship can be developed.
I am in favour of Atlanticism.
Having been born before 1950, I still consider guaranteeing international peace and stability as the most essential element of our relationship.
The Transatlantic Agenda, as worked out in the Souchet and Mann reports, to my mind offers a good opportunity for this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Miranda de Lage">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President of the Commission, the debate on transatlantic relations always contains elements of great political interest.
<P>
As has been shown this evening, giving transatlantic relations a political, economic and commercial framework which will allow the development of cooperation in as many areas as possible needs to be one of our objectives for the near future.
<P>
Nevertheless it is worth remembering, firstly, that the European Union is the foremost commercial power in the world. Secondly, the establishment of the euro should be a stimulus to negotiations on the New Transatlantic Agenda.
Thirdly, against a background of globalization - which will particularly favour the most competitive economies - the European Union cannot forget its obligations to those countries which face difficulties. Nor can it alter its traditional system of bilateral negotiation, cut its cooperation budgets, or shield itself, as the United States does, either as a means of external reprisal or as the result of hypothetical internal pressures.
<P>
We all recognize the important role the United States has played in the defence of democracy.
However, that does not mean that their concept of democracy has always been the same as ours. Their legitimate eagerness to help people gain their freedom has sometimes resulted in unusual laws, claiming national security or external threats as a sacrosanct excuse, and leading (in the case of Cuba for example) to bilateral relations being placed in a delicate situation.
<P>
We have to realize that the European Union has a certain disadvantage compared with the United States when it comes to making decisions in exceptional situations.
It is difficult to implement trade defence mechanisms in response to external pressures, as we have found, but it is not impossible.
<P>
As the European Union becomes more widely seen as a political entity, our negotiating position in the international institutions will become stronger. This will be particularly important in the case of the World Trade Organization, which is the body to which all disputes should be referred, instead of trying to resolve them through the back door, with the Europeans always giving in for the sake of pax americana .
<P>
The European Union cannot give up and cease to play its rightful role as the world's most important commercial power. We should include other - possibly unpleasant - questions in the agenda, such as environmental or social matters.
<P>
Finally, I want to congratulate Mrs Mann for her magnificent piece of work.
And I should like to remind the Commission that, on our part, the New Transatlantic Agenda should also take account of the development of the whole American continent, to which we are bound by a wide range of agreements, of varying importance, which will facilitate the great Atlantic market. The United States is also interested in this, and wants to stimulate it.
What can never be included in this agenda, but has sometimes been suggested, is the supposed distribution of political power, in the form of zones of influence, so that South and Central America becomes yet another area under the clear influence of the United States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
Mr President, having first congratulated the rapporteurs, as my colleagues have done, I want to say that we are all aware of the European Union's real importance on the international stage, and of the inadequacies in this area which the Treaty of Amsterdam has not yet been able to rectify.
<P>
While we in the European Union are discussing our positions in strict and long-winded procedures, the United States is capable of making an overnight decision and summoning the conflicting parties, whether it is a question of Bosnia or, as is due to happen next week, the main players in the Middle East peace process.
<P>
In fact, Mr President, the European Union still provides most of the financial contribution, and most of the overall development aid to the rest of the world - and nobody (or hardly anyone) realizes that we do so. The truth is, we are restricting ourselves to the honorable role of footing the bill for the great dramas of the modern world.
<P>
However, although we are small in political terms, in the economic sphere, when we act in unison, we are the greatest commercial, financial and industrial power on the planet.
And as other speakers have mentioned before me, this role can be increased following the introduction of EMU, with the advantages it will bring.
I think this fact - our economic strength - should be the basis of our relations with the United States. These relations must be put into a global context, with a new perspective on the contested objectives, based on the different form in which today's threats present themselves.
Thanks to the rapporteurs' hard work, the report describes these objectives perfectly, and I agree with the rapporteurs that they are a little vague.
I think it is time for the European Union's diplomacy to stop being purely declarative in nature.
<P>
On the subject of turning words into actions, I want to mention one of the most revealing cases: the Helms-Burton Act.
Showing the utmost warmth and friendship at all times - as befits loyal colleagues - the United States has been relentless in the banana panel and the hormone panel. Let us not be naive.
Let us act with the same determination as they do, because unfortunately where matters of trade are concerned the only language they understand is the exploitation of all the available legal loopholes.
We have the example of certain mergers and concentrations currently being examined by the European Commission's Directorate-General IV: the codes of conduct for the computerized booking systems in the case of American Airlines, or the recent dispute between a major energy company within the European Union and the American giant, Arko.
Friends and colleagues, yes, Mr President, but when it comes to defending our interests, we must be as resolute as they are.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="Cassidy">
Mr President, this is a timely debate because it is at the end of this week that the United States Congress is coming over to Europe for our twice-yearly meetings and a good pair of resolutions, I am sure, will help to give the American Congress some idea of our feelings.
Although I hope they will not take too much notice of some of the rather intemperate remarks that have been made by participants in this debate so far.
<P>
However, I think the Americans will take us slightly less seriously if they read carefully Mr Souchet's resolution, particularly paragraphs 10, 11 and 14 thereof which refer to a bit of legislation of which I had not previously heard called the Amato-Kennedy act.
May I appeal to the rapporteur to put that right in verbal amendments tomorrow when we vote because otherwise the Americans might think that it is some form of new-style cohabitation between Democrats on the one side of the House of Representatives and the Congress and Republicans on the other side.
<P>
Of course cohabitation is not entirely unknown here in the European Parliament.
When references were being made earlier on to hostility on the part of people in the United States towards the European Union, I did not expect to hear quite so much hostility to the United States on behalf of Members of the European Parliament, particularly from Mr Antony who sits behind me and Mrs Ainardi who sits opposite me.
Is this some form of cohabitation à la française I ask myself?
<P>
The dangers that arise from the relationship are ones which have been quite rightly drawn attention to by Mrs Mann in particular.
Those are protectionism, and we are both equally guilty of that, as can be seen by anyone who looks at the reports produced every year by the European office in Washington and by the United States trade representative on European barriers to trade.
<P>
The curious thing about those barriers to trade is that they often complain about the same thing, wine for example.
The Americans complain that we will not allow Californian champagne, Californian claret, Californian sherry and so on to circulate freely here in the European Union - quite right too you might say, because after all these are special names which we all very much cherish.
Then if you read the account of barriers to trade by the European Commission office they say: ' Do you know the Americans have the impertinence to produce Californian champagne and Californian claret etc.?'
It just shows in other words that we are equally guilty of protectionism.
I hope that there will be a sensible conclusion to our debate.
The relationship is vitally important for both sides but, please, a little less arrogance by 'us Europeans' towards 'those Americans' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="Elles">
Mr President, like others I should like to congratulate both our rapporteurs who have contributed excellent documents to this debate.
In making my comments I should first like to look at the historical perspective of this debate.
We have two parallel lines for our relationships with the United States today. The first - the NATO relationship - is based on political security and has the highest profile.
It is the one which preserves US dominance and where there are significant problems as we come to NATO's 50th anniversary: for example how we deal with Bosnia, our relationship with Russia, NATO enlargement and arms industry procurements.
All these are difficult questions.
<P>
It is interesting that the large part of Mr Souchet's report deals with economic matters and although NATO is dealt with in the explanatory memorandum, nothing is said about our approach to it in the future.
Erika Mann's report is much more concerned with the philosophy of partnership, with political and economic matters where the European Union has the capacity to act and where we are, in effect, building a new transatlantic bridge for the twenty-first century.
It is not surprising that those involved in this kind of debate are more optimistic than those involved in the NATO debates.
<P>
Secondly, what are the chances for the New Transatlantic Agenda to succeed?
I would say that they are very high.
We are dealing with issues which affect the political and economic communities on both sides, with the arguments of globalization and with common interests.
The Transatlantic Business Dialogue is moving towards the idea of the new transatlantic marketplace.
The summary by the senior level group given at the EU - US Summit of 5 December is so full of priorities and ideas that I will be surprised if the administrations can make much headway within six months.
There are statements on the Ukraine, climate change, electronic commerce and regulatory cooperation.
It is all to be done and no one quite knows how to do it.
As speakers have said, we shall next be dealing with the monetary dialogue, to try to get a new consensus between domestic and international monetary policies on both sides of the Atlantic.
<P>
Lastly, where do we head to next?
Both EMU and enlargement of the EU and NATO are going to bring a new dimension to transatlantic relations.
Post-Cold War, there is a clear and developing linkage between economic, political and security aspects and policy-making.
Inevitably, therefore, NATO and EU are condemned to have a dialogue even if - as an American ambassador said - they live in the same town but actually on different planets.
<P>
We have to have an effective transatlantic partnership in the twenty-first century based on a coherent institutional framework involving greater parliamentary cooperation and the concept of the new transatlantic marketplace.
Ironically, the more that Europe is capable of bearing its responsibilities, the stronger the transatlantic relationship in the twenty-first century will be.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Konrad">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, 1989/90 was a turning point in world politics.
During the Cold War era, we were concerned with managing the status quo - now we are trying to manage change.
All aspects of transatlantic cooperation are affected by the dynamics of this change.
That is why it is right and proper that we are debating relations between Europe and the US here in the European Parliament today.
There are critical questions to be addressed: for example cooperation on security policy or in the field of foreign trade and the world economy.
<P>
It is both desirable and necessary that Europe should play an independent security policy role.
But it has never been so clear in recent years as in the Balkans how important US participation is.
The US will also need to play an active role in resolving the conflict between Greece and Turkey and the Cyprus situation.
A more effective common foreign and security policy for the EU Member States is also important here in the context of strengthening transatlantic relations.
<P>
We Europeans are also united with the United States by a common interest in open markets and free world trade.
We should work on the assumption that the world can only achieve economic growth and prosperity if we do not revert to the old ways of protectionism and isolate ourselves from each other, but instead open ourselves up to competition and develop our economies in open, competitive markets.
Listening to today's debate, it is obvious that there is no future for Colbert here.
Our weak point is often that Europe is not competitive enough.
<P>
Cultural, spiritual and religious bonds tie America and Europe together in spite of any economic and political tensions.
We should take care to nurture these common roots more carefully in future, because they serve to bind us together and will do so all the more in the future.
<P>
A transatlantic community needs to be based on our community of interest, not our conflicts of interest.
If the western world's societies, and I mean the whole western world, cannot lend each other support based on their varying experience, and tackle the new order of the world economy and world political relations together, then we will be squandering invaluable political, economic, social and cultural energy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are at present witnessing an enormous crisis in the ASEAN states, that is bound to have global consequences.
The question I ask myself is just what rapid action the European Union and America can take in this case.
I believe we need to develop joint mechanisms to stabilize the situation there.
Maybe we can help as quickly as possible with convergence criteria, benchmarking and best practice.
I am afraid that if we do not help speedily, the consequences for us could be dangerous.
<P>
The second point that particularly concerns me about relations between Europe and the United States is that Austria put a very valuable art collection, which belongs to a foundation, at America's disposal.
Now, two pictures from this collection have been unilaterally seized, and I can honestly say that I cannot personally imagine how, if a collection is made available to someone, a collection belonging to a foundation, they can thank you by seizing two important pictures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="Bangemann">
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="Donnelly, Alan">
Mr President, I just wish to say briefly that I realize Commissioner Bangemann could not give a clear response to my request regarding the transatlantic summit meeting.
<P>
I should like to ask that he would at least take the idea back and discuss it with the President of the Commission and the Council, because I see that as one way of changing some of the misunderstandings on both sides of the Atlantic in both legislative bodies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="Bangemann">
As Mr Donnelly has rightly recognized, I cannot at this stage commit the Commission as a whole.
However, I am quite sure that he has touched upon a current problem which needs to be resolved now and, as I said, I have no doubt that the Commission as such and the President will be much more open to that request than maybe was the case in the past.
I will convey the message to the Commission, and Sir Leon Brittan will give you an answer to it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Foodstuffs
<SPEAKER ID=142 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0401/97) by Mr Lannoye, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposals for Council Directives relating to foodstuffs intended for human consumption.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="Lannoye">
Mr President, we shall be debating breakfast products at the wrong time, but I think we are all concerned at the quality of these products. I am sure our debate will be of an equally high quality.
<P>
I would remind you that the Commission's objective, when it presented the five proposed modifications, was to modernize two directives dating back to the 1970s, on the basis of a single principle: specifying only those things which are essential to ensure the free circulation of the products in question, in particular sugar, honey, fruit juice, jellies and preserves, and totally or partially dehydrated preserved milk.
This is certainly a praiseworthy objective, provided consumer interests are seriously taken into consideration.
<P>
The reflection of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection is that substantial amendments are required to the Commission's proposals. In this respect, we have based ourselves on two principles.
The first is to get a dynamic of ever-increasing product quality going. The second is that the consumer has a right to correct information, that is, avoiding any misunderstanding over the name of the products, and the adoption of clear labelling.
<P>
I am putting my finger on a number of gaps or weaknesses in the texts, which have given rise to amendments broadly adopted by the Commission, the overall report having been adopted unanimously.
<P>
The first comment relates to information.
As with chocolate, in the case of fruit juice and preserved milk, we are confronted with a situation of differences in national legislation, particularly as regards the possible addition of vitamins.
As these legislations are different - and should remain so according to the Commission's proposals - consumers will find themselves potentially, in each Member State, faced with two types of slightly different products which are labelled in the same way, or at least given the same name.
We believe this is not acceptable, and the name should be slightly amended, by the addition of the word 'vitaminized' , if that is the case.
<P>
The second comment relates to the quality of products.
There are a number of apparent gaps in the texts, particularly as regards sugars.
Account should be taken of the technical changes which make it possible to reduce the residual content of sulphur dioxide, which is a constituent which is really not desirable in sugar.
It is possible to reduce its content from 15 mg/kg to10 mg/kg, as is confirmed by the industrial manufacturers.
This second comment also relates to fruit juice.
You know that fruit juice can be either unadulterated juice from the pressing of the fruit, or a juice obtained by rehydration after dehydration.
In this case, the quality of the water added to obtain the final product, known as 'rehydrated fruit juice' , should be clearly codified, and this is not the case in the proposal.
An amendment from the Committee on the Environment intends to close this loophole.
Furthermore, as regards the possible addition of sugar to fruit juice, there is cause for surprise that no limit value is stated in the proposal.
That is why the Environment Committee proposes setting down a limit value, which is quite simply not to overstep the sugar concentrations which occur naturally.
<P>
Finally, I insist on a more important point, as this is the matter of a debate which has already stirred this Parliament on a number of occasions - the problem of honey.
In January 1995, Mrs Lulling's report on the quality of honey, and the major problem of imported honey, contained a number of requirements adopted unanimously by Parliament.
I would remind you that half the honey consumed in Europe is imported honey, which therefore comes from outside the European Union, under conditions of quality which are absolutely not guaranteed.
We therefore believe that for imported honey, labelling should be compulsory and not an option left in the hands of the Member States.
Hence, an amendment has been put forward to this end, and the country of origin must be stated.
Also, we believe it is time to define a serious, analytical method for honey, which we still do not have.
Finally, we also believe that the excessively grand term 'baker's honey' should be removed, as it applies to a product which is in fact denatured and would be more appropriately termed 'industrial honey.'
<P>
These are the two main amendments.
<P>
I would like to raise two questions with the Commissioner.
First of all, what does he think about what I consider to be some of the most important amendments - namely Amendments Nos 19 and 28 on honey, and Amendment No 42 on fruit juice?
Secondly, what is his position on the legal basis proposed, in the knowledge that several colleagues from the Group of the European People's Party have put down amendments with the aim of modifying Article 100a?
Personally, this modification is acceptable to me, but all the information at our disposal to date indicates that it is coming up against great hostility from the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="De Coene">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first of all like to congratulate the rapporteur on his - what shall we call it? - fivefold report, and I would like to wish the Commissioner a happy New Year.
We would have liked to have wished him a happy Christmas with reference to the chocolate debate, but we were not fortunate enough to see him.
A little belatedly then: happy New Year.
<P>
The rapporteur has elucidated the most important amendments very thoroughly.
I would like to ask the Commissioner a question in connection with the legal basis.
In our group we were a little surprised, Mrs Schleicher, that these amendments appeared during the discussion in the plenary session.
But do not worry; we are not opposed to these amendments a priori , but we do have a question, because this matter has been dealt with principally by this Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
Both have come to the decisive answer that in these five cases which we are discussing today, the correct legal basis ought to be Article 43.
As individual Members of the European Parliament, as members of Parliamentary committees, or as Parliament, we are obviously always in favour of a procedure which is subject to codecision, as this obviously means that the rights of Parliament are better safeguarded. We believe that as the only democratically elected institution, we are closer to the consumer and therefore better placed, we think, to protect the interests of the consumer.
On the other hand, we should also exercise a little honesty.
We must make sure that such an amendment, if we want to enforce it, is legally on tip-top solid ground, because otherwise we might be doing a bit of window-dressing for ourselves, and deluding ourselves in the process.
<P>
I am under the impression, Mrs Schleicher, Mr Lannoye, ladies and gentlemen, that this problem is like the one concerning Article 43 or Article 100a.
The problem is that Article 43 is not subject to a codecision procedure, and sadly enough, the Treaty of Amsterdam has brought no solace.
Nonetheless we do not want to condemn the amendments.
If we want to go some way with you, then we would like to receive a legally-founded answer to the amendments from our colleagues in the Group of the European People's Party.
<P>
The rapporteur has very clearly explained a number of comments with regard to the amendments.
If you look at the package of the five products, they are not really amendments which have all been inspired by extreme concern for the consumer, protection of the consumer and information for the consumer.
Evidently, this Parliament is not divided over this.
When it concerns the origin of honey products, we definitely think this should be labelled overtly.
If vitamins have to be added, we definitely think this should be labelled overtly.
The cohesion here in this Parliament shows a marked contrast to our lack of cohesion when it comes to chocolate.
Here, the information we should give the consumer is almost unlimited.
When it comes to chocolate, this Parliament is suddenly very modest.
I will keep up the New Year's atmosphere and conclude that in the country of milk and honey we all agree, but the moment we discuss chocolate we become extra bitter.
<P>
My colleague Mrs Graenitz will explain the amendments relating to honey shortly, and for the rest I think we will be able to vote on all amendments in close consultation and in great agreement.
They represent progress.
Let us hope that in addition to the amendments surrounding the legal basis, the Commission will also approve the other amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schleicher">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Lannoye report was adopted in committee by a large majority, and my group supports the amendments before us.
Mr De Coene, you have just reminded us how illogical people can sometimes be.
I think it is human nature not always to be logical.
Nevertheless, I think we should try to proceed logically, and that is why I think we keep encountering a particular fundamental problem more and more often recently. I am referring to the legal basis.
<P>
Article 43 is normally taken as the basis for draft directives concerned with the production and marketing of agricultural products, as listed in Annex II to the EC Treaty, and therefore relates to the achievement of Common Agricultural Policy objectives. Alternatively, there is Article 100a - the codecision procedure.
This legal basis relates to the establishment and functioning of the internal market by approximation of the provisions laid down by law, regulation or administrative action in Member States - that is, harmonization.
<P>
Harmonization directives should guarantee the free movement of the products in question.
The Commission proposal which inspired Mr Lannoye's report is concerned with five products, namely sugar, honey, fruit juices, milk and jam.
These are all pre-processed products derived solely from agricultural products.
Even the milk referred to is condensed or dried milk.
<P>
The Commission has taken Article 43 as the legal basis.
We consider Article 100a to be the correct legal basis, even if things have not always been done this way in the past.
But things have also moved on in terms of legal precedents, not least the amendment of the treaties, and, unfortunately, current events.
Because of the BSE crisis, the Commission has undertaken that in future all legal instruments relating to foodstuffs and health protection should be based on Article 100a of the EC Treaty.
It is therefore very much to the point that the Commission proposal on sugar, honey, fruit juices, milk and jams includes provisions on consumer and health protection, namely labelling, the residual sulphur dioxide content of sugar, packaging, flavouring and vitamin content, water quality in fruit juices, limit values for nitrates, sodium, calcium, and so on, and labelling requirements for fruit juices, milk products and jams with added vitamins.
<P>
The whole area of Community law on foodstuffs is now dealt with under Article 100a of the EC Treaty.
We are therefore requesting in the strongest terms that the correct legal basis should be taken for this Commission proposal, that is Article 100a, and I would like to ask you again, Mr Bangemann, as a representative of the European Commission, whether you will support this European Parliament proposal.
Failing that, I shall request referral back to committee, if the Commission is not yet able to agree.
We are effectively fighting against Article 43 here, and if we are to change our position, we really need some form of reassurance.
We cannot just stand back and see what happens.
That is our request, and I hope the Commission will not only carefully consider it, but will also act consistently, and thus logically, in this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Olsson">
Mr President, I would like to begin by congratulating Mr Lannoye on a good product.
Food is not such a simple matter.
In the proposal from the Commission it says that the directive should be simplified, but simplicity is often opposed to safety.
We know that when markets for all goods grow, especially for food - that is, when food is transported further and further away from the place of production (one of the ideas of the EU and a free market economy is that this should be possible) - something else also happens.
The direct information which in former times was linked to the person who sold the food, the person who produced the food, disappears.
Instead, we buy something without knowing what it is, unless it says on it what it is.
Therefore I believe we must find a balance between simplicity and safety which is more on the side of safety than the proposal which the Commission has put forward.
If we do not do that, we take the risk that consumers will not get sufficient information.
<P>
I would also like to point out something which is in one of the amendments, namely that regardless of whether a product has been produced inside or outside the EU, it should be subject to the same rules, not least in view of the preceding debate we had in this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gahrton">
Mr President, I have requested leave to speak in order to emphasize an extremely important, fundamental element in the report on this food directive, in which the rapporteur gives the Commission a welldeserved rebuff.
It concerns two paragraphs with essentially the same content, in which the Commission wants to establish that 'to avoid creating new barriers to free movement, Member States should refrain from adopting more detailed rules.'
Mr Lannoye, on the other hand, wants to give Member States the right to adopt or keep more detailed rules.
According to Mr Lannoye, it is not necessary for the Commission to approve these kinds of tough rules.
Nor is it necessary to have a number of other limitations contrary to what is said in Article 100a 4 of the EU Treaty, which, through a number of modifications in its new form under the Amsterdam Treaty, has totally lost the character of a so-called environmental guarantee and has shrunk to a kind of limited opportunity for exemption.
But in the Lannoye report something has been drafted which begins to resemble an environmental and health guarantee - that is, a right (not just a possibility) for individual Member States to take a lead in tightening rules aimed at protecting health, the environment and consumer interests.
<P>
I have decided to emphasize this because it is so important.
I hope this important principle will also have an impact on other EU rules.
Certain shared minimum standards are certainly justified, but to forbid Member States from taking a lead and adopting better rules out of consideration for freedom of movement is a manifestation of the worst side of the EU.
I therefore hope Parliament adopts this report and that it also has an effect on the EU's official policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Mr President, among the five vertical directives relating to a whole series of breakfast products, as our rapporteur was saying, I am interested in the directive on honey, not only because France is the leading producer in the European Union, with a production of 25, 000 tonnes, and because there are nearly 80, 000 hives in my own region of Languedoc, but also because of the types of honey we produce. You need to have tasted the honey of the garrigues flavoured with rosemary; the thyme honey from the Larzac plateau; the erica heather honeys; the honeys with their many fragrances, of raspberries, of dandelions; and the honeys from Provence, the Alpilles, from Greece or Spain, which are heavy with the fragrance the hives take up from the flowery pastures, to feel the whole difference of these honeys from the Maoist honeys heavy with the sweat of the gulag slaves or the tears of genocide, or that great leap backwards, the glucose-based honeys.
We therefore need to protect ourselves from this unfair, customs duty-free importation from China, the eastern European countries, Mexico and Canada, and from the unfair competition of false honey based on sweetcorn or syrup.
We need a 'honey' label, for a product which is rooted in the land, a product which is magical in terms of its composition, made up of aster nectar, of flowers, offering health benefits, and showing labels of country of origin. And, Mr President, because honey is an agricultural product, irrespective of the debate on Article 43 or Article 100a, and not an element covered by the single market, it must be protected, our beekeepers must be protected, with premiums per hive, for quality, and for the services they render both to the pollination of plants and to civilization itself.
<P>
I hope, Mr President, that we will return to the 1995 majority of the great party of the bees.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graenitz">
Mr President, Commissioner, over the last few months I have discussed legislation on foodstuffs with people from a wide range of areas and Member States, and have been unable to find anyone who could see why chicory extracts should be covered by a vertical directive with a different legal basis as compared with jams or fruit juices or sugars.
So I think we need to look at the legal basis a lot more closely than just simply saying that these are products derived from primary agricultural products.
Processing is indeed involved and there is also a supra-regional aspect to this, which recently emerged in the debate in committee on added vitamins, and which needs to be examined in much more detail within the Commission.
<P>
I do not think we can allow vitamins to be added to fruit juices or milk products, or even jams, without consumers being given adequate information, nor should there be different arrangements in the individual Member States, because I am sure this has got nothing to do with regional customs or local specialities.
<P>
I would like to make a few more points about honey.
For one thing, we must not forget that honey is a natural food and it should therefore be analysed in the same way throughout the Union. Furthermore, the directive should refer to the fact that honey does not just consist of various sugars, chiefly glucose and fructose.
It is possible to create imitation honey using these two sugars, but it would not be the same honey that bee-keepers get from bees.
Beekeepers' work should be highly rated in the European Union, not only because they are involved with honey production, but also - and I think that Mrs Lulling will have more to say about this - because bee-keepers make an important contribution to preserving nature, and to growing the fruit that we enjoy so much in fruit juices and jams, which would not be possible without bees.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, the European Union pays for expensive two-page advertisements in magazines, in which it extols the virtues of quality honey marked with an EU Member State as its place of origin. The advert features the question: ' Do you treat honey with as much respect as Saint Ambrose did?' .
Saint Ambrose is the patron saint of bee-keepers, because he was a great honey-lover, an archbishop enthusiastic about the industrious activity of bee colonies.
<P>
Unfortunately, in preparing the proposal before us today, which is intended to simplify the directive on honey, the Commission has not followed the advice which it has spent so much money on giving to consumers in its adverts in glossy magazines.
Mr Bangemann, your proposals do not accord honey, a natural product, the respect it deserves.
I am very grateful to the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and its rapporteur, Mr Lannoye, for incorporating in its report the many amendments which I submitted in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
The main thing is that the honey produced in our Member States, a highly nutritious agricultural product, should be protected against lower quality cheap imported honey, and it should therefore most definitely be compulsory to state on the label whether the honey is produced in the Union or in a third country.
Unfortunately, in some Member States there is honey on the market which is up to 80 % adulterated. Furthermore, honey filtering, which destroys genetic fingerprints so that its regional origin can no longer be identified, should be absolutely banned.
We should be listening to the bee-keepers, not the bottling lobby, to make sure that as many bee-keepers as possible are prepared to produce high-quality honey despite the much higher costs involved.
This should also ensure, as I have always preached in my reports on bee-keeping in Europe, that the European Union will have enough bees, which pollinate over 80, 000 different plant varieties.
<P>
I consider it essential that our amendments should be accepted.
They mean that the statement of origin would make it clear that the honey does not just meet a fair number of the quality requirements, but the majority of them.
I have run out of time now and will say the rest when we vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kronberger">
Mr President, whenever we discuss food regulations in this House, we end up having to decide what compromises to agree upon.
No doubt that also applies to national parliaments.
I have the impression that we have forgotten something. I mean, we should remember that for thousands of years humanity managed without chemical additives.
It seems, and the debate here has confirmed this, that we have lost something - respect for food.
I have in mind genetic engineering in particular: it seems that we feel we have to play God.
<P>
The second point is that food production, and above all production of high and superior quality food, is all about jobs - not just in agriculture, but also in retailing.
This applies especially to remote regions with little tourism.
That is why it is important that the Member States should have the option of giving individual regions special designations, and thus apply a higher quality standard than the general European standard prescribed by the Directive.
<P>
It should go without saying that consumers should be able to see all the additives in a product, as well as its geographical origin, both of which must be clearly and unmistakably labelled.
We owe this not only to consumers, but also to those producers who rely on producing quality products which are naturally somewhat more expensive than mass-produced food.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, I think the best way I can thank the rapporteur is to follow his suggestion and comment on the various amendments, as the dossier is so technical that it is very difficult to deal with the philosophical considerations raised in the debate.
<P>
As far as sugars are concerned, Amendments Nos 1 and 4 would reintroduce regulations on the range of prepacks.
We consider these proposals to be unacceptable for the same reason that we rejected the proposal on coffee and chicory extracts which was discussed.
You were recently involved in the conciliation procedure concerning the directive on unit price labelling.
That directive can also be applied to sugar products, so that regulations on the range of pre-packs are no longer needed, as the consumer gets information on the unit price.
<P>
Amendments Nos 7 and 8 seek to reduce the residual sulphur dioxide content in certain sugars from 15 mg/kg to 10 mg/kg of dry matter.
We come up against institutional barriers here, as the 15 mg value proposed by the Commission corresponds to the value stipulated in the general directive on additives based on Article 100a, on which Parliament was accordingly consulted.
Mrs Schleicher will remember this, and as she herself voted for that proposal, I am sure she will warmly welcome my comments!
<P>
Regarding Amendment No 10 on the analysis of sugar, we agree with you that the analysis method, which dates from 1969, is outdated, and that a solution must be found so that newer methods can be used.
<P>
We now come to the proposal on honey.
I am sure Mrs Lulling's comments would greatly please Mr Aigner, whom she probably remembers.
This demonstrates that there is a continuity in the representation of important interests in Parliament.
Mrs Lulling has repeated the same points that Mr Aigner made over the years.
<P>
(Heckling from Mrs Lulling) Yes, but your comments were very impressive.
But I have to tell you that the proposal on honey is chiefly concerned with rules on marketing and labelling these products.
The objective is not to deal with matters concerning the quality of the products, or to take measures in support of bee-keepers.
That is an entirely different set of problems, and has to be dealt with in a different context.
<P>
Several of the amendments proposed are either very technical or concern drafting, and I do not intend to go into these.
However, Amendment No 19 addresses a fundamental question, which Mrs Lulling also raised.
It deals with compulsory labelling of the country of origin of honey, regardless of whether it was produced in the EU or in a third country.
<P>
This amendment is partly acceptable in principle.
The country of origin of honey can be useful information for the consumer.
However, a European Court of Justice ruling means that it is not permissible to make it compulsory to show the country of origin of honey from within the EU.
We must of course comply with the Court of Justice's ruling, as our Community is based on law, and I am sure that Mr Martinez would not argue with that.
On the other hand, I am in favour of the origin of honey from the Les Deux-Sèvres department being correctly labelled, as that is the purest honey that exists.
I do hope that Mr Martinez knows where the Les Deux-Sèvres department is!
<P>
It is for exactly this reason that this kind of labelling was not stipulated in the 1976 directive.
However, the Commission can agree to the addition of information concerning the country of origin of honey from third countries.
We must of course do it in a way that does not conflict with our international obligations, but it is possible.
<P>
I have already said what needs to be said about the analysis method.
That brings us to fruit juices and condensed milk.
The issue here is the labelling of these products where vitamins have been added to them.
We are looking into this at the moment.
On the one hand the body cannot normally absorb excess vitamins at all, but on the other hand there are particular cases where it can cause problems.
So we shall have to see what we can do here.
<P>
That brings us to jams. Amendment No 55 is on the labelling of jams produced from sulphur-treated fruits.
This is information which consumers may find useful.
We can accordingly accept this amendment, and also Amendments Nos 53, 64, 65, 67 and 68, but not No 62.
<P>
That brings us to the vital question of the legal basis.
I have a lot of sympathy for Parliament's position.
Mrs Schleicher has once again pointed to the basic declaration by the President of the Commission.
On any issue where we need to convince the public, it is of course right and proper that Parliament should participate in the decision-making process.
Except that our hands are tied here.
My hands are tied.
As I have already said, I have the greatest sympathy on this point.
However, the entire Commission has agreed, after discussion, upon Article 43 as the legal basis here, and not without good reason.
<P>
I would like to refer to the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
I do not know if you trust them, Mrs Schleicher; more than you trust the Commission, no doubt.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights quite rightly referred to the Court of Justice's ruling, which was not overridden by the Amsterdam Treaty, and which clearly indicates that Article 43 must be applied whenever agricultural products listed in Annex 2 to the Treaty are being dealt with, even if it is a marketing matter.
<P>
That is the permanent ruling of the Court of Justice, and the Commission has accordingly taken this legal provision as the legal basis.
Of course, it is open to Parliament to refer this question back to the committees, if it considers this matter that important.
But I must point out to you, Mrs Schleicher, that you would not solve the problem that way, quite the opposite!
All the improvements which we have proposed would then not be implemented.
However, you must take responsibility for that yourself.
I cannot relieve you of that responsibility.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Question Time (Commission)
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="President">
The next item is questions to the Commission (B4-0001/98).
<P>
As the author is not present, Question No 44 lapses.
<P>
Question No 45 by Clive Needle (H-0988/97)
<P>
Subject: Funding HIV/AIDS therapy in developing countries
<P>
Could the Commission state its position on recent proposals made by a Member State Health Minister at a conference in Côte d'Ivoire in December 1997, to establish a "fund for pharmaceutical drugs for people with HIV/AIDS in developing countries' ?
<P>
Does the Commission agree that such a politically "fashionable' but potentially disastrous idea has no place in the excellent EU policy guidelines on HIV/AIDS in developing countries, which were recently presented to the European Parliament by Commissioner Pinheiro?
<P>
Can the Commission provide Members with a clear guarantee that no EU support to this scheme will be considered without a detailed analysis of its implications and that the outcome of such an analysis should be put before the European Parliament?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="Pinheiro">
Mr President, before answering the question, as this is the first time I have attended Parliament in 1998, allow me to wish all Members a prosperous year.
<P>
The recent proposals submitted by a Member State during the Abidjan Conference on Aids held in December 1997 on setting up a fund to improve access to treatment for persons contaminated with the HIV/Aids virus in developing countries have the merit of starting a discussion on a real problem.
In fact, at the moment there is an obvious lack of justice between taking responsibility for Aids sufferers in northern countries, where anti-retrovirus medicines are available, and, at the other extreme, in the southern countries, where most sufferers do not have access to basic health care.
However, setting up a fund of this type raises a series of very important questions that need to be answered.
<P>
According to the request put forward by the European Council in Luxembourg last December, the Commission's services are going to study ways of setting up a treatment solidarity fund under the aegis of the Aids-UN, intended to combat Aids in the developing countries.
The results of this study should examine the various scenarios possible and the respective consequences, as regards both ethics and fairness, and at technical, economic and financial levels.
I wish to assure the honourable Member that the results of this study will be communicated to the European Parliament.
<P>
I would add that in my opinion setting up a fund of this type raises three fundamental questions.
The first question is that of the size and access to this fund, taking into account the annual cost of treatment for tri-therapy, which is estimated at $10, 000 - $20, 000.
The choice of sufferers inevitably raises ethical problems and problems of not discriminating between persons contaminated by the Aids virus.
<P>
A second question relates to the ways of gaining access to the treatment, to the extent that there is a real danger in setting up a parallel system aimed solely at Aids sufferers, which would be ineffective and onerous at the same time, and could prove counterproductive for other sufferers with malaria, tuberculosis, measles, and so on.
<P>
The third question to be answered is the fact that the long-term efficacy of anti-retrovirus medicines has not yet been fully proven.
Beyond that, the necessary accompanying measures for anti-retrovirus therapy still do not exist in most African countries, such as the provision of laboratories and training for medical and paramedical staff.
<P>
For all these reasons, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we await this study that the Commission is going to undertake with some prudence as to the conclusions that might be drawn.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="Needle">
Thank you very much, Mr President, and can I join Commissioner Pinheiro in wishing you and he both a happy New Year.
Can I also thank the Commissioner for what was a very good and full response to that question which went a long way towards meeting the reasons for which it was tabled.
There is concern amongst non-governmental organizations as well as several Members, and we will be partially reassured by your answer about the study.
We certainly look forward to the report returning to Parliament.
<P>
I think you are right to be cautious about sudden initiatives of this sort however worthy or well-intentioned and however massive we all know the scale of the problems are.
Can I just briefly ask you: would you further agree that the question here is not whether people in developing countries should have equal access to HIV/Aids treatment as people in developed countries - everybody agrees that is necessary - but how to achieve that end?
As it stands, the vertical approach in favour of people with Aids as proposed by one of our Member States could seriously jeopardize existing public health systems by creating parallel systems.
That would arguably benefit developed world pharmaceutical companies and shift the emphasis from prevention to treatment.
I wonder, do you see that as being something that the study will give us a clear response on?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="Pinheiro">
I would just like to stress that broadly speaking the Commission always suggests in regard to the health sector or the health situation in developing countries that we should strive for what we call a horizontal approach.
We try to reinforce the system itself, the training of doctors and other health personnel, to try to develop a flow of medicaments based on the ownership of the country, and so on and so forth.
Perhaps HIV/Aids is the only exception to this approach, mainly because of its relationship with certain types of behaviour.
A recent study undertaken by the Commission, the United Nations and the World Bank found a clear correlation between sexually-transmitted diseases and the transmission of the HIV virus.
That means that education and prevention are perhaps the best way in which to try to reduce the incidence of the disease, at least in Africa.
<P>
For all these reasons, we hope that the study which the Commission will undertake together with experts from the Member States and other countries that might help us will be of great assistance either to formulate a new strategy or to confirm the one we have been following.
One thing is certain: if you take into account the current costs of treating a patient of $10, 000 - $20, 000 this would mean, if I am not mistaken, something like over $100 million per year just for this which is obviously outside our capacity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 NAME="Smith">
Thank you Commissioner for your response, and a happy New Year to you in the eleven working languages of the European Union.
First of all, can I say that both Mr Needle and myself submitted similar questions to the Council and the Council grouped them together.
It is strange that the Commission has not done the same.
However, coming back to this fund, Commissioner, if such a fund were to be established, would it be new money?
Because if it is not new money then it is difficult to imagine how it could possibly function without displacing existing funding to equally essential projects.
I would certainly look forward to the study and I hope that it will address this point.
Can you tell me, will it be new money if such a fund is established?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="Pinheiro">
As far as I know, the fresh money would come from Member States since the Commission budget is well defined, and unless the Members of this House decide that we should have extra funds, there will be no new money available.
At any rate, responses from political leaders in the Member States indicate that they are prepared to put some new money into this fund.
However, at this stage I think it is premature to draw conclusions on whether the fund will be established, its dimensions and the way in which it would function.
I tried to say this in my answer to Mr Needle.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 NAME="President">
Question No 46 by John Cushnahan (H-1018/97)
<P>
Subject: Single market
<P>
What measures is the Commission considering to ensure that there is no further disruption of the single market in light of the recent Court of Justice ruling against the French Government and the recent beef blockade of UK ports?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 NAME="Pinheiro">
Mr President, on 18 November the Commission adopted a draft Council regulation that established a mechanism for Commission intervention to abolish certain obstacles to trade.
This draft answers a request made by the European Council in Amsterdam last June, recording its conclusions on the action plan for the single market.
<P>
This draft also answers the concern expressed by the honourable Member in his question as to the follow-up the Commission intends to give to the judgment passed by the Court of Justice on 9 December in the Commission vs. France proceedings.
According to the proposed intervention mechanism, the Commission will ask the Member State in question, by means of a decision, to take the necessary measures to end an obvious, classified and unjustified obstruction to the acceptance of Articles 30 and 36 of the Treaty, seriously hampering the freedom of movement of goods in the internal market.
<P>
I would add that, based on past experience, the cases most representative of this situation might be, for example: the untimely and unjustified prohibition of importing products from other Member States; measures establishing or restoring import formalities, such as licences or technical approvals; destruction of large quantities of products from other Member States, for example, on the roads, in shopping centres or in warehouses; or even the immobilization of products by not permitting access to the national territory or movement within it, for example, blockading means of transport at the borders, on the motorways, or at the ports or airports.
<P>
By making a decision, if Council approves this regulation, Commission intervention gives binding power and has immediate effects on the legal system of the Member State in question, enabling individuals with grievances immediately to assert the rights they feel they are being denied.
That, Mr President, is the answer I would like to give the honourable Member.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="Cushnahan">
I should like to respond to the Commissioner's good wishes by wishing him and his colleagues, especially my Irish colleague, Commissioner Flynn and the President of Parliament a happy New Year.
<P>
I think you would acknowledge, Commissioner, that the Court of Justice decision against the French Government was a landmark decision which will help you pursue the policy you agreed at the Amsterdam Summit.
I want to ask you a number of questions relating to that.
First, can we have an assurance that when there is any further disruption to the single market, the Commission will act urgently and swiftly to ensure that Member States discharge their obligations to ensure that the single market is not disrupted.
<P>
Secondly, what action did the Commission take in making its views known to the UK Government regarding the recent illegal blockade of UK ports which affected Irish farmers, hauliers and exporters? Thirdly, what action will the Commission take to ensure that compensation will be forthcoming to Irish farmers, hauliers and exporters who suffered a great deal because of this illegal action?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="Pinheiro">
With regard to whether the Commission will act swiftly, that is the objective of the regulation we propose.
If we were to follow traditional procedures, it would take such a long time that some foodstuffs would be totally lost.
With regard to events that have occurred in the past, I should like to differentiate between two situations.
The first is where there is a blockade but where the Member State does its utmost to eliminate the blockade.
Then there is no need for the Commission to act.
The second is when there is difficulty in fulfilling the terms of the single market due either to the failure of a government to act or to the deliberate action of a government.
It is in the latter type of case that the Commission acts
<P>
With regard to compensation, it is implicit in what I said that compensation should be applied for by private individuals who feel their goods have been destroyed, or whatever.
Thus - if the Council approves our proposal - the fact that a decision has been taken will allow private interests to be directly sustained in court.
It will enter into immediate legal effect in the Member State concerned.
So, compensation is not a matter for the Commission but for the competent authorities in a Member State, and it is they who are required to act.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, the proposal for this directive the Commission has drafted has raised some eyebrows in Finland, because it is seen as restricting workers' right to strike.
The issue here is not only making the common market work perfectly, but also the right of the citizen to strike, which is held as sacred in my country, Finland.
<P>
I would respectfully ask the Commission this question: are you endeavouring to have a person's right to strike eclipsed by the needs of the common market, and do you intend to do so without consulting the trade union movement and in total disregard for the tripartite system - as we call it - of industrial negotiations?
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<SPEAKER ID=165 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Pinheiro">
Mr President, I would like to say that, for the Commission too, the right to strike is inalienable and that under no circumstances could the Commission permit any exception to a fundamental right held by the workers in a democratic state, on account of the single market.
For that reason, I can specifically say that under no circumstances will the right to strike be affected by this regulation, or any other regulation derived from it, for similar reasons.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="President">
Question No 47 by Nikitas Kaklamanis (H-0977/97)
<P>
Subject: Blood transfusions
<P>
According to press reports throughout Europe, there are fundamental suspicions that Creutzfeld-Jakob disease affecting humans is transmitted through blood and blood products.
<P>
Will the Commission say whether the Member States test blood used for transfusions and which Member States carry out those tests?
<P>
Will the Commission immediately propose the compulsory testing of blood to be used in transfusions in all the Member States?
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<SPEAKER ID=167 NAME="Flynn">
Before I specifically address the issue of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), I want to inform the honourable Member that Member States do screen blood and plasma for a variety of pathogens.
A recent survey conducted by the Commission on the regulation and practices in the Member States of the European Community as regards the suitability of blood and plasma donors and the screening of their donations confirms that all Member States routinely screen for antibodies against the hepatitis C virus, the human immunodeficiency virus type I and II and the surface antigen of hepatitis B virus.
<P>
With regard to the increased concern that blood and blood products may transmit the agent responsible for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a distinction first has to be made between classical or sporadic CJD and the new variant of this disease, nvCJD, which has been strongly associated with BSE.
From studies so far undertaken, especially in the United Kingdom and the United States, there is no evidence of transmission to patients of the agent responsible for classical or sporadic CJD by blood or blood products.
The advice that has been given to the Commission from the relevant scientific committees, in particular the Committee for Proprietary Medicinal Products, on the risk of these forms of CJD, is that there are no specific grounds for possible recall or quarantine of batches of plasma-derived products.
However, this issue will be re-evaluated at regular intervals, depending on the availability of epidemiological data and their scientific evaluation.
<P>
As regards nvCJD, there are indeed concerns that a new and additional risk may be posed by blood and blood products prepared from donations from infected donors.
Because of these concerns and as a precautionary measure, the CPMP has advised that batches of plasma-derived medicinal products should be withdrawn from the market when a donor to a plasma pool subsequently has been confirmed diagnosed as nvCJD.
<P>
Member States are already in the process of complying with this advice.
The United Kingdom also follows the advice of its Spongiform Encephalopathy Committee in this respect.
Moreover, a rapid alert defective product recall procedure is in place in the Community.
In the United Kingdom a risk assessment has been initiated to ascertain the possible transmission of nvCJD through blood transfusion.
This is being carried out in parallel with an appraisal of the operational and scientific aspects of introducing leucodepletion removal of the white blood cells.
<P>
With regard to the compulsory testing of blood for nvCJD, I am sure that the honourable Member is aware that at present no screening test exists.
Scientists and industry are currently working to develop such screening and diagnostic tests.
Members of the European Parliament will be interested to learn that an ad hoc specialist workshop on nvCJD will be held on 15 January under the auspices of the CPMP.
This workshop, which will bring together experts in this area, will focus on the infectivity distribution between new variant and classical CJD, the risk of transmission by blood and blood fractions, a review of the published and ongoing work, and the identification of any new studies required.
A report of the meeting will be forthcoming.
<P>
The Commission is seeking advice from the Scientific Steering Committee and the Scientific Committee for Medicinal Products, and has already presented a proposal for a Council recommendation on the suitability of blood and plasma donors and the screening of donated blood in the European Community, which seeks to establish a requirement of permanent deferral for persons in whose family CJD has occurred.
<P>
In the light of the results of ongoing evaluations and assessments and the advice received, the Commission will give consideration to proposing measures specific to nvCJD, concerning blood and plasma as source materials for medicinal products.
As regards blood for transfusion, however, there is, at present, no legal basis on which binding requirements can be laid down at Community level.
I hope that this unsatisfactory situation will change with the coming into force of the Amsterdam Treaty and Article 152, in particular.
<P>
I am sorry for taking so long, but this is a very sensitive and very important issue.
I wanted to give as full a reply as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Kaklamanis">
Mr President, I should like to wish a happy New Year to you and to Commissioners de Silguy and Flynn.
I should also like to wish for good health for you and all the citizens of Europe.
But you know, for there to be health, wishes and good intentions are not enough: specific measures are also needed.
<P>
Thank you very much for your answer, Mr Commissioner, which indeed was very full.
I would just like to remind you that in 1980 there were simply suspicions, as there are suspicions now, that the AIDS virus was transmitted by blood and blood transfusions.
We did not take then the necessary measures that we should have taken.
We took them in 1993. We are all unfortunately aware of the results of this three-year delay.
This then is my fear.
Moreover I am telling you this as a doctor: although there are only suspicions, as indeed you said, I would prefer that the necessary measures be taken now, which may in the future prove to have been unnecessary, rather then allow to happen what happened with AIDS, when it will be far too late.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="Flynn">
I appreciate the honourable Member's good wishes to the Commissioner.
I have to say to you that, yes, this is a matter that receives our considerable and considered opinion at all times.
We are, of course, as you know, entirely bound by the scientific evidence available to us at any particular time.
But, certainly, preventive measures are being considered and being put in place in the Member States.
We are talking here about the donors, the question of screening, evaluation and testing and also the question of research and diagnostic tests.
All of the matters that would give you concern are being taken on board on a continuing basis, and that is the reason why we are having this very special meeting on 15 January, which will bring all that information together to enable us to do whatever is necessary on the good advice of that committee.
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<SPEAKER ID=170 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
I, too, would like to express my appreciation of the proposal which is on the Council's table and to which the Commissioner referred.
I have studied this recommendation and understand that through it we shall obtain a ban on people who suffer from this illness being allowed to give blood.
<P>
When does the Commissioner think this recommendation is going to be adopted by the Council, and how did the discussion go at the Council's meeting in November when, according to reports, this question was discussed?
<P>
I also wonder whether the Commission has any estimate of how much risk blood has been found on the European market, blood which must now be withdrawn.
Is the Commission convinced that all risk blood has been withdrawn?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 NAME="Flynn">
Thank you, Mrs Thors, I am pleased that you support the meeting that is to take place on 15 January under the auspices of the CPMP.
This will be a very valuable workshop that will bring together the experts in the area and will focus particularly on the infectivity distribution, and that will include tissue distribution, between the new variant and classical CJD.
I should also like to say that, yes, there is an amount of risk blood - no question about that.
Our understanding is that it is quite limited.
The Commission is only able to intervene directly for medicinal products that have received a Community marketing authorization through the centralized procedure.
No medicinal products derived from blood or plasma have received such authorization to date.
<P>
The situation is different so far as decentralized procedures are concerned.
There we act under Article 12 of 75/3/90/EEC, whereby we can propose, via the comitology procedure, a decision to withdraw the marketing authorization and therefore withdraw the product.
<P>
With regard to the products you mentioned that are implicated with nvCJD, the CPMP has discussed this and it has recommended that batches of implicated products still on the shelf be withdrawn. That has happened.
The vehicle is there in the decentralized procedure but as yet no licences have been granted through the centralized procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="President">
Question No 48 by Sören Wibe (H-0964/97)
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Subject: Stability Pact budget balance requirement
<P>
The Stability Pact contains a requirement that budgets should balance over the economic cycle.
Does this requirement relate to real or nominal balance?
Has the Commission taken into account the impact on employment, for instance, of the real squeeze on demand which is bound to result from requiring nominal financial balance in the Member States?
Mr de Silguy, you now have the floor, and may I wish you a happy New Year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 NAME="de Silguy">
Thank you, Mr President, I take advantage of this opportunity in my turn to express to you and your colleagues, for both yourselves and your families, my best wishes for health, happiness and success.
<P>
The Commission thanks Mr Wibe for the opportunity he has given us once again to specify the content and meaning of the Stability Pact.
The Stability Pact, approved by your Parliament, is neither more nor less than the translation of the provisions of the Treaty of the European Union.
It is in a manner of speaking the internal regulations of the euro zone.
Adopted by all the Member States, its aim is to ensure the proper operation of economic and monetary union, by specifying the operational procedures of Article 103 and Article 104c of the Treaty.
I would add that it is also a credibility factor for the euro.
<P>
In order to re-establish the margins of budgetary manoeuvre in the Member States, this Pact invites Member States, and I quote: ' to respect the medium-term objective of a budget which is close to being balanced or in surplus.'
The Stability Pact therefore does not make mandatory any extra constraint.
It sets an objective.
This is of course a balanced budget or budget in surplus, in the meaning of the national accounts, that is, a balance expressed as a percentage of GDP, and therefore calculated on the basis of nominal magnitudes.
<P>
This objective was accepted by the Heads of State and Government for the purposes of, I quote 'reinforcing the conditions favourable to sustained growth in production and employment.'
Indeed, the search for medium-term national budgetary balance can only have positive consequences for employment.
Only healthy budget situations are of such a nature as to promote sustainable growth, and hence the creation of significant employment.
The creation of healthy public finances is a prior condition for benefiting from low interest rates, which favour investment, and hence growth and the creation of employment.
<P>
I would add that Europe has got its public finances into better shape in the years after 1993, and it is beginning to reap the real rewards of that effort.
The figures themselves provide a cold illustration of that reality: in 1996 the deficit was -4.2 %, and growth 1.8 %, while in 1997 the deficit was -2.6 %, and growth 2.6 %. The forecast for 1998 is deficit of under -2 % - and the deficit is continuing to shrink - and growth of more than 3 %, and it is continuing to increase.
I would add that according to Commission forecasts, Europe will be creating four million jobs in the three years between 1997 and 1999.
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<SPEAKER ID=174 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wibe">
Let me start like everyone else by wishing everyone a happy New Year and thanking the Commissioner for his reply.
<P>
I asked this question to find out whether you have discussed this difference between a real deficit and a nominal deficit.
A real deficit is the budget deficit plus the change in the State's capital position. In other words, if a country has, let us say, a national debt of 150 % of GNP and a two % international inflation, or inflation in the currencies in which the national debt is placed, that means that, even though the budget is balanced, in reality there is a squeeze, a real saving.
<P>
That means, Commissioner de Silguy, that if we have a requirement for a nominal budget balance and the countries have a national debt, and we assume that we have inflation which is nominally at 1 %-3 %, the requirements of the stability pact will lead to a real squeeze on demand.
In spite of Commissioner de Silguy's optimism that this will create employment, do you not agree even so that a real squeeze on demand leads to reduced production and increased unemployment?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Silguy">
No, I do not think so.
I believe the experience of these last ten or fifteen years proves the contrary.
When the public deficit reaches excessively high levels - and above 3 % it is excessive - we witness firstly a significant increase in the level of debt, and secondly a rise in interest rates.
<P>
I shall take a clear and simple example.
When we note that some eighteen months or one year ago in Europe, 50 % of household savings was being used to finance public deficits, you have to come to the conclusion that savings would be better employed in financing productive investment.
Consequently, the reduction of public deficits must mean that savings are released for productive investment, and that internal demand will benefit by this, in terms of either investment or consumption, and at the very least in the purchase of semi-durable goods.
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<SPEAKER ID=176 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, I would like to return to the issue of employment since I think it is a fact that the policies are deflationary, and we should take heed of the United States which is talking of the danger - not of inflation or overheating - but of the freezing of the economy, and I do not know where EMU is taking us in today's conditions.
<P>
However, on the subject of employment, I would like to say that here in Strasbourg, New Year's Eve was celebrated with deeds of desperation by tens of hundreds of young people.
And today in Greece the main news item is the suicide of someone, 60 years old, who left a note which said "I am committing suicide because I am unemployed' .
And from this standpoint I would like to ask: within the framework of this explosion of new data on unemployment in Germany, of suicides, of the aggressive behaviour of young people who are in despair, are there any new deliberations in the Commission?
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<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Silguy">
I am convinced that the euro will create an economic framework which will generate more growth and hence more employment in Europe.
I am furthermore perfectly aware that the euro will not solve the problem of unemployment, and that this means we have to attack its deep roots, which arise from a whole series of reasons and causes with which you are familiar.
<P>
In the final analysis, 1997 enabled us to make a breakthrough, at least at the conceptual level.
The November European Council in Luxembourg set up a new method.
I believe that this method, which is target-based, is a method based on objectives, and one that we can place our hopes in.
We shall be jointly fixing a number of concrete objectives at the European level, for example that within five years, there should not be any young person who, after six months of leaving a university or school system, is out of a job.
That is an objective fixed at the Community level.
Then, each of the Member States should, in the light of its own special features, traditions and rules, implement and propose plans for how to reach this objective and then, once a year, at head of state and government level, an assessment should be made, and multilateral supervision be exercised.
At this stage, the governments will have to answer for their actions before public opinion, before their partners, to see whether or not they have reached their objectives.
<P>
Therefore, I believe it is necessary to attack the problem of unemployment by in-depth reforms, which are not directed against the employees, but carried out along with them.
For this reason, social dialogue is an important factor in the long-term success of the fight against unemployment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Commissioner, do you consider that the ASEAN crisis will affect the budget balancing process?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Silguy">
I think I answered that question during this morning's sitting.
I think we must remain vigilant in the face of this crisis.
I am not a crystal-ball gazer, but I can conceive of all possible and imaginable catastrophe scenarios.
Today, according to the data at our disposal, I think I am in a position to say that the crisis will have no more than a marginal impact on growth in Europe, and that it will have no effect on the launch of the euro.
Why?
Firstly, because in terms of the real economy, we are only slightly dependent on Asia, which absorbs no more than 9 % of our exports.
Furthermore, I note that the European fundamentals are very healthy.
Inflation rates are low.
Interest rates have never been so low.
The confidence indices, the opinion surveys we carry out with consumers, with investors, with economic operators, are always very positive.
They have in fact never been so positive.
That explains why the capital and, very likely, the financial markets realize that, in the move to reallocate assets and funds, the direction is towards the countries which are the most credible and in the soundest health, that is to say, the United States and Europe.
That is why, among others, the dollar has stayed at the level we expected, unchanged on the last few months, and interest rates have fallen to levels that had never been seen before.
Therefore, while discounting any developments I cannot foresee, I believe that the situation at present will not in real terms have any impact on the economy or on budgets.
If there were to be one, it would be marginal and as such not worthwhile trying to quantify precisely.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 NAME="President">
Question No 49 by Tommy Waidelich (H-0968/97)
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Subject: EMU
<P>
It was decided at the most recent summit meeting in Luxembourg that Member States not participating in the third stage of EMU will be able to take part in meetings of the Euro-X committee (Eurocouncil), except when issues relating directly to the euro are being discussed.
Will the Commission explain what sort of issues are meant?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 NAME="de Silguy">
The Eurocouncil was effectively set up by Heads of State and Government at the European Council in Luxembourg last December.
Ministers of states participating in the euro zone can meet among themselves in an informal manner to discuss questions relating to the specific responsibilities which they share in the field of the single currency.
These are questions relating to the common management of the single currency on a basis of solidarity, provided they involve only the euro states.
Examples would be the euro exchange rate, dissuasive aspects (that is to say, sanctions under the Stability Pact), or the preparation for readjustments within the new European monetary system.
But these are only examples.
Additionally, in line with the wish expressed by your Parliament, the Commission will participate in all the meetings of the Eurocouncil and, as the case may be, the European Central Bank may be invited to these meetings.
As the honourable Member has noted, the Heads of State and Government nevertheless specified that 'each time questions of common interest are concerned, they will be discussed by ministers of all the Member States.'
I believe that questions relating to the coordination of economic policy, questions relating to the major orientations of economic policy, should be discussed by the fifteen Member States.
The same applies to everything relating to the single market, tax harmonization or social problems.
Furthermore - and this is essential - the European Council drew attention to the fact that the Ecofin Council, the Council of the finance ministers of the fifteen Member States, unlike the Eurocouncil, is the only body with the authority to take decisions according to the rules and procedures laid down under theTreaty.
The central role which the Ecofin Council is called on to play - at the express request of the European Council, with the support of the Commission and on the Commission's proposal - this role is the consecration of the unity and cohesion of the Community in the economic field.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Waidelich">
I would like to thank you for your reply.
I shall do no less than everyone else and also wish everyone a happy New Year, not least the Commissioner.
We all have an exciting year ahead of us, now that we are going to launch the euro, and the Commissioner is going to be very much involved in that.
I am one of those Swedish parliamentarians who are very positive about this event, that we are now getting a euro, and can have the chance to prevent currency speculation, and through that actually get more independence for countries to conduct an economic policy under the protection of the euro.
<P>
In the reply we also found out that a lot will depend on informal meetings in the so-called Eurocouncil.
That means, if I understand correctly, that there are no formal discussions about majority decisions and such.
The Commissioner could confirm whether that is the case.
<P>
I would just like this Eurocouncil to develop into a forum where there could be a more political counterbalance against the European Central Bank, more democratic control, and also a coordination of economic policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Silguy">
Thank you for your good wishes, which I also accept on behalf of the success of the launch of the euro.
What I can assure you is that we are sparing no effort at present to ensure the success of this operation.
<P>
Yes, the Eurocouncil is a useful body, insofar as we can never talk together enough.
We have a common monetary policy, a federal policy (let us use the right words) and faced with that, we have national economic policy which remains subject to national competency.
It is therefore necessary to reinforce our coordination and common action.
Hence the interest of ensuring more contacts between finance ministers.
<P>
However, all that does not mean that we should overturn the balance of the Treaty.
I believe that the Eurocouncil will be useful for awareness-raising and analysis purposes, but we shall have to be very careful (and the Commission will itself be careful with regard to its own concerns) that all the powers laid down in the Treaty, under the conditions set out in the Treaty - that is, Commission proposal, advice from the European Council, Council decision - that these powers should be exercised within the bodies laid down for that purpose by the Treaty, that is to say, the Ecofin Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Andersson">
I also join in the goodwill wishes for the New Year expressed by previous speakers.
Like Mr Waidelich, I am among those in Sweden who are very positive about the introduction of the euro and hope that all of this very difficult process will go well.
<P>
When this Eurocouncil is formed, it is natural that it is the countries participating in EMU which also participate in this council and in the informal meetings.
However, those countries which have decided to remain outside could still have an interest in being informed about what is happening and the Eurocouncil's meetings.
Are there any thoughts about how the few countries which remain outside EMU, when it is implemented, are going to be kept informed?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Silguy">
Firstly, Mr Andersson, since you are a euro supporter from a country which has expressed a desire, at present, not to be a part of the euro, allow me to give you two arguments and two avenues of reflection which might well be usefully pursued in your country.
<P>
Do you reasonably believe that a country which is not part of the euro could conduct monetary policy which is totally independent of the euro zone, which by definition will be something extremely powerful?
Personally I do not believe that there can be any question on this point, because it means that, as part of the euro, one is obliged to follow monetary policy, but without having taken part in its definition.
<P>
The second area for reflection is enterprise.
Even if the national administrations of countries outside the euro allow them to work in euros, will they nevertheless not have to bear extra costs?
Indeed, in one way or another somebody will have to bear the costs of the foreign exchange risk between any euro and non-euro currency.
This foreign exchange risk will disappear for countries within the euro, and hence (and this applies to both banks and businesses) they will no longer need to invoice for that.
The problem, it appears to me, remains wholly outstanding for the non-euro countries. However, Mr Andersson, these are just two ideas or two avenues of reflection which, in my view, would merit further examination.
<P>
To give a precise answer to your question, I would say that while this organ is clearly informal, it is nevertheless a fact that its work must be transparent.
The presence of the Commission and the fact that the decision-making body will be the Ecofin Council, provide every guarantee that information will be given in a transparent manner in all the European countries, whether or not they have joined up to the euro.
Nobody can prevent the euro countries discussing things among themselves. But even so, the interest of this European Council resolution is that the discussion is kept within the framework of a procedure and within a system which make it possible both to ensure transparency and to guarantee the unity of the European Union
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="President">
Question No 50 by Jan Andersson (H-0970/97)
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Subject: Prospects for establishing more criteria for economic and monetary cooperation
<P>
At present, economic and monetary cooperation is entirely geared towards achieving price stability.
However, many ideas concerning the possibility of introducing other criteria have been put forward during the debate on the future development of EMU.
One such criterion under discussion, and one which deserves serious consideration, is growth.
<P>
What prospects does the Commission see for making growth a criterion for economic and monetary cooperation?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 NAME="de Silguy">
Mr Andersson's question provides an opportunity to dissipate misconceptions regarding criteria, means and objectives, which must be regarded as different concepts.
<P>
Indeed, there are criteria, for the achievement and proper operation of economic and monetary union.
And there are objectives and means, for the coordination of economic policy.
The criteria for passing into economic and monetary union are defined in Article 109j of the Treaty of the European Union.
I would remind you that those criteria must enable the Commission and the Council to check whether, and I quote: ' a high degree of sustainable convergence has been achieved between the various Member States '.
<P>
Among these criteria is included, I quote: ' the achievement of a high degree of price stability.'
This is also the principal mission assigned to the European system of central banks.
This is Article 105 of the Treaty, and this article lays down, and I quote: ' the principal objective of the European system of central banks is to maintain price stability.
Without prejudice to the objective of price stability, the European system of central banks provides support to the general and economic policies of the Community, with a view to contributing to the achievement of the objective of the Community, as defined in Article 2.'
<P>
Well, what does Article 2 say?
'Among such objectives' , and I am still quoting, ' are sustainable and noninflationary growth.'
Growth cannot be decreed.
It is the result of economic policy, and is necessary if there is to be substantial job creation.
Employment policy is furthermore the priority policy of the European Union.
However, price stability is essential to ensure the sustainable nature of growth, and hence a high level of social protection.
The best proof of that is the return to growth in Europe, which has gone hand in hand with the reduction of inflation.
I remind you that in 1996, we had 2.6 % inflation and a growth rate of 1.8 %.
In 1997, inflation fell to 2.1 %, the growth rate rose to 2.6 %, and inflation should broadly remain stable in 1998, with growth rising to 3 %.
<P>
The social partners have fully understood this strategy and they support it; witness their repeated joint statements, in particular those that they issued at the last European Council.
It is therefore not envisaged, under such conditions, that these very satisfactory criteria should be modified.
Only sustained growth and controlled inflation will provide an appropriate framework for job creation, notwithstanding that the fight against unemployment requires the introduction of other measures of a more fundamental, I might say more structural, nature.
This is the way opened by the European Council in Luxembourg in November, and which I mentioned earlier in response to a previous question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Andersson">
Let me first comment on what the Commissioner said in connection with my previous speech, namely that countries outside EMU cannot conduct an independent monetary policy.
I share that view. It is a fallacy to believe that you can conduct an independent monetary policy outside.
I also share the view that companies in countries which are outside EMU are, of course, dependent on what happens within the euro zone.
<P>
There is, of course, still criticism of EMU, and it has weak popular support in Europe.
That cannot be ignored.
One of the reasons for this is that at the same time as EMU is to be implemented our unemployment is much too high.
You cannot ignore the fact that a role may have been played by the fact that there has been an overriding goal of creating price stability which has been placed above all other goals.
I would like there to be more balance between price stability and growth.
I am not against price stability - on the contrary.
But the balance between growth targets and price stability targets should be better.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Silguy">
Very quickly, my answer is that as far as I am concerned, the convergence criteria or stability criteria are not obstacles to growth.
On the contrary, they are so many supports for and means to growth, an economic growth we wish to be rich in job-creation opportunities.
Public opinion in Europe will not accept the new process, the new events, if it is not explained to them.
I believe that a very substantial explanation effort must be planned.
<P>
Secondly, there must be reassurance. For that reason it is essential that the fight against unemployment, which has become a priority within the European Council, within the Council of Ministers, should be given content as a policy and put into actual practice.
This is what the European Council in Luxembourg committed itself to in November.
Now the framework must be fleshed out.
<P>
I think a promising avenue has opened up.
It reflects the approach which was successfully used for economic and monetary union, an objective-based approach.
We need to persevere down this road.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
Unlike the previous questioners, I belong to the critical part of the Swedish representation in Parliament as far as EMU is concerned.
I ask why people cannot imagine developing criteria other than price stability. Employment has not been mentioned at all, while growth has been mentioned.
The US Fed has all of these three criteria in its definition of what the Fed should be concerned with.
<P>
The other week I took part in a hearing in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, of which I am a member.
It was a very interesting hearing in which precisely these questions were raised by the participating experts on the lack of balance in the European Central Bank - in other words, that price stability is the only thing that counts.
The question which then also arose was the lack of democracy when we were not really sure who is in charge of the ECB.
My question to you would be: can you say whether it is Parliament or the Council or someone else who is in charge of the ECB?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Silguy">
I will reply very quickly, Mr President, because I believe you are pressed for time, and we have overrun the time allocated to us.
It was no surprise to me to hear what Mr Lindqvist said.
I believe he is ferociously opposed to the euro, as he has every right to be.
Under these conditions, you can understand that I cannot share his analysis.
I wish only to note - as he cited the example of the United States - that the United States had set themselves the target of a balanced budget for the beginning of the next decade, and that from this year on they will be in equilibrium and probably in a budget surplus.
This is another example which tends to show that there is no incompatibility between a balanced budget, growth and job creation.
<P>
A second comment relates to the European Central Bank. You will, I imagine, be putting questions to the future directors of the European Central Bank at your leisure, as I know you will be auditioning them before they are formally appointed by the European Council.
I think this would be a good opportunity for them to explain to you how they expect to conduct their monetary policy. But as things stand, I believe that the fight against inflation is a prior condition of growth.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Waidelich">
I agree with the Commissioner that good public finances and low interest rates are good for growth.
I also believe that through currency stability the euro is good for growth and employment in the EU, particularly in the euro countries.
However, I also believe people may need to consider other possibilities.
I believe that a growth target, such as the Federal Reserve has in the United States, could be a way to proceed.
I wonder whether I have interpreted the Commissioner correctly, and would like to ask the following: is it formally possible to add a growth criterion later if the heads of government are agreed on it?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Silguy">
Personally, I do not believe it is possible, in the medium or long-term, to contrast the policy of the Federal Bank in the United States with the policy of the Bundesbank in Germany.
If you look at the figures over a period of 10, 15 or 20 years, you will see that in the final analysis their results are not very different, even if at certain times differences in appreciation may effectively appear.
<P>
Secondly, growth cannot be a criterion in the meaning of the Treaty, because once again growth cannot be imposed by decree. Growth is the consequence of good economic policy.
What we can say is that growth is an aim we pursue in conducting our economic policies, going hand in hand, at the heart of these policies, with employment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr de Silguy.
Since the allotted time for this series of questions has now expired, Questions Nos 51 to 55 will be dealt with in writing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
I should like to remind the honourable Member of the Council's decision of 24 November 1997.
It was decided then that the Commission's proposals on music promotion should be made within the context of the decision about the future of cultural action in Europe, which was adopted on 22 September 1997, and envisages the possibility of a single instrument for culture.
<P>
Ever since culture was included in Article 128, some years ago, we have been conducting an experiment in this respect, by means of three programmes: Ariane, Kaleidoscope and Raphael.
However, both Parliament and the Council have decided that this was probably an experimental route and that in the future it will be better to have an overall framework - a single framework for dealing with all cultural matters.
<P>
Therefore, the proposals which the Commission is due to present shortly, which will pay special attention to music, will combine the various cultural and artistic sectors within this single framework, in accordance with the wishes of Parliament and the Council.
<P>
As for employment within the cultural sphere, I would remind you that within the next few weeks the Commission will be presenting a Green Paper on culture, cultural industries and employment, which will refer specifically to music.
The study is already at a very advanced stage, although it is not yet finished.
However, I want to reassure Mrs Izquierdo Rojo that music will be given special attention.
<P>
As regards Community assistance for music during the past few years, the honourable Member is welcome to consult the list which the Commission distributed for information purposes on the occasion of the European Parliament's hearing on that subject on 18 June.
<P>
I should also like to remind you that the Commission thinks cooperative music projects can and should be assisted, but this should depend on how far they meet the criteria of the existing Community programmes and initiatives.
For 1998, these consist of the Kaleidoscope programme and the call for proposals due to be published within the next few days from line B3-2003, entitled "Community aid for cultural development projects' .
<P>
Bearing in mind also that the programmes and initiatives I have referred to are open to a wide variety of artistic disciplines, and that the cultural quality of the projects is one of the selection criteria, you will understand that the Commission is not able at this time to predict the amount of financial assistance which can be granted to this sector in 1998.
<P>
However, the most important thing I want to remind you of, is that direct aid to Member States' orchestras experiencing financial difficulties is a matter for the Member States, as Mrs Izquierdo Rojo knows very well.
The Member States are responsible for determining priorities for public assistance for musical institutions, while Community action is directed towards promoting cooperation between Member States, in accordance with Article 128 of the Treaty, and the principle of subsidiarity.
<P>
Nevertheless, I want to mention the Community aid given to orchestras such as, for example, the European Youth Orchestra and the 'Orquestra Barroca' , through the Kaleidoscope programme.
In other words, we do grant aid to those programmes and orchestras which involve all the different Member States.
What is more, I personally think this type of aid should be boosted.
I think the existence of this sort of orchestra, involving representatives of all the Member States, is highly symbolic.
<P>
In the future, our thinking on music will become part of the framework programme on European cultural policy.
I am taking this opportunity to draw special attention to this matter, because I think we must adopt a new approach, although what we have done so far will serve as a reference.
We need to know exactly what we want to do with culture within the Community.
That question has not yet been answered clearly, and there are still many uncertainties. We need a lot more debate, because some Member States think the Community's involvement in this area should be minimal.
Other Member States have problems of a constitutional nature, by which their very constitution makes it difficult for their culture to be dealt with on a Community basis.
For that reason, I think both Parliament and the Council have shown very good judgement. The Commission is convinced too, and we are going to prepare that great framework programme, that great cultural programme, right away.
<P>
That is where music comes in.
To that effect, we are going to hold a forum on 29 and 30 September, at which Parliament will be represented to a very significant extent.
Every two or three weeks I meet a group of representatives from the world of music, and from other cultural spheres. For example, Mr Gutiérrez Aragón is one of the many people who have attended these meetings.
I have met about a dozen people each time, representing all the different countries.
The main purpose is to receive encouragement, and to find out what the people of Europe think can be done in the cultural sphere.
The result of these meetings will allow us to prepare the document the Council has asked us for, and which Parliament also wants, which we must present before 1 May.
Therefore, we have a lot of work to do before then, and you can of course rest assured, Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, that we are going to pay a great deal of attention to what cultural activity means - including, obviously, the world of music - and to what extent it can contribute to job creation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Rojo">
I want to thank the Commissioner for his long answer, which was so positive and encouraging.
<P>
I would be even more reassured if, in view of the inadequacy of the policy implemented so far, we could pay special attention to the innovative aspects. Subsidiarity must not be a hindrance in the next stage.
I would like to ask whether, in order to reach those prestigious orchestras which have not yet received sufficient assistance, you envisage setting up agreements with different bodies to make sure that subsidiarity itself does not prevent us from attaining that objective, through lack of musical culture. The problem is that what we have done so far is no good, because it has not managed to promote music.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
Exactly - I think we have to try those agreements.
What I would like to ask of Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, whose sensitivity on these matters is well known, is that she should contribute any ideas she may have on the subject, since now is the time to try to put them into effect.
We are going to start writing the draft on 1 February, so until then we are keen to hear suggestions, especially about our planned forum.
<P>
We do not want the Commission to succumb to the temptation of locking itself away in an office to prepare this draft.
We do not want it done like that. That is not the right way to work on anything, but especially not on culture.
Therefore, we want to talk to actors, creative people, poets, artists, parliamentarians and governments, so that we can get ideas from them all, within the context of that forum.
You can also rest assured that before the formal presentation on 1 May, I will try to have a meeting with the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, so that we can exchange views on the matter.
<P>
I think the question you have raised is important, and I would like to deal with it specifically and give precise solutions once we have sketched out the framework programme, which will be finally presented on 1 May.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Commissioner, I would particularly like to thank you for your reply to Mrs Izquierdo Rojo's question.
But I would like to ask two supplementary questions.
Since I have been a Member of this Parliament, there has only been one notable success in the field of music.
That was the European Year of Music, which took place following an initiative by Mr Hahn.
It was a great success.
Have you used that to prepare plans in readiness for 1 May?
<P>
My second point is this: I am deeply concerned about the decline in our folk music.
Folk music is undeniably gradually being killed off by the various mass media.
Will you be taking these very important points into account in your programme, and will you be promoting folk instruments by supporting this music?
This is very important for the future!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
Mr von Habsburg, the folk music you mention is something I particularly care about.
<P>
In fact, I think Europe's rich diversity is one of our most characteristic features.
What is Europe, after all? What is European unity?
It is the sum total of the diversity of its different peoples, traditions, life-styles and customs.
That is the big difference between Europe and that melting pot, the United States.
<P>
The basic difference is that we must safeguard our rich diversity.
Music and popular songs are, of course, part of that diversity and must be safeguarded.
<P>
As for the European Year of Music, I remember when that was launched. I was here at the time, but in a different capacity - in the Council of Europe.
It was a great success, for the very reason that it did not just involve highbrow culture, but tried to promote respect for that cultural diversity.
<P>
We will bear that in mind, and as regards the programme we are going to present on 1 May, I have taken note of the wish expressed here, which I absolutely agree with.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="President">
Question No 57 by Hugh McMahon (H-1001/97)
<P>
Subject: Transmission of major sporting events by terrestrial television in the EU
<P>
Can the Commission inform Parliament of any progress made in discussions with Member States with a view to drawing up a list of major national and international sporting events, such as the Five Nations Rugby, the Open Golf and Wimbledon, which remain available to all EU citizens?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
In the codecision procedure for the amendment of the "Television without frontiers' directive, Parliament approved an amendment aimed at guaranteeing public access to specific sporting events of special importance through open-access television throughout the whole European Union.
I had not included that in the draft directive.
I presented a draft directive on 22 March 1995, and did not include a proposal on access to specific sporting events.
Nevertheless, when I heard Parliament's idea of including the possibility of guaranteeing public access to such events, I thought it was interesting, and made a note of it immediately.
<P>
Because agreement was not reached following the second reading, there was a conciliation phase, during which it was established - and I agreed - that it was not possible to obtain what could be termed a harmonized list of major events at Community level.
It was important to acknowledge in some way the opinion of those in favour of open-access retransmissions of events, but some of us (myself included) thought it was impossible to have a harmonized list of events at Community level.
<P>
For that reason, the new Directive contains provisions to guarantee that Member States can adopt measures to protect the right to information, and ensure wide public access to television coverage of national or non-national events of major importance to society.
The examples we usually give are the Olympic Games and, in football, the World Cup and the European Championship.
<P>
These provisions appear in a new article of the Directive - Article 3a.
They consist of a system known as mutual recognition, which is designed to prevent evasion of national measures to guarantee access to television repeats of important events.
The system comprises three phases:
<P>
Firstly, Member States can draw up a list of major events and adopt measures to ensure that large sections of the public are not prevented from following these events, either directly or as repeats, on open-access television.
<P>
Secondly, the Commission has to be informed of these measures.
The Commission will check that they are in keeping with Community law, and seek the opinion of a committee set up under this Directive, known as the Contact Committee, made up of Member States' representatives.
As long as they are found to be compatible with Community law, every set of national measures has to be communicated to all the other Member States and published in the Official Journal.
<P>
Thirdly, Member States must ensure that the television broadcasting organizations under their jurisdiction comply with the lists of events drawn up by other Member States in accordance with this procedure.
<P>
Lastly, I want to remind you that the new Directive was published and came into force on 30 July 1997, and Member States have until 31 December 1998 to incorporate it into their respective national arrangements.
<P>
In the Contact Committee, there has been much discussion about the application of Article 3a, and so far the Commission has not received any official notification from the Member States.
Nevertheless, the Commission is aware that the vast majority of Member States - if not all of them - have adopted or plan to adopt measures to guarantee wide public access to television coverage of major events, and we hope to receive the relevant notifications during 1998.
<P>
To conclude, I will give Mr McMahon an answer to his very specific question. As far as the three events you mention are concerned, the United Kingdom will need to propose them on the list it presents to the Commission, and the Commission will have to judge whether they are indeed major sporting events.
That, therefore, is the method set out in the Directive. It is not, I repeat, a harmonization - a single list - but depends on the lists provided by the Member States, and the fact that each Member State must accept the others' lists, on the principle of mutual recognition.
Finally, the Commission must give its approval and make sure Community law is not contravened.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 NAME="McMahon">
Mr President, I thank the Commissioner for his very full explanation - 6 minutes 47 seconds worth of an answer; a very full and comprehensive answer.
<P>
What is obvious from his answer and, perhaps should be underlined, is that no Member State has sent him any information.
Is he going to put some pressure on Member States to give him information, to give him a list?
How often does he envisage this committee meeting and would he invoke the infringement procedure if Member States do not give him a list?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
Mr McMahon, a Member State does not have to present a list and may choose not to.
That is its own decision.
If a Member State presents a list that is, for example, over the top, because of the number of events included, or their nature (all football matches, for example) then obviously the Commission would not accept that.
However, there is nothing to prevent a Member State from deciding it does not want to put any event on the list.
That is perfectly acceptable.
<P>
Therefore, I am not going to do anything.
All I am going to do is wait for them to send me the list.
I am sure that nearly all the Member States are going to do so.
But it is possible that some may not. I know of at least one Member State which so far has no intention of presenting a list (which, I would point out, is not the Member State with which I am most familiar) - and that is entirely possible.
<P>
As for the Contact Committee, we thought it was a good idea for the Commission to be able to consult, rather than act in isolation.
Whom should we consult?
A contact committee was the obvious answer.
In the end, however, it will be the Commission which adopts the decision.
And obviously, if a Member State fails to respect the Commission's decision, the appropriate steps will be taken.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 NAME="Cunningham">
I have a very brief question.
I would like to know where the Ryder Cup fits into this.
The Ryder Cup which, as you know, was held in Spain for the very first time recently, is probably the only competition where almost the entire population of Europe actually cheers for Europe.
You might cheer for England, France, Germany or whoever, in other competitions, but the whole of Europe taking on the United States at golf actually brings the people of Europe together on that occasion for two or three days, where everyone is supporting the European team.
Yet in the United Kingdom it was on satellite television, where the majority of people could not even watch it.
So where does the Ryder Cup fit in to this particular scenario?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
Mr Cunningham, I may have my own opinion about what you are asking - I think it is an important event - but at the moment I would prefer not to answer you in a personal capacity.
At the moment, we have to wait for the various Member States to send in their lists.
Once the lists have arrived, the Commission will consult the Contact Committee, and having received their reply and taken account of it, will adopt a decision.
<P>
It is a question of restrictive criteria, but that does not mean that important events will not be included.
And something else I think is important is that an event which is important in one country may not be so in another.
Think of the Derby for instance.
Obviously, that is a very important event in the United Kingdom, but it is probably of less interest in Spain or Greece.
Well, the criterion to be used is that each Member State decides which are its important events, and the others respect that decision - hence the mutual recognition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 NAME="President">
Question No 58 by Birgitta Ahlqvist (H-1009/97)
<P>
Subject: Commission study on children and advertising
<P>
This is the third time I have asked Commissioner Oreja a question about the study, repeatedly promised by the Commission, on the effects of advertising on minors.
Other independent studies have shown that children cannot be classified as consumers, on the grounds that they are unable, until the age of 12 on average, to distinguish an advertising message from objective information.
<P>
Can the Commissioner say what stage the Commission's study has reached? When will he be able to report, even informally, to the Committee on Culture, for example?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
I think I can give Mrs Ahlqvist a brief reply.
It is not the first time this question has been raised, and I know how concerned Mrs Ahlqvist is about this matter.
I should like to remind her that, in response to a petition from a delegation in the Council during the revision procedure for the "Television without frontiers' Directive, the Commission promised to carry out a study on the effect of television advertising and telesales on children, with a view to re-examining this question at the next revision of the Directive.
I want to repeat what I said to Mrs Ahlqvist last time.
I fully appreciate her concern, which I share.
However, I am subject to certain limitations, and the Commission has undertaken to do this within a given timescale.
That is, the Commission has to carry out this revision by 31 December 2000 at the latest.
It has to produce a report on how the Directive is being implemented, which will include appropriate proposals for adjustment, if necessary.
<P>
So, that is what we have promised to do.
The report will also be presented to Parliament, of course.
Unfortunately, the study cannot be started in 1998 (although that is what I would have preferred) because the budgetary authority (and Mrs Ahlqvist knows what I mean by that) has cut the appropriations proposed by the Commission for this sort of study.
At the moment, the Commission has another priority, which I am sure is also of concern to Mrs Ahlqvist.
It is an investigation into the anti-violence chip, which is mentioned specifically in Article 22 of the new Directive.
We had to choose, and since our priority is the chip programme, the Commission will not be able to start the study in question until the beginning of 1999.
Therefore, I would hope to have results during that year, or very early in 2000 at the latest.
I repeat what I said last time: I want this to be done before the deadline, if possible, preferably by the date I have mentioned.
Therefore, we should complete this study in time to include it in the application report mentioned in Article 26.
<P>
If the situation were to change (with regard to the Notenboom procedure, for example) I can assure the honourable Member that we would take the appropriate steps to try to relaunch the study.
As I said, I fully share the honourable Member's concern.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Ahlqvist">
I shall be very brief.
I thank the Commissioner for his reply.
I know the Commissioner is in favour of carrying out this study.
I have never before received an answer which is so definite about the timing as that it will be done in 1999.
I am therefore grateful for the reply.
<P>
However, in Sweden there is growing irritation about and criticism of children's advertising.
People are calling for boycotts and think that something must be done.
Now I have got this answer about the year 1999.
Although it is negative, it is at least clearer than the two previous answers, so I thank the Commissioner for that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 NAME="President">
Question No 59 by Maj Theorin (H-0965/97)
<P>
Subject: The situation in Burma
<P>
The situation in Burma is very serious.
In 1990, the NLD (National League for Democracy) won the free parliamentary elections and over 80 % of the seats contested.
The result of those elections has not been respected.
The military regime is still holding on to power, thanks to the state of emergency.
The NLD held its first officially authorized congress on 27 September 1997, shortly after which a large number of the delegates were detained by the SLORC military dictatorship.
<P>
What steps is the Commission prepared to take to support the opposition's struggle for democracy in Burma?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="Marín">
As regards the European Union's political position with respect to the Burma question, the first thing I want to assure you is that the common position adopted in October 1996 has been renewed.
In that sense, the European Union is maintaining exactly the same position with regard to what has happened in that country.
<P>
Secondly, we have continued to exclude Burma from the benefits of the system of generalized preferences, and are still doing so. As Parliament knows, that was a Commission initiative.
<P>
Thirdly, in November the Commission presented the Council with a proposal to postpone the high-level meeting with ASEAN, because ASEAN was insisting that Burma should be there.
The European Union did not accept that, and the meeting was postponed.
I think it is an extremely positive step for us to refuse to continue to work with ASEAN until Burma's position within that group is clarified.
<P>
With regard specifically to human rights and democracy, the Commission has set up a Europe-Burma office in Brussels, with the aim of raising public awareness about what is happening in that country. Another aim is to train future leaders, if possible, and to help the Burmese opposition.
<P>
Overall, the funding is approximately ECU 950, 000.
Let us hope this office can provide permanent proof that the European Union is firmly committed to Burma, and the situation there.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
I am grateful for this clear position from the Commission.
We do not have a difference of opinion. We do not think Burma fulfils the criteria which must exist in order to be able to have economic and trade relations and to have customs privileges for this country.
This is very important since there are European companies, probably also in my own country, which are currently considering whether to start investing in Burma, which would be very serious if it happened.
<P>
In the US there has been a ban on new investments since May 1997 because the situation in Burma has not changed.
The EU now has access to the legal framework and the possibility of using economic pressure.
It is therefore important that the EU now leads the way and shows the political will.
<P>
It is good that the Commission is entirely in agreement with me that we cannot of course allow European companies to profit from the oppression to which the Burmese State now subjects its inhabitants.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Marín">
As Mrs Theorin knows very well, the Commission has taken a very firm and clear measure regarding the Burmese Government, which I think Parliament appreciates.
In a globalized economy, we do not have the power to determine where a private company should make an investment. In any case, in view of the situation in south-east Asia, I think it is a bit risky to talk of European investments at the moment.
Not because of the situation in Burma, but because of the general market situation in south-east Asia at the moment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 NAME="Kinnock, Glenys">
I should like to ask the Commissioner whether he accepts the legitimacy of the 1990 elections in Burma in which the NLD led by Aung San Suu Kyi were the clear and legitimate winners.
If that is the case, would he agree with me that any new elections likely to be convened by the military junta in Burma would not be accepted as legitimate and therefore would never be accepted as capable of overriding the 1990 results?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Marín">
The answer is obvious.
Any elections which fail to be free, democratic, transparent and open to international observation will never be recognized, either in Burma or in any other country.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="President">
As they deal with the same subject, the following questions will be taken together:
<P>
Question No 60 by Marianne Eriksson (H-0996/97)
<P>
Subject: Human rights in Colombia
<P>
Human rights violations have been occurring in Colombia for several years now.
Political democracy does not exist in reality, as all legal progressive parties and movements are persecuted.
One party alone, Unidad Popular, has lost thousands of members as a result of politically motivated murders, including those of several democratically elected mayors. One current example of persecution is the democratically elected mayor of Apartado, José Antonio Bula.
He was detained on fabricated charges and then imprisoned.
Despite being cleared by a court of all charges on 22 July 1997, he is still in prison.
<P>
How will the Commission register its protest against the violation of democracy and human rights in Colombia?
<P>
What action will it take in the specific case of José Antonio Bula in order to secure his release?
Question No 61 by Jörn Svensson (H-0998/97)
<P>
Subject: Human rights in Colombia
<P>
The Convivir forces in Colombia, together with out-and-out paramilitary groups, constitute a very serious problem.
Convivir is involving civilians in an armed conflict and is responsible for serious human rights violations.
Although the Colombian courts do not consider the Convivir forces to be unconstitutional, both the UN Human Rights Committee and the Human Rights Commissioner, Almodena Mazarassa, have said that the existence of the Colombian Convivir forces represents a breach of international humanitarian rights and is incompatible with human rights.
<P>
How does the Commission intend to register its protest against the existence of the Convivir forces?
<P>
What action will the EU take in future to help ensure that the Convivir forces are disbanded?Question No 62 by Richard Howitt (H-1004/97)
<P>
Subject: Human rights in Colombia
<P>
Does the Commission agree that the operation of illegal paramilitary groups in Colombia presents one of the biggest obstacles to the all-encompassing peace talks proposed recently by that country's government?
Given the fact that the government promised two years ago to create special armed groups to combat the paramilitaries, a promise recently repeated, what discussions has the Commission had, and will it have, with them to ensure that this promise is kept?
Furthermore, given the assassination of at least 19 Colombian human rights activists during 1997, and that human rights organizations play a vital role in combatting the problem of impunity, will the Commission step up its political and financial support to these groups in Colombia?
<SPEAKER ID=216 NAME="Marín">
The Commission shares Parliament's concern over the human rights situation in Colombia.
<P>
I think there is widespread recognition of the attitude taken towards this issue by the Commission and the European Union in general.
<P>
As for the UN Human Rights Office in Bogotá, Colombia at the moment, I should say that the very existence of that office is due to the intervention of the European Union, not just because of the political support we have given, but also because of financial support. Bear in mind that because of the difficulties the United Nations is experiencing, we decided to extend Community funding for the coming year, to allow that Office and Commissioner Mazarrosa to continue working.
<P>
As regards the paramilitary groups, especially the so-called Convivir cooperatives, I myself, at a public press conference during my latest official visit to Colombia, made clear what the European Union's position is.
We do not consider any paramilitary activities (specifically including this type of cooperative) to form part of the normal responsibility of a state to guarantee a normal situation, in whichever country.
<P>
We think the main thing is to promote peace and peace negotiations, between now and the general elections in May. As I had the chance to say in Colombia, we think that no matter who wins in May, the new government's main political objective must be to negotiate and seek for peace, in a country which is suffering the ill effects not just of drug trafficking, but also of the paramilitary guerilla warfare - which is also partly responsible - and of the internal political situation itself.
<P>
It is a very complex and difficult situation, in which I think the European Union can do quite a lot to help the peace process and internal negotiations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Eriksson">
Thank you for your reply.
I agree that the situation in the country is, to say the least, difficult.
So I cannot say that I was particularly pleased to hear that we have an office in the country.
<P>
I have also asked a question about a specific person.
I wonder whether I would have an answer to that question.
I also intend to return to this question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=218 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Marín">
It should come as no surprise to you that the European Union should be the main provider of finance, and should have been responsible for setting up a Human Rights Office in Bogotá - the first of its kind in Latin America.
<P>
It was a decision made by the Human Rights Committee in Geneva, together with Mrs Robinson, the new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who is working with us extremely well.
I cannot remember the address now, but it is a well-known public fact that that Office has been in existence for a year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Svensson">
In autumn 1997 I had cause to criticize a Parliamentary resolution which gave onesided praise to the peace initiative of the Columbian Government without taking a position on the fact that at the same time the Government in Columbia was also bombing civilian targets.
<P>
We have now had another reminder of the Columbian Government's duplicity through its arming and use of these paramilitary groups.
It therefore means a lot to be able to interpret the Commission's answer as meaning that it does not share the former Parliamentary majority's illusions and its somewhat naive view of the Columbian Government, but has a more critical attitude towards that Government.
We can be grateful for that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Marín">
No, no, my position is still the same.
I agree with that European Parliamentary resolution.
<P>
In Colombia, which is a country I know well and where we are doing a lot of work in the area of human rights, those rights have been violated by the Government.
I said as much in Bogotá.
They have been violated by the military, but they have also been violated by the guerillas.
<P>
In the situation in Colombia, nobody is entirely blameless.
Everybody is responsible.
Yes, I realize you do not like that answer, but they are all responsible for the situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="Howitt">
I agree with the Commissioner that we are all responsible for our own actions, but he seems to have made general statements of concern about human rights in Colombia without responding to any of the specific questions put to him.
I asked you, Commissioner, what you were going to do in terms of direct discussions on the issue of the formation of armed groups to combat the paramilitaries.
I asked if you would seek to increase funding directly to Colombian human rights organizations.
You did not respond to either.
Frankly, your words about support for the UN Office would be a little better received if, during one of your press conferences in Colombia, you had not said that you believed that the Convivir could be steadied and that they could continue to exist on some terms.
Either the report I have read is wrong or you have gone directly against what the person who runs that UN Office is actually recommending, and we finance him.
<P>
Please give us some specific answers now and not just general areas of concern.
We are all responsible for our own actions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Marín">
I will be very brief, Mr Howitt, because I am not sure whether I have not understood you, or whether you do not wish to understand me.
<P>
The one thing I will not do is present a programme to combat the paramilitaries by means of NGOs.
<P>
I do not know if I have understood you correctly.
I am not sure if you know what a Colombian paramilitary is.
I get the impression you do not know.
In my opinion, to imagine that it is possible to combat paramilitaries or the paramilitary phenomenon - in Colombia, Algeria or anywhere else - by financing or not financing NGOs, reveals a naivety beyond all political discussion.
<P>
I am sorry to have to put it so bluntly.
Secondly, I do not believe I attacked the Human Rights Office in any way at all.
There must have been a misunderstanding here. On the contrary; we are funding it.
<P>
Therefore, I would ask you all to follow very closely the policy we are operating towards Colombia, and the progress we are making in a difficult situation.
But please, do not suggest that the Commission should do things that are frankly difficult to accept.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="President">
Since the time allocated to questions to the Commission has now expired, Questions Nos 63 to 82 will be dealt with in writing.
<P>
That concludes Question Time.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 7.30 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Emissions from organic compounds
<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0406/97) by Mr Cabrol, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Directive on limitation of emissions of volatile organic compounds due to the use of organic solvents in certain industrial processes (COM(96)0538 - C4-0139/97-96/0276(SYN)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="Cabrol">
<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Cabrol report on the reduction of VOC emissions is a critical document.
The fact is that the present draft directive will impact on many areas and will have far-reaching effects.
The Commission report states that this initiative will apply to some 400, 000 businesses, including many SMEs, representing a total of 30 branches of industry, and will naturally affect many more consumers.
The cost of this, as we have already heard, will amount to billions of ECU.
The significance and scale of this issue should therefore not be underestimated.
<P>
The proposed aim of the directive, namely a two-thirds reduction in VOC emissions, certainly justifies the cost involved.
A reduction of this magnitude over the next few years is a truly ambitious goal.
It is one which deserves our full support and we should not be tempted to soften its impact.
Nevertheless, I would warn against any regulations which overshoot the target in certain areas.
After all, what is the point of imposing stringent limits on ethyl alcohol, a relatively mild surface cleaner, when the use of alternative products, such as non-volatile solvents - which pose a much greater threat to the environment - is left out.
<P>
We are all of the opinion that environmental protection should be promoted not primarily through compulsion but rather by incentive.
Let me give you an example from my own country. The switch to low-solvent paints and coatings has meant that solvent consumption in Austria has fallen by about 50 % since 1990.
I therefore advocate this kind of incentive scheme at European level so that limits can be applied in a more flexible way in these areas.
<P>
This week we are discussing employment and job migration.
I believe that we should seek to achieve our environmental objectives while at the same time attempting to promote our environmental policy in a moderate way, so that we can continue to sustain our existence in the years to come.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="Bowe, David">
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists I would like to give my support to Mr Cabrol and also give him my thanks for his report on the Commission proposal.
<P>
This directive to control the emission of VOCs from industrial installations has the support of my group, and I would like to give my personal thanks to the rapporteur for the hard work that he has undertaken and what he has achieved so far.
It is increasingly clear that VOC emissions have an adverse impact upon human health and the environment in general, whether it is by their contribution to creating photochemical smog, ground-level ozone in our atmosphere or stimulating asthma or even cancer in our people.
We have good reason to seek to reduce and control and even eliminate their emission from the industrial installations in which they are used.
<P>
Their use is indeed wide-spread and the activities in which they have a role are many and various, so we have sought to set new, stronger limits on their emission in a whole range of larger industrial installations.
As for their wider role in smaller installations, we hope the Commission will come forward as quickly as possible with a proposal to ensure that new low-solvent paints and coatings are used, and other less harmful substances are introduced.
<P>
We clearly recognize the difficulties in some industrial sectors in reducing the use of VOCs or changing to effective alternatives and consequently we have allowed a generous time-limit for compliance, which we believe will give adequate time for the necessary change to take place.
<P>
We think that the vote of the Environment Committee fully reflected our views and we will be giving our support to all the amendments passed by that committee, particularly those which clarify the provisions of the directive and reduce the scope for the use of national plans, so making the proposal more European-wide and more single market orientated.
Therefore we are unable to accept the additional amendments tabled by some colleagues to the report in the part-session.
<P>
In conclusion we hope that the Council and the Commission will accept our views, incorporate them into the proposal and make them a truly worthy part of the European Union's effort to protect the environment, and indeed a shining beacon to the whole world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schleicher">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, we are discussing an extremely important contribution to the subject of environmental and climate protection.
Professor Cabrol and Mr Bowe have sought to emphasize that volatile organic compounds are chemical substances which easily escape into the atmosphere.
These so-called forerunner substances react naturally with other substances and in doing so they both form and destroy ozone.
They therefore participate not only in the formation of the ozone layer but also in its destruction.
We could say that too little of it higher up forms the hole in the ozone layer, while too much of it lower down causes the greenhouse effect.
<P>
By reducing these substances at source we can also make a major contribution to climate protection.
I would like to add to what my colleague Mr Rübig has said with the following comments. Approximately 51 % of VOC emissions stem from solvent use.
About 400, 000 EU businesses are affected by European legislation, of which 90 % are SMEs employing around 10 million people.
These figures demonstrate the importance of European regulations for environmental and climate protection, but they also indicate the financial impact which this legislation will have on European industry.
<P>
VOC emissions in the European Union are to be reduced by 1.4 million tonnes, or about 67 %, by the year 2007.
The most important measure in this respect is the industry-specific emission limit for new installations.
Existing plant are to be included on a progressive basis.
Exceptions, in the form of reduction schedules, will only be allowed when it can be proved that low-solvent and solvent-free substitutes can be used.
<P>
The Commission proposal is therefore a step in the right direction.
The problem facing us is certainly enormous.
National schemes, which the Commission has designated as a third possibility, have in the past proved to be less than effective.
There is a real danger that these are being used as a means of getting round the strict emission limits.
A large majority of the members of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has therefore elected to remove this option.
<P>
It is the opinion of my group that the European Commission has, in other respects, submitted a proposal which is very acceptable to all sides.
We therefore oppose any fundamental amendment to it, whether this be a dilution or an unrealistic tightening of its provisions.
Of course a number of national peculiarities still exist, especially in Austria and Spain, and I would be grateful if the Commission could look again at these issues, since we do not want to see unreasonable developments in this respect.
<P>
In recent years all Member States, as well as European bodies, have gradually become convinced of the fact that not all problems can be resolved quite so rapidly.
We now also attach great importance to non-compulsion.
Businesses which act more quickly and with greater spontaneity than is required under the law should also receive appropriate concessions.
I therefore ask quite specifically that we should think about scaling down the amount of administrative bureaucracy applied in this area.
One of the motions which I have submitted concerns this very point.
I would be very grateful if this House could lend its support to our amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Mr President, in this "packed' Chamber, I note on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party that the European jigsaw puzzle of directives which is supposed to improve air quality in Europe is slowly but surely being completed.
The Car Oil programme is at quite an advanced stage.
<P>
Last month in Kyoto tough agreements were made.
Today we are talking about the reduction in emissions from organic compounds.
With a jigsaw puzzle, it is important on the one hand that the pieces are all there, and on the other hand, that you have the right pieces.
With respect to these organic compounds this is not quite the case.
What is missing in the puzzle is the piece that regulates paint thinners.
We submitted Amendment No 8, and I would like to ask the Commissioner whether she might be able to repeat the promise which, to my knowledge, she made in the Council: to come up with a proposal for paint products this year, because these thinners are too harmful to health to be sold any longer.
<P>
We must be careful when discussing the directive for organic compounds not to reject existing successful national programmes in advance, as suggested in Amendment No 22.
In my country, the Netherlands, there is a voluntary agreement with industry for reducing emissions, which is showing good results.
It would be a pity if this House were to reject these kinds of national programmes, when both the Commission and Council have given them their approval.
My group will therefore not support Amendment No 22.
<P>
I ask my colleagues to agree with Amendment No 3.
Requirements for smaller installations should not be less stringent.
VOC emissions are far too serious in these countries.
I note that with this amendment the European airquality puzzle is nearing its completion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, it certainly shows the incompetence of European environmental policy that we are now setting limits for VOC emissions some 20 years after one of our Member States, namely the Federal Republic of Germany, introduced laws to control this very problem.
I have heard a lot today about the problems facing industry.
Many speakers have mentioned the competitive economy.
Why are we not talking about those whose health has been ruined by chemical products? Indeed, the fact that we are not doing so is equally disgraceful.
I know many people whose lives have been affected by solvents.
Surely it is time for us to create standards which will ensure that fewer people will have their health damaged in the future.
After all, we should not forget that costs do not just apply to industry but to our public health service as well, not to mention the many cases of personal suffering and other problems inflicted on those whose health has been impaired in this way.
<P>
We are very concerned indeed about the substances being used in the chemical industry and I would ask you, Madam Commissioner, to look into this matter.
Such substances are used a great deal.
We know that they are carcinogenic and we also know that endocrines are involved - and these are quite specific issues which Parliament has also been looking into.
It is precisely because of the carcinogenic and oestrogen-like effect of such substances that we must make a start on restricting their use as far as possible and on giving industry incentives to find replacements for them.
This too is a question of competitiveness.
We need to exert pressure for the withdrawal of products which are dangerous and which constitute a threat to health and to the environment.
This would ultimately give us a competitive edge since we would be supplying the market with less dangerous products.
At the moment our primary concern should be to reduce the range of substances used by the chemical industry.
<P>
I would ask you, Madam Commissioner, to examine why the Commission is not prepared to follow the European Parliament's tougher approach and why it continues to hide behind the coat-tails of industry.
Let me close with the plea for an immediate reduction in these toxic substances so that appropriate incentives can be offered to the industrial sector.
We should not forget that the European Union has many citizens whose health has been impaired by chemicals, and our concern for them should be equal to - or even greater than - our concern for the interests of industry.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
<SPEAKER ID=232 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Kirsten Jensen">
Mr President, I am pleased that we have here a proposal which focuses on organic solvents.
These liquid chemicals have a particularly toxic effect on people and the environment.
We should therefore strive to limit their use as much as possible.
For many years, solvents have been suspected of causing brain damage.
As Mr Blokland said, this is seen to a large extent among painters who are in daily contact with these chemicals.
That is where the term 'painter syndrome' comes from.
This experience should be included in the directive which we are considering today, because public health is not just a leisure concept, but is indeed also a topic for the work environment.
In other legislation the connection between the internal and external environment is recognized, and it is therefore a little mystifying that the Commission does not want to recognize the connection in this text. But hopefully the Commissioner will explain that more fully.
I also see a clear connection with the directive on chemical agents for which Freddy Blak is the rapporteur.
<P>
I fully support the amendment which was proposed by Mrs van Putten and adopted by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, which includes health risks from occupational exposure, and also the amendment which clarifies that Member States which are ahead of the Community with regard to the substitution of dangerous organic solvents can maintain tougher restrictions.
It can only be an advantage to have some who lead the way and so gain experience which benefits everyone.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lannoye">
Mr President, I would like to make one or two supplementary points to what has been already said by my colleague Mrs Breyer.
<P>
My first point is that the Commission was heavily insistent on the problems of atmospheric pollution and the role of CFCs as the precursors of tropospheric ozone, but as several colleagues have already pointed out, the risks are multiple.
The negative effects of volatile organic compounds are many.
I lay particular stress on the risks at the place of work, but also on diffused risks, particularly the effects on the reproductive system, which have until now been very widely underestimated.
In brief, this directive is coming at the right time.
It is a shame that these proposals should be so weak, but I shall come back to that in a few moments.
<P>
Secondly, the rapporteur rightly drew our attention to the fact that 40 % of waste is the result of do-it-yourself - people working on their homes at the weekend.
Perhaps we should envisage a measure which would promote the use of low solvent-content paints, or at least less harmful solvents, involving, for example, the introduction of an eco-tax.
<P>
My third comment is that the Commission's text also raises the question of the costs of the operation, which are enormous.
However, little is said about health expenses.
I would like to give a figure.
On consulting recent literature, I realized that in most European countries, constant franc expenses on health have increased by a factor of 3.5 over 25 years.
This is enormous, because the level of health is by no means clearly better than twenty-five years ago.
<P>
Consequently, and here there is no real risk of getting things wrong, we can say that the damage caused by environmental pollution is increasingly having an adverse effect on the health of Europeans. This is ample justification for emergency measures.
<P>
I would like to make my last comment in the form of a question to the Commissioner, Mrs Bjerregaard.
It would appear that the Council has already decided on its common position.
This is rather surprising, as Parliament is now in the process of a debate.
Is that true?
If the answer is yes, the present debate would itself be a surprising event.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Putten">
Mr President, I would also like to thank Mr Cabrol for his excellent work, and I would primarily like to go into an issue a number of my colleagues have already discussed, namely the effects of thinners on employees who work with them.
As far as we know, they are used in approximately twenty economic sectors, including the chemical industry, decorating businesses, the metal industry, printing and allied trades, even food, stimulants, and textile industries.
Exposure to these chemicals can lead to tiredness, nausea, palpitations, and other symptoms.
Long-term exposure can lead to irreversible damage to the nervous system, which can manifest itself as forgetfulness, concentration disorders and even loss of identity - in other words, the organic psychosyndrome, OPS.
<P>
In the autumn of 1997, the Dutch Government took measures to protect employees in some of the sectors where thinners are used.
In other Member States, namely Sweden, Denmark and Finland, clear legislation for the protection of employees also exists.
Since the introduction of this legislation the number of OPS victims has decreased in these countries in particular.
In some countries OPS is recognized as an occupational illness, but in other Member States no attention is given to OPS.
That is why we amended this directive.
In fact, I submitted a number of these amendments myself, and I am delighted that they have been adopted by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
<P>
I therefore think that the protection of these OPS victims will have to be incorporated into the Commission's proposal, which deals with public health, but in which this element does not feature at all.
It is an opportunity that the Commission has to grasp now, in anticipation of what the Commission has yet to do between 1999 and 2003, a common programme for the illnesses related to pollution, I understand.
I also hope that the Commissioner can respond to our amendments, and I would be grateful if she could give a reply.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, and especially their rapporteurs, Mr Cabrol and Mr Rübig, for the very thorough work on the preparation of this complicated proposal.
What is said is correct: this is a very important proposal, but it is also a very technical proposal.
<P>
The main purpose of the directive is to reduce VOC emissions from a long list of industrial activities in which solvents are used.
The emissions of many of the VOCs, as has also been emphasized in the debate here, are directly harmful to human health and should therefore be reduced as much as is technically possible.
The solvents are used, as we have heard, in paints, for cleaning, in the printing industry and for many other things. In all, 20 sectors are affected.
For most sectors, the requirements consist of emission limits and limits on diffuse emissions.
However, businesses may be exempt from these requirements on condition that they achieve the same reduction in emissions in another way. For example, by replacing products with a high solvent content with products containing low levels of solvents, or none at all.
And the proposal also allows Member States to achieve the same targets by methods which are best suited to their national conditions, and which are set out in a national plan.
<P>
The Commission has considered the 32 amendments proposed by the Committee on the Environment, and the 15 new amendments proposed by Parliament.
The result of this was that the Commission is able to accept 11 of these amendments either wholly or partly. The Commission is able to accept Amendments Nos 4, 13, 15, 17, 18, 21, 25 and 31.
It can accept Amendment No 23 in principle and Amendment No 26 in part. And, finally, it can partially approve Amendment No 37 (footnote 1).
These amendments improve the text with additional background, sensible and logical additional requirements, the removal of possible misinterpretations, improved transparency and an increased level of protection.
I shall not go into details for every one of these amendments, but I would like to give a reason for our attitude to some of them, and so explain the Commission's thinking.
<P>
The Commission believes that the Member States should have a certain freedom of action with regard to how they achieve the directive's environmental objectives, which is something several of the speakers here this evening have touched on.
Therefore we cannot support Amendments Nos 6, 19 and 22, which completely remove the possibility of making national plans.
However, as Parliament is no doubt aware, the Council is flexible on reducing the scope of the national plans, and so the Commission can continue to work on that basis, and we will of course take it up in the continued procedure.
<P>
Amendment No 16, concerning a duty to replace R40 substances with less harmful substances as soon as possible, is not supported by the Commission because R40 substances are not sufficiently dangerous to require such measures.
The Commission believes that the very strict emission limits which have been set out for these chemicals are a sufficient incentive to seek substitutes for R40 substances.
<P>
Since the risk of occupational injury - a question which was raised by Mrs Jensen and Mrs van Putten among others - does not fall within the scope of this proposal, Amendment No 2 and Amendment No 20 cannot be accepted immediately.
On the other hand, the Commission is going to arrange an exchange of information, and I think we should definitely consider using information about this important aspect in this exchange of information, and so Amendment No 17 is acceptable.
<P>
Amendment No 7 is not acceptable because the Treaty already contains the necessary provisions to allow Member States to adopt more stringent requirements.
<P>
Most of the amendments concerning procedural aspects can be accepted, but two amendments propose that the approval procedure should only be used for plants covered by the IPPC directive.
They are Amendments Nos 10 and 14.
In line with the principle of subsidiarity, Member States should be able to decide freely which procedure - approval or registration - shall be followed in the case of non-IPPC plants.
<P>
In two new comments the Commission is called upon to take supplementary initiatives.
The first comment is Amendment No 8, in which Mr Eisma was involved among others, and it concerns the question of a directive on solvent containing products such as paints and DIY products.
The Commission agrees that such an approach could be useful, and intends to set the preliminary work in motion this year.
However, in our opinion it is too early to enter into any commitments before the investigations are complete.
In the other comment, Amendment No 9, the Commission is called upon to examine how plants under the threshold values set in the directive can be regulated at the EU level.
It is not the Commission's intention to supplement this proposal with further measures for small plants.
<P>
The Commission has been particularly careful to ensure that unnecessary burdens are not placed on small and medium-sized enterprises.
Consequently, the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 3 and 28-30, which introduce tougher emission limits or change the scope of the proposal.
Amendments Nos 36, 37 (apart from footnote 1), 38, 42, 43, and 45-47 will either reduce the environmental protection planned in the proposal, or limit the scope of the proposal.
Therefore these amendments cannot be supported by the Commission.
<P>
The Commission is certain that its proposal, improved by the addition of many of Parliament's amendments, provides an effective and balanced basis for limiting the pollution of the troposphere by ozone.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Bjerregaard.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Epidemiological surveillance
<SPEAKER ID=237 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0004/98), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position established by the Council (C4-0437/97-96/0052(COD)) with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Decision setting up a network for the epidemiological surveillance and control of communicable diseases in the European Community (Rapporteur: Mr Cabrol.)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 NAME="Cabrol">
<SPEAKER ID=239 NAME="Needle">
Mr President, I wish to thank the rapporteur for his detailed explanation of the situation which faces us at the second reading, which I do not intend to duplicate tonight.
<P>
Instead, with respect to the few diligent souls still left in the Public Gallery at this hour, I would like to illustrate in a way that is particularly relevant to Members why we need to make some real progress both tonight and in the coming weeks to create a meaningful European network for surveillance and control of communicable diseases.
<P>
There is something that most Members do more often than most of our fellow citizens: we fly in aeroplanes.
Put any two Members together and very soon they will start discussing departure lounges and airline schedules.
We do not just fly around Europe, we often move through most of the corners of the globe.
Throughout that globe there are some very risky places, and some of the risk for the unwary or the unprotected is caused by disease.
The disease could be carried in the air, in liquids, bodies, articles or by insects.
Yet in some of the European Union Member States, there are health rules at points of access, in others the rules are very different, despite frequent cross-border transits.
On some airlines measures are taken to protect passengers - for example by spraying cabins - on others they are not.
Information is made available in some states, sometimes accurately and accessibly and in a range of different languages based on a wide range of data.
In such circumstances a close degree of cooperation and coordination makes common sense, not just for travellers and parliamentarians but for all our citizens who need protection in many more ways than the very simple small example I have just set out.
<P>
However, the common position returned to this Parliament offers a number of low common denominators.
While agreeing the surveillance network means obligations on Member States, the Council has agreed unanimously only a more general flexible framework for information exchange and coordination of efforts.
Even allowing for Treaty limitations, there are severe concerns that this will be completely insufficient.
After all, the poor status quo brought about these proposals after initial reports showed the weaknesses.
Five years later we still need progress.
Hence the strength of the near unanimous votes in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection for the recommendations of the rapporteur.
<P>
Mr Cabrol has pursued his extra proposals with his usual vigour and diligence.
It will be of great interest to see whether, assuming Parliament as a whole adopts the recommendation, as I hope it will, in the subsequent conciliation negotiations the minimal stance of the Council and the more progressive and realistic approach of the Commission - which I know places considerable importance on these proposals to the extent of unusually reserving its position - can be reconciled with the more forward-thinking proposals from this Parliament.
<P>
It may be that some are too far ahead of their time, and specific European structures may have to await the lessons of the future reports which we will now receive at even more regular intervals than we suggested at first reading.
<P>
I am pleased that at least some of our suggestions have already been incorporated.
However, my group will be supporting the argument for a more clearly defined role for the European Union, which goes beyond a couple of officials keeping an eye on development of diseases within our boundaries, or simple supplementation of wider WHO or state networks which may or not be effectively implemented.
<P>
The Commission wants the power to be proactive, to study and act upon significant outbreaks wherever they occur and, given the draft Treaty commitments on coherent public health policies across Europe, to take proper coherent action where and when it is needed.
It needs to be sure of accurate, fast, comparable data and that there are no weak links in the chain.
<P>
Finally, I hope the whole House will thank Mr Cabrol for pursuing his case.
I now look forward to both the Council and the Commission negotiating seriously and urgently on all the amendments we support to help a meaningful, practical and effective network to be put in place, not to expand bureaucracy but to help tackle some of the worst diseases in the world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Poggiolini">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, all the political groups, in keeping with the position already assumed on the first reading, have declared their agreement, in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, with Mr Cabrol's excellent report on the decision to set up a network for the epidemiological surveillance and control of communicable diseases in the Community.
<P>
As the rapporteur reminded us, the common position is unacceptable and, in fact, the Commission stated that it could not accept its current wording because the text proposed by Council does not have the necessary means to achieve the objective of this programme, which is to collect information on communicable diseases from surveillance networks in the Member States.
<P>
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has adopted the 22 amendments proposed by the rapporteur almost unanimously, which gives us every hope for a strong and united commitment on the part of the Parliamentary delegation to the conciliation procedure upon which this report is inevitably embarking.
<P>
As rapporteur on the health monitoring action programme which ended last year, I noted the Council's hard and short-sighted position on that occasion too. Real force had to be applied during conciliation at that time, because of the Council's opposition to the idea of conducting a feasibility study into setting up a permanent structure to act as a European health observatory, and because of the scant funding proposed.
<P>
A central and permanent structure at European level for a network for the epidemiological surveillance of communicable diseases is essential in view of the outbreak of old and new epidemics, and in order to have a fast alarm system that enables Member States to take the necessary and properly coordinated measures.
Unfortunately, Article 129 of the Treaty is contradictory, even in the new Amsterdam wording: on the one hand, in the first point it declares that it wants to ensure a high level of human health protection, but then, further on, the same Article prohibits any kind of harmonization of the laws and regulations of the Member States, thus eliminating the means for any incisive intervention.
However, as we know, pathogens, microbes and viruses do not stop at state borders, and do not observe regulations.
Nevertheless, the proposal made by the rapporteur, whom I congratulate on his clarity, commitment and decision, does not actually imply any amendment to the regulations, but only asks for a structure to be set up to collect available information on communicable diseases, to pass it on to the Member States for the better protection of the health of European citizens.
<P>
For these reasons, the Group of the European People's Party will vote in favour of the amendments and the programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 NAME="Fitzsimons">
Mr President, I am delighted that the Amsterdam Treaty on the future of the European Union states that the new provisions on public health protection will be introduced with particular focus on committing the European Union to improving the level of human health.
<P>
This provision - Article 152 of the Amsterdam Treaty - is clearly a recognition that the European Union must introduce confidence-building measures in the field of public and human health, in the light of difficulties which arose as a result of the problems relating to BSE and blood-contaminated products in many European states in recent years.
<P>
Indeed, Community action which complements national policies shall be directed towards improving public health, preventing human illness and diseases and obviating sources of danger to public health.
Such action shall cover the fight against the major health scourges by improving research into the causes, their transmission and prevention, as well as health information and education.
The Community shall complement the Member States' action in reducing drug-related health damage, including information and prevention.
<P>
In particular, the European Union shall adopt measures setting out the highest standards for the quality and safety of organs and substances of human origin, blood and blood derivatives.
However, European Union measures adopted in this sphere shall not prevent any Member State from maintaining or introducing more stringent protective measures on this subject.
<P>
Finally, I am indeed pleased that the European Parliament has been given the power of codecision by the Amsterdam Treaty, with the European Council of Health Ministers, on all new proposals for European legislation in the area of public health and human health.
<P>
I should like to compliment Mr Cabrol on his detailed and excellent report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Marset Campos">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, I should first like to say that the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left fully supports Mr Cabrol's report. It is an excellent report, which has demonstrated profound and serious contradictions in this area, which is such an important part of the building of Europe.
Now that we have the opportunity to implement Community policies, instruments and responses to problems suffered by the people of Europe, it is unthinkable that we should fail to take advantage of that opportunity, because of difficulties totally unrelated to the matter.
<P>
Faced with a problem of this nature - the problem of the growing risk and increased incidence of all types of communicable disease emerging in Europe and elsewhere - we do not see how the Council and the Commission can fail to agree with Parliament, so that we can design appropriate Community instruments.
<P>
We also think Professor Cabrol's report states very clearly the relevant points which have to be considered in order to make progress in this respect.
He has the backing of our whole committee.
Therefore, we do not understand why there has been reluctance expressed about this aspect of the building of the European Community, in these areas which do not present a great problem. In fact, both the Maastricht Treaty and the Treaty of Amsterdam already recognize the European Union's competence in the area of public health.
Therefore, we think efforts should be made to respond to the needs of the European public.
<P>
Finally, I think it needs to be stressed that the European socioeconomic model is adding to the difficulties, by creating these problems both within Europe and elsewhere. It should also be revised, to create a model based on solidarity rather than competitiveness and inequality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pradier">
<SPEAKER ID=244 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Marinucci">
Mr President, anyone involved with health knows that the best way to save financial resources and, obviously, human life is prevention. Prevention is not just a question of vaccines, but also requires health education, with information.
Also however, and obviously particularly with regard to communicable diseases, it involves recognizing the danger in time and seeking to reduce its consequences. Curiously enough, the Council is not aware of this, preferring to save a bit of money today, making the Member States run the risk later of having to face an epidemic with possibly huge expenses.
<P>
This is obviously very serious, particularly as we would once again miss the opportunity of providing Europe with the image (which is the only thing of interest to citizens) of a supranational organization that deals with their wellbeing.
We can go ahead and make the citizens pay the consequences of the Maastricht parameters for the euro by saying that we cannot spend money to ensure their health.
I think this would be a serious mistake.
I am delighted that in our vote in committee we were able unanimously to appreciate Mr Cabrol's report and all its amendments.
I hope that this House will do the same, and that the Commissioner will support Parliament's work and manage to convince the Council this time to do what has to be done in our Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valverde López">
Mr President, I think at this stage in the debate several things have become clear.
One is that this Parliament is fortunate enough to have an excellent rapporteur who combines his professional abilities with the political authority to have been able to prepare this report, with contributions from all sides of the House.
<P>
I also think this is a very important message for the European Commission.
We all have great faith in Commissioner Flynn's negotiating skills. He has often demonstrated his strength of mind and capacity for hard negotiations with the Council.
Parliament will not fail to give him its support here.
<P>
We must also send a clear message to the Council.
We do not understand why they should be so little inclined to increase these demands, which represent a practical and heartfelt necessity which would benefit all our citizens.
The Council should not view the transfer of powers as a loss. They should see it for what it is, as defined in the Treaties: a way to share these powers, the better to help and protect the right to good health of every member of the public.
That is one of the obligations of all governments, and appears in our constitutions.
This should also be a call to governments as regards their budgetary provisions for preventative medicine, which are very low at present. In the best cases, the proportion is 2.4 % of the health budget, and in some countries only about 0.4 %.
<P>
That is very little.
Furthermore, the public has lowered its guard, because it has too much faith in the effectiveness of pharmacological methods, especially antibiotics. Even in the hospitals, the medical staff themselves had failed to attach enough importance to cross-infections, which has led to a major increase in this problem.
In view of all this, it is our duty to let our citizens see that the European Union can be efficient in this field.
<P>
The example of the exponential growth of AIDS shows that the principles of preventative medicine and compulsory safety measures have not been properly applied.
<P>
Mr Commissioner, I beg you when the time comes to approve the agreement on the common external frontier - if we are ever able to approve it - to please make sure that the compulsory external health ruling is included. It is an essential component of the network currently being planned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 NAME="White">
Mr President, I wish to pay proper tribute to Mr Cabrol whose work in committee has been outstanding.
He is, after all, a man who has today only asked for a railway network, and we are offering and the Council is offering not even a green light on the signal.
It really is not good enough.
I do not think the common position of the Council in any way seriously reflects Parliament's amendments.
<P>
I should like to draw the lessons which we should already have drawn from the CJD and BSE crises.
That was something we had no foreknowledge of.
We suddenly found ourselves confronted with a disease, or a variant of a disease, which hitherto had been apparently unknown to science.
Where were we?
We were in a muddle!
We were in a mess!
We have seen the destruction of the European beef industry and justifiable undertaking of protection for the public health of Europe's citizens.
That is something we ought to learn lessons from, and the obvious one is that there should be a surveillance network.
As Mr Cabrol says, information collected about communicable diseases will not come together by magic: there has to be a mechanism by which this is achieved.
I contend that should be by a centre, and that is fundamental to Mr Cabrol's report.
We need that centre to coordinate information.
<P>
There is also Mrs Marinucci's point on costs and comparative costs.
What if we do nothing?
Are we going to wait yet again for another CJD-type outbreak and take all the consequences again?
What kind of criticism will be made of us as parliamentarians, of the European Commission and indeed of the Council?
We ought to learn that lesson and give the green light to Mr Cabrol's report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 NAME="Flynn">
Firstly, I thank Parliament for the work that it has done on this issue.
I particularly want to express my thanks to you, Mr Cabrol, for the very valuable work that you have undertaken, right from the very beginning of this process.
<P>
We are all convinced of the necessity for the European Union to develop its activities in this field and, in particular, to introduce a formal mechanism to share not only information on communicable diseases, but to ensure that a coherent approach is taken with regard to control measures.
We are all clear that the European Community needs this network.
The need to have comparable and reliable data on the evolution of diseases such as CreutzfeldtJakob Disease through all of Europe is an obvious example of the importance of having a comprehensive network properly put in place.
<P>
But let me give you another example taken from the latest issues of many European newspapers which reflect the anxieties and fears of our citizens: this is the new Hong Kong chicken flu.
Although, until now, this has affected only a limited number of people, there is much concern about this new flu strain.
It is called influenza AH5N1.
It appears that nobody is immune to this particular strain.
It is not covered by the 1998 vaccine produced with the advice of the WHO.
Without a Community network, there would be no possibility of monitoring new cases at Community level and no possibility of defining and coordinating control measures for travellers coming from the Hong Kong region.
Moreover, should there be an epidemic, we do not know how quickly a vaccine could be produced on a large scale and whether we would have to distribute, on a preventive basis, the only specific drugs available.
This example illustrates why we strongly believe that this network must not restrict itself just to surveillance, but also encompass control measures.
<P>
We want to create a system which makes it possible to take rapid and effective action.
We want a system which enables the Community to define protective measures which have to be taken, particularly in situations of emergency.
We want a system which is not only comprehensive on paper but, in fact, which works in practice.
This means that it has to be built up in a gradual and pragmatic way.
In view of this and despite some specific improvements added by the Council, we have had to enter a general reservation regarding the common position, as the text did not give us the means to respond effectively and in a coordinated fashion to epidemics or outbreaks of communicable diseases in a Community without internal borders.
<P>
So the Commission has been very carefully examining the proposed opinions and all the amendments.
I am pleased to see that they accord very much with the views of the Commission on how the final text of this decision should look.
<P>
I can inform the House that we are willing to accept either wholly or in part 17 of the amendments; 14 can be accepted in full.
They are: Amendments Nos 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 19, 20 and 22.
For the other three - Amendments Nos 14, 18 and 21 - the Commission will follow Parliament's suggestions, but with an improved wording.
Let me explain the reason why we consider the remaining five amendments unacceptable.
<P>
Amendment No 1 refers to one recital which, in our view, does not reflect properly the variation in surveillance capacity in the Member States.
Regarding Amendment No 3, the Commission, as it has stated on the very first reading, believes that rather than restricting the choice of methodologies to the established ones, the possibility must be left open for the development of new and more effective methodologies.
<P>
As to Amendment No 16, the Commission feels that it is necessary for the coordination of measures by the Member States to come under the comitology procedure mentioned in Article 6.
Therefore a reference to that effect must be made in the fourth paragraph of Article 5.
<P>
Concerning Amendment No 17, the Commission feels that two representatives from each Member State must sit on the committee so as to ensure coverage of both the surveillance and the control branches of the national authorities.
<P>
Let me turn to Amendment No 5, specifically mentioned by the rapporteur, on a European Centre for the surveillance of communicable diseases.
I fully understand and appreciate the motivation and concerns that have been expressed.
I share the aim of wanting to reinforce the capacity of the Community to deal with communicable diseases.
However, this aim has to be achieved in the most practical and straightforward manner and, in particular, it has to take into account the work which has already been undertaken and the structures which already exist in the Community.
There are already national centres in existence, many of them with considerable experience and expertise in this field.
There are also several effective disease-oriented networks which are capable of swinging into action quite quickly - something which is crucial for the control of communicable diseases, especially in certain local settings.
<P>
In our view it is much better to build upon and strengthen what already exists and has proved to be working well, rather than to start from scratch and construct a totally new and untried organization.
This is especially the case with the advent of powerful information technologies which improve our capacity to communicate effectively.
The Community is investing heavily in linking the national administrations for a variety of joint functions.
Communicable diseases surveillance and control is one of these.
For these reasons we cannot accept the amendment.
<P>
Let me just repeat once again my deep appreciation to Parliament and to you, Mr Cabrol, for your efforts and for the close collaboration with the Commission on this particular issue.
I hope I have explained the Commission's position.
I trust that before very long we will have this new network.
It will certainly be a great advance in the development of public health in the Community as soon as it is brought into effect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=248 NAME="White">
Mr President, it is a point of information arising from what the Commissioner has just said.
I would like to know from the Commissioner how this network is to be coordinated and by whom across the Union?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 NAME="Flynn">
Mr President, it will in the initial position be coordinated by the Commission.
I do recognise the point you make, Mr White, that later on when we have further experience it may need to be developed further in the way that you have suggested.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Flynn.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Biocidal products
<SPEAKER ID=251 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0011/98) by Mrs K. Jensen, on behalf of Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text, approved by the Conciliation Committee, for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the placing of biocidal products on the market (C4-0679/97-00/0465(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 NAME="Kirsten Jensen">
Mr President, when the European Parliament hopefully approves the Conciliation Committee's report on this directive, we will ensure risk assessment at a European level of chemicals which have so far not been covered by other environmental regulations.
You could say that it is the last major link in the chain of chemical directives which the EU has embarked on introducing, but it is also the last chemical directive from the time before people really began to take a position on chemicals which act like hormones.
It is a matter we shall return to with the report on hormone-like substances.
The reason I am mentioning this problem is, of course, because I have a little nagging doubt about the extent to which the directives we have now are sufficiently comprehensive in their environmental protection.
The biocides directive will provide more safety because it will be easier for citizens to handle these chemicals correctly, and water and soil should also be positively affected by the environmental protection which will come into effect.
<P>
Transparency in the EU should also win with this directive.
The Council was caught red-handed when it sent the common position to Parliament without the declarations, 14 in all, on the protocol adopted by the Council or jointly by the Council and the Commission.
That sort of thing is not acceptable in an EU which is open and where legislation is adopted jointly by the Council and Parliament.
Under the conciliation procedure it is clear that these declarations have no value with regard to the biocides directive, and in future it will be the case that legislation appears in the Act and not in another place beside it.
That is an obvious advantage for the public, including industry.
<P>
Under the conciliation procedure we have obtained an assurance that a complete technical dossier for the socalled low risk products will be presented, and that this will not be able to include substances which in themselves may give cause for concern.
At the same time, we have been given an explanation of what is meant by basic substances which are sometimes used as biocides and should be labelled as such, namely carbon dioxide, nitrogen, ethanol, 2-propanol, acetic acid and kieselguhr.
We have also had our requests granted with regard to the filling in of the new annexes which the Council sought to introduce with the common position.
The annexes can no longer be called blank cheques because the institutions' modus vivendi on informing the European Parliament in full will be adhered to, but you may of course wonder whether it might take some time to get this confirmed.
<P>
The directive is a pioneer in one area in particular - the assessment of alternatives.
This ensures that very dangerous substances do not come onto the market if there is a less harmful substance which can be used for the same purpose.
This approach should be introduced into all the chemicals directives because it safeguards our surroundings and health at the same time as promoting technological development.
<P>
The biocides directive has been criticized in some parts of industry for being too expensive.
To that we can say that industry has a lot of the information about chemicals and products anyway.
Long transitional arrangements have been built into the directive, and Parliament has even had a "fast track procedure' inserted which should not compromise the necessary environmental requirements.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valverde López">
Mr President, firstly I want to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Jensen, for this work, which has taken her months and has always had our support.
<P>
She has mentioned the subject of Council declarations, which are becoming frequent in codecision procedures.
And once again in this Parliament, we must reject them outright, because they contravene the spirit and the letter of the Treaties, and are an obvious misrepresentation which this Parliament will never be able to accept.
<P>
Secondly, I think all the institutions have things to learn from the negotiations which arise from codecision.
Here in Parliament, perhaps we should have presented fewer amendments at the first reading, in order to focus more attention on the essential points.
<P>
The Commission, for its part, had still not realized the meaning of the codecision procedure and Parliament's new responsibilities.
It resisted meeting Parliament's basic demands right up until the last moment.
Parliament could not hand over a blank cheque for something as important as the definition of active substances.
<P>
I think the Council will also have to change its working methods. The codecision procedure is pretty revolutionary, and the Council will have to change the way it has been working.
It always tries to keep a low profile, although that goes against the spirit of the Treaties. The Council will have to get used to deciding by majority, even if it is a qualified majority.
In that way, the procedures can be speeded up instead of being delayed.
<P>
I also think there is a very clear message which it is important to convey to all the people of Europe. That is, that this Parliament makes use of the powers and responsibilities which are increasingly bestowed upon it by the Treaties.
The promises contained in the Treaty articles on guidelines to provide the highest levels of protection for people's health and for the environment are going to be fulfilled - in each and every one of the proposals. The people of Europe can rely on that.
Of course, the free movement of goods must also be made a reality.
<P>
Establishing specific centralized systems, such as for the approval of active substances, benefits everybody. It means that experiments (including animal experiments) are not duplicated; approval procedures can be more easily guaranteed; and arguments and suspicions between Member States can be avoided.
Therefore, mutual recognition is another added value provided by Community procedure.
<P>
Finally, I think the message to all the people of Europe is that our procedure may be complex, and we may be asking for the codecision procedure to be improved and speeded up (which the Treaty of Amsterdam has done to some extent), but despite all the difficulties, the relationship between the Commission, the Council and Parliament in the codecision procedure is working better and better all the time. That is a very positive message for all our citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=254 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission would like to thank Parliament and especially the excellent rapporteur, Mrs Kirsten Jensen, and the Council for the progress which has been made during the conciliation procedure with this draft directive which adds a substantial new element to EU legislation on chemicals.
The purpose of the directive is, as we know, to harmonize the single market for products containing biocides, and to ensure a high level of protection for people and the environment.
In connection with the second reading, Parliament adopted five amendments.
Three of these amendments were unacceptable to both the Commission and the Council.
But, as has also been emphasized here this evening, the subsequent conciliation procedure has borne fruit, and the Conciliation Committee has reached agreement on a compromise solution which is now before Parliament.
The Council has already given that solution its approval, and I think and hope that Parliament will do the same.
<P>
With regard to Amendments Nos 18 and 19 on the simplified procedure in connection with Annex 1A and 1B, I am convinced that the proposed compromise solution will fulfil the aims of these two annexes, namely to simplify the administration of the directive without reducing the level of heath and environmental protection.
Parliament wanted to make sure that the modus vivendi was followed in connection with the comitology procedure for the inclusion of active substances in these annexes.
The Commission is entirely in agreement with Parliament that the decisionmaking process should be absolutely transparent, and it will do its utmost to put this into practice.
<P>
The Commission has promised to present a proposal for the revision of the comitology settlement at the beginning of June 1998.
We believe that with this undertaking, which President Santer confirmed on 11 November 1997 in a letter to the President of Parliament, we have accommodated Parliament's reservations in this area, as was emphasized by Mr Valvarde López.
As far as Parliament's Amendment No 17 is concerned, I am satisfied that the Conciliation Committee has reached agreement on a time-limit of 24 months for the incorporation of the directive into national law.
To sum up, I would like to stress again that the Commission can fully support the compromise solution on which agreement was reached during the conciliation procedure, and I would like to end by once more thanking the rapporteur, Mrs Kirsten Jensen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=255 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Bjerregaard.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Cohesion and the information society
<SPEAKER ID=256 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0399/97) by Mrs Sierra González, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the Commission communication on cohesion and the information society (COM(97)0007 - C40044/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=257 NAME="Sierra González">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, the starting point of any study of the setting up of the information society within the European Union has to be the fact that things are uneven at the present time. In the near future, this unevenness can lead to imbalances in terms of competitiveness and cohesion, thereby cancelling out the benefits which the use of new technologies can provide in terms of cost.
This unevenness occurs in the basic infrastructure of the information and communications technologies, and in the cost and reliability of advanced services.
Such unevenness is producing quantitative and qualitative inequalities, especially in the so-called cohesion countries, where there are basic shortages.
<P>
Availability and ease of access are prerequisites for being able to enjoy the benefits provided by the development of the information society.
And availability and cost are precisely the factors which at the moment are tending to widen this gap between the European regions, consolidating a situation of quantitative inequality between rich and poor areas.
This can be illustrated by an example: there is now almost universal access to the public telephone exchange network, but there are still substantial differences in the quality of the services.
<P>
As regards advanced services, progress has been made with cellular telephones (including GSM) but there is still great variation in the availability of rented lines or advanced exchange lines, and with the on-line digital network service.
Charges are generally higher in the cohesion countries than in the more advanced countries of the Union. Similarly, the number of personal computers is lower.
In 1995 there were 15.2 PCs for every 100 inhabitants in the most developed regions of Europe, compared with 3.1 in Greece, 8.6 in Spain, 6 in Portugal and 8.9 in Italy.
This structural weakness, and high costs, hinder the development of regional small and medium-sized enterprises, whose capacity for initiative is lower than that of large companies, and who have less opportunity to obtain strategic information.
<P>
Telephone, electricity and cable companies, and others, who market ICT applications, have opted to seek the maximum economic return in the short term. This means that the costs to the consumer have little relation to the real costs, which inhibits the growth of new technologies, especially in the less well-off regions - specifically, the cohesion countries.
<P>
The skill levels of human resources are also uneven.
The information society opens up new possibilities for people to gain qualifications, because not only does it mean new teaching instruments, but in particular it also means that sources of knowledge can be almost universally available. This marks the end of that unequal situation whereby a student in a small city is at a disadvantage compared with another in a great metropolis, with access to technical, scientific and history libraries.
To a large extent, the opening up of these possibilities promises to lead to the decentralization of sources of culture, and an increasing number of centres for the diffusion of culture. In the medium term, this can contribute to social cohesion.
<P>
However, if the structural weaknesses of the school systems are not taken into account, the inequalities may increase.
The possibility that investments may be delayed in certain regions means there may be a polarization between those who have information and those who do not.
To avoid such polarization, we need political action to tackle the profound structural changes imposed by the information society, in working practices, methods of business organization and public administration.
That policy is partly lacking, as shown by the fact that only 2 % of the structural funds are spent on investment in the telecommunications sector.
The cost of the information society should be part of the "mainstreaming' of the structural funds.
<P>
In fact, the structural funds have played a central role in laying the foundations of the information society, despite the lack of investment.
But we need an integrated approach, to satisfy public administration, the teaching system, industry and consumers.
In conclusion, I want to point out that for the sake of cohesion, charges to consumers and costs to businesses need to be set at a reasonable level. Similarly, access to modern information tools, particularly the Internet, cannot be based on private individuals purchasing PCs or other equipment, but requires easily accessible work stations for the public to share, and the consequent funding of an open telecommunications network.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=258 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Collado">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, the Commission's timely communication on cohesion and the information society has received an important response from Parliament in the form of Mrs Sierra González' report, which is extremely accurate and detailed, and focuses precisely on the set of problems which concern us.
<P>
It is no surprise to me that Mrs Sierra González' report logically tackles what I believe to be the crux of the problem - and the aspect that worried the Commission when they sent us this communication about the information society and cohesion.
For Mrs Sierra González begins her report by talking about competitiveness.
And the fundamental idea behind cohesion today (which many people do not understand properly) is the ability to generate competitiveness in those regions which are strategically less well advanced, so they can be brought up to the same level as the other regions.
That is the fundamental aspect, not the almost religious connotations which some people like to attribute to the concept of cohesion.
<P>
We are talking about an instrument - the information and communications technologies - which is fundamental to the future development of competitiveness, and to an increased quality of life for our citizens.
To achieve that competitiveness, the immediate requirement in the less favoured regions is for small and medium-sized enterprises to be able to equip themselves properly, so that they can rise to the challenges of competition, stabilize their businesses today and in the future, and guarantee job stability. The net result will be to create cohesion - competitiveness, in other words.
<P>
It is hard to see how any small business in a less favoured region can survive the challenge without introducing electronic commerce, for example.
It is difficult to imagine that a small or medium-sized enterprise could engage in research and innovation without having a fully operational system of information and communications technologies.
<P>
Well, how effective are all these discussions we hold in this Parliament?
What is the basic factor needed in order to plant the information society firmly within European society?
Let us be realistic.
The Commission's wish to include activities connected with information and communications technologies in the structural funds, as a significant part of them, is obvious and highly commendable. However, possible actions by the Commission or using the structural funds will not exhaust the market.
The market has a mind of its own and is extremely powerful. It is a veritable superpower compared with the potential of subsidies from the European institutions.
Therefore, we need to make it quite clear that at the moment the main stumbling block hindering the information society's insertion into society is the charges set by telephone, electricity and cable companies seeking maximum returns in the shortest possible time. And that is what I want the Commissioner to think about with us, although the idea is not new to her.
I would like her to consider the extent to which the European Commission is prepared to sit down at the table with these operators, as one of their most important customers, and make them bring their prices down to realistic levels which will allow demand to increase, and will give easy access to everybody, no matter which European region they happen to be in. I would also like her to consider how far the Commission is prepared to go in fulfilling its responsibilities, not just by making it possible to act through the structural funds, but also sending out a serious message that will persuade these companies to allow everybody to have access to these services, which are so vital for the present and the future.
If that cannot be done, we are just designing the new shape of European inequality.
The Commissioner knows that very well, which is why I am not presenting this as a complaint, but just asking for her help and collaboration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=259 NAME="Chichester">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, I was going to say that we are rather a select band of debaters this evening but colleagues are coming out of the background; perhaps the information society is working indeed.
<P>
First, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on the broad thrust of her report on cohesion and the information society.
There can be little doubt of the importance of information and communication technology - the information society - to our economy and to our lifestyle.
In particular it opens up all manner of possibilities for remote rural areas, for ultra-peripheral islands and poorer less favoured regions with a low density of population and limited transport infrastructure.
<P>
In my constituency of Devon and East Plymouth which contains cities and isolated farming communities there are numerous ICT projects in hand: for distance learning, for academic exchanges of information with the universities in other Member States, for training, for business such as a satellite link ISDN video for cattle auction by remote bidding or for telesales operations.
The Internet for both recreational study or for business use is catching on fast in our part of the world.
All of this adds up to the possibility of job creation and business start-ups which do not have to be subsidized, which leads me to say that if I were to find fault with any part of Mrs Sierra González' report it would be where it suggests any intervention in the pricing and the market mechanism of the information society, or where it suggests additional spending in the European budget beyond existing lines for structural funds and the cohesion fund.
The best way to expand ICT in Europe is to let market forces and technology get on with it.
Competition and customers are powerful forces for growth and for better services.
There is not enough money in the European budget to pay for all the items on the shopping list, or should I say "wish list' , of spending proposals in this report.
By all means ask for a greater proportion of structural funds to be spent on this instead of something else, but let us be realistic about not asking for more money when it is not there.
Instead let us agree that ICT holds out great promise for disadvantaged regions, and the forces of competition and technology will deliver.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=260 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Vallvé">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, I think we should congratulate ourselves on the fact that the Committee on Regional Policy is talking about the information society and the effect it will have on European cohesion.
<P>
We need to stress the impact the information society will have on the new activities which will be developed in industry, trade and services, and on overcoming the frontiers and borders between Member States.
<P>
Nor must we forget what the information society will mean for training, now that we talk of life-long training or continuing training.
The information society removes the need for teachers and students to be in the same place at the same time.
It is possible to be taught in your own home, by a teacher from another place and time.
<P>
The information society offers a wide range of opportunities. However, those opportunities must be available to all the people of Europe if we really want cohesion at European level.
The opportunities should exist throughout the whole extent of the European Union, including rural, peripheral and island zones.
<P>
There is a lot of talk about information superhighways.
I would prefer to use the term "information roads' or "information routes' .
Superhighways, or motorways, often charge tolls - not in Germany, Madam Commissioner, but in other countries.
If we want information to reach every location, it should travel by roads which do not have tolls, but are open to all.
<P>
Therefore, I am very pleased with Mrs Sierra González' report, because it talks about the potential limitations to the information society, in the sense that it may fail to benefit everybody, and that those responsible for its development may seek nothing more than financial profitability.
We already know that such financial profitability, like toll motorways, will only form links between major population centres, leaving many others marginalized. That is not what should happen with the information society we want for the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=261 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Novo">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, no-one doubts that the new information and communication technologies can have positive effects on education and training, on changing times and the organization of work, on business modernization at the most varied levels, and consequently on people's increased opportunities for free time and leisure.
<P>
However, I have several reservations to add to the somewhat rosy-coloured picture painted by the Commission with regard to the relationship between cohesion and the so-called information society, especially because, in a context in which state responsibility is declining, owing to the privatization of companies and services which at the outset might be in a better position to deal with the problems that might affect the less developed regions, it is difficult to see how the prospect of a large and easy profit is compatible with the universality and fairness of citizens' rights and the objects of inter-regional and inter-State cohesion within our Union.
<P>
The report draws attention to the dangers that uncontrolled, unregulated growth of such an information society might cause, by creating new and deeper divisions in the economic and social development between rich and poor regions. Such divisions might relate to: differences in infrastructure and access to information; discrepancies in the opportunities for gaining access to education and training - promoting and accentuating new forms of exclusion; or costs that might affect small and medium-sized enterprises in the cohesion countries and the respective most backward regions.
This could accentuate trends towards industrial delocalization, or even raise doubts as to the consequences, quality and stability of employment.
Furthermore, the mass of information available might not relate to the specifically regional and/or national cultures, traditions and requirements, in aspects ranging from the content of such information to appropriate linguistic use.
<P>
The recommendations set out in the report drawn up by Mrs Sierra González - whom I congratulate warmly although there are no more than half a dozen of us here - the recommendations set out in the report, as I was saying, for the structural funds to play a far more substantial part in the materialization and construction of infrastructures, in education, training and research-related aspects, naturally deserve our full support.
<P>
The same support should be given to the proposal that, in the division and respect for their respective populations, the governments of the Member States should be responsible for defining and regulating the context in which universal access to information and provision of public services should be provided.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=262 NAME="Ahern">
Mr President, I wish to thank the rapporteur for her excellent report and the Commissioner for her interest and, indeed, involvement in this important issue.
I should like to thank the rapporteur for grasping the importance of the information technologies in reducing the environmental burden of development actions, for example by reducing the need for mobility or the need for transport infrastructures.
In particular, I refer to paragraph 20 which recommends that the total or partial substitution of 'physical' investments by the supply of adequate telecommunications services in such a way as to minimize the cost of investment and the constraints on the environment be systematically included as part of the evaluation process of investments financed by the structural funds and be a substantial part of the national programmes as presented in the framework of these funds.
<P>
I should also like to stress that the information technologies should not create greater regional and social disparities: they should contribute to reducing such disparities.
Therefore, existing imbalances and discrepancies between core and peripheral regions should be counterbalanced by giving special stress to the setting up of information highways and facilities in the peripheral regions.
Unless we take action in this regard, there is a risk that these opportunities will not be available in the peripheral regions and that differences will become even greater.
So we need to take proactive measures in regard to this.
<P>
The information society should continue to be considered as services of general interest, and investment in information infrastructures should comply with the principles of equality, continuity and affordability so that market logic does not discriminate against the needs for access to information of peripheral regions and vulnerable social groups.
<P>
If the benefits that the information society would make accessible to every citizen in the European Union are to achieve optimum advantages, the costs must be set at a reasonable level.
I take the point made by Mr Chichester in this regard, but we must ensure that they are set at reasonable levels.
In particular, I would ask not just the Commission but the Council to be involved here and to ensure that the suppliers of education, particularly to schools, allow free access.
Hardware is one thing, software is another: but the actual telecommunications providers are often either the state or some kind of monopoly. They can well afford to provide low-level or free access to schools.
It would be an extremely important achievement throughout the Union if our young citizens got free access to these services at a training level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=263 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Hatzidakis">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, I come from a country which is not particularly rich, and which is on the edge of Europe.
I was born on an island where the children did not have all the equipment that was available to children born for example in Athens, the capital of Greece, or indeed in other large cities of Europe.
On this island, as on the other Greek islands, illness was and is a much bigger problem than it is in Athens or in any other large European urban centre.
Why am I saying all this?
I am saying it because I believe the information society provides some answers to problems of this kind.
Children can connect up to the Internet and have access to information, something which could not even be imagined a few years ago.
Tele-medicine can provide an answer to some serious health problems.
The new prospects for commerce and economic life may keep people in the peripheral regions.
<P>
However, this is not something which will happen automatically.
The information society will not suddenly appear in the remote and island regions tomorrow morning just because we are debating it here.
There need to be policies to maximize the advantages offered by the information society and, at the same time, to limit its dangers, making the information society a humane society, a society of equal opportunities. I think that is the desire of all of us in this House.
<P>
So what do I believe?
I believe that it is necessary to move perhaps even more quickly towards the liberalization of telecommunications, since this will help towards speedier and cheaper access for everybody to the opportunities of the information society.
Nor let us forget that the more widespread the use, the cheaper the purchase.
I also believe that we must ensure that there is information available in as many languages as possible, because this is an issue which is related to equality of opportunity, to enable everyone to have access to this new world which is being opened up.
At the same time, I believe we must make use of the resources of the structural funds, especially in the new period of 2000 to 2006, so that we can introduce information technology into schools and public sector services (an essential step for the modernization of education and public administration), promote the new technologies on the islands and in the inaccessible and remote regions (using it in tele-education and telemedicine), and take advantage of available resources and professional training to bring about familiarization with the new world of knowledge and information.
<P>
I think Agenda 2000 is an opportunity for us to take a serious look at the issue, since I think that essentially the second Delors Package has finished - it finishes in 1999 - in view of the Salter Package.
I think we can look at this matter closely, Madam Commissioner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=264 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ryynänen">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, information technology and telecommunications have opened up tremendous opportunities to cover distance and overcome obstacles, nurturing decentralization and regional equality.
But in practice, to fulfill these goals we need a clear working strategy as well as strong political will.
<P>
Every region and citizen must have access to the basics of the information network.
Among the requirements of an equal information society are the availability of new information technology, like the Internet, in public places such as libraries and schools, as well as multi-lingual software and facilities.
Furthermore, we need effective training, not only in how to use the equipment, but in understanding how the systems work.
What is especially important, I think, is to train professionals in the computer industry to help ordinary people find and use the information they need.
<P>
At the regional level, it is also vital to pay attention to the needs of small firms and their readiness to become information literate. There is a demand for the new skills, and they create jobs.
Thus, structural funding must seek to give better support to the low-profile regions in their application of the information society.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=265 NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Mr President, first let me thank Mrs Sierra González most sincerely for her report on the significance of the information society for EU cohesion policy.
It broadly agrees both with the Commission's analysis of the situation and with its conclusions.
<P>
The Commission also believes that the information society is of strategic importance for economic and social cohesion and for employment.
It will certainly also constitute a key technology for regional development, provided that structurally underdeveloped areas, rural districts and peripheral regions can be guaranteed access to information and communications technologies.
It is certainly well worthwhile using information and best-practices technology to make the most of the opportunities available, but to do so we first have to draw attention to the fact that these opportunities exist, and implement a suitable awareness and education programme.
In this respect, technological development is only one side of the problem.
<P>
Our main aim should be to give the regions themselves - that is to say, their inhabitants and their businesses - the capacity to exploit the possibilities of the information society in order to strengthen the competitiveness of the economy, particularly as far as small and medium-sized enterprises are concerned, and to promote regional development.
To achieve this we need a regulative framework which, by guaranteeing universal employment, is capable of ensuring a fair system of access and job costing, and is able to adapt this concept of universal employment to meet changing technological and social conditions.
To this effect we require practical assistance, which includes not only investment in infrastructure but also the provision of education and training schemes to enable people to obtain the necessary job qualifications.
This in turn will require a research development programme to promote a user-friendly information society and the continued development of transmission and application systems for businesses and citizens alike.
<P>
In order to reduce the technology gap which exists between the core and the peripheral regions of the EU we need to offer companies incentives to provide up-to-date job opportunities even in the less well developed areas.
This is by no means only a question of investment aid, but can also include the organization of a demand market or the provision of public access to modern information networks, which have already been called for here, in schools, libraries, town halls and job centres - as our IRISI project demonstrates.
<P>
On the basis of its communication on cohesion and the information society, the Commission is seeking to concentrate its efforts and to use the synergy which exists between the different initiatives. The communication also attempts to highlight economic and social cohesion in telecommunications and research policy, and to incorporate the transition to the information society into the EU's mainstream structural programmes.
For this purpose, the Commission has set up an Action Centre whose main role will be to coordinate the activities of the individual Directorates-General in promoting the information society.
A Committee on Cohesion and the Information Society is currently being set up as part of this Action Centre's mandate. The aim of this committee will be to ensure that social cohesion is one of the dimensions included in all Community policies which are relevant to the information society.
<P>
The information society is one of the themes of the forthcoming Fifth Framework Programme for Research.
About 25 % of all funds provided under the Fifth Framework Programme are to be allocated to research actions associated with the information society.
The Commission has also extended the current forum debate on the information society to include eastern Europe, in order to involve the applicant countries in these deliberations; this is also one of the requirements associated with new membership.
<P>
The draft of the first report on universal employment is currently being prepared and the Commission has, as you know, already laid down guidelines for the financing of universal employment in a competition-oriented environment.
Finally, in its half-time review of Objective 1 regions, and within the framework of the second programme-planning period for Objective 2, the Commission has called upon Member States to use the strategic potential of the information society for regional development purposes.
It is not enough just to have the Commission's opinion that this is an important development instrument. What is really needed is to convince the regions and the Member States of this, since they are the ones who, in the programming stage, are taking the decisions on assisted projects.
If we want them to promote more information projects, then we must begin by helping them to amend their priorities and overcome the fear of the information society which still prevails.
<P>
We can be sure of one thing, which is that the information society will be one of the key themes for the next generation of structural fund programmes.
In this respect, the Commission is helping the regions to improve their planning vis-à-vis the information society so that in future they can make greater use of relevant projects and best practices.
More than 30 regions are or were involved in these actions, which were aimed at improving cooperation between the public and private sectors, to the effect that in this area we can eliminate the subsidy mentality and put in its place a mentality which really seeks to make the most of new opportunities, to establish and structure the needs of those players who are involved in the information society at regional level, and to support the regions in building up a partnership between the main regional players.
<P>
I am convinced that if we succeed in driving this process forward, then we can rely on the fact that the market will react to demand, and also to the organization of demand-driven interests. This is something which will not happen automatically but which will require a helping hand from us.
I hope you will continue to support us in our endeavours.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=266 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Wulf-Mathies.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 11.00 pm.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of Tuesday 13 January have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, it is stated in the Minutes that over the last ten years the US dollar has been devalued by 50 %, causing the loss of 18 million jobs.
In fact only 1.3 million jobs have been lost.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Mr Rübig, I think you are referring to the verbatim report of proceedings.
However, we shall look into the matter.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Membership of political groups
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President">
I must inform you that Mr Kerr is now a member of the Green Group in the European Parliament, with effect from 1 January 1998.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="Kerr">
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Kerr.
The Minutes will be corrected.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Topical and urgent debate (objections)
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
The next item is the voting on objections concerning the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hory">
Mr President, a point of order before we vote on the objections introduced regarding matters of urgency, on the one hand from the Green Group regarding Tibet, and on the other the Liberal Group, regarding Kenya.
<P>
Our group is in agreement with these objections, but as the two groups did not announce them at the Conference of Presidents, we have not been able to submit our group's resolutions on the same subject for review.
Thus, if you are in agreement, I would like our resolutions B4-1476/98 regarding Tibet and B4-0084/98 regarding Kenya, also to be submitted to the vote which is going to take place.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
We will deal with the matter immediately.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
British Presidency and the situation in Algeria
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
The next item is the statement by the President-in-Office of the Council on the British Presidency's programme, and the situation in Algeria.
<P>
Mr Cook has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="Cook">
Mr President, President of the Commission and honourable Members, the Luxembourg Presidency demonstrated yet again that the smallest nations of Europe are the equals of the largest.
<P>
Its presidency was capable, efficient, and dynamic.
It is a hard act to follow.
<P>
I understand that it is traditional for the incoming presidency to begin its speech to the European Parliament by saying that at this moment Europe is at a particularly important stage in its development.
I understand why they do that.
After all, it is always true.
<P>
And it is good that successive presidencies approach their task with that sense of excitement, because the advantage to Europe of a rotating presidency is that every new presidency brings its own new national drive, a new range of experience, and a new determination to make its mark.
<P>
Britain has the privilege of holding the presidency as Europe takes two real historic steps.
In the next six months our presidency will act as pilot both to economic and monetary union and to the enlargement process with the Central Europeans and Cyprus.
<P>
These are momentous projects.
The British Presidency will work closely with the European Parliament to give both economic and monetary union and enlargement the best possible start.
Both of us - Parliament and presidency - have a duty to Europe and to our electors to work together in cooperating for a successful launch of both projects.
<P>
When the new Labour Government in Britain was elected in May, we promised we would transform our relations with Europe.
We have done that.
Britain is now a committed player in Europe.
<P>
(Applause) We believe that when Europe works together the result is better for every country in Europe.
<P>
The problems we face are common problems which demand common solutions.
Problems like global warming and international crime are not ones that any one nation can solve on its own.
Today nations are as interdependent as they once were independent.
The world has changed since the times of Monnet, Spaak and Schuman, but every change has made their vision of European cooperation more compelling than before.
<P>
Britain wants to use its presidency to create an effective and inclusive Union that is open to the whole of Europe.
That is why we are so concerned to make a success out of economic and monetary union and enlargement.
We also want to build a Union that responds to the real concerns of the European peoples.
That is why we want to take forward work on jobs, the environment and crime.
We want to make the Union efficient, so we will focus on the reform agenda and start to prepare the European Union for the challenges of the next century.
And we want to make it a more effective voice in the world, so we will be working to improve the performance of the common foreign and security policy.
The new British Government is committed to making a success of European cooperation, and our presidency will be an affirmation of this.
<P>
Economic and monetary union will be a most momentous step.
During our presidency the key decision will be made on who qualifies for Stage Three of EMU - which currencies are to be locked together in the single currency.
The European Parliament will, of course, have a key role to play in that decision.
<P>
Britain will be in the chair when the crucial decision is made next May.
We will discharge this responsibility to the best of our abilities, fully and scrupulously, in a way that we hope will show Europe at its most constructive best.
<P>
We want economic and monetary union to be a success.
Britain itself will not be in the first wave, but that does not mean that we have no interest in the success of monetary union.
Our economy is bound up in that of the continent and we have as much reason as any country of the continent to work for a successful launch.
<P>
We are also committed to making enlargement a success.
The Luxembourg Summit opened the road to enlargement.
Now it falls to us to get the process moving ahead down that road.
During the British Presidency we will be launching the Accession Process for all applicants, as well as starting negotiations with those countries that want to join the European Union.
It is a process in which the European Parliament will have a crucial role to play.
We must be sure to work together, because enlarging the European Union is an historic opportunity, both for Europe and for the new Members.
It will give an immense boost to all our economies.
It will create a wider, stronger Europe.
It will fulfil the challenge set eight years ago when the Iron Curtain was brought down and will enable us to create a prosperous, self-confident and more stable Europe.
We have got rid of the Iron Curtain.
It is important that we do not tolerate in its place a velvet curtain which separates the affluent nations of Western Europe from poorer countries on its borders in central and eastern Europe.
<P>
The last 50 years of division in Europe have been an aberration in our history.
In the history of Europe its great cultural figures, such as Mozart, Chopin, Goethe or Voltaire, would not have recognized a concept of a Europe that was divided in the way it has been in the past 50 years.
It falls to our generation to have the great opportunity of finally ending that division by opening the doors of the European Union to the new democracies of central and eastern Europe.
<P>
We have two important but practical objectives for the British Presidency on enlargement.
First, to get the actual negotiations off to a flying start.
And, second, to help those who have further to travel - to make sure that all the applicant countries feel included in the process.
<P>
We will continue to provide support along the way to all those applicants: support to help them to reform their economies, privatize their state-owned corporations, strengthen their public administrations.
That is why Britain itself will be assisting in providing training for some of the negotiators on the side of the Central European countries that are applying.
We are assisting in the training of their negotiators because we believe these negotiations are not confrontational or adversarial.
These negotiations have one common purpose: to make a success of enlargement.
<P>
The inaugural meeting of the European Conference will be held on 12 March in London.
It will be a visible demonstration of the inclusive Europe we want to build.
We also want it to be a substantive meeting, discussing issues that matter to all our peoples, both in the Member States and the candidate countries alike - on the environment, drugs and organized crime.
<P>
The prospect of Cyprus joining the European Union offers us the opportunity of contributing to peace and the prosperity of all of the people of that island.
The European Union firmly supports the United Nations SecretaryGeneral in his efforts to find a political solution on Cyprus.
We hope the leaders of the two communities will resume UN-led negotiations after the elections.
We welcome the willingness of the government of Cyprus to include Turkish Cypriots in the delegation for accession negotiations.
We would like to see a bizonal, bicommunal, federal Cyprus join the European Union.
<P>
But Cyprus is entitled to have its application for membership considered on its own strong merits, and its progress must not be conditional on a solution to the division of the island.
<P>
We will also work hard to strengthen relations between the European Union and Turkey.
Turkey matters, both as a major player in an important region, and as a long-time ally of Europe.
We recognize Turkey's European vocation, and the need to draw her into the enlargement process.
<P>
We have laid down criteria for all states wishing to join the European Union: the need for a market economy, democratic governance and observance of human rights.
Turkey's candidacy for membership of the European Union must be judged by the same objective criteria as any other country.
<P>
Britain wants to reconnect the peoples of Europe with the European Union which their governments are trying to create.
Our peoples need to know that the European Union is relevant to their lives.
To them the European Union sometimes seems to spend too much of its time discussing things that do not touch their lives: abstractions and theories, rather than a concrete agenda.
Our people need to believe that their worries dictate our agenda in Europe.
<P>
Three issues are of paramount concern to the people of Europe: employment, jobs and crime and the environment.
I know they are your priorities.
They will also be ours.
<P>
First, employment.
It does not matter in which country you ask the question.
If you ask people what they worry about most, there is only one answer in all our countries: jobs.
I am sure it is what you hear in your constituencies among your electors.
<P>
Over 18 million people are unemployed in the European Union.
Five million of them are under 25.
That means one in ten of Europe's young people are without a job.
Each one is not a figure, but a tragedy, a waste of talent and an alienation from our societies and our economies.
The modern economy is very exciting for those who are prepared for it, for those with the skills and the confidence to flourish in the new market-place.
But many are intimidated by it, and many are excluded from it.
Our task must be to build in Europe a modern market economy but with just, inclusive societies.
I believe it can be done and that Europe can show how.
<P>
The Union has a major role in that process.
The Jobs Summit in Luxembourg set an agenda for putting Europe back to work. Britain will use its presidency to pursue that agenda with vigour.
By helping governments find the best ways to help their people find jobs, and by pursuing the four goals agreed at the Luxembourg Jobs Summit, which match well with the new British Government's own priorities. Employability, so that our people have the skills they need to find work.
Flexibility and adaptability, so that our companies can adapt to a fast-changing market.
Entrepreneurship, so that we can turn Europe's creativity and innovation into jobs and growth, particularly in small and medium enterprise companies. Finally, equal opportunities, so that all those who want to work are given the chance, not just the young and the able-bodied.
<P>
At the Cardiff Summit, one of the top priorities will be to review progress on the Action Plans on unemployment now being drawn up by every Member State under guidelines agreed at Luxembourg.
<P>
A key part of staying competitive must be making the single market work and completing the single market.
We will be working hard on the single market action plan approved in Amsterdam and, together with the Austrian Presidency, we aim to get it completed by the end of 1998.
The action plan gives us a full programme.
We want single market rules applied quickly and enforced better.
We want to engage the Commission and the European Parliament in producing better, simpler legislation.
We want to remove barriers so that Europe can benefit fully from the huge potential of the information society and electronic commerce.
Our aim is an effective single market, free from hidden barriers or unfair state aid, which leads to real prosperity.
Then we will have a Europe that can work for the people, and put the people back to work.
<P>
The second major concern for the people is crime.
The drugs trade is worth about $400 billion a year around the globe, second only to the oil trade in value.
It is one of the most integrated of trades in Europe.
<P>
If we are to catch the criminals who carry out that trade, then we need to match their cross-border work and their international cooperation.
We need to match it with teamwork and international cooperation of our own.
<P>
(Applause) As a presidency, we want to get Europol launched as soon as we can, so that Europe's police forces can work together effectively.
We will take a fresh initiative against high-tech crime.
New means of cross-border communication such as the Internet offer tremendous new opportunities for access to information and freedom of expression.
But they are also open to risks of abuse, which we can only fight if we fight it together.
We will attack the drugs trade right at its heart by helping the drug-producing countries in Central Asia stem the flow.
<P>
We must show the people that the European Union shares their fears and concerns, and is able to act to tackle them.
<P>
The last of those concerns is the environment.
The people of Europe want us to be serious in our duty to take care of the planet and to hand it on to our children in good order.
Right across the board, European Union activities need to secure a sustainable Europe.
<P>
We will use the British Presidency to put environmental considerations centre stage in the European Union's decision-making process.
They should be at the heart of all our policies.
Not an afterthought or an appendix.
<P>
The European Union transport policy has a major impact on the environment.
Let us ensure it is a positive one.
To make this a reality, we will be holding a joint Transport and Environment Council in June.
We will be taking forward the proposals for higher standards on vehicle emissions to create a higher quality of clean air for our people.
By linking the two, we can help to ensure that Europe's transport policy is friendly to Europe's environment.
<P>
The British Presidency comes at the same time as three important international projects on the environment: the follow-up to the Kyoto climate change talks, negotiations in the UN on providing clean water, and talks on managing the world's forests.
<P>
Kyoto proved that the European Union can be an impressive world leader on the environment.
But Kyoto did not take us all the way to our goal.
Where agreement was reached, we now need to take its implementation forward, and where we did not reach agreement, we need discussion to take forward further agreement with our partners worldwide.
<P>
Jobs, crime and the environment.
Those are the concerns of the people of Europe.
Those are the priorities for the British Presidency.
But there must also be progress on the reform agenda for Europe itself.
<P>
Tomorrow's fast-moving world belongs to those who respond fastest, those who change fastest and those who modernize.
The people want to see a European Union that works efficiently and fairly for their benefit.
<P>
The Agenda 2000 reforms proposed by the Commission make up an exciting programme to modernize the European Union.
The European Union has to change to meet the challenges posed by enlargement, but also the challenges from a changing world.
The European Union has to make some hard choices.
<P>
The common agricultural policy is perhaps the clearest example.
It made sense in the 1950s against a background of food shortages.
A common policy is no less relevant today but it needs modernization.
The Commission was mandated at Luxembourg to bring forward legislative proposals.
During our presidency we will want to make sure that work takes place.
<P>
I know the strength of feeling on reform of the common agricultural policy, and the divergence of views about it.
But there is much we can agree on.
A new agricultural policy that will still support our farmers, but at a lower cost to our taxpayers and at a lower cost to the consumer, preserving rural communities and also the rural environment.
I know there are many in the European Parliament who will want to see a shift in our policy so we can devote more of our resources to the areas most relevant to today's concerns.
<P>
(Applause) We will use our presidency to work with you to ensure that our money is well spent.
The people want to know that the burden is shared fairly, that regional aid goes to help the poorest areas, the areas which need them most.
They want hard action on mismanagement and fraud, to know that their money is not being wasted.
Making the European Union work more efficiently for the people will be our priority.
<P>
Another will be making it accessible to the people.
We will propose measures to make the European Union more transparent, including opening up the Council of Ministers still further.
If the people are to believe that the European Union belongs to them, they must at the very least know what is being discussed and how things are decided by us.
<P>
(Applause) I also want the British Presidency to help restore the people's faith that the European Union can speak and act for them in the world.
I say both 'speak' and 'act' deliberately.
It is important that the European Union's voice is heard quickly and authoritatively.
But it is also important that we match our words with deeds and show that action by the European Union can have an impact.
The European Union can and should be a major player on the world stage.
<P>
We will use our presidency to launch a European Union Code of Conduct on arms exports, to establish agreed standards for all exports of arms by European Union members.
We will implement the new European Union Joint Action on landmines, which reaffirms the Union's commitment to a complete global ban, and to its programme of landmine clearance and help for victims of landmines.
<P>
(Applause) We will work for a coherent European approach to human rights, and make sure it has real impact by working in partnership and dialogue with other countries.
<P>
We will continue the Union's efforts to strengthen its relations with the rest of the world.
I will be travelling tomorrow to Washington and Ottawa to brief the US and Canada on our plans for the presidency.
In May we will be holding summits with both countries.
I will be going to Latin America in February to chair the European Union/Rio and European Union/San José ministerial meetings.
Tony Blair will be chairing the Second Asia-Europe Meeting in London in April, the first such summit with Asia on European soil and an important milestone in our relations with Asia.
During our presidency we will also aim to reach agreement on the European Union mandate for negotiations on a successor to the Lomé Convention.
<P>
Under our presidency the European Union will continue to work with our partners to help implement the peace agreements in Bosnia.
We will seek to improve the speed and effectiveness of the European Union's aid effort to that region.
<P>
We will make sure that the European Union continues to make a positive contribution to the Middle East Peace Process.
We are disturbed by the current deadlock, which is a matter of vital concern to the European Union as much as it is to anybody else.
For this reason, we will be working to complement the efforts of the United States to broker talks between both sides and we will be examining how Europe can facilitate progress on practical measures, such as the Gaza airport and seaport.
<P>
I should also like to say that we share the deep concern of the European Parliament over recent events in Algeria.
You have made your feelings clear, most notably through your award of the 1997 Sakharov Prize to Selima Ghezali.
Her work, in the most difficult circumstances, is a cogent reminder to the world of the problems that Algeria faces.
<P>
The latest massacres, and the scale of the savagery involved, have been appalling.
People across Europe are united in revulsion and horror by the stories they have read in the press from Algeria in recent weeks.
The British Ambassador, on behalf of the presidency, has sought permission from the Algerian authorities to visit the sites of the recent horrific atrocities.
We want to find out how we can help.
We have seen no evidence to support allegations of involvement by the Algerian security authorities.
The world's media have a keen interest in these dramatic events.
It is in the interests of the Algerian authorities to let the press see for themselves what is going on in their country and who is responsible for the terrorism.
The governments of the international community also have a legitimate interest.
We have learnt too often in the past that if we allow terrorism to take root in any one country, it can all too quickly be exported to other countries.
<P>
(Applause) That is why the British Presidency readily took up the proposal to send a troika mission to Algeria.
Such a mission will both examine how the European Union can help end the terrorism and demonstrate the strong feelings of the peoples of Europe for the terror and sufferings of the people of Algeria.
I give you an assurance that the presidency will keep the European Parliament fully informed.
<P>
In conclusion, I should like to say that in even a long speech one can only provide a snapshot of a programme for six months of a presidency.
It is an ambitious and full programme, a programme that demonstrates the Europe that Britain and the European Parliament want to see.
An inclusive Europe that is prosperous, open and peaceful, an efficient Union that cooperates effectively on the things that matter to our people and speaks for them clearly and forcefully in the world.
<P>
The European Parliament has a key role in that vision.
The British Government has been working to build up our links with Parliament - links that possibly were not kept at their strongest by the previous British government - and we have developed our presidency agenda in close consultation with yourself and with other Members of this European Parliament.
<P>
We want our presidency to ensure that you are given the best possible chance to play your important role in the crucial decisions ahead of us.
<P>
Yours will be an important voice in the debate on economic and monetary union.
You must give your assent to enlargement.
When the Amsterdam Treaty comes into force you will have a much-expanded brief for legislation.
The British Presidency is determined to engage in an equal dialogue with you in all these areas, from the plenary debates to your committee rooms.
<P>
But your role goes much wider than this.
I believe that the European Parliament has a crucial part to play in our mission of giving the European Union back to the people, in explaining the key issues to the people of Europe, in ensuring they have the chance to speak and that their voice is heard.
As a government that believes in an open, transparent Europe and in a Europe that reflects the views of ordinary people and acts on their concerns, we believe you have a vital role.
We will not always agree but I can assure you that your views will always be listened to.
<P>
We are at the threshold of creating a wider, stronger Europe; a Europe which stretches from Warsaw to Edinburgh; a peaceful, prosperous and confident Europe; a Europe which can speak with one voice in the world but which respects and encourages different national cultures to flourish within the Union.
It has fallen to Britain to take the mantle of presidency when these opportunities are within our grasp.
We need your help if we are to grasp these opportunities. I know you will give us that help.
<P>
(Loud applause)
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr President-in-Office of the Council.
<P>
Mrs Green now has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Green">
Mr President-in-Office, it is the most tremendous pleasure for me to welcome you to the European Parliament today.
As a British Labour MEP, I take delight in being able to welcome the first Labour Government Minister in this Chamber for over two decades.
<P>
(Applause from the left) As leader of the Socialist Group in this House, I know that Socialists, Social Democrats - and some other Members of this House as well - were mightily relieved to see the back of the previous government which was most hostile to, most dishonest about and most obstructive in the European Union.
<P>
(Applause from the left) On 4 May, just three days after the British general election, the Observer newspaper carried the headline 'Goodbye Xenophobia' .
The first positive message of the new government and from the President-in-Office in particular was towards the European Union.
The Foreign Secretary is very welcome here.
On 16 December 1992 at the conclusion of the last British Presidency my colleague and predecessor Jean-Pierre Cot addressed the then British Prime Minister and said: ' At the outset of the British Presidency, I looked forward confident in my belief that those traditional British characteristics of fair play and efficiency would make it a success' .
He concluded: ' the British Presidency has behaved less like an honest broker and more like a fervent partisan' .
Today I make a plea to the Foreign Secretary to ensure that this British Presidency will demonstrate that fair play and efficiency and restore British self-respect and dignity in this House and in Europe.
<P>
But, more, we hope that this presidency, in seeking to carry out its priorities will demonstrate the drive, the vigour, imagination, flair and vision which has marked the first eight months of the government's stewardship of Britain.
It will be no surprise to the Foreign Secretary or to this House that my group endorses the major policy priorities which he has outlined to us today as his plan of work for the next six months.
Colleagues in my group will deal with that agenda - jobs, drugs, the environment, the foreign affairs agenda, in detail during the course of the debate today.
<P>
I want to raise just two issues in particular.
Firstly, enlargement of the Union to Cyprus and central and eastern Europe.
We welcome the President-in-Office's commitment to open the process of enlargement in an inclusive and transparent way in March in London.
I know that the British government believes in making hard choices.
I want to ask the President-in-Office to take up the hard option which in our view accompanies the opening conference and that is to begin the process of discussing the complex issue which was not concluded at Amsterdam and which the Luxembourg summit at least had the grace to admit must be tackled.
It is not popular or easy to raise what is often regarded as the navel-gazing issues of institutional reform.
But the simple truth is that the European Union will not work without greater qualified majority voting...
<P>
...let alone the re-weighting of votes, numbers of Commissioners and so on.
<P>
Similarly, the word is out that the reforms of both the common agricultural policy and the structural funds which you mentioned will simply not even begin until the end of this year when the German election is over.
Nobody expects that these questions can be resolved in the next six months but please do not pretend that they just do not exist.
<P>
The second issue I want to raise is a the decision which must be taken on the euro during the first few days of May of this year.
This Parliament, as the President-in-Office said, has a unique and very particular responsibility.
It is the only Parliament in Europe which can have a direct relationship with the European Central Bank and which already has a direct relationship with Ecofin.
This Parliament can exercise democratic control over the euro and the institutions which determine its success or otherwise.
<P>
On this side of the House we are determined that role will be carried out in a very hard-nosed way.
We call on the Council to look seriously at the proposals coming forward from Parliament to give the euro democratic legitimacy.
The attitude of the British Presidency in supporting the right of this Parliament to give its view on the recommendations of Ecofin on which countries should be in the first wave of EMU has given a clear message of democratic commitment for which we are very grateful.
I hope now that the President-in-Office will press his colleagues to support a democratic euro.
<P>
This presidency occurs at a crucial time - I have said it if the Foreign Secretary did not.
It carries with it the hopes of those concerned for the future of Europe and, in particular, for our young people.
We wish it well.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, thank you for your statement and more specifically, for your promise that you will listen to the voice of Parliament.
You reminded us that your presidency will be marked by two historic agreements.
On the 30th of March the negotiations with the eleven candidate countries will start and during the first weekend of May the decision on the euro will be taken.
These historic steps have been provided for in agreements, and have been prepared in the European Council for a long time.
They illustrate once more how the European Community has been able to function on the basis of a gradual and continuous process in which patience but also determination are the best and most secure driving forces.
Also, Mr President, once the course has been set, you will be responsible for setting and settling the agenda, and also and particularly for creating the political climate.
You spoke of the transparency of your decisions just now, and the plea to public opinion.
I think that during your presidency the support of the people will be a key element in the countries where the euro will be introduced, but also in the candidate countries, who finally want to belong to a community of free and democratic nations.
The European Community's decisions have never been as concrete and as influential in the daily life of our fellow citizens as they are now.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, we know that the British tradition, permeated with its sense of democracy, attaches much value to the participation of everyone in big, collective decisions.
That is why it is paradoxical that your government has announced that it does not wish to belong to the first group of Member States who will introduce the euro.
Jean Monnet said of the British: we realize that you respect facts, not hypotheses.
History proved him right, when he predicted that the United Kingdom, after a long period of hesitation, would put itself up for the ECSC and the EEC once these two communities achieved their first successes without changing anything in their federal principles.
I, for my part, have confidence in your pragmatism.
Because once the euro is seen to be a strong, stable, attractive currency, your country will join as well, and contribute to its image.
We expect your presidency, during a delicate phase in which fundamental formal decisions will turn over quite a few old habits, to use all its talent and energy to convey a message of hope and trust to the entire population of the Union.
Because, ladies and gentlemen, each new day confirms our conviction that, in defiance of scepticism and resistance, the euro will materialize.
This is a new opportunity to safeguard the standard of living of our people, and a new opportunity for the growth of our economy, an absolute condition for the creation of new jobs.
<P>
The hope for sustainable peace on our continent has never been this close and this strong.
Which is why we have to convince our fellow citizens that they should look forward with generosity and with thanks to the enlargement with central and eastern Europe. And during the Summit in Cardiff, in mid June this year, the first steps towards the reform of Agenda 2000 will be made.
You will have to use your creativity here to stop the fifteen from sinking into powerlessness and from dividing over monetary issues of secondary importance after the historic decision on enlargement and the euro.
Pursuing the general interest will have to prevail over the cold defence of acquired rights, or the populism of national and class egoisms.
That is why the basis on which the European Community was built exists.
Common integration exists, the key to success for the European Community, giving priority to belonging to a strong unit which defends our interests in the outside world and at the same time sticks together internally, so that everyone feels involved.
We have to continue down this road, and we support you in the actions you have announced: job creation, competitive strength, combating fraud and crime, protecting the environment and public health, culture, the information society, the launch of the planning and warning unit by the Common Foreign and Security Policy, renewal of the Lomé Convention, promoting human rights around the world. And I would like to ask you the question, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, will you take actions on behalf of human rights in Nigeria, in Burma, the solution of the problems in Cyprus.
Mrs Green emphasized this, I do it again.
<P>
Institutional reform, too, which was not achieved in Amsterdam, is an absolute must for each presidency, including yours.
I was very moved when I recently read an interview with the former President of the European Commission, Jacques Delors, who said that European Integration was brought about on the basis of the economy.
Now we are going to tackle a second major enterprise: enlargement to include the countries of central and eastern Europe.
But says Jacques Delors, and I quote:
<P>
' This assumes that by the year 2010 all the member countries will have the same ambitions for a unified Europe, and the means to achieve this.
I doubt that very much.
I fear that if we do not consider this question seriously, the European political project will slowly fade away, in favour of a huge free trade zone' .
<P>
(NL) We must keep this message by Jacques Delors clearly in our ears and in our brains, in our outlook, in our mind.
I call on you, you who are characterized in your tradition by pragmatism, to make a creative effort also, and to make this European Union live during the next century as well.
<P>
(Applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Collins, Gerard">
Mr President, I warmly welcome the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom as President-in-Office of the Council to Parliament this morning.
I wish him every success in his presidency on behalf of the people of Europe.
I thank him for his very extensive address to Parliament.
I endorse the priorities of the presidency, which he clearly outlined.
<P>
I strongly endorse the priority which the presidency proposes to give to the objective of showing the peoples of Europe that the European Union is working for them in practical ways.
This objective will only be achieved if it can be clearly demonstrated to the majority of people that the European Union is relevant to their day-to-day concerns and that the Union can contribute to finding solutions to the problems in our society.
<P>
The issue of most widespread concern at the present time is crime.
There are very few people in any of our countries who have not themselves been the victims of criminal acts or whose families have not been affected by crime one way or another.
Practically every night television news bulletins bring stories into our homes of more and more horrendous crimes being perpetrated by evil people, often against defenceless people in our society, such as young children or the very old.
Large numbers of our people are concerned over their personal safety or the safety of their families.
In many of our communities house break-ins, muggings and violent attacks are considered to be more commonplace than had been the case years ago.
<P>
The underlying cause for a large proportion of these crimes is drug dependency and the abuse of illegal drugs.
Illegal drugs seem to be readily available nowadays both in terms of quantity and variety, particularly to young people.
The abuse of these drugs poses a serious health risk to impressionable young people who are persuaded to experiment with them.
The drug dependency and addiction which ultimately follows for many of these people can only be satisfied through the proceeds of crime.
It is this type of drug-related crime which is posing a serious risk to many of our communities.
<P>
I believe that the European Union can make a major contribution towards tackling the scourge of drug abuse by concentrating its resources in a coordinated manner with the national authorities on tackling the international drugs trade.
<P>
The illegal drugs trade is now a sophisticated international business.
The fight against this trade, if it is to be effective, must also be sophisticated and international in scope.
Those of us who participated in the negotiations for the Maastricht Treaty had hoped that Europol would be the agency which would provide national authorities with the intelligence and information on money laundering, illegal drug production and smuggling, which they required to prosecute those responsible for the drugs being distributed to our communities.
Many years later I am disappointed to see yet another presidency having to list as one of its objectives that of finishing the preparations for the establishment of Europol.
The only people who could be happy with these disgraceful delays are those involved in the illegal drugs trade.
<P>
Nonetheless, I warmly welcome the British Presidency's commitment to getting Europol established and its interest in promoting international efforts to tackle the illegal drugs business.
I will be supportive of any such proposals which come before this Parliament.
<P>
During the British Presidency decisions will be made concerning those countries which will be included in the first wave of participants in the single currency.
While I appreciate that Britain will not be one of these countries, it is nonetheless important that all countries, even those not participating in the single currency from day one, should be actively involved in the preparatory and planning phases for the launch of the euro because of the potential impact of this currency on all our economies, whether inside or outside the single currency zone.
<P>
A critically important aspect of the launch of the new currency will be the attitude of individual citizens to the euro.
The President-in-Office will recall the reticence, concern and even fearful response of many British and, indeed, Irish citizens to the decimalization of our respective currencies during the 1960s.
In the lead-in to decimalization the importance of establishing a high degree of consumer confidence was perhaps not fully understood.
I believe that the same risk exists today.
It is vitally important that the European institutions, as well as national governments, undertake a comprehensive process of education amongst all sectors of the population and not just amongst the financial and business community, as seems to be mainly the case at present.
<P>
When the euro is launched it will be necessary to exchange money held in present currencies for the new currency.
This requirement may well provide a useful opportunity for the authorities to identify the assets of criminals and to take appropriate action.
I hope that the presidency will ensure that the initiatives necessary to identify criminal assets are put in place and in good time to avail of the opportunity.
<P>
The work programme submitted by the presidency suggests that efforts will also be made over the next six months to make progress in the negotiations on the reform of the common agricultural policy.
Clearly the Commission's detailed proposals will need to be tabled before any significant progress can be made in this matter.
Final agreement on reform of the CAP should be preceded by a lengthy and comprehensive debate spread over a number of presidencies.
This reform will have major political significance, not just for our future relations with East European countries, but also for our rural areas, for food policy and for the millions of farmers and workers involved.
<P>
Finally, the presidency has identified environmental policy as one of its priorities.
In this regard I would hope that it will give due consideration to resolving a long-time existing environmental problem of major concern to your neighbours in Ireland - the problem of continued discharges of radioactive material into the Irish Sea from the Sellafield complex.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="de Vries">
Mr President, after years of bitter negativism the British government's positive attitude comes as a refreshing improvement.
Few presidencies have won as much goodwill .
Few, for that matter, have organized as big a public relations campaign to generate this goodwill.
Anyhow: welcome back, England.
But a warning is called for.
Good intentions are not enough.
A presidency has to show results.
This applies to two areas: monetary issues and foreign policy.
<P>
The most important decision for the Union under the British Presidency is the one about the euro.
Regrettably the British government was not prepared to state clearly whether or when England will join the European currency.
The presidency therefore has to conduct these negotiations with one hand tied behind its back.
<P>
Tony Blair wants to lead in Europe, but he cannot expect to lead from the sidelines.
I would like to ask the UK nonetheless to see to it that the Member States respect the Treaty when its appoints the first president of the European Central Bank.
According to the Treaty this appointment will run for a full period of eight years, and not for two or four.
Messing around with the Treaty on this point could damage its credibility even before it is launched.
<P>
Mr President, the financial crisis in Asia is casting an increasing shadow over Europe.
Although there is no reason to panic, there is cause for serious concern.
Devaluation in Hong Kong or China, or a financial crisis in Japan would affect both America and Europe.
Up until now the Union, in contrast to America, contributed directly to finding solutions.
The absence of the world's largest economic block is conspicuous.
Why did the European Union not send a team to the countries concerned to offer political solidarity and support?
Of course, the Asian countries need to deregulate their economy and reform their financial sector, and the British Presidency should make this clear in the ASEAN countries and in Japan.
But we must also express confidence in the Asian economies at the highest political level.
This is not the time for the Union to create the impression of being introverted, selfish, and irrelevant.
<P>
If, in addition, there is another area where there is a need for British leadership it is foreign policy.
It is on this point above all that the British Presidency will be judged.
There is an urgent need for effective European diplomacy in the Mediterranean and in the Balkans.
<P>
I support the intention expressed by the presidency to make the Union play an active role in the Middle East and Algeria.
Now that the Algerian government is not capable or not prepared to end the crimes against humanity in its country, the international community needs to consider seriously if it should set up an international criminal court for Algeria.
This could be the most effective method for applying international pressure.
<P>
The Union must also improve cooperation with Turkey.
Obviously no country which violates human rights can join the Union.
As long there is no genuine freedom of speech, and as long as children are tortured by the police, negotiations with Turkey are out of the question.
But it is nonetheless in the interest of Europe to cooperate with Turkey on issues such as regional security and emigration.
In March 1995 the Association Council decided to deepen the political dialogue with Turkey.
The presidency must see to it that these decisions are finally implemented, and that financial cooperation is resumed.
Pacta sunt servanda [pacts are there to be observed].
<P>
Two comments about the Balkans.
I am getting increasingly worried that Kosovo will be the next keg to explode in the Balkans.
Maybe it is not too late yet to prevent a war in Kosovo, but things are changing for the worse.
It is vital that the EU and the US increase their pressure on president Milosevic.
The international community should appoint a highly placed representative for the Kosovo issue.
Kosovo must be one of the priorities of the British Presidency.
<P>
My group is also asking for priority to be given to the arrest of war criminals in Bosnia.
Nations do not commit war crimes, individuals do.
That is why the guilty have to be tried.
Only then can the circle of violence be broken.
1998 must be the year in which Karadzic and Mladic are finally brought to court.
The United Kingdom has an important military force in former Yugoslavia.
I therefore call on the British Presidency to use all political, as well as military resources to arrive at the arrest and deportation of these two criminals.
<P>
One final remark about the democratic quality of the Union.
One of the ways to increase democratic control in the Union is by means of the introduction by the Council of a common electoral system based on proportional representation.
If our European citizens wish to have this system in 1999, then the necessary decisions must be taken no later than June this year. This means that the presidency must make its proposals by the end of March.
The Liberals agree with the British government's wish to bring Europe closer to the people.
I therefore trust the British government to agree with our wish that this important democratic reform is accomplished this year.
<P>
Mr President, my group wholeheartedly welcomes the objectives and words of the presidency.
It will be up to the presidency to ensure that we will also be able to applaud its actions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Puerta">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, as you so rightly said, the decisions on the euro and the start of enlargement negotiations define the tasks and the significance of the British Presidency.
And what can Members of the European Parliament hope for from a British Presidency?
We know what we hope for: a British Presidency which believes strongly in Europe today, and is tenacious, optimistic and practical, with a sense of humour as well, if possible.
And with a Labour presidency, we must also hope (especially those of us on the left) that it has an awareness of society.
<P>
For that reason I should like to make a few friendly comments - not at all formal - on some of the things you said.
Because at this time of enlargement, culmination of EMU and forthcoming development of the Stability Pact, when it is going to be so difficult to implement social policies (which will sometimes be hindered by circumstances), we need to say a resounding "yes' to enlargement, but we also need to make clear (as you did) how essential it is to combat unemployment.
The fight against unemployment must not just consist of good intentions, but should be given the same importance as currency and the fight against inflation, which we share.
<P>
But we need more than that.
In order to build a balanced, democratic and just Europe, we need to maintain the great objective of economic and social cohesion, and the aspiration to a Europe based not just on liberties, but also on great equality between north and south, east and west.
There is an obvious question: how do we achieve that cohesion?
What are our suggestions?
Well, we propose that we continue to use the structural funds in an intelligent and transparent manner, without squandering them, but maintaining that internal solidarity between northern and southern Europe. That does not have to be incompatible with enlargement policy.
<P>
You mentioned the common agricultural policy, and I venture to say to you that we need to overcome the imbalances in aid provided for different agricultural products.
We need reform, but a reform which helps to provide more equal opportunities for the different countries and farmers of Europe.
<P>
If we want to fund enlargement and internal solidarity at the same time, we cannot agree with the Commission's approach in Agenda 2000.
It is impossible to work with an own-resource limit of 1.27 % of Community GNP.
I will speak in terms which the people of Europe will be able to understand: the Commission is proposing that out of every ECU 10, 000 of the GNP, ECU 127 should go to the Community budget.
The European Parliament, on the other hand, is asking for a further ECU 4 for the budget out of every ECU 10, 000 of the Community GNP (that is, a total of ECU 131), so that we can simultaneously tackle enlargement and solidarity.
How can it be impossible to use an additional ECU 4 out of every ECU 10, 000?
I find that incomprehensible, and I am not just speaking for myself, but on behalf of many European citizens.
<P>
Furthermore, we want to tackle the problems of money being squandered and lack of transparency, but we support the welfare state as one of Europe's most characteristic features.
The market should be transparent, but it should be subject to democratic values and the political and social rights of the people.
I am sure that a Labour President must remain highly sensitive to this aim of maintaining the welfare state as a mark of European identity, through all the reorganizations and updates required by each political option.
<P>
And to finish, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I want to say that we agree that there should be reasonable dialogue with Turkey, but from a European viewpoint, as you said.
Turkey has to fulfil the same criteria as the other countries.
It cannot threaten northern Cyprus, and be constantly opposed to human rights.
We cannot accept a United States viewpoint, shaped by Turkey's importance in NATO.
We see things from a European point of view, and we want the Council to defend that view.
<P>
Finally, if Parliament's President will allow me, I would like to say that we are all committed to Algeria.
Perhaps we may have slightly differing views about it, but we agree that the Troika should go there, and so should a major European Parliamentary delegation - not just to try to shed some light on what is happening, but also to promote dialogue between all those forces which condemn the terrorism and are prepared to develop an Algeria ruled by law.
For all these tasks - for a Europe based on democracy, solidarity, and also social aspects - you can count on the support of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen and the British Presidency of the Council, I pondered for a long time yesterday evening about what comes to mind when I think about the British Presidency, and then suddenly there it was in my head, and especially in my gut: rock-'n'-roll.
The cry for justice, democracy, freedom and solidarity, the imaginative escape from the old fug.
That is what rock-'n'-roll is for me.
Tony Blair's message is that time is on my side , and so talking about my generation, Mr Cook, I agree with you and you make us reflect on everything this Europe of ours needs on its long and winding road , because Europe is sick.
Its health will certainly not be restored by a ratification of its condition or by accepting and tolerating that condition.
Europe is sick, and the European ideal is becoming weaker because there is a feeling that combined efforts are being made to undermine it.
Europe once stood for freedom and peace, but now the opening of its borders is seen as a danger and 2 000 Kurdish refugees are seen as a threat to order and security.
Yes, Mr Cook, I agree with you: the divisions must be overcome, instead of setting up new barriers.
<P>
Europe is sick.
Ecological destruction is spreading, and it is not only the forests which are wasting away.
Europe is sick.
It is suffering from mass unemployment and a policy which talks about stability but is only concerned about money, a policy which is geared towards the euro but not towards European men and women.
Democracy resides in the endeavour for equal opportunity, social justice, tolerance, protection and help for the weak.
European democracy is in a sorry state when 30 million people are without work.
People who are made social outcasts.
People whose social decline increasingly excludes them from participating in society and politics and abandons them to their fate.
People whose experience is a life of poverty and lack of prospects from childhood onwards.
Those people need more than words.
Words are all I have to take your heart away .
That is not enough for those people!
Because people have to know why they are supposed to want Europe in the first place, what is needed is a clear future perspective for the Europeanization of policies, in order to tackle problems which cannot be solved nationally on a European level.
<P>
People do not live on money alone.
They need work so they can earn money.
They need equal opportunities to get work.
They need dignity so they can believe they have an opportunity in the first place.
Social justice is not everything, but without social justice Europe is nothing!
This must be the agenda for the British Presidency.
For Europe as well as at home.
Let no one say this is outmoded or that it cannot be done.
France and the selfconfident movement of the unemployed prove the opposite.
You cannot always get what you want.
But if you try, sometimes you may find that you get what you need!
<P>
The EU will only become a union of all its citizens if it also becomes a social and environmental union which is committed to sustainability and based on democracy.
Democracy is not a vision. Democracy is a matter of survival for this European Union.
Democracy based on the principle of participation, on equal rights for all people, on respect for fundamental and human rights, rights such as the right of asylum, which only make sense when their application is guaranteed rather than their abuse being complained of.
Democracy, that means transparency and openness, because behind closed doors principles become eroded.
But transparency and openness do not mean big brother is watching you in the offices of friendly governments, nor do they mean Europol in my private life.
<P>
We want an integrated Europe which is solidly established on a democratic, social and ecological Europe, and this is what the British Presidency must do.
We can work it out, we can work it out!
Life is very short and there is no time.
I promise you, I will ask you once again!
I thank the Stones, the Beatles and the Bee-Gees for helping me to write my speech!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Ewing">
Mr President, this for me is a very historic day because 21 years ago to the day I was the only MP still here who spoke on the first ever UK Presidency - the last UK Labour presidency.
<P>
I notice from the Minutes that Mr Tomlinson spoke in the next debate and he is still here, but he was speaking as President-in-Office of the Council, not as a Member.
So it is historic and I would like to start on a pleasant note by throwing a few bouquets at the President-in-Office, which might surprise him.
<P>
The first bouquet I am throwing is because of the introduction of PR for euro elections - a long awaited improvement in our lot.
The opting into the social policy shunned by the previous government, the promise today of opening Council deliberations, something I spoke about 21 years ago, suggesting as I do now, that EP committee chairmen be invited to Council deliberations on relevant matters: I wait to see if that will be followed 21 years later.
It is not a case of rock and roll so much as of a slow foxtrot.
<P>
I would like to praise also the enormous courage of Mr Cook's counterpart in government, Mo Mowlam, for her very brave actions with regard to Northern Ireland.
<P>
I would like to praise the European noises that are coming from the front bench.
But I start now with a criticism about EMU.
<P>
It is an irony surely that in the moment when the decision is to be made as to who is to be in the first tranche, the UK has opted out, although it qualifies, and is not going to be in the first tranche.
That to me is a lost opportunity.
I would say to the President-in-Office that the train will start, it will travel well, and will it not be harder to clamber on the train once it is well in motion?
<P>
The Trade Union Congress, the CBI, the exporters of whom Scotland has very many, are all in favour of EMU.
So I think that this is a great shame and I wonder if even yet it is not possible for the UK Government to change it's mind?
<P>
Here is what President Crosland said 21 years ago today: ' There was always in the context of EMU, a widespread hope that financial policy-making would pass from Member States to the Community and that the Community would transform from a customs union into a fully integrated economic union complete with its Central Bank, a single fixed exchange and a growing harmonization of taxes.'
It is a bit of a slow foxtrot, is it not?
<P>
While the UK has dithered, bereft of vision, the clock has ticked on and I think the failure of the UK to join EMU is a present tragedy.
<P>
On the social policy side I have another criticism.
Is there much point in getting the advantages of the social policy, which we have always supported in the party I represent here, if Old Labour's stance of defending the disadvantaged is to be abandoned?
Disabled, single mothers, students - there is a Euro-speak that people criticize but there is also a New Labour-speak which I criticize.
'Means-testing' is now 'affluence-testing' .
'Long-termism' is meant to excuse the savage cuts of today.
<P>
I would like to turn to some practical questions on the priorities.
We all have our favourite environmental issues, but I would urge that we enforce the code of conduct passed by this Parliament for sub-standard tankers which threaten all our coasts and have, in fact, caused enormous damage to many of our Member States.
On unemployment, the EMAC committee on which I served has put forward that there should be a compulsory rule about late payment.
That really would help to solve the problems of small businesses and we should look to the very small businesses where real jobs can be created in great numbers.
<P>
The President-in-Office did not mention fishing today.
We have had a debacle of decades with the last government's sell-out to Spain on fishing.
But recently we had another one by this New Labour, with the sell-out on the Fraga report.
So, I ask the President-in-Office if he is still committed to the principle of relative stability?
This is the fundamental question.
And are flag-ships to be allowed to continue making a nonsense of the whole of the CFP as it was originally developed?
Has he read the Duke of Edinburgh's criticism this week of the one-sided nature of fishing agreements between the EU and poor developing countries?
<P>
Members on all sides of this House and from all countries welcome the referendum, which must be another bouquet I throw at this government that the President-in-Office represents.
But there is keen sadness about the broken promises: the direct relationship offered to the new Scottish Parliament with Europe has been watered down, the status of the 'Länder' has been watered down, the right to attend meetings if the Scottish interest was dominant has been watered down.
On enlargement, can we solve it without an enhancement of the funding?
I have an interest here as an Objective 1 area. Objective 1 is just beginning to work to redress hundreds of years of neglect of my area.
<P>
Lastly, my 23 years here have seen the reconciliation of the old rivalries of Europe which caused war, horror and devastation and by decades of patient dialogue we have created the habit of cooperation.
That is a habit we must never take for granted.
<P>
(Applause )
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Nicholson">
Mr President, I also welcome the President-in-Office here this morning.
I would simply say that the programme he has outlined here this morning is a very ambitious one and for my part I welcome it and I congratulate him.
I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the present United Kingdom Government on its enthusiasm.
I just hope its enthusiasm is realistic, when one considers how much one can achieve in the very short time of six months available to it.
<P>
I am concerned at the continued emphasis being placed on the role of the European Union in solving the problem of unemployment.
I have made my view clear in this Parliament that I believe the only way to tackle this serious problem, which faces us all, is at national level, and closer to the people.
While I do not oppose the involvement of the European Union in addressing unemployment, it must be realistic in accepting the limits of its ability in this area.
What we can achieve at European Union level is better support on training, especially in the area of our young unemployed, and the retraining of those who have been unfortunate in losing their employment.
We can also achieve more by sharing and pooling our achievements through our research and development programmes.
I would ask the presidency to move towards the stimulation of greater research and development to emphasize its importance for the future.
<P>
As the President-in-Office said, we are also entering into the crucial phase in the Agenda 2000 proposals.
More especially, there is the matter of the further reform of the common agricultural policy, which is in great turmoil, nowhere more so than in his own country, the United Kingdom.
The ban on United Kingdom beef must be removed as it is destroying the industry.
I trust the President-in-Office during his term of office will work for the removal of that ban and the implementation of the 'born-after date' scheme.
On the same front, he must be positive in redressing the imbalance created by the strong pound and the fact that the UK Government has not applied for the support available to it in Brussels to enable it to alleviate the problem.
<P>
I am impressed by the presidency's enthusiasm in environmental protection.
Despite progress, pollution remains at unacceptably high levels.
We in Europe have attempted to face up to our responsibilities by positive action.
We must now persuade other countries outside the European Union to accept their responsibilities.
<P>
The President-in-Office has a tremendous challenge ahead of him.
I wish him well and look forward to working with him closely in that challenge.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Gollnisch">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, it is quite difficult for a Member to comment when he has only just heard a speech.
It leaves no time for consideration.
I will give you but a few impressions, the first of which relates to the imprecision of your stated intentions with regard to the themes mentioned: you wish the countries of eastern Europe and Cyprus to become members; you wish to see a Europe of full employment; you wish to see a safe, drug-free Europe; you want a pollution-free Europe, both its water and its air; you want to see an end to terrorism in Algeria.
But then what?
<P>
Let us look at these questions a little more closely.
I note that the President-in-Office set the objective of participating in the privatization of the economies of eastern Europe.
This is a significant and perilous objective.
I must note, ironically, that it is quite amusing to hear the Minister for Foreign Affairs of a Labour government sounding the death knell for the statist economic theories of which his own party was for decades the eulogist.
I say this with the best of intentions, for the benefit of Mrs Green.
In reality, as the examples of Switzerland or Norway show, it is not the European Union that creates prosperity but a free economy.
<P>
Regarding the accession of Cyprus, it will not be able to find a solution to the political situation there by itself.
If a solution is not forthcoming prior to accession, membership, far from bringing about peace may, in fact, risk bringing about war.
With regard to unemployment, the President-in-Office has limited himself to a dramatic assessment and a quite explicit wish.
The remedy for this situation is, however, already known.
We must have the courage to confirm that the absence of reasonable protection for the European market with regard to the importation of products produced under conditions of social dumping in the rest of the world is one of the causes.
Either we achieve a coherent regional grouping based on preferential treatment for Member States only, or we immerse ourselves completely in free trade on a world scale.
The one and the other are completely incompatible.
<P>
On an international level, you have mentioned your movements, Mr President-in-Office. I am only sorry that you are starting with Washington.
I am not saying a visit to Washington is not needed, only that you should not start there, because of the risk of giving your other contacts the impression that our policy tags along behind that of the United States.
<P>
Finally, with regard to Algeria, I am quite surprised that we need to send parliamentary missions as if our secret services had not already got enough information on the subject.
I would like to restate that all these events started when the victors of the first round of the first free elections in that country for thirty years were imprisoned.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office, I believe that your policies are based on good will.
Good will may earn you appreciation around the world, but it is not the basis of good policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="David">
Mr President, the last time that Britain held the presidency of the European Union was in the second half of 1992.
Then the British Presidency was characterized by drift and vacillation, by lack of purpose and absence of vision.
This time it will be different, very different.
The British Labour Government has a clear, well thought-out agenda, as we have heard this morning, an agenda which is designed to make the essential link to the peoples' concerns and aspirations and European cooperation.
Europe should not be about remote bureaucracy and abstract theories.
Europe should be about joint approaches to common problems. It is about tackling the issues which affect the lives of ordinary people in all the Member States.
It is because the British Government recognises this that the British Presidency is, I believe, so determined to pursue the priorities which have been outlined.
<P>
Quite rightly, at the top of the presidency's agenda is to reach agreement on which countries will qualify for Stage Three of economic and monetary union.
A successful start of the euro is in everybody's best interests.
Also at the top of the agenda is job creation and if there is any issue weighing heavy on the people of Europe it is surely the fact that there are over 18 million people unemployed throughout the Union.
There can never be a true European Union when we have such high levels of unemployment.
Unemployment causes personal misery, it undermines social cohesion, it eats at Europe's very soul.
What we have to do is to take forward the employment guidelines agreed at the Luxembourg Job Summit so that we have concrete action plans.
Plans which will turn good words into practical deeds; encouraging entrepreneurship, promoting education, training and life-long learning, improving employability, increasing equal opportunities.
This is what is needed and I am sure that this is what the British Presidency will promote with vigour and with determination.
<P>
If Europe it to succeed in the global economy, we cannot be complacent or conservative.
To win in the world we have to make the process of change a way of life.
To be competitive we have to be innovative and to be innovative we have to be radical and forward-looking.
This means that we have to create a more effective single market, a market which, for example, embraces telecommunications and the energy sector.
It means ending unfair state aids.
It means encouraging small businesses and attacking red tape and it means ensuring that research and development is at the very cutting edge of our economic advance.
<P>
Another priority for the presidency is to launch the process of enlarging the European Union.
Let us be clear that this is of tremendous importance to all the people of Europe.
Enlargement will bring real benefits to both the existing Member States and the aspiring members.
It will bring mutual economic rewards and deliver greater security and stability.
But, as we all know, for enlargement to work, the European Union itself has to change.
Agenda 2000 is a good starting-point.
Now we have to have a serious debate about how we can develop a new regional policy to meet the needs of the future, and how of course we are going to reform the common agricultural policy.
If modernisation is needed anywhere it is here.
<P>
The emphasis which the presidency will place on enlargement is, I believe, indicative of how the presidency wants the European Union to look beyond its current borders.
In a similar vein the presidency should be congratulated on its determination to improve the Union's common foreign and security policy, the emphasis which it is placing on agreeing an new negotiating mandate for the Lomé convention, and on its desire to give human rights the attention which is required.
<P>
The British Presidency has indeed set itself an ambitious agenda.
It includes a wide range of issues, issues about which people are desperately concerned.
In my experience the international menace of the drugs trade is undoubtedly one of those issues of greatest concern to the people of Europe and I for one warmly welcome your commitment, Foreign Secretary, to take up this fight in earnest.
It is indeed heartening to hear also your commitment this morning to work with the European Parliament.
I can assure you that the European Parliament is more than happy to work with you.
Partnership, consensus, cooperation are our joint words, we share a common approach to Europe's development.
<P>
Finally, I wonder if I could conclude with a personal note.
At the end of the presidency the European Summit will be held in my constituency, in Cardiff, the capital city of Wales.
I am delighted that this will be the case and I am confident that at the end the presidency we will see a Europe which is more confident, a Europe which is more dynamic, a Europe which is more relevant and a Europe which once again has the full support of our people.
Let us all work together to ensure that the Cardiff Summit is the people's summit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="McMillan-Scott">
Mr President, we very much welcome the opening of the British Presidency of the European Union.
Although the Labour Party has changed its mind six times on our membership of the EU since we joined 25 years ago, for the last few years it has been fairly consistent.
I hope the UK Presidency will be a great success.
<P>
Before I come back to the presidency, I should just like to deal with one or two remarks made by Mr Cook in his speech.
It is extraordinary that he should talk about bringing the European Parliament closer to the people when his government is about to impose a system of proportional representation on the United Kingdom which is, as I understand it - and we are still waiting to find the definition - a closed list system.
Although this is relevant to the European Parliament and although I know that Mr Cook is a long-time proponent of PR, would he agree with the attitude taken by his colleague, Mr Straw, the Home Secretary, that the electoral regions will be very large, and that it is highly unlikely that an individual candidate will be known by more than a fraction of the electorate in that region?
Voters cannot, therefore, be expected to make an informed choice between candidates of the same party.
That in itself speaks volumes about the Labour Party's attitude toward the European Parliament.
<P>
I should also like to say that the fact that two Members of the European Parliament have now to leave the Labour Party in order to speak freely, one sitting with the Communists and one with the Greens - one who told me this morning that he was expelled by fax - suggests to me that the control-freak tendencies of the Labour Party are now becoming known to people in Europe as a whole.
I would add that, since we are all concerned about candidate selection, quoting from the Conservative Party's own manual on candidate selection, it says: ' Edmund Burke's words still hold good today.
Your representative owes you not his industry only, but his judgement and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.
Authoritative instructions, which the member is bound blindly and implicitly to obey, though contrary to the dearest convictions of his judgement and conscience, are utterly unknown to the laws of the land and against the tenor of our constitution.'
The Conservative Party will stand by those principles, unlike the Labour Party, which...
<P>
(Murmurs (of dissent) ) we understand, will allow the National Executive Committee to make the rankings, the order of the list and the selections in toto , in secret and impose those candidates on the United Kingdom.
<P>
(Murmurs (of dissent) )I am going to return to the presidency because that is what I am expected to speak on.
<P>
Conservatives largely agree with the government's priorities for the presidency: enlargement, jobs, cleaning up the environment and the fight against crime.
These are all important policy objectives that we too would have put high on the agenda.
We hope progress will be made on enlargement.
It is a historic challenge.
We have a moral duty to embrace the people of Eastern and Central Europe who lived under a cruel and alien tyranny for so long.
Enlargement is in all our interests because it will dramatically increase the single market.
Indeed, one of the many reasons why the Treaty of Amsterdam left so much to be desired was its total failure to get to grips with this challenge.
On enlargement, Labour has a clear objective for the presidency and the setting of a detailed timetable for those applicants in the first wave.
I hope they succeed, despite the fiasco of the treatment of Turkey at Luxembourg.
<P>
Britain's record on jobs is far better than the European average.
Unfortunately, Labour's approach to this question is likely to lead to more unemployment, not less.
Any party that can contend that signing up to the social chapter and the regulations made, and to be made under it, increases flexibility in the marketplace does not deserve to be taken seriously.
Europe needs to tackle head on the unpalatable truth that unless we cut our social costs and free up our labour markets, we will be out-priced and out-performed by the rest of the world. Unacceptable levels of unemployment will persist.
Red tape and regulation are luxuries Europe can no longer afford.
<P>
I have been distracted during the course of this address.
I have had far more reaction from this Assembly than Mr Cook did earlier on. His speech was heard in almost total silence.
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Azzolini">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, undoubtedly the European Union will experience in the next few days and in the near future a period of great change and major challenges: the euro, the enlargement, the application of the Treaty of Amsterdam but also the definition of a more appropriate and courageous political and institutional framework, at least I hope so!
<P>
In these six months we will be embarking on the first negotiations for the reform of the structural and cohesion funds and for us this is a very important task given that the changed conditions in many regions of the Union, often for the worse, require particularly great attention.
It will also be the six months of the start of the measures decided by the special Council on employment, six months in which the Member States must produce their plans of action for the Cardiff Council; we trust that British pragmatism will be able to banish dangerous demagogic solutions for achieving the urgent employment targets we have set ourselves.
<P>
We also trust that, with the same pragmatism, the British Presidency will be able to strive to bring to completion the operational rules of the internal market, by which I mean that deregulation and simplification of the legislation will be amongst the priority objectives to be pursued.
I think this will be the real help which we can and must offer to our citizens, to whom in fact the British Presidency seems to want to direct particular attention.
<P>
I wonder if the presidency could not also convince the national governments of the need for general simplification of the legislation which is burdening citizens, firms and civil society in general.
<P>
Finally, we agree with the timetable of activities and initiatives of this six months according to the legislative programme which this Chamber has already debated, above all for the intention expressed by the President-inOffice of the Council, Mr Cook, to take serious and determined action against drugs.
But in concluding I must call on the Council to ensure that more decisive and strong action is taken to deal with those emergencies which, as such, are not predictable in a legislative timetable.
I refer to those aspects of foreign and security policy which often find both our respective countries and our Community institutions unprepared.
The absence of the Union or its serious delay in dealing with problems like refugees, genocides, international tensions and conflicts in general, are no longer tolerable in a Europe which we want to have a strong and solid presence in the eyes of world public opinion.
<P>
So we also draw the attention of the presidency to the advantages of continuing without delay a serious and responsible Mediterranean policy which can contribute stability to the regions and develop our relations, recalling that this Parliament will also start a Euro-Mediterranean parliamentary forum as soon as possible.
<P>
As a Member of this Parliament, as joint leader of the UPE and as a European citizen, I sincerely wish the British Presidency the will and the wisdom to give a strong impetus, more than just a nudge, to Union policy thanks precisely to the proverbial Anglo-Saxon pragmatism, now that Albion seems to have converted from initial Euroscepticism to become a convinced and loyal Europhile.
I myself, being responsible for the international institutional reports of the Mediterranean Laboratory Foundation am happy to make available the results of the second Euromed civil forum, which the Foundation held in Naples last December after having collected the testimony from Spain of Barcelona 1995, and I obviously remain available for an official presentation to the Presidency of the Council and trust that in future above all the Presidents-in-Office, like the other Community institutions, will also give continuity of attention and support to the action of the Euromed civil forum.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="Watson">
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cohn-Bendit">
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
Mr President, Robin Cook, there are good things in the presidency's programme on openness and quality in legislation, but the task - and the opposition - are so great that it will not succeed unless the presidency insists on new methods.
As far as openness is concerned, the presidency should secure the support of seven other countries in the Council to change the Rules of Procedure so that every meeting and every document is automatically open unless a 2/3 majority on the Council decides otherwise.
Thus it would be those who wanted to close a meeting or a document who would have the burden of proof.
The principle was adopted unanimously in Parliament's Committee on Institutional Affairs and is included in the report by our New Labour colleague who presided over the sitting, Mr Martin, which was adopted by a large majority in this Chamber.
<P>
The biggest problem today has to do with the quality of EU legislation.
EU legislation is impossible to understand for ordinary voters.
An EU law typically consists of a directive or a regulation and then a long list of unreadable amendments.
You never know whether you have got everything.
The presidency should insist that no more amendments are made to existing laws, but that the amendments are presented in a special script in a compiled and consolidated edition.
Every department which needs an amendment will thus be forced to make the legislation accessible to people other than those who have specialist legal departments in Brussels.
And the existing body of law, comprising 20 000 directives, regulations and other legislative documents will be halved simply by recording the amendments separately.
You could then go further by compiling laws on the same subject and thin out the legislative jungle.
<P>
Finally, about decentralization.
If there is to be decentralization in Brussels, each rule should include an automatic lapse after, for example, five years.
Thus, in order to continue a law would have to again...
<P>
(The President cut off the speaker)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Muscardini">
Mr President, after listening to Mr Cook's statement - and I thank him for its clarity - I would like to be able to repeat what was affirmed recently by the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, in an interview given to the Financial Times, namely that the British Presidency represents a great opportunity to demonstrate that the United Kingdom intends to play a constructive role in Europe and for Europe, and an opportunity to demonstrate that the agenda of economic reforms for monetary union is proceeding.
<P>
I want my good wishes to convey this message as well, in the hope that the United Kingdom will carry out a constructive role in this six months of presidency.
I believe, the days of British anti-European feeling are long gone; the era of Labour seats left empty in this very Chamber after election by direct universal suffrage is long gone.
More than historical, the episode must be considered emblematic of a certain ideological approach to politics.
The historical processes, as in this case, cannot be suffocated by sectarian and factious attitudes and it is an irony of history - and we are delighted at this - that today it is the Labour leaders who are giving us assurances on the constructiveness of their action to the advantage of Europe.
<P>
This constructive role emerges from the fixed priorities of the British Presidency and in particular from the hoped for success of economic and monetary union, from the start of an authentic Union foreign policy, from the struggle against organized crime and from the defence of the environment.
We are sensitive to this commitment for the definition of a common foreign policy and we give all our support to initiatives to end the Algerian carnage which tragically continues to strike tens of thousands of innocent victims.
<P>
The presidency will achieve much if it succeeds in seriously committing the Union against the expansion of fanatical and murderous fundamentalism and contributes to bringing peace to a friendly country linked to us by cultural, political and economic ties and establishing authentic values based on the defence of human rights.
The list of things to be done was long and has touched the various sectors of activity of the Union.
<P>
Just two comments: the first is about the preparation for enlargement of the Union.
Let us act in such a way that the reform of the agricultural policy does not involve penalizing zones and regions privileged because the fruit of the work of centuries gives typical and noble food products.
The second concerns the reform of the structural funds which should not negatively strike zones and regions already burdened by serious social problems resulting from structural situations and the economic crisis.
In both cases the risk of deeper crisis is real and the populations would not understand the operation of the Union as compared with the aims of regional policy.
These fears and doubts also betray uncertainty and incomprehension on the part of the citizens, which characterize this phase of the construction of Europe.
The single currency, which we want to be a federating instrument, raises fears in reality.
The United Kingdom itself, although operating in favour of EMU, has already decided not to form part of the first euro platoon.
Why? Our voters are wondering.
This uncertainty is born of the fear of the potential risks without the Union having the political instruments to face up to any eventuality.
In any case the question that we are asking, Mr President, is what European Unionism needs to become a reality, and what is still needed to achieve European political union?
We have to give an answer to this question!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as an Austrian - and indeed my country will be the successor of the British Presidency - I thank you Mr President-in-Office of the Council for your clear statements, for a people's Europe, a Europe which wants to draw nearer to its people and citizens and a Europe which treats jobs and the environment as priority issues.
But as a foreign policy speaker for my group, the PSE group, I would like to deal with two trouble spots close to us, but which affect us quite specifically in our own security interests.
I should like to call upon you Mr President-inOffice of the Council, and urge you, to do what you have often announced, today as well in this house, to demonstrate a high level of commitment in influencing developments in the Middle East and Algeria.
<P>
This is not a question of interference, but the legitimate participation of Europe in the shaping of a collective environment, in the preservation of our inherent security interests.
<P>
The Middle East, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, is certainly also a central element of your presidency.
The peace process has unfortunately been interrupted.
The European Union is paying an awful lot of money, most of which - and this is not our fault - is ultimately having a negative result in Palestine.
<P>
We ought no longer be the paymaster following the motto of Europe pays and others - particularly the United States - deliver, as is the case in Bosnia and the Middle East.
I would like to fully support your efforts, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, and especially your efforts at the talks in America, to encourage the Americans to develop a stronger partnership in the Middle East in the interest of peace.
<P>
We want to support, not hinder, everything that America has done.
But we also want to do something else, Mr President-in-Office of the Council: with our efforts in the Middle East and Israel, but also in Palestine, we must also turn our attention to human rights as well as taking up the fight against corruption.
This must be our objective wherever our money is used.
<P>
With regard to the situation in Algeria, the fate that country is experiencing is particularly tragic.
Here too, we must focus on a common territory, the common economic and political interests and the control of migratory movements; but above all it is a question of a humane outcome.
<P>
None of us should be indifferent to the shocking events in Algeria, the brutal and gruesome murders, the horror of the Algerian nights!
It is a mockery for the government to allege it has everything under control.
It has nothing under control!
There are allegations, presumptions, that sections of the government and sections of the military are directly or indirectly behind these murders.
We have no proof, merely anonymous statements.
This makes contacts and discussions in Algeria all the more urgent.
We from the Parliament will have to take the same action as you.
It is our sisters and brothers who are being murdered there.
We must not be indifferent to that!
We must do everything to prevent it continuing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Wogau">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for the European Union the spring of 1998 is of crucial significance.
The course is now being set for the third stage of economic and monetary union.
Central features of this are the question of the group of participants, the fixing of the exchange rates between the participating Member States and the personnel heading the European Central Bank.
<P>
On 25th March the European Commission and the European Monetary Institute will submit their reports on which Member States fulfil the stability criteria on the basis of the statistical data then available.
<P>
The deliberations of the European Parliament and the parliaments of the Member States will subsequently commence in April.
In Germany the Bundestag and the Bundesrat, and probably various regional assemblies as well, will submit their comments.
So in this sense April of this year is the month of the parliaments.
At its meeting on 1st May, on a Friday, after the bourses have closed, the Council of Ministers for Economic Affairs and Finance will adopt a resolution on its recommendation as to which Member States should belong to the smaller grouping of the monetary union .
In the morning of the following day, 2nd May, a Saturday, the European Parliament will give its opinion on this proposal at a special sitting.
This special sitting of the European Parliament is necessary because the Treaty expressly prescribes that the Parliament must render an opinion on the Council's proposal.
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The final decision on the group of participants will then be taken in the afternoon of the same day at the meeting of the Heads of State and of Government of the European Union.
Consequently, on the evening of 2nd May it will finally be certain which Member States belong to the smaller grouping of participants in monetary union .
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However, the schedule for monetary union also envisages two further resolutions being adopted over this weekend.
On the one hand this involves the final fixing of the exchange rates between the currencies of the participating Member States, and on the other hand determination of the identity of the President of the Central Bank.
Therefore the finance ministers, whose activities are as we know not subject to entertainment tax, will probably meet again on Sunday, 3rd May in order to finally determine the bilateral exchange rates and to submit a proposal on the personnel for the managing board of the European Central Bank.
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Since the Maastricht Treaty the European Parliament has been directly involved in personnel decisions relating to the appointment of the President, Vice-President and the other members of the managing board of the European Central Bank.
The Maastricht Treaty granted Parliament these rights, which were formulated according to the prototype of comparable rights of the Senate of the United States and which have no prototypes in the parliamentary tradition of Europe.
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The procedure for the appointment of members of the managing board is precisely laid down: proposal by the Council, opinion of the European Parliament and finally the decision by the Heads of State and of Government of the countries belonging to the smaller grouping of the monetary union .
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The envisaged hearing of the candidates will take place within the relevant committee of the European Parliament during the week from 11th to 14th May, and the European Parliament will probably put its opinion to the vote on 14th May.
The Heads of State and of Government of the participating countries will then make their final decision.
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This means that the managing board of the European Central Bank will be in place at the conclusion of the British Presidency and that the Central Bank will be able, as envisaged, to begin its work in the second half of the year.
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This week four German professors appealed to the Federal Constitutional Court against monetary union with the objective of at least postponing it if not completely abandoning it.
Constitutional experts have ascertained that the media interest in this legal action is inversely proportional to its prospects of success.
The Federal Constitutional Court will merely have to examine whether the entry criteria, as contained in the Maastricht Treaty and the appurtenant Protocols, are fulfilled. In this connection it has expressly allowed the institutions of the European Union scope to assess, evaluate and forecast the situation.
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The German Federal Constitutional Court could only make a negative decision about Germany's participation in the monetary union if the Heads of State and of Government were to be in violation of the Maastricht Treaty in their decision about the participating countries.
However, since all participating parties are determined to adhere to the Treaty in all its details, we need not be troubled by such legal actions; they will not be successful.
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<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Rosado Fernandes">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, I must be the only MEP today representing the oldest ally country of the UK speaking here.
We have been allies since John of Gaunt, and so we know the British well and understand their way of thinking.
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I would like to thank you for the new position you have adopted, but I should also say very clearly and very frankly that the British Euroscepticism has also helped Europe to reform in many ways.
I want to be sincere in what I say!
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The truth is that Europe has not managed to change its institutions to get closer to the citizens.
This is an undeniable fact.
That is what is needed.
It is also true that it has not managed to harmonize its criminal laws for corruption and fraud on financial and food matters to be punished.
It is not enough just to talk about control.
We need to find penalties and punish offenders.
It is easy to talk, but difficult and not always politically correct to punish.
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I hope that the current presidency will have the courage to face this problem, which is one of the problems of greatest economic significance, to the extent that it is not just the States that have been robbed or the Union's money, but it is also a way of introducing unfair competition, which is certainly not in line with the economic model we are all aspiring to in a global economy.
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However, it has also been easy to make the countries, even the weakest ones, accept all the principles and obligations of monetary union.
Nothing has been done with regard to a convergence of education, vocational training that actually brings the citizens closer to progress and actually makes Europe more open, more able to defend itself against the threats of a global economy.
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Finally, the common agricultural policy certainly has to be reformed, it certainly has to be modulated, but, for God's sake, Mr President, let's not sink to the depths of making junk food, which is what we are seeing in those countries which speak on behalf of consumers but do nothing for their health.
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<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, Mr President of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, like other groups, my group has already given its opinion on the content of the British Presidency's programme but I would also like to pass in review some of the points which seem to me significant.
In particular, Mr President of the Council, I would have liked you to have developed and gone deeper into some of the other subjects which, to be frank, you often only touched upon, the subject of combating drugs, a subject which moreover is currently under discussion here in the European Parliament.
I think that during the six months we will certainly have occasion to deal with our positions and have a dialogue on a subject which I think is very important, which cannot be taken lightly and which thus increasingly requires, in an increasingly integrated Europe, an increasingly single market, a coordinated approach at the European level.
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But in my speech, Mr President, I want to touch on one single point, hoping that it can be received by you and hence it can constitute another front on which to measure, in a certain sense, the British Presidency, also because it is a subject which the European Parliament has very much at heart but on which I want to complement the British Presidency, in particular its government, for the position which it has already taken as a presidency.
I refer to the subject of the permanent criminal court, Mr President, a subject which is, as we know, in the negotiation stage at the United Nations and which this very year, at the end of the British Presidency, from 15 June to 17 July, will be the subject of an international diplomatic conference called in Rome and which must give life to the permanent criminal court.
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His government, at the last UN preparatory committee, took a courageous and important position, choosing to sustain with force not only the creation of the court, but also of a just, impartial court, not subject to the veto of the Security Council.
You are the first permanent member of the Security Council to have assumed such a progressive position, which can be called the position of the like-minded countries. In contrast, we know how much reticence there is on the part of another permanent member of the Security Council and member of the European Union, and we also know how strong is the determination of the other countries like Germany, Italy, and so on.
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Will the British Presidency seek to coordinate the European Union to ensure that the voice of the Union should be one voice and only one voice, in favour of an impartial court effective from June 1998?
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<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Antony">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is a pamphlet entitled, "The Status of Monks' by Ibn Taymiyya.
This pamphlet is on sale in Brussels, and also in Paris, in the rue Fossés-St-Bernard.
It justifies the massacre of the monks of Tibéhirine.
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The person who translated this pamphlet is Nasreddin Lebatelier: you could perhaps ask Mr Jean Michot, President of the Belgian Muslim community and lecturer at the Catholic University of Louvain, what Mr Nasreddin Lebatelier's real name is?
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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the ignorance about Islam is tragic.
I heard Mr Cohn-Bendit earlier talking, all in all rather like Mr Raymond Barre, who told us, "We need a French form of Islam, an Islam where the mosque works according to the principles of the Republic' .
This shows no understanding of Islam at all.
He cannot have read the Qu'ran, for there is no alternative Qu'ran. The Qu'ran does not understand the distinction Christianity makes between the spiritual and the material.
There is no understanding, here, of the reality I lived through in Beirut for fifteen years, where I saw areas of the city changing slowly, where first the police, then the army, and finally even ministers were submitted to identity checks.
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In the 400 regions of my country I see the Tahl Zaatar that I knew in Beirut being created. It is the House of Islam which is being imposed and, furthermore, the House of Harb, but you know nothing about all that.
A trip to Algeria probably would not open your eyes, since we have all the information here.
A little Islamic culture would do wonders for the uneducated people of this House.
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<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="Donnelly, Alan">
Mr President, could I just explain to the President-in-Office of the Council that the last speech represents a very tiny minority of people in this Chamber and is not representative in any sense of the views of the European Parliament.
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I want to raise the issues of economic and monetary union and economic coordination.
One of the principal roles of the presidency will, of course, be to guide very carefully the final phases of economic and monetary union.
In spite of the decision that the UK Government has taken on Britain not joining the single currency in the first phase I think that the vast majority of people in this House recognise that it is the determination of the new government and of the presidency to safely and securely bring about the final phase of the EMU.
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What we are very concerned about in this House is the accountability of the European Central Bank, the role after the establishment of the EMU of that Central Bank and indeed of the euro in general.
We would like to begin a dialogue with the British Presidency and then to follow that with the Austrian Presidency on the role of economic coordination and the accountability of that bank.
We are very concerned that the European Central Bank will be almost beyond the touch of the citizens of the European Union.
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While the Maastricht Treaty enshrines the independence of the Central Bank, that does not mean it should be unaccountable to the people of the European Union.
I would like to ask the President-in-Office of the Council if he will engage in a dialogue with the European Parliament over the next six months to ensure that we have proper accountability of the European Central Bank and to ensure that the aims and objectives of economic and monetary union will promote the objective of employment within the European Union.
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We will have monetary union on 1 January 1999 but many of us do not believe that we will have economic and monetary union on 1 January 1999.
I would like to ask the President-in-Office of the Council on behalf of my group what steps can be taken during the British Presidency to ensure that it is a proper economic and monetary union.
In his speech the President-in-Office mentioned that employment is a key goal of the British government.
Could he explain to us, perhaps when he replies to the debate, what more can be done during the British Presidency, given that we are going to have EMU within a matter of months now, to ensure that the goals of EMU are compatible with the goals of creating more jobs within the European Union.
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We recognise also that selling the euro to the citizens of the European Union is essential.
At a point when we are finishing the technical work of economic and monetary union, citizens in the EU simply do not understand the whole process.
It is essential that the British Presidency gives a great impetus to the campaign of informing citizens across the European Union that this is their project, not only the project of politicians, and that it is something important to their lives.
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Therefore in conclusion could I also ask the President-in-Office to say something about the campaign that needs to be organized during the course of this year to make sure that the citizens understand the process of the EMU and realise that it is for the benefit of their lives and the future that this project is completed properly.
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<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Méndez de Vigo">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, at the beginning of your speech you joked that every presidency says it is facing a historic moment.
That is true.
But they also say something else: they promise to cooperate closely with the European Parliament at all times.
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Some of us have been here for some time now, and six months from now we will judge you by what you have done, not by your good intentions.
However, for the time being, I thank you for those good intentions.
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Mr Cook, your speech reminded me of some of Sir Edward Elgar's compositions: nice to listen to, elegant and easily hummed. However, we shall see what lies behind.
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You say you want an efficient Europe.
So does this Parliament.
And on 19 November this Parliament gave a few recipes, in its statement on the Treaty of Amsterdam, which Mrs Green reminded you of today.
In order to have an effective Europe, the Commission will have to be strengthened, codecision and the qualified majority will have to be extended, and there will have to be a re-weighting of Council votes.
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Mr Cook, you said you want a strong Europe, which acts and speaks in the world as one.
That is true, and we want it too.
And in order to achieve that, in the realm of international economic relations, you have a weapon: giving the Commission the power to negotiate, as established in the old Article 113 of the Treaty.
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You say you want to form a policy to combat drugs, because that is what people are concerned about.
We agree.
Let me ask you a question, Mr Cook. Do you think the report by Mrs d'Ancona (who is a member of your group) addresses people's concerns?
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As for the single currency, you - the British Government - have the right to opt out.
There is nothing to object to in that.
You say there are too many risks and uncertainties, and you want to "wait and see' .
Well, as regards the Group of the European People's Party, all the governments are going to take that step on 3 May. We are going to run those risks and meet the political cost of the uncertainties.
You have the right to opt out, but I must point out to you that yours is a comfortable position - waiting until the risks and uncertainties have disappeared - and as with all comfortable positions, you will have to pay for it at the appropriate time.
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You spoke of tackling fraud and preventing money from being wasted.
You are right.
We agree, and this Parliament has always been at the forefront of that struggle. However, I do not think it is very clever to spread the suspicion that taxpayers' money is wasted in the European Union.
Investigate it and penalize it by all means, but do not spread the suspicion.
It is not true, anyway.
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Lastly, Mr Cook, you had much to say in your speech about cooperation, the market, efficiency and pragmatism.
The world has changed since the days of Monnet and Schuman you said, and that is true.
But the ideals of that world have not changed. Europe is not just a market, Mr Cook.
You tackled that aspect back in the sixties when you formed the European Free Trade Association. Europe is much more than a market.
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When you, the British people, decided in 1974 to join the European Communities, by means of a referendum called by a Labour government, you joined not just a market, but an extremely important political project.
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I should like to hear the British Presidency saying more about Europe as a political project, not just as a market project.
That is very important, because this Parliament believes that the European Union is a political project, and we do not want the British Presidency to make any mistake about that. To quote Lord Halifax, we would not like you to experience what happens to people who do not know where they are going, and therefore can end up anywhere.
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I hope that does not happen, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, and that your presidency is fruitful and productive for everybody.
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<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Daskalaki">
Mr President, Britain is assuming the Presidency of the Council at a very important time in the Union's history.
It has fallen to Britain's lot to begin the accession negotiations with the new candidates for membership, and this time the candidates all have something different about them.
On the one hand, there are countries which were behind what, in the cold war years, we used to call the 'iron curtain' , and on the other hand there is Cyprus.
The histories of Britain and Cyprus were closely linked and to some extent parallel for several centuries.
As a colonial power and later guarantor in Cyprus, Britain influenced the island's course positively but in some cases also very negatively, and it has an obligation towards Cyprus: it must begin the accession negotiations with the government of the Republic of Cyprus in the spirit of the decisions repeatedly expressed in this Chamber, as well as by the Commission and the Council, namely that a solution of the Cyprus problem is not a prerequisite for accession.
As Commissioner Van den Broek also stressed, this means that Cyprus cannot remain hostage to the Turks for ever.
Besides, if I have understood correctly, that is what the President-in-Office of the Council too implied in his speech.
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On the threshold of the new century, the European Union faces many other problems, but entertains many visions too.
After the exceptionally successful Luxembourg Presidency, which proved that so-called institutional arguments for the exclusion of the smaller countries from the six-monthly Council Presidency are simply groundless, Britain has in its hands the file on employment and the obligation to follow up the excellent Luxembourg Summit.
It must work on Agenda 2000 and give new impetus to the Union's internal and external policy, in a world which has become almost without frontiers.
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EMU is another huge chapter to which extensive reference has been made.
And that is not all.
Equal opportunities, policy for youth, health, culture, the environment, transport, telecommunications, agriculture, tourism, energy and so many other matters require further impetus.
The British Presidency takes office with the good wishes of us all, for the good of us all.
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<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Velzen, Wim">
Mr President, Robin Cook started by recollecting the words of all presidents when they start; the ambition, and so on.
It might be slightly amusing to recollect the concluding words of all presidents, namely the lament that six months proved so terribly short.
After this wish list it is perhaps salutary to be reminded of that.
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I would like to focus on employment and social policy.
I base myself on a brochure published by the presidency under the heading: Europe working for the people , which contains two priorities related to employment.
The first is the so-called third way in Europe: economic reform based on employability .
The second is education and legislation.
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I would like to focus primarily on this second point.
To my mind the significance of the combination of flexibility and security, a combination we here in the European parliament find quite important, is not done enough justice.
Nor is the economic significance of a good social policy with good social rules done enough justice.
This is not a plea for rigidity and bureaucracy; but economic reform occurs most easily and smoothly if individual people have security.
This has been proven in various studies.
These same studies also show, for that matter, how retraining and extra training is best achieved when people are remunerated well.
It is a tragic contradiction; the worse someone is paid, the less their ambition to seek additional training, and the less ambition amongst employers to invest in it.
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Britain joining the Social Chapter was a great relief to us members of the Socialist Group working in the social sector.
We saw the signing of the Social Chapter as a choice by the United Kingdom of a different model, a different model for the United Kingdom, too, with a social dialogue, and better organisation and fairer distribution of working hours.
I call on the presidency not to let this vision be overshadowed by a too-restrictive call for flexibility and liberalization.
Liberalization which in my country has led to a gap in health care between the haves and havenots.
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I am extremely satisfied with the fact that you wish to make more of Cardiff then a mere deadline .
That you first want there to be an evaluation of the national plans.
But may I start by pointing out that Luxembourg truly meant a lot more than education, education, education, and EMU.
Luxembourg was and is a choice for a policy mix , for a shifting of the burden on labour to other sources, and for a reorganization/redistribution of working hours.
Cardiff should therefore be far more than gathering or even evaluating plans.
In the follow-up of Luxembourg, attention should first of all be paid to the design of balanced economic management in the Union, and the development of a coordinated European employment strategy, including taxation.
I sorry to have to observe that as far as those aspects are concerned, the messages from the United Kingdom are extremely vague at the moment.
I hope some clarity will be given today.
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<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Böge">
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, concrete actions seem to be the leitmotif of British presidencies.
That is why I have several questions for Mr Cook, to whom I wish every success with this weighty and historic task.
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First point, Algeria.
It is quite right that the EU should reach out a helping hand, but can the British Presidency indicate how it is to chart the activities of groups from Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, who sent their aggressive plans simply from behind a fax machine in London?
And what is the British Presidency going to do about this?
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Second point, the Asian crisis.
In June last year I suggested to the Council in a written question that it should consider a special EU ambassador for the region.
When will I get a reply?
This person should have long been in Asia to help solve the crisis.
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Yesterday we discussed the Transatlantic Agenda in this House.
On the eve of your visit to Washington I ask you to discuss the future of SFOR with the Americans and to plead for audiovisual products to be given access to the American market.
Will you be making a start on the necessary adaption of European institutions to make enlargement genuinely possible?
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Fourth point, Turkey.
I believe the relationship with the country should not be allowed to become secondary to the Cyprus question.
What are you doing to lift the financial barrier against Turkey?
We are using Turkey as a NATO partner, but are not prepared give clarity on their chances of membership.
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Mr Cook, you wish to be concrete, not abstract.
You have an opportunity here as far as the stability of Europe is concerned.
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<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, I cannot begin to express my delight at seeing the presidency here today and at noting the presence throughout this debate of Commissioner Kinnock which recalls the effective cooperation between the two gentlemen in the past - particularly, of course, in a certain leadership campaign in 1983.
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I am delighted that the President-in-Office has made a commitment to making the foreign security policy more effective.
I would urge the Council therefore to start work now on those arrangements foreseen in the Amsterdam Treaty for making the CFSP more effective, particularly the planning and early warning unit.
So, as soon as the Treaty is ratified we can get to work on a more effective CFSP.
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Clearly the immediate priority has to be Algeria, which seems to be a country currently drowning in its own blood.
But we also have to recognize that we will only achieve something in Algeria by quiet diplomacy, by confidencebuilding and by developing a dialogue.
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And that, of course, is precisely what the Parliament has been trying to achieve with its hearing on Algeria and its intention to send a delegation to talk to parliamentarians in Algeria.
That I think shows that the Parliament, when addressing questions such as these and human rights issues in general, can play a responsible and effective role.
I would hope that the presidency would take advantage of this year, the 50th anniversary of the UN Declaration on Human Rights, to have a dialogue or trialogue with the Commission and Parliament to ensure that the European Union's policy on human rights has greater focus and coherence than it has had in the past.
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I would also urge him to pay attention to two areas which are likely to be lost in the sound and fury of other debates.
Firstly, in former Yugoslavia we have a potentially explosive situation in Kosovo which appears to be deteriorating by the day.
I hope the presidency can take initiatives in that field.
Similarly, in the Ukraine, I hope that we will push for the partnership and cooperation agreement to be put into effect properly and do all we can to encourage reforms in Ukraine where the situation is also deteriorating by the day.
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Finally, I welcome the commitment to enlargement but I hope we can give attention to the European Conference because I believe it offers the opportunity for a genuine European political area which will allow us to develop dialogue with countries who are not yet ready to join the European Union or are negotiating, so that we can make them feel part of our family as soon as possible.
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I recognize the commitments to Turkey and I hope that we can bring Turkey on board, provided it is prepared to accept the ambitions and vocation of the European Union in terms of enlargement, particularly in relation to Cyprus.
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<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bernard-Reymond">
Minister, I have two minutes in which to address you.
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Ten seconds of this I will use to express my sincere hopes for the success of your six month presidency, and to acknowledge your efforts in making your country a greater part of European construction.
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That leaves me with one hundred and six seconds to mention four considerations, based on the declarations made by yourself, or your Prime Minister, today or during the last few weeks.
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The first is regarding your very commendable concern to bring a united Europe closer.
I think that up until now we have not considered sufficiently the two notions of "proximity' and "subsidiarity' , which do not mean the same thing.
The need to prioritize the issues to be resolved, and the right level of response to be provided, are more important than a Europe which, wishing to be one people, involves itself in everything on a daily basis.
I hope that your pragmatism will enable intelligent progress to be made on this issue.
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My second observation: you want to play a leading role in Europe.
Nobody is complaining.
But do you not think that by refusing to be involved in the euro, and even the EMS, from the start, when your economy is in a position to do as well as, even better, than some others, that you are considerably weakening your declared will?
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If you are too European for London but not European enough for Brussels, you must choose the path of the future with courage and, consequently, not leave others to deal with the teething problems.
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Third observation: you judge very harshly the common agricultural policy.
However, you strongly desire a third path to be trodden between liberalism and protectionism.
This means that, faced with globalization, which brings more advantages than disadvantages but whose logic leads, all the same, to standardization, you are in agreement that a project of civilisation should be built, a truly European project.
Do not forget that one of the pieces of this project is a certain concept of agriculture, of rural development and of the environment.
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Fourth and last observation: in European construction, each one of the great European nations brings its historic experience.
Often, this experience creates fears and stereotypes on the part of the others.
The continent frequently has the impression that, in the area of international politics, for you the Channel is as wide as the Atlantic.
Think about this, for it is you who is going to steer Europe for the next six months.
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In conclusion, Minister, if you take these four observations into account, we French will forgive you the fact that you embarked on your presidency in Waterloo.
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<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, as I have been trying to indicate all morning, we have a serious problem: we have now 30 minutes' worth of speaking time to fit into 13 minutes.
Clearly it cannot be done.
We have two options.
All the remaining speakers are PPE and Socialist speakers.
Either those with three minutes agree to speak for two minutes and those with two minutes agree to speak for a minute and a half, or we conclude the debate now with the President-in-Office.
Would the groups agree to that?
I know it is not very satisfactory but these are the two options.
The indication I am getting is that Members would prefer to have a shorter time to speak in the presence of the President.
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<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
Mr President, I will speak rather more quickly and apologise to the interpreters.
Mr Presidentin-Office of the Council, developments over the last few weeks concerning asylum policy in the European Union are causing us great concern.
We recommend that your presidency of the Council pays particular attention to them.
I recently had the opportunity to visit the Kurdish refugee camps in Italy and came to the conclusion that the official portrayal of the influx of refugees into the European Union is not in accordance with the reality.
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I say this with bitterness because the public in Europe have been given the impression that we are facing a massive flood of people coming over from Turkey and from Iraq.
In reality this involves a few hundred people who are guarded by the Italian police and strictly controlled by the Italian authorities, and whose asylum cases are being conducted strictly according to legal and statutory regulations subject to the most stringent control and without freedom of movement.
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This is my first observation, from which I infer a second: with the constantly increasing development of the economic sphere and the constantly progressive liberalization of the internal market, there is no analogy in the European Union with regard to the legal stipulation of basic civil freedoms and its organization.
There is no clear definition of the external borders and the powers for authorities to protect the external borders.
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Nor do we have any right of immigration in the European Union, which leads to the right of asylum constantly becoming the criterion for immigration and ultimately lowering acceptance of a basic right, namely the basic right to asylum.
We do not need a five-year term to harmonize laws relating to asylum, immigration and external borders.
On the contrary!
The events of recent weeks show that this must be brought forward.
We would be very grateful to you if you also took this into account in your presidency of the Council.
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<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Chanterie">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I look forward to the new British Presidency which has a positive attitude towards further developments in the Union.
Since 1979 the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major have done everything to stop European social developments.
This led to a lopsided development of the Union, and at a certain point to unacceptable discrimination against employees in Europe.
Fundamental social rights were not applicable in the United Kingdom.
Thankfully the Labour government has ended this, and the Social Chapter is able to operate for the Fifteen, and can be adopted in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
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Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you have clearly underlined that you would like to make a success of EMU.
For the people, EMU will be a success if, likewise, a social Union is developed.
A social Union which upholds the principles of the social market economy, that is to say, social justice and solidarity.
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The problem of the internal market is that the social dimension is not developing fast enough and concurrently.
I therefore fear that the British Presidency's social programme offers too few perspectives on this front.
Too few legislative initiatives are provided to strengthen the social base with minimum standards, both on the areas of labour market policy and the social security.
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The shock caused by the brutal closing down of the Renault factory in Vilvoorde a year ago seems to have passed.
The call for a more social Europe seems just a faint echo.
It would be a big mistake to underestimate how urgent the need is now for a more social Europe.
Social urgency which will play a part, when we are discussing the third phase of EMU, when we are discussing accession negotiations, when we are discussing taxes and especially when we are discussing employment, which should not merely be training, but also giving people jobs through transeuropean networks, community services, environmental investments, and so on.
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<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth-Behrendt">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, allow me to say to you: ' I was very pleased to hear that the major environmental spheres of water, air and waste are included in your list of priorities.'
If the British Presidency of the Council assists the European Parliament in this respect it will count amongst the progressive and successful presidencies.
However, I would also urge you to bear in mind that what you refer to in such general terms implies integration in other spheres of policy, and that when you are considering the revision of the structural funds regulation you see very clearly that environmental policy is applied in all structural funds, and also that you keep an eye on this over the next six months and tell everyone else about it as well please.
When I see the Commissioner for Transport nodding, at the same time I also applaud the fact that you link transport and environmental policy, because these are important spheres.
And I will be grateful to you if you can reduce emissions of noxious substances.
<P>
It is of course no surprise that I expect you to place consumer protection at the top of your agenda.
You did not mention this but I know that it is close to your heart.
So close, indeed, that on Friday I know you will take very attentive note of how the WTO panel decides on the hormone question, and will definitely ensure during the presidency of the Council that the European Union adheres to its prohibition of hormone and growth enhancers.
<P>
I will say something else about consumer protection, and that is what everyone now expects from me: BSE.
Of course I will say something about this.
It is certainly a coincidence that the Commission, right at the start of the British Presidency of the Council, will consider a partial lifting of the export ban, and I know that you, Mr Kinnock, have fought particularly strongly for this.
I am on your side if consumer protection and safety are taken into account, and I ask you, Mr President, to make it very clear that Great Britain - although, and precisely because, you have the presidency of the Council - will ensure in a completely unselfish manner that safety and vigilance are given top priority, that deception in the meat trade and other areas, for example, is combated and that you will not jeopardize the trust that you have also re-established in Europe, in the European Parliament and amongst the people.
<P>
(Applause from the Group of the Party of European Socialists)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="Moorhouse">
Mr President, we welcome the British Government's decision to place the fight against organized crime at the heart of its agenda for the presidency.
Whilst all crime is disturbing, organized crime is particularly repugnant because it infiltrates and feeds off society itself.
No civilized country and no union of civilized countries can be complacent or tolerant of organized crime, and the citizens of the European Union, in our view, have a right to expect the strongest action at a European level.
<P>
While I do not want to pre-empt tomorrow's debate on the d'Ancona report, to which reference has already been made, I cannot leave aside the issue of drugs on behalf of my group, because we feel very strongly that the drug trade is at the heart of organized crime.
You cannot fight organized crime unless you fight drugs.
Therefore, as a group, we expressed unanimous and vigorous opposition to the proposals in the d'Ancona report to provide for the legalization of cannabis and the freer supply of all drugs under prescription.
If time had allowed, I would have expanded on this aspect but time does not apparently allow.
<P>
Furthermore, my group also supports and encourages the presidency's objectives of promoting police and customs cooperation against drugs, of finalizing the establishment of a Europol with real powers and resources, and of cutting the supply routes of drugs into the European Union.
<P>
Our message to the Council is that it is not enough to put the right policies and organizations in place: policies and organizations must be supported, coordinated and well-resourced.
<P>
Finally, a reference to asylum policy, on which I had hoped to say more.
This is another area where the presidency should be more active, ahead of the incorporation of the Schengen agreement into the European Union.
I have to leave it there but we need to make a clearer distinction between political refugees and economic migrants.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Vecchi">
Mr President, in the six months of the British Presidency of the Union, a series of important decisions will have to be taken as regards cooperation with developing countries.
<P>
As well as the specific dossiers on which the Council must decide, it seems to me that there is an essential question on which it will be necessary to concentrate attention, that is the definition of the negotiating mandate of the Commission on the future of relations with the ACP countries.
<P>
As the European Parliament already expressed by a large majority last October, the renewal of the Lomé Agreement assumes a fundamental importance, both from the symbolic point of view and in its concrete aspects: symbolically, because, depending on what decisions are taken, it will be possible to judge whether the commitment of the Union towards our partners in the poorest parts of the world, will either be confirmed or will be reduced or actually cancelled; concretely, because it is also from how the objectives and rules of European development cooperation will be redefined, and especially its most important instrument, which will depend a great deal on the possibility for the Union to influence the world situation positively.
<P>
This House has already said that it would be appropriate to have, after the year 2000, a fifth Lomé Agreement.
But what needs to be done, with much more consistency than in the past, is to bring into the agreement those objectives and concepts which have been affirmed in the great United Nations conferences of the last few years, as well as in our Community documents, but which have only rarely pervaded the practice of cooperation.
<P>
The objective is that of human development, participatory and sustainable, giving force to the growth of civil society and human resources in all the southern countries of the world.
But also important is the way in which the legitimate interests of the countries and the populations of the poorest countries are taken into consideration in the drawing up of the instruments of commercial policy and in the international economic agreements.
<P>
Decisive is the way in which the European Union participates in the international instances, like the World Trade Organization.
<P>
Even up to today some parts of our cooperation have had to beat a retreat faced with the supremacy of other strong interests.
The event of the banana panel is perhaps the most significant example of this.
The Council must pronounce itself on the new banana regulation which, as far as we know, threatens to penalize severely some of the traditional banana supplier ACP countries, particularly Somalia.
It will be necessary to avoid this situation and make it possible to guarantee that such countries can remain in the Community banana group.
<P>
We ask that, on all the legislative dossiers, like those on the NGOs, decentralized cooperation, human rights and similar questions, on which the presidency, the Council must express itself, the opinion of the European Parliament should be taken into due consideration.
<P>
In general, what needs to be reconstructed is a capacity, which only the European Union can have, of developing a political dialogue and a "strategic alliance' with our developing country partners to be able face up to the challenges of globalization together.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Soulier">
Mr President-in-Office, I will not hide my astonishment from you.
Earlier, when you were talking of the initiatives for Algeria, you did not note that the European Parliament was the first to react to the situation in that country.
Many urgent resolution have been voted for since 1995.
It was through the initiative of this Parliament that in September it was envisaged to send a delegation to Algeria.
For 48 hours we undertook an examination of the hostile forces, in conditions which were, however, calm and healthy, and we have been waiting for several weeks to be able to go to Algeria.
<P>
Now the Troika, represented for the moment by senior civil servants, is going to Algiers.
We hope - and tomorrow morning the parliamentary delegation will meet - to be in Algiers as soon as possible, that is, 7th or 8th February next, so that we can meet with all the representatives of the political groups who sit in the Algerian parliament.
<P>
We are assured that at this political level, which cannot be considered interference since we are discussing parliament to parliament, we will be able to make various contacts, not only with politicians, but also with civil society, and that we will be able to visit the places where people are suffering.
I would like you to tell us, as President-in-Office, what you think about this initiative.
Amidst the pity and overall compassion, at a time when the massacres are causing worldwide emotion, I believe it is time to recognize that Parliament has been the only institution which, for months, has demonstrated its horror, but we would today like...
<P>
(The President cut off the speaker)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fantuzzi">
Mr President, as our group leader has already said, we know very well that the Agenda 2000 debate on on the subjects of the CAP will take us into the second half of the year, partly too because there will be elections in Germany.
However, we confirm, we cannot just play a waiting game on an issue which is, moreover, very urgent.
Our group held a conference on the future of the common agricultural policy on 13 and 14 November. We talked about a new social pact to be renewed, a pact between agriculture and society, highlighting how inertia is the greatest enemy of a CAP which wants to be more modern and renew itself.
<P>
We are concerned by the times, because since 1995, when the strategy paper on the future of the CAP was adopted in Barcelona by the European Commission, unfortunately we are still at general statements, perhaps too general and generic, on the European agricultural model.
The Foreign Secretary, Mr Cook, has spoken of the taxpayer, the consumer and the rural community.
These are in fact the three basic issues.
I do not think the taxpayer should have to be faced with the dilemma of increasing the financial allocations to fund the common agricultural policy.
It is rather a matter of the better utilization of funding that already exists for the common agricultural policy, with more targeted, more transparent aid which responds better to the requirements of protection and valorization of quality.
This is the issue which also interests consumers.
It is not by dismantling the common agricultural policy, on the wave of a pure and simple thrust towards savage liberalization, that the consumer is best protected, but with a policy of quality which the experience of BSE has taught everyone.
<P>
In my opinion, Mr President, these are the fundamental points.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Hernández Mollar">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Algeria is a very ill country, whose illness has not been diagnosed, making it very difficult to treat at the moment.
Therefore I think there are two basic matters which need to be tackled urgently.
<P>
Firstly, to convince the Algerian Government that it is an absolute priority to supply all the necessary means to stop the dreadful killings of so many innocent people.
The European Union should collaborate and cooperate towards this objective, lending all the necessary material, political and diplomatic assistance which the Algerian Government may request.
<P>
Secondly, to tackle this conflict, we need an urgent diagnosis of the disease.
The visits from, first, the European Union Troika, and later the European Parliament (which my colleague Mr Soulier mentioned) should help us Europeans understand a little of what is going on there.
<P>
Algeria, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, is not just a producer of gas and oil.
It is a Mediterranean country with great human potential, which is asking for privileged relations with the European Union.
There is a constant flow of Algerian emigrants towards Europe.
The country's history is linked to the history of European countries around the Mediterranean.
Its culture and religion are shared by millions of human beings.
<P>
None of the things going on there are irrelevant to European culture, economy and society.
The European Union and the Algerian Government should reflect jointly (within the scope of their respective institutions and powers, and with absolute respect for them) on the solution to a conflict with extremely serious repercussions for the peace, stability and development of the peoples of the Mediterranean.
<P>
(Applause from the Group of the European People's Party)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="McNally">
Mr President, the President-in-Office uplifted us this morning.
Now, a practical contribution which the UK Presidency can make towards the goals he enunciated.
One of the unsung success stories of the European Union is cooperation in research.
This research contributes practically and effectively to all the priorities he mentioned this morning: jobs through innovation; combating crime through IT and helping the environment with new forms of energy.
<P>
The UK has a delicate and difficult task next month and in the following months.
The President-in-Office must get a common decision on the Fifth Framework Programme.
This is a co-decision matter with big money - ECU 16.7 bn - and different national priorities.
Do we need socio-economic research?
How much should we spend on nuclear fusion?
There is urgency too - this new programme must start in 1999.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office, research is not a show-stopper but it is very important and it is a very positive European activity with considerable added value.
Do what you can to get a result next month and to help achieve the goals which inspired us this morning.
<P>
(Applause from the PSE-Group)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="President">
I now give the floor to the President-in-Office to respond to the debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Cook">
Mr President, I have found this morning's debate genuinely interesting.
A lot of very valuable points have been made.
There has been a lot of support which I think we can build on in the six months ahead.
I have to confess also to a private fascination in trying to figure out how some people got 1 1/2 minutes, some 2 minutes and some 3 minutes.
As yet I have not come to an explanation of the principle but I am sure I will grasp it during the next six months.
<P>
By my count, we have had 37 speakers in the course of the last three hours.
I have ten minutes.
Much as I would wish, I cannot attempt to go back through each of the 37 contributions, all of which were equally interesting.
If I were to attempt it everybody would get only ten seconds.
So, I shall try to summarize what has been said and my response to it.
<P>
My starting point must be that, as I understand the discussion I have been listening to, my opening remarks got a pass mark.
I hope I am right in saying that, though I will be prudent enough not to put it to the vote!
There were many warm and welcoming contributions.
I even took as an endorsement the remarks that our presidency programme reminded one Member of rock and roll.
Even Mr McMillan-Scott gave a welcome to the British Presidency, although later on in his speech he appeared to move reference back of his own welcome.
<P>
(Laughter) If I do not now respond to all the questions that have been raised and the points made, please do not think that they have not been taken careful note of and will not be borne in mind in the months ahead.
There has been a broad degree of agreement among the Members present with my opening remarks on our programme.
First of all, I am very encouraged by the large number of contributions which have welcomed the importance we are attaching to a programme of direct relevance to the citizens and the electors of Europe.
If we want to restore legitimacy to the European project among our peoples we have to make sure that we demonstrate how that project is relevant to the lives of our peoples.
<P>
During the British Presidency we will be doing it by means of direct involvement of our people in the presidency.
For instance, we have already involved young children from all across Europe in designing our logo.
We have a scheme to send some of our young people from Britain around Europe as ambassadors for a day.
I am pleased to say that some of my opposite numbers, such as Klaus Kinkel, have agreed to take a British student with them for a day as ambassador for a day.
I will be watching very closely how well they do because we are always on the look-out for another good ambassador!
<P>
(Laughter) When we go to Cardiff - which, as Wayne David rightly said, will be a very important occasion for Europe, for Britain but also for Wales - we are also going to host an alternative summit of non-governmental organizations and others, who will be meeting for two days on the eve of the formal summit, so that they can among themselves explore the themes of a people's Europe and subsequently make their recommendations and conclusions available to the Heads of Government summit which follows.
<P>
All of this will not achieve what we want unless we demonstrate that on issues of real substance the European Union and the British Presidency can work for the people of Europe.
The most common point made in the many speeches we have heard in this discussion was the repeated statement that Europe must give priority to winning the war against the drugs trade and the drugs barons.
Tragically, last year 6, 000 people across Europe died as the result of misuse of drugs - overwhelmingly young people, an enormous waste.
Nor is that tragedy confined to those individuals.
The prevalence of drugs in our society threatens to corrupt parts of our civil society and all of us have an interest in making sure that we contain that drugs threat.
I give you an assurance that this will be high on the priorities of the British Presidency.
<P>
(Applause) Also high on our priority will be the issue of jobs, which many of those who contributed to the debate also highlighted.
Cardiff will give us an excellent opportunity both in the Council and in Parliament to review progress on those action plans that were drawn up under the Luxembourg guidelines.
How much progress are we really making in Europe towards training?
How much progress towards opening up opportunities to the long-term unemployed?
How well are we investing and using the extra money that was found at Luxembourg to create job opportunities?
And how much more have we done to remove the obstacles to the single market, to open up prosperity and opportunities for our people?
<P>
But there is another dimension to the people's Europe.
One of the most important benefits Europe can offer its peoples is the benefit of peace and security.
Enlargement will be a key part of that process.
But also, as a number of speakers in this discussion have pointed out, we must take active measures to bring stability to those areas on the borders of Europe which threaten conflict.
I entirely share the point made by a number of speakers that the situation in Kosovo is unacceptable and deeply unstable.
<P>
(Applause) There is no other place anywhere in Europe or the Balkans where universities have been closed for six years, and that is not acceptable in the modern age.
The tragedy is that in foreign policy, work to prevent conflict never gets the same public attention as the reaction to conflict when we have failed to prevent it.
That must not distract us from the importance of taking every possible step we can to stabilize the situation in the Balkans and, in particular, to avoid Kosovo spilling over into wider violence.
<P>
As part of that general programme of promoting security and stability, I hope that in this presidency we will achieve that agreement on a code of conduct and arms licences for arms exports which a number of people referred to, so that we can have in Europe one clear, firm, common standard on the export of arms and so that none of the countries of Europe find that they take a stand on an issue of human rights only to be undercut by a partner.
Let us make sure that we confront this very important issue together and have one common standard on human rights and on arms exports.
<P>
(Applause) It would be right to say that one of the other most frequent themes of the contributions was the worrying and deeply disturbing situation in Algeria.
I accept the observation made by a number of those who contributed.
Of itself, the mission cannot resolve the problem.
But it has to be the starting point.
I hope that mission will go soon.
I hope that mission will be there in time to report to the General Affairs Council on 26 January and that, from there, we will be able to take forward whatever concrete and specific steps Europe can take to end the terrorism.
<P>
In the meantime, since I have been rebuked on this point in my opening address, let me say that I fully understand the welcome lead given by the European Parliament on this matter.
The communiqué issued at the end of the Political Committee yesterday specifically encourages more parliamentary contact between Europe and Algeria.
I believe that is a very important part of the way of bringing Algeria to a more open, more democratic state.
<P>
Although much was said with which I can agree and little with which I would disagree, it would be wrong of me to finish my remarks without signalling out for disagreement the observation of Mr Gollnisch on trade.
<P>
We have to be quite clear that there is no way forward into the next century and a new millennium on the basis of reverting to the protectionism of the last century.
<P>
(Applause) Millions of our people in Europe are dependent for their jobs on their exports to the rest of the world.
We cannot demand free trade to the places we export to whilst insisting on protectionism for ourselves at home.
<P>
(Applause) Nor should we regard it as a threat that as a result of freer trade in the world, other parts of the world are becoming wealthier and richer.
On the contrary, that is our opportunity.
So long as people remain in poverty we cannot sell them our exports.
If they, themselves, achieve a prosperous economy then there is a bigger market for Europe and for the people who work in our factories.
<P>
I am very conscious, Mr President, of the remarkable efficiency with which you shut up people who over-run.
I have no wish to suffer the same fate.
So let me draw my remarks to a close by picking up some of the observations that were made about the position of Britain.
<P>
I come to you, not as the British Foreign Secretary. I come to you as the President of the General Affairs Council.
It is therefore not proper for me to address or to push particular national perspectives.
But let me say one or two things about the points that have been raised about the specific British position.
<P>
First of all, we will pursue reform of the common agricultural policy not because it is a British policy, but because it is a matter which is in the interests of the whole of Europe, and on which we have a report from the Commission.
<P>
(Applause) Indeed there is an encouraging degree of consensus about that reform.
When the Agricultural Council met in November, 14 out of 15 Member States wanted to take forward the Commission's proposals.
That is a good start on which we would want to build.
<P>
Secondly, concerning the single currency, we have looked at the issue very carefully.
The conclusion we have come to from our own national perspective is one firmly founded on an economic analysis, namely that we are at a very different point at the moment in the business cycle to most of the countries of Europe, and that there is not the correct convergence for us to join with safety.
But that is not an objection of principle, nor is it in any way a criticism of those countries of Europe who wish to proceed to a single currency.
Over our next six months in the Chair, we will make sure that we consistently act with regard to our duty as President, to provide impartial, effective and competent arrangements for those countries who wish to proceed with the single currency to do so with the best possible prospects of success.
<P>
(Applause) We will also, of course, make sure that we do not allow any difficulties over beef to become a matter that comes between us, as presidency, and our duties as the presidency.
<P>
Since one or two colleagues have raised it, let me respond to what has been said by saying this: we have been absolutely open on the situation regarding both the risks of BSE and the health consequences in Britain.
Indeed, I stand before you as a member of a government which reversed the previous refusal to discuss this issue with the European Parliament.
<P>
(Applause) One of the very first steps taken by our new Agricultural Minister was to come to the European Parliament and discuss it with the committee in the European Parliament.
I can give you an undertaking, not just on this occasion, as President-in-Office, but also as the British Foreign Secretary, that whether as the presidency or whether as the British Government, we will seek always to cooperate and be open with the European Parliament.
We will never ever succeed if we work against each other rather than sharing openly and frankly with each other what the problems are in the hope that we can better arrive at a common solution.
<P>
I close with one last national thought.
I was interested that many of the people who spoke from different countries, and different parties within those countries, nevertheless often portrayed a common national perspective on Europe.
The British are a very open and very honest nation.
We display our disagreements, even in front of everybody else in the European Parliament.
<P>
(Laughter) I would hope that the British Presidency might achieve just one national objective, which I do not think any other nation in the Hemicycle will begrudge us: I would hope that the British Presidency may, by the end of it, have gone further to building a national consensus in Britain about our future in Europe,
<P>
(Loud applause) and that by the end of that presidency we may have a British public more content with our place in Europe, more at ease with our future in Europe, and recognizing that we can work in cooperation with Europe to our mutual advantage.
<P>
(Loud and sustained applause)
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, President-in-Office.
Thank you for your cooperation this morning and, on behalf of the House, can we wish you, personally, every success in the next six months.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Lannoye">
Mr President, in accordance with Article 60, paragraph 2, as rapporteur I would like to request a postponement of the draft resolution.
<P>
Yesterday, M. Bangemann, on behalf of the Committee, gave a very negative opinion on a large number of amendments. Even if he accepted some of them, the balance is, in any case, sufficiently negative for me to request a postponement of the vote.
Of course, the vote will take place soon, but prior consultation with the Committee is necessary.
<P>
Please note that for the four other dossiers, my request is identical, but I must formally repeat it.
<P>
(Parliament approved the proposal to defer the vote on the legislative resolution) II. honey (COM(95)0722 - C4-0403/96-96/0114(CNS))
<P>
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal (as amended) )
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="Lannoye">
I am sorry to sound repetitive, Mr President, but I am making the same request as for the previous vote, in accordance with Article 60, paragraph 2.
To clarify, I would like to add that we voted for a request to amend the legal basis, which is in any case an important element of debate.
<P>
I would like to insist, for the following dossiers, on the fact that the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights was given on the five Directives in September 1996, that is, at a politically different time to today.
Everything concerning the food industry has become clearly more sensitive, and I therefore think our request is justified.
<P>
(Parliament approved the proposal to defer the vote on the legislative resolution) III. fruit juices and certain similar products intended for human consumption (COM(95)0722 - C4-0404/96-96/0115(CNS))
<P>
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal (as amended) )
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="Lannoye">
Mr President, for the third time, I again request the implementation of Article 60, paragraph 2.
<P>
(Parliament approved the proposal to defer the vote on the legislative resolution) IV. certain partly or wholly dehydrated preserved milk for human consumption (COM(95)0722 - C40405/96-96/0116(CNS))
<P>
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal (as amended) )
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="Lannoye">
Mr President, for a fourth time, I again request the implementation of Article 60, paragraph 2, that is, an adjournment of the final vote.
<P>
(Parliament approved the proposal to defer the vote on the legislative resolution) V. fruit jams, jellies and marmalades and chestnut puree intended for human consumption (COM(95)0722 - C4-0406/96-96/0118(CNS))
<P>
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal (as amended) )
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Lannoye">
Mr President, I once more request a postponement of the final vote.
<P>
(Parliament approved the proposal to defer the vote)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Mr President, I voted for Mr Fayot's report differently from my group, because life outside Parliament requires Parliament to take a quick decision on this issue.
Central to the resolution will be the acceptance or rejection of the document.
I am therefore in favour of Mr Fayot's proposal for practical reasons.
This is no precedent for how things should proceed in future.
Regarding secondary issues in connection with the report on the third stage of economic and monetary union we would also like to deal with, the opportunities for doing so will no doubt present themselves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Along with my colleagues in the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, I voted against the insertion of new Article 79a into the Rules of Procedure, as proposed to us by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
<P>
My first reason for this is the numerous irregularities apparent in the text: firstly, there is irregularity in the procedure for adoption since, as I said when I put my preliminary question, the version proposed in the House is not that which was adopted by the Committee and, moreover, corresponds to the text of an amendment which was rejected by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
There is irregularity also in the very content of new Article 79a, which has been drawn up in line with the assent procedure - already anticipated in Article 80 of the Rules of Procedure - and not as a compulsory consultation as anticipated by Article 109 j of the EC Treaty.
<P>
Furthermore, the parallel that can be made with the usual consultations of the European Parliament is illuminating.
In fact, the consultation of the European Parliament foreseen in Article 109 j, paragraphs 2 and 4 of the EC Treaty, is a compulsory consultation of a particular type, in which the European Parliament is requested to give its opinion to the Council, meeting in the composition of the Heads of State or Government, on the conclusions presented in the form of recommendations by the Council, that is the "Ecofin' Council.
In this doubling up of groupings within the Council, the "Ecofin' Council, in relation to the European Parliament, is playing the normal role of the Commission and the Council, meeting in the composition of the Heads of State or Government.
The terms agreed by the European Parliament in setting its consultation procedure should have, as with the normal legislative consultations of Parliament in the process of Community decisions, expected a report containing an explanatory statement, along with a proposal for a legislative resolution advocating approval or rejection of the Council's "findings in the form of recommendations' , or proposing amendments to those recommendations.
Similarly, the possibility of tabling amendments to that proposal for a resolution should not have been ruled out.
<P>
This solution is so logical that - and this is revealing - it is the very one which the European Parliament adopted on 28th November 1996, when it gave its opinion to the Council, meeting in the composition of Heads of State or Government, on the recommendation drawn up by the "Ecofin' Council in accordance with Article 109 j, paragraph 2, of the Treaty. It was then a matter of the decision to postpone the date of entry into Stage Three of economic and monetary union.
The appropriate Committee had made a written report, drawn up by Mr Alman Metten and including a proposal for a resolution. Twelve amendments were tabled in the House.
<P>
How can you accept that what was allowed at the time of the decision postponing the implementation of the euro should be refused at the time of the decision - fundamental for the countries of the European Union - on its implementation properly speaking?
This is a flagrant violation of the basic rules of democracy by the majority in our Parliament, who often decry the lack of democracy in the European Union and who ceaselessly demand more democracy in many countries around the world.
<P>
Moreover, when it is consulted on a text comprising a number of recommendations, Parliament must be able to express itself, to amend, add, remove, and it is the right of each one of its Members to be able to amend these recommendations and to vote separately on each one of them.
<P>
As from today, I wager that when the time comes, Parliament will regret having taken such a strict position that forbids any discussion on the "Ecofin' Council recommendations because of the obligation to accept or reject them as a whole package.
These recommendations could, for political reasons, be quite different from the positions taken by the Committee, on which Parliament will have had time to give a detailed opinion without the Treaty anticipating this.
<P>
The European Parliament, which is normally concerned to uphold or even extend its prerogatives - in particular in relation to the Council - has therefore adopted an extremely paradoxical position.
Our group are not satisfied with this, and will do all it can to ensure the preservation of parliamentary rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Gutiérrez Díaz">
The report on inserting a new Rule 79a, presented by the chairman of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, Mr Fayot, has been the object of prolonged and deep discussion within the committee. As a result, wide agreement has been reached, but this is not shared by our Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left.
We held a different view, namely that the procedure by which the European Parliament should deliver its opinion on the list of Member States fulfilling the necessary criteria for transition to the third phase of monetary union ought to involve the production of a written report with the potential for subsequent amendment.
<P>
In contrast, the majority position by far (which produced the wide agreement necessary for its approval) was that Parliament's plenary debate should be based on the oral presentation of a proposal by the relevant committee, with no opportunity to present any amendments.
<P>
Our group has decided not to present Parliament with the amendments we fought for in committee, because we think agreement has been reached with regard to another procedure which, although it allows the European Parliament to deliver an opinion, does not do so in the manner and with the hierarchy which we think are necessary.
<P>
Therefore, although we have decided not to present Parliament with a series of amendments which we knew in advance would be rejected, and although we realize that Mr Fayot's proposal gives the European Parliament a procedure by which to deliver its opinions, we have decided to abstain. This is because we think that procedure is inadequate, and we believe abstaining is the best way to indicate our overall position.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Lindqvist">
There is no reason to depart from the Treaty and change the Rules of Procedure just because a timetable has been drawn up which forces such changes in order to be able to take the decision on the euro as planned.
It would be meaningless to talk of the independence of Parliament if we could not make any amendments or propose split voting.
If the Treaty could be circumvented so easily in this case, it would set a precedent for also doing so in other contexts.
<P>
on the Ford report (A4-0400/97)
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We voted for the Ford report on changes in the Rules of Procedure in order to make the work easier for Parliament's delegation in conciliations with the Council.
The report involves minor improvements of a practical nature.
At the same time, however, we would underline our fundamentally critical view of the procedure itself.
The conciliation procedure means that a central part of the actual legislative process takes place behind closed doors in the form of negotiations.
That is contrary to fundamental democratic principles, according to which lawmaking should always be done in complete openness and by elected representatives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Marinho">
I have voted against Mr Ford's report for the following reasons:
<P>
It does not relate in any way to the question raised by Parliament on the need to increase the number of Vice Presidents from three to five, as raised by the President, Mr Gil Robles, on suggesting the amendment to Article 75(3); this amendment was deemed to be the fundamental requirement for the distribution of votes made by the President and applied since the beginning of the second part of the Legislature.
<P>
On making the detailed amendments to the other articles of the Rules of Procedure, leading to a request for the President of Parliament's opinion, the report shows the hypocrisy of changing something so that it includes everything.
<P>
Consequently, the appointment of two more Vice Presidents by the President who, in practice, will not have any duties on the Conciliation Committee, is meaningless.
Besides the obvious discrimination in having Vice Presidents to perform the same duties, some by the first and others by the second, in this case irrespective of the nationalities of the new members proposed by the President, which never seems to have been the original intention of the President of Parliament, it must be noted that the overall solution presented is the result of the collective pressure exerted by several MEPs who are sometimes involved in conciliation and who do not want to lose the opportunity they occasionally get.
And also, irrespective of his competence in the office of presidency of the Conciliation Committee, the report reflects a reaction of defending the fortress and the inertia of the status quo which the chairmen of the most important political groups do not have the political desire to oppose or even clarify.
<P>
In these terms, the Ford report is an important report for the statistics of the Committee on Government and the rapporteur, but is no of no importance whatsoever for the future of the institution.
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on the Lambraki report (A4-0001/98)
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Ahlqvist, Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw, Theorin, Waidelich and Wibe">
The Swedish Social Democrat Group has abstained from the vote on this report.
Our basic position is that the common agricultural policy must be fundamentally reformed.
However, this report proposes an increase in subsidies, although it concerns a very limited area.
The proposal means an increased burden on the EU's budget of around ECU 30 million per year.
We are afraid that a subsidy trap is being made for the producers concerned.
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on the Filippi report (A4-0002/98)
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Ahlqvist, Andersson, Lööw, Theorin and Wibe">
The Swedish Social Democrat Group has abstained from the vote on this report.
Our basic position is that the common agricultural policy must be fundamentally reformed.
This report concerns details in the area of rice production.
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on the Chesa report (A4-0003/98)
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Wibe">
I think that the common agricultural policy must be fundamentally reformed.
This premium for the abandonment of wine-growing areas is also very dubious.
Paying grants which lead to nonproduction does not necessarily guarantee that production will cease.
It can be moved, changed or return etc.
<P>
I am abstaining from the vote on this report because I do not think that this abandonment project can be regarded as a good use of money.
<P>
on the Cabrol recommendation (A4-0004/98)
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We have voted against Mr Cabrol's report on a network for the epidemiological surveillance and control of communicable diseases in the Community.
Mr Cabrol wants to replace the proposed network between the Member States with a permanent structure at EU level.
The rapporteur also wants to standardize the Member States' methods and definitions in this area.
We regard this as the expression of an unnecessary centralism.
A direct cooperation between the Member States in network form should be sufficient to solve the problems which arise in this area.
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<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
Today the Danish Social Democrats voted for the report on the surveillance and control of communicable diseases in the Community.
We believe it is important that there is cooperation in this area because of the many diseases which do not respect formal national borders.
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Nonetheless we doubt that an actual EuroCentre for communicable diseases is the correct way to go, unless such a centre fully fits into the international picture.
A EuroCentre which operates independently of WHO, for example, cannot be worth very much.
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<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Wibe">
The aim here is of course a good one, namely the setting up of a centre for the control of infectious diseases.
However, I am very sceptical about the value of constantly setting up new institutes at 'Community level' .
Sweden has already developed networks for this purpose, including cooperation with WHO.
If a network is to be set up in Europe, then it should be a pan-European structure.
<P>
These constant new EU institutions require resources, and these resources have to be taken from somewhere.
The positive choice of an EU institution may therefore perhaps require negative decisions at the national or global level, especially when we remember the negative attitude towards taxes in the Union.
<P>
on the Cabrol report (A4-0406/97)
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Bébéar">
Cases of asthma have been on the increase, and the cause of growing mortality, for the last twenty years. There is a human, economic and social cost to this.
<P>
The most recent medical statistics collected by the World Health Organisation suggest that the increase in asthma is largely linked to the environment and to allergic factors in the atmosphere.
It all combines to cause an outbreak of the illness when these conditions encounter an hereditary predisposition to the illness.
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As a doctor I can say to you that it has today become essential to look into this problem.
This is what the Cabrol report recommends, when it considers the different human, sanitary and economic factors linked to the reduction of solvent emissions.
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The ten million jobs affected, in more than 400 European businesses covering nearly 20 different sectors of economic activity, are physically able to adapt to lower emission standards than those currently acceptable.
This is why it is important to harmonize emission levels in this area for all the Member States and for all companies, whatever their size.
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If the implementation of this is not strictly enforced, we will leave the field open to the commencement of unfair competition, disguised as subsidiarity or support for SMEs.
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I will therefore vote in favour of the Cabrol report, especially as the delay in transposition and application within different national legislations will enable, through its flexibility, an adaptation in time according to the efforts already initiated by companies for the protection of workers, users and people.
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<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Cushnahan">
As a parent of asthma sufferers I welcome the production of this report and many of the proposals that it makes.
<P>
Volatile organic compounds and other industrial solvents contribute to the formation of ozone at ground level.
This unfortunately intensifies problems for those suffering from asthma in particular, but it also contributes to headaches, eye problems and heart disease.
<P>
I therefore support Mr Cabrol's proposals to amend the Commission proposals.
He is correct when he rejects the Commission proposal to exempt those Member States which have drawn up national plans.
Harmonization on an EU-wide basis is the more correct approach.
It also ensures a level playing field and prevents unfair competition.
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I hope that following today's vote Member States will move quickly to implement its proposals, even in advance of the October 2007 deadline.
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<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Díez de Rivera Icaza">
One of the objectives of the Fifth Environmental Action Plan was the reduction of atmospheric pollution.
This directive is a part of that policy.
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It is known that the increased emission of certain gases is linked to global warming.
Therefore, the Commission also wants to reduce the emissions of volatile organic compounds, which are caused by the use of organic solvents in certain industrial and commercial activities, and are detrimental to people's health.
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While we agree with this, it must also be remembered that adopting these new limits will involve a major investment effort, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises.
Therefore, we think there is a need for a cost-benefit study into the predicted effects of reducing these emissions.
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That explains the amendments which have been tabled, and my vote.
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<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Rübig">
Rejection of application 40 to amend is completely unreasonable for SMEs.
Therefore rejection of the overall report.
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<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Sandbæk">
This directive has been created on the basis of a real need to reduce emissions of so-called VOCs.
Especially in regions with a lot of industry it is an important task for public health to combat air pollution, and a task I can support.
The fact that VOCs also contribute to the destruction of the ozone layer and so lay us open to serious climate changes, only makes the need for action even greater.
<P>
On that basis, however, it is worrying that by implementing this directive we would subject small businesses and regional authorities to a long list of administrative burdens, the effectiveness of which we cannot be sure of.
In my opinion there are problems with basing controls on spot checks because in that way you punish the businesses which carry out thorough inspections and so have a greater chance of finding breaches of limits.
I think we should consider whether the control and administration set out in the directive are cost-effective and whether there are not possible alternatives.
<P>
The destruction of the ozone layer is a transnational problem.
That is why it is good that we are looking for common solutions to the problem of emissions.
However, we must also bear in mind that the emission of volatile organic compounds has regional consequences.
In areas with a lot of businesses which use these chemicals, the discharge contributes to creating smog with its subsequent health problems.
Against that background I can only support the Commission's proposal that individual States may draw up their own plans to reduce this pollution.
The problems are not the same all over Europe.
As long as we stick to the requirement of a reduction in discharges, it is advantageous to allow the authorities which are close to the citizens to find the most effective methods.
<P>
I warmly support the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection's Amendments Nos 2, 17 and 20 which point out that there are also health aspects connected with the emission of VOCs.
We must not forget that people who work with organic solvents on a daily basis are exposed to a large health risk.
This directive will also improve the everyday life of these people.
I would therefore like to request that the reduction of emissions takes place by finding alternative products.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Titley">
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, in the reply to our contributions yesterday to the Lannoye Report and in particular to the proposal concerning honey, Commissioner Bangemann replied that it was not the objective of labelling to settle questions relating to the quality of the products, or even measures to support the beekeepers.
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I must say that I was rather amazed at these statements because I - perhaps I am naive - have always assumed that the objective of labelling is actually to inform the consumer, including information about quality and origin.
If this occurs the consumer is indeed automatically informed about the quality of the product.
This then implicitly supports the high-quality honey of our beekeepers and the protected designation of origin, which the Commission indeed itself publicises with expensive advertisements and glossy paper.
A good use of European tax monies moreover, especially as the Commission also urges honey to be accorded just as much respect as St. Ambrosius.
This is implicitly a measure which can help to ensure that enough bees continue to be kept, thereby guaranteeing the valuable occurrence of pollination.
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I am very pleased that colleagues here have lent such massive support to our applications, in order to ensure that the consumer can still distinguish between the high-quality agricultural product of honey from our Member States from the cheap imported honey of inferior quality.
I am also pleased that Mr Lannoye and the Parliament have resolved not to put the legislative decision to the vote.
We are therefore now spared from what happened to me with my report on the improvement of the production and marketing of honey in June.
Actually the Council completely ignored the fact that we had unanimously adopted 22 applications and my report here.
A few days afterwards it adopted as Point A the regulation in a downright undercover action, as the Commission had recommended to it.
In September I then discovered in talks with agriculture ministers that most of them had no idea that they had rejected our proposals.
<P>
(Interruption by the President)
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<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="President">
As I value your presence in this House, I have granted you twice the allocated speaking time.
But please, do not take advantage of that.
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<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
I am not taking advantage.
I simply wanted to tell you, Mr President, how the Council of Ministers has dealt with our amendments.
I did not want to mention it yesterday as I did not have any speaking time.
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When it is a matter of important problems concerning nature, the environment, production, we have no speaking time.
We have time to spend on everything that goes on in the world, except concerns of interest to our citizens.
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<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="President">
There, Mrs Lulling, I can see that you are touching on a serious matter, but you will have to fight within your group and within the other groups for that to change.
I am obliged to enforce the Rules of Procedure.
Unfortunately.
It was you who voted for the Rules of Procedure, not I!
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<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Souchet">
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We voted against the resolution because we think that questions of sport are outside, and should remain outside, Parliament's and the EU's areas of competence.
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<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, as the initiator back in December of the demand for a Commission statement on this matter of the withdrawal of a place in European competition from the winners of the Coca-Cola Cup, and author with my colleague, Tony Cunningham of the Socialist Group Resolution, I am delighted that Parliament will be backing the Football League in their dispute with UEFA.
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UEFA's action threatens the well-being of dozens of football clubs in the UK with the prospect of the Coca-Cola Cup losing successively: interest, spectators, television coverage and sponsors.
Why?
As a punishment for the failure by the premiership to toe UEFA's line on the size of the division.
But the Coca-Cola Cup is run by the Football League not the Premiership.
This is absolutely illogical and clearly at odds with Community law respecting abuse of a dominant position.
Football is a sport, but it is also an important European industry.
It cannot escape the consequences of European legislation.
The sooner UEFA wakes up to this fact the better it will be for them, football and its fans.
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on the Souchet report (A4-0410/97)
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Blot">
The most important details are dealt with in recital B and chapter 8, which requests less asymmetric and unequal relations with the United States. This is in particular true on a commercial level, but also in the areas of security and defence.
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I have my doubts regarding recital H which congratulates the European-United States cooperation in the area of the crises in ex-Yugoslavia and the Middle East.
In our opinion, the United States has no role to play in the former Yugoslavia, which is a European issue in the broadest sense of the word and not an American one.
As far as the Middle East is concerned, we condemn the policy followed by the United States in Iraq, which will end up starving the civil population.
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Finally, if it is true that there are common values between Europe and the United States, then there are also differences between the two: classic European humanism must be defended against a society exclusively based on money, which is too often the case in the United States.
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Furthermore, it seems necessary to include eastern Europe, the Orthodox religion, including Russia, closely in the destiny of Europe.
The strengthening of ties with the United States is only justified if, at the same time, there is a strengthening of ties with eastern Europe.
If not, the world will be unipolar and exclusively dominated by American power.
I will abstain with regard to this report.
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<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Rovsing">
The extensive changes which the international landscape has been through since the 1980s have also changed the relationship between the EU and the USA.
The constant American flavour which has characterized most of the post-war period is no longer accompanied by a systematic willingness to intervene in the event of crises in Europe.
The new American attitude requires greater European independence.
The report recognizes the new situation, but also establishes that there is still a need for close cooperation across the Atlantic with a view to ensuring peace and stability in the world and respect for values like democracy and human rights.
The differences of opinion between Europe and America relate in particular to the areas of economics and trade.
As the rapporteur so rightly points out, the EU and the USA will work on reducing these disagreements to a minimum.
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<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Souchet">
I am delighted at the adoption by the vast majority of this House of the report I presented on future relations between the European Union, its Member States and the United States of America.
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The success of transatlantic economic dialogue, which will from now on be at the centre of our relations with the United States, seems to me to be dependent on a number of conditions.
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It is first of all essential that Europeans are able to discern and clearly formulate their own interests.
It is also essential that common Euro-American interests are clearly, relevantly and realistically defined, that they are concretely identified and that the themes for dialogue are the object of a rigorous and concerted effort to define them.
The two partners will from now on have to show themselves capable of making progress in the satisfying of these interests through dialogue, in particular regarding the question of the remaining obstacles and that of the optimal management of the numerous frictions that such an interweaving of interests necessarily implies.
The management of disagreements is one question which will have to be tackled frankly and deeply, not limiting it to a simple warning mechanism.
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Success in transatlantic dialogue also assumes an active participation of Member States and business circles.
Without such participation, this instrument risks being put to the better advantage of Americans than Europeans, given the important differences in the nature and way of functioning which separate the European Union from the United States
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The characteristic of transatlantic dialogue is that it is necessary to be better armed than the others in the tackling of all subjects, including the most sensitive, whether it be a question, for example, of financial services, of social or environmental standards, or extra-territorial legislation, which are factors of legal insecurity for foreign investors.
It could be considered that these different issues have, until now, been carefully avoided within the more recent and more delicate dialogues that the United States have embarked upon, in particular within the context of APEC or the Americas Summit.
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Transatlantic dialogue can only be truly profitable if Europeans are able to defend firmly and cohesively the interests they identify in common.
Our American partners are able to defend their national interests pugnaciously.
They expect us to do the same.
This is why the Commission must make extremely sure that there is a strict reciprocity in concessions, a symmetry of allowed advantages and a globalization of negotiations when concerning issues of foreign trade relations with the United States.
It is also essential that the European Union is able to have at its disposal permanent instruments which are likely to form, if necessary, a credible threat of reprisal with regard to our partners.
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Finally, given the essential role played by the American Congress in the area of foreign policy, and in particular foreign trade policy, interparliamentary dialogue with the United States assumes a particular importance: if managed well and firm in the decision to tackle all subjects, it can play a very useful role in reciprocal direct information and conflict prevention.
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If all of these conditions are met, we can anticipate a good future for the new transatlantic dialogue.
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<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="President">
That concludes Voting Time.
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(The sitting was suspended at 1.25 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
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<CHAPTER ID=6>
Continuing training
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="President">
The next item is Mrs Waddington's report (A4-0405/97), on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission report on access to continuing training in the Union (COM(97)0180 - C40208/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Waddington">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, since today is a special one for the UK Presidency it is appropriate to quote from a statement entitled 'Partners in Europe: Learning and Working together' the first words are that 'Success in promoting employability and tackling unemployment will be a key test of whether the EU is making Europe work for people.
Employability is vital both for a competitive labour market and to provide people with security of employment by equipping them with the education and skills they need to adapt to a changing labour market' .
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It is therefore very timely that the European Parliament and the Commission are now studying a report on access to continuing training which was produced as a result of the Council recommendation in 1993.
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That recommendation identified 15 areas where it was felt that Member States needed to take action to encourage the development of access to training.
However, the Commission's report produced as a result of this recommendation does not provide us with the data which is necessary to determine if progress has been made, nor does it assess the impact made by the European Training Programmes and the structural funds resources on the development of access to training and its impact on employability in Member States.
The report in the main simply provides examples of best practice collected from Member States in 1993.
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In fact the latest statistical data that we have on participation by European adults in training was produced by Eurostat in 1996.
Eurostat examined training participation of people aged over thirty during a four-week period in 1996 and they discovered that only 3.6 % of Europeans had been involved.
There were considerable inequalities of access and this evidence of inequality is backed up by many other studies.
People who gain access to training are much more likely to be employed, to be in professional or managerial jobs, to be younger and more highly qualified, to be Northern Europeans and to work for larger companies.
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There is, without doubt, clear recognition by the European Union, Member States and the social partners of the need for greater access to education and training for adults in order to increase employability, job security, flexibility and competitiveness.
It is therefore necessary to address the issues of low and unequal levels of participation in training and to determine measures that should be taken to make progress.
Here the Commission has a vital role to play.
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The report from the Employment and Social Affairs Committee contains some very concrete proposals which are within the Commission's powers to implement and I believe that the European Parliament expects the Commission to take them up immediately.
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In summary, the Commission should present proposals for a common set of qualitative and quantitative indicators in order that a monitoring system can be established on access to training across the EU, to measure progress and provide benchmarks.
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Secondly, action research should be undertaken to assess the quality and quantity of training available to unemployed and underqualified workers, including older people and those in a typical and insecure employment.
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Thirdly, a dissemination strategy should be developed so that successful initiatives taken by Member States and those taken with EU resources can be shared more effectively.
The Employment Committee is suggesting that 'showcases' of good practice should be presented at education and training fairs across the EU.
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Fourthly, pilot projects to encourage individuals to assess their future training needs and receive guidance and to enable firms to develop their skill forecasting systems and training plans should be established using European resources.
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Fifthly, and very importantly, the work and programmes and forward planning of the Commission in the fields of training and employment need to be coordinated.
This could and should result in a concerted approach between labour market related programmes such as the European Social Fund and training related programmes such as Leonardo da Vinci.
In future training at EU level should not be considered in isolation from other employment related issues such as work organization and job creation.
<P>
Finally, it is time for the social partners to conclude a framework agreement on access to training.
They must be encouraged to do so, since there is considerable agreement between them on the need for progress and the Luxembourg Job Summit has provided them with a further incentive.
However if the social partners fail to make progress, the Commission should bring forward proposals of its own without delay.
<P>
Really there has been no better time for the EU to seize the opportunity to work with Member States and the social partners to make life-long learning a reality for European adults, the employed and the unemployed.
The UK Presidency has promised to concentrate on securing progress towards adaptable labour markets which are responsive to economic change and on ensuring that individuals can acquire the skills they need in a modern competitive economy.
<P>
I believe that the recommendation of the Employment and Social Affairs Committee on access to training provides an action plan and some new ideas to make progress a reality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Günther">
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Larive">
Mr President, as draughtsman of the opinion of the Committee on Women's Rights I am pleased with the Waddington report.
The majority of the Commission's proposals have been incorporated into the resolution in close consultation with the rapporteur, and I thank her for this, and in close consultation with the Committee on Social Affairs.
The constructive criticism of the Committee on Women's Rights concerns particularly the following points:
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Firstly, we deeply regret the fact that in the European Commission's report no survey had been held within a number of sectors which are so very important to women, such as public administration, health and education.
<P>
Secondly, too little attention has been pad to access to training for part-time and other flexible workers.
We regret this, as it largely concerns women.
We would like to see an intensive target group policy, with special courses, amongst other things, aimed at women.
<P>
Thirdly, women in small and medium enterprises, and female entrepreneurs must be given more attention during professional training and life-long learning.
Women must be encouraged through targeted training to start their own businesses, and ta take full advantage of new technology.
<P>
Finally, the European Commission is always talking about mainstreaming and there some good plans on the table, like the one on the integration of equal opportunities in general policy.
I wonder why then, when reading the evaluation report, I get the uncomfortable feeling that the focus on women's training opportunities is primarily founded on arguments like ageing or demographic factors.
Just like men, women are a valuable human resource who should be used now, and they should be given opportunities for training and life-long learning.
We believe that as long as women have a disadvantaged position, positive action is needed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Andersson">
Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking the rapporteur for, as usual, a well drawnup and very good report.
<P>
Society is changing ever more rapidly.
In the old industrial society it was the person who owned the money who had the power and influence.
In the new society which is emerging, it is increasingly the person who possesses knowledge who is also going to have power.
In the old society power was unequally divided between those who had access to money and those who did not.
There is also a risk of such an inequality in the new society, if we do not ensure that everybody benefits from education.
That is the most important issue.
<P>
Education is going to be increasingly important.
If we are to have an equal society in future we must ensure than everyone, men and women, those who are now poorly educated, the unemployed and others can share in the education society, can share in basic education and can share in life-long learning.
That is one factor.
<P>
The other factor is that we must ensure that when we obtain an education we obtain one which can be used for a long time.
There has to be a broad basic education, because society is changing ever more rapidly.
It is not possible to have a quick education.
Furthermore, there has to also be life-long learning.
Working life and education must be fully integrated.
<P>
Both society and the social partners have a responsibility in this work.
Society has a responsibility by providing sufficient resources, by creating an active labour market policy, by creating a tax policy which encourages education and by creating a social insurance system which also provides the opportunity for education.
The social partners have a responsibility, because in future it will not be possible for people to simply sit down and negotiate about loans and general terms of employment.
It will be increasingly important to include education as part of the negotiations.
<P>
I was myself responsible for a report a month ago concerning changes in the organization of work.
There are clear connections.
The most important question if we are to develop new organizations of work is to have a welleducated workforce, and a workforce with a broad education, because organizations of work are going to have to be changed according to the needs of the time.
So a workforce is needed which is also capable of meeting the needs of the new era.
<P>
Finally, I would once again like to thank Mrs Waddington.
These are excellent proposals, concrete proposals on best practices , on using the structural funds and on improving the statistics.
I hope that the Commission listens to them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schiedermeier">
Mr President, I must firstly offer the rapporteur my very sincere thanks.
Her task was not easy, but she managed it very well.
Access to further vocational training is of crucial importance to all employees.
Conversely, well-trained employees are the basis for commercial success for every employer.
Completely inadequate information and obsolete statistical data cannot form reliable bases for a good and meaningful analysis.
To this extent the Commission's report is unfortunately not very informative.
On the other hand, the Commission has presented no evaluation at all of the contribution of the joint programmes in its initiatives.
Although on a European level the social partners are in agreement about the factors which are significant for the promotion of access to further vocational training, but unfortunately there is a serious difficulty because there is no agreement about the measures to be taken and the implemental levels.
Further action must therefore be taken here because this makes it difficult to establish common prerequisites and the performance indicators proposed by the rapporteur.
<P>
In the relevant training programmes the financing of pilot projects must definitely be taken into account.
The measures should in particular include women as well as small and medium-sized companies.
Information events with the participation of the social partners could in fact represent useful aids.
A coordination of the projects in the particular sphere of employment with those in the sphere of further vocational training is required.
A framework agreement on the opening of business enterprises for vocational training is certainly desirable.
However, I would venture to doubt whether our own assessment and advisory services, which would again incur costs, are absolutely necessary.
<P>
Allow me to point out a danger.
In the opinion of the social partners the recommendations of the Council in 1993 on access to further vocational training unfortunately scarcely had any effects on developments in the Member States.
And in the opinion of the ETUC there is only a very limited number of successful examples.
This means that the lack of reliable and stable structures and mechanisms is hindering successful work in this area.
The social partners have so far failed to agree as to whether a Directive is necessary.
This must be considered in detail, and it is also a question of subsidiarity. This question therefore involves the principle of subsidiarity.
There are still some hurdles to be cleared for a successful implementation of the guidelines to this report They must, however, be overcome forthwith in the interest of employees and employers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Crowley">
Mr President, I also wish to join in the congratulations to Sue Waddington on her report and to say that the Group Union for Europe will be more than happy to give full support to the report and all its contents, because it is a very balanced one.
In particular, I should like to congratulate Mrs Waddington on some of the innovative measures which she brings forward, but also on not being afraid to criticize where the Commission has fallen down on its duty and responsibility to respond to the urgent need for training in our society.
<P>
The old saying 'give a man a fish, you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, you feed him for life' is a very wise one.
The necessity now, with the advance of technology, in particular the information society, is to upgrade people's skills, to give new skills to people presently in work, to give extra skills to those who are unemployed and who need to get into new types of work and also to have less regulation on the labour market to allow more flexible access to training.
The examples cited by many speakers here are very relevant and it is important for us to remember that we must give real meaning to vocational training, that is to give people the skills they require to be able to take up the new opportunities that arise.
<P>
In Ireland over the last number of years there has been a tremendous increase in the number of companies making use of the ADAPT programme, and this has allowed them not only to give new opportunities to existing workers but also to expand into other areas of technology and to bring in new people who were unemployed or long-term unemployed.
<P>
The involvement of the social partners in this whole area is vital because, unless we can get broad agreement between the unions, employers and other social partners, then the essential elements involved in the whole area of employment and training will not be willing to come together to find solutions.
<P>
Finally, I wish to touch on two further points.
Firstly, it is essential to the success of any programme that the people who provide the training - the experts, whether they be educational or vocational - should be included in the decision-making on the types of programmes to be involved.
It seems to me to be a total waste of valuable intelligence that a lot of the educational facilities and fora are left out of the negotiations on new programmes.
Secondly, the people who have undertaken courses themselves - whether they be Community employment schemes or vocational training schemes - should be asked how they felt the courses provided responded to their needs and what the long-term prospects were.
<P>
In conclusion, the need for across-the-board standardization of responses from the national reports is essential to get a fully clear picture for all of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, I of course would also like to thank the rapporteur for the work she has done, as well as the rapporteurs of other committees, who have come up with good issues.
I would like to ask a fundamental question, however.
I wonder whether the European Commission is able to manage this major problem in the right way.
We are dealing, in fact, with an issue of subsidiarity.
Competition policy is on the tip of the tongue of some very highly placed individuals in various Member States.
I have a feeling that the degree in which it is thought that education can be used to a certain extent in competition policy, plays a part in the dissemination of information.
The reports by the Member States contain too little information.
On that front, the European Commission has also failed to monitor a number of issues, such as government, health care, education, and life-long learning.
We do not really have any information on these.
When we look at the Eurostat figures we have to conclude that people working for big companies have a lot more opportunities for training paid for by the social partners than those who work in small and medium-sized enterprises.
Strategies should be developed together; the European Commission working together with the Member States.
In my opinion too much is still missing at the moment.
Maybe following the Employment Summit a few things can still be done on this front.
<P>
We are talking about employability .
If there is one thing which will give people the opportunity to return to the labour market and to allow them to be more competitive with people who have completed the right training, it is life-long learning, and the attention it is given.
It is the responsibility of the Commission to get the Member States to put aside their own interests in favour of the general European interest.
I call on the Commissioner to give this point in particular more substance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Mr President, Mrs Waddington has once again succeeded in producing an excellent report on an important issue.
Opportunities for adult education and training are becoming more and more vital with ageing populations and increased demands at work.
The report also states that training must be targeted at women, the unemployed, the poorly educated, and older workers.
<P>
I myself would like to remind everyone particularly of the right older employees have to further education and training.
A 45 year-old person is only pretty much half-way along his career path, and is therefore worth investing in.
The over-45's have generally had a poorer education than their juniors. This is worth bearing in mind.
<P>
Another group it is difficult to cater for as far as further training is concerned is people working in non-standard employment relationships, of whom most are women.
These people particularly need to be better trained so as to prevent the permanent division of workers into two main castes: skilled workers in steady employment, and the reserves, picking up the scraps as and when needed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Mr President, I would like to join in the congratulations for Mrs Waddington's excellent report.
I would like to congratulate the whole of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, partly on this report and partly on the report which we adopted a few months ago concerning life-long learning Both of these reports are very important.
<P>
A lot of good things are written about life-long learning, about further education and about education in general.
There is no great disagreement about the necessity and value of further education.
This issue has also come very much into focus now in connection with the summit in Luxembourg where people also discussed and focused on how important further education and labour market training are.
<P>
However, reality looks a little different.
We can really question whether education has improved.
We all know that basic education is a precondition for people to be able to benefit from further education.
But still there are daily cutbacks in basic education in schools.
There are, for example, teacherless classes and a shortage of school materials.
The classes are too large, so pupils who need help to learn reading, writing and arithmetic cannot get the help they need.
These pupils are therefore already excluded when they leave school.
I would like to stress that we all have to accept our political responsibility when it comes to safeguarding a good basic education as a precondition for being able to take advantage of life-long learning.
<P>
Where the social partners are concerned, as is taken up in the report, it appears as if their discussions about the level at which decisions about further education should be taken have stalled.
I am a bit sceptical about the wording of paragraph 15, i.e. that if the social partners cannot reach agreement, then they will be overridden and a directive will decide what level this should be.
I do not believe that is a good way to proceed, because it will become apparent that countries, or societies, which do not invest in further education and good education are the major losers.
I think that is also clear from the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Seillier">
Mr President, on the basis of the document from the Commission and the Waddington report, this debate on access to continuing training in Europe needs to be considered on three levels, economic, social and cultural.
<P>
In the face of the tragedy of unemployment, to which we all give priority, we should more closely examine what the expressions "race for competitiveness in the world market' and "intensification of competition' mean.
In fact, behind this debate there is another more fundamental debate on the very concept of the world market, the common market, the single market, linkages with the world market, a debate which needs to be held. What kind of market economy do we have?
What market economy do we want? Do we want it more in keeping with the culture, with the personal and social interests of our different countries?
I do not unfortunately have time to go into this issue in depth.
<P>
For the moment, I would like to follow up the interesting comments contained in Mrs Waddington's report on a particular point.
With this in mind, I address myself to the Commissioner, who was not insensitive to this point when I expanded it in her presence two years ago, in the Committee on Women's Rights.
If it is normal to take into account a break in the careers of mothers wishing to return to the job market, the "re-entrants' as they are called, to use a rather ugly word, then the problem of young women - and this is the point you were open to, Mrs Cresson - who marry young and have children after having started training, even when they were sometimes about to finish that training, should also be taken into account, since they find themselves totally excluded from all the proposals mentioned precisely because they are married and have brought up their children.
Is this not an injustice that should be rectified?
They, too, have a right to continuing training.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Raschhofer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in our modern giddy-paced industrial society lifelong learning is an absolute must in order to master the new challenges constantly facing everyone.
This trend is most clearly visible in the world of work where the completion of further vocational training courses and the acquisition of specialist skills is a prerequisite for the professional advancement of the individual, but also for the maintenance of the company's competitiveness.
It is a political responsibility to secure access to vocational training and further training and to make it equally available to everyone.
It is not good enough for further vocational training to be reserved only for those who are already the best and most highly qualified.
Must we not rather also offer employees with a low level of training opportunities to acquire further training to give them the chance of a longterm job and open up prospects of advancement?
And must we in particular not also take women into account, who often have to curtail their careers in any event as a result of the additional burden of family/occupation, by paying attention to their needs and integrating them better into further training?
<P>
Governments are therefore urged to point out these defects and adopt measures to counter them.
Only through widespread information about further training opportunities and promoting further training by creating and extending occupational incentives and by removing all access restrictions can further steps be taken against increasing unemployment and social peace be maintained.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papakyriazis">
Mr President, I congratulate and thank our rapporteur, Mrs Susan Waddington, on an excellent report characterized - as Susan's work is always characterized - by completeness, perspicacity, and political and social sensitivity.
We are talking about vocational training, its efficacy and its democratic development, in other words about how it can be made accessible to all Europe's citizens, as it should be, and worthwhile for them all.
<P>
That effort should be made not just to be of use to us in our own countries or to ourselves in the European Union as a pretext or an alibi, but as a substantial ingredient of a sincere and bold effort to combat unemployment.
New and ambiguous terms are becoming current, such as employability, adaptation, flexibility of labour, terms which are of our times but which need to be freed from sinister connotations and defined clearly, because it is natural that in a climate of unemployment such terms and approaches could create fears in our fellow citizens.
Reorientation of our approach to work and hence to vocational training as well, is a demand of our times.
That is what present-day needs impose.
Of course, the weight of our responsibility here in the European Parliament and in the European Union as a whole, faced as we are by the nightmare of unemployment, gives no cause for celebration.
Yet, I would like to stress the fortunate timing of today's debate on the subject, just after the appearance of the British Presidency's programme in which unemployment has been given high and innovative priority, and just a few days, a few weeks after the special conference on employment and in anticipation of the implementation of special action to deal with unemployment and in anticipation, precisely, of the next Summit in Cardiff.
<P>
Here are two fundamental thoughts: I believe that in the effort, which Susan's report mentions analytically, to develop special methods and surveys, we could see, and you too, Madam Commissioner, could look into how to make the best use of Cedefop in Thessaloniki to carry out such surveys.
And as a last additional thought, I would like to mention that in the Eastern European area and in anticipation of enlargement, both during this transitional phase of intensified pre-accession procedures and in the long term with the future prospect of the new countries, we should already be considering how to extend vocational training to make it accessible to all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Thomas">
Mr President, once again I can comment on a report which originates from Sue Waddington.
I again applaud her precise work and expressly her constructive criticism of the weak spots in the Commission's document.
The approach, Madam Commissioner, is to be welcomed as an initial attempt to analyze progress in vocational training in the Union and Member States.
It is understandable that there are shortcomings wherever systems and measures vary too greatly in quality and quantity.
However, it is not acceptable that there is no clear distinction between business sectors and between target groups - from those actively employed to older people.
In this connection CEDEFOP and EUROSTAT must be incorporated to a much greater extent.
The situation of women should be particularly emphasized.
As a result of their employment often being part-time and seasonal, they are often excluded from learning about new technologies and acquiring new knowledge, although they have just as much intellectual potential as well as a high degree of flexibility.
<P>
In the Commission's report there is no review of the joint programmes, i.e. European Year, LLL lifelong learning , or the ADAPT initiative.
Various colleagues have already pointed this out.
The coordination of the training programmes - such as LEONARDO DA VINCI - with the programmes in the structural funds is also still outstanding.
Further important actors are the social partners.
They are in agreement about special support for SMEs, in agreement about new training methods and the better mutual recognition of diplomas, but not in agreement about the decision-making levels.
Right at the top of the agenda must be a framework agreement geared towards the demands of modern work organization.
<P>
At times of crisis further vocational training is judged to be the most dispensable area in the public sector as well, a grave error.
For how can the shortage of specialist workers in companies otherwise be remedied?
Given increasingly shorter product cycles, changes in production and higher market demands, how can employees keep up to be prepared for the 21st century?
In the global competitive environment the consistent promotion of the most important resources - human resources - through further training is essential.
In addition, it is indispensable for intellectual and physical mobility and the personal development of the individual!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hermange">
<SPEAKER ID=104 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ryynänen">
Mr President, Commissioner, as Mrs Waddington in her excellent report stresses, and as has been often stated here, we need proper information on the feasibility of structural funds and Community programmes for training before we can take decisions on their reorganization and continuation.
<P>
Training, employment and competitiveness are firmly interconnected.
For that reason Community actions in these areas must be better coordinated.
The EU must not, however, aim at a united system or programme for further training: on the contrary, I believe that differentials between Member States and the multiplicity of their training solutions is a rich resource that all can draw on.
In place of a uniform system we must strengthen structures of cooperation.
In this way we will be able to effectively spread the word on expertise and exchange experiences to learn from one another.
<P>
I would particularly like to emphasize three matters to do with the attainability and quality of further education and training: equality, entrepreneurship and getting prepared for the information society.
There is greater need for further education and re-training to address the needs of women's equality.
Naturally the quality of school education plays a key role in the effectiveness of further education and training.
The skills and will to face the prospect of lifelong training should be the goal of the school curriculum.
Similarly, school should also prepare women for the multi-faceted nature of women's professions.
<P>
Those who work in or intend to become entrepreneurs in SMEs need special support in the organization of suitable further education and training.
The right type of training could encourage women to even found their own small businesses and learn production skills.
<P>
Upheaval caused by the new information technology is the main challenge to further training at work.
Training has to be extremely flexible and diverse, giving consideration to greatly differing needs and individual circumstances.
Rapid technical development puts adaptability to the test and good-quality further training should, along with providing purely professional skills, strengthen people's ability to take control of change in their lives.
Training should also include cultural elements, and the ability to improve people's skills of participation and interaction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, I too would like to say that Mrs Waddington's report is very positive, particularly when seen against the outdated figures presented in the Commission's document, and the bureaucratic and both quantitatively and qualitatively inadequate situation of continuing training in the Member States, or at least in Greece.
<P>
Alongside the important vulnerable and particularly sensitive categories, such as women, I want to point to three other important categories, which other speakers too have mentioned.
<P>
First, people approaching the end of their productive years, who become unemployed, have problems with training, but also have a very short time during which to continue their productive life.
A characteristic example is radiotelegraphists who no longer work on ships.-Secondly, the very young, who come out of university and tertiary education but without training for employment.-And thirdly, immigrants.
Certain interventions in the area of language, knowledge of the laws and other educational factors would be important in assisting their incorporation into the labour market.
<SPEAKER ID=106 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Weiler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should also like to begin with thanks to Sue Waddington for her report, which as we are already aware has been submitted as a document of very high quality.
She has very accurately recognized the shortcomings in the Commission's report and I share her criticism of the Commission.
It is certainly well meant, Madam Commissioner, but in our opinion your concept for the future is too defensive.
All respect to subsidiarity, but the networking of the economy, the internal market and also the euro make a European strategy necessary.
This is no contradiction, but a plea for more cooperation.
<P>
The insufficient cooperation of the Member States, which the Commission also ascertained, shows this shortcoming in European thought.
For some sectors no data were even available, including - conspicuously - data for the training sector.
The figures on participation in further training measures are also interesting, and the unemployment figures are particularly negative.
I think, and indeed we all hope, that this will now change as a result of the Amsterdam guidelines.
For we all know - and I should once again like to specifically point out - that over 50 % of the long-term unemployed in Europe are inadequately or wrongly trained and further trained.
This demonstrates the special significance of further training in Europe, particularly in connection with the combating of unemployment.
<P>
Formal access to vocational training is certainly guaranteed in all 15 Member States, but the reality - the opportunities for European citizens - varies considerably.
I refer here quite specifically to the demands of Mrs Waddington in points 10 and 11 of the report.
The various sectors are also different: for example the building sector, which quite urgently requires a further qualification, because there as well the working materials and the methods are new and they are developing further.
In the building sector only 15 % are engaged in further training compared to 57 % in the insurance and banking sector.
<P>
There are good approaches and opportunities in many countries, including Germany.
However, I discovered that all the projects I saw interestingly have a European context.
They have either been co-financed via Europe through joint initiatives or they are European in-service trainee ships which have been arranged by farsighted teachers.
<P>
The German Federal President Roman Herzog recently gave a remarkable speech, which I do not agree with on every point.
But in each case I share his criticism of the provinciality of Germany and other Member States.
We will not achieve competitiveness in Europe by cutting back social rights, but only by promoting lifelong learning.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Ghilardotti">
Mr President, I too wish to congratulate the rapporteur sincerely on the excellent work carried out.
The subject of education and training is certainly one of the most fascinating and important for the cohesion and advance of any evolved society and, on the eve of the Twenty-first Century, I think we must find a new way of dealing with some of the tensions and contradictions we have before us and which only education and training can help us overcome.
<P>
First of all the relationship between the process of globalization, increasingly extensive and inevitable, and the defence of the values, the roots of each one, the values of the local Community.
Then there is a need to know how to resolve the conflict between tradition and modernity, because only with a just balance between these two factors is it also possible to govern the more global transformations.
<P>
A third central element is the relationship between the need for competitiveness and the preoccupation with equality and guaranteeing opportunities to all, especially the weakest and the excluded.
And at least the correct analysis of these three elements can lead to more focussed reflection on the problem of continuous education and training, which must become a central objective of the action of the European Union and the initiative to be adopted at all levels, European and national.
<P>
This concept of lifelong learning may be one of the keys to success in the next century; this has been talked about for a long time, but still too little is done and the Commission's communication, which we are debating today, demonstrates that.
This concept must be rapidly translated into operational choices, contractual incentives, investments.
<P>
At the Luxembourg Council a precise commitment was made in this direction; we will check in Cardiff whether the Member States will demonstrate consistency.
I also hope that the Commission will incorporate into its own future work the valuable and important pointers contained in the Waddington report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Cresson">
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Cresson.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
Voting will take place tomorrow at 12: 00.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Participation in profits (PEPPER II)
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="President">
The next item is Mrs Hermange's report (A4-0292/97), on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission report on PEPPER II: promotion of participation by employed persons in profits and enterprise results (including equity participation) in Member States, 1996 (COM(96)0697 - C4-0019/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hermange">
Mr President, the report I am today presenting is in line with the Council recommendation of 1992 regarding the promotion of worker participation in company profits, which was a follow up to a Commission report on the situation in 1990.
In this non-binding instrument, the Council made eight recommendations to Member States for the promotion of participation and asked the Commission to draw up a report over four years on the development of participatory systems in Europe.
<P>
It is this PEPPER II report which constitutes the basis of our reflection today. This basis must, however, be improved upon since, if we are delighted at the existence of this report and its contribution to the relaunch of the European debate on financial participation, it has to be noted that it raises, Mr Commissioner, a feeling of frustration insofar as it highlights the weak follow up to the Council's recommendations by the different Member States and proposes no concrete actions for the European Union.
<P>
It is for this reason that our Committee wished to present a certain number of concrete proposals with a view to studying the conditions of implementation and the effects of the PEPPER systems, with the aim of promoting them in Europe.
<P>
The very diverse methods of financial participation vary from profit sharing to share holding, passing through fixed formulae or business plans.
Furthermore, we all know that legislation varies greatly from country to country. Great Britain and France probably have the most advanced legislation in this area, whilst in many countries the issue is left to the discretion of the social partners.
<P>
Financial participation has three associated objectives: to involve workers more fully in the running of the company, to encourage the setting up of collective savings and finally, to develop investment.
In this way, both employers and workers can be satisfied through a well understood mutual interest. On another level, the State is also satisfied.
Why are the employers satisfied?
Because they often note an improvement in productivity and competitiveness.
Why the workers?
Because they obtain a supplement to their salary, have the chance to build up a progressive capital sum and feel more involved in the success of their company.
Finally, as far as the State is concerned, it can be observed that participation strengthens the competitiveness of the economy as well as worker satisfaction and could possibly be one of the answers to the problem of modernization of the state pension system in Europe through the financing of complementary pension funds.
From this point of view at least, the discussion is worth being had.
<P>
Finally, it seems that PEPPER systems may have a positive effect on employment, insofar as worker participation brings about new behaviour and new equilibria within the company.
This question of employment is at the heart of our concerns these days.
It is the reason why we are asking the Commission to carry out rapidly a study on the effects of PEPPER systems on employment, production and flexibility of salaries.
This study should also concentrate part of its analysis on financial participation in SMEs.
With this in mind, I would like to say to Mr Menrad that I am in complete agreement with the amendment he has introduced, apart from one or two inaccuracies in the French version.
<P>
In my opinion, the question of participation in multinationals must also be subjected to close scrutiny.
This is the reason why, Mr Commissioner, we in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs proposed the creation of a working group made up of representatives from the social partners, Members of the European Parliament and experts from the Commission.
We would like you to give your opinion on this proposal and, if need be, a timetable along with practical ways in which this working group can be set up.
<P>
Finally, we proposed the establishment of a programme aimed at promoting exchange of information regarding good practice.
In this respect, a commentary on this programme has been included in the 1998 budget line relating to social dialogue.
In this spirit, I would like to note that on 7th and 8th May next, a first meeting of worker shareholders will take place in Brussels, which will give rise to the establishment of a European federation of worker shareholders.
We hope that this programme may be financed within the framework of the promotion of exchange of information.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Menrad">
<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schmidbauer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to cordially congratulate Mrs Hermange for her excellent report.
She assimilated the suggestions of the members of the Social Committee into her report, and so the overall report was never contentious.
My group is therefore against the first three applications to amend which were submitted, and in favour of application No 4 because this is a sensible supplement to the report.
<P>
In June 1992 the Council adopted a recommendation to promote systems relating to the participation of employees in operating profits.
It resolved - and I am presenting a summarized account of this - to create legal structures for the introduction of such systems of participation, to examine the possibility of whether tax incentives could be introduced, to promote the systems by way of an information campaign and to take into account the findings from other Member States, to ensure that legal and administrative provisions were formulated in such a way that a broad range of systems would be available and would be the subject of consultations between employees and employers, and in particular to take this into account in tariff negotiations.
After three years all national data were to be made available to the Commission for a new overview.
<P>
These national findings are now presented in the Commission's report and they are, to put it mildly, inadequate.
Apart from France and Great Britain, practically no Member State has taken any initiatives and there is a complete absence of an international exchange of information.
Unfortunately, the outcome of this report proves once again that recommendations which have no binding legal force are adopted by the Council only for show.
After the adoption of resolutions the Members of the Council submit cloudy press releases and leave the recommendations to disappear in the bottom drawers of their desks.
<P>
But we want to see action!
The participation of employees in operating profits itself is accompanied by improved productivity.
It encourages employees to obtain qualifications, at least these are the experiences from France and Great Britain.
And also, at a time of high unemployment it could, with the introduction of the company participation systems in smaller and medium-sized companies, also ensure better and more secure employment
<P>
We therefore expect the Council to adhere to its own resolutions of 1992.
But from the Commission we expect more than merely a report with a description of the facts.
It should carry out investigations on the effects of the PEPPER systems, set in motion a programme for the exchange of information, set up a working party to promote the introduction of PEPPER systems particularly in international companies and consider a Community initiative on capital formation policy to solve the problem of participation rights for migrant workers as well.
<P>
Model projects should also be developed for the central and eastern European countries.
However, we expect the social partners to provide information and inform themselves about the PEPPER systems, as well as having regard to these systems when conducting their negotiations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
Mr President, this is a recommendation from 1992, which according to the Committee and the report has not led to very many national measures.
Now the Committee is largely behind this report and the proposals for measures we want to introduce, tax relief via the State, grants etc., to increase profit sharing by companies and worker influence.
That is good, but I think that we should state very clearly that it cannot progress more quickly than the Member States themselves want.
You cannot dictate from above that this is what people should do and expect that things will necessarily be so.
<P>
I would particularly like to point out some examples which have worked quite well in my country, Sweden.
We have had cooperatives for a long time, both producer cooperatives, such as in agriculture, and consumer cooperatives which work very well.
There people go in with one share and have one vote, so it does not work in the same way as the share system, where people go in and buy as many votes they like by buying lots of shares.
These cooperatives therefore work well.
Most of them can be developed.
In addition, there is the possibility of also using economic societies, as they are formally called, i.e. cooperatives, for small companies.
I think it is important to stress that, and I would like to point out that perhaps people should concentrate more on measures of that kind.
<P>
I personally am also very much convinced that people support companies which are wholly employee owned.
It provides a totally different way of creating a sense of belonging in a company and a sense that this is something people are doing together.
That is hardly mentioned in the report.
<P>
However, on the whole the report is positive and we in our group think it is important to strive in this direction.
We also believe that this can create employment in Europe's Member States in future if it is drawn up in the right way.
However, it must happen at the speed and in the way which each Member State itself desires.
On the whole we are also able to support the amendments with some exceptions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Eriksson">
Mr President, I would like to begin by reminding all of us that the left, both the political and the trades union left, has never in any way been against the people working in companies also having a very, very large influence over the business, both over the corporate environment as a whole and over the use of profits.
But I think that to begin one-sidedly to emphasize personal shares and personal shareholdings as a driving force for increased productivity in this way is extremely biased and very blinkered.
<P>
What we want instead is a dynamic and creative development with regard to corporate democracy.
It would have been very good, I think, if both the Commission and the rapporteur had included the need for companies to invest in funds for the future and what we recently talked about, life-long learning, so that there is investment not only in personal ownership, but also in short-term training in order to increase expertise, not just for the individual, not just for the company, but also for society as a whole.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, what follows from this?
I believe that this must once again be clarified.
It is not a general question, Mr Menrad, of partnership or class conflict.
I cannot help commenting here that anyone who cannot engage in conflict will not be taken seriously as a partner either.
It is a question of how participation systems can be developed beyond the Ford factory, i.e. beyond the large company, with co-management or other means of involving employees arranged by the trade unions.
We know that the low-denomination share is no answer.
The shareholder is torn one way and the other between the shareholder value, which calls for sackings, and his interest as an employee, which calls for employment.
That is the case at Volkswagen, that is the case at Renault and that is always the case wherever low-denomination shares are broadly scattered amongst employees.
<P>
We must urgently examine to what extent we can expand the corporate concept which focuses on the functional context instead of the mere formation of property; modern franchise company chains should be examined in this connection.
We must also consider the redefinition of the boundaries of corporate and social democratisation.
In this respect I disagree slightly with the GUE, because local and regional coordination also calls for new forms of incorporation and in that case a reliance on ownership makes complete sense.
However, in particular this is a matter of genuine participation in profits, not of wages being paid out over an extended period of time, and also of the necessity for providing official cover for the employees' shares.
<P>
We have submitted the appropriate applications.
We can also support the applications of Mr Menrad, since it seems to us rational to once again support rational privatization with appropriate participation strategies; a specific concentration on small and medium-sized undertakings also seems to us to make sense, provided their particular circumstances are adequately taken into account.
However, the fundamental issue is to deal with the question which has already been raised in connection with the Meitner plan in Sweden in the full bloom of Fordism: how can a mechanism be effectively installed which cancels out the automatic process whereby the holders of capital accumulate the corporate wealth and the dependent workers can at most reproduce their own working capacity?
This is the question we are faced with, and in this respect the PEPPER Report is really only a precursor, as much as Mrs Hermange is to be thanked for drawing something positive from it with the Committee for Employment and Social Affairs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Musumeci">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, recognizing the right of subordinate employees to participate in the profits and success of the company has always been one of the priority objectives of the Italian political right.
For fifty years we have been maintaining that overcoming the class struggle and eliminating the conflict between capital and labour must essentially come through the participation of employees in the company capital.
That is why the parliamentary group of the National Alliance is delighted to welcome the reproposing of this subject and congratulates the rapporteur, and we also note the fact that even about six years after the recommendation of the European Council, little or nothing has changed in the various Member States.
We have the clear sensation that in Europe the issues of occupation and industrial democracy, of a different and qualified role for employees, had become commonplaces, slogans to be used only to display goodwill which then do not find any concrete expression.
<P>
In fact, excluding France and the United Kingdom, where progress has been made in the last five years on the ground of financial participation of employees, in the rest of the European Union a sterile debate continues about understanding whether these new participation systems should be the responsibility of government or the social partners.
The European Union must demonstrate more courage, more determination in this delicate matter, that is it needs to move from words to deeds, if only through the establishment of a European participation council, with the task of promoting the introduction of participation systems under comparable conditions throughout the Community.
It is necessary to act so that the social partners include this system in their negotiations and operate so that a regulatory framework is available in the Member States.
At a time when unemployment remains the most serious economic problem in the European Community at this millennium end, Europe must make every effort to induce the governments of the Member States and set out down a secure road, already successfully tested but so far only used by few.
Grand intentions are no longer enough!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
Mr President, I am very pleased about this initiative from the Commission.
It places emphasis on the advantages there can be in employees sharing in the profits of businesses.
Profit sharing can make employees more satisfied and motivated, put more in their pay packet and create a better psychological working environment.
It can make the profits of European businesses grow if productivity increases and it could possibly help improve employment in Europe, which is needed.
Profit sharing can appear in an infinite number of variations.
Financial profit sharing, financial democracy or employee shares.
Favourite children have many names.
The model which is chosen in the Member States will depend on how the labour market is set up in the country concerned.
When the Commission's report states that there is no profit sharing in Denmark, that is incorrect, Mr Flynn.
Employee pension funds own a large share of Danish businesses.
That means in fact that wage-earners have a large stake in capital in Denmark.
<P>
We should not therefore stick to a rigid picture of what profit sharing means or a narrow European model.
We should start with the countries' different traditions and learn from each other's good and bad experiences.
I would therefore support a study into how the various schemes function in the Member States.
It is also a good idea to set up a working group which should include the social partners.
This working group could, among other things, examine questions of a transnational character, such as profit sharing in multinational companies.
In Denmark we do not believe that European legislation is necessary, but we are pleased that in this way we can put the subject on the agenda in the EU.
This is an area in which we should take the voluntary path.
It would be wonderful if we could make businesses aware of the advantages of profit sharing through the exchange of experience and studies, but decisions on the introduction of profit sharing should either be left to the individual business or be made the subject of agreement between the social partners.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="Flynn">
Mr President, first of all let me thank Mrs Hermange and the Committee for Employment and Social Affairs on the thorough work that they have done on the PEPPER II report.
<P>
The PEPPER II report gives an overview of the way that the Member States have promoted financial participation of employees in profits and enterprise results since 1992, following the adoption of a Council recommendation on this very issue.
<P>
Since the adoption of the PEPPER report last January financial participation has, amongst many other topics, been discussed in the context of the Green Paper on partnership for a new organization of work.
<P>
The employment guidelines that were adopted in December also invite the social partners to negotiate agreements to modernize the organization of work, with the aim of making undertakings productive and competitive and achieving the required balance between flexibility and security.
In this context, the participation of employees in profits and enterprise results could assume a greater importance.
<P>
As the PEPPER report shows, profit-sharing is in all cases associated with higher productivity levels, no matter what methods, model specification and data are used.
Other positive effects of the schemes are on wage flexibility, employment and employee involvement.
<P>
The Commission agrees with Parliament that the impact of financial participation schemes on employment, productivity and wage flexibility should be further studied.
We agree with Parliament here - measuring the exact impact of such schemes can often be very difficult, particularly given the different fiscal and social security schemes that exist in the Member States.
The Members will be aware of the great diversity here and it is very hard to get the proper assessment and comparable data analysis in place.
<P>
Furthermore, since it seems that the lack of comparable information may be an obstacle to the promotion of financial participation schemes, the Commission supports the idea of launching incentive measures to promote information exchanges between Member States, provided adequate funding is available.
I think this is a key request which the rapporteur and Parliament are making today.
<P>
The applicant countries could also be invited to participate in this particular understanding, insofar as exchange of good practice and information is concerned.
<P>
As regards other actions proposed by Parliament, the Commission would prefer to wait until the final results of the consultation launched on the basis of the Green Paper on work organization, plus the issue of setting up a working party, could be considered in the context of the possible follow-up to the Green Paper.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="President">
Thank you Mr Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Kurdish refugees
<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="President">
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the situation of Kurdish refugees and the position of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="Henderson">
Mr President, thank you for your introduction and for the opportunity to address Parliament this afternoon.
This is my first opportunity and it is one that I relish.
This is a very important issue which is being debated today and it is a privilege to take part in your debate.
<P>
The presidency shares many of the concerns expressed by the European Parliament.
The scenes we have all witnessed during the last few weeks of large numbers of distressed and vulnerable people arriving on the shores of Europe are deeply disturbing.
Some of these people are genuine refugees entitled to the protection of the international community.
But many are economic migrants in no real danger of persecution in their countries of origin who are merely seeking a better life in the European Union.
Both categories appear to be being exploited by unscrupulous racketeers who take their money in return for attempting to smuggle them illegally into the European Union.
<P>
As the presidency we are determined to deal with this difficult and complex problem in an effective but humane manner compatible with our international obligations towards genuine refugees.
This is not just a Schengen problem; it is a common European Union problem.
It is a problem which challenges our ability to act together both in European Union domestic policy terms and in foreign policy terms.
<P>
The presidency has drawn up proposals to tackle this difficult problem.
On the domestic front, immigration and asylum policies of the Member States need to be fair and firm.
External border controls need to be rigorously enforced.
We are looking within the European Union at what further steps we can take.
We have suggested that we could be more rigorous in applying sanctions against airlines and other carriers who bring undocumented passengers into the European Union.
We can ensure that our embassies and consulates, where applications for visas are made by Iraqis, have adequate training.
We can train airline staff in the detection of false documents.
<P>
But this in itself will not be enough.
We have to track down and bring to justice the organized criminals who are trafficking in human beings by encouraging people to leave their countries and part with their savings for an illegal passage to Europe, often in appalling conditions.
The meeting of police chiefs in Rome on 8 January was an important step in this direction.
Several representatives of those European Union law enforcement agencies most directly affected by the problem were able to pool their knowledge.
<P>
The presidency will seek to build on this.
We will continue to ensure our law enforcement agencies have the political support they need to be able to work smoothly together to confront this kind of international crime.
As the presidency we will do what we can to achieve this.
Since some of the people being smuggled into Europe are genuine refugees fleeing persecution in their own countries, our actions have to be consistent with our international obligations towards such people.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees will be kept advised of any measures being planned.
In turn, the presidency has sought - and we will continue regularly to seek - UNHCR's advice on the humanitarian situation in the regions from which the migrants come.
<P>
But the measures we take domestically will not be able to stem the human tide unless we are effective on the foreign policy front as well.
We have to look at the root causes of these migratory pressures: the human rights and humanitarian situation in the region and the repressive nature of the Iraqi regime, as well as the fighting in which so many civilians are caught up in Northern Iraq and the south-east of Turkey.
We have to think hard about what we can do together to solve these problems.
<P>
In particular, we have to support the efforts of mediators in the reconciliation process between the Kurdish parties in Northern Iraq.
Through humanitarian intervention we need to help create the conditions in Northern Iraq that will remove the incentive for people to leave.
Turkey has a key role to play in handling this crisis.
The presidency has discussed the matter with the Turkish Government which is taking the problem seriously and has tightened security measures at ports.
<P>
The presidency has attached the highest priority to work on the action plan on illegal immigration from Iraq commissioned at the Luxembourg European Council.
This crisis is a real test of the European Union's ability to take rapid and effective action within the framework of both the second and third pillars to deal with a serious problem.
The presidency intends to do what it can to see that together we pass the test.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="Van den Broek">
Mr President, the Commission also welcomes the opportunity to discuss this important issue in your Parliament If we want to do justice to those who justly lay claim to protection as refugees on the one hand, but if on the other hand we want to protect our citizens against the problems of illegal immigration, the European Union will increasingly have to strengthen its cooperation and harmonize its asylum, immigration and visa policy, or as the case may be, coordinate more decisively.
<P>
Mr President, the European Union understandably exerts an attraction on many outside the Union who find themselves politically or economically oppressed.
When the European Union does not offer a common policy in exchange, the pressure of illegal immigration will only increase, resulting in the genuine refugee becoming the victim.
This is not acceptable.
<P>
We owe a more effective policy to the Member States who are presently carrying the heaviest burden as regards receiving refugees.
Mr President, when we are talking about the recently observed, increased inflow of Kurdish people, it seems to us that this cannot be primarily attributed to new political or economic causes.
The Kurdish question is, as we all know, past history, yet unfortunately it should be recognized that a solution cannot be expected in the near future.
Nonetheless the European Commission is trying for its part, through the MEDA programme amongst other things in the south east of Turkey, but also in northern Iraq through the ECHO humanitarian aid, to improve living conditions there, with the aim of preventing migration as a first option.
<P>
The extra negative dimension we are presently witnessing, and the presidency pointed to this just now, is an increasingly large scale smuggling operation in which criminal organisations earn big money from the misery of thousands who, for whatever reason, wish to live in Western Europe.
These criminal practices cannot be combated toughly enough.
We therefore very much welcome the talks between police chiefs which recently took place in Rome.
<P>
Mr President, on issues concerning the third pillar, in which the national authority of Member States dominates, the Commission has taken the necessary initiatives and has submitted proposals, a number of which I would like to mention here.
<P>
The Commission has submitted the proposal for the ODYSSEUS programme, which aims to promote exchange and training of functionaries who work in the field of emigration, external borders and asylum issues.
This proposal is presently still being discussed in the Council of Ministers.
<P>
We would like to point out the joint action of March last year to recognize temporary protection of asylum seekers, to which your Parliament has given its support.
The recent events indicate the need for temporary protection, and the Commission hopes that the Council will be able to reach a decision soon.
<P>
Already in 1995 an institutional framework had been adopted for cooperation between Europe and Turkey in the fields of justice and internal affairs, but the mechanisms for implementation have, unfortunately, for well-known political reasons.
<P>
The statement of 16 July last year on the deepening of the relations between the European Union and Turkey contains proposals for further cooperation in the sphere of police and customs; this is backed by financial resources.
<P>
The European Council of Luxembourg considered the consequences of the large tide of migrants, and then, too, the issue of Kurds from Iraq was discussed, and, as you know, the Council is preparing an action plan in which third and second pillar aspects are gathered.
In this context the Commission wishes to point to the complementary nature of the Union initiatives on the one hand, and action as part of the Schengen agreement on the other.
This is important because the Schengen agreement was incorporated into the Treaty of Amsterdam, and because current developments might endanger the implementation of one of the objectives of the Treaty, namely the abolition of border controls.
<P>
Yesterday a task force met to discuss a whole range of practical measures to control external borders on the basis of a list drawn up on 15 December.
<P>
Mr President, in conclusion the Commission would like to express its appreciation of Italy's efforts to respond adequately to the pressure of hundreds of new immigrants, and to do so in compliance with the obligations of international conventions, such as offering humanitarian aid and the opportunity to submit an application for asylum, whilst at the same time meeting its obligations to protect the external borders as effectively as possible.
<P>
Mr President, the joint action plan which is being prepared by the Council, will try to gather together all policy areas.
The Commission on its part will vigorously support the presidency's efforts for far-reaching agreements between the Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I believe the two statements have shown that there are very many points of agreement between the institutions of the European Union.
Firstly, it is important that the right of asylum is fully safeguarded in this Europe.
Secondly, however, it is important that we put an end to criminal organizations, which cannot be tolerated or sympathized with because they commit the ultimate sin of exploiting human misery out a lust for profit.
<P>
Thirdly, I should like to fully support what the President-in-Office of the Council also mentioned: it is a question of combating the causes of migration, as you also stated, Mr Commissioner.
I believe we must all endeavour to solve the problem of the Kurds - the economic, social, political and cultural problem of the Kurds, not only in Turkey but especially in Turkey.
<P>
However, I would like to take this opportunity to state quite clearly that to many people it appears to be no coincidence that this immigration occurred a few weeks after the Luxembourg summit - this reaction appears to be no coincidence.
It may indeed have happened with the knowledge of the Turkish authorities.
We must follow up several reactions closely.
We must be patient.
We must continue the dialogue with Turkey despite all the problems this involves, because a problem such as that of the Kurds can ultimately only be resolved jointly, with mutual support and assistance.
We must also convince Turkey that it is not only an internal problem, not only a problem to be resolved politically or even militarily, but a socio-economic and cultural problem which is to be resolved; and that Europe wants to help, not oppose Turkey, and would like to point Turkey in the direction of assistance.
<P>
Fourthly: the burdens.
The Commissioner also addressed this matter and others have addressed it - if we want to combat the xenophobia, which there most unfortunately is, and in some cases also the hysteria which accompanied it, we must consider how the burdens and the responsibility incidental to the refugee question can be better apportioned.
<P>
We also addressed you on the matter, Mr Commissioner in the Committee for Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
I believe that more must be done to make it clear that in the event that some countries - Italy has on many occasions acted in an impeccable manner in this connection - becoming directly affected by floods of refugees, other countries in Europe cannot say that this does not concern us, that is their problem, or perhaps react in an even more negative manner.
<P>
In Europe we must assume responsibility for this jointly, and jointly create a rational asylum policy in this Europe.
This has not yet happened, and there will be other colleagues addressing the subject.
<P>
The common foreign policy must ensure that the right of asylum is safeguarded in this Europe, that no fortress of Europe comes into being, but that a rationally controlled immigration policy ensures that xenophobia is eliminated and that we are an hospitable Europe, but for those who really need our help and support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bianco">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, I think Commissioner van den Broek was right to recognize that the problem of the Kurds cannot be regarded just as an operation of police containment or security to be progressed with exclusively containment operations, given that it is a matter of an eminently political question which goes precisely to the root of things.
<P>
Twenty million people, divided between five states, a people without a land, an ancient cultural identity torn apart, people without citizenship, subjected to harsh repression and authoritarian regimes. All this cannot be removed from the European conscience.
<P>
I believe the problem must be approached with due caution but also putting the issues back into proportion.
Only 2 646 Kurds have disembarked on the Italian coast, 1 500 Turkish and 1 384 Iraqi.
Italy has operated, and I want to give credit to Commissioner van den Broek for having recognized it, according to the international agreements and respecting the Schengen Treaty, strengthening the controls, expelling the clandestine immigrants - 54 000 and 38 000 in 1997 - sticking to all the obligations which are necessary but also adopting the measures which must be taken to be able to respect the right of asylum, without unloading its own responsibilities onto other countries.
But the question must be dealt with in a unitary and political way, also seeking to develop a different kind of policy towards Turkey which remains, precisely, a central country in decisions in respect of the Middle East.
I would like to say here that Europe is not only the Europe viewed horizontally, as Mr Cook viewed it this morning, framing it from Edinburgh to Vienna, but it also goes from Edinburgh to Barcelona, to Naples, to Athens.
Only by looking at Europe in comprehensive terms can these problems be dealt with, applying that due wisdom and also that due humanity which is imposed from the start to these problems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Viceconte">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when in days gone by Kurdish refugees disembarked in Italy and to the appeal for solidarity launched from my country for a common European action came the response that the problem was entirely Italian, our European citizens had the proof, once again, that they belonged to an acephalous Union, a Union which imposes rules on everything that can be regulated in everyday life, but which then goes into hiding when world-scale events become urgent for our continent.
<P>
The disembarkation of the Kurds in Calabria and Puglia is just the latest chronologically and the Union will increasingly be considered a priority destination by refugees.
There are two points I consider fundamental, the first political, the second legal and institutional in nature.
We who have contributed to the dissolution of the eastern regime, we who have started action to strengthen the weak democracies of those countries, we who have opened up the Union to enlargement to the other countries operating, in fact, a choice which also opens up new fractures, we cannot ourselves turn away before such emergencies.
So a coherent and tangible policy is needed, also to promote economic development of the regions of Asia Minor, the Mediterranean and its peoples.
As regards the legal and institutional aspect, I would mention that Title IV or the new treaty confers on the Council the task of defining, within five years, common rules for crossing external frontiers, visas, asylum and immigration.
Given that the southern coasts of the Union are no longer national boundaries but frontiers of the Union, we ask that common and lasting solutions be urgently found.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wiebenga">
Mr President, the present tide of Kurds to Europe calls for a joint European action.
We cannot leave Italy on their own, I repeat the previous speaker's words.
Mr President, the number of emigrants may be a problem in this case, but the powerlessness of the European Union is a much bigger problem.
The more so as it can be predicted that similar cases will occur more frequently in the future.
<P>
Mr President, we from the Liberal Group think there should have been a European action a long time ago, but for the moment what we see instead is pushing and pulling between Member States.
I refer to the initial row between Germany and Italy.
<P>
Firstly, as Commissioner Van de Broek also said, it is necessary to lay down common entry regulations, rules for refugees, in European law.
This would prevent journey patterns in the direction of those countries where they have a greater chance of being given residency.
So this is harmonization.
<P>
Secondly, exchange of information through Eurodac, should be introduced soon, tomorrow here in this Parliament.

<P>
Thirdly, a European regulation should be introduced for a fairer distribution of displaced persons when it concerns a massive tide into the Union as a result of war, and so on. This is the sharing of responsibility.
<P>
Fourthly, the control of external borders should be drastically improved; external border control.
<P>
Fifthly, the provision of shelters for displaced people in the region after major disasters is desirable.

<P>
Sixthly, human smuggling must be combated rigorously through the help of Europol.
<P>
Seventhly, the return policy should also be tackled on a European level.
<P>
Eighthly, measures should be taken at European level if the countries of origin do not cooperate in taking back their own subjects.
<P>
Ninthly, the cause of migration should be tackled.
<P>
And finally, there should be a migration observatory.
<P>
Mr President, I conclude.
The moral of this story is that we either act jointly, or the problem will get out of hand.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Pettinari">
Mr President, I think the Council Presidency and Commissioner van den Broek are very clear that it is absurd to think that they can stem the Kurdish migratory flood without a radical change in the situation in the places where they live today.
I am thinking primarily of Turkey and Iraq.
The causes of the migratory flood must be understood, it has been said.
The causes are simple: war is being waged against the Kurds in Iraq, and the Turkish army has carried out massacres against villages inhabited by Kurds.
Those are the causes of this flight: political causes, primarily political, which make the Kurdish question a political question.
I believe that all this makes it urgent and necessary to hold an international conference on the Kurdish question.
That is a very pressing necessity and the European Union can and must take this problem on board.
A commitment from the Commissioner on this issue would be important.
<P>
I only want to add that I too consider important the recognition shown for the positive role played by the government of my country.
It has not been a pretty sight to see other governments say that the problem of migration was just an Italian problem; I think it is now time to pose the question of a common political asylum policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this debate concerns political responsibility.
It is a question of dealing responsibly with the subject of 'flight' and a coherent European response to the question of helping refugees who are seeking protection.
This debate is about refugees and helping refugees, not about preventing refugees from taking flight in the first place.
We are experiencing precisely the opposite.
Refugees are being criminalized indiscriminately and the medium of Eurodac, Mr Wiebenga, is a means of criminalizing refugees indiscriminately.
They are per definitionem being turned into illegal immigrants, and now an entirely new concept is being introduced into the debate: that of the illegal exit.
I am familiar with this concept from the linguistic usage in the GDR, and Mr Swoboda uses this concept when he demands that Turkey as it were prevent refugees being able to escape from Turkey in the first place.
<P>
With the calls for Schengen to be repealed, which is only possible if there is an actual threat to public order and internal security, 2, 000 people in flight are declared to be a threat for 370 million EU citizens.
This is demagogic and represents an exploitation of the misery of people in flight for party political purposes, for election purposes and for purposes quite different from ensuring that the right of asylum is upheld here.
<P>
When now above all the Federal German Minister of the Interior, who over the last few days has posed as the taskmaster of Europe, criticises Italy this is an open call to violate prevailing asylum law.
He also calls for the Geneva Refugees Convention to be violated! He calls for the European Convention on Human rights to be violated!
Indeed, where have we arrived at here if European responsibility now only means undermining the law of asylum as far as possible.
The Kurdish problem is not a police problem
<P>
Please allow me to say one more thing: four weeks ago Mr Juncker said here in this room that he would not sit at a table with torturers, and he was referring to the Turkish Government.
Four weeks later these very people are being cooperated with, the Turkish police are being cooperated with and there are discussions with the Turkish police as to how the culprits can combat the victims
<P>
(Applause) This is deceitful and cynical and makes it clear how seriously human rights policy is conducted!
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, many colleagues have highlighted the cacophony Europe and some Member States have demonstrated faced with the issue of the flood of Kurdish refugees into Italy.
I associate myself with those criticisms, I say that the Italian authorities have acted properly and have shown, from this point of view, a great sense of responsibility, but at the same time I answer the fact - if I may - that, if we had thought in time that these frontiers and these asylum measures for refugees are measures to be taken henceforward at the European level, it cannot but be recognized that neither in the Treaty of Amsterdam, nor in the action of the Council, which has blocked a draft convention on external borders since 1991, are there encouraging signs.
<P>
Europe is there, but when it is needed it is missing and missing too often!
It is a task which the British Presidency will surely have to deal with to bring order to a situation which can no longer be left to the national governments.
<P>
Having said that, may I say, Mr President, on the text that we will be voting on, that we are preparing to vote unilaterally, without dwelling for a moment on the Turkish question which was left in suspense in Luxembourg, and voting on a text of this kind risks being another slap in the fact to that willingness to re-open the dialogue on the participation of Turkey in the European Conference which we are all looking forward to and on which we are working, but which, unfortunately, has had no reply from Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Striby">
Mr President-in-Office, I would first of all like to wish the British Presidency the best of luck.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the influx of hundreds of Kurdish refugees into Europe gives us the opportunity to question ourselves on the functioning of the police cooperation foreseen in the Schengen agreements and in the section concerning the total abolition of border controls on movements of people.
<P>
The assessment is clear.
This arrangement is inappropriate.
Italy joined the Schengen group on 26th October last, and yet nearly 10, 000 illegal immigrants pass through southern Italy every month in order to gain entry into the rest of Europe, benefiting from the internal borders which are easily crossed.
Austria, who joined Schengen on 1st December 1997, has just invoked the safeguard clause in order to increase controls at the Italian border.
France, which already uses this clause on its northern borders, has considerably strengthened controls along its borders with Italy, without even attempting to invoke the legal cover of the safeguard clause.
In any case, we have to recognize that the whole world is making a fool of the Schengen agreements.
<P>
As an MEP of a border region, I know that border controls in no way constitute a hindrance to freedom of circulation, just as showing our parliamentary or civil servants' identity cards is not a hindrance to our entering these Parliament buildings.
As an MEP of a border region, I know the political and socio-economic damage caused by unfettered emigration.
Each country must remain free to decide who lives within its borders, to protect and respect those it accepts and to refuse this right to those who do not respect its laws.
<P>
It is precisely within this context that the Treaty of Amsterdam anticipates, within a five year period after its enforcement, the abolition of all controls on movement of people, including those from third countries, at the internal borders of the Union.
And they want France to amend its constitution to this end?
I simply hope that the French, and in particular those from Alsace, will be able to give their opinion on the subject and reject the Treaty of Amsterdam.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Moretti">
Mr President, once again I am wondering what Europe wants and what role Europe is playing in the face of the daily events of extra-European immigrations of entire peoples.
On the one hand it welcomes the new arrivals and encourages this mass transfer, and on the other it tramples indecently on the rights of the peoples of the Member States: Padania is an example of that.
<P>
Turkey and Iraq share the territory of Kurdistan, while Italy and the Member States share the Kurdish people robbed of their homeland.
I wonder if the Union did not have the political strength to react or did not want to react against the Turkish government, which speaks of democracy and in reality bombs and kills Kurds and in its own country obliges citizens to write their religion on their identity cards.
What Europe do we want to build if we fail once again to demonstrate the capacity or the will to combat effectively the criminality which organizes mass exoduses speculating on the lives of desperate people?
Of course the criminal organizations know how inefficient Europe, this Union is, better than the Union knows the criminal organizations.
In this way, dear Europe, we will again show our incapacity or, worse, our true objective: doing exactly the opposite of what we say.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bontempi">
Mr President, I think I too must highlight this fact that has shaken all of us: the Europe we have discovered on the occasion of the arrival of the Kurdish refugees in Italy has been the Europe of exposed nerves and ugly conscience.
Exposed nerves because slightly more than two thousand refugees were enough for someone to call for the immediate annulment of a pact, an agreement, a treaty which has cost so many years of work and which built the possibility of free movement.
Moreover, ugly conscience because it is that same Europe, those same forces, which did not want to reach the only possible conclusion which the citizens ask us for and which is a common policy on immigration and asylum; now, not in five years time.
<P>
Fortunately facing this Europe there is another: a Europe which we have seen, with a delegation from the Party of European Socialists led by my colleague, Mr Schultz, to Puglia and Calabria; the Europe, that population, those administrators, those governmental organizations, the Catholic church, in the first row, clamouring for common policies on immigration and asylum, calls for Schengen to be experienced for what it is, as a solidarity pact and not as an opportunity to unload the barrel on the other, above all on those mother nature has blessed with a beautiful sea: the sea, not the small internal borders of a state like Luxembourg.
And still they ask us, they have asked us, starting with the Archbishop of Lecce, whom we met, to formulate a policy on the right of asylum.
We are no longer in the presence of emigration, we are in presence of migrations which will increasingly tend to resemble what is happening in other parts of the world.
<P>
We also ask for something else, they ask for it, but we also ask for it: a fight against crime.
You know that at present, for example in Puglia, other arrivals are expected in the coming months, but not in the great ships immortalized in Amelio's film; high speed rubber dinghies are expected at night, which will land a few people at a time.
To control 120 kilometres of European coastline, is perhaps the case of contributing to the operation of our government in southern Albania to stop the criminals organizing this exodus.
We have talked with Kurdish, Tamil, Singhalese refugees: US$ 4, 000 each to get to Hamburg and Amsterdam.
We explained to them that, correctly, the Italian government, for humanitarian reasons and also for practical reasons, had decided to apply the right of asylum.
I say practical reasons, because with the old law, even facing things that we did not want - expulsions - the way would have been open to reach the north.
<P>
From this angle - if you will permit - those who abused our government were twice mistaken, but above all made a grave error: that of demonstrating that this Europe of exposed nerves, of ugly conscience is alive in their person and in their behaviour.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Nassauer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we Europeans will, it is to be feared, more frequently have the opportunity to talk about refugees escaping to Europe.
Therefore, it must firstly be emphasized that what is happening in Italy at the moment does not represent an Italian problem, nor a German problem, nor even a German-Italian problem, but that the movement of Kurdish refugees is centred in Turkey.
Therefore, the first demand to be made to the Turkish Government is that the conflict with the Kurds be settled peacefully and by constitutional means and on the other hand that it be ensured that criminal organizations which also make capital out of human misery and use Turkey as an escape route be rigorously prosecuted.
That is the first demand.
<P>
Secondly, it has been said that the Schengen Agreement must be repealed.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, we must refrain from demanding the repeal of European provisions whenever there are difficulties.
Schengen contains all the possibilities of dealing with such situations.
This is precisely why we concluded the Agreement!
I accept that the Italian Government is playing its part in fulfilling these obligations and it must be acknowledged that it is more difficult in Italy than in other countries.
We must also develop an awareness ourselves that with the protection of the external borders, increasingly fewer decisions will be taken on illegal immigration.
Because - in an age of mobility - we neither can nor want to turn Europe into a fortress, decisions on illegal immigration must be taken in the individual countries.
We must decide whether refugees can stay in our country or not, and such decisions must be made quickly and constitutionally.
If we come to the conclusion that they cannot stay, they simply have to be returned to their own countries.
This also relates to the regulation of immigration, not only the protection of external borders which is being discussed at the moment.
<P>
A final point: everything we are now witnessing in connection with the situation in Italy cries out for a European ruling.
We cannot pretend that such problems can only always be solved by the countries which are currently affected.
This requires joint European efforts such as they are laid down in the Amsterdam Treaty.
They should therefore be implemented quickly, not only when the five-year term has ended; we should make a start immediately.
This is what the case of Italy, the case of the Kurdish refugees, warns us about.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Daskalaki">
Mr President, it is very sad that the fate of the Kurds started to preoccupy the European Union more intensely mainly only after a small part of the problem began being exported to the West.
If we had not confined ourselves to pious words when the bombing of whole villages and the annihilation of a nation began at the Iraq-Turkey frontier and on Iraqi soil, Europe would perhaps not now be facing another flood of immigrants from the East.
The suspicions that Ankara itself may be involved in the recent waves of illegal immigration to the West in retaliation for the well-known Luxembourg decision do very little to change the general picture.
The Kurds are still being annihilated in their own homeland, which is divided between four countries. And as has already been said, we are speaking of 20 million people.
<P>
Before the West of Europe began to worry about recent events, for years Greece had already been troubled by the latter-day slave traders who transport the illegal immigrants.
But at first, nobody cared.
<P>
At the beginning of the century Europe had and missed the opportunity to solve the Kurdish problem once and for all.
Now, of course, things have changed.
Yet, there are always ways and means for peaceful intervention, both to stop the genocide and to stem the flow of illegal immigrants.
The issue is not just a matter for Schengen.
Beyond Schengen, Europe has a very profound humanitarian and cultural tradition, this is a major political and humanitarian issue, and we cannot ignore the humanitarian dimension.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Parigi">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, we Italians are very expert, historically, in the fact of migratory flows.
In fact, for centuries the people of central and northern Europe have crossed the Alps to find in Italy such a happy place they even make it their empire.
I add, also at the historical level, that the present Turkish tragedy is a consequence of the hypocrisy and egoism of many so-called civilized and advanced countries, which have contributed to - and have often connived in - the fact that this people is still denied one country, safe and peaceful.
I agree with those who have already maintained that the problem of the Kurds is not an exclusively Italian problem, even if we are experts in emigration and occupation, but it is a problem which is above all and uniquely European, if for no other reason than that the many arms manufacturers selling arms to those countries so that they can peacefully slaughter each other are European. So the problem is European from that viewpoint as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I was not satisfied either by the explanation of the President-in-Office of the Council or your explanation, Mr van den Broek.
We are talking about the fate of people who are forced to escape because they are threatened life and limb, because their property is threatened, because they are driven out of their native country, because members of their family have been killed and because their basic living standards have been destroyed.
Although what the President-in-Office of the Council tells us, and what you tell us, is right, cannot be denied and holds true in all respects, it is not enough.
We cannot respond to these phenomena merely with a technocratic reaction.
You made it precisely clear what the spirit at the Commission and in the Council of Ministers is when you said 'We must protect people from persecution, but we must also protect the citizens of the European Union from floods of refugees' .
No!
We do not have to!
The citizens of the European Union are not currently threatened by any flood of refugees.
<P>
This involves 800 people whom I myself was able to visit in camps and of whom the overwhelming majority come from the Iraqi part of Kurdistan.
Who are the 50 % currently in the camps in southern Italy escaping from then?
They are escaping from Saddam Hussein for example, and not only from Turkey but from the Turks as well.
But when Saddam Hussein occupies Kuwait and when this man produces weapons which are internationally outlawed and forbidden, an international alliance comes together to overpower him, which is right.
<P>
We talk about the victims of this man here as if we had to ward them off.
This spirit is dangerous, it poisons the atmosphere in the European Union and with this kind of policy and this kind of discussion we help such powers to have the upper hand in the European Union, who want what Mr Nassauer does not want.
We do not want a fortress Europe, that we agree about, but we are not the majority.
There is a whole group of people in this Parliament as well who do not think like you, Mr Nassauer, and do not think like I do, who want a fortress Europe and who construe this kind of debate which we are conducting as a justification and legitimation of what they think is right.
<P>
Therefore I hold a different opinion.
We ought not to confine ourselves to saying that we need harmonized law in the European Union, we also need something else.
Do you know what?
A ban on weapon exports in such areas, for example.
And we need an international outlawing of countries which pursue their policies in contempt of international law, as Turkey does in northern Iraq, and countries which unscrupulously repress minorities and deny them cultural and ethnic self-determination, because these are the real causes of their having to escape.
<P>
Please also allow us to discuss these substantively political reactions here as well, in addition to the mechanical reactions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
Mr President, I thought it was a bit pessimistic of Mr Schulz to say that we do not have a majority.
I think we almost unanimously agree, as we do also, to a large extent, with what the President-in-Office of the Council and the Commissioner said.
I have to say that I was very taken with the fact that they both place the problem in a wider context, and do not give in to the tendency to panic reaction to an incident and shoot, but instead to look at the problems which take place in the second and third pillar, which are really the cause of what is happening.
The strange thing is that, with reference to the enlargement of the Union, the European Parliament stressed only recently that we are a league of constitutional states and democracies, and that only Member States which meet these conditions can join; that the emphasis on the constitutional state is immediately and forcefully proved as being right by the arrival of boats with hundreds of refugees from Turkey and Iraq, countries where there is no constitutional state and democracy for these people.
<P>
It has already been said that there may have been a kind of revenge action as a result of the rejection of Turkey's desire for membership of the European Union.
It might be a good thing if the President-in-Office of the Council was to refute this, because it would be a strange situation if this country was to try and join the European Union using this kind of blackmail.
But the story is going around, and I think it might be worth refuting.
<P>
Secondly, I would like emphasize the fact that there are of course also problems in the sphere of foreign policy.
My colleague Nassauer has explained the Schengen issue excellently.
Our foreign policy is I think often caused by massive migrations, massive refugee movements.
With Bosnia it was in a direct sense.
Now it may be in a roundabout sense because we do not have a preventative foreign policy.
<P>
The same may happen in the future as far as Algeria is concerned.
I think we have to make efforts to create a truly common foreign policy towards these countries.
Only too often the Member States not are always on the same wavelength with regard to problem areas.
I find this a grave danger, which will materialize in large numbers of refugees presenting themselves at our borders, amongst them people who can genuinely be described as refugees who rightly carry the name refugee, because that is far from always the case at present, of course.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="President">
I have received seven motions for resolutions , proposed pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
And so I give the floor to Mr Henderson who has also been given permission to say a few words about the situation in Algeria.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="Henderson">
Mr President, thank you for giving me the opportunity to make some remarks in response to the debate.
There has been some heat in the debate and I have enjoyed listening to the various views expressed by different Members.
<P>
Within the furnace of that heat, I think there has been a lot of common ground on which we can all build with a view to the future.
It has been recognized that there is a need for urgent action at European Union level.
This is not a problem that affects only one part of the Union; it affects potentially the whole of the Union.
It is also welcome that there is an understanding that there needs to be cooperation among the Member States.
We all face this problem and maximum solidarity would obviously be helpful.
<P>
It has also been heartening that there has been a complete condemnation of the cynical trade in the human misery which has been perpetrated by those criminals who run the gangs and try to take money from innocent victims by telling them of a future that they might have in the European Union which is not possible.
It has also been important that it has been recognized in the debate that action is also to be taken in the countries where people are fleeing from.
<P>
Can I apologise to Mr Alavanos for not listening to the whole of his contribution.
In the old style of the House of Commons in Britain I was trying to do two things at once, being briefed on the next matter while the current one was still under discussion.
But I can say to him that the presidency will report the debate to the General Affairs Council on 26 January.
I do not exclude anything from the discussion. I have not heard of great support for the proposed conference as being the centrepiece of tackling the problems that we face but we will look on 26 January at ways in which these matters can be addressed.
<P>
Mr Oostlander mentioned the question of Algeria and potentially of course there could be a similar problem emanating from the troubles and the difficulties there.
I have been asked to comment on reports that the Algerian authorities have rejected the proposed troika visit.
The presidency this afternoon is seeking clarification from the Algerians of their response.
We are surprised at the report since the Algerians had previously indicated to us that they would accept a troika visit.
We are in urgent contact with our European Union partners and will continue urgent efforts to find ways to end, or to try contribute to ending, those appalling atrocities.
We will also take forward a close dialogue with the Algerians authorities in the coming hours and days.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Henderson.
<P>
A brief comment from Mrs Aelvoet.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, I would just like to make the point to the presidency that it is surely not unjust of the Algerian authorities to respond to the fact that the troika which was sent comprised diplomats and not ministers, when it concerns such a delicate and politically sensitive matter.
That is the issue, and that is what they responded to.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="President">
Thank you.
Does the President-in-Office of the Council wish to respond to that remark?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 NAME="Henderson">
We will consider different ways of dealing with this difficulty.
We exclude nothing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Question Time (Council)
<SPEAKER ID=147 NAME="President">
The next item is questions to the Council (B4-0001/98).
<P>
Question No 1 by Freddy Blak (H-0940/97)
<P>
Subject: Belarus
<P>
The dictatorial regime in Belarus headed by President Lukashenko is responsible for ongoing and systematic abuse of human rights.
The opposition is being brutally annihilated.
The leader of the Belarus Human Rights League, Yevgeny Novikov, recently went underground after being subjected to severe harassment without the Belarus police intervening.
His office has been seized and taken over by a state organization and his colleagues have been beaten up.
<P>
Is the Council aware of Yevgeny Novikov's fate?
Is the Council prepared to intervene and investigate developments in this case? Finally, how will the abuse of human rights in Belarus affect the country's relations with the EU?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 NAME="Henderson">
The Council is aware of the events surrounding the occupation of the office of the Belarus League for Human Rights in Minsk.
It is still not clear who was responsible for the occupation.
Mr Novikov was abroad during the seizure of his offices.
He subsequently returned to Minsk and had meetings with the British ambassador in November and December 1997.
<P>
Although he had been questioned by the authorities, Mr Novikov had not been arrested.
The Belarussian authorities have now issued a ruling that Mr Novikov's premises should be returned to him and a notice to quit has been served on those currently occupying the office.
The Council sees no need at present to intervene with the Belarussian authorities on behalf of Mr Novikov.
The Council reminds the honourable Member that the Union wishes to see Belarus join the community of democratic nations and that the Union is ready to support the process of democratization in Belarus.
Nevertheless, during 1997, the Council noted with concern that Belarus had not made any substantial progress in this direction and it became evident that numerous violations of human rights and basic freedoms, notably concerning the freedom of the media, had been committed by the Belarussian authorities.
<P>
The General Affairs Council conclusions of 24 February, statement of 29 April and conclusions of 15 September reflected these concerns.
The Council, in cooperation with the OSCE and the Council of Europe has reacted to these events with speed and determination and will continue its efforts to urge the Belarussian authorities to respect human rights and democratic principles.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
It is extremely happy news which has come from the Council.
The pressure which Parliament, among others, has been involved in putting on Belarus has thus helped Mr Novikov to perhaps get his rights and also his office back.
But the President-in-Office also mentioned the harassment of journalists, and I would like to ask whether he knows how many legal actions there are against journalists, because freedom of expression is being grossly suppressed in Belarus.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="Henderson">
It is generally recognized that journalists have been restricted in Belarus in reporting on events in that country.
There are specific instances which I have been made aware of.
I cannot, at this moment, give particular details, but I would be happy to write to the honourable Member at a later stage and give him the information that I have in my possession back in my office.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I should like to make the following enquiry: this is indeed only an individual case which is described here.
There are certainly considerably more cases.
There are organisations whose activity is obstructed or which are simply excluded from Belarus, be it the IRI from the United States of America or also the Pan-Europa-Union from Europe, which have been unable to pursue their activities there.
<P>
However, we all know to what extent Russia is itself involved in Belarus and what opportunity it has to influence Belarus.
Do you not think it is time that we, who are pumping so much money into Russia from the European Union, should gradually start knocking at Russia's door and tell them that as they have such an influence in Belarus, they should use their influence there so that these questions of human rights can somehow be tackled in order that we can also somehow exert our influence there
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 NAME="Henderson">
Mr President, I think that the questioner is right in saying that the situation is very complicated and it might be possible for the Russians to have some influence.
In the past the Russians have been able to exercise some influence on events in Belarus.
<P>
As I understand it at the moment, there is not a clear understanding between the Russians and the Belarussians.
A lot of the talks that they have had have not been fruitful.
This is something that we would want to raise with the Russians in the Cooperation Council and I would be interested to see what their response is.
I hope that they can help.
I do not have huge optimism in the very short term but perhaps in the medium term the situation will be better.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
Actually, my question concerns precisely the same thing.
The fact is that last spring a union was created between Belarus and Russia.
Belarus is strategically important for Russia as a borderland to the West and as a symbol that although the Soviet Union may have been split apart, in some respects has also been geographically restored.
<P>
I am of course very keen for the Council and its members to use all conceivable opportunities in their contacts with President Yeltsin and other members of the Russian Duma and government in order thereby to be able to influence Belarus so that the country takes in at least some of our criticism of the undemocratic system which prevails there.
What initiatives is the Council prepared to take in this direction?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="Henderson">
Mr President, I am grateful for your help but probably not as grateful as the interpreters are.
<P>
I would like to say to the honourable Member that I think she has, in essence, raised a very similar point to the previous questioner.
I understand that there is sometimes a feeling that the Russians can always have their own way in places like Belarus.
At some time in the past that may have been true.
In the period after 1989 Russia was probably still able to have a considerable impact there.
Most recently this has not been the case but I did give an assurance to your colleague that I would raise that point at the future cooperation meeting with the Russians and I hope that they will be able to exercise some influence on the situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="President">
Question No 2 by María Izquierdo Rojo (H-0941/97)
<P>
Subject: Exclusion of unemployed Spaniards from the benefits of the new employment policies
<P>
Will Mr Aznar's solitary self-exclusion, at the 20-21 November 1997 Luxembourg European Council, from the main agreements designed to combat and prevent youth and long term unemployment not be detrimental to the unemployed themselves, who will not as a result be able to take advantage of the employment and training opportunities which will be available?
<P>
How many unemployed people in Spain will be excluded from the measures adopted?
<P>
Should a suitable timetable for the implementation of the agreements not be drawn up which would enable the unemployed in Spain to benefit from the measures agreed?
How will it be possible to ensure that they are not disadvantaged by Mr Aznar's negative decision?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="Henderson">
At the extraordinary meeting of the European Council on employment held in Luxembourg on 20 and 21 November 1997, the Member States agreed unanimously on a new coordinated approach to tackling the Community-wide problem of unemployment, whilst respecting the principle of subsidiarity and accepting that different nations' situations will result in differing emphasis.
<P>
The measures agreed in Luxembourg, which were formally adopted by the Social Affairs Council on 15 December 1997, will be applied to all Member States across the European Union.
Member States will develop policies to ensure that every unemployed young person is eventually offered a new start in the form of a job, training, retraining practice or other employability measure before reaching six months of unemployment, and that all adults without work are offered a fresh start before they reach 12 months of unemployment.
<P>
The European Council agreed that these objectives should be implemented within a period not greater than five years.
It is true that this implementation period may be extended in Member States with particularly high unemployment, but the Luxembourg conclusions will eventually be applied in full across the whole of the European Union.
Thus, the honourable Member should recognize that no exclusion of any kind arises from the Luxembourg conclusions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Rojo">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, it is a known fact that the self-exclusion of Spain, as decided by Mr Aznar, will result in unfair treatment for unemployed people in Spain.
In view of that, and since the European Council is not a Community institution, I would ask whether the Council of Ministers will be supporting Mr Aznar's mistake, or whether, conversely, they will recommend that it is put right.
<P>
It is not true that the measures will be applied to everybody in the same way.
Being British, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you understand our well-founded fears better than anybody else, since the model Mr Aznar is following in this area is precisely the same as Mrs Thatcher's model, and as such, it means that the benefits of the new employment policies are being denied to the country most in need of them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 NAME="Henderson">
I think there is a bit of a misunderstanding.
Although Mr Aznar expressed some concerns about some of the directions of the discussion in the Luxembourg Council, the agreement reached exempts no Member State.
However, the Council recognized that, in particular circumstances, there may be a need for a longer timescale for implementation of some proposals.
At this stage there has been no exemption and, therefore, Spain and Spanish regions like Andalucia where there is high unemployment, will be expected to deal with the decision in Luxembourg in the same way as others throughout the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="President">
I see Mrs Izquierdo Rojo is asking permission to speak.
Unfortunately, the Rules of Procedure do not allow me to let her do so.
<P>
Mr Hernández Mollar has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Hernández Mollar">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mrs Izquierdo Rojo's question - and the way it was put - can only be seen as an attempt, here in the European Parliament, at the irrational, demagogical opposition which her party practises in Spain.
It also shows that she has not taken the trouble to read the conclusions of the extraordinary meeting of the European Council on employment.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, has any country excluded itself from presenting a national employment action plan at the forthcoming European Council in Cardiff, or announced an exclusion clause with respect to the Council directives?
<P>
Mr President, please give me some support. I am being interrupted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 NAME="President">
Mrs Izquierdo, I would ask you please to remain silent.
You have had your minute, and have spoken.
I now have to ask you to respect the right of other Members of this House to speak, as is customary, and as you normally do.
I find any other behaviour surprising because your manners in this Parliament are normally very good.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Hernández Mollar">
Mr President, I also remember that Felipe González' socialist government (which bequeathed 3 million unemployed to the Aznar Government) refused in 1996 to present the multi-annual employment plan decided on at the Essen Summit. That was recorded in this Parliament's proceedings.
Mr Aznar's Government, in contrast, is at this very moment holding discussions with the trades unions on the action plan to be presented at the European Council in Cardiff.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Hernández Mollar.
Mr Henderson, you can see we have lively debates here, just like in the House of Commons.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="Henderson">
Mr President, I was about to say to you that I thought I was back in the House of Commons in London.
<P>
I can only say to Spanish Members that it is quite clear that there are no exemptions from the decision made in Luxembourg.
It has been recognized that there may be a need for extended timescales in some instances, as yet undefined, but that the principles of the conclusions at Luxembourg must apply across the European Union.
Every partner within the European Union is expected by the British Presidency to come forward with action plans, which will allow a discussion of those plans in the organs of both Parliament and the Council before the Cardiff Summit, hopefully so that there is an opportunity for the different partners to learn from some of the suggestions of some of the other partners and also from the reflecting comments of both Parliament, which are very much valued, and, indeed, of the committees of the Council itself.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="President">
Question No 3 by Birgitta Ahlqvist (H-0944/97)
<P>
Subject: Freedom of movement between Sweden and Finland
<P>
Freedom of movement is a fundamental principle within the European Union. It was established in both the Preamble and Article 3 (c) of the Treaty of Rome and has been confirmed on many occasions since.
<P>
However, despite its acceptance of the Community patrimony, the Finnish government now intends to charge Peter Enbuske, a Swedish citizen, customs duties and VAT on his vehicle, on the grounds that his frequent visits to Finland (where his fiancée is resident) make him a Finnish resident with an imported vehicle.
The rule referred to is paragraph 1.2 of the information leaflet on the temporary use of vehicles in Finland, which states that a citizen is deemed to be resident in the place where he or she spends 185 days per year.
Peter Enbuske is domiciled in Sweden, holds a Swedish passport and pays all his taxes in Sweden, which makes the Finnish government's action a flagrant violation of the right to freedom of movement.
<P>
What measures does the Council plan to take to resolve this situation and prevent its recurrence?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="Henderson">
The issue raised by the honourable Member is undoubtedly of considerable importance, not only to the individual named in her question but also in so far as it is likely to have a direct impact on other citizens of the Union in a similar position.
<P>
However, what is at issue here - and the honourable Member has hinted as much in her question - is whether a particular Member State is correctly applying the relevant provisions of Community law.
I would point out that this is not a matter for the Council but rather for the Commission.
<P>
According to Article 155, first indent of the EC Treaty: ' The Commission shall ensure that the provisions of this Treaty and the measures taken by the institutions pursuant thereto are applied.'
For such purposes Article 169 of the Treaty provides that the Commission may bring infringement proceedings before the European Court of Justice against a Member State which fails to observe any of its Treaty obligations.
<P>
Article 177 of the Treaty is also available to individual persons as a remedy, for example by raising a question in proceedings before a national court, which may then be referred to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling on the correct interpretation of relevant provisions of Community law.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Ahlqvist">
I would like to thank the President-in-Office of the Council of Ministers for his reply.
This is not just a matter for Sweden and Finland alone, but just as the President-in-Office says, it is a violation of the EU's principle of free movement.
As I understand, the European Court of Justice has previously underlined this in a similar case between Denmark and Germany, the so-called Ryborg case.
I am also glad to hear that there are ways to proceed, i.e. that the Commission or the individual can take this to court.
<P>
I would like to ask a closing question: What are you, Mr President-in-Office, going to say to these EU citizens?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 NAME="Henderson">
I should like to say to Mrs Ahlqvist that I cannot give an opinion on the individual case raised by the honourable Member but I should like to point out the ruling, which she has referred to, already made by the Court of Justice in a 1991 case: ' The mere fact that a national of a Member State B who has moved to a Member State A where he has found employment and accommodation has after a certain date and for over a year spent almost every night and a weekend with a woman friend in Member State B, whilst retaining his employment and his accommodation in Member State A, is not sufficient to justify the conclusion that he has moved his normal residence to Member State B' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
I would like to thank the Council for the answer I have received.
I also understand that it is the task of the Commission to ensure that these rules are followed.
At the same time it is a very serious problem.
There are now a lot of examples of almost 'persecution' of Swedish citizens.
There is a couple who have a summer cottage in Finland and have had their car confiscated by Finnish customs because they travelled to their summer cottage too often.
<P>
The fact is that it is the Council which once adopted the directive which is the basis for the action of Finnish customs.
The Council must be able to have an idea as to what extent this was the intention of the directive, i.e. that you could prevent boyfriends from meeting their girlfriends and old couples from visiting their summer cottages in this way.
I wonder whether you think that is the spirit of the directive which the Council adopted?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="Henderson">
I have to return to the gist of my original reply, which is that this not really a matter for the Council to remedy.
There are avenues open to those who wish to challenge this situation if they believe that Community law is being infringed.
If there is some doubt as to the intention of Community law, it might be wise to raise this with the Commission.
It would be inappropriate for me to make specific comment on that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
This is not going to be an international match, but a combined attempt to work towards the same objective as friends from across the water.
<P>
I would like to report that I have personally submitted a complaint to the Commission regarding Finnish car taxation.
The question which I would like to ask the Council of Ministers is whether it would not lay the foundations if the Council of Ministers and the Member States could agree on common guidelines, firstly with regard to car taxation, and secondly with regard to what is a person's domicile according to tax legislation, which is something which has often been raised in Parliament's Committee on Petitions.
This should also be harmonized since we have seen many cases where people are 'persecuted' in precisely the way in which Mrs Ahlqvist and Mr Sjöstedt have described.
Is the Council of Ministers prepared to take legislative action?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="Henderson">
I would say to Mrs Thors that free movement is not affected by the levels of taxation on vehicles.
The setting of the levels of taxation does not fall within the Community's powers.
Therefore, I can only repeat that if the current situation is thought to be outside Community law, it is up to those concerned to challenge that in the appropriate avenues.
It is up to those who believe that the current position should be upheld to make their views known and make the necessary representations, which might be opposed to those made by others.
It would then be up to the courts to decide.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 NAME="President">
Question No 4 by Konstantinos Hatzidakis (H-0948/97)
<P>
Subject: Political representation of Greece in the Committee of the Regions
<P>
Article 198a of the Treaty on European Union is concerned with the establishment of a "Committee of the Regions' consisting of representatives of local and regional bodies.
Members are appointed by the Council acting unanimously on proposals from the respective Member States.
<P>
The Greek Government has proposed to the Council six local government and six regional government representatives for the new four year term.
The members of the Committee of the Regions have formed political groups as in the European Parliament.
However, of the twelve members representing Greece, the Greek Government has proposed ten members from its own ranks and to the left of the wider political spectrum and only two (a mayor and a prefect) from the official opposition party which (according to the most recent parliamentary elections) represent 38 % of the Greek people.
No other Member State has acted in this way and the adoption of such arbitrary and self-serving partisan tactics at European level, merely serves to undermine the fundamental principles governing the political representation of our country within the Committee of the Regions.
<P>
What steps will the Council take before 22 January 1998 to prevent the distortion of the political representation of Greece in this European body consisting of local and regional government representatives?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 NAME="Henderson">
The members of the Committee of the Regions are appointed by the Council acting unanimously.
Nominations for the next four-year term of membership will be considered by the Council in the near future.
Nominations for membership are a matter for individual Member States.
The only Treaty criterion which nominees must meet is that they must be representatives of regional and local bodies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Hatzidakis">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, I know what the Treaty provides and I mentioned it in my question, namely that there are no specific criteria.
However, the European Union is supposedly structured on the basis of the principles of democracy and representation.
It should also not escape our attention that the Committee of the Regions is organized in political groups, as we the European Parliament are too.
So what is happening in the specific instance?
Greece has twelve delegates.
The government itself, the socialist government, appointed Greece's delegates four years ago on the basis of the same results of the local elections, in accordance with which our party, the official opposition, had four delegates.
Now, in the new delegation, the socialist party with 41 % has seven delegates and we have only two.
You can see that this is clearly unfair.
I know your position is a delicate one, but I would like to hope that there will be some intervention, even behind the scenes, to correct the matter.
Finally, Mr President, I would like to ask the President-in-Office: does he not think that a precedent is created by this decision so that everyone can do what they like? And could he tell us where else he may be aware that anything similar has happened, anything like what I have reported.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 NAME="Henderson">
Mr Hatzidakis, I really have to refer to my original reply to the question.
As you yourself have affirmed in the wording of the question, in Article 198a of the Treaty - the establishment of the Committee of the Regions composed of representatives of regional and local communities - membership of regional and local bodies is the only criterion which the Treaty on European Union established for the appointment of members to the Committee on the Regions.
The Council has no locus to question the political affiliation of nominees.
I do not consider that any precedent is being set and as for other examples, I do not have the knowledge of who has been appointed in the past.
I would think that the questioner would have as much access to that as I would.
If he wishes a reply to that he can, no doubt, raise that at a later date when I have had notice of the question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, I listened to the answer given by the President-in-Office. I am not one to encourage interference in my country's internal affairs, especially by English representatives, because we have bitter and painful experience of their interference.
The problem, however, is a different one.
The European Union wants this body to be representative. That is why it says the delegates must be elected.
So what is happening among those elected?
Are some considered 'dirty' and are not, therefore, put forward by the government, while others are 'clean', in other words party members, and those are the ones put forward?
In that case representativeness goes out of the window for this Community body and you have an obligation to do something about it, since you act over the most trivial matters and prosecute small producers for fraud.
Here we have a political fraud of the first order, and you must intervene.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 NAME="Henderson">
Mr President, I really have nothing further to add to my previous two replies which I hope make the position clear.
The responsibility is that nominees be from regional and local bodies and it is not our responsibility to assess political affiliations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papakyriazis">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I understand and sympathize with your dilemma in this debate.
Somewhere, Mr Henderson, you said at another stage of today's debate that you felt as if you were in the Parliament of the Communities.
I too could say something similar, in other words it is as if I were in the Greek Parliament.
I believe this is an issue which, if it is as important as Mr Hatzidakis thinks, should have been debated there.
Besides, it is a somewhat strange view that the municipal, local and regional authorities are classified into political and party factions.
I believe that representation at local authority level is different.
At any rate, Mr Henderson, perhaps you can find some way to look into similar questions in the future, when as you said, you become more experienced in these matters.
In any case, I do not think there is a problem about this, as Mr Hatzidakis has tried to represent here, which he ought not to have done.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 NAME="Henderson">
It is often said that it is unwise to become involved in family arguments but it is sometimes quite amusing to watch from the outside.
I can see that in some of the questions local political differences creep into the debate.
I really cannot add to what I have already said in relation to the original question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 NAME="Watson">
Not so much a point of order, Mr President.
I wondered if the President-in-Office would comment on the fact that this is a problem not just in Greece but in a number of Member States and whether he will commit his own government to review the political balance of the UK representation on the Committee of the Regions?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="President">
Question No 5 by Gary Titley (H-0950/97)
<P>
Subject: Expiry of the SFOR mandate and the peace process in Bosnia
<P>
How does the Council envisage the development of the peace process in Bosnia in view of the expiry of SFOR's mandate in June 1998?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="Henderson">
The peace process has made good progress since Dayton was signed two years ago.
In particular many of the military provisions of Dayton have been carried out.
<P>
The focus for the coming year will increasingly be on civilian implementation but it is clear that this will continue to require maintenance of a secure and stable environment.
The Peace Implementation Council, in which the European Union and Member States actively participate, considered at the Bonn Conference on 9/10 December a continuing military presence indispensable for this task and welcomed NATO's plans to consider options for a multinational follow-on force to SFOR beyond June 1998.
<P>
The European Union has made clear its support for the High Representative in implementing the conclusions of the Bonn Peace Implementation Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="Titley">
I wish to begin by extending a warm welcome to Mr Henderson as the acting President-in-Office to the delights of European Parliament Question Time.
<P>
I should like to ask him three quick questions.
Firstly, is there any indication yet as to whether the Americans will retain forces in Bosnia and, if so, will they actually be in Bosnia or over the horizon in Hungary?
Secondly, is it not the time for European rhetoric on a European defence identity to have some actuality and for us to start to take more responsibility ourselves for the Bosnian peace process in the long term?
Thirdly, does he accept that unless we can get the civilian aspects of Dayton up and running, we will end up with another Cyprus where we have a permanent military presence in a divided country?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 NAME="Henderson">
I warmly thank the honourable Member for his kind remarks and for his question.
I have to tell him that no decision has yet been reached by the American Government though the matter is under consideration.
Representations have been made by a number of Member States on this question and there will be meetings in Washington between the presidency and the United States Government later this week.
I am sure this will be one of the items which will be given consideration.
<P>
I would agree that it is important that more responsibility is taken and this is something which the presidency would hope to develop over the coming six months as an important priority in foreign policy.
As to the long term, the honourable Member is absolutely right that it is very important that, in colloquial terms, we 'keep a grip' of the situation in political, diplomatic and military terms.
It is vitally important that we continue to make progress, albeit sometimes slow progress, so that an end is in sight for those who are involved in the situation on the ground, in particular the civilian population, and that they continue to give support to the peace process.
Hopefully, that will produce results if not in the short term, then in the medium term, and not deteriorate into one of these international situations which goes on for many years, rather than being resolved, and where it is very difficult to see progress.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, it goes without saying that the duration of the SFOR Mandate is also closely linked with internal developments in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
I would like to make two points in this respect.
First the question of returning those who have been expelled.
There are problems everywhere, in all three subdivisions, but most of all in the Republic of Srpska, where there has until now not been any actual return and I would like to ask whether it would not at least be possible to reach a binding agreement with Mrs Plavsic, that opportunities are at last created in the Banja Luka area for the return of expelled persons.
The bishop of Banja Luka was here in Strasbourg a few weeks ago and expressed exactly this demand to us.
<P>
The second point refers to the question of war criminals, in particular Mr Karadzic, but also other.
Here too, advances must be made for until these two points are resolved, it will not be possible to terminate the SFOR Mandate either.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 NAME="Henderson">
The questioner raises the very important point that a key element in the Dayton process is that there should be returns of refugees.
Any influence the presidency can exert will be directed at trying to encourage those involved to follow that route.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 NAME="Truscott">
Following on from Mr Titley's question to the President-in-Office, I welcome Mr Henderson's confirmation that the issue of US involvement in Bosnia-Herzegovina will be on the agenda of the EU-US ministerial meeting in Washington.
<P>
There is another issue that I want to raise.
Will the President-in-Office also indicate the priority he attaches to improving the delivery of EU aid to Bosnia-Herzegovina?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 NAME="Henderson">
I thank the honourable Member for his question.
I should just like to make it clear that the matter I referred to was not a formal agenda item in the presidency visit.
It is, however, something which has been dealt with on a number of occasions by a number of the Member States and is constantly under review.
<P>
The question of aid is an important issue.
Again, I hope I can reassure the honourable Member that we will be doing what we can during the presidency to try to help release the aid which is potentially there for those involved.
It is a matter of getting clarification as quickly as possible from those on the ground of what would happen to that aid - that it was going to be used for the purposes for which it was intended and that there were structures in place which would make sure that would be the case.
Hopefully those reassurances can be given at an early stage and can be confirmed.
Then, I would hope, it would be possible to make the aid donation at an early stage.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 NAME="President">
Question No 6 by Bernd Posselt (H-0951/97)
<P>
Subject: Human Rights in Cuba
<P>
In the light of its critical opinion of December 1997, how does the Council judge the political and in particular the human rights situation in Cuba, including the question of freedom of conscience and religion?
In this connection, where does it stand on the possibility of Cuba's joining the Lomé Convention?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="Henderson">
At the second evaluation of its common position on Cuba in December 1997, the Council concluded that no substantive change in the political and economic situation in Cuba had occurred in the six months since the last evaluation.
The Council reiterated that the objective of the European Union towards Cuba remains the encouragement of a process of peaceful transition towards democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, sustainable economic recovery and improvement in the living standards of the Cuban people.
<P>
Freedom of conscience and religion are not expressly guaranteed to citizens under the Cuban constitution and, therefore, their application by the Cuban authorities is a question of practice on a case-by-case basis.
Cuba has not applied for membership of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group.
The Council has not discussed the possibility of Cuba acceding to the Lomé Convention.
Membership of the ACP is primarily a matter for the ACP themselves.
However, it is clear that, if Cuba were to be considered for membership, it would have to abide by well-established provisions of the Lomé Convention which include respect for human rights and the rule of law and democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, many thanks for your very precise information.
I would just like to address two supplementary aspects.
We had elections last Sunday in Cuba in which 601 out of 601 parliamentary candidates were elected and I wanted to ask the Council where the development towards democracy is to be found!
The second question that I want to ask is this: Next week, I believe, the Pope will be in Cuba and we learn that the international press is to be denied access to Cuba, in other words that the major newspapers will not receive accreditation in Cuba for this event, and I wanted to draw this to the Council's attention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 NAME="Henderson">
I believe that honourable Members of Parliament can make judgements that they think are appropriate on Cuba, in the same way as I can, as an individual.
As President-in-Office, I do not see that I have access to any special information that would allow me to make a different assessment.
<P>
One thing that is worth mentioning is that in any definition of democracy, clearly elections play a very important part.
They are an important condition of a democracy, but they are not a sufficient condition.
There are other conditions that have to be met in a democracy: press freedom, human rights and other issues.
I was not aware of the particular circumstances that have been drawn to my attention in relation to press coverage of the proposed visit.
I can only say that I will examine what happens in reality as distinct from what is now being suggested might happen, and reflect on such reports as I receive on that matter.
Those reflections will assist the presidency in drawing conclusions on the current situation in Cuba and on how we should respond to the various events there.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 NAME="Hardstaff">
I too would also like to welcome the new President-in-Office and ask if he does not agree with me that the trade boycott of Cuba by the United States actually strengthened the links between Cuba and the former USSR?
By forcing economic dependency on that country it was actually counterproductive in terms of democracy.
There are countries benefiting from trading arrangements from the Lomé convention with governments which are actually quite a long way from the kind of parliamentary democracy that we understand in Europe.
Nevertheless, they are given trade preferences.
Surely Cuba is more likely to move towards a more democratic form of government through strengthened trade links with democratic countries and being readmitted to the mainstream rather than being regarded as a pariah state?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 NAME="Henderson">
Can I thank the honourable Member for the supplementary question.
It is true, of course, that there was an American boycott and Members will draw their own conclusions as to the effect of that over a long period.
I think that it is worthwhile drawing attention to the fact that the European Union never endorsed such a boycott, preferring discussion and persuasion as a means of trying to seek change within Europe.
Indeed I know that there were many visits to Cuba from the nations who make up the European Union to take part in discussions and to try to persuade the Cuban government to take a different view on a number of matters both political and economic.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 NAME="Smith">
Can I thank Mr Morris for allowing me this minute.
I wonder if the President-in-Office would agree with me that the human rights of Cuban children were affected by the very same economic embargo which Mrs Hardstaff referred to?
Children have been denied food and medicine because of the United States embargo.
Would you not agree that a major contribution to raising the living standards of the Cuban people would be the immediate lifting of the American embargo?
It is against all international treaties, all international laws and indeed has been condemned, as has the Helms-Burton Act, by the European Union.
For Mr Posselt's information he will read all about the Pope's visit to Cuba in the Morning Star.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 NAME="Henderson">
<SPEAKER ID=198 NAME="President">
Question No 7 by Glenys Kinnock (H-0953/97)
<P>
Subject: South Africa-EU trade negotiations
<P>
Would the President-in-Office confirm that the conclusion of the EU trade negotiations with South Africa is a priority for the UK Presidency?
Does he anticipate that the difficulties related to agricultural products, wines and spirits and fisheries can be overcome?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 NAME="Henderson">
The presidency would like to express its satisfaction with the breakthrough in the negotiations with South Africa that took place late in 1997, when South Africa presented its detailed trade offer to the European Union.
The Community is now preparing an equally detailed trade offer to present to South Africa as soon as possible.
The President-in-Office can confirm that the conclusion of the trade negotiations with South Africa is a priority for the UK Presidency.
The presidency is aware of the sensitivity that some Member States attach to certain products.
These sensitivities and the interests of the Community in other areas will, of course, have to be taken into consideration when negotiating with South Africa.
The presidency will watch for a satisfactory outcome to all these issues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="Kinnock, Glenys">
Again, welcome to the British Labour President-in-Office.
<P>
I should like to follow up on what you said about the contentious products included in these negotiations and ask whether the presidency would consider separate protocols for these products in order to ensure some progress in the negotiations, particularly in relation to wines and spirits and, of course, the prospect of a fisheries agreement?
Might it not be wise at this stage, anticipating the successful outcome as you do of the negotiations, to issue an immediate invitation to President Nelson Mandela to come to the Cardiff Summit to put his personal signature on the agreements which we hope will be reached and, of course, to give him his very first opportunity to come and sample the delights that Wales, in particular, has to offer?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 NAME="Henderson">
I thank the honourable Member for her kind remarks and for her question.
I, too, believe it is very important that progress is made in trying to reach an agreement with South Africa during the British Presidency, and it is one of our top priorities in that area of involvement.
<P>
I wish to say that I do not exclude any way of dealing with the various issues before us in those talks.
I do not exclude the possibility of separate protocols but, clearly, it is something which the Commission would have to give consideration to, and we await with great anticipation Commission proposals, which will then be subject to discussion in the Council.
I hope I can reassure her that we want to make progress as quickly as possible.
<P>
In relation to the honourable Member's remarks on the Cardiff Summit in Wales, it would be a nice idea if President Mandela were able to come.
There are five months between now and then and I hope that an answer to that question may be given more authoritatively in due course.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 NAME="Spiers">
I welcome the President-in-Office's cautiously optimistic response there.
However, I have to say that in this House we have heard endless goodwill towards South Africa since the end of apartheid but there has been relatively little action, particularly on the trade and cooperation talks.
Time, in a sense, is running out because after the British Presidency other events - renegotiation of Lomé, enlargement and so on - will very quickly crowd in on the agenda.
So, if we are to get a settlement, it is absolutely crucial that we get one during the British Presidency.
The problem up to now has been in the Council, not with the Commission and certainly not with Parliament, and if the South African Government comes back to the Council and wants to renegotiate a mandate, the British Presidency will have to give this an extremely high priority indeed if it is going to bring the more reluctant Member States into line.
So I hope that there is awareness that there might be a renegotiated mandate and that the British Presidency will give this top priority if need be.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 NAME="Henderson">
Thank you for the supplementary question.
I think it focuses on a very important point.
There is a window of opportunity over the next five months to try to conclude an agreement.
After that period there will be many other matters which will be appearing on our agendas.
<P>
I myself have been reassured by the statements of negotiators on both sides who have said that an agreement can be reached by mid-1998.
That gives me cause for optimism and I can assure you that we will use all our endeavours during our presidency to bring the Union along with us in trying to seek an agreement at an early stage, so that everyone can benefit from it, particularly those who are in most need of the benefit in the poorer sections of the Community and South Africa.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 NAME="Crampton">
I welcome the President-in-Office.
For the South African trade agreement this is obviously good news, but I have two possible problems to raise about one of the difficult or contentious subjects to which both he and Mrs Kinnock refer.
<P>
Firstly, South African fishing.
I have met the ambassador and the ministers of fisheries from South Africa on a number of occasions and I hope I can be assured that the Commission will not press the South Africans to open their waters to European Union fleets before they want to or before they decide to.
I hope that this will be respected.
Fishing is a terribly difficult subject.
<P>
Secondly, there is the problem of South Africa in the region.
It is clearly the dominant, political and economic force in southern Africa and I am concerned about the effect of an agreement - I hope that this is borne in mind - on surrounding states, in particular Namibia and its fishing industry.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 NAME="Henderson">
<SPEAKER ID=206 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="Henderson">
The European Council meeting in Luxembourg on 12 and 13 December 1997 underlined the need for the Turkish Government to meet its fundamental obligations in the field of human rights and democracy.
<P>
It recalled, in line with the Council position expressed at the Association Council with Turkey on 29 April 1997, that strengthening Turkey's links with the European Union also depended on that country's pursuit of political reforms, including the alignment of human rights standards and practices with those in the European Union as well as respect for and protection of minorities.
<P>
The Council regrets the position of the Turkish Government concerning the case of Mrs Leyla Zana and can assure you that the situation of human rights and democracy, including the rights of members of the Kurdish population in Turkey, will continue to figure prominently on its agenda.
Those issues are ever present in our dealings with Turkish authorities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papakyriazis">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I take this opportunity to congratulate the British Labour Government, through you, on its assumption of the presidency and on its presentation today, by Mr Cook a few hours ago, of the British Presidency's programme, a creative, dynamic and very ambitious one.
<P>
Thank you very much for your answer.
I think it is very satisfactory and complete, to the extent that it deals with general principles.
However, my question specifically concerned the release of Leyla Zana, our parliamentary colleague whom we here in the European Parliament honoured with a major prize, the Sakharov Prize, for her fight on behalf of democracy.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office, I know that just 14 days after the beginning of your term in office you cannot have a 'personal' position and view about the matter.
However, I asked the question about the need for Leyla Zana's immediate release in the hope that today, or at some foreseeable time, I will get a specific answer from the presidency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 NAME="Henderson">
I thank Mr Papakyriazis for his kind remarks on my answer.
I really have very little further to add, except to say that the presidency will pursue the course with vigour that I outlined in my original reply.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="Newens">
Whilst thanking the President-in-Office for his reply, which is a very good one, will he bear in mind the fact that when we were considering in this House the Customs Union with Turkey, it was conveyed to many of us that, if that were approved, then Leyla Zana and other prisoners would automatically, in due course, be released.
This just has not happened.
At this stage there is not only Leyla Zana, important as she is, but there are many other Kurdish prisoners who are in a like condition.
<P>
Will the President-in-Office make it quite clear to the Turkish authorities that, until some movement takes place on this and other issues, it will be quite impossible for us to achieve any real improvement in the relationship between Turkey and the European Union, which all of us would like to see greatly improved?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 NAME="Henderson">
I hope I can convey to the honourable Member a reassurance that the question of human rights is a very important part of our presidential foreign policy.
There are situations that have been discussed in the past, where commitments have been given.
We will continue to pursue with vigour the course that I identified in my answer to the original question.
I, like he and others, hope that we will manage to be successful.
An improvement in human rights in Turkey is a very important part of the continuing dialogue with the Turkish Government and the Turkish people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
Thank you for the answers we have so far received regarding this question.
I believe the UK Presidency should be able to do great things during these six months.
This includes the question of human rights and imprisoned Kurds, including Mrs Leyla Zana.
However, I thought the introductory address by the Council's Foreign Minister this morning said very little about Turkey.
But it said a lot about Cyprus.
<P>
I have a supplementary question which it may not be possible to answer directly, which I understand.
Would you as the representative of the EU for six months be able to propose that a delegation from, for example, the EU, the OSCE or the UN be sent to Turkey to find out what is happening there and to create good relations with the country?
That is a straight question to which I would very much like to have an answer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 NAME="Henderson">
As I have said to other honourable Members, this is an important priority of the presidency.
It is linked to a number of other important foreign policy matters which will be under discussion during our presidency.
It is a priority of our presidency to try to make progress.
I have no illusions about the difficulties involved in some of these issues, but I hope I can reassure the honourable Member by saying that we have a determination to try to make progress.
I have personally been very closely involved in that; I have been to Turkey fairly recently; I keep a close eye on what is happening and what the situation is; and I have made, in a British capacity, many representations to the Turkish Government about changes that I and others would want to see taking place.
I would hope to continue during the presidency to make similar representations to the Turkish Government in the hope that they would recognize that there needs to be change and that, as change takes place, benefits will accrue not only to those who suffer because of a lack of human rights - and who, in some cases, are incarcerated - but also potentially to Turkey and the Turkish people in building better, stronger and more effective links with the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 NAME="President">
Question No 9 by Jonas Sjöstedt (H-0955/97)
<P>
Subject: Eurodac Convention
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The Council is to decide on the details of the EU's common system for checking the finger prints of asylum-seekers, Eurodac.
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How will registered asylum-seekers be able to correct erroneous information about themselves in the system?
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Will the current data in the register be deleted automatically once an asylum-seeker has been granted a residence permit in a Member State?
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Does the Member States' obligation to report information to the register imply in the last resort that finger prints should be taken by force?
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<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="Henderson">
Regarding the draft Eurodac Convention, I would first of all like to emphasize that the Council submitted this text for the opinion of the European Parliament on 6 October 1997.
The discussions of the Council are currently under way and it is difficult at the present time to predict what direction they will take.
It is even more difficult to say when they may reach completion.
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However, at this stage, two things are certain.
Firstly, any taking of fingerprints can only be done in full and complete compliance with the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
Secondly, the Council awaits with interest the European Parliament's opinion on this draft Convention which was forwarded to it a little over two months ago.
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In fact, the Council has not yet reached agreement on the whole of the text in question and intends to continue its discussions in the light of the European Parliament's opinion.
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<SPEAKER ID=216 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
I would like to thank the Council of Minister's for its reply.
I understand that it is not possible to give all the answers today.
However, I think it is important to debate this now because it will be too late to debate it when the decision has been taken.
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The draft resolution which existed for the Council of Ministers' meeting in December included a British and German reservation with regard to the possibility of removing personal information on refugees who have been granted residence permits.
I regard this as of central importance so that people who are quite legally resident in a country are not registered.
I wonder whether you reached any conclusion on this point at the Council of Ministers' meeting in December.
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The other thing I would like to take up is the experience from the Schengen Agreement which has a similar structure to the Eurodac system.
There you can see that refugees' rights are looked after very badly. They are not informed when they seek asylum and they have great difficulty in practice in appealing against decisions.
How are we going to avoid the same lack of legal rights occurring in Eurodac as now exist in the Schengen Information System?
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In addition I would like to express my opinion that I think it is unreasonable to base this on systematically taking the fingerprints of everyone, even children of the age of 14, and that as a last resort force may even be used to do so.
These are not criminals, but refugees, i.e. people who are seeking protection.
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<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="Henderson">
I have to refer you back to my original answer.
At the Council in December, agreement was reached to freeze the text of a number of articles.
Agreement has yet to be reached on the rest.
So I can say that these matters are essentially under review.
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I can give you a firm commitment that the Council very much upholds the rights of refugees.
That has been made clear on many occasions.
I hope I made that clear in my own contribution earlier today in relation to the debate on the Kurdish issue.
While on the one hand the Union, together with the Member States, has to take measures to protect boundaries to make sure that there is a regulation of migration, it is equally important for the Union to uphold the principles which are incorporated into the Convention on Refugees and for the Member States also to uphold those principles.
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I hope that will ensure that when someone comes to any state within the European Union and says that he is likely to suffer persecution and has a strong case for political asylum, that case is given every possibility of being heard and, where the case is established, political asylum is granted.
Where refugees feel the case has not been given proper consideration there should be measures in all the Member States which the refugee or his or her representative can take to try to reassert the rights of genuine refugees.
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That is the case in all our Member States' law but that is not to say that on every occasion everything is done in a proper fashion.
There are sometimes slip-ups.
Where slip-ups do arise, I hope it is possible for genuine refugees to seek redress.
I can assure you that the presidency will do everything it can to contribute to upholding those important principles.
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<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="Elliott">
I add my welcome to the British Presidency and say how nice it is to have a British Labour Minister answering questions, something I have been waiting for patiently - or impatiently - for fourteen years.
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The issue of the Eurodac Convention highlights the way in which legitimate concerns and national security can sometimes conflict with human rights and civil liberties.
Parliament will be debating a report on the Eurodac Convention tomorrow and voting on it later.
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I would like to refer to the point about how long the fingerprints will be kept.
I refer to a briefing I have received from the Home Office.
It says that on a domestic level the United Kingdom currently erases the fingerprints of those granted asylum only when they have obtained indefinite leave to remain.
Could I ask if the presidency would not agree to any further extension beyond the period which currently operates in Britain?
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<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="Henderson">
This issue comes up in many Member States.
I can only say to him this afternoon that the presidency does not have the power to do what Mr Elliot is suggesting should be done.
That would be a matter for consensus among the Member States in the Council and in other forums.
I can only encourage Mr Elliot to make the important and valid case he makes on as many opportunities as he can to continually remind those who are making decisions in these matters of the importance of these considerations.
That would specifically relate to the question of how long any records are retained.
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<SPEAKER ID=220 NAME="President">
Question No 10 by Gérard Caudron (H-0956/97)
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Subject: Late payment on commercial debt
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Late payment on commercial debt is an enormous inhibition to SMEs participating in the Single Market.
What does the Council intend to do in this important area?
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<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="Henderson">
As the honourable Member may be aware, the Commission issued a Recommendation on 12 May 1995 concerning late payment on commercial debt, Doc.
95/198/CE and published a Communication on this question on 17 July 1997.
The Commission has also announced that a proposal for a directive on late payments will be transmitted to the Council in the near future.
The Council will initiate the examination of such a proposal as soon as it is received.
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<SPEAKER ID=222 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Mr President, I thank the President-in-Office for his reply, but he was quite right to assume that I knew of the existence of this recommendation, which is two years old, and of the existence of the communication, which is six months old.
But it seems that in spite of these two texts, nothing has changed and late payments remain very much the same, since they vary from 19 to 75 days, with further delays of between 6 and 41 days.
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I would therefore like to see from the presidency a timetable and firm commitment, for there are distortions in competitiveness, even sometimes national preferential treatment, which is completely in contradiction with the single market.
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<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="Henderson">
Can I say to the honourable Member that I understand his concerns.
They are expressed by many throughout the European Union.
There is often and always a debate within the Member States on action that can be taken on these matters especially in the small company sector.
In some instances clearly action may be appropriate at Member State level but where there are international contracts that is something which should be examined very carefully to see if we can agree the context and the specific regulations that would help those small companies across international borders within our Union.
I very much agree with the point which he has raised and I look forward, like he does, to the Commission proposal.
When that is received I hope that I can reassure him that it will be dealt with as a matter of urgency by our presidency.
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<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="Harrison">
I wonder whether the President-in-Office is aware that the British, but Cheshire-based, Forum of Private Business estimates that something like £20, 000 million is deprived from small businesses because of the problem of late payment which might otherwise be used in order to develop businesses and thus produce jobs.
If that is true in the United Kingdom, imagine the situation throughout the European Union.
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I wonder what other measures, in concert with his colleague Mrs Barbara Roche and Commissioner Papoutsis, he is proposing to help ensure that the single market is properly completed?
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<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="Henderson">
I should like to say to the honourable Member that I was not quite aware of that statistic from the Forum for Small Business in Cheshire, though I was aware of the general trend in that important part of the European Union.
I can only say to him that there are people in my own constituency in Newcastle-upon-Tyne - that other important part of the European Community - who feel equally strongly about this.
I know that it is not a matter which is within one region or one country, it is something which affects companies over the whole of our Union.
That is why I look forward to the Commission submitting regulations which clearly identify that it is better to have a responsibility at European-Union level and perhaps, on some issues, it is better to leave the responsibility with the nation states.
It is important that we get that right so that we reach a formula which is recognized by small business people throughout the European Union as one which will be effective in making sure that their businesses are run more effectively.
Of course, that is crucially important for job creation throughout the whole of our Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Henderson.
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Since the time allocated to questions to the Council has now expired, Questions Nos 11 to 43 will be dealt with in writing.
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<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="President">
That concludes Question Time.
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(The sitting was suspended at 7.05 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
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<CHAPTER ID=10>
Relocation and investment in third countries
<SPEAKER ID=228 NAME="President">
The next item is the second report (A4-0392/97), on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on relocation and direct foreign investment in third countries.
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<SPEAKER ID=229 NAME="Sainjon">
<SPEAKER ID=230 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Mr President, the rapporteur has quite rightly presented the difficult relationships which can exist between foreign direct investments and industrial relocations.
He has also placed this theme in a much larger context and this is something which we in Parliament have often discussed when debating world trade in goods and services.
We cannot on the one hand move towards liberalization, globalization and the application of the full potential of modern transport and information technologies without, at the same time, advocating a regulatory system.
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This applies just as readily to the European internal market, to trade and commerce, which is so important for us all, and indeed to the world market.
I think that given the current preoccupation for globalization, the connection between trade and direct investment is growing ever stronger, since business enterprises are now able to act globally, irrespective of whether they are multinationals, or whether they are large, small or medium in size.
It must be pointed out that direct investment is not the same thing as simply exporting goods or placing contracts, since it involves a long-term commitment on the part of the enterprise in question.
One is therefore entitled to ask more questions about the repercussions of direct investment projects than one would about the problems associated with trade and commerce.
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This is also bound up with the issue of investment outflow, which can inhibit growth and negatively affect employment.
Fortunately one has to say that globalization has not yet taken such a hold on today's world as to create any real lopsidedness in the balance of investments.
Here in the European Union we can still see that we are an attractive investment area and that this will be enhanced by the introduction of the euro and the completion of the internal market.
From a European point of view this is without doubt something which will initially only affect specific branches and sectors of industry, or even individual companies, as far as their employment situation or level of economic activity is concerned.
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But just how much more has to be done on our part?
As the rapporteur quite rightly pointed out, there is a need for additional controls, the introduction of social and environmental clauses and greater fairness in competition, but we can also complete the global integration of the economy, commerce and investment, and create jobs - including those making explosives -, by regulating the relationship which exists with private enterprise.
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We not only need an international system to regulate competition but we must also have a code of conduct to control the increase in foreign production and the internationalization and globalization of the marketplace.
Finally, transnational groups have created world monopolies in some products; these transnationals not only control one third of all goods and services, but what is more, the one hundred largest of them are responsible for 16 % of total world employment.
I therefore consider it to be extremely important that we seek to prevent any restraint of competition and the setting up of monopolies, and that instead we introduce a code of conduct, together with regulations at both OECD and WTO level, to ensure that the net product of industry, as generated worldwide, and the increase in prosperity are not distributed in a one-sided way.
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I believe that this important Sainjon report is a perspective and forward-looking document because the problems of employment and adaptation which face the industrial nations are quite clearly taking on a certain structure, and indeed these are addressed in the report, and also because it does not defend a new form of protectionism - but instead advocates a comprehensive opening-up of the market and the introduction of international controls.
We therefore simply have to support this report and make it a blueprint for the Commission and Council action which is needed at both European and international level.
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<SPEAKER ID=231 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schwaiger">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen. Industrial relocations are instruments which business uses to take account of certain local conditions within the social market economy.
They are not in themselves reprehensible. However, problems do arise when the conditions which apply at the new location contravene legal requirements, such as in the extreme case of child labour and forced labour, when women are subject to job discrimination in the relocated companies and when, for example, money laundering is involved.
But industrial relocations can in some circumstances be necessary in order to open up markets, or produce goods, in new continents which are closer to the point of consumption.
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Europe's overall position, as well as that of most of its Member States - including my own country -, continues to improve and the introduction of the euro and other reforms will soon make the EU an even more attractive proposition.
In the medium and long term, companies should in their own interest consider whether relocation outside Europe is an appropriate way of being able to supply the European market from a certain geographical distance.
There are many reasons, including logistical ones, for resisting such a move.
Some companies have already begun to realize the consequences of this and are now starting to relocate some of their business operations from Asia back to Europe.
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We support a discriminating free-market analysis of the wide-ranging factors which are responsible for the relocation of industrial production, and we oppose interventionist regulations which would impose a burden on companies.
All measures which seek to restrict industrial relocations should therefore be carefully looked at to ensure that we avoid interventions whose impact would be disadvantageous for the economy.
Specific framework conditions and a certain commitment on the part of the economy for company relocations can, however, be desirable for the rational deployment of public subsidies awarded in accordance with EU rules, or indeed for the prevention of fraud.
We therefore emphatically support the recommendation that the Commission should propose a code of conduct based on these free-market principles.
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After the referral of the original report to the REX Committee on 6th November 1997, substantial amendments were introduced on our behalf in the course of subsequent constructive deliberations with the rapporteur.
I would like to express my thanks to Mr Sainjon for the receptive manner in which he has dealt with our proposals and for the fact that he has accepted most of them.
However, I must also refer to the amendment which he has submitted on the subject of the euro, namely Item 22a (new), which suggests that the European political authorities - whoever they are - should, by way of the European Council, reflect on the impact of establishing Euro-Dollar parity on foreign direct investments.
I believe that this recommendation is misdirected and indeed it was rejected yesterday by Commissioner de Silguy during the debate on the Ruffolo report.
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The current Article 111, which was previously Article 109(1 and 2) of the EEC Treaty, cannot be interpreted in any way whatsoever to give the European Council currency-policy control in respect of the exchange rate.
The formal agreement on exchange rate systems, which is the issue raised here, is quite a different matter and, if it came to it, would concern a new Bretton Woods institution - but not the price regulation of the Euro-Dollar exchange rate.
In this area the European Central Bank alone has full and sole responsibility and its independence should not be prejudiced in any way.
Article 109 emphatically states that the European Central Bank is not to receive instructions or recommendations from decision-making bodies, from Community bodies or institutions, from national governments of Member States or from any other quarter.
This also applies to exchange-rate movements between the euro and the Dollar, whose regulation, if such is required, is incumbent only on the European Central Bank.
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<SPEAKER ID=232 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-Van Gorsel">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, on the 6th of November last year, the report by Mr Sainjon was referred back to the Committee on External Economic Relations at the request of the Liberal Group, and for three reasons.
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Firstly, the heading did not cover the contents.
The report was supposed to have dealt with relocation and direct investments in third countries.
Well, a major part of the resolution concerns socio-economic policy within the Union, or recommendations for the introduction of the euro.
I am glad that Mr Swaiger endorses the criticism of in particular the euro.
These issues fall outside the scope of this report and outside the competence of the Committee on External Economic Relations.
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The second reason the group had difficulties with this report concerns substantive basic assumptions.
Whilst we are all striking out into the digital era with all its consequences, Mr Sainjon bases his resolution on an industrial society which no longer exists.
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Thirdly, the greater part of the amendments submitted by me, amendments which were vital to my group, were not accepted.
Much to my regret I have to note that Mr Sainjon has ignored the Liberal Group's criticism, which obviously was shared by the majority of this Parliament on the 6th of November.
He did not even bother to consult me, and did not accept the amendments which I submitted again.
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My group believes that the report as it is before us is still not acceptable.
We will abstain, even though a few members will vote in favour.
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<SPEAKER ID=233 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, on the committee I supported the rejection of the report for the following reasons:
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Mr Sainjon speaks of the information society.
In so doing he obscures from view the issue of global capitalism.
The report mentions a regulated economy without offering any further explanation.
We forget that a regulated economy is founded on the logic of capital. There must always be the highest possible return on capital.
Capitalism is both a process to increase the value of capital and a social order structured round it.
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The European Union is the modern version of capitalism in Europe.
Mass unemployment is an element in this system, in which European policies create a free working environment to exploit and manipulate people in the name of capital.
We export this culture to other countries in the shape of company relocations and massive investment programmes.
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The report obfuscates the issue of capital, the profit-driven process, and sanctifies the market forces.
The rapporteur has forgotten that the free market is often at odds with human dignity, and even requires us to ignore it all together.
This explains why companies relocate to where the return on capital is greatest.
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That capitalism standardizes all, making everything uniform, is something Asia, for which it was once an alien culture, has recently learnt.
Capitalism is not civilization or humanism, but the crude and ruthless pursuit of profit.
Consider this: there is sixty times more loose cash circulating around the world that what would be required to pay off all world trade debts.
Company relocations account for some of the latest expenses of capitalism. It is the world's casino, where the stake is often the dignity of the poor.
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<SPEAKER ID=234 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a trades unionist recently said that come the year 2000, the employers' notion of the ideal textile factory will be one located on a ship which always ties up wherever salaries are lowest and furthermore - and there is plenty of evidence to support this - where work safety and trades union rights are limited, where social costs and social insurance are minimal, where profits at highest and where the market is the most promising.
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No-one can do anything about the last of these, namely the market situation.
Businesses will naturally seek the shortest route to the consumer, but surely we do not want to see the European ship operating as a global pirate.
A mechanic working for a European car manufacturer has a right to an uncontaminated, clean and socially-just workplace, no matter whether the factory is in Stuttgart or in Campinas down in Brazil.
Neither can we see why the European board of a multinational company should justify its relocation to one of its branch establishments, where production costs will be cheaper, solely on the grounds that labour costs have forced such a move.
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For this reason we need controls and this is why we in the REX Committee organized a hearing and have submitted the report which is to be adopted today at the second attempt.
It is certainly regrettable that at the last vote a number of members of this Parliament allowed themselves to be taken in by the monstrous argument that the report was full of social stuff and that this would have to be amended in committee.
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Well, this has now been done.
The reported has been amended and, interestingly enough, the changes which have been made seem to take even more account of the social aspects.
This is now common knowledge.
After all, cars do not buy cars.
But let me just make two points.
Multinational companies need a code of conduct which enshrines the fundamental principles of the ILO conventions and environmental guidelines.
All companies abiding by this code should be listed by name in the EU's Official Journal.
We also call for companies which do not play by these rules to be excluded from EU subsidies and for this reason I would ask you to agree to our amendment.
The same should indeed apply to export credit insurance, for surely those who really take account of human rights should find some reward for their particular entrepreneurial spirit.
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Let me just say something to Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel.
It is dreadful in my opinion that someone submitting amendments should a) not be present at the hearing and b) again fail to attend the final vote on the report, when really one should be there in order to present the amendments in question.
You cannot treat our Committee this way.
Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel can read this part in the Minutes, for I know that she understands German perfectly well.
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The Sainjon report is an excellent piece of work.
I can endorse much of what Mr Schwaiger has said.
We in the Committee on External Economic Relations support the report.
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<SPEAKER ID=235 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
<SPEAKER ID=236 NAME="Smith">
Mr President, could I begin by paying tribute to the work done by Mr Sainjon on this report.
First of all, it very comprehensively embraces the subject matter and issues raised at the public hearing organized by the REX Committee last year.
Also it is a pretty fair reflection of the spread of opinion in the REX Committee.
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For my part I would just like to highlight and expand upon some of the significant points made by the rapporteur.
I welcome the call for a code of conduct applicable to European multinational companies to be drawn up by the Commission.
We must ensure that it applies to subsidiaries and to subcontractors as well.
To be truly effective there must be a role for the trade unions in monitoring its effectiveness.
I have to confess that I am not entirely a fan of voluntary codes.
I doubt very much if voluntary codes can be effective and I hope that the companies who are involved take note of that.
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Additionally, I would reinforce the rapporteur's demand for an inclusion of social and environmental clauses, international agreements and WTO rules.
We have long supported that in the REX Committee.
Given that we are in a period of slow growth and rising unemployment in Europe, it is essential that we address all the aspects of foreign direct investment and relocation.
Mr Sainjon raises some interesting questions on the potential consequences resulting from the introduction of a single currency, I look forward to hearing the Commission's response to that.
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There is one other vital issue however which I believe should be addressed concerning relocation and that is the issue of transparency.
I would submit that the big companies who lobby the Commission, who seek benign legislation or even deregulation or benefit from training programmes, have a duty and an obligation to be open and frank about their long term investment relocation plans.
I believe that it is not too much to ask that they inform us well in advance not only where their planned foreign investment is to be but what market it is intended to serve and what impact it is likely to have on employment and unemployment in the European Union.
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I hope that when the Commission has discussions with multinational companies, as we know it does, it will raise these points with them because in the absence of such information any plans to systematically tackle unemployment are reduced to mere fire-fighting exercises.
As soon as we deal with one incident another one springs up behind us.
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Finally, a word about the proposed multilateral agreement on investment.
If this proposed agreement is seen to restrict social or environmental legislation or to hinder the socio-economic progress of developing countries then it will be fiercely and rigorously opposed and I would advise the Commission to take careful note of the growing concern surrounding the MAI.
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<SPEAKER ID=237 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Porto">
Mr President, the relocation of investments has to be seen with realism and constructively, seeking to reduce the risks and possible exploitation of the opportunities created, as is duly emphasized by the rapporteur, Mr André Sainjon, whom I wish to congratulate for that, without prejudice to the reservation made by Mr Schwaiger.
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We should begin by remembering that, in a worldwide context, the European Union is the most sought-after destination for direct foreign investments (45 % of the total), with an economic impact that is reflected in the broadly positive balance.
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For that reason, we have to accept the fact that European investment abroad is also substantial, although we should be particularly sensitive to investments in countries where labour is cheaper with production leading to unemployment in our countries.
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However, apart from concerning ourselves with the development of these countries, no doubt with the countries and the multinationals undertaking to comply with minimum rules in the social and environmental fields, the investments made may be converted into opportunities for us, particularly with the opening of markets to semifinished products in whose production we can continue as leaders thanks to the progress made in technology that can give us a unique position in the world.
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With the requirement resulting from a broader scope, the rapporteur's reference to the fact that the structural funds should be concentrated, more than in the past, on the promotion of research and technological innovation for companies established in the less favoured regions of the Union is particularly appropriate, in order to increase their competitiveness and ability to face the competition of the developing countries with emerging economies.
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In fact, only a balanced Europe, without the costs of great mergers and making use of all national and regional potential, can face the competition of a world we have to be more and more open to, in our own interests.
This is a requirement for the whole Union and for each of the countries, particularly for Portugal, where there is so much to be done in the field of regional development.
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<SPEAKER ID=238 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Alvarez">
Mr President, I begin - like my friend Esko Seppänen - by accepting that we are part of a capitalist system. I should, however, like to draw attention to one aspect of the report to which other colleagues have referred, and which seems to me to be fundamental: that in which the rapporteur, Mr Sainjon, suggests that social justice and sustainable development should be on a level with efficiency and economic stability.
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I should also like to stress what other colleagues have said: that the code of conduct should also apply to multinational companies.
In the last analysis, that code of conduct embodies all a community's traditions: the struggle against forced labour, child labour, discrimination between men and women at work, and the encouragement of sustainable development.
All of this, which is theoretically the basis of European policies, must also be a code of conduct for the multi-national companies.
Not long ago, we were informed that nearly 200 million children work from the age of five.
The European Union cannot allow this to happen in the multi-national companies with which it is connected.
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It is also necessary to revise EC Directive 94/45, because it seems to us, as the rapporteur put it very well, that it does not stipulate sufficiently clearly that workers should be consulted when a multi-national company moves work somewhere else.
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Right now, we in Spain have examples of sectors of the economy with good future prospects, such as telecommunications.
But there is a Swedish company, Ericsson - and others following suit - which sell part of their production to small firms without guaranteeing the workers' rights and without guaranteeing the workers' future in that small firm.
We believe that we should aim to prevent the multi-nationals from doing what they like with workers' rights, and the European Union has sufficient weapons to hand to prevent this.
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<SPEAKER ID=239 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, when discussing the first report by Mr Sainjon on this topic, we already expressed our appreciation and our criticism.
Most of the comments still apply, but the resolution has improved on certain points.
The pronouncements on harmonization of tax conditions and a fiscal code of conduct have rightly been deleted during the follow-up discussion in the REX Committee.
It is also a good thing that the idea that multinationals are obliged to advance social development, has been toned down.
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Yet the resolution remains characterized by dirigisme.
The European Commission must draw up a code of conduct for European multinationals.
There should be a European social label, and a confidentiality contract between distributers, manufacturers and subcontractors.
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Besides, we draw the line between the public and private domain in a very different way from colleague Sainjon.
He obviously sees governments as a kind of solver of all problems.
By mixing the public and private spheres, he ignores the nature and responsibilities of public administration on the one hand, and business on the other.
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A business is primarily an economic organisation, even if it has responsibilities in many areas such as environment and social policy.
Yet businesses should not be awarded powers pertaining to public law, and they cannot, nor are they allowed to behave like government authorities.
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Because of the nature of public institutions, their opportunities to manage are limited.
Authorities must set up conditions for the functioning of social relationships.
As if it is self-evident, the rapporteur asks the European Commission to take all sort of measures, without considering whether the European Union is responsible for them.
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Looked at from within the subsidiarity principle, we are dealing primarily with responsibilities of the Member States.
The European institutions are not state organisations but supernational authorities to whom a limited number of powers are delegated.
The rapporteur loses sight of this, unfortunately.
That is why we cannot support this report.
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<SPEAKER ID=240 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Madam President. I agree with the rapporteur when he says in Item C of the Preamble that industrial relocation is a phenomenon which follows economic logic and is something which should not be ideologized.
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However, limits have to be imposed on economic logic for humanitarian, socio-political and labour-market reasons.
A code of conduct for multinational companies would be welcome.
But when it comes to combating child labour or forced labour, in other words modern slavery, then a code of conduct is not enough.
No European firm should gain competitive advantage at the expense of maltreated children.
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As well as combating violations of human rights, which is a top priority matter, Europe should be doing everything in its power to make its economic situation more attractive by a massive increase in research expenditure.
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Europe cannot solve the problem of unemployment by way of protectionism and progressive isolationism.
The structural funds should in future be used much more for technological research and innovation.
Our objective in Europe must be to achieve competitive production costs in spite of higher labour charges.
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<SPEAKER ID=241 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the question of relocation is a particularly burning issue in European public opinion.
We have already discussed it at length here one November evening during a week's part-session.
At that time we had to give our position, at the time of the vote, and it was only a small last minute procedure, quite a poor one at that, which referred it back to the Committee.
<P>
Having already spoken on that occasion, I would this evening simply like, firstly, to applaud the rapporteur's proposals in the areas of research and technological innovation in particular for, as he said, these are factors in the relocation of industry in Europe. I say this as rapporteur currently working on a report on European industrial competitiveness.
I would also like to repeat my agreement with the demand for a social clause in the international trading system in order to fight against all forms of exploitation, if not slavery, in the third world.
Thirdly, I want to dispute the validity of the widely accepted belief that it is European labour costs which are primarily responsible for relocation.
<P>
Finally, I want to remind you of what I had already said last November, regarding relocation within the Union.
Indeed, this cannot be prohibited, but we must do all we can to speed up fiscal and social harmonization from the top.
It is impossible to accept a single market where the rules of the game, and thus the costs, remain fundamentally different.
<P>
Finally, and I will say this again and again, it is not possible to accept that companies which benefit from European subsidies can then relocate, and even less possible to accept that relocations are caused by the subsidies themselves, within Europe.
There are frequent cases of this.
I believe it is time, in this area too, that there should be a true European political will with regard to this.
We could thus very concretely show public opinion that we are fighting uncontrolled relocations, which are economically and socially unacceptable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Burenstam Linder">
Mr President, this report raises an interesting phenomenon which illustrates Europe's difficulties in creating an expansive economy and full employment.
The report should, however, have been able to remind people to a greater extent how total investments in the EU could increase.
That is what is important.
Relocations are only a small part of the whole.
The report's attitude is defensive, trying to preserve something instead of creating much that is new.
That does not contribute to the picture of a dynamic Europe. Rather it reinforces a stagnating perspective.
This impression is reinforced by the proposals which are presented to prevent relocations. These are based not so much on how we should make Europe more attractive, but how we can make other countries less competitive.
<P>
A number of regulations and codes are to be extended to apply to other countries.
It is doubtful how effective this approach is.
With all due respect for negotiations in the ILO, codes in the OECD, rules on aid, rules on unfair competition, structural funds, research subsidies and social clauses, in the end this long line is a list of all the kinds of efforts which many politicians cite in order to appear decisive and involved, but which still do not achieve the desired result.
It is hardly going to reduce relocations and will not in any case increase overall investment in Europe.
It is not possible to order companies and employment into existence, and that should be recognized by the European Parliament.
<P>
In order for people to achieve the goal, general measures are required which make things easier for enterprise and new businesses, increase profitability of new investments, improve training and research programmes and make Europe competitive.
<P>
Let me take paragraph 15 of the report as an example.
There it says that the structural funds should to a large degree be aimed at creating an innovation and research-friendly environment for large and small companies in the area of information technology and that the Adapt programme should accelerate the training of workers to make them more able to react to technical change.
That is quite excellent and very well intentioned, but it is still a risky thing to confuse such politically-controlled subsidy programmes with real measures to create the foundations for investment-friendly and investment-oriented business.
<P>
Paragraph for paragraph, this report contains a lot which is interesting, but together it presents an incomplete perspective.
The 25 paragraphs may in their number give the impression of something large, but there is a lack of basic paragraphs about how European competitiveness can be developed and thus the basis which is needed to counteract relocations and, even more importantly, to promote new investments.
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<SPEAKER ID=243 NAME="Howitt">
Mr President, I would like to concentrate on the impact of European relocation decisions as they impact upon developing countries.
<P>
As the report rightly states, European investment has had a major impact on the fast developing countries of Latin America and Asia.
But the flight of international capital in both of these continents has been a great source of instability, whilst ideas of a tax on such capital movements remain on the drawing board.
Meanwhile, for the poorest African countries investment just is not happening, with multinationals taking £380 m more out of Africa over the last 20 years than they put in.
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Overall, we all know that foreign direct investment, in both its level and its potential, could have a far greater impact for good in the world compared to development aid.
Yet today the processes of globalization too often exacerbate social inequality.
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That is why, as the rapporteur rightly states, we should support the ethical business movement.
But in holding to these principles we must not be frightened to name those who failed to uphold just standards.
Like the indigenous people who forced British gas to stop oil exploration in the Ecuadorean rain forest, or the Costa Rican banana workers who sued Shell for sterility caused by use of unsafe pesticides.
Or perhaps the most notorious example of the world-wide consumer boycott was that against Nestlé for their irresponsible marketing of breast milk substitutes.
<P>
The rapporteur rightly calls for a European code of conduct for multinationals and one that is developed in conjunction with international institutions.
I am proud that the new government's international development White Paper in my own Member State, the UK, echoed these demands.
But tonight we should call for Parliament to consider this question in much more detail and in particular to do so with far greater emphasis on the impact on and the partnership with the peoples of the developing world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 NAME="Bonino">
At the November plenary session in Brussels, Sir Leon Brittan commented in detail on the first report.
That allows me to be very brief since the core elements of the report have not changed very much.
<P>
I should like to refer to two points that the Commission welcomes.
Firstly, the report identifies the benefits that outward investments bring, both for the European Union and the countries which receive FDI.
It highlights the benefits, as I said, and also underlines the more limited costs.
However - and this is important - it does not simply dismiss these costs, but takes on board the concerns that a large part of public opinion and the industrial sector are expressing about relocation.
<P>
It seems to the Commission that the report recommends a useful solution, which will further enhance the benefits of relocation while combating the potential negative effects.
I would refer to two points.
First, the code of conduct.
The Commission welcomes the pragmatic idea of a code of conduct, particularly in third countries, in relation to social standards.
However, the Commission does not consider that its role should be to devise or impose such a code of conduct on business.
This is a job for businesses themselves.
It is a pragmatic and voluntary code of conduct in which information is the major tool, rather than sanctions, which normally do not work.
So the idea of publishing a list in the Official Journal or, even better, on the Internet, seems a good idea to the Commission.
<P>
Secondly, I would like to remind you that the Commission has been seeking to improve international labour and environmental standards.
As you know, the Commission proposed the specific initiative on trade and labour standards prior to the Singapore WTO ministerial conference.
This initiative was, unfortunately, not adopted, but the Commission will continue to support the work of the ILO and to look at other means, for example, measures associated with the GSP, to further improve these standards.
<P>
I have two further points to make.
One concerns the exchange rate.
I understand there was a major debate in committee.
The Commission notes that Parliament adopted the Ruffolo report yesterday.
We think that is the kind of text in which this issue should be dealt with and possibly solved.
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Following a remark by Mr Smith, the Commission can reassure him that we advocate the MAI provision, explicitly saying that countries should not lower their environmental or social standards in order to attract investments.
The chances for the inclusion of such a clause are good.
Having said that, the Commission welcomes this report.
We are looking forward to continuing working with the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Fishery products from Azores, Madeira, the Canary Islands and Guiana
<SPEAKER ID=246 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0385/97) by Mr Medina Ortega, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) establishing a system of compensation for supplementary costs with incidence on the sale of certain fisheries products originating from the Azores, Madeira, the Canary Islands and the French Department of Guiana, due to the ultra-peripheral character of these regions (COM(97)0389 - C4-0451/97-97/0200(CNS))
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<SPEAKER ID=247 NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, it seems that we are already getting used to discussing fishing reports into the small hours.
As you know, many fishermen prefer that time of night precisely because of the good catches they can make then, although I do not know whether they conform with the strictest regulations for protecting the species.
In short, I think it is not very good for the protection of the 'Parliamentarian' species and the species of Commissioner.
<P>
In any case, Mr President, this is a report which I do not think will cause Parliament any serious difficulties.
It is a regulation proposed by the Commission which aims to make permanent some support - which already existed on a temporary basis - for the outlying regions of the Community.
I think that MPs are already fully aware of this.
At the Maastricht Conference in 1992, a Declaration was added regarding the areas on the periphery of the Community and, in Article 299.2 of the new Amsterdam Treaty, it is pointed out that these regions have special characteristics relating to their remoteness, insularity, lack of energy resources etc. which justify a series of supportive measures.
<P>
Within this context of support there are special programmes for these regions, specifically the Canary Islands, the Portuguese islands of the Azores and Madeira, the French islands of Guadeloupe, Martinique and Réunion, and the French department of Guiana.
Support for these areas includes help for the fishing industry, laid down initially in a regulation of 1992, postponed in 1994 and 1995 and which should have been completed by 31st December 1997.
<P>
I think that Parliament has been industrious in studying this matter.
On the committee in November we approved the proposed regulation with its suggested amendments, and I think that tomorrow we shall be able to approve them at this Plenary session without any difficulty.
<P>
On the Fisheries Committee, the European Commission's proposals were adopted without any problems whatsoever.
The rapporteur and members of the Fisheries Committee were concerned about flexibility.
That is, when making a temporary regulation into a permanent one, it would not make much sense to keep to the figures established initially, on the basis of a given situation which might have been valid in 1992.
The development, both of production and fishing activity, together with marketing, changes in consumption etcetera, would justify certain adjustments.
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This is the meaning of the amendments adopted by the Fisheries Committee, Amendments Nos 1 to 9, which can be divided into three groups:
<P>
The first group of amendments - numbers 1, 2, 4 and 9 - refers to the inclusion of certain products from the island of Réunion.
The island of Réunion is also on the extreme periphery of the Union and there would be no reason to exclude it.
<P>
Amendments Nos 5, 6, 7 and 8 are an attempt to adapt the assistance to the Canary Islands to those products which are in effect being marketed at the moment.
<P>
Finally, Amendment No 3 is a modest amendment considering that it merely reiterates something which already exists, this being the obligation to enforce the minimum limit of 30 metres depth for fishing on the continental shelf.
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As members of this Parliament will observe, the Fisheries Committee acted with the greatest concern for the strict budgetary requirements imposed, in order not to exceed the financial limits.
Our committee may have been too punctilious and respectful towards the authorities at the Budget Committee and with regard to the Community's own budgetary forecasts.
It could be said, perhaps, that since the amendments approved for the Canary Islands, numbers 5 to 8, are so strictly drawn up, they might allow little margin for subsequent development.
Amendment 9, which assumes that in order to be able to give additional aid to the island of Réunion it would have to be deducted from assistance to another outlying French region, would cause difficulties for that other outlying French region.
<P>
Probably the most interesting observation - and it was a pity that it came so late - was that made by the representative of the European Commission at our parliamentary committee on 25th November 1997.
He pointed out that perhaps the regulation could have adopted a much more flexible formula, with certain financial controls, but without specifying for each species and at each moment what quantity was subject to regulation.
<P>
This concern to combine flexibility with strict budgetary guidelines appears to govern Amendment No 12 from Mr Souchet, on behalf of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations; Amendment No 13 from Mr Baldarelli on behalf of Group of the Party of European Socialists; and my own Amendment No 14, also on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, which aim to replace or modify Amendment No 9, which had caused irritation in the French department of Guiana.
<P>
The rapporteur thought that these amendments were correct.
In particular, he prefers his own amendment, number 14, but any of these appears to improve the situation so as not to cause a confrontation between the island of Réunion and the French department of Guiana.
<P>
Amendments Nos 15 and 16, submitted by Mr Baldarelli, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, attempt to combine this flexibility with the strict budgetary guidelines, and I also think that they are acceptable.
I think that they help to allow for this flexibility in a regulation which is going to become permanent.
<P>
On the other hand, the rapporteur considers that neither Amendment No 10, from Messrs. d'Aboville and Aldo, on behalf of the Group Union for Europe, nor Amendment No 11, from Mr Souchet, on behalf of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, on species and sizes of fish and prawns etcetera, belong in a regulation about help with marketing.
Their place would be in a regulation on assistance with the protection of fishing species and the rapporteur considers, therefore, that they should not be approved.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, I do not know where this regulation will lead once it is adopted but, bearing in mind the remark by the representative of the European Commission and that, subsequently, the Council will have to adopt the final regulation, I hope that neither the Commission nor the Council consider the amendments submitted by the Fisheries Committee - which could easily be accepted tomorrow - as a very tight straitjacket.
On the contrary, when drawing up the final text of the regulation, a clause should be introduced allowing for real flexibility.
That is to say, every time we want to transfer assistance from one party to another, or from one item to another, we should not have to modify the regulations.
Obviously this was not the Commission's original idea.
I do not know what formula could be chosen.
It is possible that the Commissariat could explain whether it has any ideas about this or, simply, if it is going to restrict itself to approving the amendments as they may be approved tomorrow by the Plenary session of Parliament.
I think that the amendments are positive and constructive and, of course, I wish to thank the Commission for proposing this type of regulation, which will doubtless be favourable for the outlying areas of the Community.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=248 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Correia">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, firstly I would like to say a word of thanks and appreciation for Mr Medina's commitment to defending the interests of the ultra-peripheral regions, exemplified by the report being discussed.
<P>
The EU's recognition of the need to establish fair conditions for the marketing of certain fishery products, in order to compensate for the disadvantages deriving from remoteness, has been co-substantiated since 1992 by means of an aid scheme systematically extended to 1997.
<P>
The ultra-peripheral regions of the EU have common structural characteristics, placing them in the group of regions covered by Objective 1, characterized, as you know, by presenting a per capita GDP below 75 % of the Community average.
The great remoteness of the fishery products marketing regions, the small size of the markets for marketing these products and the increase in production costs related to the high cost of transportation, associated with unfair competition resulting from commercial agreements which the EU has arranged with third countries, obtaining commercial advantages in relation to those regions, make the survival of the processing industries and a whole chain of workers directly or indirectly connected with them dependent on the compensatory aid scheme.
<P>
With regard to Madeira and the Azores, owing to the incentive policies, it has been possible not only to consolidate but in some cases to increase the industrial fabric harmoniously, enabling surplus local production, mainly tuna, mackerel and black swordfish, to be marketed, giving prospects of sustainable development to the processing companies.
<P>
And so we welcome the Commission's motion and the amendments introduced by the rapporteur and we keenly ask for its approval by Parliament and Council, so as to maintain stability in the fishery sector and in this way also stimulate the creation of new jobs.
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<SPEAKER ID=249 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cunha">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we, the Group of the European People's Party, find these measures correct and justified.
Essentially, they aim to continue measures existing in previous regulations whose validity ended in December last year.
<P>
Their object, as we know, is to compensate the ultra-peripheral regions for the additional production costs and for the processing costs and, mainly, for the costs of marketing species of fish whose market lies outside those regions, which are normally very small and very restricted markets and so they normally have to export to the European continent and to the Common Market.
<P>
As we all know, we are talking about fairly poor, ultra-peripheral regions with very low levels of income, all classified in the Objective 1 regions, as stated by Mr Correia, and we are also talking about permanent structural situations, levels of disfavour unfortunately not wiped out, not eliminated in the short term.
<P>
On that account, in our opinion, this aid should be regarded as permanent and not just as temporary aid.
The aid should be subject to periodic assessment, which should always take into consideration the development of catches, of existing stocks and, naturally, also, the development of the markets and allow these permitted levels of aid to be increased at any time, if there is a favourable trend in production and catches and a favourable market trend.
<P>
Several proposals have been put forward to extend some of this aid to fish from Reunion Island; we can understand this and approve of these intentions, but we understand that financing would have to be found for that island and for that situation, adequate financing, without prejudicing the current beneficiaries of this aid situated, as we know, in Guinea, the Azores, Madeira and the Canary Islands.
<P>
The Group of the European People's Party would like to thank M Medina Ortega for the fantastic, highly positive, greatly discussed and highly effective work he has carried out.
It agrees with the amendments approved by the Committee on Fisheries, but is voting against some amendments presented after the part-session, mainly Amendment Nos 10 and 12.
<P>
I hope that in the future the Commissioner present today will follow the situation of these peripheral regions attentively, as she always does, and propose special measures aimed at them, as fish is the strategic and endogenous resource for the development of these ultra-peripheral and insular regions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="d'Aboville">
Mr President, the ultra-peripheral regions suffer from the handicap of remoteness.
Since transportation of their produce destined for the European market causes additional costs, to make this produce competitive with rival products from third countries, it is necessary to grant them certain compensatory measures, as Mr Medina Ortega has noted.
<P>
It is precisely because the problems encountered by producers in Reunion are of this nature that we proposed the inclusion of this region within the parameters of the compensation system.
Reunion is the furthest ultra-peripheral region of Europe.
Situated in the middle of the Indian Ocean, in an area where stocks are not over-exploited, an abundant source of tuna and swordfish is to be found, accessible by the local long line fishing method, tradable on the international market, and important, if not vital, in terms of jobs in an area which has been seriously hit by unemployment.
<P>
But the marketing, in Europe in particular, of fresh produce is handicapped by the freight costs and packaging costs.
This situation causes the long line fishermen of Reunion to settle for the local market, which brings about direct competition between long line fishing and traditional fishing.
In order to ensure that these two fields of fishing can continue side by side, it is necessary to promote the export of long line fishing produce.
That is the reason why I would like to thank Mr Medina Ortega for his Amendment No 14 which takes account of this situation.
<P>
Furthermore, within the context of the discussions on this report in the Committee on Fisheries, we met a delegation of traditional fishermen from Guiana, who came especially to draw our attention to the problems of this region.
There, some industrial outfits do not hesitate to fish for shrimps near the coast, in waters less than 30 metres deep.
By so doing, they put resources at risk by devastating young shrimp stocks, which are found precisely in this coastal area.
Another disastrous consequence is that this practice causes an additional catch whose sale destabilizes the local market.
<P>
These are the reasons which have brought my colleague, Blaise Aldo, and myself to propose that the granting of subsidies for Guianese shrimp fishing be made conditional on the product being of a reasonable size, that is, adult, and whose fishing does not put in jeopardy stocks as a whole.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=251 NAME="Novo">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission's motion to reintroduce the scheme to provide compensation for fishery products in ultra-peripheral regions deserves our natural support, as does the report and amendments proposed by the Committee on Fisheries.
<P>
The Commission's proposal, however, goes to prove today, in 1998, that we were right three years ago when we discussed the same proposed reintroduction for the period ended 31 December 1997.
It now shows that it was possible for an elementary act of justice to be drawn up in 1995 providing compensation for those involved in fishing deep-sea species in the Azores and swordfish and mackerel in Madeira, in addition to the natural proposed reintroduction of compensation for the tuna sector.
<P>
The sectors now supported on these peripheral Portuguese islands were already claiming compensation three years ago, and we repeated them, having amendments approved that reflected those concerns.
On that account, we should not forget today that we all agree in 1998 on the responsibility held by the regional authorities that forgot the deep-sea fishermen in the Azores and the swordfish and mackerel fishermen in Madeira three years ago, not giving continuity to the needs of these local economic sectors along with the Commission.
<P>
Nor should we forget a certain insensitivity on the part of the Commission which then failed to agree to amend its proposal, although, in my opinion, it could and should have done so.
And, finally, we should not forget certain omissions and obstructions or diversion tactics that appeared or were introduced here during the discussion that then began in this Parliament.
<P>
Now is the time for justice to be restored, even if it is three years late.
We cannot fail to congratulate ourselves for this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Taubira-Delannon">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this Regulation is in fact based on an extremely strong legitimacy.
<P>
This legitimacy has been present in the text since the Treaty of Rome, repeated in the accession treaty for Spain and Portugal, renewed once more in the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Conference of Maastricht and finally taken up in the Treaty of Amsterdam, even if this has yet to be ratified.
In other words, there is continuity in the very spirit of this text and in this system of compensation.
<P>
Furthermore, the European Union, and the European Parliament in particular, recognized the need to take the specificities of these remote regions into account and adopted the POSEI programmes in 1989 and 1991.
Finally, it can be noted that there is no particular suspicion regarding these measures, which confers further legitimacy on them.
<P>
The European Union, and the European Parliament in particular, can thus take pride in the significant aid it has brought to these territories and to activities which are sometimes the primary source of export receipts.
When you consider this approach, marked both by generosity but also by economic reason and a concern for justice aimed at correcting the realities imposed upon us - particularly geographic realities - it is difficult to understand that from the moment when you include a territory, perfectly legitimately, it implies taking away from others some of the aid you were going to provide.
The previous speeches have clearly demonstrated that it cannot be defensible to consider withdrawing the required finances from the overseas French departments as a whole, even from the ultraperipheral regions as a whole, in order to help the Reunion fishermen compensate for their handicap.
<P>
Furthermore, with regard to Guiana in particular, I would like to draw your attention - and I know that the Committee on Fisheries will understand me entirely, because it is an open and dynamic Committee - to the need to consider different approaches.
If we have to perpetuate this system, it is also important to encourage the different economic operators to work together, to understand each other and to organize together in order to manage, in the common interest, resources which are certainly not inexhaustible but which also have their own ethological laws.
<P>
We must question ourselves on the results of research, on our knowledge of stocks, on the perception of interests, not only of one single resource - in this case shrimps - but also for other resources, and see under what circumstances contradictions, even antagonisms, can arise when there are superimposed fishing zones for shrimp and fish.
<P>
It is thus a long term job that the Committee will take on board but it will carry it out admirably.
Mr Medina Ortega's sober, precise and convincing report can only persuade us that this work will be undertaken in the interests of all.
In the short term, it is clear that this system must be maintained, that justice must be established - that you can certainly not impoverish some in order to establish justice for others - and that we must ensure, in the future, common management of resources, by the fishing professionals to begin with.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Apolinário">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, with this proposal made by the Commission and this report drawn up with the knowledge and reflection shown by Mr Medina Ortega, the door is opened to a framework of financial aid for the marketing of deep-sea fishery products from the Azores, maintaining support for the tuna industry.
<P>
The allocation of aid to deep-sea fisheries was supported by us in February and March 1995, against the opinion of the then rapporteur and the then regional government of the Azores.
On that occasion, the regional government of the Azores placed the responsibility for not including deep-sea fishing on the Commission, stating publicly that the Commission had not agreed to provide aid for deep-sea fishing.
<P>
Now, with new governments in the region and in Portugal, what we supported in 1995 is being implemented.
Congratulations to the current regional government for the strategy of dialogue and responsible demand followed up with the Commission, whose proposal now being discussed, maintaining aid for 10 000 tonnes of tuna, for the first time extends the aid to 3 500 tonnes of deep-sea species.
It is always possible to ask for more, but this is already one step forward.
<P>
The economic and social impact of fishing, particularly on employment, and the special conditions of the remoteness of the Azores region justify it.
This is also understood by the Council of Ministers, which is now competent to give final approval for this aid, aid reinforced with the inclusion of the concept of remoteness in the Treaty of the European Union as defined in Amsterdam.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=254 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fraga Estévez">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, the detailed and explanatory analysis of the economic conditions endured by the outlying regions, which Mr Medina Ortega has included in his report, avoids our having to speak at length about the appropriateness of this proposal which was submitted by the Commission.
Anybody who reads the reasons set out in that report will be able to confirm that this aid is justified and needs to remain in place.
<P>
Being an island in itself, and more so when accompanied by particular remoteness with regard to the main centres of economic activity, contributes towards creating, in a more or less extreme form, certain peculiarities in the production of islands and their commercial interchange with the rest of the world.
This has doubtless produced a certain specialisation in the products which are fundamental to these islands' economies, amongst which fishing products obviously play a very important part.
Tuna from the Azores, squid from the Canaries or crustaceans from Guiana are some examples of the industries to which the inhabitants of their respective islands have turned in order to ensure their future livelihoods.
<P>
As the traditional basis of these peoples' economies, such specialisation should be respected and consolidated.
This cannot be done without special financial provisions which allow the islands to operate within the markets on an equal footing, by compensating for the differences in costs produced, for example, by transporting such products to the centres of distribution and consumption.
<P>
On the other hand, the support contained in the POSEICAN, POSEIMA and POSEIDOM programmes has enabled the industries to develop from merely extracting the fish to exporting it in the form of semi- or fully processed products, creating new prospects of development and wealth.
<P>
It would, however, be desirable for the Commission to pay more attention to the individual peculiarities of some of these regions whose extreme remoteness in many cases may make their voice more difficult to hear.
This has happened in this case with aid to Guiana which did not take into account, as it should have done, the actual protection of the interests of its local fishing industry.
The presence of representatives from Guiana on the Fisheries Committee demonstrated this region's concern to obtain a system of support which ensures respect for the continuing biological viability of its fishing resources, something which the Commission should defend in principle.
<P>
We hope that the amendments submitted by various groups with the aim of resolving this question, amendments which we support, may contribute towards alleviating this situation, which should not arise in future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=255 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sierra González">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, the measures proposed for this regulation are simply the updating and continuation of those adopted in 1994 and 1995 within the framework of the POSEIMA, POSEIDOM and POSEICAN programmes.
<P>
These measures only set out to remedy the damage caused in the fishing industry by the extra costs incurred by the particularly restricting circumstances of the outlying regions.
And they are measures which, in the course of time, have proved effective to a certain extent.
They seem to be common-sense measures.
<P>
There are third countries which enjoy advantageous agreements with the European Union and it would be difficult not to give permanent support to the community's fishing industry when this is provided to third countries which are not members of the Community.
In short, without such measures, the Canary Islands' fishing industry, which is increasingly a minority interest as it is, would end up by disappearing altogether.
<P>
The best thing I can say in defence of these measures is that without them a large part of the fishing industry in the outlying regions would be lost and that in such fragile economies no sector is negligible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=256 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langenhagen">
<SPEAKER ID=257 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fernández Martín">
You can already see, Madam President, that all the political groups and countries support your proposal.
I therefore wish to begin by congratulating the rapporteur, Mr Medina Ortega, and yourself Mrs Bonino, for the success and appropriateness of your proposal.
<P>
I particularly agree with the proposals made regarding fish-farming and squid, and I understand the concern you express, Mrs Bonino, to the Government of the Canary Islands in your letter of 27th December last, about responsibility for the biological "desert' in the territorial waters of Morocco.
<P>
The very heading of the proposed regulation is in itself fortunate.
It speaks of compensation for additional costs.
For years we have been advocating the need for the outlying regions to have their shortages and natural disadvantages recognized so that they can become part of the internal market and benefit from their participation in it.
We have come a long way, not without set-backs, but in the end we have achieved success.
<P>
I should like to draw attention to the fact that these extra costs which the Commission wishes to compensate are not only relevant to the present moment but are structural in nature.
That is why I consider it necessary - as the Commission recognises - to maintain this kind of aid in the future as well.
<P>
For some outlying territories - for instance the islands of Pico in the Azores or Lanzarote in the Canary Islands - fishing is not just another of its economic resources, but forms part of its very life, culture and traditions.
<P>
Because of its economic significance, and the number of jobs it creates, this is not just another figure but part of the strategic resources which are vital for such support to enable the industry to survive in the outlying regions, which suffer from the highest rates of unemployment in the Union and are all areas under Objective 1 on account of their low level of income.
That is why it is necessary to maintain current policies, and this is what the regulation we are discussing today finally proposes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=258 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendonça">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the excellent report now being discussed relates to the aid to be given to one of the sectors of economic activity of the ultra-peripheral regions of the EU which might not be that of greatest expression in some of those regions.
However, it is not the most lacking in aid, in view of the environmental and social strategic importance of the fishery sector and its production, processing and marketing.
<P>
It is a special system for providing financial compensation for the additional costs incurred owing to remoteness, provided within the framework of the POSEIMA.
The achievement made in the last revision of the Treaty of the European Union should be pointed out, as it led to the inclusion in this Treaty of the wording for the ultra-peripheral regions, the recognition of the specific characteristics of insular regions separated from the continent, separated from the European market to which they export most of their products, providing for measures to be taken regarding the fishery policy in Article 229 paragraph 2 of that same Treaty.
<P>
Some of the reasons given and others that could be given fully justify the belief that the measures now taken should not be considered transitional or temporary but, on the contrary, should be understood in a logic of constant geographical conditions and not just that but highly penalizing, thus deserving permanent and definitive measures.
<P>
It is right for aid to be extended to other ultra-peripheral regions not yet contemplated, but it is essential and advisable to point out that this aid should never be provided at the expense of the ultra-peripheral regions already benefiting in some way.
<P>
In the autonomous region of Madeira, tuna, black swordfish and mackerel are the species that deserve the aid granted, which at the moment is no more than ECU 1.6 million.
This incentive policy permitted the consolidation and implementation of an harmonious industrial fabric, enabling the surplus local production to be marketed.
An appropriate revision should be made of the species and the amounts to be provided, based on the development of production and the production, processing and marketing costs.
The report and most of the amendments being discussed deserve our consideration and agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=259 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Costa Neves">
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating Mr Medina Ortega and the Commissioner for their excellent work.
<P>
With regard to Amsterdam, you will understand that one of the most significant changes for me is the inclusion in the Treaty of the European Union of the article relating to the ultra-peripheral regions, recognizing that their specific characteristics require specific measures.
<P>
This is the right decision which the European Parliament has been involved in from the outset.
When some people wonder how to convey the new possibilities opened up by the Treaty, the answer is easy.
Successful experiments constitute a good starting point.
Examples of this are the Community initiative REGIS and the POSEIMA, which is precisely the instrument enabling the measure being examined to be adopted.
<P>
The POSEIMA has positively but insufficiently contributed towards the Azores feeling more a part of the European Union.
It is in this framework that the measure being discussed is incorporated; it cannot be temporary, as the structural conditions that fail to favour these regions result from the their separation from the European market to which they export their products.
They have to become final on that account, because the geography will not change.
<P>
With regard to Mr José Apolinário's speech, I would like to say that he has a short memory, because at the time the European Parliament approved his amendment proposals, which I did not agree with, and the Commission failed to include them in its report.
However, his proposal is not what we are discussing here.
What we are discussing here is far more along the lines of what I supported in his proposal, because I supported that tuna should remain untouchable and that deep-sea fish should increase, but the MEP insisted that tuna should be withdrawn to make room for the deep-sea fish.
So what he said is only half the truth.
<P>
One final point: with regard to the ultra-peripheral regions mentioned in the Treaty of the European Union, it is clear that solutions such as this and others, including those relating to the agricultural sector, have to be developed, as they have achieved excellent results.
This is the right path.
And so I fail to understand the lack of references to the REGIS and the POSEIMA in the Agenda 2000, a situation that needs to be changed and which Mr José Apolinário can help to do.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=260 NAME="Bonino">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, effectively, as the rapporteur has pointed out, the frequent appearance on the agenda of items relating to fisheries threatens to turn us all into a kind of club of friends of fisheries, a club which is perhaps a little exclusive, with the same people always there, but which also has its positive aspects, in the sense that one is talking with parliamentary colleagues who know this dossier inside out.
This relieves me, for example, of returning to the motivations and the content of this regulation, which, moreover, you have illustrated in detail.
However, I think it is appropriate to dwell on some of the amendments.
<P>
The general philosophy of this regulation has been underlined by each of you, both from the fair treatment angle and as a kind of solution.
Other than this, the proposal also mirrors developments over the last few years, hence including new species; it is a proposal then, from a certain evolutional point of view, which is not limited to a pure and simple repetition.
<P>
More specifically, the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 4, while Nos 3, 5, 5, 7 and 8 perhaps require a touch of redrafting.
As regards the island of Reunion, the Commission accepts the amendments in principle, but we are not yet in a position to give a technical definition of the methods and quantities because the French request arrived very late; the Commission has however sent a mission to the island of Reunion, but we are still waiting for further information which we have asked the French authorities for.
Your amendments will then be taken up in the modified proposal that the Commission will have to present.
But I must also emphasize that in principle the Commission accepts this inclusion.
So when the Commission presents a modified proposal, on the basis of both the amendments and the new information, we feel that Amendments Nos 13 and 15 will then be superfluous.
<P>
As regards the purpose of Amendments Nos 10 and 11, the Commission cannot but share this objective, because they refer to the conservation of resources, but frankly it seems to me that it would be better to deal with this under the implementing regulation.
This does not seem to us the appropriate context in which to insert this type of consideration, above all if it must deal with the technical methods intended to achieve the conservation of resources.
<P>
Article 6 seems sufficiently precise about the nature of the report to be presented by the Commission, while Amendment No 16, which concentrates only on the financial aspects, could bring a partial evaluation of the measures in question.
<P>
On the final point I am addressing Mr Langenhagen, in particular: I am perfectly aware - we say this every time - of the European Parliament's request to reach a codecision on the agreements in due form.
For the moment we must make a virtue of necessity and live with the existing rules.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr President, the Commission hopes that, in a situation of temporary regulation which is becoming permanent, this regulation, which you have given a positive welcome, can also give the sector that stability of prospects which is one of the cardinal elements of a vision, also economic, of the entire fisheries sector.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=261 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
VAT on telecommunications
<SPEAKER ID=262 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0376/97) by Mr Cox, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 77/388/EEC concerning the value added tax system applicable to telecommunications services (COM(97)0004 - c4-0100/97-97/0030(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=263 NAME="Cox">
Mr President, this is a short proposal from the European Commission - in terms of reports for which I have been rapporteur during several years, it is perhaps the shortest.
It is also one of the most complex.
<P>
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy believes that the Commission proposal is a timely one and in that regard welcomes it.
It is a useful response to a global telecommunications revolution which in substance has bypassed some of the relevance and nature of the existing VAT system as it applies to that sector.
Certainly the technology has outpaced the VAT design.
The proposal sets out to address a very fundamental problem, namely that European Union telecom suppliers pay value added tax in respect of their EU clients but third country suppliers pay no such tax in respect of their EU clients.
At least that was the case at the point of introduction of the proposal.
<P>
It meant that there was an unfair market distortion which was damaging to EU telecom suppliers and that there was a loss of Member State revenue.
It was a dynamic loss because this is a growing sector and, over time, the problems would deepen, especially in the context of the liberalized market we face from now on.
<P>
However, the immediate urgency lying behind the Commission's proposal has in part been addressed by 15 parallel, identical derogations agreed by the Council on 17 March last year.
Consequently, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy was of the opinion that this affords a pause for thought, a chance to clarify questions and issues, and then to see how to deepen and perhaps add value to the basic Commission proposal which we have been considering.
<P>
The advantage of the Commission proposal was that there would be a single VAT registration for suppliers.
But this is counterbalanced in practice - and the report deals with examples at some length - by the cumbersome and costly value added tax recovery procedures under the Eighth VAT Directive.
The Commission has recommended against a reverse charge mechanism and the consequence therefore is, if you look at the dossier in detail, that clients would need, if they purchase from EU suppliers from another Member State, to pre-fund value added tax bills and to wait for a number of months to get those refunds back.
<P>
Since the Council has partly addressed the matter - although I know the Commission has argued before our committee that it has not done so in a way that would be satisfactory in the long haul - we believe that time is now available to the Commission to reflect and perhaps to make one or two additions to this proposal.
Firstly we would call on the Commission to revise the Eighth VAT Directive with regard to the cumbersome and costly refund procedure.
It is a timely moment to pick up on that particular concern, which certainly was a major concern of telecom suppliers who spoke to me as rapporteur and who had contact with colleagues in the committee.
<P>
Secondly, because we now have liberalization of the market, because the Commission is of the view that the Council's derogations cannot be sustained over the long haul and could, indeed, even create some problems in terms of WTO conditions.
I believe it is worth trying to identify precisely where the weaknesses are and where they need to be filled.
<P>
Finally, we explored whether it might not be appropriate to consider for telecoms a pioneering notion of a single VAT rate.
We have asked the Commission to reflect on those elements and then to bring forward a revised proposal which would enhance the current basic proposal.
In essence, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy regards what has been proposed by the Commission as positive, believes what the Council has done affords pause for thought and would like that time to be used to enhance the value of the proposal and to make it more comprehensive and more acceptable.
I would commend the amendments to the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=264 NAME="Read">
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Cox both on his report and his explanation of it here, in this Chamber.
I think it is a most complex subject and difficult to explain.
I would be most interested, Commissioner, to hear your reaction to the suggestions that Mr Cox has made.
It seems to me that both the Commission proposal and the Council proposal have certain short- and medium-term disadvantages.
Mr Cox has explained very clearly that the technology has outpaced the VAT systems.
There have been most serious handicaps for European Union telecommunications operators and a most serious and disadvantageous distortion of competition.
We can quite understand why the Council has put into place the derogations that Mr Cox has outlined.
<P>
Under the Commission proposal - the change to the Sixth VAT Directive - there will be a shift in the place of taxation to the place of establishment of the recipient of the services, the customers' base, and away from that of the supplier, the telecommunications company's base.
<P>
The problems that Mr Cox has identified about the cumbersome and costly VAT recovery procedures, on which I and many Members get many letters, clearly is a major obstacle.
I think that Mr Cox's approach is correct, but I would be interested to hear the Commissioner's reaction to the question of how to make progress towards a definitive VAT system and how to recover VAT without undue cost and bureaucracy, to the question of the impact of telecoms liberalization on fiscal receipts - because this is a hugely growing market and the fiscal implications for chancellors really are very considerable.
I would also like the Commissioner to comment on the effects of the Council's derogations.
<P>
Mr Cox has mentioned possible conflicts, which I think are more than probable, with the GATT clauses and the specific World Trade Organization agreement.
Although, clearly, the Council proposal can hold in the short-term - which, in a sense, removes some of the pressure both on this Parliament and the Commission - nevertheless the problem will exacerbate rather than diminish.
Clear proposals from the Commission would be received with great interest by members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=265 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Porto">
Mr President, my group supports Mr Cox's report and also the amendments proposed.
We had cause for concern: Europe's disadvantage in relation to competitors from abroad.
And so we understand the exceptions established by Council.
Curiously enough, we have gone for a solution along the lines of the "principle of fate' , only in that way avoiding market distortions, besides avoiding the problems resulting from the lack of harmonization of taxes and the lack of an income compensation mechanism, which is essential in taxation on consumption.
<P>
Finally, you may wonder whether it is not a question of virtualities that we need to continue using VAT in general, postponing the adoption of the final system according to the "principle of origin' until the complete harmonization of taxes is established and a safe system of compensation is assured.
<P>
In this specific case, we are justified in accepting the Commission's proposal with the addition of the new line s) to Article 9 paragraph 2 of Directive 7788/EEC; but as we agreed, its application should depend on a report to be submitted to Council and the European Parliament in which the Commission will have to explain in detail all the progress made in the direction of the final system, the impact of the liberalization of telecommunications on tax receipts and the effects of the exceptions introduced in the meantime.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=266 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Mr President, until recently we were working with a VAT regime which was bad for European competition and for the telecom suppliers within the Union.
On numerous occasions attention has been drawn to the future taxation problems in this sector, and I think we will frequently have to exchange views on this issue.
<P>
The Cox report contains a lucid analysis of the pros and cons of the Commission's proposal, and of the temporary arrangement made by the Council.
At the moment 15 identical derogations are used for all Member States, which is acceptable in the short term.
<P>
The present Commission proposal also contains some traps, such as the costly procedure to reclaim VAT.
That is why it would be sensible to implement in particular Mr Cox's Amendment No 5, in which the Commission is asked to have another thorough look at the problems concerning claims in connection with a definite VAT arrangement without unnecessary bureaucracy; at the effect of liberalization and the effect of the 15 derogations; and to submit a new directive to the Parliament and to the Council on the basis of the analysis.
<P>
Mr President, I think we can allow ourselves this amount of time to come to a sound arrangement which will also be able to stand the test of criticism at the next WTO negotiations.
<P>
My group is wholly sympathetic to the difficulty in which the Commission finds itself, because no one has yet quite invented the wheel to solve this problem.
The Cox report has given an indication, however, of how we might reach a better solution than we have here before is, and I think it is important to follow the Cox report in that respect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=267 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, the Commission is basically faced with two different problems. The first of these concerns the fact that we have still not succeeded in developing a definitive VAT system in the EU which really works.
Such a thing would be extremely beneficial for the development of the internal market and for the EU as a whole.
Mr Cox has pointed out some of the disadvantages resulting from this oversight.
Such a situation can lead to paradoxes, for example a third-country supplier is suddenly no longer liable to VAT, while an EU supplier is liable to this particular tax. That is naturally quite unsatisfactory and paradoxical.
<P>
The second problem concerns the technical revolution which has meant that telecommunications services can now be supplied practically irrespective of geographical situation.
It is therefore now basically possible to offer such services on a planet-wide basis.
In such circumstances I think that Mr Cox's proposal is intended to gain time.
This may well be a logical move, but I believe that we should try really hard to find a solution which is based on a definitive VAT policy and on the use of telecommunications services from the point of view of greater local inclusion, since local inclusion is still possible in this area.
This would be somewhat along the same lines as the Commission's draft directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=268 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, the interest of Mr Cox's report on the system of VAT applicable to telecommunications services lies in the fact that it raises a much wider question which underlies all world doctrine on fiscal law, as the OECD studies prove.
I myself am supervising the thesis of a young French researcher, Mr Huet, on the issue of international trade and its system of taxation, that is, the whole problem of the risk of cyberevasion, of a taxation of cyberspace yet to be invented, the Internet services, call back, down loading of software, intangible services, and the whole difficulty of the digital influx which cannot be regulated or controlled, and a business which it is said could reach 70 billion dollars by the year 2000.
<P>
We know the questions.
Who should enforce this?
How should it be enforced?
Where should it be enforced?
Should we completely exempt it from taxation?
Should there be a specific tax? Should there be a world conference, about the whole range of taxes: customs duties, excise duties, corporation tax and VAT?
With all the different methods of administering corporation tax that exist? There is the method by which the server should be a stable establishment; for VAT, the distance sales method, or Article 9, first paragraph of the Sixth Directive; or Article 9, paragraph 2, still of the Sixth Directive, which relates to provision of cultural services.
We know the problem: to avoid distortions in competition.
<P>
In the first system, it is the service provider who defines the place of taxation, to which has to be added the distortion of competition outside or inside of the Community.
The wish was to combine this with the Commission's system, a relatively coherent one, in which the client defines the place of taxation, before this proposal came about, the March 1997 solution, which has been generalized in all countries - Germany applied it from January 1997, in France we will have a directive on this in May 1997. However a difficulty arises since it confuses the location of the provider with the location of the beneficiary of the provision, depending on whether the person is liable for VAT or not.
<P>
I will therefore, content myself with taking a sample group.
I am not against the temporary solutions which have been sketched out.
I wonder - it does no harm just this once - if there should not be a world doctrinal reflection and if, perhaps, the method of complete tax exemption, with all the risks this means for traditional commerce and virtual commerce, or the method of specific taxation are not worth studying.
I believe that perhaps the solution of a wide conference reflecting on this extremely novel issue may be the right way forward but, in the interim, I recognize that the solutions of a temporary nature drawn up by Mr Cox are acceptable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=269 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the VAT system on telecommunication services, which distorts and weakens competition, is driving European telecommunications companies into a worse position than that in the developing world.
Under present legislation telecommunication services are taxed where the provider is based. This means that telecoms working within the Union pay VAT, and those outside do not.
The Union VAT jungle is also unequal in its treatment, which also distorts competition.
<P>
Viable internal markets demand viable structures.
The harmonization of taxation systems is obviously a step in the right direction.
It is necessary to focus on a taxation and VAT system at the European level, and not just at the national one.
With the third stage of EMU and the common currency the public finances of all Member States are in any case closely controlled by the Community. Why not have the same control for taxation?
<P>
On the global level, the biggest problem for current European taxation systems is the imposition of taxes on 'fixed' factors, i.e. the workforce.
For some reason companies that offer employment are pictured as being better off; why otherwise would their tax burden be so unfair compared, for example, to that of automated companies.
Offering employment is penalized, when it should be rewarded.
We have to start straightening out the wrinkles in the tax system.
The minimum requirement is obviously that companies offering employment should at least enjoy equal a status equal to that of automated companies.
<P>
The Council now accepts a system whereby all telecoms in every Member State pay VAT directly to the inland revenue office in their customer's country.
If the customer happens to be outside the EU, no tax is due at all.
This defect in the system is a direct invitation for the large telecoms to move to third-world tax havens.
This we all have a duty to put right.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=270 NAME="Monti">
Mr President, on 1st January 1998, the liberalization of telecommunications services became a reality in the European Union.
It is time to complete the regulatory framework which accompanies this liberalization with the VAT discipline.
In effect, both our telecommunications companies, and the firms of other countries, need to know the fiscal obligations confronting them over the next few years.
This is the general objective of the proposal.
<P>
Then there are two more specific aims of this directive.
The first relates to the modification of the territorial of Community VAT and specifies that VAT must always be applicable if a telecommunications service is delivered to a Community client: the consumption in fact takes place in the Community.
The second specific purpose aims at confirming the existing law of the sixth directive, by which a Community telecommunications operator has fiscal obligations only in the Member State in which it is established.
To impose registration on it in each Member State in which it has a client, would end up cancelling the greater part of the benefits attaching to liberalization, because the operator would have to keep specific accounts or even have recourse to a fiscal representative in each of these Member States.
It follows logically from this that we cannot discriminate against operators of third countries by demanding that they register in all the Member States; they too should be able to benefit from the advantage of a single registration in the Community.
<P>
Your rapporteur, Mr Cox, has carefully examined the consequences of this approach and proposes various amendments in his report, adopted by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
I can tell you that the Commission has no difficulty in accepting Amendments Nos 1, 3 and 4.
By contrast, Amendments Nos 5, 6 and 7 are not acceptable, in the opinion of the Commission, because they would postpone the entry into force of the proposed directive until a report has been drawn up on elements which are in reality linked to the present proposal.
In fact, the progress towards the introduction of a new common VAT system is independent of the creation of a fiscal system for telecommunications services.
The liberalization of these services will certainly have less impact on the VAT yield than the absence of a VAT system will have on the success of liberalization.
<P>
The effects of the derogations currently applied by the Member States will certainly be taken into account when the negotiations are going on in the Council, but we also know that these systems cannot be extended or generalized, given their disadvantages and imperfections which Mr Cox has also highlighted with great clarity.
Furthermore, the implications of the application of a single quota to telecommunications remain, at the end of the day, without objective, because I understand that Parliament is not asking for the introduction of such a single share.
Given that the Commission's approach is not in question and, lacking concrete suggestions for improvement, the Commission considers it particularly inappropriate for the signals put out to the operators to seem to deprive them of the possibility of having, in a short time, a fiscal framework capable of allowing them to benefit fully from the liberalization of telecommunications services, to the profit of our companies and all the consumers.
<P>
Finally, Amendment No 2, which I have not mentioned up to now, is not acceptable because, in fact, it is not correct.
However, in substance it is taken up in Amendment No 4 which the Commission accepts, as I have already mentioned.
<P>
The Commission was asked, amongst other things, to clarify the reasons why it was not possible to maintain in force the principles provided for in the derogations, the 15 derogations, including them directly in the sixth directive.
At bottom, the response is already clear in Mr Cox's report.
There are three disadvantages: the system provided for derogation is not practicable, the control raises concrete problems, and there is also the critical element, raised by some of you, about the contrast between the mechanism of derogation and the structure of the conditions and clauses provided for in the ambit of the GATS.
<P>
Finally I want to observe, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, that on the question of "why are we in such a rush, we have time' in reality there is not very much time, because the derogations end at the end of 1999 and the new system must be adopted, say, before the end of 1998, to allow for incorporation into national legislation.
So perhaps, there remains between us this divergence of appreciation of the urgency of the matter, on how much time we have available.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=271 NAME="Cox">
Mr President, in view of the late hour, I do not wish to re-open any of the points of substance in the debate.
However, I am intrigued by one remark by the Commissioner which gives me pause for thought as to how we should proceed at voting time tomorrow.
If I understood him correctly he said with regard to exploring a single rate of value added tax for the telecom sector that it may be pointless at the end of the day but that in any event the European Parliament is not asking for it and since there is no proposal the Commission, in a sense, is not taking on the possibility.
Let me put the direct question: it is a hypothesis, I am the rapporteur and not Parliament, but if Parliament was to come to the Commissioner and say: we want in a proposal not just a revision of the Eighth VAT Directive but we also want a single rate for telecoms, could I take it, as implied in the Commissioner's response, that he would answer in the affirmative?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=272 NAME="Monti">
Mr President, in reply to Mr Cox, on rate harmonization it is true that under any tax scheme involving taxation at the place of establishment of the supplier or at the single place of registration within the EU some distortions of competition can occur due to the different level of rates of Member States.
The Commission would be prepared to suggest the application of a uniform rate for telecommunication services which the current proposal does not provide for and could consider in depth, and probably with a favourable disposition, an indication from the European Parliament pointing in that direction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=273 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 11.07 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=0>
<SPEAKER ID=1 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dijk">
Madam President, I would like to speak on a point of order.
The Aftonbladet , a Swedish evening newspaper, of 9 January, had an article on its front page which contained three factual errors, two of which could be verified by Parliament.
Seventeen Members of this Parliament from six different groups are accused of being involved in Mafia practices, in particular in the drugs Mafia in the European Union.
Since a system and unit have been set up to act against such scandalous articles, I would like to ask whether the Swedish Information Bureau has produced a fiche d'alerte about this yet, and whether it has arrived at our unit in this Parliament yet, and what this will result in.
Because it is clearly extremely damaging for this Parliament, and moreover complete nonsense that seventeen members are accused of playing a role in the drugs Mafia, and that they appear in the paper, with pictures and so on.
I would like to know whether you, or the unit which was set up to deal with these things, will take action against it, and whether a fiche d'alerte has been issued.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
Mrs Van Dijk, to answer the question you have just asked me, I can say that the Bureau did in fact consider, at yesterday evening's meeting, how best to counter this type of accusation or aspersion and that we decided in principle to set up a rapid rebuttal unit, to counter such absolutely inadmissible, unacceptable attacks as effectively as possible.
And I would like to take this opportunity of informing the whole House of this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Cornelissen">
Madam President, my sincerest apologies for bothering you with a personal problem.
I tend to start the monthly part-session in Strasbourg in good cheer and in good physical condition, but practically every part-session I end up catching a hefty cold.
I have noticed that many people have similar problems.
I think it has to do with the air conditioning system.
<P>
My question is whether you would be willing to ask the relevant services what can be done.
Because, Madam President, speaking for myself, by the end of the week it is really unbearable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President">
Mr Cornelissen, we cannot start a discussion on this point.
I am not sorry that you have mentioned the problem.
I think that you are not the only person to be afflicted, probably because of the air conditioning, at the end of a sitting.
My answer is that the department responsible will look into the matter, and that we will do everything we can to ensure that a suitable temperature is maintained in this chamber.
I give you my word, and steps are already being taken, because many Members of this House have already said the same thing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="Corbett">
Madam President, thank you.
I think, the explanation, Mr Cornelissen, is much more simple.
We are pooling the latest viruses and bacteria from the four corners of Europe every month, bringing them here and exchanging them.
It is our contribution to the single European market and the free circulation of bacteria.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Corbett, for your very amusing contribution to this discussion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Guinebertière">
On the same subject, Madam President, I haven't actually got a cold here in Strasbourg, but if your maintenance engineers are efficient, perhaps you could also send them to Brussels, because I often leave Brussels with a cold.
We have the same difficulties there... sore eyes... there is a problem.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Drugs
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0359/97) by Mrs d'Ancona, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, containing a proposal for a European Parliament recommendation to the Council on the harmonization of the Member States' laws on drugs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
Madam President, my problem does not involve my immune system but the agenda.

You have called for Mrs d'Ancona's report and I should like to request, pursuant to Rule 129 of the Rules of Procedure, that we refer Mrs d'Ancona's report back to committee.
<P>
I should like to justify my request on the following grounds: Our Group, together with Mrs d'Ancona the rapporteur, has held intensive discussions with the other groups in this House.
We had 36 amendments to discuss, received between the approval of the draft report by the committee and the plenary sitting.
These 36 amendments, Madam President, include a number of requests which, were they to be accepted, would not simply involve minor changes to the report, but would completely change its stance.
<P>
Over the Christmas break...
<P>
(Noise) Ladies and gentlemen, there are minimum rules of social courtesy and if you don't known them yet, perhaps you should learn them this morning.
<P>
(Applause) The rapporteur was unable to discuss these amendments with the petitioners in sufficient detail over the Christmas break.
Mrs d'Ancona and my group therefore request that we be given the opportunity to do this and to endeavour to reach a compromise on this highly sensitive topic of drugs policy.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
Mr Schulz, you have made a request pursuant to Rule 129.
We will therefore apply that rule by the book and I must ask whether there is a speaker in favour this request.
There is not.
Against?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Nassauer">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this amendment represents quite simply a vote of no confidence in the work of my charming colleague Mrs d'Ancona.
This fact should not be concealed.
Obviously you do not have the confidence to open this amendment to discussion or put it to the vote.
You should also know - despite what my charming colleague Mr Schulz would have us believe - that he is not motivated by improved understanding. Lurking behind this amendment is the long arm of Tony Blair.
What he has told us here today was actually scripted for him in London.
It is the work of Tony Blair.
The British Government has issued a statement which says: But the UK government has made clear that it has no intention of legalizing or decriminalizing any currently controlled drug.
They can feel their majority wobbling and that's why they want to refer the report back.
We say that a European drug policy should ask only one question: Does it make access to drugs for young people and children harder or easier?
Mrs d'Ancona's policy would make access to drugs for young people and children easier.
We can say no to that by voting no today.
And for this reason we reject the petition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
Mr Nassauer did not exceed his speaking time, nor did Mr Schulz.
I can assure you that I am extremely vigilant on that point.
<P>
I have already asked someone to speak in favour, in accordance with the Rules. No one wanted to do so.
I can see Mr Dell'Alba.
Mr Dell'Alba, do you wish to speak in favour?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
We have now heard all the speakers required by the Rules.
I shall now invite Mrs Green to make a personal statement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Green">
Madam President, I really cannot resist it.
Thank you for the invitation to speak and also for recognizing me as Pauline Green.
<P>
I would just like to say that as Mr Nassauer read out one bit of the British Home Office's brief on this, he did of course fail to read out all those bits in it that express sympathy with the report and what it was trying to do and some of the elements that Mrs d'Ancona is trying to cover.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="President">
Mr Schulz, can I presume that Mrs d'Ancona does not wish to speak, as you have expressed her request?
I am asking you this because the Rules say that the chairman of the committee, or the rapporteur, may speak.
So, you have spoken on her behalf.
That is right, is it not?
<P>
(Parliament approved the request for referral back to committee)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Fingerprinting asylum seekers (Eurodac)
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0402/97) by Mrs d'Ancona, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the draft Council Act drawing up the Convention concerning the establishment of 'Eurodac' for the comparison of fingerprints of applicants for asylum and the Convention drawn up on the basis of Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union, concerning the establishment of 'Eurodac' for the comparison of fingerprints of applicants for asylum (11079/97 - C4-0506/97-97/0915(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="d'Ancona">
Madam President, the topic I intend to speak on is extremely important although it may not provoke the same emotional response as the other topic we have discussed this morning.
We can debate this matter in a somewhat more peaceful frame of mind, but I have to tell you honestly that I am discussing it with mixed feelings.
I will explain why.
<P>
Yesterday evening we had an excellent debate about the refugee policy and about the situation which has arisen out of the fact that 1200 Kurds have asked for political asylum in Italy during the past few weeks.
Again, it was a good debate which did not split the left and right as the debate on drugs did. From all contributions to the debate it became clear that what we are missing at the moment is a common asylum and migration policy.
All our colleagues here expressed their disappointment with the fact the Treaty of Amsterdam did not provide for such a common asylum and migration policy.
Maybe in the long term, but not at the moment.
We then see that when an incident, such as this situation with the Kurds, concerns us, we do not really know how to respond to it.
Well, I certainly have mixed feelings. I find it extremely difficult to start talking about instruments which have a sound function within the context of a common asylum policy, but in isolation seem to be there to keep asylum seekers out.
That is why I thought it was important that we should express an opinion on it.
<P>
Firstly, I find it a sign of excellent goodwill by the Council, and I do not mind repeating this here, that it has decided to involve Parliament in the decision-making process concerning the establishment of this Eurodac instrument.
In order to do justice to the idea that it is dangerous to make use of specific instruments outside their context, I have introduced a large number of amendments at the request of the Council, and I obviously hope that my colleagues will support these.
They are based on the belief that we must create the greatest possible security for those in distress, those we are discussing here today: people seeking asylum.
Specific instruments can be used positively.
Taking fingerprints to stop people from being sent from one Member State to the other is a case in point, because there might be uncertainty over which country is responsible for their application for asylum.
This procedure is effective in such cases, and ensures that this situation no longer occurs.
<P>
Secondly, I think that sending people to a third country outside the EU where there are different standards, possibly to the disadvantage of the asylum seeker, is ruled out.
That is also a good thing.
In one of the amendments I have also warned that it must be unambiguously clear that the comparison of finger prints should under no circumstance be used for any purpose other than to determine the responsibility of the Member State of origin.
So it cannot be used for any other purpose than for the one it serves.
<P>
I also think it is important that the register of fingerprints is only kept for a limited amount of time, so that it cannot be misused.
<P>
The other thing I find extremely important is that the European Commission, and not one of the Member States takes on the management of Eurodac.
I also think there should be a kind of European protector of data, as the number of data bases is increasing, and I think that, in view of people's privacy, we have to treat these with greatest possible care.
<P>
I have suggested that the European Court of Justice should continue to be the appointed institution to turn to as a last resort with complaints in these matters.
To conclude, Madam President, I have already told you that I think it is a great pity that this procedure is given priority over the total policy.
It is a pity, but I hope that, once the Council has fine-tuned what is being proposed on a number of points, Eurodac will still be able to fulfil a useful role.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Zimmerman">
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, although the report prepared by my colleague Mrs d'Ancona on the drawing up of the Convention concerning the establishment of "Eurodac' is, in essence, a factual and technical report - as my colleague has already pointed out - the tone is of great significance for those people involved.
The individuals to be registered using this system have left their home countries for a number of different reasons and by a number of very different routes.
For the most part they have done so because they were fleeing terror, torture and persecution, but also - and we must not underestimate this - because they come from hopeless social and economic backgrounds.
<P>
They have all chosen flight in the hope that wherever they may one day find refuge, they really will be able to find better and more secure futures, and above all live safer lives.
However, due to the influx of refugees into the European Union, the receptiveness of Member States has declined rapidly in recent years.
<P>
On one hand, the many common regulations and conventions existing between the Member States create the impression that fortress Europe is expanding. On the other, Europe is becoming more and more unified, internal borders are becoming increasingly less significant and here too there is a need for a common set of regulations.
This is particularly important in the area of the third pillar.
However, - and here I must agree with Mrs d'Ancona, and thank her for the excellent work she has done on this report - it is essential that when we talk about an asylum and immigration policy, we talk about a common asylum and immigration policy.
There should not, therefore, as is currently the case, be a raft of very different regulations applicable in the various Member States which are then brought together into a minimal piece of legislation by the Council, effectively restricting the level of protection for refugees to a minimum.
<P>
I also agree that we should draw up a common framework.
But there are a couple of additional comments which I would like to make about the report, which I think are important.
The most important is that data protection be guaranteed for the individuals involved.
Since it has been laid down that there should be a central organization, but not exactly how this organization should function, it is also important that we agree, as Mrs d'Ancona has stated, that this central unit be based within the European Commission.
<P>
I also think it is important that the Member States have only limited access to this central unit, and for a period of only three months, as they are also able to set up their own registers.
Therefore, in my view, it is necessary that access by the Member States to this central register be limited.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Nassauer">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the core of this automatic data processing system relates to the fact that, in principle, future applicants for asylum in the European Union should be fingerprinted as soon as they enter a Member State, as long as they are at least 14 years old.
I should like to make it clear from the outset that, for reasons I shall go into later, the PPE Group supports this intention, and that we cannot therefore see the point in linking it to the criticism that, as in other circumstances finger-printing is used as a method of the criminal justice system, it would effectively criminalize applicants for asylum.
<P>
In this regard, there are certain technical requirements which I should like to outline briefly.
It is important that asylum proceedings in Europe are decided quickly.
This is the right of applicants for asylum, irrespective of whether or not their applications are founded or whether or not they are victims of political persecution.
Whatever the case, they need to know as soon as possible whether they can remain in Europe.
<P>
Secondly, jurisdictions must be clearly defined.
It must be clear which Member State is responsible for dealing with an asylum procedure, i.e. who examines the application.
Thirdly, we must avoid a situation in which applicants for asylum are shunted back and forth between EU Member States.
These are the prerequisites of proper, constitutional and humane proceedings and in order to achieve them it is necessary to establish the identity of applicants for asylum, and where appropriate their family members, and that is what this system is for.
This is, of course, subject to data protection legislation.
The relevant agreement states that the Council of Europe Convention on Data Protection of 1981 is applicable in all cases.
This convention specifies, inter alia , that such finger prints must be deleted if, for example, the applicant receives citizenship of a Member State or is recognised in a Member State as a refugee.
<P>
However, not all those seeking asylum are the victims of political persecution.
Yesterday the figures relating to applicants for asylum in Germany last year were published.
They numbered more than 104 000, and of these, just over 5 % received recognition as political refugees.
Of course, there are a considerable number of asylum seekers who make not one, but two or more applications in order to receive several lots of social security benefit.
This is a regrettable fact which should not be overlooked.
In Germany, for example, investigations were carried out covering the period from January 1993 to September 1996 and no less than 46 000 cases of fraud were detected - a rate of approximately 1 in 10.
Since the introduction of an automated finger-printing system in Germany this figure has dropped considerably.
<P>
A comparative study has also been carried out examining asylum application procedures in Switzerland and Germany.
It revealed that double applications giving rise to payment of double social security benefits were received from the main applicant countries - Turkey 12 %, Pakistan 19 %, Zaire 12 %, Lebanon 12 % - and this fact cannot simply be ignored.
Similar figures also came out of a study comparing Switzerland and Austria.
Therefore, it makes sense to have such a procedure.
It benefits those who are genuinely the victims of political persecution and for this reason the PPE Group supports this Council Convention and has some reservations about the restrictions contained in Mrs d'Ancona's report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Mohamed Alí">
Madam President, today we are considering the report from Mrs d'Ancona on the proposal from the Council for an automated system for recognizing the fingerprints of asylum seekers.
<P>
We agree with the rapporteur that we need to improve citizens' legal position, through clear measures and quick procedures, in recognizing the right to asylum.
Moreover, we support the desire to establish a European data protection system, particularly given the growing number of systems which facilitate the exchange of personal data and the difficulty in defending these systems against possible abuse of the individuals they include.
<P>
Asylum is a basic human right.
To grant or deny access to the asylum process may mean the difference between a person's life and death, as is pointed out in the report.
This feature must be there in every instance, and the necessary precautions have to be taken so that the people affected can benefit from the most favourable legal conditions.
<P>
In this context I would like to recall the passivity demonstrated by the Spanish Government in the face of asylum and refugee applications from more than 270 Algerian immigrants who are still waiting in Melilla - and have been in some cases for more than two years - for their applications for legal protection to be dealt with in the face of the terrorist threat to which they are subject in their country of origin.
Meanwhile, the Spanish authorities maintain - incomprehensibly - that Algeria is not an area of conflict.
<P>
The coordination of asylum policies needed in the European Union must not be allowed to erode the system of international protection.
In this sense, the future political union will have to maintain and develop the traditional European policy of the right to asylum.
<P>
We advocate a progressive attitude with respect to the right to asylum, subject to all the international conventions, and through a progressive application of that right to nationals from countries within the Union.
However, when political union is fully achieved this right will only be necessary in terms of nationals from third countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Madam President, all over Europe at the moment people are thinking back to the words Emile Zola threw at his government exactly 100 years ago: J'accuse - I accuse.
It was the expression of his despairing resistance against a despotic power which had branded an innocent man guilty in a calculated political manoeuvre, flouted the dictates of justice, ignored the dignity of man and sacrificed him to the opinion of an enraged public.
<P>
One hundred years later we are safe in the knowledge that we have finally tamed this kind of power, finally subjected it to justice.
Yet still we are forced to watch just such an accusation levelled against just such despotism reforming in the hearts and minds of thousands of men and women at the borders of Europe who are being prevented from enjoying their human right to asylum with ever new forms of harassment, with denial and perversion of the course of justice.
We are forced to watch how justice and politics retreat in the face of a hysterical public and the mass phenomenon of xenophobia.
<P>
No other region in the world has triggered more or larger streams of refugees than did this continent in the 20th century.
Millions of men and women from Europe have been received into countless countries all over the world, very often countries themselves suffering ruin and poverty.
Today, at the time of our greatest historical prosperity, an incomparably smaller number of oppressed and persecuted individuals is taking flight in our direction. And what are we doing?
We are refusing an ever growing number of them the right to shelter.
Instead, we are using police methods to monitor them. European co-operation sees its only duty as being their rejection and, if necessary, their deportation.
In the face of a mere 2000 fleeing Kurds politicians conjure horrific images of an uncontrolled flood of refugees.
Phrases such as "illegal immigrants' are used.
Europe, which owes its cultural wealth to its openness to the world, is becoming a fortress.
If that "j'accuse' forms in the minds and hearts of the men and women waiting at the walls of this fortress, then it is we who are accused.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Buffetaut">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, recent events have forcibly and tragically reminded us of the importance of the asylum policy to every Member State of the European Union and to the European Union as a whole.
Although it is obvious that inter-state cooperation is not only useful but also necessary in this area, it is nevertheless true that the problem of accepting refugees, and the right of asylum, are essentially, a question of national sovereignty, as moreover, the French Constitutional Council recently ruled.
These principles are reflected in the 'Eurodac' report, which is above all a technical report, but also a political report.
<P>
The rapporteur suggests that responsibility for the management of the Eurodac system should be entrusted, not to a Member State, under the responsibility of the Council, but to the Commission.
It seems to us that it would be preferable for the management of such a system to remain under the responsibility of the Council instead of being entrusted to the Commission.
Indeed, the Council, emanating from the Member States, has a more accurate perception of the real, practical issues associated with the problems of accepting refugees, whereas the Commission is likely to have a more 'disembodied' view, more remote from practical problems and real life in each of the Member States faced with an influx of refugees.
<P>
That is why we will vote against the Committee on Civil Liberties' amendments.
The refugee problem is an extremely serious human problem, but politics is the art of reality.
A few years ago, our colleague, Michel Rocard said that France could not accommodate all the poverty of the world.
I do not think that Europe can accommodate all the poverty of the world either, and it is a question, as far as we are concerned, of being able to organize cooperation and development policies for poor countries, to enable their inhabitants to prosper at home.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Vanhecke">
Madam President, the Kurdish refugee case is a current reminder that the problem of the asylum seeker is perhaps one of if not the greatest challenges for Europe in the coming years.
I should add, however, that the Kurdish problem is still very small in comparison to the tidal wave of millions which threatens to come our way if the situation in Algeria escalates any further.
But I am already wondering which European government will have the courage to call a halt to this tidal wave of millions, which, with all respect, would render today's debate on the registration of fingerprints totally obsolete.
We obviously support the Council's Eurodac proposal for a central fingerprints register for asylum seekers.
In my opinion it is one of very few interventions which might alleviate to a small extent, not enough, but to a small event the negative effects of the loss of border controls in the Schengen countries, which, for that matter, we continue to challenge.
<P>
We reject the amendments of the d'Ancona report equally obviously, amendments which on the one hand serve to hamper the much-needed fingerprints register, and on the other hand give the European Commission a decision-making position in asylum policy which the Commission is absolutely not entitled to.
<P>
Lastly, it is also my duty to broaden the debate a little, and to remind you that experience teaches us that, after investigation, more than 90 % of applications for asylum turn out to be completely unfounded.
This should be said now that so many politicians in my country and outside continue to argue for a kind of Santa Claus politics which is ultimately pursued on the back and at the expense of the less well-off and the poorest amongst our own people.
<P>
So to conclude, I repeat that in my view genuine political refugees should be received in countries neighbouring their countries of origin which have on the whole a similar way of life and culture, and therefore not in Europe, and that we are prepared to support this policy materially.
<P>
Secondly, we believe that illegal asylum seekers, in other words 90 % of applicants, should be categorically deported, yet in a humane manner.
Only then will renewed support be found in Europe to help all genuine refugees.
Today, sadly enough, yet for understandable reasons, this is certainly not the case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
Madam President, this Eurodac Convention is essential in order to get the Dublin Convention to work.
It is necessary for us in Europe to cooperate on questions of asylum seekers.
The current, tragic situation of the Kurdish refugees is an example.
It is necessary to have an effective and responsible asylum policy in the EU.
The issue is not who should have a right to asylum in the EU.
Rather the issue concerns a better sharing of the responsibility for refugees in Europe.
It is simply a matter of getting better tools to decide which Member State is responsible for dealing with an application for asylum which is submitted within the EU.
<P>
On the one hand we should avoid turning asylum seekers into political footballs between different countries because no-one wants to take responsibility for dealing with their case.
There are many tragic examples of cases where asylum seekers wait for years to get their applications processed, or are sent back and forth between different European countries because no-one wants to accept responsibility.
That is not the way for us to treat people who in many cases have escaped from oppression and torture.
On the other hand, we should prevent too much cheating.
It is important that every country is obliged to take fingerprints.
That is the only way that we can prevent asylum seekers changing identity after being turned down by one Member State.
If we have a database of fingerprints, we can uncover cheating and abuse immediately.
This would also be beneficial for genuine asylum seekers.
<P>
I am very pleased that the rapporteur emphasizes the fact that the setting up of this database must not mean that the asylum seekers' legal protection is compromised.
Asylum seekers have a right to data protection.
There should be security and control of the data, both in terms of who has access to it and who is able to use it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Reding">
Mr President, the recent upsurge of refugees arriving in Europe has had the merit of drawing attention to the problems of asylum seekers in the European Union.
<P>
The Eurodac system presented by the Commission is a response to one aspect of the problem.
The Dublin Convention did say that a refugee must apply for asylum in the first host country and comply with that country's decision, which would apply to the whole EU.
<P>
The Eurodac system is now trying to transpose that principle into reality, in order to ensure that certain people, without identification, do not travel from country to country, according to the welfare benefits they can obtain, whilst awaiting a decision.
Fingerprinting would make it possible for find out quickly, without having to wait a long time, whether the person in question applied for asylum in the first host country.
The main advantage of this system is its rapidity, which will therefore be of benefit to real refugees, who apply for asylum within the law, and will prevent others from taking unfair advantage of the hospitality of the Member States.
<P>
Eurodac is not a tool to be used for repression, to drive out refugees.
As was said yesterday evening, Europe must not be closed to refugees; it must remain open to people in distress.
Eurodac should, on the contrary, help contribute towards our ability to provide hospitality, whilst preventing abuse of the system.
The system is very often abused - as recent events have shown - by extremely well organised and well-informed criminals, who, for enormous sums of money, transport people in distress, and provide them with information about the loop-holes and weaknesses in the laws of EU countries.
<P>
Those who cry shame as soon as the word 'repression' is mentioned, disregard the fact that, to Mafias of all types, illegal border crossings are the most lucrative form of criminal activity after drug dealing.
<P>
During the debates on the Kurdish refugees, the need for European harmonization, with regard to asylum policy, suddenly became apparent.
Eurodac is one element of European cooperation, a tool to help us handle the arrival of refugees.
<P>
Although the Eurodac system must be welcomed as a technical instrument to prevent abuse, we should not lose sight of the root of the problem, that is, the situation in refugees' home countries.
It is here that European internal and foreign affairs policies should meet in order to form an overall, and therefore more effective approach.
<P>
The European Union must incorporate human rights considerations more fully into its relationship with such countries, support the reconciliation of people within the framework of the rule of law, and denounce the political, economic and cultural oppression of minorities.
The European Union is one of the largest distributors of economic aid throughout the world.
May we at the same time gain a reputation for our protection of democratic values!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
Mr President, Eurodac is part of a restrictive and to some extent brutalizing refugee policy which we can see developing in Western Europe today.
The countries of the EU are closing themselves more and more to large parts of the surrounding world.
Far too often refugees are treated in a shameful manner, as if they were criminals rather than people seeking protection.
<P>
The basis of Eurodac is that an application for asylum should only be dealt with in one Member State.
I do not share this basic view and therefore support paragraph 8 of the report, which I believe is absolutely crucial.
Every asylum seeker should be dealt with separately, regardless of whether they are included on such a database or not.
That is a fundamental point.
<P>
There are innumerable examples of asylum seekers who have been rejected by one EU country, but have later been able to seek asylum in another country and have had their applications accepted.
I myself have several personal friends who have managed to do that.
One wonders what is going to happen to them when this system begins to work in practice.
<P>
Taking fingerprints is an infringement of personal integrity.
An obligatory system of fingerprinting is ultimately based on the idea that people who do not want to give their fingerprints should be forced to do so, by violence in extreme cases.
This applies to children from the age of 14 upwards.
That is a serious infringement of personal integrity.
<P>
I believe this is not really necessary.
In Sweden we used to have a system which meant that only those who could not prove their identity in a reliable way were required to provide fingerprints.
That is a method which is entirely sufficient to clarify who the asylum seeker is.
<P>
In practice the asylum seekers cannot say no, because it would damage their case if they refused to provide fingerprints.
<P>
The draft convention also contains several other weaknesses.
I think the age limit of 14 has been set too low. It should be at least 18 or 21 years, or another age when a person may be regarded as an adult.
<P>
The requirement that data should be erased from the system is incomplete.
There are clear risks that people are going to be registered who are resident quite legally in various Member States.
We know that there are British and German reservations about the proposal which was discussed at the Ministers' meeting in December.
In that it is made clear that people who have a residence permit in a Member State should not be included on the database.
I believe it is a quite natural demand that has been made in connection with these negotiations, it is a demand for legal certainty.
<P>
It is also unclear, in spite of what is in the draft convention, what opportunities the asylum seekers actually have to get information, to be able to appeal and to assert their rights.
There is a similar system of control for the database in the Schengen Information System called JSA, Joint Supervisory Authority . At the moment that operates alarmingly badly.
We know that the supervision is poor, the legal certainty is weak and the opportunities to appeal are small.
I believe there is an obvious risk that there will be the same weaknesses in the Eurodac system which exist in the Schengen system today.
It is a system which means that in practice the refugee is always at a disadvantage.
<P>
With these words I want to show that I share much of the rapporteur's criticism.
She points out serious defects in the existing system.
I do not share her view that the Commission should have influence over this.
It is an intergovernmental issue and an issue for the Member States.
In spite of this criticism, I am going to vote for Mrs d'Ancona's report because it raises important issues about the Eurodac system.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lindeperg">
Mr President, I would first of all like to say to Mr Buffetaut who spoke earlier, that he did not quote Michel Rocard in full.
I would like to finish the quotation.
Michel Rocard did indeed say that France could not welcome all the poverty in the world, but he added that France should accept its full share.
I think that is important.
<P>
When we discuss the Eurodac report, we are right in the middle of the problems caused by non-harmonization of our immigration and asylum policies.
Yesterday, we had a debate on the arrival of Kurdish refugees in Italy, and we saw how difficult it is to discuss problems in the heat of the moment.
Although it was rightly emphasized that the Italian government's attitude is perfectly respectable, we also had to recognise that on the whole, the behaviour of EU countries is undecided and questionable, as we have failed to establish any prior agreement, upstream, on measures to be adopted in this type of situation.
<P>
The Eurodac project is part of the pursuit of harmonization of asylum practices.
I therefore agree with it in principle, provided of course that we are very watchful with regard to human rights, as Mrs d'Ancona said.
Her report makes provision for this and I support it.
But I should like above all to emphasize the need to progress rapidly towards the harmonization of asylum practices.
<P>
Madam Commissioner, you have made a proposal with regard to the temporary protection of displaced persons, which I have already had occasion to applaud.
But as you know, when the Council finally adopts that initiative, it will solve only part of the problem.
Because what have we seen with regard to applications for asylum in the EU for several years?
The number of requests for asylum peaked in 1992, and has since decreased every year.
National provisions have been adopted by many Member States to discourage people wanting to seek a better future in Europe, who are unable to enter Europe because of stricter immigration controls, from trying to obtain the status of refugee.
<P>
Such new provisions largely explain the decrease in asylum seekers.
But it therefore seems obvious that there should now be a higher rate of acceptance of applications.
But Mr President, Madam Commissioner, what we see taking place is exactly the opposite, the rate of acceptance is also decreasing.
<P>
Has the world suddenly become a haven of peace and prosperity?
Every day brings us new proof that it has not.
There is a simpler reason, that can be seen, the increasing timidity of Member States and the more and more repressive policies being set up.
The laws of some Member States interpret the Geneva Convention in a spirit contrary to its promoters.
People who are really persecuted are refused the status of refugee, on the grounds that their persecutors are not Government agents, and the Council ratified this restrictive interpretation in a resolution of March 1996.
As of course the risks such people run if they return are well known, they are tolerated within the EU, but without status or rights, in several of our Member States.
Some have already created a complementary protection status, others like my own, are working on it.
Madam Commissioner, would it not be preferable to have a common policy on this point, and to work towards the definition of a status of subsidiary protection at the European Union level?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pirker">
Mr President, it is the goal of the European Union to devise an asylum policy which helps the real refugees, that is those who are entitled to refugee status under the Geneva Convention, and, secondly, to prevent abuse of the right of asylum.
Amsterdam set the course for a route to a common asylum policy.
The Dublin Convention which is currently in force is a first, quite crucial step towards the development of a common asylum policy.
The tool we are now discussing, the Eurodac system, is a tool which ensures that those who need help actually get it and prevents those who are abusing the right of asylum from doing so.
So it is a good tool.
The proposal put to us by the Council is a tool which is acceptable and which helps to achieve the European Union's goals in terms of asylum policy.
<P>
What the committee with its restrictions and tendentious conclusions has made of it, on the other hand, does not help us achieve the goals we have set ourselves.
When you consider that if an application is re-presented, although it has been rejected by only one State, the same applicant and all his or her arguments have to be heard again in all the other Member States, this represents a huge amount of time and money.
Our systems are overloaded and at the end of the day we are unable to offer help or guarantee asylum.
<P>
As my second point, I should like to note here that, due to a proposal from the committee, it is not possible to compare fingerprints with those of applicants who have made applications in their own countries, even though this would show us that only a small proportion of the applicants are actually suitable candidates for asylum.
These are single figure percentages in each of the countries, which, in fact, means that very many applications are made without grounds.
I know of cases in which up to ten applications for asylum have been made in different states and yet people still say that the right of asylum in Europe is not abused.
We have to do something about it.
We need to ensure that, in general, those who support the fingerprinting of applicants for asylum are not looked at disapprovingly; otherwise, we would be giving the wrong signals and going down the wrong path.
<P>
We need the Eurodac System because it supports a good and proper asylum policy and is designed to stop abuse.
So we will support Eurodac in the form that has been proposed by the Council.
However, I - and this also applies to the European People's Party Group - cannot endorse the proposals coming from the committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the opportunity which the Eurodac System will afford us in terms of fighting the current abuse of the asylum application system, for a great number of reasons, must be welcomed.
If it should be possible, through the use of fingerprinting systems and the storage of fingerprints to prevent multiple applications, irrespective of the reasons for which they are: on social, economic or family grounds, because people do not want to stay in one place and decide to make an application somewhere else, that is OK.
<P>
But time and time again we restrict these debates which we are having on the right of asylum here today to technical debates.
We did it yesterday, and we are doing it again this morning.
Let us ask ourselves the question once and for all: Why is it that we are obliged to talk about a Eurodac system at all?
Why, as soon as the discussion turns to asylum, do we always concentrate on abuses of the right of asylum in a criminal context?
<P>
Mr Pirker, for eleven years I have been the Mayor of a German town which lies on the Dutch and Belgian borders.
The town of which I am Mayor has the highest percentage of refugees from the Bosnian civil war.
Most of them came to my town from Srebrenica und Gorazde. We took them in and then we had to beg them to declare themselves asylum seekers because Germany does not recognise a right of asylum for refugees from civil wars.
In Germany there is no legal basis for refugees from civil war.
<P>
I have begged these people to claim asylum, though they say they are not victims of political persecution, but are fleeing from a civil war and want to return to their country when the civil war is over.
Which is just what they have been doing since the Dayton Agreement!
I was forced to ask them to consider themselves as asylum seekers, which meant that they were forced to stay in my town.
If they had gone anywhere else, which would have made me for one very happy since it would have meant a little respite for my finances, someone like Mr Pirker would have come along and said: Just a minute, Eurodac, fingerprinting system for asylum seekers, you can't go there!
<P>
With this small example, I am trying to illustrate the fact that the European Union's refugee policy needs to be a combination of various different areas of policy.
For time and time again we face a situation in which people say: I want to emigrate to the European Union.
It is possible, in theory.
It might not be advisable because of the great defensive front, but if someone wants to emigrate he is allowed to in principle and so we need to create an appropriate new legal base.
We do not have one.
There is no European immigration law, there are no national immigration laws.
We force people who want to migrate here to assume the status of an asylum seeker.
That is the danger we ourselves are creating for the right of asylum!
<P>
In the European Union we always adopt the same approach: we deny the fact that Europe is a continent which attracts immigrants, even though it is due to the poverty gap for which we are in part responsible, in particular the difference in poverty levels between the north and the south as well as between the west and the east, along with the lack of willingness on the part of some EU Member States to share their wealth.
This will be shown very clearly in the remainder of the debate.
Naturally, our wealth has a magnetic effect on the poorer regions which surround us.
The answer to the problem cannot be defence, it must lie in control, and particularly in three interlinking areas of the law: immigration quotas, clear rules for the acceptance of refugees from civil wars needing temporary protection and, finally, the core of political persecution which is then no longer a problem. And even then you don't need Eurodac!
<P>
If you think that you can solve the problem at the inter-state level, colleagues in the PPE, let me tell you today: Forget it!
You have created the European Economic Area, you have created a de facto EU state, but now you want to continue the process, focusing on specifics, dissected for want of long-needed progress in terms of harmonization.
If we do not remove this disfunctionality, Europe will fail its own citizens as a result of this imbalance.
You should be a little more harmonization-friendly in matters of integration, not just in matters of defence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="Gradin">
Mr President, let me begin by congratulating the rapporteur, Mrs d'Ancona, on a good and thorough report on the Eurodac Convention.
I also welcome the quick reading which the matter has received here in Parliament.
<P>
When we discuss the Eurodac Convention, we must do so in the light of the Dublin Convention, because that is where we find the criteria for which Member State is responsible for the examination of an application for asylum.
That is also where to find the rules on how an asylum seeker may be returned to the country which is to decide the application for asylum.
<P>
The Dublin Convention was signed in June 1990.
Seven years later, in September last year, it entered into force.
However, it is not enough to have a legal system for the first asylum principle and for it to be able to work.
That is why the Dublin Convention refers to Article 15, paragraph 12, and the fact that we need computerization of information about the identity of asylum seekers.
It is in that context that Eurodac comes in as a complement.
It is, after all, as a complement to the Dublin Convention that Eurodac should be seen.
<P>
Through Eurodac it will be possible to find out whether asylum applications are being made in several places by one and the same person.
It is important for us to know that if the Dublin Convention is to function effectively at all.
That is in turn only possible through a computerized system for fingerprints, which is found in the Eurodac Convention.
<P>
We are working within an institutional framework which is in a state of change.
The draft Eurodac Convention we are debating here today has been drawn up under the rules of the Maastricht Treaty.
The Commission is aware that the Amsterdam Treaty means another institutional framework, but we do not think that we can wait until this new Treaty enters into force. We need the Eurodac system now if the Dublin Convention is to be able to be credible and effective.
Like Mr Nassauer, I think it is important that we have a quick procedure and that people are informed very quickly about the situation they are in.
I also think this is demonstrated by recent events in Italy, i.e. that we need a different system to the one we have today.
At the same time I would like to emphasize that if the Eurodac Convention is not in force when the Amsterdam Treaty is ratified, the Commission will of course come back and propose a Community instrument.
<P>
The Commission shares Parliament's view that the Convention should be entirely in agreement with the rules on data protection, which I think it is in its current form.
During the discussion on the proposal the Commission urged that the principles of data protection should be in agreement with the Community's rules in this area, even though the Regulation on Data Protection is not applicable in the third pillar area.
I think that we have now reached an acceptable level of data protection.
We should therefore support the compromise on Article 6 which requires that after a five year period the Council of Ministers should consider whether it is still necessary to keep data on people who are granted refugee status.
<P>
The Commission also welcomes a number of the amendments which have been proposed.
That includes in particular Amendments Nos 1, 11, 16, 19, 20, 27, 29, 30 and 34 which we are now considering.
Amendment No 20 includes parts which we can accept, particularly the principle on decisions with regard to implementation measures and that they should be carried by majority decision.
<P>
Finally, I would like to underline the fact that Eurodac's operation is going to be entirely dependent on how we manage the financing, both with regard to setting up the system and the operation itself.
It is my hope that the principle of Community financing will be adopted and that is also what the Commission supports.
If that is the case, the European Parliament will have a decisive role to play in how the future Eurodac shall operate.
The Commission looks forward to being able to deal with the question of Eurodac's financing together with the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Gradin.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place today at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Green Paper on the statutory auditor
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="President">
The next item is the report by Mrs Sierra González (A4-0373/97), on the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the Green Paper on the role, the position and the liability of the statutory auditor within the European Union (COM(96)0338 - C4-0451/96).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="Sierra González">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, a series of recent financial collapses, which have had serious consequences for investors, have brought to the fore the question of liability in financial accounts as well as the role played by the auditor.
<P>
The question deserves particular attention for two reasons: firstly, since the auditor has become responsible for the accuracy of financial statements; and secondly, since there is no uniform legislative framework within the European Union relating to the role, the position and the liability of the statutory auditor, to respond to society's demand for better and more transparent information concerning companies' accounts.
<P>
With the appearance of new company and business models, as well as new financial products, the auditor's report has taken on not only an extremely important role but also acquired features relating to its independence and professional nature.
In the Green Paper the lack of a common position or joint action within the European Union has been assessed as a negative factor.
<P>
In regard to the statutory auditor's role, there is no specific Community directive regulating all its legal aspects.
Such a need is catered for only through reference to prejudiced questions contained in various different directives. In addition to this, the basic national legislation of Member States, where regulations are normally not specific, is normally used when considering this diverse and varied situation.
<P>
From the plans drawn up for both the single market and the single currency it would seem appropriate to move towards common action.
However, the Commission expresses doubts in the Green Paper in regard to the fund and as to how the appropriate legal means will shape any joint action.
Sometimes the need to establish minimum principles is referred to, while at other times the possibility of making a single recommendation to the Member States is mentioned.
Given this situation we must call on the Commission to set out its objectives in the short and medium term, for the creation and operation of an internal market for auditing, as well as a timetable and the measures which must be adopted or rejected.
<P>
In any case, the need to press ahead with legislative action to harmonize the minimum content of audit reports cannot be delayed.
<P>
The Green Paper seems to tend towards establishing a common concept of auditing or establishing a set of objectives to be followed by this entire sector throughout the European Union, and which can then be used to define the obligations or legal requirements which the auditor will have to fulfil in carrying out his role.
<P>
The problematic nature of this issue comes from the fact that, although it is recognized throughout the Member States that auditing should have a common objective, namely to guarantee that the accounts, financial statements and assets published offer an exact and fair picture of a company's situation, the legislation, customs and practices of Member States vary considerably, and this affects the efficiency of the audit trail.
<P>
There again, I should point out that the accuracy of reports is dependent on the truthfulness of the information the auditor receives.
The Commission's idea to present a draft recommendation to improve the management of companies in Member States is, in this sense, very relevant.
<P>
Finally I would like to voice a complaint that we have not had access to the study which the Commission has begun on the impact of different national legislations in the matter of civil liability. Nor have we had access to the provisional conclusions of the conference held in December 1996 to discuss the Green Paper.
It is clear that Parliament will not be able to decide on this issue without full knowledge of the facts. Of course, in every country in the European Union, the auditor is potentially subject to both criminal and civil liability and to professional sanctions.
However, the kinds of liability and time periods allowed vary from one country to another. Therefore, while adequate legal recourse is not available, it seems that to protect users - in the widest sense of the term - we have to study the possibility of every auditor having minimum obligatory insurance equivalent in every Member State or making it compulsory to be affiliated to a guarantee fund.
<P>
To conclude, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the technical subcommittee - within the planned contact committee on accountancy directives - must involve representation for a wide range of people who use the audit reports, because the outcome of accounting reports is not only the responsibility of professional auditors.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="Oddy">
Mr President, this is an important report on the Commission's Green Paper on the statutory audit, and I wish to thank Mrs Sierra González for the completeness and thoroughness of her report.
<P>
This is an important subject: it ensures the solvency and financial probity of companies and it is especially important in view of the limited liability of companies.
It must be in the interests of the consumer, the investor and the company itself that reliance can be placed on the company's accounts.
<P>
The report deals with five main themes, in my view: the role of the auditor itself, the liability of auditors, the qualifications of auditors and professional regulation, the mobility of auditors in the European Union, and the need for universal standards for the statutory audit.
<P>
I particularly agree with the rapporteur's recommendations in paragraph 11 that auditors should have a minimum level of compulsory insurance and be required to join a guarantee fund.
My group will be supporting the report and, in particular, the amendment by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, which adds to the clarity and certainty of paragraph 7.
<P>
I wish to highlight one particular concern: it is believed that Article 51 of the Fourth Company Law Directive has not been properly implemented in Italian law.
It is estimated that 100 000 companies are not receiving a statutory audit in Italy, which puts in danger the reliance which can be placed on the accounts of these particular companies.
It would be helpful if the Commission could address this question, and I understand the Commission has already sent Italy a reasoned opinion in respect of the Eighth Company Law Directive relating to the professional qualifications of auditors.
<P>
In conclusion, this may appear to be a dry subject but is in fact of great importance for the proper functioning of the economy in the European Union; it is a measure of protection for consumers and investors and should be supported for those very reasons.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Madam Commissioner, it is difficult to add anything else to what the previous speakers have said in regard to the importance of the statutory audit.
It is difficult because, in an ever more complex society, you will frequently find different interpretations as to the legal parameters of the companies being expressed.
And I am only going to quote two examples, which the rapporteur has pointed out with the accuracy which has characterized all her work. Two of the examples she has mentioned, financial engineering - the socalled financial engineering - or the qualification of credits can spoil the given picture, which is a true and real picture, the one set down in the company's accounts.
<P>
Such ambiguity, of course, makes it necessary to look back to the security of mercantile traffic, for society as a whole, between the services of these professionals which, to give them their due, have to respond to the features of independence, free competition, responsibility and clear rules which have been mentioned.
But these are concerns which worry everybody - states, companies, consumers alike.
Perhaps we should also mention that there has been competition since the treaties, that is to say competition to shape the internal market.
<P>
Firstly that competition is exclusive; we are not dealing with areas of shared competition where the principle of subsidiarity acts as an authoritative principle for that competition.
Here competition belongs to the European Institutions.
That should be made perfectly clear.
It has been pointed out, but it must be emphasized.
<P>
Secondly, without doubt, this has to be set against the question of how far is it necessary to take action.
However much competition is exclusive, no-one considers it appropriate to act more than is strictly necessary to achieve the objectives of harmonization and consolidation of the internal market which the Treaties specify.
For that reason, if spontaneous harmonization of these rules could be produced, which have been shown, day after day, to be completely different in the Member States, this task of setting rules and regulations - that is community competition - would not need to be carried out.
In this case, as in so many others, the best authority is the one which does not have to take action but may initiate the action process.
<P>
In this sense I wish to emphasize that the sectors concerned are carrying out an important consultation programme, within the Member States, in order to attain such spontaneous harmonization.
<P>
So as it is, we have community competition which must be put into practice.
Indeed it has been put into practice.
Not only the Fourth Directive for accountancy, which has been mentioned, but the Seventh Directive too and the Bank sector and Insurance directives refer to the function of the statutory audit.
<P>
And it is certain, as has also been said, that in some cases - specifically in Article 51 of the Fourth Directive relating to annual accounts - it is not administered very well, but today we are discussing about another question: about lege ferenda , for which we must establish norms.
<P>
This is a problem.
Certainly, the matter of excessive concentration in large auditing companies is a process in which we are immersed. No longer do we have the big six, but now even less than that and recently we have often had occasion to listen to or read such news in the media - which does not affect the Green Paper; they are questions concerning the Department of Competition in the Commission and, certainly too, it is the Commission's task to monitor the strict application of the Treaties.
<P>
Here we are talking about something else.
We are talking about what must be done, about how to establish standards in order to reach such an internal market, to establish coherent and harmonized rules in the different Member States. Mrs Sierra's report, which takes up the idea from the Committee, is one that the Group of the European People's Party - on whose behalf I am speaking - is going to support with the qualification that it puts forward in the amendment set down in paragraph 7, about which I will now speak.
Basically, this concerns the contents of the auditing reports. It cannot be that in one Member State such obligatory content is one thing and in another something entirely different, regarding the external and internal auditor, the practice of that profession - this is a liberal institution -, the creation of subsidiaries and the guarantee for the free flow of these services.
<P>
Likewise the idea from the technical committee becomes clear - as has already been mentioned - and, finally, we need to set clear limits on what are parallel services, which in a straightforward, trading and entrepreneurial expansion auditing companies tend to deliver.
<P>
This need to be independent, this need to portray an unbiased view, and to show that they are absolutely unconnected with the company that they are auditing, ensures that they have to guarantee not to prejudge any solutions; this is the point of the PPE amendment . However, the Commission needs to address the problem of how to establish or guarantee such independence, particularly in relation to legal services since, the legal adviser is an independent professional but one who is partisan, who is within the company, who has his own interests.
His role has to be well and clearly separated from the role of the auditor who, and I finish with this, if he is to be anything, must be totally independent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, let me start by thanking the rapporteur for her careful and extremely in-depth report.
The previous speaker said that a over-concentration of accountancy firms is taking place.
The rapporteur says the two things are unrelated, but they are definitely related.
Just as the large financial conglomerates, the banks and the insurance companies, have now merged, we are also seeing that in the service industries all kinds of professional groups are now amalgamating; lawyers, notaries, tax specialists, and consultants.
Now it appears that the accountant, previously the prototype of a dry, upright figure working on his own who would only get a look in to see that figures entered in the books were correct, has now become someone who also intervenes in what happens in companies. Herein lies the responsibility of the Commission given the fact that there is no harmonized European fiscal legislation.
How can we tackle this?
<P>
It appears that these international mergers between large accountancy firms and consultants are indeed due to this fact, and that the Commission neglected once again to achieve fiscal harmonization, which plays an important role while the Member States did not get involved because they did not want to. However, the Commission is in favour of it.
This also means that the professional risks accountants run at the moment differ widely.
Because they vary between billions in the case of the BCCI to a legally limited risk of DM 500 000 in the Federal Republic.
This is such a big difference, Mr President, that something simply must be done about it.
<P>
We do not want accumulation.
That is why we submitted our amendment to paragraph 7.
I think the amendment by Mrs Palacio goes just a little too far; it leaves too much room for manoeuvre.
It is crucial for the consumer and for small companies, that in addition to pure control, a mild form of consultation is allowed to continue.
We would like to retain this for the benefit of the consumer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Kellett-Bowman">
Mr President, Mrs Sierra González has tackled a variety of complex issues in her report.
However, in commenting on the Commission's Green Paper I believe it is our task to pose questions and to point directions rather than to deal with it as if it were legislation.
<P>
There are micro and macro sides to the problems.
The micro aspect covers minimum standards for the auditing exercise.
Financial reports of any enterprises, including trusts and charities, should be subject to similar rules right across the Community, and there should be mutual recognition of the qualifications of those empowered to sign audit reports.
<P>
The Commission has not been very successful in bringing about the implementation of all the directives which have already been placed on the statute book.
Article 51 of the Fourth Directive has been mentioned by two colleagues, and implementation of the Eighth Directive in all Member States also calls for more work by the Commission.
Of course it would be helpful if all the Member States had similar statutory requirements of financial accounts, and that is something which is yet to come.
<P>
From the macro point of view it must be recognized that business has gone global during the time that we have been trying to achieve harmonized audit standards.
Multinational companies, international companies and - hopefully one day - European companies will require harmonized audit rules to be in place.
Naturally, the professions have moved with the times themselves and several auditing firms have become global in their activity.
I feel a personal worry about the over-concentration of these firms into too few hands.
It is my belief that there should be at least five multinational audit groups in the world.
This is more necessary now that these firms offer advice and consultancy.
Shareholders need to know that advice being offered to their companies is truly independent.
The theory of Chinese walls is not good enough.
Of course I realise Commissioner Gradin will tell me that the regulations concerning those problems are not part of this exercise, but those problems are looming and need to be ventilated and understood.
<P>
Paragraph 7 has caused some problems and the wording of Amendment No 1 by Mrs Palacio does not in fact make absolutely clear what she intended, but her explanation this morning in the debate has made it clear that we can support that amendment.
This group supports Mrs González's report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="Gradin">
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Gradin.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place today at 12: 00.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Alpine transit
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions:
<P>
B4-1009/97 - O-0111/97, by Mr Simpson, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to the Commission, on negotiations between the UN and Switzerland on overland transport; -B4-1014/97 - O-0138/97, by Mr Kreissl-Dörfler and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, to the Commission, on EU-Switzerland negotiations on land transport; -B4-1105/97 - O-0180/97, by Mr Jarzembowski, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, to the Commission, on negotiations between the European Union and Switzerland in the land transport sector; -B4-1106/97 - O-0181/97, by Mr Santini, on behalf of the Group Union for Europe, to the Commission, on Alpine transit; -B4-1107/97 - O-0183/97, by Mr Wijsenbeek, on behalf of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, to the Commission, on Alpine transit; -B4-1108/97 - O-0184/97, by Mrs Leperre-Verrier, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, to the Commission, on Alpine transit; -B4-1015/97 - O-0185/97, by Mr Puerta and Mr Papyannakis, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, to the Commission, on Alpine transit.

<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="Simpson">
Mr President, my remarks will be very much tailored towards the Commission.
This particular issue - the issue of a transit agreement with Switzerland - has involved a long-running series of negotiations.
It is rather like climbing a ladder: we seem to go up one or two rungs and then something happens which means that we slip down one or two rungs and end up right back where we started.
<P>
At the moment, the problem seems to centre around the level of road tax levy on heavy goods vehicles passing through Swiss territory.
We need to recognize that other problems arise because of this lack of an agreement.
The congestion in Austria and Italy on the Brenner route is now so serious that the environment is being totally devastated and people who are avoiding Switzerland face great hold-ups.
But there is also congestion on the French side of the Alps.
The EU Member States are facing problems because we have failed to reach an agreement with the Swiss.
<P>
We must also recognize the need to protect the Alpine environment, including the Alpine areas of Switzerland.
The Swiss Government has, in recent weeks, shown some flexibility in the negotiations.
That is to be welcomed.
However, we need an agreement urgently - not at any cost, that has to be stated - that recognizes the needs and aspirations of both the European Union and Switzerland.
<P>
I am grateful for the efforts in the past of Commissioner Kinnock and of the recent presidencies of the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
The fact that the UK Presidency has taken on board this issue of an agreement shows how important it is.
<P>
We need an agreement.
We can all go to the barricades and defend our strong positions.
The Swiss can hide behind the Alps.
The European Union can hide behind its need for this transit.
But if we do that, then the danger is that we will not get an agreement and the people who will suffer are the people of Austria, in the Brenner, of France and of Italy.
<P>
Therefore I ask for a redoubling of our efforts to try to get this important transit agreement with Switzerland signed, sealed and delivered.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dijk">
Mr President, my group would like the Commission, in this case Commissioner van de Broek, to tell us whether the European efforts during the negotiations with Switzerland can be reconciled with the obligations the European Union committed itself to at an earlier time?
I am referring on the one hand to the transit agreement with Switzerland, but on the other hand to the Alpine Convention.
According to the Alpine Convention which was signed by all Member States, and is therefore simply binding on us, the Union has committed itself to making efforts to switch transport across the Alps from road to rail.
<P>
It says in the transit agreement that lorries passing through Switzerland must be charged the external costs, in particular the environmental costs.
In the light of the obligations I do not consider it justifiable for the Commission and the Council to resist Switzerland's ambitions for a sufficiently high levy on heavy goods vehicles to bring about an actual transfer from road to rail.
<P>
I would like to recall once more the Swiss referendum of 1994 which laid down that transit traffic must switch to rail before the year 2005.
In the current negotiations with Switzerland, the Union is showing disgracefully little respect for the constitution of Switzerland, which is, after all, a sovereign country.
Neighbourliness is cynically sacrificed to the interests of the road haulage lobby.
I have to add, in particular Dutch road haulage, in this case.
<P>
To my regret Minister Jorritsma is allowing himself to be used by the Netherlands, distribution country par excellence, as a kind of ventriloquist's dummy.
Last Tuesday, this Parliament, in Mr Sarlis' report, underlined once again that transalpine transport should occur by rail as much as possible.
We must be consistent, we must ensure that we actually realize this, and this means that we will have to take steps towards Switzerland.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
Mr President, I cannot entirely agree with the previous speaker, although I would like to.
This is not a question of Dutch interests, if it were I should indeed be on your side, rather it is a question of Greek, Italian, Austrian, German, French and English interests.
And I could cite many other Member States.
Quite simply, we need to transit through the Alps.
As far as we are concerned, it is not acceptable for the Swiss to say: We are happy in our isolation. Do whatever you want in the Brenner.
Do whatever you want in France.
We're shutting up shop and going home! My dear colleague, we could also let the Swiss know that anyone who makes it economically impossible for us to transit through Switzerland should watch out that we don't make coming out of Switzerland economically impossible, not to put to fine a point on it!
<P>
It is not acceptable that the interests of our businessmen and consumers are treated as if we constantly have to kowtow.
Quite the opposite, we can use a two-track approach.
We want to protect the environment.
We want to move to rail. But I see no evidence that what the Swiss government wanted to do in order to move to rail has actually happened yet.
To be honest, neither can I see any evidence that the Austrians, the Germans and the Italians are making as much progress with the Brenner Base Tunnel as they should be.
But we can't blame the fact that we haven't got further with the railway on the heavy goods transporters and then clout them with exorbitant charges.
<P>
Let me say it once quite bluntly: It is not acceptable for the Swiss to expect us to be grateful for dropping their claim for the passage from 410 to 360 Swiss francs.
That is still unacceptable.
We must tell the Swiss this. We must also tell them that they are part of a larger picture, namely the land transport debate.
There are also many other issues which play a role in the negotiations.
Our colleagues in Switzerland will have to think about what it is they want.
<P>
I don't mind taking the part of the Swiss government.
Thanks to their constitution they are in an extremely difficult position.
However, I don't think they can simply announce that they're introducing an output-related heavy goods vehicle tax, say this is our standard and expect the rest of Europe to fall into line, just because they, the Swiss, say so!
We can't work together on that basis.
I hope that the Swiss recognise that workers in Greece and Italy also have an interest in getting their goods to market.
<P>
For this reason I believe we must tell the Swiss that we cannot and will not accept exorbitant charges.
I would also say to some of the members of this House, including my colleague Mrs van Dijk: I often hear you say: If you would drop at least as far as the Austrian Brenner rate, we would be happy.
My response is No!
If my memory serves me correctly, this Parliament supported the Commission in its legal action against the last toll increase in the Brenner.
I would like to remind you that the Commission won't forget that.
And so we should both press for a quick agreement with the Swiss.
But, as Brian Simpson said, not at any price.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Santini">
Mr President, it seems clear that there are two main players involved in this game. On one side there are the citizens of Europe who, when it comes to this type of regulation, tend to defend their own territory, the environment, and thus their own lives; and on the other side - and we cannot dismiss these concerns - there are the needs of, for example, the road hauliers and all economic sectors linked to that activity.
If not lives, there are certainly jobs to be defended on that side.
So the Commission has a delicate role to play in the negotiations between Switzerland and the European Union.
Everyone knows that the results of this agreement will also determine the transit conditions for all the other Community Alpine passes, starting with the Brenner, certainly the most delicate, the key point in the great north-south linkage, above all on completion - as soon as possible we hope - of the great rail axis linking, to take a rather optimistic view, Stockholm and Palermo.
<P>
But we must return to the narrow scope of the Alpine passes.
A Commission document says that the level of the future road tax should be directly linked to the effective infrastructure costs, and this also relates to the negotiations with Switzerland.
Those costs include the maintenance and modernization of the infrastructure, but not new building or the external costs of road transport.
<P>
In parallel, the European Union maintains that the level of road tax in Switzerland should be comparable to that applying to the Brenner.
Clearly there are very close connections between the two dossiers.
Apparently, Commissioner Kinnock actually hoped to be able to conclude the negotiations with Switzerland prior to agreement by the Fifteen on the Euro-stamp.
Austria was hoping so too because, in short, they were waiting to find out what the Swiss toll would be so as to apply a heavier one to the Brenner and thus encourage the largest lorries to go through Switzerland.
They are just keeping to the rules of the game, in sporting terms, and the Commission needs to be very careful to referee properly, because the agreement with Switzerland is at stake and so is internal credibility.
<P>
The Brenner has already received special treatment in the great Alpine passes dispute thanks, remember, to a compromise plan based on four main points: a different tariff system, with vehicles classified Euro 0, Euro I and Euro II; a reduction of 50 % for countries like Greece and Ireland which have asked for this special tariff because of their geographic location; temporary derogations, up to the end of 1999, for Spain, France, Italy, Portugal and Greece. But there is also a general Alpine clause, with a specific fiscal regime for the Brenner already identified.
So I would like the Commissioner to explain the purpose of these guidelines, how the negotiations with Switzerland may alter them, as there are also figures given by the Commission: for example a daytime toll of ECU 72 is mentioned for a Euro 0 lorry, that is, a lorry in the four axles and over category, with ECU 165 for a night crossing.
<P>
This situation becomes even more acute if we take a look at the statistics, which are important and show that in 2001 only 15 % of transit will be by rail and water and 81 % by road; at the moment the equivalent percentage is 72 %.
So a solution must be urgently found, alongside the one, Mr Commissioner, mentioned here many times, of completing the rail infrastructure to give the road hauliers a genuine alternative.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, it is high time something was done.
Because as long as the agreement has not been signed, there are unnecessary traffic diversions.
This also means that where the lorries cross the Brenner route, we are giving the Austrians an opportunity to squeeze us unilaterally.
<P>
It is good that the Commission is presently initiating a procedure against this.
Mrs van Dijk and Mr Voggenhuber may keep repeating over and over again that freight has got to go by rail, but there are no facilities.
There are too few facilities for getting lorries onto the railways.
The height of the Lötschberg and Gotthard Tunnels have not been altered yet, and in Austria, absolutely nothing has been done about the Brenner railway.
<P>
This means that we find ourselves in a situation in which we simply have to reach an agreement.
That is also the fault of the Member States, which have left the Commission too little room to manoeuvre in the mandate.
<P>
In a word, we agree that in the negotiations with Switzerland we must start with the right measurements.
As a Community we therefore have to contribute to the fact that the Swiss in the new alpine transit tunnel agreement have promised us to alter, and indeed are in the process of, altering the height of two tunnels.
They have stopped the work on one of the tunnels in the meantime, and it is still not possible to get on the train in Basel and to get off again at Chiasso.
The Swiss had promised this.
<P>
In a word, I would like to call on the Commission once more to enter into the negotiations in all peacefulness and openness.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Leperre-Verrier">
Mr President, we meet here today to discuss an important question.
For months, negotiations with Switzerland have been at a standstill because of the transport problem.
We therefore urgently need to take stock of the progress of our relationship with our Alpine neighbour.
It seems that the Swiss authorities have agreed to make concessions.
We therefore would like the Commission to give us some specific information on progress, which has been mentioned in the press.
In fact, the problem of crossing Switzerland is of some consequence with regard to road traffic in the whole of the Alps.
<P>
For that reason, I and the whole of my group consider that the EU's relationship with Switzerland with regard to transport cannot be isolated from the overall context of Alpine transit, and that the disastrous effects of the increase in road traffic on the environment must be taken into consideration urgently.
Let me give a single example: the level of pollution in the valley of Chamonix is as high as in a large town because of the Mont Blanc Tunnel.
It is therefore understandable that the inhabitants of the Mont-Blanc area, and also the Val d'Aosta area, should express concern with regard to the possible construction of a second tunnel.
<P>
However, there are solutions.
First of all, settling the dispute with Switzerland and setting up a pricing system, which will encourage the use of pollution control equipment.
Secondly, and this is a very important aspect, promoting rail transport and developing piggyback transport systems.
Of course, the changeover from road to rail will be expensive, and will necessitate large investments.
But do not let us forget that this is a solution for the future.
Within this context, the Lyon to Turin HST link, including freight transport, when the Monmélian to Turin rail tunnel is built, will facilitate combined transport in the Alps.
<P>
It is therefore necessary to make this project a reality and for the Member States to commit themselves to building the necessary infrastructures.
Furthermore, special attention should be paid to the rail project linking Geneva via Mâcon, Bourg-en-Bresse or Chambéry.
<P>
The new President of the Swiss Republic has made optimistic remarks on the future relationship between the European Union and Switzerland.
Let us hope that it will enable us to sort out this difficult situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Leperre-Verrier.
Ladies and gentlemen, there is something I wanted to ask you.
Mr Baldarelli has asked if he can bring his speech forward as he has to leave immediately for Italy.
<P>
I do not have competence to change the order of the agenda and the order of precedence in the right to speak, but, if no-one objects, I could satisfy Mr Baldarelli's request with the recommendation that he shorten his speech.
If no-one objects, that is what I will do.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
Mr President, I think we should hear the Commissioner and then no one else, otherwise we will have to plan another round.
It is not acceptable that anyone should be given preference.
I suggest that the Commissioner speak, that we finish and take the vote.
No other speakers should be allowed to speak after the Commissioner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Jarzembowski.
Naturally, there is an objection.
Mr Baldarelli, I cannot grant your request.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="van de Broek">
Mr President, this debate is certainly taking place at an interesting time, both because of the phase which the negotiations with Switzerland have now reached, and because the current phase in the internal discussion within the Union is particularly centred on road transport charging.
As the honourable Members of Parliament know, realistic progress was made during the most recent Transport Council last month.
The Commission continues to hope that during the presidency, our work concerning the most important obstacles can be completed in a satisfactory way.
<P>
I would like to point out that although this debate is concentrating on transport problems, the negotiations with Switzerland cover a large number of dossiers, and that the agreement within the Union, which the Commission also wishes to retain, is that the negotiations in the different sectors must be brought to a balanced completion, both within the sectors as such, and between the sectorial dossiers.
<P>
As far as overland transport is concerned, we have always striven towards laying the foundations for the gradual development of a cohesive policy and the achievement of comparable conditions for sustainable transport across the Alps.
We have made considerable progress towards agreement with the Swiss, and agree with Switzerland on the following points.
Increases in the maximum weight of lorries in Switzerland from 28 to 40 tonnes in two phases, which will commence in 2001 and which must be completed in 2005.
This in combination with the introduction of a new charging system on a kilometre basis for road transport in Switzerland.
<P>
Second point of agreement: liberalization and adjustment of the promise concerning the infrastructure development for railway corridors through Switzerland.
Also liberalization with regard to railway capacity, and as regards the quality and price of the service, in particular for combined transport, as well as a more liberal promise with regard to the integration of the Swiss railway system within the same legislative context in which it also exists in the Union.
Moreover, on the development of so-called high speed freight freeways.
<P>
Suitable protective measures have been agreed to remedy the imbalances within Alpine transport.
Lastly, agreement on a number of improvements which can be made immediately on access and transit opportunities for 40 tonne lorries.
<P>
As you are aware, there are still considerable differences of opinion on a number of not insignificant details.
Particularly as far as the tolls for driving on Swiss roads, to be set in 2001 and 2005, respectively, are concerned.
Other complex problems relate to the possible levying of tolls on the four most important passes through the Swiss Alps, a ban on night journeys, and transition quotas for 40 tonne lorries.
The Swiss have expressed their sympathy for the Union's concerns, and as the negotiations progressed, have showed themselves willing to make efforts to meet those concerns on a large number of points.
Now that there is a realistic political willingness on both sides, it can be reasonably assumed that the remaining differences of opinion will also be ironed out.
<P>
So far as the so-called equal treatment is concerned, the Commission can confirm that the principle of nondiscrimination would form an integral part in the future agreement with Switzerland, and that both parties agree on this point.
<P>
Last year during the talks about the proposal for a Commission Directive concerning user rights for the roads, the so-called Euro-sticker problem, the Transport Council was not prepared to accept the opinions of the Commission on the concept of sensitive areas.
<P>
The Council is now looking at the possibility of including an Alpine clause, so that within certain obvious limits, and under certain conditions, a higher user's levy could be applied on the relevant Austrian route, a higher user's levy than the average charge.
This clause, combined with a satisfactory outcome to the negotiations with Switzerland, is intended to help spread traffic over the entire Alpine region in a sustainable way, and that this is maintained.
Both the Commission and the Council have pointed out emphatically that, either during the negotiations with Switzerland, or during the talks on the Alpine clause, we cannot agree to an outcome which would make the Alpine route exorbitantly expensive.
<P>
To answer Mrs van Dijk, the European Community is obviously party to the Alpine Treaty.
Parliament can therefore rely on the Commission to see to it that the Community will meet its obligations under the Alpine Treaty, and will attune its transport policy to the aims of the Treaty.
The Commission does believe, however, that little will be achieved by designating the entire Alps a sensitive region.
It would be much more useful if agreement could be reached within the Union about the Transport Protocol in the Alpine Convention.
Regrettably one Member State as yet has not been able to agree with the proposals which are acceptable to all parties entering into the agreement.
<P>
To conclude, Mr President, it should be mentioned that the Commission was pleased with the result of the Transport Council of the past month in which the Member States asked the Commission to continue negotiations on the basis of Switzerland's most recent proposal, and to prepare an agreement which, amongst other things, will provide for charges based on infrastructure costs, and which provides for an increase of the quota for 40 tonne lorries for the period 1999-2005.
No doubt this matter will be looked at again during the next Transport Council in March, after which the Commission will obviously inform this Parliament of the latest developments via the usual channels.
<P>
In view of the magnitude of the issue and the lack of time, Mr President, I do not want to go into all the other aspects.
I hope that the esteemed members of Parliament will understand this, and I for my part will of course try to formulate an answer to specific questions at the end of this debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="President">
The debate will continue at 3 p.m. this afternoon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Tomlinson">
Mr President, on a point of order.
There is a rumour going round that a recent edition of the Official Journal, published in the Finnish language, has had to be scrapped and is about to be reprinted.
I should like to ask the presidency to look into this and report back to Parliament the full circumstances.
<P>
It appears that it relates to a Parliament advertisement in the Finnish Official Journal seeking, in the Finnish language, to recruit for our Legal Service an A3, and I quote in as far as I understand Finnish, ' to be in charge of a group of idiots' .
I have described our Legal Service as all sorts of things but that has not entered the vocabulary.
Could you ask for an investigation to see how it occurred and what steps are being taken to make sure that the culprit pays for the reprinting?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Tomlinson.
I shall ask the Secretary-General to find someone in the services who is not an idiot to respond to you.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Cox">
Mr President, this is a short but very complicated report which generated a high level of consensus on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
The committee unanimously backed seven amendments.
Several were acceptable to the Commission, as indicated last night, and some were opposed by the Commission.
I believe from the debate, which was adequately attended at 11.30 p.m. last night, that there is room for further exploration and dialogue between Parliament and the Commission on some sensitive aspects of this.
Rather than develop the point and substance at this stage, my preference would be to take advantage of more time for reflection, to refer the report back to committee and then to return here with something acceptable to both institutions.
<P>
(Parliament referred the report back to committee)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="d'Ancona">
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="Sainjon">
Yes, Mr President, after discussing this with my colleague, Mr Schwaiger, I would like to propose an oral amendment to simplify the amendment I proposed earlier, to delete the words 'the setting of' .
So I agree to the removal of the words 'the setting of' from the amendment I tabled.
<P>
(Parliament agreed to the oral amendment)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schwaiger">
Mr President, once the word "setting' has been removed so that the Council of Europe does not set the exchange rate we can adopt this amendment and the whole report.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Ahlqvist, Andersson, Lööw, Theorin and Waidelich">
We would like to thank the rapporteur for his report.
We think, however, that there is reason to be sceptical about the structure of the system of compensation which the report has to consider.
It is a position which should not be seen as a lack of understanding of the role which the sale of fishery products plays for the Azores, Madeira, the Canary Islands and the French department of Guiana, and of the need for solidarity with the peripheral areas of the Community.
However, we believe that structures of the type covered by the proceedings are impeding an essential reform of the common fisheries policy.
The Committee on Fisheries' legislative proposal does not help to change this relationship, rather the reverse.
<P>
d'Ancona report (A4-0402/97)
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, the aim of what is called the Eurodac Convention is to set up a European database of fingerprints of asylum seekers, in order to determine, pursuant to the Dublin Convention of 15 June 1990, which is the Member State of first application, and consequently, which Member State is responsible for examining the application.
<P>
The Europe of Nations Group is overall in favour of this Convention, under the inter-governmental system of the present Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union.
We should just like to point out that the Council has not clearly explained all the reasons for its actions, and that is rather a pity, as they are perfectly feasible. There is no reason why citizens should not know about them.
There are in fact habitual false asylum seekers who, having failed in one Member State, are likely to try their luck in all the others in turn, in order to turn a possible loophole to their advantage.
It would be useful to be able to detect them in order to prevent the same application being considered two, three or four times.
But as these people change their names each time, it is difficult to detect them other than by fingerprinting.
<P>
However, the Council has had the bad idea of putting a finger into the Community pie, making the Court of Justice responsible, providing funding from the European budget and consulting the European Parliament on the whole thing, although in our opinion according to Article K.6, it did not have to.
The result is that this House has leapt into the breach, voting amendments that have put the system back into the hands of the Commission, which has made sure that it is managed entirely by the Community, and is trying to weaken its scope.
Of course, we are opposed to these amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Andersson, Lööw and Waidelich">
We would like to thank the rapporteur for a thorough piece of work on the report.
We would emphasize that the introduction of a system to compare the fingerprints of asylum seekers is not in itself a guarantee that we will achieve the desired humane and generous asylum policy which means that the Member States together provide asylum seekers a right of asylum.
In order for such an asylum policy to be achieved we need other measures and far-reaching work which will increase the consensus between the Member States on the need for a generous and humane asylum policy.
<P>
On the other hand, we think the setting up of Eurodac should be seen in the light of the opportunity to achieve such a generous and humane asylum policy within the European Union.
The amendments to the Council's legislation which are expressed in the report entail a strengthening of the natural right of integrity of asylum seekers, which we see as a good reason to support the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Ahlqvist and Theorin">
We are very critical of the Council's proposal to set up the Eurodac database.
Eurodac could result in a far more restrictive and brutal refugee policy by the Member States in the European Union.
<P>
Every application for asylum must be dealt with separately, regardless of whether the asylum seeker has previously sought asylum in another EU country.
We are therefore critical of the grounds for setting up the Eurodac database, which are that an application for asylum should only be dealt with in one country.
Our view is that refugees should have the same right of personal integrity as our citizens.
We take exception to the routine taking of fingerprints of refugees.
The logic of this rule also means that in extreme cases force and violence may be required against people from the age of 14 years.
<P>
The rules which exist for the erasing of data from the central database are also inadequate.
In the current computer system the guarantees are insufficient to ensure that all data has really been erased.
It must also be clear that no data on people who have received a residence permit in one of the EU's Member States should remain on the database.
The supervisory authority's powers need to be further clarified.
The same also applies to the ability of asylum seekers to obtain information about their rights and to check the accuracy of the data.
<P>
The draft report directs substantial criticism against Eurodac with which we agree.
We are therefore voting for the report in its entirety in the final vote.
However, we have voted against certain parts of the report.
The European Commission is a bureaucratic institution with very weak democratic control.
Secondly, we are strongly opposed to the Council being able to make decisions by qualified majority voting in the implementation of Eurodac.
Our fundamental view is that cooperation on this kind of issue should be conducted at intergovernmental level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
Today the Danish Social Democrats voted for a report concerning the setting up of a database (Eurodac) of the fingerprints of asylum seekers.
We believe that such a database is a necessary tool when deciding which Member State is responsible for dealing with an application for asylum presented within the EU.
Eurodac can also help prevent asylum seekers becoming political footballs between the different countries because no-one will accept responsibility for dealing with their case.
It can also help to prevent cheating, i.e. prevent asylum seekers from changing identity after being rejected by one Member State.
We support the d'Ancona report because it emphasizes the fact that the database must not compromise the asylum seeker's legal protection.
We also believe it could be an advantage both with regard to efficiency and data protection to involve the Commission in the administration of the database.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Le Gallou">
The National Front has always and will always fight against illegal immigration.
Efficient control of asylum applications and criteria is one of the means of stemming the migratory flow.
<P>
The Eurodac computerised system of recognition of the fingerprints of asylum seekers, makes it possible to bring together any legal or criminal information about them, and thus enables a Member State to have some control of asylum requests.
On sight of the personal data available on an individual, the Member State can grant or conclusively refuse an asylum application.
<P>
In this report, Mrs d'Ancona proposes to take away from Member States their supreme authority in this respect.
She considers that the Eurodac system should be managed by the Commission and not by the Member States. She also introduces more restrictive limits to the use of the system.
<P>
Once again, it a question of the dissolution of the Member States and their authority, in an area which, by nature, should belong to them.
The aberration imposed by the Treaty of Amsterdam, which brings the laws and internal affairs of Member States within the scope of the Community, is once again apparent here, in all its splendour.
<P>
The great European 'sieve' is becoming more and more of a reality.
We have had the Europe of Schengen, which removed the internal borders of the European Union, and here we have the Europe of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which is removing its external borders.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR), Eriksson, Seppänen and Svensson (GUE/NGL), Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling (V), Bonde and Sandbæk (I-EDN)">
The undersigned Members are very critical of the Eurodac database which the Council wants to set up.
Eurodac is part of the far more restrictive and brutalizing refugee policy which is emerging within the EU, a policy which often means that refugees are treated as if they were criminals.
<P>
We think that every application for asylum should be dealt with separately, regardless of whether the asylum seeker has previously sought asylum in another EU country.
We therefore question the basis of the Eurodac system, the aim of which is that an application for asylum should only be dealt with in one country.
We believe that refugees have the same right of personal integrity as other people.
It is therefore unreasonable to routinely take the fingerprints of refugees.
This is particularly serious because in extreme cases such a rule requires that force and violence may be used against people from the age of 14 years.
<P>
We think that the rules on erasing data on the central database are inadequate.
Obviously nobody who has received a residence permit in a Member State should risk having his or her data remaining on the database.
We also think the supervisory authority's powers are unclear and inadequate.
The same applies to the ability of asylum seekers to obtain information about their rights and to check the accuracy of the data.
<P>
In Mrs d'Ancona's report substantial criticism is directed against Eurodac, criticism which largely corresponds with our views.
We have, however, voted against all parts of the report which mean that the Commission would be responsible for the database.
The European Commission is a body which is under very weak democratic control.
We also think that cooperation on this kind of issue should be intergovernmental.
<P>
Erika Mann report (A4-0403/97)
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We have voted for the resolution because we think it would be correct to develop economic and commercial relations with the USA.
<P>
At the same time, however, we think that the resolution avoids criticizing the USA on several points where it would have been proper to do so.
For example, on the issue of human rights it would have been appropriate to point out that a majority of the States in the USA use the death penalty.
On the issue of the environment, attention could have been drawn to the USA's opposition to more extensive international agreements in the area of the environment, most recently manifested in Kyoto.
As far as the labour market is concerned, attention could be drawn to the strong anti-union actions which many US employers take, often with the full acceptance of the authorities.
<P>
Sierra González report (A4-0399/97)
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pinel">
Mr President, the report by Mrs Sierra González relates to the use of the information society, that is, more clearly, electronic means such as the Internet, in the service of economic and social cohesion and to combat unemployment.
<P>
We cannot fail to approve her wish to see the information society of use to all, including and particularly, the least developed regions and the most underprivileged people.
We also appreciate her proposal to increase training throughout people's careers, or indeed the determination to respect multi-lingualism within the information society.
<P>
Furthermore, the report rightly emphasizes the positive effect, which the information society can have on rural areas.
Thanks to teleworking, which can enable many types of professional activity to be carried out in the country, it can be an important factor of balanced development of urban and rural areas.
<P>
However, it is necessary for us to ensure that the information society does not become a two-edged sword.
Once again, may I emphasize the danger that these new technologies could facilitate the relocation of part of the service sector of the European Union to countries where wages are low and social protection is poor?
European companies are already having their accounts or customer service departments transferred to India or Singapore.
This constitutes a serious risk to employment in the Community, which we must take adequate measures to counter.
We are also pleased to note that the rapporteur has taken a keen interest in our concern with regard to this matter.
<P>
That is why the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has decided to support Mrs Sierra González's report, and at the same time, applauds its consensual nature.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Bernardini">
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Caudron">
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Cellai">
In the introduction to her report, Mrs Sierra González states that the information society is the most significant economic, cultural and political challenge of these final years of the century.
I concur with that statement, although I am very concerned about the current process of globalization and interdependence of economies.
<P>
I am afraid that cohesion within the European Union may be endangered by the unequal division of the benefits of technological progress.
In fact there is the risk that the investments will be delayed in some regions.
The spread of technology does not mean automatic sharing of opportunities and the enormous benefits.
The development of the information society absolutely must be complemented by adequate political action which guarantees even development across all the regions of the European Union.
This is because there are countries where the culture of the information society is more widespread than elsewhere, and naturally they have greater opportunities to utilize the new technologies and advance and prosper in this new work environment.
The great challenge for the European Union as a whole is that 30 % of Americans are interested in this development, while only 2 % of Europeans are.
This gives the United States a clear advantage over us, which means we have to trail behind.
It is a shame, because we have great potential but we are not succeeding in fulfilling it so, we are losing jobs compared to the USA.
We need to be more united and we particularly need to devote more resources to research and development.
<P>
The continuous use of the technology by SMEs will constitute an essential factor for competitiveness.
The information society offers the SMEs the possibility of creating highly specialized new jobs and reducing unemployment.
Above all in the less favoured regions and in the rural areas, the SMEs represent the backbone of the local economy.
<P>
The rapid evolution of modern technology and the globalization of markets influences competitive conditions and creates new opportunities for SMEs. They then have an essential role in increasing the economic and social cohesion of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Cushnahan">
Mr President, many of the less developed regions of the European Union suffer from the problem of peripherality.
Technological advance particularly in the context of the information society is one method of overcoming the problem of geographical dislocation.
Information and communication technologies have a significant contribution to make to boosting both the overall competitiveness of Europe and also improving regional cohesion.
Unfortunately, however, different regions are moving at a different pace because of the imbalance in their respective use of information technology.
In order to halt this unequal development it is important that more structural funding is invested in this area.
<P>
There is also a lot to be gained from the sharing of experience in this field.
I would like to draw the Commission's attention to an innovative pilot experiment that is being introduced in my constituency in Ennis, Co.
Clare.
Ennis was selected in a competition organised by Telecom Eireann and designated as an 'Information Age Town' and the project will examine the benefits of the application of many aspects of information and communication technology.
I would hope that the Commission will monitor this and similar projects in other countries to discover what lessons can be learnt and applied to other parts of the European Union in an attempt to contribute to regional cohesion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Darras">
Mrs Sierra González has given us an excellent piece of work, and I cannot fail to agree with her vision of the utility and shared benefits of the information society.
<P>
Indeed, as the elected representative of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region, I can see that the availability of new information technologies and their use, by companies of course, but also by individual citizens, can enable an underprivileged area affected by a high level of unemployment, to catch up economically and socially.
That is what is happening in my region.
<P>
Our rapporteur is therefore right to emphasize the need to give all regions an opportunity to invest in telecommunications and information infrastructures.
This sector is as important as training and vocational qualifications and/or the role played by the public and private sectors.
<P>
This should be a national priority as well as a European priority.
It is one of the means of combating exclusion.
Once again, based on the practical example of my region - without the help of European programmes such as web for school and net days, our regional and local authorities would not have been able on their own to provide our young people with the information technology equipment which they now have available.
<P>
That is why I support the rapporteur, so that the aid she asks for may be generalised and even extended.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Ephremidis">
The Commission's findings and estimates, and much more so those in the report by Mrs Sierra Gonzáles, reflect today's reality of unequally distributed possibilities for access to and real utilization of the information society among Europe's various regions.
<P>
However, the proposals in the Commission's Green Paper do not respond to the needs created by technological progress and the aspirations of Europe's peoples for making the most of it to reduce and eliminate regional inequalities and to improve the living standards of working people.
<P>
On the contrary, the proposed liberalization of the telecommunications market will downgrade the services offered, especially in less-developed areas, and will make it more difficult for citizens, organizations and businesses to have access to the networks, so increasing the already existing inequalities.
The lack of infrastructure and appropriate equipment to make the most of the potential offered by today's electronic systems and multimedia, especially in remote areas which have considerable difficulty in connecting up to central networks because of the high costs involved, as well as the lack of education and training in their perfection and use, constitute a negative factor for development leading to an extension of the gap between the information haves and have-nots.
<P>
A central element of these proposals is to further the increase of profits for the major enterprises in the sector, to the cost of public services and of the social role which they should play.
The abolition of public services, and of the corresponding obligation of the state to ensure the access of all citizens to the services offered, cannot be replaced by deceptive and false statements about universal services whose content remains unknown, and which are essentially a cover to allow the way to open towards still greater overconcentration of capital and of the means that control the transmission and spread of information, ultimately ending in the creation of a huge industry of news and information production as is already happening in many cases with SMEs.
<P>
To promote those aims a tactic is being mobilized to avert social reaction and create a new organization of labour.
An element of that organization is the proposed spread of tele-employment, which will have strikingly detrimental effects on the social, unionistic and employment rights of working people.
<P>
How are businesses with 'outdated' means and restricted access to investment capital to compete with the vast multinational organizations?
The abolition of state support and the limited Community subsidies, which for example provide financial assistance for telecommunications from the structural funds only to an extent of 2 %, operate to prohibit indiscriminate access to all the information available on the network and equal and impartial conditions of connection and interaction.
<P>
However, the people and the workers will not allow the implementation of plans whose result would be to exacerbate the already existing differences.
They will react against the already perceptible dangers of dislocation, isolation and depression of remote and structurally weak areas, and will not allow the ambitions of capital to entrap and bleed dry the 'grey matter' of Europe and bring about the suppression of citizens' rights, acquisitions and liberties.
<P>
Waddington report (A4-0405/97)
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Caudron">
I was very interested to read the report by Mr Waddington, whom I wish to congratulate.
<P>
There is no doubt that whenever the European Parliament has to vote on a subject relating to employment, there is no lack of lively debate between political currents and political powers.
<P>
Whereas the Luxembourg Employment Summit in November concentrated mainly on training, the rapporteur has rightly observed that there is a wide gap between the political commitments and the proposals made by the Commission in this area.
<P>
I sometimes wonder why some of our Commissioners, always eager to advocate ever more liberalism, suddenly become paralysed, when the question of combating unemployment arises.
I cannot believe that they have no wish to combat this scourge.
So I support the questions Mr Waddington has asked the Commission without reservations.
I hope the Commission will reply.
<P>
I approve of the direction of this report, which wants a close connection between access to training and the organization of work.
We cannot and must not isolate the various problems relating to employment.
The solutions are only effective inasmuch as they are interdependent.
I therefore share Mr Waddington's concern with regard to the need for the professional diversification of female workers.
I think that we need to go further in this diversification, which should not be confined to women, equality is obligatory...
<P>
We must be wary of the pitfalls of training mainly for jobs relating to new technologies and services.
Many such jobs are of low value and cannot be multiplied indefinitely.
Disappointments are in store for us.
<P>
Once again, I should like to congratulate Mr Waddington.
Like him, I would like some serious proposals from the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted for a report on access to continuing training in the European Union.
It is very important to focus attention on continuing training and further education in the present time, when adaptability and flexibility are of crucial importance for the chances of workers to cope in a constantly changing employment market.
The competitiveness of European businesses depends to a large extent on our efforts in the area of continuing training.
If we do not pay attention to these challenges it will cost jobs in Europe.
We therefore support a report which calls for comparable statistics on continuing training in the Member States and recommends the setting up of a reporting system on access to training.
We are particularly pleased that the rapporteur puts great emphasis on the equal opportunities aspect and the problems women can have with regard to access to continuing training.
Finally, we would also like to support the request to the social partners at the European level to enter into framework agreements on training.
<P>
Hermange report (A4-0292/97)
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Ahlqvist, Andersson, Lööw and Waidelich">
We have reason to thank the rapporteur for carrying out the work on this report.
The report concerns an area which is important for our ability to increase productivity and employment, something which is also emphasized in the Committee's draft resolution.
<P>
However, we would like to express a view on one point.
We are critical of government stimuli in the form of tax concessions in line with what is said in the first indent of paragraph 9 of the report.
As far as the opportunity for employees to share in company profits is concerned, we think this is a matter for the social partners, and it is the duty of society to remain neutral and not to intervene through tax subsidies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We voted against this resolution.
The Swedish Left has always thought that the people who work in a company should have a major influence, both over the total corporate environment and over the application of profits.
<P>
We think it is a great mistake to one-sidedly emphasize individual shareholdings as a driving force for increased productivity in this way.
<P>
We would instead like a dynamic and creative development of corporate democracy.
We would like to stress the need for funds for the future and long-term continuous training in companies, instead of individual shareholdings.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Lang">
The National Front always has and always will defend the position and role of the individual within the firm. We refuse to consider the individual as a variable or piece of economic data, as all policies on the left or the right invariably have done up until now, and without any encouraging or positive future result.
<P>
In this report, Mrs Hermange gives employees a real economic dimension, which we cannot fail to applaud.
We should encourage this form of popular capitalism, and develop measures that encourage the participation of workers in the capital of firms.
In order to combat unemployment, it is necessary in fact for workers to regain their confidence, in order to increase productivity, and the flexibility of work and wages.
<P>
But in order to achieve the aims of stability of employment and growth, it is necessary to protect the market, to throw out all the false precepts of Maastricht and Amsterdam, to staunch the migrant flow and give consumer spending a boost.
Then and only then will new jobs be created.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Ribeiro">
Our reservations on this matter do not stem from specific doubts, which we could easily find and which would easily serve to justify our vote.
<P>
However, stating these reservations would also be a way of remaining aloof from the real heart of the matter on which our position is based.
It would certainly be a way out of saying what has to be said, substituted by formal observations.
And nor is it a question of whether or not you trust in the goodness of the policies and measures proposed on which reports will be made in this Parliament.
<P>
Clearly, our concept of social relations is not compatible with the illusion that other concepts, or the lack of them, insist there are no social classes or that, although they exist, their interests and objectives in private company economic activities are coincidental, converging or simply non-conflicting.
<P>
On that account, irrespective of valuable opinions on the intentions of the policies and measures, and also of those signing the reports, which may be excellent, and in some cases are, these policies and measures may have the harmful effect of diverting attention, of diverting men and women from the real questions relating to male and female workers, which will never cease to exist as they have been granted a moderate participation in certain limited areas of management and in the financial results comprising the appropriation of the proceeds of their work.
<P>
This strategy is not a new one, and long reflection on this matter reminds us that around 30 years ago, when similar policies and measures were presented as remedies, we read and wrote that participation (of workers in the management and results) was a kind of "red light' at the end of a series of situations formed by a highly degenerated social situation to ask for basic solutions or giving rise to mere diversions, which had precedents and has repetitions.
<P>
We would review this position if it were not confirmed by reality.
But reality has proven that it is right.
It will happen again now.
For that reason, our vote is not against the excellent intentions, of those who hold them, but cannot be in favour of an illusion that is revived and that aspires to communicate with those who do not need them, or who should flee from them, like a scalded cat.
<P>
Resolution on the situation of the Kurdish refugees
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, on behalf on behalf of the Green Group I would like to protest in the strongest possible terms against the complete erosion of general refugee rights of which we have seen repeated examples in the past few months.
As regards the Kurdish refugees we have established that, on the one hand the EU Presidency and the EU Council of Ministers say in December that Turkey has no concrete prospect of joining the Union, rightly to my mind, partly because of the fact that the Kurdish issue is not being dealt with in a political manner.
<P>
On the other hand we then when see small groups of refugees, because we are not talking about floods of refugees, we are talking of a mere few hundred, this same European Union adopts an extremely evasive attitude.
In my own country, in Belgium, the Minister for Foreign Affairs says that because there is a hunger strike, we will investigate the political question which this problem poses, whilst on the other hand it was stated a long time ago that it is a political problem.
<P>
In other countries you get the fight between Italy and Germany, for example.
But in any case, the fundamental line taken by the European Union was not the recognition of the fact some political refugees from the region might come here.
We find this extremely sad.
The same is happening again with regard to the escalating drama in Algeria.
This morning some German ministers declared publicly; yes, we will have to do something for Algeria, because otherwise the waves will hit us again.
If we are going to conduct international and internal politics in these terms within the EU, we are absolutely on the wrong track.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Berthu">
Europe today is faced with the problem of thousands of Kurds illegally disembarking on the Italian coast, at the end of a voyage obviously organized by Mafia organizations and professional people smugglers.
Are they really refugees and if so, are they political or economic refugees?
Also, are they from Turkey or Northern Iraq?
Can people who themselves are (or who have been) persecutors, be recognized as refugees?
Let us not forget that the Kurds have always been the great slaughterers of Syrian, Chaldean, Nestorian and other Armenian Christians, and that quite recently (no later than 1984), they perpetrated massacres in Southern Anatolia.
This influx of refugees, or false refugees, poses Europe a problem of incoherence.
<P>
Firstly, it is not by chance that this problem has come to light today, when Italy has only been an integral part of the 'Schengen space' since 26 October 1997.
It is clear that, to illegal immigrants, the prospect of being able to travel, without any border controls, from the far South to the far North of Europe, is a powerful incentive.
As for the country of arrival of the immigrants, Italy in this case, what incentive does it have to resist them, when it knows that they will not stay in Italy, but are only passing through?
Why should Italy earn itself a bad reputation, from a humanitarian point of view, without any benefit to itself, but only to its neighbours?
This experience shows us that Schengen provides an additional incentive for illegal immigrants, and takes away the responsibility of the first host country.
The re-establishment of real individual controls at internal borders would already solve part of the problem.
<P>
Secondly, we are told that this type of situation would not occur if the right of asylum were harmonized throughout Europe.
It is true that Italy is using it too extensively if, as is being said, even economic refugees are being accepted under the Geneva Convention.
But on the other hand, what is this harmonized right of asylum that we could have instead, at the European level?
It is in fact exactly the same, that is, an extended right of asylum, as the proposal on refugees recently submitted to the Council by the Commission, shows.
We do not see the point of harmonization at the European level, if the result is going to be even more laxity.
If a country wants to be laxist, it should do so by itself and under its own responsibility, and not pass the problem on to its neighbours, or to Europe.
<P>
Thirdly, the proposals for a European refugee policy (of which the resolution adopted yesterday by the European Parliament is a good example) consists above all, of sharing responsibility between the Member States for welcoming and providing for refugees.
That is not a sensible long-term solution.
What will we do tomorrow if, as is unfortunately possible, hundreds of thousands of refugees arrive from all over the world, attracted to Europe by its welcome, its promise of status and financial aid?
If we wish to behave responsibly, we must set up solutions today which will work tomorrow.
<P>
That is why the European refugee policy should be:
<P>
1) To maintain controls at internal borders in order to ensure Member States accept responsibility;
<P>
2) To keep to a strict definition of the right of asylum;
<P>
3) To organize cooperation in order to provide financial aid for Member States who play a disproportionately large part in the supervision of external borders;
<P>
4) To find solutions other than allowing refugees to settle in the EU, if they are from countries far from our immediate area: on the contrary, such refugees should be sent to third countries able to offer them a suitable asylum, even if we have to provide aid to such countries.
<P>
If the European Union adopts a different policy, as it now seems tempted to do, it will do serious harm to the longterm interests of our countries and will be unworthy of its citizens' trust.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Ephremidis">
The Kurdish problem will continue to get worse and to come up before us so long as the Turkish authorities persist in their flagrant violation of the fundamental human rights of an entire people, stubbornly refusing to progress towards the search for a political and peaceful solution of the Kurdish issue by direct negotiations with all the representative bodies of the Kurdish people.
<P>
So long as major economic and political, oil-related interests continue to back Turkey's intransigence, criminal groups favoured by Turkey's tolerant attitude will continue the illegal transport of Kurds under the most inhuman conditions, while 'well-governed' Member States 'sensitive' to human rights try in unacceptable ways to exploit the drama of the refugees in order to intensify their policing and oppressive measures.
<P>
It is now urgently necessary to persuade the Turkish government to change its policy, to cease its warlike escapades against the Kurdish people and to recognise their rights.
It is essential for the issue of the violation of those rights and Turkey's attitude to be raised at the next meeting of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and before the Human Rights Commission of the Council of Europe.
<P>
All necessary steps should be taken to intensify the struggle against the criminal networks which transport illegal immigrants and refugees, and at the same time all the necessary prerequisites must be put in hand to ensure respect for the right of refugees to request political asylum, pursuant to the Geneva Convention, and to receive immediate and effective material and moral support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted for a resolution on Kurdish refugees.
The unhappy and tragic situation of the Kurdish refugees has highlighted the need for cooperation on refugee policy in the EU.
We would also like to urge people not to overreact.
The Kurdish example shows once more that the debate has become a little overheated.
In reality fewer than 1, 000 Kurds are involved, and the total number of asylum seekers actually fell in the EU in 1997.
It is a shame and a disgrace that people in need are hitched to the anti-EU wagon in Denmark.
There is a clear need for an instrument like Eurodac which we have also voted on today.
It will help us to determine which Member State is responsible for dealing with an application for asylum in the EU.
In addition, there should be a responsible sharing of the burden of refugees between the EU countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Ripa di Meana">
I have voted against the joint resolution because it follows the Italian Government's approach of taking a favourable view of asylum applications from citizens of Kurdish origin.
<P>
This introduces the dangerous precedent of granting political asylum on an ethnic basis.
In the case in point, there has been a classic initial flow of Kurdish immigrants from different countries - together with other clandestine immigrants from the Maghreb, China, Sri Lanka, Egypt, and so on - impelled by economic reasons.
<P>
Moreover, after the first major landing from the M.V. Ararat, we are witnessing a daily and constant trickle of landings of small groups of Kurdish immigrants organized by the Albanian "scafisti' .
Political asylum on an ethnic basis amounts to a clear call to all Kurds to come to one of the EU countries, attracted by a blanket asylum opportunity which is based purely and simply on the fact that they are Kurds.
<P>
The principle of asylum on an ethnic basis is not manageable either in the case of the Kurds, which constitute an ethnic grouping of over twenty million people, or in the case of the many peoples who, for religious, linguistic, political or economic reasons, are persecuted by other peoples or by other majorities.
Suffice it to mention the case of the Tibetans in China, the Tamils in Sri Lanka, the Tutsi in Central Africa, the Chiapas Indians in Mexico, and so on.
<P>
Kurdish illegal immigrants should have their cases dealt with under other criteria, rational and humanitarian criteria.
The ethnic political criterion, with the individual exception of genuine victims of political persecution, like Leyla Zana or Wei Jing Sheng, must be dropped because it will lead to unforeseeable and uncontrollable developments.
<P>
The European Union must press for an international political solution to the tragedy of the Kurds, and not fall back on the unsustainable principle of the guaranteed right of asylum but get the problem dealt with through the UN, starting with human rights violations by Turkey, Iraq and Iran.
<P>
Sainjon report (A4-0392/97)
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Berthu">
The Sainjon report provides quite a dull vision of relocation, perhaps because, from the start, its had chosen to stick to an overly limited definition of this issue: according to the report, relocation only takes place when a contractor - head of a company - deliberately decides to move production, by direct investment, subcontracting or trading, to a country where social costs are lower.
<P>
This definition, which is too restrictive, could lead us to quibble indefinitely about a movement, the size of which we cannot calculating - and which we can also quote counter-examples of - but which is carefully interpreted to give the impression of a two-way movement.
That is the maze into which the Sainjon report has wandered.
<P>
In reality, if we stand back, we can see that the rise of unemployment in Europe is concomitant with international openness.
Certainly some countries, such as the UK, manage to avoid it, by means of energetic liberal policies.
That is in fact one way to proceed.
But I must emphasize that the British success in combating unemployment - now 5 % - is certainly due in part to having attracted economic activities which were once carried out in neighbouring continental countries.
In other words, the experiment would probably be less successful if France and Germany had also adopted the same policies.
<P>
If we want an overview of the whole process of relocation, it should be given a wider definition: relocation takes place whenever the process of international competition results in the creation of a job in an emerging country, and destroys a job in our own.
In our opinion, a healthy process should on the contrary, create a job in both places at once.
<P>
When defined in this way, the relocation process shows its true character: we are opposing international competition which works on a distorted basis, as the countries of Europe, paralysed by false notions, are unable to establish even a slightly voluntarist policy in order to defend themselves.
<P>
In the hope that, on the basis of its narrow definition, everything will develop spontaneously in the right direction, the Sainjon report therefore makes minimal proposals: a non-binding code of good practice for multinational companies, a confidence agreement between distributors, manufacturers and subcontractors; the creation of a global 'social label' by the ILO, etcetera.
These proposals are interesting but, in our opinion, unlikely to straighten out the situation.
<P>
The proposal from the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations is simple and definite: we should decrease the benefits of relocation by decreasing the benefits of reimportations when they are harmful to us.
For that reason, we must ask the next round of international commercial negotiations, due to start in 1999, to consider the fairness of international competition and the legitimacy of areas of regional preference if they are asked for democratically by the populations concerned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Blot">
The report submitted to us overlooks the conflictive dimension of international economics and the effects of the domination of a large power which has an interest in unrestrained free trade.
<P>
The real cause of relocation is this policy, whereby the costs of production and wages around the world are extremely heterogeneous.
<P>
The report only superficially analyses the consequences of relocations on employment in Europe, and underestimates their negative effects.
It also disregards the role of the tax and National Insurance contributions, which are too high in Europe and are an often-disregarded cause of relocations.
<P>
The rapporteur pins his hopes on the signature of voluntary Codes of Conduct, which is obviously inadequate.
It is therefore necessary to re-examine the question of relocations, from a point of view other than that of unilateral free trading.
I shall therefore vote against this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Elmalan">
Every week, there are European firms that announce relocations, usually without notice, and without consulting trade unions.
<P>
These relocations are based on competition between populations, and they speculate on social and wage differentials.
There are also used by employers as a means of pressure and bribery so that they can apply pressure on employees and jobs.
Such relocations often destroy jobs.
In France, the three sectors most affected - the textiles, shoe and electronics industries, have lost half the number of their employees in 15 years.
But other sectors are also affected, such as the car industry, and more and more service industries are being affected by relocations.
<P>
Relocations are based on the logic of liberalization and deregulation within the framework of globalization.
Instead of trying to combat and resist the damage caused by globalization, the European Union is contributing towards its reinforcement, by submitting to the dictatorship of the financial markets.
Measures can and must be taken at the Community level, to counter the deregulation of financial markets and the volatility of investments which can be directed at any time towards profitable short term activities, to the detriment of the employees and economies of whole areas.
The taxation of capital movements would make it possible to control and restrict them.
<P>
The report by the Committee on External Economic Relations, which I approve, makes other proposals which could contribute towards reducing relocations, or which could at least prevent their most injurious consequences in terms of employment and purchasing power.
I am pleased, from that point of view, that the report has adopted our group's amendments, on the one hand, with regard to the inclusion of social and environmental clauses in international agreements and in the WTO rules, and on the other hand, that the multilateral agreement on international investment currently being negotiated within the framework of the OECD should not hinder the right of States to monitor human rights and the environment with regard to multinational companies operating within their countries.
<P>
In view of the seriousness of these issues, it is essential that we do more, that we demand that the multilateral agreement on international investment should recognize the cultural exception, so that culture is not considered a mere commodity subject to the laws of a market dominated by American firms.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted for the report by André Sainjon concerning the relocation of businesses and direct investments in third countries seen in the light of the globalization of trade, production and investment.
The report calls on the Commission to draw up a code of conduct for multinational companies based on a number of social obligations.
The code of conduct will be based on the following points:
<P>
the promotion of trade union freedom-combating forced labour-combating child labour-the elimination of discrimination in employment and careers, and equal pay for men and womenThe Danish Social Democrats are positive towards the proposal, because this proposal can contribute to a fairer labour market in third countries and ensure fair competition in a globalized economy.
The report mentions that social harmonization should be speeded up.
The Danish Social Democrats draw attention to the fact that social policy is a national concern.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Lang">
The proposals made by the Sainjon report are like putting a wooden leg in plaster.
If you accept the globalization of the economy and total freedom of investment, if you engage the entire fabric of industrial production in an unbridled productivity race, if you persist in the belief that multinational firms are not stateless entities only interested in profit, if you are convinced that efficiency demands international division of work... you should not be surprised when firms adapt to the environment they find themselves in and react in their own interests.
<P>
The 'social label' is a huge piece of hypocrisy, which aims to pacify the conscience of European consumers; the Code of Conduct for multinationals is a hoax, generalized freedom of movement of capital will be a source of regional problems, which will imperil the whole of a financial system which has become a global system, and as a consequence, all the economies in the world.
<P>
The rapporteur writes, ' relocation is a logical economic development, which should not be approached from an ideological point of view' .
But why should we not look at it from an ideological point of view? We have reached this point, because you consider that economic development is an aim in itself.
We believe that economic development is a means, which should serve the political aims of employment and the well being of the people, environmental protection, and the organization of society.
We shall always oppose our human vision of the world, to your accountant's, mathematician's vision.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Ribeiro">
The relocations are connected with the dynamics of the so-called globalization stemming from an increased mobility of factors.
But this mobility does not maintain the same rates for the various factors and activities. Production is relocated at a speed conditioned by all the equipment and requirements of complex combinations, trade may benefit from greater facilities and speed of transport and financial capital benefits from changes that can be described as revolutionary in communications, in a legal framework of freedom of movement achieving licentious privileges.
<P>
Consequently, at present, the so-called relocations are the result in particular of the spiralling circulation of capital, looking for places and situations where more and better are reproduced and accumulated, increasing their already disproportionate volume in relation to the requirements of the real economy in a disturbing way.
Substantial production plant, unemployment and deteriorated social situations may remain, abandoned or transferred under insecure conditions and/or under used.
<P>
This is a characterization which, unfortunately, is not a caricature and this report deals with this question by analysing what it calls the "foreign investment' and a division of relocations into offensives (connected with direct investment), defensives (connected mainly with subcontracting) and those of "international business' (connected with the dynamics of transnational groups).
<P>
It seems to us, however, that this concept of foreign investment has different contours and content from those they began by defining.
With the relocations, an investment somewhere may, as is happening more and more often, correspond to a disinvestment somewhere else.
And it is very positive that the report should indicate (or reveal) the possible bad effects of the relocations, and point out four factors with a social basis that need to be introduced into this problem (trade-union organization and joint negotiation, prohibition of forced labour and child labour, and equal treatment), corresponding to minimum social clauses and to the appreciation of the role of the ILO, as the UN agency which the WTO, in the ultra-liberal drift that gave rise to them, has sought to level and cause to ignore.
<P>
Although we are expecting little from the recommendations on codes of good conduct for transnationals, the statement/report of this characterization of the relocations and foreign investment is positive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Souchet">
As the content of the Sainjon report has remained unchanged, as far as the diagnosis and treatment of relocation is concerned, we were unable to vote in favour.
It reflects an analysis of the problem that is more and more disputed by economists.
And the measures, mostly optional, which it envisages to remedy the negative effects of relocation do not seem equal to the economic and social problems generated in our countries by a procedure closely connected with the whole-hearted adoption of the principle of free trading.
<P>
We have seen that, in order to really measure the consequences of relocation in our countries, it essential for the approach to the question to be much wider than the rapporteur's.
<P>
It is also necessary to avoid giving an impression that everything balances out and that there is a similar movement in both directions, by mentioning a few cases which have taken place in the opposite direction, but which are not representative of the main trend.
Thus, the highly publicised relocation of Toyota to Valenciennes seems rather like a chance event, or a temporary relocation, whereas most Asian companies which did relocate to Europe are, now that European markets have become much more open, tending to repatriate their establishments and to use traditional export procedures, rather than maintain production in Europe.
The process of relocation is in reality fundamentally unilateral.
Corrective measures must therefore be closely suited to it.
<P>
It is strange that the only regulatory policy the rapporteur will not envisage is the policy which would best protect European labour-intensive industries flexibly against unfair competition, and which our partners know how to use: import quota measures.
When forced to use them, the Commission regrettably tends to make them inoperative, by implementing a policy of derogation to the full, as we have seen in the car industry.
<P>
Mr Sainjon does not unfortunately propose to correct the present incoherence, as he suggests at one and the same time, that the Community programme ECIP should be developed, which acts as an incentive to relocations, and that structural funds should in the future focus on the areas most affected by relocations, which would mean subsidizing both relocations and the damage done by relocations.
It would certainly be more appropriate to consider how to make it less attractive to re-import, which destroys so many jobs in our countries.
<P>
(The sitting was adjourned at 12.55 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Parigi">
Mr President, I must report a very serious matter currently occurring in Italy.
After betraying the legitimate expectations of the breeders, the Italian Government is using police methods and repression to damage and harm them, and at this moment, hundreds of breeders are being arrested and having their tractors and any other working equipment seized.
We are indignant and call on the European Parliament to show solidarity.
We want to tell Parliament that falsifying the balance sheet is not sufficient to join the single currency...
<P>
(The President cut off the speaker)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Alpine transit (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on Alpine transit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Ghilardotti">
Mr President, since the failure of Switzerland to join the European Economic Area, negotiations between the European Union and Switzerland have covered various sectors.
So it is important to achieve balanced results both in the negotiations overall and for the individual sectors involved.
Five important negotiations have been concluded successfully and every effort is needed to reach an agreement in the transport sector too.
The Italian Government is strongly committed to reaching a balanced agreement.
The long term objective of a progressive transfer of traffic from road to rail is supported and in this sense the financial commitment of the Swiss government is much appreciated, just as we share the Swiss concerns about the environment - and Parliament has made its views known on that point many times.
<P>
But I think some precise definitions are needed in the negotiations overall.
The Italian economic interests involved in the discussion should not be prejudiced as compared with the current situation.
It is not just the cost to the hauliers that is under discussion but the competitiveness of Italian products on the European market, since taxation issues cannot be introduced and hauliers are burdened with external costs before these are precisely defined at Community level. So we need to take a position on toll systems which brings them into line with Community arrangements and correlates them with the implicit cost of the infrastructure used and its management and maintenance.
Furthermore, while it is necessary and important to pay attention to the environmental problems, and the European Parliament is particularly sensitive to them and has frequently debated them, it has to be recognized that moving the traffic to rail in a short time is illusory, because the necessary infrastructure is not there.
So the planned infrastructure solutions must be speeded up as much as possible and to this end the Government of Swiss Confederation should be asked, in the negotiations, to move in that direction.
<P>
Then there is something Switzerland does not mention, and that is its interest in air traffic. Now if we want to find solutions to the problems, all the interests need to be put on the table so that we have the full picture and can deal with everything.
<P>
To conclude, the agreement currently in force expires in 2004.
So we have time to deal with the problems, although personally I think we should try to do it sooner, and find a balanced agreement which takes account of all the aspects and above all provides reciprocity of understanding between the respective regions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferber">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as we are talking about transit today, we are, of course, also going to be talking about the fact that for 40 years in Europe we have supported a common market and that we have therefore always promoted a society based on the principle of the division of labour.
Today we find ourselves in a position where two out of our four major routes through the Alps run through Switzerland and we cannot therefore accept the creation of an artificial barrier which would burden the other two routes, our friends in the Brenner - Mr Voggenhuber, you were quick to pick up on your cue there - with additional traffic.
The European Union has always supported the principle of the shortest route and that means that we need the appropriate transit routes through Switzerland.
<P>
In terms of the Alps in general, we have a set of very different rules.
In Austria 40 tonnes, but an eco-point system, in Switzerland a 28 tonne limit and bans on night driving.
That does not constitute the uniform policy which we, as the PPE, are calling for and expect from the Commission.
However, we also expect an alpine traffic policy to be based on a set of uniform rules applicable throughout Europe rather than the methods of highway robbery and the robber barons.
I have already mentioned the principle of the shortest route, which must has to be taken into account.
There is also the question of the environment.
No one can tell me that long diversions are better for the environment.
And no one can tell me that rail can be made more competitive by artificially making roads more expensive.
On Monday we had the Sarlis Report on the revitalization of the railways.
The railways also have to get into shape so that they can compete with the roads.
This will not happen simply by making lorries more expensive.
In this spirit, I call upon the Commission to continue its negotiations with Switzerland.
I hope that the matter will be brought to a close under this British Presidency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Svensson">
Mr President, in the European Union there is a strange obsession with the idea that everything should be harmonized, regardless of geographic, environmental or climatic differences.
That is why people do not want to recognise the difference between heavy traffic through Alpine valleys and the same heavy traffic on the plains of Flanders.
But it should be obvious, just as obvious as the fact that you cannot have the same traffic noise in a residential area as on a through road or drive at the same speed in town as you can on a motorway.
<P>
The European Union is also suffering from another obsession, that of wanting to control and dictate the internal policies and relations of other countries, and wanting to force them to accept bad regulatory systems which belong in the Union.
<P>
Switzerland is a free and sovereign State.
Switzerland is neither a member of the Union nor the EEA, the European Economic Area .
If Switzerland wants to take care of its citizens' environment, that is a Swiss matter.
To subject a country to pressure to make it take a step backwards in its environmental policy is highly objectionable.
<P>
Instead the Union should see Switzerland as an example of environmental and traffic policy, because Switzerland is taking the path which we will all have to take eventually if we are to save the environment in our part of the world.
The fact that Switzerland is advanced in this area and is ahead of the European Union is due in part to the fact that Switzerland is a real democracy where the citizens' awareness of environmental policy can be expressed.
The Union, on the other hand, with its closed institutions, is far too easily influenced, at least in its current form, by internal lobbying on behalf of interests like those represented by road traffic.
<P>
That is why the Union currently has an immature position on many important environmental issues.
It is high time that people took a different level of responsibility, both within the Union and in attitudes to other, more advanced countries, countries where the sacred market does not have the same paramount position as it has unfortunately been given in this Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for my country the transit agreement between Austria and the EU was a central prerequisite for entry into the EU.
The people of Austria attached great hopes to this agreement.
Hopes of an end to ecological destruction. Hopes of an end to health damage caused by excessively high noise and air emissions.
But, encouraged by the Austrian government, the Austrian people also hoped that this agreement might lead to a rethink on ecological issues in the European Union, that this agreement might provide the trigger for a new, sustained traffic policy.
<P>
Just a few years later we have come to realise that in hoping these hopes millions of people in our country failed to reckon with the Commission.
Millions of Swiss have done the same and voted to changed their law in a referendum.
These two countries represent models of modern traffic policy, not obstacles to it. The Commission on the other hand is not a model of modern traffic policy in Europe, but an obstacle.
It is still entangled in the interests of the transport lobby. It remains fixed on the idea of an uncontrolled division of labour across borders into which it has failed to factor the costs in terms of either health or ecology of this traffic madness.
<P>
Mr Ferber has now left the room.
If he were still here I would have explained the basics of this problem to him once and for all.
For the Alps are not an artificial barrier which some environmentalist or politician in his foolishness has planted in the midst of the internal market, but a natural barrier in a highly sensitive ecological region.
At the time the Commission promised much in its negotiations on transit traffic.
None, I repeat none, of which has been realised to date.
<P>
The Commission is taking legal action against Austria over the level of its toll charges, although they comply with the Commission's Green Paper.
It is delaying recognition of the inclusion of external costs.
It has made no attempt to implement the Alps Convention.
What we see here is the almost pseudo-religious worshipping of an internal market without regard to the human principles of life and health.
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<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, this debate is proceeding in our language, as might well have been expected, given that it is an issue that is particularly close to our hearts.
It therefore amazes me - while I welcome the presence of Commissioner van den Broek - that after having had over two days of the assiduous presence of Commissioner Kinnock while the British Government was here - and I regard the Commission with friendship, take note - at the very moment when an issue falling within the specific competence of Commissioner Kinnock is being discussed, we have instead the authoritative presence of Commissioner van den Broek.
<P>
I cannot but emphasize the concern we feel at the slow pace of this agreement, the secret, opaque way we are kept informed, and the way in which this agreement more or less reverberates across the Alpine problem as a whole.
How can I understand - and we are trying to understand it better through this debate - that the agreement is still something to come and therefore the traffic can only find outlets in other areas, on other routes of communication like the very important one which links the Val d'Aosta with France and which is at risk, if things carry on this way, of gridlock and calls for doubling the width of the Mont Blanc motorway which would be catastrophic for the countries, the valleys and the citizens who inhabit the regions the motorway must cross.
<P>
I hope the large groups will accept the amendments tabled by the group of the European Radical Alliance and thus take the opportunity - in this debate on the problem of Alpine transit, as we have defined it, but not agreed with Switzerland - to insert two or three paragraphs which broaden the context and highlight the need for combined transport rather than taking a mere sectoral view of the problem.
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<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, the free movement of goods, services and people is of enormous economic importance to the European Union.
Its policy therefore aims to remove obstacles to traffic, both by lifting administrative impediments at borders, and by building a new infrastructure, the Trans European Networks.
The fact that this policy has been effective is obvious from the large growth in freight transport, in particular on the road.
<P>
The problem of Alpine transit traffic illustrates that there are also limits to this free movement of goods.
The ecologically extremely vulnerable Alpine region shows more quickly than elsewhere that the environment's ability to cope is limited.
It is partly for this reason that Austria has multiplied the charges for the Brenner Tunnel, that there are protests in France against road building at the Mont Blanc, and that the people of Switzerland declared in the Alpine Referendum of 1994 that all freight will have to pass through the region by train.
Austria, meanwhile, finds that membership of the EU does not only entail benefits.
The country has been summoned before the Court of Justice for increasing toll charges on the Brenner.
<P>
Fortunately, European politicians are not blind to the environmental damage resulting from road transport.
The by now famous Green Paper 'Towards Fair and Efficient Pricing in Road Transport' makes it clear that the 'external' factors around transport have to be included in the price.
The review of the Euro-sticker mentions the so-called 'sensitive' routes.
On these routes extra levies are allowed, to reduce air pollution, for instance.
<P>
According to a report in Agence Europe of 12 December the Union does not want to allow Switzerland to apply similar principles as yet.
Commissioner Kinnock and the Luxembourg Minister of Transport Mrs Delvaux afterwards said to the Transport Council that future Swiss tolls must be based directly on the costs of the existing infrastructure.
The costs of the new infrastructure, let alone external costs, are not to be included.
<P>
I ask Commissioner van de Broek whether the said report is correct.
In that case I would like him to tell me to what extent these statements are compatible with the Green Paper, and the recent proposals for the Euro-sticker.
<P>
Finally, does the Commissioner share my conviction that the free movement of goods, too, must respect the limits set by the environment?
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<SPEAKER ID=100 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, the starting point for our discussion are the negotiations with Switzerland.
Switzerland has taken the view that by not joining the European Union it can remain in a sort of happy isolation.
Switzerland can see that it is in an isolated position.
However, I would like to reject most adamantly part of what has been said here today - by Mr Ferber and previously - and that is that this is the behaviour of robber barons, of highway robbers.
As has already been said, Switzerland has a very specific, highly comprehensible traffic and environmental policy.
However, Switzerland must also fit into the overall European picture.
There's no way around it.
<P>
Secondly: Obviously the basic characteristics of the landscape are a given.
It may be the case that other landscapes are worth protecting.
But that shouldn't stop us giving special protection to this special landscape and to the special situation of the populations in the narrow valleys, whether they be in Switzerland, Austria, France or Italy,
<P>
Thirdly: The European Union has a set of traffic policy principles.
Some speakers appear to have forgotten this.
I would reject absolutely accepting the principle of the shortest route, which I otherwise support, without mentioning that there are also other principles, that we have environmentally friendly and environment-oriented traffic, that it is indeed a matter of external costs.
It is not that we want to pass the external costs on to lorries without justification, but rather that the external costs only arose in the first place due to the excessive number of lorries.
<P>
The step-by-step transfer of traffic from road to rail is the founding principle of European traffic policy.
And in the interests of our environment and our population we must deviate not from it.
However, we must understand that, as a result, we need to find a way of incorporating Switzerland into an overall concept, that the diverting of traffic which is currently taking place - and represents some 30 % to 40 % of the traffic in my home country of Austria, especially in the Tirol - where it still exists and has not already been transferred to rail, must be stopped.
<P>
Our goal must obviously be a general reduction in the level of traffic on the roads.
But this goal cannot be achieved by simply blocking off one country and diverting the traffic into others.
In Europe, at the end of this century, it must surely be possible to create a genuinely common traffic policy.
<P>
So, where are the policies which the Commission, the Parliament and the Council should be following?
I should also say that I would not lay all the blame at the door of the Commission.
The Parliament too was very circumspect in making it last resolutions and in general terms agrees completely with what Commissioner Kinnock said.
There are certain countries which are represented in the Council and exert more resistance there.
<P>
Firstly: The aim must be, step-by-step, to reintegrate Switzerland into an all-European traffic policy shaped by the EU, and to do this as quickly as possible!
Secondly: No traffic should be diverted.
Thirdly: Wherever necessary diverted traffic must be returned to original routes.
Fourthly: No single country in the EU should be placed in a worse position than Switzerland in terms of the levying of charges, tolls, etc.
<P>
We accept the fact that charges have to be levied, that there is place for the toll and that it fulfils a control function. But it must be clear that a country outside the EU cannot be afforded more opportunities than the countries within the EU.
If these principles are observed it must surely be possible to create a reasonable European traffic policy and to use the instruments available, including the toll, to create an environment- and therefore people-oriented traffic policy for the whole of Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ebner">
Mr President, firstly I should like to express my pleasure that Switzerland is moving ever closer to the European Union and that the European Union is making every effort to move this country at the very heart of Europe closer to Europe.
<P>
However, we must all share the same rights and the same duties.
I believe that there should be one agreement, not a number of different agreements.
The Alps are, without question, a sensitive area; that is something which is felt particularly by those who live there, like myself.
Although transit is currently having a huge impact, one which we feel on a daily basis, it would be incomprehensible and unacceptable for the population living along the Brenner, whether in Trentino, the South Tirol or in Tirol Province, if Switzerland were to receive special treatment, leaving us worse off.
<P>
Quite clearly, the aim of the policy is to protect a sensitive area - whether by toll or by positive support - by providing the sensitive zone with new opportunities such as the expansion of rail facilities or under-tunnelling.
And no doubt there is still much negotiating to be done.
In conclusion, the rapprochement between Switzerland and the European Union, whatever form it takes, is a positive factor, but it should be without privileges, affording the same rights for all.
Again, there is no reason why privileges should be granted for a limited period.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Mr President, the Greens are asking the EU and the Federal government in Germany to strongly support Switzerland's plans for the introduction of an output-related heavy goods vehicle tax and an alpine transit tax in order, at long last, to move forward on the protection of the alpine habitat and the transfer of heavy goods transport from road to rail.
<P>
Similarly, external costs - in particular environmental costs - as well as road costs should be passed on to road traffic, taking into account the especially high costs in the alpine regions.
For we have a particular responsibility to the people and their alpine habitat.
It would appear the Messrs Jarzembowski and Ferber, in particular, have not quite grasped this point.
We cannot, as they suggest, try to blackmail Switzerland with the argument that if they don't do what the EU wants them to do, the Swiss will no longer be allowed out of their own country, that they will, so to speak, be imprisoned in their own fortress.
Let me say once and for all and quite clearly, this behaviour is nothing but more imperialist delusions and status craving.
<P>
In actual fact, Switzerland's plans support the EU in as far as they are an attempt, at long last, to develop a sustained traffic policy.
That can hardly be described as an attack on the EU!
Against this backdrop, the blockade being operated by Bavaria, the Federal government and the Italians is quite incomprehensible.
The Greens are organizing a conference on this complex question with the representatives of the various countries involved on 1st February in Lindau.
<P>
Turning to the Netherlands: If the alpine habitat is destroyed, it won't be the sea that you will need to build your flood dams against, it will be Rhine.
For once the Alps are destroyed, you'll find yourselves under water all year long!
<P>
The Alps provide a reservoir of potable water; one which we need.
If we continue to destroy the Alps in this manner, it may well be possible to ski everywhere in the Alps, because there won't be any trees.
But if that's the point, why not go skating in Holland instead!
<P>
I advise you to take a completely fresh look at this habitat, and as a farmer, I say to you: We live off 30 cm of this earth, and if these 30 cm are destroyed then we quite simply won't have to worry about free trade, transit and goods transport any more.
There won't be any need.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rehder">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, anyone looking for long-term progress in traffic policy in the Alps today will swiftly come to the conclusion that in Europe everyday is soap-box day.
For the number of soap-box speeches to be heard demanding a common, transnational, environment- and people-oriented traffic policy is large and they all promise great things.
However, not much is actually being done.
We are simply trying to stop things happening.
Listening to the discussions and the Commissioner's information today, I have to conclude that nothing concrete is coming of today's debate either.
None of these speeches and statements actually represent a step forwards.
<P>
In fact, here in the European Parliament - this is a European Community - soap-boxes are making a great comeback.
What we have heard so far today is the German MEPs who have spoken taking part in a competition to find the most stupid soap-box orator..This is not way to construct Europe.
No way to make progress.
<P>
The EU Commission should see itself as the engine of the Community's traffic policy.
Laying out the external costs of traffic is indeed highly commendable.
Drawing up an Alps Clause with the European Parliament is indeed progress. But the Commission doesn't have the courage to implement these ideas, to get anything concrete off the ground.
That is why the EU Commission and the presidency of the Council of Europe are being asked to do something about the situation.
That's why they are being asked to do something in the heart of Europe, in the foothills of the Alps in southern Germany.
And here I also include the Austrian areas.
<P>
At the present time the situation is such that most of the accent is being placed on the Munich-Verona route where an impossibly expensive, 20 km long mega tunnel is being proposed.
Unfortunately, we know that the completion date of this much needed project will be a long time coming.
What we must do now is involve the Court of Auditors and, at long last, start to operate a reasonable policy which the people, the economy and also the environmentalists in Europe can understand.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stenzel">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, the north-south link through the Brenner is one of the most important routes for road haulage.
The impact suffered by Austria as a result is enormous. Disproportionately so, in comparison to Switzerland.
Some 30 % more lorries travel through the Brenner than through the Swiss passes.
Many haulage contractors choose the longer routes through the Brenner because they are more financially viable.
This way of thinking on the part of the hauliers must be stopped and the cost advantage involved in using the Brenner must be removed.
The diverted traffic must return to its original route.
<P>
In a verbal supplementary amendment we, together with our Austrian colleagues in the Social Democratic Party, are therefore asking the Commission to ensure that in matters of alpine transit no EU Member State is placed in a worse position than Switzerland.
This unfair burden must also be stopped to protect the populations involved.
In order to remove the financial advantage which exists on the Brenner route a common charging system should be introduced for Austria, Switzerland and France.
Lowering the charges in the Brenner, which are already lower than those in Switzerland, sends out the wrong signal and will not help to shift heavy goods traffic to the Swiss routes.
If the burden of charges placed on the haulage contractor were the same on all the routes over the main ridge of the Alps there would be a chance that routes other than the one through the Brenner would be chosen.
<P>
For this reason, in its negotiations with the Swiss, the Commission should work towards balancing these charges and securing the admittance of 40 tonne lorries.
The Commission must not shy away from its responsibility to the Member States and to the population, especially in regard to such a sensitive region as the main ridge of the Alps.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, following on from my contribution during the first part, perhaps I can respond to a few of the speeches made by the honourable Members.
First of all, concerning the Brenner, which seem to raise some questions.
Firstly, whether Austria should simply be allowed to maintain these higher tolls on the Brenner motorway.
It is generally known that negotiations are still taking place to see whether agreement can be reached with the parties to find a solution on the basis of the so-called Alpine Clause.
If this fails, obviously the Commission will feel obliged to await the verdict of the Court, before whom the case is at present, as you know.
But we would much prefer an agreement between the parties concerned, and we will continue to work towards this.
<P>
The next matter, Mr President, the comments which have been made regarding the inclusion of external costs or not.
Let it be clear that at the moment the Commission must base itself on the community law which only allows inclusion of part of the external costs, not the total.
As far as that is concerned we should therefore say that we are acting on the basis of the existing community law, and not on the basis of what the Commission would like to see; which is broader, as is also evident from what the Commission has said about it in the Green Paper.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, on the subject of charging for transit transport.
As I mentioned to begin with, we do not yet fully agree on the figures.
One of the most important points is the level of the tariffs which will applied from the 1st of January 2005.
As we are still in negotiation I am sure this Parliament will understand that I cannot give any further specific details about the strategies pursued by us.
This Parliament will get the opportunity to give its opinion when it is consulted on the Union's decision regarding ratification of the agreement.
<P>
For that matter I pointed out, and I am being unanimously supported by the Council, that the levy presently proposed by Switzerland, is still not acceptable.
We are talking about sums of 410 Swiss francs for a 40 tonne lorry travelling from between Basel to Chiasso.
But in view of the fact that Switzerland has indicated that it wishes to take up a flexible position, I trust that we will be able to reach agreement in due course.
<P>
To comfort Mr Dell'Alba, who is surprised not to see Mr Kinnock behind this table, let me say to him that it is not possible for the Commission to organize its work in such a way that all questions posed to this Parliament are answered by the Commissioner under whose authority this falls.
But the comforting phrase I wanted to utter is that this Commissioner is responsible within the Commission for the relations with Switzerland.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="President">
I have received six motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 40(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Community aid
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0388/97 by Mr Goerens, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on improving the effectiveness of Community aid; -A4-0391/97 by Mr Fabra Vallés, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on Special Report No 2/97 by the Court of Auditors on the humanitarian aid of the European Union (1992-1995) (C4-0219/97).
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Goerens">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we now have an opportunity finally to end this House's debate on improving the efficiency of development aid.
<P>
To discuss development is to discuss one of the noblest tasks.
However, that does not enable us to dispense with certain elementary principles and rules.
I refer, in particular, to the need to ensure that Community aid and the aid provided by Member States are complementary.
Various players are involved in development, and everything possible must be done to avoid duplication.
Inadequate coordination or even a total lack of coordination between the various players in the field will inevitably lead to negative effects.
Better coordination involving all the players involved in development, good internal coherence between the various instruments of development policy, and better visibility, are certainly not aims in themselves, but they are means to ensure that more citizens of Europe accept the idea of the need to continue to ensure cooperation between the European Union and developing countries.
That is particularly important at the moment, when we are observing a decrease in development aid, a trend to which we should not be indifferent, under any circumstances.
<P>
This should therefore be put right.
That is what this report is trying to do, by first of all, raising the question of instruments, measures, and the question of efficiency criteria relating to development aid.
Development aid is efficient compared with what?
The Development Assistance Committee of the OECD provides a more or less satisfactory answer to this, by proposing to use as development aid evaluation criteria, pertinence, efficiency, impact of the development and durability.
<P>
Pertinence is a result of reflecting on the problems to be solved and the aims of a programme.
The search for efficiency is reflected in the ability to achieve those aims at the lowest cost.
Efficiency is measured in relation to the expected result and the situation of the beneficiaries, and also in terms of unexpected results or negative effects.
The impact of a development programme must relate to the medium term and well as the long term.
Finally, the last criterion relates to the durability and sustainability of the development undertaken.
<P>
Mr President, all the evaluations of development programmes to which my written report refers show some interesting trends, and in particular, I will quote three examples - the small but positive impact of European Commission development aid on the economic growth of receiving countries, the increase in the average life expectancy resulting from improved health indicators, which is appreciable, and thirdly, the not very durable nature of a large number of development programmes.
This list is not exhaustive, but I have selected some examples, which adequately illustrate the need to continue the evaluation work.
<P>
Another lesson to be drawn from the evaluation is that microanalysis, project by project, is useful, inasmuch as it highlights exemplary achievements funded by the European Community.
I am obliged to note however, that the approach to evaluation by sector is more reliable, as it provides a more global appreciation of the efficiency of the development or otherwise.
<P>
It also seems sensible to me to consider another aspect: is there a vision of development specific to Europe?
If so, what is it?
The measures in favour of human rights and democracy already undertaken by the Commission, not only send European development policy in the right direction, they also to some extent raise the question of conditional aid.
Indeed, the correct management of public affairs and development does not escape this rule.
It is to a very great extent dependent on the nature of the political system in place, on the honesty and quality of the local authorities, on the level of democratic activity within the local population and on the quality of the policies adopted.
<P>
Mr President, I will spare you the details.
Furthermore, the Members of this House who are going to speak have no doubt read my report, which is not disputed, inasmuch as I have not seen any amendments.
I do not wish to end without listing various conclusions that seem important to me.
There are six of these.
<P>
First of all, we have asked for the European Development Fund to come within the scope of the EU budget, which is one of this Parliament's previous demands, and which is likely to considerably improve the visibility of European policy on this subject.
Secondly, we consider it essential that lessons are drawn from evaluations, in order to influence future programmes.
Thirdly, the Commission does not have enough human resources to handle and manage the administration of cooperation projects.
This must be put right.
Fourthly, the crucial role of women in developing countries must finally be recognized.
Within the framework of development programmes in particular, the role of women is essential, if only because of the positive influence of women with regard to birth control.
Fifthly, the intensification of the dialogue with NGOs is indispensable.
Mr Fabra, I believe, will have more to say on that point.
<P>
We have discussed the suitability of setting up a development agency at length.
We are not yet ready to do so.
During the debate with the Commission, it was considered appropriate to move forward to an intermediate stage.
I refer to this in my written report, and I believe that the compromise we have found is a good compromise.
It will enable us to prepare even more substantial projects with regard to evaluation, which seems indispensable to me, and is the very essence of this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="Fabra Vallés">
Mr President, before anything else I would like to stress that when we talk of ECHO we are talking about a very young organization, which in a very short time has managed to forge an excellent reputation.
ECHO was created in 1992, therefore it can only call upon five years of experience.
Since it began ECHO has faced up to considerable problems: the war in Yugoslavia, Rwanda, the refugees in northern Iraq and here I am only giving three examples which have required outstanding efforts and without ECHO being allowed to enjoy a long apprenticeship period.
<P>
In its special report, the Court of Auditors confirms that the outcome has been successful.
ECHO, in the first five years of its existence, has acquired an important wealth of experience which ensures that it will be in the forefront amongst international organizations dedicated to the question of humanitarian aid.
<P>
Similarly, that front line role is confirmed by the facts and figures: in 1996, the rate of participation in ECHO was higher than 20 % of the total of the world's humanitarian aid.
If we add to this percentage the efforts of the Member States we confirm that the European Union is, outstandingly, the highest donor in the world.
The European Union has provided about half of the world's humanitarian aid, more than ECU 1.6 billion in 1996.
Unfortunately these endeavours are carried out in a diverse way.
The Court of Auditors has confirmed that, quite simply, there is a lack of coordination and cooperation between the Community and its Member States, as well as between the Member States themselves.
The result is that the Union and its Member States often waste their energy and cannot pull their weight as they might, and ought to, do.
<P>
It is in this context in which the proposal from the Court of Auditors, for a charter regarding humanitarian aid, has acquired its full importance.
Such a charter might be useful to stimulate a debate about the need for cooperation between the Community and its Member States, as well as about the principles which ought to govern such cooperation.
<P>
All this is urgent and necessary since the Treaty of Amsterdam makes no reference to humanitarian aid, which means at the moment there is a lack of a true foundation document.
<P>
I must add that the way to arrive at such a charter as well as the subsequent debate will show, would be as important as the result.
It would be a question of a process with which national parliaments should be intensively associated.
For example, in the framework of an interparliamentary conference.
<P>
In a much more general area, it is a question of being aware of the fact that humanitarian aid often takes place in complex, crisis situations.
Those crises do not suddenly happen unexpectedly, as with natural catastrophes.
Rather they have their origins in political, ethnic and economic tensions.
As a reaction to these crises, rapid response aid, although greatly needed at the time, is not enough.
<P>
In view of the existence of such crises only an integrated approach to coordinate political, economic, military and humanitarian measures can ensure success.
A Charter for humanitarian aid might be the formula for a greater awareness about this phenomenon.
For all of this, we hope that the Committee makes full use of its powers of initiative and propose as much to the Council, as well as to Parliament, the Charter which has already been referred to so many times.
Allow me to point out that it is the Committee who can and must provide an important political lead.
<P>
In the same way there are many other actions which, in addition, we expect from the Committee.
And I will put forward, as I see it, the three most important.
<P>
Firstly, the Committee in a progressive way should replace the aid system directed towards single and precise operations by an approach to a more long term strategy with a specific programme.
To this end the services of the Committee ought to establish strategic relations with key partners - of course, the large NGOs and the United Nations itself - so as to jointly produce and put into operation a common global strategy for urgent, chronic and complex areas.
I am referring, for example, to the situation in the Great Lake region of Africa.
<P>
Secondly, about 45 % of the credit made available by ECHO is used by non-governmental organizations.
The Accounts Court has made a study of credits as a function of national origin for these NGOs.
The result of this study reveals that there are notable imbalances.
The Committee should strive to rectify these imbalances since there are strong agreements with the NGOs in France and Belgium while these agreements should be made stronger with NGOs in Germany and Portugal, for example.
<P>
Thirdly, the Committee needs to put into operation a central evaluation unit for its development programmes including ECHO, MEDA, Phare and Tacis.
This unit should supervise the appropriate quality control as well as comparing results from internal assessment, being involved in improving the exchange of experiences, not only in the heart of the Committee but also with other institutes responsible for development aid.
<P>
The key word given by the Court of Auditors in this context of evaluation is independence.
For this independence to be real, and as a result to be credible, this evaluation unit should be placed outside the broad operational General Management.
<P>
It is with some satisfaction that I conclude now, Mr President, by underlining that the Goerens report is asking for exactly the same as I am doing.
I congratulate you, Mr Goerens, on your report and thank you for your support in the opinion I have expressed.
What is clearly shown is that if the Development Committee and the Budgetary Control Committee met more often we would have a lot more to say.
All this, of course, with the aid of the Accounts Tribunal's reports.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, as the time allocated for urgent and topical debate starts at 4 p.m., I will call only two more Members and then we will adjourn this debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Commissioner, first of all I would like to congratulate Mr Goerens on his report, and on his extremely balanced resolution in particular.
The effectiveness of community development aid regrettably often leaves much to be desired.
Because despite of years of aid from Western nations people in less-developed countries are not able to support themselves, and economic growth is minimal.
In order to increase the effectiveness of development aid I believe changes are much needed on three fronts.
<P>
The OECD has pointed out that the best aid for less-developed countries is education for women, not least because there is an inverse relationship between how highly women are educated and the birth rate.
Therefore, colleagues, how can we stop the explosive population growth in these countries?
By educating women.
A lower population growth is the only way to break through this vicious circle.
That was the first point.
<P>
My second point is that knowledge and information are also important for sustainable development.
To create a supporting base in the country itself and amongst the population, local universities and national research centres need to be involved in the dissemination of technology and knowledge.
<P>
Thirdly, investment in the private sector towards entrepreneurship, and especially in small and medium-sized enterprises, and a better development of the market mechanism are crucial to economic and social progress.
In this context too, women should not be overlooked as potential entrepreneurs.
I understand that international banks are cooperating on developing initiatives.
I hope Europe will not fall behind.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Carlotti">
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="President">
We will now adjourn the debate and resume it at 6 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Topical and urgent debate
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent matters of major importance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>



B4-0056/98 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on the situation in Mexico; -B4-0057/98 by Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra, Mr Galeote Quecedo, Mr Soulier and Mrs Esteban Martín, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the killing of 46 indigenous peasants in the Mexican state of Chiapas; -B4-0066/98 by Mrs Karamanou, Mr Newens and Mr Cabezón Alonso, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the situation in the state of Chiapas; -B4-0073/98 by Mr González Triviño, Mr Novo Belenguer, Mr Hory and Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the situation in the state of Chiapas; -B4-0085/98 by Mr Carnero González, Mr Wurtz, Mr Manisco, Mrs González Álvarez, Mr Novo, Mrs Pailler, Mr Alavanos, Mr Svensson, Mr Ephremidis and Mr Seppänen, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the situation in the state of Chiapas (Mexico); -B4-0095/98 by Mr Kreissl-Dörfler, Mr Tamino, Mr Ripa di Meana and Mr Orlando, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the situation in the state of Chiapas (Mexico).

<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
Mr President, there are no half measures where human rights are concerned and, in the specific case of the right to life, which when you lose it you can never get it back, you know, Mr President, that moderation becomes a vice when it stands back.
Therefore it is important that this Parliament - I said it on 24th of December, I repeated it on 6th of January in the Foreign Affairs Committee, I put it to my political group again afterwards, and today I will say it again before the full session - this Parliament has to speak up to condemn unreservedly this slaughter which has shaken public opinion throughout the world.
<P>
As well as vehemently condemning this barbaric act and showing solidarity with the families of the victims, this Parliament should also condemn every form of human rights' violation and violence, regardless of who is responsible for such criminal acts.
<P>
Mexico, under the mandate of President Zedillo, is today immersed in a complex and unfinished process of reform.
Many things have changed in that country since the elections of the 6th of July last, but there are other things which have not changed so much: violence, insecurity and impunity.
<P>
It is certain that the measures taken by the Government - in the case of the massacre at Acteal and the events in Ocosingo - are an attempt to restore confidence and the country's credibility, within the limits of the legal system and the rule of law, under which all subjects must be seen as equal, beginning with the Government and ending with the citizens.
<P>
But this is not enough, Mr President, it is not enough to react, since the loss of life, of one single human life, is irreparable.
These measures should not be considered exceptional as they serve as a model for normal behaviour in any legal system.
<P>
Because when freedom is violated - which begins with respect for the right to life - justice must be applied strictly, Mr President, For that reason this Parliament, by means of the resolution, appeals to the Government - which has the prime duty of looking after its citizens - to mobilize all its forces to prevent such shameful and dreadful deeds being repeated.
<P>
And it stresses again that dialogue and the eradication of violence, of all violence, form the best path - rather the only path - to reach a lasting solution to the conflict and a just and durable peace for everyone.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, the wind of change in Mexico towards greater democracy and openness has not yet had any effect, or at least, insufficient effect on the situation in Chiapas.
The slaughter of 45 Indians at the end of December, and the continuing troubles from that moment on show that the problems caused by paramilitary actions and lawlessness have not yet been solved.
The fact that the Home Affairs Minister and the governor of Chiapas are no longer there is a good thing, but much more will be needed to exonerate the authorities and the army.
<P>
As there are indications that there are contacts between the paramilitary groups and political circles, the government will have to exercise the utmost vigilance, and will have to take action against the paramilitary groups and punish them.
As a sign of goodwill Mexico should also agree to the establishment of an office for UN High Commissioner Office for Human Rights.
We have submitted an amendment to this effect to the resolution.
The Mexican government has already committed itself to this as part of the agreement recently agreed between the Union and Mexico.
<P>
To conclude, Mr President, a remark about the situation in Chiapas.
The San Andrés agreement must be complied with, and the dialogue between the ZNLA, the Zapatistas, and the government must be resumed.
A military solution does not exist, and will risk the stability of the entire country.
That is why the dialogue which has been severed since 1996 must be resumed in order to procure a lasting political solution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Cabezón Alonso">
Mr President, the violent death of 45 defenceless people, most of them women and children, in the Mexican town of Acteal on 22nd of December last, once again presented us with a Mexico which is showing its deepest divisions in the state of Chiapas, where a rich Mexico and a poor, unequal and disadvantaged Mexico live uncomfortably side by side.
<P>
I condemn unreservedly such an extremely serious act and express my solidarity with the victims and their families.
<P>
The real situation in Chiapas today needs to be analyzed rigorously and sincerely.
We cannot dismiss what is happening in Chiapas with a simplistic analysis or with western standards because very serious errors may be made.
<P>
Rejecting the use of violence as a political instrument, I would like President Zedillo and his Government to find a solution to the Chiapas conflict and to the political, economic, social and cultural causes which are behind this conflict. I would like the Republic's legal system to keep the investigation open until the facts have been fully clarified and to avoid these going unpunished; for the Mexican political parties to reach agreement on national policies and decide upon a common legal approach to native autonomy, as an important step towards implementing part of the San Andrés agreements; for the presence of paramilitary groups in Chiapas to be eliminated and the Zapatista insurgents integrated as a civil organization - sooner rather than later - in Mexican political life; and finally for the Committee, in collaboration with the Mexican federal authorities, to support urgent aid programmes for the Chiapan refugees.
<P>
I acknowledge the role of the Mexican Army in disarming the paramilitary groups and its activity in the distribution of aid to refugees; but all their efforts should be increased so that there are no armed confrontations between the Mexican regular army and Zapatista insurgents.
<P>
If this confrontation should unfortunately occur, its consequences would be unpredictable.
Today what really matters is to save this delicate mosaic of solutions and the peace we want and should be building.
Mexican society should see in the European Union not just an accusing finger, but instead a loyal ally working with it to avoid conflict.
<P>
The resolution which we wish to adopt today represents a modest contribution to that alliance established for the purpose of sharing problems and solutions together.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hory">
Mr President, when we tabled this resolution, there may still have been some doubt as to whether the Mexican authorities were responsible for the massacre at Acteal.
<P>
There is now no longer any doubt.
It has been proved that the local authorities at least were warned of the preparations for the massacre on 21 December, that they were advised of the involvement of members of the Institutional Revolutionary Party and the police in those preparations.
<P>
Far from understanding the feeling generated by the massacre, a feeling that brought 100 000 demonstrators out onto the streets of Mexico, the Mexican authorities are continuing to carry out repression, and another young Indian woman has just been killed by the Police.
<P>
That is why I believe that this House should take up this issue, and although many of us do not share the romantic fascination, which the archaic left-wing notions of the Zapatista movement have for some, this House should loudly condemn the Mexican authorities, and exhort them to finally open a debate on the many problems, particularly with regard to property, which they face in the state of Chiapas.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Mr President, the appalling slaughter at Acteal and the previous events testify to the serious problems which the democratic transition in Mexico is going through.
Also they provide evidence for the lack of respect for human rights in that country and, of course, the explosive situation in the state of Chiapas.
<P>
Europe should contribute to making Mexico a democracy which fully respects human rights, and we have to demand this, above all else, from President Ernesto Zedillo and his government.
We have to ask the Mexican authorities to detain and find guilty those who are to blame for the slaughter at Acteal; to disarm the paramilitary groups who, as has already been noted, were working in Chiapas before the crime in Acteal, and to discourage them; to cease military operations in Chiapas and to withdraw the Army; to fulfil the San Andrés agreement and set up a real dialogue with the Zapatista Army; to respect human rights and to extend the democratic process as far as possible.
Such a democratic process showed a marked improvement with the fair election of Cuahutémoc Cárdenas as governor of the Federal District capital.
<P>
There is no doubt that we should agree with what the majority of Mexicans are asking for - and thousands and thousands have just done so on the streets of their cities - as well as with what most Europeans want too.
Our citizens do not want vague promises about Mexico, they want clarity.
We have to demand the same clarity here for Parliament, for the Council and for the Committee, and we have to ask for an international agreement in respect of human rights in Mexico and for the Committee to inform us about this issue in a regular and organized way.
For all these reasons, good words are not enough; words have to be based on deeds and if we want all these demands to be met we have to use the means at our disposal.
<P>
This is the reason why our resolution calls upon this Parliament to suspend the procedure for ratification of the bilateral agreement concluded last December between the European Union and Mexico, until President Zedillo meets the demands which were expressed before, and I think that we ought to ask national parliaments to take similar action.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="Newens">
Mr President, the callous slaughter of 45 people at Acteal in the state of Chiapas in Mexico shocked human rights workers round the world.
This resolution reflects a widely held sense of outrage.
The prompt condemnation of the massacre by the Mexican President and the steps taken to root out those responsible and bring them to justice, as the resolution states, is welcome.
But the Mexican authorities must recognize that any failure of the system which allowed the guilty to evade judgement would gravely damage their reputation.
<P>
In the past Mexicans have suffered grievous violations of their human rights without the culprits being detected or punished.
But it is vital on this occasion that those who committed so appalling a crime should not be allowed to avoid the consequences of their acts.
The Government of Mexico must, furthermore, reiterate its declared commitment to a peaceful resolution to the conflict with the ZNLA.
We must strongly urge both sides to renew their efforts to ensure that the objectives of the San Andrés agreements are achieved in full, without any further injuries or loss of life and, to this end, to meet with a will to succeed, come what may.
<P>
If the terrible events of 22 December jolt those in a position of responsibility to take the actions required, not only to resolve the conflict, but also to tackle the underlying problems of poverty, deprivation and discrimination which lie behind the Zapatista revolt, the victims of Acteal will not have died in vain.
At this stage I do not think that we should seek to impede the EU-Mexico agreement of December 1997 which includes the issue of human rights since the Mexican Government is taking action on the issues of this massacre.
Inevitably, however, if human rights violations were to increase or fail to be dealt with, it would not be possible to oppose a much tougher line in future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wurtz">
Mr President, as I have been to Chiapas, and maintained regular contact, both with militant Zapatistas and many Mexican progressives, I can bear witness to the hope engendered, in Mexico, by the San Andrés agreements of February 1996.
<P>
The culture of indigenous peoples should be recognized as an integral part of the diversity of Mexico, and their participation in its political life should be guaranteed.
It is my conviction that basically the non-respect of these agreements was the main cause of the dramatic worsening of the situation in the state of Chiapas.
<P>
Now, the worst has happened, and in the massacre at Acteal 45 people died on 22 December 1996.
This is a serious indictment of those who, at the head of the State, tolerate such paramilitary groups and what is more, of the local leaders of the IRP who give these murderers their direct support.
It is impossible to deny that the leaders of the country deliberately allowed the situation to worsen in order to try and isolate the Zapatistas or force them to make a mistake, in order to justify their adoption of the military option.
<P>
It is within this context that I wish to pass on the express request of many important people in Chiapas and in Mexico in general, that is, that the partnership and cooperation agreement signed on 8 December 1997 between the European Union and Mexico, should be suspended, until the Mexican authorities dissolve these paramilitary groups, condemn the murderers, withdraw the Mexican army from the indigenous areas, and more generally, fulfil their commitments, or in other words, implement the San Andrés agreement, so that the populations of the state of Chiapas may at last achieve peace, justice and democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, the European Commission naturally shares the horror and dismay about the murder of 45 people in the village of Acteal in the Mexican state of Chiapas.
This means that the hope for a peaceful solution to the conflict in Chiapas has further decreased, but cannot take this lying down, we of course.
<P>
On the 22nd of December, in a statement from the Luxembourg Presidency, the European Commission called on the Mexican authorities to immediately set up an investigation into the identity of the perpetrators of the murders and to bring them to court.
The European Union also pointed out that in the agreements between the European Union and Mexico, signed in Brussels on 8 December, both parties undertook to observe human rights and democratic principles unconditionally.
<P>
The Commission has meanwhile taken note of President Zedillo's promise to employ all necessary resources at federal level to find and punish the perpetrators, and to intensify the talks on finding a peaceful solution to the conflict.
This promise has been fulfilled.
The Home Affairs Minister has resigned.
The governor has mandated the Attorney General to lead the investigation personally.
The governor of the state of Chiapas has been removed from office, and a number of people who are suspected of being involved in the murders have been arrested.
<P>
The Commission has argued before and continues to argue for a peaceful solution which will have to be the result of mutual consultation between the government and the ZNLA.
We will obviously continue to follow the developments in Chiapas closely.
Our delegation in Mexico continues to report all developments and is in regular contract will all parties concerned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>


B4-0033/98 by Mr Bertens on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on controls on armaments exports; -B4-0058/98 by Mr Oostlander and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the European code of conduct on armaments exports; -B4-0064/98 by Mr Titley, Mr Swoboda and Mr Wiersma, on behalf of the PSE, on the European code of conduct on armaments exports; -B4-0081/98 by Mrs Lalumière, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the code of conduct on armaments exports; -B4-0086/98 by Mr Wurtz, Mr Jové Peres, Mr Alavanos, Mr Ribeiro and Mr Papayannakis, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on controls on armaments exports; -B4-0104/98 by Mrs Hautala, Mr Telkämper, Ms Mckenna, Mr Gahrton and Mrs Schroedter, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the European code of conduct on transfers of armaments.

<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="Titley">
Thank you, Mr President.
The Socialist Group warmly welcomes the initiative taken by the British Presidency to seek to establish a code of conduct on arms exports.
We believe this is essential to the future because, of course, you cannot really have a common foreign and security policy dedicated to crisis management and conflict prevention, while at the same time your big companies are arming the very countries responsible for instability.
<P>
It is also essential for the defence industry itself, because the lack of a code of conduct is holding back the consolidation which the industry needs and which will make it less dependent on exports, as I pointed out in my report to this Parliament a few months ago.
<P>
In this debate we must not let the best be the enemy of the good.
We should concentrate on two essential principles.
Firstly, we need clear and commonly agreed principles governing the trade.
That would mean distinguishing between the sale of arms to countries that would use them to abuse human rights and the sale of arms to countries that may have a dubious record but, nonetheless, have a legitimate external security concern.
Unfortunately, the resolutions before us do not make sufficient distinction between these two issues.
<P>
The second issue we have to address is that there should be no undercutting.
Once a country decides on the basis of these principles not to export arms, no other country should be allowed to complete that sale themselves and so undermine the principle.
<P>
We also have to recognize three other issues essential for the effective working of a code of conduct.
Firstly, there has to be maximum transparency, i.e. the Council has to report on what it is doing and allow the European Parliament to comment.
Secondly, we need a fresh initiative, particularly in the light of enhanced police cooperation in the Amsterdam Treaty, to stop the illegal sale of arms.
Thirdly, we have to step up our efforts to make this an international code of conduct, not just a European code of conduct.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, we, the Liberal Group, are delighted with the initiative of the British Presidency to step up the community criteria on arms exports.
The British Presidency has announced a code of conduct, but this code of conduct must not become a feeble compromise.
A noncommittal code of conduct is of no use to us.
Agreements must be made which are enforceable and can be monitored.
<P>
Bilateral agreements are not the solution, because they offer too many opportunities for secret deals .
To facilitate effective consultation, the Member States must make internal agreements to guarantee major openness and public and parliamentary control on arms export licences.
<P>
A UN arms sale register is a useful instrument for increasing global transparency regarding arms supplies.
That is why a new criterion should be included which forbids exports to countries which do not meet the terms of this UN register.
We liberals will therefore support the amendments made by the Greens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fabra Vallés">
Mr President, the Group of the European People's Party thinks that a code of conduct regulating the export of arms is a positive step and, what is more, we should consider it vital if we are to build an efficient PESC.
<P>
To regulate and control the export of arms to countries at war, to countries which do not respect human rights and to unstable regions allows us to indirectly intervene, avoiding an escalation of conflict in such areas.
If we also establish a clear, unambiguous code which limits the type of arms and technology which can be exported, as well as agreements with other exporting countries - not forgetting companies and other trading countries - we will have taken an important step forward.
It would be good if the Council, as well as drawing up the code I mentioned, could let us know when it has been completed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pradier">
Mr President, the manufacture, sale and exportation of arms are activities which have never had a very good press, but which still make very good profits for those engaged in them.
It is also an industry of some political importance, which maintains jobs, which is not negligible these days.
<P>
The adoption of a Code of Conduct within the EU is therefore a necessity.
Actively preparing to extend it to other countries is also a necessity, but I should like to draw your attention to the list of items involved.
Certainly, heavy armoured vehicles, supersonic bombers and highly sophisticated equipment should be on it, but we must also remember that the weapons that kill the most, particularly in countries where there is instability, are small-bore weapons, automatic firearms and hand-held weapons.
Such weapons are used more often than the heavy artillery of a nuclear aircraft carrier to bring down farmers, demonstrators and opponents.
<P>
We should at least agree that they should one day be included in the Code of Conduct.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, we welcome the initiative taken by the British Presidency of the Council in playing an active role in this matter and in finally putting this critical point on the agenda.
Of course, the European Parliament has to be included. But it must also make progressive proposals which will lead somewhere.
For this reason I would like the European Parliament to concentrate on current developments and crisis situations and, this being the case, for light and small arms to play the central role.
We cannot simply leave them aside; we have to include them.
Anyone who has even been in an area of conflict knows just how important this is.
<P>
Cooperation on arms issues requires special consideration of technologies with dual applications.
It constitutes another aspect of the debate.
I am also delighted that our proposal to add a ninth criterion to exclude the supply of arms to countries which do not joint the UN arms register has been taken on board.
Of course, a codex of this nature has to be put into practice.
And that means that arms deals must be controlled by national governments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, I would also like to welcome the proposal for appropriate joint action with regard to the EU's arms exports.
The fact that a majority of the EU's Member States have at least signalled their readiness for a code of conduct is gratifying.
<P>
However, it is surprising that my home country, Finland, has not discussed this or supported the initiative.
It is surprising because for a small country it is more advantageous to have an arms market which has rules than one which is unregulated.
It is also surprising because Finland was prepared to discuss production cooperation.
Why are people not prepared to discuss cooperation and common rules for exports?
<P>
This is serious.
We need new rules urgently because the arms trade grew during 1995-1996.
The code needs to include rules on sensitive areas where we either have a full embargo, selective restrictions or where the States negotiate between themselves.
All countries should be allowed to participate in these negotiations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, the European Commission is grateful to Parliament for putting this topic on the agenda once more. This debate is taking place at a relatively sensitive time for the European defence industry, and at a time of rapid international development.
Because of the violent conflicts in many parts of the world, the issue of improved control on arms exports is high on the international agenda, and is being closely followed by the public.
<P>
The present EU regulations concerning arms exports, which are based on the eight points agreed in 1991 and 1992, have not turned out to be very effective.
These points are too vague and cannot be very easily managed as a guideline either.
The Commission is distinctly in favour of stricter rules, which make up a clear framework for the discussion about the arms trade.
We also favour an improvement in the exchange of information and consultation procedures between the Member States.
<P>
This Parliament has made a significant contribution to this debate on the European arms industry by accepting a resolution based on Mr Titley's report, and he generally supports the findings and recommendations made in a Commission statement in January 1996.
In the resolution the Commission is asked to draw up a White Paper on arms exports, and the services of the Commission are presently working on this.
<P>
I hope that this process can be completed during the next few weeks.
This document evaluates the position of the European Union in the global arms trade, and discusses the role of the Union in the arms exports policy up until at the present time, and presents a number of options for future action.
It will also pay attention to the increasingly important issue of illegal trade in small and light arms.
<P>
The British Presidency is determined to make active progress on the road to a restrictive and more transparent European Union arms export policy.
It intends to submit a EU code of conduct on the arms trade regulations.
This means a political commitment will be demanded from the Member States, probably in the shape of a statement from the Council.
I myself raised the subject at the recent visit of the European Commission to the British Presidency in London, and Foreign Secretary Mr Cook assured me that he is presently holding bilateral negotiations with a number of Member States in order to speed up the process towards this code of conduct as much as possible.
<P>
The Commission for its part is prepared to support any initiative which will lead to such a code of conduct being established, and the White Paper is intended as a contribution to these efforts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
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B4-0050/98 by Mr Pompidou, Mr Scapagnini and Mr Baldi, on behalf of the Group Union for Europe, on cloning of human beings; -B4-0053/98 by Mr Monfils, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on cloning of human beings; -B4-0068/98 by Mrs Green and Mr Cot, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on human cloning; -B4-0074/98 by Mr Liese, Mr C. Casini, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, Mr Trakatellis and Mr Tindemans, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on cloning of human beings; -B4-0079/98 by Mr Hory, Mr Pradier and Mr Macartney, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on human cloning; -B4-0087/98 by Mr Papayannakis, Mrs González Álvarez, Mr Gutiérrez Díaz, Mrs Ainardi, Mrs Sornosa Martínez, Mr Sjöstedt, Mr Ojala and Mr Marset Campos, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on cloning of human beings; -B4-0102/98 by Mrs Aelvoet, Mrs Roth, Mrs Ahern, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, Mrs Hautala, Mr Lannoye, Ms Mckenna, Mrs Schörling, Mr Tamino and Mr Voggenhuber, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the death penalty in the United States; -B4-0059/98 by Mr Habsburg-Lothringen and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the situation in the Ingusci Republic; -B4-0077/98 by Mr Dupuis, Mr Dell'Alba and Mr Hory, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the situation in the Ingusci Republic; -B4-0100/98 by Mrs Schroedter and Mr Gahrton, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the return of the Ingusci in the districts of Prigrodni and Vladikavkaz; -B4-0060/98 by Mr Stasi, Mr Tindemans and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the arrest of Z'ahidi Ngoma (Democratic Republic of Congo); -B4-0072/98 by Mr Azzolini, Mr Pasty and Mr Andrews, on behalf of the Group Union for Europe, on the violation of human rights in the Democratic Republic of Congo; -B4-0078/98 by Mr Macartney, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the protection of the Aborigine population in Australia; -B4-0089/98 by Mr Papayannakis, Mr Mohamed Alí, Mr Sjöstedt and Mr Ojala, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the extraction of uranium in the Aborigine territories; -B4-0098/98 by Mrs Aelvoet, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, Mr Holm, Mr Lannoye and Ms Mckenna, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the extraction of uranium in Aborigine territories; -B4-0054/98 by Mr Bertens and Mrs Cars, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on the mass executions in South Korea; -B4-0080/98 by Mr Dupuis and Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the death sentence in the United States on Karla Faye Tucker; -B4-0103/98 by Mr Manisco, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, and Mrs Aglietta and Ms Mckenna, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the situation in the state of Chiapas (Mexico); -B4-0076/98 by Mr Dupuis, Mr Dell'Alba and Mr Hory, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the human rights situation in China; -B4-0097/98 by Mrs Aglietta, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the appointment of a special representative of the European Union for Tibet; -B4-0035/98 by Mr Watson, Mr Mulder, Mr Fassa and Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on Kenya; -B4-0084/98 by Mr Hory, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the result of the election in Kenya.







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Human cloning
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<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldi">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, great apprehension has been aroused by last week's announcement from Professor Richard Seed of his intention to carry out research to apply the technique of cloning to man and the ethical consequences that involves.
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The European Parliament has already come out absolutely firmly against any form of cloning for purposes of reproduction of human beings and passed a clear resolution on the subject on 12 March 1997.
Taking account of the right to genetic identity and whereas the principle of equality presupposes parity of rights - and hence acceptance of individual differences - banning discrimination and implying, therefore, the inadmissibility of genetically equal individuals and genetic selection, an explicit world ban on cloning of human beings is considered necessary and the responsible authorities are asked to draw up adequate legislation on the subject.
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It is also important to organize a world conference on the issue, in order to reach a common position condemning cloning of human beings.
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Encouraging, assisting and supporting scientific research is a moral obligation for the whole of society.
But the news arriving from the United States is extremely alarming.
It smacks of lack of respect for the dignity of the species which governs this planet, even if it does fall into a thousand difficulties and errors.
Scientific research is following its own path - as it should - and at high speed.
But our task is to do our best to encompass research in a legislative framework, by banning human cloning and establishing deterrent penal sanctions for individuals and financial sanctions for states which agree to it.
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However, we are lagging behind and my personal hope is that all the governments of the planet can come together to draw up rules for proper development in harmony with all the facets of nature, animals and last but not least, human beings.
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<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Desama">
Mr President, the general disapproval of a project by an American scientist to clone a human being and the initiatives adopted by the Council of Europe in this respect, have indisputably shown that we and a number of countries have not lost our ability to express indignation.
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However, in addition to this case, which no one will deny is serious, there is a need for a fundamental debate on the limits of science, or more exactly on the responsibility of scientists.
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It would be unacceptable, whilst the emotion created by this business is still high, in the name of natural morals or ethics, to set a limit to the research which can be carried out on the genome, soon perhaps to include certain forms of cloning.
It is always the same old story.
On the other hand, it would be equally unacceptable if, in the name of absolute scientific freedom, a human being was created to be used for organ transplants, without the human being created by means of cloning having the same rights as a human being born by natural reproduction.
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Cloning a human being, need I repeat, is not, contrary to what its authors says, a scientific venture.
First of all and above all, it is a media and commercial operation which shows the danger of research which can no longer obtain from public funds the resources it needs for socially acceptable development.
And that is the real danger.
Commercial pressure is certain to destroy any research, whose aim is above all to promote social wellbeing.
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<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Monfils">
Mr President, it has already been said that the cloning revolution we are discussing is nothing new.
The subject was already widely discussed in March 1997 and in the draft directive on patents.
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I think that if we start the same debate every time that a scientist somewhere in the world tells the media he has gone beyond what is morally permissible, all each part-session will have to do is to clone a resolution on the previous resolution.
Because, finally, we do have an instrument in Europe.
It is, as has already been said, the European Bioethics Convention and its protocol, which prohibits, and I quote: ' Any intervention seeking to create a human being genetically identical to another human being, whether living or dead...'
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It is up to each Member State to approve the protocol and what prevents some Member States from signing and ratifying the Convention is that it is too inflexible, inasmuch as, for example, it prohibits any intervention on germ cells and any use of embryos for the purposes of scientific research.
By wanting to prohibit everything, we are preventing the implementation of the Convention.
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Finally, according to us, I would say that it is certainly necessary to prevent aberrations, but we must not however stop scientific research in its exploration of life.
I share Mr Desama's point of view on this subject.
Although the cloning of human beings is contrary to the dignity of the human being, the cloning of cells or tissues may make it possible to combat hereditary diseases.
People who claim to defend humanity by proposing to stop research on living cells only prevent men and women suffering from genetic diseases, in particular, from having a better quality of life, or even from staying alive.
That is unacceptable.
Humanity needs scientific progress.
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<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Liese">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Parliament has always spoken out clearly against human cloning, arguing not only on purely technical grounds, but also on issues of principle.
Therefore we are not in favour of a moratorium on human cloning, but rather a general ban.
I also believe that everyone at this plenary session is united behind this demand.
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But what is human cloning?
That is the question addressed by the previous speaker and which we must now define.
On this subject, too, the EP has always taken a very clear position.
Both in the vote on the Patent Guidelines in June and within the context of the Fifth Research Framework Programme in December we found a clear definition.
The Legal Committee and the Research Committee have both dealt with these matters intensively and in the Research Committee this issue was the subject of a unanimous vote when all others were hotly disputed.
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I believe it is very important that we continue to hold this position.
And this is why the EVP has included amendment 8.
Banning human cloning, for example, does not mean banning work on human cells designed to make skin transplants possible.
It does mean, however, that both cloned babies and the production of human embryos for use as spare parts for organ transplants must be outlawed.
For this reason we are very shocked by amendment 1 proposed by Mr Bowe, Mr Monfils and others which rules out cloning for the purposes of reproduction only.
This could mean, however, that a situation in which one produced a human embryo or, taking the interpretation a stage further, a baby without a brain, cloned it and then used if not for reproduction but as a supply of spare parts for organs, this would clearly not be excluded.
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We must be very clear here.
The Council of Europe's Monday Clone Protocol expressly omits any reference to reproductive clones and is therefore further-reaching than the demand which has just been detailed.
As such, it represents a good step in the right direction.
In conclusion, we must nevertheless ensure that this clone protocol is not open to misinterpretation, like the dangerous image, for example, drawn by the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and it is for this reason that we have submitted Amendment No 9 to close any backdoor routes.
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<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pradier">
Mr President, everyone is against the cloning of human beings, of course, and rightly so.
It is well known that is how things stand, apart of course for certain businessmen, disguised as scientists, who see it as a source of lucrative business.
And the combination of the lure of profit and contempt for mankind should not make us change our minds!
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We shall therefore vote for this text, but we would however like to emphasize an important aspect.
That is, the importance of the call for an international conference which Monica Baldi mentioned.
This conference should take place at the end of a moratorium, a determined dialogue between the scientific world, ethics commissions and political leaders on the subject, which is so serious and new to all of us, that many of us are bewildered and have no reliable points of reference on the subject.
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<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Mr President, we are not speaking here of research relating to therapeutic and medical ends, to which nobody objects.
We are talking about the cloning of individuals, human beings, and the most important thing one can say, at least with today's attitudes towards the subject, is that nobody can guarantee the health and natural development of individuals produced in that way, in the Brave New World which some people promise us.
We are therefore right to be concerned for that reason, and to call for a ban.
Yet, Mr President, that decision and that action we wish to undertake for the future would be pointless unless its scope is world-wide, and in particular, unless it extends to countries which have the ability to go down that road, most of all the United States, where there is a legal vacuum on the subject.
Mr Clinton's appeals for prohibition relate only to federal funding and not to the private sector.
On that point I would like to ask: are the Commission and the Council of Ministers disposed, and do they know how and to what extent they could negotiate with the United States, so that we can agree on a common policy over the issue?
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<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
Mr President, obviously we are all astonished today at the announcement from the United States and also, I would add, by what we have heard from a British bio-ethics committee, which has opened up wide prospects of human cloning for therapeutic purposes.
This is astonishing and there is opposition to it, but it demonstrates that we Greens were right when we said last year that accepting cloning of animals was an open door to human cloning.
And here today someone is opening new doors to human cloning, because when it is claimed that human cloning is acceptable for therapeutic purposes, that is another broad path towards the final destination which will inevitably be cloning of human beings.
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Also, when we speak of human beings it is clear that we must explicitly define what human beings are and say that cloning must be banned from the start of conception throughout all the embryonic stages.
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<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gebhardt">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Parliament's view is clear and unambiguous.
The dignity of mankind forbids any form of cloning.
In the vote on the 5th Research Framework Programme we also refused the provision of funds for research which amounts to human cloning.
Respect for our fellow creatures as well as other considerations also make the cloning of animals a extremely questionable endeavour at the very least.
Today, reports on a money-hungry madman who calls himself a scientist are forcing us to hold this debate for clarification.
This clarification is required to ensure that one perverse case of abuse does not discredit the entire field of biotechnology which we associate with hopes and high expectations.
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But there is also a question which we must ask ourselves. Have we done everything we can to ensure that this new area of research and technology does not slip out of our control and direct itself against men or even mankind?
We have certainly tried.
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Today we have before us a network of laws and guidelines which regulate and protect but which also offer loopholes and hiding places which could lead to the abuse of biotechnology.
It is my view, therefore, that a framework guideline is needed which marks out the field and makes the many individual rules transparent.
It must cover all aspects of the issue, including uniform provisions in criminal law which impose severe penalties on the flouting of regulations and violation of bans.
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This difficult work is our duty as citizens of the European Union.
We must not dodge it. We must ask the Member States to sign a Council of Europe document today.
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On one hand, the so-called Bioethics Convention fails to solve the problem. On the other, it offers the principle of subsidiarity under which each Member State may decide whether or not to ratify it.
For this reason let us remove Point 2 from the joint resolution.
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<SPEAKER ID=144 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Trakatellis">
Mr President, from a scientific point of view, considering the cloning of humans by the method used with the now famous Dolly, it must be said that the experiment of creating her was the only one to succeed among very many failures.
Consequently, the method has not been scientifically perfected, its medium and long-term results are unknown, and there has been no investigation of all the possible consequences for the organism of the cloned animal.
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It is therefore shocking when a scientist says, without circumlocution, that he is going to clone a human being.
Because not only is that not justified on scientific grounds, but it is equivalent to dangerous and I would even say criminal experiments with humans.
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Mr President, we still have to consider the ethical, legal and social aspects of the problem, because if cloning is applied to mankind this essentially opens the way towards eugenics.
Echoes of the creation of the Aryan race and the Superman have still not died down even today.
Who is to do the cloning and under what conditions?
Will it be available for all?
Will special permits be needed?
There are still very many related questions, which show that the issue is exceptionally complex, and that it harbours the risk of distorting human societies.
It is a fact that in the face of headlong scientific progress the legal systems of our countries have found themselves unprepared.
And consequently, it is important that the laws should be adapted well in time, with objectives such as protection of the individual, safeguarding the interests of the group, and defending society's values.
This nightmare prospect of human cloning must be banned well in time, because it would create insuperable problems in our societies.
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<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Kaklamanis">
Mr President, every scientific revolution brings reactions and creates conditions of insecurity.
Galileo was condemned by the Holy Inquisition.
In-vitro fertilization as a way of producing children was also deplored, and world-wide public opinion still regards euthanasia with mistrust.
Cloning, however, reminds us by association of the Nazi doctor Mengele and his tragic experiments.
It is a repulsive prospect to produce human beings who are faithful copies, because every human is unique and his uniqueness is the nucleus of thought and creativity.
The lack of a simultaneous international legal framework and the evident possibility of unethical and politically dangerous exploitation in the cloning of humans has caused the international scientific community to react with reservations.
The European Parliament's duty is to determine the fine line which defines what is ethically acceptable and socially permissible and beneficial.
The rules, however, Commissioner, must be strict enough to prevent the realization of unwholesome phenomena.
At the same time, they must apply world-wide.
I would like to ask you whether you have considered, within the scope of this effort, trying together with the UN to establish such world-wide legislation in relation to cloning.
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<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are scientists who say yes, we will clone humans.
This is a major affront to human dignity.
It is the irresponsible breaking of ethical dams and taboos.
An absence of ethical boundaries would be a terrifying thing for humanity.
Knowledge without conscience is a horrific scenario!
Yet here we are, faced with a kind of mad and undreamt-of omnipotence.
Unfortunately, the nightmare of a "made to measure' human being or the breeding of humans as a supply of spare parts is becoming more and more realistic, and unimagined ethics are being pushed ever forward.
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The international community still has no binding regulations and even in the European Union science has no ethical boundaries.
On the contrary, increasingly it is the scientists who are setting the ethical boundaries for society.
Even the cloning of animals provides expertise for the future cloning of humans.
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So what we need - and I ask the Commission if it is ready to do this - is a worldwide non-proliferation treaty for cloning techniques.
We need the worldwide outlawing of cloning because what is technically feasible will one day be done.
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It also seems to me to be essential that we exert some economic pressure!
I believe that within the framework of the WTO we should boycott international groups and countries who are not prepared to devise binding rules on the banning of cloning.
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In this regard, I should be glad to know whether the Commission is prepared to go beyond non-binding declarations and statements, whether it is prepared to go a step further, to sign a binding agreement and make a worldwide ban on cloning.
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<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, in the discussion about what is scientifically possible we must first of all ask: what is its feasibility or its moral desirability?
This question is also at the heart of this issue.
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Considering the many reactions of horror to the plans of the American scientist Richard Seed, the moral undesirability of the cloning of humans in this case appears to be winning against the desire for scientific advance.
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And rightly so.
Cloning technology leaves nothing to chance, and makes bad copies.
In actual fact, it adds nothing.
Going a step further and improving a certain gene in the clone, we reach the dangerous zone of racial improvement.
Little good can be expected of this technique, in other words.
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What is the situation regarding the clone?
During the discussions on human rights our group has frequently remarked that the freedom of one is bounded by the freedom of another.
This also applies here.
The human dignity, the individuality and identity of man is at issue, and man is reduced to a consumer article.
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So it is gratifying that, at the Council of Europe, a charter awaiting signature which forbids the cloning of humans.
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Yet I still have my reservations about the future.
I recognize God as the Creator of man.
I see the new human life which originates in the conjunction between man and women as a unique gift from God.
As far as I am concerned the lines are very sharply drawn.
It means an absolute ban on the cloning of humans.
Yet to many countries this ban already does not seem to be wholly absolute.
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Thus it is worrying that the Netherlands, England and Germany have still not signed the charter.
Pressure must be put on these countries.
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I sincerely hope that we decide on an absolute, tough position against human cloning.
It is vital.
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<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, last April over twenty countries signed the Council of Europe Convention at Oviedo, which constitutes the best contribution Europe can make to the world debate on bio-medicine and medical research, but it only represents a first step towards regulating the matter.
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At a time when science and new laboratory techniques are being identified as a power capable of conditioning modern man and the man of the future, it is becoming essential, in our view, for this debate to be open and democratic.
Medical research is indispensable for alleviating suffering and improving human health, but there must be boundaries which cannot be crossed - and I say that as a doctor and not as a politician - and those are the boundaries of the actual dignity and identity of man.
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Experiments in cloning, but also trade in embryos, gametes and genetic material, are taking place not only in Europe but all over the world without any controls and this demonstrates that it is now urgent to deal with bioethical issues and find solutions.
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The signature and ratification of the Council of Europe Convention last April, and its additional protocol specifically banning human cloning, could be the start of the solution, but the Union's partner countries must be urgently involved.
Determined defence of a people's rights will increase their dignity, freedom, integrity and right to health.
So it is the duty of the Alleanza Nazionale delegation to give its support and approval to the motion for a resolution.
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<SPEAKER ID=149 NAME="White">
Mr President, I believe that Dr Seed is a buccaneer who is seeking to create a market opportunity which he will then exploit without licence and without responsibility.
It is also significant that when the Commission's group of advisors were asked to look at the question of Dolly the sheep and her cloning, they did so after Dolly had been born and the gravest danger is now that even though we know that human cloning may be scientifically possible we are making scientific advance without the same advance being made in our ethical considerations.
That being the case, we need to establish and ethical committee.
The common position of the Council in response to the Rothley report leaves a great deal to be desired.
I do not believe that common position reflects what Parliament has voted and consequently at the second reading of the Rothley report I will retable Parliament's original amendment thus making it, if we pass it, a precondition of the patenting directive that we shall establish a satisfactory ethical committee.
Failure to do that means that cloning will take place and will take place on an open market.
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<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Casini C.">
Mr President, I wonder if there is anything original I can add to this debate when virtually everything has been said.
I think it is right to specify general aversion to cloning of human beings at any stage in their development.
I emphasize "human being' .
This does not mean individual somatic cells which might be reproduced in order to cure, say, a skin disease, the reproduction of epithelial cells.
That is my first point.
My second point is that there is no international document or internal document in the individual European states permitting cloning of human beings.
The European Parliament itself repeatedly expressed its view on this issue right up to the final proposal for a directive on legal protection of bio-technological inventions, but it was already very clear on the subject in 1989 with two resolutions on ethical and legal problems of artificial human procreation and genetic engineering.
I am pleased to recall, in respect of the latter, that in the report presented by Mr Rothley in 1989 a very strong expression was used to indicate the legal reason which militates against cloning, and that is the destruction of personality.
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In reality the cloning of human beings raises two fundamental principles of law: the principle of human dignity and the principle of equality, equality which presupposes diversity, because equality lies in dignity regardless of the diversity which makes each of us unique.
Making us equal - paradoxically - is actually a way of destroying equality.
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My final point is this: we can certainly ask whether it is right for a Parliament to be concerned and take action to repeat things already said in television or newspaper statements.
I think it is right; given the gravity of the matter it is important to be vigilant.
It would have been much better to have talked about the atom bomb before building it.
Science is not at stake, technique is at stake, and technique is in the hands of man, who needs to know which track to go down.
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<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lannoye">
Mr President, as the last speaker on this subject, it will perhaps be even more difficult for me to be original than the others, but I should however like to draw the attention of all the Members of this House to the aberration of the arrival of 'Dolly' , which has caused considerable emotion in public opinion, and also in this Parliament.
We immediately voted in a resolution prohibiting human cloning, which we feared that Dolly would lead to - which was obviously true.
But what is more serious is that as time has passed, the emotion has died down, and now one can hear, in this House and elsewhere, more moderate statements to the effect that some forms of human cloning would be acceptable.
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I therefore believe that what we now need is a totally unambiguous resolution.
We must be quite clear.
Cloning of human beings must be totally banned for reasons which have been widely discussed and which are, of course, related to human dignity and the eugenic threat.
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Ingusci
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<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, first of all I would like to say how pleased I am that we are discussing Ingushetia today.
Many people have forgotten that just a few years ago the conflict in ChechnyaIngushetia was a frequent topic of discussion.
The Ingushetis belong to the same ethnic group as the Chechens.
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Today the situation in this country is very difficult, primarily because it is not one, self-contained area of settlement, but two large enclaves, namely Vladikavkaz and Prigorodny.
The Ingushetis formerly living in North Ossetia were effectively driven out as a result of a massive push by the Russians and have had to return to Ingushetia where they now constitute a huge and very difficult refugee problem which we must somehow address because we don't want to see a repeat of the Chechnya conflict.
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A further problem, of course, is the fact that the Russians are now claiming that the Ingushetis helped the Chechens and must therefore be punished.
We are acutely aware that severe restrictions - I am endeavouring to avoid the word blockade - are being imposed on Ingushetia which means that the country is devoid of any meaningful economic development, and that the winter is creating a very difficult situation for the population, particularly for the weakest members, the women and children, who are suffering the most.
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Today the situation is such that the UNHCR has asked for our help in resolving it, for considerable funds to provide accommodation so that these refugees are not obliged to live and suffer in these conditions and for our assistance in ensuring that these refugees are able to return to their original settlements.
They will only be able to do this if we make our influence felt in Russia and exert pressure, and if we send aid to the right place.
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<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, there is nothing much to add after what Carl Habsburg-Lothringen has just said.
He understands the situation perfectly. It is very difficult situation.
I would however like to stress that a whole region is involved, not just Ingushetia.
It is the Republic of Chechnya, and the after-effects of the war waged there.
There are other adjoining areas, such as Dagestan.
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The European Union, and for a start, the Commission, should perhaps pay more attention to that area, because in my opinion, it will be a source of further conflict.
We must envisage solutions urgently.
I think that the Russians have shown that they do not have much intention of changing anything and that the European Union should perhaps make certain suggestions.
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We still have a serious humanitarian problem, which cannot wait.
I believe that the Commission is able to oppose this type of situation and I hope that the European Union will very soon become deeply involved in this area.
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<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, the Ingushetia/North Ossetia conflict is a forgotten conflict.
To date, the 60, 000 exiles who have been housed in temporary accommodation since 1992 and the children who have been effectively unable to lead normal lives since then have received little attention in European politics.
Although their return has been agreed, this has not yet proved a practical possibility due to the security situation.
Each incursion spreads renewed panic amongst the waiting population and revives the hatred.
So far there has been no reduction of the potential for conflict in the region.
The Russian ruling power has failed to gain acceptance and the UNHCR remains the only body with any sort of mandate to control the Prigorodny conflict.
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Action to prevent the escalation of the conflict is urgently required.
Many times in reports I have indicated the need for the EU to commit humanitarian aid on an ongoing rather than a sporadic basis.
That is why I am calling for the ECHO mandate to be extended to Prigorodny and for the EU to assist the OSZE fact finding mission there in bringing international support into the region in order to resolve the conflict.
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<SPEAKER ID=155 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Blot">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the motion for a resolution tabled by Mr Habsburg and Mr Oomen-Ruijten is rather glib.
It is true that a siege always causes regrettable suffering.
It is certainly not for fun that the government of the Russian Federation has now been obliged to impose restrictions on movement in the Northern Caucasus.
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The Russian Federation is trying to prevent another war due to terrorist and Mafia-type activity.
Every one would regret having voted in favour of Mr Habsburg's and Mr Oomen-Ruijten's motion for a resolution if another war were to break out there because of unconsidered removal of the restrictions on movement.
We would therefore have to say like Cassandra, in the poet Aeschylus' words: ' whilst you make vows, they prepare to kill' .
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It is therefore up to the European Parliament to trust the Russian government, which is trying, under difficult conditions, to restore peace and public order, which are the main prerequisites which will enable the population to live in that area under normal conditions.
Some seem to be playing the dangerous game of encouraging all sorts of separatism in Russia, for commercial reasons, or in the service of a foreign superpower.
It is not by such means that peace will be restored in the Northern Caucasus.
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Democratic Republic of Congo
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<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Stasi">
Mr President, with regard to the arbitrary imprisonment of Mr Arthur Ngoma, Leo Tindemans and I have tabled a motion for a resolution on the political situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, firstly because we know and respect Mr Ngoma, who worked for a long time at UNESCO, was opposed to the Mobutu dictatorship, and is one of the main political leaders in the former Zaire to have bravely denounced the politics of repression and violence put in place by the new leadership.
However, as well as the individual case of Mr Ngoma and also of Mr Nsala, Secretary General of the Human Rights Centre, we and the other signatories of this document, wish to draw the attention of this House and of the leaders of public opinion in our various countries to the real character of the regime which is being set up under the deceptive name of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
<P>
It would certainly have been unrealistic to think that a country, which for very many years, was subjected to an arbitrary and corrupt leadership, would be able, in a few months, to transform itself into a country where the principles of democracy, the values of humanism and respect for human rights would be honoured.
Nevertheless, many Congolese and international observers believed in Mr Kabila's good faith and good will, when after seizing power, he announced a calendar of reforms which would lead the country towards legislative and presidential elections in April 1999.
<P>
Now, not only have the first three intended reforms not taken place, but the leadership is becoming more and more harsh: political parties have been banned, more and more arbitrary arrests are taking place, many political opponents, journalists and human rights activists are detained under inhuman conditions, and torture is a regular occurrence.
<P>
Under these circumstances, the European Union cannot remain indifferent. It must show its indignation; it must demand the immediate release of all political prisoners; it must exert pressure (and has the means to do so) to make President Kabila carry out his commitments, re-establish basic freedoms and start a process of democratization with no return.
Many countries, including France, but not only France...
<P>
(The president cut off the speaker)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Mr President, I do not wish to speak in this debate to disagree in any way with the indignation at the violation of the most basic human rights perpetrated in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
<P>
This group, which is furthermore one of the initiators of the resolution on which we shall presently vote, unreservedly condemns the very serious acts of intimidation targeting all those who dare to express the least criticism of the regime set up in Kinshasa.
On this subject, I am in total agreement with Bernard Stasi's opinion.
<P>
As for myself, I should like to draw the attention of the Presidency of the EU, and of the Commission, to the fate of two of our nationals, Jean-Marie Bergesio, a French civil engineering contractor and Antoine Declercq, one of his employees, who is Belgian.
Both were arrested on 10 September 1997, and since then have been detained by the security services of the Democratic Republic of Congo, without any reason being given for their arrest.
In addition, they have been systematically refused the services of a lawyer.
<P>
I therefore ask the Presidency of the EU to show the greatest determination and firmness, and to obtain clear answers from the authorities of that country on the situation of these two Europeans, and what they are really accused of, their only crime, Mr President, having been to witness the massacre of Hutu refugees in Eastern Zaire.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are two fundamental requirements in our approach to the problems raised by recent developments in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
First, it is absolutely necessary to subordinate any international Community aid to this state to the progress actually made in respect for human rights and the real activation of a democratic process in that country.
Second, it is necessary to maintain this democratic process firmly and in particular help the NGOs working for human rights in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
<P>
It is pointless to mince words: we recognize the indubitable difficulties Mr Kabila's government faces, but this cannot constitute, by any title or in homage to any authority including any external to the European Union, a reason for lowering our guard.
<P>
Indigenous peoples of Australia
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="Macartney">
Mr President, this resolution does not just concern Australia but concerns the worldwide problem of the land rights of indigenous people.
The relationship of the indigenous peoples worldwide to the land is perhaps a more accurate description, because the tradition in the part of the world to which we refer is that indigenous people have a collective relationship to the land rather than individual tenure, which is typical of the Western world.
We had experience of that in Scotland when the clan system was replaced by individual landownership.
We have seen it in the Wild West in the United States.
You can see echoes of it in the Sami people in the north of Scandinavia.
<P>
In Australia the aborigines say that the land does not belong to them or to the whites but that they belong to the land.
You have to be aware that when they say this they are talking about traditional migratory patterns in which the sacred places which give them identity belong.
<P>
Let me end with a quotation from the Australian Senate.
Three months ago it said that the Australian Government should proceed no further with the Jabiluka uranium proposal.
I wish to support that proposition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 NAME="Kerr">
Mr President, this is my first speech from the Green Group in the European Parliament, and I hope you will be gentle with me.
It is also very appropriate that it is about Australia, because I am a past chairman of the European Parliament's delegation for relations with Australia and New Zealand, and I have just returned from Australia, where the issue of aboriginal land and native title is dividing the country down the middle.
<P>
There will be an election later this year on this very precise issue, which this resolution today highlights in terms of uranium mining, but which actually concerns the whole country in relation to aboriginal access to their native land.
So this is a very timely resolution.
I hope we adopt it overwhelmingly and thereby send a message to the Australian Government.
The Deputy Prime Minister of Australia will be glad to know it denounced me twice in the Australian Parliament during the ten days of my visit to Australia when I spoke in support of aboriginal land rights right across Australia.
I want this Parliament to be on record that Europe is watching Australia very carefully on this issue, and I hope we can return to it in months to come.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, in many places in the world we are seeing violations of the human rights of indigenous populations.
It is no coincidence that not long ago, we were talking about indigenous people in Chiapas, that we are now talking about Australia, and that Tibet is on the agenda, notwithstanding all the beautiful declarations which have been integrated into the Union system.
<P>
In the case of Australia it is a concrete point we want to raise, namely the fact that the Australian government has decided to start developing the uranium project in Jabiluka, a project situated in a region which is considered a cultural heritage site, and which is recognized by Australian law according as the region belonging to the aborigines.
Besides, and I think it is very important to draw attention to this, the Australian Senate has called on the government to put a stop to this project.
I think it is vital that we have a clear vote here today to ask the government to respect the land rights of the aborigines, and call on the Member States to check from which countries they import uranium in case the rights of the indigenous people are affected.
<P>
Executions
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, South Korea is going through a difficult time.
The financial crisis impacts on all aspects of life.
A major political U-turn has brought to power a former dissident.
The mass execution of 23 prisoners which took place at the end of December, was hardly good news.
Fifty other prisoners have been sentenced to death.
It goes without saying that to my group the death penalty can never ever be justified.
At a time when so much is in flux in Korea this is the wrong message to the people of this country and to the people of other countries.
Democratization, openness and humane penalties are the answer to this situation in which a nation has been led into uncertainty on a major scale.
Humane penalties instead of the death penalty is one of the most important symbols of the state of law and of true democracy.
Several countries are following this route, and we are calling on the South Korean government to do the same.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, Mr Bertens has said it with regard to South Korea, but we also have the case of the United States, one of the States in particular, Texas, in which more than half of all American death sentences are carried out.
Like Mr Bertens, I should to remind the house of the slogan of a campaign which my party, the Radical Party, is running, which is, as we cannot save them one by one, we must try to save them all.
That is why we are working, within the framework of the campaign, to set up a universal moratorium on executions.
<P>
May I take advantage of the presence of Commissioner Van den Broek to ask him whether in the absence of any initiatives by the Member States, the Commission could not, to a certain extent, become a co-ordinator of those in many Member States in favour of an initiative next autumn, at the United Nations General Assembly, for a resolution, and therefore a vote in favour of instituting a universal moratorium on capital punishment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, I think it is a terrible shame that a so-called civilized country like the United States has to be criticized in this Parliament.
It considers itself the moral police force of the world and yet it carries out the most appalling crime, basically a crime against humanity, in imposing the death sentence.
I agree totally with the last speaker about the fact that a woman is being sentenced to death on 3 February.
I call on the Americans and on the Texas authorities to commute her sentence and to put a stay on her execution.
It is unacceptable that such a punishment is carried out in a country that considers itself advanced.
<P>
It is quite clear that this form of punishment is not a deterrent to crime.
In fact if you look at the rising crime figures in the United States it is clear that such an abhorrent punishment does not work and it is about time the Americans actually realised that they are way behind the rest of the international community and cannot point the finger at other, what I would call more primitive countries that we criticize with regard to the death penalty.
Until they actually realise that they are totally in the wrong here they cannot point the finger at anyone else.
We have to do everything to ensure that this woman's sentence is commuted and that there is a stay of her execution.
<P>
Tibet
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, on this point, I should first of all like to say to the Commission that our dispute here is getting out of hand.
It is obviously not Commissioner van den Broek who is implicated but Sir Leon Brittan.
<P>
Over the last three years, this House has accumulated a number of very specific resolutions on the question of Tibet and the People's Republic of China.
We have often received good answers from Sir Leon, but they have not led to any action or follow-up; we have not received a reply with regard to the Panchen Lama; we have not had a reply concerning Mr Hada; we have had not reply concerning Mr Wang Dan; we have not had a reply concerning the very important matter of opening a dialogue with the Dalai Lama.
<P>
It is therefore about time that the Commission made full use of its powers.
If Sir Leon Brittan gave to these matters just 1 % of the inventiveness and creativity he devotes to economic and commercial matters, I am sure that he would get results.
I therefore think that it is now urgent for the Commission and Sir Leon in particular to start to give us specific answers to all the questions asked repeatedly by Parliament over the last two years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
One of the central demands of the joint resolution is before this Parliament is that a EU envoy should be appointed for Tibet.
There are two very good reasons for this.
<P>
Firstly, the Dalai Lama himself is requesting this, and secondly, and it is important for the colleagues to realize this, the United States have a special envoy for Tibet., He could make a contribution to the normalization of relations, amongst other things, and the Dalai Lama has indicated that he is greatly in favour of this normalization of relations.
We also know that, should an envoy be active in the country, many embargoed dossiers will finally be released.
You therefore get an instrument for a permanent presence.
<P>
Finally, I have to agree fully with colleague Dupuis when he points to a number of inconsistencies caused by of Parliament, for example the releasing of funds for the Panam project, whilst it was known that on that front the relationship with the Tibetan people was not being correctly observed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Colajanni">
Mr President, as has been said, the United States Congress and Government have appointed a special representative for Tibet.
I think that is an important political event and I believe that the European Union should also appoint such a figure.
In my view that is the core of this resolution.
The time has come to open direct negotiations between China and the Dalai Lama.
Faced with the tragedy of the Tibetan people, the Dalai Lama is not asking for independence, as he has repeated many times, in particular in his speech on the anniversary of the Chinese occupation, but a wide autonomy within the Chinese nation.
I think this position is enlightened and courageous and leaves China no excuse.
Moreover, the changed international situation has eliminated any real or supposed threat to the frontiers of that country.
<P>
So, in my view, it is in the interests of a China which wants to become part of the international scene to confront and resolve problems which create obstacles to this involvement. Taiwan, Tibet, human rights generally, are now the international community's main criticisms of China.
<P>
I appreciate the tone of the document which has been prepared and which, for the first time, associates a concrete proposal with denunciation and criticism.
It is a step forward for Parliament which is helping it to be more effective politically.
Naturally this attitude of Parliament - less propaganda and more politically effectiveness - increases the responsibility of European Union bodies, in particular the Commission and the Council.
<P>
Actually, with this initiative on Tibet, we are asking both the Commission and the Council - as colleagues have mentioned - to take a more effective attitude.
We are not happy that the general statements of both the Commission and the Council or their spokespersons are critical and, naturally, speak of respect for human rights, while in reality things go on as they have done up to now.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I am very grateful to Mrs Aglietta for incorporating the idea of a special EU representative for Tibet in her resolution and for maintaining it in the joint resolution.
I made the same proposal last year during question time under the Luxemburg Presidency of the Council and saw how strongly Mr Wohlfahrt responded to the idea at the time.
He promised to push the issue in the Council accordingly.
We should hold discussions with the British Presidency without delay to ensure that these words become deeds.
It is my belief that we need a special representative of this kind, just as the United States do.
We often have grounds here to criticise American foreign policy, but in this case American foreign policy has set a very important example.
In the case of Tibet we are dealing with a very serious problem of human rights and a very serious problem of a people's right to self-determination.
The Chinese think in very long time-frames and we should not therefore react with short term displays of concern, but rather with a long term strategy, and for this we need a special representative.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
<SPEAKER ID=170 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Mulder">
Mr President, the elections which took place in Kenya were hardly faultless.
They have never been thus in Kenya since the country's independence.
We have not been able to observe any improvement.
The most remarkable thing about these elections was the enormous enthusiasm amongst the people.
<P>
In Kenya, too, the following should really apply: "First feed me, and then you can preach to me' .
Arap Moï has managed to lower the income per capita, and yet the enthusiasm for democracy has not diminished.
I think the European Commission should take advantage of this.
<P>
The most urgent issue in Kenya at the moment is how to combat corruption.
The Commission will have to support the newspapers which expose this, in all sorts of ways.
It will especially have to support non-governmental organizations who wish to promote democracy on all sorts of levels.
These are small things which in my view can have great results.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hory">
Mr President, within the framework of the so-called urgent procedure, this House is often called upon to deplore, regret and condemn, and although one swallow does not make a summer, we are also called upon to note the positive conditions under which elections have just taken place in Kenya, in a country everyone agreed was on the verge of a social revolution several weeks ago, and which is certainly not out of the wood.
Observers agree, despite a few irregularities, that the elections were free and honest.
<P>
Whatever one may think of President Arap Moi, of the long time he has spent in politics, of his idea of a dialogue, or of his regional role in certain recent problems, he has been elected.
It is not up to the European Parliament to put itself in the place of an opposition which is incapable of getting together to offer alternative policies.
That is why the Group of the Radical Alliance will confine itself to encouraging the Kenyan authorities to combat corruption and consolidate human rights, particularly the freedoms of association, demonstration and expression, which are often flouted, and which we ask the Commission to monitor.
That is the purpose of this motion for a resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="Malone">
Mr President, the first thing I would like to say is that President Moi must deliver on his preelection promises for constitutional reform.
We know now that the election results were so close that the opposition must be given a role in government to reflect the massive popular support they now hold.
They must also obviously be allowed fair access to the media.
<P>
I want to join with those who have condemned the allegations of rigging in the recent electoral process.
I would like to repeat the call made by the presidency on 6 January asking for a public investigation into alleged electoral irregularities.
Massive amounts of money have apparently been spent on corrupt electioneering. This will have a detrimental effect on the delicate economy there and push up inflation.
This is very bad news for the local people coming as it does after last year's floods, the problems of the tourist industry which is affected by ethnic clashes, and the recent weak commodity prices.
<P>
President Moi will have to get the message, given that the IMF and the World Bank have already suspended aid.
He must see the clear link between the necessary loan and aid packages, which are vital to the country's economic well-being, and the democratic and constitutional reforms which we all expect of him.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Mr President, at the end of December, President Daniel was re-elected President of Kenya.
With a little more than 40 % of the vote, he improved his 1992 score by 4 per cent.
The fourteen opposition candidates shared the remaining 60 %, but their divisions, maintained by constant disagreements, has brought them in disorder into a Parliament where Mr Arap Moi's party has retained the absolute majority by two seats.
We expected the elections to be contested, and we have discussed the problem of Kenya often enough in this chamber not to be surprised today at some confusion in the announcement of the results.
<P>
Having said that, I wish to say that the UPE group will support the joint motion of the Radicals and Liberals for two reasons.
The first is that I note, first of all, the 'satisfactory' stamp given to these elections by national observers, and by the President of Uganda, who said, and I hope he was joking, that if the President of Kenya had cheated, he was not very good at it as he only achieved a majority of two seats.
Paragraph 7 of the resolution partially reflects my first reason.
I therefore suppose that this House will agree to show indulgence to Kenya and for many of us, Uganda's approval will make it possible to withdraw the particular vigilance to which others countries have not been subjected.
<P>
The second reason is that, as other elections will be held in Africa in 1998, this kind of moderation with regard to countries moving from a single party to a multipartite system should be extended to other countries and Frenchspeaking countries should not treated more harshly by this House than English-speaking countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, I thank the honourable delegates for their valuable speeches.
I would to like to start with a response to the debate about human cloning.
It is heartening to note that almost without exception everyone in this Parliament dissociates himself from this practice and also cautions us the developments in this area.
<P>
The European Commission has given its opinion on this before and has shown its determination to make a contribution to the prevention of any development in this field.
It considers the cloning of humans as degrading, and contrary to human uniqueness.
From the debate this afternoon this also emerged very clearly to be the opinion of this Parliament.
<P>
In the research framework programmes, the fourth or fifth, you will find not a single programme which encourages these type of activities, let alone finances them.
We dissociate ourselves very distinctly from this.
The group of advisors on the ethical implications of biotechnology has given its opinion on human cloning, and rejects it.
<P>
The Commission is aware that in the context of the research programmes it has no authority on the specific area of ethics, but when it concerns ethical issues, I think the European Commission should at least give its opinion, and that is what we are doing now.
<P>
The European Council in Amsterdam in June last year was unambiguous about this, and let it be known that it wishes to dissociate itself from human cloning.
If one observes what is happening internationally on this front in terms of discussions, then we can note we satisfaction that even the G8 Summit in Denver in the middle of last year declared itself against human cloning.
During the debate this afternoon the additional protocol at a convention of the Council of Europe on human rights and biotechnology was mentioned.
This charter has meanwhile been signed by nine Member States.
It appears that the United Nations would be the most suitable forum for this.
The Commission will in any case attempt to stimulate development in this direction.
It will attempt to make a contribution.
<P>
The situation in Ingushetia can be called downright worrying.
We are following the developments via our delegation in Moscow and via our contacts with the United Nations, the OSCE and other international organizations which are working in this turbulent region.
You know that over the past few years ECHO has financed humanitarian aid to Ingushetia; in 1997 Médecins sans frontières carried out a programme amounting to ECU 200 000, primarily for homeless communities.
<P>
We will obviously continue with these programmes and are in regular contact with the High Commissioner for Refugees about the situation on the spot.
I can only report that during the recent past carrying out these humanitarian projects has not become any easier because of the frequently risky conditions for humanitarian aid workers.
<P>
The human rights situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo continues to be closely watched by the European Commission.
It is a positive sign that the government of Congo has given the investigation committee of the United Nations the go-ahead to do its work, and has set up a constitutional committee.
In support of this positive development, the European Commission has decided to remove restrictions on certain actions for the reconstruction of the country, to the direct benefit of the people there.
But on the basis of the contract entered into with the Commission, these actions will be carried out by non-governmental organizations or businesses.
<P>
As far as the aborigines in Australia are concerned, the Commission assumes that stringent rules and monitoring standards, as argued for, by the Australian Environment Minister senator Robert Hill will be attached to the eventual implementation of the Jabiluka project, about which Mrs Aelvoet also spoke.
This concern for the health of the local aboriginal community and concern for the environment is extremely important.
<P>
As you know the Commission shares the European Parliament's considerations regarding the death penalty which was also discussed this afternoon.
I am talking about Australia now.
I am talking about the unfortunate executions which happened in Korea recently, and with which the practice of the past two years not carry out death sentences, was altered again.
In its contacts with Korea the Commission will explain clearly its concern about this change in the republic of South Korea's policy.
<P>
Now to China and Tibet.
I will limit myself to the following comments, now that the President-in-Office of the Council has clearly indicated how much importance he attaches to an intensification of the dialogue with China, in particular on issues such as human rights.
It is encouraging that in the meetings which took place during the second half of last year, both on ministerial level and on the level of political directors, progress was made on a number of issues.
We now know that China is preparing ratification of the UN social and economic rights covenant, but that it is also prepared to consider whether to proceed to signing the well-known UN covenant on civil and political rights.
In addition there is also a promise from China that the UN Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs Robinson, can look forward to an invitation to visit China.
<P>
As far as Tibet is concerned, a positive signal has been given with regard to the request from the European Union to send a delegation of ambassadors to the country in the spring of 1998.
They are all steps forward which indicate that dialogue with China on human rights is not blocked.
The European Union, supported by the European Commission, definitely intends to continue this way with China.
<P>
To conclude with the situation in Kenya: the large turn-out at the most recent elections in Kenya, and the fact that the observers found that the will of the Kenyan people was expressed in a reasonably reliable way are a reason for optimism.
At the same time it has not escaped anyone's attention that there were some irregularities during these elections.
But according to the observers this did not make it a less representative election.
This in itself is positive.
We wish to underline that constitutional reform in Kenya is an important part of this, and this should be initiated as soon as possible.
It is important that all groups in society are genuinely represented in this process, and that the necessary consultation takes place with all these groups, and that openness is actively pursued.
<P>
The importance of human rights in our relations with Kenya is entirely clear to that country's authorities, and has been raised more than once.
We also agree with the points made during the debate this afternoon regarding the need to tackle vigorously the relatively widespread corruption in Kenya.
This is also very important in connection with the confidence which must be inspired within the international financial organizations, and for that matter, also within the European Union when it concerns the support which was requested to initiate and develop the economy.
It is, of course, extremely distressing that in a country like Kenya the present income per capita is in fact lower than ten years ago.
That says something about the situation there.
<P>
These were the rather patchy comments I wished to make about these important topics.
Also in view the extremely limited time the honourable delegates had at their disposal, I do not wish to abuse your indulgence any further.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pomés Ruiz">
Mr President, in the European Union another attempt on life has been made.
A European citizen, committed to his people and democratically elected to defend peace, liberty, the right of law and tolerance has been killed by enemies of Basque society for which they propose the exact opposite: death, terror, extortion and blackmail.
José Ignacio Iruretagoyena, married, father of two very young children, councillor on Zarautz Town Council Government, has been cruelly murdered, victim of a terrorist attack from the criminal group ETA.
Firstly our condolences go to his widow, his orphans and all the families who have been suffering death and oppression from the terrorist group ETA.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, it is a problem which not only affects the Basques or even all Spaniards.
This continued violation of fundamental human rights affects the whole of the European Union and therefore this Parliament is raising its voice again to point once more to the seriousness of the terrorist problem and its fully European dimension.
<P>
I want to record here the permanent support and solidarity that this assembly has shown in regard to this serious problem.
Recently, this chamber received a visit from the family of councillor Miguel Angel Blanco, whose murder by ETA last July filled the squares and towns throughout Europe with great expressions of horror and support for peace.
We also welcomed the family of José Antonio Ortega Lara, a prison officer, whose kidnapping lasted more than 500 days.
The European Parliament itself has moved to the Basque country to demonstrate there to Basque institutions the European dimension of this very grave problem, the most flagrant violation of human rights which exists today in the Union.
We cannot forget how, in the last six months, we have witnessed no less than the kidnap and liberation of Ortega Lara or the murders of democratically elected councillors Gregorio Ordóez, in San Sebastián; Miguel Angel Blanco, in Ermua; José Luis Caso, in Rentería; José Ignacio Iruretagoyena, in Zarautz; and the failed attempt against the San Sebastián councillor, Elena Azpiroz.
<P>
Tomorrow in Vitoria the Ajuria-Enea Council will meet.
We want to send our unconditional support to its members so that they can find ways which will lead to peace, within the limits offered by the legal system, which terrorists are so much against.
This bloodbath and reign of terror have to end.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Aparicio Sánchez">
Mr President, once again human beings - although it seems unreasonable to call them this - have taken away the life of another human being, as part of their fight against democracy for all.
<P>
Democracy is the only political and moral system which can see off terrorists, and they know this very well.
<P>
The Basques have killed a Basque; the Spanish have killed a Spaniard; Europeans have killed a European.
Yes, unfortunately Europeans, direct descendants of the tyrants who caused anguish to Europe this century, are taking human life or showing no respect for their dignity.
<P>
We Spanish socialists, Mr President, share the sense of pain, of repudiation and also of hope which my colleague has expressed.
<P>
In this case we share with the family and the fellow countrymen of José Ignacio Iruretagoyena, with the members of the Popular Party who have been attacked themselves, with all the other democratic parties who have felt this death as their own, with the Basque town councils and those in the rest of Spain.
Anyone who has represented his electorate - as I have done - for many years on a town council can easily imagine the force and generosity Iruretagoyena employed to resolve everyone's problems.
<P>
We share these problems with the Basques and the rest of the Spanish people, and we are sure that this resolution will help us to share the values of our European colleagues, as we share with them the values against which ETA and Herri Batasuma fight, that is respect for life and defence of freedom, which make up the soul of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, the acts of terrorism in Spain, especially in the Basque Country which I myself know particularly well and which really is one of the most beautiful and best provinces of Spain, have shown that here a terrorist organization is working against its own people and is murdering representatives of that people.
I therefore believe that is important for us as Europeans not just to show our solidarity, but also to discuss the matter and to expect our governments to organise an international campaign, not directed against the Basque people and Spain but, on the contrary, designed to defend these people against further campaigns.
What is taking place there at the moment will - and we should not forget this - also have an effect on us if we do combine our democratic powers in time to square up to this terrorism.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sierra González">
Mr President, firstly, on behalf of my Party, I would like to join in the expressions of solidarity with the family, colleagues and friends of José Ignacio Iruretagoyena.
These words of condolence have become - sadly - commonplace, as a display of solidarity with the victims of terrorist violence in Euskadi and an expression of repulsion at the same.
A violence that you, Mr President, know well through having presided over the Parliamentary delegation which was in Euskadi and where it could verify that terrorist violence is not a local problem but a European problem.
<P>
As has been said here, the voice of a people may be drowned out by the noise of weapons.
From this Parliament, as one more representative of the citizen's voice, we condemn without any reservations whatsoever this attack and we reiterate our absolute rejection of any type of violence.
Once again and for all those who need it, because in doing so we exercise the European right to freedom, to democracy, which we will not renounce under any circumstances.
But our involvement is not limited to condemning attacks in debates like these, it goes beyond demanding what has been agreed in other full sessions.
In this Parliament we will reject dialogue with all those who collaborate, allow, support and carry out criminal acts.
Because any tolerance to these criminal attacks helps them to be repeated.
We support the peace-keeping of Euskadi and we support peace-keeping in Europe.
Because peace-keeping in Euskadi is peace-keeping in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pradier">
Mr President, with criminal obstinacy, the ETA continues to assassinate anyone who disagrees with its aims or methods.
Local elected representatives seem to have been their preferred target, in the last few months.
<P>
Let this Parliament show not the least indulgence or understanding with regard to ETA assassins and torturers.
There is absolutely nothing to justify the crimes they commit.
However, public opinion and the media, which are sometimes ambiguous, sometimes blinded by emotion, seem from time to time to condemn the close collaboration between the French Police, the Basque Autonomous Police and the Spanish Police.
In this respect, we must be quite clear and make sure the message gets through.
Cooperation to track down and punish crime will continue to increase.
Those whose so-called military action is to shoot an obviously unarmed and unprotected local councillor in the head should look out!
Democracy is of course vulnerable, but in Europe, until now, it has won every battle against the tyranny of small groups who attempt to impose their ideology or their vision of the world by violent means.
<P>
This House supports, and will continue to support the Basque people and their elected representatives, and will not make any concessions with the enemies of freedom.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Imaz San Miguel">
Mr President, a young man, José Ignacio Iruretagoyena, has been murdered by the barbaric behaviour of ETA.
Once again a family has been destroyed and a people struggling for freedom and wanting peace, as are the Basque people, have been attacked while carrying out their public duties.
<P>
The Franquist dictatorship could not silence the voice of our people and the people who try to impose their will by means of violence are not going to succeed either, because in history the people's will, freedom and democracy always triumph over pistols.
And the support of the Basque people, the vast majority of their citizens, for these values is undeniable.
<P>
We wish to demonstrate solidarity with the family and friends of Iruretagoyena and also our complete solidarity with the Popular Party, a political family to which the murdered man belonged.
<P>
The struggle against violence, the achievement of peace, is everyone's task.
Therefore we should work, as far as is possible, from an agreement of those who believe in democracy, from this basis of unity.
And although those who kill do not want this and put up obstacles, we must go with the force of our words to convince those who still support violent men that they have to become involved in democracy.
<P>
Therefore I ask the assembly to vote "no' on point five of the resolution, which makes these paths difficult and has a unilateral and partisan vision of the road to peace, because they have cut down a human life - which is terrible - but we must not let them kill the hope of a whole nation.
Let us make peace possible with the weapons we have, without giving up any of them: police operations, democracy and our voice as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, briefly, just to echo on behalf of the Commission, the horror, the outrage and the sympathy which has been expressed to the relatives of the murdered Basque Councillor.
Mr President, it makes on think.
Delegates of the people can also become victims of these kinds of terrorist attacks.
<P>
It is a new impulse towards us all, from the Commission, from the Member States, from the European Union institutions to combat the scourge of terrorism with renewed strength and in unity and solidarity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Commissioner.
I should like, as President of this sitting, to abandon my usual neutrality and wholeheartedly approve everything, which has just been said about this dreadful business.
<P>
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Community aid (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on community aid.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Vecchi">
Mr President, I would like to thank and congratulate the rapporteurs, both the main rapporteur and the draftsmen of the opinions of the committees involved in this debate, because this is an important discussion dealing with the quality of the European Union's development cooperation and humanitarian aid.
It is an important debate because Community cooperation plus the cooperation of the Member States of the European Union, now represents over 50 % of world public development aid, in which the funds under common management through the instruments of Community action have an increasing role, even if only in relative terms.
<P>
Now, when we deal with the issue of effectiveness and evaluation of cooperation and humanitarian aid, we must take account of certain specific characteristics of Community intervention as compared with that of Member States. First of all, the fact that, also on the initiative of the European Parliament, primarily through the budget instrument, the Community has carried out an extraordinary diversification in the course of the last few years, both in actions and in partners, both official partners, that is, governments of third countries, and international organizations and agencies, non-governmental organizations, people's organizations, firms and so on.
<P>
Secondly, there is an extremely important diversification of objectives, which should perhaps be reviewed and reorganized but which has also made it possible to intervene on various issues and in various sectors.
<P>
In the third place, the fact that the Community, unlike all the other bilateral donors, now operates in all parts of the world, but also - and I want to emphasize this point - the fact that it is often linked to extremely complex decisionmaking procedures, in which the weight of commitology, intervention and pressure is sometimes excessive and sometimes not brought to a positive conclusion by the Member States, plays a role which is not always positive, in fact often contradictory and negative.
<P>
Finally, the fact that the Commission, and in particular the Directorates-General involved in the international aid, have rather limited staffs which are also tending to decrease.
<P>
In the last few years there has been a process of definition of new legal bases, in particular that for humanitarian aid, which I think resolves many of the comments made by the Court of Auditors regarding the management of humanitarian aid in the period 1992-95.
There has been and continues to be a process of redefinition of some very important procedures, above all those relating to the ECHO framework contracts and to the new NGO cofinancing conditions, and a process of internal reorganization has started inside the Commission and its departments managing the instruments of external cooperation. Frankly, we would like to know a little more about that and we would like to be consulted.
<P>
Certainly, the effectiveness of public development aid is a complex issue, as has been rightly mentioned in the motion for a resolution, and it is made up of intertwined internal and international conditions and not just of the impact of individual projects and individual instruments.
<P>
What we are substantially asking for, and these are the important messages for this debate, is greater integration and coordination between aid managed directly by the Community and Member States' aid, to strengthen the structures and make them more independent, both internally and externally, and responsible for evaluation and quality control. We want the institutional capacity of the Commission in the partnership with the NGOs strengthened, management capacity is improved in developing countries and, above all, Parliament should be fully consulted and fully associated in the Commission's internal reorganization process.
<P>
As regards the functioning of ECHO - as this is the subject of a specific report - in my opinion we should move in the direction of achieving its potential and not towards a watering-down of the functions for which it was created, and, as regards non-governmental organizations, the use of specific criteria for their needs and for the nature of their action must not only be maintained but eventually strengthened.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="Corrie">
Mr President, this is an extremely timely report as we move towards the year 2000.
A new organization is being put in place to administer aid to the developing countries in the ACP.
I must congratulate Mr Goerens on the vision he has shown in how to improve the effectiveness of Community aid to developing nations.
I say 'timely' because, if one looks back and sees that between ECU 40 billions and 50 billions have been spent in aid since 1975, yet many applicant countries are worse off today than they were at the start of Lomé, something must be wrong with the system.
<P>
There are many reasons for this: instability of governments, corruption and, in many cases, countries carrying a debt burden that they simply will never recover from.
<P>
With many nations cutting bilateral aid and a constant squeeze on EU funding, it is therefore vital that available finance is made better use of.
There is, I believe, a real need for a regional approach to get a better integration of projects to make sure aid is not spread so thinly that it is not being effective.
<P>
There are many ways better use can be made of existing funds.
There needs to be a relaxation of the rules to allow EU delegates on the ground to have more say in decision-making powers.
They know the local problems and the solutions without constant referral back to Brussels.
Delegates could organize much better coordination of bilateral aid and Community aid to save duplication.
This would improve the impact - the spending power - and would allow for proper, detailed feasibility studies and impact studies to be done to monitor the situation more closely.
There are many instances where no environmental impact study has been done, with consequential damage to the ecology of the area.
<P>
The report also calls for the principle of conditionality to be applied.
I support this. Democracy, a respect for human rights and minimum standards of efficiency and transparency in financial management should be a prerequisite for financial aid.
Developing nations must trade their way out of financial problems.
Only if we have stable and good governments will outside investors help to create the environment to allow industrial development.
<P>
Africa is the next logical continent for such development.
Many developing nations do not have the capacity at local levels to carry out major development programmes.
I see a real opportunity to second personnel from Europe to help with this work.
This is a well-balanced report and has many specific proposals, which I hope the Commission will not only look at, but will act upon.
My group fully supports this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ryynänen">
<SPEAKER ID=188 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
Mr President, as always Mr Goerens has submitted a report which is well thought through and full of ideas.
It is also timely, as a reorganization of development policy is in the pipeline.
But what is the point of such good reports if the framework conditions of the policy aren't right?
We are confronted with more and more catastrophes, more and more famines, more and more natural disasters. The issue of development policy is becoming more and more urgent.
Here in the House, however, we have a situation whereby every year in the budget process we have to fight for funding cuts not to be implemented, just to hold on to the previous year's funding levels.
In addition, every year we are faced with the problem of under-staffing within the Commission.
<P>
When I was budget rapporteur two years ago, the Commission promised to recruit more personnel in DG VIII for NGOs.
I believe that the work of the NGOs is of vital importance, particularly for development policy and with regard to efficiency.
They are opinion formers, they know their business, they are based on the ground.
But there aren't enough staff to be able to work really efficiently.
I have just received a whingeing letter from the pharmaceutical campaign in Germany.
They have had to cut three positions because they have not received funding from the Commission.
<P>
It's the same story for Mozambique, a cultural event this weekend, or next week in Frankfurt.
And it's no help if personnel are sent abroad, if aid is delivered in the countries themselves.
I believe that the Commission must organise things itself.
It's European development aid and I hope that this will change over the next few years, that we really will become efficient, irrespective of the political framework.
I hope that the burden of debt will stop pushing the countries of the third world further onto their knees, with an unbridled world finance policy, as we are witnessing in South East Asia, making the global market an ever wilder place while we are forced to watch famines and natural disasters.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hory">
Mr President, this will not sound very original, because I too would like to congratulate the rapporteur on his excellent and very comprehensive work, and say that the Group of the European Radical Alliance absolutely shares his point of view on budgetarization of the EDF, on improving the visibility of European aid and its political advantages, on internal coherence, which is still inadequate, between the instruments and various types of action, and our various areas of intervention, and finally on ensuring that the development aid policy and other European policies are more complementary!
We are in complete agreement with the report and with the motion for a resolution, on all these points.
<P>
On the other hand, and I already expressed concern on this during the examination of the report made by Mr McGowan on a similar subject, I do not believe that the priority is to make European aid and national aid more complementary.
What is a priority, what is really urgent, in our opinion, is to put aside neo-colonialism, which is often disguised as bilateral cooperation, and to progress resolutely towards the total inclusion of development policy in the policies of the Community.
<P>
A majority of us here are committed to the idea of institutional progress of the EU and even greater integration of the main areas of public action.
The European Union is furthermore still looking for a real foreign policy and cannot speak in a single voice on the main questions of interest to international society.
Now we have before us, in development aid, a vast terrain in which the political project of a Europe based on common humanist values could finally find a practical dimension.
<P>
Beyond historical and cultural, almost anecdotal divergences, or short-term false calculations, there is no opposition of interests amongst Europeans on this subject.
I would also like to stress this in my capacity as an elected representative of France, and furthermore to express my delight that the President of this sitting is a former French Cooperation Minister.
I would like to stress this in my capacity as an elected representative of France, because it is necessary to recognise that the communitarization of development aid is a thousand miles from the habits, present practice and even the revised doctrine of France.
However, I think that France, taken here as a simple example, would have everything to gain from putting its experience and cooperation resources into the kitty of European aid, so that they can have a significant dimension.
<P>
There are a thousand reasons - humanitarian and financial - in favour of doing so.
But if I could only choose one, I would chose the cynical point of view so often expressed, in order to refute it.
What is the national interest, in terms of political influence or economic returns?
It is my conviction that, if France's influence is not quickly supported by the impact of the European Union, it will disappear behind the influence of the United States of America, as several recent problems have shown.
So, even though my point of view may now appear rather utopian, and I am aware of this, I would like to say very resolutely to French leaders: it is in the interests of France to give up its little bilateral policy and to become a part of the greater undertaking of European development aid.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
Mr President, in the necessary endeavours to make EU aid more effective the keyword should be optimization, but examples of a lack of effectiveness must not give grounds for reductions in aid.
There are unfortunately many other forces aiming for that.
I applaud many of Mr Goerens' proposals.
The changeover to sector-specific analysis means a necessary focusing which also shows the priorities in the recipient countries more clearly.
With the intake of new projects we are shooting randomly from the hip.
Furthermore, it is absolutely necessary to have good pilot studies, increased involvement of NGOs and recipient countries and improvements in capacity in the recipient countries.
Nor should the Commission's problems with undermanning be doubted.
Cohesion in the EU's policies and coordination between the Member States also promote effectiveness.
Coordination is beneficial, but the word samordning (coordination) has the wrong overtones.
EU aid should be a supplement to aid from the Member States, even if it has its own justifications.
The wording of paragraph 5 is therefore unfortunate.
The evaluation requirements are too different and so the Member States should not subject themselves to the EU's methods, even if a rapprochement makes sense.
<P>
I must also oppose the idea of separating the political decision-making from the project management tasks.
The organizational problems have to be solved in another way, as has already been started.
Even though I am definitely not a spokesman for committees, I am convinced that the Council's management committees have hardly anything to do with delays in implementation.
On the contrary, these management committees are a quality check.
It is hardly likely that there would have been improvements on the current scale with regard to the integration of gender or environmental aspects, if it had not been thanks to constant pressure from the Member States on these committees and from this Parliament.
Furthermore, the reference to food aid in paragraph 7 is unfortunate because the assessment of this was highly critical and will lead to this kind of aid being restricted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="Howitt">
Mr President, this is a very wide-ranging report and there is much in it with which to agree, including the need for a comparative evaluation between EU development projects and those of individual Member States, our long-running demands for budgetization of the EDF, and the need to publicize the very many positive achievements of European aid programmes.
<P>
One omission, which Mr Vecchi referred to, is the expensive, wasteful, secretive and time-consuming operation of comitology procedures, which most certainly diminish rather than enhance the quality of our aid.
<P>
However, let me concentrate on two points in the report.
First, let us understand the inconsistencies within European development programmes because of the geographical distribution of responsibilities within the Commission.
Whether a project is in the Horn of Africa, the mountains of Nepal or the Brazilian rainforest, all our aid should observe a common, rights-based approach consistent with acknowledged human rights standards.
Such principles include due diligence, non-discrimination, advisability, participation and accountability.
When things go wrong, there is a need for redress.
I ask the Commissioner to consider how far existing arrangements enable him to be confident that such standards are upheld in all cases.
<P>
Second, I agree with my many colleagues who have pointed to the chronic problem of under-staffing within the Commission.
This causes its staff to engage in the quaintly titled 'stuffing' with its concentration on large projects to reach budget targets with too little regard for quality.
Last year a third of senior management posts in DG IB, dealing with Asia and Latin America, remained vacant; 40 % of staff in DG I, IA and IB are on short-term contracts, whilst a large number of core tasks are carried out by external consultants.
<P>
Britain and Germany employ more than double the staff numbers, pound for pound, mark for mark, in managing their aid programmes.
Until Member States jointly agree a solution to the staffing problem in the Commission, resolutions in favour of aid quality will go little further than the paper on which they are written.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, the Goerens report primarily concerns measures the European Union can take to improve the effectiveness of development aid.
We can agree with the proposed measures in itself, but the European Commission's Green Paper lays the cause of the poor effectiveness first and foremost at the door of the developing countries themselves.
If the Commission's analysis is right, the feasibility studies and impact evaluations within the Union will not improve the effectiveness of aid, but measures will have to be taken first of all in the developing countries themselves.
To my mind, this concept is not conveyed clearly enough in the Goerens report.
<P>
I support the plea in the Fabra Vallés report for improved harmony between European humanitarian aid and that of the Member States.
The European Commission can play a coordinating role in this.
But a European charter with general principles for development cooperation policy is something I can do without.
Especially where more structural development aid is concerned, preference should be given to the aid programmes from the Member States.
Many European countries have special relations with certain developing countries.
The Union should respect these special links.
<P>
In this context it is remarkable that the Member States are unilaterally blamed for this poor cooperation.
They are alleged to make insufficient use of the expertise of the Commission services.
This may be so, but can we not reverse the issue with equal justification, Has the Commission made sufficient use of the knowledge and experience of the Member States?
It seems to me, as a result of their long-standing relations with certain developing countries, the Member States have acquired a wealth of experience, from which an office like ECHO, which with its six years is only just beginning to find its feet, has a lot to learn.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 NAME="Wynn">
Mr President, I am speaking only to the Fabra Vallés report as a member of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
I would like first of all to remind Parliament that this report is about ensuring that European Union money is spent in the best possible way.
The Committee on Budgetary Control is not trying at all to usurp the role of the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
After all, the report is the Committee on Budgetary Control's response to the special report by the Court of Auditors.
<P>
Some would say that this is just the committee siding with the Court against the Commission.
It is no such thing.
It is a serious attempt to get some common sense into what is a very complicated system.
The system has many good points which we should, and do, praise in the explanatory statement.
But it still has failings as far as our committee is concerned.
The Fabra Vallés report is an attempt to bring closer together the expertise, the experience and the best practices, not only of the European Union but also of the Member States to replace the present sixteen different and uncoordinated systems.
Let us not forget that we are talking about humanitarian aid, not development aid in total.
<P>
When we talk of humanitarian aid, I am reminded of when I was in Addis Ababa before the fall of Mengistu regime.
It was a time when Ethiopia was the centre of world attention for a variety of reasons.
One senior Ethiopian official said to me: ' The trouble with you Europeans is that your own vested interest seems to be your priority.
You do not consult with us as to what we really want.
You try to ensure that what you want to give us are the things we need' .
And he gave me an example.
'When we needed transport to move water and food around, the Member States of the Union were very good.
The Germans gave us lorries, they gave us Mercedes Benz.
The French gave us lorries, they gave us Renaults.
The Italians gave us lorries, they gave us Fiats.
And the British gave us lorries, they gave us Leylands.
What they did not give us was any training for our motor mechanics or spare parts.
We had a fleet of lorries all with different needs and a lot of them were no use to us' .
He also said: ' The day that Bob Geldorf came riding into Addis Abbaba on top of a lorry bringing in his food aid convoy, my heart sank.
I looked at the lorry he was sitting on and I thought: that is another one we do not have' .
That true anecdote says a lot about the lack of coordination and cooperation between the Member States and the Union.
That is what the Fabra Vallés report recognizes.
<P>
It is understandable why the Member States do this.
They do have vested interests.
But at the end of the day that is not the best for humanitarian aid.
I know it will take a mighty effort to move things along but this is what the report is trying to do.
It is not an attack on the Commission per se - let us get that straight.
As much as anything, it is about getting the Member States to realize that subsidiarity is not always about moving things down a level, it is about doing things at the right level.
When it comes to humanitarian aid, subsidiarity may well mean bringing it up a level and having it coordinated at Community level rather than Member States trying to do it in a devolved way.
<P>
My worry is that when we have voted on this, it will remain on a shelf somewhere doing nothing.
That is why I make a plea to the Commission to act upon this report, especially on paragraphs 4 and 7 where we ask for specific action from the Commission.
That is about making a political statement to get real action: not just to bring another regulation forward, but to start doing something.
If we can get our act together between the Member States and the Commission, just imagine what we could do with all the money.
It would be far better spent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, in this debate on the effectiveness of European Union aid to developing countries and on the much-needed extra aid to developing countries with heavy debts, we have to establish that these themes are very closely related.
After all, poor countries which are weighed down by unbearably high debts, and as a result have to hand over far too much of their yearly budget to interest payments, have far too little money to implement their own policy, and are therefore becoming poorer and poorer, become more dependent on aid, from the Union amongst others.
It is therefore a very good thing that the Union is cooperating in a World Bank and IMF initiative to relieve deb.
This was the first point I wanted to make.
<P>
It seems to me important in this context that agreements are made with the countries to prevent them from getting into debt again, or to prevent them from running up new debts in the expectation that, sooner or later, these will be written off.
I would like to know from the Commission whether these guarantees will be given.
<P>
Mr President, my comment is particularly aimed at the Goerens report on the effectiveness of aid.
In my belief you cannot paint a black and white picture here.
The reality is that in some cases, aid has had a positive effect, in others it did not, and this is by no means always to do with the quality of the aid; it can also be to do with other things, such as natural disasters, bad management, political destabilization or wars.
<P>
That does not alter the fact that it is always good to maximize the effectiveness of aid, and that is why we think the following five points are important.
Aid should not be parachuted in.
It should fit in, as one of the previous speakers has said, with the nature and circumstances of the country concerned, and there must be maximum involvement on the part of the population.
Otherwise so-called white elephants are created.
These are projects which are put down somewhere and are never used again.
<P>
Donors must coordinate the aid programmes effectively, so that everyone supports each other, and is not working at cross purposes.
The multitude of NGO programmes from the various western countries, from the World Bank, the IMF, and the UN sometimes create such a chaotic picture of each country that it is no wonder that joint implementation is not effective; and harmonization at EC level is extremely important.
Sound and democratic management with respect for minorities and human rights is also a necessary condition to increase the effectiveness of aid.
If this is not achieved, we must have the courage to suspend the aid.
This obviously does not mean that no more humanitarian aid can be given, but that genuine development aid is simply no longer an option.
<P>
Aid must stimulate people to take matters in hand themselves, and should not become a habit.
In a number of countries too much aid has been disastrous.
Think of a country like Zambia which was dependent on development aid for three quarters of its income.
<P>
Finally, when receiving aid, a country should be open to the principles of the social market economy; not to force an ideology on a country, but to help a it chose a positive path in a globalizing world.
<P>
Mr President, these are a number of elements to strengthen effectiveness; whether they are laid down in a charter or in other rules is not all that important to us.
Yet we think it is important that these kind of principles are transferred into policy.
We would like to express our thanks for the Goerens report and we would like to wish Commissioner Pinheiro luck with the implementation of the policy, and I wonder if could ask Mr van den Broek to convey these messages to Mr Pinheiro.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bösch">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in a working document recently distributed by our Budget Committee on SEM 2000, our colleague Mr Colom i Naval states that direct financing by the European Commission should represent an example of transparency, good practice and efficiency.
Unfortunately, this is not often the case.
I should like to point out, in reference to Mrs Fabra Vallés' report - which I think is very good - that this is a comment which we always make in our reports on foreign affairs aid programmes.
Reading the Fabra Vallés report, one could draw exactly the same conclusions as Mrs Hoff writing about the problems facing the Tacis programme: poor co-ordination and muddled division of responsibility between the Commission and the foreign aid organizations, consultants, contractors and Ukrainian partner organizations.
<P>
All this applies to a large extent to the criticisms made by the Court of Auditors in relation to the ECHO programme and the Union's aid programme, if we just leave out the work Ukrainian.
I find this particularly regrettable as it is a problem which we are constantly bringing to the attention of to the Commission.
There is really no reason why we should have to read exactly the same thing in the Frankfurter Allgemeiner of 14th January, in relation to the evaluation of the EU aid programme in Bosnia, knowing that a large part of our funds have gone to ex-Yugoslavia.
I quote: the evaluation of the EU aid programme ranged from not good, through terrible to dangerous.
<P>
This is the assessment of our aid work, so generous in financial terms, which the European public is communicating to our fellow citizens.
Therefore, I should like to request most energetically that Point 16 of the report, the demand that we should at long last create a central unit to take overall control of the evaluation of the development and aid programme, including ECHO, MEDA, Phare and TACI, that this matter be addressed by the Commission once and for all and in a determined manner.
This means looking much more closely at Point 14 in which Mrs Fabra Vallés states that we must finally stop recruiting personnel freely when we know that in some cases there are very close relationships between the services in question and certain aid organizations.
<P>
You are aware that every third ECU spent through non-governmental organizations is administered by French aid organizations.
When these things are viewed in this light, we would also be making a contribution to transparency and the successful implementation of this aid programme if we were to fall in line with our esteemed rapporteur on this point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, I would like to congratulate rapporteur Fabra Vallés and Goerens on their reports which are before us.
Would you allow me to start by responding to the Fabra Vallés report, followed by the Goerens report.
<P>
I do not only want to thank the rapporteur and the draughtsman for the opinion, Mrs Carlotti, for this report, but I would also like to express my appreciation for the constructive contribution from the members of the relevant Parliamentary Committees concerning the recommendations from the Court of Auditors in this report on humanitarian aid for the period 1992-1995.
The various constructive exchanges have enriched the discussion by introducing ideas towards the future of humanitarian aid.
The Commission shares most of the findings as expressed in draft resolution, and in particular the necessity to improve the coordination between the various agents in the field of humanitarian aid, including the Member States.
Also because it is important to provide the experts in this field with their own framework on account of their important coordinating and monitoring role.
With this in mind the Commission is in the process developing a frame of reference in the shape of a handbook.
<P>
The desirability of providing humanitarian aid with a legal basis in primary law.
The Commission regrets that the Treaty of Amsterdam has not been able to include these specific measures in the very important domains of the Union's foreign relations.
<P>
Then the necessity to develop, particularly in the event of major humanitarian crises, strategic relations with the other agents in the field of humanitarian aid, both governmental and non-governmental organizations, and United Nations agencies.
<P>
I would like to point out to you that at the moment the Commission is working on a definition of a new effective partnership to optimize the results from humanitarian operations.
Moreover, the Commission is researching the possibilities of how to improve the evaluation of the effects of humanitarian actions.
<P>
But I should also like to respond to two recommendations in the draft resolution, in which the Commission does not share the opinion of the European Parliament.
We do not think it is necessary to develop a humanitarian charter in order to define the directions and principles of the Union's humanitarian policy.
The Council's regulation of 29 June 1996, but also the Commission's statement on the link between humanitarian aid, rehabilitation and development rectifies this deficiency, we believe, and is also a clear legal framework.
I also believe that Mrs Carlotti, the draughtsman for the opinion of the Committee on Development, also shares the Commission's opinion on this issue.
When, for that matter, the Court of Auditors drafted its report, this was not yet the case, that is to say, the Commission had not made its statement about the link between humanitarian aid, rehabilitation and development.
Which is why the report cannot discuss it.
<P>
Concerning the creation of a central unit within the Commission entrusted with the evaluation of the external support programmes, ECHO, MEDA, Phare and Tacis, I would like to point out that on 15 October last year the Commission decided to establish a new structure for the management and evaluation of these programmes.
The involvement of the humanitarian bureau in this structure will be limited because of the specific nature of humanitarian aid and because of the urgent circumstances and the special procedures necessary for the implementation of these projects.
<P>
To conclude, the Commission will keep the European Parliament informed of the debate to be started soon on humanitarian aid towards the year 2000, so that your institution will remain well-informed on the topics of general interest which require special attention, such as the security of humanitarian personnel, or humanitarian ethics.
It goes without saying that the Commission will continue to inform this Parliament on the activities undertaken, both in relation to the operations and responsible agents, and in relation to the evaluation of the results.
In this respect the Commission thinks it will soon be able to the present the report for 1997 to the relevant Parliamentary Committee, both to take stock and to think about what the general focus for the coming year should be.
I would like to add a couple of remarks to this.
<P>
Firstly, various honourable delegates have talked about the staffing situation within the Commission, and particularly those who are responsible for setting up and implementing aid programmes.
This is a discussion which recurs every year, and every year in the reports of the Court of Auditors we can read the comment that if nothing is done about this staffing situation, it will no doubt feel obliged to repeat the same comment again.
It is true.
If one compares the staff resources available in some of the Member States, as well as in other organizations responsible for foreign aid, then it shows the Commission in a disadvantaged position by a factor of 3 or 4 to 1.
Germany, for example has 5.7 members of staff for every expenditure of 10 million dollars, whereas we have 2.7.
We can complain about this.
We can then say that the whole system of recruiting experts for three year contracts naturally promotes fast turnover.
We are not authorized to extend these contracts, so in other words, know-how also flushes through quickly.
At the same time a restriction is imposed on us when it concerns expanding the permanent pool of staff within the Commission.
I would like to say, make the best of it.
Let us therefore try to carry out the work as well as possible with the staff resources we have, and not moan too much about having too few staff.
There is not an awful lot that can be done about that.
But one can be critical about the recruitment of staff and its quality.
<P>
My second remark, before I respond to the report by Mr Goerens, is to do with the so-called programme approach which has also been argued for.
The Commission in fact shares the opinion that it would be opportune to opt for a more global approach, and particularly in cases in which there are crises that, because of their significance and complexity, are of a longer duration, and where the issue is not so much an ad-hoc intervention, but more a structural intervention.
Nonetheless, the Commission believes that the individual project approach, in particular in the context of crises resulting from natural disasters and the like, or sudden epidemics, continues to be preferable.
So in other words, a more global approach is not ruled out, but in the majority of cases, preference will have to be given to a per-project approach, and less to a, shall we say, programmatic approach.
<P>
I noted another comment about a complaint that certain non-governmental organizations from a certain Member State are given less opportunity than others to participate in the implementation of programmes.
Let me say briefly and to the point: I have this experience myself with these kind of comments when they are made about the Tacis and Phare aid programmes.
I can only say that the efficiency and quality of the implementation must be the deciding factor when aid projects are allocated.
On that matter, I think that it should also remain the starting point, if all are to benefit.
If there are Member States or companies who are less familiar with the region of the countries where implementation is being carried out, and because of this circumstance, qualify less highly, for instance, when submitting a tender for projects, then something can be done about this disadvantage by means of workshops or information given by the Commission.
But I am always ready to have an open discussion, and I am not very convinced that the complaints uttered on this point are always equally justified and well-founded.
<P>
Mr Goeren's draft resolution and report.
The Commission is pleased with the draft resolution, in which the necessity to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of our aid programmes is constantly underlined.
This necessity has long been recognized by us, and many studies have been done to determine the effectiveness of aid.
These show clearly that aid is efficient when it is intended to support a sound development policy, and to replace such a policy.
This remark was also made in the debate tonight, and quite rightly.
<P>
Aid cannot take the place of sound economic management, cannot take the place of respecting human rights, and a free democracy.
Aid flows can only be effective if our partner countries ensure that there is the right economic, social and political framework for development.
<P>
Over the years we have made steady progress integrating this principle into our programming procedures.
In Lomé III, the concentration of programmable aid was already introduced in a limited number of areas or sectors.
This principle has been carried out more and more during the past decades.
<P>
During the past years, the procedures for drawing up and evaluating activities financed by us have become more elaborate, but also more systematic.
The draft resolution before you refers, quite rightly to my mind, to the use of a logical framework during all phases of the project cycle.
<P>
The draft resolution also emphasizes certain themes which are going to play an increasingly important role in aid policy, and in the methodology of drawing up of projects.
Within the Directorate General VIII, a quality support group has been set up which sees to it that the funding proposals submitted are consistent with such a policy.
<P>
The draft resolution notes that the Commission's activities are limited to a large extent by staff shortages.
There it is again.
Europe can have its own voice, play an important role in the international debate on the effectiveness of aid.
But then we must enough staff at our disposal to give this role some substance.
I commented on this earlier, but also pointed out its limitations.
<P>
After the discussions with the Member States in 1995 comprehensive evaluations of all our cooperation activities with the poorer world were carried out.
In most cases the preparatory phase has been completed and the fieldwork is ready to be launched.
The results will probably be available at the end of the year.
<P>
As I mentioned earlier during discussion of the Fabra Vallés report, in the near future the new structure for the external aid programmes will also play an essential part in this process.
This was also raised in the Fabra Vallés report, but I would like to underline once more the importance of intensive coordination between all donors, but above all between the Member States and the Commission.
I fear that this coordination, and I say this with reference to the comments made by Mr Blokland, is only too often one-way traffic, whereby the flow of information travels exclusively from the Commission to the Member States.
<P>
Within the European Union we should be able to improve mutual cooperation, not only to show a more distinct political profile to our partner countries, but also to increase the success rate of our aid.
<P>
In conclusion, Mr President, I would like to respond briefly to a comment made about aid to the former Yugoslavia in particular.
This is indeed a separate story.
I will not go into any detail, but in view of the fact that the Frankfurter Allgemeine has in its possession an internal evaluation report submitted by my services, as well as a report which we had contracted out to the consultancy Bereschot, I would like to say that during the past six months, and also as result of the discussions which we have had with Parliament and other donors, we have been working to see how we can make the aid, in particular to Yugoslavia, the redevelopment aid, better and more efficient.
<P>
I shall gladly take responsibility for the delays which have occurred as result of the way we organize our work.
I hope you will understand that, in Bosnia, we are largely dependent on the cooperation of the authorities.
Which reminds me.
The months we have had to wait for approval, authorization, signatures of memoranda of understanding with the authorities, are countless.
Nevertheless, we are strengthening our delegation in Sarajevo, have gone over our organization in Brussels with a fine tooth comb once again, and have a proposal which will be sent to the Council next week, for which we will request your cooperation soon, to make the regulations referring to reconstruction aid to Yugoslavia more flexible, which will give us more scope to work faster.
Because there is one thing you should not forget.
We work on the basis of legal regulations which in fact have been aid down by the Council, and which contain a host of elements intended to guarantee complete transparency on the one hand, but at the same time mean extremely time consuming procedures.
This is another element in the delay in the implementation of aid.
<P>
To conclude, I will promise Mrs Maij that I will wish Mr Pinheiro all necessary success with his programmes, in particular for the ACP countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 7.15 p.m.) .
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="Sturdy">
Mr President, I would like to draw your attention to the Agenda.
Yesterday the Agenda stated quite clearly that after Urgencies, voting starts at 5.30 p.m.
As Members are now going to be electronically tagged as from February, I would very much suggest that this House tries to bring some discipline into voting time.
A lot of Members had to leave yesterday at 6 p.m. when voting should have finished.
Therefore I would ask that in future we start to try to keep some discipline about time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Sturdy, but your comments do not refer to the Minutes.
<P>
However, we will take note of the comments and forward them to the Committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Hardstaff">
Mr President, my name does not appear on the list of Members present yesterday, although I do appear on every list of recorded votes.
I would be grateful if that could be put right.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Hardstaff.
You are right.
The corresponding Minutes will be put right.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Mr President, that also applies to me.
My name is not shown, although I took part in every vote and attended the Conference of Presidents.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Pasty.
I repeat what I have already said to Mrs Hardstaff.
You are right, and the Minutes will be put right.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Motion for a resolution (B4-0028/98) by Mr Wijsenbeek, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party on Alpine transit:">
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, this motion corresponds to the fundamental view which this Chamber and above all the committee have always had, and I shall therefore support this motion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, it is by no means clear to me what this means. What has transit through Ireland got to do with Switzerland, for instance?
It strikes me as superfluous.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
Mr Wijsenbeek is opposed to the oral amendment.
<P>
Are there 12 members of Parliament who are opposed to this oral amendment?
<P>
(Since there are not 12 members of Parliament who are opposed to the oral amendment, the President puts it to the vote)
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
Mr Rehder has asked me for permission to speak on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rehder">
Mr President, please excuse me for speaking very briefly about what I find in the Minutes.
It has unfortunately been somewhat misrepresented.
It says here that I started a competition for the most stupid pub language.
Obviously, this did not refer to the German Members and not to all PPE Members.
I must say, to save my honour, that it referred to only two Members, who tried to practise mediaeval politics in modern Europe, like robber barons.
<P>
Second point: this megatunnel, about which I spoke, is unfortunately not 20 km long but 50 km.
That is just the problem, that this tragic tube is so long and impracticable.
Excuse me for interfering, but it was important to me.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Cot">
I sincerely hope agreement can be reached on Alpine transit.
We have to admit that our Swiss neighbours have expressed concern for environment, which is now widely shared in all the Alpine areas involved.
We could do nothing worse than to cast all the polluting traffic back at our neighbours by increasingly adopting unilateral measures.
<P>
The long-term solution is combined transport, not only through the Swiss tunnels, but also through the Brenner Pass and the Fréjus Tunnel between France and Italy.
Priority funding within the framework of the main European networks and a construction timetable are essential.
Adopting these would improve the relationship between Switzerland and the European Community, by means of the joint definition of a solution, which would respect the interests of the populations involved and of the Alps, which form a part of the European heritage.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Holm">
The current negotiations between the EU and Switzerland give cause for concern.
I think the EU should show more respect for Switzerland's position, especially with regard to the protection of the Alpine environment.
<P>
Against the background of the European Commission's Green Paper on the effect of traffic on the environment and the White Paper on the future development of a common transport policy, people have repeatedly explained the necessity of making the EU's transport policy environmentally suitable.
<P>
It is now time for the Commission to turn these fine words into practical policies. the EU should therefore adopt the position of making an especially large effort to reduce air pollution by switching transit traffic through the Alps to the railways.
The EU should also support the Swiss proposal for performance-related tolls for heavy traffic and a special transit toll for traffic through the Alps, so that the objective of switching shipments to the railways can really be achieved.
<P>
An expansion of motorways in the Alpine region would therefore not be necessary.
Instead there should be an immediate expansion of the railways.
<P>
Goerens report (A4-0388/97)
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Caudron">
Mr Goerens' report is good.
I approve of its main outline.
<P>
I agree with the idea of involving beneficiaries and NGOs in the programmes.
A measure of that sort contributes towards greater transparency and will improve the management of the funds allocated to humanitarian aid.
<P>
In that respect, I support the creation of a central unit to evaluate development aid programmes.
I consider that the unit should work in close cooperation with the NGOs on the pertinence of the actions undertaken.
<P>
Internal management of projects is also desirable in order to prevent the inertia inherent in any division of tasks.
<P>
With regard to Mr Goerens' proposal and the content, I should like to raise an objection and a question.
In fact, I question the concept of 'economic and social value' . What is the reality behind this?
It seems to me important that NGOs should be involved in the creation of coherent indicators, legitimized by themselves.
We shall be able to see more clearly and the quality of future decisions will be improved.
<P>
This reflection on the efficiency of community aid is helpful, but we must take care not to adopt a long and complicated approach.
<P>
Let us never forget that our final aim is to create balanced forms of development suitable for each country and each area.
<P>
Humanitarian aid must make it possible to look forward to the time when people no longer need it.
We will have succeeded when it is no longer needed, that is, when humanitarian aid has disappeared.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Gillis">
The European Union and its Member States are the largest providers of Third World aid.
Our contributions far exceed those of the USA or Japan.
Obviously it is of great importance to those we help and to ourselves to obtain the best possible benefit from this huge effort.
Despite high levels of unemployment and unacceptable levels of poverty in our own countries there is widespread support for aid to developing countries.
This is a welcome reflection of the generosity of the ordinary people of Europe.
<P>
Direct aid to governments of the Third World is often wasted through inefficiency and sometimes corruption.
This method of helping the people of the countries concerned often fails and merely enriches a few government leaders.
It is the least effective method of aid distribution and should be avoided whenever possible.
<P>
We have seen some very successful European Programmes of aid and we must build on these successes.
We must also make sure that we can verify that the aid has reached its intended targets.
<P>
Europe has been very successful in its food aid programme.
Millions of lives have been saved through these efforts and with the high level of expertise that now exists in this area, I am sure that we can build on these successes.
<P>
Emergency aid must be given when and where it is needed, without any conditions.
However, as regards general development and structural aid, I believe we must insist on the countries concerned agreeing to respect the human rights of all their citizens, including minorities, and promote democracy.
We cannot allow corrupt and cruel dictatorships to divert aid from the needy into their own pockets.
<P>
Our efforts have not all been successful.
Imports into Europe from developing countries have declined substantially over the past 20 years or so.
This phenomenon must be looked at in detail because it is only through trade that poor countries can hope to develop and provide for the needs of their citizens.
<P>
Non-governmental organizations are at the heart of development policy generally.
NGOs have a very high rate of effectiveness reflecting expertise gained in the field.
Given the continuing problem with trade flows with developing countries, I believe we should ask the NGOs to examine this area and suggest solutions acceptable to all concerned.
<P>
I welcome the Commission's Green Paper on development aid.
It clearly identifies the successes and failures of our policies.
I would like to commend the Commission for this huge contribution to the development of the Third World.
It has achieved excellent results with limited staff resources.
Its efforts are appreciated throughout the Third World.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Holm">
I am very sceptical towards the idea that the EU should administer the Member State's aid activities.
Experience so far shows that EU aid goes mainly to former colonies of some of the Member States, which means that certain countries which need help are put into another queue.
That is regrettable.
<P>
It is however, important to have improved coordination between the EU countries, because that can give better results for the countries/areas which need assistance.
Improved coordination, without being EU regulated, could also help to reduce the administration costs of the aid providers.
As far as the problems pointed out by the Court of Auditors in its report are concerned, it is true that there are problems with irregularities.
We should of course try to avoid these, but we must also have understanding for the fact that it is easy to get irregularities in 'turbulent' areas where the social system has more or less collapsed.
<P>
The aid which the EU currently administers needs to be concentrated more on preventative measures to avoid catastrophes.
<P>
Finally, I am opposed to the rapporteur's argument that 'improved coordination would help to ensure wider recognition of the considerable efforts being made in the development aid field by the Union and the Member States/.../.
This fact generally escapes the attention of public opinion.'
I do not think that we should try to make political points through aid for people who need help.
'Working without being seen' might be a better watchword.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I have just been informed that today it is also Mr Telkämper's birthday, for which I wish to congratulate him as I have already congratulated Mrs Fontaine.
<P>
Many happy returns, Mr Telkämper.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Debt relief for heavily indebted ACP countries
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on the report (A4-0382/97) by Mr Torres Couto, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the communication from the Commission on support for structural adjustment and debt relief in heavily indebted ACP countries - a Community response to the HIPC debt initiative, together with a proposal for a Council decision concerning Exceptional Assistance for the Heavily Indebted ACP countries (COM(97)0129 - C4-0243/97)
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Vecchi who is deputizing for Mr Torres Couto as rapporteur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Vecchi">
Mr President, with today's discussion, the European Parliament intends to express its own satisfaction with the fact that, for the first time, the Commission has been able to launch an initiative to begin concrete intervention into the problem of the multilateral foreign debt of the poorest and mostheavily indebted ACP countries.
<P>
I would like to recall the fact that we are talking about a request which both the European Parliament and the joint ACP-EU assembly made many years ago now, which until today had not met with the support of the Council or the governments of the Member States of the Union.
It is well-known by everybody that, by the end of the 1970s, the weight of the foreign debt was already having a major effect on the life of very many countries in the southern hemisphere and was actually hindering, and in the majority of cases preventing, the development of the poorest parts of the planet.
<P>
The cost of servicing the debt was and still is, for many countries, the principal expense for the public purse, in hard currency, and this has produced a situation which is the cause of a huge "negative net transfer ' of financial resources from the South to the North, that is from the poorer to the richer countries.
<P>
Certainly, the debts should be honoured, in principle.
Of course many of the causes of the failure of the southern countries to develop lie with the maladministration which has characterized many governments and power groups in countries in the third and fourth worlds.
<P>
However, it is also necessary to recall the fact that these governments have often enjoyed the support of governments and political and economic groups in the more developed countries, and that the management of international credit has not always been characterized by honesty and fairness.
In reality, in many cases, the sums repaid by the countries in the southern hemisphere, in the form of interest payments, are by now much greater than those originally received in the form of loans.
Furthermore, many of the international factors which have made a major contribution to increasing the debt and the burdens of its management, have certainly not been caused by the countries in the southern hemisphere.
<P>
I recall these elements in order to stress the fact that the initiatives to reduce the weight of the debt are not a free handout, but a compelling necessity which, from many points of view, is intended to reestablish conditions of greater equality.
<P>
It is a matter then of accepting the fact that, under the present conditions, the poorest countries will never be able to pay off their own foreign debt and that, anyway, its persistence or, really, its automatic increase will never make it possible either to tackle seriously the roots of underdevelopment, or less still, to reinstate these countries in the international marketplace and in the dynamics of commercial and economic relations which, furthermore, the European countries have a great interest in doing.
<P>
With today's vote, Parliament will be opening the way for the Union to join the international initiative, promoted by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, directed at supporting the structural adjustment and the policies of amortization of the debt, both because it is a positive initiative as a whole - even if it is certainly insufficient - and because we believe that the Union should play an important political role in it.
<P>
It is a good opportunity to demonstrate that this more human and rational approach, which must take account of the priority objectives of the struggle against poverty and human and sustainable development, which we always hammer into our Community documents, can become a point of reference for the major international financial institutions.
<P>
It is a matter then, even with this instrument, of building a strategy of political dialogue and concrete collaboration, which might see the European Union, together with the partners in the southern hemisphere, and in particular the ACP countries, committed to the relaunch of effective policies of cooperation for development.
<P>
The exposure to the Community itself, of the 11 ACP countries for whom the Community initiative provides, is for a relatively small sum.
The initiative provides for the possibility of the flexible use of various forms of remission, amortization and reduction of the debt.
Parliament asks the Commission to keep it constantly informed and consulted on future developments in Community action, to which we give our support, which will be conditional upon the aims of democratic reform, development, and justice in which Europe must be the leading player.
<P>
This initiative will have to be the first important step in tackling, in a more comprehensive way, the problems associated with the foreign debt, including the multilateral debt, of the poorest countries on a worldwide level, as a condition for the restoration of the minimum conditions of solvency and economic and financial practicability for many countries in the world.
<P>
In this framework, the role of the Union and its Member States, both directly and in international initiatives, is obviously decisive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="d'Aboville">
Mr President, the report by the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on support for structural adjustment and debt relief in heavily indebted ACP states has received the assent of the Committee on Budgets for obvious reasons.
<P>
It is the most basic common sense, within the framework of cooperation with these countries, to give them the means to start off on the right foot so that all the work they have done - at least as far as some are concerned - is not cancelled out by excessive debts.
The support we give them by means of this report is therefore intended to provide a lasting answer to their problems, and the European Union, the largest donor to these countries, can act in three ways: by providing additional support for structural adjustment, case by case; by envisaging aid, case by case, to reduce the trade debt and by increasing support for debt management; by taking appropriate measures to reduce the present net amount of the debt of eligible countries to the European Community.
<P>
In practice, Article 3 states that the aid in the form of non-refundable aid referred to in Article 1, will be taken out of a single interest-bearing account, which will be opened for the purpose at the European Investment Bank and which from now on will be called the 'debt relief account' .
We would like the Commission to show the amount of the interest earned by that account at the EIB in the financial information on the European Development Fund every year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pomés Ruiz">
Mr President, this initiative - which this House will undoubtedly approve - should allow us to make a first consideration: how community budget needs to be calculated in the European Development Fund.
We would insist on this in the proposal for the Union to make its foreign affairs policy more and more united.
Direct budgetary control of these funds would make the European Union's actions even more efficient.
<P>
What doubt can there be about the demand for a sustained or efficient development, in many cases, the cancellation of a debt when it becomes impossible for a country to repay this debt and the interest payments without putting its future economic development at risk.
To insist on forcing certain countries to make impossible repayments renders development aid, as well as economic reforms, unviable.
<P>
The high level of debt in some countries has, moreover, a deterrent effect on investment, leads to the flight of capital, makes its production become excessively export-orientated causing imbalances, the abandonment of rural areas and even domestic shortages.
It also has a knock-on effect on the very political stability of these Third World countries.
Let us not talk now about those democracies which are just emerging from what was previously an authoritarian regime.
<P>
Therefore, I think that - as the Committee proposes - maintaining aid to countries like Burundi, Ethiopia, Guinea Bissau, Madagascar, Mozambique, Nigeria, Uganda, São Tomé e Principe, the former Zaire, Zambia and Uganda is something that this House should support.
We cannot demand from these Third World countries that they put the repayment of their debt before their own economic growth.
We have to make sure the debt repayment is compatible with the autonomous development of these countries if we do not want to take with one hand and give with the other, on the basis of increasing humanitarian and development aid.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Girão Pereira">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Union for Europe Group, on whose behalf I am speaking, accepts the EU's participation in the initiative on the debt of the poorest countries launched in 1996, during the G7-Lyons Summit.
<P>
In fact, despite the measures taken to reduce the debt already applied to some of those countries, some of them, mostly situated in Africa, are faced with a level of total indebtedness that runs the risk of discouraging efforts aimed at adaptation and structural reforms, which are absolutely essential for their development.
<P>
And so the European Union has to contribute towards this concerted effort made by the main international donors, with the aim of reducing the debt, a particularly keen problem for our ACP partners.
We too, as rapporteur, declare our obvious support for the Community response.
As rapporteur, I think it essential to reinforce the EU's commitment to the process of structural adaptation implemented in the ACP countries.
As rapporteur, I think it will be necessary to accentuate the fundamental problem of economic and social development and to take the indicators of human development into account.
Finally, as rapporteur, we believe it important that the Council adopts the draft decision as soon as possible and that the Member States of the Union contribute rapidly with their financial participation to the institutions responsible for taking this initiative forward.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, the debt contracted by the ACP countries towards the member countries of the European Union, as well as towards the European Union itself, represents in many ways a stereotypical case of the heterogenesis of ends, the mechanism of which the Austrian economist Von Mises showed us so well.
<P>
Not only has the level of total debt gone on growing, not only does the weight of interest often exceed the sum of money originally paid out, and not only is it that such burdens finish up hindering the development which they profess to want to foster, but other economic disadvantages have been added to these.
Often it is not the population which is implicated but only the government, and it is the pursuit of the ends desired by the latter, and not by the former, which has been put first.
Often, the intention is even to foster purely and simply the interests of the ruling political class.
This is why we find the ambiguous phenomena of mutual interest between the European political class and the political class of the ACP countries, phenomena which are always to the detriment of the people whom rather they profess to want to favour.
This is why we also find the phenomena of very deep mistrust towards the European countries held by the people of the developing countries, which should be, by consequence, more closely associated with their European brothers.
Finally, this is why we find a sort of renewed economic and financial dependence on the part of the developing countries upon the countries of Europe, a dependence which is frankly neo-colonialist in flavour.
<P>
The reduction of the debt is therefore imperative, but with certain conditions.
The first is that this should not break the basic rule expressed in the Latin maxim pacta sunt servanda ; the reduction of the debt must serve, in short, to allow the developing countries to be released from their commitments as far as is realistically possible.
The second is that the developing countries should display genuine good intentions, through good management of the finance and structural reforms of their economies.
Only by this will we contribute to helping the developing countries to really leave behind what will otherwise still remain a minority status.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let us begin by supporting the claim with which the rapporteur opens the proposed resolution requiring Parliament to be formally consulted on this Commission communication, not only because it relates to Community policy within the scope of the Lomé Convention, but because a Joint Parliamentary Assembly exists between the EU and the ACP countries.
Raising this initial question, another one would then arise from the heading of the communication, but we'll leave that until the end of the speech as it seems important to us to begin by describing the situation this communication is seeking to answer.
<P>
There was a time when the image of the time-bomb to wipe out the debt of the so-called "Third World' was used, and the fact is that there has been a need to make safety mechanisms operate for the explosive situation not to develop into an uncontrollable tragedy from the social point of view.
<P>
This is more a time when the safety valves or lifebuoys will have to operate as written in the explanatory statement, and the Community response will seek to do just that, after bilateral rescheduling has exhausted its virtues as a remedy, also strengthening the dependence relations resolving real problems of indebtedness to a far greater extent.
An analysis of the situation would seem to be more of a diagnosis as the details available and the same explanatory statement leave several signs of this imbalance the world is suffering.
Only in this way can we describe the increasing gulf between the rich and the poor countries, and between the poor and the even poorer countries, between indebted and heavily indebted countries, countries impoverished and indebted through and through, owing to the deterioration in trade relations, the promotion and stimulation of indebtedness by creditors with a surplus or unrestrained production of surplus liquidity.
<P>
The additional diagnoses provide real revelations.
Although the numbers require updating, it is significant that the latest ones referred to indicate the addition of six new countries to what is sadly known as the "heavily indebted club' and that only one of the previous countries has succeeded in getting out of this undesirable category.
The situation has got dangerously worse in some regions, particularly in Africa, reaching technical levels that raise the pressing question of tolerability.
<P>
On that account, the Commission's proposal only relates to those countries whose debt vis-à-vis the Community is considered intolerably high.
There are eleven of them, and it is very painful for a Portuguese, and certainly for the rapporteur, that the official language of three of these countries is Portuguese.
But the diagnosis, if static, if it continues for the situation, is always unsatisfactory, and particularly when it fails to identify the causes clearly, and on that account cannot be used to attack the roots of the evil.
<P>
This analogy with a clinical picture will be relevant, because while the prescriptions and treatment required by the Commission are aimed at sufferers in the terminal stages, as emergency aid called "exceptional assistance' for those on the brink of starvation so that they do not die of hunger but continue to live in hunger, there is another image in this part-session week, which is also similar to a drug addict who has got into debt and is desperate because he has no drugs or money: "I'll sell you my product on credit, even if you do not want to buy it, and now you have no money to pay me and so I have been increasing my prices as you grow dependent on them.
You are in need but do not kill yourself, do not kill anyone, do not steal, I ask you for part of the debt and I lend you more money so you can buy more doses at the price I have fixed for the time being, and then I'll put it up later' .
<P>
It should be very clear that there is no question of wiping out the debt.
It is just a question of reducing it, and so we should congratulate the Commission, and also the MEP who is trying to improve the proposal, when Council failed to give it great priority in the explanation of reasons, although it paid some attention to it.
And this Friday of the part-session of the European Parliament is not seen as a time for an exercise in catharsis.
This prospect does not lead us to stop talking for so long, as we have time to do so this time.
But it means that one fundamental question almost loses significance in this context, which is that, as the Commission makes its proposal and the rapporteur gives his opinion, the cause of the situation is not called into question in the slightest.
However, the entire economic strategy will continue and should continue to be established on the same requirements or even reinforce them.
The entire economic recovery, the entire economic growth of those countries (we cannot even talk of economic development) passes through the receipts of the World Bank and the IMF, which has been tested on many occasions already, with the results we are now faced with that have led to the proposal to increase the doses.
<P>
For that reason, we have waited until the end to talk about the communication heading. This heading does not give priority to the Community response to the initiative relating to the debt held by these countries, which is made into a sub-heading.
It gives priority to support and structural adaptation, and only afterwards to the reduction of the debt held by the highly indebted ACP States.
In order: first the treatment, then the diagnosis and finally the patient.
We all know that the time is not one for solidarity and cooperation.
However, nothing is even said about this.
But we just stay here, not making progress.
And perhaps we should consider ourselves lucky that we have been able to talk about a subject for so long with an approach of wanting to finish with it, but which reality and the levels of intolerability make it necessary to make public and to be faced, although the Commission and Parliament have a way of escaping it, which is possibly inconvenient for Council.
There is a Portuguese saying, "Great remedies for great ills' .
The level of awareness of the seriousness of the ills has not yet achieved great remedies.
We would point out once again and to conclude the positive aspect of having to face a situation, although within its limits of tolerability, and only in the search for remedies and continuity and reinforcement of what we consider to be its causes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this report discusses the issue of the debt burden of various countries in the southern hemisphere and as we all know, it is a heavy burden on the positive and dynamic development of these countries.
The European Parliament, as well as the equally represented Assembly of the ACP-European Union has often declared itself in favour of initiatives.
In this concrete case it is the European Union itself which is coming up with a very interesting proposal, namely to give the eleven ACP countries which are weighed down by heavy debts a contribution at the expense of the European Union.
We fully endorse the European Union taking such an initiative, especially as we know that the door is shut on many things in a number of ACP countries, because they are tripped up over and over again by heavy debt payments.
<P>
We are pleased with the fact that this report fully supports the initiative of the Commission, and we also think it is important that a number of amendments have been incorporated into the report with regard to the original Commission proposal, by emphasizing, for instance, that it is crucial that a manageable level of debt is set which includes social indicators.
The rapporteur can rely on the commitment of the Green Group towards this dossier.
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<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Barthet-Mayer">
Mr President, I wish to apologize on behalf of my group for the absence of Mr Scarbonchi, who must have unexpectedly been unable to attend.
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<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
Mr President, the HIPC initiative on debt relief in developing countries marks a new approach on the part of the IMF and the World Bank.
People have recognized that debt problems are a serious impediment to healthy development in the most indebted countries.
I can only give my unreserved support to that.
It is important that the EU takes an active part in the work to remedy the debt problems, both because debt impedes growth in developing countries, and because it sends a political signal to the Member States and other creditors that Europe is taking the problems of developing countries seriously.
Therefore debt relief should also be followed up by other forms of help to fight poverty.
<P>
Against this background the outcome of the Council's discussion is disappointing.
Instead of allocating extra money for debt relief, people have only been able to agree to use funds from the existing budget.
That means that there are only funds for the first five of the eleven ACP countries which need debt relief.
We therefore need to find new funds when the remaining six countries are approved for debt relief.
<P>
I agree with paragraphs 6 and 7 in Mr Torres Couto's report because they urge us not to demand strict adherence to the criteria for approval for HIPC.
Of course there have to be structural adjustments in developing countries, possibly with the inclusion of environmental and political considerations.
But if debt relief is made dependent on successful three-year reform programmes, it will exclude the weakest countries.
It is precisely in these countries that a lightening of the debt burden will make structural programmes easier to implement.
I believe that structural programmes should go hand in hand with a relief of debt and not just be a condition for it.
Both structural reforms and debt relief are preconditions for what really matters: relieving the poverty and the poor economic outlook.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schiedermeier">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, anyone who reads the Torres Couto report must come to the conclusion, at least in parts, that the rapporteur's view of the problem is starry-eyed and too much that of the developing countries.
For years, if not decades, the question of the indebtedness of poor countries has been a problem of our cooperation.
On the one hand, it is a great help for many countries to have access to credit.
On the other hand, precisely in these countries, unforeseeable developments are often the reason for them to walk smack into debt traps.
But we must not overlook that in this field too, unfortunately, the east-west conflict has left its traces behind.
<P>
The Commission's proposal to set up a fund for relieving the debts of poor countries is to be welcomed.
But the assessment should not be only according to the current debt status, but also the effort for a good administration must always be taken into account.
It should be pointed out that countries with great mineral wealth, such as the former Zaire, get the same support as Ethiopia, among others.
Admittedly we want to give President Kabila in the Democratic Republic of the Congo a probationary period, but the question for us is whether it is being taken into account that only a clear change from a dictatorship to a democracy can be a reason for a generous remission of debt.
It must also be emphasized that debts cannot be reduced unconditionally, because as well as the question of a somewhat democratic form of government there are the questions of corruption and excessive expenditure on armaments.
<P>
In Mr Torres Couto's report, the amendments concerning the involvement of the European Parliament must be particularly emphasized.
Admittedly the proposal concerns the money of the Development Fund, but unfortunately it is not subject to the budgetary control of the European Parliament.
Yet the participation of Parliament is an absolute requirement to ensure democratic control.
We will also get into difficulties if democratization plays an important part in the arguments with the developing countries, but on the European side Parliament is not involved.
<P>
The draft decision aims in the right direction, if the Commission's standards are not relaxed too much.
I hope that the basic ideas of the statement are put into effect quickly and successfully, to the benefit of the people in the affected developing countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, I can agree with the good intentions of the Torres Couto report, but I would like make a few comments.
Firstly, I wonder whether this approach, which to some extent resembles what we in the Netherlands call never say die', will genuinely get us out of this vicious circle of debt.
We are talking about 5 % of the total debt.
It is true, it is a great deal of money, but I find it a bit neocolonial to link debt relief to sound environmental policy.
You cannot demand this from these countries; not yet, in any case.
<P>
Then there is the reference to the 7 % of the gross national product which has been promised for more than twenty years.
We all know that most of the countries, willingly or unwillingly, will never achieve this.
I am not all happy with the idea that countries which have arrears are ineligible for relief.
To my mind it would be better if, slowly but gradually, we worked towards writing off the debts, but then we should be allowed to make some demands.
We will have to open our markets to their products, retain minimum expenditure by these countries on arms, and let experts who are trained in the West return to these countries.
Only then will they have a genuine opportunity to develop.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Virrankoski">
Mr President, developing world debt is now at two thousand billion American dollars.
The report now being discussed concerns eleven countries with the lowest national product in the world, the indebted and poverty-stricken HIPC countries.
These countries are in debt to the tune of 5.6 billion American dollars and the costs of this initiative to the EU come to some ECU 150 million.
<P>
The Commission in its communication is right when it recommends the partial relief of loans.
The poor developing countries are in a grave state.
They have to pay off their loans in the shape of cheap produce, apart from in cash.
The price goes down the more pressed the seller is to sell.
The poor countries are in urgent need of help. This makes their position all the more difficult.
Investments cannot be made, though the minimal amount of investment could make all the difference.
This impasse hampers even further the development of these countries.
Dire poverty paralyses all development.
<P>
And the social structure cannot develop either because there are not enough resources for education and standards are steadily declining.
The situation also jeopardizes the progress of democracy and peace.
It can spark off unrest and weaken opportunities for democratic development when people realize that more of their money is going to lenders in the rich countries than to the sick in their own country.
<P>
The situation for agriculture in the poor countries is also bad.
Agriculture has to focus on exports and nonfoodstuffs while the nation suffers from undernourishment.
For this reason I strongly support the ideas contained in the Commission's communication.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Torres Couto, and Mr Vecchi for their speeches, and thank Parliament for its interest and support for the Commission's proposal for Community involvement in the initiative on the debt of heavily indebted countries.
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This initiative means an important advance in how the international community has taken on board - until now - the debt problems of the poorest countries.
<P>
For the first time there is a framework which allows coordinated global action to take place, on the part of all borrowers, to help heavily indebted, poor countries who are struggling to put into action economic reform programmes.
This framework includes not only debt reduction, in the case of bilateral commercial debt, but also individually adopted measures in each case which are intended to reduce the multilateral debt load in these countries.
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The European Community is offering grants to the heavily indebted, poor countries in the form of non-repayable aid packages.
And although the amounts are small, the Community can in no way remain on the fringe of these initiatives.
<P>
It is clear that the political importance of Community involvement in this debt initiative is very much greater than its contribution in terms of absolute figures.
<P>
The proposal from the Commission has been discussed in depth with the Member States who have shown their full support for the Community's involvement in this initiative.
<P>
However, in the debates we have looked for an alternative solution to financing debt reduction on a Community scale, responding to concerns from Member States who do not wish to place additional burdens on national budgets, but guaranteeing, at the same time, that the resources given to the initiative are additional.
<P>
I am pleased to announce that an agreement has been reached at this time.
Consequently we hope that the Council will adopt its conclusions shortly.
This agreement has favourable elements.
<P>
The Council has committed itself to a full Community involvement in this initiative.
In the case of countries who would fulfil conditions to benefit from this initiative in 1997 - or fulfil them in 1998 - financing debt reduction, on behalf of the Community, will be guaranteed by earmarking annual income stemming from the interest payments of the EDF funds.
Such financing adheres to the principle of providing extra resources and guarantees that the Community will give aid above the present aid levels intended for those countries.
<P>
Throughout 1998, and on the basis of the Committee's report, the Council will reconsider the later financial needs and will make a decision with reference to the future involvement of financing by the Community in this initiative, including the possibility of financial measures through amortization of previous loans from the European Development Fund.
<P>
Mr President, our two institutions, Parliament and Commission, support Community involvement in this initiative but the parliamentary proposal to resolve this requires a more flexible approach, intending to include a wider group of countries, and to guarantee the quickest and most effective reduction of debt.
<P>
In its contacts with the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and its creditor governments, the Commission has always fought for this initiative, based on wide criteria, to be applied. This initiative should have appropriate and suitable support for the heavily indebted poor countries who are struggling to apply economic reform, hoping to stimulate economic growth and reduce poverty.
<P>
Consequently, it is encouraging to observe that this initiative has continued to evolve and that its targeting has improved.
The initiative may not be perfect, perhaps, but it is founded on a wide, international consensus of helping a group of countries whose development efforts continue to be hampered by their heavy debt.
Moreover, this initiative should be seen as part of an international collaboration intended to help poor, heavily indebted countries.
<P>
As a result, the reduction of debt should be accompanied by a level of development aid which will be continuous and adequate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Commissioner.
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The debate is closed.
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We shall now proceed to the vote.
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(Parliament adopted the resolution.)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, yesterday we were debating the effectiveness of development aid in this House.
Aid is not only ineffective because the macro-economic conditions are unfavourable in many developing countries.
One of the reasons for this is the enormous debt burden the developing countries are suffering.
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In the excellent Torres Couto report, which I have been able to agree with wholeheartedly, the responsibility is quite rightly placed not only at the door of the developing countries.
The lenders have a responsibility in so far as they have too easily granted credit to corrupt dictators or given loans to economically dubious projects.
<P>
Although it was generally acknowledged that the developing countries could never pay off these debts, writing them off or rescheduling them was never a matter for discussion, in particular as far the multinational debts were concerned.
Fortunately, thanks to the initiative of the World Bank and the IMF, this has changed; and thanks to the proposal of the Commission and the European Union, this initiative is being implemented.
<P>
I also agree with the rapporteur that not only macro-economic indicators must be used to calculate the concept 'tolerable debt', but that social indicators must be included.
<P>
The rich nations cannot go on giving development aid to poor nations with one hand, whilst cashing in the interest on these countries' enormous debts.
Moreover, for many countries, writing off debt can signal the beginning of an economic recovery.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="Lindqvist">
It is good that the EU is taking the problems of developing countries seriously and is helping to reduce their debt burden.
However, that is not enough for a stable development in poor countries.
There are only enough funds for debt relief in five of the eleven countries.
However, debt relief is not enough.
The aim should be to remove the whole debt so that these countries are able to get out of the vicious circle in which they find themselves.
Debt relief should also go hand in hand with political structural programmes for growth, employment and long-term sustainable development through mature trade relations.
However, I still voted yes to the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, as my own government is taking a leading role in aiming to cut the debt burden of the world's poorest countries as a positive way to start the next millennium, I am happy to support this report here today.
<P>
In Britain Chancellor Gordon Brown and Clare Short, as the first Cabinet level minister for our newly created Department for International Development, have met with church leaders and others to discuss debt relief issues.
I hope that my many colleagues in this House with influence over their respective churches will ask them to lobby their national governments as not all have so far followed the British in our enthusiasm for this important work.
<P>
The report is correct to link the need for sustainable economic reform by poorer countries with debt relief by the more developed countries.
Both north and south can work in partnership here so that for example environmental and poverty reduction work by indebted countries go hand in hand with debt relief.
<P>
The many constituents who have raised this important subject with me will be glad to see that Mr Torres Couto and Parliament are adding their voices to the campaign for debt relief.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Fisheries relations with Latvia
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on the report (A4-0397/97) by Mr Macartney, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on the conclusion of Protocol I to the Agreement on fisheries relations between the European Community and the Republic of Latvia laying down the conditions relating to joint enterprises provided for in the said agreement (COM(97)0323 - C4-0364/97-97/0177(CNS))
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="Macartney">
Mr President, in the same spirit that you are congratulating people on their birthdays, I would like to congratulate the people of Latvia for the achievements they have managed to chalk up on behalf of freedom in Europe.
We should congratulate them, the Estonians and the Lithuanians.
In their own ways, they have helped to keep the flame of freedom and democracy burning in an area of Europe where there have been many difficulties.
<P>
It is important that we approach the Latvian agreement in that spirit.
We all want to encourage the people of the Baltic Republics to think in terms of their European identity and in terms of preparing for European Union membership.
This is particularly important when the signals coming from the Commission in recent weeks were somewhat mixed.
The idea that one of the three would be in the first wave of accession discussions while the other two could wait behind was met with some consternation in the capitals of the neighbouring republics.
They could not quite see the logic, nor could I.
<P>
What is encouraging is that subsequently the idea of something more of a regatta approach prevailed in the Council of Ministers.
It is very important in that context that we welcome all the moves proposed, including this fisheries agreement, to bring in all the countries of Eastern Europe from Estonia, through Latvia and Lithuania right down to Slovakia and Bulgaria and so on; that we do not say that there are two classes of potential Member States out there but welcome them all to be in dialogue with us.
<P>
The background to this report is that there were agreements in 1993 with the three Baltic Republics.
There were separate agreements with Finland and Sweden, which, at that stage, were not members of the European Union.
We are delighted that Sweden and Finland voted to join the EU and are now fully integrated.
But obviously a renegotiation had to take place in which the European Union negotiated on behalf of the original members but also on behalf of Sweden and Finland, which are neighbours of Latvia across the Baltic Sea.
<P>
This was duly renegotiated in 1996 and as far as Lithuania was concerned, it immediately proceeded to adopt a protocol which has come into force.
Now it is Latvia's turn.
The Lithuanians have shown the way and the Latvians are next in line.
Latvia has a relatively small fleet.
186 vessels in the in-shore fleet at the last count and 15 longdistance vessels which fish mainly off Mauritania.
We are not talking about a huge fleet and it is important to emphasize that no net addition is being proposed to the fleet of Latvia in this agreement.
<P>
The important point is that the proposal will involve joint enterprises between the European Community and Latvia and also that there will be a grant of ECU 2.5 million to assist in the modernization process.
It is perhaps surprising, but worth noting, that the Latvians have not fished their full quota within their own waters.
So, there are some fish available there without doing damage to the overall conservation goals which we all hold dear.
There are provisions in the agreement for a joint committee - which is a very positive signal to send - to talk about the transfer of EC vessels, the modernization of the Latvian fleet and so on.
<P>
I should like to emphasize two objectives which could be given more commitment.
One is that there should be an annual report to this Parliament.
We have a special interest in the pre-accession phase in those countries.
Secondly, more resources should be devoted to research.
These are not controversial points and I hope that in his reply the Commissioner will confirm that is in line with the Commission's thinking.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Hardstaff">
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur Mr Macartney on his excellent report, setting out very clearly the issues involved in this fishing agreement with Latvia.
I should also like to concur with his remarks this morning concerning all the Baltic countries and their common progress towards EU membership.
<P>
It is important that we achieve a balance between enabling the Baltic states applying to join the European Union to modernize their fleets - in the case of Latvia, as has been said, boats are on average 20 years old - and the need to maintain overall fish stocks and not increase overall fishing capacity.
This scheme for the sale of Community ships, which must be at least five years old, to be reflagged as Latvian vessels, should contribute to the achievement of that balance, provided that there is careful monitoring to ensure that such boats are not subsequently reintegrated into the Community fleets and also that quotas are observed.
This is why we need an annual report on this issue.
<P>
If joint ventures and bilateral projects can be developed between Latvia and the EU in the course of modernizing and privatizing the ageing Latvian fleet, this can only be beneficial to the progress of Latvia towards full European Union membership.
In this spirit, we welcome the Commission proposals and look forward to a speedy confirmation of the protocol to enable such cooperation to start at Community level, in addition to existing bilateral initiatives by individual Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langenhagen">
Mr President, it was almost seven years ago, and like today it was a Friday, when I made my first fisheries speech here in the plenum.
In Germany we say Friday is fish day.
Only on Sunday is there tasty roast meat.
What has changed today?
As far as the day of the week is concerned, not much.
I am disappointed about that.
Even when we look at the agenda of the part-sessions of the next six months until July 1998, in general nothing about the scheduling has changed.
That is not right.
Why not?
Just look at today's report.
It points to the future of the EU after the year 2000.
How can I convince you of that?
<P>
Before the Commission begins the negotiations about a new agreement, and before extending such an agreement, it must present an assessment of the essential elements.
These are the state of the fish stocks, the effects of the agreement on the Community budget or the division of the financial participation of the European Community and the ship owners.
For instance, this agreement with Latvia, in its protocol, goes particularly into this financial participation by setting up joint enterprises.
With the Treaty of Amsterdam, an enlargement of the European Union is now becoming reality.
It obviously includes, of the Baltic states, Latvia as well as Estonia and Lithuania.
Against the background of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the previous fisheries agreements - that is the agreements of the EU with these third countries - gain a new meaning.
The things which matter as far as the expansion is concerned are strengthening basic democratic values, creation of competitive jobs to overcome structural weaknesses in the medium term, encouragement of small and medium-sized companies and improvement of European environmental quality.
The last leaves much to be desired in the Baltic.
<P>
The experience which has been gained with the administration of EU money, the preoccupation with these Community procedures, and setting up joint enterprises, will - I am convinced - help Latvia on the way to faster privatization, and at least benefit its efforts to prepare its fisheries administration sufficiently for its future accession.
The fisheries agreement with Latvia is virtually a factor in the introductory strategy for this candidate for accession, and must thus not only be seen with goodwill by the present Community, but explicitly welcomed.
I hope that you are now convinced that we should not only approach it on a Friday.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Gallagher">
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Macartney on the preparation and presentation of his report.
Of course, any report for which he has responsibility is prepared well and this is no exception.
<P>
In the fisheries agreement between the EU and Latvia signed on 16 December, the contracting parties agreed to encourage the establishment of joint enterprises as laid down in the protocol conditions.
I think it is vitally important that there should be such enterprises and I believe those contributing from within the EU can play an important role in the development of the industry in Latvia.
This is important to that country and, as in my own country, important to the peripheral coastal regions where there is no alternative source of employment.
<P>
The protocol will have important advantages for the Union and Latvia.
The establishment of joint enterprises and financial participation by the Union will assist Latvia to meet some of its industry's main objectives which are: modernizing the fleet, improving the fisheries administration and boosting imports for its processing sector.
The EU will benefit from the transfer of vessels to the Latvian flag and, more importantly, have access to its fishing zones.
This will relieve, even if in a small way, the pressure on the fleets and the pressure on the stocks, taking into consideration in particular the fact that they are under-fishing their quotas.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, I should also like to congratulate Mr Macartney on his report.
This protocol is designed to transfer capacity from the European Union to Latvia by making it easier to establish joint enterprises.
<P>
Vessels are to be re-flagged, supposedly with a provision that it does not lead to an increase in the overall capacity of the Latvian fleet.
But the question here is how can this actually be ensured?
On average, the Latvian fleet is some 20 years old, whereas the EU vessels which will be transferred can be as young as five years.
Even if the gross registered tonnage of the fleet does not increase by transferring vessels, such a substitution of younger vessels for older ones will lead, inevitably, to an increase in the effective fishing capacity of the Latvian fleet.
<P>
One of the lessons learned from my report on the control of the CFP was that even the EU vessels registries were not accurate.
So how can we be sure of the current capacity of the Latvian fleet and that these transfers will not lead to an increase and more overfishing?
<P>
Compared with the agreements with the ACP countries, this is a much more equitable agreement in that it is not an exploitation of the country involved; Latvians will be employed.
This is a very important aspect that should be transferred to agreements with ACP countries as it is much more equitable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fraga Estévez">
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Macartney.
We should always welcome the signing of a fisheries agreement from the basis that they should be beneficial and equitable for both parties.
We regret, therefore, that Article 6 of the Protocol with Latvia will ruin what might be a good start in the phase of fisheries relations with Baltic countries, and even more seriously there is possibly a grave precedent being set for the future.
<P>
The Article I referred to, which the Commission should never have accepted as discriminatory and clearly prejudicial to Community interests, establishes that joint enterprises are obliged to have a crew who live exclusively in Latvia.
The present crews in these ships, Mr President, will therefore lose their jobs.
<P>
A summit on employment has just been held, which has stressed that this is one of the most serious problems for the Union and its solution should be our prime objective. We cannot understand why the fishing authorities accept clauses to boost the number of unemployed.
<P>
On the other hand a new regulation on the Structural Funds, strongly linked to the creation of employment, is in an advanced stage of preparation.
Therefore it might be taken as a contradiction that any employer who showed a real interest in promoting a joint enterprise would have no access to Community funds since, as in Latvia's case, not only would jobs not be created but they would be destroyed with joint enterprises.
<P>
The fishing authorities have not only assessed these consequences but in addition intensify them with agreements of this type.
Mr President this is regrettable and dangerous, all the more so when we are talking about a country - Latvia - which is a net exporter of fishery products to the Union with whose production we are in direct competition.
<P>
Therefore, Mr President, I think that in future we should not adopt these kinds of clauses and urge the Commission in future not to include them in fishery agreements.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
Mr President, in the first place I would like to congratulate Mr Macartney for his report and I am pleased to warmly welcome the conclusion of this Protocol.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, as you well know, after the expansion of the Community in 1995, the Commission negotiated new fishing agreements with a series of third countries.
The Council's negotiating guidelines were looking at the establishment of joint undertakings and joint enterprises in the fishing sector as a fresh element in the new fishing agreements.
<P>
The proposal here consists of a Protocol on the establishment of joint enterprises with Latvia as it applies to the fishing agreement which was ratified last year.
Once approved the present Protocol should bring up to date all the fishing agreements with the Baltic States in accordance with the Council's negotiating guidelines.
<P>
In this way we will contribute to the alignment to which Mr Macartney was referring in his speech this morning, in the negotiations for accession to the European Community for all those countries who have applied. I can tell you as well that we look favourably on the proposal to investigate this.
<P>
In regard to the speech from Mrs Fraga Estévez I would like to say to her that, in accordance with the plan for permanent joint enterprises, ships will be removed from the Community register and be made to fly the flag of a third country.
Consequently they are subject to the legislation of such a country.
Latvia explicitly declared that the captain and crew of the Latvian ships should be Latvian citizens or permanently resident in Latvia, in accordance with the legislation of that country.
Similar arrangements are included in the Protocol negotiated with Lithuania.
Since this Protocol was accepted by the Member States, and ratified without too many difficulties, the Commission has carried out negotiations with Latvia in accordance with the same approach that was followed with Lithuania.
But I would like to reassure Mrs Fraga Estévez by telling her that the Commission has the firm resolve, when it negotiates similar Protocols in the future, to do as much as it can to safeguard Community employment as far as is possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Mountain regions and Structural Funds
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions:
<P>
B4-1016/97 by Mr Ebner, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, to the Commission, on taking into account the specific nature of mountain regions in the reform of the Structural Funds; -B4-0008/98 by Mr Azzolini, Mr Podesta and Mr Santini, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, to the Commission, on mountain regions; -B4-0009/98 by Mr Ephremidis, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, to the Commission, on mountain regions in the European Union; -B-0006/98 by Mr Bontempi and Mr Cot, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to the Commission, on mountain regions and the Structural Funds; -B4-0007/98 by Mr Macartney and Mrs Ewing, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, to the Commission, on the reform of the Structural Funds and the problems of mountain regions; -B4-0010/98 by Mrs Lindholm and Mrs Schroedter, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, to the Commission, on mountain regions and the reform of the Structural Funds.



<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Ebner">
Mr President, normally when we talk about mountain regions and mountain areas we think about agriculture.
However this is just a part of the problem relating to mountains: there are other problems such as the question of environment, the question of employment and many others besides.
It also needs to be said that the mountains are not just the Alps, as is often stated and as was said yesterday; there are mountain areas in almost all of the countries of the European Union.
<P>
The debate about of the reform of the EU Structural Funds for the period after 1999 is already in full progress.
In view of the direct relation to areas and the area effect of regional and structural policy, and of the increasing importance of the regions, which is always emphasized in the context of subsidiarity, it is considered right and necessary to supplement these efforts by formulating and introducing region-specific matters.
A whole series of international and cross-border agreements, arrangements, models - for instance, the Alpine Convention, to which the European Union is a signatory - refers to the special features of the Alpine area, and encourages, in particular, integral actions to safeguard and develop it as an area for living, commerce, recreation and above all nature.
<P>
Achievement of these goals also requires that the EU should become active, and the precondition for an integrated, sustained development strategy, which encourages the exploitation of the internal dynamic in the mountain area.
<P>
The European Parliament adopted the last report about mountain regions in 1988, that is ten years ago.
The system until now of restricting Structural Funds support to the defined areas has not made it possible to make regulations about a specific target area for mountain regions.
<P>
In Agenda 2000, the Commission defined its plans for this reform for the future period 2000 to 2006.
Positive features are that the financial framework has been extended, and that more money - ECU 75 billion - is available for this period than for the period 1993 to 1999.
<P>
However, regarding the allocation of resources by the new target definition, it should be observed that the globalization of the agricultural and food markets particularly endangers the small-scale mountain farming businesses, which exercise an absolutely primary ecological function, unless special measures and long-term action programmes for the mountain economy are provided.
<P>
According to the speech yesterday by Commissioner van den Broek about Alpine transit, the Transport Council has dealt with defining an Alpine clause.
They want to conclude an Alpine treaty, and to provide a declaration of the Alps as a 'sensitive zone' .
According to the Commissioner, the Commission welcomed this conclusion of the Council of Ministers.
The Commission would thus also be put into a position to watch over Alpine protection.
A change of direction is visible here.
But this thought must be thought out to the end.
In this connection, I ask you, Mr Commissioner, to inform us in what way the Commission intends to take special account of the mountain areas in the next revision of the Structural and Regional Funds in March this year, to safeguard this area for living, commerce, recreation and nature.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Santini">
Mr President, the discussion under way on the reform of the Structural Funds has two substantial objectives.
The first is to improve the operation of the Funds themselves and to prepare the Union for the great challenges which await it and which we all now know by heart: expansion, the reform of the CAP, policies on the environment, policies on employment, the training and movement of young people, and the fight against this century's ills, such as cancer, AIDS, drugs, including the new sickness, that of trying to legalize drugs.
<P>
However, apart from these problems, for which there is room in other debates, it is right, here, to highlight the way in which the reform of the Structural Funds speaks directly a language like that of the mountains.
In fact, the second objective is that of recognising in the distribution of the Funds those so-called areas of hardship or disadvantage.
And certainly the mountains feature among them, especially those mountain areas in which decay, desertion, and the exodus of the young now constitute an endemic and apparently, at least up to now, unstoppable ill.
<P>
The European Parliament's last report on mountain regions dates back to 1988.
Ten years is a long time for a fragile and delicate policy area such as that of the mountains.
In the light of the recent approval by the Commission of the Alpine Convention, together with the important reforms contained in Agenda 2000, it really is necessary to get some new ideas into gear, and this task falls to the Commission.
Can the Commission therefore tell us what measures it intends to take to put the Alpine Convention into effect, to recognise the specific nature of the mountain regions, and above all, to create a serious network of specific measures which would at least create the correct approach to the problems of mountain areas?
<P>
I say all this in the light of the reform of the Structural Funds which those of us who live in the mountains are watching with great concern; from seven funds we are reduced to only three, and furthermore both of the funds dedicated chiefly to agriculture, 5a and 5b, have disappeared, the second being specifically for agriculture in areas of hardship and mountain areas.
<P>
Among the three objectives and Objective 2, which has to be responsible at once for reform and restructuring in the industrial, urban and agricultural domain, of 13 initiatives only 3 remain. The Leader programme remains, though much criticized, and above all, concerning the annual budget, of ECU 30 billion, 2 billion is to be recovered which constituted the ex-fund 5b.
I therefore ask the Commission, Commissioner Oreja, that you would convey this message to your colleague Mrs Fischl, in order that at least this 5 billion remains allocated to mountain agriculture.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, we spend a lot of time talking about the Alps and other mountain regions, and there is a risk that we could fall into the self-deception of thinking that there are no problems in the plains, that everything there is getting on fine.
Not so!
But it is indeed true that in mountain regions the problems are more numerous, more acute, and need to be dealt with directly and in an integrated way.
We all know that they share certain common characteristics: despite their variety and individuality, mountain regions have natural disadvantages caused by their climates and the composition of their soil.
On the other hand, they have some positive features, they are environmental storehouses, repositories of historical and cultural traditions, and all of that must be conserved.
The efforts to do this so far have been fragmented and inadequate.
<P>
Mountain regions have deficient infrastructures, if any at all, both technical and other, in the sense of social welfare, the social state, education and health care, and this leads to the stripping of those areas, their abandonment and desertion, which will have catastrophic consequences for the environment, not only there but more widely and generally too. The result will be to destroy those roots of historical and cultural traditions.
Our question to the Commission is whether, with the changes now being made to the Structural Funds, these exceptionally urgent and great needs of the mountain regions will be taken into account, and much more so, to counteract the adverse prescriptions and restrictions introduced by Agenda 2000, all the more now since enlargement towards the East will increase the proportion of mountain regions.
Mr President, I speak with the experience of my own country, where there are few plains and many mountain or hilly areas.
Will the Commissioner therefore confirm whether the changes to the Structural Funds will allow for integrated aid in support of those regions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cot">
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, my colleague Mr Bontempi (who has asked me to apologize for his absence as he has been held up in Spain today, for reasons indirectly connected with mountain regions) and I have, like other Members, noted the absence of any general debate in this house on mountain region policy, during the last ten years.
<P>
Certainly, other institutions have taken an interest in it, particularly the Committee of the Regions, in 1995, but we have seen important changes in the landscape of mountain regions, and in the more general framework which surrounds this question: changes in the common agricultural policy and the new developments foreseeable in Agenda 2000, the Alpine Convention and its 'transit' protocol, connected with yesterday's debate on Alpine transit, and finally the substantial reform of the Structural Funds, the main subject of today's debate, the main subject because the problems of mountain regions are problems of a transcendental, transversal nature and are affected by all EC policies.
<P>
First of all, they are affected by the common agricultural policy, because without agriculture in mountain regions, we cannot protect our heritage.
It needs to be maintained.
Our mountain regions must not be invaded by wasteland, or damaged by avalanches and landslides.
Farmers in mountain areas must therefore be sure of an adequate income.
<P>
A recent report by the French Planning Department, under the initiative of Mr Bazin, on the effects of the reform of the common agricultural policy on agricultural incomes, asks several questions in this respect.
It notes the on the whole favourable effect of the reform of the agricultural policy, in all agricultural areas, but those who have gained the most, in this respect, are farmers in underprivileged areas but not in the mountains.
Farmers in the plain are in second place.
On the other hand, the research highlights a serious falling behind of farmers in mountain areas, whose average income is increasingly falling below the national average, that is, the handicap of being in the mountains is not being compensated to a sufficient degree.
A slight change in the mechanism of allocation of aid would doubtless put an end to this trend, and would also have a favourable effect on agricultural employment.
I shall do myself the honour of forwarding this information to the Commission.
<P>
The second question I should like to raise relates to the policy of encouraging quality.
It is obvious that in mountain regions we need to have a policy of quality production, because it is impossible to compete with the milk factories in the plain.
This also applies to cheese, as well as honey, ham, and arts and crafts.
This policy was encouraged, in France, by the Mountain Regions Act of 1985, which instituted a 'Mountain' label.
The label was declared contrary to the Treaty by the European Court of Justice, in the Pistre ruling of 7 May 1997, which, rightly in fact, detected discrimination against non-French products.
<P>
We must therefore find another means of encouraging the quality of production, at the European level, and why not by means of a 'European mountain' label?
That is the name that professional people in my country have suggested.
I would like the Commission to consider that proposal.
<P>
Finally, the aim of the Structural Funds should be to compensate for natural handicaps.
A specific 'mountain region' objective has now been excluded; it would be contrary to the concentration of the Structural Funds.
But it is at least necessary to confirm the specific identity of the 'mountain regions' , in respect of Objective 2, and to create a firmer link with physical handicap, instead of the simple criterion of income, because some economic activities can have a harmful effect on environmental protection, or agriculture in mountain areas.
That is the case with road transport, or some forms of mass tourism.
The conditions of allocation of aid must be relaxed, in compliance with the provisions of the Treaty, particularly those relating to competition.
<P>
Finally, to conclude, Madam President, Mr Commissioner, a word about cross-border programmes, which relate to several mountainous areas, certainly not all the mountain regions of Europe, but several mountainous areas, particularly the Alps and the Pyrenees.
The Commission has decided to develop these programmes and to give them larger grants.
I am very pleased about this and I hope that these programmes will take fully into consideration the specific nature of the mountain environment as it is, because our mountainous areas are part of a heritage which is common to the whole of Europe.
It is a fragile heritage.
It must be protected, that is, the men and women who maintain it must be encouraged, within the framework of a proper sustained rural development policy.
That is what we want and what we hope the reform of the Structural Funds will achieve.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Macartney">
Madam President, I should like to say, first of all, how much I welcome the initiatives taken by colleagues in joining us in raising this issue, which is clearly of very great importance.
Also, the timing is very significant given that we are facing a review of the whole idea of structural and regional funding.
<P>
One of the problems that we face is of definition.
Let me just read from the question which I have tabled, along with Mrs Ewing: ' What exactly is a mountain?' .
This sounds like something that could be settled easily by a geologist but the economic characteristics of mountains depend on the latitude as much as the altitude.
The key criterion, I would argue, is the tree line.
The trees indicate how high things can grow in the mountains.
I would urge the Commission to bear this in mind when looking at this proposal.
<P>
The second definition problem concerns the data which affects the mountainous areas.
It is very easy, indeed, with the sparseness of population of mountainous areas for the disadvantage which the inhabitants of those areas suffer to be lost in a much bigger area of definition.
I know that the Commission is very much wrestling with the problem of defining areas.
I would counsel against losing the disadvantage of those areas in a much bigger area just for the sake of administrative convenience.
That is a battle which will have to be fought, and fought very hard, right across Europe.
<P>
I would hope that the Commission would be able to look pragmatically at the whole question and begin to take into account the question of climate, not just some of the macro-economic indicators.
Some people might think that is a tall order, but there is an encouraging precedent, and that is what has happened in the accession negotiations with Sweden and Finland when the Swedes and the Finns quite rightly argued that Objective 6, as we now call it, should be recognized, i.e. that the climatic disadvantages of the north of those countries should be the subject of a special objective.
That is due to be transferred into Objective 1.
<P>
That is fine as far as it goes.
But as far as it goes is not enough.
We have to argue for the same principle to be applied right across Europe so that those who are challenged by a very cold climate at certain times of the year or permanently, for that matter, would qualify for the same sort of treatment.
This would have application certainly to the highlands of Scotland.
People go there to train to attack the Himalayas and therefore, by definition, the mountains are seen as fairly cold and challenging.
It also applies to other parts that colleagues have mentioned from France, Italy and South Tyrol.
All this mean that we have to move towards a new approach to the question of redressing the disadvantages which clearly is at the heart of the whole idea of regional and structural policy.
<P>
I commend these initiatives to the House.
I hope that the Commission will take them on board and respond positively.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindholm">
Madam President, it is very positive that Parliament is drawing attention to the special situation and the problems which the EU's mountain regions have.
We have several, including the regions in Southern Europe which have been mentioned here, in Greece, Spain and Italy.
We also have mountain regions in Central Europe and mountain regions in Northern Europe.
Apart from that, we will probably also have mountain regions in the new Member States.
<P>
Just as Mr Macartney said, it is worth noting that the problems are not the same.
I believe it is very important to define what we mean by mountain regions.
Not least the question of climate is important.
As a Swede I am of course particularly passionate about the problems which the Scandinavian areas have, and which are today covered by Objective 6.
To be brief: what do we mean by mountain regions?
I think it is with this definition that we must begin.
<P>
The mountain regions are Europe's greatest ecological heritage, but they are a sensitive one whose unique biological character can easily be destroyed for a long time to come, perhaps forever.
They are also in many places Europe's largest reservoirs of drinking water, something which we all know we must be concerned about.
The major threat in a number of areas is mass tourism which wears down and overloads the ecology and the biology.
It is the development of both large and small transport links, roads, motorways, tunnels, which we have talked about here, and not least the trans-European networks as a whole.
Environmental damage in both air and water is increasing.
The problems of sparsely populated areas are making people move; small farming and forestry businesses are being broken up and the particular culture and cultural heritage which is found in many places is being destroyed.
I am thinking not least of the only minority people in the EU, the Sami in northern Scandinavia.
There people have developed an interplay between nature and mankind.
<P>
In spite of everything we Greens are not in favour of the creation of special programmes or objective areas for mountain regions.
We are running a clear risk of having an inflation of different objective areas, such as islands, wetlands, mountain regions, cities etc.
We do not believe in that model.
<P>
Future regional policy must take account of certain regions in a different way than is done today, but as a whole and not just bit by bit.
That also applies in this case to mountain regions.
We want people to see whether these areas can be supported when people develop an ecological and environmentally-adapted lifestyle and production.
Perhaps people could consider whether it would be possible to put eco-labels on certain areas where people work and live in a certain way, and also provide increased aid via the Structural Funds.
Perhaps it would be possible to develop and expand Natura 2000.
There are a lot of things people could consider, but we would like to know what the Commission wants.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this matter allows the Commission to clearly state its stance on the reform of the Structural Funds and, more exactly, on the way in which it will take into account the specific characteristics of mountain regions.
<P>
As we think about adapting the structural and agricultural policy, set down in Agenda 2000, questions put to the Commission deal, fundamentally, with the possibility of producing specific measures for mountain regions.
For example by creating an objective called "mountain' which would join together the remaining structural objectives.
<P>
In this regard the Commission points out that adapting to local needs should bear in mind the requirements to keep the structural policy fairly straightforward as well as to assure an enhanced concentration of Structural Funds.
The system proposed in Agenda 2000 allows, in our view, the reconciliation of the necessary simplification with a wider consideration for the specific problems of the mountain regions, and it does so for two reasons.
<P>
Firstly, because the reorganization of the rural development policy should contain important decentralization of support policies - a question to which Mr Macartney referred earlier in his speech - and greater integration of the different instruments which are already there, which will allow, through the application of integrated regional programmes, a more suitable adaptation to the specific needs of the different regions in the European Union.
The mountain regions should reap special benefits in relation to their definite needs and be reasonable about them.
<P>
Secondly, because attention given to agro-environmental measures in the Agenda 2000 proposals will also allow optimum use to be made of the specific features in the mountain regions.
The growth of conservation and value of the environment which responds to the awareness that society has about threats which endanger these and which finds a single area of application in the mountain regions, can be carried out in two directions; on the one hand by strengthening the mechanism for compensatory allowances which might become a basic support tool for extensive agrarian practices which respect the environment; and on the other hand - here I am trying to answer the concern shown a moment ago by Mr Cot - through the growth in environmental measures dedicated to a few specific objectives. I am thinking, for example, of the maintenance of Alpine pasturing, among things, which can receive greater financial support and as appropriate higher percentages of cofinancing.
<P>
In regard to the latter I should point out that other ecologically sensitive areas, for example wet regions, can also receive greater support.
<P>
On the fringe of this general proposal the Committee has put forward two more specific questions relating to the mountain regions; the first refers to the Alpine Convention and the measures which the Commission intends to put into operation to apply this; secondly, in relation to the classification criteria for the mountain regions and, in concrete terms, altitude.
<P>
In regard to the Alpine Pact I wish to point out that although the European Community has ratified and signed some of its protocols amongst which mountain agriculture can be found - before beginning the ratification process for the same we must hope to effect a linguistic harmonization of the protocols.
And given the situation the Commission's action consists for the moment in the active involvement in the work of the Standing Committee on the Alpine Convention, and in the system to coordinate what we can see and find out about the Alps.
<P>
Finally, as far as the classification criteria for mountain regions is concerned, the Committee prefers to hope that the basic principles for reform of the Structural Funds can be decided before taking on problems of this more specific nature.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bösch">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the questions and explanations of the various parties have already shown in how many ways the mountains can be seen.
That extends from Scandinavia to Greece, and I assume that the first questioner referred mainly to the Alps.
Since I am also a resident of the Alps, I will concentrate rather more on this area.
<P>
However, at the same time I would like to point out - and here I agree entirely with the previous speaker, Mrs Lindholm - that we should be wary of going into detail again, at a time when we are concentrating the structural policies of the Union on the basis of Agenda 2000, even with the agreement of this Chamber.
<P>
I believe that we should stick to the fact that the decisive motive force for the structural policies and support in this field is finally the prosperity of these regions, and thank God the Alpine lands are not necessarily the poorest in this Union.
Therefore, in connection with such discussions, the question should finally be raised: Who should pay for it?
Where should the money come from, should we deduct it from somewhere, or should we provide extra money, and who is going to provide it?
<P>
But what we need, and thank God it has been mentioned repeatedly this week, is a clear Alpine policy of this Union.
In connection with Alpine transit, we hear and get the feeling again and again that for some European politicians the Alps are just something like an artificial obstacle.
There I would like to quote a colleague of the Greens who spoke yesterday, Mr Kreissl-Dörfler, who said, directed to the Netherlands among others, I quote: ' If the Alpine biosphere is destroyed, you will not need to build any more dams against sea floods, but against the Rhine, because once the Alps are destroyed, you can report high water and land under water in your country all year' .
<P>
I believe that in this example we can see how much things are interwoven with each other, and how much the principle of the free market within the Union occasionally collides with what are in the end the bases of the life of this entire continent.
I believe that we should take the debate which Mr Ebner has opened today as the occasion to have a more intensive discussion of such principles, in the context of the future policies of the Union, and not to maintain this opposition between economics and ecology, but to understand that one is impossible without the other!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="President">
I believe that the general public hardly knows that we in the European Parliament have so much work that we cannot even celebrate our national day.
Our members who have birthdays are also very active.
The next speaker is one of our three birthday children today.
Mr Bernard-Reymond now has the floor for the European People's Party.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bernard-Reymond">
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, the European project is a project for civilisation.
This means that although Europe has accepted the challenge of globalization, it refuses to see that, under the effects of hard and fast liberalism, the mechanism of market forces alone will lead to an unvarying world, built according to the laws of competition alone.
<P>
Liberalism, which decompartmentalizes our economies, by stimulating innovation, by leading new countries to achieve growth, is a powerful force with regard to progress.
But we also know what imbalances it can lead to in social and also in geographical terms.
That is why each country tries to make those corrections, which are most suited to its culture.
And it is from that point of view that we must indeed reposition European social policy, and also regional policy, one of the areas of which relates to mountain regions.
<P>
Mountain regions are special, rather vulnerable places, and nothing better will ever be found to protect them than to encourage healthy agriculture.
They are places in which the notion of balance between various imperatives is essential.
There is the question of improved access - and I do not hesitate to say that even today, although I may sound very old-fashioned.
Improved access by road and even by motorways, which we should not fail to build where they are still needed.
Secondly, of course, improved access by rail, and by means of telecommunications.
By means of high quality agricultural development, tourist facilities, environmental protection, all ideas which must be included in the plans relating to cross-border mountain regions, at the European level.
<P>
In order to do so, it is essential to recognize the specific nature of mountain regions, as a concept, legally and financially.
It is not a question of covering the European area with a patchwork of statutes.
It is not a question of enclosing mountain regions behind shields or privileges.
It is simply a question of helping mountain regions to innovate, to invest in lasting development, and of enabling them to play a full part in the construction of a balanced European society, which will therefore be of a high quality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Kaklamanis">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, I listened very carefully to your answer to those who tabled the joint question on mountain regions.
Permit me to tell you, however, that your answer was very general.
You did not address the very specific questions which Members had put to you, for example Mr Santini, but other Members from other political groups as well.
As a supplement to what we have already heard from the other speakers, which I accept and subscribe to, I in my turn would like to ask you whether the European Commission has considered how it is going to deal with two additional problems which will probably arise in the future.
I refer specifically, first to the problems that are likely to emerge once the postal services have been deregulated, especially in mountain regions. And secondly, to the problems which are likely to occur after the deregulation of Europe's railways.
<P>
You know that on both these issues the European Parliament has tabled very specific proposals and has adopted them within the reports that have appeared, and you know that the European Union has not accepted them all, at least so far as the postal services are concerned.
I would like you to tell me whether you have reconsidered the matter and how you propose to deal with it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Cabezón Alonso">
Madam President, the mountain regions in the European Union - as has already been pointed out in the debate - have similar features, and the mountain regions in nearby countries involved in the enlargement also have similar features.
<P>
In many cases they are regions tied closely to rural life, also on occasion with some development of the tourist sector; they are sparsely populated and are difficult to develop and this makes it difficult to keep people on the land with an adequate infrastructure and services by providing grants.
At the same time they are enormously attractive areas due to their natural beauty and because of the possibilities of their heritage environment.
<P>
There have been Community initiatives dealing with other European regions with common features, the outlying or maritime regions etcetera, but the mountain regions in the past have scarcely had any specific initiative; if any it was very specifically related to an aspect of agricultural policy.
<P>
As we approach the debate for the next reform of the Structural Funds, this question, which we are debating today, is opportune and we have already heard how the Commission has done some thinking in this regard; it would be useful indeed for the Commission to put forward a communication on possible innovations, where the Structural Funds in these mountain regions in recent years have been used, in the different countries in the Union.
This will allow verification of whether there has been any added value when the Structural Funds have been used in these areas.
<P>
In reforming the Structural Funds we have to look at the specific problems of these regions, what to do to maintain, protect and empower their own surroundings, making use of endogenous development and bearing very much in mind the very fragility of these natural surroundings when they are attacked by the use or misuse of foreign elements which can spoil the land and its natural features.
<P>
The same concern should be present, not only on the Structural Funds, but also in the thinking and reform proposals for the common agricultural policy.
<P>
The areas with important mountain regions - I live in one of them, where areas very close to the sea and predominantly mountainous areas live side by side - are an important part of the reality of this European Union.
For this reason, it will be necessary that the regulations which will govern the Structural Funds in the future, in the way expressed by the Commissioner or in an even more detailed way, will deal with implementing them positively and integrally in this common heritage, within the framework of a rigorous regional policy, with the aim of making progress in the cohesion of our regions and our peoples.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Imaz San Miguel">
Madam President, the truth is that we are at a defining time in the new Community policies for regional development, within the framework of Agenda 2000, and this is the right moment to discuss this topic and formulate proposals so that the specific problems relating to mountain regions will be included in Community policies for regional development.
<P>
Regions with a depopulation problem are, in some cases, lacking economic alternatives and needing development which moreover should be balanced with their natural environment, so that they can continue to maintain this balance in the future.
<P>
Indeed up to the present time an objective for these zones has not existed.
The Commissioner was discussing the need to keep Community regional policies fairly straightforward but, within this simplicity it would be of more interest to empower these areas as the Commission - I am sure - will try to do in its new proposals.
These should include special integral measures for the development of these areas as vital, through their economic development, the development of leisure pursuits and natural development.
<P>
Besides, many of these are cross frontier areas because, if mountain chains have divided such states, on both sides of them there have been areas of coexistence, natural surroundings and population; in this sense the empowering of cross frontier experience in the mountain regions would be of greater interest.
<P>
At present there are many pilot schemes which the European Commission might use to empower these areas in their proposals and use them as a model.
I am referring to cases of collaboration in the Pyrenees.
I am sure that the Commissioner who, besides being Basque, knows his country very well, acknowledges them.
Indeed there are models in the Aleves mountain, in the Pyrenean and Navarran valleys or in the French Basque country etcetera that may be taken as a model of what may generate economic activity respectful of the environment.
In this sense I would like to congratulate the Commissioner especially for the report he has made in his last speech about empowerment also for mountain pasturing in so far as, besides generating economic activity, it helps to preserve the natural environment and certain cultural areas.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
Madam President, this debate concerns regional policy and an equal Europe.
These are questions which belong to the area of solidarity.
Everybody should be able to live a good life in our Europe.
These are also areas, as many speakers have said, which have very special conditions.
In my case this concerns Sweden, Finland and Northern Europe, 2 0-2 500 km north of here.
It is largely a question of ecologically sensitive areas, very large natural resources and an immense biodiversity.
That is why all discussions about aid should be based on the individual local and regional conditions, because it is very easy for large scale forms of aid and exploitation which do not suit the areas to do more harm than good.
This also applies of course to all other mountain regions.
<P>
I shall continue by describing a little of how things look in my home district.
What we are particularly concerned about is, of course, Objective 6 Aid which is now disappearing with the changes being made in the Structural Funds.
What is going to happen with Objective 6 Aid for Sweden and Finland, now that the Objective Areas as such are being abolished and are being included under Objective 1?
<P>
This is very important.
We got these opportunities for support through the Objective 6 Area in connection with the negotiations prior to EU membership, above all because the climate is very severe. At the moment it is 30-40 degrees below freezing in northern Sweden.
It is very difficult for those who have not been there to imagine a landscape which looks like this.
It may be 100 km to the nearest built-up area.
The population density may generally be 1-3 people/km2 .
People live by doing lots of different things, farming, forestry on a very small scale which provides a little money.
Swedes, Finns and Sami live in the area.
People live close to nature and from nature, and people are dependent on the survival of nature's resources for their own survival. There is major depopulation and stagnation in many of the areas.
<P>
Unfortunately the EU's agricultural policy has concentrated a bit much on large farms, both in Europe and southern Sweden, while small farmers in northern Sweden have huge problems.
<P>
I have a question which I am very anxious to have an answer to from the Commission, if the Commissioner is now listening.
My question is: What proposals does the Commission have for Objective Area 6 when new criteria are to be determined after the old period expires in 1999 and the new period begins?
I am very anxious to have an answer to that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Madam President, I must say that I am very happy that we are having a joint debate about the special features of the mountain regions.
In the end the mountain region is the most sensitive rural area, and therefore continues to need our support, if it is to be maintained in its entirety and multifunctionality.
Therefore, the high position of the rural areas must be clearly established in Agenda 2000.
Specifically, we need to extend the differential compensation allowance for disadvantaged areas, intensify the brand and tradition protection of typical products of these regions, and support forestry more strongly.
<P>
Another item which deserves support is without doubt better use of renewable energy.
On this point, we must not forget that whenever agriculturally productive land becomes disused, in whatever way, it means a declaration of bankruptcy for our system.
Agriculture cannot be laid down like an industrial business, for instance, and must be considered over a much longer period.
These areas should therefore be particularly included in the consideration of renewable energy.
<P>
As well as increased payment for agricultural and ecological efforts, of course there must be compensation for permanent natural disadvantages, to safeguard the cultivation of the mountain areas.
This is not least what tourism means.
Austria is the country of the European Union which has the highest proportion of farmers for whom farming is a secondary occupation.
The vast majority of farmers are active in the tourism business, and in both occupations they ensure that the attractiveness and economic productivity of the mountain regions are maintained, and that continuous migration from the rural areas, and thus depopulation of the mountain regions, is stopped.
This also shows the profound social significance and multi-functionality of agriculture.
<P>
In Austria, just 70 %, or 2 323 000 hectares, of the agriculturally productive land comes into the European Union's category of disadvantaged areas.
The EU average is 56 %.
In concrete terms, this means that for instance in Austria 150 000 businesses are in a disadvantaged area.
With regard to the enlargement of our Community to the east, the best thing would be to continue the agricultural guideline.
Only this will ensure that it is not only a burden on domestic farmers, but that everyone has to bear their share of this great work of European unification.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Madam President, above all I would first like to thank Mr Ebner for introducing this question, and second, I would like to make a comment.
It shows that the Friday sittings have a purpose, because on Fridays we talk about more serious things, instead of practising demagogy, and besides there is much more consensus between the parties than at other times!
<P>
I would like to add to what Mr Macartney said.
He mentioned a very important point, that not only bureaucratic criteria should be applied to defining the regions, that it is not just made to depend on height or depth, but that the climate and social conditions also play a part.
<P>
Secondly, I would like to emphasize here that - as we have heard from all sides - it is not just the economy which is crucial.
There is only a social function of the economy, which is the only one which actually means the future.
Particularly for us in the mountain areas - there are very many mountain areas in my home country, although people generally do not know that, but Upper Bavaria consists partly of mountain areas - this means first that the small farmers must be maintained at any price, because without these people there are no more mountains.
Then everything is ruined, as can be seen in all too many places in America, for instance.
Second, in the whole definition of transport we must put always the ecological aspects in the foreground, because when we see the destructive effect which certain roads have already had, through Trentino-Alto Adige for instance, when we know how dangerous certain projects are for us, we have to say that the ecological standpoint must be allowed a quite high status, because only in this way can we maintain the heart of Europe!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Madam President, Austria is famous for the beautiful Alps and also for the newly created national parks.
Yet an enormous structural change is taking place in these areas.
On the one hand, we endeavour to look after the traditions, the beauty of the land, its naturalness and unspoiledness, and on the other hand we think intensely about the future, safeguarding the future, and the opportunities which the future will bring.
I believe that we must do more research in this area.
We must see with what products and services we can look into the future, we must do market research to see what visitors can come into this region, what aspects of the region are treasured, what services can be offered in this region and what products can be sent out of this region.
<P>
The second, and perhaps even more important point is education and further education in these areas.
We should think about what education and further education structure we can offer in these areas.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
Madam President, two words no more.
Firstly, to say to you ladies and gentlemen that I have noted the speeches made here this morning.
In some of them I found something similar to the speech I made halfway through the sitting, but anyway I will forward them to the Commissioners, most particularly to Mr Fischler who is the Commissioner responsible for all of them.
<P>
Mr Kaklamanis has referred to the different topics which are being taken up in this matter, since here we are dealing with the Structural Funds and agriculture, and he has referred to the liberalization of the Post Offices and rail networks.
These are two matters with which we are now concerned and are subjects also of questions in Parliament, and the Commission, being aware of such problems, will provide at the right time corresponding and fitting replies to the same.
<P>
On the subject of the Alpine regions I wish to pose two questions: on the one hand everything that refers to increasing compensatory allowances in the disadvantaged areas; and on the other greater support for Alpine pasturing within the agro-environmental measures.
<P>
I wish to assure Mr Lindqvist that although I am only wearing one of the headphones I can hear him, and besides with my surname I have no option but to listen.
So you can understand that I follow very attentively all the speeches and especially yours, Mr Lindqvist, when you refer to all the problems posed in the Nordic regions and have clearly shown the contrast between the Alpine regions and the Nordic region.
There is a very specific subject here which has been put forward to which I cannot give you a reply, but indeed I have listened to you - which is what we are referring to in the classification criteria for the mountain regions which have still not been defined.
But we are going to move onto that.
<P>
As you know, Mr Lindqvist, we are at this time examining reform of the Structural Funds.
Mr Imaz has referred, for example, to the idea of simplification - he has mentioned, to which I am especially sensitive, some mountains in the area, in the common region, the common country which we have in the Basque area - and he knows that I have travelled over all those mountains, have climbed to the top of them throughout my life and really I am very sensitive to the arguments he was using.
<P>
And so, I would like to say to him that if really the Commission's purpose is to look for greater simplification of the Structural Funds, this does not mean that it is impossible to reconcile simplification with a wider consideration of the specific problems relating to mountain regions.
<P>
Dr von Habsburg has made a specific mention of this and I wish to join him in that too.
We are going to have to bear in mind, particularly those subjects which I am going to hand over to Mr Fischler and the other appropriate Commissioners in so far as it concerns them.
<P>
I think that it is very useful - indeed Dr von Habsburg said it a moment ago - that we can deal with important matters on a Friday.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen of the Parliament, thank you very much.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Macartney">
Madam President, I have a rather disturbing point to raise because, on this day when we are talking about the problem of the marginal areas of Europe, I have just heard that Scotland is to lose one seat on the Committee of the Regions, and the same is going to happen to Wales.
I find this very disturbing and want to register a protest in this House.
I should also like to ask Commissioner Oreja, who I know has a very strong interest in these matters, whether he does not agree that this will weaken the voice of Scotland and Wales in particular at this time when we are talking about the future development of Agenda 2000 and all these vital issues?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="President">
Regarding Scotland's seat: The Member States have been informed of the number of people that they can send to the Committee of the Regions, and the composition of these representatives on the Committee of the Regions is a decision of the national states.
<P>
But, Mr Oreja, do you want to add something?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
Madam President, I can only agree with what you have just said - and I am speaking in my capacity as Commissioner in charge of institutional affairs: this decision affects each of the Member States.
That is the way the Committee of the Regions is made up.
Personally, at the intergovernmental conference, I have always been a staunch defender of the Committee of the Regions.
I think it plays a very important role.
It seems very important to me that a region as important as Scotland should have an adequate and meaningful presence on the Committee.
But this is a decision which affects Member States.
They are the ones who decide who makes up this Committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Imaz San Miguel">
Madam President, I know that Mr Oreja has always defended the Committee of the Regions, its composition and the strength of this institution, and I would like to thank him for this.
I also know that this stance is a question of the powers of the states.
I would simply like to say that it would be appropriate if, from this House and with an eye to the future, in the next set of reforms we could work towards giving the Committee of the Regions greater influence - within all the regions and all the spheres of Europe - on the involvement and presence of those regions which depend upon legislative assemblies and therefore have a democratic power which controls them.
Moreover, I am sure - based on the conviction of Mr Oreja, the Commissioner responsible for this area, who defends these proposals -that we will make noteworthy advances in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="President">
The debate is closed .
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="President">
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 11.29 a.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 16 January 1998.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bernard-Reymond">
Mr President, I would like to thank you for your comments regarding the terrible tragedy that plunged the French mountainside into mourning following the avalanche which took the lives of students from the Saint Francis of Assisi secondary school in Montigny-le Bretonneux, along with their teacher and an assistant.
I am sure that, through you, Parliament will be unanimous in expressing its condolences to the families of the victims and in assuring the survivors, their families and the teaching profession of our sorrow and our solidarity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Bernard-Reymond.
I think the applause speaks for itself.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Mezzaroma">
Mr President, I would like Parliament to thank His Holiness the Pope for the visit he made to Cuba, to thank this man whose ideal it has been to unite all the peoples of the world to give them the dignity which is their due.
<P>
In addition, Mr President, I would like people to stop talking about Italy in terms of "pizza' .
It is because of Italy that people are eating and enjoying it throughout the world!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Mr Mezzaroma, as I am sure you will understand, Parliament cannot make a statement on each and every one of the Pope's visits.
That is not what we are here for.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Caccavale">
Mr President, I wish to draw the attention of yourself and Parliament to a recent episode which I consider to be extremely serious.
A delegation made up of a number of European parliamentarians, including myself, from different political groups - although not an official parliamentary delegation, it arose out of the resolution unanimously approved last Thursday in Strasbourg concerning Mrs Karla Tucker who had been condemned to death and was in prison in Texas - was denied access to death row in Gatesville prison in Austin by the governor and prison authorities in Texas. They barred the way to a delegation which had arrived there on a purely humanitarian mission.
Mr President, I am reporting this fact to the House as a very serious matter which demonstrates contempt, not just for the individual parliamentarians who decided to go on this mission, but for Parliament itself.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Mr Caccavale, I have made a note of your remarks, and I will find out what happened so that appropriate measures can be taken, if necessary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, at the invitation of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, on 19 and 20 January I paid a visit to Northern Ireland.
I had the opportunity of seeing for myself how the European Union is helping to bring new life to run-down areas of Belfast and, through the International Fund for Ireland, providing employment in some of the most sensitive areas of the city.
I was also able to meet some of the families of the victims of the Troubles, who are receiving much-needed support under the European Union special partnership programme.
<P>
At a time of great sensitivity for the peace process my visit provided the opportunity for the European Parliament, representing the people of Europe, to show its solidarity with all those in Northern Ireland, who are working for peace and reconciliation.
I would like to take this opportunity of informing the House of the very real appreciation felt in Northern Ireland for the support of the European Union and, on your behalf, to show our support for the British and Irish Governments in their continuous search for peace.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="Perry">
Mr President, I raise a point of order pursuant to Rules 127 and 52.
You will recall that in September last year, this House decided to refer the whole issue of press intrusion and protection of personal privacy to committee.
At that time it was felt too delicate a matter to be debated on the floor of the House.
This is a serious European problem.
It is now some five months from the date of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales and nearly five months from the time Parliament referred it to committee.
As far as I know, no committee of this House as yet has brought that to the floor.
Could you give me an assurance that this important item will be debated by those committees with the utmost despatch?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
Mr Perry, I cannot give you an assurance on behalf of the committee.
What I can and will do immediately is remind the relevant committee chairmen of the matter which was referred to them and urge them to take the necessary measures and, if necessary, submit proposals to the Conference of Presidents.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, you might write a letter to the relevant committee chairman on this point, but does this mean that the relevant committee chairman, or the relevant committee is sanctioned by the Conference of Presidents to submit an initiative?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, since you leapt in so quickly with your comment on the matter, you did not hear my last remark to Mr Perry, which was in fact that, in his case, authorization could be sought from the Conference of Presidents.
So I can confirm what you have just asked .
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
The Minutes of Friday 16 January 1998 have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, I would like to mention that my name is not in the Minutes of the Strasbourg session on Friday, and I should like this to be corrected, as I added my name to the list and also took part in the voting that day, which can, of course, be checked.
This is a big problem because the press has been handed a copy of the Minutes, unchecked and with my name missing from them.
In Finland there has been a lot of controversy surrounding this issue.
I would like to ask how the Minutes are matched with the names on the list, who is responsible for this, and how we are going to make sure that all the names down on the list also get into the Minutes, which are distributed to the public and the press.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="President">
Mrs Matikainen-Kallström, your comment will be taken into account and included in the Minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rehder">
Mr President, I too have a comment to make on the Minutes, but I am sorry to say that it is a criticism.
On Friday, the last day of the sitting in Strasbourg, I again referred to speakers' contributions on the subject of transalpine traffic, and at that point I introduced a clarification. Unfortunately, this has failed to appear.
It is not because the comment I made is of special historic significance, but more for reasons of correctness, that I therefore repeat that, after the contributions of two German PPE Members, I was regrettably forced to say that there seems to me to be a race under way for the stupidest armchair tactician.
I pointed this out again on Friday because I know that a large number of PPE Members and German Members - perhaps even the majority - can see further than the end of their noses when it comes to traffic policy and in this respect support a common approach to the problem.
I am pleased to be able to say today that in the latest agreement with Switzerland the European caravan has also been pulled clear of these trivialities.
I would ask that this be placed in the Minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
Mr President, I am sorry, but if my colleague here and in the Neue Züricher Zeitung has been trying to ridicule two honorable Members of the PPE by referring to them as "armchair tacticians' , then I can only say firstly, that the remark has made no impression, and secondly, that what matters is not armchair tactics but the interests of employees and businesses in the European Union - and in this respect he has got it wrong.
If he is taking the Swiss side, then he fails to appreciate that many employees and many companies in the European Union have also been placed in a very difficult situation by the present compromise and it is high time that this was said.
<P>
(Heckling: But no armchair tactics, please!)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="President">
That is not something which should be included in the Minutes.
It will appear in the verbatim report of proceedings.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Financial crisis in South-East Asia
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="President">
The next item is the Commission communication on the financial crisis in South-East Asia and its potential repercussions on economic and monetary union, followed by questions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="de Silguy">
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
- Thank you for the information, Mr Commissioner, although I do not know whether I should be thanking you or the crisis for having arisen and having been so positive.
One of the concerns which is now increasing in intensity as we prepare for the introduction of the euro is that of inequality of impact and national or sector capacities for response.
In some ways the so-called Asian crisis has proved the relevance of that concern in advance.
For the various Member States, of course, the repercussions are and will be very different.
And they will illustrate the difficulties that arise from the imposition of an artificial form of financial stability against a background of potential and existing unstable situations.
At the sectorial level, I would quite specifically ask the Commissioner what he has to say about the present public reaction in Portugal to the effects already being suffered, and likely to be suffered more severely, by a significant sector of our economy, the textile industry, as a result of the Asian crisis, and the measures being recommended and put into practice?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="de Silguy">
Mr President, regarding sectoral impact, since I was so brief earlier I would like to explain, in reply to Mr Ribeiro's question, that the effects are both positive and negative.
Negative, firstly, in terms of price competitiveness and reduction of demand in these Asian countries.
Within our markets, and third markets, we will have to face up to exports coming from these countries, which will be cheaper.
Consequently, we will be affected.
Secondly, we will also be affected by the redeployment of these Asian countries, towards certain export markets in which we were traditionally present.
There, too, we will have to face up to increased competition.
We will also pay, I think, inasmuch as direct foreign investment in Europe will be weaker, although I do not believe that this will concern the textile industry.
In my opinion, this is of more concern to the electronics and electronic components industries.
On the other hand, from a positive point of view, it must be noted that since these countries are exporting at a lower price, our imports will be cheaper.
In other words, our companies which are involved in the transformation of various products imported from these countries will be more competitive.
Secondly, and this is important for the textile industry, the cost of energy will be lower.
Thirdly, and finally, we must not forget that this crisis gives us the opportunity of seeing these markets open up and making a number of investments there.
So these countries' economies are going to be restructured. They will also probably be more competitive in the long term, but they will, all the same, undoubtedly lose some of their overcapacity, and that may have an effect on the textiles industry in particular.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Mr Commissioner, as you have just stated, not all European countries are affected in the same way by the Asian crisis, that is, neither the same industries, nor to the same extent.
This crisis confronts those responsible for the economic policy of the Union with a choice in the face of the two possible consequences of the interdependence of flexibility and growth - one negative consequence combining Eurosclerosis with mediocre growth and one positive consequence combining liberalization of the economy with sustained growth.
Given these conditions, do you not think that the time has come to consider the possibility of examining the criteria defined at Maastricht and consolidated in Amsterdam, through a global index which would allow each national policy the capacity for rapid adjustment in the case of a new crisis after 1st January 1999?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="de Silguy">
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="President">
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Financial crisis in South-East Asia (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Harrison">
Mr President, I speak as a Member of Parliament's ASEAN and Korean Delegation returning from Malaysia and Singapore last week.
Are we aware that we need a wake-up call here in Europe to understand that the conflagration and contagion that is talked about in South East Asia could well come to Europe and elsewhere in the world?
I believe the Commission is showing complacency in this area.
Secondly, I believe we are punching below our weight as the European Union.
Let me give you two very quick examples: Mr Santer's visit to Singapore sank without trace compared to the visits by American personnel concerned with the financial crisis to that part of the world.
As Mr de Silguy has pointed out, it is little recognized that 30 % of the IMF support comes from the European Union and only 18 % from the United States of America.
When you are over there, all you would understand is that the United States of America is helping that part of the world to resolve this global crisis, not Europe.
When are we going to get off of our backsides and do something about it?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="de Silguy">
Mr President, I am in agreement with half of what Mr Harrison says.
I agree with him when he says that the European Union is punching below its weight.
On the other hand, I do not agree when he says that the Commission is showing complacency.
I could have great fun with you here, going through all the possible and imaginable nightmare scenarios.
When I was young, I was told, if wishes were horses beggars would ride.
Well, if there were more horses and fewer beggars, maybe beggars would ride.
But I refuse to devote myself to these types of nightmare scenarios.
I prefer to react, to act and to analyse the facts.
On a business level there will be cross-sectorial impacts but with the current state of things these cannot be considered as having a major effect on the European economy of the susceptible industrial sectors as a whole.
Exports from these sectors towards Asia, in total, represent less than 1 % of Community GNP.
A second source of propagation: the financial sector.
Indeed, I spoke earlier about the involvement of the European banks in Asia.
It is clear that those banks are today in the middle of a process of renegotiating and scheduling the debts of these countries and, in any case, most of them, the vast majority even, have the financial muscle to enable them to withstand a certain number of shocks.
Consequently, when I consider that the main part of our banking involvement is in Hong Kong, Singapore and China, that is, the countries least affected by the crisis and which are the soundest and the best managed, and that the other countries, Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea, are precisely those which have received conditional aid packages from the International Monetary Fund, I do consider that the crisis is 'manageable', as you would say in your mother tongue, but I do not want to make ambitious plans.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Christodoulou">
Mr President, I too agree absolutely with all that the Commissioner said about the magnitude of the impact of the crisis on the European Union.
We ought not to exaggerate so far as the facts are concerned, and he is absolutely right to analyse the issue as he has.
I would like to ask him to tell me something else since we are talking about South-East Asia, if I may.
What is happening in Japan?
There, matters could develop in ways that might surprise us.
I would like to ask the Commissioner if any moves have been made towards coordinated action by European and American financing bodies and by the central banks, of course, to deal in a coordinated way with the eventuality that Japan might start liquidating its investments, particularly those in the form of government or other bonds, especially on the American market?
Is that currently the subject of any discussion by the European Commission?
Has any initiative been adopted in that area, in the event that developments might possibly create problems for us?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="de Silguy">
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="Cox">
Mr President, I would like to take up the last remark made by the Commissioner and put it into the context of his initial analysis.
He introduced an analysis of the effects of the Asian crisis on the European economy through the medium of European export shares to Asia as a proportion of our GNP.
Could I ask him to focus some attention on the import side.
There is the question of Asia's exports to Europe and Asia competing with European products in third countries with devalued exchange rates.
His macro-analysis is too partial if he simply sticks to exports or refers to sectoral aspects of imports.
This is a critical issue in respect of the effect on the European economy.
I regret to say I do not share the presumed optimism of the Commissioner's response to the last question.
He said that he hopes the Asian economies will not seek to trade their way out of this crisis on our markets and that they will instead develop domestic demand.
Their quickest fix is to use their lower exchange rates to flood our markets.
He has left that out of the equation and should put it in.
Mr Harrison raised the point that we are punching below our weight.
We have thirty per cent IMF Mr President, zero per cent profile.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="de Silguy">
Mr President, with regard to figures, I have only mentioned those concerning exports since I said that European exports to Asia represent 2.2 % of Community GDP and 21 % of exports outside of the European Union.
In terms of imports, the exact figure is 26.2 % of imports from outside the European Union.
So you see that in terms of scale, it is about the same level.
I do not want to leave myself open to accusations of optimism.
I merely want to refuse to be pulled into a debate which, in my opinion, has no sense, for it consists of laying out nightmare scenarios for the fun of it, instead of rationalizing the concrete facts which we have.
Since we are talking about trade, and in the time left to me, I would nevertheless like to remind you that amongst the countries affected by the crisis, Hong Kong and Taiwan represent 25 % of our third country trade with these Asian countries, that is, the largest share, and that Thailand, Indonesia and Korea, which are the three most affected countries, represent only 5 % of our foreign trade.
If you add Japan to this 5 %, the total would be 15 %, and this 15 % of all our trade represents only 1.5 % of our GNP.
So, yes, there will be sectoral impacts, I do not deny this.
But what will they be, and on what scale?
No-one can currently tell exactly what they will be, because that will depend on the length of the crisis and the date when these countries' currencies will rise again, for I am certain that they will rise.
But I believe we must remain watchful, to avoid a repeat of the process you describe, although today I see neither reasons for, nor even symptoms of it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, the tiger economies have always been presented misleadingly as the sacred cow of neoliberalism.
Now they are proving to be speculative casino economies which have also failed to exorcize the ghost of deflation.
This brings us to the problem of bank supervision as a public responsibility.
All previous talk has focused exclusively on the wrongs committed by public bodies.
But this crisis is all about the private sector.
Should it not give us real cause for concern that in the future area of currency unification, responsibility for monetary policy and responsibility for bank supervision are to be kept separate?
The European Central Bank is responsible for monetary policy.
The national central banks, if at all, will continue to be responsible for bank supervision.
Is this not a fundamental weakness in the system and one which much be addressed before we start?
Should we not be coordinating our policy of bank supervision and bringing about greater coordination in our economic policy in general, so that we can resolve the problems being posed by currency union?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="de Silguy">
Mr President, I find it difficult to reply to Mr Wolf.
People will again say that my efforts are being put to things other than my work.
It is really a question for the European Central Bank and the European Monetary Institute.
I would not want to do something other than that which is requested of me as Commissioner in terms of launching the euro.
Your question poses, after all, a much wider problem.
For in Europe, whether control and monitoring is exercised by the Central Bank or by national banks, it is done according to criteria, standards and norms which are satisfactory and very protective.
The problem is to see how these norms and standards can be extended to the countries of South-East Asia and how entities such as the Bank for International Settlements or other mechanisms can be put in place to ensure that the current crisis will end in the adoption, in these countries, of regulatory and supervisory rules which are sufficient to ensure the security of the whole world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, the Asian financial crisis affects us in Europe.
If we look at exchange rate turmoil and monetary speculation as a sign of the liberalization of capital transactions, then under such circumstances should we in the European Union not be considering, within the framework of the International Monetary Fund, the establishment of a better system of international credit transparency and the possible need for an international credit insurance system?
This would ensure that events of the kind we are now witnessing could not happen in economies like the tiger states, which, according to macro-economic figures, are in a healthy state.
Is every part of the world really safe from such events?
We await the Commission's answer to this question.
I myself am waiting for the Commission to show greater initiative in the current situation so that we can begin to take this part of the world seriously.
Why, for example, is there no EU delegation in Singapore or Malaysia?
Such a body would certainly help raise the EU's low profile in this region.
And would it not also serve to enhance our credibility if the European Union could send a special envoy to South-East Asia, as the US President has done?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="de Silguy">
Mrs Randzio-Plath, I note your suggestion regarding Singapore and Malaysia.
I will bring it to the attention of my colleagues who are directly responsible for this issue.
I would like to reply to your question regarding the IMF: should an international insurance system be put in place?
This really seems to me to be the role of the International Monetary Fund.
You may consider that it acts too slowly, or that it acts too fast; that there is not enough conditionality, that there is too much conditionality.
That is another question.
And this role which it fulfils, moreover, is truly a role of assistance, I was going to say the role of a fireman, in the case of disaster or fire.
I think that the real solution in these countries lies, firstly, in breaking the overtight link that exists between governments and banks.
Secondly, the solution lies in defining ad-hoc standards of financial and institutional supervision which must be the same in these countries as they are in ours.
Thirdly, the solution lies in the recapitalization of their banks, an action which must at the same time be complemented by cleaning up their assets.
Fourthly, and this is essential, the issue must be solved independently of any insurance, to make the system more transparent, in the accounts of these banks.
And finally, it is appropriate - and is, in fact, the path which is being taken, for a lot is said about crisis but little about the plans currently being implemented - to liberalize the financial sectors of these countries, in order to give foreign institutions the possibility of operating there.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ilaskivi">
Madam President, the Commission's account of the economic crisis in South-East Asia was indeed very interesting, as the replies have been, but I think it is too optimistic as far as long-term effects are concerned.
Why is this?
Firstly, their wounded international competitiveness will grow considerably whether their currencies are devalued or devalue automatically.
This is also taking place with other Eastern countries.
Secondly, the East has already cancelled orders from certain European countries, including Finland, which might have some considerable effect on their economies.
Thirdly, prices on the stock exchange are jumping up and down, reflecting the general concern.
All these effects may be experienced differently in the various Member States.
That is why I would like to ask whether, if the worst comes to the worst, the Commission intends to plan a course of increased latitude, economically speaking, towards these countries which might well be plunged into crisis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="de Silguy">
I would like to be completely clear on this point, Mr Ilaskivi.
I repeat, I am not ignoring the consequences of - to simplify the matter - low cost imports coming from these countries on our economies.
But, contrary to what you think, the devaluation of their exchange rates is not only an advantage for them, far from it.
Firstly, they will pay more for imported goods, such as the need, for example in Korea, for scrap iron or iron ore or coal in order to make steel.
They have to import this.
And if you have devalued, you are going to pay more.
You will therefore lose out in terms of competitiveness.
Secondly, they will lose in inflationary terms, because their inflation rates will rise.
Thirdly, they will perhaps be driven to produce less.
Indeed, what guarantee do we have today that they will be able to continue to export at the same level if the financial ties and the credit which they have with their own banks, due to the situation of their financial system, disappears and the possibility of credit dries up.
I could continue to give you more such examples.
This is why we must not dramatise the situation and we must remain confident.
We are undertaking a sector by sector study, and in the time left to me I cannot specify the eight or ten sectors in detail. But when this study is finished, I will be happy to ask for it to be passed on to you.
You will see in detail that, sector by sector, there are of course some areas which will be more affected than others, but, I already note that, particularly in the financial field, the overseas branches of certain large European companies have already provided for what they consider to be a loss.
Consequently, this will perhaps affect their profitability a little, but it will not challenge their existence in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="De Clercq">
Madam President, we note with satisfaction that the Commission is following the developments very closely, but we cannot escape the impression that the big absentee in Asia today is Europe, and more specifically, the European Union.
This contrasts sharply with the United States' efforts in that part of the world.
We stand noticeably aloof, but I also have the impression that the individual Member States, or at least some of them, obviously the biggest ones, are trying to protect their own interests in the Asian crisis.
Nevertheless, major financial and economic interests are at stake for Europe, to say nothing of the political aspects, because no one will dispute that the divided attitude amongst the European countries and the absence of the European Union as such will hardly reinforce the impression in Asia that Europe is a strong unit and that Europe is a homogeneous entity.
That is not really the impression they have, and we should regret this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="de Silguy">
Madam President, I totally agree with Mr De Clercq.
I am in complete agreement with his analysis, and I will even go further by quoting another example which seems to me to be particularly revealing of the situation described.
Last December, at the time of the emergency package for Korea, on Christmas Eve, in the hours before the Nativity, four Member States of the Union, the four members of the G7, were called on to provide bilateral aid to the country in question, which was essential to enable Korea to complete the year.
As far as one can judge, this contribution was probably as important as that of the Americans.
However, the impression is given that it was the Americans who sorted out the crisis.
This is the reason why I said to Mr De Clercq earlier on, Madam President, that inasmuch as the euro offered us some protection even before its existence, when it comes into use, we will need to be strong and capable enough to express ourselves with one voice, in order not only to play a constructive role - not only to be a funder - but to have a role of real influence, which lives up, firstly, to our significant financial contribution, which will continue, and secondly, which lives up to our importance in economic, financial and commercial circles throughout the world.
It seems to me that from next year this will be the major challenge for the euro, for Europe and for Europeans.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dury">
Madam President, I would like to ask two questions.
You just said, Mr Commissioner, that it is essential for Europe to speak with one voice when the euro comes into effect.
Does this mean that the Member States linked to the euro will lose their representation in the IMF in favour of one "European Union' representation or one '' euro countries' representation?
My second question is the following: last week, in the Committee on Development and Cooperation, we heard the Director General of the IMF speak of his solution which, in macroeconomic terms, would probably give tangible results.
But the President of the World Bank told us that in human terms, in terms of unemployment and in terms of an increase in poverty, there will also be catastrophic results.
I would like to ask if the Commission is going to examine this problem and if we are ready to participate in the social and human programmes of the World Bank?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="de Silguy">
I cannot enter into the details here of European Union representation within the different international bodies.
There is no need to change the statutes of the International Monetary Fund to drive out, if I can put it that way, all the Member States and impose European Union representation.
I think we can go about it in a different way without resorting to that, but while still making sure that the European Union speaks with one voice.
In any case, the problem is not so much within the International Monetary Fund as in other fora which are perhaps more informal but where, when all is said and done, and I note this after three years experience here, the real decisions are taken.
I would not want these decisions to be monopolized by a small number of Member States who would decide, not only on behalf of the European Union, but on behalf of all the fifteen Member States.
Personally, this seems unacceptable to me.
With regard to your analysis of the situation, it is clear that the Commission is ready to participate in all exercises.
In particular, I can tell you that in March a conference will be organized at the World Bank to examine all the technical assistance programmes, with the precise aim of correcting and accompanying the streamlining process for the current year in the countries considered to be emergent.
We must accompany the necessary efforts, and make sure that at the level of definition of programmes by the IMF, maximum account will be taken of this human dimension.
That was the case for Korea, I think, where the programme was reviewed in order to integrate that aspect more widely.
It must be the case even more in the future and, of course, other international institutions, like the Community, must integrate this dimension into the framework of their programmes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Mr Commissioner, I have clearly understood the relative optimism that you demonstrate with regard to the consequences of the Asian crisis on the European economy.
You have already mentioned it several times.
Nevertheless, I sense some variations which leave me somewhat mindful of the balance between autosuggestion and deep conviction.
However, my question is more industrial and related more to international competition.
Competition in textiles was mentioned earlier.
I would like to raise a question regarding shipbuilding.
Do you know that we are currently in a period of extension of a European Directive on aid to the shipbuilding industry, to take into account the non-ratification of an international agreement?
Do you not think that the current crisis will also have important consequences for this problem of agreements not being ratified, and that we should protect ourselves at the level of our own texts and our own decisions on aid to our European industries?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="de Silguy">
I repeat, it would seem completely unacceptable to allow the situation to deteriorate in Korea but also unacceptable that our shipyards should have to suffer the direct consequences.
This said, with particular regard to shipbuilding, it is now likely that the Korean industry will have to reduce its capacity, because some shipyards may find themselves in difficult financial circumstances if they do not get the required financing.
Indeed, in the IMF agreement certain, rather vague preconditions exist whose terms state that no sectoral governmental agreement on the transfer of financing for such and such an industrial sector is possible.
It furthermore explicitly anticipates that, for Chaebol in particular, the standards, accounts, norms and financial year of that company should be put in order.
A number of preconditions are therefore foreseen, certainly perhaps not enough in your eyes, but ones which move towards both a greater liberalization of the financial markets in these countries, and also the suppression of specific advantages which the Korean shipyards have in relation to other yards.
It will be seen that one of the consequences of the crisis in Korea will be precisely the challenging of the personal, financial, structural and even political links which exist between the industrial and the banking sectors.
This will be the end of the large conglomerates, which must effectively embark upon a process of dismantling, of which we will have to take advantage.
Let me furthermore add that today many owners or shipowners seem, for obvious reasons, rather hesitant to place orders with Korea.
But, in this respect, we are also following the situation closely and it is one of the susceptible sectors on which our current studies are particularly concentrating.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Donnelly A.">
Madam President, the one thing that has come across this afternoon is how the Commission is largely a disinterested observer.
We have had a very cosmetic exercise by Commissioner de Silguy.I would like to ask him several questions.
Is there any risk of dumping in the European economy from the devaluation of these currencies in the Far East?
Are any specific industries at risk, for example the micro-electronics industry and the microchip industry?
Has there been any representation made to the Commission by any specific European industry about the devaluation?
Has the European Commission made any representation to the Chinese regarding the devaluation of their currency which sparked this crisis?
Is there a risk of a further devaluation?
Exactly what special arrangements are the European Commission and the European Union making to act quickly in the event of a domino effect in the US markets and indeed in the European markets?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="de Silguy">
Let me firstly say to Mr Donnelly that I do not consider myself an observer and secondly, you cannot hope to influence the course of events if you do not have the necessary institutional instruments with which to do so.
Nevertheless, to respond precisely to your question, eight sectors seem, at first glance, more affected because they have referred the matter to us.
They are those which our analyses have specified and which we are following more closely.
These include clothing, leatherware, shoes, radios, televisions, telecommunications equipment such as GSMs, watches, furniture, machine tools, computer hardware and electrical goods.
To this could be added capital goods such as shipbuilding, the steel industry, chemicals and cars.
This is nevertheless a large number of sectors which could be affected at one level or another.
China is a special situation.
May I remind you that China exercises extremely strict exchange control and parity checks on its currency.
Secondly, the Chinese authorities always said that they did not want to devalue.
And, indeed, when looked at closely, it is not in their interest.
A devaluation is of no interest to China inasmuch as the bulk of China's growth comes from investment and not domestic demand.
So it is in the Chinese government's interest to strengthen the confidence both of its own savers, that is, its own citizens, and foreign investors.
Confidence is not gained through a devaluation.
Secondly, there is the political position of China in relation to Japan. With the geopolitical context as it is, I do not foresee any Japanese interest in a devaluation either in the short or medium term.
There is no particular risk, but there, too, we are closely following the situation.
As regards a domino effect, I do not want to outline a nightmare scenario, as this would have no meaning.
What now seems to me much more important is to see how the crisis develops and on to Europe to see how the programmes are implemented.
The IMF programmes are being very seriously implemented.
Negotiations with the banks for the rescheduling of private debt are underway.
As I said in my opening speech, it seems to me that there is one country in which confidence has not yet been restored, and that is Indonesia.
For the rest, I looked at the markets again this morning and a large part of last year's fall in prices has been regained or stabilized.
The facts that have come in over the last 48 hours as regards the stock market and exchange markets are more encouraging and move more in the direction of those who think that we are now beginning to manage the crisis.
For all that, I do not want to make ambitious plans.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="President">
Mr Commissioner, we thank you for the answers you have given to our colleagues' questions.
The debate is now closed.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Compatibility of political mandate and office of Commissioner
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="President">
The next item is a declaration from the Commission on the compatibility of political mandate and the office of Commissioner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Santer">
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Green">
Madam President, on behalf of the Socialist Group, I would like to make a very clear political statement that in our view it is completely incompatible for a Member of the Commission to hold any party political post whichever part of the political spectrum a particular Commissioner may come from.
That is our position.
Mr Santer has said in his statement that Commissioners have a political function; we agree with him.
We do not deny and fully understand that the Commission has an eminently political role.
We believe however that it is entirely incompatible with the impartiality with which we expect Commissioners to carry out their functions that they should take part in party political campaigns for personal election.
Since we requested this statement, the specific issue which caused all of us in this House great concern has been solved.
We welcome the fact that Commissioner de Silguy has withdrawn as a potential candidate from the French regional elections.
We believe that it is entirely right and we hope that in so doing he has enabled the Commission to deal with this very sensitive and important issue once and for all.
In that context I welcome very much President Santer's statement on behalf of the Commission today.
It demonstrates at least some ambiguity in the concept of independence which we all expect from the Commission that any Commissioner should have considered it possible to stand for election in this way.
I hope President Santer that you will use this incident to get complete agreement within the College of Commissioners.
We are looking for a code of conduct along the lines of your interpretation.
Certainly the interpretation that you have expressed here today is completely in tune with the great majority of this House.
I must say that in this Parliament we have learned an important lesson that perhaps we could have well done with when we had the public hearing before we ratified this Commission.
Certainly we have learned important lessons for the public hearing before the ratification of the next Commission.
We will all be asking very important questions of all Commissioners when they come before us for ratification next time around.
We need to be absolutely sure that there is a commitment from them to ensure independence and impartiality in the performance of their work on behalf of European citizens.
In view of the withdrawal of Mr de Silguy from potential candidature in the French regional elections and the statement by Mr Santer this afternoon, my group felt it important to say clearly that we have withdrawn the motion for a resolution which we tabled and we give notice that we will not support any resolutions that come before the House tomorrow.
We very much value the statement you have made Mr Santer; we hope that there will be complete agreement from the College of Commissioners to the interpretation which you have put here today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Méndez de Vigo">
Mr President of the Commission, the Treaty article you refer to talks about "independence in the general interest of the Community' , which seems to me to be a key issue.
In my group, the Group of the European People's Party, nobody questions Mr de Silguy's professional and political competence, or his honourableness. Nor do we doubt the professional and political competence and honourableness of Mrs Cresson, who until very recently combined her position with an elected mandate.
However, you should be able to say the same thing about a Commissioner as used to be said about Caesar's wife: not only should they be honest, but they should also be seen to be honest.
So independence and a lack of conflict of interests is absolutely crucial when it comes to safeguarding the Commission's independence.
And we think great harm could be done by somebody casting doubt on some Commission decision because one or other of the Commissioners may have had some specific interest.
<P>
I will give you an example from my own country.
At the moment, a supposed draft by the Agriculture Commissioner, Mr Fischler, about the common organization of the market in olive oil has caused real social alarm, and also is not in the least bit consistent with Parliament's views.
Can you imagine what would happen if, as well as being Commissioner, Mr Fischler was also the leader of the regional government of an oil-producing region?
It would cause a revolution!
Well, that is what we must prevent.
<P>
Therefore, the Group of the European People's Party is pleased with your statement, Mr Santer, because it is a step in the right direction.
It is a step in the right direction for the European Union because the Commission is going to be able to continue being the guardian of the Treaties and defining the Community interest.
For those of us who believe the Commission's strength is growing all the time, and want that to happen, the decision you have announced to us today is also in the interests of the Commission itself because, due to the Commission's principle of shared responsibility, on a collegiate basis, doubts about the behaviour of any one Commissioner could besmirch the whole College.
<P>
As a result of this withdrawal and your precise and definitive statement, those doubts no longer exist. Madam President, if anyone were to ask me what I think is the key, original element, the heart of the Community system, I would not hesitate to say: the Commission.
For many of us, and of course that includes the Group of the European People's Party, the Commission is not a team of high-ranking officials: it is a political body, which acts in a political manner, and should do so.
However, it does not act in a party-political fashion. That is why, Mr Santer, your statement today about Commissioner de Silguy deciding not to participate in the French regional elections is good news for all of us who want the Commission to be consolidated as the future government of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I totally approve of the terms of the declaration which the President of the Commission has just made.
I will thus limit myself to three brief observations and comments.
My first observation: I would like to congratulate Mr de Silguy for his honourable decision not to stand in the local elections since, effectively, as President Santer has noted, no text formally obliges him to renounce this.
Mr de Silguy has put his European responsibilities, and in particular the essential role he is currently playing in the implementation of the euro, before his political ambition.
And I think we should pay special tribute to him for his behaviour.
<P>
This is all the more so given that some people, previously, given the same choice, did not have the same attitude, nor the same honour.
The situation of another French Commissioner was earlier mentioned, who remained Mayor of Châtellerault, Councillor for the department of Vienne, which is extremely similar to that of the role of a regional councillor, a role which that Commissioner has just resigned from after a very short period of time.
There is another case, perhaps less well known, but which is even more worrying, which is that of your predecessor, Mr President of the Commission.
At a time when he was exercising the distinguished role which is today yours, he did not hesitate to head the list of candidates for the local elections of Clichy, which is an important town close to Paris, only to be elected Mayor.
He later resigned, of course. But he was a candidate and he was heavily involved in the electoral campaign, with all the power bestowed upon him through his role as President of the Commission.
I note that on this point I am in agreement with Mrs Green who considers that if Commissioners have the right to continue political activity, if they had it in the first place, they should not involve themselves too overtly in national and electoral campaigns.
I note that, in fact, the behaviour I have just described is not in line with what we should expect.
My third observation is that I am indeed happy that, following Mr de Silguy's gesture and this debate - although I would have liked to have had the same debate regarding the previous cases - we may now come up with a clear rule.
You have expressed it clearly, Mr President, and I hope that from now on, this clear rule will be imposed on all, not only on a Commissioner who is at the origin of this new ethical rule, but that it is a uniform rule which from now on will be followed by all Commissioners.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Madam President, this debate creates an important constitutional precedent.
As President Santer has recalled, European Commissioners fulfil a political function and are not technocrats, since they are politically responsible to our directly-elected Parliament.
For that reason, it is also important that increasingly politicians and not technocrats are nominated.
This Commission only has two Commissioners who have never held a political office; one of them was Mr de Silguy.
Article 157 of the Treaty states - and we all recognise now - that we must have clear independence and that Commissioners cannot accept any instructions, nor should Member States or even Heads of States of Member States give any instructions to this body.
All this is very important because during their term in office that is the only guarantee that they are independent.
For my group the text of the Treaty is abundantly clear.
A political function exercised in the general interest is incompatible with any party political function, whether at national, regional or local level and I am very glad that the President has confirmed it in such clear terms.
The only query one might have is: was it not possible for the Commission to have done this before?
It is very clear that this Parliament, and the pressure from this Parliament, was the main reason why Commissioner de Silguy had to withdraw and not pursue this issue, rather than perhaps debate in the Commission.
But let us leave that aside.
I would now like to look towards the future and as President Santer has said, it is important also for future Commissions to take this attitude.
Indeed Madam Cresson accepted this principle rather belatedly, which we may regret.
But it is now more important that we in this House establish this as a firm rule for the future with the agreement of the President of the Commission.
<P>
Mr Santer, could you perhaps, in preparation for the investiture of the new Commission, draw up a code of conduct as was suggested so that in the future no doubts remain about the composition of the body?
Then there would be clarity and that in turn would strengthen the Commission.
One final point: it would be very welcome if Parliament at some stage looked at its own situation.
We should also look at the various aspects of dual mandates in this Parliament for the future.
As the European Union gains strength, as the representative character of the Community gains strength, not only the Commission but also the Parliament must, in certain respects, clarify the position for the future.
So we should not be too hypocritical about the past of this Commission and I hope that this debate has served as an important precedent for us also.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, to us this is very clearly a question of principles, and most definitely not individuals.
In that sense we are satisfied with the statement made by Commissioner Santer, and we fully support its general direction.
It is rather obvious that the mandate of European Commissioner cannot be linked to national, regional or even local mandates, because loyalties are created which lead to regional, local or national loyalties clashing with the European mandate they were given here.
I have to say, totally in line with what Mr Brinkhorst declared here a few moments ago, that we are also the party asking the questions, so that the Commission might give itself a code of conduct which is interpreted specifically enough, because Mr Santer was very explicit in relation to the national and regional mandates, but much less so as regards the local ones.
Yet the precedent was set. A mandate at the level of mayorship of an important city is in our opinion incompatible with the function of European Commissioner.
As far as that is concerned we are the party asking the questions.
I have one last point, ladies and gentlemen.
I think it is great pity that all groups, apart from ours here, have decided to withdraw their resolutions.
Surely it is not because now that the individual question is off the boil, the fundamental opinion of this Parliament ceases to have any significance?
All demands which have been made in the various speeches I have heard have been perfectly reflected in our motion for a resolution.
We would very much like to urge support, and we are openly in favour of oral amendments, should one or two details not be right.
It is important that Parliament not only speaks, but decides on the basis of a text.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am speaking on a personal level.
Indeed, when all is said and done, this deed has been of service since although Mr de Silguy put forward his candidature he has finally withdrawn it, and yet it has enabled us to enter into this debate. However, it does not seem right to me to bring this to a conclusion in only one hour, or by voting tomorrow on a cursory text.
The problem has been raised, the question exists.
The wider question of the status of those elected with European political mandates is also raised.
Our Committee on Institutional Affairs is working on the status of European Members of Parliament and on a uniform electoral procedure, but I personally hope that this important argument, on which the Treaty has nevertheless remained silent, will be the object of a submission to our Committee on Institutional Affairs so that they may examine it.
If the Commission also wishes to reflect on a code of conduct, all the better, but I think that it is in our interests to be clear.
I no longer want to fall into the trap of considering Commissioners as beyond all political commitment, like technocrats fossilizing in the Breydel Palace or elsewhere and who have in no way taken account of their preferences, their political convictions or their commitment, which was what led them to the post of Commissioner in the first place.
So, of course, the incompatibilities must be established, but we must not fall into the possible dogmatism which almost leads us to forget about what we need most at the head of the Commission: political men and women and not an executive of technocrats and bureaucrats.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, the question of the exercise of a political mandate by a Commissioner, or more correctly one Commissioner's desire to solicit a political mandate has been raised.
Mr de Silguy has abandoned his ambition towards the mandate in question, for reasons which he explained with loyalty and frankness.
You could be forgiven for thinking that this solves the problem.
In reality, the question raised is that of the exercise, by Commissioners, of functions other than those for which they were appointed, whether it be a question of a political mandate or a professional activity.
In this respect it seems to me that the past or current activities of Commissioners other than Mr de Silguy do, however, pose a serious problem.
Indeed, Commissioners are civil servants, whose duty it is to watch over the implementation of the Treaty. They are chosen by virtue of their overall competence and should offer every guarantee of independence.
This is stated in paragraph 1 of Article 157 of the Treaty.
Paragraph 2 states that Members of the Commission are fully independent in the exercise of their role, in the general interest of the Community; that they neither request nor accept instructions from any government nor body and that they refrain from any deed incompatible with the character of their role.
Do you think, Mr President, that these measures are really respected?
Your predecessor, Mr Delors, was a local councillor.
Mr Pasty mentioned it earlier on.
During his mandated period as President of the Commission he actively participated in French political life to the point where it was rumoured that he aspired to become President of France in 1995.
Mrs Cresson was a candidate for a third term as Mayor in 1995.
She has always been very active within the leadership of the French Socialist party.
It is said that one of your Commissioners participates in certain meetings of his government, that many Commissioners participate in meetings of the Group of the European People's Party and the Group of the Party of European Socialists, outside of those which take place at the European Parliament, that another is Vice-Chancellor of a university in his country, which leads him to go home several times each month.
Recently, I was offended that Mrs Bonino was able to participate in a Pacific Forum, where the independence of New Caledonia was an issue, which is an integral part of one of the Member States, France.
I would therefore like to ask, Mr President, for a careful examination of the personal situation of each and every one of the Commissioners, to make sure they are fully respecting the Treaty.
Paid out of the Community budget, and therefore out of the taxes of every Member State, the Commissioners must exercise their functions on a full-time basis, as you said yourself, without having any other political activities beyond those of an ordinary citizen, and with no other professional activity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="Corbett">
Madam President, I too welcome Mr Santer's statement.
He has clarified it in the right way, not in the way that Mr Fabre-Aubrespy has just said. He is wrong to say the Commissioners are simply officials.
Mr FabreAubrespy should read the Treaty and the Statutes.
It makes a clear distinction between officials of the institutions and the Members of the institution.
The 20 Commissioners form a political executive.
They are politicians and, indeed, the title of the debates and statement today to that extent is wrong.
It says that it is a statement on the compatibility of political office with the duties of Member of the Commission.
But membership of the Commission is a political office. Like Ministers, they are appointed by Prime Ministers.
To take office they need the confidence of this House in a vote of confidence.
When they are in office they have to answer questions before this House and they can be dismissed by a vote of no confidence of Parliament - and only by a vote of no confidence of the European Parliament.
Thus, the Commission forms a political executive accountable to this House and it is important for this House that it is recognized as such.
They are not officials working for the Council as some Eurosceptics would have us believe.
They are politically answerable in their own right.
The debate then is not one of them being politicians but one of what other political offices they may hold.
It is a question of double mandates.
It is a question of cumul de mandats .
There we need to look very carefully, as has been done in the debate.
Nobody quibbles that Commissioners are members of political parties.
They participate in political parties and come to our group meetings.
That is very welcome.
There is some debate as to whether they should be mayors of small towns.
There are precedents on that.
It is debatable and I think the debate is moving against that in modern times.
But there are certainly major questions of them holding the presidency of a major European region which receives funds from the European Union.
And I am astonished that Mr De Silguy even considered that possibility.
I congratulate Mr Santer on having brought order within his team in the Commission and having made a very clear statement today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="Macartney">
Madam President, I also wish to express a personal view.
It seems to me that half the problem has been that each Commissioner has made up his own mind on a personal basis and we now need a set of rules.
You might contrast President Santer's welcoming of Mr de Silguy's decision to stand down as a candidate for the Breton Regional Council which he said 'did him credit' with the position of Sir Leon Brittan, for example, who presented himself by letter to every British citizen in Brussels before the last election asking them to vote Conservative and to contribute money to the Conservative Party.
Perhaps one should give him credit for attempting the impossible but, nevertheless, it calls into question his judgment.
We cannot leave it to Commissioners to decide what they are going to do, and what is acceptable, on a mix-and-match basis.
We have had statements from a number of political groups.
The Socialists say it is incompatible to hold any party-political post or take part in partypolitical campaigns although apparently - we hear from Mr Corbett - it is okay to attend group meetings.
Mr Méndez de Vigo said that the Commission is political but that the Commissioners are not party political.
Mr Brinkhorst for the Liberals said that no party-political role is permissible.
So we have a range of options and it is about time that the Commission got its act together.
The Commission we vote in needs to have the confidence of this House but, more importantly, Europe needs to be confident that these are not part-time politicians being a Commissioner for a few years but people who put Europe at the heart of their job and are prepared to renounce everything else in the meantime.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="President">
Mr Macartney was our last speaker in this debate and I give the floor to President Santer to conclude.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Santer">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would simply like to thank those who have spoken and say how pleased I am with the manner in which this declaration has been discussed.
Indeed, a certain number of questions can be raised, but I believe that the members of the Commission must be independent.
What I do dispute the validity of is the idea that members of the Commission must be senior civil servants.
No, these are politicians, with a political mandate, who are responsible to the European Parliament...
<P>
... and so themselves assume political responsibilities.
Furthermore, if after 25 years as a member of a government and 11 years as Prime Minister, I was told that from now on I would be a civil servant, the idea would not occur to me to agree to this, even as President of the Commission.
I would never have agreed to this.
Therefore, according to the unanimous wishes of the European Council who appointed me President of the Commission, I perform my duties as a political representative before a responsible parliament, the European Parliament.
I believe that this is essential.
Furthermore, I also clearly dispute the validity of those tendencies which want to deny members of the Commission even the most basic rights which are reserved for citizens.
Citizens themselves have a right to political convictions, to belong to a political party, to stand as candidates in elections.
Why could civil servants, or even politicians or members of the Commission not do this in the same capacity as any citizen?
We do not live in an ivory tower.
I have never considered the Breydel as a palace, as some have suggested.
I have always considered it more like a hospital.
Nor would I like it to become an ivory tower where the Commissioners hide themselves away, out of touch with political reality.
I believe we have a political mandate and we must carry out this political mandate according to our convictions, while exercising our fundamental rights as citizens.
I believe that it is in this spirit that my declaration must be looked at.
On the one hand, there is the duty of the Commissioners and the President of the Commission to be independent, as recognized by Article 157 of the Treaty, but on the other hand, there is the possibility for a Commissioner, or the President of the Commission, to reveal his political opinions and to be answerable for them before you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="President">
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Racism
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="President">
The next item is the submission of oral questions, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, to the Council (B4-1010/97-0-0112/97) and to the Commission (B4-1011/97-0-0113/97) concerning the annual debate on racism.
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<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Mohamed Alí">
Madam President, Europe has experienced many tragedies.
You only have to cast a glance over its history to see the truth of that statement.
Today, once again, Europe sees itself as the centre of the world.
Eurocentrism is being reborn, in a sense, as a mark of honour.
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European racism is an unhealthy phenomenon which, in some cases, lies latent in many hearts.
The fact that somebody has another religion, different coloured skin, or comes from a different culture (which is rejected because it is not understood), is the motive for becoming entrenched in the most absolute form of intolerance.
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History also shows us that of all the ghosts of the past, the most disturbing and horrific is anti-Semitism.
The suffering and extermination that people suffered for the mere reason that they were Jewish can and must never be forgotten. All legal measures to prevent and combat this specific characteristic of racism seem to be inadequate in view of the facts.
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For many years now, Europe has been repeating its denial of other peoples, whether Jews or Arabs. Anti-Muslim feeling is also deeply rooted in the European sub-conscious.
To be Turkish is another kind of rejection suffered within the European Union.
In short, anti-Semitism manifests itself as the persecution of non-Europeans who are obviously different. What has come to be known as the "re-birth of Islam' has resulted in the growth of a type of antiSemitism, attaining a strength of feeling which emanates from deep within.
However, there is a double standard here, because whereas being Arab or Muslim implies that you are a dangerous person - an extremist, a fanatic - on the other hand, such people make good beasts of burden for doing those jobs which nobody else wants to do. What is more, they are cheap labour.
<P>
Indeed, it is not easy to recognize people who are different, especially when denial results in self-assertion. Ladies and gentlemen, the argument is often put forward that unemployment and economic crisis are the worst conditions for provoking racism and xenophobia.
And since that is largely true, the truth is that social exclusion also has a strong cultural element. The respected Spanish anthropologist, Josep Llovera, stated in his book "The Identity of Anthropology' that the western world - and I quote - "is programmed to react in a racist fashion under certain circumstances' .
Llovera gives his final opinion in the form of an articulate reflection: given that racial prejudices are so deep-rooted, he says, and that the changes in attitude we are seeing are relatively recent, it is essential to encourage people to learn to be tolerant. He says, and I quote: "People still have to learn not to be racist.'
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Racism and xenophobia are not just the preserve of the ultra-right and the ultra-conservative sectors.
Unfortunately, on certain occasions, the plans of the Right and the Left are similar when it comes to acting against a specific ethnic group, culture or religion.
So it is all the more discouraging when even those who fight against racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism end up incorporating racist views into their policies.
The view is that the best way to prevent racist and xenophobic attitudes is to eliminate their cause: if there are no foreigners, or fewer of them, the problems and protests will disappear.
So the solutions we are seeing mainly consist of reducing, limiting or even preventing the entry of new waves of immigration, whether economic or political in nature.
Unfortunately, as is well known, that is the philosophy behind the current legislative reforms which are taking place in our political environment in matters of asylum and sanctuary.
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Madam President, it is essential to designate more years as European Years Against Racism, against every trace of intransigence. We need to draw attention to this phenomenon.
We need to organize campaigns against it. But it is about time our plans of action were objectively, consistently and properly aimed at making progress in this battle which, supposedly, worries us all.
A whole year of campaigns, advertising and activities of every sort will be of little use if our policies subsequently adopt opposite approaches.
Let us hope this is not all just an excuse to indulge in rhetoric. In the words of Javier de Luca, an expert who has done occasional work for the European Commission, let us hope this is not a case of doing something just to make it look as if we are doing something, about a question on which we would prefer to do nothing that really takes any effort.
<P>
We have to get to the root of the problem, ladies and gentlemen.
That is the only way to get objectively positive results.
We have to dismantle what some people call "institutional xenophobia' .
Toughening up asylum legislation is not the right approach; in fact, it is the complete opposite.
The crux of the matter lies in knowing how far we want to go in recognizing people who are different - ethnic, cultural and religious minorities.
In fact, we must decide whether the right to have rights is a premise of our objectives of combating intolerance, exclusion and discrimination once and for all.
Unless it is to be a mere question of semantics, tolerance logically has to imply the effective recognition of equality on all fronts.
What use are advertising, campaigns and everything else if we do not change the laws?
In our fight against racism, let us begin by fighting the denial of the basic necessities to those people who are excluded.
Integration and tolerance demand real social and economic integration, and a recognition of cultural, ethnic and religious richness and diversity.
<P>
Madam President, the very fact of adjusting our policies correctly and applying them in the field of education - in the schools, the streets and the institutions - apart from being preventive, would also help people learn to get along with the various examples of cultural diversity, which is here to stay, I might add.
Showing once more the need for the European Union to help make it possible for spiritual leaders of the various minorities present in Europe to be trained here, as with the Muslims, would go a long way towards creating a climate of better understanding.
The training of imams in Europe would be a positive sign allowing Islamic communities within the Union to feel that their needs, even their spiritual needs, were being attended to...
<P>
(The President cut off the speaker)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Quin">
Madam President, thank you for that kind introduction.
It is a great pleasure for me to have the opportunity of addressing Parliament today on this particular subject.
Having been a Member of this Parliament for ten years, I count myself a keen supporter of Parliament's work and, in particular, I am aware of Parliament's long-standing interest in tackling the problems of racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism.
Indeed, I should like to take the opportunity of congratulating Members for all they have done to get this issue firmly onto the European agenda.
In addition to the essential role which national governments must play in combating racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism within their borders, I am in no doubt that there is also a crucial role for European action.
The Council - and, indeed, the presidency - will continue to work energetically and enthusiastically with you for positive policies in this field at European level.
One of the first tasks is to evaluate the effect of the joint action of 15 July 1996 concerning measures to combat racism and xenophobia.
By the end of June this year the Council will need to assess the fulfilment by Member States of their obligations under the joint action.
You will recall that Member States have undertaken to ensure effective judicial cooperation in respect of offences based on racist behaviour.
The Council which will be held on 28 and 29 May will therefore examine a report on the measures taken or planned by the Member States in the fight against racism.
As you will know, our two institutions took the opportunity to confirm our common concern about racism at the opening and closing conferences of the European Year against Racism in The Hague and in Luxembourg.
We believe that the European Year was an important step forward.
It made a valuable contribution to raising awareness of the problems of racism across the Union and to encouraging work to tackle those problems and to highlighting the benefits of our diverse societies.
I know that in my own country, the UK, events were held on an almost daily basis by a wide range of organizations up and down the country.
When we made government funding available to support projects marking the European Year we received a large number of applications.
The Public Information Unit set up by the Commission for Racial Equality in the UK was inundated with inquiries.
This showed clear evidence of the interest, the enthusiasm and the commitment at grassroots level.
I know that this was also in evidence in other Member States.
Governments must take note of the strength of feeling that the European Year showed.
The Year must not be seen as a one-off.
Its momentum must not be lost.
I agree with what Mr Mohammed Ali just said that we are not interested in just indulging in rhetoric.
We need to make sure that the momentum is maintained over the coming months and years.
Continuity has been well prepared by the Council and by the European Council during 1997.
There have been two declarations by the Council on the fight against racism in the fields of youth and education.
The Council Regulation of 2 June established a European monitoring centre on racism and xenophobia and the Amsterdam Treaty contains measures which are important in this respect.
All are important steps which provide a foundation for further initiatives to combat the different forms of discrimination.
The two declarations which were adopted by the Council and by representatives of the governments of the Member States dealt with the importance of measures in the youth field and in the field of education.
They also stressed the need to build upon the achievements of the European Year.
We will all agree that one of the most significant achievements of the European Year was the agreement to establish a European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia in Vienna.
I know that this Parliament has long supported the idea of such a centre and that your representative Glyn Ford was a key figure on the Consultative Commission on Racism and Xenophobia which did so much of the groundwork.
I know too, and welcome the fact, that Parliament's involvement with the Centre will continue.
The Centre has the potential to make a real practical difference.
Working closely with the Council of Europe it will contribute to the necessary exchange of information and pooling of experience.
I am sure that it will prove invaluable to the Member States and to the Community institutions.
The Centre has now started its work.
The management board met last week and elected Mr Jean Kahn as its chairman.
This is very appropriate given the enormous efforts of Mr Kahn to bring the monitoring centre into being and I am sure that Members of this Parliament will wish to join me in congratulating Mr Kahn on this appointment and in wishing him a speedy and full recovery from his current illness.
In looking ahead to the future, we have to consider the impact of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
There are two key elements to the Treaty which are of particular relevance to this debate, .
The Treaty introduced into the text of the Treaty on European Union the task of preventing and suppressing racism and xenophobia in the new Article 29.
The new Article 13 provides a legal base for Community action to combat racial discrimination.
These new provisions will facilitate our work to step up the fight against discrimination based on race or ethnic origin.
When the ratification procedures for the Amsterdam Treaty are concluded, the Council will give priority to rapid implementation of that Treaty.
I know that Commissioner Flynn has already announced that the Commission is preparing an action plan to combat racism and xenophobia.
The Council looks forward to the Commission's proposals for building on the advances made in the Year and we look forward to working with the Commission on them.
The UK presidency, in particular, wants to maintain the momentum in this area.
We need to build upon achievements to date and look ahead to the potential of the new provisions of the Treaty.
We need to consider there both legislative and non-legislative options.
The UK will be holding a seminar towards the end of our presidency which will provide an opportunity to focus on these important issues and to look at the way ahead.
We have come some considerable way already but there is still a great deal to do.
The Council is determined not to shirk its responsibilities and looks forward to working with you and with the Commission, not just to tackle the evils which still blight our countries but also to find ways of celebrating the diversity from which we all draw so many benefits.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Flynn">
. Mr President, the honourable Member refers to the efforts of the Commission to combat racism in 1997 and to what has been done to comply with the recommendations put forward by the European Parliament in its resolution of 30 January 1997.
The Commission worked intensively in 1997 to implement the European Year against Racism and to promote non-discrimination.
The official closing conference of the European Year in Luxembourg last December underlined the success of the Year in terms of the political impact it had and the momentum it created, and also its achievements in raising awareness and in forging new partnerships and new networks throughout the Union.
One of the key political achievements during 1997 was the inclusion of the general anti-discrimination clause within the Amsterdam Treaty in Article 13.
Following the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty and building upon what was accomplished during the European Year and subsequently, I can say to you today that it is my firm intention to come forward with proposals for anti-discrimination legislation before the end of this Commission.
Another lasting result from 1997 was the adoption of the regulation governing the establishment of the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia which was referred to by the Minister, Mrs Quin.
The first meeting of the management board took place in Vienna on 20 and 21 January and it is expected that the centre will be fully operational in the autumn of this year.
Finally, the closing conference highlighted one of the key results of the European Year which has been the joint action and cooperation between the European institutions.
The presence of the President-in-Office of the Council, the President of the Commission and the VicePresident of the European Parliament as speakers at that event is good testimony to this.
In this context the Commission welcomes the fact that the European Parliament continues to recognize the importance of the fight against racism, including its annual debate as part of this mini-session.
The European Year against Racism had two main strands.
It focused firstly on information and communication, and secondly on the exchange of experience.
In this way a broad range of activities were promoted as recommended by the European Parliament, ranging from essentially local and regional projects to high-profile events with television coverage right across the world.
In total some 177 projects received grant support.
Every effort was made to ensure that funding was provided for projects that reached citizens at grassroots level and involved ethnic minority and immigration groups in defining needs and in developing appropriate action.
Following the Year against Racism the Commission will continue to build on the partnerships that were established or strengthened during the year, including those with anti-racism nongovernmental organizations, with the social partners, the media, sports bodies and political parties.
In particular, 1997 saw the emergence of a European platform of anti-racism non-governmental organizations.
I would like to think that we can work together on this important development in the years to come.
The European Year was just the beginning - a good beginning but just the beginning.
It has shown not only what needs to be done but also what can be done.
It is my firm intention to continue to drive forward the European fight against racism.
I intend very shortly to present an action plan against racism which will build upon the achievements and lessons learned during the European Year of 1997 and pave the way for legislative proposals once the Amsterdam Treaty has been ratified.
I look forward to receiving your continued support in this issue which is of such importance to all Europe's citizens.
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<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, firstly I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mohamed Ali on his report.
Secondly, I congratulate the Commission for the European Year against Racism which in our opinion was an outstanding success.
From Madrid to Manchester and from Barcelona to Berlin there were thousands of different events, some funded by the Commission, some by Member States and some by no one at all.
Some people were so keen to get involved they found the money and organized events for themselves.
I also, in particular, thank Commissioner Flynn for his dedication and commitment to pushing this issue up the agenda.
The promise he made first in Marseilles and now again today to introduce anti-discrimination legislation before the end of 1999 is extremely welcome.
Thirdly, I congratulate the Council for its acceptance in Amsterdam of the amendments which make it unambiguously clear that the European Community has a role in the fight against racism.
I also congratulate the Council on the agreement to establish the European Observatory which, as Commissioner Flynn says, was established eight days ago in Vienna and will be up and running in August this year.
I welcome very much the appointment of Jean Kahn as the President of the Management Board because of the work he did on the Consultative Commission on Racism and Xenophobia.
I hope the European Parliament will send its best wishes to Mr Kahn for a swift recovery from the stroke he has suffered.
We in the Socialist Group have shown a firm commitment behind the Year against Racism.
In fact we are continuing it - in our case it is a sort of Year and a Bit against Racism.
On Friday we have a Europe Football and Racism Conference to be held at Old Trafford in Manchester sponsored amongst others by the football team.
We have a closing conference for the Socialist Group coming up on 2 and 3 March here in Brussels.
So, our Year against Racism continues.
We will be supporting the Mohamed Ali report.
We support the idea that there should be a Code of Conduct. We believe that democratic parties in this Parliament should sign it.
We ask for the Commission, to quote the Commissioner's own words: ' to see the Year against Racism as a foundation and not a monument' .
We therefore welcome this year's budget lines for the fight against racism and the proposed action plan.
More importantly, we believe it is necessary to avoid a hiatus developing between the work already done and that which is to follow.
As Mrs Quin says, the momentum must not be lost, in particular as the problem continues to get worse with the Front National in its heartlands in southern France stripping the libraries, victimizing the minorities and engaging in chequebook eugenics, as we speak.
We know it will take some time for Amsterdam to be ratified.
However, in the meantime we hope the Commission will prepare itself for swift and urgent action.
What has been indicated today leads us to believe that will be happening.
The presidency of the Council can serve the people of Europe well by helping to encourage and assist the Commission in this task.
I thank them all for what we have received but, to paraphrase Oliver Twist , I have to say that we want more!
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<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
Mr President, I would like to start by warmly congratulating the person who has taken the lead in this yearly debate, Mr Ali, on his dedication.
I would also like to congratulate the Commissioner and his entire staff, who made so much effort recently to make true progress in the field of anti-racism, and to combat xenophobia and anti-Semitism.
I am delighted that the Council representative is also here, because we are discussing a policy which is still principally in the hands of the Council.
The resolution we drafted in the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs has been the subject of very intense debate.
I think at the moment we have come a long way towards reaching a joint opinion.
A few points are still unresolved, however.
Mr Ford has already mentioned one with regard to the code of conduct for political parties.
In fact I am pleased with the way he formulated his own amendments.
The amendment does not refer to tightening up this Parliament's Rules of Procedure, because everyone, terrible as this may be, should be allowed to express his political opinion; but it refers very expressly to the parties.
In the future we might have parties which will underwrite this code of conduct and parties which will not.
We will have politicians who are approachable, you will know where you are, and you will be able to keep people to it.
I believe that this is one of the most important results of the Year against Racism.
It has had a very good effect on politicians.
Politicians, in the Netherlands in particular, have declared that they will not play xenophobic games during the next elections around issues such as refugee policies and so on.
This is very important, because this kind of thing used to happen in the past.
I think it is very good that politics is cleaned up in this way.
I myself have two urgent requests, particularly related to the point which was originally in Mr Ali's motion for a resolution: the reference to the report on ethic cleansing.
This is, I think, of great significance for us. It is a piece of self-criticism on the policy which was made in our own departments of Foreign Affairs.
I recently read about a new event in this context, namely that, according to the French press, a highly placed French politician had expressed the view that the genocide in Rwanda was less important since it happened in Africa then if it had happened in Europe.
This is actually a typically racist comment, even though one might not be aware of it.
That is why it is very important that we still include this point in our resolution, in accordance with the original intentions of Mr Ali.
I would like to make one remark about the question of the sans papiers .
There is a text in the resolution before us which I can only describe as messy.
In it the NGOs are praised for their commitment to emigrants without documents. This is a widely held view.
In the Netherlands it is the case that, in particular, large numbers of those who turn out to be illegal, or who do not have a convincing refugee story, have mislaid their documents.
I know of no NGOs which concern themselves with this category, but I do know of NGOs which concern themselves with the special category of emigrants called sans papiers .
I have in fact met delegations of sans papiers .
This is a special state of affairs in the country in which they are staying.
I am indeed glad that some NGOs have made efforts on their behalf, because sometimes it is an omission which should be highlighted in legislation.
In general we cannot say that we, as a legislative body, should be pleased that we can be overruled by a NGO. Broadly speaking this cannot be said.
I have therefore submitted an amendment for the category of sans papiers which I consider to be clearer than the other amendment on the subject.
I think it is right to talk specifically about this group, and I hope it will be adopted.
For that matter, I hope that the Council will be willing in the future to subject the issue of racism, xenophobia, and antiSemitism to increased democratic control, so that it does not remain solely in the hands of a Council which responds unanimously, as this provides a weak basis for policy.
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<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Andrews">
- Madam President, I would like to welcome the Commissioner's proposal to have a follow-up action to the European Year against Racism.
May I recommend to him that perhaps he looks at the state of racism and xenophobia in my own country.
Particularly in my own city of Dublin there is an extraordinary manifestation of fear at the gypsies and at the other people coming from Eastern Europe and elsewhere, such as North Africa.
We have a very small number of refugees coming into the country, compared to Germany or to Britain and other countries.
Frankly, the Irish people have no reason to be proud about the manner in which we deal with these refugees.
I want to make that point very clearly.
I thank the Commissioner for the excellent work he has done in this area.
He has done a tremendous deal of extraordinarily good work.
He has made people more and more aware of the need for cultural diversity and the richness of cultural diversity in our country.
Mr Mohamed Ali, in my view, is one of the most extraordinary people in this Parliament.
He has been at the forefront of bringing a greater respect and understanding for Islam within the European Union.
It is of vital importance that we do not equate Islam with the Taliban and other fundamentalists.
After all, all religious sects and all official religions have their fundamentalists.
Tolerance of diversity enriches our individual societies.
Mr Mohamed Ali is to be congratulated for his report which I support in its entirety.
For the first time in any Treaty agreed at the level of the European Union, the Treaty of Amsterdam expressly lays down the prevention and combatting of racism and xenophobia as an objective of the European Union.
This is no throwaway objective, it is significant.
It is clearly a fundamental step forward.
It is not only important that the European Union and the Member States are committed to providing our citizens with a high level of safety and an area of freedom, security and justice.
It is important that the commitment is clearly linked to the objective of preventing and combating racism and xenophobia.
It is an objective which must be backed up by countries' actions.
History lays bare the terrible truths of racism.
If we have learned anything it must be that we must use all our powers and strengths to halt racist attacks and abuse.
The Amsterdam Treaty has many other fine qualities but the inclusion of this objective must be the one to which every citizen can rally around.
I would like to see the report from Mr Mohamed Ali circulated to all our schools and colleges throughout the European Union because it is there we must tackle, through education, xenophobic and racist attitudes within the European Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Goerens">
Mr President, in his report Mr Mohamed Ali invites us to comment on a number of assessments, suggestions and measures in the fight against racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism.
My group supports his motion for a resolution which asks us to be vigilant, persevering and active in this area.
Vigilant, for there remain a large number of barriers in our societies which are at the root of a number of different incidents, attacks against human rights, exploitation of differences for doubtful ends and even exclusion.
Persevering, for we must make sure that the fight against racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism is a perennial one, that is, that it should be matched with a strategy based on systematic observation, prevention, legislative action and political action in the widest sense of the term, usefully complemented by the work of NGOs.
You can be vigilant, persevering and superalert in the analysis of racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic phenomena, but you must also be active for there remain a number of initiatives to be taken in this area, particularly in the areas of training and education.
There are still many measures to be formulated with the aim of stemming the poisoning of those who are most receptive, and consequently most vulnerable, to political propaganda in our societies, through the media respectively.
In conclusion, I would like to ask the Council and the Commission what follow up they intend to give to the request repeatedly renewed by our Parliament to institute a remembrance day in memory of the victims of the holocaust.
This would enable us to advance along the path that I have just outlined.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the annual debate on racism must be an opportunity to take some specific steps forward in the fight against racism, xenophobia and all forms of discrimination. Mr Mohamed Ali has tried to make his report such an opportunity, and I congratulate him on his work.
When that report also refers to the balance-sheet of a European Year against Racism, which 1997 was, it is important to emphasize the significance of the new Treaty of the European Union, which was negotiated and signed in the same year, for that struggle.
As the rapporteur mentions in point 4, we also regret that, in spite of a few statements of good intentions, non-discrimination has not been incorporated into the Treaty as a fundamental principle of the so-called Community Law with immediate effect.
As we see in Article 13, ' the necessary measures to combat discrimination on grounds of sex, race and ethnic origin, religion or creed, disablement, age or sexual orientation, on a proposal by the Commission with the unanimous decision of the Council after consulting Parliament' , are fine words and might look like a step forward.
But that step can also be viewed as a step taken in a minefield, because any number of people have laid booby-traps, and the social situation is an absolute cauldron of racism.
In addition, the area of freedom, safety and justice which is essential to the fight against racism and xenophobia, as Article 29 makes clear, is not going to be created by fine words and timid actions.
Time is short, but even so I would not like to finish without underlining the proposal for the establishment of a European Charter of Emigrants' Rights in the context of a policy of integration designed to promote mutual understanding between ethnic groups.
The title itself is attractive.
And particularly encouraging for anyone who comes from and lives in a country of emigrants and immigrants.
This is one of the good proposals in this report which we heartily approve.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner Flynn, racism means exclusion.
The fight against racism is therefore the fight against and the control of exclusion.
This is something which Commissioner Flynn has always maintained and we fully support him in his stance.
This means integration rather than forced assimilation, equality of rights rather than legal inequality and equal rights rather than adherence to the misconceived legal division of our society into nationals, EU citizens and non-EU citizens.
This ranking of people into first, second and third class citizens is the cause of racial violence in the European Union, something which is increasingly becoming the norm and which, in this Year against Racism, is terrifyingly demonstrated in a Eurostat survey which has indicated that 30 % of the citizens of the European Union admit to being racist or antisemitic.
Democracy is based on participation and on all citizens having an equal share in their society.
Democratic rights cannot be made contingent upon ethnic origin, skin colour, religion or age.
Democracy in the European Union is in a bad way when I look at the amount of racism and exclusion which we encounter daily.
The way in which we deal with minority groups and refuse to accept integration is a disgrace.
All the solemn declarations made in this Year against Racism are of little use when our policies are achieving just the opposite.
We have to overcome the problem of legal alienation and raise the legal rights of citizenship throughout the EU to the level of a democratically constituted society.
This society is to include the new minorities and those who have been invited to join our workforce, for they too are human beings.
These people are fully entitled to normal human rights.
The situation is not helped by the fact that our legal and political systems are unwilling to take notice of these minority groups.
They exist, they are here to stay and they should be allowed to do so.
Let me close by quoting the words of a rather nice song, which we could possibly take as our slogan: "My mother is black, my father is white, my sister is yellow, my brothers are red and as for me, I am ten thousand years old and my name is man.'
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Lancker">
Mr President, the fact that the European Year against Racism is nearly over, should not mean, I think, that the fight against racism is over.
I saw a copy of the euro barometer opinion polls recently which were submitted at the conclusion of the European Year against Racism, Mr Commissioner, and I have to tell you I find the results disconcerting.
No less than one third of the interviewees admit to being very or somewhat racist.
In Belgium that group even comprised over half the interviewees.
The opinion poll also showed very clearly that xenophobia thrives best on feelings of insecurity, but above all, and this is important, on fear of the future and lack of faith in democratic institutions.
One conclusion I would like draw from this, colleagues, is that the new study must spur on every democratic party in Europe all the more to continue to create convincing and honest policies and confidence in the institutions which give people faith in the future.
But there are political parties which have made a real breeding ground out of engendering fear, xenophobia, racism, who abuse their mandates to spew freely their spiteful thoughts on all fronts at once, who speak of 'foreign scum, own people first', and if possible, in all languages at once.
In Brussels racist pamphlets are pushed though every letter box, including those of Italians and Turkish people, and of people who work in this Parliament, and of colleagues.
I would like to give Mr Oostlander a message. One thing should be clear to us.
The excuse of political freedom, of freedom of speech should never be used or abused to foster racist objectives or discrimination on the basis of colour or origin, whether inside or outside Parliament. Because that is manifestly contrary to human rights.
A short while ago a reference was made to the charter drafted for political parties in which they commit themselves to combat racism in their own midst, as well as outside it, and in which they vow not to cooperate with groups which incite racist acts.
I hope that all democratic parties will sign this charter very soon, but also implement it, please.
But I still believe, Mr Oostlander, that as a democratic institution of the citizens of the European Union, the European Parliament should also incorporate the charter as one of its principles into its own operations.
It should not be the case that in the name of free speech racist language is uttered in this Chamber.
It will not wash that the European Parliament gives grants to those who spread xenophobia.
What has proved possible in the Belgian Parliament and does not appear to be contrary to fundamental freedoms, should, in my view, also be possible in this House.
I would like to ask the Bureau to make a proposal to the European Parliament with regards to Rules of Procedure or a way of operating whereby we no longer contribute to the hate- stirring messages of some of our colleagues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="De Esteban Martín">
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Le Gallou">
Mr President, our advanced technological societies need liturgy and ritual, and very often rational thought disappears in the face of the magical.
The European Union does not escape this.
And here we are today, all institutions together, the Commission, Brussels, the Council of Ministers, Parliament, to commune in the ritual of anti-racism, with its high priests, its ex-communicators, its exorcists and also, it has to be said, its hypocrites.
Allow me, an agnostic, a sceptical spirit, who does not believe in your dogma and who is amused by your rituals, a few iconoclastic remarks.
Firstly, how can we talk about racism when we claim that races do not exist?
Is this not somewhat incoherent?
Furthermore, in its last meeting, the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, always up to date in its political correctness, removed from its discussions the word "race' and the adjective "racial' , as if getting rid of the word meant getting rid of the deed.
Secondly, if anti-racism and the fight against racism were effective, it would certainly not be necessary to keep coming back to it, year after year, and to anticipate, after a year of anti-racism, a millennium of anti-racism.
If you bemoan the deterioration of the situation, perhaps your solutions are not the right ones.
And this leads me on to my third remark.
It is true that in the suburbs of our towns, in France, Belgium and other European countries as well, the situation is becoming more and more difficult, delinquency is spreading and ethnic riots are increasing.
This is particularly true in France, where ethnic gangs, gangs of young immigrants, attack everything that represents the State and nation: the police force, of course, but also the Mayors, whatever their political outlook, even the socialist ones, even the communist ones, and the fire brigade, who more and more frequently are the target of flying objects when they go to put out a fire or to save human lives at the scene of an accident.
There are, and this is my fourth remark, many explanations for this - too much immigration, of course, the unfortunate rootlessness of immigrant populations, lack of success at school, but also, and permit me to say this, anti-racist ideology and policies.
Let me explain.
When a young European national behaves aggressively, in a violent, even delinquent manner, he is cracked down on, pursued and punished, and rightly so.
When a young foreigner behaves in the same aggressive, violent, even delinquent way he accuses the teacher, the policeman or the judge who want to crack down on him of being racist, and from then on the delinquent is no longer the accused but the accuser.
Far from being weakened, he is strengthened.
Yes, anti-racism encourages ethnic gang violence and thus generates what you call racism.
They say that hell is paved with good intentions.
Today, the obsessional and obligatory anti-racism that you want to impose is one of the causes of racism.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Mr President, the phenomenon of racism and xenophobia currently affecting the entire European Union is a matter of real concern to us all.
The greater protection from racial, ethnic and religious discrimination afforded by the Amsterdam Treaty is therefore to be welcomed.
Nevertheless, I am of the opinion that the most effective solution still lies in the power of the mind.
I think that this is more readily understood when one translates the term "xenophobia' not by "animosity towards' or "hatred of' foreigners, which is a common mistake sadly made all too often nowadays, but more correctly by "fear of foreigners' .
This fear, which is felt mainly by older persons, can only be reduced by each of us acting personally as we go about our daily business.
Here it is necessary to convey to our citizens a sense of security which enables them to overcome their fear.
The results of the Year against Racism, which in committee the rapporteur himself has described as the search for an alibi, will not alone be enough to achieve this objective.
The additional measures announced by the Commissioner will therefore still be needed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Elliott">
Mr President, I should like to start off by saying to the last two speakers that they should be a little careful.
Every one of us is the potential victim of someone else's racist attitudes.
If we are not prepared to stand up and defend the rights of others, the day may come when our rights are challenged and there will be nobody around to defend them.
So, be careful.
I want to congratulate Mr Mohamed Ali on his excellent report and to pick out one or two points.
Paragraph 6 is very important and I am delighted to say that the new government in Britain will be enacting legislation which will make any criminal activity which is racially motivated a justification for more severe penalties.
This is absolutely right.
It is also important that in paragraph 14 we condemn unwise and inflammatory statements, sometimes made by certain politicians who should know better, to provoke racial dislike and racial animosity.
We have heard comments about communities being swamped and that sort of remark does no good at all.
People who have influence in society should not incite racial attitudes.
On paragraph 15 it is important that in the ongoing negotiations for accession of the central and eastern European countries, we make it absolutely clear - and I am not condemning or criticizing any particular country - that respect for human rights and for the whole concept of anti-discrimination contained in Article 13 of the Treaties agreed at Amsterdam is a crucial part of what they will accept when they become members of the European Union.
The way in which certain minority groups, in particular the travelling communities, have traditionally been treated in some of these countries is shocking and disgraceful and must be brought to an end.
I support very much the introduction of a code of conduct.
I hope this will be in operation for the next European elections and will ensure - as happened at the last general election in Britain - that none of the major political parties are tempted to use the race card to their advantage and that those who are not prepared to sign a code of conduct outlawing racial and xenophobic sentiments are marginalized totally.
Finally, not only must we condemn racism in all its forms but we must extol the positive benefits of a pluralistic multiracial society.
I am proud to represent such a society in West London, where a third of the community or their parents are of non-English ethnic origin and who by and large live together happily and harmoniously together and positively benefit the community.
These multi-racial communities are not only culturally enriching but economically stimulating.
I leave you with this thought.
The 1.5 million people of Asian origin in Britain last year contributed £5 billion through Asian-owned businesses to the economic vitality of my country.
That is a positive aspect which is too often ignored.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Féret">
Mr President, just one year ago, the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media organized a public hearing on the theme of, "Points of convergence between Europe and Islam' , during which one of the guests, Jean Yaya-Michot, Director of the Centre for Arab Philosophy at the Catholic University of Louvain, took pleasure in monopolizing the debate and addressing me in insulting terms of a racist nature.
Several months later, the same Mr Yaya-Michot published in Beirut a short work justifying, on the basis of theological works, the assassination of the seven monks in Tibehirine.
I dare to hope that, within the framework of a new Year against Racism, the European Parliament will do its best to spare its Members from verbal aggression by foreign agents, who advocate the extermination, in its most barbarous form, of born and bred Europeans, because they are white and often Christian.
With regard to Professor Yaya-Michot, we will not have to suffer his insults for much longer, but it will have required my intervention at Vatican level for this recently naturalised Belgian to be made to shut up or to leave my country.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Zimmermann">
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Flynn for his support and for all his endeavours and also to express my particular thanks to all Commission personnel for what they achieved in 1997 as part of the Year against Racism and Xenophobia.
I would like to congratulate Mr Mohamed Ali on his excellent report.
Nevertheless, at the end of this year against racism and xenophobia I wish to focus on three aspects which still have to be worked on.
The first of these is the need to continue with the fight against racism and xenophobia, which commenced in 1997.
In view of the comments which we have just heard from three Members on the right of the House, it is apparent that we still have a long way to go before Parliament is able to take a different approach to this issue.
My second point concerns politicians, the media and the scholastic establishment. These groups must become far more aware of their educational role and should be adopting an anti-racist and anti-xenophobic stance.
Thirdly, the European Union has always been a focus for immigration and emigration, and this is increasingly true today.
Those migrants who have settled within our boundaries have helped shape our society, and in most cases they have integrated successfully.
If in recent years this integration has been less successful, that should be blamed not on the migrants themselves but rather on the shortcomings of our political strategy.
We will have to work much harder to ensure that these new settlers can be better integrated within the boundaries of the Union so that we can build up a real sense of community.
In this context I have to point out that female migrants are a particularly vulnerable group.
They suffer from discrimination not only because of their nationality and appearance, but because of their gender.
The UNHCR has developed strategies for protecting female refugees from human rights violations.
I therefore call upon Member States to apply the same measures.
Of special importance to me is a point which we have already discussed in committee and on which we are fundamentally agreed: I consider it to be an error of judgement, and this has been confirmed to us time and time again in various discussions with different organizations, to speak of discrimination on the basis of race.
As Mrs Roth has also pointed out, there is only one race - the human race.
There is no such thing as racial difference.
In order to emphasize this, we ourselves should avoid referring to racial discrimination in any positive context.
I therefore propose that in future we should reconsider our choice of words and perhaps use a different term - such as harmonization.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Howitt">
Mr President, let me use my own area of Essex in the UK to demonstrate the success of the European Year.
In the last 12 months I have personally taken part in a 200-strong business conference on the case for racial equality, a seminar for personnel officers on racial discrimination in employment, a special conference for our county's seven multi-agency racial incident panels and as a judge for an anti-racist poetry competition with entries from over 300 local schoolchildren.
Yet the number of racially motivated crimes in Essex has remained constant at over 100 this year.
Research from the community safety department of Essex Police confirms that racist attitudes held in the Community generally help perpetrators to legitimize their racist crimes.
So I am asking the Commissioner to make sure that he works with us to ensure that every year is the Year against Racism.
It is why the Essex Race Equality Council will this year start a new anti-racist project with young people in Thurrock, host a national exhibition on racial diversity and this very week convenes a first meeting of local women's groups on questions facing minority ethnic women.
It is why the Essex Returners Unit with Essex Tech has launched an action plan following on from the Year which includes new recruitment procedures for local police, race awareness for local training organizations and new support for local minority ethnic associations.
Congratulations to them all.
For us in the European Parliament, let this one local example serve as an example to us all, and let us remember that Europe's fight against racism needs to reach communities at the local level in Essex and in every part of Europe.
Unless it does so, it means nothing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Quin">
Mr President, I want very briefly to make one or two remarks in response to the debate.
I very much welcome the positive tone that the debate has generally adopted and the welcome that has been given to the work of the rapporteur on this particular issue.
I will briefly pick up on one or two specific points.
Education was referred to by one or two speakers and I would like to say that the Council fully recognizes the importance of education and work with young people in fostering a society of equality of opportunity.
As Parliament will know, 21 March has been proclaimed as the day when cultural differences will be celebrated and tolerance promoted among young people and in educational establishments.
I know that Mr Goerens who spoke earlier has done a great deal to remind young people today of the dangers of Nazism and anti-Semitism of the past.
I agree with him that remembering the victims of the Holocaust remains very important.
Both Mr Mohamed Ali and Mr Andrews mentioned specifically the risks of Islamophobia.
I very much agree with the comments they made.
It is the responsibility of all of us to reject such unthinking prejudice against any one group.
So, on behalf of the Council, I would like to say that I have taken careful note of the various points that have been raised during the course of this debate.
It certainly seems to me that this is clearly an area where the three institutions - Parliament, Commission and Council - can work closely together to promote practical and effective action for the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="President">
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Asylum policy
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="President">
The next item is the group discussion on the following oral questions:
<P>

B4-1012/97-0-0136/97, put to the Council, and B4-1013/97-0-0137/97, put to the Commission, by Mrs Lindeperg, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on rights of asylum; -B4-1017/97-0-0166/97, put to the Commission by Mr Vinci and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the observance of rights of asylum; -B4-1018/97-0-0174/97, put to the Council, and B4-1019/97-0-0175/97, put to the Commission, by Mr Nassauer and Mr Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, relating to the Dublin Convention on asylum processes; -B4-1020/97-0-0176/97, put to the Council by Mr Schaffner and Mr Caccavale, on behalf of the Group Union for Europe, on asylum policy; -B4-1021/97-0-0178/97, put to the Commission, and B4-1104/97-0-0179/97, put to the Council, by Mr Wiebenger, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, on rights of asylum; -B4-0002/98-0-0162/97, put to the Council, and B4-0003/98-0-0163/97, put to the Commission, by Mrs Roth, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the protection of persons suffering persecution from nonState agents; -B4-0004/98-0-0167/97, put to the Council, and B4-0005/98-0-0168/97, put to the Commission, by Mr Pradier, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on justice and internal affairs.


<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for giving me time to speak at such short notice.
I have asked to be permitted to speak again because I believe that the opportunity must be given to respond to some of the remarks made by the extreme Right in this House.
If we are debating racism in Europe and the fact that racism in its extreme form is actually spreading in Europe at the present time, and if we then see that in its extreme form....
<P>
(The President cut off the speaker)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="President">
Mr Schulz, you requested leave to speak on a point of order.
The debate you are trying to start up again has already been closed.
I am unable to re-open it.
If you are asking for leave to speak on a point of order then you may speak, but not if you want to continue the debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
Mr President, thank you for finding me out.
Nevertheless, I should like to take the opportunity to finish my sentence.
It is outrageous that those who are claiming for themselves an anti-racism debate are in fact those who represent racism in Europe.
I would ask you, Mr President, in accordance with Rule 131 of the Rules of Procedure, to defer the present debate on the oral questions submitted by the various Groups, to the next plenary session in Strasbourg to be held on Monday at 5.00 p.m.
Up to just a few minutes before this debate began, we in the European Socialist Party tried, along with a number of other parliamentary Groups, to agree a compromise text which would as far as possible incorporate the different political positions.
Five minutes before this plenary sitting began, and for reasons which I do not wish to comment on, the Liberal Group withdrew its signature from that document.
The result is that there will certainly be no majority in favour of our compromise text tomorrow.
But neither do we think that any other compromise can be found which would command a majority in this House.
As a result we are now holding a debate without any hope of a tangible outcome tomorrow.
But because asylum is such an important issue, we as Social Democrats will continue to search for a broad-based resolution and therefore intend renewing our efforts to reach a compromise with the other Groups. For this reason we ask that the debate be deferred as requested.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="President">
Mr Schulz has requested on behalf of the Socialist Group that the debate on the oral questions relating to rights of asylum be deferred.
May I ask whether anyone is willing to vote in favour or against?
Is anyone in favour?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lindeperg">
Mr President, I would like to comment on the report, just as Mr Schulz just requested.
Indeed, the problem of asylum is a subject of great importance and the joint resolution, as it came out of the debate yesterday, concerned such a limited point, such a precise point, a point which, furthermore, was part of the Council's programme and therefore not at all controversial, that it would be a shame to make an ideological division out of it. Consequently, as Martin Schulz said, I would prefer some time to be given to see how it would be possible to come to an agreement on this subject.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Nassauer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. I oppose the motion to defer this debate.
Negotiations have taken place on the basis of motions from many individual Groups.
As far as I know, no Group has insisted that its own text should be taken as the yardstick for all.
The Group of the European People's Party, for example, had proposed that the Liberals' motion for resolution be taken as a basis for negotiation.
This was rejected.
The outcome of the negotiations is that from the outset we, in the European People's Party did not sign the motion for resolution.
The resolution proposed by the Liberals and also that proposed by the PPE are at least still available for voting on.
We therefore see no reason, even though the Socialist Group believes that there will not be a majority for their proposal, to delete an item from the agenda and to refer it back to committee.
We want to see the agenda worked through in its original form.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="President">
Mr Nassauer, the motion is that this debate be deferred, leaving it to the discretion of the Conference of Presidents to fix a date for it.
<P>
(Parliament agreed to the request that the debate be deferred) The debate is therefore deferred to a date to be notified by the Presidents' Conference.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, I will be voting against.
I am against deferment, because the reasons given by those who are calling for it do not hold up in any way.
These are various manoeuvres unrelated to the need for urgent debate of the issue and for there to be yet another decision by the European Parliament to create as much pressure as possible against extending the conditions and prerequisites for the granting of asylum.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Díez de Rivera Icaza">
Mr President, I have a question.
When the bell goes, how long do we have to get to the Hemicycle?
Because we ran out of the office, leaving people in mid-sentence, but we still did not get here in time.
Could you please tell us how much time we have, so we know whether to gallop, trot or walk?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="President">
Mrs Díez de Rivera, according to the Rules of this House I can only have the bells rung when I become aware that the rule for the tabling of a motion has been invoked.
Until then I am unable to do so.
And the time available is the interval between the time of making the announcement and the time at which I have to put the motion to the vote, after inviting Members to speak for or against it.
A procedural vote of this type can take place at any time.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Application of Community law - CELEX
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="President">
The next item is Report A4-0008/98, by Mrs Thors, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Matters and Citizens' Rights, relating to the fourteenth Annual Report of the Commission on the monitoring of Community Law application (1996) and the working document on the Commission's CELEX 1996 services (relating to the interinstitutional computerised documentation system on Community Law); 1996 Management Report (COM(97)0299 - C4-0312/97 - SEC(97)1082 - C4-0313/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Thors">
<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Verde i Aldea">
<SPEAKER ID=97 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Anastassopoulos">
Mr President, every one of our Parliament's rapporteurs who examines the European Commission's annual report on the application of Community Law aspires to display his own method and attitude.
The same has happened this year with our esteemed colleague Mrs Astrid Thors.
And I will not disagree with her, because there is perhaps nothing worse, both for the European Parliament's image and in substance, than a boring restatement for the umpteenth time of views expressed many times before in this Chamber.
In that respect the rapporteur chose not to deal with the great and more general problems which influence the interpretation and application of Community Law, but to concentrate her attention more on more practical matters which perhaps have a more direct bearing on Europe's citizens.
So she highlighted two basic elements: greater participation by Europe's citizens themselves in the application of Community Law, and the European Ombudsman's interventions, which tend towards the same direction.
And Mrs Thors has formulated practical proposals to deal with several problems, with which - naturally - I think most of us can agree.
The European People's Party will therefore vote in favour of her report, which also comprises three amendments that I had the honour to table and which the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights was kind enough to accept.
I think it might be necessary for me to comment, in order to reinforce those views, on just two or three subjects: it is indicative that out of 1 076 cases initiated by the Commission in 1996, 819 were set in motion following complaints by European citizens.
And it is just as characteristic that 36 % of the complaints made to the European Ombudsman concerning infringements of Community Law again came from European citizens.
There are several other positive elements, Mr President, during the period we are considering.
I will point indicatively to the fact that the Commission initiated many more cases, to the possibility of access to Community Law via the Internet and the institution of more proceedings, and if you will, to the establishment of the possibility of imposing financial penalties upon Member States which fail to implement the decisions of the European Court of Justice.
On the other hand, however, we must note that, as I fear, the major problems persist and little progress has been made with them.
The process of seeking justice is always very lengthy, time-consuming and very costly.
The teaching of Community Law has not yet even become established in the law schools of the top Educational Institutions in the 15 Member States.
There are still problems with the tendency of certain constitutional courts to wish to dispute with the Court of the European Communities the jurisdiction of annulment for Community regulatory acts without entitlement to any such jurisdiction, a trend which began in the German Supreme Constitutional Court, and one which, for all we know, may be imitated by the Danish Supreme Court which is due to pronounce in a few weeks.
So there are both positive and negative elements.
A much greater effort must be made, and I believe that the report by Mrs Thors will assist that effort.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Buffetaut">
Madam Rapporteur, Mr President, it seems to be a hobby of some of our colleagues to pillory the Member States, who are the cause, according to them, of all the evils which affect the European Union.
Thus, Mrs Thors' report highlights that the average rate of notification - and I quote - "for transposition measures taken by the Member States as a whole is 92.8 %' .
This is truly what legislators dream of and in particular, French legislators who, far too often vote in laws and then wait months, even years, for the regulatory rules to enable them to implement them.
So rather than always complaining about Member States, I personally prefer to commend the zeal with which Community law is being implemented.
The rapporteur also highlights the difficulties of the practical and concrete application of community law and the lack of knowledge of the law on the part of our citizens.
This is a question of training, of legal training and of university training.
This obviously is the role of the Member States and not the European Union which, in this area, can only limit itself to giving encouragement.
Finally, the rapporteur highlighted the delicate question of the powers exercised by Member States' Constitutional Courts on the validity of prescriptive acts in relation to constitutions.
This is a particularly serious question, basic laws being, in a way, the founding basis of the social and political contract of the Member States.
And the French Constitutional Court, by demanding the amendment of our constitution when the measures of draft treaties do not conform to it, indicates that, on the contrary, the Supreme Court recognises the impossibility of applying a European standard which is contrary to our constitution.
This seems to me indeed normal and desirable, our constitutions being the supreme act of our sovereignty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rothley">
Mr President, it seems that we do not have "the same procedure as last year' , to coin a phrase.
The rapporteur has done very well and for that I offer her my sincere thanks.
The motion for resolution includes an early mention of the national constitutional courts.
I would like - and I hope that I am proceeding along the same lines as you here - to say something about the Federal Constitutional Court, which has a constitutional appeal pending in respect of the euro.
The Federal Constitutional Court must know what it is doing.
It may be plunging the European Union into a deep political crisis from which the EU may never recover.
But it must know what it is doing.
Let me just single out one of the many practical examples mentioned by the rapporteur, namely the control procedure and the role of the citizen.
I wholeheartedly support the initiative of the citizens' representative and of the rapporteur that, should this control procedure result in a negative decision by the Commission, then this decision must be substantiated.
This has something to do with democracy.
I have followed the midday debate on whether Commissioners or officials are now politicians, civil servants or whatever, with a certain amusement.
From the outside the situation looks somewhat different.
Allow me to quote from a recent edition of the Süddeutsche Zeitung , which states: "It is certainly true that without the expert knowledge and diligence of the civil servants in Brussels a century project like the euro would never materialize, because it would be talked to death for years.
It is not true that one of these civil servants will have to take some sort of responsibility if the experiment fails.
One obviously hopes that they have the sense of responsibility which Max Weber demands from politicians, but they are not responsible for their work, they just have to carry it out.'
The western inventors of democracy certainly did not conceive it thus.
It matters that we should establish this public openness between the Commission and its citizens, and for that reason I am particularly thankful for this part of the report.
While I am talking about the basics, let me quote from a very old text which, though penned more than 200 years ago, is still relevant today.
It was written in 1795 by Imanuel Kant on the subject of eternal peace and goes as follows: "All deeds which relate to the rights of other men, and whose maxim is not compatible with publicity, are wrongful.'
This maxim, Kant goes on to say, is one which I may not divulge without at the same time thwarting my own intention, which itself must be kept absolutely secret if it is to succeed and to which I cannot publicly admit, without provoking inevitable opposition from everyone to my design; such a maxim can only have its origins in injustice and therefore constitutes a threat to us all.
My appeal to the Commission is therefore as follows: Please take this matter very seriously.
Something which is not founded on injustice can be made public, can be made accessible to public discussion, can be opened up to public debate.
This establishes trust rather than secrecy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Skinner">
Mr President, I am grateful to Madam Torres for bringing forward this extremely good report.
The conclusions reached in the Social Affairs Committee were developed as an insight into the citizens' interface with the institutions and the methodology with which we bring about this application of law across the European Union, particularly in the social arena.
We listed many faults.
The conclusions from the Committee dealt with, for example, equal opportunities and the use of structural funds and the inadequate addressing of this point; the free movement of people; the testing of collectively-agreed directives separately and differently from Community law in general; the judicial and legal customs of Members States around the European Union.
We should not just test the letter of the law but the effect of the law as well.
The implication that so much law can apply in such a non-uniform way, should prompt the Commission to respond urgently to the issues Madam Torres accepts.
She accepts only some of the issues raised in the Social Affairs Committee and I regret this.
Particularly the technical/legal customs and traditions which exist in all countries across the European Union should be considered in terms of their effect and not just their letter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Gradin">
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="President">
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Settlement finality
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0005/98) by Mr Lehne, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the common position established by the Council (C4-0534/97-96/0126(COD)) with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive on settlement finality in payment and securities settlement systems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Lehne">
<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rothley">
Mr President, as the rapporteur has already stated, we in the Christian Democrat and Social Democrat Groups have agreed a common position in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
We support this position.
The rapporteur has done an excellent job.
The fact that we have not restricted the proposal to payment systems alone, but have managed to include securities and settlement systems, is a real achievement.
This was a very important point.
What I also consider to be of great significance is the principle that all creditors be treated equally in the event of insolvency.
Here we have now created a substantial legal framework against a background of maximum publicity and we have done this within the scope of that which can be politically achieved at the present time.
This is all down to Mr Lehne and for this I wish to express to him my heartfelt thanks.
We shall be supporting this common position here in Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="Cassidy">
Mr President, I would like to add my congratulations to the paeans of praise that have been heaped on the rapporteur for his wisdom, and particularly to speak in support of his Amendment No 5 which has been co-signed by Mr Rothley on behalf of the Socialist Group.
That amendment goes to the heart of what is a very important problem in this proposal.
This proposal, incidentally, is a major part of the single market programme.
It concerns the dangers of what might happen if a bank, for example, were to be declared bankrupt at the beginning of a payment transaction and the message about that bankruptcy were not transmitted to the rest of Europe until too late.
Amendment No 5 anticipates the difficulties that might arise under that situation, though, as has been pointed out by other speakers, it shifts the burden of proof.
I would just add in parenthesis here that the drafting of the original directive was perhaps not as good as it might have been.
I am not sure that the common position as it has emerged from the Council is necessarily perfect but I hope that we will be taking one step further towards an improved text when we vote tomorrow.
I would support what the rapporteur said in suggesting that the Parliament should accept all of the amendments which have been proposed by my group and the Group of the Party of European Socialists, particularly in the all-important Amendment No 5 which relates to Article 3(1).The whole purpose, of course, is to ensure that the settlement systems operate properly within a single market.
But it is also to make sure that there is an adequate settlement system without too much risk of people being deprived of their due payments under the European Monetary Union settlement system.
This is an important measure from every point of view and to that extent we should, perhaps, congratulate both the Commission and the rapporteur and hopefully the Council - though sadly the British presidency is not present this evening - because this is a very important issue for Europe's principal financial centre which is, of course, London.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Florio">
Mr President, the proposal for a directive concerning settlement finality in payment and securities settlement systems is born out of the incontestable fact that a few cases where large banks have been declared bankrupt have severely tested the financial system, both at national and international level.
The aim of the Commission's proposal is to establish a privilege for institutions that are party to multilateral agreements on netting, collateral security or credit guarantee systems, thereby making all the creditors in the multilateral circuit immune from any insolvency proceedings opened against one of the signatory institutions.
To summarize, the intention is to remove the financial system from the principle of par in par creditorum and give it an advantage over all other creditors in the event of its involvement in insolvency proceedings against banks or other financial institutions.
In fact, a payment made by a credit institution to any third party would continue to be revoked if the credit institution went bankrupt under the common rules currently in force in individual Member States. However, this payment would no longer be subject to revocation if another credit institution benefited from it, even if this happened the day before the insolvency proceedings were opened and, under certain conditions, even if it happened on the actual day that the proceedings were opened.
The reasoning behind this preferential treatment, it is maintained, stems from the need to introduce safeguards within a system which, although subject to few controls, manages enormous amounts of capital obtained, as we know, from millions of savers.
Although these considerations are no doubt worthy of attention, the consequences of the new directive must, nonetheless, be properly evaluated.
Are we sure, for example, that it will not have negative repercussions on the fabric of small and medium-sized enterprises which, as everyone knows, form the backbone of the European economy? They are also the only means of creating new jobs but will obviously be excluded from this system which we can certainly describe as privileged.
As always, our debate is taking place amid the indifference of public opinion which is not informed, until it is too late, of what is being planned in this Chamber.
Perhaps the glare of public opinion would force us to be more cautious.
To conclude my brief speech, while fully appreciating the hard work done both by the Commissioner, Mr Monti, and the rapporteur, Mr Lehne, I feel I must emphasize that creating an insolvency-proof financial zone may also be risky and increase the gulf that separates the Europe of Institutions from the Europe of citizens, all the more so as, at the present time, the Union is not yet engaged in harmonizing bankruptcy law as a whole, despite repeated requests from the European Parliament in many of its resolutions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Oddy">
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for his usual, very thoughtful work.
The object of this proposal is to protect the banking settlement systems from the insolvency of the participants.
The reasoning behind this proposal is to prevent creditors from claiming payments already made into the banking system when the insolvency of a bank is opened.
If this were not the case the banking system would suffer from a lack of certainty.
Creditors will still be able to claim against an insolvent bank but without undermining the banking system of payments.
The main issue of concern is at which time should the insolvency proceedings be deemed to have started.
In my view, payments made in good faith on the day of insolvency proceedings being opened should still be protected.
Although the number of time zones in the European Union is fairly limited compared with, say, the United States, nevertheless there is some divergency and certainty is essential in insolvency proceedings.
Consequently, I note Article 3 of the proposal and support compromise Amendment No 5 which, although not perfect, is a reasonably fair reflection of the situation.
Again, although this may seem, as I have said many times in this Chamber before, a rather arid and academic subject, it adds to the protection of consumers and banking laws and systems in general.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="Monti">
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Lehne, and the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights for their valuable contribution to the consideration of this proposal.
Although, as a member of the Commission, I cannot agree with what has been written in Mr Lehne's report to the Committee on Legal Affairs, I do understand the legitimate concerns that lie behind it.
It is precisely for this reason that I would like to express my appreciation to Mr Lehne and Mr Rothley for introducing new amendments for this part-session to replace the previous ones, which the Commission welcomes wholeheartedly because they help to clarify and improve the proposal.
This proposal will fill a gap in the legislation relating to the single market as it provides legal certainty with regard to cross-border and domestic payment and securities settlement systems.
Until now the uncertainty concerning the legal framework to be applied in the event of insolvency has inhibited the development of these systems.
This was deplorable, considering that the efficiency of cross-border transactions has increased substantially since these systems have been in place.
It is also legitimate to expect a reduction in the cost of business transacted through them.
Studies carried out by the Commission have shown that, because of the inefficiency associated with cross-border transactions, the charges for low-value transfers - which are, after all, what interests our citizens the most - may amount to as much as 25 % of the sum transferred.
Another important aim of this directive is to provide a legal basis for establishing collateral security with the central banks of other Member States, a practice which will become even more important with the introduction of the single currency.
Finally, this directive will be an essential back-up instrument - it is on record - for the target, the vehicle through which the European Central Bank will create the common monetary policy.
New Amendment No 5 balances two interests: on the one hand there is the interest in protecting the payment and securities settlement systems and avoiding major crises in the financial markets, and in this respect South-East Asia clearly illustrates the effects of such crises, not only on national economic systems but also worldwide; on the other hand, there is the need to respect the principle of par in par creditorum in bankruptcy law.
This amendment represents a fine balance between the two interests.
Paragraph 2 of Amendment No 6 clarifies what was previously stated in more ambiguous terms in Article 11 of the common position.
The Commission can therefore agree to the deletion of Article 11 and its substitution by this paragraph.
The fact that Member States can impose a duty of supervision on systems may not under any circumstances prejudice the powers conferred on the European Central Bank pursuant to Article 22 of its charter.
In this regard, bearing in mind all that has been said, I would like to recommend the following wording be added to paragraph 3 of Article 10: "in addition to the duty of notification under the first paragraph and without prejudice to Article 22 of the charter of the European central banking system of and the European central bank or the areas of competence of the European central bank, the Member States may subject to supervision or request approval for systems which enter within the respective jurisdictions' .
Finally, the Commission is prepared to accept the greater degree of transparency with regard to the sender of a payment or a transaction concerning securities, which has been introduced in the third paragraph of Amendment No 2.
In conclusion, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted that, thanks to the fruitful dialogue between our Institutions, the Commission is able to accept the two new amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Connected telecommunications - Mobile and wireless communications
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0023/98 by Mrs Read, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on connected telecommunications equipment and the mutual recognition of the conformity of equipment (COM(97)0257 - C4-0275/97-97/0149(COD)); -A4-0027/98 by Mr Camisón Asensio, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on the further development of mobile and wireless communications - Challenges and choices for the European Union (COM(97)0217 - C4-0271/97).
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Read">
. Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this proposal concerning connected terminal equipment first came to this Parliament in 1990 and was based on a proposal from the Commission about mutual recognition of type approval for terminal equipment.
That approach was based very much on the test house system and mutual recognition in every country in the Union of acceptable testing.
For a variety of reasons which are articulated very clearly in the Commission document, the Commission feels it appropriate for a new proposal and a different approach, based on manufacturers' self-testing and a unilateral declaration of conformity.
Broadly, I and the Economic and Monetary Committee voted in favour of this approach.
The proposal contains measures about the definition of equipment and essential requirements and about the procedure for ensuring compliance.
One matter which has exercised me, as the rapporteur and other colleagues on the Committee, is the whole question of the ability of terminal equipment either to damage the network or to damage the users.
I listened very carefully to the representations to me about how likely this was and how great a danger it presented.
If it presents a danger - and I was convinced that to some extent it does - then it is right to allow the possibility of the withdrawal of those products from the market or temporary disconnection.
I have submitted some compromise amendments which I hope are going to meet with the approval of other groups in this House which have addressed this issue but suggested that any remedy should be proportionate to the chance of any damage, either to the network, I emphasize, or to the users.
I spent some time too looking at the rights of disabled consumers who traditionally have gained employment in this field of the telecommunications industry.
It was interesting that the Amsterdam Treaty, drawn up at the time we were considering this proposal, makes its own statement on which I draw.
I think it is worth quoting from it.
It is a declaration regarding persons with a disability and it reads: ' the conference agrees that in drawing up measures under Article 100a of the Treaty establishing the European Community, the Institutions of the Community shall take account of the needs of persons with a disability.'
For that reason, part of my report and my suggestions cover this very matter.
It is right to stress that we support the Commission approach; we know that there has been a revised Presidency text taking into account many of the constructive points put forward by the many lobbyists and I have tried to take those into account when drawing up my own proposals, even though we were procedurally working with the Commission's original text.
I commend my compromise amendments to you and I very much hope that we can have a constructive and thoughtful first reading.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="President">
Before I continue, I would like to make an announcement, and I hope that everyone who is going to participate in this evening's debate or is intending to listen to it, can hear what I am now saying.
As you know, it was the intention to have a break at 8.00 p.m., but because we only have around 1 ½ hours of debate left, I propose that we continue the debate until 8.30 p.m. and then close for the day.
I am pleased that Mr Herman and others look happy.
I therefore consider it accepted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="Camisón Asensio">
<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, the Commission has brilliantly conveyed the vital issues in relation to mobile communications and new developments in cordless communications.
The intention is to develop more efficient mobile communications systems to meet users' needs.
The explosive development in telecommunications has been changing our world at a very fast pace.
Things go at enormous speed and do not hang around waiting for the slow decision-process to take effect in Europe.
What we now need from the Commission is a clearer plan for the third generation UMTS system, and involvement in the international promotion of European views.
The Commission has to stress its special role as emboldener and researcher.
The continued tale of success of the European GSM, and the growth of markets require a strong policy of support.
The outlook for mobile communications is promising.
Markets are growing and, at the same pace, industry's expectations for sales of cordless and fixed multimedia applications are growing also.
International competition for customers is fierce, however.
The keen Asian markets are growing fast, in spite of the crisis.
There are great demands now being made by consumers. They want to combine mobility, telecommunications and multimedia.
It is vital to see how European and Asian user needs and spheres of development in markets differ from each other.
Unless these needs are understood in good time, Europe might lose its influence and no longer be an important player in this important area of industry.
Computer technology and the communications industry are important for the whole European economy, because they are a meaningful and ever-growing part of industrial activity and because they offer the possibility of more jobs.
Strong domestic markets have given European industry, as far as GSM is concerned, the best conditions for competition in the world market.
This competitiveness in products and services coming out of the production process must be preserved, because it forms the basis of the developing information society.
The social dimension must be brought in here, with the assurance that the sparsely populated regions can also have a share in this future supply of services.
There have been bad experiences from the so-called frequency auctions in the United States. With them the price can get so high that it clearly affects the operator's ability to get sufficient coverage and provide a decent service.
This would distort competition and hamper the chances of new, innovative, small-sized companies getting into the market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herman">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to make a few observations regarding the two reports under discussion.
Firstly, on Mrs Read's report I will say that we can largely accept the compromise amendments that she has presented.
I believe that, thanks to efforts on both sides, we will be able to maintain what I call the "bi-partisan' policy of this Parliament, which broadly supports the policy of the Commission in the face of, it has to be said, Member States' reticence.
Thus, apart from a paragraph here and there, which we have thrashed out in the Committee, we will vote for your list of motions, ours will be very similar and Parliament will be, as it has often been in this field, unanimous.
In any case, a very large majority will be behind you.
I would above all like to dwell on the second report, because its implications are more important in the long term.
We have had two interesting experiences in the area of standards in the new telecommunications technologies.
One unfortunate, the other fortunate.
The unfortunate experience concerns the standards we were looking to put in place regarding high definition television.
In this respect, the Commission, the Council and Parliament all wasted their time, and during this period the market overtook us, especially the Americans.
And so, on this point, we were pathetic, even though astronomical sums were spent with the aim of promoting these standards.
On the other hand, with regard to GSM our experience was the opposite, a happy one.
Europeans were able to come to an agreement in time on a quality standard which was easily imposed on the market and which enabled, so I was told, more than fifty countries to come out in favour of the European standard, which was a considerable boost for European industry.
Now we find ourselves faced with the need to move on to the third generation of mobile phones.
In this respect, it is a question of not missing the boat, as Mr Camisón Asensio has clearly explained, for we have some considerable prospects.
The problem is that the large European industrial groups which develop the standards do not defend one joint standard.
It is clear that what happened 2000 years ago between the Horaces and the Curiaces risks being repeated today.
If Europeans become divided in the face of the united Americans, we will be defeated.
So we must put pressure on these two groups to come to a consensus and to impose one single European standard.
In addition, we are expecting a great deal of the Commission, in using all its influence to put pressure on these groups, in order to make them understand that everything is at stake if they are divided.
This is the message I would like to give today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
<SPEAKER ID=118 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, firstly a few words about Mrs Read's report.
It says that there is a need to ease the advent of new telecommunications equipment onto the market.
Since 1991 there has been a principle of mutual recognition where the authorities in one Member State do not need to approve equipment for the market if one other country has already done so.
Now they intend to ease the process still further.
The Greens think this is risky.
We agree with Mrs Read that in the future we should try to work in harmony, in order to ensure that safe and userfriendly goods will come into the market.
We must take care that the work environment is not so confusing and complex as to encourage a growing variety of telecommunications systems, which are not at all compatible for the user.
We especially support Mrs Read in the concern she has expressed in many of her amendments.
Also linked with this is the need in future to demand that this new technology will present no problems for the disabled.
Here there is a very great danger of inequality arising out of the prospect of new telecommunications equipment making it difficult for disabled people to work.
I believe the Commission has to address this matter much more seriously.
Finally, the most outstanding thought we had on Mr Camisón's report on cordless communications and mobile phones was that the Commission should give strong support to how this kind of electronic smog might affect our health.
This is an important point when we consider how more and more new wavelengths are being split up.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Velzen">
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="Read">
Mr President, I am grateful for an opportunity to add my congratulations to the rapporteur, Mr Camisón, on his report.
My group is delighted to support it.
I briefly want to draw attention to just a couple of points.
One is that his work is very much about the future, albeit the immediate future as his explanatory statement rightly stresses.
He says in his report that 'the concept of third generation mobile communications is not yet fully developed but the problem is only one of time and progress seems unstoppable' .
Later in his report he and Mr Lindqvist both stress the importance of the competitiveness of this sector and its importance in making sure that we have a viable, competitive European industry to compete against Japan and the United States of America.
His report also talks about the importance of market forces and the balance between that and regulation.
The consumer is less and less interested in the means of making a telephone call or using other telecommunications services.
What they want is to do it cheaply, effectively and efficiently and this is an important part of this equation.
I congratulate Mr Camisón.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="Bangemann">
<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="President">
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Open network provision (ONP) to voice telephony
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="President">
The next item is report (A4-0013/98) by Mrs Read, on behalf of the European Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text, approved by the Conciliation Committee, for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the application of open network provision (ONP) to voice telephony and on universal service for telecommunications in a competitive environment (amendment of European Parliament and Council Directive 95/62/EC) (C4-0003/98-96/0226(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="Read">
Mr President, I have great pleasure in recommending that the plenary approve the joint text that has gone through the conciliation process.
If I could remind you - and I am sure Commissioner Bangemann and his officials will need no reminding - this is the third attempt we have jointly made to get this proposal right.
It is somewhat ironic, in particular in view of Mr Camisón's report that it is almost in danger - as I am sure the Commissioner will say - of being overtaken by technology.
Certainly many long-distance calls are now made via the Internet rather than traditional telephony methods.
Nevertheless, one of the reasons Parliament rightly placed great emphasis on consumer protection in connection with this report is because this is the basic voice telephone service that most of us use in making our day-to-day telephone calls.
We tried very much to have the needs of the ordinary domestic consumer, the small business, in mind when we were conducting our deliberations.
I want to place on record my own thanks to the Commission officials who had endless patience in the many meetings we had on this, Parliament officials in the conciliation service and, of course, the presidency.
We were able to get a conclusion, not absolutely what we wanted but sufficiently meritorious to command the support of this Parliament on the concept of affordable price.
On the question of the cost of universal service, about consumer protection and service quality, about the protection of disabled users... I apologise for my cough.
Whisky would be better than water!... about the protection of disabled users and again we use the new clause in the Amsterdam Treaty, about number portability although we recognized that this is also much more appropriate in what stems from the Green Paper and with regard to network access.
It is the best outcome and one that merits the support of this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herman">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, after what Mrs Read has just said, there is not much to add.
I too would like to congratulate the Commission and the Presidency of the Council for having had the patience to negotiate inch by inch with Parliament in order to achieve something which was acceptable to the industry, the companies and the consumers.
I believe that the compromise obtained is a good one.
It was due time to reach it, because the deadline had been passed.
Everything should have been ready on 1 January this year.
We are a few weeks late, but I do not think that is irreparable.
The most important thing is to continue along this line, in this direction, and I am pleased that Parliament, I think I am now able to say this, will be supporting the conclusions of the Conciliation Committee virtually unanimously.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Velzen">
Mr President, first of all, I hope Mrs Read's health has improved a little.
I do not think that a whiskey would be a good idea in this House.
We should not drink whiskey, Mr President, so that we can have sober debates.
Firstly, I would like to congratulate Mrs Read on this report and on her efforts to come to a common rule in this field of universal service.
I think that on this point we have had a very important struggle to formulate concepts such as affordable prices and the cost of public services and so on, and to arrive at a common position with the Council and the Commission.
It was worth it in every respect.
What is also very important on behalf of my group, I think, is that we included the notion that Member States may make additional demands, but that they are not allowed to transfer this to the operators.
Because I think this gives telecommunications another opportunity to develop further in a sound way.
I think that the charging principles which we have adopted are good.
It is a pity, therefore, that as soon as than number portability became a reality, and people were having the opportunity to change operators, Deutsche Telekom immediately set itself up to give the customer a penalty discount.
I am therefore glad the Commission immediately responded.
But it does indicate that we will have to be alert when discussing the subject of number portability and carry preselection in this House during a second reading.
I would like to speak up once again about public emergency services.
I know that the Commission is looking at this at the moment.
We have the emergency number 112, but in a number of Member States such as Spain and Greece the number does not work.
In Belgium the police are still driving around with a reference to the old emergency number, and in a number of Member States telephone operators only speak their own language to the great frustration of foreign tourists who are stranded.
I would really like to ask the Commission and the Commissioner to breathe new life into the emergency number 112.
I am glad that on the issue of the disabled we have reached an effective agreement and compromise.
I believe this means that the European citizen has a decent piece of legislation.
It is obviously evolutionary legislation.
During the review in the coming years we will have to come back to this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="Bangemann">
<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="President">
<CHAPTER ID=13>
Socrates
<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="President">
The next item is report (A4-0012/98) by Mrs Pack, on behalf of the European Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text, approved by the Conciliation Committee, for a European Parliament and Council Decision amending Decision No 819/95/EC establishing the Community action programme Socrates (C4-0002/98-97/0103 (COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="Pack">
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Elchlepp">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is of course a good thing that the Conciliation Committee succeeded in obtaining a modest increase in funding for the Socrates programme, though as Mrs Pack quite rightly says, this is not in fact a real increase.
Nevertheless, we must accept the result.
Unfortunately I fear that this decision indicates that there has been no improvement in the European Finance Ministers' basic understanding of the enormous significance of the European youth exchange scheme for European policy, integration and employment.
If the European Community is only prepared to provide for youth policy actions no more than 1/270th of the amount which it allocates to agriculture policy, then this is simply disgraceful.
As we prepare for the entry of central and eastern European nations we now need more than ever a greater exchange of people and ideas in the field of education and a greater interchange with the young people of those countries, in order to overcome the historical alienation which exists between the different European peoples.
But I would also advise all politicians with an interest in employment affairs, who quite rightly deplore the scandalously high level of youth unemployment, to take a very close look at the correlation which exists between the increased availability of work experience in other countries and the new employment opportunities for young people in the European job market.
More and more employers are including overseas work experience and knowledge of a foreign language as essential job qualifications, and let us not forget the importance of cooperation between schools and colleges in Europe for the introduction of innovative teaching and education methods and for the overall level of qualification being achieved.
There is no doubt that EU education programmes such as Socrates have proved an overall success.
The Socrates programme is a first-class way of promoting integration and, in conjunction with the Erasmus programme, for example, it has certainly promoted the concept of Europe among the young people of the Union.
But the scheme is only open to a few, because it is hopelessly underfunded, and this has had fatal consequences.
Study grants are underfinanced and even here we see social selection taking place.
The average grant is between ECU 50 and 100.
Such a situation is socially incompatible and tends to undermine the impact of the programmes.
We have all heard the complaints of our own constituents and we know of many applicants who have missed out here.
The critical funding situation is even beginning to threaten the popularity of the programmes themselves.
In view of the allocation ratio of 1 to 10 in the case of Erasmus, some colleges and even a number of vice-chancellors' conferences have considered withdrawing from the programme.
We all want to see study periods spent in other EU countries recognised once the student returns to his country of residence.
We therefore need more money to support schemes such as the European Course Credit Transfer.
And we also want to see more students being provided with grant assistance for foreign trips, provided that these are being organised for practical purposes.
I believe that we should fight for a substantial increase in this programme budget.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Mr President, the enlargement of the European Union is important for the whole of Europe and for all Europeans.
What is more important is that this process be undertaken in an orderly fashion.
The membership negotiations which are to commence shortly will seek to achieve this objective.
But the so-called pre-membership strategy also serves to achieve these ends.
Within this strategy one fact which has particular weight is that we quite consciously wish to include the central and eastern European states in one of the most successful Community programmes which we have launched in recent years.
Erasmus is a programme which, in place of neurosis and xenophobia, seeks to establish a Europe-wide network of young people as part of their education process.
These young people have intercultural experience, a knowledge of foreign languages, which is expanding, and are undergoing an expansion and transfer of know-how, from which we shall all profit.
I know this personally as a trustee of one of the Erasmus programmes which brings together law students in 15 Member States, and one hopes that in future this will also include the countries of central and eastern Europe - and the legal fraternity is notoriously difficult to bring together because of the alleged and actual disparity which exists between our various legal systems.
This year for the first time we resolved to extend the Erasmus programme beyond the existing framework. The Council and the Commission then got out their red pencils.
Criticism has already quite rightly been expressed that, had this House not insisted on its rights of conciliation, then a good idea, and a necessary one for a larger unified Europe, would have seen its progress checked in a way which would have not really been enforceable.
As a university lecturer, I wish to thank all those involved for supporting this initiative.
Good things obviously take time, but this should not be taken to extremes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Guinebertière">
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="Evans">
Mr President, I should like to congratulate all those involved in conciliation and achieving more for the Socrates Programme than some of us even dreamed was possible.
It is one of the best, most important and most popular of European initiatives.
A recent article in one of the British magazines said that most EU citizens could not even tell you what the EU is for and the British disease of Euroscepticism was creeping across Europe.
There is no better way to counter scepticism than to provide education. Education and opportunities to learn about other countries, other cultures and other people; to learn about the joint history of Europe and to build on what unites us and not what divides us.
Mrs Pack spoke about a Europe of the citizens and this is what Socrates works to provide.
It can be the key to countering the Euroscepticism to which I referred.
With the expansion of Europe, as Mr Rack described a few moments ago, the Socrates programme is more important than ever.
In talking about enlargement of the European Union, it is important in providing exchanges - exchanges of people, yes, but exchanges of ideas and information too.
Countries that are developing and recovering from repressive regimes need extra funding and there are wide differences in the amount of funding available for education.
By coincidence, there is a study being launched today by the National Union of Teachers of England and Wales and the Educational Institute of Scotland which talks about comparisons in education funding across Europe.
In this Chamber we all know about the importance of education and the importance of realistic levels of funding to give young people chances in life and equalities of opportunity.
Somebody said that the trouble with education funding is that it is a bottomless bucket.
It is true that we could always spend more.
Mr Elchlepp spoke about the amount of money the European Union spends on agriculture and the amount that is wasted on the common agricultural policy and abuses in that system.
There are millions of pounds of European money going in fraud.
New Parliament buildings are going up across Europe.
Shortly we will have four hemicycles.
We have fancy offices which most Members did not want and cannot justify.
These - rather than providing education for the young people - are strange priorities for Europe to have.
Education and learning about Europe is a priority and needs funding.
The Socrates funding, as others have said, is always well spent.
Mr Elchlepp said that it is heavily over-subscribed in Germany as it is in other countries.
It is a success and money well spent.
We must address our priorities and this report is going very much in the right direction.
I support it as does my group.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, I wish to thank Mrs Pack for the splendid work she has done for the programme, especially in her defence of Parliament's view on the Conciliation Committee.
The ECU 70 million addition to the Socrates programme is a positive move.
We must nevertheless remember that even with this additional financing the resources planned for the programme will not be sufficient to do all we need to do.
Article 126 of the Treaty on European Union defines community goals in education and policy on youth.
In the spirit of the treaty let us strive to bring the European dimension to the question of education.
The goal is an extremely clear one and one that is important in structuring a real Europe of citizens. Unfortunately, not everyone has internalized this as yet.
Each Community-spent mark, franc or crown which helps our citizens to become more mobile in a concrete way, makes the Union seem more real and meaningful in the eyes of our people.
If students and researchers are made more mobile this should be the key project for both close-knittedness in the Union and future enlargement.
It is vital that Socrates money be increased significantly in the near future.
It is a crying shame that some of the exchange programme places have not been filled just because the Erasmus project was so meagre in its funding and so young people have not been given the opportunity to study abroad.
I know of examples from Finland where the Erasmus student grant was 2 000 marks, or around 15 000 Belgian francs a year.
The sum is ridiculous, and is forcing many students to fund their overseas education with loans.
Is this the European dimension in educational development?
The Union must try to see that everyone wishing to go abroad gets a basic cost-of-living allowance.
The status of the Erasmus-funded student is of little comfort to the young student or researcher seeking the international experience.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Heinisch">
Mr President, going from ECU 25 million to ECU 75 million is a major achievement.
This is all down to Mrs Pack and at this point let me thank her most sincerely for her successful efforts.
As part of the debate on the eastwards enlargement of the EU we must be careful to ensure that these new member countries also have access to the European education programmes.
But this cannot be done without the financial means.
One of the most important points concerns the preparation of the countries in question and the creation of a solid basis for universal education and vocational training.
I am sure that their involvement in the Community programmes will have a positive effect on the participants and that this represents an excellent basis for preparing for membership.
How else should young people better learn about democracy than in an exchange with other young people in Europe?
And I am in no way excluding Turkey from these considerations.
Here too, participation in the various programmes will help young people greatly increase their understanding of the democratic processes and I would very much welcome the opportunity to resume this debate in the coming months with my report to the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, where I am hoping for support.
Now I am anxious to know how the programmes are progressing.
We will have to carry out a census in order to identify and retain those which are successful.
Admittedly some aspects deserve criticism, such as the amount spent on application procedures.
I also hope that we can count on increased resources for adult education purposes.
Lifelong learning is now more important than ever and we must continue to impress this on the national consciousness.
The 1996 European Year of Lifelong Learning has already proved successful and it would be logical to follow this up by launching projects within the Socrates and Leonardo programmes.
Finally, let me say how much I welcome the increasing emphasis being placed on quality assurance in Socrates.
I hope that the Council will support Parliament in its efforts to set up a European network.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="Bjerregaard">
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="President">
<CHAPTER ID=14>
Wild animals in zoos
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="President">
The next item is report (A4-0010/98) by Mr White, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council recommendation relating to the keeping of wild animals in zoos COM(95)0619 - C4-0103/96-95/0333(SYN).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="White">
<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Putten">
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Redondo Jiménez">
Mr President, our group congratulates the European Commission on its proposal, and also the rapporteur, Mr White, for his efforts towards the protection of wild animals in zoos.
These efforts are important and very praiseworthy.
The Group of the European People's Party is in favour of measures to improve the protection of animals. The new protocol in the Treaty of Amsterdam concerning the protection and wellbeing of animals shows that this, more than ever, is an area where the European Union and its Member States are duty bound to react, and bear this aspect in mind in all the other Community policies.
<P>
As for the specific subject matter of this report, we are convinced that there is a need to guarantee the best conditions in all the zoos of the European Union, and furthermore, we believe this is possible.
Similarly, we must make sure we do away with the futile suffering of animals as a result of acts or negligence on the part of human beings.
<P>
However, the question remains whether a recommendation or a directive is the best way to achieve this objective.
Those people who base their reasoning on the principle of subsidiarity would say that, even accepting the importance of the objective, the Member States are the competent authorities and should take the appropriate measures, as necessary, according to their individual circumstances.
That was the decision arrived at following discussions on the principle of subsidiarity during the 1992 Edinburgh Summit, and that was also why the European Commission withdrew its original proposal for a directive, to replace it with the current proposal for a recommendation.
<P>
Those people who continue to mourn for a directive would say that even while accepting the very strong arguments in favour of such a subject being dealt with only at national level, the fact is that time has gone by and little progress has been made since the Edinburgh Summit, showing that in fact, the only instrument able to produce real progress and end the suffering of zoo animals is a European directive.
<P>
Although we all agree on the basic question, and the importance and value of the objective, opinions are still divided - that is true of my group - about the best way of achieving it.
Personally, I think the principle of subsidiarity should not be forgotten, but we should guarantee the protection of animals and try to achieve that in the best way possible. Having said that, I accept that our experience so far could lead us to conclude that European legislation would probably be the quickest and most effective way to ensure a real improvement in the wellbeing of animals in zoos throughout the European Union.
That is why my group will be free to vote on the legislative proposal as they see fit, as regards converting the proposal for a recommendation into a proposal for a directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="McKenna">
- Mr President, we really need an EU directive on the protection of wild animals in zoos.
A simple recommendation on how the EU States should keep their zoos would be non-binding, non-enforceable and would just not be good enough.
Some zoos in the European Union are little more than concentration camps for animals.
People who visit them with their eyes open will see animals who are distressed and demented within their confined enclosures.
Minimum rules to protect these animals are long overdue.
From an educational point of view zoos can be highly misleading, as they try to teach children that it is acceptable to keep wild animals in confined spaces.
Educating children about the wide variety of animals in the world is hugely important but if wild animals are put on display in conditions vastly different to their natural habitats, the effect is mis-educational.
It would be far better to use advances in interactive technology to give children an impression about natural habitats and the need to protect these habitats and preserve them.
The argument that zoos are essential to the conservation of endangered species is not borne out by experience.
In many cases there has been a much higher death rate among zoo animals than among their counterparts in the wild.
For example, in Dublin Zoo almost fifty per cent of all the hippos born there over the last decade have died in infancy.
That is a mortality rate several times higher than for hippos in the wild.
Furthermore, the very highlighted role of zoos in conservation of endangered species is wildly exaggerated.
Research by the wild life organization Born Free has shown that only three per cent of animals held in world zoos belong to internationally recognised captive breeding programmes.
There is no doubt that certain species of animals like, notably, large cats, birds, elephants and giraffes experience recurring problems in zoos.
These animals are kept in zoos solely to attract people through the entrance gate and it is wrong and dishonest of people to suggest otherwise.
Finally, I would just like to say that the experience of Dublin Zoo, for example, last year was extremely disturbing.
There were a huge number of events where questions need to be answered.
Eleven penguins died and that has not been explained; there was only one that actually survived.
As well as that, there was a rhino that tried to escape and was shot without using a tranquillizer to minimize the pain; that has also not been explained.
Zoos are unessential in this so-called civilized world of today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 NAME="Elliott">
- Mr President, I strongly support this report and I very much hope the Commission will take the view of the Parliament that we want a directive on the management of zoos.
I speak in my capacity as President of the European Parliament's All Party Group for Animal Welfare.
There is a longstanding pressure from this Parliament for a directive.
The sad thing is that some six or seven years ago there was almost a total agreement with the need for this directive from the Parliament, Commission and the more responsible people who manage zoos.
This fell foul of the rather silly argument about subsidiarity.
This is an area where it is sensible that the decision should be made at European level.
We want to ensure that proper standards are maintained right across the European Union.
We have heard one of two speeches this evening by people who question whether we really need zoos at all.
I do not entirely go along that road but I do take the view that zoos that do not maintain the best possible standard and the most natural environmental conditions for their animals are unacceptable and should not exist.
So we want these high standards.
As the rapporteur said, there is a considerable interchange of animals between different zoos.
This is often inhibited because, quite rightly, zoos which are responsible organizations and care properly for their animals are reluctant to transfer them to zoos that are not.
Countries that do not maintain the very best standards for their zoos lose out in this way, and incidentally lose out on tourism.
Zoos are attractive from a tourist point of view but tourists will not go to those countries again and visit their zoos if they see the animals are not being properly cared for.
It is in everyone's interests that we should maintain the very highest possible standards and I hope that this report has some success in pushing that aim forward.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="Provan">
Mr President, I believe there is only one issue that is really facing this Parliament and I thank Mr White for bringing forward this report in the way that he has done.
There is a great deal of unanimity in the Parliament on most animal welfare issues.
We have been the main institution at European level that has driven animal welfare forward as an issue at all.
I personally am a staunch supporter of stricter animal welfare laws and this Parliament's leading in the field of animal protection.
Whether it be farm animals, animals in transport or animals in laboratories, it is all part of the same issue.
Zoos which we are discussing here tonight come into the same category.
The issue of animal welfare in zoos has been, as pointed out, under discussion for a decade at least.
It was a predecessor of ours, Sir James Scott-Hopkins, who raised the issue initially.
Action is needed.
Animal slums actually exist in Europe at the present time trading under the name of zoos and that is not good enough.
If we want to do something, we have to do it properly.
A recommendation which people can ignore is just not good enough.
I hope, Commissioner, that you will be able to give us an answer tonight as to what your position will be if Parliament takes a very strong stance on this and calls for a directive rather than for a recommendation, which is what the Commission is currently proposing.
I can foresee that the Commission will be extremely unpopular in this Parliament if they go against the will of the people.
Subsidiarity has been mentioned and of course it is an issue but animal welfare as a subject is seen, in this Parliament especially, to transcend all matters of subsidiarity.
I hope Commissioner that you will spell out quite clearly your own position because we must have a level playing field in this area, otherwise the people of Europe are going to be highly discontented with this Parliament and I believe with the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 NAME="Jackson">
Mr President, I was originally rather a sceptic about the idea of having a European directive on zoos but I have been converted to the idea by a number of considerations and I am grateful to Mr White for his generous reference to Sir James Scott-Hopkins when he introduced his report.
First of all, we have to consider whether or not Europe is actually legislating, if it does legislate through a directive on zoos, in response to a popular demand.
After all we do an awful lot of things that most people do not like, including the introduction of a single currency.
The people of Europe must sometimes wonder whether there is anything going to come out of Brussels that they actually do want.
We have heard enough today, at least from the British Members and also from Mrs Redondo and Mr Lindqvist to make us realize that this is actually rather a popular issue and would be sustained by a popular demand that Europe should act.
The second issue, is it appropriate to consider this a European responsibility?
Mr White has referred to what happened at the Edinburgh Summit.
My understanding of the chain of events was that essentially it was Chancellor Kohl who came in at one point and said: ' What we do not need is for Europe to go on fiddling around with detailed legislation; for example, there is this proposal for a directive on zoos, surely we can junk that one' and generally threw his weight around.
And when Chancellor Kohl throws his weight around people tend to take notice.
I disagree with that idea; I think it is appropriate to consider this as an European initiative and I take issue with the point about subsidiarity.
Subsidiarity does not necessarily mean, as Mr White has realized, that you pass legislation down to a lower level of responsibility.
It means that you legislate at whatever level is most appropriate.
It seems to me that in this instance we already have the idea that animal welfare is accepted as a part of the European Union's responsibilities.
We should also take into account a point raised by Mrs McKenna which is that zoos look after part of the general environmental heritage.
There is a sense in which a supranational body is the most appropriate body to look after that.
The other question I would like to consider is will it be possible to enforce - I think it will.
This is actually one of the directives it would be reasonably easy to enforce.
My problem with Mr White's report is that I do not see how easy it will be to translate what has been proposed as a recommendation into a directive.
What stance would the code of practice have?
Can you have a code of practice in a directive?
Would it be legally enforceable?
I also disagree with the rapporteur on seeking to widen the legal base to include Article 100a for reasons given in the Legal Committee's opinion.
For once, I hope that Mr Kohl will be ignored.
I hope that Mr White will be able to work on his government, which has written to me that they are not necessarily over the moon about the idea of a European directive on zoos, and I look forward very much to a positive response from the Commissioner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 NAME="Bjerregaard">
<SPEAKER ID=149 NAME="President">
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Madam President, during the sitting yesterday adjournment of a debate was requested under Rule 131.
The debate covered asylum rights and the adjournment was requested by Mr Schulz.
It can happen, of course, that adjournment has to be requested, but we have a feeling that the Socialist Group plays these kind of tricks every time.
We saw it last week at the part-session in Strasbourg during the debate on drugs policy which was adjourned on the same grounds, and yesterday we had to witness this trick with regard to asylum policy.
<P>
We are under the impression that the Socialist Group does this when they cannot win a debate.
It was clear that on drugs policy they were going to lose gloriously in the House.
It was clear that on asylum policy the opinion of the Socialist Group was not going to be shared by the majority of the House.
Mr Nassauer made that clear more than once to the Socialist Group.
Using Rule 131 to spring surprises on Parliament does not fit in with the mores of the House. I have become familiar with the excuses of the Socialist Group, but I do think that on this point we have to make agreements in advance.
It is not acceptable to spring surprises on one another.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, I let you speak for longer than your allotted speaking time, but I would like to ask the other members who have asked for the floor to keep to their speaking time.
I assume that you wish to speak on the same subject, Mrs Fontaine.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fontaine">
Madam President, I would like to address the same subject, that is, referral to committee of the asylum rights issues which were decided upon yesterday afternoon.
Of course, I am not contesting the request for referral which is entirely in accordance with the rules, but rather the conditions under which the vote was taken. Only 51 Members were able to take part in the vote, and I feel, Madam President, that this number is not very representative of our House, particularly on such a sensitive issue as that.
<P>
However, I think that we gained at least one thing from it all; we were able to carry our a very useful practical exercise in measuring the time and distance between our offices and the Chamber.
I hope that this information will be recorded in the minutes.
<P>
Many of us were trapped in the lifts which were, of course, stopping at every floor to admit colleagues who were hurrying to get there, and a large number of us arrived just a few minutes before the vote.
<P>
Madam President, might I request that the Quaestors provide a rule which specifies that a period of 15 minutes be allowed between the first bell and the time of the vote.
I feel that this proposal is very reasonable, and will submit it to the Quaestors.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Madam President, I agree entirely with what Mrs Oomen-Ruijten and Mrs Fontaine have just said.
On page 15 of the Minutes, I see that the president of the sitting responded to the speakers who raised the arguments just mentioned, saying that 'two Members spoke and this left enough time for Members to get to the Chamber' .
<P>
I would strongly reject this, because in fact a number of Members heard the bell and immediately hung up their phones, some quite casually according to their interlocutors, but they were not actually in a position to be able to vote.
This is scandalous.
I would point out that in national parliaments there is not just one bell - some of our colleagues even thought that it was a fire alarm.
As already requested, Members' offices should be fitted with lights, as is the case in some parliaments; these would indicate when the vote is announced to give the Members the time they need to get to the Chamber.
<P>
I would ask the Office and the College of Quaestors to tackle this issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="Provan">
Madam President, I agree with what Mrs Fontaine and Mr Pasty have said but I should like to broaden the matter rather than narrow it down.
We accept what happened yesterday on the floor of the House because it was under the existing rules.
The unfortunate thing was that time was not allowed for Members to get here.
It is Rules 126, 128, 129, 130, 131 and 132 which need to be looked at.
Those rules say quite clearly that the vote will be taken immediately.
What does immediately mean?
When the bells are rung it normally means that we have ten minutes before we get to the plenary for the start of a session.
The bells rang yesterday, but as Mr Pasty quite rightly said, there was no other indication whatsoever what was going on in the Chamber.
<P>
I recognize that we have just moved into a new building and the full scenes are not yet available on our television sets but it is an issue that the administration needs to address.
Maybe this should go to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities so that the Rules can be changed to accommodate what happened yesterday.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="Kerr">
Madam President, I also want to complain about what happened last night.
Not only was I not able to get to the vote but I was out of the House on parliamentary business and came back to speak.
The world was waiting to hear my words on Socrates and was deprived of them.
Changing parliamentary business at the last minute as was done on a very small vote last night is totally contrary to the spirit of democracy.
Speaking on behalf of the Green Group, I utterly condemn what happened last night.
<P>
(Mixed reactions)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Díez de Rivera Icaza">
Madam President, first of all I naturally reject what Mrs Oomen-Ruijten just said about the attitude of the Socialists.
And I would go further than that: on page 14 of the Minutes it says that when Mrs Díez de Rivera - in other words, I - arrived in the Hemicycle yesterday after the bell rang for the vote, I protested there and then because we had not been given enough time to get to the vote, when it was an exceptional vote.
So, Madam President, I agree with what Mr Pasty, Mrs Fontaine and Mr Provan said, but I was late, despite running out of my office.
Therefore, once again I reject Mrs Oomen-Ruijten's criticism of the Socialist Group, and there is the proof that we all tried.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Kirsten Jensen">
Madam President, as is clearly apparent, the Social Democrats have also had difficulties getting to the vote concerned here.
I am, of course, also sorry about the problems which other groups have had, but we tried to warn them in advance that we wanted to have a vote under Rule 131 because we believe that, after the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party had withdrawn their signature from the joint proposal, we needed more time to draw up a joint text on the right of asylum, which could also achieve broad support in this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I think we are agreed that Rule 131 of the Rules of Procedure was the basis for the vote.
So I am satisfied that the Rules of Procedure were correctly followed.
However, I recognize that those Members who have expressed the view that the distance here is too great have some right on their side.
I think it is the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, and not the Quaestors, who should look at that Rule and consider how we can make sure that this does not happen again.
I have to say that my own office is on the 12th floor, and I also heard the ringing; I got here just as the vote was taking place.
It was certainly very tight and we cannot allow that to happen in the future.
<P>
For the time being, I am bound to say that matters were conducted in accordance with the rules yesterday.
During the next part-session, the Conference of Presidents will have to decide where this will come on the agenda. However, I shall pass on the criticisms that have been made here both to the Bureau and to the Conference of Presidents.
We can then decide whether to forward the matter to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, or whether, as Mrs Fontaine has suggested, we can find a simple solution in advance, so that we have acceptable arrangements in future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Madam President, what Mrs Jensen is saying is terrible.
I like her, but we cannot have a situation whereby. when another group withdraws its signature under a resolution, Parliament no longer votes on a text.
This is happening for the second time now.
First it was drugs, now asylum policy.
The Socialist Group is not going to make it and simply says: well, then we will withdraw it.
This is unparliamentary behaviour.
It does not fit in with the mores of the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, someone has already pointed out - I think it was Mr Provan - that we should have been informed that a vote was taking place and what it was about.
I can only say that we all have a duty to look at the agenda.
Everyone had a chance to check what was on the agenda, and everybody knew that according to the Rules of Procedure anyone can adjourn an item at any time.
Those are the rules but I do have some sympathy for what has been said.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Watson">
Madam President, I would suggest one simple way of overcoming the problem of the distance between Members' offices and the Hemicycle.
It is one that a colleague of mine has already adopted. It would simply be for Parliament to provide all Members with bicycles.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Watson!
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Training of seafarers
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0411/97) by Mr Parodi, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Council Directive amending Directive 94/58/EEC on the minimum level of training of seafarers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Parodi">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the amendment to the Directive on the minimum level of training for seafarers, which is the subject of the present recommendation, was prompted by the need to adapt the training of seafarers to suit the actual conditions which pertain in maritime transport, in particular the new technological developments which have been introduced on board ships and new methods of occupational training.
Let us not forget that 80 % of maritime accidents can be directly attributed to human errors or omissions.
<P>
The objective of the revision of the STCW Convention and the associated amendment to Directive 94/58/EEC is to remedy this situation and, if possible, to lessen the impact of the human factor on maritime accidents.
This goal can be achieved by establishing minimum requirements for the occupational training and watch-keeping certification of seafarers, providing effective control of the application of international regulations and preventing the credibility of the certificates issued from being damaged by a general failure to comply with the provisions of the Convention, as has happened in the past.
<P>
In my judgement, therefore, this amendment must be regarded in a positive light, as it represents a step towards increased safety and reinforces the powers of the IMO with regard to procedures, the supervision of training methods and certification.
<P>
At first reading, the guiding principle I adopted when drafting my report, with the decisive support of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, was to improve and consolidate as far as possible the proposal for a directive by eliminating any uncertainties in law and legal disputes concerning the obligations of Member States with regard to the issuing and recognition of seafarer's training certificates, thereby preventing the employment of barely qualified crews.
<P>
In fact, I believe that a rationalization or harmonization of the criteria used for recognizing qualifications, coupled with the adoption of strict quality requirements, may help to raise seafarers' level of competence, improve the safety and competitiveness of the Community fleet and reduce the number of substandard ships.
As I have said before, safety is at stake; however, I must add that the Commission has amended its initial proposal in light of the first reading.
The Council's common position has welcomed the sense, the concept and the objectives which are an integral part of the amendments made to the provisions of the original proposal.
<P>
In fact, the Council has reworded a number of paragraphs in the initial proposal. It has also introduced new paragraphs which are more in line with Parliament's wishes and whose objective is to increase safety.
The new articles concern the rules governing coastal shipping, sanctions and disciplinary arrangements, quality standards, medical requirements, the issuing and registration of certificates, the liability of shipping companies and the inspection of landing facilities. These are articles which, together with the other amendments, have the merit of removing uncertainties and simplifying interpretation.
<P>
In conclusion, at this point I believe that the common position and the position expressed by the European Parliament which inspired the amendments have been fully taken on board by the Council.
Thanks to these amendments and the present improvements, it will be possible to take a further step towards increasing safety at sea, an objective which Parliament has been pursuing for many years and which we shall continue to pursue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Watts">
Madam President, on behalf of the Party of European Socialists, I would like to begin by expressing my wholehearted support for this proposal for a directive amending the original directive on the minimum level of training of seafarers.
It is another positive step in the improvement of both safety at sea and the protection of our very important marine environment.
Bearing in mind that over the past decade we have lost some 12, 000 lives at sea throughout the world - and, indeed, continue to lose more than 200 ships a year throughout the world, we in the European Union need to be constantly on guard to enhance and improve the standards of safety at sea.
<P>
The essential essence of this directive is to address the human factor.
As the rapporteur, Mr Parodi, quite rightly pointed out, some 80 % of maritime accidents are attributable to human error and therefore this key issue should play an important part in our maritime strategy to enhance safety and protect the environment.
It is vital that seafarers receive the necessary high level of training and certification in order to reach the level of competence and skill needed during their service at sea, to be able to communicate effectively with the crew, follow instructions and advice and, on occasion - all too often I fear - deal with crisis situations.
Vessels must be crewed by seafarers who possess the necessary theoretical and practical knowledge.
<P>
This current proposal seeks to incorporate the requirements of the 1995 Convention on the standards of training of certification and watch-keeping for seafarers.
I would like to congratulate the Commission not only for keeping pace with international maritime law but transposing it into Community legislation to ensure that it is effective throughout our European waters.
I hope that the Commission will continue to maintain this pace of improving safety at sea.
This proposal for a directive seeks to include the new training and certification requirements, including watchkeeping requirements and to introduce common criteria for the recognition of seafarers' certificates issued by third countries.
<P>
Like Mr Parodi, I was pleased that the Council, with the support of the Commission, has incorporated most of the ideas and objectives of the European Parliament in the first reading.
I am pleased to say that Mr Parodi successfully managed to further clarify and enhance the Commission proposal, removing uncertainties and simplifying the text.
I was particularly impressed with the emphasis which the rapporteur put on the need to attract young people into the maritime profession and to promote the employment of seafarers.
In its recent communication 'Towards a Maritime Strategy' , the Commission indicated that there is a worldwide shortage of qualified and able seafarers.
Developing a European policy to bring young people into the profession is a vital means of providing both highquality seafarers and helping resolve the problems of unemployment in Europe, not least in our maritime communities.
<P>
I would like to take this opportunity to commend the rapporteur on the importance he placed on having a common working language to be able to work effectively and, in particular, handle crisis situations.
I look forward to the implementation of this directive in Member States as another positive move in our campaign for maritime safety.
<P>
I would conclude by urging the Commission to ensure that this amendment to the directive is implemented, is transposed and is enforced by the Member States.
We have recently had a report that some 60 % of all transport internal market directives have yet to be transposed by the Member States. Perhaps the Commissioner would like to comment on how best we can ensure that this very worthy directive is not only supported here in this House, implemented by the Council but is actually implemented on the ground by the Member States and their enforcement agencies.
Indeed, I would like to see some mechanism whereby we can have a regular reporting mechanism to ensure that safety standards throughout the EU are not only maintained but are implemented and enforced at a high level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Sarlis">
Madam President, on behalf of the European People's Party I must stress that we too support the common position, as amended by the Committee on Transport's three amendments, which we already approved in committee.
<P>
I must point out that the proposal being considered amends Directive 94/58/EEC, which was adopted by this Parliament, and also that it is a directive which has largely been incorporated into the national legislations.
Consequently, I am optimistic that the amendments to that first directive, concerning which we have the present common position, will enjoy equally rapid incorporation into national laws.
<P>
This new amending directive certainly represents great progress.
Its most important point is that it introduces measures which could constitute incentives to attract new young seafarers.
<P>
On the other hand, the new directive clears the picture, because it makes a clear distinction between matters relating to the training and recruitment of seafarers, and those relating to how crews on ships operate.
<P>
I must therefore say that while we all welcome this progress achieved by the new, supplementary directive, it should at the same time be noted that the Commission has not adopted initiatives in the area of positive measures on behalf of European shipping.
<P>
We make progress with safety issues, we extend the controls applied to ships in European ports and in terms of the ability of the crews that man the ships, any ships, and steer them into European ports, but we have still done nothing to propose positive measures to stop shipping from abandoning European flags.
The Commission has been slow about that.
It seems that there is a dearth of ideas in the Commission, that it has no proposals to offer.
There is of course a proposal on shipping strategy, but because of the many problems it created, that has somewhat fogged the whole picture of European shipping policy.
<P>
I should like to say, however, that it is time for, and we are waiting to see, a new spirit, a new approach to the issue of positive measures on behalf of shipping, because we continue to progress haphazardly either via second ships' registers, and now every country is setting up a second ships' register, or by continually running down the European flags to the benefit of other, improbable flags, and I stress this point.
There are tiny islands which have large merchant fleets.
This is not the right time to point out the dangers in that, but from the floor of Parliament I once more call on the Commission to reflect on how it could deal with the problem we know as 'positive measures on behalf of shipping' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Madam President, I too think that the report by Mr Parodi contributes greatly towards improving the Council Directive amending Directive 94/58/EEC, and our group supports it.
Of course, I would like to mention two reservations or questions, ones that stem at least from our experience of Greek shipping, granted that Greece has one of the largest merchant fleets in the European Union.
<P>
The first reservation relates to the statement that 80 % of accidents are caused by human error.
The experience we have from Greece is that while human error certainly plays a major part, a very large proportion of accidents are caused by the operation of old vessels which can only respond to bad weather or other problems with great difficulty.
I could accept Mr Parodi's argument if, under the heading of human error, we included neglect, criminal neglect and the criminal cover-ups often associated with the operation of such vessels.
<P>
My second reservation relates to the recruitment of young people to ships and this is an orientation that is very important indeed.
However, once again our problem in Greece is not that the young are not attracted into training with a view to having a professional career in shipping, but that the labour market for shipping is constantly being restricted, decreasing and contracting, despite the fact that Greece has a very large merchant fleet.
And that, in my opinion, is because shipowners all too often pursue a policy of recruiting cheap, ill-trained crews from third countries, from Asian countries etc., with the result that, not only is the labour market reduced in the Community area, but there is also a lack of safety in the operation of the vessels.
<P>
The three amendments insisted upon by Mr Parodi have our support, in relation both to medical fitness and to watch-keeping conditions on the bridge, as well as the subject of restricted rest periods.
In particular, however, we should note the matter of verbal communication.
There is often a very great problem with verbal communication among the crew, which often leads to accidents.
And I would like to say that Greece has recently suffered two major shipping disasters, with many lives lost at sea, which took place during the holidays.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Macartney">
Madam President, I should like to join in the congratulations to Mr Parodi for his excellent work and welcome the constructive nature of this whole debate.
I would also like to echo the points made by Mr Watts about the dangerous nature of seafaring.
We broadly support the whole thrust of this report.
Like Mr Sarlis and Mr Alavanos, however, I share the concern about crews from third countries which are an increasing phenomenon in the EU shipping area. It is causing a lot of concern, not only in Scotland where I come from, but over a huge range of European countries.
<P>
It will be helpful for the port states to have a role in this.
They will be crucial in enforcing the standards which we rightly expect of the European countries.
I would like to say to Commissioner Bjeregaard that the challenge now from the point of view of the European citizens is to see that the standards that we expect are applied to those third country crews.
Otherwise, there is a grave danger that a lack of fluency in the right language, the failure to be able to communicate could put lives at risk.
In a year when a large box-office draw is a film about the sinking of the Titanic , we need no reminder how terrible disasters are and we want to do everything possible to prevent their occurrence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Le Rachinel">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, there are a considerable number of accidents caused by human error in the domain of seafaring which have serious consequences for human life or for flora and fauna.
In far too many cases, ships show the flag of convenience and are manned by non-Community crews, so ensuring a cheap workforce.
<P>
The National Front has always denounced this movement of workers which means using an under-qualified, non-European workforce.
Not only is this harmful to employment, but it is also endangers the safety of ships and of our coasts.
We must oppose the concept of social dumping which pays a Polish or Chinese sailor FF 2500 per month, where a French sailor gets FF 10 000.
<P>
We can only relaunch and protect this sector by adopting a systematic policy of national preference for employing sailors, and direct or indirect financial support for its own shipping fleet by each country.
So we welcome the report by Mr Parodi which aims to promote an adequate level of sufficiently harmonized training and professional competence which will increase safety of seafaring within European.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I think this is a good example of how the Council of Ministers and the Parliament can work together.
In response to a good proposal by the Commission we have essentially agreed in two readings on how the training of seafarers could be improved, with particular reference to their protection and to protecting our citizens and the environment.
As various Members have already said, substandard ships are the nub of the matter, although I must tell my friend from Greece that I am not quite sure if I would include old ships.
Ships may be very old, yet if they are well maintained and have a good crew, they are highly seaworthy.
I sincerely believe that the human factor is one of the main causes of accidents, and - we are lucky in having the right Commissioner with us this morning - accidents at sea often result in dreadful pollution which put nature and the sea seriously at risk.
Training seafarers so as to avoid accidents can accordingly make an indirect contribution to preventing sea pollution and to environmental protection.
<P>
I believe it is particularly important that watchkeeping requirements have been tightened up.
But it is my belief, whether the Titanic is a good example or not, that they knew what was happening.
They just needed to react properly.
However, the economic interests of the company outweighed the need to protect passengers.
We must make sure that never happens again, so I believe that these watchkeeping requirements are very good.
But watchkeeping is not of course the end of the story.
Mr Parodi has once again brought forward a very good proposal from the first reading.
Madam Commissioner, it would be wonderful if you could give this additional Parliament amendment your support, as its aim is even more stringent treatment of exceptional circumstances in relation to watchkeeping, and I believe that safety at sea must come first.
<P>
On the latter point, I should like to support what my colleague has said.
It is no good at all if the Parliament and the Council, in conjunction with the Commission, make excellent law, and if Member States implement this law by amending training regulations, if the same Member States then fail to ensure that checks are carried out under Port State Control to ensure that ships are, in practice, only crewed by well trained seafarers.
In this context I think we need to ask the Commission, regardless of subsidiarity, to check whether training regulations are being adhered to, under Port State Control.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Madam President, I am very pleased that the rapporteur, Mr Parodi, is satisfied with the main approach of the Council's common position on the training of seafarers, just as most of the speakers have been.
I therefore also hope that Parliament will approve it at the part-session.
The Commission considers the joint position to be acceptable throughout because it is in agreement with the principles in the original proposal which was supported by Parliament.
In addition, it represents a clarification and, in particular, greater consistency in relation to internationally recognized requirements found in the revised STCW Convention of 1995.
In addition, as Mr Parodi states in his recommendation, account has been taken of the substance of the most important of the amendments which Parliament adopted during the first reading.
<P>
I would therefore like to urge Parliament not to insist on the amendments set out in the report, because they are actually contrary to the three fundamental principles of the directive.
The common position has been formulated so that it agrees as far as possible with the STCW Convention of 1995.
Amendment No 1 weakens this relationship because it changes wording which precisely corresponds to Rule 1/9 No 1 of the Convention.
I hope Parliament can recognize that it does not really make sense to deviate from this principle.
<P>
Another fundamental principle is that the amending directive must not make the non-binding part B of the STCW Code, which serves as a guideline for the national authorities, binding.
However, the addition proposed in Amendment No 2 corresponds to the wording of the non-binding part B, while the common position is in full agreement with the binding part A. Parliament will in any case be aware that the question of non-binding guidelines is discussed in the seventh consideration in the common position.
The third principle is to maintain the spirit of Directive 94/58/EEC which deals with standards for the training of seafarers.
It was never intended that the directive should deal with watchkeeping conditions as such.
<P>
Within the framework of the directive, the Commission and Parliament have succeeded in persuading the Council to incorporate certain rules on watchkeeping conditions in Article 5 H, on fitness for service, into the common position, namely rules on preventing fatigue and the associated safety risks.
These concern minim um rest periods which several of the speakers have also mentioned.
I hope against this background that Parliament agrees that the rule on watchkeeping conditions in Amendment No 3 is not appropriate for this directive.
<P>
Madam President, I have tried to explain as fully as and clearly as possible why the Commission cannot support the proposed amendments.
I hereby urge Parliament to reconsider its provisional position on the proposal so that we can get this legislation in place as soon as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
Madam President, if the Commissioner is going to ask us after such long discussions to reconsider our amendments again, then I for one believe that it would be much better for us to adopt the three amendments and ask the Commission to consider their position again, because their presentation was incomprehensible!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="Watts">
Madam President, a number of Members raised a key issue, namely that it is all very well for this Parliament, the Commission and the Council agreeing legislation but how do we ensure that it is respected, not only by all Member States but also with regard to ships flying flags of convenience?
I understand that this it is difficult for the Commissioner to react immediately but on a future occasion we would like a response from the Commission as to how we can ensure that this very worthy legislation is uniformly applied throughout European waters to ships, irrespective of flag.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="Parodi">
Madam President, very briefly I should like to say to the Commission that I have noted a certain hardening of its attitude.
Let me explain.
While we make ourselves available to resolve a very serious problem which certainly merits much greater attention, I do not think we should be asked to do a U-turn. Rather, it is the Commission which should be looking more towards the future and taking decisions more in keeping with the wishes of fifteen countries who are asking for this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Madam President, it is clear that I will pass on the message which Parliament has given today, but as you know it is not the Commission alone which decides whether anything will come of a piece of legislation.
What I expressed hope for in my closing remarks was that we could get the proposed legislation implemented soon.
I feel quite certain that my fellow commissioner, Mr Kinnock, will be very careful in ensuring that the Member States also comply with the legislation which is adopted, and will also make use of the fund we have available for the implementation of the adopted legislation.
But the request concerned the fact that we are very keen to have a piece of legislation adopted soon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Trans-European hydrological networks
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0407/97) by Mr Izquierdo Collado, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the technological feasibility of trans-European hydraulic networks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="Izquierdo Collado">
Madam President, in Parliament we have had some very important - I would even say beautiful - debates about water, thinking about water as a resource and an essential part of culture, which even distinguishes the cultures of different peoples.
This aspect of water, as a basic resource, is becoming more significant as time goes by, and it is already apparent that in the next century those water resources will become even more important.
The European Union must keep a very careful eye on this fundamental aspect of sustainable development and peaceful coexistence within Europe, and this is what we are working towards in Parliament.
<P>
What has the European Union done about water resources?
It has done some important things, but always focusing on water quality.
Obviously, at the moment, when we are so concerned about atmospheric pollution, and world summits are being held to protect the ozone layer, the quality of water resources needs to be protected firmly and vigorously.
I think the Commission is clear about that.
At the moment, it is preparing a directive which, unfortunately, is incomplete.
We have received a communication and a correction, and another correction is in progress, which perhaps does not give the best impression of the directive. However, the European Union is undeniably doing something about water quality.
I believe it is essential to protect our water, and work in that direction must continue.
<P>
Well, Madam President, in addition to quality, we also need to talk about the quantity of water.
While we were carrying out a study into this, through STOA, and during the Parliamentary initiative, Commissioner Bjerregaard, who is here with us now - and is not listening to my speech at the moment because she is not wearing her headphones - had the good sense to speak on behalf of the European Union about the amount of water, almost for the first time.
She did so following her visit to Seville, in Andalusia, where she was able to see that talking just about the quality of water will not solve the European Union's many water problems.
And indeed, the European Union can contribute that element of added value so that the optimization of water resources, at EU level, can be a reality.
<P>
Obviously, the Member States are working on their catchment area plans, and those plans are necessary in order to rationalize the various hydrological basins so that water resources can be rationalized in those areas where, for geographical reasons, such steps are necessary.
But we have to go a step further and carry out transfers of water between the basins if we want to provide solutions to the structural problems which arise within the European Union, such as flooding, drought and desertification.
<P>
Therefore, to a large extent, my initiative report attempts to draw attention to the fact that we need a European hydrological plan, and it is our duty to start designing it now: a plan which considers the overall needs of the European Union, and therefore administers water resources efficiently, constantly and strategically, protecting the environment, of course, and allowing it to be reactivated and improved through the use of that water. That European hydrological plan could be used to do many things, both in areas susceptible to flooding and in areas affected by drought.
In the report I give an example, which could be applied to other areas: connecting the basins of central and northern Europe with basins in the south which are short of water.
This would have no noticeable negative effect on the basins in the centre and the north, and the added value which could be contributed by transferring certain quantities of water could provide the answer for improving the hydrological plans of the southern Member States. These Member States' plans are necessary but cannot be put into operation, because the prolonged droughts of six or even seven years mean that the basins in the south which normally have an excess cannot transfer water to the southern States' own deficient basins.
<P>
I want to conclude by saying that the report is highly sympathetic to the fact that water is an extremely sensitive subject, and makes it absolutely clear that no water could be taken from any Member State without its express consent.
<P>
Madam Commissioner, I think there is a chance for us to work in this direction, and people are very hopeful that the Commission may be able to work to further this report, if it is approved by Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="Grossetête">
As draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on the Environment, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Izquierdo Collado, for his excellent report. The report underscores the problems of the uneven distribution of water resources in the countries of the European Union, for example, between northern and southern Europe.
So it is important not to ignore the angle of studying the technological feasibility of a given network which could effectively resolve the issue of water shortages in certain regions of Europe.
Of course, the study must show us that a viable solution exists, and this is why I insist that it is important that the European Commission gets this prospective study underway.
<P>
We do not have a great deal of experience of this in Europe.
We only know about the draft study between the regions Languedoc-Roussillon, in southern France, and the Barcelona region in Spain.
So as a Frenchwoman, I am particularly interested in this subject.
A prospective study on transferring water between two European regions must define the needs, the possibilities and also the different impacts and the potential which exists in Europe.
It must be a comprehensive study, taking into account any effects of this type of network on the management of water resources.
The rapporteur has of course explained that fully.
<P>
At an environmental level, this study must be accompanied by specific investigations which take into account all environmental aspects, such as the impact on landscapes, natural surroundings, ecosystems and human activity.
<P>
I would also like to make an important point clear to all our colleagues, as the rapporteur has done: a project of this sort, if it is feasible, cannot come about without the agreement of the country which would be required to transfer part of its water resources to a region suffering from an imbalance in its resources.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="McNally">
Madam President, I would like to congratulate Mr Izquierdo Collado for his hard work but also for his astuteness in picking a subject of paramount importance and for approaching his work in a spirit of scientific and technological inquiry.
He used a STOA inquiry which is exactly what we should do in this Parliament to test our views.
That STOA study made it absolutely clear that this is something the European Union should tackle.
Of course, it is an overwhelmingly important subject.
It will dominate us in the 21st century.
We must look not simply at the quality of water but at its location, its availability, and how it is managed.
We need a European audit of water in our Community.
<P>
Water was identified as one of the key areas when the task forces were set up by Mrs Cresson.
We need studies on reforestation.
We need to learn from the mistakes of the last two or three centuries which have left parts of the world as desert.
We need to look at how water can be retained.
We need to look at the location of water and how infrastructures could be used.
In doing all these studies we must look at the impact they will have on the environment.
The pilot scheme which I commend in Mr Izquierdo Collado's report would be an excellent way of seeing in practice how this would be feasible.
This continent will have to study water very soon.
Let us not wait for more crises.
We need rigorous and exhaustive impact studies before any such scheme takes place.
That is one condition.
The other, as Mr Collado has said, is the wholehearted and informed consent of any Member State whose water supply is involved in such a hydraulic network.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Estevan Bolea">
Madam President, the first thing I want to say is that we think this initiative report by Mr Izquierdo Collado is very timely, but, at the moment, it is just a technological evaluation of the feasibility of these trans-European hydrological networks.
In this Parliament, and in the European Union, we are working on the Fifth Framework Programme for Research and Development, which places great importance on the question of water.
And that importance, ladies and gentlemen, is due to the fact that most of us in this House are convinced - some are not, but they will soon see - that water is far more important than oil, gas or any other form of energy, because without water there is no life.
<P>
However, anything that comes out of this study must definitely be included in the water management policy which, as Mr Izquierdo Collado said, is in its infancy in the European Union.
<P>
Whoever does this study will of course firstly have to take into account an analysis of the alternatives. The first alternative is to use water better.
We can save a lot of water if we use it better.
Secondly, we have to consider other sources, such as the desalination of sea-water, for example. That is essential for the European Union, in order to produce technological equipment which could be exported to other countries, given that the big problem of the 21st century will be water.
It is possible there may be wars over water, ladies and gentlemen. So we are talking about an enormously important technological question.
Thirdly, there will need to be an assessment of the energy balance-sheet.
It seems to me that this is the big difficulty which these hydrological networks will encounter.
If they use up too much energy or if the results are energetically unacceptable, these networks will not be much use.
In any case, however, there are many hydrological basins which have already been connected, with transfers being made from one to another.
But it is only natural that we should first make these connections and perform these transfers within our own countries.
<P>
Madam President, Spain, where both Mr Izquierdo Collado and I come from, has a great deal of water, but it is not very well distributed, either in time or in geographical location.
It is all up in the north, around Cantabria, with very little in the south.
Therefore, we will study these actions in the centre of our country very carefully and, if appropriate, and if the Union makes that decision, we would join in with a water policy based on hydrological networks.
Obviously, the economic aspects will need to be studied.
Water is badly treated and not given the consideration it deserves: it does not receive sufficient financial resources, especially at municipal level.
I think whoever does the technological evaluation work will have to bear that in mind.
Obviously, there has to be an environmental impact assessment - European legislation demands that - but there would also have to be a strategic assessment of the plans themselves.
<P>
I want to inform the rapporteur that the Group of the European People's Party will support his report, although some of our members have certain doubts, perhaps because they see this important question in a different light.
However, I congratulate him in any case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
Madam President, this may appear to be a rather out-of-the-way issue for us in the European Parliament.
However, water is vital for everyone.
It is a natural resource which everyone needs for survival, so it is natural for us to discuss it here.
<P>
Two questions must, however, be asked.
The first question is whether this is a matter for the European Union. Or is it a matter which naturally falls under the principle of subsidiarity, i.e. is it the responsibility of the Member States?
The other question is whether the proposals presented in this report are good.
Are the large-scale proposals for the interconnection of European hydrological networks good?
I shall attempt to answer these two questions on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party.
<P>
Firstly, it is currently the case that all rules which regulate natural resources are national. For example, in all countries we have national legislation for forests, land and water.
That is natural, since forests and land lie within the nation states.
Even for water we have national legislation.
But there is a difference: water flows between different countries, rivers flow through different countries and lake systems are shared.
Therefore, there is a common interest in safeguarding water as a natural resource, both with regard to the quality of the water and ensuring that everyone has a share of it.
So the question is this: is the proposal to interconnect hydrological networks good?
We must really question whether this is the right way forward.
Is it right that mankind should interfere with natural hydrological networks with large-scale exploitation and solutions?
We have no idea what consequences that could have for the ground water, the climate or the environment.
It is also true that many of the problems which exist because of water shortage, droughts and floods, which we are trying to solve here, were caused by our human intervention, such as logging, plantations and earlier water controls.
<P>
If we are going to do something, we must first of all optimize the installations which already exist in order to make better use of the water in Europe.
To conclude: water is primarily a national concern, but with some common responsibility to use it sensibly and for everyone to share in it.
The Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party accepts a study, but it should first of all be directed at existing installations.
I myself am going to abstain from voting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Mr President, this report by Mr Collado emphasizes that within the countries of the EU there are different conditions as far as access to water is concerned.
In one region there may be a shortage of water, while in another on certain occasions there is a great surplus of water.
This is quite simply governed by the laws of nature.
To then suggest, as the rapporteur does, that we should take initiatives to try to restrain the laws of nature and to redistribute the water, so that it is more evenly distributed in the EU countries, is quite alien to me.
<P>
The truth is also that it is often mankind that is largely behind the water problems we have, through, amongst other things, agriculture or through the building of various infrastructure projects.
One example of this is Hallandsåsen in Sweden, where the ground water was lowered according to the criteria determined for the building of a tunnel through the ridge.
Mankind's way of living gives us a number of explanations for today's problems with water shortages or surpluses of water.
<P>
It seems as if people now believe the solution is to manipulate water courses further.
Such a measure involves interference with nature.
That is generally irreversible and therefore it should not be done, out of regard for the principle of caution.
<P>
Of course we should consider the issue of water here in Parliament, because the kind of water we have is vital.
Above all it is water quality that can be an EU issue, and where we at EU level should try to achieve something.
There should be no interference with nature to change or manipulate water flows.
<P>
The Green Group in the European Parliament is not going to support this report and will therefore vote against it in the final vote, just as we did when it was discussed in committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Novo Belenguer">
Mr President, I first want to express our most decided support for the report presented by Mr Izquierdo Collado, and especially for the implicit message contained in that report, which I think everybody has noticed, since the actual implementation of trans-European hydrological networks represents an important way of contributing to economic and social cohesion.
I do not think it is a question of governing the rain, as has been said here, but rather of somehow reusing it, or being well prepared, so as not to lose a single drop of that vital liquid, and to avoid the floods which have also been mentioned here so many times.
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I think UNESCO has also made a statement along these lines, saying that 12 million people currently die every year because of a lack of water, and warning that in 25 years' time more than 50 countries will be short of that vital liquid, and that potentially serious situations may even arise as a result.
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In fact, we should be aware that international legislation in this area is inadequate. Many countries do not even know the extent of their water resources.
In that sense, I should like to mention the proposal being studied and discussed by UNESCO at the moment, that the age-old Water Tribunal of Valencia could be adopted in the future as an international point of reference, to help avoid some of the potential conflicts which might arise in the 21st century.
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The shortage of water in certain areas represents an additional natural problem, and in order to overcome it we should act together, and from this Parliament, to urge all the peoples of Europe to show solidarity and promote really sustainable development in all the European regions. Hydrological networks, Mr President, have a lot to do with that development.
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The creation of a trans-European hydrological network would therefore be a good way of contributing to the development of those regions. In that way, a common asset - water - would contribute to a common objective - Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pinel">
Mr President, the report by Mr Izquierdo Collado deals with a subject whose importance has not yet been fully recognized; in the next few decades, water is likely to become an ever more critical factor in geostrategic terms.
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Neither must we lose sight of the fact that if water resources decrease considerably, especially, but not solely in southern Europe, then this is primarily a result of often irresponsible human activity.
Before establishing the feasibility of setting up trans-European water networks, we must first ask if this is what we want.
Of course, not all nations are equal in terms of water resources.
But we would be wrong to believe that water is more or less limitless in some countries.
By seeking to share wealth, we risk sharing shortages.
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A desire to transport drinking water over hundreds or thousands of kilometres may be satisfactory for certain industrialists, but for the importing regions this would surely be an admission of failure, and would signify giving up a real water policy.
This policy can only be local, based on safeguarding wetlands, preserving estuaries, and implementing more sparing agriculture and industry, recycling liquid waste, and if necessary, using the sophisticated technology of desalinating sea water.
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This resource must be managed as close as possible to the point of consumption.
Rain water should be examined, collected and its drainage towards ground water facilitated.
This is exactly the opposite of what intensive methods of production and national and regional development have done for 50 years.
We must stop tearing down our hedges, filling up our ponds and concreting over our waterways.
We must also redevelop the Mediterranean forest areas, damaged by fires: they have their part to play in restoring water reserves.
On the contrary, a continental network of water transport would represent waste, irresponsibility and could end in shortages if we do not take care.
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Moreover, I am surprised by the absence in this report of any mention of using water networks to transport merchandise, where possible, at a time when road and rail networks are saturated, or even for passenger transport within the framework of tourism.
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To sum up, I would stress that in order to improve the problems of real water shortages, it is our priority to take action to stem the causes of desertification, and we can do this because most of these causes are human ones.
It is important that priority goes to local action rather than launching a large-scale operation.
Community solidarity should be expressed at this level.
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<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Linkohr">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we shall probably only really appreciate how important water is when we no longer have any. That is why it is no coincidence that our Spanish friend has picked this subject.
I should like to give him my very firm support. Our friends from the northern countries have got somewhat excited about this here today, because they are afraid that the southern countries want to take away their water.
In fact, just the opposite applies, as every tomato or orange from a southern country that we eat in the north actually means that we are taking water away from the south.
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Every tourist who travels to Spain or another southern country uses water.
Assuming that everyone uses two to three litres of water a day, that means that tourists visiting Spain alone consume an additional 1 to 3 million cubic metres of water.
So there is already a kind of trade in water, but it is hidden.
Just think of all the bottles of mineral water, Perrier, Apolinaris, San Pellegrino or what you will, that are shipped all over the world.
That is all trade in water, except that it is transported by bottle rather than by pipeline.
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At the time of the Roman Empire, they had a 70 kilometre long water pipeline in Cologne, and they also had similar things in other cities.
Why should we not consider transfrontier water pipelines now?
It seems quite normal to me.
Mr Pinel's comment earlier was correct.
We need not only to work on water pipelines but also on proper management of available water. This seems so obvious to me that it is hardly worth repeating, we just need to get on with it.
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Water has a role to play in a Europe without borders, not only oil, gas and electricity, the trans-European networks that we already have.
Why should water not play a similar role?
In any case, I believe that water can be classified as a product or a service under the EU Treaty, it certainly comes under the EU Treaty and is not excluded from normal goods.
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<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, there are parts of Europe where there is not enough water, and areas where there is sometimes too much.
Other natural resources are similarly unequally distributed: forest, gravel, ores, oil, and so on.
Would it be right to claim compensation for the unequal distribution of olive oil resources, for example?
This region we are in here is a pretty substantial non-olive oil producing region.
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Waterway systems have always caused radical change to the ecosystem.
The reference to the canals of Provence and California was made without justification or critical examination.
We could just as well mention the ecocatastrophe that the River Aral waterway system has caused.
Before decisions are made in favour of one side or the other and measures taken, we should carry out a worldwide survey of the effects on ecosystems of waterways, canals and anything else connected, at the same time assessing their socio-economic and financial effects.
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In the case of Europe the matter is complicated by the fact that the effects are common to more than one Member State.
There has been plenty of experience of these for a long time now, but hardly any analytical work has been carried out at all thoroughly.
The survey should be undertaken by an independent study group or consultant.
Rights of ownership to land and water differ dramatically from one country to another.
There are countries where ground water belongs to the territory in which it is found, and is thus totally privately owned.
It is not right that the EU should interfere in individual nations' laws of ownership.
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A positive feature of the resolution is the mention of the creation of a water market.
This must be made much more of in our efforts to reach a stage where everything will happen within the framework of a free market.
Spain's tourists are drawn by its waters.
In any case an inventory of water reserves should be drawn up and these reserves must be protected through EU directives. We must, above all, respect national law.
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<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Mr President, Mr Linkohr, who spoke just now, asked why we should not consider trade in water, and added that water is after all just an economic commodity.
He seemed somewhat surprised at the excitement this subject arouses in countries with abundant water.
I am from Austria, and there is great excitement in my country about this, so perhaps I can help him a little here.
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Many people in Europe think that every problem can be dealt with by treating it as a commodity.
Everything that there is a demand for is a commodity.
They treat cloning this way, and book price maintenance in Germany - everything is a product and you can consider everything in that light. My question is, how do we consider things?
Why do we not think about the causes of water shortage? Why do we not think about a European strategy for European water legislation, a legal, political and technological strategy for sorting out water management problems, for water conservation and reutilization?
Why do people not worry about the mistakes made in agriculture and the single crop farming methods that are contributing to this water shortage?
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What about agricultural reform?
I think that the confidence of people in these water-rich countries is important. It is vital that politicians recognize the value of this commodity, Mr Linkohr, that they should have some notion, for example, of the contribution Austria's centuries-old water laws have made to giving my country its present level and quality of water reserves.
But no-one is suggesting doing anything like this at European level.
Instead, wherever and for whatever reason there is a water shortage or water quality is inadequate, we envisage simply bringing in water by pipeline from places where it is still available, and imagine that we will have solved the problem in that way.
That breeds mistrust, and that is the reason for the excitement we have seen, and we need to have a complete rethink if water is not only to be treated as a commodity, but if people are also to be aware of its value.
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<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kronberger">
Mr President, I can of course understand the problems of countries who have managed their water differently, and where it is now a commodity in short supply.
But whenever we come across logistical and structural problems it seems we try to solve them by interfering with nature on a gigantic scale.
That has to be wrong, it cannot work in the long run.
Before we consider major pipeline systems, we should consider how water supplies can be provided on the spot.
We should call for urgent studies into the effect of microclimates and the effect of vegetation adjacent to water reserves.
I am very much of the opinion that not only can we influence rainfall, but that we are already influencing it through our actions.
I think that there is enormous scope for doing very positive things with our water resources, including in countries where there are problems at present.
I believe that this debate should make us think about specific measures to solve these problems.
These measures should not consist of setting up yet another network and expecting spurious solutions to solve real problems.
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We cannot therefore support this report now.
However, we would like to be constructive and stress that we regard this debate as an opportunity for considering decentralized water management structures, and for investing money in them, because every ECU invested in that way will have an enormous medium and long-term benefit, I am quite convinced of that.
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<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bösch">
Mr President, you will have realized that this report has provoked a debate on a very Austrian subject. I would have been very grateful if the Member from the Austrian Freedom Party who spoke before me had used the same words that he used in Austria in connection with this report, namely that there is a water war in the EU at present.
In that light the whole picture looks quite different, and it is a very long way from the constructive approach that we are accustomed to working towards or appearing to work towards in this House.
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We do not doubt the quality of this report.
We know that there is no question of making new EU law in this field.
We also know what our rapporteur has referred to - point 18 in the report stipulates that there can be no transfer of water within the Union without the express permission of the Member States.
That means that the European Treaties come into play, and in view of that I think we will have relatively few problems.
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Even if this report seems a bit fishy to me, a fish with a very Spanish flavour, I do welcome the fact, as a number of earlier speakers have mentioned, including both Mr Linkohr and Mr Voggenhuber, that once again we in Parliament are dealing with one of the most important commodities, namely water.
One of our conservative friends has also quite rightly pointed out that there are undeniably ways of using and distributing water more efficiently in the southern countries.
But we need to be aware that the bill for clean water in the future will be a very hefty one.
In dealing with water management problems, we need to bear in mind that we may be talking about new policies, such as a new agricultural policy, as the present one takes no account of water at all, or, for instance, transport policy, which also fails to address water as an issue.
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<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Mr President, I fully accept the need for bilateral agreements in this area, and I wish Spain and France well.
I am also very grateful to the Members in my delegation, and above all to Mrs Grosstête, for agreeing to an amendment to which I attach great importance, as it makes it perfectly clear that any interference with a Member State's water without its express permission is completely ruled out.
We can only give our support if this amendment is accepted.
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I understand that all Member States already have very strict and precise internal regulations governing who may access water and how, so surely this is even more important when it comes to bilateral relations.
I would like to say a few words about those states that have their eye on their neighbours' water: do they really manage their own water carefully?
How do industry, factories and households behave?
Untreated water is discharged into our rivers and lakes in an appalling, dirty and dangerous state.
That is unacceptable.
It is everyone's duty to keep their own ground water reserves clean in the first place, and only then do they have a moral right to even consider looking at their neighbours' water!
I believe that we can only think about trans-European water networks when every country manages its own water with the utmost care.
One thing has to be clear: with the greatest respect, Mrs McNally, we do not want any wars because of water.
So we need to consider rights of ownership very carefully here.
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<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, before long all the Austrians in the House will have said something on this subject, but we still have not said everything there is to be said.
I would like to tell Mr Bösch that I am using exactly the same words to say in Austria what I have to say here, and this is not scaremongering. I am just expressing concern, despite having great sympathy for the problems of other Member States of the European Union.
This report is based on the dangerous assumption that natural resources unevenly spread between the sovereign states of the European Union can be supra-nationally redistributed.
Water is not a natural resource belonging to the European Union, as suggested in recital D, but rather a natural resource at the sole disposal of the people of those countries on whose territory it is found.
We very firmly reject the notion that quantitative aspects of water policy can be treated as a priority European Union policy.
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Nevertheless, the report does address some ideas which could provide an appropriate approach to solving the problems of countries where water is in short supply, such as technical measures aimed at improving the poor condition of water pipelines, reforestation or desalination of sea water.
Above all it is necessary to optimize existing local facilities, which would lead to a greater improvement in regions suffering from water shortages.
But intervention by the Commission in quantitative aspects of water policy would run counter to the principle of subsidiarity, and create additional unnecessary supranational powers, which would inevitably result in tensions between Member States.
Quantitative water policy is and must remain the sole preserve of sovereign states.
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<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to say thank you for the initiative from the Committee.
It reflects the citizens' ever growing interest in the question of water resources.
It is not only about drinking water, but about water in general as a limited resource which must be protected by a joint effort.
I can fully confirm what the rapporteur, Mr Collado, said about the fact that it made a great impression on all the Ministers when they visited Andalusia and experienced the great water shortage.
Fortunately it may be said that later (I have just visited the Doñana area again) the region did get some water, so the situation is not as desperate as it was at that time.
You will therefore understand that I place great emphasis on the questions of water management and the protection of water resources, and, as you know, in February and November 1997 the Commission approved a draft framework directive on water resources which will act as the central element of European water policy.
It was in fact Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection which, together with other institutions, took the initiative for a change in European water policy with the symposium on water in June 1995.
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Very briefly, a few comments on the draft framework directive on water resources, because it is currently being discussed by both Parliament and the Council, and because it contains a number of significant innovations.
Firstly, it will expand protection to cover all water resources and also promote sustainability in connection with the exploitation of these resources.
Secondly, its objective will be to achieve a good status for all water resources.
The means will be to combine limits for discharges with an objective for water quality.
Where regions or Member States share hydrological networks, they will set their objectives jointly.
Thirdly, there is the question of water volumes and the protection of water resources.
That is also being considered.
Water catchment shall be subject to a licensing procedure and an objective will be set to ensure that there is balance between water catchment and the natural renewal of water.
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Last, but not least, the framework directive on water will increase transparency and ensure the involvement of all affected citizens and parties when management plans or hydrological networks are being drawn up.
That means that significant topics raised in the draft resolution have already been taken up in the draft framework directive on water resources.
Let me give a few examples: protection of both water quality and water volumes, payment for water usage with full coverage of costs, assessment of existing facilities and their best possible use, increased transparency and involvement of citizens in water management.
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However, there are some questions raised in the draft resolution which Parliament's Committee on the Environment regarded with a certain degree of reservation, so to speak.
That applies in particular to the interconnection of Europe's hydrological networks with the aid of artificial watercourses.
The opinion of the Committee on the Environment, and I quote, ' insists that at present the European Union does not have the know-how or experience needed to establish such networks.'
I admit that I share the Committee on the Environment's scepticism on this point.
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The Commission is convinced that problems should first and foremost be tackled at source.
That is why the draft framework Directive on water obliges Member States and regions to jointly seek to solve their water problems within shared hydrological systems, but does not aim for large-scale transfers of water between hydrological networks.
At the moment, as several speakers also mentioned during the debate, the Member States and their regions show very different patterns of water-related problems and also very different strategies for solving them.
In my view that is one of the reasons why the institutions, Member States and non-governmental organizations are agreed that there is a need for a new European water policy, and I share many of the opinions expressed during the debate that this will be one of the major issues in future.
If, at this stage, the Community was obliged to set up a hydrological network, that would, in my opinion, not comply with the principles of sustainable development and of tackling environmental problems at source which are prescribed in the Treaty, and which are also one of the pillars of the proposed framework directive on water.
In addition, and here I will again point to the Committee on the Environment's opinion, it is still too soon to start on a study which covers the whole of the Community.
The necessary data will not exist until the framework directive on water resources has been adopted, and comparable objectives have been set.
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I feel there is support for this position in the opinion of the Committee on the Environment and in paragraph 8 of the draft resolution, which points to the possibilities of, and I quote, ' making the best use of existing facilities' and the fact that it is important 'to improve management before you invest.'
But the proposed framework directive would by no means prohibit such solutions in certain regions where people are clear about the data and assessments, respect the environmental objectives and have achieved agreement between the parties.
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During the development of a new European water policy, it has from the beginning been my intention as Commissioner for the Environment to consult with all interested and affected parties.
When I now look back on this process of consultation, I must regard it as extraordinarily successful, both because we have had very valuable input, and because there has been general support for the view that there is need for a new water policy, and for the structure it has been given in the proposal.
And it is also in that light that I see the very exciting debate which has taken place in Parliament this morning.
I am convinced that the proposed framework directive for water resources will form a good basis for cooperation on sustainable water management between the EU institutions, the Member States and their regions.
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<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
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The vote will take place at 11.00 a.m.
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<CHAPTER ID=4>
EC- Republic of Yemen cooperation agreement
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="President">
The next item is the report by Mr Pettinari (A4-0007/98) on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning the conclusion of the Cooperation Agreement between the European Community and the Republic of Yemen.
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<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Pettinari">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, Yemen is a country which over the past few years has made a number of major strides towards democracy and economic reform and these deserve the support of the European Union.
If we look at the political situation in the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen is setting a good example, admittedly with some contradictions, but one which requires a commitment from the European Union side by side with the authorities in San'a.
To this end, I recommend that the economic and trade Cooperation Agreement which is the subject of my report be ratified. The report will be put to the vote shortly.
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Since 1990 Yemen has been undergoing a process of reunification between the north and south of the country which has changed its geography and its politics.
With the defeat of the secessionist forces in 1994, the country experienced an acceleration of the democratic process which has resulted in the organization of general free and democratic elections.
A delegation from the European Parliament was even able to monitor the conduct of the elections and testify to the fairness of the electoral process.
Today, Yemen has a parliament made up of 301 members in which the normal interaction between the majority and the opposition are bringing about a population with a maturing democratic awareness.
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To understand my favourable views properly, you have to consider carefully the regional context in which Yemen finds itself. In the Arabian Peninsula Yemen's democratic experience is probably the most advanced and has developed despite external obstacles and opposition, in particular from Saudi Arabia which, for obvious political and economic reasons, has always tried to place obstacles in the path of the development of democracy in Yemen.
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What is more, the foreign policy choices made by Yemen during the Gulf War did not help to create a climate in which the country would be accepted into the international community. Only now is it finding its proper role on the regional and international stage.
In this context I should like to point out the country's constant and determined search for peaceful relations with its neighbouring countries.
This is further evidence of the existence of a deliberate democratic choice which I believe we should be supporting: a global good neighbours treaty has been signed with Oman to put an end to long-standing territorial disputes in the east of Yemen; the International Court of Justice in the Hague has become directly involved in the dispute with Eritrea over the Hanish islands, using peaceful diplomacy to put an end to a situation which must not be allowed to wreck relations between two important countries needlessly; contact is even being reestablished with Saudi Arabia to resolve territorial disputes in northern Yemen.
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In my opinion, these are important, positive political choices to which the Union should give its backing.
Admittedly, we all know only too well that Yemen still has a lot of problems. We only have to think of the unacceptable incidences of abduction which on more than one occasion have also involved tourists from my country.
But Yemen is undergoing a process of change and the context in which this is happening must also be understood by its critics.
In San'a I discussed face-to-face with the country's highest authorities the accusations of human rights violations which have also been voiced by Parliament, and I found they were open to dialogue and were prepared to provide all the explanations asked of them.
Likewise, the Yemeni authorities are aware of the different approach in Europe to women's issues, which must not however be tackled by shutting the country out, but by fostering closer cultural and social relations which, even in Yemen, must lead to the necessary emancipation of women.
I can testify personally to the existence of a sincere and proven desire for dialogue on the part of the Yemeni authorities who are actually asking for help with specific programmes to further improve human rights and conditions for women in Yemen.
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Finally, I believe that the approval of the agreement between the European Union and Yemen must be seen as an opportunity to bring about closer Euro-Arab political and economic relations in a region which is of fundamental importance to world security.
The European Union has often neglected the Arab and Mediterranean world and, in light of the current difficulties being experienced by the Middle East peace process, we can appreciate how important it is to have well-established relations with the Arab world.
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Yemen is an active member of the Arab League, and the democratic experience which it is undergoing is all the more reason why it should become a political partner of the European Union.
Because of its history and its economic structure, Yemen has a natural inclination towards a priority relationship with the European Union, an inclination which must be frustrated.
In this regard, the economic and trade Cooperation Agreement which I am asking you to approve can only be a starting point for bringing about closer ties between this country and the European Union which, in my opinion, will be advantageous for Yemen and also for Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, I would first like to thank Mr Pettinari very sincerely for his report and to congratulate him on the conclusions he reaches in it.
I know that he has been able to contribute a great deal through his personal knowledge of the situation in the Yemen.
This means, and I must say this straight away, that I find it all the more sad that the Cooperation Agreement was signed back in September and that we are just going through the motions by giving our assent to the agreement, so that the input of Mr Pettinari and the other people who cooperated on the report will have no influence at all on the shape of the agreement.
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In this context I think it is particularly important that the agreement includes a future development clause.
This means that the agreement is simply a basis that can be built upon in the future.
Although the agreement is far more broadly based than the one drawn up in 1984, it is nevertheless important that this is just a basis.
It is good that this agreement covers the extensions of tourism and the modernization and restructuring of the agriculture and fisheries sectors, because these are all signs that things have changed enormously in the Yemen in recent years.
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We must remember what has been achieved there in just a few years: a country that was once a training centre for terrorists, and which used to be a channel for money destined for international terrorism, has in a few years achieved an incredible process of internal transformation and restructuring, which is of course associated with the reunification of the two parts of the country.
It is logical that the Yemeni people should look to us for clear signs that we intend to offer them support and for suggestions as to how this relationship between the European Union and the Yemen can be developed further in the future.
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<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Malone">
Mr President, I also want to congratulate Mr Pettinari on his report.
My colleagues from the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy and myself welcomed the particular agreement with the Republic of Yemen in December.
We all know, and it has been said already, that the Yemen has made great progress recently in democratization and in respect for basic human rights.
The support we are offering today is essential.
Even though it is late it is important that this Parliament should extend this support if the Union is to see itself as a genuine buttress of fundamental human rights and the freedoms which we espouse worldwide.
It provides an example and a message to other countries in the region which have very inferior human rights records and no respect for democratic methods.
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Universal suffrage in elections to the Yemeni Parliament is especially praiseworthy in the context of the all-male electorates in neighbouring states in the region.
I was one of Parliament's observers at the elections there last year.
There were shortcomings but our observations were that they were free and fair elections, despite the fact that there were segregated polling stations, and I was dismayed to see that there were separate counts taking place for women voters.
There was also a problem in that we were unable to visit certain areas for security reasons.
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A number of other problems remain and some of them have already been alluded to.
For example, the death penalty. Although it has not been implemented for several years, it remains in the Yemeni penal code.
Existing minimum wage and child labour provisions should be enforced and improved.
Literacy rates need to be improved, especially in the context of the elections where literacy was a huge problem.
Action must be taken against the continued practice of female genital mutilation.
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Various NGOs from inside and outside the Republic of Yemen approached me and my colleagues from time to time with criticism about certain corrupt practices and inefficiencies in the judicial system, about individual human rights abuses sometimes perpetrated by the security forces, and the arbitrary imprisonment of many thousands without due process.
These people are taken into prison without proper documentation or proper charges being made.
So, there are those problems but by linking the human rights clause in this agreement and the non-execution clause we are provided with further leverage in pressing for observance of these rights.
<P>
Finally, despite the problems therefore, I welcome the very positive approach taken by the rapporteur.
I am sure that the benefits of cooperation will encourage further cooperation and democratization.
I consider that Parliament must continue to press for ratification by the Yemen of important international human rights conventions and continue to take up individual cases of human rights abuses as they are presented to us.
The Yemeni Government is listening to us and is taking note of what Parliament says.
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<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Günther">
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate Mr Pettinari on his report and, like Mr Habsburg-Lothringen, I regret that we are only debating this now after the ink has dried.
Yemen is an interesting country in that it is one of the world's divided countries and a country which is now trying to overcome the problems of division.
Indeed, the reunification process has not been without its setbacks and difficulties in the Yemen.
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The agreement we are discussing today is the culmination of valuable cooperation between the EU and Yemen, dating back as far as 1979, as support given to Yemen for economic and development projects totalling ECU 58 million has gradually put the country into an economic and strategic position which suggests that further positive developments are guaranteed.
I believe that another aspect of this positive situation, which Mrs Malone has already described, is the prevailing pluralistic democracy, which seems to be on the right path, despite the criticisms she mentioned, not to mention the cautious economic policy aimed at avoiding social dislocation.
But I am sure that the whole thing will only become stable once the commitments of nearly ECU 2 billion made by last year's conference of donor countries become a reality, and soon.
This agreement will round off, so to speak, the various agreements in the Mediterranean area.
I also believe that Yemen will take this opportunity to prove to us that religious traditions and respect for human rights can certainly be combined.
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<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lataillade">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the resolution on the Pettinari report on the Cooperation Agreement between the European Community and the Republic of Yemen highlights three broad reasons which largely correspond to the areas of political, economic and human activity.
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In the political arena, three main elements should be noted: firstly, the unification of Yemen and the attempts to reduce the internal splits between the north and the south; Secondly, also in this area, the democratic character of the regime indicated by the elections on 27 April 1997 which has continued ever since; and finally, the third political reason is the mandatory encouragement by the European Union in this area of personal and collective responsibility.
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At an economic level, we have noted the implementation of progressive reforms which seek to avoid internal clashes in an economic context which remains difficult.
Secondly, in this domain, combined economic policies are being sought and implemented.
Finally one last point on the economic front, there are attempts to promote balanced trading; at present there is an imbalance generally in favour of the Union which must allow Yemen to sell its original products better.
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Lastly, at a human level, we are taking into account, as necessary, the needs of the Yemeni people; they are extremely poor in comparison to us, and the emphasis is being placed on education and technical assistance, as well as the mandatory continuation of aid which contributes to the improvement of local rural development and the standard of living of the most disadvantaged people.
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The combination of these reasons leads us to conclude that total cooperation is essential, and the UPE group will vote for Mr Pettinari's report on the Cooperation Agreement between the Union and the Republic of Yemen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="Newens">
Mr President, for many years prior to the unification of North and South Yemen in 1990, development was held back by border wars between the two states and bitter internal struggles which periodically flared into civil war.
Sadly, even since unification, Yemen has been the victim of the civil war of April to June 1994.
Hopefully it will be possible to avoid any recurrence of such events and the country will be able to achieve an improved level of economic growth in future.
This could provide the means of raising living standards for all Yemeni citizens, but in particular those living in poverty, deprivation and squalor, provided that this is not just left primarily to free market forces.
<P>
With this in view we should welcome the cooperation agreement before us today. It could make an important contribution to Yemen's forward march.
This will also, however, require real improvement in the area of human rights.
Last year this House approved a resolution which drew attention to serious human rights abuses, despite the fact that Yemen has agreed to some human rights conventions and incorporated them into its laws.
Since April there have been numerous arrests although many of those arrested on unjustifiable grounds have now been released.
One of the problems is that political security acts in a totally arbitrary manner and is responsible only to the President.
<P>
There are also Draconic punishments in the penal code of 1994.
Women's rights are restricted although the situation is much better than in some other Arab states.
This House should support the agreement but demand that the human rights situation is kept under close attention.
Hopefully even those accused of participation in the 1994 civil war will be amnestied since this would be a vital step to national reconciliation.
On this basis I support the report and the agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, the new Cooperation Agreement concluded between the European Community and the Republic of Yemen has to be analysed within its historical context.
The unification of Yemen was supported by a majority of the population in both states, but the new government had to face the obstacles of national reconciliation and the considerable economic deficit created by the civil war.
As you know, Yemen has successfully tackled these challenges.
Today, Yemen is a single country, a unified country, and the government is doing all it can to reconcile public opinion in the south, although certain elements both inside and outside Yemen continue to offer opposition.
A united Yemen represents an important keystone, and the European Union fully supports it.
<P>
We consider that the process of democratization in Yemen is irreversible.
The country held democratic general elections in 1993, followed by a second election last year.
As Mrs Malone said, the international observers generally felt that both elections were fair and free, irrespective of whether certain shortcomings may have been detected.
<P>
The democratic process is still young and will need help, and I want to stress that the European Commission lent its support to governmental and non-governmental organizations during both elections, and is programming more aid in order to strengthen this young democracy.
The Yemeni government has not only begun the process of transforming a strictly state-controlled economy into a free-market economy, but is also carrying out important reforms within a framework already agreed with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
In fact, during a meeting in Brussels in June 1997, a sum of ECU 1 300 million over three years was promised for this operation, and the international donors expressed their support for and appreciation of the government's efforts.
<P>
While these positive changes were taking place, the Yemeni government over the last decade has been exploring the possibility of establishing new, broader, modernized cooperation relations with the European Union.
The new agreement was modelled on the Community's cooperation agreements with developing countries, and in February 1997 the Council approved the negotiation guidelines proposed by the Commission. Then, on 25 November, the agreement was signed.
I believe this agreement can make a considerable contribution to the processes of modernization and economic development to which the Republic of Yemen has committed itself.
<P>
The agreement includes the promotion of the private sector and the establishment of permanent economic dialogue in various sectors.
Furthermore, as several speakers have already said, this agreement includes the normal clause on respect for democracy and human rights as a basic principle of our cooperation.
And in that respect, Mr President, I want to emphasize that the Yemeni government has accepted that obligation fully and unreservedly.
<P>
I want to thank the Committee on Development and Cooperation, the Committee on External Economic Relations and the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy for having realized the importance of this agreement (as does the European Commission), for having shown it this support, and for supporting it with a favourable vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="President">
Mr Commissioner, thank you for your speech.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place in a few minutes.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, yesterday during the debate on this subject, it became clear that a large majority of the groups are thinking along the same lines.
The various resolutions originally submitted by different groups were also a clear indication of this.
Unfortunately, a majority of the groups decided to withdraw their resolutions, and we know that due to lack of flexibility the groups were no longer able to support our resolution, despite the fact that they largely agree with us on content.
We would find it incredible if this Parliament were to vote in a majority vote against something with which it actually agrees in principle.
That is why we are withdrawing our resolution.
But we do say very clearly that even though it is human, it is not very elegant, Mr President.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="President">
The resolution is withdrawn.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Wolf">
The conciliation which is the basis of the present report had reached a number of acceptable compromises with the demands of the European Parliament concerning the concept of affordable price, the cost of universal service, consumer protection and service quality, protection of disabled users and number portability.
<P>
We can, therefore, support this report.
It remains to be said, however, that a satisfactory state of the Open Network Provisions is one necessary condition of the liberalization of Telecom markets, and that, without strong intervention from parliament, they would have remained quite below the necessary standards of regulation.
It would be useful, indeed, if the Commission and Council would prepare further action in related fields with more care and with considerably more attention to the concomitant necessities of regulation.
<P>
Pack report (A4-0012/98)
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Bébéar">
In 1994-1995 we held long and difficult negotiations to establish the grant for the Socrates programme.
<P>
The European Parliament played an important role in fixing the financial package at the reasonable level of ECU 850 million and in adding a clause for the review of funds at the half-way stage.
<P>
The Socrates programme has now shown its mettle.
The promotion of education throughout life has been organized around this unique programme which operates from pre-school age up to the third level of university education.
<P>
Thanks to its vast range of activities, the opportunities offered to young people and to teachers have been increased tenfold, with the consequence that a real sense of European identity has developed.
<P>
Positive results recognized by everyone have been achieved by a large number of the 119 million people under 25 and the 4 million teachers.
The enormous popularity for the European educational community must not be compromised two years before the end of the programme when eleven new countries are knocking at the door of the European Union and offering the opportunity for mutual enrichment.
<P>
We need the appropriate finance and we must widen the programme as far as possible, taking into account the latest technological developments, particularly in the area of information.
<P>
I am therefore in favour of the Pack report and the increase in financing, to the tune of ECU 70 million, for 1998 and 1999, which he stipulates for the Socrates programme.
Like most of my colleagues, I only regret that the final compromise could not have been made on the basis of the additional 100 m proposed last June by the European Parliament.
<P>
Education and training have become the most important factor in the economic and social future of Europe.
Acting to promote exchanges of students and ideas also promotes Europe and the single currency, and economic and monetary union.
Let us not forget this when deciding on the budget.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Darras">
If there is one area which unites our Parliament in stressing its importance, it is education, and more specifically mobility within education.
<P>
Mrs Pack and others have rightly highlighted that the Socrates programme is a fundamental instrument for young Europeans, both for their education and for adding a 'European' approach to their studies, and, more generally for a more open approach to others.
<P>
The programme even represents a point of reference for individuals who often only know about the actions of the Community through things which affect their own world or that of their children.
<P>
This is why I am voting for this report and for the budgetary increase finally decided upon by the Council of Ministers, not for Education but for Finance!!!
We should note carefully the irony of Finance Ministers making cuts first of all in the education and culture sectors!
<P>
We can only hope that this historic decision is reproduced in other areas and that it can put an end to the general hypocrisy of the speeches.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Rovsing">
The Council and Parliament have reached agreement on earmarking an additional sum of ECU 70 million for the Socrates training programme so it comes up to ECU 920 million.
In today's Europe it is important to invest in the exchange of young people, which is why the Socrates training programme is a sensible measure.
It provides an opportunity for young people from the whole of Europe to be able to train in other countries and to meet other young people from the rest of Europe.
I therefore give the report my full support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Vaz da Silva">
Socrates is a classic case of the advantages of Community intervention.
The only lucid policy decision must be to strengthen this scheme for student and teacher exchanges at all levels of education.
<P>
Despite this evidence, however, Member States have hesitated for a long time before granting the necessary financial means to make it possible to do something they themselves had decided on: the extension of the scheme to countries that are applying to join the Union.
The Commission proposed a 50 % increase, Parliament asked for 100 % and the Council decided on 25 %.
For that reason the compromise solution was surprising, because in settling it at 70 % the Council finally decided in favour of a bigger increase than the Commission itself had suggested.
<P>
How are to we account for this unusual outcome?
It is due to two important factors: the agreement between the Committee on Culture and the Committee on the Budgets, who made common cause and brought it into the 1998 Budget; and the committed and well-informed work of one Member, who has not shrunk from bringing direct pressure to bear on governments and stirring up public opinion.
Politics needs passionate personal involvement and well-directed diplomatic activity.
<P>
I am therefore delighted to vote for this significant report.
<P>
Read report (A4-0023/98) and the Camisón Asensio report (A4-0027/98)
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Rovsing">
The Commission has drawn up a draft directive on telecommunications equipment which is to replace two Council Directives on telecommunications terminal equipment and ground station equipment in connection with satellites.
In addition, the Commission is recommending increasing the scope of the Directive so that radio communications equipment is also covered by the rules.
However, it is vital to allow for the fact that radio amateurs, who build their own transmission equipment, have no chance of living up to the tough demands for technical standards required by the directive.
But nor is this necessary, because amateur equipment is not intended for sale.
In the light of the fact that I, as protector of the Danish radio amateurs, have received a guarantee from the Commission that the radio amateurs' equipment is not covered by the directive, I give the report my full support.
<P>
Recommendation for 2nd reading by Mr Lehne (A4-0005/98)
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Wolf">
I should like to comment briefly that this report, especially in view of the present financial crisis in Asia, which is essentially attributable to private debts, is broadly linked to the issue of banking supervision, the coordination and harmonization of which is a matter of urgency in the context of the internal market and the single currency.
<P>
This is relevant to the Lehne report given that, especially in relation to Amendment No 2, it may well be asked to what extent the 'duty of supervision or approval' to be imposed by Member States in turn requires a European framework system.
This is, however, no reason to vote against the report, which is itself uncontentious.
<P>
Recommendation for second reading by Mr Parodi (A4-0411/97)
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Bernardini">
The Commission has proposed to update Directive 94/58/EEC, based on the international STCW Convention on the training conditions of seafarers.
At our first reading in May last year, we asked the Council to take into consideration 35 amendments aimed at strengthening the original proposal.
<P>
Of these amendments, we are delighted to note that 20 were approved by the Community executive.
<P>
Our work involved supplying proposals relating to the training of seafarers.
<P>
How can we not take into account the human factor in accidents at sea (80 % of these accidents are due to human error).
<P>
I welcome the proposal of my colleague which calls for the creation of a European institute of training.
Seafarers in the European Union are highly qualified as a result of their training; we must extend, preserve and communicate this knowledge.
Our maritime industry which uses this workforce can only become more competitive as a result.
<P>
In conclusion, I think about the thousands of young people who aspire to the noble occupation of seafarer.
We must offer them the prospect of serious training.
Our colleague's proposal is a step in the right direction.
<P>
White report (A4-0010/98)
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Blokland">
We must get rid of the idea that when something is not going too well in the Member States, it is high time for Europe to step in.
Of course I recognize that the living conditions of many animals in zoos are very poor.
I support the position which Ms McKenna recently took, namely that a zoo is a totally unsuitable place for large numbers of animals.
But that is another subject.
Mr White's report is about whether you should make European-wide regulations for zoos.
I categorically believe not, which is why I voted against the report.
<P>
The fact is that the arguments for European legislation on zoos are not very strong.
This is one of the topics on which the European Union has overstretched itself.
Quite rightly, the Council in Edinburgh blew the whistle on the Commission.
But in his report Mr White wants to return to the pre-Edinburgh stage: he wants a directive, not a recommendation, and he wants a directive based on legal basis 100A and 130S to boot.
The other day I gave this example to a group of Dutch members of local authorities who were visiting.
They soon agreed that this is an issue Brussels has nothing to do with. And these people were not even my own grassroots supporters!
<P>
From a legal point of view the European Parliament occupies an equally weak position.
According to the subsidiarity principle, the Union has no authority in this area, and should therefore not act in this case.
The discussion about the legal instrument is therefore completely superfluous.
At best we can ponder whether or not to make a recommendation.
In view of the seriousness of the situation in many zoos, it seems to me that a recommendation would be in order.
<P>
The Commission's comprehensive draft recommendation (almost a directive) is quite sufficient.
The Member States and the zoos have their hands full with this, leaving aside the cost implications.
I do not doubt their good intentions, but a directive would be too much of a good thing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Díez de Rivera Icaza">
The new protocol on the wellbeing of animals which is included in the Treaty of Amsterdam commits the Community and its Member States to bear that requirement in mind, while it also invalidates the decision on the incorrect application of the principle of subsidiarity in this matter.
<P>
Everybody knows that as far as wellbeing is concerned, the circumstances of animals in zoos are far from adequate. Such circumstances are not even guaranteed sufficiently in Member States' own legislation.
<P>
Nor is it a simple matter to provide an appropriate environment for many animals, such as killer whales, dolphins, bears, etc. It is also important to bear in mind the suffering and change of habits imposed on the various species by this captivity, which is of a clearly commercial nature.
<P>
At the time, I expressed these same sentiments with respect to the report prepared by Mr Scott-Hopkins, whom I had the honour of accompanying on a visit to Madrid zoo. Today I will of course support everything that Mr White says, because a recommendation alone, as the Commission knows very well, will not solve anything, and what we need is a solution to this problem.
<P>
Since this is an urgent matter, I agree with the rapporteur that only a directive is capable of making sure that animals in captivity in the European Union's zoos get the protection they deserve, if the Commission also matches deeds with words and thereby fulfils the Treaty of Amsterdam.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We have chosen to abstain in the final vote on the report.
We do not think that the EU should draw up detailed legislation in all areas.
We therefore reject the Committee's proposal for a change in the legal basis and the formulation as a directive.
However, we do think it is worthwhile to have extensive cooperation on issues of animal protection.
It would be best, however, if this cooperation were formulated through recommendations and conventions at a pan-European level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Kirsten Jensen and Iversen">
Today the Danish Social Democrats voted in favour of having a directive on the keeping of wild animals in zoos instead of the position which was recommended by the Commission, because we believe it is important to have proper rules throughout the EU.
Zoos are either private or publicly owned and the standards can vary greatly.
Properly run zoos fulfil many functions, such as scientific research, education and the preservation of species.
Zoos which are only run for profit should be watched closely.
There are far too many examples of zoos where the animals suffer, and there is very good reason to check that the international conventions on the keeping of and trading in wild animals, which the EU is a party to, are fully respected.
That is why we are in favour of rules and support the report, even though we know well that there are many who will champion respect for the principle of subsidiarity and say that the EU has no power in this matter.
We would like to see it put to the test.
The trade in or exchange of endangered or vulnerable species is governed by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
Zoos are allowed to import, export or exchange any animal in connection with work on the preservation of species.
EU rules in this area could help to check that the international agreements are upheld.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Lindholm">
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Novo">
The fact that there is a set of guidelines intended to systematize and harmonize the legislative framework of the various States regarding the keeping of wild animals in zoological gardens is of course a positive step.
Positive as it is, it is equally true that we have been expecting that legislative framework to produce actual laws for some years now, but that action has been delayed a number of times for various reasons.
<P>
The report essentially attempts to alter the guideline framework suggested by the Council, by turning it into a directive, with the backing of a wide consensus of opinion among the many associations and organizations in the European Union which work for the preservation and protection of animals.
<P>
The report deserves our support, although it might have gone further.
The fact is that it could and should also have covered permanent private collections, even those to which the public are not allowed to have access, since the conditions in which animals are kept ought to be uniform and universal.
<P>
Similarly, it might have dealt with aspects relating to educational and teaching elements, in order to discourage the keeping of wild animals outside their habitat. This aspect should also have been taken into account in the actual licensing of new public and private exhibitions.
<P>
I hope our vote in favour will help make it possible to make good the deficiencies and improve the text as soon as the opportunity arises to revise it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Pimenta">
I am voting in favour of the White report on the keeping of wild animals in captivity, since it is time we put an end to the present free-for-all, with its suffering and lack of openness.
<P>
Without wishing to question the love of animals shown by the owners and managers of many small zoos, it is obvious that many of these places do not comply with minimum conditions and that the veterinary services available are not of the technically specialized type needed for 'exotic' species of animals.
<P>
What the European Parliament now demands, and is reinforcing by voting on this report in part-session, is that compulsory standards should be introduced throughout the territory of the Union - including during transport - and that means of ensuring supervision, openness and animal welfare should be strengthened.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Virgin">
All proposals which improve the living conditions of animals in general and in zoos in particular are worth supporting.
We are basically in favour of the proposals contained in the White report.
However, we think that this is a matter which should be regulated by the individual Member States because of the principle of subsidiarity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Wibe">
The intention of this report is very proper.
However, I think this is a matter for the Member States.
Democracy and national self-determination are an overriding principle.
You cannot justify restrictions on democracy by the fact that it serves a good cause.
Therefore, I have voted against the report's proposal (Amendment No 1) that there should be a directive in this area.
<P>
Recommendation on racism (B4-0108/98)
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Bonde and Sandbæk">
We voted for the resolution to show our abhorrence of racism, but we cannot support the wording in favour of Greater Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Buffetaut">
The motion for a resolution by Mr Mohamed Ali deals with a serious subject: racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism.
As a secondary subject he has also added the results of the European Year Against Racism, which would seem to be on a different level.
<P>
A theme of this type warrants a clear and rigorous elaboration of the moral options and a serious approach in the exposition of the facts and ideas.
The text proposed to us hardly meets these requirements.
<P>
There is no mention of the moral and spiritual foundations for absolute rejection of racism: the equal dignity of every human being from his or her conception until his or her natural death, regardless of race, social condition - be it high or low -, religion, state of health or age.
The omission of these founding principles weakens the impact of the resolution.
<P>
Furthermore, the text mixes up proposals to which one could not subscribe, for example, the call for exemplary behaviour from teachers, with inadmissible ideological proposals, such as the idea of 'positive discrimination' , which obviously runs counter to the fight against discrimination.
<P>
Moreover, the rapporteur mixes up notions which have nothing to do with one another, such as racism and nationalism.
<P>
He plays with dangerous notions such as the detection of possible racist, xenophobic or nationalist tendencies which could pave the way towards an implausible inquisition of thoughts.
<P>
Certain considerations are obscure, for example, factor H which either expresses an obvious fact, or involves some incomprehensible ulterior motives.
<P>
Lastly, he refers to the Amsterdam Treaty, which, for the time being, is not part of the legal order of the Community since it has not been ratified by any of the Member States.
<P>
For these reasons, we were unable to vote for the resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Caudron">
It will come as no surprise that, as a socialist and Frenchman, I support without reserve the questions and inquiries of our colleague, Mr Ali.
I warmly congratulate him for them!
<P>
I would add my voice to his in the questions relating to the intentions of the Commission on possible demonstrations linked to the European Year against Racism and on putting in place the European Observatory against Racism. These are fundamental questions.
I would add that they are not politically neutral questions; they are linked largely to the misery which affects an increasing number of our fellow citizens, which is no justification for them.
<P>
I believe that under no circumstances can we excuse this minority of Europeans who swear allegiance to the extreme right which is bogged down in xenophobia and highly reactionary nationalism - the situation is much too grave.
<P>
I, too, would like to give a warning to the fringe of representatives upholding the right wing who think they can maintain their positions by forming alliances or by aligning themselves with the positions of the most extreme parties.
I hope that they will never forget that they are playing into the hands of the extreme right and will not even recover the voters who have left them.
<P>
History teaches us that all parties of the extreme right bear within them the seeds of violence, and this violence always gives rise to tragedy.
<P>
This resurgence of hate in a majority of countries shows us that the 'demon' which our fathers and some of us fought against is not dead, and the best way to pay our respects to those to whom we owe our freedom... is to continue their fight.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We have voted for the current resolution on racism.
We fully support the resolution's basic spirit of anti-racism and humanism.
In spite of this we have objections on three points:
<P>
1.We do not think the immigration policies of the Member States should be harmonized.2.We do not think that criminal issues, such as the criminalization of racist organizations, should be decided at EU level.3.We would like to stress that work on human rights takes place mainly within the framework of the Council of Europe and that the EU should not try to take over matters from this pan-European institution.
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Raschhofer">
Although the Members from the Austrian Freedom Party will vote for the motion for a resolution in the final vote, this does not signify that they accept the content of all the points.
<P>
We reject a European Charter on the Rights of Immigrants just as we reject European harmonization of criminal law or the abolition of the principle of mutual criminal liability for certain criminal offences.
<P>
Thors report (A4-0008/98)
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Lindqvist">
The report highlights a number of deficiencies in relation to the observance of Community rules in individual Member States.
It also describes the observance by individual Member States of international agreements entered into by the EU.
<P>
The amount of EU rules is constantly growing.
Earlier messages about fewer but better rules have got no further than words.
The amount of EU rules makes the regulatory system difficult to comprehend and is a cause of problems with implementing and applying the rules in the Member States.
Another reason may be that the rules which are not perceived as important or essential, or which are perceived as interfering, are not implemented or are implemented last.
However, in principle, the proposal in the report is good, which is why I have voted for it.
<P>
Izquierdo Collado Report (A4-0407/97)
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Apolinário">
I voted against the Izquierdo Collado report on trans-European hydrographic systems because, as I see it, by recommending a water policy based on transfers, it runs contrary to the sense and scope of the current discussions on the framework directive on water, and the water regulations existing in international law, particularly those contained in the Helsinki and Espoo Conventions, for the protection of states which share rivers.
Apart from anything else, the exclusive option for water-transfer calls into question the European legislation on environmental impact itself.
A water quantity policy, which is highly important in southern Europe, cannot be separated from the aspects of quality and solidarity; and, above all, in hydrographic basins covering several Member States, the achievement of compatibility of interests is the keystone of the policy to be adopted.
<P>
This is an initial report.
The European Parliament will soon have an opportunity to decide on the framework directive in the legislative process.
I wanted, however, to be sure of emphasizing this warning from the outset, so that the differences will be noted at this stage.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Díez de Rivera Icaza">
How could anybody refuse to vote for Mr Izquierdo Collado's report on trans-European hydrological networks?
<P>
Those of us who have experience of working on environmental matters know that all ambitious projects require the appropriate impact assessments, which are now unavoidable.
Therefore, to use that as an argument for voting against this report makes no sense.
The fact is that extensive areas of the Community suffer cycles of unbearable drought, and without water there can be no life, progress or solidarity.
<P>
The water problem is not just qualitative but also quantitative. In fact, this problem has only one solution: transEuropean hydrological networks.
<P>
It is in that spirit that my positive vote is a vote for solidarity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Kirsten Jensen and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats are following the voting list of the Group of the Party of European Socialists for the report by Mr Collado on the technical feasibility of transEuropean hydrological networks.
But we would like to point out that people should be extremely wary of embarking on projects which are aimed at expanding these hydrological networks.
It will always be necessary first to carry out a fundamental investigation of the concrete cases where such a project could be realized.
First and foremost people should make sure that the problem cannot be solved by more appropriate management of existing resources.
This should be understood broadly and should therefore include the consideration of possible conversion of agriculture and industrial production.
Conversion of agriculture is necessary, for example, in cases where certain water-intensive crops are grown in an area which is troubled by drought, and where people also grow these crops far outside their natural season.
That is an example of a wrong way of thinking, and it should be changed before people embark on alternative solutions to the problem of water shortages.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Lindholm">
It is certainly true that water resources are unequally distributed within the European Union, as are areas of fertile arable land, iron and coal deposits, the number of hours of sunshine as well as cold and snow.
When Europe's climate and natural resources were created there was no thought of a European Union, which was perhaps fortunate.
Think how monotonous Europe would have looked if the distribution had been equal everywhere.
<P>
The Member States, their governments and taxpayers have, through greater or lesser efforts, taken care of resources and evened out differences in the awareness that long-term, ecologically-sustainable investments are worthwhile.
<P>
The report proposes the creation of an institutional framework for trans-European hydrological networks, the aim of which shall be a more uniform distribution of water resources within the Union.
The thought alone is absurd.
A country's national resources are and should remain a national concern.
<P>
Distribution and economic investments in a Member State or a region should be decided by the country's parliament and be paid for by the taxpayers.
Of course, as always, cooperation, agreements and economic investments between two or more countries are positive.
But decisions and measures should, as is customary, take place through intergovernmental agreements.
The management of the Member States' natural resources is not an area of competence for the EU, unless the EU intends to become a state.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Martinez">
This is one of the most important strategic issues for Europe.
Water will be the fundamental resource of the 21st century.
It will be at the heart of conflicts between countries suffering from drought and those which are still able to irrigate their crops.
In other words, the issue at stake here is the very source of life.
<P>
So how could we refuse this source of all riches to our neighbours, and particularly Spain where the hills of Murcia and now even Catalonia once more bear the marks of increasing desertification?
The Heurta de Valencia, the Tribunal 'de los Aguas' , or the inspired mastery of water in the Sierra Nevada taking it to the jewel of 'Granada' Spain's history could be summed up as a battle for water.
<P>
And so, quite spontaneously, its neighbour, France, and in particular the region of Languedoc-Roussillon would like to help, bring aid, share and offer from its bounty.
Look at the plentiful water resources of the Rhône! It is tempting to siphon some of it off towards the Ebro basin.
<P>
And this is precisely the sense of the project for a trans-European water network, from which the LanguedocRoussillon project has come, transporting water from the Rhône over some 320 km to the Pyrenees, before flowing onwards towards Barcelona..
<P>
It is a huge undertaking, with investments of over FF 7 billion.
It is a beautiful, grand and seductive project, but yet it harbours many dangers.
<P>
There is the ecological danger for the miraculous Camargue region, where it is not yet known if there will be an increase in salinity levels when the pressure from the Rhône water mass is reduced.
<P>
But there is also the danger of a casus belli in waiting, the day when France too is touched by drought and turns off the tap to Spain.
Moreover, we are told that 'any schemes for water supplies like this would be 'irreversible'.
They could not be challenged in the short or medium term!'
<P>
Tomorrow, France will have no choice but to go to war with Spain over water. The only alternative is to deprive our market gardeners, our tree-growers, our farmers and our people of Languedoc of the water which they need, but which has been given to others.
<P>
In the name of the near future and of good relations with our neighbours, we would prefer to say no now.
We must think of our own people before others, even if they are our brothers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="President">
That concludes Voting Time.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="President">
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
<P>
The sitting was closed at 12.10 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 29 January 1998.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, since we last met there have been renewed acts of terrorism in three Member States of the European Union.
The prefect of Corsica, Claude Erignac, the French State representative in that region, was murdered in Ajaccio on 6 February.
On 30 January in Seville the terrorist organization ETA murdered another town councillor belonging to the Partido Popular , Alberto Jiménez Becerril, and in this case they also murdered his wife, Ascensión García. Similarly, the Northern Ireland peace process has come under attack once more through repeated terrorist acts against the people of Ulster.
<P>
Even at the risk of repeating ourselves, I believe it is the duty of our Parliament to speak out in condemnation once more.
All these acts of terrorism must produce the same clear, downright repugnance in us, the representatives of the people of Europe, just as they also provoke renewed interest in increasing antiterrorist cooperation within the Union.
<P>
Terrorism, no matter what its political objectives, consists of nothing more than an extremely serious infringement of the right to live, which is the first and most important of all human rights.
<P>
I have sent the appropriate telegrams of condolence and solidarity to the respective governments, acting in my capacity of interpreter of the sentiments of this House.
<P>
I call on you now to join with me in a minute's silence as a tribute in memory of the victims
<P>
(The House rose and observed a minute's silence)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Tourism
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0040/98 by Mr De Luca, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the Court of Auditors' Special Report No 3/96 on tourist policy and the promotion of tourism; -A4-0049/98 by Mrs Wemheuer, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the Commission's conduct in respect of alleged fraud and irregularities in the tourism sector.
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="De Luca">
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="Wemheuer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioners, I shall begin by again drawing a distinction which I tried to make several times during the debate, but which is apparently proving very difficult to get across.
Mr De Luca spoke of irregularities which have occurred in the tourism sector, since the special report of the Court of Auditors also dealt with this issue.
In this respect, his contribution was also, in a certain sense, a report on the Commission's policy on tourism.
<P>
My report concerns the behaviour of the Commission, the actions it has taken, the allegations which have been made, the question of whether Parliament was properly informed and the issue of whether, in our view, there was adequate collaboration with the court authorities of the Member States.
There is no indication that the Commission's behaviour was influenced by the fact that tourism policy was involved.
In this respect, my report does not deal with the Commission's tourism policy.
It is very important that I make this clear once more; perhaps I will succeed this time in explaining just where the difference lies.
I believe that the Commission would not have acted otherwise given the same situation in any other sector of the Commission's policy.
In this sense my comments are of a general nature.
<P>
I should like to concentrate on two points.
The first concerns the manner in which the Commission has interfaced with Parliament.
If we look at the list of reports drawn up on this subject, and the number of investigations carried out, then we might well believe that never before in the history of the Commission has a matter been so thoroughly and so extensively examined, and that, consequently, Parliament's interest in it must have been very comprehensive indeed.
But that is not the case.
Almost everything which took place was at the request of and at the insistence of Parliament.
Nor were the results of the investigations ever sent out posthaste to where they belonged, but were, in fact, often only forwarded to us after repeated inquiry and sometimes - and here we can only speak about documents we know exist - they did not even arrive.
I do not know if even today we are aware of all the investigations which were carried out. As has been said, we can only base our judgement on what we know.
We received the results at such a late stage that we were unable to incorporate them in the appropriate decisions, namely the ratification decision.
This constitutes a violation of an important and fundamental right of this Parliament.
<P>
You should not think that you are doing us a favour by providing us with information.
We have a right - and a contractual one at that - to this information.
This is not something which you should treat with levity.
You should not be saying, ' here comes another one asking the same question for the 125th time' .
This type of thing cannot continue.
Everyone can see that.
So let me say once and for all that we have every right to keep asking questions until we can and do accept that we have been given the definitive one.
<P>
The Commission was perhaps thorough in its dealings, but it lacked sensitivity.
If the special committee which you set up to inspect the files of the tourism sector had been placed under an independent body, then the outcome might well be the same, but the increase in credibility would have been very much greater.
But you fail to appreciate this.
You see everything introspectively and that is making things very difficult indeed.
<P>
Finally, let me say something about relations with the legal authorities of the Member States.
I do not wish to judge, but one thing which must be brought home to the Commission, to the general public, to those working in the Commission, to the Members of this House and to all those who may be involved in any way, is that the Commission and its staff are subject to exactly the same justice - I nearly used the word "mortal' there - and to the same laws as every other person.
They may be protected by immunity, but the laws apply just the same.
This must be manifest in all dealings, in your dealings, with the legal system.
<P>
The Commission is not the sixteenth Member State of the European Union.
It does not make its own laws. Neither is it like the Vatican State which can decide when, where and how to dispense justice.
Please bear this in mind, for it is something which is in all our interests.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="Cunningham">
Mr President, this particular fraud in the tourism sector has cast a very dark shadow not only over the tourism sector but over the whole of the European Union.
We must condemn that fraud, there is no two ways about it, and condemn fraud wherever we find it.
<P>
Fraud damages not just the tourism sector but the whole foundation of many of our institutions.
So I want to make our condemnation crystal clear.
However I also want to acknowledge the progress the tourism section has made over the last couple of years under its new Commissioner, Christos Papoutsis.
Many of the improvements are due to him and the people working in that sector.
<P>
We have therefore to balance the condemnation against the progress that has been made and move forward.
Let us remember that tourism is one of the most important industries in the entire European Union and creates millions of jobs, in many, many countries around the European Union.
<P>
So we need now to condemn what has gone on in the past but at the same time to move forward.
We need to work with the Commission to boost the tourism industry.
This has been, to some extent, a Cinderella industry in the European Union for far too long and should be encouraged in order to create more jobs, more stability and more growth in our countries' economies.
It is important that we move forward together for the benefit of all our citizens because jobs will be created by growth in the tourism sector.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Lambraki">
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mrs Wemheuer on her devotion to her task of preparing the report she has presented to us today.
I am taking the floor to stress that after the detailed debate we have been conducting within the Socialist Group, we found that the old issues of fraud associated with tourism, as our rapporteur herself mentioned in any case, have been dealt with by the Commission both with administrative changes and by recourse to the courts on the initiative of the Commission itself and the responsible Commissioner, Mr Papoutsis. The related decisions are forthcoming.
<P>
We feel obliged to make that statement because the report does not just relate to tourism as its title suggests, but more generally to the issue of the essential transparency and prudent operation of the Commission's services.
And those remarks concerning the Commission's modus operandi and the way the Commission cooperates with Parliament find us all in agreement, and we will certainly all contribute towards that direction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Kellet-Bowman">
Mr President, this is a very old issue that has taken too long to come to this stage, and without the work of Mrs Wemheuer we would probably still be wandering around in the dark.
<P>
Mr McMillan-Scott blew the whistle in 1989 about events then, and during the five years afterwards his reports were to some extent ignored and overlooked.
The Committee on Budgetary Control's earlier report did not whitewash DG XXIII, but it really let them off the hook.
There is no need to recall what was going wrong because all that is now admitted by the Commission, and I quote 'although most of the actions were completed or in progress before the present college took office, the Commission recognises that as an institution it is answerable for such actions in terms of information to the Parliament and measures to correct detected shortcomings.
The Commission accepts that several aspects of the tourism programme could, and should, have been handled differently.
It regrets that warning signs were not acted upon as rapidly as with hindsight they should have been.
Lessons from the past have been learnt.'
<P>
I think the past is now the past.
Of course, we have still got to deal with the recovery of some of the money which has not yet been got back by the Commission, and these things are being considered and dealt with by the police authorities in at least two countries.
I want to stress to the Commission that the difficulties that we have had with them have been due to a mistaken loyalty to their predecessors.
I think that loyalty was misplaced and has resulted in much of the delay.
<P>
Mr De Luca is quite right in claiming that the result of this enquiry has brought the Commission and Parliament's Budgetary Control Committee closer together in addressing the various problems.
DG XXIII has been overhauled, and the sound and efficient management brought in by Mr Liikanen will, I think, will prevent this kind of thing happening in other DirectoratesGeneral, so progress has been made.
As two speakers have already said, the tourism policy has suffered and must be allowed to get under way.
<P>
In summary, the Wemheuer and De Luca reports have vindicated two people completely.
First of all, Mr McMillan-Scott himself whose sheer persistence and insistence have caused these investigations to be continued when they might otherwise have been dropped, and the investigative journalist has also been vindicated; his work has been very constructive in the work that we have been doing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the face of the immense fraud problem which is becoming extremely worrying within the Union, a new strategy is gradually being drawn up under the impetus of the European Parliament.
<P>
For many years, Parliament has spared no efforts in order to obtain increased means from the Council and the Commission.
In order to fight this scourge and enable the Community to protect its financial interests better, these policies must not be diverted from their objective and the citizens of Europe must be given an assurance that public funds are well used, and used in the public interest.
<P>
Mr De Luca's excellent report is an important contribution to understanding the factors which have led to fraud in the tourism sector and related areas.
To deplore and condemn is not enough.
Certainly, the Commission has been caught out in the management of one of its most significant internal policies, but the most important thing must be to analyse clearly the shortcomings which permitted such a torrent of irregularities in operations linked to tourism policy and to put in place constructive proposals to remedy it.
<P>
This work has been done by Mr De Luca.
Should we be surprised, scandalised, when we learn that, the way it was handled, tourism policy enabled the payment of aid to bodies having no right to accept it, that people not authorized to do so signed contracts and these contracts were received and accepted, that the identification of eligible expenses was never clearly established and that the real beneficiary of a grant or financing was not necessarily the beneficiary designated on the contract?
<P>
Such malfunctioning, such shortcomings are unacceptable!
In order to move forward, we must set out to identify the way in which the normal functioning of this policy has been compromised and the way in which it was possible for anomalies and irregularities to be conceived and developed to reach this climax which has so excited the media.
<P>
To recognize the mistake is already one step towards making out the truth.
What is important at the moment is that the Commission should be given the necessary means to put in place the remedies proposed by the De Luca report and by Parliament.
To agree on a position is not enough: it must be converted into action.
We expect significant actions which will demonstrate the determination of the senior officials of the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, we are now discussing matters which came about before Finland joined the EU, matters which do not concern us but countries in the EU that lie further south.
I am not referring to any one specific country, as every country in the EU lies further south than Finland.
<P>
It would appear from investigations carried out that there are colossal problems in the EU when it comes to monitoring.
Administrative confusion is clearly peculiar to the European Union.
This confusion does not only concern tourism, but, in our experience, agriculture and, for example, energy policy.
<P>
Investigations show that the Commission is guilty of serious negligence.
The Commission appears to have operated in a way reminiscent of the Belgian police.
It is a serious issue when the Commission stands accused of responding negatively to investigation, that it holds back information from Parliament, and that illegalities have occurred which remain unexplained.
And a basis for not discharging them from liability for 1996 will persist if the Commission fails to provide Parliament with the documentation requested.
It amazes me that there are so many incompetent people working in the service of the Commission.
I think that with the salaries they pay, the Commission should be able to get more capable staff.
<P>
The rapporteurs have done a splendid job but, to my mind, have paid too little attention to negligence on the part of national monitoring bodies.
There has been financial negligence both at the distribution and at the receipt end.
I think if we are going to start hunting for robbers, we will be catching them at both ends.
I would therefore hope that national authorities are aware of their responsibility and Parliament will send a clear message to them regarding how ineffectual their systems of supervision have proved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Mr President, Mrs Wemheuer writes in her report that 'ever since...1989...the European Commission has withheld relevant information from Parliament, and...the Court of Auditors, provided information only after unjustified delays and, at times, provided misleading information.'
Can things really be so bad in the Commission?
What is it the Commission is actually trying to hide?
It must be something, since otherwise it would not have acted in this way, i.e. trying to protect its own employees and trying to put the lid on publicity by shutting itself off.
Openness in the EU system appears to be in a very poor shape.
Clearly the Commission does not dare look the citizens in the eye and explain that 'this has gone wrong, we made a mistake here, but we tried to achieve this in this way.'
Such admissions from the Commission are very difficult to obtain.
<P>
I would like to ask the members of the Commission who are here now whether it would not have been better to have proper publicity in the Commission?
As Mrs Thors said, the best supervisory body we have is publicity and transparency, of which we should have a great deal.
This story has been going on for almost ten years.
It would therefore be best if we made a clean breast of things now so that we do not continue going over this issue again and again.
We in Parliament are not going to forget the questions we have asked.
The European Parliament is only doing its duty as the EU's supervisory body.
<P>
The Green Group in the European Parliament is going to support Mrs Wemheuer's report to the letter.
As far as the Committee on Budgetary Control is concerned, we are not content simply to inspect and find mistakes. Instead we also draw up many constructive proposals as to how people can do better in future.
I really hope that the Commission reads our report and tries to do its best in future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Ewing">
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating these two brave rapporteurs, who have set out all these fairly unpleasant facts so very clearly and without beating about the bush.
I should also like to pay tribute to Mr McMillan-Scott, because I remember how, when this started in 1989, he was almost alone - but I always supported him - in seeking the truth of this fairly sordid matter, where pockets were lined and where the people who lined their pockets have not, as far as I know, paid anything back yet or been officially asked to do so.
<P>
All of us know we have to go forward and that the present incumbents in office are not the people responsible for these depredations.
<P>
We all know the importance of tourism.
Tourism remains a sleeping giant to a great extent in the Member States.
We know it can provide more jobs - mention was made of 100 million, but we know there can be still more with more inter-state cooperation and marketing and with longer seasons in some Member States.
I speak with some feeling there, because I do not always offer the best weather in my particular part of the Community but it is very good for certain holidays.
We do not want to knock our sleeping giant on the head.
But that is a separate matter from trying to deal with the things that have been wrong in the past to ensure that they never happen again.
That is the position of most of us.
<P>
We feel there is still a lot of clearing-up to be done and that questions should be asked as to why the information was withheld or was misleading, and why the irregular practices were tolerated for years, due perhaps, as Mr Kellett-Bowman said, to an excess of loyalty.
But when there are criminal or fraudulent acts, an excess of loyalty cannot be tolerated by any elected Member of Parliament.
Is there going to be any attempt to recover the money by way of compensation?
Are the criminal proceedings in the two Member States mentioned time-barred or not?
I heard that was a possibility, so that is another avenue that may not be open to deal with this problem.
I have not heard of suspensions, sackings or fining.
Parliament has an interest to know whether that is going to happen.
<P>
Discharge provides a very strong weapon for Parliament, but it is very difficult for the job to be done if the information is not before the Committee on Budgetary Control and Parliament.
We really must be sure that we get the information before we grant the discharge in 1996.
It has to be conditional until we get answers to all the questions raised here.
<P>
Is there going to be agreement from the Commission for the future?
In paragraph 9, Mr De Luca calls on the Commission to submit within three months a progress report on the recovery of undue payments.
Does the Commission agree with that?
Does the Commission agree that there must be total transparency from now on and that such practices should not be repeated even if loyalty is at stake?
These are the questions I would leave with the Commission.
I hope we are going to get answers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Buffetaut">
Mr President, the issue of alleged fraud and irregularities in the tourism industry is one of the most worrying that the Committee on Budgetary Control has had to examine, because it comes close to a deliberate desire on the part of the Commission to avoid its responsibilities and to conceal from Parliament - an institution which, after all, represents the people of the European Union - the reality and gravity of the malfunctioning of DG XXIII.
<P>
Must I remind you that the first suspicions of fraud were expressed in 1989?
Since that date, reports, internal audits and special reports concluding that there were serious administrative weaknesses and flagrant irregularities have followed one after the other.
<P>
So the Commission has clearly followed a policy of obstruction in order to avoid the scandal being made public and Parliament being fully informed.
How do you explain that the head of the "Tourism' Unit has had to explain his activities only five years after the most senior people within the Commission were informed?
<P>
Unfortunately other affairs which the Committee on Budgetary Control has been made aware of show that these events are in no way isolated phenomena.
This is a worrying sign that the Commission is too often a deficient administration, stricken with fraud, irregularities, even corruption.
<P>
The Commission must not longer act as if it were a state within a state, to use a French expression, or like an extra state of the European Union, as someone said earlier, which is subjected to no political control, be it internal or from Parliament.
<P>
The De Luca and Wemheuer reports represent a courageous stance.
The 1996 acquittal is from now on conditional on the responses that the Commission will give to these two reports.
<P>
Our Parliament must remind the Commission that an attitude which consists of avoiding the truth will seriously damage the Union's image, as well as our Parliament's reputation, as we would from end up appearing inefficient and useless.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, if the so-called tourism affair has become a touchstone for the Commission, then the European institutions, with the European Parliament at their head, must do everything possible to ensure that this scandal does not cause the collapse of the EU's tourism policy.
The rapporteur's proposals, which will help clarify and improve the situation, should therefore be implemented as quickly as possible. We strongly recommend that a Parliamentary committee of inquiry be set up without delay.
<P>
One aim here should be to bring about a general improvement in the Commission's administrative machinery, and not only in the tourism sector.
But in addition, we need to rid tourism of its negative image and poor reputation.
The tourism sector has always been treated like a Cinderella industry by the European Union and has never had its own legal basis in the Treaty.
An intelligent European tourism policy could well provide new job opportunities like practically no other sector of the economy.
It should also be borne in mind that while Europe still leads the world in tourism, it has for years been losing its overall market share.
<P>
What is required here is therefore a radical purge which will place the Commission - both in terms of its staff and its budgetary affairs - in a position from which it can really do something for the tourism sector.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bösch">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. If anyone thought that it was preferable for the European administrators to operate behind closed doors rather than in the full light of day, then the recent submission of the two reports being discussed today will have taught them differently.
<P>
We cannot at present quantify the actual size of the loss which tourism in the European Union has suffered as a result of this negligence - and here I am choosing my words carefully.
However, we must recognize at the same time that Parliament is very much committed to both these reports.
Not only are we committed to obtaining a satisfactory settlement on the part of the Commission at the time of the 1996 ratification, but we are also not ruling out the possibility of a committee of inquiry.
And even more importantly, we have entrusted ourselves with reforming the way in which our Committee on Budgetary Control operates.
<P>
This has now become an important issue because both these reports have made clear, and indeed this has been done by other reports - such as those submitted by Mr Vallés to the MED Committee and Mrs Kjer-Hansen to the PHARE -, that on the basis of the clearly insufficient flow of data available so far, we are not in a position to fulfil our role as the political representatives of the interests of European taxpayers.
This will certainly not be possible in future for a so-called neutral committee.
We must also ask ourselves, in the light of this and the decisions which we have to take in respect of these reports - and this must be done by Parliament and not by the Committee on Budgetary Control - just where we should locate our secretariat, for example.
These are practical matters which now have to be addressed in the wake of today's report.
<P>
We have made appropriate funds available to the European Court of Auditors, as the authority on budgetary control authority, so that it can do a better job in the future.
We in this Parliament therefore have to be able to see this work through to the end.
We are in the middle of re-defining our role as the controlling body of European bureaucracy.
We must make it clear that the interests of the Commission and its members are not necessarily ours, and I think that in this light the two reports which have been submitted can be given our full approval.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Theato">
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Rosado Fernandes">
Mr President, Commissioners, Mr de Luca and Mrs Wemheuer have cast a new light on developments as regards fraud, which is a matter that has concerned me since I first came to this House.
<P>
On this occasion, we are not talking about national operators, nor about Member States, but about what a little-loved Commission official called "the rotten heart of Europe ' .
What we have here are situations that cannot be played down, dysfunctions that cannot be ignored, legal aspects which are not dealt with and failures to observe what is known as transparency, and which I would call honesty.
Let there be no doubt, corruption and fraud must be combatted, beginning with the prevention of fraud at home.
Where it does occur, it must be punished, the criminal law regimes of Member States must be harmonized so that a manner may indeed be found to severely punish any who act fraudulently.
<P>
I consider Mr de Luca's approach to be extremely positive, and he outlines exactly what happened in Directorate-General XXIII in connection with European tourism, which is such an important source of revenues.
Action must be taken on the legal front, upstream, before fraud occurs, as well as after the event, downstream, with a view to identifying a means of severely punishing those who flout the rules of what is known as "good practice' .
<P>
I believe that this is where the battle must be waged, and I am confident that the Committee on Budgetary Control has adopted the correct course. Moreover, I consider it a privilege to take the floor here today, since I am acquainted with the Committee's members and with its excellent work to date.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, the findings of the Court of Auditors on financial management in the tourism sector during the period 1990-1995 are disconcerting.
A clear definition of objectives and acceptable budgets was missing from contracts, as well as a guarantee for the impartiality of the selection board.
Officials did not have adequate qualifications.
Projects were approved without a stamp from the Financial Controller and subsidies were paid out without proofs of receipt.
In short, an environment existed in which there was plenty of scope for irregularities and fraudulent practices.
<P>
We are pleased to note that, within the context of SEM 2000, the present Commission is working on improving financial management.
The Task Force for investigation into alleged fraud in the tourism sector, which was set up by the Commission, is worthy of appreciation.
Yet this Parliament is by no means able to close the case on fraud.
A large part of improperly allocated sums have yet to be recovered, after all.
The impartiality of the selection boards has yet to be guaranteed and disciplinary measures have yet to be taken against the high officials responsible.
<P>
Setting up a committee of inquiry is a weighty political instrument.
But if the Commission does not comply suffieciently with the requests in the De Luca report, Parliament will be forced to use this instrument.
<P>
I would like to insist that the Commission has another thorough look at the usefulness of the Community tourism programmes.
The fact that up until now the projects have not been subject to effective evaluation is a serious error.
If the Commission does not start working on this with some energy, Parliament will have to draw the obvious conclusion from this when the budget is set for 1999.
We cannot go on indefinitely allowing credits for projects of which the effectiveness cannot be proven.
<P>
In addition to their effectiveness, the question of whether the European programmes have in fact an added value compared to national actions will also have to be checked.
According to Mr De Luca, the importance of tourism as part of the Community policy is undisputed.
I can assure him that this is not the case in this sector.
No one has ever been able to convince me, in any case, of the need and usefulness of a European policy on tourism.
And I am not alone in this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
Mr President, today we are debating an old issue.
But despite long familiarity with the matter, I am still disturbed by the way in which it has been conducted.
Issues like this serve to underpin the many myths and untruths that abound concerning EU institutions.
More and more people around Europe believe the Commission to be a closed system that refuses to adjust to its surroundings and citizens' requirements and that it is an enormous bureaucracy where half the officials cheat and deceive while the other half endeavour to cover up the illegalities.
People become suspicious and alienated about European cooperation.
As a member of the Committee on Budgetary Control, I know that these myths are not true.
I know that the Commission is far superior to its reputation.
It is our job to make citizens aware of the many positive aspects of European cooperation, but we must also take existing problems seriously.
We must be open about problems and respond quickly when they arise.
Unfortunately, there are those in the Commission who have not carried out their work properly in this matter, and here I am not only thinking of those who have taken part in actual fraud, but also of those who have subsequently investigated the matter and whose responsibility it has been to inform Parliament.
Those who have not carried out their work properly bear a serious responsibility.
They are helping to fuel the scepticism and alienation about the EU that is extant in many Member States.
<P>
There are also, however, things to rejoice about.
In particular, Mrs Wemheuer's work in this matter has been exemplary.
I would also like to express my satisfaction with the Commissioner for the Budget, Mr Liikanen.
I feel we are speaking the same language as regards administration and openness in the EU institutions.
I believe that the Commission has learned from this regrettable issue of tourism, but that will remain to be seen when the next fraud case comes up.
Let us hope the same mistakes will not be repeated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Sarlis">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the motion introduced by Mrs Wemheuer, as amended, is not an accusation against individuals but against flawed and suspect procedures which have nurtured the trade for decades.
Because of those procedures, the furtherance of penal and disciplinary matters has been and is being delayed and claims are being set aside.
The victims of all this delay are productive branches of Europe's economy, in this specific instance tourism, which lack and have been deprived of Community support because of the prevailing mistrust surrounding the funding of those branches.
A classical example is the HOSPITALITY programme, whose funding was secured at the very last moment, last December, precisely because nobody wanted to support a programme for promoting tourism which was in other respects exceptional.
<P>
A second matter I should like to mention, ladies and gentlemen, is that the Committee on Budgetary Control cannot properly carry out its task concerning the granting or not of discharge to the Commission in respect of its responsibility to implement the budget, for the simple reason that the Commission does not provide the European Parliament with any figures.
How can we recommend to the House that it should or should not grant the Commission discharge if the Commission itself does not provide us with facts and figures?
That is why a related amendment has been tabled, in which we ask that the Committee on Budgetary Control should be given the status of an investigative committee, so that when we ask for facts and figures, the Commission will give them to us.
<P>
Another substantial factor, Mr President, in which your own personal contribution will be important, is that the structures of the Committee on Budgetary Control must be reorganized.
It is impossible for the committee to function with the means provided for it today, nor with its present structure. Other speakers too have mentioned the issue.
This should become a matter of the first priority for the Bureau, and for you personally, Mr President.
<P>
I would also be very grateful if some corrections could be made, because some of the translations of Mrs Wemheuer's resolution into various languages are incorrect.
I refer more particularly to the Greek translation. I ask for a number of corrections, especially in Articles 4 and 2.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Fitzsimons">
Mr President, I commend the two rapporteurs and agree with what has already been said here tonight.
<P>
My few words are in regard to the De Luca report on the policy on tourism within the Union.
The present tourism operational programme for my own country, Ireland, accounts for IRL 369 million, which is over 8 % of total Structural Fund spending.
According to the mid-term evaluation on the spending of the Structural Funds in Ireland, carried out by the Economic and Social Research Institute, over 30, 000 jobs will be created in Ireland in the tourism sector between 1994 and 1999.
<P>
One of the most important issues which must be addressed with regard to the Irish tourism industry is how it will cope with the introduction of a single currency within the European Union.
There are a number of aspects to this.
Firstly, the introduction of a single European currency will result in lower interest rates which, in turn, will lead to higher consumer spending, which means a higher proportion of spending on Irish tourism-related products.
Secondly, a single European currency brings with it a frontierfree zone for capital, where bureaux de change no longer exist.
<P>
Finally, the elimination of transaction costs is good news for the Irish tourism industry as the costs of travel and the costs of holidays are greatly reduced.
<P>
The future is bright, and the single European currency will bring with it an increased number of tourists, which will mean an increased number of jobs in Irish tourism and a healthy industry into the next century.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="Tomlinson">
Mr President, the two excellent reports from Mr De Luca and Mrs Wemheuer have shown one thing quite clearly: that tourism, although it has been a problem, is also a symptom of a much bigger problem.
We have to tackle both: the problem that was the European Year of Tourism and the systems that are quite inadequate in the Commission - witness the inadequacy with which the report of the Court of Auditors was dealt with.
This saga is nearly ten years old.
It clearly predates the existing Commission.
But the Commission, as an institution, has been slow in acknowledging its institutional culpability; and, I have to say, had the Commission applied the principles of forensic accounting properly, then the saga that was the European Year of Tourism would have been laid to rest in days rather than weeks.
And yet we have had a saga that has continued for years rather than months.
There are institutional lessons to be learnt as well as those that relate to the Year of Tourism itself.
<P>
In that process, I have to say to the Commission as an institution - and here I am talking to the last Commission - that it was very seriously deficient in the information that it gave both to Parliament and the Court of Auditors.
In any other context, other than this polite gathering, I would say that it deliberately misled: in plain English, it lied, and there was a process of deliberate deceit of the institutions that led Parliament to the Holzfuss report.
The new Commission has been slow in acknowledging this, but there is much joy in heaven for the repentant sinner even when it comes later rather than sooner.
So we do recognize and acknowledge Mr Liikanen's approach at penitence on behalf of the institution, even though we all accept that he was not directly responsible.
<P>
But this saga is a litany of failure.
It is a litany of a failed policy, of failure to control a contract, of failed financial control, of failure to disclose the faults, of failure to remedy the deficiencies, of failure to accept culpability and, above all, of failure to come clean at the earliest possible opportunity.
In that process two things have been seriously damaged: the tourism policy itself has been damaged, but so too has the reputation of the European Union in general and that of the Commission in particular.
The attitude of many people has been that if we make such heavy weather out of declaring the results of an investigation into what, after all, is a relatively small case, a relatively simple case involving a relatively small amount of money, how can public opinion express confidence that the same institution can deal with much larger sums of money in a much more complex area of policy with much more complex legislative arrangements?
I believe that the opinion of the public at large says something along the lines that had any commercial undertaking safeguarded its interests and its shareholders' interests with the same degree of cavalier inadequacy as the Commission has protected the taxpayer, then the only thing that would be booming would be bankruptcies.
<P>
So we have to examine the lessons to be drawn.
They are clear: that systems have to be investigated, examined and improved.
If there is to be any discussion of committees of inquiry, it must be in that area, looking at the system by which the Commission examines allegations of inadequacy, of impropriety, of irregularity against itself and its staff.
<P>
The Committee on Budgetary Control has to be reformed, not just in relation to staff, their location and their powers, important as those things are.
We have to look again at structures and procedures so that the Committee on Budgetary Control becomes less some sort of atmosphere of interinstitutional happy families and becomes more interrogative with a sharper cutting edge, possibly sometimes doing less but doing it better.
<P>
If those are the lessons that are learnt from the Wemheuer and the De Luca reports, then these two reports will have done Parliament and European taxpayers a great service.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fabra Vallés">
Mr President, this is one of those subjects where the very fact that it comes up so frequently in this Parliament shows that something is not working properly.
And that is so despite the fact that Parliament is fulfilling its control function, the Court of Auditors has produced its reports, UCLAF has carried out its investigations and, Commissioners, I do not even have any doubts that the Commission is making a great effort to improve its control over the matters under discussion.
However, all this will be of little use to us if there still continues to be insufficient coordination between the Commission and the competent national services.
<P>
Also, there is still a need for the Commission to guarantee that it will automatically turn to the relevant national judicial authorities in cases of justifiable suspicion of fraud, corruption or any other crime in which officials are implicated.
Neither the Commission nor Parliament can be satisfied until that is the normal procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="McMillan-Scott">
Mr President, perhaps it is appropriate that I have the last word in this debate before the Commission.
Could I just say that for the first six years I spent in the European Parliament, I was trying to push tourism up the agenda.
In 1990 we had a celebration of that in the European Year of Tourism.
The Commission completely failed to organize it properly and when we discovered irregularities it was also unable to organize a proper cover-up.
This is why we are today, eight years on in the European Parliament, having a debate about two reports which deal with irregularities and fraud.
<P>
My conclusions, as a result of this, are that (a) there should be no immunity for Commission officials; (b) that UCLAF ought to be separated from the Commission completely and made an independent body; (c) the Court of Auditors ought to be ashamed of the two reports it produced on the subject.
<P>
I believe also that Parliament's Budgetary Control Committee ought to be strengthened.
It ought, like the watchdog committees in the US Congress, to have the power to commission its own inquiries and then to bring in the Court of Auditors or UCLAF as appropriate.
Lastly I am not satisfied that judicial action in the two Member States referred to - France and Belgium - has been quick enough.
It is two years since charges were laid.
I spoke to the Belgian magistrate yesterday who confirms that proceedings are going ahead in Belgium.
In France the proceedings begin on 13 March.
This is two years after charges were first laid.
It is far far too slow.
This will not be Parliament's last word on this matter.
<P>
In 1994 the door was kept open on the subject of an amendment I tabled.
I beg the Parliament, in its vote tomorrow, to keep the door open this time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="Gradin">
Mr President, the fight against irregularities, fraud and corruption is a high political priority for this Commission.
That message must be perfectly clear to those who consider tampering with the taxpayers' money for their own personal gain.
On this overall objective I agree entirely with the two rapporteurs, Mrs Wemheuer and Mr De Luca.
An efficient system to deal with these kinds of problems is also of crucial importance for the Commission as an institution and for the European civil service.
<P>
At the outset I wish to reject the notion that the Commission has provided misleading information in the tourism case.
This Commission has spared no effort in shedding light on the complicated affair.
It has endeavoured to be as transparent as possible, its objective being to provide a reliable picture of events over the past few years.
My services have been instructed to cooperate with Parliament in an open and constructive manner, whether it be tourism or any other area.
I have made it clear that any suspicion of criminal behaviour should be pursued vigorously.
<P>
In the case of tourism, my services have been involved from the outset in the investigations.
The results of these efforts have provided the basis for the action taken against individual officials.
UCLAF established immediate informal contacts with the criminal authorities in July 1994 and formally requested in December of the same year that criminal investigations be launched.
Parliament has been briefed on a regular basis.
<P>
Obviously there are limits to the amount of publicity that can be given in a case under criminal investigation.
A restriction is normally imposed on the Commission if an ongoing case falls within national judicial confidentiality requirements.
With this in mind, Parliament has, to the best of my knowledge, been offered both relevant and correct information.
<P>
Let me now turn to what the Commission has done and to what it intends to do in order to be better equipped to deal with fraud and corruption.
When I took office in 1995 the task of combating fraud was scattered around several different services within the Commission.
My first step was to ensure that all anti-fraud units were brought under one single roof in UCLAF.
As a consequence, UCLAF has developed into a comprehensive operational service.
Over the past few years UCLAF has investigated more than 150 cases in the area of direct expenditure. These include investigations into a number of cases concerning irregularities within the Commission.
<P>
Since 1995, Financial Control has conducted over 500 audits of beneficiaries and 20 financial system audits within the Commission.
The reports may lead to financial corrections or to proposals for administrative improvement.
A number of new measures in the area of sound and efficient management are presently being implemented in the Theme 2000 exercise.
These measures include the strengthening of preventive aspects and a greater focus on audit and financial follow-up of results.
I welcome a number of suggestions in the De Luca report which go in this direction.
<P>
The Commission has outlined in detail the rules, practices and procedures in a document transmitted to you in November 1997.
The same document also announced a number of action lines that would be implemented.
Let me explain how I have followed up the action in my area of competence.
Firstly, I am at present preparing a decision by the Commission that will establish clear and comprehensive rules concerning internal inquiries by UCLAF.
This will allow UCLAF to act more rapidly and without obstruction.
Secondly, the operational independence of UCLAF will be strengthened.
This will be achieved by providing the head of UCLAF with a status similar to that of the independent financial controller.
This means, among other things, that the head of UCLAF can request me in my capacity as the responsible Commissioner, to raise a particular case in the College of Commissioners.
<P>
Thirdly, the organizational independence of UCLAF will be enhanced.
I will transform the existing Directorate into a task force within the secretariat-general.
In addition, I will propose that cooperation with judicial authorities be strengthened by a liaison unit within UCLAF of experts from the Member States in penal law.
This was proposed in the Tomlinson report on transit.
But it should be clear that this unit can only be a reality if the budget authorities support it.
<P>
Fourthly, I will also improve the links between UCLAF and Member States.
In practical terms this means that UCLAF will be the privileged interlocutor of the Commission for dealing with criminal matters in relation to fraud and corruption.
A number of these questions will also be discussed next month in connection with the report from Mr Bösch.
The Wemheuer report requests regular submissions by the Commission of information concerning UCLAF investigations and special audits by Financial Control.
As regards UCLAF's investigation, I intend to review how the flow of information can be improved in a systematic manner.
I will do this while respecting the rights of the individual and the obligations of confidentiality in investigations and in relation to judicial proceedings.
<P>
As for a list of special audit reports by Financial Control, I will arrange for it to be provided to Parliament on a regular basis.
I believe that the measures I have outlined will strengthen our capacity to deal with fraud and irregularities.
However, it is my firm intention to continue the dialogue with Parliament on how we can continue to improve our performance in the fight against crime.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Papoutsis">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to thank the members of the Committee on Budgetary Control and in particular the rapporteurs, Mr De Luca and Mrs Wemheuer, for their analytical examination of the subject of broader action in support of tourism.
<P>
I hope you will appreciate our efforts, in cooperation with Parliament, to bring to a conclusion this exceptionally difficult matter which, nevertheless, taught us many useful lessons and gave us many experiences.
<P>
I will first say something about clearing the files of the past.
As you know, we decided to re-examine all the direct action undertaken on behalf of tourism between 1989 and 1995, even though the Court of Auditors had only asked us to re-examine the activities undertaken during the European Year of Tourism.
I want to tell you, then, that by the end of the month this particularly difficult task of analytically examining all 800 of the activities undertaken up to 1995 will have been completed.
<P>
Out of total payments amounting to ECU 31.4 million, so far excess payments of ECU 4.7 m have been identified.
Demands have already been issued for the return of payments amounting to ECU 2 m and we have prepared further demands totalling ECU 2.3 m, while in parallel we have already recovered about half a million ECU.
The process we have initiated is made particularly difficult by various factors, such as the time that has passed since then, the nature of the objectives and the difficulty of assessing some of the results.
In parallel, many of these cases may end up in the courts since already 40 % of those ordered to return funds have disputed those orders.
We are, however, determined to continue that work and to present a full account of its results as soon as possible.
<P>
However, all that I have said so far concerns the accountancy aspect of the matter.
But there is a series of more political issues which I should like to mention.
A basic question raised by many Members of Parliament is this: ' what have you learned from this affair, what measures have you adopted, and also, what are the consequences for tourism?'
Indeed, many speakers today have raised all three of those questions.
I would therefore like to mention our conclusions.
<P>
Firstly, the activities on behalf of tourism did not just produce negative lessons but positive ones as well.
For example, we learned, and I believe that most of us learned, that tourism is the largest industry in Europe and one of the most promising fields for the creation of new jobs, and is likely to remain so for decades to come.
<P>
Secondly, the objectives of quality and competitiveness for European tourism must be supported by specific and coordinated action, in cooperation with the Member States and the industry itself.
It calls for action with realistic aims, which will be assessed continuously as well as on an ex-ante and ex-post basis.
<P>
Thirdly, Community action that influences tourism must be systematically coordinated.
Indeed, in that context the DirectorGeneral of the European Commission's DG XXIII is already chairing an inter-service group that includes all the Directorates which undertake activities on behalf of tourism.
<P>
Fourthly, if we want to be effective in acting on behalf of tourism, we need a legal framework which sets out that the tourism dimension must be taken into account when determining and implementing other policies.
<P>
Some of those conclusions have been applied, initially in the adoption procedure, but also in the content of the Commission's proposal for the first multi-annual programme on behalf of tourism in Europe, HOSPITALITY, a programme that has been examined repeatedly by the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions, the tourism industry and 13 Member States.
However, I think it is a serious contradiction for the European institutional bodies to declare that they want transparency, they want effective use of resources, they want and call for the cooperation of the Member States and want Parliament and the Council to exercise institutional control of the activities, while at the same time there are some Member States which are holding up the approval of a programme that safeguards precisely the aims we all agree on.
Some people speak of hypocrisy.
I simply call it a political contradiction, which will have to be resolved at some time.
<P>
The second thing we did was to completely reorganize DG XXIII.
The members of the Committee on Budgetary Control have already received a detailed note about all those changes.
And the changes, which began exactly 18 months ago in close cooperation with my colleague Mr Liikanen, include inter alia the creation of two new units, one of which looks after resources and controls while the second looks after contracts.
<P>
The strict procedures we apply in relation to the selection, monitoring and appraisal of the activities already reflect the recommendations in Mr De Luca's report.
The result of those procedures is that today DG XXIII is one of the best Directorates in relation to implementing the SEM 2000 programme.
I am sorry, however, Mr President, because, despite the fact that tourism is very important for employment and development, as the rapporteurs also recognise, this affair has unavoidably negative consequences related to the prospects of implementing an effective policy for tourism.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, that is all I have to say at this stage of the debate.
I think I have mentioned the most important matters that fall within my competence and concern the two reports.
Nevertheless, as you know, I am always at Parliament's disposal to keep you informed about the progress of our work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="Liikanen">
I just want to add some remarks to the contributions from my colleagues.
<P>
First of all, you said earlier that no disciplinary measures were taken in this matter relating to tourism.
That is not so.
Disciplinary measures were taken in 1995 and 1996 against Commission officials.
<P>
Secondly, what is important is that last year the Commission produced a communication on the financial and administrative measures. We did so to the Committee on Budgetary Control.
What is essential here is that we have created an established system where every suspicion will be investigated.
It will lead to a decision either that there is no basis for further action, or to open disciplinary procedures.
This has not always functioned properly, but our new procedures will make it function properly.
<P>
Thirdly, we must also remember, even in this kind of case, that we must respect the rule of law.
There is always the presumption of innocence and the right to a defence.
I want to say that here, because there are many Commission officials today who feel threatened by this issue.
We must always be very clear about identifying the problems so as not to create uncertainty for those officials who are carrying out their duties properly in every respect.
<P>
Fourthly, the most important lesson to learn from this is that we must put our house in order.
When we decide how to run the programmes, we must plan well: there must be a limited number of targets, simplicity of administration, clear rules of eligibility and, very importantly, transparency and openness throughout all the procedures.
I agree with those who said that openness is the cheapest control because then those who did not get the money control those who got it.
This kind of simplicity, clarity and openness is the best tool we could have.
<P>
Of course we need good cooperation with all our controllers.
We have the Court of Auditors with whom we work.
It is not always easy, but it is an effort worth making.
We have the Budgetary Control Committee in Parliament which is the voice of the European people and their elected representatives.
We are ready to cooperate with you in the future also.
I hope we can concentrate on these reform programmes.
I have seen draft reports on the SEM 2000 programmes.
There are many new challenges facing us on how we will run the Community spending from the year 2000 on.
We must concentrate on those, taking into account the lessons we have learnt in the past.
The Commission is ready for this cooperation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="McMillan-Scott">
Mr President, on a point of information, Mrs Gradin stated that the Commission called in the police on the matter of DG XXIII.
The Belgian police confirm that it was not the Commission but myself who called in the police.
That is a fundamental point and the letters are available if Parliament is interested in seeing them.
Can I repeat a question that I put to the Commission on 23 November: on how many occasions has the Commission called in the police on matters of internal fraud in its 41 year history?
It really is time that we had an answer to that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="De Luca">
Mr President, I wish to make a very important point.
Commissioner Liikanen told us a few minutes ago that disciplinary measures have been taken against certain officials; this statement is contradictory to what has so far been affirmed several times by the Commission in the presence of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
I would therefore like the Commissioner to be more specific and tell us which officials, when and why they have been penalized.
Otherwise, we will perpetuate an extraordinary situation in which some people go before Parliament to provide information and then the Commissioners state the contrary.
I would not like it to be simply a slip on the part of Commissioner Liikanen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="Gradin">
Mr President, as far as I am aware, the Commission contacted the Belgian police in September 1994, whereas your contact came in February 1995.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, the text is in French.
I will read it to you, "the authority invested with the power of appointment, through the decision of 22 June 1995, with effect from 1 August 1995, imposed the punishment of dismissal, with full pension rights, on a civil servant.
Later, the AIPN (Appointing Authority), through the decision of 28 July 1995, imposed the punishment of termination of a temporary contract on a civil servant with effect from 1st August 1995.'
<P>
I can give Mr De Luca the detailed text.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Macro-financial assistance for Ukraine
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="President">
The next item is Mrs E. Mann's report (A4-0025/98), on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council Decision providing supplementary macro-financial assistance for Ukraine (COM(97)0588 - C40614/97-97/0312(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="Mann, Erika">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report before us is once again quite a technical one.
But we have managed this before and we shall again succeed in presenting it successfully to Parliament.
What we have to make clear is that even the macro-economic aid which we are sending to Ukraine is but part of an overall strategy which is designed to have a positive impact on the difficult process of transformation under way in that country.
This involves Partnership and Cooperation Agreements as well as an interim agreement, but what is much more important at the present time is the action plan which we have before us and which Mr Titley will shortly be presenting to Parliament.
This report will explain how the plan is creating synergies and will describe how this has been developed within the various EU programmes for the benefit of the people of Ukraine.
<P>
Now to the macro-financial programme. The Commission is proposing that the EU should make a third loan available to Ukraine to offset the country's balance of payments.
The amount involved this time is ECU 150 million and the loan is to run for 10 years.
The Commission announced this back in December 1996 and the Council of Economic and Finance Ministers gave the plan its basic approval in January 1997.
The ECU 150 million loan means that the European Union will be meeting almost one quarter of Ukraine's anticipated financial deficit for the 1997 to 1998 period, which has been estimated at ECU 765 million.
The EU's involvement will follow the customary rules.
The funds which the Commission will be raising on the capital market are to be allocated to Ukraine under normal terms and conditions.
The granting of the loan is conditional upon the abovementioned economic requirements for macro-economic stabilization and continued structural adaptation.
Verification will be carried out at regular intervals, in close cooperation with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, to ensure that these requirements are being met.
<P>
The repayment of the loan is covered by a guarantee from the European budget.
According to the terms of the resolution establishing the guarantee fund, the Member States are obliged to contribute 15 % of the loan, in this case ECU 22.5 million, to the guarantee fund.
Each year the Commission will report to the Council and to Parliament on the continuation of these loan options.
Other important aspects include the fact that outpayments in this case are to be made in two instalments, something which is not usually done, and that the auditing criteria are to be laid down by the IMF and also by the World Bank.
The European Union will be relying quite closely on these criteria.
<P>
The first requirement is that satisfactory progress should be made by the macro-economic programmes.
This macro-economic programme has been drawn up with the International Monetary Fund as part of the standby credit agreement.
The second criterion is that progress has to be achieved in the area of structural reforms.
We know that this is a very critical point and that we in the European Union, and of course even more so in the European Parliament, have always urged Ukraine to make greater headway with its programme of structural adaptation than it has done in the past.
As has already been stated, this is the third package of financial aid which the Community has made available to Ukraine for its extensive programme of adaptation and reform.
In 1996, Ukraine decided to embark on a programme of stabilization and reform, in conjunction with the International Monetary Fund, for the period 1997 to 1998; as far as I recall, this programme was to be supported by an extended funding facility.
The Ukrainian parliament failed to ratify this government proposal and the parties could not reach agreement on the fundamental aspects of the programme.
The government then approached the IMF with a new proposal - the one now before us - which calls for additional financing for a short period, namely 1997 to 1998.
<P>
The progress being made in respect of stabilization and macro-economic reforms has clearly slowed down.
That is all too obvious.
I should like briefly to describe two amendments which the Committee on Budgetary Control has introduced.
I have proposed that we adopt one of these amendments, while I, for my part, have rejected the second.
Both amendments call for the closure of the Chernobyl nuclear plant to be made one of the auditing criteria for the outpayments, this applying to the tranche payments as well as to the overall programme.
I have already said that I find this completely acceptable.
The Commission has indicated the same.
The Committee on Budgets has extended this arrangement.
From a general point of view I can accept this extension, but I believe that for the examination of both tranches we should not again be introducing further provisos for checking on the closure of Chernobyl, which is scheduled for the year 2000.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, I should first like to thank Mrs Mann most sincerely for her report and for the excellent work which she has done generally for Ukraine, including her contribution as a member of the delegation.
Mrs Mann started off by pointing out that the report had a certain technical content.
From the number of Members present in plenary one immediately knows when a really technical report is on the agenda.
On the other hand, this report undoubtedly has a very significant human angle, something which has been given too little attention.
<P>
We should not forget the degree to which the stability of Ukraine is dependent on support from the European Union.
Ukraine is without doubt one of those countries of the former Soviet Union which, in spite of the huge economic problems facing it, has succeeded in making the greatest apparent progress from a European perspective.
It is a country which has found its own route, and a relatively stable one at that, out of the complex mass which was the Soviet Union. That is why it is so important for us in the European Union to show our support for this independent route and to show that we will continue to provide support in spite of all the difficulties.
As Mrs Mann and others have stressed, Ukraine has taken on certain responsibilities in association with the World Bank and other institutions which are ready to lend financial assistance.
<P>
I believe it is extremely important that the financial package should include Chernobyl and the Chernobyl auditing criteria.
Mrs Mann also supports this view to some extent.
We used to say at one time that we would support Ukraine in the building of the ROVNO II and CHMELNITZKY IV nuclear power plants, provided that Chernobyl is shut down in return.
I do not think - and I am speaking as an Austrian - that we really intend this to be the correct solution to the problem.
We must support Ukraine and enable it to build up its infrastructure in such a way that it can do away with these dangerous Russian reactors altogether.
Helping Ukraine to take an independent road should now be our main concern.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Kaklamanis">
Mr President, first of all I too would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Mann.
Secondly, I want to say that, although the report is of course highly technical, its technical nature is interwoven both outside and inside with a very specific political content.
<P>
Both my group and I will be supporting this report, in other words we will vote for the motion on the need to grant a new loan to Ukraine, since the new loan has two objectives: firstly, to assist the country's economic development and secondly, to foster political stability there, which is a very important factor.
These two objectives are contributions towards improving the quality of life for the people who live there.
<P>
However, regardless of the fact that both I and my group will be voting for the report, I would like to express my disagreement with the prerequisites laid down by the Committee on Budgets, more especially concerning the Chernobyl nuclear reactor.
I would like to inform you, Mrs Mann - and I said the same thing to the Committee on Budgets - that three times, in response to questions of mine about whether the money already given to Ukraine for that purpose, i.e. to close down the Chernobyl reactor or to improve its external cladding, was in fact used for that purpose. The Commission, the responsible Commissioner Mr Van Den Broek, told me, very diplomatically of course but very clearly, that there were suspicions that the money was not spent for that purpose at all.
That, if you will, is why the Committee on Budgets has been particularly strict in respect of the prerequisites for granting the second instalment of the new loan.
<P>
Recognizing Ukraine's other needs, despite what I have said, my group and I will vote for the report.
However, this will be the last time we approve a loan of this kind without specific answers, not only to the other issues you have rightly raised, but also concerning the Chernobyl nuclear reactor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, I would like to start by also congratulating Mrs Mann on her excellent report.
Since its independence, Ukraine has been occupying a strategic position as a bridge between the East and the West.
It is therefore very important that the European Union supports Ukraine where possible on the road to free trade and democracy.
Unfortunately, the necessary economic and political reforms only happen with difficulty.
<P>
Economic growth is extremely important to the development of a stable situation. A reliable energy sector is needed.
Despite a substantial decrease in the demand for energy this sector is wrestling with big problems in Ukraine.
That is why the Union is giving considerable support as part of the TACIS programme.
<P>
Many of these European subsidies could be spent more effectively.
This concerns first and foremost the choice of projects.
In particular, in the sphere of energy, a diffusion of existing, older technologies, such as nuclear technology, is often chosen, while it is in this area, above all, that the European Union can play a initiating and steering role by promoting energy efficiency and by stimulating environmentally-friendly solutions.
<P>
Secondly, when loans are granted, the question of whether the project the money is allocated to offers the most cost-effective solution should be looked at.
My group is still not convinced that the construction of two nuclear power stations in Ukraine to replace the loss of capacity as a result of the closure of Chernobyl is the least cost option economically speaking.
Investments, energy efficiency and clean sources of energy are at all costs to be preferred above maintaining nuclear power stations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, financial aid sounds all very well.
But unfortunately we are being asked here to vote for a process which will keep in motion the international money merry-go-round.
This money is not intended for public programmes.
I quite agree with you that Ukraine is in urgent need of major aid programmes to help it achieve stability and democracy.
Yet with this financial assistance we are using public money from EU taxpayers to pay off the debts which the IMF and the World Bank have established in Ukraine.
<P>
These so-called stability programmes completely fail to take account of the realities of the social and economic problems posed by this transformation process, but rather promise to plunge Ukraine into insolvency.
The EU's so-called macro-financial aid is therefore simply a transfer payment via the Ukrainian budget to the IMF and World Bank.
<P>
The proposal of the Committee on Budgets is worthy of support and we can accept it.
But in view of the actual international finance deal being done here, even this proposal will not be workable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="Cresson">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the current proposal aiming to grant supplementary macro-financial assistance of a maximum of ECU 150 million to Ukraine follows the "Ecofin' Council's agreement in principle of January 1997.
<P>
The presentation of the Commission's proposal has been delayed for the following reasons.
Firstly, there were considerable delays in the disbursement of the second instalment of the previous Community macro-financial loan to Ukraine, due to legal problems on the part of the Ukrainians.
Secondly, there were changes beyond our control in the implementation of the 1997/98 economic programme, which was supported by an IMF stand-by arrangement of US$ 549 million.
The implementation of this programme has just been reviewed and is now considered satisfactory.
<P>
The Ukrainian economy must now face up to particularly difficult internal and external challenges.
Delays in the implementation of vital structural reforms risk reducing the results obtained over the last few years, in terms of macro-economic stabilization to nothing, in particular the drastic reduction of inflation and the introduction, under satisfactory conditions, of a new, stable currency.
Furthermore, under the influence of the monetary crisis in South-East Asia, Ukraine's prospects for external funding have deteriorated.
<P>
In this context, the Commission considers that the granting of supplementary macro-financial assistance to Ukraine would send a clear signal that the Community is ready to provide substantial additional assistance if the Ukrainian authorities take the courageous economic policy measures that are necessary to maintain the reform process within the country.
This assistance has the aim of further strengthening Ukraine's position in terms of foreign exchange reserves and of contributing to the reduction of social costs linked to the implementation of the necessary structural reforms.
Complementary financial assistance is also expected on the part of other bilateral donors, in particular the United States and Japan.
<P>
Following Parliament's example, the Commission considers a commitment on the part of the Ukrainian authorities to implement the plan for closure of the Chernobyl nuclear power station to be essential, according to the terms supported by the G7 and the European Union.
The preamble to the proposal for supplementary macro-financial assistance contains an appropriate reference to this closure.
In this respect, the Commission is able to adopt the European Parliament's amendment.
<P>
In conclusion, I would like to mention that, within this context, the Commission welcomes the Ukrainian authorities' decision to consider the current economic programme as an interim programme and their firm desire, at the highest political level, to prepare a detailed and complete programme of medium term economic and structural reforms likely to put the country firmly back on track towards lasting growth.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
R & D activities (1997 annual report)
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="President">
The next item is Mr Bloch von Blottniz' report (A4-0031/98), on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the Committee's annual report on the research and technological development activities of the European Union (1997) (COM(97)0373 - C4-0435/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Bloch von Blottnitz">
Mr President, if today we are to debate the 1997 annual report on the EU's research and technological development activities, then we should also be asking a number of fundamental questions.
What, for example, is the point of having an annual report when the measures which Parliament called for in the previous annual report were not put into effect? You know the story - the dogs bark and the caravan moves on.
<P>
Obviously the Commission has made efforts in some areas by conducting a statistical assessment of assisted projects and by presenting a clear description of the Fouth Framework Programme.
But some fundamental aspects are still outstanding, such as the links which exist with other programmes and the work of our JRC.
We need an evaluation system for the results of the RTD initiatives and activities, which will serve as a basis for future reports.
We should also have an independent chapter devoted to assessing the role of funding in the case of individual programmes for large industrial enterprises and, in particular, an evaluation of the possible knock-on effects.
Commission statements on personnel and administration costs should also be more precisely quantified and classified, since otherwise we will suspect that the costs involved are too high when measured against what has been achieved.
<P>
To sum up, the 1997 annual report is in many respects just a collection of facts and figures.
Only in very few cases does it contain any well-founded or singularly interesting analyses, such as in the description of the scientific and technical results achieved through the Fourth Framework Programme.
Here the Commission refers to major breakthroughs and achievements, including the satellite monitoring of forest fires, new discoveries relating to the volcanic eruption on Iceland and the development of an ocean survey robot capable of operating 6 000 metres below sea level.
<P>
Projects like this contribute little or nothing to the common objective of improving the quality of life and promoting economic development.
The study of global climate change, information and communications technology, the development of clean energy technologies and energy efficiency are far more likely to lead to an improvement in the quality of life.
<P>
The question which we should be asking at all times is whether the research activities being promoted are likely to benefit mankind, and whether they are ethically justified.
This important point is all too often lost in obscurity and the research work then becomes independent of outside control, serving to benefit only a few specialists and even carrying the risk of becoming antidemocratic and contributing to its own alienation.
Only in very exceptional cases is the lot of mankind enhanced in any significant way by research of this nature.
<P>
Let me finish by saying something about the SME problem-child.
There is still an urgent need to come up with a simplified procedure for these companies.
The application and proposal procedures are too complicated and time-consuming and for this reason they usually fail to reach the target group.
In my opinion it would be far more sensible to set up a Commission department exclusively for small businesses - rather than for their medium-sized counterparts, for which we already have a staff of up to 500 - to help them with their applications.
Industry itself has a department for this purpose.
Such a set-up would introduce real innovation, create real job opportunities and prevent the knock-on effect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lange">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, the uninformed reader might well ask why we bother to present this report at all.
He will simply get the answer, "because it is part of the Treaty' .
But to me such a justification hardly seems adequate.
I would to like to examine in more detail whether the report is supposed to be a description or an evaluation.
If it is merely a description, then its results can be easily guessed at.
You only need to be a first-year organizational sociologist to know that if you ask an organization how things are looking, you will get the answer, "things are looking good' .
<P>
No, ladies and gentlemen, this report cannot merely be descriptive in its purpose.
I wish to see an assessment, an analysis of the EU's research policy.
I want to be given a compass, a chart for negotiating my way through the Bermuda Triangle which is European research policy.
When I compare this year's research report with last year's, a certain trend becomes apparent.
We see a whole collection of new listings.
Even the regional allocation of research funds has been broken down according to the various beneficiaries.
<P>
In my view three fundamental questions have still to be answered.
Firstly, when we speak to applicants for European research funds, the motto seems to be "frustration not administration' , because many selection procedures are non-transparent and rejections are not explained.
There is no emphasis on European research objectives.
I would like to see an inquiry into why this is so.
I want more than just an assurance of greater transparency and the simplification of procedures.
<P>
Secondly, the EU research policy is like a string of lights with 20 specific programmes.
I should also like to know which of these lights is the brightest, which one has the most impact and where can we add a few more bulbs.
We do not want another description. We have had this one and that one and we have spent enough money on them.
No, what we really need is an evaluation of the potential impact of the individual programmes, and for this purpose we really require a coherent system so that proper comparisons can be made.
<P>
Thirdly, we need to re-examine the research task forces which were set up at great expense in terms of Commission manpower and also in respect of the official publications, which were an innovation in EU research policy.
When I look at this research report, I see that two whole lines have been devoted to the setting up of the task forces.
I think that we have given these task forces not just a first-class burial but a third-class one.
<P>
I think that this aspect, which Parliament fully supports, should definitely be looked into.
There is nothing wrong with different Directorates-General and Commission departments talking to one another - on the contrary, this should be encouraged, as should cooperation.
One can of course criticize the task forces too, but this initiative should be analysed in-depth so that we can obtain guidelines for the future.
<P>
Let me again ask the question: why do we bother bringing out this report? Why do we sacrifice so many innocent trees to do it?
Have we really developed the Titanic mentality? Everything is just fine, the bulkheads are holding, the rivets are okay and we are so happy that everything is doing so well.
No, I, for my part, want to know the problems and the risks, and I want to be able to analyse things and to look for improvements and for new ideas.
For, after all, nothing is so good that it cannot be improved on.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Estevan Bolea">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, like the two Members who have already spoken, we also think that this report ought to have a very different focus in order to be of use to the Commission, the Member States, research centres, Parliament and everybody.
<P>
We are going to support Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz' report in its entirety, except for paragraph A, because it is out of step with reality - it involves value judgements -, and paragraph 16, because it is unrealistic.
It will be very difficult for you to submit the report on 31 March because many accounts have not been closed.
<P>
We think it would be useful if you were to carry out and include in the report a benchmarking operation - a comparison - of our results compared with those of Japan or the United States.
I also want to mention paragraph 10 of Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz' report, which states that there are overlaps between the various Member States' own programmes and the EU programme, and suggests how to be a little more efficient.
There are hundreds or thousands of projects and hundreds and thousands of administrative records, entailing a very high administrative cost. We realize that this is necessary, because there are so many projects, but it should be reduced.
<P>
We trust that the Fifth Framework Programme will concentrate on the more important, larger projects, which are less spread out.
We are not very happy - nobody is - with the budgetary provision, and we will be discussing the funding of the Fifth Framework Programme tomorrow and on other occasions in the future.
But this will require us all to be much more efficient and to use the resources much, much better.
<P>
The Joint Research Centre, with its seven sites, also needs different guidelines, Madam Commissioner.
First of all, it seems to me we have to give the researchers their freedom, but not to the extent that each one does whatever he or she wants, and there should be an indicative programme, which perhaps could be implemented by the Institute fof Prospective Technological Studies in Seville.
<P>
The Fifth Framework Programme offers us many opportunities and I hope that we all avail ourselves of them.
In any case, we will support this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="Chichester">
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz on her report and comment on some of the points she made.
In paragraph G there is a certain inconsistency in her comments about profits and competitiveness.
I am sorry that the rapporteur seems not to approve of the private sector firms who make a profit and yet wants them to boost their competitiveness.
It seems to me that profits are the best measure of competitiveness.
<P>
I welcome her statements in paragraph I that SMEs are the most important source of technological innovation but we must remember, as other colleagues have said, that participation for SMEs is more difficult and we should not expect too much from them.
I share the rapporteur's views in paragraph 6 about the absence of any review of those famous task forces on which we spent so much committee time.
Perhaps the Commissioner might care to address that point in some way in the near future.
<P>
In paragraph 12 the rapporteur sets out a long list of extra administrative tasks for the Commission in making reports, and I would suggest that we must beware of criticizing procedures for being complex and bureaucratic and then in the next breath calling for more of the same ourselves.
<P>
Finally, taking up a point made in the explanatory statement, I see no harm in R & D being about economic growth since that is how we improve the condition of life for our citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Vaz da Silva">
Mr President, Commissioner, Europe must be competitive in the area of science and research.
In those areas in which it holds a leading position, the Union must hold its place; in those in which it is lagging behind the other world partners, it must make up lost ground.
However, this aim of making technological research and development competitive should not obscure the other three objectives that constitute the very foundation of its policies: to speed economic and social cohesion between its Member States and between European regions in this field; to direct research and priority actions towards achieving a better quality of life; and to open up to cooperation with the emerging economies by adapting strategies to the conditions that prevail there.
<P>
While the Commission report refers with satisfaction to the rising percentage of Objective 1 Member State participation in European projects, it neglects to mention the quality of this participation and the assessment of results.
Indeed, of the 25, 000 research partners and the 3, 000 publications and patents emerging from Community research in 1996, how many were effectively translated into concrete results for the weaker members of the Union?
<P>
The major difficulty encountered by small and medium enterprises lies precisely in translating the results of research into applied innovation.
This difficulty is particularly acute in the less developed countries.
The work of the six task forces dealing with the major projects developed by enterprises and institutions of the technologically-strong Member States will only produce the desired results for the Union if its weaker members are simultaneously strengthened.
In addition, I would like to see the Commission, in its next annual report, presenting a real state of the Union-type report regarding all technological research and development policies, as opposed to confining itself to Community-funded projects as it has to date.
Such an overview of Europe's scientific and technological capacity is an essential basis for future planning.
<P>
I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on this report, and I will end by identifying two strategic priorities for the future: reformulating structural policies in such a way as to incorporate SME research as a priority dimension; and helping Member States to enhance the efficiency of their research policy management.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Cresson">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would above all like to thank Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz for the quality of attention she has paid to this 1997 annual report on the research and technological development activities of the European Union and for the seriousness with which she has examined this document.
<P>
Her report contains suggestions which will prove to be extremely useful in the future.
But before commenting in further detail on this report, I would like to share with you the recent developments which have occurred with regard to the Fifth Framework Programme, which is currently under discussion within the European Parliament and the Council.
This inspires divided opinions, to say the least.
<P>
The positive aspect is that the Council, during the Research Council of Thursday 12 February, reached a political agreement on a common position on the Fifth Framework Programme. This was not a foregone conclusion, far from it.
The risk of breaking the Union's continuity of effort in research - if it still exists - now appears to be eliminated, but we must maintain the momentum we have gained.
Unfortunately - and this is the worrying point - the common position in question is quite far from that which was proposed by the European Parliament and the Commission.
Once more, and hopefully for the last time, the rule of unanimity has demonstrated its negative effects, since, in principle, two Member States forced the others to lower the budget.
The adopted decision makes the formal stand of the Commission difficult.
The Commission is obliged to dissociate itself from the position taken by the Council and to express its disagreement and concern on several points.
The first relates to the overall amount.
The Council agreed on a figure of ECU 14 billion, well below the ECU 16.3 bn proposed by the Commission, which remains convinced of the validity of this figure, and even further below the figure of ECU 16.7 bn which Parliament gave in its opinion during first reading.
This amount is ECU 500 million less than a simple renewal, in real terms, of the Fourth Framework Programme.
If it were finally adopted, we would witness, for the first time in the history of the Union, a decline in research efforts.
<P>
At a time when the President of the United States, in his State of the Nation speech, is announcing an unprecedented increase in public American research efforts, the citizens of Europe would find it difficult to understand why the Union hesitates to mobilize one of its greatest assets, its intellectual potential and human resources, to the full, in order to strengthen its competitiveness and create jobs.
The reduction in resources that would occur in such a scenario would have repercussions on all activities.
However, it would particularly affect the Joint Research Centre, which would find itself deprived of the means to accomplish its mission in the service of the Union regarding policies on which a consensus had nevertheless been achieved.
The Commission would then be obliged to seriously consider stopping certain activities considered to be essential.
<P>
The common position of the Council furthermore contains some unnecessarily restrictive measures in the area of committee procedures, and some of you earlier highlighted the complexity of procedures.
The Council text will increase this complexity, if we allow it to go through.
By setting up separate committees for energy and the environment, as well as socio-economic research, the effect will be a virtual de facto creation of distinct programmes in these areas.
<P>
Finally, with the adoption of the Fifth Framework Programme and its specific programmes, the Council is, on the one hand, setting out the future financial prospects for the Union, and on the other, establishing conditions which will again bring into question the principle of multi-annual budgets and predictability of resources which is the very essence and interest of the Programme.
Once more, Parliament and the Commission find themselves on the same side, sharing the desire to build up Community research and to provide it with the necessary resources.
The Commission knows that Parliament will in due course fight to set up a framework programme which corresponds to the needs of the Union. We are counting on you to help us make adjustments and to ensure that the final Fifth Framework Programme will be closer to the one proposed by our two institutions.
<P>
Let me return now to what is concerning us today, the draft report and resolution on the 1997 annual report on the Union's research activities.
Your rapporteur highlights the very informative nature of this report on many issues.
She notes the improvements made in respect of previous reports, recognising, in particular, that a certain number of the European Parliament's recommendations have been taken on board.
The Commission is happy that its efforts to make this document a useful instrument and to improve it continually have been taken into consideration.
<P>
The draft resolution, however, sets out a certain number of criticisms and recommendations which demonstrate a misunderstanding of the very nature of this annual report.
It cannot and must not be considered as an evaluation report.
Basically, it is a document for information.
Its aim is to give, with the help of as many precise factual details as possible, an overall view of the Union's activity in the area of research and technological development over the period covered, including projects initiated, results obtained and developments prepared.
<P>
It seems to me that the 1997 report thus gives a fairly detailed and complete picture of research policy during 1996, including the implementation of the specific programmes of the Fourth Framework Programme and the first stages of the preparation of the Fifth.
The point which must be borne in mind is the following: this report must be seen in the context of a wider system which also includes all of the follow-up reports on each specific programme and the Framework Programme as a whole, along with the five-year evaluation reports.
Thus, two series of follow-up reports for 1996 and 1997 have been prepared and published.
The preparation of those relating to 1997 has been initiated.
In the context of the preparation of the Fifth Framework Programme, fiveyear evaluation reports have been prepared for all the specific programmes as well as for Programme itself.
The latter has been drawn up by a group led by an expert on Community research, the former Commissioner, Etienne Davignon.
I share the rapporteur's opinion that a rigorous evaluation of the content of the Programmes and the way in which they have contributed to the achievement of the wider political objectives of the Union is essential.
This assessment will, however, be found in the evaluation reports.
<P>
Therefore, the Commission clearly notes the numerous suggestions formulated in the resolution. It will be able to take them into account when implementing the overall policy.
Undoutably, improvements will be made.
The complementary nature of the three components, the annual report, the follow-up report and the evaluation report, must be strengthened.
The information contained in all of these documents and the conclusions of the different exercises must, moreover, be made available in such a way that enables all potential users, starting with the European Parliament, to become acquainted with it within the necessary time frame and under the best conditions.
<P>
The Commission intends to apply itself to improving the system in this way and will gladly welcome any suggestions that may help.
The objective is the same as that of the Fifth Framework Programme.
By definition, the Union's research policy is for the citizens of Europe.
It must be implemented both in their interest and, in their eyes and those of the institution representing them, namely the European Parliament, with complete transparency.
The Commission and Parliament often share the same views and they must fight together to enable this policy to realize its ambitions.
I am sure I will be able to count on you in this respect and I thank you for your efforts.
<P>
You have rightly drawn our attention to several points, on the complexity of the procedure, for example.
The Fifth Framework Programme has been designed to concentrate its actions.
Such concentration is essential to improve management.
We have gone from 22 to four programmes, four large programmes which are then divided into a variety of key actions.
Nevertheless, there is a clear effort at concentration, which is in keeping with your requests.
<P>
The problems of ethics, which you have rightly highlighted, are truly worrying.
Efforts have been made to mobilize national ethics committees - where they exist since, as you know, they do not exist in all the Member States - so that they demand respect for fundamental ethical principles.
The Commission's proposals for the establishment of the Fifth Framework Programme take up this demand once more.
<P>
Many of you have emphasized the importance of small and medium-sized enterprises and it is a problem I am very aware of.
You know that, although it was very weak at the start, the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises in the Union's research programmes has continually increased.
One essential step was the inclusion, in the Fourth Framework Programme, of what are known as technological stimuli, aimed particularly at small and medium-sized enterprises.
These actions will of course be followed up and substantially strengthened under the "Innovating and helping small and medium-sized enterprises to participate' programme, which provides, in particular, for: assistance in the area of intellectual property; financing for innovation; mechanisms to encourage the creation and development of innovative businesses; new approaches in technology transfer; and, finally, networking and information services.
<P>
With a view to facilitating the participation of SMEs in the Framework Programme, increasing the efficiency of actions which concern them and reducing delays, accredited but not exclusive information and assistance networks will be developed by strengthening and rationalizing the existing structures.
You can see that, on this particular issue of SMEs, we have already made progress, although obviously much remains to be done, and that structural and administrative measures will be established, under the Fifth Framework Programme, to enable us to respond better to the expectations of small and medium-sized enterprises.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lange">
Madam Commissioner, allow me to ask another question.
Mr Chichester and I raised the subject of the task forces, which have not been reviewed in the report - or at least have only been given a two-line mention.
In its statement the Commission also failed to say anything about the work of the task forces.
In its response to a previous statement on the research report, the Commission said: "the annual report serves to present to Parliament those aspects which are considered to be of prime importance' .
Am I then right in assuming that the task forces are not regarded as one of the more important aspects here?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Cresson">
The task forces, may I remind you, were not provided for in the Fourth Framework Programme since, when I arrived at the Commission, the Fourth Framework Programme had already been adopted; I introduced them along with a number of my colleagues in the Commission, in particular Martin Bangemann and Neil Kinnock.
<P>
These task forces have looked into a number of crucial problems that specifically affect the competitiveness of European business in both the sectors where Europe is particularly competitive, as well as those where it comes up against fierce competition, and we have distinguished a number of important issues. We wanted to draw together researchers, manufacturers and others to consider these issues, in order to have a global vision.
This led us, furthermore, to the multidisciplinary approach of the Fifth Framework Programme, which follows a slightly different philosophy to that of the Fourth.
<P>
So the work that has been done by the task forces has not been lost.
On the contrary, it has been extremely useful and has enabled partners with different outlooks, in all of the Member States, to come together and discuss the different aspects of a topic.
This is what guided us through the Fourth Framework Programme.
<P>
For the Fifth Programme, there are no longer any task forces, instead we have key actions.
These key actions will work in the same way and according to the same multidisciplinary approach.
Let me take the example of the key action known as "the town of tomorrow' in the Fifth Framework Programme. In "the town of tomorrow' we encounter problems concerning transport, pollution, housing and tele-commuting, as well as those concerning town planning, that is, socio-economic problems, particularly those affecting inner cities and suburbs.
We have therefore chosen an approach around themes which will bring the different disciplines together.
In other words, the task forces become key actions and we take a multidisciplinary approach.
This is based on the experiences of the task forces and will be developed within the Fifth Framework Programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Risks from chemical agents
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0051/98), by Mr Blak, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Council Directive on the protection of the health and safety of workers from the risks related to chemical agents at work (fourteenth individual directive within the meaning of Article 16(1) of Directive 89/391/EEC) (C4-0531/97-00/0459(SYN))
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Blak">
Mr President, I am pleased and proud to be here today as rapporteur in the second phase of the proposed directive on chemical agents.
I am glad that we have managed to break the three-year impasse in the Council.
I am glad that we can now make progress in creating greater security and better working conditions for employees in Europe.
And I am proud that the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has reached agreement on a number of amendments; this will further enhance the prospects of the outcome in the Council in important areas.
Almost four years have gone by since we last debated this proposal.
It is regrettable that we have had to wait so long, because the directive on chemical agents is an important part of a large collection of legislation.
It is part of the process that began in 1989 with the framework directive on improvements of employee security and health at work.
The jigsaw puzzle of directives under discussion here will make Europe even more attractive, particularly for those in employment.
First and foremost, it will be more secure and healthier to work in the Member States of the EU, and companies and workers alike can rejoice about the transparent and uniform regulations in the area of the working environment throughout the EU.
In addition to this, however, a very important incidental benefit is also achieved through the creation of common regulations in this area: it is an effective way of tackling social dumping.
Social dumping occurs when companies cross national frontiers to avoid giving employees decent working conditions.
It is important to take the problem of social dumping seriously, particularly in the light of forthcoming enlargement.
<P>
The proposed directive has two important components, to my mind.
On the one hand, it clearly establishes the commitments incumbent upon employers in connection with chemical substances that may be damaging to the safety and health of workers.
On the other hand, the proposed directive establishes procedures for joint initiatives to restrict chemical substances in the working environment.
One of the most important instruments in this area is the possibility of establishing limit values.
Let me be quite honest and say that I dislike limit values.
In principle, one should endeavour to make the working environment so clean that there would be no need for limit values.
Unfortunately, the reality is somewhat different.
It is often very difficult to determine exactly how dangerous a given substance is, and it may be necessary to put pressure on people who do not want to give the employees the benefit of the doubt.
Thus, there are instances when it may be necessary to set limit values.
<P>
To my mind, the greatest inadequacy of the Council's common position is the lack of sufficient control in implementing the indicative limit values.
What is lacking is some mechanism to ensure that implementation is assessed and that, if necessary, proposals be made to set mandatory limit values.
Amendment No 4 addresses how to solve this problem.
Major progress would be made if this were to be adopted here in the House tomorrow and subsequently adopted by the Council.
<P>
I do not wish to go through all my amendments in detail.
They are already explained in the background to the recommendation and have been discussed thoroughly in committee.
However, there are two subjects that I must address, concerning two amendments in my recommendation.
Firstly, Amendment No 10, aimed at supporting education as a means of minimising risks in the workplace, is a compromise in which a sentence has been mistakenly deleted, even though it actually supports the need for education and information.
Therefore, I would like to encourage everyone to vote for this amendment from the Group of the Party of European Socialists, which reintegrates this sentence.
<P>
Secondly, there are problems with Amendment No 11.
The English translation states that health surveillance procedures shall be agreed to by the workforce.
This actually means that all workers at a given workplace would have to consent before any one of them could be subjected to a health check.
Of course, that is not what we want, and we would therefore like to table an oral amendment substituting the word workforce with workers' concern .
<P>
Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to compliment the British Presidency on the work it has done on this subject.
It has been very gratifying to see active and constructive efforts aimed at pushing the directive through.
It is as if we now dare to recognise a social and international responsibility.
I do not know why, but I can hazard a guess.
If the directive on chemical agents is adopted by the Council at its upcoming meeting, this will not only be a victory for the British Presidency, but one we can all rejoice in.
There are no losers in the long term when it comes to creating a more humane and more social Europe; there will only be winners.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="Hughes">
Mr President, I wish to congratulate Freddy Blak very warmly on a tremendous job in preparing this report for the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
He has recognized the fragility of the common position that took a very long time to reach inside the Council and, rather than seek to amend everything in sight, he has done the sensible thing and focused on a short list of issues that really matter.
<P>
One of the most important, from my point of view, is Amendment No 4.
I understand the logic of the Community laying down indicative limit values, requiring Member States to disseminate information on those indicative values and further requiring Member States to take them into account when they set their own corresponding national occupational exposure limit values.
But that is not the same as requiring Member States to approximate to the indicative values laid down at Community level, or even move towards them.
I was therefore concerned that this might lead to a continuing disparity and I am glad that Amendment No 4 would address that by allowing a regular review, based on the information provided by Member States under Article 15, leading, where necessary, to the Commission taking appropriate action to bring about closer harmonization.
I understand the Commission is prepared to accept that amendment or a form of wording similar to it.
<P>
Another important point, in view of recent cases I have dealt with, involving trichloroethylene and the recent exchange we had in committee with the Commission's representatives, is Amendment No 7 concerning substitution.
It seems quite clear to me that some of the difficulties we are experiencing stem from the fact that we are not seeing proper implementation of the risk assessment and related sections of the framework directive.
That is leading, for example, to the situation where in some Member States trichloroethylene, a dangerous solvent, is banned, and in some Member States it is subject to exposure limits far greater than those laid down in others.
We have to work for a full and proper implementation of the framework directive but, in the meantime, the importance of substitution needs to be underlined in this directive, and Freddy Blak was quite right to do so in Amendment No 7.
<P>
It is very good indeed to see that this directive has been resurrected after so long.
However, I wonder what the prospects are for a number of other directives which continue to be blocked in Council, for example, the directive on various modes of transport and the directive on physical agents, which covers noise, vibration, optical radiation and fields and waves.
<P>
I am particularly concerned about the subject of noise.
The original 1986 directive on the protection of workers from risks related to exposure to noise at work has exposure and action levels which are hopelessly out of date.
The then UK Government was very proud to have succeeded in pressing for a 90 decibel level for the mandatory use of ear-protectors at work.
It held this up as a costsaving measure.
But the cost for many thousands of workers has been paid in terms of reduced hearing and industrial deafness.
<P>
That 1986 directive was supposed to be re-examined by the Council, on the basis of a Commission proposal, before January 1994.
It is now February 1998 and unless that physical agents directive can be revived, we must in any case review that earlier noise directive.
I hope we can receive an assurance on that point from the Commission.
It would not be fair to expect Mrs Cresson to respond to that but I hope the point can be raised with Commissioner Flynn.
<P>
I look forward to the Commission taking part in committee, at a hearing coming up within the next few weeks, on new emerging health risks.
We have succeeded in dealing with some of the outstanding ones here - the older ones - and we have some new ones to tackle together.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendonça">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report that is currently under discussion regarding the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a directive which provides a framework for the protection of the health and safety of workers is extremely important and useful for workers who may be subject, in any Member State, to exposure to chemical agents.
This directive should not and cannot be further delayed.
The matter in question deserves the greatest urgency and the closest attention of Member States, social partners and institutions of the European Union.
<P>
The text of the Council's common position currently under discussion is clearer, more explicit and less prone to ambiguities or to any shirking of responsibility.
The structure of the document favours a better definition and ordering of the objectives and scope of the directive.
<P>
In this text, the definition of a dangerous chemical agent, and the mechanism for establishing occupational exposure limit values and biological limit values are more clearly defined and occupy a more prominent position.
A clearer definition is given of the duties of the employer, the need for vigilance by workers, and the matter of consultation, information and participation of workers.
<P>
An emphasis is placed on the Member States' obligation to enact legislative, regulatory and administrative provisions to facilitate the implementation of the directive.
The report reflects some of the concerns raised at the present time, and no doubt in the future, by the common position.
Meanwhile, however, the amendments now submitted by Parliament complement, improve and clarify the document under discussion.
Many of the amendments proposed by Parliament at first reading have been incorporated into this text, with the result that it has been noticeably improved.
<P>
I would briefly like to raise two points regarding the amendments.
Amendment No 1 emphasizes the additional caution to be exercised regarding pregnant women and young people; in such circumstances, as in others, it is essential to protect current workers, but we should never fail to think of the future.
Amendment No 10 relates to the importance that should always be attributed to the training of workers, as opposed to mere information.
For these reasons, and others which have no place here, this report is certainly appropriate and is to be commended.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it has certainly taken a long time for the Council's common position to appear.
But at the moment it is better than the Commission proposal.
I am extremely satisfied with the cooperation which took place with the rapporteur, Mr Blak.
I therefore did not need to submit further amendments, although I intend to support Amendment No 16 by the Christian Democrats.
<P>
What is the significance of this directive?
Different standards damage regulation in the Member States.
Arguments related to competitiveness will always take the upper hand, after all.
This is bad for the employees and it is bad for the victims.
And those victims are often suffering terribly.
One European policy with binding standards is therefore best, and we in the committee and in Parliament call for this in Amendment No 4.
<P>
In fact, we should also be prepared to ban a number of solvents such as xylene, toluene and trichloroethylene, and Amendment No 7 points to the direction we must take in this respect, since industry is encouraged to seek substitution, and substitution can be found in the use of reactive solvents.
In this context I would like to mention the solvents which are found in Marigold, for instance.
An experiment has been carried out with this plant, which was funded by the European Commission, in fact, and showed exceptionally good potential.
<P>
That is why, Mr President, Madam Commissioner, I would like to suggest that we, as the European Parliament, receive a periodic progress report, since I am not entirely confident about the implementation.
<P>
I would like to conclude by saying something on educating, training and raising the awareness of people in the workplace.
We have also submitted an amendment on this point.
So the issue does not only involve banning chemical agents, it also deals with the handling of chemical agents.
Once we have a decent package of proposals, I think we will able to take a step forward with this directive to combat the greater problem that lies behind it, for painters and other workers, for example.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Mr President, firstly I would like to thank Mr Blak for the work he has done on this very important, but very difficult and complicated subject.
Health and safety at work is one issue where EU legislation has a real effect on a person's normal working day.
It has to do with people's mental and physical health, and their fitness for work.
There cannot be anything more important than this.
<P>
The EU must be able to provide a secure minimum level of health and safety at work to prevent sacrificing good working conditions in the name of competition.
Health and safety at work do not just benefit the worker, but also the employer and the whole of society.
This is why it is quite deplorable that this subject has remained on hold for such a long time in the Council, as we have remarked here on numerous occasions.
This directive was featured in Parliament's first reading four years ago.
Hopefully the completion of a common position by the Council means that the health and safety at work log-jam is breaking up at last, now that it is the British term of office.
<P>
Mr Blak has proposed some amendments to the Council's common position, most of which I completely agree with.
I am, however, concerned at the negative approach the report takes to setting biological limit values.
The report states that biological limit values may be determined only in exceptional circumstances where other means fail.
We in Finland, however, do not have such a restricted view on the biomonitoring of chemical substances.
On the contrary, we believe that it is often an effective way of monitoring employees' exposure to dangerous chemicals, in order to protect their health.
Naturally, the principle of biological monitoring is always agreed beforehand with workers' representatives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, this argument really needs to be rammed home.
Mr Hughes had to do it too.
There has been much talk of cost saving in the area of health and safety at work, but no mention has been made of the costs which could be saved by those affected, and by our national economies, if we really introduced a proper safety scheme.
As a result, we are again faced with a long-running scandal.
Health and safety in the European workplace is not keeping pace with developments in the internal market and with technological progress.
<P>
Mr Hughes has already referred to two directives which are still pending.
In the case of this directive we need to discuss the advantages and drawbacks of the strategy which the Commission has chosen to confront the problem: elegantly-defined principles, progress without protection.
The individual directives can be added later, while we focus on developing the main directive. But the price will be high.
The problem lies in the content of the framework directive.
We have to ensure that the individual directives do not fall behind the framework directive, and then there is also the problem of harmonizing procedures between the individual framework directives, such as that on explosive atmospheres - which is looming -, for this is creating increasing complications in individual cases and is hampering progress.
<P>
I would just like to stress again that Mr Blak has done an excellent job.
I do not believe that Amendment No 16 is better than Amendment No 3, and in the case of Amendment No 18, I would ask Mr Blak why the risk assessment has to be made at the beginning of the information form.
Does this not run contrary to what he has said in Amendment No 6?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Skinner">
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Freddie Blak for the work he has done on this report.
It has been a hard fought for report and his endeavours have been greatly appreciated across the board inside the committee.
While it is technical, it is also very real.
In fact ten million people across the European Union suffer an accident or illness at work.
This is a well-known fact and eight thousand of these people unfortunately die every year within the European Union.
Many other unreported accidents, illnesses and deaths go by the board, of course.
<P>
Many of these deaths and illnesses arise from ignorance and the taking of unacceptable risks.
As long as these risks are ill-defined, it is right that the Commission should introduce legislation to mark these risks quite appropriately.
<P>
Why do people take unnecessary risks?
We all do it now and then.
We all cross the roads, perhaps without looking, and we all take inappropriate care.
This is a bad attitude for life, and definitely a bad attitude for work, but these attitudes can be dismantled and reassembled in a progressive and positive way to stop the kind of problems we face at work.
<P>
This is why this report, which is unlocked by the UK Presidency's initiative as Freddie remarked, aims at stopping the inappropriate behaviour of the use of noxious chemical agents which are some of the worst chemical agents that people can use at work.
The hazards of using such chemical agents, must be assessed as to the risk for workers, not just from the immediate effects but the long-term effects as well.
The training notices must have a substantial impact as well as training itself.
This is why such importance has been given to training in this report, to the extent perhaps of widening the framework directive's interpretation of training and that is a welcome move.
In small businesses, for example, workers are 50 % more likely to suffer from an accident at work.
Why is this?
It is because there has been better training in larger companies and appropriate notices, none of which are obvious within smaller companies.
Also, in larger companies risk is taken seriously because health and safety is regarded as a productive and profitable element for the future of any company structure.
This is why the Safe Action for Europe project, which unfortunately cannot get past the question of a legal base, would have been quite appropriate for small businesses.
<P>
Freddie has also mentioned relocation of chemical production and companies.
I remember the case in Bhopal, India.
Low social costs were given as the reasons for this.
This meant that Bhopal is remembered as a major disaster and for total exploitation of the workers in that country.
We must not forget that, if this is a directive which adds to the sum total of European workers' rights, perhaps we could be exporting this type of model elsewhere in the world.
Certainly we must not let capital get away with simply exporting the dangers and disasters which we know beset this minefield in this particular Continent.
It is progressive enough for us to feel that it will be significant in protecting workers and yet it is also realistic enough to produce results.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schiedermeier">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, speaking on behalf of our group, Mr Mendonça has already presented the technical aspects of this subject in some detail.
I should therefore like to discuss some of the more general issues involved here.
The Council allowed itself three and a half years before submitting a common position to Parliament after first reading.
This shows just where the delay is in drawing up European legislation.
<P>
The rapporteur has taken pains to ensure that the outcome in Parliament does not deviate too much from the common position, so that the directive on the protection of workers' health and safety from the effects of chemical agents at the workplace is neither further delayed nor threatened.
No blame whatsoever can be attached to Mr Blak for this situation.
He has done an excellent job.
At all events, I expect him to give way to the amendment which I am re-submitting to Parliament.
<P>
Let me present some of the important facts surrounding this subject.
Technical directives of this type are very significant for workers and for workers' health, but plenty of even more important directives are still needed, for example, on teleworking and the wider aspects of part-time employment.
When does the Commission think it will get around to doing something about this, or does it hope to divert us from the really important issues by submitting technical questions?
Does the Council intend to brood much longer over the directives mentioned by Mr Hughes?
The real victims of all this delay are the working people of Europe and we, as serving politicians in this European Parliament, cannot tolerate this situation any longer.
We expect that progress will ultimately be made in this direction and that the Commission and the Council will take the appropriate steps to see that this is done.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
Mr President, the target must be that no people should be injured at work.
The issue in this recommendation for second reading was first raised four years ago.
Minimum rules are a requirement for people to be able to bring about reasonably equal conditions within the EU in this area.
<P>
I would like, in particular, to emphasize the principle of caution, that is, that there should be a good margin for workers being exposed to risks.
It is better to prevent than to discover risks afterwards.
There is strong political opinion behind this report. We saw that at first reading and we can see it now.
There is a unanimous committee behind these fifteen amendments.
What we are proposing are improvements to the Council's position.
The three most important which I shall emphasize here are: the evaluation of the implementation by the Member States; information to workers about the risks and the danger of agents; and training in protective measures.
In addition, we must ensure that there is coordination between these measures.
<P>
The Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party supports this recommendation for second reading from the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papakyriazis">
Mr President, in ancient Greek 'the beginning of wisdom is to give thought to naming' means that one should always begin by defining one's terms in order to lend substance to action.
I believe that we are now witnessing such a process in connection with a very important issue, which is reaching a favourable intermediate stage of completion.
In other words, it will go further.
<P>
I believe that whether we call it sabotage or just delay, this matter has at any rate taken a number of years to progress from first reading to the second reading here today.
Mr President, it was the previous Parliament that gave the first reading and we are now occupied with the second.
<P>
I can justify the fact that, as is being proved, this directive's development has shown that substantive redefinitions were needed.
The directive as such, the rationale of its explanatory concepts and the statements that go with it are, I believe, so important to a degree that I would describe it, if I may, as a historic document.
The question is, how well do the specific articles realize the intention? I believe that with all this procedure of the common position, approaches have been made which bring hope and lend perspectives to this directive.
<P>
I agree with the modest satisfaction expressed by our rapporteur, Mr Blak.
I believe that the amendments constitute an important and substantive step, as we reiterate with persistence and steadfastness to the European Parliament, in the anticipation that they may now be acceptable. They represent a first step, and I believe that we are not just taking a first step but we are making tangible progress in relation to the situations and views that prevailed four years ago.
<P>
I echo the call to the British Presidency to speed up, promote and complete this common position decisively, because that will enable us to save time.
It has been said, stressed, and I too repeat it, that the definitions now being adopted are wise ones in that they are not absolutely binding.
I believe that we really cannot, at this point in time, give a complete list of all the dangerous substances, because new ones will emerge which we do not now know, or hitherto unrecognized dangers will be discovered.
This potential extension with the passage of time, precisely in order to prevent infringements of the directive based on today's criteria, is, I believe, one of the directive's strong points.
This, then, is a framework directive which implements the very important Directive 89/391/EEC, but as a framework it allows for further scope and is an important starting point at the present stage.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Cresson">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank Mr Blak for the quality of the work he has carried out on this proposal, and to thank him and all of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs for their continued efforts to improve the health and safety of workers.
The Commission greatly appreciates the constructive approach that has been adopted with respect to the common position.
<P>
Firstly, I would like to highlight the political importance of the Council's common position.
The Commission is convinced that the principles of health and safety protection must continue to be enhanced at Community level.
The Council has recognized this in the common position and, although the text is clearly not perfect, it represents a considerable advance in the field of health and safety.
Most of the European Parliament's amendments to the text of the common position are real improvements and can therefore be accepted by the Commission.
I am referring to Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, the first part of 5, 6, 9, 11, 12, 13 and 18.
<P>
I would now like to comment on the few amendments which cause some problems for the Commission and which, consequently, cannot be accepted.
The second part of Amendment No 5 imposes on employers the need to record a risk assessment in a suitable form, taking national law and practice into account.
This measure would undoubtedly weaken the common position which anticipates that the documents should be established in accordance with national law and practice.
I am convinced that it cannot be Parliament's intention to permit a discretionary appreciation of respect for legislation.
This idea cannot therefore be retained.
<P>
Amendment No 7 stresses the principle of substitution to eliminate risk.
The Commission is certainly in agreement with this principle, which aims at replacing hazardous chemical agents by others which are not hazardous or which are less hazardous to workers.
Nevertheless, to encourage optimal preventive action on the part of employers, the most practical obligation to reduce risk to a minimum must be maintained when the complete elimination of all risk is impossible.
<P>
Amendment No 8 is politically delicate.
It was only after difficult negotiations that the Member States and the Commission came to an agreement on this text.
As the proposed addition goes beyond the compromise reached and, although the Commission understands Parliament's position, it prefers to keep the text as it is, given that on the basis of Amendment No 4, which can be accepted, it is possible to come back to this question at the time of the five-year evaluation.
<P>
In the case of Amendment No 10, the Commission considers that the withdrawal of the paragraph on the nature of information would not facilitate the task of the employer on this very important point.
<P>
I have one last observation concerning Amendment No 14.
The Commission cannot accept the removal of the term "and the new findings' from amongst the cases demanding an adaptation of the annexes to technological progress.
Indeed, new findings constitute the main reason for technological modifications.
This principle was, moreover, approved by the Council in its common position and on many other occasions.
I hope that Parliament will not thus be looking to limit the Commission's rights of initiative.
It is not a question of the Commission using the pretext of adaptations to technological progress in order to bypass Parliament, as the rapporteur seems to think.
<P>
Regarding Amendments Nos 16 and 17, the Commission is not able to accept them, for it considers that Amendment No 3, which it does accept, is better than Amendment No 16 and that Amendment No 17 adds no further information to Article 8 of the common position.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Blak">
Mr President, I heard that Commissioner Cresson had not included Amendment No 11 among the amendments that the Commission was able to adopt.
However, I have tabled a verbal amendment, in collaboration with the Commission in fact, so I hope the Commission will not retreat at the last moment.
The arrival of this amendment was somewhat delayed, so I hope this was merely an oversight.
I fully concur with you - this is also a gentle hint to my colleagues - that there is no reason to vote on Amendment No 16 when the Commission and the Council already accept Amendment No 3.
We must take care not to hold the banner up so high that we lose our footing on terra firma, so I am actually very happy with your comments.
However, I do hope, Mrs Cresson, that you dream tonight that you want to have a hand in reviewing these matters once again, because then we can get a directive through that has been standing still for four years.
I have bent over backwards, the Council has bent over backwards, and I believe the Commission, too, can come towards us a little.
I am quite sure that you will dream about this tonight, so we can achieve a positive result tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Cresson">
It will not be long.
Amendment No 11 is accepted by the Commission, indeed, I believe I said this earlier, but perhaps it is a simple case of a problem of translation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="President">
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Question Time (Commission)
<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="President">
The next item is questions to the Commission (B4-0017/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 NAME="Monti">
The Commission would remind the author of the question that, according to the provisions of the new Article 255 introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam, the citizen has the right of access to the documents of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission, subject to the principles and limits the Council has to determine, according to the codecision procedure, within two years of the entry into force of the Treaty.
<P>
On the basis of these general principles which are common to the three institutions, each one should draw up its own regulations on the specific provisions regarding application.
The Commission will therefore submit a draft legislation, according to the entry into force of the Treaty.
So far, no decision has been taken on the exceptions to the right of access the Commission should propose.
<P>
Without any doubt, the Commission considers it essential to develop the policy of transparency and access to its documents, but the future legislation on this matter depends on the result of the interinstitutional negotiations.
<P>
Naturally, the declaration included in the final document will be observed, which allows each Member State to ask the Commission or the Council not to disclose a document originating from the country itself without prior permission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, I have three short questions.
I would like clarification of whether this document will concern all or just three - the most important three - bodies mentioned in the Amsterdam Treaty: the Commission, Parliament and the Council.
Personally, I think it should be a matter for all to consider.
<P>
Next, I would like to ask about very sensitive issues.
Is it understood that Europe's future central bank should be subordinate to public legislation?
In addition, Europol cooperation has proved to be an area where there is a need for more openness.
<P>
Finally, I would like to ask whether the Commission could not put together some sort of Green Paper on the subject of openness so that all bodies, including Parliament, could discuss in broad terms what should be done concerning this document?
I think this would be an excellent way to proceed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Monti">
As a general outline to this additional answer, I have to say, Mr Hautala, that the general secretaries of the three Institutions concerned have already held specific meetings to discuss this point and have formed an interinstitutional working party, under the direction of the Commission, which has been given the task of conducting a preliminary study of the problem.
The working parties have already been set up and the group is currently reflecting on the questions to be dealt with in the proposal for the future legislation.
<P>
I wish to ask you, Mr Hautala, whether it will be applied to the three institutions?
As I recalled, according to the provisions of Article 255, it is a question of access to the documents of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission and there will be general principles common to the three institutions, on the basis of which each of the three institutions will then draw up its own regulations for specific application.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, I would like to ask the Commissioner whether his studies also cover the internal workings of Parliament, because we have a body, the Conference of Presidents of the various groups, which keeps the Parliamentarians in the dark, and takes all sorts of decisions in secret meetings that we hear nothing about.
Could this be sorted out?
The second thing I wanted to ask is this: what is your attitude to the idea of forcing the European Central Bank to make a public declaration of this kind, which would have the effect of opening the doors to American speculators?.
It would not take long to wreck our currency then!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Monti">
With regard to the European Central Bank, I have nothing to say, as Article 255 does not refer to this institution.
With regard to the first question, it seems to me that, as the Member said himself, it relates to the European Parliament's internal documents and it is therefore not up to the Commission to give an opinion in this connection.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
I would like to ask whether the Commission supports the principle of reversing the burden of proof which was passed by a large majority of Parliament in part-session and by the Committee on Institutional Affairs by 34 votes to 0.
According to this, the basis for any decision must be that the documents and meetings are open, unless a qualified majority of two thirds of those present at Commission meetings, in Parliament or at Council meetings decides that a meeting or document should be closed for good reason.
In other words, we should reverse the burden of proof, so it takes a qualified majority to close a document.
Can the Commission support this principle which was passed unanimously by our committees?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Monti">
Thank you for this additional question.
This is a matter I will bring to the attention of the working party formed by the general secretaries of the three institutions.
I have no particular information to offer by way of an answer; I therefore take note of it and will pass on the question to the group composed of the three general secretaries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="President">
Question No 61 by Julio Añoveros Trias de Bes (H-0048/98)
<P>
Subject: Internet and Community Law
<P>
When will the EuroLaw server be accessible through the Internet?
Does the Commission intend to offer free access to the CELEX database on the Web?
Do the institutions plan to provide a page providing information for the public on the Community legislative process and on the officials responsible?
If so, could the institutions design such a page jointly in order to optimize its usefulness?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="Monti">
The EuroLaw server, the provisional name to which the Member refers, will make the whole text of the Official Journals available, both the L and C series, free of charge on the Internet Europa site, which can be found at http: //europa.eu.int, in the 11 official languages of the EU for a period of 20 days.
This site is currently being prepared: the actual date for its opening should be in the spring of 1998 and will be announced officially by the Official Publications Office of the European Communities.
<P>
The EuroLaw server will enable users to access the following services free of charge and in progression: the list of Community legislation in force, supplemented by the texts of the documents shown in the list by their title alone, as shown in the CELEX data bank; the collection of EU treaties; the consolidated text of the Community legislative documents; the recent judgments of the European Court of Justice; and the COM documents.
Consequently, all the legislative texts in force will be extracted by CELEX and made available to EuroLaw users free of charge.
<P>
For the time being, however, the Commission is not planning to offer the CELEX data bank for consultation via the Internet free of charge.
It should be recalled that CELEX offers a very wide range of advanced research possibilities and that the proceeds deriving from consultation of the base are used to finance part of the considerable work of documentary analysis required to give CELEX its specific added value.
<P>
The Commission shares the Member's opinion that it is advisable to inform citizens of the Union's decision-making mechanisms and the functioning of the interinstitutional procedures.
For this purpose, it plans to present the principal interinstitutional procedures in the form of a diagram, in order to be concise.
<P>
Moreover, to the extent that resources are available and in cooperation with the services of Parliament, the Commission will try to circulate general information on the state of the current procedures, an objective that will be realized, in particular, through modernizing and putting the APC system that is already accessible to the public on the Internet.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Añoveros Trias de Bes">
Mr President, I do not want to put a supplementary question, but just to say that the Commissioner gave a very full reply, for which I am extremely grateful.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
I thank the Commissioner for his answer.
I would like to put one more question: when is it going to be clear that through this EuroLaw link people will be able to see how far the Member States have incorporated the law into national legislation?
We currently have an experiment as far as Finnish legislation is concerned, but what does the Commissioner think of the possibilities of getting information about the situation in all Member States through the same service?
<P>
In addition, I think it is important that in future this server has the technology to make it easy to see what is news, so-called 'push technology' , which your colleague Commissioner Oreja has promised to consider, and which I hope can be implemented very soon.
I believe that for easier use it is important that people also get news quickly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Monti">
I would like to say to Mr Thors that it had been hoped that the EuroLaw server would be available immediately on the Internet.
This is not possible.
To do that, preliminary adaptations need to be made to all the technical devices, particularly those of the Publications Office; everything will be ready in a few months' time.
We understand the urgency and importance of this tool and every effort will be made to make it available as soon as possible.
<P>
I will take this opportunity, and the specific question raised by Mr Thors on the importance to the citizen of knowing whether the Member States have included the Community regulations, to indicate another information tool.
In the wide range of material on the internal market, since November 1997 the Commission has been publishing a scoreboard, a periodic report, that indicates the situation of each Member State as regards the inclusion of directives, the observance of infringement procedures, and so on; this scoreboard is already available on the Internet.
As you can see, we are certainly heading in the direction rightly hoped for by Mr Thors with all the means available.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="President">
Question No 62 by Ian White (H-0112/98)
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Subject: First-weight mail rates
<P>
Would the Commission indicate which EU Member States currently link costs of first-weight correspondence, usually 20 g letters, for domestic and internal (within the EU) mail?
At present, the current UK rate is the same for first-weight mail, but there are proposals for this to change.
Would the UK postal services be acting contrary to Article 6 by charging more for non-domestic internal first-weight mail?
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<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="Monti">
In around half the Member States of the European Union, there is a unified tariff for sending correspondence at national and intra-Community level in the faster standard category belonging to the first-weight group.
In the other Member States, tariffs vary according to the destination, usually depending on whether it is national or intraCommunity correspondence.
<P>
Directive 97/67/EC on postal services states that the prices of each of the services forming part of the supply of the universal service should be correlated with costs.
This obligation applies to all the correspondence in question, whether national or intraCommunity.
This could encourage some Member States to rectify the current charging system for their own postal services to that effect.
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The Treaty establishing the European Community, and particularly Article 6, does not prohibit a similar tariff differentiation provided it is commensurate with costs, as laid down by the aforesaid Directive 97/67/EC.
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<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="White">
I think it would be useful for me to explain the background of the question to the Commissioner.
A change in pricing to the structure of the international tariff within the United Kingdom is proposed from 6 April this year.
At present the first-weight rate charge is the same for domestic and EU post.
The proposal is for domestic post to stay at 26p but for EU post to increase to 30p.
There is also a proposal that the non-EU rate be decreased from 31p to 30p which effectively classes the EU alongside all other foreign post.
<P>
I would submit that is contrary to Article 6 and therefore there is a responsibility upon the Commission to ask for an explanation from the United Kingdom postal authorities on this point.
Can you please reply in detail?
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<SPEAKER ID=226 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Monti">
I wish to thank Mr White for further clarifying the context of his question.
<P>
There may actually be an apparent contradiction between single tariff and price correlated with costs, but it is only an apparent contradiction.
Article 12 of the Directive on postal services states, on the one hand, that prices shall be correlated with costs and, on the other, that the Member States may decide whether to apply a single tariff to the entire national territory.
These two statements may seem to be contradictory. However, the obligation on the correlation of costs does not imply a total coincidence between price and cost and leaves the Member State the possibility of applying a system of making tariffs equal for specific provisions of the universal service.
<P>
I would add that applying a tariff distinction based on costs between national and intra-Community post or, possibly, between post to different Member States, does not constitute an infringement of Article 6 of the Treaty, as such a distinction is not based on nationality but rather on the criterion of the actual cost the provision of different services entails.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="President">
Question No 63 by Anne Van Lancker (H-0114/98)
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Subject: Preparations for integrating the Schengen acquis in the Treaty
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According to the Treaty, the Schengen measures on checks at external borders, asylum, immigration and judicial cooperation in civil matters should come under Title IV of the Treaty establishing the European Community, while the provisions on police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters should come under Title VI of the Treaty on European Union, the third pillar.
In the Commission's view, what should the SIS (and later the EIS) come under?
Article 286 of the Treaty says that from 1 January 1999 Community decisions on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing and free movement of personal data shall apply to the institutions and bodies set up by, or on the basis of, the Treaty.
What arrangements should there be for the protection of privacy in the SIS?
Will Article 286 also apply to personal data gathered under third pillar initiatives?
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<SPEAKER ID=228 NAME="Monti">
The question raised by Mrs Van Lancker is fundamental in nature and requires a brief but comprehensive answer.
The principle of the integration of the Schengen acquis into the EU has been sanctioned in the protocol attached to the Treaty of Amsterdam.
To achieve this integration, various measures have been adopted, including the decision by the Council, as provided for in paragraph 1 of Article 2 of the protocol, based on the relevant provisions of the Treaties, establishing the legal basis for each of the provisions or decisions constituting the Schengen acquis.
<P>
Pursuant to the provisions of the Treaty on European Union currently in force, the distribution of the Schengen acquis between the first and the third pillars would have been a very difficult task on account of the unclear distinction between the areas of competence of the two pillars mentioned.
However, the Treaty of Amsterdam provides greater clarity and the distribution should not raise too many problems.
<P>
As regards, in particular, the division of the provisions on the Schengen Information System, the Commission considers that a dual legal base should be established in relation to the first and third pillars.
In fact, the Schengen Information System collects data relating to both the first and third pillars.
Article 96 of the Schengen Agreement, on the categories of aliens to be refused entry, refers to external frontier controls and visa and immigration policy and therefore to data belonging to the first pillar.
<P>
Other categories of data, such as definitions provided for extradition purposes, unquestionably fall under police and legal cooperation in criminal matters and therefore come under the third pillar.
<P>
The establishment of a dual legal base should not be detrimental to the operation of the Schengen Information System.
The dual legal base is not something new.
The Customs Information System is also based on a regulation from the first pillar and an agreement from the third pillar based on the same text.
<P>
With regard to specific Schengen provisions on data protection within the scope of the Schengen Information System, a dual legal base should be established, comprising the first and third pillars.
The same regulations should be applied to data protection with regard to sectors coming under the first and third pillars, in the exchange of information through the SIS.
Finally, the question as to whether Article 286 of the EC Treaty will be applied to the Schengen Information System has not yet been resolved.
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<SPEAKER ID=229 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Lancker">
I would like to start by thanking the Commissioner for his interpretation.
I think it agrees fully with my own.
The necessary instruments for the implementation of the new Community pillar with regards to free movement of people cannot come under the third pillar.
But, Mr Commissioner, I am getting strong indications from the Council, and not only from one Member State within the Council, but from several of them, that the Council has a completely different opinion. It seems that someone in the Council is saying quite forcefully that the entire Schengen Information System, and therefore also the European Information System, should come under the third pillar, with all its consequences for parliamentary and judicial control and for the European Commission's right of legislative initiative in this rather delicate affair.
Can the Commissioner tell me which arguments, legal and political, the Commission can produce to win over the Council, and that it will not start fiddling with the adequate legal base which must be used in this matter so that the Schengen Protocol might be properly categorized?
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<SPEAKER ID=230 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Monti">
I have to say that current efforts and the work I have briefly described is ongoing, despite being complex.
In the declaration relating to Article 2 of the Schengen Protocol, the Member States agree that the Council should take all the necessary measures laid down by Article 2 as well as that relating therefore to the distribution just mentioned, by the date of entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
For this purpose, it establishes that the preparatory work should begin in good time to be completed before that date.
<P>
I have to say that, after the signing of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Luxembourg Presidency began work within the Council and that the current British Presidency has taken it over immediately.
Various meetings are already planned to observe the timetable which has been established.
Some results have already been achieved, and this allows us to believe that the deadlines will be observed.
We therefore have no reason to be pessimistic.
<P>
I well understand the Member's concern, but it is obvious that the Commission has taken an active and constructive part in the Council's work on this matter, to ensure that the integration of the Schengen acquis, within the scope of the European Union, takes place in full compliance with the law of the European Community and the European Union.
<P>
It seems obvious to me that the European Parliament is involved in distributing the Schengen acquis, as this distribution will establish the legal base for future proposals seeking to amend the Schengen acquis and therefore relates to Parliament's role with regard to these future proposals.
<P>
I therefore propose that the Council duly submits to the European Parliament the draft decision on the distribution of the Schengen acquis.
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<SPEAKER ID=231 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
My question about the Schengen Information System concerns the supervisory function of the JSA, the Joint Supervisory Authority .
This authority is responsible for checking that the rules which exist for this system are respected.
The first report issued by this supervisory authority pointed out major defects in the SIS system, including inaccurate information on those registered.
In addition, it states that there is different information about the same people in different parts of the SIS database.
<P>
The JSA also emphasizes that it has totally inadequate resources to carry out the investigation it wants, including budgetary resources and resources for translation.
It also underlines that it has been denied access to the SIS computer here in Strasbourg on at least one occasion when it has tried to carry out an on-site inspection with its experts.
<P>
My question is whether the Commission intends to strengthen the JSA's budgetary resources and authority to carry out its work.
Is it the Commission's opinion that this should happen?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Monti">
With regard to the Joint Supervisory Authority, the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam naturally has to be dealt with. However, with regard to the other aspects of the question, I believe that only the actual bodies involved in the Schengen Convention are in the best position to give more thorough answers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, Commissioner, I think it has become clear how closely connected Title IV of the EC Treaty and Title VI of the EU Treaty are.
I would like to ask you about the connection between the issue of external borders, which is dealt with in one, and the issue of fighting organized crime, which is dealt with in the other.
I think we really need to proceed with the Schengen Information System accordingly and see the connection between the two.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Monti">
Your comment highlights the very purpose of these constructions: to provide space for freedom of movement and at the same time space for security.
Schengen arose within this perspective and is operating within this perspective; its incorporation into the Treaty of Amsterdam is also moving decidedly within this perspective.
The information structures should reflect this fundamental dual objective.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 NAME="President">
Question No 64 by Graham Watson (H-0147/98)
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Subject: Ticket allocation system for the 1998 football World Cup
<P>
The French authorities have proposed a ticket allocation system for the 1998 football World Cup which limits worldwide sales for matches to just 40 % of total tickets, while 60 % of tickets will be restricted to the French market.
<P>
In view of the precedent set by the "Cassis de Dijon' judgment, does the Commission agree that the proposed ticket allocation is a fundamental breach of internal market legislation?
Does the Commission have plans to investigate the proposed ticket sales operation?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 NAME="Papoutsis">
Mr President, the French organizing committee of the World Cup at first envisaged a system of ticket distribution based on territorial exclusiveness which would essentially not have permitted the sale of tickets in other Member States of the European Union.
It also envisaged linking ticket sales to other services such as accommodation and travel.
Following an approach by the European Commission, the organizing committee agreed to make changes which would enable both specific tour operators and travel agencies firstly, to sell either tickets alone or packages of services, and secondly, to sell them in other countries. This ensures competition between various distributors throughout the European Union.
<P>
After complaints in the press regarding the infringement of European rules of competition so far as the sale of tickets for the football World Cup 1998 was concerned, the Commission has approached the French organizing committee and five tour operators selected for the sale of tickets in the UEFA area.
Replies to those letters are being awaited and we believe that when we receive them the Commission will be able to form a complete picture of how the French organizing committee set about distributing tickets, and to ascertain whether and to what extent the rules of competition have been contravened.
If Community law has been infringed, that will most probably be due to contravention of the European rules of competition, mainly Articles 85 and 86 of the Treaty, rather than an infringement of the law in relation to the Cassis de Dijon affair mentioned by the Member, which covers the elimination of quota restrictions on imports between the Member States pursuant to Article 30 of the Treaty.
At any rate, no such infringement has so far been confirmed where the distribution of tickets for the football World Cup 1998 is concerned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Papoutsis.
<P>
Mr Watson, the Rules of Procedure do not include any rule prohibiting Members from bringing a ball into the Chamber, but I assume there is no trademark or any subliminal advertising on that beautiful football which I can see from here.
In any case, you have the floor to question the Commissioner for one minute.
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<SPEAKER ID=238 NAME="Watson">
I assure you that I have no intention to kick this football in the Chamber but it is an excellent example of a souvenir World Cup football.
<P>
I am grateful to the Commissioner for his answer.
Clearly under Article 7a of the Single European Act, and indeed under Article 85, it must be held that any product lawfully put on sale in one part of the Union cannot be barred from being imported into any other.
Indeed, the Commission has just fined Volkswagen some £68 million for breach of this principle.
<P>
It is my information that the French authorities are preventing ticket agencies and tour operators from selling tickets outside France.
A ticket, for example, for the Brazil v Scotland match which would cost £50 in France, has been on sale on the black market in Britain for nearly £800.
Did the French authorities consult the Commission before making their arrangements?
<P>
Does the Commissioner not agree that this is outrageous and does he not agree that it contravenes EU principles?
Will he take action against France if it is found to be in breach of the Treaties?
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<SPEAKER ID=239 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papoutsis">
Mr President, first of all let me tell you that the ball at the front of Mr Watson's bench reminds me of my childhood years, when I too had the chance to engage in this wonderful sport.
I would, however, like to make some comments on what Mr Watson said.
As I mentioned before, we are waiting for replies to the letters we sent to the tour operators and the French authorities. So far, we have no information confirming the accusations that a specific infringement is indeed taking place.
What I must say, however, as a general principle, is that the Commission believes that competition among the various suppliers and products certainly benefits the consumer compared with a system of exclusive distribution and committed ticket sales.
We will insist that the rules of competition must be applied, and we believe we will be successful.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=280 NAME="President">
The next item is a continuation of the joint debate on air pollution by motor vehicles.
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<SPEAKER ID=281 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
Mr President, I should start by saying that the Commissioners' speech gives me the feeling that, unfortunately, there is still very little room for dialogue on these directives between the Commission and Council, on the one hand, and Parliament, on the other, and therefore, unfortunately, we cannot find the openings we were expecting.
However, I believe, as has been said, that the high number of deaths and serious harm caused by air pollution, largely due to vehicle traffic - think of the damage caused by acid rain - mean that we need clear, fast decisions, even if we are convinced that we cannot solve the problem just by concentrating on petrol and vehicles.
<P>
Other initiatives are in fact needed, such as the introduction of new fuels, with the use of innovative transport systems.
But above all, we need initiatives encouraging, for example, group transportation, switching passengers and goods to less polluting means of transport. These are all things that are not included in these measures but which, if not pursued, would make it difficult to achieve the objective.
<P>
With regard to the two directives in question, the Greens certainly share the problems raised by the rapporteurs and the solutions proposed in their reports.
We believe, in particular, that the level of sulphur in petrol should be reduced, the quantity of aromatics and polyaromatics reduced to non-hazardous values, that lead should be totally eliminated and, with regard to vehicle systems, that a system providing on-board diagnostics should be introduced for all vehicles.
<P>
However, it should certainly not be said that the measures to be taken before 2000 are too soon and should be postponed to 2005 and then say that they are not compulsory: either they are compulsory or they are meaningless!
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<SPEAKER ID=282 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, this afternoon we were talking about the Kyoto Summit and CO2 emissions.
The debate we are going to have now has a lot to do with what we were talking about this afternoon.
In fact, in the Commission's communication on the Kyoto Summit issued at the end of 1997, reference was made to those sectors which produce the most CO2 - one of the most dangerous greenhouse gases - and it was clearly stated that unless measures are taken, CO2 emissions from transport will increase by 31 % by 2010.
So that is what we are going to talk about now.
<P>
I think the rapporteur has the right approach.
He envisages globally integrated measures - in other words, not just using more advanced techniques for engine production, but considering aspects such as better quality fuel, traffic management, the promotion of public transport - which is being neglected -, trans-European transport networks and alternative fuels.
In other words, he proposes a series of integrated measures which are very important to bear in mind.
<P>
The report also says that an improvement in fuel quality would have immediate effects if it were brought in - more so than actual progress in engine production - because it would affect all the cars currently in use in Europe. As the rapporteur rightly says, in some countries - such as my own, Spain - most cars are old and would be very expensive to upgrade.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, I think this Parliament needs a clear majority to approve these reports tomorrow. Parliament will have more say in the codecision process if its position is firm and clear, like the one approved in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
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<SPEAKER ID=283 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, this Auto-Oil Programme is nearing its completion.
When the standards for 2005 are laid down in a binding way, industry will be given clarification.
On that point I fully agree with both rapporteurs.
Binding standards for 2005, both for vehicles and fuels, are absolutely necessary.
Substantial investments will indeed have to be made, but technically it can all be achieved and it is vital for air quality.
<P>
Only on the point of the NOx catalytic converter, however, is some patience needed.
Amendment No 28 which will reduce the sulphur content to 100 ppm in 2000 strikes me as very realistic.
Once the catalytic converter is in production, low sulphur fuel should at least also be available.
<P>
I wholeheartedly support the amendments on on-board diagnostics and cold starts.
I also support a durability test after ten years.
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I read that there is some movement on the CO2 demands, even though it does not sound particularly positive.
Now that the emissions of heavy polluting chemicals have been pushed back considerably, it is all the more pertinent to push back the use of fuel in general, especially since it is being demonstrated that with small technological improvements, large fuel savings can be made.
I would draw your attention to the fly wheel vehicle which manages a reduction of 20 %, and the developments in the fivelitre car.
Is the Commission considering binding legislation at European level?
We believe the time is ripe for this.
That way the Kyoto agreements might be achieved.
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<SPEAKER ID=284 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, the dawn of the next millennium will finally see the start of a European road transport policy aimed at combating the problems of air pollution caused by road traffic. If we had to measure its effectiveness, bearing in mind the large number of measures planned, we would certainly be more than optimistic.
<P>
The joint programme drawn up by the Commission and by the motor and oil industries of the Auto-Oil Union has defined a strategy aimed at reducing vehicle gas emissions to improve air quality, establishing two deadlines: 2000 and 2005, the dates by which the quality of fuels and the limit values of emissions should be defined.
With regard to the two reports being discussed, drawn up by Mr Hautala and Mr Lange, the important points of the entire Auto-Oil programme indicate a subtle contradiction between the fact that improving the quality of fuels will have immediate effects both on new and older vehicles and the fact that establishing limit values and improving engines should, however, only concern new vehicles.
<P>
We would like to establish three priorities: firstly, to combine respect for the environment with respect for work and research in industry; secondly, to establish the final system by 2005; and thirdly, to firmly establish the principle that the "polluter pays' , providing tax incentives for anyone investing with a view to improving quality. It is right that the companies conducting research and making large investments in order to supply a less polluting product should be rewarded.
<P>
We too believe that the marketing of leaded petrol should be prohibited in all Member States by 2000, apart from the fact that this would lead to some economic problems which, we believe, could be prevented by intervening now.
In any case, we should start with Council's decision to fix compulsory values by 2000 and indicative values by 2005.
<P>
With regard to diesel fuel, we accept the proposal made by the Chairman of PSA Citroën-Peugeot, who recently pointed out the possibility of using biofuels at no extra cost to the motor industry, particularly dister, a highly concentrated, environmentally friendly diesel oil.
<P>
Important factors in the campaign to reduce emissions include: better engine design, better technical control, more frequent inspections and recourse to new types of fuel, together with more attentive management of traffic and public transport.
We believe that a whole series of new technologies could be developed to combat pollution effectively: I am referring, for example, to the fitting of on-board diagnostics systems.
We also believe it important to improve on the directive on CO2 emissions caused by vehicles, which is currently at a stalemate, together with the proposal to establish a system of tax incentives, that should not mean new taxation but rather an inspection and more effective check of existing ones.
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<SPEAKER ID=285 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Díez de Rivera Icaza">
Mr President, all citizens - not just a select few - have the right to breathe clean air and protect their health.
This view, and the increase in air pollution due to our traffic using two fuels, led the European Parliament to vote unanimously at first reading for the amendment to this directive to improve the quality of the air we breathe.
The European Parliament's position and the right to good health, as provided for by the Treaty of Amsterdam, were undeniably echoed by the Council, although that echo is still inadequate since it only takes the form of indicative limit values.
<P>
So we are sure that despite the hard-hearted pressure to which they have subjected us, some petrochemical companies will make the necessary investments - as the automobile sector has already done - so that they can offer better quality fuels when the health of their shareholders and clients, and of course the citizens as well, forces them to do so.
<P>
It would be a serious matter if private interests were to take precedence over the quality of the air we breathe, especially after the Kyoto Summit. We have all noticed the alarming increase in air pollution in urban areas.
Some cities, such as Paris, Athens and Bologna, have even had to ban traffic on occasion in order to provide a solution to this serious health problem. And I think it is important to emphasize that some of these cities are located in the south of the Union.
<P>
Rule 2 of our Rules of Procedure says: "Members of the European Parliament shall exercise their mandate independently. They shall not be bound by any instructions and shall not receive a binding mandate.'
Accordingly therefore, and exercising my own personal responsibility, I shall vote in favour of Mrs Hautala's report - in favour, that is, of health and the environment.
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<SPEAKER ID=286 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schnellhardt">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, although Commissioner Bangemann has already gone, I would not like him to get a surprise in the Conciliation Committee.
We are not just talking about the same old proposals for amendments - we too are impressed by how far the Council has moved away from the Commission's position.
I think that is a good sign for the conciliation process.
<P>
There is nothing new about attempts to reduce emissions of pollutants from motor vehicles.
A lot of progress has been made in recent years, but not enough.
Complicated measures will be required to ensure unlimited mobility for our citizens in the future, and that is my particular concern.
That is why I welcome the approach adopted in the Auto-Oil programme before us today.
There are two sides to this: first, optimizing vehicle technology so that pollutants are reduced; and second, improving fuel quality so that pollutants are totally eliminated or are reduced, as well as facilitating the introduction of modern engine technology.
<P>
The Auto-Oil programme was the first time that had happened, and it is unfortunate that the original cooperation between the oil industry and the automotive industry is not continued in the Commission's proposal.
It is actually very important for these two European industrial sectors to work together, given that the competitiveness of European industry is at stake.
So it has to be reiterated that a legislative approach must be adopted to make progress.
<P>
It is really a truism to say that improved fuels are needed to reduce emissions from the existing motor vehicle fleet and to ease the introduction of fuel-efficient engine technology in the future.
This House made its position on this quite clear at first reading.
What I find totally incomprehensible is the attitude of some parts of the European oil industry, which is fighting tooth and nail against significant fuel improvements.
It claims that it would involve high costs for the oil industry with little benefit for the environment.
Both claims are wrong.
The most recent calculations indicate that the cost of desulphurizing fuels and other measures are by no means as high as originally assumed, and it will be passed on to the consumer anyway.
<P>
I would just like to point out what is involved.
We are talking about just ECU 0.004 per litre for petrol and 0.009 per litre for diesel, based on the strict limits at first reading.
So what are the environmental advantages?
They are certainly enormous.
One European car manufacturer recently tested its vehicles in California, where fuels that comply with these limits are already on the market.
The result was a reduction of about 40 % in hydrocarbon emissions and about 30 % in NOx emissions.
I would call that a major environmental benefit.
<P>
It is not fair to threaten refinery closures because of the Auto-Oil programme.
A new Commission study has confirmed what is already well-known among specialists: there is over-capacity in Europe's refineries, and this is a structural problem.
At present, the oil industry is investing outside Europe.
Demand for clean fuels would bring this investment back to Europe and guarantee the competitiveness of this sector in Europe, and that is something we all want.
<P>
Although the compromise proposal is very much a backward step compared with the first reading, I still firmly support it, particularly as regards the mandatory values for 2005.
Mr Florenz has already said today that industry has to invest.
We know that.
It needs to invest money.
But we can give it a guarantee that this money will be well invested, instead of letting them invest with 2000 in mind and then suddenly coming up with totally different values, so that their investment has been wasted.
We cannot be a party to anything like that, and it is not this Parliament's intention in any case.
<P>
Of course, technically speaking it would be possible to go a lot further than we are proposing here.
It remains to be seen whether the legal framework is adequate to achieve everything that is necessary and feasible.
If not, the report before us also allows for further improvement.
Maybe you will take that as a warning.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=287 NAME="Crowley">
Mr President, thank you and welcome to the Commissioner.
I want to thank both of the rapporteurs for their input in this very important area.
I also have to declare an interest in this matter because Ireland's only oil refinery is placed in my constituency of Munster, my home county of Cork, and they have approached me with very serious concerns regarding some of the proposals put forward.
However, there are a few things that I want to point out.
<P>
Firstly, we must of course - and I think all Members in this Parliament agree - have the best possible environment for each of our citizens to allow them to have full freedom of health and safety.
Any actions that we can take here must seek to enforce best practices and ideas.
<P>
Secondly, we also have a duty to ensure that the working environment and the ability to compete and to get a job within our Community is also made available and is as accessible as possible.
Looking at some of the suggestions with regard to the maximum levels permitted under the reports, if you just take Ireland as one example, the air quality in Dublin, the capital city, is already meeting the standards that are set down within this report.
Cork city, where I come from, is 50 % better than Dublin and the rest of Ireland, rural Ireland we call it, is 10 % better still.
<P>
Surely imposing a European directive and a Europe-wide legislation will seriously impact on these areas, as Members have already admitted there is a cost factor built into this: costs that will be passed on directly to the consumer and costs that will affect our industrial capacity as well as affecting our competitive edge.
To overcome this, Members have suggested that we bring in differential tax incentives to give encouragement and so on.
How does this marry with the idea of the single market?
Rather than taking up any more time, I would like to say that I will be voting against the reports tomorrow and I hope that through conciliation we can reach a more reasonable suggestion.
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<SPEAKER ID=288 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, our whole present disposable lifestyle is a threat to future generations, and continued automatization poses a threat to climactic stability.
Vehicle emissions must be cut by every possible means.
Work must be done at their source, with the development of the combustible engine.
Fuels must be improved.
It is important now to develop viable catalytic convertors for diesel fuels and to improve their quality.
<P>
The European oil industry represents the old smokestack capitalism, based on the exploitation of human beings and the destruction of nature and the environment.
The oil industry, though not all companies, opposes limitations on emissions, saying that new investment would have to be found for them.
The industry is acting as if it had to meet these new costs itself.
We all know, however, that investment always ends up with the consumer having to pay.
But it is the polluter who should pay.
That would result in just a minute rise in the price of fuel.
If the polluter does not pay, it is the people who are getting sick who pay.
Even if the European oil industry is not proving competitive, the costs of investment should not get passed on to the consumer.
It is the European Parliament's duty to refuse to ensure the survival of the oil industry by subsidizing poor quality oil.
Any oil industry which cannot sell its products except at the cost of the pollution of the natural world deserves to go bust.
<P>
Mr President, I think it is vital that both Mr Lang and Mrs Hautala's reports be approved.
It is important if we wish to improve air quality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=289 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbaek">
Mr President, it is important to remember that, basically, the Auto-Oil programme is about improving the environment and human health.
Many studies have shown that air pollution affects people's health.
So there is a direct link between increasing mortality and air pollution caused by road traffic.
These studies clearly show that clear limits must be set on motor vehicle emissions, and clear standards must be set for petrol quality.
This means it is important that the levels should be binding, and not merely indicative.
Fixed standards are the only realistic way of achieving the air quality desired.
For the same reason, it is important to limit the exceptions to the standards to the absolute minimum necessary.
This does not mean, of course, that we should ignore the economic aspects.
New technology and higher standards mean increased costs, but the first thing to do is to look at all the relevant variables.
Cost-effectiveness cannot be the only basis for assessing individual mechanisms.
We must assess cost-effectiveness in the light of the improvements and savings to society as a whole.
So I agree that the directive's proposals should include the solutions which are best for the citizens' health as well as for the economy.
<P>
Experience from California also shows that the Commission's estimates exaggerate the costs which would be involved in the new petrol quality standards and emission limits.
I believe it would encourage innovation if demands were made on industry.
Hopefully, the directive concerned will encourage the industry to develop vehicles running on renewable sources of energy.
I can therefore heartily support the Council's joint approach to all the amendments the Committee on the Environment has made.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=290 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kronberger">
Mr President, in ecological terms Mrs Hautala and Mr Lange's reports certainly constitute a shining hour in Parliament's history.
What might at first sight appear to be a handicap for the automotive industry is in practice a great opportunity.
It was the same with the catalytic converter: people originally said it would be the downfall of the car industry, but in fact it resulted in technical progress.
<P>
By sticking to its old position, the Commission is spoiling the prospects for constructive dialogue, which would be a vital opportunity.
So the car will remain the number one environmental enemy.
The debate about the true costs of road traffic will have to be stepped up.
Parliament has offered a solution, but unfortunately it has not been accepted.
If there is a confrontation, there will be no winners, neither the environment nor the car or oil industries.
There will just be losers, which is a great pity.
While Parliament will certainly pass the elk test tomorrow, in my view the Commission has already failed it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=291 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lienemann">
Mr President, Parliament made the right choice at first reading.
It enabled the Commission's position to be significantly developed since the Council was making somewhat more favourable proposals.
We can go further though and this is what our citizens expect.
Every day we see in the papers that town pollution is on the increase and that the greenhouse effect is threatening us.
It is now imprinted on the collective conscience that we can use technological progress to resolve these problems of civilization, quality of life and health of our people.
<P>
It is therefore essential that restrictive and strict standards be set for the year 2005 because this will be an advantage for the automobile industry.
Of course the manufacturers are somewhat hesitant, but they must understand that the credibility of the motor vehicle rests precisely on the possibility of having standards in line with our expectations.
It is all the more important that the European automobile market understands one difficulty, that is, the replacement of the stock of cars on the road.
Only clean, safe cars can legitimize renewing the number of cars on the road, and thus reviving employment in this sector.
<P>
We also know that the question of cars already on the road, which has been raised by many colleagues, is essential.
From this point of view, the efforts demanded of the oil industry are essential, for there are a large number of older cars. I hope that Europe will also consider ways for a speedier removal of older cars from our roads, bearing in mind that they often belong to poorer people.
We need a Community strategy to speed up this transformation of the older rolling stock.
<P>
Finally, the environment is not the enemy of employment: the evolution of the car is an opportunity for the car industry!
The oil companies, which are blackmailing us over the refineries, have accumulated considerable profits over the years, profits which must be reinvested in order to modernize their industry for the general interest.
They must not then hide behind the environmental question to justify the closures which they had - unfortunately - planned, whatever we decide today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=292 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Virgin">
Mr President, we in Parliament can note with pleasure that the Council has tightened up the Commission's original proposal on important points and moved in the direction of Parliament's position.
On the other hand, the majority on the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection supported Mrs Hautala's modifications concerning fuel.
These amendments were sensible considering the short time remaining until implementation in the year 2000.
<P>
It is important to stimulate technical development towards more advanced exhaust gas purification technology and towards more fuel-efficient engines by guaranteeing access to fuel with a very low sulphur content until the year 2005.
During the transition period we would then also see a substantial improvement with regard to emissions from older vehicles.
This is quite simply a short cut to better air quality.
On the other hand, I think that the Committee on the Environment has gone too far with regard to aromatics in petrol in the year 2000.
On this point I think the Council has a more realistic approach.
<P>
In a large number of modern refineries there is a conflict between sulphur requirements and aromatics requirements.
From the environmental point of view the sulphur requirement is much more important and should therefore be given priority.
In addition, modern catalytic converter technology takes care of the aromatics.
<P>
It is also important for Member States to be allowed to take a lead and to have the right to use economic means of control to improve the environment.
In large parts of Sweden a fuel is used which meets the requirements being made for the year 2005. I can guarantee that the environment has been manifestly improved where this fuel has been used.
It is also easy to use economic means of control and to prevent them from being used in such a way that competition is restricted.
<P>
Finally, it is pleasing to note that the development towards cars with zero emissions is moving so quickly.
We can see them, not only as a vision, but also as a reality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=293 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Buffetaut">
Mr President, the European Parliament will today give its opinion on two proposals for directives in which there is a considerable amount at stake, for the environment, for industry and for employment.
<P>
Our position must therefore achieve a fair balance between the desire to improve air quality and to promote new technologies, as well as our desire to maintain competitiveness and employment in the European vehicle and oil industries.
<P>
You will tell me it is a little like squaring the circle, and I would like to make a number of observations.
Firstly, reasonable time limits must be defined to allow industry to adapt to the new standards. Secondly, we need to know if controls greater than those strictly necessary would not cause exactly the opposite effects to the ones we are hoping for, in particular an increase in cars, thus provoking an ageing of the cars on the road and a worsening of pollution and safety risks, along with economic difficulties for the manufacturers.
<P>
The Council's position already seemed to be an improvement in relation to that of the Commission.
Parliament is calling for more severe standards and it seems as though some of them can be accepted by the Council.
It is therefore possible to find a satisfactory balance which is not maximalist and which shows that Parliament knows how to fulfil its responsibilities, both at environmental and industrial level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=294 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Apolinário">
Mr President, economic arguments have long prevailed in debates on this subject.
On the one hand, the oil industry, with highly disparate technical and financial conditions between the countries of the South and North and, on the other, the automobile industry, bombard us with their arguments.
<P>
We, however, would like to concentrate on the issue of the environment and public health.
Air quality is essential to public health: 7 to 10 % of cases of respiratory disease in children and 19 % of cases of pulmonary illnesses are but a few figures that may be attributed to air pollution.
It has been proved that the excessively high concentrations of particles in the air originating from lead reduce children's intelligence levels.
<P>
In some European capitals, the speed limit is reduced in response to air pollution, when traffic is not banned completely.
We wish here to demonstrate and express our support for the position of the Committee on the Environment because this problem also exists in southern Europe.
But we would like to concentrate primarily on three main points.
<P>
Firstly, we must combat leaded petrol: it must urgently be eliminated.
The Union and Member States should launch a major information campaign to make citizens aware of the environmental advantages of unleaded petrol.
<P>
Secondly, we need to defending the establishment of binding emission values by the year 2005, contrary to the position of the Council and of the oil industry, because this is the only way to seriously commit the industry to an environmental contract with society as a whole.
<P>
Finally, in our view, the role of the European Parliament now, as at first reading, is to raise the benchmark vis--vis the original proposal.
We should also leave the matter of maximum values for sulphur emission for negotiation with the Council, during conciliation procedures. This is because we acknowledge that there are cases, such as in Portugal, where the absence of environmental investment in the sector has caused the postponement of reforms that are today proving to be unavoidable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=295 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Pimenta">
Mr President, we face a challenge here today.
Can Parliament coherently defend public health and the environment, maintaining the values of the quality of fuels and continuing to call for better technology in motor vehicles, as stated in the Hautala and Lange reports adopted by the Committee on the Environment? Or will we give in to the numerous pressures from the economic sectors involved?
<P>
I do not dispute that what we are requesting here implies financial and research efforts by the oil and automobile industries.
<P>
But it cannot be denied that air pollution in our cities, including Lisbon and Oporto, frequently reaches levels that threaten public health, and that recent studies confirm that the lead content in children's blood in risk zones and in urban areas exceeds admissible levels.
There is no doubt that particles, benzine, and other pollutants produced by automobile combustion are highly cancerogenic.
<P>
Therefore, we need better cars and better fuels, particularly in view of the fact that no significant technological improvement is possible with the current content of sulphur in petrol and diesel. This is true both for the introduction of a new generation of catalytic converters, or a new generation of engines, such as direct injection for petrol, which has significantly lower consumption which can fall below 25 % in the urban cycle.
Lower consumption means lower spending for consumers, less pollution and less CO2 emissions - the main gas responsible for climate change.
Hence, the calculated annual costs of ESC 1 000 per motor vehicle, and ESC 1 800 per diesel vehicle may not even apply, as a result of the technological evolution leading to the production of better cars with lower consumption.
<P>
It should also be emphasized that better fuels immediately mean less pollution, since even today's cars will function better and produce lower emissions.
<P>
The individual cases of CEPSA, REPSOL and PETROGAL cannot force the whole of Europe, and particularly the Spanish and Portuguese populations, to continue to breath health-threatening, polluted air.
If these companies experience particular problems, then it is up to their respective governments to negotiate covenants with them which define time frames and mechanisms.
As a Member of Parliament, I am ready to analyse with an open mind any requests for derogation that may be submitted to me.
However, I cannot hesitate in defending the Huatala and Lange reports which are the only possible way of reconciling conflicting interests in a manner which allows this Parliament democratically to state its position in defending the rights of Europe's citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=296 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Mr President, although we aim, reasonably and justifiably, to lessen the need for traffic, especially car traffic, in transport and regional planning, the unpleasant truth is that the number of cars in Europe, and more particularly globally, is going to grow.
This means increased risk to vulnerable nature and people's health.
Against this background the Auto-Oil programme is most welcome.
<P>
The European Parliament at first reading clearly took a more progressive position than the Commission on which targets for exhaust emissions should be met by the years 2000 and 2005.
Only binding targets on emissions are valid.
The recommendations of the Council do not put enough pressure on the European oil industry to develop their technology to produce better and cleaner products.
Nor has the Council yet understood the power of tax incentives, which encourage consumers to use better quality fuel.
In any case, this has already happened, and with good results.
<P>
Employment is an issue in Europe.
Slowing down the adoption of cleaner technology will not serve to aid employment. It might go the other way.
Consumer demand favours those refineries which make environmentally friendly products.
Unless these products are available in Europe, other companies and products from outside may come to dominate European markets.
The effects on employment of this are unfathomable.
We must ensure that we remain competitive and that oil products in Europe are of the highest quality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=297 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Grossetête">
Mr President, we are all concerned about air quality.
Now we are asking the vehicle and oil industries to make an effort.
<P>
Let us look first at the vehicle manufacturers.
For the past thirty years we have been asking them to make significant efforts, and they have contributed some 90 % to the improvement of air quality in terms of their vehicles' emissions.
Now we are asking them to comply with even more stringent controls.
I am more in favour of the common position, considering that the constraints imposed it are already significant.
In my opinion the figures must be made compulsory so that our industries can be clear on the issue and define their strategies for development accordingly.
I therefore believe that it is particularly important that the measures be made compulsory by the year 2005.
<P>
But technological developments in the area of car manufacture will not be able to truly bear fruit unless there is a manifest improvement in the quality of fuel.
In this respect, it is absolutely necessary that the oil companies make the necessary efforts.
Up until now, it is not they who have participated most in the improvement of air quality.
It is thus important that the oil companies make an effort to reduce the level of sulphur, amongst other things.
We know it is essential for the nitrogen oxide catalytic converter, and in my opinion this is particularly important.
That is why I wish to support fully and vote for the Hautala report, because it seems to me completely incoherent to call for efforts from the vehicle industry and not to ask for significant efforts on the part of the oil industry in order to make the new technologies completely effective.
<P>
That is all I wanted to say.
May I add that if fuel is improved, we will immediately see the short-term effects, since this will concern all vehicles and we will immediately note improvements in air quality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=298 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, the car is part of our freedom.
We do not want to give it up, and the car is essential for our economy.
But it is a very young means of transport, still at the beginning of its life cycle.
For me, it is fascinating what the car industry is already capable of.
The competition to get a better and more environmentally friendly car on the market first, the car of the future, is enormous.
However, it is certainly not our job as Members of Parliament to protect the automotive industry in its efforts to produce cars despite the impact on the market and the health of our population.
<P>
I also find it fascinating that Renault's exhaust gas expert, Mr Hublain, is calling on this Parliament to adopt stricter requirements for petrol and diesel.
Better fuels are the key to reducing emissions, and we must give them our wholehearted support.
<P>
The oil companies are worried about their high investments.
For one thing, the fuels Parliament wants to see already exist in various countries.
No-one denies they will involve greater investment, but the oil companies' balance sheets are remarkably healthy; they are making enormous profits.
I am sure they can take these investments in their stride.
<P>
To avoid any misunderstandings, I have nothing against large international companies or anyone else making big profits, but it is our job to look after our population's health, and it is also one of the Community's declared objectives.
<P>
As Members of Parliament, we are bound to implement the duties of the Community as laid down in the treaties.
We will have a chance to put this into practice in tomorrow's vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=299 NAME="Jackson">
Mr President, this debate has been something of a battle between the vehicle and the oil industries to woo the European Parliament to one or other side.
I regret that because the position is rather more complicated by the chemistry of this Parliament itself.
It has to be recognized that the European Parliament has built up - and we see this in the persons of our rapporteurs - a certain expertise in this field.
Parliament is reluctant to abdicate a role in the conciliation process which we would do if we simply said 'fine' to the common position.
I would ask you to remember that this is the last open debate to be had on these subjects before they disappear into the Conciliation Committee.
<P>
I and my British Conservative colleagues are likely to support the Hautala amendments but we have our doubts over some of those proposed by Mr Lange.
We accept that there are some Lange amendments which require changes in vehicle production that would be very difficult if not impossible to bring about within the accelerated time scale proposed.
On the other hand, we see the Hautala amendments as likely to bring about improvements quite rapidly which will affect all vehicles on the road and not simply the very new ones.
<P>
However, I want to sound an alarm over the question of leaded petrol.
We should not look kindly on legislation that, on the one hand, says that all leaded petrol will be banned from 1 January 2000 and then also says that where a country can plead socioeconomic difficulties this ban will not have to apply until the year 2005.
This kind of thing makes it very difficult to argue that we all care equally about Europe's environment.
In some of our more crowded ancient cities enormous damage is being done to people's health by emissions from leaded petrol engines.
The let-out clause for such countries would allow this to continue for another seven years.
<P>
We welcome the ban from January 2000 but we owe it to the millions of people who own cars that run on leaded petrol to tell them what happens then.
In Britain there will be 1.3 million cars at least still on the road in 2000 that were designed to run on leaded petrol.
Imagine the headlines: ' Brussels drives us off the road' .
<P>
It is now up to the oil industry and to the governments in the countries which have no contingency plan to find some way out to offer people who own these cars, either through the marketing of lead additives or through the marketing of re-formulated petrol.
We owe it to these people and the Commission, national governments and the European Parliament should come up with some solution for them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=300 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Poggiolini">
Mr President, Commissioners, the citizens of Europe are rightly asking to be able to breathe clean air in their cities, and the Auto-Oil programme, which the European Parliament is preparing to vote on at second reading, proposes a global strategy for trying to achieve specific air quality objectives, in line with the recommendations of the World Health Organization.
<P>
We are faced with two very important measures that will certainly have an impact on the environment as well as on the industrial strategies of our countries: the Hautala report proposes to establish new regulations on petrol by the years 2000-2005, particularly as regards the percentage of reduction in petrol, aromatic products and sulphur contained in fuels, that are causing serious illnesses such as cancer; and the Lange report proposes to make certain modifications to engines by those same dates, providing them, for example, with a special on-board diagnostics system (OBD) to control the limit values for emissions.
<P>
According to the Lange report, the motor industry is therefore required, in a realistic and technically feasible space of time, to adapt to the specific limits laid down by the directive while, with the Hautala report, we can go further than the common position, maintaining the modifications introduced by the Committee on the Environment, aimed mainly at establishing stricter limits for petrol and diesel.
<P>
Italy, in anticipation of the Community directive, has imposed severe limits for some time on petrol (1 %), aromatics (35 %) and oxygenized products (2.7 %) and, apart from several problems with sulphur and lead - for which stricter limits should be achieved by 2005 - has certainly the best petrol in Europe today.
<P>
I hope that these directives, improved by Parliament during conciliation, are approved and come into effect as soon as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=301 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Liese">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at the end of a long list of speakers, including many from my group, it is up to me to say something new.
That is not an easy task, but I think I can manage.
First of all, I would like to set out the position of the Group of the European People's Party.
Some differences certainly emerged in this debate.
It has been quite a struggle, but I can inform you that my group is in favour of the Lange report and the Hautala report.
<P>
We have not been able to support all the details. However, we are first and foremost in favour of mandatory values for 2005 in both reports, and I think that is the key issue.
I am glad that we have achieved this result and that we will therefore be giving this our 314 votes at tomorrow's sitting.
<P>
I would like to make a comment now on competition.
I believe it is right that we have discussed the competitiveness of German industry and industry in other Member States; it is also right that these industries have presented the problems to us and that we are looking at this in a global European context.
But there is an important difference between this and our normal debates.
We often burden our industry with conditions that other players on the world market do not have to comply with, which therefore restricts competition.
This case is totally different, because if a company or a refinery outside the EU wants to sell petrol within the EU, it has to comply with our conditions.
So it is not a question of a distortion of competition that will push up our production costs, but rather a sensible means of protecting the environment and enhancing our capacity for innovation.
<P>
Finally, I would like to make a comment to the Commission.
I am sorry that Mr Bangemann is not with us.
I would like to say this to him personally, but you can pass it on to him, Mrs Bjerregaard.
We have a new European Union health policy, thanks to this Parliament.
Even Mr Bangemann changed his view.
He brought forward some good proposals on baby food and the labelling of maize and soya.
Please tell him that we would be delighted if he decided to share Parliament's viewpoint.
Perhaps that will make him realize what is needed, and enable us to get a really good result in the Conciliation Committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=302 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, I would simply like to say thank you for the debate.
I think it has been exciting to listen to all the contributions on the problems this report raises.
It has also been clear to the Commission that there has been considerable support for the reports by Mr Lange and Mrs Hautala.
All we can do now is await the vote tomorrow and prepare ourselves to begin conciliation procedures.
I can only say that I hope we can get this started quickly.
I think the proposals deserve our unanimity so they can be applied in real life.
As I see during the debate today, we are at any rate agreed on the goals, and so it should be possible to achieve a result within a reasonable period of time.
So thank you for the debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=303 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
European Environment Agency -European environment information and observation network
<SPEAKER ID=304 NAME="President">
The next item is K. Collins' report (A4-0030/98), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EEC) amending Council Regulation EEC No 1210/90 on the establishment of the European Environment Agency and the European environment information and observation network (COM(97)0282 - C4-0363/97-97/0168(SYN)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=305 NAME="Collins, Kenneth">
Mr President, the Agency regulation which we are, I hope, going to conclude this evening, entered into force in October 1993.
I do not need to go into the history of it.
It was a fairly vexed history at the time. At the time it provided for a review of the regulation two years later.
However, the review itself was then postponed for a further two years to allow it to be a fully operational Agency.
If it had happened earlier it would not have been operational.
<P>
The Commission proposal, when it came, was fairly uncontroversial and the aim of the amendments to the proposal is to strengthen existing provisions and thereby allow the Agency to consolidate its work to date.
However, I think a lot of people still do not understand what the functions of the Agency are.
That came through very clearly indeed when we were discussing it in committee.
I would like, therefore, tonight, to lay out the aims of the Agency and then describe how my amendments will further them.
<P>
The key reason for setting up the Environment Agency in the first place was to facilitate the collection of comparable environmental data across the Community, across the whole of Europe, indeed.
Until the establishment of the Agency we had no way of comparing the state of each nation's environment, and yet comparable data are clearly a prerequisite for an effective environment policy.
Quite simply put, the Member States all collected environmental data, but you could not compare Spain with Portugal; you could not compare Portugal with Greece, nor Greece with Germany, nor Germany with the United Kingdom.
So we could not have an overall view of the state of the environment in the Community.
That was the reason, in the first instance, for setting up the Agency.
The long-term aim is for the Commission to use the data supplied to the Agency to help monitor the state of the European Union environment and also to implement environment policies more effectively.
<P>
The Commission reviews the Agency performance to date.
Basically its review is pretty favourable.
It suggests some new areas for Agency action and, broadly speaking, is in favour of further increased cooperation between the Agency itself and third countries, particularly those in central and eastern Europe.
We very much welcome that, with the prospect of enlargement looming.
<P>
However, there are certain gaps in the review. I have attempted to fill these with my amendments to the report.
For instance, the Commission proposal overlooks the very important role of Parliament.
It says very little about it.
It tends to over-emphasize the role played by the Commission and the Council.
I can understand why that happens, but I think it is right that we should correct it.
<P>
I also feel that the Agency and the Commission need to put in place a framework in order to facilitate greater cooperation between them and avoid duplication of each other's work.
The Commission should not be doing work that is being done by the Agency, and the Agency should not be doing work that is being done by the Commission.
We have tried to clarify that.
As the Agency plays a key role as information gatherer in the Community in order to aid the Commission's implementation and enforcement of legislation, it should be encouraged to cooperate more with bodies such as IMPEL because enforcement and implementation are key features of the development of environment policy in the Community.
It is clear that in order to provide information to the general public the Agency needs to publish documents in more languages, wherever possible.
That is one of the reasons why I fully support, for example, Mrs Díez de Rivera Icaza's amendment.
<P>
I believe that the provision of the repository of information and a data register will allow the Agency to disseminate information better to the general public.
That is also a very important feature of environment policy in the Community.
<P>
Finally, if we are going to require the Agency, and we do, to produce a multi-annual work programme, then that has to be complemented by a multi-annual budget.
To do one without the other, I think, and the committee believes this, is entirely inconsistent.
That final point is very important because the key challenge faced by the Agency in the view of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection over the coming years will be the budgetary challenge.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, we would do well to note that simply because the Agency has not had its functions considerably expanded does not mean that it should have its budget frozen or reduced.
We need to consolidate its work.
This, after all, is an Agency that contributes significantly to European Union policy and could contribute even more significantly in the future.
Therefore it needs a degree of autonomy.
It requires the support of Parliament behind it.
<P>
The Agency needs to consolidate its work to date and then be allowed to expand if and when necessary.
But it can only do that if it receives the right budget.
Frankly, some of the attitudes displayed in some of the amendments that we received from one important committee of Parliament did not suggest that anybody really understood that properly.
This is a functional Agency.
It is not a think-tank.
It is necessary for the Community.
It is a functional part of the Community and needs to be treated as such.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=306 NAME="Tappin">
Mr President, this report is part of a five-year review of the European Environment Agency which is based in Copenhagen.
The aim of the Commission review is to decide if the agency's status and tasks need upgrading.
Obviously the nature and substance of its work is more a matter for the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection than for the Committee on Budgets.
<P>
In the light of the financial constraints which apply right across the whole of the European Union, the budgetary implications for this agency are fundamental to its future.
Before I go any further I should like to congratulate the Director and staff of the Environment Agency on the way in which they have managed successfully to implement the objectives set out in the founding regulation and to express my appreciation of the way in which the agency has supported Parliament's moves towards transparency and accountability and the harmonization of the regulations.
<P>
The draft report by Mr Collins has taken over one of the three amendments tabled by the Committee on Budgets, the one on Article 1(6).
The initiative recommended by this amendment will provide Parliament, as the political and budgetary authority, with the right to evaluate for the first time the cost-effectiveness of the environmental policy of the Union.
The tasks which are decentralized and executed by a satellite body and the activities run at a centralized level by the Commission need to be clearly defined in order to ensure complementarity and to avoid duplication.
<P>
On the other hand, Parliament has stated clear principles for all the agencies within the 1998 procedure.
Since the budget and the establishment plan are published in the budget and therefore belong to budgetary remarks, any change to them needs to be communicated to the budgetary authority.
The Committee on Budgets has been consistent with the Parliament's decision and has tabled its Amendment No 1 in this sense.
This was an opportunity to enable the Environment Agency to draw down resources for alternative budget lines and could have helped the agency to receive extra payments for rented services as its basic regulation allows, provided transparency is assured.
<P>
If the Environment Committee had maintained this amendment it would have given legislative coverage to that budgetary position.
We are sad that this has not been taken up.
The Committee on Budgets is also concerned about the annuality of the budget process in the Environment Committee's Amendment No 8.
In the same way, between the link between the work programme and the approved budget, there is now a horizontal principle adopted by Parliament which applies to all agencies and which gives them some sense of flexibility to make a selection of their priorities.
Therefore, the Committee on Budgets has introduced this principle in the legislative proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=307 NAME="Holm">
Mr President, there can be no doubt that we think the Environment Agency in Copenhagen has made a good start to its activities.
We now hope that with these opinions we can make the Environment Agency even better.
<P>
The starting point for the Committee on Research has partly been to not demand too many changes, since the Environment Agency has just started many of its new tasks.
However, we have proposed some minor changes.
<P>
The Agency's task is to provide us with information about environmental policy so that we can conduct a good environmental policy.
We on the Committee on Research think there should be a unit within the Environment Agency to check the quality of data and assess the uncertainty in the material collected from the various countries.
The main task of this unit would be to continuously monitor the quality of the data being offered and to be expressly responsible for identifying and describing the uncertainty which there is in much of the data collected.
In addition, the unit should also have the authority to question the national data collected, and be given sufficient resources, if appropriate, to seek and obtain alternative information.
It is only with relevant information that we can make the necessary and right decisions in the environmental sector.
<P>
Within the Environment Agency a great deal of expertise about the environmental area has also been built up.
It would therefore be a great mistake if this environmental expertise was not used.
Consequently, the Committee on Research recommends that the Environment Agency should not only do work to order, for example where giving advice and expert opinions are concerned, but that it should also be able to initiate various projects itself.
<P>
In addition, it is, of course, important for us to be able to disseminate the information which the Environment Agency collects so that everyone is able to use it, not least the general public and non-governmental organizations, the research community, students, etcetera, in order to make the material and thus the EU's environmental policy as good as possible in future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=308 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Díez de Rivera Icaza">
Mr President, for us, the Members involved in the struggle to create and establish the European Environment Agency, nothing is more satisfying than the Collins report on the assessment and revision of that Agency's responsibilities.
As Mr Collins shows, in the short time it has been in existence the Agency has amply fulfilled the objectives established by the then President of the Commission, Jacques Delors. It has accurately and competently provided objective, comparable information on the environmental situation in Europe, so that Parliament, the Commission and the Member States can all respond appropriately.
<P>
Having said that, I just want to spend a moment on one aspect of the new responsibilities: the area of strengthening its information function.
In other words, whenever possible, the Agency should try to issue its publications in all the official languages of the European Union, as Mr Collins said.
Otherwise, the valuable work the Agency does to spread information would be diminished, and it would cease to fulfil its main objective.
<P>
I realize, Mr President, that that involves extra expense.
But the cost of environmental damage is greater, and one of the objectives of the European Environment Agency is to prevent that very damage, as I said a moment ago.
An amendment has been presented on this point and I hope the Commission and the Council will see fit to accept it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=309 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schleicher">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, of course the European Environmental Agency wasted a lot of time at the beginning, because it was three years until its location was decided.
We are still making up for that lost time.
Nevertheless, despite all the problems that entailed, the Agency has done some very good functional work, which I would particularly like to acknowledge here.
<P>
However, it is also true to say that the amendments to the regulation on the establishment of the European Environmental Agency essentially reflect the functional requirements that have since become apparent, and that only limited changes in its role are envisaged.
The planned widening of the Agency's role relates to supporting the Commission in monitoring environmental impact and in producing reports, disseminating information on environmental research and setting up a repository of environmental information.
<P>
We also particularly welcome the proposal that the Agency should support the Commission as regards the reports.
The objective of involving the Agency in reports must, however, be to avoid duplication in cases when the Commission and the Agency separately request data and reports from Member States. We also need to ensure that the Commission and the Agency act on the basis of the same sets of data.
<P>
In monitoring the work of the EEA we need to put special emphasis on the need, as a long-term objective, to harmonize national environmental information systems with the European environment information and observation network; to ensure close coordination between the Agency and the Member States on the subject and methods of data acquisition; and lastly, to make sure that we do not create data cemeteries by gathering and archiving unwanted and useless data.
<P>
On a formal note, I must once again criticize the Commission for not presenting a consolidated proposal, which made the discussions Mr Collins led considerably more difficult.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=310 NAME="White">
Mr President, I congratulate our rapporteur on the studied and calm analysis of the way which the Agency is performing.
It is very good and I congratulate the Commission also on that.
I am bound to say that, until we get some helicopters in the Agency and introduce the concept of people coming from Copenhagen to put matters right, with those helicopters descending upon areas of serious environmental damage, then nobody is going to take it that seriously.
But if we saw a helicopter they would and I am not being entirely silly about this because, although I have had this debate with my colleagues in the Environment Committee, I am conscious that our aspirations for the Agency are completely different from that what has been set up.
<P>
As Mrs Schleicher said, it is a tame cemetery for data, that is not really good enough.
What we should be aspiring to - and it would necessarily mean a change in the status and the statute of the Agency - is an Agency which is capable of carrying out international inspection.
That means paying serious attention to the issue of enforcement which sadly, at the moment, is overlooked.
We do not have the mechanism by which environmental law and policy can be enforced throughout the Union partly because that is still done by the nation-states.
<P>
Nobody is going to respect nation-state agencies; they would however respect, in my view, an Agency which was international in composition and was an inspectorate of inspectorates.
That is a long way away and perhaps we should not be making that kind of assessment of the Agency work so far, but unless somebody says from time to time that those should be the aspirations of the Agency, then it was surely not worthwhile Copenhagen putting up the understandable fight that it did to have the institution based there.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=311 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Trakatellis">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, the decision in 1990 to found a scientifically independent European Environment Agency for the collection, processing and analysis of environmental data at a European level was an important development in the attempt to work out a credible and coherent policy for the environment sector in the European Union.
<P>
Four years after that Agency began operating, we are called upon, on the basis of experiences and appraisals, to approve amendments in its founding regulation that will improve its work.
The main aim of the amendments must be to extend and assist the collection and processing of reliable facts and figures, and especially the provision of information both to the institutional bodies and to the Member States for the elaboration of measures and policies.
We therefore favour improved information and the formation of links between the Agency's work and the Community's institutional bodies, especially a stronger link between the Agency and the European Parliament.
This is because Parliament's contribution to the preparation of policy guidelines and its participation in the process of legislation play a definitive and continually increasing role in the final formulation of environmental policy in the European Union.
The Commission should not overlook that fact.
Besides, we must stress that the policy of broader information dissemination via networks and telematic applications to all the decision-making centres, and to the wider public, will also contribute positively towards the appraisal of solutions and help make people aware of the justification and use of environmentally friendly technologies.
<P>
We know that the correct application of Community law is today the Achilles' heel of environment protection policy in the European Union.
The Agency can play an important part in collecting data and monitoring compliance with Community law once the use of the IMPEL network has been reinforced and extended.
We are in favour of the Agency incorporating support for the Commission in the process of information exchange and the development of criteria for the assessment of environmental impact into its duties, since important problems have emerged in all the Member States due to the incorrect application of that directive.
The amendments proposed are, I believe, necessary if the Agency's valuable work is to continue at European level, especially with the challenges the European Union will be facing when the forthcoming enlargement takes place.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=312 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, may I start by thanking the European Parliament for having put this amendment to the regulations on the Environmental Agency on the agenda.
I think it is important that we get these proposals passed as soon as possible, so that the Agency can start working under its new operating conditions.
I would also like to thank Ken Collins, the rapporteur, for the work which has gone into the report.
<P>
The Agency has got off to a good start, and its work is progressing well, as has been emphasized in the debate here.
This is gratifying, and I know that Parliament thinks the Agency is very important.
In the public debate, we have also been very pleased by the reports which the Agency has published, so we must continue to push on.
And let me start by pointing out an important opportunity for development.
It is vital that the Agency comes to play a role in the development of central and eastern Europe.
We must ensure that the countries which so desire can be involved in the Agency's work, as Mr Collins, the rapporteur, also emphasized.
<P>
I think the rapporteur's amendments are very positive, and I am very pleased at the constructive comments on the Commission's proposals.
Amendment No 1 concerns the Agency's support for developing and implementing environmental policy.
The Commission accepts both the proposal to return to the original wording of the regulations and references to other EU institutions.
Nor is there any problem with the reference to the schedule of work.
So we are agreed that there will be close cooperation, and we will work towards that.
<P>
Amendment No 2 states that the information records as proposed are to include a data register.
The Commission supports this, but I have been informed that there may be some legal obstacles to the subsequent text on reporting on the Community and national legislation and so we will have to look at this more closely.
The amendment also refers to enforcement, and this really takes us back to previous debates.
The Agency's main role is to provide the institutions of the Community and Member States with information on what is happening with our environment.
This can be achieved by working closely with Member States.
If we start to mix the information role with an enforcement role and incorporate this in the regulations, we risk undermining the cooperation and hence the effectiveness of the Agency.
In fact, this may mean that we risk not getting the information we need, and that also makes it clear that I do not share the view which Ian White expressed in his contribution.
I do not feel we should include enforcement in the Agency's tasks, because it is assumed that the conclusions which the Agency reaches on the environmental situation will tell us more about whether our legislation and mechanisms are being effective.
And, as Parliament knows, I have not been backward when it comes to enforcement.
<P>
Amendments Nos 3 and 6 are useful proposals which the Commission accepts.
As far as Amendment No 4 is concerned, we can only accept the wording that the Agency will ensure that environmental information is widely distributed if we can add a note to the effect that, in particular, this includes information on the environmental situation.
This will help focus work on the Agency's skills and knowledge without preventing work in other fields.
We accept the demand for enabling the use of all official languages which both Mr Collins and Mrs Diez de Rivera wanted.
However, we think the reference to a new article 2.14 is superfluous.
<P>
As far as Amendment No 5 is concerned, the legal department informs us that Parliament's proposals should not propose amendments to articles which have already been amended in the Commission's proposals.
Having said that, we can support the point on IMPEL which Mr Collins also brought up today, and I can tell you that cooperation is already in place, as was confirmed at the last IMPEL meeting.
I can also state that the Council's environmental working party is considering how this specific reference can be included in the regulations.
<P>
Amendment Nos 7 and 8 are understandable, but we believe they are unnecessary.
Finally, as regards Amendment No 9, we can support the comment that the next audit of the Agency's work should be carried out as part of developing the EU's environmental policy in general.
The Agency can help us considerably by establishing itself as an independent, objective supplier of reliable information: this could be on greenhouse gas emissions, coolant tanks and so on.
In view of this, I cannot rule out assessing profitability, and the Commission's proposals therefore include a demand for an assessment of results and effectiveness in 1999.
However, profitability will be examined in terms of the Agency's own targets, roles and results and not in any wider context such as the Commission's targets.
<P>
Finally, I would like to say that we can also accept the comment in Amendment No 9 that Parliament should also receive the audit report by 15 September 1999, and I would like to end by giving my thanks once more for the debate we have had today and thanking Mr Collins, the rapporteur, for all the work on the proposals.
Once again, the focus has been on the Agency's work, and that is good.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=313 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Ionized food
<SPEAKER ID=314 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=315 NAME="Bloch von Blottnitz">
<SPEAKER ID=316 NAME="Whitehead">
Mr President, I want to congratulate Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz on her long involvement in this matter which far preceded my coming into this Parliament and may well go on long after I have left it.
<P>
Apparently the international radura label is sending Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz blind.
There are many things that might send you blind, but I would not have thought this innocent label is one of them.
It is one of the issues on which the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection took a different view in its own debate from the point of view the rapporteur has put today.
<P>
Opinion is still divided on when and how irradiation can be used for the preservation of food.
What has changed, of course, in these eight years - and this makes it impossible for us to go back to a renewed first reading - is the arrival of the Single Market.
In many Member States now, which have set their face against irradiation, there is a probability that they will now have to admit irradiated foods whether they like it or not.
Tesco, in my country, has shown that a not insignificant percentage of foodstuffs not declared as irradiated have been found to be so.
So I think one of the first principles which is in the proposals that have come back to us in this long-delayed common position which we have been presented with is that you should put consumer safety - and first, and foremost, information - at the head of our agenda.
<P>
The principles which should guide us today have been clear since that first reading debate.
They are: only irradiate when public health gains and the consumer benefits; label with accuracy but not with hysteria; and strictly limit the products which are so treated with additions subject to codecision.
Frogs' legs, which Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz mentioned, are now struck off from the list of products, and quite rightly so.
We are now down to three products.
We do not want to see further additions without a quite specific procedure subject to codecision once more before they are authorized.
<P>
This is what the Environment Committee's own amendments have attempted.
The consensus that we have built there, supplemented tonight, I hope, by agreement on the radura label - I look forward to hearing what the spokesman of the EPP says on this because they have been very reluctant to have any proper warning labelling - is the best approach, rather than the skull and cross-bones approach which we have had from the rapporteur.
I do not know which of the amendments will be ruled in order because a number were struck out in the Environment Committee.
So it is hard to argue a hypothesis.
We do not know what you will accept at this stage.
<P>
We cannot support Amendments Nos 29, 31, 32 and 33 because the key cautionary words there - what the rapporteur wishes to say - have been absorbed into the other committee amendments or by alternative symbols or the careful wording we have put in our Amendment No 30.
<P>
In conclusion, what we want is a precautionary framework and not a prohibitive diatribe.
I appeal to colleagues to support the amendments of the Environment Committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=317 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schnellhardt">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I can understand the rapporteur's dissatisfaction at the rejection of these amendments which are only made necessary in the first place because of a new report from the Council.
I urge the President to reconsider this, because we really need these amendments.
They concern new issues that we need to vote on, in my opinion.
So I too believe it is high time we made some headway on the directive on the irradiation of foodstuffs.
A start was made many years back.
The previous speakers have already mentioned that it took the Council eight years to reach a decision.
Of course national regulations range from a complete ban on irradiation to its unrestricted use. That means there will naturally be problems in reaching a consensus, but eight years seems a bit too long to me.
<P>
At the heart of all this are the people who ultimately consume these foodstuffs, the consumers.
I believe that they should be able to tell if a product has been irradiated or not.
The labelling requirement takes account of this and is therefore an essential component of this directive.
Mr Whitehead, we need to clearly follow the labelling directive here, as it shows us the way forward.
Madam rapporteur, you yourself have seen the problems with new signs and symbols.
They will not work.
Let us stick to what the consumer knows and write it on the label.
As far as I am concerned we could also stipulate the dimensions in centimetres or some other unit.
But consumers are used to the label showing how a product has been treated.
So I would like to make a plea that we should proceed along the lines of the labelling directive, which seems far better.
<P>
Another extremely important issue is the detectability of irradiation.
Without it, how can we spot any inaccurate information on labels?
If we are to allow foodstuffs to be irradiated, we must ensure that the interests of the consumer are protected and that proper monitoring is possible.
These proposals would guarantee that.
<P>
Furthermore, we must stick to the principle that hygiene and health provisions, and satisfactory production and farming methods, in accordance with European standards should always be given priority over irradiating foodstuffs.
We must veto any attempts to rely on irradiation instead because it might be cheaper.
<P>
We have our consumers' health in our hands here today.
We take this responsibility seriously and call for compulsory labelling and for checks on irradiated products, in order to protect Europe's consumers.
<P>
We in this Parliament naturally want to take part in the important decision-making process that lies ahead.
Nothing inspires more confidence in consumers than open discussion in Parliament.
We will certainly have enough to discuss when it comes to the list of approved foods.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=318 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cabrol">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this proposal regarding the ionization of food was presented for first reading in 1989.
It raised so many problems, so many fears on the part of the general public, Parliament and the Council, that the latter did not adopt a common position until 27 October 1997, eight years later!
<P>
To clarify the debate, two quite distinct parts have been proposed: on the one hand, a framework directive regarding the general conditions for food ionization, and on the other, an implementing directive establishing the list of food products which may be ionized, a list which currently consists of only one category of product: herbs and spices. This has been agreed on, there are no complaints, but it still has to be implemented in stages until 31 December 2000, in consultation with the Scientific Committee for Food.
<P>
We can congratulate ourselves on the adoption of this directive, whose objective is firstly to safeguard health, but also to provide the consumer with sufficient information.
Indeed, all the studies carried out up until now have unambiguously demonstrated that ionization of food products poses no risk whatsoever to the health and safety of the consumer.
The ionization of food, of products susceptible to contamination, for example, must even be considered as beneficial to the consumer by providing safer, healthier food and by preserving the nutritional quality of the product better than other techniques.
However, this method must not serve to cover up defective preparation of a food product, nor be employed when it is not necessary.
<P>
In conclusion, this directive brings every possible guarantee of clear information and control of the different stages of food ionization.
It can be voted for without the amendments proposed by the rapporteur, which bring no improvement and which, on the contrary, risk causing detrimental confusion by using a symbol, which is misleadingly worrying, which would label food as "radura' when an unambiguous label has already been provided for.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=319 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Olsson">
Mr President, I would first like to congratulate the rapporteur on her work on this report.
<P>
In the common position irradiation is accepted as a possible method of preserving foodstuffs.
Even though at present there is only one category, which was mentioned earlier, namely herbs and spices, it is still the idea that it should be possible to use it for considerably more foodstuffs.
I believe that is what people must take into consideration when they decide on this issue.
<P>
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has put its finger on the health aspects.
I think that is important and would appeal to the Members of this House to support the amendments from the Committee on the Environment.
Then there will be an opportunity to further strengthen the opinions in the common position.
<P>
We know that in today's EU it is the case that certain countries allow the irradiation of foodstuffs, while other countries do not allow it, such as Sweden and Germany.
Personally I am of the opinion that radiation does not belong together with food and foodstuffs.
It should therefore not be allowed to happen.
In itself, what has been said here may be true, that it does not present any risk to human health.
There are also tough requirements so that it is not allowed to present any risk.
However, there is another aspect, namely the false impression of freshness which irradiated foodstuffs can give.
Food can look as if it is quite fresh, even though underneath it is old and quite bad.
That is a way to mislead consumers.
In this respect, it does not help no matter how many labels are put on food because the appearance itself misleads consumers.
<P>
For my part, I am going to support the rapporteur's amendments in this House, even though my group is limiting itself mainly to supporting the amendments proposed by the Committee on the Environment.
I see it as two steps: first and foremost that we support the Committee on the Environment; but the same time it would make sense to go a step further and support the amendments which have been presented to the parliamentary debate by the Green Group.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=320 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
Mr President, the fact that several Member States have already been imposing a ban on the irradiation of foodstuffs for many years, and that this has worked very well, shows that irradiation is fundamentally unnecessary as a method of preserving food.
There are also clear disadvantages with losses in nutritional value when you extend the shelf life of foodstuffs.
<P>
The best thing in this situation would be if we could decide on a ban on the irradiation of foodstuffs with the exception of herbs and spices, but we do not have that option here.
The choice between the Council's position and the proposals of the Committee on the Environment is simple.
The Committee on the Environment tightens the rules in this area on a number of points, not least with regard to labelling, the view on hygiene and health practices which cannot be substituted by irradiation, and methods of analysis.
My group is therefore going to vote in favour, not only of the Committee on the Environment's amendments, but also most of the amendments proposed by the Green Group.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=321 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lannoye">
Mr President, in October 1989 I was amongst those who voted for my colleague, Mrs Block von Blottnitz's report, who at the time was no longer here.
She had been replaced by Mrs Quistoudt-Rowohl but in fact it was she who had drawn up the report.
This report, which was voted for by a very large majority, proposed the banning of the principle of food irradiation, with the exception of herbs and spices.
The position of the Council, which is a double one, and which has taken eight years to reach us, is based on the opposite logic.
Now it is setting up this method as a method of food conservation with, firstly, the possibility of irradiating herbs and spices.
<P>
Given the enormous amount of time that has lapsed, I therefore find it logical to accept all the amendments which move in the direction of re-establishing the position at the time of the first reading.
I note that some of the amendments will not be put to the vote, unless the Presidency changes its mind before tomorrow, in particular Amendment No 27, but also two amendments which were approved by the Committee on the Environment, numbers 10 and 13.
Nevertheless, there is a problem with this.
The Chairman of the Committee on the Environment rejected certain amendments but accepted others and the Presidency of the Parliament has taken another position.
You must admit that this makes things a bit messy.
In such conditions, wisdom would suggest that all of the amendments are accepted and submitted to the vote, in the knowledge that some will not be voted for.
<P>
I would though like to ask for two types of amendment: those which recommend a logo.
I have furthermore cosigned, with Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, an amendment requesting that there should be a very clear logo.
Indeed, the labelling as it is anticipated is insufficient, we all know that, and does not enable the consumer to be seriously informed.
In addition, I believe that it is necessary to have a systematic method of analysis.
How can we accept that irradiated products may be put on the market when a standardized and effective method of analysis does not exist?
It is unacceptable.
You cannot have a ruling which has no method of verifying whether it has been respected or not.
It is incoherent.
I therefore propose that we vote for these amendments through a concern for coherence, in particular, Amendment No 27.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=322 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Kirsten Jensen">
Mr President, common consumption rules in the EU are good in principle, as there is a considerable volume of goods in circulation.
When goods cross frontiers, we risk having to accept irradiated products in practice, unless this field is regulated.
Irradiating food must not become the solution to long distance haulage and poor storage.
An irradiated apple may look fresh, but actually be old.
Shops can continue to sell food past its sell-by date if irradiation is allowed.
The Council proposes that very few foods may be irradiated - only spices.
I am satisfied with that.
But, unfortunately, gradually extending the allowed list could alter this situation.
The requirements are stringent, that must be admitted, but it is essential that things happen out in the open, with Parliament's involvement and in accordance with important health and consumer principles.
<P>
One of the main principles of the EU's consumer legislation is that consumers must not be misled.
They would be if we allowed irradiation, because food would appear to be different from how it actually is.
The need for irradiation as a way of preserving food is also hard to see.
Europe has mountains of food.
If food can be irradiated, it must be marked in any case.
Consumers must be able to choose, even in the cases which pass the health test; I support the studies of the health risks from irradiation.
Nor does irradiation deal with all the toxins in food.
On the contrary, some of them thrive on it.
It is also important to say what methods of irradiation may be used.
This is an aspect the Council has overlooked, but which the European Parliament's Committee on the Environment will be taking up.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=323 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gahrton">
Mr President, I can agree wholeheartedly with my party colleague, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz.
The irradiation of foodstuffs is risky and unnecessary, at least for all foodstuffs with the possible exception of certain herbs and spices.
<P>
That is also the official view of the Swedish government.
Under current Swedish rules, irradiation is banned except for certain herbs and spices.
That makes this a very special case for Sweden.
One of the most important promises given before Sweden's membership of the EU was that no rules for the protection of health and the environment would have to be weakened.
I repeat: no such rules would have to be weakened.
<P>
If Parliament does not follow Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz' amendments, Sweden will be forced to weaken its legislation.
That would further intensify the crisis which exists, for many reasons, between Sweden and the EU.
If that happens, it would be the most serious weakening of Swedish health rules, so I really hope that Parliament supports Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz' amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=324 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graenitz">
Mr President, I find myself having to take part in this second reading debate and vote, despite the fact that the first reading took place before my country joined the European Union, so that neither I nor anyone else from my country had an opportunity then to bring forward ideas or modifications that could be reintroduced as amendments now.
I really think that in view of all the changes in the European Community and given its enlargement, we need to rethink the rules for first and second readings and conciliation, so that all Member States are on the same footing.
<P>
As for the subject matter itself, my view is that we should avoid irradiating foodstuffs, because I am afraid that it will be used to give an appearance of freshness and as a substitute for other hygiene measures, thus misleading consumers.
Nevertheless, I believe that we need to proceed with this second reading and that the vote in the part-session should mirror the vote in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, because information, labelling and above all checks on irradiated products need to be prescribed in the interests of consumers throughout the internal market.
That is the only way to guarantee that consumers have a free choice of foodstuffs.
<P>
I also think it is particularly important that we should be able to follow the deliberations of the Standing Committee on Foodstuffs in public, that we should have a say, and I do not mean just having an influence on which foodstuffs are added to the herbs and spices already on the list. We also need to have information on the duration and strength of the irradiation of individual foodstuffs, which is also important.
Only openness and labelling will convince consumers that the European Parliament and the European Union are concerned about preventive health protection and are working on it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=325 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, the Commission's 1989 proposals were aimed at establishing a system of close checks on irradiated food, right through from producers' use of the process to sales of products to end-users.
To make it easier to get legislation passed on this subject, the Council divided the proposals into two parts, namely a framework directive and an implementation directive, with a list of the foodstuffs which could be irradiated.
The eight category of foods in the Commission's proposals as amended were reduced to one in the common position, namely dried, aromatic spices, including roots.
On the proposal's position on whether it is necessary to use standardised methods of inspection to detect if food has been irradiated, I must point out that controls on many other preservation processes involve administrative and not laboratory checks.
As you will know, the standardisation work is being carried out by an independent body, the CEN.
<P>
Like other foods, irradiated food is covered by the control directives, namely Directives 89/397 and 93/99.
This means that Amendments Nos 9, the second part of 11, 13, 27 and 32 to the framework directive cannot be accepted, nor can the corresponding amendments to the implementation directive, namely Nos 2, 3 and the second part of 1.
As far as the selection procedure is concerned, it should be remembered that any amendments of a political nature must be approved at this meeting.
So any criticism of the draft to the effect that the regulatory committee has too much influence on this directive is unjustified.
The Standing Committee can only take political decisions in cases where a Member State has implemented protective measures.
So the Commission must stand by the Council's wording and reject Amendments Nos 8 and 19.
<P>
To deal with technical questions, the recommendation states that the Standing Committee should have advisory status, as the Commission originally proposed.
To ensure that the directive is not blocked, although according to the White Paper, it should already have been adopted, the Commission has been forced to accept a regulatory committee.
It is therefore impossible to accept Amendments Nos 14, 16 and 17, which deal with the appointment procedure, or Amendment No 15 on the internal rules of the committee, which it passes itself.
<P>
As far as the obligation to consult the Scientific Committee on Food in Article 13 is concerned, this should not be confused with the joint decision-making procedure which the directive lays down for passing further provisions affecting public health.
Amendments Nos 6 and 18 are therefore unnecessary and are rejected.
<P>
As marking is now obligatory in all cases, consumers will always be able to make an informed choice between products which contain and do not contain irradiated ingredients.
Amendments Nos 5, 26 and 29, introducing a symbol to indicate food which has been treated, are therefore superfluous and cannot be accepted.
<P>
Many of the amendments are designed to supplement and clarify the text.
I am referring here to Amendments Nos 1, 2, the first part of 3, 4, 7 and 12 to the framework directive and the first part of Amendment No 1 to the implementing directive.
Amendments Nos 30, 31 and 33 cannot be accepted, as there cannot be any doubt that the procedure is safe.
Amendment No 10 links the conditions for permitting irradiation of food to the obligation on Member States to provide the Commission with information.
There is no close connection between the two subjects, and so the proposal cannot be accepted.
The first part of Amendment No 11 is unacceptable as the question is covered by section 1 of Article 1.
<P>
Amendment No 24 reduces the time available for withdrawing irradiated products which do not meet the terms of the directive from 24 to 12 months.
Such a short period would make implementing the directive very difficult, and the amendment proposed must therefore be rejected.
Amendments Nos 21, 22 and 28 restrict the opportunities for using and exploiting the irradiation of food.
It is difficult to justify why consumers, who must finally decide what is beneficial or necessary to them, should not be able to take decisions for themselves, but have certain conditions imposed on them instead.
This amendment cannot therefore be accepted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=326 NAME="President">
Thank you, Madam Commissioner.
<P>
I have heard the statements of several Members in connection with the amendments declared inadmissible by the President.
<P>
As I imagine that the matter will be raised tomorrow as well, I would like to remind you of its content.
<P>
Article 125 states that, "the President shall decide' : Mr Lannoye, not the Presidency, but the President, in other words, not the President at the time but the President of Parliament.
The end of Article 125 states, "The President's decision...concerning the admissibility of amendments is not based exclusively on the provisions of paragraphs 1 and 2 of this Rule but on the provisions of the Rules in general' .
<P>
Article 72 states that, "The President's discretion to declare an amendment admissible or inadmissible cannot be questioned' , on which account the doors seem to be closed.
<P>
However, I would also like to read, just for information and out of curiosity, paragraph 2 of Article 70, which states that, "In the light of the conclusions of the Conciliation Committee, Parliament's delegation may recommend that consideration of the common position and any amendments tabled to it be resumed or, in consultation with the committee responsible, propose new amendments for consideration by Parliament in accordance with Rule 72' .
<P>
Naturally, behind this paragraph of the Rules of Procedure lies an entirely politico-institutional question relating to the conciliation procedure and the merits of the results of conciliation, but I still seem to sense a slight possibility there, at least in the Rules of Procedure, for later on.
<P>
I have also read these articles because I think I will have to chair the conciliation, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, on which account we will have to discuss this problem again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=327 NAME="Bloch von Blottnitz">
Mr President, I am pleased that we shall be sitting on the Conciliation Committee together; that makes me more optimistic.
However, I think that what the Commission has just told me is absolutely scandalous.
You are telling us you are accepting no amendments whatsoever!
You are saying that it is simply not possible.
To me, it is absolutely incomprehensible, scandalous and brazen that you can say straight to our faces that according to Article 100a we have no further role in the process.
That is exactly the point of Amendment No 19, to make sure that Parliament still has a say under Article 100a when the positive list is received.
You have just denied that here, Commissioner!
That means that we will be mere spectators for the rest of the proceedings, that when it comes to the election campaign out there we will have to face the music for things fixed by wheeling and dealing in smoke-filled rooms.
I am telling you straight: I refuse to play ball!
It is simply not on.
It is outrageous!
<P>
We are supposed to have a share in decision-making.
This Parliament is supposed to have its rights, but these rights are constantly being insidiously undermined.
This whole business of irradiating foodstuffs is only any good for whiskey drinkers in the end, because it makes whiskey age quicker!
Are we supposed to defend all this?
Up to now, I have gone along with this, because I have said there may well be good reasons for irradiation.
But now I have heard what the Commission has to say, I will not accept it. I will not accept it.
I will not accept it. I have had enough!
Maybe you will put me right, maybe I have just got the wrong end of the stick. Yet again we are being treated just like stupid children who have to clear up the mess when we do not even have a say in things.
I will not stand for it!
It makes a mockery of democracy, shared decision-making and the internal market.
Why should we get the stick for your actions?
It is not on!
Or perhaps I have misunderstood.
<P>
You, Mr President, have given us some very good tips, but before tomorrow's vote, I shall take the liberty of invoking Rule 62, second indent.
I shall not quote it now, because it is already so late, but I shall refer to it tomorrow.
It states that amendments can indeed be tabled on matters not previously dealt with at first reading.
We can and will do that.
I know that it is not your decision; you cannot help it.
You just have the misfortune to be in the chair now.
Many thanks for your patience, and goodbye!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=328 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth">
Mr President, I would like to comment on the point about whiskey; I find that interesting.
I have discovered this evening that whiskey can be artificially aged by irradiating it.
It is not your fault, but I would nevertheless like you to convey the mood of this House to the President, who is responsible for this matter.
I am referring to Rule 72, not to the sentence that you referred to, but to Rule 72, 2c.
It states that amendments are only admissible if they seek to amend a part of a text which was not included in the proposal submitted in first reading, etcetera.
<P>
I have checked with various colleagues on a cross-party basis, and they agree that the text does contain new points, because there have been developments in this field in recent years.
What we have before us today did not exist then, probably not even in people's wildest dreams.
So it is not only logical or possible, but urgently necessary to allow these amendments to be tabled.
Everyone agrees on this, there is no dissent.
Please convey this to the President.
<P>
Secondly, I would like you to clarify what happens in a situation when the chairman of the Committee on the Environment decides, by virtue of his office and personal views, not to accept amendments, and the President then refuses to admit quite different amendments by virtue of his own prerogatives.
There is a mismatch, a lack of consistency.
What happens then?
There is obviously a real muddle between these two gentlemen.
I would be grateful if you could clarify this.
What is the right thing to do now? Do we have to have a total rethink?
<P>
Thirdly, I would like to refer to Rule 125, according to which the President has the last word and his decisions cannot be contested.
I ask you seriously, is there a limit to what cannot be contested? For example, is there a limit such as logic, intelligence or doing the obvious?
Are there any such limits, or are we in that Grimm's fairy tale, the Emperor's New Clothes?
The one where everyone says, wow, he looks great, the President has got brilliant clothes, until someone comes along - a little child - and says that the President is in the altogether!
<P>
Are there no limits to the inviolability of the President's decisions?
I am asking you, because I know that you are very democratic, Mr President!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=329 NAME="Whitehead">
Mr President, I do not want to strain your tolerance further.
I think you are showing substantial tolerance - at least in listening, though not in your rulings.
What I want to say to the Commission representative and to you, as our representative here, is that if this proposal does not go to conciliation in which the view of Parliament is heard, including the views of those Member States who were not members of the Union when this proposal first came forward, then we make a mockery of our right to be consulted and to be absorbed into this discussion.
We have consistently counselled against amendments that simply allow Parliament to meddle.
For Parliament not to be consulted or not to have any appropriate say at the next stage of proceedings would be a total absurdity and I hope that this will be taken into account when you consider the rulings you are giving tomorrow and when the Commission reflects on what it said in removing almost all of these amendments from the book.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=330 NAME="President">
To conclude this impromptu debate, I have to add that I understand Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz' state of mind, because her previous comments have received a reply from the Commission that has certainly not been entirely accepted on its merits.
We all know what it means when the Commission does not agree to any amendment: the entire conciliation stage becomes more complicated for Parliament.
<P>
With regard to the Rules of Procedure in the strict sense, I would like to tell Mr Roth that President Gil-Robles is as democratic as I am, and that he will obviously be informed of the debate this evening.
It seems I should tell you that the issue raised by Mr Graenitz and Mr Whitehead should not be emphasized repeatedly because it is of no significance, other than of a general nature, and certainly not with regard to the Rules of Procedure.
New Member States have joined since then and this has not had any effect from the point of view of the debate we are holding on the Rules of Procedure: the Rules of Procedure do not change with each new accession.
<P>
You should remember, not for now but for the future, that a discussion is underway for the post-Amsterdam period. The Committee on the Rules of Procedure is already discussing its amendments to the Rules of Procedure after and as a result of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz has already pointed out that reference will be made to Article 62, and there do not seem to be many margins; however, it is obviously within her rights to raise this problem with the President tomorrow, when it is put to the vote.
I repeat, however, that the President will be informed of this debate to make the appropriate decisions, for which there are no limits, other than those of the Rules of Procedure, Mr Roth!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=331 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=13>
Landfill of waste
<SPEAKER ID=332 NAME="President">
The next item is Mr Jackson's report (A4-0026/98), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Directive on the landfill of waste (COM(97)0105 - C4-0160/97-97/0085(SYN)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=333 NAME="Jackson">
Mr President, the European Union's waste policy is at an earlier stage in its development than European policy on air and water quality.
We see the characteristics of what is still rather an experimental policy in the landfill directive.
I must ask some rather fundamental questions about this directive in the hope of getting some answers from the Commission.
<P>
Firstly, it is important to recognize that this directive, if it is fully implemented - and that is a big 'if' - would result in a switch of emphasis away from landfill as a means of waste disposal.
This is because it incorporates the progressive introduction of limits on the volume of biodegradable waste going to landfill set out in Article 5.
This is a new section of the directive, new since its rejection by us in 1996.
In many countries the limits will mean a switch to incineration.
My fundamental question here is whether a directive which would impel such a universal switch in emphasis fully respects the principle of subsidiarity.
I do not believe that it does.
<P>
The targets set out in Article 5 are very precise even if they are national ones and not designed to apply to specific sites.
One consequence of ignoring subsidiarity is that a universal solution is proposed for very different situations in the Member States.
Some countries now have sophisticated landfill systems and geological structures which make landfill a sustainable option and perhaps the best practicable environmental option.
In others unregulated landfills in inappropriate places are a health hazard.
<P>
For all its protests about local option, the directive removes far too many key decisions to the European level from the national and the local.
Secondly, it is important to recognize that the directive, if fully implemented, would mean that several Member States would need to spend very considerable amounts of money on finding alternative means of waste disposal and putting in place the systems of control that would enable them to prove they are abiding by the directive.
<P>
My fundamental question here is whether there is any hope at all that the Member States will be able to comply with the directive, as drafted, within the time limits set?
The clear answer is no.
99 % of Ireland's waste goes to landfill.
There is no prospect of any rapid switch to an alternative there.
54 % of Portugal's waste goes to an 'unknown destination' .
In Greece the Commission tells us that there are from 3, 000 to 6, 500 illegal landfills.
None of these countries will be able to comply with the directive as drafted.
If it is agreed as drafted, they will be pursued through the Court of Justice for years by the Commission.
<P>
In my own country, the United Kingdom, the Department of the Environment, Mr Prescott's department, has estimated that as many as 70 waste incinerators would have to be built at a possible cost of as much as £7 billion.
Where will Mr Blair find that?
As rapporteur, I have to report that my committee has supported the directive and in one respect has strengthened its detailed provisions by making the 2002 limits mandatory rather than optional.
If that were all, I might have had a problem in continuing to represent my committee's point of view but the committee did something else.
For the first time the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has at every stage passed amendments to tie the Member States down to the commitment they will make by agreeing such a directive.
<P>
We want them to put their money where their mouths are.
In our amendments we want to use the directive first to make the Member States apply the existing law by shutting down illegal landfills which do not comply with existing directives.
We want to use the directive to ensure that the Member States report frequently on implementation of the law, in particular during the progressive application of targets to reduce the amount of biodegradable waste going to landfill.
<P>
We also want to make sure that we do not forget the exempted sites where the directive will not apply.
Information on them too should be sent to the Commission and hence made available to Parliament.
<P>
Finally, we should not forget that the Member States voted unanimously for the former version of this directive which effectively excluded 50 % of EU territory from its scope.
If it was acceptable to them then, how can we realistically hope that they will fully implement this much more stringent directive.
I do not believe that Parliament should connive at the passing of laws which are little more than the self-indulgent aspirations of environment ministers.
<P>
I hope Parliament keeps a very tight check on what happens to this directive and I look forward to doing so.
I also hope that at some stage Mrs Bjerregaard might actually involve herself in a debate on this directive, perhaps with us here tonight.
There is very little point in coming all the way to Strasbourg to act as a sort of sophisticated speak-your-weight machine, which is all we are getting from Mrs Bjerregaard when she simply reads out lists of amendments which are acceptable and not acceptable to the Commission.
This is a parliament and a parliament expects debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=334 NAME="Bowe">
Mr President, we all know the significance of this proposal to the many industrial sectors within the economies of the states of the Union which is perhaps one of the reasons why we have taken so long already to reach an agreement about the provisions of the proposal and why we find ourselves at this point in the legislative process.
I do think, however, that we are near the beginning of the end rather than the end of the beginning.
<P>
The new Commission proposal meets many of the concerns expressed by Parliament the last time it was presented to Parliament.
It has risen like a phoenix from the ashes and Parliament must congratulate the Commission, in part, on the proposal.
At the same time, I would extend my congratulations to the rapporteur, Mrs Jackson, for the work that she has done on it.
<P>
In response to some of the points that she has made I would say, first of all, that European-wide standards that can be enforced are absolutely necessary to regulate what is, in truth, a European-wide business in many cases.
Incineration is not inevitable.
There are many other technologies available and, in particular, steps in the development of large-scale composting as an alternative to dealing with organic waste in the last few years have meant that this is a real and genuine alternative if energy and effort - and other resources - are put into bringing this into regular practice across the Union.
<P>
I have to correct her by telling her that the last time this proposal was dealt with by the Council of Ministers it did not vote it by unanimity, which was why when we rejected it in Parliament they could not reinstate it.
They agreed it by a majority.
This time, when you look at the political agreement they have arrived at - which looks astonishingly like a common position already - we will possibly find it harder to change it.
<P>
Nevertheless, I and the Socialists think that we need a set of practicable, sensible, enforceable Community-wide standards which will deliver us a landfill industry which gets rid of many of the evils of the past.
We should also recognize that this is not just an important economic directive, but also one that is important for the protection of the environment and public health.
In particular, the harmful impact of bad landfill practices on groundwater resources and on global warming by the emission of methane from landfills is, in itself, a very good and strong reason why we need to take the actions that we are proposing in this proposal.
<P>
I would urge Parliament to support the Environment Committee's amendments that we will see in front of us tomorrow.
It is a step forward in what has already been a very long process, but it is a step forward towards what I hope to see will be a completed proposal before the end of this year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=335 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Mr President, waste disposal must be based on a certain hierarchy, the Ladder of Lansink, as we call it in the Netherlands, as Mr Lansink, a member of parliament came up with the idea that this hierarchy must be actively applied.
This hierarchy comprises above all prevention, then re-use and subsequently treatment, and in this treatment phase landfill is the last option.
<P>
To achieve this and cut back the amount of biodegradable waste going into landfills, Mr Jackson's report contains important targets.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has expressed its confidence in the original standards set by the European Commission.
This is the only way we can arrive at uniform European measures.
<P>
Some Member States will have some catching up to do if they want to meet these targets.
This is the only way we can offer the high environmental protection the European Union professes to aspire to.
Economic incentives are also a part of this.
All this does not mean, of course, that there may not be any exceptions.
Non-harmful dredged material is a good example of this.
Certain countries, including my own, the Netherlands, have very effective environmentally friendly treatments which make an exception possible.
<P>
To conclude, Mr President, we support the report.
Environmental policy occupies centre stage in European legislation.
This directive on the landfill of waste should most certainly form part of this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=336 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, this proposal on the landfill of waste has taken a long time, but hopefully the end is in sight now.
Still, I think it has been worth the wait, because what the Commission has put on the table is a considerable improvement compared to the rejected common position of 1995.
<P>
In all sorts of ways, new developments have been taken into account.
Separating biodegradable waste has been given a place, and the territory to which the directive applies comprises virtually the entire Union.
These are big improvements.
Likewise, the introduction of the cost aspect and after-care of landfill sites are positive points.
<P>
And now the reality.
How will it all work?
The packaging directive contains incentives to stay as highly as possible within the waste hierarchy, but real life is often more unmanageable than the theory.
In other words, it will depend on the efforts of the national and local authorities whether prevention and re-use will be given genuine priority.
<P>
What concerns us particularly is the transport of waste to the cheap incinerators, and to the cheap landfill sites.
The introduction of new costings for landfills must get under way very soon in the Member States.
Although this directive looks a lot more pleasant than the earlier versions, we have to acknowledge the fact that billions of tonnes of waste are still dumped illegally, or are burnt with too many dirty emissions.
<P>
Implementation is therefore urgent, but there is still a big hiatus in the waste treatment chain.
In the very short term there must be a review of the directive for the incinerators with new standards for emissions.
My question to the Commissioner is: when will the proposal for this be ready?
There is far too great an incongruity between incinerators.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=337 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Kirsten Jensen">
It is pleasing to see the Council of Ministers taking note of the European Parliament's amendments in its otherwise slightly doubtful political agreement.
The Commission's original proposals exempted about half of Europe from the directive's aims, which was rather absurd.
Dumps are well down in the waste hierarchy, and there are specific rules dealing with restricting dumping, restricting waste tourism and ensuring environmentally sound dumping if that is the only option available.
The Committee on the Environment proposes that groundwater is the main factor to consider when finding new dumping sites.
As groundwater resources are the drinking water supplies in some countries, it is essential that they be protected as far as possible.
In Denmark, about 90 % of drinking water comes from groundwater.
<P>
It is pleasing to note that the proposals include demands for processing biodegradable waste.
This can produce gas at landfill sites, and in fact this kind of waste should be sorted and some of it composted.
It is also pleasing to note that the proposals are now on their way through the decision-making process, as waste is one of the areas where legislative protection is still incomplete.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=338 NAME="Watson">
Mr President, the Liberal group favours reducing the amount of waste and making the treatment of waste safer.
There are two approaches to waste disposal: incineration where geographical conditions and population density mean that landfill is inappropriate; and landfill itself.
Both have their problems.
Incineration can cause air pollution, landfill can cause groundwater pollution and the production of methane, a greenhouse gas.
<P>
But technology is minimizing those problems.
In my view this directive is biased in favour of incineration but it allows both approaches to continue.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has made it rather more one-sided and some of its amendments would effectively change policy to incineration only.
My group favours a gradual move towards incineration, particularly of waste which is not biodegradable.
But we do not wish to overlook the new, green growth industry which involves methane collection and the production of energy from waste.
The Commission document published recently on methane gas recognizes the importance of this.
<P>
The Liberal group will vote against certain amendments put forward by the Committee on the Environment: those which would effectively outlaw landfill; those which we regard as over-prescriptive; and those which we regard as impractical.
Nonetheless, we support the aims of this directive and the work the Commissioner has done on it.
We regret the position taken and the somewhat uncharitable remarks made by the rapporteur in this debate tonight.
We believe this directive constitutes a move forward for the Union in terms of disposing of waste more effectively and taking greater care of the environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=339 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Apolinário">
Mr President, this directive is a fine example of how the European Parliament's influence on environmental legislation is increasing; our rejection of the original proposal led the Commission to amend it, for the better, and prompted the Council of Ministers itself to adopt a new approach and strategy.
<P>
The need for such a strategy was particularly pressing given that, as mentioned previously, in Member States such as Portugal, 54 % of waste until very recently went to unmonitored tips, approximately 10 % to controlled tips, and only 36 % to landfills.
Meanwhile, however, a new government has taken office, a new majority has assumed legislative power and executive power, and a new strategic orientation has been adopted, as the Commission is aware. This includes the submission of a national waste administration plan, which is currently being implemented and under which some regions of the country, particularly the Algarve - Portugal's leading tourist region - will be depositing all their waste in landfills by next summer.
<P>
In connection with the proposal currently under discussion, I would like to draw attention to the objectives of reducing methane gas emissions, prohibiting the combined disposal of dangerous and non-dangerous waste and the pre-treatment obligation which I consider to be very positive aspects which deserve to be highlighted.
<P>
I would also like to emphasize the discrepancy between the position of the European Parliament which advocates a reduction of 25 % by the year 2002, and the Council's position which refers to the year 2006.
<P>

Finally, I would like to draw attention to the temporary exemptions granted to the islands; for example, in the Portuguese case, the islands of the Azores and Madeira which are exempted from the pre-treatment of waste in the main landfill on each island up to a ceiling of 15, 000 tonnes. But I would like to stress the temporary nature of these regimes because, since the islands constitute an immense natural heritage of great value for tourism and the environment, they have everything to gain from implementing environmental policies that are not based on dispensations.
<P>
The main landfill in the autonomous region of the Azores' application to the Cohesion Fund constitutes a policy that could well serve as an example to be followed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=340 NAME="White">
Mr President, I thought I would congratulate everyone tonight as well.
Let me start by congratulating the smiling Mr Bowe, whose courage in the last Parliament in rejecting the former landfill directive had to be experienced to be believed.
He did a very good job on that occasion in saying that we would not accept a defective directive.
He was right to do that.
<P>
I also congratulate the Commission as well.
They have come forward with something which is necessarily stronger than it was the last time round.
<P>
I congratulate Mrs Jackson.
I do not know whether she wants to be congratulated by me.
From the tone of the contribution she made at the beginning, I thought that there was some reluctance on her part in the presentation of the report.
However, it is right that she should be congratulated because she has accepted wholly now the principle of abolition of co-disposal.
That is something which is an argument made and accepted both in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and by Parliament as a whole.
However, it will mean in the United Kingdom a massive change in landfill practice.
One of the reasons why it is important to stress that is that the European Parliament, when this is finally seen through to a directive, will have been responsible for a change in domestic practice in the United Kingdom about which so few people yet know.
<P>
Therefore it is important when Mrs Jackson, in the explanatory statement, asks for a cost estimate for us in Parliament to provide that to those landfill operators and local authorities in the United Kingdom who are going to have to look at this as a progressive proposal.
<P>
Mrs Jackson tells us rightly that in committee we are always met with the response that it is a greater cost if we do nothing than if we do something.
Despite the uncharitable remarks made, as Mr Watson said, about the Commissioner being a speaking weight machine, I ask the Commissioner to be more charitable herself and tell us how much money there is in the landfill bank and what the cost of this proposal will be.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=341 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Mr President, in general let me say that in its present shape the directive on waste disposal at landfill sites is satisfactory.
There are, however, far too few proposals coming from the EU on how the targets can be achieved.
<P>
A separate waste tax or payment is a necessary device for consumers, whether small or massive producers of waste, to cut down on the amount of waste they create that has to be taken to landfill sites.
The tax or payment should be such that clean, sorted waste will be cheapest, and unsorted waste to be taken to landfill sites will be the most expensive to produce.
This will obviously mean that local authorities and other responsible bodies will organize proper methods of sorting waste.
<P>
The EU must go further and take examples from the more enlightened Member States.
We must support the use of landside waste, for example, as a source of energy or soil improvement agent, but at the same time new technology must be developed to ensure that the process will not harm the environment or health.
We must make sure that seepage from both old and new landfill sites is handled in such a way that it does not pose a threat to both groundwater and surface water.
<P>
I think it is very important that the proposals for amendments concerning the protection of water, approved in the Committee on the Environment, be carried in tomorrow's vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=342 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, it gives me great pleasure to see that the European Parliament has put waste disposal on the agenda for today.
The Community should long since have passed a directive to ensure that waste is disposed of in an environmentally responsible way.
As has been mentioned, this is the second time we are dealing with a proposal for a directive on waste disposal.
The Commission put forward its first proposals in July 1991, and as we remember and have been reminded during the course of the debate, the European Parliament rejected that proposal in May 1996 on the grounds that the level of environmental protection was not high enough and that there were too many exemptions.
<P>
The proposals we have before us today have been completely amended.
That was not a very easy task, but I think we can be satisfied with the results.
The new proposals contain a lot of new elements reflecting the developments which have occurred since the Commission's last proposals.
There have been major changes in the procedures, methods and strategies for waste processing in many Member States.
In line with the Community's waste processing policy, some Member States now believe that dumping should be the last resort when it comes to disposing of waste.
<P>
The main new points in the Commission's proposals are as follows: reduction targets for disposing biodegradable municipal waste with a view to reducing the global greenhouse effect; pre-treatment - that is, not incineration, but pre-treatment of all waste prior to disposal; an increase in the costs of waste disposal - as proposed by Mrs Myller; a ban on dumping toxic and non-toxic waste together, which was of course part of the previous proposals which Parliament criticized; and finally more stringent conditions on existing landfill sites.
<P>
I am convinced that the new proposals will make it easier for us to prevent and reduce the effects of waste disposal on the environment.
And we need to take action in this field as soon as possible.
The many complaints which the Commission receives concerning the disposal of waste emphasize that the Community needs to act.
<P>
I have of course looked with great interest at the draft report which the Committee on the Environment adopted.
There are many important and useful amendments which will tighten up the Commission's proposals and make the procedures clearer.
I am therefore pleased to be able to say that the Commission can accept 16 of the amendments.
But I must also admit that I am concerned about some sections of the report, and I will need to take some time over them.
I am pleased to see that the European Parliament is able to support our efforts to reduce the landfill of biodegradable waste.
We have established long-term reduction targets for Member States: these targets must remain unchanged, however, to ensure that Member States have the best possible conditions for planning and implementing alternative methods of dealing with this waste.
The Commission cannot therefore accept Amendment No 16.
<P>
As far as Amendments Nos 12 and 31 are concerned, I would like to emphasize that the Commission does not believe it would be right to grant more exemptions than those already proposed.
I am particularly concerned about exempting underground disposal.
There are no environmentally responsible grounds for exempting this kind of disposal.
All landfill sites - whether above or underground - should meet the directive's conditions and so be safe and controlled.
I cannot agree with the current approach in Germany where 1.7 million tonnes of waste, including 350 000 tonnes of toxic waste, was stored in old mines in 1994.
In Germany, this is defined as recycling, not as disposal, and so waste disposal legislation does not apply.
This is not environmentally responsible practice.
<P>
I am not against storing waste underground in general, but I think we should be certain that the underground storage facilities in question are covered by the provisions of the proposals on landfill sites.
And so I cannot accept that exempting regulations should be introduced for underground disposal.
It was precisely because of all the exemptions that the European Parliament rejected the Council's previous common position, whereas Parliament now wishes to introduce more exemptions.
In the case of Amendment No 13, Parliament is trying to introduce yet another exemption.
I cannot at this stage accept that spreading limestone and gypsum should be exempted, but I can promise Parliament that the Commission will take a closer look at this amendment and consider the possibilities.
<P>
Today, the Community has serious problems with landfill sites which are not monitored: this is clear from the large numbers of complaints and applications which the Commission receives.
This situation must change.
Existing landfill sites must meet the new requirements of the Commission's proposals and so obtain new licences before they can continue to operate.
The approval requirements of the old framework directive on waste are not in line with developments in this field and cannot ensure that waste is disposed of under safe, controlled conditions.
So the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 25.
<P>
This brings us finally to Amendments Nos 27, 30, 33 and 36, where the Commission believes that the provisions of the annexes should be laid down by the technical committee referred to in Article 16 of the Commission's proposals.

As regards Amendment No 7, the Commission cannot be obliged to forward Member States' reports, but wishes to be able to produce reports based on information from Member States and pass it on to the European Parliament. Some people may see this as being rather semantic, but we believe we can handle problems this way.
<P>
As regards Amendments Nos 2 and 3 on changes to the views that the Commission should present new proposals within a period of time to be specified, we already have plans to submit a proposal on incinerating non-toxic waste and we intend to produce a composting proposal as part of the work schedule.
I cannot however approve of the way in which this amendment formulates the Commission's obligations.
<P>
There are a whole host of other amendments which ought to be commented on, but it is now late in the evening so I will leave it at that, unless there are any specific amendments which other Members of Parliament present wish to comment on in particular.
Ian White asked me if I could say anything about the overall costs, but I am not in a position to do so as yet.
That of course depends on developments in the Member States which are now under way.
<P>
And may I say to Mrs Jackson that I think the remarks she made at the end of her speech were particularly unkind.
Having been here in Parliament since 3.00 p.m. today, which I set aside solely for discussing with Members of Parliament, I fail to understand her comments at all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=343 NAME="Jackson">
Mr President, I wonder whether I could ask for your help on Amendment No 16.
Amendment No 16 was one of those which Mrs Bjerregaard said she was not prepared to accept.
In fact there are two elements to Amendment No 16: one is the question of the targets for 2002, and Parliament and the committee would like to remove the words 'as far as possible' so that the 2002 targets become mandatory and not, as it were, optional.
The other parts of that amendment deal with reporting.
<P>
There are two distinct bits to that amendment, I wonder whether Mrs Bjerregaard could clarify which bits she is not prepared to accept.
I think it is very sad if the Commission does not accept - even at this early stage - amendments regarding the reporting requirement where essentially, for once, I agree with her advisor, in other words that Parliament should reinforce reporting.
I would beg the Commissioner to accept that but if she will not accept it, I hope that Parliament will stick to its guns and go into conciliation on those points.
I would be grateful just for clarification on that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=344 NAME="President">
I would like to ask the Commissioner, Mrs Bjerregaard, for clarification.
In fact, both Amendment No 16 and Amendment No 23 contain parts that relate to the altered texts.
I would like the Commissioner to clarify whether she is referring to the entire Amendments or to just a certain section, when she says that the Commission does not accept Amendments Nos 16 and 23.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=345 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, in fact I was actually making a distinction, because I referred to Amendment No 16 twice in my answer.
As far as the reporting is concerned, I said that we were concerned about the way the question on reporting was worded.
But I will be happy to see if we in the Community can find some other wording.
<P>
As far as the question of making it mandatory in the year 2000, we do not believe we are in a position to decide this at present.
We feel this would force Member States into a policy - in that sense, this is in line with the arguments which Mrs Jackson used herself - and we are not therefore in favour of making it mandatory in the year 2000.
As far as reporting is concerned, we are support the idea, as has been said.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=346 NAME="Jackson">
What was the Commission's opinion on Amendment No 23.
This is vital because these are the sites which would not have to comply with the directive.
It is very simple.
Does the Commissioner agree with Amendment No 23 or not?
I hope that she does.
I am almost minded to take back my earlier remarks but I do not think I will.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=347 NAME="President">
I had already asked the Commissioner for her opinion on Amendment No 23, but she did not have her headphones on, nor does she now, and so she could not hear me.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=348 NAME="Bjerregaard">
That was one of the amendments I missed out because I thought time was getting on a bit.
We can accept Amendment No 23.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=349 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 11.45 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="Megahy">
Mr President, I refer to pages 12 and 13 of the English version of the Minutes and matters that were raised subsequently.
This refers to the concern expressed by Members about the impact in the Chamber of the new arrangements for tying the payment of Members' expenses to voting requirements.
I am not challenging this whole question of whether this is a proper system or not.
I do not think it is, but that is not my purpose.
<P>
Mr Falconer raised a number of points of order, and I was very concerned that the President in the Chair yesterday seemed to give him some kind of blanket exemption from the rules I understood had been decided.
Mr Falconer quite properly asked for the opportunity to state his intention before every vote in which he did not participate.
The President declared that should not be the case.
He gave him a blanket exemption, which would make nonsense of the whole system.
<P>
All I ask is that all the Vice-Presidents follow a consistent policy, observe the rules that have been laid down for Members and give Members an opportunity at every stage to raise the question of whether they vote or not.
If this system is to work, it has to be seen to be working properly and with the agreement of all the Vice-Presidents.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Mr Megahy, I would not want to begin a new discussion about yesterday's debate.
You are a former Vice-President of Parliament and you can well understand that when a new measure is first applied, it is impossible for us to have sorted out all the details in advance.
What I can confirm, and I saw it yesterday too when Mr Jean-Pierre Cot was in the Chair, is that there is every intention to apply it in the best possible way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hoff">
Mr President, after the intervention of Mr Megahy and the events of yesterday I would like to ask you to take the opportunity to discuss in the Bureau how such occurrences can be prevented in future in the interests of the entire Parliament by using the agenda.
That would mean that the whole Parliament has to decide on a rule which prevents such occurrences.
I request sincerely that this should be moved forward very quickly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Mrs Hoff, I have no doubt that the Bureau will look at the problem you have mentioned. I hope it reaches the right decisions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fontaine">
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="Ewing">
Mr President, I have one or two very simple corrections to the Minutes.
I refer to the first paragraph of page 12.
I did not say that I did not intend to take part in the vote.
I agreed with Mr Falconer's position but said that I might or might not take part in the vote.
<P>
On page 22 it states that I did not vote.
In fact I voted every time, except once when the machine did not work.
<P>
On page 11, my name should be alongside Mr Macartney's as abstaining in the roll-call vote.
I called to the attention of the Chair the fact that my machine did not work.
I got a nod and thought it was in order but, quite clearly, the nod did not mean that it was in order.
<P>
Lastly, on page 17 - which is a little more complicated - I am wrongly described in the last paragraph as requesting 'that the matter be referred to the Rules Committee' .
What I said was that this change amounted to an amendment of the Rules and, therefore, would have to be referred to the Rules Committee.
I also corrected what the Vice-President said when he declared that we had a duty to vote.
I said that we do not have a duty to vote, we have a duty to understand what the votes are about.
We have the right not to vote or vote, as we wish.
I would like the Minutes to be corrected in that way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
Mrs Ewing, I take note of what you have said.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="Green">
Mr President, it is important that we try to clarify this.
Everybody in this House, yesterday and this morning, has been desperately trying to shuffle off responsibility for what happened here yesterday.
I am not ashamed to stand here and say that I have been one of the group leaders, and every one of them in this room with me should perhaps stand up so you can see who we all are.
We have been driving the process of reform in this House.
We are not ashamed to say so.
<P>
Let us be clear how this reform came about.
The idea of linking attendance with roll-call votes came out of the working group established under the chairmanship of Nicole Pery.
That was where these proposals came from.
Every group in this House was represented on that working group.
The Conference of Presidents does not establish these proposals or the way in which they are carried out.
We kept pursuing the need for reform and putting pressure on the President and his predecessor, Klaus Hänsch, who have both been supportive of the process of reform.
That is our role and we stand here absolutely and take our political responsibility for insisting that reform is carried through.
<P>
Yesterday, Mr Killilea stood up on behalf of the Quaestors and said: ' It is not us, the Quaestors, the Bureau is responsible' .
The Bureau, I understand, is trying to say it is the Conference of Presidents.
I accept my responsibility for the reform.
We did not lay down the detail of these proposals.
<P>
(Interruptions) If the detail is wrong, it needs to be adjusted.
But I do not back down or retract one bit on the need for reform.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Puerta">
Mr President, I want to make it clear to the House that establishing the method for control and transparency is not a matter for the Conference of Presidents. We were invited to a meeting in Luxembourg so that we could give our opinion, but we did not stay in the room because we were invited to leave when Parliament's Bureau made the decision.
And I have to say that in my group we do not agree with this system of control, which does not guarantee transparency or that Parliament will work well.
<P>
We are happy to sign in each morning and afternoon - that is the reasonable method of control that can be used in this House.
However, we do not wish to be demagogic.
The Bureau should have another meeting to think about this, and should take some reasonable measure that can be supported by a wide majority of the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the working group mentioned by Mrs Green had spent a long time preparing this reform.
When Parliament's Bureau had to take a decision in Luxembourg, it asked for our assistance.
The group leaders did indeed take part in the Bureau's discussion.
We worked for and promoted a reform in anticipation of a statute for Members of the European Parliament.
It is clear that after what happened yesterday the concrete implementation of this measure ought to be discussed anew.
But I also wish to say that I was in favour of a reform in anticipation of a statute, and that this does not alter the responsibility which I have taken on this issue in the past, and which I maintain.
I also believe, and on behalf of our group, that after the events of yesterday, the system needs to be looked at again, adjusted and perfected, without detracting from the responsibility we all have to accept.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="de Vries">
Mr President, it is obvious that the technical system which became operational yesterday, does not function properly, and it is provoking debates which damage the dignity and standing of this House.
It is therefore obvious that the concrete measures which were decided must be reviewed.
I would like to remind you that the deputy chairman of my group, Mr Haarder, made a proposal to the Bureau which was simple, transparent, clear and not bureaucratic, namely one check per voting period, and not an average of a number of checks.
I would like to ask the Bureau to have another look at this.
But I would like to say to the colleagues: the implementation of the reform must be reviewed, but not the principle of the reform measure.
<P>
This House does many things well.
We are having an increasing legislative influence.
Our delegation's visit to Algeria was a success.
The committees of inquiry this Parliament set up into BSE and cigarette fraud were a great success.
But the media does not see us as an important, successful and authoritative Parliament.
Why not?
Because the media quite rightly continue to reproach Members of this House who are somewhat casual in their financial mores.
We should have the courage to search our consciences.
We should have the courage to review matters that damage this House.
Yes, colleagues, that includes you!
<P>
Mr President, the details of the regulation should be reviewed.
But I refuse to bring the principle up for discussion.
This House must reform itself so that the voters can have the confidence that everything that happens in this House is correct and pure.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Mr President, the incidents of yesterday could easily have been foreseen; and I would contest the method.
I think we could have avoided these incidents if we had proceeded differently, in other words, if we had sought a greater consensus within the House.
If the system had first been applied experimentally, we would have noted its shortcomings before putting in place a permanent solution.
<P>
Furthermore, I would suggest a joint meeting of the Conference of Presidents and the Bureau after the group chairmen have held in-depth debates within their groups, and that together we settle on methods which are practical, acceptable, transparent and which do not damage the image of Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
Mr Pasty, I would like to point out that the President of the European Parliament will of course be informed of the views both of the leaders of the political groups and of the Members.
All of us here have listened very attentively to what has been said, and I have no doubt that we will look into the matter with the intention of reaching the best possible result.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Falconer">
Mr President, I admire this House's form of elitism, when someone stands up to make a point arising from the Minutes and then leaders of groups are called into some kind of confessional in order to admit their sins.
<P>
Mrs Hoff made a point when she said: ' Let us look at the Rules to see if we can prevent what happened yesterday' .
Well, let us look at the Rules to ensure that any changes which affect Members are brought to the Members and that Members have a right to vote on those changes.
That would prevent the nonsense that went on yesterday.
<P>
I return to the business of today - the Minutes.
Page 12 is wrong.
As far as I am concerned, I asked to be called, as Mrs Ewing quite rightly said, on each roll-call vote.
I was not given that opportunity by the President.
<P>
Page 22 states again that I did not vote.
I remind the President that I did participate in certain votes, particularly human rights.
I participated and am recorded as such.
The Minutes are wrong in both areas.
I ask that they be corrected.
<P>
Lastly, if we are to have a rule that comes down on high from the Bureau, then it has to be carried through by the House.
The Bureau's ruling was that, prior to each roll-call vote, the Members would indicate whether they wished to participate or not.
That is what I hope we will continue to do until such time as this House begins to grasp some sense of reality and reverts back to some normality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="President">
Mr Falconer, I understand that the President in the Chair yesterday did not give you the floor every time you asked for it.
But it has been noted in the Minutes that you did not participate in the vote every time.
So, in practice, the result was exactly the same.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Fitzsimons">
Mr President, I just wish to state that I was here yesterday but did not vote.
On page 22, Mr Cassidy pointed out that the members of this group would not be voting in the final vote.
My name is not included in the list of Members in the Minutes.
I would ask you to correct that, please.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Jackson">
Mr President, one of the troubles with this procedure is that it draws attention to the fact that Members attend the votes because they are paid for it but they do not attend the debates.
I refer to the Minutes last night.
If Members had attended the debate last night on the final report, which was my report on landfill, they would have heard the Commissioner say that she was reluctant to give in full her speech with all the opinions of the Commission on the amendments tabled by Members of this House because it was late and she was rather tired.
<P>
That is not good enough.
Mr President, I would like you, if you could, to communicate with the Commissioner this morning to say that before we vote at 12.00 noon, it is essential that the Commission makes known to me, as rapporteur, to the committee chairmen and to all Members of this House exactly what its view was on the amendments tabled by Parliament.
It is not enough that the Commissioner should say that she was tired and therefore unable to speak to us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="President">
Mrs Jackson, I take note of your comment.
You are of course aware - and there is no need for me to remind you, since you are an old and experienced colleague - that if we cannot have that explanation, it is open to you, as rapporteur, to react.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Bowe">
Mr President, on the same point in the Minutes.
As somebody who was there throughout the debate on Mrs Jackson's report last night and who was the last person to leave the Chamber, I do not recall those words from the Commissioner.
I suggest to Mrs Jackson that if she is really doing her job as rapporteur, all she has to do is to ask for the Commissioner's speaking note.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, it is an oddity of the system that the Vice-President was here yesterday and led the discussion, but cannot be paid because his name does not appear on the list.
I would suggest on his behalf that his name be added to the list of those present who did not vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cot">
Mr President, I request that my name be added to the list of those present.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="President">
Well, that is the best I have heard yet.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Guinebertière">
Mr President, I would like to make a suggestion.
It would perhaps be useful to add to the end of the Minutes a list of Members who do not meet the criteria, so that, on the following day, we are aware of what is before us and could justify any problem and sort things out. This would mean that we would have the results earlier than the end of the month, or after several weeks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Antony">
Mr President, I have slept on the problem and think this is an excellent idea.
So I propose that at each desk we should install a little device and when we vote, coins would fall.
This would be very pleasant and would encourage us greatly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, I asked if I could speak twenty minutes ago; I pressed the button, and it is still alight, so I can prove it.
I would like the debate about money to stop, so that we can start with the debate on Iraq!
That is what we are here for this morning!
<P>
Secondly, I would like to say that I am 100 % behind what Mr de Vries said.
I have to conclude that the courage to put through reforms is lacking in this House, especially amongst the Members.
I note this with shame!
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Topical and urgent debate (objections)
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, I believe it is the first time in this House that a properly introduced motion was refused even during its introduction - in fact we originally wanted to introduce it as an additional point under human rights, and only one opportunity was granted to us to find an alternative in the case of these nuclear tests.
I think in the case of this point it is a question of Members and colleagues being frightened.
In my office in recent weeks, three colleagues have been attacked.
I have spoken with a large number of Members who have also been attacked and I believe we must discuss this subject.
It is not sufficient for us to draw a veil of silence over the matter but we must tackle this problem honestly and frankly.
For this we need to have a discussion in this House and I believe that the President's decision not to permit this discussion here is no guarantee of the safety of our colleagues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="President">
Mr Rübig, I must tell you, since you are one of our more recent Members, that this is not the first time an objection has been declared unacceptable.
It has happened several times before.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
The President of this Parliament informed me by letter that the question I submitted, also on behalf of our group, is inadmissible on the basis of Rule 47(2) of the Rules.
The President adds: "I share your concern, and promise to take the necessary steps with the Belgian authorities to reach a satisfactory solution for the problem of security of the Members and the personnel of the European Parliament' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="President">
Mr Martens, in his letter to Mr Rübig, a copy of which I sent to President Martens, the President of Parliament did indeed say that he would make all necessary approaches to the Belgian authorities to find a satisfactory solution to the problem of security, and that he shares the concern of the Members who have raised the matter.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Situation in Iraq
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="President">
The next item is the statements by the Council and Commission on the situation in Iraq, followed by the debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="Henderson">
Mr President, thank you for the opportunity to address Parliament on this important issue.
<P>
The debate takes place at a crucial moment in the crisis with Iraq.
European Union Member States are united in being deeply concerned at this crisis.
The Presidency has ensured that Iraq has been covered frequently during European Union meetings.
Most recently the Foreign Secretary briefed partners during an informal session held in Panama in the margins of the European Union real group meeting on the 12 February.
On the same day the issue was discussed by European Union political directors at a meeting of the political committee.
Iraq was also discussed at political committee meetings on the 13 January and 3 February and at expert working group level.
The Presidency has also had contacts at a high level with many European Union partners.
The Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary have both been in frequent touch with their European counterparts to discuss the issue.
I have been in contact with my counterparts in other European Union states in recent days.
We will continue to promote discussion of the issue and will keep partners informed of developments at the United Nations.
<P>
European Union Member States are united in believing that Iraq must allow the United Nations Special Commission to continue its vital work as laid down in Security Council Resolution 687 which was the resolution that provided a ceasefire for the end of the Gulf War.
Under the terms of that Resolution, which Iraq accepted, the UN inspectors who form UNSCOM are given a mandate to remove all of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
UNSCOM and the associated inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency have scored major successes in removing Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
They have halted Iraq's longrange missile programme which could have brought Europe within range of Saddam's arsenals.
They have dismantled the nuclear programme which could have led to Iraq developing a nuclear bomb.
Through a process of inspection and verified destruction, UNSCOM has demolished more weapons capability than was ever destroyed by allied forces during the Gulf War.
<P>
However, there are other areas of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction on which further work is required: namely, chemical and biological weapons.
Saddam's chemical weapons include the VX nerve agent.
He has not accounted to UNSCOM for 600 tonnes of chemical precursors for that nerve agent.
One drop of the agent is enough to kill.
The victims die in agony by suffocation as their nervous system ignores the signals to breathe.
Saddam's biological weapons include anthrax.
Experts say that 100 kilograms of anthrax released from the top of a tall building could kill up to 3 million people.
Saddam has also produced aflatoxin which causes liver cancer and clostridium which results in gas gangrene.
All of these weapons represent a serious threat to international peace and security.
<P>
Three years ago, Saddam Hussein's sons-in-law, Hussein and Saddam Kamil, defected to Jordan.
They brought with them evidence of a coordinated and sustained programme of concealment by Saddam of his chemical and biological weapons.
Since then, UNSCOM has been working to uncover key points in the supply chain of the weapons programmes.
Saddam has been equally determined to obstruct their work.
In the last 20 months UNSCOM has sought access to 63 sites where it believed concealment was taking place.
It was obstructed and delayed from carrying out inspections at 38 sites and was flatly refused access to a further 14 sites.
Despite Security Council Resolution 687, Iraq only permitted prompt access at 20 % of sites under suspicion.
We must remember that the only reason the UNSCOM regime and the sanctions to enforce it remain in place seven years after the Gulf War is because Saddam will not dismantle weapons of mass destruction, nor will he allow UNSCOM to do the job it has been mandated to do by the United Nations Security Council.
<P>
People naturally ask: why is this important?
The answer I believe is clear.
Saddam Hussein has used weapons of mass destruction before.
He did so against his neighbour, Iran, during the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s.
He did so against his own people.
Ten years ago next month, he dropped chemical weapons on a town in North East Iraq.
The 5 000 people in the town of Halabja, including many women, children and old men, were killed.
<P>
European Union Member States are united in their hope that a diplomatic solution to the present crisis can be found.
We surely support all initiatives aimed at achieving that end.
This morning, now the United Nations Secretary General has been given the backing of the Security Council for his mission to Baghdad, we all wish him every success.
But we know that until now, Saddam has not appeared to be looking for a diplomatic solution.
He persists in his obstruction of UNSCOM.
He persists in his obstruction of the wish of the international community.
He demands that inspections of so-called presidential sites must be one-off not continuing as required under Security Council Resolution 687.
<P>
European Union Member States believe that any diplomatic solution must allow UNSCOM full and unconditional access to all sites as mandated by United Nations Security Council resolutions.
We believe that Saddam Hussein must comply with the relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions.
<P>
The present dispute over presidential sites exposes the Iraqi propaganda that it is sanctions that are the cause of the hardship and the suffering of the Iraqi people.
We reject that.
There are no sanctions, nor have there ever been. against the import of food and medicine.
These are items in short supply in Iraq because Saddam Hussein has consistently refused to spend money on his own people, preferring instead to spend it on his own comforts and on his weapons programmes.
<P>
The European Union is united in its concern for the humanitarian suffering of the Iraqi people.
European Union countries on the Security Council in New York have taken the lead in trying to alleviate the worst of this suffering.
The oil-for-food programme under which Iraq is allowed to export limited quantities of oil in return for humanitarian goods was first offered to Iraq in the summer of 1991 as United Nations Security Council Resolution 706 indicates.
It was not until five years later that Saddam Hussein was shamed into accepting UN Security Council Resolution 986 which set up the present oil-for-food programme.
<P>
Those European Union Member States at present on the Security Council have taken the lead in taking the recent recommendations of the UN Secretary General to more than double the amount of oil that Iraq can sell under this programme and turning them into a Security Council resolution.
I very much hope that this resolution will be adopted this week.
It will bring further humanitarian benefits to the Iraqi people.
<P>
However, let us not forget that it is the United Nations, not Saddam, that is responsible for this.
This is not surprising.
One does not need to look far for evidence of the brutality of Saddam Hussein's regime.
I recommend that Members study the report of Max van der Stoel, the UN's special rapporteur on human rights in Iraq.
During the last six years he has catalogued a terrifying list of human rights violations by Saddam Hussein and his clique.
Mr van der Stoel's most recent report describes human rights in Iraq as 'terrible' .
He concludes: ' The system of military dictatorship effectively requires that human rights violations occur in order to retain the position and privileges of those in power.
Murder is routine.
The price of criticizing the regime is execution.
Recently Saddam Hussein decided that his prisons were over-crowded.
His solution was to execute all those serving longer than fifteen years.
Over a thousand people were murdered.'
<P>
Let me reiterate that European Union Member States are united in their desire to see this present crisis resolved diplomatically.
This is the message that Kofi Annan takes to Baghdad on behalf of all of us.
Let us hope that Saddam responds and cooperates fully with the United Nations Special Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, the Commission's view on this conflict is that we all think the international community's first priority at the moment is to be able to reach an agreement with the Iraqi Government within the next few days, in order to avoid military intervention which basically nobody wants.
<P>
There is no doubt that the correct authority for resolving the dispute is the United Nations.
Therefore, as the President-in-Office of the Council has just said, the Commission also fully supports the activities of the United Nations Security Council, and especially its Secretary General, in their efforts to ensure that the Iraqi authorities comply fully with the Security Council resolutions.
We hope the Secretary General's current negotiations can prevent the conflict, so that UNSCOM can resume unrestricted and effective inspections in accordance with those resolutions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="President">
Mr Marín, I have not seen so brief a statement for some time in this House.
I think others too will be amazed by the European Commission's brevity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="Green">
Mr President, my group is very aware of the responsibility it bears in this debate today.
Within this group we have Members of Parliament who represent nine socialist and social democrat-led governments in this Union, and these parties are in government in three more of the 15.
We do not pretend that it is easy to find a common position, given the range of views which are represented not just in those 12 governments but also amongst the people of the European Union whom we represent.
But I want to pay tribute to my colleagues who have striven to find principles which are common to us all and which unite us in this, one of the most difficult life-and-death decisions this present Parliament has had to confront since 1994.
<P>
Firstly, we must remember that we, in the European Parliament, do not dispose of armies, aeroplanes, bombs or aircraft carriers.
Let us be entirely honest; we do not even have a common foreign and security policy worth its name.
We have made our criticism about the lack of progress of the CFSP quite clear in recent years and, particularly, our dissatisfaction at the provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty in this respect.
So I think we need to demonstrate a little humility when it comes to decision-making in this field, and show some support for those of our colleagues, of all political persuasions, who will be confronted with the decisionmaking on this issue in national parliaments; those who will really have the awesome responsibility for the lives of their fellow citizens under arms and those of the many thousands of Iraqi citizens who are at risk.
With all of this in mind, my group has just three main strategic political points which it wants to make in this debate.
<P>
Firstly, we insist absolutely that Saddam Hussein must comply fully with the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council and allow the unrestricted and unconditional access of the UN weapons inspection teams to all locations on Iraqi territory.
There can be no compromise on this.
These UN resolutions on Iraq represented a real step forward by beginning the process of monitoring and verifying disarmament.
The UN showed what the future could hold in determining a safer world.
If we were then, and are now, serious about this work, we must not allow Saddam Hussein to flout the international community.
<P>
Secondly, my group believes that the only body legitimately responsible for this policy is the United Nations.
We want to give our wholesale support to the UN and, in particular, we thank the Secretary General for the hard work and commitment he has shown in his attempt to solve this crisis through diplomatic and political pressure.
We wish him well on his mission to Baghdad.
We believe that it is the role of the United Nations Security Council to come together at this time to reconsider the Iraqi problem.
<P>
I must tell you that there are some in my group who believe passionately that the United Nations, and only the United Nations, should decide what happens next.
They argue against any military action without the sanction of the United Nations Security Council.
Whilst they do not represent the majority in my group, be in no doubt that they do not argue that case from any weakening resolve to enforce existing UN resolutions; nor because they want to give Saddam Hussein any hope that he will be able to escape our determination to remove from him any potential to damn the region and the world with his weapons of mass destruction.
Rather, they argue the need for a fresh UN mandate because they fear to inflict death and destruction on Iraqi civilians, who are the real losers in this; because they also fail to understand the objectives of a military strike against Iraq; and because they genuinely fear that a precipitate military strike may initiate a conflagration in the Middle East that would kill and destroy on scale not seen for many years.
There is not one member of my group who does not share those dreads.
<P>
For the great majority, however, we believe that the United Nations-led drive for a political and diplomatic solution must be the focus for our parliamentary action at this moment.
<P>
Thirdly, my group is committed to the food-for-oil programme and the additional programme which Kofi Annan has proposed to support the Iraqi people.
<P>
I know that next Monday, 23 February, the General Affairs Council has the situation of Iraq on its agenda.
I hear you saying that the Presidency has kept partners in the European Union informed.
In our view, information is not enough.
Parliament needs the Council to find a common position for the European Union.
We recognize the difficulties; we recognize the lack of precision and real competence in the Treaty on European Union; but our Union is, if anything, a real model of conflict resolution.
<P>
Please use every ounce of strength and vision which the Presidency can muster to give the European Union a leading role in the world on this issue. Give us a European Union of which its people can be proud.
And please show us that the European Union means more than words in a treaty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Brok">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the brevity of the speech by the Commissioner Marín should perhaps be a symbolic expression of the fact that we have not much time left.
I believe Mr President-in-Office of the Council that we should not lose sight of one thing: if the European Union were able to work out a common position then perhaps the message to Saddam Hussein would be clear, that he cannot play around with the world community.
<P>
This is further proof that our inability to formulate common foreign and security policies does not lead to the avoidance of war but in fact makes it even more probable.
Therefore, a greater ability on the part of Europeans to take action on such questions would be a gain for peace.
I hope that will finally be understood by political directors and foreign ministers, so that sensible mechanisms can come into force for a common foreign and security policy.
<P>
We would all like to have diplomatic solutions.
A military conflict should be avoided.
Therefore my group, too, is totally convinced that the mission to be undertaken on Friday by Kofi Annan must receive full support, in order to render a military conflict impossible.
We wish him every success with it.
But it must be clear that this must result in all United Nations resolutions being complied with and that there can be no compromise in the implementation of inspections designed to remove all weapons of mass destruction from Iraq.
<P>
Iraq has biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction, associated with the development of rocket programmes which represent a danger not only to the immediate locality in the Middle East but in the medium and long term can be a great danger to ourselves and our peoples.
For this reason there is great interest in their removal.
<P>
We have the difficulty of choosing between options, not all of which are pleasant.
But in my opinion, to do nothing and to let Saddam Hussein carry on ducking and diving as he has done for seven years with the world community, would lead to the spread of weapons of mass destruction and we sit there like paper tigers, who have lost any claim to authority in this world.
For this reason it must be possible, if the resolutions of the United Nations are not fully recognised and implemented in the near future, to take further steps to compel Saddam Hussein to comply with the resolutions.
If this should lead to military conflict it will not be the responsibility of those who want compliance with the will of the international community but of those who do not comply with decisions of the United Nations, that is Saddam Hussein.
We should make this responsibility quite clear and stand behind these decisions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Azzolini">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to give an example of consistency, but also one of cohesion, by both emulating Commissioner Marín and confirming everything that has been said, word for word, by Mrs Green.
We have supported his resolution while preparing our own resolution on the same subject, because the appropriateness and validity of the things he has said are inevitable.
Moreover, on certain subjects, we in this House must be determined, informed and responsible.
<P>
Despite the exercises in dialectics and the ability we all have to provide our colleagues with comments and appraisals that certainly make the debate richer, at the end of our conversation there can only be one solution: to make everyone respect the resolutions of the UN Security Council.
<P>
I believe that Saddam Hussein's violation of such a resolution would seriously jeopardize the balances of civilian life and would bring further harm to a nation that is already suffering restrictions and facing uncertainties: this is another aspect we need to consider.
On another occasion, we will have to assess such aspects, but at the moment, we should, above all, confirm that the resolutions of the UN Security Council will be respected by everyone.
<P>
The occasion of today's debate and in-depth consideration of the matter also leads me to make an additional assessment that will not be the first and, unfortunately, I fear, not the last: the inadequacy, pointed out by Mrs Green, of our common foreign and security policy.
This is a serious deficit which our institution should be able to face up to, particularly on account of the complementarity evident within the Union.
We should invite each Registry of our Member States to reflect and to realize that this is a necessity, often highlighted for us by the events which occur from time to time.
<P>
So what should we do?
On behalf of my group, I hope that the Annan mission will be successful and, above all, I hope we will reflect on how we can rectify this inadequacy.
We can reflect all the difficulties experienced by our continent, but we can also provide a significant, definitive example of what dialectics and, above all, peace and political and social cohesion mean.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, the Liberal group attaches great importance to respect for international rule of law, and to the opinions and resolutions of the Security Council.
This does not only apply to Iraq, but to other cases as well, in particular those near Iraq.
<P>
It should be made clear to Saddam Hussein, persuasively, that he must allow unconditional and unrestricted access to the inspection teams.
The integrity and independence of UNSCOM must be fully respected by Iraq.
Saddam must have realized - yet he still manages to get away with it after years of obstruction - that we have reached our limits.
<P>
The international community must act as unanimously as possible to give diplomatic pressure maximum effect.
It would be better if military intervention were avoided, but effective pressure on people or dictators such as the one in Iraq is not possible without a credible military threat, and it is this military threat which can make a diplomatic success possible.
<P>
Europe must play its part in this successful international approach.
I must confess that it is just a touch embarrassing to note yet again that Europe is deeply divided on this.
With all respect to the British Presidency, their role has not quite been played as we thought it should.
The General Affairs Council will not speak about Iraq until Monday, and up until now the Presidency clearly did not think it was necessary to make the Union the forum for this matter.
Of course, we still have not got a CSFP, and this kind of European unity might have made the difference.
In the meantime, Iraq and Saddam are laughing up their sleeve.
<P>
Let today's opinion in this House be a first impulse towards a policy for joint European action which is propagated effectively and credibly, including within the context of the UN.
France and Russia will have to understand that we cannot wait indefinitely for Iraq concessions which are not forthcoming.
This undermines the international rule of law, creates a dangerous precedent, and saddles the world with large numbers of weapons of mass destruction.
That is why the Union as a whole must support the US explicitly, exert credible pressure on Iraq and provide a clear strategy and contingency planning in case of military intervention.
<P>
A longer term strategy therefore also requires that attention be focused on other countries in the region.
There is no need for a new UN resolution for such intervention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="Coates">
Mr President, if the bombardment and invasion of Iraq by the United States and allied forces go ahead unilaterally as is planned this will be a multiple injustice.
<P>
Firstly, it will kill many Iraqi citizens who are wholly innocent of any offence against the United States or its real or imagined interests.
Secondly, if it is claimed that the dictatorial nature of the regime is the reason for military action, then there are significant numbers of other dictatorships against which action is not envisaged.
Similarly, if a failure to respect United Nations resolutions were the criterion for war, then there are numerous other states to which the same reproach would apply.
Thirdly, unilateral action will undermine and discredit the United Nations organization because only a Security Council decision can legitimate action against any Member State.
<P>
Selective unilateral punishment missions have nothing to do with the development of international law.
Further, the failure to explore the possibility of joint decisions by the European Union enfeebles and discredits the Union and exposes the institution of the Presidency-in-Office to serious reproach.
In this case, the Presidency has unilaterally chosen what to do regardless of any other opinions which might exist in other Member States.
All these serious problems are undermining the institutions of international law.
The GUE group has proposed a joint resolution with the Greens and why we are launching an appeal to members of other political groups in this Parliament and to political parties, civil associations, churches and cultural bodies throughout Europe to oppose this military escalation and to urge all EC Member States to refuse to support it.
Supporters of this appeal will be invited to come together to agree upon their plans to campaign for the condemnation of violent and illegal actions by individual states and to establish the sovereignty of the UN framework.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gahrton">
Mr President, during the Gulf War in 1991, the USA and its allies dropped 277 000 tonnes of bombs over Iraq in 42 days.
That did not dislodge Saddam Hussein's despotic totalitarian regime.
Over the following seven years, Iraq has been subject to a massive international blockade.
That has also failed to dislodge the military dictatorship.
On the other hand, according to UNICEF, these measures have led to 4 500 children under the age of five dying each month.
The infant mortality rate has increased from 24 to 98 per 1000 births.
Cases of diseases like cholera, polio and jaundice have increased several times over.
In a new survey, the Middle East Council of Churches says: ' The West wants to punish the leaders of Iraq, but the ones bearing all the burden are ordinary people' .
<P>
Now the USA wants to hide its President's domestic problems through a new bombing war against Iraq, a war which is going to increase the suffering of the civilian population without solving the problem of weapons of mass destruction, and without paying any regard to the UN, which the USA systematically sabotages.
<P>
Of course the Green group supports Kofi Annan.
Of course we think that Iraq should comply with the UN's resolutions, but the same also applies to other states which are the subject of UN resolutions.
Of course we want weapons of mass destruction out of Iraq. They should be out of all other countries too.
We seek a just world order in which there may be a need for policing actions.
However, that should be done by the UN, not unilaterally by the USA.
<P>
How often have representatives of the party groups, which are now supporting the wishy-washy, war-mongering majority text, complained about the USA's world hegemony?
How stubbornly have they demanded an effective EU alternative?
But now, when the moment of truth has come, when the American master whistles, Green and Brok, Bertens and the others obediently wag their tales.
That means that the EU is now helping the war of the civilizations: the West against the Arab-Muslim world, because that is what it is going to be.
The whole of the Arab world is now supporting Iraq, even its arch enemy Syria, not because they like Saddam Hussein, but because they see what is happening as an attack by the West against all of Arab-Muslim culture.
<P>
The EU could have played an important, strategic role for peace.
The EU could have come forward with a real alternative to the USA's 'gunboat diplomacy' .
But when it comes to the crunch, certain EU countries' old colonial cloven hooves peep out.
The historical hatred of the Arabs wells up.
The stale religious prejudices against Islam reach out and transform the EU's powerful elite into obedient slaves on the American triumphal chariot.
That also means that the EU's good name - it has actually had a good name in the Arab world - will disappear.
The trust in the EU in Palestine, where we have made a constructive contribution, will be sacrificed.
The whole Mediterranean cooperation will be put at risk.
It is tragic, it is deplorable, it is shameful.
Support for the joint resolution from the Green group and GUE/NGL would be able to avoid all this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hory">
Mr President, we are all aware that the political groups within our House are weighing up the exceptional responsibility they bear.
Parliament has real power to influence peace or war, and I want to tell you why the Group of the European Radical Alliance took the decision unenthusiastically, but in full conscience of the various implications, to add its voice to the resolution which four groups have already supported.
<P>
We have three motivating factors.
Firstly we reject the caricature description of the Iraqi dictatorship on one hand, and the American imperialism on the other hand and do not come out in favour of either.
Secondly, we believe that the European Union is not neutral in this conflict which has its beginnings in 1990, and that the question of our basic conception of liberty is at issue.
Thirdly, whatever the cost to us, we consider that if Iraq does not fall into line with the UN resolutions as a result of diplomatic efforts, we should resort to military action, for if we do not, international law is no longer valid.
<P>
And yet we are reluctant to go down this road, as are a number of Member States, as well as the Arab and Turkish allies of the United States.
We know that those who are seeking to disarm Iraq were those who armed it in the first place, and that those who condemned the Iraqi exploits in Kuwait put up with the double protectorate imposed on Lebanon. We are also aware that the UNSCOM mission, in the eyes of many observers, is an American venture rather than a tool of the United Nations, that the current embargo and the future war influences or will influence the ordinary people much more than those in charge of them, and that the allies of the United States would suffer much more than America from a new international crisis.
<P>
We know all this and we also deplore the British Presidency for believing it could express, without even a formal meeting of the General Affairs Council, its national prejudices and thereby stress the vacuity of the diplomacy of the Union.
We know all this, but we take responsibility by voting for the resolution and insisting on the following points.
Firstly, the UN alone has the power to force Iraq to observe the resolutions it has made.
Secondly, any military intervention would only be legitimate if preceded by a decision by the Security Council.
Thirdly, the Union should wholeheartedly support the mission of the UN Secretary General and reaffirm the absolute priority which it accords to diplomatic efforts.
<P>
It is on the condition of these three points that our group will approve a text which explicitly includes the military solution as the only one capable of lending credibility to diplomatic pressure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, nations must be respected and peoples must not be humiliated; this is the basic rule of international life.
This should be applied to all, and particularly to more fragile and less assured nations which the international community should not set out to weaken or destabilize but rather to strengthen, and which, in the Arab-Muslim world, are the best counterweights which can be set against the development of Islamism.
<P>
Beyond the person of Saddam Hussein, the international community must take into consideration above all Iraq and its integrity, the Iraqi people and its sovereignty.
<P>
The international community must take care not to launch irresponsible actions which would be perceived as singling Iraq out with a suspect determination in a disproportionate violation of its sovereignty.
It would strengthen the bonds between the Iraqi people and a large part of Arab opinion surrounding Saddam Hussein.
It would provoke very hostile reactions towards the West from the Arab world and would risk stirring up the occupied territories.
These consequences would be entirely out of proportion with the objectives of the inspections which, moreover, would not be met by a military strike.
<P>
If, in fact, the real objective is the full application by the Iraqi authorities of the United Nations resolutions which call for the complete disarmament of the country, we must first note that Iraq today no longer represents a threat to the security of its neighbours.
It no longer has any nuclear capability and its ballistic potential is under control.
If the Security Council thinks it necessary to reinforce the inspections and controls to detect as far as possible any chemical and biological weapons which Iraq has in its possession, it should be possible to settle this residual question by political dialogue.
This does not rule out pressure on or threats to a wily and disturbing dictator who remained in power in 1991, elements which could be useful in negotiations.
<P>
This pressure would be all the more effective if Iraqis were encouraged to cooperate positively with the United Nations. And how better to do this than by proposing to put an end in a structured way to the unhealthy imprisonment of Iraq, caused by an embargo which for seven years has hit the population hard and whose complete failure we would now do well to acknowledge.
The embargo has destabilized society, but not Saddam Hussein, nor the political and military elite of the regime.
It has destroyed production and trade channels and at the same time reinforced the links between Saddam Hussein and his people.
Lifting the embargo is essential and I am delighted that some European diplomatic efforts are proposing just that whilst they are actively participating in the political dialogue with Iraq. At the same time, they recall that it is up to the Security Council alone to judge the degree to which Iraq has adopted its resolutions and to draw the appropriate conclusions about this.
<P>
Of course, these diplomatic efforts do not all speak with one voice, but they speak loudly, and this is how Europe in all its diversity comes to be an important player in this crisis.
Europe makes itself heard and intervenes with the aid of its most active Member States in such a way as to be much more effective than if it had tried hard to define a common position for all. Any such position would have risked being too weak and too slow to emerge when a crisis, such as the one we are facing at the moment, calls for a swift judgement and a rapid reaction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Trizza">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry to have to point out that, once again, we are called upon to repeat a useless practice that risks, if it has not already done so, lacking any specific confirmation, owing to the total lack of a credible foreign policy common to the fifteen Member States.
We realize that it is not easy to make the political strategies followed by the states in past decades compatible, with histories and interests that are often different if not hostile, but we regret the absence of any effort to minimize differences on the basis of common, irrenounceable principles.
<P>
Firstly, as regards respect for international treaties and agreements, the American ally cannot be used when it is convenient and then discarded when appropriate.
There is a saying in Italian: "clear agreements and long friendship' . So, we need clear agreements with all our allies.
<P>
Secondly, we need to consider respect for human rights, a flower in the eye of Parliament. We should ensure that the bilateral agreements between individual states and countries which do not offer any guarantee to that effect, should no longer take place, particularly when they have to be made with countries such as Iraq that have destructive military arsenals which place the populations of an entire region in danger.
<P>
Thirdly, the UN should have an ever more significant and important duty, particularly at diplomatic level, to ensure that its prerogative remains intact and that its resolutions are accepted without any hesitation or delay by all those who have signed the accession.
<P>
Having said that, it is obvious that the National Alliance delegation can only hope for the successful outcome of the current diplomatic initiatives, particularly the initiative whose deadline is nearly up, led by the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, whom no-one can consider to be under any influences.
This is particularly so to avoid the catastrophic effects of a conflict that would force the civilian population into great discomfort, particularly the weaker sections - the children and the elderly - who are still paying harshly for the effects of the previous war.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Vice-President Marín, I believe that each and every one of us in this House feels revulsion for Saddam Hussein and his regime.
There can be no doubt about that.
Nevertheless, we must be clear, in view of the political climate, especially in the Arab world, when and on what conditions a military strike can be successful.
In my view, Europe must insist on three things, in solidarity with but certainly not in subordination to the policy of America.
<P>
Firstly, the aim of any military strike must be clear.
So far, it has not become clear to me.
We must be as sure as possible that after a military strike the situation will be better for peace and better for the development of the whole Middle East region.
<P>
Secondly, there is no question that the situation in the Middle East is not improving but deteriorating. This has been pointed out frequently by the EU and in particular Commissioner Marín, as well as the President-in-Office of the Council.
A few years ago it was still possible to organize as many Arab countries as possible in a coalition against Saddam Hussein, which is impossible today.
It is a fact that we have a policy of obstruction by the Netanyahu government; it is a fact, without making comparisons, that even Israel does not recognise and does not implement a UN resolution concerning the Lebanon.
This produces a negative atmosphere in the Arab world and we must be clear that any strike which is not properly thought out, extremely well considered and well supported will make this atmosphere even worse.
Europe must bear that in mind.
<P>
Lastly, as regards the role of the United Nations, I would not like to say now that it is essential to have a Security Council resolution.
There are various legal interpretations there.
But we must all be clear about one thing: the weaker the consensus in the Security Council and the United Nations, the more negative any effects will be, particularly on the relationship between the West and the Arab world.
It must be Europe's task to get America to support the United Nations fully, now in the case of this mission, but also in the Security Council, to ensure as broad a consensus as possible; otherwise, the military strike becomes a slap in the face of the Arabs and ultimately also a slap in the face of the Europeans who seek a good relationship with this region.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
Mr President, I would like to say how nice it was to hear the President-in-Office of the Council give us an informative statement on the situation.
We had already read this in the papers.
We would rather have heard a few different things, because the more important and more critical the topic, the less visible the Foreign Affairs Council is.
This is a dangerous situation.
<P>
When something does come out of the Council, it seems to be fragile compromises which may be different again tomorrow and which are not really shared.
As the world expects something a little better from the European Union since we are an economic giant, it is extremely dangerous that the Council is this invisible.
The European citizens, according to the opinion polls, think that the European Union is above all responsible for foreign affairs.
This is a very logical thought, really, but sadly a misunderstanding, because the Foreign Affairs Council and the Union do not really accept this responsibility.
That is why the Council is usually not part of the solution, but part of the problem.
The British Presidency - from which we had expected a fresh, new approach - could have made an attempt to avoid this being part of the problem.
<P>
Unfortunately, the British Presidency has only acted nationally, and has actually forgotten its duty as leader of foreign policy of the Union.
Like a proud terrier, Great Britain is walking next to the American elephant, and is saying: listen to us making all this noise.
If there is anything that can contribute to avoiding war, it is a solid European Union action.
This can achieve something.
We need a solid European Union action that leaves no room for false hopes or manipulation by tyrants.
There was certainly none of this clarity in Bosnia.
The British position is clearer now; oil is involved.
In Bosnia, British officers told me at the time, oil did not play a part.
That was a terrible position, but it is clearer now.
Thank God.
But only as the position of the country itself.
There is no European Union, or Council position regarding Iraq or regarding Algeria.
Parliament's resolution must now add something to this unusual situation in order to fill the vacuum a little.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is a euphemism, I believe, to state that the legitimacy of the Baghdad regime, suspected of crimes against humanity, crimes of war and crimes of genocide is doubtful at least.
In a more general context, it is a fact that Saddam Hussein is trying to justify himself in the eyes of world public opinion, and the developing countries in particular, as a symbol of the combat against American imperialism, and Western imperialism more generally, in a black and white view of the world that belongs to another era.
<P>
The point should be made that no-one in Europe wants or can want war with Iraq.
The diplomatic solution to the crisis is certainly far more preferable. But it is for this precise reason that it is absolutely necessary, as already confirmed by several parties, that the European Union and the individual Member States should make up for the guilty and self-interested inertia of some authoritative members of the international Community with all their authority.
<P>
At the same time, the European Union should not leave the United States and the United Kingdom the monopoly on handling the crisis on the Western side.
For this reason, the elusive nature of the General Affairs Council and even the brevity of the declarations made by the representative for the Commission amaze me somewhat.
<P>
Politics, particularly international politics, abhors a vacuum; we will not contribute towards creating it. Otherwise, if this vacuum is occupied by others, we will have to deal with it ourselves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Mr President, we are all quite clear that Iraq must comply with international resolutions.
However, I would like to know whether we also share the view that the United Nations should be the only ones to make that happen, and whether we also agree that they should do it peacefully, through political and diplomatic means.
<P>
Of course, we support the efforts of the United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, but I hope those efforts do not end up being the victim of friendly fire.
In other words, Mr Annan's trip to Baghdad might end up being the excuse for US military action, which is unacceptable from every point of view, both because of the consequences it would have for the civilian population and, of course, because of the effects it would have on stability in the Middle East.
<P>
The role of the European Union in this matter is quite frankly regrettable.
The British Presidency is embarking upon an exercise in confusion in order to guarantee their national policy which, quite frankly, is to do what the White House says.
And what can we say about other Member States of the European Union, beginning with my own country, Spain, where the Head of Government has witnessed his citizens receiving an explanation of Madrid's participation in a hypothetical US operation via Tony Blair through the CNN?
<P>
The Union should of course have a common position on this matter, which should include opposing any unilateral US action and, of course, lifting an embargo which is causing indescribable suffering to the ordinary citizens of Iraq. They are being punished twice over: they have to endure a brutal dictatorial regime, and they lack the foods and medicines to cope with daily life.
<P>
We should support the democratic opposition in Iraq, of course.
And this Parliament ought to make sure that if Clinton undertakes a military operation without the support of a United Nations Security Council resolution that he will not be able to end up finding support in a resolution from this Parliament.
What a sad state of affairs that would be!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Kerr">
Mr President, let me first make it clear on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament that we hold no brief for Saddam Hussein.
Some of us were opposing him when Britain and the US were arming him. This includes the chemical and biological warfare which Doug Henderson spoke about this morning.
We know they have it, we sold it to them.
<P>
Let us end all chemical and biological warfare and destroy all weapons around the world.
Let us inspect all sites around the world including those in the USA and in Britain which still exist.
Let us be clear what this crisis is about.
It is not about the threat from Iraq.
It is about Mr Clinton's domestic problems.
This is the war of Mr Clinton's penis, designed to bolster his image in the face of allegations about his character back home.
<P>
How ironic then that Mr Clinton's main backer is Mr Blair, Mr Clean the Christian socialist, and how disgraceful that Mr Blair, the President of the European Union, has made no attempt to represent the views of Europe but seeks to impose the views of Mr Clinton on Europe.
How sad and pathetic it is to watch Robin Cook, the British Foreign Secretary, instead of travelling around Europe to help stop the war, trailing around the Gulf States to persuade them to let the US and Britain bomb Baghdad.
What an end to a man who made his name as a CND and peace campaigner!
<P>
The Financial Times this morning reports that Foreign Office officials brief that Britain is prepared to use nuclear weapons against Iraq if Saddam responds.
Let this Parliament speak clearly against this unnecessary war.
The joint resolution of the EPP and the PSE does not go far enough.
I understand that Pauline Green has been privately critical of Mr Blair's belligerence over Iraq.
Let us be openly critical of the British failure to act as the President of Europe rather than the fifty-second state of the US.
Let us say that bombing Baghdad will not work and is morally unjustifiable.
<P>
The Green amendments to the joint resolution will say all these things.
I appeal to the Socialist group, and especially to the British Labour Members; forget your fears about reselection, listen to your conscience, follow the example of the British MPs who voted against the war at Westminster last night.
Remember that not only will your Labour party members judge you, but history will judge how you vote on this issue.
I appeal to you to vote for peace, for a diplomatic solution and against the war.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Gollnisch">
Mr President, it seems as though the United States of America is preparing quite imperturbably to lead a new war in the Gulf and to strike Iraq, against international law, against the United Nations Charter, against the resolutions of the Security Council and particularly resolution 687 which refutes their mandate to do so.
<P>
What can justify this sudden, unilateral, arrogant and cynical policy?
And why now when the situation seemed to be improving?
Is Mr Clinton trying to forget the Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky affairs, where the shocking and the sordid have competed for our attention? Or is it on orders from Mr Netanyahu, whose disregard for the Security Council resolutions does not arouse any emotion from you, Mr President-in-Office of the Council?
Or again, is it a question of preserving the profitability of American oil-wells, half of which would have to close if, as forecast, Iraqi oil came back onto the world market? In any case, contrary to the official lies, one thing is sure: these threats are not justified by the danger which Iraq would represent.
<P>
No prima facie evidence on this subject has even begun to be provided.
This country with 20 million inhabitants has been methodically starved for seven years.
There are no more spare parts.
For seven years, no aeroplanes or helicopters have taken off.
Industry is paralyzed.
To get to the capital, you have to cross 900 kilometres of desert in terrible conditions.
There are no more electric bulbs, there is no more bread, there is no more milk.
<P>
Pencils have even been confiscated from schools because it is said that Saddam Hussein would make atomic bombs from graphite mines!
<P>
The most upsetting thing about it all is not the American lies, but your servility, Mr President of the Council.
Let us at least get rid of your loathsome morals.
Let us get rid of your alibi.
Let us get rid of the political and media montages which took place during the Gulf War.
If you wish to go to war with your American friends, go ahead, but go without us!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Colajanni">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I am sorry that the British Government has unilaterally and immediately declared that it is prepared to take part in a military action, without consulting the European governments and seeking a common position.
At a time when it is responsible for the Presidency of the European Union, this is a harsh blow to the role and credibility of the Union.
<P>
The joint resolution of several political groups calls us to this responsibility today; it calls us to define a common position, to support all diplomatic means, particularly the missions of the UN and its Secretary General, and its proposal of oil in return for food directed at the population.
<P>
Finally, and this is the central point, the resolution asks for any further action that is not diplomatic to require the formal decision of the UN Security Council, the sole interpreter.
This is an essential point.
We are convinced of the extreme danger Saddam Hussein poses and the need to force him to observe the UN resolutions.
However, the Security Council has to decide how and when, assessing the situation which is different in both military and political terms today than it was during the Gulf War.
<P>
The situation is different today as regards military resources.
I can give two examples of this: what effects will striking chemical arms deposits have?
Minister Primakoff talks of devastating effects over the entire region.
This is a point that should be assessed.
Another example is that UN sources indicate that Saddam has hidden chemical missiles and arms in Algeria, Libya and Sudan.
If that is true, what does he intend to do with those countries and how can it help to bombard Iraq?
<P>
The situation is also different in terms of politics.
All the Arab countries, and first and foremost our allies, are against this.
Why?
We can take action against them, but with what consequences throughout the Middle East?
The Security Council should assess all this and then its decisions will be applied.
Each of us will then do our parts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Castagnetti">
Madam President, Kofi Annan's trip to Baghdad gives us a glimpse of rationality and hope: rationality because, in the last few weeks, war has been considered inevitable on almost all sides, in view of Saddam Hussein's unacceptable arrogance.
<P>
As Clinton said yesterday, war is never the first option, even if it may be the only option in certain situations.
Thanks to the persistence of some countries, to the attitude of UN public union, to the strong calls from the solitary moral authority of the Pope in Rome, to the worrying and foreseeable agreement between Russia and China and to the resistance of the Arab countries, the policy seems to be taking over its responsibility very recently.
<P>
Unfortunately, we cannot thank Europe for this because, once again, Europe, which is preparing to become a monetary power, is not managing to become a political power, not even when faced with a crisis that could provide it with more than we believe today.
For this reason, I am joining all those who have criticized the inexplicable and unacceptable behaviour of the British Presidency in these circumstances.
<P>
Let it be clear that no-one doubts the need for the Baghdad dictator to be forced to observe all the UN resolutions. However, the usefulness and effectiveness of the methods used to achieve the result, the balance of foreseeable human costs and the simulation of subsequent political scenarios can never be considered indisputable and inevitable.
When the alternative is war, indisputable limits to the patience of diplomacy and politics cannot be invoked.
This is not a weakness, but is the strength that shows us the old moral and political wisdom of this ancient continent and the only serious lesson left behind by the century that is drawing to a close.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="Manisco">
Madam President, we cannot but express astonishment and dismay about what we have heard today, particularly from the British Foreign Office gentleman.
We read the same papers he reads about the weapons of mass destruction, British-developed anthrax and the inflated threats against humanity.
<P>
We also know the role his government has played, first to block, then to hinder the mission in Iraq of the Secretary General, Kofi Annan.
We learn that the use of incredible force to produce a diplomatic solution has long ceased to be a threat to achieve anything at all, as the juggernaut of American military power moves inexorably and with devastating force against the Iraqi people: there are one and a half million victims of the embargo, an embargo that somebody in this House wants to prolong forever.
<P>
On this side of the House, we nurture no sympathy for the Baghdad dictator.
We still hope that Mr Annan might perform a miracle.
We deplore, in the strongest terms, the veil of hypocrisy and mystification drawn over this pre-planned massacre, over this tragedy of major proportions and, more than anything else, over the attempted use of this Union to support blind instruments of Anglo- American military and foreign policies at their worst.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Antony">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is totally disgraceful to claim that Iraq would really threaten its neighbours with what remains of an arsenal which has been voluntarily overestimated by Israeli-American disinformation.
There can be no doubt that this country, if it were to launch a war of aggression, would suffer dreadful destructive reprisals from Israel and the United States immediately.
<P>
Having led Saddam Hussein into the trap of recapturing Kuwait, the United States hammered the derisory Iraqi army with their might.
And since then, they have been starving the Iraqi people and causing the deaths of children by the hundreds of thousands, soon to reach two million, using a procedure which constitutes a crime against humanity. It is all the more terrible in that it is perpetrated coldly, calmly and clinically and has operated down the years under the cover of moral pacifist motivations which claim human rights as their inspiration.
<P>
We know that the reality is that with cynicism covered in a thick layer of hypocrisy, Mr Clinton is obeying first and foremost the cold interests of oil mercantilism which Iraqi production must not threaten, not to mention his own murky personal motivations.
<P>
Finally, and above all, if Saddam Hussein did not exist, he would have to be invented.
Israel and the United States think they need a constant virtual enemy and a war which might always break out.
Today Saddam, tomorrow someone else.
Comprehension of this is the key to the whole situation, but it also brings understanding of the danger for world peace.
So who could negate the legitimacy of Palestinian exasperation and the rising anger of the most moderate and responsible Arab movements?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hoff">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in my contribution I would like to say something about the role of the European Union and our House in this conflict.
The question is, do we play a part at all, or do we do it justice?
The fact is that we do not play an active role, but nevertheless I think that our debate and the joint resolution which we present today are an important contribution, for we in the European Parliament will reach a decision before the Council and the Commission have been able to work out a common position.
This is the umpteenth time that the Council and the Commission have not been able to find a common position and if the Commission, as we have heard this morning, limits itself to wishing and hoping then the Commission appears to be in a bad way.
<P>
In our resolution we demand a common position on a common foreign and security policy, but we also say in this resolution how we view this.
In any case, it involves a resolution put forward by a majority in our House and, as already mentioned, adopted before the Council and the Commission are in a position to put forward some kind of common text for discussion.
<P>
I would like to make a comment on the UN resolution. The Americans hold the view that we must intervene if all diplomatic efforts fail, and that we shall intervene.
In our House, and this has been said, there are some who dispute this.
It is to be hoped that further measures against the dictator will be supported by the whole international community.
It would also be desirable for the UN Security Council to confirm such a measure.
But this effort must not lead to some members of the international community, such as Russia and China, bringing the Security Council into a position whereby the pressure on Saddam can be reduced, which would mean state terrorism being victorious in Iraq.
We do not want that.
We want, if possible, a peaceful solution, and hopefully a common one, which will mean that all those things indicated some time ago by the British Presidency disappear from the world.
Chemical and biological weapons cannot be accepted anywhere in the world, and certainly not in a country where there is state terrorism.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bernard-Reymond">
Mr President-in-Office, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the refusal of Iraq to comply with the decisions of the UN can only be condemned firmly and without ambiguity by any country or parliament.
Respect for international law is the condition for peace, all the more so because in this case we are dealing with highly dangerous weapons.
<P>
But who could refuse or regret exhausting all possible diplomatic and political efforts before using force to put these weapons out of action to prevent them causing harm in case negotiations failed?
I congratulate and approve of the efforts of those who push negotiation to its limits, especially the French government and the Secretary General of the UN.
We could already make a number of observations about this crisis.
<P>
Firstly, was Iraq capable of manufacturing these terrible arms on its own, or was it aided by other members of the UN?
Secondly, once again Europe is incapable of adopting a European position.
In terms of international politics, Europe does not exist, and this shortcoming can only be compensated for by the Member States.
They do this in the light of their individual histories and respective sensibilities, and these are not identical.
And so they are forced to draw up policies, not in terms of their common analysis, but which relate to those of the United States.
<P>
Your attitude, Mr President-in-Office, that of your government, was of particular significance in this respect, and I would like to know what you have done in your role as President of the European Council, and not as the British government, with regard to the Arab countries, with regard to the Soviet Union, with regard to China, with regard to the UN and in general within the European Union.
<P>
Thirdly, must we go to war with Iraq every ten years, or will we learn from the first Gulf War and from the present situation to reflect on the issues of the balance of forces in the region, the law of each country and its security, the role of oil in this crisis, the influence of blocking the peace process on the general situation in the Middle East, the use of an embargo on Iraq, and the situation of the Iraqi population which is hostage both to its dictator and to the West?
<P>
If Europe existed, it would certainly have been able to do something to direct the situation during the past ten years in order to avoid the current tragic deadlock.
But we persist in deploring our impotence without taking decisions which are of the same order as the stakes.
Do you not agree, for example, that the election of the President of the European Council for a period of four years would be a first practical step in drawing up a real common and foreign security policy?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Madam President, Mr Clinton has lit the pipe of war, and, accompanied by the drumbeats of the armaments industries and the oil multinationals, he is doing what he wants.
I fear that we are talking too much here and looking for excuses that there is no common foreign policy, and that is why there is none or rather, through the current Presidency, that it is a party to Clinton's war games.
<P>
Madam President, I think that notwithstanding the above, this Parliament could pass a resolution which firstly categorically opposes any military intervention in Iraq - regardless of the situation, whether reprehensible, etcetera - and secondly, defends in the same integrated way a political and diplomatic solution.
Instead of that, however, the four groups have a resolution which in one way or another very cunningly creates the prerequisites for its use as a fig-leaf for military intervention by the Americans. Meanwhile, the resolution by the Greens and our own group totally condemns, in fact, any military intervention and supports a political and diplomatic solution, which is the best form of support for Annan in the mission he has now undertaken by going to Baghdad.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Formentini">
Madam President, the hope kindled in these last few hours does not lessen the gravity of this Iraqi crisis and I believe that, as it is impossible for Europe to have a common policy as such, the duty of the European Parliament is to express the requirements and needs of our nations, which seek reassurance on many points.
This is worrying, a very worrying crisis!
Just think that seven years ago Saddam Hussein could have been calmly removed from power and yet the power that could have done so did not do it; things have progressed over the years and now we are in this situation.
<P>
We have the duty to reassure our nations that there will be no ecological disasters; we all know how bombardment starts: it is hoped to be surgical but then becomes devastating.
We cannot even hold a nation hostage in the hope that this nation will cause the dictator to fall, because this is not the right way of seeing things.
Unfortunately, there are too many people like Saddam Hussein and the dictators who oppress the rights of their nations in the world today.
In this specific case, as well as the risk of bacteriological or any other type of warfare, Saddam also has the grave responsibility of holding one-fifth of the population of his country, the Kurds, under a humanely unacceptable regime.
<P>
I ask Parliament to declare this and, with regard to the people I represent, the people of the Po Valley, we are against the use of any base that is situated in our territory.
From this House, I warn the Italian government not to use bases in the Po Valley for attacks which we cannot accept.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wiersma">
Mr President, it is a good thing that the European Parliament is defining its position on the Iraq crisis.
It appears that the Council has not really managed to do so.
The starting position as regards Iraq is fairly clear.
We have a pariah state which does not take any notice of the international community, and refuses to meet UN declarations which demand that the weapons of mass destruction be inspected and destroyed.
This is simply unacceptable.
It requires international action: that is what we are discussing here.
<P>
What action is the world taking to rid Saddam Hussein of his deadly arsenal?
This issue concerns everyone, not just America.
The compromise resolution before us deals with a number of fundamental questions.
Should you threaten violence in a situation like this?
Should it be used as a last resort, if diplomacy fails?
Yes.
Should you use all peaceful means for a solution?
Again, I believe so, and I am also glad that there is agreement about a last attempt by Kofi Annan, the United Nations Secretary General.
Should you be prepared to use violence if a diplomatic avenue does not lead to the concessions demanded of Saddam Hussein?
My answer is, albeit reluctantly, yes.
Should the Security Council approve such an action?
It is desirable, but not an absolute condition.
The Security Council should play a part, but there is a difference of opinion about the interpretation of the UN resolutions on Iraq.
Saddam Hussein should not be allowed to benefit from the confusion.
The compromise resolution before us is a perfect expression of this notion.
Our aim is not war, but there are limits to the international community's patience.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to say first of all that I find it extraordinarily regrettable that Commissioner Marín has already left the House.
In any case, he was here for the commentary.
He could easily be here and speak in somewhat greater detail in a final speech on certain humanitarian measures and suchlike; I very much regret that he did not feel that this was necessary.
On the other hand, I am of course very happy that the discussion is being held here today, since it is simply high time that we in Europe speak with one voice - I am very happy, Commissioner Marín, that you are again with us -, that we speak with one voice on a subject that has already been described by CNN as the "showdown in the Gulf' .
I sometimes wish that this one voice were rather more harmonious and somewhat louder.
Nevertheless, it is good that it is actually happening.
<P>
I am also sure that many colleagues present yesterday saw two things on television which were interesting: on the one hand, the permanent members of the Security Council dispatching Secretary General, Kofi Annan, and the good advice which he has taken with him; and on the other hand, the speech which President Bill Clinton made to officers in the Pentagon, in which he very clearly threatened Saddam Hussein.
We must be clear on one point: the journey of this Secretary General must undoubtedly not turn into a flop like the one made by the Secretary General in 1991, which was practically the introduction to the Gulf War.
I can only hope that lessons were learned from these mistakes.
We should also make our opinion clear in the sense that only on the basis of clear concessions can we really exhaust all diplomatic possibilities of preventing this war.
<P>
However, we must make quite clear our attitude to those states which are using biological weapons.
Here I would point out that Iraq itself has anthrax at its disposal as its main weapon.
Anyone who has observed in our own continent the effects of anthrax over 50 years ago in Scotland on Anthrax Island, understands that it is really necessary for us to speak with one voice here, because we cannot foresee these effects, nor do we want to foresee them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Paisley">
Madam President, coming from Northern Ireland as I do, I have to say that there is hypocrisy in both President Clinton and Prime Minister Blair.
They tell the IRA terrorists in my country that they can hold on to their weapons which have murdered my constituents, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, and be welcomed at the White House and Downing Street.
Yet they tell us today that Iraq must have its weapons destroyed.
<P>
I want to put on record that none of us dare forget that Saddam has proved by the murderous slaughter of his own people that he would use mass destruction weapons if he had the chance.
I do not know whether an air strike can take out all these weapons, but for us to start again without finishing would be disastrous.
That is what happened before. It must not happen again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cot">
Madam President, after "Desert Storm' here we are again on the brink of a new intervention in Iraq led by the United States of America.
The Iraqi dictator is flouting the international community once more.
He refuses to comply with the UN resolutions.
He has brought about plans for a formidable threat to the region.
There my parallel ends.
<P>
In 1990, the UN authorized force to be used under Chapter 7.
Intervention was implemented by a broad coalition which included in particular neighbouring Arab countries and also many non-aligned countries.
And Europe as such was present, active notably through the voice of the Presidency and of the troika which did not carefully handle its efforts and turned up in Baghdad in spite of certain reservations shown particularly in this Parliament.
Today I note that Europe has been obliterated, as spectacularly indicated, Mr Marín, by the terseness of your remarks earlier.
I note especially the obliteration of the British Presidency, Mr President-in-Office.
Prime Minister Blair is doubtless very active and omnipresent, however President Blair has disappeared.
It seems as if the common foreign and security policy no longer exists when things become serious.
<P>
I would add that the coalition comes from the West alone and that the United States seems to have decided to act without any mandate from the UN, despite a half-hearted blessing given to the last chance mission of the Secretary General of the UN, Kofi Annan, which we obviously hope will be fruitful.
<P>
Under these conditions, an intervention would indicate a serious weakening of the authority of the United Nations and of the presence of the European Union, which has become a negligible quantity in world terms.
Some of us are not prepared under these conditions to give carte blanche to the United States of America for this operation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="McMillan-Scott">
Madam President, it is quite clear that there is a consensus emerging in the Chamber, which gives me no pleasure, and that is the criticism of the Presidency.
We have just heard from a leading French socialist the sort of words I might use myself.
<P>
There is confusion.
I remember the last time we debated Iraq in substance during the Gulf War.
At that time, all but six of the Labour Members signed a resolution condemning the military action in the Gulf.
This time, only six would sign up to one.
So, this is the sort of changing pattern one sees on the socialist side of this House.
<P>
It is regrettable and deplorable that, so far, the Presidency has failed to arrive at a common position.
But it reflects the lack of certainty in foreign policy, both in Washington and London, and, I regret, elsewhere in Europe.
The sort of certainty that was so evident in the days of Mrs Thatcher and President Bush; the sort of certainty that was brought to the European Union by Douglas Hurd, when he was Foreign Secretary; the sort of certainty we actually need today.
I regret, therefore, that Robin Cook has not found it possible to come here, although he spent the whole of yesterday afternoon in the House of Commons.
<P>
These are shifting sands.
We do not know how the next few days are going to turn out.
We know that in that part of the world there is little to choose between two despotic regimes, one in Iran and one in Iraq.
<P>
Criticism has been made of the supply of material to the Iraqis.
In the case of the United Kingdom, that stopped in 1988.
But we are dealing here with a dictator, who has at his disposal weapons, some of which were invented as far back as the First World War.
It is First World War technology with a barbarian mentality, and this needs to be dealt with by the international community.
<P>
Therefore, we feel that the present diplomatic mission by Kofi Annan needs every support.
We understand the position, reflected here on my own benches: by Mr Castagnetti and Mr Bernard-Reymond, from Italy and France, and other Mediterranean countries in particular are deeply concerned about the dangers of the present situation.
But we cannot allow Saddam Hussein to continue to have the ability to threaten not only his own people but those neighbouring his country and even much further afield with the technology he has been trying to develop.
<P>
We deeply sympathize with the people of Iraq.
We hope the humanitarian efforts will continue and if it is necessary in the coming days to take further measures, as enjoined by the resolution we are about to adopt, then I believe the House here and the people of Europe should stand behind those forces, as I do, whether they are American, British or others, if the time comes - and the time is coming - when we must finish the job we began in 1991.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Titley">
Madam President, in my nine years in this Parliament I have never before heard a speech of such distorted, selfindulgent drivel as that which Mr Kerr gave a short while ago.
I now know that care in the community in the United Kingdom does not work.
<P>
I ask this Chamber to consider for one moment the effect of just one Scud missile with chemical weapons aimed at Israel.
The conflagration in the Middle East resulting from that Scud missile is beyond imagination.
We must be clear in this Chamber that international law must be adhered to.
There should be no comfort for Saddam Hussein in our debate.
He is the person not adhering to UN resolutions.
It is no good claiming that in other areas the UN has been less rigorous.
Two wrongs do not make a right.
<P>
I am also perturbed by the weeping and gnashing of teeth by Members of Parliament over the CFSP.
CFSP does not mean, as Mr Bertens says, that we should be united on every issue.
It means that we should have a common strategy towards common threats to the European Union.
It is clear that the European Union has been moving in that direction.
The common text we have before us is united in making sure that Saddam Hussein is clearly identified as being in the wrong; that there has to be implementation of UN resolutions.
There has to be an exhaustive search for a diplomatic solution.
We have to support the UN Secretary General in his mission.
<P>
Can Mr Henderson confirm that, in fact, that is also the common position of the Council?
Could he also confirm that the Presidency has acted entirely in conformity with Article J.5 of the Treaty on European Union and, in addition, that the British government has adhered to its obligations under Article J.5, paragraph 4, as a member of the Security Council?
<P>
We must be clear: Saddam Hussein must be stopped.
We must have a diplomatic solution to this problem.
But at the end, if there is no possibility of a diplomatic solution, the military option must be considered as a very last resort.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Newens">
Madam President, Saddam Hussein has inflicted vast suffering on huge numbers of people.
Full pressure must be maintained to deprive him of all weapons of mass destruction.
It would, however, be a massive mistake for the United States to bomb Iraq.
It is not certain to eliminate the weaponry; it could inflict casualties and further suffering on innocent civilians; it would alienate supporters, divide the European Union and inflame Arab opinion, already aggrieved at the different standards applied to Israel; fundamentalism and terrorism will gain and could escalate.
<P>
No military action should be taken anyway without the explicit and full agreement of the United Nations Security Council, which must meet again on this issue.
We also need to increase food and medical supplies to the Iraqi people by extending the oil-for-food programme.
The European Union must formulate its own foreign policy, not supinely follow the United States, particularly when the United States is wrong.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sakellariou">
Madam President, I welcome the mandate of the Secretary General of the UN to seek a peaceful solution to this dangerous conflict.
Any attempt to restrict this mandate, as is happening on the part of the USA at the moment, must be rejected.
The task and the obligation of the European Union, and specifically of its British Presidency, will be to strengthen the Secretary General's hand and to show confidence in his negotiating skills.
<P>
The military option must really remain the undesirable ultima ratio and this only when the following conditions apply: firstly, a military strike must not be a punitive action and must offer the guarantee that all weapons of mass destruction will be eliminated by this strike; and secondly, the formal discussions in the Security Council must lead to an appropriate resolution.
<P>
Mr President of the Council, in recent weeks I have admired the determination with which your government has demonstrated its solidarity and loyalty towards the USA.
This strengthens me in my hope and desire that the other 14 members of the European Union will soon be able to count on this same solidarity and loyalty.
<P>
Madam President, please permit me one more point of order.
I very much regret that this morning I did not have the opportunity to speak on the roll-call vote and its financial implications.
Then I would have also had one and a half minutes speaking time like my 15 colleagues who this morning took away half an hour from this important debate on Iraq in order to talk about the new regulation and the roll-call vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Truscott">
Madam President, I welcome the joint resolution supported by my group which is before the House today.
It gives a clear signal to Saddam Hussein that Europe is united in its condemnation of Iraq's failure to comply with UN Security Council resolutions.
This House seeks a diplomatic solution to the Iraqi crisis and welcomes the work Kofi Annan is undertaking to resolve it.
But Iraq should know that if it does not allow UNSCOM to continue its vital work, the real threat of military action will remain.
<P>
Saddam must destroy all remaining stocks of chemical and biological weapons and the potential to develop other weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons.
This includes some 31 000 chemical weapons and 45 missiles unaccounted for.
Saddam has used these weapons before, as we have heard, both against his own people and Iran.
He must never be allowed to use weapons of mass destruction again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
Madam President, countries should be founded on law.
That also applies to the international community.
International law must be respected by everyone, not just by some.
Saddam Hussein should, of course, comply with the Security Council's resolution.
<P>
The UN Charter permits the use of force as a last resort, but only after a resolution by the UN Security Council.
Therefore, it is important that no green light be given for any military bombing by the USA.
Every intelligent general should ask himself this question: what is the objective?
Is it to remove weapons or to remove Saddam Hussein?
Will this be achieved through bombs?
The answer is certainly no.
What will happen after the bombing?
What will happen to Iraq's population?
Will Saddam Hussein's position not in fact be stronger after a bombing?
<P>
It is excellent that all five permanent members of the Security Council support Kofi Annan's journey to Iraq and diplomatic solutions.
Diplomacy works slowly.
The UN has removed a lot of weapons and will also be able to do so in future.
We must, as former President Carter said, have patience, patience, patience.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Robles Piquer">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, the unfortunate matter we are discussing should lead us to reflect on certain things. It is true, none of these things are particularly useful as regards the actual situation, because it is not in our power to decide, or almost not even to comment.
<P>
However, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I think there is one aspect which we should be very concerned about: the way we Europeans have acted so ineffectively in regard to this serious issue.
In your speech, Mr President-in-Office, you spoke several times of a united Europe.
There can be no doubt that this has been a disunited Europe.
I have the impression that the Council, under its worthy Presidency, has not taken the necessary steps to achieve a certain common position, far less a joint action.
And it seems to me - and to many other Europeans - that this has been a wasted opportunity in that respect.
<P>
It would have been perfectly feasible to have formed a common opinion because the interests of all Europeans are largely the same, apart from the natural entrepreneurial exploits which may sometimes be inspired by lust for Iraq's oil, for example.
I think the Council - its President - should take advantage of this opportunity to analyse why, when faced with such dramatic and urgent circumstances, it was really not possible to formulate a rough outline which a truly united Europe - that united Europe you have mentioned so often, Mr President-in-Office - could have used to respond to the crisis situation we are all so worried and upset about.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Henderson">
Madam President, thank you for the opportunity to reply to this very important debate.
I would firstly confirm that our Presidency has fulfilled its obligations under Article J.5(4) in the Treaty of Maastricht in that we have kept other members of the Union fully informed of positions on which we have expressed a view and, where it has been possible to identify European Union positions, we have defended those positions in our representations.
<P>
Secondly, I confirm that many actions have been taken by the Presidency to try to build a common position within the European Union.
In my introductory address I outlined a number of initiatives which have been taken, including those by the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, myself and many of our officials.
That process has taken place over a period of time in the build-up to this week.
In Panama last week the Foreign Secretary, in his capacity as President-in-Office, held a meeting with other Member States who were represented there.
This informal meeting was to go over the ground where a common position could be identified.
As it was not a formal Council, it was not possible to have formal conclusions but the Presidency, in representing the European Union in the various forums where the problem of Iraq has been discussed, has stuck to the text which was agreed at the end of that meeting, as one on which the Presidency could express a common view.
<P>
If one had listened to this debate from outside Parliament, one might have the impression that there were huge divisions among European Union states on how to deal with Iraq.
One might also have the impression that there are substantial divisions within this Parliament.
But it is worth identifying the very large areas of common ground among the European Union states and in this Parliament, as is identified in the joint resolution which will come before Parliament at a later stage in the proceedings.
<P>
That resolution covers the same ground which has been identified as important common ground by European Union members of the Council, such as the need for international law to be upheld.
Otherwise the whole order in the international world comes crumbling down.
That is a crucially important objective where we all agree.
In that regard, Security Council Resolution 687 has not been adhered to and that is a clear breach of international law.
Further, we agree that Saddam Hussein has very many dangerous weapons of a biological and chemical nature and that those dangerous weapons are a danger, not only to neighbouring states in the Middle East and to the international community, but also the people of Iraq.
Any settlement must include unconditional and unrestricted access for the representatives of the United Nations through UNSCOM. And, importantly, every effort must be made to try to seek a diplomatic solution to the problems we face.
<P>
That is a very large area of common ground that will be shared not only by the European Union members of the Council and the Members of this Parliament but will be seen outside by the peoples of Europe as a very important, reasonable position in trying to face up to the dangers in Iraq.
<P>
I want to conclude by mentioning the other important common position, namely that we all recognize the crucially important role that Kofi Annan will play on behalf of us all in taking the backing of the Security Council to Baghdad to identify all those common positions and to say to Saddam Hussein that we want to negotiate a diplomatic solution.
Nobody wants war but if a solution is to be achieved, there has to be movement by the Iraqi government to guarantee those important points which I have identified and which I know are included in the backing Kofi Annan has from the Security Council.
I hope by the time the General Affairs Council meets next Monday we are able to see that real progress has been made.
We will then be able to understand how important those common positions were in achieving what I hope will be a settlement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="President">
In accordance with paragraph 2 of Rule 37, I have received seven motions for resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Oostlander">
Madam President, if the President-in-Office has a strong standpoint as the representative of the Council, why does he not publish it?
Everybody is asking for a strong standpoint but it has never been seen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Kerr">
Madam President, I asked Mr Henderson to make a statement on whether, as the Foreign Office officials reported in The Financial Times today are saying, that Britain is prepared to use nuclear weapons in Iraq.
Would he give a confirmation on that?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Madam President, Mr Chairman of the Council, I would also like to know what concrete proposals the British Presidency has presented within the European Union to support the mission of Kofi Annan and not to undermine it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Gollnisch">
Madam President, there are a certain number of issues on which we would have liked the President-inOffice or the President of the Commission to speak.
<P>
Why this conflict so suddenly now, when we are told that it is some three years since a son-in-law of the Iraqi president revealed the existence of these armaments? Why did an American minister appear on American television with a box of sugar to say that a box of this kind would contain enough germs to destroy an entire town?
Does this mean that we must forever inspect every cupboard in Iraq?
What proof, what hint of proof do you have of the existence of the weapons which are said to have been discovered now?
<P>
These are the questions of interest and on which we would have liked some clarification both from the Commission and from the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Henderson">
I am very happy to try to deal with the four questions which have been raised.
<P>
In relation to the last question raised by the Member opposite - why now? - the answer to that is because it is now seven years since the commitment was given by Saddam Hussein in 1991 that he would honour the terms of the UN resolution that concluded the military activity.
UNSCOM have been trying to do their work.
They have been obstructed.
There is all this evidence that I referred to in my opening address, and other evidence, that there is a great danger that those large stockpiles of very serious weapons could ignite a problem.
Therefore, action has to be taken.
I hope that a diplomatic solution can be found to it.
<P>
In relation to the point raised by Mr Kerr, the Foreign Secretary - in his British capacity - made a statement to the House of Commons ruling out any use of nuclear weapons in the context that was raised.
I would have thought that Mr Kerr might have been aware of that.
<P>
Regarding Mr Oostlander's very valid point, it would have been preferable to have had a text after the Panama meeting but because of the nature of the informal Council, it was not possible to have a binding text.
That will be possible from Monday's GAC.
I hope that the basis, which was understood and recognized at Panama can form some of the substance of what might be agreed on Monday.
Events are moving very quickly.
On Monday, many of us will be concentrating our minds on Kofi Annan's mission and how that has resulted.
<P>
Regarding the question by Mr Wolf on which specific points arising out of Panama have been raised by the British Presidency at the United Nations, the answer is that all of the points which were covered are part of the British position in the United Nations.
As I said in my winding up, I believe that we have honoured our obligations under the Maastricht Treaty in that regard.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to have your full attention.
As you know, this morning we have a sitting and vote which is rather difficult to manage in that, as announced, we must break at midday precisely to welcome the President of the Republic of Portugal and then resume afterwards.
It is all the more difficult since, as you are aware, we have a number of highly sensitive votes.
<P>
So, in order to organize the situation as well as possible, I would like to take up the proposal again which I made this morning and which has been amended very timely by the considerations which some Members have forwarded to me.
<P>
So, for this morning and this morning only, I repeat while we are waiting, we should reorganize things - I am sure everyone is aware that this is necessary and, furthermore, the suggestion made by a colleague this morning that the group chairmen and the members of the Bureau meet to review the whole situation is an excellent one. So before we reorganize things, I propose that this morning only, following the votes - I hope you are all listening - that those among you who believe in their heart and conscience that they do not need to participate in some of the votes should indicate this quite simply in the course of the day to the Clerk's Office.
<P>
This would allow us to vote in a dignified way on this morning's very important reports.
It goes without saying of course that if Members prefer to indicate their intention at each roll-call vote, they have every right to do so and I will respect this right.
So again, the aim of my proposal is to allow us to work as effectively as possible this morning.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Falconer">
Madam President, I can understand your desire to speed up the agenda, but my problem is that if we accept what you are proposing then it will be a set precedent for the future.
I do think that the Bureau, in its wisdom, after hearing this confession this morning would wish to reconsider these matters.
We would like an assurance that this would be for this session only and that we would have the right to return to the Bureau's previous guidelines.
Secondly, we would like an assurance that the Bureau will not wait three months to review these matters but will review them within the next three days.
That would be another assurance which I think would go a long way to pacify this House and allow us to proceed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="President">
Mr Falconer, I thought it was clear, but thank you for giving me the opportunity to clarify once more.
The proposal which I made to you, whilst I am aware that it is not perfect - although no system is perfect - applies only to this morning, and also, taking into account the exceptional situation this morning, requires us to interrupt our votes for half an hour for the reasons everyone is aware of.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Corbett">
Madam President, you are absolutely right, there is no point pursuing the debate but there is a very easy solution to this.
You can remind Members who feel that they cannot vote in favour of or against a particular proposal that we do have in fact a third button on our voting machine that they can press, namely the abstention button.
It is very easy to reach out and press this button, it should not be difficult for any Member.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="President">
No, Mr Corbett, abstention and the fact of not participating in the vote do not have the same significance.
I think this is very clear, and everyone should be aware of this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Madam President, I wish to speak about the events of this morning, during which our emergency resolution on crime in Brussels was rejected.
The fear of Members, employees and the public should be taken seriously.
About 50 Members have signed for this motion to be dealt with in Parliament.
It was rejected.
I therefore ask the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities to concern itself with this matter in order to evaluate how this situation is to be assessed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Rübig.
I am happy to formally record your motion.
<P>
(The President noted that there were no objections to her proposal)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
Madam President, we submitted a request yesterday to vote on the Hautala report first.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I have received a request to amend the order of votes on the Lange and Hautala reports.
I will put it to the vote.
The Parliament is sovereign.
<P>
(Parliament gave its assent to changing the order of the votes)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Madam President, I wanted to inquire if the fact of having listened to the excellent speech by the President of Portugal can be taken into account when calculating allowances and how the Presidency intends to deal with this.
For example, those who applauded will be registered as being present and those who did not applaud will not.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="President">
Mr Dell'Alba, I am sorry, but we have exactly twenty minutes to hold some very important votes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valdivielso de Cué">
Madam President, during the speech by the Portuguese President, telephones rang within the Hemicycle on at least two occasions.
One of them even rang nine times.
I think this is disgraceful. It is a lack of respect for this House to allow phones to ring while it is deliberating.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="President">
Mr Valdivielso de Cué, you are absolutely right, to the extent that I can tell you that the Quaestors have already made a recommendation to all the Members.
They heard what you said and will certainly repeat this recommendation even more firmly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Marinucci">
Madam President, I apologize for wasting your time, but as one of the two telephones was mine, and I am therefore one of the guilty parties, I wish to apologize to the Chamber.
I left the Chamber temporarily because I was called out urgently and I had left my bag here; I was not here when the telephone rang.
Normally, when I go into Chamber, I switch it off, but this morning, unfortunately, I had not done so.
I apologize again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Marinucci.
I think I can say your confession has been heard and you are pardoned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Bloch von Blottnitz">
Madam President, you will not have expected otherwise than for me at this point to make the sharpest possible protest, not against you, dear Madame President, but against our President, because I regard this procedure as absolutely unacceptable.
I shall explain why.
I quote paragraph 2© of Rule 72: " An amendment' , and that is what we are talking about here, ' shall be admissible if it seeks to amend a part of the text of a common position which was not included in - of differs in content from - the proposal submitted in first reading and which does not amount to a substantial change within the meaning of Rule 62.'
<P>
Allow me to refer to the fact that firstly, we are in fact at the second reading of the Framework Directive, but that there has never actually been a first reading, because at the time no framework directive was even on the table, That is the first thing.
Secondly, if we had at the time introduced amendments to the implementing directive on spices, containing the stipulation that the irradiation should be analytically provable or that we would have to have standardized methods, then everybody would have been justified in thinking we were stupid.
And they would all have said - I was also the rapporteur at the time, of course - that that Blottnitz woman had gone crazy, for at that time, eight and a half years ago - and many still think so today - these methods did not even exist.
Consequently, we cannot demand them.
It is absolutely necessary that we demand them today; it is a Framework Directive.
We cannot allow irradiation to take place without then stipulating analytical test methods.
Why do we need a label if we cannot check whether there has been irradiation or not?
<P>
This is extremely important.
For spices it is not important, but it is important for the positive list which will be established after the Framework Directive is drawn up, and which will then apply.
It can never again be rectified, whether they protest now or not.
It is a question...
<P>
(The President cut off the speaker)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="President">
Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, we have heard what you say and everyone understands the problem we face since the Council took several years to produce the common position following our first reading.
I think this is where the difficulties started and we are all well aware of it.
<P>
I would like to hear the President of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, Mr Kenneth Collins, if he is in agreement of course.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Collins, Kenneth">
Madam President, I must say that one cannot but admire Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz's tenacity.
Without going into the substance of the matter, the problem lies in Rules 72 and 62.
The relevant part of Rule 62 states: ' where, through the passage of time or changes in circumstances, the nature of the problem with which the proposal is concerned substantially changes' , then we take a particular course of action.
<P>
It was my judgement in committee that the nature of the problem had not changed between the first reading and now: we still have problems with radiation, we know what these problems potentially are, and we need a directive in order to control this.
So the nature of the problem did not change.
<P>
Then we come to Rule 72, which concerns amendments to the Council's common position.
We are not allowed to take amendments that did not receive majorities at first reading unless these are new items that are raised by the Council in reaching its common position.
It was my view in committee that, sad though it might have been for Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, the amendments she was seeking to table did not receive a majority at first reading, were not reintroduced, were not introduced freshly by the Council, were not relating to changed circumstances or changed problems since the beginning and, therefore, they were inadmissible.
<P>
Mr President, I wish to draw the House's and your attention to one of the most wonderful sentences in the Rules of Procedure.
The very end of Rule 72(2) states: ' The President's discretion to declare an amendment admissible or inadmissible cannot be questioned.'
I commend that sentence to the House and to you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Crowley">
Madam President, I do not wish to delay proceedings but having heard both speakers before me with regard to the problems associated with the amendments and so on, I propose to the House that we refer this report back to the committee until such time as they come up with a proper text that we can all accept.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="President">
Mr Crowley, I have not received any request of this nature.
<P>
(The President declared the two common positions approved (as amended) )
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Bonde, Sandbaek, Lis Jensen and Krarup">
We support the initiative to increase checks on foodstuffs in production and at the place of destination.
The focus here should be on consumer safety; but it is essential that these checks do not replace border controls.
Border controls are important, as the BSE affair has shown amongst other things; they cannot be replaced by checks during production or at the destination.
<P>
Recommendation for second reading (A4-0038/98) Hautala
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Ahlqvist, Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw, Theorin, Waidelich and Wibe">
We Swedish social democrats welcome the initiative to reduce air pollution from motor vehicles which the whole Auto-Oil package represents.
The outcome is of the utmost importance both for human health and for the environment.
<P>
Both the Commission's and the Council's decisions on limit values for the sulphur content of petrol and diesel are a long way from what is possible and desirable.
It is therefore with disappointment that we note that Parliament's rapporteur, Mrs Hautala, has felt obliged to compromise with the values proposed by the Council.
We would have preferred Parliament to stick to the decisions made at first reading.
<P>
In addition, we think that the very strict proposals on aromatics, which are unchanged in spite of the compromise on sulphur content, are very misleading.
We consider the limit values for sulphur to be much more important and fear that Parliament's decision gives the wrong signal to the oil industry. This is not the right priority when considering the question of health and the environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Caudron">
I have studied in detail the report by Mrs Heidi Hautala.
I would congratulate her on the broad scope of her work.
However, I am inclined to distance myself from certain clauses which I consider to be a little maximalist, despite the fact that I consider the protection of the environment to be very important.
And so I do not agree with the examples given by the rapporteur since the cost borne by industry would be much too great compared with the environmental benefit gained.
I am convinced that there are other solutions.
<P>
So what we must do is keep the proposals made by the Auto-Oil programme, as they set out a restrictive framework for the short term.
What is most important is to implement them.
<P>
We must take into account the impact of these measures on the oil industry, which, although likely to adapt to the initial requirements, could run into difficulties if Parliament toughened the provisions of the programme.
It is not a question, as far as I am concerned, of accepting the use of employment as blackmail, but only of confirming a desire to preserve industrial competitiveness in a sector which experiences fierce global competition.
<P>
I believe we must take into account three factors: cost, effectiveness and competitiveness, and it would be best to apply these within a fixed time frame.
Furthermore, we must not lose sight of the fact that the result depends greatly on the number of cars on Europe's roads, and that if extra expenditure is to be made, the priority would be to increase the proportion of newer cars on the road.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Cushnahan">
Regrettably I cannot support all the recommendations on this report because of the cost implications for Irish consumers.
The original Commission proposal supported by the Council was acceptable but, as amended by this report, would increase the costs by a factor of six.
<P>
I should also point out that Ireland is already operating well within current target limits, although I am certain we will still want to improve upon this provided the financial burden is not too heavy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Díez de Rivera Icaza">
I fail to understand the vote from one of the southern parts of the Union, since nobody put forward a single line of reasoning in support of this negative position during last night's debate.
That position was notable for its absence. Why?
<P>
My vote agrees with the opinions expressed yesterday.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Elmalan">
On the request of the European Parliament and the Council, the Commission adopted the Auto-Oil programme to improve air quality by reducing pollution from road traffic in the years to come.
With this in mind, the Commission presented two directives which aim to reduce car emissions and to improve the quality of fuels.
<P>
At first reading, the European Parliament adopted a large number of amendments which aim to strengthen the standards proposed by the Commission.
The Council retained some of these but did not go so far as to go back to the restrictive clauses demanded by the European Parliament for 2005.
<P>
At the moment we are at second reading and trying to work out an agreement on the common position of the Council.
The Committee on the Environment, which thinks that the Council's progress is still not sufficient, has repeated almost all of the amendments adopted at first reading by the European Parliament.
<P>
I am in favour of strengthening the measures to reduce pollution and improve air quality, but I think that some of the amendments by the Committee on the Environment do not sufficiently take into account economic and social factors.
The application of these amendments runs the risk of having a high cost and bringing with it job losses.
<P>
In my opinion, the Council's common position represents a fair balance between the need for better protection of the environment and safeguarding jobs; measures which are overly restrictive and expensive risk compromising this.
I also propose that measures are taken to speed up the replacement of the oldest cars and to increase research, notably on engine design, engine improvement and maintenance and the use of new fuels.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Gahrton, Holm and Lindholm">
It would, of course, have been best for the environment and for the inhabitants of the EU countries and the world if the European Parliament's proposals at first reading had been adopted.
Unfortunately, the Council and the Commission yielded to pressure from the oil industry and did not accept these necessary requirements.
<P>
At second reading, the rapporteur has also been forced to modify a number of the requirements, particularly under pressure from the conservative party groups in the European Parliament, in order to be able to achieve the required majority in the House.
Therefore, the proposal is not absolutely ideal from our point of view, but it is still quite acceptable.
<P>
Today's vote clearly showed that the compromise has a lot of support in the European Parliament.
Hopefully the outcome will also encourage the Council and the Commission to abandon their opposition to the European Parliament's proposals.
We assume that in the Council of Ministers the Swedish government will support and vote for the European Parliament's demands.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Lienemann">
The improvement in the quality of petrol will have immediate and major effects on the environment.
Mrs Hautala's proposals will reduce pollution from cars by more than 20 %.
<P>
We cannot accept what large oil companies say when they try to make their employees believe that they will close refineries because our organizations are exacting ambitious standards.
The assessments these companies have carried out are clearly overvalued.
All the studies and ministers concerned considerably reduce the inferred costs.
But one thing is certain: the large companies have made substantial profits which enable them to make investments to modernize refineries, which at times were left to become more or less obsolete, in response to environmental needs.
They also know well that, from now on, the global petrol market will not be able to escape these developments - they are already underway in the United States.
<P>
All too often our fellow citizens see Europe as being too distant or too restrictive.
Today, in dealing with a subject of the future which affects all our daily lives, Europe can bear the hope of the people, the well-being and the progress of the majority.
We must vote for the Lange and Hautala reports.
In this way the European Parliament will mark its place in history.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Lindqvist">
This matter involves the same political situation as in the question of emissions from motor vehicles. The Commission is putting on the brakes while Parliament wants to press on towards more long-term sustainable environmental requirements for petrol and diesel fuels.
The same situation also applies to industry. When requirements have been tightened for reduced emissions and additives, such as lead in petrol, these have quickly been met by the petrol and oil industry.
<P>
The Commission's proposal is not sufficiently far-reaching and needs to be strengthened.
We need better quality standards for fuels, tough requirements for urban traffic and different tax rates which encourage the use of electric cars and new, environmentally friendly fuels like ethanol.
As Mr Lange's report stated, the limit values and times must be obligatory for the year 2000 and 2005, and exceptions should be very strict.
<P>
Requirements for limit values should be as tough as possible.
For sulphur it should be 30 mg/kg for both petrol and diesel.
<P>
I consider the rapporteur's proposal to be realistic and entirely feasible, which is why it could have great significance for environmental policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="des Places">
French and European public opinion is very sensitive to the effects on health of pollutant emissions from cars.
In order to reduce this pollution, we must both improve the technique of engines and strengthen the standards set for fuel.
<P>
A real reduction in the contents of sulphur and aromatic compounds permitted must be encouraged through the introduction of oxygenated compounds which come amongst other things from biofuels.
<P>
The addition of biofuels enables immediate reduction in pollution thanks to their zero sulphur compound content and their capacity to improve combustion.
<P>
The production of renewable raw materials destined for the production of biofuels is providing an important channel of diversification for the agricultural sector, thus facilitating the use of rural areas.
<P>
For these reasons I have voted, like most of my colleagues, in favour of strengthening the standards set for fuels, thus allowing the development of biofuels, on the condition, of course, that the European Union accepts that the Member States can adapt their indirect taxation in order to promote cleaner energy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Souchet">
If we are to combat air pollution from cars, we must act both on the technical standards for vehicles and on the composition of fuels.
Putting vehicles into service which meet the new technical standards will only have staggered effects in the medium term, and means the progressive renewal of all vehicles on the road in the Member States of the European Union.
<P>
However, the use of fuels which meet standards which are more respectful of the environment will have an immediate effect.
<P>
In this light, a real reduction in the levels of sulphur and aromatic compounds - notably benzene - allowed in relation to the levels currently recorded must come top of the research list.
The introduction of oxygen from fossils or plants should also be encouraged, given its positive and immediate effect on air quality.
<P>
As a source of renewable energy, biofuels or oxygenated compounds from plants - ester from vegetable oil incorporated in diesel oil, or ethanol derivative incorporated in petrol - can provide a suitable response to the problems of pollution immediately, particularly in sensitive urban areas, whilst limiting the greenhouse effect whose effects were highlighted at the Kyoto conference in December 1997.
<P>
Finally, the agricultural sector can benefit from this important channel of diversification by producing renewable raw materials for the production of biofuels, and this could contribute to preserving an important use for rural areas.
The production of renewable raw materials should be considered as an economically viable activity for agriculture and can contribute to changing the negative image some people may have of agricultural activities in terms of respect for the environment.
The development of biofuels will respond to the needs of the cities, whilst also favouring the expansion of agriculture which is more respectful of the environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Vaz da Silva">
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="Paisley">
Madam President, it is essential to have tough targets for reductions in car emission limits. Rapid and real progress must be made to protect the environment.
Whilst the modern car is 40 times cleaner than its equivalent in the 1980s, air quality will be greatly enhanced by the implementation of the proposals before the House.
Improvements to car standards and cleaner fuels are a necessity.
<P>
Along with my two colleagues from Northern Ireland, I recently brought a representative of a company in Northern Ireland to meet Commission officials about a new product which can significantly reduce emission levels now, with the additional benefit of reducing overall fuel consumption.
This shows the concern in Northern Ireland to ensure action is taken on this issue as quickly as possible.
I welcome the initiative of those in my constituency who are proactively working on developing a product to meet the necessary stringent demands of European legislation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Caudron">
The report by Mr Lange is interesting from more than one point of view.
<P>
This report will really shed light on the technical progress of the European car industry, especially in the area of engine output.
These developments have undeniably had an impact on the reduction of harmful emissions, both for diesel and internal combustion engines.
Our desire to legislate in this area is legitimate.
However, we should be careful to avoid the pitfall of wanting to do too much.
<P>
As regards air quality and emissions from new vehicles, most of our work is done.
There is the risk of eventually heading towards a reduction in air quality by wishing to impose standards for emissions which are too severe.
An increase in these standards would lead to a rise in the costs borne by the consumer. This, in turn, would decrease the chances of the renewal of cars on the roads today, which are already too old throughout the world.
This additional ageing would have a negative impact on the environment and would oppose the fixed objectives which we all agree on.
So when we have set new standards, we must reach them before proposing more.
<P>
We must also devise a financial plan of action to increase the proportion of younger cars on the roads throughout Europe: this would benefit both employment and the environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Fayot">
These two reports set out the European Parliament's view of the Auto-Oil programme drawn up by industry and the Commission.
The point of this programme is to determine the best possible fuel mixture together with secondary technical measures in the manufacture and maintenance of car engines in order to maintain clear air.
<P>
In the EU at this time, there are about 200 million cars of all different varieties.
They represent an enormous burden on the environment, now as well as in the future, and they reveal the great economic concerns which have arisen with the vehicles.
<P>
There has therefore been intensive lobbying activity relating to Mr Lange's reports, particularly by the car industry and the fuel producers.
In my opinion, these reports represent no acceptable compromise between environmental policy and economic interests.
<P>
Mr Lange rightly emphasizes the need for coherent exhaust gas legislation, Euro-3, with the deadline of 2000 for the first stage, A, and 2005 for the second stage, B. Industry is said to be complaining about the excessively high costs of conversion to new higher values; not included in these are of course the entire economic costs and the harmful emissions which are bad for the health of the people.
<P>
I am also convinced that high environmental standards present technical and economic challenges to industry.
Since 8 % of the overall motor vehicle fleet is renewed every year it is of course going to take years before the innovations to engines and exhaust systems take full effect: hence the necessity for an immediate improvement in fuel quality which has a direct effect on the whole stock of motor vehicles.
<P>
As for the specific problems of the on board diagnostic systems, there is a concern that such systems could be used by the vehicle manufacturers to restrict, by means of secret codes, the maintenance and repair of cars to those who have access to these codes.
This would seriously restrict the maintenance and repair market, which have called, for instance, service organizations like those of the Luxembourg Automobile Club into action.
Here too the European Parliament wants standardized and free access to the OBD systems, which I fully support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Lindqvist">
This report shows a strong political opinion in favour of tightening emissions from new cars.
Here the Commission represents the old world which supports the vehicle and oil industries, while Parliament is making environmental and sustainable demands of the companies and industrial products of the future.
<P>
Earlier requirements on industry, such as in the introduction of catalytic converters, clearly showed that if the requirements are clear, industry adapts to the reality and converts its production to meet the requirements.
That is also going to be the case for emission requirements for new vehicles.
It is therefore very important that the requirements are clearly given in figures and years.
In this case, demands for binding legislation are justified.
Financial means of control, such as tax concessions to support the production of vehicles with low emissions, are positive, and controls and monitoring in the Member States are necessary for the regulations to have their desired effect.
This is one of the areas of environmental policy in which EU decisions could have a major impact.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Nicholson">
This is a welcome report which underscores our endeavours to reduce pollution.
Reducing environmental destruction is one of the priorities of the British Presidency and so it is timely that we are discussing this report now.
<P>
In Parliament there is a broad consensus, representative of the views of the public, that damage to the environment caused by vehicle emissions must be severely reduced.
The motor industry themselves accept that there must be improvement and it is a welcome sign that their arguments have moved on to the detail of time scales for reducing pollution.
<P>
The Union should be as proactive as possible in encouraging the development of means by which pollution by emissions can be reduced.
One way of doing this would be to make the Commission more user-friendly towards organizations and individuals who feel that they can contribute to the battle against pollution.
I have recently been involved in assisting a Northern Ireland organization, which is trying to develop a European market for an emission-reducing additive, in finding its way around the maze of Commission bureaucracy.
The additive is widely used elsewhere and has recently been positively assessed by experts at Queen's University, Belfast.
We are well aware that the Commission cannot approve or endorse any individual products but I believe that means should be sought whereby it can be made easier for those working in this field to have their products assessed with a minimum of bureaucracy.
<P>
Recommendation for second reading (A4-0038/98) Hautala and (A4-0043/98) Lange
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="Darras">
These two reports are absolutely inextricable since there is a close technical connection between engines and fuel and this explains my joint explanation of vote.
How could we build vehicles with a "clean' engine which would have to operate using pollutant fuel?
I cannot imagine it.
<P>
The European Parliament must be consistent and strengthen its vote from first reading.
It is essential that fuels are "depolluted' and that the sulphur content is reduced.
We must go further than the Council's common position and demand mandatory, not indicative limits for emissions in 2005.
This is what will improve air quality.
<P>
In line with this, we must call for a similar effort from car manufacturers.
From the year 2000, all cars must be equipped with on board diagnostic systems, whilst manufacturers must also monitor the conformity of services.
<P>
These are heavy demands and we are aware of the efforts required, but we have waited for too long. After all, this affects the future of our planet and our children!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="Lienemann">
I am in favour of the two reports by Mrs Hautala and Mr Lange as they represent a coherent and ambitious response to the problem of car pollution.
<P>
It is a matter of great urgency that we combat the greenhouse effect and atmospheric pollution in our towns.
It affects our planet and the health and quality of life of millions of Europeans.
Our developed societies must put into use all their scientific and technological know-how and make available the necessary financial means in the name of this cause.
<P>
At first reading, Parliament rightly indicated its intention to toughen standards by the year 2000, both for petrol and for exhaust gas emissions, along with its commitment to establishing a restrictive framework for 2005.
<P>
This position of our House enabled the Council to improve the Commission's initial text.
But the technical situation and social and environmental urgency enable us to go further; it is up the European Parliament to go one step further within the framework of codecision.
<P>
As all too often is the case, a certain number of voices were raised in the name of defending employment and competitiveness against standards going as far as possible.
But in this case, these arguments have no foundation.
<P>
Looking first at the car industry, which is of great importance for employment and our economies, technological innovation is imperative and it also represents an opportunity.
Moreover, we must pay tribute to the efforts and the results which have been achieved for some time now by the manufacturers.
They know that environmental quality will be a decisive stake, as much in terms of world competition as in terms of the expectations of buyers.
<P>
The car industry in Europe is faced with the relative saturation of the European market.
So it needs the rate of renewal of the cars on the road to accelerate.
But this can only really be justified by a significant technological change of course towards cleaner and safer cars.
<P>
The demanding and restrictive standards for new vehicles proposed for 2005 in the Lange report provide a definite form for this movement and allow research measures to be implemented straight away - essential developments given full knowledge of the facts.
The clarity of the framework and of the objectives acts as a guarantee for manufacturers.
<P>
European institutions must give greater attention to the pollution caused by the number of old cars on the road.
So in this sense, a meaningful improvement in petrol quality is an important point, and the proposals in the report by Mrs Hautala alone would bring about a reduction of over 20 % in car pollution.
Improvements in petrol affect both new and old vehicles.
<P>
But I believe that the European Union should also look into the support which the Member States could provide to help get rid of old vehicles on the road which are severe pollutants.
Owners of these dilapidated vehicles often only have a modest income, so it is essential to find effective solutions which do not penalize them, such as a scrap subsidy.
I would genuinely like to see the European Parliament committing itself to promoting this type of proposal.
<P>
During the conciliation which could take place following the vote, we should also closely examine the two questions of the durability of the standards imposed and monitoring in use, taking into account the prospect of an accelerated renewal of cars.
The new procedures we have retained will also help create jobs in sectors such as chemistry, catalysis, etcetera.
This phenomenon has already been observed with the introduction of standards for lead-free petrol and the catalytic converter.
<P>
I am in favour of the Lange report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="Reding">
With increasing numbers of cars in Europe and increasing air pollution, the reduction of exhaust gases is quite definitely in the interest of consumers.
Both reports seek to address two aspects of this complex problem: fuel quality and the reduction of exhaust gases.
<P>
The improvement of fuel is rejected by the oil industry on the grounds of cost.
Against this it must be said that a few years ago the industry resisted the catalytic converter, but these are to be found in all new cars.
<P>
The reduction of exhaust gases, however, is also significantly influenced by the technological equipment in the vehicles.
In this, the on board diagnostic systems (OBD) will play an important role by checking the exhaust emissions and drawing the owner's attention to defects.
<P>
It cannot be sufficient to buy years of freedom from environmental worries by purchasing a new car with a catalytic converter.
The OBD systems will require greater discipline on the part of the consumer, who must keep his vehicle constantly in tiptop condition.
If the OBD discovers a defect in the exhaust system, the fault must be removed.
<P>
As a countermove the marketing of this technological progress must be so regulated that no hidden monopolies can be created which harm the consumer.
We must prevent the encoding of diagnostic systems precluding independent workshops from carrying out maintenance and repairs.
In addition, these systems must permit the incorporation of parts which are not made by the car manufacturer but which meet their quality standards.
<P>
This will guarantee that the consumer will have the choice of having his vehicle maintained at a favourable price and to a high standard in the interests of the environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="Sainjon">
Atmospheric pollution has become a political issue quite simply because cities and the large European metropolises have experienced or are currently experiencing this type of problem.
Now the most visible enemy and the one which everyone points the finger at immediately is, of course, the car, forgetting in that instant factory fumes, aeroplane discharges and so on.
I do not want to deny the problem - it is a real one - and Mr Lange and Mrs Hautala were right to take a firm line regarding the car and oil industries, both at first and second reading.
<P>
Car manufacturers and oil magnates were quick to draw our attention to the effects which these decisions could have on employment.
But they must also understand that in responding to the expectations of public opinion on pollution, they will benefit from a better image and this could lead to them gaining new sectors of the market.
This is why we will defend the emission limits proposed by Mr Lange.
This is why we will also support the standards proposed by Mrs Hautala.
<P>
Taking the example of diesel, it is clear that its commercial success in certain countries in the Union condemns it to reducing its pollution levels simply in order to preserve its image and its sales.
For example, the injection technique ought to resolve this type of problem.
It has also been proven that diesel oil has an important role to play in reducing exhaust emissions from diesel engines.
<P>
Car manufacturers who were not much in favour at the start have decided to make considerable efforts to respect emission standards.
It is true that there is still some disagreement particularly concerning durability: it is unrealistic, even irresponsible, to raise the durability of vehicles from 80 000 to 160 000 km, and I would like to make clear my formal opposition to this.
This represents a much too stringent requirement on top of the implementation of the necessary limits and will generate additional costs.
Other contentious points include on board diagnostics and service monitoring.
I think it may be possible to resolve this type of issue in the Conciliation Committee.
<P>
I am aware that oil magnates are very unhappy with last week's unanimous vote from the Committee on the Environment last week.
Clearly this sector is suffering from an overcapacity for refining and the ageing of its production equipment.
But this difficult situation is not at all due to environmental standards.
I have to say that the use of employment as blackmail has not succeeded, simply because Parliamentary representatives, just like public opinion, are highly mobilized.
<P>
We must not wave the red rag on this issue, but should first inform opinion about the consequences of the measures we are recommending would have, and especially on the following subject: in people's minds for some time now as well as in the press, even diesel causes pollution which causes asthma or causes cancer.
This was true of old diesel, but, with these new measures, diesel will be less polluting than lead-free petrol, thus turning the whole situation on its head.
<P>
Lastly, and I will end here, the key point which Parliament must deal with is the issue of increasing the proportion of newer cars on our roads.
This is the most effective way of greatly reducing the degree of pollution in Europe.
Estimates indicate that 20 % of the cars on the road cause around 80 % of the pollution.
Any measure aimed at speeding up the process of renewal would have an immediate effect.
<P>
What we must do is think of both the original measures and of new ones which have not been one of the long line of errors made in France.
It is not a question of dressing up a way to facilitate the purchase of a new car, but a way of replacing an old one, all of which would be financed at national and European level.
This will be the subject of future discussions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="Schlechter">
In my opinion, the European Parliament, which always tends to go further than the other European institutions, is going too far this time with the measures aiming to reduce road traffic pollution.
<P>
In their reports, both Mr Lange and Mrs Hautala call for more restrictive clauses for the protection of the environment.
But my difficulty is when Parliament's Committee on the Environment goes further, much further than the common position of the Council.
<P>
Of course I, too, am convinced that the critical thing for Europe is to find a balance between the various proposals for cleaning up the air and their real impact on the environment, and with this in mind, I have to say that the European oil industry has done a great deal to improve air quality up to now.
<P>
But we must recognize that in order to reach the fixed objectives for cleaning up the air, the European Parliament's Committee on the Environment is proposing standards which are certainly amongst the most ambitious in the world.
But if we consider the costs of the different proposals, ECU 11.5 billion for the Commission, ECU 20 billion for the Council and ECU 60 billion for the European Parliament, I think that in the current state of affairs, it would be unreasonable to go beyond the measures in the Council's common position.
<P>
I agree on supporting the Commission's second Auto-Oil programme, which must serve as a basis for establishing limits for fuel emissions for the year 2000. However, I think that car drivers in most European countries already do enough via the high rates of taxation on using their vehicles, and we must stop once and for all increasing taxes or constantly inventing claimed new ecological costs for cars.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="Valverde López">
This Parliament has always responded very sensitively to the problems of climate change and the need to limit emissions and achieve healthier air for the people of Europe.
Nevertheless, when it comes to taking concrete measures, the European Union is less resolute.
<P>
It is not easy for the Members of this House to adopt a position.
The situation we see is complex and not reassuring.
All our cities, both large and small, are full of traffic jams.
On some days, certain European cities exceed all the health safety limits.
On the other hand, fuel quality is essential for engine performance and to reduce vehicle emissions.
<P>
In Parliament we have always defended the view that economic development and the protection of the environment are not two opposing objectives, but are complementary.
However, the automobile and refinery sectors seem to do little to help achieve these objectives.
<P>
We must demand the greatest possible technical effort in order to protect the health of our citizens.
Otherwise, there will be a blatant clash of citizens' interests.
<P>
Faced with this situation, the governments have reached a difficult common position, showing that changes are not easy at the moment, as Mr Lange has confirmed.
The European Parliament does not have many alternatives left.
All we can do is hope that the Council is on the right track on this occasion and that it will look on this common position as a temporary stage on the way towards stricter measures.
<P>
Recommendation for second reading (A4-0042/98) Bloch von Blottnitz
<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bloch von Blottnitz">
Madam President, I must say that today we have done a great disservice to the cause of consumer protection.
It is really incredible what has happened in this House.
<P>
I would just like to read something which a section of the House has rejected.
Afterwards, I do not know how we will be able to take part in an honest election campaign in which we keep saying: Europe is working on behalf of consumers.
I would just like to tell you what has been deleted. The treatment of goods with ionizing rays, we have said, must meet completely the requirements of human health.
Their use must be absolutely safe in terms of health and may not act as a replacement for health and hygiene measures or for good manufacturing or agricultural methods.
That is surely the minimum and the most logical requirement.
We have not even stated in the document that there must be no loss of nutritional value or loss of vitamins.
It is already bad enough that this happens.
But we have demanded the simplest solution and it was not accepted.
Nor has it been accepted that analytical control procedures must be carried out.
<P>
I wonder, why are we bothering to insist on compulsory marking?
This is utterly monstrous; what are we supposed to tell our people.
It is not even true to say that the Standing Committee on Food meets in public; it meets far more undemocratically behind closed doors.
I ask you: what are they up to?
We always say that we want the best, and most of all we want to protect health.
We spend huge amounts of money on better health provision and then we make mistakes concerning the most basic matters!
<P>
For a start, legalistic nitpicking drives normal motions into secondary importance, in other words, they become inadmissible, and this then leads to the most logical proposals being rejected.
So I really do not understand the world.
I cannot tell you how embarrassing that is or how we are going to go into a public election campaign.
They will all keep saying: Europe makes everything worse, it makes our food worse, etcetera.
I must admit, when I see something like this, I unfortunately have to agree!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graenitz">
Madam President, although I am of the opinion that the irradiation of food is to be avoided in principle, I have made up my mind to vote for the Bloch von Bottnitz' report, so that in the Single Market there can be better information, better monitoring and thus better protection of the health of consumers.
I am extremely sorry that not all colleagues have followed this path and that the required majority has not been achieved.
I am afraid that we have thereby done a great disservice to the consumers of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="Fayot">
I am in favour of the very restrictive conclusions of this report, which will allow the irradiation of foods exclusively as a method of preservation for spices.
<P>
In Luxembourg, the irradiation of food with the aim of preservation is actually forbidden.
In only three countries - Belgium, the Netherlands and France - may irradiated foods be sold.
<P>
Whereas the EP, since it was first concerned with this problem, that is, since 1987, has been determined to gradually ban completely the irradiation of foods, the Commission has tried to regulate jointly this kind of preservation.
A compromise has thus become an opening to more foods being allowed for irradiation.
<P>
For the present common position, the European Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has drawn the abovementioned conclusions, which are similar to the Swedish position in the Council; consequently, food other than spices cannot, in principle, be irradiated.
<P>
I share this view, which I already put forward in this House in October 1989 and in December 1993.
<P>
I am deeply concerned about the plan contained in the common position of the Council and the Commission to issue both a framework directive and an implementing directive containing a positive list which is gradually being extended - it currently includes only the aforementioned aromatic herbs and spices.
In this way, under the guise of regulating something positively, we are simultaneously allowing for the possibility of extending radiation to as many foods as possible.
The excuse that no regulation is worse than a minimum regulation is unacceptable, for the regulation we have before us will gradually lead all the EU countries to tolerate irradiated foods on their markets.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="Lindqvist">
The report by Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz accepts a limited use of irradiation for certain foodstuffs, including dried herbs and certain spices, with a suggestion of a further increase in products.
It is appropriate that it is stressed that irradiation cannot be used as a substitute for good, hygienic handling of products, but irradiation of foodstuffs in general cannot be accepted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="Sandbaek">
To start with, I am against treating foods and food ingredients with ionizing radiation.
So it is good that Parliament's requirements for approval are so stringent that the positive list will be limited to spices and roots where no other method of preservation is available.
We must ensure that fresh foods are preferred and so restrict irradiation to the absolute minimum.
Because the European Parliament takes the same sceptical approach to ionising radiation, I am in favour of Parliament being given the authority to assess any extension of the positive list of foods which may be irradiated.
It should also be possible for individual Member States to impose tighter rules.
<P>
I cannot support the Committee on the Environment's amendment to approve an analytical method of control only.
There are a number of different methods available and it is essential that the method used depends on what is to be examined.
On the other hand, it would be beneficial to limit as far as possible the number of different methods of irradiation.
This would make controls easier.
<P>
Finally, I would like to emphasize that the marking of the foods irradiated must be transparent.
If we cannot ban irradiation completely, we can at least ensure consumers have a proper opportunity of selecting these products.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="Souchet">
<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="Carlotti">
The environment has gradually taken on an increasing importance in the construction of the European Union.
<P>
Regulation (EEC) 1210/90, which is to be amended through this report, had allowed us, in this respect, to comply with the initiative taken in 1989 by Jacques Delors to create a European Environment Agency.
<P>
Today's report must present us with the opportunity to debate what lies at the root of all changes in European legislation on the environment, that is, the collection and distribution of objective and accurate information gathered in all the countries of the Union.
<P>
Established in 1995, the EEA has until now undertaken valuable work concerning the environmental situation in the countries of the Union in terms of the collection and distribution of objective data and perfecting techniques to aid forecasting and prevention.
<P>
I am therefore taking the opportunity that this report has presented to congratulate the Agency on its progress in fulfilling its duties.
The Agency has notably drawn up reports on problems such as climate change and taxes on the environment, and has established several networks to collect and distribute information in this field.
But the Agency cannot work alone!
<P>
As the rapporteur points out, the Agency has still changes to make and it must move towards greater cooperation with all of the Community institutions, in particular the European Parliament. This would improve the transparency of information among the different countries of the Union, thereby showing the Agency to be a true instrument in helping to make political decisions in this area.
<P>
Moreover, in future, the Commission should systematically ask the Agency for reports before implementing even minor new Community policies.
<P>
In this sense, I agree with my colleague, Mr Collins, who, wondering why there is no mention in the Commission's report of the importance of Parliament's role in the legislative process, asks that the obligation to report its results to Parliament be included in the draft revision.
<P>
The European Environment Agency must also, within the framework of its duties, take into account other aspects such as forests, waste products and chemical products on the one hand, and on the other, the Union's future time scales, particularly its enlargement and the environmental problems that this will undoubtedly entail.
<P>
Finally, I would like to highlight the fact that while some people are discussing the dismantling of environmental standards or clauses on the planet under the draft Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), to the benefit of multinational companies, I, on the contrary, am defending the enhancement of environmental cooperation with third countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="Cushnahan">
I welcome discussion on this report.
Obviously the Committee agrees with the Commission assessment that it would be unrealistic to allocate the European Environmental Agency any major new tasks at the moment.
<P>
The Commission is nonetheless proposing to extend the scope of the Agency's activities with a view to establishing a European Environment Information Centre.
It is also important that greater cooperation is achieved between the Agency and Member States and of course applicant states.
<P>
I would hope that there will be a positive response to the rapporteur's proposal for a closer working relationship between the Agency and the Commission and also for the establishment of a data register by the Agency which would include legislation and information to improve the enforcement of EU environmental policy including a cost/benefit analysis.
<P>
Finally it is important that the Agency's multi-annual work programme should be complemented by a multi-annual budget in order to enable the Agency to plan its work more effectively.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papakyriazis">
Madam President, I have asked to speak on a point of order, as follows: yesterday, at exactly this point of the proceedings, I submitted an explanation of vote in writing, specifically on the Blak report. Madam President, today, with great surprise, I saw in the Minutes that there is no mention of my written statement.
As I consider that explanation of vote to be particularly important, I ask you to look into the matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="President">
We will indeed check that, Mr Papakyriazis, and if, as you say, this was not done, we will insert your explanation of vote in writing.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 1.15 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="Moorhouse">
Mr President, before the debate starts I need to put on record a rather banal matter, namely that I was not able to vote at all this morning - and the new Rules presumably apply - the reason being that my plane was due to leave at 7.55 a.m. from London Airport and, in the event, it left at 10.30 a.m., so I arrived just as the vote was finishing.
But I feel sure that you, Sir, as a distinguished member of the Bureau, having taken a most wise decision, will find it possible to adjust the situation to meet cases like mine, and that is why I rather expanded on the position.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Moorhouse.
You may rest assured that the Bureau has taken note of what you say and that it will take the necessary steps to ensure that you do not suffer any disadvantage.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Nigeria and Burma - UN Human Rights Commission
<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions:
<P>

B4-0012/99 - O-0009/98 and B4-0013/98 - O-0010/98, by Mrs Maij-Weggen and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, to the Council and the Commission, on the EU's attitude to Nigeria; -B4-0020/98 - O-0028/98 and B4-0122/98 - O-0029/98, by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, to the Council and to the Commission, on the EU's attitude to Nigeria; -B4-0123/98 - O-0030/98 and B4-0124/98 - O-0031/98, by Mr Müller and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the European Union's attitude to Nigeria; -B4-0127/98 - O-0035/98 by Mr Carnero González and Mr Pettinari, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, to the Council, on relations between the European Union and Nigeria; -B4-0128/98 - O-0036/98 and B4-0129/98 - O-0037/98, by Mr Macartney and Mr Hory, to the Council and to the Commission, on the European Union's attitude to Nigeria; -B4-0134/98 - O-0042/98 and B4-0135/98 - O-0043/98, by Mr Andrews and Mr Girão Pereira, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, to the Council and to the Commission, on the European Union's attitude to Nigeria; -B4-0137/98 - O-0046/98 and B4-0169/98 - O-0051/98, by Mrs Kinnock and Mr Vecchi, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to the Council and to the Commission, on the situation in Nigeria; -B4-0014/98 - O-0011/98 and B4-0015/98 - O-0012/98 by Mrs Maij-Weggen and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, to the Council and to the Commission, on human rights violations in Burma; -B4-0018/98 - O-0026/98 and B4-0019/98 - O-0027/98, by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, to the Council and to the Commission, on human rights violations in Burma; -B4-0126/98 - O-0034/98 by Mr Pettinari and Mr Vinci, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, to the Council, on relations between the European Union and Burma; -B4-0131/98 - O-0039/98 by Mr Dupuis, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, to the Commission, on human rights violations in Burma; -B4-0133/98 - O-0041/98 by Mr Telkämper and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, to the Commission, on human rights violations in Burma; -B4-0136/98 - O-0045/98 and B4-0141/98 - O-0050/98, by Mrs Kinnock and Mr Vecchi, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to the Council and to the Commission, on the situation in Burma; -B4-0139/98 - O-0048/98 by Mrs van Bladel, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, to the Council, on the human rights situation in Burma; -B4-0011/98 - O-0182/98 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, to the Council, on the EU position at the 54th session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva; -B4-0125/98 - O-0033/98 by Mr Carnero González and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, to the Council, on the United Nations Human Rights Commission; -B4-0130/98 - O-0038/98 by Mr Dupuis, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, to the Council, on the EU's position at the 54th session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva; -B4-0132/98 - O-0040/98 by Mrs Aglietta and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, to the Council, on the EU's position at the 54th session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva; -B4-0138/98 - O-0047/98 by Mrs van Bladel, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, to the Council, on the 54th session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission; -B4-0140/98 - O-0049/98 by Mr Barros Moura, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to the Council, on the EU's position at the 54th session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva.







<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, with increasing frequency the European Union is acting in a divided manner towards the outside world in crucial foreign policy issues.
This is unfortunate.
We saw it in the Iraq affair which was discussed at length here this morning, and we are seeing it again in a number of human rights issues.
Again, this is unfortunate.
<P>
Last year, during the annual meeting of the UN Commission on Human Rights we saw a terrible display of 15 EU nations towards China.
Whilst the Netherlands as President rightly tried to get European support for a critical stance, four EU countries pulled out.
It was a sad spectacle of disagreement and Europe was exposed.
<P>
This is why we are making an urgent plea to the United Kingdom to be very active during the coming weeks, so that the ranks of EU Member States will be united in Geneva in March, and so that serious violations of human rights will not be sacrificed to the golden calf of economic interests.
We wish to draw particular attention to two countries, Nigeria and Burma.
<P>
On the subject of Nigeria, the elected President has been overthrown and put into prison during a military coup.
It was followed by massive intimidations and a great deal of violence during which the supporters of Abiola, relevant politicians, soldiers, officials and other citizens were tried in often secret tribunals and killed, or treated so badly in prison that they died subsequently.
We all know the story of Ken Saro-Wiwa, and we also know that Adua died in similar circumstances.
Now there is another general standing in front of a secret tribunal, and we all know how that will end.
Meanwhile, the rulers get rich at the expense of the ordinary people, and the number of people living in absolute poverty in Nigeria has increased from 35 to 44 million.
50 million people are illiterate, and 70 million are without drinking water.
The average life expectancy has fallen from 54 to 47.
<P>
Mr President, we believe that Nigeria needs a firm approach, and in spite of all earlier statements we are asking that we should steer towards an economic boycott.
This is the wish of our group - and we are no radical left wingers - and is the wish of a large section of this Parliament.
<P>
As regards Burma, Mr President, there, too, a President who was elected by 80 % of the population was removed by military force.
There, the opposition was also imprisoned and killed.
There, parts of the population are also terrorized and - worse still - sections of minorities are used for slave labour.
<P>
Mr President, the United States have introduced an investment ban.
Dutch companies, such as Heineken, have also withdrawn, but we are seeing, to our annoyance, that other firms, such as Total, are establishing themselves in Nigeria to fill a gap in the market.
Here, too, we are asking for tough action, and as far as we are concerned for an economic boycott, and most definitely an investment ban.
<P>
Mr President, I would like to conclude by saying that we believe that the European Union should speak with one voice on human rights issues.
We believe that the Presidency should do its utmost to get the Member States into one line.
We also believe that those countries that do not wish to cooperate should be seriously called to account on this.
We do not wish to see a repeat of last year in the next session in Geneva, and we hope that the British Presidency will manage to see to it there is one line, and to see to it that there is tough action, especially as far as the two countries mentioned earlier are concerned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union has far too often been accused, not entirely wrongly, of being strong with the weak and weak with the strong, in other words, of energetically pointing out the violations of human rights in countries of little geopolitical significance and of closing its eyes to the violations of the stronger countries.
This is certainly not the case with Nigeria.
<P>
This is a great regional power with economic and military strength; and so, if possible, it has greater responsibilities towards the other States in the region.
We should not forget that Nigeria is constantly seeking to assert its political weight on the other countries in the region, and on the developing countries in general, to oppose the constant appeals of the international Community to restore democracy, an independent legal system, the lawful state and respect for human rights.
<P>
It is therefore impossible to remain silent in view of the arrests of those opposed to the current regime, the most authoritative members of the civilian society of that country, nor can we tolerate lightheartedly the fact that several international oil companies are still working in the Ogoni region, despite the violations of human rights and environmental pollution.
<P>
As I said this morning, politics, particularly international politics, abhors a vacuum.
The European Union and its individual states cannot fail to exert strong pressure on the Abacha regime to make it perform a serious about-turn, not hesitating, in the extreme, to deprive the current military junta of its principal financial means, by applying a total embargo on the oil trade of that country.
Faced with extreme situations, such as that of Nigeria, we can only use extreme measures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="Macartney">
Mr President, I would like to echo the points made by colleagues and it is good to see the House uniting.
Mrs Maij-Weggen said that her group was not radical, my group is called the Radical group and naturally we associate ourselves with radical policies.
I think what is important is that we have compromised to produce a joint resolution which I hope the House will pass overwhelmingly.
I also agree totally with the remarks made by my colleague Mr Fassa.
<P>
We have to remember sometimes just how big the prize of Nigeria is or how big the challenge.
This is the giant of Africa, the country with one hundred million people which dominates the continent.
As my colleague Mr Fassa has just said if we ignore the giants and pick on the pygmies then people will conclude that the European Union is not serious about its foreign policy.
We have all been exercised about the problems of Iraq and the dictatorship there, but it would be a lot easier to bring about the overthrow of the Abacha dictatorship than that of Saddam Hussein.
<P>
Sanni Abacha overthrew the elected government.
He rules with a ring of steel around him but he is not supported by the people of Nigeria.
They are looking to us for a lead to see in what ways the European Union is prepared to put democracy first and its own economic short-term interests second.
In the long term, I think we have an interest in a free, democratic Nigeria with which we can trade as a full member of the ACP Lomé Convention.
<P>
In the meantime, we have set out in this resolution a series of practical steps which the European Union could take and I hope that the Council of Ministers will respond to this and see whether they will go along with each of these.
This is a very carefully calibrated practical series of proposals from this Parliament and I think that they are a very fitting response to the challenge.
But at the end of the day the final sanction which has got to be contemplated, and this Parliament has already supported it in the past, is an oil embargo.
That is the one thing which Nigeria above all fears.
It is the one thing which could bring down the regime so we have to keep that up our sleeve as the last resort and in the meantime put the pressure on the regime to transfer to democratic government which is what the Nigerian people deserve.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="Kinnock, Glenys">
Mr President, Burma and Nigeria are obviously, geographically, thousands of miles apart.
However, the people in those two countries both endure the most tyrannical military juntas and suffer systematic abuses of human rights.
<P>
Unfortunately, as others have said, Europe's response is often perceived as being guided too much by our own commercial advantage, rather than the need to respond to the misery of the people in those countries where we risk undermining the very credibility of any claim that Europe is, in fact, genuinely committed to human rights.
Democracy and good governance and our commitments to those two issues are also called into question by people in Burma and Nigeria who say that fine words will not, in themselves, assist their struggles.
<P>
Should we not respond to the calls that have been made repeatedly by Aung San Suu Kyi for political and economic isolation of the SPDC.
Is it not time other Member States followed the initiative undertaken by Britain, that has at least outlawed trade promotion in Burma?
<P>
Would the President-in-Office of the Council please give me some information as to whether it has made any progress on this matter?
Also, will he report to me whether the European Union is doing anything about the large numbers of Burmese people who are being forcibly repatriated into Burma, from Thailand, as a result of the financial crisis?
<P>
Similarly, on Nigeria, will the Council give us a commitment that it will implement the measures already agreed in the common position, particularly on visas, which have been regularly flouted by generals?
The sports boycott has been flouted due to pressure from the French government to allow the Nigerian football team to take part in the World Cup in June.
That is an extremely regrettable initiative.
<P>
The President-in-Office will be aware that at the Commonwealth Conference the foreign ministers agreed that if the promised return to civilian rule in Nigeria was not credible, then a mandatory oil embargo, a ban on airlines, an arms embargo and a freezing of financial assets would take place.
Will the President-in-Office confirm that the Council will take similar actions at such time?
Will he spell out the terms and the timetable on which the proposed transition would be acceptable, including the unimpeded registration of genuine political parties, the release of Chief Abiola and other detainees and international monitoring of elections?
<P>
Would the President-in-Office agree with me that if the Council were to set these clear benchmarks, which we have laid out in our resolution, then we would avoid risking acquiescence in the process which Abacha is so clearly engaged in and that will result in a civilian glove covering the military fist that Abacha has applied for so long?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, the regime in Burma may have changed its name, but the policy has stayed exactly the same.
The State Peace Development Council, as it is called now, continues its policy of suppression.
It is the same old story.
<P>
I invite the British Presidency to make it clear that human rights policy is a joint policy, and that it forms an important part of their political thinking.
How does the President-in-Office of the Council think he will do this?
How does the President-in-Office of the Council think he will respond to Premier Oil's decision to invest in Burma?
<P>
What instrument does ASEM offer this situation?
The Liberal group hopes that the President-in-Office of the Council will stick to the Union policy not to invite Burma to London.
Only what I would like to call pariah treatment will have effect.
How are the ASEM partners responding to this?
How does the President-in-Office of the Council think he will convince the ASEM partners of the need for a policy which is based more on respect for human rights?
<P>
Finally, has the dialogue with ASEM countries yielded any results yet, and will this be brought up during the coming meeting of ministers?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Vecchi">
Mr President, we asked for this debate with the Commission and the Council on topics of major importance concerning the specific principle the Community institutions and the EU countries should adopt in the presence of countries which are very seriously violating the most fundamental human and democratic rights of their citizens.
<P>
The case of Burma is certainly today one of the most serious in the world.
The "list' of problems is, unfortunately, sadly known and runs from generalized political and social repression to the exploitation of forced and child labour, from drugs trafficking to violation of human rights.
<P>
This situation is constantly deteriorating and the government is not showing any signs of finally wanting to begin a process of democratization in the country.
In the Burmese State's budget for 1997-98, defence costs officially amount to 43 % of the total.
These resources are used for internal repression and in the interests of the military establishment in power.
<P>
The Burmese civilian society has shown its desire for democracy on numerous occasions that have always received our firm support, as shown when the Sakharov Prize was awarded to Aung San Suu Kyi several years ago.
<P>
However, the amount the international Community can do, starting with the EU and its Member States, becomes a deciding factor.
<P>
For this reason, while supporting the measures already adopted by the Commission and Council, we ask for pressure to be increased on the Burmese government, accentuating its political and economic isolation.
<P>
It is from within Burma itself that the EU is asked to block any economic relations with the government, ending investments, trade and tourism and taking restrictive measures on entry visas, as well as strictly controlling the embargo on arms sales.
<P>
The attitude of the large private companies, with numerous direct or indirect interests in Burma, is decisive.
A pressure policy should be applied to these companies to freeze their business in the country, business that is only beneficial to the Government.
<P>
The opinion the citizens of Europe and those of the rest of the world will have on the European structure also depends on the firm and responsible way in which we manage to deal with the Burmese question and the other democratic emergencies throughout the world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Vecchi.
Meanwhile, the Bureau has noted that Mr Telkämper, whom I had said was absent, has just entered the Chamber and it is therefore with great pleasure that I invite him to take the floor, if the House has no objection.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
My questions relate to Burma.
We have presented and discussed various resolutions on Burma and we were usually in agreement with the Commission and the Council that we must do everything to push forward the democratization process.
This, however, has just not happened.
My question is therefore how the British Presidency intends to present a common foreign policy position on Burma and perhaps to get this process in motion.
<P>
The question relates in particular to how the Presidency intends to deal with adherence to the ILO Convention on slave labour.
We know that slave labour prevails in Burma.
How can we ensure this directive is successfully implemented?
<P>
I also have a specific question concerning the oil company Premier Oil, which in September 1997 announced its intention to buy the shares of the US firm Texaco from a natural gas company.
Will the British Presidency support that or do you advise them, on the basis of resolutions passed here to desist from doing so?
<P>
The third point is that, as we have said, whilst the circumstances in Burma remain as they are, we will be against Burma being included here, on the basis of the treaty arrangements between the European Union and the ASEAN countries. This is because, as we of course repeatedly emphasize, human rights must be respected and this is also a condition or a part of the treaties.
What will be the attitude of the British Presidency in the continuation of relations between the EU and ASEAN?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Janssen van Raay">
Mr President, as a member of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, I must confess I am more familiar with human rights violations of the fundamental rights within the European Union, which, as you know, come under the authority of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, rather than human rights violations outside the European Union, about which my colleagues know a lot more than I do.
But as I know the region quite well, including Burma, I was suddenly asked to speak.
I have tried to catch up on human rights violations outside the European Union, because situations in my own country prompt me to a certain degree of modesty in this respect.
If you consider that the Netherlands had been denounced by the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg for not having an independent judiciary, for not having a perfectly organized defence system and for not having properly functioning freedom of speech, then I say that I am quite willing to consider human rights as a problem, but rather as a "we problem' than a "you problem' .
This is my first point.
<P>
When Burma joined ASEAN, I immediately paid a visit to Rangoon for strictly personal reasons, and used the opportunity to lay a wreath at the British war cemetery for those who died on the railroad during the Japanese occupation.
I was very impressed with how civilized the people in that country were - and I can fully see why the British considered it as one of its most advanced colonies, when it was still a colonial power. I therefore went back over Christmas, and I also visited the Anglican Church - and I can recommended this to my British colleagues - where the war chapel has a handwritten record of all the British people who gave their lives for the freedom of this country, and for my own church, the Anglican Church.
And I am now delivering to you a plea from the bishops of the Anglican and Lutheran Church, regarding the fact that all economic measures affect first and foremost the poor members of the population.
That is the message I wanted to pass on.
<P>
It has to be said, and this struck me yesterday during my intensive research of human rights violations, that we apply a kind of selection process - and I must ask my expert colleagues about this -, because a country like Brunei, which has no parliament at all, one of the nine ASEAN members, has never been on our hit list.
<P>
I have one last comment, Mr President, and that is that religious beliefs, which do exist, as I experienced in Burma, are always judged harshly by this Parliament.
These are my last words; maybe we can pay some attention to this from within Christian circles.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, I only want to point out that the country's President elected by 80 % of the population asked for economic measures.
I think that should suffice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Maij-Weggen, for your clarification.
I will give the floor once more to Mr Bertens and I would take this opportunity to explain to the House that, as I am sure you are aware, we are conducting a joint debate on a number of oral questions.
That is why Mr Bertens appears on the list of speakers a second time, and indeed, he will be taking the floor for a third time later on.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, Mrs Maij-Weggen already made the point at the beginning of the debate that the UN Commission on Human Rights, which took place when the Dutch held the Presidency last year, was a black page in the Union's human rights history.
Unfortunately, international attention was focused on how extremely divided we were; this division was chiefly based on economic advantage.
<P>
The Council promised better, and why not in fact?
The Union, acting jointly at UN level in this area, might achieve something.
This applies especially to larger countries, and in this respect, I would like to mention China.
The balance between open and silent diplomacy is right, but what will the result bring?
I do not think we should be obsessed with China.
We must also remember Nigeria, Burma, Cambodia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Algeria, and perhaps Cuba, because the Pope does not sanctify everything.
<P>
UN resolutions should be followed up to the letter.
My question to the Council is: does he think he might achieve a better system for monitoring UN resolutions and for strengthening the follow-up structure?
This year the opportunity to reinforce the UN position must be seized, since it was fifty years ago in Lake Success that the United Nations was founded.
<P>
Any attempts to not take the United Nations resolutions seriously will obviously achieve the opposite.
How does the President-inOffice of the Council think he might give the decisive push for the realization of a powerful UN declaration on the protection of human rights defenders?
After all these years there should at last be a powerful agreement on this.
Defenders of human rights deserve a declaration as an appreciation of all their work, and the Member States are morally committed to that in this important year for the UN.
I hope that this Presidency will interpret that in the right way in any case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gahrton">
Mr President, as the chairman of the delegation for relations with China, I am the first to admit that it is not easy to know how to influence this huge country.
We often discuss that within the delegation. We are even going to have a special seminar about it.
<P>
It is clear that we should not break off relations. And it is clear that we should continue to strengthen our contacts and continue with dialogue.
But should we really stop criticizing China completely?
That seems to be the Council's view, since it is now going to dispense entirely with proposing a resolution in Geneva.
<P>
It is true that things have happened in China.
It is true that certain laws have been changed.
It is true that a convention on social rights has been adopted, or at least signed. It is true that Mary Robinson has been invited there and it is true that the Sakharov prize winner Wei Jingsheng has been released.
But is that really enough to give China approval?
Human Rights Watch does not think so. Nor does Wei Jingsheng, whom I had the occasion to meet in Brussels a while ago.
They think that pressure should be maintained too.
<P>
I would like to ask this: is it really the case that the Council has a strategy for human rights in China?
Or is it just commercial considerations that have led to this new passive approach?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, this Parliament resolution is important.
I have the same doubts as Mr Gahrton as regards the Council's desire to adopt a position which I hope will be Parliament's position tomorrow. There are certain precedents, particularly that of the past year.
I also have some doubts as regards the Commission.
There are some issues concerning China which are quite worrying.
Some projects have been blocked for two years and I have just learned that, following a restructuring of the services of the Commission, the projects which DG VIII had examined and organized were transferred to DG 1B. This will force us to restart the whole process and lose more precious months.
Some projects have been blocked for two years.
The Council may have reservations, but so too has the Commission.
<P>
There is one point as regards the United Nations resolution on which I absolutely do not agree: that of "Algeria' .
This morning, Parliament succeeded in adopting a dignified stance on Iraq although this is not the case for other institutions.
Thanks to the subcommittee chaired by Mr Soulier, in Algeria's case, Parliament is moving in the right direction towards adopting a dignified position, so it will not contradict itself by adopting a paragraph which demands that an international committee of inquiry be set up on Algeria tomorrow.
It was a huge job to get Parliament to move on this; I hope and I am fairly convinced that we have succeeded.
Now we must try to influence the Council and the Commission.
Parliament will not go back on its word by calling for an international conference; that would be absurd.
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<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, sadly, I could fill the minutes allocated to me listing countries which flagrantly violate human rights, but I will mention a few which are not often highlighted.
<P>
Firstly, I would like to mention Angola.
The government rules over the largest part of the country now and, sadly, murders of the opposition leaders are increasing, including in the Cabinda region.
The international community is doing nothing, tempted by oil and the generous sale of arms to the country.
<P>
Secondly, I would like to take the case of Cuba.
Seven prisoners have been released, who incidently were forced to leave the country immediately, but that still leaves 500 political prisoners.
Because of the internal split in this Parliament, we rarely discuss this.
No Cuban dissident has ever been important enough to this Parliament to receive the Sakharov Prize.
This is incredible and selective, Mr President.
<P>
Apart from looking critically at this Parliament, I also want to look critically at the Council.
How has the Council put into effect the human rights resolutions which were accepted in the UN last year?
What has been done to promote and guarantee the work of the special rapporteurs?
How is the Council going to organize a strong and cohesive EU position for the coming 54th Session of the UN?
Is the Council prepared to give clear signals during the Session to countries like China, Mexico, Nigeria, Syria and Cuba, countries which are totally obstructive during the negotiation and decision-making process?
Will the Council not let itself be influenced by China's one step forward, two steps back policy?
Does the Council really see the exclusion of Burma at the coming ASEM summit as a useful contribution to compliance of human rights?
<P>
To conclude, for over a year some resolutions in this Parliament and some political factions have been calling for an oil boycott in Nigeria.
Is the Council truly prepared and does it intend to raise this with the Security Council?
Because otherwise we are sitting here producing hot air, and that is not what this Parliament is here for.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Barros Moura">
<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="Henderson">
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking the honourable Members for their questions and their interventions.
I am pleased to address the questions they submitted.
I would like to deal with this in three parts plus an addendum.
The first part will deal with Nigeria, the second with Burma, the third with human rights and I will then make an announcement in relation to Azerbaijan on human rights.
<P>
Firstly, on Nigeria, the Council has been following the situation in Nigeria with concern since the annulment of 12 June 1993 presidential elections.
It has had measures in place against the Nigerian regime since then as a mark of its concerns about the lack of respect for human rights and democratic rule.
This concern intensified throughout 1995 which saw the trial and harsh sentencing of 43 alleged coup plotters, including former Head of State General Obasanjo and a number of other high-profile civilians, Abacha's announcement of a three-year transition to civilian rule and finally the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and his eight co-defendants after a flawed judicial process.
<P>
The two common positions adopted on 20 November 1995 and 4 December 1995 strengthened the European Union measures to include, among others, visa restrictions on members of the Nigerian regime and their families, including those in possession of long-term visas, a full scale arms embargo and a sports ban.
As the honourable Members have noted, on 28 November 1997 the Council of the European Union extended the common position on Nigeria of 4 December 1995 until 1 November 1998.
<P>
At the same time the Council reiterated its concern about the abuse of human rights in Nigeria, including the detention of political prisoners as well as the slow pace of democratization.
It also underlined its willingness to support the transition process.
Since then the Council has followed with considerable concern developments in Nigeria, including the tragic death of Shehu Yar'Adua in detention, the further arrest and detention without charge of journalists and pro-democracy activists, plus the arrest on 21 December 1997 of General Diya and a number of others in connection with an alleged coup attempt.
<P>
On 26 December 1997, the Luxembourg Presidency issued a declaration on behalf of the European Union appealing urgently to the Nigerian authorities to treat those arrested in accordance with the legal principles corresponding to international standards.
This declaration also made clear that the European Union could not accept a repetition of the events of 1995.
The Council has noted that a seven-man military tribunal has been constituted under the chairmanship of Major General Malu to try 26 people held under suspicion of coup plotting.
On 14 February the press were allowed to witness the inauguration and see the accused but we understand that the proceedings will be held in camera .
<P>
The European Union successfully co-sponsored further critical resolutions on Nigeria at the 1997 sessions of the United Nations Commission for Human Rights and the United Nations General Assembly.
The UNCHR resolution led to the appointment on 16 October of a special rapporteur on Nigeria with a mandate to make contact with the Nigerian authorities and people and report on the human rights situation in that country.
His first report will be submitted to this year's Commission.
We will be pressing for a further tough resolution based on his report.
<P>
I want now to move to Burma.
I applaud the sustained interest which Members of the European Parliament continue to take in the appalling human rights situation in Burma.
The Council strongly shares Members' concerns.
Its working groups at all levels regularly discuss ways in which to promote change in that country.
The Council's message on Burma is simple.
The people of Burma have expressed democratically their wish for a fairer deal and their voice must be heard by their government.
To reinforce that message and encourage reform, the European Union has introduced a package of tough measures against the Burmese regime.
<P>
The common position on Burma first adopted in October 1996 includes a full-scale arms embargo, a ban on the issuing of visas for members of the regime and their families, a ban on defence links and aid except for humanitarian aid and a ban on high-level official visits.
The European Union has also suspended preferential trading terms for Burmese exports to the Union of agricultural and industrial goods.
Some Member States have introduced additional measures on a national basis.
<P>
The Council regularly reviews whether there is a consensus for them to be adopted by all Member States.
There is no question of any relaxation of these measures without a substantial improvement in the human rights situation in Burma.
We are conscious that in some circumstances such sanctions can hurt the very people they are designed to help.
To help relieve the suffering which Burmese government policies cause to ordinary Burmese people, the European Union partners are considering a package of positive measures to strengthen civil society in Burma and to reinforce the excellent humanitarian work which is already being done there.
<P>
I want to pay tribute to the many European and other non-governmental organizations which work tirelessly to improve conditions on the ground.
The Council is working with non-governmental organizations to tackle the problem of Burma's refugees from both sides of the border.
European Union ambassadors in Bangkok are in touch with the government of Thailand about the need to provide shelter and protection for refugees.
We continue to monitor the situation closely and stand ready to take swift further action if necessary.
We also work to promote improvements in Burma through close coordination of policy with our international partners.
The Council keeps Burma high on its agenda for intergovernmental discussions.
We firmly believe that governments in Asia have a particularly important role to play in using their influence with the regime to press for reform in Burma and we continue to urge them to do so.
<P>
Our international partners cooperate closely in the UN.
For example, the United Nations General Assembly in December adopted by consensus a tough resolution on human rights in Burma.
Several European Union Member States were co-sponsors, and the text is stronger than last year's resolution in key areas.
We look to the Burmese authorities to respect their obligations, as a UN member, and implement the resolution immediately.
The Union will also introduce a resolution on Burma at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva next month.
<P>
The Council has taken concrete measures to address human rights abuses in Burma.
It is keeping the situation under very regular review and stands ready to consider further measures, positive or negative, as the situation on the ground demands.
<P>
I should like to move on more generally to human rights.
From mid-March to the end of April the Presidency will lead the European Union at the 54th session of the UN Commission of Human Rights in Geneva.
Those rights are an issue for the whole year, not just for the annual sessions of the Commission.
But the Commission is certainly the most important single opportunity in the international calendar to demonstrate our commitment to human rights and to work towards a realization around the world.
We are conscious though that the Commission is not always an easy environment: many different viewpoints are represented.
There will be those present who will seek to hamstring the work of the international community to promote human rights.
Many countries automatically oppose intrusive mechanisms and the realization by their citizens of their inalienable rights.
We will do our utmost, with other like-minded countries, to ensure that such disruptive and indefensible opposition does not prevail.
<P>
A major focus of this year's Commission will be the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The Declaration established universal standards of human rights.
Fifty years on, the standards remain as relevant as they were when the Declaration was adopted.
But we remain a long way from their full realization.
The 50th anniversary is a time for implementation of those standards.
It is not a time to unpick existing texts, and we will resist firmly any attempts to do so.
<P>
We will pay particular attention at the Commission to ensuring that it takes effective action to promote the rights of children.
So often children's rights are forgotten or ignored.
Children's rights must be a cross-cutting element in all the work of the Commission.
There is near-universal ratification of the Convention of the Rights of the Child, and the time has come for implementation.
<P>
Another key cross-cutting issue for the Council is the human rights of women.
We will ensure that women's rights are given their due place in the work of the Commission, not just in the resolutions which specifically cover women's rights, but in other Commission action.
<P>
The EU will play a full role across all the work of the Commission.
In particular there is already agreement within the Union that the Presidency, on behalf of the Union, will table resolutions on Nigeria, Burma, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Israeli settlements, Iran, East Timor and Iraq.
We will also take the initiative on Colombia, where the welcome decision to set up a human rights office in Bogota stems from Union action.
The Union will, in addition, make an intervention setting out our position on other countries where we have major human rights concerns.
<P>
The Council is still considering how to address other countries' situations at the Commission, including China.
We regret the breakdown of the European Union consensus on a CHR resolution in 1997.
We are still considering action at the Commission on Human Rights.
But it will depend on developments and progress made in the bilateral and European Union human rights dialogues.
We expect to make a decision shortly.
<P>
We have concerns about the human rights situation in China and are seeking to address these in a cooperative way with the Chinese government.
China has demonstrated a willingness to discuss human rights with us and the European Union as a whole.
China has also entered into a dialogue with others.
These discussions have produced results, information on individual cases and agreement on technical cooperation programmes.
The Presidency will also make interventions in debates on racism, democracy and development, detention and rule of law issues, women's rights, advisory services, the rights of the child, human rights' defenders, as well as on Israeli settlements.
<P>
We will support the Commission's various independent mechanisms, including special rapporteurs and working groups.
They play a crucial role in monitoring violations and advising governments on human rights improvements.
<P>
The Council, as you may imagine, does not expect an easy session.
But we know what we want to achieve: real progress towards the realization of all human rights for all people, and we will be working hard to make sure that we achieve it.
<P>
As I indicated at the beginning of my contribution, I can today, as a result of pressure by the Union, announce that Azerbaijan has abolished the death penalty.
I believe it is a helpful step forward in promoting human rights, and we call on other countries to follow that example.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, the Bureau has received a number of requests for the floor from Members who have already taken part in the debate.
Given that some ten more speakers are already down for this joint debate, the Bureau's criteria will be to avoid disturbing the normal course of the debate.
The Members who have now requested the floor in connection with the statement by the President-in-Office of the Council will be able to put their questions at the end, because I do not think that this will be the last time that the President-in-Office of the Council takes the floor.
Therefore, he will have an opportunity to answer any questions later.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 NAME="Kinnock, Glenys">
Mr President, can you assure me that the President-in-Office will be here if we want to ask him questions because I specifically wanted to ask for an answer to a very specific question that I asked.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="President">
Mrs Kinnock, it seems that you did not hear what I said earlier.
Like yourself, others have requested the floor in response to the statement by the President-in-Office of the Council.
Moreover, we have a list of speakers and a series of speakers who have not yet had the opportunity to take the floor, and who have as much right to receive answers from the President of the Council and from Commissioner Marín as those who have already spoken.
Therefore, I would ask for your understanding and ask you to present your question to the President-in-Office of the Council when the debate has ended, because we still have another ten speakers on our list, and we cannot favour any Member to the detriment of others.
I hope you understand that I cannot proceed in any other way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, in general terms the Commission completely accepts the position expressed by the British Presidency with respect to Nigeria and Burma.
I just want to explain a few points.
<P>
It is true that Nigeria is at a critical juncture because presidential elections are due to be held in the next six months, and we hope they will lead to the installation of a civilian government in that country, under a civilian president.
So there is a lot at stake.
If, for whatever reason, the process of democratic transition were to founder, it could result in a reappearance of the spectre of violence and bloodshed, which could perhaps spread to other countries, with very serious human and economic consequences.
We are convinced that the Nigerian people would not peacefully accept another military regime.
<P>
On the other hand, the many questions which Members have raised about the Nigeria issue show the concern within the European Union to see the democratic process firmly established in that country, and the economic benefits of its resources finally distributed fairly amongst the population, which is increasing all the time and becoming poorer and poorer.
<P>
As has been said, Nigeria is too big and important a country, both within Africa and globally, to be marginalized.
<P>
Let me state quite categorically that the Commission will do everything within its power and the limits of its authority, to assist and mobilize the necessary resources to strengthen Nigerian civilian society, and particularly its most vulnerable groups.
<P>
Twenty-seven years of successive military governments have left an indelible mark on Nigerian civilian society, which will take a long time to disappear.
The apathy and fatalism which characterize a large part of civilian society should be reversed somehow. We are convinced that Nigeria's well-known spirit of enterprise and dynamism can be reawakened for this purpose.
<P>
Finally, I want to say that the Commission intends to continue its efforts towards dialogue with the Nigerian government, giving special priority to measures designed precisely to combat human rights violations, strengthen the independence and training of the courts and the legal professions, improve governability and assist the process of supporting democracy.
<P>
As for Burma - and this is not the first time we have discussed these matters in Parliament - the Commission wishes to clarify the following points: to the best of our ability, and following the common position adopted by the Council, we have tried to establish what is known as "critical dialogue' with the military junta.
Apart from the ASEAN meetings at the United Nations in New York, our attempt at critical dialogue has not worked and is still not working, for the simple reason that it has been rejected.
At the moment there is no significant contact between the Commission and the military junta.
It is true that the common position calls on us to initiate that political dialogue but, I repeat, with the military junta this has not been possible.
<P>
With the democratic movements it is a different matter, and we have set in motion a whole series of decisions.
I do not understand how Mr Dupuis can talk about delays.
That is not true.
The Commission has set in motion a programme of support for the opposition, for the Burmese dissident movement which has been established in Europe, and in that sense we have launched a project with the aim of strengthening the democratic movements and training members of the opposition and future leaders.
We have opened a Europe-Burma office in Brussels.
In other words, we have made contact with the opposition and with the dissidents within that opposition living in Europe, and we are helping them.
As for the military junta, I cannot tell them anything, for the simple reason that we have no form of contact with them.
The only chance is the forthcoming visit by Kofi Annan's special envoy, Mr Álvarez Soto, the aim of which is precisely to attempt that critical dialogue, on behalf of Kofi Annan.
<P>
Finally, the European Union's position on the ASEAN question is very clear.
Firstly, the fact that Burma has been accepted into ASEAN's regional framework is a matter for ASEAN itself.
They accepted that country in the belief that by means of what they call "constructive engagement' - which turns out to be the English version of the Asian translation of "critical dialogue' - they would demonstrate that dialogue really has been strengthened.
As far as the Commission is concerned, I first want to point out once again in Parliament that Burma is not included in the 1980 cooperation agreement which was extended to Brunei and Vietnam.
In any case, the Commission does not intend to propose to the Council that the ASEAN-EU regional cooperation protocol of 1980 should be extended.
In that sense, we are maintaining our position, apart from the fact that it was confirmed in the Council's common position.
Furthermore, Burma is also excluded from all the cooperation programmes being implemented with ASEAN.
<P>
So there is no need to worry, because as things stand and until such time as the common position changed, we are strictly complying both with what the Council called for in its common position and with what this Parliament has so often called for.
That is the latest news I can give you on these two problems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Marín.
<P>
I have received twenty motions for resolutions, submitted pursuant to Rule 40(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="Howitt">
Mr President, over two years since the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa, when his son, Ken, came to Brussels three days later and generated total and absolute support from every part of this House for a return to democracy and human rights in Nigeria, we are forced once again to ask the European Parliament to condemn the Abacha regime's continuing disregard for these principles.
<P>
Abacha's presidential candidacy from four out of five parties and the continued house arrest of Chief Abiola do not constitute a transition to civilian rule, Commissioner Marín.
The arrests of alleged coup plotters last December, threats against journalists who report them, and the arrest of 30 perceived activists preceding the Ogoni Day celebrations last month are all testimony to the abandonment of even token efforts by the Nigerian government towards democratic transition.
<P>
I ask the Commission and the Council to respond to Mrs Kinnock's points about clear benchmarks for this transition process.
<P>
We say again, today, that oil sanctions remain the only instrument available to the international community which will guarantee change; oil earnings, which account for 96 % of all Nigeria's export earnings, with 40 % of all federal government revenue provided by one European company: Shell.
The European Parliament should condemn the Nigerian government for its announcement this month that it is seeking to resume oil operations in Ogoniland by force.
We should join calls on Shell to publicly denounce this.
<P>
Last year we held discussions with Shell in this House on their business principles.
We accept that they have the potential to be a force for good in Nigeria, but they must accept greater responsibility in response to the latest crisis.
Batom Mitee, brother of the acting president of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (Mosop) told The Times : ' Farmers are struggling for land and space with oil exploration.
They do not see the government.
They see Shell.
They want Shell to show some concern.'
On 3 January this year, Batom's car was stalked and searched by members of the same internal security force set up to repress anti-Shell protests.
A report about the struggle against Shell was found on the back seat.
Batom was dragged out of his car and severely beaten.
He was detained and severely tortured, denied food, medical care or access to a lawyer.
<P>
Ken Saro-Wiwa believed he would die 'all for Shell' .
Let us, let Shell, let every Member State who trades in oil act now to save the life of Batom Mitee, of the thirty others arrested with him, and of all oppressed Nigerian people who they represent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="Moorhouse">
Mr President, as one of the co-authors of the resolutions on Nigeria and Burma, I am particularly pleased that we are having this debate this afternoon using the oral question with debate rather than the normal urgency procedure.
I am grateful to the President-in-Office and to Mr Marín for their respective statements which I think probably take the matter as far as possible, bearing in mind in particular that the President-in-Office has, so to speak, to represent the fourteen other Member States.
<P>
On Nigeria, he referred to the sports ban.
This has to be considered somewhat ironic in view of the fact that Nigeria has been given the go-ahead to take part in the World Cup.
It tears a hole in the whole system and allows a number of Nigerians to come to Paris and other places to take part in the World Cup.
I do not know whether he is able to offer an explanation but it is an illustration of how one Member State can drive a cart horse through the whole system.
<P>
On Burma, the only point I can make in one minute, since I was not able to be present this morning for reasons beyond my control, is the extent to which investment is still going on there.
A company like Total, for instance is making substantial investments. We correspond with them and they send an arrogant reply that they will have nothing to do with us and give no information whatsoever.
I wish that the President-in-Office could ask some very pointed questions of certain Member States and of certain companies.
There are a lot of others involved as well.
I have made my two points concerning the World Cup and the extent of investment in Burma.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Caccavale">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I listened attentively to what Commissioner Marín had to say, albeit in a cool manner, and attentively because this shows, once again, how Europe is totally powerless on two contrasting issues - Nigeria and Burma.
<P>
What is happening in Nigeria?
The military power of this bloodthirsty junta - for it was called a junta by Commissioner Marín, rather than a dictatorship - with a president who had been elected and of whom we know nothing, with Ken Saro-Wiwa and other Ogoni representatives who have been executed, is now extending to other African countries.
And now we have news that the Nigerian military have invaded Sierra Leone; refugees are already escaping from their land on account of this military intervention, brought forward under the pretext that they, the Nigerians, are the peacemakers in Africa.
I have not heard you say anything about this, Mr Commissioner.
I would like to know whether, in this critical dialogue the Commission intended to hold with Nigeria, the possibility that Nigeria may become the peacemaker with the arms of Africa and the African region is also implied.
<P>
The second question relates to Burma.
It is true that we cannot allow this country to join the ASEAN, and therefore there is no dialogue between Europe and Burma, but it is also true that there is a creeping legitimization of the Burmese dictatorship, although it has wiped out, tortured, incarcerated and summarily executed the opposition, while putting Nobel Prize winners under house arrests and so on and so forth.
We have not had much reassurance on this either, Mr Commissioner, from you or from the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="André-Léonard">
<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, Nigeria is a particularly bad apple in a basket of not too sound fruit.
Democratically elected presidents are deposed and political opponents imprisoned or hanged.
The Nigerian regime is also active outside its own borders.
Under the ECOMOG flag, Nigerian soldiers are fighting against the military junta in Sierra Leone, supposedly to reinstate the democratically elected president, but Sierra Leone's diamond fields must be the primary reason.
<P>
The question is, what can the EU do against the regime in Nigeria?
In November 1995, the Council suspended military cooperation and development aid.
In December of that year these measures were strengthened.
Now that three years later these measures have had not any effect, some people in this House are arguing for an oil boycott.
This would hit the regime hard, because oil exports account for 90 % of its income.
<P>
However, the experience we have gained with boycotts of this kind shows that it is above all the people who suffer, whilst the regime the boycott is targeted at, is often able to keep its position for years to come.
Because of the largely poor majority in Nigeria, I question the use of an oil boycott.
That is why I am investigating the feasibility and consequences of an oil embargo.
After that, it can be decided whether an embargo of this kind should be imposed.
I do believe that the existing sanctions the Council introduced against Nigeria should be closely observed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
Mr President, the people of Burma deserve a vote in favour of the statement being debated here today.
The Burmese regime is one of the most unpleasant dictatorships in the world.
The people are being brutally suppressed, and the military dictatorship has not the slightest respect for human rights.
Burma is the centre of the Asian narcotics trade: it produces more than 2 000 tonnes of raw opium a year, and another 250 tonnes of heroin, which are exported to the West.
The dictatorship uses the income to tighten its grip on power.
The proposal we are debating here today demands in very clear terms that foreign companies stop investing in Burma immediately and that the EU introduces economic sanctions against Burma as soon as possible.
Aung San Suu Kyi, who was awarded the European Parliament's Sakharov prize, has called on the EU take this action.
During the era of apartheid in South Africa, it was again those who spoke for the oppressed who demanded that the rest of the world should put economic pressure on the regime, but business in the West fought against this.
Now business is making profits in the country where the anti-apartheid movement has gone furthest.
People must understand that investing in Burma amounts to direct support for the military regime.
It would be better for the Burmese if this regime were overthrown and economic sanctions have proved to be more effective in the past than critical dialogue with someone who does not understand the meaning of the words.
<P>
I heard Mr Marín say that critical dialogue has failed, so I am expecting a statement from the Commission saying that, now that we have totally failed in this area, economic sanctions will be applied.
That would suit both the Commission but also, in particular, the Council because I think Mr Henderson's answer on Burma was rather meaningless.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lenz">
Mr President, I have a preliminary remark to make.
I would like to ask the Bureau to try to arrange even joint debates as thematically as possible, for it is rather complicated to trace a common thread of meaning between Burma, Nigeria and the 54th session of the Human Rights Commission in Geneva.
I say this in view of the fact that we have an audience.
<P>
But allow me to say something about the 54th session of the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva.
For many people it represents hope, but it also disappoints many people.
For us, however, for the European Union - and therefore I would like to underline this very clearly here - it is a test case, to show to what extent the Union is serious about its own human rights policy and how it converts its own theories into practice.
Many countries, particularly Denmark, were all the more dismayed when some states of the European Union no longer supported the resolution on China introduced with great difficulty a year before.
<P>
Of course, no country is prevented from improving the situation of human rights in their own territory.
If that is really the case then we shall not be the last to confirm it.
<P>
This year, too, another proposed resolution is before the European Parliament, which calls on the Council to define joint priorities in Geneva.
The list of countries criticized because of their human rights policies is still very long, much too long, in fact, and just a few examples are Algeria, Iraq, Iran, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In addition there are problems such as the international trade in human cargo, namely in women and children.
<P>
Nevertheless, we are not abandoning hope that the European Union will show a common strong front, for only then can we do anything.
This is directed equally at the President of the Council and the representative of the Commission.
Given, in particular, the enlargement towards the east of the European Union, we should take these questions very seriously and measure our own attitude against the criteria which we apply to other countries.
This applies above all in the year of the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which we want to see extended by an international Court of Human Rights.
In my opinion it is an exhortation to ourselves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have so often taken up the question of crimes against human rights perpetrated by the military junta in Burma, but we must return once again to the subject.
We are not alone in our criticism.
Both the United Nations and the USA along with many other countries have recently made renewed protests in this respect.
<P>
Aung San Suu Kyi was democratically elected by an overwhelming majority of more than 80 %, but is being prevented from taking over responsibility and is still under house arrest.
Many politicians are in prison for political reasons and are being denied their democratic rights.
Political meetings are banned and there are continued attacks on ethnic minorities. Among other things, 400 villagers were killed in May and June last year.
There is also a strong link between the military regime and drugs producers: most of the world's heroin comes from Burma.
<P>
On several occasions, Aung San Suu Kyi has asked the international community to introduce political and economic sanctions against Burma, which is something President Clinton decided on in May last year when new investments in Burma were banned.
But multinational oil companies, including European ones such as Total, continue to support the military regime.
The oil companies' investments account for the largest amount of foreign exchange in the country.
Therefore, it is important that Parliament again strongly condemns the dictatorship in Burma and demands that human rights are guaranteed so that Aung San Suu Kyi is released from house arrest and the UN's inspectors can unconditionally carry out their assignment.
<P>
It is appropriate that the Council has decided not to accept Burma's participation in the meeting between the EU and ASEAN until the human rights situation has improved in Burma.
But Parliament now demands that the Council respond to Aung San Suu Kyi's call for economic sanctions against the military junta by breaking off all trading and tourist links between the EU and Burma, and by stopping investment in Burma by European companies.
<P>
The Council's representative, Mr Henderson, said earlier that the Council was prepared to adopt further measures.
What initiatives is the Presidency prepared to take for effective economic sanctions and to promote democracy in Burma?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="de Melo">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, here in the European Union we are neither the government of the world, nor the policemen of the world.
At this particular moment in time, this government and policing falls to another union.
But, within our bounds, the European Union and, more particularly, the European Parliament have contributed a great deal to the policy of defending human rights.
However, this policy has not been coordinated in such a way as to represent a consensus of the parties of the European Union during the United Nations debates on this subject.
Often, a chorus of small voices carries less weight than a single, stronger voice.
This is not the example that has been given by the European Union.
<P>
Moreover, the United Nations resolutions are frequently flouted, which often detracts from the credibility of its decisions.
This attitude is exemplified by the current situation in Iraq and Portugal's own historical case of East Timor.
I could cite dozens more, but you are better acquainted with this subject than I am.
<P>
I consider that the European Union has the right and, indeed, the duty to work actively to enhance the prestige of the United Nations, by drawing attention to these facts.
The questions submitted by some of my colleagues to the Council and to the Commission have that positive end in view.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Thomas">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, what effect do European Parliament debates on human rights actually have?
Do they just make people aware of problems and then disappear into archives or do they emphatically pursue attempted solutions far beyond the shores of Europe?
Do they prosecute regard for human rights, do they contribute to the elimination of deplorable situations, do they offer any encouragement at all to those forces whose humanitarian, ecological or economical work needs to be supported?
The abuses of human rights in Burma continue unabated.
There is illtreatment, imprisonment, enforced labour and slave trading.
The woman who won the democratic elections over 9 years ago, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Madame Sun Kyi, is still de facto under house arrest.
<P>
Burma is today probably the biggest producer of opium in the world and is miles away from cooperating with other countries in the fight against drugs.
I can therefore only repeat the demand I made in my speech of March last year: cancel the tariff preferences for Burma.
Even if this measure is financially very small it must be extended for the fourth time.
But it will not be enough on its own.
The European Union is and remains a Community of values.
The maintenance of democracy and human rights is one of our highest principles.
We are not a movable object which allows itself to be misused for tactical ruses.
Anyone who gets involved in the battle against the abuse of human rights is in no way subject to the law of non-intervention in so-called internal affairs.
We must use economic pressure to exert political pressure on the revolutionary government.
We must impose more far-reaching sanctions.
Like the Americans, the Europeans must get companies to stop investing in Burma.
This gives rise to three questions to the European Commission.
<P>
Commissioner Marín, firstly, what chance do you give such an embargo on investment?
Secondly, in your view, are firms in Europe ready to take such measures?
Thirdly, what possibility do you see of preventing European firms from filling the vacuum caused by the withdrawal of American firms?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Thomas Mann.
As agreed, I will now give the floor to those who requested it although, since this is a relatively novel process, I would ask Members kindly to frame simple, concise and clear questions relating preferably to matters that the Council has not yet addressed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 NAME="Kinnock">
Mr President, I would just like to ask the President-in-Office if he would please be so kind as to answer my question regarding the importance of benchmarks by which we will judge the transition process in Nigeria.
<P>
I enjoyed the history of what has occurred but I would really like to know what the Council intends to do next.
I know that the Commission is very keen that we have these benchmarks, and I wonder if the Council supports this view.
<P>
I would also like to ask the Commission whether it understands what it means to say we are going to have a great deal of new NGO activity in Burma.
I find that deeply worrying and I would like the Commissioner to explain exactly what that means.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, the President-in-Office has attractive surveys, facts, figures on the countries we have discussed, but he has not given any answers.
I hope he will read the Verbatim Report carefully, and, having done so, will respond differently.
I think it is a shame that it all ended somewhat unfortunately this way.
The specific question about Burma I did not receive an answer to was: what is the Presidency intending to do with the invitation to the ASEM countries for the ASEM ministerial meeting?
Or at least what he is intending to do with Burma in this respect?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
My additional question is also about Burma.
It seems as though the United States have decided to introduce a investment ban, in other words a run up to an economic boycott.
The result is that European companies are beginning to take over the contracts the Americans are leaving behind.
Where American companies are withdrawing, European ones are entering.
What is the minister going to do, together with his colleagues in the European Council of Ministers, to stop this, and to come into line with America on the Burmese issue?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
Mr President, I must repeat a part of my question because the Council has not answered it.
I had asked whether the British oil company, Premier Oil, announced in September 1997 its intention to buy shares in a natural gas firm in Yetagun from the US firm Texaco after the latter decided to pull out of Burma.
Now of course we have again universally confirmed our condemnation of the regime.
What is the attitude of the British Presidency of the Council - this was my question before - to this possible purchase?
We really would like an answer on this issue.
Equally - this is a supplementary question to the Commission -, on the issue of the compulsory return of refugees from Thailand to Burma, is humanitarian aid continuing there, guaranteed by the EU?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 NAME="Moorhouse">
Mr President, just to revert to the points I made earlier, how does the President-in-Office reconcile a sports ban on Nigeria with the go-ahead for the World Cup which has opened up a whole plethora of contacts with Nigeria?
It must be very pleasing to Abacha!
<P>
In regard to Burma, would he care to volunteer some explanation about European companies investing with fervour in Burma?
I cited Total as one example.
How does that tally with the statement of Mr Robin Cook in regard to new ethics and human rights?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="Macartney">
Mr President, I would like to back up the questions asked by Mrs Kinnock over benchmarks.
There were also in the resolution, which we have agreed amongst the groups, a series of measures which we want the European Council to agree to take.
I am referring in particular to paragraph 9 of the resolution which I am sure the President-in-Office has in front of him.
I want to know whether we are going to have some action or whether we are just going to talk about prolonging the present situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 NAME="Henderson">
<SPEAKER ID=174 NAME="Marín">
<SPEAKER ID=175 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Marín.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Situation in Albania
<SPEAKER ID=176 NAME="President">
The next item is the Council and the Commission statements relating to the situation in Albania and the results of the visit by the tripartite delegation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 NAME="Henderson">
Mr President, the European Union is committed to helping Albania achieve reconciliation and a return to normality.
The Union's political dialogue meeting with Albania last month is an important sign of this.
But the primary responsibility for this recovery rests with the Albanians themselves, the government, the opposition and, indeed, the people of Albania.
<P>
The Union welcomes the positive steps taken so far by the government and its commitment to restoring law and order and political and economic reform.
The agreement with the IMF is an important step forward.
The Union encourages the continuing process of democratic reform including the judicial system.
It is important that a new constitution is adopted after a wide-ranging discussion and the Union welcomes the constructive approach Albania is playing in regional issues and, in particular, in Kosovo.
<P>
It is important that the government works to build a genuinely non-political civil service.
The necessary cuts in public administration agreed with the IMF should be even-handed and aim to promote a high degree of professionalism and impartiality.
But the European Union is concerned at the continued refusal of important groups within the Albanian opposition to engage in the democratic process and to contribute to a common approach to rebuilding their country.
<P>
The Union calls on the Democratic Party and its allies to participate fully in Parliament including the adoption of a new Albanian Constitution.
The Union welcomes the visit of the troika parliamentarians to Tirana last month and urges the government and the opposition to live up to its recommendations.
It is important that the cooperation offered by Berisha is fulfilled.
The Albanian authorities must work closely with the European Union to ensure the most effective delivery of aid.
<P>
European Community assistance to Albania between 1991 and 1996 amounted to ECU 557 million.
The European Community pledged around ECU 100 million more at the October 1997 international donors conference.
The PHARE Programme of 1998 will make an additional ECU 42 million available.
The European Union Humanitarian Office has contributed substantial amounts of humanitarian aid to Albania.
Last December it announced projects of more than ECU 10 million to help vulnerable sections of the population.
This is in addition to the hundreds of millions of US dollars pledged nationally by European Union Member States at the Brussels donors conference.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, the Commission is of the exact same opinion as the UK Presidency with respect to the situation in Albania.
It is true that there were great improvements in the second half of 1997 as regards economic stabilization and public order.
However, in questions of security the situation is still worrying, and the collecting up of weapons has not been very effective so far.
Most important of all, there are still major political tensions between the main parties, and it must be realized that, for the moment, Albania is still a long way from being a genuinely democratic culture.
<P>
Nevertheless, it is critical that the main opposition party, the Albanian Democratic Party, should participate in the Albanian Parliament and in the drafting of the constitution. Without the necessary political stability, all the country's forces for recovery and reform, both those from Albania and those from the international donors, would be seriously threatened.
In that context, the Commission is pleased with the recent joint mission of the European Parliament, the Parliamentary Assemblies of the Council of Europe and the OSCE. We think that mission was necessary, and it has confirmed acceptance of the June-July 1997 elections and the legitimacy of the current parliament, and has given ample support to the process of drafting the constitution, which the government has set in motion.
<P>
As a result of the mission, the Democratic Party is finally considering returning to parliament, and the government seems to be firmly committed to helping with political normalization, but the pressure will certainly have to be kept up on all the parties in order to further political and parliamentary cooperation.
<P>
The Commission completely agrees with the proposals made by the tri-parliamentary mission.
And in the context of the third joint European Community-/Council of Europe programme for Albania, with a value of ECU 1.5 million, there is a desire to support the work of the Venice Commission towards the preparation of the constitution.
This programme also includes aid for training judges, developing the legislative framework, maintaining law, progress in human rights law, and reforming the judicial system and local administration.
<P>
All this has an obvious link with the administrative reform programme, which is another key option in the PHARE programme.
As regards the agreed measures, an encouraging first result is the government's approval of a law to transform the state service into a superior auditing institution.
Also in preparation is a law concerning the basis of the reorganization of the Ministry of Justice, and a constitutional budgetary law. These two advances - concerning the judiciary and the budget - will be fundamental in reforming public administration.
<P>
On the other hand, it is important that personnel cuts are carried out as part of the public administration reform process. These cuts have already been agreed with the Bretton Woods institutions, and maintain the necessary criteria of professionalism.
In this context, a decree is being approved which deals with transitional measures relating to contracts and dismissals, and it will be revised by experts.
<P>
If implemented, all this legislation - which I am describing in detail because it is a condition for budgetary aid through the PHARE programme - would release a first sum of ECU 9 million.
Just last week there was a Commission identification mission to see how the country's political normalization is progressing.
<P>
As for the dramatic problem created by the pyramid scam and the bank fraud in Albania, administrators and auditors have been appointed for those companies which suffered bankruptcy, within the framework of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and they have started work already.
<P>
Nevertheless, it must be realized that there are quite a few problems in applying the measures being taken to remedy this situation, which was created by the pyramid fraud.
It is difficult to carry out inspections and audits because the companies are not keen to cooperate with the administrators and auditors.
This issue, which is very sensitive and has a huge social impact, will be thoroughly dealt with during the next coordination meeting, to be held on 23 February and due to be chaired by the World Bank in collaboration with the International Monetary Fund.
The Commission is insisting that the Albanian government should facilitate the work of the international administrators, and it is very important that these audits should produce results. That would allow the International Monetary Fund's emergency programme and the negotiations with the Fund to become a reality, which would of course set Albania into a pattern of normalization, at least with respect to its international economic relations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Imbeni">
Mr President, I had the honour of taking part in this mission with Mrs Pack, which I believe was the first tri-parliamentary mission in the history of our Parliament.
It is an extraordinary event and we can certainly be satisfied with it, but satisfaction with the result of this mission should not be confused with a calm state of mind in relation to the internal situation in Albania because, as Commissioner Marín has just recalled, the situation remains worrying from an economic and safety point of view.
We have to realize that a race is taking place in Albania and we do not yet know who the winner will be.
On the one hand, there are those who want a process of national reconciliation and an effective democracy and, on the other, there are those who still want revenge over the electoral process.
<P>
It is true that in Albania, compared with a year ago when there was a kind of civil war, there is now a parliament and a government and constant efforts are being made to put things back in their places. It is true that the situation has improved, but if the government and the opposition do not soon work together to cooperate and complete the new constitution in the parliament and if there is no cooperation within the parliament itself, then conflicts will emerge outside parliament, throughout the country, and the arms used will not be those of deliberation and democracy.
Every day, the press reports news that, luckily, does not end up on the international pages, because it concerns local incidents of deaths and injuries, and fights for which those responsible are often not easy to trace.
<P>
The constitutional block in Albania was the fundamental reason for this mission.
The cooperation of all the political powers is required to draw up a constitution.
The opposition, however, has not yet participated in the work of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, giving as a reason, the fact that the parliament does not have the moral authority to rewrite the new constitution, and this gives us cause for concern.
With our tri-parliamentary mission, we sought to convince all our partners that a parliament, formed as a result of a laborious response from the ballot-boxes but also universally recognized as acceptable, is a parliament that is also legitimized to draw up the new constitution.
<P>
We said, however, that we needed to overcome this block; it seemed to us that our words had been heeded with renewed attention and we had the feeling, as Commissioner Marín pointed out a short while ago, that in the days immediately following our visit, new political events took place.
Nevertheless, there was no specific or material follow-up to the declarations made immediately after our visit and, since our return, there has still been no follow-up within parliament and the Committee on Institutional Affairs as regards working together on the new constitution.
Simple declarations must be made: we need to insist that the Council and the Commission follow our tri-parliamentary mission with further measures.
I have heard positive comments in this respect.
<P>
We, as members of this Parliament, will have to comply with two commitments we have assumed in this respect: firstly, the formation of an international group of advisers with the task of contributing towards the definition of the status and content of the new constitution; and secondly, the observation of the parliamentary work in Albania. This is a somewhat unusual commitment, but if we take the situation into account we can easily understand why it has been established.
In a fairly delicate context, we wanted to illustrate the requirement that the three organizations should dedicate themselves to observing the parliamentary work, with the agreement of the Albanian parliament.
<P>
Having said that, other things are also useful.
To give an example, and addressing Commissioner Marín and the President-inOffice of Council in particular, I believe that we should establish roots in the territory because, although the national government has good intentions, we cannot take it for granted that its supporters throughout the country have the same good intentions of working towards national reconciliation.
To use an image, there is still fire smouldering under the ashes!
We therefore need to ensure that democracy flourishes in the territory, at local level.
I have heard talk of initiatives the Commission would support financially.
In this context, I would suggest that financing be assigned to a particular twinning project between the Albanian local authorities and the local authorities of our Member States. This would create a network of connections that would allow democracy to exist at local level throughout Albania, and would help overcome the temptation to resort to arms, by establishing a common desire for reconciliation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I can subscribe fully to 98 % of your statement.
That does not happen very often, that our two sides are in such agreement, but on what you said about Albania I am almost completely in agreement with you.
<P>
The fact is, Renzo and I were the two participants from this Parliament in this tripartite attempt at reconciliation.
The fact is, however, that reconciliation in this country between the two hostile camps has not yet been achieved and will not be achieved for some time to come. It is constantly being undermined by both sides.
<P>
The language alone is revealing.
There, the leader of the opposition calls the parliament a Kalashnikov parliament.
The Prime Minister publicly calls the opposition a terrorist group and their leaders are called criminals with immunity.
It is therefore hard for a fruitful coexistence to flourish.
As the then socialist opposition did two years ago, the conservative opposition is now boycotting the Parliament.
We have always made it unmistakeably clear that a return to parliament is absolutely essential and it is also important for the opposition party, for it is only there that we shall listen to them.
<P>
The joint action, as Mr Imbeni has said already, was important.
It was unique in its cooperation and therefore it was of major significance to the Albanian public and the political representatives.
We all listened and our conclusions took into consideration all points of view on the internal politics.
<P>
The results included the fact that, firstly, amongst other things, the democratic place for decision-making was in the parliament and therefore the Democratic Party should finally return there.
<P>
Secondly, the parliament must, however, observe the dignity of the individual member and adhere to the democratic rules of the game, and in this respect the observation carried out by representatives of the OSCE or the Council of Europe should be helpful.
<P>
Thirdly, we also of course expect that the middle management staff, particularly in the legal field - and you referred to this earlier, Commissioner - which in recent years was trained with our money, are not arbitrarily thrown out into the street, but that use is made of their experience.
<P>
Fourthly, Albania needs a constitution, particularly for important investment projects.
According to existing law, the parliamentary committee should draw up the draft constitution, it should be accepted with a majority of two thirds and them - as they have committed themselves - a referendum by the public should decide.
I think that the composition of the committee destined to carry out all these procedures must be somewhat improved.
<P>
News in recent days reports, on the one hand, illegal police attacks on supporters of the Democratic Party, while on the other hand, the same event is represented as deliberate provocation of the police by the Democratic Party.
I find myself unable to say which of these is right.
It is very difficult to know from here but it proves one thing, that the fronts between the political camps are very firm and appear almost insurmountable and that force is the language of the politicians.
A joint action, such as we have undertaken can only be implemented once.
We do not churn them out on a conveyor belt.
As you have rightly said Commissioner, it is the job of politicians in Albania now to take their own fate into their hands at last and, if it is at all possible - and I address this both to the Council and the Commission - I would make a heartfelt request for pressure from both sides. I do not mean gentle pressure but really energetic pressure, so that they finally get together in reconciliation and in the interests of the tormented people of Albania.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Daskalaki">
Mr President, the situation and lot of Albania has often been debated in this House, and frequently with some intensity.
Today, we are here with balanced and constructive common positions.
These are mainly due to the successful mission of the ad hoc delegation which, with Mr Imbeni and Mrs Pack, recently visited Tirana. hey tried to bring the opposition back into parliament and succeeded in a first approach on issues of exceptional sensitivity, such as the working out of the new constitution amongst others.
Special congratulations are due to them both.
In any case, we have all expressed them on the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and we meant it very sincerely.
<P>
As has already been said many times, the situation in Albania remains fragile and fraught with tensions, even though some progressive steps have been taken. There are always incidents, as Mrs Pack also said earlier.
Democratic awareness according to the Western European model is not yet the main factor in public life, and never has been, to this day.
<P>
As for the European Parliament, regardless of any preference we may have for one side or the other, we must continue to support truly democratic procedures in Albania, offering our experience and assistance to the extent that we can, to help that country find its European orientation as soon as possible.
<P>
In this respect, our joint motion expresses that intention and wish, and defines the objectives that must be achieved.
<P>
Finally, Commissioner, I would like to ask whether the European Parliament is to be informed about the talks you said were to take place on Monday regarding Albania at the World Bank.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="President">
I have received six motions for resolutions, pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Sarlis">
Mr President, I must say that the joint resolution which has been circulated is a text which, I think, will attract wholehearted support from Parliament because it is well balanced and reflects not only common positions but also the common anxiety of us all about what is going on in Albania.
In my view, the problem has become focused solely on the restoration of normal relations between the political forces in Albania.
My opinion is that this can only be achieved through the correct operation of the Albanian parliament.
Events or investigations which concern penal injustices that took place before the events of last year can often be used as a means to persecute political opponents, and that must be avoided.
<P>
I must say that a very important proposal is the one included among those agreed by the tripartite delegation in which Mrs Pack and Mr Imbeni took part with parliamentarians from the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, that is, the proposal that an advisory group should be formed.
I would like to go still further and say that the advisory group in question should comprise not academics, not ex-cathedra specialists, but Members of Parliament who would alternate and could advise, in my view, on a day to day basis, how the Albanian Parliament ought to function.
Albania must be approached very carefully, mainly because of the religious differences that exist.
Despite its various religious persuasions, however, the people of Albania have lived for centuries as a single entity.
Having lived in that area, I think that if the advisory group is set up it will be able to achieve a great deal on a day to day basis, giving advice about the operation of parliamentary committees, about what issues to put before the plenary Chamber, etcetera.
It will also have the opportunity to make contacts, and most importantly, to offer advice about the formulation of a constitution which, as we have been told, the present government intends to submit to the Albanian people in a referendum.
<P>
I hope all will go well.
I hope this, because I am an optimist.
Those people deserve better luck and wholehearted and devoted support from Europe's peoples and governments.
It is not enough for the Commission and the Council to tell us how much money they are giving, they must also back the European Parliament's initiatives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bianco">
Mr President, I think we all agree on one point, and that is that Albania is still in an emergency situation: the problems remain serious, arms are widespread - around one and a half million -, the Mafia continues to benefit - it is calculated that US$6 billion are handled by the Albanian Mafia - and the situation is still precarious from the point of view of reconstructing democracy.
<P>
I believe that the road to be followed, as indicated by Mr Imbeni and strongly supported by Mr Pack, is to insist that the transition to democracy, which has just been delicately begun, can be followed, starting with the parliament, and therefore the insistence that the parliament explains its own tendencies.
I would like to tell the President-in-Office of Council that we can also help a return to normality with a more complex, more fundamental policy.
<P>
The Albanian question cannot be separated from the other questions in a particularly delicate area.
When, at the recent Madrid Summit, the Balkans and Albania are, so to speak, cut off from a policy of safety, a policy of attention, that should be considered globally, mistakes are made.
We are not without the means: the means are there. NATO is assisting with the rebuilding of the Albanian fleet, the WEU and the OECD are helping the police regain a professionalism they had lost, and there are means of creating the conditions of impartiality to which Commissioner Marín referred.
<P>
The other economic and financial questions should be aimed at implementing the programme presented by the government.
They relate to socio-democratic infrastructures that should be established and I believe that, with the means we have made available, we can pressurize all parties into bringing Albania into a greater period of normality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
Mr President, there is no doubt that, as the Members have shown, the state of emergency is, unfortunately, not yet over in Albania.
The situation is anything but resolved and, for these reasons, we have to say that the action carried out by our representatives, Mr Imbeni and Mr Pack, together with the OECD and the Council of Europe, has been excellent, and the agreement signed by the parties, namely, the government powers and the opposition, is an important starting point.
<P>
Unfortunately, however, we cannot be under the illusion that this is the answer to the problems.
I repeat, it is an essential starting point for drawing up a new constitution, which is necessary at the moment; but a new constitution is not drawn up without the involvement of the opposition and, at the moment, the signs are unfortunately anything but favourable.
One opposition party is currently saying that the agreement is a partial agreement, an agreement that can only be observed provided the Fatos Nano government nullifies all the measures it has taken since it came to power.
<P>
This is obviously an impossible condition for the government to accept when the government has been prepared to ensure maximum transparency in the parliamentary action so that every right is provided for the opposition, an opposition which is entitled to one-third of the chairmanship and two-thirds of the deputy chairmanship of the parliamentary committees.
<P>
The signs are not favourable at the moment: incidents and further use of arms have been seen in the north, while in the south the territory is still not under the control of the police force; the region around Tirana is beginning to show signs of intolerance owing to the shortage of adequate consumer goods and the lack of solutions to the economic problems it was hoped the new government would be able to resolve.
<P>
In view of all this, the EU should commit itself much further to offering economic aid and aid aimed at restoring democracy and control in the region.
Without this, there is a further risk that civil war will break out again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Tamino.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 5.15 p.m., while awaiting Question Time scheduled at 5.30 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Question Time (Council)
<SPEAKER ID=187 NAME="President">
The next item is questions to the Council (B4-0017/98).
<P>
Question No 1 by Jens-Peter Bonde (H-0001/98)
<P>
Subject: Ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty
<P>
Is it true that the Amsterdam Treaty can enter into force only if all the Member States ratify the agreement? Will the Council of Ministers respect referendums held in several Member States?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 NAME="Henderson">
In accordance with the provisions of the Treaty on European Union, specifically Article N, the Treaty of Amsterdam shall come into force after being ratified by all the Member States, in accordance with the respective constitutional requirements.
In certain countries this will indeed involve a referendum.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
I would like to thank Doug Henderson for a very clear reply, which I can recognise as a repeat of the reply which Mr Henderson gave to a previous question in the British House of Commons.
It is of course enlightening that the Treaty has to be accepted by all countries to become law, and if a country does not ratify the Treaty, the countries which are interested in doing something new must call an Intergovernmental Conference. Then, 15 countries must sign to do something new, as has already happened when it was impossible for all the countries to agree to have a social protocol, but 12 signatures established closer cooperation for 11 countries.
But everyone must sign to amend the Treaty.
I am grateful to Mr Henderson for giving such a clear answer today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 NAME="McKenna">
You say that the Treaty has to be ratified in accordance with the constitutional requirements of Member States.
I would like people to know that in Ireland we will have a referendum on the Amsterdam Treaty and already the EU Commission is interfering by sending out propaganda to members of the public.
I would like some sort of assurance from the Council that this will not actually happen because it is an interference in the democratic process of a Member State.
There should be no undue influence using European taxpayers' money to promote propaganda forcing people to vote in favour of the Treaty.
It is up to the Irish people themselves to decide whether they want to vote in favour or against.
I would like an assurance from the Council that the EU Commission will actually step aside from the process on this and allow the people to make up their own mind and that it will be in accordance with the constitution of Ireland which prohibits the use of public money to promote one side of the argument in a referendum.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="Henderson">
Can I say to Ms McKenna that this is not a matter for the Council; this is a matter that persons in Ireland including the government or the political parties who felt affected by it should raise with the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 NAME="President">
As they deal with the same subject, the following questions will be taken together:
<P>
Question No 2 by Mihail Papayannakis (H-0004/98)
<P>
Subject: Information gathering by the Member States
<P>
A number of authoritative European newspapers have reported that the British secret services gather information of a diplomatic, economic, technological and commercial nature in other Member States of the Union which is used, among other things, to improve the Government's negotiating position at meetings of Community bodies.
<P>
In the Council's view, to what extent and in what manner are the final outcomes of meetings of Community bodies and their decisions, including those of the Council itself, distorted by such practices which enable certain Member States to be briefed in advance of the negotiating positions of their partners? Can it confirm that such sensitive information is not passed on to third countries, particularly in the context of international trade and other negotiations or final preparations for the euro (e.g. ideas and proposals on the definitive rates of exchange of Community currencies against the euro), since if such information became public knowledge, it could have a huge impact on the international money markets?
In the Council's estimation, how many other Member States, and which, engage in similar information gathering? Question No 3 by Nel van Dijk (H-0035/98)
<P>
Subject: Is MI6 spying on Britain's European partners?
<P>
Is MI6, the British foreign security service, spying on Britain's European partners with a view to collecting information which the British Government can use to its advantage in international negotiations?
Does MI6 record confidential conversations, and does it tap telephone calls ?
<P>
In what way are MI6's espionage activities directed at civil servants from other EU Member States consistent with the British Government's aspiration towards "moral leadership' in Europe?
<P>
Does the Council share my view that a government which uses its security services to gather confidential information on its EU partners and their positions in international negotiations undermines the trust which Member States might have in each other and abuses the solidarity which the Member States might expect from each other in an "ever closer union' ?
<P>
Are there other Member States which instruct, or allow, their security services to spy on their European partners?
<P>
Can the Council give an assurance that the European Parliament and the Commission are not the target of activities by MI6 or any other security service of any other Member State?
<SPEAKER ID=193 NAME="Henderson">
I am glad to link the questions.
In my Presidency capacity, I have to say that intelligence matters are within the exclusive competence of national authorities.
The Council has no information on such matters and is not in a position to respond.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Mr President, brevity such as that of the President-in-Office's answers was characteristic of the Spartans in my country in ancient times.
The Spartans were not regarded as models for civilization, nor for dialogue and debate.
<P>
I ask the President-in-Office, and not of course in his capacity as a British minister, to tell me the Council's assessment of such practices, whether they take place, whether he has ever heard of that in his life.
What is the Council's assessment?
How does he characterize such activities and how can I, as a Member of this Parliament, have faith in the accuracy, seriousness and untaintedness of the debates taking place in the Council?
I was not a Spartan, I am much more an Athenian.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 NAME="Henderson">
I can only say that this is not a matter for the Council, whether it be from the Spartans, the Athenians, the new Spartans or the new Athenians.
It is not a matter for the Council, and I just reiterate my previous response.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dijk">
You will understand that I can only interpret Minister Henderson's remarks to mean that he wishes to neither confirm, nor deny.
Perhaps I should interpret this as a tacit confirmation of what is happening.
But surely it cannot be the case, and I would really like to hear Mr Henderson's view on this - that the Presidency of the European Union has nothing to say, and has no opinion about the fact that one of its Member States is spying on the others to determine its strategy during negotiations?
I would really like to have a very clear answer on this.
If Mr Henderson thinks the Presidency should have no opinion on this, then I would like know what the other ministers in the Council think about it.
<P>
Secondly, much commotion has arisen over the échalon in which the United Kingdom and the United States are creating one strong line in order to eavesdrop on the whole world.
Is this related, Mr President?
Does this échalon exist?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 NAME="Henderson">
It is not a matter for the Council to speculate whether there is any new alliance between the United Kingdom or the United States.
I can only say that the matter raised is not a matter for the Council and that Members of the House should not believe from my previous reply that a confirmation or denial was involved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 NAME="President">
Question No 4 by Angela Kokkola (H-0008/98)
<P>
Subject: Human cloning
<P>
Public opinion is disturbed at the decision taken by the American scientist, Richard Seed, to undertake experiments aimed at creating human clones, which is morally and scientifically unacceptable.
<P>
In view of the above, will the Council say whether the necessary legislation exists at EU level to ban the cloning of human beings?
Even if it does, this is still not enough.
Will it therefore also say whether it intends to launch an initiative to establish an international convention banning the cloning of human beings in order to protect citizens from the "brilliant discoveries' of scientists who sacrifice the ethical dimension of the issue on the altar of scientific research and prestige?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 NAME="Henderson">
I am pleased, in relation to Question No 3, to acknowledge the important influence and responsibility of the Council on this matter.
<P>
The question of bioethics, and in particular protection of human dignity and of the individual, is a key consideration in Community research policy.
Research into modification of the human gene is among the most sensitive ethical issues in the field of science and therefore requires constant scrutiny and clear limitations.
This fact has been well understood in the European Union and its Member States for many years and has given rise to arrangements for the ethical supervision of human gene research, as well as to legal safeguards and limitations.
<P>
The Community's Fourth Framework Programme on research contains an explicit provision that no support will be provided to projects which may contravene the European Convention on Human Rights, the Charter of the United Nations or the Council of Europe Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine.
The provisions on biomedical ethics provide that no research into modification of the genetic constitution of human beings, or into human cloning, may be carried out.
<P>
The Commission's proposal for the fifth research Framework Programme would extend the scope of this exclusion.
The proposal is still under consideration in the Council but the honourable Member may rest assured that the rights and dignity of human beings will continue to be the guiding principle behind all decisions.
<P>
As regards international initiatives, the Council will consider with interest any proposals which the Commission may make on this subject.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Kokkola">
My thanks to the Council's representative for his answer.
With all due respect, allow me to say that I find it a little vague.
You refer in some way to future plans.
We see in the press every day how rapidly such experiments are progressing.
And with all my esteem for research and biology and for the development of science, when these issues touch upon ethics and we may be approaching the cloning of humans, I do not hide the fact that it frightens me and I am not alone in this respect.
Very many people and many scientists have expressed their opposition.
<P>
I would therefore like to ask you, to the extent possible during your Presidency, to speed up the use of the means at your disposal, because otherwise I think it will be too late.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 NAME="Henderson">
I am aware of the concerns of the honourable Member on this matter and, indeed, of many others in this House and elsewhere.
I can only draw attention to a sentence in my previous reply where I said that the provisions on biomedical ethics provide that no research into modification of the genetic constitution of human beings or into human cloning may be carried out.
I hope that provides the assurance the honourable Member was looking for.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 NAME="White">
I would like the President-in-Office to give the Council's position on the existing Commission arrangement whereby a group of advisers has been established to advise on the ethics of biotechnology and has already formed an opinion on cloning.
Does the Council support the principle of a Europe-wide ethics committee being eventually established?
I say 'eventually' rather than 'immediately' , which gives some scope for the Minister to reply in a positive way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 NAME="Henderson">
I can say to the honourable Member that I do not rule that out.
It may be that is one way we can proceed on this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 NAME="President">
As the authors are not present, Questions Nos 5 and 6 lapse.
<P>
As they deal with the same subject, the following questions will be taken together:
<P>
Question No 7 by Glenys Kinnock (H-0017/98)
<P>
Subject: Arms trafficking in Burundi
<P>
What steps are being taken by the Council to halt the flow of arms from the European Union into Burundi, where they are likely to be used for the continuation of fratricidal fighting between armed groups and the perpetration of further massacres of civilians?
Question No 8 by Tony Cunningham (H-0018/98)
<P>
Subject: Arms trafficking in Burundi
<P>
Is the Council aware of allegations made in the Human Rights Watch Arms Project report: "Stoking the Fires - Military Assistance and Arms Trafficking in Burundi' about the export of arms and military equipment, frequently originating in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, to the armed parties in Burundi via western Europe, and will it make a statement?Question No 9 by Arthur Newens (H-0019/98)
<P>
Subject: Arms trafficking in Burundi
<P>
Will the Council investigate allegations that arms manufacturers based in the European Union have supplied Hutu or Tutsi armed groups in Burundi and that the ammunition factory at Eldoret in Kenya, which was originally built by the Fabrique d'Armes de Guerre, a subsidiary of the GIAT Industries Group based in France, supplied ammunition to the Hutu militia in eastern Zaire?
<SPEAKER ID=205 NAME="Henderson">
The Council shares the honourable Members' concern about the effect on the situation in Burundi of the flow of arms from third countries and has noted the resolution on Burundi adopted by the European Parliament at its 15-19 December 1997 part-session.
The Council has issued similar statements and declarations about the situation in Burundi, most recently on 7 January 1998.
The Council has also noted the resolution on a code of conduct on arms exports adopted by the European Parliament at its 12-16 January 1998 part-session.
<P>
The European Council in Amsterdam on 16-17 June 1997 underlined the vital role of concerted international efforts towards proper regulation of arms exports and called for the development of a coherent arms export control policy throughout the Union on the basis of the common criteria identified in the conclusions of the European Councils of 29 June 1991 and 26-27 June 1992.
These criteria include, notably, respect for human rights in the country of destination.
<P>
To this end the United Kingdom, in conjunction with France, has put forward a draft text for a European Union code of conduct setting high common standards for arms exports by Member States.
The text is in two parts.
Firstly, an elaboration of the eight common criteria agreed in 1991 and 1992 in line with the United Kingdom's national criteria which were then announced by the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom on 28 July 1997.
<P>
Secondly, a consultation mechanism providing for partners to circulate information about denials of export licences and requiring a partner to consult the denying partner before coming to a decision on whether to issue an export licence for essentially the same goods to the same client.
<P>
Initial reactions have been strongly supportive and the aim is for the code to be adopted by a Council declaration during this Presidency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 NAME="Kinnock, Glenys">
I thank the President-in-Office for doing a sterling job all day here in Parliament.
I am not sure it has been entirely easy or pleasurable at all times.
<P>
I should like to return to the issue of Burundi, which my question addressed.
It is a fact that 36 % of Burundi's budget is currently being spent on defence; far more than they spend on health and education combined.
Could the President-in-Office confirm that a Member State which has colonial links with that Great Lakes region of Africa is still unwilling to agree to either an international or a European arms sale embargo on Burundi?
<P>
Also, I should like to ask the President-in-Office whether it might not be a good idea to reactivate UNICOI, which was a commission of inquiry set up when we had the crisis in Rwanda?
Would it not be appropriate for us to extend its mandate to Burundi?
In my view - and I hope it would be the Council's view as well - it would assist us in our efforts to stop arms trafficking into Burundi and, indeed, within the Great Lakes area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="Henderson">
I thank the honourable Member for her kind tribute.
It is always particularly pleasurable to attempt to answer her questions.
<P>
On the specific question that she raised, I am not aware of any European Union country that knowingly exports arms to Burundi and would block any measure taken to prevent such sales.
If Mrs Kinnock has any information that could confirm the point that she was suggesting, then I would be very pleased to look at that information with a view to giving it further consideration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 NAME="Newens">
I should also like to thank the President-in-Office for his reply.
I would like to ask him if he has seen the information provided by Human Rights Watch showing that a great deal of activity has been going on, based in Ostend?
Does he not think that it is important that drastic action should be taken immediately to prevent any further arms from being supplied from Europe and that those people who are involved in this deadly trade should be brought before the courts forthwith?
We have spoken early today about the difficulties of arms suppliers to Iraq.
They are just as bad in this case.
<P>
Will the President-in-Office agree to pursue this matter directly?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 NAME="Henderson">
I thank the honourable Member for his question.
I can only refer him to my previous reply to the previous questioner.
We are not aware that any sale of arms in the manner which he is suggesting is taking place.
If he has information I would be very willing to look at it and make an assessment of it for further consideration.
<P>
I know there are other questions on the agenda today about the overall question of arms control and I may be straying into that territory, but the reason why the Presidency believes that the conclusion of a European Union agreement on arms is particularly important is, among other things, to attempt to deal with the situation which has been suggested by the honourable Member.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="President">
As they deal with the same subject, the following questions will be taken together:
<P>
Question No 10 by Patricia McKenna (H-0020/98)
<P>
Subject: Proposal for an EU code of conduct on the arms trade
<P>
The British Government has pledged to work for a European code of conduct "setting high common standards governing arms exports' during its EU presidency.
<P>
Four non-governmental organizations (NGOs) - Oxfam, Amnesty International, Safeworld and the British American Society Information Council - recently published a briefing document, outlining the essential standards which such a code of conduct should establish.
<P>
The briefing argues that there should be no exports of military equipment to states with poor records on respect for human rights and to states which spend more of their GDP on the military than on health and education.
<P>
Can the Council give details of what progress it has made in formulating a code of conduct on the arms trade?
When does it expect to have such a code of conduct completed?
Question No 11 by Elisabeth Schroedter (H-0116/98)
<P>
Subject: Introduction of an EU code of conduct on the arms trade by the British Presidency
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Britain and France have been developing a common text for the code which has now been agreed.
The proposed code is weak on consultation mechanisms, asking only for consultation between Member States directly involved in specific arms exports, and not between all fifteen Member States.
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What effect do you envisage the code as having on arms exports from the EU?
For example, will it stop the transfer of light weapons and armoured personnel vehicles to Indonesia or military attack helicopters to Turkey?
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Unless there are rigorous controls on the end-use of arms and military equipment, legitimate exports can be diverted to repressive regimes and countries in regions of instability.
End-use agreements should be legally binding contracts and a system of monitoring end-use should be implemented.
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What provisions will the EU code of conduct include for controlling the end-use for arms and military equipment?Question No 12 by Karin Riis-Jørgensen (H-0153/98)
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Subject: Common EU code of practice for arms exports
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What initiatives does the Presidency intend to take during the first half of the year to ensure that a common EU code of practice is drawn up for arms exports?
Will it explain the purpose and contents of a common EU code of practice for arms exports?
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Will it also explain when it can be expected that any common EU code of practice will be implemented?Question No 13 by Jan Bertens (H-0161/98)
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Subject: European policy on arms export controls
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I welcome the initiative taken by the British Presidency with a view to tightening up the rules on arms export controls.
The existing criteria, which date back to 1991/92, have been interpreted very broadly and diversely, with the result that there has been no question of a coordinated European policy on arms exports.
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Does the Council share my view that the criteria must be more concrete and less open to interpretation and that their implementation must be binding in order to eliminate the shortcomings of the existing criteria?
Does the Council also agree that multilateral consultation among the Member States is necessary to achieve effective implementation of the European export criteria?
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What role has the Council assigned to the European Parliament with regard to the formulation of the new export control policy and practical implementation of the relevant rules?
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What steps will the Council take to encourage the Member States to reach agreements on promoting the transparency and parliamentary supervision of arms exports policy?
<SPEAKER ID=211 NAME="Henderson">
<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="McKenna">
As regards this proposed code of conduct, there are quite a number of deficiencies in it, for example the fact that only arms exporting countries will be able to call the shots on who buys their arms if this code of conduct is adopted.
That means countries like Ireland, which has no major arms industry, will have little say in how the EU arms policy would be implemented.
This seems to be a version of 'honour amongst thieves' in that it is the countries involved in the arms industry which will make the decisions, and countries which have an ethical position as regards arms exports will have no say.
As well as that, there is a need for transparency, because commercial confidentiality means this subject will remain secret.
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With regard to the delivery of arms, they would be allowed into countries which have not signed international human rights conventions.
The export to regimes with poor human rights records would be allowed if the weapons were to be used to protect the police.
There are many oppressive regimes, such as Turkey and Indonesia, which could take advantage of this.
I should like the President-in-Office to say that the Council is going to address these issues and will bring these points of concern into a code of conduct, otherwise it is just window-dressing.
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<SPEAKER ID=213 NAME="Henderson">
There are a lot of points raised in the honourable lady's questions.
I do not accept that there are any major deficiencies in the code that is being proposed.
This code is a major step forward which concentrates the minds of European Union countries on what their responsibilities are in relation to the sale of arms.
It provides for a transparency so that those countries know what is happening in relation to the arm sales of other European Union countries.
It also provides a mechanism for preventing one country selling arms to a third country when that third country has already been denied an importation facility by another European Union country.
In other words protecting the integrity of the policy.
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People will always look for ways of circumventing regulations, codes and so on.
That will always be the case.
There is now a huge moral pressure on all the European Union Members, assuming that a satisfactory code is concluded, to deal with this matter in a completely new fashion.
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The question of the criteria which decides whether or not an arms sale takes place is essentially a separate matter.
Where the arms are likely to be used, for example, for internal repression or external aggression, then those arms sales should not take place.
The problem at the moment is that it does not prevent another country making the sale if one country decides that the potential importer does not meet those criteria.
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There is a period of consultation which is now taking place within the Union.
It is an opportunity for any Member State, or any lobby within a Member State, to look at ways in which the code can be more effective and make their views known.
I believe that the Council will have an open mind on how the code can be improved.
I invite all Members of the Parliament, if they have views, to submit them through the appropriate channels so that they can be made known.
The purpose is to ensure that we have a system with an internal integrity and I believe that what is currently proposed is a major step forward.
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<SPEAKER ID=214 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="Henderson">
I thank the honourable lady for her question.
The aim of having a policy at European Union level is to try to have a consistency across the Union with a view to eventually having a wider consistency outside the European Union which is equally as important.
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At the moment I understand there are some European Union countries who have taken a decision that where there is a likelihood that arms sales to Turkey would be used for internal repression, then those sales will not be made.
As mentioned earlier, the aim of the code is to try to bring about a consistency across the European level.
There will be arguments about what is internal repression and to what extent there is internal repression.
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It would be impossible to eliminate arguments among European Union Members on an issue like that.
There will always be borderline decisions on which there will always be arguments.
The important thing about the code is that it establishes a common criteria and a way of ensuring that those common criteria are applied, although it must always include an element of judgement.
I think those who are involved in the detail of those decisions will recognize the need for that judgement.
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<SPEAKER ID=216 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
I thank the President-in-Office for his reply.
I congratulate him on the fact that the British Presidency now wholeheartedly agrees with what we have been requesting here for so long.
Yet there was one question you did not answer: which role does he think he will give to the European Parliament when a new export control policy comes into being?
On that point I wanted to ask - because I know that the Italians have made a proposal to draw up an annual report on arms exports - if this will be adopted by the British Presidency?
If not, why not?
If so, then I think this would be excellent.
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I would like to say in conclusion that it would seem better to me, when it concerns consultation about which countries does what with another, that this should not be so much a bilateral consultation, but a multilateral consultation, because only then will the code of conduct become a code for all countries.
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<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="Henderson">
I can say to the honourable gentlemen that I agree with him that it is important to have a multilateral approach which is why this code has been proposed by the Presidency in the first place.
I have also indicated that eventually it has to have a wider application than purely within the European Union.
Otherwise it could still be undermined.
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It is important, as a first stage, that those who have strong views on those matters, including the honourable gentleman who clearly does, should concentrate efforts on persuading the governments within the European Union to support a strong code.
Once this has been established we can then look at where else there could be consideration of some of these matters within the institutions of the European Union, including the Parliament.
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<SPEAKER ID=218 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President of the Council, above all I would like to thank you for these clear and precise answers which you have given, which show how Westminster is a good apprenticeship for all parliamentarians, especially, when you have one of the best Presidents of the current Presidency of the Council.
Therefore I would like to say - and pardon me if I also make this remark - that in fact if it carried on like this we could finally get rid of stupid rule we have, whereby we can only ask one single question for each general sitting.
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My question is as follows: would it not be sensible, when we see that the major proportion of arms exports really do go again and again to the developing countries, to finally link development aid to arms purchase and inform the developing countries that development aid will be reduced as long as they use it for arms purchases.
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<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr von Habsburg.
I must say I sympathize with your concern about the two questions.
I have raised this matter with the Bureau, who will examine it during their March meeting.
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In any case, I am grateful for your cooperation, as always, in improving Question Time. I now invite Mr Henderson to reply to Mr von Habsburg.
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<SPEAKER ID=220 NAME="Henderson">
<SPEAKER ID=221 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
I wonder whether this really is a job for the EU.
Is there not a great risk that this could involve a militarization of the EU cooperation?
I do not think that is in line with what most citizens consider to be our job.
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I would also like to ask what this means for neutral states like Sweden which have tough rules on weapons exports.
In the EU there would be different rules to those we have, not necessarily worse, but certainly different and with a different basis.
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I also have some additional questions: What rules are going to apply?
Will they call for majority decisions or unanimity?
Who will make the decisions?
Finally, is it intended that the EU regulations should replace national regulations on weapons exports to other countries, or will the national regulations even be taken over?
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<SPEAKER ID=222 NAME="Henderson">
I can say to Mr Lindqvist that there was in fact a discussion on some of those matters in the working group which took place yesterday.
Clearly, for a framework agreement to come about there would need to be unanimity among Union Members on the way that the code would work.
If the current provisions are eventually agreed, and this is repetition to some extent, a country which felt that the export of arms would mean the likelihood of those arms being used for internal repression or external aggression and which therefore blocked the sale of those arms would then be able to say to other countries 'this is a position which we have adopted' .
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If another country then decides that they wish to take up those export orders they will be bound by the Court to come back to the original country which would then stimulate a dialogue on the rights or wrongs of the arms sale taking place.
The criterion should be the purpose of the arms, not the state of the domestic arms industry and that is a very important criterion which is built into the code.
The problem of the current situation where there is no code which is effective arises when one country says 'we do not believe that arms should be sold to a third country because of the likelihood of internal repression or external aggression, but if we do not sell them somebody else will and it will be trading our jobs for somebody else's jobs and therefore we should not make the decision initially to block the sale' .
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The purpose of the code is to get over that very important issue because the arms industry is a big industry in a number of European Union countries.
The workpeople in that industry are saying 'why should it be our jobs that are sacrificed if someone else is going to jump in and take the order up in another country?' .
This code is intended to answer that question.
It does not mean it is the end of the matter.
There need to be other industrial policies which Member States adopt, or which might be part of an employment strategy for the Union itself, which would also address the needs of those workers who are no longer able to get employment in handling those export orders and who have to look for redeployment conversion and so on.
It is an important starting point but it is not the end of the matter.
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<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="Truscott">
Can I say to the President-in-Office that I welcome as a good first step the code of conduct for the arms trade which is designed to prevent arms being used for either internal repression or external aggression.
The President-in-Office has answered my question about how undercutting can be prevented in Europe between EU Member States when they are selling arms to a third country, but perhaps the President-in-Office would like to consider the question of end use which has often created problems in the past in tracing the eventual recipient country.
Would he like to perhaps give a response on the issue of end use?
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<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="Henderson">
I am grateful to the honourable Member for that question because it raises another very real problem which has to be addressed in the code.
My current thinking - although I do not have a completely closed mind on it - is that there has to be an element of discretion.
Judgments have to be made not only on the likelihood of those arms being used for internal repression or external aggression but the likelihood of where that will happen.
In other words, will the arms be resold to some other party and, when they are resold, would there be a high likelihood of internal repression or external aggression?
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It is probably extremely difficult to deal with that other than on the basis of giving discretion to the nation which would initially be making the export order.
However, it may be that there can be some facility for an exchange of views on this matter so that as full information as possible is always made available to all European Union Member States.
It may be that an obligation should be written into the code that where a Member State believes there is a further follow-through trade in arms, that information should be made available to European Union Member States.
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<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="Crawley">
I too welcome the UK Presidency's proposal for establishing an EU Code of Conduct on the arms trade.
It is the logical development and follow-on from the United Kingdom's new ethical foreign policy and, although nothing is ever good enough for the Greens, I wanted the UK President-in-Office to know that the majority of Members in this House think this is a very serious and historic first step.
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I want to know if the Presidency will take back to the troika the eagerness this House has for consultation, for being able to follow the guidelines, for being able to see where best practice is developing as the code is progressed throughout the year.
This House may want at some point to establish an annual debate on the code.
Would the President-in-Office assure us that our eagerness to be involved is taken back to the troika?
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<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="Henderson">
I am very grateful to the honourable lady for her recognition that the general thrust of the proposed code would be broadly supported across the political divide of Parliament. That reflects a very practical understanding of some of the very difficult issues.
I am very aware of them myself, as there is a large tank factory on the edge of my old constituency back in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in northern England.
The people working in that factory and the sub-contractors are very aware of this difficult problem.
They have as ethical a view of foreign policy as any one else but it is their job which is at stake.
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I have always believed that people like them and in other similar positions will be prepared to make a sacrifice, to look for diversification, if they know that their efforts are not going to be undermined by others.
That is where the code is, in a very practical way, extremely desirable.
I wish that those in this House who have doubts would recognize the importance of that point.
I can assure the honourable Member that I will come back on the matter she has raised as I think it is an important issue which should have the widest consideration.
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<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="President">
Question No 14 by Mark Watts (H-0022/98)
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Subject: Slaughter of sheep in France for the Eid-El-Kabir festival
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In the light of previous infringements of Community legislation, and in particular those occurring in April 1997 when the mass ritual slaughter of sheep in France for the Eid-El-Kabir festival caused enormous public outrage, what efforts will the Council be making to ensure that no further infringements are allowed to take place either this year or in subsequent years?
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<SPEAKER ID=228 NAME="Henderson">
The Council has no knowledge of the events referred to in the honourable Member's question.
It would, however, take this opportunity to point out that it is primarily for the Member State concerned to ensure compliance with Community legislation in its territory and, where appropriate, for the Commission, pursuant to Article 155 of the Treaty, to take the necessary measures to ensure that any infringements of that legislation are duly punished.
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As the honourable Member will no doubt deduce from these remarks, this is a question which clearly falls within the competence of the Commission and not primarily of the Council.
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<SPEAKER ID=229 NAME="Watts">
I thank the President-in-Office for his most helpful answer.
I know that the Presidency shares my concern about animal welfare but I recognize its dilemma which is that it operates as the Council while the Commission is the guardian of the Treaties.
Nonetheless, I would invite the Council to become familiar with this outrage that took place last year.
We fear that it will occur again on 7 April, although the Commissioner himself informed this House that the infringements that took place last year were in breach of regulations and promised to act.
So far he has failed to do so.
I urge the President-in-Office to do his utmost to put pressure on the Commissioner to do his duty.
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<SPEAKER ID=230 NAME="Henderson">
Mr President, after your kind remarks and further kind remarks from the honourable Member I am going to have to have a rather large dining-table the next time I am in Strasbourg.
But all the better, I suppose, for the restaurant trade in this fine city, and the fine restaurants in it.
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I believe there is an awareness already of the issue he raised with me this afternoon and, on the basis of that information, it should be possible for action to follow.
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<SPEAKER ID=231 NAME="Ford">
I would be delighted to have dinner with Mr Henderson.
I am not so sure that Mr Watts is going to want to have dinner with me after my supplementary.
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While, of course, we are entirely opposed to any form of unnecessary animal cruelty, I welcome the President-in-Office's caution in this matter.
The Minister is well aware that much of the public outrage in the United Kingdom over these kinds of issues is synthetic indignation manufactured by groups on the extreme right.
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Last year in France there were problems around this festival but they were much exaggerated by people like Jean-Marie Le Pen's Front national , a man who has more concern about animal welfare than the death of 6 000 000 Jews in the Second World War.
So I urge him to proceed with care.
Yes, we need to ensure that these things are dealt with, but let us not allow them to be used by political parties beyond the democratic pale as an excuse to beat the immigrant population.
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<SPEAKER ID=232 NAME="Henderson">
I thank the honourable Member for his contribution.
All I can say to him is that when we next have dinner, I know one item that we will not be discussing, if it is going to cause such terrible division among good colleagues.
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<SPEAKER ID=233 NAME="Elliott">
This is a very difficult issue because it brings into conflict concern for animal welfare and the need to respect the religious views of ethnic minorities.
But there has to be a limit somewhere.
I would ask the President-in-Office to assure us that the Council, bearing in mind what was agreed in a new article in the Treaty of Amsterdam on respect for animal welfare, will make clear that if minority groups expect that we should respect their religious rights - and, of course, we should - then the views of those who hold that deliberate cruelty to animals is morally offensive and unacceptable will also be respected.
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It was very encouraging when we had the British minister responsible for animal welfare, Mr Elliot Morley, here last month at the Intergroup for Animal Welfare and heard the positive view he expressed on the initiatives that will be taken under the British Presidency.
So I hope for a positive response.
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<SPEAKER ID=234 NAME="Henderson">
I say to the honourable Member that the Treaty of Amsterdam is not in force yet, but the Treaty does - as he rightly says - include a commitment to improving animal welfare.
The Treaty also has a provision for the recognition of cultural tradition.
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In coming to a decision on legislation in these matters a balance has to be struck on a number of issues.
But once that balance is struck and once the legislative position is clear, then it is incumbent on all of us to make sure the law is adhered to.
The Commission has an important role to play in relation to European law in that regard.
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<SPEAKER ID=235 NAME="President">
Question No 15 by Jaime Valdivielso de Cué (H-0026/98)
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Subject: Consumer protection
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In view of the announcement that one of the priorities of the British Presidency will be consumer protection, can the Council state what measures will be proposed and what their orientation will be?
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<SPEAKER ID=236 NAME="Henderson">
The Presidency has three key priorities for the Consumer Council: the Consumer Guarantees Directive; more effective enforcement of existing consumer protection; and improvements to the European home and leisure accidents surveillance system.
Progress in these areas will help consumers in all countries.
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Firstly, the Consumer Guarantees Directive will give basic rights to consumers faced by unsatisfactory goods.
The remedies in the directive - repair, replacement, reduction in price, refund - are easy to understand.
People need to understand their rights if they are to exercise them.
Consumers should thus be able to take full advantage of the single market in the way businesses can.
In some countries consumer rights would be improved by the directive.
In the rest, existing high levels of protection would remain.
We await the European Parliament's first reading on the directive and are aiming for a common position at the April Consumer Council.
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There is no point in having consumer protection rules if they are not properly implemented and enforced.
We want the April Consumer Council to examine this on the basis of a Commission report.
To give one example, mechanisms for Member States to share best practice should make it easier to act against trading scams and to identify unsafe products.
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Our third aim is to improve the European home and leisure accidents surveillance system.
This is used to gather accident data on which to base health and safety policy.
Doing that European Union-wide means a larger population sample and more useful data.
We are committed to ensure the system's continuation and to improve it, building on the best current national practice.
I hope that we can count on the European Parliament's support to achieve these goals.
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<SPEAKER ID=237 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valdivielso de Cué">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I think it is interesting the way a framework has been developed for possible consumer rights or measures, as regards guarantees, basic rights, legislation, improvements to the system and consumer advice.
But could you please state what specific measures the British Presidency plans to take in favour of consumers?
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<SPEAKER ID=238 NAME="Henderson">
I am grateful for the question from the honourable gentleman but I have to say that I am not pleading guilty to his allegation.
There is a very positive agenda.
There is certainly a very heavy agenda for the April Consumer Council.
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The general thrust of all the proposals is that there should be minimum standards. This does not prevent any particular Member State deciding that they want to have better standards.
There needs to be discretion on some of those matters.
The important thing is to make progress and to bring in improved minimum standards so that all European citizens across the whole of the European Union can benefit in the way that businesses can from the single market.
This is a very important principle and I believe it is one that will receive a large area of support from consumers and citizens throughout the whole of the European Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=239 NAME="President">
As they deal with the same subject, the following questions will be taken together:
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Question No 16 by Sören Wibe (H-0029/98)
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Subject: The end of tax-free sales and its impact on employment
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Tax-free sales on journeys between EU Member States are to end in 1999.
A study has shown that this will result in a great many jobs, about 50 000 altogether, being lost throughout the EU.
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Has the Council discussed this matter and does it intend to do anything about it? Can it, for instance, try to obtain a derogation for tax-free sales on ferries or, even better, seek to have the entire decision re-examined?
Question No 17 by Jan Andersson (H-0062/98)
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Subject: Tax-free sales
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The Council has decided that tax-free sales should end in 1999.
When this decision was taken, a commitment was given to carry out an analysis of the impact on employment.
However, no analysis has been forthcoming.
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Does the Council intend to ensure that the promised impact analysis is carried out before the decision ending tax-free sales enters into force?Question No 18 by Pat Gallagher (H-0157/98)
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Subject: Job losses because of indirect tax increases
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Representatives of those employed in the duty- and tax-free industry claim that a considerable number of jobs, up to 140 000, are at risk should the planned abolition of this trade proceed as is currently planned, and stressed their concerns to MEPs during a demonstration in Brussels in December of last year.
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As the Commission continues to question the validity of these claims, and at a time when unemployment is a priority throughout the European Union, would the Council confirm what steps it is taking to quantify the number of jobs at risk and to evaluate possible remedial measures?
<SPEAKER ID=240 NAME="Henderson">
As the honourable Members will know, when the Council adopted directives abolishing fiscal frontiers from 1 January 1993, it decided to put an end to tax and duty-free sales for intra-European Community passengers because retaining such sales would be inconsistent with an internal market without frontiers.
Knowing this decision would require major changes in the sectors concerned, Council provided for a lengthy adjustment period from 1 January 1993 to 30 June 1999 during which tax and duty-free sales for intra-EC travellers could be retained.
The Council currently has no plans to revisit its decision.
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The effect on jobs of ending intra-European Community duty-free is hard to estimate accurately and depends in part on the nature of the successive regime.
Some estimates probably overstate the effect.
Whatever the successive regime's nature, operators will still be able to make sales on a duty and tax paid basis.
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<SPEAKER ID=241 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wibe">
I would like to thank Mr Henderson for his answer.
It is quite correct that the abolition of duty-free sales is a step towards the creation of the single market, but the single market is being created to provide economic benefits.
Whatever we say, it is still the case that the question of the existence of duty-free sales has extremely little to do with economic benefits.
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If we abolish duty-free sales, to begin with we would incur costs in the form of 50 000 to 100 000 lost jobs.
Secondly, a number of ferry lines would be closed, including one which runs between Finland and Sweden and affects my home community, and which in turn has repercussions for tourism in both countries.
On the positive side we have some abstract economic gains which perhaps amount to a hundredth or a thousandth of a per cent of the gross domestic product.
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I would like to ask Mr Henderson the following: Is it really worth it for the sake of this small gain to see so many people made unemployed, and to anger a large proportion of the Union's population?
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<SPEAKER ID=242 NAME="Henderson">
I thank Mr Wibe for his question but he is not really introducing any new information.
These matters were discussed thoroughly in the early 1990s when the debate took place.
I cannot really add more to the debate than I remember hearing at the time and which no doubt the honourable gentleman heard at the time.
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<SPEAKER ID=243 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Andersson">
Thank you Mr President-in-Office.
Since it is the case that different countries in the EU have different duties on alcohol, tobacco and perfumes, I wonder whether you could tell me where the duty should be paid when a vessel travels between two or three countries.
Should it be paid in the country which has the highest duty or in the country which has the lowest duty?
Or could people even buy goods in a third country in the EU and pay the duty in the country which has the lowest duty?
It that is the case, is there not then a risk of tax dumping, and is it in that case a desirable development?
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I listened to John Prescott yesterday.
He said that as an ex-seaman he was concerned about the consequences of abolishing dutyfree sales.
On that basis I would like to put the following question: would it not be reasonable to investigate the consequences in the area of employment and in the area of taxes, so that we really know what will happen before the decision comes into effect?
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<SPEAKER ID=244 NAME="Henderson">
Mr Andersson, like Mr Wibe, is asking me to revisit the issues that were all very well aired when these matters were first discussed in the early 1990s.
There is no intention, currently, on the part of the Council to reopen these matters.
<P>
Regarding the question of taxation, yes, there are, as the honourable Member will know, different levels of consumption taxes in different countries within the European Union.
The answer, in theoretical terms, is that the tax which was appropriate would be paid on the purchase of the product.
There will no doubt be books and more books of Treasury and commercial law on those definitions.
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<SPEAKER ID=245 NAME="Gallagher">
At the outset I should like to say that I am extremely disappointed at the response of the President-in-Office who continues to say that this will not be revisited.
I believe a new Presidency coming into office - a new government - should at least look at this.
He referred to the major changes, the long derogation period because of the changes.
He must also remember that there were commitments given over the years that a study would be carried out.
It is rather alarming that the President-inOffice is not in a position to give us a clear view of the effects that this might have.
It does not surprise me.
I do not think any politician or any President-in-Office will be able to do that without a study.
We have been given that commitment and we have a duty towards the European citizens to give them that study.
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But it is now becoming patently clear that considerable difficulties will arise should the abolition of duty-free sales within the EU proceed as planned in mid-1999.
The rules for applying and collecting VAT, excise duties on products sold and consumed, duty and tax paid on board the few remaining ferries in existence on intra-EU routes - that he referred to - are unclear.
New arrangements are required.
Let the President-in-Office tell us what arrangements are required and will be made in view of these changes.
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<SPEAKER ID=246 NAME="Henderson">
I understand how strongly Members feel about this issue.
But on a technical level, the way in which the regulation will be introduced - the notification of which has already been given to Member States - it would be possible to find out the details from them rather than from me.
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The Presidency has no intention to revisit this issue.
There have been a number of new governments elected throughout the whole of the European Union in recent months.
It would be open to any of those new governments to raise the issue at the Council of Ministers.
It would then be a matter for the Council as to what kind of response would be given.
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<SPEAKER ID=247 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
Duty-free income is of major importance for ferry traffic between Sweden and Finland in the Baltic.
North of the Stockholm area - you could say that Stockholm is in southern Sweden - there is only one scheduled ferry link.
That goes between the beautiful city of Umeå in Sweden and Vasa in Finland.
It is most uncertain whether this ferry traffic will survive a removal of duty-free sales.
That would mean that the heavy lorry traffic which takes this route would have to travel hundreds of kilometres extra with great economic and environmental costs for this area in northern Sweden and Finland.
In addition, old historic ties between these areas would be broken.
Furthermore, interregional aid is being received for cooperation between these areas in Sweden and Finland.
<P>
My question is this: does the Council have any objection to the Swedish and Finnish governments intervening and providing direct state aid to maintain this traffic if it cannot survive when duty-free sales are abolished?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=248 NAME="Henderson">
I can say to the honourable Member that it would be a matter for the operators to decide whether or not they felt that a subsidy was necessary.
It would then be a matter for the Finnish and Swedish governments to decide if a subsidy should be given to them, and it would then be for the Commission to decide whether or not the subsidy was in accordance with the rules of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Carlsson">
This is really funny.
Back home in Sweden the Social Democrats love to raise taxes both on work and alcohol.
I am therefore a little surprised by the argument which we are listening to here.
I would just like to tell the Council to stand firm.
There should not be tax advantages for certain sectors. Instead, we must have competition on equal terms.
It should not be the case that Europe should try to create new jobs through people getting drunk on a load of ferries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 NAME="Henderson">
I have interpreted that as a comment rather than a question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=251 NAME="Cassidy">
I wish to congratulate the President-in-Office on the brevity with which he answers questions.
If only colleagues were as brief in asking their questions.
My question is brief.
<P>
He will be aware of the status of the President-in-Office.
Indeed he has used the very words Gordon Brown used when he attended the Economic Committee: ' no plans to revisit this issue' , he said, and I hope that the Presidency will long stick to that.
<P>
My question, however, relates to the statement yesterday by Mr Prescott, also President-in-Office of the Council, that he is concerned about duty free and the consequential effects of its abolition.
Who is speaking for the United Kingdom Presidency, Mr Prescott, the President-in-Office present today or the President-in-Office of the Economic and Finance Ministers?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 NAME="Henderson">
I am not sure that brief answers will help me in future if it means I get these kinds of questions.
I am speaking for the Presidency today, and on any occasion where there is an official event the responsible minister speaks for the British Presidency.
The British Presidency's position is determined by the British government through its relationship with other European partners at all levels.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Our colleague, Mr Sjöstedt, mentioned one of the most threatened ferry lines and spoke of the beautiful city of Umeå. I hope that you think the city of Vasa is equally beautiful.
<P>
I would like to ask the Council if it is true that in the Commission there is a list of the most threatened ferry lines.
Has there been a discussion about whether the Council could take up these issues?
In addition, I would like to ask the President-in-Office what attitude the Presidency has towards contributing to an extension if other countries raise this issue in Ecofin?
For example, the Irish government has expressed a desire to take such an initiative.
I hope that you take into account that the situation has changed compared with the situation in 1991, particularly as far as unemployment is concerned, which is something Mr Wibe also raised.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=254 NAME="Henderson">
I can say to Mrs Thors that I am not aware of any list but we have a transparent Presidency and if there is a list I will be happy to see it.
We are always happy to discuss any issue that any responsible Member wishes to raise.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=255 NAME="Corbett">
In view of what the President said earlier, I must declare an interest, in that I had dinner with the President-inOffice last night.
I hope that will mean I get an even more detailed answer.
<P>
The President-in-Office mentioned that the decision was taken some years ago leaving operators six or seven years to phase out duty-free.
Does he therefore not agree that it is highly irresponsible of the tobacco and alcohol industries to be lobbying the way they have and spending millions to try to have this decision reversed?
They are also trying to whip up consumers to take part in their campaign.
<P>
Does he agree that if governments have money to spare they should not use it as a tax break for the alcohol and tobacco industries, especially a ludicrous tax break which is only available to frequent international travellers, such as myself, who benefit disproportionately?
Does he not agree that would be a total misuse of public funds?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=256 NAME="Henderson">
The clear conclusion for me is to take people for dinner after they have asked the question and not before.
I have to say to the honourable Member that, like colleagues who raised matters at the beginning of this discussion - albeit from a different viewpoint - he is revisiting issues which were discussed in the early 1990s.
The Council has no further comments to make at this time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=257 NAME="Watts">
I will try to be helpful to the President-in-Office by providing him with some arguments as to why this matter should be revisited.
Firstly, excise duties have not been harmonized as promised.
Secondly, independent studies are now showing that thousands of jobs will be lost throughout the Community.
Thirdly, unemployment is now our top priority; it was not back in 1991.
Although I accept that he cannot change the Council's position tonight, but could he not tonight agree to find space on a Council agenda to allow an opportunity for our Irish friends to put this issue to the Council with that fresh information so that it can be reviewed in the light of that information?
<P>
If abolition goes ahead, what advice would he give to the ferry companies operating in my constituency between Dover and Calais?
What tax rates do they apply?
French rates, British rates or international rates?
The Council has yet to really think about the post-1999 situation.
I invite the President-in-Office to do that if he can.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=258 NAME="Henderson">
There were a number of issues raised by the honourable Member, most of which were returning to the debates, which took place in the early 1990s and have been covered in the past by the Presidency, and positions adopted.
<P>
As far as I am aware, there was no link in the decision between the change in the regulations on duty-free and any consideration of taxation.
They are two separate issues with no link.
So I do not think that argument can be put.
That is not to say that the issue of different levels of taxation should not be examined as an issue worthy of some consideration - but not linked to this particular issue.
Different Member States within the European Union will have different views on those taxation questions.
<P>
It would be open to any government within the European Union to raise the issue in Ecofin or at the General Affairs Council if they were so minded.
It would be up to the other Members of whichever Council it was to make whatever response was appropriate at that time and in the circumstances of how the issue was being raised.
But unless that happens, I can say that the Presidency has no intention of reopening this issue which we believe was settled.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=259 NAME="Macartney">
Mr President, this is something which cannot wait.
I have been invited to Aberdeen Airport next Monday and I wondered whether the President-in-Office could give me advice as to what to say to the people there, or would he like to accompany me to explain to them what is going to happen to their fare structure and to the jobs they fear they will lose?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=260 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I would request you that private invitations be made outside the Hemicycle, otherwise it wastes time.
We have only four minutes left, and I hope we can deal with one more question without the President-in-Office missing his plane.
<P>
Question No 19 by Ulla Sandbæk (H-0030/98)
<P>
Subject: Environmental quality of EU overseas aid
<P>
What plans has the UK Presidency of the Development Council to address the need to improve the environmental quality of EU overseas aid, particularly for projects in sectors such as energy, mining, transport and the private sector?
What means would it propose to achieve this improved environmental quality, in the light of the existing fundamental lack of capacity within the Commission?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=261 NAME="Henderson">
The Presidency considers that environmental protection is an integral part of the development process.
Lasting elimination of poverty requires environmentally sustainable solutions.
Poor people are most reliant on natural resources and most vulnerable to environmental degradation and mismanagement.
If natural resources are not managed sustainably, continued economic growth will not be possible.
<P>
We need to help developing countries integrate environmental concerns into their decision-making.
In particular we will support their efforts to prepare plans and policies for sound management of their natural resources and national strategies for sustainable development.
<P>
The intermediate targets for sustainable development, based on United Nations conventions and resolutions, anticipate the implementation of these national strategies in all countries by the year 2005 so as to ensure that current trends in the loss of environmental resources are effectively reversed at both global and national levels by the year 2015.
<P>
Relevant action planned under the Presidency of the European Union will include endeavouring to secure commitments from the Commission and Member States to promote national strategies for sustainable development in developing countries and to adopt measurable targets, especially in sustainable development and poverty reduction, and to help increase the effectiveness of these funds.
<P>
A Council regulation was recently adopted on environmental measures in developing countries in the context of sustainable development, along with a resolution on environmental assessment in development cooperation.
This provides for the mainstreaming of environmental concerns in project and programme preparation, as well as at the strategy and policy levels.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=262 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
In that case, I would like to repeat the last part of my question: ' What means would it propose to achieve this improved environmental quality, in light of the existing fundamental lack of capacity within the Commission?'
After all, it is not we who cannot agree whether the programmes should be designed like this so that the environment forms an integral part of them - along with many other fine ideas.
But I do not think that I was given any actual indication at all of how to remedy the situation, given the Commission's lack of capacity at present.
In a nutshell, how can we ensure that priority will be given to integrating the environment in implementing the EU's overseas aid programmes and, in view of this, will there be incentives which will be sufficiently effective to ensure that integration also takes place in practice?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=263 NAME="Henderson">
I thank the honourable Member for her question, but I can only refer her to my previous answer which is that there are a number of different ways in which improvement can be brought about.
<P>
The Commission has an important role in identifying how they can monitor schemes where there is an environmental aspect to them, and how they can ensure that the best environmental practice is involved.
<P>
All of us have an opportunity, when we begin to renegotiate the Lomé mandate, to include a consideration of the important matters which she raises.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=264 NAME="President">
Since the time allocated to questions to the Council has now expired, Questions Nos 20 to 59 will be dealt with in writing.
<P>
That concludes Question Time.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 7.00 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Air transport liberalization
<SPEAKER ID=265 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0015/98) by Mr Seal, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the impact of the third package of air transport liberalization measures (COM(96)0514 - C4-0602/96).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=266 NAME="Seal">
Mr President, as rapporteur for this report, I have to say that it is a disappointing report; not in the way it is written - because that is very good - but because as rapporteur I cannot examine the success or failure of air transport liberalization fully without examining the social consequences.
The Commission promised to publish results of a study they commissioned last October.
I understand it has just been issued this week.
So I ask the House to review the results of this report, to review the apparent results of liberalization, bearing in mind that the social effects of that liberalization have still to be taken into account.
<P>
The rest of liberalization in the air transport industry is a bit like the curate's egg: it is good in parts.
We have some cheaper fares, but we have also some increased fares.
We have some increased competition; we have some new airlines coming forward; but we have a decline in safety and we have some frightening alliances on the horizon.
<P>
If we look at cheaper fares, then several no-frills airlines are offering cheaper fares such as Easyjet, Debonair, Virgin Express.
Even British Airways has set up a separate company to offer such no-frills deals.
These, however, are mostly based around the United Kingdom.
We need to extend some of these companies to the rest of the European Union.
I wish them luck and I commend what they are offering.
However, these lower fares must not be at the expense of cutting safety or worsening working conditions.
That is why we need to examine the social effects of liberalization.
<P>
Even with the larger airlines, business fares have dropped on routes where there is competition.
But when you look at these fares, even though they have dropped, they are still too high.
There is still an unbelievable complexity of fares.
We have got PEX, superPEX, Euro-fares, economy, full economy, business class, and so it goes on.
Buying an airline ticket should be simple; it should be straightforward.
It is not.
Passengers should be able easily to find information on the various service provided for different fares.
They cannot.
Even though we have got air traffic increasing globally by 7.9 % a year, most people flying are having more difficulty getting the right fares.
<P>
Safety must be assured.
If we look at some of the examples: British Airways removed safety doors from some of its planes to put in more seats.
This was not a good move in terms of safety and it was a disastrous move for them as far as PR is concerned.
We have a situation now where pilots are flying longer and longer hours.
Some of them are flying 17 hours in a day.
That must affect safety.
Cabin crews are working longer hours for less money and that must compromise safety.
This is the unacceptable face of liberalization.
<P>
Liberalization does have its merits but it is not defect-free.
We need controlled liberalization.
By that, I mean we need to put in place preventive measures to avoid the cut-throat competition that would lead to monopolies the way it did in the United States and in Australia.
Their services, consequently, deteriorated.
We need a balanced liberalization that will benefit passengers, shareholders and workers in the industry.
We need to encourage new entrants and to ensure they are not wiped out by the larger companies before they can get going.
To do that we need to solve the slot problem - the problems at airports which they have too much traffic.
This is the subject of a separate report that has come into this House, but it needs solving if liberalization is to continue.
<P>
We need to ensure that the newly emerging airlines and the ones that are offering the reduced fares can get slots so that they can continue and can also fly between some of the regional airports.
We also need to look at the alliances that are proposed and in place between the US and European carriers.
We need to ensure that these alliances do not destroy our European airlines.
Global arrangements must allow the European airlines to compete and passengers to enjoy the benefits of this competition, but not at the expense of their workforces.
<P>
Liberalization has not been as effective as promised.
But the slower, controlled approach is desirable and must extend to all parts of the European Union.
If it is to continue, we need to solve the slot allocation problems and to protect new entrants.
But we cannot - and I, as rapporteur, cannot - assess the impact of the third liberalization package until we know the social consequences of this stage of liberalization.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=267 NAME="Jarzembowski">
<SPEAKER ID=268 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sindal">
<SPEAKER ID=269 NAME="McIntosh">
Mr President, we welcome this opportunity to discuss the impact of the third package of our transport liberalization measures and, in particular, I wish to thank Mr Seal for the work he has done on this communication.
<P>
I accept that some progress has been made but I would point out to the Commissioner that there is still no level playing field and the market remains distorted.
The British Presidency of the Transport Council talks of a people's Europe.
So perhaps within this people's Europe we could see a stop to state aids now to ensure that there is a level playing field and fair competition between the carriers.
<P>
In their reports both Mr Seal and Mr Sindal have referred to the problems of slots, and it is recognized that generally the overall capacity of slots both in the air and at airports is a problem.
I would make a plea to the Commissioner tonight on the question of new entrants.
While I personally accept the priority should be to encourage new airlines on existing routes, I would argue that where there is no new airline which wishes to compete, an existing airline should be allowed to operate a new route.
Perhaps the Commissioner could consider that in the context of his slot-allocation proposals.
<P>
As the Member representing Stansted Airport in North Essex and South Suffolk, I particularly welcome the new entrant, the British Airways carrier which is to be called 'Go' , to operate from Stansted Airport.
We are not sure yet where it is going but I am sure it is going to mean greater choice, lower fares and be the airline that we all welcome.
<P>
All of us would like to see a people's Europe and true liberalization in air transport and I hope that both this Commissioner and the British Presidency will complete the single market by June, giving a greater choice of routes and carriers and lower fares for travellers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=270 NAME="Crowley">
Mr President, I would like to welcome the Commissioner and to thank the rapporteur for his report.
I wish also to state that I speak this evening on behalf of Mr Niall Andrews who wanted to speak on this subject but had to return to Dublin unexpectedly.
<P>
The free movement of labour is one of the basic tenets on which the European Union relies and it is therefore up to us, the elected representatives of the European Union, to ensure that all our citizens have assess to affordable and speedy transport between the Member States of the Union.
Airport charges play a pivotal role in allowing airlines the financial scope to offer customers low cost travel.
The issue is one of particular importance to Ireland, as it is the only island state in the Union and relies heavily on the availability of low cost airfares.
<P>
Through the air transport liberalization programme the European Union has taken steps to create the climate necessary for airlines to offer competitively priced airfares to the citizens of Europe.
The air transport liberalization programme, which culminated in full liberalization of the market in 1997, has undoubtedly brought many benefits to consumers both in terms of access and cost.
However, a commercially successful Irish airline competing in the European market, Ryanair, is currently engaged in a protracted trade dispute with its employees arising from the company's refusal to recognize or negotiate with the trade union chosen by some of the employees to represent them or to cooperate with the national industrial conciliation procedures which have been established to resolve such disputes.
<P>
Ryanair, whose owners and senior managers had been very substantial financial beneficiaries of air transport liberalization, must immediately enter into dialogue with these employees who seek to be represented by a trade union of their choice and to utilize the resources of the national procedures that exist.
I am concerned that this employer's behaviour may be symptomatic of a wider problem whereby the rights of vulnerable groups of employees are being abused in the aftermath of market liberalization and in the absence of adequate corresponding enforceable social protection.
Could I call on the Commission to conclude and publish as a matter of urgency its promised assessment of the social impact of liberalization of the air transport sector, including the right to free negotiation, free association and collective bargaining.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=271 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, it is a pity that the rapporteur has sung his own praises because otherwise I would have done so and coming from me that would have been even more exceptional.
However, I have to say that his report is excellent, even if in his contribution tonight he possibly concentrates a bit too much on the social consequences given that aircraft crews and pilots are among the best paid workers in the world.
<P>
Mr President, I would like to draw the Commissioner's attention to a few things which to my mind require some improvements in this sector.
Firstly, there is the issue of state aid.
I recall the discussion Mr Kinnock had with us in the Committee on Transport and Tourism when he took office, and in which he promised emphatically - I would almost say, with his hand on his heart - to put an end to state aid.
Well, Mr President, state support is still continuing, and I want to state this emphatically, unfair competition in particular is perpetrated by companies such as Iberia, which allows its subsidiary Viva Air to work below cost price, and in doing so makes the market situation almost impossible for all sorts of other commercially operating companies and companies operating without government support.
<P>
It should also be said that Air France, time and time again, cannot resist making life very difficult for new entrants onto the market in France.
But on that, at least, the Commission took some action.
<P>
Secondly - and I here I would like to ask the attention of the Commissioner's staff, who are excellent, incidentally, because I would like a reply to my question if not during the next few days, then in writing if necessary - I am being told that in Italy the use of the seventh freedom, - I am not talking about cabotage, that is going reasonably well - the transport of a Community company to a third country, is alleged to be impossible. This is because the Italians are demanding that this should only be an option when a company is established formally and legally in Italy, and not only has a company there, but also permanent equipment, in other words, aircraft and staff.
This contravenes what is being requested in the seventh freedom.
If we have to meet these kinds of conditions, we would rather grant the transport to companies from third countries, such as Egypt and Senegal, for instance.
<P>
Mr President, I would like to raise a last point, and this concerns airports.
I believe that if in Europe we are going to have competition in the aviation sector under the kind of circumstances we have at the moment, and in particular the environmental circumstances, where there are no common standards on noise levels on and around airports; companies start to compete with each other at the expense of the people because certain airports can take on extra passengers, because they ignore environmental and noise standards, while others do not.
I would also like see to some harmonization in this area in Europe.
<P>
Mr President, I have one final point.
I would ask the Commission to pay more attention in its competition policy to networks rather than to specific lines.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=272 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Moreau">
<SPEAKER ID=273 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dijk">
Mr President, we would like to place the environmental considerations at the heart of the European Union's decision-making process.
Integrating environmental issues into all policy areas of the European Union will be a major task, but one that we have to face.
We believe we can deliver a more sustainable transport policy, and we are all agreed that it is essential to cut CO2 emissions from transport, which are growing faster than in any other sector.
This is of course the Green group droning on about the environment again, is it not?
<P>
The Committee on Transport and Tourism is quite happy to integrate the environment into transport policy, as is rapporteur Seal.
But let me tell you, Mr Seal, that I did not make up my first four lines: they were spoken yesterday by your fellow party member Mr Prescott, who was here as President-in-Office of the Council, and he mentioned transport and the environment as the most important environmental issue of the British Presidency.
But you, on the other hand, Mr Seal, do not manage to mention the word environment even once in your report.
You, who blame the Commission for devoting a mere nine lines to employment, seem to have quite a blind spot when it comes to the environment.
And let no one claim that air transport liberalization and increase in pollution from aeroplanes are not related.
<P>
Competition has made flying cheaper, and Mr Seal points this out in his explanatory statement.
That is nice for travellers, but bad news for the descendants of the travellers, because cheap tickets lead to more passenger kilometres and that leads to more pollution.
<P>
The resolution predicts an annual increase in air traffic of 6 or 7 %.
If we assume optimistically that half of this growth can be absorbed by technological progress, then we are still left with an increase in CO2 emissions from aeroplanes of at least 3 % a year.
Did we not agree in Kyoto that CO2 emissions should come down, and that aviation should do its bit towards this?
Clearly this all remained in Japanese to Mr Seal and my colleagues on the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
I would like the Commission to tell us whether it has proposals to reduce CO2 emissions from aviation.
And, by the way, how are the studies on kerosene tax and other levies progressing?
Are environmental agreements part of the additional measures which, according to page 22 of the Commission's statement, are missing in the present aviation agreements between the Member States and the US?
Will the Commission ask the Council for a mandate to negotiate with the US not only about open skys, but also about cleaner skies?
I would also like to know if the subject of aviation and the environment is on the agenda of the next two Environment and Transport Councils.
If not, then I will have to conclude that although we may be trying the tame the car, the aeroplane has become Europe's holy cow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=274 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, on 1 April 1997, liberalization of the internal market for civil aviation was completed - at least on paper.
This occurred without as much as a whimper, so that the Dutch press spoke of a 'whispered Big Bang'.
No cutting competition broke out between the big carriers, and ticket prices did not drop dramatically.
Still, the structure of the aviation market in Europe has altered fundamentally over the past ten years.
In the European Union market the large airlines are regrouping.
A number of associations have grown modestly, and the market has become more dynamic.
This is evident from the emergence of low-budget companies, amongst other things.
Tickets on routes where there is competition have now also become cheaper.
<P>
The fact that liberalization passed off peacefully is also the result of the spectacular growth aviation has sadly undergone over the past few years.
This meant that there were no large scale job losses, despite a constant drive for more efficiency.
<P>
The Commission's report deals primarily with efficiency and competition in aviation.
The Commission rightly states that substantial savings can be made in groundhandling and air traffic control.
But I believe that in future fair competition between different modes of transports must be looked at.
Compared to passenger transport by rail or bus, aviation is still subsidized in disguise through duty-free sales and cheap kerosene.
I think it is right that duty-free sales are soon to be abolished for flights within the European Union, but more efforts are needed as regards fair competition between different means of transport modes.
That is why the introduction of a tax on kerosene within the Union is urgently required.
Tax-free kerosene in an internal market, with apologies to the interpreters, is truly "swan mad' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=275 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldarelli">
Mr President, Commissioner, I too would like to thank the rapporteur for his work.
I believe that the report enables us to give a sound opinion on liberalization and to deal with the relevant subjects specifically.
<P>
I would like to point out several aspects I believe to be important.
It was said that numerous companies have entered the market, remaining there without being competitive.
In actual fact, many have not survived.
Although, from an economic point of view, this may be considered negative, from the point of view of security it may be considered positive. Liberalization has not completely shattered the security and social guarantee mechanisms.
<P>
However, there are contradictions and problems, particularly as regards working hours, the relocation of companies - which can have a negative effect on human resources from third countries -, and the management of services with agencies outside the EU which we naturally have to monitor carefully.
<P>
In effect, the system has had positive results.
I am convinced that we should take into account the reorganization process begun by the national companies.
This reorganization process has been favourable and has made it possible to face the competition specifically, even leading some to highly innovative ideas, such as the company Alitalia, whose operators and workers are personally committed to the company management and also take part in company activities.
These are highly important and significant aspects.
State aid has made this reorganization process possible. I believe that proper aid has been provided and that they now possess a market opening and the ability to withstand the competition.
<P>
However, I would like to deal with another aspect that needs to be highlighted.
In some ways, competition has been more focused on the ground services and airport services than on the specific system of airline liberalization.
It has to be admitted that we still have major problems as regards the airlines: I am not convinced we need to continue in the same way, for example in relations with the USA.
The open sky treaties should continue far more specifically because we need to extend the reorganization of the European airlines to the global market, to include therefore the competition within the American market, which we are prevented from doing at the moment.
I believe that provides a strong limitation to the mechanisms of international competition.
<P>
That is why the liberalization of the open sky systems and the ability to liberalize air space are important.
We are faced with an air space that is strongly conditioned by the military systems, even today.
Unfortunately, nowadays, we are still talking of war and the obstacles it might establish - I am referring to Iraq, of course.
We will still have a complete violation of air space available.
This is a dramatic point.
It would be advisable for air space for the civilian system to be increasingly more available.
<P>
The aspect of air traffic control has also been pointed out.
We cannot go on like this any longer!
It is possible to make marked savings and establish strong coordination in the control sector.
<P>
To conclude, Commissioner, I am in favour of the measures and I believe that the next action relating to airport duties will provide us with further capacity to face the market and to support the social mechanisms providing guarantees for workers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=276 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Stenmarck">
Mr President, the liberalization of the aviation industry has been taking place for decades.
It is a positive and necessary development to satisfy the desire of a growing number of passengers.
In the assessment now being made, the Commission does not see any dramatic changes in the development after liberalization.
That means that the large airlines still remain and that foreign competitors have not ousted domestic operators to any large degree; nor have there been any dramatic price reductions.
<P>
Clearly, if that is what we want to bring about through liberalization, we can say we have succeeded.
But if prices have not been reduced and accessibility for passengers has not increased, I am drawn to the conclusion that liberalization needs to be taken further.
There is a need for more competition and more operators in the European air transport market, not fewer.
Today there are far too few airlines dominating far too many routes, and these airlines are constantly entering into increasingly sophisticated cooperation agreements.
In practice, this continues to disable competition in the air transport market.
<P>
I am convinced that the necessary development has only just begun.
Satisfying the passengers' demands calls for increased accessibility and lower prices.
We need to open up to competition and create the conditions for substantially more players than there are today in this sector.
Together this will enable the development which will allow us to satisfy passengers' demands by the year 2000.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=277 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
Mr President, unlike Mr Stenmarck, I do not have the same faith in the possibilities of liberalization with regard to airlines and air transport.
I think there is considerable over-confidence in what can be achieved through deregulation of air transport.
<P>
Swedish domestic air services have been open to competition for a number of years, and this initially led to much price competition.
However, today we have a quite different situation.
There are sometimes two airlines on the most attractive routes, but these usually compete with the same timetables, the same prices and roughly the same service too.
On the less attractive routes, however, there are higher prices and poorer services, and this strengthens the regional differences which were already considerable.
Unfortunately, this is all happening in a country which is highly dependent on domestic air transport since there are often no alternatives.
<P>
I also think it is important to ensure that an increase in air transport is not a goal in itself.
It is in fact environmentally unsustainable to maintain the rate of growth which we have today.
<P>
I have proposed a special amendment, Amendment No 3, which is based on the idea that competition must take place through socially acceptable methods.
I have made particular reference to the Irish airline Ryanair, which has distinguished itself through its anti-union policies.
The airline refuses to enter into agreements with unions, and this has led to a conflict which is currently taking place with baggage handlers at Dublin airport.
The airline has refused to cooperate with the Irish Labour Court.
I think it is quite unacceptable to employ such methods in competition between airlines.
We must show that we do not accept anti-union attitudes or social dumping as a means of competition.
It would be interesting to hear whether the Commissioner has any views on Ryanair's behaviour.
<P>
Against this background I would like to say I support the GUE/NGL group's amendment as well as that of the Green group.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=278 NAME="Banotti">
Mr President, this obviously is not Ryanair's evening.
I would also like to draw attention to the regrettable situation that has developed there.
Mr Seal's report highly recommends many of the positive aspects of the aviation industry in recent years.
Among the blessed, he mentions Ryanair, now the most profitable airline in Europe, more profitable as a percentage of turnover than the giant BA.
<P>
As several previous speakers have mentioned, they have been locked in dispute on what many of us would regard as one of the basic human rights, that of the workers to join a trade union and be represented by a trade union.
These workers were willing to work for considerably below the going rate when the airline started, recognising that the company could not afford the higher wages at the time.
This is an airline that has made £IRL 35 million profit in the last year.
Their chief executive recently earned a personal bonus of £IRL 17 million.
Another company much smaller, much bigger are paying considerably higher wages than Ryanair.
Let us not hand out kudos to a company whose industrial relations practices are unjust and whose profits are built on the generosity of their employees.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=279 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
This has been a very interesting debate.
I should like, first of all, to thank the rapporteur, Mr Seal, for his account of the evolution of aviation liberalization in the European Union.
Producing a fair assessment of a new and ongoing process is always likely to be a testing experience.
I compliment him on the approach that he has taken.
<P>
As the House will know, civil aviation liberalization in the Union has been an intentionally progressive process, partly in order to take account of the conditions from which it started in the mid-1980s, and partly to avoid disruptions and losses of the kind which liberalization produced in the United States of America.
In other words, it has been and is what Mr Seal is seeking: a balanced liberalization that has taken some pains to try to ensure that the interests of all legitimate concerns are taken into account.
<P>
It is inevitable that while some of the main effects of liberalization were identified in our 1996 communication, others have only become clearly apparent since, as airlines have increasingly taken advantage of the possibilities offered.
As we acknowledged in 1996, much remained to be done to ensure that the potential created by liberalization was fulfilled and fair competition conditions were achieved.
That is certainly true of state aid.
As the House will know, in the Commission's view, aid to airlines from Member State governments can only be justified, and must only be authorized, as an integral part of a consistent and timelimited programme to restore the financial viability and competitiveness of the recipient companies.
<P>
I am certain that this approach has directly contributed to making the restructuring programmes credible and successful.
I noticed Iberia's results in The Financial Times this morning and took some satisfaction from that.
Our careful monitoring of the implementation of restructuring plans and the way in which they comply with the conditions laid down shows the productive results that are being achieved.
It was on that basis that we were able to authorize final payment by the French and Portuguese governments to Air France and to TAP.
Regrettably, it is also on that basis that we had to conclude that Olympic Airways was not complying with the essential conditions set out at the time of the agreement with the Greek Government in 1994.
We consequently had to reopen the procedure on that case.
<P>
In recent weeks we also had to take a very strict attitude towards the Italian Government and Alitalia who were in breach of basic conditions that were included in the Commission's state aid decision of last July.
I am glad to say that we received a swift and effective response from the Italian Cabinet and, within a few days, further and binding undertakings were given which resolved the issues.
<P>
On the other issues that I have listened to, in the claims made during the course of the debate, and relating to state aid in competitive conditions, I must say that if honourable Members have evidence upon which complaints can authoritatively be made, they are doing the complainants no service if they do not encourage them to make the appropriate complaint to the European Commission.
I can say this: we respond with speed to all substantive complaints.
The recent experience in the case of Alitalia is a further demonstration of that.
If Members believe, therefore, that they have heard of complaints that have not been notified to us, they should say so; not to us, but to those who have voiced concerns to them.
<P>
On the issue of globalization, we are now turning our efforts to ensuring that the consolidation of the market does not produce adverse and counterproductive effects.
The rapporteur identifies the multiplication of mergers as being part of the globalization trend.
It is worth noting, however, that because of the restrictive clauses on ownership and control in most existing bilateral agreements, mergers are practically impossible, and that is why we are witnessing a proliferation of airline alliances instead.
<P>
The diversity and the disparity of regulatory regimes clearly inhibits the effective operation of the market and that, of course, is a major reason for the Commission's efforts to gain a negotiating mandate on market-access agreements with third countries, particularly the United States of America.
It is obvious that if the Community does not take the opportunity to negotiate a comprehensive air-service agreement with the USA, United States Airlines will, by design or default, be disproportionate beneficiaries of our single market, of our liberalization, when our airlines have no effective comparable rights of access and operation to the United States' single market.
I hope, therefore, that Member States of every kind will heed the reality and respond with alacrity to the challenge so that we can get on as a Community with negotiating a fair and balanced open-skies agreement across the Atlantic and on both sides of it.
It would be extremely alarming if, by the cumulative effect of current bilateral agreements and future bilateral agreements, United States Airlines were effectively able to operate at will in our single market when there was absolutely no reciprocation to speak of in the United States' single market.
<P>
Meanwhile, as the House will know, we opened investigations into three existing transatlantic airline alliances and into one proposed alliance in 1996.
Far from having adopted a dilatory attitude, as the rapporteur appeared to suggest in his report, the Commission has been very vigilant about the developments in a market which, by becoming global, could, in turn, create fresh constraints on the full benefits of liberalization.
Recognition of that has, for instance, prompted the Commission to take initiatives on air-traffic management - which was mentioned by some honourable Members -, on groundhandling services - mentioned by other honourable Members - and on airport challenges - again referred to by some contributors to the debate.
Our proposal for the revision of the current airport slots regulation will become public within the next few months.
<P>
Mr Seal is right to point out that our communication did not devote much space to the social aspects of liberalization.
Although it would also be true to say that the Commission has in other respects been particularly attentive to the social impact of liberalization measures.
The House is aware - and there were references to this - that we commissioned a study to address this issue.
And since we received the results of that study within the last week, I can firmly express the hope that the final report will be available to this Parliament and to the general public in April.
<P>
It is already clear, of course, that civil aviation has been the only transport mode in which employment increased between 1990 and 1995, and although the total growth was modest - about 0.4 % per annum over the period - it is worth noting that was achieved despite general economic recession and despite extensive airline restructuring, which has, in some cases, caused what turns out to be a temporary reduction in staff.
The increased effectiveness and competitiveness of airlines has the effect, of course, of again stimulating demand for employment - and that is good news for everybody.
<P>
As the House might anticipate, I totally agree with Mr Seal's view that liberalization should not, indeed must not, be achieved at the expense of safety, and we will therefore continue to be active and vigilant on safety issues, not only at Community level but globally.
To give practical evidence of that: we have in recent months proposed a directive to establish safety assessment of thirdcountry aircraft operating in the European Union, and we have published our proposal for the establishment of a European civil aviation safety agency.
In addition, outside the Community the Commission makes sustained efforts to secure and to maintain the effective implementation of ICAO standards.
Meanwhile we are also addressing environmental aviation issues, which were referred to by some of the contributors to the debate, through the communication on carbon dioxide emissions and transport which we shall be publishing in the spring and, in addition, more specifically in our study on the implication of the impositions of a kerosene tax for civil aviation and the environment.
The House may know that we have for the first time joint environment and transport councils convened under the United Kingdom Presidency - one informal, one formal - and we look forward to very positive results for transport and environment from those initiatives.
<P>
As far as the protection of consumers is concerned, the Commission has recently presented a proposal concerning denied-boarding compensation, whilst the current code of conduct on computerized reservation systems, as well as the amendments proposed to it, already provides for the operator of a flight to be clearly identified and for the passenger to be properly informed.
We have had some passenger complaints on this issue and I hope that honourable Members, as frequent flyers themselves, and as users of liberalized air services, will take pains to ensure that if they experience difficulties in this respect, they communicate those difficulties both to the airlines concerned and send a copy to me.
I would be pleased to have such information from the front line.
I will certainly act upon it.
<P>
These actions, in so far as consumers are concerned, should reinforce the requirements of information and transparency that Mr Seal's report is rightly seeking.
The list of different actions, which I have given this evening, is not exhaustive but it shows clearly that the Commission does not consider that its work was completed when we presented our communication in October 1996 or when the single market in civil aviation was formally and legally completed on the 1 April last year.
On the contrary, we acknowledged that further work was necessary and since then we have been actively pursuing further necessary advances.
Against that background, Mr Seal's report is of great help in emphasizing priorities and in highlighting the significance of the social dimension.
He will, I hope, be pleased to know therefore that in order to give full attention to the social impact, and also to take account of new developments and the changing environment in which airlines operate after the full completion of the aviation single market, we will be publishing the report that I referred to earlier which should be available for debate in this Parliament in the near future.
I hope that I can say with complete confidence that the report will provide a full response to those aspects of Mr Seal's report which relate to the matters that were not dealt with by our previous communication.
I look forward to considering that and indeed other matters with this House but hopefully not at such great length in future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=280 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Cabin crews in civil aviation
<SPEAKER ID=281 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on the report by Mr Grosch (A4-0018/98), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Directive on safety requirements and attestation of professional competence for cabin crews in civil aviation (COM(97)0382 - C4-0460/97-97/0212(SYN)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=282 NAME="Grosch">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the safety training of cabin crews in civil aviation is almost a component of the subject which we have just discussed, or a consequence of it.
The Commission could in this respect have taken the terms of the JAA changed or unchanged and transferred them into Community law - quite simply in accordance with Regulation No 3922/91.
It has, however, chosen another route, namely the form of a directive.
<P>
It is of course clear that we as Parliamentarians explicitly welcome this decision, and the fact that we as a parliament are involved in the lawmaking process.
But in my view that is not the most important reason point. The Commission's proposal - and this is the most important element - puts the work of the cabin crews in the correct light, that is, it covers their safety functions.
It is very important therefore to provide more transparency in terms of the fact that the crews must undergo basic training, a general further training and additional training related to various types of aeroplane.
That is, in our view, an important part of this work.
There is in fact a risk, which has just been discussed, that the airlines in the thick of the competition battle will regard these very training costs as variable costs and correspondingly perhaps try to economize in this area, which in my opinion would be unfortunate.
<P>
Therefore, we also see the programmes proposed in the Annex as minimum requirements.
In our opinion, both the basic training and the type-training indicated should form part of basic training, in which really nothing may be left out. This would mean that the cabin crew enjoy the social protection which exists in every similar profession, and that entry to the profession or employment in this job is no longer possible without training.
If we compare the programmes of one airline with another then we soon discover that this directive is necessary. Although most airlines take training very seriously, the further training, particularly the typetraining is somehow neglected.
<P>
The Commission's proposal also respects subsidiarity.
It therefore takes into account the desire of Member States to continue to define their training themselves, although there should be an obligation to keep the Commission informed.
<P>
In short, the proposal is an ideal response to technical and administrative questions, to social challenges in the free market and to safety claims associated with the profession of cabin crew.
Although it is not as important, we must not forget in this document that with some form of recognition - here known as certification - mobility in this professional sphere can be increased.
The amendments submitted by the Committee on Transport and Tourism in this respect are therefore to be regarded as no more than fine tuning.
They regulate amongst other things transfer conditions, they regulate or fix the obligation of the Member States to supply information and they regulate medical monitoring somewhat more clearly.
In the Commission's proposals only regular checks are suggested: we however propose a periodic cycle of inspections.
<P>
The amendments tabled later by Mr Simpson are in my view also worthy of support.
Although the Commission's text, my amendments, and the amendments proposed in committee maintained the distinction between cabin crew with and without safety functions, these amendments from Mr Simpson are designed to remove this distinction, so that all cabin crew must meet the same training requirements.
In my opinion, this has the important advantage of ensuring that there will no longer be cabin crew with varying qualifications and that in serious situations any member of the cabin crew will be able to fulfil his task completely.
<P>
Finally I would like to remind my colleagues - and perhaps that could have been said from the start, for thus far the whole thing sounds rather unanimous - that this directive is of course not welcomed by the JAA and the airlines.
For me this is not yet particularly worrying.
I am far more concerned about the scepticism - to put it mildly - of the Council on this subject.
I hope that even those accidents which have been avoided, to say nothing about the tragic reality of the actual aircraft accidents, will convince the Council, so that this document does not end up in a drawer somewhere but is instead dealt with effectively and also fulfils its objective.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=283 NAME="Watts">
Mr President, first of all, just to clarify: we are tonight debating safety standards for cabin crew and not air traffic controllers.
At least I hope so.
I know it is very late but I believe that is the directive we are discussing, otherwise I am in the wrong room.
I think we have a problem with interpretation, with all due respect to Mr Grosch.
<P>
I wish to thank him for his efforts in endeavouring to steer this report through Parliament and doing such a comprehensive job, and also to congratulate the Commission on having the foresight to bring this forward, particularly in the light of what we have just been saying about liberalization and the very important comments the Commissioner made about the need to underpin liberalization with a very strong social framework.
This is clear evidence that is actually happening, and this is a measure which commands the full support of the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
<P>
One point we have to stress is that we need to get over to the Council and, indeed, the wider community why this measure is so important.
One thing we have to make very clear is that, contrary to accepted beliefs, if you are involved in an air crash the likelihood is that you will not actually die.
Indeed, many aircraft accidents are survivable.
Around 75 % of aircraft are involved in accidents during approach, landing or take-off.
Research indicates that around 90 % of all aircraft accidents could be survivable.
It is estimated that of the 1 500 people on average who die each year, some 300 a year, on average, could survive if evacuation measures within aircraft were improved.
I am confident that if we had better, faster and more effective evacuation, we could save lives - as many as 300 a year.
<P>
How do we do that?
There are a number of methods by which we can improve evacuation measures.
Firstly by the behaviour and crowd-control skills of cabin crew during emergency evacuations, and, secondly, by passengers' knowledge of safety procedures and their motivation to get acquainted with them.
We all know from our experience in flying that no-one takes any notice whatsoever of cabin crew when they are giving us the safety demonstrations and yet all the evidence suggests that information they are conveying to us could make the difference between life or death.
There are a number of reasons why evacuation is a key issue, and training is clearly a means by which we can enable and motivate the cabin crew to provide effective information to the passengers, before, during and after an incident.
That is why we believe this measure is so important.
<P>
The large majority of air crashes are survivable technically, and effective evacuation is so important.
Current regulations, for example, specify that an aircraft must be evacuated within 90 seconds with just half the exits open.
In 1994 research was carried out by both the CAA and the FAA which clearly indicated that the difference between getting out of the aircraft or not depended on assertive, highly-trained and highly-effective cabin crew.
Tonight we should reflect on that.
It underpins the work of Mr Grosch and the proposal from the Commission.
The results show clearly that trained cabin crew make the difference.
That is the reason why we are very pleased to support this proposal for a directive on the training of cabin crew.
<P>
We have a number of concerns which we have identified via our amendments.
We think that in an incident you cannot differentiate between some cabin crew who may have safety training and others who do not.
All the crew should have the skills necessary to ensure that the plane, for example, is evacuated as quickly and effectively as possible.
That is why we have tabled Amendments Nos 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17, to ensure this measure applies to all the cabin crew.
If you speak to the cabin crew themselves, they do not want to create a situation where, possibly, some airline operators could differentiate between cabin crew and create a two-tier system.
<P>
In Amendment No 13 we propose annual medical checks for cabin crew.
Again we think this is perfectly reasonable, when your life is effectively in not just the pilot's hands but also in the hands of the cabin crews.
An annual medical check is the best way forward.
Leaving it just to the wording 'regular' is not sufficient.
<P>
Finally, Amendment No 18 talks about annual training for cabin crews, including things like fire-fighting and the use of life rafts.
Again, it is extraordinary that a basic requirement like using fire-fighting equipment or life rafts is not checked annually.
That is why we are tabling this amendment, to ensure that training is given on an annual basis.
<P>
In conclusion, as travel demand increases, the number of aircraft increase, the number of risks increase, it is vital that safety standards throughout the Community are harmonized.
We believe this directive will ensure that and could make the difference between life and death itself.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=284 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Stenmarck">
Mr President, let me begin by thanking Mr Grosch, on behalf of the PPE group, for a thorough piece of work.
This is a very important report.
Setting safety requirements is one of the most important tasks for all of us who are concerned with questions of transport at European level.
With the deregulation and liberalization of air transport, it is essential that safety should not suffer.
<P>
We know today that safety rules vary greatly from one EU country to another.
The JAA, the Joint Aviation Authority, has concentrated on this and approved common requirements both for basic training and for further training.
This is all of the utmost importance, and the more players operating in an increasingly liberalized air transport market in future, the more important it will become.
I am quite convinced that there really will be more players operating in this market.
In this context, one of our biggest and most important tasks is to help ensure that safety requirements are increased and not reduced.
That is a precondition for liberalization to have a real and lasting impact.
<P>
In this context, I do not want to make a big thing of the issue of certification at European level.
But it is worth giving encouragement to cabin crews, who are a group of employees who work across borders to a very large extent, so that they also have the possibility of changing jobs to another airline in the EU.
This could happen in various ways, such as through a licence of this kind. But I think it seems extraordinarily important to encourage this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=285 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, Commissioner, the completion of the internal market for civil aviation has increased the need for international agreements on safety standards for European Union countries.
Increased competition sadly only increases the temptation to cut down on safety.
The proposal on safety requirements for cabin crews has been prepared and accepted within the Joint Aviation Authority to which eighteen European countries belong.
<P>
The Commission believes it should add to the JAA proposal a competence certificate for cabin crews.
Recognition of training in one Member State by aviation authorities in other Union Member States was meant to improve the mobility of cockpit crews.
This concession to the unions ignores the reality that all airlines have different safety procedures which even differ between aircrafts within each airline.
That is why, to my mind, such a certificate will not promote staff mobility, whilst the Member States are burdened with an extra administrative commitment.
<P>
Moreover, the addition of safety certificates has made the Council proposal controversial.
It looks unlikely that this will be discussed within the near future.
For these reasons it would have been better if the Commission had limited itself to the JAA proposal.
<P>
We have a similar objection to the amendments tabled by the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
They claim that every crew member is responsible for safety duties, and should therefore receive training.
I believe that it is possible to maintain a proper level of safety on aeroplanes without seeing all members of the crew as safety personnel.
I will therefore not be able to support the PSE amendments.
I support Mr Grosch's amendments which clarify the proposal where the Commission text is too vague.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=286 NAME="Malone">
Mr President, firstly we all know national provisions on safety training for cabin crew vary widely across the European Union.
With the liberalization of the whole air transport sector, it is imperative that we have common standards on training and licensing of cabin crews throughout the Union.
As you have heard earlier, in Ireland we have the situation where Ryanair baggage handlers are on strike simply because they want to be represented by a trade union.
They are low paid with poor working conditions and their legitimate demand is that they be represented professionally with regard to pay and health and safety conditions.
<P>
Serious questions have to be asked about the operation procedures and indeed the training provided by low cost airlines such as Ryanair, Translift and others.
I am also very concerned about reports on the hours that these cabin crew work and the consequent fatigue they suffer with no breaks allowed between shifts and 25 minute turnaround time during which they are required to carry out cleaning duties.
Cutthroat competition in the air seems to be leading to a lowering of safety standards and we have seen a lot of accidents recently which I know will be investigated and we will see what turns up.
<P>
The latest media reports that airlines are reducing fuel costs by recycling unfiltered air into passenger cabins are equally alarming for all of us who travel frequently and, more particularly, for the cabin staff and pilots.
Cabin crew are the only safety professionals with dual responsibilities.
While safety is their primary responsibility, they are mainly engaged in other tasks.
Safety refresher courses must take place on an annual basis.
<P>
Finally I would ask this particular question: is it because the vast majority of cabin crew are women that licensing was not introduced a long time ago?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=287 NAME="McIntosh">
Mr President, this proposal is obviously linked to the measures to support the process of liberalization in the air transport sector with the aim of ensuring high safety standards.
I congratulate the rapporteur for his excellent work, and the Commission for its excellent proposal.
<P>
My concern with the directive proposed is, will it actually improve safety in air transport?
Our aim should surely be to set the best safety practices across Europe.
Currently, the joint aviation authorities seek to achieve cabin crew safety by placing responsibility for safety throughout an airline clearly on the operator.
Currently that operator must ensure comprehensive safety throughout the company and that cabin crew are trained to fit in with that company's specific system.
The directive waters down this responsibility and, therefore, may just possibly undermine cabin crew safety.
<P>
The Commissioner, this evening, referred to a number of proposals, including that to set up the European Civil Aviation Safety Agency and efforts to improve the implementation of ICAO standards throughout the European Union.
I would make a plea to the Commission this evening to reach an early agreement with the Council on the setting-up of this European Civil Aviation Safety Agency to ensure that safety both in Europe and worldwide is secured.
<P>
The figures show - and were discussed in a conference in Maastricht today - that over the last ten years 70 % of all accidents have involved carriers accounting for only 16 % of total air traffic.
Those airlines from developing countries appear to be mostly at risk.
Without this European action which is so urgently required, experts predict that quite possibly there could be one air accident a week.
<P>
So please, Commissioner, and the British Presidency of the Transport Council, act now.
We must set up this European air transport safety organization with proper safety checks at all European airports to ensure the safety of those European passengers using those carriers and those European residents near Community airports receiving them.
<P>
I am delighted to support this report.
But I hope that the Commissioner can satisfy me that urgent action will be taken by the Council of Ministers and through his good offices.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=288 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
First of all I would like to thank Mr Grosch and the Committee on Transport and Tourism for the work that they have put in to considering this particular proposal, and for the generally supportive attitude that they have taken.
<P>
In a growing and changing environment such as civil aviation, it is obviously essential that the highest possible safety standards are maintained.
It is equally obvious that the people responsible for fulfilling those safety standards must be well-trained and wellmotivated.
The purpose of the proposal before the House is to achieve those outcomes.
I know that honourable Members share that objective, as they have demonstrated again in the course of this debate.
<P>
I should like to make two other points by way of introduction.
First, this draft directive sets down minimum, not maximum standards.
Our constant desire is that Member States will seek to exceed these minima, even though they are of a satisfactory level for the general purposes of maintaining the safety of aircraft and passengers.
<P>
Secondly, just as a point of reassurance, but certainly not in any spirit of complacency, our region of the world sees 30 % of the world's air traffic movements, but only 10 % of air traffic accidents take place in this region.
Everybody responsible works to try to ensure that the level of accidents is even lower than that.
We strive for nil, naturally.
But it is important to put the matter into perspective so that the general idea is not spread that somehow there is a deterioration in standards, inadvertent or deliberate.
<P>
I would say to Miss McIntosh, for instance, that there is absolutely no conceivable way in which this draft proposal, inadvertently or deliberately, could possibly lead to the dilution of standards in air safety.
I will deal with that point at greater length later on.
<P>
I should also say to Mrs Malone, though unfortunately she has left the Chamber, probably on pressing business, that if she has evidence of an increase in accidents, as she claimed, I want to see it most urgently.
Secondly, if there is evidence that any aircraft operating in European Union airspace has been recycling unfiltered air into the cabin, I want evidence of that too because we most certainly will make an active response.
<P>
In response to the amendments proposed by Mr Grosch, Amendments Nos 4 and 5 add clarity to the text.
The Commission can therefore accept them.
I am also glad to say that the Commission shares the desire of the rapporteur to uphold the established rights of experienced cabin crew.
We can therefore accept Amendment No 8.
<P>
I understand the motivation behind Amendment No 1, but it appears to me to be somewhat superfluous since the content of the training programmes is laid down in the Annexes to the directive and will be universally applicable.
To centralize each and every programme at Community-level seems to me to be unnecessary.
<P>
That problem of otiose bureaucracy also applies to Amendment No 6.
As far as Amendment No 7 is concerned, I do not see what added value it gives.
In practice, cabin crew automatically receive conversion training when changing from one aircraft type to another and the obligations for and the regulation of recurrent training are laid down in Article 5 and in the annexes to this directive.
<P>
While I fully appreciate the rationale behind Amendment No 2 as well, it would, in practice, extend the provision of the directive to staff such as beauticians, secretaries and medical companions who are on-board an aircraft for purely commercial reasons and have neither the training nor, in general, the competence to provide useful assistance in the event of an emergency in the air.
In many respects they are effectively passengers themselves.
<P>
I do not believe it was the intention of the rapporteur that this should be the case - that people should be allocated responsibilities for which they have not been professionally trained.
This point applies equally to the series of amendments put by Mr Simpson: Amendments Nos 9-12 and 14-17, which have the same objective.
I understand it to be laudable, but I cannot see how it can be practicable.
So I cannot accept any of those amendments.
<P>
The Commission cannot support Amendment No 3 either, nor the new Amendment No 13, which specify the regularity of medical checks.
When legislating, we have to bear in mind the costs of our legislation and also have to recognize who will meet the bills.
If the result of implementing the provision on medical checks appeared to be very costly, there would be resistance and that would undermine the very basis of the proposal.
Decisions on precise frequency of checks are therefore best left to national authorities who, I am absolutely certain, will not let great gaps appear between medical checks of air crew of any description.
<P>
There remains just one amendment, Amendment No 18, which, again, I regret to say I cannot accept.
This amendment seeks to increase the required frequency of recurrent training and to so well beyond the requirements of JAR-OPS from which our proposal originates.
I would say to Miss McIntosh, when she considers that there is a possibility of reducing the level of requirements below that of the JAA, I would refer her to page 2 of the proposal.
The common safety training standards, as laid down in JAROPS compare favourably with international recommended standards and the better training practices of industry.
They are adequate to ensure a high level of safety. This proposal is entirely in conformity with that.
Making a further change would add an unnecessary burden on operators without bringing any greater safety guarantees.
<P>
In conclusion, I would like again to thank Parliament for its work.
The adoption of this Commission proposal, with the amendments that I have indicated will, I am sure, contribute directly to maintaining motivation amongst staff and sustaining high levels of safety standards in civil aviation.
I know that honourable Members, together with the Commission, strongly support both objectives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=289 NAME="Watts">
Mr President, if I can try be helpful to the Commissioner I accept his point about other auxiliary cabin staff, beauticians etc.
But his own proposal, his own directive Article 2(b), with its definition of a cabin crew, already addresses this point.
It actually specifies that it does not apply to crew members solely assigned to non-safety duties.
So the answer lies in your own text, Commissioner, I hope perhaps we can review this in that context.
<P>
Secondly, on the point about annual health checks, I understand that all staff of the European institutions are required to have annual health checks.
Surely if it is good enough for us and our institutions, it should be good enough for cabin crew members.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=290 NAME="Kinnock">
Mr President, if all airlines were as willing as the European institutions to meet the costs of ensuring that their employees had annual medical check-ups in common with many other employers in the public and private sectors, I could share the honourable Member's confidence.
But that is not the case.
As I have said, if there were resistance based on the idea of unnecessary cost then the consequence would be that we would get even less adequate standards than those set down in this draft.
<P>
I take the point that the honourable Member made about other staff referred to in this draft.
I think that is a very good debating point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=291 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Transport of dangerous goods by road -Distinguishing signs for motor vehicles - transportablepressure equipment
<SPEAKER ID=292 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism:
<P>
by Mr Le Rachinel (A4-0014/98), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive relating to motor vehicles and their trailers with regard to the transport of dangerous goods by road and amending Directive 70/156/EEC in respect of the type-approval of motor vehicles and their trailers (COM(96)0555 - C4-0665/96-96/0267(COD)); -by Mr Le Rachinel (A4-0024/98), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on the recognition in intra-Community traffic of the distinguishing sign of the Member State in which motor vehicles and their trailers are registered, (COM(97)0366 - C4-0419/97-97/0199(SYN)); -by Mr Camisón Asensio (A4-0039/98), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Directive on transportable pressure equipment (COM(96)0674 - C4-0068/97-97/0011(SYN)).
<SPEAKER ID=293 NAME="Le Rachinel">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am attacking my first report.
The proposal for a directive and the report which I submitted have as their objective the establishment of technical requirements applicable to motor vehicles and to trailers, guaranteeing transport by road.
<P>
Certain requirements were already put in place by the 1994 directive regarding the construction of vehicles which transport hazardous goods by road.
However, the recognition and acceptance by all Member States of the characteristics of construction of this type of vehicle is not guaranteed.
<P>
This new directive sets down specific clauses for the construction of vehicles.
It also provides the technical specifications for electrical equipment, braking systems, fire risks and speed limits.
This harmonization has the advantage of preventing a Member State from prohibiting the sale, registration or entry into service of motor vehicles which have already been approved in other Member States.
<P>
Only one amendment to this proposal has been tabled by the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
It relates to fixing a date for the entry into force of the legislative, regulatory and administrative clauses necessary to conform to this directive.
This deadline has been set for twelve months after the publication of the directive.
<P>
No other amendment has been tabled and I think that this report does not represent any particular problem and, Mr President I think we have a broad consensus on this subject.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=294 NAME="Camisón Asensio">
Mr President, it is very clear that this proposal for a directive has been in the process of formulation, basically, to plug the two most blatant loopholes in the legislation referring to the manufacture, transport, commercialization, use and maintenance of all transportable pressure equipment which will fulfil the requirements of the ADR and RID agreements.
<P>
Such agreements, as you know ladies and gentlemen, are intended to strengthen safety in the transport of such equipment and ensure free circulation of the same in the common Community market.
At the same time an orderly transition is needed from current transportable pressure equipment to that of the future and this can be done through periodic inspections and conformity assessments following the modular approach, although the process requires inspection bodies to comply with adequate quality criteria, such as those based on the CEN standard in the EN 45000 series, since basing such criteria solely on the content of the directives concerned may not be sufficient, as both these directives deal almost exclusively with transport, with the result that there is a shortage of specific provisions on certain other matters.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it seems clear from recent experience that mutual recognition of inspections, which is essential for making progress towards completion of the internal market, can not be fully achieved, through the application of annexes A and B of the ADR directive, which only seems to ensure freedom of transport, and which, because it includes no provision for distinguishing marks, has little impact on the use of such equipment in the country of destination.
Hence the need for the present directive.
<P>
Consequently, one of the major advantages of this proposal is that products can secure a higher market share, with the inherent advantage of securing economies of scale and lower administrative costs for the relevant approvals.
For this purpose, the equipment concerned must be easily identifiable and the best way of doing this is clearly to give them a distinctive mark different from those currently in force for stable pressure equipment or gas bottles.
<P>
However, the main dilemma posed by this proposal concerns the question of experience as opposed to independence.
I am referring, of course, to the inspection bodies.
It is well known that for many years, the European industry has been able to carry out proper inspections on this equipment, including ADR class 2, by means of type B or even type C bodies belonging to the users' sector.
This has been possible because they have been able to accumulate an advanced level of knowledge through daily contact with the problems concerned.
They have therefore achieved a lot in the last few years.
<P>
On the other hand, it may be that the experience because of their centralized nature, of type A bodies is confined to new products on the market, with the result that their experience and skills are more general.
<P>
For these reasons, the Committee on Transport and Tourism unanimously approved this report and its corresponding motion for a resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=295 NAME="Le Rachinel">
<SPEAKER ID=296 NAME="Morris">
Mr President, I support the Rachinel report and I must say that one of the hallmarks of this Commission has been its overriding concern for safety, especially on our roads.
This directive is designed to enhance existing legislation in the motor vehicle sector by ensuring that the construction characteristics of vehicles carrying dangerous goods are harmonized throughout the whole Community.
<P>
It will be welcomed, in my opinion, by the industry that one set of rules will apply across the EU for the design and construction of vehicles carrying dangerous goods.
This is a necessary step to develop and enhance safety on our roads.
We need technical provisions to ensure that dangerous goods are safeguarded during the time they are in transport.
This means possibly adopting standards of electrical equipment, braking systems, fire risk prevention provisions, etcetera, just to name a few.
<P>
All will help to create what I regard as a safer environment on our roads.
Accidents have happened and accidents, of course, will continue to happen.
Let us not allow dangerous goods, which would pollute and damage health, to be carried in vehicles which are not up to what the Commission regards, and what we regard, as the highest possible standards.
Let us minimize the risk of horrific accidents on the roads where hazardous materials are involved.
Let us make this applicable to the whole of the EU.
<P>
Finally, just one last appeal regarding distinguishing signs.
I hope that the Commission will give some account to the symbols that might highlight smaller nations like Wales.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=297 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, since all of us here are experts I shall, in view of the late hour make just two basic comments on the Le Rachinel report on the type-approval of vehicles and on the report of my colleague, Camisón Asensio, on transportable pressure equipment.
<P>
Firstly, it is clearly insanely difficult really to make a reality of the Single Market.
It is technical and is getting more and more technical, but we shall not be able to get out of the work.
Perhaps we shall one day manage to deal conclusively in committee with the kind of report which does not have particularly great political importance, if the Commission presents us with well-prepared reports, so that we no longer have any need to argue about slots at this time of night.
<P>
Secondly, it is nevertheless important for our colleagues in the committee to study these reports carefully themselves.
Mr Le Rachinel was, as it were, in the fortunate position after careful checking to be able to say: I need only one amendment.
And everybody agreed with him.
Colleague Camisón had more difficulties.
He had to deal with 28 amendments because on the important question of inspection, he had become involved in discussions with those in the industry who were directly affected and came to a different point of view.
I am very grateful that he worked out this complicated point so well. But it is important that we bear in mind that both reports are not only reports for the Single Market, for more business and for more trade.
Rather both reports, as the previous speaker has also said, are quite important for people's safety on the roads and thus for the protection of the natural environment, since accidents which occur can not only kill and injure people, but accidents with dangerous goods can cause incalculable damage to nature, in the water and in the soil.
<P>
Therefore, I thank you sincerely for these good reports.
We shall take the trouble to study these reports carefully.
I thank the two rapporteurs and we will await the opinion of the Commission.
I hope that the Commission does not immediately discard 20 of Mr Camisón's 28 amendments, but we shall wait and see.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=298 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dijk">
Mr President, the merits of the regulation concerning the distinguishing signs for motor vehicles is that they put an end to the practice of drivers being fined because one Member State does not recognize the distinguishing sign of another.
The recognition of the registration plate comprising national registration and the European flag will obviously become increasingly important as more Member States start introducing this, and, perhaps, a Community registration number.
<P>
The Dutch government, for instance, plans to include the European flag and the letters NL on the number plate.
It might be possible, of course, that in a wave of Euroscepticism, the flag will be a disaster in the Netherlands.
The European Parliament's popularity, and by implication that of the European Union, is not exactly furthered by the kind of scenes which took place here yesterday and today during votes, when European Members of Parliament declared they were not being paid to vote.
I wonder then what they are paid for.
<P>
It bothers me very much that our European flag is allowed to grace vehicles which should not really drive on the European roads; cars without catalytic converters, for example.
I would like to see Member States, mindful of the subsidiarity principle, be given the right to withhold the flag from the most polluting cars and engines: watch out, environmental pirate!
Unfortunately, parliaments do not seem to understand my graphic amendments, which is why I was not able to submit them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=299 NAME="Watts">
Mr President, I will restrict myself this evening to Mr Le Rachinel's report on vehicle registration signs and of course I congratulate him on his efforts in producing the report.
There is clearly a need across Europe to clarify the situation, which is incredibly complicated for the average motorist trying to travel around the Continent, and indeed UK and Ireland as well.
The signs referred to by Nel van Dijk which the Dutch may or may not adopt in the year 2000 are currently compulsory in Ireland and Portugal, they are optional in France and Germany, where they may make them compulsory, whilst all the other countries have the Vienna Convention white ellipse except the UK, Spain and Portugal which do not have anything.
<P>
There is a need to make life simpler for the motorist.
The Commission's proposal does just that and I commend it.
However, as the Commission will be aware, motorists throughout Europe are much more European than perhaps we think.
They are of course rebelling against the Vienna and the Geneva Convention, and indeed his own proposal, by adopting their own symbol of European unity.
Therefore I would like to draw the attention of the Commissioner and Members to our Amendments Nos 4, 5, 6 and 7 which recognise the reality that many motorists do not like the Vienna Convention symbol, the rather boring black letters on a white background, but prefer the European symbol of the white and yellow letters with the gold stars on a blue background in accordance with their particular national registration.
I hope that the Commissioner will agree with our argument that we should give the motorists a choice.
<P>
Why is it that motorists in Greece or the UK - it could be my car, Commissioner -have to remove their European symbol and replace it with a white sticker with black letters when they travel to France?
That to me seems a backward step.
Our amendment is trying to be helpful by giving motorists that choice, that additional right to display a European symbol if they so desire rather than the white ellipse.
I commend it to you, Commissioner, and I commend it to the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=300 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Koch">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too would like to talk about the second Le Rachinel report.
The present proposal for a regulation remedies the lack of similarity between the separate national legislations.
The Community model for the distinguishing sign of the Member State licensing of vehicles and trailers in internal Community traffic, let us call it the European nationality plate, is long overdue.
Such a measure directly helps to include and raise the awareness of the citizens of the Union in the creation of an area without internal borders and to form and establish a feeling of European identity, while contributing indirectly to n increase in road traffic safety.
In particular, the demand that the proposed Community sign must be located both at the front and at the back on the left beside the registration plate will be an advantage for the police and other administrative and judicial bodies.
<P>
Although on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party I completely support Mr Le Rachinel's report and thank him for his work, it seems to me personally that the Commission's proposal for a regulation is not completely logical.
Let us just consider: in a few weeks the third phase of European economic and monetary union begins, which will lead to a domestic market, the formal external appearance of which will be the single currency.
What a magnificent achievement, proving our great farsightedness!
With the distinguishing sign for vehicles and trailers the Europeans are failing to achieve logical standardization in the form of a common, standard design principle.
Thus, with reference to the principle of subsidiarity, the EU Member States are obliged in fact to recognize the proposed Community model, but the validity of existing nationality plates remains completely unrestricted and continues to exist, independent of the Community model.
<P>
There is not even a reference to the fact that in the Member States the Community model should preferably be used.
In view of this fact, I could even understand if citizens from third countries were doubtful of the ability and/or seriousness of the efforts of EU to build a political union.
<P>
For the vehicle owners of the Member States who have already accepted, on a compulsory or voluntary basis, the use of the Community model - it is of course not a new invention -, the present proposal for a regulation takes up a long-standing desire for legal certainty and is recognition - let us call it personal - of the costs they often willingly incurred when buying this combined vehicle registration plate.
<P>
For me, too, it is desirable that third countries, above all the countries of the European Economic Area but also the associated countries of central and eastern Europe give legally binding recognition to the Community model.
I recommend that we accept this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=301 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schierhuber">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like briefly to express an opinion on Mr Le Rachinel's report on the transport of dangerous goods by road.
One of the Union's aims is the completion of the single market.
We should do everything we can to guarantee its successful operation by implementing suitable measures.
In this sense the free passage of vehicles transporting dangerous goods should be possible.
Above all, I believe it is very appropriate to harmonize design features and technical specifications, for example on brake fittings, speed limitations or electrical equipment, to guarantee free passage within the Community.
<P>
The creation of a European type-approval system will help ensure that in future no Member State will be able, on grounds which relate to design features, to prohibit a vehicle manufacturer from offering it for sale, or to refuse its approval or use.
The Member States should thus be obliged to produce the necessary legal and administrative regulations within 12 months of the publication of this directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=302 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferber">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, at this late hour we are once again discussing transport policy questions.
Let me make just two short remarks.
Firstly, I would like to look at the issue of transportable pressure equipment which unfortunately has figured too briefly in this joint debate.
This is a very important matter, not only from a technical viewpoint - although to me as an engineer it appears thoroughly interesting, - but it also as regards the question of safety of everything which travels on our roads.
It concerns the question of regular monitoring and the capability to carry out this monitoring and I think that here it is the rapporteur, whom I would like to thank sincerely, who has succeeded in presenting a balanced report.
I can only ask the Commission to listen carefully to Parliament.
<P>
Secondly, I would like to consider the distinguishing sign of the Member State of registration, that is, the national registration plate.
I consider that, too, to be an important proposal and Mr Koch referred to the problems which we still face.
Here at last we have a regulation with which we can bring Europe to life. As well as the standard driving licence, which has already been decided on, it is a further symbol to make Europe come to life.
It is a citizen-friendly decision which makes administration simpler.
I would just like to ask you, Commissioner, to take this up perhaps in negotiations with Switzerland too, because it is not sensible or logical to introduce it throughout Europe, and have it recognized in the European Economic Area, and in the associated states, while right in the middle of Europe we have an Island of the Blissful, where we still have to have our stickers.
I ask that you take this up in the negotiations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=303 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking Mr Le Rachinel for his two reports, firstly on the proposal relating to the type-approval of motor vehicles and trailers intended for the transport of dangerous goods by road and, secondly, on the distinguishing sign for vehicles.
<P>
On the first report, I am pleased to say that the Commission accepts Mr Le Rachinel's single amendment, since the additional wording he suggests on Article 6 provides the correct legal term for the date of implementation and does not in any way contradict or change the intention of the Commission proposal.
<P>
This legislation, as the House will know, is an important step towards harmonization of the laws of Member States on typeapproval procedures relating to vehicles carrying dangerous goods.
I am therefore grateful for the constructive approach taken by the rapporteur and his colleagues.
Colleagues, indeed, like Mr Morris who, in an erudite and convincing speech, would not only have demolished any doubts at all about the transport of dangerous goods but probably have persuaded everyone that Wales should have its very own distinctive number plate.
That would, of course, be permissible, as we see evidenced by the fact that in the Republic of Ireland the name of the region is given on the numberplate in Erse and in Germany the Land badge is also shown conventionally on the numberplates.
So I am looking forward to seeing a draig goch , the red dragon, on Mr Morris' numberplate.
I am sure that would be a very popular step.
Not that I would dream of intervening in subsidiarity to advocate it publicly.
<P>
Mr Le Rachinel's second report concerns numberplates.
Because of press misreporting, which has on occasion misinformed public opinion on the issue of vehicle numberplates and distinguishing signs, I think it wise to begin my short response to this very constructive report by saying what the proposal does not mean.
Firstly, it does not have any suggestion that Member States must provide numberplates which incorporate the symbol of the European Union.
Secondly, it does not have any suggestion that all vehicles must show the symbol of the country of registration.
<P>
I specify this because Mr Jarzembowski will I know be interested to be informed that a couple of years ago the Daily Mail - not a newspaper that I customarily buy - incredibly printed a front-page story about me going to impose Euro-numberplates on all unsuspecting citizens of the Union.
The story was so inaccurate, misleading and mischievous, that I sued the Daily Mail and, I am happy to say, successfully.
I hope that they will record, with precision, what this proposal does and does not do.
<P>
The aim of the proposal is simply to ensure that where the rear numberplate on a vehicle shows the distinguishing sign of the Member State of registration, on the background of the symbol of the Community, the distinguishing sign is recognized by the other Member States as a valid identification of the country of registration, without further need for the vehicle to show any other sign. That includes the elliptic sticker, the rugby-ball-shaped sticker specified by the Vienna Convention.
It may be, of course, as far as Mr Morris is concerned, that shape of sticker would do for Wales, but I understand that too.
<P>
I know that Members of this House understand that and I would like, therefore, to respond to the amendments tabled by the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
First, we welcome Amendment No 2 and the first part of Amendment No 3, which extends the coverage of the regulation to trailers.
We can also accept the second part of Amendment No 3, which refers to the position of the distinguishing sign on the left-hand side of the numberplate.
In addition, we can accept in principle the last part of Amendment No 3 that refers to other official signs.
But we believe that the wording and the purpose of the recognition, which is to identify the state of registration of the vehicle, could be more specific.
<P>
The Commission cannot accept Amendment No 1, which is intended to introduce a requirement to affix the distinguishing sign of registration on the left-hand side of the plate.
However, the amendment actually changes the legal term distinguishing registration signs, which simply means the official abbreviation used to denote the Member State.
The term itself and the definition are consistent with the Vienna Convention, which is as it should be.
<P>
As in the case of the Convention, the size, shape and location of the distinguishing registration sign are specified in the Annex, although that provision is now also covered by the second part of Amendment No 3, which, as I said to the House, we have accepted.
<P>
Amendments Nos 4 to 7 have been tabled by Mr Simpson with the purpose of sanctioning or regularizing the practice of using stickers in the form of the European symbol containing the abbreviation of the country of origin.
I have to say that Mr Watts did a job of which any salesman would be immensely proud in the course of the debate tonight.
As a consequence, I have some sympathy for the idea.
<P>
However, I have to tell the House that these amendments do not meet the need to lay down the technical specifications with sufficient detail to achieve mutual recognition.
Well I can always mutually recognize Mr Jarzembowski even if I cannot hear precisely what he is saying!
Our proposal makes mutual recognition possible precisely because the sign is issued under the control of the national authorities as part of an official numberplate, and that would clearly not be the case for the separate sticker.
<P>
The eighth and final amendment by Mr Cornelissen is unnecessary since the regulation, once adopted, will be automatically applicable in the European Economic Area.
Incidentally, I think history is being made.
It is ten past eleven on a night in Strasbourg.
We are having a transport debate and Mr Cornelissen is not actually here.
This must be the first time in history and I am sure there is a very good reason for it.
<P>
I now turn to the third report and I would like to thank Mr Camisón for the time and effort that he spent on this complex technical proposal related to safety in the movement of transportable pressure equipment.
As the House will know, by adopting Directives 94/55 and 96/49, the Council has already ensured a high level of safety in the movement of transportable equipment by defining common rules on design, materials, filling and periodic testing of such equipment.
However, one further demand needs to be met.
<P>
The current situation is that transportable pressure equipment, for instance gas cylinders, moved from one Member State to another and then used cannot be refilled in the receiving Member State and then transported back to the first Member State without being retested, inspected and approved in the receiving country.
This threatens the very existence of the single market and so obviously has to be changed.
In the absence of mutual recognition of the conformity procedures and of markings of the inspection bodies in different Member States, these conditions will continue.
The proposal before the House therefore seeks to rectify that.
A further effect of this proposal is to ensure free circulation of transportable pressure equipment in the internal market, a facility which is not possible now because Directive 97/23 on pressure equipment excludes transportable pressure equipment from the scope.
<P>

Since Amendments Nos 4, 6, 7, 11, 12 and 19 are consistent with the aims of the proposal, the Commission is able to accept them and, as a consequence of accepting Amendments Nos 6 and 19, the Commission is able to accept Amendments Nos 10 and 20 in so far as they relate to the date.

<P>
When I conclude my time in the Commission, I can always get a job as the person who announces the lottery results on BBC television on Saturday nights.
I have been training for that for some time.
Señor Camisón's report provides me with the unique rehearsal in this number reading skill.
<P>
Amendment No 9 deletes Type C inspection bodies and there are related editorial changes in Amendments Nos 5, 8, 10, 11, 13, 15, 17, 18, 20, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 and 28.
They can all be accepted by the Commission if the definition of Type B inspection bodies is modified. We will therefore frame our revised proposal accordingly.
And people say that DG VII functionaries do not earn their money!
The other amendments, however, are not acceptable.
Amendment No 1 is rejected since that 'whereas' clause is limited to the main objective of the proposal: transport safety.
Amendments Nos 2 and 3 are primarily editorial changes but they are rejected because the original text is more accurate.
Amendment No 14 is rejected because the limitation solely to existing Type B inspection bodies is too restrictive and would prevent new Type B inspection bodies from entering the market.
Amendment Nos 16 and 20 are rejected since the Commission considers that frequency of controls upon relevant bodies and the details rightly fall under the competence of the Member States.
Amendment No 22 is also rejected because it would not allow the same undertaking to be engaged in maintenance and periodic inspection and is therefore, in the view of the Commission, too restrictive.
<P>
As I said at the outset, this is a technical proposal which is nevertheless a further contribution to safety in transport and I am grateful for the fact that it has the support of the rapporteur, Señor Camisón, and indeed of the House.
Naturally I am pleased to note that the large number of amendments manifests the attention to detail that the proposal has received from the Transport Committee rather than any real differences of substance between European Parliament and the Commission on the issue.
Dealing with three different proposals in one debate is obviously not easy and this is even more true when the proposals and the discussion are particularly technical.
I know, however, that the House is well able to cope with such situations, apparently better than the Commission, and I look forward to progress on all three measures now before the Parliament.
I must say that history is being broken for the second time in the course of this debate.
Not only is Mr Cornelissen not here but I have managed, having been given 15 minutes of the Parliament's precious time, to finish in 13 minutes and 58 seconds.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=304 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferber">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, I did not intend to spoil your future as announcer of the lottery numbers on the BBC, but you also, of course, have a past as a parliamentarian, and I had asked a question which certainly did not come up in your speech, that is, the question of how this nationality plate will be treated in Switzerland.
I think it is in fact an important point if we introduce it in the European Economic Area but not in Switzerland.
Is the Commission considering the possibility of finding a standard regulation in Europe which includes the Swiss authorities?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=305 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
I am grateful to the honourable Member.
I must say that some of my friends say that I am quite gifted in some respects, but I am not yet gifted enough to be able to read what is not written.
Consequently, since the Swiss references are not part of this report, I am sure that the honourable Member, who is very understanding, will comprehend why I have not made the response.
<P>
In addition, whilst I take full account of the difficulties that can be caused because Switzerland takes a different view, I am not anxious to enter any new material in the negotiations on land transport with Switzerland which we have just concluded very satisfactorily for the Union.
I will discuss it very readily with him under other circumstances.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=306 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
It astonishes me, Commissioner, that you do not have a simple answer for a simple question, for normally you have an answer for everything, prepared or otherwise.
I assume that you will follow up the question asked by Mr Ferber.
In my opinion, as a stimulus we could say that we would perhaps be prepared, in exchange for recognizing this distinguishing plate, to fix the transit fee through Switzerland at 236 Swiss Francs.
But maybe it would be better to discuss this over a whiskey!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=307 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
First of all, I am aware that Switzerland is party to the Geneva and Vienna Conventions, so there is some reassurance there.
I am also, as a special concession to Mr Jarzembowski, prepared to call the Swiss Transport Minister and recommend that in order that Mr Jarzembowski can wear any plates that he likes, he do so for the small consideration of paying double the Swiss vignette in order to pass through the country.
Maybe it is a privilege he would not want to take advantage of.
I certainly will see Mr Ferber on the specific issue that he raised.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=308 NAME="Camisón Asensio">
Mr President, I would not like to conclude this debate without offering my hearty congratulations to the Commissioner for his marvellous ability to trivialize this topic.
Indeed, I have to put on record here that his frivolity contrasts greatly with the seriousness and concern which many sectors of European industry display, and it should go on record that this marked contrast has caught my attention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=309 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
If the honourable Member cannot tell the difference between passing amusement at some of the text that I am obliged to read out to this House, and trivializing a proposal, then his wisdom is considerably less than his years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=310 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 11.20 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="Corbett">
Madam President, I would just like to say I was present although I am not included in the list at the back.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Madam President, this also applies to me.
I am not on the list either.
But there is I something else I would like to say, Madam President.
Yesterday the debate on the various oral questions was chaotic.
We had a number of debates: Nigeria, Burma, the United Nations.
These debates, and the speakers, were taken randomly.
This throws Parliament into chaos, and is not very courteous towards the Commission representatives or the Presidency, who have difficulty making sense of anything from the different remarks which are made at cross-purposes.
<P>
Madam President, I would therefore ask you whether in future, when as a group we submit to you the list of speakers per subject, you could keep to it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President">
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, I have taken note of your criticism.
We shall discuss it amongst the few people who are leading the session here, and then it will certainly be possible next time to proceed in a more orderly fashion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="Ewing">
Madam President, the Minutes of Wednesday Part I, page 1, sub-paragraph, ' the following spoke on the new rules' .
That is in the official record.
I have been arguing that it was a new rule but have been assured by the Chair that it is not a new rule.
It is something other than a new rule.
I note the last sentence of the next paragraph which states 'The President replied that the new rules were being applied for the first time' .
If there is a procedure for new rules, this House has to agree to them.
One gets a little tired of raising points of order on something so clear but it nevertheless is in the Minutes and it is incorrect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
Mrs Ewing, in logical terms you are, of course, right.
If it were a matter of changing the agenda that would have to be decided by the plenary.
But it is not.
It is a new rule, but it is not a change to the agenda.
That was incorrectly noted in the Minutes. We must check it.
You are right in your criticism; the item must be corrected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="Kerr">
Madam President, I raise the report of the speech of Mr Titley in the report of proceedings of yesterday on the debate on Iraq.
I ask the President to give a ruling as to whether this requires a personal statement from me and from the Member concerned, Mr Titley.
He said in his speech 'I have never heard a speech of such distorted self-indulgent drivel than that which Mr Kerr give a short while ago.'
Clearly many Members would agree with that and that is decent political debate.
However, he goes on to say 'I now know that care in the community in the United Kingdom does not work' which is clearly an indication about my mental health.
You may think that is true as well, but I suspect, under the Rules of this House, you are not allowed to cast aspersions on Members' mental health.
I would ask you to make a judgement on whether I can make my three minutes' personal response.
<P>
Can I also indicate that, as shown on page 25 of the Rainbow, I asked Mr Henderson, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, whether it was true that the Financial Times had reported that Britain is preparing to use nuclear weapons against Iraq.
He said in his reply to me that Mr Cook, Foreign Secretary, had denied this in the House of Commons.
I have the transcript of Mr Cook's speech in which there is no denial.
The Foreign Office officials are still briefing that Britain is preparing to use nuclear weapons on Iraq.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
Mr Kerr, I followed that myself yesterday.
I was not in the Chair but remained in my place and heard what you asked.
I also heard the answers given by the representative of the British Presidency.
It is true that he did not answer this question precisely, but I wonder why you did not yesterday make your point, whilst the Presidency of the Council was still present.
I take note of your comment, but in such cases it is wiser to rise to speak up immediately.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="Titley">
Madam President, if Mr Kerr were to read Hansard of 10 February, he would see that it states: ' Will my Right Honourable friend, the Foreign Secretary, rule out the possibility of a nuclear attack on Iraq?
Mr Cook: Yes, I can rule that out straight away.'
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Angelilli">
Madam President, I wish to remind you that, two days ago, on 17 February, the German writer Ernst Jünger died at the age of 102.
He was one of the main exponents of the conservative revolution in Germany and certainly, as pointed out by the international press today, an important author of European political thinking and twentieth century literature.
<P>
He died at the age of 102 and is, therefore, an excellent witness of the twentieth century, a century full of contradictions; Jünger, a free spirit, remained loyal to the principles of freedom and intellectual consistency, refusing any subjection to the totalitarian regimes of his time.
And so, Madam President, it is the duty of the European Parliament to pay homage to the memory of this man.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
Mrs Angelilli we all regret the death of Ernst Jünger and know that he was a great thinker and writer, but what you have just said is not really a comment for the Minutes.
We are still approving the Minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Madam President, I apologize for returning from the heights of Ernst Jünger to the quite ordinary parliamentary level of yesterday's Minutes.
On page 8 under the heading "subcritical nuclear tests' is a note saying that there is an objection by Mr Rübig. As a result, the heading "safety in the Leopold District of Brussels' is to be dealt with instead.
I want to make a correction here.
It is not "safety in the Leopold District of Brussels' but "crime in Brussels' .
There is, I believe, a major difference between the two, since we are not fighting here for our own benefit, but in principle for safety in Brussels.
<P>
Furthermore, it states here that the President informs us that he has declared the objection to be inadmissible in accordance with Article 47, paragraph 2 and that he intended to send Mr Rübig a letter with an explanation.
Mr Rübig has received this letter. I have seen a copy of it.
In the letter there is no more explanation than here in the Minutes.
It would, I believe, be very appropriate, if he could pass on the information he has on to the Bureau.
We would be very grateful if the President could tell us with which offices in Brussels he has had contact, what the concrete results of these conversations were and if he will also inform the House about them.
In any case almost 50 Members have signed the resolution. They are really concerned about what is happening in Brussels and would therefore like to know what is going on.
I believe the House has a right to be told.
Would it not at least be possible for us to learn this week when we can expect to get this information?
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
Mr Habsburg-Lothringen, as far as I know, the President has said that he will take up these contacts.
He has not done so yet and probably the details about whom he will contact are not yet fixed.
I am quite sure that he will report on the matter.
I will, nevertheless, pass this on to the Bureau.
As regards your first comment, the Minutes can contain only what was said.
If the wrong description or wrong terminology is used then that is unfortunate.
However, thanks to your comment the item has now been corrected indirectly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="Killilea">
Madam President, I just wish to refer to the last item on page 4 - the statement by Mrs Green, leader of the socialists - in the English version of the Minutes.
I do not want to get into any type of war, be it nuclear or otherwise, with Mrs Green.
I want to correct a statement she made yesterday concerning the Pery working party and the new rule which was introduced this week.
<P>
Neither Mrs Nicole Pery, who has left this Parliament, nor the working party, made any suggestions concerning the application of this rule.
What Mrs Nicole Pery reported to the Bureau was quite simply that she had various documents from different groups and individuals and many varied suggestions on this particular matter.
She did not come down on one side or the other or make any such suggestion.
So we go back now to the Conference of Presidents, because that is where the pressure for this particular rule came from.
<P>
While I am clearing the decks on this particular matter, it is only right and proper that the House should know that when this first request came to the College of Quaestors, the College, in its varying political make-up, unanimously agreed that it was impossible to implement.
It then went back to the Bureau, and the Bureau made the decision on the basis of what, I assume, the Conference of Presidents had requested.
So, in order to clarify all this, let us not take a third outside organization into this, namely the Nicole Pery ad hoc committee, because I was a member of that working party and on this particular matter it did not do anything of that nature.
<P>
I would suggest that we need reform, and we all agree on that.
The dignity of this House is a priority above all other things and the dignity of this House was brought to its knees this particular week and it is time we reviewed it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="President">
As far as the agenda is concerned, Mr Killilea, we shall keep to it.
Anybody can point matters out and if there are any problems, they will be corrected.
What you have just discussed relates to events which go back as far as last July.
Then this report was submitted.
I remember very well that we discussed it in a session in Luxembourg.
I cannot check it quickly this morning. I will, however, have it checked and then we shall return to it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Kellett-Bowman">
Madam President, on the same subject: item 5 of the Minutes, which is on page 9 in the English version, and your reply to Mrs Ewing.
<P>
Members have a variety of names for this attendance-checking procedure - some of them rather rude - but you mentioned a new rule and change of rules.
Vice-President Nicole Fontaine actually refers to them as 'implementing measures' .
Which are they?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
I do not have that is not in front of me at the moment, but we are, of course, all aware of the incidents in question and we know what we are talking about.
I believe it has been said several times that there have been renewed discussions in the Bureau about the way in which attendance can be confirmed in future.
Please let us wait for that and discuss it when the Bureau hands down other rules which are more easily applicable to the House or to the groups.
I find it simply futile that we have now referred to this matter for the hundredth time in one way or another.
This robs us of time for other more important discussions.
It is now agreed that the Bureau has decided to deal with it again, to correct any possible mistakes and to ensure that it will be simpler in future to confirm attendance.
Perhaps we can wait until we receive new proposals.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Smith">
Madam President, concerning Mr Kerr's remarks, I would like to draw to your attention an open letter sent to all Socialist Members.
I will quote a small part of it: ' We would ask all Socialists to support this, particularly British Labour Members, who will be glad to know that we shall be circulating the names of those Members who voted for this amendment and therefore against the war throughout the Labour movement in Britain' .
I am not sure whether that is a carrot or a stick, but I have to inform the two individuals involved that I know my conscience and my duty on Iraq and how I will vote.
I do not need instruction from a pair of political opportunists.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Falconer">
Madam President, I share Mr Smith's viewpoint on these matters but I would like to return briefly to the Rules, the implementing measures, the procedures or the diktat from the Bureau.
Yesterday the House agreed to allow Mrs Fontaine as President in the Chair then to conduct the sitting in a rather abnormal manner.
All I seek are assurances that we will return to the instructions from the Bureau and that, when a roll-call is called, you will accept my wish to speak and note my presence at that time if I so desire.
I hope and trust that you and future Presidents today will implement that particular measure without heeding the ill-advice that comes from your advisers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="President">
Mr Falconer, you have heard what I have said on this matter.
I think that will suffice!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fontaine">
Madam President, I would simply like to remind Mr Falconer that this matter is perfectly clear, although I am sure he knows this from the Minutes.
I had stated that yesterday's conduct was exceptional, due to the exceptional situation in which we found ourselves, since the voting time was divided in two to allow for the speech by the President of Portugal.
Moreover, the first thing I did this morning was to ensure that the Minutes referred to this exceptional procedure.
Mr Falconer could see, as I could, that they did.
<P>
I therefore believe that this matter is completely clear.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Macartney">
Madam President, I hope we are now moving away from the matter discussed at the last two sittings which brought Parliament into disrepute.
Along the same lines as Mr Cot, may I have an assurance from you that when the changes to the Rules are drawn up, they will be put to the House so that the House can endorse or reject them?
That is all we are asking for.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Berger">
Madam President, I have just seen that my name does not appear in the list of Members present.
I cannot rule out that I might have forgotten to sign in.
In view of the many roll-call votes, I believe that can be entered later.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="Sturdy">
Madam President, I notice that my name is missing on page 26 of the English version of the roll-call vote on Lange.
It was a report I was particularly interested in and I voted on it.
I said on Tuesday how important it was, with the new roll-call system and the new proposals coming out from the Conference of Presidents, that Members should understand all the regulations and that we should circulate these regulations to Members.
It must also be made quite clear that Members themselves must hold a certain amount of responsibility for making sure they check that their names are recorded.
Mistakes can be made.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="President">
That will be corrected, Mr Sturdy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Guinebertière">
Madam President, I had made a suggestion in keeping with the Minutes.
I had asked that a list be drawn up of Members who do not fulfil the criteria for the payment of allowances.
<P>
I have not had any response concerning this matter nor have I seen any such list.
However, I think that the most important thing should be to inform Members what to expect!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="President">
Mrs Guinebertière, miracles take a little longer!
I have this morning said several times that the Bureau will discuss this question again.
Please be patient until we get an answer since this is all part of the matter which did not really have to be discussed in such depth in the context of the Minutes.
However, we have done so.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Animal feed
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0020\98) by Mrs Poisson on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development on the proposals for European Parliament and Council Directives amending:
<P>
I.Council Directive 93/74/EEC on feedingstuffs intended for particular purposes and amending Directives 74/63/EEC, 79/373/EEC and 82/471/EEC (COM(97)0408 - C4-0409/97-97/0208 (COD))II.Council Directive 95/69/EC laying down the conditions and arrangements for approving and registering certain establishments and intermediaries operating in the animal feed sector (COM(97)0409 - C4-0408/97-97/0213(COD))
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Poisson">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the proposals for directives submitted by the Commission are aimed at amending Directive 93/74/EEC on feedingstuffs intended for particular nutritional purposes through the integration of a new mechanism which would allow its field of application to extend to a new generation of products called nutritional supplements for animals. They are also aimed at amending Directive 95/69/EEC on the approval and registration of certain establishments and intermediaries operating in the animal feed sector.
<P>
One important factor must still be underlined.
In fact, having made commitments to the Committee of Inquiry into BSE in feedingstuffs and foodstuffs intended for human consumption, the Commission is proposing for the first time to apply the codecision procedure, in accordance with Article 100a of the Treaty.
The Commission hopes to regulate the use of a new generation of products which have appeared on the market in all the Member States, with a view to defining a strict framework covering the nature of these products and their use.
<P>
These new products, known as nutritional supplements, cannot be likened to complementary feedingstuffs or additive premixes.
They must not contain medicinal substances, must be used under clearly defined conditions and for a short period only.
Nutritional supplements are intended to adjust an animal's nutritional intake in response to a temporary increase in its nutritional requirements brought about by critical breeding or living conditions, such as during calving, weaning or at point of lay.
<P>
Animal nutrition plays an important role in the human food chain.
It is therefore necessary to ensure that the Directive's scope is clearly apparent from the definition of the term "nutritional supplement' , so as to avoid a legal vacuum in the products used in the animal feed sector between straight or compound feedingstuffs and nutritional supplements.
<P>
As regards Directive 95/69/EC, the Commission lays down certain obligations applying to operators in the animal feed sector, with a view to providing sounder guarantees of the quality of products destined for this sector.
Nutritional supplements should be subject to the same rules as additive premixes, given that both categories of products generally contain the same proportion of additives.
However, the Commission's position as regards the obligation to register gives rise to some reservations.
In fact, the registration system proposed by the Commission for users of nutritional supplements would in practice create a register of breeders parallel to that provided for in Article 9 of Directive 96/23/EC, which has the aim of ensuring the correct use of substances in stock farming.
It would create an additional administrative procedure which would be a burden for both operators and inspection departments without bringing any real practical benefits.
<P>
This is why, in the desire to maintain clarity and simplification, I cannot accept Amendments Nos 11 and 12 from Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf relating to the list of components and their proportions, since obligations are already defined in this area.
<P>
In conclusion, I support the new provisions put forward by the Commission which will provide consumers with an extra guarantee of the quality of products.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="Hardstaff">
Madam President, I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Poisson, for her very clear report on the proposal to amend the Council directive on feedstuffs intended for particular nutritional purposes.
<P>
Over the last two years we have all become very much more aware of the need to ensure that anything entering the human food chain via animal feed is carefully controlled and presents no dangers, either to human or animal health.
I have more than once drawn the attention of this House to the dangers of indiscriminate additions of substances such as antibiotics or other medicaments to animal feed, not to deal with a particular, temporary health problem of an individual animal, but as general prophylactics.
<P>
I therefore welcome the precautionary note clearly set out in the Commission proposal to regulate the use of new products with high concentrations of vitamins, trace elements, fatty acids, etc. as food supplements to normal animal feed.
Of course there are times in an animal's life cycle when such dietary additions can be very valuable, such as when a cow is in calf.
The rapporteur's proposal that there should be very clear definitions as to when such products should be allowed for use, should be supported.
<P>
The Commission's proposal requires stock farmers to register if they use such products.
This was regarded in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development as being excessively bureaucratic.
But it is important to set clear guidelines to stock farmers to ensure that they understand the parameters within which such products should be used.
Prime among them is the stipulation that they should only be used for a limited period and for a very specific purpose, to ensure that no possible residues from such products could remain within meat or other products which eventually are sold for human consumption.
<P>
Furthermore, the precise composition and quantities of such products should be clearly stated on the label.
Never again should farmers be able to say with truth that they are unaware of exactly what they are feeding to their animals.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Sonneveld">
Madam President, animals, like humans, are entitled to good and healthy food.
Our legislation should serve this aim.
Furthering this aim, and certainly not standing in the way of it, is what we should focus on with this directive.
The directive deals with nutritional supplements which serve a particular nutritional purpose; it concerns dietary feed which should not contain any medicinal substances.
<P>
The national legislation which will have to be based on this directive must be clear.
It should be possible to hold the companies manufacturing and launching these products onto the market responsible for this part of the food chain.
<P>
In the meantime it appears that several directives, and consequently also national legislations in this area, are in force, and it is difficult to see any overall coherence among them.
For example, a registration requirement exists for manufacturers of ordinary compound feedingstuffs, or for so-called premixes, but there is no system of approval for these firms.
It therefore makes no sense and it is wrong to lay down an approval system for the manufacturers of nutritional supplements, which contain no pharmalogically active substances.
This is unnecessarily bureaucratic, especially if these nutritional supplements are only used in-house at the stock farm.
<P>
The rapporteur's proposal to delete the suggested approval procedure for manufacturers of nutritional supplements has our support.
Yet in the report by Mrs Poisson - whom I would like to congratulate on her clear presentation of this complex matter - there is one bit of unnecessary centralist meddling in the use of nutritional supplements.
In Amendment 3 it is noted quite rightly that it is vital that the notion "temporary use of nutritional supplements' is not to be taken as a reference to a random limited period, but that the length of use should be determined case by case.
A duration stipulation of this kind will have to be supported by a bibliographic case, underpinned by scientific facts which justify the nutritional objective and the period of administration.
Using this as a starting point, the condition in Amendment 6, which covers the legal text, stating that nutritional supplements intended for pets should not be administered for more than eight days, is completely wrong and contrary to good animal husbandry practice at many stock farms within the European Union.
It should be possible for this maximum period to differ according to the type of farm and type of animal.
Thus, the eight day condition must be deleted.
<P>
I am convinced that the regulation of sensible animal feed in all its aspects should never be a subject of controversy between farmers, consumers and organizations promoting animal welfare.
<P>
I therefore think that the Commission might be able to embark on a codification of all legislation on the matter.
Many would see the importance of this.
It could come about in a codecision procedure with the European Parliament, as is the case with this directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Mulder">
Madam President, I have been able to note this week that not only does Mrs Poisson write a very good report, she can also write a good newsletter.
I am familiar with both.
<P>
Firstly, my group is looking forward to the fact that the proposal will collapse over the co-decision procedure.
We think it is extremely important that after the BSE crisis, this Parliament will have to deal in all kinds of areas with the food that people, consumers, consume daily within the European Union.
Like the rapporteur, we believe that the use of drugs, nutritional supplements, and so on, should under no circumstances become a habit in animal feeding.
Since the BSE crisis we have learnt how careful we should be with animal feed.
That is why we support the proposals of the Commission in principle, as well as the rapporteur's amendments.
Yet, like the Christian Democrat Group, we have the gravest objection to the eight day period.
We find it difficult to insist for all eternity that a certain product can only be used for eight days.
When used under expert supervision, it might benefit the health of the animal if it is given for nine or ten days.
This should be possible, so in our opinion the eight day restriction should be removed.
<P>
I would like to make another remark on something quite different which does not relate to the proposal as such.
In Europe we are improving our standards.
We are making food healthier, we are making meat and animal products healthier.
But what happens to imports?
What is the use of introducing strict conditions in Europe, whilst we import, under WTO rules, increasing amounts of products over which we have no control.
I would like to advise the Commission, when the occasion arises as part of WTO, or in any forum with America, to state that we as Europeans have every right to know what our food contains, and that we can demand this from the imports which end up on our table from other continents in the world.
This is a view which cannot be found in the Commission proposal, and which is not discussed in the report, but which our group believes does require attention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, this is a question of food additives which are not medicaments. These are not the main problem with regard to people's health in the European Union.
The biggest problems are the use of hormones and antibiotics, the use of substances that are prohibited.
<P>
We cannot, however, fully rely on the chemical industry in this matter when, under the guise of added ingredients, they produce substances harmful to humans.
Whenever there are regulations people always try to get round them.
A good example of that is the use of asthma medicines at the Olympics: sportsmen and women appear to be severely asthmatic.
In exactly the same way it may be that some animals need added ingredients in accordance with the regulations.
<P>
I think we must therefore monitor the use of additives; Mrs Poisson's recommendations are far too wishy-washy.
The Commission is being more responsible in wishing to establish how these substances are being used.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Happart">
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am very pleased with the warm welcome which the Commission's proposals.
Like any other product destined for animal consumption, nutritional supplements must be subject to strict regulation, with regard to the needs of the breeding sector.
<P>

Therefore, I would like to thank the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and in particular its rapporteur, Mrs Poisson, who has been rightly praised by various speakers for her constructive motion for a resolution as well as for the amendments she has proposed.
For the most part, the Commission agrees with the amendments proposed concerning the draft amendment of Directive 93/74: Amendments Nos 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7, aimed at strengthening and clarifying the proposed measures can be included in their entirety; in the same way, Amendments Nos 1 and 6 can be approved, on the condition that a slight change is made to ensure that there is greater coherence between the provisions of the regulation concerned and some of the amendments which have been taken over.
<P>
In addition, the Commission can approve Amendments Nos 8, 9 and 10, aimed at simplifying the amendment of Directive 95/69 as regards the approval and registration of certain establishments and intermediaries operating in the animal feed sector.
The Commission cannot include Amendments Nos 11 and 12 which require a qualitative and quantitative declaration of the ingredients used in both dietetic feedingstuffs and the nutritional supplements given to animals.
<P>
As regards Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf's speech, the Commission points out that it has already begun a study on the possibility of monitoring this declaration using analytic methods and, as promised, will inform Parliament of the results of this study as soon as they are available, as well as of its intentions in this area.
<P>
Finally, as regards Mr Mulder's reference to the World Trade Organization, the Commission is opposed to those who would like more flexible regulations, and support the adoption of strict rules. We feel that this criterion should remain in place.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Madam President, can you ask the Commissioner if my statements, made in reference to the Commission's statements, are correct?
Then we need rather more clarification of the question.
The matter of the study is a completely different one.
This relates to the open declaration in the vase of feedingstuffs and we have agreed to wait for this study.
I want to know whether my statements are correct: then these amendments must be accepted.
This conclusion here is based on false statements by the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
Madam President, I would like to point out that we believe the information presented by the Commission to be correct, but that we will complete our study in order to allow us to clarify any doubts that might exist.
In any case, the Commission's position is clear, and Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf is now aware of it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="President">
Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, that obviously cannot be clarified in the way you mean.
<P>
The discussion is closed.
<P>
The vote takes place today at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Impact of biotechnology on agriculture
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="President">
The next item is the Report (A4-0037\98) by Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development on the impact of biotechnology on agriculture.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Keppelhoff-Wiechert">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like first of all, as the rapporteur in the Initiative Report on the impact of biotechnology on agriculture, to thank very sincerely all those who have helped me so magnificently in the work.
Every new technology conceals risks within itself but also promises advantages.
I am of the opinion that broad statements which only condemn or only glorify, are inappropriate.
Modern biotechnology, as a key technology of the 21st century will make a central contribution to feeding the global population.
Of great importance in this will be the need to treat the natural fundamentals of life in a manner which is caring and long lasting.
The use of bioand genetic technology brings advantages for agriculture.
A world population which is growing out of all proportion against a background of static-remaining areas for cultivation obliges us, across all party boundaries, not to shut ourselves off from the use of new technologies.
In all the work of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development this was the prevalent opinion.
<P>
Scientists are of the opinion that the use of biotechnology can make a contribution of 20-30 % of the supply of food.
Of course it always has to be borne in mind, that with any use of genetic-technologically modified organisms the principle must always apply that health and the environment must not be damaged in any way.
It makes no sense and is irresponsible to use this topic simply to stir up the fears of consumers.
Factually accurate information and enlightenment in the field of biotechnology and its applications should always be highly valued.
In my view, economic considerations, however important they may be, must never take priority over people's health.
But the scepticism which prevails in Europe will not change the fact that this innovative technology is being used throughout the world.
To renounce biotechnology and gene technology would mean leaving this important sphere to our competitors on the world market.
<P>
European agriculture needs this technology as an essential means of improving its technical proficiency and the effects on the environment.
We must catch up as quickly as possible on the lead gained by countries outside Europe from the introduction of biotechnology so that the agricultural commodities market is not lost to world wide competition.
I therefore call in my report - and here I turn to the Commission - for the very rapid setting up of a legal framework, so that the consumer can decide what to buy on the basis of enlightenment and appropriate product labelling.
<P>
The comprehensive and risk-free realisation of the potential of bio-technology needs the best possible framework of control.
This must take into account the fact that we in Europe are making possible the innovative development of bio-technology which is at the same time aware of its responsibilities.
I also support an intensive, constructive and factual dialogue with the people about this new technology.
Bio-technology and its application together will fundamentally determine the development of agriculture.
<P>
Finally I would like to point out that in many spheres, but particularly in our capacity as politicians, we are not only responsible for what we do but also for what we do not do.
I would like once more to appeal to the Commissioner at the end of this discussion to tell us quite clearly how the Commission plans to proceed in this matter against the background of this Initiative Report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fantuzzi">
Madam President, first of all I would like to congratulate Mrs Keppelhoff for her work which, while being brief, is very serious and balanced and does not omit any of the fundamental points of the impact of biotechnology on the agricultural sector.
Her report is inspired by a positive view of the biotechnology and their potential for the agricultural sector.
I take note of it and agree with what it has to say.
A positive view is not an idyllic and illuminist view that ignores the problems.
On the contrary, I believe the report we are preparing to approve illustrates all these problems extremely clearly, including those of an ethical and moral nature that need to be faced by trying to provide a way of offering the consumer every guarantee and, at the same time, a favourable framework for the development of this sector, which has great potential for agriculture.
<P>
There are three aspects of interest to agriculture.
The first is environmental.
Using genetic techniques, we can reduce the use of plant protection products and chemical synthesis products and obtain considerable advantages in respect of greater ecocompatibility of the crops from the point of view both of pollution of the strata and of product safety.
<P>
The second aspect of interest is that of development of food products worldwide to face the problems of food safety resulting from the population increase.
As rightly observed by Mrs Keppelhoff, so far we have dealt with the increase in the arable and irrigated areas and the increase in production with the use of fertilizers and manure.
Today, the responsible use of biotechnology can enable the use of these to be stopped.
<P>
The third aspect is the development of biomass, as sources of renewable energy.
We know that the Commission is active in the sense, that work programmes and proposals exist that are aimed at this sector.
However, all these opportunities are not being developed in a consistent and painless manner, it cannot be a question of working shut up in a laboratory and then leaving it convinced that a miraculous solution had been found for everything.
Dialogue with the consumers is decisive and their attitude is of the utmost importance.
However, I have to admit that there has often been a great deal of joking, with thoughtlessness or improvisation, or because, as Mr Happart has suggested, the interest in consumer health has been sacrificed to financial and economic interests, and sometimes those opposed to biotechnology have aroused consumer concern in bad faith.
<P>
Europe cannot withdraw into a useless dispute between those in favour of and those against biotechnology.
The conditions are there for doing more than that!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Gillis">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank the rapporteur for her work on this report.
I would also like to compliment her on the very clear way in which this complicated and very emotive subject was discussed, not only in general terms but specifically in relation to environmentally-friendly and sustainable production, world food supplies, economic aspects and the future prospects for genetic engineering.
<P>
During earlier debates in this House I said the purpose of modern plant breeding is to improve quality and increase the resistance to disease while also increasing the yields of cultivated plants.
Genetic engineering makes it possible to achieve these aims more efficiently and in a much shorter time than by conventional propagation.
I agree with the views set out in the EU White Paper on growth, competitiveness and employment that biotechnology is one of the technologies which will determine the future of European competitiveness.
<P>
Unfortunately, surveys show that at this stage more than half of European citizens are opposed to the release and marketing of genetically modified foods.
I believe the vast majority holds this view because of the influence of scare stories and theories which are completely without scientific foundation.
The full benefits of biotechnology will not be manifest unless public trust and approval are first secured.
The only way this can be achieved is through continuous research to ensure absolute safety and maximum transparency in that research, including explanations to consumers of the technical details should they wish to avail themselves of them.
The compositional quality and indeed the bacteriological quality of foods are more accurately measured today than ever before.
Consumers can feel at ease that this technology, which is highly monitored and tightly regulated, will ensure that Europeans continue to be the best fed people in today's world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martin Philippe-Armand">
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Anttila">
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Madam President, my group does not share the optimism with regard to the impact and benefits of gene technology.
We have major concerns with regard to the health of consumers and we have major concerns about the impact on the environment.
We hold the view that unlike the sphere of medicines, where possibly the side-effects of a product can be tolerated the sphere of food cannot tolerate any side effects.
As long as this is not guaranteed we must treat this technology with very great caution.
<P>
We do not share, Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert, the hopes you expressed with regard to feeding the world.
We must teach people how to run agriculture so that they have enough to eat.
The satisfying of people's hunger will, in my view, not come from the key industries of gene technology.
<P>
In the matter of factually accurate information, this is exactly what we require and our amendments are aimed at obtaining this factual information from science, but also from the Commission.
For example, science has always told us that genetechnologically modified organisms would not transmit further, not skip generations.
However, we do have the case of the herbicide resistance of rape, where the generation skip to a weed took place, and I find that this contradicts the certainty which is being dangled in front of us.
We therefore demand first and foremost that science must create certainty in this matter o that we can move into this risk technology.
<P>
There does remain a ray of hope: the Commission will accept Parliament's proposal and exclude the biosphere of gene technology.
We shall have a statutory regulation whereby bioproducts may not come into contact with gene technology. That urgently requires precise labelling of the use of gene technological processes in food.
I look forward to the conflict between these two areas and the competition in the positive sense.
Then we shall see which foods will be accepted by the people and I think that in the long term the bioline will be the line which secures the feeding of the world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Barthet-Mayer">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert's excellent report on the application of biotechnology to agriculture seems to me, nevertheless, somewhat moderate given that it is a topic which is often the subject of heated debates.
However, we must recognize that it forms a good basis for discussion because Madame rapporteur has objectively presented us with the opportunities and challenges of biotechnology applied to agriculture.
<P>
Faced with expectations and with concern on the part of the public, we, the lawmakers, and the consumers outline what exactly is expected from these new technologies.
There is no doubt that the enormous potential that exists for developing biotechnology could lead us towards a new green revolution.
It is we who must decide what it will be like.
The image of the world farm providing for an overpopulated planet is more like a nightmare than paradise.
Although excessive concentration and specialization lead to an increase in productivity, which are important in the short-term, they also lead to more fragile surroundings and more vulnerable populations.
Can we imagine the dramatic effects we would see if a single seed which had become the only standard in the world became diseased?
These choices are at odds with our convictions and with our European way of conceiving durable development.
<P>
The green revolution must be mastered rather than endured.
This means guiding agricultural policies so that they are based on the advantages their surroundings offer.
It also means that at an international level we must establish a coherent, legislative framework in order to avoid concentrating cultures and technologies in the hands of a few privileged people.
Rather than trying to provide for the world population from giant, highly specialized centres of production, we must ensure that these new technologies are made as widely available as possible.
The rules to be established at an international level must be based the highest levels of safety for man and for the environment, and aim to avoid the setting up of any sort of free zone fearing neither God nor man and permitting everything, particularly in terms of genetics, to the benefit of certain sorcerer's apprentices greedy for profit.
Money is money after all!
<P>
My own belief is that biotechnology must not take over from nature, but should allow us to profit from its diversity on a longterm basis.
Ladies and gentlemen, we must take up a strong political stance and take action so that the WTO takes these demands into consideration.
For the good of public health and consumers it is the duty of the European Union to acknowledge that European agriculture is an exception. If we fail to do this, we will eventually have to find the political courage to reject unjust compromises in the future.
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<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Nicholson">
Madam President, first of all I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on her excellent report in a very difficult field.
Certainly developments in the field of biotechnology bring a tremendous challenge to the agricultural industry and beyond.
The question is whether we move with the new developments and new technologies or stand aside and allow others to set the pace.
I personally have to admit that I have terrible concerns about a lot of the new technologies and things that are happening now.
I would also like to ensure that we in Europe do not lose out if we say no.
That is the bottom line as far as we are concerned.
We must proceed with extreme caution.
There is a very clear concern in the mind of the consumer and, taking into consideration past events, I think one has to sympathize with that concern.
Consumers are sceptical and will require convincing that the legal framework that is put in place to control and act as the safeguard will ensure the most stringent monitoring of the new arrangements.
Whatever is put in place cannot be seen to be weak and lacking the ability to control the harmful aspects that might develop.
To this end we must make doubly sure that all genetically engineered food should be clearly labelled, in a transparent way, so that consumers can see what they are purchasing.
In this way there can be no ambiguity or reason for any concern in the mind of the consumer.
<P>
I have no problem in principle with the continued research and development in this field.
But, as I have said, we must have maximum transparency, control and full knowledge of the ultimate objectives.
As long as we are assisting society and the consumer, and not using and abusing technology to increase the profit margins of the major multinationals at the expense of consumer confidence, then I am prepared to give tentative support to current developments.
We must give a clear warning that any abuse of these new developing technologies by those involved will be dealt with in the most severe manner.
Although I have my reservations, I hope I am also realistic and it is that realism that forces me to give my qualified support at this time.
I feel I speak for many when I say that it cannot be taken for granted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Paisley">
Madam President, the proposals before the House reflect the lessons that have been learned across Europe from the BSE crisis. That crisis taught the value of caution where foodstuffs are concerned, especially as regards animals and meat eaten by human beings.
<P>
Everyone involved in this crisis has suffered: producers, consumers and the ancillary industries.
The proposals that we are talking about now are a necessary step, but this step has to be taken - as my colleague from Northern Ireland has said - with great caution.
There is a clear need to lay down a strict, enforceable framework of rules governing the nature of the products we are discussing.
<P>
Animal nutrition plays a crucial role in the human food chain, so this is a vital report.
Confidence is of the essence. Without confidence in the standards of foodstuffs, the entire basis of our agricultural industry is put in jeopardy.
I would underscore again that extreme caution is needed in biotechnology.
It is high-risk and there are unknown risks which lie ahead.
Great care is essential.
<P>
I might add, in concluding, that the recent outbreak of BSE in the United Kingdom affected Northern Ireland.
Northern Ireland has been unfairly penalized by having all beef exports banned by this Union.
This was despite the very low incidence of BSE in the province and our excellent traceability system, which is better than anywhere else in the whole European Union.
The Commission has proposed a lifting of this ban in Northern Ireland.
We welcome that, but the standing veterinary committee seems to be engaged in delaying tactics.
<P>
I call on those Member States which, for political reasons, are continuing to block the lifting of the ban, to start looking at the objective, scientific evidence.
The beef ban for Northern Ireland is unjust and should be lifted immediately.
Any further delay would rightly be regarded as political.
As our beef industry is worth over £50 million per year, agriculture is our biggest industry.
The Commission has decided that the time for action is now, and I endorse this view.
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<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kindermann">
Madam President, for the balanced and, above all, convincing report I would like to thank the rapporteur Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert.
I am sure that in future there will be much discussion of this subject.
The discussion on biotechnology is indeed usually a very controversial one and like many other Members I, too, see advantages and positive effects in this field.
Possibly the result will be an increase in jobs, but in spite of all this we should not be so blue-eyed as to see only the advantages.
There are certain risks.
<P>
I can only support the rapporteur explicitly when under point No 2 she demands an optimal control framework which includes the impact on the environment, on every single animal, on the health and well-being of people and all the ethical aspects.
Do we really know everything about the interaction of gene technologically modified organisms in the overall ecological system?
How do we deal with waste and residual matter?
Where does the residual risk end or where does the risk begin even?
What is the long-term impact on the metabolic and other natural processes in the living organism?
<P>
Anyone who has read the article about the Monsanto report "Green Gene Technology' , Volume 39 of 9.2.98, No.6, learns there are only positive results and effects.
There do not appear to be any risks, or at least they are not mentioned.
There are obvious advantages, but precisely because of that the responsibility-awareness of all those involved must be alerted to the not least very profitable possibilities.
Therefore it can only support explicitly the announcement by the Commission in its proposed Amendment to Directive 90\220\EEC that it will undertake a broad evaluation of the direct and indirect risks to human health and the environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schierhuber">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is in the interests of the farmers and the consumers of the European Union to study critically the use of gene technology and to consider both the advantages and the risks.
The use of gene technology cannot be excluded out of hand, but we need clear rules and a clear administration.
It is a concern of all farmers that the confidence of the consumers is fostered and that can only be ensured, through the greatest possible transparency and unambiguous marking of food and animal feedstuffs which are produced by means of gene technological methods.
<P>
It would be wrong to negate these new developments, since in many parts of the world they are already being used professionally.
In my view it is nevertheless necessary to orientate the statutory framework conditions to the greatest possible extent to the needs of the consumers and the farmers.
An optimal framework of control must be created in order to make possible a biotechnological sphere which is aware of its responsibilities. In other words, we need a statutory framework which is efficient, quick and transparent and at the same time meets the requirements of the most comprehensive clarification possible of all safety questions.
For me the essential element in this context is the situation and management of imports from third countries.
<P>
I therefore demand that this is dealt with immediately.
A step by step procedure in the release of gene technology modified organisms is a necessary condition and we must not allow a general go-ahead to small and large-scale open experiments.
Each case must be tested separately, in the same way that our decisions here must be made.
At any rate there must be the greatest possible degree of safety and all questions about any procedural step must be clarified before a further stage in the development can take place.
I am against the general shortening of the testing periods.
<P>
I would like once more to emphasise how extremely important it is to ensure that when gene technologically modified organisms are used, neither the health of the people nor the environment is impaired.
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<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="Hyland">
Madam President, I wish to thank Mrs Keppelhoff for her work in bringing forward a report which represents a reasonable balance between the importance and potential of biotechnology in the development of agriculture and food production, on the one hand, and on the other the understandable concern of citizens about possible ethical implications, which is shared by all who wish to see technology developed for the benefit of mankind.
<P>
For farmers, who are the custodians of our land resource and responsible to society for guaranteeing food security and quality, it is of the utmost importance that the benefits of science and research are available and applied to this sector.
It is to the credit of those who manage our land resources that they have been at the forefront in the application of modern technology.
Hence the remarkable progress in agricultural production, in food quality and safety.
<P>
I am a supporter of the concept of sustainability and the development of renewable resources but I also live in the real world.
I am realistic enough to know that those who would keep agriculture in the dark ages have little to offer in the way of solutions to the threat of world hunger, a reality which future generations of farmers will be called on to address.
It must be borne in mind that the world's productive land resource remains constant and much of it will not respond to established agricultural practices.
It is only through ongoing research, the application of new science, including safe and tested biotechnology, that the full potential of land resources can be harnessed for society.
<P>
We need, however, as other speakers have said, a balanced and sensible approach.
I fully share the view of those who have expressed concern with regard to the application of genetic engineering to humans which I strongly oppose.
It must also be acknowledged that biotechnology has made a significant contribution to the development of modern medicine.
<P>
Biotechnology is not a recent discovery, it has been applied, as the rapporteur has said, in varying degrees since 1970.
There is now a greater understanding of its potential and benefits for mankind.
It is one of the key technologies of the twenty-first century and there is an obligation on us to use this in a careful and planned way.
As should be the case with the application of all new research, transparency and consumer information are important.
To this extent I fully support the case made by other speakers in this debate that labelling of all genetically modified food is important so that the consumer can make a choice.
<P>
Finally, I say to those who hold positions of influence in society and who, for their own good reasons, oppose the development of biotechnology, that they should be careful not to overstate or exaggerate their position.
The future of world agriculture, the profession of farming, the health of our citizens and employment in the food sector are dependent on the development of a sustainable agriculture based on the benefits of ongoing research and the application of carefully tested new technology.
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<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Madam President, some interesting things can be learned from the latest Eurobarometer on Biotechnology .
It appears, for instance, that the European citizen feels less optimistic about biotechnology, whilst his knowledge of modern biotechnology has in fact increased.
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The interviewees on the whole have little faith in their governments, as these restrict themselves to a risk analysis of new products for the safety of humans and animals.
The general opinion is that governments should pay much more attention to the ethical aspects of biotechnology.
<P>
I do not wish to play down the positive aspects of gene technology, but I do wish to remind the national governments and the European Commission of their responsibility.
Government must curb man's laxity.
Legislators have the responsibility to indicate clearly which limits should be observed.
An essential part of this is a thorough deliberation of the values and standards against which new techniques are tested.
<P>
The Bible teaches us that in nature we are dealing with God's creation.
The Biblical concept of custodianship is therefore a central factor for me.
It means we should build and maintain.
Only if we use creation as God intended, is it able to serve man.
Plants and animals must not be degraded to production factor, which can be manipulated to our heart's content.
If no thorough deliberation of the limits of biotechnology is initiated, I fear we will be relinquishing control to research and our trade partners.
<P>
I therefore cannot support the plea in the Keppelhoff report for the harmonization of European testing legislation with those of Japan and the United States.
It is to be expected, of course, that technological companies will locate in countries with the most flexible preconditions.
The fact that 27 out of 43 registered products are in the name of the United States says something about the ease with which they handle such techniques.
But that should be no reason for Europe to opt for a less careful testing procedure.
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<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kronberger">
Madam President, gene technological manipulation has nothing whatsoever to do with conquering world hunger.
We can only combat global hunger by offering those countries in which it prevails fair social development possibilities.
Sociologically it has long since been proved that there is a close connection between the population explosion and social emergency.
To use population growth as an argument in favour of the need for gene technologically manipulated foods is a pure and simple deception.
The same applies to the assertion that gene technological manipulation enables us to reduce the use of fertilizers.
<P>
I regard as particularly questionable Point 16 of the report which declares cross-frontier open experiments to be appropriate.
The promotion of communication for gene technological manipulation must also involve promoting the communication of information about the dangers of gene manipulation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Hardstaff">
Madam President, I also wish to thank Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert for her own-initiative report on the impact of biotechnology on agriculture, which sets out in a very balanced way the opportunities and risks presented by the rapidly expanding development of biotechnological processes.
<P>
There are huge vested interests involved.
A number of large multinational companies are investing heavily in biotechnology, developing products which could be of great value to the human race, particularly in helping raise agricultural output and thereby tackling food shortages in parts of the world where they exist.
All too often, however, the aim is to establish a monopoly position over important market sectors to maximize profits, and the poorest farmers in the world are either further impoverished or put out of business completely.
<P>
Of course, companies need to make profits to survive, and many jobs are provided by the biotechnological industries.
However, as previous speakers have pointed out, these profits should be made within a basic ethical and regulatory framework to ensure that new biotechnological products are beneficial, rather than harmful, to the health of human beings and other living creatures, and also to the wider environment.
<P>
Governments and the Commission of the European Union have a role to play in encouraging beneficial application of biotechnological products by supporting research, basic research, which is independent of commercial concerns and has at its prime purpose the discovery of biotechnological applications which really will benefit the world rather than company profits.
<P>
It worries me greatly that agricultural and horticultural research organizations and university departments which used to be publicly funded are now increasingly reliant on multinational companies for their finance and are thereby prevented from pursuing basic biotechnological research, independent of the need to make a rapid financial return.
Commercial concerns should not be allowed to dominate this vital area totally.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cunha">
Madam President, today, world food problems are more complex than they were twenty or thirty years ago, in terms of volume of production in some parts of the world, such as like Africa and Asia, or of quality, as in the case of the European Union.
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Biotechnology has been able to offer solutions to these various situations, creating varieties with higher yields and others that are disease-resistant, and by reducing the use of chemical products which are usually harmful to the environment.
As our rapporteur suggests, the time has come to end the demagogic vilification of biotechnology and genetic engineering, because these techniques can in fact provide consumers with supplies of adequate quantity and quality and protect environmental quality.
<P>
Moreover, if the European Union does not use these technical and scientific resources, it will find it quite impossible to respond to increasing world demand for food, for which it must contend with the major exporting powers.
For European agriculture not to use these techniques which are employed by its main competitors would be like taking part in a bicycle race against competitors driving cars.
<P>
We cannot, therefore, be afraid of using biotechnology and genetic engineering, although we must be realistic, disciplined and cautious.
Consequently, the European Union should draw up a clear and operational legal framework that covers such important issues as the environmental impact of these new products, their effects on human health and on the well-being of animals and, of course, the compliance with previously-defined ethical standards.
<P>
Finally, I would like to say how important it is that the next round of GATT should include clear rules in this regard, without which unacceptable distortions of trade could well be created.
I would like to thank Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert for her excellent work.
This is a very sensible and balanced report which will be extremely useful to the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Madam President, with the problem and the report by Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert, we are getting into the myths of Prometheus or Demeter, and it is true that biotechnologies will go through both good times and bad.
<P>
Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert rightly informs us that through this technology we can obtain a whole range of modified plants (potatoes, soya, rice, cotton, rice, tobacco, etc.), that 32 million hectares have already been cultivated, that 6, 000 experiments have already been conducted and that there have been positive results.
We can fight against viral diseases in sugar beet, the European corn borer, fungus on potatoes which can lower harvests by 20 % and we are even building plant factories.
So we have brought about the third industrial revolution whereby the mylolepine in potatoes has increased adhesive capacity, gene technology allows an increase in the content of oleic acid in oilseed rape, we can manufacture detergents, lacquers and cooling liquids and we even have larger fish and transgenic poplars which produce more wood.
Finally, the dream of having heaven on earth is to become a reality.
<P>
However, there are still risks involved.
Firstly, there is trickery involved in the terminology.
The word "bio' is a favourable word and the word "techno' reminds us of a sort of natural music which would be modified.
As soon as the words "techno' or "bio' are used, young people are likely to be supportive.
<P>
In addition, there is a contradiction: a contradiction between fallow land and the genetically modified organisms.
We cannot use the fallow land because of world overproduction and then produce GMOs in order to fight hunger, since, if there is a hunger problem, we might as well recultivate the fallow land!
<P>
There is also a contradiction between the GMOs and the MGQs, because we cannot increase the yield of oilseed rape and then have maximum guaranteed quantities under the GATT for rape if we do not have enough.
There is obviously a very real risk from the multinational monopolies seized by Novartis, Cargyll or Monsanto, since these multinationals in the Arizona desert have stockpiled more than six million plants for which they possess the patent.
<P>
Resistance to antibiotics has been discussed.
My colleagues have not seen any mechanical factors, or dare I say quantum factors, which are much more dangerous and which involve the molecular composition of plants.
All plants and all life are made up of four sugar sticks: ATCN.
This is the elementary alphabet and this alphabet vibrates in quantum mechanics.
Changing one of the elements of this molecular composition is the same as changing the atomic vibration of the plant, and we do not know what the consequences of this would be.
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There is therefore a risk involved in the great universal harmony and the great universal division; there is the risk of a false, yet to be found, molecular note.
In other words, the "mad-cow' lesson seems to have been forgotten.
<P>
I believe that Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert is right: we must not work against progress.
However, time is not yet running out!
There could be at least a moratorium before there is widespread dissemination!
Labelling is still an illusion.
Ladies and gentlemen, we must find a balance, an ancient balance which comes from Greek mythology, between the need for progress and the need to respect natural harmonies, because life is beautiful and we should not play with it!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wibe">
Madam President, the principles of a computer are actually quite simple.
Basically it is a question of adding zeros and ones.
The mechanical adding machines of the 1800s were actually far more complicated, but because computers can add up so quickly, they can carry out infinitely more tasks that the adding machines of the 1800s could do.
As we all know, computers have opened up entirely new areas for mankind and science.
<P>
Biotechnology is old in the sense that for many hundreds of years we have deliberately changed the genetic make up of animals and plants.
However, this relates to the old methods in the same way that computers relate to the old adding machines.
Biotechnology is opening up entirely new possibilities, partly through its speed in creating new species, and partly through making combinations possible which nature herself cannot create.
At the university I come from, for example, people are working on using genes from fish which are implanted into trees to get the trees to grow faster.
<P>
With these words I would like, apart from thanking the rapporteur for an excellent piece of work, to underline the importance of always putting the principle of caution first.
Modern biotechnology makes it possible to manipulate nature in ways people could not do in the past.
In these new areas we must move with great caution.
Nature can hit back!
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<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Madam President, we have received reports about which we can be pleased and Mrs KeppelhoffWiechert has written a report which has a great future, which deals with a very responsible subject and is very ambitious.
I believe that food technology and in particular biotechnology have enormous influence on the people who sell food, on innkeepers and consumers.
Mrs Schierhuber has already referred to the fact that we need a good legal framework which makes it possible to produce these products without risk.
Labelling is a very important topic and I believe there is also a consensus here that marking must take place.
<P>
In principle we must say that there is no such thing as gene-free food.
In every food we consume there are genes and when today we eat various foods - vegetable, fruit, milk or meat - then these genes come together in our stomach and are digested there.
We also know that from foods which are made on a purely biological basis many illnesses can occur.
Dr Flande has shown in his latest book that food allergies can trigger off problems such as migraine, neuro-dermatitis, fungal infections, colds, asthma, chronic tiredness, obesity, itching, swelling, palpitation - all due to perfectly naturally produced foods.
We must see to it that we find foods with which we have a chance of remaining healthy.
That is an important task in which agriculture, the food distributors and ultimately the consumers must cooperate in order to be able to remain healthy in their old age.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Iversen">
Madam President, genetically modified food is on the agenda once again.
This is about food which is processed not by old-fashioned methods but by changing the inherited basic characteristics of vegetables, for instance.
The results can be apples which do not turn red and types of corn which do not need so many insecticides.
Seen in environmental terms, it is essential that there should be research into biotechnology, because this may also allow us to reduce our use of insecticides.
But there is also some reason to believe that this technology will not solve all our problems.
There is also some reason to stop and think about whether this technology might at some point not go beyond the limits of what is ethical and correct.
Are we fully in control of the consequences of what happens if we alter foods so drastically?
<P>
Labelling of foods containing genetically modified products is therefore essential.
It is important that consumers themselves should be able to decide whether they want to eat these products.
Consumers have the right to know what production methods are used, not just for square bananas and blue tomatoes, but also for natural products and the ingredients which go into them.
I therefore welcome this initiative.
The report recognizes that genetic engineering is a tool which can have both positive and negative effects, so we need proper legislation in this field to protect consumers against the adverse effects of this new technology.
<P>
Finally, I would like to emphasize once more that it is essential to mark these new products so that consumers themselves can decide what they want to eat.
Here in the European Parliament, we have passed a proposal that ecological products must not contain any genetically modified organisms.
This would guarantee consumers products which are produced in a healthy, environmentally friendly manner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission welcomes the initiative taken by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development to present this excellent report on biotechnology to the European Parliament, and I would particularly like to thank Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert who has laid out so clearly the challenges that this new technology presents to the world of agriculture.
<P>
Despite everything said by its critics, biotechnology is now a reality which we cannot avoid. To surrender to it would mean that Europe would experience an accelerated loss of competitiveness, to the advantage of the great economic powers who have understood very well over the last decade the benefits they can obtain through exploiting the enormous possibilities offered by this new science.
<P>
As the report rightly points out, European agriculture must show itself to be less conservative and must take advantage of this new technology, since its many different applications would allow Europe to face up to the constant impoverishment of its natural resources and the continuous rise in its population's needs.
<P>
Since the beginning of this decade, the Commission has shown that it is clearly in favour of biotechnology through the creation of a regulation framework for genetic engineering.
The adoption of Directives 90/219 and 90/220 on genetically modified organisms reflects our Institution's constant desire to welcome innovation, while at the same time endeavouring to control it in order to better protect the environment and the population.
<P>
I have noted with much interest that the Commission's attitude towards biotechnology is shared by those responsible for the report, who advocate a style of agricultural production which is open to this new technology, as long as it respects the environment.
I also share the opinion that considerable efforts should be made to provide consumers with information about genetically modified foodstuffs.
The reservations still currently felt by many consumers towards genetically modified foodstuffs and agricultural products will only change through objective dialogue and accurate information.
In my view, the only way to change fixed, negative attitudes regarding genetic engineering is through total transparency on the labelling of transgenic products which then allows the consumer to choose freely.
<P>
In relation to the question raised by Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert, I would like to say that I have read very carefully the recommendations put to the Commission and I can already tell her that some of these are about to implemented.
The Commission will soon submit new proposals for a more adequate regulation on genetic engineering and an improvement in the procedure set out in Directive 90/220 for the authorization of established genetic organisms.
<P>
In addition, with the aim of perfecting the existing regulation, the Commission, probably during this first semester, will submit a proposal concerning the raw materials destined for the animal feed sector that have been genetically modified.
I can assure you that the Commission will study with extreme care all the recommendations set out in this report, as well as those presented orally here this morning, with specific questions, and it will endeavour to take them into account in its future proposals.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Keppelhoff-Wiechert">
Madam President, I have no questions but I would like to sum up by saying thank you. Time has moved on.
Most speakers have expressed themselves very positively indeed.
I hope that this is reflected at 12.00 in the vote.
I just wanted once more to reply to those who keep saying that it does not help the people in the developing countries.
Only yesterday afternoon we had a broad discussion here in the chamber in which the scientist Dr Klaus Amann refuted that very argument.
So, for example, in cooperation with research bodies in Europe and with organizations in the Philippines types of rice are being developed which promise the people there a better future.
To that extent I must again, being logical, reject it.
I must also say that for me ecological agriculture and gene technological do not represent a contradiction.
Thank you very much for all your work!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="President">
Thank you, Madam Rapporteur.
<P>
The discussion is now closed.
<P>
The vote will take place today at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Confidence in electronic means of payment
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="President">
The next item is the Report (A4-0028\98) by Mrs Thors on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights on the communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Monetary Institute and the Economic and Social Committee: "Boosting customers' confidence in electronic means of payment in the single market' (COM(97)0353-C4-0486\97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Madam President, I am pleased to see that you, Madam President, are a true friend of Finnish jewellery.
<P>
This report is part of a long series of initiatives which the Commission has already taken and will continue to take in order that we shall eventually have a set of rules to apply to the numerous new means and methods of payment which are being rapidly introduced.
During the suppliers' strike in Brussels we had practical experience of what living in a society free of notes and coins is really like.
The euro is just around the corner and we have these new means of payment whose limitations not even we are aware of.
Central banks will no longer regulate the money supply.
I think it is time for us to prepare ourselves, because the new situation will be very different.
We need to be prepared with a set of rules, but we should not legislate unnecessarily.
<P>
The communication which we are now discussing and the recommendation which it contains are not particularly dramatic.
It is a minor modernization of a ten-year-old recommendation which actually has minimum requirements for terms of agreements and legislation in the Member States.
It will be more exciting this spring, I expect, and we hope that we shall soon have a proposal from the Commission concerning when, where, how and whether we should supervise those who have the right to provide means of payment.
<P>
Although I am a very experienced user of the new means of payment, and although I often make my payments by Internet, it is still unclear to me whether this recommendation is about that.
We have also noticed that the Economic and Social Committee was very critical of the definitions in the recommendations.
If recommendations which are supposed to increase consumer confidence are unclear, that is worrying.
We have no need for unintelligible language in this matter.
<P>
On the other hand, I would like to express my appreciation of the fact that in the recommendation the Commission says that the terms of agreements should be in a clearer language.
Unfortunately, the recommendation has still not realized that several of the Member States are bilingual, because it refers to the official languages of the Member States.
<P>
Something which I also consider to be important, and which we stress in the report, is that all customers should have access to the terms applicable to the means of payment they are going to use.
It is far too common to just have framework conditions; the small print is somewhere else, and the consumer is not really shown what the agreement will entail.
I hope that the Commission will be strict and will monitor how the recommendation works.
<P>
In addition, we know that flaws in this area include the fact that sometimes there is a lack of effective procedures to compensate consumers, that there is a lack of clarity about liability for theft, that the rules on the burden of proof are unclear, i.e. who must prove what, and that the position of customers in bankruptcies can be vague.
<P>
We should also be aware that when new means of payment are introduced, a long time may elapse before consumers become aware of the new problems which can arise.
Instead of somebody stealing your card, it could happen that someone breaks your code or spies on you when you use it.
It takes longer before you discover this loss.
I think this problem requires new consideration by all of us.
<P>
I must also say that a few weeks ago we had an unfortunate example of what happens when there is a lack of clarity about means of payment.
Here I refer to the payment card VISA Electron.
It appears that the issuers of this card did not follow the principles in the recommendation, and in particular Article 8.1 b.
<P>
And so to the future timetable. During 1998 the Commission shall monitor what happens.
I hope that this will be done in a more active way than with the previous recommendation, when a very mechanical study was carried out.
I hope the Commission will invite consumers and issuers of cards to a round table conference, so that people can go through problems and see how things work in reality, and that the Commission will also be prepared to always have a line always open for feedback from the consumers.
In that way we shall get a speedier and proper understanding of how the recommendation is working.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Martin, David W.">
Madam President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on her report which she has produced with her usual thoroughness and flair.
It is anticipated, as the rapporteur has indicated, that by the end of this century a significant share of retail commerce will be on the Internet, a development that is expected to be boosted by the advent of the single currency.
However, if electronic commerce is to develop, we require a sound user-friendly and secure payment system.
Regulation in this area, therefore, must balance a number of concerns.
<P>
Firstly, it must ensure, above all, that the consumer is protected.
If there are no safeguards against fraud, or if consumers do not believe that clear and fair provisions exist to protect them in the case of loss or theft, this will certainly prove an impediment to the development and use of electronic payment.
If we undermine consumer confidence, the whole system will be threatened.
<P>
Secondly, we have to ensure fair competition in this area, particularly by guaranteeing interoperability and, where necessary, the vigorous use of Community competition rules.
<P>
Thirdly, any legislation must not disadvantage European industry or hinder developments in this area.
Europe must remain competitive on a world-wide scale.
<P>
Balancing these three interests, which are not always compatible, will not be easy and that is why, like the rapporteur, I support at this stage a recommendation in this area rather than a directive.
Having said that, I feel it should be noted that the recommendation in the related matter concerning the payments system, adopted in 1988, is being violated in virtually every Member State of the European Community, and this does not give us grounds for confidence.
<P>
If Recommendation 97/489/EEC, which we are discussing, meets the same fate, then the Socialist Group will have no hesitation in calling for a directive in this particular area.
We will keep the Commission to its promise made on page 5 of its communication where it says 'if the new recommendation is not implemented satisfactorily at the end of 1998, the Commission will propose a directive in this domain.'
We hope that through the recommendation, consumer interest and industry interest can be balanced.
We think a light regulation is the way forward but, I repeat, if we do not get satisfactory progress through that means, we will demand a directive and request legal intervention in this area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Cassidy">
Madam President, I would like to add my voice to that of Mr Martin on behalf of the Socialist Group, in praising the rapporteur for a very thorough and, on the whole, uncontroversial job on a very important subject.
As has already been pointed out both by the rapporteur herself and by Mr Martin, this is a consumer protection issue, an area in which we should all be concerned to protect the interests of our constituents and citizens.
<P>
There is only one amendment to Mrs Thors' report in the name of my group.
It was an amendment which I put down in committee.
Because Mrs Thors, as rapporteur, was unhappy with it - she considered that it did not have much relevance in that particular context - I withdrew it before it was put to the vote, largely because I sit at the front of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and I could not see what was going on behind me.
I understand that my amendment would have been passed had I put it to the vote.
<P>
I would like to ask, in this instance, that all other groups in the House support that amendment, which is designed to ensure that where a partner to a financial transaction goes bankrupt, the consumer does not suffer any loss as a result.
I understand, from the rapporteur, that she may well be prepared to leave the decision to the wisdom of the House.
She is nodding, so I take that to be the case.
I hope that all the other groups, today, will be able to support the PPE amendment.
<P>
That is all I need to say at this stage on behalf of the PPE.
We shall support this proposal wholeheartedly.
Once again, many congratulations to the rapporteur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="President">
We shall now interrupt the discussion so that the vote can start punctually.
<P>
The discussion on this item of the Agenda will continue this evening at 6.00 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I am pleased to welcome a delegation of seven Members of the Swiss Parliament, headed by Mr Peter Biere, seated in the official gallery.
<P>
The delegation has come to Strasbourg to meet the members of the delegation from the European Parliament on the occasion of the 17th European Parliament-Swiss Parliament interparliamentary meeting.
Several meetings have taken place, yesterday and today, and topics such as the enlargement of the European Union, the forecasts for European Monetary Union, the bilateral negotiations between the European Union and Switzerland, the prospects of a common foreign and security policy and future relations were discussed amongst others.
I hope that the discussions have been productive for the delegation and that they have had a pleasant stay in Strasbourg.
<P>
Mr Kerr wishes to speak on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Kerr">
Mr President, on a point of order.
At the outset of the sitting this morning Mr Alex Smith raised the question of a letter which Mr Coates and I had sent out concerning the vote on the debate today.
The letter was intended to draw attention to Amendment No 12 tabled by the Green Group, asking him to vote against the war.
But Mr Smith was offended by the letter, so I withdraw the letter today and apologize to Mr Smith.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Falconer">
Mr President, according to the correspondence, implementation measures and rules we have received from the Bureau, could you please note my presence in the Chamber.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fontaine">
Mr President, I would ask for the following Members to be exempt from the need to be present for this vote as we have just attended a very important conciliation meeting on transferable securities: Cassidy, Wijsenbeek, Bourlanges, Corbett, Florio, Caudron, Oddy, De Giovanni, Gebhardt.


<P>
After the vote on Amendment No 33
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Crowley">
Mr President, pursuant to the rules brought in by the Bureau, I wish to put on record that I am present but did not partake in the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="President">
Mr Crowley, this was not a roll-call vote, it was a simple electronic verification.
When there is a roll-call vote you can raise this point or make it directly to the Bureau.
<P>
After the roll-call vote on Amendment No 2
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Falconer">
Mr President, could I again have my presence noted in the Chamber?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="President">
Very well, Mr Falconer.
<P>
(Through successive votes, Parliament adopted the two legislative resolutions)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, as regards Amendments Nos 11 and 12, the Commission would like to make the following statement: in terms of the composition of feedingstuffs, the Commission wants to point out that current legislation lays down that all ingredients used must be declared in order of importance, but without any indication of their respective quantities.
In this respect, the Commission is carrying out a survey in order to see if it is technically possible to include not only the ingredients in their order of importance, but also an indication of their respective quantities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Mr President, after this declaration by the Commission we must ask the rapporteur if she still has reservations about the matter.
For now, both our amendments make sense because they demand that the percentage share must be indicated.
Hitherto this was disputed by the Commission.
After this statement it is clear that our amendments are appropriate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="President">
Mrs Poisson, could you let us know if you accept the amendments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Poisson">
Mr President, I wanted to reply to Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf.
I am not sure that the amendments he is proposing in any way provide more clarification.
Therefore, I am still sceptical about them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Poisson.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Berend">
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Falconer">
Mr President, can my presence in the Chamber be noted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="President">
I would simply like to point out that when a Member has shown that he does not want to take part in a vote, but has established that he is in the hemicycle, the Bureau will obviously take this into account for the following roll-call votes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Falconer">
Mr President, that was a very important statement.
According to the interpreter you said that my presence would be recorded at all future roll-call votes.
That is not correct.
I participated in the Iraq roll-call votes and in the human rights roll-call votes.
Hopefully you will note my presence in the Chamber only when I indicate that I wish it to be noted.
On occasion I may wish to exercise my right to record my vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="President">
Very well, Mr Falconer.
Most of the Members prefer not to have to rise each time.
It is logical that if they do this is taken into account during the rest of the voting.
But if you would prefer to rise, then we will take note of this each time it happens and only then.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Díez de Rivera Icaza">
Those of us concerned with environmental matters know that landfills are an unacceptable method of eliminating waste, especially if we are looking for viable solutions.
For this reason, this Parliament rejected the common position in 1996.
<P>
The new proposal sets out both clearer and stricter criteria which integrate some new elements into the process of eliminating waste: reduction, pre-treatment, control of methane gas emissions, recycling and recovery, etc.
<P>
This new regulation will provide for the closure of illegal landfills and the improvement of existing ones without necessarily having to resort to incineration.
It will oblige the Member States to draw up a national strategy aimed at reducing biodegradable waste by 50 % by the year 2005 and to ensure that only pre-treated waste, with the exception of inert material, is deposited in landfills.
<P>
There is no doubt that costs will be incurred in fulfilling these requirements and that a tax will have to be imposed on waste destined for landfills.
It would have been logical for the Commission, when presenting this Directive, to have included a financial estimate of the costs involved in implementing it.
However, it is a step in the right direction and will receive my vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Ephremidis">
We must take note of the long delay before the Commission's re-introduction of its proposal to establish Community laws governing the hygienic burial of waste, granted the importance of the problem for the protection of the environment, the conservation of and respect for the ecosystem, and for the protection of our citizens' health and quality of life.
<P>
However, the Commission's new proposal, after the important changes it underwent thanks to the European Parliament's decisive intervention and to the addition of new elements, is clearly along more positive lines than the initial draft.
For one thing, there is a smaller number of exceptions in its field of application, and less scope for the deviations that made it substantially ineffectual - if not burdensome - for exactly those regions which are supposedly facing particularly acute problems.
<P>
It is positive that the proposal finally includes the fact that along with the establishment of high standards for hygienic burial, there should clearly be an impetus towards preventing the production of waste, towards alternative waste management methods such as recycling and other ways of recovering materials, and against combustion and other ways of recovering energy which burden the environment.
This a very important improvement because it establishes the clear priority of recycling and composting as opposed to combustion, pyrolysis or gasification.
<P>
We must, however, draw the Commission's attention to the need to adopt all the measures required to ensure that extensions of the transitional period will be granted for adaptation and modernization of existing landfills so that those extensions will have a constructive effect, and to ensure that there are no delays with adverse results for the environments' viability and people's health, so that all the prerequisites are secured for the best possible organization and support of the programme.
To achieve such a target, as much account as possible must be taken of local environmental needs, geological and hydrological conditions, and the solutions adopted must be individualized and adapted as much as possible towards achieving the best overall results in each particular area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Holm">
The problem of waste is a result of the lifestyle and throw-away mentality which a majority of the inhabitants of the industrial world have today.
That is why the issue of waste has become more and more alarming.
I therefore have great sympathy for the proposals which the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has put forward, demanding tough measures, partly to reduce the waste mountain through more recycling, and partly to ensure that what is dumped has a minimal environmental impact.
<P>
However, I am not sure that the question should be decided at the EU level.
Since the question does not concern environmentally dangerous waste, but just waste, it should still be a question for the national Member States to decide.
At the same time I am aware, however, that the rules which already exist at EU level are not being complied with to the desired extent which is very regrettable.
It would therefore be best to have minimum rules in the area of waste, so that individual countries can introduce tougher rules if they so wish.
<P>
I think, of course, that the EU should do all in its power to encourage the Member States to get to grips with this issue.
The proposal from the Committee on the Environment should without doubt form the basis for implementation at Member State level.
Through measures which encourage recycling and the minimum creation of waste, the waste mountain can be reduced, which is necessary.
Naturally, I think the question of environmentally dangerous waste should remain subject to international rules in future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Lis Jensen and Krarup">

We have decided to support the Jackson report, as we believe its basic views are well-considered and sensible.
But we would like to point out that it contains a serious weakness: in its proposed amendments to the Council Directive (COM(97)105), it does make any provision for Member States to be able to put a brake on the transport of waste across national borders.
It will still be lawful to treat waste as a commodity which enjoys free movement within the single European market.
In effect, this prevents parliaments in Member States from passing stricter national rules for handling waste.
Those who produce the waste will still be able to choose the 'cheapest' solution if their national parliament decides to go further than the EU's minimum rules and send their waste products to an EU Member State which only applies EU rules.
So, although in formal terms it is a minimum directive, the Directive should in fact be regarded as a maximum directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Nicholson">
This report offers constructive proposals for the regulation of the landfill of waste.
Landfill can be a useful means for the disposal of waste but it must be properly regulated in order to avoid water, soil and air pollution.
<P>
In Northern Ireland we have had recent experience of the problem.
It was planned to locate a landfill waste disposal sit next to a lough of scientific interest even though it was believed that substance listed under current EU legislation would be discharged into the lough.
Fortunately the matter went to a public inquiry which ruled against the application.
However, it did highlight the problem of unsatisfactory regulation.
Part of the problem appeared to lie in poor implementation of legislation at national level.
I trust that national governments will do more in future to implement EU legislation in this regard.
Indeed, I would argue that national governments should be taking the initiative.
<P>
In regard to the disposal of tyres through landfill, there should be an exemption made for large tyres such as tractor tyres.
These can actually be of some use in landfill and are difficult to dispose of by other environmentally friendly means.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Verwaerde">
I must congratulate Mrs Jackson on her report on the European Commission's proposal on the landfill of waste which has just been considered during first reading.
<P>
I would like to remind you that this current proposal for a Directive is actually the European Commission's second attempt.
In fact, the common position adopted by the Council had been considered much too lax, particularly due to the numerous derogations it provided for, our Chamber rejected the proposal during the second reading, at the part-session in May 1996.
<P>
I am glad that this new proposal incorporates much more precise and rigorous criteria as regards the derogations to the Directive's field of application as well as some new elements, such as the pre-treatment of waste before sending it to landfills, a ban on the joint-disposal of dangerous and non-dangerous waste, etc...
These new elements will undoubtably contribute to the application of higher standards in the elimination of waste throughout the European Union.
<P>
The work carried out by the rapporteur in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection is nevertheless important.
Some of the amendments provide necessary clarification, particularly as regards responsibility during and after the exploitation of sites.
I therefore support this report and sincerely hope that the European Commission will be able to respond favourably to the amendments that Parliament has just adopted.
<P>
Grosch report (A4-0018/98)
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Ephremidis">
With the proposal for a directive we are considering, the Commission is trying to establish uniform specifications in respect of safety requirements and the professional competence of cabin crews in civil aviation.
<P>
That issue, however, is only one aspect of the more general problem of air safety. Others include the competence of the flight cabin crew, the technical specifications and maintenance requirements for aircraft, the safety policy and priorities of the air carrier, the rescue equipment available, the work rules and labour policy applied (which neither the proposal nor the report mentions at all), etcetera.
From that standpoint the EU, with its policy of liberalization and the prevalence of full competition in air transport, combined with the world-wide opening of the markets after the GATT agreement, is in practice undermining the safety of flights, while the headlong race to maximize profits and cut operating expenses in every possible way has a high cost in human lives, as is proved by the worrying increase in the frequency of air accidents.
<P>
A basic prerequisite for safety is to employ permanent flight crews.
The special nature of their duties must preclude the use of seasonal or part-time crews, which inevitably cannot offer the requisite guarantee of adequate training and experience.
That, too, is something we are worried about, since we are witnessing procedures in which collective agreements are being broken and flexible labour relations are being imposed, as shown by the recent amendment passed by the Greek Government concerning Public Corporations and Organizations, and the plans to make Olympic Airways 'healthier' .
<P>
We agree with the establishment of a minimum training level, and consider it necessary that aircrews should undergo periodic training whenever they are to transfer to a different type of aircraft (this training being regarded as working time), to be concluded by appropriate testing for the renewal or award of a new certificate.
However, the responsibility for the programme and the assessment and awarding of the training certificate must lie with the Civil Aviation Authority in each state.
We oppose the concession of training in a field of particular public interest to private or other 'approved' bodies, which are difficult to monitor in practice and can easily be drawn into competition.
Subject to that precondition, the principle of reciprocal 'attestation of professional training' recognition which would guarantee that appropriate training had been given and the necessary requirements had been satisfied, would be a positive factor.
<P>
Owing to the strict health requirements which cabin crews must satisfy, they must undergo special annual medical examinations explicitly defined at EU level, confirmed by the issuing of a medical certificate guaranteeing that they are capable of doing their work.
In the event of a health problem (defined homogeneously throughout the EU) the crew member must be re-assigned as ground crew.
<P>
No provision has been made for monitoring the implementation of the directive.
We consider that monitoring should be carried out by a single independent authority to check requirements related to the cabin crews of all air carriers operating in the EU, without exception.
Infringements should result in sanctions amounting if necessary to the suspension or revocation of the operating licence.
The same requirements should apply to air carriers of third countries to the extent that they operate flights within the EU.
<P>
Le Rachinel report (A4-0014/98)
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Bébéar">
Various recent events, to be deplored in all 15 countries of the European Union, increasingly prove that it is necessary to strengthen Directive 70/156 on the regulations concerning some 18 million motor vehicles and their trailers with regard to the transport of dangerous goods.
<P>
The current system of national approval of vehicles is undesirable.
Now that harmonization is taking place across the spectrum, it is necessary to do the same in this sector connected as it is to the safety of those who transport dangerous goods and the unfortunately high number of victims of road accidents.
The trial which has just begun in Andorra (outside the European Union) is a sad reminder of the fact that almost two million people are killed or injured in the European Union every year.
<P>
Significant progress has already been made, particularly in terms of having more standardized dimensions and maximum lighterage for vehicles and their trailers.
The economic consequences have also been taken into consideration.
<P>
We can no longer be lax on issues such as braking systems, fire risk prevention and speed limitation, which is why we are interested in the harmonization proposed today.
Therefore I support Mr Le Rachinel's report.
<P>
The harmonization of vehicles grouped into five classes is very logical.
In order to ensure that there is satisfactory interconnection between existing road networks and to eventually allow for the improved use of major routes, we must improve the safety of all vehicles, starting with those which transport dangerous goods.
<P>
Le Rachinel report (A4-0024/98)
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Gahrton, Holm and Lindholm">
We have abstained from voting because we are opponents of centrally imposed EU labels and see this as a step in that direction.
We think the explanatory statement, which refers to a 1998 European Parliament resolution which demanded that the European flag should be on vehicle number plates 'in order to increase the citizens' awareness of Europe' , partly confirms this, and is absurd.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Schlechter">
I am glad that, for once, the European institutions are taking up an idea which comes from the smallest country in the European Community.
<P>
In fact, in 1985, Grand Duke Jean suggested to his Minister for Transport at the time that he design a European registration plate for cars registered in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
In response to this suggestion, two proposals were submitted to the government: one which corresponds to the Commission's proposal and the other which, in the interest of European unity, does not incorporate any distinctive national sign.
The latter was approved by the Luxembourg government and, after a change in the highway code, introduced as the official plate for Luxembourg cars.
<P>
Since some European countries do not want to abandon a national sign on their registration plates, there should be no problem if the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg accepts the Commission's proposal or if Luxembourg cars also have a registration plate with an L in the middle of 12 stars on a blue background.
<P>
It will then be up to the Commission to find a way to ensure that this European initiative is recognized in the other countries, which still want to keep a distinctive, white, oval sign for the different countries.
<P>
I also believe that, now that European membership is clearly indicated externally, we should get rid of other registration plates such as the green or blue plates that we see from time to time, and why not have registration plates that show we are officials of the European institutions?
<P>
Poisson report (A4-0020/98)
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Iversen">
On behalf of the Danish Social Democrats, I have tabled an amendment to the report on foods for special nutritional purposes.
This amendment, which the committee has adopted, says that these kinds of foods which are given temporarily to meet specific animal requirements must not under any circumstances contain antibiotic growth agents.
This amendment is an important step towards guaranteeing consumers healthier foods.
In matters like this, the EU should be out in front in world terms, so that consumers can feel secure about the foods they eat.
<P>
The reports received on the possible implications for health are far too serious to ignore.
There is a risk that people will become resistant to important drugs if they eat products treated with growth promoting agents.
It is also a recognizedd fact that if farmers ensure good stall hygiene, using growth agents is totally unnecessary.
This is an important step in the right direction towards imposing a ban on using antibiotic growth agents in connection with foods for special nutritional purposes.
Producers should not be able to use such substances as part of temporary additives to animal feed.
<P>
The WTO recommends that all growth promotors should be banned.
I therefore call on the Commission to support this amendment, and at the same time I demand that the Commission conduct a risk analysis into all antibiotic growth promotors.
Saying no to the use of antibiotic growth promoters in this context will hopefully open the way for us to obtain a general ban in the EU on using these toxic substances in the long run.
<P>
Berend report (A4-0016/98)
<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Frischenschlager">
Mr President, I have voted in favour of this report although the parts containing the evaluation of the grants appear to be too slight.
Nevertheless I consider the report to be justified and voted positively.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Ahlqvist, Andersson, Lööw, Theorin and Wibe">
The report emphasizes that under-implementation of the Structural Funds is mainly due to incomplete planning and the administrative fragmentation to which they are subject.
We support the rapporteur in welcoming the concentration, simplification and reduction in the number of forms of intervention proposed by the Commission in Agenda 2000.
However, this simplification should not lead to a reduction in regional aid to Sweden (also in view of the fact that Sweden is one of the largest net contributors to the EU's budget), particularly to the Objective 6 area.
On the other hand, we cannot support the content of paragraphs 32 and 38, which involve trying to avoid any repayment to the Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Caudron">
A reform of structural funds is currently under debate within the framework of a timetable which provides for a new plan from the year 2000.
<P>
It is natural and normal, given the experiences of the 89-94 and 94-99 plans, to reconsider the criteria and conditions of application of these structural funds and I agree with the demands for more transparency, coherence, decentralization and precision.
<P>
I am concerned about the risk of a reform which would in fact be designed to face up to the consequences of the Union's enlargement and the budgetary austerity of the Member States, in helping the new Member States from Eastern Europe, without sufficiently increasing the European budgets.
<P>
Since I represent a region which has benefited from having Objective 1 status since 1994 and Objective 2 status since 1989, I know the importance of such aid. There would be dramatic consequences if this aid were to brutally disappear.
We certainly need new criteria but only on the condition that they are aimed at improving the new system and not turning it upside down.
<P>
In all cases, if there are modifications for certain areas, then provisional measures will be called for in order to avoid "cut-off' and threshold effects.
<P>
My final concern is to ensure that the construction of Europe continues to be based on solidarity and harmony.
The dominant liberal ideology must not destroy our devices on behalf of principles and an ancient law which only represent "the law of the strongest' and its consequences.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Cushnahan">
I welcome the production of the report by Mr Berend.
Obviously the teething problems that resulted in only 75 % of funds being spent in 1994 have been resolved to the extent that this figure has risen to 95 % in 1996.
Part of the problem is due to the unnecessary red tape that exists and I welcome the fact that the reform of future structural fund regulations lays great emphasis on reducing this further.
<P>
I also support Mr Berend's view that devolution to the regions will provide further improvement.
<P>
From an Irish point of view, we have always been efficient in spending structural funds.
The generosity of our EU partners in this regard has played a significant part in the performance of what is now termed the 'Celtic Tiger' economy.
Although we cannot and should not expect the same level of structural fund aid in the future, it is nonetheless important that there is a reasonable transition period.
A too abrupt turning off of the 'EU tap' could jeopardize the very successful performance of the Irish economy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Darras">
This report is important because we are on the eve of a new period of structural programming, the period 2000-2006.
We must make use of it to learn lessons from mistakes made in the past.
<P>
I would like to thank Mr Berend for his meticulous work which provides us with a clear and precise analysis of the problems experienced during the period 1994-1999, as well as a description of the improvements noted.
These problems are due to many, varied reasons according to the administrative organization of each Member State.
As regards my country and my region, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, one of the main recipients of Community aid, it must be pointed out that the delays are for the most part caused by France and by the Commission: delays in the presentation of SPDs by the Member State, delays in the co-financing for which the Member State is responsible, delays in the forwarding of appropriations to final recipients, etc.
<P>
However, the Commission is no longer free from all reproach in this process!
It is responsible for the numerous regulations and the lack of transparency in the funds as well as for the complexity of the procedures and the difficulty countries experience in responding to the criteria laid down.
<P>
We should learn from these errors and draw up a new regulation which gives priority to the partnership between the Commission and Member State as well as to decentralization, particularly within the Member State, with the participation of all the social, economic and environmental partners in order to make all the players aware of their responsibilities.
We should take advantage of this occasion to draw up a new regulation with clearly defined rules on cofinancing for which the Member States will be responsible.
<P>
This is what the Berend report is inviting us to do.
Let us hope that the Council and the Commission are listening!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Gallagher">
We all appreciate that negotiations are under way at an advanced state with regard to the share-out of the next EU Structural Fund round 2000-2006.
Some general yardsticks have been put in place by means of the 'Agenda 2000' document launched by the European Commission last year, but extensive fine-tuning remains to be carried out with regards to specific allocations of Structural Funds to each Member State.
<P>
I fully welcome the statement of Regional Affairs Commissioner Monika Wulf-Mathies when she stated that countries which presently are in receipt of EU Structural Funds will continue to be in receipt of such monies under the next EU Structural Fund round.
<P>
From an Irish perspective, the border county region and the province of Connaught merit to be designated Objective 1 status for the period 2000-2006.
This will entitle these regions to the maximum amount of European Regional, Social, Agricultural and Fisheries funds.
The province of Connaught and the border county region are not as wealthy as the east coast of Ireland and should not be put in the same bracket when it comes to the disbursing of EU Structural Funds monies.
<P>
I furthermore would like to welcome comments of Jacques Santer, when he stated that he supports the continuation of the Leader II Rural Development scheme and the INTERREG II cross-border scheme during the period 2000/2006.
<P>
The Leader II scheme is a highly successful programme, worth £100 million to Ireland, at this juncture, in terms of the jobs that it assists in creating in rural Ireland.
The Interred II Cross-Border programme is similarly an important initiative in terms of the jobs that it creates in border regions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Hyland">
The European Commission will shortly table its proposals for the future operation of the structural funds.
<P>
It seems likely that the Commission will propose a reduction of the amount of funding available to some parts of the Union because of the progress made in recent years in generating economic growth and development, notably in Ireland.
<P>
I believe that the Commission must ensure that its proposals for transitional arrangements for countries such as Ireland do not undermine the progress made over the last few years.
The phasing-out of maximum grant aid should occur over the longest possible period of time with a view to minimising the impact of this reduction on the Irish economy.
<P>
Secondly, despite the fact that the Irish economy as a whole has exceeded the threshold level for Objective I status, many parts of the country are still well below the threshold level and should still qualify for maximum aid rates.
The different situations which exist in the different parts of the country should be taken on board by the European Commission in formulating its proposals.
Regions of the country which have still not reached the threshold level in terms of their economic growth should not be penalised because of the strong growth level recorded in other parts of the country.
<P>
The Commission must recognize the importance of appropriate transitional arrangements and the need to differentiate between regions with strong growth levels and those with weak growth levels within individual countries, prior to formulating their proposals.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Klaß">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Berend Report on the Structural Funds comes just at the right time.
Particularly now when we are discussing the continuation and future form of the structural fund the report offers a good basis upon which we can build the future constructively.
<P>
European structural policy must support effectively and efficiently the efforts of the Member States, the Regions and others involved in order to contribute to the reduction of the backlog in the development of the economically weakest areas.
It is, however, no more than a supplement to local initiatives in the process of necessary innovative structural change.
This supplementary factor becomes clear in the relevant co-financing of the Member States.
We know that it is precisely the raising of local resources which inhibits applications for EU resources.
Nevertheless we must continue to adhere to this criterion in the future.
For only someone who pays his share of something ascribes any value to the project, and things which we get for nothing are also known to be worth nothing.
<P>
When considering the table of applications for funds we find that in 1996 100 % of the funds for Objective 5b were applied for.
Objective 5b is one of the objectives which concentrates in particular on rural areas.
The rural area thus, as I see it, has its special place of value in the Member States, in the regions.
Therefore we must draw up a specific and comprehensive initiative for the future of the rural areas, in order to promote their positive development.
That means creating infrastructure and jobs.
<P>
I come from the rural area.
We educate our children as best we can, send them to schools and universities.
But we do not only educate them, but we send them away because, with their good education, they cannot find jobs in rural areas.
<P>
Let us leave more decision making authority in the use of funds in the regions and let us give the regional committees more say.
The people on the spot know where the shoe pinches and how it can be made to fit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="Lindholm">
The report gives a clear picture of how the Structural Funds have been managed.
It also describes the initial difficulties the Member States had which resulted in an under-implementation of appropriations.
The proposal to start the next programme planning period in a different way is therefore welcomed.
<P>
What I think is missing, apart from a quantitative analysis of the economic means, is a qualitative analysis of how the money has been used.
Such an analysis should also investigate any dynamic effects and side-effects in various areas, both negative and positive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="McCarthy">
I have voted in favour of the Berend report because it is a comprehensive analysis of the causes of under-implementation of resources.
Structural fund actions are the key budgetary tool which Europe has to tackle unemployment, support job creation and underpin the Treaty objective of economic and social cohesion.
<P>
The Socialist Group amendment to paragraph 32 was tabled in order not to give carte blanche to the Commission to penalize or sanction Member States for the non-utilization of resources.
Our prime objective must be to improve the flow of resources to the final beneficiaries and to support those regions in most need.
<P>
The arbitrary removal of resources without a defined set of criteria potentially undermines our actions in achieving economic and social cohesion and tackling unemployment.
Reinforcing the Commission's power of sanctions to arbitrarily reallocate resources is not in the spirit of decentralization and subsidiarity.
<P>
Any financial penalties or sanctions with an impact on programmes in regions and local areas therefore needs careful consideration by all partners.
<P>
I am pleased that the rapporteur and the PPE Group chose finally to support the PSE Amendment No 8 in plenary vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Nicholson">
This is a well-written report which addresses the urgent need for improvement in the implementation of Structural Fund appropriations.
Those of us who represent regions where there is a strong Structural Fund dimension to economic and social development have been calling for improvements in the implementation of the entire programme for a long time.
If funding is to bring real benefit then it must be implemented efficiently and transparently.
<P>
I support the case for decision-making being taken as far as possible in the regions.
The closer decisions are taken to the people, the more efficient and transparent the programme will be.
I make the same point in regard to structural funding as I do on most social issues which is that the expertise at national and local level should be used as much as possible.
<P>
My primary concern in regard to the funds is under-utilization.
By failing to utilize all the available resources, we are failing our regions.
However, we should note that the Commission has endeavoured to ameliorate this problem with some success.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="des Places">
The presentation of this report on the implementation of the Structural Funds presents our group with the opportunity to make a brief point on the very future of the Structural Funds.
<P>
In fact, within the framework of Agenda 2000, it is the European Union's duty to welcome in some of the CEECs and Cyprus, which, as I recall, will all be eligible for Objective 1 status, while respecting the inescapable financial framework of the 0.46 % of GDP laid down for Member States of the European Union.
<P>
The proposals drawn up by the Commission in its Agenda 2000 communication are deceptive since they underestimate the economic consequences of enlargement.
The future of structural policy would therefore seem to be uncertain and will have to undergo significant reform.
<P>
In order to provide the Structural Funds with the efficiency they are lacking, it is essential to simplify the administrative procedures, to stop spreading funds too thinly and concentrate efforts on the only integrated, Community policies, that is, the CAP and the CFP.
Moreover, there is a fear that the rural regions, although they are affected differently by the effects of the CAP and the CFP, will be the main victims of this bitter pill.
<P>
According to the Commission, the new Objective 2 should only benefit 18 % of the Community population.
Nowadays, it is the rural regions in the European Union that benefit from having Objective 5a status.
In future, the percentage of rural regions benefiting from aid will be minimal.
<P>
It is essential to remind ourselves that structural aid to help the rural world was developed in 1992/1993 in order to compensate for the reform of the CAP and to respond to the devastating effects of internationalization and the GATT.
This is why we are once more calling for the creation of specific secondary objectives within the future Objective 2: one for rural areas and the other for maritime and shore areas.
<P>
The stakes are even higher than those concerningagriculture: we must maintain a model of European economic development which encourages the balanced development of our territory so as to preserve our natural and cultural heritage which is both rich and fragile.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Souchet">
In his report, Mr Berend presents a detailed analysis of the implementation of Structural Fund appropriations; however, many of his conclusions, as well as certain underlying postulates, cannot receive our support.
<P>
For example, the rapporteur tries to highlight the reasons why some appropriations are not always fully used.
In reality, there are two obstacles to using all the Structural Fund appropriations.
The first is due to the administrative constraints imposed by the Commission.
In fact, the administrative process generally takes between one and two years to allocate the funds.
Many of those responsible for projects are therefore discouraged by this procedure since it leads to both additional internal, administrative costs as well as financial costs in releasing appropriations.
<P>
The second obstacle, in his opinion, is much more political.
In fact, to make better use of the funds, the European Commission demands that they be co-financed by Member States and/or local or regional authorities.
In addition, these Member States are obliged, given the convergence criteria they must fulfill to be part of economic and monetary union (single currency), to bring their budgetary deficit under control.
Consequently, they prefer not to commit to programmes so that they are not obliged to get involved in co-financing.
<P>
Finally, we must remember that the portion of the European budget which is not spent is returned to the Member States in accordance with their contribution to the budget, thereby leading to some "pocket receipts' which themselves allow the Member States to somewhat control their budgetary deficit.
<P>
In conclusion, if the Structural Funds are not being distributed to an acceptable level, we should maybe look further than the end of our noses and analyze the real consequences the single currency will have for the decisions made by the Ministers for Finance from the different Member States.
<P>
Joint motion for a resolution on the Kyoto Summit
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Ephremidis">
Just a few months after the Kyoto Conference, the first signs of that agreement's inadequacy to deal with the serious environmental problems faced by our planet and mankind are beginning to emerge.
The desperate cries about the rapidly approaching destructive consequences towards which the economic policies pursued today are leading us with mathematical certainty, echo in the ears of those who will not listen.
<P>
The multinational companies and, more generally, multinational capital do not permit any changes that could cut profits and control the markets.
Thus, any half-measures decided upon are essentially based on the opportunities created for those enterprises to increase their profits and consolidate their dominance.
<P>
The same factors characterize the effort to commercialize pollution rights, which will further delay measures for the reduction of environmental pollution in the more developed industrial countries and will directly influence the development capabilities of the less developed countries.
<P>
As we approach the Fourth Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Climatic Change, we must not forget that the European Union, with 6 % of the world's population, produces over 14 % of CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions.
<P>
The reduction of those emissions by 15 % in the European Union should be regarded as a minimum contribution, which alongside the application of appropriate policies and technology, could result in lower costs.
Support for programmes promoting the use of renewable energy sources must become a prime objective of the Union and its Member States, as well as appropriate planning of the reduction of emissions in each sector, for example transport, industry, energy, etc.
<P>
The European Union must not take advantage of the options provided by the Kyoto protocol to distance itself from the targets it set itself and must not have anything to do with agreements on the trading of pollution rights.
<P>
The need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is now a matter of urgency.
The more highly industrially developed countries, which are mainly responsible for the phenomenon, must assume the responsibilities that fall to them and not use it to perpetuate their dominant economic position.
In the context of a different policy for the benefit of mankind, it is now necessary to assist the development of third countries and transfer resources and technology that will enable them to combine their development with their contribution towards reducing pollution.
Such action must constitute an important factor in the orientation of preparations for the Fourth Conference in Buenos Aires.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats have voted in favour of the resolution putting pressure on the EU Commission and Council to get them to go furthest and provide a good example at the climate negotiations.
The EU's original proposals contained a 15 % reduction of greenhouse gases by the year 2010 for three selected greenhouse gases.
At Kyoto, it was decided to reduce six different gases in our part of the world by 8 % between 2008 and 2012.
The Danish Social Democrats think this is a good idea, but there are two things which should be emphasised.
<P>
First, it is essential that the EU put pressure on the USA, other OECD countries and Russia to avoid delays in ratifying the Kyoto protocol.
Second, it is essential that the EU should go furthest: we have the resources to do so, and we have the opportunities.
There are many areas the EU could get involved in - transport, energy supplies and the like in the EU, but also via the EU's programme of assistance to Eastern Europe, with a view to more energy efficiency and developing cleaner technology.
<P>
Joint motion for a resolution on Iraq
<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martínez">
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="Smith">
Mr President, I cannot in all conscience vote for the resolution we supported here today, primarily because of paragraphs 4 and 5 which I find to be totally offensive and repugnant in the way in which they seek to disguise their intention.
These weasel words are designed to cover up the legitimization of military force and only compound the shame of launching an attack which, far from achieving any military objective, will result in the death of other human beings already suffering under the yoke of Saddam Hussein and economic sanctions.
<P>
Of course I would insist that Iraq respects the UN resolutions but why are we so selective?
What of other nations such as Israel and the United States of America which defy UN resolutions at will?
Why do we feel entitled to adopt a moral tone?
The possession and threatened use of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction is morally indefensible no matter who is the possessor or who poses the threat.
<P>
After 2000 years of Christianity we still revert to bomb, to maim and to kill.
Suffer the little children indeed!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="Ahlqvist, Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw, Theorin, Waidelich and Wibe">
We cannot support a military intervention against Iraq.
However, the UN Charter does provide the possibility of using military means as a last resort when peace is threatened.
However, such a decision must be taken by the UN Security Council.
Therefore we have voted for Amendment No. 1.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="Bébéar">
Like my colleagues, I, too, sincerely hope that a diplomatic solution can be found to resolve the crisis in Iraq.
<P>
I fear, however, that Saddam Hussein's recent attitude has not been moving in this direction.
<P>
The UN experts must be able to carry out their work in accordance with Resolution 687 of the Security Council.
As long as Saddam Hussein does not accept this, no compromise can be made.
He must firstly abandon his projects to develop chemical and biological weapons.
<P>
This is a service which must be carried out for the Iraqi people who have been living under economic conditions which are worse than critical, since most of the country's budget is devoted to weapons.
Only Saddam Hussein can be blamed for the deplorable living conditions they experience and we must not consider them to be a direct repercussion of the international embargo.
<P>
If Saddam Hussein continues with this attitude, there will only be disagreeable solutions involving constraints which will obviously not be totally satisfying.
<P>
I therefore embrace the total support given to the Secretary General of the United Nations for the mission he has undertaken in Iraq.
<P>
However, if military action was attempted, only Saddam Hussein would be morally responsible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="Berès">
We are glad that the Secretary General of the United Nations is making a visit to Baghdad tomorrow, a visit which we sincerely hope will be a success for multilateral diplomacy.
<P>
However, irrespective of the outcome of these negotiations, we would not accept any actions against Iraq that are not authorized by the Security Council of the United Nations.
Any other solution would be harmful both to the principle of international law and, more importantly, the credibility of the arguments that the Western powers employ against Iraq.
<P>
We are still very uncertain about the effectiveness of a military option which should not be envisaged unless all diplomatic instruments have failed.
We are convinced that unilateral action, and potentially a military response, is neither effective nor justified.
<P>
Unfortunately, in this matter, we can only regret the fact that we lack a real common foreign and security policy.
Europe is running the risk of continuing to be an economic giant who is only a political dwarf.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="Caudron">
During the first Gulf Crisis, after the invasion of Kuwait, I supported military intervention against Iraq.
We had a mandate from the UN and enormous international support, including Arab support.
Europe was active and present.
<P>
We won "that war' , but we saw its consequences and limits.
There were many victims in both camps and Saddam Hussein remained in power.
<P>
This is why, today, if we wish to ensure that the UN resolutions are respected, we need to do all in our power to avoid a military adventure which would set the region ablaze.
<P>
We therefore demand a clear mandate from the UN.
It is still necessary to explore as well all the diplomatic routes and, above all, to avoid a confrontation between the West and the Arab world.
<P>
Until then, we must not follow Mr Clinton's strategy whose domestic origin is much too obvious.
Europe must assert itself and Tony Blair must move away from his visceral Atlanticism and remember that he holds the Presidency of the Union.
France must continue to play its own role, which it does very seriously.
<P>
If, in order to achieve peace, we need to know how to make war, then this must only ever come as an extreme and last resort.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="Darras">
This resolution on the situation in Iraq can only lead us to regret the fact that the European Union lacks a common security and defence policy.
Every time there is a serious situation, Europe seems to be absent.
We deplore this fact.
<P>
Thus, as a French socialist, I cannot favour the diplomatic route nor give my entire support to the mission undertaken by the UN's Secretary General.
We are placing all our hopes in his trip.
<P>
For us, the military option can only come as a last resort, after the failure of all other diplomatic efforts. It must only be contemplated on the basis of a formal and written mandate from the United Nations.
Besides, if military action were chosen, what good would it serve?
I doubt that Saddam Hussein would be the victim.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="Féret">
Seven years ago, the Americans were responsible for a horrible massacre of the Iraqi people on behalf of their President, Mr Bush. It was a slaughter that was presented to public opinion by a unanimous media - and this is a prime example of Anglo-Saxon humour - as a clean, surgical war.
<P>
Today, American arrogance is intact and the Iraqi people, who have already lived through seven years of misery, deprived of medicine, electricity and food, watching their children die from hunger and disease, are about to experience this new tragedy.
<P>
There is absolutely no proof that Iraq represents a military threat, either to its neighbours or the world.
However, it is essential for Mr William Clinton to make us forget his pitiful macho behaviour when playing the fascist and, a few months before the next presidential elections, to satisfy the demands of the Israeli extreme right and the aggressive Mr Netanyahu.
<P>
It is our duty as Europeans to stop Israel and the United States of America in their murdering madness.
It is time to provide us with the means to do this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="Lienemann">
The motion for a resolution on the situation in Iraq determines the framework for a positive compromise on the attitude which Europeans should defend within international bodies, in particular the idea that military intervention should not be used to ensure that international law is respected unless all diplomatic options have been explored and exploited.
However, we should have highlighted better the essential requirement that the only body authorized to decide what action should be taken to settle this conflict is the Security Council of the UN.
<P>
This is why I would have like the amendment aimed at replacing the phrase "formal deliberation' by the Security Council with formal "decision' , since it is out of the question that the USA can intervene or decide to act while the Security Council is content to exchange views or to indicate its reservations.
The European Union show that it is determined to ensure that the UN is recognized as the decision-making body, and refuse the de facto leadership of a single country, in this case the United States of America.
<P>
In this crisis, the European Union should have acted more coherently and we regret that certain heads of state rushed to the side of the American President to support his plan for military intervention.
Unfortunately, we can clearly see here the terrible and harmful consequences of the lack of institutional progress as regards the CFSP: Europe is powerless on the international stage!
<P>
Apart from the disastrous human effects military intervention in Iraq would have, we have the right to question the effectiveness of such a decision if the desired aims are actually those stated: the respect of international rules and the refusal to allow Iraq to arm itself with chemical and nuclear weapons.
<P>
It is frightening to think that after such intervention, the Iraqi regime might still be anti-democratic, inspections more difficult and the country might continue to arm itself on its own territory or elsewhere.
The only people to be punished will be those who had no choice: the country's inhabitants.
The diplomatic options should therefore be explored with conviction until they are exhausted.
<P>
Finally, the policy of double standards should not be applied within the framework of international law and of the respect for agreements signed.
<P>
Our Parliament and Europe must endeavour to ensure that the peace process in the Middle East continues as expected and, along with the UN, take useful steps in respect of the commitments made.
<P>
We must not be taken in by the allegation that there is an urgent need for a massive counter-attack in Iraq.
The USA suddenly became more alarmist only after the UN's decision to establish the "oil for food' process, which would have affected the price of petrol, and when considerations regarding internal policy seemed to push President Clinton towards a spectacular external initiative.
Europe must, whatever the circumstances, maintain its autonomous assessments and its independence.
Peace in Iraq, in the Middle East, is the result of sustained, balanced action based solely on the application of law.
<P>
The route chosen by the United States is not the right route.
Military intervention is not acceptable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="Macartney">
On behalf of my colleague, Mrs Ewing, and myself, I wish to state that the Scottish National Party condemns the actions of Saddam Hussein in flouting the will of the international community and seeking continually to evade the completion of UN arms inspections.
Iraq must abide by the terms set up by the UN, and the SNP accepts that the UN has the right to use force in order to secure acceptance as a last resort if all other means fail.
<P>
However, the SNP questions the clarity of the present war aims as enunciated by both the US and British Governments.
The SNP fully supports UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in his mission to Baghdad.
In addition, the SNP commends proper consideration of the proposals to establish 'no drive' zones to augment the existing 'no fly' zones, and to set up in these areas a provisional administration as the first step to bringing about pluralist and democratic government for the whole of Iraq.
These proposals would also alleviate the plight of the Kurds and the Marsh Arabs, who have been persecuted over decades by the Ba'athist regime.
<P>
The SNP believes that such proposals would weaken the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, rather than run the risk of strengthening it, and would avoid the civilian casualties which could result, for example, from air strikes against military targets near civilian centres.
<P>
Joint motion for a resolution on the 54th United Nations Assembly
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="Cushnahan">
It is very disappointing that although the EU will be taking effective action on Nigeria, Burma and the rights of women and children, there will not be a similar initiative on human rights abuses in China.
It is appalling that there is no consensus within the Council on this issue.
<P>
The obvious reason for this state of affairs is that too many Member States consider that commercial and trading interests should take precedence over human rights concerns.
How can we speak with moral authority on the issue of human rights elsewhere in the world if we choose to ignore the situation in China?
Those Member States which are prostituting themselves for thirty pieces of silver should be ashamed.
Their lack of action on this issue makes a nonsense of the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We have voted for the resolution in all its parts.
However, we would like to make some comments.
<P>
Paragraph 1 names a whole list of countries in which breaches of human rights take place, and which the report particularly wants to point out.
We agree completely that all of these countries should be criticized for these breaches, but at the same time we think that a number of other countries could have been included in this list.
Cuba, for example, is mentioned in the statement.
We agree that breaches of human rights happen in Cuba, but in Latin America there are also a number of other countries where these breaches are considerably worse than in Cuba.
Mexico, Brazil and Peru are examples of states in which defenceless union and farming activists and other civilians have been murdered by various paramilitary groups.
For this and other reasons, the choice of states on the list is somewhat misleading.
<P>
In paragraph 2 special priority is given to Algeria.
We agree that this is necessary in view of the serious situation in the country, but some other states could also be mentioned here, such as Colombia, where the state-sponsored terrorism against large parts of the country's population is getting worse.
<P>
Finally, we agree with the statement's severe criticism of the situation in China.
We think it would be correct to say that no progress has been made in China as far as human rights are concerned.
<P>
Seal report (A4-0015/98)
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="Cushnahan">
I wish to place on record my support for Amendment No 3 in the name of the GUE/NGL Group.
This amendment expresses support for the right of Ryanair workers to join a trade union and have that trade union represent them in negotiations with their employers.
<P>
As a strong supporter of the Social Chapter I am disappointed that the body of EU legislation that emanates from it does not enshrine this right and this is something we should remedy as a matter of urgency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="Ephremidis">
The downward slope of unrestrained competition and deregulation seems to have no end.
Even before completion of the third liberalization package, the Commission, within the scope of its 'justification' , is announcing a further hardening of its attitude, provocatively ignoring any social parameters and concepts of public interest and service, and emerging in essence as the official agent of the powerful multinational interests of the air.
<P>
Thousands of redundancies, the overturning of collective agreements in the name of competitiveness, the invocation of the Damoclean sword of company closures, the abolition of routes or concession of flights to private capital, accelerated privatizations, the appearance of companies with doubtful guarantees which call into question the quality of their services, flight safety and labour relations, all these are what makes up the landscape of a liberalized air transport market, even before the attempt concerned has been completed.
<P>
For the Commission, of course, all this does not represent an 'explosive' change.
It is simply aware of the 'possible consequences' for employment and is 'preparing a study' .
As for the celebrated argument that competition leads to price reductions, it acknowledges that this has not happened and denies that wherever the newly arrived competitors have led to a minimal proportional differentiation, this is because costs are being cut as never before, with adverse consequences for the safety of working people who are employed under third-world conditions, and for the quality of the services offered.
In its statement it ignores the consequences, for airports and those working there, of the directive on the liberalization of handling and of the regulation on the liberalization of cabotage.
It calls for more rapid privatization and for restructuring in the branch, it demands 'strict' application of the rules of competition, it announces the further restriction of state aid, it directly calls into question the principle of an overall service, speaking about 'excessive use of the obligations to provide a public service' and about the need to examine 'the extent to which those obligations are a hidden means to restrict access to the market' .
Needless to say, it does not bother to explain how the demands of management based on the private investment principle are to be reconciled with the increased and specific obligations of national air carriers to provide means of communication, connection and development for remote areas.
Nor is it worried by its finding that such lines are usually unprofitable and consequently of no interest to anyone acting on the basis of market forces alone.
<P>
The rapporteur fully accepts the EU's entire policy and rationale.
Indeed, he urges the Commission and the Council to accelerate 'decisively' the furtherance of matters still outstanding, calls for stricter application of the guidelines on state aid and for the rejection of any 'special treatment' for national carriers, asks that the turnovers of 'strong' companies in Europe should be improved - obviously, to the cost of the weaker companies, which risk bankruptcy because of the public interest obligations they have -, and accepts the liberalization of cabotage while admitting that most internal routes are unprofitable operations.
<P>
We cannot accept the contradiction between the complete acceptance of unrestrained competition and simple 'concern' lest that might entail some risk to safety and employment, favouring social dumping.
<P>
We refuse to be content with 'noting' or 'expressing concern' about the retrograde steps which some wish to impose.
We consider that the interests of the people, the workers, the users of air transport are more important than the interests that are trying to maximize the market share of the powerful groups of air transport companies.
We will therefore vote against the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="Holm">
The liberalization of air transport has certainly had some good effects on the market.
However, at the same time, in spite of the fact that it is 'controlled' , it has led to several negative effects, which I think are far too lightly dealt with in this report.
<P>
The rapporteur states clearly that liberalization has led to an increase in size of the whole air transport market and that the forecasts for the coming decade are an annual growth rate of 6-7 per cent (observations J and L respectively).
Personally I see this as disturbing, partly because it means an additional burden on the environment because aircraft are not a particularly environmentally friendly means of transport, and partly because the airspace over Europe is already congested. This could lead to a decline in air safety if traffic increases.
<P>
Social issues are not often referred to here or in the Commission's document, which is regrettable.
It is clear that in certain cases liberalization has led to reduced influence for union bodies and therefore for employees.
<P>
Keppelhoff-Wiechert report (A4-0037/98)
<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="Anttila, Lindqvist and Väyrynen (ELDR), Seppänen, Sjöstedt and Svensson (GUE/NGL), Gahrton, Holm and Lindholm (V), Bonde, Sandbaek, Lis Jensen and Krarup (I-EDN)">
We are now aware of the consequences of using genetic engineering in agriculture.
Using genetically modified plants in open natural systems can have damaging effects which we have no way of assessing today.
In this report, the rapporteur demands that this practice be supported.
We cannot support it.
<P>
It has been shown time and time again that using plants which have been made resistant to diseases or toxic to pests has had directly the opposite consequences.
Using corn which was toxic to insect larvae, for instance, led in fact to those pests becoming resistant to the plants.
In this case, the advantage of spraying that the pests are only affected for a short period and so cannot become resistant.
Without wishing to defend this method of pest control in any way, we wish to point out that it has also emerged that using genetic weapons has made the problem of pests harder to deal with.
<P>
This report wishes to encourage research into genetic engineering in agriculture, and says this should be done to encourage people to use it.
This is by no means unproblematic.
Apart from the environmental implications and risks which genetic engineering involves, we cannot be sure that genetically modified organisms will not have an adverse effect on human health, even if no such health problems can be shown in connection with such organisms today.
We know that using genetic engineering can threaten biodiversity and that using it will lead to a monopoly of the crop market.
We cannot allow the profit motive in agriculture to take precedence over human health and the environment.
<P>
Instead of putting resources into researching methods as uncertain as genetic engineering, we should focus on an area which is largely unresearched: that is, we should put more resources into finding out how Nature's own mechanisms combat pests and plants.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="des Places">
Agriculture in the next millennium must face up to a two-fold challenge: feeding a world population which will double over the next 30 years while respecting man and the environment.
<P>
In order to maintain its competitiveness, European agriculture, as well as related industries, must be able to benefit from technologies adapted to global competition.
<P>
In the Commission's proposals in Agenda 2000, we clearly see a desire to advance the globalization of European agriculture by lowering administered prices and decreasing the level of aid.
We need to have a coherent position.
It is, in fact, the same people who want both to decrease aid to agriculture and delay the development of technological agriculture.
<P>
Personally, I do not believe that the globalization of European agriculture is the right solution.
However, in this context, where the Commission, along with a certain number of Members of this Parliament, hopes for further advances, I do not see how we could miss out on the development of biotechnology.
<P>
To allow this revolution to pass us by outside European frontiers, while at the same time abolishing Community preferences, would lead to the total destruction of our agriculture.
<P>
As regards legislation, the European Union and the Member States must guarantee both a certain flexibility to allow the development of private and public initiatives and health safety for consumers.
The principle of precaution must be the main element behind legislation and evaluations must be carried out on a strict, scientific basis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="Spiers">
I voted against the Keppelhoff-Wiechert report.
I fear that it is too sanguine about the possibility of controlling biotechnology and about the part biotechnology could play in feeding the world.
Biotechnology is being promoted by huge, inadequately controlled economic interests.
The likelihood, at present, is that an expansion of biotechnology will serve those interests, not the environment and not humanity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="Falconer">
Mr President, we see in the Chamber today that at one point it was a very important matter for the individual concerned to explain to the rest of the House why he was voting in a particular way.
That right has been removed.
If you look round you will see that there are only two or three Members present, four including yourself.
Is it not a disgrace that the right of Members has been taken away in this manner?
The only people who are suffering are the interpreters who stay here loyally to hear one explanation of vote.
It is a disgrace how the President and the Bureau are handling these matters.
It is time that you, who was elected to look after Members' rights, start to exercise your authority in the Bureau and give the Members back their rights.
Otherwise this Chamber will fall into further discredit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="President">
Very well, Mr Falconer, I will pass on your opinion to the Bureau.
In addition, they will be noted in the verbatim report of proceedings.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 1.25 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Topical and urgent debate
<SPEAKER ID=133 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolution:
<P>



B4-0189/98 by Mr Dell'Alba and others, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the situation in Afghanistan; -B4-0191/98 by Mrs Roth and others, on behalf of the V Group, on Afghanistan; -B4-0211/98 by Mrs Lulling and Mrs Oomen-Ruitjen, on behalf of the PPE Group, on Afghanistan; -B4-0220/98 by Mrs André-Léonard and others, on Afghanistan; -B4-0228/98 by Mr Pasty and others, on behalf of the UPE Group, on Afghanistan; - B4-0233/98 by Mr Sornosa Martínez and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the situation in Afghanistan; -B4-0253/98 by Mrs Hoff, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the situation in Afghanistan.

<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Madam President, Mr Vice President of the Commission, I am very pleased that, every so often, our group is the first to be able to talk about the situation in Afghanistan.
<P>
We have before us the rare tragic pictures of the earthquake that has affected thousands of people and the difficulties encountered by the humanitarian organizations, such as ECHO which is currently in the region to provide aid for the population; we also have before us the dramatic and rare pictures of events under the medieval Taliban regime, equally illustrating the situation of women in particular.
<P>
This debate is also a tribute paid by Parliament to the cause of Afghan women, a cause which the Commission has so admirably sought to resume by launching the campaign, "a flower for the women of Kabul' .
This campaign is probably the most significant gesture that could be made to show that we are not ignoring or accepting as inevitable as inevitable the many evils afflicting this society: racial segregation and, according to some, a sexual apartheid that offend the conscience of both the western and the Islamic world.
<P>
The best way forward is a vote for a resolution that not only firmly condemns the Taliban regime and all its supporters, including trustworthy western powers, but also asks forcefully for support for the Commission and that all possible measures to be taken to overthrow the Taliban regime, contrary to what some organizations are doing, such as the UNDCP, which is trying to reach an agreement with the regime.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dijk">
Madam President, the Taliban regime in Afghanistan is using religious arguments to suppress the rights of women; worse still, they try to make it impossible for women to take part in public society.
Education and health care have become taboo for women, and they are not allowed to show themselves in the street unless they are accompanied by their brother, their husband or their father, let alone voice an opinion in public.
This is a flagrant violation of human rights, and therefore also of the rights of women, which has become a daily occurrence in the region of Afghanistan where the Taliban rule.
There is no other country in the world where this type of human rights violation is as acute as in Afghanistan.
But the Taliban are in fact a bunch of common scoundrels, power-mad men who want complete control of the entire society, and they keep their regime going through international trade in heroin.
This has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with religion.
<P>
We should realize that women in Afghanistan enjoyed much more freedom in the recent past, and that women from all strata of society are affected.
How would the international community react if somewhere in this world women were muzzling men the way the Taliban muzzle women in Afghanistan?
It is unthinkable that this would meet simply with mild toleration
<P>
Mr President, I would like to draw your attention once more to Article 11, because the Taliban regime is partly kept in the saddle by a number of nations which recognize the country.
With these countries we, the European Union, maintain political and economic relations without too much difficulty.
A stop should be put to this.
Humanitarian aid should continue, in particular now that the effects of the earthquake have become so obvious, but the regime must be isolated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Madam President, women - as I am sure you will agree - have been used to all types of discrimination for centuries.
<P>
The imagination that certain men, certain ideologies and certain regimes have developed over thousands of years in order to bully women, individually or collectively, deserves a place in the Book of Records.
But the way in which they are treated by the odious Taliban regime in Afghanistan, a country which has been ravaged for many years since it was occupied by the Soviet Union, far surpasses the limits of our imagination now at the end of the 20th century.
<P>
Unfortunately, we have few illusions as to the direct consequences of the initiative we launched as the Committee on Women's Rights, in conjunction with the Commission, under the auspices of International Women's Day.
We want to make use of this day, 8 March, to make public opinion aware of the distress of Afghan women, who are deprived of the most fundamental human rights by the Taliban regime.
In depriving the Afghan women of their freedom of movement, freedom of expression, access to education and basic health care, the Talibans are turning them into the most deprived, pitiful and unfortunate human beings on the face of the earth. God knows, in this world there are already thousands of other women suffering discrimination, but none to this extent.
<P>
We cannot remain silent in the face of such misery.
We must denounce this hateful regime and try to find a way of getting humanitarian aid to them, particularly to the Afghan women, without it being regarded as a recognition of the Taliban regime
<P>
We want them to know that they are not alone in their exceedingly difficult and dangerous opposition.
Having lived through the monstrosities of the Nazi occupation during the Second World War, I know how much value those who are resisting such a regime place on moral support.
Let the Afghan women know that we are suffering, that we are struggling with them and that together we will manage to free them from a regime whose leaders are not worthy of being called human beings.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="André-Léonard">
Madam President, can you imagine a woman not being able to work because it is against the law to earn a living?
Imagine you had to tell your daughter that she could no longer go to school.
Imagine you had to live in a house where the curtains and windows had to remain closed.
Imagine you had no longer any right to health care.
Imagine the only use women had was to bear children.
<P>
I would like to address the Afghan women, who are the target of an apartheid regime which is without precedent, and who are today deprived of fundamental human rights.
<P>
While the international community prepares to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, when discussing these women we need to take another look at ourselves and all around us.
If we want more than just the usual cooperation, then we must manage to highlight the inescapable problem of these women.
The questions this discrimination raises are at the heart of the debate on the vision of law and the rule of law.
<P>
I would like to express my solidarity with the Afghan women who, despite the oppression they suffer and the unspeakable threats of the Talibans, continually demonstrate against the violation of their fundamental rights and for their right simply to exist.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="Daskalaki">
Mr President, we have already heard a great deal.
We know about the situation of women unfortunate enough to have been born in Afghanistan and now living there.
<P>
This debate is taking place a short time before the festival for women.
In the Committee on Womens' Rights we had decided to adopt an initiative on behalf of the women of Afghanistan. I also think, however, that this movement taking place here is very appropriate.
Womens' day is approaching; we all know that each year we celebrate women with various events, some meaningful and others not and we say various things which are very often never followed up.
Of course, anything that awakens public opinion is important and anything that can make us aware of the huge problems that exist is important.
In that corner of the world, appalling things are going on right now, which we talk about when the occasion arises and then forget until the next time they reappear, while the fate of women in Afghanistan is perhaps the worst fate of oppressed women anywhere in the world.
<P>
The Commission's initiative is very praiseworthy, and the slogan a flower for the women of Kabul is also a very kind and somewhat romantic one.
Let us ask, however, what our own responsibilities are - I mean in the broadest sense - in the matter.
Because we often speak about illiberal regimes, we often speak about the fate of people living under such regimes, but seldom do we think that many of those regimes would never have seen the light of day, that much of the misery of people living in those countries would not exist, if the countries of the so-called free and civilized world did not have a share of responsibility for those misfortunes.
<P>
It is an open secret, it has appeared throughout the press, and no theory has been put forward to question the hypothesis that the United States played a very 'good' and specific part in putting the Talibans into power.
Feminists in the United States have recently tried to block investments in Afghanistan.
Perhaps the feminists will find a solution, because although we often speak about human rights, we frequently do all we can in the free world to prevent human rights from flourishing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pailler">
Madam President, Afghanistan has become a strategic challenge on the international stage, thanks in particular to its proximity to oil resources in Central Asia.
This is what explains the tolerance, not to say the complicity, of the United States which, with the support of Pakistan, has allowed the Talibans to take power there.
<P>
In the name of a totally mistaken, obscurantist interpretation of Islam, the Talibans inflict every kind of discrimination on the Afghan women and deny them the right to live normally.
They do not have the right to participate in civil life, they have no access to education, or to medical care.
They have no freedom of movement or expression.
To go out, they are obliged to wear a veil which is like prison bars; their clothes are only shackles.
It demonstrates an unprecedented hatred.
<P>
This situation is intolerable.
We must increase our efforts in order to lift the veil of silence.
I am therefore glad that the International Women's Day on 8 March is being devoted to Afghan women, as a symbol of our solidarity and to raise the awareness of international opinion.
This Day should not be a last-ditch struggle but the starting point for a campaign to express our support for the Afghan women who struggle for their freedom and their dignity, by applying in their own way the belief of the Algerian poet Jean Senac, that a hunted life invents another life.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gröner">
Ladies and gentlemen, please imagine for a brief moment - above all the gentlemen - that you may no longer show your face in public, that boys may no longer take part in lessons at school, that public buses may no longer be used, that you may walk down the street only with your nearest female relatives and that you no longer have any claim on the medical services.
That is exactly what is happening to Afghanistani women - a horror scenario forced on them by the Taliban Militia ruling in Kabul.
With fanaticism veiled in religion the women are deprived of their most elementary human rights and the Taliban are not the slightest bit timid in sweeping away all international conventions and humanitarian agreements with unimaginable brutality, financed and supported by the international heroin trade.
The women of Afghanistan have been robbed of their voice. They need our solidarity.
If they attempt to denounce abroad the violation of their most elementary rights they do so - on pain of death.
The courageous Roses of Afghanistan, as I would like to call these women, need our solidarity, and the European Parliament, above all the women, supports all organizations, all projects which might improve the situation of women in Afghanistan.
<P>
The European Parliament, the Council and the Commission must combine their forces and use the humanitarian aid just agreed on worth 34 million German marks in particular for the women, who are especially burdened and needy.
The Taliban have denied foreign aid for women.
We should not allow that!
<P>
One emphasis of this year's International Women's Day on 8 March will be to draw attention to the glaring violation of women's rights in Afghanistan and exert international pressure on the government in Kabul.
The Mullah dictatorship must be ended.
The sexual apartheid must disappear from the world stage like a passing nightmare!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lenz">
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Madam President, the case of Afghanistan leads us to further reflections than those already made.
Often, when we are dealing with the problems of the developing countries, we unintentionally mistake the perspective. We have passed from a critical over-assessment of the western civilizations and their values to just as critical an acceptance of everything that takes place outside Europe, owing to a misunderstood sense of respect for other cultures.
The west has values that really belong to the whole of humanity: the rule of law, democracy, respect for human rights and, in this case, in particular, women's rights.
<P>
We therefore cannot accept the lack of respect for these principles by the current Kabul regime, particularly with regard to respect for women's rights.
We should not forget that the tolerance and recognition of other people are a common wealth of the three large monotheistic religions and therefore that of Islam too, whose distorted interpretation cannot be adopted to justify any political or other measure contrary to those principles.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="Marín">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as you know, the European Union, concerned about the prolonged civil war in Afghanistan, has recently delivered a common position on the ongoing struggle, the continuing instability in the region, the human rights situation in the country as well as the drugs and terrorism which come from Afghanistan.
<P>
As can be seen in the common position, the European Union wants to ensure that there is no sexual discrimination and that the donating of aid takes place in accordance with the needs of the most vulnerable sections of the population.
Faced with possible discrimination in new or ongoing projects, the Commission will put a hold on these projects.
<P>
As regards the situation of women, the Commission is very much in favour of a coordinated approach with the other donors in order to create sufficient incentive.
In this respect, the European Commission's position is the following: recently, Angela King, Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations and special adviser on women's issues, visited Afghanistan and her report has just been published.
The Commission proposes that all positions on this sensitive matter conform to the guidelines set out in this report.
This does not mean that the Commission is abandoning having its own view on the Afghan problem and, in particular, the problem of the situation of women. However, we believe that, taking into account the situation in the country, and the war, it is much better to concentrate all efforts by using the guidelines that have just been set out by the United Nations as a basis.
<P>
The European Commission warmly welcomes the solidarity maintained by Parliament with respect to the situation of women in Afghanistan, as well as its support for the campaign on the 8 March, "A flower for the women of Kabul' , which it is organizing to mark International Women's Day.
<P>
As regards the drugs situation, which is a very sensitive topic, heroin and opium are at the moment a major concern for the whole society, since we are certain that in Afghanistan the cultivation of opium is becoming more and more popular, precisely in order to manufacture heroin.
Nevertheless, we ourselves, along with Parliament, share the doubts concerning the viability of the programme aimed at substituting large-scale cultivations proposed by the UNIDCP (United Nations International Drug Control Programme).
This does not mean that the European Commission is against alternative development - we practise it in other parts of the world, such as in the Mediterranean with Morocco, Latin America, Bolivia, Colombia and Peru.
We agree with alternative developments but we do not believe that, at the moment, the situation in Afghanistan, currently at war, is capable of implementing a programme of alternative development to fight against the cultivation of opium, at least until things change radically in the country.
<P>
As regards the earthquake in Tajar, we are working via ECHO and through emergency operations with the Red Cross and Médecins sans frontières (Belgium), and when there is a bit more breathing space, the Commission will have no problem in moving on to rehabilitation efforts.
<P>
In terms of some of the questions just raised by Members here, the global plan for humanitarian aid to Afghanistan for 1998 comes to ECU 17 million.
This will be the course of action the Commission will follow and naturally, to answer some of the questions raised, we are aware that the situation in Afghanistan is very difficult.
Finally, we should not deceive ourselves: what is happening in Afghanistan, as in other conflicts, comes in response to a new form of geopolitics, a series of interests linked to drugs, terrorism and discrimination, which are converging. But they are also linked to Afghanistan's geopolitical position, basically due to future gas and oil projects.
You know exactly what I am saying: the Cold War in that part of the world has been replaced by a war of interests.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>

B4-0184/98 by Mr Bertinotti and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the Cermis tragedy; -B4-0187/98 by Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the Cermis tragedy; -B4-0209/98 by Mr Bianco and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the Cermis accident; -B4-0210/98 by Mr Azzolini and Mr Santini, on behalf of the UPE Group, on the accident in Italy caused by an American military plane; -B4-0221/98 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the Cavalese catastrophe; -B4-0243/98 by Mrs Aglietta and others, on behalf of the V Group, on the Cermis tragedy; -B4-0250/98 by Mr Colajanni and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the death of 20 people caused by an American plane in Cavalese (Italy).
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Pettinari">
Madam President, Commissioner, what happened on Mount Cermis was a tragedy that has been widely reported.
It has been reported by the repeated accusations made by the local authorities which, on several occasions, had presented the danger of the aviation games that started from the Aviano base and, through the Trentino valleys, tested the bravery of the pilots from the US base who tried to fly under bridges, under electricity cables and under cableway cables.
A tragedy had to happen sooner or later, and now it has done.
<P>
We are faced with a basic problem, which is that of the meaning of the bases of a foreign power in the territory of an EU Member State.
In my opinion, this needs to be discussed.
There is, however, an immediate problem: we need to prevent, immediately, a repetition of low-altitude military flights and revise the regulations governing military flights, which I believe should be carried out in specific and fairly restricted areas, and at least in uninhabited regions.
<P>
There is one further point I would like to bring to the Commissioner's attention, a point on which the Commission ought to have an opinion, if not an initiative.
I believe it is necessary to ensure that the United States waive jurisdiction on the proceedings over the tragedy and allow the proceedings to be heard in Italy as soon as possible.
<P>
I would like to remind you that the victims of this tragedy belong to six European countries, five of which are part of the European Community.
I think it would be too much if, after such a tragedy, responsibilities were not even identified, not for revenge or punishment, but to ensure that such tragedies do not recur in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Madam President, I would like to tell Mr Pettinari that, just a few minutes ago, I heard from a news agency that this morning the Italian judiciary formally asked for the file, in a certain sense asking the Americans for release from the London Convention.
If that were the case, it would be my intention, at 17: 30, on agreement with the other authors of the resolution, to submit an oral amendment to note this important fact.
<P>
On the same lines as the previous speaker, I would like to say, and I don't know how much the Commission can help us in this, that provisions which in 1951, in the midst of a cold war, could be justified (with a kind of extraterritoriality, a bit like that enjoyed by the Church in the Middle Ages and in other times) now seem obsolete and constitute an offence to the victims and to the judiciary who have every possibility of investigating and doing justice where it is very often a case of acrobatics in the air rather than real military requirements.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Burtone">
Madam President, it has already been said but I wish to confirm that, on 3 February, twenty innocent citizens of German, Belgian, Italian, Polish, Austrian and Dutch nationality in an Italian tourist spot, Cavalese, enjoying a few days' rest and leisure, lost their lives owing to an accident caused during a military exercise from a US air base in Aviano, which cut the cables of the Mount Cermis cableway and caused the tragedy.
<P>
The draft resolution presented seeks not only to express due sympathy to the relatives of the victims, but also to bring to the attention of the European Parliament questions ranging from the establishment of the causes, the truth, to respect for the international regulations governing training for civilian and military flights.
In confirming what has been stressed several times by the local Trentino-Alto Adige authorities on the dangers of military flights in low-altitude exercises over territory in the Trentino and Alto Adige valleys, and therefore on the need to suspend them, the draft resolution asks the US civilian and military authorities to cooperate fully in the investigation aimed at establishing causes and responsibilities, with the transparent use of all sources of information and evidence.
<P>
A further agreement on safety procedure is requested between the US and Member States of the EU involved in the NATO, with a total prohibition of low-altitude military flights in regions at great risk of safety to the civilian populations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Florio">
Madam President, when a tragedy happens in which many individuals lose their lives, the International Community is dumbfounded, upset and often takes measures to provide aid.
When the tragedy is absurd, like the Cermis tragedy, the first reaction is one of anger and disbelief.
There is no reason justifying what happened on 3 February in Cavalese, in Trentino-Alto Adige, where, unfortunately, there was a further demonstration of the terrible consequences of men's stupidity when it is applied to powerful means, built for our defence, but capable of being transformed into means of destruction, if used incorrectly.
<P>
In Cavalese, a US military aircraft, probably involved in a crazy game played by its occupants, flew at a foolish speed several metres from the ground, in a region used for sports tourism, and, in so doing, cut the cables of a cableway, causing the cabin and its unfortunate occupants to crash to the ground.
I do not wish to accuse the Atlantic Alliance forces, whose historic merit should be recognized for defending the free world when the planet was divided into blocks and for continuing to defend it today.
However, we cannot tolerate absurd and tragic accidents, such as that on Cermis, caused in the best of cases by atrocious thoughtlessness, and in the worst by malicious stupidity.
<P>
For this reason, the Union for Europe group supports the compromise resolution brought to the attention of Parliament today and hopes that, if it is approved, it will be followed by specific measures resulting in its implementation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Madam President, an incident like the tragedy on Mount Cermis should be firmly condemned.
No political consideration can be higher than the protection of human life which any political action and therefore any armed forces have the specific task of serving.
That is why the US authorities should cooperate with every means and as far as possible with the Italian authorities for clarity to be established.
I have to point out that this requirement is reinforced even further by the status of a great power enjoyed by the USA; real power is not, in fact, measured in military but above in all in moral terms; the US first have to prove this morality, of which they have so often been the champions!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
Madam President, I think that, as pointed out by previous speakers, everyone is aware that non-observance of the rules laid down and agreed for military aviation exercises has led to a serious tragedy.
This tragedy also highlights other aspects, such as the fact that, although the South Tyrol and Trentino authorities have often reported aircraft flying over inhabited regions at very low altitude, at the limits of suicide and homicide, as we have finally unfortunately witnessed, these flights have continued unperturbed for a very long time.
What is puzzling is that, despite the fact that exercises of this type have been reported as dangerous for a long time, no solution has been found.
The solutions are for training to be provided in areas suitably chosen for that purpose, areas in which there is no danger to people or property, that are defined as safe aerodromes.
But nothing of the kind has been done.
<P>
It is therefore obvious that, to safeguard the physical safety of people and property, strict regulations need to be established at European level, or the States need to be asked to do so, with regard to the use of aircraft in exercises.
This accident also shows another aspect, which is the problem of the limited sovereignty of the European countries with NATO or American bases.
In fact, not only do these bases not fall under the jurisdiction of the host countries, but any offences committed by the American personnel at these bases lie outside the jurisdictional scope of the country in which they have been committed and fall into the sphere of competence of the American judges.
We therefore urge a revision of Article 7 of the London Convention governing jurisdictional competence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Imbeni">
Madam President, the tragedy of the Cermis cableway has firstly affected the families of the victims and their grief will certainly not find solace in our words.
We obviously hope that we can at least give them a message of respect for their grief.
<P>
The tragedy has affected Trentino and Alto Adige, provinces in which military exercises had given rise to protests that had unfortunately remained unheeded for some time.
Citizens, mayors, advisers and even MPs had unfortunately pointed out the risks in vain.
We certainly all know that the bulk of these exercises were connected with the peace mission in Bosnia, in which in recent years our involvement also extended to the pilots and soldiers ensuring the success of the mission.
The protests were rightly made, however, in view of the excessive risks taken; new regulations on exercises were therefore necessary and urgent.
Those who turned a deaf ear at first are guilty of pride and vanity at least, attitudes that do not go with respect for the life of the citizens, of all the inhabitants of Bosnia, the aircraft pilots, the inhabitants and tourists in the valleys of Trentino and Alto Adige.
<P>
Madam President, the tragedy has affected the population of my province, Bologna, in particular, because, seven years ago, a damaged military aircraft, abandoned by the pilot, fell on a school, causing the death of 12 children and a further 60 wounded.
It was on 6 December 1990, Mrs Fontaine.
You will not remember, but they were in Israel together.
We had just been visiting the Yad Vashem Museum, when the ambassador for my country 'phoned me with the news.
Just a few days before the tragedy on Cermis, the three people accused of the disaster in Bologna were finally acquitted, the judges believing that the event did not constitute a crime.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is embarrassing to have to meet the parents who lost their children only guilty of being at school, and tell them that justice has been done.
<P>
The proposals contained in the resolution we are going to approve, as a group, have this object: to avoid a repetition of the proceedings that ended with the words: no-one is guilty!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="de Coene">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is a good thing that the European Parliament is taking a position in response to the accident in Cavalese, because not only should there be stricter rules, but it appears from an investigation which has progressed a little further today that the existing rules have not been complied with.
The crew may say it feels sympathy for the relatives of the victims, and it may declare, I quote, that they would never do anything to endanger the lives of others, but it has been proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that the aeroplane did not respect the primary rules.
It was flying at barely 150 meters where the permitted minimum flying height is 300 meters, or according to Italian standards, as much as 600 meters.
<P>
Moreover, witnesses have stated that they saw the aeroplane involved in a kind of joy riding , and for years the local population has been complaining bitterly about the genuine nuisance of these flights.
It also turned out the pilot was flying with American ordnance survey maps which do not even show the ski lift, instead of using Italian ordnance survey maps which do show it.
Talk of arrogance.
<P>
From all of this, ladies and gentlemen, we can only draw the following conclusions.
From now on the American authorities must cooperate with the Italian judiciary, in an atmosphere of great openness, otherwise the investigation cannot move forward.
Low level military exercise flights must be forbidden where there is a danger to civilians.
Stricter rules coupled with enforcement must be introduced, and stricter rules for all air force units, anywhere in Europe.
<P>
To conclude, the local Italian judiciary should be authorized in this case to set up complete investigations, and moreover to administer the necessary justice.
It would be even more dramatic if we were not to draw the necessary conclusions from what happened.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Madam President, I wish to express profound grief on the part of the Alleanza Nazionale for the victims of the Cermis tragedy and accuse the sharks and the intellectuals of making an outward show of antimilitarism, jumping at every opportunity to flaunt their sentiments and their sermons against the armed forces which, if they are not reformed and if they do not continue to operate as they are doing in Italy, we too are convinced will be useless and out of time.
<P>
We wonder, however, how the Trentino and Alto Adige valleys can have become a exhibition theatre for the supersonic military aircraft flying at very low altitude, without our authorities intervening, with the authorization of the Ministry of Defence, despite the protests of the populations and the local authorities.
<P>
We are certainly asking the American authorities to cooperate with the Italian judiciary to establish responsibility and penalize non-observance of the safety regulations that would otherwise have averted the tragedy.
We believe it is necessary for the work of Council to give greater authority to the governments of the member countries, to ensure observance of the rules laid down by the regulations in force so that military exercises do not jeopardize the daily lives of the citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="Marín">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I find myself in a very difficult position because, naturally, the European Commission shares the sorrow felt by the Members for the victims and understands the irrationality of the accident, which should never be repeated.
However, as you know, the Commission has no authority in this matter to implement many of the measures you ask for in your resolution.
Nevertheless, to the best of our ability, we will forward them to the two parties concerned - the American government and the Italian government - with the aim of ensuring that, at the very least, they pay fair compensation to the victims. In addition, of course, as regards the use of the Aviano base, which is a NATO base and thus outside the Community's authority, we will try to ensure that they review all plans for flights at low altitude.
<P>
Having said this, we believe that the best solution is for the Italian courts to establish the facts, to decide who is responsible for the events and to determine what type of action will need to be taken in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ullmann">
Madam President, I support the statement of the British Council Presidency that the fatwa against Salman Rushdie is null and void because it is a violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and it is illegal because it is an attempy to interfere in national sovereignty.
I would add on behalf of my group I request the suspension of the critical dialogue with Iran.
A dialogue presupposes a common basis of the parties talking to each other.
Between those who are convinced of the tradition of human rights and bound by a religious tradition, one of the core precepts of which is "Thou shalt not kill!' , and those who call for the murder of writers or seek to force a prisoner to accept a religion with death threats, there can be no dialogue, only an unconditional condemnation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
Madam President, time again criminal justice in Iran is arouses our aversion.
We as Europeans have, rightly, I think, have respect for Islam and Muslim culture, but political Islam as it reaches us from Iran, damages the reputation of Muslim culture, an damages in my view the respectable position of Muslims within the European Union.
<P>
For that reason I would like to say that I fully understand people getting annoyed with people who overstep the limits of courtesy, or who insult someone's religion on purpose, but the punishment which is administered from government beats everything.
We are thinking of Salman Rushdie, of course, it was said earlier, who even abroad is heavily persecuted.
This literally oversteps all limits.
<P>
The punishment imposed on Helmut Hofer, who oversteps the limits of courtesy in Iran, is of course out of all proportion.
The punishment of a publisher who publishes matters which are not agreeable to the government, is another example of something of which it can be said that a country which has signed the United Nations Charter cannot inflict punishment of this kind.
<P>
I am also thinking the 99 strokes of the cane for the lady who was involved in the incident with Helmut Hofer.
It is truly out of all proportion for a civilized nation to do something like this.
The fact that Iran is nonetheless open to criticism and to an urgent call to turn from its ways, is demonstrated by the release of editor Faraj Sarkouhi.
I think that from within this Parliament we need to make an urgent and civilized plea to the Iranian government to turn from the path that we consider damaging to Muslim culture and Europe's reputation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Madam President, the election of Dr. Khatami as president showed great promise in principle.
At least he spoke out about the need for reform and democratization.
But if you have nothing, it is difficult to measure the degree of such reform or democratization.
He was given encouragement by the Union to put his ideas into practice, and not for nothing.
The actions of the Iranian regime appear to be heading in a different direction at the moment.
The official reaffirmation of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, as Mr Oostlander said quite rightly, and the subsequent proposals to raise the price on his head, incredible as it sounds, are clear indications of this.
Vigilance is called for and the internal political events will have to be followed carefully.
<P>
The Union must naturally turn itself forcefully against the human rights violations in Iran, this we already know, and this will act as support for the country's reform minded forces.
International attention must also be paid to the individual cases as mentioned in the resolution, so that this may save the lives of citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Madam President, the editor of Iran News , a German national, an Iranian woman, and a writer all have the death threat hanging over them in a country with a centuries old civilization in which religious dictatorship lays down the law.
A few thoughts on this, Madam President.
<P>
The editor of Iran News did not receive a public trial.
How can one threaten someone, coincidentally a European citizen, with execution because he fell in love with a woman?
During its final phase, the previous government in Iran declared that it would not carry out his execution.
For a long time attempts were made to propagate this as a positive step during the 'so-called' critical dialogue which never amounted to anything.
But now it has been very clearly stated that the fatwa against Rushdie is irrevocable, and there are even reports that the price on his head has been raised.
<P>
If you are familiar with the fact, Mr President, that the current President Khatami was the Minister of Culture nine years ago and the fatwa against Rushdie came under his responsibility, then one has to seriously question the call this same Khatami now makes as President for dialogue and relaxation in the sphere of culture.
<P>
When, moreover, official government officials compare the Rushdie affair with pronouncements made by Roger Garaudy, who denies the genocide of six million Jews, then we may conclude that we are a long way off from any relaxation with and within the Iranian regime.
<P>
All these horrific events are taking place in a country which offers enormous economic potential.
Apart from the d'Amato Law, absolutely apart from this, which badly frustrates and hampers the EU, apart from this law, one may ask oneself if one should invest in such a dictatorship.
We are told that the government's story is for internal use, and that it has another story for external use.
But what is the true face of Iran?
With so much oil in the back garden, the production of long-range rockets, the export of terrorism, and religious terrorism, well, Mr President, this true face of Iran, I feel very uneasy about this.
If Iran does have good intentions, and if the positive signal of the release of the editor really does mean something, then the concrete step-by-step dialogue will start, and today's resolution in which we ask for these people not to be executed, might be a good example of this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Pettinari">
Madam President, Commissioner, for the umpteenth time we have to deal with serious cases of violation of human rights in Iran.
We were all under the illusion that the new course of Khatami would have made it unnecessary, but that was an illusion!
Reality is dramatically different.
Only in recent months have tens of death sentences by stoning been pronounced in Iran.
Stoning is not just a death sentence, but something more, a barbarous and unacceptable method for any civilian society.
One of these sentences by stoning was pronounced against a girl who was still breathing an hour after being stoned and died later in hospital.
<P>
As recalled, Morteza Firouzi, the editor of Iran News, has recently been sentenced to death.
The citizen Helmut Hofer has also been given a first-degree death sentence.
Another barbarity is that of the 99 lashes inflicted on the young woman accused of having sexual relations with the German citizen.
<P>
Finally, the death sentence against Rushdie has been confirmed and the reward for killing him has been increased!
I think that these incidents show that the Iranian regime cannot offer any guarantee today, not so much with regard to democracy but over the minimum values of human civility.
I think that Council and the Commission should exert all possible pressure, at all levels, to guarantee at least a minimum level of civility.
<P>
Commissioner Marín, do you not think that the critical dialogue the Commission rightly undertook should at least be subject to this minimum level of civility and should now be reviewed?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hory">
Madam President, you are a woman and I am speaking to you as such.
Who would have believed that love would become a political topic worthy of our Parliament's intervention?
A man and a woman have an intimate relationship and suddenly he is sentenced to the death penalty, while she receives 99 lashes with a whip.
Evidently, this remarkable love story is taking place in Iran; the man is German, the woman is Iranian, and although their feelings of affection were mutual, it seems, on the other hand, that the accommodating attitude often shown towards Teheran by the German authorities is not being reciprocated.
<P>
Apart from this example, the joint motion for a resolution points out how consistently and cynically the Iranian regime scorns human rights and continues to defy the international community, by going against the fundamental democratic rules on which our public, international law is based.
When we think we detect a hint of liberalization, a gesture of good will or the beginnings of some kind of democratization, Teheran immediately carries out new arrests, new fatwas, new executions, thereby contradicting the forecasts of those who are mistaken about the nature of this regime which is profoundly hostile to all humanist values.
I myself believe that we should place no trust in a power which is so unsure of itself that it is capable of condemning love as some kind of subversive act.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García Arias">
Madam President, my colleagues from the various groups have reiterated the concern we all have.
Far from having improved, we all have the impression that the human rights situation in Iran is getting worse and that, despite the countries of the European Union holding out their hand, the Iranian regime is answering with provocations with respect to the two European citizens that have been mentioned.
In fact, in the case of Mr Rushdie, they are even threatening to increase the reward for whoever kills him on behalf of the Iranian regime.
<P>
Individual cases have been mentioned here, but we do not how many other cases and situations we are unaware of, due to the situation in the country where the regime does not permit the basic rules of democracy and transparency.
We should devote our solidarity and concern to them. I also support the points which have been made here.
It seems to me that, rather than improving, the human rights situation has deteriorated; the Community institutions must therefore reflect seriously and set out the reasons why they believe that this is the case.
<P>
I get the impression, Commissioner and Madam President-in-office of the Council, that the situation has deteriorated, and I believe that reflection on our political relations, whether it be called critical dialogue or something else, must also be reviewed.
<P>
I would like to mention a point made by Mrs van Bladel, because I believe that mixing human rights and economic interests or economic relations is tremendously cynical. We here in the Parliament are left with the impression that this reflection - that the situation has not improved - should lead to a more critical reflection on the policy favoured by the Council and the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="Newens">
Mr President, the election last year of Dr Mohamed Khatami as President of Iran was expected in a number of quarters to herald a substantial improvement in the state's attitude on human rights issues.
Sadly, these expectations have not been fulfilled and it is becoming increasingly clear that the influence of the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and of the most fanatical sections of the revolutionary guards is continuing to shape the regime's policies on human rights and that the new president is apparently in complete accord with this.
<P>
This is demonstrated most clearly in the reaffirmation of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie and the death sentence by stoning on the German businessman, Helmut Hofer, which has already been referred to by many Members in this House.
<P>
In the last six months, there have apparently been seven official executions in which individuals convicted by an Iranian court have been stoned to death.
In the last 12 months, some 200 executions are estimated to have taken place in all, 9 in public in the last week alone.
At the same time, there has been no let-up in policies which have led to other violations of human and women's rights by the regime and the case of Morteza Firouzi is referred to in our resolution today.
<P>
The conclusion must therefore be that there has been no improvement in the human rights situation in the Iranian Republic.
In some respects the situation is actually getting worse.
In these circumstances, it is important that Parliament reiterates its appeal to the Council and to European Union Member States to maintain and increase the pressure on the Iranian regime on human rights issues.
This has been called for from every quarter of this House and I hope that the Commission will in fact respond positively to our appeal today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cars">
Mr President, what is really serious about what is happening in Iran, with the repeated attacks on human rights, is that it is taking place in the name of Islam and in reference to the Koran.
In this way people are given a false impression.
Respect for this great world religion is undermined, not only among Europeans and Americans, but throughout the world.
<P>
Obviously it is Parliament's business to protest against what is happening in Iran, and not only there, but also in Algeria and other places.
But it is even more important that the Muslims who feel the same as we do, i.e. that this cannot be right and that it must be changed, now have the courage to speak out and to unite with us in a clear repudiation of attacks on human rights in the Muslim world wherever they may take place.
<P>
Mauritania
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hory">
Mr President, I would like to thank the different groups that supported the European Radical Alliance's initiative concerning Mauritania and I would like to give you some details about the resolution.
<P>
The Mauritanian authorities were disturbed at the fact that our text, according to them, exposed the practice of slavery in Mauritania.
Our text does nothing of the sort.
It condemns slavery in general and points out, on the contrary, that, according to the Mauritanian government, slavery no longer exists in their country.
We hope that these declarations correspond to the reality of the situation, and we note that, in all cases, neither the Mauritanian authorities nor foreign observers have been in agreement on this point.
Moreover, if slavery has disappeared, why do they refuse to accept the legal existence and right of expression of organizations trying to ensure that slavery is effectively and definitively abolished?
<P>
The aim of our resolution was precisely to defend this right of expression and, in the case of legal proceedings, to ensure that everyone receives a fair trial.
It is clear in this matter that the Mauritanian public authorities, in pursuing people who had expressed their opinions on a French television programme, wanted and obtained the justice that it denied political opponents and supporters of human rights. This is shown perfectly through the type of accusations they made, that is, the membership of unauthorized organizations and the propagation of false news abroad for shameful political ends.
You can see right through it.
<P>
I believe that our Parliament must firmly reiterate through its vote that all signatory countries to the Lomé Convention must submit to the democratic rules that form the basis of our partnership. It should also point out that the Mauritanian government would stand to gain if it abandoned the legal proceedings it had begun and the sentences it had imposed, and that all forms of slavery in all countries should be universally eradicated.
It is now up to the Mauritanian authorities to demonstrate, through a liberal attitude, the truthfulness of their statements on this last point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on 12 February four Mauritanian people were convicted. People who are all active in human rights organizations, or in an organization called SOS Esclavage.
But the strange thing is, and I would like to draw my colleagues' attention to this, that these two organizations are recognized and have observer status with the African Commission on Human Rights, and with the nations belonging to the Organization of African Unity.
If they are given recognition on this level, it must mean that these organizations mean something.
<P>
The only thing I wish to draw attention to in this debate is the severity, the weight of the punishment which was pronounced, compared to the facts.
Because only one out of the four people made declarations during the broadcast in question.
The others did not even do so.
Yet they have been sentenced to thirteen months unconditional imprisonment and extremely high fines.
This does arouse suspicion.
<P>
I believe the Mauritanian authorities when they say that they have legally abolished slavery, but then they should be interested in cooperating with all those who also want to see the last remote corners of this practice removed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Commissioner, it is already quite some time that here in Parliament we talked about Mauritania, and I am afraid that this is because this country is spiritually so far away from us and also unfortunately because we have to some extent expelled it from our minds.
I am fully convinced that we, as Europeans, bear much of the responsibility for the present situation in Mauritania.
Of course, what is condemned only in cases of emergency must be condemned absolutely.
But we should consider what we can do better.
<P>
If we look at the situation and consider that in the 1960s Mauritania - on a very low basis - was still a relatively wellfunctioning nomadic state and really only the great famine and our utterly wrongly applied development aid led to the situation there which we now see, namely that all the nomadic inhabitants have gathered around Nouakchoff, the capital, just waiting for the aeroplanes which came with aid, which has led to the situation that they no longer in any way lead their normal lives with their normal social structure, this should really give us food for thought and we should consider how we can manage things better in future.

<P>
The fact is, - and that has been appropriately documented on television - that there still exist horrors such as slavery.
But we must also consider and say that the international community of states is really called upon to do everything in its power - and this applies not just to Mauritania, but also to other states where slavery still exists - to bring this situation to an end.
The old slave route still of course operates in Africa unfortunately.
There are of course other states - I am thinking for example of Mali - which have a similar situation, with which we must all be concerned, but then please in cooperation with the Arab League.
For we cannot do it alone, we must work along with our partners on the spot in the appropriate manner.
If a country like Mauritania wants to meet its obligations, keep the Lome-Agreement and accept appropriate standards, then it must also take full heed of certain standards which we set.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Madam President, Commissioner, the shocking images on television have revealed that slavery does exist in Mauritania.
This is contrary to the official statements which say that slavery was abolished in 1981.
The government's response leaves no doubt.
Instead of tackling abuse the messengers were detained.
The present reaction from the Union is right.
You are aware that Mauritania belongs to the Lomé Convention, so human rights ought to be respected and slavery naturally banned.
<P>
The arrest of anti-slavery activists must be rectified immediately.
The Commissioner knows what I am talking about.
He has often witnessed this in ACP situations.
During the next session of the ACP Assembly, Mauritania will have to have its obligations with respect to the Lomé Convention clearly spelled out.
Quick changes are needed, and I obviously call on the Council, but also the Commission, to follow the developments in Mauritania closely, and to come up with proposals if the problems in Mauritania turn out to be structural.
I hope as they do that this is not the case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Vecchi">
Mr President, like other African countries, Mauritania is in the process of institutional reform.
Compared with several years ago, several significant steps have certainly been taken, although they are anything but perfect, on electoral matters and on the organization of the institutional and political system.
<P>
Our resolution, however, rightly seeks to point out and denounce a series of events and situations, that have been echoed in the international press in recent weeks, that risk jeopardizing this process and that highlight several disturbing aspects.
<P>
Firstly, we should note that, despite being abolished by law, the practice of slavery still exists, at least in certain parts of the country.
What we are asking is that, in addition to the existing legal regulations, the Mauritanian authorities should firmly undertake to eliminate any situation of unacceptable limitation and degradation of the dignity and individual rights involved in slavery.
<P>
For this purpose, the role that can be played by the associations and organizations of civilian society is very important, both in denouncing existing situations and in providing specific, moral support for past and present victims of slavery.
<P>
From this point of view, the position of the Mauritanian authorities therefore seemed surprising and unacceptable to us, for they have begun a campaign of repression against the exponents of associations committed to the defence of human rights.
<P>
What the militants of these associations are accused of (those who have been arrested and, in some cases, sentenced to long prison sentences) solely comprise expressions of opinion as an offence.
The fact that activities carried out for humanitarian purposes is considered a prosecutable offence casts a fatal shadow on the nature of the process of institutional reform and on the wishes of the Mauritanian authorities.
<P>
We well know that Mauritanian society is based on a delicate ethnic balance between the various members of the population.
It is precisely for this reason that we are urging the application of the basic principles of any democratic regulations, including freedom of association, abolition of expressions of opinion as an offence and, naturally, the total abolition of any remains of slavery.
<P>
The first gesture we are asking of the Mauritanian authorities is the immediate and unconditional release of the exponents of the humanitarian organizations imprisoned and the end of all proceedings brought against them.
<P>
Chile
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
Mr President, it is with much regret that the whole world has heard the news that in March the Chilean dictator, Pinochet, will be able to become a senator for life.
As also stated in the resolution of the Partito Popolare, it is true that a basic constitution still exists in Chile whereby all former Presidents of the Republic, democratically elected, become senators for life; it is amazing, however, that this political group here present has nothing to say, either on the fact that Pinochet may be considered a former President democratically elected, or on the torture he has practised.
At the moment, Pinochet is accused of genocide, not just in his own country, but also in an EU country, Spain, as genocide has been committed against the populations of Spanish origin, as maintained by a Spanish court.
<P>
For these reasons, we cannot accept logic of this kind and we believe it necessary to help the Chilean population and the Chilean MPs opposed to this initiative.
In particular, we believe it necessary to amend the Chilean Constitution, not as an act of interference but as political support for those suffering the consequences of a criminal dictatorship.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, I am sorry to bring a little spot of bitterness into the current enthusiasm over the question of our relations with Chile, for a quite simple reason.
We should just ask ourselves the question: What is the point of all this?
Look, Pinochet today is no longer a very young man.
I admit he is younger than I am, but nevertheless he will try to catch up with me and so he will not be a danger for very much longer.
<P>
In addition I would like to underline one fact and that is that experience always shows, amongst proud people, and the Chileans are a proud people, that interference from outside is something which always rebounds because it leads to a kind of closing of ranks against the interferer.
Therefore I would like to ask that careful consideration is given to whether this resolution really has any point.
It is understandable, but I can only say one thing: I have experienced much in my life and I have always been able to learn two lessons from it.
<P>
The first is that when one is victorious one should not take revenge for that has always had a negative effect.
Secondly we should not interfere in things in which we more or less make the others into enemies.
I can give you a concrete example: I was from the beginning in this Parliament in the Animal Protection Group and am, God knows, no supporter of bullfighting, but I have always been against interference.
It should be the Spaniards themselves who put an end to bullfighting.
We should not talk them into it.
This should also apply in my opinion in this case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Mr President, we are all aware of the complicated transition process experienced by Chile, that the progression from an awful dictatorship to democracy has not exactly been easy and that it caused many scars which still remain.
I would like to point out two of them: some of the sections of the current constitution, and the fact that General Pinochet has been active as head of the Armed Forces and is trying to continue in the same way as a senator for life.
<P>
Pinochet is today the clearest example of the impunity in Latin America, and I would say in the world.
Can you imagine, Mr von Habsburg, having to sit alongside Mr Karadzic in this House for the rest of your life?
I think that many legitimate, Chilean representatives feel disgusted, not only at a personal but also at a political level, at the possibility they face.
<P>
A large section of Chilean civil society is opposed to this situation.
This includes the Christian Democrats, whose political judgment in this matter is support by socialists and supporters of other tendencies.
There is also the application from the Communist Party to have Pinochet brought to trial for genocide.
<P>
We do not want interference from here, but we do want to help the democrats in Chile to complete their transition period and to put Pinochet in his place, because human rights are inviolable, indivisible and have no boundaries.
How, for example, could this House not help the family of Carmelo Soria, who is calling for the two murderers who are free, despite it being known that they carried out that terrible crime against an international official of Spanish origin, to be brought to justice?
How can we not come out in solidarity with Judge García Castellón's initiatives, which are trying to find justice for so many murder victims and missing persons, who also came from my country?
In the European Union, there are unfortunately still some people - for example, Attorney General Cardenal or the prosecutor for the National Criminal Court, Mr Fungairiño - who do not understand that in Chile there was a dictatorship and that those responsible for it are still active.
In effect, this is not interference; rather, we are supporting the democrats, and I hope that everyone here in this House understands, precisely because credibility is becoming easier to win every day and in every case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pons Grau">
Mr President, it is obvious that this is a democratic Parliament which makes democracy the focus and objective of its actions and which has always displayed enormous interest in and concern for the evolution of countries which have come out of a dictatorship, and particularly in Chile.
We have showed such interest in Chile that during the time of the dictatorship and over the following years we have been able to have a budget heading devoted exclusively to Chile's transition to democracy.
In addition, at the same time, we gave our support and approval to the process of democratization, and we can today gladly state that Chile is a democratic country.
<P>
I am totally against those who argue that this type of intervention is interference in external affairs of another country.
I believe that in the global village the world has become, we all have the right and the obligation to give our own opinion, particularly when there is a case of interference in human rights.
Through this resolution we are showing our support for the Chilean government, the political parties, the institutions and the citizens in general who are looking for justice.
We know how difficult it has been for them on many occasions and how they have had to overcome many obstacles.
However, we believe that it is illogical and incomprehensible, as well as the fact that it presents a bad image of the country to the outside world, that the greatest representative of the dictatorship and of the attack on the government and on the people be appointed a senator for life without a vote, particularly when there are clear judicial grounds against it, as laid out here.
<P>
Whatever the result of the vote may be, and I hope it will be positive, it will not upset the relations between the European Parliament and the people and democratic government of Chile.
<P>
I believe, as stated here, that it is a direct action against impunity, and the best way to prevent future dictatorships.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 NAME="Howitt">
Mr President, the European Parliament has a strong record of condemning violations in Chile under the former military dictatorship of General Pinochet and of welcoming the return to civilian rule and the genuine progress which is being achieved in the observance of human rights in that country.
This is why we cannot allow the appointment of Pinochet to Chile's Senate, due on the 11 of next month, and subject to protest by all the main political parties in Chile, to pass without international protest from ourselves.
We do not forget the 3, 000 people killed at the hands of the military despots.
We know that today there are still 542 outstanding cases of disappearances, of which no evidence is known.
We were watching, when just last September, political activist Gladys Marin was jailed for five weeks, simply for speaking of Pinochet's human rights violations.
<P>
So why, when this House voted to debate this question yesterday, did the Christian Democrats vote against?
It was only by the narrow margin of 206 votes to 200 that we were able to hold this debate at all.
It cannot be, as Mr von Habsburg says, because this is regarded in Chile as international interference, when the main political parties and civil society have communicated to us in advance that they are supporting the terms of this resolution.
It cannot be because this would be injurious to the process of national reconciliation in Chile.
What could do more damage to that than the continued public office of a man with one of the bloodiest records in Latin America's bloody history?
And it cannot be out of some misinformed support for constitutional principles in Chile, which Pinochet is seeking to exploit, because critics have long known how the military wrote the rules of transition precisely to protect Pinochet from being removed as chief and to allow him to serve now as a non-elected senator.
<P>
Europe understands only too well how the tools of democracy can be seized by dictators to undermine democracy itself.
We should condemn Pinochet with a single and united voice, and I hope the Conservatives and Christian Democrats will examine their consciences before they decide to do otherwise.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, when you ask the man in the street in the Netherlands who is the president of Chile, you will get a deafening silence.
When they say, well, is it not Pinochet?
Yes, that rings a bell , because it links in with what we experienced, or at least Chileans experienced as one the darkest periods in their otherwise illustrious and democratic history.
That is why we show solidarity with the actions, the amazement and the protest against the appointment of presidents or senators for life.
It is a good thing we do not have this in the Netherlands.
So be it, because we are very modest, as you know.
<P>
To get to the point, I do not think it right that the Chilean people, the Chilean government, which has been on the right path to democracy for years now, award this honour to this man who was the model, the negative model of the terrors of the time.
<P>
Belarus
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, the resolution before us is long overdue.
It was discussed for a long time and is a compromise..
Many suggestions and alterations from various groups in the House were incorporated into it before it was submitted.
Therefore I do not claim that it is a green resolution but I believe that it is a resolution of this House.
<P>
The news about arbitrary arrests and deprivation of freedom, about repression of the free press - for example the film maker Saschewatzki was attacked in his apartment because he showed a critical film on German television - requires a response from the European Parliament.
We have been exposed for a long time now to the questions; why is the European Parliament silent when faced with the fact that there is practically a war against the media in Belarus?
Is it perhaps that we do not care about the fate of people?
Is there maybe a creeping acceptance of Lukaschenko's policies?
I hope that with this resolution we give a clear answer.
Lukaschenko has long recognizedd the isolation into which he has driven his country and its people, and he is very interested in international recognition.
But he is not prepared to make concessions in the direction of democratisation.
Therefore any demand for international human rights is a precondition of recognition.
I hope that we do not betray the trust of the Belarus people and that the resolution receives the broad agreement of this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Erika">
Mr President.
Thank you, Mrs Schroedter.
Of course I must say that you have pointed out that we have worked it out together.
You are right. We have discussed it, of course we have not at this precise moment spoken about this resolution.
But we do not want to debate it now, that is not important.
It is certainly important to mention that the European Parliament is not silent.
The European Parliament has several times pronounced on Belarus.
Moreover it has always been you who, with others, have pointed out very emphatically that we must do something, and we are naturally very grateful to you for this.
<P>
Allow me to refer briefly to a few points.
The European Parliament is not silent and something is being done in Belarus.
Not driven by the government, that is true, but we are pleased to note that there is once more an opposition which is re-forming, which is finding its feet and which clearly has the chance, with the aid of the international community, with the aid of the European Union actually to become a political force.
We confirm that we have succeeded in equipping the OSCE mission, that the government has made concessions and that is a step towards a positive future and we want and ought to do everything together with the Commission to ensure survival and hope that we quickly achieve positive results.
<P>
We confirm that hopefully - the Commission will perhaps be able to say something about this - we have re-established the TACIS Democracy Programme.
Mrs Schroedter has rightly referred in her resolution to the fact that we must extend it to the exchange of young students who can come to us to gain experience.
The programme which we have now is too narrow but we are grateful that we have been able to set it up.
<P>
Something is being done, and we must do everything possible to show Lukaschenko again that democratically stable and healthy circumstances must be created so that the integration of Belarus into the European context can finally succeed.
The European Parliament has moreover always said: "The door is open and it will remain open' , but of course on condition that general, universal human rights are recognizedd, and I hope that we in the European Parliament can continue to speak positively in favour of this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, I too would like at this point to thank Mrs Schroedter for her efforts on behalf of White Russia.
I believe that, simply because it is one of the last major dictatorships on European soil, it is necessary to give appropriate signals and to say that we in the European Parliament do not want such a regime in our immediate neighbourhood.
<P>
I would however also like to thank Mrs Mann and say: Something has undoubtedly been done in White Russia, something has changed for the better.
Organisations today can become active, albeit on a restricted basis, which was not all that long ago really not the case, and we should admit that here in this Parliament.
<P>
Of course it is clear that these steps do not go far enough.
I believe we must also cast a glance at the conditions under which Belarus exists at the moment.
The fact is that the relationship of dependency on Russia is a very close one, that the cooperation between Belarus and Russia is very, very close.
I once permitted myself at question time - if I remember rightly it was two months ago - to ask the responsible Council Representative the question, whether there might be a possibility during the next negotiations with the Russian government to insist that Russia makes its influence on Mr Lukaschenko tell, to improve these circumstances.
This was accepted at the time very positively. I would also be very grateful if Commissioner Marin would take this idea further and say: we cannot apply the lever in White Russia.
We must undoubtedly apply it in Russia in order to achieve a better result there.
<P>
Nevertheless the resolution is necessary and it is important that we state our case.
But we must also be quite clear that as soon as something really changes for the better we must also honour it appropriately.
<P>
Congo
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Girão Pereira">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, when Mobutu's dictatorial regime fell in May 1997, the international community expected and hoped that in an era of pacification and democratisation would finally dawn in the Congo (formerly Zaire).
<P>
However, almost a year on, it appears that a very different situation has emerged.
As stated yesterday in Geneva by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kabila has done no better than his predecessor Mobutu.
A number of facts bear out this statement, in particular, frequent public executions by firing-squad following summary trials by military tribunals, as occurred recently in a number of cities including Goma, Kizangani or Kinshasa, the banning of all political activities and of all parties (the Minister for the Interior has stated that they will be severely castigated), beatings and all forms of corporal punishment, obstruction of the United Nations mission responsible for investigating the massacre of Hutu refugees in which Kabila's's troops participated, with the result that last December the mission was obliged to leave the country at a moment's notice, imprisonment and deportation of prominent members of the political opposition.
A few days ago, the opposition leader Tshisekedi was imprisoned and removed to an unknown destination, as reported by a number of news agencies, prompting fears for his personal safety and offering further unequivocal proof of the new government's intentions.
<P>
It appears that this climate of violence is spawning an internal guerrilla movement which could spread to other central African countries such as Rwanda, Burundi or Uganda, causing a renewed upsurge of refugee movement.
In addition, the long and painful peace and democratisation process in Angola could suffer further set-backs on account of instability in neighbouring Congo, thereby jeopardizing the stability of the region as a whole.
<P>
For these reasons, the draft resolution submitted by this Group urges the Council and Member States to make every effort to guide the Congo back to the road of democratisation, and the Commission to review the terms and conditions of EU aid.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Tindemans">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I had hoped that in this European Parliament I would never have to speak again about what we call the Republic of Congo, the country which until recently had been called Zaire for a long time.
The change of regime and Mobutu's disappearance offered an excellent opportunity for this potentially rich country to finally be governed intelligently, honestly and ably.
What was required was of course trustworthy, reliable, and able people to help govern the country.
What needs to be done is not difficult to describe.
It is clear that attention must first be paid to public health, food supplies, to agriculture in other words, to transport which is in a state of chaos, improvements in education, if economic development is to be achieved.
In addition to political issues, the rule of law, human rights and reconciliation with the population.
This presupposes people working together to achieve this peace, this cooperation.
<P>
Under the Mobutu regime cooperation existed between the able opposition people.
They called the association within which they cooperated l'Union sacrée : the holy union.
The holy union produced remarkable texts; a draft constitution, a plan for a transitional regime and so no.
If these had been followed up, another regime could have assumed power without bloodshed.
But Mobutu never understood this, and now, to our disillusionment, we note that Mr Kabila has not really understood this either, and that he is not taking up the opportunities to work together with positive opposition powers of former times.
Mr Tshisekedi has expressed his willingness to cooperate, but Kabila has rejected this.
Worse still, Tshisekedi's offer is not only being rejected, but he was arrested, as well a few young leaders and they are now - the terrible phrase crops up again - political prisoners.
Well, this Parliament must not let something like this slip passed, and must point out in all its relations that we defend the development, but also human rights, democracy, and the rule of law in this big African country.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Congo Democratic Republic, which had given rise to so many hopes at the time it was established, is profoundly disappointing and disregarding the legitimate expectations of the International Community.
The brutal arrest and unlawful internment of Etienne Fishekedi, in Kinshasa on 12 February are just the latest episode in a deliberate design of the authorities of that country to destroy any real opposition.
<P>
The restoration of the rule of law and the real commencement of a process of genuine democratization are the minimum conditions for maintaining EU aid.
The European Union, but also all the Member States, should send the Kinshasa government a firm reminder before it is too late for the Congo Democratic Republic as well, as has often happened in the past.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Just over ten years ago Tshisekedi was imprisoned on a number of occasions.
He was also banned to the interior, to his place of origin.
These are scenarios which repeat themselves.
I must say that I am not surprised that we are witnessing a repeat scenario, because the way in which Kabila came to power had little or nothing to do with a real uprising form within, but more with several countries surrounding the former Zaire wanting to settle something.
So we are having a situation which starts off with someone with weapons coming to power, who promises elections at some point in the far future, but in the meantime forbids political activities, creates problems with regard to free media and deals with political opponents in a completely impossible way.
I think what matters now is that measures and actions are taken, that we not only take note of what is happening, but try to gain influence, for example through the pressure which can be applied by the European Union and the Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hory">
<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, I would like to clarify some of the various points on human rights put forward by the different speakers.
<P>
As regards Iran, the Commission is extremely concerned about the violations of human rights, which are clearly documented in the reports by Mr Garretón, the United Nations' special rapporteur on human rights in Iran.
The Commission would be prepared to urge the Iranian government to permit the special rapporteur to enter the country as soon as possible, in order to allow him to draw up a report on the human rights situation in Iran.
<P>
As the Union has reiterated many times, the Commission still deeply regrets the existence of the fatwa against the British author, Salman Rushdie, which has already been in place for nine years.
I can confirm that this situation is contrary to international law and puts not only Mr Rushdie in danger, but also the people connected to him.
<P>
The Commission is seriously concerned about the recent measures taken by the Iranian authorities against a German citizen, Mr Helmut Hofer, and a publisher of an Iranian newspaper, Mr Mortesa Firuzi, who have been unjustifiably sentenced to death for crimes allegedly committed in Iran.
The Commission has already made its opinion known, and is counting on the Iranian authorities to ensure that these cases are reconsidered.
<P>
We welcome the recent liberation of Mr Faraj Sahouhi and we hope that his case will set a precedent for more liberal individual human rights policies on the part of the Iranian government.
<P>
The Commission also warmly welcomed the decision by the Council of General Subjects on 26 January to reconsider European Union relations with Iran under the current circumstances, and this question - relations with Iran - will in fact be one of the main points at the meeting of the Council of General Subjects next Monday.
<P>
As regards Mauritania, the Commission has, through the usual channels, followed with great concern the arrest and sentencing of Mauritanians who were demonstrating in favour of human rights, and it has informed the Mauritanian ambassador in Brussels of our concerns and also that we want to be kept informed about the situation.
In general, cooperation between Mauritania and the European Commission has been aimed at consolidating democracy and the rule of law, as well as respect for human rights and fundamental liberties, and we must recognize that, at least in the case of Mauritania, very positive efforts have been made in recent years with respect to the country's situation and a significant process of democratization has been started.
Naturally, in terms of the laws and the constitution, we all know that slavery is forbidden, but we must realize that traditional practices still survive - as reported - where, in certain regions, although not actually slavery, similar types of work relations are still practised.
<P>
We can therefore state that we are making the necessary political gestures to reveal this situation to the Mauritanian authorities, in order to resolve it through the normal diplomatic channels.
Having said this, however, the Commission, as you know, is financing a whole range of activities aimed precisely at promoting the rule of law by way of the Mauritanian Indicative Programme.
<P>
As regards Chile, as most of the Members have pointed out, the process of democratization is - or has been - one of this Parliament's concerns and I believe that it was Mr Pons Grau who noted that it is one of the rare budget headings in the Community budget where there has been constant financial support for political parties, trade unions and civic organizations during recent years in the country.
<P>
Nevertheless, the Commission must admit that it is a complex process, and consequently it is inevitable that it will involve contradictions which may seem difficult to understand from a European standpoint. Objectively speaking, we all know that there was a dictatorship - who would deny that? - but in the case of Chile, the country is undergoing an internal process which must be understood in all its complexity, and by this, I am in no way excusing the crimes or abuse which took place under the dictatorship.
In fact, you know that the Chilean government has already made it known that it will not accept this resolution.
It is a matter which must obviously be considered with much subtlety and delicacy.
But I am here to represent the institutional position of the Commission.
I have my own opinion on the matter.
And, in the same way as if don Otto were here, I would have no problem saying - because he used to point out that he was older than General Pinochet - "long live Mr don Otto' , but I would not dare to say "long live the other younger veteran' .
I would never say that.
<P>
As regards Belarus, the violations of human rights of individuals or groups opposed to the Belorussian regime are unfortunately true.
However, European Union relations with Belarus depend on two delicate matters. I admit, as one speaker pointed out, that an element concerning working in Belarus is that it also means operating in cooperation with Russia.
But I also have to take into consideration the Commission's institutional position.
The two delicate matters are: firstly, the creation of an OSCE inspection and advisory group in Minsk, in the field, which is planned, in principle, for the end of February, and the execution of its mandate; and secondly, the possible adoption by the Belorussian authorities of the TACIS programme for the development of civil society, expected, in principle, in March.
If Belarus - either the government or the President - cooperates constructively with the OSCE and accepts the European Union's programme, we will reevaluate our relations with them, since we are allowed to do this under the Council's resolutions.
Therefore, these two conditions are going to be set out in February and March.
If, on the contrary, instead of receiving a positive response, we received a negative one in this respect - if there was no group set up in Minsk, if obstacles were put in the way of the development of the programme to support civil society -, the European Union would consequently apply the Council's decision and we would have to declare that it was not possible to work with the Belarus government.
For that reason, you will have an answer regarding the OSCE in Minsk after February, and regarding the negotiations with the government after March, and the Commission will present its evaluation to the Council and Parliament in April.
<P>
As regards the Democratic Republic of Congo, I must point out that we all need to show - particularly given the concern of a veteran of the Lomé Convention such as Mr Tindemans for the country- that we thought that, with the fall of Mobutu, things were going to change. Arbitrary arrests are taking place and certain leaders of the Congolese opposition are moving outside the city.
In this respect, the Commission, along with the Member States, and certain ones in particular, is in contact with the new authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo to inform them of our point of view on this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed
<P>
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p. m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following draft resolutions:
<P>
B4-0185/98 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on sub-critical nuclear testing; -B4-0195/98 by Mr McKenna and Mr Schroedter, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on sub-critical nuclear testing; -B4-0237/98 by Mr Manisco and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on sub-critical nuclear testing; -B4-0245/98 by Mrs Theorin, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.

<SPEAKER ID=189 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, I am pleased that what we started in the Subcommittee on Security and Disarmament, a treatment of the so-called sub-critical testing, has a follow-up, a sequel in an urgent debate.
It is vital that the European Union makes efforts to convince America to abandon these nuclear tests.
These sub-critical tests - I will briefly explain, they are tests to see whether one's nuclear material is still in good condition - are not contrary to the letter nuclear test ban treaty, the CTBT, but they do violate its spirit very seriously.
This treaty will only enter into force with difficulty, because it requires the ratification of countries such as India and Pakistan.
And it is these countries which use their resistance against the American tests to not ratify the CTBT.
<P>
These developments might mean the entire house of cards of international disarmament might collapse.
The nuclear nonproliferation treaty is linked to the CTBT and will therefore be under great pressure.
The opportunities offered by the end of the cold war to get rid of large categories of weapons of mass destruction, are thus lost.
It is very unpleasant and very peculiar that this is the result of American actions at the same time that this big America is coming down so strongly on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and rightly, by the way.
<P>
The Member States of the Union are wrongly keeping very quiet.
Instead, the EU Member States should lodge a protest with the United States, and invite them to end these tests.
Moreover, the Union should make a joint effort to get other countries to ratify the CTBT Treaty.
European efforts are needed to save this treaty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, classical case for the EU to prove that it is serious about a common foreign and security policy, for the comprehensive banning of these tests has been signed by all EU Member States.
Thus the Member States assume the responsibility for ensuring genuine adherence to this treaty.
The danger that it will be surreptitiously undermined - Mr Bertens has already said this, - is very great if the USA continues to test and, above all, confidence in this treaty will be greatly undermined.
It must therefore be made clear: this treaty is valid and it must not be secretly destroyed by the USA's tests, for there is no international verification system by which it can be determined whether or not the test is subcritical.
<P>
Atomic weapons are weapons of mass destruction and the USA is demonstrating to us right now the methods it would use against weapons of mass destruction.
I am in any case of the opinion that it is absurd to use military methods and I prefer a diplomatic solution.
The EU must in this case prove its qualifications in the diplomatic sphere.
I hope that it now puts massive support behind making the agreement work.
I believe Mr Marin owes us an answer about exactly how this is going to happen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
Mr President, after many years of negotiations and strong opposition both from nuclear powers and threshold states, it was finally decided to have a comprehensive ban on all nuclear weapons testing.
In September 1996 the treaty was opened for signature and all the countries of the EU have signed up to this treaty.
<P>
The intention of a comprehensive test ban treaty was to stop further development of nuclear weapons.
After the end of the Cold War this was an obvious thing, even if France, against strong world opinion, first reserved the right to carry out a series of nuclear weapons tests to improve its nuclear weapons.
Many citizens were not convinced of the goodwill of the nuclear powers and warned that development of new nuclear weapons could take place through laboratory testing.
<P>
In the treaty the signatories commit themselves to refrain from any action which would defeat its object and purpose .
Unfortunately, we are now forced to note that the USA has carried out a series of subcritical nuclear tests and intends to carry out four more before September this year.
Some of the world's leading nuclear weapon scientists have strongly questioned whether these tests are indeed subcritical , not least because they are taking place underground and are not verified.
The argument that these tests have to be carried out in order to be sure about the safety and reliability of existing nuclear weapons stocks fails on its own absurdity.
It is true that tritium slowly deteriorates after many years, but not in such a way that there is no longer any risk that nuclear weapons will explode and cause the devastation for which they are intended.
<P>
Many countries and a large number of members of the American Congress have expressed their concern over these tests.
The crux of the matter, however, is that these tests and new nuclear weapons development seriously jeopardize the international test ban treaty.
Even if, contrary to expectations, they did not contravene the letter of the test ban treaty, it is clear that they contravene the spirit of the treaty.
This is one of our most important international treaties, and it is unacceptable for the USA to seriously undermine the treaty through these tests.
Our resolution therefore demands consequently that the American government should stop these tests, that it should state in an official declaration that these tests are not part of a new weapons development programme and that the development of new nuclear weapons is not part of the USA's policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fabra Vallés">
Mr President, the position of the Group of the European People's Party's on the other resolutions of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons is well known.
This is the first resolution to be presented on the topic of nuclear weapon testing and sub-critical testing.
<P>
We have submitted no motion for a resolution, we are not going to table any amendments and, in fact, the Group of the European People's Party intends to vote against all of these resolutions.
It plans to do this for one reason only and that is because we believe that it is not the right time to submit them.
At the moment, there is a serious situation in the Gulf, and we are talking about a weapon whose main strength is deterrence. Taking into consideration the fact that the only thing which can change the situation in the Gulf is dissuasion, we believe that it is the worst possible time to talk about such things.
That is why the Group of the European People's Party is going to vote against all the resolutions.
Moreover, it would be better if we gave it some time and the United States Senate ratified the CTBT Treaty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Günther">
Mr President, I can immediately follow on from what the previous speaker has said and I also share his estimate relating to the choice of time and agree with him that it is not necessarily a matter which requires great urgency.
I also have doubts whether the authors of these resolutions have really taken the trouble to find out exactly what subcritical tests are, for they are tests in which no chain reactions ensue, in which no radioactive substances are released above the tolerance limits.
Here the question arises why the reasons given by the USA cannot be accepted, namely that this amongst other things serves to check the safety of existing stocks.
<P>
Each of us would prefer if we could do without all these things, but since we have people in the world like Saddam Hussein and the like we cannot in my opinion afford as it were to divest ourselves completely of all our defence capabilities whilst Saddam Hussein for his part has no thoughts of following a good example which under certain circumstances could be given here.
Nowhere have I read that one of the countries which even today still produces weapons of mass destruction including anti-personnel mines would consider supporting the test ban treaties and destroying its own weapons of mass destruction if these subcritical tests were now halted.
Again I ask for this proof to be offered.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
It might perhaps be appropriate to explain to Günther that the reason for our criticism is precisely that it has not been possible to check that these tests really are subcritical.
We base this on information from the world's leading nuclear weapons scientists.
That is what we are demanding, i.e. that these tests should be stopped until it can be proven that they are subcritical.
There is every reason in the world to question these tests. The Americans still have nuclear weapons.
All the nuclear powers still have nuclear weapons. But we should not develop new nuclear weapons.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, the Commission supports the work carried out by the European Union and participates in it in order to convince third countries which have not yet done so to sign and ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty.
<P>
In this respect, within the Union, all the Member States have begun national procedures to quickly ratify the Treaty.
<P>
The entry into force of this Treaty will undoubtedly lead to a crucial stage of disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation at international level.
And any element which obstructs this ratification or any delay which might take place in any of the ratifications, as Mr Fabra Vallés pointed out, would cause great concern.
<P>
That is the Commission's view on this matter.
We want a rapid and unanimous ratification of the Treaty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, I had asked the Commissioner to tell us in concrete terms what the Commission plans.
Will the Commission make a proposal to the "Foreign Affairs' council, about how this test ban , on the assumption that everyone is ready to ratify it, even on w worldwide basis, can be implemented really effectively by everybody?
Is there in this respect a concrete proposal, is there a plan?
And when will the Commission present this to the Council?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 NAME="Marín">
Madam speaker, I am as in favour of the suspension of nuclear testing as I can be, but the fact is that it is very difficult for the Commission to make a proposal since, as you all know, it has no authority to do so.
This is why I did not respond; if I could do it, I would, but, as you know, we have no authority in this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner, Marín.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following draft resolutions:
<P>
Floods in Greece -B4-0216/98 by Mr Trakatellis and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the disastrous floods that have occurred recently in various parts of northern Greece and in the Greek islands of the Aegean Sea; -B4-0226/98 by Mr Daskalaki and Mr Kaklamanis, on behalf of the Group Union for Europe, on the floods in northern Greece and in the Greek islands of the Aegean Sea; -B4-0238/98 by Mr Alavanos, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the disaster caused by floods in Greece; -B4-0251/98 by Mr Avgerinos and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the floods in northern Greece and the Aegean islands.
<P>
Storm in Malaga -B4-0257/98 by Mr Galeote Quecedo and Mr Hernández Mollar, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on storms in the province of Malaga.
<P>
Floods in Greece
<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="Trakatellis">
Mr President, on 2 and 5 February catastrophic floods of unprecedented severity afflicted many parts of Eastern Macedonia, Thrace, and some islands in the East and North Aegean.
They caused the death of 4 people and injured many others, resulted in great damage to buildings, vehicles, crops and to the infrastructure of the areas, such as roads and bridges.
With this motion we are calling for an expression of solidarity and expressing our deepest sympathy for the families of the victims and the dwellers in those areas who have suffered.
We are also asking the European Commission and the Council of the European Union to contribute towards the effort to make good the damage, with urgent economic aid.
I think the natural disasters which unfortunately take place every year in various parts of the European Union provide us all with an opportunity, and the European Union's bodies as well, to demonstrate our presence at the side of our citizens who sustain such damage and trials as those brought about by the recent disastrous floods in Greece.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 NAME="Daskalaki">
Mr President, as a subject, natural disasters repeatedly come up in the European Parliament and every time that a Member State or even a third country is afflicted by weather conditions, fire, earthquake or whatever else, there is a lot of debating.
This time it is parts of Greece which have been hit, and it is natural for us to ask the Commission and the European Parliament to express solidarity with those affected, and therein lies the problem.
Because each time, we decide unanimously that those affected must be helped - and the Commission too agrees about this aid - and we ask that the often enormous damage caused should be made good, each time we in here vote for all that unanimously, but the aid often remains confined to words alone because thereafter the matter passes into the hands of the governments involved, of course, and then grinds to a halt.
<P>
So besides adopting specific resolutions - and there are clearly no objections to that, which is why we are debating it here -, perhaps we ought in future to examine another more effective way not just of expressing solidarity but of becoming more effective in substance.
Because in this specific instance, in Eastern Macedonia, Thrace and the Aegean islands and elsewhere where entire regions were flooded, not only were estates destroyed but there have been human victims and enormous damage was caused. So in this case something more is needed besides an emergency resolution.
What we vote for and decide upon must come to pass. Perhaps, besides the legitimate appeal for aid and for its approval by the Commission, this is an opportunity to re-think the whole procedure and see how we can act more effectively.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, my colleagues have told us what happened as a result of the floods, it is stated in the resolution, and I do not want to spend time needlessly.
I just want to draw Parliament's attention and that of Mr Marín who is present today, to the type and manner and timing of aid.
It must be direct, and must be enough to make good the damage and help those people who have been left without incomes, whose products have been destroyed, who have been left homeless, with no water supply, no trace of transport and communications and other infrastructure.
All that must be made good at once.
<P>
But that, Mr Marín, is not enough.
Such disasters take place every so often, usually in border areas among the poorest in the Community, and they must be given special treatment.
There should be a scale of aid in the sense of the Community's structural policy so that such natural disasters will result in less damage. They need special protection.
Instead, what do you do?
You exclude the islands of the North and East Aegean from the operational programmes of the structural policy.
Energy, transport and other such programmes. And consequently you leave them unprotected while they are the most vulnerable to natural disasters.
<P>
Since these are border regions, there towards the Aegean, towards Evros and Turkey, they also fail to attract investment because everyone is uneasy about stability in those areas because of the notorious policy of the Turkish leadership.
Consequently, Mr Marín, please look to those two phases, immediate aid and a scale of regular aid for the protection of those areas by means of structural programmes, so that disasters will not cause such widespread damage.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 NAME="Kokkola">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the severe bad weather that has recently affected many countries in Europe and all over the world is the result of man's ill-considered intervention in the environment.
Huge areas of forest have been destroyed, lakes have dried up, rivers have been blocked up.
Nature warns but also takes its revenge.
The same thing has happened in Greece, where last week enormous destruction was caused by severe rainstorms.
People lost their lives, crops were destroyed and people who had toiled to create their estates lost them.
We express our sympathy to the victims and to all those who suffered destruction, and Mr President, we ask the European Commission to express its sensitivity in practical ways by providing financial aid as soon as possible.
<P>
Storm in Malaga .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fabra Vallés">
Mr President, I presume that you, as a neighbour from the region, although from another country, are aware of the heavy rains and violent winds experienced in Malaga from 31 January to 5 February.
This damaged farming and livestock products, land and woodland infrastructures and capital assets of all forms.
<P>
The damages represent more than 21 000 million pesetas.
I, on behalf, I would say, of almost all of the Spanish delegation, regardless of the group they belong to, would ask the Commission, through this resolution, to secure emergency aid to relieve the damage in the province of Malaga.
I am sure that Vice-President Marín will have the same degree of interest in the problem in Greece and the problem in Spain, but the truth is, Mr Marín, that in this case we have you as our defending counsel.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission shares in the suffering of the families of the victims in both Greece and in Malaga, and it regrets the physical damage caused. But I must tell you that you have put me in a difficult position, since the problem we have is that the budget heading relating to emergency aid for Community citizens who have been the victims of catastrophes has been cancelled precisely on the initiative of the European Parliament.
Therefore, it seems a bit dramatic for the Commission to have to remind you of it and maybe ask you to include it in the budget again for the coming year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Marín.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended for 15 minutes while awaiting Voting Time)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="President">
We shall now proceed to the vote on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
<P>
During the vote on the accident caused by a plane in Italy:
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Imbeni">
Mr President, as the news has been published today that the Italian Government has asked the US Government to allow proceedings to be heard on the incident in Cavalese in Italy, we believe this new fact should be included in the resolution and, with the agreement of many colleagues, I would therefore like to submit the following oral amendment: "notes the formal request made by the Italian Government to the US Government to allow proceedings to be heard in Italy' .
<P>
If everyone agrees, we can approve it.
<P>
(Parliament accepted the oral amendment and adopted the resolution)
<P>
After the vote on floods in Greece :
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, concerning the four resolutions on floods which the House has just voted for, three-quarters of an hour ago an insult was offered to the dignity of Parliament.
After the toil and trouble taken to prepare the resolutions, and after we took the trouble to listen to them for over half an hour, the Commissioner responsible, Mr Marín, rose and though he is not a cynic, told us most cynically that none of all that was worth a groat, because the budget line providing compensation aid has been abolished, for which Parliament shares co-responsibility.
<P>
I raise the issue as a question.
In that case, why did the Bureau accept that we could table resolutions that can have no force?
For what reason?
Besides, even when that budget line had not been abolished, such aid was non-existent, very limited, or it never reached its target.
Now, he tells us most cynically that it is no longer even provided for.
Then why this debate?
Why this trick against Parliament?
<P>
Mr. President, I am not raising the issue personally, nor out of national egoism.
Today it concerns Greece. Tomorrow it will concern other countries.
Are we to continue playing this game?
And if the budget line in question has been abolished, it is impossible for us to tolerate that and as a body with special responsibility for the budget we must bring it back, because it is unacceptable that fellow-humans should be suffering, afflicted by floods and natural disasters, while the Community sits there twiddling its thumbs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="Green">
Mr President, this House should know that Mr Marin is absolutely right: we were party to removing that budget line.
That is one of the reasons why Mr Avgerinos, your colleague in the Bureau, is in the process of re-examining the system of urgencies.
So it is no news to most of us.
What is ridiculous is that we keep tabling motions asking for money to be spent when there is no budget line, and Members should know that when they table resolutions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, our Greek colleague is partly right.
Mrs Green is also only partly right.
In the resolution on Greece we are not asking for money from the Diaster Fund, but from the Structural Funds, and therefore not the ECU 5 million from before.
That was my first point.
<P>
Secondly, Tuesday afternoon, but perhaps Mrs Green did not receive a complete copy of the report, the man sitting behind you, myself and a number of colleagues agreed to ask the Presidency to consider once more whether we should discuss these resolutions on calamities in future, and to come back to this point the next time we are re-examining everything related to urgencies.
The Greek possibilities continue to exist.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="Marín">
In fact, before the vote, I had to explain, particularly to Mr Ephremidis - and I believe I did so calmly - that I was sorry to have to say that we cannot secure any aid for natural catastrophes because the budget heading B4-3400 has been removed.
<P>
Secondly, as regards the Structural Funds, there is another problem: the Structural Funds Regulation does not allow for payments to cover natural catastrophes.
Consequently, there is no legal basis for doing so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I had already risen to speak.
I would like to support Colleague Ephremidis in his efforts on behalf of the flood victims but not in his demands to the President to declare such resolutions to be inadmissible.
It is my view that it is better for us to discuss the crime which actually exists all around buildings in Brussels - discussion on this was rejected - instead of a budget line which does not really exist.
I am of the opinion that it is not the President who should make such decisions but this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, clearly there has been a misunderstanding by the interpreter. I, on the contrary, said quite clearly that Mr Marín, though he is not a cynic, ... etc.
I did not say he is a cynic, but indeed, said: ' though he is not a cynic' , but that with cynicism, in other words with extreme composure, he said that the budget does not provide for it.
I want to state that, Mr President, because I have served in this Chamber for about 20 years and never have I directed personal comments against a colleague and far less against holders of office in the Council or the European Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="President">
That concludes the vote on topical and urgent subjects of major importance
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Mr President, I would simply like to point out that, to my knowledge, the bell did not ring to announce the votes, or else it did not ring everywhere.
I arrived ten minutes late.
I was listening very carefully for the bell because I had a meeting.
I should have looked at my watch, but I believe that, given the stakes which have become quite significant during voting time, it would be better to ensure that the bell does ring.
Thank you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="President">
We will check that but your presence will be recorded.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 5.50 p.m. and resumed at 6 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Confidence in electronic means of payment (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="President">
We are now taking the continuation of the debate on confidence in electronic means of payment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ullmann">
Mr President, it is possible to keep the interests of consumers very clearly in view and yet at the same time be fully open to the possibilities of new technical developments.
Madame rapporteur has given us convincing proof of this by shedding bright light with her report on legal problems arising from the Commission's communication, - for example the question which has not yet been solved satisfactorily, about the definition of the methods of payment covered by the communication and\or a directive still to be drawn up.
Is this now to include only physical or also purely electronic payments - for instance via the Internet?
<P>
No less urgent are the liability problems dealt with in detail by the rapporteur, which are of prime importance for the consumer.
On both questions I consider a response from the Commission, also with regard to any directive which might be issued, to be urgently necessary.
The Committee on Legal Affairs passed the report by Mrs Thors unanimously.
It would be desirable if this high House could do the same - in the interests of the modernisation of our payment systems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Lassus Saint Geniès">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Thors' excellent report tackles with determination an extremely new and complex field in which the traditional psychology of the consumer plays a significant role.
The current market economy is still largely based on the consumer's physical assessment of the materiality of the currency and the quality of the retailer.
This assessment also determines to a large extent the consumer's confidence, with attitudes which, in addition, are quite different throughout the European Union.
<P>
Indeed, we are currently undergoing a revolution which is vastly upsetting our traditional attitudes. It is a revolution of a size similar to that which, in the past, saw the introduction of physical currency and the substitution of the barter economy with the market economy.
It is clear today that physical currency is disappearing and being replaced by a simple electronic record; in particular, the sector known as cybereconomy is developing and the retailer is disappearing to be replaced by a network of electronic exchanges which are no longer represented by the faces of millions of shop assistants, but by a few multinationals which face up to the consumer and which are out of his reach.
<P>
It is this change which is leading to the consumer's distrust. It is therefore the consumer that needs to be taken into consideration if we want to instil new confidence in modern, technological procedures.
In a few years, as President Clinton said in a speech on 1 July 1997, billions of dollars will be exchanged in this way.
Thus, it is not enough to worry about organizing consumer protection in terms of electronic payment cards. We must firstly create the conditions for emergence of a legal framework in order to allow for competition in the provision of exchange of procedures, by establishing rules which prevent the setting up of monopolies providing software and servers through discriminatory procedures.
<P>
Certain societies are in fact already trying to control this burgeoning cybereconomy.
Moreover, many people are amazed at the success of Bill Gates, for example.
These companies are so powerful that they already elude the reach of most of our governments.
The United States seems to want to establish only those rules which will be necessary from now on to best serve the interests of American societies simultaneously.
<P>
The European Union must assume its role as a great world economic power.
It must therefore, in our opinion, establish a directive, which defines, classifies and standardizes the exchange procedures, as well as organizing them into a hierarchy.
That will be a first defining step in the setting up of a competition law in this new field and in forming consumers' confidence in the new technologies.
It is in this spirit that the Group of the European Radical Alliance will give its support to Mrs Thor's report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to say how satisfied I am with the report and to emphasize its many positive elements.
<P>
Firstly, the report agrees with the Commission's policy in respect of new payment methods, including electronic methods.
The Commission also believes that it is advisable to avoid imposing unnecessary administrative requirements which hinder innovation, growth and competitiveness in the sector.
Therefore, faced with the arrival of this new generation of products - particularly electronic money - which is still at a relatively early stage, the Commission decided to propose a non-binding recommendation.
<P>
Before the end of 1998, the Commission will carry out a study analysing the extent to which the principles included in the recommendation have been applied.
If it appears that their application is unsatisfactory, it will propose a directive.
The Commission will, of course, keep Parliament informed of the progress in this matter.
<P>
Secondly, the Commission agrees with the principle stating that a free and open market economy must prevail in the sector, as provided for in the Treaty, and that, in principle, it must not thus be unduly regulated.
<P>
Thirdly, the Commission believes that the main objectives should be to increase confidence and consumer acceptance as regards electronic means of payment as well as to promote the single market and encourage electronic commerce in this area.
<P>
Fourthly, the Commission considers that, for the single market to work at full capacity and for electronic commerce and the information society to develop, then electronic money products and electronic payments must be solvent, easy to use, efficient and safe, as the Commission highlighted in its communication on a European initiative on electronic commerce.
<P>
Finally, the Commission believes that transparent and safe electronic money products would make the change to the single currency easier, particularly during the transition period.
<P>
Mr President, I would like to move on to make a few points about the follow-up planned for the communication and Parliament report.
As we stated in the communication, the Commission is prepared to draw up initiatives in the field of new means of payment with a view to promoting electronic commerce and the information society.
In this respect, the Commission issued a recommendation in July 1997 where it pointed out that transparency, responsibility and compensation for damage were the principles which should govern the relations between the issuer and the holder of the payment instrument.
And, in the future, the Commission intends to clear up the application of the Community competition standards in these markets with a view to achieving a balance between an adequate level of interoperability and healthy and vigorous competition. It also aims to propose a draft directive on the issuing of electronic money whose aim would be to guarantee the stability and the solvency of the issuer of electronic payment instruments, since we believe that this also serves to promote consumer confidence.
<P>
On the other hand, to respond to a specific solution from the Amsterdam European Council, the Commission is also studying different possibilities in the field of fraud and the falsification of the means of payment, including, of course, electronic money.
<P>
In conclusion, as outlined in the report, the Commission intends to study specific initiatives in the field of the digital electronic sector whose objective would be to establish a Community framework in this area and thus do away with any obstacles within the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 NAME="President">
That concludes the debate.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Simpler legislation for the internal market (SLIM)
<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0033/98) by Mr Crowley, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the report from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on simpler legislation for the internal market (SLIM) and the results of the second phase and the follow-up of the implementation of the first phase recommendations (COM(97)0618 - C4-0660/97)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="Hyland">
Mr President, in the absence of my colleague, Mr Crowley, I wish, at the outset to place on the record of the House his appreciation to the Secretariat of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights for all its assistance and advice in preparing this second SLIM report and also, to thank the other draftsmen for their additions to the text.
He also wishes me to put on the record his thanks to the Commission for taking on board some of the committee's concerns with regard to prior consultation.
<P>
I am sure that it is obvious to all Members of the House that the easier and more accessible we make legislation the greater the opportunity for real business and commerce to expand which will lead to bigger growth and more employment.
We must take seriously our responsibilities under the Treaties not to impose unnecessary administrative or financial burdens on smalland medium-sized enterprises which are recognized as the greatest engine for growth in employment terms.
<P>
Within the report there are a number of areas specifically mentioned: extension of the scope of SLIM actions in the agricultural area; use of plainer and simpler language; it also points out that codification is a useful tool to improve the situation - for example, 16 fertilizer directives being reduced to a single directive.
The report also recommends that Member State governments should establish SLIM teams as there is evidence that some of the hindrances to the internal market are a result of the non-implementation or non-transposition of EU legislation.
<P>
It suggests that the duration of the SLIM teams should be extended to a minimum of six months and that the third phase of SLIM should address freedom of movement and social security for migrant workers.
It should also address health and safety at work, public procurement and directives on the maintenance of dangerous substances.
<P>
For the fourth phase the rapporteur suggests a machinery directive, an environmental waste management directive, a telecommunications equipment directive, an electromagnetic compatibility directive and the implementation of pollution controls.
<P>
Finally, as all Members will know, many times Member States use the European Union as a scapegoat for unpopular national rules.
This practice must not continue and must be responded to vigorously by the European Parliament offices in each Member State.
<P>
The rapporteur wishes me to commend this report to the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="Hendrick">
Mr President, I would like to commence by apologizing on behalf of the draftsman for the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
Like Mr Hyland I have been asked to step in and it would seem that Mr Hyland and I are the godparents of this report in the European Parliament while the real parents are elsewhere.
<P>
I would also like to note the success with which the Luxembourg Presidency really kicked off the SLIM programme.
As a British Member, I am optimistic that the British Presidency can maintain the momentum that was picked up originally by the Luxembourg Presidency and that will be carried on through the Austrian and German presidencies because there is much to do in this particular area.
<P>
At issue is improving the environment for business.
It is an essential part, as the single market action plan pointed out, of the completion of that programme.
Red tape, when it is reduced and when those rules are simplified, will make things much clearer for businesses and much easier for business to operate within the single market.
It will be a particular help to small and medium-sized enterprises who must spend more money proportionally in order to comply with EU legislation and national legislation when it has been transposed.
In particular, more money must be spent on decoding some of the complex texts when they arrive in their language in their respective Member States.
<P>
It will also promote enhanced economic activity which can only be good for the single market because the outcome would be an increased number of jobs.
Some of the prime examples of the areas that have been covered are, in particular, directives that can be codified into a single directive - in the case of fertilizers, for example, or, clearly, machinery, environmental waste, telecommunications equipment and electromagnetic compatibility across the electrical equipment and, indeed, pollution control.
<P>
The other issue is transposition which needs to be dealt with effectively.
Much of the legislation, when transposed at the Member State level, is transposed into very weighty legislation.
This is partly due to some of the complexity in the original text but it is mainly, I believe, due to bureaucratic interference at national level as civil servants wish to include bits of their own interpretation of legislation as well as their own pet projects in national legislation.
SLIM is a plan meant to reduce the bureaucrat's appetite for legislation and to propose wholesome legislation which will provide a healthy framework for the operation of the single market.
A healthy single market is one which will create jobs and therefore I commend Mr Crowley's report to this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Berger">
Mr President, on behalf of my group may I very, very sincerely thank the rapporteur in his absence for his report and his continuing commitment to the SLIM initiative.
The SLIM initiative receives cross-group support in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights of this House and with minor exceptions is unopposed.
However technical and detailed the work in the context of the SLIM initiative may seem to be we must never lose sight of the fact that it is a matter of a central project for the acceptance of European Union amongst its citizens.
However great may be the enthusiasm for Europe, if daily life is determined, particularly for companies, by incomprehensible rules, innumerable statistical forms and complicated VAT procedures, then even the greatest enthusiasm will totter and fall into discontent and annoyance.
<P>
Apart from these problems of acceptance and the costs associated with the carrying out of many regulations - and often it is not Community regulations but actually national regulations - it must also be of some concern to us to guarantee and increase legal certainty is ensuring that legal requirements are comprehensible and enforceable.
<P>
Initiatives so far by the Commission are certainly welcome but go too slowly and not far enough.
I can therefore only support the rapporteur in his demand for the acceleration and extension of the process of simplifying the law and for the rapid implementation of the proposals drawn up by the SLIM teams.
A sphere which would be very suitable for many successes in this area would certainly be that of agriculture.
<P>
If however we complain about excessively complicated regulations we should not lose sight of the deeper reasons for them.
One of these causes is surely that in the European Council in many matters unanimity is required or when where it is not formally required the broadest possible agreement is sought.
In order to be fair to everybody or to as many people as possible exceptions to the exceptions and very hairsplitting adjustments must be laid down.
<P>
I also believe that in our capacity as the European Parliament and as law makers in matter we must take ourselves in hand and more often keep to the basic principle that "less is more' .
<P>
I would thus like to propose in conclusion that this Parliament creates an instrument whereby we can check whether we can frame our legislative proposals in simpler and more comprehensible terms.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mosiek-Urbahn">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the activities of the Commission in the context of the SLIM programme started back in 1996 are extraordinarily welcome.
The report now before us represents a further step towards improvement and simplification of Community law, even if it is only a small step, considering the massive and urgent necessity to create simple regulations for the single market.
Of course I wish that the SLIM programme would be reflected very much more quickly and more clearly in solid results which everyone can see.
Then in addition a less important role is played by the series of projects subjected to the SLIM procedure.
<P>
I wish this programme would lead to perceptible relief for the medium, small and very small companies, but also for the big ones, thus strengthening their ability to compete and bringing more jobs.
The monitoring of Intrastat and the sphere of value added tax are really worthwhile objects in this respect.
<P>
I wish the SLIM programme to be perceived as a real blessing and that it would inspire the Member States to thin out their laws in the same way, voluntarily or even perhaps subject to deadlines.
Our laws must no longer be perceived to be the expression of blind legislative madness on the part of Brussels or national bureaucrats.
The legislature must not overstep a mark still recognizedd as reasonable with its frequently compulsorily burdensome effects on the citizens and companies.
<P>
These wishes and demands can of course be addressed only to the Commission.
The legislators, Council and European Parliament were and are also asked.
We, the European Parliament must ask ourselves self-critically: What is our contribution to the achievement of the goal which has been set?
When I measures our resolution which we have put to the vote, with the same criteria of clarity, legibility, conciseness and focus then I am disappointed.
This is by no means a reproach for the rapporteur, absolutely not at all.
It is primarily the result of our own internal parliamentary voting procedures, at the end of which frequently many unconnected points are lined up together.
This statement applies quite generally.
<P>
Independent of this I find it hard to see what sense, for example, points 10 and 11 make in this resolution.
I of course unreservedly support the demand for a European form of company.
These points 10 and 11 really have very little to do in my opinion with the aims of the SLIM programme to improve and simplify the existing legal arrangements.
If Parliament is trying to implement the SLIM programme then I cannot quite work out why it wants to be included in point 15 and 16 even during the individual monitoring procedures of the Commission in the context of SLIM.
As co-legislator it should concentrate on cooperating in the conclusions and not drag out the process in its initial stages.
<P>
SLIM is a worthwhile undertaking.
I thank the rapporteur, the Commission and in particular Commissioner Monti for his perseverance and I am pleased that the current Council Presidency accords the SLIM programme a particularly prominent significance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, the Dutch word 'slim' means 'clever' in English.
The English 'slim' means 'thin' in Dutch.
Neither qualification applies to the programme the Commission has put before us.
Because the Commission has as yet failed to meet its promise.
I think this is a pity that Commissioner Monti is not with us here tonight, because I would like to have a seen a firmer commitment from the Commission to get serious about both deregulation, simplification and consolidation of European legislation.
We have one actual example of consolidation.
This is Community customs legislation.
Those who see the fat volumes this consolidated legislation occupies, and those who know that relatively rudimentarily educated people throughout the Union have to work with this, know that we have failed to simplify Community legislation and make it more manageable.
When we see the tasks we set ourselves in Community legislation, for example, returning Tdocuments within 14 days, and when we know that over 85 % of these documents to not arrive back in time, what kind of legislation are dealing with, if we know that people cannot keep to it?
When we know that, on driving and resting times for instance, we have only now, at the beginning of 1998, the figures for 1993 and 1994, whilst four Member States actually manage quite simply not to submit any figures at all, and the Commission is just sitting here, saying: yes, we are going to simplify, deregulate and improve legislation, then I would like to see genuine results!
The Commission will have to give its word.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Mr President, Mr Wijsenbeek, I would have thought that SLIM means slim in German - in any case I see that written in the shirts which unfortunately have long since ceased to fit me - slim also in the sense of slimming down the legal and administrative regulations which are obligatory throughout Europe.
The Austrian Economics Minister described this task, in agreement with the British Council representative, as a major theme of the Austrian Presidency.
We shall observe carefully whether and how the Austrian Council Presidency in the second half of the year 1998 comes to terms with mastering Parkinson's Law, and we are already looking forward to positive effects of the initiative announced by the Austrian Economics Minister entitled "Better regulations are better for jobs.'
<P>
SLIM is one of the initiatives by which work we have started can be continued, and simplification can be pushed forward; the financial burden due to the costs of bureaucracy is extremely high particularly for small and medium companies and its limitation by means of simplified legislation is therefore a necessity.
We are of course of the view that the general mandate proposed in point 21 of the report means a transfer of authority for the Commission, which we reject.
Of course we are in agreement with the report, which we think is excellent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, Commissioner, I would of course like to join in the congratulations to Mr Crowley for the really great work which he has done towards the simplification of the administration in the context of the single market.
If one looks at what is required in terms of economic statistics even from some small and medium companies one gets the feeling that the strangers to reality who invented these statistics obviously believe that customers primarily pay their prices for the filling in of forms and not for a product.
This therefore requires something from a company which it cannot give.
The logical result is simply that jobs are lost.
Would it not be considerably better if the state, instead of as usual threatening fines if companies do not meet their statistical obligations, were instead to offer incentives, e.g. certain premiums, and then otherwise leave it up to these firms whether or not they produce statistics in the context of economic statistics.
<P>
For a historically-aware person this system inevitably calls to mind the compulsory labour of the Middle Ages, but in those days they had the advantage that they just had to supply one tenth, whereas today the State usually requires considerably more than 10 % of the income of the working time.
When we hear how for example today in Austria the Finance Minister thinks aloud about a reversal of the burden of proof in cases of suspected tax evasion, one can scarcely imagine what this would mean in terms of extra work for our small and medium firms and how this would be reflected in astronomical unemployment figures in Europe.
It is small and medium firms in particular where jobs are created and maintained.
<P>
In this sense the SLIM programme can really do some pioneering work on behalf of the individual European citizen, and I very much hope that the various parents and godparents of the SLIM programme continue their efforts to drive this SLIM programme forward and keep it alive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, I wonder how long we are going to continue to speak in appreciative terms about the SLIM programme.
It is now 1998.
The programme was launched in 1996, but, as my colleague Mr Wijsenbeek said, we have still not seen a single proposal.
That is the first serious objection.
I would like to issue a final warning: don't come back again and speak about the SLIM programme if we have not got any concrete proposals.
I am beginning to tire of this 'SLIM liturgy' .
<P>
Secondly, I really hope that the message reaches the whole Commission, i.e. that we want these principles to be extended to cover all legislation within the Commission, since there is a need there also.
<P>
Furthermore, I would like to underline what Mr Murphy noted at the hearing of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, namely that one of the SLIM proposals which has been put forward, regarding the keeping of statistics, is not feasible.
I hope the Commission takes this seriously and that it revises it, since this proposal would lead to double bureaucracy and double nomenclatures for companies, and go in precisely the opposite direction to what all of us here wanted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the SLIM initiative is a very important initiative because it makes Europe pleasant.
Pleasant because people are thinking about how existing rules can be made simple and how they can be made more useful.
When one considers that we have about 50 000 single market regulations then one knows the magnitude of the task which has to be faced.
When they talk about new public management then we know that SLIM has a very significant role here.
In addition to FICHE-IMPACT which is to try to simplify new legal regulations and to make them clear for the benefit of citizens then SLIM is designed to simplify the existing statute book.
We also need the bench marking system, so that we can see how the quantity, the quality, the various spheres develop, in other words so that we get comparable criteria for how efficiently we work.
<P>
We need these SLIM programmes so that the single market does not just exist on paper but can also be experienced in practice.
Simplified and standardised single market regulations will benefit not only the companies, no, particularly the Consumers, because they will make it possible for products to be cheaper.
The firms can then be more concerned with delivering the service or manufacturing the product instead of with the entering of statistics.
It is in fact possible, to obtain the documents and the necessary data for the statistics from other spheres.
We give sufficient information to the Treasury, the banks can measure turnovers, the social security offices get the data.
I believe that in this sphere we have some scope.
I would also suggest that for example the Economic and Social Committee should concern itself more intensively with these problems, for relieving the load on business leads to more jobs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
Mr President, people may well think this is a step in the right direction, but I believe it must be looked at in a much broader way.
It is good that people are dealing with legislative area by legislative area and can extend it to cover more areas if that should be of importance.
It is also good that the level of detail is examined properly, so that more of the principles are left to EU rules and EU law and more details are left to individual Member States regarding whatever may be concerned in agriculture, such as cucumbers, bananas or strawberries, so that this debate is avoided.
<P>
I have a serious objection, namely that we are starting with such a rule about SLIM, which in itself is good, but are not tackling the big problem - the constant flow of new EU rules.
In 1992, when the principle of subsidiarity was introduced, there were around 8 050 EU rules affecting the Member States.
In 1996 it was 14 000 and the number is increasing year by year.
It is the mass of new rules and details which makes the problem so great.
That is where we must begin by leaving more of the principles to the EU and more details to the nation states.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 NAME="Marín">
<SPEAKER ID=235 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Short-term statistics
<SPEAKER ID=236 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0047/98) by Mr Gasòliba i Böhm, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on short-term statistics (COM(97)0313 - C4-0417/97-97/0171(CNS))
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 NAME="Gasòliba I Böhm">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the topic we are looking at - the legislative resolution on a proposal for a Council Regulation on short-term statistics - has a technical dimension, but it also has a dimension which concerns the completion of the European Internal Market and the single currency, with the introduction of the euro.
<P>
It is becoming more and more evident that our economic reality at European Union level is already exceeding what the mere effectiveness of the Member States could be, since it is clear that with the Internal Market and especially with Monetary Union, it will be essential to have a political orientation for the economic and monetary policies of the Union, and this orientation will thus have to be based on statistics which are reliable.
<P>
This proposal for a regulation tries to ensure that these statistics are reliable, that is, that those aspects and economic quantities to be considered at economic and monetary level in the Union are comparable and reliable: that is the hope and the intention of this regulation.
<P>
It is important then that there have been two types of consultation before this regulation was drawn up: one in the European Monetary Institute - the embryo of what is to be the European Central Bank - in order to give the Union's monetary policy the correct orientation; and another in the Commission, in order to determine from its economic guidelines the type of shortterm statistics needed, the type of clarification needed and, therefore, the type of demands which must be established.
<P>
This leads to a range of proposals which are set out in the explanatory statement.
Eleven different characteristics are noted including monthly production indicators, manufacturing orders information, monthly information on stocks, production broken down by activity, employment and hours worked and, from the Commission, a range of indicators referring to small and medium-sized undertakings and to some specific sectors, such as construction and services.
These indicators are established through different types of modules which allow this comparison to be made.
<P>
This question was debated in committee and there was a large consensus. I, as rapporteur, put forward two proposals: firstly, that we took into consideration the indicators at regional level, among other things, because there are regions which are of equal or superior weighting to some countries.
In addition, if we abandoned this regional dimension, we would be losing a type of indicator which is also very necessary for the orientation of a range of policies of the European Commission itself, for example in cross-border cooperation, in some aspects of the application of the Structural Funds, in the follow-up to the changes in economic activity and in the fight for jobs. There was then another much more complicated proposal which involved defining some modules in terms of the accounts concerning, for example, the number of hours worked by part-time workers, which is one of the questions which is now being studied most carefully.
<P>
Under this second heading there was a series of observations on the part of some PPE colleagues in reference to the SLIM programme stating that we should not excessively overload businesses when giving them statistic questionnaires to fill in, and in the search for agreement we dropped this second aspect.
We agreed on the remainder and this makes me, as rapporteur, very happy since the amendments that I am proposing to the report - accepting the initial Commission proposal, they are proposals or amendments which I see as improvements - received the unanimous support of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, so I am, therefore, presenting a report without discrepancies at committee level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, a misinformed man or woman, a misinformed official and a misinformed population reacts badly and decides badly.
This statement of the obvious especially affects those who take the decisions in our European Union, who, if they are misinformed, or if the information they receive is false and, more particularly, incomparable, run the risk of taking bad decisions which could end up being to the detriment of the Union's citizens.
<P>
This is why a regulation on short-term statistics is not only a question of statisticians or technicians, but also takes on a significant political importance.
That is also why Parliament is looking into the matter.
Following the evolution of businesses in order to be able correctly evaluate the evolution of the Internal Market, so as to define monetary, economic, social and industrial policies is, in fact, very important politically, in particular during this transition period we are currently undergoing, as we prepare for the single currency.
<P>
I learnt at university that using statistics can be the most sophisticated way of lying and that, after all, we should only trust statistics that we have fixed ourselves.
But since, in the European Union, we must trust the statistics provided by the 15 Member States, which have the responsibility of collecting the data, we must define standards, rules and definitions which are necessary in establishing comparable statistics.
<P>
We therefore agree with the regulation's objective and with the approach proposed by the Commission.
We particularly approve of its desire to reconcile the burden on businesses, which must supply the data, with the increase in information needed to satisfy at the same time, for example, the European Monetary Institute and businesses themselves.
<P>
I am rapporteur on an aspect of the SLIM programme, namely the statistics on the exchange of goods in the Single Market. Therefore, I know that we are torn between, on the one hand, the desire to lighten the burden on businesses, particularly the SMUs, which must supply the data, and on the other hand, the needs of the users, including businesses themselves which also need information, who often need very detailed information since it is essential for trade and investment policies.
<P>
We certainly understand some amendments to the Commission's text, in particular as regards comparable statistics, not only at national level, but also at regional level, given that the short-term statistics will in future have to cover both the industrial and services sectors.
<P>
However, we must not exaggerate and guarantee that we cannot identify where the data collected at regional level comes from.
Nor must we exaggerate in another sense, like the amendments from the Greens, which, in terms of the variables, exceed what is necessary and useful.
<P>
We must not forget that we are talking here about short-term statistics which are not destined to replace the social statistics and those on the employment market.
If we try for too much, we will end up with less.
We must guarantee the availability of comparable short-term indicators for the European Union, no more and no less.
<P>
The superfluous is always very necessary, but it is not the path to take in this field and the rapporteur, whom I congratulate, has not done this.
We will follow his lead.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, the availability of statistical data is particularly important at times like these.
The introduction of the euro should also give us the opportunity to observe closely how the economic situation, in particular business activity, develops.
Therefore I very much welcome the report and I also congratulate the rapporteur - it is an excellent piece of work - and I am particularly pleased that he has pointed out that there should be no additional burden for the CMU but just the opposite, that in future we are striving for a reduction.
Reduction means that we are not starting a paper war, as in the Middle Ages - as somebody has already said today - but that we should try to collect data as automatically as possible.
It should be our aim to make available computer software so that the data can be piped as quickly, as up to date and as directly as possible into our systems.
If you travel round companies, and I myself am a smith and spend a lot of time out at my customers' premises, and they often show me 20 page statistical declarations which they have to fill in - then you can understand the fury of these people against the statisticians and against this Europe that just loads red tape onto them for which they can see no immediate use.
<P>
I believe we should really try to create an incentive system in order to have data automatically, if possible with a modem, immediately and quickly available, so that no mechanical work is involved and not much paper gets sent backwards and forwards - that is of course a mammoth burden for the Central Statistics Office, when it is confronted by tonnes of paper.
Instead we should find an intelligent, clean solution, which makes it possible for our firms quite simply and if possible without cost to supply this data, whilst we at the same time receive exact and appropriate data for our really good future in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Porto">
Mr President, the initiative taken by the Commission with a view to improving company performance statistics deserves our strongest support.
<P>
The introduction of the single currency and the enlargement of the market in line with the current action plan render such objectives all the more important.
This is the only way to obtain an accurate and continually up-dated perception of on-going developments, thereby permitting the necessary adjustment measures to be taken.
<P>
In this sphere, we cannot confine ourselves to the principle of subsidiarity, when the advent of monetary union means that responsibilities relating to the Union as a whole must be assumed.
I would like to congratulate Mr Gasòliba I Böhm on his report, which deserves our fullest support, particularly as regards the need more clearly to distinguish between internal and external movements and to provide regional statistics.
<P>
Indeed, these issues are connected, to a certain degree, since it important to be familiar with extra-Monetary Union movements, between Member States and, also, between regions.
Over and above such movements, it is only with an accurate and up-to-date knowledge of all indicators at the regional level at a given moment in time that it will be possible to take action that is appropriate for such diverse circumstances, with differences sometimes proving greater within countries than between countries.
<P>
I will not here discuss the survey of structural differences between regions, which are not covered by this regulation, but where a great deal remains to be done under the responsibility and with the support of the European Union, in order to guarantee the rigour of a policy which should occupy an increasingly important place in a stronger, more cohesive Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the regulation you are considering today is trying to provide the Community with harmonized short-term statistics for all economic sectors.
National statistical practices differ in this field between the Member States, so that the information available is often incomplete or incomparable.
Through its Decision of 18 June 1992, the Council adopted a programme aimed at developing the statistics on services and particularly the trade sector.
The definition of new policies relating to the economy, competition, social affairs and businesses, calls for initiatives and decisions based - as Mr Gasòliba was saying - on statistics.
In addition, the sources of the statistics need to be complete and reliable in order to make the most exact calculation possible within the quarterly accounts system.
<P>
Moreover, we are moving increasingly quickly towards the next phase of Monetary Union and the Treaty on European Union has created a new, extremely important user of short-term statistics, the future European Central Bank.
And to apply an effective and objective monetary policy, it is essential that the ECB has complete short-term statistics which are totally comparable between the Member States and that it can also get hold of them quickly.
<P>
The draft regulation we are discussing on short-term statistics is trying to respond to all these demands.
However, the previous directives referred exclusively to the manufacturing industry and construction sectors, while the draft regulation rectifies this situation by including in its field of application all sectors, including services and trade.
I must warn you that the draft regulation does not try to satisfy all the needs of the Commission and the European Monetary Institute - since this would entail a massive burden for businesses - but it does try to fill the most obvious gaps, for example, those related to such an important aspect as the consumer price index.
<P>
As regards the greater harmonization of the results, the draft regulation sets out, for the first time, the level of breakdown of the results and the time limit for data-transfer.
The advances which have been made in data capture techniques lead us to believe that already it is no longer necessary to draw up costly and exhaustive lists. The draft regulation also allows the Member States to use sampling techniques and administrative information, thus offering them the possibility of relieving the burden imposed on businesses.
The Commission believes that Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 are acceptable.
However, we have problems in adopting Amendment No 8 since, in our opinion, it is redundant as a result of the adoption of Council Regulation No 322 on Community statistics, which defines the confidentiality standards applicable to all Community statistics: the so-called statistical confidentiality.
As regards the remaining amendments, Nos 9 to 26, the Commission believes that they deal strictly with technical precision and, given that we do not want an excessively long-winded text, these amendments might mean that the normal work of companies would suffer.
<P>
Consequently, we include the majority of the amendments from the parliamentary committee and the rapporteur, Mr Gasòliba, apart from the difference we have in that we consider that the question of statistical confidentiality was already resolved in the previous regulation, and the fact that the other amendments seem, particularly to Eurostat and the Union's statistical services, to concern details which are excessively technical and which would create more problems than benefits.
I would like to thank, then, Mr Gasòliba and the other members of the parliamentary committee for this favourable vision of the essential elements of providing security for and harmonizing short-term statistics while making them more reliable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Commissioner, is the Commission prepared to offer a software package which in all participating States offers the same standard and the same data collection facility and makes possible the fully automated management of statistical recording?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 NAME="Marín">
The Eurostat officials tell me that this would not be a problem.
Moreover, in fact, when this regulation enters into force, as with all the measures involving the Internal Market, there will be an almost inevitable harmonization.
And I do not believe that there is any difficulty with the technical advances, so it should thus be possible to have access in real time to any type of short-term statistics which can be recorded within Eurostat.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 NAME="Gasòliba i Böhm">
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to make a short point about Mr Marín's speech on the Commission's position. I would obviously like to express my satisfaction at the position he outlined and the inclusion of the amendments to which he referred.
Amendment No 8 did not include the regulation I mentioned, but surely it makes this amendment redundant; as regards the others, my position as rapporteur is that they should not be adopted.
Therefore, during voting time tomorrow, I recommend that we do not vote in favour of them.
<P>
I wanted to mention a matter on which we were in agreement with the Commissioner, which seems to me important to consider, namely the fact that there will be a monetary policy and monetary management on the part of the European Central Bank, and that this will oblige us to review and analyze the precision of short-term statistics.
In other words, there is a monetary policy which, in economic jargon we can call fine tuning - that is, almost immediate and precise adjustment - and which can obviously not work if the statistics are not extremely precise.
Thus, we will be forced to look for a new balance between not placing an excessive burden on businesses in terms of the data needed, and not forgetting that the European Central Bank will demand more precise information, and so we will have to come back to this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 7.05 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of Thursday, 19 February 1998 have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="Hallam">
Mr President, having spent the previous twenty-four hours agonizing over how I should vote on Iraq, I was rather concerned to see that my vote was wrongly recorded on Amendment No 12. In fact I had voted against Amendment No 12 rather than for it.
Can that be corrected please?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, it is indeed true, as Mr Habsburg-Lothringen and Mr Posselt said yesterday, that there has been no debate on crime in Brussels, but I would nevertheless like to draw Members' attention to the fact that President GilRobles Gil-Delgado said in his letter to us: "Please rest assured that I share your concern and I shall press the Belgian authorities for a satisfactory solution, as far as the safety of Members and staff of the European Parliament is concerned' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Kerr">
Mr President, you will note from yesterday's Minutes that I asked the President-in-Office to rule whether Mr Titley's personal attack on me casting aspersions on my mental health was a crime against the rules of the House and I ask you to rule on that point.
You may share his opinion but, of course, I trust that you, as a good guardian of the rules of the House, can say whether under Rule 108 I am entitled to make a personal statement on that response.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Mr Kerr, it is a matter of interpretation whether Mr Titley questioned your mental health.
From reading the contribution it is not clear that was the intention of his remarks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="Macartney">
Mr President, in the Minutes it says that I asked for confirmation that Parliament would be able to give its views when the instructions were modified.
I think there has been a lot of editing, because what I said was that the changes in the rules - because I believe that is what they are - should be brought to this House for confirmation before they took effect.
That is a very important correction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, in relation to Mr Kerr, all I said was that I was now convinced that in the United Kingdom care in the Community was no longer working.
There is a saying in the United Kingdom that if the cap fits you should wear it!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
Mr Kerr, do you wish to make a personal statement?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="Kerr">
Mr President, thank you for that opportunity.
Of course it is all good political banter in a way.
In response I would say that the fact that I voted yesterday with six of my colleagues from the British Labour Group and the Independent Labour Members against the bombing of Baghdad, while Mr Titley with 43 other British Labour Members voted in favour of the bombing of Baghdad, indicates that my mental health is perhaps rather sounder than his.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="Falconer">
Mr President, there seems to be some confusion as to why I did not record my presence in the last vote.
The reason for it is quite simple.
I am not recording my presence when I indicate a roll-call vote out of solidarity with yourself and other colleagues who come here Monday to Friday regularly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
In any case, votes do not win prizes on Fridays.
The roll-call vote does not count on a Friday.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Corrie">
Mr President, on a number of occasions this week mobile phones have again gone off in the Chamber; this was particularly embarrassing when the President of Portugal was here.
I wonder if the services could put notices on the glass doors reminding Members to switch off their phones prior to entering the Chamber.
It is very easy to walk in having forgotten that, and it might just help to eliminate embarrassment in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
That is a very good suggestion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="Wibe">
The rapporteur has done his job well.
I have no comment to make in that respect, but I think reports of this kind should not be considered by Parliament.
Members of Parliament do not have the competence as far as competition statistics are concerned (in this case), and anyway this is a question which should be referred to an administration and not to a parliament.
I do not think there is any other parliament in the world which concerns itself with detailed questions of this type.
<P>
Thors report (A4-0028/98)
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Lindholm">
There are many problems with the rapidly growing use of electronic means of payment.
Technical developments in this area are moving very fast, and legislation cannot keep up.
This applies, for example, to rules on liability when cards are lost, and the growing retail trade on the Internet.
However, people can lose their cards in countries other than the 15 EU Member States, and Internet selling is also not limited to EU countries.
In order to achieve good consumer protection, international rules are required.
<P>
Crowley report (A4-0033/98)
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Lindholm">
The quality of EC and EU legislation needs to be improved.
However, the question is whether SLIM is the right method to achieve this.
<P>
If you disregard the use of complicated language, the inability to find political solutions to problems, and bad compromises which leave legislation far too open to interpretation, SLIM can be critically examined from the following angles.
<P>
Firstly, simplification as such should not be an end in itself if it leads to legal certainty being jeopardized and complicated questions being oversimplified.
<P>
Secondly, we know what the flaws in Community legislation actually relate to, namely:
<P>
a lack of codification; -endless references to other directives, regulations, treaties and rules of various kinds - apart from being user-unfriendly, if the contents of the reference are not always particularly well coordinated with what is found in the texts referred to, this also leads to problems of application and interpretation; -an unwarranted use of annexes, which regulate substantial parts of the legislative areas in question, but whose contents may often be decided by other expert committees whose work nobody appears to have an insight into or responsibility for (for example BSE).On the other hand, SLIM is itself something of a technocratic empire. A group of 'experts' , five from national administrations and five from 'representatives of those who use directives' (it is not said who these are), slim down a directive.
It is thought that the outcome should be 'processed' quickly and painlessly through Parliament and the Council.
<P>
My colleagues and I did not in fact succeed in finding anything apart from the packaging and packaging waste directive which could perhaps be in need of simplification according to the SLIM model.
Perhaps more could be found, but what is needed is better standard legislation rather than new special procedures.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
System of own resources
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0041/98) by Mr Bardong, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC, EURATOM) amending Council Regulation (EEC, EURATOM) No 1552/89 implementing Decision 94/728/EC, EURATOM on the system of the Communities' own resources (COM(97)0343 - C4-0395/97 -C4-0575/97-97/0188(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Bardong">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as you know the financing of the European Union is carried out neither through credits nor by means of European taxes, but through the so-called own resources, primarily duties and adjustment levies, proportions of VAT and GDPs.
The European Community sets the Common Duty Tariff, but the raising of the duties is carried out by the Member States, that is their civil servants.
The Member States must, on the basis of their legal and administrative regulations, take the required measures to guarantee the establishment, bookkeeping, inclusion and allocation of these own resources.
Of course, for doing this they get back 10 % of the duties, which really belong to the Community Budget, to cover their administrative work.
<P>
For a long time now the annual reports of the General Accounts Office have made it clear that there are significant defects in the collection process.
Also, the Investigating Committee on transit fraud uncovered considerable infringements and abuses in the dispatch procedure, which have not yet been satisfactorily eliminated.
In the context of SEM 2000, the European Council of Madrid planned an intensification of the collection of the own resources, and the Commission is now presenting here a proposal for an order to amend Basic Order 55/89 relating to the system of the EU's own resources with the intention of meeting this goal.
<P>
This does in fact mean two amendments.
Firstly, the own resources order has not so far dealt with the following cases: that the establishment of own resources has become impossible due to a mistake by the customs authorities; or that those owing customs duty have not been informed of the amount due within the specified time limit.
The Member States should be liable for these mistakes, and beyond a certain level they should therefore even be expelled.
Such sums can then under certain conditions be claimed from the Member States.
<P>
Secondly, within the various Member States the cancellation of indebted sums is governed by widely differing regulations.
The readiness of the Member States to issue communications about such cancellations is expressed in quite different ways.
The Court of Auditors discovered that in 1995.
Of course, the Member States do not need to declare to the Commission amounts of money which have become resistant to inspection because of greater force or for reasons for which they do not themselves have responsibility.
But the Commission must be in a position to be able to assess the care taken by the Member States, and in certain circumstances be able to require the payment of sums of money.
<P>
We are absolutely convinced that the Commission could be somewhat stricter in this matter, according to our own resolutions, for instance for the approval of the Commission for the financial year 1995, and according to the view of the Court of Auditors on this amendment.
This proposed amending order is simply not a contribution to the reform of the finance order which everyone expects and recognizes as necessary.
It is only a considerably delayed completion of this existing finance order.
As far as the task of reforming the finance order is concerned, the Commission considers itself to be fully covered on the whole line.
<P>
Meanwhile, in some Member States the front lines are being drawn for the so-called net-payers' discussion.
Several states complain that they are paying more into the Community budget than they can get out of it.
However, the Commission also does absolutely nothing to correct publicly the false impression that individual Member States could get out exactly as much as they pay in.
Many Community payments flow directly to third countries or cannot clearly be attributed to a specific Member State.
Therefore the net-payer calculations are often based on false assumptions.
The duties should not of course be included in the netpayer calculations. They are not even something achieved by the country in which they are collected - at most they are an achievement of the end-users who then pay the prices, in some circumstances, in a completely different country.
<P>
The Commission has hitherto constantly refused requests from Parliament and the Council to publish its own calculations or assessments of the net-payer items.
It is therefore to a considerable extent equally guilty of creating the current disarray in discussions on the financial order of the Community.
It is high time the public was better informed on this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wemheuer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, this report by Mr Bardong is another example of a report with such an off-putting title that nobody will read it.
It is presented on a particularly attractive day at a particularly attractive time, and nobody will take any notice of it, especially since we are all in agreement. We shall follow Mr Bardong's proposals in all respects without question, and everyone will say: "What happened there?
Did anything actually happen there, and why are they talking about it?'
<P>
However, Mr Bardong has addressed the basic problem.
It is a question of the Union's own resources and the way we treat them, the correct way to collect them and pass them on to the European Union.
Even if the Member States collect the own resources it is in fact our money and not theirs.
We cannot stress that too much, and Mr Bardong has also given us the background to it.
<P>
There was a small but interesting debate on this report in the committee, and I would like to confine myself to this.
The debate has not really been conducted between the Member States, but between the Members and the Commission.
It was in fact about whether we should adopt a certain threshold value.
The Commission took ECU 50 000 as its starting point and we took ECU 10 000, as Mr Bardong suggested.
The argument now was that with a threshold value of ECU 50 000, one covers in principle the same as if one is so small-minded that one takes ECU 10 000 as the threshold value.
<P>
There is another aspect that really must be considered: this is all much too complicated.
The administration is too expensive.
This is no longer a cost-benefit calculation, and it is important to recognize when it is time to stop inspecting. Inspection is becoming too expensive.
<P>
Now we can talk about it, administration is supposed to be efficient. Also, the cost-benefit calculation should play an important part in the administration.
We support that.
But in doing so we send out signals.
We are saying that whatever is below this threshold is not worth bothering about.
We then check only if the inspection is financially worthwhile.
<P>
In doing so, we overlook the fact that certain existing rules were not brought in so that they could be viable and pay for themselves, but because they helped us achieve other things.
Duties are not there simply to put money in the kitty - in that case we would have to keep increasing them. Duties are also specific regulatory mechanisms.
We protect ourselves, to some extent we protect our industries, we protect our standards and we tie them to conditions if we reduce duties.
That is politics.
That is not bookkeeping.
To that extent it is very important what standards we set when we check adherence to these regulations, as expressed, for example, in the duties.
<P>
It is not even just a question of whether the calculation works out, but a question of sending out a signal.
We do not take it by any means so seriously.
It is too complicated for us.
It is much too expensive. If it is just a certain amount - forget it, we do not look too closely at it.
That costs more than it brings in.
Even then, ECU 10 000 or ECU 50 000 - what difference does it make?
<P>
So are all the authorities, all the tax authorities of our Community so indulgent in the case of ECU 10 000 when they are dealing with the tax of an employee?
Whole families can live on ECU 50 000 for a whole year, and ECU 10 000 - well, who pays ECU 10 000 in tax in a year?
What if they were to refuse to pay the tax?
It costs too much to chase that.
It costs more than it brings in.
<P>
It would be convincing. Maybe we could look at it like that - I know it is an unfair comparison - and perhaps we would come to another judgment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, the Community's own resources are made up of gross domestic product, value added tax and customs duties.
Of these, the most open to interpretation is customs duties, because the Community does not have its own monitoring mechanism, but has to rely completely on that of individual states.
<P>
I agree with Mr Bardong, the rapporteur, that there is no justification for reckoning customs duty as net contributions from individual states.
For example, Holland charges a considerable amount of customs duty for transit traffic, adds it to its own net contribution and says it is paying money to the EU, although, in actual fact, it is EU money which it is only accounting for to the EU.
Thus these customs duties, which are collection items very hard to categorize, are also distorting the picture we have of net payments.
<P>
So in this regard it would be a radically better idea if customs payments were not accountable to the EU at all, but were kept by individual countries themselves.
A corresponding sum could then be due to the EU in the shape of GDP.
In this way, the Member States would have a keen interest in collecting all these customs duties, as they would keep them themselves.
So there would be no malpractice arising from whether to collect duty and account to the EU for it or not.
It would solve the problem, but it would be a very radical solution.
<P>
Member States do not gain from the fact that they do not collect customs duty according to common regulations.
From the point of view of the common interest, however, we are justified in making regulations so that Member States will suffer if they flout them.
In assessing depreciation in bookkeeping, Member States might thereby try to shake off responsibility for mistakes.
That is why these depreciation laws cannot be free, and the business of each individual country alone.
Because of growing administrative costs it is right that we should not start to examine minor depreciation laws, and should endeavour not to inherit areas of malpractice.
It is important to focus sufficient attention on big issues like this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Mr President, as part of the work on SEM 2000 it is intended to improve the financial administration of the EU's own resources.
This report by Mr Bardong on the EU's own resources, which the Member States are responsible for collecting, says that the Member States have a duty to take greater responsibility for what is required in matters of bookkeeping, collection and so on of the funds, in order to ensure that it works.
<P>
However, there are significant weaknesses in the system, as has been shown by the European Parliament's ad-hoc committee of inquiry into questions of customs transits, among others.
<P>
The Commission's proposal that the Member States should be financially responsible for serious administrative errors is logical and welcome.
Not everything is the fault of the EU, even if it often is.
<P>
This technical report is not going to solve all the problems, but it is a simple first step in the right direction.
It is important to note that at the same time as the Commission is trying to strengthen the legislation, the proposal also contributes to making the legislation even more complex, which is less good.
The Green Group is going to support the report in its entirety.
Personally I think that Seppänen's contribution on a total reform is interesting, and something which the Commission should look at in future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the amendments in Mr Bardong's report on the Commission's proposal to tighten up the rules relating to the administration of the Union's own resources reveal the extent of Parliament's interest in the own-resources system, and the importance it ascribes to the transparency by which these resources are administered.
<P>
On the amendments, the Commission has adopted the following position. The amendments which aim at both editorial simplification and a more transparent and just procedure are accepted.
This applies firstly to that part of Amendment No 1 which aims to specify the cases in which the Member States must take financial responsibility for mistakes which result in a loss of own resources; secondly, to that part of Amendment No 2 which aims to clarify the conditions under which amounts are not recoverable or are declared to be non-recoverable; thirdly, for that part of Amendment No 4 which provides that amounts included in the cancelled debt, which are not accepted by the Commission, should be calculated according to the book.
Likewise, the Commission will change the procedure for cancellations which it has allowed.
In this case this agreement should no longer be implicit, but the Member States should be informed in writing.
<P>
On the other hand, the Commission cannot follow the European Parliament on certain amendments or parts thereof.
This applies particularly to the amendment relating to the retention of the threshold value of ECU 10 000 for the notification of cancellations, that is, Amendment No 3.
If this amendment were accepted the result would be an enormous increase in the administrative costs.
The suggested rise in the amount to ECU 50 000 would have the effect that about 69 % fewer cases would have to be checked, but 90 % of the income at stake would be covered.
Mrs Wernheuer, I must say to you in this respect that this does not mean that these cases below ECU 50 000 are not subject to any kind of inspection.
Of course these would also be checked under the usual system of inspection.
It is just that they would not be included in these specific procedures.
<P>
Even the reduction of the threshold value for the cases in which the national administrations will be held financially responsible would result in excessively high administrative costs and therefore cannot be accepted.
That is part of Amendment No 1.
Amendment No 5 on the other hand appears to the Commission to be superfluous, since the information requested about cancellations is already given to Parliament in the Four-Year Report, that is the 1993 to 1996 Report, and for the latest year it is in the next report which will, according to the planned sequence, be in the year 2000.
However, information relating to cases of fraud is already available in the Annual Report.
<P>
The Commission understands and fully shares the concern of Parliament to subject the Community's own resources to a strictly precise system of inspection.
It does however seek understanding for its requirement of a reasonable cost-benefit ratio.
In conclusion, the Commission thanks Mr Bardong again for his report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="Wibe">
I cannot support this report.
The rapporteur rejects the Commission's limit of ECU 2 000, and wants instead to keep the unofficial limit of ECU 10.
However, in my opinion that will lead to an unreasonable number of small cases of no economic significance having to be considered by the national authorities.
The costs of this increased bureaucracy are not compensated for by the income.
The Union should not be small-minded in its relations with the national authorities.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Development finance
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0050/98) by Mr Wynn, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the draft Financial Regulation applicable to development finance cooperation under the Fourth ACP-EEC Convention amended by the Agreement of 4 November 1995 (COM(96)0676 - C4-0101/97-96/0307(CNS))
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="Wynn">
Mr President, this is one of those Friday morning reports, with no amendments. It went through committee quite smoothly and, I suppose, no-one is going to lose any sleep over it.
<P>
It is interesting to be heckled by Mr Falconer, because I have just looked at yesterday's voting record.
Some things do change: I notice that he has actually voted for nuclear power!
I am very pleased about that, Alex.
It is extremely good that you have been converted at last.
<P>
This report in effect is saying that there comes a time when Parliament has to say enough is enough (' sod it' in colloquial terms); we go so far and we can go no further.
We are not going through the motions any longer of trying to give some legitimacy to something that we have no part in.
Let us stop the pretence; let us stop kidding ourselves that if we were to give an opinion on this Financial Regulation, things would be any different - they would not.
<P>
The eighth European Development Fund, and our reaction to it in this report, cannot be considered in isolation.
You have to know the history to it, and that is quite simply that Parliament has always advocated the budgetization of the EDF.
It has been a consistent approach that we have always taken.
If we look at what has happened in the past, at the scenario to see where we are at present, we base our case on Article 199 of the Treaty which states that 'all items of revenue and expenditure of the Community... shall be shown in the budget' .
We have said, therefore, that the EDF should be budgetized and Parliament should have some say in the matter.
In fairness to the Commission, it supports us in that.
In fact, when I first came here in 1989 the Commission made it quite clear then that it expected the eighth EDF to be budgetized and it made the case at Amsterdam.
So our criticism is not of the Commission but of the Council, which has resisted the inclusion of the EDF.
Proposals were put to the Council at Amsterdam and they were ignored.
<P>
When the seventh EDF came before Parliament, Parliament was once again consulted and we said that, because of Article 199 of the Treaty, it should be budgetized and we therefore delayed somewhat in giving our opinion.
Because of that delay the Council then adopted the regulation without our opinion.
That was bad enough, so we went to the Court of Justice and said that the Council should not have done this and we expected the Court to rule in our favour.
However, the case hinged on whether the EDF was Community expenditure or not.
The Court said that the EDFs were not Community expenditure: it was Community financial assistance that was paid in the Lomé Convention.
In other words, the Commission was a subcontractor for Member States which were paying money into the Lomé Convention and the Commission administered that money.
As someone said at the time: ' Never expect the Court to rule against the Council in a dispute with Parliament' .
It is the Council, of course, which appoints the judges but, more importantly, reappoints the judges.
Therefore, although we thought it was a logical argument, we were not surprised when the case went against us.
<P>
When we come to the 1996 discharge in the next month or so, it will be seen that the sixth and seventh EDF monies are actually being used already to finance the eighth EDF.
We have no financial regulation for the eighth EDF but the Commission is taking monies from the sixth and seventh EDFs already without a legal base.
I have to say that I am glad we are not associated with that practice.
But you can see the root cause of this.
Even when we had the 1994 discharge, and we refused to give discharge in 1994 to the EDF, the Court of Auditors said that the legal framework for the EDF was directly responsible for many of the failings in terms of sound financial management.
<P>
We have a problem, and it is a big problem.
But you have to look at the statement from the Commission in the explanatory statement which states: ' The Council must give its opinion by a qualified majority, having first received the opinions of the European Investment Bank and the Court of Auditors on this draft ' .
It does not ask for our opinion.
Then so be it, we are not going to give it!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Falconer">
Mr President, I should just like to draw to Mr Wynn's attention the fact that I took part in the vote on Amendment No 3 on the Kyoto Summit. This was the amendment from the Green Party which, if you voted for it, was actually saying that nuclear power could not be regarded as a safe means of energy.
I, along with the majority of the Labour Members and my socialist colleagues, voted for that particular amendment.
Mr Wynn, unfortunately, was in the minority on that occasion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="Wynn">
Mr President, I should like to tell Mr Falconer that in the Minutes it says that those who intended to vote against Amendment No 3 included Mr Falconer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wernheuer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, our colleague Terence Wynn has said what had to be said and he can say it very much better than I could.
There will no doubt be other things said on the subject.
It is a long story.
It is to one very particular point in this long and unhappy story that we shall return.
I speak on behalf of my group in order to thank Terence Wynn publicly for his work, for only what is said publicly finds its proper place and is not completely forgotten.
<P>
Terence has looked after this report for a long time with great commitment and he will continue to do so.
Terence Wynn has refuted the prejudice that housekeepers are people who concern themselves with figures and nothing else.
He has done so much work in this sphere and shows that he was always a committed housekeeper, but also a man who was personally committed in development politics and who has been very successful in bringing both together.
This can be seen from his speeches, from his report and from his commitment.
I know we can support him here in only one way, and that is by accepting his report unanimously and also by supporting him in the future.
But I would just like to say this clearly in front of this House: simply, personal thanks, Terence Wynn, and please carry on the good work!
We need people who can so convincingly combine the thrifty and the substantial!
<P>
If only other Members of this House would see for once that we are not just concerned with figures and narrow-minded bookkeeping, but there is always also a political aspect in the background, and we can sometimes represent this even with passion and emotion. Maybe then the acceptance of our work, and also of the work of this Parliament, might be somewhat greater than it is.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="Kellett-Bowman">
Mr President, if it does not embarrass Mr Wynn too much, I would like to heap further praise upon him.
<P>
(Laughter ) It is nice to see him blush.
<P>
The Committee has been entirely behind Mr Wynn in the stand he has taken over the years on this particular point.
It seems odd that the Court of Justice rules that our opinion may not be necessary.
But if we look back to the isoglucose case, it says that no legislation can pass unless Parliament has given its opinion.
Here, Mr Wynn is proposing to Parliament that we should not give an opinion.
<P>
How does this silly situation arise between Parliament and the Member States?
I think it is due to two rather simple things.
Firstly, donor countries look for gratitude of some form for the fact that their national money is going to help in a particular part of the world.
That argument might fall away when every currency is called the euro, and no longer the franc, pound, peseta or lira.
We shall wait and see.
<P>
The other is the rather interesting point that the civil servants in the Member States have convinced their ministers that there is a better cost-benefit for national aid going to developing countries than for aid from the European Union.
<P>
I think this is wrong, but I would not expect the civil servants, whose jobs are involved, to say anything different.
We come up against these two rather simple things and get into a very complicated, legalistic argument with the Member States and the Council.
It is about time the Court of Justice saw a little bit of sense in this and argued that money which is being handled corporately on behalf of the Member States should be considered a part of the European Union budget and be budgetized accordingly.
<P>
I support Mr Wynn's report, and my group supports it too.
I would be amazed if any Member of this House voted against.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Mr President, Mr Wynn's proposal that the European Parliament should not express an opinion on the Commission's draft Financial Regulation, applicable to the European Development Fund in the question of development cooperation with ACP countries, is a logical consequence of the absurd situation which is prevailing.
The Green Group does, of course, support Mr Wynn's proposal.
<P>
This Financial Regulation is going to be adopted with or without the European Parliament's opinion.
That is quite clear. The EDF is outside the European Parliament's budgetary mandate, but we are still expected to grant exoneration and give our views on possible legislation concerning budgets.
This procedure is absurd!
<P>
The only reason for this absurd situation in the Regulation is to try to get a democratic alibi for this 'story' .
The European Parliament should not cooperate in being a democratic alibi.
On the other hand, there should be no doubt that the Green Group supports and is strongly committed to the development work with the ACP countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, Mr Wynn takes a very unusual position in his report.
The Council asks Parliament for its advice, but if it was up to him Parliament would refuse to give it.
His reasoning is: "We want to integrate the European Development Fund into Community budgets.
We will not put up with a meagre little recommendation on financial regulations' !
<P>
Parliament proves itself a bad loser when it takes such a line.
The European Treaty contains no provision for the inclusion of the EDF in the Community budget.
Nor was this altered in the Amsterdam Treaty.
The Court of Justice has completely ruled against Parliament with respect to the nature of the expenditure.
The Court does not think it is Community expenditure.
The Council is therefore not obliged to ask for Parliament's advice on the financial regulations of the EDF.
<P>
Refusing to give one's opinion reminds me of a petulant child which does not get what it wants, and therefore pushes aside everything it does get.
By refusing, Parliament is not applying any political pressure, otherwise I might understand it.
As a Council, I would not lose any sleep over this kind of attitude: "You do not want to give your opinion?
Fine, we will sort it out without you.'
<P>
My criticism of the report is not only procedural, but also substantive.
It is true that Parliament has been arguing for years for the budgetization of EDF expenditure.
But there are quite a number of arguments against it.
We have to realize that in the Lomé Convention we are dealing with the Member States' contractual obligations towards Lomé countries.
The Member States fulfil an important role in the implementation of this agreement, which is by nature intergovernmental.
<P>
Bearing that in mind, there is much to be said for not letting the funding go via the Community budget.
Of course, coordination between the Community and the Member States is necessary.
But this necessity does not disappear when the EDF is included in the Union budget.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bösch">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this week we have already had several opportunities (on the occasion of reports on tourism) to reconstruct above all how seriously this House takes its task of representing the interests of taxpayers in the European Union.
We have also seen how necessary it is that we perceive these interests solidly and with great determination.
<P>
We see here - and our rapporteur stated it at the end of the arguments he put forward - how the Commission regards our concern for greater involvement in development policy, namely, and I quote: "The Council must give its opinion by a qualified majority having first received the opinions of the European Investment Bank and the Court of Auditors on this draft.'
<P>
We are talking about development policy, in theory, because it is not present in the European Budget. It is the fourth largest Budget item, the fourth largest expenditure item which the European taxpayers have to make.
At the same time, we see ourselves confronted by the fact that the Council - and in this connection apparently also the Commission - really places no value on being appropriately inspected by the institution which ultimately is responsible for monitoring the implementation of European policies.
<P>
Mr van Dam, I believe we shall have no problems at all, not even in public, in following our rapporteur's arguments.
As Mr Pasty has said, we should stop frittering away our time with things which they obviously think are nothing to do with us.
The only thing is, the taxpayers are sitting there and we have to say to them quite clearly that the gentlemen of the Council - and probably those of the Commission too, as I deduce from this document - will open themselves up to inspection when we, supported by the votes of our constituents, force them to do so.
Not otherwise.
<P>
We should perhaps be guided by this thought when we deal with the reports before us, which we have to adopt in this house in the near future, relating to the monitoring of European policies.
We should not allow ourselves to be led astray by any chalumeau sounds - which even I as the rapporteur for the 1995 approval clearly followed, for in contrast to Mr Wynn I proposed approval at that time. Instead, we should make sure we fulfil to the letter the task given to us by our constituents.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fabra Vallés">
Mr President, I must firstly say that I disagree with Mr Wynn, but I disagree with him on the only thing we could disagree on today: whether this debate is going to be boring or not.
I do not think it will be, because the fact that we all agree on this matter does not necessarily mean that the debate will be boring. This is shown by the fact that, although there are no amendments and we are all in agreement, if we look at the list of speakers we can see that not only are there speeches from all the groups, but, in fact, there are several speakers from every one of the groups.
And I believe this, Mr Wynn, proves we are all united in the belief that this matter is extremely important.
I would suggest that it is one of the most important topics, since we are talking about the budget and the budget is what allows us to implement all the Union's policies.
<P>
We now find ourselves with the special provision - as you rightly said - whereby, although we are allowed in all policies to contribute to the budget, we are prevented from contributing to the budgetary procedure in spite of the fact that we are nevertheless asked for our commitment when the management of the budget is being approved or rejected.
So I believe Parliament cannot accept this role, since it is so significant.
<P>
Nor can we say, moreover, that this is an unimportant subject.
We know perfectly well that the sixth and seventh EDFs required more than ECU 18 billion.
This is an extremely significant amount and Parliament must place on record that it is not prepared to play the role it has been assigned.
Of course, I believe we must also explain that this does not mean we are against development cooperation.
This is certainly not true.
Nor are we against the Commission's work.
I am saying once again that what we require is a more solid basis for this policy, within the budgetary framework of the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Vecchi">
Mr President, I too would like to compliment the speaker, Mr Wynn, and the Committee on Budgetary Control for their work on this subject and for their proposal, which I believe should be approved, to refuse to give Parliament's opinion on the proposed financial regulations for the Eighth European Development Fund.
<P>
I firmly believe in cooperating towards the development of the EU and, for me, this is a positive and useful provocation and an act of political and institutional responsibility on the part of the European Parliament.
We are now in an inexplicable situation in the sense that it is difficult to explain it abroad, and substantially untenable, from both a logical and a political point of view.
This obviously relates to the characteristics of the EDF and the fact that it is not included in the budget.
I would like to remind you that, with regard to cooperation in development, the EDF's inclusion in the budget was almost the only request made by the European Parliament to the Intergovernmental Conference, but was hardly mentioned.
This highlights the fact that Parliament's consultation is purely optional on many measures and that, on implementing measures and even on negotiations on the Lomé Conventions, its prerogatives are simply shown to be a power of political influence - being able to give its opinion which, however, is never binding.
Consequently, in many cases, Parliament does not have any influence on the definition of significant aspects of the Convention itself and subsequently, above all, on its management.
<P>
By way of example, the proposed regulation on which we will not be giving an opinion does not provide for any Parliamentary role, even in the procedure for justifying the budget, even when this concerns the resources of the EDF managed by the European Investment Bank, which comprise an ever greater part of the EDF itself.
<P>
Who is asking Parliament not to give this opinion today?
Obviously, those more concerned with the outcome of the cooperation policies and the institutional and managerial correctness of the measures taken by the Community institutions.
Rather than legal, the problem is therefore a political one.
Our opinion is therefore all the more important as we are dealing with the debate on what to do after the year 2000 - that is, after the Fourth Lomé Convention.
We obviously have a problem, and despite the fact that the Lomé Convention has been and continues to be a unique means of exceptional importance today, the fact that Parliament has been unable to exercise its role on control and on the definition of managerial means to the full is obviously a problem, and has certainly limited its scope and impact.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Günther">
Mr President, I would like firstly to echo the thanks to Mr Wynn, particularly as regards his point that we should give a clear signal here.
The budgetization of the European Development Fund is a permanent topic in the Committee on Development and Cooperation, and we also know that we have the Commission on our side there too.
The disappointment over the fact that it has not gone further in the negotiations in Amsterdam has just been expressed by Mr Vecchi.
<P>
Gradually we are perhaps making a little progress, for only recently the German Bundestag made the cross-party decision to move closer to this budgetization of the EDF, particularly with respect to an effective monitoring system.
<P>
I am beginning to find it somewhat amusing that precisely those institutions which deprive us of budgetization, on the one hand complain that it would above all be a question of inadequate monitoring, but on the other hand do not supervise the use of European development funds with the care which we really want.
Seen from that point of view, I think this criticism collapses somewhat, because a more effective monitoring system than the one we can offer through Parliament and the Committee for Budgetary Control, which covers the entire field and does not restrict itself merely to the section which might at times be part of a national budget - in other words a better system - is therefore scarcely conceivable.
So I do not understand why the Council and our governments do not make more effective use of this instrument.
<P>
The Committee on Development and Cooperation had also stated in its argument that the draft before us really offers no improvement with regard to monitoring, and that is broadly unsatisfactory.
We have already underlined this here.
I can only repeat it again, loud and clear.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, I would like to concern myself primarily with what Mrs Wemheuer said in her very nice speech to Mr Wynn, in which she emphasized that there are also human aspects to housekeeping.
Occasionally, as an emigrant from the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, I take part in sections of the Committee on Budgetary Control - unfortunately much too rarely, because our committees always meet at the same time, which is something I very much regret.
I can only say that I have experienced in the Budgetary Control Committee just how highly this work is valued, and that there is a human element there.
<P>
However, I would like to take issue with Mrs Wemheuer on one point.
She said this Friday sitting is somewhat less important.
No, look around, Mrs Wemheuer, and you can see that at least the quality is here.
The fact that there are spaces here and there is of no interest.
<P>
I am happy that we are finally deciding to send out a signal.
If you go out and talk to people, you see a growing suspicion of what our Community, our Union, is doing with the taxpayers' money.
I, too, share this suspicion, for why would someone refuse to accept our monitoring if they had nothing to hide?
The Council should be told.
I thank Mr Bosch, who raised this question earlier.
In that context I would say that this rejection is a clear signal sent by us to those gentlemen up there in the Council, and a policy which is correct, and we should of course ensure that it is made well known.
There is no doubt at all, this is a sign that the administration of the Fund is not working as it ought to.
Moreover, we should in no way give these unilateral Council decisions a dubious democratic legitimization, for the Council is the most undemocratic element in our Community.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the finance regulation for the eighth European Development Fund is a question of a document in which the implementation rules (that is, the financial order, the management of resources, the implementation measures and organs which carry them out, as well as the checking and the statement of accounts) are fixed as an internal agreement between the Commission and the Member States.
<P>
The financial regulation is adopted, as you know and as was carried out here, with a qualified majority when the agreement comes into force.
According to the internal agreement, the European Investment Bank and the Court of Auditors give a non-binding opinion on the draft of the text drawn up by the Commission.
On the other hand Parliament's opinion is facultative, since the EDF, as we have frequently stressed, is not part of the budget plan, and yet it was called for as early as the draft stage of the financial regulation for the seventh EDF.
<P>
The Commission fully understands your great dissatisfaction here in Parliament over the continuing failure to include the EDF in the budget plan.
The Commission has in fact already taken initiatives of its own accord in this respect in the past.
Nevertheless it does regret Mr Wynn's proposal, supported by the Committee on Budgetary Control, by which Parliament will refuse to adopt a position on the draft financial regulation for the eighth EDF as submitted by the Commission. However, that does not mean that I would not like personally to express my admiration for Mr Wynn.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Lindqvist">
The EDF should be incorporated into the EU's ordinary budget work where Parliament also has insight and influence.
I have voted for the report, but more constructive efforts are needed than refusing to give an opinion on EDF legislation.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Community cereals trade
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0021/98) by Mr Giansily, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the Court of Auditors' Special Report No 5/97 on management of the Community cereals trade involving export refunds, special import arrangements and regional aid schemes, together with the Commission's replies (C4-0351/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Theato">
Mr President, since for good reason he cannot be present today, Mr Giansily has asked me to draw your attention to his text, which he wrote in his capacity as rapporteur.
I thank the House for accepting this rule whereby, as Chair of the Committee, I represent the rapporteur.
<P>
The Court of Auditors' Special Report on management of the Community cereals trade with regard to export refunds, special import arrangements and regional aid schemes has been the subject of numerous statements in recent years, at the centre of which were the three main parts of this report.
First there is the Community cereals trade, for which export refunds are guaranteed - an area in which the Court's monitoring has brought to light several problems which impair the effect of the rules.
<P>
The first problem, raised by both the Court of Auditors and the Commission, concerns the quality of the data submitted to the Commission.
It has been shown in fact that some national disbursing offices do not list the individual amounts refunded for the export of cereal products under the individual KN-codes.
This has probably contributed to the fact that a status quo has been created which does not favour a proper functioning of the system.
For it was shown that the flat-rate conversion coefficients had remained unchanged for 24 years before they were reduced to 1.37 % in 1991.
<P>
In the opinion of the Committee on Budgetary Control, the failure to correct the coefficients may have led to considerable additional costs, which is why in future care should be taken that these coefficients are checked at regular intervals.
A similar problem was also discovered in the case of export refunds for barley malt.
Here the implementation of the relevant regulation in France and the United Kingdom was unsatisfactory.
The Committee on Budgetary Control therefore calls upon the Commission to recall sums which were improperly paid because of a failure to check the origin of malt exports, and to clarify the regulation which fixes the export refunds for mixed fodder.
<P>
As far as the quality of physical inspection of cereal exports is concerned, there is a clear lack of coordination in the monitoring of multinational companies by the competent national authorities.
The Commission is requested to take measures to eliminate these defects as quickly as possible, and to inform Parliament of the results achieved.
<P>
Secondly, the Court of Auditors' Special Report is concerned with special arrangements for the import of maize and sorghum to Spain and Portugal.
It will be recalled that after the entry of Spain and Portugal into the Community an agreement was made between them and the United States in order to guarantee the annual import of two million tonnes of maize and 300 000 tonnes of sorghum to Spain, and 500 000 tonnes of maize to Portugal.
The Spanish authorities - according to the rapporteur - impeded the proper implementation of the regulation by submitting inaccurate import data to the Commission, and this submission, moreover, was late in arriving. Meanwhile, Portugal bought maize directly on the world market and then sold it at intervention prices on the Portuguese market.
These practices led to considerable additional costs for the Community's budget.
The Committee on Budgetary Control demands that care be taken when the regulation is implemented in future, so that no additional costs for the budget of the European Union are incurred.
<P>
Finally, the third aspect of the report concerns the supply of cereals under the POSEIMA scheme.
This applies primarily to Madeira and the Azores, and the relevant comments of the Court of Auditors reveal a whole series of operational failures and weaknesses, which a rapid check of the programme might confirm.
In this sad business it must also be mentioned (as emphasized by Mr Engwirda, member of the Court of Auditors, in a letter to myself as Chair of the Committee on Budgetary Control) that it is not possible to recall the excess amounts paid, since the profits improperly made by the importers are due to a mistake by the Commission.
<P>
So there needs to be a reform of the POSEIMA Programme on the basis of the comments from the Court of Auditors, in which, of course, the requirements of distribution between the islands are taken into account.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Wynn">
Mr President, I have a worry about my own mental health (since this topic was mentioned this morning) when I can get excited by something that says "Special Report 5/97 of the Court of Auditors on the management of the Community's cereals trade involving export refunds, special import arrangements and regional aid scheme together with the Commission's replies' .
But it is one of those reports which are worth reading.
It is succinct and to the point.
The Court of Auditors have done a really good job in highlighting the problems that we have in this area, as Mrs Theato has stated.
<P>
However, it is not as good as previous special reports on the very same issue.
The one that caught everyone's attention was when we were giving extra export refunds for exports from Germany, and ships were coming with grain into Germany, unloading, reloading the same grain, going away and getting monies for it.
That showed the total folly of the system, but the flaws persist.
Here we have export refunds from the period 1991-1994 totalling over ECU 11 billion.
That amount was actually more than the total spent on training, social policies, research and development, and anti-poverty programmes.
These monies were going through that scheme with a number of mistakes as well as a number of unsatisfactory practices.
<P>
There are two points I want to highlight.
Firstly, on the POSEIMA schemes where we had monies going to the Azores.
When you read the report it is absolutely incredible how such monies could be spent in that way.
Flaws and defects in the programme were revealed which would warrant it being overhauled.
I am sure the Commission would agree with that.
One can only endorse the Court's finding that with the current system, factors irrelevant to the special requirements of the POSEIMA scheme will dictate aid levels.
It is absolutely unbelievable that we could have been paying money out in the way we did under those conditions.
<P>
I now wish to dwell on the area which covers comitology, an area in which I have quite an interest.
This ECU 11 billion was actually managed by a management committee over which Parliament has no control, no right of scrutiny and about which we have great difficulty in obtaining information.
Not too long ago, when the price of cereals actually reached record highs on the world market, the management committee stopped export refunds.
Fine, but we were never consulted or asked whether it was the right thing to do.
After all, it is only a couple of billion ECU!
<P>
During the couple of months when it was suspended, that money would have served to finance the rural development which Commissioner Fischler is trying to promote, and to reconvert our spending in CAP.
When the refunds returned, once again Parliament was not consulted.
No consultation, no information, just a fait accompli .
I do not think this is the right way for Parliament to operate when it comes to agriculture, but I know I am digressing on that.
The Commissioner may ask what that has to do with this report?
It has a lot to do with the report.
It is about the way the management committees operate.
<P>
I have to laugh that the opinion from our Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development says that Parliament is not in a position to monitor the activities of the management committees.
If that is the case, it shows the inadequacy of the present system.
We have 79 agricultural management committees.
That was the figure given when I did the budget.
In 1994 alone, the management committees took 4, 679 acts.
That is a lot of legislation and money.
<P>
The report is calling for transparency, and that is exactly what we should be doing.
I am pretty sure the Commissioner would support that approach.
We have to change our method of operating.
We have to change the way we spend our money in agriculture - away from export refunds, away from this comitology structure which deals with these large amounts of money.
We need a system that is more transparent, with fewer loopholes, fewer shortcomings.
<P>
I honestly think that the next special report should be a darned sight better than the previous ones.
Commissioner Fischler will, of course, have a lot to say about that and how that comes about.
He knows that he will have the support of this Parliament when he tries to bring about those changes because they are essential.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="McCartin">
Mr President, I am somebody who generally supports the Common Agricultural Policy, so I hate to admit this in front of Terry Wynn, but I agree with some of the points he makes about the complications of the policy which have led to so many opportunities for fraud.
<P>
That is one of the things about the proposals for reform.
The aid that we pay out will be better targeted, will find its way to the farmers, the farms and the rural areas where it is supposed to go, and there will be fewer opportunities for abuse. Less will go to middlemen and traders, who by comparison with the farmers we hope to assist, have a great capacity to cream off vast amounts of money in some of these areas.
The direct aid will solve a lot of the problems we are talking about.
<P>
Insofar as the POSEIMA programme is concerned, we have to admit that you could not think of a more complicated or indirect or inefficient way to aid islands or remote regions, because in the first place there is no guarantee whatsoever that this money is going to the aid of the people who need it or for whom it was intended.
Again, the subsidies can be creamed off by people in the middle as well as creating immense opportunities for irregular practices.
<P>
The only question I have about the Giansily report is paragraph 5, which talks about importing products without any cost to the European budget or disruption to European markets.
Of course, as long as these products are cheaper on world markets than they are in the European Union and as long as we have surpluses, there is no possibility that anybody can comply with that order, because it will obviously mean cheaper cereals from outside.
<P>
The one area where I have a slight disagreement with Terry Wynn is over the whole question of export refunds, where I think he went a little bit astray.
Because this is an automatic mechanism, and if we have surpluses in the Community and a policy designed to get them out of the Community to sell them to markets where prices are lower, then it is obvious from day to day and month to month as world markets change that we need an order to get these surpluses out of the Union.
We need to employ a flexible system, and the subsidies we pay will go up and down.
Similarly when prices on the world markets are higher than they are in the European Union, as has happened thankfully recently, we save ourselves that cost and the money is retained in the budget and we can use it for something else.
As long as we have surpluses this system will be necessary.
<P>
I agree that the sooner we can get to a system away from all these complicated measures to assist the regions, the better, just like in the case of the structural funds.
We have made such complicated regulations that I do not believe they are helpful to the regions they are intended for, and they create immense opportunities for the sort of abuses that have been identified here and which we hope will be corrected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Mulder">
Mr President, it is a pity Mr Giansily cannot be present, otherwise I would have been able to congratulate him, but I would like to congratulate Mr Fischler who I expect has given up his Friday morning especially to hear the debate on this report.
<P>
I am also a supporter of the Common Agricultural Policy, but I am convinced that when there are rules they have to be implemented properly.
I believe this Parliament has a special role in this area, and this is really all Parliament can do.
<P>
I think the most surprising thing about this report is that while everything in the world is changing, and everything in the agricultural policy is changing, a number of things have remained constant.
For flour made from cereal the coefficient has not been amended for 24 years, and for malt which is made from barley, the coefficient has not been amended for 18 years!
How is this possible?
How has it been possible for the committee which decided on these things, and for the representatives of the Member States making up this committee, to have been able to calculate their own advantage from it for so long?
What conclusions is the Commission drawing from this?
<P>
Another of the things I found unusual in the report from the Court of Auditors is that it states clearly that not one Member State has the ability to exercise the necessary physical control on implementation restitutions.
This strikes me as a serious observation.
Billions of ECUs are spent on this, and then the Court of Auditors makes the observation that not one Member State is able to check this.
What is the Commission doing with this knowledge?
<P>
I want to make one last point. When Spain and Portugal joined, special arrangements were created - to ease the transition, I take it.
It has now become clear that these arrangements are very disadvantageous to the European budget.
I wonder whether they are advantageous to Spain and Portugal.
Could that be looked at again?
<P>
To conclude, Mr President, what measures is the Commission going to take on the basis of these conclusions?
What will the reclamation of the wrongfully paid out sums be?
One of these days we will be discussing payment for the 1993 budget.
This one here goes up to the year 1994, if I understand correctly.
To what extent is the Commission charging the Member States for their errors?
Are the extra tariffs used, which have been introduced at the insistence of Parliament?
For instance 25 %, when it has been occurring for so many years.
Does the Commission intend to do this?
Furthermore, what is the need for special arrangements for Spain and Portugal when, if I have understood correctly, they have served absolutely no purpose, at least not during the past ten years?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Novo">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, it is our view that some aspects of the motion for a resolution in Mr Giansily's report are unbalanced.
<P>
The explanatory statement contains certain considerations regarding the possibility of Portugal and Spain importing given quantities of maize from the world market, but which are not reflected on an equal footing nor in an appropriate manner in the motion for a resolution.
The fact that one of the two Member States belatedly submits data that is not only late but also inaccurate is mentioned nowhere in the political resolution.
Meanwhile, the other Member State is required to exercise the right to import without any consequent adjustment of the Community budget and, ultimately, without affecting Community production, when such a requirement is not even justified, in that this right was created precisely to bolster the processing industry of the Member State in question.
<P>
This reference in the political resolution is all the more unjustified in that it appears at a time when it is already known that the Portuguese Government has decided to substitute direct importation, to which it would however have continued to be entitled by means of a public competition.
<P>
Extensive references are made to the supply of cereals under POSEIMA.
As we have repeatedly stated, and not just in connection with cereals, the Court of Auditors' report confirms that the impact of subsidies to the end-user lacks clarity (since there is no clear definition of who or what the end-user is). The extent of the effect on the end-user is not readily identifiable (on the basis merely of the accounts of importing companies) and, finally, the monitoring system introduced by the regional authorities is not satisfactory.
We are waiting to see what measures will be implemented by the regions to change this situation and to render the system of subsidies transparent, as well as to ensure that the overall allocation of funds to the recipients for whom it was intended can be monitored.
<P>
The report also discusses the fact that the dispersed nature of islands considerably raises delivery costs, as does the absence of appropriate port infrastructures. It further states, correctly, that the level of subsidies must be stipulated in specific provisions in POSEI based on the difficulties to which the regions are subject and not on the fluctuating world prices of cereals (the drop in which has considerably reduced the level of subsidies, while the difficulties with which they must contend remain unchanged).
<P>
In this context, we naturally support the request for a reform of the POSEIMA programme regarding the supply of cereals, and urge that a fair mechanism for fixing cereal import subsidies should be introduced, and that inter-island transport costs should be clearly specified and quantified, as part of a series of amendments which should go hand-in-hand with the necessary allocation of the respective additional funding.
<P>
This is the only way in which we can give substance to the formal recognition of the ultraperiferal status recently enshrined in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Mr President, the Court of Auditors' Special Report contains several observations which are both interesting and startling.
One of these, as several speakers have already mentioned, is that the flat-rate processing coefficients have not been changed for a full 24 years.
How is this possible?
The Commission's reply leaves this question unanswered and suggests a serious omission on the part of the Commission.
This omission has doubtless led to substantial additional costs for the EU through the years, which is more than regrettable.
<P>
During the years 1991-1994, export refunds for cereals amounted to ECU 11 billion, a substantial sum.
The Court of Auditors' observations have revealed several serious flaws and defects which mean that the system does not work satisfactorily.
The same is true in the area of exported cereals.
These flaws (it may even be a matter of out-and-out fraud within the sector) are encouraged so that payments of these export refunds become incorrect, which in turn leads to increased additional costs for the EU.
It is absolutely essential that the Commission does something about this fact.
<P>
Flawed control systems are also found in other areas, such as the much criticized POSEIMA scheme.
As far as the malt sector is concerned, where the Court of Auditors has taken up the unsatisfactory application of the rules in France and the UK, the Green Group supports the rapporteur's call for the Commission to demand the return of the amounts which were unduly paid.
In addition, I assume the Commission is going to change the rules in order to prevent a similar problem occurring in future.
<P>
Finally, I would just like to draw the attention of my Swedish colleagues to the fact that there is a mistake in the report in paragraph 1, where it says in the Swedish version that Parliament regrets (beklagar) the flat-rate processing coefficients. It should actually say that Parliament deplores (beklagar djupt), which is a further sharpening of the text.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, the Court of Auditors' report analyses a number of aspects of the importation and exportation of cereals, including the implementation of the export refunds mechanism in terms of administrative management and fraud.
<P>
European agricultural producers have rightly emphasized the problems caused by special import systems for maize and sorghum in Spain and Portugal.
In fact, these systems were established at the time of accession by those countries to the European Union and are still in force, and have even been consolidated within the framework of the GATT agreements.
Two million tonnes of maize and 300 000 tonnes of sorghum imported each year by Spain and 500 000 tonnes of maize imported by Portugal, mainly from the United States, are affected by the measure.
<P>
As the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has pointed out, it is necessary to prevent these imports from causing serious problems within the Community market, due to irregular commercialization.
For example, it was observed recently that maize imported by Portugal under this system was being sold at a lower price than Community maize.
These distortions cause cost price differentials for food processing manufacturers and can therefore lead to the relocation of food processing companies.
Therefore, these zero-rated import quotas associated with the accession of Spain and Portugal, which the Commission has allowed to become institutionalized within the framework of GATT, not only benefit the United States to the detriment of European producers, but also cause distortions due to non-compliance with the rules of competition within the single market.
<P>
Finally, I would like to highlight another real problem: the difficulties experienced by some operators when exporting their cereals.
Paradoxically, in recent years the Commission has imposed European export taxes on cereals, although we subsidize farmers for obligatory fallowing.
This year, at the beginning of the season, when world cereal prices were high, the Commission only granted export contracts in homeopathic doses.
Since then, the market has fallen and the European Union is going to lose market shares because of the limitation of the volume of refunds.
<P>
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, neither farmers nor manufacturers understand the logic of this, and I must admit that I myself do not find it very easy to follow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, for the EU taxpayer much of what this report contains must be really hard to swallow.
The simple fact that with astronomical amounts of refunds, like ECU 11 million from 1991 to 1994, the quality of data submitted still leaves much to be desired, is a revelation that really must not be described as a problem but rather as a scandal!
<P>
The problems of the Common Agricultural Policy, with all its weaknesses and susceptibility to improprieties of all kinds, are highlighted once again.
It is shocking that additional costs of ECU 9.3 million were incurred because Portugal buys large quantities of maize on the world market and then sells it on the Portuguese market at intervention prices, thereby giving the imported maize a considerable price advantage over that produced in the Community.
Equally shocking is the fact that the conversion coefficients pertaining to the level of export refunds were not changed in the period from 1967 to 1991, and the fact that the export refunds for cereals are paid even though the Member States are not in a position to carry out physical checks.
This contradicts the relevant regulations and proposals of the European Union.
<P>
This report once again makes clear how necessary it is to reform the Common Agricultural Policy in terms of ecologization and renationalization, and above all to ensure that these drastically deplorable abuses are eliminated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, it is an undeniable fact that there has been malpractice in the area of grain export subsidies in the Union area.
This is one of the cankers in our agricultural policy, quite apart from cases of malpractice in the meat trade.
It is, for example, quite unbelievable that free market grain and intervention grain could have been stored together.
<P>
As Mr Giansily's report suggests, we should look at the maize quotas for Spain and Portugal.
It is obvious that imported maize is, at least in Portugal, being mixed with EU maize at considerable profit.
The fault in the system does not end there but also crops up in Agenda 2000 negotiations.
We obviously try to eliminate the possibility of malpractice there by making the cultivation of maize more profitable in the European Union area.
<P>
When it is a matter of zero-sum games being played with agriculture in the EU or a spiralling dive to fund enlargement, we pass the problem of maize quotas in Agenda 2000 talks on to Finnish dairy farmers.
It will not do. We cannot make our farmers pay for other people's abuse, Mr Fischler.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Special Report No 5, for the year 1997, from the European Court of Auditors deals with three particular problems.
Firstly it considers the cereals trade and especially the question of guaranteed export refunds; secondly it deals with the import of maize and sorghum to Spain and Portugal; thirdly it concerns the supply of cereals under the POSEIMA programme.
<P>
The Commission welcomes the Court of Auditors' report and also the rapporteur's proposed resolution, on which you will vote today.
Even though the Commission does not share the Court of Auditors' opinion on all points, the report will nevertheless be of very valuable assistance to us in our efforts to improve the arrangements for the management of the cereals market, not least the improvement of monitoring.
<P>
I think Parliament is justified in complaining about the fact that the flat-rate coefficients for the conversion of export refunds for processed products were not changed for 24 years.
The Commission, however, places value on the statement that during this period it several times requested and suggested changes, but that this was on each occasion rejected by the Member States.
Only when we updated the coefficients in 1991 did matters improve somewhat.
In any case, it can be pointed out in the European Union's defence that our coefficients are stricter than those of our trading partners and competitors.
<P>
In connection with the export refunds for malt and mixed fodder, the Court of Auditors indicated some differences and difficulties in the interpretation of regulations.
In the Commission's view, these terms are intrinsically quite unambiguous.
The problems which arose in two Member States with regard to the origin of exported malt have been solved in the meantime.
As the Commission states in its response to the Special Report, the financial consequences are drawn in the context of the procedure for closing the accounts, which are necessary because of inadequate supervision of the applications for export refunds.
<P>
The difficulties in the interpretation of the combined nomenclature for mixed fodder are being checked at the moment by the Commission's officials.
We think that it will soon be possible to find a satisfactory solution.
The Court of Auditors' findings in relation to physical inspection of exported cereals to a large extent concur with those of the Commission.
I am pleased to be able to tell Parliament today that the committee on trading procedures is currently working on a consolidation of the basic refunds order, that is Order 3665/87.
<P>
This should mean, as suggested by the Court of Auditors, that the rules governing the guarantee of export refunds are phrased considerably more strictly.
The notice of export must in future be handed in at the point at which the goods are actually loaded.
As regards inspection of the exports made by international firms, the Commission has in my view already given the Member States very clear instructions.
We shall however pursue this matter even further.
<P>
Finally, I would like to mention the fact that by the time we have presented proposals for the reform of the whole cereals sector, most of these rules will really be obsolete, because we would then, de facto, have to claim for hardly any export refunds for the export of cereals.
<P>
However, the Court of Auditors also criticizes the special rule for the direct sale of maize on the world market for import to Portugal.
The fact that part of these imports were arranged by the Portuguese interventions office is the result of a compromise reached in the Council in December 1993.
I would not conceal from you the fact that the Commission was aware from the outset that this rule would lead to distortions.
Because of this, and because of the Court of Auditors' comments, this regulation was not renewed in 1997.
<P>
The rules for supplying regions on the extreme periphery under the POSEIMA programme are by their very nature difficult to implement.
Nevertheless, the Commission regards them as necessary.
It has therefore carefully noted the comments and recommendations from the Court of Auditors on the aid programme for supplying the Azores and Madeira with cereals.
The aim will be to develop the programme further and very much more precisely, to adapt it to the needs of these actual regions.
The Commission is striving to make progress here, within the parameters stipulated in the corresponding Council orders.
<P>
The Commission is of course keeping to the September 1996 agreement between Parliament and the Commission on the comitology process, addressed in point 7 of the resolution.
Certainly, the administrative committees sometimes work with very short deadlines.
But the agendas and reports on the committee meetings always go automatically to Parliament, and in the meantime the reports of the meetings can also be called up on the Internet and are thus made accessible to a very wide public.
<P>
Finally, I would like to inform you that the report you requested from Parliament on the consequences of the Court of Auditors' findings will be with you shortly so that it can be included in Parliament's formal acceptance of the statement of accounts.
In conclusion, please allow me to say that this Special Report and its concerns are in my view a good example of how the Community bodies, namely the Court of Auditors, the Parliament and the Commission, can cooperate here in order to be able greatly to improve the implementation of various EU policies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
Before the vote on Amendment No 6
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Erika">
Mr President, I did vote, but somebody has removed my card.
I did not look, and I have no idea where my card has got to.
My colleague can confirm this. I always sit here.
I did vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="President">
Firstly, I must remind you once again that votes on Friday are free.
So you have no cause for concern.
<P>
Secondly, the House will note that you have voted and, thirdly, I would like to know which way you are voting.
So would you like to tell us how you are voting? In favour?
Thank you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, for one thing I would just like to say that Mrs Mann is now experiencing something which has also happened to me, namely that on Friday the card was stolen.
Also, I would like to respond to your comment by saying that Mrs Mann is certainly not sitting here because of the money.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="President">
Mr Posselt, the House knows, because you have repeated it many times, that your card has been the target of wrongful removal.
We hope you have recovered your voting card because I see you are ready to vote.
You must be more careful now and look after it well, since you have seen that your card is obviously especially valuable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="McGowan">
Mr President, it is just very specifically on what you have said, because you are the second Vice-President this morning who has referred to the different system.
Mr Martin said that the roll-call votes on Friday did not count and you also have made a distinction.
I wish you would make it very clear to the President and the Vice-Presidents that these votes count: they are very important indeed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr McGowan, but if you had listened to me you would have heard that I did not say these votes do not count.
I said the opposite, and you know I am always here every Friday to give them the value they deserve.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fabra Vallés">
Mr President, on the same lines, I was going to say that all of us here have heard what you say, but there is a group of Europeans above, who are quite young in fact, for whom I think you would need to clarify exactly what you wanted to say.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="President">
Well, ladies and gentlemen, it means that on Fridays the votes have exactly the same importance as they do on any other day of the week. I thank Mr Fabra Vallés for asking me to explain this, and I am happy to do so.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Wibe">
The rapporteur takes up much of the criticism which the Court of Auditors has directed against administrations in the above-mentioned matter.
I think, however, that criticism could also have been taken up against the Spanish authorities (concerning the late reporting of the import of maize and sorghum) and against the management committees (concerning the lack of information about their activities).
However, I freely concede that this is an observation and not a major criticism.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Theato">
Mr President, we now have unanimous acceptance of a report in respect of which there were no amendments.
We have spent seven minutes voting on this minor matter - this does not relate to the contents but to the number of amendments.
I must say that this week it has been unbearable how we have had to proceed during the votes, with constant points of order in between.
I have intentionally not registered during these interruptions to the order of business in order not to delay any further.
However, in my capacity as one of the committee chairmen, who are of course responsible here for getting these resolutions through the House punctually, I must request most urgently that a tolerable solution is found in the Presidium now, as quickly as possible and certainly by the next plenary session, in order to eliminate these intolerable delays during the votes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Mr President, I would like to repeat the comment I made last night.
As you rightly say, votes are as important on Friday as they are on Thursday.
Yesterday evening, I pointed out that the bell announcing the votes was not working.
The same thing happened this morning.
The situation is even more serious because on Friday mornings the votes are extremely disjointed.
<P>
May I ask you, Mr President, to take measures to ensure that the bell announcing the votes is working, otherwise voting is likely to be seriously disrupted.
It would be a great shame if we could not hear anything when it is time to vote except mobile phones ringing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="President">
I would firstly like to say to you, Mrs Theato, that, luckily, Friday mornings are quiet and relaxed.
So we can even slightly prolong the votes at times, because, as I say, Fridays are quiet, relaxed days with a pleasant atmosphere. I would also like to ask you to congratulate Mr Giansily on the favourable vote his report received, since it was voted for unanimously by the House.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Participation of Poland and the Slovak Republic in Community training, youth and education programmes
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Leperre-Verrier">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the involvement of the central and eastern European countries in the education and youth programme is well under way.
The proposal submitted to us by the Commission today is a perfect example of this, and we should be pleased to see Poland and the Slovak Republic join the ranks of the countries taking part in the Socrates, Leonardo and Youth for Europe programmes.
<P>
Last July we gave the go-ahead for the involvement of Hungary, the Czech Republic and Romania.
They were able to take advantage of the programmes during the 1997 financial year.
It is now the turn of Poland and the Slovak Republic.
<P>
I should like to say a few words about the origin of this decision.
Further to the signature during 1996 of additional protocols with a number of CEECs, the Association Councils defined the method for these countries to participate in Community programmes.
They decided to make education, training and youth the first link in the chain of actions undertaken.
Other agreements should be signed at a later date in the areas of culture, the environment and health.
<P>
This aim of this policy, defined at the Dublin Summit, is in particular to familiarize applicant countries with Community policies and procedures.
So we cannot fail to be pleased that cooperation with regard to education and youth has been selected as a priority.
It is true that these are essential for bringing people together and for the creation of European citizenship.
Furthermore, exchanges in this field have been taking place for many years, and the three programmes in question were already able to support actions involving CEECs.
Similarly, the Tempus programme set up in 1990 within the framework of Phare and Tacis has established the foundation of cooperation between universities.
<P>
It is obvious that this process has been reinforced by the adoption of Agenda 2000 and the decisions of the Luxembourg Summit, which have brought these pre-accession procedures into the operational phase.
In this respect, we can see that there is synergy not contradiction between the actions recommended in Agenda 2000 and the procedure adopted by the Association Councils.
Furthermore, the choice of countries involved is in full compliance with the wish expressed by this House to avoid discrimination between applicant countries.
So although not selected amongst the first countries, it has been possible for Romania yesterday and now the Slovak Republic to be amongst the associated countries.
<P>
Under the terms of this agreement, Poland and the Slovak Republic can take part in all the actions falling within the scope of these three programmes.
Furthermore, these two countries will be involved in the monitoring of their participation in these programmes, and will be invited to coordination meetings.
However, they are responsible for setting up the national structures and mechanisms required for their participation.
<P>
On a financial level, the complement to these countries' contributions which must be provided by the European Union has been included in the 1997 budget.
This expenditure must be made without fail before 31 March, which explains the urgency of this debate.
In addition, Poland has been offered the opportunity of using up to a maximum 10 % of its Phare allocation.
Note that the financial contribution of the Member States must cover the grants and aid given to their participants, and that it is obvious that the cumulative amount of grants and aid received must not exceed the financial contribution paid.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, a participation agreement is therefore signed between partners, not an aid contract.
This is an extremely important point, because the CEECs have sometimes felt themselves to be like poor relations in their relationship with the European Union, and that at least is how it appears in the evaluation of the Tempus programme.
It would therefore be a good thing to avoid that problem today.
Although there are no major obstacles to the participation of Poland and the Slovak Republic in these programmes, and although - as we have emphasized - this process represents a major political step forward, some questions remain.
<P>
The Leonardo, Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes, voted for under the codecision procedure, were set up during 1995.
They are now almost coming to an end and because of this must be evaluated and redefined.
We must be aware that these three programmes operate in synergy with other European Union actions in the field of education, training and youth.
Article 126 of the Maastricht Treaty has given the European Union competence in this respect, and however limited, they are proof of a real determination to take action.
So it can be stated that young people and their employment has become one of the main concerns of the European Union, and we can only regret the lack of accompanying measures as far as the signatory countries are concerned.
<P>
Also, the problem of resources must be mentioned.
Certainly the budget of the Socrates programme has been substantially increased thanks to the tenacity and efficiency of our colleague, Doris Pack, whom we should once again congratulate on her activities, but there is now a real demand for the education and youth programmes, to which it would be a pity not to respond.
<P>
Secondly, there is a need to ask questions about the CEECs' needs with regard to education and training.
Poland, like the Slovak Republic, cannot escape the need to adapt its educational system, not only in relation to the European Union, but also in the context of globalization and the development of the new technologies we are seeing today.
<P>
These three programmes can provide answers and not inconsiderable help, but the nature of their activities is multi-directional, which means they do not have an obligation to respond to these objectives.
Now the enlargement procedure, and its corollaries - the principles of free movement and mutual recognition of diplomas - presuppose real progress in education.
Furthermore, the Commission itself has emphasized this in the opinions it has issued on these two countries' applications for accession.
<P>
With regard to Poland, the Commission has highlighted that country's spectacular progress with regard to education, whilst observing that efforts still have to be made.
In fact, we must recognize that Poland has allocated 16 % of its budget - that is 6.2 % of its GDP - to education, and aims to considerably increase the number of young people receiving secondary and university education, so that 20 % of 20-24 year olds in particular, can receive higher education.
<P>
The Slovak Republic is developing a less aggressive strategy as only 3.2 % of its budget is allocated to education, that is approximately 1.5 % of its GDP.
As well as the need to increase the number of secondary-school pupils and students here too, considerable efforts must be made to give minorities the same educational opportunities, and I am thinking of the Hungarian minority, in particular.
<P>
That is why, in order to evaluate how involvement in our education and training programmes can help these countries to modernize their educational systems, I have recommended the creation of a specific steering committee.
I know that the Commission is not really in favour of such a measure.
However, I have to say, Mr Commissioner, that the answers I have received have not been entirely convincing, with regard to the refusal to set up an evaluation structure, and I must say I regret it.
In fact, the enlargement process means that many bridges have to be crossed. Socrates, Leonardo, Youth for Europe are all steps in the right direction but, ladies and gentlemen, we still have a long way to go.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Heinisch">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when we decide to include Poland and the Slovak Republic in the Youth and Training Programme of the European Union, this is an important step.
But this step is also a logical result if we want to go further down the road which we took with the decision to enlarge the European Union eastwards.
Why?
A politically stable and peaceful Europe is the goal we have in our sights when we open our Community to the states of the former Eastern Bloc.
We hope to achieve this goal by helping the future Member States strengthen their democratic structures and reinforce their economic power.
But how can we achieve this?
Only by learning from each other; by exchanging experiences, knowledge, ideas and concepts; and by trusting each other.
The more citizens of the Union are involved in this process of growing together, the more successful it will be.
The younger the people are who take part in this process, the more deeply a feeling of belonging together can take root in their hearts, and the less susceptible the future Community will be to breaking up.
<P>
The Leonardo, Socrates, and Youth for Europe programmes seek to prepare the ground for such a development.
They help people to cross linguistic barriers, and encourage the transfer of training and the exchange of students, employees and young people in Europe.
They work towards helping young people in existing and future Member States learn to conceive democratic values as worthy of protection.
<P>
The Slovak Republic is not a member of the circle of countries which will initiate the eastwards expansion by their entry.
The judgement that democratic culture in that country must make further progress has led to the postponement of its entry into the Community.
The estimation, however, that the population of the Slovak Republic is open to further democratic development of its political system has led to our desire to see the participation of that people in our programmes.
<P>
In July last year, the European Parliament had already decided to include the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania in the programmes.
The Slovak Republic and Poland had to wait, since we first had to see whether we got additional Socrates resources.
We have achieved this and so I am pleased today that after Hungary, the Czech Republic and Romania, the Slovak Republic and Poland will come into our programmes.
Thank you, Mrs Leperre-Verrier, for your fine contribution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, the involvement of Poland and the Slovak Republic in a joint action on training, youth and education, as proposed in the report by Mrs Leperre-Verrier, is a good thing.
It is another small step on the historic road which will be taken with the European Conference at the end of March to make countries in central and eastern Europe full partners.
<P>
In reality this is also a useful method to familiarize the candidate countries with the various policy areas and procedures within the Union.
The choice of education, training and youth is a good one to start with and to gain experience, and the role of Commissioner van den Broek in this choice is to be applauded, because those who have youth have the future.
<P>
A good basis for future cooperation with these countries can be found in the shared financial support for the relevant programmes, as well as the Phare programme.
I can therefore be satisfied with the fact that the total sum of subsidies and other financial support will amount to no more than the financial contribution.
It keeps matters neat, does not arouse excessive expectations, and can be monitored.
But to my mind it is clear that the substance of this initiative far exceeds the financial limitations as far as the significance of the initiative is concerned.
<P>
Poland and the Slovak Republic, like other countries in central and eastern Europe, will have problems adjusting their education systems, not only in relation to the Union, but also in the context of the new information technologies.
On that front, the Member States often have barriers to overcome too.
<P>
As a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, I wanted to express my appreciation for the initiative, as the way the programmes is tackled offers a contribution to rapprochement between the Member States and the countries in central and eastern Europe.
This is a strategic political goal which serves stability and peace in Europe.
This is ultimately what our work here is meant to do.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
Mr President, I think this is one of the European Parliament's most important tasks: to strengthen the cooperation between the professions, youth, countries and people.
So it is a good thing.
Language training is a part of this process.
It is important that consideration is given to the languages which exist in the EU today, but at the same time people should ensure that dialogue is developed with the central and eastern European languages, and that they get the same opportunities to develop as the current EU languages.
<P>
As far as influence is concerned, I think both Poland and the Slovak Republic should be included from the start and should help decide the shaping of the programme.
This is important because it is in fact an agreement which is being made between the EU and these countries, and means that these agreements will be financed approximately equally by the two countries and the EU.
We should see this within the framework of the partnership between the Commission, the Slovak Republic and Poland.
<P>
The programmes concerned here are mainly Leonardo, Socrates, Youth for Europe, Tempus and Phare.
They should be implemented regardless of what happens with the negotiations - that is, however quickly or slowly they progress.
<P>
However, I have an important point to add: namely, I think it needs to be very clear that the programme should not only be about a one-sided adaptation to the EU's institutions, to our approach, our level of training and our training requirements, but it should be a versatile, mutual exchange between the EU and the countries which have now applied for membership.
Only then will these programmes be good.
So the EU should not appear as some kind of big brother, but should always recognize that this is a dialogue between independent countries which have reached an agreement.
Under these conditions this will be good, and the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party supports this proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Mr President, Community training and education programmes are of the utmost importance.
I therefore welcome this report on Poland and the Slovak Republic.
If you want to contribute to increased youth exchange over national borders and contribute to young people learning more about other cultures, traditions and countries, these programmes are a good start.
The Green Group is therefore going to support this report.
<P>
Personally, however, I have two observations to make.
Firstly, I do not think the Youth for Europe programme should be included in this agreement.
It is not an educational or training programme, but rather a one-sided propaganda organization.
That is the case in Sweden.
So I think it should not be included as a part of the agreement.
<P>
Secondly, I think that in a spirit of solidarity the EU should pay for the larger share of the costs of these agreements, because the part of Europe in which we find ourselves is very well-off compared with both Poland and the Slovak Republic, where there are shortages of many things.
If we are serious about support for central and eastern Europe, we should also pay for the main costs in this politically important area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, we vote in favour of this report, although I regard it as unnecessary automatically to attach the label of eastwards expansion to every sensible measure concerning our eastern neighbours.
I consider it important to emphasize that it is a matter of an agreement on participation between partners, and not a treaty on guaranteeing aid.
From my own experience I know that Austria's neighbouring country, the Slovak Republic, is especially very unhappy to be treated as a recipient of aid.
<P>
I am genuinely pleased that the rapporteur also deals in her statement with the very worrying situation of children in these countries.
It is particularly the children there who represent the population sector most at risk.
The UNICEF Report discussed last year by the European Parliament put this very forcefully and provided proof.
Socrates and Youth for Europe should therefore be used very specifically to improve the prospects and quality of life of children.
<P>
The most intensive cooperation between the educational institutions and the improvement of training systems will certainly contribute to the realization of the enormous intellectual and educational potential of Poland and the Slovak Republic, and ultimately of the citizens of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Elchlepp">
Mr President, I also thank Mrs Leperre-Verrier for her excellent report.
My group welcomes this report and the gradual opening of the programmes to the countries of central and eastern Europe prior to the entry of these countries.
Most of all, this represents another real door being flung wide open for young people to gain new experiences.
However, these programmes also offer the opportunity to exchange experiences in education and careers and to initiate an innovative dialogue, for these countries have something to offer us too.
<P>
So the principle of "Learn Your Neighbour's Language' does not just apply to the countries of western Europe, but it must also apply to our eastern neighbours.
This money is very well spent. The transfer of knowledge and experience takes place nowhere more effectively than through personal experience and residence in the other country, and I very much hope that personal meetings eliminate prejudices which unfortunately exist today or are being preserved as in the olden days.
I could imagine that educational cooperation will one day lead to common teaching materials - perhaps even to a common European history book.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, I would very much like to join in the dance of those who are thanking Mrs Leperre-Verrier for the report and the work which she has done here.
One must indeed point out that this report belongs in a greater context.
Everything started with a report by Mr Posselt who at the time said that these reports must be extended to all the central and eastern European countries.
This is also worth mentioning, and very important.
We need only imagine the terribly short time available to these countries of central and eastern Europe, who were held back for so many decades under a Communist yoke, for making their short dash to catch up. They are doing it in a really great way, inspiring us with enthusiasm.
<P>
One of the great philosophers of our century, the Dalai Lama, was once asked how he came to terms with the fact that there was still so much destruction and annihilation in the world - especially in his own country. "At the moment we cannot do anything about it' , he said.
Really he is a very positive person indeed, and all his listeners were astonished.
Then he looked up and said, "Yes, but there is a possibility: we must win over the young people, for he who wins over the young people, to him will also belong the future.'
The same applies to this report.
This report turns to the young people - in this case in Poland and the Slovak Republic, previously (in fact last year) in Romania, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
If we win over the young people in these countries then the future of Europe belongs to them, which is what we want for them.
<P>
It is our task to show and suggest to these young people our European values, granted to us by 50 years of peace which have provided us with great prosperity, a great epoch, so that they can accept them of their own free will.
This report helps this to be achieved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Piha">
Mr President, I also wish to thank Mrs Leperre-Verrier for putting together this balanced report.
The European Union education and youth programmes are crucially important channels for improving European integration at the level of the people and bringing eastern and western Europe together.
The experience that individual citizens, students and people doing research derive from multi-cultural colleges throughout Europe is far more valuable than any of the diverse proposals for projects from the Commission with the name of Citizens' Europe.
<P>
It is vital to stress that the problems of cooperation in education between the present EU Member States and the applicant countries will not be solved merely by increasing funding.
Although, for example, the Socrates programme funding has been increased for the next round of funding, the money will certainly not be enough even for the needs of the internal programmes of the present Member States.
So the greatest challenge rests with the applicant countries.
They themselves must be able to modernize and adapt their educational systems and colleges so that they can guarantee the quality of their exchange programmes regarding course content, administration and the external aspect.
<P>
Practice has shown that facilities for foreigners studying in many eastern European countries are still very borderline.
To take just one example, I am afraid I can cite the University of Tartu in Estonia, where Finns studying there have already taken the university authorities to court right in the middle of term over massive fee increases.
<P>
Funding foreign students has no part in the exchange programmes.
Countries preparing for EU membership have to grasp this notion.
The exchange programmes rely on reciprocity, which cannot in all reason be based on decisions made in court.
There is therefore much scope for improvement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, Karl Habsburg-Lothringen kindly mentioned that I am, as it were, the grandfather of this report, because I had the honour at that time of presenting here in Parliament the supplementary protocols relating to the association agreements.
I believe the report on which we are voting today is a significant step forward.
Firstly, it deals with the cultural and linguistic diversity in present-day Europe and in the future EU.
I am very grateful that the regional and minority languages, the Slavonic languages and Hungarian are given appropriate dignity in this report.
<P>
Secondly I am happy that this report is a step towards greater partnership.
We have grown accustomed to a certain arrogant paternalism vis-a-vis the candidates for entry in central and eastern Europe and it is the amendments which were put forward today which bear witness to a great spirit of partnership.
Quite simply, we are seeing here the future Member States.
In this connection I would like to take issue with Mr Lukas, for I am of the opinion that he should campaign energetically in his own country for eastwards enlargement.
<P>
Thirdly, I would like to say that in this report we are considering two countries which are particularly important to us: Poland and the Slovak Republic, which are closely linked together by their great histories and culture.
The Slovak Republic is in fact in danger of being isolated.
I have spoken with the President of the Slovak Rectors' Conference, Professor Stern, who fears that because of the politics in his country which we have justly criticized, the people themselves are isolated, the educational institutions are isolated, and the students, young scientists and specialist workers are isolated.
We must work against this.
We should place a financial emphasis on the Slovak Republic, for none of the associated states requires our support as urgently as the Slovak Republic, which is a profoundly central European country.
That is why I welcome this report and the emphasis it places on Poland and the Slovak Republic.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, research, infrastructure and education are the bases for success for an eco-social market economy, for success, for employment.
So I welcome these programmes.
We members of the eastwards enlargement delegations did in fact have some very intensive discussions in the last week in Strasbourg with Commissioner van den Broek, and we made it clear that we particularly welcome the importance of this European agreement to include the central and eastern European states.
<P>
Of course, this applies especially to cooperation in the realm of education.
I would also like to emphasize, like the previous speaker Mr Posselt, that this is of very special significance for the aspect of integration, particularly from the time when the political situation in that country makes entry possible.
It is a well-known fact that the deadline for applications for the office of President expires today at 4 p.m. and the President is likely to be elected on 5 March.
It is interesting that President Kovac has applied, and that he will also arrange the referendum decided by the Constitutional Court.
So at the moment a very interesting development is unfolding in the Slovak Republic.
Precisely for that reason, we must do everything we can to give valuable assistance for this rapprochement.
<P>
Of course, many adaptations can be made from the outset.
Immediate integration into the Community's programmes should also be an expression of a strengthened introductory strategy.
The treaties of association with those countries which wish to join must be strengthened immediately, particularly with regard to the Slovak Republic.
The fact that we commence with cooperation in the fields of education and youth is not only to be welcomed but also well thought out.
I agree with the rapporteur: a common future in a common house called Europe can only be constructed in cooperation with young people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all sincere thanks to the rapporteur Mrs Leperre-Verrier, and sincere thanks also to the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media for their cooperative attitude and extremely rapid procedure in this matter.
<P>
On the eve of the opening of negotiations for entry, the Governments and people of the central and eastern European countries and the Member States displayed a perceptibly heightened degree of sensitivity and receptiveness towards this matter.
As we have recently seen from the Luxembourg conclusions, participation in these programmes offers the central and eastern European countries the possibility of becoming familiar with the policies and instruments of the Community, not only on a political and administrative level but also on a much-quoted basis.
Many students, teachers, young people, professors and freelance workers will thus have an opportunity to make connections, via networks with their colleagues in the Member States.
Such exchange is really extremely important for the consolidation of democracy, which is of special significance, particularly in the case of the Slovak Republic.
<P>
The concrete fulfilment of the promise made so long ago regarding participation in these programmes is highly valued amongst the Governments and the future promoters of projects.
Moreover, participation in Community programmes in general but particularly in the spheres of general and professional education will contribute significantly to the institutional structures in the applicant countries.
The central and eastern European countries accord participation in these programmes a high priority. They include an appropriate level of resources in their education budgets, and make them available.
Also, in the strengthened introductory strategies special emphasis is placed on the opening up of these Community programmes.
The European Parliament inspired the opening up of Community programmes for these countries, even before the European Council decided this in 1993.
It also supported the conclusion of supplementary protocols for the European agreements.
<P>
It is now called upon to permit the rapid passage of Association Council resolutions, and thereby allow the selection of the first projects on which partners from these two applicant countries can cooperate even before the summer.
<P>
As far as the last amendment is concerned, I would like to say that we completely agree that there should be a follow-up in relation to participation in these programmes.
But this should take place within the existing structures, particularly because this is the only way we can guarantee that we remain coherent and that we treat all central and eastern European countries equally.
<P>
I would like once again to thank sincerely the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, and the rapporteur for her work and flexibility, and above all for the fact that we have come so quickly to the first reading of this report, and that this furthermore has operated so smoothly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I am sorry, I have no wish to hold things up, but I see from repeated readings of Amendments Nos 3 and 8 - the text is the same for both countries- that a slight error has crept in.
It says there that some of these languages already enjoy the status of official languages within the EU and it mentions, for example, Slovene in Carinthia, Styria and Italy.
That is unfortunately not true.
I would therefore request as an oral amendment that the following is written in instead: "also enjoy the status of an officially recognized regional language within the EU, for example Slovene in Austria and Italy' .
In other words, not Carinthia and Styria but Austria and Italy, because the Slovene minority is not recognized in Styria, though it is in Carinthia.
The expression "officially recognized regional language' is correct, but not "official language.'
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Posselt.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to know Mrs Leperre-Verrier's opinion.
Can you tell us what you think of this oral amendment?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Leperre-Verrier">
Mr President, I would like to say that I am in complete agreement with the proposal which has just been made, which is of course in the form of an oral amendment, as the deadline for tabling amendments has now elapsed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="President">
Is anyone opposed to this oral amendment?
No.
<P>
(During successive votes, Parliament adopted the two legislative resolutions)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Ahlqvist and Theorin">
We think the message in the report is very positive.
We regret, however, that the Council is not allocating sufficient resources.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, we have completed the agenda.
I would like to express our sincere thanks to Parliament's services, the ushers, the interpreters and the Bureau services, not just as a formality but because they deserve it. Before taking my leave, ladies and gentlemen, I would just like to say that I am sure that if you have had a chance to stroll through this beautiful and hospitable city, in spite of how much work we have, you will have noticed the first somewhat premature signs of spring and revitalization.
The trees are covered in buds which are about to explode. I hope, ladies and gentlemen, that those are the only explosions we hear over the next few weeks.
In other words, I hope the visit by the UN Secretary General bears fruit, that rationality prevails over irrationality and that good fellowship imposes itself on the confrontation - in other words, that peace wins over war.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you have a good journey and that when we meet again next month, those from the most northerly regions will tell us that the thaw has taken place, and that we will all have seen thousands of leaves explode in peace and harmony .
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="President">
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 11.35 a.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 20 February 1998.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
The Minutes of Friday, 20 February 1998 have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, I would like to go back to the discussion on crime in Brussels which we kept having in the course of the last part-session.
Assurances were given by the Presidency that appropriate talks would take place with the various offices in Brussels that might actually be able to do something about this.
We would be grateful if the House could be informed as to what sort of talks have taken place and what results these have produced.
<P>
Last week two more Members of Parliament, namely Mrs Pack and Mr Schiedermeier, were attacked.
I know about these two attacks but perhaps it has also happened to many more people.
It would not be an understatement to say today that this is an intolerable situation.
We have long since exceeded the level of what is acceptable.
I would be very grateful if this House could receive more information from the Presidency as to what is actually happening in these cases and what we can do to really increase safety in Brussels.
I would like to point out to all the Members that there is an oral motion available for signature and would ask them to sign it so that something can be actively done to combat this criminal behaviour in Brussels.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President">
Thank you very much.
As you will appreciate, that matter does not relate to the Minutes, nor is it a suitable subject for debate here and now.
I will be very happy to inform you in writing of the steps we are already taking with the Belgian authorities to guarantee security, as far as possible, in the vicinity of the European Parliament buildings, since Brussels is a very big place.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, I refer to Friday's Minutes, where you wrote in a letter to me: ' rest assured that I share your concern and shall do my utmost with the Belgian authorities to find a satisfactory solution where the safety of the Members and staff of the European Parliament is concerned.'
I would like to express my thanks for these kind words.
<P>
I would also like to state that I have completed a survey of my own.
A colleague of mine was in over 300 offices, in more than half the offices of Members of the European Parliament.
She told me that exactly one third of the offices had given accounts of criminal incidents in Brussels.
<P>
I would also like to inform you that the perpetrators of the attack against my assistant were apprehended and appeared in a line-up this week.
I therefore thank you for your efforts in this area!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Rübig.
I would refer you to the answer I have just given Mr Habsburg-Lothringen.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tatarella">
Mr President, unfortunately, at the opening of almost every Parliament sitting, you are called upon to express the Chamber's grief over the victims of despicable terrorist attacks.
Only a few days ago, a Catholic and a Protestant fell victim to the fanaticism that uses the language of arms instead of ideas.
Recently, in a declaration made by Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, the French government declared its intention not to grant the extradition, requested by Italy under the Schengen agreements, of 200 Italian terrorist refugees in France after the lead wars that caused so much grief for Italy.
This refusal can be interpreted as indirect encouragement of the impunity and immunity of the terrorists of yesterday, today and tomorrow.
At the moment, France also risks coming within the terrorists' sight...
<P>
(The President cut off the speaker)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
Mr Tatarella, the European Parliament is not competent to deal with questions of extradition law between Member States.
Furthermore, you have exceeded the time of one minute allowed for these matters.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matilainen-Kallström">
Mr President, last Friday there was a disastrous train crash in Finland in which ten people died and almost forty were injured.
On behalf of the Finnish delegation from the Group of the European People's Party I would respectfully ask that you, Mr President, on behalf of Parliament, might express a few words of sympathy and consolation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
It will be done.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Resignation of a Vice-President
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I must tell you that Mr Capucho has written to inform me that he wishes to resign from his position as Vice-President of Parliament, with effect from 10 March 1998.
<P>
I would like to thank Mr Capucho for his work throughout his vice-presidency.
<P>
The deadline for tabling candidacies for the vacant post of Vice-President is 6.00 p.m. today.
<P>
The election will be held on Wednesday, at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Order of business
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
The report (A4-0073/98) by Mr Kreissl-Dörfler, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on negotiations in the framework of the OECD on a multilateral agreement on investments (MAI), should be taken at 4.00 p.m. so that the Commissioner concerned can take part.
The PSE Group and the PPE Group support this proposal.
<P>
(Parliament approved the proposal)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
The PPE Group requests that the debate on the report (A4-65/98) by Mr Cornelissen, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on road safety in the European Union, which was originally scheduled for Wednesday, should be reinstated on the agenda for Tuesday, before the other three reports from the Committee on Transport by Mr Watts, Mr Novo Belenguer and Mr Bazin respectively, so that the Commissioner responsible can take part.
<P>
(Parliament approved the request)
<P>
Wednesday:
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="President">
I would remind you that Mr Cornelissen's report has been added to the agenda for Tuesday.
<P>
Thursday: no changes.
<P>
Friday:
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="President">
The ARE Group has requested that Mr Cunha's report, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the Commission's annual report to the Council and the European Parliament on the results of the multiannual guidance programmes for the fishing fleets at the end of 1996, be taken off the agenda.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Macartney">
Mr President, I rise to support this request, not just because the issue is important but because this Parliament is in danger of making a fool of itself by saying that Friday votes are not important.
We have a report from my good friend Mr Cunha which I think makes some fundamental mistakes, and in particular challenges the legal base of the common fisheries policy in an own-initiative report.
<P>
There is no other mechanism for challenging this and I believe it has to be dealt with by Parliament as a whole.
I would therefore move that we postpone this report until we can be sure of a full House, which, as you know, is not the case on a Friday.
<P>
I note that the Commissioner for fisheries is here.
I hope she will take note of this, because it is an important point.
If this Parliament were to give the impression that it does not care about the Treaty basis of the common fisheries policy, that would be a terrible signal to send out to the industry and to the Commission.
I beg to move.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldarelli">
Mr President, we have discussed this report sufficiently within the Committee on Fisheries; we are convinced that Parliament should give its opinion now, and so we fail to understand the reasons for a postponement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Nicholson">
Mr President, I would like to rise in support of Mr Macartney.
All too often this Parliament and those who arrange its agenda seem to put fisheries debates on a Friday.
It is time that was ended.
This is a very important report and fisheries are extremely important to the regions of this Community.
I would agree with and support Mr Macartney on this issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="President">
I put the ARE Group's request to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament rejected the proposal)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="Green">
Mr President, I asked for the floor earlier to raise two issues.
With regard to the statement on Kosovo on our agenda for Wednesday, the contact group is meeting this evening to discuss the situation.
I wonder therefore if we could have an extension of the deadline for the submission of resolutions until midday tomorrow, which would allow us to take into account the outcome of that meeting.
That is my first request on behalf of my group.
<P>
Secondly my group has informed you that we would like to vote in the plenary on removing from the agenda the oral question on the Mediterranean programme which was scheduled for Friday.
I gave notice of this in the Conference of Presidents last week.
As I said in the Conference of Presidents, the Budgetary Control Committee of this House is dealing with exactly the issues raised in this oral question.
It seems entirely incongruous that certain groups are raising it in exactly the same way on the floor of this House before the Committee has completed its deliberations.
<P>
My group would like it to be removed from the agenda for this week.
If the plenary decides not to support that view - although I very much hope it will - it is my group's view that this is a very important and sensitive political issue and I would like to ask that the gentlemen's agreement on taking such issues on a Friday morning should be adhered to and the vote be held at a later date.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Green.
On your first point, the services say that it is perfectly possible to hold over the deadline for resolutions until noon tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, as Mrs Green said, the matter is still pending and has not been finalized by the Committee on Budgetary Control yet.
We therefore think it is quite inappropriate that it should be raised as an oral question in the meantime.
We know that during the most recent sitting there was a disagreement between Mrs Fabra Vallés and the Commissioner, who, we should add, gave a rather crude reply, but that should be no reason to devote a rushed debate to it here on Friday morning.
We request that the matter be completed by the Committee on Budgetary Control, and not hastily on a Friday morning amongst other things which have nothing to do with the core of the issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fabra Vallés">
Mr President, I fully agree that this is an important matter.
But it is also important for Parliament to come to some decision about the way we are being blamed.
When the Commissioner appeared before the Committee on Budgetary Control, he blamed Parliament for blocking the MED programmes.
The following day, on the 26, a DirectorGeneral spoke at a MED-MEDA conference and in front of twelve ambassadors from the Mediterranean zone he said that the European Parliament was responsible for the fact that the MEDA programmes were blocked.
In the evening of that same day, in Madrid, the Turkish Ambassador took me to task, as a Member of the European Parliament, because he thought we were responsible for having blocked the MED programmes.
<P>
All we are trying to do with this question is make it quite clear that Parliament is not responsible, and that is why I think it is urgent.
The responsibility lies with the Commissioner, who has been blocking the programmes since 17 July.
So we cannot accept that we are responsible for blocking the MED programmes. The reputation of this House is at stake.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="Green">
Mr President, I hope Mr Fabra Vallés made that case to the Turkish Ambassador and others who raised the issue with him.
We can deal with this issue in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
There is no reason why that cannot be dealt with there.
It is as much a...
<P>
(The President cut off the speaker)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if the item stays on the agenda we agree that we should not vote on Friday, but at a later date.
I would like to add that I do not really understand why this cannot be discussed in a democratic Parliament, even though it is a sensitive issue.
A democratic Parliament is in essence a place where difficult and sensitive matters can be discussed.
We submitted an oral question and we wish to hold a debate.
We are calling on Parliament to give us this opportunity, but we are prepared to vote on it at a later date.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="President">
I put the request from the PSE and GUE/NGL Groups to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament approved the request)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Women's rights
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following statement and oral question:
<P>
statement by the Commission on International Women's Day and the violation of women's rights; -oral question (B4-0177/98 - O-0044/98/rev.) by Mrs van Dijk, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights, to the Commission, on International Women's Day - 8 March 1998: combating violations of women's rights.
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="van Dijk">
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="Bonino">
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gröner">
Mr President, Mrs Bonino, thank you for the campaign you initiated on behalf of the women of Kabul.
It was in Copenhagen in 1911 that the first International Women's Day was proclaimed by the International Conference of Socialist Women, as a day of action for the rights of women.
There had already been some initial success: women in Scandinavia had won the right to vote, although other countries had still to wait for this.
We broke into a male preserve - politics.
Step by step, we women fought for access to university education and parliamentary representation.
At management level, however, in business, the media and leading social positions, we have remained largely on the periphery.
<P>
Despite four world conferences on women's rights, the list of inequalities and discrimination against women is a long one.
Every year on 8 March, we train the world's spotlight on it.
This year, International Women's Day focused on the flagrant violations of women's rights by fundamentalist regimes and movements, and thousands of events sought to highlight these violations.
Afghanistan and Algeria in particular were cited.
We debated this in the last part-session, adopted a resolution and your campaign is now off the ground.
However, offences against women are being recorded everywhere.
As socialists, we must speak out against events such as this, for instance the fact that yesterday in Istanbul women who demonstrated were deprived of their right to speak and dispersed with tear gas.
<P>
In our compromise resolution, we have summarized the most urgent demands for women, and I shall not grow tired of calling for women's rights to be seen as an indivisible, integral part of universal human rights, which means there are obligations in this respect for the EU and our Member States.
<P>
The platform for action negotiated in Beijing now needs to be implemented, and I should like to say on behalf of my group that we will insist that a woman's right of self-determination in relation to her body is at the top of the agenda.
We must demand the sexual self-determination of women and their right to decide when and how many children they will have.
That is the unique right of every woman.
<P>
Genital mutilation is one of the most abhorrent violations of this right of self-determination, and we must do everything to ensure that, firstly, this does not occur in the European Union and that, secondly, this inhuman practice is brought to an end as far as possible globally.
We sometimes appear to have made greater progress in developing women's rights in Europe than other regions have.
We have had to fight hard for all these advances, and there is still a lot to be done.
<P>
Where, for instance, have we ensured in the Union that we are paid the same for identical and equal work?
Nowhere in Europe!
And where in Europe has male violence towards women been eradicated?
Nowhere!
Male violence towards women is a phenomenon which, according to Union-wide independent studies, will befall every third or fourth woman once in her life.
<P>
That is why I most urgently appeal again to the Commission and the Council and call upon them to act.
1999 needs to be declared European Year against Violence towards Women, and it must, as Mrs Bonino has explained, be launched as a Union-wide campaign of zero tolerance towards violence within the Union.
We will need to have requested this ruling in the Council of Ministers and have implemented it by 30 June, or else the deadline will have passed.
Budgetary or other reasons should not be allowed to get in the way where the well-being of our women and children are concerned.
<P>
The European Parliament has sided with the oppressed.
We should not remain silent.
As long as equality between men and women is not a universal reality, democracy will not really be in force.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Daskalaki">
Mr President, every year we celebrate Women's Day and every year we come to the same sad conclusion that equality, if it exists and where it exists, concerns a minority of women in the world.
For the majority of women even the most basic human rights are an unattainable goal, for the simple reason that they were born women.
<P>
This year we decided to dedicate Women's Day to those women who are oppressed by religious fundamentalism.
It is therefore not by chance that we should be paying particular attention to the unprecedented oppression that is taking place in Afghanistan: the women held by the Taliban are in the worst position of all.
For this reason, the initiative of the Commission is worthy of our congratulations.
Mrs Bonino also deserves our congratulations for the very fine poster she produced for the occasion.
<P>
We spoke at length about these women during the previous part-session.
Bearing in mind their hardship and the fact that we must never cease in our efforts to help them, we must not forget that a great deal still needs to be done for the women who live in more developed societies, where religious fanaticism, imported or not, is nevertheless very real.
In addition to this fanaticism, the exploitation of women by international crime networks and the violation of basic human rights against women who, for a variety of reasons, are more vulnerable and unprotected than others, are events which still occur throughout the world, and we must not forget, in my opinion, those regions of our planet where women are not allowed to go on living, simply in order to solve the problem of overpopulation.
<P>
There are very many women for us to think about today.
We must think about the women who have become refugees of the recent wars.
We must think about the women who are threatened by exclusion, by unemployment and by poverty, and all those women who are unfortunate enough to be treated as unequal.
We must continue to demand again and again, perhaps monotonously, what is self-evident to all, that is, basic human rights, which are women's rights too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Larive">
Mr President, women's rights are human rights, and therefore universal rights, and all women derive rights from these, whether they live on European Union territory or not, and whether they are Member State nationals or not.
The international community, including the European Union, has made moving statements about this.
But what can and must we, the European Union, the Commission, the Council and the Member States do to actually implement these paper tigers, these paper rights, these statements of principles?
My group, the Liberal group, is presently focusing its attention on nonEuropean Union nationals.
<P>
Firstly, as regards non-European women living in the European Union, I think it is essential that the Commission and the Member States pursue a much more active and much more accessible education and information policy on what their rights are.
These non-European women who live within the European Union must be actively supported in putting their rights into practice.
This means a ban on sexual mutilation in Europe and the enforcement of this ban, but it also means that they should receive the same treatment Member State women are entitled to, and that these rights should be asserted in all areas.
<P>
Secondly, in terms of the many millions of women outside the European Union whose human rights are being violated, Mrs Bonino, what would the Commission do without you?
I need say no more, we totally support your initiative. The women of Kabul are a metaphor for all countries in which human rights are violated.
International political pressure is needed, in particular towards the fundamentalist regimes, and, Mrs van Dijk, it is not just to do with clothes, that is too narrow a view, nor is it to do with the Koran, it is to do with the interpretation of the Koran.
<P>
The Commission, as Mrs Bonino pointed out, must use its powers much more consistently.
You would like to do so, but we would like the entire Commission to be permanently behind it.
This means consciously and critically putting to the test the human rights clause in the association agreements, and to draw the necessary conclusions from this.
The same goes for development cooperation.
Mrs Bonino would support this, but I would like the entire Commission to do the same.
I think Mrs Bonino could use a great deal of support from Parliament to turn fine words into practice, so that human rights are actively asserted, both in association agreements and in development cooperation, otherwise we will just keep on talking and no one will take the slightest notice of what we are saying.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sornosa Martínez">
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Leperre-Verrier">
Mr President, first of all I would like to say how pleased I am that after all these years Women's Day has taken on a real importance; this is an important step forward from some time ago.
Remember the half smiles, the scepticism, the derision with which it was greeted back then.
Have those working women won at last who, on a certain March 8, marked in history with their sweat and blood the day to day fight of women?
<P>
Unfortunately, despite obvious advances and considerable efforts, we note the inadequacy of the results so far which, in come cases, are the exact opposite of what we were hoping for.
Sadly, there is a long and familiar list of the ill-treatment to which women are subjected nowadays.
The European Union must continue to fight on a daily basis for the respect of the equality of rights, even within its own territory. This is why my group strongly supports the compromise resolution which has been presented today.
<P>
I think we ought to use Women's Day to place the emphasis on the fight of some women who are particularly in need of our active support.
Here I am referring especially to the women in Afghanistan.
In this respect, I would like to pay tribute to and thank you for the remarkable work which you, Commissioner, are leading on behalf of the women of this country to restore their fundamental rights.
I would also include Algerian women and their exemplary fight, and I do not want to forget the women of Kosovo, who came out into the streets yesterday to protest against the repression which they are suffering at present.
In addition, allow me this display of chauvinism in paying tribute to the Corsican women who rose up with courage and dignity against the terrorism which is still rife in that region.
There too, the women expressed the need for enlightenment, hope and freedom, which are as universal as human rights which, as everyone knows also encompass women's rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="President">
I have received six motions for a resolution pursuant to Rule 40(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Torres Marques">
Madam President, women are the victims of many forms of violence, either invisible and silent, through pressures, threats or dependence, or glaring forms of violation, aggression and total oppression.
There is an ever-present terror experienced by women when they witness violence inflicted on themselves, on their children and on the elderly, so often without even knowing why!
Their lives, and the lives of their loved ones, are constantly threatened, although they have never done anything to deserve it, and can do nothing to prevent it.
We must do all in our power to condemn this situation, and particularly what is happening to the women of Algeria, Afghanistan, and Timor, so distant and yet so close to our hearts.
We must be the voice of the women who have been denied the right to have a voice.
<P>
I asked Commissioner Emma Bonino to lend me the cloak that the Afghan women are forced to wear as they live their daily lives, so that everybody here may see with own eyes the nature of the prison in which women are forced to confine themselves.
Putting on this garment made more of an impact on me than any number of speeches.
I felt like a prisoner, isolated although surrounded by people, looking out onto the world through bars, able to see no further than my own feet, with barely enough air to breath, unable to move my arms far enough to write the words that I am reading to you, unable even to make the woman's natural gesture of picking up a child in her arms
<P>
We must cry aloud: free these women from this prison, from this torture, from this violence!
Our cry of alarm, our solidarity, our friendship must reach these women.
They must know that they are not alone.
They have been deprived of everything: the right to study and to teach, the right to health care, the right to a free and responsible job, the right to respect as individuals, the right to live freely and in peace, even the right to see and breathe freely.
No human being can remain silent in the presence of this inconceivable violence.
We certainly will not, and we will do all in our power to designate 1999 the year against violence towards women.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Thomas">
Madam President, human rights are the foundation of each national constitution and a major benefit for every man and woman.
Yet at the end of the 20th century, the distance between professed intention and reality is still great, despite all the successes achieved.
International Women's Day, which yesterday saw not only women take to the streets, but also a substantial number of men, including myself, has focused attention on Islamic fundamentalism.
<P>
The joint campaign launched by the European Parliament and the Commission 'A flower for the women in Kabul' condemns the reign of terror in Afghanistan, in which women - as we saw today - are robbed of their personal dignity and status.
They must wear veils.
Their view is limited by a guard of fabric, as if they were looking through a cage.
They have become second-class citizens who are no longer able to express themselves publicly, and Afghanistan was once a progressive country!
<P>
They are no longer allowed to practise their previous activities as doctors, teachers, members of parliament.
The Islamic regime has degraded women to second-class citizens.
You, Madam Commissioner, have experienced it first hand.
Our respect and all our sympathy goes out to you.
We will do our utmost to mobilize international publicity against the Taliban regime and conduct a sustained campaign.
<P>
Nor let us not forget today that the idea of equality has still to be realized in Europe.
A start has been made through the directive regulating the burden of proof in questions of discrimination, the new equality article in the Amsterdam Treaty and the Marshall judgement supporting women in promotion.
The advancement of self-assured women is unstoppable.
The support for women at the Luxembourg summit is a good basis for further integration in professional life, yet picking up a career after child-caring is still a vital problem.
Careers at management level are the exception, and we are miles away from equal payment for equal work.
<P>
Hence, 8 May is an incentive to implement the concept of main-streaming in all areas of society. If I had one wish, it would be that in May the flowers for the women in Kabul blossom in full view throughout the world, in both the western and the eastern hemispheres!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Eriksson">
Madam President, yesterday thousands of women and several hundred men, so I believe, were out in Sweden's towns and cities supporting the campaign 'A flower for the women of Kabul' in various different ways.
On the same day there were almost as many who lit candles for women who had died during the year either from injuries caused by or directly at the hands of men who claimed to be the people who loved them most in the world.
I therefore agree with Mrs Gröner and others who have said that we would convince both the women and the men in the EU that we must also carry out a campaign against violence against women in the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Lancker">
Madam President, I would also like to thank Mrs Bonino wholeheartedly for her work on behalf of the women in Kabul.
Not only has she finally put the spotlight on the women in Afghanistan, but she has given International Women's Day a new impetus, and made the women's movement stronger than before.
You said yourself, Madam Commissioner, that Afghanistan was a symbol of the suppression of women throughout the world.
So I presume you will not mind us expressing our particular sympathy towards the thousands of women in Algeria who for years have been the victims of barbaric rapes and massacres by the fundamentalist terror groups of the GIA.
These are religious fanatics, not ordinary Muslims, who, through the massacre of more than 80 000 people, including many women, children, and elderly people, want to do away with peace and democracy in Algeria once and for all.
<P>
Violence is indeed the instrument of fanatics, of terrorists, but let us not forget that this violence is thriving in a country where democracy has been suppressed for a long time and which suffers from extremely high unemployment and great poverty. It is a country where a large section of the population is not accorded any human rights, and I am referring here in particular to women, whose rights have been suppressed for years because, since 1984, Algeria has one of the most backward systems of family law.
It degrades women, treating them like creatures without rights, wholly governed by their men and guardians and, for that matter, it contravenes international conventions which Algeria has signed, but does not implement.
<P>
There is a very broad movement of women's organizations in Algeria which is pursuing a non-violent battle for peace, democracy, human rights - and women's rights - and which is therefore opposing this family law, with exceptional courage.
I hope we can count on you, too, Madam Commissioner, in this battle for Algeria, for Algerian women, for perseverance.
Barbaric violence can only be fought when democracy is supported.
But a democracy cannot exist without respect for human and women's rights.
I think we should give our full support to this women's movement in Algeria.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, Parliament has designated this Women's Day, on which particular attention is drawn to the situation of Afghan women.
We express our solidarity towards the victims of this particularly extreme manifestation of discrimination which lends full weight to the designation of this day and to the struggle that gives it meaning.
<P>
However, although nothing must be allowed to detract from this solidarity, it cannot overshadow the need to be fully aware that Women's Day originated as a result of the working hours of female textile workers in New York and that, closer to home, other particular gestures of solidarity are essential, as in Portugal, where abortion is made a factor of the party political struggle, to the detriment of the rights of women in defence of the perpetuation of a situation that is unacceptable in legal, health and moral terms, with the hypocritical justification of moral principles that are declared to be unassailable.
<P>
The defence of women's rights is a struggle to be waged by all, men and women, and in all areas.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Marinucci">
Madam President, 50 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, too often women's rights have still not been affirmed, are still not being applied and are still being violated.
More than three years since the approval of the Beijing action platform, should we be satisfied with the actions taken by the EU and its Member States with regard to European women and women throughout the world?
Unfortunately, no!
<P>
It is not the fault of this Parliament, nor that of the Commission, that the fourth action programme which, while including the Beijing guidelines, does not have a budget that is able to finance the many, necessary initiatives planned by the women's associations in our countries, often in vain.
In many countries, either the national action plans intended to make the Beijing platform into a national reality have not even been presented or the action has not followed the presentation.
<P>
The years go by and women continue to suffer various forms of violence, ranging from physical to sexual, including harassment at the place of work.
Violent practices connected with cultural and patriarchal traditions continue.
Discrimination continues over access to education, training and the world of employment, careers, access to justice, health services and playing a part in decisions.
It could be said that some of this discrimination concerns women in developed countries and some concerns those in developing countries, but that is not the case, because it all concerns all women on the whole planet, even if we should remember that those most affected are women from poor countries, countries with violent dictatorships and countries at war.
<P>
To this depressing view we should add phenomena we are already aware of, but which have become of enormous numerical and social significance, such as trading in women for sexual exploitation, and the greatest problem of all, unemployment.
There has been no shortage of initiatives and it is only fair to recall, as others have already done, the great undertaking made by Commissioner Emma Bonino, that has been made by the European Parliament and by national and international organizations, by women's associations in many countries, not only in the EU, in favour of Afghan women, as well as Commissioner Gradin's active undertaking against the trade in women for sexual exploitation, of which the victims are women in the southern hemisphere, but also European women and those from countries once oppressed by the Soviet Union.
<P>
Today, however, on the eve of the 80th anniversary of 8 March, we should tell ourselves, the Commission and the Council, that we need to do more to affirm and establish the principle that women's rights are the rights of human beings and should be interpreted, recognized and, at all costs, established as such.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Ainardi">
Madam President, during the course of this century important advances have been made for women's rights, but there still remains a great deal to be done as regards gaining complete and total equality and recognition of their place in our societies.
<P>
So, in many countries within the Union, they must fight against discrimination at work, disparity of salaries and tackle unemployment and the uncertainty of work, which affects them in particular.
They must also resist regular attempts to challenge the fundamental experience of controlling fertility.
<P>
I am delighted that demands for equality are on the agenda in France.
This could prove to be a lever to firmly establish the desire for full and unrestricted citizenship for women and their access to the full range of political responsibilities.
<P>
The plight of the women in Kabul has shocked us all, and I welcome the initiative which the Commission has taken on this.
Their situation provides a clear, if horrifying, illustration of the conception which the Muslim fundamentalists have of women.
And again it is Islamic fundamentalism which is responsible for the rape and murder of courageous Algerian women.
Unfortunately, the list of countries where women are looked down on and ill-treated is much longer than this.
<P>
It has been said that you can judge the degree of civilization by the situation of its women.
This gives us a measure of the fight which is still ahead, far beyond the symbolic day of 8 March.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Rojo">
Madam President, once again everything seems to be conspiring towards helplessness.
The institutions of the European Union are more and more coming to resemble some great machine carefully prepared to promote helplessness. Meanwhile, we in those institutions hypocritically split ourselves in two between our wishes, on the one hand, and the facts, on the other.
<P>
So, Madam President, remembering the case of Ana Orantes, the woman from Granada who was tragically burnt to death by her ex-husband, and in view of the scandalous statistics of male violence against women in my country, Spain, where there were 91 cases last year - far more than from ETA's violent acts of terrorism -, I wonder whether today's discrimination, today's hypocritical non-discrimination, is any better than yesterday's discrimination.
It is also hypocritical - ridiculous even - that even at this stage we are unable to recognize discrimination in terms of salary.
How is it possible that we can detect water on the moon, but cannot see that discrimination at work is tolerated and permitted in this hypocritical Europe, without us even acknowledging it?
We agree to it.
It is not allowed, but we prefer not to notice it.
<P>
Madam President, yesterday millions of women asked us to do something about it once and for all - to follow up our words with deeds.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="Banotti">
Madam President, before we finish the debate I should like to bring to the House's attention the many women whose children have been abducted to countries where these women have no rights whatsoever before the courts.
Many of them have lost their children for ever.
This is an ongoing human rights issue and I agree with Mrs Larive that when looking at our relationships with many of the countries to which these children have been abducted, we must regard this as being one of the essential human rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Sale of consumer goods and guarantees
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0029/98) by Mrs Kuhn, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the sale of consumer goods and associated guarantees (COM(95)0520 - C4-0455/96-96/0161(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Kuhn">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, where consumer goods are concerned, we have a single internal market.
In 2002 we will have the euro in the majority of EU states.
This will allow consumers to make price comparisons much more easily.
Teleshopping, cross-border mail ordering and Internet selling could all profit from this.
However, according to a survey, consumers generally have reservations about purchasing goods outside their own country because they fear problems, should a product be defective.
This fear is completely justified at present.
Within the European Union, not only does the statutory guarantee period vary in length, but the concept of a defective article is also defined differently.
Both the legal claims for remedying a defect and the terms for claiming on a guarantee are not standard.
<P>
The Commission has highlighted the differences between the Member States in its Green Paper 'Consumer Goods Guarantees and After-Sales Service' .
In a resolution on the Green Paper, the European Parliament has called on the Commission to produce a draft directive for the minimum harmonization of the statutory guarantee and for a legal framework for the commercial guarantee.
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten was the rapporteur at the time.
<P>
The proposal put forward by the Commission is to be welcomed from the consumers' point of view.
It provides for the minimum harmonization of individual state provisions for the statutory guarantee and greater transparency with the commercial guarantee.
This statutory guarantee should be for two years.
During the first year consumers can choose between four types of redress which they can assert with the vendor: free repair, replacement, reduction in purchase price or cancellation of contract.
In the second year, they have only the right to free repair or a price reduction.
<P>
As rapporteur, I have said from the outset that this freedom of consumer choice is too consumer-friendly and unreasonable for retailers or manufacturers.
Many consumers would not have defective products repaired, but instead choose an alternative product or cancel the transaction altogether.
The retailers would then be effectively sitting on virtually new, used goods, which would have to be sold as second-hand products.
Hence, both the advisory committees and the main committees are proposing a hierarchy for the two-year guarantee: free repair without depreciation, if sensible and feasible, a replacement if repair proves to be neither sensible nor feasible, and should both not be possible, cancellation of contract or reduction in purchase price.
<P>
This proposal should help to remove the serious reservations normally expressed by the retailers.
Therefore, false cost accounting should no longer end up with the elected representatives, as has happened again today.
With the greatest sympathy for certain representatives of industry, some of whom have even furnished us with a complete voting list - another novelty since presumably parliamentarians are not considered capable of independent thought -, the consumer has a right to a defect-free product.
You almost get the impression that defective products are the general rule.
<P>
The draft directive also applies to second-hand goods.
Automobile clubs have welcomed this.
The Committee, however, is proposing that buyers and vendors should be able to impose contractual restrictions on second-hand articles.
I have one other point: most Member States want second-hand goods to come under this directive because so far this has been the case under national law.
Affected parties have also criticized the fact that the manufacturer's public declarations are also included in the defect definition.
In my opinion, this is only right and proper since it is often the statements in advertisements that cause consumers to purchase a particular product.
<P>
The Commission's proposal assumes that any defect that occurs in the first six months after parting with the product must have been present at the time of sale.
This is only of limited application, however, if the vendor is able to prove the contrary.
Hence, the buyer may not, as is sometimes suggested, complain about his canvas shoes five months after buying them because these have since developed a flaw through wear.
Nor can I present the glaring crack in a new expensive vase that was there when I bought it as a fault some six months later.
<P>
I would ask critics of the directive to consider that, in contrast to the commercial guarantee, claims under the statutory guarantee can only be made if a lack of conformity with the contract was evident at the time the product was surrendered.
The same critics should also kindly consider that the internal market has brought suppliers great benefits, while the consumer still needs to make up for lost ground.
I am of the opinion that consumers have a right to expect that the statutory guarantee claims are not dependent on the country of purchase, but instead that they have the same minimum rights across the Union.
The directive should lead to a balanced relationship between suppliers and buyers because consumers in many Member States, including my own, are better placed through it and consumer confidence in cross-border purchases is enhanced.
In this sense, the proposed directive represents an important step towards increasing the level of consumer protection in the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Lehne">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I share in principle the opinion of the rapporteur, who has told us that this directive is basically pointing in the right direction.
It means that we will be able to coordinate an important area in the European Union, which is also crucial for the smooth-functioning of the single market.
I am thinking of the problems experienced in the area of cross-border traffic, where today a customer who lives in Germany, say, but would like to shop in the Netherlands or Belgium, is not so certain which rights he has as a purchaser in these countries.
To this extent, the directive is a genuine contribution towards achieving harmonization.
<P>
I do not wish to deny either that I am sympathetically disposed to the possibility that, through us now getting this European legislation, the debate surrounding the law of contract, which for some time has been dormant, will start up again, in my native country of Germany as well.
Nevertheless, I am of the opinion that this proposal which the Commission has made is unbalanced in a lot of aspects.
Hence it will require the necessary changes being made by this Parliament.
This particularly affects - Mrs Kuhn has said so - the question of maybe limiting the right of option.
<P>
Under the Commission's proposal, it is theoretically conceivable that, for example, a buyer might buy a car, drive around for months in it, clocking up some 50 000 km, park up and claim once there is damage to the engine, ' I'd like to have a new car, please.'
That would be unreasonable, without question, since such an expensive item normally should be repaired first.
<P>
Let's take a second, reverse scenario: I buy a hair dryer for 30 marks in a cut-price supermarket.
According to the wording of the directive, in theory the consumer could insist on the hair dryer being repaired eleven months later.
That would be absurd, too, because such cheap products are not repaired but replaced.
That is why I actually think this change in the right of option is crucial.
<P>
I also believe, and this is a proposal from my group, that we need to provide exemption clauses for the low-grade products sector as well and not just for second-hand goods.
I do not consider it prudent of us to create a directive at the end of which is the possibility that certain low-grade products might need to be raised so much in price in order to cover the risks incurred by the warranty.
Ultimately that would be a disadvantage for the consumer.
That is why we will also be requesting through an amendment that the low-grade products be included in the exemption provisions that allow this to be circumvented.
<P>
We have problems too with the manufacturer's liability decision made in the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
We refuse to go along with this as the Group of the European People's Party.
It failed to meet with support in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, too.
On the question of shifting the burden of proof, we have come up with a solution in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights that is better because it does not envisage the drastic ruling of the directive, from which there is no possibility of deviating, even in cases where injustice has occurred.
<P>
Against the background of the changes I have partly addressed - there are more amendments in the motions file - we are nevertheless of the principled opinion that this directive is heading in the right direction and therefore support in principle the Commission's proposal, albeit with the corrections which I have outlined and which proceed from our amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Whitehead">
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Madam President, I would like to start by thanking Mrs Kuhn wholeheartedly for the excellent way in which we have been able to arrive at a satisfactory result for this directive.
I hope that our cooperation will last until the vote on the first reading tomorrow, because our group sees major advantages in this directive.
The consumer will become a major player in the market.
This is necessary if we believe there should be an internal market which should ensure that the consumer is able to buy products throughout Europe, and that there should be a service attached to the products he buys.
<P>
Our group recognizes this, but when I say that the consumer should be a major player in the market, this does not mean that we should start laying the burden disproportionally on small and medium enterprises.
That is why we have tried to improve some aspects, in particular with the amendment to Article 3, Clause 4, where we are introducing a hierarchy in the way the consumer can claim or recover his losses when his agreement is broken.
I believe that with this hierarchy we have solved many of the problems for small and medium enterprises.
<P>
This means, and a journalist has asked about this, that with respect to the hierarchy, we have removed some rights from the original European Commission proposal.
But I can back this up, because it means that we have ensured that the ecological, energy-consuming, throw-away economy which we would end up with if people just took everything back, is removed from the draft in Amendment No 45.
I therefore believe that from an energy and environmental point of view, we have achieved something with this amendment, but that it is also good for small and medium enterprises.
<P>
It is a heavy burden for small and medium enterprises that when selling goods to consumers from abroad, they have to produce whole lists for the consumer in case they want to make a claim.
I therefore ask Mrs Kuhn if we could have another good look at the amendments on that front.
We would in any case advise you to vote against.
<P>
There is one problem: the trapped small retailer.
The trapped small retailer, who might be dependent on products delivered by the manufacturer in a faulty condition, or with faulty information, must be helped.
I think that, when the amendment to this section, Amendment No 31, is supported by this entire House, we will have a solution to these problems.
<P>
Reversal of the burden of proof.
The text as it is before us might pave the way to abuse, and I therefore think that the amendments submitted by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights is much better.
Mr Lehne has already mentioned this a short time ago.
<P>
Then there is the issue of the second hand market.
We would like our amendments to be taken over.
We would like second hand goods to be included in the directive, but in a reasonable form.
This means that when you pay a high price for a car, you should be able to get a guarantee.
An organization such as BOVAG in the Netherlands would concur with such a view.
Let expensive goods come under the scope of the directive, but allow for exceptions.
<P>
I have a few more amendments of which I would like to ask the Commission, Parliament and other groups to have a look at.
I am referring to Amendments Nos 6, 8, 9 - I am using the Dutch text - 22, 25, 28, 29, 34 - I just mentioned these, 35, 36, 37, and the new amendment replacing Amendment No 41.
If this can be arranged I believe we will have a decent text which will show us in a good light to small and medium enterprises, but also most definitely - because that is who it is intended for - to the consumer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Fitzsimons">
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Liberal Group is in favour of harmonized rules on after-sale guarantees, but is a little disillusioned with the Commission proposal, and for the following reasons. Firstly, for the time being the problem of the internal market will not have been completely resolved for the consumer.
<P>
Secondly, the proposal will lead to additional costs for shopkeepers, costs which are disproportionate to the protection of the consumer.
At the same time it could result in job losses in the labour intensive repair services sector.
<P>
Finally, it will cause more waste, and this while the Commission is working on a document on competition in the recycling sectors. In this document it apparently expresses its concern about the scrapheap of electronic equipment.
<P>
In order to arrive at a transparent and balanced piece of legislation, my liberal colleagues and I have drafted a few proposals, first and foremost with respect to means of redress.
My group cannot agree that a consumer, in the case of a fault in the purchased item, is given four means of redress. We therefore propose a hierarchy.
In the case of a fault the vendor is obliged to repair the product to full working order within a reasonable period.
How this is done is his business, as long as he guarantees that it is the quickest and most efficient method, and as long as the customer is satisfied.
If this fails, then the consumer has every right to demand a price reduction or the cancellation of the agreement.
<P>
Secondly, the consumer should be able to turn directly to the manufacturer in three instances, namely when the vendor is located abroad, has ceased trading, or when he cannot be reached.
I am referring to our Amendment 25 which was approved by a large majority in the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
<P>
Finally, we believe second hand goods should be excluded.
They do not belong in this directive.
We would like a clear and explicit exception for these goods, but do not rule out that they will be subjected to separate regulations at a later date.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, our group wants to work towards a clear and balanced text, which not only benefits the consumer, but also employment, business and the environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we welcome the draft directive from the Commission in so far as it envisages at least a two-year guarantee.
That is a step in the right direction, but it is not enough.
It would be an improvement for countries at the bottom end of the EU like the Federal Republic, which only provides for an extremely short warranty period of six months.
But what we want is actually a breakthrough to sustainability in production, and that is why five years would be better in our view.
We need to get away from the disposable product mentality and the short life of goods and move towards sustainable production.
<P>
Manufacturers and distributors should not be released from responsibility either.
I have absolutely no sympathy with all the whining and whingeing letters we receive from industry.
Industry is always telling us it is prepared to accept responsibility.
I think manufacturers and distributors need to be called to account.
<P>
We therefore need to stem the flood of rubbish and demand a longer life for products.
That is why we have introduced an amendment providing for a 5-year guarantee, so as to finally achieve this breakthrough to sustainability.
This also enjoys the support of Finland, by the way, which makes it clear that even in the Council of Ministers there is support for sustainability in production.
<P>
We want to see that both the average life and the rate of consumption of products is disclosed with the manufacture and use of the product.
It is quite clear to us that repair must come first.
We want to put an end to the wasting of resources and create an incentive for curtailing production of non-recyclable goods.
We believe that with this directive the European Parliament needs to come clean at the vote tomorrow as to just how serious it is about sustainability in production.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Madam President, most Member States already have some legislation on guarantee periods and consumer rights, but it varies considerably.
Now that goods are produced and consumed on an increasingly international scale it is high time we had harmonization and consumer protection.
We therefore support the drawing up of a European directive on after-sale guarantees.
Each time a product is found to be faulty, the question will arise: was it already faulty or did the user break it?
In practise it turns out that it is sometimes impossible to answer this question.
Sometimes the consumer will lie.
He knows he was responsible for the defect, but acts dumb.
In such circumstances should an extensive procedure be undertaken to establish proof?
A company will not want to do so if it concerns a relatively low-cost item.
Sometimes the fault was already present at the time of purchase, or occurred shortly afterwards through no fault of the consumer.
It is clear that an arrangement must be made to indemnify the consumer.
<P>
But the first case is of course the most difficult.
The report by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection clearly takes the side of the consumer when it comes to burden of proof.
He is not to blame.
This comes back to an imbalance in power between buyer and seller.
We back this choice.
It will occasionally lead to an increase in cost for the manufacturer.
But on the other hand a good reputation will benefit him, both with respect to the product and to his service.
Nothing is better advertised than the quick replacement of a product.
I am therefore not terribly impressed with the many letters from the business lobby saying that it will all be so expensive and that in the end the consumer will have to pay more.
The shopkeeper will need right of recourse which he can use to recover his costs from the manufacturer.
If the legal guarantee is used too often to make claims, then there must be something wrong with the product.
We can therefore support many of the amendments in the Kuhn report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Madam President, the draft directive before us is an example of how standardized, trans-European rulings can antagonize the people and shake their confidence in the Union.
Open borders and an open market demand uniform consumer protection guidelines.
This also applies to the buyer's statutory right to protection from defects in acquired products, in short to a standardization of warranty law.
<P>
However, if a proposal for a directive is presented, as it is here, where the periods within which the seller is liable for defects in his product are quadrupled - as in the case of Austria, for example - this is hardly indicative of great tact and sensitivity.
There is little fine feeling too in the arrangement planned for allowing the consumer a free option in the first year of warranty between repair, price reduction, rescission of contract and replacement.
<P>
It seems reasonable to suppose that, in the majority of cases, the buyer will prefer to receive a new product rather than have the old one repaired, a solution which, we believe, is neither economically nor ecologically sensible.
And if one brings the proposed change in the burden of proof into the equation, i.e. the supposition that the fault was already present at the time of purchase, this overall arrangement represents an increased burden on the small and medium-sized enterprises in particular, who would in no way be in a balanced position in relation to the improved consumer protection brought about by this change.
<P>
It is precisely in today's difficult employment situation that this additional imposition is not acceptable and will in the long term reduce the number of consumers protected.
We therefore share the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, of waiting for the study into the impact of this directive to come out, which has been commissioned due to the contentious nature of the subject matter.
There is no reason to be overhasty in approaching this issue.
It would do the cause more harm than good.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rothley">
Madam President, I do not have a script, just two observations.
There is no competence of the European Parliament for coordinating civil law.
There is no coordination taking place, as it happens.
Only minimum standards are being set down, i.e. we will probably be left legally with a patched-up job.
Where then is the coordination that might perhaps be still justified?
I do not believe, incidentally, that within the European Union of the single market there has ever been a cross-border purchase made or omitted simply because another warranty system operates in the other country.
That is an utterly ridiculous assumption.
<P>
One other word, on the shift in the burden of proof, since I cannot say more about the substance.
This has become something of a magic formula: ' shift in the burden of proof.' It is quite clear that we can do nothing to change the facts of the matter, namely that the one who asserts a claim has to prove the facts justifying the claim, and a reversal in the burden of proof can only come into it if the one making the claim has absolutely no access to the information justifying his claim.
Only then can shifting the burden of proof be considered.
This clearly is not the case here.
This shift in the burden of proof means that fundamentally the seller can never produce the proof.
He took his iron that was all packed up down from the shelf and gave it the customer - and then three months later he is expected to prove that this iron was in order.
Legally this is rather suspect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Thyssen">
Madam President, in the internal market the consumer is free to obtain products and services from other Member States, and he sees this as one of the biggest advantages of that internal market.
But an important obstacle stands in the way of his being able to enjoy this freedom fully, namely uncertainty about after-sale guarantees, and about what he can do when a product he bought turns out to have hidden defects.
<P>
I welcome a proposal for a directive to harmonize a number of things in this field.
It is also positive that this directive offers the consumer a high degree of protection.
But a degree of protection is not the same as absolute cover against a host of things at the expense of something similar.
Consumer rights must also be economically and legally justifiable.
Sadly, this balance is lacking in several places.
It is lacking where the Commission systematically gives the consumer complete freedom of choice as to the means of repairing a defect.
It is also lacking where there is resolute reversal of burden of proof.
I fully agree with the comment made by Mr Rothley on this issue; on both fronts it is necessary for some serious adjustments are made.
<P>
But unfortunately the lack of balance is reinforced by some of the amendments submitted by the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
I would mention only Amendments Nos 6 and 34 on the contact addresses in the other Member States.
In our group we are really amazed at the misjudgment of the economic and legal reality as far as distribution in the internal market is concerned.
But, if we think it is good we say so, too: Amendment No 31 receives our approval.
This amendment should prevent the seller, often a small or medium enterprise, being squashed between the devil and the deep blue sea, between a non-reducible liability towards the consumer on the one hand, and liability shifted onto him because of the supplier on the other.
We insist that the seller's right of recourse can be exercised effectively, and we would like to emphasize this as one of the essential conditions for our ultimate approval of this resolution.
Balance does not stand in the way of a high degree of consumer protection.
Let us use this notion as a starting point for consultation between the groups so that we will arrive at consensus.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk. (I-EDN)">
Madam President, let me first of all make it clear that I am not at all enthusiastic about this proposed directive, neither as presented by the Commission nor with the proposed modifications of the Environment Committee.
Even if the Environment Committee's policy document appears to improve on and clarify some points, there are nonetheless many uncertainties and problems remaining in relation to the consumer, the seller and the Danish legal tradition in the area of the Sale of Goods Act.
It is worrying when even someone who is not a lawyer is able to find several unclear formulations and other problems in the text.
What, for instance, is 'appropriate after-sales service' ?
Moreover, these proposals for a directive appear excessively intrusive as touching the Sale of Goods Act, which, indeed, lies at the heart of transactions.
We have vastly different trading cultures in the various nations of Europe and therefore, in my view, this is not an area that either can or should be legislated on.
Incidentally, the proposed directive does not solve the problems the consumer experiences with cross-border transactions.
There are huge gulfs separating consumers and sellers in different countries, both in terms of geography and in terms of language.
Therefore, it could be asked whether harmonization serves any purpose whatsoever and whether it will have any effect on this area.
I am, in fact, against the idea of harmonization for harmonization's sake.
<P>
Here and now I can only point out one single specific problem of the policy document, that is, the rights of the consumer in the case of defects or deficiencies.
The proposal of the Commission is completely unacceptable on this point.
It would be horrendously expensive if a large number of consumers required agreements to be waived when not strictly necessary.
And at the end of the day, these costs will have to be borne by the consumer.
Moreover, this is also completely untenable from an environmental point of view.
Conversely, the proposals of the Environment Committee are unacceptable from the consumer's point of view.
We are really talking about a right to repair and replace for the seller without taking into consideration whether this is a great inconvenience to the consumer.
As a minimum requirement, the consumer must be given a choice where there are recurring defects, and the consumer should under all circumstances be allowed to opt for replacement rather than repair.
Therefore, this motion should be rejected in order to allow us to achieve a reasonable sharing of the burden between consumer and seller.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Bonino">
Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, following the Green Paper published in November 1993, on 18 June 1996 the Commission adopted the draft Directive on the sale and guarantees of consumer goods.
<P>
The draft Directive seeks to guarantee for the consumer a minimum common basis of rights that may be exercised under identical conditions, irrespective of the place of purchase of the goods in the EU.
This is simply to enable consumers and economic operators to make full use of the benefits of the single market and to guarantee a high level of protection of consumers' economic interests.
It is somewhat surprising, by the way, to me at least, to note in this debate how consumers are regarded as irresponsible or incapable of understanding what something reasonable is, or of being consumers, i.e. citizens who, as described here, should benefit or want to benefit from knowing what's what.
<P>
If we want to talk of a balance between industry and consumers, frankly I would not want to waste more time explaining to this House where the balance lies between the producer or the seller and the consumers.
Without any desire to always want to regulate everything, we are simply talking about establishing minimum rights for European citizens and consumers, equal for everyone, irrespective of the place where the consumer goods in question were bought.
<P>
In November 1996, the Economic and Social Committee gave a favourable opinion of this proposal.
However, I have heard references to high costs echo in this Chamber.
You are familiar with the final report on the study which the Commission has begun on the economic impact of this proposal, which has been forwarded to the Parliament in its provisional and final versions: you can all see that these costs are not so huge.
However, the Commission would like to point out that the consumer's trust is of value to the seller, and is specifically of value in a competitive market, so this value probably merits investment in some cases.
<P>
With regard to the amendments being discussed and voted on, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Kuhn, for her work, because I believe it is thanks to her work that the Commission can accept many of the amendments drawn up by her.
To be more precise, the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 7, 8, 9, 11, 14, 15, 17, 19, 20, 21, 23 and, if Amendment No 46 is not accepted, No 29; it also accepts Amendments Nos 30, 32, 35, 36, 37, 38, 42 and 45 and Amendment No 46 as an alternative to Amendment No 29, as I said earlier.
<P>
Amendments Nos 12, 16 and 40 will be accepted provided there are amendments to the wording, while Amendment No 33, in the Commission's opinion, requires a fundamental change.
With regard to Amendments Nos 41 and 54, the Commission accepts their logic and accepts them provided there are a few amendments to the wording.
<P>
Finally, Amendments Nos 2, 13, 24, 26, 31 and 41 will be partially accepted.
<P>
I would now like to make a few comments on Amendment No 45, which seems to me to be the key factor in this debate, to emphasize the importance the Commission attributes to the possibility of giving the consumer a choice at two different levels in the hierarchical scale, enabling him to apply these rights: it seems essential to us that this choice should not be with the seller failing to observe the contractual obligation to provide goods as stipulated in the contract, but rather with the consumer.
For example, if I bought a camera for a trip and I find there is something wrong with it three days before the trip, there is no point the seller repairing it if the repair will take three weeks; in this case, it seems logical to me to demand a replacement before leaving.
The same applies to a whole series of other examples we can give.
<P>
The British Presidency intends to reach a political agreement at the end of the "Consumers' Council on 23 April.
The Commission, for its part, will endeavour to present an amended proposal to the European Parliament and the Council on the basis of Parliament's amendments, according to the procedure I have just described.
Finally, I hope that this legislation, which I consider important, will make fast progress to enable the European Commission to establish a key aspect of the single market and consumer protection.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="President">
That concludes the debate.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Green Paper on food law
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0009/98) by Mrs Graenitz, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the Commission Green Paper on the general principles of food law in the European Union (COM(97)0176-C4-0213/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Graenitz">
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Green Paper on the general principles behind food legislation in the European Union has, after lengthy discussion, been presented at a point in time which is marked by changes in the organizational structure of the Commission's services and in the economic debate.
This became clear not only from the lengthy discussion I mentioned, within the Directorate-General concerned, but also through the fact that, whilst in the original version of the Green Paper the prime aim of legislation was formulated as being the free movement of goods within the single market, priority was given to safeguarding health and to food safety following the submission of the report from the BSE committee of inquiry and the assurances given in this regard by the Commission President, Mr Santer.
<P>
The priority of health protection is something that has greatly shaped our debate on food law from this time on.
The principle is self-evident - for the European Parliament, for the other parliaments, in fact for every individual: each item of food legislation should guarantee that the permitted foodstuffs, including all additives and methods of production, are consistent with good health.
This is a sine qua non, and it would seem unnecessary to keep stressing it.
<P>
Yet the events of the last two years have shown just how much the market relies on consumer confidence and how dangerous, and ultimately expensive, it is for all concerned to permit lax standards in food safety.
Equivalence of procedure is easier to verify and calculate in the mechanical and technical field than it is when dealing with organic materials.
So it is in this context I think that Parliament -we will be having a further debate on this area tomorrow -welcomes the amendments to Articles 129 and 129a adopted in Amsterdam, and I hope that ratification by the national parliaments will take place in a short while.
<P>
We all know that perfecting the single market requires clear, plain legislation, where compliance can be suitably monitored.
Not only your rapporteur, but the majority of Member States and very many of those who have commented on the Commission's Green Paper, are of the opinion that a framework directive on food law would be the very way to create concise legislation and a clear framework, and thereby adapt, if necessary, existing legislation, removing or coordinating overlapping or conflicting sections and to design the legislation in such a way that consumers and producers alike enjoy stability of the law and know how to proceed in which circumstances.
<P>
Such a framework directive for foodstuffs should, of course, mirror the legislation on hygiene so that it is clear exactly which hygiene belongs to which food legislation in a particular area.
I think that the submission of a framework directive may be the very thing the Commission has in mind in the foreseeable future.
I believe there is already some work in progress, and I think that there should be no need to wait here for further findings and deliberations or for additional reports to be submitted by the Commission.
<P>
I also consider it necessary in this context to come up with an arrangement as to how vitamins are added to foodstuffs and this has then to be labelled, and - as the Commission proposes and can then be adopted by Parliament -how one should deal with health claims, that is to say claims regarding the effect on health of certain foodstuffs.
<P>
A very important area is the HACCP.
I think this area, which has not yet been universally recognized in terms of its significance and effectiveness, should be investigated further and that a lot of assistance needs to be provided, especially for small and medium-sized firms, chiefly agricultural enterprises.
I believe that this would be a lot easier if consumers were involved.
<P>
Where consumers are concerned, information is the most important aspect.
Here it is a question of giving the consumers clear and easy-to-understand labels and information on the food.
Proceeding from the labelling, more information can be provided through other media, perhaps on the basis of voluntary arrangements too, because it is apparent to everyone that labelling has its limits.
<P>
The area is very broad, and I do not have the time in my six minutes to refer to all its significance in detail, what sort of economic relevance it has and how important the question is in connection with the World Trade Organization and the Codex Alimentarius.
I also think it necessary to continue to discuss, albeit through a further report, how a food and health policy can be promoted by the Commission as part of an overall nutrition policy and general health education.
<P>
Finally, I would like to voice my conviction that legislation should contain a clear declaration of preventive consumer protection, that this would be the political dimension to strengthening consumer confidence in the single food market and that food safety is definitely necessary as a counter-balance to the economic dimension and internal dynamics of the single market in the food sector.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Hardstaff">
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Whitehead">
Mr President, on this very day the Phillips inquiry into BSE and its relation with CJD opens in London, in my country.
It is a great tribute to Mrs Graenitz that she has brought these clear and lucid proposals before Parliament at a time when we are reminded of the dark side of food production in the BSE tragedy, and also of the high hopes that we had after the Treaty of Amsterdam was passed, that we would take an entirely new view of our responsibilities for health and safety in the food field.
It is in the spirit of Amsterdam, Commissioner, that we are all addressing you today.
<P>
The progress of this Green Paper through the European Parliament has been accompanied by detailed conferences and major debates.
I think it is timely that we now hear the view of the Commission.
<P>
There are just two or three points that I would make, briefly, from the consumer point of view of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
<P>
Firstly, we want the Commission to state here that there will be a framework directive on food and to tell us what the timetable for that directive would be.
We support - and hope to hear a robust view on this from the Commission - the notion that primary products should be included in any product liability directive.
Whilst I hear what my colleague, Mrs Hardstaff, has said, we hope that our colleagues in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development will listen to what we say about the need to encourage consumer confidence in foodstuffs, which is also in the interests of the primary producers themselves.
<P>
We also wish to see the consumer voice integrated into European Union policy-making procedures.
In the wake of BSE, DG XXIV was given a significant role in the whole area of food policy.
But we still see the agriculture and industry directorate taking the predominant role.
We do not for a moment question that all these directorates have their own responsibilities, but we would ask Commissioner Bangemann and his colleagues to tell us that the consumer voice and the consumer interest should always be taken into account - formally so - when legislation concerning food and food safety is before the Commission and this Parliament.
<P>
My last point is on labelling.
We had a great march of the farmers a couple of weeks ago in London.
But the petition that was handed in to Downing Street this week, bearing a million signatures, referred to the need for proper food labelling, which can counteract the misleading claims that are often made.
We believe that the labelling provisions currently buried in myriad different directives need to be drawn out and brought together if we are to have a proper and effective control of this area.
We have to sustain the European Union as a major food producer and a major exporter. The best way we can do that is by setting standards that can command the admiration of the whole world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are all delighted with the Green Paper and all of us sitting here would wish to have - and we would also like to hear this from the Commissioner -a framework directive.
Please allow me to say that the present report can be judged very positively.
I, too, would like to congratulate Mrs Graenitz on it, though I would also like to clarify one particular point of her report, namely paragraph 59, in which Directive 79/112/EEC is addressed.
<P>
The European Commission envisages in its proposal to amend this directive that the Advisory Committee on Wine of the European Commission will be responsible for determining appropriate labelling requirements for wine, and not the food committee permanently set up by the directive.
In its first draft, the Economic and Social Committee still intended the food committee to be responsible for the labelling.
In its final opinion, the ESC comes out in favour of the Commission's proposal.
Parliament too declares itself in favour of the Commission's proposal in a draft opinion.
<P>
Please allow me to state at this point that beside the practical reasons for a special approach to the labelling of wine and wine products -where all wine producers and all wine-producing regions are of a like mind -there are many arguments in law in favour of the Commission's proposal.
And I would not want the opposite view to arise through any misunderstanding in the present report.
<P>
In March 1997 the Legal Service delivered an opinion on the legal base for the proposed regulation introducing a system of labelling and registering of cattle and for identifying beef.
The issue centred on whether Article 43 of the EC Treaty (agricultural policy) or Article 100a (Single Market) applied as a legal base.
The report concluded from reference to numerous judgments of the European Court of Justice that Article 43 of the EC Treaty is the correct legal base.
<P>
Legal instruments on the production and marketing of the agricultural products specified in Appendix II of the Treaty may contain provisions for the harmonization of the national regulations without Article 100 or Article 100a of the EC Treaty being referred to.
In pursuing the aims of the common agricultural policy, the demands of the general interest, such as consumer protection or the safeguarding of the health and life of man and animals, should not be overlooked.
Health protection should be regarded as being paramount with any agricultural measure.
Hence we have the European Court's embargo on British beef.
<P>
Because of the reservations I have cited, the respective market organization provisions and the procedures contained therein should be adhered to where the more detailed labelling requirements for additives in wine are concerned.
I can only hope that a majority of this House shares my view, and I would not want this report to give a false lead in any way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Mr President, after thirty years of food law harmonization, the European Commission quite rightly wants to start a debate on "whither now' , by means of a Green Paper.
Does the present legal situation surrounding food law still meet the needs of today?
In view of the BSE crisis in the United Kingdom and the outbreak of swine fever in my own country, the Netherlands, this is very much a relevant question.
The Graenitz report is a serious attempt at giving the debate more substance.
More attention must be paid to labelling, and consumer confidence will increase as a result of the farm-totable approach, which means that complete information on production methods must be given.
It is also important that the issue of liability is developed further; a proposal for this is ready and waiting at the European Commission.
Attention is quite rightly drawn to the provisions made by World Trade Organization, the Codex Alimentarius, although this should not lead to lower levels of food protection.
<P>
The report is also about transparency.
Of course it is essential that results and proposals made by special forums and scientific committees can be monitored, but the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party is against the proposal of a forum to monitor the conversion and implementation of Community regulations which includes Members of the European Parliament.
The European Parliament has a different responsibility, and should not get involved in such a forum.
After all, by not being represented on such a forum, the European Parliament's independent position is guaranteed.
That is why we oppose the last sentence of paragraph 18 of the report, and this we already made clear by way of preparation in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, despite that one reservation, I would like to express, on behalf of my group, our support for the Graenitz report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, very briefly I should like firstly to thank the rapporteur, and secondly to welcome this proposal for a Green Paper. It has opened up a debate which is necessary for two reasons: firstly because of the results of the committee of inquiry into BSE - and also the follow-up committee -, but most of all, because of Agenda 2000 and the common agricultural policy reform.
<P>
So we need to know the results of this debate and put them into effect.

Nevertheless, I think there are already some clear ideas, which are included in Mrs Graenitz' report.
Examples include: the need for clear, transparent labelling, especially for new products and foods; secondly, the consumers' organizations should have a clear role in this debate; thirdly, we need a very clear idea of what Community law should consist of as regards food, given that at the moment there are so many regulations, sometimes contradictory - as in other sectors -, which need to be simplified and clarified; and lastly, we have to welcome the relative speed with which the Commission has implemented the new scientific committees and the new type of inspection.
<P>
Only experience will tell whether these measures are effective, but the work of the scientific committees will need to be clear and transparent, and they must also have a clear agenda for each of their sessions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lannoye">
<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, I am speaking in place of Mrs Barthet-Mayer who was due to make this speech but is unable to for health reasons.
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to read her speech to you.
<P>
I would like to congratulate Mrs Graenitz on her hard work on this report.
In fact, by publishing the Green Paper, the Commission officially recognizes the huge shortcomings in the Community food system.
Although the Union has a strong agricultural policy, its policy on food remains to be defined.
Over and above what appears to no more than anecdotal, there are real economic, political and public health issues at stake.
The presence of hormones in beef, the fat content of chocolate, the consumption of cheese made from milk straight from the cow, the use of genetically modified seed, all these are not insignificant questions for the public, their elected representatives, the producers and especially for the legislators.
<P>
The main difficulty lies in the actual definition of security and quality, for without a common definition there can be no harmonization.
What criteria do we use, which scientific basis is our point of reference?
How do we make allowances for the irrational or the emotional?
Where do cultural differences stop and protectionist manoeuvring or commercial opportunism start?
<P>
The Commission is proposing to sort out the multitude of regulations and directives which deal directly or indirectly with food.
This is absolutely necessary, for at the moment it seems that, without having succeeded in defining a real food policy, the Union has drawn up too much legislation, which paradoxically has not resulted in better harmonization.
So we can only welcome this initiative in the more general context of efforts undertaken to guarantee food safety.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valverde López">
Mr President, the Commission's Green Paper should have been used to present an in-depth critical analysis of the situation, but all it does is describe the problems.
They are all presented at some length, but none of them is examined in any depth.
This is in direct contrast to the reality of the situation we are all experiencing day by day.
<P>
Public opinion still has no faith in the Commission's ability to exercise control.
The European Parliament has not been given reliable answers to the many criticisms it has raised during the past few months. Even international bodies such as the World Health Organization have expressed great concern and alarm at the risk of the spread of epizootic disease within the European Union, because of the lack of an effective coordination system at local, regional, national and Union-wide levels.
<P>
Faced with this social alarm among the citizens of Europe, the European Commission has failed to offer a guarantee of food safety.
It has even withdrawn its proposal to create a food safety agency, to this House's surprise. All it has done is implement an administrative reorganization - which will not achieve anything - and increase the number of scientific committees which, unless they are co-ordinated, given muscle, and balanced one against another, will not be at all effective either.
<P>
We still think there is a need to set up a European food safety agency, and to coordinate and stimulate the great potential of the Member States as regards scientific ability and, of course, inspection. We must not forget that more than 45 000 inspectors throughout Europe are a great deal more than the small handful of inspectors which can be created from scratch, and would be much more efficient.
What we need is to create high-level inspection, and boost the abilities of the Member States, because that will increase consumer confidence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Olsson">
Mr President, the European consumer needs to have increased confidence in food, not least after the BSE crisis.
In this context I would like to congratulate Mrs Graenitz on a good report which raises many issues, perhaps even too many sometimes.
<P>
However, there is one thing I do not agree with: Amendment No 28.
We must have food production which means that there are no residues of chemicals or medicines, for example, in our food.
However, we must also have food production and a production system which means that we do not handle foods in the wrong way during production.
On this point there is a mistake concerning the use of antibiotics as growth stimulants in our food, not because there is any problem with the food, but because it means that antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria will also become a problem for human health.
This should therefore be added to the text.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, I would like to ask a rhetorical question. How do you explain a situation in which ECU 1.5 billion worth of animal hormones are sold in the EU every year, although their use is prohibited?
I will provide an answer to my own question: an insatiable thirst for profit.
<P>
We were once in a position to avoid animal and plant disease through border controls, preventing the importation of vermin and pests.
In our common market we are at the mercy of others, and Mrs Graenitz' observations are mostly quite justified.
I do wonder a little at the attitude of the European National Party when it intends to revise and thus weaken them.
In Holland and other countries the original nature of national identity is being stripped away in the name of chicken and pig feed.
We possibly need antibiotics for the prevention of salmonella and other diseases.
<P>
And how can we explain away the fact that genetically altered maize, soya and other natural produce may be used in the production of food without notifying consumers?
The same goes for irradiated food. Choice means being able to make conscious choices.
The Green Paper is not enough.
We must dare to face up to the reality of the matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gahrton">
Mr President, a major problem with the EU's food legislation is that from the beginning it was not actually aimed at producing better food, but at guaranteeing free movement of food products.
Mrs Graenitz has a completely different approach, a consumer-friendly approach, which is quite admirable, but she has not dealt properly with the question of the extent to which harmonization for the purpose of securing the Single Market is perhaps not always such a good method for bringing about the highest possible food standards.
<P>
As an Austrian, she knows that this has created problems for the newest Member States.
For example, because of EU rules, Sweden has already been forced to permit banned feed additives, relax controls against salmonella and relax labelling requirements, especially with regard to allergy risks. And we now risk being forced to permit irradiation of food and the use of antibiotics.
<P>
If instead we had made use of minimum standards , giving the Member States complete freedom to go further, developments could have been aimed more unequivocally at promoting good food quality.
I would therefore like to put the following question to Commissioner Bonino: would it not be a good idea if the Commission concentrated more on minimum standards which raised levels everywhere, but which did not prevent some countries from going further? Would that not be better than total harmonization, which is fundamentally a commercial rule aimed at promoting commercial interests, not food quality?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schnellhardt">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all congratulations to Mrs Graenitz.
She has handled an extremely wide-reaching area very well, because it is clear that food law in the European Union has gained considerably in importance with the realization of the Single Market and the pursuit of an active consumer policy.
In view of the large number of regulations and amended provisions, as in relation to BSE, to say nothing of changed expectations, we cannot avoid thinking about simplifying and rationalizing food law, of reviewing the existing provisions.
<P>
Certain basic aims, I think, need to be taken as the starting point of the discussion.
All foods must be guaranteed to be both safe and harmless.
The consumers must be able to rely on foods being safe and harmless, and do so in the full knowledge that the diversity and quality of foods in the European regions has been preserved. This involves both a healthy and competitive agriculture and food industry.
<P>
A few points about the key words 'simplification' and 'rationalization'.
It should be the obvious aim of European policy -and we have been fighting for this for some time now - to make European law clearer and easier to understand.
Inconsistencies need to be eliminated, and above all the comprehensibility of the legal text needs to be improved in the interest of consumers.
<P>
It is also a question of greater transparency for the citizen.
This is not anything new, but in the area of food law the creation of confidence is vital for people.
They need to understand what they read.
Hence a framework food directive is necessary here, which includes both a unified definition of central concepts and the regulation of the general principles governing food law in one outline text.
<P>
Let me quote a second example: the directive on the labelling of food has been in existence since 1979 and has been amended six times since then.
In addition, there is a wealth of special provisions that make reference to the labelling of individual foods, such as wine, fresh fruit and chocolate.
The subject of wine has already been addressed today, and I must say to you quite simply, Commissioner, that we are striving for another position to Mrs Flemming's, who is no longer here incidentally.
I do not find it proper that a Member of Parliament should not claim their vested right to codecision in this matter.
I think we need to agree that codecision applies to wine every bit as much as to chocolate and fruit.
That is the way to make progress.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, I would first like to thank not only the rapporteur, but also everyone who has taken part in the debate, because it is clear from the general tenor that Parliament is thinking along the same lines as the Commission.
<P>
We have 150 opinions on the Green Paper before us.
We want to summarize our own opinion on this in a statement before the summer.
That is all I can say on the timetable.
We agree with Parliament that we should present a framework directive, but I cannot say when.
It all sounds very nice to demand that such a framework directive should include a general definition of the various terms and so on, but that is precisely where the problem lies.
We obviously need to proceed with caution when doing something like this.
We need to ensure we make it clear, too, where individual provisions need to be amended.
That is to say, I cannot tell you exactly when we will do this; we will do it as quickly as we possibly can.
<P>
Certainly, we want to implement a clear overall concept.
The framework directive is part of this process.
It is quite clear to us that this tangle that has arisen needs to be removed and that the recent deliberations on consumer and health protection need to be taken into account more than they have been in the past.
<P>
It might not be our intention to depart from our successful horizontal regulations, because these are good for innovation and encourage consumer choice.
Yet there is to be no conflict with quality assurance requirements either.
Here you find, I hope, the common interest of consumers and producers alike, especially agricultural producers.
We have already made it clear on various occasions that European industry is essentially competitive through the quality of its products, and agriculture should be the same.
There should be no unnecessary inconsistencies.
If the aim is to ultimately arrange things legally, then you can bet we will fall out over this.
It is always funny to observe how someone who wishes to defend their particular little interest quickly sets up a committee for the purpose, which no-one can look into.
Things really should not be this way.
<P>
Simplification is a very important goal we are pursuing, as is transparency.
We will probably be able to rescue ourselves from the dilemma that has so far existed with a series of modern information options.
The more transparent and comprehensive information you wish to give a consumer, the more the labelling overlooks the consumer's interest in having simple, clear and easy-to-understand rules.
That is the dilemma in which we find ourselves, so to speak.
<P>
Since today, in the age of the information society, we have very easily accessible information facilities at our disposal, you could imagine that labelling should include the most important information and actually go into detail if particular consumer interests need to be taken into account. However, the great mass of information needs to be available in other ways or else we would run the risk of the labelling not being looked at all.
<P>
As regards genetically modified organisms, I said months ago that, if we take this as far as certain sections of Parliament envisage, then practically 90 % of all foodstuffs will have to carry an appropriate label.
I recently heard - to my amazement as well as to my satisfaction -the same opinion expressed, if I am not mistaken, by a German member of the Green group, who said: well, if 90 % is labelled, what significance does that have for the consumer?
<P>
I have always made a point of saying this too at conferences we have held and I hope we will be able to agree on what is really in the interest of the consumer and what does not amount to simply translating quasi-religious convictions into practice.
I would like to note on the question of food control that we want to build up our own team of inspectors and begin training European veterinary and foodstuff controllers.
It goes without saying that inspectors from the Member States can be included in this too.
<P>
I think those are the main points.
I have just another brief comment on the foreign trade aspect.
There are two reasons why we share Parliament's view that we need to be careful here.
Firstly, the proposals for the legal provisions will obviously need to bear in mind the international obligations.
There is no other alternative.
If we are a member of an international rights community, then we must stay with it.
We cannot take our leave when it suits us.
<P>
Secondly, we should try to implement the things we believe to be right at international level and actively collaborate on the work programme of the Codex Alimentarius and the World Trade Organization, instead of simply reacting defensively towards them.
We have been actively involved in this sense in trying to get other legitimate factors, besides the scientific findings, included in the elaboration of food standards within the framework of the Codex, because, as we have all bitterly experienced, scientific findings merely epitomize the state of knowledge at a particular point in time and become dated at another.
That is to say, it is possible to do more for the consumer in terms of prevention.
And this is precisely what we wish to do!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken at 12.00 noon tomorrow.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Decentralized Community institutions
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Kellett-Bowman">
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Tappin">
Mr President, I also take this opportunity to thank not only my friend Mr Kellett-Bowman, the rapporteur for the Committee on Budgetary Control, for his excellent report and also for the great support he has given me as draftsman for the Committee on Budgets but also to Mr Mingasson and his team for the very positive approach they have adopted in this matter.
<P>
The background to this report goes back several years when both the Committee on Budgets and Committee on Budgetary Control were concerned about the lack of clarity in the founding regulations of the nine satellite agencies with reference to own resources, financial control and discharge.
The report you have before you is the culmination of two or three years' work behind the scenes by Mr Kellett-Bowman, myself and the Commission to bring forward a document which will harmonize the regulations for the satellite agencies.
<P>
We have had a number of disagreements on the subject but at the end of the day, while I could wish for some tightening of the proposals in certain cases, on the whole I feel that we have achieved a reasonable workable compromise.
The work carried out by the agencies of the European Union which currently employ over 1 000 people is of great importance.
They were set up by the European Union for a specific purpose.
In fact, it is clear that although these bodies have legal personality, they would have no existence if they were not required to serve the EU and its citizens.
<P>
So, it is necessary that they are able to carry out their tasks efficiently and with all the independence of action required to make the sort of operational decisions necessary to complete their assigned work programme.
Equally, because they are not independent commercial organizations but part of a public corpus, they must be held accountable and responsible to the public through democratic and transparent processes.
That is why this report has come about. It is to increase the levels of transparency, accountability and efficiency of the decentralized satellite agencies.
<P>
It is not efficient to have a hotchpotch of different organizations and it is not accountable to have half a dozen different types of accounting, report-back systems and discharge processes.
We also wanted to improve partnership relations between the decentralized bodies of the EU and those at its heart.
Our research has shown that these agencies do not need more controls. They, in fact, need fewer but more efficient ones.
I shall concentrate on the own-resources part of the report since the discharge and financial control aspects have been covered excellently by Mr Kellett-Bowman both in his speech and in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
<P>
Despite the scare stories generated by one agency, what we are proposing is that self-generated resources - the own-resources component - which are surplus to requirements of that year's budget, after the needs of the reserve to cover the obligations of the coming year have been taken into consideration, and fully respecting the fact that fees shall quite rightly be renegotiated as a matter of course, shall be returned to the European Union budget.
This should be done in line with the Financial Regulations which apply to all other generated resources.
It does not indicate that Parliament intends to turn for example the Trademarks Agency or any other agency into a milch cow for the European Union, as Mr Kellett-Bowman has said.
Nor do we intend to make the ordinary business of those who wish to register an EU trademark subsidize singlehandedly the common agricultural policy or the enlargement of the Union.
Such stories are irresponsible.
<P>
But what is also irresponsible is the commitment of one agency in Alicante to purchase an ECU 24 million building without properly informing either the budgetary authority or the Commission, which have responsibility for it, or without making any mention of that project in the budget estimates passed by the Commission and Parliament.
If ever there was a case for mandatory transparency and accountability, I have to say that the director and the management board, including the Commission representatives, of the Alicante Agency have made it admirably.
<P>
If this or any other EU agency ceases to be able to fund itself, there is no question that, according to the current regulations, the EU must have a responsibility for the bodies we establish, just as they have a responsibility to the institutions of the Union.
<P>
We do not set up monopoly businesses and turn them loose to stand or fall.
This report is about safeguarding those responsibilities.
I urge the House to support it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Tillich">
Mr President, the agency is a matter for the initiated.
That is why I would like to congratulate Mr Kellett-Bowman and Mr Tappin on their report, for the agencies are indeed something for specialists particularly from a budgetary point of view.
As general rapporteur for the 1998 budget, I had the pleasure of gaining an insight into the activities of the agencies.
<P>
I would like to report on this. We had a meeting with the agency director in March of last year.
We reached agreements on the needs of these agencies in the 1997 budget and the 1998 budget, and we discussed the problems already mentioned here.
We agreed on working together and developing the greatest possible transparency in order to create trust between the agencies and the section of the budgetary authority representing Parliament.
<P>
Today I have to say that the majority have adhered to this, but some have not.
The translation centre, for example, decided to increase its staff from 68 to 115, while Alicante - Mr Tappin has just spoken about this - and London quickly allocated ECU 300 000 from surplus income before the end of the budget year so as not to have to justify this in principle to the budgetary authority.
<P>
Those are actions in themselves, which perhaps have their own reasons, but to take action without informing the budgetary authority is the surest way to generate mistrust.
I consider Amendment No 1 in the Kellett-Bowman report to be the key element for the agencies in London and Alicante and for the Trademarks Agency.
Here both the Commission and the Council should take the position of the European Parliament very seriously.
<P>
For three years we have constantly decided in the budgetary procedure on zero growth for the staff of the Commission, as well as the other European institutions.
Where the agencies are concerned, there has been an average annual growth of 17 % in staff.
I ask myself whether this is an honest or dishonest game the Commission and the Commissioners responsible are playing, or have the agencies already escaped control here if such abuses are able to occur?
<P>
The Group of the European People's Party will not tolerate the EP being deprived of its rights through the formation of agencies and all that comes with it.
I am not bothered about the work of the agencies; observing the Financial Regulations and respecting the budgetary authority is what concerns me.
We cannot fight for the full democratic control of budgetary expenditure in the European Union, whilst the agencies continue to evade the Financial Regulations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the financial control of the activities of the decentralized Community agencies was simple when there was only a few agencies and they managed activities which had limited impact and small budgets.
But the situation is very different today.
There are now many more decentralized agencies which meet much more widespread needs.
The difficulty in terms of financial control is that of organizing this diversity in order to arrive at a standard method which is simple and efficient.
<P>
Mr Kellett-Bowman has proposed to include in one report the eleven discharge procedures which cover simultaneously the three agencies which are not financed by the European Union budget, but from financial resources resulting from their own activities, and the eight other agencies which are not self-financing.
Basically, we want common standards applied to all Community agencies in terms of financial control, and to offer similar guarantees in terms of the legal and administrative management of credits.
<P>
The proposal by the European Commission responds to this concern.
However, the rapporteur proposes an approach which is more pragmatic and efficient in order to avoid the delays in unfreezing credit and payment commitments caused by the waiting period required for the approval of DG XX in Brussels.
The rapporteur's solution has the advantage of side-stepping the pitfalls both of financial management which is too centralist and which could lead to freezing or at least blocking of the activities of the Community agencies, and a dispersal of financial control under the pretext of autonomy, running the risk of an upward drift in the use of public funds.
<P>
The law must adapt to reality, and it is essential to give agencies which are undergoing full expansion the means to develop.
I will quote only one example, that of the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market in Alicante which has been hugely successful and whose achievements are generally greater than expected.
Experts were expecting an annual volume of 15 000 registered trademarks in 1996.
It received 40 000.
Currently, the office publishes 1 000 registered trademarks each week, that is, twice as many as predicted.
This sort of progress should be encouraged for other agencies too, and the control of their financial activities should not stand in the way of their development.
So in this spirit, myself and my group welcome Mr Kellett-Bowman's proposals and we will vote for them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Mr President, we in the Green group have fought for and supported several of the decentralized EU bodies to which the report applies in various different contexts, for example, the European Environment Agency in Copenhagen and the European monitoring centre on racism and xenophobia in Vienna.
<P>
Since these bodies are financed partly by the EU's budget, it is both logical and desirable for the European Parliament to be involved in granting freedom from liability through our role as a supervisory body.
It is also necessary and logical for any income of these bodies to be shown in the EU's budget so that we can get a complete picture of the financial situation.
These amendments are a step in the right direction, because they increase transparency and openness concerning EU bodies.
It is a goal for all institutions and bodies in the EU to have increased openness, not least so that irregularities are prevented.
The best system of supervision is openness and publicity.
The Green group is therefore going to wholeheartedly support the KelletBowman report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Sarlis">
Mr President, I wish to say that the report that is being submitted for approval by the part-session is one that we must support since it is the culmination of long and assiduous research and debate in the Committee on Budgetary Control and, I assume, in the Comment on Budgets.
I would also like to say that, as a general principle - and this is also proposed by the Commission - there must be provision for a procedure of discharge for those independent organizations which are funded exclusively by Commission funds, as is proposed for the two formerly independent organizations, one of which is the well-known CEDEFOP.
<P>
The problem arises for those independent organizations which are fee-earning and which are partly funded by the Community budget.
In these cases the Commission simply requests in its proposal that there be a recommendation on the part of the European Parliament.
I wish to say that, in this case, there are grounds for a minority opinion, and this is contained in the explanatory statement of the report.
The grounds for this minority opinion are justified but they must not lead us to solutions other than those proposed by the rapporteur, Mr Kellett-Bowman.
<P>
However, we must recognize this issue and it should be of concern to us.
The fact that an independent organization can have self-generated resources does not mean it should be unaccountable in terms of its expenditure when, at the same time, it receives a part of its funds from the Commission and, most importantly, it intends to serve a Community purpose which is one of the aims of the European Union.
<P>
I will finish with a request and a reminder, which I am constantly repeating: the European Parliament, the Presidency and the political groups must consider and must face the problem of the reorganization of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
This committee has developed into a major organ of Parliament and it cannot function with its present constitution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Elles">
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on his excellent report.
In bringing all the strands together he has responded to the Commission proposal, which I also warmly welcome.
I was in the House when the Commissioner gave his promise some two years ago - if I remember correctly - that he would come forward with this because it was an element which had been forgotten in the shaping of the operation of these agencies in the first stage.
<P>
Our rapporteur is absolutely right that there is a need for financial safeguards for the second-generation agencies, but I am not convinced, myself, that we would have actually got to this particular point in dealing with these agencies if we, as a parliament, had not used our powers for putting money in the reserve to actually compel the agencies to do what we had wanted to do in terms of parliamentary accountability.
<P>
So, looking at the substance, the rapporteur is right in terms of the proposals on discharge.
It is not just desirable; I think it should be a prerequisite, as he suggests.
Secondly, in terms of financial control, we should make sure that we avoid, if possible, the need to put a financial controller in every agency.
Let us hope, therefore, that the proposals of the Commission will be sufficient to make sure this job will be done effectively.
<P>
The last point I would address is the question of the odd man out - of the agency in Alicante, where it pretends that it would like to be dealt with in a different fashion because it is not quite the same as all the other agencies.
Once you have an element of an agency being controlled by European law, when you have the staff which are part of the European institutions, you cannot claim that there is an exception. You have to be treated in the same way as others.
<P>
I conclude that our rapporteur has shown us the way to go, but that we, as a parliament, need to rest vigilant in the way in which these agencies will be operating.
It is an entirely new area of activity.
So we will keep our eyes open as the future comes along.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bangemann">
I would like to thank Mr Elles for reminding me that two years ago I was already busy with that proposal.
In fact, by chance, I am here today to answer your concerns over the report of Mr Kellett-Bowman.
<P>
To a certain extent, this reminds me of my previous activity in the Committee on Budgets and in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
We have no objections at all to the proposals which have been made with discharge and financial control in mind.
I think this is already important common ground.
The only area in which we are not in agreement is the amendment proposals affecting the inclusion of all revenue of the decentralized agencies in the budget plan and, with that, the right to supervise the amount of the fees.
Everyone here knows why things are this way.
The Commission believes that this would interfere with the management autonomy of these institutions, at least in that it involves the agencies' own, original rights and they are also obviously controlled by the respective administrative bodies - naturally, they do not operate without any control at all.
That is why we would like to recognize the legal personality of the agencies while allowing a maximum of public control and transparency in the management of funds.
We do not see any reason in encroaching on the regulation of fees and duties that are paid by companies for services or on the regulation for amending the scale of fees.
We agree with Parliament where improved control of any surplus income produced by the self-financing agencies is concerned. In this way, some of these agencies could be prevented from regarding themselves as purely economic enterprises, which they are not.
Insofar as such surplus income arises, control obviously needs to be guaranteed.
<P>
On behalf of my colleague, Mr Liikanen, I would like to express to you once again our regret at the actions of the Alicante agency, which has already been addressed.
We regret this and reaffirm our commitment to inform Parliament of all important agency decisions that have a financial impact.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken at 12 noon tomorrow.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Closing of the session
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="President">
I declare closed the 1997-1998 session of the European Parliament and announce that, in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty, Parliament will meet at 9.00 a.m. tomorrow, Tuesday, 10 March 1998.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 8.10 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Opening of annual session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare the 1998-1999 session of the European Parliament open.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
The Minutes of Monday, 9 March 1998 have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, I would like to refer to Item 2 of the Minutes of yesterday's sitting, and return to the subject of crime in Brussels.
It states here that the President said this item should not actually have been in the Minutes, although it was certainly in the Minutes for the Friday of the last part-session.
The President also mentioned that he would inform the two signatories of the request for a topical and urgent debate in writing.
Could the Bureau please consider whether this could not be debated here in plenary?
We know that over a third of Members have been victims of criminal acts in Brussels, so that this really affects everyone and not just one or two people in this House.
I really think it is high time something was done about this in Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President">
As you know, this matter is not on the agenda.
Moreover, I have nothing to add to what Mr Gil-Robles GilDelgado said yesterday.
The Presidency is very concerned about the problem and has taken all the necessary steps with regard to the Belgian authorities.
We will report any concrete news immediately.
<P>
Are there any further comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="McMahon">
Mr President, my point concerns page 15 of the Minutes. There is a list there of the questions for Question Time to the Commission.
My question, which is on structural funds and eligibility for structural funds, has been put down under 'Any Other Questions' , and yet earlier in the afternoon Mrs Wulf-Mathies, the Regional Affairs Commissioner, is answering questions.
I would ask your services to look at that and see if this question about the structural funds could be transferred so that it gets an answer from the Commissioner concerned.
Thank you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
Mr McMahon, we will see if this correction can be made but, as you know, this is a task that normally falls to the Commission.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="Andrews">
<CHAPTER ID=4>
The euro: public administrations, tourism and legal convergence
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0061/98 by Mr Arroni, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission communication 'Practical aspects of the introduction of the euro' (COM(97)0491 - C4-0524/97) and the Commission working paper entitled 'Preparations for the changeover of public administrations to the euro' (SEC(97)2384 - C4-0025/98); -A4-0078/98 by Mrs Torres Marques, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the euro and tourism; -A4-0070/98 by Mr Wolf, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the report of the European Monetary Institute on legal convergence in the Member States of the European Union (as at August 1997) (C4-0560/97).
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="Arroni">
Mr President, 11 Member States have already presented transition plans.
The euro is now a reality that is becoming more and more concrete every day, but that does not mean we can regard it without particular apprehension and attention.
Consumers, small traders and small businesses require a lot of attention, and we have taken them into consideration in drawing up the report and presenting the amendments. However, we must not forget the other operators who will also be involved in this important transition: the large financial institutions and large businesses which provide work for millions of European citizens, and which will manage to absorb the economic repercussions of the entry into force of the euro with greater ease.
They are all involved, and public administrations will be the first to set the example: dual pricing will create a snowball effect which will then be imitated by the world of private business.
Together they will meet the concerns of our citizens, who will not have to bear the cost of the transition.
<P>
I congratulate the Commission for setting the objective of reaching final decisions on the practical aspects of the euro on 2 May.
Then everything will be clear and transparent, not only for the large operators but for the small traders as well.
The administrations, trade unions and consumer associations of the Member States will be responsible for making these decisions known and making these choices understood, so that the transition to the euro takes place under the best conditions. They must ensure that the banking system observes its commitments and that businesses respect dual pricing, which will be essential in enabling the citizen to understand the transition.
To do this, I believe it is very important not to forget the aspect of communication in these decisions, because these decisions have to be understood and accepted by the citizen.
And for that to happen, the Parliament and the Commission need to reflect together to find the best means of making the euro popular.
For this purpose, I have proposed a round table for all major European professional communicators to contribute towards explaining all the innovative aspects, not only to the large industries and banks, but above all to us, the consumers, and to our small traders, the local trade we need to protect and save.
<P>
On 26 February, the Commission also organized a round table that developed well and broadly answered the concerns set out in my report.
Once again, however, I wish to recall a few brief points. Particular attention should be paid to the disadvantaged social groups among the population, including the elderly, those on low incomes and people with disabilities.
We should ensure that small and medium-sized businesses do not risk becoming less competitive compared with the larger businesses that can access information more easily. Dual pricing will have to be optional to give the markets greater flexibility.
The period of dual circulation of bank notes - of national currencies and the euro - should be as short as possible to avoid complications for consumers and to limit additional costs to the financial system. The banking and financial sectors should adopt a code of good practice on conversion charges, observing the principle of free compulsory conversions between national currencies and the euro.
<P>
The information sector will play an extremely important role as it will constitute an important vehicle for increasing public awareness about the euro.
The transition to the euro is the most important challenge Europe has faced this century, and the wellbeing of we Europeans in the first century of the new millennium will depend on correctly and carefully meeting this challenge.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="Torres Marques">
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, legal convergence of national central banks is not just a technical detail.
It is essential, institutionally speaking, for the introduction of the euro.
This is not the right time to be discussing problems about the overall concept of the euro project.
We will have a chance to do that when we discuss Mrs Randzio-Plath's report and when we debate the outcome of the Cardiff Summit, which will once again be considering how to match the single currency with an effective and coordinated European employment policy.
<P>
But now to specifics.
As members of the left, we have had to learn the hard way that institutions are not like Lego bricks that you can put together and pull apart however you like. They have their own history and must enjoy the confidence of the people they serve.
<P>
The European Monetary Institute's report, which quite rightly takes as its theme the two key issues of the independence of the European Central Bank and of the European System of Central Banks, and the proper functioning of this system as a unified whole, goes somewhat beyond compatibility issues. The report more or less envisages standardizing all the various forms of anchorage found in the national central banks.
In Austria this takes the form of participation in managing boards, in Germany consultation rights, and in France very close links with government as regards consultation and objectives.
So there are wide variations in practice, and I think we need to approach all this very carefully. We have to decide which of these practices are genuinely incompatible with using the ESCB to develop a single monetary policy for Europe, and which are incompatible with the proper functioning of the ESCB as a single system.
<P>
I have in mind various forms of consultation with governments and parliaments, and an inclusive approach towards civil society and social dialogue.
We also have to take national economic policy into account.
We should be advocating a basic strategy in all these areas, with a focus on eliminating incompatibility and providing a clear basis for single monetary policy.
<P>
This also applies to the relationship between the ESCB and the tasks that will still be performed by national central banks, notably banking supervision in some cases and collateral business in all cases.
Of course it is vital to guarantee compatibility here, but there is no call for standardization or harmonization.
<P>
We should not embark on this process lightly, as it genuinely represents a great challenge and involves many uncertainties. We should treat the various existing forms of anchorage as a chance to construct a kind of network of anchorages for national banks, so that the European System of Central Banks is firmly rooted in the individual Member States, in much the same way as happened with the Bank deutscher Länder .
<P>
Monetary policy is simply too important to be entrusted to a small group of bankers in a democratic nirvana.
That would be tantamount to making it subject to the whim of the financial markets and removing it from any kind of joint political decisionmaking arena.
The various forms of integration that have shaped our national banks over the years, and which still exist today, could help to avoid this sort of mistake.
So where existing systems work, we should allow them to remain, instead of trying to agglomerate and standardize everything.
<P>
If we can approach this matter in this spirit, I believe we will be doing the euro project a great favour.
If we take the opposite approach, we will be doing it a great disservice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, like the Peres Rojo report, the Wolf, Torres Marques and Arroni reports demonstrate that the days of theoretical debates about monetary union are over: the problems before us now are highly practical ones.
I welcome the extent of progress on legal convergence, and the trend towards greater independence for national central banks in the European Union. At the same time, our discussions with the presidents of the central banks suggest that there is an increasing willingness on their part to enter into a dialogue on monetary matters with national parliaments.
All this progress on monetary union is to be supported.
<P>
The independence of central banks is certainly an important aspect of legal convergence.
However, the panoply of practical questions surrounding the introduction of the euro is also important.
Mrs Torres Marques has quite rightly pointed out that the first people to notice that something has changed, that they are living in 'Euro-Land' , will be tourists.
As the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs' hearing demonstrated, that it why it is so important for us to explain that the advent of the euro will cut costs, and this will in turn result in savings for people travelling in the European Union.
We know because of things like the International Tourism Fair that Europeans are especially fond of travel. Not only is travel a growth sector, it will also give a great many people their first experience of the euro and monetary union.
<P>
However, all the other practical things involved in introducing the euro are also important, and it is therefore our duty as a European Parliament to express our regret that neither our citizens nor our small and medium-sized businesses have been given adequate preparation or information.
The European Parliament must appeal not only to the European institutions to prepare people and SMEs for the euro - national governments and administrations also need to play their part.
This is fundamental, as we cannot prepare ourselves without information.
Consumer protection also has to play a greater part in the run-up to monetary union.
I am therefore specifically requesting, and not for the first time, that there should be a period of dual pricing, that there should be no conversion costs, and that the transition period should be as short as possible, so as to minimize the burden on both companies and ordinary citizens.
<P>
SMEs particularly need help, because the euro will enable them to take full advantage of the internal market for the first time.
If this is to happen, the authorities absolutely must play a more positive and constructive role, and do what the European Parliament has specifically requested, and lead the way in introducing the euro, even if finance ministers have agreed to delay conversion in public administration until 1 January 2002.
We need cooperation from public authorities at local, regional and national level, and I particularly want to see the tax authorities converting to the euro!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Thyssen">
Mr President, in exactly 297 days the euro will be introduced in the countries taking part in monetary union.
It is still just a little too far away to tell children it will be another so many nights' sleep before conversion.
But for grown-up administrators it is high time to decide on the practical aspects of the euro.
This, in any case, is what the man and the woman in the street expect of their government.
They want clear answers to their questions, also the questions on the tiniest detail as to how it will all work, and they want a workable method without burdens and costs which could be avoided.
<P>
The Arroni report has therefore arrived not a moment too soon, and it is this report I will be discussing on behalf of my Group.
The rapporteur has done an excellent job, and we would like to offer him our congratulations.
The report dwells not only on the obvious aspects, such as information programmes and costs, but it rightly draws attention to the weaker sections of society.
We believe that the introduction of the euro will only be successful if the disabled, the very old and the poor are able to change over to the euro without running into problems.
What must be avoided at all costs is that the introduction of the euro leads to a reinforcement of division within our society.
<P>
As far as the display of dual prices is concerned, Mr President, I am glad to note that the report is on the same wavelength as the Commission.
During the round table discussion to which the rapporteur referred, the Commission stated clearly that it is not a priori in favour of statutory regulations on dual pricing.
Our Group fully agrees with this.
Dual pricing can be useful for information purposes, but it is merely one of the many alternatives.
We must ensure the consumer does not drown in a sea of information, and we should avoid forcing the retailer and the service provider to make one-off investments which will only be of use for a limited period.
It would be much better to leave the price display options - which are by definition temporary - to the market and the creativity of the people involved.
If the information the retailer gives to his customers is not clear enough, he will be the first to feel the consequences.
As spokesperson for the Group of the European People's Party on this matter, I also think we should have sufficient confidence in the market and the laws of competition, particularly during the first phase. Statutory regulations will only be useful if and on condition that it is determined that optional dual pricing does not lead to the hoped-for result.
We are therefore not able to support the amendments proposing that dual price display be laid down in a regulation.
<P>
Another practical aspect of the introduction of the euro is the effective changeover from the relevant national coins and notes to the euro.
There is a lot of disagreement on this issue, and a new debate is being held between those in favour of statutory regulation and those in favour of codes of conduct and voluntary arrangements.
Here the Commission has also nailed its colours to the mast and has shown itself in favour of codes of good conduct.
My group agrees, on condition that in these codes the guiding principle should be that there is no cost attached to compulsory conversion.
<P>
Mr President, I would like to draw your attention to one further aspect.
The banks are considering charging small shopkeepers for converting large quantities of coins.
This is not acceptable.
The small shopkeeper will be asked to play an important role in the changeover process.
The fact that this is expected of him should be enough.
We simply think it would be too much if the banks were to make him pay for the kind of work they provide for free to a private client.
<P>
In conclusion, may I perhaps suggest a short transitional period and, during this period, a sharing out of the cost benefit resulting from the fact that exchange rates will have disappeared during the changeover.
Obviously, these paragraphs meet with my Group's approval.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Garosci">
Mr President, from our understanding of what the rapporteurs have said, the euro is a small, peaceful, end-of-century revolution, which in practice will obviously change our entire modus operandi, whether as businesses or as consumers.
But behind every revolution lie the specific psychological aspects.
<P>
The great problem we will have to face in the next few years, particularly in the six months of coexistence between national currency and single currency, will be that of making businesses and the public understand that the euro is a means of building Europe - and a strictly economic means.
We are hoping for an economic and social Europe, but at the moment the euro is the fundamental means of making people understand that Europe can be built with something that the citizens can actually touch, see and find in their pockets. Then, as the rapporteurs rightly said, there will be financial involvement on the part of the banks.
However, the banks have broad shoulders and are organized to send us, as from 1 January, a statement in national currency and in single currency at the same time. The banks are organized with a computer system they have been using for some time, while the real problem of the euro is that of calmly getting it to the citizens as consumers.
<P>
The commercial system, in particular, will perform this arduous task.
The citizen, as consumer, will go into a bar, a shop, a supermarket, a restaurant or a travel agency and pay in national currency. He will receive the change in euros and it will be there that he actually meets the single currency.
There he will find an operator, a small businessman, a cashier or an assistant who is familiar with the single currency system because, otherwise, the effect on us will be terrible psychologically.
A confused consumer, or a small businessman confused over the commercial system when purchases are being made, will cause purchases themselves to slow down - a fall in psychological consumption that, at the moment, is precisely what we do not want.
There is already a fall in physiological consumption in this continent, and if we add the psychological consequences of a fall in consumption owing to the uncertainty of purchases, we will create problems that are not easy to resolve.
<P>
We should therefore take measures with regard to both information and training.
Information should obviously be aimed at the public, training should be professional and aimed at different categories, particularly traders. By trade I mean commerce, tourism and services, in other words the tertiary market, the market that will physically meet the single currency.
<P>
French colleagues will recall that in their country, 30 years on, the elderly are still today thinking in terms of old francs and new francs.
Thirty years ago, two zeros were simply wiped off, and still today they talk in terms of old francs.
Just think of multiplying the euro by a different figure in each of the 15 Member States when it becomes real currency, on 1 January 2002.
By that date, it will be essential to have carried out this information and training action jointly, and to ensure that the three market components work together - namely industry, commercial distribution and, above all, the sector forming the vertex of this triangle, the consumers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gasòliba i Böhm">
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Mr President, I take this opportunity to extend a warm greeting to you.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, these reports are paving the way for the post-euro period.
The subjects they discuss are so important, and time so limited, that I must be all the more selective and succinct in my remarks.
The tourism sector accounts for a sizeable share of the economies of some Member States.
To the complexity of that sector, with intricate upstream and downstream links, is added the complexity of the different situations existing in individual Member States.
This complex complexity (if I may put it like that) is not reflected in Mrs Torres Marques' report, which I consider to be excessively optimistic and, if I may be so bold, excessively monochrome - that is, rose-tinted - imbued as it is with the author's unshakeable faith in European construction as it is currently proceeding.
<P>
Tourism, and some individual tourists, will no doubt receive debatable advantages from the introduction of the euro.
However, we cannot but doubt that there will be nothing but benefits and the benefited.
Some tourists and, more particularly, some types of tourism, will experience increased difficulties with the emergence of a single currency designed to be strong, losing the ability to use the instruments and mechanisms they have employed in the past.
It is true that such instruments have not always been applied to best effect.
But if we deprive people of those instruments they have won but used wrongly, we will all end up empty-handed - and without coins, banking systems and financial policies.
<P>
In the virtual reality of a single, strong currency, shared by countries with different tourism policies, whether complementary or competitive, we cannot ignore or underestimate the tendency for tourism flows to switch to destinations outside Europe, which make themselves more competitive through measures based on exchange-rate policy.
<P>
For our part, for these and other reasons, we thank Mrs Torres Marques for her work but have serious reservations regarding her optimism, her "tourism at the service of the euro' position, and her appeal for the creation of a European policy for tourism or, more accurately, for the modes of tourism that coexist within the confines of the European Union.
<P>
Finally, I cannot end without briefly referring to Mr Wolf's report, if only to express my satisfaction on reading his explanatory statement in which he lists real problems in a balanced, thoughtful manner which counters a climate of intransigent, blinkered thinking and direction.
Since I cannot at this time say what I think is necessary and right on this subject, I will reserve a number of comments on this report for an explanation of vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, this spring the European Parliament is to conduct a very important debate on the democratic monitoring of the European Central Bank.
It will certainly be a noteworthy occasion, as we will soon be going over Mrs Randzio-Plath's report, which the Green Group in the European Parliament fervently supports.
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Today we are discussing how national central banks and national political institutions can get involved in the democratic monitoring of a central bank and a central bank system.
This is a subject which has, up till now, been given scanty attention, but now Mr Wolf has produced a very interesting report on the subject.
He says that given the unfortunate absence of any common economic policy in the Union, the role of the central bank is a vital one as, in a way, it will have to use a certain kind of economic wisdom when taking decisions on funding.
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The European Monetary Institute has completed a report on how compatible the various national laws on finance are with the Maastricht Treaty.
We are of the same opinion as the rapporteur that the EMI is too much concerned with emphasizing the independence of national central banks from national political institutions.
We believe it is essential that individual country's parliaments and governments alike maintain links with a system which aims to create a stable currency and stable prices for Europe.
But, as the rapporteur remarked, price stability is not a neutral concept.
There has been no mention of what level of inflation would be harmful to the economy.
In this respect, the EMI should certainly not go it alone in debating this matter.
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It is neither sensible nor proper that the European Monetary Institute should condemn certain national laws as incompatible with a central bank system.
I shall give an example of this, the same one that the rapporteur also remarked on. The EMI is judgemental about Finland's central bank law which states that the President of the country can fire the managing director or any other member of the management if these prove to be unsuitable.
It is our belief that this must be allowed to continue.
The European Union is not one homogenous economic area: there is a lot of variation contained within it and that is why, when it comes to a central bank system, the national voice must be heard.
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<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Castagnède">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to say that our Group agrees with the reports by Mrs Torres Marques and Mr Arroni, and we fully support the direction they take.
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However, Mr Wolf's report calls for a number of comments.
The rapporteur in fact allows himself to give a criticism of the EMI report on different levels.
We would like to point out at the outset that we believe the EMI is perfectly within its remit when it attempts to identify the clauses in national legislation which appear to be incompatible with the requirements of the Treaty on European Union, and that, even if it does challenge this Treaty and all those which have gone before it, it would not be a question of leaving to the political bodies of the Union the task of interpreting and defining the demands and objectives of the Treaty.
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Basically, as regards the functioning of the ESCB, Mr Wolf stresses the demands for transparency and information, which we think are in fact necessary to gain the confidence of the citizens of the Union in the way their currency is managed.
We share Mr Wolf's concern to prevent the ESCB becoming an ivory tower cut off from its institutional environment and public opinion.
To ensure that the central banks have adequate information, they need in particular to be able to listen to the representatives of governments or national parliaments.
It is also essential that the ECB presents and explains to the democratic institutions of the Union, and to the public in general, the decisions taken in carrying out its duty.
But we believe these demands for transparency and information must not on any account compromise the independence of the ESCB, be it the independence of its members or that of the decisions it takes.
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We believe in this necessary independence, not through any anti-Keynesian convictions, but as a result of our European conviction.
This conviction leads us to the opinion that it would be dangerous to relaunch the debate on the possible role of the monetary instrument in the implementation of national economic policies.
In the Treaty on European Union, the Member States renounced the use of this sort of tool. For some this was for economic reasons, and for everyone the fundamental reason was political.
Whatever the economic preferences of individual countries, it is clear that the choice of a single currency for Europe implies that it evades any national political pressure or manipulation, either directly or indirectly, even if this produces tension between the countries, which could be fatal for the European Union.
There can be no single currency unless it is an independent currency.
This is the true general consensus which Mr Wolf wishes for elsewhere.
From that point on, we cannot follow him; for example, when he reproaches the EMI for considering incompatible with the treaty any legislative clause in which a central bank must take into account the economic policy of the government when implementing its own monetary policy.
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Of course, the independence of the ESCB would not mean that the democratic institutions of Europe were impotent.
That is why we feel it is urgent to define, alongside the single currency, other means of joint economic action, and those other means would be in the hands of the democratic institutions of the Union, and called the European budget, European tax and European structural policy.
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<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Rose">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in both the communication from the Commission and Mr Arroni's report, the players in economic life have been called on not to moderate their efforts, but are we taking them into consideration other than to ask them to accept the euro, or in other words, to ensure the euro gets the best possible welcome?
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In reading these reports it is thus clear that the rapporteur and the Commission constantly vacillate between uncertainty and contradictions.
First and foremost physical persons are targeted, and at the forefront of these are those particularly exposed categories for whom the entry into force of the euro means the addition from now on of new problems to already considerable difficulties.
The report states that these categories require particular attention, but what specific solutions can be proposed to deal with their practical problems?
In the light of the exponential increase since 1996 of the costs of media promotion of the euro, which are becoming extremely high, how much will this promotion finally cost for Europe, for the Member States and for each citizen?
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Despite the investment of considerable sums of money, the citizen as consumer risks being the victim of permanent confusion.
Mr Arroni recommends a transition period which is as short as possible, unlike the consumer associations which envisage that a short transitory period would mean total confusion for the most vulnerable clients.
So, which of the options should be chosen: a short transition period which would cost less but create errors and confusion; or a long transition period - we should remember that it could be up to six months - which would allow better understanding thanks to a smooth adaptation, but where the high cost will lead to an increase in consumer prices.
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In terms of the second category of economic players - companies and tradesmen - if two incomes can be difficult to manage for a housewife, what about traders and others who will have to maintain two accounts systems and two cash funds, who needed no increase in the burden of management?
On the other hand, although Mr Arroni is proposing to take steps to help SMEs, at the same time he wants to make dual pricing obligatory, under the false pretext of bringing competitive advantage to traders.
And if it is a matter of wanting to help companies, it turns out that the first possible aid - tax aid in the form of deductiblity of VAT on expenses generated by the changeover to the euro - has already been denied them.
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To sum up, I think the Commission, supported by the Arroni report is currently navigating visually.
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<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Antony">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Arroni report does not present new ideas, but requires some comment.
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How can we talk of confidence when the whole European monetary structure is built on lies, at least lies of omission?
The name of the currency has been changed in violation of the treaties which clearly named it "ECU' .
Our colleague, Mr Berthu, has rightly tabled an appeal with the Court of Justice against this untimely change.
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No-one, neither the Council nor the Commission, much less the European Parliament, has risked the task of trying to evaluate the practical cost of changing over to the euro and to figure out the macro-economics of the move.
Of course, no-one can hide the fact that there will be a cost.
The report only mentions this once to say, in passing, that it should be minimal.
In reality it will be the citizens who pay the hundreds of millions of francs, marks or lira for dual accounting, dual pricing, and the constant conversion between the euro and the national currency which will be required for three years.
They will pay through increases in retail prices and bank charges.
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As an aside, everyone is very careful not to mention the consequences for individual savings, especially in France.
All administered savings, savings bank books and building society savings plans are set to disappear.
People content themselves with constantly trotting out the false old adages of the European structure: "without the single currency, the single market does not work; without the single market, we will have a crisis and war' and then the next logical argument: "without a single European state and integral unification of legislation, the single currency will not work' .
The single currency is not an economic necessity but a political wish.
Everyone knows that but many people pretend not to realize it.
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Our technocrats are not evaluating very well the psychological consequences of the monetary upheaval they are proposing.
We can inform the public as much as we want, but currency brings about scales of value which it is very hard to get rid of.
For example in France, almost forty years after the new franc was brought in, television journalists would still rather refer to billions of centimes than hundreds of millions of francs, to stress the enormity of the sum.
Old people, and some not so old, continue to convert everything into old francs, because in this form they can better understand relative values.
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<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="Harrison">
Mr President, I believe the euro will electrify Europe, and these three reports demonstrate why.
In the case of the Wolf report on the legal convergence of national central banks and their relation to the ECB, the essential point is to ensure the transparency and democratic accountability of the ECB and its relations with the national banks.
Such democratic exposure is not at odds with ensuring the functional independence of the ECB; such ideas are complementary.
In this regard it is pertinent to mention Mr Wolf's reference to the UK's Bank of England where, under the new Labour Government, the bank's independence and public accountability have both been strengthened.
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In the case of the Arroni report on the practical aspects of the euro, there is common agreement on most items, including the need to encourage Member States to publish changeover plans and, more excitingly, to publish the euro designs of the national face of coins.
Where I part company with the rapporteur is in my belief that we will need European action to ensure that banks do not pass on to customers conversion costs in stage 3 of EMU.
A code of conduct might not suffice.
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Finally, regarding tourism, I should like to congratulate all the rapporteurs, and especially Mrs Torres Marques for her report.
Tourism is Europe's and the world's biggest industry, yet here in Europe we have lost 10 % of market share since 1960.
Tourism is classically an industry of the single market.
The advent of the euro will be a tremendous supply-side fillip to that market, and to tourism in particular.
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I believe there will be three sets of winners as a result of introducing the euro.
First, all those who work within the industry.
Not only will the euro generate more jobs, it will bring transparency to wages and salaries, which in turn will be improved.
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Secondly, tourists - the consumers.
Instead of giving away their hard-earned money to the money-changers at airports or ports, they will keep more of their holiday money to spend after window-shopping, made easier by the transparency of costs.
This will make comparison of retail goods in shops easier and consequently, increase competition.
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Finally, entrepreneurs in the travel and tourism industry will make Europe's top industry more competitive, as the transparency of the euro will drive down costs.
In addition, they will invest and expand in the industry because low inflation will breed lower costs of money.
Remember this: the European Tour Operators Association reckoned that 3 % more American tourists were liable to choose Europe as their holiday destination because of the euro.
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To conclude, tourism and tourists will be the shock-troops of the euro, bringing the benefits of the euro immediately to the attention of all Europe's citizens.
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<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, one of the previous speakers mentioned the costs we will face in changing over to the euro.
However, we must not forget the costs incurred now because the euro does not yet exist.
For example, if I were to take my family on holiday to Spain today, I would have to travel through Germany, Italy and France, and get five currencies to pay for food, drink, petrol and hotel bills.
That means going to the bank in my own country and getting the five different currencies.
Often, you cannot get them straight away, they have to be ordered.
This creates a lot of work for the bank, as various employees have to deal with it, and the currencies have to be kept on the spot and be readily available.
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The total cost of all this for tourists is enormous.
Tourists pay an average of 3 to 4 % in commission and other charges alone, money that could well be spent on something more sensible, such as a slightly longer holiday.
But my figure of 3 to 4 % is just an average.
There are also extremes, of course.
For example, last year my daughter put 100 Austrian schillings in a money changing machine in Jesolo and got 9 600 lire.
When we were back in Austria I gave her back the money, and even rounded it up to 10 000 lire, and she got just 50 schillings back in Austria.
That means she lost 50 % of the value just by changing it and changing it back once!
I am sure that this is an extreme case, but when you consider that just changing back and forth once can involve amounts of this order, you will soon realise how much is at stake when millions of tourists are changing money.
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Not only that, but there is also an exchange rate risk for tourists.
Parities can change during a holiday, and people booking well in advance are even more likely to be hit.
We even know that patterns of tourism follow exchange rate movements, so that tourism in Italy is rocketing, while it is falling in Austria and in France.
So tourism is plagued by uncertainty.
We have to struggle with these and related problems every day.
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We must resolve the currency situation for tourists, and there are international implications as well.
Tourists travelling to Europe want clear price comparisons.
They need to know how to convert.
Of course a lot of tourists have enormous difficulties with conversions.
We often find that a product's value is not immediately obvious when we have to convert to and fro.
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It is also necessary to standardize VAT regimes.
I often find it very hard to grasp when I can reclaim my VAT, how much VAT I pay here, in short exactly how the whole thing works.
Lastly, duty free is another area affected by these regulations.
Tourists want clear arrangements so that they can travel simply and without too much hassle.
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We are well aware - and this is particularly important for Europe - that we do not just have tourism inside Europe, but also beyond.
We have about 60 % of the world market in tourism, so we are a real competitive force in this sector, and this represents an enormous opportunity for us.
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<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="Gallagher">
Mr President, after the Madrid Summit, at which the date for the introduction of the euro bank notes and coins was fixed, the Commission took a number of initiatives to speed up the necessary preparatory work for both the public and private sectors.
It is evident today - and I must add that this is to be welcomed - that most sectors of the economy have begun to prepare for the changeover to the single currency.
However, it must be pointed out - and this is the purpose of Mr Arroni's excellent report - that more information needs to be made available on the practical arrangements put in place in the different sectors of the economy.
We need to identify the areas where decisions have not yet been taken and to know what level of harmonization is desirable.
Initially we need to know which areas should be dealt with at national level and which at European level.
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Among the priorities for the Member States was the need to ensure that they presented their transition plans before the end of 1997.
This included the requirement to make known their position on the statement of public accounting, reporting and tax declarations in euros.
Decisions on redemptions of existing debt were to have been taken before the end of 1997.
The Commission should inform us whether or not the various deadlines set for the end of 1997 in its communication have been met and fully respected.
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As regards the practical aspects of the introduction of the euro for those who are going to use the single currency on a daily basis, I want to underline the need for information on the changeover to be targeted on all users, just as it already is on small and medium-sized enterprises.
This is the biggest single economic event in European history, and it would be a disaster if it were allowed to fail because of an information deficit.
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As regards dual pricing during the changeover period, we need to keep our options open.
The small and medium-sized businesses should be assisted in their efforts to provide dual pricing.
The proposals made by Mr Arroni in relation to fraud and adapting the information technology sector to the euro are a step in the right direction.
This also applies to the need for continual assessment of how small and medium-sized companies, including small shopkeepers, are coping with the introduction of the euro.
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Finally, it is accepted by all that the euro must be consumer-friendly if it is to be successful.
As Mr Arroni says, the Member States must show particular concern for vulnerable social groups in our society, such as the elderly, the visually impaired, the disabled and the low-income groups, with a view to ensuring that the coins and particularly the notes are user-friendly for them.
I say this as an Irish Member because we in Ireland have practical knowledge and experience of this because of the changeover to decimalization, when prices in our country increased.
Schools should be closely involved in pilot projects regarding the introduction of the euro, particularly at the early stage.
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<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="Ewing">
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, one section of the Commission communication on the practical aspects of the introduction of the euro is devoted to the preparation of coins, but nothing is said about notes.
So I would like to return to this question which the institutions are trying to pass off in silence, and where I have so far had no response to my many requests.
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Basically, the Council has decided that future coins will have one European side and one national side - but nothing of the sort for notes.
An obscure decision by the European Monetary Institute, wrongly applied from article 109 F, states that the notes will not display any distinctive national sign.
So the Council seems to have chosen to discard this issue which is not at all technical, but which calls into question some very important principles, and leave it up to the officials at the EMI.
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Ladies and gentlemen, this House has been very concerned in recent times about the lack of democratic control in monetary union and we are going to discuss this during our next part-session.
Well, here we have an excellent example of this lack of democracy.
We must act now, for if we do not our protests will not sound sincere.
The question of having a national symbol on one side of euro notes raises a number of points of principle.
It is a question of whether or not we want an undifferentiated monetary union, or a monetary union which recognizes national identities.
It is also a question of whether, at a later date, if there is a serious crisis, we will accept a country's departure with equanimity, or if we will seek to keep it forever within monetary union, even against its will, and even despite the conflicts this would inevitably cause.
In this regard too, we must prepare ourselves for a serious problem of democracy.
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That is why the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations thinks the Council should accept its responsibilities, make use of the powers it holds pursuant to Article 109 L.4, and decide that euro notes will have a national side.
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<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Trizza">
Mr President, on behalf of the National Alliance, I would like to congratulate the three rapporteurs for their truly excellent work.
The achievement of monetary union and the introduction of the euro as a single currency is one of the most important steps forward along the road to Europe, and tourism is undoubtedly one of the sectors most concerned by the imminent change.
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Tourists, including anyone travelling in European territory for any reason, will no longer have to change their currency and so will not bear the useless charges connected with it.
They will certainly have a more stable currency and a greater transparency of prices for goods and services purchased in their own countries from abroad.
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Along with these individual advantages for the customer, there are advantages for tour operators, agencies, and everything produced by the tourist sector, certainly facilitated by the ordinary financial management of their business.
The point I wish to make is that, although these advantages may be obtained, we need to draw up and duly implement a preliminary strategy for this change, for the euro to have the desired effects right from the outset.
I therefore agree with Mrs Torres Marques when she insists in her report on the need for the national governments to begin a joint action to promote and spread the euro within their respective countries.
Some examples of early widespread measures to increase awareness are already present in Europe, but we need these operations to be intensified and real simulations of the use of the new currency to be made, both by consumers and by businesses operating in the tourist sector, with adequate information and training for staff and a due adaptation of the computer support to the new financial management.
These actions are all the more important in those less developed regions of Europe, where the tourist sector is often an economic lever of fundamental significance, where the lack of a timely and effective preliminary strategy for the euro could involve the loss of competitiveness on European markets, with undoubted negative repercussions on the respective local economies.
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I am therefore concentrating not so much on the large tourist centres, which certainly have the necessary infrastructure to control the change, but on the small countries of Europe, rich in culture and tradition, in which the interest of the average tourist is tending to increase.
It is these countries that have to find adequate support, and to which particular attention should be paid, with appropriate structures to handle the change with a reduction in costs.
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We should not hide the fact that we are proceeding in a random fashion.
There is no single strategy: if we proceed in a random fashion, the costs will increase and there is the risk that consumers will then bear the brunt of them.
Those who, like me, have experience of the reality of public administration management are well aware of the need for a preliminary and timely strategy for the transition to the euro. The new currency should provide the local authorities in particular, and the community in general, with an opportunity for growth and development.
For this purpose, we could perform a sample analysis of the European public authorities, taking care not to choose just the medium-sized to large municipalities, but also introducing into the survey the small municipalities whose requirements are different but no less important.
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To conclude, conducting a pilot project involving several European municipalities could lead to the creation of a real network of cooperation, with the possibility of extending the results of the analysis to other municipalities which are not the specific subject of a study.
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<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today's joint debate on the euro based on reports by Mrs Torres Marques, Mr Arroni and Mr Wolf is particularly important in that we are only a few weeks away from the famous weekend of 1 May.
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Of course, I agree completely with the report and conclusions by Mrs Torres Marques.
Like her, I think the impact of the euro on the Union will be beneficial, not only for tourists coming from outside into Europe, but also for tourism within the Community.
I also agree that it seems urgent to put in place programmes which would allow the completion of information on the euro for companies and staff in the tourism sector.
The sooner they are ready, the sooner they will benefit from the effect of the euro.
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As regards the Arroni report, I recall that following our profitable debate in January, we voted together for measures to facilitate the transition from national currency to the euro.
Today Mr Arroni has submitted a proposal concerning the optional nature of dual pricing, which I feel runs the risk of causing problems for the so-called vulnerable social groups.
On the subject of conversion charges, I cannot help noticing a certain amount of backing down compared with the text produced by our colleague Mr Pérez Royo.
Of course, in my capacity as rapporteur on industrial competitiveness, I can understand the concern of my colleague to preserve small and medium-sized enterprises.
So we must identify specific measures in this regard to minimize as far as possible the cost of their changeover to the euro, but it is not a question of abandoning consumers.
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Finally, on the subject of Mr Wolf's report on convergence, although I can relate to his views on the fact that achieving the euro implies economic convergence and compatibility between legislation, the central banks and the European Central Bank, I must again voice my opposition to certain ideas which smack of excessive liberalism.
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The role of the Central European Bank and the central banks cannot be absolute, not more so than their powers.
Setting up a dialogue between these economic bodies and political powers is the least we could do before very quickly constructing that political Europe which is the only guarantee of democracy and the voice of the people.
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To conclude, I would repeat that, for me, the euro is a great hope both in economic and employment terms, and above all, an excellent motor for European citizenship.
There are three conditions for this: it should not be another motor for unbridled liberalism; the public should be informed better and more quickly; and consumers should be the first to benefit.
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<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Peijs">
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Kaklamanis">
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of my group I would like to speak mainly about Mr Wolf's report. It is our firm belief that the Central Bank should be as independent as possible, and that means complete independence, both for the bank and its president.
That does not mean we are not strongly in favour of transparent decision-making processes, nor do we think the bank will exist in a kind of laboratory situation, determining its policy in some kind of 'clean' mechanism.
We assume it will do this through dialogue with the entire social framework which is jointly responsible for such processes.
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Mr President, some Members of this Parliament keep wanting to link issues relating to social disadvantage to the euro.
Our group believes that these are matters which should be dealt with separately.
All the same, both the Member States and the European Union have a responsibility to talk about policy competition after the introduction of the euro.
In our opinion, this means we will have to strive towards a certain degree of convergence both in the field of taxation, and in employment and social security. We will also have to determine which issues we leave as subsidiary and which ones we come to a unified joint approach on.
That is extremely important for the success of the euro in the long term, and for placing Europe on the world map.
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<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="Nicholson">
Mr President, the advent of the single currency will certainly create many changes and, at times, not for the better.
I still believe we are going forward into the unknown with undue haste and without clear knowledge of the longterm effect.
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I listen with concern to those who are driving relentlessly towards the creation of the single currency in their own Member States, regardless of the views of their electorate.
Some of the countries which are striving to join the first wave will be in for more than a mild shock.
I would be grateful if someone could answer me one question: if countries that meet the Maastricht criteria become members in the first wave, will some of these countries then turn around and demand Objective 1 status?
Surely these two positions are totally incompatible?
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I wish to refer to one problem I can see looming on the horizon between Member States which enter in the first wave and those which remain outside.
My own part of the European Union, Northern Ireland, is the only part of the United Kingdom which has a land frontier with another Member State, and the fluctuation between the pound and the punt has caused extreme difficulties on both sides of the border on many occasions over a long period - sometimes one way and sometimes the other.
I would certainly ask that this should not be allowed to spell disaster for business and agriculture in both jurisdictions.
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At present we can do nothing to improve the situation.
But can we be assured that unfair trading advantage will receive consideration and equality will be ensured within the European Union?
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<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Raschhofer">
Mr President, today we are discussing practical safeguards involved in introducing the euro, which means we also need to address the protection of consumers' rights.
Dual pricing during the transition period is an absolute must, and should not be optional as envisaged in the report.
Businesses' concern to have as much leeway as possible with labelling should not mean that consumer interests are pushed to one side.
By ensuring transparency, dual pricing can reassure consumers during a period of uncertainty.
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Dual pricing can even give businesses a competitive advantage, if it means they can gain consumers' confidence.
Even if the European Banking Association and the European Savings Banks Group recently agreed not to pass conversion costs on to their customers, we must watch that this promise is honoured.
If you read the text carefully, you will in fact see that the banking associations are only talking about ensuring a smooth and fair changeover for customers.
So the message is not really that the changeover will be cost-free for consumers.
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I therefore welcome a code of behaviour for the banking and finance sector.
I was struck by the rapporteur's statement that special tax treatment for investment in connection with the introduction of the euro could lead to distortions in competition within a given sector or in relation to other sectors.
I say this because just a few days ago, I was reading in an Austrian newspaper about precisely that point being made by an Austrian bank.
I therefore think it is important to demand equal rights for all, to coin a phrase.
But it will also be up to Member States' legislatures to safeguard this.
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<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="Hendrick">
Mr President, can I start by congratulating the rapporteurs Arroni, Torres Marques and Wolf on three excellent reports dealing in great detail with the euro.
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To date we have been very much concerned with technical questions such as budgets and convergence.
It is very important that we deal with the practical aspects of the introduction.
In particular the preparation for citizens and companies is essential.
If they wish to continue to trade in the single market, SMEs need to make the conversion very quickly so that their software can handle the euro.
That is even true for countries that have not indicated that they wish to go to stage 3 of economic and monetary union.
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In the UK the previous Tory government cast a great deal of doubt on whether or not the euro would actually happen.
Many sceptics said that if the euro happens it may end in tears.
That has led to many small and medium-sized enterprises not having made the preparation required.
Many of those enterprises trade internationally and will have to deal with the euro as a foreign currency.
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I agree to some extent with a code of conduct on the conversion costs.
I do not believe that the conversion costs, certainly as far as banks are concerned, should be passed on to the consumer directly because from 1 January 1999 the euro will only actually exist in electronic form.
This essentially means that there will be no physical costs of actually exchanging currencies, notes and coins, for other currencies.
All that will need to change is what happens anyway with banking institutions: an extra currency needs to be added to the list of currencies that the banking system deals with. At the same time eleven currencies will be wiped out so I would guess that actually simplifies matters.
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I therefore ask what cost?
The costs will be significant after the notes and coins are introduced, not before.
SMEs will have costs but there is a level playing field across the European Union.
Therefore I do not see any competitive disadvantage as far as any companies are concerned because all companies will have to make the same changes.
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For tourism it is extremely important that the euro is introduced.
I say that coming from a constituency which is very dependent on tourism.
My constituency stretches from the Blackpool coast through the Ribble Valley into the Pendle Hills.
With tourism now accounting for something like 20 % of economic activity across the European Union, either directly or indirectly, it is important that the euro is introduced and that those areas which rely on tourism for their prosperity take advantage of it.
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<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="von Wogau">
, chairman of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy. (DE) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, most Member States seem to have largely met the criteria for introducing the single currency on 1 January 1999.
This applies above all to the inflation rate, where the EU average is now at a historically low level.
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Two aspects continue to give cause for concern.
The first is government debt, where there is in fact every sign of a gradual improvement in the position. The other is something that I feel has scarcely been debated publicly, namely safeguarding the independence of the Member States' central banks.
This is a really crucial issue.
The independence of the European Central Bank can only be guaranteed if the national central banks are an integral part of the European System of Central Banks, free from state intervention.
The European Central Bank Council will determine the Community's monetary policy.
It comprises the members of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank and the presidents of the national central banks.
It is therefore vital that Member States should ensure that the presidents of the national central banks are genuinely independent.
I regret to say that Mr Wolf's report, in its present form, does not adequately address this issue.
There are a number of outstanding concerns.
<P>
First the good news.
All the relevant national central banks are now independent as regards setting interest rates.
That is the first and most important step.
But there are also certain problems about the personal independence of central bank governors.
For example, we have been told that the President of Finland can still remove the President of its central bank from office, which would be contrary to the Maastricht Treaty.
Then there is the matter of freedom from state intervention.
For example, in one Member State that I know well, the central bank's decisions could be deferred for 14 days.
That would also be contrary to the Maastricht Treaty.
Arrangements of this kind still exist, and they must be changed.
There is also the question of administrative independence, which is an important aspect of central banks' independence.
There are a number of question marks hanging over that too.
<P>
Let me be clear: the European Monetary Institute will be presenting its report to us on 25 March, and that is sure to include a detailed analysis of the independence of the central banks.
To be precise, the Commission will give its assessment on 24 March and on 25 March Mr Duisenberg will present his report to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
We will be very closely examining this aspect of central banks' independence in both reports, Commissioner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, now that the introduction of the euro is approaching, we are getting more and more positive as well as negative views, not only within the Union, but also in the United States - witness the opening article in the Herald Tribune.
I quote: ' what is good for Europe is also good for America' . There is also the view that the euro is a potential troublemaker.
According to American economists, there is even talk in the US of the euro leading to more conflicts and friction, and less stability.
I will leave this view for what it is.
It is more important to look at what the European citizen thinks.
<P>
The European citizen is by no means convinced yet of the benefits of the euro, nor of the practical aspects of the introduction, as argued for specifically in the Arroni report and by the Commission.
Information programmes are starting far too late, sadly mostly dictated by motives of political electioneering, in my country as well. This is in fact anti-democratic.
Not one single party, not one single political programme in my country leaves any room to be against the euro.
I must say this is very strange in a Europe which proclaims that it wants to be transparent.
It is beginning to look like a monetary dictatorship.
<P>
Many elderly people - a considerable part of the European population - are wondering whether, under pressure of the euro, their pensions will be able to retain their value.
We should treat these questions seriously.
If we do not, the euro will become a disaster, and there will be no public support for any of the subsequent steps within the Union - and I am thinking of enlargement and changes to the agricultural policy and structural funds.
We will achieve the exact opposite of what we set out to do with the euro.
<P>
The Commission proposal and the Arroni report cover the practical aspects of introduction, which is fine, but they devote insufficient attention to the issue of public support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="Teverson">
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating Winnie Ewing on her contribution, which I agree with absolutely.
<P>
Tourism is a key sector in Europe, and the euro will definitely provide a huge degree of additional transparency.
But it will also reveal the differences in indirect taxation, value added tax in particular.
That is why I have tabled an amendment on the report on the euro and tourism to highlight that to the Commission and the Council of Ministers.
For example, if we take visitor accommodation in Luxembourg, France and Portugal, VAT is as low as 3 to 5.5 %, whereas, ironically, in two of the nations which are opting out of the euro - the United Kingdom and Denmark - the rates are 17.5 % and 25 %.
This creates a double barrier for those countries and the tourist sectors within those Member States: first of all they lack the convenience of the euro zone and, secondly, they will become out-priced within the single market.
<P>
I was delighted to hear yesterday that finance ministers were setting up a committee to look at harmonization of indirect taxation.
They must give priority to the tourist sector.
Failure will result in the loss of jobs in this precious sector.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Féret">
Mr President, declaration no 6 of the Treaty on European Union stipulates that the Community will commit itself to facilitating the renegotiation of the existing monetary arrangements between Member States of the European Union and third countries with small populations which adopt the currency of a neighbouring country as their national currency.
<P>
By a most discrete sleight of hand, the Commission considers that this clause should allow the Republic of Saint-Marin, the Vatican City and the Principality of Monaco to benefit automatically from the euro as official currency.
Although granting the euro to the Vatican and to San Marino does not pose any particular moral problem, the same cannot be said of the Principality of Monaco, which is ruled by an absolute monarchy which does not respect human rights and reigns over a tiny territory where tax evasion on an enormous scale takes place to the detriment of all Member States of the European Union, except France.
<P>
I would ask our Parliament to make its voice heard and oppose a decision by the Commission in favour of Monaco which would be iniquitous and immoral.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fayot">
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to look particularly at certain aspects of the euro which are becoming more and more important as the political problems are resolved and people become more interested in the euro.
<P>
The first question which concerns me is as follows. Since the manufacture of coins with a national symbol is due to commence at the latest on 1 May or 3 May this year, depending on the decision taken, it would be interesting to know whether the likely participants in the euro zone have already chosen the national symbols to appear on the coins.
I greatly appreciated the measure taken in Italy, which tried to use the choice of this national symbol to thresh out the whole question of the euro and to get the people involved.
I think all countries should do this; it should not be a technocratic choice by a finance minister and some civil servants.
The people, the parliamentary members and the Community should be involved in this choice.
<P>
There is another issue which interests me greatly.
Everyone now seems to agree that the period in which notes and coins both of the national currency and in euros are circulating at the same time should be kept to a minimum.
It has been decided that this circulation is to start on 1 January 2002.
Can the Commissioner tell me if any countries have announced their intention so far to limit this period to less than the stipulated six months?
<P>
I think it should be possible to limit the period of dual circulation, for example in business, to as short a period as possible - two, three or maybe four weeks - although it may mean that in banks the exchange of national currencies into euros can continue for some time, for example until 30 June 2002.
Some business people could make considerable savings in this way.
I would like to know if this approach would be possible.
<P>
Finally - and this is my last question, Commissioner - during the years 1999 to 2002, professional associations, for example in the commercial sector, will need a great deal of money for their communication and training programmes.
Videos must be produced for the training of commercial employees, together with electronically-generated printed matter for communication. We must work more closely with the commercial grass roots and with consumers.
Will the various planned programmes be unblocked soon by our partners in the Member States?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herman">
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we note with satisfaction that a consensus is growing in Europe on how the EMU transitional period is taking shape.
Europe has laid down a legal framework for the introduction of the euro, and with that it has acquitted itself well of its most important tasks.
Nonetheless, it had to avoid many obstacles in its path.
Initially the starting date was questioned, later the Madrid scenario for the introduction of the euro was called into question, and meanwhile the discussion on the 3 % level flared up.
Europe has swum in the roughest seas, but the coast is approaching.
Now it is the turn of the Member States to bring the changeover to a favourable conclusion.
We are pleased with this because the constitutions, legal systems and institutional traditions of the Member States differ so greatly that far-reaching harmonization of transitional measures is out of the question.
<P>
I am also very pleased that dual pricing will not be imposed as statutory, and that a flexible solution can be opted for.
The Commission insists on codes of good practice and voluntary agreements: give businesses, petrol stations and travel agents enough room to manoeuvre.
<P>
My third point concerns conversion charges.
The principle argued for is that people should not have to pay for compulsory conversion to euros, in other words for converting their national currency into the euro and vice versa.
There is no clarity on this yet.
We agree with the rapporteur that this principle might have to be enforced.
Could I ask the Commissioner whether he shares this position?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pérez Royo">
Mr President, first of all I want to congratulate the three rapporteurs on the reports we are debating this morning, especially Helena Torres Marques, whose approach I agree with completely. There are now only a few weeks left before the first euro countries are selected, and less than 300 days until the start of monetary union.
In that respect, I want to underline some of the ideas which other speakers have already mentioned.
<P>
The first thing I want to emphasize is what an important step economic and monetary union is.
There is no doubt that it is the most important advance to take place in Europe since the birth of the Community, forty odd years ago.
<P>
Secondly, I want to stress that this fundamental change to our lives will be happening as early as 1 January 1999, even though euro notes and coins will not enter circulation until three years later.
From 1 January 1999, there will be a single monetary policy for those countries in the euro zone, stretching from Lapland in the far north-east of the continent to Lepe or Cape Saint Vincent in the extreme south-west.
<P>
Thirdly, I want to repeat something I think is fundamental: the genuine and definitive players in the euro adventure are the citizens, both as economic producers and as consumers - as users, in short, of the new currency.
<P>
The success of the euro will depend not just on it being used in the financial markets so that it can reach the famous critical mass, but also - I would even say, above all - on the public accepting it as a means of payment, right from the outset.
<P>
On that point, I want to draw attention to a question I think is important, which has already been mentioned, for example by Mr Hendrick: the question of transaction costs for exchange into euros or for exchange between participating currencies during that long transitional period of three years.
<P>
The people of Europe have repeatedly been told that from 1 January 1999 the mark, the franc, the lira, the peseta and so on will be united to form the euro, and will become non-decimal fractions of the euro. So they will not be able to understand how they can be charged a commission for changing one of those fractions (say the mark) into another (for example, the escudo), or why they should be charged for having their bill in marks converted into euros.
<P>
If the citizens are treated like this they will conclude that they were misled when they were told there would be a single currency from 1 January 1999. They will see the euro not as a single currency, but as an extra currency in addition to the national ones.
<P>
So our view is that we need a more determined approach than is shown in the Commission's announcement of a few days ago, saying that all compulsory measures will be free whereas optional ones will depend on the market.
I think we need a more determined approach, and in that respect I want to conclude by reminding people of the vote in this House on the occasion of the report on the euro and the consumer, which I had the honour of presenting to Parliament a few weeks ago. That report tackled this problem directly and proposed a ban on that sort of practice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Porto">
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mrs Helena Torres Marques on her report on the euro and tourism, which is extremely timely and draws attention to the importance of the sector and to the way in which it will benefit from the single currency.
<P>
As the world's third largest industry, after oil and automobiles, Europe's 60 % share of the tourism market is very substantial.
Obviously, the relative decline that has occurred is a consequence of the emergence of new destinations on other continents, although European tourism has continued to grow in absolute terms with the anticipated creation of 1.85 million new jobs by the year 2007.
Moreover, it is a sector with a reasonably balanced geographical distribution and many regions which have no alternatives in other spheres, including many rural regions, are attractive tourist destinations.
<P>
The introduction of the euro will remove transaction costs, uncertainty and calculation, which today constitute very significant limitations, as has already been emphasized by a number of Members. Consequently, a substantial number of European citizens may be expected to start travelling more frequently.
The benefits, moreover, will not be confined to European citizens, since the demand by citizens from other continents will naturally increase, since they can more readily move within a space where they can pay for everything in the same currency.
So tourism operators have no reason to fear the euro.
On the contrary, they will certainly benefit from it, although, as is emphasized in the report, they will be requested to refrain from taking advantage of its introduction to round prices up and introduce unjustified increases in the costs of the products and services they supply.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pomés Ruiz">
Mr President, Commissioner, the three reports we are debating today have a basic point in common, on which the success of the single currency will largely depend.
All three deal with questions which will determine how well the people of Europe take to the euro.
The European citizens are the protagonists in this approaching change. They are the ones who must steer this transition, which is unique in world history.
Tourism, which has become a mass phenomenon during this second half of the twentieth century, should serve to promote the euro - the currency of the twenty-first century.
At the same time, the euro should stimulate tourism in Europe, with regard to tourists from within Europe and from other parts of the world.
<P>
I want to congratulate Mrs Torres Marques on her excellent report.
The prospects for growth within the tourism sector represent a real hope for solving the unemployment problem. The advantages which the single currency will bring for this sector are obvious.
The public will accept the euro if it helps resolve the problems they are worried about.
Unemployment is their greatest concern. Tourism will help to solve that problem.
The euro will help tourism. We should be able to transmit that message to the citizens if we want the project to be a success.
<P>
With respect to the Arroni report, I want to congratulate the rapporteur most sincerely on his excellent work.
We must make sure that the introduction of the euro results in as little inconvenience as possible. We must reduce costs, and concentrate on those sectors which are going to experience most problems: small businesses, pensioners, the public and the disabled.
We should provide ample resources for informing and training the public.
<P>
Finally, on the Wolf report, about the independence of the European Central Bank and the European System of Central Banks, I wanted to make a slight clarification, a small point.
The independence of the European Central Bank, and the way it is legally bound to the objective of price stability, constitute a guarantee for the citizens.
Economic history is littered with examples of monetary authorities deciding to stimulate inflation in order to lessen the burden of national debt.
That is no longer going to be possible.
It will not be possible to apply that hidden tax of inflation in Europe.
It has been the least well-off who have suffered most from that type of policy.
The future European System of Central Banks will prevent it happening.
When a government or a regional or municipal authority has to repay debts, it will have to do so in full view of its citizens.
I am glad about that, and I am sure the people of Europe are too.
Nevertheless, as we stand on the threshold of introducing the euro, it is essential that the central banks should adapt their legislation as soon as possible. We cannot allow the future Central Bank and the European System of Central Banks to be deprived of all the possibilities for success which would be bound to result from the merging of so many central banks without having such varied rules.
As Mr Herman said, we need to speed up the time limits and say which regulations need altering urgently.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hoppenstedt">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it might seem that everything that there is to be said has already been said this morning.
Unfortunately, not everyone has been able to contribute, not least myself.
There are some important points I would like to highlight. The Arroni report deals with how arrangements for the changeover can be optimized, and it touches on some key issues.
Firstly, for example, it mentions the optimization of information strategies, and I believe that electronic media, via news broadcasts, can and should provide our citizens with precise answers to their questions, and this could be very helpful over the coming months and years.
<P>
Secondly, I think it could be very helpful - and I am making a special statement now - if the euro could be used as an electronic means of payment at major events such as the Hanover World Fair in 2000, at which 60 million visitors are expected.
That would be a marvellous pilot project.
Thirdly, I would like to emphasize again that the public authorities have a special responsibility in the changeover to the euro, and I am thinking of dual pricing here.
I believe, and several people have already touched on this today, that dual pricing could and should be applied for three years by authorities ranging from municipalities, cities, districts and regions to major state institutions, in setting and assessing charges and also in paying salaries and so forth.
In this way people will be able to familiarize themselves with the euro by 2002 and will be able to relate it to their national currency and convert as a matter of course.
It will also allow small and medium-sized businesses, which may not always be so well prepared, to get used to this process and to prepare more thoroughly for the changeover date in 2002. And it will also encourage trade associations to play a more active part, which some are already doing or trying to do.
<P>
I also think it is important that national tax authorities in particular should be geared up to using the euro in tax assessments and suchlike as soon as possible.
Nine or ten Member States who will probably participate in monetary union are already doing this.
I hope that Germany in particular will be receptive to this system, which could be very helpful for the future.
The state should be in the vanguard here with a high level of state commitment and not trailing behind!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Secchi">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I also wish to take part in this debate, referring in particular to Mr Arroni's report and to Mrs Torres Marques' report on the euro and tourism.
I am well aware that much has already been said and there is little room for further contributions.
I believe, however, that several concepts should be confirmed.
<P>
Firstly, we should start from the fact that tourism provides fundamental scope for a thorough reflection on the methods of introducing the euro.
The sector is characterized by economic activity that plays a unifying role within the Union, and promotes better reciprocal knowledge and a greater sense of common citizenship.
Besides being one of the main sources of creating wealth and employment, it will be one of the spheres (together with the distribution and commercial system, as already mentioned) in which the methods of introducing the euro will condition its success or confirm the difficulties, as these sectors are in direct contact with the citizens and consumers.
<P>
The euro will also have a considerable impact on the tourist sector as, on the one hand, there will be a reduction in transaction costs and, on the other, there will be a greater transparency of prices.
This will stimulate greater competition, with the ultimate result of improving competitiveness, even in markets outside the EU.
Consequently, not only is tourism fundamental to the success of the euro, but we are faced with a historic occasion for the revival of this fundamental sector although, as already stated, we should remember with regret that the budget has considerably reduced the funds available for the specific programmes planned.
<P>
The practical aspects of introducing the euro are therefore of crucial importance, with the basic objective of making the citizens as familiar as possible with the new currency and reducing related costs to a minimum.
From this point of view, I support the theory (already advocated by other speakers and by Mrs Thyssen first of all) that it is important to insist that the categories concerned should organize themselves with regard to information and the elimination or minimization of transaction costs.
This will stimulate a fruitful interaction in the market between supply and demand in establishing the best possible conditions for consumers.
Only if such self-discipline is absent will it be advisable to lay down compulsory rules from above - rules which should be limited to individual cases, so as not to make the transition process too rigid with excessively complex measures or rules.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Cornelissen">
Mr President, there is good news and there is bad news with regard to tourism.
The good news is that, soon, the tourist will not have to go through the miserable experience of constantly having to change money ever again.
A miserable experience which also costs a lot of money.
At the weekend I drove past a bureau de change at the border between the Netherlands and Belgium, and I noticed that the difference between the buying and selling exchange rates for the Portuguese escudo amounted to 15 %.
That is a serious figure.
With the introduction of the euro, the holiday-maker in Europe will gain one free day in every 14 holidays.
This is a welcome benefit, because Europe's share in world tourism is steadily declining, and that is bad news for employment.
May I therefore ask the Commissioner what progress is being made with plans to allow Member States to conduct experiments in which labour-intensive sectors such as tourism would be subject to lower VAT rates?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="de Silguy">
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Commissioner, and thank you to the three rapporteurs and all the speakers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Cornelissen">
Mr President, I asked one question.
Would the Commissioner like to respond to it now or later?
What is the situation on allowing Member States to carry out trial projects for lower VAT rates for labour-intensive sectors such as tourism?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sisó Cruellas">
Mr President, the Commissioner mentioned those countries which have already decided on the euro's national side.
I would like to point out here that Spain has also now adopted the national side - last week, in fact.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="de Silguy">
I have taken note of your question.
We will respond directly to it.
I do not have the details to enable me to respond to you today in detail, and I would prefer not to give you any wrong information.
Thank you for the information on Spain.
Sorry, I thought I was up to date, but the euro is progressing so fast that it is impossible to be totally up-to-date.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place today at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Promoting road safety in the EU
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0065/98) by Mr Cornelissen, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the communication from the Commission "Promoting road safety in the EU - the programme for 1997-2001' (COM(97)0131 - C4-0180/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="Cornelissen">
Mr President, on Friday night my wife and I were invited to dinner with some friends.
During the meal our host was called to the telephone, and he was asked to come to the hospital as quickly as possible because his eldest son had been involved in a road accident.
On Saturday morning we visited our hosts again.
Their son had died.
They looked ten years older.
Their life will never be the same again.
<P>
This was one of the 45 000 lives which are lost every year in the European Union as a result of road accidents - 45 000 a year!
That means 900 a week.
In other words, every week a traffic disaster takes place on the scale of the sinking of the Estonia.
More than 2 million Europeans are injured in road accidents every year, and many of them will remain permanently disabled.
The grief and human suffering behind these figures is immeasurable.
Furthermore, road accidents cause great economic and social harm.
Experts estimate this at more than ECU 150 billion a year.
This distress, and this waste of human life and financial resources, are not acceptable in a civilized society with all but unlimited technical capabilities.
<P>
Having looked closely at various studies I would even go so far as to conclude that, despite the expected growth in traffic, the number of road casualties could be halved over the next fifteen years.
That means reducing the number of road deaths to less than 25 000 in the year 2010.
The Road Safety Programme presented by the Commission last year is an important first step.
I recognize Commissioner Kinnock's great concern for road safety in this, and his determination to do what he can, bearing in mind the limited powers of the Commission.
<P>
Nonetheless, we would like to go a bit further.
We believe a numerical target which has the aim of halving the number of road casualties during the next fifteen years is essential and achievable.
It is clear that, in the light of subsidiarity, meeting this target is not just the responsibility of the Union.
I would like to point out, however, that those countries which have expressed their targets in concrete figures have achieved good results.
I would like to mention the United Kingdom, the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands.
A numerical target will also act as a signal to the public, and will give all those involved an objective to aim for.
<P>
In order to fulfil the targets, priorities will have to be set for the 65 measures in the Commission programme.
Allow me to mention a few.
Firstly, legislation for safer motor vehicles - safer for passengers, but also with better protection at the front and rear to reduce injuries to cyclists and pedestrians in the event of a collision.
The road, too, should and can become safer.
We would like to see a safety impact assessment of all EU-funded roads.
The introduction of 30 km/h zones in residential areas and around schools saves many children's lives.
Irresponsibly high speeds destroy road safety.
Drink-driving is not only anti-social, it is criminal.
Is the Commissioner prepared to bring up for discussion again the Council proposal for a Europewide maximum driver's blood alcohol concentration of 50 milligrams, which has been on the table for years?
Recent studies show very clearly that the use of drugs is also responsible for thousands of road deaths.
Many medicinal drugs, too, have negative effects on the ability to drive.
Can the Commissioner, in consultation with the relevant organizations, check how these problems can be best tackled?
<P>
Could I also ask for particular attention to be paid to the opportunities offered by technological developments, such as systems which disable the start mechanism of the car when the driver has drunk too much?
Driving with the lights on during the day, and wider use of seat belts, lead to significantly fewer accidents.
Improved first aid at accidents is also important.
<P>
Finally, safe behaviour on the road - more than 90 % of accidents are caused by human error.
Better training for drivers, road safety education in schools, information campaigns, enforcement of traffic regulations such as those relating to rest and driving times for professional drivers (with a serious chance of getting caught) are indispensable if this reduction is to be achieved.
We think the introduction of a penalty-point system is desirable.
Can I ask the Commissioner how he will proceed?
Following this debate, will he present a further stage of his plans, and can he promise that in 1998 and during the following years there are, or will be, sufficient resources in the budget?
<P>
Mr President, road safety is a joint responsibility shared by the Union, the Member States, car manufacturers, educators, road safety organizations, road users of course, and many others.
To achieve success, a joint approach is needed with sufficient popular support.
<P>
The subsidiarity principle must be respected.
The EU must concentrate on measures where action at EU level leads to added value.
Road accidents are not a natural disaster in the face of which we are powerless.
On the contrary, we make the traffic and we can make it as safe as we want to.
Mr Commissioner, you will be able to count on us in this fight, but we also count on you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Watts">
Mr President, I sincerely thank the rapporteur, Mr Cornelissen, for both his speech and report.
Mr Cornelissen speaks from both the head and from the heart in terms of his commitment to road safety.
I pay tribute to the way he has skilfully steered this report through Parliament, embracing as many opinions as possible and reaching a conclusion which will be endorsed overwhelmingly in Parliament tomorrow.
<P>
We should also pay tribute to Commissioner Kinnock.
He has rightly brought this issue to the top of the agenda in the Commission's work programme.
Why has he done that?
He is aware that 45 000 people - as Mr Cornelissen has already said - are killed every year and more than one million are injured.
The cost to society is probably at least ECU 100 billion.
He has set out in his communication the appalling figures.
One in 80 of us will die as a result of a road accident; one in three of us will be hospitalized because of a road accident; the main cause of death amongst the young is road accidents.
So I pay tribute to him for so graphically making the case for action in this area.
<P>
Let us not underestimate the scale of the task that we face.
It is very easy to do that because these incidents are often very individual, but collectively they represent the equivalent of two or three jumbo jet loads of passengers in Europe dying each and every week.
If that happened to one, two or three jumbo jets each and every week, those particular aircraft simply would not fly; we would not tolerate it.
And yet for some reason, society tolerates a similar toll of people being killed and many, many more being injured on our roads.
Therefore we have a collective responsibility to ensure this issue receives the attention it deserves from Parliament, the Commission, the Council and society as a whole.
<P>
We support, therefore, the ambitious but realistic target set by Mr Cornelissen - namely, a 40 % reduction by the year 2010.
Commissioner Kinnock's proposals give us the tools to achieve that target.
People may say it is unrealistic but we cannot tolerate a situation where thousands of our fellow citizens die needlessly on our roads every year.
Something must be done on an ambitious scale.
That is why the socialists are very proud to be associated with Mr Cornelissen's report and Mr Kinnock's communication.
<P>
We would highlight six priorities for action.
Many of these priorities reflect the views of the rapporteur and the Commissioner, but they highlight very clearly where action can and must be taken.
<P>
Firstly, we must combat drink-driving.
There are some 9 000 alcohol-related deaths every year on our roads.
We have the means to address that problem by supporting the Commissioner's proposal for a 50 milligramme limit - a proposal, I understand, that has been on the table now for 10 years.
Let us see some action.
We would applaud the Commissioner's efforts to try and secure agreement in the Council as soon as possible.
<P>
Secondly, we want to see the associated issue of drugs being examined by an EU research programme to make sure people cannot take drugs, drive and contribute to accidents as they do, on an increasing scale.
<P>
Thirdly, we want to endorse the view of the rapporteur that a new vehicle design directive must be published to make sure vehicles are as friendly to pedestrians and cyclists as is humanly possible.
The technology is there.
What is lacking is the political will.
<P>
Fourthly, we want to curb speed and introduce more 20-miles-per-hour limits.
Fifthly, we want to see the mutual recognition of driving bans and finally, more research into driving behaviour.
<P>
All these measures will contribute to our common goal of tackling this unacceptable, appalling, disgraceful figure of 45 000 deaths every year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are delighted to see that you have arrived safely, Commissioner.
Like the previous speaker, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Cornelissen, on his excellent report. He has put an enormous amount of work into it.
We appreciate his commitment to road safety, which has spanned several decades.
So it is perhaps no wonder that he was asked to be rapporteur and that he has produced such a first-rate report.
<P>
However, as it would be monotonous if we all agreed on everything, I shall highlight a problem: the Commission's communication on promoting road safety in 1997-2001 contains 65 proposals, and many of the proposals have to be presented by 1998/99.
So my first request to you, Commissioner, is to speed up all the individual proposals.
You know as well as I do that nothing will happen after spring next year.
We will go on the election trail and Commission will either retire or seek reselection.
This means that anything urgent must have a first reading in Parliament by autumn at the latest.
Otherwise the proposals will just gather dust for two years until the Parliament and the Commission are up and running again.
For that reason, Commissioner, I would urge you to encourage your people to present the individual proposals to Parliament and the Council as quickly as possible.
<P>
Secondly, I would like to know if you support the list of priorities set by the rapporteur, and probably by this House when we vote tomorrow.
Mr Cornelissen has quite rightly said that it is no good presenting 65 proposals if they are only implemented in a trickle.
We need to have a substantial body of priority projects adopted to improve road safety.
That is why we are so interested to know if you really support Mr Cornelissen's list of priorities, which we will no doubt vote for tomorrow, and if you are ready to pledge your support to them.
<P>
I would also like to address a few points that my group considers urgent, as well as two or three points in the report that we will reject.
We think it is important, as Mr Watts has so rightly explained, to make the car a safer means of transport, because can kill and injure people.
Secondly, the majority of my group firmly supports European legislation reducing the legal alcohol limit to 0.5 mg/ml.
We absolutely must jump this hurdle.
In November 1993 we agreed in the Maastricht Treaty that measures can be adopted by the Parliament and Council.
I believe that measures to combat drink-driving are crucial and that we should act jointly in this area.
<P>
My third point is this: I think it is important to establish a European penalty point register or at least agree to this step.
In some countries drink-driving is viewed as a trifling offence that your friends in the pub will virtually congratulate you on. So we must not just set an alcohol limit but also ensure that by maintaining a Europe-wide penalty point register and by enforcing penalties, we can change people's attitude and behaviour.
<P>
I want to mention two other points that we cannot vote for.
In my view, the requirement for daytime running lights for cars and not just motorbikes cannot be justified throughout the Community.
It may be appropriate in Scandinavia because the light is different there, but what is the point of having car lights on in Spain during the summer?
We should respect the principle of subsidiarity and take account of varying weather conditions in the Community before we adopt such fundamental regulations.
<P>
My last point is a curious one.
I think it is unreasonable to call for a ban on selling alcohol at all service stations.
Yes, we need to target drivers themselves, but it would be excessive to punish bus passengers who want the odd beer at a service station by banning alcohol there, and we do not want that!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Santini">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, it is important for these problems to be discussed clearly, even if we have already found that words alone are not enough to reduce the number of victims.
We talked about it intensely last year at the Pan-European Conference in Helsinki (I myself drew up a report on the safety and use of telematics) but, unfortunately, we have not made any impact on the statistics.
Statistics, I agree, are very important for assessing problems: 45 000 deaths a year is certainly an impressive figure, as is 45 000 million lire spent by the community.
But statistics would be a mathematical exercise, an end in themselves, if they were not used to stimulate ideas and to help us draw conclusions.
Alongside the proposals to catalogue accidents and assess their effects in order to assist the injured parties, I consider more interesting and important the analyses of the means and initiatives to try to prevent them.
We have already seen that the simple accessories we all have in our cars are no longer enough: safety belts, airbags, helmets and intelligent speed control systems are just additional factors to accompany something else we still have to invent.
<P>
I think one good idea contained in Mr Cornelissen's excellent report is to try and convince the car manufacturers to change the fronts of the vehicles, to make them safer for pedestrians and cyclists and, at the same time, more resistant to impact. It would appear that this measure alone could mean 20 000 fewer deaths a year, and it would therefore be worth trying.
I still believe in means of assistance and behavioural measures, such as telematics as a means of control but also of assistance.
However, I particularly believe in educating school children.
It is useless to create different means if they are then used incorrectly.
So we need to start at the beginning and include in the school curriculum the genuinely educational subject of behaviour on roads, and civilized behaviour in general.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, road safety concerns us all, and this has been proved again this morning, not only by the Commissioner, but also by the rapporteur, whom we support in all aspects of this case and for the way he presented it.
We also sympathize with him: all of us can, because we all have to battle continually with the terrible consequences of these kinds of traffic accidents.
I would like to mention that in my family we are still suffering the consequences of an accident which took place in Belgium between a Dutch and a French driver.
<P>
When it turns out that it is often human error which is to blame, then surely better measures could be taken, instead of just saying that people should take better care and learn more.
When we see that in more or less exactly the same circumstances and at the same time, an accident similar to the one the year before happens on the A17 at Kortrijk, with at least as many people killed, then we might well ask when we are finally going to learn and do something about it.
<P>
I submitted an amendment on behalf of my group pointing out that when young people are learning to drive, they should know a few things about what to do in the event of injuries.
This amendment was suggested by the Red Cross, and I commend it to this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dijk">
Mr President, on behalf of my group, I can also say that we are mostly very satisfied with Mr Cornelissen's report.
It touches a sore spot, and repeats for the umpteenth time that the figure of 45 000 fatalities a year, and many times more casualties, is unacceptable, and measures will therefore have to be taken.
<P>
Two important issues are behind the huge number of casualties: namely speed and alcohol.
It is on these issues that I would like to see the report sharpened up.
As far as the 30 km/h zones in towns and cities are concerned, we do not need any more studies.
The existing 30 km/h zones have more than proved their effectiveness, so let us start taking action.
<P>
On the subject of alcohol levels, 50 milligrams seems a decent compromise, but I can tell you that large, heavy people still think they can drink more than others.
It would be much clearer simply to ban drinking.
It saves people having to think how much more they can have, how much they have already had, how much they can drink generally.
What gets into these drivers' heads, that they insist on drinking before they get behind the wheel? Twenty milligrams strikes me as quite enough.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, we regularly express our sympathy with the victims of disasters.
On our European tarmac 45 000 people die each year, and more than 1.5 million are injured.
These figures have been mentioned many times today.
Yet this is not the inevitable price of progress, but the result of our choice of unsafe transport modes.
It is to the credit of the European Commission that it has placed road safety at the top of the agenda, and I can wholeheartedly support the action programme, whereby, to my mind, the emphasis should be on protecting vulnerable groups such as cyclists and pedestrians.
<P>
The Commission thinks that, in view of the cost of one road death, a measure which costs ECU 1 million and saves one life should be taken on economic grounds alone!
The use of such economic arguments shows once again what little value human lives are accorded on the road.
As a point of principle, I oppose valuing a human life at ECU 1 million.
As the crowning glory of God's creation, every human being is unique and invaluable.
<P>
This criterion could even lead to unfortunate choices being made, such as protecting working people in preference to the elderly.
The rapporteur, Mr Cornelissen, rightly points out that the figure of ECU 1 million can lead to abuse, as the cheapest measures might be the ones to get priority.
Regrettably, the Commission only focuses on making traffic safer.
<P>
I think we must give some thought to the issue of reducing mobility.
Less mobility instantly saves human lives.
I also wish there were incentives for safer modes of transport, such as the train and the bicycle.
All this does not alter the fact that I think highly of the action programme.
I would like to thank Mr Cornelissen for his excellent report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldarelli">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, I think the figures are alarming. One person in eighty becomes the victim of a road accident and the resulting economic costs amount to 1 % of the GNP of the EU.
It is also said that these costs are underestimated and may even be twice that amount.
I do not think road education alone is enough, although it is important, nor do I think we need simply deal with the subject of the amount of alcohol consumed.
We should develop more community and public transport services, and we should give people the opportunity to use them, especially during holiday periods and week-ends.
Consideration should also be given to monitoring.
<P>
One proposal could be to harmonize the times at which alcoholic drinks are sold, which are currently not harmonized at all in Europe.
We have already talked about the possibility of using innovative technological methods.
Telematics applied to transport undoubtedly produces significantly positive effects, such as satellite navigation in the event of particular weather conditions.
We also need to weaken the resistance of the car manufacturers, particularly with regard to safety standards.
To that effect, there should be an assessment of the pilot projects already being implemented by DG XIII and DG VII, providing for direct measures to improve the safety of means of individual and collective mobility.
<P>
In this case, I believe telematics can play an important role with regard to both visual and oral communication.
From this point of view, I think pilot projects involving the cities also need to be developed. Above all, however, if we want to take everybody into consideration, I believe we need to think of safety measures as being connected with the quality of life.
Quality of life is measured with awareness, also taking into account a harmonic concept of people and objects. From this point of view, I think it is even more necessary to develop a real European concept of increased responsibility towards the citizens, which is fundamental if we want to provide a model and an advanced point of reference.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="McIntosh">
Mr President, I very much welcome the extension in the Maastricht Treaty to joint competence for safety between the Member States and the European Union.
I also give a warm welcome to the Commission communication and to Mr Cornelissen's excellent report.
However, the real way forward to improve road safety is to ensure compliance with existing regulations.
Currently the situation is that some countries fail to apply the regulations in force, while other countries, like my own, gold-plate the regulations with additional conditions.
<P>
If you take the particular example of reducing the maximum amount of drivers' blood concentration to 0.5 mg/ml, this is only tinkering at the margins of road safety.
We should instead take tougher action against persistent drunk drivers who are currently offending and causing road accident deaths and injuries where they are three or four times over the existing limit.
I hope the Commission will contrast that with the proposed action against insulin-dependent diabetic drivers in the United Kingdom, which is out of all proportion to any likely danger they would pose on the roads.
These drivers are now going to be banned in the United Kingdom and will lose their right to drive goods vehicles up to seven and a half tonnes.
They will, however, still be entitled to drive such vehicles in any other Member State but the United Kingdom.
I ask the Commissioner today, is this compatible with road safety in a single European market?
I urge the Commissioner and this House to take action.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Fitzsimons">
Mr President, this debate on the future of European road safety takes place at a time when mobile phone usage in Ireland and across Europe is rapidly increasing.
The use of mobile phones in cars must be legislated for at a European level in the interests of better road safety.
The European Union should ensure that car manufacturers construct all cars for the European market equipped fully with mobile phone kits.
The European car manufacturers must assume the costs of equipping all new manufactured cars with car phones in the interests of the medium to long-term future of road safety for car users and their passengers.
In Ireland car users utilizing mobile phones when driving can be prosecuted for careless driving under the Road Traffic Act of 1961.
The European Union must complement Irish legislation on this matter, especially as there will be one million mobile phones in Ireland by the end of 1998.
<P>
Finally, phone penetration in Ireland, which presently stands at 15 % of the population, is set to double by the end of the year.
With so many mobile phones in operation in Ireland and Europe, mobile phone car kits in the future will come to be viewed not as a luxury item but as a necessity in the interests of safer driving and road safety, and the European Union must act on this issue immediately.
I compliment Mr Cornelissen on his excellent report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="President">
The debate is now adjourned and will be resumed at 3.00 p.m.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Madam President, on a point of order, I would like to say that two anti-crime procedures are currently under way.
The first is the request for urgent debate before Parliament and the second is the referral to the Council. The request can be signed here in the Palais in Room 1155, next to the Documentation Service.
<P>
Thirdly, I would like to ask if the Committee on the Rules of Procedure has already dealt with the refusal of the request for urgent debate at the last sitting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="President">
Mr Rübig, I can inform you that the necessary steps have been taken and the President of the European Parliament will be in constant contact with the Belgian authorities about this serious problem. The College of Quaestors, which meets tomorrow afternoon, has added this matter to its agenda.
In other words, we have treated your request with all the seriousness it deserves.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Falconer">
Madam President, please note that my colleague Mr Smith is ill today. Otherwise he would have been present in the Chamber.
In accordance with the Bureau's instruction, please note my presence in the Chamber.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="President">
I have noted that you are here, Mr Falconer.
<P>
Before the roll-call vote on Amendment No 63
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Falconer">
Madam President, could my presence in the Chamber be noted.
I will not be participating in this vote.
I would also advise those Members in the House who are interested in protecting their rights that these are appropriate votes in which to do as I am doing.
The majority is overwhelmingly against the Green motion and no political causes will be lost in any protest.
<P>
After the roll-call vote on Amendment No 67
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Falconer">
Madam President, I am sorry that I must rise.
I am usually kind to your good self but I have to protest.
The Bureau's instructions were quite clear.
When a person asks for the floor prior to a roll-call vote, it is for that person to indicate whether he or she will participate in the vote and not for you.
I ask you to carry out the Bureau's instructions in these matters.
At the last session you said that you were following a course of action which was not to be used as a precedent.
Therefore I hope and trust that you will carry out the Bureau's petty instructions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="President">
Mr Falconer, I scrupulously respect the Bureau's instructions.
When I said earlier that you were at the sitting, I meant you were free to vote or not to vote, and that I had noted your presence.
I think that is all entirely correct in accordance with what we decided.
<P>
- After the roll-call vote on Amendment No 58
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Falconer">
Madam President, I wished to indicate that I was going to participate in that vote.
Would you please follow the Bureau's instructions!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="President">
Mr Falconer, I fully respect your freedom.
As I said earlier, you may vote, or you may not vote.
The main thing is that we have taken note of your presence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Corbett">
Madam President, in this Parliament we vote to adopt texts or amendments or not to adopt texts or amendments.
If you wish to adopt a text or an amendment, you vote in favour; if you wish to reject a text or an amendment, you vote against; if you want to do neither of those things but show that you are present here, you can always press the third button - the abstention button.
<P>
(Mixed reactions) I know that some people claim there is a difference between abstaining and being present in the Chamber and not voting.
I personally fail to see the difference.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, you will appreciate that we are not going to start a debate on this.
Personally, I think there is an important nuance between abstaining and not participating in the vote.
It is quite clear.
<P>
I think Mr Falconer agrees.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Falconer">
Madam President, I would have hoped that Mr Corbett, with his long experience as a senior staff member on the Committee on Institutional Affairs, would also recognize that difference.
<P>
Before the roll-call vote on Amendment No 59
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Argiros">
Madam President, the issue of the mandatory vote is much too serious to degenerate into a dispute between the Presidency and Mr Falconer.
<P>
Therefore I wish to announce that I am present and that I will not vote.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Antony">
I will not participate in the vote on this report, Madam President.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="President">
Very well, we will take note of that.
<P>
(During successive votes, Parliament adopted the 9 legislative resolutions)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Graenitz">
Madam President, before we proceed to the vote, I would like to point out that in the voting list two amendments have not been allocated to the correct paragraphs, and that Amendment No 19 tabled by the Group of the European People's Party would not relate to paragraph 18 but to paragraph 19.
In that case, I shall vote against, as it would replace paragraph 19.
The vote on Amendment No 28 tabled by the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party should not be taken after paragraph 36, but as an addition to paragraph 45, because the issue is dealt with in that paragraph and it fits very well there.
Please keep an eye on this during the vote.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Torres Marques">
Madam President, I do not wish to delay the vote.
May I ask you to have a general correction made to the text, of which the original is in Portuguese, because in the languages I can understand I have detected unacceptable errors.
I have received many requests for this report which must be sent out in languages that I cannot read.
I would also like to request the floor regarding Amendments Nos 11 and 5.
<P>
On Amendment No 11
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Torres Marques">
Madam President, this is not a linguistic problem.
This is the same text that was submitted by Mr Paul Rübig of the Group of the European People's Party.
This text was rejected in committee, and I have used it because I consider that it best expresses what we want to say.
Therefore, this is indeed the text that Mr Paul Rübig submitted previously.
<P>
On Amendment No 5
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Torres Marques">
Madam President, I cannot accept this amendment because it has nothing to do with the euro.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Chichester">
Madam President, I tried to catch your eye before this last roll-call vote.
I would like my presence in the Chamber recorded.
I did not vote.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Corbett">
Madam President, I did not wish to delay proceedings earlier but your answer to me was that an abstention was not the same as not participating in the vote.
I would like this to be referred to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
That ruling is tantamount to creating two different forms of abstention.
You will have Members who wish neither to vote in favour of a text or against a text, but who wish to indicate their presence in the Chamber by pressing the button of abstention.
You will also have Members who wish neither to vote in favour of a text nor against a text by not pressing such a button and indicating to you orally which, as we have seen today, causes a number of problems.
<P>
I would ask this to be referred to the Rules Committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Falconer">
Madam President, this particular matter has been debated long and hard in this Chamber over the last session and this session.
It has also been debated within the Socialist Group.
The line is quite clear within the group.
If Mr Corbett wishes to change that, he should take it back to the Socialist Group.
The line is quite clear that when Members do not wish to vote, then they do not have to vote.
They do not have to press any buttons to abstain or anything else.
They just express the view that they do not wish to vote.
<P>
This relates to a decision handed down by the Bureau. It was never brought to this Chamber.
If Mr Corbett wants to push anything, perhaps he might support my call - which I made in previous Parliaments - for the Members of this Parliament to have a vote on this issue to clear up the matter once and for all.
I would be quite happy to participate in that vote.
Once we have got rid of the anomaly which the Bureau has created, we can then get back to the business of this Parliament.
Until that time it would be far better for Mr Corbett to leave aside his institutional matters and put his political hat on.
Perhaps then we can have politics entering the discussion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, although there are not many of us, but since we still have some time left - even though we have to count the interpreters' time and the explanations of vote still pending - we could prolong this debate.
However, since it is not on the agenda, that is not possible.
Mr Falconer, I am sorry but other Members are waiting and are hungry and have meetings and I must proceed to the explanations of vote.
<P>
I think I really have properly respected your right to vote or not to vote, Mr Falconer.
It has all been noted very carefully.
I really could do no more.
<P>
(Several Members requested to speak on a point of order) Since you insist, we will first have the explanations of vote, since we are concerned to behave properly towards our colleagues.
We will then stay here to sort this issue out.
It is really very interesting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Watson">
Madam President, it is not on the questions raised by the Socialist Group.
I simply wish it to be recorded that I was not here to vote on some of the earlier motions because of air traffic control.
I regret this particularly since I drafted an opinion on Mrs Kuhn's report.
It was simply air traffic control that prevented me from being in Strasbourg on time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Lis Jensen, Sandbæk and Bonde">
Despite some reservations, we have chosen to vote for Mendiluce's motion for a resolution on the Western Sahara.
We give our full support to the content of the resolution, particularly because the peace plan in question has been presented to and adopted by the UN Security Council. We also give our support to holding a fair referendum on self-determination.
However, we are concerned about how the resolution is to be put into practice, since it forms part of the Common Foreign and Security Policy, which we oppose in principle.
The CFSP is only one of the tools used by the EU in the construction of a new state.
<P>
Kuhn report (A4-0029/98)
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Bébéar">
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Buffetaut">
The primary objective of all legislation should be to draw up fair, clear texts which are easy to implement and which guarantee considerable legal security for the public.
However, neither the original Commission text on the sale of consumer goods and associated guarantees, nor the amendments proposed by the Kuhn report meet these criteria.
On the one hand, they are unbalanced and place too great a burden on the vendor, and possibly the producer.
On the other hand, they bring about legal insecurity in which litigation procedures flourish, which if not favourable to consumers, will certainly benefit lawyers and legal experts.
<P>
Three examples clearly illustrate the unbalanced nature of the texts proposed.
Firstly, the length of the guarantee, which varies from two years - in the original text - to five years - in the amendment by the Green group -, when a legal duration of one year would seem sufficient, especially since the range of goods guaranteed is very large - from hairdryers to cars.
We should remember that we are talking about a legal minimum here and that contractual guarantees, which are a factor in competition and promotion, can go well beyond this.
A second problem is the inclusion of secondhand goods within the scope of this directive, when some of the clauses are ill-suited to these goods, for which the idea of flaws is difficult to define since they have already been used.
Thirdly, there is the reversal of the burden of proof to the detriment of the vendor, when it is a general principle of law that it is up to the person with the allegation to produce proof of it.
Roman lawyers had already given this type of reversed proof the name "diabolical proof' , since it is so difficult to establish.
<P>
The legal insecurity which is a source of endless legal disputes is a result of the inaccuracy of too many definitions, which are nevertheless essential.
<P>
During the Parliamentary sitting, certain amendments from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection were adopted as additions to the notion of consumer expectations and the buyer's right to an alternative option, thus making the text extremely vague and favouring the development of litigation.
<P>
For these basic reasons and reasons of legal practice, it was not possible for the French members of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations to vote in favour of this text.
Furthermore, it deals with basic principles of civil law, which is not one of the areas of Community competence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Ferrer">
Any political action or legislative initiative in favour of consumer protection is a good thing and should be welcomed.
However, that does not mean that such protection should be seen as an objective for its own sake, in isolation from the general context in which it should apply.
<P>
It is well known that all rights have their limit, at the point where they come into conflict with the liberties and rights of other people.
The Kuhn report, on the proposal for a directive on the sale of consumer goods and associated guarantees, aims to safeguard consumer protection but because of the nature of some of the amendments which have been approved, that consumer protection in many cases conflicts gratuitously with the rights of the other agents affected by such a proposal. This could potentially result in unnecessary legal in defensiveness on the part of sellers and producers, and could also constitute a particularly significant burden for small traders and small companies, at a time when SMEs need all the help they can get to become competitive, so that competitiveness can allow new jobs to be created.
<P>
Therefore I have voted against the Kuhn report, in the hope that for the second reading it may be possible to reach a balance - which does not exist at the moment - so that consumer protection can be made compatible with protecting the interests of producers, which are also legitimate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Jackson">
The idea that consumers should have a clear conception of their rights as regards guarantees when they buy goods in countries other than their own is an important one.
If the common market is to have real meaning, then one aspect of its benefits is that people should feel confident about such things as guarantees when they buy goods in other European countries.
<P>
The question is to what extent the European Union should not only seek to ensure that consumers have a clear idea of their rights, but should also harmonize the law so that the same rights obtain everywhere.
<P>
To my mind, an approach which involves this degree of harmonization is the wrong one.
It ignores the principle of subsidiarity.
It interferes to an unacceptable extent in national laws regarding the sale of goods.
These are laws which, in the case of my own country, the United Kingdom, have been established and built up on case law over a long period.
The directive proposed is a very blunt instrument indeed to try to incorporate the detailed provisions of the 1979 Sale of Goods Act.
<P>
The directive itself has caused great alarm among the people who will be most involved in dealing with its consequences.
This is because the Commission text would allow the consumer to ask the seller either to repair goods free of charge or to replace the goods, or to demand a price reduction or rescission of the contract.
The right to repair would operate for two years from the date of purchase; the right to replacement would operate for one year following purchase.
No wonder sellers of goods affected by the directive are worried.
Mrs Kuhn's amendments further complicate this situation.
They certainly do nothing to resolve it.
<P>
In drawing up the directive the Commission has loaded the dice in favour of the consumer.
It is surely unlikely that a consumer who complains about what is described as a 'lack of conformity' existing in the goods he has bought will accept repair if replacement is on offer?
As one of my Swindon constituents asks: ' The scope for argument about what is a 'minor lack of conformity' is limitless and unscrupulous consumers might be encouraged to exploit the uncertainty created by these proposals, resulting in the courts having to cope with an influx of cases.
Who will foot the bill for these legal costs?'
<P>
The answer to that question is, ultimately, other consumers.
That is the foolishness of this proposal, a folly we see repeated again and again in the half-baked proposals produced by the consumer directorate in the Commission.
Consumers will pay in two ways: firstly, because the price of goods will rise to take account of such extra costs.
Secondly, because this kind of legislation acts as a disincentive to smaller retailers to stock products which might give rise to expensive legislation - or it adds that last straw which breaks the camel's back and brings the shutters down on the business once and for all.
<P>
So what kind of legislation would help in this situation?
I believe it is probably the kind of legislation which the European Commission is least likely to provide.
The Commission believes in big legislation - major directives and regulations which entail big changes across the commercial community.
What is needed here is light-touch legislation.
What is needed is an arrangement which ensures that when a consumer, coming from one Member State, buys goods in another, he or she is then informed about the consumer's rights under guarantee pertaining in that country where the purchase is carried out.
It might also be desirable, if it is relevant, to inform the consumer of the agent of the company producing the goods in the country of the consumer's residence so that there is an information channel about the consumer's rights under guarantee in the country of purchase.
<P>
That is a far cry from trying to draw up completely new EU-level laws regarding consumer guarantees and imposing these on the very different legal structures of the Member States.
It would be a real help to consumers and it would be legislation that shows that the Commission is living in the real world.
The Commissioner's feeble reply to the Parliament debate on Monday night shows that this is, in fact, very far from the case.
I and my fellow British Conservatives oppose this directive and the Kuhn report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Lienemann">
I am delighted that a European directive is devoted to improving consumer protection in Europe regarding the sale of consumer goods and associated guarantees.
<P>
The draft directive, amended by Parliament, is devoted to finding the best balance between the interest of the consumer and the responsibilities of the vendors and producers, without going as far as the wastage which could arise from a systematic exchange of all goods which have a fault, however minor, and which could in any case be repaired under the conditions of product quality maintenance.
<P>
If it is worth having more guarantees for the buyer and more transparency for the secondhand market, we should question the basis of enacting rules which belong to the "first hand' market in this case.
I fear that this assimilation would in fact be difficult to implement.
Furthermore, I would prefer a specific directive for secondhand goods to take account of the complexity of this area, whilst offering effective consumer protection.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Rübig">
I have abstained on Amendment No 24, because in view of Austrian national law, which provides for a guarantee period of just six months, I am opposed to a quadrupling of the period to two years.
<P>
Extending the period in this way would not only hit business, but also, above all, consumers themselves.
They would be faced with price increases because of the higher risk factor that businesses would have to build in.
Furthermore, legal proceedings become more onerous and costly the longer the time since the product was purchased.
<P>
Lastly, it is totally contrary to the principle of good faith if the vendor has to assume liability for lack of conformity although the purchaser may have recognized the defect in both abstract and specific terms.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Souchet">
It would be difficult not to agree with the aims of the draft directive on the sale of consumer goods and associated guarantees: to strengthen consumer protection and promote the quality of products.
<P>
Unfortunately most of the means proposed by the text under examination, far from responding in an appropriate way to the declared objectives, on the contrary seem excessive, inappropriate and dangerous.
<P>
By inciting the consumer to get involved in dangerous procedures in a whole range of areas, we may contribute to the fortunes of lawyers, but we will not protect consumers any better. Above all, we will overwhelm with even more obligations those small industries in the production and distribution sectors for whom the constraints of exploitation are already very great.
This will increase the legal insecurity of manufacturers and business people, so the initial good intentions will actually have a negative effect on the economy and employment in the end.
<P>
So we will vote against a whole series of dangerous clauses which risk opening up endless disputes and creating a general climate of legal insecurity which would be negative for everybody.
<P>
We are opposed to the inclusion of secondhand goods within the scope of this directive.
The concept of a legal guarantee does not seem to us to apply to a secondhand product such as a vehicle, whose characteristics vary depending on its usage, its age, its maintenance and so on.
Under these conditions, how could a secondhand product be replaced by a comparable product?
Quite simply this does not make any sense.
<P>
We are also against extending the guarantee period to two years. This is excessive, particularly given the increased level of consumer protection which the directive is targeting.
A period of one year would seem reasonable and balanced, and therefore completely sufficient.
<P>
The transfer to the producer and vendor of the burden of proof for lack of conformity also seems unacceptable to us, and contrary to the general principles of law.
Article 3, paragraph 3, creates a presumption of imperfection at the time of delivery of the product if the fault is discovered within the six months following the actual delivery.
We will vote against this clause, which we think is exaggerated and dangerous.
<P>
The very notion of lack of conformity is defined in a very subjective way in the draft directive.
The amendment by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection only aggravates things by introducing the term "of consumer expectation' , which is even vaguer and therefore more likely to lead to many disputes.
<P>
As regards the possibility of offering the buyer a replacement of the product when there is a fault of conformity, this opens up dangerous leeway, especially in high technology sectors such as the car industry or sailing.
We think it is up to the vendor whether to offer repair or replacement, and failing that, the buyer can demand a reduction in price or termination of the contract.
<P>
The other area showing dangerous leeway is the one being opened up by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection by proposing that the consumer can act directly against the manufacturer when the latter is not party to the sale contract.
We would reject this proposal absolutely.
<P>
Setting up a "service to the client' network in all European countries for cases of direct purchase of a product in another Member State also raises problems and must be reexamined.
<P>
If it is legitimate to seek to protect consumers adequately, this must not be at the expense of SMEs, by imposing unbearable constraints on them which would risk upsetting their permanently fragile financial balance.
In France these small companies, which number 800 000, are currently the best job creators.
In the period 1988-1995, they created 1.75 million jobs throughout the European Union.
So we should be particularly careful not to endanger their equilibrium by imposing unreasonable constraints on them: this should be a priority for us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Valverde López">
The proposal for a directive on the sale of consumer goods and associated guarantees has presented us with fundamental problems because there is not enough information about relevant law in the Member States.
<P>
I have requested the European Commission more than once that alongside its proposals, it should carry out a comparative study of the law as regards the specific situation in the various Member States.
Similarly, the Commission should provide Parliament with the key documents upon which its proposal is based.
Of course, this support documentation only needs to be placed in the library, or made available in the form of some technical medium that can be copied easily.
<P>
The second difficulty lies in the very varied interpretations which have been made of the proposal's content.
The proposal fails to differentiate between two of the basic agents: the vendor and the producer.
This has led to a regrettable state of confusion.
Nor is any distinction made between perishable and non-perishable goods, which is an essential aspect when defining guarantees.
The different responsibilities of the manufacturer and the vendor are not made clear either.
The vendor can only take responsibility for those contract requirements which differ from the manufacturer's responsibilities.
<P>
Furthermore, the fact that the proposal fails to describe the basic principles which regulate these matters in the national legislations has led to a veritable diaspora of amendments.
<P>
The proposed text and the amendments which have been presented are unlikely to provide a clear result in favour of the consumer without hindering commercial relations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Wibe">
I am voting for this report on the condition that what is in the explanatory statement is correct.
This explanatory statement clearly states that it is a question of a mini-harmonization of the Member States' national legislation.
It is clear that the mini-harmonization to be carried out shall be subject to the respective national parliaments. That means it is up to each national parliament to decide at what level it wishes to adopt.
So the mini-harmonization is a recommendation.
<P>
My condition is therefore that Swedish consumer protection is in no way weakened through this harmonization.
<P>
Directive on ornamental plants (C4-0044/98)
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Ahlqvist, Theorin and Wibe">
This matter is highly sensitive.
To just vote for a Council Directive without debate is wrong because the Members have so few opportunities to acquaint themselves with what the Directive is about.
<P>
Seed growers who sell vegetable varieties not registered by the EU are threatened with prosecution if they do not stop the sales.
Only plants which are included on the EU's common varieties list are allowed to be sold. For a variety to get onto the list it needs to have an owner.
Ownership costs SEK 20 000 per variety.
<P>
In view of the above, especially the limited opportunities to get acquainted with this directive, we are choosing to abstain from the vote.
<P>
Kellett-Bowman report (A4-0035/98)
<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Madam President, first of all I would like to thank you for humouring two of the passions of the honourable Member now speaking; namely, the greed which makes us want to go for lunch, and the laziness which prevents him from writing his explanation of vote.
<P>
I would like to say one thing about the Kellett-Bowman report.
I did not vote for this report for one simple reason. The report intelligently organizes the discharge and the conditions under which discharge is granted for a certain number of specialized agencies.
Insofar as it concerns agencies which do not have financial autonomy, the system set out in the proposal is satisfactory.
However, when it comes to agencies which have independent income, the system set out by Mr Kellett-Bowman, which was approved unanimously except for one vote by the Committee on Budgets and broadly by this Parliament, is highly unsatisfactory, because it actually ends up giving the power of discharge to the administrative council of the agencies concerned, which would be justified, but only gives firstly a simple power of opinion to this Parliament.
<P>
I think it is a serious matter if we are going down this road and turning this Parliament into a sort of consultative body, subject to the superior arbitration of a technical body created by laws and regulations which we vote on here in this House.
What we should have done was either to give up all participation by Parliament, or reverse the procedures and give Parliament the last word.
I just wanted that point to be made.
<P>
Graenitz report (A4-0009/98)
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Blak and Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted for the report on general principles for the European Union's food legislation.
It is very positive that the Commission's Green Paper recognizes that an extension of the product safety directive could improve overall consumer protection.
The Danish Social Democrats are of the opinion that the acts in question should be revised in order to ensure they are based on the principle of caution and the principle of regard for consumer health and safety.
The premise of food legislation in Europe should be environmental protection, and the aim should be sustainable food production.
These proposals are all part of the same report, to which we give our support.
<P>
With the new Treaty of Amsterdam, the EU seeks to secure minimum requirements in consumer policy, including giving appropriate consideration to consumer health and safety when legislating in the area of food.
However, this will not affect the ability of Member States to retain or introduce regulations that provide better protection than the joint regulations.
The Danish Social Democrats regard the European Parliament's report on food legislation as a step in that direction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Díez de Rivera Icaza">
There is no doubt that the present Green Paper on the current food law situation is very timely, in view of the crisis in food safety and consumer protection caused by the BSE scandal.
<P>
Articles 129 and 129A of the Treaty of Amsterdam extend the legal base for more effective protection and precautions in policies directed at the consumer, which means that Community food law must be clarified and rationalized, together with its application and monitoring.
<P>
We must not forget that many chronic diseases have their origin in food, and food products are not just another commodity like any other.
So, as Mrs Graenitz rightly requests, the responsibility aspect has to be established with complete transparency, so that damaged consumer confidence can be strengthened.
<P>
Finally, product labelling is very important for the consumer because it is the main source of information - indeed, almost the only source. It is therefore essential that such labelling should be complete, clear and truthful.
In the aftermath of BSE, I believe information should also be provided (depending on the product) about the pesticides or animal feedstuffs used in its production and manufacture.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Ephremidis">
Food is an issue of vital importance for the health and safety of consumers and for the quality of life of our citizens.
However, it is a complex issue which requires the coordination of parallel policies and actions in order to safeguard and upgrade it.
<P>
BSE has once again opened up the debate on the safety of foodstuffs and the health of consumers, which are problems resulting from an inadequate legislative framework and a lack of control over its implementation by the relevant bodies. The latter serve specific interests and are indifferent to the criminal repercussions on the health of our citizens.
The events themselves, the fatal incidences of these serious "unprecedented' diseases, should have forced us to confront the crucial questions about the quality of our foodstuffs and the enormous risks to consumer safety.
<P>
The elaboration of clear, lucid regulations and directives is of course necessary in order to determine quality standards and to ensure the monitoring of foodstuffs.
However, before any legislative intervention we must get to the root cause of the downgrading, distortion and alteration not only of our foodstuffs but of the whole of the food chain.
<P>
It is not just the absence of up-to-date guidelines which places the burden of responsibility for this lamentable state of affairs on the foodstuffs sector. Those that already exist are also contravened in the most blatant manner.
<P>
When the concept of food is commercialized and its administration handed over to the law of profit, and when the market determines the quality of foodstuffs on the basis of the cost-profit relationship, there will never be effective safeguards for the health of consumers.
<P>
It would be naive to claim that liability for the disturbance of the food chain rests exclusively with the farmer or the cattlebreeder. Nor would this allow the problem to be confronted at source.
<P>
On the contrary, liability must be sought in the intensification of production and in the pressures that producers face from traders, mass producers and large food multinationals to squeeze costs and increase the volume of production. This imposes on them the lavish use of fertilizers, pesticides and animal feeds, the composition and consequences of which they are for the most part unaware of, or have been misinformed about.
<P>
Even more important, however, are the liabilities of those industries which process and mass-produce primary products before they are put on the market, using substances which not only downgrade the quality of the foodstuffs but also damage the health of consumers, who are used as guinea pigs.
<P>
The policy relating to foodstuffs, and the safeguarding of their quality and of consumer health, require the reorientation of the policies implemented in the primary production sectors - agriculture, cattle breeding and fishing - and the effective monitoring of the manufacture and use of chemicals and other substances in food production, preservation and processing. They also require constant monitoring of the results of research carried out into the production of such substances, and the institution of measures and regulations, especially in the context of trade agreements formulated within the framework of the WTO and the Codex Alimentarius , which would prevent the unaccountable activity of multinational food companies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Holm">
It is good that the rapporteur has adopted a consumer-friendly position.
I would just like to stress three important areas which are urgent, and which the rapporteur has not emphasized sufficiently.
<P>
Firstly, there is the question of antibiotics.
It is important that we reduce the use of antibiotics in animal feed, especially since the derogation which Sweden has from the EU's weaker legislation is almost certainly going to expire.
The EU must recognize the danger of using antibiotics.
I therefore support Amendment No 28.
<P>
Secondly, the rules on food labelling must be improved substantially so that consumers know what they are eating.
In Sweden, the EU's rules have led to big problems for people with allergies, amongst others, because now they cannot get information about what products contain.
The rules Sweden had before were better and clearer than the current EU rules.
<P>
Thirdly, I also have objections to the legal framework being proposed.
I would like the EU to lay down minimum rules rather than harmonizing rules.
Minimum rules are better because you then give individual Member States an opportunity to introduce tougher rules than those set out by the EU.
With the EU's harmonizing rules the levels are fixed and the development of better, tougher rules is prevented.
This is bad, to say the least, and inhibits the development of environmentally-friendly rules.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="Lindqvist">
Future food legislation must be based on producer liability - grower and supplier liability.
The main aim should be the protection of the health and safety of consumers.
Product labelling should be obligatory and apply to all the ingredients in a product.
<P>
Every country should have the right to allow considerations for the environment, health and safety to take precedence over the free movement of goods.
EU rules on food and other consumer protection should be minimum rules; that is, a Member State should have the right to apply its own tougher rules.
In international organizations, Member States should have an unrestricted right to promote food and consumer requirements which go further than those of the EU.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Rovsing">
With its Green Paper, the Commission has taken an important step towards much-needed rationalization of Community food legislation.
This implies that existing EU legislation in this area must be reviewed with an eye to simplification.
I give this my full support.
However, it is also clear that future food legislation must guarantee consumer protection, while the internal market must be able to function without barriers.
In its report, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has added to those important aims by requiring responsibility on the part of the producer and the authorities, to provide safe and healthy foods as well as thorough consumer information.
In my opinion, this is well-justified.
I therefore give this report my full support, and I look forward to the concrete initiatives that the Commission will be taking based on the Green Paper.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Souchet">
Our group has tabled six amendments which target three main objectives.
<P>
The first stipulates the need to label foodstuffs sold in bulk clearly and legibly, so that consumers have clear information on their denomination, price and, if necessary, their origin.
In fact the text proposed by the rapporteur discriminates severely between products sold in "consumer units' and products sold in bulk.
Regardless of the type of packaging, it is essential that the consumer has clear information.
<P>
Our second group of amendments specifies the role of the Community scientific committees.
These committees exist and should therefore serve as a point of scientific reference for drawing up regulations, directives and recommendations.
<P>
Thirdly, our group rejects the principle that farmers and growers have the ultimate responsibility for the "scientific' proof of the sanitary quality of their products.
In fact, it is the operators in the farm produce and supply network who must produce this scientific proof.
We must not forget that agricultural products can undergo intrinsic changes in their sanitary quality as a result of the technological processes used for their transformation, particularly with the use of biotechnology.
Furthermore, farmers cannot have an in-depth knowledge of the sanitary quality of all the elements used in the production of their goods.
I am thinking in particular of the cattle fodder they use and of the sanitary and environmental quality of slurry which they are likely to spread on their fields.
<P>
Our group calls for respect for the principle of a specific vertical regulation on labelling.
In fact, a number of agricultural products are subjected to specific transformation processes - I am referring particularly to the wine growing sector - or are sold directly in their original state to consumers (the fruit and vegetable sector) and should therefore come under a more restrictive vertical regulation than the horizontal directives which apply to the labelling of all food products.
<P>
As regards genetically modified organisms, our group recalls that it is necessary to inform the consumer clearly on the possible use of GMOs in the composition of food products.
The Commission has still not published the methods of application for this special labelling, and consumers are presently consuming food products with a GMO basis without being aware of it.
That is unacceptable.
<P>
The lesson of mad cow disease has been learned by the consumer.
A recent survey in France by Sofres shows that 69 % of French people are against transgenic cultivation.
So it is up to us to allow the European consumer to exercise clearly and easily his or her free choice between products with GMOs and products without GMOs at the same price.
Clearly in this case is important that the GMOs are traceable from the field to the table.
<P>
The principle of labelling has been retained.
It must be applied to all ingredients whose DNA has been manipulated, not just to some of them, including both imported products and products from within the Community.
I would remind the House of the scale of imports: for the farm produce industry in France alone, this amounts to 5 000 tonnes of soya and 8 000 tonnes of lecithin annually, mainly from the United States.
However, the conditions of harvesting, storage and transport result in mixtures such that we cannot identify the presence or absence of GMOs in these imports.
And it is this fundamental question we must tackle, because the European consumer who does not want to consume GMOs should not have to pay a surcharge for the privilege of exercising free choice because specifically non-GMO channels have to be set up for products which are difficult to find and identify, and which are therefore more expensive.
This surcharge should be payable by those who change the rules of the game and who would like to impose a new mode of consumption.
We should ensure that they can propose but not impose it.
The idea of a supplement payable by the end consumer in order to avoid the ingestion of genetically manipulated foodstuffs is absolutely unacceptable.
We consider this to be the food safety priority which the Community legislator must tackle if he wishes to do a useful job.
<P>
Turning now to SMEs and farmers, the Commission must evaluate their capacity to integrate all the Community standards.
We must remember that a regulation is only relevant if it can be applied by all operators.
<P>
Finally, our group is opposed to multiplying structures, and therefore to the creation of a European agency for food safety, because it would mirror the work of the Community scientific committees and the monitoring bodies in the Member States, which have a key role to play.
Some would like the Commission to be present as such in the Codex Alimentarius , a scientific body recognized by the WTO. Our group considers this to be a bad move, because the 15 voices of the Member States will always be heard more loudly than a single European Community voice.
As we have seen during the international fishing conferences, when the Commission takes the place of the Member States, it weakens their positions instead of strengthening them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="Wibe">
Food safety is an extremely important issue.
I think there are some things missing in this otherwise excellent report.
For example, it is unacceptable that we currently find that consignments of meat imported into Sweden with certificates of health turn out to be contaminated with salmonella.
Similarly, measures should be taken to ensure that the routine addition of antibiotics to animal feeds ceases.
<P>
In paragraph 36 of the draft report the Commission is urged to bring an action against the Council because it has not observed the deadline set for 1 January 1995 for a decision on measures required to combat salmonella in laying hens.
It is, of course, a serious matter that the Council has not observed the deadline, but it is not appropriate to involve the European Court of Justice in this matter.
<P>
Arroni report (A4-0061/98)
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Ahlqvist, Theorin and Wibe">
Since Sweden will not take part in the introduction of the euro in 1999-2002, we have chosen to abstain from the vote on this report.
This is a question for the Member States which will be included in the euro zone.
<P>
However, it should be mentioned that the report does not touch on the high conversion costs which the introduction of a new currency entails in relation to the conversion of coin-operated machines, computer systems, etc.
It is clear that it is the consumers (the citizens) who will pay for all this in the form of higher prices and taxes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Fourçans">
On the whole, Mr Arroni's report on the practical aspects of introducing the euro is satisfactory.
He correctly stresses the need to inform consumers and prepare them for the arrival of the single currency.
He does not omit to highlight the difficulty which this monetary revolution could represent for vulnerable population groups such as older or disabled people.
<P>
As the need for information on the euro has now been largely acknowledged, it would be wise for this to be implemented effectively and quickly as our rapporteur rightly stresses.
<P>
It would also be advisable to pay particular attention to SMEs, as they represent an important source of employment.
I am in favour of Mr Arroni's idea of asking Member States to attach particular importance to the impact on companies of introducing a single currency, so that they will be able to benefit from all its advantages.
This would mean that the impact on employment would be as favourable as possible.
<P>
However, I would like to make two points, the first concerning dual pricing.
If this is necessary, particularly in the phase when the euro and national currencies are circulating in parallel, it does not seem wise to me to make it mandatory, as the rapporteur proposes.
The imposition of dual pricing would entail costs and inflexibility which would no doubt damage the proper functioning of the single market.
However, it would be beneficial to install a code of good practice, at least for retail trade.
<P>
My second point concerns the handling of the conversion of national currencies into euros.
As the rapporteur says, it is desirable to call on the banking and financial sector to set up a code of good practice here too, to respect the principle that compulsory conversion should be free.
In this respect, the proposals by the Socialists and the Greens to make this mandatory by means of a regulation do not seem wise to me.
Healthy and honest competition between all those involved in exchange operations seems to me to be sufficient to deal with this.
<P>
The fate of these proposals will determine how I vote on the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR), Eriksson, Seppänen and Sjöstedt (GUE/NGL), Gahrton, Holm and Schörling (V), Bonde, Lis Jensen and Sandbæk (I-EDN)">
Economic and monetary union is a centralist, high-risk project with a weak democratic basis.
It prioritizes price stability and low inflation.
There is a high risk that our already high unemployment will increase further.
The regional differences between growth regions and depopulated areas could be increased.
EMU leads to a strong centralization of monetary and currency policy which ultimately could also include fiscal and financial policy.
EMU is a political project which increases the federal aspect of the EU and strengthens the trend towards the formation of a common state.
<P>
To try to increase popular support for the EMU project, the Commission is now proposing information campaigns targeted at the general public and companies.
Among other things, an invented cartoon character - ' Captain Euro' - is going to get people to change their views on EMU and the euro.
This is unacceptable and a provocative use of taxpayers' money.
It only risks further increasing the gap between the EU and the general public.
Against the background of the above we have voted against the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Rovsing">
The Commission's report outlines the basis of a number of initiatives designed to facilitate preparations for the introduction of the euro both in the private sector and in public sector administration.
In ten months' time, the euro will be an economic reality, and in three short years, the greatest monetary changeover in the history of the world will take place.
Even so, the nations of Europe do not as yet have anything resembling a full picture of the tremendous impact the introduction of the euro will have - even in countries not immediately participating in the common currency - on all aspects of finance.
<P>
It is therefore most gratifying that the committee's Policy Document acknowledges the obvious need for users of the new currency to be well-prepared and well-informed.
Another crucial initiative, featuring prominently in the committee's Policy Document, is a code of conduct between financial institutions to pave the way for the smooth introduction of the euro. To this I give my full support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="Theonas">
The introduction of the euro will undoubtedly give rise to very serious issues, only some of which seem to concern the Commission.
The central element which is absent, in my view, from the deliberations of the Commission and from whatever preparations are under way at the level of the European Union and its Member States, is who will bear the brunt directly or indirectly.
In other words, who will be called upon to pay the cost of conversion? We think that under the conditions of a free market and deregulation, this will be the end user - that is, ordinary working people.
<P>
It is not by chance, as the Commission itself points out in its communication, that this threat is being brandished by large corporations in order to gain tax advantages and exemptions. Furthermore, they hope to gain new privileges in order to prevent the institution of what was initially widely supported as the essential element in the transitional period of conversion to the new currency: namely, mandatory dual pricing.
<P>
We regard mandatory dual pricing, at least in the retail and distribution sectors, as the basic and minimum means to limit the profit-making tendencies which are characteristic of any changeover from one currency to another.
With regard to the rapporteur's reference to the need for flexibility in the market and to the optional nature of dual pricing, we stress that, left to their own devices, markets have never led to 'better solutions' and there is no guarantee whatsoever that inflationary tendencies will be avoided.
<P>
In parallel, there must be a strengthening of efforts to wipe out cases of profiteering, by means of direct governmental and criminal sanctions. Provision must also be made for the institution of the right for consumer organizations to sue for the protection of collective statutory interests.
<P>
We are particularly concerned about the special problems faced by SMEs. Under the pressure of competition from large multinationals and also in the context of the conclusion of subcontracting agreements, they will be forced, from the very start of the transitional period, to undertake the necessary technical convergence (public accounting, infrastructure, etc.) which may prove fatal for many of them.
<P>
In such cases we could agree on certain special measures of positive discrimination in favour of SMEs, particularly for the smallest ones employing fewer than ten people, to enable them to cope with the increased costs of conversion to the euro.
These measures might relate to public accounting (e.g. speedier redemption of existing debt) or might take the form of special finance programmes or easier access to credit.
<P>
We are categorically opposed to any attempt to turn the technical preparations for the introduction of the euro into a pretext for large corporations to increase their profits through tax deductions on the costs of investments and of restructuring brought about by the establishment of the euro, ' as well as the profits which arise from the abolition of the dangers of exchange rate fluctuations' ! However, these solutions are being examined.
<P>
We would like to take this opportunity to repeat our request that the Commission issue a report on the effects of the euro on countries which will not be taking part, and also on the removal of the uncertainty surrounding the relations and exchanges between the 'Ins' and the 'Outs' . More generally however, we request information on the Community costs of the euro, which the members of the Commission officially accept as a fact, but which they assiduously avoid specifying, as do the other defenders of EMU.
<P>
We wish to point out the disgraceful discrepancy between the policy of tough financial restrictions and sanctions in the event of infringement, and the waste of budget resources on "information' campaigns and campaigns which manipulate working people into accepting a policy from which they have nothing to gain, as is shown by the tragic circumstances they are experiencing today and by their future prospects.
<P>
Torres Marques report (A4-0078/98)
<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
It could be said of Mrs Torres Marques' report on the euro and tourism that the proponents of the euro are scraping the bottom of the barrel.
I do not know precisely what significance should be given to this, but I am sure they would have done better to leave this text where it was.
<P>
It is based on a complete misinterpretation.
According to the rapporteur, tourists will be happy to have their lives simplified by economic and monetary union and at the same time save on exchange charges.
Throughout the report, it does not hesitate to make even more extravagant affirmations.
For example, it states that the euro would represent for tourists - and I quote - a huge advantage if one considers that currently up to two-thirds of the value of their currency must be lost in exchange transactions before they even spend anything.
Here we have evidence of old reading which has been badly digested, really very badly digested.
<P>
In any case, it is highly likely that a tourist regards changing his or her national currency to that of the country visited as part of the charm of travelling and does not regard it at all negatively.
Applying the same principle of unification, the rapporteur calls for complete abolition of border controls, doubtless so that tourists no longer even notice that they are going from one country to another.
And tomorrow are we not going to be asked to use Esperanto in order to make tourists' lives easier?
It is not far off.
Have we not already invented the virtual European monument which has no particular national characteristic and which will embellish future euro notes?
All in all, the Torres Marques report completely bypasses the subject. Tourists come to a country to appreciate its identity so if, by facilitating things for tourists we assassinate identity, it is really a very short-sighted policy.
Furthermore, since I see that Mr Corbett is still in the Chamber, I will take this opportunity to thank our British friends for refusing to subscribe to the euro because, as a tourist, I would be really disappointed if the Queen's face no longer appeared on your bank notes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="Ahlqvist, Theorin and Wibe">
Since Sweden will not take part in the introduction of the euro in 1999-2002, we have chosen to abstain from the vote on this report.
This is a question for those Member States which will be included in the euro zone.
<P>
However, the report does contain some rather optimistic calculations with regard to growth in tourism thanks to a common currency area.
In this context, we should remember that a big tourist industry in Europe is founded on a high level of general prosperity and has very little to do with a common currency.
In spite of everything, conversion costs are marginal in this context.
This prosperity could well be jeopardized through the creation of a common currency area in a region which is not optimal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="Holm">
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="Sindal and Blak">
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted against the Torres Marques report on the euro and tourism.
In the report, the rapporteur proposes a number of measures to facilitate the tourism industry's transition to the new currency.
She urges action to harmonize taxes and duties applicable to the tourism sector, specifically value added tax.
The rapporteur focuses strongly on settling and harmonizing national levies.
It is not clear whether it is a question of harmonization within the euro zone or throughout the entire Union.
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament oppose in principle any harmonization of duties and taxes, since this would undermine the financial basis of the Danish Welfare State.
The delegation has, therefore, chosen to vote against the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="Theonas">
We agree with the rapporteur on the strategic nature of tourism in general: as a sector for the creation of thousands of jobs; as the sector par excellence for the development of SMEs; as a means of economic development and recovery; and as a means of communication between different peoples.
However, we would like to express our concern about the significant reduction over the last few years in the share of the European tourist industry in the international market. We are also concerned by the fact that, from the viewpoint of industrial relations, we are witnessing redundancies in their thousands, the widespread use of part-time employment, and the misery of limited contracts of employment and social dumping.
More generally, and in contrast to the euphoria with which the rapporteur describes the situation in the sector, we are seeing the generalized use of flexible work patterns and the de facto promotion of 'elastic' labour relations.
As for the hundreds of thousands of small SMEs, mainly family run, they are simply scraping along in an attempt to cope with increasing competition from large organized chains.
<P>
No consideration has been given to these facts. The report simply proposes the establishment of a common policy on tourism with the insertion of the relevant chapter into the Treaty on European Union.
It appears that the supporters of this proposal are inspired by those areas of Community responsibility such as the hundreds of thousands of devastated households in the agricultural sector, or by deregulation, redundancies and doubt as to the possibility of national intervention - for example in air transportation and telecommunications.
<P>
In such circumstances the anticipated introduction of the euro will lead to the widespread restructuring of the sector.
This is because the problem in the tourist sector is broader, given its international nature and its many complexities, compared with other sectors where participation or not in the common currency will initially concern a limited range of people in relation to transborder transactions (chiefly relations between traders and a limited number of consumer agreements).
Even in relation to this sector the Commission provides not the slightest information as to how the countries outside the euro will evolve, nor what the inevitable repercussions will be.
<P>
Indeed, the existence of a unified currency could contribute to the simplification of certain procedures and to the saving of certain resources through the abolition of foreign currency transactions. However, under no circumstances should we delude ourselves about the results.
Neither increased competition nor reduced indirect costs will lead to a substantial reduction in prices, as is demonstrated by the experience of liberalization and the granting of tax and other, financial, advantages.
In parallel, increased competition leads to the consolidation of capital, to the reduction of employment, to the intensification of exploitation and to the failure of small businesses.
<P>
With regard to small businesses, many of them are certain not to be ready for the full introduction of the new currency.
Nor will they be able to cope with the cost of converting to the euro and with competition. This is even more true when they have very little access to information and to the capital market and when, as early as 1 January 1999, the application of the principle of "no obligation, no prohibition' is being pushed forward in relation to the circulation of the euro as electronic money.
<P>
Under these circumstances, we regard it as essential that special support be given to the smallest of the SMEs, either by making it easier for them to gain access to credit and to participate in finance programmes, or by means of preferential tax treatment.
<P>
We believe that the deciding factor for the development of tourism is the financial position and standard of living of working people, since tourism, as the 'elastic' expenditure par excellence, is the first victim of political austerity.
Moreover, the 'gradual reduction in working time and the corresponding increase in leisure time' will simply result in the search for additional employment, if it is accompanied by a reduction in already low incomes.
With the policies imposed by Maastricht and EMU and with the ever intensifying worries about the effects of the introduction of the euro, we find it impossible to understand the rapporteur's vision of an 'expected improvement in the standard of living of consumers' .
If the EU really does desire the expansion of tourism it must formulate its policies with working people and the amelioration of their standard of living in mind and abandon its tough monetaristic stances which, as has been demonstrated, can only lead to dead ends.
<P>
Wolf report (A4-0070/98)
<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Madam President, my group is very concerned about the impact of the introduction of the euro on small and medium-sized enterprises.
Up until now this issue has been treated very lightly, as if it were only a question of supply.
But that is not the case.
The equilibrium of SMEs could be seriously destabilized by the introduction of the euro, and clearly that is very worrying since this category of enterprises provides about two-thirds of the jobs in our countries.
<P>
The advantages and costs of monetary unification, if it finally takes place, will be very unequally spread between enterprises.
The advantages will be felt first by the big companies and larger SMEs which work at a European level.
But the costs will affect everyone, and they will be all the more difficult to bear because the enterprises will not have access to adequate computer and accounting services, they will not be very well organized, and they will not have reserves available to finance transition costs. In fact, these are all the properties which characterize SMEs.
<P>
Under these conditions, small and medium-sized enterprises risk suffering a serious loss of competitiveness compared with large enterprises.
And this effect will be all the more pronounced if the euro does not produce all the benefits expected.
If, as my group believes, the stimulating effects of suppressing both the costs of conversion and the internal uncertainties about change are cancelled out by the recessive effect of the new monetary inflexibility and transition costs, the fall-off in growth will strike the most fragile enterprises first, and again these are SMEs.
<P>
All in all, the new euro zone will be soft on large enterprises but hard on the small ones.
How can we redress the balance?
Those responsible for the transition are still discussing increasing awareness and better information for the public.
That is very inadequate, but how can they do better?
The Member States will obviously not be able to subsidize everyone.
That would be disastrous.
<P>
In reality, what we have here is a practical inconvenience which follows from the very concept of the system, that is, the universal and mandatory changeover to the euro.
If we had chosen the path of a common currency with a progressive and optional development, all these problems would not exist.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="Ahlqvist, Theorin and Wibe">
Since Sweden will not take part in the introduction of the euro in 1999-2002, we have chosen to abstain from the vote on this report.
This is a question for those Member States which will be included in the euro zone.
<P>
We can only point out that we consider it a mistake in Sweden's case that the Swedish Central Bank is now independent of political influence.
We do not think it should be.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="Lienemann">
The report by Mr Wolf on legal convergence in the Member States in terms of the euro indirectly poses the question of the role of the European Central Bank and its independence.
<P>
I regret that the report does not sufficiently demonstrate the need to form a European economic government which should act as a counterbalance to the ECB to prevent purely monetary logic dominating in certain arbitration, when support for growth and employment should be guaranteed.
<P>
Although the creation of a Eurocouncil allows an exchange on economic and monetary policies in a positive attempt at coordination, it does not have any powers.
<P>
I would have liked the proposals which aim to strengthen the role of the Eurocouncil to be included in the report.
<P>
While the report mentions the democratic duty of the ECB to report at Community level, it would have been a good idea to clarify and reinforce the role and power of the European Parliament in dialogue with the ECB.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="Ribeiro">
If the explanatory statements - which are meant to be the basis of the draft resolutions - were put to the vote, then we would happily vote for the text of Part B of this report.
<P>
The explanatory statement compares three levels for convergence between the legal provisions of Member States.
The first level, which still exists, relates to Member States themselves and their legislations. The second relates to what is already enshrined in treaties entered into between countries which keep pace with, promote or facilitate 'European construction' , while the third derives from the position of the European Monetary Institute, as discussed in the report covered by this explanatory statement and draft resolution of the European Parliament.
<P>
It is clear that the EMI could apparently resolve the thorny task of making compatible and articulating the different national and supranational levels without difficulty, engaging in tasks of drafting and enforcement which far exceed its powers in a democratic context.
It even goes so far as to acknowledge that specific national features may continue to exist , provided that, as stipulated in the Treaty, each Member States must ensures that, at the latest, by the date of the establishment of the ESCB, its national legislation including the statutes of its national central bank is compatible with this Treaty and the statute of the ESCB.
Indeed, Portugal has already done this ahead of time with its constitutional review, which transfers responsibility for defining the competences of its central bank to commitments entered into in international organizations.
<P>
In his report, particularly in the explanatory statement, Mr Wolf draws attention to this difficulty and denounces the expeditious manner in which the EMI resolves it.
In doing so, he raises a number of issues which are fundamental in a democratic process.
We could quote many of his views, but we will concentrate on the question: "What exactly is meant therefore by the requirement of central bank independence?' His reply is: ' The definitions given by the EMI in this report and, in particular, in the 1996 report (...) emphasize too one-sidedly 'independence' at the expense of 'openness' and democratic transparency.'
<P>
Inevitably, the draft resolution is less specific.
It was the only way in which it could escape the steamroller process which countenances no doubts, questions or alternatives.
Although it is drafted less clearly, and despite a significant number of votes against, it was nonetheless passed at the committee stage.
And it has our vote in the House, although our support is really for the explanatory statement.
<P>
Arroni, Torres Marques and Wolf reports
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="Blokland">
The three reports on different aspects of the impending monetary union did not get my approval.
<P>
The resolution on the practical aspects of the introduction of the euro is the one I object to least.
However, it is extremely undesirable to let public information programmes about the euro deteriorate into advertising for the euro, as suggested in paragraphs 10 and 17.
Nor can I agree with the position obliging retailers to use dual pricing during the transition to the euro.
<P>
The Torres Marques report looks very much like a blown-up balloon.
The enormous advantages for tourists are highlighted with a great deal of verve.
But these apply primarily to the tourist who travels through various countries in the European Union, and not so much to holiday-makers visiting a single country.
And those who use electronic methods of payment will hardly notice the euro.
Furthermore, various costs relating to the changeover will lead to higher prices.
The 'enormous' advantage will thus be largely undone.
I am therefore unable to see the usefulness of this report, all the more so because tourism policy is a national affair.
<P>
Mr Wolf's report - which is supposed to deal with legal convergence in the Member States - shows that the European Parliament lacks the right perception of monetary policy.
The target of price stability is judged one-sidedly in this report, as well as elsewhere.
Conversely, the European Parliament appears to be so preoccupied with welfare growth and job creation that it believes this can be realized through monetary policy.
My first objection is that establishing price stability as the only target will have a negative effect on economic development.
My second objection concerns short-sightedness: the economic development pursued will have to be sustainable in an ecological sense if it is to be of use to the next generation.
If these objections are not taken into consideration, a democratic responsibility owed by the ECB to the European Parliament will not do much for the European citizen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="Corbett">
Madam President, Mr Falconer is absolutely right that there is no obligation for a Member to take part in a vote.
There is no obligation to vote for or against a particular text, nor even to express a view on a text.
However, if a Member wishes to indicate that they are present in the room, despite not wishing to take a view, then they have the option - not the obligation - to press their abstention button which shows that they were there, even though they did not wish to take a position on that particular text or amendment.
<P>
You say that there are different types of abstention.
Maybe an abstention can mean a different thing.
That is precisely the objective of explanations of vote, that we have just sat through now.
If you want to indicate that you voted for or against, or abstained for a particular reason, this is the opportunity afforded by the Rules of Procedure to explain that nuance.
But what we do not need is two separate and different ways of not expressing a position for or against a particular text.
<P>
I would submit to you, and through you, to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, that only one way is necessary.
That would simplify our votes greatly.
Indeed there might be further ways of simplifying them when we are not having an electronic or roll-call vote.
It might be sufficient for the President to say who is in favour, who is against.
We do not, in those circumstances, need to know who is abstaining when a simple majority is required.
But that is another matter.
<P>
I would finish by returning to a remark by Mr Falconer who implied that this was an institutional question and not a political question, or something along those lines.
I wonder whether those who have been making repeated remarks in successive votes in successive plenary part-sessions on this issue do not have a political motive behind them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="President">
Mr Corbett and Mr Falconer, you have asked to speak.
I would point out that it is 1.29 p.m.
We cannot impose on the interpreters.
<P>
I will permit you to speak for just one minute.
And if you wish you can then continue this conversation over a glass of brandy or a glass of water, whichever you prefer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="Falconer">
<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="President">
Your words will be recorded carefully in the Minutes.
<P>
I would thank the interpreters for their patience.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 1.35 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.) .
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Promoting road safety in the EU (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0065/98) by Mr Cornelissen, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the communication from the Commission "Promoting road safety in the EU - the programme for 1997-2001' (COM(97)0131 - C4-0180/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Piecyk">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, any discussion of safety on Europe's roads inevitably involves talking about ignorance, repression, dangerous negligence and criminal complacency.
And that goes for politicians just as much as drivers!
Any debate about improving safety is bound to turn around the facts that we have already heard several times today: 45 000 dead and 1.6 million injured every year, or 123 deaths every day on Europe's roads.
The deaths alone are equivalent to virtually wiping out a medium-sized European town every single year.
So it is good that the Commissioner and the Commission have brought forward a programme to promote road safety.
Pam Cornelissen deserves enormous respect for his very comprehensive report and the details it includes on the causes of accidents.
Indeed, I would not have expected anything else from him.
<P>
Improving road safety implies a whole range of measures - life-long road safety training for young and old, all kinds of technical measures both on the roads and in vehicle safety - airbags, safety belts and lights are just the headline issues - and special protection is needed for the most vulnerable road users: children, the elderly, pedestrians and cyclists.
However, in my view there are two things that are absolutely central, two issues on which our fellow citizens need to be more aware and politicians need to have more courage.
Alcohol and speed.
The following rule of thumb seems to apply: the more you have drunken and the faster you drive, the more people are killed and injured.
The opposite also applies of course.
That is why we need a radical approach to alcohol limits and pan-European speed restrictions.
<P>
However, I find the Commission's call for speed limits too vague and too open to interpretation.
Back in 1990 Parliament voted clearly for the following speed limits for cars in EU Member States that at present have no limit: 120 kmph on motorways, 100 kmph on ordinary roads, and 30 or 50 kmph in residential or built-up areas respectively.
This Parliament has to stand by the decision it took in 1990 and fight for it to be implemented.
If individual Member States decide to introduce even lower speed limits, that is something we should applaud and support.
Anyone who says comprehensive limits will not work should look at the limits for lorries, that has been a success story for Europe.
If we can have a speed limit for heavy goods vehicles, why not have one for cars too?
We should leave no stone unturned to achieve the Community target of reducing deaths on the roads to 25 000 by 2010.
Every victim of a traffic accident on the roads is a victim too many, and I therefore urge you to support my amendment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sisó Cruellas">
Mr President, firstly I want to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Cornelissen, for his magnificent work in drafting this report.
I hope his work will serve to raise the awareness of all the players concerned: institutions, vehicle designers and manufacturers, users, safety experts, traffic agents, transport companies, insurance companies, vehicle maintenance and repair workshops, driving schools, and so on. They should all draw unbiased conclusions about the real cause of the accidents on our highways and city streets, so that they can take measures to prevent them, or at least reduce the number of accidents and victims to the absolute minimum.
<P>
We are very sensitive to disasters of all kinds - as we should be - but for some incomprehensible reason we find it exasperatingly easy to resign ourselves to accepting that enormous disaster which takes place week after week on the roads of the European Union, resulting each year in nearly 50 000 deaths and more than 1.65 million injuries. The report quotes the figure of half a million hospital admissions, of which 25 % end in disability.
<P>
So, Mr President, a greater effort needs to be made in this area, both by the Community and by each of the Member States, which are obliged to promote technological development in safety matters and to make imaginative efforts when it comes to producing road safety plans. The standard excuse of not having enough resources should not be accepted any longer.
The economic and social costs of these accidents are extremely high - not to mention the human cost, which is immeasurable. Indeed, the cost is possibly greater than the expense it would take to avoid such accidents, if the political will existed.
For all those reasons, Mr President, I welcome the Commission communication and Mr Cornelissen's magnificent report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasio">
Mr President, as 45 000 people die each year in traffic accidents in the EU area, we might be tempted to view traffic as one colossal catastrophe.
We do not take this view, however, seeing that contemporary society could not survive without it, and given that accidents do not all happen at the same time and in the same place.
<P>
In a way, traffic safety is comparable to the protection of the environment.
Everyone says they think it is important, but only a few want to do anything about it in practical terms.
<P>
Because it is undeniable that the cause of a very large number of accidents is speeding, apart from tightening up the law we should look at the reasons why motorists drive too fast.
One certain factor in this is car and motorcycle advertising that focuses on high speeds and other features which are just not viable for the normal motorist.
The success of a given make of car in competitions, rallies or circuit racing, is very often used to advertise a vehicle intended for everyday use.
This must be one of the reasons why car manufacturers invest very large sums in competitions.
In this way, people are lured into a driving culture that only befits the race track, and not always that either.
<P>
We must support a system of specific and uniform speed limits for the whole of the EU area.
In that way dangerous drivers would no longer be so able to use ignorance of traffic regulations as an excuse, still less a justification.
<P>
Even today there is still opposition to speed limits, in the name of civil liberties.
But it is a question of people's right to use the road network as safely as possible.
The right to endanger life cannot be a part of the civil liberties lobby.
On the same principle, we should have common European legislation to enforce the use of driving lights even during daylight hours. The idea is that a driver can see oncoming vehicles and vehicles behind in sufficient time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Koch">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, road safety is a complex, interdisciplinary business, encompassing a wide variety of technical and above all human factors.
My main reaction to Mr Cornelissen's excellent report is a very positive one, but I do have some concerns.
I am pleased at the number of important and fundamental suggestions and practical proposals for improving road safety.
I personally feel that an improvement is urgently needed not just because it can be shown that the annual economic cost of road accidents is over 100 billion ECU, not to mention the unquantifiable and immeasurable human suffering involved, but because like anyone else I would like to feel safe on the roads of neighbouring countries.
<P>
This also applies when help is needed after an accident.
I have had very good first-hand experience, in a state that fortunately no longer exists, of doing a first aid course as part of learning to drive.
I am concerned to see signs that the proposed action programme may lead to powers not provided for under the EC Treaty, with legally binding decisions being taken at European level.
Surely voluntary agreements would do the job just as well without a flood of red tape and regulations.
<P>
I would only recommend voting for the report if six of the seven amendments to be voted on tomorrow are rejected, and only if I am sure that Paragraphs 7b and 7e, which can be summed up as 'rigid maximum speed limits' and 'introduction of a panEuropean penalty system' , do not get through.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="Morris">
Mr President, I wish to begin by welcoming the report and certainly the intention behind the Commission's concern to see action in this matter.
<P>
I cannot add much to what has been said already, except to highlight perhaps two areas of concern.
One is the relationship between alcohol and accidents.
Fewer than 5 % of motorists drive over the legal limit but they alone cause 20 % of the fatal accidents.
I strongly agree with the proposal to limit the level of alcohol to 0.5 mg/ml, along with proposals to ban the sale of alcohol in service stations and the standardization of the apparatus of breathalysers.
<P>
My other point is this: now is the time to consider the harmonization of penalties and their application throughout the whole Community, so that drivers penalized, say, in England, Wales or France are not still able to drive in Germany or Belgium.
I would hope to see such legislation coming forward from the Commission.
I wish the Commission every success in its endeavours to make our roads safer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schierhuber">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I very much welcome the Commission's initiative to launch an action programme to promote road safety in the EU.
The high death toll on Europe's roads is appalling, and something must be done about it.
We should all be interested in cutting the number of accidents.
Drunken driving is one of the most common causes of accidents.
That is why there should be a maximum blood alcohol limit of 0.5 mg/ml for drivers.
Austria has already introduced such a limit.
However, it is not just alcohol that impairs people's fitness to drive, medicines and drugs can also affect it.
This should be reflected in legislation and we must adopt measures to tackle this problem.
Strict and consistent controls on road-users are essential.
Monitoring of speed restrictions is a priority here.
<P>
With regard to the disqualification of drivers and Europe-wide recognition of this disqualification, we need to remember that there has been no pan-European harmonization of legal systems, which is an essential requirement for this.
Unless administrative and legal provisions are harmonized across Europe, there can be no question of reciprocal recognition of disqualification, as the conditions for disqualification vary so widely from one Member State to another.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sindal">
Mr President, there is no doubt that it is sensible for us to make an effort to handle this matter at the European level.
I want to express my thanks to Mr Cornelissen, to the Commissioner and to all who have contributed to making this a European issue.
The number of people being killed on the roads has been mentioned several times today.
A ferry disaster always creates a sensation.
May I point out that 45 000 people die on the roads each year, the equivalent of the Estonia disaster 45 times over.
What we must look at jointly is the construction of cars, crossborder traffic and the increasing amount of traffic on our roads, so there is plenty to be getting on with.
I agree with my colleagues, but I would just like to point out that there are different traffic cultures, so we would be doing ourselves a service to allow development from below and not so much from above, if we want to create joint regulations.
My recommendations are no different from those of my colleagues.
I would simply like to point out that when alcohol and medication are mentioned, then fatigue - that is, driving and rest periods - should also be mentioned.
<P>
So in order to achieve the objective, the action plan must come from the Member States and not just from the Commission, even though I support the Commission - and Parliament - in taking the lead.
Traffic safety is something that affects us all.
Let me say something about speed.
It is important for us to agree on frameworks for speed limits and not have speed limits that are too different.
Some accidents are caused simply by driving from a country with high speed limits into a different country with lower speed limits.
<P>
I would also like to mention an issue that the Red Cross is not alone in having raised.
Professional assistance is not the only thing needed on the roads when an accident happens.
We should also do something about providing first aid on the spot.
Whether it should be part of qualifying for a driving licence I am not sure, but in any case it is something worth considering.
In closing, I would like to underline the importance of having secure frameworks for traffic, the safety of citizens, and so on.
Finally, I would like to say that we are all very concerned about not being killed by a serving of British beef.
If we could be equally aware of what is going on in the area of traffic, we would come a long way in a Europe whose future is based on cohesion and mobility.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
Mr President, I should first like to apologize to the House and in particular to Mr Cornelissen for the fact that I was slightly late getting here today.
As Mr Cornelissen will know, this was entirely due to the fact that I was held up by a horrific multiple car crash on the French motorway system.
This, tragically and graphically, underlined the great significance of the subject we have under consideration today, namely Mr Cornelissen's report on the Commission communication on road safety in the Union in the coming years.
<P>
I congratulate Mr Cornelissen on the thoroughness of the report which he and his colleagues in the Committee on Transport and Tourism have produced.
I am pleased but not surprised that there is strong concurrence between the opinions of Parliament and the Commission on the matters under consideration, not only the desirability of enhanced standards of performance in terms of road safety but also the general strategy to be adopted at Union level in order to achieve that improvement.
<P>
I am glad to note in particular that there is agreement on some of the new elements we have introduced in the most recent communication, such as the development of an integrated European Union information system on road safety which will assist with the identification of particular problems and be available to Member States to encourage further efforts by them for road safety strategies.
<P>
There is agreement on the need to improve enforcement of road safety laws, no matter what other changes we make.
The need for stringent enforcement will be universal and will continue.
The need for strengthening road safety education has been commented on in the report and in this debate.
We would endorse that fully.
The need to achieve better and wider use of safety belts, not only in the front of vehicles but in the rear seats of cars where appalling casualties still take place, even in the countries with the highest level of conformity with the seat belt laws.
The need to moderate speed has been emphasized by several speakers in this debate.
There is no question but that speed is a killer in all road conditions and weather circumstances and that is worth emphasizing.
The need to combat drink-driving is evident and I welcome the support given by Parliament yet again to the Commission proposal, which is now nine years old, for the universal introduction of a lower tolerated level of blood alcohol content.
There is increasing awareness of the need to develop technical and legal means to combat more effectively driving while under the influence of drugs.
<P>
So far as the harmonization of penalties is concerned, as an individual I would most certainly endorse those sentiments expressed by Members that would favour the harmonization and universal enforcement of penalties across the European Union.
However, as Parliament will understand, this is a question that arises under the so-called third pillar and largely remains an intergovernmental issue.
Unfortunately the Commission is not yet in a position to take an initiative on this matter.
I am sure the day will arrive, through sheer practicality and out of common interest, when a change will be made.
<P>
There is broad agreement too on the efforts being made to develop safety rating systems in order to provide consumers with accurate information on the safety standards of their vehicles in any particular category of cars, and broad agreement on the need to take full account of the very high economic and financial cost of road accidents and to use a cost/benefit approach on road safety measures.
On this issue there will be a specific communication from the Commission in the very near future.
<P>
It is inevitable that a report which is as thorough and comprehensive as Mr Cornelissen's will diverge in some respects from the approach taken by the Commission.
I should like briefly to respond to those points of often quite mild divergence.
<P>
Firstly there is the question of whether it is appropriate to establish at European Union level a numerical target for the reduction of the annual number of road deaths from the current awful level of 45 000 a year to a maximum of 25 000 by the year 2010.
I do not agree with such a target for three reasons.
Firstly, Member States vary to a considerable degree in their practices and their views on the establishment of targets.
Some already set targets which they would be reluctant to review.
Others do not favour targets at all.
It is therefore not really credible for the Commission or Parliament to set targets when we have no legal means of compelling Member States to attain those targets.
<P>
Despite these considerations, we could set indicative targets with all the best intentions in the world of achieving them.
Then, when circumstances beyond our control prevent the targets from being met, all that would be recalled is our over-optimism.
The criticism that would come from that does not concern me at all.
The distraction from the serious efforts that had been made to reduce deaths and injuries would be a real matter of concern.
Given the predilection in some parts of the European press, including the British press, to trivialize even the issue of road deaths and appalling injuries, I prefer to avoid the problems that would attend target setting and concentrate instead on the main basic issues.
<P>
Taking all of these considerations into account, I do not think it would be realistic to set a precise target at European Union level.
I would, however, remind the House of the Commission's conviction that if the measures proposed in our communication were followed and implemented, the Community could reasonably look forward to the number of deaths being reduced by 7 000 by the year 2000 and by around 27 000 by the year 2010.
Those figures and the reasoning behind them will I hope spur greater efforts in Member States and among drivers to make changes in provision and behaviour, changes that can save many lives.
That approach does not carry with it the problems that might arise from target setting.
<P>
A second point of divergence from Mr Cornelissen relates to the budget allocated to road safety by this Parliament and operated by the Community.
Like Mr Cornelissen, I deplore the 50 % cut in the budget line B-2702 and I agree that serious consideration should be given to the utilization of money from the B-2704 line in 1998.
However, line 2704 covers other important priorities for our transport policy which are shared by this House and following the suggestion made in the report would mean robbing Peter to pay Paul.
I am sure that on reflection no one in this House or in the Committee on Transport and Tourism would want that.
<P>
The budget reduction will inevitably cause delays for some of the measures we had hoped to support this year.
That is highly regrettable but realistic since our future actions will have to be based on the money available to us.
I hope those responsible for calculating and setting the budget will in future heed the fact that there are few issues more important to the general citizenry of the European Union than trying to advance safety on our roads.
The budget should reflect that priority.
<P>
Thirdly, and finally, I agree with Mr Cornelissen's view about the need to establish a clear list of priorities and to rank measures according to their casualty reduction value.
However, in addition to that criterion, other important factors should be taken into account, such as the cost/benefit ratio of the measures, their added value arising from the European dimension or the state of progress already made at Community or Member State level.
<P>
As far as the remainder of the report is concerned, I can confirm that we stand foursquare with the views expressed.
We will continue to work as effectively as we can to make every possible reduction in those terrible figures of 45 000 fatalities and 1.6 million injuries each year, and, of course, the human misery and economic cost which those casualty figures generate.
In these efforts, we are clearly strengthened by the active support and interest of this House and by Members like Mr Cornelissen and his colleagues who have shown and continue to show consistent dedication to improving road safety as they have for many years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, whereas this is an own-initiative report, could the Commissioner please comment on the fact that where we have a directive on the European driving licence, I made a proposal that we include some education on first aid in difficult circumstances like he was in this morning; that is, to give first aid and include it in the driving licence education.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
I can certainly see the virtues of such a system.
However, I offer a caution to Mr Wijsenbeek that while there are people who are very proficient in giving first aid and can contribute towards saving life and saving pain and further injury, that is not universal.
We have to be very careful, therefore, about putting any form of education or instruction in driving licences or other documents that might encourage people who, with the best intentions, would try to give first aid without the necessary expertise.
Appalling additional injuries can be caused by people who have goodwill but are inexpert.
So we would want to examine that very closely.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="Cornelissen">
Mr President, we differ in opinion about whether a concrete political target should be set.
We will have to discuss it further.
I would merely like to point out that those countries which have had the courage to set numerical targets achieve better results than others, and I believe this to be an extremely important argument.
<P>
Secondly, Mr President, the budget.
The Commissioner knows that it is not unusual for the Commission to come up with an additional budget during the course of the year, and my concrete question on behalf of our committee is, if this happens this year, if it proves to be necessary - and we have indications that it will be necessary - will the Commissioner take the opportunity to obtain enough money for the necessary research?
<P>
Mr President, it is not enough merely to say how important road safety is.
It will have to be reflected in the budget.
Noblesse oblige .
<P>
Thirdly, Mr President, did I understand correctly that the Commissioner is coming up with further details on his package of measures.
We think it is very important to know which measures will be proposed by the Commission, so that we can keep a finger on the pulse.
I would be grateful for a specific answer from the Commissioner to these three points either now or later.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
Mr President, there is a check list in our communication and we are happy to receive questions, demands, correspondence and contacts of various kinds in order to try to ensure, virtually on a week-byweek basis that we can provide reports on the progress being made in the implementation of the 65 or so different measures that are at the back of the communication.
Not only do we readily respond to those questions, we actually welcome them simply because they are a way of keeping up the pressure and drawing public and political attention to the need to make progress on that.
<P>
So far as the budget is concerned it is not so much a matter of noblesse oblige as of vitesse oblige .
We are capable any time of the year of finding really good use, highly productive use, without a penny being wasted for any supplementary budget resources.
I would simply urge those who are already arguing for additional resources for the safety budget line to keep up their work, knowing that if additional resources become available to the Commission - which has very limited influence and power over these matters - then anything directed to our safety programme will effectively be used.
<P>
The first part of the question related to targets and I certainly applaud those Member States that employ a target-setting system.
The difference between them and us working at Community level is, of course, that they have direct sovereignty and charge of enforcement systems and an assortment of other means of trying to ensure that their targets are actually fulfilled.
Those means are denied to us for all the obvious reasons and that is why there is a difference between trying to set a target at Community level covering some 350 million citizens affecting 45 000 road deaths and setting targets at the national or indeed the local level which are more capable of being attained simply because of the reinforcement action that can be taken.
The difference of dimension makes a difference in strategy and I hope that honourable Members will acknowledge that reality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 NAME="McIntosh">
Mr President, I am most disappointed that the Commissioner simply ignored the very simple question that I put.
Does the Commissioner not share my concern that whereas people who persistently drive with two or three times over the legal limit and who cause death and injury are allowed to continue to drive after quite a short prison sentence, innocent diabetic, insulin-dependent drivers are being prevented from driving now in the UK?
Would it not be better for the Commission to concentrate on enforcing existing rules before applying new ones?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
Mr President, I just wish to point out one or two things.
First of all, I did not ignore the point made by Miss McIntosh.
If the normal rules of order are applied, she was quite out of order in introducing the subject into a debate on a report on road safety.
Secondly, however, far from ignoring her, I already took over ten minutes when I had been allocated five, and I could not get every response in.
Thirdly, far from ignoring her, I know I have written her a very long letter explaining exactly the meaning and the letter of the law and what it implies in the United Kingdom.
Fourthly, she inadvertently misled the House in her original contribution this morning, because it is not true to say that the rules concerning insulin-dependent diabetic drivers are only being applied in the United Kingdom.
They are being stringently applied elsewhere.
<P>
We can each of us have our own opinion about the significance, the relevance, the effectiveness and the proportionality of that particular law.
As I pointed out in my letter to her and to many other honourable Members and others who have communicated with me on the subject of diabetic drivers, the basic power to interpret and apply the law rests with Member States, not with the Commission.
The Member States are acting on the basis of the most informed medical expert advice.
Their judgement is that the law should be applied in the way in which it is being applied.
It is not for the Commission to make an interpretation.
We do not have the power to undertake the enforcement of this law.
I would be obliged if honourable Members, before accusing me of ignoring their questions, were to take into account what I have provided them with at length on previous occasions, as well as the time I have available for answering questions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Registration of ships' passengers
<SPEAKER ID=145 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0068/98), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Council Directive on the registration of persons sailing on board passenger ships operating to or from ports of the Member States of the Community (Rapporteur: Mr Watts) (C4-0620/97-96/0281(SYN)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="Watts">
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Klironomos">
Mr President, I wish to congratulate my colleague on his very serious attempt to achieve the necessary convergence of opinion between Parliament and the Council on the institution of directives which aim in good faith to ensure ferry safety.
<P>
However, I would like to take this opportunity to put forward my own personal view of the way in which the Council is attempting to strengthen the conditions that are essential to ensure ferry safety.
After the tragic accidents at sea over the last few years, and especially following the shipwreck of the Estonia , the Council, and to a large extent the Commission, were reduced to a state of near panic and, with a succession of proposals, directives, or recommendations, set about restoring some feeling of safety in the minds of the citizens of the EU, who were justifiably anxious about the level of ferry safety.
But whatever and however many measures are taken under the pressure of such events, I am afraid that they are spasmodic, occasional, piecemeal and consequently ineffectual.
I would like to believe that neither the Council nor the Commission, nor indeed Parliament, wishes to take measures simply to satisfy public opinion while essentially having very little to offer to improve the level of ferry safety.
<P>
The proposed directive on passenger registration will, I feel, remain a measure purely on record. Beyond the total number of passengers, which is easy enough to ascertain and to announce before the ship sets sail, the detailed registration of the remaining particulars will simply establish an extremely bureaucratic procedure which, a few months after the measure comes into force, will either fall into disuse and be forgotten, or will be by-passed and become a sham.
Those obliged to enforce the directive, under pressure of time caused by disembarkation and embarkation of passengers, will end up giving inaccurate details. Measures should be taken, but they should be taken calmly and coolly and should tackle the problem as a whole.
We must, however, enforce the observance of already existing safety regulations and guidelines which, thank goodness, are extremely numerous but which are being systematically violated in more than 60 % of cases. That can be achieved through the setting up of a system of strict controls by registers and port authorities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Stenmarck">
Mr President, let me begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Watts, for the ambitious work he has done throughout the discussion of this report, a piece of work which means that we will now have passenger lists for ferry traffic throughout the EU.
I also think it is appropriate to say thank you to Commissioner Kinnock for the commitment he always shows when it comes to proposing measures to increase safety.
<P>
Around Europe there have been several very big ferry disasters in recent decades.
After these disasters an attitude has emerged that people should do everything in their power to prevent this from ever happening again.
Parliament has made demands for extensive measures, and in various contexts the Commission has put forward proposals to improve safety.
With one voice, the EU is more clearly promoting the work on improving safety within the United Nations maritime body, the International Maritime Organization.
<P>
The decision we are going to take today is another step in this direction.
Just as it has always been a matter of course in the area of flying, it is now becoming so for ferry traffic.
Every single person who travels on an aircraft on a regular service receives a boarding pass and is put on a list of passengers on that plane, regardless of how long the flight is.
There have been international rules about this for a long time. Anything else would presumably be totally unacceptable.
<P>
Now we are getting the same rules for ferry traffic.
There should be a list which clearly shows who is on board and how many passengers there are.
There has been a debate between Parliament, the Council and the Commission about exactly where these lists should be submitted.
The Council's common position says that the information should be collected before departure, but not necessarily communicated to the registrar until 30 minutes after the ferry has sailed.
The Committee on Transport and Tourism says that this information should be submitted before the ferry leaves port.
I believe that is a necessity.
Nor should there be any great problem getting it to work that way.
With the help of computer technology an immediate registration will go to the registrar.
That does not, as far as I am concerned, remove the need for this amendment.
I would be grateful for a comment from the Commissioner on this point.
<P>
With the proposal which has been put forward there is in fact only one limitation: the length of the journey.
It is limited to 20 nautical miles between two ports, below which passenger lists are not considered necessary.
In this regard too, the Committee on Transport and Tourism is making a minor addition.
I would like to stress that even though this is a minor change, it is still necessary.
<P>
I think it is very positive that a consistent framework for the EU's policy with regard to safety at sea is now emerging.
The European Parliament has been demanding this for a long time.
It would be gratifying if we could continue this work to achieve a level of safety which is acceptable to passengers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berès">
Madam President, the directive on the registration of persons sailing on board passenger ships will impose serious constraints on the Calais-Dover sea crossing, given that it does not apply to rail transport through the Channel tunnel.
<P>
The fact that these two different modes of transport are being treated differently is unfair from the point of view of security, equal competition conditions, economic and social cohesion and regional equilibrium.
<P>
That is why I support the amendments proposed by the Committee on Transport and Tourism and our British colleague, Mark Watts, in which he proposes to reestablish equal treatment for ferries and trains despite the initial refusal of the Commission to do so.
<P>
The Commission feels that to increase security, new embarkation procedures for passengers are required.
It considers there to be greater risks in navigating the Channel than in using the Channel tunnel.
However, this argument is contradicted by two factors.
The account of the intervention of fire-fighting teams during the fire in the Channel tunnel on 18 November 1996 indicates that rescue operations were hindered by the lack of precise information on the number of passengers travelling on the train.
So the tunnel has its risks too.
<P>
Moreover, studies on the average height of waves in the Channel which have been carried out by the French and British meteorological institutes have produced results which do not justify special treatment, even according to the Commission's own criteria.
So the hypothesis which states that the waters of the Channel are difficult cannot be accepted as a means to justify more stringent controls.
<P>
There are three possible solutions which would guarantee the safety of these two modes of transport and reestablish balanced conditions for competition in those areas where the opening of the Tunnel seriously weakened the position of the ferries.
Firstly, the Commission and the Council should accept the amendments which, I hope, Parliament will adopt and which impose the same obligation on both modes of transport.
<P>
Secondly, if stipulated by legal requirements, the Commission should propose a new directive specifically devoted to hazardous rail transport.
Pending this new text, the application of the text on cross-Channel sea links currently under discussion ought to be postponed until the second directive is adopted.
<P>
The third and most pragmatic solution would be to exempt cross-Channel sea links from the arrangements set out in this document.
<P>
Bearing in mind the fact that 57 % of passengers on the Calais-Dover ferry complete their return journey within one day, it is easy to understand how the introduction of new arrangements, such as those we have seen today, would mean that this mode of transport would be penalized, thus upsetting the equilibrium of entire regions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="McIntosh">
Mr President, the background to this report is clearly the two devastating accidents involving first the Herald of Free Enterprise and more recently the Estonia and the international obligations which Member States undertook in the SOLAS regulation agreed in 1995.
Ferry companies in the UK already register the number of passengers.
The main problem with the proposal in its present form is that it will pose practical problems for ferry operations, particularly crossChannel operations, to process the details of names, addresses and special needs in the event of accident, in what is already a very competitive market.
<P>
The Commission has made a very strong case that the background to this proposal is to increase safety.
Mr Watts has highlighted the fact that if this is to increase safety, this precaution must also be extended to passengers travelling by Eurotunnel.
In the event of fire it is just as important to record the details of passengers travelling by Eurotunnel to ensure their safe evacuation in the event of a fire.
I remind the House that there has already been one serious fire that could have led, sadly, to an even bigger disaster.
<P>
Even more necessary is the requirement of names, addresses and passenger details in the event of death so that the next of kin can be informed in the event of such a Eurotunnel disaster.
<P>
My message to the Commission is very simple: the minimum must be a level, competitive playing field ensuring maximum safety for passengers, regardless of whether they are travelling by ferry or by Eurotunnel.
A situation in which passengers travelling by Eurotunnel were placed at a disadvantage would be totally unacceptable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 NAME="Provan">
Mr President, there is always one person who is on the other side of the argument and today it seems as if it is going to be me.
<P>
I personally always have difficulty when it comes to restricting the rights of the individual.
The measure that is being proposed today - the recording of names, sex, age, children, and so on - is in fact a stab in the back for the free movement of people within the European Community.
<P>
I recognize the need for safety.
Safety is of course a high requirement.
Everybody wants it.
But I believe that any legislation that is brought forward for safety should be simple, practical and easily implemented.
This measure is going to add - as far as the UK is concerned - a cost of 2.5 million a year.
For checking-in, whether it be at the Tunnel or at a ferry, it is going to add, perhaps, at least another hour to that journey and it is going to make any surface or undersea travel less competitive as against air travel.
So what are we trying to do in what we are proposing?
<P>
I am concerned about the sheer bureaucracy; I am concerned to see that because we need greater safety at sea we are actually including other forms of transport as well.
That is not good legislation.
I believe it is bad legislation.
<P>
The Road Transport Association has said in a statement that registration of passengers on ferries on the Dover-Calais route in particular will cause considerable inconvenience.
It could harm our trade when people are trying to meet deadlines.
This, lumped on top of the loss of duty-free, will put the ferries out of business and will have a seriously damaging effect on freight to and from Britain.
<P>
This is not necessary.
A head count is all that is required so that people know the numbers that are on the ferry and not necessarily who is on the ferry.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
Mr President, I wish to begin by saying that I am very grateful to Mr Watts for his characteristically thorough work and for his recommendation to approve the common position on this measure.
I am also naturally pleased that the House continues to support the harmonization of passenger registration throughout the Community, both for the sake of safety and in order to deal effectively with the aftermath of any accident.
<P>
I also wish to say that, whilst I agree entirely with Mr Klironomos on his view that proper enforcement of all rules is essential, I fundamentally disagree with his description of the way in which this issue has been approached.
The Council and the Commission were accused, in his word, of 'panic' .
It is ten years last week since the appalling disaster of the sinking of the Herald of Free Enterprise at Zeebrugge, and it is three-and-a-half years since the Estonia went down with a loss of over 950 lives.
Nothing we have done could be described as being panic-stricken or panic-driven.
What we have is a comprehensive set of rules which we are adding to, in order to ensure that the security of passengers and crew travelling on ferries is as high as the sea will ever allow it to be, and we will persist with that.
<P>
Since most of the amendments reiterate suggestions made in the first reading debate, I feel obliged to clarify the reasons for the Commission's support for the Council's common position and also to reassure the House that the specific concerns addressed in the original report were properly taken into account.
<P>
Amendments Nos 1 to 3 in Mr Watts's report refer to limited progress in advancing the safety of maritime transport.
I totally understand the feelings which underlie that view: they are the feelings of a zealous and committed Member of the European Parliament, and we are all impatient for further improvement.
But, in fairness, we should not lose sight of the achievements at International Maritime Organization level and at Community level, which are now in their implementation phase, and which will, I hope - indeed, I am sure - produce progress.
<P>
Meanwhile, I agree that it is essential that internationally agreed principles should apply to all roll-on/roll-off ferries sailing to European ports.
I agree that should include the necessary stability rules, where appropriate, and I agree that all of this should be properly checked.
<P>
To achieve this and to reassure the public that roll-on/roll-off ferry services in Europe are provided with the best possible safety standards and to sustain public confidence in ferry services, I am glad to report that last month the Commission adopted a new proposal relating to the operation of regular roll-on/roll-off ferry and high-speed passenger craft services in the Community.
I sincerely hope that this proposal will encourage the House and, more important, further reinforce maritime safety.
<P>
I have to say to Mr Provan that I totally understand his resistance to any unnecessary bureaucracy or unrealistic limitations on the freedom of movement.
In this case, none of those problems arise and neither of his concerns will be justified when the system is in operation.
Naturally, the concerns he expressed, which have been expressed by others, will continue to be borne in mind.
<P>
Articles 8 and 9 of the common position will ensure that information on passengers will always be available when needed, while allowing for the proper handling of journeys of less than two hours and, at the same time, providing the necessary flexibility for those who have to set up registration systems.
Consequently, I cannot support Amendments Nos 6 and 8.
<P>
Amendments Nos 4, 5 and 7 address the issue of the shuttle and safety in the Channel Tunnel.
As I promised in May of last year, I asked my services to examine the merits of a Community measure to apply passenger registration principles to vehicles using undersea railway tunnels.
Our conclusions are as follows.
First, to introduce provisions that currently govern the operation of train services in the proposed legislation on ferries would risk delaying its implementation because it would involve trying to achieve a mixture of two distinctly different sets of provisions.
<P>
Secondly, there are no convincing arguments for introducing rules for rail tunnels which differ according to whether they go under the sea or under the land.
Thirdly, there are serious doubts as to whether a passenger-registration scheme of the type proposed for ferry operations would add sufficient value to the detailed safety regime developed specifically for the Channel Tunnel by French and British authorities and currently in operation.
On these grounds, I cannot accept the amendments relating to the Channel Tunnel.
I would say to Mr Watts and to Mrs Berès that safety in the Channel Tunnel is an issue which is specific to that location and, quite properly, a matter for France and for Britain to consider on a bilateral basis.
I really believe that the issue is best pursued with the two Member State governments that are directly and uniquely involved, and Community action on this would not be appropriate.
<P>
Some Members, Miss McIntosh among them, have raised the question of a possible distortion of competition between transport modes arising out of the implementation of this directive.
Naturally, the Commission seeks to achieve equitable conditions of competition between transport modes by a variety of means, but for very practical reasons, that cannot mean legislating for one sector simply because another mode has become subject to a law which imposes new obligations.
<P>
As the House will recall, the need for passenger registration on ships arises from the tragic experience of ferry disasters, such as the sinking of the Estonia and the Herald of Free Enterprise and from obligations under the IMO Safety of Life at Sea Convention.
Neither these experiences, nor such international rules, apply to Channel Tunnel operations.
<P>
One final element I wish to add relates to the capacity of ferry operators to cope with this legislation.
The European dataprocessing industry has the technical means to implement these requirements and the proposed date for implementation deliberately gives adequate time for preparation.
The Commission is convinced, therefore, that Channel operators, who are committed to high levels of safety and service, will be able to apply workable solutions based on these technologies while, at the same time, safeguarding their competitive position.
<P>
While the Commission is not able to support the amendments proposed in Mr Watts's recommendations today, I know that he and the Committee on Transport and Tourism continue to give their full support to the specific measure relating to passenger lists for ferries.
I welcome that, of course.
I am also confident that the true commitment of Mr Watts and other honourable Members to advances in safety legislation will ensure that support will continue when we debate the new proposal on ferry and fast-passenger-craft licensing, which I mentioned a few moments ago.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="Watts">
Mr President, I would like to thank Commissioner Kinnock for his statement.
The differences between us should not obscure the general agreement that exists on the principle of this measure applying throughout European Union waters.
I want to emphasize that.
I welcome his measure on licensing, which I am sure we all look forward to debating.
However, I have to warn him that, unfortunately, I am sure we will be returning to the issue of Le Shuttle.
I am afraid we must agree to disagree on his analysis of that problem.
I am sure he respects us for that and that we will be hearing more from each other on that and other issues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11: 30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Multilateral agreement on investments (MAI)
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0073/98) by Mr Kreissl-Dörfler, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, containing Parliament's recommendations to the Commission on negotiations in the framework of the OECD on a multilateral agreement on investments (MAI).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is a great honour for me to be reporting to you today on the views of the Committee on External Economic Relations concerning the negotiations on the multilateral agreement on investments, usually known as the MAI. It is a particular honour because this is the first time any parliament has officially considered, in depth, what is undoubtedly the most important multilateral agreement since the GATT round was completed.
<P>
We are doing this with the clear intention of providing a set of guiding principles for the Commission, as one of the most important parties to the remaining negotiations in Paris, which are expected to finish by the end of April.
The MAI has got an interesting history.
In March 1995, UNICE, the Federation of EC employers' organizations, issued a paper in which it proposed an MAI and mapped out its broad scope.
The various existing bilateral agreements on investments were to be replaced by a multilateral agreement based on the principles of most-favoured nation treatment and national treatment, which would significantly liberalize investment and provide broadly-based protection for it.
<P>
All the main measures called for by UNICE have been incorporated in the OECD draft now before us.
In May 1995, the OECD ministerial meeting gave the go-ahead for negotiations on the MAI.
Since then, negotiations have been taking place behind closed doors in Paris, out of sight of both the public and parliaments, but with trade associations taking part.
<P>
What is envisaged is a 'free standing agreement' also open to non-OECD member states, but without their having any input on the wording of the treaty.
That is why the REX Committee's own-initiative report is exceptionally important.
We are exercising our right to be consulted on a continuing process.
We are also specifically working on the assumption that when the agreement in concluded, the MAI will be submitted to the European Court of Justice for an opinion, and that we will be consulted by the Commission and the Council under the assent procedure.
I would be delighted if you could unequivocally confirm this in your reply today, Commissioner.
<P>
We do not want the MAI to be the exclusive preserve of big industry, because we cannot surrender our responsibility for political regulation of economic policy to the captains of industry.
On the contrary, if we want an MAI at all, it should be one that halts the 'race to the bottom' in competing for the lowest social and environmental standards.
<P>
Turning to the agreement itself, the 'first commandment' of the agreement planned is a wide-ranging ban on discrimination against foreign investors.
However, we must not throw the baby out with the bath water in removing obstacles to investment!
It cannot be acceptable for multilateral environmental agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol to lose out.
This fear is even expressed in a working paper from such an authoritative source as the OECD itself.
Just paying lip service to preserving environmental and social standards in the preamble is not enough.
The OECD Code of Conduct for multinationals must be incorporated into the agreement in such a way that it is binding and enforceable.
<P>
The Committee has serious reservations about the provisions on expropriation and compensation.
An investor should not be able to sue for loss of profit just because environmental and social laws in Member States have progressed or because a socioecological tax reform has been introduced.
A region must retain the right to decide, on the basis of democratic control, whether it wishes to attract major projects or whether it would rather promote locally-oriented small and medium-sized companies based on local consumption.
The long list of requests for derogations now lodged with the OECD secretariat does not just give cause for concern about the legitimacy of the overarching principle of equal treatment.
The standstill and rollback provisions are also unacceptable to us as they stand at present.
<P>
The Committee also opposes the proposed arbitration procedure, which puts investors on an equal footing with Member States.
We consider that the national and international procedures that already exist are adequate.
So we should give ourselves time carefully to examine the goals and effects of the MAI, because the social aspects, long-term ecological feasibility and democratic accountability of the MAI should not be subordinated to onerous restrictions - our guiding principle should be just the opposite.
<P>
I would also like to express my heartfelt thanks to the other committees asked for an opinion, and to the committee secretariat for their commitment, and I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, to vote for this report.
Marking out the playing field on which our economic policy is to develop is a vital task for us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="García-Margallo y Marfil">
Mr President, first I want to congratulate the Committee on External Economic Relations for having taken the initiative in concerning itself with this report. I also congratulate the Committee on its choice of rapporteur.
I totally agree with what he said. I should also like, Mr President, to underline one of the ideas emphasized by the rapporteur: that this agreement is being negotiated in a secretive manner.
I do not want to go into what has been said by the representatives of national parliaments. The Commission just needs to know that this Parliament is not happy with the level of information about and participation in these negotiations, towards an agreement which has been termed the economic constitution of the world, and the most important document we will be discussing in the near future.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has drafted an opinion and come up with several observations, some of which are my own, while others were added in committee. I will defend them all with the same enthusiasm.
<P>
Firstly, we stress the need for this binding agreement to apply to "lower' governments with competence in investment matters: in other words, subfederal or subcentral governments. Basically, I am thinking of the United States and Canada.
<P>
Secondly, non-OECD countries which may wish to accede to this agreement in the future must be kept informed of how the negotiations are progressing, and that their right to formulate reservations is being respected.
<P>
Our third point is obvious: for the sake of coherence, the multilateral agreement on investments should respect the Treaty on European Union and the decisions of the Uruguay Round and other international treaties.
<P>
Fourthly, and this may be the most important clause of all, this Parliament requests the inclusion of the so-called regional economic integration organization clause, to provide that countries who are members of such organizations - and I am specifically thinking of the countries of the European Union - will not be obliged to extend to non-member countries the favourable treatment reserved for members.
If a clause of this type were not included, the whole process of commercial integration which we Europeans have implemented would be cast to the winds.
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Fifthly, we ask that the multilateral agreement should include a clause to forbid any of the signatories from applying measures which have extra-territorial effects. It is no secret that I am thinking of the Helms-Burton Act.
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Finally - and I am just finishing - we ask that labour and environmental standards should under no circumstances be lowered within the framework of this agreement.
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<SPEAKER ID=158 NAME="Ahern">
Mr President, I also congratulate the REX Committee and the rapporteur on bringing this to the attention of the European Parliament.
The investment under the terms of the MAI is extremely extensive and far-reaching, indeed so far-reaching that the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights could consider it as deconstructing the acquis communautaire .
We must be very wary of this.
It could force Member States to treat foreign investors as favourably as EU companies, and this could mean that environmental protection, employment protection and other Community laws could be considered illegal and therefore deconstructed.
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The role of the European Parliament is very important in this.
It has an obligation to influence the contents of a treaty as important as the MAI, which runs the risk of being negotiated and concluded without any democratic participation.
Secondly, it has to safeguard its powers and those of the Union in general, which might be curtailed by the conclusion of such an international convention.
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In its conclusions the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights calls on the European Parliament to state that it cannot agree to endorse any agreement which would have the effect of rolling back EU legislation and insists, therefore, on the use of exception clauses and on the insertion of a regional economic integration organization clause.
It cannot agree to endorse any agreement which would have the effect of preventing further harmonization of EU legislation, and insists therefore on the insertion of a separate regional economic integration organization clause permitting new harmonized measures, such as environmental legislation adopted within the framework of such an organization and replacing measures previously applied by these states.
<P>
It demands that the proposals should be compatible with international conventions already ratified by the EU, and draws attention to the serious problems of consistency and legal security that may be engendered by including intellectual property within the scope of the multilateral agreement on investments, given the complexity of the subject which falls within the remit of the WIPO and, more recently, the World Trade Organization.
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Finally, it would call on the Commission, the Council and the Member States to submit, pursuant to the procedure provided for in Article 228, the whole of the definitive draft of the MAI to the Court of Justice for full examination before it is ratified.
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<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="Elchlepp">
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Kreissl-Dörfler for his excellent report on this extremely complex subject.
It is not just security of employment and the environment that are at stake, it is our European identity.
While there may still be justified reservations about this draft agreement and assent cannot therefore be signalled for the time being, this does not mean that the need to establish transparency and legal certainty for international investment in all areas is being denied.
However, a number of other issues remain to be resolved: vital social, ecological and cultural issues.
<P>
As a member of the Committee on Culture, I would like to speak about the possible threat the agreement poses to EU culture and media policy.
A derogation for the audiovisual industry and for the protection of intellectual property is essential.
Cultural creativity is not a purely economic investment.
For example, if the national treatment principle was applied in the cultural world, US media companies would qualify for EU funds created specifically to support the European cultural industry.
The Television without Frontiers Directive and the Media II programme would then just be fit for the shredder.
If the EU does not protect its cultural policy by seeking derogations from the MAI, it will be defeating its own policy of safeguarding quality and the promoting diversity in European audiovisual production, which in turn maintain Europe's identity.
I therefore urge the plenary to follow the recommendations of the Committee on External Economic Relations and the Committee on Culture when we vote, and exclude audiovisual policy and intellectual property from this agreement.
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<SPEAKER ID=160 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, one of the most alarming aspects of the MAI is the lack of public debate and this runs counter to the principles of democracy, transparency and public participation.
The MAI could have very profound consequences for the fisheries sector both from the social and environmental perspectives.
Although the Common Fisheries Policy has not been terribly successful, at least it has the merit that the EU bears responsibility for the policies and for the current mess.
The Fisheries Committee was concerned that the MAI could force the EU to alter its approach to fisheries management so as to conform to the wishes of some other countries or indeed even companies.
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For instance, if, as a conservation measure, the Community decided to reduce fishing in order to allow the recovery of fish stocks, would other countries or indeed big business be able to claim that this was unfair and so overrule the Community?
Would the EU lose control of its own resources?
The Committee was adamant that the EU must maintain its ability to establish and implement policies for the conservation of fish stocks and the management of Community fisheries.
The Commission assured the Committee that these concerns were groundless, that the appropriate reservations would be lodged to ensure that the EU maintained its independence.
But how foolproof will these reservations be?
The world is rapidly changing; one wonders if it is possible to foresee all the implications of the MAI and to lodge reservations which will ensure that the management of EU fisheries will remain a European matter.
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Let us not forget that the effects of this agreement will last a minimum of twenty years and that there will doubtless be much pressure to phase out reservations.
<P>
Although the opinion of the Fisheries Committee considers only fisheries it is easy to imagine that the situation would be similar in other resources: for example, in the extraction industry, forestry, agriculture, mining, and so on.
Similarly, the concerns of the EU are probably similar to the concerns shared around the world.
Finally, the opinion by the Fisheries Committee was adopted unanimously, it is very complex and it is important that the conclusions of this opinion be included entirely and not simply summarised in a short, almost meaningless amendment.
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<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Erika">
Mr President, firstly I would very much like to thank the rapporteur, both personally and on behalf of my group.
He has done excellent work, and the report was also his initiative.
Had it not been for him, if we - by which I also mean the Committee - had not acted promptly, this report would probably not only have bypassed the European Parliament, it would also not have given the appropriate signals to national parliaments. It will now!
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My group has tabled an amendment, and I hope that all the groups have given it their attention.
We are calling on national governments and thus parliaments to withhold their consent to the completion of the negotiations and the conclusion of this agreement in May.
Sir Leon Brittan is with us today, and I hope that he will convey this signal to the Commission.
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We think it is important to give a signal now so that governments, national parliaments and the public are alerted to this, and so that it is made crystal clear to them what the agreement is all about, and that it is vital to carry on negotiating to achieve a satisfactory package.
It is quite possible that it would then no longer be meaningful to continue these negotiations in an OECD framework, and that it would then be advisable to pursue the negotiations through the WTO instead.
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I know, Sir Leon, that you will probably not be very happy about this, because you think is perfectly appropriate to have a package for OECD member states which provides certainty for investment, and above all for investors.
We do not have any quarrel with this, but would it not be wiser to pursue it via the WTO?
We share a healthy scepticism about a number of points with most of the parties to the negotiations.
<P>
One point I would briefly like to mention is the definition of investment.
The investments protected include direct investment, portfolio investment, and everything which can be categorized as intangible investment, including intellectual property.
The third category in particular goes way beyond the results of WTO negotiations and I have grave doubts about that.
<P>
The second point is that in the context of continuing liberalization, an arbitration procedure would be introduced giving investors the right to take legal action against Member States. However, the reverse would not apply, so Member States would not have the right to take action against investors.
This is another crucial point.
<P>
I have a whole string of other points of criticism that I will unfortunately not get to now.
I would be very pleased if you could take these on board in your negotiations, and I know that the Commission is already aware of this.
Once more, I urge you not to conclude the negotiations this May.
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<SPEAKER ID=162 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valdivielso de Cué">
Mr President, I want to begin by congratulating the rapporteur, Mr Kreissl-Dörfler, on his excellent report.
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There is no doubt that the conclusion and signing of the multilateral agreement on investments will provide the signatories with the first multilateral framework to broadly regulate the conditions and treatment of international investments. This broad concept covers direct investments, loans, intellectual property, licences, authorizations and the whole wide area of rights and obligations in the world of commerce.
<P>
Considering how important foreign investments are to today's economy, and given the globalization which increasingly affects us, we can think of the framework agreement on investments as representing in the investment area what GATT meant in its day for trade. In other words, it creates a stable, global frame of reference, to replace more than 1 800 existing bilateral agreements.
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In fact, to coin a phrase, the multilateral agreement on investments will change the world.
It will become one of the great achievements of the OECD and, in the future, of the WTO.
<P>
This agreement offers guarantees to companies and states, and its rules are expected to be applied globally.
We must bear in mind that in recent years world investments have risen to over $10 billion - all direct international investments - and we are in a period of growth, with an annual increase of about $500 000-$600 000 million. Furthermore, that growth is very uneven, since there is hardly any investment in so-called "black' Africa.
I would like to make a plea that investments should not just be made in those places where we expect immediate returns. We must think about the solidarity aspect of investing throughout the world.
<P>
Anyway, having experienced what an intense process it was to draft this report (because of the many amendments presented - more than 80 amendments in the Committee on External Economic Relations), and despite the fact that it in no way reflects the view of the Group of the European People's Party, we request a vote in favour of this report because we think it represents an unavoidable compromise.
We hope that a vote of confidence from this Parliament will mean that this report is taken seriously by the European Commission in view of the forthcoming negotiations and the signing of the Agreement in April. As the rapporteur said, we will see if anybody takes any notice of this Parliament.
<P>
We in Parliament often have the impression that we try to do our work, we try to produce agreements and reports, and in the end, the Commission ignores them. I think that is a view shared by a lot of people, in Parliament in general and, especially in this case, in the Committee on External Economic Relations.
I am pleased that Sir Leon Brittan is here, so we can ask him to listen to us, take note of what we say, and bear it in mind.
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<SPEAKER ID=163 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldi">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we look favourably on the idea of a liberalization of investments stimulating competition and promoting the European economy.
Naturally, an agreement to this effect will necessarily have to observe the principles and foundations on which Europe is built.
The public should be informed of negotiations with clarity and transparency, particularly the national parliaments that play a decisive role when applying international agreements.
The multilateral agreement on investments should, however, take EU legislation into account without preventing any further harmonization, and cannot radically change existing agreements and policies on development.
The Council should be consulted on the conclusion of the MIA on behalf of the EU, according to Article 228 paragraph 3 section 2 of the Treaty, according to the assent procedure.
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However, I consider it fundamentally important for the national governments and parliaments to be vigilant at the time of presenting the project.
This vigilance is absolutely vital to the cultural sector as a whole; the cultural policy needs space for itself, special provisions which cannot be provided by purely economic mechanisms.
Such spicial provisions will be hard to guarantee within the multilateral agreement on investments, at least at the current stage of negotiations, and it would therefore be advisable for the cultural sector to be excluded from the MAI.
However, this should not be confused with a protectionist attitude: we should stop being afraid of the USA, for we will not save European culture by keeping it enclosed.
We should undertake to identify and support those initiatives that stimulate and reinforce European competitiveness and creativity, and this can also be achieved by some form of liberalization that will have to be developed ad hoc, made-to-measure to safeguard the principles of support for the diversity and peculiarity that strengthen and shape the wealth and identity of European culture.
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Our group is therefore in favour of the report.
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<SPEAKER ID=164 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-Van Gorsel">
<SPEAKER ID=165 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Castellina">
Madam President, the resolution the European Parliament is preparing to vote on, contained in Mr Kreissl-Dörfler's excellent report, is of great importance, for reasons of method and substance.
It is, in fact, a question of providing guidelines on these negotiations of enormous consequence that have been taking place in a semi-clandestine manner for almost three years.
The agreement was to be concluded, in fact, without either public opinion or the parliaments being in a position to be fully aware of its implications.
It is quite true that, once it was concluded, the agreement would have been submitted for examination by the parliaments, but too late, only at the time of ratification, when it is only possible to say "yes' or "no' , when it is no longer possible to affect its direction.
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I think one great merit of our Parliament is that of having realized for some time the scope of the current negotiations within the OECD and of having taken the initiative to vote, pursuant to Rule 90(5) of the Rules of Procedure, on a resolution with the ability to affect negotiations while they are still open, to offer the thoughts of a representative democratic institution. This Parliament was the first to do so, and so far the only one.
This timing is all the more important in the case of the negotiations in question, given the enormous implications of this MAI. It does not ask us for an opinion on the advisability or otherwise of foreign investments, but on the rights and powers of states to regulate direct foreign investments and, therefore, to direct them according to their own priorities, to subject their operations to specific procedures, and to regulate their ability and the use of any profits made.
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The MAI could give rise to a substantial erosion of the sovereignty of states, which would be transferred to businesses able to challenge any choice of country in which they are investing, denouncing it as discriminatory, as a form of a priori expropriation of a potential future profit. Any regulation aimed at protecting the health of its own citizens, at protecting the environment, at protecting the social standards guaranteed for workers by laws and collective agreements or (a very important aspect of the problem) at safeguarding its own identity and culture could be considered discriminatory.
Not to mention another dramatic consequence: the prohibition of establishing any incentive designed to reduce regional imbalances or direct resources towards certain aims. This is a particularly serious problem, especially for developing countries exposed to the risk of increased volatility and instability of their own financial markets, without any power to control their own balances of payments.
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It is paradoxical that after decades of laborious Community construction and harmonization of regulations within the EU, and after our efforts to make the east European applicant countries assume the acquis communautaire , we are preparing to dilute everything. This calls into question the very notion of regional economic integration organizations, although they are respected within the framework of the WTO, under the "REIO' clause, which, in the draft MAI, seems to be extremely lacking in efficacy.
<P>
Finally, another worrying question: why was the OECD chosen for these negotiations? It would have been far more appropriate to examine the matter within the WTO, since the OECD has an entirely different function.
The suspicion that the choice was made because only the 29 richest countries belong to the OECD is sufficiently strong and widespread to seriously risk the very credibility of the institutions seeking legitimation as regulators of globalization, starting with the WTO itself.
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The mobilization generated by the "discovery' of the MAI in European civilian society, particularly in the world of culture, and in the USA, where the NGOs have begun a real campaign of denouncement, has already had the effect of postponing the conclusion of the agreement.
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The unanimous vote, apart from one abstention, in the Committee on External Economic Relations and the committees called upon to give an opinion, whose amendments have been included in full, will I hope serve as advice for the European negotiators in their measures designed, if not to reject the agreement itself (as not just our group but also many others in this Parliament would like) at least to drastically review the wording of the draft under discussion.
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<SPEAKER ID=166 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lannoye">
Madam President, the exponential world increase in foreign investments surely justifies setting up a global regulatory framework, not to place the emphasis on liberalization, but to direct the initiatives of transnational associations towards socially and ecologically durable development.
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The current draft does not tackle this issue at all for three reasons.
The draft under discussion, in which the Commission is actively involved, aims to provide maximum security for investors and only takes into account the interests of the populations concerned as a secondary issue.
Secondly, all the basic principles and conditions proposed result in political institutions being deprived of the normal prerogatives they would have in a democratic regime, and also result in legally subjecting democratic institutions and governments to the strategies and interests of transnational companies by the specific creation of arbitration bodies in which these very companies could have the countries condemned.
Thirdly, as Mrs Castellina has just said, the discussions currently underway in the OECD obviously belong to the wealthy club; the most vulnerable countries - developing countries - are excluded, when in fact they are the ones most at the mercy of the multinationals' strategies.
This is a draft which cannot be corrected superficially or content itself with exemptions, but whose very principles must be fundamentally reviewed.
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I would like to illustrate my point with three examples.
Firstly, one of the basic clauses, the prohibition of performance requirements, completely contradicts the idea of a specific targeted policy against severe unemployment in the relevant regions.
In granting permission to an investor, the condition could not be made that regional staff must be employed, or that there must be preferential contracts with regional companies, or anything of that kind.
In the end, it is in fact European structural policy which will be called into question.
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My second example concerns expropriation and the subsequent compensation.
The adoption of new legislation on fiscal, environmental and social issues could be seen to have the same effect as expropriation, which UNICE calls rampant expropriation, in that it would cause a gradual erosion of the conditions on which the decision to invest was taken and would automatically bring with it a right to financial compensation.
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My third example concerns the principle of non-discrimination, or national treatment.
What would happen in the former countries of eastern Europe or in a country like Brazil if, in the process of land redistribution by privatization of collective farms or to meet the requirements of the indigenous peoples or landless peasant farmers, the same priority was given to multinationals as to the populations concerned?
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The answer is self-evident: it would be unacceptable to us.
Mr Kreissl-Dörfler's report is an excellent one because it puts its finger on these very issues, and I think Parliament would promote its own cause by voting in favour of it by a very large majority.
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<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Leperre-Verrier">
Madam President, doubtless there were a thousand good reasons why the representatives of the OECD devised this multilateral agreement without the slightest degree of transparency. But some of these reasons, and certainly not the least of them, oblige us to reject this new economic order which they want to impose upon us.
Of course we can easily understand the advantages of such an agreement for the multinationals, all the more so since this draft, which could be summarized by the principle "the countries fulfil their obligations and the investors reap the benefits' , offers them definite guarantees.
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It is doubtless a good thing to remove obstacles to investment, but even so the principle of non-discrimination, or this broad conception of investment, must not have harmful effects on any country. For by creating a real threat to national sovereignty this agreement risks eventually calling into question the rights of peoples and their social and environmental demands.
The developing countries, which are excluded from the negotiations, will have clauses imposed on them which often oppose their own real interests.
We all know that if economic interests gain ascendancy over political ones, democracy will suffer.
The only proof I need is the way in which this agreement has been negotiated.
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So it is critical that, as Members of the European Parliament, we reject this agreement since it would represent a grave blow to the European structure at a time when enlargement is in fact on the agenda.
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What would become of our common agricultural policy, our European social model, or even our cultural identities, if the MAI were to be applied tomorrow?
So we must welcome the initiative taken by the Committee on External Economic Relations and thank Mr Kreissl-Dörfler for his excellent work.
Furthermore, our group will not hesitate to vote for his report, but it would also be good if the Council took a stand.
In the same way, Commissioner, we expect the Commission, which is participating in the negotiations, to continue in its efforts, but always using reason and wisdom, for it is our European Community at stake and it is critical that we defend our cultural exception.
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This exception was gained thanks to the mobilization of cultural professionals, who again recently raised awareness about the risks of the MAI.
This cultural exception, acquired at a high price during the GATT negotiations, must be extended to the MAI.
Also, the agreements which govern intellectual property rights must be maintained because, ladies and gentlemen, it is high time we realized that the world is not a huge game of Monopoly and that our cultural fate should not be determined by the throw of a dice.
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<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Madam President, Commissioner, I would like to congratulate the Committee on External Economic Relations.
Faced with the secrecy surrounding these negotiations, which are already at an advanced stage, the Committee felt it was essential publicly to make known the opinions of those who realize what is at stake in the process of drawing up a multilateral agreement on investments.
So, three years after negotiations started, we in the European Parliament are today having the first debate on the MAI to be held in a parliamentary setting.
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I would also like to congratulate the rapporteur, who kept the text coherent despite attacks by large groups for which the taste for compromise at any price and the weakening of any proposition have become second nature.
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Mr Kreissl-Dörfler shows clearly that what is at issue with the MAI is not just the defence of a sector of activity as important as culture: it is a method, a logic, the division into hierarchies of the players on the international scene.
Organizing protection for investors is essentially a national responsibility and should remain so, even if close coordination between the Fifteen ought to allow the pursuit of a number of common goals.
Here I would mention in particular: the condemnation of legislation which has an impact beyond a country's own borders; the banning of any form of competition which aims to attract investment by lowering social standards or rules for environmental protection; and the inability of an investment arbitration body to dismantle the clauses of a common policy, such as policies on agriculture or fishing, to attack cultural exception, or to challenge the decision of an internal or community jurisdiction which has the strength of having had judgement passed on it.
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It is critical that the legitimate right of the investor to have his investment protected is not transformed into an absolute right to invest without any restriction applying in terms of legislation and regulation, to the detriment of responsibilities and countries.
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Within the current logic of the MAI, countries would be limited to guaranteeing investors the full use of their investments, while national and Community legislation which aims to preserve the environment and social conditions would be considered a priori as potential obstacles to investment.
This is the logic on which the current MAI negotiations and its framework are based, with developing countries being excluded. We feel duty bound to challenge it rather than sticking to a tactic of exception and reserve, which would only serve to designate the scene of tomorrow's negotiations.
The GATT and WTO processes should be a lesson to us.
In that sense, this report is sounding the alarm bells and that is why we will support it.
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<SPEAKER ID=169 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sichrovsky">
<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="Falconer">
Madam President. It is a pleasure to be speaking in the Chamber and not noting my presence.
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I and my group support Mr Kreissl-Dörfler's report.
We support in particular paragraphs 5, 14, 23 and paragraph 15 on OECD guidelines.
May I say at this point, irrespective of where future discussions on investment procedures are held, whether it be at the OECD, the WTO, or UNCTAD, we would appreciate it if those who are in charge of our affairs would be a bit more transparent in their handling of them.
We parliamentarians should be at the forefront of the discussions, not at the tail-end.
Parliament has to be congratulated on producing this report.
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The main support comes for the voluntary code. It comes from the OECD countries.
We apparently cannot agree to change the voluntary code of guidelines into a compulsory one.
A statement from Mr Charles Bridge of the DTI, on the voluntary status of the OECD guidelines, says that the emergent majority view is that the voluntary status should be unchanged.
But he goes on to say that the OECD countries have, since 1991, been under a binding obligation to set up national contact points for undertaking promotional activities, handling enquiries and discussing with parties concerned on all matters related to the guidelines.
We may want to consider exactly what these national contact points have achieved.
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According to the trade union advisory committee from the OECD, the results of their studies suggest that with a few notable exceptions the national contact points are reactive rather than proactive and do little to fulfil their terms of reference.
Some national trade union centres which did not respond to the survey stated that there was little to report due to the fact that the national contact points in their country had fallen into abeyance.
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It was also reported that requests for information on the guidelines were often ignored and this has led to a high degree of apathy amongst many TUC affiliates towards the NCPs, that is, the national contact points.
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The report goes on to ask: ' has the national contact point in your country consulted the trade unions on its terms of reference?' .
The Swedish national contact point is the only one to consult trade unions proactively.
The Belgian national contact point does so reactively and all other affiliates replied negatively.
So perhaps the Commission could advise us of what steps it can take, if it is going to pursue the voluntary code, to actually beef up the national contact points to make sure they become relevant to those people who are meant to be served by the multilateral agreement on investments.
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Can I also ask the Commission to look at the question of portfolio investment, because whilst we are talking about foreign direct investment many of these companies have their results as a result of the portfolio investment of shareholders?
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Can the Commission advise us if it is going to consider at these negotiations, and encourage the Member States to take up, assurances that the trustees of many of the pension and occupational funds and insurance funds are actually consulted prior to any investment taking place in any of the companies operating under the multilateral agreement on investment in many of the countries which, at present, are not being served very well by the voluntary guidelines?
This would be a step towards democracy and the Commission should embrace it.
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<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Porto">
Madam President, the marked annual increase of 11 % in direct foreign investment is impressive, and far in excess of that of the other basic economic variables, standing at twice the growth of trade and four times the growth of products over the past decade.
It is, therefore, surprising that no multilateral code of conduct exists in this connection.
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Since the free movement of capital is one element in making maximum use of resources, the growth of trade has not been hampered by the free movement of products and services, as might have been feared and would be undesirable.
Furthermore, in terms of space, having channelled investment towards the more disadvantaged areas, it has served as an equilibrating factor by anchoring labour that would otherwise have been obliged to emigrate, with heavy human and social costs. In this regard, the multinationals' strategy of locating subcontracting units in different countries and regions has been important.
<P>
Despite all these characteristics, stringent codes of conduct must be established to prevent direct foreign investment from being used as an unacceptable form of exploitation and infringing the rules of competition.
In particular, as correctly emphasized by the rapporteur, Mr Kreissl-Dörfler - whom I congratulate - social and environmental rules must be respected to the letter.
Otherwise our workers and businessmen will have cause for complaint, if investment is relocated elsewhere.
As we have repeatedly emphasized, this is a requirement which simultaneously renders service to workers and to citizens of the most backward countries, by ensuring that they are not exploited and that their quality of life does not deteriorate.
<P>
Finally, we regret that advances in monitoring subsidies have not gone hand-in-hand with progress on the tax front. Competitiveness is being boosted by reducing taxes on capital, which ultimately exacerbates the existing imbalance whereby the tax burden on labour is excessive.
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On only one point do we diverge from the rapporteur and some Members who have spoken before me: we fear that the exceptions proposed in the cultural sphere might lead us towards protectionism. We think that European culture should stand on its own merits and not be propped up by protectionism that will ultimately weaken it.
In that connection, I agree entirely with the Dutch point of view.
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<SPEAKER ID=172 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Daskalaki">
Madam President, I would like to say that I too share the concern that has been expressed over the multilateral agreement on investments.
This concern is felt in the parliamentary committees of the European Parliament and in artistic and academic circles alike.
Reports in the European press are equally justified in sounding the alarm concerning the likely and indeed hasty signing of this agreement.
In the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, of which I am a member, we have fought long and hard against attempts to downgrade and to harm the cultural industry of Europe and to change our varied cultural identity, which this agreement threatens to do.
European cultural policy was threatened during the GATT negotiations, when we achieved, in part, cultural exception. This exception must not only remain intact but it must be enforced.
I remind you that there are other national representatives who are seeking their own exceptions, such as the Americans for certain sectors for which they have special regulations which are favourable to its citizens within the framework of the OECD.
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We must ward off any attempt to fragment European policies and European structure as a whole in areas of cultural products and services, including new technologies, intellectual ownership, and all the other rights of our artists and creators. But we must not forget that other areas are also at issue, as has already been mentioned, such as transport, fishing and agriculture.
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European solidarity must remain unshakable, despite being under intense pressure and attack. At this point I would like to stress that unfortunately there are Member States whose representatives wish to proceed more quickly to the signing of this agreement, without examining the problems this will create.
We do not deny that the negotiations need to come to an end, but certainly not before crucial matters concerning Europe are settled satisfactorily.
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<SPEAKER ID=173 NAME="Teverson">
Mr President, I welcome this agreement very much in that it works for non-discrimination as far as investment is concerned, for application of the rule of law in terms of signatory Member States, and it is there to increase international investments and thereby also international trade.
All of those things are exceptionally good and I welcome them.
<P>
What concerns me is that when one starts to look through this agreement - I have tried to read it on several occasions, although it is far from finalized at present - it raises a large number of questions.
Clearly, because international investment is an area that is extremely competitive, one of the things that will happen is that, although it is an OECD agreement, there will be severe pressure on other nations looking for international investment to become signatories as well.
Again, in principle, I welcome that.
I am concerned about the level of involvement of developing countries in particular within the decision-making process, even though it is primarily an OECD document at present.
<P>
Along with Mr Falconer, I also would point to the OECD guidelines for multinational enterprises.
Although the OECD makes a lot of its own publicity material, I would like to have seen it have greater prominence in the context of this agreement.
Again, if you read through the agreement, it raises more questions than it perhaps answers about how well the area of environmental standards will be dealt with in the final version.
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My other comment, which I make somewhat wryly, is to ask whether there will still be discrimination against home companies in terms of incentives for investment made by some countries which tend to discriminate in favour of foreign investment.
<P>
Finally, I wish to ask when the agreement will now be signed - it was supposed to be in May, and it looks as though it is being delayed - and whether it will go through the assent procedure in the European Parliament?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Moreau">
Madam President, the MAI treaty is a real weapon of war against peoples, countries and states.
The interests of foreign investors have been favoured to an excessive extent, their rights extend into all domains since they can by law pursue governments to gain damages and compensation interest for any measure they consider to have a negative effect on their profits.
<P>
So, social rights, environmental protection, national and regional development, the preservation of natural resources, concern for the collective interest, and freedom of unions are all subjects which could justify sanctions, as would community preference.
<P>
In the current process of globalization, the interests of the people are being trampled underfoot; with the MAI, the governments themselves are held up to ridicule and they have nothing more than obligations towards the multinationals.
This sort of approach is totally unacceptable, and has been widely refused.
Whereas since 1995 negotiations have been held in the utmost secrecy, the reality of the MAI has now burst upon us, triggering a huge protest movement in the United States, Canada, India and Europe.
Even in France, artists and creators are finding that our culture has everything to lose through this concept of merchandizing and they are up in arms about it.
<P>
Through the Prime Minister, the French Government has indicated that an agreement of this kind cannot in any way challenge the freedom of governments to implement their choices.
Apparently, France is calling for restrictive clauses, prohibiting competition between countries in order to attract investments by lowering social standards and weakening environmental rules.
<P>
Mr Kreissl-Dörfler's report sets out a number of justified criticisms and rightly calls for a public debate and transparency in the OECD negotiations.
However, he does not go as far as he could, and finishes with the simple recommendation, and I quote, not to sign the MAI until an in-depth analysis has been held.
It is my opinion that the European Parliament - the first elected body to debate the MAI, thanks in particular to its REX committee - should call on the governments of the Member States not to sign the MAI, to adjourn negotiations and to allow for a preliminary broad public debate involving national parliaments.
<P>
The same demand could be made regarding the transatlantic single market project, known as the "Brittan project' which takes its inspiration from precisely the same ultraliberal principles as the MAI.
As French elected members, we intend to support the development of the social movement which aims to thwart these projects which threaten jobs and freedom, and bring to bear an approach based on cooperation and lasting development, which is what civilization really needs as we enter the third millennium.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Madam President, I would like to say a warm thank you to my colleague Mr Kreissl-Dörfler for really giving us something to think about - not only us, but also the national parliaments - so that our eyes have really been opened to this.
<P>
People say this will be the basis of the global economy.
But they also say that it is not just economic interests which are at stake here, but also environmental interests, social interests, national rights to self-determination, and so on.
<P>
I would like to ask the Commission why we in the European Parliament have not been informed that this has been discussed? Where is the dialogue with the citizens and the democratically elected parliament?
I am extremely disappointed with the Swedish Trade Minister who has sat in on these negotiations since 1995 without giving the slightest sign that they had taken place.
He is also a member of the Social Democrats, who said before the last election that they would 'bridle market forces' .
Now we can see what happens with such promises.
So we want more democracy.
And as the previous speaker said: ' Stop the agreement until we have had a proper dialogue' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Sainjon">
Madam President, it seems to me that it is time for those like us endowed with political responsibility as a result of universal suffrage to put an end to the technocratic drift of certain international institutions.
<P>
One particular question needs to be asked and I will ask it clearly: who is the OECD working for?
Is it to support the economic, cultural and social development of countries and their peoples, or is it working on behalf of the powerful multinationals?
The multilateral agreement on investments provides the answer.
How can we allow certain countries to carry on secret negotiations behind our backs in the corridors of the castle of silence, headquarters of the OECD in Paris, on agreements which will apply to countries which are less well-off than they are?
These agreements are drawn up without any democratic control, by officials who have but one aim - to eliminate all cultural, social and environmental defences.
<P>
The MAI is a real lesson to us.
It is no chance mishap; an entire ultraliberal concept is rearing its ugly head and intends to ride roughshod over all social and democratic progress, frequently obtained by a hard-fought struggle.
Saying no to the MAI is basically saying no to the current notions of the OECD, but perhaps it is also an opportunity to set the ball rolling on the question of whether to retain an institution of this kind. At the very least, it may be a chance to redefine its mission.
Would it not be much wiser and more efficient to strengthen the role of the World Trade Organization, which will be called upon to deal with the subjects currently being debated in the OECD?
In any case, the question this raises more than ever is the issue of the democratic control of international institutions, if we wish to avoid harmful consequences for the people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Madam President, there are currently approximately 1 800 bilateral agreements on direct foreign investments.
This leads to a lack of transparency and contradictions between agreements.
A multilateral agreement on investments in an OECD context makes sense, therefore.
The OECD nations are responsible for most of the direct foreign investments, and agreement is reached much more quickly and efficiently within the OECD context than within the WTO context.
<P>
Like Mr Kreissl-Dörfler I have some questions.
Is there not a risk that an international umbrella agreement of this kind places the interest of multinational enterprises over the general interest?
Do developing countries have any room to negotiate when they join the agreement, or are they presented with a fait accompli ?
<P>
The rapporteur quite rightly devotes a lot of attention to this in his valuable report.
This agreement will limit sovereign powers considerably, and this is something which worries me.
On important policy areas such as the environment, and in the social and cultural sphere, it could have a negative effect.
It would not be the first time - we have hit our heads against this brick wall during the GATT negotiations.
<P>
We have to steer clear of Scylla, an agreement which is too liberal, and Charybdis, over-regulation and protectionism.
In the Netherlands the codes of conduct on the environment, human rights and social provision, drawn up by businesses themselves, appear to be working better than government regulation.
<P>
The report puts a little too much emphasis on 'overprotection' , for instance in relation to culture.
The Commission has had many suggestions, but was it really necessary to include everything in the report?
You can have too much of a good thing.
This position will be reflected in the way I vote.
<P>
Despite a few minor flaws, I would like to give my full support to this report, and I offer the rapporteur my sincerest congratulations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lienemann">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this agreement has very serious implications for the future of the European Union and our people.
<P>
Mr Kreissl-Dörfler's report clearly shows all the risks and conditions which must be met to make an investment organization more transparent and simpler, but also to ensure that it works for the people.
All the same, our group tabled an amendment which would finally make the message from this Parliament clearer.
We do not want our governments to ratify this agreement as it has been debated and with its underlying logic. Parliament should say that loud and clear.
This agreement would in fact remove from our countries and the Union - indeed from the Community institutions - the ability to act efficiently, to set social and environmental standards or to operate policies favouring local development and employment.
<P>
I will give you some examples to demonstrate this.
Without doubt, the most scandalous point is the clause stating that countries can be censured if they take any measures liable to reduce or hinder the potential profits of a multinational enterprise.
This implies that the profit of a multinational is more important than the interest of the people.
Now why is the United States Congress slightly reticent?
It is because this clause exists in NAFTA and it has led to an American association in Canada called "Ethyl' demanding to be reimbursed by the Canadian Government because the latter set a standard prohibiting a product which damages an organism indispensable in fighting pollution.
So Canada was going to be censured because it was combatting pollution and was depriving a company of its profits.
The Americans can see the danger, or at least some members of Congress can see it.
Let us not ignore the danger; it is great, not only in the environmental but also in the social context.
<P>
I would like to conclude by saying that of course we need to set up a global organization which is more transparent and more rational about investments, but several conditions must be met in order to do this. Firstly, the framework of this organization must not only include rich countries, but the WTO or even the UN.
Secondly, social and environmental clauses must be possible, and even enacted at a global level. Thirdly, countries - and the European Union itself - must retain sovereignty and the possibility of taking action, because even if security is necessary for investors, it is much more indispensable for people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Monfils">
Madam President, I would like to congratulate Mr Kreissl-Dörfler on his excellent report. It shows that even if liberalization of investments is an essential objective, the text as it stands is dangerous and on some points unacceptable.
It is dangerous because it is unbalanced; the investors have all the rights and the countries have all the obligations.
It could happen that countries would even have to answer to an international pseudo-jurisdiction regarding the motivation behind taking certain measures, for example on social or environmental issues.
<P>
The text is also unacceptable in terms of intellectual property rights and the cultural sector, especially the audiovisual sector.
In this Parliament we have fought to help establish a strong and dynamic cultural industry, notably by the 'television without frontiers' directive.
And now the text of the treaty risks wasting all these efforts.
<P>
However, I would add a new problem, Madam President.
Today I have learned that the Commission is going to negotiate with the United States within the framework of a transatlantic single market or New Transatlantic Market Place. We have never been informed about this, and it too could target intellectual and artistic copyright.
It is taking on a lot.
And these negotiations are shrouded in complete secrecy.
It is high time the Commission provided us with clear information about the MAI and NTM treaties. It is also high time for the Commission to renegotiate several points in the MAI treaty, to exclude the entire audiovisual sector and royalties from the field of international treaties, and for our Parliament, like its national counterparts, to finally accept its responsibilities with respect to these texts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, it is at this point that I should congratulate the rapporteur, but I shall put off doing so for lack of time.
The rapporteur, however, considers it a good thing that it was the European Commission that negotiated the MAI treaty and not the Member States.
That means a shift of power to a federal stronghold.
It gives the Commission power over my country's social security system, environment, labour laws, health policy and psychology, which, according to this report, we should not be prepared to yield up to a supranational entity.
From a small nation's viewpoint, the Commission can also seem like such an entity.
<P>
The MAI treaty deals with ridding capitalism of all hindrances to exploitation, in the new regions and in the spiritual sphere too, including those countries that have not been invited to participate in OECD negotiations.
The MAI imposes global standards on state activity, but not on that of individual companies. The MAI is thus one-sided.
<P>
Mr Kreissl-Dörfler has prepared an excellent report, although he has too much faith in the power of the EU and its benign nature.
The EU is capitalism's answer to Europe.
But what will evolve from the MAI treaty will be a new form of capitalism for the world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, I must point out to my colleague, Mr Seppänen, that my government and his were independent negotiators in the treaty.
<P>
But let us press on. We are in the presence of something of a scandal.
The Commission has negotiated a treaty that truly frustrates the cohesive strengths and ideas of a very large part of the EU.
Many forms of grants and aid are called into question because of recommendations for certain concerns at the expense of others, and it is hard to imagine that exceptions could in any way be long-term.
I am certain that in the end everything will be cast in the same mould and it is not worth hoping in vain for problems to be solved by exception.
That is a temporary solution at best.
We need strongly binding provisos for legislation and the protection of the environment.
<P>
Commissioner, I do not baulk from saying that if the European Parliament were able to dismiss individual Commissioners, then that might well be the situation here, and your future would be hanging in the balance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Vecchi">
Madam President, the objective of reaching multilateral international agreements favouring the spread of investment is of great importance.
Providing a framework of certainty for investors may certainly be one of the fundamental conditions for enabling them to pay greater attention to non-traditional recipients as well - in other words, countries considered less reliable than others by the international investors themselves.
<P>
However, this should take place under conditions which are fully acceptable to all the countries concerned and consistent with the objectives of a balanced development that can be maintained by those countries and their populations.
<P>
Hence our criticisms of the method and contents of the agreement which has been under negotiation for more than two years within the OECD.
Mr Kreissl-Dörfler's report confirms those criticisms in a strong and convincing way, which is why we are in favour of it.
<P>
We would like to raise three issues.
Firstly, there is the problem of democracy and transparency.
Negotiations have taken place and are taking place in great secrecy, without any parliament in the world being minimally informed and, so far, with most governments having little knowledge of the scope of the agreement.
This is unacceptable, as the outcome of an agreement of this type are intended to have profound, long-term effects in every country of the world.
<P>
Secondly, we dispute the view that the OECD is the appropriate place for an agreement intended to be extended to almost every country in the world.
In this way, the requirements and problems of the developing nations in particular will once again not be given the slightest consideration, despite the fact that the poorest countries will suffer the most serious consequences.
<P>
Finally, the contents of the agreement seem to be totally unacceptable, as they would actually rule out any possibility of individual states and regional associations such as the EU being able to develop policies on social and environmental quality, public services, or protection and optimization of cultural differences. They would also be a serious threat to the active policies of planning development.
<P>
It is for these reasons that we are asking for the MAI not to be signed, at least not before its contents and nature have been profoundly amended.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Madam President, I note with pleasure that organizations have had more success than the negotiators in trying to create debate about this agreement, which the negotiators have also tried to do.
But what has been said on some points about the consequences of the agreement is very exaggerated.
<P>
I think that first and foremost we should establish that a set of rules is needed when globalization in fact happens, and the EU and Parliament have an important role to play.
Also, I hope the Commission supports the Member States who have strongly demanded that the agreement should forbid a relaxation of environmental and social standards in order to attract investment.
How do things stand with this, Mr Commissioner?
The MAI could actually lead to an increase in standards rather than a decrease, as is maintained.
I also hope it puts an end to the 'shopping' for subsidies which can be observed in many places.
It could also lead to smaller companies daring to invest abroad.
<P>
What is unclear is how the arbitration procedure will work.
Will it be public or closed?
What are the rules on evidence?
I think this is something we must draw attention to.
On this point the agreement is not ready to be signed.
In addition we must think about the position of the OECD Council.
I also think this agreement is necessary in the long term, so that developing countries can join voluntarily if they meet the standards required.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pailler">
Madam President, I am pleased that Sir Leon Brittan is present at this debate, because many things have been said about the MAI agreements, and the only part I will reiterate is the necessity to remain vigilant beyond the problems of culture.
Yes, there is a risk of a serious attack on royalties, but beyond this, who can touch agriculture, the environment and social rights which have been spoken about at length.
And anyway, what does the notion of culture include for us?
We in this establishment and in the Commission know very well that culture is shrinking constantly, to the point of only including the less strategic sectors and leaving behind the audiovisual sector, publishing and anything involving information highways.
<P>
I am glad to be able to speak to you today, Sir Leon, because you have devised a project which is to be adopted tomorrow. I think the MAI will let you put to the test the fact that people and parliamentary members and a good number of the groups here do not want any more secret negotiations.
They do not want any more of these attacks of neo-liberalism in our institutions and in Europe, which are often inspired by the United States. I think the New Transatlantic Market Place project should be reviewed, given the welcome accorded to the MAI by us today.
But that is not all.
Mr Bangemann should be here today, because the Green Paper on convergence also poses this type of problem.
<P>
In conclusion, I would just like to say that this treaty is not a treaty, but rather an ideological text.
It is a real manifesto for neo-liberalism. My group will propose an amendment calling for postponement, to ensure that a real public debate is held with all due respect for public opinion, which increasingly influences international policies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
Madam President, I would like to begin by saying that this agreement should not have been negotiated only in the OECD.
It is far too important for that.
What I wish to comment on is that workers' rights have been relegated to the preamble of the MAI agreement.
It is a matter for concern that in the OECD's draft multilateral agreement on investments there is a large discrepancy between the rights and obligations of the investors.
It is important for investors to be bound to keep certain commitments in the countries in which they operate.
I would like to emphasize that it must be a cause for concern that the MAI has chosen to refer to workers' rights and environmental considerations in the introductory text.
This implies that the references to workers' rights are not legally binding, but are more in the nature of a statement of intent.
<P>
In my opinion, it is reasonable to add to the text the stipulation that countries must have ratified the International Labour Organization's seven conventions on the basic rights of workers.
Countries must recognize the ILO's regulations on working conditions and the protection of the right to form unions, the prohibition of child labour and so on, so that such matters cannot become a competitive consideration used by states to try to attract investors.
It is important to avoid either the state or the investors speculating in social dumping.
It is important to bear in mind that the relaxation of provisions relating to direct foreign investments should not just be to the advantage of the investors and the country of origin.
It should also contribute to securing sustainable economic development in the host country.
This Parliament is the only parliament - as far as I know - to have discussed the MAI.
It is important to initiate debate in the Member States and the national parliaments about this agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Nordmann">
<SPEAKER ID=188 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
Madam President, the Director-General of the World Trade Organization, Renato Ruggiero, has called this agreement 'a constitution for a single global economy' .
That gives an idea of the unprecedented consequences the MAI could have.
<P>
Who has the right to draft global constitutions?
Of course, it is obviously the 29 richest industrialized countries in the world.
The other countries are in practice excluded, as is the intention, because when similar agreements were discussed in the WTO there was far too much opposition from other countries in the world.
The only reasonable thing, of course, would be to discuss this agreement in the UN, or possibly in the WTO, instead of in the OECD.
<P>
In the OECD countries negotiations have taken place in secret with the minimum possible parliamentary supervision.
However, the agreement is unacceptable not only because of the way it is being negotiated, but also because of its content.
The agreement gives rights to transnational companies at the expense of states.
It is totally unreasonable for companies to be given the ability through the courts to overturn democratically made decisions concerning important areas such as the environment, the management of natural resources and social conditions.
<P>
I do not like everything in this report. For example, I do not like paragraphs 7 and 8.
However, the report does contain a lot of important criticism, not least in paragraphs 5, 14 and 23, which is sufficient for me to vote for it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Karamanou">
Madam President, all praise is certainly due to Mr Kreissl-Dörfler who had the initiative to write this excellent report.
<P>
The fact that the negotiations currently under way have given rise to such intense debate and opposing views demonstrates that a global economic issue of such vital importance needs plenty of time for exhaustive dialogue under conditions of transparency and continuous parliamentary supervision.
<P>
When the Director-General of the World Trade Organization characterizes the MAI as the constitution for a global economy, this naturally provokes justifiable concern and unease as to the likely restrictions that will be imposed on the rights of Member States in relation to national policies and, more especially, in the areas of industrial, social, environmental and cultural policy, and in the domain of intellectual ownership.
<P>
Of course, no-one can be opposed to the laying down of regulations to stimulate and safeguard foreign investments in order to prevent conditions which would distort international competition.
<P>
Nevertheless, we have every right to be puzzled by the study and by the urgent character which the issue has taken on.
We do not discern such study in relation to other serious issues which also stem from the globalization of the economy, such as labour rights, child labour, the tax position of multinationals, the protection of the environment, the promotion of viable and regionally balanced economic growth, and the preservation of cultural diversity.
Fortunately, multinational companies and international groups of enterprises already have enormous power and it is not permissible to give them any priority over national enterprises, such as the automatic right of recourse to international arbitration or the right to bypass legislation aimed at ensuring equal treatment.
<P>
Finally, I believe that the European Parliament must defend and protect its own rights and powers and those of the European Union from all attempts at curtailment through this agreement on investments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Madam President, very simply, the European Parliament must demand the immediate rejection of the multilateral agreement on investments.
This agreement was drawn up in secrecy by large financial interests without including the national parliaments and the European Parliament and even without including the governments themselves.
It is a multi-faceted ideological assault by large multinational corporations and, as has already been said, the first step in the formation of a global government of multinationals.
Its implementation will have tragic repercussions for the peoples and economies of less developed countries.
<P>
This new manifesto of global capitalism will lead to the complete overturning of the social freedoms and labour rights of working people. Together with EMU, it will lead to a totally deregulated market where the margins for exercising national policy and the national sovereignty of Member States will shrink dramatically in favour of multinational groups, international banks and international capitalist organizations such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the OECD.
<P>
I repeat, the European Parliament makes only one demand - the rejection of the agreement. Furthermore, the amendments that have been tabled must be voted on by our Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="Pollack">
Mr President, the compatibility of the MAI with environmental protection has not yet been sufficiently addressed by the negotiating parties.
It is of great concern.
As we move into more and more multilateral environment agreements I feel there is an increased chance of running into difficulties should the MAI, as presently formulated, come into being.
A paper from the OECD secretariat on the legal aspects has noted that: ' The absence of any evident legal incompatibility does not necessarily dispose of all concerns about the potential inter-relation between the MAI and MEAs' .
<P>
In particular there is some concern that the transfer of clean technology agreements contained in the Kyoto Protocol to combat climate change could be at risk.
The clean development mechanism is essential to that protocol's success and has the potential to run directly contrary to the MAI.
A binding environment clause should be included which will offer at least similar safeguards to GATT Article 20 and not prove to be an inadequate voluntary clause, such as Article 114 in the NAFTA agreement.
<P>
Furthermore, there needs to be provision for environmental reviews of all foreign investors.
Without these safeguards for sustainable development, we must have great cause for concern about the agreement at this stage.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the draft multilateral agreement on investments, or MAI, has been negotiated in the utmost secrecy; it is a recognized symbol of the absolute triumph of unbridled liberalism; and it aims to ensure the domination of multinational financial groups over nations and to support the supremacy of rich industrial countries over developing nations. Clearly this agreement is completely unacceptable as it stands today.
<P>
Consequently, without fundamentally prejudicing my final opinion, I fully agree with the call by the rapporteur, Mr Kreissl-Dörfler, and I would like to congratulate him on his work.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am in favour of the rapporteur's request to the Member States of the European Union not to sign the MAI without a broad public debate, for that is the only way to ensure the total transparency essential in this case.
<P>
Otherwise, without going into detail, I broadly agree with the questions asked and the remarks made by the rapporteur, which again prove the need for a detailed study and absolute transparency.
<P>
If by some unfortunate event the MAI were to be signed as it stands, we would no longer have any means to halt globalization in its most negative form, that is, the law of the most powerful.
I hope and believe that all the governments of the European Union will realize this.
<P>
I have one last word to say on the issue of European culture and audiovisual production.
Although I agree with the rapporteur's fresh demand for a special exception, I would insist that it is not solely within the framework of the MAI, but has reference to GATT.
This issue is much too serious for us to give any sort of an impression of backing down, no matter how small.
<P>
Finally, I repeat once again that on this issue the European Parliament should display its avant-garde role.
I think we are in the process of doing that this evening.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 NAME="Kinnock, Glenys">
Madam President, I would like to raise a few concerns I have about developing countries in relation to the MAI, particularly, as others have pointed out, that they have been excluded from the negotiations even though those negotiations have a very significant impact on them.
They also need to raise the issue of the effect of the liberalization on the ability of developing countries to adopt the poverty focused programmes which are essential to their progress.
It is also the case, as others have said, that employment, environment and labour rights need to be an integral part of the process, not bolted on as some kind of afterthought.
I am also concerned about the increased powers which MAI will give to multinationals in developing countries, where they will be given almost nation-state status within developing countries.
There is far too much emphasis on their rights rather than on their duties and responsibilities.
They contain no binding enforceable obligations for corporate conduct and the level of liberalization required would be inappropriate for developing countries.
<P>
The rules on investment should be about more than economic liberalization and should include a very clear commitment to sustainable development and to long-term quality investments.
I would like to see a substantial revision of the current proposals and a delay pending a much more inclusive process.
I would like to see a legitimate international forum where developing countries can be included and where international institutions like UNCTAD can be involved.
Only then will we be satisfied that we have a fair process in place on multilateral investments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, may I firstly thank the Committee on External Economic Relations and its rapporteur Mr Kreissl-Dörfler for an excellent report on the negotiations on the MAI.
I would also like to thank the other committees and their rapporteurs for their efforts in preparing the present report.
<P>
This is a timely debate.
The negotiations are not completed.
The European Parliament's decision to hold this debate has the importance that Mrs Castellina ascribed to it.
I share that view and I can also assure Mrs Schörling that we have had a real debate and that this will play an active part in the course of the negotiations.
The European Community is the biggest outward investor in the world, sending half of our investment to the OECD and half to non-OECD countries.
At the same time we are the most open to inward investors in the world.
The Community therefore has a big interest in the establishment of transparent, non-discriminatory and enforceable rules for foreign direct investment at the plurilateral as well as at the multilateral level.
That is why I very much agree with Mr Valdivielso de Cué, Mrs Baldi, Mrs Plooij-Van Gorsel and Mr Teverson, all of whom stressed the importance and potential benefit of this negotiation.
<P>
There has to be a balance between the opportunities provided for investment and also the necessity for there to be national possibilities to regulate and control certain matters.
That is what the negotiation has been about and this debate has contributed to that balance.
I can assure Mrs Plooij-Van Gorsel that this will be a negotiation in which at the end of it the EC will be a member.
In the Commission communication on a level playing field for direct investment worldwide, we made the case for starting negotiations in the OECD and launching discussions in the WTO.
Let me remind you that the Council and the European Parliament, in its resolution of December 1995, supported this approach.
I still consider that the successful conclusion of the MAI negotiations is the best possible starting point for multilateral rule-making in the WTO in order to achieve a worldwide level playing field for FDI.
<P>
Let us not forget that it is the view of the vast majority of developing countries that it is in their interest that foreign direct investment should be encouraged and not discouraged.
Therefore a proper agreement will help them as much as it will help the investing countries.
The relation between what we are doing in the MAI negotiations and what we want to do in the WTO is the key, as Mrs Mann has rightly stated.
That relationship was something very relevant to the remarks of Mr Lannoye, Mrs Leperre-Verrier and Mrs Kinnock.

<P>
We have been very conscious of the importance of the interlocking relationship.
The MAI negotiation is one between essentially developed countries.
It is a negotiation which nobody need participate in and nobody need join and the results of which nobody need accept who is not a party to that negotiation, although it is open to them.
It is because of that and because of my view, which I very strongly hold, that to have an agreement that adequately reflects the interests of the developing countries as well as the developed ones, there should be discussions in the WTO leading to a negotiation in the WTO which will take account of the MAI negotiation but which need not be the same.
<P>
That is the best way of ensuring that the MAI does not exert unreasonable pressure on developing countries to adhere to it.
However, we have some barriers to deal with there.
So far we have only reached agreement on discussion in the WTO and the obstacle to going beyond that to a negotiation in the WTO is the fact that some developing countries have resisted that.
I hope very much therefore that those - and there are many in this House - who have an influence on the developing countries will encourage them to move to a position in which they will welcome a negotiation in the WTO as well as a negotiation in the OECD, precisely in order that the agreement which will eventually come into effect in which they can participate will be one that fully reflects their interests and that they will not simply be faced with the alternative of signing up to the MAI negotiation or not signing up to anything at all.
<P>
As it happens, I do not believe that the MAI negotiation need result in a conclusion that is inimical to the interests of developing countries.
However, I can understand their feeling that they have not been parties to that negotiation.
The best thing for them to do is to supplement the negotiation in the OECD with a negotiation in WTO as soon as possible.
The failure of the OECD negotiation will not help them because that will be used to oppose the beginning of negotiations in the WTO by people who are bound to say: ' if the developed countries cannot even reach an agreement on this, how can you expect there to be a world agreement?'
If there is no world agreement on this, then the balance which attracts investment to developing countries, that they desperately need on the right terms, will not take place and it will be counterproductive on the part of those who seek to defend their interests to have opposed the OECD negotiation.
<P>
It is with these considerations in mind that in May 1995 negotiations in the OECD context were launched, and in December 1996 at the Singapore Ministerial Conference we achieved the setting up of a WTO Investment Working Group.
The deadline set for negotiations in the OECD to come to a conclusion is the end of April 1998.
Anybody who has ever been involved in negotiations of this kind will know that a month and a half at the end of a negotiation is a very important and crucial time in which much can be done.
<P>
I cannot tell you whether we will reach a conclusion.
If we do, it will be much informed by what has been said today.
But I can tell you that we will only reach a conclusion if we are able to accommodate the legitimate interests of the European Union.
I agree with most, if not all, of the recommendations made in the draft resolution which is the subject of discussion today.
We agree on the need to safeguard in the MAI the right of contracting parties to take action to protect the environment, not only now but in the future.
Therefore, I have no difficulty at all with what has been said by Mrs Pollack.
In the field of labour, we think it is very important that the respect of labour standards should be protected in this negotiation.
So I agree with Mr Kreissl-Dörfler and, indeed, with Mr Habsburg-Lothringen on that.
We also insist on a provision to cover present and future policies related to European integration.
That is why I welcome the words of Mr García-Margallo y Marfil, Mrs Ahern and Mrs Castellina about the importance of a regional economic integration clause which allows both for further harmonization among existing Members of the European Union and a progressive alignment on EU policy of the laws and practices of our Europe agreement partners.
<P>
I would say to Mr Falconer that this agreement - if it goes through - will reinforce the status of national contact points, and that the guidelines he referred to as being inadequate are due for review.
<P>
The draft resolution also deals extensively with the aspects of culture and intellectual property rights under the MAI, and rightly so.
I wish to say a word about that.
The objective of preserving European cultural identity through specific policy measures and actions, in particular in the audiovisual sector, is fully shared by the Commission.
I share the concerns expressed by many, especially Mr Elchlepp and Mrs Daskalaki.
Among negotiators there is now a consensus that the MAI should not undermine the GATT acquis , excluding audiovisual services, that is to say, the conclusion of the Uruguay Round.
It is only a question of exactly how that should be done.
Our view is that a general exception, which seems superficially attractive, is not the best solution.
A Europe-specific detailed reservation actually gives greater legal security for present and future policies than a one-sentence general caveat.
<P>
There is one thing I want to assure this House of beyond a doubt: I had the privilege and the honour of conducting the Uruguay Round negotiations on the part of the European Union.
On the last day of those negotiations, when the whole of the world was standing by and wanting a conclusion to those negotiations, we were under intense pressure from the United States to agree to provisions relating to audiovisual and cultural matters which would have weakened and put at risk our own audiovisual and cultural policy.
I had absolutely no hesitation in resisting that pressure and in saying that we would not agree to the whole Uruguay Round agreement if we were forced to succumb to such pressure to reach such an agreement.
And we succeeded.
It was the United States which blinked.
I can assure this House that, faced with a situation of that kind, if the European Union, through its negotiator, the Commission, was prepared to resist that pressure, do not think we are going to be so naive as to give away in the MAI negotiations what we resisted successfully in the Uruguay Round negotiations.
There is absolutely no question of that happening and any disagreement can only be about the way in which we are most effectively protected.
<P>
On IPR let me say we are still looking for a solution which would respect European and WIPO rules in the area while, on the other hand, providing value added mainly in the field of dispute settlement.
I can assure Mrs McKenna that the reservations on fisheries will be effective, but all of these issues are still under negotiation.
With political will, taking account of the points rightly raised in this House, we can reach a conclusion which will be in the interests of the European Union as a major investor outside the European Union, in the interests of the developing countries and in the interests of all the policies that we hold dear.
We shall only sign up to an agreement if we reach that.
<P>
I do not myself think that there is any necessity or value in obtaining the opinion of the European Court of Justice.
We negotiate habitually on matters of great importance, we have our legal advisers, and if every time there was a negotiation we ran to the European Court of Justice that would undermine the institutional balance.
<P>
Of course I can happily confirm, as Mr Kreissl-Dörfler invited me to do, that the Commission will recommend to the Council that if there is an agreement that the Member States and the Commission support, we will request the assent of the European Parliament before its enactment.
<P>
In presenting the MAI to the Council I can assure Mr García-Margallo y Marfil that the Commission will analyse the compatibility of this agreement with the important international agreements to which we are a party, including multilateral, environmental and social agreements, and with our own legislation and policies in areas such as fisheries, transport and development, as well as with the European Community Treaty itself.
But at this stage I do not see any incompatibilities and in the continuation of the negotiations we will ensure that this remains the case.
<P>
At the present stage the negotiations are in a difficult phase.
Our American partners have indicated that given the need for continued negotiations on a number of crucial issues they think that the April deadline cannot be met.
They tell us that they are not in a position to suggest an alternative date for conclusion of the MAI.
That sends a bad signal concerning our determination to hold the OECD countries to their current economic policy course despite the recent crises in, notably, Asia, and to respond to the challenges of globalization by enhancing the present open system for trade and investment.
We cannot accept the American announcement as a fait accompli .
<P>
In the period ahead important progress can be made if the political will is there.
It will then be for ministers to decide on the fate of the MAI reflecting the wishes of democratically elected governments.
It is now up to us to test in the weeks to come if the political will is there.
We are determined to do everything we can to achieve a successful conclusion of the negotiations, but an agreement at any price is not what we are looking for.
<P>
It is also important to stress the need to find a suitable arrangement with the United States inside and outside the MAI, to deal with the problem of extraterritorial legislation which Mr Souchet referred to in general and the Helms-Burton Act and ILSA in particular.
<P>
The OECD ministerial meeting to be held at the end of April has to set out the course.
We will seek to make substantial progress between now and that date.
In the meantime the Community and its Member States have a clear interest in having an MAI that protects our interests, protects the interests of developing countries and secures our ability to continue with the policies which we hold dear.
We shall seek to achieve that; we shall not yield to any seeking to destroy our interests.
<P>
If we proceed boldly but coolly, ready to defend our interests but also recognizing that the right kind of MAI on the right conditions is in the interests of the European Union, then we shall be doing something that reflects the will of the peoples of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 NAME="Plooij-Van Gorsel">
I asked a very specific question.
I asked Sir Leon Brittan to shed some light on the procedure because there might be a conflict of interest between the European Communities and the Member States that want to become partners.
I would like to know about a decision procedure.
Will there be unanimity in the Council on this before signing, or is it possible that there is...
<P>
(The President cut off the speaker )
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
I thought I had answered the question.
There has to be unanimous support of the Member States and there has to be assent given by this Parliament, as I said in my speech.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Question Time (Commission)
<SPEAKER ID=198 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, we are now going to begin questions to the Commission, 35 minutes later than stated in the agenda.
Please excuse this delay, which is not my fault. I have spoken about it with the President, and I hope that in future we will be able to take appropriate measures in order to keep to the timetables set by our agendas.
<P>
Mr McMahon requests the floor on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 NAME="McMahon">
<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="President">
Mr McMahon, I was present myself this morning when you raised that question, and in accordance with Parliament's services, we contacted the Commission.
I should remind you that the Commission is responsible for deciding which Commissioner replies to a given question. The Commission explained to us that your Question No 102 is a matter for Mr de Silguy, since it concerns Eurostat figures.
So it does not fall into Mrs Wulf-Mathies' remit.
<P>
The next item is questions to the Commission (B4-0260/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 NAME="Flynn">
The 1993 structural funds reform incorporated equal opportunities for men and women on the labour market as a policy goal, and equal opportunities in the Social Fund is defined in Art. 1 (1)(d) as a specific priority.
Member States have chosen to implement this priority of the present ESF regulation with a dual approach.
The majority have adopted specific equal opportunities programmes whereas the Nordic countries and the United Kingdom are using a mainstreaming approach.
Even though approaches differ the measures undertaken are very similar: promotion of greater participation of women in fields where they are under-represented, training and vocational training of unemployed women and women returners and the promotion of female entrepreneurship and other related measures.
<P>
In the preparation of the new draft general structural fund regulations one of the goals is to reduce existing disparities and to promote equal participation of women and men in economic and social activity through a mainstreaming approach.
The intention is to have the mainstreaming strategy permeate the whole implementation process from the programming phase right through to reporting.
At all phases and levels of decision-making the aim is to have a) balanced participation of women and men and b) a partnership which includes representatives of competent authorities and bodies in the field of equality between women and men.
It is foreseen that the European Social Fund activity will be based on five policy fields: active labour market policy, promotion of social inclusion, lifelong learning, anticipation and facilitating economic and social change and equal opportunities for men and women.
In addition to the specific equal opportunities priority in the social fund regulation it is intended to implement the mainstreaming approach through all policy fields and to build on actual experience in the regional and local development context including local employment initiatives and territorial employment pacts.
I hope that a clear message in favour of positive action will be given in the new regulation.
<P>
Finally, I should remind the honourable Member that the employment guidelines which were adopted at the special job summit in Luxembourg last November are constructed around four pillars and one of these is strengthening the policies for equal opportunities.
In this connection Member States are required to take measures which will reduce the gender gap in unemployment as well as in occupational segregation, to raise the levels of care services which very often represent a key barrier for women who would like to return to work and to facilitate the return process.
The Commission expects that particular attention will be paid to these guidelines in the action plans which are being prepared by the Member States just now and which will be presented at the Cardiff European Council in June.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Rojo">
Commissioner, my precise reason for asking this question is my wish to see women become the subject and the main object of the new employment policies. So thank you for your magnificent reply, which was so thorough and encouraging.
I would just like to ask if you really believe these benefits are going to reach all Europe's women, even in Granada. Also, financially speaking, what is the exact amount involved?
<P>
I should also like to know if these benefits are going to reach the places where women most need them.
Lastly, are efforts going to be made to ensure that there are more programmes, and that they are better funded in those places where there is most male chauvinism?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 NAME="President">
Thank you for your question, Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, and for keeping to time.
<P>
Mr Flynn has the floor to answer the supplementary question which, as you will have realized, mentioned the women of Granada.
I do not know whether you are familiar with Granada, Mr Flynn, but if not I recommend that you visit that magnificent city.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 NAME="Flynn">
I take up your invitation Mr President and I should look forward to the visit very much.
I have been there on a few occasions privately but perhaps I can go on an official visit and I am grateful for your interest.
<P>
I should like to say to the honourable Member that I am not just full of hope but I am full of expectation as well, and of course you will appreciate that all these changes will depend on the programmes that are submitted from the Member States when they look for assistance insofar as the promotion of equal opportunities are concerned.
Bear one thing in mind: it is a Treaty obligation, and since the job summit all the Prime Ministers and the Presidents of the 15 Member States have signed a personal commitment to advance equal opportunities and to provide specific activities to deal with this.
I will be particularly interested in what the social fund does because I foresee a framework there that will provide employment aids and aids for the self-employed.
It will develop new sources of employment and will give assistance in the provision of services for beneficiaries.
Here I am talking about care services which I think you will agree with me are very often a fundamental matter in accommodating women returning to work.
I look forward with quite a lot of expectation following the commitments of the job summit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sornosa Martínez">
Commissioner, the autonomous region of Valencia has Objective 1 status but it has still not been decided if it will retain that status, because it is a few points above or below the figure of 75 % of Community income.
<P>
Of course, unemployment certainly is above average, and not just the Community average but the Spanish average too.
That, in its turn, is twice the European figure, or three times in the case of women.
<P>
Given that employment is a priority objective in all the European regions, and that training and new jobs are both absolutely essential, especially for the women who make up 30 % of the unemployed in the Valencian Community, does the Commission think that region should retain its Objective 1 status?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 NAME="Flynn">
Very briefly I should just say to the honourable Member that Valencia does have certain particular problems.
A decision has not yet been taken concerning the particular areas that will qualify for Objective 1 under the new tranche from the year 2000-2006.
That will all have to be negotiated between now and some time early next year.
I would like to point out that the regulations that will apply to the structural funds will be up for approval before the Commission on 18 March and after that we will see how things progress.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Flynn, for your presence here today, for your answers, and for having accepted the suggestions that you visit the two lovely Spanish cities of Granada and Valencia - for different reasons, but both very interesting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 NAME="President">
Question No 42 by John McCartin (H-0176/98)
<P>
Subject: Beef market
<P>
The five main supermarkets in Britain have monopoly control over the sale of meat; they have over 80 % of the total market.
<P>
Can the Commission prevent these retailers using their market domination in an anti-competitive manner by excluding Irish beef from their outlets?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
The retail market for meat in Britain contains a number of supermarkets with significant market shares but the Commission has no information to the effect that they are collectively or individually in a position to dominate the market.
Currently we do not have sufficient concrete information to make an assessment of the situation on the market.
Commission services are currently trying to verify reports that Irish beef has been excluded from supermarkets and find out, if it is the case, whether the exclusion is due to restrictive practices or for other reasons. If the Member or anybody else has relevant information the Commission would be interested in receiving it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="McCartin">
I understand there is plenty of information that some supermarket chains in the UK have publicly declared that they have excluded Irish beef from their shelves for the moment.
In those circumstances, I understand, considering that this is a market which has traditionally been supplied with Irish beef, that this is a deliberate discriminatory act which has been declared and confessed by the people concerned.
I would like to ask the Commissioner - assuming that he can verify that - if he has the power to prosecute the people in question for this declared and confessed discrimination.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
We will have to look into the facts.
Much will depend on whether the exclusion is due to restrictive practice or whether it is a unilateral exclusion.
So I cannot really say whether anything can be done, and whether anything should be done, until further information is obtained and analysed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="President">
Question No 43 by Simon Murphy (H-0192/98)
<P>
Subject: Sport and Alcohol Sponsorship
<P>
Following recent speculation in the British press, will the Commission confirm whether the Green Paper on commercial communications in the internal market will result in an imminent decision on sport and alcohol sponsorship within the EU?
<P>
What are the Commission's plans regarding the future of drinks advertising in the EU, especially in view of the French which limits alcohol sponsorship and has resulted in the effective banning in France of the retransmission of televised sporting events benefiting from alcohol advertising/sponsorship in other countries?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
The honourable Member refers to recent press articles which have speculated that the Green Paper on commercial communications in the internal market will result in an imminent decision on sports sponsorship by the alcohol industry in the EU.
That is not the case: the Green Paper, whose proposals were adopted on 4 March, sets out a methodology to assess whether the effects of restrictions on crossborder commercial communications are proportional to the public-interest objectives that such measures are intended to achieve.
<P>
The communication has also established an expert group of Member State representatives to examine the differences in national regulations with a view to exploring the scope for agreement on mutual recognition in this field.
The communication sets up a framework where the issue that the honourable Member has raised could be discussed openly in order to resolve internal-market problems that may arise.
<P>
The press are confusing this consultative exercise with an infringement case that the honourable parliamentarian has referred to against a provision of the French loi Evin .
This provision bans TV transmissions by French broadcasters of certain sports events held outside France, but mainly of interest to the French public, which are sponsored by alcoholic beverage producers.
This restriction on retransmissions has led to sports bodies in other Member States breaking their sponsorship contracts with alcohol beverage producers, for fear of having their events not transmitted in France, and therefore losing their TV rights.
The Commission sent out a reasoned opinion in 1996 underlining its doubts as to the proportionality of this restriction, and is currently discussing the issue with the French authorities.
I would stress that, in this case, the Commission is not contesting the loi Evin as such, but the consequences of the application of the law on televised events held outside France.
The Commission seeks to ensure the highest level of public health protection and to that end is taking the utmost care in assessing the proportionality of this restriction.
<P>
With regard to our willingness to take harmonizing measures in this field, that will depend on the outcome of the investigations.
It would be in our power to propose such measures but, at this point, we have no intention of doing so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 NAME="Murphy">
I have no further question, other than to thank the Commissioner for that very clear and straightforward answer.
We look forward to developments in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="von Habsburg">
I want to ask you whether you do not agree with me that what we have here in relation to the loi Evin in France is in Europe what we are protesting against over the laws which are blocking trade with Cuba.
In other words, this is an international intervention which has no justification whatsoever, and we would weaken our position if we really carried this out within Europe.
We could no longer be fighting against the American legislation on international trade.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
I certainly agree that in considering what we are saying about what other people outside the European Union do we should be very careful to ensure that we are consistent in not objecting to what happens outside the European Union and not at the same time objecting to anything similar within the European Union.
I have already mentioned that the Commission sent out a reasoned opinion in 1996 underlining its doubts as to the proportionality of the restriction in the loi Evin and to go further than that would go as far as I am tempted to go but further than I would be wise to go.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Larive">
Like the speaker, Sir Leon, I am pleased with the statement published last week on commercial communication.
In view of the fact that the many recent complaints, particularly on the loi Evin , have not been dealt with seriously, my question is whether it was President Santer's office or the President himself who considered it necessary to wait until the statement came out. Also, will the expert group which is soon to be set up investigate the complaints thoroughly?
Could you give this Parliament and me some more information about the various positions within the Commission on the treatment of the complaints we have before us?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
It would not be normal to give details of every kind of discussion that takes place within the Commission, apart from the fact that I am not aware of them all.
But the normal position is this: you send out a reasoned opinion expressing doubts as to the legality of what has been done and you then engage in discussions with the French authorities if they are prepared to do so, which they are, and that is currently the stage that we have got to.
I am not able to go beyond that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="President">
Question No 44 by Graham Watson (H-0257/98)
<P>
Subject: Ticket allocation for the 1998 Football World Cup
<P>
Following the request made to the French World Cup organizing authorities by the European Commission to recast its ticket allocation for World Cup football matches, will the Commission make a statement on the steps taken by the CFO?
<P>
Does the Commission believe these steps bring the ticket allocation system into compliance with Community competition law?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
The Commission wrote to the World Cup Organizing Committee on 20 February outlining its objections to the current ticketing policy and asking the committee, within two weeks of its receipt of the letter, to inform the Commission of the steps which it proposed to take to ensure that its system of ticket distribution did not discriminate against football supporters resident outside France.
This request followed a preliminary assessment of the current ticketing arrangements, which led the Commission to believe that the organizing committee might be abusing a dominant position on the World Cup ticketing market, contrary to Article 86 of the EC Treaty.
<P>
The Commission met the organizing committee on Thursday, 5 March to discuss its concerns over the current ticketing arrangements, and, in particular, the CFO rule which requires all those wishing to purchase tickets directly from the CFO to provide an address in France to which the tickets can be sent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="Watson">
Does this mean that the Commission will take no action to forbid the issue of tickets which have already been sold, even though many of these tickets have not yet been issued but merely applied for?
Can the Commissioner guarantee that if the Treaties have been infringed, then formal infringement procedures will be initiated?
Or is the Commission seeking merely a sop to football fans stitched up with the CFO in a cosy compact in the changing rooms?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
I do not envisage anything cosy of the kind that the honourable Member describes.
If there has been a breach of the law then action will be taken unless that breach is put right in a very specific way.
That will be the position of the Commission.
As I have said, there were discussions as recently as last Thursday.
I cannot give a specific answer to the point the honourable Member has made because, in fact, the outcome of those discussions is being considered and my colleague will be making a statement in a debate on Thursday at which I have little doubt he will convey the outcome of the meeting, the conclusions the Commission has drawn and the action that has been taken.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="Evans">
With the situation as the Commissioner has described and the restrictions it places on the distribution of tickets, there will undoubtedly be people who will look for a way round it.
Has the Commission had any communications with the French authorities to look at the potential for problems when it comes to the resale of tickets?
There will always be legitimate travel companies who, one way or another, get hold of tickets and start offering alternative packages but there will also be ticket touts who will get hold of tickets and be reselling them at inflated prices.
This could create massive problems from the point of view of policing, from balance and the whole potential for crowd problems.
It could throw the whole scheme into disarray.
It might create a very free market, which I am sure the Commissioner would support, but it will be one that could lead to problems.
Has there been any contact with the French authorities regarding this?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
I am sorry that I cannot give a definitive answer as to exactly what is happening.
I can assure the honourable Member that as a result of the discussions that took place last Thursday, the whole issue is being looked at.
The Commission will certainly not agree to any solution which permits very obvious abuses and can be got round in a very easy way.
Those considering these matters have adequate knowledge of what people might get up to not to be fobbed off by a solution which has obvious holes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="President">
Question No 45 by Gary Titley (H-0229/98)
<P>
Subject: Anti-dumping duties
<P>
In view of the repeated anti-dumping complaints by Eurocoton, does the Commission intend to revise its procedures so that serial complaints will no longer be possible?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
The current Eurocoton complaint followed the rejection by the Council of the Commission's proposal for definitive anti-dumping duties on unbleached cotton fabrics in May 1997.
<P>
This complaint also concerned unbleached cotton fabrics but, unlike the old proceeding, it was based on evidence of dumping and injury in a different time period.
Following receipt of the new complaint the Commission examined whether it was lodged by a sufficiently representative proportion of Community producers and whether it contained prima facie evidence of dumping and resulting injury.
<P>
Since these requirements were met the Commission decided to open a new investigation on 11 July 1997 as it was obliged to do under EU anti-dumping legislation which is in conformity with WTO rules.
Consecutive anti-dumping complaints are extremely rare.
Grey cotton fabrics is the only case in the history of the EU anti-dumping regulation where a second complaint was lodged after the rejection of a Commission proposal by the Council.
In these circumstances the Commission has not yet formed a view as to whether a legislative change that would prevent consecutive complaints is warranted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="Titley">
In order to investigate anti-dumping complaints, the Commission has to come to a view on whether there is injury to the European Community cause.
Is it not the case that serial anti-dumping complaints are themselves damaging to the Community interest given the cost of dealing with the investigations, given the uncertainties which companies are then placed under, which makes it very difficult to engage in any sort of forward planning?
Does the Commission accept that serial complaints are themselves injurious to the Community interest?
<P>
Does he have a view as to whether serial complaints are fundamentally undermining the EU's commitments to the World Trade Organisation, given that they can be seen to represent trade harassment of importing countries?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
I certainly accept that any complaint that is made imposes a burden on the interested parties but I do not accept that the receipt of a second or a third complaint is contrary to the rules of the WTO.
I am a bit reluctant to regard the lodging of a complaint as something that itself should be looked at in the context of Community interests.
But I assure the honourable Member that in the case of this complaint the whole question of Community interests and the balancing of any Community interests - in an opposite sense compared to the damage done to the producers who have made the complaint - is something that will be looked into and has been very fully looked into.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 NAME="McCarthy">
I tabled a question on this and it did not come up in today's session.
<P>
I would like to follow up on Mr Titley's question.
In the light of tomorrow's debate on the competitiveness of the EU industries generally and Commissioner Bangemann's action plan on the competitiveness of the European textile industry, would you not agree that Eurocoton's complaint belongs to the past for our industries?
Does the Commissioner not accept that the Community interest is not served, nor is the competitiveness of the EU textile industry served, by the imposition of such duties?
Indeed we already have evidence that this will lead to job losses not only in the finishing sector but also in increased imports of finished goods at the end of the day.
<P>
Therefore, I ask you, Commissioner, what proposals will you make to the Council of Ministers and to the expert group for enhancing and strengthening Community interest in this area?
Will you be making a strong case for Community interests?
Are you prepared to put forward proposals in this area in future?
In terms of representation, 30 companies producing cotton are not representative of the whole of the EU textile industry.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
There is really no mystery about this.
We have looked to see if there has been dumping or injury - and we all know to whom injury is alleged to have been done.
Against that we have balanced all the points made by another section of European industry that says that injury would be suffered if there were anti-dumping measures taken.
Indeed, it has said that the net effect of the measures would be beneficial to the European economy as a whole.
That is a legitimate argument.
There is a procedure for considering it.
It is important that the question of Community interest should be considered properly.
We have done so in this case.
I am not in a position to announce a final outcome yet but I can assure the honourable Member that all the points she has raised have been taken very fully into consideration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 NAME="Hardstaff">
I have received complaints against the anti-dumping measures.
They have been from small companies who feel they are going to be very severely disadvantaged if they are no longer able to import the cotton.
I would like to ask: are not both developing countries and some small companies who depend on imported cotton being disadvantaged very considerably?
When you are looking at the balance of interest, you take on board those issues as well.
In the answers you have already given, you have given some indication of that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
I am very grateful for what the honourable Member has said about my initial response.
It is very difficult.
There is no doubt at all that there are people within the European Union who complain that they are suffering from dumping and there are others who complain that they would suffer even more if anti-dumping measures were taken.
So, leaving aside anybody outside the European Union, we have to balance those interests.
That is why this has proved to be one of the most difficult and controversial cases we have had to deal with.
I am sorry I cannot say just at the moment where it is all going to end but I can say that I have been personally involved in a serious examination of the arguments that everybody has put forward - the producers outside the European Union and those represented by the honourable lady.
It is impossible to please everybody.
Therefore, the only thing to do is to try to be fair and that is what we shall try to do.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 NAME="President">
Question No 46 by Inger Schörling (H-0007/98)
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Subject: Salmonella
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Salmonella-infected products may be sent back to the country of shipment provided prior authorization is obtained from the competent authorities of that country.
It seems peculiar that the competent authorities in the country of shipment must grant authorization for the contaminated meat to be returned when it should be the supplier's responsibility to take back such consignments while the relevant authorities are informed.
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The background to my question is that inspections of meat imported into Sweden have revealed far too many cases of salmonella, despite all the certification from the country of shipment being present and correct.
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This gives rise to complications, not only for people who consume the contaminated meat but also for importers and retailers who, apart from the financial implications, are also embroiled in bureaucracy.
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A question of interpretation has also arisen as to who should be considered to have handled the product first? Is it the importer, the distributor or another party?
<P>
Is it possible for the competent authorities in the country of shipment not to authorize the return of contaminated meat?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Schörling's questions relate to Article 7 of Council Directive 98/662 of 11 December 1989 on Arrangements for veterinary checks on intra-Community trade with regard to the single market, with particular reference to the checks to be carried out at the relevant destination.
It is necessary to distinguish between two different scenarios in this context: in more serious cases the consignment delivered must be safely disposed of or treated in accordance with the relevant Community rules to eliminate any further risk.
In other, less serious cases, the appropriate authorities in the country of destination can give the shipper or the shipper's authorized agent two options, depending on the animal health and sanitary conditions. The first is to safely dispose of the goods and the second is to use the goods in some other way, including the option of sending the goods back, subject to permission from the appropriate authorities in the country where the production unit of origin is located.
<P>
This permission from the authorities in the country of dispatch was regarded as essential for these authorities to confirm the whereabouts of the contaminated consignment and ultimately prevent its being placed on the market.
If the check is carried out at a later stage in the marketing chain, and the result is unfavourable, the relevant national regulations apply.
For products originating from another Member State, the same regulations apply as for products originating in the Member State concerned.
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<SPEAKER ID=235 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
When Sweden became a Member of the EU we were given a unique derogation because we do not have any salmonella in Sweden.
The derogation was that all meat imports from other EU countries should be accompanied by a certificate to say that the consignment of meat was free of salmonella.
It now appears that this was much more complicated than our authorities ever thought because, among other things, it appears that many of the certificates are false or incorrect.
<P>
No less than 25 % of all beef, pig-meat and poultry consignments have incomplete certificates, and 20 % of the meat consignments which have the correct certificates prove to be contaminated with salmonella.
No less than 85 % of the tests on poultry from France showed that the meat was contaminated.
So you will understand that this is not a question of having to deal with a few small consignments.
<P>
Another problem is that people do not know and cannot figure out who is responsible.
I think the Commission is responsible for ensuring that the derogation Sweden has received works .
I do not think Commissioner Fischler's answer really explained things, although I am certainly grateful for it.
I would therefore like to hear a bit more about how the Commissioner thought this would work.
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<SPEAKER ID=236 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, Mrs Schörling, first of all I can confirm that Sweden was indeed granted derogations as part of its accession to the European Community.
In accordance with these derogations - and this also applies to Finland by the way - Sweden can apply special guarantees to various products, namely fresh meat, eggs and poultry meat, as the Commission authorized operational programmes for combatting salmonella submitted by Sweden.
The Commission approved these programmes in its 1995 decision.
We will be coming back to the subject of checking in the next question, but the essential point is that a procedure certainly exists under which countries of dispatch are responsible, as the Commission cannot check every consignment shipped from every Member State on the spot.
The Commission can only ensure that appropriate rules exist.
The Member State concerned is of course then required to ensure that these rules are observed.
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<SPEAKER ID=237 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Redondo Jiménez">
Commissioner, today the Commission has been presented with questions on contamination, meat hygiene, BSE, brown rot, and so on.
<P>
I want to point out to the Commissioner that the FAO has called on the European Union to increase and strengthen its prevention and monitoring systems for the transformation and transmission of diseases in the area of agricultural health.
Also, there are eleven central and eastern European countries at our door, and as things stand, their safeguards in that area are dubious, to say the least.
<P>
In order to guarantee the health of consumers and of our agricultural producers in the face of this worrying situation, I want to ask the Commissioner what measures the Commission is taking to ensure that Member States comply with this legislation - since there is plenty of legislation - in matters of both veterinary and phytosanitary health. Also, are the same measures going to be demanded of third countries and other countries?
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<SPEAKER ID=238 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, I am pleased to answer this question because it leads on to the Commission's general policy in this area.
As you will probably know, we have started to review the whole area of meat hygiene and all legislation in this field. Our goal in doing so is as follows: on the one hand, we want to establish clear Community rules governing checks necessary from the beginning of the production chain for a foodstuff right to the consumer's table.
But in doing so, we want to break new ground with the HACCP system.
Under this system, private processing companies are involved in the actual checking work, while they in turn are subject to checks by the appropriate authorities, so that the checking work stipulated is also monitored.
<P>
This is the approach on which the FAO has agreed.
It is an approach supported by the World Health Organization and I think that we are definitely on the right track here.
Of course we must ensure that the requirements we are imposing on our own farms and factories also apply to third countries, so that exactly the same criteria are applicable to imports.
For example, exactly the same system will be required for imports under the bilateral agreement currently being discussed with the USA.
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<SPEAKER ID=239 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
I would like to ask Commissioner Fischler what advice he has to give to a Member State if the certificates continue to be inaccurate in future, and if in future meat contaminated with salmonella also enters the country, in this case Sweden.
Is it not the case that it should be every country's natural right to be able to protect itself against products which are harmful to health?
What advice does the Commissioner therefore have to offer to Sweden if these inaccurate certificates and contaminated products continue to enter the country?
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<SPEAKER ID=240 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Fischler">
As I have already explained, special arrangements are in place to prevent shipments of meat which do not conform with the special standards applying to Sweden and Finland.
If shortcomings are discovered when these arrangements are implemented in practice, that is if checks reveal that the consignments being shipped do not comply with the requirements of the directives, it is then open to the country of destination to destroy the consignment in serious cases, or in other cases to decide on an appropriate course of action after contacting the country of origin. The outcome may once again be destruction, or alternatively sending the consignment back.
<P>
With regard to shortcomings which have actually been discovered, especially in shipments of poultry from one Member State in particular, consultation involving that Member State and the Swedish government is currently in progress, and it is hoped that this consultation will yield agreement on how such shortcomings can be avoided in future.
The parties concerned are expected to reach final agreement on this in the near future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 NAME="President">
Question No 47 by Sören Wibe (H-0210/98)
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Subject: Salmonella inspections
<P>
Since joining the EU, Sweden has discovered on several occasions that meat imported from other EU countries has been contaminated with salmonella despite the existence of a certificate from the exporting country stating that the consignment in question was salmonella-free.
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In reply to a written question by myself (P-3933/97) the Commission stated (19 January 1998) that this may be due, among other things, to cases of manipulation or incompatibility between different inspection techniques.
Is the Commission here seeking to indicate that there are shortcomings in Sweden's inspection arrangements or is it confident that the Swedish tests are entirely accurate?
Furthermore, has it analysed this question (i.e. the problems of salmonella infection in meat imported into Sweden) and reached any result?
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<SPEAKER ID=242 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Wibe has asked for more detail in my reply about certain aspects of Written Question No 3933.
These issues, like the question just asked by Mrs Schörling, relate to the broader subject of compliance with the additional guarantees given for salmonella in meat during Sweden's and Finland's accession.
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I would first like to describe the checking regime established by the Swedish authorities for imported meat.
According to our information, meat imported into Sweden from another Member State is checked by the recipient under a self-checking regime.
Any irregularities in certification are reported to the appropriate authorities.
The consignments concerned are then officially tested by a laboratory authorized to test for salmonella.
These tests are quite separate from the routine tests which producers and the appropriate local authorities themselves carry out.
The sampling method used in all these tests is that prescribed by EU regulations.
The Swedish authorities have used their own analysis method, known as the Nordic method, whereas the other Member States use the ISO method for checks in the country of origin, as stipulated in the EU regulations.
<P>
Furthermore, the Swedish authorities carried out special monitoring on a trial basis between 1 March and 1 September 1997, in order to check that the supplementary guarantee regime was being correctly applied.
In all, 569 consignments were tested and salmonellae were found in twelve.
In addition, according to our information the problems, that is the detection of salmonellae, were mainly with poultry meat, to be specific poultry meat from a particular Member State.
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In such cases Article 8 of the 1989 directive applies. This stipulates that as a first step bilateral discussions such as I have already described must take place between the Member States involved, and these discussions are currently under way.
As also stipulated in the directive, the Commission is awaiting the outcome of these discussions before taking any further steps.
With regard to analysis methods, the Council committees responsible are now considering whether the 'Nordic method' can be recognized alongside the ISO method as a reference method, with the objective of allowing the Nordic method to be used throughout the European Union as a second routine method.
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<SPEAKER ID=243 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wibe">
We have just discussed this in the previous question, so perhaps not so many comments are needed.
<P>
It is clear, Mr Commissioner, that in this area we have two different methods.
In the same consignment using the Swedish method we find salmonella bacteria, while using the other method we do not find any salmonella bacteria.
Now there are a hundred different ways to make a mistake and not find bacteria where there are bacteria, but there is no way to find bacteria where there are no bacteria.
In this case these results must clearly point to the fact that of these two methods the Nordic method is superior, because when it is used people clearly find bacteria when the other method fails.
<P>
I interpret the end of your reply to mean that you will also use the Nordic method as a routine measure and that it will at least be given equal status with the current method used under the relevant EU directive.
Is that a correct understanding of your reply?
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<SPEAKER ID=244 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Fischler">
Let me just explain again exactly what we have in mind and what is now happening in the Council committee responsible.
Firstly, under the present system the reference method for the European Union is the ISO method.
Secondly, the Nordic method has up to now been used in Sweden, and Sweden wants this system to be recognized as a reference method as well.
There are no doubt certain differences between these two methods, and the aim is to take account of this so that the Nordic method will also be a valid reference method in future.
That is the objective.
<P>
However, as that is a Council requirement, or rather as it is stipulated in the regime adopted by Council, the Council must consider whether to accept this.
Until it has done so, should there be any disagreement, that is if a genuine legal dispute should arise, the present directive will apply, and the ISO reference method will prevail.
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<SPEAKER ID=245 NAME="President">
Question No 48 by Mark Watts (H-0032/98)
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Subject: Reform of the common agricultural policy and farm animal welfare
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Is the Commission in favour of including the need to ensure high standards of health and welfare for farm animals among the principal objectives of a reformed common agricultural policy?
Is it also in favour of reforms to encourage mixed farming which will lead to more animals being kept outdoors or, because straw is available from the crops, in good straw-based indoor housing, and reforms to the beef and dairy regimes to discourage over-production of cattle, thereby allowing the European Union to abandon schemes designed to dispose of surplus animals, such as the calf processing aid scheme and export refunds on the export of live cattle to third countries, schemes which are both expensive and cause widespread animal suffering, and reforms to the dairy regime which discourage the pursuit of ever higher yields per cow which lead to serious animal welfare problems?
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<SPEAKER ID=246 NAME="Fischler">
<SPEAKER ID=247 NAME="Watts">
I wish to begin by welcoming the Commissioner's clear commitment to taking the protocol very seriously.
I genuinely thank him for that.
<P>
Secondly, by way of example, perhaps he could comment on whether he would be willing to contemplate schemes to help intensive pig or poultry producers to switch from current intensive methods to extensive methods in the future.
Would he envisage such a scheme under his reform proposals for the CAP?
<P>
Finally, whilst I understand what he says about high standards of animal welfare already being regulated by EU legislation, this is not always enforced, as he is aware.
I give you one example: on 7 April this year we fear that in the Eid-El-Kabir in France the French authorities will not be enforcing the animal welfare regulations he quite rightly points to.
It is all very well having these regulations but we must surely all work together to ensure they are complied with.
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<SPEAKER ID=248 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Fischler">
As Mr Watts said himself, there are two parts to his question.
Firstly, under the new rural development policy package, investment aid for agricultural holdings will be linked to certain conditions.
In the two instances you mentioned it will in any case be necessary to observe the relevant minimum animal welfare standards when building new poultry or pig housing or converting old housing.
Secondly, farmers prepared to convert their existing livestock housing or build new housing in such a way as to appreciably improve animal welfare, will receive more investment support than others.
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Turning to the question of poultry housing in general, a proposal will be presented to the Commission tomorrow in which we report on experience to date with poultry cages and provide for a whole series of measures for improving poultry housing.
However, these measures will also have to apply to third countries, because we cannot accept a situation in which we honourably stick to worthy rules and create good conditions, only to find our producers competing with importers producing under quite different and far worse conditions.
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<SPEAKER ID=249 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Ferrer">
Commissioner, in relation to your answer on animal welfare, which you yourself consider to be closely linked to animal health, I would like to ask whether the Commission does not think it would be a good thing - and necessary - to also extend the measures to protect animal welfare (and therefore animal health) to the process by which animals arrive at the slaughterhouse, when it is necessary to observe appropriate hygiene.
That would contribute greatly to improving animal health and improving the quality of the hides and therefore, I would say, is the first link in that chain you mentioned in your reply to Mrs Redondo Jiménez.
The hide is the first link and, at the same time, its quality is essential to the tanners.
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<SPEAKER ID=250 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Ferrer.
Allow me to congratulate you on the skilful way you expressed your question.
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You have the floor, Mr Fischler, to reply to Mrs Ferrer's clever supplementary question.
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<SPEAKER ID=251 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Fischler">
Mrs Ferrer, this issue not only relates to your actual question, it also goes somewhat further.
Firstly, I would like to comment that the developments we are aiming at, and in particular our proposals for reform, should mean that the repeated accusations that we subsidize exports of live cattle to foreign abattoirs will certainly not be true.
The transport subsidy element has already been eliminated, and there is already a lower subsidy per animal for livestock than for meat export, so that only 10 % of total exports are now in the form of livestock.
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This will apply even more so in the future, and the reduction in price guarantees in particular will enable us virtually to eliminate export subsidies for livestock.
However, to return to your more specific question about the condition of animals when they arrive at abattoirs, it is certainly not true that all animals reach abattoirs in poor condition.
Above all, it would not be in the interest of those doing the marketing, as you are quite right in saying that quality suffers when animals arrive in a poor state.
What interest could marketers possibly have in paying a higher price for poorer quality when animals are delivered?
<P>
On the other hand, it is true that a number of cases of disease transfer were reported recently in circumstances suggesting that inadequate hygiene was to blame.
In order to tackle this problem, the Commission - having taken advice from the relevant scientific committees - has decided to amend Directive 433 so as to minimize the risk of contamination of animals on arrival at abattoirs.
A proposal to this effect is currently being considered at Commission level.
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<SPEAKER ID=252 NAME="President">
Since we have now used up the time assigned to Mr Fischler's block of questions, Questions Nos 49 to 61 will be dealt with in writing.
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<SPEAKER ID=253 NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Mr President, Miss McIntosh, in Agenda 2000, the Commission suggested cutting the number of objectives for Community initiatives and concentrating measures on transnational areas of Community interest, with the aim of preserving or enhancing their innovative character, the value added by the Community, and the role of partnerships.
Three fields were chosen: cross-border, transnational and interregional cooperation; rural development; and human resources, paying special attention to equal opportunities.
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The fact that the Commission has not proposed any new initiative in favour of areas particularly affected by the decline of the armaments industry and the pruning of military bases does not mean that these areas are not to receive support as a matter of principle.
In fact there is continued scope for assistance under Objective 1, Objective 2 and Objective 3, as well as under the proposed new Community initiatives I have just mentioned.
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Outside the targeted areas, measures for adapting and modernizing education, training and employment systems with a view to improving competitiveness and cushioning socio-economic change are also eligible under the new Objective III.
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<SPEAKER ID=254 NAME="McIntosh">
While I thank the Commissioner for that response, I have to say I am deeply disappointed.
In areas like Essex, Suffolk, Yorkshire and Cumbria, substantial job losses through the peace dividend have been suffered in defencerelated industries.
In particular, if you were to take two towns - Witham and Chelmsford - where the companies of Marconi and EEV operate, the substantial reduction to the workforce is quite worrying.
What assurance can the Commissioner give me tonight that areas like these, where they have benefited substantially from a programme tailor-made to defence-industry job cuts and training schemes to help those people who have lost their jobs through the peace dividend, will continue to benefit to the same extent as at the moment?
That is the question.
They are going to be competing for a smaller pot of money under three broad objectives with no direct funds for defence cuts.
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<SPEAKER ID=255 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
I am not in a position to give any answer at all to questions about a specific region and its future level of support, because we have not even agreed the proposals for the new Structural Fund Regulations within the Commission yet, and even then the support system will be far more partnership-oriented, and thus based on both European and national criteria.
I cannot tell you now what proposals the British government will choose to implement.
I am afraid I therefore have to disappoint you.
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<SPEAKER ID=256 NAME="Elliott">
My constituency has benefited considerably from the KONVER programme.
The London Boroughs of Hounslow, Ealing and Richmond have all benefited at some time and I am very pleased about that.
But a problem has arisen which I wonder whether the Commissioner would agree to take on board, in whatever changes and variations are to be made in the future, and it is this: in areas like mine where the population is extremely mobile, it has been very difficult under the rules of KONVER to direct the assistance precisely to the people who have lost their jobs, because many of them have whizzed off to other parts of the country or even abroad to find other employment.
Local authorities have tried to put forward proposals to reinvigorate the area using KONVER funds to generate more employment, but they have run into difficulties with the existing programme rules.
I wonder whether we could, in the future, whatever changes are to happen, take on board this difficulty?
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<SPEAKER ID=257 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Yes, I think the Commission's proposals might well solve your problem, because our experience has been that isolated programmes are a lot less successful in structural policy terms than programmes related to regions in a somewhat broader context.
That is why we are also planning to have larger regions for Objective 2 areas in future; the programmes would be designed to ensure, as far as possible, that there is a tailor-made option on the spot for people who lose their jobs, with infrastructure and investment dovetailing with training measures for the unemployed.
Anyway, I am pleased to take your point on board.
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<SPEAKER ID=258 NAME="Howitt">
I notice the Commissioner smiling, but it is not the first time we have debated these issues and I will not ask her about any particular region.
However, I will ask her this about the future of the KONVER programme: if the answer from the Commission is that the areas are going to be eligible under the new Objective 2, we have yet to really understand what the mechanism is going to be which enables them to qualify.
It seems that the Commission is not minded to have a special arrangement such as it intends to have over Objective 6.
If I am wrong about that, please tell me.
If that is not the intention, I still do not understand why there are not going to be transitional phasing-out arrangements for KONVER areas and other Community initiative areas, as there are going to be for Objective 2 areas that fall out of the net.
If the same need for structural change based on unemployment and low growth exists for Objective 2 areas, why not for the KONVER areas?
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Finally, 50 % of KONVER areas Europe-wide are not Objective 2 - or other regional fund - eligible areas at the moment.
Does the Commissioner not agree that there is a special case here for her to study carefully?
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<SPEAKER ID=259 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
I know that the European Union cannot clear up all the problems in the Community with Structural Funds money.
I am also all too well aware that a few changes in the regions can also lead to problems.
But I hope you will understand that in proposing generous measures for Objective 1, 2 and 5b areas for phasing out regions that will in future no longer be eligible, we really want to do what is necessary to consolidate existing successes.
<P>
Again, I want to make it quite clear that KONVER areas, like all other initiatives, will continue to qualify for Objective 3 funds, that is for the training of the unemployed and people faced with unemployment.
I assume that in future this could be of real help in precisely this area.
<P>
One last comment. Community initiatives as a whole, as you can see from the utilization rates, have not been as successful as we hoped, which is another reason for integrating such measures.
The defence industry is also 'industry' , of course.
As long as the relevant criteria are met, Objective 2 support is also available.
If these criteria are not satisfied, there is still horizontal Objective 3.
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<SPEAKER ID=260 NAME="President">
Question No 63 by Ian White (H-0172/98)
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Subject: Urban II
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What are the Commission's rules for the establishment of programme Monitoring Committees, and where are such rules published?
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<SPEAKER ID=261 NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the general provisions on monitoring committees for Structural Fund applications are in Article 25 of amended Council Regulation No 4253/88.
Implementing rules governing the use of monitoring committees to keep track of programmes carried out under the URBAN initiative are drawn up by the Commission in conjunction with the Member States concerned.
They are to be found in the Commission decisions granting approval to the individual URBAN programmes.
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<SPEAKER ID=262 NAME="White">
I should have listened to the original answer rather than the interpretation but I did not understand where the documentary sources for the rules governing the URBAN programme can be found.
I will tell you why I am concerned about it.
It seems to me from reports I have received from interested organizations that there is a degree of anarchy amongst those who wish to apply for URBAN funding.
Naturally I assumed that there would be rules and regulations governing this.
What the Commissioner has just said does not appear to give me a source on which I can rely.
I would like to go to a booklet, to a regulation itself, so that I can decide for my own purposes whether the Member State concerned and the Commission and the United Kingdom are operating on the same basis of an agreed rule book that I can check for myself.
Is there such a rule book?
Is there such a regulation, apart from 25(2) to which you have already referred?
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<SPEAKER ID=263 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
The Commission decisions granting approval to individual URBAN programmes also contain the rules for those programmes.
I will also briefly mention them by name, because I think it is better to talk about specifics than regulation numbers.
URBAN has Objective 1 and Objective 2 monitoring committees, which are the general monitoring committees for Objective 1 and Objective 2.
Outside the assisted regions, and this is where Bristol comes in, I understand that there is an independent monitoring committee.
I have to agree with you that the process is somewhat complicated, as this monitoring committee is advised by the URBAN management committee, which is a sub-committee for monitoring the management of non-Objective areas, and there is also an URBAN partnership group, which brings together local partners and non-governmental organizations.
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<SPEAKER ID=264 NAME="Spiers">
I noted that the Commissioner said in her earlier reply that the Community initiatives had not had the success that was hoped.
But I hope she recognizes that URBAN has provided an ideal opportunity to develop the sort of bottom-up Community initiatives that the Commission has promoted in its economic development plans and has provided a very good vehicle for promoting the Community with the citizens because of its very local, neighbourhood-level focus.
I hope that in URBAN II that local element will not be lost and will, indeed, be recognized in the monitoring committees, however they are constituted.
I hope she can reassure us on that point.
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<SPEAKER ID=265 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
I have to agree with you.
Even if the utilization rates are not always very encouraging, URBAN is one of the more successful Community initiatives, because it is particularly close to local people and above all because it involves citizens from various local groups and has thus been a strong motivating force.
There have been no changes in the management process compared with URBAN 1, but it can be taken as read that the positive aspects of URBAN 1 have been incorporated into URBAN 2.
Because URBAN has been such a success, we want to incorporate assistance for sociallydeprived inner-city areas, the most deprived areas, into mainstream assistance, that is into the new Objective 2.
This demonstrates that URBAN has paved the way to providing Community assistance for inner-city problems on a larger scale.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=266 NAME="President">
Question No 64 by José Apolinário (H-0173/98)
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Subject: Application of Interreg II C
<P>
Can the Commission say what aid was granted via the Community funds to the regions in the Azores, the Algarve and Alentejo which were affected by storms at the end of 1997?
How does it account for the proposal to grant financial support via Interreg II C to certain Member States but to withhold it from Portugal?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=267 NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Mr President, Mr Apolinário, the Commission is of course distressed about the storm damage in Portugal, particularly in the Azores, the Algarve and the Alentejo region.
It therefore declared its willingness to make a transfer of appropriations straight after these catastrophic events.
When the interim assessment of the Community support framework for Portugal was completed in February, the regions affected were granted further appropriations not as yet committed together with appropriations from the annual indexing, which were prioritized for environmental improvement measures.
The Commission successfully sought a higher level of appropriations for the reinforcement of the programmes claimed by these three regions than originally proposed by the Portuguese authorities, so that these regions are to receive an additional 73 million ECU instead of the 44 million originally proposed by Portugal.
<P>
It will be recalled that part of the funding available under the Community's INTERREG 2C initiative is intended for regional development measures to prevent floods and combat droughts.
No Community financing for the prevention of floods was granted to Portugal in 1997/98, because the Portuguese government did not submit an application to that effect.
On the other hand, a programme to combat drought in Portugal was approved by the Commission on 29 September 1997.
This programme has an indirect bearing on structural measures to prevent flooding, given that it contributes to improvements in water management and hydrological research, and assists with prospecting for water resources and with improvements in ecological balance.
The Commission is willing to consider an application by the Portuguese authorities for an INTERREG 2C programme on flooding, within the general guidelines and within the budgetary appropriations already allocated to Portugal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=268 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Apolinário">
Mr President, may I begin by thanking the Commissioner for her answer.
I agree with her that the priority of the environment and national development planning should be protected.
I would, however, emphasize that the part of her answer relating to the Portuguese Government is erroneous, in that the Interreg II C allocation of funding clearly states that Portugal, Spain, Greece and Italy can apply only in connection with drought, while Belgium, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy and the Netherlands could make applications in connection with floods.
This is the point I cannot understand because I feel that the services for which the Commissioner holds political responsibility have adopted an excessively technical approach.
<P>
However, my question relates to the ultra-peripheral regions, and specifically the Azores.
I would like to know how the Commission intends to act in situations that have unfortunately reoccurred, given that in the future the REGIS initiative will cease to exist, particularly since while the Commission increased its technical justifications, the United States army, for instance, offered cooperation in carrying out the technical restoration of the Ribeiro Quente area.
It is merely a difference of approach.
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<SPEAKER ID=269 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Firstly, as an ultraperipheral region, the Azores will continue to be part of the most heavily assisted group of regions.
Secondly, I assume that the other regions you mentioned will also continue to receive financial assistance from the European Union.
The problem with the Structural Funds is that they are not an emergency aid mechanism and that the European Union has abolished emergency aid within Europe.
So we have no means of offering specific emergency aid.
<P>
However, what we can do in the case of an emergency, and have in fact done in Portugal, is to divert money available under the Community Support Frameworks and to use it for economic regeneration and to mitigate the environmental damage caused by such disasters.
That is what we have done in this case.
We certainly need to discuss how INTERREG 2C can be used more in the southern Member States in future to combat flooding.
I would ask you to remember how long we discussed how to combat droughts effectively, and that despite that neither the Commission nor perhaps the Portuguese government were farsighted enough to incorporate appropriate preventive measures in their plans for INTERREG 2C and Portugal.
I hope, however, that this will not be needed in the future, and if it is, we should be flexible enough to reconsider our programmes.
<P>
I do believe, however, that the funds we are making available are really an enormous extra help to these regions in coping with the aftermath of the emergencies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=270 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Pimenta">
The Commissioner is quite correct in saying that drought and floods in Portugal and Spain are connected.
It is well known that the sources of all Portugal's major rivers lie in Spain, and half Portugal's water comes from Spain.
As the Commissioner knows, all the hydraulic works in progress in Portugal and Spain are being carried out with Community funding.
And as the Commissioner is also aware, there has been a disagreement, a conflict, between Portugal and Spain in connection with the Spanish hydrological plan.
I think this could be overcome with common sense, while the intervention of Brussels and the Commission is essential in view of the fact that the funding of hydraulic works in Portugal and Spain comes primarily from Brussels.
Now that negotiations are resuming, what role do the Commission and the Commissioner intend to play?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=271 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
The Commission normally has no right of say in bilateral negotiations, not only because of subsidiarity, but also because in the interests of sovereignty Member States do not normally welcome Commission poking its nose into things that Member States can sort out better themselves.
<P>
However, we have not been mere bystanders here.
For example, we financed a joint Spanish/Portuguese study to get the facts on their common water resources.
Furthermore, when authorization for the dam was being sought, we took the opportunity to ensure that joint water management was proposed as part of the plans to ensure that sufficient water of acceptable quality reached the dam.
I assume that the authorization and the precautions taken were helpful in this respect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=272 NAME="President">
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Vessels carrying dangerous goods
<SPEAKER ID=273 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0069/98), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a Council Directive amending Directive 93/75/EEC concerning minimum requirements for vessels bound for or leaving Community ports and carrying dangerous or polluting goods (Rapporteur: Mr Novo Belenguer) (C4-0621/97-96/0231(SYN).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=274 NAME="Novo Belenguer">
Madam President, the report we are going to debate this evening is the second reading under the cooperation procedure and refers to the proposal to amend the directive on the minimum requirements for vessels bound for or leaving Community ports and carrying dangerous or polluting goods.
<P>
To briefly review the process described in the report, I should first mention that in April 1997 this Parliament approved eleven amendments in first reading. These could be divided into three main groups.
The first group reinforced the requirements for information to be provided by the operators of vessels transporting radioactive goods.
The second group concerned measures designed to extend the requirements of this Directive (93/75/EEC) to ships in transit through Community waters.
Finally, the third group involved amendments to the directive's annexes.
<P>
The Commission and the Council accepted the amendments allowing the inclusion within the directive of future amendments to the international code on irradiated nuclear fuel, and concerning the obligation on vessel operators to supply a list of crew members to the port authority in advance, in case of any possible accident.
<P>
The report we are currently debating and will vote on tomorrow proposes three things: firstly, to bring Directive 93/75/EEC up to date, by requesting the inclusion of certain maritime transport safety requirements, especially with respect to irradiated nuclear fuel, plutonium and high-level radioactive waste; secondly, to increase the amount of information to be supplied when transporting these types of goods; and lastly, to facilitate future amendment of the directive's annexes, by simple recourse to the committee procedure, in order to bring national regulations into line with established international regulations on maritime safety.
<P>
In this respect, the present report proposes four amendments, which were all approved almost unanimously by the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
<P>
The first amendment refers to the fifth recital of the directive.
We propose a change in the wording of the Council text. The new text is wider and more general - at least that is how we interpret it - and expresses our concern about the advisory committee being able to make significant or substantial changes to the directive.
<P>
Amendment No 4, which refers to paragraph 2 of Article 1, is directly related to the one I have just mentioned, and aims to prevent subsequent modifications to the directive weakening the existing provisions for safety and the protection of the marine environment.
In other words, we are introducing a minimum to prevent the guarantees which the directive itself recognizes from being weakened in any way.
<P>
Our second amendment refers to Article 1. In it we propose that the INF Code defined in the directive should be the updated version, as in force on 1 January 1998 rather than 1996.
Our reason is that apart from being much more recent and up-to-date, in November 1997 the International Maritime Organization adopted some amendments to strengthen the Code, and not to include them by that date would provide the advisory committee with a motive for amending the directive.
<P>
The third amendment repeats a proposal we made at the report's first reading.
Specifically, we request that when vessels of the type referred to in the report are in transit through a Member State's waters, it should be compulsory to notify the authorities of that state of the contents of Annex 1.
<P>
Furthermore, Madam President, as regards the content of this report, I think this proposal is appropriate and advisable, although we hope the provisions can also be applied to vessels in transit.
We must bear in mind that in effect this system is covered by the 1993 EUROREP proposal, but it has made hardly any progress.
So in view of the difficulty of changing this directive's approach, we suggest that the Commission, if it sees fit, should withdraw that original EUROREP proposal and present a new one, to include the legislative changes which have been made and approved by the International Maritime Organization.
<P>
I am just finishing, Madam President, and I hope the honourable Members will bear these amendments in mind when it comes to the vote on my report tomorrow. What we are requesting is the implementation of a series of Community regulations, to try - among other things - to improve maritime safety and protect the marine environment for future generations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=275 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferber">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, at second reading we are concerned today with the minimum requirements for ships which are using the Community's ports and carrying dangerous or environmentally harmful goods.
I think we are dealing here with an extremely important subject, which causes people to react once something has happened.
The aim of our legislation is to ensure that there will never be a catastrophic accident, or if an accident should occur, that possible damage is kept to a minimum, so that the people are not preoccupied with this subject.
I think there has rarely been a better starting point for European legislation.
<P>
I would like to thank the rapporteur explicitly for dealing so seriously with this subject, both at first reading and now at second reading.
The Group of the European People's Party shares the rapporteur's view.
We support all the amendments tabled, especially the request that appropriate information is also made available about ships which transport dangerous goods, do not use EU ports, but which do sail through the territorial waters of the European Union.
It is not just a question of accidents associated with the entering or leaving of ports but of the broadest possible measures to avert risks, even if it is only territorial waters which are affected, because experiences in recent years show that there really can be problems on European soil without a ship having initially entered a European port.
<P>
I would therefore strongly urge the Commission to take up this matter of concern.
We are unfortunately only at the cooperation stage.
The Treaty of Amsterdam is not yet in force, otherwise we would be more deeply involved in the legislative process.
I therefore request that you really do take up this matter, so that we can find a solution to the benefit of all the people in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=276 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Kaklamanis">
Madam President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur for dealing with a sensitive and difficult issue.
<P>
I would also like to congratulate the rapporteur for continuing to resist the pressures of the Council and the Commission, which may have endorsed some amendments, ladies and gentlemen, but which endorsed the insignificant amendments.
The essential amendments which you had proposed and which we had voted on during the first reading were not endorsed.
<P>
I am also very pleased that the matter has been raised again. We will support these amendments since it is clear that the Council and the Commission have forgotten (or rather, do not wish to remember) that nuclear waste is not simply a question of protecting the environment, it is a question of laundering black money.
It is also, under certain conditions, a question of certain nuclear waste, after it has been enriched with plutonium, being used for other purposes, Mr Commissioner, for military purposes. So the Commission and the Council should not only have accepted the rapporteur's original amendments, which imposed strict conditions for the control and safety of such loads, but the Council should have proposed even stricter conditions.
You all know very well what is happening with the trade in nuclear waste.
I am talking about the trade in nuclear waste by countries of the former Soviet Union. And you all know very well that this nuclear waste goes to certain countries which, as we discovered, are a danger to their neighbours, and in which we decided to intervene either in the guise of NATO or in I do not know what other guise.
It is our opinion that we supplied them with this nuclear waste because we had not imposed conditions of control and safety.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=277 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
Madam President, I would first like to remind people that the Green Group in the European Parliament considers it highly positive that this directive has been proposed to amend the earlier Directive 93/75/EEC, to incorporate into the scope of the old directive the conditions for the transportation of nuclear fuel, plutonium and high-level radioactive waste on board ships.
This is certainly a positive fact, just as we believe the rest of the directive to be positive.
However, we believe Parliament's proposals are serious and credible, which is why we do not agree with the Council amendments which fail to include them.
For these reasons, we believe all the amendments proposed by the rapporteur should be firmly maintained, particularly Amendment No 3 because we believe it is of vital importance that ships in transit through our waters should inform us of the presence of toxic or radioactive substances on board even if they are not stopping in a Community port.
<P>
This is very important for the future of our seas and for the ecology and health of our peoples.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=278 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Camisón Asensio">
Commissioner, this recommendation we are debating, which is attempting to fix minimum requirements for vessels carrying dangerous goods and entering port within the European Union, is experiencing a situation which is all too common. That is, on the one hand the Commission makes efforts to ensure that Community legislation is obeyed - in this case concerning maritime safety and the protection of the marine environment - but on the other hand, some Member States do their own thing completely.
In this case there are still four Member States which have not even transposed the original directive.
<P>
In view of this situation, Commissioner, we support the Commission.
As has been said, this really is an extremely important matter.
For example, passenger transport should be incompatible with the transport of dangerous goods, or it should be compulsory to present a passenger safety certificate.
Let us not forget, ladies and gentlemen, that we are talking about highly dangerous substances, such as irradiated nuclear fuel, plutonium or high-level radioactive waste, which persist in many cases - and I am not exaggerating - for more than 30 000 years, which is really saying something.
<P>
So there is an enormous responsibility to the future.
And if due attention is being paid to the risks of transporting these substances by road - another terrestrial mode of transport - the same should be done with maritime transport.
<P>
For all those reasons, we are going to support the amendments presented by Mr Novo Belenguer, the rapporteur, and we congratulate him on them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=279 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Sarlis">
Madam President, I would simply like to say that I agree with the rapporteur's amendments but I would like to underline another aspect of the problem. The Council publishes directives and regulations which are not implemented by the Member States.
A classic case of this is the report that we are debating today.
<P>
I have to say that Directive 93/75/EEC, amended by the new Commission proposal, has not yet been incorporated into the body of law of four Member States, including Great Britain, which currently holds the presidency of the European Council and the Council of Ministers.
<P>
At international level, the IMO decisions have not been incorporated into internal law by a large majority of Member States.
We must, however, protest against this state of affairs, at least within the European Union. In this debate and tomorrow's vote, when the rapporteur's amendments are voted on, we must show that the Council and the Member States themselves cannot endorse and publish directives and then, at a national level, fail to incorporate them.
<P>
This is a very serious issue.
It is not about the safety of maritime transport per se ; rather, it is about the safety of the population of our planet. For that reason, we all need to show sensitivity to each other at all times.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=280 NAME="Flynn">
Madam President, the House is certainly considering an important piece of legislation here on the maritime transport of dangerous goods.
I wish to begin by saying that I am naturally very pleased that, in its common position, the Council endorsed those amendments of Parliament which were accepted by the Commission at the first reading debate.
<P>
I must also say that the Commission shares the concerns underlying the second reading amendments that have been adopted by the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
Amendment No 2, for instance, proposes reference to the version of the INF Code that has been in force since 1 January this year, instead of that in force on 1 January 1996.
The Commission welcomes this useful proposal, which embraces the amendments to the Code adopted by the IMO Assembly last November.
<P>
The Commission can also accept Amendment No 4, which states that changes to the annexes adopted through the committee procedure shall not weaken safety of maritime protection provisions.
I can reassure Members of this House that the Commission, which has the right of initiative under the committee procedure, would not submit any proposal which weakens its own initial legislation.
<P>
The Commission can understand, in principle, the concern behind Amendment No 1, which aims to clarify the scope of the committee procedure, notably in the light of Amendment No 4.
However, the Commission cannot accept this amendment for two reasons.
Firstly, it repudiates the express provision which reaffirms that ships in transit cannot be brought within the scope of this directive.
The text was added by the Council in its common position, and in the light of the pending proposal on EUROREP, accepted by the Commission.
Secondly, this amendment is, in any case, unnecessary because the existing common position text already states that amendments adopted through the committee procedure shall not alter the requirements of the directive.
This applies equally to any weakening or broadening of the scope of the directive.
<P>
Finally, the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 3, which introduces notification requirements for vessels in transit off the coast of Member States.
<P>
As I said at the first reading, the provisions of the proposed EUROREP directive makes the amendment redundant and, for reasons of consistency and coherence, therefore, the Commission maintains its position.
<P>
I know that the rapporteur fully understands this position, since he set it out in his own report.
I would ask him, therefore, to consider again withdrawing his support for the amendment since I can assure him that the Commission shares his views.
We are consequently examining the options in order to ensure that discussions resume in Council, if necessary, on the basis of a modified version of the EUROREP proposal.
This is a view shared by Mr Ferber and Mr Kaklamanis.
We share the view expressed by them on this particular point.
<P>
To sum up: the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 2 and 4 but cannot accept Nos 1 and 3.
I wish to thank the House, in particular Mr Novo Belenguer and the Committee on Transport and Tourism, for their consistent support for the proposal.
I would like to say to Mr Camisón Asensio and Mr Sarlis that there have been some significant delays in the transposition of this particular original directive but infringement proceedings are proceeding: there are four proceedings at present for nonconformity of national measures, and we look forward to an early solution, in the legal sense, dealing with these matters.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=281 NAME="President">
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Statistical returns on carriage of goods by road
<SPEAKER ID=282 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0072/98) by Mr Bazin, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the draft Council Regulation on statistical returns in respect of carriage of goods by road (COM(97)0443 - C4-0514/97-97/0233(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=283 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Madam President, I trust you will excuse Mr Bazin's absence owing to the regional elections in France, and that you will appreciate that Mr Bazin has been granted the opportunity refused to Mr de Silguy to stand as a candidate for the beautiful region of Brittany.
We would all like to wish him the greatest success.
<P>
Statistics are essential for transport.
Therefore we have not only to collect the statistics but, more especially, we have to deal with them in a way that is consistent throughout the Community.
To be more exact, the Commission made a proposal whereby the statistics on road transport are brought more into line in the different Member States.
The Committee on Transport and Tourism submitted two amendments.
Or rather, Mr Bazin did so with our full support.
Therefore it is not too difficult for me to stand in for him here tonight.
Mr Bazin's report is not just a technical report.
Because we are moving in the European Union towards a durable mobility we have to know exactly what our transporters are doing and where they go to and from in the Community.
This is going to be a more difficult task with the rivalry of the free internal market and, more specifically, this year with the arrival of free cabotage.
When we look at the statistics of road transport it will be more difficult to tell whether lorries with foreign licence plates - from countries other than the country to where they transport goods - are engaged in local transport or international transport.
<P>
Inevitably short-haul transport will, for the main part, take place by road.
Nowadays, more than three-quarters of Community transport is carried by road.
Transport is growing by about 7 % to 10 % per year. That means that if we want to move to other modes of transport - as Members from all groups want - such as rail, inland waterway or short sea transport, we will still have to reckon with the fact that short-haul transport is being carried out by road.
Therefore, if we want to move from one modality of transport to another, we have to know exactly which transportation is intermodal and which is solely road transport.
We need a more precise system.
<P>
Commissioner, you know better than anyone else, since you deal with the social side of transport as well, that the reports we get from the Commission on the driving and rest hours are worse than we expected them to be.
We have just received the reports from 1993/94 which show that several Member States do not even have those statistics.
That is a great failing.
One of the Member States that did not supply its statistics is one of the founding members of the European Community.
Fifty years should be enough to bring them into line.
We count on the Commission to do its utmost to put these things in order.
In the meantime, realizing that most of the work is going to be done by the national statistical offices, thanks to the Committee on Budgets we have tabled an amendment which slightly lowers the amount of money available.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=284 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Stenmarck">
Madam President, let me begin by thanking Mr Bazin, who is himself absent, for the work he has put into this report.
The intention of the proposal is to round off the annual harmonized statistical data for the carriage of goods by road to ensure the availability of information for the monitoring and evaluation of the common policy.
The regions of origin and destination will be recorded in the same way for journeys between Member States as for those within them.
The legislation will also cover cabotage which will now be possible within the Union.
For this there will be a codification of regions of origin and destination and of the distance travelled.
<P>
Of course, there always have to be statistics to some extent.
Nevertheless, I think that each time this kind of proposal and this kind of issue comes up there is reason to question whether it is really necessary, since it involves new information having to be submitted, and therefore additional bureaucracy.
It is always companies, often small companies, which have to submit this information.
Far too much of this is already an unnecessary burden being placed on companies around the Union, which has resulted in the difficult situation in which enterprise currently finds itself.
<P>
However, there are two positive things in this context.
One is that no special European bureau of statistics is to be set up just for this business. Responsibility for this extra work will fall to the statistical services of the Member States.
The other is that the regulation expressly exempts small vehicles.
That means that vehicles with payloads of up to 3.5 tonnes or maximum permissible laden weights of up to 6 tonnes are excluded.
The reason for this is that these kinds of journeys are often local journeys for own-account transport.
<P>
Both these exceptions are positive.
Still, there is reason to question what would actually have happened if we had not got a regulation like this.
A constant criticism is increasingly being made of the EU, a criticism about bureaucracy and excessive information being required of companies.
I think we need to understand that every time a new proposal like the one we are to decide on here is put forward, however worthy the intention, it increases bureaucracy and paperwork in a Europe whose companies already have far too much of it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=285 NAME="Flynn">
Madam President, as the House will know, the relevant 1978 and 1989 directives enabled the Community to develop a set of basic statistics on the carriage of goods by road and they have proved very useful in framing and developing the common transport policy.
<P>
Several developments have taken place in Community policies, however, making it necessary for us to improve our system of compiling statistics on road transport.
That is particularly true of the changes relating to the liberalization of cabotage from 1 July 1998 to the development of the trans-European networks and to advances in environmental policy.
<P>
Against that background, as the House will be aware, this new regulation will establish a more up-to-date statistical system which is based on a list of variables geared to existing information needs, particularly in regional policy and environmental policy, on the collection and transmission to Eurostat of data on individual vehicles and journeys.
<P>
This will allow much more detailed analysis than in the past and it will facilitate the essential monitoring, fine-tuning and understanding of relationships between different policy outcomes.
The new regulation could obviously impose additional statistical reporting obligations on some transport businesses.
I would stress that Eurostat has made every effort to minimize any extra burdens by making provisions for the statistics to be compiled by sample surveys on a small proportion of road vehicles and for modern computerized techniques to be used for transmitting data wherever that reduces the administrative burden.
<P>
The similarity of the approach taken by Mr Bazin, the Committee on Transport and Tourism and the Commission happily means that I can readily accept both the amendments.
I therefore thank Mr Bazin and his colleagues for their support and for their great help in these efforts to develop changes which will make for greater transparency and more efficient operation of the statistical system.
I can readily accept Mr Wijsenbeek's point that statistics are essential for transport and should be consistent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=286 NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Madam President, unfortunately the Commissioner, who is not responsible for transport as such but who is responsible for the social side of transport, has not made any helpful comment on my request that all those Member States who did not hand in their statistics on driving and resting hours - which I would say are the complement to the statistics on road transport as such, or which are part and parcel of it - will be improved, especially by those Member States who do not hand them in at all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=287 NAME="Flynn">
Madam President, to respond very briefly to the honourable Member, this particular point is not relevant to the Eurostat situation, it is a matter for a DG VII question.
Perhaps the matter can be taken up there and hopefully he will get a suitable response.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=288 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=13>
Injury prevention - rare diseases - pollution-related diseases - health protection - Alzheimer's
<SPEAKER ID=289 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports and oral questions:
<P>
Report (A4-0067/98) by Mr Trakatellis, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision adopting a programme of Community action from 1999 to 2003 on injury prevention in the context of the framework for action in the field of public health (COM(97)0178 - C4-0229/97-97/0132(COD)); -Report (A4-0074/98) by Mr Viceconte, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision adopting a programme of Community action 1999-2003 on rare diseases in the context of the framework for action in the field of public health (COM(97)0225 - C40236/97-97/0146(COD)); -Report (A4-0075/98) by Mr Cabrol, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision adopting a programme of Community action 1999-2003 on pollution-related diseases in the context of the framework for action in the field of public health (COM(97)0266 - C4-0276/97-97/0153(COD)); -Report (A4-0022/98) by Mrs Flemming, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the second report from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on the integration of health protection requirements in Community policies (COM(96)0407 - C4-0663/96); -Oral question by Mr Poggiolini, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, to the Commission (B4-0170/98 - O-0018/98) on the Community programme to combat Alzheimer's disease and related syndromes; -Oral question by the following Members: Gutiérrez Díaz, González Álvarez, Papayannakis and Ojala, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the United Left - Nordic Green Left, to the Commission (B4-0171/98 - O-0027/98) on the Community programme of research into and prevention and treatment of Alzheimer's disease; -Oral question by Mr Kouchner and Mrs Lalumière, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, to the Commission (B4-0172/98 - O-0040/98) on combating Alzheimer's disease; -Oral question by Mr Cabrol, on behalf of the Group Union for Europe, to the Commission (B4-0173/98 - O-0050/98) on Alzheimer's disease; -Oral question by the following Members: McKenna, Lannoye, Breyer and Tamino, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, to the Commission (B4-0266/98 - O-0066/98) on Alzheimer's disease.




<SPEAKER ID=290 NAME="Trakatellis">
Madam President, most of us have often been in danger of being injured or have actually been injured during our day-to-day activities or in our free time.
We therefore have a lot of experience to go on.
<P>
Unfortunately, such injuries happen all too frequently.
Indeed, together with suicides and self-inflicted injuries, they contribute significantly to our annual death rate.
This proposal is therefore very timely, and the programme for the prevention of and reduction in the number of deaths must be adopted.
<P>
Today in the European Union the injuries covered by the present programme are one of the most basic causes of death, damage to health and disablement.
They are mainly due to accidents in the home or during leisure time.
The most vulnerable are those between 1 and 34 years of age, and people over 75.
The need to address the problem initially led the Community to create a scheme of research and information, the EHLASS scheme.
Recent statistics provided by the scheme point to an annual death rate from accidents of 83 000 with approximately 22 million people injured each year, 20 million of whom require medical assistance, and 2 million of whom need hospital treatment.
<P>
We must also point out that approximately 300 000 of those who are injured will be disadvantaged for the rest of their lives or will have health problems at some point.
<P>
The second category of injuries results from suicides, which must not be overlooked, since they account for the deaths of 43 000 people and for injuries to around 700 000 people each year.
The direct financial cost of treatment is ECU 7.7 billion, while the total cost of injuries amounts to ECU 23 billion, which does not include the cost resulting from deaths.
The need for a programme of prevention and epidemiological monitoring of injuries at a European Union level is all too evident.
It remains for us to examine whether the programme, as it has been formulated, is effective.
<P>
The Commission identified particular areas as spheres of action, such as accidents to children at school and suicides, with intentional self-inflicted injuries as a sub-category.
However, there is no reason to exclude other age groups, such as for example adults who injure themselves in the home or during their free time.
It would also be a good idea to include injuries caused by the actions of a third person and those arising from cases of people who attempt to injure themselves.
For this reason, it is proposed that a distinction be made between a) intentional and unintentional injuries, with special reference to vulnerable categories, and b) suicides and self-inflicted injuries.
Moreover, we must include in the vulnerable categories those women who, with their children, receive injuries as a result of violence.
<P>
In parallel, there must be action on behalf of those injured as a result of violence during sports events.
With an epidemiological study, injuries and suicides could be recorded and analysed statistically, over time, and according to age group and category. As a result, the causes will become clear and subsequent actions will be based upon the findings of the analyses.
<P>
The programme consequently focuses on the possibility of collating and processing all the relevant data.
Such a scheme, the EHLASS scheme, already exists and has yielded results, on the one hand pinpointing certain products which are implicated in accidents and, on the other, undertaking information and awareness campaigns.
Unfortunately the Commission did not incorporate this scheme into its proposal, although it would be very useful in achieving the goals of the programme.
For this reason I regard it as imperative that the EHLASS scheme be incorporated into the programme and that it form the basis for the development of actions with regard to both intentional and unintentional injuries. Moreover, the scheme should be expanded and coordinated with other networks that may ensue.
<P>
With regard to suicides and self-inflicted injuries, a different system of collating and processing information is needed, and intervention actions require a different approach.
The reason is that the causes of suicides and the necessary preventive measures are completely different from those of accidental injuries.
The only common features are the injuries, the deaths, the treatments and the financial burden.
<P>
The programme being created must address itself to the challenge posed by the problem.
The Commission is proposing only ECU 1.3 million for 1999 and I regard this as totally inadequate in relation to the aims of the programme.
For this reason it is proposed that the financial framework for 1999-2003 should comprise ECU 14 million.
<P>
We believe that this programme, as changed by our amendments, will play a fundamental role in protecting the health of the citizens of Europe, by significantly reducing the number of deaths and the financial losses caused by the injuries to which it refers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=291 NAME="Viceconte">
<SPEAKER ID=292 NAME="Cabrol">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this is a very important document from the Commission.
It is well written, serious, clear and concise and highlights the priorities which we also stressed in Amendments Nos 1 and 2.
<P>
Unfortunately however its impact is limited because it only deals with the issue of respiratory illnesses linked to air pollution.
We fully understand the criteria which have led the Commission to choose diseases indisputably linked to obvious individual pollutants - those pollutants with the worst noxious effects and which are most easily prevented, and pollution where Community action is likely to complement insufficient action by Member States.
<P>
We have three main comments arising from this communication.
Firstly, we believe it is important to broaden the communication's sphere of activity, and here I would refer you to our Amendments Nos 4, 11 and 12.

As regards air pollution, and without wishing to detract from the role of traffic-related pollutants, the noxious effects of tobacco must be emphasized both to the smoker and to his or her companions - in other words the passive smoking effect. A large part of the population does not fully appreciate the dangers involved.
<P>
In addition to air pollution we should also address the issue of noise pollution: from companies whose normal working activities are very loud; from badly soundproofed buildings; and also from excessively loud music from some night-clubs and the high volume levels of young people's Walkmans. In addition, water pollution passes on infections and poisons; food pollution causes infections and poisoning, as noted in Amendment No 16; homes are polluted thanks to asbestos or paints and especially lead - which can be highly poisonous, as can the smell of certain paints and glues.
We will not harp on about pollution of the upper layers of the atmosphere destroying the protective ozone layer and resulting in an increased risk of skin cancer, as observed in Australians of northern European origin.
<P>
My second comment concerns the type of action which the Commission aims to implement in order to reduce the extent of pollution-related diseases.
Naturally the Commission does not seek to combat pollutant emission directly since this phenomenon has been the subject of other directives on air, water and soil pollution, amongst others.
In the present case, the Commission intends to act in a very different way, in four main areas: persuading the Member States to find out about the nature of the pollutants (and we would highlight our Amendments Nos 7, 8 and 13 in this context); compiling a register of pollutants; identifying them and evaluating their often serious consequences on health (both disease and allergies); and collecting relevant and comparable data so as to avoid confusion between the different terms which may be used by the Member States to refer to the same product or the same illness - this is the line we take in Amendment No 3.

<P>
Finally, the Commission would like every Member State to inform its citizens about the dangers of pollution, to ensure that people are clear about it.
We cover this in Amendments Nos 9 and 10.
It must be made clear to people that zero risk is not possible, that the dangers are not always those presented complacently by the media, but that certain personal habits - and I stress tobacco again - can be much more dangerous.
<P>
The Commission envisages the evaluation and monitoring of the recommended actions.
We fully support this proposal and would highlight Amendment No 6 in this respect.
<P>
Our third and last comment concerns the budgetary basis for these measures.
The current communication only allows for a budget of ECU 1.3 million for 1999 and does not provide any details of subsequent funding, although the Commission has been heard to promise ECU 1.3 million for the programme for the next five years, in other words a total of ECU 6.5 million.
<P>
We therefore oppose the amendments which would limit the duration of the programme, as we cannot imagine the Commission would allocate the same sum for three years as it would for five.
In any case, we consider this amount insufficient which is why we are emphasizing Amendment No 5 which provides for a larger sum.
It goes without saying that a much larger budget will be needed if we really wish to combat pollution-related diseases, even in terms of the actions presented by the Commission in this communication.
<P>
So, Madam President, we would ask all the Members of the European Parliament to vote in favour of these amendments which were approved by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=293 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
. (DE) Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there has already been in this House a report on the health protection requirements and a quite outstanding opinion was delivered by Parliament on the subject.
The Commission's second report also appears to me to be excellent, so that as a result I found the task I was given to be very difficult.
In addition, there is the fact that in the area of health, in particular, the matter of breach of the subsidiarity principle constantly hovers over one's head.
<P>
Permit me, despite these short remarks, to make a few critical points on this report by the Commission.
That agriculture makes a quite decisive contribution to the health of the population is undisputed.
Nevertheless, the Commission's statements here remain general and, in my opinion, incomplete.
<P>
Related to this, of course, is nutrition.
The Commission's statements on this do not correspond at all with the significance of this area in current health policy.
I should like to cordially request that in the next report, which will be available very soon, the Commission pays particular attention to this area.
Likewise I expect a statement from the Commission on the situation regarding vitamins and mineral products within the EU, before legislative measures are proposed here.
<P>
As long as we express ourselves in such a general way in terms of health, we can always expect everybody to be of one mind.
But as soon as we are specific, then the harmony rapidly disappears.
Let me illustrate this with point 10 of my report on the subject of tobacco.
We all know that tobacco is harmful to people's health; lung cancer, circulatory and heart diseases, cancer of the larynx, cancer of the tongue, cancer of the stomach and of the intestine are very frequently the scientifically proven consequence.
<P>
We all know that the nicotine from tobacco is addictive and we all want to protect young people from becoming involved with this drug.
Each of us has his own ideas as to how this can best be achieved.
It is only on how to reach this common goal that we are not at all in agreement.
Many believe that simply banning the advertising of tobacco will solve the problem.
Well, I share the opinion of those who believe that if a product is so dangerous that it should not be advertised, it would be much better not to produce it in the first place, nor buy it, nor sell it.
In no way should this product be financially supported and promoted year in year out, as happens in our case with the growing of tobacco.
<P>
I thus believe we should first submit a plan for a reform of the existing grant system, similar to that which the agriculture ministers have also already made a start on.
I consider it necessary to check whether it is possible to convert to other agricultural products and, thirdly, to check how and if the livelihood of many farmers and many thousands of families can nevertheless be secured.
<P>
I believe we should tackle the problem at its roots and in our case this is to be taken very literally.
<P>
There is still a whole series of other points which appear to me to be very important; for example points 22, 24 and 25.
I consider it to be important that the Commission is still committed to a ban on growth promoting hormones in the fattening of animals.
I should be very grateful if the Commission could impose the same health requirements on all food imports as those placed on Community production.
I also believe that the Commission should commit itself to a very strict atomic liability law, again in the interests of the health of the population.
<P>
If we take adherence to the treaties seriously, then we must see to it that in all Community policies, as it is so beautifully expressed, a high level of health protection is guaranteed.
It is a big job, certainly a difficult job, which we should regard as a challenge!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=294 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Poggiolini">
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, and the very few but highly valued ladies and gentlemen present, almost two years have gone by since this House unanimously voted through its resolution on Alzheimer's disease and related syndromes, urging the Commission to present a specific action programme for combating this terrible disease as soon as possible.
Unfortunately, there has been no follow-up.
There is no point in once more presenting one of this century's real scourges which, as it affects the elderly, will grow in proportion to the increase in the very high life expectancy that fortunately characterizes our present-day society, as clearly illustrated in the Commission's 1997 demographic report.
<P>
If current trends continue, changes in the European population over the next 30 years will mean that the number of people over 60 will increase by 50 %.
Alzheimer's disease is an irreversible, incurable degeneration of the brain mainly affecting those over 65, leading to a gradual mental decline until the sufferer loses all self-sufficiency, and leading on irremediably to death.
So we cannot fail to be alarmed at what has become a great human, social and economic problem for all Member States, with no exceptions.
<P>
The figures are dramatic and disturbing: at the moment, there are a good five million people suffering from this terrible disease.
Considering that 80 % of patients live with their families, and in the vast majority of cases the greatest burden rests on the shoulders of the families - and therefore the women - in the EU today, a distressing number of citizens are subjected daily to indescribable emotional, psychological and financial suffering.
Keeping faith with the commitment undertaken for those who are in the front line today, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, I once again call on the Commission to provide the Community with a specific programme for Alzheimer's disease as a matter of urgency.
<P>
We therefore ask that initiative-holding institution to present a specific programme against Alzheimer's disease, a separate programme from the public health programme in general and the relevant budget, proposing precise and specific objectives: a means to provide temporal continuity for the many projects presented every year by so many non-governmental organizations representing Alzheimer's sufferers and their families, within the scope of the Commission actions.
<P>
With the ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam and the new wording of Article 129 on public health, the Union has certainly given it a higher profile.
In the Fifth Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development for 1998-2002, in the context of the thematic priority of quality of life and the management of living resources, specific reference is made to Alzheimer's disease in the key action on the ageing of the population, which aims to promote the health and independence of the elderly.
<P>
To face such a challenge properly we need to try to propose remedies of all types.
So we welcome research.
We need to continue work in this sector, but we should not forget the social aspect of the problem, the more specific problem that thousands of families are combating every day.
We have a duty to answer those who are suffering today and those who, unfortunately, will be suffering tomorrow.
I am sure that, unfortunately, many of those present in this Chamber have known families affected by this terrible disease.
<P>
I would also like to say a couple of words about the Viceconte report.
On behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, I would like to declare my full support for the Viceconte report on the 1992-2003 Community action programme on rare diseases.
We cannot fail to agree that the Community should have a similar means of trying to deal with these terrible diseases which, precisely because they are infrequent and therefore have a limited impact on society as a whole, with very low illness and death rates, will have considerable importance from the economic and particularly human point of view.
We need effective means for diagnosis and welfare.
Unfortunately however, the pharmaceutical industry for example has little interest in this sector, as it is not considered very profitable.
In fact, from a commercial point of view the pharmaceutical industry has no interest in committing to research costs, given the low number of people affected by these rare diseases. They do not think there would be a market for drugs for rare diseases, so they do not conduct the research.
That is why Community intervention is essential, intervention with a high moral, social and human value.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=295 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Madam President, I think we must welcome the fact that we are debating such an important set of public health matters today in this Chamber, although it is perhaps a pity that it is during the evening session when fewer Members take part and there is less chance of other people listening.
Nevertheless, it is important. Starting where Mr Poggiolini left off, I must congratulate Mr Viceconte on his report and thank him for including most of the amendments presented by the other groups.
Mr Marset Campos will speak later on and will have plenty to say about some of the proposals we made in the amendments which the rapporteur has very kindly accepted from us.
<P>
Anyway, in the short time allocated to me I do not want to say much more about Alzheimer's disease than Mr Poggiolini has already said.
However, those of us who have seen this disease at close hand know how catastrophic it is for the patient (who does not understand quite so much) and, especially, what a tragedy it is for their family and carers.
So we agree with what has already been said here: we are convinced that there has to be an action programme, like in other areas such as cancer and so on. The Viceconte report talks about rare diseases but unfortunately Alzheimer's disease will be common by the year 2000, with 8 million potential patients.
<P>
It will be very important for the various countries of the European Union to share their experience, and for specialist staff to be trained. It will also be very important to investigate the causes of the disease, study the risk factors and stress preventative aspects.
<P>
If there is a worthwhile aspect to the European Union's work in the field of public health, it is that practically all its action programmes are directed towards prevention, to stop the disease developing.
So we stress that aspect, and also the need for help for non-governmental organizations and relatives who work closely with this type of patient.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=296 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cabrol">
<SPEAKER ID=297 NAME="McKenna">
I do not think that the EU has taken Alzheimer's disease seriously.
In 1997 it allocated under ECU 2 million to research in the disease.
Eight million people are affected with Alzheimer's in the EU, so in effect the EU has spent less than 13 Belgian francs on each sufferer.
A properly resourced EU action programme, like Europe Against Cancer and Europe Against AIDS, is needed to raise awareness about the disease and coordinate activities against it.
<P>
Furthermore, national authorities should examine ways of improving their services, and attention needs to be paid to improving early detection so that victims can be informed early that they have Alzheimer's and decide if they wish to be cared for at home or placed in residential care before acute dementia sets in.
Governments also need to understand that carers need more help and more staff need to be employed by health boards in Member States to provide carers with respite care, day care and other supports.
With more help of that kind, people could actually keep their affected loved ones at home with them longer if they wanted to.
<P>
This Parliament has to call for a number of things: recognition of Alzheimer's disease as a major health scourge within the meaning of Article 129 of the Treaty; establishment of an action programme to combat Alzheimer's disease and related disorders within the priorities of the new Community public health programme; recognition of the important role played by family care givers, Alzheimer's Europe and their national member organizations; and finally, the establishment of a European network and support for existing networks working with people with Alzheimer's.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=298 NAME="Flynn">
Madam President, I am very encouraged to see so many health issues on the agenda this evening.
It certainly gives me satisfaction that my promise to Parliament to present eight health programme proposals has now been fulfilled, and Parliament has been a very great help in delivering on the promise.
<P>
The three proposals for action before you complete the 1993 framework for action in the field of public health.
All eight health programmes for action in the field of public health have been endorsed by Parliament as priorities in considering what kind of public health policy the Community could develop under the Maastricht Treaty.
I hope they will receive your support.
Thanks to the hard work of the rapporteurs and the committee, the Health Council should be able to adopt common positions at its meeting on 30 April.
<P>
I wish to give the Commission's response, starting with the programme on injury prevention.
Excellent work by Mr Trakatellis and the committee is evident in the very high quality and good sense of the amendments, which will add very considerably to the potential of the programme.
In total, 23 amendments are acceptable to the Commission, either in whole or in part.
<P>
The five amendments which are not acceptable to the Commission refer to comitology - that is: Amendment No 21, which is not in accordance with the wording of the comitology decision; to the consistency and complementarity of the Community actions - Amendments Nos 10, 14 and 20, which are not in line with the wording used in previous decisions on the other public health programmes; and to an action outside the scope of Article 129 - Amendment No 27.
<P>
I turn now to the proposal on rare diseases.
I am particularly pleased to see the progress that has been made on a rather neglected and forgotten side of human suffering.
Indeed, support for the programme is steadily increasing.
Mr Viceconte's report shows that many Members of Parliament are convinced of the need for and usefulness of this programme.
For the purpose of the programme, rare diseases are defined as life-threatening or chronically debilitating diseases which are of such low prevalence that special combined efforts are called for.
In this area there is much that the Community can offer.
To make matters manageable, however, individual diseases will have to be aggregated to form a larger group sharing the same characteristics.
This provides the opportunity to undertake a wider range of interventions and to initiate coordinated actions with respect to patients who might otherwise be isolated.
<P>
The Commission can accept 16 of the 29 amendments, either in their entirety - Nos 3, 5 and 22; or partially - Nos 1, 2, 7, 8 and 9, 12, 16, 17, 23, 25, 26, 27 and 28.
<P>
The reasons for rejecting the remaining 13 amendments are as follows: 4 amendments are not acceptable for legal reasons, and they are Amendments Nos 6, 10, 20 and 21.
Three amendments are unacceptably limiting: Nos 4, 15 and 24.
Three amendments are covered elsewhere: Nos 11, 13 and 29.
One amendment - No 18 - falls outside the scope of the programme.
Two amendments are unacceptable because of budgetary limitations: Nos 14 and 19.
<P>
I should say a few words about the budget problem, which I know is an issue that Parliament feels very strongly about and has been referred to virtually by every single Member here this evening.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection voted for ECU 14 million for the years 1999-2003.
The financial perspectives as they currently stand, however, do not allow for such a sum.
Although the precise situation has still to be clarified - and I hope the budgetary authority will come to a definitive stand on this - there appears to be no room for a financial framework exceeding the ECU 1.3 million per year.
I am not hiding from you the fact that I am unhappy about the uncertainty over the future financial perspectives and the consequences that this has for the programme.
I can only hope that the situation will become clearer before a final decision is taken on the programme.
<P>
Let me turn to the programme on pollution-related diseases.
Mr Cabrol, the ever tireless rapporteur, I might add, has produced a valuable report on this subject, which brings together the main strands of competence of the committee.
Environment and health are indeed, as he says, inextricably linked, and action in this area by the Community is long overdue.
<P>
Turning to the 16 amendments, I would like to indicate that the Commission can accept five of them.
We can accept Amendment No 7 wholly and Amendments Nos 3, 8, 9 and 10 partially.
The amendments which are not acceptable to the Commission are as follows. Amendment No 5, which concerns the budget, for the reasons I have just outlined in relation to the programme as it affects rare diseases as well.
Amendments Nos 4, 11, 12 and 13: these broaden the scope of the proposed action to an unacceptable degree.
Amendments Nos 1 and 2 cannot be accepted as they refer to the Amsterdam Treaty which is not as yet ratified, whereas Amendment No 6 is not consistent with the corresponding wording used in previous decisions on public health programmes.
<P>
Finally, Amendments Nos 14, 15 and 16 have to be rejected because they are unacceptably limiting the scope of the programme to preparatory work only.
They would reduce the duration of the programme to three years, which would prevent us from achieving proper implementation and evaluation of the proposed actions.
Nevertheless the House can be assured that action started under a 5-year programme will be rolled-over to a new framework for public health and taken up in an appropriate way.
This was something specifically mentioned by Mr Cabrol.
<P>
I should explain why we pay more attention to respiratory disease and allergies.
Firstly, these diseases have significantly increased over the last few years.
Some Member States have acquired a lot of experience in preventative actions in these areas.
We propose to make this experience widely available.
We also propose to link up the most effective actions in the different Member States, notably through self-help and support groups for asthma and allergy sufferers.
This is not to say that other pollution-related diseases are not to be covered.
Parts I and II of this action programme address all pollution-related diseases, without exception.
However, specific actions on cancer, cardiovascular disease and communicable diseases which are linked with environmental factors are already covered by other programmes.
It would have been a duplication to address them here in our specific actions.
<P>
Let me turn to Mrs Flemming's report on the integration of health protection requirements in Community policy.
I would like to thank you, Mrs Flemming, for your excellent and very comprehensive report and your very supportive comments as well.
<P>
The Maastricht Treaty obliges the Community to ensure that health protection requirements are an integral part of the Community's policies.
The Commission has put in place a set of procedures to implement this requirement.
The annual report on health requirements shows the wide range of policies which are relevant to health and your report concentrates on the second report - the report covering 1995.
The third report, for 1996, has just been published.
<P>
It is not always evident how best to integrate health requirements in Community policies or to evaluate the health impact of a particular policy or action of the Member States on Community citizens.
Parliament's report points to a number of directions that future work can usefully take - you mentioned those in your contribution - and contains a range of suggestions and proposals for efforts in this field which the Commission is willing to take on board.
I am now giving you that commitment to take them on board in detail and consider them for our next report.
<P>
As the Amsterdam Treaty will significantly widen the scope of the provisions on the health impact of policies, I would welcome an opportunity to continue the dialogue with Parliament on how best to ensure that health considerations are adequately taken on board in all areas of Community policy.
This will certainly be an issue at the heart of our discussions on future health policy.
Indeed I was encouraged to see that Parliament shares my intention to launch a debate on the future public health policy of the Community.
I hope to publish in the very near future a communication on this very subject.
I am confident that it will provide the basis for a proper exchange of views with the institutions and will be circulated to all interested parties in the field.
<P>
I should like to say a few words about Alzheimer's disease since very many Members have spoken on this particular aspect.
The gravity of this terrible disease and its growing importance is still not fully appreciated by many policy-makers.
However, Parliament is the exception here.
You have shown through your initiatives in recent years to promote actions on Alzheimer's disease that you are in touch with the serious concerns of European citizens in this particular area.
<P>
Study after study has shown that we should be bracing ourselves for a significant rise in the number of people suffering from this disease.
This was brought home very much today by Mr Poggiolini.
We need to act now to anticipate the consequences for our healthcare systems.
Thanks to the money provided by Parliament for action on Alzheimer's disease the Commission is providing some targeted assistance for Member States and is helping to coordinate their activities in this area.
This was a matter brought up by Ms McKenna when she pointed out the need for better coordination in this area.
<P>
With regard to your demands to intensify research in this area, the political agreement on the common position relating to the Fifth Framework Programme for RTD attained at the Research Council on 12 February 1998 provides for precise, clearlydefined objectives and the first thematic programme entitled 'Improving the Quality of Life and the Management of Living Resources' comprises a key action on the ageing population, including patients with chronic neurological disorders.
It must be appreciated that the scope for action is rather limited as prevention of Alzheimer's disease is not possible and at Community-level there is no proper legal base in the Treaty to go beyond prevention and research.
That causes a lot of difficulties in planning a possible action programme.
<P>
But since 1995 the Commission has financed or cofinanced 58 different projects.
These projects enhanced the knowledge base, the exchange of information, the quality of life of Alzheimer's sufferers and gave support to their informal carers.
I attach particular significance to what we can do by way of better assistance and training for carers of those people who are unfortunate enough to have this disease.
<P>
From these projects models of good practice have been developed.
I got the very strong message that the sharing of this good practice - the rapporteur made this point quite strongly - should be part-and-parcel of anything we do.
That is what we are hoping to develop.
<P>
Finally, as to a specific action programme on Alzheimer's disease which has been mentioned by several Members - particularly by Ms McKenna - the forthcoming communication on the development of public health policy in the European Community will present us with an excellent opportunity to discuss the future place for such an action programme.
I will be coming forward with that communication in the very near future.
So we will soon have an opportunity - I think it should be fully exploited - to develop that point which has been forcibly made by so many Members this evening.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=299 NAME="President">
At the end of this debate, I have received seven motions for a resolution.
<P>
The vote on these resolutions will take place on Wednesday, that is, tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=300 NAME="Needle">
Thank you Madam President, Commissioner and colleagues.
We have just heard a very useful contribution which I am sure we will all welcome and can build on.
Can I say first of all tonight that I am tempted to suggest that we do a study on the health effects of always working in darkness.
Given Mr Poggiolini's comments earlier, perhaps we can make a plea to the services of this Parliament that we occasionally have a debate on health issues that takes place during the daytime rather than late at night.
Nevertheless we should welcome the fact that we have a joint debate of this nature taking place, and together with the debates we shall have on blood safety and on tobacco advertising over the next two plenary sessions, it will raise the profile of the European Union health portfolio quite considerably.
I know that this week there has been quite considerable media interest in these particular programmes.
Professor Trakatellis for example has commented on global television networks, and it will be very important for the public to know what is being done despite the empty Chamber tonight.
<P>
It is also timely that we have a joint debate of this sort for the reasons that the Commissioner was expressing during his comments, and I would like to dwell a little on why it is so timely.
It is precisely because the Commission is about to produce a communication on the future framework that will allow for action of the sort that he usefully introduced when, hopefully, Amsterdam is ratified, that we are able to develop these themes.
Parliament is playing its part - a committee hearing in October will seek to evaluate the programme so far and will then play its part in looking forward to a constructive interpretation of what will be the new Article 152.
<P>
The irony tonight is of course that however fast Parliament moves the implementation of programmes on rare diseases and pollution diseases and accidents and injuries will not begin until the evaluation has taken place, which shows the slow pace of development of programmes since the Maastricht Treaty.
Many pressure groups working in this field will contend that their priorities have not yet been properly addressed at all, let alone evaluated.
Such an occasion as this is an opportunity to say that public health deserves a much higher priority in the EU within both the Commission and Member State governments as well as in the Parliament.
I know the Commissioner and his team want that but we must help him to convince his less enlightened colleagues of that need, not least at budget time.
<P>
I also know that Luxembourg is a splendid state but that when the majority of officials working on public health are physically distant from Brussels that is a tangible problem.
I hope the Commission will address its internal structures again.
The decision regarding multiple sites was of course taken by Member State governments and my purpose here is simply to indicate the consequences of such actions.
Those governments tend to take a minimalist position on the European role in public health and on the whole it has been far too negative and far too blinkered.
Most if not all of the Members here tonight are committed to developing that role and I pay tribute to a succession of rapporteurs who have tried to make a progressive contribution to the debate, including those here tonight.
<P>
That is not ideological.
It is an expression of many health professionals and non-governmental organizations who are crying out for commonsense solutions to common problems across the continent.
Many Members here are being invited, as I am, to conferences, some organized by presidents-in-office, full of experienced rational experts who want a European contribution to international problems which cannot be properly tackled at local or national levels.
Member States often cite the World Health Organization as the proper body for that and of course it has a crucial role, one where greater cooperation with the Commission should be encouraged as Members here have often done.
But that neglects the growing economic and social substance of the European Union, the unique opportunity it offers to channel relevant action on health protection and promotion for its citizens.
This is not just a market: it is a community.
Its people have rights and responsibilities.
There is a moral, social, legal and economic case and a commonsense case for good public health policies to be at its heart.
<P>
I believe the Commission appreciates that and will soon bring forward ambitious and practical proposals for the new framework.
They will be more horizontal in approach, offering greater added value, and will provide opportunities for the EU and its Member States to work together far more effectively on health issues in the broader sense within the confines of the Treaty.
<P>
With specific reference to tonight's proposals, firstly Mr Viceconte has produced a welcome contribution to the growing debate on the needs of people suffering from rare diseases set against the background of other preparations, for example on orphan drugs, plus the development of research principles and priorities.
My colleague Mrs Marinucci will be commenting in greater detail on the specific provisions of the report.
But in each of the three programmes tonight we shall need to wrestle with the need to resource their contents properly and sustainably.
<P>
I hear what the Commissioner says.
We need to be realistic, the money must come from somewhere, it must provide useful added value to national schemes and be accountably utilized.
But the other side of the coin is that if we were to have another small European programme where too great a proportion is spent on administration assessment and the very people it seeks to help are put off participating by the lack of cost effectiveness in making bids or building networks, many voluntary organizations could not spare the time or resources to prepare those proposals and would simply opt out.
<P>
The rare diseases programme is aimed by definition at smaller groups, even at family level, often faced by vast bureaucracies for whom those sorts of expenditures constitute little more than a heavy lunch.
That is why it is worth fighting for more through this Parliament and also worth including consumer or patient expertise in the committees assessing the programme development.
<P>
Those amendments apply also to the excellent reports by Professors Cabrol and Trakatellis respectively and I do not intend to duplicate the comments on the budgets hereafter.
The Cabrol report incisively identifies ailments beyond respiratory conditions which might usefully come within the remit of the programme to tackle pollution-related diseases.
Taken together with other environmental actions which this House is pursuing this report represents a literal breath of fresh air for health policies and it deserves our full support.
<P>
I wish to turn to the proposals on accidents and injuries which I believe could offer the furthest-reaching impact on the lives of ordinary citizens.
Whether taking part in sports or just going about normal life, the number of European citizens injured, disabled or even killed in accidents is quite staggering and is recorded in detail in the report.
In that context the Commission proposal is wholly justified and the improvements put forward by Mr Trakatellis represent an excellent contribution worthy of complete support.
In particular the need to strengthen the EHLASS system of research and information sharing is fundamental and exemplifies the need for the internal Commission coherence to which I alluded earlier.
Last year I experienced its operation directly, having broken my hand in Brussels.
Perhaps at my age I should have known better than to play cricket and avoided the risk.
I may have represented a strange statistical blip on the survey carried out in my local hospital, but many doctors approached me later and said that they found the information from these surveys more than useful.
I have received other information on the results of publication of this proposal which suggests that there will be many unexpected benefits from this programme in industrial applications.
I like the scope and the potential day-to-day impact of the programme and the report, and I wholeheartedly commend them, with the predictable caveat on budgets.
<P>
Given the often erratic nature of care and treatment in Member States regarding Alzheimer's disease, the growing numbers and proportion of ageing citizens of Europe, and the evidence that increasing longevity does not always bring increasing quality of life, it is absolutely understandable that we should bring forward and demand urgent action on Alzheimer's disease.
What must also be sought is an agreed prioritization of the activities which has resonance within the professional, scientific and social communities.
We all have ardent advocates of various priorities knocking at doors with special needs.
We and the Commission must be able to justify a sustainable development of health policy priorities within a very clear framework to avoid accusations of emotional attachment and vested interest.
That justification is self-evident for Alzheimer's and now that the eight initial programmes are under way, if far from in place, it is appropriate to turn towards the future.
<P>
Great challenges are ahead.
This very week a major conference in the United States is expressing fears about the inability of developed and developing societies alike to combat and prevent the resurgence of diseases thought to be beaten.
Fears of blood and food safety arise almost daily.
Questions of diet and life style and environment and medical science itself will demand significant European responses, which is why it is important that we make coherent and consistent progress and is why the scrutiny provided by reports such as that by Mrs Flemming on the integration of health policies across the range of EU competence is so important and so revealing.
Its stress on coherent development and integration is essential and is exemplified by my concluding plea for support tonight.
Its recommendations on the long-term future of reform of agricultural policies, comprising almost half the budget, and in particular the aim to remove subsidies for tobacco production over the next decade, should be strongly supported by this House.
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This is not the night to rehearse arguments on the literal ills of smoking.
That will come soon, as will major debates on reforms of our agricultural structures.
The world will demand that and our citizens will expect us to fulfil our role as their protectors for a consistent removal of health threats and risks.
By rejecting all four amendments to Mrs Flemming's helpful report as adopted in committee this House can take a small step forward tomorrow and anticipate much larger strides in the months and years to come.
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<SPEAKER ID=301 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Liese">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the significance of health policy in Europe is increasing.
This is stipulated by the Treaty of Amsterdam, and that is a good thing, because for too long the European Community has only concerned itself with the free movement of goods in the single market and too little with other aspects, which are, however, closely associated with this.
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The question of subsidiarity is often raised, particularly when the European Union wants to intervene itself and should not just take the health policy in other areas into consideration.
I believe that with the three programmes which we have before us for discussion today, the question of subsidiarity does not arise at all in at least two, because with rare diseases it is clear that, if in a Member State there are only ten people affected, it is not possible to introduce a sensible programme.
If in the entire EU there are well over 100 people affected by the same disease, then it is worthwhile doing something and I believe that the added value of the European dimension is obvious here.
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I shall concentrate on diseases caused by environmental factors.
We all know that this is a serious problem and that many illnesses are associated with a high level of harmful emissions.
I have some critical questions relating to whether the present programme is capable of tackling this problem adequately.
I believe, and that is why we in the Group of the European People's Party have tabled amendments, that we must make disease caused by environmental factors a focus of a new health policy in the European Union and that we cannot only deal with it in such a small programme.
Therefore, we believe that we must now undertake preparatory work for a really major programme.
In this way a really strong framework can be produced, which also comprises all diseases caused by environmental factors.
In this way, there can no longer be any distinction made between, for example, environment related diseases of the respiratory system and environment related cancers.
These must all come under one umbrella.
Therefore, we should approve the corresponding amendments tabled by the Group of the European People's Party.
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It is important however that we do not simply carry out research and collect data; conclusions must be drawn.
We did that as a Parliament for example in the Auto-Oil Programme and we request the Commission to adopt our corresponding tabled amendments.
Smoking is also an environmental problem - at least passive smoking - and therefore I should again like to support Mrs Flemming's report.
It must distress you deeply, Commissioner Flynn.
Mrs Flemming makes such a wonderful proposal in point 10, namely that we finally cease subsidising tobacco, that reform is needed there, and you cannot say anything about it, because your colleagues will not let you!
Please carry on the fight for the removal of the tobacco subsidies: you have our support!
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<SPEAKER ID=302 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Parodi">
Madam President, I would like to make a few institutional points on the future.
In 1984, when I first entered this House, I asked for a sub-committee on health protection to be set up.
I believe this is essential today.
I would like to say, jokingly, that without health we cannot even build the Parliament buildings: so we ought to think of ourselves for a moment.
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I would also like to say, and here I agree with Mrs Flemming, that the directive on the freedom of movement of doctors, on reciprocal recognition, of which I was also a supporter, has failed.
We need to review this directive.
Older doctors find it difficult to move, so we need to think of investing in doctors currently in training, as the rapporteur says, trying to get them to travel in the various countries.
I would also like to draw attention to doctor numbers: in the EU there is currently an excess of doctors, an enormous flood, often holding university posts rather than dealing with the needs of patients.
I therefore think it advisable to study this problem, because we need not just medical graduates but trained doctors, and I believe a knowledge of the 15 countries could lead to high levels of competitiveness.
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Finally, I would like to recommend an examination of this Green Paper on health.
Please also note that the problem of the elderly needs to be brought clearly to Parliament's attention, by means of a study on the increase in the ageing rate and the fall in growth.
In ten years' time, it will be the EU's greatest problem. We would do better to remember that today!
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<SPEAKER ID=303 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Madam President, my colleagues Mr Cars and Mr Lindqvist will comment on the Alzheimer issue, and I would like to say a few things about the Cabrol report.
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I agree with the rapporteur, Mr Cabrol, that the action programme on pollution-related diseases has too many limitations.
We think more attention should be paid to diseases caused by noise pollution, contaminated food, tobacco and polluted water.
We fully agree with Mrs Flemming about tobacco manufacturing.
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We hope the Commissioner can raise the ECU 1.3 million set aside for this programme for the period 1999-2003 to ECU 14 million.
I think I managed to detect some willingness in him, but we shall have to wait and see.
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In conclusion, we submitted an amendment which deals with registration points for lodging environmental health complaints.
Such registration points already exist in the Netherlands and Belgium.
The advantage of such a registration point is that it can help to detect health problems earlier.
We do not have a new institution in mind, but we would like to encourage registration networks on a national level.
This will cost no extra money, which is why we do not understand why the Commissioner opposes Amendment No 13 by the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party.
We hope the honourable Members will vote for Amendment No 13 tomorrow, because it would be a good addition to the action programme.
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<SPEAKER ID=304 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Marset Campos">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I want to say that we are absolutely convinced that the reports presented by Mr Trakatellis, Mr Viceconte, Mr Cabrol and Mrs Flemming are appropriate. Our group, the Confederal Group of the European United Left / Nordic Green Left is going to support them.
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My fellow group-member, Laura González Álvarez, said just a moment ago that we are pleased that our amendments have been included in these reports.
I would like to give a few examples and then draw some general conclusions.
We have seen that it is important to stress the need for a scientific information infrastructure, a database, a surveillance system, and - since it is essential to be able to combat these rare diseases - an information distribution network, with the involvement of the relatives, NGOs and bodies which help these patients, so that progress can be made towards better cooperation within society.
It is also important to be committed to research, teaching and training in these matters. Finally, that means we also need to increase the financial budget in order to address all these needs.
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That is the specific basis of our comments: it is not possible to address these questions with the inadequate budgetary resources currently available, which calls into question the economic model we are constructing in Europe. We need a different model, an outlook based more on solidarity.
We cannot have it both ways.
We need to modify our existing model.
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Secondly, we need common instruments. It is incomprehensible that we are not implementing the surveillance network, a sound epidemiological system, and also the common instruments required for effective action.
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Lastly, I also want to point out the need for health services to share common aspects.
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<SPEAKER ID=305 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
Madam President, despite the limited number of Members present and the late hour, I think everyone is aware of the importance of this debate and the fact that the health problem is assuming ever greater political importance for the EU, although still not enough as regards the problems raised today.
Certainly, from the point of view of competence, the EU should try to coordinate the overall policy and, by adopting initiatives, promote systems that ensure prevention above all. Today's reports are headed in that direction.
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That there is a link between the various public health issues is shown by the fact that, in today's debate on general health protection, we are dealing with a programme concerning pollution-related diseases and rare diseases.
In connection with the latter, I would like to point out - for, like the Greens, we are in favour of all the proposals presented - the need for a high level of protection with regard to rare diseases. One way or another we also need to gain a thorough knowledge of them for, unfortunately, as shown by the report, the definition of a rare disease varies.
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We have examples of this, such as Alzheimer's disease. Until recently it was considered a rare disease; today, unfortunately, on account of the increase in the average age as well, it is becoming a common disease.
At present, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, linked with BSE, is considered a rare disease, but unfortunately it could become common in the future, owing to mistaken choices having been made in terms of prevention.
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It is therefore important for us to have a prevention policy on rare diseases, a joint common study, because the small countries cannot have an adequate knowledge of these diseases, and because we also need public intervention, public research, in the field of drugs required to resolve related problems.
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<SPEAKER ID=306 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Madam President, popular wisdom says, ' Better late than never' .
The European Commission, which from 1986 to 1996 allowed contaminated cattle and contaminated flour to circulate freely, is now concerned with the health of Europeans.
It is as if grace is still possible even amongst the worst of men.
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Today we are debating texts on pollution-related diseases, injuries, Alzheimer's disease and rare diseases.
We could have added emerging or re-emerging diseases, considering that free circulation is bringing back tuberculosis, malaria and viral diseases such as the Ebola disease.
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The Commission is intervening because Article 129 of the European Treaties assigns it the responsibility of ensuring a high level of health protection.
Doubtless the thirty individuals who suffer from atypical Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease would think Article 129 somewhat ironic.
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Turning specifically to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease - and my colleague spoke about it earlier - this is at present a rare disease but there is a risk that it will become less so, as others have done.
Leprosy is still rare in our countries, but perhaps free circulation will make it more common.
Moreover, the increase in life expectancy also makes it more likely that diseases such as Alzheimer's will become more common.
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We have been told it was not possible to increase funding and, taking into account the budgetary rationing policy, our committee proposes to bring it up to ECU 14 million.
Everyone would agree, even the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Budgets, who by the way gave the same report on two different subjects, which surely shows that there were certain difficulties during compilation.
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Turning to pollution-related diseases, Mr Cabrol was right to point out that people are only interested in air pollution.
This is the green neurosis - a fixation on nitrogen oxide, sulphur dioxide and the greenhouse effect.
Haroun Tazieff, who is now dead, devoted part of his career to showing that, scientifically, all of that was witchcraft.
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But there are much more serious issues if we consider food allergies.
On this subject, no one ever talks about the right to information raised by Mr Trakatellis, because no one knows if the soya contained in yoghurts is natural or the product of genetic manipulation.
There is no traceability, or if there is it comes at a high price. Here too the Commission bears its share of the responsibility.
The same applies to water pollution and BSE pollution.
Furthermore, Mr Trakatellis talked to us earlier about suicides among farmers, coalminers, steel workers and textile workers. Who is responsible for these suicides, Commissioner Flynn?
Part of the prevention may be to guard against ultraliberalism.
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Any lack of progress in pharmaceutical research on emerging diseases may be down to budgetary restrictions, or to the foolishness of cure-all medications which reduce the profit margins of laboratories.
As laboratories today are not able to discover molecules, and since it takes ten years for a newly discovered molecule to appear on the pharmacy shelf, it may be that by 2010 we will not have the desired medication to combat the rare diseases which may have spread in the meantime.
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Madam President, I will finish now.
With 40 million Europeans in poverty who cannot manage to take care of themselves we may have a very serious clinical indication of the disease of euro-federalism.
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<SPEAKER ID=307 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Marinucci">
Madam President, the EU's attention and commitment to the health of its male and female citizens is continuing to grow, just as its competence on health has grown from Maastricht to Amsterdam, even if many Member States refuse today to transfer competence in the field of health care to the EU, and may continue to do so for a long time.
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So for the time being we are still talking about prevention, but that is something.
We need to look at maintaining our physical and mental wellbeing in order to save suffering and costs (not only in terms of human lives) and it cannot be denied that prevention within the 15 Member States provides a real added value.
Although this is true in general, it is all the more so when we deal with issues such as those being considered in this debate on health: rare diseases which, by definition, reach a critical mass more amenable to analysis if monitoring, control, knowledge and research activities are conducted over a wider area than that of the individual states; or pollution-related diseases, a phenomenon that knows no boundaries and which we can only combat with coordinated joint measures at super-national level.
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It is a pity to have to repeat it, but unfortunately it is true that with regard to the problem of rare diseases, Europe has so far been way behind.
Some people say we should not always make comparisons with the United States, which are precisely that - United States - and therefore governed by federal regulations, with a federal institutional organization, a single currency, and so on.
It is a fact that the greatest economic power in the world has so far not supported and driven the action of its Member States in a field where a substitution of the private sector is hard to imagine, despite the fact that it has become increasingly clear that it is precisely the rarity of these diseases - diseases which are rare but seriously disabling and often fatal - that made it impossible to provide the know-how, the information and the scientific and economic means necessary to provide an adequate answer.
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When we talk about rare diseases, we are referring to more than 5 000 diseases with a prevalence of 10 in 5 000 in the entire Community population.
Owing to their rarity, there is a delay in diagnosis, which means waiting for 1 to 5, or even up to 6 years.
Think of the sick, of sick children and their families, families who have managed to fill the gap and deal with the institutional delay by setting up an extraordinary network of support groups, set up on the initiative of parents and relatives of victims of these diseases, who have often accumulated a whole wealth of knowledge based on their experiences and on the exchange of information.
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We therefore need to accept the draft Commission proposal on the adoption of a 1999-2003 Community action programme, which I hope - and I ask the Commissioner for confirmation of this - will be followed by a measure on orphan drugs as a natural corollary to this.
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However, to ensure that this programme does not remain at the level of good intentions, we need adequate financing, as rightly requested by the rapporteur, Mr Viceconte, whom I wish to congratulate on his excellent work.
Although economizing on health is always serious, in this case, at a time when the EU should, on its own initiative, be stimulating, coordinating and supporting the task of the Member States, allocating a symbolic, ridiculous sum would be a joke.
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The Commissioner has already expressed his regret and illustrated the existing objective difficulties, but I hope he will accept Parliament's support, for as a budget authority it has the right and the duty to adopt measures so that the programmes we are approving can really have the intended results.
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Allow me to say a few words on the Flemming report.
I have to say I am not happy with paragraph 10.
I totally agree with the need to reduce tobacco use in order to reduce or even eliminate the harm caused by smoking, but I do not agree on the inclusion in a health report of a provision that belongs in other programmes, relating to agriculture.
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For example I believe, as I have said in other circumstances, that we need to analyse the serious harm caused by excessive beer consumption - a custom in several EU countries - which is seriously harmful to health and involves great risks even for citizens who do not drink but who may be attacked or suffer the consequences of beer alcoholism.
I would consider it very serious, nevertheless, if a proposal to reduce support for hops were included in a health measure.
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<SPEAKER ID=308 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
Madam President, four important reports are up for debate.
Three of them concern programmes to prevent accidents, rare diseases and pollution-related diseases and the fourth is about the health aspects of EU policies.
I regard the latter two reports as the most important.
All pollution-related diseases must be included, so that people clearly see causes and connections.
Asthma and allergies are on the increase, especially among the young.
It is important to prevent and avoid disease.
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I have two questions. One is whether we should really deal with issues like early warning systems at the EU level.
The other is whether we should really set up information databases at the European level.
I think not. I think it would be better to do this at the national level instead.
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The most important thing is to describe the health effects of the EU's own programmes and measures, and to permit Member States who wish to do so to keep their environmental requirements if they are tougher than those of the EU.
I think it is good to have variety in the different systems.
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<SPEAKER ID=309 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lannoye">
Madam President, as I have very little time, I will direct my remarks to the Cabrol report.
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We are all aware from numerous recent scientific publications that pollution-related diseases are constantly on the increase.
A report published less than two years ago by the European Environment Agency and WHO-Europe concluded that there was an increase in not only respiratory illnesses, but a whole series of other diseases.
Here I am thinking in particular of diseases linked to food contamination, such as zoonosis diseases, salmonella and infectious enteritis.
The fact that these diseases are on the increase is very worrying.
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That is why I regret, like the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, that the Commission will not extend the programme's field of action beyond allergies and respiratory illnesses, because many problems linked to the environment would warrant equally close attention.
Even if the relationship between cause and effect is not very obvious I think we cannot remain indifferent to phenomena as serious as the increase in sterility which is clearly manifested in some countries, mine included.
Studies confirm that sterility is on the increase amongst young people, which places a heavy burden on health expenditure since sterility results in recourse to in vitro fertilization.
We are relentlessly pursuing technology despite all the evidence, and we must stop it at all costs.
It would be infinitely better to take preventative action.
And I believe that thanks to its size and to the means generally available to its Member States, the European Union is better able to tackle this task than our individual countries.
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<SPEAKER ID=310 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Aparicio Sánchez">
Madam President, Commissioner, allow me to start by making a general comment.
If we want our Union to be a political union - and I am sure that is what the people of Europe want - let us strengthen our internal policies.
To attain that longed-for European Union, we need to overcome the current weakness of the common policies other than EMU and CAP.
And we need to overcome that weakness by means of the budgets, the political will of the Council, debates such as this evening's, and pressure from the Commission, which is what I am respectfully but firmly requesting from you, Commissioner.
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There is no better example of this weakness in our internal policies than our health policies.
For that reason, and because health has officially been an area of EU competence ever since the Treaty on European Union (without detriment to the principle of subsidiarity), we welcome the Commission's very timely initiatives, which complete the eight areas for action mentioned in its own 1983 definition. We also welcome the very well-aimed reports being discussed here tonight.
We think the amendments improve the Commission's initiatives.
In some cases this is because of the high incidence of, for example, the injuries or illnesses caused by pollution, or Alzheimer's disease. In other cases, in contrast, it is because some diseases are so rare that they are below the threshold where their research, statistical study and so on become socially profitable.
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So, these are some examples of what the joint work of the Commission and Parliament should be, in the search for a final objective.
There are serious differences.
There is the difference in timescales, for one thing.
We would say that such relatively modest programmes of this type should be funded for five years, never for one year.
Are the financial perspectives going to start from scratch?
Surely like that they will be committed right from the start?
So let us specify five-year programmes.
For another thing, there are quantitative differences in the budgets.
I think the Commission is reducing the general budgets to less than half by planning one-year budgets, by means of reducing the objectives.
All I will say is that the city council of any large European city devotes more budgetary resources to programmes like this than the Commission does.
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So, by accepting and standing up for adequate budgets for these deserving and timely programmes, we are strengthening health policy. In so doing, we are reinforcing internal policy and fulfilling that historic mission being requested of the Commission and Parliament - to build the political union, the European Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=311 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Filippi">
Madam President, I would like to raise a problem that has already been mentioned.
When we are talking about protecting the health of our citizens, with particular reference to the quality of foodstuffs and agriculture in general, we need to overcome the schizophrenia which sometimes exists within the Community Institutions, between the actions of the economic committees on the one hand and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection on the other. This is because greater cooperation and better coordination of actions at these different levels may also produce a better protection not just of production but also of citizens' health.
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In this connection, it seems to me that the Flemming report endeavours to find this balance.
Other speeches we have heard do not seem to have the same sensitivity.
I am referring in particular to the speech made by the official spokesman of the Group of the Party of European Socialists. A month ago, on behalf of his group, he proposed the liberalization of soft drugs, and this evening he has suggested suspending aid for tobacco producers.
This seems to me to be a more typical example of schizophrenia.
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I believe that by approving the amendment to paragraph 10 (proposed by myself and colleagues in the Group of the European People's Party), we will find this balance even better. I am sure the rapporteur will accept this amendment as a positive contribution to a statement already made in her report.
I have to say that, personally, I would also prefer paragraph 12 to be withdrawn, because it is clearly contradictory to what was approved by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
We will be able to come back to these issues soon.
For example, I would have preferred advertising to be prohibited, but with the Member States nevertheless retaining the possibility of exercising discipline over the sponsorship of major sports events.
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To conclude, it seems to me that we should find a better way of working, in the interests of producers and for the protection of consumer health.
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<SPEAKER ID=312 NAME="Hyland">
Madam President, with regard to Alzheimer's disease I am especially pleased that Parliament has been able, even in a small way, to play a role with regard to this major health scourge.
Adopting a new budget line meant that specific funding was provided to combat this disease.
But this can only be regarded as a first step in the fight against this disease.
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The commitment in the Amsterdam Treaty to preventing human illness and disease goes even further than the present Treaty and is therefore to be welcomed.
The way in which the Community responds to Alzheimer's disease will be a further test of this new commitment.
I urge the Council of Ministers and the Commission not to let us down in this regard.
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I would like to ask the Commission specifically to state what action, if any, is envisaged for research under the Fifth Framework Programme to fight Alzheimer's disease.
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I have two final points.
Firstly, we in the UPE Group are calling for a specific five-year EU action programme to combat this disease, backed-up with adequate resources.
Secondly, the Commission must coordinate future and past research results relating to the disease and be prepared to coordinate with the World Health Organization associations and organizations active in this sector, including families and carers.
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<SPEAKER ID=313 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cars">
Madam President, what Parliament wants to achieve with its resolution on dementia is to involve the European Union more, including financially, in the fight against Alzheimer's disease and other dementia diseases.
As Parliament maintains, it is important that the EU's efforts can be aimed at all forms of dementia including, for example, vascular dementia and frontal lobe dementia.
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Finding cures for dementia diseases is the main task of research, but until this happens research must also seek to develop methods to enable those suffering from dementia to retain as much as possible of their normal functions for as long as possible.
Other tasks include developing methods for relatives and carers to relate to those suffering from dementia so that for all concerned existence is given life and meaning.
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<SPEAKER ID=314 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Madam President, let me make four comments during my one minute.
Firstly, the example of BSE shows how quickly rare diseases can develop into catastrophes.
Secondly, one can see from the arrogance of the Commission how quickly it can foster that kind of development, because we received notice that research on BSE had to wait until it was considered appropriate to put together a programme for rare diseases.
Thirdly, when it is a question of rare diseases, industry is not interested, because one to one million is not worthwhile for a medicine.
Fourthly, consequently, we urgently need a programme at European level, which researches these rare diseases and gets to grips with them, thus limiting the possible impact, namely an epidemic, as we have seen in the case of BSE.
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<SPEAKER ID=315 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Madam President, I would like to focus attention on Mrs Flemming's report on a uniform approach to health protection as part of Community policy.
The report is basically on the right track in calling for better coordination and closer ties in health policy as part of the EU's other policies.
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The Amsterdam Treaty, as has been said here, will give more weight to questions of public health than at present.
This aspect of that Treaty should be exploited, so that it will have a genuine influence on promoting health in the Member States in a broader sense.
In that way we would have to adopt a more systematic and far more integrated strategy than now, one that is comprehensive and all-embracing.
The health question should permeate all Community policy.
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There is a clear relationship between health and equality.
We know that the socially excluded and less well-off become ill more often than the well-heeled and better educated.
This is obviously also a question of education, one that is linked to diet and living habits, but still more a question of economics.
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Europe is ageing.
What effects this will have on different policies, and how we are going to allocate financial resources in the area of health care, are vital questions for the future, not just for the European Union, but particularly for the Member States individually.
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The EU should be able to prioritize those factors that are essentially European.
How to achieve the best added value component for the national effort: that should be the European policy.
There should be a clear view on what is important and what is less so.
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So although I understand how important the programmes concerned with specific diseases are, I would like to stress how vital it also is for the Commission in the future, in the formulation of its public health programme, to promote health at national level by means of a structured health policy; in other words, by addressing questions of social policy, such as how efficient agriculture is, how different pesticides are used, which is to say, should more ecological prudence be applied?
And how are traffic policy, employment, social exclusion and the rest dealt with?
These, I believe, are important structural matters, all of which are relevant to the question of health policy.
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<SPEAKER ID=316 NAME="Whitehead">
Madam President, I wish to make a few remarks and address a few questions to the Commissioner with regard to the Trakatellis report.
My guilt at not hearing Mr Trakatellis is slightly mollified by the fact that he is not here to hear me.
I will go straight into the core of what my questions are.
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As I understand it, we have a proposal which may both rescue and prolong the EHLASS project and incorporate it into the injury prevention programme.
That would mean an end to some duplication of resources between two of the directorates and it would put a greater onus on the Member States to contribute 50 %, instead of 20 % of the cost of this project.
My questions to the Commission - and I know he will answer them in his usual genial way - really relate to how this funding package will work.
I very much welcome the proposal, because if we can guarantee the life of EHLASS for another five years, for the duration of the injury prevention programme, that will be an extremely good thing.
I feel that we will then have a database of the kind we need for the reporting of home and leisure accidents.
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The problem is that there is really no indication of exactly where the ECU 7 million involved is coming from.
Is it to come from the two directorates?
Is it to be from one rather than the other?
Have the Member States been canvassed as to the extent to which they are prepared to make the contribution of 50 % which is needed?
It would be nice to have answers to those questions, because one of the problems is that, given the current base for EHLASS has already ended, neither the injury prevention scheme nor the legal framework for consumer policy, on which I would like to see this based, will actually begin until 1999.
In those circumstances, one wonders how we can launch this integrated scheme in 1998.
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There was some objection from some of the Member States, notably Germany and, to a lesser extent, France, to the introduction of the EHLASS scheme in the first instance.
I had the job two years ago of monitoring how this scheme was operating for the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, and I came to the conclusion that it was a worthwhile scheme and we should continue with it.
We can only continue with it on the basis of a sound calculation about funding and a clear indication of where the responsibilities lie.
I can think of no better hands to put it in than Commissioner Flynn's, but I would like answers to these questions.
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<SPEAKER ID=317 NAME="Malone">
Madam President, I would like to confine my remarks to Alzheimer's disease.
We know, and we have heard here this evening, that many thousands of our citizens suffer from this disease and related syndrome throughout the European Union.
The Commission should come forward now with the European-wide action programme on Alzheimer's disease.
The Commission has already produced much-needed initiatives against cancer, pollution-related diseases, rare diseases, AIDS and smoking, on the basis of existing public health competencies.
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Unfortunately on Alzheimer's disease it does no more than finance research and this is just not good enough.
We need the research but you must go further, Mr Commissioner.
You should draw up a European-wide action programme against Alzheimer's disease.
This programme would include strategies for intensifying research into the causes of the disease, for identification of risk factors, for prevention and treatment and for encouraging specific training of health and geriatric care staff.
It should also aim to change negative public perceptions of the disease.
You should make sure that you use all the budget that is set aside each year already under the existing programme.
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An Alzheimer's action programme would be of enormous benefit to the many thousands of Europeans suffering from this disease.
Not only are the interests of the patients afforded insufficient attention but also the carers of these patients are in many cases totally ignored.
My own experience in Ireland is that the real needs of the many thousands of people, mainly women, who care for our 25 000 or so sufferers of Alzheimer's disease, are neglected.
It is disgraceful for instance that they are meanstested for the carers allowance.
I would like to see this situation immediately eased and I have made representations to the relevant minister in this regard.
<P>
Finally, small programmes and small initiatives can be very useful.
I have recently seen a programme in a hospital in Dublin, Blanchardstown, where pet dogs are taken in to meet these patients and that has a fantastic therapeutic effect.
We should encourage this sort of therapeutic action throughout Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=318 NAME="Flynn">
Thank you Madam President.
Could I just very briefly sum up because I really went through many of the points that have been raised in some detail in my first contribution.
I know I took some time with it, but it was in the hope that I would give a general overview of what we thought of the three programmes and also of Mrs Flemming's report and the question about Alzheimer's.
<P>
I have to say that one has to be very encouraged by the quality of the debate in the House this evening on this very important topic of public health.
Even though many have referred to the lateness of the hour and the small attendance in the House it certainly has not reduced the quality of the contributions we have heard and the earnestness with which they have been made.
Certainly there is a very strong commitment in the House to the subjects under discussion by those who have remained here.
<P>
I have little to add by way of substance on the various reports and on the oral questions, but I have taken note of the various matters and of what I would regard as the underlying messages which have come through in the various interventions.
They have been similar in many ways but they are worth taking note of because we have to consider them very carefully in the next important period, when we will be considering the next framework insofar as public health matters are concerned.
<P>
A lot of the interventions focused on taking a very serious view of and putting a very high priority on the provisions of public health which were set out both in the Maastricht and in the Amsterdam Treaties, and I would like to think that perhaps in the next framework we could take a rather wide interpretation of what is involved in the Amsterdam Treaty in preparing our new framework.
I take particular note of what Mr Needle said, that a new framework certainly needs to be put in place but that it is going to cost money.
<P>
When the eight programmes were given the envelope of money, the money was all gone.
The first three or four programmes really mopped up all the money and left virtually nothing for the three hugely important programmes we are talking about now.
But I am not put off by that, because even though the amount of money available is small and even though it is only for the year and on a yearly basis, we should make a start and get on with it, so that when the financial perspectives are being considered again we can show that we had the right attitude, that the programmes were substantial, and that the fact that the money was not there means that if we get it at a later date we can take the actions that we talked about.
I shall say more about that in a moment.
<P>
You endorsed the view that the European Community and the institutions can endow a real value added to what is being done in the Member States, and really that is what we are talking about here.
We know the Member States have the prime responsibility insofar as health provision and care are concerned, but what we should do is to focus on issues with a Community-wide basis that citizens are particularly concerned about, so that we can coordinate the best actions and exercises in the Member States and give the lead in that regard.
That can be the added value we can get from these programmes, even though they are small in terms of money now.
Maybe that can be changed by good intention and good practice in what we do insofar as the framework is concerned.
<P>
The House has indicated very genuine and encouraging support for the eight public health promotion programmes that we have.
We developed those under Article 128 of the Maastricht Treaty.
All the members who spoke - and indeed I myself - share the feeling that the current restrictions on budget do not allow the Community to do all that it could and should do.
Let us be clear about that.
You want to see more done. That is a view the Commission shares.
There are a lot of things that can and should be attempted.
Perhaps we should set out the possibilities in the next framework programme as to what we should do, then put it to the Member States - set out what the Parliament and the Commission agree should be funded in the best interests of the citizens, then go for the money from the budgetary authority.
Let us hope that the budgetary perspective beyond 2000 will share that view with us, because your view is going to be shared and is going to be brought home very clearly in the communication that I have promised the House on the next framework.
I will be setting out what I think should be done with your cooperation in the areas you have highlighted this evening.
We will see what happens then.
<P>
Most of the members point to the importance of the next framework on public health and the need we can see there to expand the horizons substantially beyond those of the current package of programmes.
I would like to go down that road with your support.
<P>
You have made it quite clear to me that you expect quite a lot of the Commission.
I am going to take note of that.
When we come back to talk about the elements that we would like to see included and the kind of money we are talking about, there will be support here for that too.
We spend a lot of money on a lot of things here in the Union.
In fact, when one talks about marketing a certain product of recent times, more money can be found overnight here to do a promotional exercise for one product than can be given to the whole of the programmes for five years.
It does not make sense.
<P>
I can quite readily sympathize with Mrs Flemming when she makes the point, which she also made in her report, about the difficulty in satisfying herself as to the need to support dangerous products and give subsidies to them.
What she is talking about is the tobacco grown within the Union.
I have always found there was a contradiction there and I have made that point on more than one occasion.
The Union can provide almost ECU 800 million per year to support a product that is of virtually no value insofar as marketing is concerned and, at the same time, causes immense damage to public health.
All we are looking for here is a small amount of money to help to promote schemes and programmes that will greatly aid and enhance what people might be able to do to improve their own health.
I believe that the precautionary principle is a matter of public health and that we should pursue it in that way.
<P>
I notice that there has been a lot of talk about the whole question of Alzheimer's.
Everybody said how important it was.
I have to say that this is supported by the Commissioner and by the Commission.
The ageing population is going to bring about a huge change because this is a disease for which there is no cure yet.
I hear some talk when I visit America about possibilities in the future of developing some medication.
But, as things stand at the moment, there is nothing.
We are restricted, as I said, insofar as the Treaty is concerned, to prevention.
I take particular note that you are anxious to see the action plan, which was talked about here a few years ago, pursued.
Perhaps we could dwell more positively on the whole question of training of carers, and maybe, as Mrs Malone very wisely said, on changing the negative attitude that exists in many of the Member States as regards this particular disease.
<P>
I have made the point that I will bring this forward in the communication in the context of the new framework.
I recognize that the House is prepared to give the money to it.
The point was brought home very forcibly by Mr Poggiolini, when he said that the demographic trends are there, we know about longer life expectancy and we know that people are faced with the threat - and it is an increasing threat - that more and more people are going to suffer from Alzheimer's.
Until some remedy is found, then we should be able to focus on a particular illness like that and give a lead.
We can share the best practice and perhaps help out the carers and the organizations responsible.
I will be making that point and it will be for the two institutions to agree as to what we should be doing in the new programme.
<P>
Mr Whitehead raised some particular points about EHLASS and, as is his wont, he always focuses on a particular point of very great relevance, and he did so on this occasion as well.
The key point made by him on the funding was: will it work and is there an agreement to make it work?
DG V, my directorate, will be taking over ECU 7.5 million from DG XXIV to cover the inclusion of EHLASS within the public health programmes.
So that is where the money is coming from, and that arrangement will be put in place.
The money is secure from our point of view.
<P>
As far as the contribution is concerned, at the Consumer Affairs Council, Mrs Bonino, my colleague, indicated a reduction to 65 % this year and 50 % afterwards in an effort to try to spread the benefits of the scheme.
I also wish to say that the vast majority of the Member States have, on the occasions when it was put to them, expressed a clear will to continue the operation of the system in a more developed form and also displayed quite a lot of goodwill of taking on a larger share of the cost.
That commitment is there and was expressed by a number of the Member States when the question was put to them.
So there seems to be no objection raised against such a solution.
I feel positive as far as that is concerned.
I think that both Mr Whitehead and I would wish to see it develop in that way.
<P>
There have been many useful points made.
I agree with what Mrs Myller said about having a much more holistic approach to the whole question of public health.
That is what we will attempt to do in the new framework and we look forward to being able to discuss that with you.
<P>
Mr Hyland was anxious about the Fifth Programme.
Yes, there is some reference in a generalized way insofar as the fifth research programme is concerned.
Many of the other points are all worth referring to.
But I could summarize it all by saying that public health, as enshrined in the Treaty and widened in the concept of application insofar as the Amsterdam Treaty is concerned, is a matter of great concern to the House.
It is of considerable concern to me and to the Commission.
We would now seek to go forward with our eight programmes, irrespective of the small amount of money available to start them, and to put down the objectives we would like to see achieved, even if we had a lot of money, and then seek to try to finance them under the new financial perspectives and go ahead and do something positive in support of public health in the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=319 NAME="President">
I think we have had an excellent debate.
However, if you are in agreement, I have one last speech.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=320 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Madam President, I have a question for Commissioner Flynn. If he had applied the logic which he has now revealed in his speech, and which became particularly clear in his last sentence, to the treatment of BSE and that which fell under his responsibility, would we not have been spared much of the scandal created by BSE?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=321 NAME="Flynn">
Madam President, I just wish to say in response to that profound statement that before the problem arose it had been contemplated in one of our proposals, even in advance of the BSE problem.
If we could have had the Community network of surveillance and control which was proposed, and is still not finally settled, then we might have been more advanced.
I would still hope that a Community network of surveillance and control would be agreed as a good way forward to settling the matters you have referred to.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=322 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 11.28 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of Tuesday, 10 March 1998 have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Good morning, Mr President.
I am sure you will be kind enough to let me make a remark.
<P>
As I am sure we are all aware, today is a sad and ignominious day for all those people in the world who believe in democracy.
General Augusto Pinochet, who was responsible for one of the most brutal dictatorships ever known, and for the death and disappearance of thousands of people, both from his own country and of European origin, is today attempting to become a life senator.
The democrats in that country are protesting loudly at that regrettable state of affairs.
I believe this Parliament should do so too, especially in view of the motion we adopted during topical and urgent debate during our last part-session, which says in paragraph 1: "disapproves strongly of General Pinochet's intention to take office as life senator' .
<P>
Mr President, that would be a worthy gesture, and I request it of you before the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Mr Carnero González, the very applause of this House amounts to a second ratification of that motion, which expresses a view shared by all honest men and women.
So I do not think there is any need for rhetoric.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gutiérrez Díaz">
Mr President, on page 26 of the Minutes, where it refers to Question Time, it says, "Parliament considered a number of questions to the Commission' . It fails to mention that, because Question Time started 35 minutes later than stated in the agenda, the Chair apologized to the Members and the Commission representatives.
<P>
Mr President, I should like the Minutes to record that the first words from the Chair were an apology for that delay.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Gutiérrez Díaz. The fact that you apologized will be added to the Minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sindal">
Mr President, this is the first time I have taken this opportunity to raise a problem.
I know this may not be the right place, but I am doing it anyway.
Last year again, thousands of birds were driven onto land on the Danish coast because of oil slicks in the North Sea.
I know there is a directive on the way and that we are prepared to do something about this, but we must ensure we move the process on.
Action is required.
Three or four times a year, the Danish coast is littered with birds covered in oil because our ships discharge oil in our waters.
This cannot go on.
I would ask you to refer the matter to the Commission and the Council and ask them to get this process moving.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Sindal.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, I would like to point out that we have submitted over one hundred signatures in support of the urgent need for an exchange of views on criminality and I can understand why there will be no discussion on the topic this week.
I should also like to thank you for your letter to the Belgian authorities suggesting that the police presence in the area be reinforced visibly and that a police bureau with an emergency number be set up in the immediate vicinity of the institutions.
I would like to emphasize that security in Brussels is not exclusively concern of the PPE.
Any one of us here could be affected in the next few days.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
Mr Rübig, I have already told you twice in writing that it is not a question of the number of signatures. It is not a subject for topical and urgent debate because it does not affect human rights outside the Union.
There are some very serious human rights issues in the world, and that is what our topical and urgent debates are for, not for dealing with our own matters in Parliament.
So no matter how many people have signed the documents, I cannot accept them.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Assistance to the applicant countries in central and eastern Europe - Accession partnerships
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="Oostlander">
Mr President, many inside and outside this Parliament are rightly interested in the reports on enlargement.
I would like to stress that we here in Parliament see enlargement as an extremely important issue, an enormous challenge, the realization of a dream you might say. We therefore would like to guarantee that it progresses in the best possible way.
This means that we want to make sure that over the coming years - and it might be quite a few years before the entire enlargement process has been completed - the European Union institutions, which have to lead and steer this entire process in the right direction, stay together in every respect vis-a-vis their policy.
We want to ensure that at the end of the process, political opinions will have been continuously synchronized and as a matter of course, so that there will be no accidents, and so that the entire enlargement, and the accession of each individual applicant country, can take place smoothly.
<P>
Mr President, we have judged the texts, both the proposal for a regulation and the individual partnership agreements with this intention.
We have some comments which follow on from what we have said previously in other resolutions.
Firstly, we were a little surprised that, after the previous discussion, the political criteria which were rightly given priority in Copenhagen, were not given the prominence we might have hoped for, either in the regulation or in the individual partnership agreements.
That is why we have ensured that our opinion on this point comes clearly to the fore in the amendments to the draft regulation.
We wish to give the political criteria sufficient prominence, the more so because, since Amsterdam, a number of clauses have been in force which apply to the Member States themselves. These state that if the Member States are found violating constitutional aspects, which in fact make them members of the European Union, they may eventually be suspended.
<P>
So I think that we have to make it very clear to the applicant countries that the European Union is not a congregation of rich countries, but rather a congregation of constitutional democracies; that this is what it is all about.
Moreover, this is an extremely practical view, because how a country develops depends on the quality of its constitution and how its democracy is functioning.
We have never really had to discuss this amongst ourselves because we were all constitutional democracies.
The countries which joined us were either constitutional states already, or had recently become one.
I believe that living under a dictatorship for 50 or 70 years must affect people's intuition, particularly if the dictatorship they suffered under was a severe one.
<P>
Mr President, this is why we are tabling our amendments to the regulation on this point.
Yet we also said in the regulation that this is such an important issue and that Parliament wants to be heard when this regulation, the framework for the entire accession, is significantly amended.
This strikes me as a very normal and reasonable request, and we reiterated it with regard to the individual partnerships.
We experienced some disappointment in this, too, in that the primacy of the constitution is not presented clearly in respect of the partnerships.
<P>
We think that in the case of the objectives which have been identified for the short term, a few technical easily realizable targets to repair the constitutional state can be implemented.
They do not have to be postponed to the medium term, for example, issues like the respect for the constitution, the independence of the legal courts, equal access to public services, the rights of the opposition, and the role of the opposition.
These could have all been decided here yesterday.
There is no need to turn these into medium- to long-term targets.
But in some partnership agreements points like these have, strangely enough, been mentioned with regard to the medium term.
I believe in fact that the whole of Parliament would like to give this a more prominent position.
We are also in favour of developing clear strategies on human rights and the rights of minorities.
These are issues which you will have to get right both in the short, medium and long term.
<P>
Mr President, in the partnerships we also suggest seriously that Parliament should be guaranteed a say when principles, priorities and general conditions are substantially amended.
We therefore ask the Commission and the Council to promise that in this area we will be able to use our opinions to influence a procedure which befits the dignity of this Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, Mr President of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as Mr Oostlander has already suggested, we have in mind various objectives which need to be achieved in the various accession partnerships.
The first objective, already mentioned by Mr Oostlander, is to ensure a precise, thorough and very specific adherence to the Copenhagen criteria, to which I would add the decisions taken and the resolutions passed in this House - not least those dealt with in September.
Although we did not alter the Copenhagen criteria, we did add some very important, specific environmental and social issues among others.
<P>
Secondly, there is undoubtedly the issue - one which was a key element in the committee's discussions - of the exercise of our parliamentary rights.
And here I use the term "rights' not simply in the purely legal sense, but rather in the sense that we, as representatives of the European people, have a right not only to involve ourselves in these affairs, but also to decide which countries can accede and when.
<P>
Thirdly, - and this is an aspect which my group, headed by Gary Titley, has repeatedly introduced into the debate - there is the question of setting the tone, and doing so without delay.
That is why we were so inflexible on certain issues: it was important to show the applicant countries that, following last December's decision, we do not intend to become embroiled in long debates on points of order and on formal and administrative matters, but rather that we want to take a decision quickly.
<P>
Finding a common position from which to deal with these matters was certainly difficult and the subject of long and extensive debate.
However difficult things sometimes became with some of Mr Oostlander's motions, I do believe that we have now found a common position and established a common framework.
In addition, it also looks as though - and I assume that this will be confirmed today - the Council and the Commission, which are perhaps understandably a little shy when it comes to Parliament having its say, will be able nevertheless to approve our procedure.
<P>
Speaking from my position - and I have also found myself on the other side, where things look a little different - the following is important: these accession strategies must help us to avoid the tensions and overcome the divisions which exist in Europe in terms of the economy.
Although some countries are making an effort, in no way can the alignment process be said to be fast or effective enough.
<P>
Now to the social sector.
This is very important for us, since social tensions do exist, and there is a social model for Europe with different nuances and emphases.
We do not want to abandon this social model for Europe.
We want to make sure that the other countries too can and do implement our social standards and basic social rights.
This is particularly true, let me be quite open about this, for the border areas.
We need stronger cross-border cooperation, particularly to encourage those people who live in the border areas, and whose concerns are perhaps not altogether unjustified, to speak out clearly in support of enlargement towards the East.
<P>
Of course, it is also a question of democracy. In that respect Mr Oostlander is perfectly right.
Our group in particular has always defended democracy, freedom and human rights in all situations.
That includes Slovakia where we are currently experiencing particular problems.
We are not blind in one eye either as regards Slovakia or any other country.
We must give Meciar an urgent warning that he is acting against the interests of his people.
Even if he is observing the constitution, in political terms his actions are unacceptable.
I hope that this contradiction can be overcome.
<P>
Quite clearly, as regards these accession partnerships we want to give out a clear signal again today. Our will to enlarge the European Union towards the East, including Cyprus of course, remains unbroken!
We stand by it! We do not want delays.
What we do want is thorough and detailed preparation - the foundations for that have already been laid, and the views of this House supplement these foundations nicely - so that enlargement to the East can proceed quickly, but on well prepared foundations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Spencer">
Mr President, I wish to welcome the President-in-Office to Parliament.
As he knows, this morning's debate is the culmination of a three-month discussion between all three institutions, and we wait with interest to see what statement he makes on how Parliament should be consulted on the matters raised in the Oostlander report.
<P>
He, I know, will have drawn the same conclusion as I did from the second Oostlander report, which is that Parliament is capable of delivering a coherent and complex opinion in a six-week period of time.
<P>
It seems to me, if I might say so to the President-in-Office, that consultation without delay is no more than the courtesy which the executive of this Union, Commission and Council, should pay to the legislature of this Union, this Parliament and its sister parliaments in the Member States.
An opportunity for proper debate is all we ask before our quasi-imperial Council takes its decision.
So please do not tell me that, in the event of a political or economic collapse in one of the applicant states, it would be desirable or, indeed, politically possible to ignore the views of this Parliament.
Please do not tell me either that old lie that were we to refer this matter back for three weeks it would frighten the applicant states.
The applicant states are adult Europeans like us.
They know what is going on.
They, even more than us, value democracy and parliamentary democracy in their institutions.
<P>
I want to see in the statement from the President-in-Office an offer of the substance of consultation, even if he is unable to use that difficult word.
I want to hear about a proper procedure, a proper timescale and a proper discussion of Parliament's views before the Council votes.
If the Council wishes to avoid the inconvenience of a three-week referral back, it must allow the Presidency to commit itself to that serious procedure and to do so here and now.
<P>
So, please, Mr President-in-Office, I do not want to hear phrases like 'the Presidency wishes' .
The Presidency has telephones; you know how to use them; use them before we vote.
Parliament would neither forgive nor forget if we were subjected to a form of institutional treachery at the start of a 15-year process which has to be robust.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Caccavale">
I too believe that, at the moment, the voice of the European Parliament is fundamental in this process of expansion, in this pre-accession partnership.
I believe that the economic progress of the countries applying to join the EU has been talked about for too long, while, and here I agree with the rapporteur, some political aspects have been pushed into the background.
<P>
I believe it is necessary to return to the more political aspects.
We need to ensure that we help these countries effectively achieve conditions supporting the rule of law. We need to ensure effective respect for minorities and correct legal systems based on code books and on serious training for magistrates and lawyers who will be able to ensure observance of the law, obviously guaranteeing defence and protecting the minorities.
We need to recall, as the Oostlander report has done, that we cannot accept that the new EU, which will include these countries, will have room for the death penalty: that is not possible.
We also consider it essential for political progress and improvements to be made alongside economic progress.
<P>
The voice of the European Parliament is therefore essential at this time of accession, of integration, of the expansion of the EU and that is why we are asking you, Mr President, to ensure that our voice is taken into due account before the Council and the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cars">
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, Mr President of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the challenge set us by the enlargement of the European Union lies in determining whether or not we can shape the process in a spirit of partnership and without tensions.
It requires changes on both sides.
Whilst the EU itself has introduced the necessary reforms in a somewhat faltering and half-hearted manner, the reforms it is demanding of the applicant countries are complex and farreaching and involve a full calendar of legislative and administrative amendments.
<P>
However, both sides must play their part in ensuring that the economic and political integration of the countries of Eastern Europe results in a high level of social and economic benefits for all the countries involved.
Enlargement should not be limited to economic integration alone. It must also play a part in consolidating democracy in the newly independent countries and achieving greater social justice for the people living in them.
<P>
The first thing that we have to do is put our own house in order and really accelerate our own internal reforms.
The first step towards achieving this - as other members of this House have already clearly underlined - should be the mandatory involvement of Parliament in the enlargement process.
This would also mean that the reform would be structured in a spirit of partnership and that the burden would fall on both sets of shoulders, for we know that the failure of enlargement would not only undermine the economic and democratic development of Eastern Europe, but that it would also do serious damage to the image of the Union as a model of peaceful, economic and political integration.
<P>
For this reason, our task, the task of the Council, the Commission and Parliament, is not to allow enlargement to deteriorate and become a one-way street, but to ensure that it is a political success.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hory">
Mr President, the Group of the European Radical Alliance fully supports Mr Oostlander's excellent report, along with the amendments proposed by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
We are particularly pleased about the choice of a single procedure to be applied to all of the countries concerned.
<P>
The discrimination between candidates put forward by the Commission, which Mrs Lalumière deplored on behalf of the Radical Left, has thankfully been abandoned.
This said, I would like to draw the Chamber's attention to a point which I consider to be extremely worrying.
I believe that economic arguments are being given far too much importance in both the Union's suggestions and the candidate countries' motives.
<P>
The European Union is first and foremost a political project, a kind of community of destiny, based on common humanist values.
This project has its roots in history, from the time of the great network of European universities at the end of the Middle Ages up to and including the ordeals which have often, and recently, divided our peoples.
It will find its natural dimensions when it has encompassed the whole of the European continent.
But let me restate that European integration corresponds primarily to the preeminence of politics and culture over economics and technology.
Instead of which I note that the injunctions of the Commission relate primarily to privatization of the economy, running the risk of losing any idea of common interest along with public services. I also see that, in terms of the candidate countries already convinced by the most mediocre aspects of the American way of life, accession is being considered as a promise of material advantage and increased consumption.
If the great and wonderful project of a European Union finally reconciled with its history and its geography has to be thus reduced to some kind of continental supermarket, I fear that public opinion in the candidate countries, an opinion which was for a long time oppressed, especially in terms of its expression of national identity, will bring to light real doubts regarding their interest in joining Europe and that this scepticism will also gain ground in western Europe.
<P>
For our part, in the near future, we will not cease to remind everyone that the European Union is primarily the expression of a model of civilization based on liberty, solidarity, the primacy of law and cultural diversity, all put to use in the dissemination of our values.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, we are about to start the negotiations on the accession of the new states to the European Union.
At last, the revolution of 1989 has been acted on politically, and the isolation of a number of former Warsaw Pact countries seems at an end.
This places a huge challenge before both the new accession states and the present Member States.
The reasoning that countries such as the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary are the supplicants, and should therefore meet all the requirements formulated by the European Union, does not do enough justice to the position of equality between these new accession states and the European Union countries.
We will have to solve this problem jointly, and this means that neither should we be merely the supplicants, nor should we expect the new Member States to be merely the supplicants.
No, we will have to come to a solution for the economic problems together, in mutual consultation.
This is equally true with respect to preparing the new Member States for the acquis communautaire and for the environmental policy which is beginning to take shape within the European Union.
We will have to find the necessary time and dedication to do so, and this will not be possible unless everything is done by the Union to make it possible.
Mr Oostlander, and I would like to compliment him on this, has, of course, pointed to a number of important aspects, such as the existence of fundamental human rights, and the continued development of political democracy.
The idea of the rule of law will also have to be developed further.
We will have to keep track of the issue of minorities.
Only in this way will we be able to accept each other mutually, and achieve enlargement of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Moretti">
Mr President, everyone is aware of the importance of the decisions we are adopting today to prepare for the accession of the new Member States.
The economic dimension of the measure may be criticized, but certainly not the political validity of this Marshall plan for the central European countries.
Having said that, I believe we should have reservations about the legislative strategy proposed by the Commission, even if it risks being accepted by the Council.
The regulation we will have to vote on, and to a greater extent the proposed decisions relating to each of the applicant countries, are as general as possible.
The risks of deviation in the management of measures or of inefficacy are very high.
The echo of the grave criticisms made by the Committee on Foreign Affairs to the Commissioner competent in measures in Bosnia, and today responsible for relations with the applicant countries, is still too recent to be fully reassuring.
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But the most scandalous thing is the fact that Parliament has been reduced to a figurehead role and is, de facto and de jure, lacking in any means of directing and controlling a process which, with all the good will in the world, will be anything but easy, both for the applicant countries and for the Member States.
In my opinion, the Union should henceforth work on two parallel scenarios: that of the strictly Community regional policy and that of the regional policy extended to a continent of more than 420 million inhabitants.
How can we expect to define a reliable framework for the agricultural policy or social measures in a Union extended to the applicant countries?
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The Commission has promised us the wording of the new measures on structural intervention by 18 March.
Will we be faced with a real reform or with the usual hot packs and cosmetic treatment the Commission has accustomed us to?
Will the implications of the forthcoming accession of applicant countries be taken into account?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Henderson">
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, can I start by congratulating Mr Oostlander on his report, and by expressing my thanks to everyone who has contributed to it.
The Commission also believes that today marks an important moment, when Parliament is giving its opinion on a very significant part of the accession strategy, a pillar on the road to membership for the eleven applicant countries. They eagerly look forward to the official launch of the enlargement process, which will take place on 30 March.
As you will know, the same group of nations will meet next Thursday with the Union, during the first European Conference.
<P>
I listened with great approval to the words of the Presidency, because the Commission also believes that the European Parliament must be involved as closely as possible in this whole process towards the accession of new Member States.
At an earlier date the European Commission, building on the experience from earlier enlargement processes, already committed itself, where possible, to inform Parliament as closely, as comprehensively and as early as possible, both on the preparation process and on the state of discussions with countries with which we are actively negotiating.
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I am extremely pleased to note that after an intensive and valuable discussion there appears to be broad consensus on the procedures which are to be followed in relation to this.
Naturally, there is absolutely no difference of opinion on the European Parliament's right of consultation with regard to the basic regulation.
But in addition to where it concerns possible proposals for modification in the priorities, principles and conditional nature of the partnerships which the European Commission might like to make, I am also extremely pleased that when they are proposed to the Council, they will get to Parliament at the same time. As far as we have been able to gather from the Presidency, the Council believes and also promises that Parliament will be given a reasonable amount of time to express clearly its opinions on the matter - or this is how the Commission sees it - to see subsequently how, in close consultation with the Council, these amendments might or might not be incorporated into the final resolutions.
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I think this clearly reflects that the Council, the Commission and Parliament agree on the importance of the transparency of this process.
I would like to repeat what Mr Oostlander said on the subject, namely that it is a process which will stretch over many years, and in which not only this Parliament, but a future Parliament, the next Commission and the next Council would wish to be extremely closely involved.
It is a good thing that agreements are made about this today which will remain actively in force for the longer term, because, as Mr Oostlander quite rightly remarked, at the end of the negotiations there will also be a moment when we will have to see whether the time is truly ripe to offer full integration to the new Member States who meet the conditions and who have successfully completed the negotiations.
<P>
I would like to take the opportunity to make a few comments about the second Oostlander report, and in particular about the remark he made concerning priorities such as they were included in the drafts, which also reached this Parliament.
I would particularly like to underline that political conditions must obviously be given priority.
It is my modest view that this conditionality has been articulated sufficiently clearly both in Article 1 and Article 5 of the basic regulation.
But I would also like to draw your attention to the reality.
We have had discussions together about the political shortcomings, if I may call them that, of a number of candidate countries. The dialogue we opened with these countries on that matter, as well as what has been included on this in the present priorities, reflect in my view the vital importance of ensuring that the countries which wish to join, qualify first and foremost as democratic nations, nations which respect the principles of the rule of law, human rights, and above all the protection of the rights of minorities.
There should be no difference of opinion on this.
In instances where these basic principles are violated, the Commission will not propose even opening negotiations with such a country.
Parliament was also assured of this at an earlier date.
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In conclusion, Mr Oostlander made a comment about the issue of the short term and medium term.
Is it not the case that, particularly in regard to political shortcomings, we should aim for the short term?
That goes without saying, Mr President.
But what has been included in the partnership agreements under the short term priority are matters which we feel confident about, which we believe can indeed be realized in the short term, say within a year, and of which we believe that they can actually have some effect. The matters pertaining to the medium term, on the other hand, are matters which will need more time so that we can perfect them.
This is the background to the distinction made between the short and medium term.
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I would like to thank everyone once again for their input into this debate and the support they have pledged for to an early fruition of these partnerships. We hope that, on the basis of the legal foundation which is being accepted today, the Council will be able to accept the priorities, conditions and principles of these partnerships soon, or in any case next week, so that the partnerships can be completed by the time the official enlargement process is launched on 30 March.
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<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Christodoulou">
Mr President, we have listened with great pleasure to what has been said. I wish to believe, and I have no reason to doubt, that everything will be implemented in the way that has been described.
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In his excellent report Mr Oostlander requested the participation of the European Parliament throughout the entire accession procedure.
This has been accepted by everybody.
My impression is that the objections that have been expressed from time to time are the result of two concerns. Firstly, the legal framework, as covered by the legal basis provided for in this procedure, does not allow for consultation.
Consequently, another method should have been found.
Secondly, there is a possibility of delay, given that Parliament should have had a certain amount of time in which to formulate its positions and its opinions.
My impression is that, from the debate as it is now unfolding and to which I shall subsequently return from the point of view of the Committee on Budgets, both issues have been resolved. The reason for this is that, from what was said by the President of the Council and from what Commissioner Van den Broek to some extent confirmed, if we have consultation with all the characteristics of consultation but without calling it consultation, I think there is no point in our further analysing this issue.
At this point, Mr President, I wished to say, as an aside, that there is a general tendency to exclude Parliament in such procedures and I would refer specifically here to Mr Colajanni's report on the subject of MEDA.
I would hope that there too a procedure can be adopted which will permit the intervention of Parliament and its participation in the entire debate, so that we can remain informed throughout the procedure, since, having started out by endorsing the principles, we must also endorse the results.
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The second issue over which there is concern is the issue of delay.
I think that has been resolved.
We can implement different systems, some of which have been mentioned by the President of the Council. I will draw your attention to a system that we are following in the Committee on Budgets.
This is the system of the permanent rapporteur, who is in permanent contact with the competent services of the Council and the Commission. Consequently, the competent committee is ready at any time to present a report, so as to avoid delays and procrastination.
I think that six weeks is enough to cover the problem.
The issue, as it remains, is to ensure that what was said takes shape and becomes a specific and clear commitment of the Council and the Commission alike.
I believe, Mr President, that we should focus on the issue of commitment since, as we confine ourselves to oral assurances which subsequently take a different shape due to pressure from other members of the Council or other reasons, I very much fear that we will take the wrong decision if we endorse them.
There must therefore be a clear, specific and committed answer from the Council which must take the responsibility to convert what was said into action. Only in this way will Parliament be able to play the role which everyone agrees it must play.
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With regard to the specific issue of the Committee on Budgets, we have made certain amendments to Articles 3 and 5 which refer to the responsibilities of Parliament to the budget.
I wish to remind you that Parliament is one of the two components of the Budget principle, with special responsibility for expenditure.
It is therefore in the interest of the Commission and the Council of Ministers alike to have Parliament involved at a financial level throughout the entire proceedings.
It has been established that many delays and unnecessary debates are avoided when Parliament, exercising its responsibility by means of the Committee on Budgets, is involved in this issue from the outset.
Mr President, I wish to ask the competent persons in the Commission and in the Council to bear this in mind when they formulate their final proposal which, as I have already said, will hopefully be committed to the framework we have referred to, in other words consultation, which is not consultation in name only but substantial and full consultation between Parliament and the remaining two bodies of the European Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, the most important political point being discussed here today is the role the European Parliament will or will not be able to play in this entire process.
I listened very carefully to Mr Henderson's speech, and I must say I am not satisfied, as it was the explicit wish of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy that Parliament would also be officially consulted if there were any modifications to the principles and short and medium term objectives.
We are offered information, not official right of consultation.
Yet that is what we had asked for.
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On the subject of Bulgaria, I have two comments to make.
The national programme for regional development has not been finalized in Bulgaria, so it is impossible to demand that the regional structures required for this should be set up before the end of 1998.
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Secondly, we ask very expressly that Bulgaria be deleted from the negative list with regard to the visa arrangements.
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<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="Donner">
Mr President, as the time allotted to me is very short I will just say the following.
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Firstly, as regards the Baltic republics, despite their small size it has to be borne in mind that these three republics, and they alone of all the applicants, were occupied by the Soviet Union and considered part of it, as opposed to other central and eastern European countries which at least enjoyed formal independence.
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Secondly, security and peace in Europe, which is our main task, depends on finding a fruitful modus vivendi with Russia. This will be enhanced by the Baltic countries joining the Union.
It will not in my opinion be enhanced by any NATO enlargement.
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Lastly, I hope that all three Baltic countries will be able to join the Union at the same time.
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<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, it is a pleasure to present the report on Hungary, particularly in light of what has already been said.
Thank heavens, in the end, our discussions focused more on security and politics than on economics, because ultimately security and politics are the guiding force.
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Whether or not an economic upturn really is a possibility hinges on security.
Hungary is in the fortunate position of already having made great progress in this respect.
The documents I had to go through in the course of my duties as co-rapporteur revealed that since as early as 1982, when Hungary was still operating under a one-party system, its legislation has been structured in such a way that Hungary really can become a member of this European Union.
As a result we do not have the same problems in terms of the acquis communautaire which certain other countries unfortunately do.
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Secondly, Hungary has a long-standing tradition of democracy.
I was present at the first sitting of the Hungarian parliament.
I took a good look at the parliamentarians, and I must tell you that they were just as good, or just as bad, as we are.
They already had a long-standing tradition of democracy.
Governments have since changed without problems.
The parliament in Hungary does not include one single representative of the radical parties, either on the right, or on the left, and so it really is the case, since we set great store by democracy in this House, that Hungary deserves to be accepted into this Union as quickly as possible, above all because this Union is first and foremost a community with a duty to offer all its peoples security, because economic prosperity is dependent on security.
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<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="Caccavale">
Mr President, what Mr Oostlander has said on the general process of expansion of the EU applies to a greater extent to Latvia.
This is a great dream that may become a reality: a country where, until a few years ago, the red flag of the Soviet Union flew, will soon see the blue flag flying with the 12 stars of Europe.
It is a country that has made enormous progress recently: it has achieved a balance, it has reduced inflation, and it has almost completed the privatization process.
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Two major problems remain: the problem of the Russian-speaking minority and the subsequent naturalization process - the so-called non-citizens still account for 30 % of the population; and the problem of the judicial and administrative system.
Allow me to say here that what the Commission has written on the division between short- and medium-term objectives is not true.
It is a general problem, as Mr Oostlander said, for all the countries, but it is not true of Latvia.
We should be careful not to press too hard on the accelerator on several issues wrongly regarded as short-term that should be regarded as mediumterm.
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<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Kristoffersen">
, co-rapporteur for Lithuania. (DA) - Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when a Dane looks at the Baltic, it is clear how the sea is increasingly binding the Baltic states into a Baltic Area Corporation .
All this is a network which in reality is trimming and leading the political work, not least to pull the three Baltic states into a European partnership in the European Union.
Every day, we read in the newspapers and hear on the radio that new routes are being proposed for both passenger and freight traffic, and this is a practical expression for the rapprochement which also carries the political perspectives and aims for all three Baltic states, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia.
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As Danes, we also usually see the three Baltic states as part of Scandinavia in some way.
We also work together in the special Baltic council, and we in Denmark are looking forward to Lithuania taking over the presidency.
All this is in accordance with Lithuania's hard, determined work to put itself economically and politically and in terms of life as a whole in an integrated European partnership and hence also in the EU.
This is heartily welcomed on all sides of politics in Denmark.
No matter who takes over the government in Denmark after the elections being held today, we will be supporting these efforts.
The same clear will is apparent everywhere.
I also hope that the European Parliament will give a clear signal here today, so that the peoples and not just the elite of the new Member States really understand and realize that the EU is clearly saying welcome to the new members.
I hope they are not in any doubt about that for a second, for the new states are anxious for clear decisions.
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<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="Hoff">
Mr President, in preparing the accession partnership for Poland, I support the short- and medium-term priorities proposed by the Commission.
I would like to make a couple of observations about them. As regards the restructuring of the steel sector, the Commission should pay greater attention to mining; the two go together.
The Commission refers to the administrative reform whereby the number of voyvodships is to be reduced from 40 to approximately 10.
This is particularly important so that PHARE funds can be used and so that greater transparency is achieved in relation to where these funds are going.
It is quite right that attention should be focused on freedom of the press, the restructuring of the civil service and the fight against crime and corruption.
These are all important issues which need to be addressed in Poland.
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One important point is missing, Commissioner.
There is absolutely no mention of social policy.
We all know that this is an area where something needs to be done in Poland.
I do not just mean social networks. We also need measures specifically designed to deal with women's and family issues.
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In conclusion, I should like to make a general observation about the procedure, which really does give cause for criticism, despite the explanations you have given.
It is our view that the whole procedure should not be blocked, but it would have been better if you had let democracy prevail.
After all, that is what we are expecting from the applicant countries.
We have even made it an accession criteria.
Perhaps we should start by putting our own house in order.
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<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="Carnero González">
Mr President, I would like to make three points.
As has often been said, I believe that enlargement has to be followed by deepening and, unfortunately, the attitude of the other institutions towards this whole business is not exactly positive.
This Parliament has not been formally consulted about the content of the accession partnerships, which means we are debating a political opinion with no legally binding power.
So we must uphold this criticism, over and above certain intentions expressed during this sitting by the President-inOffice of the Council.
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Secondly, many of the accession partnerships consider questions of democratic principles and respect for human rights to be matters for the medium term.
That is absolutely unacceptable to this Parliament. We have always insisted that all the criteria are important, starting with the first condition established by the Copenhagen European Council, which relates to these essential matters.
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I now come to my third comment on the Czech Republic. As we all know, that country has suffered a major political crisis.
That is quite normal in a democracy, but it can certainly give rise to a delay in fulfilling the accession criteria when the time comes. Stressing what has already been said, we have no hesitation in pointing out two basic facts.
Firstly, the gypsy minority should be integrated in the short term rather than the medium term. There are still no clear measures, and we can and should demand them immediately.
The other thing to mention is press freedom and the reform of the judiciary. These matters should be included in the agreement.
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<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="Speciale">
Mr President, I believe that the main political problem we have to face is that of Parliament's request to carry out its role fully and the requirement that the rapporteurs for each country conduct their roles fully during the course of the accession negotiations.
This is the fundamental question and the Presidency of the Council has often reiterated the word "information' .
Information is a premise to count, to have an effect, but it is only a premise. We will have to see in practice how the European Parliament can have an effect and to what extent the opinions of the European Parliament will have to be taken into account.
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I am somewhat perplexed, however, over the replies made by Commissioner van den Broek to the objections to the division into short- and medium-term made by Mr Oostlander.
It seems to me that this division between short- and medium-term is still somewhat vague and imprecise.
Finally, I believe there is a problem of financing, of aid for the countries applying for accession and I believe it is necessary to grant this financing, taking into account the different capacity of each individual country to make use of it.
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With regard to Slovenia, it seems to me that this country is preparing itself seriously and so all the conditions are present for important and serious negotiations to commence.
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<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="Wiersma">
Mr President, as rapporteur for Slovakia I agree with the Commission's approach for the proposed partnership agreements with Slovakia.
It seems to me that the Commission has chosen the right priorities for the short and medium term.
We are having a separate debate in Parliament tomorrow on the actual situation in Slovakia.
This actual situation will obviously also be reflected in the judgement of our relations with the country.
Slovakia's political problems continue to be a priority, and dominate other questions which are of importance in the accession process of this country.
We hope that we will see some progress this year, or at least after the elections in Slovakia, but we will have to wait and see.
At the moment the country does not have a president.
The current situation is therefore not very encouraging.
The Meciar problem has been doing a hop, skip and jump of late.
I think that this issue will have to be given the necessary prominence over the coming months during the negotiations and during the Commission's contacts with Slovakia. We hope that the Commission will do so through dialogue and partnership, because ultimately what matters is not the interests of the present government, but the interests of the people of Slovakia.
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<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cars">
I would like to put a very straightforward and specific question to Commissioner van den Broek.
The question concerned whether the acquis screening was the same for the 5+1 and for the other applicant countries.
I would be grateful, Mr President, if you would ask Commissioner van den Broek to answer my question.
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<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="van den Broek">
Of course I would like to reply, but perhaps it would be better if I did so in my response at the end of this debate.
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<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Mr President, I want to express my support for the Oostlander report and its approval today because I think it is important in politics to give the proper messages at the right time, and the European Conference is just about to start.
Parliament should give a positive message today about enlargement and its own role. I should point out that Parliament succeeded in amending the initial Commission proposal, and gave the Council the opportunity to talk about a joint enlargement process, and an overall process with criteria to include everybody - in other words, breaking the distinction between the 5+1 and the rest.
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I also want to point out that, following the same line, I think we must act positively with respect to the strengthened accession process. I do not think we should see our role as a defensive one, like a critic or a Cato.
We have to support and accompany those countries which are conquering democracy, consolidating their economies and learning how to coexist. We have to act positively.
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Some of the speeches I have heard today sound as if we are setting ourselves up as a sort of grand jury where these countries are concerned.
I believe we should be giving a positive message.
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On the subject of Parliament's role, I wanted to ask the President-in-Office of the Council and the Commissioner to tell us the precise status of the letters from Mr Cook and from the President of the Commission, Mr Santer, to the President of Parliament, who will have to appear before the European Conference tomorrow. What I mean is this: as I understand it, these letters and the proposal made by the President-in-Office of the Council have the status of what the British call "constitutional convention' , in other words, a proposal for constitutional agreement corresponding to what we in this Parliament and the Union know as interinstitutional agreements.
I understand that if this agreement is ratified by the Council and the Commission, we have to accept it.
It has to be done with the due solemnity accorded to any declaration made in this Chamber.
And that should be the standard conduct and behaviour of us all, because I do not think it makes much sense for us to limit our action to a complaint, at a time when Parliament is making a positive contribution to the process of enlargement.
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If there has been a response, then that response should have an official status, and in future it should be the standard procedure for such a thought-provoking and complex process.
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<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Brok">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is my belief that the Oostlander report represents an important contribution by the European Parliament to progressing the enlargement process in a constructive manner.
We see enlargement as one of the major tasks in the years ahead and the European Parliament will undoubtedly want to make decisive contributions.
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It is also important to stress that we are not only concerned with the economic criteria and that we do not see enlargement as a purely economic phenomenon.
In fact, we are far more concerned with the implementation of the political Copenhagen criteria, namely, democracy and human rights, and with clarifying from the outset in this first round of the enlargement process that the European Union has a political dimension as well as an economic one.
Those leading the negotiations can count on the European Parliament in this respect.
This is a significant point as, ultimately, we in Parliament have to ratify the decisions.
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I am grateful to the Commissioner and to the President of the Council for the various clarifications they have given here, firstly in relation to the European Parliament's role in the process within the framework of the partnerships, but also on the enlargement process as a whole.
I am assuming that the Presidency's commitment is such that it will also be brought to bear in the Council.
I shall support it on the assumption that it will then be approved accordingly by the Council as otherwise there would be a crisis of credibility between the two institutions.
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I am also sure, Mr President of the Council, Commissioner, that both the Council and the Commission will discuss the outcome of Parliament's resolutions as appropriate. In fact, it might be a good idea if this were to be announced formally.
<P>
In addition, I have another question to put, Mr President of the Council.
What exactly is meant by an "appropriate opportunity' ?
Does it, for example, mean that the European Parliament will have a maximum of six weeks in which to discuss this information, or, as the Commissioner has said, will we be given sufficient time?
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<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Raschhofer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, bringing the applicant countries of central and eastern Europe up to the political and economic standards of the EU is essential if, in the long term, we are to allow these states to join the EU without at the same time damaging the legitimate interests of the Member States.
The accession partnerships with the applicant countries are the most important tool in ensuring that this is achieved in the most efficient manner possible for all concerned.
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Unfortunately, the Commission and the Council have once again taken a different view of the arguments put forward by Parliament on the form of the accession partnerships and as a result have rated several important factors differently to the European Parliament.
I cannot understand why the accession partnerships have not been structured in such a way that they could deal in greater detail with the particular needs of the individual countries involved.
It is quite obvious that for a number of economic, political and geographical reasons, the problems of Slovenia differ from those of Latvia, for example.
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In any case I regard a greater involvement of Parliament as vital.
It would appear that criteria which have been recognized as important and essential for the accession partnerships are temporarily being disregarded, or that the feasibility of farreaching and complex measures is being viewed differently.
I believe it is a common matter of concern in the House that this should be changed and that Parliament's position should be taken into account.
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<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, the enlargement of the European Union is a historic process.
These accession partnerships are the very cornerstone of the inclusive enlargement process which Parliament has called for.
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Given their importance, it is vital that we all move together.
The three institutions have to cooperate with each other.
I welcome the statements made by the Council and the Commission on this subject.
We must also work in partnership with the applicant countries.
Mr Cars is absolutely right; we should be working in partnership with all 26 national parliaments.
So important is this process that we must not allow ourselves to indulge in other bouts of institutional junkieism or go off onto self-serving ego trips during this debate.
<P>
Speaking in a personal capacity, I have been delighted in the last few weeks to discover that the British Conservative Party is now the champion of the rights of the European Parliament, although I regret that this has been to the detriment of their former commitment to enlargement of the European Union.
No doubt this is part of Mr Hague's reforms.
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We have heard some discussion of delay - delay by a few weeks.
My response to that is to remind Parliament of the words of William Shakespeare in Julius Caesar that: ' There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune' .
This is one of those times.
Or, to put it as the late, great Elvis Presley would have put it, ' It's now or never, ... tomorrow will be too late' .
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I would urge just one thing of the Council and the Commission: the biggest problem the accession countries have is the ability of their civil service, their administrative systems and their legal systems to cope with the acquis communautaire .
I would urge that we put maximum emphasis on those aspects of the accession partnerships so that they will be ready to join us as soon as is possible.
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Let me remind you of what I have said.
Now is the time, tomorrow is too late.
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<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Paisley">
Mr President, financial assistance to the applicant states to help advance the process of enlargement is clearly needed.
It is right, however, that Parliament should emphasize that the development of democracy and respect for the rule of law is a priority and that steps will be taken if any applicant country displays manifest shortcomings in this respect.
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Moreover, it is right that this Parliament should be consulted in advance concerning the principles and conditions for the partnerships which are to be established by the Union with each applicant.
After all, the European Parliament has the final say in whether an applicant country joins or not.
In widening the European Union rather than deepening it and in making it more democratic and diversified rather than more bureaucratic and centralized lies the best way forward for all the people of Europe.
The people want sensible cooperation and not dogmatic federalism.
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<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berès">
Mr President, I do not believe that anyone in this Parliament wants, or is able to, delay the great rendezvous that we are all awaiting, that of enlargement.
Nor can anyone, or does anyone want to, indeed nor should they, take this enlargement hostage in the cause of institutional battles.
This is not our intention.
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We are extremely pleased with the rapid adoption of the framework regulation and the decision taken by a qualified majority on this basis, regarding the principles and priorities, the medium term objectives and conditions relating to each individual partner.
And we are delighted by the Council's and the Commission's declaration of this morning, as discussed by Mr Enrique Barón Crespo.
<P>
Nevertheless, we must not let ourselves be deceived regarding the political significance of the issues and the debates which have been held here over the past month.
They are of tremendous political significance overall with respect to our role as an institution.
The European Parliament does not wish, indeed is not asking, to negotiate the enlargements instead of the Council and the Commission.
On the other hand, in terms of the political significance of a request for transparency, a request for clarity, a request for information, even consultation if necessary, on these basic questions regarding the future of our Union, we are clear. In this respect, Parliament does have a role to play and we must support all initiatives to this end.
<P>
Let me draw the Council's attention to this: make no mistake regarding the significance of the speeches and dialogues that you are entering into with us.
It is a question of clarity of European construction for the applicant countries.
It is also a question of the importance of the enlargement process to our citizens, for in the absence of transparency our citizens will not understand the work which we have embarked upon.
<P>
In conclusion, Mr President, let me take this opportunity to remind you of our commitment to the conclusions - all of the conclusions - of the Luxembourg European Council.
In this, I emphasize the following dimensions: firstly, the institutional precondition, of course.
On this undertaking, we await proposals regarding method and timetable, given the urgency.
Secondly, we attach great importance to the European Conference.
We are delighted that it commences tomorrow.
We believe its content is very important, in particular foreign, security and defence policy.
There is an urgency for the partnership and for democracy in general.
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<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Cellai">
Mr President, the objective of the many initiatives intended to form the basis of the enlargement strategy is that of ensuring that the applicant countries satisfy the political and economic conditions laid down by the European Council of Copenhagen.
This will make it possible to establish the bases for negotiations on a fundamental principle for the enlargement process, the opposition to any logic that leaves the countries concerned loopholes or exceptions in respect of the political obligations established.
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We know that, in the effort to provide greater impetus for this stage of approximation, the accession partnerships and the planning and assessment system constitute the basis of the entire accession strategy and that the assistance provided by the EU should fall into a new framework, an accession partnership with each applicant country.
<P>
It seems advisable for the Commission to introduce into the new accession strategy the so-called conditionality clause.
Granting pre-accession aid should be subject each year to the level of achievement of objectives and fulfilment of the commitments assumed and the state of progress of the national accession programme.
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The countries of central and eastern Europe should rigorously observe the commitments assumed with regard to democracy and human rights, the protection of minorities, the adoption of the Community acquis, on pain of suspension of the partnership.
Finally, I would like to point out the gravity...
<P>
(The President cut off the speaker)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stenzel">
Mr President, I would like to make two points in relation to this debate.
We are on the eve of an important development in Europe, the enlargement process, which will undoubtedly occupy us - as Mr Spencer has quite rightly pointed out - for the next ten or fifteen years or possibly even longer since it will not end with the current eleven applicants.
There will always be several countries queueing up to get into the European Union.
<P>
It is absolutely vital that the European Parliament, as the directly elected representative of the peoples of Europe, has a continuous and regulated involvement in this process, rather than appearing to give the process free rein initially but ultimately making a pronouncement about whether the outcome is acceptable.
I therefore share the view that Parliament should be involved during the lead-in phase and during the accession agreements.
On the other hand, I should like to prevent the European Parliament giving the wrong signal.
We should not be slamming doors in the faces of the candidates even before the enlargement process has started.
Therefore, I hope that we will be able to reach a compromise in this matter.
<P>
(The President cut off the speaker)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="Henderson">
Mr President, you have been very generous in the time you have allocated to the President-in-Office.
Can I take up one or two points which have been made in the discussion?
<P>
Firstly, there was a query about the status of the letter from Mr Cook to you, Mr President, and also about the status of the remarks which I previously made this morning; this was raised by Mr Barón and also by Mr Brok.
The letter from Mr Cook was a background Presidency paper.
The position which I outlined this morning in my previous contribution is a Presidency statement which has the backing of the Council and therefore has the authority of the Council.
I hope that helps colleagues to give further consideration to some of the points of substance which I have tried to make in my earlier contribution.
<P>
A point was raised by Mme Berès about timing and that is an important point.
As to the question of how long Parliament should have to be able to express its view, it would be wrong for us to tie ourselves down to a specific time on every occasion.
Maybe it would be helpful if I were to explain that my interpretation of appropriate time would be the kind of time that allows the normal processes between one plenary and another, between one Council and another Council within the institutional framework which is four, five or six weeks.
I do not see it being longer than six weeks.
It might often be shorter than that and there may be occasions when there are very urgent matters which have to be dealt with in a period very much shorter than four weeks.
In the normal run of business it would be that kind of period of four, five or maybe six weeks and I hope that is helpful.
<P>
The third point which has been made by a number of contributors this morning is the general question of involving the people of Europe.
Let me make it clear that the Presidency and the Council are absolutely committed to the process of enlargement.
Not everything will be plain sailing.
Enlargement has a large up-side, with the potential of great gains in security and great gains in economic prospects, but there are things that need to be dealt with by the Union in the period leading to that and some of them will involve difficult decisions.
It is important that we take public opinion along with us so that the public are fully informed and are aware of the issues at stake in that process.
That is why I believe it is very important that the European Parliament is given a role to be able to express a view, to involve the public in a dialogue and also to take issues to the public.
It is important that Parliament has that opportunity, to be able to express those views which should be expressed before the Council takes a decision on the matters that are before us.
<P>
I thank you, Mr President, for again giving me the opportunity to try to clarify some of those points and I hope that there will be assurances given to Parliament which will enable Parliament to give an opinion to allow the process of enlargement to proceed in a speedy and effective way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Spencer">
Mr President, on a point of order.
Under Rule 60 I am required later this morning, as chairman of the relevant committee, to recommend to this House whether or not we refer back.
This is the last opportunity I therefore have on behalf of the House to ask the Presidency to make one final point clear.
I thank him for the progress we have made during this morning's debate, particularly over timing and the clarification of the position of the Council.
<P>
I ask him to take one last step towards us.
I have given him a text, which was circulated to him yesterday, which makes the position clear: after the plenary vote, the Council and the Commission will take the earliest opportunity to consider Parliament's views.
At the moment all you are saying is that we have the chance to express Parliament's views.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office, we have that opportunity all the time.
We want a confirmation from you that you and the Commission, as Mr Van den Broek suggested, will consider our views, because that is the way to secure public support, which you rightly referred to, through a parliamentary channel, for what we are trying to do on enlargement.
If he could give me that assurance now, we will have no unpleasantness later in the day.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Henderson">
Mr President, I am very happy to indicate that it is the intention of the Presidency that the views of Parliament will be considered by the Council before a decision is made.
There would be no purpose in having consultation...
<P>
... and hearing the views unless they were going to be taken into account.
Of course they will be taken into account.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Muscardini">
Mr President, the National Alliance will vote in favour of this report, while making the reservations we have expressed many times in this Chamber with regard to the problem of enlargement to some countries which still do not seem to be fully in favour of an accession to the spirit of the European political union.
I would like to recall how, a few days ago, the Slovenian Ambassador to Rome took an absolutely incredible position with regard to goods confiscated from Italians and victims of dolines.
I believe it is important and correct to expand the European Union to include other countries, but this union should not be established before achieving the political union which is the only premise that will permit peace and progress in our countries.
And so we vote with reservations, to show that the National Alliance is obviously in favour of Europe and enlargement, but against a purely economic union based on the particular interests of the great capitals or some countries of the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, can I add to this positivity that the Commission on its part is evidently not only prepared, but it will also take steps to study, together with the Council, all of the views Parliament has expressed.
I am merely re-emphasizing something which is already obvious in order to benefit transparency.
<P>
I believe that with this, all procedural aspects will have been discussed extensively, as there is a far-reaching level of agreement.
May I confine myself then to responding to one single question which was asked more specifically, firstly by Mr Cars, who wonders whether the all-inclusiveness of the enlargement process is left sufficiently intact during the procedure which we think we will follow at the so-called screening .
It is precisely in order to do justice to this all-inclusiveness, to which so much attention was paid in Luxembourg, that I have decided to open the start of the screening with all eleven countries together. After that the process will naturally have to be continued in groups, and then country by country.
Why these two groups?
Because the evaluation of the acquis for the group which is going to negotiate is intended to identify which matters require negotiations. For those who are still preparing for the negotiations, this evaluation is intended to hasten the catching-up process, so that they will be able to meet the conditions for entering negotiations as soon as possible.
In addition, we will have to look at each individual negotiating country to see to what extent this can be done with all six together, or separately.
I can imagine that soon this will soon have to be on a bilateral basis, because the issues which will be the subject of the negotiations will differ per country.
<P>
I will briefly return to the comments which were made about the short and medium term, because I have a feeling that we did not make that quite clear.
Practical experience will tell, I would say, but the prime reason for setting the short or medium term was not to indicate the urgency of the problems identified.
The distinction between short and medium term is primarily made on the basis of what we can actually expect to achieve in the short term, and what on the other hand will need more time to be achieved.
We have tried to explain this is in these partnerships when defining the priorities.
<P>
I would also like to assure Mr Titley - as a matter of fact, we have done so during earlier exchanges - that the entire aspect of enhancing the administrative and legal capacity of government bodies in the applicant countries is given a high priority everywhere.
You cannot suddenly place this in the short term, for the simple reason that it usually concerns processes which are so wide that you have to talk in terms of several years, although that does not mean to say you should not start immediately.
That is why a reorientation of PHARE has taken place, in which everything which has to do with institution building and enhancing administration comes under the category of 30 % of the PHARE resources, which has been given as a rough target figure to be spent on this.
It will thus get all the attention it deserves.
<P>
Those were a few comments I wanted to make in response to the questions which were asked.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="Oostlander">
Mr President, this point about the short and medium term was in fact the key point.
The strange thing is that the Commissioner is now saying that it is to do with our expectations of when something might be achieved.
In other words, when we speak of the independence of the legal courts, respect for the rule of law and equal access to public services, which have been mentioned in some cases in relation to the medium term, this means that the Commission does not believe that the country concerned is prepared to achieve this independence, this access and so on, in the short term.
This is a completely different position, then; the issue is no longer the complexity of the process, but your assessment of the willingness of a country to behave normally in the short term.
This surely cannot be the intention of this classification into short and medium term, Mr President?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, by short term we mean those things which can be achieved in 1998.
I am not saying that particular sections of the political constellation or shortcomings in the field of democracy, human rights and so on, might not still be improved this year.
It is difficult to draw the exact line, but I hope that we have indicated clearly that short and medium term does not mean giving an evaluation of the urgency of things which must be done, but the assessment of the time needed to correct these matters in their entirety.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Situation in Kosovo
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="President">
The next item is the Council statement on the situation in Kosovo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Henderson">
Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking those who have tabled this resolution today for this debate, because they have given this Assembly an opportunity to express the very deep concern that, I am sure, we all share at the serious violence which has taken place in Kosovo over the last two weeks.
I know that concern is shared by all the European Union Member States.
<P>
Police operations around the villages of Drenica and Prekaz in the last week appear to have left at least 80 people dead.
The authorities in Belgrade claim this was legitimate anti-terrorist action by the police.
But there appears to have been no judicial process before the killings and, tragically, according to local press reports, many of the dead were women, children and the elderly.
<P>
Belgrade cannot pass off such repressive acts as purely an internal affair.
Human rights abuses are a matter for all of us, and the European Union has a particular responsibility to reduce tension in the region before it causes instability in neighbouring countries.
<P>
It is essential that the international response to the crisis is a united and coherent one.
We know to our cost from the early days of the Bosnian war that international divisions undermine our efforts.
<P>
The Presidency has sought to provide a firm and clear voice on behalf of the European Union Member States.
What have we done?
Firstly, we issued an agreed statement on 2 March condemning unreservedly the use of violence by either side and calling on both sides to resolve the situation through a full and constructive dialogue.
<P>
Secondly, Robin Cook visited Belgrade on 5 March, on behalf of the Presidency, to make clear to President Milosevic the disquiet felt within the European Union.
<P>
Thirdly, Mr Cook hosted a meeting of Contact Group countries in London on 9 March.
The Group agreed a tough action plan, aimed at stabilizing the security situation in Kosovo, including immediate measures against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia; a clear list of the steps we expect President Milosevic to take within ten days to stop the violence and start a meaningful political dialogue; and a commitment to review the situation on 25 March and, if necessary, adopt further measures.
<P>
My colleague, Mr Tony Lloyd, is currently visiting the region as a Presidency envoy.
In Belgrade he will carry the message of resolve of the European Union and the Contact Group countries.
Elsewhere, his prime aim will be to listen to what neighbouring countries have to say about the regional security implications of the situation in Kosovo and to discuss what can be done to satisfy these concerns.
<P>
Fifthly, over the next few days, we shall be actively discussing with our partners and others what more can be done to bring home the message to President Milosevic that he must change course.
There are a number of opportunities for this: the European Conference with the associated states on 12 March - tomorrow - provides an obvious opportunity.
The EU Foreign Ministers' informal meeting in Edinburgh on 14 and 15 March is a further opportunity, and today the views of Parliament will be particularly timely.
<P>
People ask what the European Union's position is.
Let me try to make that clear as well.
We do not support separatism or independence in Kosovo but we insist that Belgrade grants real autonomy.
It is ironic that the Kosovo Albanians enjoyed greater autonomy under previous regimes than under President Milosevic's government.
<P>
Getting the authorities in Belgrade, and the leadership of the Kosovo Albanian community, to start a meaningful dialogue about the differences between them is the only chance of reaching a peaceful settlement.
The tragedy is that recent military activity in Kosovo may have served merely to undermine the moderates on both sides and increase support for terrorism.
<P>
Clearly a halt to all police operations in Kosovo is a prerequisite for dialogue.
That is why the European Union and the rest of the international community must do all we can to keep the pressure on President Milosevic and keep the pot in Kosovo from boiling over.
<P>
I understand from the news media this morning that a statement has been made by the Serbian Government in response to measures taken earlier this week.
I cannot at this time respond to that statement because I have not yet received the full text.
However, I can give a commitment that we will study and fully assess to what extent that statement meets the concerns and worries raised by the Contact Group last Monday.
<P>
I hope those remarks are a basis on which a debate will take place this morning on this terribly serious and, in many ways, deteriorating situation in Kosovo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="van den Broek">
May I join the Presidency in saying how much we are alerted by the explosive situation in Kosovo.
I had the privilege to attend the contact group in London which was very skilfully presided over by Foreign Secretary Cook, and where we feel that a number of clear signals have been given to President Milosevic in order to persuade him to take initiatives for a dialogue and a peaceful solution clearly setting the parameters of what we can and cannot support.
<P>
It was very clear from that meeting that it cannot be taken for granted that President Milosevic is going to act in the direction that is necessary to prevent an explosion in Kosovo, with all the disastrous human effects and other transborder effects and destabilization effects that a lack of solution could produce.
That is why it was very wise that Foreign Secretary Cook proposed to reconvene the contact group - which will probably meet in Washington on 25 March - and also to put Kosovo on the agenda of the informal foreign ministers' meeting which is being held on Friday and Saturday next.
<P>
The European Commission is preparing its regular report on regional developments in the Balkans and it stands to reason that under the present circumstances one cannot expect that the Commission would recommend to the Council the restoration of the autonomous trade measures for the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia or would go further in recommending the incorporation of the FRY into the PHARE programme or starting the negotiations demanding a mandate for negotiations on a trade and cooperation agreement.
<P>
We are also studying at the moment the conclusions that were drawn in the contact group regarding other economic and financial measures to step up the pressure on the FRY in order to bring them to constructive initiatives.
<P>
I need scarcely repeat, following the Presidency, that the European Commission shares the greatest possible concern as regards what is happening there.
We cannot consider the situation in Kosovo without remembering how it all started in 1991.
We must take into account that more far-reaching measures may become necessary if a disaster is to be prevented.
<P>
The European Commission wishes very much that in the first place the European Union and its allies will have the courage to take the necessary measures which may prove inevitable in the near future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President of the Council, Commissioner, naturally everything you have said merits our full support.
Nevertheless, I should like to preface my short speech with a few critical observations.
Commissioner, at first I gave you my full support in your differences with Mr Oostlander - I am not sure whether that was clear - but I still must question whether the European Union as a whole was prepared for what is now happening in Kosovo.
<P>
This is not the first time we have discussed Kosovo.
On one occasion, following a visit from the Delegation for relations with South-east Europe chaired by Mrs Pack, this House described Kosovo as a powder keg waiting to explode.
The European Union took little action.
There was neither any pressure exerted to open a European Union office in the area, nor was a special envoy appointed as we officially requested.
<P>
Mr President of the Council, Commissioner, I am ashamed when I turn on the television as I did this morning and see the American representative, the special envoy, in Pristina, but no special envoy from Europe.
Yes, the British Foreign Minister went to Belgrade, yes there is now a representative there, but why - knowing that it is the most dangerous potential flashpoint in Europe, knowing that it could develop into a conflagration at any time - did the European Union fail to do more in the past?
<P>
I know that it is not an easy matter since we have no proper contact on the Yugoslavian or Serbian side.
Nevertheless, the Americans are on the spot with their special envoy again and all Europe, and all the world, can see just who is tackling the problem on the spot - not the European Union but the United States!
I do not seek to lay the blame with anyone in particular, but we must acknowledge our failures. We have been negligent.
Once again we have neglected a part of Europe.
<P>
Why is it so important for Europe to deal with this problem?
Firstly because, quite clearly, fundamental human rights are at stake!
Consequently, we must tell Mr Milosevic in no uncertain terms that we cannot accept his claims that this is a purely internal problem.
No, the protection of a minority, or to be more precise in this case, the majority of the people in the region is a matter which goes far beyond national borders.
<P>
Perhaps there is something else, perhaps we have failed to make it clear enough to Rugova and his people that we are simply advocating autonomy within Yugoslavia.
What is currently happening, the fact that Mr Rugova and others are calling ever more vociferously for independence and for a change in the borders, is also unacceptable to us.
We need of course to get our message across not only to Milosevic, but also to Rugova and the Albanians.
But it may be too late at least to change the mood. Fired by frustration, the call for independence are growing stronger and stronger.
I fully support the measures, Commissioner.
We must show that we are trying to quell the fire and that we are helping those, in Macedonia in particular, who are especially affected.
<P>

I come now to the second reason why it is so important, why a conflagration could develop: Albania is unstable for unfortunately there are in Albania, too, forces - in particular those led by ex-President Berisha - who are now agitating, who are now stirring things up, who are now trying to pour oil onto this fire thus forcing Fatus Nano, the Prime Minister, who was initially very restrained, to take a more extreme position.
<P>
Thirdly, and not for the first time of course, the situation looks like a clash between Christian Europe and Islam.
Once again this argument rears its head.
On Friday I had a detailed conversation with Siljdzic, the Prime Minister of Bosnia Herzogovena, in which that very point came up. This situation is, therefore, particularly dangerous and we have to do something about it.
<P>
I agree with you that we must apply political pressure, and economic pressure where necessary, although I do not see blanket sanctions as our strongest weapon.
Nonetheless, I am in complete agreement with the actions of the contact group.
We should consider whether a situation might arise in which we would send in forces of order - such action would naturally depend on the agreement of both sides - at least to calm the situation.
Milosevic must realize that, if the worst comes to the worst and he chooses violence, there is the possibility of military intervention as well.
If we are to avoid military intervention and if we are to force Milosevic to do as the President of the Council suggests, he must be convinced of this.
<P>
Mr President, I would like to lend my support to everything that has been said, but also to point out once again that, unfortunately, we missed our chance to set our preconditions in advance and to back them to the hilt.
I would like to see the European Union advocate autonomy for Kosovo, but prevent any changes being made to the borders in the region.
That would lead to another conflagration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I agree with almost everything Mr Swoboda has said.
I should like to start by pointing out that the international community now finds itself faced with a task whose solution it has put off for nine years, and put off quite consciously.
I raised the Kosovo problem in this House in January 1991 and have raised it again on many occasions since and urged that something be done about it.
At the time, in this forum, the President-in-Office of the Council, who is now a Commissioner and for whom I have great respect, accused me of naivety because I said that what had happened in Kosovo was the beginning of the end for Yugoslavia.
Nobody saw it, nobody wanted to see it.
Nobody wanted to admit what was happening and everybody simply turned a blind eye.
It was not even included on the agenda in Dayton. It should have been added to the agenda.
Yugoslavia should not have been recognized without Milosevic being required to make some progress towards finding a political solution to the problem.
<P>
Our foreign policy exists, quite literally, from hand to mouth.
It never takes preventive action.
It is always short of breath and lacking in a proper strategy or vision.
Eight years of peaceful, passive resistance by the Albanians have not persuaded us to come to their aid.
For years the Serbs have been torturing Albanian men and women and arrests have been commonplace.
A parallel school and university system operating underground offers young people but few prospects.
It has taken television pictures of bloody demonstrations to shake up the international community.
<P>
I welcome the united stance announced today by the Council.
It is also good that the contact group is finally dealing with Kosovo, even if the results are feeble and the threat of an arms embargo, for example, is quite laughable.
An arms embargo is hardly an effective weapon against a well-armed nation with its own arms industry!
<P>
The presence of the OSCE on the spot is essential; financial and economic sanctions are necessary.
Unfortunately, these are the only means at our disposal.
Serbia refuses to tolerate any involvement in its supposedly "internal' affairs in Kosovo.
It has declared the resolutions passed by the contact group null and void since it is a self-appointed group.
This is the price we must pay in the West for years of looking the other way.
If Milosevic does not soon start a serious search for a political solution with Rugova and others within the framework of international mediation, an escalation of the violence will be unavoidable.
<P>
After nine years of this apartheid regime, the Albanians have had enough.
There is nothing to stop the Albanians in Macedonia, in Albania and in Montenegro joining forces.
The conflagration would exceed the scale of the Bosnian war.
Milosevic alone is responsible for the internationalization of the crisis.
A tough response is all he understands, so our stance against him must be a united and tough one.
As a last resort there is always Mr Swoboda's option. If all else fails we must help with military or police intervention those being tortured and murdered.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Daskalaki">
Mr President, the European Union once again finds itself facing a crisis in the former Yugoslavia, which was foreseeable long ago, and once again it has been caught off guard and probably a day after the fair, as has already been said.
<P>
Therefore, if we now think with hindsight of what should have happened and what should have been avoided a priori, in order to prevent developments in the former Yugoslavia from following their dramatic course, we are contributing very little to the subject, although what is happening today is not totally unrelated to what went on before.
Indeed, it is not unrelated to the astonishing ignorance shown by the West with regard to the complex historical reality of an extremely difficult region, nor to the ineptness and partiality with which it reacted to much of the tragedy in Yugoslavia.
<P>
Once again we are called upon to face a fait accompli, but this time the danger of a new conflagration is becoming very concrete and very visible and we must be able to see this in all its dimensions.
Kosovo is a region with great historical significance for Serbs and Albanians alike, and historical memories are not effaced simply by international intervention.
On the other hand, it is inhabited by an overwhelming majority of Albanians who themselves were forced to move there because of other interventions at that time.
<P>
The Yugoslavia of Tito granted them an autonomy which, unfortunately, has since been dispensed with.
It is self-evident that no one can deny the right to speak one's own language, the right to education and free expression, and human rights as we perceive them.
These must be reinstated at the earliest possible opportunity with an immediate undertaking by Belgrade and with the cooperation of the representatives of the Albanian minority.
<P>
A new conflagration in this region would spark a chain reaction which risks spreading the crisis to the South, on the very eve of the ambitious enlargement towards the East that has been decided upon by the Union.
<P>
Therefore any initiative aimed at avoiding new conflicts and at coming to an understanding with the moderate leaders of the Albanians of Kosovo is more than welcome.
The European Union has a lot to do, as has already been said.
<P>
We must also consider the efforts being made by five countries in the region: Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, Rumania and the FYROM, as well as the careful and judicious stance adopted by the Albanian government. The implementation of the Rougova-Milosevic agreement is imperative, but it is even more imperative not to repeat the mistakes of the past, by carrying out another fruitless intervention with the United States taking on the lead role.
<P>
Belgrade must understand that closer ties with the European Union cannot come about through violence and that an internal dispute which places the peace of a wider region in danger is much less internal than it claims.
<P>
It goes without saying that we unequivocally condemn violence and bloody repression.
However, something more is needed: specific political actions such as all those we are asking for in our common position, many of which have been mentioned in this House. Moreover, there must be a more fundamental attempt to understand the problem and its historical background reaching back well before 1991, reaching back centuries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="de Vries">
Mr President, all aspects which in Bosnia led to war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are present in Kosovo.
Once again the Western governments' prime objective appears to be to remain uninvolved.
Military intervention, after all, is an electoral risk.
To the governments in the US and Europe, the risk of internal unpopularity weighs more heavily than the risk of new atrocities in the former Yugoslavia.
Have they not learnt from Bosnia that detachment amidst these kind of massacres automatically means co-responsibility?
Have any lessons been learnt from what happened in Bosnia?
Certainly, as far as Bosnia is concerned, Europe does not have the monopoly on error of judgement.
The Security Council made a mistake when, at the insistence of Russia, it did not extend the mandate of the preventative force in Macedonia.
The American promise to ease the sanctions against Serbia was the wrong signal, as was the comment made by the US negotiator, Gelbard, to the effect that Milosevic was dealing with terrorists in Kosovo, and it was as big a blunder as the remark made by James Baker in 1991 saying that, above all else, Yugoslavia should remain one country.
<P>
On Monday, the contact group decided to take a few half-baked and weak measures.
Clearly the most important lesson from Bosnia has still not been learnt.
This lesson was that in the former Yugoslavia violence can only be stemmed with military force.
Political pressure and economic sanctions do not work.
The only language Milosevic understands is the credible threat of military intervention by the US and other NATO member countries.
Milosevic will circumvent a possible UN arms embargo just effectively as the existing economic sanctions.
The only effective instrument is the threat of force: a preventative presence of international troops in the region, in this case Macedonia and northern Albania.
The response of the European Union to the crisis in Kosovo is one of shameful hypocrisy.
In the Treaty of Amsterdam the fifteen heads of states and governments promised solemnly to make peace-keeping one of the Union's responsibilities.
This promise was, as it turns out, not worth the paper it was written on.
In the European Parliament, we have so often called for an effective European security policy. However, here in Parliament the knees of the Socialists and Christian Democrats appear to be as weak as those of the Council of Ministers, now that it no longer comes down to words but to action
<P>
I note with bitterness that the two large groups have rejected every reference in the joint resolution to the possibility of military threats.
Even my group's plea to extend the mandate of the peace force in Macedonia was rejected.
Instead of this the PSE and PPE resolution contains an appeal to President Milosevic to allow journalists into Kosovo.
The European Parliament is using journalists as a threat.
That will really impress everyone in Kosovo.
<P>
In conclusion, Mr President, the resolution proposed by the two large groups today is the weakest this Parliament has ever devoted to the situation in Kosovo.
In the shape it currently takes, it is totally unacceptable to my group.
Remove your blinkers, ladies and gentlemen.
The conflict in Kosovo is a bigger threat to international peace than the conflict in Bosnia ever was.
Now is the time to draw lessons from the disaster in Bosnia.
Those who deny the lesson, make themselves equally responsible for the consequences.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, the developments taking place in Kosovo are giving birth to enormous dangers and to a more general situation of unrest throughout the Balkans, which will not leave Bulgaria, Albania, the FYROM and even Greece untouched.
<P>
From this viewpoint the militaristic voices that are being heard in this Chamber are, in my opinion, unacceptable.
We very much fear that we are witnessing the further disintegration of Yugoslavia.
At some point we must draw our conclusions from the policy of the large powers in the Balkans, and we must assume the responsibilities which are appropriate to the dramatic developments taking place against the peoples of the former Yugoslavia.
The rights that the Albanian minority in Kosovo must enjoy, as every minority in the context of existing states and borders, must be respected and safeguarded.
<P>
If, however, the European Parliament wishes to honour its role, it must insist on its position, which is opposed to any change of the borders in the Balkans.
It must also demand that all countries, Balkan or otherwise, respect and do not violate existing borders.
It must totally oppose the use of violence, or the threat of the use of violence, and it must denounce the threatened new embargo against Serbia - the people have suffered enough from the various embargos. It must declare that it is prepared to participate positively in establishing sincere and open dialogue between the Serbian authorities and the leaders of the Albanian minority in Kosovo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, obviously we cannot claim that the outburst of violence came unexpectedly.
If there was one conflict and one outburst of violence which was heralded years ago, it was the one in Kosovo, and it proves once and for all that in practice we, the European Union, are nowhere when it concerns extending realistic conflict prevention.
<P>
Secondly, we obviously cannot claim that the solution to the conflict will be simple either.
It is clear - and I agree with my colleagues who pointed this out - that the present legal status which was forced upon Kosovo is totally unacceptable and that it must therefore be rejected by the Union quite unambiguously.
On the other hand, and we should be honest, well before 1989 the Albanian leaders already wanted much more than proper cultural and political autonomy.
They wanted independence, and this is the basis of the conflict.
In connection with that point, I would like to mention that on 30 March 1993 the then President of Yugoslavia made interesting proposals to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, referring to the need to carry through territorial demarcation in Kosovo with much more authority.
He was sidelined by Milosevic, but neither did he find a response in Parliament.
Thus, a unilateral approach, as far as that is concerned, is out of the question.
<P>
What is happening now is totally unacceptable, of course, in any state which calls itself a constitutional state.
It is terrible to have to note the focused manner in which whole families, including children, were massacred in those places where it was suspected they had some involvement in the armed resistance.
That is totally unacceptable.
<P>
I share the view of the Members who say that what has come out of the contact group is regrettable and that it is too weak.
I also agree with Mr de Vries that the joint resolution lacks teeth.
But I do think it contains some interesting points.
<P>
Firstly, the pressure on Belgrade must be stepped up.
In addition, in case no results come out of the negotiations - because dialogue is obviously not enough, there should be actual negotiations - then sanctions must be tightened, and some quick responses must be implemented.
On that subject I would like the Presidency to tell me how they are going to monitor this in order to take extremely effective action on a daily basis in this situation.
<P>
Secondly, I think that it is of the utmost importance that the UN troops stay in Macedonia.
We had a provision to this effect in our text.
Thirdly, we need a temporary ban on the deportation by EU countries of asylum seekers from this region.
There are places where this is happening.
If we are serious in this matter, then I believe we will make much more progress.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, I will speak on a personal note.
To tell the truth, after the chairman, Mr de Vries' speech, I do not have much to add to his excellent analysis.
<P>
In our beautiful language, Mr President, there is a phrase "they have sown the wind and they shall reap the whirlwind' .
I do not know how to translate it, but it is true that we have sown a lot of wind, by avoiding the inclusion of Kosovo in the Dayton agreements. This would have been possible, had it not been for the hypocrisy driving the contact group, the EU and unfortunately today even Parliament.
Had it not been for that hypocrisy, we might not have reached this point, since everyone knew that Kosovo was a dynamite store.
Today, Parliament is not even capable of using the word "sanctions' once, in two pages of text.
It seems to me that this is a clear message to Milosevic to continue in his belief that it is right to analyse those who will refuse to vote on this wording later, although there may only be a few of them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, with regard to the Kosovo crisis, European diplomacy must demonstrate that it is capable of acting with as much pertinence and efficiency as it did in the Iraqi crisis.
It is a crisis which could degenerate dangerously, but which can still probably be controlled if European diplomacy is able to show the same judgement and determination that has been shown by the precise actions of France and Germany.
It must show its ability to take all the factors into consideration, in particular the fact that Kosovo is the Serbs' Paris and yet is today populated by up to 90 % Albanians.
It must bear in mind that the disintegration of Yugoslavia began with questions regarding the wide autonomy which Kosovo enjoyed within the former federation.
<P>
Since then, the conflict has continued to brew.
Today, the corresponding hardening of attitude of both the Albanian separatists and the Serb authorities is moving the crisis into a new and extremely worrying dimension, with an increase in tension.
The international community must therefore intensify its activity, even if it does not have the same basis on which to act as in Bosnia, whose independence it recognized.
But in the case of a stepping up in the conflict, the risks of globalization are such that the Kosovo issue can no longer be considered a purely internal issue. This is especially true with regard to Macedonia where a quarter of the population is Albanian and particularly since Albania is becoming increasingly nervous.
<P>
Even if the most adequate way of expressing the international community's will is currently through the six countries of the contact group - since it is essential that we stick together - the action of European diplomacy within this body must be decisive in order to avoid the sudden turnarounds on the part of some of its members or the refusal of any globalization on the part of others.
It is fortunate that yesterday's meeting of the contact group in London echoed the call for a negotiated solution already heralded by Paris and Bonn. This should lead to a special intermediary status somewhere between that of independence and the current situation, neither of which are adequate options.
It is also a question of finding the means for effective pressure, to the right extent, to convince both sides not to feed the intensification of the conflict.
<P>
It is therefore essential, Mr President, to step up the measures concerning positive incentives, considering in particular the different ways of reintegrating Belgrade into the international community.
This is the path that was upheld in London under the influence of the Europeans, who must retain this leadership.
It is the right path.
It must be followed with consistency and determination.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="President">
I have received eight motions for resolutions, pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, I would merely like to say that I largely agree with what has been said this morning, that an active position is being urged regarding a situation which can by no means be considered surprising or new.
At the same time I believe that it would be good for us within the European Union not to practise self-pity, in the sense that we are not doing anything.
I would like to say to Mrs Pack in particular that the Kosovo issue is constantly on the agenda of the General Affairs Council, that it is being talked about constantly in the context of the OECD, that former Prime Minister González has been asked again to mediate, but that we do need cooperation from Belgrade for this.
In case dialogue is not started very soon, we certainly agree that mediation by Mr González should be pushed to the top of the agenda.
Personally, I do believe this dialogue will come about in the short term.
More pressure will be needed.
<P>
On 15 February the Commission sent a fact finding mission to Kosovo to find out what else could be done.
Tony Lloyd will go there soon and Mr Cook was there last week.
I myself will be going to Pristina and Skopje.
It really cannot be said that Europe is holding itself aloof.
But what it will come down to is how much pressure the international community is prepared to apply when Milosevic - and it all depends on him - does not take the right initiatives.
That will be the crux of the matter.
As far as that is concerned, Iraq has given us some experience.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="President">
We will end this debate here and continue it at 3.00 p.m.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Spencer">
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Falconer">
Mr President, as you are aware, you and I were elected on the same day in June 1984.
I have always taken it upon myself to remove any burden from your great shoulders.
I wish to advise you, therefore, that my presence is not only in the House today but it will be voting also.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="President">
That is most generous, Mr Falconer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Crowley">
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, seven political groups came to an agreement to present a joint resolution with which to close the very interesting discussion we had here on Monday on the occasion of International Women's Day.
<P>
My group regrets the fact that once an agreement had been reached on a joint resolution, two political groups thought it necessary to table amendments restoring passages to the joint resolution which had been removed.
We could have done the same, as a number of the paragraphs not adopted in our resolution related to other important issues for women in the Community.
<P>
I feel that whoever is not in agreement with the joint resolution, although they had agreed - along with the rest of us - not to present any amendments, must remove their signature from this joint resolution.
<P>
In protest, my group has decided not to vote for any amendments, even if the content of some of them have our full sympathy.
But we must uphold the rules and as a sign of protest we will not vote for these amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="President">
You may disagree but it is the absolute right of groups to submit amendments even to compromise resolutions.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the joint resolution) Report (A4-0065/98) by Mr Cornelissen, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions " Promoting road safety in the EU - the programme for 1997-2001' (COM(97)0131 - C4-0180/97)- Before the roll-call vote on recital O:
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Crowley">
Mr President, I would like you to take note that under the new rules by the Bureau I am present but I am not participating in this vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="President">
I would point out to Members that the note sent round by the Quaestors stated: ' A Member who does not wish to take part in a roll-call vote may arrange to have his attendance at the sitting noted prior to the vote.'
That does not mean immediately prior to every vote.
It means at the start of the session.
You informed me at the start of the session that you were here.
I have noted that you are here.
If you do not take part in votes we assume it was on a point of principle that you are not taking part.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="McMillan-Scott">
Mr President, would it not be simpler if rather than Members rising to advise you of their presence, that they do as I do and simply hand in a note to the sittings service?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="President">
It would be much simpler and much more preferable but some Members have their own little games they want to play here.
It is not about simplicity, it is about causing difficulties.
<P>
(Mixed reactions) - After the vote on Amendment No 4
<P>
(The sitting was adjourned from 12.00 noon to 12.30 p.m.)
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Mr President, I rise to make a point of order pursuant to Rule 127(2), which deals precisely with points of order.
<P>
Just now an extremely serious incident occurred, which significantly disrupted the vote on Mr Cornelissen's report.
Mr Crowley made it known that he wanted the floor on a point of order.
You deliberately refused to give it to him.
I thus rose, along with my colleague Mr Claudio Azzolini, co-chairman of the Union for Europe Group, to request that you apply the Rules and allow Mr Crowley to say what he wanted.
<P>
Quite clearly, you did not allow him to speak, which is a blatant violation of the Rules of Procedure for, in a Parliament, every member who requests the floor on a point of order must be allowed to do so and our Rules are strict since they stipulate that "a request to raise a point of order shall take precedence over all other requests to speak' .
<P>
You have not therefore respected the Rules.
I am convinced that if someone had stood up from that side of the Chamber...
<P>
(Loud applause) you would not have failed to give him the floor....
<P>
(The President cut off the speaker)
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Crowley">
Mr President, I rise to make a point of order under Rule 127.
The point of order I wanted to make - even though the issue is no longer relevant - is that in your interpretation of the rules, a Member need only announce his attendance and not participate at the start of a vote.
Under my reading of the rules, which were adopted by the Bureau without consultation with Parliament, I am entitled, as a Member, to stand up at every roll-call vote and state that I am present but I am not participating in the vote.
That is the rule as adopted by the Bureau without any consultation with Parliament on those rules.
<P>
Secondly, Rule 19 governs order and the conduct of the House.
However, Rule 127 states that the President must make a decision on whether or not he will accept the point of order, and that he may wait for up to 24 hours before he makes that decision.
You did not do that when I called for my original point of order.
Therefore you are in error as regards the Rules.
It is highly insulting and arrogant of you to be treating the House in this manner!
<P>
(Loud applause )
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="President">
Brian, we have been good friends in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights for four years.
I admire the work you do and I hope you will perhaps reflect on your last sentence.
I would just make it clear that the rule distributed by the Quaestors says: ' A Member who does not wish to take part in a roll-call vote may arrange to have his attendance at the sitting noted prior to the vote' .
Not prior to every individual vote but prior to the vote.
I gave you that interpretation.
I answered your point of order.
I was not going to have a procedural debate with you in the middle of a vote.
We were discussing the Cornelissen report which is an extremely important one.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Kellett-Bowman">
Mr President, I would not impugn anyone in what I have to say.
I feel the House was out of control for several minutes.
That is not an acceptable situation.
I would like you to reconsider your reinterpretation of the rule issued by the Quaestors.
That is what is causing the difficulties.
I would like to suggest that recorded votes during that disturbance should not count in the Bureau's bureaucratic system.
How does one know when the votes are on?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="President">
I am sorry.
I take your first point.
I am always happy to reflect but on the second point of course they will count.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, what we are witnessing, I am sorry to say, is the result of the arrogant attitude you took a short while ago.
I would like to recall, Mr President, in addition to everything else recalled so far, that Article 19 requires the President, first and foremost, to ensure observance of the Rules of Procedure.
A President of a sitting is not superior to the Rules of Procedure: he is in a position to ensure observance of the Rules of Procedure, and the Rules of Procedure require the President to grant all Members the right to speak in reference to the Rules of Procedure, particularly when the chairman of a large group asks to speak.
You have not ensured observance of the Rules of Procedure and continue to hold an attitude which, excuse me for saying so, is arrogant and certainly does not contribute towards helping us to relax during this sitting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="President">
I do not speak or read Italian, as you know, but the sessional services have told me that in Italian it is clearly 'may' as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Green">
Mr President, I am sure with the overwhelming majority of this House I want to say that we have great respect for the way in which you chair this plenary and the integrity with which you do it.
<P>
(Applause ) At the last plenary session it was agreed that the whole issue of these administrative regulations agreed by the Bureau would be discussed after three months.
That is to go ahead.
The Bureau and the Conference of Presidents confirmed that there were issues that needed to be looked at.
What we saw earlier was people, once again, trying to make political capital out of that decision.
We would like you - and I am sure my group would endorse this entirely - to get on with the votes.
The Bureau will look at this issue as it has decided.
<P>
(Applause )
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Ewing">
Mr President, my point of order relates to the use you made of the word 'Rules' .
I have always maintained, in previous points of order when this first came up, that if it was a change of Rules - and it must be a Rule if it has political ramifications which cash-for-votes certainly has - it has to go to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities and then be discussed by this House.
<P>
You referred to the Rules from the Quaestors.
You have given away the case that I have supported all along.
This is a change in the Rules which has political ramifications!
It should go to the Rules Committee and come before this House in the normal way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="President">
Mrs Ewing, I know you are an eminent lawyer but I have to say that if you look at Rule 5 of the Rules of Procedure it states: ' The Bureau shall lay down rules governing the payment of expenses and allowances to Members.'
There is more than one form of rules: there are the Rules of Procedure of the House and there are other rules.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Chichester">
Mr President, on a point of order.
I was trying to catch your eye during the rumpus.
The reason was I could not hear what you were saying, what votes were taking place, and that was a very confusing situation.
I would respectfully submit that it would have been better to stop the voting a little earlier to restore calm in case colleagues voted the wrong way not knowing what the vote was.
On other occasions, perhaps we could let matters simmer down before we resume voting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="President">
I have some sympathy for that comment.
My only hesitation is that I do not like giving in to mob rule.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
Mr President, I personally have a great deal of admiration for your skill and talents.
I regret that you did not respond to the person who appealed to the Rules.
This does not lessen my appreciation for your work, but I do think you should have let those people speak who appealed to the Rules.
<P>
Secondly, like Mrs Green I want to say that I would like to appeal to everyone.
We agreed to implement the rules for three months, and in the meantime to keep monitoring it.
I appeal to all Members of this Parliament to respect the decisions for a period of three months.
After these three months we will see to what extent they will need to be modified, if at all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="President">
A lot of Members are still indicating they wish to speak.
In the light of the previous position and comments that have been made, I am going to take everyone who wants to speak.
I just wish to point out that the rule about roll-call votes still applies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, you referred to a paragraph of a rule and you said that the Presidency has the discretionary power - among other things - to regulate compensation for Members and you linked that with the issue now under discussion. If you are present, you vote or you do not vote.
If you do not take part in the vote you do not get an allowance.
I want to say that if this paragraph exists, your interpretation of it is wrong.
Under no circumstances can the Presidency turn Members into mercenaries through its interpretation of this paragraph.
You will get an allowance if you vote for or if you vote against.
If you do neither one nor the other, you do not get an allowance.
This is unacceptable and I wonder why you, Mr President, a young man with a lot of experience, referred to such a rule which transforms us shamefully into mercenaries.
I will vote or I will not vote through self-interest, since whether I receive an allowance or not will depend on it.
It is unacceptable, Mr President.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="President">
Thank you, but it is not my rule, it is the rule of the Bureau.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, I support your policy on this matter, but it was my group which clearly pointed out that this system as it is presently implemented by the Bureau is not right.
It was my group which pointed out that it should be reviewed.
It is being looked into at the moment.
It is not right for two Members to try to keep delaying this House before every vote.
It is time the Bureau reviewed its all too bureaucratic rules.
But it is also time this House went back to work and you maintained order in this sitting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, on a point of order.
I wish to say, firstly, that we should leave this discussion to another time, because it should be debated.
There is a huge amount of business to vote on.
We just need an assurance that the Chair will respect people wanting to raise a point of order.
I am not in favour of people like Alex Falconer jumping up and down every time there is a roll-call vote.
Let us leave this discussion to another time and just move on to the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="President">
I would be delighted to do so, but the aforementioned Mr Falconer has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Falconer">
Mr President, I rise on two simple points.
One is in reply to the allegation made by Mr Pasty that you treat this side of the House differently than you are treating that side of the House.
I am sure that your secretariat and others will have noted that I too asked for a point of order immediately after Brian Crowley was refused his.
Therefore Mr Pasty you should withdraw that allegation.
<P>
The second point I would like to make is that we cannot continue with an interpretation made by one President and a different interpretation made by another President.
We have a simple note from the Quaestors; surely the Quaestors should stand up and give their interpretation of their note to clarify the situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Tillich">
Mr President, you decided to continue with the vote although there was considerable noise in this room.
Since this vote, which contained some roll-call votes, relates to a sensitive area and since it was preceded by numerous discussions, because of the noise neither yourself as President nor the translation could be heard.
I would therefore request that you admit Mr Kellett-Bowman's motion and start the vote again.
It was impossible to hear which vote you called and what the result of the vote was.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="President">
I take your point and, in that context, I apologize to Mr Cornelissen.
His report has fallen an innocent victim of this.
But I am afraid I cannot start the vote again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="d'Aboville">
Mr President, in your reply to Mr Pasty, you said that you expected leaders of groups to conduct themselves with more dignity.
These are your very words, I noted them down.
<P>
I would like to know, Mr President, if you feel that a group leader lacks dignity when he supports a member of his group who makes known a desire to speak on a point of order?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="President">
Just to prove that the chair has some humility - although sections of the House do not believe it - I was responding slightly in anger there, and I would like to apologize to Mr Pasty for that statement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
What I would like to ask you most urgently is: can we please carry on with the votes?
Let us finish this report, and let us just leave everything else.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="President">
I agree with you but numerous Members have said that when the Chair sees someone wishing to make a point of order, he has to take that point of order.
We have to have some clarity.
Members cannot have it both ways.
When they want to move on, they do not want the Chair to take points of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="de Vries">
<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Muscardini">
Mr President, I refer not to the Rules of Procedure, but to the democracy that should guide the work of our Parliament. If my colleague had spoken first, we would have saved 25 minutes and we would have given ourselves and our work a better image.
I would also like to tell my English colleague that he insulted me in the corridor because, along with other colleagues, I asked for us to observe the right held by the speaker who wanted to speak. He behaved incorrectly himself and on behalf of his country and if this is the spirit of the European Parliament, we may as well go home.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="President">
I would just make it clear that I gave the floor to Mr Crowley.
I did not give it to him on his second attempt to take the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Barton">
Mr President, on a point of order.
I would like you to put to the vote whether we now proceed to the next business and get on with the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, I will also give an oral vote against the Council budget, against the Commission proposal and against the Oostlander report.
These three texts set up an elaborate network of multi-faceted, neocolonialist bonds for those countries concerned, the countries of central and eastern Europe.
This is taking place in the interests of multinational companies, in order to penetrate into these areas by means of neocolonialist methods, to exploit their natural wealth and human resources and to create further imperialistic zones for further domination and expansion throughout the region.
The political and financial mafias which currently rule these countries are guilty accomplices in this, and I want to say that Parliament, in voting for this report, will become a kind of moral accessory to the subjugation and exploitation of these countries, which cannot be allowed to happen.
It will create future upheavals and undesirable situations and Parliament must keep its distance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Bonde and Sandbaek">
, in writing. (DA) The June Movement supports the admission of all the new applicant states which meet the basic requirements in terms of democracy, the rule of law, human rights and minority rights and has not therefore voted against the Oostlander reports.
But we cannot vote in favour of them either, because we do not agree with the form of admission procedure which has been passed.
This is because, firstly, the applicant states have been divided into A and B leagues, and secondly, the applicant states have been presented with a number of stringent requirements and conditions for membership which they themselves are not really in a position to negotiate on.
Their only choice is between joining the EU on our terms or remaining outside.
<P>
The Amsterdam Treaty laid down a large number of criteria for membership which will make it even harder to join the EU, and which will therefore delay the enlargement process.
We cannot have a deepening without at the same time having a widening.
If we want a European partnership in which all countries are involved on an equal footing, the basis for that partnership must be open to negotiation.
In the June Movement, we believe that it would be better for the future of Europe if we invited the applicant states to a joint discussion where we could create the framework for a European partnership together.
The current negotiations on enlargement do not mean that we ask the applicant states how they propose to work together with us.
The negotiations are simply about finding out whether the applicant states, and not least we ourselves, are ready for the Community law which we have enacted to be incorporated into the applicant states' legislation.
Any EU law is by definition the best possible.
There can be no discussion about that.
Any exceptions and special considerations can only be temporary, and that is mostly for our own sake.
<P>
In the June Movement, we believe that the countries of Europe differ too widely to be able to use the EU's total harmonization method, under which legislation would be the same everywhere.
Our vision of a European partnership is not a European state, but a flexible, democratic and free partnership in which all countries are equal and can influence their own legislation.
We have abstained from voting for the Oostlander reports because we do not want to put a brake on the enlargement process, but we seriously disagree with the admission procedure which has been set up.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="Eriksson and Sjöstedt">
We have voted in favour of this report.
Several of the paragraphs in the report concern strengthening the European Parliament's right to information regarding the development of accession partnerships.
We think that is appropriate.
Since it is the European Parliament which ultimately takes the decision on the question of approval of new members of the EU, it is also appropriate that Parliament should have full information about the development of the accession process.
<P>
However, we would like to emphasize that the final decision should always lie with the people in each of the countries which wants to join the EU.
Therefore, a referendum on membership of the EU is to be recommended for all the states which could be in line for membership.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Sindal">
, in writing. (DA) - The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of the Oostlander report.
This is because we support the whole enlargement project, which we believe is one of the most important steps which the European Community has taken in our time.
It must be the aim of all Europeans to ensure peace and stability in our part of the world.
We are facing a great challenge, which is to see the countries of central and eastern Europe with full democracy, which will enable fast, smooth enlargement.
<P>
It is essential that Parliament supports the increase in the partnership principle which will assist the individual candidate states in working towards accession to the European Union.
The framework which has been laid down for the EU's assistance to applicant countries in their preparations for joining the EU is the main tool we have to ensure that the future Member States fall in line with the EU.
Through admission partnerships, the EU will support the development of law-based, effective administrative systems which are essential if society is to operate properly.
It is important for us to point out that the efforts should not merely concentrate on adjustments to the single market, but that support for environmental and labour market legislation should be equally as great.
<P>
One problem has been that Parliament has not had much time to come up with a statement on the Council's regulation: we have had just two months to deal with this very important subject.
But we must not use this as a reason to delay the process of working towards admitting the countries of central and eastern Europe into the European Union.
With the partnership principle, we have sent a very important message to the applicant countries, namely that they are all welcome in the European Union.
Even if not all of them are ready to join at the same time, it is important to show them that they are all involved in the process.
The partnership is also a good contract between the individual applicant countries and the EU, as the countries of central and eastern Europe can look forward to being included in the Union once they meet the terms of the agreements.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Souchet">
There is actually very little to say on the Oostlander reports.
Their objective is limited to calling for a systematic consultation of the European Parliament on all phases of the formulation and implementation of the partnerships for accession of each and every one of the eastern and central European countries.
There is nothing new then: we are once more confronted with the usual insatiable bulimia of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, which expects to be consulted and reconsulted permanently on all subjects which touch directly or indirectly on issues relating to foreign policy.
<P>
In this case, consulting the European Parliament would have the overall effect of weighing down the already complex process anticipated in the framework regulation and of increasing the delays even more, if the process of each individual partnership has to be systematically reviewed.
<P>
Furthermore, the motion for a resolution submitted to us seems to err in its interpretation, since in points 3 and 4 it considers that the medium term priorities to have been postponed.
In actual fact, the Council has explicitly stated that the medium term priorities must be implemented as from 1998.
It is only their results that will not be fully attained until the medium term, although this will in any case be before accession.
<P>
Although the Oostlander reports are touchy on the issue of permanent consultation of the European Parliament, they are however careful not to tackle the root issues which the European Conference is going to have to deal with.
There is no comment on the break-up threatened by the simultaneous application of two contradictory policies: how do we enlarge whilst introducing a single currency and whilst maintaining old institutions with an integrationist vocation whose lives have been extended without the will to reform them in any meaningful way?
<P>
Nor is there any comment on the persistent ambiguity regarding relations with Turkey.
Turkey will be absent from the Conference even though this method was largely conceived with it in mind. This is a Turkey whose "European vocation' we want to recognize, that is, depending on your point of view, the country's vocation to become a member of the European Union or not.
<P>
There are no doubts raised regarding Cyprus, although accession of the island would make the "green line' dividing the two communities an "outer border of the Union' .
<P>
There is no confusion mentioned regarding the vocation or not of an enlarged European Union to assure the security of the Baltic states, in particular Estonia, in the face of Russia which will remain outside the Union.
<P>
But what does it matter?
The machine is in motion.
This is enough.
We are happy.
The continual building site is an aim in itself.
Perhaps later on, questions will be raised as to the nature and objectives of this new European construction and its geographical limits.
<P>
Oostlander report (A4-0087/98)
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Papakyriazis">
With the debate and the vote on the Oostlander report today, 11 March 1998, on the eve of the European Summit and, more importantly, before the official opening of the accession procedure on 30 March, the European Parliament is sending out a very important message.
<P>
The European Parliament is underscoring and supporting its political choice to enlarge the European Union by incorporating the countries of eastern Europe, and this will guarantee growth and stability in Europe and the rest of the world.
The long and difficult course of this historic venture is, by definition, parallel and bound up with the deepening, strengthening and reinforcing of the present European Union.
<P>
The accession procedure is a unified procedure and begins at the same time, and from the same starting point, for all ten applicant countries of eastern Europe, that is of central, northern and southeastern Europe.
All ten applicant countries have thrown themselves with determination into the long and hard struggle for rapprochement, each along its own particular path.
<P>
We have ten-plus-one; or rather one-plus-ten.
Cyprus is certainly a completely separate case, with absolute priority as a European Union debt to history.
<P>
The European Parliament has, and indeed fundamentally exercises, an equally valued institutional role with responsibility and transparency.
The participation of the European Parliament is a guarantee of the preservation and observance of the decisions and criteria of Copenhagen, in accordance with the requirements of the Treaty of Amsterdam, in the context of the decisions and conditions of the Luxembourg Summit of December 1997.
<P>
The European Parliament, by endorsing the principles and conditions of enlargement and, more importantly, because it has responsibility for the final decision on the accession of any country to the European Union, must monitor and give its opinion on all phases of implementation of the accession procedure.
<P>
More especially, as chairman of the Delegation to the EU-Bulgaria Joint Parliamentary Committee, I want to underscore the enormous efforts taken by Bulgaria and the creative course that it is following.
To be sure, this country, like other countries, needs pre-accession support which is both positive and productive.
<P>
I would like to take this opportunity to reiterate the fact that I regard it unacceptable that Bulgaria, as well as Romania, is "black-listed' for the visa. This is a wrong which must immediately be righted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of the Oostlander report.
The reason for this is that the report contains many good social democratic characteristics.
We support the rapporteur's statement that structural support should be managed on a more decentralised basis, to make the structural support measures more effective and reduce costs.
We also support the wish that Parliament should then be consulted in the event of changes to the admission partnerships, and we share the view that it is regrettable that neither the Commission nor the Council have wanted any statement from Parliament on the medium-term goals and conditions for the accession partnerships.
<P>
There are problems with the Oostlander report in a number of areas, however, including on the statements on the individual countries in the explanatory statement.
The Danish Social Democrats do not believe that the report is objective in its treatment of the different countries.
We would point out, for example, that Poland is only dealt with superficially, whereas there is a more thorough treatment of, say, internal conditions in Latvia.
This gives the impression that Parliament has a preset attitude as to which countries are most suitable for membership of the European Union, which we consider very unfortunate.
<P>
We disagree particularly with the way the report deals with the Baltic states; it includes a highly critical statement on those states' protection of minority rights, with special reference to the Russian-speaking minority.
We think this might give the impression that the Baltic states have more problems with human rights and democracy than is the case.
The report stresses that Parliament should be consulted in this area.
It is therefore essential that we should give an objective, considered critique of the applicant states.
We believe all the applicant states are potential candidates, and so should all be treated objectively.
<P>
Watts recommendation (A4-0068/98)
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="Caudron">
As a Member from the north of France, I am aware of the difficulties which the establishment of a new European directive on the registration of persons sailing on board passenger ships to or from Member States' ports would raise.
<P>
Over the last few years, the ports of Calais and Dover, along with the shipping companies controlling this route, have increased their efforts to reduce port transit times in order to be more competitive with the Channel Tunnel.
<P>
As they are not affected by this directive, the shuttles which runs through the tunnel between Calais and Folkestone will not be faced with the increased transfer times which will automatically occur because of this measure.
Consequently, it is clear that serious distortions in competition will become apparent between these two means of transport.
<P>
Furthermore, this draft directive completely undermines the considerable investment undertaken by the Calais Chamber of Commerce and Industry to modernize its terminal.
In fact, the port infrastructure, which aimed to speed up the loading and unloading of ferries, has been largely financed by the European Community - through the ERDF - which is thus putting itself in complete contradiction with its previous, yet recent decision since the work is not yet completed.
<P>
That is why I support the amendments proposed by Mark Watts aimed at maintaining fair competition between the ferries and the Shuttle , whilst staying in keeping with the position within Europe as a whole.
<P>
I hope they will be taken over by the Commission and the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="van Dam">
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="Decourrière">
I support Mr Watts' report and, in particular, the amendments which are aimed at extending the strengthened security measures for passenger boats to encompass "underwater' rail travel via tunnel.
<P>
The European Parliament must be consistent and strengthen its vote given at first reading.
It is essential to extend the measures within this text to include the Shuttle under the Channel.
We must go further than the Council's and the Commission's position.
It is a question of public safety and respect for the rules of competition.
In fact, the recent fire in the Channel Tunnel showed that the lack of detailed registration of passengers made the work of the rescue teams more difficult, both during and after the fire.
<P>
Lastly, with regard to the rules of competition, tightening up the rules regarding the registration of persons travelling on passenger ships, through the increase in formalities and the extended waiting time that this form of transport will suffer, will significantly distort competition between the ferries and the Shuttle. This will mean that the investment made by the Calais Chamber of Commerce and Industry - with a large degree of funding by the ERDF - in the modernization of port facilities with a view to speeding up embarkation was a waste of time.
<P>
These are weighty demands but they are necessary for heightened safety, for employment and for the future of the crossChannel ferry business.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="Rovsing">
The Commission's directive as proposed wishes to make the rules on registering ship passengers in Member States more uniform.
I believe this is a thoroughly sensible and necessary initiative, as it will enable rescue work, medical assistance and legal matters to be clarified better and faster everywhere in the Union.
It is understandable that, in its statement, the committee repeats some of the amendments from the initial negotiations which the Council has not accepted in its common approach to date.
<P>
But I would like to emphasize that neither I nor my group can accept the proposal that advance passenger registration should also be used for train journeys through underwater railway tunnels.
Introducing such a rule would remove the efficiency, simplicity and speed with which it is possible to buy train tickets up until a few minutes before the train goes today.
The benefits of such a measure would be far too modest in relation to the damage it would cause to rail competitiveness.
Rail transport has rightly been given a high priority in planning the EU's trans-European network and is enjoying increasing success on the transport market.
I feel it would be unwise to impose unreasonable competitive conditions on this sector.
I am in favour of a set of sensible ship security rules being imposed within the framework of this directive, and so I am voting in favour of this recommendation, as I hope that rail will be kept out of its field of application.
<P>
Novo Belenguer recommendation (A4-0069/98)
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="Rovsing">
, in writing. (DA) Transportation of dangerous goods requires clear, consistent regulation if the authorities are to react quickly and effectively in the event of an accident.
This is equally true of transport by sea, and so EU Directive 93/75/EEC is a necessary instrument of law.
It is also particularly valuable that, in the amendments to the directive, the Commission wishes to include transport of nuclear fuel, plutonium and highly radioactive waste within the directive's field of application.
It is only natural that Parliament supported these aims at first reading, as this will increase safety levels.
The Council has also accepted Parliament's reasonable proposal concerning the selection procedure for adjusting the appendices to the directive.
Many other amendments have been rejected in the Council's common position, however. This was due, among other things, to Parliament's wish that rules covering the transit through EU waters of ships en route to ports in third countries would be given a directive of its own.
However Parliament's proposals are implemented, the amendments to the directive proposed are desirable, and so I support the recommendation for second reading.
<P>
Trakatellis report (A4-0067/98)
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="Bébéar">
Due to the economic growth of the last thirty years, the standard of living in Europe has tripled.
At the same time, the rate of suicide in all age brackets has also tripled.
Half of all suicide attempts are second attempts.
Suicide is thus the only cause of death which has not declined in Europe.
<P>
The European medical system is incapable of dealing with the growing number of people with psychological difficulties who are thus more likely to attempt to commit suicide.
We must urgently look for solutions to this major public health problem.
<P>
Specific and original proposals are needed, given that only 38 % of young people who have tried to take their own lives have had any subsequent follow-up from a doctor.
It falls within the jurisdiction of the European Union to support applied research programmes in this area, in order to set up a network of structures of a personal nature.
Experiments have been carried out, for example, that of Dr. Xavier Pommereau, who set up a special unit for suicidal adolescents at Bordeaux Hospital, which is also where I practise.
<P>
There are also collective explanations for this increase in individual tragedy.
We have to help in the search for a method of prevention.
Applied research could consequently be very useful, for example, in the study of the correlation between unemployment rates and suicide rates.
<P>
I support Dr Trakatellis' report.
Nevertheless, I would like to draw your attention to the meagre budgetary means anticipated, which will all too soon become clearly insufficient.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="Blokland">
<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="Holm">
<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="Howitt">
Mr President, I rise in support of this report on rare diseases.
The coordinator of a support group of one such rare disease, Action on Tracheotomies lives in Billericay, in my constituency.
I would like to support, in particular, the involvement of patients and families of patients benefiting from the programme.
<P>
Given the cut in the original budget proposed and my own experience of the cost and ineffectiveness of the Handinet European Database in relation to disability, I question whether it is a good use of the limited budget to spend so much on the database and only ECU 0.2 million in the first year for support groups.
However I strongly support the proposal for direct representation by patients on the advisory committee.
<P>
Finally, I urge the Commission to bring forward its proposed regulation on orphan drugs as soon as possible, to work with the pharmaceutical companies to ensure support for care today as well as cure tomorrow for patients experiencing both isolation and uncertainty from their illness.
<P>
Cabrol report (A4-0075/98)
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="Díez de Rivera Icaza">
Pollution-related diseases cannot be confined just to those diseases linked with air pollution. Although these are serious, they are not the only ones.
<P>
Noise is one of the worst sources of pollution these days, and has a serious effect on the health and repose of the population.
I should like to remind people here today of my report on noise as a source of pollution, and also of the forthcoming meeting on this question in Copenhagen in May, with the participation of representatives from all over the Union.
So this "resounding' omission is surprising, to say the least.
<P>
Also, more attention should have been paid to how pollutants relate to the increase in the various allergies which affect us all to an ever-increasing extent in our cities.
<P>
Finally, it is also surprising that the Commission made no mention of diseases related to the pollution of drinking-water or bathing-water. For example, nitrates cause cancer of the stomach and oesophagus.
Fortunately, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has made adequate amendments to the proposal, which will have my vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="Holm">
If the EU really wants to prevent diseases caused by pollution, it would be best if it stopped a number of the decisions it has taken which will directly cause more diseases because of pollution.
As long as we continue to subsidize environmentally-damaging agriculture which promotes pesticide use, invest in anti-environmental road transport and support nuclear power production, diseases caused by this anti-environmental policy will continue to increase.
Unfortunately, there is no sign of this understanding in either the Commission's or the European Parliament's document.
<P>
Instead, people want the EU to start taking action in areas which concern the consequences of the EU's policy.
The intention of the Commission's action plan is, of course, good, but you must still ask yourself whether it really is best to let the EU take action in this area.
I do not think so. Instead, I think that under the subsidiarity principle these issues are best resolved at national level or at lower levels in society.
It is not primarily more studies and comparisons which are needed, but specific measures to ensure that the diseases do not continue to increase.
<P>
Of course I am not against cooperation between Member States on these issues, but I think this can be carried out, as today, through cooperation between the professional groups which work with these issues.
Such cooperation already exists and I am sure that the EU will not try to take over or interfere with this work.
There is a real risk of duplicating work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="Nicholson">
I agree with the rapporteur's view expressed in his report that the Commission's proposals to reduce pollution related diseases do not go far enough.
It seems that the Commission has wasted an opportunity to bring forward proposals which would deal with pollution-related diseases in general, rather than the specific matter of air pollution related diseases alone.
The rapporteur is right in calling for a broader programme which could deal with noise, food, water and waste pollution-related diseases as well.
<P>
One matter which I would like to see considered in a broader programme than that proposed by the Commission is that of diseases believed to be related to the use of organophosphorous sheep dip.
Whereas there has been considerable disagreement among scientists regarding the effects of organophosphorous sheep dip on farmers who have used it, there has been increasing evidence to support campaigners' arguments that use of organophosphorous sheep dip can lead to damage to the nervous system.
I would like to see a Commission programme on pollution-related diseases which is broad enough to include matters such as that which I have outlined.
<P>
Trakatellis, Viceconte and Cabrol reports
<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="Caudron">
I would first of all like to congratulate the three rapporteurs for having carried out this work and for having reconciled their points of view. This will enable the adoption of a better approach towards public health at Union level.
A great deal of progress has been achieved compared to the recent past.
<P>
I unreservedly share Mr Antonio Trakatellis' desires regarding prevention and the setting up of an information network for the use of victims of all kinds of injuries.
<P>
Mr Viceconte's report marks an important stage in the treatment on rare diseases.
I support the proposal inviting the European Community to become involved in research on these diseases.
<P>
To increase the effectiveness of this research and improve the diffusion of information, I think that it is essential to establish of a free database, accessible to all who may be able to assist in the provision of knowledge regarding these rare diseases which affect so many families, is a must.
<P>
I also want to support Mr Cabrol in his efforts to widen the programme's field of action against pollution-related diseases.
<P>
A study seems necessary into the effects of long-term pollution and the possible synergies between the different pollutants.
<P>
Finally, given the costs supported by society in the area of public health, an investment of ECU 14 million will work in favour of the well-being of the population in the long term, but also towards a reduction in the budgets which we currently devote to social security.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="Eriksson and Sjöstedt">
The Swedish members of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left have voted against the reports.
We think that all questions concerning health care and the combating of particular diseases are best dealt with at national level.
There are already a number of structures, including the World Health Organization, for the international cooperation which is needed in this area.
<P>
We are also opposed to Parliament's request to greatly increase appropriations for the proposed programmes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="Verwaerde">
I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to the three rapporteurs, Mr Viceconte, Mr Trakatellis and Mr Cabrol, for the excellent work they have done on the Community "Action on Health 1999-2003' programme.
<P>
The three reports which the House has just adopted regarding programmes for Community action on rare diseases, injury prevention and pollution-related diseases clearly improve upon the proposals submitted by the Commission.
<P>
Rare diseases, which are 80 % genetic, will from now on be the objective of concerted effort on the part of the European Union and I am very pleased about this.
Early diagnosis and the pooling of scientific knowledge at a European level will enable more rapid progress to be made and this is something that everybody wants.
I am thinking, for example, of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease but also many other lesser known, but just as dreadful, diseases.
<P>
With regard to the programme on injury prevention, I must stress that Community information systems, one on intentional and one on unintentional injuries, should be set up as the rapporteur recommends.
Similarly, I am in complete agreement with him that absolute priority should be given to the groups most prone to these injuries: children, women - through domestic violence - and old people.
<P>
Finally, pollution-related diseases are becoming more and more unacceptable.
The consequences of atmospheric pollution, in particular those linked to transport and water pollution, but also noise and construction materials - asbestos, for example - must be the object of an ambitious programme, as desired by the rapporteur.
<P>
I therefore hope that the Commission and the Council will take great note of the wishes of Parliament in this matter.
<P>
Trakatellis, Viceconte, Cabrol and Flemming reports
<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have voted in favour of the Trakatellis, Viceconte, Cabrol and Flemming reports on popular health programmes in the EU.
These programmes will cover research and cooperation between Member States until the year 2003.
We believe that cooperation on health and exchange of experience in particular is working well.
The problem with the programmes is that they are all-inclusive, and so implicitly promise an enormous amount, but when it comes down to the detail, there is no money for very much more health for the citizens of Europe.
<P>
We would also like to point out that these programmes come under Article 129 of the Treaty, which calls for cooperation between Member States, although is not mean the same as harmonizing those states' health policies.
An EU health policy is the same as an EU environment and consumer policy where the competence exists.
Integrating health principles where relevant and applying the principle of caution are together worth more than these programmes, which may be more for show.
<P>
Bazin report (A4-0072/98)
<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="Bernardini">
The report by the chairman of the Committee on Transport and Tourism bears the stamp of good sense.
<P>
The legislative proposal aims to complete the production of harmonized statistical data on the carriage of goods by road.
Within the framework of the Single Market it is essential to assure a description of the origin and destination of international transport.
<P>
This collecting of statistical returns will enable an analysis of the traffic corridors and of the so-called sensitive routes as well as an improvement in the reflection on a common transport policy.
<P>
The achievement of this objective requires a financial effort on the part of the European Union in order to support that of the Member States.
We support the position of the Committee on Budgets, which aims to renew the funding of ECU 300 000 for 1998 and 1999.
<P>
Finally, our satisfaction with this proposal must be added to that of the road haulage professionals who participated in its formulation.
<P>
Women's rights
<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="Caudron">
It may seem paradoxical to say it, but I would like to see an end to International Women's Day.
<P>
To me this would be proof that there was no more inequality between men and women, no more violence against women in any form and that they were no longer the victims of discrimination of any sort.
But we know and we can see, whilst bitterly regretting it, that we are very far from that and thus International Women's Day has "many a good day ahead of it' .
I might add that, this year, with the denunciation of the medieval obscurantism of Kabul - to which Commissioner Bonino has contributed so well - we have reached new heights in the misery which continues to affect so many women around the world.
<P>
Afghan women have become the "living dead' and the world seems incapable of doing anything about it.
It is a tragedy!
If you add this to the pain of Algerian women in the face of the terrorism they suffer you can see that perhaps there has never before been such a need to demonstrate our support to the women of the world on 8 March this year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="Crawley">
<SPEAKER ID=133 NAME="Ephremidis">
The "anniversary' crowns and the celebrations of 8 March will end up by being simply quaint if not deliberately disorientating, since they do not call on women, who continue to be one of the most vulnerable categories of the population, to fight for their rights, which are being roughly trodden underfoot by today's socioeconomic system.
Throughout the length and breadth of our planet, which is being shaken by totalitarian regimes and ideas, cultural and economic backwardness, famine and destitution, where wars and clashes are being played out or even where conservative and regressive social and economic policies are being promoted, women are the first to be called upon to pay the price and face the consequences.
<P>
Women throughout the world have made a great many changes though their unrelenting and unstinting struggles, not only for women but for the progress of society as a whole.
Today we must honour the force of these struggles by calling for them to continue while fundamental problems remain unsolved and other new problems come to threaten the rights and achievements of women.
<P>
A victim of religious fanaticism, a victim of exploitation by international crime networks, a victim of unemployment and social marginalization, female dignity suffers in the most terrible way the behaviour of a world which offends human dignity and existence just as severely, though in different ways, in Third World countries, in developed countries and in countries of the European Union.
<P>
Equal opportunities for women can have no meaning in a society without equality of social outlook, a society of unemployment, underemployment, a society without a welfare state, a society of the commercialization of human worth.
Not only are social rights and social gains not expanding, they are being squeezed more and more as too costly, a fact which places even more burdens on women who have to combine many duties with dual and triple social roles.
<P>
Flexible forms of employment, which are being offered to women with great largesse, are not a product of growth but represent the flexibility of the economically strong, which enables them to offset the economic crisis and to safeguard their competitiveness to the disadvantage of working people. The chief victims are women, who continue to be paid less for equivalent work, and who continue to face more problems and unequal opportunities of access to the labour market.
Women continue to hold mainly lower grade and unskilled jobs and to have limited participation in responsible and senior administrative jobs in economic, social and political life.
<P>
The institutional protection of women against any form of discrimination and the guarantee of their positive influence in social, economic and political life, cannot be achieved independently of the reorientation and the reorganization, often from the very foundations, of the model of development of our societies.
<P>
In the face of plans for war, for exploitation and for oppression, in the face of a tactic of discrimination, women are called upon to push forward their own demands in the context of a broad popular battlefront, in each country individually and at European and international level, to express the common struggle to obstruct this policy, until it is overturned and until the power of the people is established.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="Seillier">
In this world there are many inhuman and revolting situations imposed on women and these cause rightful indignation which is largely shared by all.
<P>
Other situations are, unfortunately, much less well known, and were not mentioned in last Monday's debate.
UN agencies specialized in population issues, along with the IMF and World Bank, practise a veritable imperialism towards a substantial number of African and Latin American countries, making development aid conditional on permanent or, when it relates to chemical treatments, partial sterilization policies imposed on women who are often illiterate.
<P>
Let us also consider the plight of Chinese women, who are subjected to an implacable Malthusianism, to forced abortions, even infanticide if they surpass their "quota' of children authorized by the communist authorities!
<P>
Let us consider African women, up until now the linchpin of local economic life, who have been hit hard by structural adjustment policies imposed by the ideology of the world market!
<P>
In Europe, women often see a male model of social and professional achievement imposed on them, which brings about a double workload, often to the detriment of their personal well-being and that of their family.
<P>
Under the guise of the sexual liberation of 1968 onwards the trivialization of sexuality, which has reduced sex to an immediate consumer object, exposes many young women and girls to problems which compromise a full and lasting life as part of a couple.
<P>
There is clearly still a great deal of ground to be covered before women from different societies around the world can be recognized fully, not in a climate of rivalry exacerbated by men, but in respect of their equal dignity and their own responsibility as men or women.
<P>
Cornelissen report (A4-0065/98)
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="Ahlqvist, Andersson, Lööw, Theorin, Waidelich and Wibe">
We are positive about the efforts which the Commission has made with regard to increased road safety.
Comprehensive measures are needed to reduce the number of road traffic accidents in the EU, which the Commission has also presented in its action plan.
<P>
Many accidents are still related to alcohol consumption in connection with driving.
We therefore welcome the proposal which limits the maximum permitted alcohol level in the blood to 0.5 mg alcohol per ml of blood.
This is a step in the right direction.
For reasons of principle we are also going to vote for a lower permitted limit of 0.2 mg alcohol per ml of blood.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 NAME="Caudron">
I read Mr Pétrus Cornelissen's report attentively and I fully support the desires and objectives set out in the text.
<P>
It may seem absurd to try to reduce the number of victims in a text. Nevertheless, given the extent of the figures at Union level, financial measures are urgently required.
<P>
I would like to remind you all that the tragedies which affect thousands of families are very costly to society as a whole.
<P>
Mr Cornelissen's text contains many good ideas, both in the area of prevention and suppression and I feel that a correlation between social legislation and safety in the area of road transport is most timely.
<P>
The particularly tragic accident which occurred on the Lille-Gand motorway recently makes it necessary to take specific measures when climatic conditions are especially propitious to serious accidents.
<P>
Fog is statistically the most dangerous, in particular on the major trunk roads.
I have already asked the Commission to look into specific measures to be taken in particularly dense fog and I would like to take advantage of the debate on this report to encourage all Members to agree to a possible temporary closure of motorways in thick fog.
<P>
This proposal will undoubtedly surprise some of my colleagues.
However it can be explained in terms of the price paid by thousands of our citizens, killed or injured in similar conditions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="Ephremidis">
The number of dead and injured that are sacrificed every year on the roads of the Member States of the European Union is comparable to the number of those who are killed or wounded in a war.
What else could one say about the 45 000 who are killed, the 500 000 who are taken to hospital, or the 160, 000 who are injured!
Unfortunately, first prize for this awful death toll in all probability goes to my country, in proportion to its population, with 2 000 dead, 32 000 injured and approximately 22 000 accidents a year.
<P>
However many plans are put forward, however many programmes are implemented, however good are the intentions of those who promote them, the situation, unfortunately, is not going to change significantly. The reason for this is that there is no radical change in the overall transport policy which would transfer the bulk from private individual means to public mass means of transportation.
The aim of this would be, among other things, to reduce or at least to limit the number of traded vehicles and to achieve better control of the safety conditions in which they circulate.
<P>
In our view, there are several basic causes of the exacerbation and perpetuation of the problem including the continuing reckless policy of promoting and increasing the sales and profits of large motor car manufacturers without the existence of suitable infrastructures to support the continually increasing volume of vehicles. Here, we also include the ageing fleet of vehicles due to the lowering of people's standard of living, the deteriorating state of the road network and corresponding infrastructures due to policies of financial stringency, and the continuing violation of safety regulations and the rights of working people in the area of transportation for the cause of pure competition and an increase in profits.
<P>
To the enormous cost in human lives and the consequences of road traffic accidents we must add the significant social and economic cost, which is shouldered by the population. Instead, those directly responsible should shoulder the burden of necessary expenditure and appropriate measures for the prevention of accidents.
<P>
We believe that the report makes positive proposals and improves the Commission proposal by promoting measures for the improvement of the road network and other necessary infrastructures, the safety of cars and the safeguarding of the observance of rules of conduct.
<P>
However, we believe that it is more important that those measures become reality, and that they do not face technical and artificial obstacles.
They must be the subject of wider debate and activity and they must be accompanied by education from the very youngest age, passing through all levels and structures of education, to the rules of the highway code. They must lead to social control over the taking of preventive measures; this concerns not only users and people working in the transport sector but also the guarantee of safety specifications for vehicles and infrastructures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="Lindqvist">
If legislation is to be considered at all at EU level, it must relate to minimum rules.
Every country should have the right to go further by keeping or introducing tougher rules.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="Moreau">
Mr Cornelissen's report rightly sets the objective of rapidly and sharply reducing the number of road traffic accidents which each year kill 45 000 people in the European Union and injure another 1.6 million more.
<P>
The report condemns the behaviour of some individuals, who put other people's lives in danger, as well as their own.
It also highlights the need for a global strategy on road safety, in both the area of vehicle safety and choice of method of transport.
<P>
In this respect I am glad that the comments I made regarding the need to readjust the balance in favour of rail transport, a reduction in working hours of lorry drivers and controls on existing regulations have been taken into account.
We all know how real the link between fatigue and the risk of an accident really is.
<P>
As regards road safety, a sense of responsibility will be encouraged through the provision of the necessary financial means to create the best conditions of safety possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="des Places">
We are sensitive to the tragedy of road accidents and to the importance of road safety.
Indeed, road traffic is responsible for almost 95 % of all victims of traffic accidents. Over the whole of the European Union this represents 900 accidental deaths per week and some 500 000 people being hospitalized every year, of whom 25 % end up with varying degrees of permanent disability.
<P>
Consequently, we agree with the different objectives put forward by the rapporteur.
Indeed, it is particularly important to protect children at school entrances, to improve the standardization of vehicle safety systems, to assure the safety of cyclists and pedestrians and to give some notion of first aid in driving schools.
<P>
Nevertheless, in point 7(c), the rapporteur suggests prohibiting the sale of alcohol in service stations on motorways.
We should remember that it is forbidden to drink alcohol in motorway restaurants, if not accompanied by a meal.
This measure seems largely sufficient to us since it is linked to the maximum level of alcohol permitted in drivers' blood, which is 0.5 mg/ml of blood.
<P>
It should be noted that motorways pass through many producing regions, in particular the wine producing areas, and that it is therefore logical for producers to sell their regional goods at service stations.
These products are bought by consumers for consumption at their place of destination.
<P>
In conclusion, this ban would bring no improvement to the current situation. On the contrary, it would cause negative effects on the promotion of regional produce and on the preservation of the regional cultures of the different Member States of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="Titley">
Given that at present one in three of us in the European Union can expect to be treated in hospital at some point for injuries suffered in a road accident, we should all welcome the Commission road safety programme.
<P>
The report rightly calls for priority to be given to EU action to ensure that vehicles are produced with safety foremost in all manufacturers' minds and to give consumers a safety rating system to bear in mind when buying a vehicle.
<P>
Given the number of people who now drive in EU countries other than their home state, it is also a sound idea to consider an EU-wide penalty point system for driving licences.
Similarly, the safety of both professional drivers and everyone else on Europe's roads can be increased by enforced rest periods and driving hours limits.
<P>
I hope that the Commission will take this report's safety suggestions on board so that all of us will need to worry less in future whether we will be the unlucky one out of every three citizens to need hospital treatment for injuries on the road.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 NAME="Schlechter">
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations firmly supports the criticism of the draft multilateral agreement on international investments on which a vote has just been taken with the Kreissl-Dörfler report.
Indeed, we consider that whereas it may be useful to provide an overall legal framework to these investments, the text of the agreement should establish, in its first article, the inalienable sovereignty of a people and their right to choose the laws and the type of society that suits them.
<P>
There is no question of us accepting the project as it stands thus prepared by the OECD, which seems to put Member States in the position of the accused, as if the only result of their actions was the prevention of multinational firms from working for the common good.
Worse still, we see in this the outline of a world where multinationals will be the major players and where individual states are in some way reduced to the role of sub-contractor for questions of local security.
This approach is radically contrary to our concept of the sovereignty of nations and of the distinguished role of synthesis which politics must play.
<P>
We are therefore delighted with the European Parliament's sudden burst of resistance and would like to comment on the fact that our protests regarding the GATT have perhaps slowly and finally borne fruit: a good number of the motions voted for today, for example on the need for a clause recognizing the legitimacy of regional preference zones, would have been included in the GATT if our requests had been listened to at the time.
<P>
But this sudden outburst from Parliament is insufficient, for the multilateral agreement on investments is only one aspect of a more general movement which is developing on many levels and which tends to distance power from the control of the people and to take away from them the final word in controlling their destiny.
Thus, on a different level, the Amsterdam project pushes us in the same direction, by by-passing national democracies, by reducing the quality of democratic control in Europe and by favouring the emergence of a technocratic European power which obeys the pressures of the global financial powers far more than the needs of its people.
It is for these reasons that we must reject not only the MAI, but also the Treaty of Amsterdam.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="Howitt">
Mr President, I am pleased to support this report which raises serious and fundamental concerns about the multilateral agreement on investment and calls on the Member States responsible for its negotiation to respond.
I have been involved in meetings with our UK Government representatives and know they are listening to the concerns.
They have already tabled a large number of exceptions, a proposal for special and differentiated treatment for developing countries, the aim of transferring discussions into the WTO and a study on the development impact of the agreement, all of which are consistent with our resolution today.
<P>
I make two further points of principle: first, it is for those who proposed the agreement to justify why there should be a different standard of legal protection given as of right to the investor, in comparison to the responsibility he or she has in relation to human rights, labour, social or environmental standards. Secondly, in our support for the inclusion of the OECD guidelines for multinational enterprises as an appendix to the MAI, we must recognize that these can and must be made more effective, and that we, in the European Union, have a direct responsibility in relation to promoting appropriate codes of conduct.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 NAME="Ahlqvist and Theorin">
We are critical of the MAI agreement in its current form.
It gives far too extensive rights to multinational investors, while the political influence of national governments is severely restricted.
There is a risk that democracy will be greatly undermined.
We are voting for the report which deals with the shortfalls in the agreement, and we would like in particular to stress the importance of Amendment No 1.
<P>
We regret that the debate on an agreement which severely restricts democracy such as this has been conducted behind closed doors, and that it has been conducted within the OECD rather than in an international body in which developing countries have an opportunity to participate and to influence the content of the agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw and Waidelich">
<SPEAKER ID=147 NAME="Dury">
We are the first parliament to discuss the draft multilateral agreement on investments and to give an opinion on this subject.
We believe that governments should not accept the agreement as it stands.
Firstly, we challenge the approach.
Opaque and secret negotiations have been held within the OECD, with no debate on the objectives, the appropriateness or the purpose of this type of agreement.
We challenge its ideological foundations.
Liberalism on a world scale will become the only driving force behind both governments and "non-governments' .
<P>
The rapporteur raises a number of questions. Will the multilateral agreement be incompatible with international agreements such as the Rio Declaration, Agenda 21 or the United Nations guidelines on consumer protection?
As the rapporteur notes, what guarantees do we have that the environmental, social and cultural policies of the European Union and its Member States will be respected?
As the rapporteur also notes, what mechanisms must we put in place to protect the cultural sector from unconditional liberalization?
<P>
For the Group of the Party of European Socialists, there is no question of accepting such an agreement in its present state.
It is a warning to governments that they must not lose their means of action or regulation.
Citizens often feel dispossessed of their future by an all-powerful economic globalization.
Governments must share this concern with them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 NAME="Jensen, Lis">
The Kreissl-Dörfler report contains a lot of sensible views, but even so I am unable to support it.
I believe that, in the final instance, this report is superfluous for the simple reason that, as point 8 of the report itself states, the EU is not a member of the OECD.
So I cannot be pleased in any way that the Commission is actively involved in negotiations on an agreement on multilateral investments at OECD level.
I feel it is a bad habit that, as we are seeing more and more, the Commission is being put on an equal position with EU Member States in international negotiations.
There is no doubt in my mind what the intention is here: trying to give the EU the status of an economic and political superpower.
<P>
Finally, I would like to say that I am glad that the Kreissl-Dörfler report is against this future OECD agreement -possibly - restricting EU law and making it more difficult to pass new EU legislation on the environment, for example.
On this point, I would merely point out that EU Member States themselves are now subject to the same restrictions when it comes to their own national legislation.
This is a situation caused precisely by the basically rigid, centralist form of the EU treaties.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 NAME="Lienemann">
Mr Kreissl-Dörfler's report shows very precisely the great risk the MAI will represent in respect of our European social, cultural and political model and, more fundamentally still, for democracy and people's capacity to control their own destiny in general.
<P>
I supported the Group of the Party of European Socialist's amendment encouraging the European Parliament to insist that governments and national parliaments do not sign the agreement as it currently stands.
Indeed, it is precisely the currently prevailing logic which must be condemned, rejected and brought to a halt.
<P>
As it stands, the MAI constitutes a new stage, a decisive one, one of liberation, of economic globalization with no protective rules, with no democratic rules which, as we know, does not benefit the majority of people, not even in the developed world.
<P>
If such an agreement were to be put in place, we would be depriving individual states, the European Union and public authorities of their means of action and authoritative sovereignty to enact, for example, social or environmental rulings, commitments benefiting regional development or employment or to use Structural Funds, incentives and selective measures.
<P>
The multinationals would become masters of our world in the name of the sacrosanct free market and free competition. They would hold all power and, in particular, the possibility - and this really is the limit - of bringing a state to justice on the grounds of a "loss of profit opportunity' , a company's profits prevailing over the choice and interest of a people!
<P>
What will be left to our democracies but the crumbs of power which these omnipotent forces leave them?
If it becomes concrete, the MAI will make European political and social construction all the more difficult and will remove all substance from it.
<P>
In short, the project of a community which is master of its own destiny, capable of giving life to an area of solidarity, liberty, creativity and cultural diversity, will no longer have any sense nor the effective possibility of embodying this.
We must therefore put a stop to this deviation.
Of course, we can only subscribe to a better organization of investment possibilities in a transparent and just framework and the report clearly sets out the conditions without which such an agreement cannot be accepted.
<P>
The framework of this agreement must be global and cannot be defined by the rich or developed countries alone.
That is why the OECD is not the right body to do this.
The WTO, or better still UNCTAD or the UN, would be in a position to offer a more representative context in which to draw it up.
<P>
Any initiative must be ruled out until global social and environmental standards have been set.
<P>
The individual states and political and public inter-state organizations such as the European Union must retain their right to act, to ensure that the interest of their people prevails, to regulate the economy with social, fiscal and environmental regulations.
In short, democratic sovereignty must in no way be ceded to the economic interests of the powerful.
<P>
The MAI is unacceptable!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR), Eriksson, Seppänen and Sjöstedt (GUE/NGL), Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling (V), Bonde, Lis Jensen and Sandbæk (I-EDN)">
We Nordic EU critics support the strong criticism of the MAI agreement in the report.
We believe that the agreement in its current form would have such serious adverse consequences that it should not be signed.
<P>
It is unreasonable that an agreement with extensive global consequences should be negotiated solely between the rich industrialized nations in the OECD.
The agreement should instead be negotiated in the framework of the UN or possibly the WTO.
Negotiations in the OECD countries are also characterized by great secrecy and a lack of parliamentary control.
<P>
The contents of the agreement are completely unacceptable.
Its proposals mean that transnational companies are given extensive rights at the expense of the states.
That means that companies, through the courts, can overturn democratic decisions in important areas such as the environment, management of natural resources and social issues.
The agreement totally lacks any wording which guarantees the rights of workers, environmental standards and important national interests.
<P>
There are also parts of the report which we cannot accept. These include the positive view of the Commission's role in the negotiations and the demand that the EU should be given the authority to make decisions on questions concerning foreign direct investments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 NAME="Martinez">
The multilateral agreement on investments adds one more piece to the puzzle of the world market.
European public opinion will discover that tax aids to investment, budgetary financing of our facilities and the levels financed by taxes borne by our tax payers will all also benefit the multinationals controlled by the United States.
Tax payers in the European Union are going to pay to offer markets, jobs and profits to our North American competitors.
<P>
The European Union which, with 350 million inhabitants, should be a power over and above the nation state, thus shows its dark reality: it is an authority submissive to the power of the WTO, to that of the OECD, and to the ideology of global free trade.
<P>
The farmers have known this since the GATT agreement in 1994, if not before.
The steel workers, coal workers and textile workers experienced it at the cost of losing their jobs and having their lives ruined.
It is now the turn of the privileged world of cinema and television to discover that globalism, the removal of borders and free trade, is synonymous with a loss of security, a loss of national protection and unfair competition.
<P>
The MAI will make actors, directors, producers and other members of the media profession realize that free trade destroys, breaks up and sows misery within nations.
<P>
So these privileged people who had not one word to say in solidarity with the destruction of Lorraine, the depopulation of Nord-Pas de Calais, the miners, workers and 12 million small farmers wiped out and thrown into despair, these millionaires of cinema and television, the Taverniers, Brigitte Fosseys, Jeanne Moreaus or Klappichs of this world, these Pontius Pilates of the Maastricht Treaty, are now screaming blue murder.
These children of the world, these white Zulus, shamans of globalist rites, are converting to protectionism, discovering the benefits of national protection and calling for state sovereignty.
Those who used to refuse national preference now call for corporatist preference.
<P>
What a turn up for the books!
They have gone directly from Maastricht, Geneva or Hollywood to Vichy.
For us, it would have been enough if they had stopped at Paris.
For this is where the sovereignty of a country which cares for its people and its children lies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 NAME="Ribeiro">
Given its confederal nature, the explanation of vote of the Confederal Group of the European United Left must outline the reasons behind the vote of all its components and members which in this, as in other cases, do not necessarily coincide.
<P>
There was a consensus during the internal discussion of the Kreissl-Dörfler report, and in the statements of the members of our group in denouncing the process whereby the MAI agreement was reached. This was conducted virtually up to the time of signing with practically no publicity or democratic debate that would be desirable and indeed necessary in the light of its importance, not only regarding public opinion in EU Member States but also regarding third countries outside the OECD.
<P>
I would mention the fact that the Committee on External Economic Relations, chaired by Mrs Luciana Castellina, took the initiative of drawing up a report. It does honour to this House in the manner in which it lends an institutional dimension to the expressions of protest and reservations voiced when the agreement became known, particularly in the cultural and artistic sphere.
And, notwithstanding all the commitments necessary to turn it into a Parliament resolution, Mrs Kreissl-Dörfler's report has succeeded in making a concrete contribution by manifesting an openly critical position regarding the process and its result.
<P>
The vote of the components and members of the Confederal Group of the European United Left was also based on their consensus in rejecting a situation whereby multilateral investment agreements, which are drawn up and negotiated between political leaders and major business groups, can prevail over national legislations which are the product of democratic structures and mechanisms and which defend national positions in the economic, social, cultural or environmental spheres.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="Theonas">
in writing. (EL) The might of big business, represented by the governments and states of the OECD and headed by the USA and the EU, have decided to launch an attack on national sovereignty and independence, by doing away with the fundamental right of nations to choose the pathway to their own growth and development.
<P>
To date, there has been the possibility, albeit limited and on the basis of the correlation of powers, of exercising some autonomous economic policy, since draconian programmes of consolidation have not been imposed by international credit organizations or associations of regional integration. There has also been the possibility of concluding bilateral agreements which, to a certain extent, took account of the mutual interests of the participants.
With the agreement that is being drawn up, the safeguarding of profits and, more generally, of the interests of foreign investors determines every measure of social, environmental, developmental or regional policy, under threat of the severest penalties in the event of a violation of the provisions which protect, wholly and exclusively, foreign investments.
<P>
The oppressive nature of the agreement is such that we can talk of a charter of the rights of multinationals and of the obligations of nations and governments.
The fact that only foreign investors have the right of recourse concerning the observance of the agreement, while this same possibility is not given to states, is certainly worth noting.
<P>
The agreement gives every multinational the possibility of demanding the state in which it is investing to abstain from any attempt to support national production or some sector or some region through the granting of state assistance or other advantages.
Foreign investments cannot be accompanied by conditions for the support of local production, for the employment of the local workforce or for the respect of labour relations.
States will not be able to negotiate or even impose on multinationals the slightest commitment to reinvest a part of their profits or exchange their technology.
In fact, multinationals will have the right at any time to export the whole of their profits and their capital and to move towards whatever other accommodation they deem to be to their advantage.
Moreover, the implementation of the agreement will allow multinational companies to rescind any previous commitment they have undertaken in relation to the investments they have already made.
<P>
The agreement deals a hard blow for the trade-union rights of working people and urges governments to crack down in any way on labour movements by brandishing the threat of compensation for lost profits as a result of strikes, social unrest and even revolts.
At the same time, the standstill principle consolidates any liberalizing or deregulatory measure, given that every new measure to protect social rights could be attacked as being protectionist and could therefore be invalidated.
<P>
It is particularly striking that the text, which aims to subject people at a global level to the hunt for increased profits, has been surrounded by the utmost secrecy. Its ratification will oblige developed countries to submit to the method of "adhere or be condemned' .
We have never before seen in the annals of international law the fundamental abolition of the right of release with the planned commitment of states for at least five years from the date of ratification and for fifteen years from the date of rescission.
<P>
The central issue of directly thwarting any further negotiation and quashing any attempt to accept such plans is hidden, since attention is focused simply on the exemption of certain sectors from the scope of the agreement.
In the event that this agreement finally comes up for ratification our position must be to reject it unconditionally.
Nations cannot tolerate the planned dictatorship of multinationals and will do everything to overturn it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="Vaz da Silva">
The intensity of the euphoria surrounding international agreements may have the adverse result of cancelling their desired positive effects.
<P>
The European Union has shown a tendency to produce ever more agreements without stopping to think whether each additional agreement contributes anything new and, more particularly, whether it runs counter to the basic interests of society as a whole, in terms of the future.
The current negotiations with the United States - which have immense implications for the future of a European model of society - is one, although by no means the only example.
<P>
Under the MAI agreement, in the context of the OECD, the European Union could exert considerable influence if all its members were united in defending a long-term view which did not benefit the market at the expense of the European acquis in the environmental sphere.
<P>
The MAI agreement differs from its WTO counterpart on account not only of the identity and number of countries involved, but also of the type of negotiation involved.
Under GATT/WTO, any countries concerned with defending the interests of the European audiovisual sector had only to refrain from making offers in that area.
In contrast, under MAI, which is approaching its culmination in May, the audiovisual exception must be expressly guaranteed.
This will be an acid-test for the Union.
Let us hope that we are not disappointed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="Wibe">
I am going to vote for the report - assuming that Amendment No 1 is approved - because it is critical of the MAI agreement and in effect demands that it should be renegotiated.
<P>
However, I have reservations about certain formulations, such as point 22 of the draft report which seeks to approve a ban on investment subsidies.
That would damage Swedish regional policy which is based in part on investment incentives.
There are also a number of other points in the report of which I am sceptical, and which I would like to see expressed in a different manner.
<P>
Flemming report (A4-0022/98)
<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="Bébéar">
As a doctor in charge of a hospital ear, nose and throat unit, I witness the damage caused by the abuse of tobacco on a daily basis.
Nevertheless, I do not believe that we need to withdraw our support to tobacco production in Europe over the next ten years in order to guarantee public health.
<P>
This kind of tobacco prohibition, which would damage our economy, would have little effect in reducing the annual consumption of cigarettes, since supplies could be obtained from American and Asian producers who are always looking for new outlets.
<P>
This prohibition would be matched by financial support to tobacco growers to change to other forms of agricultural production.
This would automatically be an extra burden on the budget, and the extent of this has not yet been assessed.
A real problem of choice would also be raised with regard to the nature of such diversification, given the system of quotas and the surpluses that already exist for many products.
<P>
What sort of a situation are we going to put the producers in?
They are already getting worried. Are we not going to destroy jobs without improving the health situation?
<P>
On the other hand, the proposal to carry out research into the cultivation of other types of tobacco with lower levels of nicotine seems far more logical in terms of its medical and economic consequences.
It would contribute to a real improvement in consumer protection.
<P>
Whilst supporting the underlying principles of the Flemming report, I would like to emphasize the unrealistic and utopian nature of a number of its proposals, should they be translated into fact.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="Díez de Rivera Icaza">
As everyone knows, Article 129 of the Treaty of Amsterdam increases the obligations of the European Union towards the protection of public health and consumers.
That means that in order for the Union to address and properly fulfil its new commitments in these areas and, especially, the demand for health protection to be included in Community policies, new proposals will have to be presented following the ratification of that Treaty.
<P>
The Commission's report is correct and detailed. However, in view of the new step taken in Amsterdam on these matters, the Union now demands new approaches.
We therefore call for a Green Paper, to inform us of the Commission's new actions to fulfil the Union's new health policy, as I mentioned earlier.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 NAME="Holm">
The reports from the Commission and the European Parliament are both welcome.
I think it is important that public health aspects are taken into account when the EU shapes its policies, including transport measures and agricultural policy.
<P>
At the same time the report surprises me because, in fact, it indirectly criticizes the decisions made in the EU, including decisions taken last year.
Several areas can be mentioned, such as genetically-modified food products, support for environmental poisons in agriculture, an open door for salmonella and antibiotics, support for several infrastructure measures in road transport and support for tobacco growing.
All these areas have in common the fact that they affect public health and so should not have been shaped in the way they actually were.
<P>
I fully support point 10 of the report which points out that the aim of today's tobacco subsidies is that they should be phased out and eventually end completely.
I hope that the European Parliament takes this decision, since so many times in the past the majority has continued to support subsidies for tobacco growers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="Lindqvist">
Just as political decisions which affect the environment should be accompanied by environmental impact assessments, decisions which affect health and consumer protection should be accompanied by health effect assessments.
However, there is no reason to set up a separate control apparatus at EU level; this should be left to the Member States.
<P>
Environment, health and consumer issues should be given greater priority in political work at European level.
Majority decisions may be justified, but it should then be a question of minimum rules.
Each Member State should have the right to keep higher standards or introduce tougher rules than provided for by the EU.
<P>
On the issue of tobacco growing the approach should be that subsidies for tobacco growing should be phased out within a five to ten-year period.
In order not to increase unemployment, the growers should be offered alternative crops and support to develop them.
I voted in favour of the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 NAME="Novo">
The importance of protecting health within the European Union must be emphasized.
For this reason, the report that has been approved today deserves our overall support in terms of drawing up a Green Paper analysing the future areas of action for a European policy in the area of health and the need for mutual recognition of professional qualifications in the sector. I also support the points made on the defence of the rights of patients, including compensation in cases of inappropriate treatment, the implementation of high safety standards in the veterinary and phytosanitary spheres and, finally, the reorganization and clarification of responsibilities in this area which is subject to problems at Commission level.
<P>
However, as we say in Portugal, there is always a "but' and here it lies in the fact that, on the subject of tobacco, this report echoes others in adopting only a partial approach to the problem.
<P>
It skates over the need to promote a pedagogical approach and to introduce preventive measures which discourage tobacco consumption, which is a clear and obvious factor of risk for health.
It makes no suggestions for preventing or placing a global ban on tobacco advertising, particularly at sporting events.
It merely emphasizes, in point 10, the need to stop subsidies for tobacco growing in the European Union, and even specifies maximum periods of ten years for this to come into effect.
In a manner that verges on the hypocritical, the report ignores the fact that this policy could put tens of thousands more people out of work in some regions where there are no alternatives in either the short or medium term. Curiously, it forgets that halting tobacco production in the European Union would simply give rise to higher imports and hence additional profits for the large tobacco-producing multinationals, which retain their empires intact and which are not even mentioned in the report.
<P>
We question this partial approach to the health implications of tobacco consumption, and clear protectionism of the interests of the tobacco firms.
For this reason, we voted against those points where this partial approach is most obvious and significant, and for those amendments which sought to minimize them and which, fortunately, were ultimately accepted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 NAME="des Places">
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations is also aware of the effects of tobacco abuse on health that have been noted by the rapporteur in his explanatory statement.
Nevertheless, if you estimate the number of deaths per year in the European Union caused by tobacco at around 500 000, it is also appropriate to note that various recent epidemiological studies have shown that in the United States the death rate due to tobacco, whilst not decreasing, is remaining constant.
This is true even though tobacco consumption has been falling constantly there for more than twenty years.
<P>
Our group has tabled an amendment to point 10 of the motion for a resolution.
The rapporteur considers it necessary to reduce, even withdraw, the system of aid to tobacco growers.
On many occasions over the past few years we have been reminded that the European Union imports 70 % of its tobacco and that we should not therefore link the aid to tobacco growers' incomes to tobacco abuse and its effects on health.
<P>
Our group would thus like to see a restrictive policy with regard to the promotion of tobacco consumption.
We must not confuse tobacco abuse caused by tobacco consumption with production.
<P>
We would like to remind you that if support to tobacco growers' incomes were withdrawn European production would immediately cease with all the inherent consequences on employment.
Tobacco imports from third countries would increase greatly to compensate for the reduction in European production.
The impact on tobacco abuse would be zero and the European Commission would have thus caused an increase in unemployment within the Union, particularly in marginalized areas already strongly affected by unemployment.
<P>
Alzheimer's disease
<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="Caudron">
I fully support this series of questions regarding Alzheimer's disease.
It was high time they were raised.
<P>
Indeed, it seems necessary to put in place an action programme against this disease, which affects a considerable number of old and sometimes even young people in the European Union.
It is essential to establish a programme of this type on the basis of both research and on prevention and treatment.
Let me add that any progress in the fight against this disease must be considered as an improvement in the living conditions of the elderly.
<P>
It is worth noting that apart from the health aspect there is a social and, quite simply, a human issue taking shape.
A large number of elderly people find themselves cut off from all links with society and Alzheimer's disease only accentuates this sad fact.
<P>
I would like to take this opportunity to thank health and geriatric staff for what is generally recognized as the high quality of their work.
Specific training must be encouraged in order to respond in the best way possible to the needs of those affected by this terrible illness which condemns people to isolation.
<P>
It is encouraging to see that Parliament is looking into the matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="Pradier">
It is already two years since Parliament adopted the Poggiolini report, which requested the Commission to present an action programme to fight Alzheimer's disease and other neurological syndromes which affect the cognitive functions.
<P>
The text at the time requested that this programme should be implemented as soon as possible.
It has to be noted that the delay has been longer than anticipated.
<P>
It is, of course, a difficult issue. The disease is misunderstood, its causes remain unclear, epidemiological studies have been limited to a few Western countries and staff as a whole have been ill prepared to care for the sick.
This is all the more reason for making advances in the scientific areas of neuro-biological, epidemiological and therapeutic work.
<P>
The Commission must double its efforts, support research and make special budgetary provisions in order to speed up the improvement in care that the sufferers deserve.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="Theonas">
The proportion of those affected by Alzheimer's disease in developed countries, where it has been mainly observed, is already high.
The numbers are significant and high in comparison to other viral diseases such as AIDS.
However, neither information nor scientific research, nor prevention, nor cure, nor dealing with the sufferers has received the necessary, systematic, comprehensive, social and collective attention commensurate with its gravity.
The reason for this is perhaps that this disease mainly concerns elderly people.
<P>
To date there have only been research programmes of limited scope, while the funding of programmes does not correspond to scientific and social interest.
The often heavy medical expenses and social burdens continue to be borne by the families of the patients, resulting in significant financial, psychological and social costs.
<P>
Alzheimer's disease does not feature in any social security organization funding programme, while neither the Member States nor the Commission have responded to the need to step up efforts to fight a disease which is turning into a scourge, since forecasts predict that it will affect 8 million people by the year 2000.
After the squeezing of pensions and social benefits in the name of profit and competitiveness, a new type of racism is being cultivated by the state and by the organs of social security against a section of the population which is vulnerable to such diseases.
The rules of an unaccountable free market "vote' for death when this costs less than life.
<P>
Community policy continuously puts off examining the issue until the future, a future which is however very uncertain for the thousands of sufferers. We should concern ourselves with their present by taking supportive measures and creating infrastructures of therapeutic care, by organizing care centres and programmes for the specialist training of medical and geriatric staff who will look after the patients and who will be able to relieve their family environment of the psychological and social consequences of the disease.
It is necessary in the immediate future to fund research into the causes, the prevention, the timely diagnosis and the combating of Alzheimer's disease, along with the related syndromes.
<P>
A society which presumes to look forward to an increase in average life expectancy and indeed under the best possible conditions, cannot possibly allow greedy "profit' to hand over unopposed the spirit and personality of the elderly to the effects of a disease which is so painful and catastrophic for the sufferers and their families.
<P>
(The sitting was adjourned at 1.30 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Situation in Kosovo (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the Council's statement on the situation in Kosovo which was suspended prior to the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Roubatis">
Madam President, it is rather pointless continuing a debate which seems to have already ended, but let us carry on.
<P>
The Albanians who live in Kosovo are asking for something which I think is logical and self-evident and they have been asking for it for many years: the recognition of their right to determine their own fate.
They are asking for respect of their human rights and the leader in Belgrade, Slobodan Milosevic, chooses, against all logic, the policy of intensification.
This is a policy which facilitates extremist elements that exist among the Albanian population.
<P>
The terrorists of the so-called Freedom Army of Kosovo, with their violence and murder, are not helping the Albanians of Kosovo.
For his part, Slobodan Milosevic does not seem to have learned very much from the still fresh wounds of the civil war in the former Yugoslavia. Events in Kosovo are creating dangers for the whole region.
Preventing the crisis from spreading to the neighbouring states of Albania and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia must be the prime aim of the European Union.
I think that we must regard the actions of the Presidency and the initiatives of Mr Cook as very constructive.
<P>
Serious problems are already being created by the movement of the population towards the south and west of Kosovo.
If several thousand refugees are forced to take refuge in neighbouring countries, the governments of Tirana and Skopje will face serious problems.
All the good work that has been done by Fados Nanos in Albania to stabilize his country will be lost.
Destabilization throughout the region would then be a fact with unforeseeable consequences for peace in the Balkans.
<P>
The European Union must not permit any changes to existing borders.
On the other hand, we cannot return to a new bloodbath in the Balkans.
What was said by Mr van den Broek and by Mr Henderson is very constructive.
It is necessary to begin immediate dialogue in order to find a solution.
This must be done by Mr Milosevic.
He owes it to the people of Serbia, who have paid very dearly for his intransigence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bianco">
Madam President, once again we have seen the distressing pictures of children and women disfigured by the violence of the Serbian government police and once again we have arrived late, despite the fact that these events were heralded by a whole series of episodes.
Last October, 3 000 Albanians claiming a fundamental right - to learn in their own language - were dispersed violently by the Serbian government police, in the silence of the diplomatic authorities of the EU.
<P>
The EU has adopted a document which was mentioned by the President-in-Office of the Council this morning and which I believe is a good document, a text that provides specific information.
But that is not the problem.
Mr President, will we manage to do what you set out in your communiqué?
That is the big question!
When the Serbian government representative subjects the beginning of discussions to the recognition of the Serbian constitution, he is establishing an objectively unacceptable condition because, as you recalled, that constitution is the worst obstacle to beginning negotiations.
<P>
The situation is becoming objectively more difficult because, instead of drawing closer, the parties are moving apart.
Today, even the most moderate leaders, such as Rugova, have established extremist positions.
The Council's work therefore needs to be extremely energetic, if we want to prevent blood baths and if we want to prevent further outbreaks of war with unforeseeable consequences.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Madam President, during the discussions on the Maastricht Treaty, the war in Yugoslavia started and the country fell apart.
On the eve of the beginning of the enlargement negotiations, the nightmare of a Balkan war is looming over us.
Mr de Vries, Mr Swoboda and Mrs Pack have already given a thorough analysis of the situation, which I agree with.
So I will confine myself to asking the President of the Council a few questions.
<P>
Is the President-in-Office of the Council prepared to give the same signal with regard to Kosovo as was given to Iraq?
Are there plans to send military observers to the Albanian border?
As you know, the country is full of weapons and it is said it is supplying a small liberation army.
<P>
The President appears to consider the autonomy of Kosovo important.
How is he going to get Milosevic to bring this into effect?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Madam President, in spite of the difficulties and in spite of the dramatic number of deaths in Kosovo, I think there are elements which can give us some optimism at least in relation to what happened in Bosnia.
In the case of Bosnia we had a Croatian population in Bosnia and opposed to it was a nationalistic and aggressive Mr Tudjman.
In the case of Kosovo we have an Albanian population but also Fatos Nanos, who is moderate and prudent.
In the case of Bosnia we had divided wholes. In the case of Kosovo we have borders within the framework of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
For this reason it requires prudence and effort.
Naturally pressure is also required, but Yugoslavia, Serbia, needs to be given the security to enable it to make the necessary moves.
We must not forget Yugoslavia's fear of a new secession, the fear of a Vodnjan after Kosovo, the fear of a Mavrovounio after Vodnjan. From this viewpoint I think that assurances of a border commitment would help the Yugoslav government to make the necessary moves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="Titley">
Madam President, I hope nobody in this Chamber is unaware of, or in any doubt about, the seriousness of the crisis which confronts us today.
After the Bosnian war many of us feared there would be some who would use the peace as an opportunity simply to take breath before returning to their evil work.
I am fearful at the moment that we are seeing those predictions come true.
<P>
In Croatia, as we know, President Tudjman's recent speech to his party congress, the situation in eastern Slavonia and the way in which the Dayton Agreement is not being enforced effectively all indicate that the international community must not drop its guard in the region.
<P>
Clearly, in Kosovo President Milosevic believes he is strong enough to challenge that international community and its resolve.
We therefore have to send out a very clear message that we remain committed to the permanent restoration of peace and stability in the region.
We must have total unity of purpose amongst the international community.
Any small perceived difference will be exaggerated by Milosevic and used to justify his brutality.
Our condemnation of the brutality of the Serbian repression must be unambiguous while making it clear that we will have no truck whatsoever with terrorism.
<P>
I congratulate the Presidency and the contact group on the speedy response they have made to the latest crisis.
But we must ensure that sanctions are effectively enforced on Serbia and we must give support to the efforts of the Albanian, Bulgarian and FYROM governments in trying to stop the crisis spreading and destabilizing the whole region.
<P>
Recently the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy of Parliament asked for a high representative to be appointed to Kosovo.
Therefore, we welcome the new mission and mandate given to Felipe González as the personal representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office for the former Yugoslav Republic.
<P>
If we can resolve the short-term problems we must increase our efforts to resolve the long-term problems.
In particular, we must try to have the education agreement implemented and make progress on civil building measures within Kosovo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Lambrias">
Madam President, I wish to highlight one aspect that has not been debated.
Five countries, first among which is Greece - the only member of the European Union -, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey and, on the recommendation of Greece, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia yesterday established a common position on the explosive problem in Kosovo. These are the five countries which feel more intensely than any other country that a conflagration in that tormented region would destroy in the Balkans the peace that has succeeded, with so much bloodshed, tears and horrific losses, in gaining a foothold after the partition of Yugoslavia.
And these five countries will be the first to suffer the consequences of an uncontrolled upheaval.
<P>
These last few days the President of Albania, Mr Meidani, has been on an official visit to Athens and he has heard from the most official sources that the solution to the dramatic problem must be based on a dual position: on the one hand, the exclusion of any change to the borders in the Balkans and, on the other, the recognition of general autonomy, with complete freedom and the real reinstatement of the rule of law in Kosovo.
Total respect for national rights, the tolerance of peaceful assembly and the implementation of educational agreements are the only way towards achieving constructive dialogue and breaking the vicious cycle of terrorist activities and brutal repression.
Anything else would throw lighted torches into the powder-keg of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Pettinari">
Madam President, it is quite clear that Europe and its institutions are once again tragically late over a specifically European problem.
However, it is important for the contact group to have firmly established the terms of a political solution to the conflict; I stress political and not military, as also absurdly requested in this debate.
<P>
We now need to reject any accusation of interfering because it is not a question of interfering in the event of military intervention over a political contradiction.
At the same time, we need to reject the illusions of independence established, this morning, by Kosovo.
<P>
I believe that Europe should exert very strong pressure to ensure that Milosevic resumes direct talks with the Albanian community.
This is the problem we are faced with and the only feasible path is to have talks between the parties in question.
The objective should be a return to independence for Kosovo which has been denied by the Belgrade government.
I believe this to be a feasible path, which the Council should endeavour to follow, according to the dictates I share that have been established by the contact group.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Madam President, we have the opportunity to use preventative diplomacy to prevent Kosovo from suffering the same fate as that which we were unable to prevent in 1991 in the former Yugoslavia.
In order to do so, we must put pressure on President Milosevic to make him stop the repression immediately, initiate dialogue with the Kososvo representatives and re-establish the autonomy of that region, whose legal status he removed some years ago.
<P>
As well as putting that sort of pressure on Milosevic we must condemn terrorism, which does not work, cannot work and can never be acceptable as a means of defending political objectives.
And on those lines, we should support international political action through political means, based on two considerations: firstly, that what is happening in Kosovo is not by any means an internal problem, since in matters of democratic principles, human rights and human life there is of course no right of sovereignty; and secondly, any solution for Kosovo should be developed within the context of the existing borders, if we do not want to create further problems.
<P>
So we are going to support the measures adopted by the contact group, call on Europe to play a greater role and, of course, support the mission which appears to have been accepted by the former president of the Spanish government, Felipe González.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 NAME="Henderson">
I would like to make a number of comments in response to the points which have been raised by colleagues in the discussion.
<P>
I reject any suggestion first of all that the Presidency has been inactive in trying to do what is practical and realistic in dealing with the problems in Kosovo.
As I said in my introduction, the Foreign Secretary, Mr Cook, in his capacity as President of the Council, visited Belgrade and met Mr Milosevic last Thursday.
He was accompanied by the Commission.
<P>
On Monday the contact group met in London and four areas of agreement as part of political action were put in force: an arms embargo, a refusal to supply equipment which could be used in a repressive way, visa restrictions and a moratorium on financial credits with the area.
That was the basis on which the international community has spoken and has taken action.
<P>
Today my colleague, the Minister Mr Lloyd, as a Presidency envoy, is in the area, as he has been since Monday.
He will be in Belgrade.
He will also be visiting other neighbouring countries to find out about their particular problems and concerns so that he can bring that information back to the centre.
Additionally, the European Conference, which is taking place tomorrow in London, is another opportunity for matters to be discussed and again, the foreign ministers' informal meeting in Edinburgh on Friday and Saturday is yet another occasion.
If there are other ideas then they can be debated and acted upon.
<P>
There has been a lot of activity by the Presidency involving the Council, and that is also in response to Mr Bianco.
<P>
In response to Mrs van Bladel, at the moment the aim is to try to seek a political solution.
The question of any military action has not been raised.
Were it to be raised it would need to be considered whether or not it was in line with international law and whether or not it would be appropriate and effective action.
If the answer to those questions were both yes, it would then need to be decided who would be involved in it, what would be the purpose, how any military action would end, and what political solution would be required.
There are a lot of questions way down the line on all of those issues.
The important thing is to try to seek a political solution to this problem.
As one of the contributors to the debate said near the end: if it is recognized that the conduct of the Yugoslav government in Kosovo is unacceptable to the international community, the situation can be retrieved by giving back sensible autonomy to the people of Kosovo so that they can, as regards their internal affairs, determine their own future.
<P>
There has been activity, the Presidency has been active, the Council has been active and indeed the international community has responded to the crisis.
That is also reflected in the very fact that there is a debate in Parliament today and that Parliament itself is playing its role in speaking for the peoples of the European Union on how seriously they regard the situation and, it is to be hoped, how they would be able to seek a solution based on a political settlement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 NAME="Swoboda">
Madam President, the President-in-Office looked at me when he rejected the accusation that the Presidentin-Office has not been very active.
Perhaps this was because I am one of the few people in the Chamber but I must clearly state that my criticisms were not directed at the current President-in-Office but the Presidency, Commission and even Parliament, which for many years recognized the problem without doing enough.
I hope that the present Presidency will contribute much to solving the problem and the crisis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
ASEM process
<SPEAKER ID=177 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions:
<P>
B4-0174/98 - O-0004/98 to the Council and B4-0175/98 - O-0005/98 to the Commission by Mr Swoboda and Mr Titley, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the ASEM process; -B4-0176/98 - O-0018/98 by Mr Bertens on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, to the Council on the next Asia-Europe meeting (ASEM); -B4-0178/98 - O-0055/98 by Mr Jarzembowski and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, to the Council on the EU-Asia Summit (ASEM); -B4-0180/98 - O-0058/98 by Mr Telkämper and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, to the Council on the second Asia-Europe Summit (ASEM II) in London in April; -B4-0261/98 - O-0061/98 by Mr Vinci, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, to the Council on the EU-Asia Summit; -B4-0264/98 - O-0064/98 by Mr Pompidou, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, to the Council on the ASEM process; -B4-0268/98 - O-0068/98 by Mr Dupuis and Mr Vandemeulebroucke, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, to the Council on the second Asia-Europe Summit in London in April.
<SPEAKER ID=178 NAME="Titley">
Madam President, recently a major company in my constituency announced major job losses because it had lost an order from the Far East. This reinforced to me the dangers presented to Europe by the current crisis.
Our banks are extremely exposed and our dependence on trade make us extremely vulnerable to this sort of crisis in the world markets.
Clearly, we should be using the ASEM process therefore to see how we can ensure that this crisis is overcome very quickly and to ensure that the crisis does not get any worse.
<P>
In particular, we need to notice that at least part of this crisis can be put down to what you might call cronyism and what others might call straightforward corruption, in some of the countries involved.
Too many cosy deals were done with other people's money and people were prepared to turn a blind eye to the weaknesses of those deals.
Clearly we cannot separate out economic freedom from political freedom.
The demands this Parliament frequently makes for respect of human rights is as important a part of the process as the demands for economic freedom.
<P>
We must ensure that there is transparency of the political process in the Far East.
I would like to hear from the Council and the Commission how they intend to use the ASEM Summit to bring home the importance of developing projects aimed at good governance in the Far East so that we can build from a stronger economy in the future.
We ought to be seeing a much stronger role for parliaments to play in this process because by having a parliamentary dimension we will ensure that nobody turns a blind eye to cronyism and corruption.
<P>
Finally, we must look at a reform of the financial institutions.
Some of us suspect that the rescue packages being enforced at the moment are more about rescuing people who made bad deals than trying to restructure the societies and the economies of countries in the Far East.
I will be interested to hear what the Council and the Commission have to say about how they intend to approach the ASEM Summit from these points of view.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the ASEM Summit is of course extremely important.
Europe should have been present right from the start of the uncertain financial situation in South-East Asia.
This should be part of balanced dialogue between that part of Asia and Europe.
The Asian countries should implement reforms on a large scale, but the Union should express its support for this, and cooperate with the IMF.
I would like to ask the President-in-Office of the Council whether he shares this view, and whether he can indicate how the European Union could have avoided gaining the image of the big absentee in the recent dramatic financial-economic developments?
How does the Council envisage putting this right?
We support the joint initiative of the ASEAN countries to set up a joint surveillance mechanism. Together they might be able to prevent a possible new crisis, and keep the famous financial-economic domino effect under control.
Does the Council agree that a supporting role from Europe might be useful?
It is a simple question, which might warrant a long answer, but I would like you to bear it in mind.
<P>
My group, the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, also considers it important that economic and financial topics are not the only topics discussed during the Summit.
In a balanced relationship, political dialogue is at least as important.
In line with the conclusions of the ministerial meeting held at the beginning of last year, I therefore call on the Council to put human rights on the agenda of the ASEM Summit.
Perhaps these can be discussed during the bilateral agreements between various countries.
Can the Council promise me that this will indeed happen?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, my group is also waiting with bated breath for the answer to the four written questions, for Asia-Europe relations are very important not only for our own foreign relations but also as regards the economic and social situations in the 25 countries involved.
It is our view that the ASEM process should not simply be left to the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and the bureaucrats, but that the European Parliament and the Asian parliaments, which represent the people involved in the process, must also be included.
<P>
We support this process which must encompass a broad spectrum of cooperation ranging from political dialogue, through economic partnership to social and cultural cooperation.
We would also be very interested to find out whether the Council intends to discuss the enlargement of the ASEM with its Asian partners.
We see the inclusion of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, New Zealand and Australia as interesting possibilities.
I do admit, however, that it must be our Asian partners themselves who take the decision, in the same manner as we have reservations in the case of Burma, due to its human rights situation, and are unable to accept the inclusion of Burma.
<P>
The London Summit can be successful only if the 25 heads of state and government can demonstrate that we can find common solutions to ending the financial crisis in Asia.
It is a question of creating greater transparency in the international banking sector.
It is a question of finding a mechanism to check short-term currency speculation.
I support those in the Council and in the Commission who hold the view that a country like Indonesia which is not only refusing to implement the reforms agreed with the International Monetary Fund, but is actually choosing to reject them, should not be able to count on the support of the Asia-Europe partners and that, on the contrary, both the Community and the Asian countries should work towards changing the political and economic circumstances in this country.
<P>
I share the view of my fellow Members that if it is to address economics, trade, finance and foreign policy, the ASEM Summit will also have to discuss the underlying problems which are common both to ourselves in Europe and to our Asian partners, that is, issues such as the fight against poverty, the observation of human rights, the development of democracy and the rule of law and the environment - let me remind you of the forest fires in certain parts of Asia which have not only local, but also global effects.
<P>
Finally, I believe - as some of those speaking before me have already said - that it is important to involve the European Parliament and the Asian parliaments in the process.
This is also an opportunity to support democratization in general and to strengthen Members' responsibility for international relations in particular.
This is why the involvement of the Asian parliaments and the European Parliament is of such great importance.
<P>
In conclusion, let me make just two further remarks.
Firstly, I would be very pleased if the President of the Council and Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan would announce personally that they will be making an official statement on the outcome of the London Summit at the mini-part-session in Brussels at the end of April, so that we will have another opportunity to debate the outcome.
Today we are discussing expectations, but it is also important that this House has a chance to debate the outcome on the basis of an official statement by the Council and the Commission.
Finally, ladies and gentlemen, may I take this opportunity to wish the Council and the Commission every success at the ASEM Summit in London.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
Madam President, the second meeting between the ASEM heads of state and the European heads of government to be held on 3 and 4 April takes place against the backdrop of a serious economic and financial crisis in East and South-East Asia.
It is a crisis which is exacerbating and will continue to exacerbate the usual effects of capitalist economic growth in large industrial cities: uncertain and badly paid jobs, the reckless and uncontrolled exploitation of natural and mineral resources and occasionally the infringement of human rights on a massive scale.
<P>
Forecasts made by the OECD state that unless the governments of East and South-East Asia can do something quickly, with lasting effect and that unless a recovery takes place, the economies of Europe will also suffer under the effects of the crisis.
Indeed, there are many Members in this House who embraced the tiger economies, the boom and the politics of the fast buck. In my view, we need new mechanisms and, above all, a degree of political primacy.
We need a new framework. It should be established in London.
<P>
If we consider that the ASEM states are responsible for over half of the world's gross domestic product, the burden of responsibility carried by this meeting in London becomes quite clear.
Over the past few months in this House we have repeatedly demanded democratization in Burma, the establishment of trading relations only if Burma guarantees human rights and makes some progress towards democracy.
In relation to North Korea we have asked that money not simply be poured into the KEDO project, but that we should use the money to relieve or alleviate hunger, that we should promote the development of the domestic market and thereby promote a policy of peace in Korea.
These projects must be addressed.
Mr Kinkel spoke of a new policy for Timor.
Perhaps the Council and the Commission can suggest something of this new policy to the repressive regime in Indonesia.
Then there are the jungle fires.
The jungle does not burn by chance, someone sets it on fire.
I believe that a climate protection programme is required.
<P>
We want to know how you intend to approach these various problems which we have so often discussed?
What initiatives you are taking?
What is your view, for example, in relation to the economic and financial crisis, on the introduction of a Tobin tax?
How do you intend to explain the new cooperation to the governments?
In my view, it would be a good idea if Parliament were to give you a list of recommendations the next time you embark on these negotiations and that, as Mr Jarzembowski has already suggested, you should then report back to Parliament on what you negotiated, how you negotiated and how we can continue to shape our policy towards East and South-East Asia with common perspectives and in a democratically responsible manner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pompidou">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as regards the ASEM II Summit, in my opinion, it is important to define the role which the European Union can and must play within the framework of cooperation and the development of links with Asia, what its priorities must be, and what steps must be taken to coordinate and target clearly the actions to be undertaken.
<P>
Aimed at encouraging dialogue with our Asian partners, the Asia-Europe Meeting can indeed contribute to encouraging reciprocal understanding and to tightening the links between our two continents.
These are links which, in the crucial context of current globalization, must be made concrete through the setting up of a Euro-Asian form of cooperation on regional and international questions of major importance, in particular on economic and financial, scientific and technological, environmental, cultural and humanitarian issues.
<P>
Within the framework of a new partnership with Asia, it is therefore essential that the Union plays a predominant role in the development and implementation of the tools which will enable synergies and partnerships to be created in these areas.
<P>
I therefore fully support the initiatives identified during the first ASEM Summit and the suggestions drawn up at the second Asia-Europe Business Forum in Bangkok, which should improve the overall climate and develop reciprocal investments.
<P>
With regard to the crisis which has affected a large part of Asia for several months, an issue which will certainly be discussed at the London Summit, it is important that the Union participates actively in the implementation of financial and economic measures to curb the recession mechanisms.
<P>
The Union will contribute, on the one hand, to encouraging the necessary reforms of the sectors affected by the crisis and, on the other, to giving back confidence to foreign investors.
<P>
In conclusion, and with the objective of giving a parliamentary dimension to the ASEM process, it is appropriate to support the organization of an Asia-Europe Parliamentary Partnership, or ASEP, and to involve the House closely in this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="Ewing">
Madam President, I was privileged to be on the ASEAN delegation that visited Malaysia and Singapore in January.
We did not meet the Prime Ministers of Malaysia or Singapore as they were both away but we met the Foreign Ministers and we were very well received.
<P>
The financial crisis was the main topic of conversation and in that regard one thing came over very clearly to the members of the delegation.
Insufficient credit is given to the European Union even though we are partly the paymasters in connection with the IMF.
If Mr Clinton visits he gets a lot of credit in the press.
If EU Ministers visit, very little credit is given.
We must bear this in mind as it is not really fair to the European Union.
We have a deep sense of commitment to this part of the world and to the countries which have been suffering in the crisis.
<P>
They were also very interested in EMU and were of the opinion that it would be of assistance in the global monetary situation where they have crashed so badly.
In today's press I notice that one editorial suggests that Indonesia is facing a total collapse and that the re-elected Suharto has said that he is not going to keep to the conditions of the IMF.
This is very serious for the whole process.
We must encourage democracy and human rights in all these countries.
<P>
We also visited the Department of Forestry in Malaysia and were rather impressed by environmental concerns there.
I think we could offer more help to their projects.
We want to see the dialogue expanded to culture, social affairs and politics in all the countries.
We also met NGOs and would like to see more encouragement from the European Union to these hard-working bodies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="Henderson">
Madam President, the second Asia-Europe Meeting, to be held in London on 3 and 4 April, will be an important landmark in the development of Europe's relationship with Asia.
The range and depth of the questions by the Members of this Parliament underline the importance of ASEM and the expectations it has raised.
Since the first ASEM in Bangkok in 1996, we have seen results in all three key dimensions of the ASEM process.
<P>
Questions have been tabled by Members of this Parliament on what has been achieved.
First of all, in political terms, we have seen a series of ministerial meetings: foreign ministers, economic ministers and finance ministers all met separately during 1997 and, in doing so, increased the level of understanding of the issues we need to work on to bring the two regions closer together.
There have also been less high-profile but very useful contacts between officials which have deepened relations at a working level.
For example, working groups of customs officials have met to put forward proposals on how to harmonize procedures and enforce the regulations to make trade between the two regions work better.
<P>
In economic terms, there has been a business dialogue between businesses and government and this is central to the ASEM process.
The Asia-Europe Business Forum has met twice already: in Paris in 1996 and in Bangkok last November.
The Third Business Forum will take place in London at the same time as the ASEM II Summit, and it will be a unique opportunity for business people to have a direct dialogue with leaders on a whole range of concerns, including further trade and investment liberalization.
<P>
Thirdly, an investment promotion action plan has been drawn up and endorsed by ASEM economic ministers. It covers a range of promotional activities and provides for further dialogue on regulatory issues.
Implementation has been entrusted to an investments experts' group which will be launched, like the plan itself, at ASEM II in April.
We hope that the leaders will adopt an ASEM trade facilitation action plan, the framework for which has been endorsed already by the ASEM economic ministers.
The plan aims at reducing non-tariff barriers and transaction costs, as well as promoting trade opportunities between the two regions.
<P>
I know that concerns have been expressed about other links, ' people links' if you like, and there have been a number of other developments since the last ASEM.
The Asia-Europe Foundation was established in February 1997 to further links between ASEM members at the level of civic society.
It has sponsored a series of lectures and conferences, including a seminar on human rights and the rule of law held in Sweden in December last year.
Cultural links will have a high profile at ASEM II; there will be a full programme of cultural and arts events taking place to coincide with the summit; some of which will be visited by those attending the summit, and I hope some ideas will be taken back from those inspirations.
Events range from an East-West film festival to exhibitions of Asian arts and concerts of Asian music.
<P>
A lot of colleagues have raised the question of the financial crisis and what can be done to help to restore stability.
The importance of the ASEM process in general, and ASEM II in particular, becomes even clearer at a time when there is a need for a better understanding of respective economic situations and of the need to help bring stability to the situation in Asia.
It offers an opportunity for us to address any perception in Asia, or indeed here, that Europe has been slow to respond to their problems and to demonstrate that Europe has made, and continues to make, a real contribution to help.
We are helping both through the international financial institutions and bilaterally.
It is also an opportunity to stress the need for Asian countries to act on the recommendations of the IMF.
We will want to use the occasion of ASEM II to deliver the message that protectionism is not the solution and that markets must become more, not less, open as part of this response.
<P>
What other areas will be covered at ASEM II?
The Union will be looking for comprehensive political dialogue at ASEM II.
We hope discussion will cover regional issues in Asia and Europe, as well as international issues, and will touch on issues of fundamental rights.
The Council is committed to the equal importance of the three dimensions of the ASEM process and welcomes the cooperation between European and Asian countries in numerous fields, such as environment, child welfare and education.
We see significant scope for the summit to show that ASEM can deliver results in areas that matter to people.
<P>
We expect that environmental issues will be one theme of discussion among leaders at ASEM II.
Given the topicality of the issue and the shared concern of Asian and European members of ASEM, assistance in dealing with acute environmental degradation will, I hope, be among the subjects raised.
The problems of forest fires in South-East Asia, already referred to in the debate, will obviously be a matter of immediate concern.
<P>
Questions have also been raised about the future membership of ASEM.
I can confirm that participation in ASEM II will be the same as at ASEM I. But the Union expects membership to be an issue at ASEM II.
Future enlargement will depend on consensus among existing members.
<P>
So what lies ahead of us?
Important steps will be taken at ASEM II to set priorities for future cooperation between the two regions.
The Union is looking forward to the adoption at ASEM II of an Asia-Europe cooperation framework to focus and manage ASEM activities.
We also expect to see the launch of an Asia-Europe vision group, which will consider the long-term objectives for ASEM.
This will report to foreign ministers in 1999 in good time for the conclusions to be fed into ASEM III in the year 2000.
<P>
ASEM II in April has a solid agenda.
The Asian financial crisis will make Asia-Europe dialogue more important than ever.
The Presidency looks forward, with the Council, to a fruitful meeting in April.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
Since the first ASEM, progress has been extremely rapid.
In the political field a substantive political dialogue has begun at both ministerial and official level, touching on global and regional issues.
Even the field of human rights has been open for discussion, with an informal seminar in Sweden in December, which is likely to be the start of a series of such seminars.
The recent senior officials' meeting in London has seen a remarkably open exchange of views on Cambodia, Iraq, the Korean peninsula and EU enlargement.
<P>
In the economic field, economic ministers and officials have made great progress in preparing action plans for both investment promotion and trade facilitation and in establishing a commonality of views on WTO-related issues as well as on such themes as infrastructure and sustainable growth.
Finance ministers and officials have agreed that considerable scope exists for greater cooperation between financial supervisors in our two regions.
They have also agreed that improved arrangements for exchange of information and sharing of best practice will promote improved financial stability.
Intensive cooperation has been established in the field of customs and the private sector has established its own ongoing dialogue through the Asia-Europe Business Forum and other meetings.
<P>
In the cultural and social field the Asia-Europe Foundation provides a flagship initiative seeking to promote mutual awareness between our two regions.
Various other initiatives have also been undertaken or prepared in such fields as technology, the environment, youth contacts and educational exchanges.
Other major events such as the Manila Forum on Culture and Values in Asia and Europe have taken their direction from the road map set by ASEP.
<P>
I note that the period since the Bangkok Summit has also seen much thought being given to questions of process, coordination and vision.
In particular, the proposals to establish an Asia-Europe cooperation framework and an Asia-Europe vision group are both likely to be taken forward at the London Summit.
<P>
Looking to the future, the preparations for the Summit are proceeding smoothly and constructively.
The coming two years will first and foremost be a period of consolidation.
But we will need to show more concrete, tangible results by the year 2000.
The ASEM process has been and should remain an informal one which should primarily function as a political catalyst for achieving mutual understanding, dialogue and cooperation.
ASEM should not develop into an institution with a secretariat, or anything of that kind; but we will need to focus the process more clearly on a limited number of priority areas.
An effort to do this has been undertaken in the context of the Asia-Europe cooperation framework to be adopted at the London Summit.
<P>
The Summit is expected to take a number of important decisions for the future of ASEM, namely, to adopt the trade facilitation action plan and the investment promotion action plan, to launch the Asia-Europe Environment Technology Centre in Thailand, to adopt the Asia-Europe cooperation framework and launch the ASEM vision group, which will consist of highprofile personalities from all ASEM partners, mandated to give an independent view on the medium- to long-term development of Asia-Europe relations in the ASEM context.
The Commission has nominated Mr Percy Barnevik, previously CEO of ASEA Brown Boveri and currently chairman of the Investa Group, as its participant.
The Summit will also launch some new initiatives, possibly in areas like money laundering, child welfare, environment, etcetera.
<P>
The ASEM financial crisis clearly increases the importance of Asia-Europe cooperation and of ASEM.
The London Summit will devote a lot of attention to it.
We must give strong political messages and also put forward initiatives to help overcome the crisis.
The UK Presidency has just sent a high-level mission to the South-East Asian countries to correct misunderstandings about the extent of Europe's role in dealing with the situation and to help prepare the Summit's message on this subject.
<P>
The Summit will have to deliver a strong political message with regard to the crisis, recognizing that it has global implications, highlighting the contributions that European partners have made, confirming the commitment of ASEM partners to undertake the necessary reforms and underlining the need to resist protectionism and pursue further liberalization as the most effective antidote to any calls for protectionism in both Asia and Europe.
We are considering how to provide further assistance to strengthen financial supervision and to address the social implications of the crisis.
<P>
ASEM is intended to build a comprehensive partnership going beyond governments and administrations, which would include a dialogue between parliamentarians of the two regions.
It was therefore appropriate that the first ASEM was followed by the meeting of the Asia-Europe Parliamentary Partnership here, in April 1996.
I hope this can be continued.
<P>
It is also notable that the Asia-Europe Foundation is planning a programme to bring together young parliamentarians from both regions.
This kind of informal approach between parliamentarians should be particularly useful.
<P>
Finally, I should mention that the Commission will be happy to report back to Parliament on the outcome of the Summit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Madam President, the answers given by the Council Presidency and the Commission underline the opportunities which exist for a successful ASEM Summit in London.
I believe that it is really important, at this time in particular, that we convey a message which stresses that the two regions can work together successfully.
After all, the ASEM process is not intended to replace multilateral cooperation in any form, but to promote partnership between Europe and Asia on certain issues.
<P>
My thoughts on this matter concern not only possible solutions to the crisis in Asia but also the progress that can be made in reforming international financial institutions by developing ideas common to both regions.
I feel, too, that in fact we probably need new supervisory rules and a new definition of public foreign debt.
These are undoubtedly issues which will also be raised in this context and consequently I expect the ASEM summit to make progress in this area.
Undoubtedly, too, this ASEM Summit should be used to emphasize the fact that the euro can help not only to stabilize monetary and economic relations within the European Union, but can also make a contribution towards international monetary stability.
This is an important message which the Summit should convey.
<P>
I underline once again just how essential good cooperation is for this important region of the world.
Despite our different traditions and cultures, opportunities for cooperation exist and are also necessary, precisely because we already have such a high level of economic partnership.
This is another reason why we need political stability as well in both regions. This indepth political dialogue should contribute to that stability.
It can do so because security concerns in Asia are also our security concerns, and good government is a topic which should increasingly become a focal point in political dialogue.
<P>
We must not forget, however, that cooperation between Asia and Europe does not only mean cooperation at governmental and parliamentary level. It also involves NGOs and the young people and women of Asia and Europe.
There are many issues which can be discussed and, more importantly, many measures which can be implemented within the framework of people-topeople dialogue.
I would ask the Presidency of the Council and the Commission through its projects and programmes to provide a clear and concrete model of cooperation at all levels.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kittelmann">
Madam President, it is a great comfort to me to learn that in the wake of the crisis an exceptional number of things which need to be done has occurred to us.
An analysis of the situation prior to the crisis reveals the comforting fact that we have already done a lot.
I ask that at the Summit in London, the causes which were recognized beforehand but about which nothing could be done should not be forgotten.
If we examine the causes of the crisis in detail, there is general agreement that the main problem was excessive balance of payments deficits in the various national economies in question, high levels of foreign debt, particularly in the private sector, encouraged by fixed exchange rate systems, the financing of unproductive sectors and many other factors.
<P>
What we are witnessing at the moment is everyone running scared, pulling out, even cutting lines of credit as is the case in Taiwan where the crisis is not actually as marked and where people should be holding their ground rather than pulling out.
Instead, however, capital is pouring out of the region and the politicians are offering good advice.
The good advice which the politicians must give for the future is a matter of concern for us as a parliament. That is why we see this debate as just beginning.
<P>
I am grateful, Sir Leon - and I imagine the Presidency feels the same - that we are to continue this discussion here in the European Parliament and that we will speak about these events.
But, quite naturally, we are also extremely interested in the political relations between these Asian tigers who were until recently so puffed up with their own arrogance in certain areas that they could hardly walk and were giving us in Europe advice, and who, now that the crisis has happened, are turning to us for help.
Together we will have to learn that one of the causes of what has happened in Asia is the fact that many Europeans who could not invest their money quickly enough to make a quick profit, and were totally unperturbed by the risks involved, are now pulling out and in some instances leaving behind Asian countries in abject poverty.
<P>
May I remind you that it is not only the economy which has been damaged.
Socially we are faced with a retrograde step, with emergencies, with hundreds of thousands or even millions of people who trusted politics and the economy to do the right thing and who have had their existences snuffed out. Hunger and poverty are rife.
I ask you, in London, to think too about how we can set up aid programmes to help these people. Indonesia, currently with the fourth largest population in the world, is demonstrating that when difficulties arise it has little understanding of the need for greater democracy, but has its own view of how a transformation can be affected.
I wonder how the world will react to its failure to meet the IMF's requirements and its decision to go its own way.
<P>
Asia was already in a learning process when it was successful.
Now it is in a bitter learning process.
I shall watch with interest events in Asia and we will continue to discuss them in this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Janssen van Raay">
Madam President, the crisis will obviously be discussed in London, as was requested by Mr Pompidou amongst others, but we should like particular attention to be paid to the people of, if I may call them thus, our former colonies.
Japan has a golden opportunity to make up what it has caused in grief and suffering to the people of these areas by its occupation during the war.
I ask you to remember in particular - now that you have been appointed President-inOffice of the Council - that these areas were occupied by Japan and liberated by British troops; this must not be forgotten, Mr President, during the Burma campaign.
The War Chapel in Rangoon has a hand-written list of the British casualties who were killed in action after 5 May and before 15 August.
I have asked the Council - and I would like an answer - to raise flags throughout Europe on 15 August.
This date also marked the end of the World War II for the Netherlands.
Do not forget these people.
Japan has already started to make compensation payments to Indonesia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 NAME="Ford">
Madam President, as Robin Cook, Britain's Foreign Secretary, said here in January, nations today are as interdependent as they were once independent.
The same is true of the relationship between Europe and Asia as it is between the Member States of the European Union.
The ASEM II Summit will bring together the heads of state and of governments from ten Asian countries and the fifteen Member States of the European Union.
<P>
The meeting in London will be an opportunity, a means to forge stronger economic, political and cultural ties between the two economic powerhouses that represent over 50 % of world trade.
The first summit meeting in Bangkok in March 1996 ASEM I laid down the framework for future relations between the EU and Asia, initiating a series of parallel dialogues aimed at finding common ground where we could work together on peace and stability, creating conditions conducive to economic and social development, political dialogue based on mutual respect, equality and the promotion of fundamental human rights.
<P>
Alongside that, we also have the parliamentary dialogue and in 1996 parliamentary delegations from the Asian countries plus the relevant members of the European Parliament met here together in Strasbourg.
We are now preparing for ASEP II, under the auspices of the Asia-Europe Foundation set up following the first Asian summit which I hope will be taking place in Kuala Lumpur in the middle of August following the General Assembly of the ASEM interparliamentary organization when Europe again will be meeting ASEAN without Myanmar.
<P>
It is in the interests of both Asia and Europe to cooperate for our mutual advantage.
There are many areas where we are already cooperating.
There are areas where the countries of Asia are helping in Europe.
For example, as the vice-president of the European Parliament's delegation with Japan, I can report that Japan is contributing approximately ECU 500 million for Bosnian reconstruction.
It has a programme of aid and assistance to the Palestinians to help establish a Palestinian settlement.
It is helping with the clean-up after Chernobyl and in recompense we are involved in the very important KEDO project.
<P>
The crisis in Asia will have an impact on Europe.
It is not something that can be left to them.
In conclusion, April's AsiaEurope Summit and the August parliamentary meeting are two more steps towards a new partnership that spans the globe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 NAME="President">
Seven motions for resolutions have been tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
International criminal court
<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions:
<P>
B4-0179/98 - O-0056/98 by Mr de Vries, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, to the Council on the setting up of an international criminal court; -B4-0262/98 - O-0062/98 by Mr Puerta and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, to the Council on the setting up of an international criminal court; -B4-0263/98 - O-0063/98 by Mrs van Bladel, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, to the Council on the setting up of an international criminal court; -B4-0265/98 - O-0065/98 by Mr Aglietta and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, to the Council on the setting up of an international criminal court; -B4-0267/98 - O-0067/98 by Mr Swoboda, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to the Council on the setting up of an international criminal court; -B4-0269/98 - O-0069/98 by Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, to the Council on the setting up of an international criminal court; -B4-0270/98 - O-0070/98 by Mr Oostlander and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, to the Council on the setting up of an international criminal court.
<SPEAKER ID=192 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Madam President, it is a very opportune moment indeed to discuss the question of the international criminal court.
We are on the eve of the last preparatory conference before the Rome Conference.
In June we should have finally established the basic principles.
<P>
Europe for so many years after World War II thought it was safe as far as the protection of human rights was concerned.
We developed the Council of Europe, the Convention on Human Rights and the whole elaborate system, but it has become very clear over the last couple of years that Europe is not safe as regards the issue of human rights.
Apart from the rest of the world, there were 250 cases of violation which occurred 1500 km from this city.
In Bosnia women were raped, children were abducted, people were slaughtered.
There is no reason for complacency in this House, because indeed human rights can be violated everywhere, including Europe.
We heard from the President of the Council yesterday and today on the issue of Kosovo.
It is very clear that there, too, new violations may occur.
<P>
Against that background it is very important that the European Union and at this moment the European Parliament should exercise new leadership.
If we really want to be clear, we can give a signal that we want to have an international criminal court, with a properly independent public prosecutor.
As the resolution states, we have an issue of core crimes, all core crimes against humanity being covered.
We must be independent from the Security Council.
<P>
Most of the Member States of the European Union support these basic principles.
There are one or two who are hesitant and it is against that background that it is extremely important that a clear and unanimous signal should be given by Parliament.
I hope that both the Commission and the Council will support the lines put forward by those who presented this resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Pettinari">
Madam President, the process of setting up a permanent international court should be supported, and it is the not the first time that I am speaking in this Chamber to support it.
It is an important means of ensuring justice, particularly to judge crimes against humanity and genocide.
It is important for the diplomatic conference in Rome, which will be held in July, to establish the Court's statutes definitively.
In this connection, I hope that the government of my country, the Italian government, will manage to take effective action to prepare adequately for the eve, naturally cooperating with the other Member States of the Union.
<P>
In view of the diplomatic conference, it would be useful if the Council were to adopt a common position with regard to the Treaty in support of the Court.
I would also like to say that, in my opinion, the Council should say no to any subjection of the court to the UN Security Council.
<P>
I cannot accept that the Council's right of veto, an abuse of power which defies the course of history, should block the judicial activities of the Court itself, preventing it from judging crimes that are committed.
I would therefore like to ask the Presidentin-Office of the Council to commit himself, if he can do so, in this connection too, on this divisive issue: it is very important for the Court to be separate from the UN Security Council.
<P>
Finally, I am turning to the Commission and the Council to ensure adequate financing for the Court, and for that purpose a line should be created in our budget to ensure that the permanent international court can work properly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Madam President, the questions I asked three months ago, when we discussed a resolution here in this House calling for the establishment of a permanent international criminal court, have not been answered.
Regrettably, the ad-hoc tribunals in Arusha and The Hague on Rwanda and Yugoslavia have not managed to catch the perpetrators most responsible for the atrocities.
What is more, it should be noted that in The Hague, very little factual material has unfortunately emerged.
The investigation was focused too much on the first part of the war.
Recently, cases have come to light of EU SFOR soldiers drinking and socializing in a bar with one of these minor war criminals.
<P>
Mr President, can the Council tell me whether it will be a tribunal for war crimes, or is the intention indirectly to institutionalize the fight against international terrorism and the drugs trade?
What can the Council tell us about that?
There are rumours that the United States would not recognize the jurisdiction of such a tribunal.
What does the Council know about this?
Which nationalities with what sense of justice will take on the office of public prosecutor?
<P>
Mr President, in view of the mountains of papers on the necessity of this tribunal sent to my office in Brussels, I am becoming a little suspicious as to who is so keen to get through.
Fifty years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, more people should indeed be tried in an international context.
I am thinking of Saddam Hussein and Milosevic.
But to do that effectively, the structure of such a tribunal must be transparent and workable.
As long as that is not yet the case and as long as we have no thorough evaluation of the ad-hoc tribunals, I continue to have my doubts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Madam President, I think that when we are talking about the principle of an international criminal court, it is hard to underestimate what far-reaching consequences this might have.
But I agree with Mrs van Bladel that we should say, "might have' in this instance, because sadly there is plenty of evidence that neither the tribunal in Arusha, nor the one in The Hague dealing with the former Yugoslavia lived up to our expectations.
But to my mind this says more about a lack of resources and a lack of transparency and freedom to act, than about the principle of such a tribunal.
<P>
On behalf of the Green Group I would therefore like to express my support for the principle of a well-functioning international criminal court, but with the understanding that it should have sufficient resources.
And where will these come from?
Moreover, the Public Prosecutor should have the freedom to act, without having to depend on prior permission from the Security Council or anybody else.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Madam President, Mr President of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, I have today already endeavoured to indicate what a member of the public can see by turning on his television set, and I have already pointed out just how negative the impression must be as a result of there not being a European Union representative in Kosovo while the Americans are very well represented indeed.
<P>
Another thing which any average upright citizen with a concern for law and order cannot have failed to notice at the moment is the great song and dance being made about Mr Pinochet, a man who led a regime of torturers and murderers and who, having been the head of the army for many years, is now taking up an undoubtedly well-paid and comfortable position as a senator in his country.
I am aware of the political thinking which lies behind this decision, but none of us can be happy with the fact that people who kill, murder and torture others are then courted and rewarded with offices of state.
<P>
We are still far from happy with the situation in Bosnia, although some progress has been made.
However, the masterminds behind the scenes who, historically, have time and again managed to avoid prosecution, have often been able to avoid all responsibility as well.
This is why the issue of an international criminal court is so important and so hard to achieve.
I know the political calculations which are being made when it is said that these matters are not important, that it is better to make peace than to deliver criminals to justice.
However, war and the arguments continue.
We must pursue a policy which aims to achieve both of these goals: to secure peace and to bring to justice those responsible for mass killings and serious crimes.
<P>
I am no moralizer and I also know that politics is not always about morals, but I am nevertheless very happy that Mr Cook's British Presidency, and you too, Mr Henderson, have repeatedly stressed that even foreign policy must find room for a minimum of morality and morals, whether it is in relation to weapons and weapons transfer or an international criminal court.
Foreign policy needs a moral dimension, and the public will only accept such a policy if it comes with a little morality.
For this reason, and on behalf of my Parliamentary group, I give my full and total support to this joint motion.
It is exactly in line with our objectives, the creation of an independent criminal court.
Politics and courts have different roles, but this court must be free to act independently. It must be able to call witnesses who are obliged to appear.
They must not, as happened in the case of one Croatian politician, be able to avoid testifying.
This independence must be guaranteed, and it is with this objective in mind that tomorrow we will give this joint motion our full support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, it is not the first time that Parliament has expressed its opinion on the international criminal court.
I believe it will do so tomorrow as well, by a very large majority, perhaps unanimously, as it has done in the past.
That, I think, could be the best possible message we could send to the Presidency-inOffice: that those elected in the EU countries support a text which, as you will have seen, Mr President, is a very specific text, that is in line with and matches the position of the so-called like-minded countries in a prudent version, an open version to be able to bring everyone together on this strong position but, at the same time, including the reasons why some countries continue to obstruct, not the establishment of the Court, but the operating procedure.
I also think that this may help the British Presidency to look for that cohesion which seems to me to be lacking at the moment and lacking in particular because one Member State, which is also a member of the Security Council, continues to doubt this line which we will be voting on and approving tomorrow.
<P>
The last session of the preliminary negotiations will begin on 16 March and the Rome Conference will begin on 15 June, in a Member State of the EU, thereby giving the Union a key role.
I hope, Mr President, that in your reply you will reassure us of the attempt you are certainly making to reach a harmonized position and that you will, in particular, agree with us on the extraordinary importance the establishment of the Court may have for the development of international law and, I would also say, for the role the EU may have as such in an initiative of civility, of law, of change, of an end to the impunity so many criminals still enjoy today throughout the world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
Madam President, what started out as a mere palliative, in place of a firm policy on Yugoslavia, namely the court for war crime in the former Yugoslavia, is beginning to grow into an initiative of permanent and general character.
I must say, this is much, much better than we had ever hoped for.
I think it is extremely important, because we are seeing that the tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda are working, that they are indeed able to have an influence.
The more successful these courts are, the greater the deterrent will be for people who want to commit genocide and perpetrate massacres, but also perhaps for nations, because it is not unlikely that the phenomenon of a criminal nation will occur with increasing frequency.
In that case we would also need a criminal court, it would seem to me.
<P>
The tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda, however, had a very clear objective.
We knew what was to be investigated and what was to be prosecuted.
This is not so clear in the permanent criminal court.
I wonder who in fact will instigate an investigation.
You would say it is the public prosecutor, but in an ordinary constitutional state the public prosecutor is part of a hierarchy which includes a Minister of Justice who can also set priorities as to which issues should be investigated and prosecuted, and which issues might get less priority.
<P>
In this case there will have to be a body which is somehow linked to the public prosecutor.
Who will appoint him; who will appoint the judges?
These issues I presume will all be discussed in the UN Commission, and they will be something for legal specialists to get their teeth into.
What in any case must be avoided is that such a court becomes subject to the vetoes of certain countries who thus try and protect their friends.
<P>
I think that our entire group is very strongly in favour of the resolution before us.
But I would like to stress that I believe it is extremely important that the political and diplomatic responsibilities are clearly separated from those of the NGOs, for instance.
I am pleased to note that in the Dutch translation this at least is now well-formulated.
The NGOs are not participating in the diplomatic conference, but they are asked to make contributions which can be used by the conference.
We must be careful, also with the best intentions, not to fall into in organic thinking, not to fall into corporatism in these kind of areas.
I also hope that society and its specialized associations will be able to contribute, along an orderly path, to the success of this international criminal court.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 NAME="Henderson">
Madam President, the Council fully supports the establishment of the international criminal court to try the most serious crimes and violations of international law of concern to the international community including genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The negotiations for a draft text of the statute of the court are of historic significance, and the world community has a particular responsibility to make use of the momentum generated over the past few years.
The court will ensure that those who commit the most serious crimes of international concern will not be able to do so with impunity and thus will have a deterrent effect.
It is hoped that the knowledge that those who have committed atrocities are being brought to justice may help victims to participate in a process of reconciliation.
<P>
The European Union is encouraged by the ever-growing number of countries that support the establishment of the court.
This is manifested in the wide international participation and a general spirit of cooperation in the preparatory committee meetings held in New York.
Member States of the Union have themselves been playing an active part in the preparatory committee meetings and we wish to pay tribute to the invaluable role played by Mr Adriaan Bos, chairman of the preparatory committee.
The Union looks forward to the diplomatic conference to be held in June and July this year.
We are grateful to the Italian government for offering to host the conference.
It is important that the conference is attended by the largest possible number of states.
Several Member States as well as the European Commission have therefore contributed to the UN trust fund for the participation at the conference of the least developed countries.
We also welcome the role being played by non-governmental organizations in the process of establishing the court.
Many of them have by their commitment and expertise contributed significantly and positively to this work.
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The Union coordination meetings have been regularly held prior to and during meetings of the preparatory committee.
A statement on behalf of the Union will be delivered by the presidency at the opening of the Rome conference.
The British Presidency convened a two-day meeting of experts from Member States last month in London.
At the meeting there was a useful exchange of views on various key issues and discussion of how best the negotiations in the court should be taken forward.
The Union does not seek to agree common positions in advance on the detailed provisions of the court's statute.
However, there is a considerable measure of agreement on many issues.
We are in particular agreed on a number of key principles, including the following: the court should be effective, it should stand the test of time, and it should be complementary to national systems of criminal justice.
The court should draw on the experience of the two ad hoc tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda, whose work we also support.
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The Union expresses its hope and confidence that it will be possible to achieve a successful outcome to the diplomatic conference that is to finalize and adopt a comprehensive and universal convention establishing the international criminal court.
We urge all states to demonstrate the spirit of cooperation necessary to achieve this task.
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<SPEAKER ID=200 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bontempi">
Madam President, I believe that, among the many good reasons forming the basis of a vote which I think will be passed by a vast majority, if not unanimously, by Parliament, some should be pointed out in particular.
The first relates to the high symbolic value of a strong initiative assumed by the EU.
From this point of view, I am pleased with what the Minister said on the commitment the Presidency seems to have assumed, and I want to confirm the importance of a strong and decisive message conveyed by the EU in favour of the establishment of a court that represents a clear "no' to impunity, that represents the ability to listen and that meets the requests of the conscience of the citizens who, very often, do not know how to use old, inadequate and inert means to the full.
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The second reason lies in the fact that, in this world, we need many rules, but one of the essential rules is that relating to the fundamental criterion of justice and the possibility that all the democratic countries, the civilian society of men, recognize and punish those guilty of serious crimes against humanity.
It is one of the conditions for democracy to remain on its feet, and we know it, and that is why the rules for establishing this court are advanced rules providing a guarantee for democratic systems.
Naturally, the characteristics this court has to assume are those we can import from our model: independence and, in the rule of law, procedural guarantees for those under investigation.
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<SPEAKER ID=201 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Ferrer">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, in any society which calls itself civilized, the fundamental principles which form the basis of political action should be the principle of respect for the overriding importance of the individual and his or her dignity, and the principle of the defence of the rights which arise from that dignity.
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However, all too often man continues to act like an animal towards his fellow man.
The proof of that lies in the war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide which are still committed with total impunity. Such crimes are an outrage and can never be justified, and those who commit them should be tried and convicted.
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That is why there is an urgent need for an independent, international criminal court which can do just that.
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For the same reason, we must congratulate ourselves on the diplomatic conference due to commence in Rome in June to finalize the statute which will regulate that court's activities. That conference represents a milestone and can play a decisive role in winning the battle to establish an international system of justice.
We should not forget that to a large extent that milestone has been made possible by the tireless and determined support of all the many NGOs committed to this cause.
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If the Rome Conference is a success, the world may be able to enter the third millennium of our civilization with new hope.
The objective of the resolution prepared by the European Parliament is precisely to ensure that hope can become reality.
It is now up to the Council, the Commission and the Member States to say what they think.
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<SPEAKER ID=202 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Caccavale">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, it is not enough that tomorrow this resolution will probably be voted for unanimously and that all the political groups of this House have a broad and strong political desire to further this initiative.
At the moment, we need a strong political initiative from all the European institutions for this criminal court to be established, which means, as has been said, first and foremost the desire to rule out any possibility of war crimes, international crimes in the last 50 years going unpunished: this means the 250 conflicts and more than 130 million victims of the 50 years, since the Second World War. It also means that the initiatives of the international community have often proved ineffective, as also shown by the criminal courts of The Hague and Arusha.
For this reason, we need to lay down certain limits, several important rules for the Court to be properly effective.
We need an initiative from all the European institutions.
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<SPEAKER ID=203 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Madam President, it is wonderful news that an international criminal court is to be created this summer.
There is no doubt that creating this court will be the best possible way of avoiding conflicts by means of preventative diplomacy, and of course, the best possible measure for discouraging the criminals who in recent times have failed to show the slightest respect for other people.
The ad hoc tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda have certainly served to further demonstrate, if that were possible, the need to set up this international criminal court.
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However, just creating it is not enough.
This international criminal court should be independent of the Security Council, should be able to undertake its own initiatives, should have wide jurisdiction covering crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes (and therefore serious human rights violations), and should not be subsidiary to national justice.
It is essential for the European Union to have a common position in this respect at each of the meetings of the preparatory committee for the diplomatic conference.
That position should commit all the Member States to promoting the creation of a truly independent international criminal court, which is not modelled on the ancient fossils of international law such as the right to veto in the UN Security Council.
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<SPEAKER ID=204 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sauquillo Pérez del Arco">
Madam President, impunity is a war of sorts, because the victims continue to feel they are being attacked.
Impunity undermines peace and means that populations which have suffered crimes considered repugnant by the whole international community are plunged into insecurity.
Justice is the only way to combat impunity.
A permanent international criminal court is the only way to re-establish justice, and it will certainly be an invaluable instrument for preventing conflicts.
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If those leaders who are capable of committing crimes against humanity - from genocide to aggression, from violation used as a weapon to war crimes, massacres and oppression - were not only faced with the possibility of being cut off from the rest of the international community, but also knew that there was a punishment for their acts, then many conflicts and, more importantly, much suffering would be avoided.
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People have wanted a permanent international criminal court for a long time and we cannot pass up the opportunity to make it a reality. It needs to be an effective independent court with real competences for defined crimes, leaving as little margin as possible for exceptions and national reservations.
To prevent it being an abortive attempt, or just a cosmetic operation on the part of the powerful states, its long-term funding and the obligation upon states to cooperate must be guaranteed.
Experience so far - with Nuremberg, Tokyo, the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda - can only serve to encourage us to perfect what is a shaky system of international jurisdiction, which lags way behind the values of human civilization.
The NGOs are currently organizing an awareness and information campaign, and monitoring the preparatory committee for the diplomatic conference at which the statute will be adopted.
I think we need to support them in these activities, because that will be the best way to implement this permanent court.
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<SPEAKER ID=205 NAME="President">
I have received six motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
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The joint debate is closed.
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The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
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<CHAPTER ID=8>
Competitiveness
<SPEAKER ID=206 NAME="President">
The next item is the Council communication on the problems in the sector of competitiveness.
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<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="Beckett">
Mr President, I wish to thank Parliament for giving me the opportunity to talk to you today about competitiveness.
It is a great pleasure to be here, as the President-in-Office of the Council.
The new Labour Government in the United Kingdom welcomes the marvellous opportunity that this six months offers, and I am personally looking forward to the prospect of working closely with my colleagues across Europe to ensure that European industry is sufficiently competitive to meet the challenges we all face today.
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The problems of competitiveness are not unique to any one country: all Member States are facing the same challenges.
Europe needs to meet the demands of a fast-moving world of constant innovation and technical change.
We must equip ourselves for a more competitive world, where firms have to adapt to changing markets and workers have the skills they need and the opportunities to use them.
The challenge is now to take a positive approach to the reform of our economies: improving the quality of life and respecting and encouraging the national, regional and local diversities which are an important part of Europe's strength.
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We need to find a third way that balances the interests of firms, workers and households, working with the grain of markets to improve competitiveness, while promoting sound, basic standards of social protection.
As the single action plan says: Europe needs a market that is a dynamic, knowledge-based market, socially responsible and sensitive to the concerns of everyone affected by it.
It is common ground for the Council, the Commission and Parliament that in today's global economic environment we must not only improve European industrial competitiveness to match that of the best in the world but also continuously maintain that position once achieved.
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The Amsterdam Summit last year concluded that the competitiveness of European industry provides the foundation for growth, jobs and raising living standards.
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There are three main elements required to meet the challenges we face: ensuring our markets are strong, our companies are modern and that we are promoting enterprise to provide the foundations for all our futures.
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Strong markets are vital for a range of reasons, not least because they expose our companies to the best practice of their competitors.
The European single market is said to have done more to improve EU competitiveness than any other single policy.
The single market has already increased EU GDP by between 1.1 and 1.5 %, created up to 900 000 more jobs and kept inflation around 1 % lower than would have happened without it.
But there is more to be done.
The determination of all the EU institutions to implement the Single Market action plan is a major step.
I hope that Parliament, like the Commission and the Council, will strive to ensure we can keep the action plan to the timetable agreed.
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Competition and liberalization are key components of a strong market.
We do European companies no favours by allowing monopolies to continue or develop.
In the United Kingdom, I am acting to strengthen competition law across the economy and bringing it more into line with European Union law.
At the EU level, a specific illustration of this point is the liberalization of telecoms, which is already delivering benefits to consumers and businesses.
The Commission's report last month shows that telecom service markets are growing very quickly.
Prices in some Member States have fallen by up to 40 % since 1990, and the liberalization measures agreed for energy should soon have a similar effect in those markets.
Indeed, it is anticipated that more than 50 % of the electricity market will be open next year.
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For the single market to be successful, both for companies and consumers, the consumers must get a fair deal: choice with protection.
Well-informed and demanding consumers will promote innovation, competitiveness and growth, and they must have the protection necessary to give them the confidence to shop throughout Europe.
Liberalization must also respect the public service role of utilities and suitably protect society's vulnerable and the environment.
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Of course there are new markets - the markets of the future.
Enlargement will bring an additional 100 million consumers with rapidly rising incomes into the single market.
Demand and growth will be stimulated, and trade in goods and services will be further opened up between North and South, East and West.
Consumers will have more choice and business more opportunity.
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Enlargement also presents major challenges.
The benefits of enlarging the single market will only be realized if the applicants are properly prepared to join it.
However, I am confident that the European Union is putting the right pre-accession structures in place.
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The European Structural Funds can make a substantial contribution to regional competitiveness and innovation, but they too present new challenges if they are to be affordable and durable in an enlarged European Union.
If the reformed funds are to be relevant to the underlying problems of Europe's less-developed regions, they must address innovation, employability and competitiveness and, importantly, we must find a fair solution.
Failure to do so will undermine much of what we are trying to do in other areas.
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So to the second element I mentioned: modern, dynamic companies, the companies that can succeed in a globalized economy.
We must help Europe's firms by improving infrastructure, increasing access to venture capital and ensuring better regulation of product markets.
We must ensure that the European Union provides a modern forward-looking legal framework which is clear, accessible and promotes business competitiveness.
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In the single market European companies should have the option of a single legal framework if they want it.
The UK Presidency is working hard to resolve the impasse over the European Company Statute, which has held up progress for over 20 years.
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It is also important to promote fairness at work, including modern partnerships between employers and the workforce.
The message of the European Union's Competitiveness Advisory Group in its report 'Competitiveness for Employment' is that creating new jobs and lower unemployment is a by-product of globally competitive firms.
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Resisting industrial change is a bad option for jobs.
But we have to prepare for such change by equipping our people as individuals with the skills necessary to adapt to change successfully.
In short, employability.
We need to promote labour markets that can adapt sufficiently to translate economic success into new jobs.
Those are the key themes of the EU's employment guidelines agreed in November.
Member States are committed to delivering their action plans demonstrating progress by mid-April.
The presidency believes that we must urgently produce employment action plans and ensure that they are implemented.
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In the United Kingdom we are introducing a national minimum wage promoting investment in high-skill jobs and fighting the downward spiral of wages that leads only to the sweatshop and the low value-added economy.
In addition, we are tackling the problem of long-term youth unemployment through a new deal for young people, equipping people with the skills and experience they need to get into the market.
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Governments can do a lot to encourage the sharing of best practice.
Modern companies must be encouraged to compete on quality and not just price.
The Commission, Council and Parliament have all emphasized the importance of benchmarking in this context and Member States are working together to encourage companies to compare themselves with the best in the EU and the best in the world because, finally, we must encourage an enterprising Europe.
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The employment guidelines which were agreed at Luxembourg identified entrepreneurship as one of the four key areas for improving employment.
Though approaches differ from Member State to Member State, it is true to say that compared to the United States the EU is far behind in understanding or providing the environment required to support entrepreneurs and to help small and micro-businesses grow into the employers of the future.
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There are many ways in which we can improve our position.
Regulation must be simple.
It must be as transparent as possible, avoiding undue burdens on business, and must be framed in ways that encourage investment and innovation rather than risk stifling it.
We must make sure that our firms are innovative and prepared to face the demands of competitiveness as they will continue to develop in the future, demands which change with astounding pace as information technology improves, electronic commerce spreads and environmental challenges are met.
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As President-in-Office of the Industry Council, I welcome the fact that we shall be having the first discussion of finance for innovation at the Industry Council in May and our message cannot focus purely on big firms.
I, for one, will be a strong voice for the smaller firm in this debate.
They are an important motor for job creation.
There are other significant new challenges facing us in the next few years which will have a major impact on EU competitiveness, in particular the introduction of a single currency in some Member States.
This is likely to have a significant impact on the competitiveness of the EU.
As you know, because of the splits in the then British government, so little preparation was made in the United Kingdom that our business community would simply not be ready for us to consider membership of EMU for several years.
But I am very pleased that the UK holds the Presidency at the time the crucial decisions over membership are being taken.
We are determined to play a full and constructive part in making the launch of economic and monetary union a success.
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In addition, the need for economic and monetary union to be successful requires us to build on the solid platform of macroeconomic stability, to reform our labour markets, product markets and capital markets and to tackle the curse of unemployment in ways which preserve social justice.
If we fail to make the reforms, we will lose the golden opportunity that EMU offers.
I hope that the Employment Action Plans will provide a practical and politically significant start to that process.
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Last year under the Dutch Presidency the Council of Industry Ministers concluded that Member States and the Commission must increase their awareness of the impact their actions can have on competitiveness and, under the Luxembourg Presidency, the Council adopted a work programme carrying this forward.
We all recognized that benchmarking is a valuable tool.
It also helps both industry and legislators to provide a better understanding of the processes that lead to competitive advantage.
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The Council fully supports the Commission's work to encourage industry to use benchmarking at sectoral and enterprise level. We must also use this to benchmark our policies, something I argued for at the recent OECD Industry Council which I chaired.
The Commission and Council are working together on a series of pilot projects to examine some key factors underlining competitiveness: finance for innovation, as I have already mentioned, skills, transport and organizational change.
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The presidency brings with it both responsibilities and opportunities.
I am determined to build on the momentum already created by the Commission and the preceding presidencies and to manage the ongoing business of the Industry Council.
But I also want to use this opportunity to emphasize my belief that we need to work in partnership with industry.
I hope I can help to develop this partnership by getting ministers and representatives of industry together on the evening before the Council to discuss what we should be doing on competitiveness.
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When the Council meets on 7 May we will continue the debate on the key factors affecting EU competitiveness.
We will not find all the solutions at once but we must at least identify the issues and see how best to tackle them either at EU or national level or, indeed, at both.
All Member States face similar challenges.
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I hope we can work together to strengthen Europe and European industry.
Much can be achieved at Member State level where national characteristics may prescribe different solutions and much must be done by industry which has prime responsibility for its own competitiveness.
But at EU level we can exchange best practice and look for ways forward on issues which are common to the peoples of Europe.
I hope the approach I have set out here will have the support of Parliament and I look forward very much to hearing Parliament's views.
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<SPEAKER ID=208 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I would like to thank the Minister warmly for her participation in this debate.
Let me say what a pleasure it is to welcome you to a discussion which is at the heart of our actions and our priorities.
Indeed, our task is to look for ways of improving the competitiveness of European industry, for increased growth, more jobs and, of course, less unemployment.
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I have listened attentively to your speech, Minister, and I can say that I am largely in agreement with you.
Undoubtedly, the questions put to you here, and above all your replies, will enable us to progress along the path opened at Amsterdam and marked out at Luxembourg.
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As rapporteur on this issue for several months now, with a few weeks to go before its move on to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and before its probable vote during the May part-session, I would like to reiterate my personal desire for a concrete piece of work to be carried out in direct contact with the economic and social players on the ground, in order to arrive at ideas, proposals and concrete approaches which will enable us to advance in the right direction.
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I am in favour of an open approach - I think I have shown this - in order to attempt to put our assets to best advantage, to maximize them, to reduce the rigidities and to determine where the true levers of our competitiveness lie.
It is difficult to have any certainties in this field.
However, I have one: there is no miracle solution, nor is there one single solution. It is always necessary to combine and unite several, if not multiple, solutions.
I am sure that our debate will help me to finalize my report and I thank you, Minister, and all of the speakers, in advance.
<P>
If you will allow me, Mr President, I would like to finish by asking two questions.
Firstly, everyone is agreed that research must be considered as one of the basic levers of competitiveness.
I would thus like to have your opinion, Minister, on the decision of the Council of Research Ministers, held on 12th February, to reduce the Fifth Framework Programme to ECU 14 billion.
My second question relates to the European textile observatory whose preparation is due this year.
I would like to know if its future is on the agenda for the next Industry Council.
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<SPEAKER ID=209 NAME="Cassidy">
<SPEAKER ID=210 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gasòliba i Böhm">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, this really is a very timely debate on competitiveness at EU level.
You are quite right to have referred to benchmarking - a term with no precise Spanish translation - in other words, levels of competitiveness applied and established in the different industries.
This has obviously been a step forward, enabling us to determine in exactly which areas the European Union is really competitive, and where we lag a little behind our main international competitors.
Specifically, these include those sectors which are still over-protected - telecommunications, the audiovisual sector, energy, air transport - and in which this Parliament has tried hard to apply a higher degree of liberalization, as established in implementing the European internal market. The Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party has been a leader in such efforts.
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Unfortunately, this House has not always supported that process of liberalization as it should, for example in the area of energy.
The President-in-Office of the Council mentioned the European internal market several times, but she did not say much about the need to increase levels of competitiveness once we have Monetary Union and the euro.
That is something which changes the whole dimension of the European economy, not just quantitatively but qualitatively as well.
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Finally, following on from this, I should like to ask the President-in-Office about the part played by the European Commission in promoting the viability of levels of competitiveness and employment, following instructions from the Council, especially in the wake of the Cardiff Agreement.
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<SPEAKER ID=211 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Moreau">
Madam Minister, Mr President, the objective of improving the competitiveness of our industry, as set out by the Minister, has the consequence of lowering the cost of work and trade liberalization, which will have serious consequences on employment within the European Union as a whole.
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Proof of this is in what happened this morning, with the adoption by the Commission of the draft transatlantic agreement, the so-called NTM, devised by Commissioner Brittan.
Adopted without a vote and negotiated in the greatest secrecy, this agreement favours the business world.
It aims to lift all trade restrictions and to remove all customs duties on industrial goods by the year 2010 as well as to create a free trade zone for services, including postal services.
In spite of growing opposition to the multilateral agreement on investments, which has just been rejected by a large majority in the House this morning, Brussels has thus persisted in this matter and done the same thing again.
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The NTM is unacceptable, for it compromises the economic, social and cultural assets of our countries. Since you are honouring us with your presence, Minister, I would like to have your opinion on this subject.
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The Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left considers that this project must be rejected, for it does not concur with the interests of the Member States of the European Union.
People must mobilize to thwart these ultraliberal concepts and to promote a form of international cooperation which is respectful of people's rights.
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<SPEAKER ID=212 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this has been a very impressive exercise in political semantics.
Not that I wish to say that we managed to decipher all of what it means.
This talk of a third way must be taken seriously.
But where is it leading?
Surely it cannot be the third way between the continental European welfare capitalism of the post-war period and today's deregulated US-style capitalism or, in other words, a pretty term for the further deregulation, privatization and micro-economization of our society.
Here I have some real questions.
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I am somewhat surprised that in this context the internal market is so glibly referred to as a success.
Undoubtedly there have been some success stories, but the mass unemployment, polarization of the regions, new poverty, social exclusion and the disenfranchisement - a term for which I have no equally elegant German equivalent -, affecting large parts of our population are surely signs of a structural crisis which we are very far from controlling.
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I listened with interest to the talk of a fair deal, even of a new deal.
In the Green group, we have been talking about the sort of socio-ecological new deal which we need for years.
However, our new deal would open up a third way not between the two classical forms of capitalist economy, but between a continued form of capital accumulation and democratic responsibility for the ecological sustainability and socially cohesive development of the societies of Europe. This would represent a model and an incentive for the rest of the world and not a sort of neo-imperialism as the current newspeak would have it.
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<SPEAKER ID=213 NAME="Ewing">
Mr President, may I say how happy I am to see the President-in-Office here.
She has added some colour and charm to a fairly dull House when all the men are in dark suits.
I think I speak for all the women on this.
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I would like to say that I am pleased with the mention of small businesses.
We in Scotland have a lot of these and we have a high exporting rate and success with quality goods, but I would ask if she would look again at the cheap money scheme of the European Investment Bank which involved banks all over the European Union and which was terribly effective, but seems to have come to a bit of a standstill.
I was pleased also that the structural funds were mentioned, because here am I with my heart in my mouth being told by the Commissioner, on the decision of whether the Highlands and Islands continues as Objective 1, that there is nowhere unique in Europe.
I am hoping that the President-in-Office supports rather the view of the Secretary of State for Scotland, Donald Dewar, who is arguing for continuation for the very reason that we are unique.
Competitiveness depends in particular on the costs of distance, climate, small communities and sparse population - the sparsest in the Community and often called the last wilderness although it is a man-made wilderness.
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We are not dealing with the demise of an industry in our use of Objective 1 money in the Highlands and Islands, we are dealing with the demise of a people.
We have been losing our young generation for decades and only now is Objective 1 beginning to have the correct effect and to retain our young people for the first time in generations.
I do hope, therefore, that you will support the Secretary of State for Scotland in his battle for Objective 1.
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<SPEAKER ID=214 NAME="Beckett">
I thank Mr Caudron for his kind and supportive remarks.
We very much look forward to the report of his group.
I entirely share his view that it is important for the European Union to play to our strength.
That is where we will find competitive advantage.
I also absolutely share his view that there is no single remedy; that there is no single apocalyptic step that we can take that will somehow resolve all these problems and create prosperity on its own.
We have to seek to address a whole range of issues.
It may be less dramatic but it is likely to be more effective.
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He asked me two specific questions about the research and development programme and about the textile observatory.
The decision on Framework V was the unanimous decision of the Council.
It was something of a compromise position because there were Member States - as he may know - who did not wish to see even any increase in the cash sum available from the preceding programme.
But common ground was ultimately reached, and it is the unanimous view of the members of the Council to put forward the proposals we have.
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On the textile observatory, I am afraid that it is not on the agenda for the next Industry Council because we have no proposal coming forward from the Commission. That is what would put it on the agenda.
I fear it will not be debated at the coming Council.
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I enjoyed Mr Cassidy's contribution.
Funnily enough, I could have predicted it without any difficulty whatsoever.
He mentioned ritual obeisance.
I thought that was exactly what he was making: ritual obeisance to what the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom would wish him to say.
When they make up their minds whether we are completely different from them and therefore disastrous, or exactly the same, it will be a lot easier to know the terms of the debate.
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He talked about innovation and red tape stifling innovation and asked what was being done.
At European Union level there is a proposal, which I very much welcome, to set up a group of business people to look at a very early stage proposals coming forward, to see whether they are practical and constructive.
Similarly, at national level, we have remedied a deficiency - as I see it - left by the government he supported.
For example, small businesses were hardly represented at all on the committee that looked at regulation.
We have now put in place that half the members of that commission are from small businesses who are particularly susceptible to the problems of red tape.
Even before the last election we had set up pilot projects with local authorities to try to get some practical moves to tackle such problems at local level.
We are piloting and working on that approach.
<P>
He asked about a 35-hour week and also about a national minimum wage in this context.
Member States have to address their own concerns and conditions on issues such as a 35-hour week.
The issue of a national minimum wage only affects the United Kingdom.
We were the only developed country without any form of wage protection.
I believe it will contribute both to innovation and to competitiveness because it is an essential component of a drive for quality and of competitiveness on the basis of quality and not merely of the lowest price to have basic, minimum, fair standards in the workplace, of which a national minimum wage is unquestionably one.
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(Applause from the left ) I had not appreciated that the word 'benchmarking' is untranslatable.
I am rivetted to know how the Member managed to describe it.
Perhaps it is time we invented a new word that is translatable in order to ease everybody's difficulties.
I do, however, completely endorse his comments on the value of the process, whatever it may be called.
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It was then put to me that freeing-up trade and having liberalization was actually harmful to jobs and the issue was brought up of the possibilities of some form of agreement between the European Union and the United States.
I fear I cannot share that point of view.
The whole history of, for example, the United Kingdom, is based on the development of free trade and on prosperity through mutual exchange or multilateral trade.
Indeed that has been a source of employment and of economic achievement through many centuries in our part of the world.
So the notion that it must automatically lead to difficulty is not one that I could endorse.
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With regard to the proposals by Commissioner Brittan, I do not think there is any question yet of a treaty being signed.
I understand that he is putting forward some proposals for moves towards more liberalized trade between the European Union and the United States.
That was, as I understand it, endorsed by the Commission as a whole.
Obviously it has to be discussed by the Council.
If the Member is asking me for my own view, I believe that this has considerable potential benefits.
We are at the earliest possible stage.
It will be very important to look at the detail of what is discussed and proposed and what its effects might be.
But in principle, the notion of greater cooperation between the European Union and the United States is one that I welcome.
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Our colleague at the back asked what the middle way was and whether it was a middle way between a United States model and prosperity.
I hope I do not misunderstand what he said.
First, whatever one's criticisms of the United States may be, I do not think it is possible to argue that it is not, in general, prosperous.
I share what I suspect is his concern that this prosperity is not always as widely shared as we would wish to see it within the European Union and its Member States.
He accused me of simple semantics.
With great respect to him, I could return the charge.
<P>
I am not quite sure what democratic responsibility for economically efficient social development as a model for running an economy entirely means.
However I suspect that if we worked at it, he and I could find agreement that we both want our economies, our countries and the European Union, as a whole, to prosper; that we both want them to deliver high levels of employment so that people have satisfaction in their working lives and are able to earn enough to give them ease in their personal lives.
I suspect that we both believe that economic efficiency must and should go hand-in-hand with social justice.
Perhaps we ought to work more on the things about which we agree.
<P>
Mrs Ewing welcomed the emphasis on SMEs.
I am very grateful to her for that and very interested in the ideas she put.
There is a proposal now before the Council to look at schemes, to provide funding for small- and medium-sized enterprises, including a loan guarantee scheme backed by the EIB.
We in the United Kingdom, and indeed all Member States, place increasing emphasis on the role and importance of SMEs, particularly their role in job creation which is so important for the whole of Europe.
We are eagerly exploring all these options.
We hope this proposal will be welcomed.
<P>
She also asked me about the structural funds and raised the particular issue of the handling of the Highlands and the Islands.
We do not yet have the Commissioner's proposals.
All that I can say is that I understand the point she makes and it was not an accident that I described my wish for these proposals as being for a scheme which is fair.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Beckett.
<P>
As we only have 15 minutes left, I can only allow a few speakers to speak.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Carlsson">
Mr President, I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank you, Minister, for choosing to speak about the enlargement in such positive terms and as an opportunity.
<P>
I would like to ask what you think of the tendencies, which I sometimes find in this Parliament, where people are afraid of social dumping .
How will you in the Council counter this type of argument, which shows a lack of solidarity, is short-sighted and protectionist?
<P>
I would also like to ask to be forgiven for leaving now and not staying to listen to your reply.
The reason is that today I am meeting a large number of businessmen here who have chosen to come precisely to participate in the very important debate we are now having.
However, I promise that I will pay great attention to the answer in the Minutes and to further discussions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="Beckett">
I do indeed understand; we all face the same problems about conflicting meetings.
<P>
I thank her for the welcome she gave to my remarks on enlargement.
We all understand the anxieties and fears that are expressed.
It is a matter of encouraging confidence in Member States and in all the participants in this discussion and debate, that this is indeed the path forward for Europe.
We have every right to hark back to the principles that inspired the people who first began to create what was then the European Union.
In those days, there were arguments, there was discussion about whether or not a group of countries coming together was Europe.
<P>
Increasingly, as Europe has enlarged it is hard to argue that this is not really Europe.
It seems to me that in terms of both the politics and the philosophy of the development and future of the European Union it would be criminally irresponsible - and also unbelievably shortsighted - not to recognize the enormous opportunity that opens up for the whole of Europe if we are able to enlarge and to open our arms to the countries that apply to join us from the east.
It is an opportunity for development for the whole of Europe of a kind which our predecessors could not have imagined.
I cannot believe that we will let down future generations by ignoring or wasting it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="Donnelly, Alan John">
Could I ask the President-in-Office about the question of investment.
One of the problems we face in the European Union is that during the period of consolidation in preparation for the single currency we have had zero growth in investment across the Union, both in the private and the public sector.
Investment now represents only about 18 % of the gross domestic product of Europe.
<P>
The Minister referred to the United States of America: they have seen substantial steady increases in recent years in investment.
Frankly, if we are concerned with the competitiveness of the European Union and if we are particularly concerned about job creation then we need to ensure that the growth capacity of our economy is expanded.
Could she set out for us how we can work together both in the public sector and the private sector to boost investment levels in the European Union which we hope will then lead to some job creation?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="Beckett">
I share the Member's great concern both about current levels of investment and also the need to improve those levels of investment as a basis for future growth and for future wealth.
<P>
The answer lies in the combination of two tools.
The first is the practice of benchmarking, which means that we look to see what others do and then look to see what success it has brought. That would be particularly valuable between countries, but also between enterprises.
<P>
The second tool we can use, apart from the technical step of benchmarking itself, is to use what should be growing relationships and partnership and a two-way flow of information with the business community.
One important lesson we can all learn by looking at what happens in practice is that the most successful companies have a combination of investing for the future, a long-term strategy for growth and for employment, harnessing the creativity and skills of their workforces and working very much in a team spirit with their workforce: all of these are lessons that will be taken on board by businesses and by countries as they see that they bring success.
It is a role which politicians in particular can play, but drawing on the practical experience of business.
<P>
I have always believed that while politics is in part a process through which one has the opportunities sometimes to make decisions, it should also be a process of education - and we need to educate ourselves too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, I think there are two very important points here.
The first point is the SLIM initiative.
SLIM is intended to reduce the burden on business.
Do you think it would be possible to get the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy or the Committee of the Regions involved in the SLIM Programme as well, so that these Committees could concentrate most of their efforts on SLIM projects?
The second point is the fiche d'impact .
I have the documents for today's sitting here.
We now have an extremely comprehensive set of documents to work through in the European Parliament.
I think it would also be useful to consider items in the legislative process that could be simplified.
Fiche d'impact is, therefore, an excellent operating principle.
Does the Presidency have any plans to launch more initiatives in this area in future?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="Beckett">
Mr President, the Member asked me what I think of the SLIM initiative.
I think it is a valuable and worthwhile initiative.
I am not entirely sure but perhaps he was suggesting to me that it is a practice that could commend itself on occasion to some of the bodies in which we participate.
If that is what he meant I hesitate to intrude on private grief.
Certainly if what he is basically saying is that all of us in the different roles we carry out have to bear in mind the implications and the scale of the proposals we make, this is entirely true.
We will certainly endeavour to bear it in mind in the work of the presidency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Erika">
Madam President, it is a pleasure to listen to you.
It is very enjoyable indeed!
Your political eloquence is very impressive indeed.
<P>
I have two short questions. You have given here an impressive description of the model which you call the new model of competition, of fair competition.
In your opinion should this involve an initiative at international level, such as that which Sir Leon Brittan has been seeking for a long time? Would you be in favour of this?
<P>
My second question refers to another complex matter, namely to what we call electronic trade.
As you know, there is an initiative at European and American level in this field.
In your view, how far should the European initiative be extended?
To what extent should our approach differ from what is happening at US and international level, and what would be a successful model for the future?
<P>
I would like to make a final brief remark.
I would just like to remind you, Mrs Moreau, that the proposal presented by Leon Brittan this morning was requested by this Parliament.
We have commented on it here in the House and it has been adopted in my committee, the Committee on External Economic Relations.
Parliament has approved it with an overwhelming majority.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="Beckett">
<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="Murphy">
Mr President, I wish to thank the President-in-Office of the Council for her comments, particularly about the simple regulation - the SLIM initiative.
This has been a good example of partnership between successive Presidencies.
Luxembourg started it, the British Presidency is taking it forward, working closely with the Austrian Presidency, and, I understand, the Austrian Presidency is now talking to the Germans, who will take the Presidency in due course.
<P>
However, one thing we find frustrating in this House and which undermines the simpler legislation for the internal market initiative is something we call 'gold-plating' , where national authorities add on to the legislation we produce in this House.
Would the President-in-Office like to comment on what can be achieved at Council level to ensure that the red tape we issue from here is helping the situation and is not being hindered by 'gold-plating' by national civil services augmenting for no good reason?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="Beckett">
I entirely understand Mr Murphy's point.
First I should like briefly to observe that, not only in this respect but in others, we worked with the Luxembourg Presidency to try to make sure that we were progressing the same issues in the same direction, working together.
We are now working, as he said, with the next Austrian Presidency, and it is working with the Germans.
This is part of a growing recognition among Member States that we will achieve more within the European Union as a whole if successive Presidencies work to the same agenda and try to build on and successfully take forward the programme of work of the Council and of Parliament.
<P>
He then asked me about the issue of 'gold-plating' .
When Mr Cassidy asked me about red tape, I nearly referred to it then but I did not want to take too long in that reply.
I am very conscious of how sensitive Commissioner Bangemann is to the suggestion that much red tape comes from the European Union institutions, and of the document he produced some considerable time ago showing that most of it actually emanates from national Member States.
I accept that point entirely.
<P>
I suspect, and I hope I do not offend too many Members by saying this, that one of the reasons is because too often these things fall into the hands of lawyers at domestic level.
He asked me what we could do to redress this at Council level.
Apart from the constant pressure to keep red tape to a minimum and to look to what others are doing and to see that to 'gold-plate' directives can be a competitive dis advantage, the more we are able to build up our dialogue with the other social partners and the business community, the more likely it is that we will get a clear and sharp identification of the implications of 'goldplating' of the kind he identifies.
In principle, because I strongly believe in a developing partnership, I welcome moves to increase this dialogue.
This is a good practical example of some of the other benefits it can have.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="President">
Thank you again, Mrs Beckett.
This has been a very interesting exchange of ideas.
I apologize to those who have not been able to speak, but time is a tyrant!
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Question Time (Council)
<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="President">
The next item is questions to the Council (B4-0260/98).
<P>
Question No 1 by María Izquierdo Rojo (H-0164/98)
<P>
Subject: New COM in raw tobacco and promotion of employment in less-favoured regions
<P>
Regarding the data supplied by the Council prior to the adoption of the reform of Regulation 2075/92 on the COM in raw tobacco , what effects and consequences will this reform have on employment?
Does the Commission's proposal to the Council contradict the new employment promotion policies for the less-favoured regions?
What socio-economic impact will it have on Granada, Estremadura and the most depressed Mediterranean areas?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 NAME="Henderson">
Mr President, thank you for your helpful suggestion, which will enable me to take back the good news from Parliament today to the European Conference tomorrow morning.
In reply to the honourable Member's question, the Commission's proposal for revision of the common organisation of the market in raw tobacco has only recently been tabled.
It follows up the extensive debates held in both the Council and the European Parliament on the Commission's options papers on reform of the tobacco regime.
<P>
Council work on the Commission's proposal is at an early stage, but in examining the proposal we will certainly consider whether changes to the current tobacco regime would have an adverse impact on employment in the Community or on the economic well-being of certain Mediterranean areas.
We will also consider whether changes to the regime could bring benefits such as a reduction in costs or in fraud, an improvement in public health, or an increase in efficiency and competitiveness.
As the Commission's proposal on tobacco is based on Article 43 the European Parliament has been invited to give its opinion.
I am sure that in preparing this opinion Parliament will want to consider the employment issues the honourable Member raises in her question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Rojo">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, men and women living in the countryside around Granada suspect that, following the brutal attack on the olive oil they produce, the next COM in olive oil and especially tobacco may be a backward step compared with the current situation.
<P>
Tell me, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, will you really be able to bring yourselves to cut jobs in the less-favoured areas which need them, when tobacco production in the European Union represents 25 % of consumption, and when you yourselves say that employment is the number one priority?
<P>
Can you really bring yourselves to make such a big mistake?
Please say something to reassure my voters, the tobacco growers of Granada, because 2 000 families there have nothing else to live on.
What do you mean when you say you are going to examine the matter?
<P>
You are the President-in-Office of the Council.
Tell us what you must tell us: that not a single tobacco grower's job will be lost in the less-favoured regions, because you respect the European Union's highest priority - employment.
<P>
Please give me an answer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Izquierdo Rojo.
I can understand why you are so vehement and passionate in defending the interests of such a beautiful area as Granada, but I must ask you once again to do so within the allotted time.
<P>
Mr Henderson, I invite you to address Mrs Izquierdo Rojo's concerns about that beautiful province.
I dare say you are familiar with the area, but if not, I am sure Mrs Izquierdo Rojo will invite you to visit it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 NAME="Henderson">
I am sure I would want to visit the province of Granada if I can find a space in the presidential calendar.
I have to say to the honourable Member that no government in the world can guarantee that there will not be a single job lost in relation to any economic proposal.
That is unrealistic and the Council of the European Union cannot give that guarantee either.
What I can say is that the Council is working on the Commission's proposal and one of the factors which will be taken into account in assessing the appropriateness of the proposal is the employment effect on the people who work in the area to which you have referred.
I think that you will understand that I cannot go further than that in my response today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Camisón Asensio">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, what Mrs Izquierdo Rojo said about Granada is equally applicable to the Spanish region of Estremadura, including the invitation for you to get to know at first hand the social problem which may arise in these areas.
<P>
In a recent resolution from this Parliament on the COM in tobacco, the following aspects were approved by the House: that in a new COM in the tobacco sector, policies to promote employment and combat job losses are the highest priority in the European Union today; and that granting aid for tobacco growing solves structural difficulties in the less-favoured regions.
<P>
Could the Council please state clearly its position on the importance of tobacco-growing jobs in Mediterranean areas? The explanation you just gave was not really clear.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 NAME="Henderson">
I have to say to the honourable Member that I cannot go further than I have already gone in my initial answer and in the supplementary answer I gave to the first questioner.
The position is that there is a Commission proposal, the Council is looking at it and one of the factors which will be taken into account is the employment factor.
That is true for all the tobacco-growing areas.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Redondo Jiménez">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, this seems to be a debate between Spanish Members and yourself, since it is your turn to represent the Council today.
<P>
You told us just now that unemployment will be one of the basic factors taken into account in this COM. In view of the fact that unemployment in Spain is twice the EU average, could you explain to me what other factors will be considered by the Council in their evaluation of the Commission's proposal?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 NAME="Henderson">
I have to say to the honourable Member that it is not just an initiative that affects Spain, it affects a number of our partners' agricultural areas.
I really have to refer to my original response, which was that employment is an important factor which should be taken into account but there are other factors.
We will want to consider whether changes to the regime can bring benefits such as a reduction in costs or an improvement in counteracting fraud, whether there would be any implication on public health and what impact any proposal might have on efficiency and competitiveness.
So, a number of criteria will have to be taken into account.
The Council will look at all these aspects as it develops its view on the Commission's proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 NAME="President">
Question No 2 has been withdrawn by the author.
<P>
Question No 3 by Carlos Carnero González (H-0170/98)
<P>
Subject: The Middle Eastern peace projects and possible suspension of the EU-Israel agreements
<P>
The crumbling of the Middle Eastern peace process - largely the result of the Israeli Government's failure to meet its obligations under the Oslo Agreements and other commitments given to the Palestinian National Authority and guaranteed by the international community - is dangerously close to the point of no return, seriously jeopardizing the region's stability and the success of what has been achieved to date.
On the basis of the debates of the last few weeks surrounding the communication from Commissioner Manuel Marín on the Union's role in the Middle East, does the Council not believe it would be appropriate to bring effective political pressure to bear on the authorities in Tel Aviv to change course in favour of peace, and to meet their obligations to the Palestinians, by temporarily suspending the current agreements between the EU and Israel until such a time as Prime Minister Netanyahu adopts such an approach?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 NAME="Henderson">
On 23 February the General Affairs Council discussed fully Commissioner Marín's communication and proposed a number of ways in which the provision of Union aid to the Palestinians can be made more effective.
On that occasion, the Council reiterated the determination of the Union to make a constructive and effective contribution to international efforts to restore confidence in the peace process and establish a firm basis for a resumption of negotiations.
<P>
It agreed that the Union should demonstrate its continued commitment to the peace process through a renewal of its financial assistance to the Palestinian authority beyond the expiry of its current five-year pledging period.
The Council also underlined the determination of the Union to intensify its dialogue with Israel on the removal of obstacles to Palestinian economic development.
We believe that the current framework for negotiations provides the best hope for a just and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
At present to suspend economic agreements between the EU and Israel would not help break the current deadlock.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, it is true that the measure I suggest in my question would not necessarily break the deadlock in the peace process, as you say.
But the fact is that the process is at a deadlock.
For example, I do not know if you are aware that the Israeli Prime Minister, in an interview to the Spanish newspaper El País published last Sunday, said that the Europeans know nothing about the Middle East. What a wonderful comment that is for the European Union and everything we are doing!
I assume you take it personally; I certainly do. That was a comment made by Mr Netanyahu.
<P>
The issue is this, Mr President-in-Office of the Council: that any agreement signed between the Union and a third country includes a clause on democracy and respect for human rights.
This very morning we were proposing measures to put pressure on the Yugoslav President, Slobodan Milosevic, because of what is happening in Kosovo.
I realize the cases are not exactly the same, but does Mr Netanyahu have some special status to exempt him from being the subject of such discussions?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 NAME="Henderson">
The position of the Union is that a range of initiatives are being taken to try to break the logjam in the peace process in the Middle East.
We have been urging the Israeli Government to be more receptive to the need to break that logjam and to be more considerate of a number of factors which will help to build a peace process.
<P>
There is no special treatment for Mr Netanyahu.
The Union expects Mr Netanyahu and his government to honour the same principles that are built into other third-party trade agreements.
It is important that the trade agreement with Israel is successful, because part of that deal enables products from the Palestinian sector of their economy to be exported through Israel and, were action to be taken to curtail trade, it would have a damaging effect on the Palestinian people, without necessarily substantially influencing the Israeli government's position.
It is a movement in that position which the world community is now impressing on Mr Netanyahu, and it is there that our main focus will concentrate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Günther">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, I would like to ask you whether you agree that in the case of Israel we are dealing with a stable democracy which has renounced terrorism, whereas we have not had an equivalent renunciation on the part of the Palestinians, and whether you agree that there is no necessity for us to go teaching lessons to the Israeli government.
It is not my impression that Israel has unilaterally denounced the Oslo process, or do you see a different policy?
I would also stress that I would be pleased to see the admonitions addressed to Israel also addressed to the Palestinians.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 NAME="Henderson">
While I understand the point the honourable Member is making, I still maintain that there is a need for a new attitude from the Israeli Government: there needs to be more of an awareness that the logjam has to be broken.
That means that it has to be more receptive to some of the ideas arising out of the Oslo process - for example the port and the airport in Palestine - to be able to bolster those sections of the population who want to have a stable society, which means they must have more economic stability.
That is a basis, or more of a basis, for political stability.
That has to be recognized by Mr Netanyahu, and he has to move to bring about more change arising out of the Oslo processes.
Of course, where terrorism is a threat in any third-party country, then the Union will do everything it can to help to counter that threat.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 NAME="Newman">
I would like to commend the President-in-Office for the Council's support of the Oslo peace process as the way forward.
Does the President-in-Office agree with me that economic sanctions against Israel would in fact inflame the situation?
It would be a counterproductive political gesture which would cause more economic harm to Europe than Israel because of the balance of trade that exists.
<P>
Does he agree that it does not help to inflame the situation with ridiculous comparisons between Israel and Serbia?
Does he agree that, instead, financial assistance to the Palestinian authority should be stepped up and that dialogue with a democratically elected government of Israel and a democratically elected Palestinian authority is the best way to move the Middle East peace process forward by emphasizing the good points in the Oslo peace process to all sides in this sad conflict?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 NAME="Henderson">
Can I say to the Honourable Member there is no question of the Union ending a trade agreement with Israel.
What we want to see is that trade agreement forming the basis of greater movement by the Israeli government and greater recognition of what it needs to do to push the Oslo peace process along.
The consequence of any trade breach could be that the European Union would suffer in economic terms rather than Israel, but that is a matter of speculation.
It would not necessarily be a factor if it was politically necessary to have a breach of trade.
<P>
One of my main concerns is that the Palestinian economy would be very heavily damaged by such a breach of trade. That would also be in a sense doubly damaging to the hopes for a peace process.
I would also agree that there is a need to continue to provide financial assistance to the Palestinian economy to help it begin to build up strength, which is important if any political moves are to be underpinned by economic stability.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 NAME="President">
Question No 4 by Christoph Konrad (H-0175/98)
<P>
Subject: The Commission's reform proposal for the EU's market organization for bananas
<P>
The Commission's recently presented plans for the reform of the 1993 EU market organization for bananas are very controversial as in many aspects they appear to be protectionist and to hamper free competition.
<P>
What does the Council intend to do to satisfy the WTO requirement that the reform must be completed by the end of 1998 at the latest, such that the EU market organization for bananas can be considered compatible with the rules of free world trade?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 NAME="Henderson">
The Council agrees that following the World Trade Organization's finding against certain aspects of the European Community banana regime, the regulation on the market organization for bananas has to be made WTO-compatible.
It is a high priority for us is to reach agreement by the end of June to allow time for implementing regulations to take effect from 1 January 1999.
<P>
The Commission presented its proposals for revising the regulation to the Agriculture Council on 20 January.
The proposal is still under examination by the Council and it is therefore too early for me to anticipate the final position of the Council.
In finalizing its position, the Council will wish to be aware of the opinions of both the European Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee once these have been received.
<P>
I should also mention that the consolidation and strengthening of the multilateral trading system remains one of the main priorities of the Council in the field of external economic relations.
The Union believes in the rule of law for international trade and it is to the World Trade Organization that we must look to establish that rule of law.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Konrad">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, many thanks for your concern and for your answer.
My question is as follows: do you not share my view that the Commission's answer, that its proposal still smacks of the spirit of protectionism.
With customs fines set at £50, £200 and £500 per tonne of bananas, it is easy to believe this to be the case.
And do you not share my view that since yesterday's European Court judgement the situation has changed completely?
You will be aware that the framework agreement between the EU and the four Central American bananaproducing countries was declared invalid.
This presents us with a completely new situation.
Under the terms of the judgement, the market organization must be rectified and as a result I am asking now whether you at long last, and sooner rather than later, intend to stop this madness with an initiative which will look very different from that suggested by the Commission here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 NAME="Henderson">
I thank Mr Konrad for his supplementary question.
I am not aware of the Court judgment but will study it once my officials bring it to my attention.
I will reiterate the point I made in my introduction.
The general position is that the Commission proposal must be consistent with World Trade Organization rules.
We are looking at the Commission proposal.
We are looking at whether it is the kind of proposal which is fair and balanced in terms of the interests of the Council.
Once we have come to a decision on that we have also to be absolutely clear that it is consistent with WTO rules.
As far as I am aware, the Commission has made the necessary assessment and would be able to furnish us with its opinion at the time of any continuing dialogue between the Council and the Commission.
It is important that any final conclusion is compatible with what would be necessary under WTO rules.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=248 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Henderson.
The two supplementary questions I have are from Mr von Habsburg and Mr Medina Ortega.
Mrs Redondo Jiménez keeps requesting to put a supplementary question, but I must inform her that the Rules of Procedure say that each Member is only allowed one supplementary question during questions to the Council.
It is true that thanks to a suggestion from Mr von Habsburg, the Bureau has decided to ask the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities to amend the Rules of Procedure forthwith, to allow two supplementary questions to be put. At the moment, however, I cannot give her the floor, although I would like to.
Instead, it is my pleasure to give Mr von Habsburg the floor for his supplementary question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 NAME="von Habsburg">
Is the President-in-Office not aware that the opening of the banana market in Europe is going to be a very heavy burden on the small producers in the Canary Islands and other European territories?
Is it not important that we should give them as much protection as we can against the tremendous American interests which with their enormous capital and enormous propaganda potential which we have felt, are trying to invade our market to destroy those bananas being produced on European territory?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 NAME="Henderson">
I would say to Mr von Habsburg, as I said to Mr Konrad, that it is necessary for the Council to assess the various implications on the Member States.
The Canary Islands producers are one of those factors and the Caribbean producers are another area to which consideration has to be given.
The Council has also to balance those interests with the need for compatibility with the World Trade Organization rules.
The secret of a successful conclusion to this will be to get the kind of deal which meets those criteria.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=251 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, thank you for your answer.
<P>
You talked about taking Parliament's view into account.
I would like to ask if you are aware that a large majority of this House has repeatedly declared itself to be in favour of protecting the interests of small producers within the Community, in the West Indies and in other developing countries, against the multinationals' attempts to dominate the world banana market.
<P>
To reassure Mr Konrad and yourself, I can tell you that yesterday's judgements do not change anything with respect to the WTO decision, or in any way threaten the protection we owe to those producers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 NAME="Henderson">
I can say to Mr Medina Ortega that I understand the point he is making.
Indeed, those same lobbies have been in touch with me in my national capacity, and I am giving consideration to those matters.
<P>
I understand that Parliament would want to give protection to those areas of the Union and its territories where there is an important interest.
I would also expect that Parliament would want to uphold the rules of the World Trade Organization as being essential for a trading community such as the European Union.
It is necessary to meet both criteria.
As I said to Mr von Habsburg, it is not just a case of being able to meet the interests of the Caribbean producers or the Canary Islands producers or others, we need to meet both criteria.
If we do not, we will fail to get any agreement, because any agreement we have made among ourselves would be incompatible with the World Trade Organization rules and we would find ourselves in difficulty in the future.
That is why it is important that we all devote the necessary thinking and scrutiny to those matters to try to come up with something which is acceptable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 NAME="President">
Question No 5 by José Valverde López (H-0188/98)
<P>
Subject: Presidency of the Council
<P>
In his speech to the plenary of the European Parliament in Strasbourg the President-in-Office of the Council referred several times to the "Presidency of the Union' .
This phrase was then repeated by the media.
<P>
In view of the fact that to talk of the "Presidency of the Union' is inappropriate and both constitutes a distortion of the terms of the Treaties and misleads the general public, can the Council say what steps it intends to take to ensure that speeches by the Presidency and official statements and documents stop talking about the "Presidency of the Union' and refer simply to the "Presidency of the Council' ?
It is important not to create confusion among the general public as regards the nature of the Community institutions.
<P>
There is no "Presidency of the Union' .
Each institution has its own president.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=254 NAME="Henderson">
I wish to say to Mr Valverde López that it is common practice for the Presidency of the Council to be referred to as the Presidency of the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=255 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valverde López">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you have just said that Parliament and all the other institutions must comply with our obligations.
I would remind you that at no point in the Treaty is there any mention of the Presidency of the Union, only the Presidency of the Council.
<P>
I did not table this question in a critical way at all. On the contrary, it is meant in a positive sense.
We must take advantage of each country's term of office to explain properly the nature of the different institutions and bring them home to the public, because that is the time when each country is best able to influence public opinion.
If we use language which is out of keeping with the Treaties we introduce confusion.
This is not a criticism, quite the opposite. We in this Parliament are always happy to welcome the President-in-Office of the Council, especially if he or she is British, because we owe this very Question Time to the parliamentary tradition of Great Britain.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=256 NAME="Henderson">
Mr Valverde López is obviously an old hand at parliamentary procedures.
When he takes a crack at the front bench, so to speak, he begins by complimenting them, which makes it extremely difficult to be negative in response.
<P>
The British Presidency has followed the terminology of previous presidencies.
The French and the Irish presidencies, for instance, incorporated the term 'Presidency' into their logo.
We are using a style of communication that is comprehensible to the population.
If the question was asked in the British parliament, the answer would be that members of my constituency would not understand what the Council, Parliament, the Commission or any of the institutions were, but they would want to know that the European Union was doing a good job and making their life better, and that if the Presidency had a role in that, then it was a positive role.
It is the issues we deal with and the values we hold that we have to communicate to the people of Europe.
I am not for a moment saying that we should not be accurate in our descriptions.
As a President-in-Office I would be happy to do that.
But there are perhaps greater priorities in forming public opinion and galvanizing public understanding on the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=257 NAME="President">
Question No 6 by André Sainjon (H-0189/98)
<P>
Subject: Child labour in the United Kingdom
<P>
The situation of many children working in the United Kingdom is intolerable.
Seeing hundreds of thousands of children under 13 doing alienating work without any social protection takes us back a hundred years.
What point is there in asking certain under-developed countries to comply with minimum standards if the European Union for its part does not set an example?
<P>
ILO Convention 29 on forced labour is clearly being flouted.
So what decisions does the government which is currently chairing the Council intend to take to put an end to this state of affairs, and is it prepared to ratify Convention 138 on child labour?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=258 NAME="Henderson">
Council Directive 94/33/EC on the protection of young people at work includes provisions strictly limiting the number of hours that can be worked by children under 16 and the types of work they can do.
These provisions will be implemented in the United Kingdom through regulations due to come into force in August.
They will reinforce the already extensive legislative protection available to working children in the United Kingdom.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=259 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Sainjon">
<SPEAKER ID=260 NAME="Henderson">
It is the policy of the Union in the Council that there should be protection against child labour in all Member States.
The Council is aware that has been implemented.
Where modifications to legislation are taking place, they are being implemented.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=261 NAME="President">
Question No 7 by Maj Theorin (H-0191/98)
<P>
Subject: Support for action against drugs
<P>
European Cities on Drug Policy is an organization working for the legalization of drugs.
According to reports, it received over 6 m SKR in 1996 and the same in 1997.
European Cities Against Drugs, as its name reveals, is an organization working for a drugs-free society.
It has 180 member towns and cities and is supported by local authority membership fees.
ECAD applied for 1.5 m SKR from the EU for spending on information, training and printing material in several languages, but got nothing.
<P>
So the only large-scale international organization working for a policy to restrict drugs gets nothing, but generous help is provided for organizations and countries seeking to legalize drugs.
How is the public in the EU to interpret these decisions in any other way than that the EU has given up the fight against drugs?
Is that also true of the Council? Or is it prepared to act against drugs?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=262 NAME="Henderson">
The Council has always been fully committed to tackling the menace of drugs on our streets.
But arrangements for the organisation listed are not within the Council's competence.
The Cannes European Council adopted a five-year action plan to combat drugs.
A complementary strategy focusing on measures to tackle illicit drugs trafficking was subsequently endorsed by the Madrid Council.
<P>
In implementing these, the Council has initiated projects both within the Union and within the wider global community.
The activities are too numerous to list here but include: a Council initiative to stem the flow of drugs through the Caribbean and Latin America to Europe; an initiative to begin to create a security belt around Afghanistan by working with the central Asian states to help improve their drug-fighting capacity; the establishment of the European Monitoring Centre in Lisbon to give a clear and objective picture of the nature of the drugs problem across Europe; the creation of Europol, shortly to become fully operational, to ensure that all of our law enforcement agencies have rapid access to the intelligence that they need across the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=263 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
Thank you very much for your reply.
The European Union's action plan to combat drugs does, of course, form a framework for the EU's and the Member States' work on preventing the risks connected with drug addiction.
As I see it, such an action plan can hardly be compatible with support for liberal drug projects.
<P>
My question, which I have asked indirectly before, is whether it is also the Council's intention that such an action plan against drugs should be incompatible with support for liberal drug projects.
In spite of this action plan, the EU supports the European Cities on Drug Policy which works for the legalization of drugs.
How should the EU's members in fact interpret this?
On the one hand, we have an action plan to combat drugs, while on the other hand, there is support for the legalization of drugs.
My main question is therefore: is the EU not sending out contradictory messages?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=264 NAME="Henderson">
I have a lot of sympathy for what has been said by Mrs Theorin.
If there were funding of action against drugs and at the same time funding of the legalization of drugs in effect it would be funding two processes which were counteracting each other.
It would most certainly be perceived in that way by the population of the European Union.
<P>
The question of funding for the organization that is mentioned in the question is a matter for the Commission and not a matter for the Council.
It would be better if the honourable Member took that up with them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=265 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindholm">
As is well known we have two different political opinions about drugs; one which represents the conventions which the Member States have signed, and one which represents a more liberal view.
As a Swede it is clear that I would rather see support go to projects which represent the view held by the UN conventions.
But could the Council imagine providing support and thinking that it is reasonable for funding to at least be divided fifty-fifty between these two different political points of view?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=266 NAME="Henderson">
It may be a matter of academic speculation at the moment as to which is the best way to try to discourage people from taking illegal drugs and preventing the misery that arises, but the Council's position is quite clear.
There are a number of initiatives which we believe must be taken and which I itemized in my initial contribution.
They are: to try to stop the flow of illegal drugs to people within the European Union and especially our young people; to monitor what is happening in the communities where there are high levels of drug-taking incidents; and to reinforce bodies like Europol who can play a potentially important part in counteracting this illegal trade.
<P>
Therefore I think it is right for the Council to build on those initiatives.
I would expect that the Commission, in its allocation of funding, would be guided by the policies which had been agreed on those matters.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=267 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
I would like to follow up with information which we have just received from Commissioner Gradin in a meeting with the Swedish group.
<P>
Large amounts of drugs are seized in the EU which have entered from countries outside the EU.
Talk about legalization gives the general public a completely false impression, an impression which we do not want the EU to give.
On the other hand, we would like to convey the fact that we are making tougher demands on the outside world too.
<P>
My question is this: what are the demands the EU makes internationally in relations with other countries, that is, when we have the chance to ask other countries what drugs policies they conduct and are able to describe what drugs policy we want to conduct, such as in the agreements with the USA or Latin America, or in the relations we have through Europol - which the Council mentions - as well as with Interpol?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=268 NAME="Henderson">
I thank Mr Lindqvist.
He heard the response I have already made to the two previous questioners about the Council position.
He raises an interesting issue about activity which can be taken in cooperation with other law enforcement agencies outside the European Union.
Indeed, consideration of that question is one of the important items which the European Conference will look at tomorrow in London. That indicates the seriousness with which the Council takes the need for action to counteract this illegal trade in drugs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=269 NAME="President">
Question No 8 by Richard Corbett (H-0195/98)
<P>
Subject: Financial perspectives
<P>
The financial perspectives proposed by the Commission in "Agenda 2000' for the period 2000-2006 leave two major spending policies dominating the budget: agriculture and Structural Funds.
Given that, in both these cases, certain states benefit to a far greater extent than others, this creates the risk that some states will see little benefit in enhanced EU spending and will tend to resist any increases in the EU budget.
Does the Council agree that it is important also to develop those spending policies which benefit all Member States, especially where joint spending through the EU budget will, through greater effectiveness and economies of scale, save money for national budgets?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=270 NAME="Henderson">
The Council does not accept that agricultural and structural spending is of interest only to some Member States while other spending is of interest to all Member States.
All categories of the financial perspectives are of interest to all Member States and to the Community.
<P>
The Commission's detailed proposals for the division of expenditure between the categories of the financial perspectives are expected very shortly, and will then be discussed by the Council.
It would be premature for the Council to take a position on those issues raised by the honourable Member at this stage.
<P>
The Council recalls that budgetary discipline and efficient expenditure are essential at Union level, just as they are at the level of the Member State.
The issue of future expenditure flows in the Union resulting from the reform of the Union's main policies, highlighted by the honourable Member, is one which will clearly be addressed in detail over the coming months in the course of the deliberations in the Council on the Commission's proposals.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=271 NAME="Corbett">
I thank the President-in-Office for that answer.
The question did not intend to imply that items such as structural funding were not of interest to some Member States.
Clearly, all Member States benefit from a happy and balanced regional development of the European Union, and that is something I would certainly strongly support.
However, there is a perception among some Member States - or there is a danger of such a perception - that they benefit to a lesser extent than others.
<P>
As we move to an enlarged Union of nearly 30 Member States in the next few years, we are in danger of entering into negotiations on the future financial perspectives in a situation where there is a gross imbalance in what Member States perceive to be their relative advantage.
Would it not be advantageous in the long term for the European Union to develop, in addition, extra areas of spending other than those two, in order to achieve a better balance of interest to everybody?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=272 NAME="Henderson">
I have to say to the honourable Member that it is an interesting speculation that the Union should consider new areas of expenditure.
I would remind him that in most of the Member States there are considerable pressures on governments to reduce levels of expenditure and they are often narrow areas of coverage.
I do not totally rule out new areas within the European Union but it would be against that political background that decisions would have to be taken.
<P>
In relation to the current negotiations which the Union will face, the Council looks forward to receiving the Commission's proposals which I understand will be published on 18 March.
It will then be up to the Council to try to make progress on those matters as speedily as possible, recognizing that some of them are very complicated and that time will be necessary.
The different views of the Member States will be put at the Council meeting.
<P>
It is important for the Union that at the end of the process the priority for the Union and for its coherence is a factor which all Member States will take into account in submitting their views to the Council to enable it to reach a decision on those important matters.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=273 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, I would like to address in particular the problems faced in the border areas.
Half of the Austrian border is shared with countries wishing to accede to the European Union.
I would like to ask what ideas have been developed in this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=274 NAME="Henderson">
In geographical terms, frontier countries will have special issues they will have to deal with in relation to the enlargement of the Union, many of which will be linked to the proximity of boundaries and the movement of people and goods across those boundaries.
That is recognized by the Council.
Another major issue which the Council will have to consider at the time of the Commission's proposals is the extent to which support should be given to those countries in central and eastern Europe who seek to accede to the European Union as a proportion of the total resources which are available for expenditure within the existing Union.
<P>
There are many contentious issues about how that expenditure will be allocated within the existing Union.
The first decision which has to be reached by the Council is how far the Community will be able to help those new countries who seek to accede to the Union.
That may well have spin-off consequences for frontier states.
I know that states like Austria will be making representations on those matters through the normal channels.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=275 NAME="President">
As the author is not present, Question No 9 lapses.
<P>
Question No 10 by Brian Crowley (H-0199/98)
<P>
Subject: Excise in international waters
<P>
Has the Council requested the Commission to specify the arrangements which will apply from 1 July 1999 for sales of excisable products on mobile forms of transport, such as ferries and cruises which take place whilst the vessel is traversing international waters and/or the territorial seas of different Member States during the course of an intra-EU journey and, if not, will it now do so?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=276 NAME="Henderson">
This is obviously a matter which Members feel is of considerable importance.
I know we discussed some other implications of this at the last Question Time.
<P>
In answer to the specific point raised on this occasion, the Council has made no such request.
Council Directive 92/12/EEC on the arrangements for excise duty sets out the general principle that duty is payable in the country of consumption.
If this issue is raised by a Member State and there is agreement in the Council, the Commission would certainly be asked to advise on what precise arrangements should apply after 1 July 1999.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=277 NAME="Crowley">
I know that the President-in-Office spent some time last month discussing this matter very widely.
However, the point I raised is exceptional.
If a ferry, for instance, is sailing from Ireland to France, at one stage during its journey it moves out of EU or national territorial waters into international waters.
Under strict interpretation of the decision which the minister referred to, they would then be entitled to sell duty-free goods on the boat at that particular time.
<P>
The other point I want to bring into this is the lack of dialogue between the different institutions and the operators themselves.
I know that the Commission and members of the Council have consulted with the Association of Scheduled Airlines which represents the larger airlines in Europe, but no charter airlines were consulted, no airport managers were consulted and no ferry companies were consulted.
<P>
I would like to ask if the President-in-Office could give us an undertaking that wider consultation will take place in the future?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=278 NAME="Henderson">
On the issue of substance, the Commission has a responsibility to explain how the new workings will come into operation.
Set against that, there are already provisions in international law, and advice from the Commission will have to be consistent with existing international law.
It will therefore be a matter of interpretation by ferry companies and others as to what their responsibilities are with regard to what they can sell, at what rate of tax, and where.
<P>
On the question of consultation, I am not aware of any complaint about a lack of a facility to make representation to the Commission.
If specific instances are referred to me then I am pleased to look at them and see if I can have discussions with the Commission; but I have never found the Commission to be difficult on receiving representations.
It may be that if those who feel their view has not been properly aired were to reapproach the Commission, they might find that a facility was be available to them to put their case.
But that is not really a matter for the Council.
The Council will be looking at the issues of substance, will be wanting to know what the advice of the Commission is, and it will then be up to operators to introduce the new regime.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=279 NAME="McIntosh">
Could the President-in-Office confirm to the House today that the Presidency is minded to allow a mandate to the Commission to undertake a study of the economic impact and any potential job losses consequent on the current decision that duty-free will cease and excise duties will apply as normal as from 1 July 1999.
If he is able to confirm that, it is very welcome news indeed, bearing in mind that in the constituency of North Essex and South Suffolk we have both the port of Harwich and Stansted airport.
Perhaps the Presidency is not aware but KLM, which now operates out of the airport, has announced job losses already consequent on this decision taking place in 15 months' time.
I hope he is able to confirm that to the House this afternoon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=280 NAME="Henderson">
I have to say as a matter of general economic theory to Miss McIntosh that if there is a retail outlet and a job is lost because that retail outlet no longer exists and there is still a public desire to consume the products through another retail outlet it might mean that an additional job created is somewhere else.
I am not saying that there would necessarily be equality in that exercise in that sometimes when change is brought about, companies decide to take advantage of productivity potential which is open to them.
But that general point has to be borne in mind.
<P>
The Commission already has that mandate and it has brought forward its proposals.
The Council have agreed a position in the knowledge that a mandate was there.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=281 NAME="Watts">
As you will be aware, many of us are concerned that there will be chaos in European waters if duty-free is abolished.
<P>
I give you one example - a service he is probably familiar with between the UK and the Netherlands where you will pay British excise in British territorial waters, no excise duty at all in international waters and Dutch excise, on the final leg of the journey.
On the reverse journey that will switch, so ferries operating between the UK and the Netherlands will have to charge six different prices for goods on a single return journey.
How does the minister think that contributes towards the completion of the single market?
How can he sell that to the people of Europe?
It clearly makes no sense and the Council needs to ask the Commission to look at this very serious matter because chaos could well result, undermining the very principle that all of us are trying to contribute to, namely the completion of the single market.
Abolishing duty-free will not contribute to that one iota.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=282 NAME="Henderson">
It is widely recognized that the move towards a single market is something which should be unstoppable and is certainly desirable within the Union.
We all have an obligation to try to do what we can to remove obstacles.
But the tax regimes are quite different in every Member State.
In the perception of moves which can be made toward a single market, at the moment those regimes are outside of that.
That is a political reality.
I am sure the honourable Member will recognize there is not any great prospect of any major change in the immediate political future.
One can never talk about the very long term.
I would be very stupid to try to predict the way in which opinion will move.
<P>
If my mother was on the boat, she would know when to buy the stuff.
I think consumers will very much take that view throughout the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=283 NAME="President">
Question No 11 by Liam Hyland (H-0202/98)
<P>
Subject: Wool
<P>
In April 1996, the European Parliament unanimously adopted a motion calling for the development of a European wool industry.
Has the Council now had an opportunity to examine the proposals contained in this motion and, if so, will the Council now initiate discussions with the Commission with a view to taking practical steps to realize the potential which exists for the development of a European wool industry?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=284 NAME="Henderson">
First of all, the answer is no.
But the honourable Member will be aware that wool is not included in Annex II of the Treaty of Rome and is therefore not considered as an agricultural product.
Consequently there are no direct European Union support systems for wool and no common organization of the market.
Any amendment to the Treaty to designate wool as an agricultural product would be difficult to achieve and would require the agreement of all Member States.
<P>
Assistance is already available for wool producers from the Union's Structural Funds programmes.
This assistance is conditional on the project meeting the aims and objective of the relevant programme, on its not duplicating funding already available from European Union sources, and on conformity with the state aid rules.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=285 NAME="Hyland">
Is the President-in-Office aware that failure to address the issue of promoting a quality sustainable EU wool sector is to concede the European wool industry to our competitors, New Zealand and Australia?
Is he aware that his colleague, Mr Cunningham, gave an undertaking to Parliament's Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development that he was prepared to have the matter re-examined?
Is the President-in-Office aware that the Council can change the designation of wool as an agricultural product?
I am asking him today if he is prepared to at least put that item on the agenda for consideration by the Council so that the matter can be progressed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=286 NAME="Henderson">
At the moment this is not on the agenda of the Council.
Any change would require unanimity.
It would be up to a Member of the Council to make representations to the Presidency to ask that a matter like this be placed on the agenda so that a discussion can take place on the way forward and whether any changes should be introduced.
At the moment I have not had that approach.
If I did receive that approach then the matter would be given consideration.
But at the moment there are no plans for any change in current regulations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=287 NAME="Crowley">
Mindful of what the Minister has said, and also of what Mr Hyland has said, Mr Cunningham gave a commitment to have this matter looked into in some detail at the Agricultural Ministers' Meeting.
I should like to ask you, Sir, through your good offices, to see whether you could get it put on to the agenda, because this could be a very important sector for the creation of growth, both in employment and economic terms, and would actually stop jobs leaving the European Union.
At the moment, unprocessed wool is being exported out of the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=288 NAME="Henderson">
I have to remind Mr Crowley that I am not here to represent the British government.
I am here as a representative of the Council, as the President-in-Office.
I have not had any approach from the British government on this matter.
Were the members of the British government on the Council of Ministers to be approached by their colleagues in the Ministry of Agriculture, then they might give the matter some consideration.
At the moment, as the President-in-Office of the Council, I have to repeat my original reply to the honourable Member's honourable friend.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=289 NAME="Gallagher">
I rise to make a political charge, that there seems to be absolutely no cooperation between the British Ministers, Ministers of State and Secretary of State.
Mr Henderson came here last month and answered questions in relation to duty-free, and he was not aware of what the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, had said in this House some time earlier.
Maybe officials are advising him not to respond to me.
I am making a political charge, and I expect a politician to respond to it.
<P>
I suggest that there should be more cooperation.
The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Jack Cunningham, came here and gave some assurances, and the Minister for Europe is not even aware of it!
I put it to you, Minister, through the Chair, that this Parliament has asked that proposals be put forward.
Has the British Presidency now taken a decision to ignore the unanimous view of this House?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=290 NAME="Henderson">
I have been brought up in the school of constitutions and rule books and recognition of one's responsibilities in that regard, and my responsibilities this afternoon are quite clear: I am responsible for reporting and accounting on behalf of the Council and not on behalf of the British government.
It is in that context that my responses are made.
<P>
I did not say that I was not aware of a view which had been struck by my colleague on the Agricultural Council.
What I said was that I had not been approached as a national representative, and that the Foreign Secretary had not been approached specifically to raise that issue at the Council at this time.
That is a different matter.
<P>
I have to say, in passing, that I have also not had any approach from the Irish government on the Council suggestion that the Irish government would want this matter raised.
It may be that the Irish government does indeed want the matter raised.
If it does, I am sure it will approach me to have the matter discussed at the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=291 NAME="President">
Question No 12 by Robin Teverson (H-0203/98)
<P>
Subject: 1999 European Parliament elections
<P>
Would the Council please state what action it is taking to ensure that ALL citizens of the European Union are democratically represented in the European Parliament following the next European elections in June 1999, especially citizens of Gibraltar?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=292 NAME="Henderson">
The honourable Member is undoubtedly aware that Annex 2 of the Act of September 1976 concerning the election of representatives of the European Parliament by universal direct suffrage provides that the United Kingdom will apply the provisions of the Act only in respect of the United Kingdom, that is to say excluding Gibraltar.
<P>
Amendment would require the agreement of all Member States and ratification by all Member States.
The 1976 Act was adopted on the basis of Article 138(3) of the European Community Treaty on the basis of a draft drawn up by the European Parliament which made no reference to the particular case of Gibraltar.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=293 NAME="Teverson">
I thank the President-in-Office for his reply.
I apologise that this question was not tabled last month.
While I understand the legal basis of this, it is a fundamental principle that citizens of the European Union should be democratically represented within their institutions.
I do not think anybody could disagree with that.
And yet we have this anomaly which I do not believe occurs in other Member States.
Their territories which are part of the European Union though not part of their main land masses are all represented here.
It is highly regrettable that there is a difference for the citizens of Gibraltar.
<P>
Given that the President-in-Office drew a line between his position in the British Government and that of representing the Council, could I invite him, as President-in-Office, to invite the appropriate Member State to start to make appropriate amendments to make sure that all citizens are democratically represented here in Parliament?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=294 NAME="Henderson">
I would say to the honourable Member that on this question we are all burdened with history.
If the Council were to invite the Member State alluded to make representations on this matter, the Member State's judgment would be that it would be very difficult to make the necessary progress to achieve any real change.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=295 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Robles Piquer">
Mr Henderson, thank you for your clear answer.
Obviously, as President-in-Office of the Council, you are well aware that this is a problem which runs up against historical and political obstacles arising from the fact that, in the fullest and strictest sense, the territory of Gibraltar does not belong to the European Union, because it is a colony. The British government recognized that fact many years ago in an official communication to the United Nations, which has never been amended.
<P>
Therefore, I should imagine the President-in-Office of the Council knows perfectly well that until that situation changes, what he wants to achieve - doubtless with the best of intentions - will be impossible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=296 NAME="Henderson">
Gibraltar is actually an overseas territory and not a colony of the United Kingdom.
That does not change the context of the reply which I originally gave to Parliament.
I set out the legal position and some of the history.
I have nothing further to add.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=297 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, in July 1997 an application was made in the House of Commons by representatives of both main parties examining the method of suffrage used at both national elections and European elections in Gibraltar.
In response to a question which I asked a month ago, I was informed that this matter is still pending.
I am not sure whether this is still the case or what the present situation is.
<P>
Am I right in assuming, on the basis of your comments and the legal basis you have just mentioned, that this question is probably invalid in the House of Commons anyway, since the point at issue is not itself legally feasible in practical terms.
The second question which I should like to add relates to the matter of Gibraltar which - as you already know from the Treaty of Utrecht - is basically split into two parts, the matter of the rock and the matter of the isthmus.
I would like to know how you regard the two parts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=298 NAME="Henderson">
I cannot see this is a matter for the Council.
The question of the legal position of Gibraltar is something that is clearly designated and entrenched in law.
If the honourable Member wishes to approach the British government, I am sure that they would be happy to take up some of the points that have been raised about procedure within the United Kingdom but it is not a matter for the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=299 NAME="President">
Question No 13 by Sören Wibe (H-0204/98)
<P>
Subject: The situation in Algeria
<P>
Reports of fresh massacres in Algeria appear in the media every day.
It is increasingly unclear who is behind all these acts of madness.
Some people now suspect a number of different political figures of terrorizing the public.
Suspicions have also been voiced that shady elements of the Algerian authorities are perpetrating acts of terror in order to maintain an unstable society for their own political ends.
A European Parliament delegation visited Algeria in February 1998 and, in its conclusions, tended towards the view that the authorities are not to blame for the massacres.
<P>
What view does the Council take of such suspicions?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=300 NAME="Henderson">
The Council has repeatedly reaffirmed its outright condemnation of those abhorrent acts of terrorism and indiscriminate violence.
As the honourable Member will be aware a ministerial troika mission visited Algiers on 19-20 January 1998.
The Council welcomed this visit as an effective expression not only of the deep concern of the European Union at the situation in Algeria but also of the strong sympathy of the peoples of the European Union with the suffering of the Algerian people.
<P>
The Council believes that there is no credible evidence to support the allegations of the involvement of the Algerian authorities in these massacres.
The Council continues to press for greater openness, media access and transparency on the part of the Algerian government.
This would improve international understanding of the situation.
To this end the Council has also encouraged parliamentary exchanges.
It hopes that such contacts will help strengthen democracy and the rule of law in Algeria.
The recent visit of European Parliamentarians is an important step in the continuing dialogue between the European Union and Algeria.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=301 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wibe">
I will try to be very brief.
It is true that there is in fact no credible evidence either way, either against the authorities or against the Islamic groups, not least because the Algerian government refuses to agree to an international investigating commission.
But is it not the case, Mr Henderson, that there are very credible indications from, amongst others, the former Prime Minister of Algeria and from Amnesty International, which suggest that there may be groups within the Algerian authorities which are behind these terrible massacres - as you call them - which happen daily?
Perhaps you should not be so sure about who is guilty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=302 NAME="Henderson">
I recognise that the situation is not completely clear which is the point of sending the mission in the first place.
It is hoped that there will be a further meeting between the Algerian Foreign Minister and the Presidency to try to examine the matters that the honourable Member has raised.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=303 NAME="President">
Thank you for your answers, Mr Henderson.
We wish you a good journey.
<P>
Mr Posselt wishes to make a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=304 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I am sorry. You have probably answered this question already.
I had to attend the meeting of the EU-Czech Republic Joint Parliamentary Committee.
That is why I am late.
I simply wanted to ask why Question Time ended before 7.00 pm today.
In principle, Question Time should run until 7.00 pm.
I also wanted to ask whether it started on time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=305 NAME="President">
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Demographic report 1997
<SPEAKER ID=306 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0056/98) by Mr Cabezón Alonso, on behalf of the Commitee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission demographic report 1997 (COM(97)0361 - C4-0505/97).
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<SPEAKER ID=307 NAME="Cabezón Alonso">
Mr President, as the 1997 Commission demographic report showed, the EU's population pyramid is changing and we must be prepared for the consequences it may entail.
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Since 1975, population growth has been slowing down while at the same time the European Union's population is growing older.
Other trends are becoming apparent: young people are studying and training for longer periods and, in general, people are taking earlier retirement.
<P>
If current trends continue, the population structure of the European Union will develop as follows over the coming 30 years: the over-60 age group will increase by 50 %; the number of adults aged between 20 and 59 will fall by 6 %; and the number of young people aged between 0 and 19 will fall by 11 %.
These trends were also evident in other demographic reports previously approved by Parliament.
<P>
This information means that we must consider certain consequences that are already evident and which are detailed in the report we are discussing today.
<P>
Current demographic trends are having and will have effects on the funding and organization of social protection.
The number of pensioners is rising, an increasing proportion of the budget is spent on pensions, health care costs are growing - due to the increase in the population protected and higher life expectancy -, and the greater dependency of elderly people is giving rise to higher social expenditure.
<P>
We must modernize the management systems of current levels of public social protection to ensure that they work to the advantage of competitiveness and employment.
It is also important to separate the sources from which benefits under public social protection systems are financed, whether they are universal benefits or those which are to be paid out of contributions from employers and workers.
The demographic changes taking place will not in themselves resolve the employment problems, but they will have effects on the job market.
<P>
To protect and preserve the welfare society, the so-called European social model, we must maintain economic growth, increase productivity and improve employment.
The balance of the population of working age over the past 20 years is going to shift in the future and it will therefore be necessary to expand the participation of women in the labour market, since many of them still do not work.
<P>
The foreseeable increase in the number of older workers of working age, that is, between 50 and 64, will make it necessary to adjust working conditions, adapt the content and form of vocational training, and, generally, adapt legislation and taxation to the new conditions.
These new conditions are being debated today and will call for constant responses; the basic elements they will involve will be the share or balance of responsibilities and family, professional and educational arrangements.
<P>
The new conditions, Mr President, must not be obstacles or barriers to paid employment; nor must they be a disadvantage in terms of social protection for those trying to meet the new conditions and the new family and social needs.
These population trends may give rise to regional disparities, which will have an impact on the labour market, housing, health, and care policies as well as on the environment as a result of greater rural depopulation.
These regional trends must be monitored but there is no doubt that they are certainly evident at the moment.
<P>
We must also consider the demographic situation in the applicant countries, those countries which want to join the European Union.
Their situation, the new trends, will be used as reference in the negotiating processes with these countries, particularly as regards the active population, unemployment, levels of social protection, mobility trends, and so on.
<P>
Possible increases in migratory flows from the applicant states to the present Member States of the European Union will increase the pressure on social protection systems in both the current Member States and the applicant countries.
<P>
Current demographic trends in the European Union are also going to have an impact on the definition of new active employment policies - what they will entail and who they will affect -, on public spending on social protection, on the management of employment and training, on family allowances and on the internal cohesion and balance of our businesses.
<P>
In the debate on this report in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, I, as rapporteur, accepted for the most part the amendments tabled by our colleagues from the other political groups, the Group of the European People's Party, the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, etcetera. I also took up the recommendations of the Committee on Women's Rights.
In any case, I wanted this report to include the opinions and suggestions of as many of the members of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs as possible and, in fact, the report was approved in committee with only one abstention.
<P>
When voting on this report, I believe we should not accept the amendments tabled by the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations (Coordination Group), since all the amendments they tabled concerned an area that was not discussed in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and, therefore, we could not set out our position in this respect.
I believe personally, as rapporteur, that the House should reject these amendments.
<P>
Mr President, I would like to end by thanking all the members of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs who helped to draw up this report, and I hope that it will receive the full support of the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=308 NAME="Daskalaki">
Mr President, I would like to start by congratulating Mr Alonso on his excellent report and to thank him and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs for the fact that they included, in the final text, the opinion of the Committee on Women's Rights.
<P>
It is not necessary to emphasize how important the demographic problem in Europe is.
The population is getting older and women are called upon to pay the heavy price.
Our committee, in its conclusions, insisted on the fact that women are bearing an even greater burden with the care of dependents, usually without reward and social security and at the same time are constantly distancing themselves from the labour market.
We asked the Commission and the Member States to target men and women equally when they promote measures to combine family and professional life, and to ensure the possibility of training and reinsertion into work for those - usually women - who are forced, for the reasons given above, to interrupt their professional life.
<P>
Above and beyond that, there is the danger that, if specific measures are not taken, women will be further discriminated against, through increasingly individualized superannuation systems which are basically not optional.
<P>
The European Union is preparing itself for an important new enlargement to include the countries of central and eastern Europe, which will have repercussions for our demographic map.
It is significant that the final report makes reference to infant mortality and that the Commission is called upon to provide data, according to sex, on the demographic developments in the accession countries.
The next century will see a Europe where the increased average life expectancy also has its problems, particularly among women rather men, apart from its positive aspect.
A fourth generation, older and more dependent, is taking shape and it consists mostly of women.
For this reason, the future role of active women in European society must be safeguarded and must be reinforced with equal value given to obligations and rights, both in the workplace and in the family.
Only in this way can the demographic problem be combated effectively, and only in this spirit can the Commission act and can we support our positions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=309 NAME="McMahon">
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on a very good report and to refer to a growing problem within the European Union, that is, the demographic trends and the fact that people are living longer.
These trends present a very strong economic challenge to the European Union, particularly as we are coming up to the new millennium.
<P>
As Mr Cabezón highlights in his report, increasing longevity, allied to declining fertility of younger generations, has resulted in a growing number of older people in our society compared with those who are still working or economically active.
Currently, within the European Union there are 48 million people over 65, 20 million of whom are over 75, so that gives some indication of the problem.
At the turn of the century that group will represent one fifth of the European Union's population. Indeed, by the year 2020 it will be one quarter of the European Union's population.
<P>
If we turn to my own country, Scotland, the figures show a similar trend.
In 1996, 20.18 % of the population were over 58.
By 2006, ten years later, this will rise to 24.6 % and by 2036 it will rise to 31 % - almost a third.
So that is an indication of the trends; these figures are not just statistics, ladies and gentlemen, they represent significant challenges for us as policy-makers.
We must adapt to these circumstances.
We must equip European society for this.
We must ensure economic security for older people in the face of growing social costs.
We must ensure that older people remain integrated in society and that solidarity between the generations is promoted and older people are assured dignity and non-discrimination in their twilight years.
<P>
In Scotland and throughout most of the EU, older people face a serious threat of economic insecurity and growing inequality.
However, until a few years ago, out of all the European governments only the UK's own last government had decided to cut the level of maintenance to senior citizens.
I am pleased to say that within the European Union the British Conservative government was the exception.
However, since the election last May we have had a change in climate, a change of environment, and we have had measures which help the elderly.
We have had, for example, a halving of the VAT rate on fuel.
We have had additional assistance and practical measures taken to help the elderly population.
<P>
Across Europe, not just in the United Kingdom and not just in Scotland, all governments are facing a challenge.
We must introduce policies which recognize the fact that our people are getting older.
The demographic trends are such that there are fewer people in the younger age range and more in the older age range and we must look at these changes.
I am very glad to tell the Members present tonight that we have got the proposals for a pensioners' assembly.
In October of this year, we will be putting forward the Social Affairs Committee's points of view, this Parliament's points of view on this trend, to make recommendations to the United Nations for the Year of the Elderly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=310 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Chanterie">
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Cabezón, for his cooperation, and by congratulating him on his report.
When we look at the Commission's demographic report we have to note that, contrary to the two previous reports, the European Commission does not confine itself to the Union, but also pays attention to central and eastern European countries; quite rightly, because a significant proportion of the people from these countries who are to become citizens of the European Union have already been born.
<P>
It is clear that up until the year 2015, Poland and Slovakia will see a modest increase in both the total population and the working population, but it will be lower than that of the EU.
Nations such as the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria will even experience a decrease.
Low fertility rates and high death rates, along with considerable migration, are all responsible for the population remaining at a standstill, or for it falling.
Explanations for a number of related phenomena, such as child mortality in Romania, the gap between rural and urban areas and differences between the sexes are missing.
These phenomena will exert a major influence over the success or failure of enlargement.
The Group of the European People's Party is therefore pleased that many of our amendments to this effect have been included in Mr Cabezón's motion for a resolution.
<P>
A second innovation in this report is the interest devoted to the interregional dimension.
It concerns relevant social and economic indicators of remarkable variances between regions or of differences between the Member States.
In countries such as Belgium, Germany, Italy and Spain the intranational differences are not without significance.
Population growth is irregular, but in many regions appears to be evaporating towards the year 2015.
Ageing will be responsible for an increasing divergence in age structure towards 2015.
The fall in the population of working age will start as early as 2000 in certain regions, and in others not until after 2010.
This will lead to a decrease in the labour force, and to an increasing desire for geographic mobility.
The working population will age almost everywhere, but not at the same time, and not gradually.
This will in any case lead to a distinct need for permanent education, and the continuous training of largely elderly workers.
I note that my proposals regarding research into the labour market, the promotion of mobility, cross-border vocational training and so on, have all been accepted.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe a few additional themes were to be discussed here, but there is insufficient time.
I would like to draw the rapporteur's attention to one further amendment I submitted concerning recital U. But all in all we are pleased with this report, and I would like to congratulate the rapporteur once more.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=311 NAME="Crowley">
Mr President, I would like to put on record my thanks to the rapporteur for a brilliant report and also to the draftsperson from the Committee on Women's Rights for her input.
<P>
The question of the changes which will take place over the next few years concerning the age profile in the European Union and the effect that will have is something which is concentrating all of our minds, not only because of the purely economic aspects - how we can pay the old age pension for people who are over 65 years of age, how we can have a new breed of workers entering the labour market to ensure that they pay enough social security etcetera - but there is also the great question of how we care for those who are elderly.
My colleague, Mr McMahon, has already pointed out that because of better health care and because of longevity the number of people over 75 years of age living within the European Union requiring more personal care and attention has risen.
<P>
I would ask the rapporteur, if possible, to take on board an idea which I put forward in this House two years ago and am still trying to get support for, which is a charter of carers' rights.
They are a new breed of people who are mainly women, caring for elderly and disabled relatives on a continuous basis with no recognition for the work which they put in; with no recognition of the savings which they make for the community in which they live; with no recognition of the contribution they are making to social solidarity by maintaining people within the home as much as possible.
<P>
On top of that we have the question of how our policies of today are going to cope in 10 to 15 years' time, when this population gets older.
Will we have to reverse our decision on a shorter working week?
Will we have to reverse our decisions with regard to making people retire earlier from work?
These are questions that Members have already touched on.
<P>
Finally, there is the question of rural depopulation.
We have now ended up with a scenario whereby in vast areas of the European Union there are populations where the average age is 50 to 56 because young people have left, migrating to larger urban areas.
This is having a huge knock-on effect.
Members should remember this when we are voting on the budget this year for the Cork Declaration to ensure we can encourage industry and people to come back to rural areas.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=312 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, the rapporteur cooperated well with this Parliament and has taken on board the most important issues from all groups. We have an inclusive report before us, and I hope the European Commission will take serious note of it.
Last year I had the pleasure of being rapporteur on a similar subject, and I think it is terribly important that we continue to draw attention to this issue.
<P>
The world population is not decreasing, but what we have to note is that, demographically speaking, Europe's importance in the world is diminishing.
In addition, it has already been noted by other speakers that we are ageing and that the number of young people is decreasing. How should we deal with this?
I do not think we should invoke woe upon ourselves; instead, we should modernize.
I will mention a few examples.
Modernizing care for the elderly can save a great deal of money.
The demographic data and studies indicate that as the population's age is shifting, so too are the costs.
People who get older do not necessarily require more care.
There is also a tremendous potential amongst these elderly people which we could use on all sides.
<P>
This brings me to another point, namely the labour market.
We have had a long tradition of retiring at an increasingly earlier age, and it is highly debatable whether we should not move towards making the retirement age more flexible in those places where we are living longer, and whether we should incorporate this into our annual report on employment, for instance.
The same goes for pensions.
If we are prepared to look together for creative solutions, then it might well be very possible to keep pensions affordable throughout Europe.
However, we cannot walk away from the facts; we will have to incorporate them.
That is why I believe that the demographic data should be included in the annual report on employment, and that the solutions which are created for the Member States should continue to be discussed in the form of benchmarking.
For the rest, the report contains a number of excellent recommendations.
I think that we will go along with the rapporteur's recommendations in the way in which we vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=313 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Mr President, Commissioner, Europe's hair is fast turning silver-grey, as we can see.
Mr Cabezón Alonso quite rightly draws attention in his splendid report to the fact that an ageing European population requires a change in the way the labour market operates, to meet the needs of older people more adequately.
<P>
In the coming years employers will have to radically alter their attitude towards the elderly and the ageing.
At a time when the young are not coming into the job market in quite the way they did before, it is necessary to start paying attention to the work skills and fitness of older employees in a whole new manner.
It is especially important to try to maintain levels of fitness for work in a preventive way, and not wait until illness or injury has occurred.
<P>
The varying strengths and weaknesses of people at different ages should be part of the equation when work is being planned.
Good planning does not merely mean good ergonomics, but also work organization, for example, planning working hours - working time - so that it fits in with the needs of the older person.
In Finland we have developed the notion of "age management' , which means taking age differences in the staff into account when managing work.
<P>
Nowadays fitness for work is becoming more and more a matter of psychological well-being and feeling happy at work.
This requires job development, so that older staff can see that their skills are valued, can be enrolled in further training programmes, and can have a say in their working environment.
It is vital that they are kept up to date with changes in their role, and that their opinion is heard.
<P>
Obviously, older workers also need training.
We must be particularly on the look-out to see that new technology in the workplace will not displace older staff.
They will learn to use the new technology too as long as hands-on training is provided for them.
Whereas computers are something every young person is familiar with from childhood, older people often have prejudices about them and underrate their ability to use them.
<P>
The knowledge and experience that older workers have can be a priceless resource for companies.
Applying age management to a job, which entails taking heed of the individual needs of all staff, means a job that will benefit all, and not just older workers.
Productivity and efficiency are also at their best in such cases.
<P>
Unfortunately, Mr Crowley is not here, but I could tell him about the Finnish family care compensation scheme, which makes it possible to get compensation while at home caring for someone in his/her family.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=314 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate the rapporteur on his report which raises many important aspects of what we should think about and how we should act when we analyse the population development in the period up to 2015.
<P>
We know that the number of elderly is going to increase, and that the working population is going to decline, which means that there are going to be great strains on our social welfare system.
We must, of course, be very creative when we try to reduce costs. I agree with much of what my Finnish colleague said in this respect.
<P>
I would like to point out some things which we must especially consider when we design these new systems, including social security.
Those who have borne responsibility for the family, those who have cared for children and the elderly, should not be punished through poorer social benefits. Instead, we should consider doing what a number of countries have already done, which is to include housework as pensionable work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=315 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Seillier">
Mr President, "most of the countries of Europe are in the process of committing suicide without even knowing it, because of demographics' .
These are strong words, a quotation from our former Prime Minister, Michel Rocard, at the time of the first Conference on the Family in France, in 1981.
<P>
We are in the process of realizing this, as can be seen from the work of the Commission and that of a number of colleagues over the years, including the reports we have in front of us today.
I would like to go further in encouraging this realization.
I do not believe in the inevitability of such a substantial demographic decline or in the inevitable ageing of the European population.
I do not say this without reason but because I have met an enormous number of women, couples and young people in the lead-up to the Cairo and Beijing Conferences.
Mrs Gisserot, in her well-researched report regarding the situation of women in France prior to the Beijing Conference, which you are aware of, Madam Commissioner, notes with scientific honesty that French women and couples - and I think it is the same in other countries - demonstrate a greater desire than is reflected in reality to have a child, in particular a third child.
It seems that there is a real desire there which is becoming apparent and which is perhaps something new.
<P>
Of course, policies must never be imposed in either a pro or an anti-procreation direction, and this is not at all my intention, but I do believe that there is a serious responsibility to make citizens' choices possible, in particular when it concerns a desire such as this.
<P>
There have been indications from a number of my colleagues, which are perhaps not sufficiently highlighted in your report, Mr Cabezón Alonso, but which are present in your text, Mrs Daskalaki, as well as in the previous speech, which take up what was very clearly stated by a number of experts, including economists, at the International Conference in Beijing, and in particular at the World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen.
We need to rediscover the meaning of the importance of children and the family once more, including their importance on an economic level.
Children are the wealth of a nation, in terms of their value, their love of life, their culture, their ideals, but also in terms of their economic value to a country.
Perhaps this has been somewhat forgotten.
"The only wealth is mankind' , as Jean Bodin said.
<P>
We are rightly tied to the European social model, even though social policies in all of our countries cost a great deal of money.
But is it not time, whilst totally respecting the choice of couples and families - let me repeat that I am in no way in favour of any kind of pressure - to realize that a family policy would be infinitely more economic from all points of view and that we would avoid a great deal of social expenditure further down the line?
<P>
Real consideration must be given to the unpaid work a mother does.
Mothers have always worked.
We must not set those who work against those who do not work - I do not like these expressions.
Up until the advent of urbanization women had always worked, in the fields, in crafts, but alongside bringing up their children.
This was done at the same place, at the same time.
<P>
Today we are faced with different challenges.
We must weigh them up, but I believe that some creativity is possible so that Europe can once again find vitality on all levels. That would mean that Europe would also become more generous, more capable - why not - of making not only material aid available to the developing world but also young people, young men and women willing to go for a period of their life, to offer the skills they have acquired in their own country.
I believe it is possible to find the meaning of a more generous Europe once again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=316 NAME="President">
Mrs Scillier, I was really afraid that, by allowing Mr McMahon to exceed his time, there would be a problem.
Now, we are all suffering!.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=317 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Raschhofer">
Mr President, every year Parliament receives a report on the demographic situation in the Union.
It is right and proper that population development should be a matter for constant observation, since the policy directions of the future depend on the recognition of current population trends.
<P>
Not for the first time, the report points to the gradual increase in the percentage of elderly people in our population.
The measures proposed to counter this trend are well known.
We also know that the pension and health systems need to be adapted accordingly.
At the same time, however, we know that the decreasing number of contributors, the increase in expenditure on public health systems and the tightening of budgets in response to the convergence criteria are difficult to reconcile.
<P>
But the longer these problems remain unsolved, the more difficult they become and, above all, the more difficult they are to finance.
We must ask ourselves, therefore, whether this is the right approach to finding a solution, given that the inequality between supply and demand in the regional labour markets is to be balanced by means of initiatives to facilitate migration.
My ideas are based on a model of society which places the family at the centre of things and does not therefore see the solution to diminishing birth rates in an increased influx of migrants.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=318 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schiedermeier">
Mr President, may I begin by extending my warmest thanks to the rapporteur for this demographic report 1997, and in particular for his commitment to the social market economy, which is not something which can be taken for granted.
Mr President, with your permission I should also like to take this opportunity to wish the rapporteur, whose birthday was on Monday, belated but nonetheless many happy returns.
<P>
Reading this report, one is automatically struck by the idea that the situation of the elderly in Europe is similar to that of the small- and medium-sized businesses.
A great deal has already been acknowledged about them, much has been said, much has been demanded, but there is little to show by way of concrete results.
It seems to me that the same thing could be said of the elderly.
It is true that working age population will continue to decrease due to the slowing-down of population growth.
That will lead to, in fact it is already leading to, higher social costs.
<P>
The question of financing is a difficult one to answer.
Various solutions are being considered, none of them ideal.
The effects on the labour market remain.
Neither the elderly nor employers seem particularly keen to take up the option of a gradual transition into retirement.
A switch to voluntary work, taken in isolation at least, has also failed to provide a solution.
It is unfortunate that at times there is no demand for the elderly to pass on their experience to younger people.
<P>
Women - and here the Committee on Women's Rights is quite right - find themselves in something of a "sandwich' situation. First they go out to work, then they want children.
This is initially put off because they are working and then later when they are looking after their own children, they also find themselves busy with other caring responsibilities, and so it goes on. This raises the question of the compatibility of domestic responsibilities and professional activities for men and women.
We need simply to ensure that in future family work is more highly valued. To date only two steps have been taken in this direction, whichever countries one looks at.
One is child care and the other is child care leave. We will have to continue down one or other of these routes sooner or later if we do not want to see social policy floundering in the European market economy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=319 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking Mr Cabezón Alonso who accepted practically all our amendments in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs. This should mean that tomorrow there will be no problems in approving his report.
As he rightly pointed out at the beginning of his speech, within 30 years more than 50 % of the population will be over 60 years old, while there will be a constant reduction in the number of young people. This will have worrying effects on social spending on the elderly, as well as on the role the elderly play.
<P>
After retirement, the role that the elderly play in society must be very important.
In a "Senior Citizens' Parliament' held in Luxembourg, one of the main concerns was that their knowledge and experience was not given sufficient recognition and that the community should exploit this experience and learning for the benefit of society.
<P>
This demographic change will also affect women, firstly, since we tend to think - and we often hear this in the House - that women should continue to take care of elderly people, dependents and non-dependents, as well as children in the home.
Naturally, the alternative - as has been stated many times in Parliament, and particularly in the Committee on Women's Rights - would be to share the workload in and outside the house.
This would be better for the whole of society.
Women have longer life expectancy and earn the lowest wages; widows only receive a partial pension; elderly women usually have lower pensions. This is an additional problem which must be considered.
In conclusion, Mr President, I agree with some of the points set out in the Cabezón Alonso report, and I would like to mention three of them.
<P>
Firstly, real social cohesion should also involve further convergence. We concern ourselves too much with the indices of economic convergence, and not enough with the indices of social convergence.
The rapporteur recognizes this in one of his paragraphs.
<P>
Secondly, I share the rapporteur's concern because in Europe many early retirements do not involve replacement contractual arrangements, and I can say this as someone who lives in a region, Asturias, which has lost more than 12 000 direct jobs without any hope of these jobs being filled again by young people.
<P>
Thirdly, one of the fundamental aspects of facing up to demographic changes is the definitive and constant creation of employment; without sufficient jobs and without contributions, there will be little chance of meeting the social spending requirements that this demographic change will entail.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=320 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Hadzidakis">
Mr President, it has already been said that there has been a tremendous increase in the number of very elderly people in the European Union, with a reduction in the working population and an even greater reduction in the number of young people under 20.
<P>
All this means, among other things, that we have a time bomb in our social security systems.
Fewer and fewer working people are supporting more and more pensioners.
What must we do?
I would like to discuss three key issues.
<P>
First, we must move towards a liberalized social security system.
There must be increased participation of the private sector, increased personal responsibility of the insured person for the amount of their pension, and increased capitalization of the current system of redistribution among the generations, which, under today's conditions, does not seem to be a very efficient solution.
<P>
Second, concerted measures need to be taken to combat unemployment among the young, since only in this way will we have an increasing number of insured people.
How can this happen?
It can happen through measures to promote flexibility in the labour market, measures to promote professional training and retraining and measures to encourage entrepreneurship among the young.
<P>
Third, we must at the same time promote a policy to increase the birthrate.
This must be done at two levels. Firstly as regards attitude, and perhaps here we need a large promotional campaign in all Member States of the European Union, and secondly in terms of basic financial assistance.
This problem is very serious and a national crusade may be needed in all Member States.
<P>
I promise on my part that in future I personally will do what I can to help find a solution to the demographic problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=321 NAME="Cresson">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, may I say how pleased I am that this important issue is being discussed.
I would particularly like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Cabezón Alonso, for his excellent work.
<P>
This year's report on the demographic situation of the Union concentrates on three specific areas of action: the labour market, regional disparities and the challenges faced by the candidates for accession.
<P>
Let me first of all reiterate what the report says with regard to the problem of the labour market.
In ten years' time, the babyboom generation will have reached retirement age.
From then on, the size of the active population will show a steady decline and we will witness a rapid growth in the number of older workers.
We are able to plan for this and we should do so.
In particular, we must adopt new approaches to issues relating to this link between age and the job market.
We must fight against all discriminatory practices which are based on age and encourage companies to take greater account of the consequences of these demographic tendencies.
We must adopt new approaches to the way in which work is organized, with the aim of improving the employability, productivity and motivation of older workers.
It is precisely our inability to take into account the age dimension in our concept of jobs and the work place that has led to the growing tendency to lay off older workers in recent years.
<P>
Defining an active strategy on the issue of ageing assumes, as an essential component, a greater awareness and the promotion of better practice in this area.
However, policies which aim at maintaining the incorporation of ageing workers into the job market cannot be successful if the qualifications and skills of these people are not adapted to the demands of employers' requirements for workers.
We must put adequate policies in place to improve the employability of the ageing labour force.
For this, life-long learning structures in order to guarantee each worker the possibility of adapting and updating his or her skills, according to developments in the labour market.
<P>
The issue of gender also deserves particular attention. We are all aware of the importance of this when considering demographic tendencies.
The report reveals that, over the next fifteen years, women will become the most important source of growth in labour supply.
The integration of this aspect into both general and specific policies must be strengthened.
<P>
The perspective of women's growing participation in the labour market also raises the question of the reconciliation of family and professional life.
Despite the progress made in recent years, for many women the birth of a child leads to a cessation of work outside the home or, in certain cases, to alternative part-time employment.
For different reasons, as much to do with the availability of child care services as cultural factors, this change is sometimes a permanent one.
<P>
All over Europe, there is significant progress in women's sharing of bread-winning responsibilities in the home.
However, there are few signs that men are progressively taking their share of family responsibilities.
Consequently, there is a risk that the ageing of society could increase the care burden on women in terms of looking after dependants, and this, in turn, could impose constraints on their increasing presence in economic and social life.
<P>
In its second part, the report concentrates on the regional dimension.
It shows that the impact of demographic changes varies considerably from one region to another.
The risk of regional polarization is an important challenge for the political decisionmakers.
The regional dimension of these changes could jeopardize overall performance at national, and even European level.
<P>
Finally, the report sets out the current situation in the twelve candidates for accession.
These countries also have an ageing population against a background of even greater social and economic change.
They have to face a complex and challenging set of problems, made even more difficult as a result of the sharp differences between urban and rural areas, for instance.
<P>
For the Commission and Parliament, demographic changes represent a serious challenge.
Your motion for a resolution highlights a certain number of strategic areas, including participation in the labour market, regional disparities and the development of family structures.
The Commission will go into more detail in the analysis of your resolution, although I must say that we are already working on a number of the issues raised.
<P>
I thank the rapporteur, as well as the House, for this report.
It seems that we are all moving in the same direction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=322 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
European Training Foundation
<SPEAKER ID=323 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0032/98) by Mrs Boogerd-Quaak, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending for the second time Regulation (EEC) No 1360/90 establishing a European Training Foundation (COM(97)0177 - C4-0261/97-97/0126(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=324 NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the report on the European Training Foundation which we are discussing tonight, dovetails perfectly with the problem we discussed this morning on the basis of the Oostlander report on assistance to applicant countries in central and eastern Europe.
In this context I am convinced that the Foundation will be able to make a considerable contribution to the development of education and training programmes in the new Member States.
This is the most important political message in my report.
<P>
To my mind, the Foundation is one of the most perfect instruments within the European Union's accession strategy, and should be utilized more.
Cooperation in the field of vocational training is of strategic importance.
Education and training in central and eastern European countries form the basis for social integration, lasting development and successful processes of economic transformation.
This way these countries will be able to quickly take over the acquis communautaire .
The external evaluation of the first three years, commissioned by the European Commission, shows that the Foundation concentrated too much on managing programmes and too little on policy advice.
This must change in the short term.
The Foundation must be given a more clearly defined role in the accession strategy on the partner countries from central and eastern Europe.
In order to achieve this, the role of the Foundation as contact centre should be strengthened by intensifying the contacts with the partner countries.
In practical terms this means that the Foundation should be involved in the implementation of the accession partnerships.
To support this view I tabled Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, and 8, and I hope that the Commission will implement the spirit of these amendments.
At the same time I expect the Commission to clarify the situation with regard to the division of roles between the Foundation and the relevant Commission services, in particular DG XII and DG IA.
<P>
There is still a lack of clarity over the Foundation's role in the preparatory stage of PHARE/TACIS measures in the field of vocational training.
As I have stated in my report, I believe the written contributions the Foundation is submitting at the request of the Commission to be unsatisfactory.
The Foundation and the Commission should jointly draft a job description.
General guidelines for policy as submitted by the Commission are fine as long as they are imposed unilaterally.
One of my amendments tries to restore balance on that point between the two parties.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, Madam Commissioner, numerous applications for partnerships in sectors such as environment, health care, telecommunication, not to mention government, are waiting to be carried out.
This is only possible if we handle the Foundation very carefully, and allow it to fulfil the role it is designed for.
That is why, in my report, I am asking the Commission to submit a report before 1 July 1998 on the financial consequences of the modified regulation on the activities of the Foundation.
This will become all the more important now that the Foundation's activities are extended to include the MEDA countries.
Education and training plays an important part in these countries too, in areas such as the economy, the environment, and the strengthening of democracy.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, if we take each other seriously, and if we take the Foundation seriously then we will have to recognize the financial consequences of this seriously.
One issue which is important for me, however, is to determine the extent to which the Commission intends to adopt Parliament's view of the Foundation now that the Council has already taken a decision on it.
I am not only referring to the amendments mentioned, but also the amendments I tabled with respect to the internal organization of the Foundation, including an improvement in the representativeness of the advisory forum and the guarantee of the Foundation's independence.
I hope Madam Commissioner will be able to give a hopeful reply to this tonight, because, in themselves, the Council decisions did not differ all that much from what we as Parliament want, and that can be taken up very well by the European Commission.
<P>
To conclude, I would like to call on the Member States to play a more active role in the work of the Foundation.
In future I believe that the job of the national observatories could be filled by the ministries of the partner countries, so that a larger budget for investments and qualification measures for vocational training would become available.
Europe should not be the only party undertaking this responsibility as far as implementation and funding is concerned.
I thought this was a matter which might be difficult to debate, but at a mini symposium in my country which I had organized, it turned out that the Dutch Ministry of Education thought this was a view which could at least be discussed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=325 NAME="Waddington">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank Johanna Boogerd-Quaak for the excellent work she has done on this report.
It may appear a very technical report but it covers some important issues and was unanimously agreed by the committee.
Johanna was generous enough to accept the amendments that came from the Socialist Group and although we recognize that it is late in coming to Parliament, we think that many of the proposals that are set out in this report can be acted on by the Commission in conjunction with the Foundation and without reference to the Council which I know has already met and considered this issue.
<P>
I would like to outline some of the areas which we in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs felt were very important.
We thought it was essential that we and the Commission should recognize the importance of the Foundation for vocational training, not just to support the market economies of the emerging democracies but also to strengthen democracy and respect for human rights and equal opportunities and for those strands to be present throughout the PHARE and TACIS programmes.
We see the Foundation playing a role in that.
<P>
Secondly, we thought it was very important that a mission statement should be established that set out clearly the aims and objectives of the Foundation.
Thirdly, there should be an agreement on a three-year rolling programme and an annual work programme which should be done jointly between the Commission and the Foundation.
We also believe it is vital that there is a monitoring and evaluation procedure that will take into account the extent to which the Foundation has achieved the aims and objectives that are set out for it and has carried out the annual and three-year rolling programmes.
<P>
It is vital that the work of this Foundation is monitored, that there are clear guidelines and that it has a wider remit than the narrow market economy.
We want to ensure that issues such as non-discrimination and equal opportunities are built into the programmes for education and training in the new democracies.
Our committee has seriously considered how the Foundation can play a significant and valuable role in meeting the vocational training needs of the new democracies in Europe and our proposals are aimed at careful planning and the need for monitoring.
We are relying on the Commission to implement these proposals and to report regularly to Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=326 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Pronk">
Mr President, I would like to join in with those who have congratulated Mrs Boogerd-Quaak.
I believe she has absorbed this important, yet technical subject well.
Along with her, I am very curious as to what the Commissioner has to say to our amendments, because this is how we discover its judgement.
<P>
I believe we should say the Foundation has had a short but successful history.
The aim of the Foundation was to help central and eastern European countries in their efforts to restructure their systems for vocational training.
In the beginning, it involved the countries which came under the PHARE programme, then the TACIS countries joined, and now the road is paved for the MEDA countries.
This programme is all the more important because, whilst the central and eastern European states are undergoing a transformation, it is the people who experience the workings of the market first.
This kind of cooperation is therefore extremely important.
It is a well known fact that education also instructs people in the way they think.
By giving them the basic elements, we can show them that the market economy is not an isolated entity, whilst at the same time sharing with them the perception that the market economy is also subject to preconditions.
In this way young people in central and eastern Europe will be able to familiarize themselves with the market economy as created in Western Europe.
The transition from a centralist economy to a market economy comes down to a question of supply and demand.
Again, establishing a new society comes down to making a choice; a choice between the Anglo-Saxon model, the United States model, or the European model.
For a stable democracy, the social dimension, wholly imbued in the European thinking, will need to be given due emphasis.
That is why the Foundation in Turin will have to accord it due significance.
For the new managers who will become acquainted with the social dimension in particular, support within a new economic order will be important.
That is why the amendment should mention the social dimension, alongside human rights and equal opportunities, as an integral part of the package the Foundation will have to promote in Turin.
The Foundation has developed itself successfully amidst the significant problems involved in a foundation, and which are, after all, entirely typical to this community.
<P>
As rapporteur on the budget I have been able to see that the financial resources have been spent appropriately.
The fact that the Foundation is to extend its activities to include the MEDA countries is extremely sensible in this context.
It is true that the MEDA countries' problems cannot be compared exactly with those of the PHARE and TACIS countries, but the expertise which has been built up must not be lost, and must not be confined to these countries.
That is why, Mr President, this Foundation is a very good thing, and that is why I believe we will be able to continue along the path we have taken with these amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=327 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Garosci">
<SPEAKER ID=328 NAME="Kerr">
Mr President, I too congratulate Johanna on her very good report.
It is very appropriate that we should be discussing this tonight because tomorrow of course the conference on enlargement of the European Union begins in London and the key role of training in preparation for enlargement is very important.
<P>
I am a little sceptical sometimes of European foundations in European institutes and I have visited a few in my time.
I always like to see them properly monitored and evaluated. I am glad that this is being done in this case and I hope they respond to some of the external evaluations and the Commission evaluation.
Speaking on behalf of the Green group in particular, I would like obviously to stress the importance of training in environmental management and monitoring given the environmental problems of central and eastern European countries.
Secondly, the question of developing a civic culture for nongovernmental organizations is very important.
Specific training programmes and expertise in that area as well would help in the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=329 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papkyriazis">
Naturally, I too would like to congratulate and thank the rapporteur, who has accustomed us to her way of working, on a subject that has proved to be much more difficult than it at first appeared.
<P>
This is a report which has finally achieved unanimity in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs. It is a report which, in my opinion, is accompanied by an extremely important and substantiated explanatory statement, which sheds a great deal of light on the issue.
<P>
Of course I too would like to refer to the coincidence - though I am not sure if it is sheer coincidence - that we are debating it after this morning's debate on the prospects, realization and implementation of enlargement, and on the very eve of and just a few hours, in fact, before the official opening of the European Summit.
Please allow me, Mrs Cresson, to put these days, on which we are debating the Europe of learning, into a more general framework into which, I believe, today's debate should go, since we are of course talking about partners of the European Union and about events surrounding the European Union.
<P>
I believe that this report succeeds in complementing, improving, correcting and adding to the work of this Foundation. The amendments do indeed complement a second generation foundation which was only created in 1995 and which, in a short time, has demonstrated the value of its creation and of its work.
<P>
I wish to refer to the viewpoint in Amendment No 2, tabled by the rapporteur, which I believe gives a new dynamism to this Foundation, while closely linking its operation, beyond the value of professional training in practice, which is well known, to its participation in strengthening democratic institutions, "the social dimension, respect for human rights and equal opportunities' .
<P>
I also wish to mention a special point, which the rapporteur touches on and which we have often debated in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs: the need for cooperation with CEDEFOP, the foundation for the promotion of professional training.
I believe that this is extremely important and that this cooperation may proceed even more constructively than the already constructive cooperation between the Foundation in Turin with the Foundation in Thessaloniki.
By definition, this cooperation is structural and powerful.
I also believe that, in the Europe's progress towards a society of learning, CEDEFOP needs to make an enhanced contribution, and it is ready to do so.
The Foundation in Turin must work even more closely with CEDEFOP.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=330 NAME="Morris">
Mr President, the role of the Centre is to provide education and training as the foundation for social integration, lasting regional development and successful economic transformation.
I thank Mrs Boogerd-Quaak for her report.
It stresses the need to enhance the Foundation's contribution to the EU's preparations for enlargement.
The European Training Foundation can be useful as a tool in helping to implement essential partnerships and will provide the new programmes and the formal frameworks for EU aid to candidate countries.
<P>
Both independent evaluations as well as the Commission emphasize the need to enhance the Foundation's role in providing expert vocational training assistance to partner countries.
The policy guidance role of the Foundation should be enhanced.
We need to reinforce that particular point.
<P>
The European Training Foundation must prepare adequately for covering MEDA countries.
I support the committee's position which calls for clarity in the structures within the European Training Foundation, with three specific working groups: one for accession countries; one for PHARE and TACIS countries; and one for MEDA countries.
<P>
I urge Parliament to adopt the position which has been unanimously approved by the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=331 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Elchlepp">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank the rapporteur very much for her sound report and also for the fact that it takes into account many of the proposals made by the Committee on External Economic Relations in relation to the content and organizational tasks of the Foundation and its role in establishing practical vocational training in third countries.
<P>
I would like to say clearly that the Foundation is doing good work.
The recent expansion of its vocational training activities should be welcomed.
The evaluation of the work carried out to date will lead to a much needed clarification of the status of the Foundation and its relationship with the Commission, an issue of great importance to its very committed staff, as I was able to discover for myself on the spot.
<P>
This evening, the debate has focused quite rightly on the role of modern vocational training in these countries in terms of new economic and employment structures and improved external trade relations.
In addition to capital aid, they also need to modernize their vocational training and further education systems at all levels, not only in management.
<P>
The Commission now needs to make full use of the specialist skills available at the Foundation in the preparation of accession candidates from central and eastern Europe in order to accelerate the alignment process as quickly as possible, and I also hope that in the process an effort will be made to speed up the disbursement of PHARE funds.
The experience gained by the Foundation to date must be used to the advantage of our new Mediterranean partner countries without delay and the Foundation must be given independent responsibility for certain, well-defined areas.
<P>
As far as I can see, little progress has been made as yet in terms of support measures for the MEDA programme.
It would be helpful, Madam Commissioner, if the Commission were to report to Parliament on this issue as soon as possible.
Brussels should not be allowed to overly restrict the Foundation's field of activity.
Project-based cooperation between the Foundation and the partner countries should be more intensive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=332 NAME="Cresson">
<SPEAKER ID=333 NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Mr President, I thank the Commissioner for her response, but I would like to reserve the right to have another thorough look at what exactly she said.
We now have the problem that much seems to have been promised, but a number of issues have not really been taken on board, and I wonder if the Council still ultimately has to decide whether a number of aspects can be positively incorporated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=334 NAME="President">
Mrs Boogerd-Quaak, I think that Mrs Cresson has noted your comments.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Action plan and subsidies for Ukraine
<SPEAKER ID=335 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0059/98 by Mr Gary Titley, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council on an action plan for Ukraine (COM(96)0593 - C4-0103/97); -A4-0063/98 by Mrs Magdalene Hoff, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the Court of Auditors' Special Report No 6/97 concerning TACIS subsidies to Ukraine (C4-0350/97).
<SPEAKER ID=336 NAME="Titley">
<SPEAKER ID=337 NAME="Mann, Erika">
<SPEAKER ID=338 NAME="Mann, Erika">
<SPEAKER ID=339 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Botz">
Mr President, as a member of the Delegation for relations with Ukraine, I would also like to thank the rapporteur for his excellent report, and to focus particularly on one point, point 23, in which he urges us explicitly to pay greater attention to the particular conditions of the process of economic transformation in Ukraine.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr President, Madam Commissioner, as Western Europeans we should not lose sight of the fact that what we are dealing with here is a unique - certainly a first and perhaps even unique - transformation process which has a dimension different from any that we in Western Europe have hitherto experienced.
This is the first time that a process of this type has taken place and none of us can predict or define it with certainty because we are experiencing it for the first time.
<P>
Since experts estimate that the national economy of Ukraine is characterized by the existence of a black economy accounting for at least 30 %, and probably even as much as 40 % of commercial activity, the question arises as to how we can move peacefully and sensibly towards its successful conversion - and its success is imperative - into a legally operating social market economy.
We do not know either exactly how to proceed.
After several visits there I feel I may suggest that on no account can it be a speedy procedure.
We need patience and our priority must be to ensure that any development is lasting and stable.
<P>
To follow on, I would like to say something about the problem of Mrs Hoff's report, in other words, the problem concerning TACIS.
Once again the agricultural sector is involved.
I have had the opportunity to visit with other colleagues several TACIS farming projects in Ukraine.
It is true - and I should like to highlight this specifically in the interests of those people who are the ultimate beneficiaries in Ukraine - that, for the reasons already mentioned, the start-up phase was so lengthy that now there is quite simply no longer the time required to implement the projects in a sensible and lasting way, particularly in the case of farming projects.
At this point I should like to sound an urgent warning. Farming projects at least must be extended and constantly promoted or they will never reap any significant benefits.
<P>
I should also like to say something about the manner in which some projects - naturally not all of them - are structured.
We were somewhat disconcerted by the fact that in a region like Ukraine where businesses have operated on a large scale for three quarters of a century, emphasis was being placed specifically and almost exclusively on the setting up of one-man businesses with twenty stalls for pig fattening.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr President, Madam Commissioner, it is my belief that we would be ill-advised to continue solely with such projects.
Undoubtedly it makes sense to promote other projects which are better suited to the prevailing conditions in Ukraine.
I should like to emphasize this point once again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=340 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gomolka">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, anyone who wants a preventive and stabilizing policy in and for Europe must give their full support to the action plan for Ukraine, to Mr Titley's clear and intelligent report and to the opinions of the committees.
The current situation in Ukraine remains complex.
It is an impressive political achievement that the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement signed between Russia and Ukraine in May 1997 succeeded in ending or easing years of continuous tensions.
This provided Ukraine with better conditions in which to make its contribution towards stabilization in a large and very sensitive region.
<P>
In contrast to this, there are still a number of continuing internal political difficulties to be resolved.
Although the tensions caused by the ethnic composition of the population have eased, they are still very much in evidence.
There are still massive secessionist movements in the Crimea.
Cooperation with the European Union is a natural desire in the west of the country, but a topic rarely discussed in the east.
Economic reforms need to be implemented more consistently than has been the case to date.
The pace of reforms must be accelerated, not only in the economy, but also in relation to administration, legislation and the legal system.
<P>
It is undoubtedly due to the balanced and rigorous policies favoured by President Kuchma it has been possible to maintain a balance in this difficult situation and that it was even possible to make some gains in terms of external policy.
It is also a result achieved in part by the people of Ukraine, a result which bears witness to their ability to improvise, but also, let me be blunt, to their ability to endure suffering.
<P>
In a few days, on 29 March, the people of Ukraine go to the polls once again.
This will lend our opinion greater topicality and greater weight.
Aid was and still is urgently needed; it should be given in the simplest manner possible.
The aid proposed in the action plan can be structured more efficiently.
But this aid should also be provided quickly.
The current procedures raise several questions in this regard.
It took the Commission only two days to submit the plan to the Council and to inform Parliament.
The Council needed only two weeks to confirm the plan but it took almost four months from the date on which the plan was sent to Parliament for the President to announce that the committees were addressing it.
We have squandered a little too much time but the task can still be accomplished punctually.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=341 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Frischenschlager">
Mr President, first of all I would like to thank the rapporteur, not only for his report as a whole, but also for his contributions today in which he has so clearly highlighted Ukraine's great significance for the economic and political stability of the whole of Europe.
It is for this reason that we must be prepared to give aid to Ukraine, despite the fact that there are serious problems there as Mrs Hoff's report has shown, and that we also have problems of our own here in the European Union.
<P>
In this context, I think it is very important to look in greater detail at two of the points made in the report.
The first point concerns the death penalty in Ukraine.
I find it unacceptable that Ukraine signed the Convention on Human Rights, indeed that it promised to abolish the death penalty and that despite this, as the report clearly shows, 13 death sentences were carried out last year.
<P>
It is simply a situation which we should not accept.
We are judging Ukraine by different standards too simply because it wants to look European.
This point is also particularly important because we are currently witnessing a renaissance of the death penalty in many countries in eastern Europe where there is political pressure either to retain the death penalty, or to reintroduce it for certain cases.
It is important that we bring the European Union's role in setting standards to bear in our dealings with Ukraine.
<P>
My second point relates to the energy policy.
I am convinced, as point 18 of Mr Titley's report states, that we must help to make Chernobyl reasonably safe.
But I am quite adamantly against point 19 because it is simply an attempt to replace one evil by another, that is, to close Chernobyl but to build new nuclear power stations.
That is completely the wrong route and in my view it is a waste of every ECU invested in this misguided energy policy.
I hope that the amendments which have been tabled on this point will prove successful in tomorrow morning's vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=342 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, as many of my fellow Members have already said, the forceful and encouraging words "action plan' refer to an unassuming group of measures which are already in existence, not to anything new.
If we are to develop this idea into more than an electoral aid, if we are to allow it to mature into a plausible concept, in my view, we have to let Ukraine know that the enlargement of the European Union must be a flexible process and it must not be limited to the current waiting list of countries.
<P>
As the first country to have rid itself of its nuclear weapons potential, Ukraine must be integrated into a European security system which has as its objective a Europe free of nuclear weapons.
In contrast to the action plan, priority must be given to the strengthening of "civil society' and the building up of democracy.
That is the only proper basis for economic reform.
<P>
Finally, in a country which lives every day with the threat of radioactive contamination, European aid must promote alternative sources of energy, not create new dangers.
For this reason we call for the modification of the EU strategy on Ukraine.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=343 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Féret">
<SPEAKER ID=344 NAME="Adam">
<SPEAKER ID=345 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Mr President, the inappropriate use of European grant aid is doubly damaging, firstly for those in receipt of it, and secondly for those who are providing it.
In the case of the several hundreds of millions of ECU of TACIS resources for Ukraine referred to in the Hoff report, the damage is crucial.
In Ukraine, the objectives which are to be achieved with the help of European aid are not being achieved.
Much of what was planned, and is essential, remains undone.
For a significant part of the TACIS programme for Ukraine, namely the issue of nuclear safety, the gap between the "near' standstill in nuclear safety mentioned in the report and a "near' catastrophe is not too wide.
<P>
As for the European citizens whose money is being inappropriately spent here, they are justifiably displeased with the situation.
As a result Europe is losing credibility.
What are the failings which are listed so clearly and so impressively - unfortunately in the negative sense of the word - in the Hoff report?
What can, and must, be done to change things quickly?
Apart from the failings related to the recipient country, the rest of the catalogue of failings unfortunately reads exactly like the catalogue of failings for which the European institutions, and above all the Commission, have been reproached in other contexts on the same subject of grant aid for many years. These include a lack of clear decision-making procedures, excessive scattering of resources across a range of small projects, excessive and technically counterproductive efforts to involve local partners, a lack of technical expertise within the Commission except in relation to the process itself, administrative overloading of the project manager, time-consuming bureaucratic procedures and, as we have already heard today, a lack of any proper European concept for a nuclear safety policy.
<P>
What do we have to do in order to remedy this situation?
SEM 2000 is one of the new slogans of the moment. It stands for sound and efficient management .
Less is more. It advocates a few clear goals with short implementation timespans, a sensible personnel structure, well managed and motivated staff, good coordination with all partners involved.
SEM - "sound and effective management' - yes please! But not starting in the year 2000, starting now so that the two programmes which the European Union is offering to our neighbours in eastern Europe and beyond, TACIS and PHARE, can contribute to positive developments both in the immediate European vicinity and further afield, and so that the process of European integration can become a process which we will be able to regard with confidence in the years to come rather than having from the outset to worry about damage limitation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=346 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Virrankoski">
Mr President, Mr Titley's report gives a good picture of relations between Ukraine and the EU, for which I sincerely thank him.
The Commission issued a communiqué on the subject some eighteen months ago, and so it was high time Parliament dealt with it.
Many thanks too to Mrs Hoff for her report.
<P>
Ukraine is a large country which is an important partner for the EU and, owing to her geographical situation, a major crossroads in Europe.
One problem is that Ukraine has nuclear power plants in poor condition.
The accident at Chernobyl was the world's largest single catastrophe of the decade.
<P>
The big question on the agenda is how to improve nuclear safety.
Merely to demand that Ukraine should shut down its nuclear power plants cannot be the only political line to adopt.
Ukraine sorely needs all her energy supplies, whatever the means of production.
That is why the aim repeatedly mentioned in the report to diversify energy production is important and relevant.
But we must approve their interim goal of completing the two plants which are almost ready, Khmelnitski 2 and Rovno 4, while the run-down plants at Chernobyl could be closed down as soon as possible.
This, which was mentioned both by the Commission and Mr Titley, should be done immediately.
With these remarks I am prepared to give my support to the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=347 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, would you please tell your colleagues in the Commission, in particular Mr van den Broek, that there will be no respite for the Commission in April, and that one of the reasons for this is Mrs Hoff's report which we are discussing today.
I should like to make it quite clear to them that personally I am more involved in Bosnia.
But TACIS in Ukraine is not the only problem.
Reconstruction in Bosnia is not the only problem.
The underspending of PHARE appropriations is not the only problem. In fact, the main problem is GD Ia and the Commission's complete inability to deal with the constraints of time.
<P>
Allow me to quote from Mrs Hoff's report, "...motivation is at a low ebb in GD Ia' .
I could say the same thing about Bosnia when I see how my colleagues are working in Sarajevo.
There is no strategic vision.
The same is true of Bosnia!
The Commission has a hopelessly unrealistic approach to the problems of Ukraine.
I can only agree! And not only on that point, but also on may other aspects of external policy for which Mr van den Broek is responsible.
<P>
I want to tell you what the consequences are.
It is damaging not only to the reputation of the European Union; it is damaging in terms of both nuclear safety in Ukraine and reconstruction in Bosnia.
But much worse, it is damaging in very concrete terms to the people on the spot who are hoping for our help and who are expecting specific and effective help.
Please, Madam Commissioner, would you be so kind as to ask Mr van den Broek to tell this House when and how he intends to accept responsibility, without making the excuse that the Council of Minsters also has a certain level of responsibility to bear, just like any other project partner anywhere else in the world!
That is certainly the case, but ultimately he is responsible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=348 NAME="President">
Mrs Müller, we said that we would be understanding, but you have doubled your allotted time.
I cannot allow you any more time, unfortunately.
What can we do?
As I have said, the political groups should not allocate a time of one minute.
And they allocate one minute!
I confess that I am ashamed to interrupt a speaker after one minute.
But from now on, I cannot unfortunately give you double time.
Please tell your groups to allocate sufficient time to their speakers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=349 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bösch">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, perhaps I can pick up where Mr Müller left off.
It really is a very interesting story.
Today we have heard in Mr Titley a very passionate rapporteur presenting a good report on the action plan for Ukraine and at the same time we are discussing what is actually happening to all our good intentions for Ukraine.
It is just as Mrs Müller said.
These external policy reports which we get from the Court of Auditors have become interchangeable.
Regardless of whether it is PHARE, TACIS, humanitarian aid or the former Yugoslavia, the story is always the same: much ado about nothing!
<P>
Hardly a week goes by without some ostentatious announcement or other from the Commission about where they intend to get the money from on this time.
Then, some time later when, as the budgetary authority we look at what has become of these announcements and this money, we find - just as in this case - that only a fraction, and a small fraction at that, has actually been spent on what it was allocated for.
<P>

What is particularly frustrating is - as Mrs Müller was quite right to point out - that not all the blame lies with the recipient countries but that it is essentially a state of affairs in which the Commission is conspicuous mainly for its incompetence.
<P>
I quote point 2.12: "At the delegation' - in Ukraine, that is - "there is only one local agent responsible for monitoring the nuclear safety projects, yet this involves over 100 projects which take up half the national TACIS allocation for Ukraine' , and so on.
Madam Commissioner, is this how we spend European taxpayers' money?
How would you justify it to anyone, let alone to our own electorate.
In terms of staff motivation, the European Parliament cannot be dependent upon whether or not Commissioner van den Broek finally manages to motivate his staff in GD Ia!
Please take these points into consideration.
Soon we will have another of these external policy matters to discuss.
It is not the Council, it is not the Member States, it is not Parliament, it is an entirely internal matter which I hope you can solve to our satisfaction and once and for all in the interests of the taxpayers of this Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=350 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Dimitrakopoulos">
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate Mr Titley, Mrs Hoff and Mrs Mann on their excellent work and I will just make a few comments.
<P>
Firstly, I would like to mention the issue touched upon by Mrs Mann concerning the non-participation of Ukraine in the European Conference which begins tomorrow.
I think this is a big mistake. Because of its geographical position, that is, because of the fact that it forms a bridge with Russia, Transcaucasia, and Central Asia, it is a key geopolitical player and should participate, especially when this European Conference is debating the issue of enlargement.
Such an issue cannot be debated fully if it is not accompanied by a European Union policy with respect to third countries.
<P>

Secondly, in terms of the enormous issue of nuclear safety, the debate centres on Chernobyl, since Ukraine has already taken a series of steps in relation to the military aspect of nuclear arms. However, with Ukraine at its centre, it will touch on the wider question of the future of nuclear energy, since we must not forget that Chernobyl was a catastrophe resulting from the peaceful use of nuclear energy.
<P>
Thirdly, the actions of Ukraine in the field of air transport in support of the Petersburg missions is a sector of activity to which the European Union attaches a great deal of importance.
For Ukraine to play its part it must be given special assistance in this area.
<P>
Fourthly, as regards the issue of European Union representation in Ukraine, I agree that European Union representation in Ukraine must be improved and that there must at the same time be more rational use of the resources that are available for Ukraine within the TACIS programme.
<P>
For this reason, Mr President, while the action plan of the European Commission constitutes a basis, I would stress that it is only a starting point.
We need an enhanced proposal, a global proposal, a proposal with vision and with objectives concerning future relations between the European Union and Ukraine.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=351 NAME="Cresson">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first of all like to thank the European Parliament for its keen interest in relations between the European Union and Ukraine.
The reports we are discussing today are to be commended, as is the work of the two rapporteurs.
<P>
Let me comment firstly on Mr Titley's report regarding the action plan for Ukraine.
The partnership and cooperation agreement with Ukraine, which came into effect on 1 March 1998, has opened a new chapter in relations between the Union and that country.
It should enable a strengthening of cooperation in many spheres, not least political and economic.
<P>
The Partnership and Cooperation Agreement is a way of bringing the European Union and Ukraine closer. This requires substantial effort on the part of the latter in order to harmonize many legislative and administrative practices.
Closer association with Ukraine could take the form of a free trade area, as provided for in the PCA, when structural reform in Ukraine is sufficiently advanced.
<P>
The first meeting of the Cooperation Council between the European Union and Ukraine will take place next June, and that of the first interparliamentary committee as soon as possible.
An independent Ukraine is faced with three major issues: sowing the seeds of democracy; establishing its independence and unity; and putting a market economy in place.
The balance sheet so far is encouraging with regard to the first two aspects and worrying regarding the third.
Ukraine has put in place the foundations of a democracy and strengthened its international position.
The signing of a Friendship Treaty with Russia in May 1997 has contributed to a stabilization of relations between these two countries, whilst the signing of a special partnership charter with NATO in July 1997 has helped the integration of Ukraine into a Euro-Atlantic security bloc.
Nevertheless, Ukraine is at a crucial stage in its economic transition.
The European Union and international donors as a whole are concerned about the blockage in economic reforms and hope that the outcome of the elections on 29 March will enable an essential revival of such reforms.
<P>
The many commercial problems between the European Union and Ukraine illustrate the inadequacy of its economic restructuring.
A team from the Commission is in Kiev this week to discuss these issues, particularly the situation of the motor market, which runs the risk of being closed to foreign producers.
<P>
The action plan for Ukraine was above all a political document in response to a Ukrainian request and its implementation is progressing satisfactorily.
The actions being developed by the Commission largely match the recommendations in the Titley report.
In particular, the Commission is in complete agreement with the importance of the development of civil society in Ukraine. That is the second recommendation.
A joint mission with the United States is currently working on the preparation of a support programme for Ukrainian civil society, thanks to Parliament's amendment to put ECU 2.5 million aside for joint actions with the United States in the former USSR.
<P>
Politically, it is extremely important to move the Chernobyl issue along.
As you know, the agreement with Ukraine anticipates the closure of Chernobyl in the year 2000.
The implementation of this agreement is progressing.
Last year, the Commission proposed additional financing of ECU 100 million for the sarcophagus and we hope that the European Parliament will support us at the next part-session by giving its assent.
At the same time, the Commission continues to provide aid for the reform of the energy sector in Ukraine, which has been a priority for Community assistance right from the start.
This position fits in well with that of the G7, which established a link between actions supporting the closure of Chernobyl and the long term reform of Ukraine's energy sector.
<P>
I would now like to share with you our reaction to Mrs Hoff's report, presented by Mrs Mann, which is primarily concerned with nuclear safety in Ukraine.
I would first of all like to thank Mrs Mann for all the attention that she - along with Mrs Hoff - has given to the situation of the TACIS programme in Ukraine.

I can assure you that this report has caused us to reflect internally on both the substance and the management procedures of our programmes, particularly the nuclear ones.
<P>
Our reflections have led to the following conclusions. Firstly, as regards substance, actions that are more targeted towards sites must be undertaken, with priority given to the nuclear plants which pose the most problems.
Greater emphasis must be placed on the management of radioactive waste. The Commission is thus in the process of developing a specific programme for radioactive waste in north-west Russia, along with its Euro-Arctic Council partners of the Barents Sea.
We are also in the process of supporting the transfer of know-how and technology through strengthened promotion of industrial cooperation. At this stage, we can already state that, within the framework of this reorientation, the Commission is firmly committed to the closure of Chernobyl in the year 2000, in accordance with the G7 Memorandum of Understanding.
<P>
On a procedural level, with regard to management procedures in particular, Mrs Hoff's report has led to a certain number of measures which will enable an improvement in the coordination of the programme.
The Commission will increasingly make use of framework contracts with a view to reducing programme fragmentation.
This approach will have the added advantage of reducing delays in the implementation of projects which are attributable to Commission departments as well as reducing the number of contracts to be managed.
<P>
The Commission has also taken on other accompanying measures.
It has created a group of high level advisors, whose main task will be to provide independent advice on the direction and implementation of programmes, as well as on the nuclear risks in partner countries and, furthermore, it has taken measures to strengthen internal coordination in the area of nuclear power.
<P>
In conclusion, with regard to the Titley report I would emphasize that there is agreement between the Commission and the rapporteur on the broad outlines of our strategy towards Ukraine. With regard to the Hoff report, the Commission is paying particular attention to the rapporteur's observations, with the aim of improving our assistance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=352 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=13>
Consumer protection
<SPEAKER ID=353 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizen' Rights, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive on injunctions for the protection of consumers' interests (C4-0585/97-96/0025(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=354 NAME="Verde I Aldea">
Mr President, we are now at second reading of a directive which is of great importance despite its modest title.
<P>
Consumers have been paid special attention by the European Union and there are many directives granting rights to consumers.
Nevertheless, these have always concerned with what I would call substantive rights, in other words, basic rights which have always been obstructed by the fact that there is a significant deficiency in this respect in the European Union. Judicial proceedings are not unified and there are very different legal and procedural systems throughout the various Member States.
<P>
This directive regulates procedural law for the first time and allows consumer associations to bring actions in any country of the Union.
It sets out that as long as these organizations are recognized as such in a country, they can bring an action against the infringement of the directives on substantive rights of consumers in any country.
This, in my view, is a very significant step forward which should be emphasized since I believe it is a great surprise.
<P>
The second aspect I would like to point out is that this directive has involved at different levels a high degree of cooperation between the Commission - which drew up the first draft -, the European Parliament at first reading - in close cooperation with the Commission - and, finally, the Council's common position. The common position has recognized the spirit of the work carried out by the European Parliament and, Mr President, I do not mind saying, has improved the technical aspect of this directive.
The Council has carried out serious work and when it does this, we must recognize its efforts in the same way as we usually criticize it at times for its inefficiency in other areas.
<P>
Therefore, given the serious work carried out by the Council, I proposed, and the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights approved this with a majority, not to introduce amendments at second reading and to accept the second reading as presented by the Council with its important aim, taking into account that the directive is acceptable, of speeding up as far as possible its implementation.
<P>
Nonetheless, some amendments have been tabled, in spite of this request, in reference to the fact that traders and industrial associations, amongst others, are not included in the directive. It is true that their interests could be defended in the same way as consumers' interests, but they do not in fact form part of the group we know as consumers, which is the subject of the list of directives in the Annex.
For these reasons, Mr President, I recommend to the House that we adopt this directive and reject the amendments tabled, since I believe that it is an acceptable directive and Parliament should be satisfied with the work it has done in cooperating to ensure that this directive progresses.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=355 NAME="Oddy">
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for his excellent work on an important Commission proposal.
It is an important plank in the protection of consumers and consumer associations.
It is an important project for the third pillar on cooperation on judicial affairs.
Up until now we have had very few proposals in this area and therefore I particularly welcome this one.
<P>
It gives consumers the possibility of obtaining an injunction for an infringement of certain Community directives.
I am pleased that the Commission recognizes the sagacity of Parliament's work and accepts 17 out of 20 amendments tabled by Parliament in the first reading and thus avoids the need for conciliation.
I agree with Mr Verde that the sooner this directive is implemented the better.
<P>
With the increased mobility of tourism, educational visits and business travel, the need for cross-border consumer rights is magnified.
There is just one particular point that I would like to flag up.
I know that the Consumer in Europe Group is disappointed that one amendment was not re-tabled.
However, I agree with Mr Verde that it was better to progress this directive as quickly as possible.
However, the directive, as it currently stands, is only applicable to directives listed in Annex 1 and there are a number of directives they would have liked to have seen within the ambit of this directive, such as toy safety, low voltage gas appliances and personal protective equipment.
<P>
I would therefore respectfully suggest to the Commission that when this directive is fully implemented it reviews the working of this directive and looks at the possibility of extending the directive in the future to such matters as guarantees and distance selling of financial services, so that the very maximum benefit can be obtained for consumers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=356 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, I am speaking tonight on behalf of my colleague, Mr Añoveros Trias de Bes, and on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party.
I would like to begin by highlighting, as the rapporteur did, the work carried out by the Council.
In many ways, the common position improves on the ideas thrown in the ring by Parliament at first reading.
This is a fact which must be recognized.
<P>
Nevertheless, the Group of the European People's Party has tabled four amendments, which bring together most of the ideas approved at first reading and recognized by the Commission in its amended proposal.
The Group of the European People's Party is presenting them once again for several reasons.
<P>
Firstly, they concern respect for the field of application.
Without entering into comments on what Ms Oddy said concerning the advisability of including other directives, for example on toy safety - despite the fact that we agree with her in the Group of the European People's Party - I must point out that Article 1 establishes a limited scope, which could even be described as sectoral in nature.
Only the needs of consumers are taken into account and those of businesses, tradesmen and the professions, collective interests which are considered in the list of directives in the Annex, are left to one side.
Mr President, regardless of the legal scope of the different Member States, you will see that this will only serve to create even more legal uncertainty.
The interpretation of what the collective interest of consumers is and that of businesses is not going to be the same in Spain as in Germany. We are now drawing up a new directive on this which, rather than bringing coordination and harmonization, will lead to insecurity, and the Group of the European People's Party is going to retain this amendment even if it is not accepted, as a token and as proof of this belief.
<P>
Secondly, also concerning the field of application, I must state that there is no sense in separating the interests of consumers and the interests of other collective organizations recognized in those directives since, in fact, its aim is to enhance the smooth running of the internal market.
Similarly, there is no sense in the other discrimination which is made whereby it is implied that the interests of consumers can only be defended by consumer organizations. This is totally false and incorrect.
<P>
Article 3, in fact, which is legally incorrect, at least in Spanish, talks about "finalidad' , or purpose.
It should instead use "objeto' or object.
In Spanish law "finalidad' does not exist.
Purpose has internal scope.
What counts when setting up an association or any kind of body is its object.
<P>
Let us take the example of the first directive listed, concerning misleading advertising.
Is it the case that an employers' association from a country, for example Spain, cannot legitimately defend the interests of German consumers against the practice of a company from whatever country is involved, let us say Spain again, or that a German employers' association cannot defend the collective interests of consumers from another country?
I believe that in this case we are creating false legitimacy which will also lead to legal insecurity during implementation.
Since the ad causam interest - not the ad processum interest -, in other words, the legitimation of cause, is left to the Member States, nor will we interpret in the same way what the interest of a certain association is.
<P>
The third amendment concerns paragraph 1; the fourth amendment concerns Article 6 and is related to the two previous ones.
<P>
Mr President, the Group of the European People's Party is in favour of this directive. We agree with this report but we must remember that there are problems involved and these will become evident over the next five years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=357 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, our group also welcomes this directive.
As Ms Oddy and the rapporteur said, this directive on legal cooperation is great news for us.
Personally I have become increasingly frustrated by the fact that we get quick cooperation in the first pillar to protect economic interests, but when we need protection through legal cooperation, often for the express purpose of protecting the citizens, it is difficult to bring about, which sometimes contributes to creating a false picture of the Union and its aims.
<P>
I believe, as the rapporteur said, that it is important that the directive can come into force quickly.
Apart from the situations mentioned by Ms Oddy, the whole issue of telemarketing, for example, is important.
<P>
The few times when I have the opportunity to watch television, I am increasingly surprised by how even in Scandinavia, in Finland, where such misleading advertising is banned, I can see, for example, advertisements for things which can turn any old clumsy oaf into a nymph using the most fantastic fitness concoctions.
I think it is important for consumer organizations and the authorities, for example, to be able to do something about this.
It is also important for us to include the applicant countries in this process, because I see that marketing of this type also comes via these countries.
<P>
However, I regret that the European consumer organizations are not getting the right to represent consumers in the way we proposed, and that the field of application was restricted.
In order to push this directive through quickly, we are supporting the rapporteur.
However, our group does not support the amendments proposed by the Group of the European People's Party.
I also think that we would have just as many legal difficulties defining what type of organizations were taken into consideration in the proposal.
We are therefore going to support the rapporteur's report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=358 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Mr President, on the subject of consumer protection and its legal possibilities, I should like to address a wider issue: the current situation with regard to animal feed.
Since 1 April 1997 it has been obligatory to administer animal feed in accordance with a specific regulation.
Although this is a matter of Community law, it is not being applied by the Member States.
Our view - which I would like to discuss for the first time this evening - is that where consumers' health is threatened the Commission must have the right to intervene and withdraw from circulation any product that might prove dangerous.
<P>
In the case of BSE it is clear the origin lies in contaminated animal feed.
However, the Commission is unable to intervene.
We have asked the legal service of the European Parliament and the Commission to do something in this regard so that we can take a political initiative, so that the Commission can take action against the Council which is failing to observe its own laws in the Member States, to ensure that consumer protection measures can be implemented in the various areas.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=359 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, yesterday during the debate on the MAI, I emphasized that the economy must first and foremost serve the people.
Naturally, this applies to the directives we issue.
At first reading, the European Parliament accepted several amendments to the specific directive which went beyond the remit of consumer interests to include the public interest and the interests of persons carrying on activities in commerce, industry and trade.
However, it is unacceptable that, where legal action brought by organizations is permitted, if negative behaviour has an effect in another Member State, only consumer interests are taken into account.
Such negative behaviour, as the Commission established two years ago, is detrimental to the smooth running of the internal market and leads to a distortion of competition to the disadvantage of the great majority of businesses which respect national legislation.
These distortions, in turn, have an adverse effect on consumer confidence and therefore run contrary to the interests of the public.
<P>
Time and again in the various reports we see that it is in the interests of the Union, in other words, of the public, to formulate regulations in the general good.
Nevertheless, we are quite resolute in our objection to any form of interference in national codes of procedure under the cover of consumer protection policy.
Various countries, not least Germany, have decided against legal action brought by organizations.
For this reason we wish to ensure that the aim of this directive is the harmonization of regulations in the interests of consumers, persons involved in commerce, industry or trade and the public interest.
However, in order to secure the trust mentioned previously, it is also necessary to include unfair effects on competitors in the definition of infringements against this directive.
<P>
To use the language of political opposites, it is not a question of consumer interests in the spirit of the theory of class struggle, but a definition of the consumer as it is used in business where total quality management is the order of the day.
And it is not only a one-way street, everyone involved is included.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=360 NAME="Cresson">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission is extremely pleased with the progress regarding the proposal for a Council Directive on injunctions for the protection of consumers' interests which, only two years after its presentation, has arrived at a part-session of the European Parliament for second reading.
It is also pleased with the extremely positive results of the inter-institutional cooperation, which have enabled the drawing up of a common position by the Council and its approval by Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, which shows a high degree of consensus on the protection of the collective rights of consumers.
<P>
Considering the innovative character of the mechanism the directive aims to introduce, an initial evaluation of its impact is anticipated two and a half years after its implementation by Member States.
It will thus be possible to plan for the adjustments which will be necessary in the light of specific experience.
<P>
With regard to the last eight amendments, I have to say that they are the same as some of the amendments which have already been discussed within the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
Some of these amendments, in particular Nos 1, 3 and 5, hark back to the debate which has already taken place within the said committee.
They could well challenge the extremely realistic conclusions reached by the committee.
Indeed, as the Committee on Legal Affairs concluded, the two-stage mechanism of the common position is balanced and realistic.
This mechanism consists of considering the possibility of including the collective interests of others as well as consumers in the injunctions: businesspeople, tradespeople, craftspeople and so on. That would take place two and a half years after the implementation of the directive and on the basis of a Commission report, in order to take into account both the current reticence of some Member States and the experiences gained during the first phase of the directive's application.
<P>
That is why, on behalf of the European Commission, I consider it appropriate to keep to the conclusions of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, which has already rejected these amendments, thereby demonstrating an understanding of the importance of a rapid approval of this proposal for a directive.
<P>
With regard to Amendment Nos 2, 4, 6 and 7, insofar as they aim to establish links between national law and the capacity of qualified entities to act, as well as apprehend offenders, these amendments are less drastic than the common position.
Firstly, I find it difficult to believe that Parliament would be less favourable to the protection of consumer interests than the Council. Secondly, these amendments bring into question the very purpose of the proposal for a Directive, that is to say, the mutual recognition of qualified entities to bring an action against an offender.
<P>
Furthermore, the notion of a breach of the measures for implementing European directives cannot be left to national law alone to deal with.
That is why the Commission recommends that you retain the text of the common position, as approved by the Committee on Legal Affairs, by rejecting the amendments in question.
<P>
In conclusion, I would like, firstly, to thank the rapporteur, Mr Verde I Aldea, for his excellent work and for his contribution to the rapid progress of this proposal and, secondly, to invite you to follow the move initiated within the Committee on Legal Affairs by approving the common position.
This will enable us to reach an important stage in European consumer protection and to give a significant response to the protection of collective interests which is targeted through this European legislation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=361 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 11.50 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, there was quite a bit of commotion yesterday due to the way your predecessor chaired yesterday's sitting.
I freely admit that even I myself took part in the protests, with the result that I was not able to follow what was happening.
I therefore wanted to tell you that I inadvertently voted "yes' in the vote on the Cornelissen report on the first part of recital 0, when I intended to vote "no' .
Please correct this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Janssen van Raay">
Mr President, I have a comment regarding the Minutes.
Yesterday during my speech on the ASEM, when I asked Mr Henderson to reply to a question I had for the Council, I suggested that the date of the end of World War II was 15 May.
It was 15 August, of course.
I would be grateful if the correct date could be added to the Minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Kellett-Bowman">
Mr President, yesterday I raised a point of order, which is on page 16 of the English version of the Minutes.
I raised two points.
It says here that I asked the President to consider his interpretation of the Quaestors' decision.
I asked him to consider that re-interpretation which is confirmed in the Verbatim Report of Proceedings.
<P>
The second point I raised was the suggestion that during what could be called a 'tumult' or 'disturbance' , the recorded votes should not count within the system.
If you look at page 15 of the English version of the Minutes it is quite clear that 30 fewer people voted on paragraph 5 and 28 fewer voted on Amendment No 4, against the general pattern of the debate.
It would seem that some people were either preoccupied doing something else or we were not able to hear what was going on.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Poggiolini">
Mr President, the full report on Tuesday night's sitting, which I only received yesterday, included my speech on the oral question on Alzheimer's disease.
At the start of the speech, I said I regretted the fact that health issues are always discussed at night and this was excluded from the full report.
If it is a full report, I fail to understand why parts should be omitted and who has the right to censor a speech made by a Member.
<P>
With regard to yesterday's debate, I would like the Presidency to explain what happened in yesterday's uproar, when he failed to allow a Member to speak on a point of order.
This is a serious fact and the following uproar demonstrates this.
I want an official explanation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sindal">
Mr President, before we move on to today's business, I would like to inform Parliament that we still have a Social Democrat government in Denmark.
<P>
(Applause from the Group of the Party of European Socialists)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Sindal.
<P>
Mr Gutiérrez Díaz has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gutiérrez Díaz">
Mr President, as regards the Minutes, under Question Time it states that Question No 2 had been withdrawn, and that it was a question by Mr Carlos Carnero. In fact, Mr Carnero was not responsible for that question, but for Question No 3, and it was I who had asked Question No 2.
Therefore, I would ask for this section of the Minutes to be corrected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
It will be corrected.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
European voluntary service action programme
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0077/98) on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Decision establishing the Community action programme "European Voluntary Service for Young People' (C4-0007/98-96/0318(COD)) (Rapporteur: Mrs Fontaine)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="Fontaine">
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Vecchi">
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, I would like to thank Nicole Fontaine for the work she has done in preparing her report and also as an active supporter of the European youth movement.
The action programme is a fine example of a practical project in the construction of a citizens' Europe.
<P>
It would be useful to consider how the Union's various youth programmes might be given a more solid and broader scope.
One solution is to combine the youth programmes planned for the years 2000-2006. In that way we would gain considerable benefits.
Many of the programmes come to a halt at the end of the year. It would be well worth discussing the possibilities of combination very soon.
<P>
The young persons' voluntary service programme must aim to bring together young people in Europe through cooperation.
The programme should not operate as an extension of the youth employment programmes other than as a way of accruing skills and knowledge in readiness for working life.
<P>
As voluntary work projects tend to be in the no-man's-land between training and employment, their large-scale operation in some countries clash with the Inland Revenue and matters to do with social security.
Because of these kinds of problems the European Parliament must plead the case of the joint-funding of programmes.
The fund of ECU 35 million, born of the common position the Council has taken on this matter, is not enough to ensure that the programmes will remain operational.
<P>
The idea of coupling voluntary service schemes with the civil services that young people can opt for in lieu of military conscription is in itself an interesting one, but it seems unlikely to come about, especially in EU countries where there is national service.
At least as far as Finland is concerned, considerations of defence and historical factors make the two incompatible in practical terms, let alone desirable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldi">
Mr President, I too wish to congratulate Mrs Fontaine on her excellent work as rapporteur.
Special thanks should also go to the Commissioner, Mrs Cresson, because the European Parliament and the Commission are working together for young people.
At the moment, young people are suffering a great deal in Europe. They are experiencing a great identity crisis and this programme is drawn up at an important time.
I would also like to thank the Council, which has accepted the extension of the age limit, which now covers young people aged 18 to 29, which gives us the possibility of operating in a vast field, as young people really need to have a special interest, whether in the social, environmental or cultural world.
<P>
It is important at this time to offer young people the opportunity to carry out activities of general humanitarian interest by giving them training, recognized in terms of social, vocational and occupational inclusion.
The programme, which is intended for young Europeans, except for students already benefiting from the SOCRATES programme, and in particular for those without qualifications and the young unemployed, aims to commit them to activities on the spot, relating to European citizenship and the construction of Europe.
<P>
Our political group is supporting this programme with great interest and, obviously together with all of Parliament, believes that the financial allocation should be increased to 80 ECU million.
An effort should also be made by the Commission which, in turn, wished to increase that allocation to 60 ECU million.
The issue of the financial allocation is of great interest to us, because it is not possible to develop coordination without it.
<P>
We also believe that the Member States should adopt the necessary measures to ensure coordination between the European Voluntary Service and the civil services existing at national level, facilitating the access of young European volunteers to the national infrastructures and contributing actively towards the essential synergy between transnational activities and national voluntary measures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ryynänen">
Mr President, Commissioner, the European Voluntary Service action programme has already aroused, in its pilot stage, much interest and great expectations, which we must now try to satisfy.
Mrs Fontaine's report cleverly focuses on key defects the Council now has to put right if it wants a workable and successful programme.
We really cannot afford to disappoint our European youth by coming up with a long-awaited scheme that, despite good intentions, does not actually work.
I should also like to appeal to the Council to take seriously the demands of the rapporteur and the Committee on Culture, which are all basic preconditions for a viable youth programme.
<P>
The first requirement for viability is obviously an adequate budget.
Naturally you can say that there is always a need for more money, but we are not asking for the impossible when we insist on a figure of ECU 80 million.
With a budget any smaller we simply will not be able to meet the targets of the programme even modestly.
<P>
Another requirement concerns such things as the social status of participating young people, social security, labour laws, tax exemption, and so on.
In other words, the status of the young has to be organized clearly, and standardized accordingly. Otherwise they will be prevented from participating.
<P>
Voluntary service, however, is only one aspect of EU youth policy.
I am convinced that we are in need of a comprehensive framework for policy on youth, in which valid initiatives may be viably coordinated.
That is why it is also important to set up a tracking scheme so as to document the experience we gain from voluntary work and employ it usefully in future youth programmes.
<P>
We should also exploit the expertise that the various current youth organizations already have, when developing EU policy on youth.
But, above all, we should try to raise the value in real terms of the activity planned for our youth so that it will stand out in the budget, because these programmes, at their best, will have an added European value and will increase understanding and support for European integration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sierra González">
The establishment of the Community action programme "European Voluntary Service for Young People' is essential and must be welcomed as a very important initiative. However, we regret that the Council only took up 18 of the 40 amendments tabled by Parliament at first reading.
<P>
The amendments which were not accepted lend the programme more effectiveness and transparency.
These include the amendments the rapporteur reintroduces with a view to extending the resources devoted to the first stage of the programme's development as well as the amendment which proposes coordination on social security and tax relief applicable to the allowances the young people receive for accommodation, transport and subsistence. These amendments are aimed solely at improving the conditions for the young people who carry out voluntary service, rather than discouraging them from getting involved.
<P>
In the same way, we should strengthen the complementary nature of national civilian services and European voluntary service.
This is particularly important because we must guarantee that the young people who are conscientious objectors can receive social-welfare benefits anywhere in Europe and that this is based on a legal certainty. If this is not the case, the alternative of voluntary service for military service would be impossible, and what we are trying to do is in fact to ensure that it is possible.
<P>
In some countries it is very difficult to choose between one possibility and another, and young people who would prefer to perform community service are often discouraged from doing so.
We must support the mobility of young people and motivate their efforts of solidarity, while always maintaining respect for the principle of subsidiarity.
<P>
We therefore congratulate Mrs Fontaine on her tremendous work and we support the amendments, because they encourage work of solidarity on the part of young people in Europe and they contribute to the construction of Europe in general.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Ripa di Meana">
Mr President, we would like to thank our untiring colleague, Mrs Fontaine, and the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media for their excellent, fast work.
The Green group, which supports this programme, supports the idea of concentrating the European Parliament's action on a few fundamental amendments, particularly those giving body and development to this very important programme.
I would mention here the social status of the participants and the complementary nature of national civil services and the European Voluntary Service.
<P>
I wish to point out that the European Voluntary Service naturally relates to young women as well.
The information provided on the programme in the various countries should, in particular, focus the attention of all young on the planned work experience which is at the centre of our priorities: environmental protection and cultural wealth.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, the Voluntary Service tends to assume an ever greater role in favour of the integration of consciences, abandoning any competition with the State.
The launch of the pilot "European Voluntary Service' action has been an important step forward by the Community institutions.
Young volunteers will have a constructive experience that may be useful to them to favour their integration into active, social life.
We hope that with these initiatives, based on enhanced cooperation between the Member States, young people will acquire valid training experience, based on acquiring skills and capacities while exercising responsible citizenship, to strengthen their love for a citizens' Europe.
All this will be useless, however, if we fail to provide a specific legal framework, recognized both in the country of origin and in the host country, aimed at giving volunteers the security they can expect with regard to the right to a residence permit, social security and taxation.
<P>
We support the amendments proposed by Mrs Fontaine once again, because there is an urgent need to establish a European status for young volunteers and to coordinate tax and social security systems.
Moreover, we believe it necessary to increase the financial allocation from ECU 35 to 80 million for the first two years of the programme, otherwise we risk frustrating the entire project owing to a lack of financial means.
<P>
Moreover, the role of the European Parliament should be increased with regard to information, giving it a right of appeal throughout the programme's implementation period, particularly during the assessment process.
At the moment, with an ever greater separation between the institutions and the citizens, there is a strong need to use as far as possible the legislative means available in a generous way to favour the citizens' participation in the political and institutional choices.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Morgan">
Mr President, the European Voluntary Service is a part of the process of integrating young people into the bigger process of integrating Europe.
It is critical to involve young people because they will be dictating the success of the EU in future years.
<P>
Whilst on the face of it exchanging young people for a period of up to a year to undertake voluntary work may seem simple enough, there are major practical difficulties to overcome, as was highlighted during the pilot programme.
Identifying projects and matching them with volunteers is a major task in itself.
It is critical to ensure support facilities should anything go wrong whilst the young person is miles away from home.
Preparing the volunteers linguistically, psychologically and socially, ensuring that they are not exploited, and that they are not taking paid jobs away from local people - all these problems need to be smoothed out.
<P>
But at the end of the process the volunteers will have gained a rich experience.
They will perhaps be more fluent in another European language, they will have encountered a new culture and created new contacts.
They will have changed perceptions when they return home, and hopefully will share their new intercultural experience with others.
Most importantly, the process will give volunteers more confidence and experience to find a job on their return and go some way towards tackling the disaster of youth unemployment.
<P>
But we have further problems to overcome and I want to concentrate on the issue of finance.
In order for the programme to be a success we need to ensure a critical mass of participants.
This will provide economies of scale in administrative terms and will ensure greater participation, which is why Parliament will be holding out for ECU 80 million for this project.
<P>
The European Voluntary Service has not been well advertised as yet, and perhaps at this stage that is not a bad thing: the last thing we want to do to the youth of Europe is to raise their expectations and then dash them due to a lack of resources.
The Committee on Culture will therefore be fighting for more resources during conciliation so as to meet the growing demand for this excellent programme.
<P>

Finally, can I thank and congratulate Mrs Fontaine and Mrs Cresson on their continued enthusiasm for this programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Heinisch">
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Todini">
Mr President, it seems to me that since 1996, when the European Voluntary Service was first discussed at the Florence Council, great steps forward have certainly been taken and we have to thank Mr Fontaine and Commissioner Cresson, as always, for their untiring work in tandem to obtain significant results.
However, this programme is still inadequate in certain respects, as shown by Mrs Fontaine and all those who have preceded me.
<P>
As Mr Baldi also said, the Union for Europe Group will certainly support the amendments proposed by Mrs Fontaine once again.
These relate mainly - to give you an outline once again - to the principle of establishing a European status for young volunteers and, something that seems very important to me, the coordination of tax systems for social security. Other important points are the integration of the civil services into the Voluntary Service, naturally only if the Member States so desire, and an increase in the financial allocation, which is of course of a fundamental issue.
This was mentioned a short while ago: ECU 35 million for the two-year period is verging on the ridiculous, particularly since it concerns a series of programmes that, according to all Members - and many other people -, needs to provide young people with importance, belief in themselves and belief in cultural programmes.
This is becoming a more obvious example of how much attention is actually lacking.
<P>
Among other things, increasing the financial allocation for this programme - which, we must remember, is an alternative to SOCRATES, and included in the other programmes which have already been accused of being elitist - will manage to disprove the accusations that are constantly being made against the cultural programmes that they are in fact purely elitist programmes.
Why is this the case?
It is because they are aimed at young people who have no qualifications or who are unemployed: socially excluded young people.
Consequently, accepting this type of basic request to ensure adequate information and training within the programme itself would finally give a different idea of the trend of the European Parliament and all the Community institutions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sichrovsky">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, although the idea of a transnational European Volunteer Service is to be welcomed - and I should like to express to the rapporteur my appreciation of all the work she has done -, I fear that the objective set out in the report will not be achieved due to a lack of funds.
<P>
I am now in the strange position of having written down several more points which all the previous speakers have already dealt with.
Everyone has been so unanimous on these points that I should perhaps concentrate on points that have not yet been addressed, as it is seldom that there is such unanimity in this House and such a positive attitude.
<P>
The only proposal that we could add is that a system which can be verified objectively should be worked out to define selection criteria which will ensure that each young person has the same chance in all the applications in the various countries, regardless of the country they apply in.
It should not be the case that preference is given to young people who already work in existing organizations and have been prepared for the selection criteria.
<P>
To sum up, I should like to point out that - if we are to take the words of the American President seriously - America is preparing for a training explosion. In other words, if these programmes proposed here are not given adequate financial support, in ten years' time we shall be lagging a long way behind the USA.
We therefore support this proposal and appeal to everyone to support it along with us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Ahlqvist">
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Fontaine for her excellent work.
We really cannot blame her for the fact that we have not got any further than we have.
That is due instead to the hesitance of the Council, as we have heard in earlier speeches.
<P>
Long before the Cannes Summit people said that one of the EU's absolute priorities was to create good conditions for increased employment.
But what is being done?
Each time we in the European Parliament's Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, or even DG X or DG XXII of the Commission, make innovative proposals in the cultural and educational sectors, which are among the most dynamic areas for future business life, the gentlemen on the Council shake their heads and say: ' yes, of course that is good, but you cannot have any money.'
<P>
I therefore ask the question: how does the Council intend to create employment without investment?
How do you intend to shape our common future if you consistently undervalue what provides body and soul?
When are you on the Council going to realize that money which goes into the cultural and educational sectors is vital investment?
<P>
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Commissioner Cresson for her splendid support for this work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="Perry">
Mr President, this debate is at risk of becoming boring but I will operate on the principle that if you say something often enough and clearly enough you might get the same message through.
It is clear that all of us in this House and, indeed, I suspect in the Commission and Council as well, support the cliché that we want to build a Europe for the future, a Europe for our young people.
It is our job to make that cliché reality.
<P>
Somebody once said to me that if you want to see what someone's real priorities are, look at the cheque stubs in their chequebook and you will then see what they really believe in.
If we look at the European Union's cheque stubs we discover that 40 % of our expenditure goes on agriculture for less than 5 % of the population.
You run out of noughts to get to the 0.1 decimal percentage point to work out how much goes on young people, 40 % of the population of Europe.
We must make this a reality.
The finance here is critical to everything.
<P>
In Britain we say 'you must put your money where your mouth is' .
We hear fine words from the Presidency, fine words from the Council but we do not see the money.
And that is what we want to see.
I represent Portsmouth in the United Kingdom, the home of the Royal Navy.
There is another saying in Britain: ' do not spoil the ship for a ha'p'orth of tar' .
That is what we are in real danger of doing here.
I would remind the Commissioner and the Council that this Parliament showed its resolve in the conciliation with SOCRATES.
We have heard the cross-party agreement right across this Parliament this morning.
I am quite sure that we will show exactly that same resolve when this goes to conciliation as I am sure it will.
The money has to be there.
Let us have proper funding.
I agree with what Mrs Fontaine has said about the attention to detail.
If we get that right, we will have a scheme that is worth shouting about.
At the moment it is only worth a whisper.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the only response politics can have to the political upheavals in Europe, the greater transparency that the euro will create, the expansion of the EU, greater cultural diversity, increased mobility and the sensitive treatment of minorities is to boost education and mobility throughout Europe.
What is needed is intercultural learning and extracurricular education accompanied by opportunities for service and study abroad for longer periods.
This includes greater opportunities for youth exchanges than we have at present and strengthening the necessary infrastructure.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud that it was this House that took the initiative.
It was not the Council and it was not the Commission.
Rather it is they who have latched on to this House's initiative which Alexander Lange and I introduced here five years ago.
I am very proud that we were able to bring the Council and Commission on board at that time.
<P>
Of course, the right conditions for this have still not been created, even now.
I support everything that Nicole Fontaine has said, but I should like to mention one point in particular.
We need a specific statute for this important service. The service will be unacceptable for most people unless it guarantees, in a binding manner, a residence permit, work permit, social security entitlement, tax exemption arrangements and the continuance of any national allowances and benefits.
If it does not, we cannot expect many young people to become involved in this service.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, a certificate must be issued on completion of the voluntary service for young people.
However, society also has to get to a stage where this voluntary service to the community is rewarded by giving participants preference when taking on employees and not looking at how quickly a person has done something, how quickly a person has studied, but whether a person has also rendered a service to the community.
We can take a leaf out of the USA's book: there anyone who has carried out voluntary service is always preferred over a person who has not.
Let us therefore follow that example and this can become a good achievement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Vaz da Silva">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by complimenting the rapporteur of this exemplary report.
Nicole Fontaine is precise and economical in her words, and bold and pragmatic in her proposals.
<P>
I am taking the floor to make merely obvious points.
However, in politics it is the obvious that is least readily accepted.
We have a saying in my home town that "what is born crooked will take a long time, if at all, to grow straight' .
For this reason, I believe it is essential that we should guarantee four conditions regarding European voluntary service from the outset.
<P>
Firstly, a programme addressing the situation of young people should be designed to radiate outwards in such a way as to reach all young people, without exception, in the shortest possible period of time.
For this, a generous budget is necessary.
ECU 35 million is neither here not there; it is not worthwhile.
<P>
Secondly, the programme's success depends on how it is launched.
From the outset, as opposed to little by little, we need to establish the conditions which will ensure its success.
This includes an immediate consensus between Member States regarding the creation of a common social security and taxation status, and that should be done now, and not in two years time when the experiment has failed.
<P>
Thirdly, a programme cannot be created outside the context of other Community actions and those of Member States.
It should seek to link and enhance the effects of other connected programmes.
Therefore, a method must be found to connect it to national civic services, merging it with the "Youth for Europe' programme and linking it with new programmes such as that to create a European apprenticeship status which is currently being debated by Parliament.
<P>
Finally, I would like to emphasize the importance of incorporating language learning and support for young people when they finish voluntary service, in order to ensure that, in the context of their daily lives, they find ways of lending continuity to the experiences they have had; these are essential aspects of the programme and a condition for its success.
<P>
Thought might be given to creating a European volunteer card which would provide a permanent special status, thereby creating a natural network - I would even say mafia - of transnational citizens who are ready to create the bridges that Europe needs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Cresson">
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="President">
Mr Morris, do you have a question or a point of order?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="Morris">
Mr President, I would like to ask a question please.
Can I put a very direct question to the Commission, and possibly also to the rapporteur?
Have any enquiries been made of Member States as to whether or not European youth voluntary service could be regarded as an alternative for those young men and those young women who have a genuine conscientious objection to military service?
I think that there are many young people within the Community who would in fact welcome that opportunity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="President">
Mr Morris, this question has already been raised and has been given a response.
<P>
However, if Mrs Cresson wishes to answer again, she may do so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="Cresson">
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Cresson.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Support measures for a Mediterranean Partner
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="Colajanni">
Mr President, representatives of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, as my text is very brief, my speech should be as well.
There is no need to digress too much; it is a brief but clear document and deals with a political and institutional problem that is highly sensitive for the European Parliament.
It relates to the duty and role of Parliament and also the balance between the institutions in fields in which the structure of the functioning of the European institutions is progressing. It therefore deals with providing guidance in one direction or another.
This is a problem found not only in the case I am dealing with, but also in cases brought to the attention of Parliament, the Council and the Commission. These include cases where the Council adopts sanctions against a third country, where resolutions passed by the UN Security Council must be complied with, where agreements are suspended or where regulations introduce an embargo.
Today, Parliament is discussing a similar problem with regard to the development of relations with the countries of central and eastern Europe.
It is therefore a series of problems relating to the role of Parliament and the balance between the institutions on highly sensitive points on the development and future physiognomy of the European Union.
<P>
In our case, it relates to Article 3 of the MEDA Regulation which states that the programme is based on respect for democratic principles and the rule of law, and for the human rights and fundamental freedoms that are an essential aspect of them, violation of which justifies the adoption of appropriate measures.
The proposed regulation sets out the means for adopting a decision where such an eventuality is confirmed.
<P>
This subject relates to one of the most politically complex and difficult areas in the world and that is why the debate has continued for many months.
I would point out briefly that a previous proposal made by the Commission had received a text drawn up by Mr Barón Crespo from the European Parliament tabling amendments which were not accepted and which were postponed until after the conclusion of the work of the Intergovernmental Conference.
The new Commission proposal, drawn up in accordance with Article 16 of the MEDA Regulation, reintroduces the qualified majority decision-making procedure for the adoption of appropriate measures when an essential element for the continuation of support measures for a Mediterranean Partner is lacking.
We are happy about this, because the initial text did not provide for qualified-majority voting but for decisions to be taken unanimously.
We believe this is a very important step forward for the Commission's proposal.
However, the proposal still disregards the role played by the European Parliament, both as initiator of the procedure and as an internal factor.
<P>
My proposal is very simple: the Commission's text should be adopted with the addition that the Council may establish appropriate measures, deciding by a qualified majority on the Commission's proposal or on the basis of a recommendation made by the European Parliament, adopted in accordance with Article J.7 of the Treaty on European Union and, at all events, after hearing Parliament's opinion.
<P>
I believe that this then totally protects the Council's prerogative to decide and enables Parliament to intervene in a matter in which the judgment of possible measures to be made is an overall political judgment, relating to the consideration of many aspects of the matter in one country or another in one of the most complex and difficult contexts in the world, as I mentioned at the beginning.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Lambrias">
Mr President, the Group of the European People's Party supports the Colajanni report.
It serves two fundamental principles and insists that the improvement of the regulation on the running of the MEDA programme must be incorporated.
<P>
Firstly, this programme is ambitious yet vitally necessary for the approaching 21st century and it must contribute to the establishment of the rule of law in all the countries surrounding the Mediterranean, the cradle of Europe.
Consequently, violations of human rights and basic freedoms, which constitute a virulent rejection of democracy, are unacceptable in European Union cooperation.
<P>
Secondly, a proper evaluation - free from self-seeking, opportunistic expedience - of whether this basic condition for cooperation with a country is to be promoted and respected, should come first and foremost from a democratically elected supranational body which expresses the combined understanding of the European people, namely the European Parliament.
<P>
This does not mean a reduction in the competence of the Commission to carefully monitor developments and to introduce necessary measures if and where problems occur. Nor does it dispute the final decisive role of the Council in the enforcement of necessary sanctions.
However, it introduces two important parameters into the operation of MEDA.
The first is that final decisions must be taken by a simple majority vote in order to prevent an isolated national policy from hindering the exercise of the imposed common policy through special interests. The second is that not only is it necessary that the European Parliament gives its opinion before decisions are taken, but it should also have the right to recommend the implementation of measures and what these measures should be.
This essential improvement towards a more general strengthening of the common foreign and defence policy, which the Commission omits in its proposal, is introduced by the amendment tabled by Mr Colajanni. The Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy unanimously requests its approval.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, the MEDA funds have been frozen for far too long.
It has had the opposite effect of what was intended; it has meant unfortunately that the serious achievements of the Barcelona process have been entirely undermined.
The Colajanni report has arrived far too late, but better late than never.
I would like to congratulate Mr Colajanni on the way in which he has interpreted the opportunities offered by the Convention.
With his proposal he has not only increased the role of this Parliament where it concerns taking suitable measures in case a Mediterranean partner fails to comply with the agreements on human rights; he has accepted all institutions for what they are, but he has also done the Mediterranean partners a service, and in doing so made a practical interpretation of the Barcelona Convention possible again.
I hope that his proposal will be adopted by the Council and the Commission, and that Parliament will approve it in full this afternoon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, I find Mr Colajanni's proposal extremely clear, and it has the full support of the Green group.
We think it is the only way to manage the fund properly, and we think the only way to have a suitable procedure is if the Council decides effectively by qualified majority, if Parliament is consulted and if Parliament is given the chance to draw up a proposal pursuant to Article J.7 of the Treaty on European Union, and obviously if the Commission has the right of proposal, which it can use whenever it so desires.
Those three points therefore seem completely acceptable to us.
However, the reality is that there was not even consensus amongst the Council on whether voting could take place by qualified majority.
I think it is important that Parliament makes it very clear that this is what we prefer, because otherwise we might end up in a situation in which one country with opportunistic or major political objections is able to obstruct the entire process and that would be a bad state of affairs.
<P>
Secondly, I would like to take this opportunity to raise the alarm over the way the Barcelona process was conducted.
What Mr van Bladel said about that was correct, of course, namely that finances brought it to a standstill. But we should add, and this is much worse, that the entire political significance of the Barcelona process has lost considerable importance because of the fact that the peace process had reached a deadlock, since it was always seen more in line with the peace process, and moreover as the result of a lack of political input at ministerial level.
Since the declaration of Barcelona there has really been no further decisive political input on a ministerial level. It is sad to note that we are jogging along the bilateral channels whilst the regional dimension, which was a much-wanted extra addition, is not coming into its own at all.
I therefore believe we in Parliament will have to take a clear stand on this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Triviño">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, members of the Commission, the report we are discussing today in Parliament is very relevant since it involves completing a regulation which has the ambitious aim of promoting democratic liberties in the Mediterranean and bringing together the people of North Africa, the Middle East and the European Union.
<P>
Before continuing, I would like to emphasize that our group agrees with the report drawn up by Mr Colajanni and with the amendment tabled to the Commission's text. This amendment is aimed at ensuring that the European Parliament's voice is heard when that forum considers that an essential element is lacking in order to continue with the support measures for a Mediterranean partner.
<P>
The MEDA programme, which has received ECU 3 500 million for this five-year period, is the most ambitious initiative ever adopted by the European Union to promote security and political stability in the Mediterranean.
To ensure that it has its desired effect, it is essential that the European Union's cooperation with the countries involved in the MEDA programme is based on total respect for democratic liberties and human rights.
<P>
Nowadays, the countries of the European Union are separated from North Africa and the Middle East by little more than the waters of the Mediterranean.
But there is an enormous political, cultural, social and economic abyss between the societies on the two sides of the mare nostrum .
<P>
We certainly do not believe it is necessary to standardize cultures and social traditions, but it is important and essential to ensure that all of the countries which hope to have close relations with the European Union show permanent respect for democratic liberties and human rights.
<P>
The tense situation in Algeria and in Israel's Occupied Territories, not to mention the tensions in the Aegean Sea, sufficiently prove how necessary it is to encourage the countries to move towards a greater respect of liberties.
<P>
When the regulation on the MEDA programme was drawn up, Article 16 did not determine the definitive procedure to be followed in adopting measures regarding a Mediterranean Partner and one essential element is lacking.
That deferment showed how delicate and difficult this matter is for the Member States of the European Union.
The delay, among other things, has meant that the MEDA programme has developed slowly.
The initial expectations have been frustrated because of the slowness with which it was implemented, due in particular to obstructionist measures taken by certain Member States whose names I would, at the moment, prefer to forget.
<P>
With the adoption of this report, we want to give new impetus to the implementation of the programme and to achieving the desired objective: that the Mediterranean becomes a conflict-free area where all the coastal countries have harmonious relations.
<P>
I would like to conclude by congratulating Mr Colajanni.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Viola">
Mr President, on the one hand, the Group of the European People's Party must congratulate the Commission on the amendment to the MEDA regulation but, on the other, it must point out the right held by Parliament to make its own recommendation or express an opinion pursuant to Article J.7 of the Treaty and the advisability of doing so.
<P>
When the Council can give an opinion by a qualified majority and when Parliament can state its thoughts on the nonobservance of human rights, freedoms and democratic principles, then, and only then, will we finally be able to open a serious debate on a country such as Syria which, with European economic backing, accepts an inappropriate blessing for a political system that is totally undemocratic.
<P>
There is no risk of the Euro-Mediterranean talks dying because of the exclusion of a country that is failing to respect the rigour established in Barcelona, nor will they die because of the often unfounded exclusion of other applicant countries.
The talks will only fail when Parliament and the other European institutions give their tacit consent to the non-observance of fundamental democratic rights.
<P>
Today's discussion on the MEDA programme is included in the problems of the MED programmes and it seems advisable to me to take the opportunity today to confirm that, through the Committee on Budgetary Control, Parliament is not boycotting the unfreezing of the MED programmes, as the Commission leads us to believe.
In fact, this Parliament truly wishes to resume talks on decentralized cooperation with the countries bordering the southern Mediterranean as soon as possible.
Parliament is demanding the Commission's full cooperation, however.
Luckily, this process is already being implemented and, during a recent public hearing, the Commission provided us with a whole series of information.
<P>
To conclude, I hope that the interministerial preparatory conference in Palermo next June, and the Euro-Mediterranean forum itself that should be set up shortly, will revive a Euro-Mediterranean policy that started off full of expectations but that has lost its polish and political tension, disregarding the basic problem, namely the blocking of the peace process between Israel and Palestine.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Burtone">
Mr President, this is an opportunity to make a further assessment of the validity of several rules on social and civilian protection present in the MEDA Regulation, that lay down different procedures for the application of the programmes and the possible suspension of cooperation for countries failing to observe the democratic principles and the rule of law.
The violations of human rights and democratic rights in some regions of the Mediterranean are not a cause for concern but, unfortunately, a dramatic reality.
Globalization itself, which has produced significant changes in the market making it easier to match supply to demand and which has established new economic frontiers with the use of new computer technology, risks favouring economic interests and suppressing civil and social rights even more in the developing countries.
<P>
The European Parliament has not only confirmed its necessary commitment to the rights of freedom and democracy, but also, and more specifically, emphasized, at first and at second reading, the requirement of a specific direct role in the penalizing procedure for any non-observance of the principles of democracy and freedom in some Mediterranean countries.
I am therefore expressing my full support for Mr Colajanni's amendment, which confirms the role of the European Parliament as initiator of a penalization procedure, but also as a decisive factor in the procedure itself.
<P>
Finally, I would like to make one more point.
The launch of the MEDA programme should presuppose the EU's strong commitment to southern Europe.
In fact, a full development of the Mediterranean European community may be the true vehicle for a partnership policy with third countries.
I therefore intend to confirm the need for infrastructural intervention to create new entrepreneurial measures and, above all, to provide employment, so as to avoid the serious economic and social repercussions in the European areas of the Mediterranean that really give rise to delays in the difficult path of the MEDA programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Gradin">
Mr President, the proposal for a regulation which Mr Colajanni's report deals with is aimed at supplementing the MEDA Regulation which entered into force just under two years ago.
This additional regulation concerns how the MEDA Regulation should be applied to human rights.
It is a question to which both the Commission and Parliament attach great importance.
Under the MEDA Regulation, the Commission should present proposals for a decision-making procedure which would make it possible to adopt measures when violations of human rights or other fundamental rights occur.
It is this decision-making procedure that the current report considers.
<P>
The partnership between the EU and the Mediterranean countries began at the Barcelona Conference in November 1995 when the foreign ministers of the EU's Member States and the twelve countries in the southern Mediterranean met.
The partnership is based primarily on the strategic importance of the Mediterranean area.
It also reflects the mutual dependence which has long tied together the EU and the Mediterranean countries politically, economically, socially and culturally.
Our ties are therefore based on a partnership instead of on aid and a relationship of dependency as before.
<P>
After the Barcelona Conference, Parliament approved the Commission's draft MEDA Regulation.
The proposal was then adopted by the Council of Ministers in July 1996.
The partnership thus obtained a financial instrument which was well-suited to the new goals and principles of the cooperation.
<P>
The aim of the MEDA Regulation is to supplement the measures which the partners themselves adopt to increase competitiveness, prosperity and social stability.
Lasting prosperity and stability can only be achieved if democratic principles, the rule of law, human rights and fundamental freedoms are fully respected.
The regulation clearly points out that respect for these fundamental principles must form the basis of the MEDA programme.
However, the regulation does not yet contain any specific rules on how measures could be adopted if these fundamental principles are not respected.
<P>
The Commission has proposed that decisions should be taken by qualified majority, and this has also been approved by the Council of Ministers.
The idea is to convey in a powerful way the message that, when necessary, Europe will not hesitate to adopt measures to protect human rights and other fundamental principles.
The introduction of qualified majority voting also ensures that necessary decisions can be taken quickly and effectively.
This strengthens the Union's credibility.
The rapporteur also proposes that it should be possible to adopt these measures on the basis of a recommendation from the European Parliament.
In addition, it is proposed that, in any event, Parliament should be consulted before any measures are adopted.
<P>
Unfortunately, the Commission cannot accept the rapporteur's amendments.
The MEDA Regulation does not mean that the European Parliament should be consulted.
Article J.7 of the Maastricht Treaty concerns the common foreign and security policy.
It cannot therefore, as the rapporteur proposes, be applied to the MEDA Regulation, which belongs to the acquis communautaire.
However, on the basis of Article 138b of the Treaty of Rome, Parliament can always call on the Commission to put forward proposals in this area.
Against this background I hope Parliament will support the Commission's original proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place today at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Judicial cooperation in criminal matters
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0059/98) by Mr Bontempi, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on judicial cooperation in criminal maters in the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="Bontempi">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report submitted this morning for the Chamber's attention includes in its principal objectives that of dealing fundamentally with a problem that has existed for some time: the problem of the weakness of judicial cooperation in the international fight against organized crime.
<P>
Judicial cooperation is the Cinderella, the weakest and most backward form of cooperation.
Even police cooperation, with which we still have many problems, is more advanced than judicial cooperation.
Faced with a situation that is known and regretted by everyone, the report proposes to draw together the opinions and facts at the basis of this archaic, antiquated situation, to try and radically improve it.
<P>
We know that it is very difficult today to explain convincingly to the citizens that, while two minutes is more than enough to transfer enormous sums of money from one financial market to another, and maybe these sums are often the result of the laundering of income from various types of crimes, two judges in two EU countries will hardly talk through months and months of work.
This situation should therefore be changed, and the report proposes to define an operating attitude for the Union.
I would like to point out this aspect: the Parliament is not stating just the principles, not indicating just the problems, but pointing out a very specific path through two types of objectives: one medium- and long-term and the other with shortterm or even immediate measures, that can only be adopted with the political desire of the national governments and parliaments.
<P>
With regard to the medium- and long-term measures, I would like to recall here the points that are also offered by the new Treaty of Amsterdam.
We note that interesting points of progress are made in the Treaty: for example, the common minimum rules on several crimes such as organized crime, terrorism, drugs and so on; significant improvements in the ratification and entry into force of agreements; and strengthened cooperation.
Unfortunately, however, we also need to note that the integration of the actual role of democratic control by Parliament and the Court of Justice is still very weak.
We are therefore making positive but also critical assessments which we are renewing with force because the democratic and control aspects are absolutely essential in such delicate and sensitive matters.
<P>
A further section relates to the Agreements.
We know that the entire subject is governed by agreements and that most of the Agreements that have been approved for a long time have not entered into force.
Several paths are therefore proposed in the report: one is that of the undertaking to ratify the agreements that have already been established and, from this point of view, we hope we can make use of the Treaty of Amsterdam soon as well.
It should also be pointed out that one of the times obstructing the operation of the agreements consists of the exceptions, of the reservations made by the various States, and it is very clearly recalled that the principle of double accusation, which is now out of use and only valid as a principle, would be definitively abandoned.
<P>
Finally, perhaps the most significant part of the proposals relates to the agreements we are proposing.
We are proposing agreements for a direct communication between magistrates, for establishing specific times for letters rogatory, and for the automatic circulation of evidence.
In fact, this is a problem that occurs a great deal in Italy, for example, but I think it applies to all countries, judging by the alarming figures.
The figures indicate answers to letters rogatory in the various countries, even over a long period, of around 15 %: a judge or a bench of magistrates ask for 100 % and 15 % reply.
Frankly that is too few, because the agreement we have and the relations between the judicial authorities of the various countries, to achieve appreciable results against international crime, cannot now be radically removed from relations between magistrates in the same country.
This is a point of quality, a leap in quality.
<P>
Other proposals then relate to the approximation and harmonization of legislations.
We have already cast votes, on which we are waiting to receive confirmation from the Council, on participation in common organized crime and on corruption.
I think it advisable to make two points here: firstly, we need to identify several common crimes on key issues with regard to organized crime.
We are thinking of corruption, of serious tax offences and of money laundering; with regard to the latter in particular, we need to extend the cases of origin of money laundering: there are too few offences, so dirty money from other types of crime, even those not provided for, is laundered.
Consequently, Directive 308 should be revised.
<P>
Secondly, there is the crucial question of fraud which we need to start experimenting on with the advanced forms of unification.
<P>
Finally, I would like to consider certain concerns present in some amendments, that deserve a reply.
While we are reinforcing this cooperation, we should also concern ourselves greatly with the guarantees of democracy, fundamental rights, provided for in our Constitutions.
I would like to say, however, that, in this field, it is a question of allowing the judges to cooperate rather than judge.
And I would like to recall that, very often, in this field of organized crime, it is not a question of defending one citizen but great economic forces that are managing to systematically block the letters rogatory.
We should therefore wonder about maintaining these principles, just as the work to establish whether the condition for the democratic system of guarantees respects another right held by the citizen, as well as the citizen himself, which is that of legality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="Theato">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by congratulating the rapporteur, Mr Bontempi on his excellent report and I should like to emphasize that I have had a very good working relationship with him and the Committee on Civil Liberties for many years in matters concerning the legal protection of citizens.
The field I represent is limited to the protection of the EU budget and therefore the taxpayer, as is my opinion today on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
<P>
In terms of administrative law it has now been possible to get some protective measures off the ground but, as always, it will take a long time to create a legal framework to protect the Community budget under criminal law, although the need for action is urgent as surveys have shown that 70 % of Europe's taxpayers are much more critical of the fraudulent and improper use of tax money than tax evasion as such.
<P>
Among the many obstacles in the way of protecting financial interests effectively is one in particular: the blatant lack of cooperation between the judicial authorities in individual countries, who are faced by an increasingly well-equipped criminal underworld.
As was shown in a hearing in April organized by our two committees, no significant successes have been chalked up either at a procedural level or in terms of international cooperation.
<P>
What can be done?
Parliament has already adopted proposals aimed at protecting financial interests in a few special fields, for example in the final report of the committee investigating transit procedures, in its resolution on the Mediterranean programmes or its resolution on the combating of fraud.
In all three reports there is a clear demand for a judicial authority at European level to coordinate and cooperate with individual countries' investigative and criminal prosecution authorities and procedures.
<P>
Whether it should be called a judicial clearing house or a European prosecution centre for fraud cases involving the Community budget or something else, as stated in the reports, is a matter of secondary importance.
Its primary objective must be to define its most likely tasks and competences in order to make up for current deficiencies, such as investigations that last years, technical and diplomatic procedures or conflicts of jurisdiction, which put a stop to cooperation.
<P>
To create a European judicial area an equal degree of protection for Community money must be achieved in all Member States.
This should be done in stages.
First, a European liaison office could be created to cross-match information and advice, conduct investigations and pass on the results to courts in the individual countries.
The new Article 280 in the Amsterdam Treaty is helpful in this regard.
In the longer term this office could be expanded to become a transnational criminal prosecution authority which would be responsible to a kind of European state prosecutor's office, which in turn would pass the criminal case to the appropriate court in the individual country concerned.
<P>
The emotive term "European state prosecutor's office' , as characterized in the well-known expert study of the corpus juris , should be replaced by a designation which clearly precludes any confusion of terms and any understandable reservations that may result.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I trust we will have the courage to look to the future in this highly sensitive but very important area and would like to reiterate my sincere thanks to Mr Bontempi.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Frischenschlager">
Mr President, this report deals with a very important political task for the future and I should like to thank the rapporteur for all his work.
It has been very successful.
Of course, this is a concrete political problem.
Criminals have been the quickest to benefit from freedom of movement in Europe.
Much time has already been devoted to the consequences for the police but unfortunately the accompanying constitutional and political measures will take even longer.
In the Committee on Institutional Affairs we have therefore concentrated on the main constitutional and political points of principle.
<P>
Firstly we wanted to stress that we have a major political opportunity for integration and an instrument that is much better than the previous agreements, as is demonstrated very clearly in the report.
I think it is important to highlight this.
<P>
The second point is that we need specific democratic legitimation in the area of criminal law where civil rights are involved.
We therefore believe that the role of the European Parliament in this area, if it can only act in a consultative capacity, is much too weak.
We criticized this; it is something that must be changed.
<P>
Thirdly, I would like to mention the role of the European Court of Justice. The supremacy of the rule of law - especially in the practice of criminal law - requires judicial supervision, but also judicial progression.
We are therefore also in favour of a change in the preliminary ruling procedure, which can now only produce results if the Member States expressly submit themselves to it.
This is simply too little and must also be changed.
<P>
Fourthly, the whole political task of fighting crime is something that is of course strongly characterized as a matter for nation states.
We therefore have to exert pressure to ensure that progress is made.
Amsterdam now provides us with an opportunity and that is closer cooperation.
We have also laid particular stress on this opportunity for the further development of political integration.
<P>
In conclusion, I should like to congratulate Mr Bontempi once more.
I believe this is a task which can only really be accomplished slowly. It will take time, but this report is a step in the right direction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Caccavale">
Mr President, I apologize to the Commissioner, but I do not think it right that now, at ten minutes to noon, the Commissioner should give her opinion before all the representatives of the political groups have been able to speak.
This means that, on resuming the debate, some of us will not be able to speak after the vote, which means that the Commissioner will speak without hearing the position of the various political groups.
I consider this incorrect and unfair.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="President">
Mr Caccavale, Mrs Gradin will be absent this afternoon.
She will express the views of the Commission now and this afternoon Commissioner de Silguy will appear.
It is something which is very possible.
I have listened to your views; you are right.
However, it cannot be changed now.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Gradin">
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Mr President, I wish to protest strongly at the way in which this debate is being conducted.
First of all, I support what Mr Caccavale has just said: the Commissioner is speaking at a time when the debate has not even started.
Secondly, there is no way of conducting a debate under these circumstances, with 150 Members coming into the Chamber without having a serious debate on an important point.
Thirdly, the Council is not even present.
Could you, please, report back to the Bureau and see whether we can change the way in which debates are held just before the vote?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="President">
Mr Brinkhorst, you are right.
But at this time it is difficult for the debate to continue.
<P>
The debate is suspended and will continue this evening, after 6.00 p.m.
<P>
With regard to the interposition of the Commissioner, I wished to say that the Commission has programmed her presence.
We can request the presence of the Commissioner. We cannot, however, compel it.
This afternoon Commissioner de Silguy will appear, as I said earlier.
This has happened many times before. It is not the first time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
Mr President, I fully support what Mr Brinkhorst has said.
What we are discussing here is not a trivial matter.
On behalf of all my colleagues who have worked hard on this report and attach great importance to Commissioner Gradin's opinion, I should like to protest against the conditions under which we have to conduct our discussions here.
To my knowledge, this is the third time that Mrs Gradin has spoken in the early afternoon and hardly anyone is listening, while threequarters of Parliament are talking about other things.
I consider this unworthy of a parliament and an insult to the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Theato">
Mr President, I should like to join in this protest.
For one thing, I think it is frustrating to suspend the debate like this, which has happened on a number of occasions in this area.
I appeal to the Bureau and the sittings service to arrange the times better to ensure this does not recur in future.
We are grateful that Mrs Gradin was able to speak, although under pressure of time, and some people were actually listening to her, Mr Schulz, but of course it is bad manners to have all this uproar going on all around while the Commissioner is speaking.
This must be prevented from happening in future, not just to you, Mrs Gradin, but in general.
It will not do, the way we are conducting this!
<P>
Furthermore, I am sorry that the debate has been suspended as many colleagues will quite possibly not be present this evening if there is further discussion.
All in all, this is a really unsatisfactory situation which must be remedied. It should not happen again!
<P>
Mr President, I would also like to draw your attention to the fact that on my list the report is shown as ready to be voted on.
This will just not do!
I am sorry that the vote will take place who knows when and this debate will be suspended again as well, so that we will not be able to make a connection between the report, the debate, the Commission's opinion and finally the vote.
I would therefore like to join this protest.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="President">
Mrs Theato, the Commissioner has listened to the protest of the Members of this House and of the Presidency.
I hope that a similar problem will not arise again and I am glad that what was said in this House reflects the present concern that the sitting will continue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Caccavale">
Mr President, what the speakers have said is very comforting but is not enough.
Firstly, in protest, I am abandoning my speech this afternoon because, at this point, I believe it totally useless, as I believe this afternoon's debate to be totally useless, as it is constantly being interrupted, which is absolutely wrong.
I am asking you officially, Mr President, at this point, to postpone the entire debate and vote until the next Parliamentary sitting.
I am asking this Chamber to decide that, out of respect for the work of Mr Bontempi and all of us on this report, the entire debate should be postponed, and we should start again at the beginning at the next Parliamentary sitting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="President">
Mr Caccavale, the debate has begun.
It will continue this afternoon at 6.00 p.m. unless at that time Parliament decides differently.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Falconer">
Mr President, I do like the sigh of relief when I rise in this place.
I put a question to you: has the Secretariat been advised in writing of any persons in the room who wish it to be recorded that they will be present in the Chamber during roll-call votes?
My reason for asking this question is that I notice in the Minutes of yesterday's meeting that Mr McMillanScott, Mr Janssen van Raay and others had put a written statement into the Secretariat, advising them that they would be present but not voting.
<P>
Does not this bypass the very procedure and intent and purpose of the original Bureau's decision?
I ask this as a serious point because if the Bureau's decision was to discipline us in some manner then it is quite easy to bypass it by putting a statement in writing and then walking out that door.
<P>
The Quaestors' note was quite clear: that it should be on the vote, and the vote means that vote which is about to take place and not to pre-empt that vote in any way whatsoever.
I trust, Mr President, you will carry out the Quaestors' instructions in association with the Bureau's instructions to ensure that Members are present and either voting or not voting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="President">
Mr Falconer, we will verify what you have said.
On the other hand, however, I wish to tell you that we always follow, and I believe that there will be no departure from, the decisions that have been taken.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Mr President, I would just like to add to what Mr Falconer has said. I think that during voting time we should be chained to our benches and the ushers would do well to make sure they lock the doors so that no-one can leave!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Mr President, I would like to come back to the point made by Mr Schäfer, Mrs Theato and Mr Caccavale.
We were all agreed that the conditions under which the debate was conducted in which Mrs Gradin spoke were totally unacceptable.
Mr Caccavale has made a proposal to delay the discussion of this report until next time.
I would like to ask you to have a vote on this point because that is the only way in which we can reasonably resume the debate on this most important report.
<P>
My question to you is: can you take a vote on Mr Caccavale's proposal to delay discussion of Mr Bontempi's report?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="President">
Mr Brinkhorst, you have studied the Rules of Procedure.
Rule 131 states very simply: " At the start of a debate on an item on the agenda, a political group or at least twenty-nine Members may move that the debate be adjourned to a specific date and time.
Such a motion shall be put to the vote immediately.'
This is at the beginning of the debate on an issue.
There is another point in the Rules of Procedure where it states that adjournment of the vote on the debate can be requested when that time comes.
Mr Avgerinos has given an answer. I am sorry, but we will not continue this debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="President">
I think that the House has been well and truly enlightened on the issue.
I do not think we can add anything else.
It was unfortunate that such an important report as the Bontempi report had to be interrupted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, since a topical and urgent debate on crime in Brussels is not possible and there is a petition here with 100 signatures on it, I would inform you that there is now also a petition in my office which can be signed by everybody, all assistants, staff members and interpreters, and I will pass on this petition to the petitions committee of the Belgian parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="President">
Mr Rübig, the Presidency is always willing to listen to Members' comments on the Rules of Procedure, but such comments need to be based on an actual Rule from the Rules of Procedures!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Provan">
Mr President, would you be prepared to clarify the voting procedure on the Bontempi report because we do have a voting session this evening and I question why you said it would be taken tomorrow?
I would not like colleagues to be under any illusions of when this will take place.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="President">
Mr Provan, I will answer you with pleasure.
Mr Avgerinos, who was in the chair previously, has already made a comment.
As you will have seen from the agenda, it is possible there will be other votes this afternoon, if we have not completed this morning's votes. I hope that, with the good will of all of you and with your support, we will finish them.
If we do not finish them, the votes will continue at 6.00 p.m.
But the debate on the Bontempi report will not have been completed.
Consequence, it cannot take place this afternoon.
It will have to be taken tomorrow morning.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Cresson">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will be very brief. I share your concerns with regard to the content, as I indicated during the debate yesterday evening, and the Commission has decided to accept officially Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 16 and 17, along with the first part of Amendment No 14 regarding the length of the director's mandate.
<P>
I hope that these changes will not cause further delays in the enlargement of the Foundation's scope to cover the countries of the Mediterranean.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Mr President, there was some misunderstanding yesterday on the Commission's cooperation on this point, but it has been cleared up, and the report is now ready to be voted on.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="de Vries">
Mr President, I would like to ask this House's permission for a very simple oral amendment.
One word needs to be altered in Amendment No 2.
In the amendment the word Macedonia is used.
The Members of the Group of the European People's Party have rightly pointed out to me that it should not read Macedonia, but FYROM, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
Could I ask the House to make this correction?
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Falconer">
Mr President, I put in a request to the previous President. Can you tell us if you have received notification in writing from any Members in the Chamber to the effect that, while they will be present in the Chamber, they will not be participating in any roll-call votes?
A simple answer of yes or no to that question will suffice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="President">
Mr Falconer, I listened to the question you put to Vice-President Avgerinos when he was in the chair.
My reasoning is very simple.
There is a practice that Mrs Fontaine followed and that Mr. Martin followed yesterday, after a comment by Mr McMillan-Scott.
I have no problem in following it as well.
If Members wish to indicate their presence verbally but do not want to vote, they have every right to do so.
I would prefer that they did it in writing so as not to take time away from the vote.
We can see and we can check who is present somehow or other and we have great faith in the honesty of all the Members.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Falconer">
Mr President, you did not really answer my question because you said 'verbal' .
What I am asking is: have any Members indicated to your Secretariat and thereby to you, in writing, that they will be present but not participating in any of the roll-call votes?
A simple 'yes' or 'no' answer will suffice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="President">
Sorry, Mr Falconer, you are right.
I thought you were asking a question on the general procedure, which I tried to clarify.
To the best of my knowledge, the answer is no.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Mr President, before the vote I found a list at my seat.
This list contained the name and seat number of all the members who attended yesterday's sitting.
Could you please inform me in the course of today or tomorrow who made this list, what it is meant to be for and why I found it at my seat while none of the other members of my group had possession of this list?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="President">
Mrs Müller, at the moment I am not in a position to give you an explanation about what you referred to.
I have asked my colleagues to look into it with you so that we can see what exactly it is about and, if we need to do something, we will do it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Bébéar">
Our objective is both a simple and a clear one: to give a European dimension to consumer protection by removing all risk of isolation of potential victims.
<P>
European citizens currently encounter unquestionable difficulties in the consumer market, the most complex of which are of a legal nature.
In fact, if they are to be implemented, our European directives must be transposed into national law, which is becoming an ever more confusing labyrinth of measures every year.
<P>
Not all wronged consumers are certain of gaining compensation and so this report presented for second reading is an important one.
<P>
I do not want to argue further over a text which has already been the subject of great discussion, both in committee and the House.
I will simply quote a specific example of the repercussions this issue has on the daily life of European citizens.
<P>
Following a large-scale promotional campaign, many French people purchased properties in Spain.
Unfortunately for them, they were the subjects of fraud on the part of the promoter, who was from another country of the European Union.
At no time could a French consumer organization bring a court action against him.
<P>
Thanks to these new measures we are going to vote for, a victim living in another country will now be able to defend his interests through his own consumer organization.
<P>
It was time, before the introduction of the euro, to make such practices wrong, for they are not in the interests of the consumer.
<P>
I therefore support the Verde I Aldea report, which is a big step forward in consumer protection.
The European Union has a duty to work for greater equity and a more accessible system of justice.
<P>
Recommendation for second reading (A4-0077/98) Mrs Fontaine
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Mr President, I should like to make two very brief oral statements.
The first one relates to Mrs Fontaine's report.
The voluntary service will only be acceptable to Europe's young people if significant financial resources are made available.
In this context, "significant' means at least enough money to allow young people from all fifteen Member States and, hopefully, in the near future, the associated countries as well, to take part in the programme.
ECU 35 million would enable, at the most, five thousand young people to do so.
That is too little.
The minimum is ECU 80 million to take account of the ECU 25 million set aside from the 1998 financial year, so that ECU 55 million will be left for 1999.
I therefore appeal to the Council and in particular to the German Minister for Youth, Mrs Nolte, to speak out strongly in the Council in favour of the sum called for by Parliament.
The room for manoeuvre in Article 3 allows for this increase.
Lack of funds cannot therefore be given as a reason for rejecting this call.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Barros Moura">
In supporting this recommendation, I am not just defending minimum conditions of viability for the programme and of equality of opportunity for participants by increasing funding from ECU 35 to 80 million for the 1998-99 period.
<P>
My intention is primarily to express my support for the potentially powerful instrument of the European voluntary service for young people in creating a European civic awareness, through the formative experience of rendering services to society in a transnational context.
<P>
Over and above the free movement of people and the human and cultural exchange that may be offered by the programme, one of its central elements lies in working together with young people from other European countries in the voluntary pursuit of a shared civic objective.
The European civic objective prevails over the mere individual interests of participants and, for this reason, contributes decisively to promoting European citizenship.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Caudron">
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Holm">
As the youngest Member of the European Parliament, I would naturally like to give my full support to Mrs Fontaine's report on European voluntary service for young people.
This is important for many reasons.
It is about finding new ways for meaningful employment which allow people to combine business with pleasure.
The 'business' is that we know young people have a great interest in working in the areas to which the action programme relates, especially environmental and social issues, while at the same time we know that a lot needs to be done in these areas.
The 'pleasure' relates to the benefit for young people of being given a chance to visit another country, to experience another culture and another society for a period of time when they also get a chance to learn a new language.
Language is important, since we are living in an increasingly globalized world.
<P>
Yesterday the European Parliament adopted a report on how to prevent suicide among the Union's citizens.
Unfortunately it is common for young people especially to have thoughts of suicide because they feel uncertain about the future.
It would therefore be good if the EU showed evidence of creating the conditions for a number of young people to be able to face life.
In this context, voluntary service can make a small, but important contribution.
It does not solve the problem, but it can be taken as something positive.
<P>
The position of the Council with regard to funding is disappointing. While billions are put into subsidies for tobacco growing and research into nuclear power, it is not prepared to invest a few million ECU in young people.
That is, to say the least, irritating.
<P>
I cannot understand the Council's negative attitude towards the demand that more resources should be provided so that people who get the chance to be volunteers also get an adequate grounding so that they can cope with a new language.
To me it is obvious, because it will improve the conditions both for young people to get something out of their voluntary service and for the project to succeed.
<P>
The Council must reconsider these points.
As the youngest Member of the European Parliament, I support Mrs Fontaine's report, as does the whole of the Green group.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, given the British government's commitment to helping our young people through the New Deal programme at home, I am glad to see this kind of work finding an echo at European level.
<P>
The governments of the EU are right to put forward the idea of a European Voluntary Service for 18 to 25 year olds.
However, this report makes some valid suggestions on how to ensure that such a programme could work successfully in practice.
<P>
For example, there should be residence rights for volunteers working in other EU countries.
These young volunteers would also need to be able to enjoy the same social security entitlements that they had before volunteering.
<P>
We should also look at granting tax exemptions for any payments or allowances made to volunteers - after all, they should not be penalised for showing the public spirit and initiative to get involved in voluntary work of benefit to the wider community - and which also makes themselves more employable.
<P>
I agree with the report's suggestion that any European voluntary service programme could be integrated with existing national systems - perhaps a European option could be built into our own countries' voluntary programmes?
<P>
I hope that Parliament will give this report the backing both it and our young people deserve if we are to encourage the community spirit and enterprise of future generations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Wibe">
Amendment No 3 of the report recommends that the financial framework for the implementation of the programme during the period 1998-1999 should be increased from the Council's proposal of ECU 35 million to ECU 80 million.
<P>
It is impossible for me to vote for this amendment when at the same time I can see how the Member States are making cutbacks leading to redundancies in the public sector in their respective countries.
<P>
Boogerd-Quaak report (A4-0032/98)
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Ryynänen">
The amendment to the regulation on the European Training Foundation is justified and necessary.
It is primarily a question of broadening the field to cover the Mediterranean countries.
But an appraisal of the foundation's first three years also gives us the opportunity to explore the work of the Foundation in more detail.
The most important issue in the analysis is to achieve guidelines in how the foundation can develop to meet the increasing number of challenges that are coming.
<P>
I fully agree with Mrs Boogerd-Quaak when she says that the main task of the Foundation is to broaden its scope.
Otherwise, the importance of education and training as a tool for integration and regional development will not have been adequately addressed.
Our partner countries need the competent support and expertise of the Training Foundation in the planning and implementation of training, which is essential for the growth of market economies and democracy.
<P>
Staff development programmes, based on the work of the Foundation, for the decision-makers in the EU and the partner countries are an important part of this work.
All in all, the role of the Training Foundation in the execution of the PHARE and TACIS programmes has been significant.
However, ever greater challenges require a change of focus from overseeing partnerships and participation to inspiring further development.
<P>
Applicant countries must be able to make progress in the international sense in recognition of examinations, in new training technology, and in the transparency of standards.
In this regard, collaboration with CEDEFOP should be firmly endorsed.
<P>
Naturally, the Training Foundation must have sufficient resources to expand and strengthen its operations.
I particularly hope we can push for all instructors involved in vocational training to get further training themselves and for womens' professional training to be encouraged in the same way.
<P>
Motion for a resolution on Kosovo
<SPEAKER ID=87 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I have now been able to vote for this compromise resolution as it has been considerably improved by the Liberal motions.
In fact, I think we are about to be hypocritical as the measures proposed by the contact group and others could have been applied over the past few years - I have brought up this subject here on many occasions - to prevent outbreaks of violence.
By doing nothing we share some of the guilt for the fact that this outbreak of violence has taken place.
We did not even manage to open an EU office in Kosovo and now we want to take the political measures that should have been taken at that time.
This must be pointed out, yet it is once more a case of too little, too late.
The idea of autonomy has probably gone down in a hail of bullets in the past few days, and we have only one more opportunity, namely the deployment of international observers and troops, to ensure that Kosovo gains autonomy under international supervision and can decide its own future in dialogue with Belgrade after a few years of peace.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="President">
Mr Posselt, I must congratulate you, not on the content of your speech, which the Presidency has no right to comment on, but on your regular presence in the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Hory">
I wish to abstain in the vote on the joint motion for a resolution regarding Kosovo.
<P>
I am clearly in favour of condemning all forms of violence and I condemn excessive repression of demonstrations, when it is proven.
I would, however, like to highlight a number of points which have not been sufficiently considered by Parliament.
<P>
Firstly, the problems in Kosovo relate to the internal affairs of Yugoslavia, a fact which prevents us from either judging or interfering.
Yet I wonder how many states would have accepted the multiple political aggressions of which Yugoslavia, a founder member of the United Nations, has been a victim over the past seven years on the part of certain European countries or some sections of this Parliament.
<P>
Secondly, it must be highlighted again that the permanent demonization of Serbia does not help in the search for a peaceful, just and lasting solution to the problems of this region.
We have seen this Manicheism lead to war in Croatia and Bosnia, and this risks being rekindled until the Serbs are reintegrated back into decision-making processes.
<P>
Finally, it has to be said that, historically and geographically, Kosovo poses some very particular difficulties.
Firstly, you cannot ask the Federal Republic of Serbia to renounce its sovereignty over Kosovo, which is the cradle of its history and of its national unity. Secondly, the re-establishment of autonomy for Kosovo - which no-one questions in principle - risks awakening a desire for independence which would dangerously disrupt international relations between Yugoslavia, Albania and Macedonia, even, indirectly, Greece and Bulgaria.
It is a risk that no-one has the right to take without due consideration.
<P>
In conclusion, I believe that we must put greater confidence in the Serbian political forces, whether they be the Belgrade authorities or the Democratic League of Kosovo, and encourage them to renew dialogue with a view to finding an institutional solution which respects the rights of the different communities living in Serbia.
<P>
Motion for a resolution on the ASEM process
<SPEAKER ID=90 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gahrton">
Mr President, the Greens are an international movement at a global level and therefore, of course, we think that developments in Asia concern the populations of the EU countries, just as the EU's development concerns the populations in Asia.
We are thus in favour of cooperation within the framework of ASEM, but would like to stress the importance of involving elected politicians, including in the framework of ASEP, and referendums.
<P>
Unfortunately, the EU's relations so far have been characterized by considerable double standards.
At the same time as public speeches emphasize respect for democracy and human rights, the practical reality is dominated by short-term commercial interests.
A flagrant example is Indonesia, which has been able to buy arms from EU countries, suppress East Timor and hold its own population outside of democratic influence and reasonable legal certainty, which recently has affected not least the Chinese minority.
<P>
Relations with other non-democratic Asian countries are also characterized by double standards.
We question the direction and forms of aid to North Korea's suffering population, not least the investment in KEDO.
North Korea should instead be receiving aid to clean up coal mines and power stations and food aid to avert the risk of famine.
<P>
The European Parliament's resolution contains a number of our objectives.
As well as several demands which I have already mentioned, there are also requests for a code of conduct for the sale of arms by EU countries and criteria for sustainable forest management.
Nevertheless, I have abstained from voting in the final vote because paragraph 6 shows that the EU's underlying, extremely liberal free trade principles have been allowed to have the upper hand over other principles which are important for social development, such as democracy, human rights and environmentally and socially sustainable development.
Unfortunately, as long as the EU does not reverse its priorities, its international relations, including those with Asia, will always be treated with justified suspicion by populations around the world.
<P>
Motion for a resolution on the International Criminal Court
<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking you for your kind words and for the way in which you are chairing this sitting.
On the subject itself, I would like to say that it is of the greatest importance to set up a criminal court of this kind and to introduce appropriate measures within the framework of the United Nations.
I applaud the fact that the city of Nuremberg has applied to be the location for this court; being fully aware of its tragic history when it was mistreated by one of the greatest criminals in human history, Adolf Hitler, it is putting itself in a position to make a contribution towards the restitution of morality.
I congratulate Nuremberg for taking the initiative to apply to be the location for such an institution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Posselt.
<P>
Cabezón Alonso report (A4-0056/98)
<SPEAKER ID=93 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Seillier">
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Seillier.
I allowed you to exceed your speaking time, but I think that you certainly deserved it.
I noted yesterday - we were at the night sitting together - the passion you have for this subject and I am delighted by it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Angelilli">
The figures on the demographic decline and ageing of the European population have been known for years.
In this context, the 1997 demographic report is an important occasion for a thorough examination and analysis of the statistics, to find the most appropriate solutions to deal with future social scenarios in the best possible way.
<P>
The priority is to prevent the rights of the elderly, in terms of both social security and welfare, from discriminating to the detriment of young people and women: the former because, being the future active minority population, they will have to bear the cost of providing social security for the majority elderly population; and the latter because the cost of providing social security for the elderly, and sometimes the sick and handicapped as well, is already borne by them to a greater extent.
<P>
I am pleased with the rapporteur's opinion on the superficial way in which Agenda 2000 has dealt with the social and demographic aspects of the future enlargement of the Union. I also agree on the need to adopt a common policy on immigration and on the urgency for new social security rules that take into account the current and future demographic situation and, on behalf of the National Alliance, I will vote in favour of Mr Cabezón Alonso's report.

<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Lindqvist">
Population developments in several countries are causing unrest with large movements of populations from the country to towns.
All the counties in Sweden, apart from four, have declining populations, which means that there is a great risk of depopulation in large parts of the country.
<P>
I have voted for the report, but the EU's regional and structural policy must be designed so as to stop this unfortunate development.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of a report on the demographic trends in the EU.
We believe the Commission's report points to some very important problems.
If the current population trends continue, there will be 50 % more people over 60 in 30 years' time.
This will have major consequences for the European welfare states and for the make-up of the labour market.
In other words, there will be fewer working people to finance the increasing costs of pensions and healthcare for others.
<P>
We are pleased the problem has been put on the agenda.
Quite simply, we need more people actively employed in future.
Hopefully this realization can help give an impetus for some constructive discussions on the need for family businesses which can use women and a new look at refugees and immigrants as a resource for European welfare states.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Wolf">
It would be absurd if there were no demographic trends at all: longer life expectancy, fewer children, changing proportions between the sexes - all of this undoubtedly has far-reaching effects on society.
However, I maintain that a debate on social policy that concentrates on the "demographic situation' is bypassing the real issues.
<P>
These issues are bound up with the structure of an economy which forcibly "disconnects' more and more people from its development, makes them unemployed or underemployed, thereby excluding them from society. This adds to the fact that the economy is demonstrating an increasing trend towards social polarization and exclusion and still relies on an "invisible economy' which distributes the burden of unpaid work according to a gender-based hierarchy.
This has the consequence that hatred of women and children becomes embedded in society. Last but not least there is the quite irrational racism on which the widespread fear of immigration is based in national economies which are growing rapidly and developing transnational links.
It is therefore no accident that all these topics are raised again and again as a matter of fact in the discussion of "demographics' .
But could we not address these matters much more directly without the "demographic illusion' ?
<P>
Titley report (A4-0059/98)
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Ephremidis">
The action plan for Ukraine, and indeed for the other countries of central and eastern Europe, is nothing more than the undisguised encroachment of large multinational companies on these countries. They aim to exploit their natural wealth and human resources, to penetrate and take complete control of their markets and to formulate those policies and social developments which will best serve the establishment and unimpeded furtherance of their own interests.
<P>
The nature of the conditions that have been imposed for the Ukraine plan serve only to speed up the creation of infrastructures to receive foreign capital and goods, as is clearly spelled out in the report. This same report sets out the need to accelerate privatization and general economic reforms, which aim to strike at the social rights of working people by means of reform of the administration and taxation, reform of the legal system, the creation of administrative structures for the private financial sector and a political transition to a market economy.
<P>
However, the conditions of the action plan for Ukraine, which must be seen in conjunction with the TACIS programme, the partnership agreement, and other financial agreements between the EU and that country, are not limited to the financial sector nor to issues relating to the regulation of this sector. They extend to clearly political issues, meddling with the internal affairs of Ukraine and interfering with political developments, especially before the elections.
Conditions are also placed on the country's position and on the promotion of its membership of NATO, by means of the Partnership for Peace and its participation in military missions.
<P>
The special feature of all these agreements and of the action plan is the pressure on Ukraine to purchase technology and to accept enormous investments from European multinationals in the energy sector.
More especially, pressure is placed on Ukraine to build new nuclear power stations, using as a pretext the fundamental problems of safety, which were caused and continue to be caused by the nuclear power stations at Chernobyl. The aim is not to avert danger to the environment and to the population, but to redirect the energy policy of Ukraine, to annex it to the energy policy of the EU and to wrest it from its existing relations with Russia.
<P>
Hoff report (A4-0063/98)
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Cushnahan">
It is still not clear what the sum effects of the Chernobyl disaster will be for the Ukrainian people and for Europe as a whole.
It is important that we learn from our history and not have the disaster repeated.
It is for this reason that I fully support Mrs Hoff's report concerning TACIS funding for the Ukraine.
It is unacceptable that only 37.5 % overall of the TACIS funds budgeted have been paid out, and disturbing that only 25.5 % of the funds for Nuclear Safety Programmes have been paid out as well.
<P>
I agree with Mrs Hoff's assessment that structural changes need to be made within the Commission's DG 1A.
The burdensome amount of work placed on those in the field means that the EU's money is not accurately and fully tracked.
This is clearly a contributing factor to the TACIS programme's lack of success in the Ukraine.
<P>
The Commission should remember that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure' .
By making sure that the Union's money is spent efficiently on reconstruction and nuclear safety in the Ukraine, Europe can avoid potential future problems.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 1.05 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Topical and urgent debate
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, the presidency of Michael Kovác came to an end at the beginning of March.
With his departure, however, political decisions have once more been taken in Slovakia which give us cause for concern.
Only a few hours after the official functions were provisionally transferred to prime minister Meciar as an interim measure, he had two personal assistants sacked, recalled over half of Slovakia's ambassadors - or at least gave notice of his intention to do so - and suspended the trial of the suspected abductor of the former President's son.
These decisions would be worrying enough under normal circumstances but they become alarming when they are taken by people who are merely temporary stand-ins.
Slovakia finds itself in an exceptional constitutional position.
Yet it is precisely in such a situation that principles such as the rule of law and democracy must continue to be adhered to and, above all, taken seriously.
<P>
We are once again confronted with the situation where a handful of people in the Slovakian government are placing the conditions in the country in a questionable light and interpreting the will of the Slovak people, the political culture and the political rules of play in a very one-sided way and are possibly shelving accession to the European Union.
At the end of the day, it is also a matter of expressing our solidarity with the Slovak people and letting them know that we are watching closely the current events in the country's political system.
We are also heeding public opinion in the country as well as in the EU.
In particular, we support the efforts being made to push through the referendum on the presidency as planned, a referendum which was judged to be permissible and constitutional by Slovakia's constitutional court.
All we can hope for is that Slovakia will be accepted as a candidate for accession as speedily as possible, as soon as the democratic situation in that country has moved in a satisfactory direction.
Slovakia has always been a part of Central Europe and we trust that our support here is also strong enough in future to underpin the partnership.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bösch">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think it is the fourth time since I have been chairman of the Delegation to the EU-Slovak Republic Joint Parliamentary Committee that we have tabled or conducted a topical and urgent debate in connection with developments in Slovakia, so it is not very original.
It is precisely today, when a new stage in the integration and overcoming of past obstacles in Europe is being introduced at the European Conference in London, that we should be reminding the Slovak Republic that this House was largely responsible for the fact that the Slovak Republic, in the person of its acting President, is able to sit at that table in London at all.
We did this out of a sense of responsibility because we thought we understood perhaps a little better the difficulties that a new sovereign state has to overcome.
However, we also expected the Slovak leadership to understand what it means to be the only country to be portrayed by the Commission ahead of this Conference as a politically immature democracy which is not equal to the task.
<P>
We are now learning precisely the opposite.
Obviously this Slovak government did not seek consensus but attempted - probably in the run-up to pending national elections - to achieve the objective of polarizing opinion.
And I can already hear the reactions from the Slovak public and the Slovak government who will say, "we have done everything in accordance with our constitution' .
But today it is not about us somehow being better jurists than the Slovaks, but it is up to us to find out from the President and Prime Minister Meciar if they still want to lead their country into the European Union or do they want to prevent Slovakia's accession for many years to come?
One man alone is in fact responsible for the fact that the present government, under the constitutional arrangements in Slovakia, can acquire even more power for itself, and that is Mr Meciar.
We would like to take this opportunity to remind the government of this.
The European Parliament and in particular European integration do not generally lend themselves to internal political games which are aimed solely at keeping certain politicians in power from one election to the next.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="Macartney">
<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dijk">
<SPEAKER ID=108 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schwaiger">
Mr President, President Meciar is playing with fire.
A sure sign of this is the cancellation of the planned referendum and the brutal shake-out of over half of his ambassadors.
Although he may well be acting within the framework of his formal powers, he is revealing a problematic relationship with the culture of the constitutional state and democracy in general.
What we want is for the elections to be prepared properly from now on and to be conducted fairly and for the media to have all the freedom they need to cover such an important situation.
Otherwise we would have to join the other groups in calling for the complete suspension of European Union aid to Slovakia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Slovak Republic's request for accession to the European Union gives us the right to remind our Slovak friends, as often as necessary, of the political and economic criteria that were set at the Copenhagen Summit for the accession of central and eastern European countries to the Union.
This does not, however, give us the right to interfere in the internal political affairs of this country.
Yet it seems that by having this debate today we have crossed the line of non-interference in the internal affairs of an independent and sovereign State.
<P>
What are we criticizing the Slovak government and parliament for?
The Slovak parliament is criticized for not being able to reach a majority to enable the appointment of a new President of the Republic which, in terms of the constitution of the country, means the government must exercise part of the functions of Head of State.
Do I need to remind you that in France, in 1954, thirteen ballots were needed to appoint President Coty, the last President of the Fourth Republic, and that whilst France now has a new constitution - on the initiative of General De Gaulle - it achieved this on its own, with no outside interference?
<P>
Of course, the concentration of power in the hands of one man is a potentially dangerous situation, but it is for the Slovak citizens alone to find solutions enabling this political and constitutional crisis to be resolved.
To ask them to organize a referendum which envisages the election of the President of the Republic by universal suffrage, as the paragraph in the compromise resolution proposes, is clearly interference on the part of the European Parliament in Slovak internal affairs.
<P>
The head of the Slovak government is also criticized for having undertaken a significant diplomatic shake up, but no-one has mentioned that the nomination of ambassadors is normally the role of any government and that the difficult "cohabitation' between Prime Minister Meciar and President Kovac had blocked all ambassadorial nominations for two years, with the exception of a few posts such as Paris.
<P>
The head of the new government is also criticized for having used his new powers of amnesty on behalf of the State departments suspected of having participated in the incredible abduction of ex-President Kovac's son, but no-one has mentioned that before leaving office President Kovac himself had amnestied this very son who was involved in a criminal affair in Germany. The sole justification was to enable him to recover his passport and to give himself up in Germany, which he did, although he was immediately released on bail.
<P>
In these circumstances, it seems that the presentation of the facts which have prompted the European Parliament's resolutions has been only a partial, even biased one.
I fear that this inappropriate interference in Slovak life on the part of the European Parliament may only cause to exacerbate the conflict between government and opposition instead of placating it, which would have been the most desirable.
<P>
In these circumstances, the Union for Europe Group cannot support the joint motion for a resolution, nor the resolutions tabled by the various groups.
For our part, we subscribe to the recommendations adopted unanimously by the members of the Joint Parliamentary Committee at its last meeting.
We passionately wish the recommendations to be effectively followed up so that the Slovak Republic may join the European Union as quickly as possible, which is what its people and leaders, both government and opposition, desire.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Thors">
Mr President, may I say that this discussion once again shows that we have a strong responsibility for the situation in Slovakia.
I would also like to remind you of the discussion held in December, when the majority of this House rejected a proposal on the taxation of newspapers.
We know that this question of taxation of newspapers is not solved.
We have so many times heard that something is going to happen and nothing has happened.
The same is true of the JPC recommendation.
<P>
The question and the message I want to give to the Slovakian people is that they must understand that the Union is a political union where you respect certain rules: the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary and also free and fair elections.
The fate of the Slovakian nation and its way to the European Union depend on the decisions that the people are taking.
Our responsibility is to see that the elections will be free and fair, and our main concern is that Meciar is now trying to manipulate access to the media in every possible way so that he will keep power.
<P>
It is not only a question of one person.
We also know that in the Slovak National Party very many people hold the same opinion as Meciar; we know that people have also been expressing anti-semitic opinions in the government parties, and we cannot accept that.
Nor can I accept the situation when the European Union has been urging the need for legislation on minority rights and nothing has happened so far.
In this respect, Commissioner, I think that the standpoint of the Commission has been more honest, more straightforward during the whole process than that of this Parliament, which believes in vague promises and does not give a clear message that we support Slovakia's entry into to the European Union by free and fair means.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Perry">
Mr President, as second Vice-President of the Joint Committee with Slovakia I regard myself as a friend of Slovakia and the Slovak people.
I had hoped, in the deliberations that Mr Bösch referred to within the JPC, that across our political divisions we would be able to temper some of the toughness of the strictures directed by the EU towards Slovakia.
I am happy to repeat today that I still look forward to Slovakia joining the EU at the earliest possible opportunity.
<P>
The Slovak government must show that it is truly committed to a pluralist democracy.
The failure to elect a President to succeed Mr Kovác is a clear signal that the government of Slovakia seems determined to ignore our genuine worries.
The people of Slovakia have every right to choose their own government.
Elections are due there in the autumn and I think it is the clause in this urgency that deals with those parliamentary elections that is the most critical.
Those elections must be genuinely free and fair.
Should there be any doubts we would have to say to Slovakia that it is not yet a member of the family of democratic nations.
The people I know in Slovakia - in Mr Meciar's party included - do not deserve that judgement.
Mr Meciar must show that he, too, values our good opinion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="de Silguy">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission shares Parliament's concerns regarding the development of the political situation in the Slovak Republic, particularly those voiced by today's speakers.
<P>
The Prime Minister, Mr Meciar, who is temporarily acting as President, has decided to put an end to the procedures which were initiated when problems occurred in the preparation and supervision of the referendum on 23 and 24 May last year.
He has also given an amnesty, as some of you have noted, to those responsible for the abduction of President Kovac's son.
These are worrying decisions.
<P>
The Presidency of the European Union has, moreover, sent a declaration to the Slovak authorities as recently as 48 hours ago, on 10 March, insisting on the need to respect the essential rules of the smooth functioning of a rule of law. This was, of course, done without interfering in the country's internal affairs.
<P>
In addition to these decisions is the persistent violation of the Constitutional Court's ruling regarding Mr Gaulieder's reintegration as a Member of Parliament, a violation condemned by the House during a previous urgent debate. These decisions are evidence of the Slovak Republic's lack of respect for the Copenhagen criteria for accession to the European Union.
<P>
The Commission supports the Slovak people's aspirations to advance along the path of integration into the Community, but the Commission will remain particularly vigilant with regard to the need to respect fundamental rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>

B4-0320/98 by Mr Goerens and Mr Bertens, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on Cambodia; -B4-0333/98 by Mr Habsburg-Lothringen, Mr Rinsche and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the PPE Group, on Cambodia; -B4-0343/98 by Mr Swoboda, Mr Titley, Mr Harrison and Mrs Pollack, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the situation in Cambodia; -B4-0351/98 by Mr Pasty and Mr Azzolini, on behalf of the UPE Group, on the situation in Cambodia; -B4-0364/98 by Mr Hory, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the situation in Cambodia; -B4-0367/98 by Mr Pettinari and Mrs Sierra González, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the situation in Cambodia; -B4-0376/98 by Mr Telkämper and Ms McKenna, on behalf of the V Group, on Cambodia.


<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, the Commission has announced the allocation of ECU 9.5 million to the Cambodia elections.
We cannot remain silent over the fact that this is our taxpayers' money and that, on that account, we, as their representatives, have not only the right but also the duty to ensure that this money is well spent.
<P>
The donation of this amount should therefore be strictly subject to compliance with the many conditions listed in paragraph 3 of the draft joint resolution.
Otherwise, there would be no reason for allocating money to achieve aims, such as, for example, the training of independent local journalists and observers which, in view of the current situation in Cambodia, would be difficult to achieve.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, on 11 February this year the vice-president of the Cambodian parliament, Mr Son Soubert, let slip in a private conversation that he thought the way the present prime minister seized power last year amounted to a coup d'état.
The result was soon in evidence. Legal action was taken against him, his immunity was removed, the case is being heard and he will soon be on his way to prison.
Today we have learned that the Cambodian government led by Hun Sen has also decided to do more to exclude the smaller parties from the election.
<P>
This is the situation we currently have in Cambodia and it is, unfortunately, in the very sad tradition of this country.
However, it would be very questionable if we now took a risk and said that the Commission, and therefore the European Union, was willing to give Cambodia a sum of ECU 10.5 million in aid to fight the elections.
It would be questionable firstly because in practice we would not be maintaining solidarity with a lot of other countries who say that they could not give out money to this kind of dictatorial regime - most other countries do not give out money anyway; and secondly, we would be skating on very thin ice as this could be seen as setting a precedent for other countries. However, the main reason is that the Commission has let it be known that the money will be paid out in any event, even if certain parties - including the party of democratically elected Prince Ranariddh - are not allowed to take part in the elections.
We could be establishing a very bad precedent here and we should be careful.
We should be trying to get the Commission to reconsider the allocation of this money or to write a report on Cambodia in the course of the next one or two months to see whether it is sensible to actually pay this money.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="Harrison">
Mr President, it is now two years since Parliament's delegation visited Phnom Penh during a rare period of political stability in Cambodia.
A rise in military and political violence has since ensued, including the flight of some 65 000 civilians to safety in Thailand.
Now a new window of opportunity opens, encouraged by the Japanese: a peace plan signed in Manila.
We can only hope this new initiative succeeds, especially because the EU will be providing ECU 9.5 million to help prepare for the proposed elections in Cambodia later this year.
We have to be sure that we are not being taken for a ride by Second Prime Minister Hun Sen, whose supporters have been largely responsible for the recent violence and political instability.
In this respect it is crucial that EU support for the electoral process is conditional: the elections must be free and fair, with opposition politicians allowed to return and participate; with equal access to the media guaranteed for all parties who wish to participate; with the infamous media sub-decree annulled which outrageously defines any critic of the government as a traitor; with the displaced fugitives able to return freely to Cambodia from Thailand; with the repatriation of Prince Norodom Ranariddh, as provided for by the Manila peace plan.
<P>
If these conditions are not fulfilled, then we should be prepared to call for a second postponement of the elections.
It is more important to ensure that these elections are meaningful than to hold deformed elections which ratify the Hun Sen coup. Peace 'comes dropping slow' to Cambodia.
We can only hope that the Manila peace plan can be made to work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, on the eve of the negotiations for a cooperation agreement with Cambodia two years ago, I expressed the hope here that our support would take on a kind of conflict preventative role in the country.
But, as you know, Mr President, the international efforts were of no avail.
The situation is escalating; there are summary executions, and refugees.
<P>
Clearly there is no future in trying to influence from the outside a country which is still struggling to recover from genocide and which is suffering from a trial of strength between members of the royal family and those of a different political persuasion.
That is why, under the current circumstances, it is not a very good idea to allocate ECU 9.5 million for the elections.
This strikes me as throwing money down the drain.
It would be much better if, at the coming summit in London, the leaders of ASEAN give a signal together with the EU.
This does not mean that the human rights organizations and the refugees do not thoroughly deserve our support, however.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hory">
Mr President, if the recent history of Cambodia had not been so terribly tragic, you could be tempted to say that its political life has truly reached the heights of exoticism. A former dictator disappears, then reappears.
An exiled monarch refuses to pardon his son.
A neighbour who not so long ago made itself out to be the victim of imperialism establishes a protectorate over Cambodia. A joint Prime Minister drives out the other with spells, muzzles the press, puts his opponents in prison and nevertheless claims to be organizing democratic elections.
And hovering in the background is the memory of the excesses of the Khmer Rouge, there to remind us that at any moment Cambodia could slide once more into the worst of horrors.
<P>
The Group of the European Radical Alliance considers that the European Union must demand the return, or the unconditional liberation, of opponents, the organization of free and fair elections and the strict respect of agreements concluded in Paris in 1991.
We would like to say to the Commission in particular that, without the unambiguous agreement of the current authorities on these three points, any aid to the organization of elections would merely be a ratification of Mr Hun Sen's dictatorship.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Pettinari">
Mr President, as stated, Cambodia is experiencing an extremely worrying time in its history.
After the violence of recent months, that has led to the replacement of Prince Ranariddh in the government of Phnom Penh, the country is currently committed to an electoral process in which the international community holds great hopes.
<P>
The 26 July elections should be the real test for the political desires of Hu Sen to allow room for democracy in his country.
For this reason, I wish to express my concern at the political climate in which preparations are being made for these elections.
We are witnessing threats and violations of human rights which are certainly not the best premise for a fair and free election and, at any event, any delays may make the situation worse.
<P>
The work carried out by the Commission in Cambodia has been positive, as has been the support plan for the elections.
This is probably not enough, however, so the Commission should contribute towards ensuring that, both technically and politically, the elections are transparent and democratic and ensure a balanced access for all the Cambodian political forces, for the national mass media and for the means of propaganda.
<P>
The Phnom Penh authorities should be reminded that the full inclusion of Cambodia in the international community and the approval of the Cooperation Agreement between the European Union and Cambodia for which I am the rapporteur, an approval which was rightly suspended while awaiting further developments in the situation, depends on the organization of the legislative elections of 26 July.
<P>
I also believe that the Japanese peace plan for Cambodia, adopted in Manila, should be supported, particularly with regard to the military truce that would restore a certain amount of peace to the country and thereby favour the elections.
I therefore hope that the Commission can continue to work to this effect and, if democratic elections are held, the money, which is of such concern to my colleagues in this debate, will be well spent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
Mr President, elections should be taking place in Cambodia on 26 July 1998 and perhaps they still will.
The Commission has set aside ECU 9.5 million by way of aid.
Cambodia signed the peace agreement in 1991.
I think we all hoped that these elections would become democratic elections.
Over the past few months we have discussed Cambodia a lot, condemning the increasing violence and condemning the fact that the second prime minister, Hun Sen, seized power.
As things stand at the moment, it looks to me as if he is leading the country into a new dictatorship.
<P>
We therefore have to ask the Commission what it intends to do with the election aid, this ECU 9.5 million, which after all is presumably tax money.
We in the budgetary authority had hoped - just as the Commission had hoped - that this money would be used to ensure fair and free elections.
Will this money still be paid, Commissioner, or not?
In my opinion, we should link it to political conditions to the effect that the political leaders of all parties can return, their return is permitted, free elections are held, there is freedom of assembly, independence of the judiciary is guaranteed and a debate is held at the ASEM summit among the ASEAN countries and between ASEM members and the governments of the European Union on the future of Cambodia and these elections or the pace of democratization.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, I will not repeat what other Members have already said, that would be of little use to you, but I have grave misgivings about that fact that the European Union is allocating ECU 9.5 million to elections of which we do not even know whether the authorities have the political will to hold them in the way we wish to hold them.
What are these ECU 9.5 million for?
To train people, to install equipment in order for the elections to be held smoothly.
I think this is putting the cart before the horse.
During the gigantic operation of four years ago, at which I was an observer together with former Commissioner and Member of this Parliament Mr Cheysson, Mr Cheysson and I made a plea for Europe to continue monitoring and for it not to assume that once the elections were over, everything would automatically be fine afterwards.
I believe we failed in this.
And we will most definitely fail if, a few months before the elections - for which we are laying down some conditions - we think that they can be held simply because we donate money to them.
I am an optimist by nature and in attitude, but I think it will become an extremely difficult task, and I fully agree with Mr Telkämper that we must ensure that the neighbouring countries discuss what should be done with Cambodia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="de Silguy">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union firmly condemns the Prime Minister's forced expulsion of Prince Ranariddh, along with the violence perpetrated in July 1997.
<P>
May I remind you that the Commission consequently decided to suspend all aid programmes with, of course, the exception of actions directly benefiting the people.
<P>
However, in order to stabilize the situation, free, transparent and democratic elections are clearly needed, as Mr Pettinari states.
That is why the Commission and Member States have anticipated a one-off action of support for an amount of ECU 9.5 million.
These funds are aimed at enabling the Cambodian authorities to bring the elections planned for 26 July to a successful conclusion.
<P>
If the conditions under which this is carried out do not respect the principles of liberty and equality, the European Commission, after consultation with Member States, could suspend this aid.
The conditions which I have just mentioned are an integral part of this financing convention, as signed and ratified by the Cambodian authorities last January, at the time of its official signing in Phnom Penh.
<P>
Furthermore, may I remind you, Mr Telkämper, that the European Union is already working in cooperation with the group of friends of Cambodia, the ASEAN troika and the United Nations in order to set up a system for monitoring the pluralist nature of these elections.
<P>
Finally, particular attention will be given to Prince Ranariddh's second trial, which starts on 17 March. Developments in the political situation will be assessed and, if need be, the directions adopted with regard to the organization of legislative elections will be revised.
<P>
In any case, I can assure you of the goodwill and desire of the Commission to be scrupulously vigilant regarding the implementation of the conditions linked to the disbursement of aid.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lenz">
<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, I know that governments like the one in Colombia follow this kind of debate with great interest, with more interest than they would be followed in my country.
As far as Columbia is concerned were are faced with the problem of who is exactly doing what?
We have a country which is really governed by the drugs mafia, which is controlled, in the military sense of the word, by paramilitary groups and which is run, for better or for worse, by the government.
The murder of the chairman of the permanent commission on human rights, Valle Jaramillo, whom I knew personally, is of course, terrible.
It is going too far to say the government is guilty, but the government is in fact guilty of everything they have not been able to monitor, of what they should have stopped.
But let us at least say from within this Parliament to the Columbian people, the Columbian government and above all to the Members here in this Parliament, as Mrs Lenz has said, that we are holding out our hand, we are trying to help you, so let us help you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="Howitt">
Mr President, on 27 February three people claiming to be members of the Brigade broke into the Medellín office of human rights lawyer Jesús María Valle Jaramillo.
The gunmen tied him and his wife to a chair and, as she pleaded for their lives, the Brigade member told her: ' His time has come' .
Dr Jaramillo was then shot in the head and killed.
<P>
Local human rights groups believe Dr Jaramillo died because he had evidence that the army and top politicians sponsor paramilitary death squads in Colombia, a belief backed by the findings of Colombia's own Fiscalía or Prosecutor-General's Office, and that this was an extrajudicial execution undertaken precisely by them in order to silence him.
<P>
We welcome the condemnation already issued by the government of Colombia. But we ask it to note that Dr Jaramillo had been denounced by the Governor of Antioquia for his criticisms of the military and that no local politicians have publicly lamented his death; that the human rights groups recorded 796 cases of extrajudicial executions in just nine months last year and that, despite the welcome bringing forward of the military penal code reform bill and the setting up of the Bloque de Bósqueda to combat paramilitary groups, military courts continue to acquit members of the security forces implicated in crimes against humanity.
<P>
In addition to our condemnation of human rights abuse, of violence on all sides, there are two areas where we in Europe must take specific action.
First, we must press to support the work of the United Nations Human Rights Commission Office in Bogotá, to consider its reports, to extend its funding and to request consideration of the appointment of a special rapporteur to work with the office in Colombia itself.
Second, when Commissioner Marín replied to my parliamentary question last year that human rights groups could not contribute to the ending of violence in Colombia, I hope that he and his Commission colleagues have further reflected on that answer.
<P>
It is only by rigorous, free and independent monitoring on all sides in Colombia, to which human rights groups provide a courageous and unique contribution, that impunity will be challenged and that a climate of respect for peace and for human rights will be created.
The European Union can, and must, provide more financial support for this work and, in doing so, we will honour the work of Dr Jaramillo and ensure that his death was not in vain.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, as the last speaker said, the brutal killing of this human rights activist is unacceptable, and the fact that the government there seems totally unwilling to do anything to protect the lives of its citizens is appalling.
The paramilitary groups have to be dismantled, the crimes have to be investigated, and those responsible have to be held accountable.
<P>
An average of ten persons are killed per day in Colombia because of socio-political violence.
The strategy of the government is completely unacceptable.
It says that there cannot be respect for human rights as long as there is armed conflict.
These two processes cannot be linked - it is just not acceptable.
Paramilitary groups are a result of clandestine military strategy, and that has to be taken into account.
<P>
Parliament also has to insist that the Council and Commission must do more than just send recommendations: they have to state clearly that the Colombian government puts into danger the relations between the EU and Colombia.
As there is a human rights violation suspension clause in cooperation agreements, we should think about sanctions.
It is something that has to be addressed.
The EU Member States present at the Human Rights Commission in Geneva this month should take a clear position in order to undermine the material profits of those who help to undermine the lives of defenders of human rights, trade union groups and environmentalists.
We really have to do something more than just adopting resolutions.
This has come up over and over again and it is about time action was taken.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, we have received petitions from non-governmental organizations who work on the spot in Colombia and they tell us that 1 900 people were killed between October 1996 and March 1997.
Most of the victims are farmers, trade unionists and human rights activists.
Today we are talking about Jesús María Valle Jaramillo, and we must remember that both he and Josué Girardo have been here in this Parliament explaining the human rights situation in Colombia to the Members. Now they are both dead.
<P>
I must admit that I am becoming very frustrated since we continue to condemn the events that are taking place yet we are unable to prevent the deaths of two human rights activists.
Moreover, there is no doubt - according to our friends in the NGOs who work there, in farmers' organizations and in human rights organizations among others - that there is total impunity, and that the paramilitary groups are responsible for 76 % of the murders there.
Mr Samper had said that the paramilitary groups were in fact going to be disarmed. We have also received a note from the Colombian Embassy informing us of the creation of a peace council in Colombia.
However, if the European Union cannot prevent the continuing murders of human rights activists, that will only turn into a jungle.
<P>
In the last resolution adopted here, we remembered the murder of a couple, Mario Calderón and Elsa Alvarado, as well as her father who was also killed. They were young university students, and human rights activists who belonged to the CINEP, a very prestigious Centre for popular education and research in Colombia.
I do not know who is going to try to defend human rights in Colombia with all these murders.
I believe that the European Union has ways of exerting pressure and that, as Mr Howitt and others pointed out, it should increase the funds available to our office there and we should appoint a special rapporteur to promote human rights.
In addition, the European Commission should do all in its power in the context of its agreements with Colombia to ensure that no more events like these occur in the future, because every time somebody comes here to tell us about the situation, he is immediately assassinated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
Mr President, we have all followed the violent events that have taken place recently in Colombia, and I mean all .
Of course, we regret the death of Mr Valle Jaramillo, but yesterday 90 soldiers were buried with their faces blown off, and we should also regret the violent acts carried out by military and paramilitary groups.
I remember that the Colombian Minister for Foreign Affairs displayed before this Parliament her government's commitment to combating the impunity there and to arresting all those who encourage and promote the actions of the paramilitary organizations.
<P>
This commitment has been confirmed through a series of actions, Mr President. An office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has been set up in Colombia, agreements have been signed with the International Red Cross, a special section has been created within the Office of the Public Prosecutor to combat paramilitary activity, and finally, a national commission for human rights has been set up.
<P>
It is evident, Mr President, that all this is still not enough.
The European Union must follow this process very closely and we need to ensure that one of the oldest democracies in Latin America puts an end to this conflict which has lasted 40 years. We naturally regret this situation and must show our solidarity with and support for the victims and their relatives, in this case, those of Mr Valle Jaramillo.
<P>
Nicaragua
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="Newens">
Mr President, despite the fact that a large proportion of the population of Nicaragua is desperately poor, Nicaragua has the highest debt per head in the world.
Last year 38 % of the annual export earnings of US$700 million was pre-empted for debt servicing.
The Nicaraguan government spent US$17 on health and US$16 on education per head of population, but about one-and-a-half times the combined total, US$47.40 per head, was spent on debt servicing last year.
Meanwhile, tax increases caused by the implementation of the IMF structural adjustment package have increased poverty and, to save money, much-needed credits previously available to poor farmers have been cut.
It is an outrage that people who can barely scrape together enough to keep body and soul together should be squeezed to pay back loans to the rich.
The fact is that Nicaragua cannot possibly meet the interest of capital repayments on its debt in the long term, and its commitments are almost double the 20 % of export earnings set as a ceiling by the World Bank in its highly-indebted countries initiative.
<P>
Earlier this year I wrote to the British Foreign Office to ask that Nicaragua should be included in the heavily-indebted poor countries initiative, particularly in view of Nicaragua's success in meeting structural adjustment targets, and to ask that this should be pressed at the Consultative Group meeting in April this year.
This particular resolution follows up that initiative, and pressure must be put on all the parties at the Consultative Group meeting to give relief at last to this long-suffering country.
<P>
There are many other needs which need to be fulfilled, particularly in the social sector, and aid needs to be continued. But the first step is to deal with this question of debt, and action must be taken on that at the earliest possible date.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, three years ago we visited the European Union's projects in Nicaragua: a health centre in a village for those demobilized from the war, and a school.
And both the Nicaraguan authorities - the government is currently headed by Mr Violeta Chamorro - and the leaders of the opposition talked to us about the terrible debt problem they face.
Our resolution states that 38 % of development cooperation is used to pay the external debt.
They told us that at that time the figure was in fact 40 %.
Moreover, and we do not know why, some countries are fashionable for a while and then they go out of fashion.
The general aid that Nicaragua received from countries throughout the world has now been more than halved.
Nicaragua is one of the poorest countries and it has the highest per capita debt in the world.
<P>
We know that the European Union is already taking action in this respect and that the development cooperation from the United States and Japan, to name just two world powers, is much lower that than provided by the European Union.
Nevertheless, we believe, when discussing democracies with such energy and Latin American democracies in particular, that democracy will not be possible if, as both the leaders of the government and the opposition told us, 70 % of the population in Nicaragua lives in absolute poverty and there is 50 % unemployment, without any aid or subsidies.
As long as 50 % of the population is unemployed and does not receive any assistance, and as long as 70 % of the population experiences such extreme poverty and the country has such a high level of external debt, democracy there will be purely nominal.
Real democracy is what can and must solve the population's problems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as Mrs Álvarez has just pointed out, Nicaragua is one of the poorest countries in the world.
60 % of the population is unemployed, many people are no longer able to afford a doctor, hospital care, and so on.
What is more, the country is burdened by such an enormous foreign debt that the greater part of most of any new money coming in goes towards paying the interest on the debt.
<P>
A meeting is to be convened in Geneva in the near future during which, under normal circumstances, it would be possible to negotiate the cancellation of that debt.
Everything now depends on the spirit in which this happens.
If it is only a classic offer along the lines of this and that debt will be cancelled, but instead you will have to introduce heavy adjustment programmes, it will lead to less money for schools, hospitals, and so on, and that does not get us any further.
Which is why we are making a clear plea to link cancellation of the debt to social aid programmes, so that the real problems can be tackled simultaneously.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, there is no doubt that of all the Central American countries Nicaragua has long been one of the most pleasant and one of the most tragic.
I myself have been to Nicaragua and have seen the situation there for myself.
Nicaragua suffered a really terrible civil war, of which we were very often shown a misleading picture here.
In spite of this, the people of Nicaragua have actually managed to bring a responsible liberal democrat party to power in the form of the present government and in particular its current head of state, President Alamán.
<P>
What is more, the relatively revolutionary Sandinista party have now chosen the way of democracy and freedom, which became evident during the current crisis surrounding Ortega.
From this perspective we can say one thing: it is simply not logical for Nicaragua to be one of the world's poorest countries.
Anyone who has been there knows that there is massive potential there; anyone who has been there knows that the people there are precious and we should do everything in our power to help the Nicaraguans out of this situation, especially under the leadership of its current president.
<P>
The only way we can achieve this is by relieving the burden of debt.
I am not saying that it should be written off completely as that would be wrong but we should do all we can to give the Nicaraguans the opportunity to actually build up their country, to develop the great resources that exist there - and these are first and foremost human resources - and, above all, to pursue policies that are consistent with this country's great cultural Spanish tradition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, capitalist, oligarchic families and romantic, revolutionary Marxist elites have impoverished Nicaragua.
All the country has is coffee, and that does not get you very far on the world market.
I sincerely hope the donors will save the country.
But this is not the subject we should be giving priority to this morning during the debate on human rights.
It is my view that we should be talking about classic human rights.
That is why my group had wanted to speak about Cuba.
There are over 500 political prisoners in Cuba, and yet this Parliament continues to flirt with the líder maximo from a completely misplaced feeling of solidarity.
If Havana puts it a little bit more effort into it, it will actually manage to join the Lomé Convention with the 500 prisoners still behind bars.
Small wonder the voters have no confidence in this Parliament, which is highly selective in its judgement of human rights violations.
<P>
North Korea
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I think we simply have to recognize that a massive human tragedy is taking place in North Korea.
It is irresponsible of the North Korean government, in the face of the famine which has long been on the cards, to continue to try to prevent the international community from learning about the suffering of its people.
It is simply a tragedy beyond understanding that at a time when there are food surpluses throughout the world, a people, and in particular small children and elderly people, have to suffer a famine which need not have arisen in the first place if the regime had simply been open about its internal problems.
The North Korean government will eventually have to allow a delegation to enter the country to investigate the extent of the famine and find the best way of helping the people in the country, not only in the large cities but also in the countryside and in the remote regions, as the emergency may be even worse there than in the showpiece regions which the North Korean government is always inviting us to visit.
<P>
I also believe that the Commission - and I hope, Commissioner, that the Commission sees this as we do - along with the Member States should provide additional food aid for North Korea and increase assistance for medical care for children and elderly people.
I am not sure that we can use threats to get North Korea to comply with our notions of human rights and accept our normal humanitarian offer of assistance.
However, it is vital that we make it clear to the North Koreans that their country is a country which can and must receive assistance from all over the world and that we find the suffering of its people unacceptable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, we are going to help North Korea.
Let us say first of all that the origin of the disasters, the natural disasters which have taken place there, can be partly found in the way the North Korean dictators rule the country.
The Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party is of course in favour of humanitarian aid for North Korea.
This should be increased - food, primary medical aid - and I hope the Commission will in any case be able to give me an answer as to how this will be monitored, not in order to be a busybody, but to ensure that the people of North Korea - as Mr Jarzembowski has already pointed out, the children and the needy - do indeed have access to this aid.
<P>
I would like to ask the Commissioner to insist that, in future, some kind of cooperation agreement is set up with the government of North Korea.
In relation to this I wonder if I could point out to you the three amendments submitted by the Liberal group, by Mr Cars.
<P>
For the future the Commission should lay the foundation for more structural assistance.
Strengthening the agricultural sector, for instance, is extremely important, and stable development of North Korea will contribute to this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, part of the reason why this subject is back on the agenda again - we discussed the matter as recently as October - is that two things have changed: firstly, it is very clear that the 1997 harvest was as bad as the 1996 harvest; and secondly, for the first time the North Koreans have actually admitted the full extent of the food crisis.
<P>
At the end of February the North Korean News Agency announced that, even with the daily cereal ration cut to a starvation ration of 100 grammes per person per day, cereals would be completely exhausted by the middle of this month.
<P>
Already prior to this the UN figures suggested that 17 % of the children in North Korea were suffering from malnutrition.
It is true that they have suffered an unparalleled series of natural disasters - flood, tidal waves and drought - yet we are all aware that one of the problems is the systemic failure of the country's economy.
Without Soviet aid and Chinese countertrade the economy is in severe difficulty.
The economy is winding down - lack of fuel means energy blackouts.
That means industrial production is falling.
Fertilizer production is down by 60 %, which means that less food is produced and round the vicious circle goes again.
<P>
If we are to avert a natural disaster more help is needed.
Emergency food aid needs to be channelled into North Korea, not only from the European Union - we were the biggest single donors last year - but also from South Korea, Japan and the United States.
<P>
One of the problems is that North Korea is still effectively a closed country.
We need to make sure that people are allowed in there - a delegation from Parliament to give some assessment of the needs, both in terms of food, medical supplies and energy.
The Foreign Affairs, Energy and Budgets Committees are currently in the process of preparing a joint report on the KEDO project, in which the European Union is participating with Japan, South Korea and the Americans in helping provide two nuclear reactors to generate power for North Korea.
<P>
With Kim Dae Jung taking office in South Korea and with a new leader recently installed in post in North Korea, there is a window of opportunity to heal a political sore which has been festering dangerously for half a century.
We should make sure we exploit it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Mr President, once again we are discussing North Korea here in the European Parliament.
Unfortunately this will not be the last time, because the report which came recently from the German Red Cross is horrifying.
That organization estimates that 10 000 children under the age of seven are dying of hunger each month, and tens of thousands more are suffering from severe malnutrition.
The situation is more than serious.
<P>
The North Korean committee for the restoration of food losses has said that current stocks of cereals are going to be exhausted in the middle of March, in other words, this weekend.
There is no doubt that greater humanitarian efforts are needed in the form of food, and also in the form of medical aid, in order to reach the base level for the existing needs.
At the same time the reality of the EU's actions in North Korea is that while all these people, especially children, are suffering from malnutrition, the EU through Euratom, together with other countries, is going to build two new nuclear power stations in North Korea for a sum which in this case is substantial.
How are we going to justify ourselves to the children who are suffering from malnutrition and are even dying of hunger and who need emergency aid?
Where are the social, humane aspects of these double standards from the EU?
<P>
The Green group wants the construction of new nuclear power stations through KEDO to be stopped, or at least suspended temporarily until it has been possible to relieve the acute human catastrophe in North Korea.
<P>
The Green group supports the text of the joint resolution.
However, we do not want this text to say that we support KEDO, which is not in fact in the text. We simply accept and recognize that there is an energy problem in North Korea which we do not however think can be solved through nuclear power.
Instead there is a need for other energy sources which can represent the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hory">
Mr President, the Group of the European Radical Alliance wanted to raise the following question through the initiative of this motion for a resolution. Must hundreds of thousands of Koreans die of starvation so that the international community can judge the North Korean regime for what it is, that is, one of the worst dictatorships the world has ever known?
<P>
We now know, by admission of the Pyongyang authorities themselves, that the population of this country is hit by a terrible shortage of food which forces them to eat bark and other vegetable waste and, if rumours can be believed, in extreme cases, even human flesh.
<P>
We pretend to put this human drama down to the weather.
The floods of 1995 and 1996 certainly worsened the structural shortages being caused by the political, economic and social regime of North Korea.
Yet at the same time, the authorities continued to squander exorbitant sums of money on the military budget and on ceremonial expenditure.
<P>
Today, it is only the North Koreans' intransigence, verging on autism, which prevents the international community from coming rapidly and effectively to the aid of a civil population which has literally been taken hostage.
<P>
In all parts of the world, communism has been finally and categorically judged by history and overwhelmingly held responsible for the ruin of the countries subjected to it.
However, North Korea continues along the path of international isolation, state control of the economy and arrogant warmongering with regard to South Korea.
<P>
In the interests of the Koreans themselves, the international community must no longer tolerate this.
I would like the Commission to keep us informed with regard to the initiatives it is taking both to help the United Nations intervene rapidly on behalf of the civil population affected and to break with this logic of collective suicide to which the sinister North Korean regime has committed its people.
<P>
Congo
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, the so-called Congo Brazzaville risks no longer being a state, and even, in some ways, risks never having been one.
Since power was forcibly seized by Sassou-N'guesso, the country is, in fact, in a paradoxical situation, to say the least.
On the one hand, the government has essentially become a one-party government and, on the other, many private forces, formed on an ethnic basis, are dividing the territory and fighting interminably between themselves: a situation elegantly described in French political terminology as "un chaos borné' , limited chaos.
<P>
The Commission therefore needs to block any aid to Congo not intended for humanitarian aid or the development of the weaker sectors of society until the situation changes in that country.
I am appealing to your prudence, Commissioners, for the necessary, useful and appropriate measures to be adopted to achieve this aim.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, last year Mr Sassou-Ngesso seized power once again, after heavy fighting.
Angola gave him considerable support in this. Meanwhile, the constitution has been suspended, parliament and the constitutional court have been dissolved, the constitutional council no longer exists, and so on and so forth.
It is obvious that there is a move towards further dictatorship and less democracy.
Well, I would like to point out that one of the biggest economic changes which have been implemented by the new president is the lowering of the oil taxes, which Elf Acquitaine have to pay.
So they benefit.
It will come as little surprise that the President of the same country, Congo - and this has evolved entirely as a result of dictatorial practices - has meanwhile been warmly received at the Elysée .
But, it is essentially clear that the European Union, if it wants to be serious, should make a stand. It is also remarkable that there was very little reaction to the coup which took place last year.
That is why the resolutions before us state very clearly that free elections must be organized, that the Council must be able to speak with one voice - although we are quite used to the fact that it is often a cacophony - and that financial aid from the Union to Congo must remain frozen, except for that part which affects people directly, humanitarian aid, so that we are doing something for the poorest sections of the population.
I hope we will manage to obtain a clear position from this Parliament, and that the Commission and the Council will act in response to this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, could I remind Mrs Aelvoet that, last year during urgent and topical debates, Mr Hory and I did indeed draw attention to Congo-Brazzaville, but at that time the other Members clearly did not think it was particularly worthwhile.
<P>
It is extremely sad that there is so much oil around the equator.
Foreign companies are quick to exploit it, and are particularly keen to do so in conjunction with dictators.
It is the case in Congo-Brazzaville, it was and is the case in Luanda, in Angola, it is the case in the former autonomous region of Kabinda.
The resolution on Congo-Brazzaville would have been useful as a signal last year.
Now we have had a change of government, the old dictator is back, and the Angolan troops and mercenaries are still present.
<P>
My group considers it very important that aid for the people of Congo-Brazzaville is intensified, and has submitted an amendment to this effect.
Since Kabila has captured the heart of Africa, a few things have changed in the region, but none of the changes benefit democracy or the people.
Although a peace process in Angola is taking place for the outside world to see, insiders know - as the Portuguese Member of another political persuasion assured me only two hours ago - that the government leader is preparing for a large-scale offensive to destroy the official opposition for good.
<P>
The oil profits in Angola are all going into buying arms, and will continue to do so over the coming years.
As far as I know a Lomé country is only eligible for EU assistance if no more than 2 % of its budget is allocated to arms.
Commissioner, could you check scrupulously whether a country like Angola, which is buying so many weapons, is complying with the Lomé Convention, and could you check whether the EU money is benefiting all people of Angola, not merely the elite.
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<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, there seems to be a little confusion, because the previous speaker kept talking about Angola.
Anyway, I suppose it is near Congo.
I should think only very few people in Europe know where Congo is, what is happening there, and what has been happening over the past few years in the vicinity of the political and military force in Zaire.
<P>
What we are observing - and Mrs Aelvoet already gave an indication of this - is the powerlessness of the Council to take initiatives; and indeed, a cacophony of messages comes out of Brussels which may have something to do with resolving the crisis in Congo.
<P>
Let us hope that, whilst the authoritarian regime in Brazzaville is still in power, the European Commission is prepared to stop all humanitarian aid, except for the aid which goes to the very poorest.
This is the most important instrument Europe could use to put pressure on the authorities at least; and perhaps we can see to it - as suggested by the previous two speakers - that the European trade interests are given a somewhat more humane character.
<P>
Jamaica
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
This is a very interesting situation, Mr President.
The Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party submitted a resolution on Jamaica's pulling out of the optional protocol to the International Convention on Human Rights.
If a protocol is optional, the Jamaican government must have thought, then we can leave it voluntarily.
This may be right, but the most important thing in this issue is that it gives out the wrong signal.
It has already turned out that the governments of Barbados, and Trinidad and Tobago, want to do the same.
I have a beautifully written note from the Minister of Foreign Affairs, or from the prime minister of Jamaica, and I can only conclude that this pulling out of the optional protocol is related to the ease with which Jamaica wishes to defend itself on the re-introduction of the death penalty.
I hope that this might be raised at the ACP meeting in Mauritius soon.
In other words, we are not condemning Jamaica, but we are asking, in the form of an opinion, was this really necessary?
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<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, thank God that Parliament debates the death penalty time and again, in most cases even unanimously, but not always, I am sorry to say.
The good thing about the present case is the fact that we are talking about a theoretical case here and not a practical one which we would have to prevent immediately.
<P>
However, in the debate on Jamaica's withdrawal from the optional protocol we should not forget that people who live in glass houses should not throw stones.
There are a number of Member States of the European Union which, citing the same grounds as Jamaica, have not signed the same optional protocol which we are now calling on Jamaica to sign, for example the United Kingdom, as well as other large countries such as the United States of America, Japan and - as far as I am aware - eighteen other large countries.
<P>
I am convinced that we should be consistent in our opposition to the death penalty here in Parliament but we should not be too quick to condemn when we should actually be putting our own house in order.
<P>
Syria
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 NAME="Moorhouse">
Mr President, about a month ago I received a delegation of Lebanese men and women in my office in Brussels who were clearly in a distressed state.
They were men and women with relatives who had been abducted from their homes or offices and taken, apparently, to Syria where they had disappeared without trace.
In one or two cases the families knew more or less the whereabouts of those who had been abducted.
One particular case that I remember was of a lady who came along with the group and said that she had not heard anything about her son for six years until someone else had come to her home and said that particular person had been in a certain prison, possibly in Damascus.
That was a dire situation and the question is what we would do about it.
It is one of the characteristics perhaps of the European Parliament that we are able to highlight or raise the profile of cases of this sort and that is the main purpose of this resolution which has been tabled in my name and also on behalf of the European People's Party.
<P>
Remarkably, just a few days ago we had news that quite a large number of people in this situation who had been abducted were indeed released.
I have not referred to the number of abductions by the way; they probably, in total, amount to no less then 200 and the releases account for possibly as many as 121.
It is nice to think that perhaps our resolution has already played a part but we will never know if that is so.
But there are certainly others waiting to be released and so one hopes that the Syrian government, not least in the light of the fact that negotiations are due to start in the near future about a possible further association agreement within the Euro-Med programme, will take note of this and act accordingly to release the people where no charge has been preferred.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 NAME="de Silguy">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will begin with Colombia.
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It was with great shock that the Commission learnt of the assassination of Jesús María Valle Jaramillo, President of the Permanent Committee for Human Rights in Colombia who, as Mrs González Álvarez has just mentioned, recently visited this House.
The Commission strongly condemns this act and notes the decision to set up a special committee within the Fiscalía general de la Nación in order to investigate this murder.
It also formally calls on the Colombian government to put all the necessary means in place to identify those responsible for this intolerable crime and to refer them to the courts for punishment.
<P>
The Commission fully shares Parliament's concerns, Mrs Lenz, regarding the development of the situation within Colombia which, as you said, has continued to deteriorate over the last few months.
Human rights in Colombia must be tackled not only with words but also with actions, Mrs González Álvarez.
<P>
The Commission is also convinced that any initiative aimed at isolating the country would only have the consequence of increasing the violence.
This is why the Commission is providing significant support to the strengthening of the rule of law and its efforts are three-fold in this respect.
Firstly, in reply to Mr Howitt, the Commission supports the work of the local office of the United Nations Human Rights Commission, having this year taken all necessary measures to ensure the office's continuing activity for a further year.
For reference, may I remind you that the Commission finances the costs of five international observers, who make up the majority of the staff of this office.
<P>
Secondly, the Commission supports the work of NGOs.
Colombia is considered a priority for resource allocation within the budget line "Democratization and human rights in Latin America' .
Many initiatives are currently being carried out, in cooperation with local NGOs.
<P>
Thirdly and finally, the Commission is also currently studying the possibility of providing special aid to the Colombian government with the aim of improving the way in which its legal institutions operate.
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Let me turn now to Nicaragua, whose difficulties seem to be of a more economic nature rather than relating to human rights in the strict sense.
Nicaragua's problems therefore fall more within my own sphere of competence.
<P>
In three years, Nicaragua's foreign debt has fallen from ECU 10 billion to 5.5 billion. This is a great success, which must be acknowledged.
Nevertheless, in spite of this strong reduction, the level of debt and the situation in Nicaragua remain extremely worrying, for the debt still represents - I am specifying this for Mr Newen's benefit - more than 250 % of GNP and debt repayments absorb the equivalent of 30 %, that is, nearly a third, of Nicaragua's income from exports, which by international standards is a considerable amount.
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The Nicaraguan government is going to ask for a reprogramming, a rescheduling, of its debt at the Paris Club.
<P>
The Commission shares the concerns of the House regarding the effects of such indebtedness on economic activity.
A solution must be found.
The Commission also believes that Nicaragua should be eligible for the initiative set up by the World Bank to improve debt servicing on the part of the most highly-indebted poor countries.
Nicaragua could thus continue along its rediscovered path of growth, which has occurred only in the last three years, after fifteen years of decline due to the armed conflict.
<P>
I would also like to remind you that any possible decisions regarding rescheduling, or reduction of the applicable rates, is a matter for the creditor states.
In Nicaragua's case, approximately US$4 billion of its US$5.5 billion debt comes from individual states, half of which is from Mexico and Russia.
Consequently, the major part of this debt must be rescheduled within the framework of the Paris Club which brings together the principle creditor states and which, Mrs Aelvoet, will meet during the first six months of this year.
<P>
I can reassure Mr Habsburg-Lothringen that it is not the custom of Finance Ministers to abandon debts.
They are rescheduled, that is, the payments are staggered.
The rest, of course, is down to the multilateral organizations, commencing with the InterAmerican Bank.
<P>
With regard to North Korea, the Commission shares Parliament's concerns regarding the gravity of the humanitarian and food situation in North Korea and this, Mr Hory, is of course independent of the judgement which can and must be made on the way in which the country is governed.
<P>
Since the first serious floods in 1995, the European Union has provided aid to the most vulnerable categories of people: children, the elderly and expectant mothers. In 1997, ECU 48 million was provided in food aid and ECU 20 million in aid for public health.
The Union thus became North Korea's principle donor. ECU 68 million is a great deal more than the KEDO contribution - Mr Ford, Mr Holm - which is ECU 15 million over five years.
It is also a way of avoiding nuclear proliferation in this region, as you know.
<P>
The volume of aid - both food and humanitarian - to be provided during 1998 is still being considered.
A decision will soon be taken by the Member States and I can assure Mr Jarzembowski that there will be both food aid and support to agriculture.
Indeed, the Commission shares Parliament's opinion, which I have heard here today, on the need to be better informed regarding developments in the situation.
<P>
This also assumes the granting of access facilities to NGOs and international bodies.
In any case, and Mr Bertens is right in this respect, aid is not a sufficient substitute for the adoption of structural measures to liberalize the economy. These are the only way of guaranteeing a lasting improvement in the economic, health and social situation of the country.
I can assure you that the Commission is doing its utmost to encourage the North Korean authorities to move in this direction.
<P>
Fifthly, I move on to Congo Brazzaville.
A declaration by the Presidency of the European Union on 3 November 1997 set out the Union's position regarding the bloody conflict which has engulfed Congo and regarding the resulting new political regime.
The Commission's action falls within this framework, following developments in the situation closely and paying particular attention to respect for the directions which were set by the National Forum for Unity, Democracy and Reconstruction.
The search for lasting peace and national reconciliation assumes, Mrs Aelvoet, the return of a regime legitimized by free, fair and transparent elections.
<P>
To this end, Mr Fassa, the Commission has committed itself to dialogue with the Congolese authorities and with representatives of the main political forces. This is with the aim of encouraging their participation in the reconstruction of the country and also encouraging them to contribute to the success of the transition to democracy.
Since the onset of the conflict, the European Union has provided humanitarian aid aimed only at the people, the poorest people, aid estimated at a total of ECU 11.5 million. Further aid will soon be mobilized, in cooperation with the NGOs.
<P>
The European Union is also preparing a reconstruction programme on behalf of civilian victims of the armed conflict.
However, any resumption of cooperation will be dependent upon progress achieved at the level of national reconciliation and political legitimization of the authorities.
In reply to Mrs van Bladel, who raised a question concerning Angola, although this is not really appropriate to the current discussion, I will say that the aid allocated is dependent on strict conditions set out in the Lomé Convention and that, there too, it concerns humanitarian and rehabilitation aid for the poorest and for the rural population.
<P>
Sixthly, I come to Jamaica.
The Commission regrets the Jamaican authorities' decision to terminate its signature of the first optional protocol to the International Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
Apart from the unfortunately frequent application of the death penalty, the effect of this decision will be to take away the people's right to refer issues directly to the United Nations Commission for Human Rights.
This precedent could also cause similar action on the part of other states in the region who are current signatories of the said protocol.
The Commission supports the declaration of the Presidency of the European Union requesting the Jamaican authorities to reconsider their position.
<P>
I will end with Syria by replying to Mr Moorhouse on the issue of human rights.
For once, we have a result and some good news, even if it is only partial.
The European Union has followed the issue of Lebanese prisoners detained in Syria closely.
The relevant working group within the Council had been asking for a report on the subject from the European Union's Head of Mission in Beirut since 1997.
Diplomatic initiatives taken since, on the basis of this work, have begun to bear fruit.
<P>
A settlement of the issue of Lebanese prisoners occurred on 3 March this year, with an unofficial declaration of the forthcoming liberation of the prisoners in the Beirut daily newspaper "El Nahar' .
The information was taken up the following day by the press as a whole and officially confirmed by the Lebanese authorities.
On 5 March, after a telephone conversation between Presidents Hraoui and Hafez el Assad, 121 prisoners were freed at Masna, on the Syrian-Lebanese border. They were taken by the Lebanese authorities to detention centres.
After verification of their identity and their police record, 86 were discharged by the Prosecutor of the Supreme Court of Appeals and 15 were retained in prison on common law charges such as drug trafficking and terrorism. They will be tried in the Lebanese courts.
<P>
This leaves - depending on your source - between 25 and 33 people suspected of breaches of national security.
Although accused of collaboration with Israel, Major Ketel Hayeck benefited from this liberation but remains charged in Lebanon, in connection with the trial regarding the assassination of the Prime Minister, Rachid Karamé.
<P>
The Commission will continue to follow this issue with the utmost attention and, of course, will take it into account within the framework of the impending negotiations of the cooperation or association agreement that was earlier mentioned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>

B4-0322/98 by Mr Bertens and Mr Fassa, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, on the situation in Sierra Leone; -B4-0334/98 by Mr Robles Piquer and Mrs Maij-Weggen, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the situation in Sierra Leone; -B4-0344/98 by Mr Vecchi, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the situation in Sierra Leone; -B4-0358/98 by Mr Aelvoet and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the situation in Sierra Leone; -B4-0360/98 by Mr Hory and Mr Macartney, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the situation in Sierra Leone; -B4-0371/98 by Mr Pettinari and Mr Jové Peres, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left, on the situation in Sierra Leone; -B4-0381/98 by Mr Pasty and Mr Azzolini, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, on the situation in Sierra Leone.




<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, President Kabbah, the democratically elected President of Sierra Leone, is back.
This, you might say, means that the military action by the United Nations and Organization of African Unity was successful.
The Organization of African Unity has thus for the first time departed from its policy not to involve itself in a military way in the affairs of neighbouring countries.
<P>
The situation is now as follows.
The President is occupying his post, his seat.
Meanwhile we have seen that the military action, in particular that of a number of neighbouring countries and especially Nigeria's, was not without bloodshed.
This should be questioned.
It is more important for the future, Commissioner, Mr President, that the Union soon starts to give support not for the things that went wrong during the past year, but during the past decades.
I thank you in advance for your consideration and understanding.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Robles Piquer">
Mr President, the motion for a resolution we have tabled aims to draw attention to a small, distant country - Sierra Leone. It is a country where everything appears to be horrible, except maybe the beauty of its countryside, the wealth of its land - although this wealth hides diamonds which are often the cause of tragedy - and the kindness of many of its inhabitants.
It is this kindness which, for example, led many of my fellow countrymen a few days ago to demonstrate their desire to return to Sierra Leone as soon as possible to carry out their work there as missionaries. They still wish to do this after having been kidnapped and used as human shields for two weeks by the defeated forces of the military junta which overthrew the democratically elected president.
<P>
The missionaries' statement was very simple: they said that they had suffered for a few days, but that the people of Sierra Leone were still suffering and were suffering much more.
When we read the terrible reports, as we did yesterday, about very young children who are able to cut off the heads or arms of their fellow countrymen with a machete, we really shudder at the hatred that has been instilled in them.
<P>
Therefore, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, our motion for a resolution, our request to the Commission, is to ask it to grant significant humanitarian aid, including special aid devoted to retrieving and rehabilitating these criminal children, to give them back the untainted childhood they deserve.
<P>
President Kabbah has an extremely difficult task ahead of him.
We must help him, particularly in examining his own conscience, since he must decide what the causes were behind the previous failure.
<P>
It is certainly not easy to elevate democracy in Africa, and it seems to be even more difficult in Sierra Leone.
It is our duty to help them, and not only through words.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="Whitehead">
Mr President, I am sure I am the only Member of this Parliament who was once an officer in the armed forces of Sierra Leone.
Relations of mine are still active in humanitarian agencies in that country. I give my heartfelt support to the motion from all seven political groups.
<P>
Sierra Leone was founded in freedom. Its capital is called Freetown.
The army barracks where I once served is named after Wilberforce, the anti-slavery campaigner.
It is tragic that it has been debauched and disfigured over many years by a series of military coups.
That of Major Johnny Paul Koroma is only the latest.
<P>
Sierra Leone has become a ruined country: it has the lowest life expectancy in Africa; its extractive industries have been pillaged; its people live in abject poverty.
So we welcome the return of President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah.
We want to strengthen democracy in this country.
But we cannot overlook the fact that General Sani Abacha of Nigeria has played a major part in this enterprise and that what has happened is not in accord with the Conakry agreement.
<P>
General Abacha made a speech in Freetown this week.
He said that for the first time in the history of the region a government that had come to power violently had been overthrown.
Some of us can think of another government in the region that came to power violently.
What does he think of his government which hangs opponents and jails election winners?
The European Parliament should use its best endeavours to see that Abacha's troops are withdrawn and that both humanitarian and military aid are given to enable President Kabbah to re-establish Sierra Leone's independence.
It should also see, by immediate representation to the Attorney-General, who has returned with President Kabbah, that due process is extended to the thousand people or more who have been arrested in Freetown, to avoid old scores being paid off against those who were never involved with the Koroma junta.
Humanitarian aid is now moving toward Bo and Kenema as well as towards the capital.
We in Europe should aid that.
<P>
My heart goes out to this beautiful country. We long for its genuine independence so that Freetown can become, once more, the capital of a free country.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if there is one country where it is clear for all to see how dramatic the effects of a civil war can be for a population when the state has fallen apart, then it is Sierra Leone.
Thankfully, there is some momentary improvement, but the question is how long this improvement will last, because it cannot be said that stability is guaranteed.
In the eastern part of the country, the conflict is continuing, and we know that the rebels are assaulting not only the local population, but also the development workers there at the moment.
Our great concern must be that in the short term the problem of hunger is tackled, because many people are now in a dire situation as a result of endless bad harvests.
Parliament is making a strong plea today for the services of ECHO to become active, and for them to ensure in conjunction with the UN that the food reaches the most needy.
For this reason alone it is useful that we are tackling this problem here today, but it is clear that, in view of the future, we will have to keep an eye on the further developments, the stability of the country, otherwise everything will start right from the beginning again.
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<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="Macartney">
Mr President, I echo the points Mr Whitehead made.
I did not realize he had such a distinguished past. But it is an enviable position to have been in - the West African Frontier Force in Sierra Leone.
<P>
I would like to echo some of the points he has made about the long traditions of Sierra Leone.
It is a country which has a long and sophisticated political tradition which has been brutally interrupted by the seizure of power by soldiers in the past.
This is a pattern which is only too familiar in many parts of Africa.
<P>
What we are now seeing, though, is another example of the new wave of re-democratization, which is something close to all our hearts in Parliament.
My plea to Parliament and the Commission is this: we often make criticisms of various regimes and situations, and we are not slow to come forward with them.
That is right. But now that we have a successful restoration of democracy in Sierra Leone let us please do something concrete to help.
Let us give some special, extra assistance to that beautiful country so that it can re-establish its democracy on a firm foundation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Pettinari">
Mr President, President Kabbah's return to Sierra Leone is a positive fact of great importance.
An unacceptable coup d'état had put an end to the country's first taste of democracy. Its commitment to the UN and to all those countries working towards the restoration of constitutional order and the re-establishment of a civil government needs to be implemented.
It is wrong to think their problems have been sorted out, there is still a lot to be done and the European institutions have to do their part.
<P>
Firstly, we need to resume political negotiations for national reconciliation, which were suddenly interrupted by General Koroma's coup, and we need to do this on the basis of the Conakry and Abidjan Agreements, because the military tension of today certainly cannot form the basis for a political reconstruction of the country.
<P>
Finally, I wish to express my great concern over the role played by Nigeria in Sierra Leone for, although it has partly contributed towards Kabbah's return, it risks taking the form of a search for military political control in the region that brings out the antidemocratic dictatorial nature of General Abacha's regime.
We hope the EU will take up a strong and clear position in this respect.
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<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my speech is connected with the previous one - it is a kind of photocopy of Mr Pettinari's speech, although that was not something we had agreed in advance, because we cannot fail to mention the fact that one of the main objectives of the draft resolution we are approving in this Parliament, in connection with Sierra Leone, is, from more than one viewpoint, the current Nigerian government, which, despite the agreements excluding any recourse to force, preferred to attack the capital of Sierra Leone, threatening the delicate political balances of this region it intends to control once again.
<P>
I therefore believe that we cannot talk about a common EU foreign security policy if the primary objective is not to ensure the delicate geopolitical stability of this area and I would like to know the Commission's point of view in that respect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="de Silguy">
Mr President, the political situation in Sierra Leone is becoming more favourable with the return of President Kabbah.
However, the humanitarian situation remains tragic.
With the exception of the capital, Freetown, the country is suffering an intolerable shortage of food and medical products.
<P>
Throughout the conflict, the Commission has continued to support humanitarian aid programmes for health and nutrition through its partners on the ground, by targeting its action towards the most vulnerable groups.
The volume of aid provided by ECHO now stands at ECU 3.8 million in one year.
It was not physically possible to do more than this because, given the conditions noted by some of you, it was completely impossible to send the necessary staff to distribute the aid.
<P>
The Commission and its humanitarian partners have now reoriented part of their current action in order to respond to the most urgent needs.
In other words, Mr Whitehead, it is reviewing its rehabilitation programmes following the military intervention which took place on 8 February, which put an end to the embargo on entry into Sierra Leone and which enabled the resumption of movement of equipment, provision of staple foods and medical products.
On 10 February, the Commission allocated ECU 1.9 million to the financing of "seeds and tools' programmes in order to ensure that the local population are able to harvest sufficient agricultural produce over the coming months.
<P>
In the immediate future, the Commission is awaiting the conclusions of evaluations being carried out by aid agencies on the ground before deciding on the possible allocation of supplementary emergency food aid. The level of this aid will probably be substantial and will enable the particularly tragic situation of the children, mentioned earlier by Mr Robles Piquer, to be resolved.
<P>
Existing programmes have enabled the flow of refugees into neighbouring countries to be absorbed without too much difficulty.
The Commission intends to give priority to measures aimed at encouraging the return and reintegration of refugees to their home villages.
To this end, a programme of assistance to some ten thousand refugees in Guinea should soon be approved.
<P>
Finally, Mr Pettinari, let me clarify for you that cooperation with Nigeria has been suspended since 1995 and you know as well as I that many people have said loud and clear that Nigeria has exceeded its role and should not have intervened with military force in this conflict.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner de Silguy.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>
B4-0329/98 by Mr Herman and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on discrimination regarding the sale of tickets for the World Cup; -B4-0338/98 by Mr Bertens and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, on the infringement of the rules of competition by the committee responsible for organizing the World Cup; -B4-0345/98 by Mr De Coene, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on discrimination regarding the sale of tickets for the World Cup; -B4-0365/98 by Mr Hory, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the system for distributing tickets for the World Cup; -B4-0372/98 by Mrs Castellina and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the distribution of tickets for the World Cup; -B4-0373/98 by Mrs Roth and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the World Cup.
<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, we are aware that the Commissioner has had meetings with the French football authorities.
It might be useful for us to have that information before we start the debate, rather than be surprised at the end as to what has actually happened.
I would be grateful if you would ask the Commissioner if he would be prepared to speak at the beginning of the debate.
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<SPEAKER ID=163 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="de Coene">
Mr President, I would like to make a similar request in view of the fact that the Commissioner considered it extremely important to be present during the debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="President">
The Members' requests and the points of order they have raised are more what might be expected in a statement by the Commission.
This is not the procedure we are following.
However, I can ask the Commissioner if he is willing to open the debate.
If he agrees - although it should be noted that this is not the normal procedure for topical and urgent debate - I will of course give him the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="Van Miert">
Mr President, I would first of all like to thank Parliament for this initiative. I appreciate the value of being invited to open this debate.
I want you to be the first to know the current position following the meetings and discussions of the last few days and I am now in a position to tell you exactly where we are in this matter.
<P>
Before going into a number of details, I would like to remind you that this problem is relatively new.
There have been some problems in the past, in relation to a number of sporting events.
However, in general this concerned the way in which the organizers had chosen the tour operators who would sell the tickets, or the granting of a monopoly to a certain vendor, as in Italy in 1990.
The Commission therefore intervened with regard to the sale of tickets in respect of the choice of stockists, in this instance the tour operators.
We tried to change the system.
Instead of giving the organizers the freedom to grant a monopoly, or to choose the companies that perhaps they were already friendly with, we imposed a selection procedure for stockists in the relevant countries and we also imposed the principle of not restricting the sale of tickets to any particular country.
Buyers were therefore able to contact tour operators outside their own country to purchase tickets.
There was also the problem of linking the sale of tickets to other services such as air tickets, hotel rooms and so on.
<P>
These were the sorts of problem that were occurring and which we tried to resolve.
Furthermore, last year the organizers asked what the Commission's position was with regard to these points and we confirmed our previous position.
But now the problem is different. It relates to the allocation system itself, fairness in the distribution and also non-discrimination.
So the problem is much wider, for we have noted - in any case this is the position of the Council - that the system is not fair and that it has a number of discriminatory aspects.
<P>
Before moving on to the current situation, I would also like to say a few words on the Commission's reaction.
In fact, the problem became apparent in December, at the time of the draw to decide who plays whom.
It was soon noted, even by the national associations and leagues, that the number of tickets was extremely limited.
It was also noted that, especially if you wanted to buy tickets in France, you had to have an address in France.
So it was from December onwards that we began to receive an increasing number of, occasionally contradictory, complaints.
Following this, the Commission contacted the organizers in January to ask them for an explanation.
As is the rule when there is a clear complaint or information - because a letter of complaint is not necessarily based on precise facts - the Commission contacts the organizers, the company concerned, to ask for an explanation.
<P>
Several weeks later we received the information from the organizers and we recognized that there was indeed a problem, in particular one of discrimination.
We sent a letter of warning as quickly as possible.
The procedure was underway and things were being conducted as they should have been with regard to a case concerning the rules of competition.
Having established that there was indeed a problem, the Commission reacted quickly.
<P>
Where are we at now?
Firstly, I think it appropriate to quote you the allocation of World Cup tickets, as established by the organizers.
I will give you the figures and the percentages.
To be precise, the total number of available tickets is 2 559 241, in other words just over 2.5 million. Of these, 4.8 % are reserved for boxes and hospitality seats, as they are called.
There are apparently quite a few lucky politicians who are going to be able to benefit from these hospitality seats, 200 000 in all.
<P>
Please, I am giving you the figures as communicated to us by the organizers.
<P>
With regard to direct sales by the organizing committee: general public 22.3 %, local French football clubs 14.2 % and the disabled 1.1 %.
That makes approximately 37 % which will be sold directly to the French public.
Then there are the national associations and tour operators.
Approximately 21 % will go to national associations and 5.4 % to tour operators.
So the tour operators will only be selling a twentieth of the tickets.
Then there are the partners and sponsors, who will receive 14.2 % of the tickets, and the local authorities who have contributed to the investment in stadiums and so on, 2.8 %.
You then have to take into account other ventures - for example, sporting movements, youth groups and others who are also participating in the organization - which will receive 4.3 %.
That leaves just 6.3 % of tickets available for sale to the general public.
It is all that remains, in any case.
You now have a complete picture of the breakdown of tickets.
<P>
Within the framework of the action the Commission has undertaken, we have had discussions with the organizing committee to see to what extent the tickets that are still available, about 160 000 in all, could be made available to buyers who have not up to now had access due to the limits imposed - the need for a telephone number and address in France - so that they may obtain a minimum of compensation.
We have therefore asked that these 160 000 tickets be used as compensation.
<P>
Out of these 160 000 tickets, approximately one third will be made available to national associations or federations.
This third, or approximately 50 000 tickets, will be sold by the national associations to supporters who wish to attend a match in which the team they support is playing.
The national associations will thus have a few extra tickets available to them.
That still leaves 110 000 tickets, and we have insisted, as I said previously, that they be made available to European buyers excluding France, without discrimination.
This is the stumbling block.
<P>
Given that there has been clear and, it seems, unquestionable discrimination, we must do all we can to compensate this discrimination, even though the possibilities are, unfortunately, extremely limited.
We have therefore insisted that these tickets should be made indiscriminately available to buyers outside of France but within the European Economic Area.
It is on this point that there is currently disagreement because the French want to make them available to everyone whilst we claim that, because there has been discrimination, we must do everything possible, no matter how little this may be, to redress the balance.
<P>
With regard to security measures, which are very often cited as an explanation for what has happened, it goes without saying that the Commission accepts this argument when it is a valid one.
When we are told, "50 000 extra tickets will be made available to national associations, taking into account also the blocks that have been set aside for club supporters' , we clearly accept the argument.
But it is also clear, with regard to neutral spectators - as those of nationalities other than those playing are called - that there must be no discrimination between Union citizens unless it relates to compensation in favour of those from countries other than France.
So this is where we are at the moment.
<P>
Let me now present to you the following few conclusions and thoughts.
Firstly, I dare to hope that organizers of this kind of sporting event will in future agree to consider, jointly with the Commission and well before the sale of tickets commences, not only the strictly commercial aspects as on previous occasions such as the issue of tour operators, but also aspects concerned with a fair and non-discriminatory allocation of the tickets.
<P>
There do seem to be signals in the right direction.
I understand that the candidate for the presidency of FIFA has said that, "if I am elected, I will deal with this' .
We have already been contacted by the organizers of the European Nations' Cup which will be held in two years time, who told us, "we are at your disposal to discuss our system of ticket allocation because we want to avoid the current difficulties' .
So, there are indeed signs of good will in this respect.
Of course, another obvious conclusion which I totally approve of is that we must work to avoid this sort of problem in the future rather than trying to patch up the problem halfway through.
<P>
My second observation is that I hope the organizers and sports organizations will in the future more willingly accept that it is better to discuss these problems with the relevant Community authorities than to challenge continually the authority of the European Commission and to continue to refer back to a particular government or minister to deal with problems of competition.
They must understand that we are not going along with that.
Like all the others, they must accept the rule of law in a European Union governed by law.
But once goodwill exists, we will of course be available to them to try to find adequate and justifiable solutions, taking into consideration the interests of the sport.
We are ready to take account of the specifics and the needs of the sporting sector, such as security, which is inseparable from this type of organization.
<P>
My third conclusion is that I understand that there are a number of national associations which are still extremely unhappy, moaning and complaining bitterly that they have not received enough tickets.
This surprises me, because the national associations are part of FIFA and they therefore accepted the system as it was designed.
So, for pity's sake, pay more attention in the future and contribute to the setting up of a good system instead of criticizing after the event and then leaving it to the Commission to sort out the situation.
<P>
Another thought comes to mind.
I believe that it must be understood, both at a national level and at the level of sporting organizations, that both citizens and citizenship of the European Union exist.
It is enshrined in the Treaty.
So there is a principle of non-discrimination.
It seems that some people are unable to accept this principle and its consequences.
From now on, when it relates to sporting events, there must be no more discrimination between Union citizens.
<P>
Allow me one last thought, on a completely personal level.
When I earlier noted the allocation of World Cup tickets, I mentioned that it has become extremely difficult for European citizens to obtain a ticket if they have no links with a sponsor or do not belong to a particular organization, for the bulk of tickets is apparently intended for those who belong to such organizations, or who know the right people.
I wonder if this is really wise on the part of the organizers?
Of course, I understand that there are commercial considerations.
Sponsors are needed.
But is it necessary to go as far as they went on this occasion, by setting aside such a minimal number for people who do not have the necessary contacts?
I do wonder.
<P>
Personally, I think the answer is clear.
I think we should show more concern for the citizen.
For my part, I have no problem in obtaining tickets.
Really no problem at all.
There are an enormous number of sponsors ready to invite me!
But the ordinary citizen has a big problem!
<P>
(Applause) So on this basis we should admit the truth and admit that it is also our responsibility to try to improve the situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="Perry">
Mr President, this really is a very sorry tale, though I want to thank you and the Commissioner for at least allowing us to have that statement before we had the debate.
At least we get some idea of the full picture.
I certainly note the Commissioner's words very carefully, namely that this system is not fair and has been discriminatory.
And what has the Commission done?
It sent a warning apparently back in December, but we are now in March.
It has allowed three months to elapse while the situation has developed, and apparently we are now in a position where very little can be done about it.
<P>
I am sorry to have to say to the Commissioner that I do not think the Commission can entirely wash its hands of responsibility for the way this situation has developed.
It is interesting to know that in future we hope it is going to be avoided.
We have to ask the Commission this afternoon precisely what legal action and legal powers the Commission has to take against the organizers so that they face some penalty rather than simply expressions of regret?
The Commission has responsibility to exercise those powers which it has quite clearly and lamentably failed to exercise up to now.
<P>
The world championship is of interest to people all over the world and certainly throughout Europe, and the number of seats that has been made available to European football fans is derisory.
The suggestion that to get tickets they have to give an address in France makes one seriously wonder who was awake when that proposal was going through.
If we hear now that other national associations are expressing concern, I ask: were they given the full facts at the time?
That needs to be asked if they are now at this stage expressing their concern.
The Commission cannot simply come to us this afternoon an say it is a sorry tale but it is taking no further action.
It must take some action.
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<SPEAKER ID=167 NAME="Watson">
Mr President, I wish to say to the Commissioner that Liberals in this House are deeply disappointed with his statement today.
This is the first billion-dollar World Cup.
The organizers have put national restrictions on ticket sales in breach of Article 85 of the Treaties.
They are abusing a dominant market position in breach of Article 86.
<P>
The Commission was warned of this in June of last year in a letter from Professor Weatherill at Oxford University.
I am told that the Commission then had discussions with the CFO, who may have been less than honest with the Commission.
<P>
Very few football fans from outside France will get tickets to the matches.
Most of those who do will pay vastly inflated prices.
Liberals in this House call on the Commission, as guardian of the Treaties, to show the organizers the red card.
To those who say you cannot scrap an entire ticket system four months before the World Cup, we say: if it is illegal, it must be scrapped.
If the Commission decides there are good reasons to let it proceed, it must, at least, prosecute and fine the CFO.
<P>
Finding new arrangements to redistribute just 5 % will not do.
It is a sop to fans, stitched up with the CFO, and a cosy compact in changing rooms.
We are calling foul, and if we are not allowed to go to the stadia, then we may go to the courts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="de Coene">
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to start by thanking you for being here today during this debate, for allowing us to be the first to receive information from you. The lesson, the conclusion we can draw from what you have said is that the football associations and the organizers of the World Cup in France are playing with you, and are playing with us, but above all with all these people in Europe, and that only one conclusion can be drawn from this: we must act.
You, Commissioner, as the person responsible on behalf of Europe, have often compared your role with that of a referee, who has to take decisions, often in difficult areas, and who is therefore, depending on the circumstances, sympathetic or unsympathetic.
Well, we are keeping you to your word, and there is one thing you could do here, namely to show the red card to those breaking the European rules, to those who think they are above the law, to those who act with the greatest contempt toward European matters.
<P>
But we can say that of course we will follow the rules for the 100 000 remaining tickets, when more than 2.4 million have already been sold.
That would be satisfying us with crumbs, and it is simply not acceptable.
<P>
Secondly, we could say we are going to impose fines.
It would not be all that bad if Mr Platini or the other sun kings in France were momentarily affected financially, because in the end - as you said yourself - this is primarily a question of money, and a lot of money.
Let them pay those fines, but the drawback is of course that this does not benefit the ordinary citizen, and so we, Members of Parliament, should take a look at what is in our powers, what means we have to enforce Community law.
<P>
I would also like to address the French Members.
Let us be fair, our friends from France, and let us keep it clean, this is not a game against France.
This is not Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom or Italy against France.
This is a question of elementary respect for European rules.
If we raise this question today then it is not without consequences for the future.
What is the future, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen?
The future is, amongst other things, the European Nations' Cup in 2000, organized by Belgium and the Netherlands.
For that, too, rules will have to be complied with, even if that is not very nice for the Dutch or Belgian football supporters.
Today it might not seem very nice to the French, but if we are not resolute, if we are not consistent, it will be worse for the Belgians or the Dutch tomorrow. What is most important, however, is that we do not allow discrimination.
I would like to agree with Mr Watson; if we are not allowed into the grounds, we should go to Court.
I can tell you, Commissioner, that we, a number of Members of this Parliament, have already taken on a renowned lawyer.
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<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="Macartney">
Mr President, sometimes we in the European Parliament are rather flattered if people come to us asking for assistance and actually take us seriously.
So let me share with you a heartfelt letter which I received from a football fan from Aberdeen, in my constituency. He says, ' I write to you in the hope that the European Parliament can do something about the ridiculous ticket allocations for the World Cup finals in France.
I have been a member of the Scotland Travel Club for eight years.
I have previously been to two World Cups and two European competitions yet I do not expect to be allocated tickets for the games.'
<P>
This man was hoping that, because the World Cup was in Europe, surely to goodness he would be able to go to the first match.
As you know, the opening match is Scotland versus Brazil and you would have thought that the people who above all would be there would be the Scots and the Brazilians.
Instead he finds that he is not wanted.
The allocation to Scotland is too small and he is not going to be there.
He may of course decide to go anyway and try to buy tickets on the black market.
I think this is a very serious situation and one which should have been avoided at all costs.
I take note of what the Commissioner said about the French authorities following the same procedures as in the past.
If the procedures have been wrong in the past that is no excuse for not reforming them.
I welcome the small steps that have been taken to alleviate the situation.
<P>
We are talking about something like 160 000 tickets which sounds like quite a lot but in fact is a very small number indeed.
I would make a plea to give priority to fans who are going to see their own team playing.
Obviously if France is playing then it is reasonable to expect them to have the lion's share of the tickets. But when you have two small countries, Morocco and Scotland for example, then surely it would be quite easy to work out a mechanism to allow their fans to participate.
If there is one thing that makes a game enjoyable it is listening to the fans on both sides cheering their teams on.
I think it is time some common sense was brought into this whole process.
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<SPEAKER ID=170 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Pettinari">
Mr President, there have certainly been delays in the Commission's initiative on this problem.
Nevertheless, I want to give my full support to the action being taken by the Commission and the Commissioner at this stage, because they are actually trying to remedy an unacceptable situation.
I am saying that even though I actually believe that the number of tickets that can be distributed is too small.
It is obviously a very low number compared with the total available.
<P>
The Commission is taking the right action and I think it is right and important that the Parliament should take a stance because it is becoming apparent that, behind all the major sports events and shows, lie economic interests and often real abuse, with the sole object of making huge profits, even by speculating.
<P>
This is the case we have before us, because it is unacceptable that you need to buy a whole package, including travel, accommodation and tourist services, just to be able to get a ticket.
<P>
Although we believe that the major sports events and shows, as the Commissioner said, should involve the European citizens and, I would add, young Europeans in particular, it is obvious that this discrimination is unacceptable.
From this point of view, I believe that, even on the basis of the position assumed by Parliament today, we need to assign the Commissioner a new mandate so that he will not only continue the work he has performed so far, but he will establish new bases for tickets, from the quantitative point of view, and start on the rules.
I appreciate the fact that the Commissioner has been very explicit in this connection: we need to change the FIFA rules that have, until today, obliged the authorities, such as the Commissioner and now Parliament, to intervene on these issues.
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<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Ripa di Meana">
Mr President, we all agree on the problems: the shortage of seats owing to the objective limits of supply and demand; the excessive cost of tickets on indirect sale assigned to tour operators; the need to oppose the black market.
We are divided in our replies.
<P>
Can we consider the sale of tickets for a sports or cultural event to be an exclusively economic activity?
On reading the text of the draft arrangement, this would appear to be the predominant opinion, with reference to the rules laid down by the Treaty on competition, Articles 85 and 86.
Within this framework, however, there is the risk of moving from an alleged abuse of the national dominant position to an abuse of the dominant position held by the EU, since it is by definition an international event: the football World Cup.
<P>
However, having to draw up the accounts with the legitimate expectations of supporters worldwide, the fairest and most effective position seems to us to be that of ensuring the allocation of quotas assigned to the national federations and to the non-profit-making youth sports associations, in addition to direct sales.
Our amendments should be made to this effect; the outcome will determine our final vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, I should like first of all to thank the Commissioner for the efforts he has made.
I thought we were getting close to some kind of solution following a meeting I had with the Commissioner yesterday.
It would appear that solution has now disappeared and that the French authorities are now longer prepared to offer extra tickets in compensation to those people who have been disadvantaged by what is a clear breach of European Community law, namely Articles 85 and 86.
<P>
What worries me is the failure to state that the Commission is going to pursue this urgently and with vigour.
We cannot allow these people to get away with it.
There are tickets available.
Anybody round here can pick up a ticket for a World Cup match just like that.
All you have to do is pay about £600 a time through one of those all-inclusive travel packages, exactly the thing we were trying to stop.
<P>
There are 2.5 million tickets available.
I do not believe that the French authorities have sold the 22.3 % of those tickets available for direct sales.
I would like to have some figures from them.
As somebody else said, all that seems to be on offer at the moment is the crumbs.
This is a cynical commercial organization - not the people of France and not the French football authorities - that is trying to exploit the special nature of sport in the interests of making money and at the expense of the ordinary people of Europe.
I hope we are going to take this seriously and, as a number of speakers have said including Mr Watson and Mr Cunha, if we do not get far more than is offered at the moment from the Commission or the authorities this issue is likely to go to the Court, and we have to make sure that the Court judges, and quickly.
The World Cup is now less than 85 days away.
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<SPEAKER ID=173 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Monfils">
Madam President, it is clear that the Commission has lacked vigilance in this matter.
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Three years ago, FIFA set out the rules. We all knew what they were.
You should have intervened then.
Nor should 500 000 places have been offered to the sponsors to distribute through competitions and quizzes relating to whether you possess a certain brand of mineral water or tin of peas or not.
<P>
We all knew this.
Nothing was done.
Now it is right under our noses; the game is all but lost.
The 50 000 tickets that you mentioned, Commissioner, these are a drop in the ocean.
There are 166 federations, which is the equivalent of only around ten tickets per federation.
You have not even managed to obtain the other 100 000.
<P>
This is very serious.
In any case, in conclusion I would ask you first of all to do everything you can to prevent a black market from forming. For the French will sell their tickets for matches such as the Belgium/Netherlands game at twenty times the price at which they bought them, which is unacceptable.
I would also ask you to play the game through to the end.
You can still intervene. You can still try to scrape together places.
Indeed, you can still also use all your power to intervene on a legal level as well as on the level of compensation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Madam President, we believe the concern over having to ensure the sacred principles of free competition and having to ensure the compatibility of initiatives with the rules of the internal market is the main reason for the spiralling increase in prices and offers in relation to the sale of tickets for the forthcoming 1998 World Cup to be held in France.
<P>
The Commission has found it necessary to disprove the accusations, according to which competition policy was at the origin of the spiralling increase in the prices of entrance tickets. It sent a letter to FIFA contesting the astronomic prices reported by some press agencies and emphasizing that these increases relate not only to entrance to the stadiums but also to the price of the means of transport and accommodation expenses.
<P>
In our opinion, however, irrespective of the real or merely alleged price increases, the multiplication, times 15, of the prices applied by the travel agencies, the only agencies authorized to sell the World Cup package, are the direct consequence of the persistence of the Commission which is opposed to the establishment of a single retailer in each Member State.
<P>
Ensuring the principles of free competition, together with the fact of being able to overcome the accusation of abuse of a dominant position, should not be an obstacle to granting authorization to a single retailer in each Member State, specifically to prevent the emergence of the black market and, in particular, to prevent the monopolization of sales by the tourist agencies, thus giving all Community citizens the possibility of enjoying a sports event that is becoming increasingly more popular.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 NAME="McMahon">
Madam President, the Commissioner has half-heartedly tackled FIFA on this matter.
What use is a slide tackle from Commissioner van Miert when you are dealing with people like Havelange and Lennart Johansen?
The same thing happened with freedom of movement: the Commission went very half-heartedly on this issue.
They really have to strengthen their tackling - they really must get to grips with the situation.
<P>
We are as concerned as the Commission for the Community citizen.
We are particularly concerned, and I am particularly concerned for the members of the Tartan army who are hoping to come from Scotland to see Scotland play Brazil and the ordinary fan is not going to be given the opportunity at all.
This week two tickets for the World Cup sold for £19 000 in Glasgow.
That is almost more than some of the ordinary people earn in about two years.
What opportunity will there be for ordinary people if these inflated prices are charged by whoever is organizing this World Cup?
As other members have said, it is up to the Commission to take strong action.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Madam President, the cultural, the social and indeed the commercial importance of sport is, I believe, beyond dispute.
The way that a football world championship binds peoples together has a quite special significance.
People retain memories of what happened there for the rest of their lives.
I therefore find it completely incomprehensible that the organizing committee for such an event uses a discriminatory ticket distribution system that gives preference to the citizens of its own country.
As the Commissioner has already remarked, the European Parliament is currently dealing with the second report on citizenship of the Union and is trying to find ways and means of making people feel European.
At the same time, sport, which already leads a rather modest existence in relation to its importance within the European Union, is being done a great disservice and a wedge is being driven between citizens of the Union.
<P>
In short, I can only regret that, if I have understood the Commissioner correctly, there is no possibility of straightening out the situation pro praeterito .
However, I must agree with the previous speakers and ask that we be informed of what is planned to prevent such things happening in future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 NAME="van Miert">
Madam President, I think I should first remind people that in relation to the rules of competition, the Commission is required to follow procedural rules.
<P>
When the problem first came to light in December, my departments immediately initiated a procedure, contacting the "accused' by means of letters. There were also the reactions of some Members of Parliament.
But it was just some Members of Parliament, I think there were only two, although you now claim that you have been pleading with us since December to do something.
In any case, we acted promptly, as I said, by contacting the "accused' to ask them to explain the situation and to tell us if what we had heard was correct or not.
<P>
As the explanations we received were not satisfactory - by this time it was January - we decided to move rapidly on to the second phase of the procedure and to send a letter of warning to the interested parties.
Such speed in the sending of a letter of warning is extremely rare.
Those who normally criticize the Commission for moving too fast and sending a letter of warning without due consideration are now criticizing us for acting too slowly.
I am sorry but we did what we had to do, rapidly and with respect for the rules of the game.
Furthermore, the accused himself has rights.
This is my position and I stand by it.
You must realize that some things have been said today which I find unacceptable.
<P>
Secondly, as you know, we have had serious problems with sports organizations for quite some time now.
When I say "we' , I mean the Commission in particular.
In fact, I think I now clearly understand that when these organizations consider the Commission is getting in their way they merely say to themselves, "we'll go and find some support amongst the politicians' .
This is what happened in Germany. Following a Court judgement, the political world rallied round to exempt sport from the rules of competition, saying to us, "It is no longer your business, do not get involved in this.
You, Mr Van Miert, and you, the authorities responsible for competition at national level, you deserve a red card, go and sit on the touchline. We are going to deal with this.'
This is the reality of the situation.
<P>
So please, keep things in perspective.
On many occasions, I myself, on behalf of the Commission, have reminded everyone that the rules of competition must apply, including with regard to FIFA's behaviour.
Then, one month later, you probably read that a FIFA representative declared, in Singapore, if I remember correctly, that he was going to contact several European Prime Ministers in order to resolve the problem. In other words, they were going to bypass the Commission for they were tiresome, these Commission officials who dealt with such problems.
This is the reality, can you believe it?
<P>
I met with more than one delegation of Members of Parliament who came to plead the cause of the sporting authorities.
I read yesterday in the papers that a minister - also in charge of sport - was going to come and see President Santer, my colleague Pádraig Flynn and myself to tell us that the Commission was no longer respecting the Bosman ruling of the Court.
This is the real situation.
But the Commission is holding firm, it is holding its course and it expects to make progress.
<P>
By the way, this is all apparently true for Formula 1 racing too.
<P>
So I repeat, I find some criticisms unacceptable.
On the other hand, I request your support in this matter.
When we have to tell FIFA that it must not only discuss with the Commission - which it generally refuses to do - but also change its system, can I count on the broad support of the European Parliament?
<P>
(Applause) Thank you very much, I appreciate that, but can I also count on your support in my discussions with certain national sports authorities?
<P>
(Applause) I am taking note of this.
When it comes to tackling the black market, Mr Monfils, please be assured that we will do all we can!
We will do all we can but, all the same, there is one thing that you cannot ask of the Commission and that is to take responsibility for organizing the World Cup.
This really is not our role.
Our role, on the basis of the rules of competition, is to check that offences are not committed, and to act if we consider they are.
As you know, this is my way and I think this is now understood, not only within Parliament but elsewhere too.
<P>
There is one other thing. People have said, "what about the travel agencies?'
I have not forgotten them. There is a problem here, too, for travel agencies must pay fees, they have to pay a great deal to be able to sell tickets.
But this still accounts for no more than 5.4 % of the tickets.
In principle, national organizations can also be contacted.
In principle, and here, too, there is a problem, for buyers should have been able to contact the organizers who should have made tickets available to them indiscriminately.
It is on this point that our action is centred.
<P>
As I said earlier, we have still not come to an agreement because, for the moment at least, we are not satisfied with the proposals made by the organizers to date.
We also want to check certain details which have been provided to us.
In fact, it seems that some of the categories I have mentioned are unclear and we would like to know precisely what they cover.
<P>
This is what we are going to do. We will see what happens.
Please do not ask me now what our conclusions will be!
Have a little patience.
Either the organizing committee will satisfy our demands as far as possible or it will not and the Commission will then go ahead with court proceedings.
<P>
This is the current situation.
If you require any further explanation, as usual I will be only too happy to provide it.
<P>
(Loud applause)
<SPEAKER ID=178 NAME="President">
Commissioner van Miert, we all know you have a difficult job.
You have told us you could not take on the World Sports Federation but you did not tell us whether you would take it on if you were allowed to!
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
Before we proceed to the vote, Mr Killilea wishes to speak on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 NAME="Killilea">
Madam President, I hope it is a point of order. I wish to compliment the Commissioner and, for a moment, I thought he was going to assist Scotland to try to win a match or two.
Just as well, after listening to Hughie McMahon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 NAME="President">
Mr Killilea, the debate is now closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
Before the vote on Nicaragua:
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="President">
Yesterday we voted on the composition of the debate.
The House voted for this.
This text has therefore ended up below it.
That is the explanation.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Judicial cooperation in criminal matters (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report (A4-0058/98) by Mr Bontempi, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on judicial cooperation in criminal matters in the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to see that Mr Posselt breaks into spontaneous applause at the very mention of my name, which shows that contrary to all expectations he is a clever Member.
<P>
I refer to the events of this afternoon which resulted in our having to continue the debate now.
This afternoon we had the rather regrettable conduct of the debate to complain about and I trust you will understand if I linger a moment longer on procedural issues.
I can understand perfectly well that it is very difficult to organize an agenda in a packed business week in Strasbourg.
However, it is very difficult for Parliament to conduct a debate where the debate is interrupted in the middle of Parliament's deliberations when the individual groups should be beginning to give their opinion on the rapporteurs' presentations and when the Commissioner, who has actually come to hear Parliament, is given the floor, thereby turning the whole point of the exercise on its head, as the Commission is not hearing the debate but, quite the reverse, Parliament is hearing the Commission's position.
The Commissioner then departs and takes no further part in the actual debate.
<P>
This was all somewhat unfortunate.
I do not want to start apportioning blame now.
The whole thing was made worse - we shall have to reflect on this in general in the part-session - by the fact that Commissioner Gradin had to make her speech in an atmosphere which - with respect, Madam President - was more reminiscent of a cattle market than the dignified proceedings of the European Parliament.
Perhaps there will come a day when we will be able to discipline ourselves to show a minimum degree of courtesy on the day by listening attentively to the speakers whether they be Members or representatives of the Council or Commission.
That is the least that can be expected of a parliament worthy of the name.
So much for procedures.
<P>
I have three basic comments on Mr Bontempi's report.
Firstly, we know from the trends which will logically follow from the ever closer integration of the European Union that transnational and Europe-wide crime is likely to grow because its field of operation has expanded.
Where business transactions are possible beyond borders, illegal business transactions are also possible beyond borders, in other words the market for organized crime is growing at the same rate as the Single Market.
We are now considering and organizing the legal framework for the market but we are not organizing the instruments we need to combat the growth of crime in the required form.
Cooperation, judicial cooperation, in criminal matters is being criminally neglected in the European Union.
<P>
There is a second reason for this.
The reason is that the police and the judiciary are still mainly the province of the nation states. In political terms this is understandable.
On the one hand, we are confronted by a supranational body, the European Union, while on the other hand, the nation states realize that they are losing national sovereignty as the European Union gains in importance.
However, the national governments have a certain defence mechanism which is expressed in the strongest terms where the nation states can best demonstrate their sovereignty, namely in their monopoly of power, particularly in terms of the police and the justice.
The nation states are not therefore sufficiently prepared to use intergovernmental cooperation at European level to agree on provisions under Community law. However, this would be essential politically.
<P>
I have now reached my third point.
We must finally realize that the crimes, from which Mr Bontempi has said we must distill precise information, in other words the crimes that particularly affect the European Union and, being in the area of fraud, are mainly committed against the financial interests of the Union, must also be able to be pursued and prosecuted by the Union itself. Only then we will not fail to agree on a system as quickly as possible in which we will establish operational criteria that will enable us to arrive at a proper criminal prosecution under Community law, which will then be supplemented by cooperation between police forces.
In this respect, Mr Bontempi's report is a major step forward in the debate.
I hope that it does not stay a debate but that we will soon agree on suitable forms of cooperation with the efficiency required in the fight against crime.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Madam President, the "sign against crime' campaign is now under way, the "vote against crime' will take place tomorrow and the "fight against crime' is our task in the European Community.
Mr Pirker thinks so too.
He sends his apologies for today as he has to go to Austria on urgent business.
But I think that organized crime quite simply has to be tackled in a much more targeted way.
It affects the legal trade cycle and public administration. It also damages the financial interests of the Union.
A system of police cooperation is under construction - the EUROPOL drugs unit, established in 1997, has successfully prosecuted 2 608 cases of organized crime, the UCLAF anti-fraud unit which protects the financial interests of the European Community has also been very successful.
However, judicial cooperation remains in its infancy as different legal systems in the Member States prevent an optimum level of cooperation.
<P>
In the interests of improving cooperation, in the interests of combating organized crime efficiently, we have to have a debate about where national sovereignty should be set aside.
In any event we have to abandon it where the means to combat organized crime are lacking, where citizens - and not only in Brussels - are no longer protected and the Union's interests are harmed.
<P>
The long-term objective is a common legal standard.
The Bontempi report - which, by the way, is excellent - urges us to act more quickly.
<P>
There are four points that I consider to be essential.
First, the administration of agreements on mutual judicial assistance must be radically improved.
Second, legal provisions must be harmonized, at least in the case of new offences.
Third, cooperation with third countries must be improved using programmes such as GROTIUS and Falcone; in this way the EU can export security and legal systems.
Fourth, cooperation to protect the Union's financial interests must be dramatically improved.
We need a strong core of material and criminal provisions.
UCLAF must be provided with the necessary resources if it is to become a criminal prosecution authority to protect the Union's financial interests.
<P>
The EU must take steps towards judicial cooperation more quickly than before, not just to protect the Union's financial interests but, more importantly, in the interest of our citizens' safety.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Madam President, Mr Schulz has already made the important point that, indeed, we must improve the procedures in this House.
I will not come back to it. I just wish to add one point.
Why can we not interrupt the sittings before the vote at 12 noon five minutes beforehand to let everybody come into the Chamber?
Then we will have an orderly debate.
What we experienced before was shameful and I really would like the Bureau and the Conference of Presidents to look into the matter.
<P>
Mr Bontempi's report is characterized by a pragmatic and very instrumentalist approach.
Principles are fine but progress in concrete matters is essential.
We are faced here with, you might say, the positive side of negative integration.
We have here one of the Commissioners who is working closely on the side-effects of the internal market.
Everybody will soon be able to move freely around Europe except police and justice officials.
That is the heart of the matter.
It is very important that finally Member States are beginning to realize that a purely intergovernmental approach is not there simply to protect national interests but, at the end of the day, stands in the way of national justice.
The intergovernmentalist approach for the last 50 years was exemplified by the Council of Europe.
This is an important organization, but we all realize that justice and police cooperation in a Europe of 15 Member States without borders can no longer be achieved by ratifying national conventions which come too late, do too little, and have only partial effects.
It is this essential point which Mr Bontempi so rightly highlights in his report.
<P>
It is not a question of wanting to do away with democracy and national constitutional guarantees.
The European Union has become mature enough with its emphasis on human rights and protecting democracy, for progress to be made.
<P>
The Amsterdam Treaty - Mr Bontempi makes this quite clear - shows the way forward.
We can no longer work within the national conventions as if the European Union were simply an intergovernmental structure.
That is the heart of the matter.
This morning Mrs Gradin, in her initial response, made it quite clear that framework decisions should be the priority instrument in future for making progress.
<P>
I say this with great emphasis because it is the only way finally to involve also the countries of central and eastern Europe.
We must make more progress in this whole area if we are going to have an adequate reception of central and eastern Europe into the present European structures.
If this Europe, the Europe which we have been building for the last 40 years, cannot make more progress in justice and police cooperation how can we expect countries which, for 40 years, have been suffering from dictatorship, lack of protection of human rights and lack of institution-building to really come in with us and make the progress which we jointly want?
<P>
It is essential and I would ask Commissioner Monti, who is standing in for Mrs Gradin, to say whether the PHARE programme should not be far more used to promote justice and police cooperation.
This is also in the spirit of Mr Bontempi.
<P>
It still remains disgraceful that neither the national parliaments nor the European Parliament are really involved.
This point has been made before; we should not be defensive.
There is no way forward except for the national parliaments and the European Parliament to make more efforts to work jointly in this area.
The political will which is so often lacking in making progress should be made clear, both on the national side and on the parliamentary side, in this House.
The European Court of Justice, which has been the pearl of the institutions, still has an inadequate role in this whole process.
The Court can only give preliminary rulings if members so choose and even then it cannot really give an interpretation of the Treaty.
It is limited to framework decisions and decisions on the various conventions.
We must make progress in this field as well and it is again a point made very clearly by Mr Bontempi.
<P>
In short we really can do a lot more together but the central point remains that the political will on the part of the Member States is sometimes used as an alibi.
The approach of protecting national interests is an alibi for making progress at European level.
Against that we should strongly protest and it is that element which underlines Mr Bontempi's approach; we welcome it very much. I hope also that the Commission will take it seriously for the current period.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindholm">
Madam President, let me begin by saying that a majority in the Green group supports Mr Bontempi's report apart from three points.
The first is that the harmonization of criminal law should not be accelerated.
It is and should remain a national concern for a long time to come.
<P>
The second point concerns the request to the governments of the Member States to refrain from derogations and to comply with the conventions.
As far as the Green group is concerned, such a general request is unacceptable.
<P>
The third point concerns the proposal to abolish the principle that a crime should be indictable in two countries.
In the current situation, to generally abolish this principle could lead to great human tragedies, not least among refugees.
That is the majority view of the Green group.
<P>
As a Swedish EU critic, however, I myself represent a totally different view to Mr Bontempi and will therefore vote against the report.
I am in favour of all forms of cooperation, even in the area of justice, if they take place at intergovernmental level and do not infringe on or restrict national sovereignty or national democracy.
<P>
The overriding aim of the report is to establish a common European legal and judicial area.
That requires, among other things, a harmonization of criminal law, which would mean the abolition of national self-determination.
The main legal basis is an interpretation of a treaty which has not yet been ratified or entered into force, the Amsterdam Treaty.
I find that strange.
<P>
International organized crime is best tackled through international, global cooperation at an intergovernmental level and through a developed cooperation such as in Interpol.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Buffetaut">
Madam President, I would first of all like to say that I fully support Mr Schulz' preliminary comments.
<P>
This said, with regard to the content of the report, it is clearly understood that European cooperation is particularly legitimate when it proves to be more effective than action on the part of individual states.
And with regard to judicial cooperation this is precisely the case.
<P>
In order to fight transnational crime, it is clear that we need greater cooperation, albeit simplified, in the legal sphere, particularly in order to facilitate the work of the judicial authorities in the different Member States.
It is very important that judicial authorities should be able to relate directly to each other, and that the Rules of Procedure are simplified in terms of the exchange of information, documents and so on.
<P>
Of course, this must take place within the boundaries of respect for constitutional regulations and general principles of law.
Thankfully, within the European Union all Member States respect the rule of law which, in turn, respects the rights of the individual.
In this regard it is time that Member States showed less reticence towards accepting the respective legal systems of Members of the Union.
<P>
Mr Bontempi's report has the considerable advantage of not clinging to grand principles but of being, on the contrary, very concrete, realistic and pragmatic.
This approach seems to be the best one in an area which is very sensitive with regard to sovereignty, the rights of the individual and, of course, the rights of the defendant.
<P>
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations will clearly support this report.
On the other hand, we cannot support the rapporteur with regard to the issue of a European prosecution service, which we believe would only complicate procedures rather than simplifying them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Madam President, the increasing levels of international crime make it necessary to consider ways of putting a stop to this trend.
The different material and judicial requirements, the complicated provisions of mutual judicial assistance arrangements and the stipulation for punishment in both countries are cited as the cause of problems in connection with cross-border criminal proceedings.
<P>
As a practitioner of many years' standing, I support any simplification of intergovernmental relations but because of historical and cultural differences I do not expect anything at all will be gained by harmonizing substantive criminal law.
Unlike Mr Pirker, and Mr Rübig who stood in for him today, we do not want to ask the Austrians, who in any case have been deprived by their government of their favourite toy, "bearer savings books' , in order to combat money laundering, to give up sovereignty in the field of substantive criminal law or redefine the concept of sovereignty.
<P>
The demand made in recital K of the report to relinquish dual prosecution and scrap dual punishability indicates a misunderstanding and a misleading confusion of the two terms and a failure to appreciate the principle of the deputizing of the administration of international criminal justice.
To sum up, I do not see any need either to harmonize substantive criminal law or for a state prosecutor with Europe-wide jurisdiction but rather a need for some form of improved cooperation between prosecuting authorities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 NAME="Ford">
Madam President, firstly, I congratulate my colleague, Mr Bontempi, on his report on judicial cooperation in criminal matters.
The EU has seen the creation of the single market: free movement of goods, services, capital and people.
In the words of a dead Chinese philosopher: ' We have seen a hundred flowers bloom' .
Unfortunately many of them have been nasty weeds.
There is increasingly a European single market for the free movement of stolen goods: cars, for example; illegal services - prostitution; dirty capital waiting to be laundered in other Member States; illegal immigrants smuggled in by organized criminal gangs.
And yet we have a two-speed Europe.
While the EU has been pushing ahead with many areas of activity - social policy, environmental policy, economic and monetary union - it has been curiously backward in the harmonization of legislation and practice in judicial and policing areas.
<P>
Europol has been a success, but at a very small scale.
It has worked very effectively at exchanging information across the European Union with respect to drugs trafficking, but it has not been extended to cover other areas: terrorism, racism, organized crime.
We need progress.
What distresses people in the European Union is that in spite of the single market, in spite of the European Union, cross-border crime and cross-border criminals continue to escape their punishment.
Murderers, thieves and embezzlers are hiding within the interstices of European law.
<P>
Common legal standards are not enough.
We want a common standard of justice.
What irritates European Union citizens are cases like that of Keith Cottingham, in the United Kingdom, a suspected letter-bomb murderer - accused of murdering a housewife, Barbara Holmes - who, for the last 14 years has been living in Spain.
For the last four years he has been living in Spain without a passport - it has expired!
But despite that fact, the British police have been unable to extradite him to the United Kingdom to face the courts.
European Union citizens will not take seriously a single market or a single judicial area while that sort of thing continues to happen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="Banotti">
Madam President, I would also like to congratulate Mr Bontempi on his report.
In the context of this debate, I am taking the opportunity to raise what is, mercifully, still a relatively small area of activity which has in recent years been criminalized.
I refer in this case to the transnational abduction of children by their parents and also the increasing problem of transnational abduction of children by criminal means.
<P>
The fact that we are dealing here very often with delicate family matters is very often used by local police forces as an excuse not to become involved in these cases - that these are family matters and should be left to the lawyers to sort out.
But behind the reluctance of police forces to implement court orders on the custody of children in one country when they are abducted into another Member State, very often lies the potential for great tragedy.
<P>
Two weeks ago I spent the entire weekend and most of the week trying to negotiate for the handover of children who had been illegally abducted from the United Kingdom and taken to Italy.
If the police had acted as they should have done four months earlier this situation would not have deteriorated to one where the children's lives were at risk and where the parent who had abducted was threatening to burn down the house.
<P>
Unfortunately we have to make this a criminal offence because of the frequent reluctance of people to obey court orders where children and the custody of children are concerned.
For that reason I would like to take this opportunity, even though I know the subject is probably more appropriately dealt with in the report on marital cooperation in legal issues which we will be dealing with at the next part-session.
This is, however, a criminal offence, and I would like to see considerably more cooperation between the police forces in all our countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
<SPEAKER ID=193 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Work of ACP-EU Joint Assembly in 1997
<SPEAKER ID=194 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on the annual report (A4-0080/98) by Mr Robles Piquer, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the results of the work of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly in 1997.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 NAME="Robles Piquer">
Madam President, Commissioner, the Joint Assembly as usual met twice in 1997 - in Brussels and in Lomé - for its 25th and 26th sessions.
The report I have the privilege of presenting summarizes these meetings.
The report is, of course, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation and I would just like to highlight the ten points I believe are most important.
<P>
Firstly, we emphasized the Joint Assembly's contribution to the Lomé Convention, and asked therefore that the Joint Assembly be made institutionally independent.
<P>
Secondly, we asked for the European Development Fund, to which all Europeans contribute, to become part of the EU budget.
I believe that this is an extremely logical request.
<P>
In addition, we called for the necessary solidarity between the North and the South of our planet in view of the inevitable advance of globalization.
<P>
Fourthly, we also made the reasonable request that the Joint Assembly should have the opportunity to state its views on future EU-ACP links, particularly as regards the Fifth Lomé Convention.
<P>
We also called on the members of the Joint Assembly Bureau, in point 8, to carry out a study on possible alternatives to the current voting system.
We believe that this is very important, and that it is now time to move away from the somewhat absurd situation in which we find ourselves, that is, where we have two separate electoral colleges: the Europeans on one side and the ACP countries on the other. We should instead combine these to have one single electoral college, which is based not on territorial differences but on the individual and personal traits of the members of the Joint Assembly.
It can of course continue to use, depending on the topic, either secret or open votes, but we believe that the European members, to whom we are directing this, should urge their colleagues in the ACP countries to implement this change in regulation.
<P>
I would also like to point out that we want to support and do support everything said at the United Nations conferences which affects us, and I hold up Mrs Junker's excellent general report as proof of this.
<P>
We particularly underlined the importance of women's rights and pointed to education, health and women's participation in decision-making processes as examples.
<P>
We stated that we must pay particular attention to urban development.
In the ACP countries, as in the developed world, cities and urban conglomerations are becoming larger and more numerous.
Moreover, while considering future needs, we should pay as much attention as possible to environmental problems, such as the disposal of waste and the promotion of renewable energy sources.
<P>
In addition, the ACP countries should understand - and we are calling on them to do so - that the European Parliament is particularly concerned with defending the values of democracy and the rule of law. The defence and active acceptance of these values are an essential precondition for peaceful coexistence and economic progress.
Parliament should therefore realize that issues such as the location of meetings have a political value in themselves. The previous debate at the Lomé session was very intense due to the abnormal conditions - to put it mildly - that are prevalent in terms of the internal politics of that country, the country where the Lomé conventions were born.
There is no doubt that, for example, the fact that our ACP colleagues did not vote for a very moderate resolution, which only involved a request for free elections, caused a certain frustration on our part, as Europeans, and it was undoubtably influenced by the topographic factor of the location of the meeting.
<P>
My final point was a suggestion that the Commission should study with interest the possibility that the aid granted to third countries could maybe be managed by a coordinated service for the allocation of development aid. The ACP countries are very relevant in this respect since there are many of them and they receive a significant amount of aid.
In other words - if I may use a clear analogy - we should establish something similar to the ECHO office which could be used for development.
<P>
These are the most important points in the motion for a resolution adopted by the Committee on Development and Cooperation which I have had the privilege to present to the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Junker">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that the Joint Assembly is a body that is a forum for discussion and this must be particularly stressed as it is the only model in which development cooperation, which is the link to the principle of parity, is monitored by Parliament.
This in turn gives us the opportunity to discuss its decisions here in Parliament as well and to draw the appropriate conclusions from them.
<P>
I should like to refer to the general report which occupied us in two sittings last year.
It was a great pleasure and honour for me to be the general rapporteur and find out and monitor the outcomes of the big UN conferences - ranging from the education conference which was held in Thailand to the recent conference in Rome on food security - and to monitor what happened and what was still outstanding.
<P>
All of this can also be seen as part of the subject that likewise kept us busy last year and will continue to do so, namely the future of the Lomé Convention.
There has been a continuous development of the content of the Lomé Convention right up to the present convention, which also has weaknesses. These weaknesses must be remedied.
Mr Robles Piquer's report also contains proposals which should be welcomed so that some constructive work can be done.
<P>
Happily, it has been possible in these past few years to define the role of women as a key role for development; we were able to intensify this work in joint assemblies and it has been a thread passing through the entire ACP cooperation. The emphasis must be increased in this direction.
There is now great unanimity on this point but the practical activities leave a lot to be desired.
We can convince ourselves of this on a regular basis when we spend some time in ACP countries and take a look around.
<P>
There is still much to be done to involve the ordinary people and this means above all giving women a role and letting them participate in the development processes of ACP cooperation - all the way from planning via implementation to evaluation.
<P>
Women have the decisive role in all the issues that contribute to the security of daily life including, above all, food security and health security.
In our practical work it must be made clear that no measures may be taken that result in the marginalization of others; this is prepared for by all the discussions we hold, by the working groups that are set up and by all the activities in which the partner countries of the European Union and the ACP community take part.
<P>
This situation can arise very easily.
For example, changes in trading patterns conceal the danger that women in particular are excluded from small business and their earning power is diminished.
They do not have as much access to the formal sector and are often thrown back on the informal sector.
The problem is the same as in Europe; ultimately they are also responsible for the home and family and are therefore restricted in their choice of occupation.
Measures must be taken here to compensate for this and, when all is said and done, the best advisors there can be are the women in these countries themselves.
<P>
We are well on our way.
We have included this in all the areas that have been discussed, ranging from environmental issues, via issues of preventive health care and economic development to human rights.
In the meantime some very intensive consultation is taking place to find ways of applying human rights as women's rights, of understanding democratic rights in such a way that the equal participation of women is carried through in all of society's decision-making processes - in our ACP partner countries as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 NAME="Corrie">
<SPEAKER ID=198 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldi">
Madam President, I wish to thank the rapporteur, Mr Robles Piquer, for his excellent work, because he has managed to develop important arguments that relate to the future of relations between the countries of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific and the EU.
I have to stress several points made in the report, particularly the fact that it confirms that the enhancement of women's rights and their adequate participation in all decision-making and political processes form an essential premise for making progress in the field of development, which implies, among other things, literacy measures and access to training and basic health services.
<P>
I am also satisfied that the importance of the signature of an international agreement to prohibit anti-personnel mines, as requested by the Joint Assembly at its 24th meeting, has been emphasized.
The recommendation made to the Commission to urgently bring forward the project studying the creation of a service responsible for coordinating aid for third countries, mainly comprising the ACP countries, is of particular importance.
<P>
I should also point out the work carried out by the working party, of which I am chairman, with regard to the consequence of the climate changes on the small island states.
I would remind you that, at the moment, they are changing from great heat to great cold, with no mid-season, that in spring and autumn they alternate between very high temperatures, like those of July, and very low temperatures, like those of January, and that the winds are strong and sometimes devastating.
I would also remind you that El Niño will strike hard and scientists are forecasting great disasters.
The whole of the southern hemisphere has been harshly affected by flooding and drought, with epicentres situated close to South Africa, Borneo and Sumatra, where huge fires have spread, capable of destroying a vast part of the forests.
High flooding has scourged south-east China and the western coasts of Mexico and California further north.
In the central regions of Africa, the difficult environmental conditions caused by the rain have given rise to an increase in diseases, such as malaria and cholera, with the deaths of 4 000 people.
<P>
The working party has submitted a draft resolution, approved unanimously by the Joint Assembly which met in Lomé on 30 October 1997, on the ACP-European Union cooperation, in view of the Conference of the Parties to the UN framework agreement on climate changes held in Kyoto in December 1997.
The object was for the Assembly to also indicate what the EU had proven.
Progress was certainly made on environmental matters at the Kyoto Conference in recognizing world intervention; nevertheless, the protocol contains results that may be considered sufficient, but not satisfactory, which we obviously have to point out.
<P>
The working party is still endeavouring to assess the effects and social and economic implications of the climate changes and the rise in sea level on the small ACP island states and propose a strategy to increase the knowledge at international level of the dangers such changes may involve.
The climatic variability and the rise in sea level cause the erosion of the coasts and the small ACP island states are particularly concerned because they are far more vulnerable than the others at economic, social and cultural level.
That is why this working party has dedicated particular attention to this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Madam President, I would like to start by congratulating Mr Robles Piquer on his report.
Something that was a dull and unexciting event for years is now, thank goodness, very different.
A clear attempt has been made, and a successful attempt at that, to arrive at changes in the way the Joint Assembly operates, in which we, Mr Robles Piquer and I, have been trying to keep our heads above water for years.
<P>
Of course, like Mr Corrie, I attach great importance to the existence of the Assembly.
That is why I admire the courage of the rapporteur to offer criticism, difficult criticism in a Joint Assembly.
We should get rid of block voting in the Joint Assembly.
A single electoral college might offer a solution.
The split vote divides the ACP countries and the European countries into two camps.
It is the exact opposite of what we strive for in a Joint Assembly.
This practice has meant that we have not been able to accept the rather sharp and appropriate resolutions on Nigeria, Congo, and Togo.
The Assembly must not and should not be allowed to continue to think in two halves.
The entire ACP cooperation is aimed at long-lasting development.
This means good governments , democracy, respect for human rights and assistance in complying with respect for human rights, on both sides.
ACP cooperation can be halted if this does not happen.
For this, practical measures must be worked out.
<P>
I hope, Madam President, that the Joint Assembly can be strengthened through procedural modifications, and I can also see that, with the growing significance political dialogue will be accorded in the ACP over the coming years, strengthening the Joint Assembly will become an issue for discussion, and that this will be achieved.
Maybe in a few weeks time we will have the opportunity, Mr Robles Piquer, to discuss your report in a smaller group, with what might be described as the opposition, although it is also our own side.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="Macartney">
Madam President, I would like to join in the chorus of congratulations to Mr Robles Piquer for a very fine report.
I pay tribute to the commitment he has shown and that is shared by a number of colleagues in the Chamber today.
All of us who have become involved with the Joint Assembly have found it a very inspiring and uplifting experience.
It is an institution which has a lot to offer.
We wish that more of our colleagues could experience it at first hand.
The main value is the aspect of parity between the two sides.
<P>
However, I would urge caution on the idea of abolishing the right to call for separate votes between the ACP and the EU.
There is a danger that the one thing which keeps some of the ACP countries involved with the Assembly might be seen by them as a threat to their participation.
It is rarely used and with the secret ballot which we have introduced, perhaps we should leave things as they are.
I just mention that as a note of caution.
I have found that in the Joint Assembly there is a genuine respect for everyone's point of view and we should do nothing to upset or threaten that.
<P>
I support Mr Robles Piquer's call for help to restore and strengthen democracy, and to see that as a prerequisite for economic growth.
He and I were on the delegation to Ghana immediately after the last Lomé Assembly which was led by the distinguished Member for Leeds, Mr McGowan.
We had a very useful meeting in Ghana with the Speaker of the parliament and the Clerk to the House.
They shared with us the problems they had had in becoming a democracy again.
For me it was a very inspiring aspect of our visit that they were looking to us for help.
They asked what the European Parliament could do to help the Clerk - the Secretary-General of the parliament - and the members to become more expert in the procedures, which had rather fallen away.
<P>
I hope we will be able to do something in that particular regard, and to do something proactive, not just reactive, in the Joint Assembly in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Madam President, the most striking point in this motion for a resolution is the difference of opinion in the Joint Assembly between the Members of the European Union and those of the ACP on human rights.
If what constitutes human rights is not viewed differently, then at least whether and how human rights violations are judged is viewed differently.
<P>
In order to prevent a small minority in the ACP group from vetoing the condemnation of a country, the rapporteur calls for a study to be conducted into possible alternatives to the current voting system in the joint Assembly.
I would like to add two comments to this.
<P>
Firstly, if the voting procedure is modified in the way proposed, then there is the risk that the effect of the Joint Assembly as a body for Members of Parliament of the European Union and ACP to meet, will decrease, because large groups can be outvoted on extremely important issues such a human rights.
What is a condemnation of Nigeria worth if this is happening against the will of the majority in the ACP countries?
This question must weigh heavily when the voting procedure is reviewed.
<P>
Secondly, the resolution is one-sided as regards human rights, because a disagreement between the countries was not only about human rights violations.
According to the explanatory statement in the Robles Piquer report, the Members were unable to reach agreement on the rights of the unborn child.
The ACP countries rightly point to the rights of the unborn child.
Abortion, which is performed in many Union Member States, is a flagrant violation of this right.
But this point does not feature in the resolution itself, and in the explanatory statement it is qualified by being described as the "conflict of views based on the usual ideological differences' .
<P>
Democracy and rule of law are rightly expressed in the resolution as an absolute condition for the continuation of development cooperation.
Let us listen to the ACP countries when they point to our violations of human rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Madam President, first of all we welcome the initiative, taken last February, with which the Council decided to change the existing procedure for the repayment of the debt contracted by the ACP countries: according to the National Alliance, this decision has certainly been made at an appropriate time because it enables most of these countries, in serious difficulties, not only on account of having to repay the debt but also the interest payable, to breathe a sigh of relief and face the most urgent reforms without delay and with greater calm.
<P>
The decision taken by the Council, backing the initiatives agreed by the Monetary Fund and by the Development and Cooperation Committees of the European Bank, clearly shows the obvious desire of the international financial community to bring the debt of the ACP countries to an economically more acceptable level.
<P>
The meetings held by the Joint Assembly last year, in Brussels and in Lomé, emphasized that only a consolidation of democracy, the rule of law, respect for human rights and a responsible use of resources will finally lead to the success of the development policy pursued within the scope of the ACP-EU cooperation.
<P>
From the point of view of environmental protection, we believe that the consequences of climate change, such as desertification and drought, should be prevented, and we should effectively combat the excessive growth rate of African cities, faced with a disorganized and unplanned urban development, particularly with regard to the health aspect but also the food and education sectors.
<P>
The criteria laid down at the Kyoto Conference, while hardly respecting the general requirements of reducing emissions and too obedient to the American diktat, constitute a valid approach to solving the problems of pollution and climate change, which the large powers will always make the small developing countries pay for.
<P>
With regard to human rights, the region of the Great Lakes but, in general, the whole of Central Africa, is faced with the theory of domination that can only be stopped if we manage to prevent conflicts by intervening in their causes, which always include economic crisis, violations of human rights and ethnic problems.
By adopting common positions in particular, supported and observed by all the ACP countries, we will be able to give the Joint Assembly the necessary credibility, as it will finally have understood that the EU considers democracy and the rule of law to be irreplaceable and necessary for the consolidation of a peaceful society and for the achievement of a sustainable development process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 NAME="McGowan">
Madam President, I wish to thank Mr Robles Piquer for emphasizing, yet again, the concept of partnership and how this is central to all our work in the Joint Assembly and, in particular, drawing attention in a very highprofile way to the system of voting that is in practice.
I agree with him entirely that it is not consistent with the objective of achieving that partnership.
<P>
It is up to us in the Joint Assembly to be seeking an overall view of the whole Joint Assembly on the important issues we face.
We know that it would be inconceivable in this Assembly for the Spanish delegation, the German delegation or the British delegation to have some kind of veto on the decisions of this Assembly because of a system of voting in separate blocks.
It is a great service to emphasize this.
<P>
I also have some sympathy with what Mr Macartney has said about caution.
I feel that the case for what is described as a single college for voting, is not that we can, as Europeans, be explaining to our ACP colleagues what democracy and human rights and self-determination is about.
In this Assembly and the Joint Assembly we too often see European arrogance going mad.
Despite my complimentary remarks, I am not too happy with some of the wording in paragraphs 17 and 18 of the motion for a resolution, where phrases like 'the ACP partners must be made to understand' what the European views are on democracy.
Mr Blokland has made a very important point that we should not in any way give the impression that we want to impose views that are very specific European views.
I have reminded this Assembly before that we send delegations to many parts of the world.
We send them to ACP countries to ensure that principles, for example of one member, one vote is practised in elections.
<P>
Mr Robles Piquer knows that in this Assembly itself we have had an example fairly recently of a leader of a political group in this Assembly and, not so long ago, someone who became chairman of the Group of the European People's Party being involved in an exercise of abusing our voting system - a system which is sometimes, I am told, called 'playing the piano' in the European Parliament, where we have people pressing more than one button and pressing the buttons of absent friends.
Or for example when we emphasize voter education.
I was in Namibia for the independence elections.
There was a 97 % turnout in that election.
Across southern Africa it is usually over 80 %.
I was returned for my city with a 30 % turn-out.
<P>
Let us be very clear to maintain this partnership when we talk about human rights, democracy and self-determination.
These are not European values, they are universal values.
The more we make that clear in our work in the Assembly, the more we will achieve a real partnership.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 NAME="de Silguy">
Madam President, let me first of all congratulate Mr Robles Piquer for the quality of his report on the work of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly in 1997.
I would like to take up the basic issues in this report and in your discussion.
<P>
Mr Rapporteur, you firstly mentioned, as did a number of speakers - and particularly Mr Amadeo - the impact of the United Nations Conference on relations between the European Union and ACP countries.
I can assure you that the Commission has taken this dimension into account in the direction of relations between the European Union and ACP countries in the future.
I am, of course, thinking of the Junker report.
Furthermore, Mr Robles Piquer highlights the importance of respect for democracy and human rights in relations between the European Union and ACP countries, at a time when future cooperation between the EU and ACP countries is under discussion.
This demand must rightly be considered and supported.
<P>
In future relations between the ACP countries and the European Union, the Commission, as you know, is emphasizing the need to strengthen the political dimension of this partnership, by highlighting the importance of developing a true political dialogue between the two parties.
This political dialogue will consolidate respect for human rights, democratic principles and the rule of law.
For the Commission, the framework for this dialogue must be the ACP-EU Joint Assembly sessions.
This institution has shown itself to be the preferred forum for the defence of human rights.
<P>
Proof of this is in the active participation of ACP representatives during the debates on particular countries at the last Joint Assembly in Lomé in October 1997.
Mr Robles Piquer emphasizes the point that 99 % of ACP representatives at this meeting were democratically elected members.
The content of the debates was strengthened by this, whether it was a discussion on the situation in Togo or Nigeria.
Like your rapporteur, the Commission noted the quality of many of the ACP countries' speeches, talking frankly of the situation of their neighbours or contributing constructively to the debate.
The publicity that surrounded these discussions also helped to strengthen their democratic nature.
<P>
How do we strengthen the role of this Assembly even more?
In this respect, the Commission proposes calling it a "Parliamentary Assembly' .
It is a question of confirming that this institution, unique in its kind, represents both the people of the European Union and of the ACP countries.
It is a necessity on which the Commission agrees with the rapporteur.
Similarly, the Commission understands the European Parliament's reservations regarding the voting system of two separate electoral colleges used by the Joint Assembly for sensitive issues.
This was emphasized by the rapporteur as well as by Mr Bertens and Mr McGowan.
The Commission will thus support all efforts to ensure that the results of votes from this Assembly truly reflect the conclusions of a joint, open and constructive debate between European and ACP members.
<P>
However, a strengthening of the Joint Assembly will also be achieved through development of outside contacts, and we must therefore promote meetings with civil society partners.
Encouraging meetings between NGOs in both the North and the South, as Parliament has indeed done, is one way of strengthening democracy. Meetings between people from the economic and social worlds must also be encouraged.
The Economic and Social Council is currently considering ways of intensifying contacts between the Joint Assembly and the economic, social and cultural players within the ACP countries.
The involvement of civil society will thus also be encouraged.
<P>
Let us also consider Members of Parliament at a regional level.
Regional meetings have already taken place between members of parliament from southern Africa and their counterparts in the European Union.
There must be more of these meetings.
We do not want to challenge the principle of holding two plenary sessions per year, but we should strengthen the role of national parliaments in relation to their public opinion.
My colleague Joâo de Deus Pinheiro often says that democracy is a process.
I believe that the Joint Assembly, which we should from now on call Parliamentary Assembly, is one of the best instruments at our disposal to accelerate and consolidate this process.
<P>
You also mentioned, Mr Robles Piquer - as did Mrs Baldi - the coordination of aid to the Third World.
Following your request, the Commission has decided to set up a joint service for the implementation of aid to the Third World.
I can also assure you, Mr Robles Piques, that a Commission document on urban development policy will be ready by the end of this year.
<P>
With regard to the budgetization of the EDF, the Commission is, of course, in agreement with Parliament.
You are giving your opinion on the future of EU-ACP relations and we have been looking forward to this.
Mrs Junker spoke in some depth on the rights of women and children in terms that the Commission agrees with.
Finally, in reply to Mr Corrie, concerning the two remaining countries to ratify Lomé IV, Belgium and the Netherlands, I believe that this is now progressing and that the President of the Commission and Mr Pinheiro have spoken to the governments in question regarding this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner de Silguy.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Europe Agreement with the Czech Republic
<SPEAKER ID=206 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on the report (A4-0394/97/rev) by Mr Schwaiger, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the draft Council and Commission Decision on the position to be taken by the Community within the Association Council established by the Europe Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States of the one part, and the Czech Republic, of the other part, with regard to the adoption of the necessary rules for the implementation of Article 64(1)(iii) and (2) of the Europe Agreement and Article 8(1)(iii) and (2) of Protocol 2 to the said Agreement on ECSC products (SEC(96)1568-8846/97 - C4-0383/97-96/0237(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="Schwaiger">
Madam President, being with each other is better than being against each other; cooperation within the framework of the Association Agreement is better than disputes in international organizations.
This could be the motto for the drafting of the common position which you have just quoted and which deals with the state aid granted by this associated country, the Czech Republic, to the steel industry among others.
<P>
Let me explain the problem we now have to deal with in this report with regard to the Czech steel industry.
About 12 % of all steel imports into the European Union come from the Czech Republic.
Production facilities in that country are particularly outdated and in need of modernization.
At present, measures to protect the environment are almost non-existent and energy consumption in this production process is almost three times greater than in the European Union.
<P>
The result is serious environmental damage in the border areas of the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany.
On the other hand, the conditions imposed by the European Union on its own steel production call for compliance with strict emission standards.
It is compulsory to install flue-gas desulphurization systems and exhaust gas filters when constructing or modernizing steel works.
<P>
These differences in environmental legislation between the European Union on the one hand, and the Czech Republic and other countries in central and eastern Europe on the other, as well as the granting of national subsidies can therefore bring about a widespread undercutting of existing steel prices in the European Union and result in an unfair competitive advantage for Czech steel which would inevitably lead to further anti-dumping measures by the European Union.
<P>
Therefore, at the Essen Summit in 1994 and again at the Cannes European Council in June 1995, it was proposed in the White Paper on preparation of the associated countries of central and eastern Europe for integration into the Internal Market of the Union to put an end to this conflict simply by implementing in these countries parts of the Community legislation relating to concentrations, anti-trust legislation, state monopolies and the state aids we are discussing here when their laws are being approximated to those of the European Union.
The uniform rules which would then also apply to the associated countries would make anti-dumping procedures superfluous and unnecessary; these should be replaced by appropriate implementing procedures in the Association Agreements.
<P>
In the Commission's proposal for a regulation before us today, residual customs duties applicable to the Czech Republic being now practically non-existent, state aids will only be acceptable to the European Union if they comply with their own rules as provided in Articles 92 to 94 of the EC Treaty on the prohibition of state aid.
In other words, the Czech framework legislation in this area must be adapted and to all intents and purposes converted to that of the European Union.
The European Union's state aid monitoring authority, the Commission, and the Czech Republic's monitoring authority, the Czech Ministry of Finance, are to work together in close consultation.
<P>
The harmonization of this Czech state aid legislation with that of the European Union can also serve as a model for the other Associated States of central and eastern Europe, namely Hungary, Poland, Slovenia as well as other countries where the following basic principles have been laid down clearly and unambiguously in specific provisions.
<P>
First, the EC Commission and the respective monitoring authority in the Associated Country are the central players in ensuring respect of the state aid provisions of the implementing rules in the Europe Agreement.
Second, the allocation of competences between the two authorities should be clear and coherent.
Third, the Commission should assist these authorities in the Associated Countries with state aid control by means of a performance monitoring system. In other words, it should help them to help themselves, and create the same legal criteria in this area instead of reneging on these provisions in the event of a dispute.
<P>
The particular problems of a transition should be taken into account for a limited period but it should always be borne in mind when harmonizing legislation that the aim is to achieve approximation to the stricter environmental standards set by the European Union.
<P>
We are grateful to the Council for adopting the position put before us in the Committee on External Economic Relations that Articles 92 to 94 are the legal basis for these implementing rules, as they make consultation with Parliament compulsory.
I should like to ask Commissioner de Silguy explicitly to depart from the erroneous legal basis, Article 113, and join with Parliament and the Council in applying the only correct provisions, Articles 92 to 94, in the case of the other Associated Countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
My family comes from the northern Bohemian town of Gablonz on the River Neisse, whose emblem is an apple tree.
On the one hand, the apple represents the trade war which the Czech Republic is currently conducting against EU apple exports, but on the other it also represents the sin which led to the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, and the infringement of competition rules, and to us anything that infringes the concepts of the legal community is also a sin.
However, I am very grateful to Mr Schwaiger for not adopting a paternalistic stance with regard to state aid in the coal and steel sector but calling for partnership, partnership with the Czech Republic, and in particular for taking account of environmental issues in the Czech Republic.
Totalitarianism was rife there for decades and it is necessary to repair the damage to the environment in the Iser and Giant Mountains, the Erz Mountains, the Beskids and the Bohemian Forest.
I am very grateful to him for wanting to meet the Czech Republic halfway and I would appeal to the Czech Republic to meet the European Union halfway as well by respecting competition rules and avoiding distortions of competition caused by granting state aid which goes against the spirit of Community law and the spirit of the Association Agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 NAME="de Silguy">
Madam President, the Commission would like to thank the rapporteur for recommending that Parliament approves the implementing rules with regard to Czech state aid.
<P>
Parliament's approval will enable their final adoption by the European Union-Czech Republic Association Council and I am delighted with your report.
I must clarify, however, that for strictly legal reasons, as far as the Commission is concerned Article 113, remains the appropriate basis.
<P>
These implementing rules are a precondition for the harmonious development of exchanges between the Czech Republic and the Community.
That is why the Commission is insisting on the importance of a rapid adoption of these rules by the Association Council.
<P>
As the Commission's opinions on the eastern and central European countries' requests for accession show, there remains a great deal to be done in these Associated Countries in order to improve the monitoring of state aid.
Your introduction, Mr Schwaiger, and Mr Posselt's comments, demonstrate that there is a lot of work to be done within their industries in order to put them on a level with those of the Community, in terms of environmental standards, as well as rules of competition.
In its Agenda 2000 proposal, the Commission also highlights the importance of competition policy in the Associated Countries throughout the pre-accession stage.
<P>
By adopting these rules relating to state aid, the Union and the Czech Republic will conclude the implementation of the measures of the Europe Agreement in this field.
The Commission will ensure that the PHARE programme for 1998 and 1999 includes aid enabling the Czech authorities to monitor state aid and to come into line completely with European standards within a few years.
Finally, the Commission hopes that the implementing rules relating to state aid will be rapidly adopted by the other Associated Countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner de Silguy.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 7.30 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Janssen van Raay">
Madam President, I have just 30 seconds to make a speech in French.
<P>
The Council has not answered the questions I put to it on 15 August, or Mrs van Bladel's questions.
So, could you please help us to obtain answers to our questions from the Council?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Mr Janssen van Raay, I quite agree with your request, and think it is a pity that there is no representative from Council present to hear you.
We will of course pass your request on to the Council, not only this time, but whenever necessary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Madam President, I would just like to strike a certain balance by declaring that you are my favourite president.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
I do not think that is really a procedural motion. It has nothing to do with the Minutes either, although I am delighted to hear it.
<P>
Are there any other comments?
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Rosado Fernandes">
Madam President, it may be a little too late for this, but my group would like me to ask you to request the House to postpone this vote until the next part-session.
I believe there are a large number of Members who will not be in favour, and as things stand, a vote on an important report will take place with only a limited number of Members present.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Mr Rosado Fernandes, we have already had a debate on this subject.
Circumstances have dictated that the vote has already started.
And I am very pleased to see that there are nevertheless a large number of us here to vote on this report, which is indeed very important.
<P>
On Amendment No 2
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Bontempi">
Madam President, I would like to propose an oral amendment that takes the debate and the observations made into account.
After "figure' , I propose that we insert "some type of European attorney' .
This tones down the proposal which, as many have rightly recalled, may have to be studied and tested.
So after "figure' , I would like to insert "some type of European attorney' .
This is the oral amendment resulting from our debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
Are there any objections to this slight amendment?
<P>
(Parliament accepted the oral amendment)
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution) I should like to congratulate Mr Bontempi and to thank him for having been understanding with regard to this debate and vote, which have unfortunately been rather disjointed.
I give you my word that we will ensure that it does not happen again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Tillich">
Madam President, yesterday afternoon and this morning we had a large number of roll-call votes.
There is a new ruling by the Bureau according to which only the roll-call votes up to Thursday noon are counted.
May I assume that the Members who took part in the roll-call votes yesterday afternoon and this morning will get a credit for this?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
The Bureau will consider your proposal very carefully, Mr Tillich.
But I would like to point out that the political groups keep detailed records of attendance, and it will be very important for this to be done carefully, especially during the forthcoming elections.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Falconer">
I rise to advise Mr Tillich that he is wrong: the Bureau's instructions were Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday with no time limit set on Thursday.
Therefore the votes last night did count.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
Mr Tillich had understood perfectly.
That is why he has made a supplementary proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
I would merely like to point out to you that the system does not apply today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="President">
Yes, exactly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Falconer">
Mr President, on a point of order.
I was just contemplating Mr Tillich's excellent point.
Perhaps the Bureau could investigate whether those of us who have stayed here Monday to Friday can recoup some of the bonuses which are withdrawn from those who have not participated in the vote during Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
That would be an excellent way of encouraging Members to come here on Friday.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Andersson">
I would like to thank the rapporteur for a penetrating report.
I think the fight against cross-border crime is an important area which deserves greater attention in the European Union.
However, I would like to point out the importance of showing proper respect for the differences which currently exist between various Member States and their legal systems because of varying legal cultures and traditions, when considering harmonization in the area of justice.
For this reason I have difficulty supporting the proposal to establish a European prosecution service in accordance with the 'Corpus Juris' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="van Bladel">
Criminal justice and criminal prosecution differ considerably from one Member State to another, and this is what prevents criminal prosecution taking place outside national borders.
Another obstacle to the harmonization of criminal justice and criminal prosecution is the internal reform by Member States of their judicial systems.
For a long time the Netherlands took no action, for instance, to issue an international warrant for the arrest of the former Surinam army commander Desi Bouterse, suspected of large-scale trade in cocaine.
Bouterse has managed to set up a network in the Netherlands, and has informants to tell him between which steps the judicial authorities are intending to take, and so he is always one step ahead of them.
These kinds of transnational criminal organizations are a threat to our rule of law.
<P>
Exchanges of civil servants are taking place in order to intensify cooperation between the Member States' judicial systems.
These exchanges only lead to improvement in cooperation with great difficulty.
Another source of weakness in the field of cooperation is that the training of judicial officers is highly inadequate in some Member States.
<P>
To conclude I would like to point out in connection with this report that, in order to enhance relations with countries outside the EU, it is important that both multilateral and bilateral treaties, such as the Convention on the transfer of executions of judgement, are signed, so that judicial cooperation with countries outside the Union can be fine-tuned as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Caudron">
We are regularly called upon to give our views on judicial and police matters.
Every report so far has been of high quality.
The latest is no exception, which is exactly what we have come to expect from Mr Bontempi.
<P>
I am in favour of the proposed guidelines.
However, I would just like to add one thing to the text. If judicial authorities are to tackle contemporary forms of crime, it is essential that their financial margins be brought into line with the cost of instruments that enable them to operate efficiently.
<P>
I wholeheartedly approve Rinaldo Bontempi's wish to speed up ratification procedures for conventions within the EU.
<P>
Furthermore, I consider that we must also form and expand such relationships with countries outside the EU.
Crime, in all its forms, is becoming internationalized.
The judicial authorities cannot afford to lag behind if they are to combat it.
<P>
Finally, corruption in public service is both a scourge and a danger, because it calumniates the vast majority of people holding public office who carry out their duties honestly and enthusiastically.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, in order to combat corruption, this House must rid itself of the far right wing, which is another form of social gangrene.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Cushnahan">
We have seen, in the recent decade, a significant loosening of our borders in the EU and the Schengen Agreement has opened borders on the continent.
Add to this the trans-border nature of the Internet and we can see how easily people, goods and information can move around in the Union.
While this has made the lives of European Union citizens easier, it has also made it easier for crime and criminals to cross our borders at will.
<P>
Unfortunately, the Union's ability to prosecute transnational crime has not been able to operate in a similar fashion.
While the Treaty of Amsterdam, as Mr Bontempi points out in his report, provides stronger recourse for the Union, we need to ensure that our law enforcement agencies can keep up with crime.
<P>
I support the rapporteur's call for more interaction between Member States' law enforcement agencies.
I welcome his call to allow judicial authorities to speak to each other without diplomatic protocol.
<P>
We have removed the red tape from crime crossing our borders.
It is time to remove the red tape from binding those trying to prevent that crime.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR), Eriksson (GUE/NGL), Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling (V), Sandbæk (I-EDN)">
We would like to point out that we are in favour of all forms of cooperation, even in the area of justice, if they take place at an intergovernmental level and do not impinge on or restrict national sovereignty or national democracy.
<P>
The overriding aim of the report is to establish a common European legal and judicial area.
That requires, among other things, a harmonization of criminal law, which would mean the abolition of national self-determination.
<P>
In order to achieve these objectives, there are also, for example, proposals to have uniform definitions of crimes, to permit advanced technical surveillance, such as via satellite or bugging, to recognize the role of the Court of Justice and to consider establishing a European prosecution service, which we strongly oppose.
<P>
The main legal basis is an interpretation of a treaty which has not yet been ratified or entered into force, the Amsterdam Treaty, which some may consider a rather strange legal basis.
<P>
International organized crime is best tackled through international cooperation at intergovernmental level and by developing cooperation through Interpol.
<P>
In view of the above, we have therefore voted against the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Sindal">
) The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of developing judicial cooperation within the EU.
We have to work together better to deal with cross-border organized crime in the EU.
But we believe this should start with the existing instruments available in the third pillar.
This is a good starting-point for future cooperation.
In the Amsterdam Treaty, we have defined and improved legal cooperation, and there is no reason to harmonize any further.
We are against standardization for standardization's sake.
The cultures, traditions and systems of individual countries must be respected, and any differences in penalties and evidence between Member States are not necessarily a problem.
<P>
We must ensure that criminals do not escape, and the best way of doing this is by improving practical cooperation between Member States.
The judicial authorities in the EU are already working together very well, which is something we can use in the fight against international crime.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="Ribeiro">
We agree with the substance of the concerns expressed by the rapporteur, and share the view that crime, and particularly organized crime, is on the increase.
<P>
In the European Union, and indeed the rest of the world, the traffic in human beings, arms and nuclear materials is proliferating, as is large-scale corruption, fraud and economic and financial crime, which so often go hand in hand with drug trafficking.
<P>
We consider that, in preference to the new measures proposed by the rapporteur, it is necessary first and foremost to make the control measures and mechanisms stipulated in existing legislation effective and practical, in conjunction with further measures to be deliberated between Member States, including some proposed by the rapporteur.
<P>
Member States must assume responsibility, and encourage other countries to do likewise, for applying existing measures and other measures identified as being necessary to complement them, such as those that are expected to emerge with the imminent introduction of the euro, which, as one OECD body recently stated, "will open the door to the laundering of dirty money' , because tax havens and other forms of easy money benefitting organized crime can only be eliminated by adopting effective and bold measures.
<P>
However, we disagree with the proposals in the report concerning the means and scope for carrying out these projects.
They should be put into effect in the context of effective judicial cooperation between Member States of the European Union.
This can and should be promoted and strengthened by means of intergovernmental cooperation, particularly by simplifying procedures and even by approximating criminal law and legislative concepts, without necessarily leading to legal standardization or harmonization.
<P>
We cannot therefore agree with the emphasis on suppressing the explanations and reservations expressed by some countries about international conventions, since this right ensures that any country can, ultimately, protect its individual identity and defend its sovereignty.
<P>
Robles Piquer report (A4-0080/98)
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="Gillis">
I fully support the Robles Piquer report and in particular the call made in the report for sanctions against those developing countries that are wasting the benefits of aid by spending huge amounts on their military budgets.
<P>
As a first step we must ensure that European development aid, which is the main source of income and a major inspirational support for many developing countries, is not diverted and misused for military purposes.
<P>
In addition we must reduce or cancel European aid for those countries who refuse to reduce military spending and continue to spend more than 1 % of their annual income on arms and armies.
<P>
Civil wars in several parts of Africa, fuelled by huge spending on arms, are destroying the impact of development aid, making millions of people destitute and generating a massive refugee problem.
<P>
The time has now come, I believe, to inform the recipients of our development aid that excess spending on military budgets will be directly reflected in reduced development aid.
<P>
Of course food aid must not be restricted where famine exists or is threatened.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="Schörling">
The Green Group in the European Parliament supports the report by Mr Robles Piquer on the work of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly in 1997.
We also voted in favour of the proposal to draw up a rule to allow representatives of parliaments in overseas countries and territories (OCT) to participate in meetings of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly as permanent observers.
<P>
We are very pleased that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from the ACP countries and the EU have now been granted observer status.
We believe that NGOs from ACP countries in particular have an important role to play in the struggle for greater democracy, fundamental human rights and the participation of citizens in development work.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
NAFO - Monitoring the Common Fisheries Policy
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0086/98 by Mr. Varela Suanzes-Carpegna, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Council Regulation (EC) No 3070/95 of 21 December 1995 on the establishment of a pilot project on satellite tracking in the NAFO Regulatory Area (COM(97)0671 - C4-0666/97-97/0346(CNS)); -A4-0019/98 by Mr Teverson, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the Commission report on monitoring the Common Fisheries Policy 1995 (COM(97)0226 - C4-0334/97).
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Varela Suanzes-Carpegna">
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="Teverson">
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kindermann">
Madam President, I would like to talk about the Teverson report.
Anyone who looks at the Commission's report can only agree with the rapporteur.
We ought to be extremely worried that since the first report was published a year ago there has been no improvement in controls, and that the political will of the Member States is evidently lacking.
But it is also regrettable that the Commission's report is so feeble and meaningless.
It almost gives the impression that the Commission just wants to relieve itself of a burdensome duty.
It is too passive and too hesitant, whereas definite action is what is needed.
<P>
For instance, the Commission absolutely must give the Member States clearer rules about what kind of information they are to provide, so as to obtain uniform information, because comparable information can only be obtained if this is done. Otherwise, the end result will be a report which begs more questions than it answers.
<P>
An action plan for improving controls by the Member States is also necessary, covering all sectors of the Common Fisheries Policy, including marketing channels, for instance.
An essential goal of this action plan should be to encourage cooperation between Member States, but also between them and the Commission.
<P>
However, the Commission will not be able to avoid giving serious consideration to harmonizing sanctions, because only deterrence provides protection against infringement, and only uniformity of sanctions can help to make the monitoring activities credible to the fishermen of the various Member States.
<P>
Credibility is also the key word of my last comment.
I would particularly like to highlight one sentence in Mr Teverson's report: ' The Commission's annual report about control of the Common Fisheries Policy should contribute essentially to maintaining its credibility.'
I fear that this Commission report has not quite lived up to this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langenhagen">
Madam President, we can only overcome conflicts by working together.
The Varela report also says as much.
In view of the disagreements between the EU and Canada, which at their climax in March 1995 resulted in an infringement of international law, the present decision by NAFO must be particularly welcome.
Extending the pilot project for satellite location of fishing vessels in the NAFO regulatory area has set the course for a calm sea in terms of international fisheries policy.
This was probably also the reason for continuing the project.
Which is a good thing, because it can consolidate the present peaceful situation.
Our goal must be to introduce compulsory satellite monitoring of specified fishing vessels in the NAFO regulatory area.
This is required anyway for monitoring stock conservation measures.
<P>
We shall be voting next week in the Committee on Transport and Tourism on the first Commission communication on the introduction of a European satellite navigation system for air traffic.
This technology is necessary for Europe and is impressive, and not just in my opinion.
As far as the NAFO area in concerned, three years are enough to make a decision about satellite monitoring.
This decision is urgently required, because at the NAFO annual meeting in September this year a uniform EU line on monitoring and enforcement in the fisheries area should be adopted.
The Committee on Fisheries therefore supports Amendment No 1, because creating uniform monitoring systems in the NAFO area is a further step towards a conflict-free future.
Likewise, the Commission's report on monitoring carried out in that area should finally enable us all to draw conclusions.
Parliament and the Commission are therefore asked to act accordingly.
<P>
Turning to the Teverson report, it is certainly true that it is time we had definite and comprehensible monitoring methods for the Common Fisheries Policy.
What is the use of laws and agreements if they are not socially effective?
Many of my visitors are amazed that people smoke everywhere in this Parliament, although there are many signs forbidding it.
And what do we see on the European seas?
There are no signs, but we all know about the directives on the Common Fisheries Policy.
But they are often ignored, or are inadequately implemented or monitored.
The credibility of a whole system is called into question by such behaviour.
It will only be possible to prevent over-fishing if fisheries activities are tightly monitored and effective sanctions are introduced. It would be even better, as the Commission says, if support - including financial support - were given to those Member States which act responsibly, and the number of them is increasing, thank goodness.
<P>
In addition to this principle of carrot instead of stick, a detailed Commission action plan would help to improve the situation.
We wait for it to be formulated.
<P>
In its report, the Commission praises the cooperation between Member States with the aim of achieving more effective monitoring.
However, it is an open secret that some Member States unfortunately still have the wrong attitude to fisheries policy.
But otherwise, our work would remain unloved and ignored, like the notices forbidding smoking here in Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Virrankoski">
Madam President, the Commission's report on the monitoring of the Common Fisheries Policy in 1995 does not make for very pleasant reading.
Some are being selfish when it comes to exploiting common fish stocks.
Some Member States fail to respect jointly agreed regulations, and continually condone quota violations and other offences.
Mr Teverson has dealt frankly with these problems in his report and called for stern action.
I would like to thank him for a bold, impartial and unbiased account.
<P>
Fishing is distinct from other means of livelihood in that fish stocks cannot be increased.
The current measures target the conservation of stocks already in existence and their proper use.
The methods used in the Common Fisheries Policy are thus mainly of a restrictive nature, and they cannot do anything to add to the resources we already have.
<P>
As fishing activity is concentrated at sea, in scattered locations, it is difficult to supervise.
But it becomes all the more difficult if one Member State does not wish to play ball.
The EU's resources in this area are limited.
The regulations in force are complicated and technically difficult to monitor.
Although various schemes have been and are being developed, the results are not very good.
<P>
There is mistrust between the major fishing nations.
The way things have gone up till now shows that complicated regulations are threatening to lead to deadlock.
The Liberal view is thus that the regulations should be simple, effective, and easy and cheap to monitor.
<P>
The Common Fisheries Policy can succeed in the future only if it has the genuine support of Member States.
More regulations, bureaucracy and intensive surveillance can never be enough to maintain a successful policy.
That is why the future of the fisheries policy depends on whether we really want to improve on it or not.
<P>
Fish is an important and nutritious food source.
Stocks must therefore be protected against overfishing and be kept at a good level, for future generations as well as our own.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Madam President, the basic aim of the Common Fisheries Policy is a system of sustainable fish stocks.
There are problems in the Mediterranean caused by drift-net tuna fishing, which is damaging natural resources.
<P>
In the Nordic countries we have a special problem, which is economic, ecological, and also linguistic.
It is about salmon fishing.
So-called natural salmon are born in certain catchment basin areas, live in the Baltic and the Gulf of Finland, and return to the rivers to spawn.
Owing to their characteristic gene structure these salmon are known as natural salmon.
They are classed as an endangered species by the EU.
<P>
Apart from natural salmon, the Baltic is inhabited by salmon which have been introduced there, and which do not have the same prized gene-value as the original natural salmon.
Their main prey and source of food is fished using drift nets in the southern parts of the Baltic, but increasing numbers of natural salmon on their way to breed are finding their way into the same nets, and now natural salmon only account for about 10 % of the total salmon population in the Baltic Sea.
<P>
The Finnish government is asking the Commission to make an exception of the Baltic in its general ban on drift nets.
That way they are seeking to steer the Finnish salmon prey towards the thirty or forty mainly Åland Island crews at the cost of losing the natural salmon gene stock and effectively destroying salmon fishing in rivers.
If, however, the natural salmon get back to the rivers to breed, they will be twice as large, measured by weight, as the salmon caught at sea alongside the introduced salmon.
<P>
The UK, which now has the presidency, must set in motion a determined policy to ban drift-net fishing once and for all, at the conference of Fisheries Ministries at the end of the month.
We must then have reports on the monitoring of the Common Fisheries Policy.
Because this is a Community matter, the Commission must insist on a common principle to apply when governments, and in this case it is mine, violate the policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="McKenna">
Madam President, we support the report of Mr Teverson and the conclusions he comes to.
We endorse the resolution, especially the comments about the lack of overall analysis, and criticisms by the Commission of the Member States and the lack of progress in monitoring the marketing channels.
As I found out when I was rapporteur on the report for the same subject for 1994, the level of surveillance and control of EU vessels varies widely from one country to another, but nowhere at all is it satisfactory.
The Member States apparently lack the political will to fulfill their obligations.
This is a major problem.
If the Member States cannot do what they are supposed to do, then the Commission should get tough with them and consider legal ways of encouraging them to act.
At the end of the day maybe we should consider whether surveillance should become a Community responsibility, because at the moment Member States are not fulfilling their obligation.
It is quite clear that there is a lack of political will there, and something has to be done about it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="Weber">
Madam President, today we are again dealing with the serious issue of natural resources management.
The dispute between Canada and the EU arose in 1995 when fish stocks emigrated outside the Canadian 200 nautical mile exclusive zone and the Canadians decided to protect those fish stocks in extra-territorial waters.
Unlike the majority of colleagues in this Parliament at that time I fully agreed with the measures taken by the Canadians.
I still believe that the Canadians were right because fish do not realize where the 200-mile zone ends and international waters begin.
<P>
Today I am happy that this conflict was resolved around the negotiating table.
Canada agreed on the non-application of extraterritorial fisheries legislation in international waters of NAFO.
Also, several control measures have been agreed upon, amongst them an agreement that each vessel be equipped with a satellite tracking system.
That is what we are discussing today.
<P>
My group fully supports the pilot project which has been carried out on satellite tracking.
We think satellite tracking is a serious control measure to prevent over-fishing.
We therefore fully endorse the recommendations from Mr Varela SuanzesCarpegna and Mr Teverson, who we congratulate for reaching unanimity in the Committee on Fisheries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Madam President, the credibility of the Common Fisheries Policy stands or falls with an effective monitoring policy on the part of all Member States.
The Commission's annual report on monitoring activities in the Member States therefore fulfils a useful function.
But to get a good picture of the intensity of the monitoring done by each Member State, reporting will have to improve considerably.
The report for 1995 offers no more than offering an interesting survey of the various inspection activities in the Member States.
<P>
It is not possible to compare the effectiveness of Member States on the basis of this report.
The monitoring systems vary too much and the way the results are presented in the Commission report is too restricted.
<P>
The description of actual offences in the report is very brief.
Such information is extremely important to get a good picture of the scale of the problem.
Some Member States do not issue any information on fishery offences at all, whilst others only mention the number of offences, without giving any indication as to the nature of the offence.
Most Member States leave out all details of the fines and penalties they have imposed.
<P>
Without advocating European criminal justice, I would like to point to the need to maximize approximation of sanctions imposed by different States as far as possible.
The deterrent effect ought to be comparable throughout the entire Union.
<P>
Finally, the problem of illegal landings.
It is important that these are charted better.
There is a serious suspicion that large quantities of fish are landed illegally in a number of Member States, bypassing the quotas.
At the end of 1996 the BBC reported that in the United Kingdom a quarter of all fish reaches the shore illegally.
Up until the present moment the Commission has neither confirmed nor denied this report.
But systematic controls when the fish is landed, combined with a reporting obligation, are needed in many other countries.
In Member States with many harbours, this will lead to organizational problems.
The problem is serious enough, however, to warrant considerable stepping-up of monitoring.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Madam President, I would like to make five points to the Commissioner concerning Mr Teverson's report on the Commission report on monitoring the Common Fisheries Policy.
<P>
Firstly, I would like to consider the timing. In other words, this report is from 1995 and we are now in March 1998.
I would like to know if, for 1999, the Commission could join together 1996, 1997 and 1998 in a single report so that we could consider the situation as quickly as possible.
<P>
Secondly, Madam Commissioner, the report has not, in fact, given us that much information since what the Commission has done, or the Commission's services have done - as can be seen on pages 10 to 59 - is to collect the national information, put it in a file and bring it along.
The Commission only drew up pages 3 to 8-5 pages - and then only some basic tables.
I will give you an example of how basic they are, which I hope will not be unpleasant. In one of these, it states that "there are 30 inspectors in Spain' .
And, in a footnote - No 4 - it adds: "to this figure, which corresponds to the national inspectors situated in Madrid, must be added 232 inspectors working for the autonomous communities' . In other words, there are 252 inspectors instead of 30.
In addition, as regards Italy, it states: "in theory, 5 200 people are involved in some type of fisheries inspection' .
Given that fishing is not a very important activity in Italy, this gives the impression that each individual fish is inspected by an Italian. I do not actually believe this to be true.
Therefore, I call on the Commission to ensure that the next report is more uniform, and that at least the information is clearer.
<P>
Thirdly, there is a lack of Community controls.
What concerns me is that not only is there no Community monitoring, but all the conclusions, which can be found on the last page of the report, are aimed at cooperation between countries. In other words, it supports monitoring on the part of the states.
Entrusting fisheries countries with the monitoring of their own fisheries is the same as asking hunting organizations to monitor their own hunters.
This will not be possible, and it is a point which we would like to make very clear.
<P>
Fourthly, there is a lack of funding.
This is rightly conceded in the Commission's report, which states: "as a consequence of fraud, between ECU 7 000 million and ECU 8 000 million is lost every year' , while we spend ECU 300 million on monitoring. In other words, if we spent more, we would save money.
The question is whether or not it is possible to increase funding to maintain these monitoring activities - I know the Commissioner is going to tell me that the budgetary power lies with Parliament.
<P>
To end on a positive note, Madam Commissioner, these new systems are beneficial. The satellite monitoring systems and even NAFO's control system which Mr Varela talked about are all very constructive.
I disagree with Mr Varela on one point and that is that Mr Varela is calling for another report on NAFO.
Would it not be possible to have in the near future a comprehensive report which would mean that, rather than having different reports, we would have only one which would include NAFO and the new systems?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="McCartin">
Madam President, I accept Mr Teverson's report as a very honest effort to state clearly the opinion of the Committee on Fisheries.
I listened very carefully to Ms McKenna.
I was interested to note that while she continuously opposes the existence of the European Union, this morning she wants to give it more competence in the area of policing the seas.
I certainly agree.
<P>
As someone who is interested in the image of the European Union, I sometimes wish we did not have the responsibility of the Common Fisheries Policy.
We could have made it into something useful for the European Union.
It could have been a little gem of achievement.
All we can say, I suppose, is that European Union fishermen have not been sinking each others' boats or killing each other in fights over fish, as they have done in some parts of the world.
Apart from that, it has largely been a failure.
<P>
There are two considerations.
One is environmental: the health of the seas.
The other is economic.
We could have improved the marine environment considerably and at the same time, we could provide, at least for the future, a better livelihood and greater profits for fishermen.
But it seems we have ignored all the warnings.
When we come here and complain about fraud in the area of Community spending we get satisfaction, figures and action, but never in the area of fishing.
I do not blame the Commission. It is entirely due to the lack of political will in the Member States and the lack of trust that exists between fishermen and governments.
We have to try a lot harder at European Union level if we are to convince everybody.
If one fish is found dead in a stream, lake or inland waterway anywhere in the European Union, there is war; someone is taken to court, and people are brought to justice.
Thousands of tonnes of small fish are discarded annually in the seas.
No-one takes any notice.
<P>
I want to make a specific complaint.
I have to deal with these things in my own constituency: fishermen off the west coast of Ireland complain of gross overfishing by Dutch-registered vessels.
They claim these fish are being landed in Las Palmas and that there is no policing or control.
I do not want to be nationalistic.
I believe all fishermen have a share of the guilt.
But I would like specific complaints at least to be reported and commented on.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Hardstaff">
Madam President, I also wish to congratulate the rapporteurs on their reports.
The common concern of both the Varela Suanzes-Carpegna and the Teverson reports is the need for effective monitoring and enforcement of international and Community fishing agreements.
As has been said, we must ensure that all the measures in those agreements are being carried out if fish stocks are to remain at a sustainable level.
<P>
There is, as we all know, deep suspicion among Europe's fishing communities that other countries' fishermen are getting away with flouting the rules and, therefore, they do not see why they should keep them.
This is the main reason for the anger and resentment felt towards the Common Fisheries Policy.
The fact that we are discussing the 1995 Commission report on monitoring the CFP in March 1998 is indicative of the slowness with which action is seen to be taken on enforcement.
<P>
I therefore welcome the Commission proposal to extend the pilot project for satellite tracking of vessels in the regulatory area of the North Atlantic Fisheries Organization up to 31 December 1998.
Indeed, I hope that it will not just remain a pilot project which will come to an end at the end of this year, but will be the basis of a comprehensive system of satellite tracking, applied eventually over a much wider area, including the Mediterranean, where Community vessels are subject to quotas and controls.
<P>
We need to report back on the effectiveness of the pilot before the end of this year, so that the necessary amendments and extensions can be made to the scheme if it is proving to be the valuable contribution to the conservation of fish stocks we all want to achieve.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Imaz San Miguel">
I would like to begin by thanking the rapporteurs, Mr Varela and Mr Teverson.
<P>
The truth is that the monitoring of fisheries, as we all agree, is inadequate in several respects, and this is highlighted in the report.
On the one hand, as Mr Medina has already said, this is due to the lack of resources devoted to this area by the Commission itself, and for which, we, as Members of Parliament who have budgetary authority, must also share the responsibility. On the other hand, it is due to the lack of political will on the part of many Member States.
This is a mistake since if we do not adequately monitor the fisheries sector, we are demonstrating weak policies in that we are attacking the resources on which the future survival of fisheries depends.
<P>
However, there are reliable fleets, of course.
There are fleets which fulfill all the technical requirements.
Therefore, where monitoring is not adequate, these fleets are becoming less competitive than those which do not respect the regulations.
As we increase the demands for technical measures, we are also increasing the imbalance in terms of the lack of competitiveness of those fleets which do meet the technical requirements.
This is a problem which needs to be solved.
Some measures in this respect are highlighted in the report, and I would like to congratulate the rapporteurs on that.
<P>
But this report also underlines another important point: monitoring should not only involve catches, but should also cover markets and marketing.
The Commission should also investigate certain instances of fraud taking place at the moment, for example, in respect of imports of tuna steaks under the GSP-Drugs preferential arrangements.
<P>
Madam Commissioner, yesterday you wrote a very nice article on the topic of drugs and the barbarities which sometimes occur.
I believe that fisheries are also subject to fraud, but it is not due to a lack of solidarity in this field. However, the European Union's solidarity must be underpinned by all its economic sectors, and not necessarily just the fisheries sector.
<P>
There is another aspect of fraud which I would like to emphasize and which is also pointed out in the report.
I have in mind the possible fraudulent import of cod of a different origin via Norway.
In fact, it is possible that part of the existing 800 000 tonnes of cod from the Arctic, of which practically 50 % belongs to Russia, reaches Community markets via Norway.
Therefore, this report also underlines the need to extend control measures, and I call on the Commission, with the courage it normally shows and in the light of this report, not to mention the policies the Commission is implementing, to expand monitoring of the fisheries policy, because this will undoubtedly be an important factor in preserving our fisheries sector for the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Madam President, I rise to speak about the Teverson report, which is one of the most depressing I have ever read.
Anyone who, like me, remembers being told that the sea is our future, that it is a source of unlimited food, that everything is available to us, and who now, just a few years later, reads what Mr Teverson has said, will see a tragic picture emerging.
On the other hand, there are still many reasons for being optimistic, not least because of the fact that we have an excellent Fisheries Commissioner, who has energetically achieved a great deal.
But it is also true that we are still dependent on national governments today, and they have no will at all.
They are much too weak, whether policy or security is at stake.
If our governments are weak, then Europe is weak, and that lies at the heart of the tragic part which our continent has to play in this whole field, quite apart from the fact that we only ever talk about Europeans.
The real criminals of the sea are the Russians, the Americans and the Japanese, with their big industries which actually exterminate whole regions.
We only have to look at the coast of South America and see what is happening there.
<P>
I believe that the Teverson report is a signal to us to call on our governments again to stir themselves into action at last, because otherwise they will yet sink Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Bonino">
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
The next item is the vote on the report (A4-86/98) by Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution) The next item is the vote on the report (A4-19/98) by Mr Teverson.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Guidance programmes for the fishing fleets
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0046/98) by Mr Cunha, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the Commission's annual report to the Council and the European Parliament on the results of the multiannual guidance programmes for the fishing fleets at the end of 1996 (COM(97)0352 - C4-0393/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Cunha">
Madam President, during the early 1980s, the over-fishing practised by a very oversized Community fleet approached alarming proportions.
In 1983, in view of the gravity of the situation, the Commission submitted a first multiannual guidance programme (MGP) which was intended to reduce the fishing effort and which established basic parameters for the tonnage and power of vessels.
<P>
MGP I was followed by MGP II and MGP III, covering the period 1992-1996, which finally stipulated differentiated goals for reducing fishing effort, with 20 % for demersal species and 15 % for benthic species.
Thus, the overall reduction of the fleet depended on its structure, the species fished and the techniques employed.
The result achieved by MGP III, which we are currently analysing, was to reduce the fleet's capacity by 15 % measured in terms of tonnage and by 9.25 % in terms of power.
<P>
As will be seen from the report, the global objectives have not been uniformly achieved by all countries.
Thus, countries like Denmark, Germany and, in particular Spain and Portugal, have reduced the capacity and the power of their fleets.
Portugal and Spain even exceeded the objectives set.
In other cases, however, the objectives were not met and some Member States even increased their capacity over and above its previous level.
<P>
I have a number of comments in view of this.
The information in the Commission communication shows that virtually all Member States experienced technical difficulties in complying with the deadlines set for harmonizing units for measuring vessel tonnage.
It is to be hoped that these technical difficulties will now be overcome through MGP IV.
<P>
The situation is more worrying as regards power, since each Member State uses a different method of calculation.
The Commission should, as a matter of urgency, submit proposals to facilitate setting criteria for such calculations.
This is the only way to enable comparative analyses of the different Member States to be made and to be able to ascertain the degree of compliance with the objectives laid down.
<P>
However, the Commission report conveys the still more serious impression that some national governments are reluctant to furnish the Commission with reliable data on the condition of their fleets, and appear to have little interest in adopting appropriate measures for reducing capacity in compliance with the objectives established in the MGPs.
<P>
Thus, non-compliance with the multiannual guidance programmes is repeatedly carried over to the following programme which, in turn, ignores what went before.
It is worrying that the objectives enshrined in the MGPs should in practice be dependent on the good will of Member States.
The effectiveness of the instruments at the Commission's disposal for enforcing compliance is doubtful and they do not encourage Member States to take appropriate steps to reduce the fishing effort of their respective fleets to conform with the ceilings stipulated in the programmes.
<P>
In the light of this situation, and of the fact that a balanced conversion of national fleets is essential in guaranteeing the conservation of resources, and in ensuring that Community fishing remains profitable and competitive in future, it is essential that the Council and, by extension, Member States, should recognize their responsibilities and accordingly draw up enforcement measures with real teeth, in the event that the objectives laid down in the multiannual programmes are not met.
<P>
Given the current state of affairs, we should consider penalties including a reduction in Member States' quotas whenever the objectives set are not met and this is obviously deliberate.
<P>
Finally, I would like to congratulate the Commission on the quality of its report and urge the Council to take its responsibilities seriously and adopt a regime of penalties including effective measures in cases of deliberate non-compliance with the objectives laid down.
Otherwise, we will just be pulling the wool over each others' eyes and, if that is the case, it would be preferable to put an end once and for all to the charade that this would make of the multiannual guidance programmes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kindermann">
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, multiannual guidance programmes I, II and III from 1983 to the end of 1996 did not succeed in eliminating the mismatch between the over-sized fishing fleets of the European Union and the critical state of its fish stocks.
There are various reasons for this.
On the one hand, according to the rapporteur, there were different measurement bases in the Member States when the multiannual guidance programmes were introduced, and on the other, there was the lenient way Member States implemented the rules.
<P>
It is obvious that there were very big differences in implementation by Member States.
Despite the Commission's good intentions - and I hold the Member States equally responsible - there is still a lot of catching up to do in implementing the rules.
It is good that there was progress between 1992 and 1996.
A reduction in the tonnage and engine power of the EU fishing fleet was achieved.
But this has changed little as far as the critical state of the fish stocks is concerned.
It is therefore doubtful whether MGP IV will result in any fundamental improvement.
<P>
This has already been demonstrated by the resistance of some Member States to the provisional rules under MGP IV.
The rules which were then finally decided are also only half-hearted in my opinion.
If MGP IV is to yield the successful outcome we are seeking - and here I agree with the rapporteur - the Commission must use effective instruments which are not dependent on the Member States' good will.
<P>
I would like to add one important point: the socio-economic effects not only on fishermen themselves, but also on the whole coastal region.
I foresee the greatest difficulties for Member States here, and I hope that fisheries will be discussed in the structural fund debates, and not just at the margin.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="Fraga Estévez">
Madam President, the most interesting aspect of Mr Cunha's report - and I would like to congratulate him on it - is the fact that, although three multiannual programmes have now been finalized, we will still have to be on our guard to ensure that none of the Member States try to avoid meeting the requirements. This would be a selfish attitude which could in itself prevent us from fulfilling the objectives of resource conservation and which, in addition, would create unfair competition with those Member States which complied with the programme.
<P>
As Mr Cunha stated in recital C of his report, achievement of the MGP objectives is necessary to ensure sustainable development in this sector.
In agreeing with this statement - as I do - we recognize with frustration that non-compliance on the part of some states hinders such sustainable development for the entire Community fleet.
Moreover, it demonstrates an unacceptable lack of solidarity.
<P>
With the approval of MGP IV, we can see that certain progress has been made.
This is particularly true in that there seems to have been a major commitment on the part of the Commission to ensure that this new generation of MGPs can be concluded under fair and non-discriminatory conditions for the fleets of the various Member States.
<P>
However, I would like to go further and call for determined action.
We accordingly agree with Mr Cunha's call for the settingup of a system of effective sanctions, which could include the reduction of fishery quotas, and this is one of the reasons why we are supporting his report.
<P>
Moreover, the report also addresses the lack of uniformity in the measurement system. In this respect, I would like to highlight the need to concentrate our efforts on achieving a standardized system of equivalent measurements and provisions which oblige all Member States to supply reliable data.
<P>
It is only in this way, Madam President, that we can really discover what measures we need to take to achieve the sustainable development of the Community fleets or, as I would prefer to say, the Community fleet.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="d'Aboville">
Good morning, Madam President.
<P>
In his evaluation of the third guidance programme, the rapporteur expresses concern at the lack of interest shown by some Member States in taking measures to reduce the size of their fleets.
We may regret their lack of enthusiasm, but should we really be surprised at it?
In fact, some ports have been literally reduced to their bare bones.
If a balance is not achieved, the whole social and economic fabric is threatened, including fish auctions, shipyards, the fish trade, refuellers, and so on.
Nor should we underestimate the tremendous difficulties experienced in some countries, where procrastination is a way of life.
<P>
After all, it ought to be possible to take into account in the calculations those vessels which are more or less stateless or have a borrowed nationality, which fly the flag of one country, when everyone knows they should really be classed as belonging to another in terms of quotas and power.
<P>
The rapporteur emphasizes that only a system of effective sanctions will compel national bodies to comply with the objectives set.
Amongst such measures, he proposes the automatic reduction of quotas.
I personally do not think that is a good solution, because it can only be applied if a specific fleet only catches a specific species.
What will be done in the case of multipurpose vessels and what about vessels over 50 % of whose catch consists of non-quota species?
<P>
I also think that suspending aids for shipbuilding is a very restrictive measure, and may even be excessive, as it can have an adverse effect on safety and the improvement of working conditions.
I should also like to thank the rapporteur for having taking that point into consideration by including it amongst the recitals of his report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Novo">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the Commission's annual report on the final results of MGP III helps enormously to clarify the way the Community fleet has developed and the role that national governments have played in that development.
<P>
For instance, the report demonstrates that my country went furthest in applying MGP III as regards the key issue of reducing the capacity of the fleet's different components and segments, and that it went even further than the levels set. I have to say that I find this totally incomprehensible given the information contained in the report.
I must say that I find it very hard to understand this "good boy' attitude since, at the same time, other Member States were cynically - I can safely say - increasing the capacity of their own fleets in terms of tonnage and/or power.
<P>
The detailed information contained in the report should have had a greater influence on the values and strategies laid down by the current MGP IV, which covers the period 1997-2001.
More attention should have been paid to this data both by the Commission, in drawing up the proposals for MGP IV and by the Council, in deciding not to insist on further capacity reductions for Member States which have complied with and even exceeded, to some extent, the programmes under MGP III.
<P>
The Commission also has its share of responsibility here, since it has not shown itself equal to the task of enforcing decisions to harmonize the measurement of the tonnage of the various fleets, and nor has it proved able to make progress with the prescriptive framework required to harmonize measurement of the power and productivity of the various fleets.
<P>
Thus, these basic requirements for establishing reliable comparisons and monitoring are not met, and there is a failure on the part of many of those who possess the fleets with the highest capacity and productivity in the European Union to comply with the MGPs. It is therefore difficult to persuade many fishermen of the justice, transparency and fairness of the Commission's and some Member States' arguments and theoretical proposals for Community strategies that are obviously necessary to adapt the capacity of the Community's fleet to existing marine resources.
<P>
There is also a total absence of firm measures against those who flout the rules.
The rapporteur - whom I congratulate - argues that these measures should include, for instance, the withdrawal or reduction of quotas. Similarly, there is a lack of consideration for those who have met and even exceeded the responsibilities they are required to take on.
This cannot be allowed to continue much longer.
<P>
On behalf of Portugal's fishermen and producer organizations, who have been heavily penalized in recent years, I would like to voice an appeal for action without further delay.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="McKenna">
The Commission and Mr Cunha have both done very good jobs in analysing the results of the final year of the third multiannual guidance programme.
The Teverson report and the Cunha report both relate to things that are essentially the responsibility of the Member States, that is, control and surveillance, on the one hand, and the size of the national fishing fleets on the other.
Both reports show clearly that Member States are not taking their responsibilities seriously.
Only four countries out of fifteen have met all their objectives under the MAGP-3.
All the others are over the limits, in terms of either tonnage or power, in at least one of the fleet segments.
The four countries that have met the objectives are Spain, Portugal, Denmark and Finland.
<P>
The Commission report is quite comprehensive in giving information on the degree to which various Member Sates have met their obligations, but one suggestion I would make to improve the quality of the report is to give some idea of how, for example, Spain and Portugal met their objectives, what happened to the vessels which were removed from the register, how many were decommissioned, how many were scrapped, how many were sunk and so on.
Also, how many were simply transferred to another flag: how many vessels continue to fish either here in the Community or elsewhere, under what is in some cases essentially a flag of convenience.
<P>
The fisheries agreement with Argentina subsidizes transfers to the Argentine flag.
How much of the reduction of the capacity from Member States has gone over there and what impact is this having on the resources in that area?
We cannot just talk about massaging the figures and removing vessels from the national register and putting them somewhere else, we have to see where they are going, what is happening to them.
No Member State can actually pat itself on the back if we do not know exactly the end result of what they are doing.
We need this information to analyse fully what is happening.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Macartney">
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Macartney.
<P>
Mr van Dam, on behalf of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, now has the floor for two and a half minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, it goes without saying that all Member States should keep to the rules which form part of the Common Fisheries Policy.
When the Member States flout these rules, sanctions should be imposed.
On that point I agree with the rapporteur.
But I do not think linking sanctions exclusively to the fleet capacity is the right approach.
Data on the number of vessels and engine power provides an extremely incomplete picture of the actual problems, especially if this data is based on unreliable and non-harmonized measurements made by Member States, as was the case in the annual report for 1996.
To get a good idea of the extent to which the Member States have met the objectives of the Common Fisheries Policy, more issues should be looked at.
I am thinking of the Union's quota policy, which is in fact the backbone of the European policy on the preservation of fish stocks, for instance.
The multiannual guidance programmes are closely related to this.
This instrument encourages Member States, after all, to adjust their fleet capacity to the available quota.
In this context it would have been helpful if, in addition to statistics on tonnage and engine power, the rapporteur had given a survey of the extent to which the quotas are complied with.
The rapporteur and other Members would then have seen that in the Netherlands the quotas are respected, despite that fact that the capacity of the fleet has not or has hardly been reduced.
<P>
The point I am trying to make, Mr Cunha, is that reducing fleet capacity is not the only way to lessen the pressure on resources.
The Netherlands has managed to stick to its quota by reducing the number of fishing days.
Such arrangements for managing fishing effort must be taken into account in the results of the multiannual guidance programmes.
<P>
Fishing methods also have an effect on resources.
In the Netherlands, for example, the overall length of the trawl has been reduced from 14 to 12 metres.
Experts believe this has reduced pressure on fish stocks by 10 %.
No allowance was made for this in the annual report for 1996.
<P>
To sum up, I endorse the rapporteur's plea for tightening sanctions, such as a reduction of quotas in the event of infringement.
But then the Member States should not be judged on just one aspect of the Common Fisheries Policy, but on the entire policy.
This means that allowances should be made for deployment of the fleet and for compliance - or non-compliance - with the quota.
I have tabled two amendments to this effect, and I hope the rapporteur will agree with these.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, I am sorry the Commissioner is not here because, really, without her here the debate somewhat loses its interest. I actually wanted to congratulate the Commission on the report it has prepared and, since the Commissioner is no longer here, I am disappointed at not being able to do so.
However, at least the rapporteur is here.
He has presented a magnificent report and I would like to congratulate him as well.
The rapporteur understands the situation very well and I wanted to emphasize that his report is both clear and accurate. So, apart from the amendments adopted by the Committee on Fisheries, it is difficult to accept any other amendments that would spoil the content of his amendment.
<P>
I would like to highlight the same point as Ms McKenna, but with a slight correction.
Ms McKenna said that only four countries had met all their objectives under MGP III, when in fact only three countries have met them as, if you read page 49 of the Commission report carefully, you will see that the Commission has some objections in the case of Finland.
Therefore, only Spain, Portugal and Denmark completely meet the MGP III objectives.
This means that the countries which are more highly dependent on fisheries are those which are most eager to meet the objectives.
<P>
Mr Cunha's report sets out a series of points we agree with: the need to continue to establish harmonious criteria, the question of fleet capacity, the power of vessels, etcetera, and, in particular, the need to introduce a system of sanctions.
The Community has begun to introduce sanctions as regards competition and, more recently, as regards convergence.
<P>
Mr Cunha's proposal is perfectly reasonable: he calls for a quota reduction for those Member States which do not meet the Community requirements.
<P>
However, the issue he raises in recital B is also very important: that the aim of the Common Fisheries Policy should not necessarily be a reduction for the fisheries sector.
Instead it should be to establish a balanced fisheries system since, in the sea, the general rule is that the big fish devours the little one and a certain biological balance has been established so that the human factor (fisheries activity) makes up part of this biological balance.
The adoption of measures aimed simply at reducing fisheries activity without taking this balance into account could, strangely enough, have a negative impact because, for example, if we do not continue to fish for species which are predators, those fish which are consumed by the predators will become less and less common.
<P>
I therefore believe that the Commission has taken the right road, that the Cunha report is truly excellent, and that we should congratulate both the Commission and Mr Cunha on their reports.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langenhagen">
Mr President, since the start of the 1980s we have known about the damaging effects of overfishing in the seas of the EU.
The multiannual programmes, the MGPs, which are before us today, were introduced as a counter-measure; for instance, this year there is MGP IV, the fourth generation.
The absence of uniform assessment criteria is ridiculous.
Is a brake being deliberately put on progress towards uniformity, or why is it that we cannot get results which suit the whole of Europe, based on either tonnage or engine power?
This problem should have been sorted out a long time ago.
There are also gaps in the register of Community fishing vessels, which reduce its effectiveness.
This issue really should be resolved as well.
So a greater will to implement the directives is necessary.
National interests must not take precedence over higher-level European fisheries policy.
In any case failure to achieve the goals will unavoidably result in destroying many fisheries businesses on land, once fish stocks have degenerated too far, if not before that.
<P>
We should not let ourselves be deceived about the shortcomings of other countries in this area just because total capacity has been balanced out by particularly conscientious countries.
We cannot allow the countries which comply to become resigned as a result.
Their achievement must be a spur to the stragglers, otherwise there will be no progress in future.
<P>
It seems that there are not enough incentives to achieve the goals set.
The overhang from the previous MGPs is scarcely motivating.
It must be compulsory to keep within the limits, even if at the moment there are no effective sanctions along the lines I have described to ensure that it is done.
<P>
A quota reduction such as the rapporteur has suggested could also be effective.
But - and let me emphasize this again - it is more important to increase the awareness of the Member States.
Because they, the Member States, are responsible.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you, Mrs Bonino, and DG XIV for the important discussion this week about Agenda 2000 and the subsequent legislative proposals on fisheries.
It was a good discussion, and I look forward to working together more.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Langenhagen.
<P>

Ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Langenhagen's speech has brought us to the end of the speeches by Members of this House and, before handing the floor over to Mrs Bonino, I would like to inform her that during her brief and justified absence, Mr Medina Ortega wanted to congratulate the Commission on its good work.
Therefore, the Presidency would like to repeat Mr Medina Ortega's thoughts, while it understands completely that the Commissioner had to excuse herself briefly from the Hemicycle and, as always, I hand over to her with pleasure.
<P>
You now have the floor, Mrs Bonino.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="Bonino">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, firstly I would like to congratulate Mr Cunha on his report, which I think provides a good analysis of the subject matter.
The Commission believes the multiannual guidance programmes to be important instruments, and so respect for their objectives is an essential factor for the future of the sector.
In this connection, I would like to remind Members that the services of the Commission are examining the possibility of bringing legal actions against Member States that have failed to fulfil their obligations under MGP III, that have consequently not achieved the programme objectives or that have failed to keep the information on their fleets in the Community fleet register up-to-date - this is also in answer to several observations made by Ms McKenna - or have failed to remeasure the tonnage of the fleets in gross tonnage units.
The Commission officials are therefore analysing the possibility of bringing legal actions against Member States that have failed to apply the provisions in these areas.
<P>
I have just two comments to make on amendments proposed and a further point with regard to the remeasuring of fleet tonnage.
The latter relates to the Commission's request, which the Parliament is well aware of, for uniform units for measuring the fleet capacity.
This has been a great problem.
The Commission has appointed experts to examine the way in which the tonnage of each Member State's vessels is measured. These experts are to assess the quality of the information supplied by the Member States themselves, and then submit recommendations to the Commission on how to speed up this remeasuring process.
The Commission is also trying to find suitable ways of harmonizing the definition and measurement of power throughout the Community and is collecting information available so as to examine the question thoroughly.
<P>
With regard to the MGP IV decisions adopted last December, the Commission is examining how to assist fleet reconstruction by means of financial provisions or incentives, as Mrs Langenhagen called them, and these provisions will be applied together with the percentages of incoming and outgoing fishing vessels.
<P>
I would also like to remind Members that, for those Member States that have not achieved the MGP III objectives, this backlog has been taken into account in preparing MGP IV. The Commission has not therefore agreed to wipe the slate clean.
For non-compliant Member States, apart from any legal action, the overhang from the past has been taken into account in preparing MGP IV.
<P>
Two further thoughts.
One amendment contains proposals for sanctions. I have to say that the Commission does not agree with this proposal, for several reasons: firstly, because the automatic reduction in quotas for non-compliant countries seriously undermines the basic principle of the Common Fisheries Policy, which is that of relative stability; secondly, because if we embark on this kind of procedure, it is obvious that other Member States will ask for the same type of sanction, perhaps on account of exceeding quotas, inadequate controls, unloading of substandard fish, and so on.
I would therefore ask Parliament to reconsider a reduction in quotas as a sanction because of these possible implications.
<P>
Withdrawal of financial aid for the modernization and construction of fishing vessels is already taking place.
I must inform Members that the inclusion of productivity in the measurement of capacity is not realistic.
Frankly we do not know how to measure productivity - it seems an unacceptable measure in the sense that it cannot be applied.
<P>
I have already talked at length about the measurement of tonnage and power.
I would just like to add for information that the Commission is about to enter into a contract with the UK Seafood Industry Authority, according to which, as I have said, a group of experts will be given the remit of reviewing the procedures and methods used in Member States to measure tonnage.
Power, on the other hand, involves somewhat more complex issues.
The Commission recognizes that it is essential to further harmonize the measurement of power, because this is fundamental for MGP IV.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
On paragraph 3:
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="Cunha">
Mr President, if my fellow Members agree, I would like to table an oral amendment to the last line of paragraph 3.
It refers to " an automatic reduction of quotas' .
My oral amendment is to remove the word "automatic' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="President">
Are there any objections to the oral amendment proposed by Mr Cunha to take out the word "automatic' ?
<P>
Mr Macartney has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Macartney">
I am happy to accept that there is an improvement but it does not remove the problem so, no, we have to insist on the roll-call vote against that section please.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="President">
Congratulations, Mr Cunha.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Andersson">
This is an important report on an important area for the conservation of fishery resources.
In spite of its bluntness, the MGP is the most important instrument for achieving consistent conservation of fishery resources.
At the same time it is important to recognize that the conservation of fishery resources must be seen in the overall context of fisheries policy.
<P>
Conservation of fishery resources must also take account of the actual fishing capacity of national fishing fleets, the need for serious action concerning the threat to stocks of certain species, and the effectiveness of agreements with third countries, that is agreements which the EU signs with countries outside the Community.
Agreements with third countries are an area where there is every reason for criticism of EU policy.
As the situation currently stands, the Union does not pay sufficient attention to the need to develop the role of fishing in global food supply and to strengthen the economic capacity of developing countries themselves in this area. Furthermore, EU support for agreements with third countries involves maintaining national fishery capacity for certain Member States at a time when there is a need for substantial restrictions on all European fishing.
The assessment of MGP III suggests that a fundamental re-examination of the direction of the Common Fisheries Policy is required.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Macartney">
I wish to welcome very warmly Commissioner Bonino's assurance that the European Commission does not support the idea of quota sanctions linked to MAGP compliance.
<P>
I am also greatly heartened by the Commissioner's reiteration of the fundamental importance of the Common Fisheries Policy's founding principle of relative stability.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Conservation of fishery resources in the Mediterranean
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0045/98) by Mr McMahon, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 1626/94 laying down certain technical measures for the conservation of fishery resources in the Mediterranean (COM(97)0459 - C4-0510/97-97/0237(CNS)).
<P>
Mr McMahon has the floor for six minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="McMahon">
Mr President, I take great pleasure in introducing this report on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries on conservation in the Mediterranean.
<P>
There is a very serious problem in the Mediterranean.
It concerns not just bluefin tuna, which is what the report is about.
The report is about how we work the Community regulation into ICCAT, the International Commission for Conservation of Atlantic Tuna.
The problem is the other species in the Mediterranean.
Because drift nets are used in the Mediterranean - as many as 8 000 whales and dolphins are killed annually by the activities of fishermen from various nations in the Mediterranean area.
<P>
The proposal in front of us goes part of the way towards dealing with this very serious problem for marine life in the Mediterranean.
The proposal calls for a ban on the use of helicopters and on fishing during the months of June and August, particularly during the spawning season for bluefin tuna.
<P>
There is also the activities of third countries.
We are very concerned in the Fisheries Committee about the activities of ships from countries such as Guatemala and Honduras, who are using drift nets in the Mediterranean and catching tuna, porpoises, dolphins and whales.
They are destroying the marine ecocosm within the Mediterranean.
As regards traditional fishing and the Italian swordfish fleet, we agreed during the debate on the Baldarelli report to phase out the use of drift nets.
The Commission agreed then, in 1994, to give ECU 100 million to the Italian fishermen as a kind of reconstruction for ending their fishing activity.
Some 2 700 Italian fishermen were offered compensation.
I am sorry to tell the House that only 42 have availed themselves of the offer of selling their licences and moving into other activities.
<P>
It is obvious that the current policy of setting a limit of 2.5 kilometres for drift nets is not working.
It is important to look toward a gradual phasing-out of drift nets in the Mediterranean over a period of time.
I am very glad to say that the United Kingdom presidency and, in particular, the Minister for Fisheries, Mr Elliott, are very interested in this portfolio.
Mr Elliott and I have had several in-depth discussions about how it might be progressed. He undertook to have it on the agenda at the next Fisheries Council.
<P>
As Parliamentarians we want to conserve and protect commercial fishing.
We want to safeguard communities which depend on fishing for a livelihood.
But at the same time we must try to protect the marine ecocosm.
We must try to protect, safeguard and conserve dolphins, whales and seals.
If this marine life is destroyed, it will affect the food chain.
It will mean that future generations will find that not only will there be no dolphins or whales, but there will be no tuna fish and very little fish at all.
The problem is that we are going to exhaust all the world's resources.
As a Parliament, as Europeans, in the European Union, the onus is on us as we enter the new millennium, to take measures so that we can strike a proper balance between the commercial exploitation of fishing, conservation of stocks and conservation of marine life.
<P>
This is what this report is about.
It is a very restricted report. It only deals with measures in the Mediterranean.
But, as a Parliament, must adopt this as our general principle for the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Provan">
Mr President, this is a very technical report and it is not necessary to go into a lot of detail because it is just a question of Parliament approving something to allow certain measures to be taken by the Commission which I and my political group wholly endorse.
<P>
As Hugh McMahon, the rapporteur, has pointed out, this is really a conservation measure and this Parliament will want to support anything that the Commission brings forward by way of conservation measures
<P>
Regarding the Mediterranean as such there are one or two important problems there.
We must recognize the fact that the fish resources in the Mediterranean are maybe not as they should be.
They are currently being over-exploited, rather as has happened in the North Sea and the Atlantic area.
<P>
Having said that I would just raise with Mr McMahon and perhaps with the Commission the question of Amendment No 1, because it does appear to me that the rapporteur is trying to pay compliments to his own government back in the United Kingdom.
This is not what should necessarily be happening in a European Parliament report.
I accept fully that the British Government is in favour and has made it a priority to try and phase out drift nets but the question I would ask of the Commission is whether the Commissioner views the Council's position as being the same, because there is a great deal of division in the Council of Ministers regarding the phasing out of drift nets which does not necessarily reflect the position of the British Government.
I would suggest to the rapporteur that Amendment No 1 is trying to be congratulatory of one government in the Council when we should be looking at the Council's overall position rather than an individual government.
<P>
Mr President, I have come to the conclusion of my remarks but I would just say that we fully support the Commission's endeavours in this area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, tuna in the Mediterranean is protected by special bans and regulations.
That shows that the Commission has the administrative means to preserve fish stocks.
But, as Mrs Bonino says, it is the Member States that are largely responsible for surveillance.
<P>
The means available to the Commission to control the situation include banning overfishing with drift nets, in collaboration with the various national governments.
This is what Mr McMahon was alluding to.
And, in this way, it could be believed that modern fishing technology is a threat to fish stocks in all our waters.
<P>
The problem in the Mediterranean is tuna.
In the Nordic countries, one economic and ecological problem is that of Norwegian salmon.
The EU should be tackling the fishing problems of the northern regions as well as those in the Mediterranean.
<P>
The Norwegians breed salmon in the estuaries of rivers where there are stocks of natural salmon.
In this way they are polluting the waters and may be spreading fish diseases, especially into the mouth of the Tenojoki river.
The dumping price of Norwegian salmon is also forcing fishermen in other countries to make ends meet by overfishing. Reports like the one before us today are also needed for our northern waters.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Ripa di Meana">
Mr President, just adopting the ICCAT recommendations on the management of red tuna in the Mediterranean, as proposed by the Commission, is not enough.
In just three years, catches have doubled, from 20 000 tonnes in 1992 to 40 000 in 1995, and we all know that these official figures are far lower than the true level.
If this escalation continues, the Mediterranean will soon have no tuna left.
<P>
We are asking the Commission for far more restrictive rules.
ICCAT should submit a plan for the recovery and protection of red tuna, saying "No Fishing' , with no exceptions, for fish under 7 kg, at the same time as abolishing all the current fishing techniques used for young fish.
<P>
We believe that, at this point, the Commission should propose an embargo on tuna imports from the states of Panama, Honduras and Belize, which provide flags of convenience for fishing fleets which thereby escape any rules, as these countries do not belong to ICCAT.
Unfortunately, in many cases, these flags of convenience conceal European owners, shipping companies and other economic operators.
It is our responsibility to prevent this rule-bending, this fish piracy, and the continuing and devastating practice of using drift nets, particularly by Italian fleets. The EU also needs a far more strict policy and new restrictive measures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fraga Estévez">
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr McMahon on his report since it supports the Commission's proposal to incorporate management measures to preserve the bluefin tuna into the EC regulation. These measures were recommended by ICCAT back in 1996 and, given the situation of this resource, are of undeniable importance.
I would like us to concentrate on these measures rather than on others which do not directly affect the debate.
<P>
However, the report also deserves our support since it highlights other decisions taken at that meeting which the Commission has not as yet incorporated into the EC regulation.
I am referring to the ban on tuna imports from Honduras and Belize due to the fact that their fleets completely refuse to respect the minimum rules of responsible fishing activity.
<P>
We know, Madam Commissioner, that the written procedure has begun for the study by committee 113, but we fear that this debate may become overly long-winded before reaching the Council. Therefore, since, according to the different parties consulted, this embargo would not contravene GATT or WTO rules, we call on the Commission to help us, as a matter of urgency, to ensure that this committee gives its opinion as soon as possible so that the embargo can be put in place.
<P>
In addition, as you are aware, ICCAT has also recommended a similar embargo on vessels displaying a Panamanian flag, as from 1 January 1998.
The Commission is not drawing up any proposal in this respect, on the pretext that neither Japan nor the United States are imposing such an embargo, but they are not exactly setting a good example!
<P>
The Commission is a member of ICCAT, and the Member States of the European Union wish to fulfill all the recommendations set out by this body.
Therefore, I call on the Commission once again to provide for these embargo measures, which are of the utmost importance in ensuring that the contracting parties comply with the recommendations laid down by ICCAT.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Piha">
Mr President, the number of tuna fished in the last few years has risen dramatically. There must be an immediate restriction imposed on tuna fishing if we want to guarantee their survival.
<P>
At international level, we have ICCAT's recommendations on tuna stocks and measures for their protection in the Mediterranean.
The problem has not so much been with the measures, but in neglecting them.
Drift-net fishing is also responsible for an ongoing diaster in the eco-system, for example, with dolphins and seals.
<P>
The Commission's recommendations echo those of ICCAT, and Parliament must accept them.
It will, however, be vital for all nations that fish tuna in the regions under surveillance to be committed to the action proposed and for surveillance to continue to be effective.
If the restrictions only affect those vessels that fly a Community flag there will be no real change in the situation and more adversity for fishermen.
The Union, too, must push for results.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Bonino">
Mr President, Members will probably recall that the Community joined ICCAT last November, and now belongs to the General Fisheries Council for the Mediterranean.
Under international law, the Community was already required to cooperate with these organizations, but now it has become a member it obviously has to comply promptly with all the management recommendations laid down by these organizations.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, the proposal before us today is a step in this direction limited to two recommendations, while the other ICCAT recommendations are already being worked on under the appropriate legislative procedures, and will form part of other legislative proposals that will be submitted to Parliament for the examination.
For example, I see that the Committee on Fisheries proposes to include in this proposal a ban on transfers from or to ships belonging to non-cooperating countries.
Frankly, I do not believe that Regulation 1626, which we are dealing with, is the appropriate framework for this type of amendment and proposal, because it relates almost exclusively to technical measures for preserving fish stocks.
The Commission, however, intends bring forward a Council regulation on the control of unloading and transfers: this proposal is already being prepared and the Commission believes it should provide a more appropriate framework.
<P>
I can say the same about Amendments Nos 3 and 5.
On 30 January, the Commission transmitted to the Council a proposal relating to an embargo on imports of tuna from Belize and Honduras.
So the Commission made this proposal for an embargo back on 30 January, and the proposal is now on the Council's table.
With regard to Panama, which involves several slightly more complex legal aspects, the services of the Commission are examining the question and are drawing up an appropriate proposal.
<P>
Finally, two very brief comments on the amendments relating to drift nets.
We are aware of the situation and of the European Parliament's position on the Commission's proposal.
Drift nets come under the regulation on technical measures, in a broader context and not specifically for the Mediterranean, as we all know.
Consequently, I do not want to go into the merits of the amendments, but I believe that the amendments relating to drift nets fall outside the legal framework of this proposal, and so the Commission cannot accept them, because drift nets are not just a Mediterranean issue.
However, as already mentioned, the Council will discuss the issue of drift nets on 24 March, on the basis of a compromise proposed by the presidency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Bonino.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
On Amendment No 1:
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Provan">
Mr President, I believe I might be able to accept that amendment, but I think that it should be reworded slightly to say: ' whereas the priorities of the Council should be a phasing out' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="President">
You have the floor, Mr McMahon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="McMahon">
Mr President, as rapporteur I have to defend the committee's position, but I will leave it to the wisdom of the House to decide what to do.
I know that Mr Provan spoke on this in the debate and his group actually voted for that amendment in the committee when we made the reference.
Maybe a reference to the Council might be more felicitous than the UK presidency.
I will leave it to the House to decide on that, rather than mention one Member State in the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="President">
Mr Medina Ortega has asked for the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, as you are a Spanish speaker, if you read the text in Spanish you will see that Mr Provan's question does not arise because the Spanish text reads: "having regard to the priorities of the Council with a view to the phasing out of drift nets' .
There is no "is' or "should' .
<P>
I propose that we vote on the Spanish version of the text, doing away with "of the UK Presidency' .
It then reads: "having regard to the priorities of the Council with a view to phasing out drift nets' , thereby getting rid of the problem concerning "is' or "should' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="President">
That is what we shall do.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Andersson">
I would like to thank the rapporteur for doing such a good job on this report.
The question of conserving fishery resources is of the utmost importance.
It is therefore important to support the measures the Commission is proposing in relation to tuna.
I would like to point out, however, that the question of a possible embargo against Honduras, Belize and Panama should be seen in the broader context of conserving global fishery resources.
Import embargoes against these countries should not be viewed solely as a form of unilateral protection from competition for particular fishermen in the European Union.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Review of Council Directive 85/384/EEC (diplomas in architecture)
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0079) by Mrs Berger, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the report from the Commission containing a review, on the basis of experience, of Council Directive 85/384/EEC of 10 June 1985 pursuant to Article 30 thereof (COM(97)0350 - C4-0487/97).
<P>
You have the floor, Mrs Berger.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Berger">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the directive on the mutual recognition of diplomas in architecture is probably one of the few EU directives with which all those concerned, almost without exception, are satisfied.
The professional group concerned, the national authorities responsible and the Commission have all emphasized, in the context of this review, that the directive has been found to work very well in practice.
I would like to emphasize and support this high degree of satisfaction and note the associated absence of amendments - the Commission has only proposed two minimal amendments - even if this is perhaps not the most thankful or prestigious task for a European Parliament rapporteur.
<P>
One of the main reasons that this directive has functioned well in practice is that this sectoral directive, unlike the first general system for recognition of diplomas, provides for automatic recognition, and thus makes it possible to exercise the right of establishment and freedom to provide services quickly and without bureaucracy.
This important advantage needs to be preserved, and should not be sacrificed on the altar of a misplaced desire for uniformity and simplification.
<P>
I am therefore glad that both the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and the Committee on Culture, which was asked for its opinion, have opposed the architects' directive being integrated as part of the SLIM initiative into the first general system, which does not have this automatic recognition, and which therefore does not ultimately work so well in practice.
<P>
However, the two European Parliament committees involved failed to agree on another point.
This was the question of the prescribed minimum duration of study.
The directive at present stipulates four years' full-time study.
The Committee on Culture proposed an increase to five years.
At my recommendation, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, which is the lead committee, did not accept this proposal, and I therefore recommend to the plenary that it should reject Amendment No 1 as it stands, since it aims to achieve the same thing.
<P>
I know that in many Member States the average duration of architectural study is already much longer than the prescribed minimum of four years.
But that has nothing to do with it being impossible to teach and acquire the necessary knowledge in a shorter time. It has much more to do with the universities' equipment, which is often bad, the lack of university lecturers and poor organization of studies.
We should not legitimize or accept this lamentable state of affairs in the directive on recognition.
Extension to five years would also automatically deprive graduates of higher colleges of technology of recognition of their diplomas.
<P>
The often excessive length of studies and late entry to the profession are certainly two of the most serious problems faced by architects in Europe today.
But another problem is that more and more public sector bodies avoid the trouble of a Europe-wide tender exercise, and fall back on the more restricted tendering procedure, which is still allowed under the procurement directives.
<P>
This puts newer architectural practices at a particular disadvantage compared with more established ones, and can also have a negative effect on the quality of architecture in Europe.
But the solution cannot be the regional restriction of competition, as discussed by some architectural associations.
Instead, we need to consider, as part of a review of the procurement directives, how tendering exercises can continue to be Europe-wide but made less onerous.
<P>
I would like to close by asking the House to support my report, and apologize because it is possible that I shall have to leave before the vote.
My train goes at 12 a.m.
I then have no other train to Austria for ten hours, so I hope you will understand my predicament.
If necessary, my colleague Evelyne Gebhardt from the Committee on Legal Affairs will represent me.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Berger.
We know perfectly well that we must never miss the train in life, especially to go to a city as beautiful as Vienna.
So, I hope you have a good journey if you have to leave us before the vote.
<P>
Mrs Baldi, draftsman of the opinion, has the floor for five minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Baldi">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the architects' directive is giving great cause for concern, owing to the attitude of several Member States as well.
I would like to report the position of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, which was fairly clear here.
But firstly, I would like to thank the rapporteur for taking the following points raised by our Committee into account: firstly, the need for the Commission to treat this review of the directive on the mutual recognition of diplomas in architecture as an opportunity to highlight the direct recognition of diplomas by professional bodies and to streamline the bureaucratic formalities; secondly, the fact that the competent authority in the host country needs to be clearly designated and systematically notified to the Commission; thirdly, the fact that even the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights is amazed that the Commission can consider integrating architecture into the general framework of Directive 89/48/EEC, as it recognizes that, unlike the general system, Directive 85/384/EEC provides for a specific system of simple benefits more favourable to architects and that the results in terms of architects' mobility, which have been achieved thanks to automatic recognition, could be jeopardized.
<P>
There is no doubt that we are somewhat concerned that the conclusions we believe to be a priority have not been taken into consideration, such as the strengthening of the Advisory Committee, which should not just be a talking shop.
In fact, thanks to its composition (three experts per Member State - one architect, one teacher and one representative of the competent authorities) and its role in the assessment of diplomas, this committee demonstrates the absolute need for convergence.
By giving it the power to draw up recommendations and prepare studies on the assessment of new training courses, its remit would therefore be extended beyond consultation as such.
<P>
The stumbling block is the duration of courses.
We are truly perplexed by what is happening.
In practice, in 1992 the Advisory Committee stated clearly that courses should ideally last five years, plus two years' practical experience.
As we are aware, this has been discussed for over 18 years.
We believe that European professions should provide this type of training, otherwise we will end up with technicians instead of professionals, and, we in the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, have emphasized this accordingly.
Training is very important to us, particularly when the main participants are the professions that enable us to play a role in the rest of the world.
<P>
Perhaps we are forgetting our cultural and architectural heritage, which is of great value, and also that, to have people at the top of their professions, we need to give them adequate training, and that is why, in our opinion, a study course cannot stop after a few years.
A degree course cannot equip us to practise a profession competitively in a couple of years, if we are to have the benefit of the basic preparation we consider necessary.
The Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media was very clear on this point.
We fail to understand why the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights is insisting on a training system more appropriate for another type of profession.
<P>
We are concerned because, if this situation prevails, we will only be talking about technicians and surveyors, while several Member States of the EU, such as Greece, France and Italy, have already increased the length of study to a greater number of years.
We want to get things right here; we do not want to fall in line with the position of just one Member State that has quite different needs.
<P>
We therefore think it is essential for profession of architect to be properly recognized and for architects to have a corresponding role within the Union.
When we talk about mobility, we are talking about the possibility of moving objectives forward, but we are also talking about very clear training standards, based on an ethical code and adequate preparation.
I am a little surprised, and here I am speaking as an architect, to hear discussion in committee about several specific sectors without any provision for adequate training.
In the case of town planning and restoration, the main sectors of architecture, the limited number of years proposed by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights are certainly not enough.
<P>
I beg you to think about this and I ask the Commission to exercise caution when it comes to giving its opinion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gebhardt">
Mr President, the Committee on Legal Affairs has thought very precisely about what it is doing.
Ladies and gentlemen, Maria Berger has given a comprehensive report on experience with the 1985 architects' directive, and has said everything that needs to be said about it.
I do not need to add anything to her thorough work on the matter.
We all have good reason to approve the report and the conclusions.
<P>
However, I would also like to know why it has taken eight years to get this subject on the agenda.
The answer is part of a dark chapter in Europe's history. Our constituents at home are perfectly justified in summing up their feelings in a single sentence - and they often do - ' I am fed up with Europe!' .
For them, Europe is full of slackness and ponderous bureaucracy.
The recognition directive, which is supposed to give architects professional freedom of movement within the Union, is an example of hair-raising slackness and ponderousness which it is hard to top.
The Council, governments and the Commission have all played their own part in this tragedy.
<P>
Act I of the tragedy of failure: it took eighteen years until the directive was finally adopted in June 1985.
During that time, measured by length of study, four generations of architects were deprived of the civil right of professional freedom of movement within Europe.
At the same time, the European Community outgrew the architects' directive.
Finally, with the enlargements in 1973 and 1981, four new legal frameworks had to be taken into account in the law, which in the end was ten pages long.
<P>
Act II: instead of the 24 months agreed at the negotiating table, it took ten years to fully implement the directive!
Meanwhile, the European Community grew because of German unification and another three new members.
During this difficult period, it was only thanks to the breakneck working speed of the German federal government that a simple letter from the Commission was answered in just two years!
<P>
Act III, but not yet the final curtain: instead of 1990 at the latest, the Commission submitted the report on experience some eight years later, with the approval of the Member States.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am sure that our citizens totally fail to understand such sloth.
<P>
Act IV, and provisional climax of this appalling play: before we had had a chance to give our views on experience with the old directive, the Commission brought forward an amended version!
They have thus treated the freely and directly elected European Parliament with contempt and trampled on its democratic rights.
<P>
One last word. The principle that the European Union is there for its citizens and not vice versa really needs to be observed better in practice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fontaine">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is one of the directives which aims to guarantee the right of establishment of professional people, and which therefore relates to the citizens' Europe, Europe in practice. The profession we are now discussing, architecture, is certainly a profession that poses difficult problems.
<P>
In fact, in four Member States, architecture is not a regulated profession, and in the others, architectural training is particularly diverse; finally, some Member States did not request the derogations they were entitled to, in 1985.
This applies to Ireland and the Netherlands, in particular, although those countries have a number of particularly long-standing training courses.
<P>
There have also been considerable delays in incorporating the directive into national law, and for all these reasons perhaps, we can see that a very small number of professional people have so far taken advantage of the directive: only 1 500 in eight years.
As you can see, ladies and gentlemen, that is a very small number.
<P>
The directive must therefore be re-examined in the light of the experience gained and I should like to warmly congratulate Mrs Berger on her excellent report.
Like the rapporteur, we regret that the Commission did not ask the European Parliament to give an opinion on the amendments, and in that respect, we approve all the rapporteur's suggestions, particularly those relating to the need to generalize the 'Vlassooulo' judgment on the automatic recognition of diplomas.
<P>
With regard to those countries which did not apply for derogations, the Commission has been kind enough to tell us that the problem will be solved by means of the proposal for a directive of 2 December, which will amend the general directive. We have taken note, Madam Commissioner, of that commitment.
<P>
Finally, we have reservations about the fact that the Commission envisages including architecture in the general system.
You see, ladies and gentlemen, we have always considered that such decisions should be taken within the professions themselves, and we are not at all convinced that it is what European architects want.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, whenever we in this House simultaneously talk about the Europe of free movement and the Europe of diversity, it is rather like trying to square the circle. At the very least it is an extremely difficult conundrum to solve, and the solution varies from case to case.
Achieving these two ideals may simply involve the Europe of the internal market, the Europe of unity, taking the highest cultural achievement, the highest cultural and social state of development of one country as the basis for the common law.
Then the wealth of Europe would become the common wealth.
<P>
The task of reconciling these ideals becomes insoluble if it is misused for deregulation, as is the case here.
Nothing has been said about the situation of architecture.
The demands of the Committee for Culture, Youth, Education and the Media have been ignored.
It is not a question of training and badly equipped universities, what is at stake is whether we recognize architecture as art, culture and science, or whether we yield to the exploitative pressures of the building and real estate sectors.
I therefore ask this House to accept the very carefully worked out compromise proposal from our Italian colleagues, because it at least preserves something of the cultural and social ideals of architecture.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Malone">
Mr President, I also wish to congratulate the rapporteur, because in her report she has come up with a solution to a problem which the Commission has made for itself.
<P>
The Commission report was originally scheduled for 1990 but, for a variety of reasons, it was delayed until last summer.
Whatever the reasons for this delay, what is certain is that in its 1997 report the Commission cited it as a reason not to entertain the problems that Ireland had with the 1985 Directive, despite the fact that, as I said, the delay was caused solely by the Commission.
<P>
In 1985 the Irish Government failed to obtain a derogation, as Mrs Fontaine has said, from the strictest provisions in the directive concerning recognition of architects' qualifications.
This derogation would have applied to experienced, able architects with an established right to practise.
Other countries, such as the Netherlands, had obtained such a derogation for architects of a similar status.
<P>
The net result has been that a group of perfectly talented Irish architects were discriminated against and their movement in the internal market curtailed.
The Commission must now recognize that these architects must be treated like their European counterparts and those working in other professions with an established right to practise.
Competent authorities, such as the Irish Department of Education, have recognized these architects' competencies.
<P>
I wish to congratulate the rapporteur for forcing the Commission to re-examine its position.
I hope that these architects will now belatedly be given the rights that are theirs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Heinisch">
<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Elchlepp">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I support Mrs Berger's explanations and congratulate her on her report.
I would like to add a few brief comments.
The great benefit of all recognition directives is that they make Europe simpler in practice for the individual - as we are always demanding - that they make freedom to set up business anywhere a reality for the first time, and above all that they open up new employment opportunities.
In this connection, I would like to point out that mutual recognition of educational qualifications in the EU is also the logical consequence of the EU educational programmes, which give financial support to measures to give credit for study in other countries, and I would therefore like to call for considerably increased resources for ERASMUS and ECTS in future.
<P>
Furthermore, we should resist all attempts to undermine the recognition directives, as has happened for instance with teachers, in case after case, for chauvinistic reasons.
That causes enormous damage to the European ideal in the workplace, and creates a negative image of the EU in the press.
The architects directive as a whole has proved itself in practice, but if more traditional forms of education combined with long periods of practical experience are to be put on a par with more recent qualifications, then that should be made clear again here.
<P>
Finally, another important point: Mrs Baldi's demand, which incidentally was against the votes of my party in the Committee on Culture, that the minimum study period should be raised to five years as a condition for mutual recognition, is highly questionable in terms of European policy.
I say this because, as has already been mentioned, it would at a stroke wipe out the mobility of thousands of architecture students in higher colleges of technology.
That would be a big step backwards for European policy, and we here would not want to be held responsible for it.
<P>
The proposal is also unjustified and hasty in itself, because the formal minimum study period alone does not decide the quality of education, but the actual time spent studying, which varies from country to country, and the average number of hours per week during term.
I do not want to go any further into that, but I would just like to say that Amendment No 1 with the proposal to introduce means of compensating for different periods of study is dubious and should therefore be rejected, please.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Bonino">
Mr President, the Commission accepts the well-balanced draft resolution submitted by the Committee on Legal Affairs, and I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Berger, on her work.
The Commission believes that the directive has proved valid and deserves its place among the sectoral directives.
With regard to the delays and timing issues mentioned, I believe that several explanations are given at the beginning of the report; nevertheless, we share your frustration.
<P>
Consequently, just a few minor amendments are envisaged, leaving the essence of the directive intact.
The Commission notes, in fact, that the draft resolution allows the substance of the directive to remain unaltered.
With regard to the future, all the options are open and I believe that, from this point of view, there is room for further thought.
<P>
Having established these premises, it follows that the Commission cannot accept the amendment submitted, because it would call into question the balance on which the directive is based.
The Commission will consider Parliament's vote but we note that the Committee on Legal Affairs has, after much thought it would appear, also reached the conclusion that a change in the duration of training is not justified.
In addition to these brief comments, I can only repeat that the Commission will naturally consider Parliament's vote but it seems unthinkable to me that it will be given priority.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Bonino.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, I rejected Paragraph 8 because for I believe that the quality of education has absolute priority.
Life-long education and continuing education are the basis for successful practice of a profession.
These qualification-related conditions for entering the profession also reflect the world-wide trend, originating in the USA, of setting a high standard for entry to the professions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, I would like to associate myself entirely with what Mr Rübig has just said, but I would also like to add that I rejected the amendment because I believe that it conflicts with our basic principle of subsidiarity in the European Union, and since that principle has absolute priority as far as I am concerned, I had to reject it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="President">
Mr Hallam wishes to speak on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Hallam">
Mr President, on a point of order.
This has been a fascinating debate today which has been very interesting.
The trouble is that the Friday mornings are the one section of our work as a plenary session which is not televised either to our rooms or for the archives.
It is time we said that if we take Friday mornings seriously - and this has been a serious debate today - then these should be televised as well.
I would ask you to take this up with the Conference of Presidents.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Hallam.
I will pass on your comments to the Bureau.
<P>
Mr Ford now has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, on a point of order.
I have a lot of sympathy with Mr Hallam's intervention, though I have to say that one would conclude that we do not take Friday mornings seriously.
Yesterday there were over 500 people voting, this morning there are about 60.
It would be difficult to argue that Parliament takes Friday seriously, but maybe if we televised it the attitude would change.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="President">
Mr Ford, I must tell you that the Members here do take Friday mornings seriously.
<P>
Mr Habsburg-Lothringen wishes to speak on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, I must honestly say that it is obviously Mr Ford's problem whether he takes it seriously or not.
It is a fact that the discussions on Friday morning mostly do not concern the whole European population, but a certain target group.
But they are just as important as any other discussion.
I would therefore like to support emphatically Mr Hallam's conclusion that it is without doubt time to televise these debates too.
It is equally important cover the evening sessions better.
The reports which we receive on the evening sessions are not equivalent to the reports which we receive about the normal day sessions.
That is also unacceptable.
I urge you, because I know that you take Friday and all the night sessions very seriously, to take the initiative in the Conference of Presidents, and to ensure that these are treated equally.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I wanted to speak on the same point, and I my point is this: for over eighteen years - since the first European election - evening sessions and Friday sessions were reported by our information services in the same way as all other sessions.
For some time now, reporting has been systematically cut back.
It would be good to report on precisely the occasions when fewer reporters tend to be present, and for our information services to take appropriate action to compensate for this.
We should attach the greatest value to the absolute principle of equal status for all debates in this House, whenever they take place.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wieland">
Mr President, I would like to bring your attention to another problem on a point of order.
I did not ask to speak this morning when the minutes were approved, because yesterday's session seemed to me to be correctly recorded.
We voted yesterday on the Fontaine report, by roll-call vote en bloc on ten proposals from the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
The minutes correctly mention multiple roll-call votes.
Since then, I have had the opportunity to see the results of the roll-call votes, where this block of ten is listed as a single roll-call vote.
Given the decisions of the Conference of Presidents, in my opinion there is a need to clarify whether the vote yesterday counts as ten roll-call votes or one.
In my opinion, the former is the case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Wieland.
I have noted your observation and I will ask the Bureau to give it some consideration.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, we are now reaching the end of our work.
I would like to remind you that the Minutes of this part-session will be presented to Parliament for adoption at the beginning of the next session.
If there are no objections, we will begin without delay to forward the resolutions which have just been adopted to their respective destinations.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, once again I have the pleasant task, as I do every Friday before putting out the lights, of thanking Parliament's services for their cooperation.
As you all know, ladies and gentlemen, without these services it would be impossible for us to carry out our work. But allow me this week to single out in particular the excellent work of those who draw up the Verbatim Record of the part-sessions, because I have had a chance to see in person the diligence and exacting attention they devote to their work.
<P>
This morning, at the beginning of the sitting, a Member, by virtue of a very broad interpretation of Rule 126 - as is often the case - made a complimentary speech about Mrs Fontaine.
Ladies and gentlemen, I believe many of us - including myself - are envious of Mrs Fontaine's good will as well as of her abilities.
But allow me to use a broad interpretation of Rule 19 to thank all of you. Friday mornings are fruitful, calm, serene and positive days of work.
Therefore, allow me to say that, in my opinion, you, ladies and gentlemen, are the best Members of this House.
<P>
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 12.00 noon)
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 13 March 1998.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Statement by the President
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, ten years have passed since the Iraqi air force attacked a village of 50 000 inhabitants, most of whom were refugees from the surrounding area and civilians, located in Labja in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The massacre of civilians is always despicable and a heinous crime against international law.
However in this case, it is particularly reprehensible. The chemical weapons used resulted in over 5 000 deaths and tens of thousands of injuries.
Ten years down the line the effects are still being felt, and children born in the region are still the innocent victims of that attack.
<P>
On various occasions Parliament has expressed its abhorrence of these barbarous acts, notably by its resolution last month, on 19 February 1998.
It is our duty to remember the facts now and always.
We owe this to the victims, so that we do no protect the perpetrators by forgetting.
We must recall and implement the values upon which the construction of Europe is formed: peace, respect for others and the peaceful resolution of conflicts.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Green">
Madam President, could I ask you please to take up once again with Air France the problem of travel, particularly from the United Kingdom to Strasbourg.
All direct flights from London to Strasbourg have been cancelled for today, tomorrow and Wednesday.
It is completely unacceptable that there is no way for us to get here directly from the United Kingdom, a Member State of this Union.
I would be very grateful if you could check with Air France whether it is only the United Kingdom and our services to and from Strasbourg that are so affected or whether this is general.
I think it is time we looked at the position overall of travel to Strasbourg for these plenary sessions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Mrs Green, no doubt you will realize that as soon as the Presidency was informed of this unacceptable situation, naturally we proceeded to an inquiry, and I am now in a position to tell you what the situation is.
It is true that three flights departing from London were cancelled today, the reason being apparently that the charter company abandoned them at the last minute.
I sincerely regret this situation and we will protest in the strongest terms to the company concerned.
<P>
Moreover, I am happy to be able to tell you that the flights have been reinstated for tomorrow.
At least this is what we have been told.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="McIntosh">
Madam President, I wish to intervene to support Mrs Green in this.
I regret to say that the information you have been given is simply incorrect.
The point I made to Mrs Green is that if we humble back benchers had not been travelling with the leader of a political group, for example, we could have found ourselves stranded.
What particularly concerns me in a year in which France is hosting the World Cup is that there has only been one Member State affected in this way.
The information we have been given, which was confirmed to me by Air France on my arrival in this building, is that all flights this week have been cancelled.
We are in a very difficult situation because Air France operates a complete monopoly to the United Kingdom and it would be a very regrettable situation if British MEPs were prevented from voting and representing their constituencies here through an administrative hiccup with an airline.
I urge you to check and verify the information you have been given because I am told there will be no direct flight to London this week.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Miss McIntosh, one thing is certain, either our information is correct, or yours is.
Of course we will check this as quickly as possible. As we all know, the situation is already unacceptable today; if the disruption continues throughout this week it would be even more unacceptable.
We will continue to monitor the situation very closely.
I have already been doing so and therefore received up-to-date information earlier which I was able to pass on to the Members of the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Green">
Madam President, I understand that part of the difficulty arises because Air France contract out the London-toStrasbourg flight to another airline, which has now withdrawn from the contract.
That might well explain why there are to be no flights directly from London to Strasbourg this week.
<P>
We happen to have the Commissioner for Transport here. I do not know whether he would care to comment but, certainly, we could do with his support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
Mr Kinnock, you are welcome to clarify the situation, if you wish.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
Madam President, as you might anticipate, I have some experience of the difficulties of Members of the European Parliament and others in obtaining reliable flights from the United Kingdom directly to Strasbourg and back again.
<P>
On previous occasions I have had to enter into correspondence with Air France and I must say that I have yet to receive a satisfactory reply to any of the inquiries I have made.
Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the attitude towards providing regular, dependable services during Parliament's session weeks from and to the United Kingdom is a model of European disintegration.
<P>
Given the insistence by a number of interests on maintaining Parliament in Strasbourg - quite properly in keeping with the parliamentary tradition and in order to promote the spirit of integration - I sincerely hope that Air France or indeed other airlines will take advantage of the opportunities offered and maintain regular, dependable and affordable services between the United Kingdom and other parts of the European Union and Strasbourg.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Kinnock.
I agree entirely with your sentiments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Janssen van Raay">
I warmly welcomed your account of the misery caused by that bombing but I must press this point on you again, because the misery of the Second World War was much worse and the Council has not answered my question about hanging flags out on 15 August, the day the war ended.
And about Japan's admission of guilt for the misery it caused in those days, with a view to ASEM.
I will leave it at that so as not to take up the time of this House, but I would very much appreciate it if the Council could finally start to answer questions of a year ago.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
Mr Janssen van Raay, we will take note of your statement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="Morris">
Madam President, we in this House are all aware of the dangers of smoking, particularly passive smoking.
I am aware, as others must be, that there are now no areas in this House at all - even those that are declared non-smoking areas - which are free of smoking.
<P>
I would, therefore, make an urgent request that the opportunity should be given to Members to find, at least, non-smoking recreational areas in these premises.
By mid-week even this area in which we are sitting is frequently percolated by tobacco smoke.
Some of us react badly to that.
<P>
Another issue is: are we covered by insurance should someone who contracts lung cancer try to make a case?
That is a matter we should certainly investigate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="President">
Mr Morris, if it is true that someone has smoked in the Hemicycle, this is totally unacceptable.
As far as we are aware, this has never happened.
Of course we will notify the ushers to be particularly vigilant to ensure that, even in our absence, no-one smokes at least within this Hemicycle.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Madam President, the previous Minutes noted that the rejected request for an urgent debate on criminality would be referred to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
Has this since happened?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
Mr Rübig, I have already replied to you on this very serious and important issue, and you are wrong to think that the Presidency of Parliament is not giving it the attention it merits.
<P>
President Gil-Robles has written to the Belgian authorities and remains in contact with them, pending their response.
We really have done what is necessary and will continue to do so, since it is clear that ongoing action is required.
In any case, I can assure you, Mr Rübig, that you can count on the President and on the Bureau to do everything required to ensure that these completely inadmissible incidents do not reoccur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Thors">
Madam President, on a point of order.
The matter of unacceptable conditions for travelling here has been raised.
I witnessed the situation when Mrs Green, Miss McIntosh and two other colleagues were not accepted on the flight from Paris to Strasbourg due to mismanagement by Air France.
<P>
When the Commission and Parliament look into this, I ask them to note that we have no direct flights from Sweden or Finland.
Today it took me eight hours to get here, so, in a way, I have already done my work.
I almost did not get on the flight because it was overbooked.
We need to look into this situation as it affects all countries, and the management of connecting flights to this otherwise beautiful town.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="President">
Mrs Thors, what you say is right.
We are well aware of the difficulties encountered by many of our colleagues in travelling to Strasbourg.
However, as you know - I will take this opportunity since the question has been raised - in December 1997, the French government published a new invitation to tender in the Official Journal which will lead to regular flights at least from certain cities to Strasbourg, in principle from this week on, if all goes according to plan.
In other words, special flights will be replaced by regular flights, and these will be priced much more attractively and will enable direct links with certain capital cities.
At present, the invitation to tender concerning Dublin and Lisbon has not received any response.
A new invitation to tender has been launched and we hope that it will provoke responses as soon as possible, allowing flights to cover a certain number of capital cities.
<P>
In other capital cities special flights are functioning effectively and this arrangement will be maintained.
We will see how things work following these important changes, and if certain destinations continue to experience difficulties, the Presidency will refer it to the companies concerned to enable all of us to be transported to Strasbourg in the most suitable and comfortable way.
I have nothing further to say on this today, but there is in any case the hope of an improvement in the near future, at least for some of our colleagues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Madam President, I have not had a reply to my question concerning two Dutch procurators general involved in the international arrest of an ex-dictator in Surinam who have been dismissed.
That cannot be a coincidence, but it any case it is a serious blow for the international fight against crime.
I hope you will call upon the Council to give me an answer.
The best replies I have had up to now have been from Commissioner Van den Broek.
Those replies have not been empty but have had some content.
I hope that is also possible in this case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="President">
Mrs van Bladel, we will check and we hope that this is the case.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Interpretation of the Rules of Procedure
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="President">
I would like to provide an interpretation which was requested from the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, concerning paragraph 3 of Rule 162 of the Rules of Procedure and the explanations of vote.
The committee found that: ' Explanations of vote should be provided for the final vote for every subject submitted to Parliament.
The expression 'final vote' does not determine the type of vote, but indicates the last vote on a subject.'
<P>
This, therefore, is the interpretation of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
If this is not opposed by any political group or by 29 Members prior to the adoption of the Minutes of the current sitting, this interpretation will be deemed to have been adopted.
If this is not the case, it will, of course be put to the vote in Parliament.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Order of business
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="von Wogau">
Madam President, there were more discussions on this issue only recently, in regard to both the Miller report and the Langen report, where it might be possible to reach an agreement in discussion with the Council.
So as not to jeopardize this, I would propose, as Chairman of the committee and in agreement with the groups, that we postpone dealing with both these reports until the next sitting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="Green">
Madam President, I am not sure whether we are talking about one report or both reports.
It was a joint debate. In interpretation I was told it was the Langen report on excise duties.
In fact, the Langen report is on VAT and the Miller report is on excise duties.
My group feels that if the Langen report is removed, they should both be.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="President">
Mrs Green, the request which was put to us concerns the two reports, and Mr von Wogau has just confirmed that.
So I think that clarifies things.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Langen">
Madam President, I would like to advocate that we withdraw both reports.
The question at issue here is whether a regulatory committee can be set up at Commission level for excise duties - that is the Miller report - and for VAT - that is my report.
This regulatory committee, which is meant to bring progress in tax harmonization, can only be set up, however, if the Council gives its unanimous approval, and Professor Monti still needs time to negotiate.
He still does not have the Council's opinion on this.
When we conclude our deliberations, the Council can reject the whole issue at the next Ecofin meeting on 22 April.
We want to make the most of the opportunity presented to us and to the Commission by an adjournment.
That is the background.
<P>
(Parliament gave its assent)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Madam President, now that Mr Langen's and Mr Miller's reports have been withdrawn, it seems appropriate to us that this gap be filled.
We would like to propose that in any case the Adam report, which is now tabled for Friday morning, take their place.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="President">
Mrs Aelvoet, this amendment has not been presented in the correct way.
You are presenting it orally.
This is not at all in accordance with the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Aelvoet">
Madam President, when faced with a new situation, would it not be helpful to try to find an appropriate response?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="President">
I agree, however we cannot simply improvise in this way in the Chamber. It is not possible.
<P>
We will see what we can do, but I do not think that we can decide to replace one report with another at will.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Madam President, if you do this, I would like my report, which comes after the Murphy, Miller and Langen reports, to be brought forward.
It will almost be midnight and if the reports by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs take less time owing to the Miller and Langen reports being withdrawn from the agenda, I think my report should be slotted into their place.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="President">
Mrs Lulling's words have reinforced my belief that it would not be wise to start a debate on this issue at the moment.
<P>
The agenda for Wednesday remains unchanged.
<P>
As far as Thursday goes, I have received a request from the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations to reinstate the report (A4-0117/98) by Mr Herman, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, in its initial place at the start.
The report deals with improvements which could be made to the functioning of EU institutions without modifying the Treaty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Madam President, the Herman report on improving the democratic functioning of EU institutions is missing from the final version of the draft agenda.
For reasons which are not clear, this report was removed from the draft agenda by the Conference of Presidents last Thursday.
The rapporteur, my colleague Mr Herman, writes in the explanation on page 9 that the debate in plenary sitting is urgent and must in any case take place before the decisions are taken on EMU from 1 to 3 May.
May I ask him whether he still holds that opinion?
And if not, why not?
<P>
This Parliament makes a great song and dance about democratic control of European institutions.
It therefore damages its own credibility if it removes crucial reports from the agenda for reasons which are kept secret.
Is it not our job to represent the citizens of the Member States, rather than to pull the wool over their eyes?
My group now proposes that the Herman Report be debated this week.
We cannot think of a good reason to postpone it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="President">
Thank you for presenting the request by your group, Mr van Dam.
I am tempted to turn to the rapporteur, Mr Herman, and ask him for his opinion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="Herman">
Madam President, Mr Herman has no opinion on the matter!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="President">
Well then, let us say that we will leave it up to the wisdom of the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Madam President, I would like to voice my support for the call to reinstate the Herman report on the agenda. This report is important because it presents the grave and urgent problem of the weakness, or rather non-existence, of democratic control procedures for economic and monetary union in its broad sense, and not just for the European Central Bank, which is the subject of the Randzio-Plath report.
<P>
The Herman report notably includes the excellent amendments by Mr Gallagher adopted by the Committee on Institutional Affairs which considered it unacceptable that democratic control could elude national parliaments without being replaced by an equivalent control at a European level.
<P>
Clearly, we do not arrive at the same conclusions as Mr Herman, since we believe that it is impossible to organize control at a European level when there is no European state.
So once more, this report is worthwhile since it poses a very urgent problem, according to the terms used in the 'avant-première' of the Parliamentary sitting, which is an official document of the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
Madam President, there was broad consensus in the Conference of Presidents that the Randzio-Plath Report on democratic accountability in the third stage of EMU should be debated in this part-session of Parliament.
I believe that there is also very broad consensus on this in Parliament.
Mr Herman's report on the consequences in the institutional framework of the European Union can, we think, best be debated after the historic decision which will be taken on 2 May.
There is thus no reason why Parliament should not debate the basis of democratic accountability in the third stage of EMU.
That is going to take place this week.
We think it would be better to debate Mr Herman's report on the institutional consequences after the European Council has taken its decision on 2 May.
It goes without saying, if I have heard the interventions correctly, that the Europe of Nations Group is going to create a bit of a fuss before that.
It seems to me to be an argument for not tabling the Herman Report in this part-session but after the decision on 2 May.
That is the reason we gave in the Conference of Presidents for debating the Herman Report in May.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="Green">
Madam President, there was a late request last week to take the Herman report off the agenda and there is a late request to put it back on again.
My group is agnostic on this issue.
We have no reason to keep it on or take it off.
There was a strong request from the Group of the European People's Party last week that it should come off.
For us the essential issue is to be discussed in the Randzio-Plath report.
However, I repeat that my group is agnostic and will have a free vote on the matter.
<P>
(Parliament withheld its assent)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="President">
I have a second request from the Group of the European People's Party, asking for the insertion as the last item on Thursday's agenda of the oral question to the Commission, document 0073/98, on the social and regional consequences of the abolition of duty free.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Böge">
Madam President, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party I would like to make it clear that this oral question is not a matter of reopening the whole duty free dossier.
We would, however, like to point out that there are peripheral regions where the abolition of duty free will have a considerable impact on employment and that these regions might be equally affected by the loss of assistance provided by the future Structural Funds.
That is why we would like to ensure with this oral question that the economic and social effects of the abolition of duty free in the peripheral regions is talked about and that these talks are linked to the demand for the Commission to initiate the long overdue social study on this issue.
<P>
I would also like to make it clear that we do not wish to encroach on the Garosci report here, but rather believe that the Garosci report, which is to be on the agenda in May or June, can lead to a much better discussion if we receive objective data from the Commission, as we have been requesting from the Commission for years now.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Piecyk">
Madam President, I can only agree with Mr Böge.
It is time we had data so that rational discussion might take place and so that we do not have to rely on the data from the associations.
That is why we need rational discussion and a study on the social impact, to which this House must of course be able to give its backing.
Otherwise, I believe, it will not do justice to the situation that will face us in 1999.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Simpson">
Madam President, it is the weight of office!
I ask that Parliament go against the request from the Group of the European People's Party at this juncture.
I would make it clear that my group is not against the social study regarding the abolition of duty free.
In fact, we are very much in favour of instituting that kind of study but I do not believe that this is the right time to do it.
Also, there is a flaw in the oral question, namely that the study would have to be completed by June of this year.
That would be impossible.
<P>
I would suggest that we go back to our respective groups and come back at a future date with an agreed position.
We can then make progress with the idea that I think everyone is in favour of with regard to the social study, rather than rushing into something which will be impossible to achieve.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Madam President, it is good practice in this House not to ask questions while a report is in preparation.
The Garosci Report is in preparation at the moment.
Madam President, we cannot prepare a report in committee and debate that issue in the full House at the same time.
That would be against all the practices and customs set out in the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Wijsenbeek, your speech was at the limit of the procedural motion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Garosci">
Madam President, I simply wish to confirm the intentions of Mr Simpson and Mr Wijsenbeek, which I clearly share.
I can, however, reassure the party asking for the study because I have included in my report the request to make an in-depth study.
So I fail to see why we need to anticipate Parliament's normal practice.
<P>
(Parliament gave its assent)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Madam President, I just wish to point out one mistake in the Italian version: with all due respect to Mr Crowley, I wish to clarify that the second report, on amending Rule 141, was prepared by me and not by Mr Crowley.
I think this small printing error only relates to the Italian version.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="President">
We will ensure that your authorship is acknowledged in each of the languages.
<P>
(The order of business was adopted)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindholm">
Madam President, I asked for the floor since we were going to talk about Thursday's agenda.
On Thursday we are going to discuss and vote on something which I believe all of us consider very important, i.e. freedom of movement in the Union.
I am referring to Mrs Schaffner's report on the report from the High-Level Panel on the freedom of movement of persons.
I would like to point out that I think that this is very important, and I hope that everyone else thinks so too.
<P>
The problem is just that the report to which Mrs Schaffner's report refers is apparently only available in French.
When I try to read it, which I want to do and I hope many others want to do too, it is impossible.
I think we ought to know what we are thinking and voting about on such an important issue.
In the current situation, I do not believe we can vote on Mrs Schaffner's report unless we get the documents in all languages.
They are currently only in French.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="President">
Mrs Lindholm, firstly, I am sorry that I did not see you earlier.
I did not see Mr Evans either; please forgive me.
<P>
However, your speech is just as important at this stage since we cannot vote on Mrs Schaffner's report if it is not available in all languages.
We will check the situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindholm">
Madam President, Mrs Schaffner's report is not the problem.
Her report is, I believe, available in all languages, but what the report is about, i.e. the High-Level Panel's report, on which Parliament is to give an opinion, is only available in French.
That is the problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="President">
Yes, I see the problem now. I must admit that I was rather concerned by the idea that a Member's report was only available in one language.
I fully understand.
<P>
We will look into this and ensure that this report on the report can be provided in other languages.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Tourism
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0071/98) by Mr Aparicio Sánchez, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on improving safety, consumers' rights and trading standards in the tourism sector.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Aparicio Sánchez">
Madam President, Commissioner, this Parliamentary initiative report calls on the other institutions, particularly the Commission, to close the gap which currently exists in our single market from the point of view of consumer protection and tourism policies. Namely, it calls for new guidelines for the protection of tourists and their rights as consumers - guidelines which are clearer, better developed and more widely disseminated than the current ones.
<P>
Those people who are protective of subsidiarity and are always afraid that national policies will be "Community-ized' need not worry, because we members of the Committee on Transport and Tourism have taken good care that our requests do not infringe upon any national competences.
On the other hand, other people might possibly wish we were asking for reception practices to be harmonized.
For example, is it acceptable to have different hotel check-in and check-out times in the various EU Member States, as is currently the case?
I repeat, however, that a lot of our requests have been sacrificed because of our absolute respect for the principle of subsidiarity.
<P>
Why did I say there is a gap in this area? From the point of view of consumer protection, it is hard to understand why it is that while there are many measures in place to protect people buying food, medicines, cars and so on, there are only a few measures designed to protect tourists, and most of them are not compulsory.
This is despite the fact that the tourist has always been the prototype of the cross-border consumer. Furthermore, tourists are the most vulnerable of all consumers, and the ones most at risk in matters of commerce, because they are usually ignorant of the laws, language and consumer associations of the country they are visiting.
<P>
Neither the Commission's priorities for consumer policy for 1996-1998 nor its working programme for 1998 so much as mention the question of protecting the tourist as a consumer.
Nevertheless, I must admit that the Commission has developed touristprotection measures, as the report recognizes.
It has been said that the EU's problem in this respect is not a lack of legislation but a lack of information. Some of the requests contained in this report address this aspect, and call for better information.
<P>
However, the report does not just address consumer protection, but also considers how to strengthen European tourism.
In our opinion, anything which improves the safety of holidays and tourist travel in general represents an improvement in the quality of tourism and makes the European Union more competitive as a tourist destination in the eyes of consumers from third countries.
<P>
It must be said that at the moment tourism in EU countries is extremely safe, but the extraordinary increase predicted for the next few years could result in more errors and travel-related incidents.
In fact, we started this part-session with a very timely discussion of an unexpected flight cancellation.
Anything that can be done at Community level to improve tourist safety will make us more competitive in the future. So we are sure that the most dynamic businessmen within the sector will see anything we do in this area as a means of improving the quality of tourism within the European Union.
<P>
Holiday safety and security is becoming increasingly important and will gradually overtake the other major factor in choosing a tourist destination - namely price.
So the report contains a series of requests relating to airline and hotel overbooking, the requisites which should be offered by travel agents, passenger flights, slot allocations, Community arbitration arrangements for tourists involved in conflicts, and so on.
It has been said that the relative importance of tourism in the Europe of the Fifteen is greater than that of coal and steel in the Europe of the Six.
Despite that, the Council seems reluctant to develop a tourism policy.
Let us hope things improve in the future, but in the meantime, based on everything I have just said, we cannot put off protecting tourists as consumers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="García-Margallo y Marfil">
Madam President, firstly, as a general comment, I should like to say that Mr Aparicio's report is good in that it stirs up waters which had been stagnant for a long time.
But since I want to contribute solutions and not just praise, I would like to point out that although this report's premises are clear and precise, its conclusions probably do not go far enough.
<P>
Firstly, when introducing the theme of tourism, the rapporteur stresses its social, political and economic importance, and the analysis ends there.
He then goes on to accuse the Community institutions of having done little work in this area, but in his conclusions he does not dare to question whether we actually want the European Union to be competent in matters of tourism or not.
I am not talking about how or when, but about the principle: whether we want to establish the principle that the Union has to intervene.
<P>
Secondly, the rapporteur states quite rightly that the protection of tourism is a central aspect of any policy of this type if we also want to compete against other tourism in terms of quality and safety. He then goes on to state, as a secondary premise, that the 1996-1998 consumer policy says nothing about tourism, although this protection aspect is probably the weakest part of the legal context within which the development of the tourism phenomenon takes place.
<P>
The conclusion should be to question whether or not we want a precise, concrete, compulsory, general framework to protect tourism; a policy of clear information; a code of conduct to bind all the agents involved in tourism policy; a statement to tourists about operators and service providers.
<P>
As far as fiscal matters are concerned, I would like to add something which the report does not consider. It does not call for services provided to tourists from outside the Union to be considered as export services, with the right to tax repayment.
And it says nothing, Madam President, about something we have discussed before: if the end of duty-free was linked to the transformation of VAT from a destination tax to an origin tax, which has been postponed indefinitely, why are we bringing forward the abolition of duty-free, when the phenomenon which would justify that abolition has not happened?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="Harrison">
Madam President, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Aparicio Sánchez for a well-written report on the protection of tourists.
It establishes an important point, namely that tourism is an industry of the single European market despite the failure of the Council of Ministers to recognize that.
Without prejudice to the notion of subsidiarity, there are times when we need to act on a Union-wide basis where action at a Member State level will not suffice to protect tourists.
For instance, in one of my own amendments to the report accepted by the committee I recognize there may be a danger to tourists from economic and monetary union.
I could tell you of the vast advantages of EMU but we should recognize some of the problems: fraud practised, say, on older citizens who will be unfamiliar with the euro when it comes into effect.
Also, the Commission should round up those entrepreneurs tempted to cheat tourists and consumers by unfairly rounding up the euro exchange rate.
<P>
I am sorry that a further amendment of mine was not accepted.
It concerns single travellers, who are often women.
They are affected in two particular ways. First of all, they often have to pay higher room supplements than those tourists who travel as couples.
Secondly, their personal protection is sometimes in question.
For instance, some enlightened hotels allocate hotel rooms near lifts to avoid single women having to walk along unfamiliar corridors where they may be subject to uninvited approaches - a very wise idea which perhaps we ought to replicate elsewhere.
<P>
I also support the rapporteur's excellent idea of having a single emergency number - 112 - operating throughout the whole of Europe.
That will bring a real benefit.
He mentioned, too, a separate problem of overbooking hotel rooms and plane seats, which has been highlighted tonight by the problems of MEPs coming to Strasbourg.
We need a balanced approach to this problem which afflicts 0.04 % of tourists.
The no-shows and the late cancellations suffered by hotels and airlines should also be taken into account in considering this matter.
<P>
Regarding children and safety, we ought to do something, for instance, about invoking high standards of safety and protection required at swimming pools in order to avoid the tragic deaths by drowning of children, that too often cast a pall over family holidays.
<P>
In my own constituency there is a five-year-old child who has suffered severe cuts whilst on holiday in an unfamiliar European Union country.
He slipped on a rug on tiles and crashed through a patio door which did not have strengthened glass.
<P>
(The President urged the speaker to conclude ) Madam President, you allowed an extra 47 seconds for the last speaker.
I have been given three minutes. I should like to finish.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="President">
Mr Harrison, I should explain.
I am very concerned because you have only two minutes. However, as you genuinely believed that you had three minutes, I allowed you three minutes as I know it is hard to reduce a speech of three minutes to two.
However, I will have some difficulty if you exceed three minutes.
<P>
We have thus checked, and unfortunately your group only allocated you two minutes.
I will have to ask you to round off.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Harrison">
Madam President, the citizens of Europe have the right to proper safety as they go about their business as tourism consumers.
This is something we should defend.
I congratulate the rapporteur on his fine report in helping achieve that aim.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Koch">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, tourist activity is business activity.
Beside the economic dimension, however, we should never neglect the human aspect, that is to say the needs and wishes of the people.
If we only talk about consumer rights in this context, then we should not forget to mention that rights also involve duties.
This aspect has been neglected in the motion for the resolution.
In addition, I should also like to express my reservations about the respect shown for the subsidiarity principle in one or two paragraphs.
<P>
The large number of proposals leaves you feeling that tourism is something uncertain today, as if neither the Member States nor the EU had really done anything essential or decisive in this area.
That is not the case, however.
<P>
The apparent best is also the enemy of the good for us as consumers.
To this extent, I recognize great parallels with the draft directive on consumer goods guarantees.
Now, as then, we need to guard against destroying the balance between egalitarianism, justice and freedom, hence also between the legitimate interests, rights and duties of consumers and business operators.
<P>
Employing and emphasizing undeniably positive concepts such as environmental protection, consumer rights and human rights should not lead to blind overregulation, resulting in the hampering of initiatives in the tourism trade too and a risk to the independence of small and medium-sized enterprises!
<P>
We will not achieve our strategic objective of increased competition and improved quality through a contrived comprehensive cover approach, but rather through the key concept of 'partnership' .
<P>
Let us prove to the Member States that responsibility for tourism at European level does not mean an increase in bureaucracy, but will on the contrary help bring about deregulation and a reduction in bureaucracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Santini">
Madam President, it is truly disconcerting that we are discussing tourism when there are absolutely no laws on this sector laid down by the EU.
Not only are there no laws, but there is no attention and no legislative and financial commitments; it is almost as if we were brandishing a whip without realizing there was no horse ahead.
The rapporteur also has to deal with a mistake, which is forgivable but significant nonetheless, in the second paragraph of the motion for a resolution, where it says "regrets the Commission's failure to operate an action programme for tourism' .
In fact, there was a programme called PHILOXENIA; it was born and then died, it was aborted, or rather killed.
We were not even aware of its existence.
It was later revived by the Commissioner, with a small budget increase, but seems to have disappeared once again.
<P>
It is right to confirm the importance of tourism as an economic activity, and the tourist as a consumer, like all other consumers.
It should be said that, between 1995 and 1996, there was a promising flourish of initiatives and undertakings by this Parliament as well.
Then everything disappeared, killed by one word: subsidiarity - clearly a word that has been badly interpreted and badly applied.
Subsidiarity is invoked stating that the promotion of tourism in Europe cannot be generalized: in some cases, that is true, but in others it is not.
Just think that Europe lost 3 % in 1996 and a further 5 % in 1997 to the United States and Japan, as if to say that our customers have moved elsewhere: they are harming us and stealing an activity which, as has been highlighted, is very valuable.
<P>
I agree too: a common action will help us catch up on lost time.
For many areas, tourism is not a hobby, it is not an additional activity, but an activity of vital importance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Madam President, what we lack is a separate Article on tourism in the Treaty.
Not because we urgently need a new European policy for tourism as such, but to create an opportunity for greater consistency in policies on tourism.
Because at the moment tourism is debated under the heading of consumer protection, or transport, or other policy areas, and one disadvantage of that is that tourism has been a bit like a child foisted on DG XXIII, which has led to all kinds of other undesirable consequences.
<P>
It would be good if we could pursue a consistent policy on tourism in the European Union, which means we would have to start with harmonisation.
That protects the consumer when he knows what he can and may expect in each of the Member States; it gives the tourist a measure of security which I think we should be promoting.
<P>
Mr Harrison's complaint about EMU and the use of the euro within EMU is, of course, completely unjust.
The United Kingdom does not want to join the euro, but once the euro exists tourists will be doubly protected, of course, because then services will be offered to them in exactly the same currency unit as they are used to at home.
That means it will be very easy for them to make comparisons.
<P>
I hope that the Commission will take the report to heart and begin with a clean slate to pursue a good and consistent policy on tourism in the future in DG XXIII.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, I would first of all like to congratulate both the rapporteur and the Committee on Transport and Tourism on their initiative in encouraging the European Parliament to deal with tourism. This approach has been quite different to the tactic used by the Commission which, by totally downplaying this extremely important sector, has not deigned to deal with an action plan essentially rejecting the PHILOXENIA programme.
<P>
The effective protection of the safety and rights of consumers in the tourism sector can only come about, Mr President, through the reorientation of the overall tourism policies of the European Union and of the Member States. We must hit out at the current monopoly of the sector by a minority of large tour operators who are overrunning the market and leading tourism in a direction which will bring them greater profit, blackmailing small and medium-sized enterprises and controlling tourist infrastructures alike.
<P>
Consumers are rarely informed of their rights and, more importantly, they are often misled about the services provided by inaccurate advertising and conditions of participation in package holidays.
<P>
This unacceptable situation affects a significant number of European citizens who travel within the European Union.
However, it also affects those small and medium-sized enterprises which are suffocating under the pressure of the tour operators, who, by creating informal cartels with large hotel chains, airline companies and other businesses providing services to tourists, are squeezing the services provided, especially the quality of these services, for the sake of profit. This has negative repercussions both for consumers and for those working in the sector who are employed under very often appalling conditions, divorced from any regulation of the labour market and collective agreements.
<P>
The proposed transparency of the services provided and of prices, which must be offered to travellers, is of course vital, as well as the total reimbursement of costs should the organizer become insolvent or bankrupt.
However, this safeguard should not come about at the expense of the traveller through increased consumer prices and dwindling services and for the benefit of large tour operators, who may see this as a fresh opportunity for profiteering.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dijk">
Madam President, yes of course we must offer tourists protection and security, and assistance must be available in an emergency.
But tourism is also about adventure, which is why tourists now go to Turkey, Eastern Europe, California and I do not know where else in the world.
I would like to make a couple of observations.
<P>
First on subsidiarity.
Look for a moment at paragraphs 13 and 31.
In paragraph 13 we are asking for a guarantee fund at European level.
Have we gone completely mad?
We book the trip in our own town or village and if the guarantee funds operate at national level that is fine.
In paragraph 31 we are asking for compensation in the event of crimes of violence to be harmonised.
Now, that really is going well beyond subsidiarity.
I do not call so readily for subsidiarity, but this is really going too far.
<P>
My second point.
This report wants to wrap tourists in cotton wool, especially tourists who fly.
Now, I do not really support that.
Look at paragraph 8.
It says there should be compensation whenever there is a delay or change of routing.
I can see what would happen.
Tourists who are delayed for an hour would get a present of a hundred guilders!
Paragraph 10 states that the slots for tourists must be improved.
I have heard MEPs complaining here about not being able to fly to Strasbourg.
If we improve slots for tourists, then you will have to be prepared for the fact that your slot may be at five o'clock in the morning.
<P>
Finally, I do not need to repeat what Mr Wijsenbeek has said already about the euro.
Paragraph 33 is completely absurd and so I have requested a split vote on a number of these paragraphs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Torres Marques">
Mr President, I would like to offer Mr Aparicio Sánchez my warmest congratulations on his report.
This is not merely a formality; his report is thorough and well-drafted, going beyond the concept of European citizenship to encompass the right to engage in safe, high quality tourism within the Union and outside it.
<P>
A new dimension is added to the quality of European tourism, whereby the services provided to tourists should conform with the commitments entered into between the operator as supplier and the tourist as consumer.
But, beware!
This advance, which is reflected in enhanced credibility and quality, simultaneously requires European tourism operators and government bodies to assume new responsibilities.
<P>
The number and substance of proposals submitted is so considerable that it has already given rise to two movements which will, I hope, have major repercussions in the future.
<P>
Firstly, it has become apparent that the absence of a legal foundation in the Treaty - and in the revised Treaty of Amsterdam - for the tourism industry totally rules out or seriously hampers the execution of any programme that seeks to promote or enhance the competitiveness of the sector.
Meanwhile, however, tourists will be increasingly protected and supported through the Community's consumer protection policy.
<P>
As stated in the report, it is necessary only to verify compliance with existing legislation, to update it, and to make it more thorough.
The responsibility for this situation lies, to a large extent, with the sector's associations which, contrary to the position of the European Parliament, encourage their respective governments to exclude the tourist industry from the review of the Union's treaties.
<P>
The second particularly interesting aspect of this report is that, no sooner was it approved by the Committee on Transport and Tourism, than the associations connected with the industry themselves approached me, in my capacity as president of the Intergroup on Tourism, to engage on 2 April in a joint debate on this subject with Mr Aparicio Sánchez.
May I take this opportunity to invite the committee in question and Members of Parliament who would like to contribute to this debate to attend, and I congratulate Mr Aparicio Sánchez for the expectation he has generated in connection with his report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schierhuber">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, tourism has a long tradition in Austria and has become the economic mainstay of many regions.
For this reason I very much welcome the fact that the European Parliament is becoming increasingly interested in it as a topic of concern.
When I say what a considerable influence the tourist trade has on the Austrian economy, then I wish to point out its significance in this regard for the rural region.
The rural region includes much more than its agriculture: its business enterprises, service industries and especially the tourist trade all form a part of it.
Additional sources of income and an improvement in infrastructure are the result, and a depopulation of these rural areas is thereby prevented.
<P>
Tourism can boost the fortunes of less developed regions.
However, cross-border regions can also profit from it.
For a long time now, Austria has been having a rethink, particularly in the area of environmental awareness and consideration for the environment.
I think safeguarding natural resources is essential.
I should finally like to state most categorically that we should unite to combat sex tourism.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Mr President, this is the second consecutive part-session during which tourism has occupied an important place. During the previous part-session, the subject was tourism and the euro, and today we are discussing the protection of tourists as consumers in Mr Aparicio Sánchez' interesting report, on which I would like to congratulate him.
<P>
First and foremost, I consider it important to emphasize that such protection involves familiarity with and respect for contracts entered into by tourists with tourism agencies and agents and with transporters.
In this regard, unacceptable situations exist - which should be prevented - such as those connected with the need for transparent information on prices, validity, alterations and compensation, luggage allowance, etcetera.
Also, for air transporters there is the matter of using aircraft owned by other companies since this is a mode of transport in which safety considerations are extremely sensitive, and such changes therefore deserve particular attention, as I sought to emphasize in my opinion on air transport and company agreements.
Furthermore, as the rapporteur states, measures are required in connection with the practise of overbooking, both for transport and in the hotel sector.
<P>
I would like briefly to touch on two points that are also mentioned by the rapporteur and which I consider to be important. The first relates to the attention that should be given to rural tourism, particularly in the light of its potential positive impact on peripheral and ultra-peripheral regions.
In this respect, I consider it extremely important to draw attention to the matter of cultural information that should go hand in hand with this tourism.
My second point relates to the type of tourism that generates considerable seasonal and/or periodic influxes, of the kind that are considerably in excess of that occasioned by normal flows of tourists which are already irregular by nature: I refer to religious tourism which can attract an annual population of over 5 million to a town intended for a few thousand inhabitants.
Fatima is a case in point, with all the attendant repercussions as regards development planning and basic amenities.
This type of tourism calls for special attention and appropriate protective measures.
<P>
Finally, in discussing the subject of tourist protection, thought must also be given to eradicating the types of tourism which threaten society.
I am talking about paedophile tourism which cannot be justified in any light, nor a blind eye turned when foreign currency is being earned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Cornelissen">
Mr President, this summer it will be two years since disaster struck the campsite at Biescas in Spain, which sadly led to the death of eighty-six people and many injured.
Last week the President of the Alliance Internationale de Tourisme presented a report to the European Commission with recommendations to improve safety on campsites by developing common safety standards for the location and lay-out of sites, warning systems, emergency lighting and evacuation plans.
My question is: when is the Commission going to respond and come up with proposals for guaranteeing an appropriate level of safety on European campsites.
<P>
My second question is: when will we get the results of the study carried out into overbooking in hotels?
Can the Commission also provide an evaluation of the code of conduct in relation to overbooking agreed a few years ago between a group of tour operators and the European Hotel and Restaurant Federation?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Vaz da Silva">
Mr President, tourism is one of the Union's major economic sectors.
While I defend the advantages of self regulation between professional sectors, I am aware that the competitive position of Europe's tourism sector cannot be guaranteed without intervention by the Union in certain cases.
<P>
The anticipated rapid expansion of the sector in the coming years will necessarily exacerbate existing problems, with the result that the Union will be required to intervene on several fronts, for instance, in ascertaining that existing directives and regulations are enforced.
We should dovetail measures in the tourism sphere with those for protection of the consumer, by promoting cooperation between DG XXIII and DG XXIV, and we should guarantee prompt access for tourists and tourism professionals to justice and create modes of arbitration in intra-Community conflicts.
We should also compile existing Community legislation and disseminate it broadly to all potential users and provide back-up for staff training, including the aspect of tourist safety, ensuring that such workers are mobile and thoroughly qualified. We should support and lend substance to a "European tourism award' which renders tribute to sustainable tourism, while encouraging the study of measures to promote intra-Community tourism.
Finally, we should formulate measures to increase tourism in the Union's inland and ultra-peripheral regions, such as the Atlantic islands, where tourism accounts for 75 % of economic activity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Airport charges
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0088/98) by Mr Väyrynen, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Directive on airport charges (COM(97)0154 - C4-0362/97-97/0127(SYN)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Väyrynen">
Mr President, the proposal for a directive on airport charges is not an attempt to harmonize them. It aims instead to comply with the three principles of transparency, cost-relatedness and non-discrimination.
The directive aims to create a framework for negotiation, in which those who are responsible for the upkeep of airports and those who use airports can negotiate charges and services available.
<P>
While I was drafting the report I considered carefully whether the proposal for a directive was useful and necessary.
I think the European Parliament should always remain sceptical when it comes to new Community legislation.
I have reached the conclusion that the directive on airport charges is not essential but, carefully weighing its proposals, it could be useful.
<P>
The proposal for a directive is based on a compromise between the airports and airlines, on the one hand, and the Member States, on the other.
Only by achieving this kind of balance will agreement be reached concerning this directive.
This idea is basic in my proposals.
<P>
The committee rejected by a narrow majority certain proposals for compromise as negotiated under the stewardship of the draftsman.
As a result the report is now in a form that I consider unacceptable.
In the final vote only a slim majority approved the report. Almost half the committee members abstained.
<P>
What is worse, the conciliation proposal for Article 4 on national airport networks and local airport systems was rejected in a tied vote.
On the other hand, the proposal for a directive was approved by a one-vote majority, meaning that higher charges could be levied at large airports for domestic flights in countries having remote communities in order to subsidize smaller airports.
This goes against one of the principles of the directive, which is that of non-discrimination, which holds that charges must be the same for domestic and inter-EU services.
<P>
I think it is vital that the directive acknowledges the system in operation in countries like Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ireland, Finland and Sweden, where the nation's airports form a national network whereby cross subsidy systems operate for reasons concerning regional policy, with the result that costs seem fairer for smaller airports.
<P>
I also consider it unfortunate that the majority on the committee should wish to include a penalty system in the directive, given that it will simply be ignored.
Nor do I think it a good idea that the directive should contain provision for charges to be settled, in cases of dispute, through conciliation or even through the courts.
These do not become the nature of the proposal for a directive, in my opinion, and they are unlikely to get unanimous support with the Council of Ministers.
<P>
I appeal to you all, ladies and gentlemen: the report should be improved upon in the part-session.
As many important issues were decided on the committee either by a tied vote or a narrow majority, I imagine the report might take on a more acceptable shape through voting in the part-session.
Finally, I should like to thank the Committee on Transport and Tourism for a constructive job in the handling of the report, but as I have said, I hope the report, through voting, can be changed and improved on.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Megahy">
Mr President, the draft directive on airport charges has proved to be a difficult and complicated report for the Committee on Transport and Tourism, which involved the rapporteur trying to incorporate the different needs and various systems which exist in the 15 Member States.
His solution, as presented to the committee, was a good one. Unfortunately, as he has said, several key factors were lost in narrow votes in committee.
The final compromise report we have ended up with is in danger of satisfying no-one.
The Group of the Party of European Socialists will, therefore, seek to restore many of the points in the rapporteur's original text.
<P>
There are a number of main issues which I would comment on.
Article 1 considers the minimum size of airports to be affected.
There has been a whole range of figures suggested, ranging from five million passenger movements to the Commission's 25 000.
In committee, the Socialist group supported the figure of at least two million passenger movements or 50 000 tonnes of freight.
We felt that as this directive is part of a body of legislation aimed at dealing with various aspects of airports there ought to be some degree of consistency, and the figure we have chosen would fit in with those appropriate to the groundhandling directive.
<P>
In the same article, we support the decision of the rapporteur to introduce the concept of national airport networks.
I have considerable sympathy for those who oppose the introduction of such networks.
Nevertheless, as the rapporteur has made clear, we have to accept that the system of cross-subsidy for smaller airports in order to support social cohesion is widely present in both the extreme north and the extreme south of the Union.
<P>
The way to some agreement is to support national airport networks being included whilst, at the same time, building on and strengthening the conditions which would apply to their use.
Cash subsidies should be allowed in circumstances where either the major airport was congested and the state wished to develop an alternative regional airport or the regional airport is reliant on feeding the national hub for the majority of its business.
I am opposed, however, to attempts by the EPP Group to restrict national airport systems to peripheral areas or to domestic flights.
<P>
I shall support the original compromise Amendment No 3, which related to changes in Article 4(1).
It is important in airports which are run as commercial entities that they retain the flexibility to apply non-aeronautical income to subsidise aeronautical charges at their own discretion.
Article 4(1) should therefore include the words 'the managing body of an airport may take account of all or part of the airport's income that is not derived from airport charges when establishing the total level of its charges' .
<P>
It is even more important that the other changes between compromise Amendment No 3 and Amendment No 9 are reinstated, specifically that allowing the cost of financing facilities which have the express consent of the majority of users and of their representative bodies through consultation arrangements under Article 7.
Reliance on this original wording, put forward by the Commission, is ambiguous and would effectively lead to substantial delays to development.
For example, in the United Kingdom, BAA is having to fund advance works for the cost of its Terminal 5 inquiry.
The users accept that these can be recovered from charges, whether or not the development goes ahead, because they support the project.
If such costs could not be recovered, there would be a positive disincentive for airports to invest in new development.
<P>
Finally, I support the proposals for consultation, as laid down by the rapporteur.
I oppose penalties, and our group will be voting against the idea of penalties, which would only have to be paid by the airports anyway, and on the dates for implementation we support the original Commission proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Stenmarck">
Mr President, let me begin by saying thank you to the rapporteur, Mr Väyrynen, for the very constructive work he has done on this report.
<P>
Airports play an increasingly important role in a world where the number of journeys is constantly rising. This is a development which is just going to continue.
Today we see a development which means that the number of airline passengers is growing in the order of 4-5 per cent per year.
This means a doubling from the current level until the years immediately after the year 2010.
<P>
Airport taxes play an important role in this context.
An airport provides airport facilities and airport services.
The tax paid by airlines includes amounts relating to the facilities and services provided by the airport.
The current draft directive includes an ambition on the part of the Commission to find common solutions for the whole of the Union, which is of course a good thing.
<P>
There are big differences between the various tax systems in the Union.
There are differences both between the Member States and, in some cases, even between airports in one and the same country.
Because a large proportion of air transport takes place between the Member States, it is natural to try to achieve a common and unified system as far as possible.
<P>
There are a lot of things in this report which I think are very urgent.
In different contexts, different countries can have very different conditions.
There are, for example, differences between conditions in a densely populated country and in a country which largely consists of sparsely populated areas.
There is also a decisive difference between a country which is in the middle of the EU and a country on the EU's periphery.
There is reason to take both these different sets of conditions into consideration.
Finland and Sweden are two of the countries which in this respect have different conditions to the majority of other Member States.
The Commission has also provided for this to a certain extent, but in the view of my group and the Group of the European People's Party, it has done so in an unnecessary way. It should only apply to the peripheral Member States and only for domestic traffic.
The latter is seen as very important in principle.
It is reasonable that matters concerning domestic traffic should be something each country can decide for itself.
As far as I am concerned it is quite different when someone starts his journey at Heathrow in London and flies to Arlanda in Stockholm.
If that person never sets foot in another Swedish airport, why should he have to help finance it?
That makes the limitation we have proposed with regard to Article 4 seem very important.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Querbes">
Mr President, the principles at work in the proposal for a directive by the Commission are nondiscrimination, relationship to costs and transparency.
We have still to agree on the content of these rules and on their application.
<P>
Transparency cannot work in one direction only.
The exchange of information between airlines and airport administrations must be based on genuine reciprocity.
It cannot come only from the airport administration.
Airlines and airport administrations have everything to gain by seeking to work in tandem.
On this point, Mr Väyrynen's report contains risks by wishing to go further than the Commission's proposals, particularly in paragraphs 6 and 7 which provide airlines with the means to exert pressure on the administration and the investments of airports.
The airlines must be able to retain control of taxes, since for many airlines taxes represent a significant part of turnover.
<P>
Further to this subject, the abolition of duty free would deprive airports of essential resources, not to mention the serious consequences it would have for employment.
Duty free should be retained, and I am delighted that the Transport Ministers have called for a study on the economic and social consequences of the measure.
Airports must also make considerable investments spread out over several years and a coherent approach will require greater flexibility and respect for the principle of subsidiarity.
Member States must take seriously their responsibilities towards joint national and regional development and respect for the environment.
In this respect, they must have real power to set taxes in order to guarantee the necessary tax harmonization.
The same step should be taken for all transport infrastructures: rail, ports, motorways.
The same applies to consultation; consultation is necessary, however if disagreements arise between the airport users and the administration, the regulatory role falls to the national public authority.
For this reason we are opposed to the amendments to paragraph 7 which destabilize it in this field.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dijk">
Mr President, I would like to make a couple of comments.
The first is about Article 1, where the Committee on Transport and Tourism has limited the scope of the directive somewhat by increasing the number of passengers from 250 000 to a million.
I have to say that I cannot see the point of that.
I even think it is counterproductive.
<P>
The second is that the Committee on Transport and Tourism has not succeeded in incorporating a stronger environmental component into these airport charges, although Article 5 provides a small opening to do that.
I have tabled an amendment to that end again, because I still think that nuisance really must play a role in the airport charges.
Finally, it has to be said that one airport causes far more nuisance than another because it is located in an area with a far higher concentration of people, so that should play a role.
That is why I hope this amendment will be accepted after all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Ewing">
Mr President, I am hoping to touch the heart of Commissioner Kinnock.
Sometimes in this kind of debate I feel a sense of unreality come over me.
How many of you have been to the airports of Campbeltown, Islay, Tiree, Wick, Lerwick, Kirkwall, Inverness, Barra, Benbecula, Stornoway, not to mention the feeder airlines on Shetland from many islands that feed into Lerwick, the feeder airlines on Orkney that feed into Kirkwall?
Very few of these feed to a major airport like Glasgow.
Many of them feed to Inverness.
<P>
So when I read the discussion of cross-subsidization, I am perplexed at Article 4(2) which talks about the peripheral states.
I do not suppose anyone would argue that the UK is a peripheral state but no one would disagree with me that the north of Scotland is a peripheral region of a state.
I beg you to pay attention to the problem of these very small airlines.
I applaud France, Spain, Portugal and other countries that accept the need for social cohesion and have the networking.
I agree with Mr Megahy's remarks in this regard.
<P>
I would ask the Commissioner to tell us what he thinks of the UK's opting out of this attempt to produce social cohesion.
I support Amendment No 20 which restores the Commissioner's wording, partly because it adds a new paragraph encouraging the use of smaller, less congested airports.
I am adding a new dimension to this problem.
There are not just regional airports that feed major airports but regional airports that feed other regional airports and this produces an enormous amount of difficulties.
So I would also ask Commissioner Kinnock about subsidies. Can a local authority legitimately decide to assist with a subsidy in special cases?
<P>
I understand that an analysis of airport charging systems in the EU reveals that airport charges often do not reflect the real costs of providing facilities.
I would give the Commissioner the following example. Inverness apparently charges the same as Aberdeen but Inverness in no way offers the many facilities to users that Aberdeen does.
At the beginning of the sitting, when Mr Kinnock was present, we heard many examples of people's difficulties of coping with their lives as politicians here.
But their difficulties - with the one exception of the Finnish lady - were as nothing compared to my difficulties.
British Airways cancelled flights from Inverness and to Heathrow and Stansted.
The last flight from Inverness to Amsterdam was on Saturday.
It was overbooked.
The last time I attempted to get back to Aberdeen because I could not get to Inverness, it was also overbooked.
In fact, they blatantly said to about ten of us who had paid full fare that it was the airline's policy to overbook, that all airlines did it.
They said it openly in front of these very angry, delayed passengers.
Perhaps Mr Kinnock could tell us if anything further can be done on this matter where airlines almost boast about it and make no apology.
<P>
It takes me two days to get to this Parliament.
To hear of all these Air France direct flights from London being cancelled has no relevance to someone who dares to live in the north of Scotland and to be a politician in this Parliament.
So I ask Mr Kinnock to let his heartstrings be stirred by my problem and to try to do something.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, an enquiry conducted by the European Commission has shown that airport charges in the Community are too high relative to the cost of the services provided.
What is more, they are discriminatory and lack transparency.
This Commission enquiry confirms the independent study carried out by Cranfield University, which concluded that airport charges in the European Union are 40 % higher than in the United States.
<P>
So there are definitely good reasons for the proposal to base airport charges within the Union on equal treatment for the same level of service, to relate charges to costs and to make them transparent.
I do have a problem with the way the Commission has developed these principles.
The wording 'in reasonable proportion to costs incurred' is too vague, and also it is the Member States themselves which determine what a reasonable proportion is.
This way is not going to quickly lead to airport charges which reflect real costs.
<P>
I am even less happy about the differentiation based on external costs which the Commission allows.
I heartily endorse the principle of passing environmental costs on to the user, but then the Commission first needs to create a framework for this method of calculation to prevent unfairness.
I look forward to a Green Paper with the title: ' Toward fair and appropriate pricing in air transport' .
<P>
While some blame falls on the Commission as far as the development of the principles is concerned, the Committee on Transport and Tourism does not seem to take them seriously.
The national airport network, which the Committee on Transport and Tourism is asking for, makes it impossible for the user to pay for the use of installations and services.
The system proposed amounts to cross-subsidisation between airports.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy writes with justification in its opinion that this would distort competition between airports even more.
<P>
The Committee on Transport and Tourism is also violating the principle of equal treatment for the same level of service if, in amendment no 10, it allows peripheral Member States to make a distinction between internal and international flights.
How can that be reconciled with the internal market?
<P>
I also agree with the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on this point, which states that whether the flight is an internal flight, a flight within the Community or a flight from a third country must not play any part in determining the level of airport charges.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="McMahon">
Mr President, airports are very important in the economic life of the Union and regional airports are of crucial importance.
In my own country, Scotland, a study of the employment, wealth and economic activities generated by airports, mainly in tourism, came up with the quite significant statistic that in 1996 £1.4 billion was generated by activities at Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen airports.
Twenty thousand jobs related to airports and tourism were dependent on this.
<P>
So regional airports are of significant importance within the Union.
The report which we have in front of us deals with the question of charges and I agree with Mr Megahy that the report has a lot of faults and failings.
The Commission's original proposal is obviously better and the final report is a bit of a dog's breakfast and really could be amended.
<P>
The important thing which some of the other colleagues have touched on is this question of peripheral nations.
Like Mrs Ewing, I think that it should be peripheral airports because if we look at the question of the lower limit which the EPP voted for in committee this would mean that small airports like those which Mr Hume, Mrs Ewing, and Mr Gerry Collins use would each be covered by the legislation; these are all very small airports and yet they are vital to the economy of their regions.
It is important that we go for the higher limit which the Socialist Group is suggesting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="McIntosh">
Mr President, it gives me great pleasure to support Mr Väyrynen's report and this Commission proposal.
Clearly, such a directive is needed, but the directive should not impose restrictions on commercial operations of airports or unnecessary administrative burdens on airports or those regulating them.
<P>
What is particularly important is that we should raise the standards of service but leave commercial matters for airports to decide, in consultation with the both the airlines and any relevant consumer organizations.
The key point I would like to impress on both the Commission and the rapporteur is that the thresholds for implementation in the directive, particularly for passengers, are too low.
Certainly the threshold for passengers should be set at 1 million passengers.
The directive as currently drafted makes insufficient provision for the transparency of arrangements at airports and consultation of users that we in this House would wish to see.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Simpson">
Mr President, I should also like to congratulate the rapporteur on his work which, I know, has been quite difficult and technical.
<P>
There is a great problem when you talk about aviation and, in particular, airport charges, in that the airlines always think that the airports are overcharging them and the airports think that the airlines are always wanting something on the cheap.
That is a fact that exists within the aviation industry.
<P>
I say to some of the Members who have spoken that it is always easy to look at national situations, but we must, in this whole issue, look at the European situation and what we can do to try and bring together the wide variations between airport charges.
Remember that this is a report on airport charges, not a report on problems that Members might have in getting from A to B on the Monday of a Strasbourg session.
It is a difficult and complicated issue.
It is important to have transparency in airport charges, but we need to ensure that airports do not abuse their position and that airlines - particularly the large flag carriers - do not abuse theirs.
<P>
Regional airports are important, particularly in peripheral areas, which is why I think cross-subsidization is, if transparent, acceptable within a national airports network.
<P>
I agree with my colleague Mr Megahy's analysis that what has come out of committee is not only unacceptable but, in my opinion, unworkable.
That is why the PSE has submitted amendments to rectify that situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
Mr President, I am very grateful to the rapporteur, Mr Väyrynen, for his thorough work and his cooperative attitude.
I wish I could be as cooperative in responding to the various interesting points raised in the debate, notably by Mrs Ewing.
If I do not respond, it is not because she has failed to pluck my heartstrings - she did that a very long time ago - but simply because of the shortage of time.
I will, therefore, write to her on each of the questions she raised.
<P>
This proposal seeks to establish the three internationally recognized principles of cost-relatedness, transparency and nondiscrimination as the basis for charging for the use of airports in the Union and, naturally, I am glad that the Committee on Transport and Tourism shares these objectives.
<P>
For the sake of clarity, I wish to deal with each amendment in turn.
Subject to a certain amount of redrafting, the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6.
Amendment No 5 refers to the idea of networks but the main justification for these types of networks - cohesion - is lacking in the amendment, and I, therefore, have to reject it.
I am pleased to note that there is a consensus - though one could be forgiven for thinking that there was not, listening to the debate - around the figure of one million passenger movements as a general threshold for applying the main principles, and I can accept this part of Amendment No 8.
<P>
The new reference to networks in Article 1 is, however, misplaced, as the committee itself has acknowledged in later amendments by treating cross-subsidy and network issues separately.
So that part of Amendment No 8, as well as Amendment No 18, has to be rejected.
<P>
Subject to some redrafting, but with the exception of the reference to cargo facilities in the definition of airport charges, Amendments Nos 9 and 21 are acceptable.
<P>
One of the thorniest issues in this proposal relates, obviously, to conditions for cross-subsidization between larger and smaller airports within the same network, as addressed in Article 4 of the draft directive and in Amendments Nos 10, 20 and 26.
The Commission accepts the idea of defining networks, obviously.
As far as these amendments are concerned, however, the Commission cannot accept the idea of leaving the possibilities for subsidizing - that is charging higher than normal fees at the major airports - completely open with no applicable safeguards or conditions relating to cross-subsidies.
Obviously, such practices could lead to abuse.
<P>
However, the Commission cannot accept the idea of completely excluding these types of practices or limiting them only to domestic flights either.
Some explicit and transparent cross-subsidy practices can be important and, indeed in many cases, they can be beneficial for most carriers at the major airport since all carriers receive passengers from feeder flights which plainly would not exist if it were not for the smaller airports.
Furthermore, limiting acceptable cross-subsidy arrangements to domestic flights would contradict the very principle of non-discrimination.
<P>
Turning now to modulations in charges, while I can accept the idea of environmental charges only addressing local problems - which is, indeed, the spirit of our proposal - I cannot accept Amendment No 11, because it only concerns specific and tangible environmental costs.
As the House will know, in many airports modulations are used as steering instruments to modify noise, pollution or congestion problems and they are a practical way of ensuring that users pay for the pressures that they impose and the equipment that they choose to use.
Obviously the Commission proposal requires these types of charging variations to be revenue-neutral and not a source of additional income for the airports, so that the interests of users are safeguarded by a transparent and fair system.
In principle, however, I can accept the clarification offered on rebates.
<P>
As for Article 6 of our proposal, which is addressed by Amendment No 12, whilst I can accept certain textual clarifications, I cannot support the provisions on obliging all airports in Europe to provide their information in a standard format.
As the House will know, our proposal is not designed to harmonize the airport sector in Europe: it merely seeks to ensure clarity and transparency in the setting of charges.
<P>
In relation to Article 7 on consultation procedures, Amendment No 13 is asking for independent arbitration bodies.
There is, however, a legal problem with this type of authority since it could supplant a national court system and would ultimately become an interpreter of Community law.
That is not acceptable to the Commission, although I have to say that our concerns in this article are limited to the notion of arbitrators and the main part of the amendment is an absolutely necessary clarification of our original text.
<P>
Amendments Nos 14, 15 and 24 concern timing with the aim of reducing the timescale for the implementation of the directive by two years.
I can only say that we have set the dates so that they do not conflict with the implementation of the directive on ground handling.
I am sure that, on reflection, the House will see the practical sense of that.
<P>
I can deal quickly with the remaining new amendments as follows.
I can accept Amendments Nos 16, 17, 22 and 23, but Amendment No 19 is rejected because this formulation dilutes the non-discrimination principle in an unacceptable way.
Finally, I have to reject Amendment No 25 because the objective of the directive is not to penalize the air transport sector but to provide for a balanced framework that guarantees certain basic principles.
<P>
The amendments suggested have, in general, been very constructive, even in cases where I have not been able to accept them.
They certainly focus minds on the results that we want this directive to achieve and I am therefore grateful for the views expressed.
I can only hope that the Council will see things as positively and constructively as this House.
I am grateful to the rapporteur and his colleagues, regretting only the time that it took to respond but I guess that is inevitable when there are detailed amendments on a technical issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Parking card for the disabled
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0098/98), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a Council Recommendation on a parking card for people with disabilities (C4-0033/98-95/0353(SYN)) (Rapporteur: Mr Megahy).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Megahy">
Mr President, there are millions of disabled people throughout the European Union, and many of them are dependent on transport by car.
All the Member States grant parking facilities to such people by means of a disabled person's parking card.
The rules and regulations for the issue and use of these cards are made by the Member States.
This recommendation quite rightly respects their right to do so.
<P>
However, in a developing European Union, disabled people should have the same opportunity as other European citizens to travel freely throughout the whole territory of the Union.
This recommendation makes that possible for those with parking cards.
At the moment, for example, there is no certainty that a German or a British car exhibiting its own national card and parked on yellow lines in Strasbourg or Brussels would not incur a fine for its owner or, at the worst, be towed away.
When this proposal comes into effect that should no longer occur.
I say 'should ' no longer occur because I think one thing we are familiar with in all countries is the zealousness of parking attendants.
But there will now be a Community model card which can be used alongside regional or national cards for a transitional period determined by the Member State.
<P>
The Transport Committee unanimously accepts this proposal and all the accompanying details.
Indeed I can say that the common position is a great improvement on the original recommendation that came before us at the first reading.
Most of Parliament's amendments have been accepted, either word for word or in spirit.
We now have a recommendation which makes it clear that the definition of disability will be left to the rules of each Member State.
It also recommends, however, a wider definition than previously, to include people whose disability can lead to decreased mobility.
<P>
Secondly, it allows the new European card to be used in parallel to existing cards for a transitional period.
This is important to disability groups in Member States who fought hard for recognition of their existing cards, and also to local authorities and other bodies that might incur costs in the first case if this had to be altered too quickly.
<P>
The recommendation also says that information on conditions of use in the different Member States should be provided when issuing the parking card.
I think that is important.
Most importantly, the common position has taken up our suggested changes to the format for the card.
They have taken out the vehicle registration number which was there originally so that the card now relates to a person and not just one vehicle.
In addition they have removed the address and date of birth from the back of the card.
This was suggested both by Parliament itself and by various disability groups for very real security reasons.
<P>
In my experience in this House it is not always the case that a common position from the Council is better than the original proposal.
In this case it is.
It received unanimous support in the Transport Committee.
The fact that it is a recommendation and not a directive of course gives it a weaker legal base.
I do not think, however, on a matter of this kind, that this should in any way impede its speedy implementation.
I see this as a small but significant step towards the recognition at European Union level of the equal rights of disabled persons.
I look forward to seeing it speedily implemented by the various Member States speedily in accordance with the details laid down in the directive, and to the opportunity for disabled persons to use their standard model card in the other countries throughout the whole of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schmidbauer">
Mr President, Commissioner, I would first of all like to thank Mr Megahy for his excellent work, for we do not often find that the Council adopts nearly all Parliament's amendments - at least in spirit.
That is no doubt a sign of the good work that has gone on here.
<P>
We can now for our part approve the common position of the Council at second reading and will then, hopefully, have obtained at last the European disabled person's parking card, which has been promised for 20 years.
The Council has agreed in its opinion that the card can be used independently of the vehicle, hence that it is individual and not vehicle-specific, that for security reasons the address should not be recorded on the card and that information on conditions of use should be provided when the card is issued.
The Council is also proposing that the European card be used parallel to the national cards, which makes sense at least for a transitional period.
<P>
We shall also be discussing this week the report on the free movement of persons produced by the High-Level Panel.
For disabled people, freedom of movement is basically only a dream.
Reality causes them even greater problems, and there is an even larger number of hurdles for them to overcome than there is for so-called normal people.
Perhaps this European card will provide an opportunity to remove the initial small hurdles.
<P>
In my speech in December 1996 at first reading of the report I complained that this card is just eyewash, and I wish to reaffirm this again today.
Because, you see, it is left open to the individual states whether they introduce it or not, and it is only valid according to the particular regulations in the particular country, and these are not in alignment.
Nevertheless, the card is a first step in the right direction, and I hope it will be a benefit for everyone.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Koch">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, only a few days ago I held a conference on the subject 'So disabled people might have a place in our midst' .
It was interesting to see the great significance that was attached to the aspect of real discrimination against disabled people travelling inside the EU as a result of the non-availability of a European parking card.
The issue of increased mobility through constantly improving technical provisions, on the one hand, and a certain confusion as to the rights and duties of participating in road traffic in the EU, on the other, soon became the focal point of the discussions.
At the same time, those affected expressed their concern over too much regulation, as well as their fears as to whether their hopes and desires, which I convey as their man in Brussels, are being noticed and heard at all.
<P>
I recommend that the common position now on the table be given our unqualified acceptance.
The Parliamentary amendments I consider important from first reading have been adopted either word for word or in spirit.
Of particular importance in my view are: firstly, the decision in favour of an individual-based as opposed to a vehicle-based solution; secondly, the special attention paid to security aspects in protecting the holder's personal data; and, thirdly, that our demands for subsidiarity, public accessibility and transparency represent a real basis in that, on the one hand, the community model can be used to supplement regionally or nationally valid cards already existing while, on the other hand, the issuing of this new model card is coupled with a duty to provide information about its conditions of use in the individual Member States.
Unfortunately, the recommendation fails to harmonize access conditions for such a parking card.
<P>
Also, and precisely because I come from a city which is to be the 1999 European City of Culture, namely Weimar, I recommend that Member States implement this recommendation quickly so that a place in our midst can really be made accessible to disabled people soon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dijk">
Mr President, it would have been a credit to the European Union if it could have taken a decision on a parking card for people with disabilities in less than 20 years; and then we are still not talking about legislation which prescribes something, but a recommendation.
Mr President, it is vitally important to the European Union that ordinary people living with all kinds of problems can have some faith in this Union.
We really must ask ourselves, if it stops at a recommendation and does not lead to harmonization of the parking card, whether this will advance the credibility of the Union.
I actually cannot understand why the Member States have not been able, together with Parliament and the Commission, to quickly see to this simple matter of harmonizing parking cards for handicapped people.
To be honest, I think it is a disgrace.
I hope that this card does come and of course my group agrees with Mr Megahy's report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Camisón Asensio">
Mr President, I fully agree with the rapporteur that this is an important subject, precisely because of the social impact of the proposal before us today.
So I too am glad that the Council, in its common position, has adopted the unusual approach of practically accepting the vast majority of Parliament's amendments, particularly those which say the card should belong to the holder rather than to a specific vehicle and remove the address and date of birth, for obvious reasons of security.
<P>
It is also very positive that it has been accepted that the definition of disability should be extended, that the card should be used in parallel with the other cards already in use in certain Member States, and that information should be provided at the time of issue.
<P>
However, as other speakers have said, we also regret the fact that this proposal is legally weak, as the rapporteur puts it, despite being so important socially.
In other words, it is just a recommendation.
We think it deserves a stronger legal base, in view, I repeat, of its social importance.
Nevertheless, we support the proposal before this House and, of course, we congratulate the rapporteur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Flynn">
Mr President, first I would like to thank Mr Megahy and all those who have contributed to the debate.
As Members will know, all Member States do grant special parking facilities to people with reduced mobility who, by the very nature of their condition, are more likely to rely on personal individual transport than on public transport.
The right to these special parking facilities is demonstrated by displaying a disability parking card inside the vehicle.
However, the design and the style of these parking cards vary considerably from one Member State to another and this can give rise to problems when users of the card find themselves in a Member State other than that in which the card was issued.
<P>
The diversity of the cards makes it difficult for those responsible for enforcing parking regulations to know if someone is eligible for the special parking facilities or not.
Against this background, the Commission gave an undertaking in its medium-term social action programme to submit a draft recommendation on the reciprocal recognition by Member States of a parking card for people with disabilities.
In addition to the mutual recognition of the cards issued in individual Member States, the Commission proposed that there should be a standardized EC model parking card, and details of such a standard card are set out in the recommendation.
The recommendation has been considered by the Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions and by Parliament.
At your first reading on 13 December 1996 the House proposed several amendments to the Commission's proposal.
The Commission was happy to take most of your suggestions on board and, on my recommendation, adopted an amended proposal on 4 March 1997.
The Council also took Parliament's amendments into account when it adopted the common position on the recommendation on 18 December 1997.
Since then, Parliament's Committee on Transport and Tourism, at its meeting of 17 March, unanimously agreed the adoption of the common position.
I would like to thank the European Parliament and especially the rapporteur, Mr Tom Megahy, for such a very positive reaction and for your strong support for the proposal at all times.
<P>
The final adoption of the recommendation by the Council will of course ensure that people with disabilities will be able to benefit from parking facilities wherever they choose to drive in Europe.
This should help facilitate their greater freedom of movement, thereby improving work, shopping and leisure opportunities for at least some people with disabilities.
A very small move perhaps, but I think quite an important and significant step in the removal of barriers to fuller participation in European society.
It has taken a long time, but at least now this issue can finally be put to rest, and I would like to congratulate all of those who made that possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Recording equipment in road vehicles
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0116/98), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EEC) 3821/85 on recording equipment in road transport and Directive 88/599/EEC concerning the implementation of Regulations (EEC) 3820/85 and 3821/85 (C4-0009/98-94/0187(SYN)) (Rapporteur: Mr Wijsenbeek).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, the Committee on Transport and Tourism has sent me, as rapporteur, limping into the debate.
I know it is sometimes difficult with the amount of travelling we have to do and the planes and trains which are not there, but it is curious, at least, that the late arrival of three Members, two from the UPE and one from the PSE, altered the majority for this report while voting was taking place.
That also reflects the fact that the report is quite controversial, open to different views, because it was very close.
<P>
What is it about?
In fact, something new has cropped up.
Anyway, I have never experienced anything like this.
The Commission had presented a proposal aiming to improve the existing recording instrument, the traditional tachograph, by adding an extra piece of equipment in which a driver-card is fitted.
<P>
At first reading, Parliament, with the greatest possible majority, took the view that the on-board computer or digital tachograph would also be an improvement on the traditional instrument and could simply be used, even with CD-ROM, in place of the traditional instrument.
I have to tell you that I thought that a highly acceptable proposal.
I thought that a useful addition by Parliament and even the Commission was in agreement with it.
<P>
Then the Council adopted the common position that only on-board computers may be used in new vehicles.
The Council did that with fourteen votes in favour and one abstention.
As it stands, Parliament could support that common position, it represents the state of the art in the technology now being applied.
However, there are two problems with this.
<P>
In the first place, there is the matter of use and control in the other AETR countries which are not yet, or will not become, members of the EU.
Regarding the AETR, the Transport Committee has submitted an amendment, and it could be that something will come of that, but I expect to hear the Commissioner soon on this, saying that we will still have to accept some of the old equipment.
<P>
The second problem concerns the retrofit.
Personally, I find it unacceptable that the old lorries, of all vehicles, which experience has taught us breach the rules on driving and rest periods most, should be allowed to continue to run with the old equipment, which is so open to fraud, for ever and a day.
Some say that the problem will be over in five to seven years, but it is still five to seven years, and then most of these vehicles are usually put on the road again, often in some of the Member States around the Mediterranean.
<P>
Now to come back to the limping of my motion.
The first three amendments, and Mrs Langenhagen's amendments, Amendments Nos 19 to 22 inclusive, still contain the 1A proposal and the reference to the Annex which goes with it.
They were subsequently not included, nor was the Annex.
Obviously I will be leaving it to the wisdom of Parliament whether to accept Mrs Langenhagen's motions but in any case I, as rapporteur, will rise after the votes on Amendments Nos 2 and 4 to indicate the subsequent logical order of the later voting.
<P>
I would very much like to hear from the Commissioner about retrofit and AETR, but I also think that the Commissioner owes us some further explanation about the origins and basis of the whole Article, that is a new regulation on driving and rest periods.
At the moment we are only talking about the means of control, whereas, in fact, we also need to examine the Regulation on driving and rest periods which needs to be amended.
The Commission is considering this at the moment, but I think that the two have to go hand in hand.
<P>
Now to my conclusions.
We have been surprised, and not unpleasantly, by the progressive common position.
We will have to see whether we are still going to consider both possibilities 1A and 1B, or whether as a Parliament we want to proceed further only with 1B.
But no matter what happens: transport will and must become safer and more social in one way or another as a result of this proposal.
<P>
Finally, I would like to thank the Commissioner warmly for the cooperation but also, and especially, those in DG VII who helped me, simple lawyer that I am, to master this difficult technical material.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Castricum">
Mr President, since my colleague Mr Wijsenbeek has outlined the technical background so superbly, I can confine myself to considering the political aspects.
It seems so simple.
Lorries above a certain weight and buses with a certain number of seats have for years been fitted with a piece of equipment which measures driving and rest periods.
It is a neat bit of technology which has been improved over and over again by smart people in recent decades, but especially in their own experience by smart operators.
Drivers - the good ones excepted, I must emphasize - often literally bend the technology to suit themselves.
A government which takes itself seriously tries to do something about this.
It seems simple but as you know, so many heads, so many minds, a tangle which is difficult to unravel.
<P>
Rapporteur Wijsenbeek has pointed us more or less in the direction of the digital era.
Bravo to that.
Fourteen Member States were then able to choose to progress in the same way, the Commissioner and the Committee on Transport and Tourism have endorsed it, though we have to wait for the vote to see whether the same will happen in Parliament.
But my colleague Mr Wijsenbeek has already spoken about that.
<P>
Mr President, the Frankfurt Allgemeine Zeitung wrote nostalgically last month about the good old tachograph disc which will be replaced by a digital system in 2000, also mentioning that the German industry is ready for this.
Kinsel was the first to propose a 1B solution.
If necessary, it said in the same report, the 1A solution could still be taken off the shelf.
<P>
Against this background, it is reassuring that the technology for digital tachographs is evidently no longer a problem.
This is not only evident from this report, I also say this because I am assuming that the Commission and the Council are both very wise bodies, surrounded by masses of expertise, which obviously cannot allow themselves to make any mistakes at this point with regard to the technical feasibility of the proposal which lies before us now.
Having said all that, I am not forgetting that there are still doubts even in our circle about the choice that has been made, especially on the points which the rapporteur mentioned just now.
I sincerely hope that they will be dispelled by experience in practice in the years to come.
The broad support that there seems to be for the shift to the digital era should now no longer be put at risk.
<P>
Mr President, well before the new digital tachograph is, can be, introduced, we will have to buckle down to further proposals for effective and more harmonized control.
Before the last Dutch Presidency, the Dutch inspection service, the National Transport Inspectorate, took the initiative to map out the enforcement regime within the Union.
What we already knew from the Commission reports, which were often seriously delayed, was confirmed.
The rules are the same on paper, but that is where it stops.
There is insufficient awareness of how badly this undermines the idea of a single Europe with an internal market.
How bona fide operators and drivers who respect the rules can feel daily that they are being treated with contempt, by authorities which are powerless or unwilling to separate the wheat from the chaff.
<P>
Mr President, during the Council meeting in which the common position was adopted, the Council asked the Commission to present a report, if necessary accompanied by suitable proposals, on the effectiveness and uniformity of inspection procedures operated by the Member States.
I would not have had that 'if necessary' .
I am therefore assuming that the Commission will come up with proposals soon.
To put it more forcefully, what is the point of a new tachograph if enforcement practice continues with its old ways.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langenhagen">
Mr President, what is going on?
In 1994, i.e. four years ago, the Commission presented a proposal which pays greater regard to road safety in general and the social legislation for long-distance drivers in particular, namely through the introduction of a new tachograph, because the current one is considered too easy to tamper with.
Actually the matter is quite simple.
All those affected, be it drivers, trade unions, haulage firms or the road users I interviewed, are in favour of an improvement.
This improvement was presented to us by the Commission in its very sensible proposal of July 1994, but then Parliament wanted more.
At first reading in the summer of 1995 Parliament did not just vote for a piece of equipment which is less easy to manipulate, but also for the development of a super black box involving an extensive infrastructure with the firms and inspection authorities.
<P>
Global fleet management was to be a vision no longer.
It was two years later - in 1997 - that the Council's common position was presented to us.
This is inadequate in many respects.
I ask you and the Council how it can come about that, in the final analysis, the Council has only voted on the super black box and not simultaneously on the satisfactory, cost-effective, sound, feasible and acceptable solution proposed by Parliament.
Who is hiding something here and why?
<P>
When I first heard about the Council's decision, I thought I was dreaming, and I still hope that this is all a mistake and that tomorrow this blunder will not be endorsed by Parliament as well.
I am in favour of a modern, technologically assisted transport safety system, but each businessman should be able to decide for himself in this free market of ours, whether he wants a superbox or the equally attractive, so-called improved solution.
<P>
The entrepreneur ultimately knows best what costs he and his business can sustain.
If the common position of the Council becomes a reality tomorrow, then the previous tamper-prone tachograph and the new superbox, which still has not been clearly defined and examined for its legal force - the old and the new equipment therefore - will exist for ten years or more side by side.
Neither have anything in common.
On the contrary, an incentive will be given for a driver to transfer from the old vehicle to the new because he knows that the two types of recording equipment cannot be compared with each other and that he cannot be prosecuted for failing to observe the proper driving and rest periods.
<P>
If the Council has voted 14: 1 against the more sensible solution, but in favour of the superbox, this means that there is no wish to achieve increased control and hence improved road safety.
Or how do you see things, ladies and gentlemen?
I hope that our vote tomorrow will not turn into a nightmare and that we will vote as at first reading, because I think like you, Mr Wijsenbeek, 1A and 1B are the correct solution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Santini">
Mr President, I thought I was alone, but Mrs Langenhagen has beaten me in introducing some element of caution, alongside this stimulating technological innovation.
Like all technological innovations, this has financial implications, and so caution is needed.
There is a risk, in this case, that it will favour one party, namely the manufacturers of this new equipment, and worry the other party, namely those who have to buy them without total guarantees, not only for the operation, but for the credibility of the checks that can be made with this equipment.
<P>
Carriers, and not just Italian carriers, have already been gravely concerned by an investment that could give rise to losses, as it might have to be renewed even in the short term.
I personally, and to some extent my group, are not against the introduction of 1B equipment, but we are asking for it to be done gradually, because not everyone agrees with the results of the tests so far conducted.
We propose that it might be better to allow a transition period, a free choice, firstly for the Member States and then for the businessmen in the countries themselves, of whether or not to use the new equipment or keep the 1A equipment with the addition of a digital reader, at least for a specific period.
<P>
It would appear that the costs of either operation are much the same, but the first, the incorporation of a digital reader into the old system, would provide greater guarantees for the time being, while awaiting the official initiation of the 1B equipment.
<P>
It is true that this could complicate the control systems, so those working on the road will have to check not only the operation but also the honesty of those using this equipment.
In this case, however, unlike our regrets in a previous speech on tourism, the principle of subsidiarity should be defended, or even imposed, for in this case it is also a question of defending a principle of discretionary power.
<P>
In such a delicate framework which might affect a sector already troubled by other factors, such as the increase in motorway tolls, those who will be paying the cost of this reform should be allowed to choose.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, experts consider non-compliance with the rules to be one of the most serious problems in the transport sector.
I share the opinion that this problem has not been caused in the first place by defective control equipment, the tachograph.
I think the main cause is the inadequate performance of the investigation bodies.
The rules on driving periods are also not geared well enough to the characteristics of road transport and that invites infringements.
<P>
Even so, I share the Council's view that the tachograph must be replaced by an on-board computer or black box as the means of control.
The technology of the tachograph is outdated.
It is susceptible to fraud and, unlike the on-board computer, cannot be used to improve operations.
When the price of the on-board computer is also comparable to that of the tachograph, with or without smartcard, the on-board computer seems an obvious choice.
<P>
Now that the Council has also opted for this, I do not want to hold on to the original choice of Parliament at first reading, which wanted to give transport companies the choice between an improved tachograph and an on-board computer.
The co-existence of three systems, tachograph, tachograph plus and on-board computer, can only make enforcement more difficult.
<P>
I am sorry that the Council did not decide to go for a retrofit.
When new equipment is introduced, you cannot avoid using the old and the new alongside each other for some time.
But the Council should have set a deadline for the use of the tachograph.
Now we are going to be faced for a long time with tachograph discs in old lorries which soon hardly anyone will be able to read and, according to the rapporteur, it is mainly the old lorries which break the rules on driving and rest periods.
My amendment to make the on-board computer compulsory after a number of years did not win sufficient support in the Committee on Transport and Tourism, however.
I would rather not have a retrofit at all, than a retrofit which amounts to an upgrading of the old tachograph.
If the Council now, in 1998, votes for on-board computers with a large majority, I think it would be stupid, in the next century, to equip old lorries with technology which is in fact already out-of-date now.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lüttge">
Mr President, who actually still believes in this House that the demands articulated by Mr van Dam - for improvement and harmonization of driving and rest periods and for an improvement in the control systems - can still be achieved?
I have been a member of this Parliament since 1989 and this is a demand that has been made time and time again.
We know that enforcement takes different forms within the European Union.
I can judge this fairly well from a German point of view, too.
Because the system is not working and will not work, we need to have improved recording equipment in the vehicles.
<P>
The digital system is a correct way forward, but it should not be introduced without used vehicles being retro-fitted with the driver-specific smartcard at the same time.
The tachograph needs to be retro-fitted; we have the technical facilities to do this.
The periods quoted here, namely until the year 2003, are much too long.
Furthermore, the reduction for vehicles licensed since 1996 is totally absurd because we know for a fact that 10 and 15-year-old vehicles are driven mainly in the countries of central and eastern Europe, and they will be driven for some years to come.
<P>
I need to refer to something else, too, particularly where the situation in central and eastern Europe is concerned: it was 1995 when the tachograph was introduced.
I think it is asking too much to now lay down the digital system at one go, so as to transfer to a new cost-effective system after five years.
The interim solution would clearly be more acceptable.
We have - or could have - the following paradox: for example, new vehicles fitted with the digital system from 2000 onwards might no longer be able to enter the countries of central and eastern Europe because the appropriate reading equipment is not available there and their police are not equipped with the necessary apparatus.
You can just imagine the way things might develop for us under certain conditions!
<P>
The chance to arrive at a comprehensive solution, e.g. one involving intermediate stages, better monitoring of drivers' hours, the introduction and implementation of better social legislation, has not been seized.
Finally, Frits Castricum: it is not only German industry that is ready; we know that companies in Great Britain, in the Netherlands, in Italy and in France are ready too and possess both the technical and technological know-how to change things!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Stenmarck">
Mr President, let me begin by saying thank you to the rapporteur, Mr Wijsenbeek, for the many years of work he has done on this matter.
<P>
The issue of tachographs goes hand in hand with the unresolved issue of driving and rest periods.
On the question of the latter, the European Parliament is still waiting for the Commission's proposal on what changes are considered necessary.
It would have been good if we had been given the opportunity to discuss these issues in one context.
<P>
It is necessary to set requirements for functioning equipment in lorries.
At the same time it is also important that the technology and the systems in which people have invested, perhaps in every company in a country, can also be used for its full service life.
Anything else would be a waste of resources.
It would be quite unreasonable to demand that already heavily burdened companies reinvest in new systems.
It is a different matter to say that, when systems need to be replaced, the best available technology should be adopted and systems introduced that are the same for all Member States.
<P>
The longer-term work also includes legislation in this area with regard to the membership negotiations which are about to begin and with regard to bilateral negotiations with third countries in central and eastern Europe.
It is highly desirable that there should eventually be common rules both with regard to driving and rest periods and with regard to technical systems for tachographs.
In a single market and in a Europe virtually without frontiers, certainly taking a somewhat longer-term view, this will become necessary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="d'Aboville">
<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Cornelissen">
Mr President, the last time it met, this Parliament spoke out for a tough approach to dealing with danger on the road.
The measures we propose include measures to promote better compliance with driving and resting periods in freight and bus transport.
This requires better enforcement, and fraud-proof equipment can help with this.
I have six short questions to put to the Commissioner.
<P>
First, is it true that the digital tachograph, 1B in the documents, is clearly better in this respect than the improved conventional tachograph 1A?
Second, is it true that both types of tachograph have reached a stage of development which would mean that making type 1B compulsory from 2000 would not result in delays?
Third, is there any truth in the statements from some colleagues that countries in Central Europe are prepared to cooperate with the installation of 1A but not 1B?
Fourth, what is the Commissioner's view on the absence of any provision for existing vehicles?
How great is the risk that bona fide transport operators will be subject to competition from operators driving old vehicles without an improved tachograph?
Fifth, I think we have the best chance of finally reaching a decision if we go for 1B, given the views in the Council of Ministers.
Sixth, the key question to the Commissioner, with reference to my colleague Mrs Langenhagen's argument, what will best serve the interests of road safety and responsible social behaviour?
<P>
Finally, whatever is chosen, the outcome stands or falls with proper enforcement in all Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="McIntosh">
Mr President, I welcome Mr Wijsenbeek's report and congratulate him on the work he has put in.
I particularly welcome the fact that this proposal - the common position - aims to improve the enforcement of tachograph provisions.
<P>
We all agree that social legislation relating to professional drivers' hours is widely abused under the current system.
However, my concern is that, under the common position that has been placed before us today, there are too many ifs, buts and maybes concerning IB.
I think it would be particularly appropriate to play safe and allow IA and IB to proceed in the interim.
<P>
For example, it is not certain that the technical committee will have completed the technical specification for digital tachographs this year.
I understand - unless the Commission can contradict me this evening - that the Commission may have to apply for an extension of the deadline.
I believe that the Commission and the Council should recognize this fact as we do in Parliament.
<P>
The technical requirements under IB are rigorous.
Recording equipment in the vehicle must be able to hold one year's driver's hours data and the driver-specific smartcard must be capable of holding at least 28 days of data.
Unfortunately, I do not share Mr Castricum's confidence that the ministers will have sorted this out in time - i.e. the technical specification question.
We all agree that the present tachograph-based system has deficiencies which prevent effective enforcement of Community legislation currently in existence on professional drivers' hours.
However, the most sensible way forward is to propose a transitional phase where IA and IB proceed in parallel until the new technology - which we all agree should be secure and tamper-free - is in place.
<P>
I sincerely hope that the Commission and the Council can accept this proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
Mr President, the introduction of a new generation of tachographs is obviously a tangible contribution to road safety, as several Members have said in the course of the debate.
It is a tangible contribution to better social conditions for professional drivers, and clearly also a tangible contribution to fairer competition both within road transport and between the different modes of road transport.
I am extremely grateful for the sustained interest of this House and for the continuous commitment shown in particular by the rapporteur Mr Wijsenbeek.
<P>
The House will certainly recall that this Parliament wanted the Commission to amend its original proposal in 1995 by adding the possibility of introducing full digital equipment, the so-called 1B option.
Since the first reading technical feasibility studies have been undertaken, a great deal of work has been done with all the sectors involved, including enforcement authorities, social partners and the industry, with the result that the Commission and the Council are now convinced that having option 1B alone is the right approach.
We live and we learn, and we are happy to be instructed by many of the arguments put in the first place by the Parliament.
This House will not be surprised to know that, so far as I was concerned, they were in any case pushing at a fairly open door.
<P>
The Commission, consequently, will not support those amendments aimed at reintroducing the 1A option.
Whilst we agree that would be better than the current tachograph, it remains a hybrid solution that does not use the best available technology and does not give the same advantages as the 1B option in terms of security and flexibility for users.
Amendments Nos 1, 2, 4 and 19 to 22 are therefore not accepted.
<P>
I would like to respond to those honourable Members who made the point about retro-fitting, by emphasizing that a good control system is very dependent on the proportion of the vehicle fleet that is equipped.
I have therefore argued consistently in the Council for some kind of retro-fitting that would have achieved the right balance between better enforcement and reasonable cost for the operators.
I regret, however, that a large blocking minority could not accept such a compromise.
Obviously no discussion on retrofitting should, however, justify the introduction of the new tachograph for new vehicles.
<P>
Therefore, considering that there is a broadly held view that the issue of retro-fitting is - how can I put it politely - ' not ripe for decision' , it should remain on the table of the Council.
This at least will enable the Commission to return to the issue later, as it most certainly will, possibly on the basis of a modified proposal.
So far as retro-fitting is concerned, we had to ensure that we did not let the best be the enemy of the good and we have had to work on the basis not of what we would most prefer but of what we were most likely to get.
I hope that the House will share our view that it was pragmatically better to proceed on that basis.
<P>
Amendment No 3 is rejected because it is already covered in essence by the joint declaration attached to the common position which states that the Council and Commission will take steps to adapt the AETR Agreement as necessary in the light of the new tachograph.
<P>
In response to other honourable Members on this AETR point, the legal services of the Commission and the Council have made clear that there is no reason why European Union vehicles equipped with a new digital tachograph should encounter problems in the AETR third countries.
Vehicles equipped with a better enforcement tool should be accepted in view of the fact that they obviously aim to apply the same rules as the existing tachographs.
Moreover, the outputs of the new system, i.e. the printouts, will be much easier to interpret than the existing ones.
They will use the same pictograms to show the same information.
That should be more than sufficient, especially when we consider that if the current tachograph is not functioning the AETR Agreement simply requires a hand-written log from drivers, which is worse than nothing.
<P>
The real challenge will be to ask the third countries to introduce the new system for their own vehicles.
That might require a transitional period as has been suggested in the course of today's debate; but both the Council and the Commission have committed themselves to take all appropriate steps to achieve that.
On that basis, I welcome the declaration attached to the common position and I hope it will go some way towards reassuring honourable Members who have expressed doubts and concerns on this.
<P>
I would like to respond to at least one of Mr Cornelissen's other questions, and that is relating to whether 1B will work.
The answer is most definitely Yes, as repeatedly tested and as demonstrated in working conditions and in very strong simulation exercises.
So he can be sure of that, but I am glad he raised the question, together with several other questions.
<P>
I would conclude by saying that I am happy to inform the House that I can accept Amendments Nos 5 to 17, which must be some kind of world record!
They clarify or strengthen operational or security provisions of the common position.
I thank the Committee on Transport and Tourism, and Mr Wijsenbeek the rapporteur in particular, for the work on this proposal which will make a very significant contribution to the further and beneficial evolution not only of the common transport policy but to standards of fair competition, of security, of safety and of honesty in the operation of road haulage in the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Social security schemes for persons moving within the Community
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0052/98)by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) amending Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71 on the application of social security schemes to employed persons, to self-employed persons and to members of their families moving within the Community and Regulation (EEC) No 574/72 laying down the procedure for implementing Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71 (COM(97)0378 - C4-0450/97-97/0201(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, I am embarrassed by the annual report and debate on Regulation No 1408/71 on the coordination of social security schemes for employed persons, self-employed persons and members of their families moving within the Community.
As rapporteur, but even more as an elected representative living in a border area, I know the problems which so many have who live on one side of the border and work on the other side.
Problems which, for that matter, get even worse when people stop work, whether they are forced to do so because of illness or perhaps also when they are happy to retire.
Mr President, I cannot explain it at home any more.
People can see for themselves that Europe is expanding, we are getting the euro, fine!
But how does that help me solve my everyday problems?
My point is that the increasing fiscalization of social security rules in a Regulation which merely coordinates social security sometimes benefits employees who commute over borders, but puts the majority at a disadvantage.
In the annual report that we are bringing out, I simply attempt to propose a few changes.
I will come to that now.
<P>
Mr President, as the law stands at the moment, the Regulation does not apply to EU subjects who do not have an occupation and are not family members of someone who is working.
The special arrangements for civil servants also fall outside its scope.
In addition, nationals from other countries who are lawfully resident in a Member State and meet the social security and tax requirements are also not covered by Regulation No 1408.
A debate is now taking place in the Council regarding nationals of third countries.
With regard to civil servants, I would like to hear from the Commission: what exactly is the situation now?
We have already discussed your 1991 proposal.
Mr President, that question is answered in this report.
In this report, I explicitly propose an amendment to extend Regulation No 1408 to students and other persons who have the right to reside in the Union and who, if they at least have sufficient means to support themselves, still fall outside the coordination rules, with all the problems that entails.
Amendments Nos 1 and 2.
<P>
Mr President, it is actually a never-ending story in which I, as rapporteur, and many colleagues with me, never get a hearing.
This is about the right of a person who works near a border to obtain cross-border medical care for himself, while dependent family members continue to be excluded.
I propose that retired people and their dependants should be allowed to keep this option.
As far as Amendments Nos 3 and 4, which attempt to tackle this problem, are concerned, I really would like to get a clear answer from the Commission as to why the proposed Directive which was promised to us some time ago has still not been formulated clearly.
<P>
Mr President, I would like to put on record - as I have often done before - that the cooperation we receive from the Commission's departments is extremely good.
Your staff, Commissioner, do an excellent job in listening to questions from those who are affected by this and their organizations.
The European Parliament and the Commission are in broad agreement on the technical background to Regulation No 1408, but all the proposals are being blocked by the Council.
So I am asking: can the Commissioner possibly provide us with a summary of why exactly which Member States are blocking which directives.
I think that a summary like that could be put to good use in the various election campaigns.
<P>
Mr President, finally I have two further comments.
The rapporteur of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, Wolfgang Ullmann, - our thanks go to him - argues that the codecision in the Treaty of Amsterdam which applies to this Regulation does not really offer a way forward, because the decisions in the Council have to be unanimous.
Mr President, I am more optimistic, perhaps it is my nature.
This is because the time of decision-making behind closed doors is going to come to an end. With people power, we in the EP must ensure that decision-makers can no longer skulk away without presenting reasoned arguments as to why they are against an early retirement scheme, against extending entitlement to care in the country of employment and against schemes to safeguard the unemployment benefits of working students, pensioners and civil servants.
Mr President, if the responsibility lies elsewhere, we must act together to resolve the matter, but I expect the Commission to indicate clearly, and to this Parliament, why what is being blocked and, together with Parliament, look for possible solutions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Weiler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all thank you very much, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten. You have seen fit to comment on this issue, Regulation No 1408, on occasion before, of course.
I thank you for your tenacity and persistence here.
You know that the Socialist Group - and, I think, the whole of Parliament - support you in this matter.
The technical amendments to the present Directive are all correct in principle and long since overdue.
Unfortunately the Commission was once again somewhat fainthearted.
That is why we have supported some amendments of yours.
I also think these were needed in order to send a message to particular groups, such as students, pensioners and the unemployed, and to show generally how seriously we take freedom of movement.
<P>
The right to freedom of movement is already anchored in the Treaty of Rome.
However, it is always surprising to discover what obstacles and barriers the Member States put up against this and how reluctant they are to bring about equality of social treatment.
A series of Commission proposals and parliamentary opinions are lying dormant with the Council.
They are not being implemented because the political will is lacking.
I welcome your suggestion, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, that we should be given an overview of which Member States are blocking progress so much.
I welcome it regardless of who the culprits are!
<P>
The Commission likewise is a bit too complacent and cautious in several areas.
This is shown in the new action programme on freedom of movement, which fails to represent social security with the same commitment shown for the free movement of capital, goods and services.
It is our aim as a Parliament, as elected representatives, to guarantee workers the right to freedom of movement, to reduce discrimination and to plan and take a courageous step towards further integration, and not wait, as so often happens, until the European Court of Justice has taken the lead.
I think it is proof of how impoverished we are as parliamentarians if the European Court or national courts need to show us the way in the matter of European integration.
This is a political task and not, in fact, a job for the judiciary.
<P>
I hope with this Regulation we can move a little closer to the objectives I have just stated.
Though I hope, too, that we can finally record a success, to the extent that an amendment to a Regulation proposed by the Commission, which we have unanimously passed in Parliament, will be implemented by the Council of Ministers.
If this is the case, then I am certain that some of the scepticism of Europe's workers and citizens will be reduced in the process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Imaz San Miguel">
Mr President, first I want to thank Mrs Oomen-Ruijten for her excellent report, in which she once again defends before this House the rights of migrant workers, including frontier workers.
For Europe will not truly exist until we have removed the practical obstacles which confront those people who have to cross a border every morning in order to go to work in another Member State.
<P>
The report supports the technical amendments proposed by the Commission to update the regulations relating to the coordination of social security schemes for migrant workers.
However, as well as these technical amendments, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten presents some amendments with a greater political impact - basically those which demand concrete actions to correct the existing shortcomings in transfrontier health care.
<P>
The Commission should present a serious proposal in this respect, to include what Parliament is about to approve in the amendments to this report.
Basically it is a question of frontier workers, their family members or their survivors being equally eligible for health benefits in their country of residence and in the country in which they work.
Furthermore, this right should extend to frontier workers when they are retired or not in employment, always being based on their professional activities in their country of employment. That is the only way to achieve a Europe which is diverse yet united, in which borders do not represent any loss of citizens' rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Garosci">
Mr President, as usual, the Commission is calling on us today to assess the updating of the regulations on social security concerning workers moving from one Member State to another within the Community.
Twenty-five years have gone by since the regulation was drawn up, and the picture has changed almost totally in this sector in a quarter of a century.
In fact, all of us hope we will be able to see European workers move freely within the various Member States, as if they were their own, maintaining, and even strengthening, their social rights.
<P>
We therefore agree with the rapporteur, whom we thank for her work, in asking for greater protection for migrant workers and their families.
We therefore support the two amendments requested in addition to the valid amendments presented by the Commission, particularly the reimbursement of benefits in kind provided under sickness and maternity insurance.
<P>
The first amendment that needs to be made is the inclusion of students among the beneficiaries of social security.
<P>
The second amendment relates both to transfrontier workers and their rights to pensions based on the legislation of the Member States in which they have worked as transfrontier workers and to the social rights of their families and survivors.
<P>
To conclude, our task is to make freedom of movement and respect for social rights effective.
<P>
Transfrontier workers and students are the present and the future of employment within the Community's single market, or rather what we prefer to call the internal market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Mr President, Commissioner, every year we hold a debate in Parliament on technical amendments to Regulation No 1408/71.
It is good that we do this, but I think that the main function of these debates is to clarify a number of deeper problems which can no longer be solved by technical amendments and legislation.
I would therefore like to thank the rapporteur, who has tabled a number of amendments which will enable us to debate fundamental problems in relation to cross-border social security matters.
However, I still think that the Council will again not adopt these amendments.
That is actually the crux of this debate.
People appeal to us, as Members of the European Parliament, about their problems all the time, when it is the Member States which could do so much bilaterally.
<P>
In the light of this I would like to say something about cross-border health care.
I support Amendment No 3, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten's amendment, to give border workers the opportunity to obtain medical care on the territory of the other state concerned as well.
The same goes for Amendment No 4, which guarantees entitlement to medical care in the Member State where a retired person used to work.
This covers retired workers.
The problem of self-employed people who have worked in a lot of other countries has not been resolved yet.
<P>
The Member States of the European Union still think too much in terms of regional care areas based on national criteria.
However, change is unavoidable as the internal market develops.
Care areas need not stop at national borders by definition.
Let me offer my own region as an example.
I live in Zeeland, an area which is cut through by a major river, and services in Belgium are much closer than services in the Netherlands.
I take the view, therefore, that solutions could be found, for example within existing euro-regions.
I think the Commissioner ought to put this point high on the agenda of the Council of Ministers too.
<P>
At this time when technological innovation goes hand in hand with increased mobility, and where distance is playing less and less of a role, we need to have the political courage to see cross-border cooperation in health care as an opportunity and not a threat.
The arrival of the euro will accelerate this process as it will make it easier to compare prices between the Member States.
The various Member States will have to create more scope for cross-border health care, including the purchase of medicines abroad.
<P>
The fact that I am not alone in this view is already clear from the contributions of my colleagues, but also from the submissions to the Court of Justice in the Becker and Kohl cases.
I am absolutely convinced that we must not continue to wait for another judgment from the Court of Justice, but that the politicians should take the lead in matters of this kind.
The arrival of the euro is precisely the opportunity for us as politicians to take the lead.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I can express my ardent support but briefly here, although I have to say that it is tinged with considerable annoyance.
For here realism really does change to minimalism.
It is clear that students, refugees, unemployed pensioners and those about to retire should be included in the scheme.
It is clear too that civil servants, third country nationals and the self-employed who do not have large amounts of capital behind them should also be included.
Yet, Commissioner, what has to happen before the Council finally looks for a solution to these problems?
It is not as if we were discussing this issue for the first time.
<P>
The single market, ladies and gentlemen, is in a bad way right on the eve of the euro.
I do not know if you have ever had a puppy that has gone romping through the fields - on four legs.
The single market is hobbling badly - and it hurts to watch it - because its fourth leg, the freedom of movement of workers, is lame.
It might not keel over, it can get about on three legs still, but it is painful.
We need to get the single market out of the habit of moving in this way, for it does so at the expense of dependent employment in all its forms.
We have not even begun to address the atypical forms of work that are developing.
And we cannot justify this inaction in a situation in which the single market is being consolidated by the euro.
I believe this is a matter of the utmost urgency, and if something is not done about it soon, then something will certainly happen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tatarella">
Mr President, the proposal for a Council Regulation, on which the report we are discussing is based, is reasonably and substantially supported by the members of the National Alliance.
We agree on the need to update the Community regulations in question, to take into account the changes in national legislation and several bilateral agreements arranged between the Member States on this subject.
<P>
The actual freedom of movement of persons within the EU is one of the principal objectives of the construction of the Community and is sanctioned by the Union treaties. However, this objective has not yet been achieved in full, particularly with regard to the freedom of movement of workers and self-employed persons.
For this purpose, it seems advisable to have a clear and simple framework of reference regulations, a sound basis on which to begin the removal of obstacles and difficulties in the mobility of workers within the EU.
<P>
The members of the National Alliance also agree with the amendments included in the report.
Social security beneficiaries should also include students, pensioners and others, providing, of course, adequate resources and insurances for health and maternity.
<P>
The essential condition is that persons come under the legislation of one or more Member States and are citizens of one of the Member States, with this condition extending to their families.
Frontier workers should also be entitled to a pension, an income based on the legislation of the Member State in which they have worked.
<P>
It is also necessary to regulate the transferability of all pension rights, both those connected with compulsory schemes and those resulting from membership of supplementary schemes.
The latter have continued to develop in size, particularly among the more senior professional workers, who are particularly interested in mobility.
<P>
The members of the National Alliance note however that the lack of a European agreement for the protection of workers will lead to industrial firms relocating to regions where the workforce costs less and is less well protected, with the risk that national systems will be brought into line with a lower level of social security and protection.
<P>
We are concerned that, while strengthening the prominent positions of the national industrial firms on the market, we will end up ignoring the social themes.
The national governments tend to cut these costs, possibly to be competitive.
If we want to avoid such a dangerous scenario, the EU should play its specific role in the field of social security and protection.
Since we have built an economic and monetary Europe, we have greater reason to establish social standards that can be supported at European level.
Only in that way can we truly maintain the economic and social cohesion of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="Flynn">
Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking all those who contributed.
I know how frustrating it can sometimes be for those who constantly referred to the matters that they have approached again this evening.
In particular I wish to thank Mrs Oomen-Ruijten on this matter.
I understand precisely when she says that she has problems on her doorstep dealing with frontier workers.
We are trying to solve them and this is what I propose in that regard.
<P>
We welcome the positive attitude of Parliament on this particular proposal, because you share the Commission's opinion that Regulation 1408/71 and, indeed, Regulation 574/72 on the coordination of social security schemes need to be updated in the light of changes made in national legislation.
<P>
You also agree on the simplification of the reimbursement system for health and maternity insurance as a consequence of the modification of the implementing Regulation 574/72, 1995.
<P>
The Commission also takes note of your concern about the need for a clear and comprehensive statement of the reasons for the future proposals in order to identity their purpose.
<P>
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten also suggests four amendments.
I wish to deal with them.
The first and the second concern the extension of the personal scope of the regulation in order to include other categories of persons not in active employment.
The Commission has already submitted a proposal to the Council on 13 December 1991 for the extension of Regulations 1408/71 and 574/42 to all insured persons.
As this proposal is now being actively discussed in the Council, it would not be appropriate to present a new proposal with the very same object at this stage.
<P>
As regards the third and fourth amendments, they seek to extend the right to health care to members of the family of a frontier worker and to former frontier workers residing or staying in a Member State other than the competent Member State.
The Commission is very aware of Parliament's concerns and it shares your view in this matter.
In 1995 it submitted a similar proposal to the Council and that was, unfortunately, rejected.
However, it seems very difficult for the Commission to take on board these amendments in this proposal since the issues dealt with go beyond the scope of the Commission proposal which, of course, is limited in this proposal to updating the current text of the regulations.
<P>
However, I should say, and I wish to emphasize this: the Commission supports the ideas expressed by Parliament in its report.
It is the Commission's intention to include them all in a proposal for a fundamental revision of the regulations which we presented at the end of the year.
The important thing to remember here is that this particular proposal is a purely technical one.
We are talking here about updating the existing regulations.
The changes that are necessary because of case law are because of Member States' modifications of their own legislation.
We are not talking about new items in this particular proposal but we will be doing it later on in the year, as I say.
<P>

In answer to Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, I would like to say that there are indeed delays, which are quite frustrating at times, but she must remember that unanimity is required in the Council to deal with these matters, and that it is very difficult to achieve in anything related to social security.
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten asked what the story was about some of the proposals.
Certain Member States are blocking, which prevents us getting unanimity.
<P>
Four proposals should be mentioned here.
I am talking about unemployment benefits, that is, the exportation of them.
That is being blocked by two Member States.
Then there is the calculation and exportation of pre-retirement benefits.
The Nordic countries plus one other country are against that.
On the question about civil servants, I would like to say that good progress is being made on that particular proposal - that is one of the proposals for the introduction of these categories into 1408/71.
So there is good progress on civil servants.
As far as students and the non-employed are concerned, there is blocking there too by some of the Nordic countries and one other major country.
<P>
To Mrs Weiler I would say that I appreciate how important this is so far as the freedom of movement of people is concerned.
But in reply to Mrs Boogerd-Quaak who asked why we do not move ahead of the Court, the answer is that we expect the Court judgments on the two cases pending before the summer.
This will allow us to honour the commitment I am giving here that before the end of the year we will make a proposal covering all these outstanding issues.
But I have to say that the Court is important in this regard.
It determines the limits available to us as regards the interpretation of the Treaty.
So if I made a proposal to the college in advance of what is about to come within the next couple of months, and if I got it wrong, I might have to re-do the whole proposal again once the interpretation of the Court was in place.
<P>
So, I would say to the rapporteur and to Members that these are matters to which I give my personal attention.
We are making some progress in some of them.
Unanimity is denying us the progress we would like to make, but once we have cleared this hurdle, we will be able to make a comprehensive proposal other than what is a purely technical matter dealt with this evening by way of this proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, I can always say to my compatriot that the Commission is aware of the problems we have.
But I think I need to apply the brake a little when I hear the reply you have just given. I agree with the first two amendments, but they were already in our proposal.
Parliament is submitting this motion so that part of your own earlier proposal, which leads to even bigger problems and perhaps may not be accepted, may serve as a helping hand to assist you in extending coverage to students.
That is why I say: think about it again and see if you can come up with a better answer tomorrow before the vote.
<P>
Secondly, access to health care.
I think Mrs Boogerd-Quaak knows far more about this than I do, coming as I do from Limburg, because she lives on an island.
It is absolutely essential that you fulfil the promise you made on this point.
<P>
Thirdly, civil servants: progress?
It is actually very simple because there are proceedings before the Court of Justice or the Court has given a judgement.
That is not really progress.
What I would like, and I repeat, is the written info on all these subjects and please tell us which country blocks what kind and what subject of that proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="President">
I do not think the Commissioner failed to hear the question.
He probably did not want to answer!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="Flynn">
The reason I would like to take just one moment to reply to Mrs Oomen-Ruijten is this: I want her to be absolutely sure about two things.
First of all, the Commissioner and the Commission support your point of view.
That is important to say on the record.
Secondly, we are going to make a proposal.
But this particular proposal here is a technical amendment which is an adjustment in accordance with ongoing amendments that are necessary on a yearly basis.
So this is not the place to do it.
<P>
As regards the Member States who are blocking certain of these proposals, I would be pleased to give that information to Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 8.30 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Madam President, page 6 of the Minutes clearly contains an error.
What has been recorded is that Mr Rübig asked the President a question about crime in Brussels and about whether this subject has been referred to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
He received the answer that this problem was being taken seriously and that the authorities in Brussels had been informed of it.
But the Brussels' authorities are not the Committee on the Rules of Procedure.
I merely wanted to ask whether the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities was dealing with the matter as a question of urgency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
We have taken note of this matter and I shall see that it is looked into.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Madam President, I am sure that Mr Gallagher always tables excellent amendments, however yesterday Mr Berthu mentioned my amendments to the Herman report and consequently on page 9 of the Minutes the name Gallagher should be replaced by that of Hager.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Thank you very much. We shall amend the text accordingly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="Teverson">
Madam President, I just wanted to say that I was present at the session yesterday.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Mr Poggiolini, you asked to speak on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Poggiolini">
Madam President, going back to what I was trying to say a little while ago, the arrival of spring has given the Italian Members a nasty surprise: flights have been done away with from Rome and Milan, places where the Italian Members used to meet to come to the European Parliament.
Air France has said that the Parliament, the Quaestors and the Presidency are to be blamed for this, as they failed to renew some agreement.
I almost have the impression that, following the judgment of the Court of Luxembourg, there is a desire to punish Members, not just the Italians but the Members in general, as the problem does not just concern Italy.
It is no longer possible to get to Parliament without making incredible journeys from one part of Europe to another.
I would like the Presidency to give us an explanation for this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
Mr Poggiolini, that was not a point of order.
The same opinion was expressed yesterday by Members from other countries.
I believe that we have taken note of this and that the matter will be pursued.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Implementation of the budget and discharge
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0097/98 by Mr Elles, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on postponement of the discharge to be given to the Commission in respect of the implementation of the General Budget of the European Communities for the Financial Year 1996; -A4-0091/98 by Mr Wynn, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on giving discharge to the Commission in respect of the Financial Management of the sixth and seventh European Development Funds for the 1996 financial year; -(A4-0094/98) by Mr Wynn, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the Commission report on the measures taken in response to the comments made in Parliament's resolution accompanying the decision giving discharge in respect of the General Budget for the Financial Year 1995(COM(97)0571 - C4-0126/98); -A4-0093/98 by Mr Blak, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on giving discharge to the Commission in respect of the Financial Management of the European Coal and Steel Community for the 1996 Financial Year; -A4-0092/98 by Mr Kellett-Bowman, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the specific annual reports of the Court of Auditors on the financial statements of the decentralised Community Agencies (OJ C 393, 29 December 1997) - 1996 Discharge Procedure (including the decisions giving discharge to the Administrative Board of the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Dublin) and to the Management Board of the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Thessaloniki) in respect of the implementation of their budgets for the 1996 financial year).
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="Elles">
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Wynn">
Mr President, I should like to concentrate for my first five minutes on the follow-up to the 1995 discharge and then move on to the discharge for the EDF for 1996.
The 1995 discharge asks the Commission, the Court and Parliament to carry out certain actions.
I am glad to say that a lot of those actions have been adhered to and that we have made a lot of progress in the way that discharge will be carried out in the future.
<P>
If one looks at the report we can see that there have been and will be improvements to the system from the way the Commission reports to Parliament on its findings.
We gave additional comments through an amendment by Piet Dankert at the committee stage, asking if we can get a better response, hopefully before the summer recess, so that we can take that into consideration before we look at the next year's budget.
<P>
Also, for the first time we have the responses from the Member States, albeit twelve months after they were due.
However, at least we received them.
And this time we have already received them from the UK, which is a major achievement.
One would hope that the other fourteen Member States will give us their responses just as quickly.
Of course we do not give discharge to the Member States, we give it to the Commission.
But when we have that information in front of us it helps us to question the Court and the Commission.
<P>
As far as the DAS goes, the Court has once again complied with our request about submitting its findings on the activities within the report.
However, referring to Mr Elles' report, he makes the point: ' If the Treaty of Amsterdam were already in force, the rapporteur would probably no longer in the present situation be able to recommend postponement of the discharge but would be obliged to propose its refusal' .
We have had this proposal since 1994 when the DAS first came into being.
We found a solution for it then with the correct form of words for the 1994 and the 1995 discharges.
<P>
If the Treaty of Amsterdam is going to make things more difficult, I would suggest that the institutions involved - Parliament, Commission, Court of Auditors and Council - get together within a very short space of time to hammer out exactly what we expect from the DAS.
This has been an ongoing debate since 1994 and we need a resolution to it.
I am pretty sure that what Mr Elles says is what I have been saying for the last two years.
If we carry on like this we will never get a positive DAS for the Union's budget, and that does not look well in the eyes of the taxpayer.
We need to get a solution to this and it will only be done if we get all the institutions together talking about this.
<P>
The report also calls upon the Court to bring its annual report forward to the first October session.
I know this causes problems for the Court, but the procedure we have gone through recently does not do justice to the report or to the work of the Court or the work of Parliament.
It is not acceptable that our workload is such that Members of the Court are allocated only two minutes' speaking time in committee.
If we can bring the process forward it will give us all a lot more time to get into the detail of what we should be discussing.
It will give Members a lot more time to analyse each aspect of the annual report, even though that it may be shorter.
But we need to take that extra time.
If it came forward in the first October part-session, it would also fit in nicely with Parliament's first reading in the second session in October.
<P>
Within the report, I accept that there are situations where we asked the Commission for certain actions and it says that it cannot do better than it is already doing.
That applies to paragraph 8 on action necessary to improve collections and recovery of sums due to the Community.
The Commission lays great stress on SEM 2000.
Let us hope that it works.
We expect reports on that.
<P>
I also need to mention olive oil and cotton.
This has been ongoing since 1994 when I have been doing reports.
I am glad to see that action will be taken in these two sectors and that sooner or later we may get some monies repaid to the Community.
<P>
On Amendments Nos 11, 12 and 13, on classical swine fever, I will leave that to Mr Mulder, who is a far greater expert on pigs than I am!
But it is a serious issue when it comes to taxpayers' expenditure.
I have two final points on this report.
Firstly, the Commission's reply to paragraph 79 of the 1995 discharge resolution does not give the explanation necessary concerning the Berlaymont Building.
I ask the Commission once again to undertake an inquiry to find out where the blame lies for this.
Finally, on this report to the Court of Auditors, we reiterate our request which we voiced in resolutions in 1992, 1993 and 1995 about information concerning the financial controller's lack of approval on refusals of visas.
I am sure Mr Friedmann will take that on board.
<P>
Concerning the EDFs, things could be worse.
If Mr Elles is actually saying we should refuse discharge for the general budget, it would have been quite easy to get Parliament to accept that we should refuse the EDF budget also because of the arguments put forward over the last two years and the fact that only recently we voted in this Parliament not to give an opinion on the new financial regulation for the eighth EDF funds.
The reason is because of the arguments we have about our role within the European Development Fund.
The situation is that we have responsibility without authority.
We are supposed to monitor the spending of those appropriations without having any authority to do anything about them.
<P>
We have no way of influencing that spending; all we can do is give a discharge at the end of the day.
The easiest thing, following the Court of Justice ruling, is to say: we are having nothing to do with this; if the Commission and the Council want a discharge, then they can go ahead and give it; we are not going to give it.
<P>
However, on reflection, that would be rather childish.
We have to accept that Parliament has a role in this and we have to say that we want to see the EDF budgetized.
That is our aim, that is what we wished had come out of Amsterdam, knowing full well that it probably would not.
Until the EDF is budgetized, Parliament will have a great problem in its role, especially in giving discharge.
Therefore, as I have said, we would expect the EDF to be budgetized some time in the future - we have the support of the Commission on this - and the Council should reconsider and realize that it would be far better administered through the general budget.
The choice has not been easy but, at the end of the day, the committee's recommendation to Parliament that discharge should be given is probably the right one.
<P>
However, there are three points to raise in this connection.
First of all, the advance payments to the eighth EDF.
According to the report, the Court states quite clearly that payments are being made from the sixth and seventh EDFs to the eighth without a legal base.
The Commission does not contest this.
We get rather annoyed when the Council tells us that lines cannot be implemented because there is no legal base.
Yet here we have a blatant contradiction of that argument, where money is being spent without anything resembling a legal base.
On those grounds alone, we could have said that we are not giving discharge to this report, but we are not doing that because we accept the practicalities of trying to get money to ACP countries.
<P>
So I ask the Council and the Commission to take on board that we are not best pleased about this, to say the least, but we would expect the situation to be ratified in the near future.
I have to say to the President-in-Office that it is rather surprising that there is no mention of this in the Council opinion.
The Council's report on the general budget was wonderful but this issue was not mentioned.
<P>
On the tendering procedures, there are several things stated within the report and in my opinion, especially on quality control of tendering procedures and the hard currency payments.
We ask the Court to keep an eye on this, and we ask the Commission to make sure the tenders are correct in the future.
<P>
Finally, on the DAS, it is good to see a positive DAS but there is one part where 4.5 % of payment transactions could not be assessed because of material obstacles.
That needs to be looked at, even if it is only a small amount.
I am sure we can get over those obstacles in future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Blak">
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="Kellett-Bowman">
Mr President, we move from discharges concerning large funds of money to two decentralized agencies which are very transparent in that they are dealing with much smaller sums of money.
May I thank the services for finally getting the details of this agenda item correct.
We are dealing with the discharge for the administrative board of the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions which is in Dublin and the management board of the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training, known as CEDEFOP, in Thessaloniki.
<P>
In preparing this report the Committee on Budgetary Control has had the advantage of reports from the Court of Auditors, for which I thank the President, and two very fulsome reports from the Council recommending us to give discharge.
May I say in the presence of the Council thank you because in past years they have arrived very late and have been rather superficial; this year is much more helpful.
We are also helped by an opinion from the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
<P>
May I first deal with Dublin because I am getting a bit fed up with one aspect of Dublin.
The financial regulations, both a general one for the Community and the one concerning this agency, require correct division of powers between authorizing officers, financial controllers and accounting officers and still the Court is reporting to us that Dublin has not got it right.
If the Court reports next time that it is not right, I fancy that we shall not be recommending discharge for the 1997 year.
When the new agencies, the second generation, were set, up the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Budgetary Control were very wary of the potential overlap between what the various agencies were to do.
We have to specify here that there is an overlap between the Foundation in Dublin and the European Agency for Health and Safety and we must keep them separate.
We cannot have a duplication of work.
The Dublin Foundation has had a good 1996 and if it gets these details right there is no problem as far as discharge is concerned and we are very happy to recommend discharge for the 1996 year.
<P>
CEDEFOP in Thessaloniki have had a rough time.
They were transferred from Berlin to Thessaloniki and into temporary premises.
There were difficulties with staff not prepared to move away from Berlin for family and other reasons and they were understaffed.
There was a time when we thought there was a possibility that CEDEFOP might go under, but thanks to the director who resolutely got on with the task they are now carrying out fully their responsibilities.
<P>
The Court has drawn attention to the fact that they are not following the financial regulations strictly in obtaining tenders for projects in the research field.
The Court also points out that we still have problems with the contract for the new building which is a unique type of contract in my experience and has got to be watched closely.
Of course, in vacating the temporary premises we must make sure that financial details are covered properly.
Now that CEDEFOP is fully operational I hope that their budget provisions, their forecasts and everything to do with the running of the agency will be more smoothly presented, because the Court has some difficulty with the irregular transfers of money to CEDEFOP.
This is a point which is raised from time to time by the Court because of the difficulty of operating an agency so far from Brussels.
Again, the committee recommends to Parliament that we grant discharge.
In this report there are therefore two discharge recommendations: one for Dublin and one for Thessaloniki.
<P>
I now turn to Mr Elles' report where Mr Tomlinson and I have put in a working document in connection with fraud in the transit system.
This subject has occupied a lot of European Parliament time.
The Committee of Inquiry reported in March last year, after a year's intensive work.
Mrs Wemheuer's report recently secured a very satisfactory response from the Commission.
Mr De Luca's report also covered the special report from the Court of Auditors on the subject.
<P>
It would be churlish of us not to recognize that the Commission has made a great deal of progress.
There is new legislation being put in place and there are new rules for dealing with transit matters.
I have had reports from users of the system of an improved devotion to duty on the part of customs officials - morale has gone up.
I believe that when reports are submitted to us we shall find that far less money than that which we said was being lost in the transit system is being lost now.
<P>
There remain the outstanding debts.
That is a very difficult situation for the customs services and for the Commission, because the rules do not permit the Commission to remit any of these outstanding debts.
They are a matter for separate negotiation by the individual customs authorities with the carriers and freight forwarders themselves.
I hope that those debt burdens will not continue for much longer because they must be putting some of those companies very much at risk.
<P>
However, the proposed computerization of the transit system is now three years away when it should be only about 18 months away.
This we do not like.
It is all the more disappointing since the computerization was proposed and planned long before the inquiry first sat.
Nevertheless, we are falling seriously behind.
I do not blame the Commission entirely because five states volunteered to enter the first phase and they are falling behind as well.
It is important that Mr Elles should use this delay as one of the reasons for recommending deferral of the discharge for 1996.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Mayer">
Madam President, Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I shall probably not need my full three minutes, Madam President, for I am somewhat pressed for time since I currently have an important group meeting in the House.
<P>
In its annual report on the 1996 financial year in respect of the agriculture sector, the Court of Auditors touches on several areas in which irregularities have been discovered.
These include the cultivated-plant compensation scheme, livestock premiums and the organization of the tobacco and wine markets.
I do not wish to go into the abuses mentioned in the report in any detail, but would merely point out that a lot needs to be done in order to eliminate, or at least check, the misuse of those funds which have been allocated to the agriculture sector.
The citizens of the European Union naturally expect these resources to be used efficiently for the purpose for which they were intended and moreover they expect that the process can be audited at any time.
<P>
I support the proposal to postpone the discharge.
EU agricultural expenditure tends to be more in the forefront of people's minds when funds are running low.
We have in recent months had repeated debates on individual areas of expenditure.
There are still production sectors which suffer from severe public criticism, even when EU funds are used in a proper manner.
When these sectors are also the subject of irregularities, it is no wonder that serious questions are asked about agricultural spending.
In future it will not only be market-organization expenditure which will have to pass scrutiny, but also and increasingly the integrated administration and audit system.
Here I would just like to recall to Members' attention the cattle registration and beef labelling schemes, which are designed in the long run to win back consumer confidence.
Any irregularities here would have devastating consequences, in my opinion, and would without doubt throw into question the sense and purpose of the whole system.
For this reason the Commission is also called upon to draw the necessary conclusions from the abuses highlighted by the Court of Auditors.
<P>
The impending reform of the CAP gives us all the opportunity to draw up regulations which are more transparent and less susceptible to irregularities. This is a real chance for Agenda 2000, which should not be missed.
This also applies to the whole BSE issue, which has still to be fully resolved, and to the various problem areas indicated by the Committee of Inquiry.
I therefore refer in particular to the conclusions, where action is also called for.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Napoletano">
Madam President, in the opinion approved by the Committee on Regional Policy, it has been brought to light that, for all the sections relating to the Structural Funds, the year 1996 has been a turning-point in the commitment of allocations.
From this point of view, we must be pleased as all the allocations initially provided for have been committed, not just those for 1996, but also those for 1994 reincorporated into the budget.
<P>
However, in our committee's opinion, the same optimism cannot exist for the closure of the programmes.
Many programmes in the period prior to 1994 remain open, with the main problem being the large number of programmes, rather than the amount of the resources.
The Committee on Regional Policy points to a total lack of assessment of the impact of the measures and funds on small and medium-sized businesses, a question which has already been brought to light and which I believe is very important as the Luxembourg Council attaches great importance to this sector.
<P>
Finally, it is the third time that the Court of Auditors is using the statement of assurance for this part of the budget.
It might be useful if the Court were to add a clarification on the concepts of formal and substantial errors, irregularities, illegalities and fraud.
I think this explanation will be very useful, not just for our committee and for the sector we are dealing with, but for the entire budget.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Liddell">
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Liikanen">
Madam President, your rapporteur, Mr Elles, proposes deferring the decision for discharge to September, and has asked the Commission to take a series of measures between now and then relating to the Commission's various fields of activity.
<P>
The Commission has taken note of the report in question.
It will do all in its power to comply with the wishes of Parliament.
A certain number of indications on the major points raised by Mr Elles may, however, already be given.
<P>
With regard to the fight against fraud, my colleague, Mrs Gradin, last week sent a letter to Mrs Theato specifying the procedures under which information on internal investigations for the Commission could be made available to you.
Furthermore, as stated in the document that the Commission sent you on 18 November 1997, on improving the fight against fraud and corruption, UCLAF will make the necessary contact with the national legal authorities in case of suspicion of fraud or corruption.
<P>
As regards UCLAF authorization by all the European institutions in the pursuit of its enquiries, the Commission is looking at measures relating to the consolidation of the powers and of the mandate of UCLAF within the Commission to ensure its independence.
UCLAF procedures giving the best possible assistance to other institutions confronted with fraud enquiries will therefore be more closely specified.
<P>
As regards the basis of the enquiry on the transit system, the Commission has had to change its approach on the new computerized transit system, the NCTS, because of its complexity, which made it too difficult to manage.
The report scheduled for September will outline the state of progress.
We hope that the project will be able to work with five Member States before the end of 1999, but there have been many difficulties, as you know.
<P>
In the agricultural sector, in accordance with the resolution of this House of 18 April 1996, the Commission has now strengthened the audit unit (unité apurement des comptes ) by 15 members.
It will also be submitting a composite report on the introduction of the integrated financial control system, and will draw the requisite financial conclusions of any inappropriate operations.
<P>
As regards the SMEs, the Commission has launched an overall assessment, the final result of which should be available towards the end of the year.
<P>
In the external policy field, the Commission has proposed a review of the regulations on reconstruction aid in the former Yugoslavia, and will strengthen its delegation in Sarajevo.
These are measures which take into account the severe criticism expressed by this Parliament and the Parliamentary delegation which went to Bosnia recently.
Furthermore, the Commission will submit a proposal for a new regulation aimed at creating a unified framework for budgets and procedures.
<P>
As regards the decentralization of PHARE activities, the Commission is actively pursuing its consideration of the possibilities, but believes that the complete transfer of the national programme as a whole requires a little bit more time, and will probably not be possible until 1999.
It should be emphasized, furthermore, that on 15 October 1997 the Commission decided to set up a common management service for Community assistance to third countries.
This is an important step toward harmonization, rationalization and transparency in tender procedures, contract award and in the general manner of operating.
This new service will continue the process of decentralization which is already under way.
<P>
As regard the audits by the Court of Auditors on the activities of the European Investment Fund, the Commission has always undertaken to respect the Court's right to audit, while respecting the competencies of each of the institutions and bodies concerned.
It will propose a new meeting with the Court for the purpose of reaching an agreement on this issue.
<P>
In the field of administrative and budget management, the Commission has undertaken a vast programme of internal reform.
Four major sites have been opened up to this effect.
Launched in 1995, the SEM 2000 initiative has provided the foundations and instruments to build up healthy financial management.
The MAP 2000 project complements this in the personnel and administrative field.
Adopted in 1997, it sets out a framework for modernizing the running of the Commission, based on the principles of decentralization, simplification and rationalization.
<P>
In parallel, the Commission has undertaken an in-depth study of its activities and resources.
The results will serve as the basis for a reorganization of the portfolios and the structure of services for the next Commission.
Finally, the Commission is now dealing with the difficult question of the linguistic implications of the forthcoming enlargements.
<P>
Mr Elles, in his resolution, has included the European Parliament resolutions relating to tourism, ECHO, PHARE and the MED programmes, following to the various special reports of the Court.
These reports have already been discussed at length, and it would serve no purpose for me to return to them.
The Commission will, of course, respect the content of these resolutions.
<P>
Madam President, I believe we are on the right track, and I have no doubt that in September the Commission will be able to present the elements that will allow you to definitely give discharge for the 1996 financial year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wemheuer">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, some time ago the media presented a report which worried a lot of people, gave rise to a number of jokes and became a real talking point.
The story was not about the European Commission nor about Parliament.
A major German-based car manufacturer had carried out trials on a new model, which had reportedly overturned during testing.
What did the manufacturer do?
It re-designed the car and restored customer confidence.
<P>
If the Commission had been this same manufacturer, it would have said: "let us first carry out an internal investigation to establish whether the car actually existed and whether or not there were any moose in the area at the time' .
Years later - and by this time the company's shares would have fallen through the floor - we would probably have received a report stating that, while there were moose around, it could not be said with any certainty that a moose had personally been involved in the car overturning.
In the meantime, the Commission would probably have improved the car anyway, but would have said nothing to anyone about this.
<P>
On a more serious note, much of what we are debating today has been discussed before on numerous occasions.
Almost everything which the rapporteur, Mr Elles, writes in his report, and which I can support on behalf of my group - in other words, all parts of the report -, are points which we have often expressed.
The question of why we are now postponing the discharge is an obvious one, since much of what is addressed there could well have been said at any time during the past 12 months.
Many of the new issues involved may well have been present a year ago in a different form.
We could just as easily have got together and said "discharge with critical comments or postponement of discharge' .
The difference is a matter of degree.
<P>
What does this reveal?
It reveals a loss in confidence.
Not only a loss in confidence between a few Members of the Committee on Budgetary Control and the Commission.
We possibly still have much more confidence in you than others do.
But it reveals a loss in confidence in European institutions - and not only in this House but with the public at large.
This is a major problem.
I do not think that we can solve it by postponing the discharge, but perhaps we can use this to illustrate what is wrong.
<P>
Reports will be appearing this week in the media, or may already have appeared, on the subject of Europe - and not on the discharge or on the granting or postponement of the discharge.
These European themes include enlargement, monetary union and everything connected with the concept of Agenda 2000.
If we want to achieve all these things - and we really want to - then the face of Europe will be dramatically changed in the years to come.
We want this change - and here I am speaking both to the Council and to the Commission.
We want this change and we want to be involved in bringing it about.
But it can only function if the citizens of Europe put their trust in the Union and its institutions: if they feel they are based on clarity and transparency, that there is democratic accountability and that Parliament is not just there to make comments now and again, but is in real dialogue with the Commission - which by this means and this means alone is subject to democratic accountability.
<P>
This is the fundamental problem and I believe that it is the reason for postponing the discharge, in order to make it clear that improvements have to be made - and not only in our personal relations, for I do not think that the situation here is as bad as all that, but rather in terms of the external impact involved.
I would like to illustrate this by means of an example, since this has already been touched on by almost every other speaker in one form or another.
<P>
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, I address my remarks specifically to you.
The criticism which has been made of the computerization of the transit system is not to do with the fact that it is a very difficult subject, or that it is a complex process which has lasted longer than was foreseen.
We all know that this sort of thing can happen at any time.
No, Madam President-inOffice, ladies and gentlemen of the Commission, we are talking about something quite different. The call for computerization was the central demand of the first Committee of Inquiry set up by this Parliament.
The Commission's undertaking to do this and to make this the central issue has contributed significantly to the fact that in our final report our dealings with the Commission were actually quite harmonious and resulted in a well-balanced report with well-balanced demands, rather than simply succumbing to directing criticism at the Commission.
You met us half-way and you proposed a plan as to how to proceed further.
<P>
We know that the unexpected can always happen.
But why did you fail to inform us?
You drew up a timetable and you then confirmed it at a time when you already knew that it could not be met.
That is where the mistrust lies.
You informed us that there was to be a delay, but you told us too little, too late and only after repeated inquiry, and I would like to know why.
Hence the misgivings on our part. It was not that nothing could have happened to delay such a complex project.
We can well appreciate that.
In spite of everything, we still live in the real world and know that things can go wrong, that problems can arise and that sometimes it is not possible to keep to schedule.
But the point I am making is the fact that you again failed to keep us informed; that is where the confidence building comes in.
This is the key point.
And for that reason this issue perhaps affected us much more than any of the others.
<P>
Then there is the integrated control system.
How often have we discussed this subject?
Deadlines were set and then extended and all the time we were told "we are on the way, we will have an impact on the Member States, we will get results' .
We are quite ready to believe this, but I want to know why are we still standing here making the same demands as before - only this time things are worse.
The situation itself is not worse - what is worse is the fact that we are not going to believe what you tell us.
This is indeed a dramatic turn of events.
<P>
A final point, which Mr Elles did not mention, is one which was introduced through amendments tabled by Mr Bourlanges.
This concerns staff policy.
Here too it can be said that much of what has been criticized in other points, such as the implementation of the programmes and so on, is still connected with the fact that the Commission tells us that we do not have enough staff, that we have bottlenecks and so on.
We accept that.
But at some point there has to be a plan on the table, there must be transparency.
When we are told that there are still efficiency reserves, that restructuring could be introduced, then we have to know how big these reserves are, when they are to be mobilized and how.
If the Commission really believes that we cannot enter the new millennium with many more Member States and an increasing number of duties to perform, since the reserves must run out sooner or later, then it must tell us this and demonstrate it in a plausible manner.
It simply will not do for the Commission to say, when it comes to each and every little programme, that we have five people missing here, three people missing there and maybe even twenty people missing somewhere else.
This is why we engaged some company or other to sort out the problem. Later, years later - as was always the case when we put our minds to it - this company tells us "that really was the reason, but we are on the right road' .
Yes, I really do think that we are on the right road, but we should be doing more than just showing that we are on the right road, we should be doing it in such a way that people can believe us.
<P>
I shall say one more thing and this will be my final word on the subject. The European Union has an institution which is responsible for, and which can influence, the people's trust in the Commission - and that institution is the European Parliament.
If you fail to convince us, or if you do not win or regain our trust, then no-one in this European Union will trust you in the future, for you yourselves cannot be voted in or out of office.
We are the middle-men, we are the democratically elected body.
We need a strong Commission for the future and we need a strong Parliament too.
But this Parliament needs a Commission which it can work with and to which it can say "Yes, we can confirm that and give it our full and unreserved support' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Theato">
Madam President, in preparing the discharge to be given to the Commission in respect of the 1996 financial year, we had a pleasing new experience.
For the first time the Council complied with a request which Parliament had been making for many years by submitting in good time its position on the discharge, with the result that a detailed debate could be held in the company of the President-in-Office of the Council prior to the vote being taken in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
For this we should like to express our thanks to Council Minister Liddell.
<P>
As far as the actual discharge for 1996 itself is concerned, things seem less than promising.
In the excellent report which was adopted unanimously in the Committee on Budgetary Control, and for which I would like to offer my sincere congratulations to the rapporteur, Mr Elles, a proposal is made to postpone the discharge and, I believe, justly so.
On the basis of the report submitted by the Court of Auditors, for which we again express our thanks to the President, Professor Friedman, who is present here today, and to all members of the Court, and on the basis of in-depth information and discussions with the Court and with the Commission, the rapporteur lists five important reasons which justify postponing the discharge.
Then we also have the negative findings of the statement of assurance, which the Court of Auditors delivered particularly in respect of the Structural Funds, while its assessment of the agricultural sector was somewhat more encouraging.
<P>
There is still a period of grace for assessing the DAS, but once the Amsterdam Treaty has been ratified, Parliament is obliged to incorporate its results fully into the discharge.
I fully agree with the comments made here by Mr Wynn, that our various institutions should first discuss how we should handle the DAS in future, how this is to be set up and how this is to be used.
As far as I know we have never before had such a large number of grounds for postponement.
Does this prove that the deficiencies in implementing the budget are on the increase?
What it does prove, however, is that Parliament in its supervisory role condemns these deficiencies and insists that they be eradicated.
If the Commission fails to comply with our demands before the September 1998 deadline, then the refusal to give discharge could ultimately remain in place, and this would be followed by a vote of noconfidence and the subsequent dismissal of the Commission.
<P>
But we should not make threats.
The rapporteur is quite specific about this and I agree with him.
Our approach is, on the contrary, a constructive one.
By highlighting the weaknesses and by urging that these be effectively overcome, we are in fact contributing to the efficient and rational use of budgetary funds and are helping to build public confidence in Europe and in its institutions.
<P>
If we examine the individual points of criticism contained in the present resolution, then it becomes clear that the present Commission can no longer plead that these deficiencies were the fault of its predecessors.
It has been in office long enough to have brought in the necessary improvements.
This applies equally to the transit procedure, where little progress has been made towards the introduction of computerization - though the Commission itself considered this a priority matter - and to the elimination of mismanagement and fraud, as attested by the deficient administration of the PHARE, TACIS and MED programmes. I will say nothing here about events in the tourism sector.
The grievance often expressed concerning the failure to carry through the integrated control system for agricultural spending is in this respect just as significant as the inefficiency in promoting SMEs.
<P>
As far as UCLAF is concerned, I am pleased to see that what is being said is very much in keeping with what Parliament has been aiming at for many years.
I freely admit that the Commission has been making efforts to move towards our demands, especially in recent months, and I agree with Mrs Gradin, with you Mr Liikanen and with Mr van den Broek, that we should gradually reduce our catalogue of complaints.
But this must be done by September, and so I would ask that you give us clear-cut answers to clearcut questions.
This is also something which applies to your officials.
Long-winded explanations in unintelligible language obscure more than they clarify.
<P>
In conclusion, let me offer the Commission some advice: do not confuse Mr Elles' statement that "the auditor is a watchdog not a bloodhound' with the saying "his bark is worse than his bite' .
In closing, allow me to express my thanks and recognition to the rapporteurs, Mr Wynn, Mr Blak and Mr Kellett-Bowman.
They have done an excellent job and their reports have been unanimously adopted by the Committee on Budgetary Control.
I recommend this to the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Mulder">
Madam President, the question of how seriously the European Commission is taking this Parliament is central to this debate to our group. This is particularly relevant when we are talking about the Wynn report on the follow-up to the 1995 discharge, and the Elles report on the 1996 discharge.
It has already been said by previous speakers, and I agree that the Commission should take this Parliament very seriously.
This is good for public opinion, and it might also be good for the Commission itself.
<P>
I will just say a brief word about the Wynn report.
He was right; I will discuss swine fever.
What is the current system?
If there is an outbreak of swine fever somewhere in Europe, the European Union will pay 50 % to 70 %.
The remainder has to be found from the national Treasury.
Different countries have different systems.
In some countries the farmers are wholly responsible, in others the government pays.
My question to the Commission is: is this not a clear case of unfair competition?
Should something not be done about it?
Is it not an indirect state subsidy when the government pays for everything?
<P>
My second question is: should the system not be judged on risk?
The interested parties should make a bigger contribution when they might pose a high risk by the system they use.
My group can largely endorse the Elles report.
It is necessary, particularly in view of Agenda 2000, that the integrated monitoring system for income support is perfected.
If we are to extend this system, it has to work well.
My group will therefore vote in favour of the Elles report.
We hope that, before 15 September this year, the Commission will have presented sufficient arguments to convince Parliament that it should grant discharge after all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Miranda">
Madam President, I would like to begin by stating that I fully agree with Mr Elles' suggestion that the discharge should be postponed on account of the errors and omissions reported by the Commission in the administration of Community funds. This is more particularly evident in the light of the unacceptable attitude adopted by the Commission in failing to furnish in due time the information required by Parliament to analyse these matters and issue an opinion, as appropriate under such circumstances; in particular, in situations where such accusations of corruption and irregularities exist, as has occurred in the tourism sector.
I mention tourism here because one of the Commissioners responsible for this sector was Portuguese, which prompts me to be even more stringent in this regard.
This is a political signal, an extremely important signal, which the Commission should perceive as such, so that the situation may be improved in the future.
<P>
As rapporteur for other institutions, I would like to end by saying that I consider that the same rigour should be observed here.
I consider that the discharge to be given to the other institutions cannot be viewed in isolation from the general discharge that we are now discussing.
Moreover, I also consider it appropriate that due account should here be given to the opinion issued by the Council with regard to the matter of the Economic and Social Committee; it is appropriate that that opinion should be taken into account in the general discharge to be given to the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Madam President, Mr Liikanen, ladies and gentlemen, at the end of December 1995 the budgetary procedure made substantial funds available for reconstruction in the former Yugoslavia.
Since then I and some of my colleagues, and in particular Mr Giansily, have been looking into why the Commission is finding it so difficult to implement these funds effectively and quickly - after all they are supposed to constitute an immediate aid to reconstruction - and to get them to where they are needed.
<P>
My advice, based on what we are doing in the discharge procedure, is as follows: continue to appeal to the Commission to do better, to create a better legal basis, to listen less to the Council and not to be blackmailed by it - for the Council too has played its part in events here.
For a long time this approach failed to have any effect until we brought some real pressure to bear - and this was in the form of the reserve which we provided under the last budget procedure.
This year some ECU 30 million will not be allocated for Bosnia unless the situation noticeably improves through the summer.
We need a proper legal basis for implementing all budget lines thoroughly, quickly and effectively, that is to say we require thorough, effective and well-trained personnel to be present on the spot and, most importantly, we need a decentralized decision-making process - and this is something which is still clearly giving the Commission considerable cause for concern.
<P>
We have been reliably informed by the delegation out there that the decision-making processes operated from Brussels, where no-one knows the real situation on the ground and where files are just moved from one desk to another, cannot cope with the task in hand, and that people there cannot reconstruct their parliament or their schools because of some blockage or other at the Brussels end.
This situation simply cannot be allowed to continue.
The pressure brought to bear by the reserve has meant that new proposals are again being submitted, and that is why the postponement of the discharge is so important. I have learned a lesson from all this, namely that the Commission ultimately responds to pressure
<P>
The Commission has often said "yes, we too have read the report from the Court of Auditors and now everything is better' .
This time we really want to be convinced that the Commission has learned something, that it is now prepared to improve its own management structures and that it is ready to make amends for the political damage inflicted on us by the Bosnian affair.
The question which arises is not just whether taxpayers' money is being used to good effect, but as far as Bosnia is concerned, centres on the public image being presented by the European Union.
Why are the Americans better at these things?
They are not better people, after all.
Nor are their officials any better or worse than our own.
But they do have a clear strategic notion of what is important and they have effective machinery.
When it comes to Bosnia, we could do worse than learn from the Americans.
<P>
I would ask the Commission, and in this case Mr Liikanen, urgently to take note of the fact that Bosnia is not the only problem.
My belief is that the Commission also has a problem with DG IA.
We naturally discharge the Commission as a collective body, but as this collective body is able to take part in today's debate, it must be capable of amending its internal structures in such a way that when something nasty occurs in a certain area, then there is a mechanism for putting this right internally.
I am sure that Mr Liikanen and Mr Santer will make good use of the time between now and 15 September to focus on this matter.
Parliament will then be in a position to deal with you in quite a different way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too support and agree with what has been said so far.
It is a somewhat difficult exercise for Parliament to have to say how the taxpayers' money, the public money, the money we are called upon to use properly - with the European Parliament being first in line to do so - is the subject of this type of application, which is certainly not inspired by any criteria of healthy financial management, which the Treaty lays down as an obligation.
I am referring to one section in particular, that of foreign measures, in the context of which the image of the Union should be irreproachable and something of a "buttonhole' with regard to third countries.
<P>
However, apart from the emergency humanitarian aid distributed by ECHO, it seems to me that, for all the other items of expenditure, what is intolerable is not just the accumulated delays but also, unfortunately, the discrepancies in every budget heading.
Every one of us has direct experience of fair, objective and irreproachable complaints made by operators, by NGOs or by other bodies who work in the field and who have to wait 18-24 months for payment, after an undertaking has been assumed and signed by the Commission.
These things are beyond any logic and understanding of our Members.
Many of us on the Committee on Budgets fail to understand, for example, the reason why certain budget lines are so late: one which comes to mind is that ECU 150 million of late payments have accumulated over six years.
These figures cannot fail to lead Parliament to take appropriate measures.
<P>
I become concerned when I hear people talking about initiatives in the personnel policy aimed at scorning in any way the European civil service with proposals such as that of limiting senior jobs to five years, plus five non-renewable years.
<P>
The basic problem, Commissioner Liikanen, should be treated with an overall approach, which should, first and foremost, make the point on what we want as a personnel policy and as a European civil service and what this should be.
This European public function should be assessed, reforming it where it is lacking, but also praising what was always, at least until a few years ago, a task that was taken on with a spirit of sacrifice and service.
However, although the aim is to renationalize everything, it is clear that the results in the field can only depend on what is expected of the European public function.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, for the third time, the Court of Auditors has refused to give an overall positive assurance on the legality and regularity of payments made by the Commission.
Hence our rapporteur's statement that, if faced with a similar verdict from an auditor, the members of the board of a multinational company would probably have to immediately resign.
<P>
This time, unlike in 1994/1995, the Committee on Budgetary Control proposes that we consider that the trust laid upon the Commission by the Parliament no longer be granted.
The Commission has now been at work for three years; as soon as it came into office, it announced its determination to establish rigorous action to improve financial management. It now no longer deserves indulgence.
<P>
Speaking for my group, I am glad to see increasing concern on the part of the members of the Committee on Budgetary Control with regard to the situation of the Community finances, which is more than worrying. I approve the reasons set out in this report, arguing for the postponement of discharge.
How can we do otherwise, if we remember the two resolutions adopted by this House, the first relating to the MED programme - which had emphasized the serious irregularities committed by the Commission - and the second, much more recently, relating to allegations of fraud and irregularities in the tourism sector?
<P>
I therefore hope - like many speakers - that the firmness of the rapporteur will not go unnoticed, and that if the Commission fails to give a concrete response to the demands set out in the resolution, a vote of no confidence will effectively be passed, so that our good intentions are not short-lived. This should prove that sweet words from the Commission are not enough to cajole the majority of our Parliament into giving it a discharge.
The watchdogs mentioned by Mr Elles in his report - and I note he has already left - need to be more like bloodhounds than like poodles.
If not, the taxpayers in the Member States would simply continue to be taken for a ride.
<P>
I conclude, Mr President - your predecessor was only too happy to give extra time to other speakers - by saying that with regard to the Wynn report, let us, please, spare the EDF, as this is the only body which has received a positive statement on the part of the Commission.
It is not in the budget.
It is under the control of the Member States.
Let it remain there.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Tappin">
Mr President, I would like to address my remarks primarily to Mr Kellett-Bowman's report on the satellite agencies.
<P>
This is a momentous report because it is the end of the first tranche of reports on the two older agencies, Dublin and Thessaloniki.
But it also sets out in the appendix the principles which we will move to in the new discharge procedure following the KellettBowman report which Parliament has adopted - and I hope the Council will accept - for discharge for the newer agencies which have been created.
This will give Parliament not only power over the budget, but power over control of expenditure once it has been allocated to the separate agencies.
<P>
As Mr Kellett-Bowman points out in that report, a single report is a wonderful idea; themes can be developed across the agencies and horizontal issues can be compared between the agencies themselves.
We can develop themes and get a good control over the agencies in future.
Also, we can look at each agency individually.
That is something to be welcomed.
<P>
I also welcome the third point made in Mr Kellett-Bowman's report, that there will be an input from the substantive committees themselves, because they are best placed to evaluate the work of the agencies as it pertains to their committee.
<P>
Turning briefly to the agencies in the report, taking Dublin first of all, I fully support what Mr Kellett-Bowman has said on this report.
I am pleased at the efforts that have been made by Dublin and Bilbao to limit duplication and minimize conflict between the agency in Dublin and the one in Bilbao.
That has not been easy.
The two directors are to be complimented on that.
Mr KellettBowman makes reference to a memorandum of understanding to be signed by the two directors.
I hope, too, that the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Budgetary Control can have a copy of that memorandum of understanding, as well as the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
It is important that we have a working document to work on in future when it comes to budgetary matters.
<P>
One issue I wish to take up on the Dublin question is one which is not shown on the Dublin budget accounts: the amount of money that has not been accrued due to exchange rate losses.
I raise this point in working Document No 4 for the Budget Committee and again draw this to your attention, particularly because Dublin has lost some ECU 1 million in exchange rate losses in the year 1996.
Until there is a single currency, with all Member States which host agencies participating, the problem of exchange rate fluctuations will be a real one.
Over the next couple of years it may well be even more acute for agencies in those countries which remain outside the first wave of the single currency.
I would argue strongly for a mechanism to correct both positive and negative effects of exchange rate fluctuations.
After all, if we vote a budget for an agency, we should try to ensure that the agency gets the budget we voted and does not incur losses for reasons outside its control.
<P>
On Thessaloniki, I am delighted at the progress that has been made on staffing problems.
Commissioner Liikanen is to be praised for the work he has done to achieve this.
<P>
Another point I want to take up is the proposal regarding the building.
This is now seven months behind schedule.
As you know, Parliament forced this issue by putting a payment into reserve.
This procedure shows how we can have an effect and get a building started when we withhold the money.
If that point needed stressing, the signing of an agreement by Alicante - the trademarks agency - with the Spanish Government for a ECU 24 million building without proper control or consultation with Parliament's Budget Committee underlines this question.
This is something to be followed.
<P>
I would therefore like to add my voice to the recommendation and add a request for the Commission to report back to us on proposals for safeguards to be applied when any building question arises.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Mr President, I have three minutes and three comments: transit, personnel, EDF.
<P>
There is nothing more to be said about transit.
You have acted, the information systems are behind schedule, and you know it.
<P>
I would like to draw your attention to a specific fact, which is that once we have improved the situation in the transit field, we shall be seeing classic forms of contraband developing.
Here, we will be confronted with the inadequacies of our overall customs systems, which are lack of information, lack of integration, lack of homogeneity, and also sometimes, lack of motivation.
<P>
Here, I am not saying that Community institutions and Member States are lagging behind, but that we should really substantially improve our control of transit procedures, at a time when criminals are returning to more traditional forms of crime, which we may be less efficient at combating.
<P>
The second comment concerns personnel.
Let me go into a little more detail - and Mrs Wenheuer mentioned this - on an idea which goes against the flow, namely that while of course the personnel resources made available to the institutions and in particular to the Commission are insufficient, at the same time the number of missions is increasing, the competencies of the European Union are extending and the number of Member States is increasing.
<P>
We are managing a European Union which will very soon contain some five hundred million inhabitants, with horizontal operating personnel in the Directorates-General of around ten thousand people.
It's pretty laughable really.
And how do you react?
With timidity.
You are considering decentralization, but that will have its own limits, due to what I would discreetly call the growing heterogeneousness of national administrative systems.
You are considering privatization, delegating to third parties.
In principle, we are not against this, but we have the impression, like the Court, that it is carried out on an excessive basis and without many precautions.
It is not acceptable that some of the decisions in the field of the orientation and distribution of funds should be entrusted to third parties.
And finally, you are envisaging Eurodeployment.
We are waiting for you to show us some evidence in this field, but we can see that there are limits.
<P>
My third comment involves the EDF.
The rapporteur, Mr Wynn, is right to propose the discharge, even though we are extremely dissatisfied with the conclusions of Amsterdam.
The purpose of the discharge is not to be the Court of Appeal of the treaty, even if the European Council and the heads of states who signed the Amsterdam Treaty have been remarkably unambitious.
<P>
But we are very concerned by the problem of the legal bases.
On this point, we are being extremely indulgent towards you, but we will not let that happen again.
If you do not quickly find the appropriate legal solutions to correct the break in continuity from one EDF to the next, we can hardly go on being forgiving.
An evil which has not been condemned, an evil which is tolerated cannot be accepted by this Parliament!
<P>
I would like to thank you overall.
I am evidently in agreement with Mr Elles' report and with the other reports.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Virrankoski">
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteurs of all the reports, and in particular Mr Elles for his outspoken and unbiassed report.
The postponement of discharge is a serious measure.
There must be sufficient grounds for it, as, otherwise, Parliament will be guilty of unwarranted action.
<P>
I believe Mr Elles has highlighted some serious issues.
The weaknesses in the customs transit system are a big problem, as they cause losses that obviously run into millions.
It is worth noting that customs that have remained unsupervised are doing harm to Member States because they have to be economically supported out of the nation's gross domestic revenue.
That is why developing a computerized system would be of great advantage to Member States, but the Commission has to take responsibility for it.
<P>
The administration of EU programmes is difficult because the geographical references are enormous.
For that reason it makes very large mental and moral demands on EU officials.
That is why the least we can ask is that EU internal administration should be in good shape; then we have to turn our attention to the administration of programmes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, the European Parliament, in my opinion, all too often criticizes the Commission for its lack of supervision and all too rarely criticizes Member States for its sheer negligence.
Fraud is very possible when the most important task for member countries seems to be to minimize its net costs, while maximizing its income.
If the EU is paying out, it is as if there were endless funds.
<P>
The European Parliament rapporteurs, in my opinion, give too much weight to negligence on the part of the Commission and understate their own countries' responsibility for surveillance.
Furthermore, relations between Parliament and the Court of Auditors seem very bureaucratic.
They appear to be living in a different age. Neither seems to be living in reality.
<P>
Parliament has systematically argued for the European Development Fund to be included in the general budget, but to no avail.
This being the case, discharge from the use of resources is now only a formality, rather than Parliament scrutinizing the appropriate use of funds in connection with acceptance of the general budget.
<P>
As there is no real alternative to discharge we can only give the Commission our blessing.
And we could endorse that with a rubber stamp, hopefully without arousing Parliament's whole bureaucratic machine.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Mr President, my party colleague has already discussed the group's argument in favour of postponing the discharge for 1996.
I shall not therefore repeat those arguments, but simply stress that the Commission should get a yellow card for the way it deals with some of the issues which are of concern to us in Parliament.
For me personally this applies above all to the question of the lack of democratic control for measures against fraud involving EU funds, which is an important problem to get to grips with.
I know that the Commission is working towards this, and that we in Parliament have given a number of opinions on it.
<P>
As regards Mr Wynn's report on the granting of a discharge in relation to the European Development Fund for the 1996 financial year, the Green group entirely agrees with Mr Wynn that the existing procedure is strange, namely that the European Parliament should grant a discharge without being able to have any influence over the budget.
This report points out, among other things, how remarkable it is that funds from the seventh European Development Fund have been used without any legal base to finance measures which come under the Fourth Lomé Convention.
It goes without saying that these funds should be repaid as soon as possible.
<P>
In the Kellet-Bowman report on some of the decentralized bodies there are, in spite of everything, small problems both in Dublin and Thessaloniki which we must tackle, including financial control in Dublin and the buildings in Thessaloniki.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="Tomlinson">
Mr President, I congratulate the Council for the serious attention they have shown this year towards discharge.
We have had evidence of a political discussion at Ecofin, of a ministerial presentation in the Committee on Budgetary Control and a ministerial presentation here in plenary.
The Council is deserving of our thanks and our congratulations for those three things.
It has made the discharge debate more serious.
<P>
I would like to accompany my congratulations to the Council with a warning to future presidencies about the dangers and the consequences of recidivism.
If they go back to their former ways Parliament will be as irate at a future presidency as it is warm towards the present one.
So, my congratulations!
<P>
My second point is in relation to transit.
Here I would take issue slightly with my good friend Commissioner Liikanen.
In his intervention he spoke about the Council changing its approach and dealing with five Member States as if somehow that was an act of planning.
It is not.
It is a manifestation of failure.
It was not a conscious decision to change approach.
It was a failure of the contract we had for computerization.
While I am prepared to congratulate the Director-General and staff of DG XXI, I do not think we can have it as a matter of record that somehow everything was going along quite smoothly and we decided to change our approach.
The approach has changed because it has failed and the transit reservations we have are extremely serious, as shown in paragraph 4 of Mr Elles' excellent report and paragraph 15 of the explanatory memorandum.
<P>
There has, indeed, been progress.
But the scale of the progress, the loss of revenue and the impending enlargement of the Community mean that progress is insufficient and not backed by sufficient urgency.
<P>
Thirdly I turn to the statement of assurance.
In the debate a number of references have been made to the statement of assurance.
There is a feeling that some Members are beginning to doubt its utility because it always produces the same result.
I hope that we will continue to value the statement of assurance.
It is an extremely useful tool that should not in any way be denigrated because it leads to a bad result.
Obviously we have to be able to look forward to an improvement in the results.
But if there is an agreement about the statistical base on which the statement of assurance is undertaken, we have to live with the results.
<P>
My fourth point is in relation to our procedures.
I would like to say yet again that we have a fundamental need to examine discharge procedures.
It is my opinion that we spend far too long in the contradictoire procedure between the Court of Auditors and the Commission.
It means that there is too much time wasted, too much long-winded dialogue, too much wasteful use of audit resources so that by the time we come to a discharge procedure, we are dealing with out-of-date information.
<P>
I hope that all the institutions will make efforts to obtain a discharge closer to the events to which it relates.
That means reviewing the length of time we spend on the contradictoire procedure.
With those few comments, I support the Elles report and once again congratulate the Presidency for the work it has done in politicizing this important process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="President">
The President-in-Office of the Council, Mrs Liddell, has to leave us at this point, owing to a meeting, a trilateral discussion on marketable securities.
Thank you, Mrs Liddell, for attending this sitting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fabra Vallés">
Mr President, one of the main reasons Mr Elles is today presenting us with a motion for a resolution about postponing the 1996 discharge has to do with the MED programmes, and from what we are hearing, not just the MED programmes, either.
And it is in that context - of the MED programmes - where the misunderstandings arise.
<P>
The first misunderstanding is that the European Parliament, or more specifically the Committee on Budgetary Control, is opposed to decentralized cooperation.
The second misunderstanding is that the European Parliament has blocked the relaunching of such cooperation.
But I want to stress that neither of those things is true.
In fact, the European Parliament gave the green light for the relaunching of decentralized cooperation over eight months ago, with its resolution of 17 July 1997.
Furthermore, that green light will be confirmed when Parliament votes on the resolution which will conclude the present debate.
<P>
How, for example, could Parliament be opposed to cooperation between universities in the Member States and the associated countries of the Mediterranean?
On the contrary, the European Parliament is not opposed to it, but there was a serious management problem which was mainly located in Brussels, and was discovered by the Court of Auditors.
And it was the European Commission which stopped the programmes.
<P>
Once the management problem has been resolved the programmes can of course be relaunched. But - and it is a big but - we need to draw conclusions from the lessons of the past: the European Commission needs to learn from this affair.
<P>
The first lesson is that the European Commission needs to take a more significant role in the management of these decentralized programmes.
The second lesson is that those operators who committed themselves to cofunding but failed to deliver should not be allowed to participate in the new programmes.
Thirdly, the sums identified as recoverable must be repaid.
Fourthly, the financial losses, and also the serious loss of confidence, resulting from this affair mean that disciplinary steps need to be taken, because there is no doubt that there has been serious negligence.
And the fifth lesson is that the European Commission should send all the details of this affair to the judicial authorities in Belgium, France and Italy so that they can examine any possible legal implications.
<P>
Before I finish, I want to make it clear that I have no doubts about the European Commission's good intentions for the relaunch of the MED programmes but, just as good intentions are not enough to pass an exam, come back in September and show us that you have learned the lessons I have just explained to you - and do not look at me like that!
The Council said exactly the same thing, although it then went on to draw different conclusions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Dankert">
Mr President, in the resolution on postponement of discharge hardly any mention is made of the Structural Funds, except in relation to small and medium enterprises.
I think there was no justification for this, as the problems in 1995 were exactly the same as those in 1996, and we have had SEM 2000 in the meantime, which means there will be some improvements.
To my mind the new Commission proposals regarding Agenda 2000 comprise far-reaching improvements, even though the problems of combating fraud, the question of who the interest should be paid to, and how this should be calculated has not yet been sufficiently worked out in these proposals.
<P>
I would like to focus on another point, Mr President.
People in this House speak regularly about the damaging situation related to the implementation of the recommendations on transit made by the Committee of Inquiry, and the damaging delay in computerization.
I wanted to emphasize that.
But on 25 March I came across a new point in a Dutch newspaper which is on the one hand very interesting, but on the other extremely alarming.
Mr President, in the recommendation, we in the Committee of Inquiry worked on the assumption that transit is only able to function when customs function as one in Europe.
That is not to say that it is one service, but that it functions as one.
This newspaper report in fact concerned Spain; Mr President, I read that the Spanish authorities are going to hold the cigarette manufacturers responsible for the sale of illegal cigarettes.
This is good news, but I think it will throw the entire system into confusion, because the Spanish authorities seem to be saying that the manufacturers are selling their cigarettes knowingly and despite warnings to known smugglers.
Spanish customs are alleged to have registered these smugglers.
<P>
Mr President, this raises questions such as what is the legal situation?
Because if the customs duties are not transferred, then there is the obligation to seek the guilty party, but the risk liability remains with the carrier.
Mr President, will he be discharged of his liability, or are the fines for the manufacturers an addition to his liability?
I think that in both cases we are dealing with a precedent within the European Union.
In that context it would interesting to see whether, now we know that the Spanish customs have a blacklist, whether this blacklist has been brought to the notice of the Commission and of other customs services.
That would make the operation a lot easier.
<P>
A third question which arises is why the manufacturers in America and England did not respond to the requests made by the Spanish authorities to suspend their deliveries to known smugglers.
This kind of unilateral declaration might lead to a significant shift in trade traffic. That is why I see every reason to question the Commission about this.
My final conclusion is that it is high time the Member States acknowledged that these kind of issues should be tackled jointly and in conjunction with the Commission.
As soon as it comes to individual operations, the matter only gets worse than has already been established by the Committee of Inquiry.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bardong">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the budget control mills grind slowly and still produce the same old bitter grain.
We are now dealing with the draft budget for 1996.
The Court of Auditors presented us with its report in 1997.
We have spent the whole time debating this matter with some intensity. But instead of coming to our conclusions, we see ourselves compelled to request a postponement.
Anyone watching our efforts from the outside would hardly be impressed by all this.
Nevertheless, we hope that this postponement - and our committee decision was a unanimous one - will produce greater efficiency and bring more pressure to bear on the Commission.
I am sure that something will be set in motion before September. However, this method can surely only be used once.
I believe that the decisive pressure only materializes according to whether or not there are sufficient votes to refuse a discharge, whether this be today or at some unspecified time in the future.
There are certainly plenty of grounds for this - one only has to think of the lack of trust, which many speakers have mentioned, and the negative findings of the statement of assurance.
<P>
On the other hand, the Commission is certainly not refusing to provide us with the necessary information.
The Commission has reacted in a very constructive way to many of the comments which have been made, but this is not enough as far as we are concerned.
<P>
In recent years the debates have focused increasingly on the responsibility of the Member States, which account for some 80 % of EU spending and which are then responsible for controlling this expenditure.
The Commission is only responsible for monitoring this control process.
While this explains many a delay, it cannot serve as an excuse for everything.
The Commission remains responsible for failing to reveal the negligence of others and for not proposing adequate changes.
<P>
The budgetary control procedure of the European Parliament is still more powerful than that operated by the national parliaments.
We can only improve the effectiveness of our budgetary control system by making it absolutely clear who is actually responsible and perhaps by taking a brave decision once in a while.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Kjer Hansen">
It saddens me that we have to have this debate on postponement of discharge at all.
It saddens me because we would be better off expending our efforts on promoting the development of common policies rather than on cursing the Commission.
But the reasons for postponing the discharge are numerous, as Mr Elles' excellent report so ably demonstrates.
These are familiar difficulties and Parliament is simply forced to prevail upon the Commission to take action.
On previous occasions I have made it clear that I find it embarrassing that joint funds are being managed as badly as they are.
And it is scandalous that the Commission has not as yet succeeded in implementing the PHARE area programme more effectively to produce tangible and visible results in the destination countries.
<P>
But I would like to express my appreciation that we have now got a positive dialogue underway, and that the Commission is determined to take a number of measures designed to correct the failures and inadequacies found in the programme today.
I would like to note in particular the Commission's announcement today to the effect that the proposals set out in the special report on PHARE will be implemented in 1999, concerning delegating the administration to the destination country itself.
I look forward to hearing that on 1 January the administration of the PHARE programme will indeed have been transferred to a specific country.
I would also like to know the name of the country concerned, and I strongly urge the Commission to ensure that, if any legal changes are necessary, the relevant motions will be tabled, so that we can ensure that all obstacles are cleared out of the way to allow us to implement true decentralization on 1 January 1999.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bösch">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to thank the rapporteur, Mr Elles, who has painstakingly come to the conclusion that we should not at present give discharge to the Commission in respect of the 1996 budget.
It is also commendable that he should point out that if the Amsterdam Treaty were already in force, then we should have no other option but to refuse to give discharge to the Commission owing to the fact that the Court of Auditors was unable to provide a statement of assurance for the third time in succession.
<P>
The rapporteur is totally correct when he states that the approach which we have decided on is not at all abnormal, but rather constitutes a return to normality.
Perhaps we have not handled things this way before at European level, but with this move we are also attempting to normalize the degree of cooperation and the responsibilities which exist within the Union and to make these more transparent.
<P>
It is perhaps indicative of the Commission's attitude to this postponement of the discharge that we hear that Commissioners' press officers are linking the intentions of this House with the forthcoming European elections.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Commission, I believe that this opinion demonstrates a remoteness and an arrogance which the citizens of Europe call Brussels bureaucracy.
<P>
What Mr Elles concludes as justification for the postponement of the discharge is in itself nothing new.
Given the treatment which the special reports from the Court of Auditors have received in this House, the Commission should have had enough time to sort out the deficiencies in the external affairs programmes, in the SME sector and in all the other areas which the rapporteur has mentioned today.
<P>
Something which I would also like to touch on here - and I regret that the highly creditable Mrs Liddell has just had to leave to attend a meeting - is the completely incomprehensible position of the Member States vis--vis the recommendation to give discharge to the Commission.
This concerns Agenda 2000, where one hears that Member States are crossing off their net payment assessments with increasingly ridiculous calculations, saying they are still paying more than the others.
Obviously these same Member States can find nothing wrong when money is paid out by the Commission and by a Commissioner in the agricultural sector, despite the fact that there is no basis for this, despite the fact that agreements between the 15 Member States are quite clearly not being kept by certain countries and despite the fact that all that is needed is for the Commission to put the brakes on and say: "that is quite enough, everybody.
You will get no more money until you finally do what we originally agreed' .
<P>
The matter is so simple, yet we have been behaving as if we had to make changes to ten thousand regulations.
We need people in the Commission who are prepared to show a little courage and to pursue policies which are in accordance with the wishes of EU taxpayers.
We in the European Parliament have been scraping together money for SMEs - ECU 150 million this year, 150 million next year and so on - so that these small and medium-sized businesses can create job opportunities.
<P>
The Court of Auditors says that 80 % of the enterprises lucky enough to have been awarded funding are completely unaware of the fact.
I consider this to be a policy which is quite simply out of touch with the interests not only of this House but also of the citizens of Europe.
It is high time that this House revealed what is really going on.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Mr President, the course of this debate on giving discharge for the 1996 financial year has in my view demonstrated two different things. The first is the fact that the EU and its staff are better than their reputation suggests.
In many respects the content of the various reports under discussion today has shown that a great deal of what Europe and the staff of the EU are doing is progressing smoothly.
However, the reports have also shown that there are many weaknesses and deficiencies which we cannot ignore.
I should now like briefly to say something about three of these issues.
<P>
Firstly, it is a scandal that the results of the Committee of Inquiry into the transit system are being implemented at such a snail's pace.
There is some kind of paradox here.
Computers are getting faster every day.
Every six months a new generation comes on to the market and all the while the computerization of the whole system is proceeding ever more slowly.
<P>
Now to my second point. In recent days and weeks we in this House have been engaged in an intensive debate on the completely inadequate use of resources in central and eastern Europe, particularly in respect of the PHARE, TACIS and MED programmes.
With negotiations on new membership barely started, this completely inadequate deployment of funds hardly augurs well for the future.
<P>
Finally to my third point. We have established on numerous occasions, particularly in connection with the BSE Committee of Inquiry, that we in the European Union - and particularly at Commission level - need a disciplinary code for our officials which will put an end to the Commission claiming with fascinating regularity that its hands are tied by the existing disciplinary code and that therefore there is no point in its even trying.
We have received an undertaking from the President of the Commission, no less, that this Commission will be presenting a new disciplinary code.
We look forward to it.
The postponement of the discharge must be taken seriously.
We do not want the situation in the autumn to be the same as it is now.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Sarlis">
Mr President, first of all I must commend the rapporteur on his report.
I agree with his recommendation to postpone the discharge, and I also agree with the reasons he gives in his report about why that should be done.
<P>
In this debate I will dwell on two points.
The first is what the report refers to as lack of democratic responsibility on the Commission's part. What does that mean?
Or if you will, what is Parliament worried about?
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Budgetary Control cannot reach an opinion, whether positive or negative, about discharges because the Commission will not give us the figures we deem necessary and have formally requested from it, to enable us to form any opinion at all.
The current regulation on the service conditions of Commission employees bans them from providing the European Parliament with figures without prior permission from the hierarchy.
That largely explains the dearth of figures we get, because as you can understand, we cannot form opinions based on the paroles d'honneur of various Commissioners to the Committee on Budgetary Control, for example 'there has been no deception' or 'the matter was investigated but no figures are available' , etcetera.
In my view, the issue ought to be tackled by adding something to the interinstitutional agreement between the three institutional bodies, which as we all know, happened in the case of the investigative committees.
This Gordian knot must be cut, in other words a way must be found to provide the European Parliament with the figures it must have if it is to exempt or not discharge the Commission for its implementation of the budget.
<P>
A second point, one which I am repeating for the umpteenth time and which concerns the European Parliament, is that we ourselves ought as soon as possible to modify the way the Committee on Budgetary Control works.
It is something I always stress, and we must hurry so that we can respond to present-day needs. All this, of course, is related to the issue of the UCLAF's autonomy, a body which has been successful so far.
And the UCLAF cannot be autonomous if its employees continue to be bound by the employment conditions of the Commission's staff.
If UCLAF is to monitor the Commission, then those who are to monitor the Commission cannot be Commission employees.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, thank you very much for this debate.
I will comment on only two major areas of the expenditure which have been dealt with here.
First, external programmes and then Structural Funds and DAS.
<P>
On the external programmes, I will very briefly mention that the Commission took a major decision in the autumn to create a common structure for all external programmes.
This is now being implemented and we hope that it will be completed soon.
It means that management of the PHARE, TACIS, MEDA and other programmes will come under one common structure where we hope to standardize all the procedures and public tenders and simplify the way we run the external programmes.
There are too many different procedures and too many different types of contract.
It is extremely difficult for our clients and also very difficult for us.
If we have simple, transparent and standardized procedures it is much easier to control.
<P>
This common structure will be put in place this year and we will be able to keep the Committee on Budgetary Control informed of the process.
Mrs Kjer Hansen referred to decentralization and deconcentration and I can say that the Commission agrees in principle.
It is, of course, true that it is better to run the programmes close to the people who are concerned.
This is something we must do to improve efficiency, but of course the balance between efficiency and control is a very delicate one.
We must, therefore, decentralize and deconcentrate as quickly as possible and the recipient country and authority must be able to re-organize their working methods accordingly.
I have discussed this a lot with my colleagues and in the case of PHARE it is clear that we can move forward fairly rapidly in some sectors, perhaps more rapidly than with whole countries.
<P>
As far as DAS and the Structural Funds are concerned it has been suggested that not much has happened.
Perhaps I can briefly mention what has happened with the Structural Funds because we have been working very hard on this issue over the last few months.
We got the first DAS in autumn 1995.
It showed that there had been a high level of irregularities, especially in the field of Structural Funds.
Irregularities, not fraud.
It also said that most of these irregularities, perhaps 90 %, take place at the level of the final beneficiary.
That was in autumn 1995.
<P>
In 1996 we established the group of personal representatives of the finance ministers of the Member States to clarify the situation.
We cooperated with the Court of Auditors and asked their advice and there were two key areas.
Firstly, the rules of eligibility were not clear in the existing regulation.
There was no agreement on what was eligible and what was not.
Secondly, financial regulations were not accepted as a principle.
We therefore concentrated on these two issues and were able to conclude our extremely lengthy and arduous work in the space of one year, following which we accepted the eligibility sheets for all the Structural Funds and they entered into force on 1 January 1998.
The whole process took about eighteen months.
<P>
The Commission has also said that the financial corrections will be applied from 1 January 1998 in order to clarify the uncertainties and ambiguities of the present regulation which dates from 1993.
At the same time, of course, we have tried to see how we could improve the whole legal framework to avoid this kind of ambiguity in the future.
We fed our experience of DAS into the preparatory work on reform of the Structural Funds.
This reform, which was presented to you in various committees on 18 March, has taken into account a large number of the remarks by the Court of Auditors and our own findings.
We must concentrate more on several objectives.
We must cut down the number of initiatives: there will be only three.
We must simplify procedures concerning commitments.
That will be done.
When a programme is accepted the tranches for the programming period will be accepted at the same time.
We must also agree on how financial corrections are made.
The new regulations are very clear.
If a Member State identifies an irregularity, it can transfer the funds to another project; if it is the Court of Auditors or the Commission which identifies an irregularity, we will withdraw the funds.
<P>
The question of financing the regulation is extremely important and we hope that this presidency and future presidencies will work hard to get it accepted in time for it to enter into force on 1 January 2000.
We have made a start on the extremely difficult task of financing spending on the Structural Funds in the long term, and I am very pleased to note the words of the presidency that it is a joint effort.
There are tens of thousands of participants in the Community projects.
Whatever we do in the Commission we cannot solve every single problem in the final beneficiary countries.
We have our responsibilities but we must be able to carry them out together.
I shall be pleased to come back to the Committee on Budgetary Control in the autumn.
We have discussed with the President and the rapporteur the possibility of grouping these issues so that we could have perhaps a couple of meetings before the summer and finalize matters in the autumn.
We are keeping an open and constructive mind.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Criminal proceedings to protect the Union's financial interests
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0082/98) by Mrs Theato, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on criminal proceedings relating to the protection of the Union's financial interests.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Theato">
Mr President, at the last part-session we first discussed the protection of the Union's financial interests in the report submitted by Mr Bontempi, and now today we are debating the very same subject by way of my report.
This indicates how seriously Parliament is taking this particular theme.
The matter at hand is the completely inadequate level of cooperation between the national judicial authorities and the criminal prosecution services in the fight against international crime, which is damaging the EU budget by way of fraud, corruption and money laundering.
<P>
As Europe continues to open up, both in terms of the internal market as well as in its relationship with non-EU countries, barriers are being dismantled for the benefit of the business sector.
As Commissioner Gradin clearly indicated in her annual report on fraud prevention, well-organized lawbreakers often know how to use this situation for their own ends.
Yet national legal limits to the right of search, and more particularly to the right of prosecution for such practices, continue to exist.
Taxpayers cannot understand this.
Consequently, this report by the Committee on Budgetary Control will attempt to demonstrate how we can gradually solve the dilemma posed by national limits to jurisdiction and by the different criminal law systems, using existing treaties in the first phase and then moving on possibly to amended treaties as part of a subsequent phase, without having to propose the technical details of such measures at present.
<P>
The first question which arises is this: which Member State has jurisdiction to deal with multinational offences against the EU budget? Is it the one which discovers the offence, is it the one in whose jurisdiction the arrest takes place, or is it the one whose nationality is held by the perpetrators of the crime?
In addition to these conflicts of jurisdiction, cooperation in respect of international requests for judicial assistance faces a number of further obstacles, such as extradition by appeals with suspensive effect or by outmoded procedures, which are handled through diplomatic channels, the principle of double incrimination, difficulties arising from different criteria for the admissibility of evidence and also the criminal procedures involved and the ignorance of each other's systems.
Practical proof that such difficulties exist has been provided by events in the tourism and transit sectors and in last April's hearing held by the Committee on Budgetary Control and the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
<P>
What can be done?
Intergovernmental agreements are not a solution and it is highly debatable whether the Convention on the protection of financial interests, or PFI for short, which dates back to 1995, will be ratified by July 1998 as required.
The negotiations on judicial assistance agreements, which we are still debating this week, are proving extremely difficult.
Should the EU not be playing a subsidiary role here?
It already has a body, namely the Unit for the Coordination of Fraud Prevention, or UCLAF, which could act as a link between the national investigating authorities.
It could collect relevant information in a central database - it already has a number of such databases - and then relay this data to national authorities as legal evidence.
It could coordinate and support the work of the national investigating authorities and contribute to providing better training for lawyers in this sector.
<P>
To improve this kind of interface, we should be striving to make UCLAF independent of the Commission.
Mr Bösch's report, which is to be presented shortly, will discuss this matter in greater detail.
Let me just say at this point that we really require a new statutory regulation together with a clear interpretation of the legal immunity granted to EU officials.
In the long term, however, these measures would not be sufficient to control the problem of fraud in the EU.
The new Article 280 of the Treaty of Amsterdam is intended to promote cooperation between Member States and the Commission in the area of criminal prosecution.
The right of codecision with the Council is transferred to Parliament here.
The application of national criminal law remains unaffected by this, that is to say, it remains with the Member States.
<P>
If in a second phase we were to set up some sort of European judicial authority, as proposed by the Commission's "Corpus Juris' study, which refers to the establishment of a European public prosecutor, then this would constitute the final brick in the building of a European criminal justice system, which would be protected by treaty.
To this effect it would be necessary to lay down uniform criminal laws for all Member States in respect of crimes affecting the Community.
This European judicial authority would use information supplied by UCLAF and as the delegated European authority would give power of attorney to the appropriate national judicial authorities without the jurisdiction of the latter being in any way restricted or affected.
<P>
In order to tackle these problems, we call upon the Commission - and your participation would be most welcome, Mrs Gradin - to submit two things to this Parliament before July.
The first is a response to the question of what measures the Commission is proposing in order to harmonize criminal law in respect of the misuse of Community funds, in the event that the PIF is not unanimously ratified, as requested, by July of this year; and the second is a study on the compatibility of the proposals contained in the "Corpus Juris' with the particularities of the national legal systems, together with proposals for its implementation.
This should also include a clear definition of the term "European public prosecutor' , as used in the Corpus Juris study, so that this is compatible with the individual legal systems of the Member States in respect of their powers of investigation and prosecution, and here I am thinking particularly of English law.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Tomlinson">
Mr President, I am rather concerned, and I am sorry I did not have a chance to raise it before Mrs Theato spoke, that a corrigendum has been published to the report of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
The corrigendum affects the very issue which was the substance of the only significant argument in committee.
It seeks to replace in paragraphs 7, 9 and 10 the words 'European public prosecutor' with "European judicial authority' .
I have to say as somebody who has consistently opposed the use of the words that do appear in "Corpus Juris' , in English, "European public prosecutor' - and that was the whole substance of my intervention in committee - that I find it amazing that by corrigendum we have now got a major and fundamental amendment to the report.
That is certainly what it is in English and I seek your guidance because I think that this is far too substantial an amendment to be done by way of corrigendum.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Theato">
Yes, I would just like to explain that.
I have the German text and in this version the term "public prosecutor' carries a certain meaning.
There is nothing comparable at European level.
This term is represented differently in each language.
I have had approaches made from so many sides that I have resorted to the German text as it was submitted in committee.
I am not responsible for the translation.
Clearly, something has been created here which does not yet exist, which takes account of national circumstances, usage and traditions and indeed powers of authority.
What we should really call it ultimately becomes the second question.
I would therefore ask you not to attribute a particular meaning to this word as such, but rather to identify the underlying concept.
I hope that Mrs Gradin will have the opportunity today to comment on this matter, for we are not seeking to interfere in national arrangements but rather are contemplating the setting-up of a new European institution.
<P>
Mr President, I should also like to draw your attention to another matter.
I am speaking on a point of order.
I do not know what the list of speakers looks like, but if for a third time we find that Mrs Gradin has to voice her opinion and that of the Commission while Members of this House are pouring into the Chamber, with all the noise that this entails, and with the vote soon to take place, then I say that this is simply unacceptable.
I would therefore ask that you organize the sitting in such a way that Mrs Gradin has the full attention of this House and is not disturbed by noise of any kind.
I hope that you will give this matter your attention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="President">
Mrs Theato, if all speakers observed speaking time, we would not run this risk, but they have to observe it strictly.
With regard to Mr Tomlinson, I have to say that the problem has to be examined.
It is a report on an initiative, on which we are not pressed, for we are not in the legislative field, but I understand that the problem is a very, very delicate one.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bösch">
Mr President, We shall try to help you in this respect so that Mrs Gradin also has enough time at the end of the sitting.
I believe that this conversation has now illustrated right from the start just where the problems lie in this respect.
This report has also helped to focus our minds on a problem which has again been highlighted both by the conclusions of our Committee of Inquiry into the transit system and indeed by the whole episode of fraud at EU budget level.
The problem is this: at the end of the day we cannot complete the internal market as long as we are working to 15 sets of national rules.
<P>
I believe that from a purely technical point of view we would be taking an important step if we were to distribute translations of the Corpus Juris study to the 15 Member States and national parliaments, so that opinions can be expressed in the various parliaments as to what can be practically achieved in this area.
One hopes that the various comments expressed by the Members of this House would then also move the process forward.
This is a programme on which we shall probably be working for some considerable time in partnership with the Commission and the Member States.
With this in mind our group gives the report its general approval.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Mr President, words are obviously very important things and words can be used either to emphasize something or to conceal it.
I would like to say something about the word "subsidiarity' .
This is a word which gives many of us problems.
In some respects it is difficult to pronounce, but it is clearly even more difficult to understand.
If you look it up in the dictionary, the definitions given suggest that what is involved is the principle of self-responsibility, whereby those above should only be called in, or intervene, as a secondary consideration in the event that those below are incapable of handling the situation for themselves.
<P>
The dictionary will often also refer to various papal encyclicals for possible uses of the word.
This is all very well, but it hardly suffices for our purpose.
In a European context the word "subsidiarity' has a third meaning, and possibly an even more important one, in that it is constantly misused by those looking for a reason not to have to do something, or to postpone something indefinitely.
This is exactly what is happening now in connection with the proposed European public prosecutor or judicial authority.
I believe that we reached agreement on this matter in the discussions held by the Committee on Budgetary Control.
We should therefore demonstrate here today in this House that we require better coordination between the national prosecution authorities in those areas involving the control, prevention and sanctioning of fraud affecting the financial interests of the Union.
<P>
In far too many areas we see, time and time again, that many Member States regard the improper use of EU funds, and EU funds alone, as a pardonable offence, and that even national prosecution authorities take a very long time to deal with these fraudulent offences by way of appropriate sanctions.
<P>
The report calls for a stronger UCLAF to be set up as a matter of urgency to tackle this problem and also demands the establishment of a new institution - call it what you will - and the name European public prosecutor perhaps gives the wrong impression here.
In substance we need something which will ensure that the national prosecution authorities change their nonchalant attitude towards the abuse of the Union's financial interests, which they have displayed all too often.
We need to achieve greater coordination so that this type of offence can be properly prosecuted and, if at all possible, removed from our midst.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Rosado Fernandes">
Mr President, Commissioner, our course is clear; we all know how we should proceed in providing the Commission with the legal instruments and penal provisions to combat organized crime.
<P>
But the discussions I have held here on this subject over the years have always been inconclusive.
Fraud is on the increase, and a friend has compared me to the Sophists who used a race between Achilles and a tortoise to prove that the goal is ever more distant.
Fraud is becoming increasingly prevalent, to the extent that I am beginning to think that fraud has ceased to be a crime and has become instead an economic instrument for boosting competitiveness, used by Member States to protect their economies from each other.
Why is it that monetary convergence - which requires sacrifices by so many states - can be implemented, while crime cannot be effectively combatted?
There is no lack of proposals!
We all know how to combat crime: by furnishing the legal instruments and by laying down criminal penalties to ensure that those who engage in organized crime do not go unpunished.
Unless these measures are taken and while Parliament, through its Committee on Budgets, continues to vote against the proposal to spend money on scanners to physically ascertain what is going on at our former borders, then crime will certainly continue to increase and, like Mrs Theato, I will feel like a sort of "Don Quixote' and "Sancho Panza' tilting at the computerized windmills of crime which in fact spread crime and fraud throughout Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Kjer Hansen">
Mr President, I think Mrs Theato's report on criminal proceedings relating to the protection of the EU's financial interests constitutes a very worthy and significant contribution to the discussion of how to proceed in this area.
In the debate on tourism, we expended a great deal of effort and a lot of time on the subject of transit, and these examples amply illustrate the crying need for results in this area.
But this also demonstrates how difficult it is to make progress unless all the Member States show the political will to make some concrete decisions in this area with a view to putting in place the systems required for effective collaboration.
<P>
Mrs Theato is proposing some very necessary initiatives, but at the same time, I must say that the report is rather ambitious.
It is ambitious considering how difficult it is to come to any decisions in this area, and here, of course, I am thinking of our good old problem of the convention to protect the financial interests of the EU not having been ratified.
The fact that this has still not been ratified in some Member States does present a problem.
<P>
This is a serious area and an important one, and I would also like to illustrate this with a simple example - perhaps even a banal example in the wider context - but right now in Denmark we are debating the problem of the loss of many millions of kroner that Denmark incurs because fathers are avoiding their obligation to pay child support.
They move to other countries, and it is painfully apparent that the Danish authorities do not stand the slightest chance of recovering the outstanding sums.
Thus, this topic also affects everyday life; there are many such examples.
<P>
I believe the stage is set for some exciting ideas on promoting proper cooperation, to bring about improved exchange of information, to strengthen UCLAF, and then as regards this present public prosecutor - or whatever the term is going to be.
I think it is important for us to have more information on the table, and I am looking forward to June, when it is hoped that the Commission will respond with more detailed material so that we can make some progress in this discussion.
It is an important area.
Thank you for the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Le Gallou">
Mrs Theato's report on the criminal proceedings for the protection of the Union's financial interests raises a fundamental problem which is inherent in the Maastricht Treaty, as amended by the Treaty of Amsterdam, which is the transfer of sovereignty between Member States in the European Union in the field of justice, notably though Article 280 of the Treaty.
It is true that in this case good arguments have been used, as the Elles report has emphasized, regarding the refusal to discharge the budget for 1996, but these arguments are also used for purposes which we believe are questionable.
<P>
Indeed, if there is no satisfactory outcome to the fight against fraud, corruption and organized crime, we will naturally wonder, as we do for the euro, whether there should not be more integration in the legal and criminal field.
The liaison body between the national and Community judicial authorities would naturally be UCLAF, the Commission's anti-fraud unit, which should, in a manner of speaking, become the European public ministry.
But we forget that the inadequacies, the negligence and the culpable mishandling by the Commission of its lawsuits in the case of mad-cow disease or that of tourism, should be the competence of national courts only.
<P>
In truth, in the longer term, there is a degree of risk that, in order to combat the mafioso inclinations which arise from clientelism and organized fraud, we might get to the stage, as Mrs Theato wished, where we wanted to set up a European public ministry or a European judicial authority, to return to the terminological debate between the British and the Germans.
However, this terminological debate is not neutral; it shows that there is a real, fundamental problem with regard to the culture of the various Member States, in terms of the freedom of the states, the freedom of the nations.
And from this point of view, the terminological debate shows just how dangerous the road is down which people are trying to send us.
<P>
For our part, we refuse to go down that road, because we do not wish there to be a further, supranational judicial authority to substitute the sovereignty of the Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Tomlinson">
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating Mrs Theato.
We have a useful report, which clearly underlines the wish of Parliament to enhance the fight against fraud, maladministration and the abuse of European taxpayers.
In that regard everybody is equally committed to the fight against fraud.
I certainly pay tribute to Mrs Theato for the valuable work she has done over the years, both in the Committee on Budgetary Control and as its chairman.
<P>
However - and I say the first part absolutely clearly - I have to express some reservations, not about Mrs Theato's analysis of the problem but about the remedy prescribed for the problem.
As I indicated in my point of order my reservations are about paragraphs 7, 9 and 10 and the use in the English text of the words 'European public prosecutor' , and what I believe to be the misinterpretation and the misuse of Article 280 as it is referred to in indents (h) and (I).
<P>
Article 280 enables the Union to intervene to take subsidiary action under the first pillar.
But it is not my concept of subsidiary action to have, for example in paragraph 7, the European public prosecutor having the ability to delegate powers to national public prosecutors.
That is the antithesis of subsidiarity and is the basis on which we have wrongly quoted Article 280.
<P>
In conclusion, the intervention of the corrigendum, far from making matters easier, makes it worse.
It is one thing to talk about a 'European public prosecutor' , a single official and his/her role, together with the staff, but to turn it into a 'European judicial authority' manages to compound the problems that I have in relation to Article 280.
<P>
There are good sentiments in the report; there are merits in the analysis of the report.
The prescription is one that we are a long way away from being in a position to realize, and it is for that reason I will not be supporting those parts of the report that refer either to 'European public prosecutor' or 'European judicial authority' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="De Luca">
Mr President, it seems to me that we are making Europe into a kind of giant with huge legs, driving the economy it runs with arms just as long involved in the fraud and organized crime that are becoming more rapacious today, but with a brain that is sometimes very small and heads in a very modest political direction and that, finally and unfortunately, has no kidneys or liver, organs which it should use to get rid of the negative aspects.
<P>
I apologize for this image, but it seems to me that Mrs Theato very specifically wanted to show this, and I thank her for her persistence in continuing to deal with this problem.
<P>
How can we imagine that we can make progress in a situation in which the national states are competing with each other, in a situation of disparity due to the fact that some states regard Community fraud as a specific crime while others do not?
To conclude, going back to Mr Bourlanges' image, I think that Mrs Theato has been far-sighted and specific and that the corrigendum is right.
Mr President, how can we imagine a European public prosecution service without a specific European judicial authority?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Mr President, this report leads me to think that the status quo in the fight against multinational fraud is unsatisfactory.
As I have repeated on a number of occasions, I support any improvement in cooperation between the national prosecution authorities and, naturally, I also support the optimal use of existing databases.
There is no doubt that developing UCLAF into an independent coordination and information body would be a real contribution to the fight against international crime.
<P>
But of course we need a clear definition of the role and responsibilities of this special body, and we also need to know what provisions are to be made to protect its independence.
In other respects, of course, neither the principle of an alternate international criminal justice system nor the principle of ne bis in idem stand in the way of an efficient prosecution of transnational fraud; the real problem here is the absence of an effective intergovernmental legal procedure, and this has to be put right.
<P>
We reject the idea of a public prosecutor with European-wide jurisdiction in the same way as we reject the Europeanization of criminal law.
For this reason we cannot accept any report which would lead us in this direction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Sarlis">
Mr President, the report is a good one because it is moderate, if I can say that; it considers the issues in light of a real situation that exists in the area of the EU's economic interests that are being affected, as we have seen recently.
I must come down in favour of medium-term or, if you will, short-term planning in contrast to the long-term planning relating to the cases of paragraphs 7, 9 and 10 which Mr Tomlinson raised.
<P>
I must point out that with the corrective action proposed - it matters not how we go about it - a great lack of clarification is removed.
And I must remind us all why such an authority is essential.
The authority must exist, ladies and gentlemen, because - and I speak as a practising lawyer - the Commission cannot arraign any Member State.
A citizen can go to a Member State and lay a charge and the authority can intervene, but the Commission itself is not empowered to approach a national authority so that it can protect Community interests and call for the initiation of criminal proceedings when there are accusations about specific criminal injustices.
So these amendments ought to be supported and I will ask Mr Tomlinson, who helped so much to complete this report, to view the matter in a different light.
<P>
Finally, I should like to say that the UCLAF's role seems to have succeeded so far.
However, the UCLAF itself must put its house in order and, mainly, adopt practical measures that will enable it to deal with the problems. One of those measures is that its staff must not be bound by the employment conditions applicable to Commission employees.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="Gradin">
This is the third time that this has happened. I am very sorry that I always have to speak under these circumstances.
<P>
The rapporteur, Mrs Theato, and I share the conviction that a well-functioning European judicial area is essential if we want to guarantee freedom, security and justice for all our citizens in the years to come.
This has become even more clear in view of the forthcoming enlargement.
The opening of the negotiation conference takes place today - as you know - in Brussels.
The new citizens joining the European Union will expect the European Union to provide them with guarantees in this respect and so will the citizens of the 15 present Member States.
<P>
Mrs Theato's report is part of this much broader endeavour, even if it relates directly to the financial interests of the Community.
In order to move towards an area of freedom, security and justice I favour a gradual and pragmatic approach.
This is necessary because our point of departure is 15 different judicial and penal systems in our Member States.
There are many different definitions of fraud.
The varying level of administrative and penal sanctions, and the insufficiencies of judicial cooperation among the 15 provide a breeding ground for crime and corruption in general, and also against the EU budget.
<P>
So far we have used the Maastricht Treaty as best we can.
It has produced some successful results, such as the regulation on the protection of the financial interests and the regulation on spot checks, but clearly we need to broaden the understanding among practitioners of the utility of our work by addressing issues close to the hearts of citizens.
The multi-annual programmes do precisely that.
<P>
We now have a number of programmes in operation: GROTIUS for judicial cooperation, STOP to combat sexual exploitation of children and trafficking in women, DAPHNE to fight violence against women and children, SHERLOCK on forged documents and OISIN on police and customs cooperation.
Another two programmes have just been approved by the Council of Ministers: ODYSSEUS on border controls, migration and asylum and FALCONE on the fight against organized crime.
<P>
Taken together, these programmes are an impressive start to practical cooperation between the relevant specialists in all our Member States.
They allow practitioners from various areas of the judicial world to come together to compare best practices and to learn to appreciate and respect each other's way of doing things.
The academic work done to prepare the Corpus Juris is yet another example of how to prepare the ground for further initiatives.
Such preparatory work is essential if we want to succeed in improving the legal framework which has to protect citizens.
<P>
The protection of the Union budget is of special concern to me, as I am responsible for the fight against fraud.
It is also of great interest to citizens for tax revenue to be well spent and fraud-proof.
The budget of the European Union affects all taxpayers.
They demand protection against fraud and corruption.
The only efficient way of doing this is through common action.
<P>
This was fully recognized in Amsterdam.
It was decided that the taxpayers' money must be protected in an equivalent way in the Union as well as in all the Member States.
We were also given a legal instrument: the new Article 280, with a qualified majority which provides for a much more efficient decision-making process.
<P>
I agree with the rapporteur that in order to ensure that the Union finances are equally protected under criminal law in all Member States, we need efficient cooperation between investigation authorities and the judiciary in all Member States.
<P>
One important contribution will be the ad hoc legal interface in UCLAF staffed with legal experts from all the Member States. This will help to coordinate and assist national investigators and, where necessary, judicial authorities.
We have put such a proposal to the Commission but, as I have stressed on a number of occasions, such an activity needs human resources so I expect the European Parliament to take its political responsibility in this respect.
<P>
I am also establishing an anti-fraud unit on external assistance and another dealing with the fight against corruption.
I will also establish a dedicated intelligence cell focusing on customs fraud in particular.
A number of other improvements in the UCLAF organization will also be made, notably in its computer unit, but these are questions I will come back to next month when we discuss Mr Bösch's report.
<P>
With regard to the concept of a register or database managed by UCLAF, I wish to report that the Commission has already proposed such a register in the additional protocol to the Convention on the protection of the financial interests submitted to the Council in 1996.
It was, however, not integrated in the final result, so I am still reflecting on the best way in which to bring the idea back to the table.
<P>
The role of UCLAF in assisting prosecuting authorities in the Member States is laid down in the second protocol to the convention.
Unfortunately, as was said earlier, not a single Member State has yet ratified the various conventions dealing with the protection of the financial interests of the Community.
This is very disappointing, as many Members have said in the debate.
I hope the issue will be addressed at the European Council in Cardiff.
In the event that Member States do not ratify these conventions, the Commission must seriously consider how to make progress and here we have the new Amsterdam Treaty that gives us some better instruments.
<P>
I am thinking in particular of the new framework decisions in Article K6 which will be moved to Article 34.
Or the more operational Article 209A which now will become Article 280.
Moreover, conventions will enter into force when they are ratified in half of the Member States.
Mrs Theato also calls for certain changes in the Staff Regulations.
The Commission has already expressed its positive attitude to certain adjustments in its communication of 18 November 1997.
My colleague Mr Liikanen commented on this at the time.
<P>
I also wish to inform you that I am preparing, together with Commissioner de Silguy, a proposal to protect the new currency, the euro, from forgery and counterfeiting.
You will receive a communication on this subject very soon.
This brings me again to the ambitious ideas of the 'Corpus Juris' .
These ideas have, as you know, been the subject of debate in academic circles for some years.
The Commission is committed to looking at all its aspects.
A number of experts are now comparing the legal system of fifteen Member States in areas such as taking of evidence, mutual assistance and admissibility of proof.
So a great deal of preparatory work has already been done and an interim report is being worked on.
<P>
I have no doubt that the ideas contained in this document will form part of the future discussion on a European single judicial area - an important discussion that also has to link in with implementation of the Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="President">
Madam Commissioner, thank you for your speech and for speaking in a difficult situation.
In this respect, I think that the Conference of Presidents will have to examine the problem, which has already been raised several times, on the conditions in which the last speech is made before voting.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place today at 12.00 noon.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="President">
I would like, before the votes, to make an announcement.
The Bureau decided yesterday to send a message of congratulations to Mrs Nicole Péry, our former Vice-President, who has just been appointed a member of the French government.
<P>
I am particularly happy to make this announcement because I am, as you know, Mrs Péry's successor, although I am in no way trying to replace her.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, now that all the amendments have been adopted, I would like to ask the Commission, and via the Commission, the Council, to have another look at whether it might be possible for Parliament's wishes to be met.
Yesterday we agreed that Regulation No 1408/71, which deals with frontier workers, who should be getting decent rights, is still being blocked as far the jurisprudence in the Court of Justice is concerned.
We discussed this very thoroughly yesterday, and it turns out that the amendments tabled by Parliament were not adopted by the Commissioner.
I also asked the Commission yesterday to ensure that we would receive written information on all the proposals which are being blocked, and to tell us who is blocking what, and why.
<P>
I was given a response by the Commissioner, also after the debate last night, which was negative.
He agrees in substance, but he is not prepared to adopt the proposals.
Mr President, this is why I am requesting that we should not have the final vote on this proposal, and that we should instead refer the report back to committee. We should have an opportunity to have a proper debate with the Commission and the Council.
<P>
I now understand from the President of the Commission that the Council, the British Presidency, wants to discuss this proposal on 6 April, and that this Parliament is being put under heavy pressure to proceed to the final vote.
<P>
On behalf of all those who are waiting for improvements, the frontier workers who are for ever left out in the cold, I call on the Council, which always takes the benefits, but never wants to provide any more rules, to give its support to the proposal not to implement in the final vote the modifications to Regulation 1408 as they are before us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Hughes">
Mr President, I rarely disagree with Mrs Oomen-Ruijten but I have to do so today.
I would oppose referral back to committee.
I have looked at the exchange that took place in the Chamber last night.
I have also seen a copy of Commissioner Flynn's letter to the rapporteur.
I agree that it is a shame that the amendments cannot be accepted at this stage but I note the Commission's intention to accept the two main amendments, Nos 3 and 4, in the context of the general revision of Regulation 1408/71 which will come forward later this year.
<P>
I hope the rapporteur will support those amendments at that time.
Also, in the context of Anne Van Lancker's own-initiative report on the issue of frontier workers, the separate question of the position of various delegations in Council is one which would have to be answered by Council.
The rapporteur is fully aware of that.
<P>
My final point is that the Council looks to adopt this on 7 April.
That is not the most important issue by any means but it has driven the entire timetable for our dealing with this proposal.
No purpose would be served by referring this matter back to committee.
I therefore oppose it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Crowley">
Mr President, I also rise to oppose referral back to committee.
What we are voting on this morning is something that the Commission has already taken on board and accepted.
It has shown a willingness to look at other areas also.
As my esteemed colleague Mr Hughes has said, this is a matter for Council and we should not use it as a delaying or blocking tactic.
Let us vote on the issue before us and not mix up other issues with it.
I oppose referral back to committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I think that it is a scandal of the highest order, and one which has been running for years, that the problems caused by an incomplete system of regulations and a lack of harmonization, which frontier workers have to endure on a personal basis, have still not ben solved.
We in this Parliament are responsible for doing everything we can to bring maximum pressure to bear on the Council and the Commission, whose efforts in this area I fully acknowledge.
We can do this by agreeing to the proposal put forward by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, even though the UK Presidency may be somewhat annoyed about it.
What we are trying to do here is to represent the interests of a large number of people, and not those of a Presidency which is hoping for less discord in the ranks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Flynn">
Mr President, on behalf of the Commission I wish to reaffirm to the rapporteur that the Commission is very supportive of everything she has said.
The first two amendments you have voted for this morning are already on the table of the Council and are being discussed at this time.
I am quite prepared to give my support to the other two, and will make a proposal before the end of the year.
However, this morning the House is asked to vote on purely technical amendments to the annual adjustment of Regulation 1408/71.
On the other point, which is, of course, related, unanimity is required, and I very much ask for the support of the House in pressing the Council.
These other four items are blocked, although we are making some progress on them.
But this morning you are asked to vote on technical adjustments to Regulation 1408/71, which happens on an annual basis.
This is going to the Social Affairs Council on 6 April, and it would be a great pity if the House could not see the usefulness of doing this at this time.
<P>
I say to Mrs Oomen-Ruijten that her point is taken on board, the Commission is supportive of her point of view and we will be pressing this matter with whatever support we can get and wherever we can get it.
But unanimity in the Council is involved.
As I say, some progress is being made, and I hope we will be able to address the outstanding two amendments - Nos 3 and 4 - before the end of the year when the case law judgments we are expecting by the end of June are clear so that the interpretation of all of this directive is clearly understood.
<P>
I appeal to Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, recognizing that the Commission is supportive of her view, to relent and allow this to go to Council to have these technical amendments cleared at this time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, I will speak very briefly.
To me the issue is that the Commissioner now wants the Council to have all the benefits, whereas the frontier workers continue to have all the disadvantages.
Who in this House will therefore dare to vote against my proposals for it to be referred back to committee, on account of the British Presidency on 6 April?
I would like to discuss this with you and the Council in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
<P>
(The matter was referred back to the committee responsible)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Mr President, in our amendment my group has called for the setting up of a Mr or Mrs Reconstruction for Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In discussions with the other groups and with the Commission we have reached general consensus that if we withdraw the word Mr or Mrs Reconstruction, then the amendment will be approved, the reason being that it will be moving towards replacing this function with a Mr or Mrs Director-General appointed by the Commission.
We should not burden this initiative with terms which leave us in the dark as to who is involved.
I would therefore ask the House to vote on this amendment without including a 'Mr or Mrs Reconstruction' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Mr President, our group supports Mrs Müller's proposal.
<P>
(The President noted that there was no objection to the oral amendment)
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Tomlinson">
Mr President, I look to you as a lawyer to give guidance to the House, and also to protect our interests.
In a very important report there was a substantial debate in committee and the most substantial part of the debate, as far as I was concerned, was about the use of the words 'European public prosecutor' .
That has been the subject of debate in our political groups.
It is, therefore, fundamentally unsatisfactory when we come to plenary to find that we have a corrigendum deleting in paragraphs 7, 9 and 10 the words 'European public prosecutor' and replacing them with 'European judicial authority' , which actually means something totally different.
To change 'European public prosecutor' , which I regarded as bad, to 'European judicial authority' , which I regard as even worse, and to do it by way of a corrigendum is an abuse of the House, and I look for your ruling on it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dankert">
Mr President, on the same subject, I certainly think that the replacement, debated in committee, of the words public prosecutor with independent judicial authority is not just a linguistic corrigendum, but is more like a coup d'État .
I believe that the clerk's department should have refused such a change.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Theato">
Ladies and gentlemen, we have just discussed this problem a short while ago.
I started out from the German version, which was the one also voted on in committee.
The fact that there is no European judicial, prosecuting or investigating authority, nor is there a public prosecutor, makes it very difficult indeed to find a common term which does justice to all the different national systems.
The term 'public prosecutor' was proposed in a study, but it is not an established term as such.
As I encountered a great deal of resistance to the German term for public prosecutor, which is 'Staatsanwaltschaft' , I have tried to find a more neutral expression for my report and then to have this put to the vote.
It was of course not the different translated versions which were voted on.
Since approaches were later made to me that the translation was inexact, and even misleading, I requested that the term be changed to comply with German translation, which is what I started off with.
<P>
However, I should like to point out again that what we have to define here is something which does not yet exist.
Some time ago I even asked the Commission for a definition.
The term must be so filled with meaning that the jurisdiction of the Member States is fully taken into account and left intact.
For me, the problem therefore centred around the translated version.
I was slightly amazed that approaches were made to me on this subject late last night.
Yet I would earnestly request that you examine the general content rather than focusing on a word for which we have still to find a definition, which is what I have requested.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Theato.
I must say that, for my part, it is more a question of the concept than the translation.
I shall ask Mr De Luca and Mr Bourlanges, as well as Mrs Wemheuer, for their opinion.
Then we shall make a decision.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="De Luca">
Mr President, as you rightly said, the question does exist, and it is not just a question of terminology.
In fact, the term "European public prosecutor' has a meaning.
Perhaps, in the attempt made by Mrs Theato, "judicial authority' is a more comprehensive term that could incorporate both concepts.
Perhaps it is a solution I will suggest to the Chamber: not to use either the term "public prosecutor' or "judicial authority' , but "European judicial body' .
I do not know how this term can be translated into the other languages, or whether it is compatible, but a body is something that is indefinite, that is half-way; that could therefore solve the linguistic problem we are otherwise faced with.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Mr President, there is a fundamental debate, certainly, but here we are simply involved in a procedural debate, and we have to raise the question as to whether the draft which is submitted conforms with what was voted on within the Committee on Budgetary Control.
<P>
While open to correction, I think there is little doubt, firstly that the text on which we have voted and which is authoritative is the German text; secondly, this German text included the expression "independent authority' in German and it did not contain the expression "European public prosecutor' , which for its part comes from another source, namely the corpus juris proposed by the Commission.
<P>
Therefore, I think that in procedural terms, there is no ambiguity.
We have indeed voted on a draft which spoke of an independent judicial authority.
In the event of disagreement with this draft, it would, it appears to me, have been necessary to table an amendment according to the prescribed procedure, and this being the case, there would have indeed been a translation error between the German text and the other linguistic versions.
<P>
I therefore think that we should stay with the vote on the basis of the German text, which is the faithful version.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wemheuer">
Mr President, the various groups, including of course my own, have been discussing the report as it was then, namely without the corrigendum, and have formed an opinion on it.
I therefore believe that we can only vote on the text as we knew it at the time.
I would like to ask Mrs Theato to withdraw the corrigendum, since instead of clarifying the situation it has clearly only served to confuse matters further.
If she does not withdraw it, I will propose on behalf of my group that the report be referred back to committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Green">
Mr President, I agree entirely with the comments made by Mrs Wemheuer.
Like you, we believe that this is not just linguistic; it is a different concept, so if we cannot have the withdrawal of the corrigendum we would like to have it referred back to committee for clarification.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, we therefore have a proposal relating to the corrigendum and a proposal for referral to committee.
I am thus going to put to the vote the proposal relating to the corrigendum, to see whether or not the corrigendum is accepted or refused.
Mrs Theato, do you agree with this procedure?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Theato">
Mr President, I should first like to know precisely whether, in the event that the corrigendum is not adopted, you will again allow a vote on the referral back to committee.
<P>
I need to know exactly what the course of the procedure is.
Is this in fact correct?
Do we first have to vote on the corrigendum?
If the corrigendum is adopted, will you still be having a vote?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="President">
Madam, we shall first vote on the corrigendum.
If the corrigendum is adopted we shall then possibly vote on a referral to committee, if so requested.
However, at present, I have before me a proposal from Mrs Green, for a referral back to committee if the corrigendum is not adopted.
Is that right?
<P>
(Interruption from Mrs Green) Excuse me, Mrs Green, it is the other way round.
I did not make myself clear.
We shall first vote on corrigendum No 1, to see whether or not it is accepted.
I must remind you that this corrigendum in French replaces the expression "European public prosecutor' with the expression "European judicial authority' .
We therefore need, as the amendment applies to the whole, to vote first on the corrigendum.
Then we shall possibly vote on a request for a referral back to committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Green">
Mr President, I appreciate very much what you are trying to do and I agree with you but this is a procedure which we have not adopted before.
As far as a corrigendum is concerned, if Mrs Theato is prepared to withdraw it then I think that is the appropriate thing and we then vote on the original text.
If she is not prepared to withdraw it then I think we should refer it back to committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Theato">
I should like to thank Mrs Green most sincerely for her contribution which has clearly helped clarify the situation.
I am prepared to withdraw the corrigendum.
I should just like to point out that this in no way concerns me directly.
But I would say that all those Members, wherever they may be, will now be leaving me out on a limb if they vote against the resolution on the basis of the withdrawal of the corrigendum.
I would like to make that absolutely clear.
Let me state quite categorically that the name of this new body, which we are going to set up some day or other, is not the main issue for me.
The most important thing in my view is that we get started, so that the protection of the Union's financial interests is assured.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Tillich">
Mr President, the vote which you now wish to conduct is inadmissible.
The rapporteur said that the original text was in German.
If we are now to proceed to a vote, then we shall be voting on the work of the translators and not on the issue in question.
I therefore consider the vote you are proposing to be inadmissible.
We should be voting on the basis of the German text.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I note the fact that Madame rapporteur withdrew corrigendum No 1.
We shall now vote on the text without corrigendum No 1.
We are in agreement on that.
Each person must take on their own responsibilities.
I cannot make any other suggestions.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Caudron">
I would like to congratulate our colleague Tom Megahy for his hard work and the pertinence of the recommendations made in his report, which seem to me to go in the right direction.
Like many of our colleagues, I wish to support the amendments tabled by the rapporteur.
Hence I totally agree with the idea of differentiating between the "beneficiary' of the card and the vehicle.
<P>
We are indeed well aware of the difficulty of implementing measures aimed at integrating disabled people into a society which increasingly excludes those individuals who have most problems adjusting to ever more demanding circumstances.
I therefore hope that these recommendations will be very quickly taken over by the Member States of the Union.
<P>
In this report, the question of a citizen's Europe is once again raised.
I note that reality is always becoming more and more removed from the official rhetoric, and from the stream of stock market indicators, where individuals have no role to play.
<P>
Once again, I wish to denounce these blows against the values of solidarity and justice.
The European Union is a model of development and of civilization, and I want to remind you of that at a time when we are witnessing the dismantling of the Welfare State.
<P>
I grant that these words are somewhat removed from the original subject, but I fear that the measures aimed at social deregulation particularly affect people with disabilities.
I believe that in this field we have much more to do, particularly in terms of access to employment and the fight against all kinds of latent discrimination, which affects disabled people all too often.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Titley">
Although my colleague Mr Megahy is right to point out that the Council is only opting for a nonbinding recommendation for governments to follow on this issue, I share his welcome for the idea of an EU-wide parking card for the disabled.
<P>
I am also happy to see Parliament's specific suggestions being taken on board - for example the importance of issuing the card to a disabled driver for use with whatever vehicles they will drive, removing the need for bureaucratic renewal of the card each time a different vehicle is used.
<P>
I am also glad to find that the definition of disabled drivers will be left to the Member States, allowing this to be as broad as each country sees fit.
As always, EU guidelines should be a minimum standard on which we can build where countries wish to go further.
I hope that governments will do as much as they can to make travel easier for our many disabled fellow citizens, so that freedom of movement applies to all Europeans in future.
<P>
Recommendation for second reading (A4-0116/98) Wijsenbeek
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Langenhagen">
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Lindqvist">
It can hardly be reasonable for the EU to regulate road transport in such detail as is now happening with regulations on the design, installation, use and testing of tachographs.
The system also has to be approved by the Commission.
The Council is going even further and prescribing the obligatory installation of fully digital tachographs in all new vehicles from 1 July 2000.
<P>
The proposal affects small hauliers in particular and those companies which do not always have the possibility of introducing new equipment without high costs.
Questions of this type should be dealt with at national level.
Detailed regulation at EU level must end.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Rovsing">
All the nations of Europe are currently making a special effort to provide freedom of movement to disabled citizens.
An important element of this policy is access for the disabled to strategically positioned reserved parking spaces.
Permission to park in such places is granted by means of a special identity card issued by the authorities.
Fortunately, in most cases, these national disabled badges are still recognised when the badge holder travels to the other EU countries.
But it would still be much more practical and much safer for disabled citizens if a common EU badge were issued. Thus, the proposal for a regulation is a positive initiative.
<P>
Parliament adopted a number of amendments at first reading, aimed at further improving conditions for disabled citizens, and it is gratifying to see that the Council has allowed these proposals to be incorporated into its common position.
Against the backdrop of these positive results, I give the adjustment my full support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Schlechter">
<SPEAKER ID=90 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Väyrynen">
Mr President, I should like to give an oral explanation as to why the Liberal group abstained in the final vote.
This was because the outcome of the vote on Article 4, on the subject of national airport networks, would be, from our standpoint, unworkable.
<P>
Here there was a vote on the committee's proposal number 10, which had two recitals.
Parliament voted to accept the proposal by 251 votes to 243.
As a result, compensatory payments made in respect of national airport networks will be restricted to domestic flights.
As Neil Kinnock said here yesterday, this goes completely against a key principle of the directive, namely nondiscrimination.
Charges must be the same for both domestic and inter-EU flights.
As this essential point in the report has now become distorted, the Liberal group felt they had to abstain from voting.
<P>
I would like to add that we opposed the Green group's Amendment No 25 on the basis that our own Amendment No 26 as well as Amendment No 20 tabled by the Socialist group, had already focused sufficiently on environmental issues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Ahlqvist, Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw, Theorin and Waidelich">
We are in favour of the underlying idea behind the proposal for a directive, namely that transparency and consultation should lead to the differences in tax systems being as small as possible.
European airlines could benefit from a clarification of airport taxes.
However, because we do not think the proposed formulations can be interpreted in such a way that the consequences can be fully assessed, we are abstaining from the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Cushnahan">
Mr President, as we continue to move forward with the Single Market, the European Union is required to look at each sector of industry and ensure that there are no non-tariff barriers to trade within that sector.
That is exactly what the Council Directive on airport charges intends to do.
<P>
Within the context of a single market, it is unconscionable that airport charges should be levied in obscure ways.
Just as consumers want to know what they are purchasing before they hand over payments, airlines (who are indeed consumers of airport services) should receive the same level of transparency.
Airports should be required to disclose what the fees are used for.
They should also reflect the level of use.
The airlines should not have to pay the same amount to land a small commuter plane as a jumbo jet at any given airport.
<P>
I agree with the rapporteur that there is no need to harmonise airport charges across the EU, in that different airports have different needs, and airlines that use a specific airport should bear the cost of that airport's services.
<P>
It is for these reasons that I support this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Eriksson">
I think Community legislation on airport taxes is unnecessary.
There are big differences between the situations in the Member States which make it simpler and fairer for these issues to be governed by national legislation.
In addition, it seems as if liberalization and EU harmonization are more important goals than providing for the public good.
<P>
For these reasons I am abstaining from the final vote on the Väyrynen report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Fayot">
This report has considerable significance for small airports and their income could be dramatically reduced as a result.
<P>
Luxembourg, which has only one commercial airport, is keen to maintain a reasonable compromise between the airport authorities and the interests of the airline companies. The country is, however, dependent on these charges.
<P>
The Luxembourg Socialists therefore support the amendment proposed by Mr Simpson (PSE), which seeks to apply Articles 4, 5, 6 and 7 of the directive only to those airports which have annual traffic of at least 2 million passengers or 50 000 tonnes of freight.
The Commission's proposal was for only 250 000 passenger movements and 25 000 tonnes of freight.
<P>
While Luxembourg's freight traffic is well above the limit provided for in the directive, its figure for passenger movements is about 1.2 million - and would therefore not come under the directive with the corresponding amendment.
This will allow us to ensure that our airport remains a cost-effective business.
<P>
It is therefore a matter of extreme regret for us that the motion was not adopted.
I have thus abstained from the final vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
I would like to express my support for the Väyrynen report.
<P>
I am particularly interested in the fact that it is possible to include the specifically identifiable external costs resulting from environmental damage caused by air traffic.
I believe that collecting higher airport taxes is justified in the case of noisy aircraft, night flights, or aeroplanes which emit exceptionally strong kerosene fumes.
<P>
This extra tax is not only a sanction or a measure to discourage those causing the disruption.
The Commission rightly points to the fact that the differentiation should be aimed at bringing in extra revenue for the airport.
It should be intended as a compensation for environmental damage.
These extra receipts should be put into a fund for environmental improvements at the airport itself, or for cofinancing investments which people living nearby have to make as a result of disruption or damage.
Schiphol Airport is to my knowledge applying this principle carefully.
<P>
There is the risk that, in the event of extra environmental compensation not being used to cover genuine environmental damage and disruption, certain airports may attract disruptive flights in order to boost their income.
<P>
Taking into account these considerations, I supported Article 5 and Amendments Nos 11, 25 and 26 in particular.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Theonas">
The proposal for a directive we are debating is the last of the measures envisaged in the third liberalization package for air transport.
The Commission proposes to establish one set of rules for the payment of dues at airports which it tells us will be based on the principles of non-discrimination, cost relation and transparency.
The proposal is based on strict, rational, financial criteria, which regard airports as simple commercial enterprises and ignore their vital role as a means to support economic development and cohesion, to exercise social policy, and to implement objectives related to environmental protection and the safety of flights, passengers and those working in the area.
<P>
The aim, of course, is not to improve the present services and infrastructure at airports and enhance safety, but to reduce costs for the airlines using the airports and once again to give them a boost in the race to share out the liberalized markets.
Needless to say, the last people to gain will be those who work for the airport management agency or the companies that use airports, since all they can look forward to is abolition of their collective agreements under the blackmailing threat of closure - as in the case of Olympic Airways -, aiming once more to cut costs for the companies.
Nor will the passengers benefit, who might have theoretically, since experience shows that under conditions of oligopolistic competition and market sharing, all cost cuts lead as a rule only to increased profits.
<P>
On the contrary, this directive will create problems for airport management agencies, granted that their reduced income will undermine their ability to develop and modernize infrastructures, to the detriment of flight and passenger safety.
The income reduction and parallel ban on state aid, combined with the suffocating framework imposed by financial discipline and cuts in the resources for regional policy, will directly affect the smaller airports and consequently the more distant and less accessible regions, which are precisely the ones that need help.
<P>
From that starting point, we stress our disagreement with the Commission's proposal, which aims to relate the level of dues to the cost of the services and infrastructure provided.
Those dues cover the costs not only of central and busy airports, but regional ones as well, small and isolated as they are, and which, because traffic through them is limited, cannot meet operating expenses which are to a large extent inelastic, and cannot spend what they need to on modernization investments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Wibe">
It is extremely important to point out in connection with the discussion of this report that we must see the network of national airports as one system.
Airports which make profits must be allowed to subsidize airports in the system which operate at a loss, since profitable airports would not be profitable if loss-making airports were closed.
<P>
Aparicio Sánchez report (A4-0071/98)
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Cushnahan">
With the pending economic and monetary union, as well as the completion of the single market, several barriers to tourism within the Union will be lifted.
The question remains: will we truly have a single market in tourism as well?
<P>
Currently, the EU's lack of coherent thinking as regards tourism seems to indicate the answer to that question will be a resounding 'no' .
It is for that reason that I fully support the report by Mr Aparicio Sánchez.
<P>
It is time for the Commission to begin considering the effects on the Union's tourists separately when drafting legislation.
Just as we have started to look into consumers' rights in their home country, we should also place an emphasis on the rights of those consumers on holiday.
It is these consumers who are most vulnerable, often in a culture with which they are not familiar, possibly on a whirlwind tour of several cities and not aware of local laws.
<P>
I welcome the rapporteur's call on the Commission to increase transparency in the airline industry.
As we move toward liberalization of the Union's skies we should consider how this liberalization (and the airline industry's habit of selective price discrimination) affects the Union tourist.
The practice of code sharing should also be made more transparent so that the traveller knows which company is actually taking him on his journey, not just which company is selling him the ticket.
<P>
I also find particular significance in Mr Aparicio Sánchez's call for harmonization of rules in the hotel and group tour sectors.
To truly have a single market, tourists must be protected by similar laws in each Member State.
<P>
The Commission, as this report points out, must organize its thinking vis-à-vis the tourist sector, as the areas that affect tourists are spread across DGs within the Commission.
By encouraging the different policy-making areas to work together, the EU can be sure to protect the tourist and provide for the industry to grow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Eriksson">
Improvements in the rights and safety of consumers are always an important goal, even though I think that the current impact of the tourism sector on the environment is the most pressing problem to solve.
<P>
The protection of the rights and safety of consumers and improvements in trading standards in the tourism sector are best taken care of at national level, both from the point of view of efficiency and of democracy.
I have therefore abstained from voting in the final vote on the Aparicio Sánchez report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, I am happy to lend my support to this report today because I share its commitment to securing proper compensation for travellers who suffer when airlines or hotels overbook.
Too many people's hard earned holidays have been ruined by this practice, whether it is due to mistakes by the companies concerned, or a deliberate act of policy.
<P>
The report is also right to point out that air safety needs more attention as the number of flights and passengers criss-crossing our airspace grows each year.
<P>
I hope that the Commission and Council will act on the rapporteur's ideas and ensure that consumer confidence in the vital tourism sector of our economy is strengthened as a result.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Wibe">
I think this matter should be outside the scope of this Parliament.
Paragraph 11 of the report proposes that the Commission should present to Parliament and the Council the results of a study of overbooking of hotels and other accommodation etcetera.
Similarly, paragraph 30 proposes that, along with Parliament and sector associations, the Commission should organize annual conferences on the quality of the supply of tourism services.
<P>
The tourism industry is certainly of great importance for employment in many parts of the EU, but it is getting a little absurd when the above proposals are presented to this Parliament.
I consider these issues to be outside our area of competence.
<P>
Elles report (A4-0097/98)
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Berthu">
Mr James Elles' report on the implementation of the general budget of the Union for 1996 shows that the Commission's attitude ends up irritating even those who were originally best disposed towards it. Frauds which have been denounced from year to year are continuing unabated and the institutions tend to protect the officials responsible or at least give that impression, maintaining the lack of transparency which characterizes internal investigations.
Energetic reform is non-existent. For the third consecutive time, the Court of Auditors has refused to give its "statement of assurance' for the Community budget, and the European Parliament, for its part, has just refused to give it discharge.
<P>
The reports of the Court of Auditors make appalling reading.
They show an accumulation of fraud and inertia, without really explaining where this paralysis comes from.
For its part, the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations goes further in its analysis and lays the blame on the structure itself of a number of European institutions and policies.
<P>
For example, the Elles report is concerned about the fact that more than one year after the conclusions of the European Parliament's Committee of Inquiry on the procedures for Community transit, the computerization of this procedure, which was presented as an appropriate means of making it reliable and operational, has still not begun.
Worse still, as of March 1998, the Commission has not even been able to establish a detailed specification of the system which would need to be installed to allow for a better detection of fraud.
Is this by chance?
Should we, like the Elles report, blame only the Commission's inertia?
In reality, we have reason to believe that the problem goes far deeper: now that administrative documents concerning goods as well as internal border controls have been suppressed, has Community transit not simply become quite unmanageable?
<P>
Could the same question not be raised with regard to procedures relating to Community initiatives in favour of SMEs? They have led to such a fragmentation of appropriations that the Commission seems unable to say whether or not their objectives have been met.
<P>
There could be many more examples like these.
Overall, repetitive fraud not only highlights lax management, but the impractical nature of policies which were originally defined with an ideological aim of developing the European super-state, rather than out of any goal of efficiency.
Furthermore, by placing the Commission on a pedestal for so long, as the unchallenged guardian of the European interest, its control has hardly been facilitated, and we see the consequences today.
<P>
To truly fight against fraud, the Commission must be removed from its pedestal, and it must itself be subject to control.
It is clear that the refusal to give it discharge for the 1996 budget will have consequences.
If the European Parliament was logical with regard to its own actions, it would vote a motion of censure.
<P>
Kellett-Bowman report (A4-0092/98)
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Papakyriazis">
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Kirsten Jensen and Blak">
The Danish Social Democrats are abstaining from the vote on Mrs Theato's report.
We believe that the report constitutes an attempt to prejudge development, since to a large extent it relates to a situation that will only arise if the Member States do not unanimously ratify the convention on the protection of the Union's financial interests.
<P>
If such a situation should arise, it is not a foregone conclusion that harmonization of criminal law would be necessary in order to protect the financial interests of the Union.
Moreover, Denmark will remain outside any such initiative on the basis of our reservations about participation in EU legal cooperation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Wibe">
I do not support the report's proposal on the establishment of a European public prosecutor.
On the other hand, I think it is of course appropriate that those who commit fraud with EU subsidies are carefully investigated and caught at national level.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 1.10 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Financial assistance for SMEs
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0114/98) by Mr Pronk, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Decision on measures of financial assistance for innovative and job-creating small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) - The Growth and Employment Initiative (COM(98)0026 - C4-0138/98-98/0024(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Pronk">
Mr President, we are dealing with an important proposal, which has appeared thanks to this Parliament, namely as a result of the van Velzen report and the proposal made by the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Budgets, Mr Tillich.
The Luxembourg Summit adopted these proposals.
SMEs generate new jobs.
In the European Union 6.5 % of all investments are made in start-up enterprises.
In the United States 37 % of all investments find their way to start-up enterprises.
Maybe that is why more jobs are is created in the United States.
The proposal comprises three complementary initiatives.
This plan constitutes the implementation of part of the Tillich package, ECU 420 million out of a total of ECU 450 million.
The first part, namely 40 % of the ECU 420 million, is allocated to the ETF start-up scheme which provides risk capital for SMEs.
I would like to stress that the name should be changed, and I suggest it is called the Euro Start-up scheme.
<P>
The new name is needed first and foremost to avoid confusion with other European schemes.
Secondly, the ETF scheme is implemented by the European Investment Bank, whilst the Euro Start-up scheme will be managed by the European Investment Fund.
Thirdly, it is not a very easy name for the European Commission to market.
The Commission will have to do something about marketing this initiative.
Unless the EIB is constantly involved, marketing it will be difficult.
It is also a rather meaningless name.
The Euro Start-up initiative aims to improve access to capital for high-end technological SMEs which are starting up or are in their initial stages.
These enterprises have a big growth potential, but have difficulty gaining access to capital due to the high risk involved.
There are only four Member States where such initiatives exist in practice, and in those countries they are working well.
In other Member States there is a great deal of interest in creating an instrument which provides investment in highend technological SMEs, and which can offer guidance.
With such a scheme the potential which already exists in a number of Member States can be extended throughout the entire European Union.
<P>
The second scheme is that of the joint European venture .
20 % of the ECU 420 million is set aside for this.
The aim is to promote the establishment of transnational joint ventures by SMEs within the European Union.
There have been some examples of cooperation between transnational SMEs in central and eastern Europe and in the Third World.
These examples offer hope and confidence that the joint European ventures will work.
It should be realized that these are not revolving funds which will pay themselves back after a number of years, in contrast to the other two initiatives.
<P>
The third scheme is the SME guarantee facility.
40 % of the ECU 420 million has been allocated to this.
This guarantee facility enables SMEs which are starting or have just started out to gain access to capital.
One thing I would like to emphasize in this report is the evaluation of these three initiatives.
The European Parliament does not want to add any conditions in advance, other than those proposed by the Commission itself.
Otherwise, it could take years for the programme to come into force properly.
What is needed is effective evaluation afterwards, rather like interim evaluation when a political decision needs to be made once a programme comes to an end.
What is also important is the length of the programme.
It was agreed that the programme would run for three years.
This was also promised by the Luxembourg Summit.
But three years is not less than three years, so if the programme starts on 1 May 1998, than it should run until 1 May 2001, rather than 1 January 2001.
Evaluating it will become extremely difficult otherwise.
I call on the Council to change its view on this point, and to let the programme run for the full three years, particularly since the euro start-up scheme and the SME guarantee facility are revolving funds which have to run for 16 years.
All being well, these two programmes will cost the EU absolutely nothing after 16 years, and this is a wonderful way to promote job creation, whilst at the same time pursuing a frugal budgetary policy.
A big advantage of the guarantee scheme initiative is that the Member States which do not yet have it, will have to set it up, whilst other Member States will be better able to process the applications which precede the guarantees. These programmes are frequently over-subscribed, after all.
What is also remarkable is that it covers both national, regional and local systems.
In some countries, like mine for instance, the national system has developed further.
In others it is the regional systems which have come to further fruition.
It is good to learn from each other on this point.
I would like to add that, after the talks with the Commission, I have tabled some new amendments, namely numbers 18, 19, 20 and 21.
Amendments Nos 18 and 20 are formal changes.
There is a mistake in Amendment No 19; it should read assessment in the English, not evaluation.
This should be similarly modified in the other languages.
Amendment No 21 has incorporated part of the amendment from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy which had fallen between two stools.
<P>
To conclude, Mr President, I would very much like to thank the Members and the Secretariat of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs for their excellent cooperation in this difficult case. I would also like to thank the other Members of the European Parliament, and especially the two committees with which we cooperated, the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
We have also cooperated well with the Council and the Commission.
I have rarely experienced such intense cooperation between the institutions as in this case, but it deals, after all, with a solemn promise made by the European Council, which we have to implement here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Tillich">
Mr President, the report we are dealing with today, with its legislative proposal, was indeed one of the key issues of the 1998 budget debates, for which I was the rapporteur.
This legislative proposal is intended as an initiative for creating more jobs in Europe.
<P>
During the budget debate we reached an agreement with the Luxembourg Presidency which the EP and the Council finally complied with at second reading.
Now the Commission has tabled a legislative proposal.
I must compliment the Commission for having basically adhered to the conclusions of those debates. These have indeed been taken into account in the Commission's proposal.
<P>
The aim of the proposal was, and is, to adopt a programme which will quickly and easily help create additional jobs in innovative enterprises, and not in the administrative offices of the Commission and Member States.
The amendments to the Commission's legislative proposal, which have been put forward by the Committee on Budgets, were drawn up with this in mind.
<P>
Let me now turn to the content of the report and to the amendments being proposed therein.
I should first like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Pronk, for his efforts in accelerating the procedure normally used for such proposals, which was something also requested by the Commission, for this has meant that we are able to debate the issue here today.
On the subject of the first amendment proposed by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, I really have to say that this stratagem is not appropriate.
In the course of the 1998 budgetary procedure and in the decision, we did not set out that this programme should comprise ECU 450 million for three years.
We could not do this because we were deciding on a budget for one year.
The correct interpretation is that we reached a decision on ECU 150 million for the year 1998.
During the deliberations between the Council and the European Parliament it was established that it was our intention to apply this programme for a period of three years with a total allocation of ECU 450 million.
However, this does not mean - and indeed this is the position of the Commission and the Council - that we require a legal basis for the remaining ECU 420 million.
<P>
With regard to Amendment No 3, I have to say that it is indeed correct that we should also be taking account of those other small and medium-sized enterprises which are engaged in the social sector and in other areas of public health.
However, the same amendment seeks to stimulate the creation of employment, and as this refers to all enterprises it must therefore automatically include all those operating in the social sector.
<P>
I have serious doubts about Amendment No 7, as proposed by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and drafted by Mr Harrison. Perhaps this is why the wording 'if necessary' has been used.
I know, and this has already been said by the rapporteur, that Europe has had a very poor success rate with venture-capital funds and with this programme we wanted to provide some stimulation here.
For this reason we should be working with ventures which already exist and, instead of complicating the process by introducing a tendering system, let us therefore first take on those which have been successful.
This would also be in keeping with the content of the document.
<P>
I am therefore of the opinion that we should try to ensure that what we call risk capital is also made available to enterprises which are prepared to take the risk, and we should not impede this by erecting administrative barriers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="Harrison">
Mr President, the committee strongly supports the Commission's proposals to help small businesses by making more accessible finance for innovative and job-creating SMEs.
We welcome the involvement of Europe's biggest bank - our bank, the European Investment Bank - and the use of the European Investment Fund.
<P>
I know that the lead committee, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, retains certain concerns over the level of the funds to be provided for these three programmes and the timing of their application.
I share these concerns and hope that the full ECU 450 million can be used earlier rather than later.
These fast-moving SMEs are, after all, the speedboats of enterprise on the Lake Geneva of Europe's economy.
<P>
Back in calmer waters, however, the committee raised several concerns.
Firstly, the grant should be made to firms offering the hope of providing sustainable jobs, and new jobs to boot.
The European fund should not be used as a substitute for normal business investment.
Secondly, the funds should be aimed at micro-enterprises.
They are the little acorns from which some of the biggest oaks in the forest of jobs have grown.
Next, the intermediary institutions should be selected in an open and transparent manner, using competitive tender where feasible.
The committee's final point focuses on the visibility of the European Investment Bank.
Despite its triple-A rating, it has triple-zero recognition amongst the SME community in the EU.
Firms still write to me and ask where they can get hold of EIB funds.
'I have looked up and down my local high street and I am blowed if I can find the EIB' , say my correspondents.
It is time the EIB came in from the cold and told Europe how it is here to help.
<P>
Finally, I wish to congratulate Mr Pronk on the drawing up of his report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Velzen, Wim">
Mr President, in his introductory speech Mr Pronk reminded us of the intense cooperation between the three bodies.
This was largely the result of the European Parliament having financed this project out of its own budget.
That is why it was necessary for the others to cooperate with us.
The European Parliament did this to create the opportunity to submit at least one concrete project before the summit on employment in Luxembourg.
I am still extremely satisfied that we ended up doing this, albeit with a great deal of trouble.
<P>
The objective of the entire project is obviously to create employment.
I accept the idea that SMEs can play a vital role in this.
I would like to point out, however, that there seems to be a certain amount of hype going around.
Everyone thinks that as soon as a new small firm has been set up, everything will be fine. Yet if you look again a year later, you will notice that quite a number of these new SMEs have disappeared.
That is why I would like to emphasize the request we are making in our amendments to include education and mentorship. The people concerned deserve top-quality support, whether in the context of entrepreneurship, as was formulated during the employment summit, or else as part of this project, to ensure that the jobs created will last.
<P>
Another element I would like to point out is the one expressed in Amendment No 11. The final assessment should devote considerable attention to the quality of job creation, to social protection and trade union rights for example, as well as to the type of job creation.
Is it atypical, full-time, and so on?
If this forms part of the assessment, then it obviously means that this should also play a role in the objectives, at the time when the projects are given approval.
I hope the Commission will pay attention to this right from the start.
Simply leaving it to the Member States is an extremely dangerous strategy, because in some of the Member States hamburger jobs are proving more popular at the moment than a balance between flexibility and security.
<P>
In conclusion, I would like to point out that the link with what we refer to as the third system, the so-called social economy, which may be found in public health or culture, is very important to us in the project. It is my view that there is enormous scope for job creation in this area.
I still believe that this sector has been hugely underestimated, by the Commission as well as others. I would like to argue for these projects to be linked to the proposal we are discussing today, and which I hope we will approve tomorrow, once the Commission has adopted enough of our amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schiedermeier">
Mr President, in his report Mr Pronk has clearly presented the problems and concerns in respect of the proposal for a Council Decision on measures of financial assistance for innovative and job-creating small and medium-sized enterprises.
I should like to thank him most sincerely for his valuable contribution and I hope that his proposals will be given due consideration by the Commission and the Council.
For years the institutions of the European Union have been stressing the importance of SMEs in the area of job creation.
<P>
All available figures show that SMEs form the backbone of employment growth in the EU and that this situation will continue.
The smaller the business, the more successful it generally is in creating jobs.
Various financial schemes have been devised and introduced continually since 1992, some of which undoubtedly proved successful.
In spite of this, Commissioner, I am constantly aware of criticism that the programmes lack cost-effectiveness because the application procedure for SMEs, no less, is too complicated, too bureaucratic and too protracted.
Many SMEs have to hire expensive consultants just to process their applications.
These defects should all be put right in the new proposals.
<P>
The criticism which has been expressed, namely that there is no comparative assessment of the performance of previous measures in terms of cost per job created, is sadly justified.
This lack of transparency makes it considerably more difficult to prepare the new measures which are being planned.
<P>
Nevertheless, I hope that what the rapporteur calls the 'ETF start-up scheme' , the joint European venture and the SME guarantee facility, particularly for businesses employing fewer than 100 people, will all prove successful.
It is precisely these enterprises which experience problems when it comes to the provision of risk capital.
Parliament wants to promote this through the SME guarantee facility and in so doing to create more jobs.
I therefore expect that the final amount allocated will be something which approaches what has been proposed by Parliament.
The success of the new measures is vital for the unemployed of Europe and is now a matter of real urgency.
The sooner these are implemented, the better it will be.
Our motto must be 'more jobs, less bureaucracy' .
I hope that we can quickly achieve this goal, though not, as Mr van Velzen says, by giving employers even more regulations to cope with. That would be regrettable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Crowley">
Mr President, I welcome the Commissioner to the House.
At the outset I want to congratulate my colleague, Mr Pronk, for a wonderful report which comes at a very opportune time for us.
Last week in Brussels we discussed the proposed changes to structural funding and to the support mechanisms under the European social fund, in particular those for employment creation, and we saw with some disquiet that the real amounts of money allocated for employment creation and training processes were being reduced overall.
<P>
As my colleagues have already said, the SME sector accounts for over 66 % of all employment within the EU.
Ireland is unique in the sense that our criterion for SME status in the European Union is an average of 250 employees or under.
The majority of companies in Ireland in that sector would employ 80 people or less.
This presents us with a great opportunity to send out a very strong message to those people who are putting their own capital at risk that we are willing to act with them as joint partners in creating new enterprises, new jobs and, in particular, new economic wealth.
<P>
There are a couple of things we should focus on more than we have done.
Mr van Velzen touched on the fact that a lot of SMEs shut down within a year of being set up.
The main reason for that is that they do not have access to more long-term finance than just a one-year term loan.
<P>
Secondly, they do not have the same access to training which would allow them to keep up with the new technologies, with new economic forecasting to enable them to be competitive within the main markets.
<P>
I congratulate Mr Pronk on his proposals with regard to the very technical aspect of providing venture capital to these small enterprises, so that Europe once again can be in the lead in creating new employment.
<P>
Finally, I do not think it is appropriate that the third sector should be included.
Following on what Mr Schiedermeier has said, it is important to recognize that we can protect workers' rights and social entitlement, but that does not mean we have to add on more bureaucracy and red tape.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Mr President, the previous speakers have already pointed out that it was partly thanks to Parliament that these resources have become available.
It is my view that they were released for a good cause, namely to support those enterprises which are starting out or are in their initial stages and which need capital.
The fact that we are doing this is unique.
On the other hand, we should ensure that no money is wasted, either at the research centres or in the hands of those who are responsible for channelling the money.
For that reason and because we are worried that these resources might be misused, we tabled an amendment to paragraph 3 of the proposal.
We tabled Amendment No 17 for the same reason, because we believe that if you want to evaluate, you should know what you are evaluating.
At the moment there is still some uncertainty over the implementation measures.
I would like to know from the Commission what its position is on these amendments.
<P>
Mr Pronk mentioned that we worked together very closely on this point and that we acted unanimously.
Those who have known me for some time know that I normally try to use reason when looking at things, and this includes the debate between the Commission and the Council. But I think we should both use reason, and, together, take a serious look at each others amendments.
<P>
Mr President, Mr van Velzen also pointed out the importance of mentorship for young entrepreneurs and people starting out.
I believe Mr van Velzen is too dismissive in saying that many of those who start out do not continue.
I share his view on mentorship, but I believe there will always be risks and that we should look at the people who have progressed further than the start-up stage.
Because, as it turns out in America, many more new jobs are created than lost through risk.
That is why I hope that we will be able to look at this programme in a positive way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Mr President, firstly I would like to congratulate Mr Pronk on his report, and on the fact that he has succeeded, in quite a short space of time, in coming to grips with the essentials in this matter and making important and worthwhile changes to the Commission's proposal. Hopefully the Commission will be willing to accept them.
<P>
I am particularly satisfied with the report's mention that part of the SME structural funding programme should be aimed at funds for third sector SME's, especially for public health, education and the Arts.
This represents that broad interpretation of the notion of innovation that is needed.
Innovation does not just mean technological invention, but also possible new ways of producing services or care.
Naturally, the main responsibility for the nation's health and other such things rests with the public sector, which small firms in the third sector can only complement, never replace.
<P>
The small companies I allude to are often firms in which women mainly work.
I am happy too that the report mentions the need for a report on female entrepreneurs, as a separate exercise.
These companies I am talking about are often very small. Women are inexperienced as entrepreneurs and they lack information on funding opportunities.
However, women often work in labourintensive service industries, so investment in such companies will lead directly to job creation.
<P>
It would be advantageous to all, men and women alike, if information on funding opportunities via the EU were easily accessible at one source and there were no need to search for it among the various authorities.
This is very important.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="Ewing">
Mr President, like the others, I thank Mr Pronk for his work.
I am struck by the degree of consensus there usually is on this important subject right across the parliamentary groups.
We in this Parliament all seem to know that this is the hope for dealing with the horrendous joblessness.
This is the bright star shining in that darkness.
<P>
I come from an area with a tremendously sparse population and I have to ask: what is small?
In many parts of my area small would not be 50 employees; that would be big.
I join with the honourable Member who appealed for a special set of rules for the micro SMEs.
Some of the most innovative schemes in my constituency have started off with five to ten employees, sometimes in quite remote places.
If the idea is good enough remoteness can often be overcome.
There is one in Skye where scientifically skilled people, working in tiny areas, create instruments to measure various parts of the body for various purposes.
The thing produced is so small that it is not costly to despatch it to all parts of the world.
That business started off with two men and now it employs about 30 top scientists who are happy to live on Skye.
It can often be that something starting in a tiny way can become very important to the whole community.
We could all give examples like that.
<P>
Mostly these small businesses have the problem of a narrow investment base and that is what we are trying to address.
I welcome the three schemes which Mr Pronk has so ably described.
However, one has to say that once the small business has got over the start-up problem and shown some success in job creation, what happens then?
That is when the test comes.
Very often in my country - and in others - they go into bankruptcy because of late payment and the lack of a code for that.
<P>
There was a programme recently on the BBC which suggests that the Commission is about to introduce a directive on this subject.
I hope so.
In the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on which I served for some time, we all unanimously wanted a code for late payment.
It is late payment that undoes all the work we are trying to do here, and often the culprits are big companies, local authorities and, I have to say, institutions of the European Union.
They are all at fault in driving many of these companies - who have managed to get over the hurdle of getting started and creating jobs - out of business.
<P>
The old schemes worked rather well, once we managed to get quite a lot of banks to support the European Investment Bank guarantee system.
We have not really had a proper evaluation, as one speaker said, of performance in terms of cost per job.
I put a lot of information around my constituency in Scotland about that scheme and many people wrote to me.
It should not really be me who provides the publicity.
A lot of companies simply do not receive information about the EIB, not even about the important work being done by European Information Centres.
For example, there is one excellent centre in Inverness, but it does not receive enough funds to disseminate the fact that it is there and what it can offer.
<P>
I welcome this report with all its merits and hope it will be passed unanimously.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="Nicholson">
Mr President, first of all I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on an excellent report.
It is certainly widely recognized throughout the European Union that SMEs are fundamental to the future of our economy.
With that in mind, I certainly welcome this report which seeks to build on Parliament's commitment to creating conditions in which SMEs can develop.
We all know that small and medium-sized enterprises account for more than 65 % of our employment, and it is right therefore that in finding ways of strengthening our economy most effort is put into helping them over the initial difficulties.
<P>
I would certainly support the calls for help because I am a little bit like Mrs Ewing in my constituency.
Many of the proposals concern businesses with under fifty employees, indeed under twenty employees, and a lot of these industries are the micro-ones who start from very small beginnings but can flounder very speedily if they do not get that initial help.
<P>
Late payment is certainly one of the major problems, and I think we must ensure that we give the flexibility that is needed and that we do not hang more red tape and bureaucracy around their necks.
<P>
This is one of the problems I find with national governments, especially when support comes from the EU - that there seem to be more bureaucratic conditions tied in to all new proposals.
Unless we can lighten this up, unless we can find flexibility here, then I think we are not achieving what we are hoping to achieve and that is to get people in the EU back to work.
<P>
In my own constituency, we have the particular problem of the difference between the pound sterling and the punt.
The UK government has to date been unable to tackle the high rate which is the most overrated cost of any currency in the world.
The pound sterling is certainly putting many of my small businesses, especially in border regions, out of work and they are experiencing considerable difficulty.
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Those are the challenges I think that we have got to face and if we do not face up to those challenges, then I think we will not be doing the job that we are certainly here to do, and we will not achieve in the long term what we hope to achieve in getting the people of Europe back to work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Angelilli">
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate Mr Pronk on his report.
As all the other speakers before me have said, no doubt all the studies and statistics maintain that the future of European employment depends on small businesses, which in the last ten years have been the only ones able to create most new jobs.
<P>
In Italy, for example, there are around four million small businesses, which represent 90 % of our enterprises.
The SMEs have had the highest growth potential and, therefore, the highest potential to create jobs, precisely because they are the best at adapting to market requirements.
<P>
However, the SMEs are too often forced to assume all the business risks, without any type of facility, either in terms of tax concessions or in terms of access to credit, as the State normally only favours and helps large businesses.
Among other things, it is precisely the difficulties in obtaining money, other than at often totally unreasonable bank rates, that determine the conditions for an increasingly more worrying spread of the phenomenon of high interest.
<P>
Consequently, I share the spirit of the initiative favouring the new financial measures for SMEs.
In particular, I agree with the opinion expressed by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs on the need to give specific priority to business with less than 100 employees, establishing accurately and transparently the real potential for growth of the businesses themselves, that have to create new jobs; however, these new jobs also have to be permanent.
<P>
To help the more dynamic SMEs, particularly with regard to the small undertakings of young people and women - possibly the most disadvantaged sectors - by making more funding and finance instruments available, will mean not only an increase in employment but also technological innovations, competitiveness on the market and, above all, greater ability for economic operators to face the challenges and opportunities of the imminent European Monetary Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Ghilardotti">
Mr President, as recalled by Mr Pronk and by those before me, for years we have been trying to identify effective means, methods and solutions to contribute towards facing the employment problem in a positive way.
The reality confirms that in all Member States the SMEs are the backbone of the business sector in Europe, the only ones, as previously pointed out, that have managed to create new jobs in recent years.
<P>
The SMEs are therefore the most able to adapt to fast changes, they are more flexible, but they also have greater difficulties in finding capital on the markets and in gaining access to credit at lower rates.
<P>
We therefore need, as we are already doing and as proposed in the communication, to increase the growth potential and the vitality of SMEs at Community level, by facilitating and enhancing access to capital.
<P>
For this reason, last year, while preparing for the Luxembourg Extraordinary Summit, the European Parliament called on the Council to adopt strengthening and expansion measures in favour of SMEs and proposed the creation of a new budget heading B-55, job market and technological innovation, to be financed with ECU 450 million over three years, dividing the measures into two sections: initiatives in favour of the job market and technological innovation, in addition to the amount already provided by the EIB and by the European Investment Fund.
<P>
In particular, the initiatives favouring the job market are also based on the implementation of the Commission communication indicating the need for local employment initiatives, identifying too 17 different sectors in which pilot projects would be financed as would the spread of the good practices that have produced satisfactory results in terms of employment in recent years.
I am thinking, among other things, of the development and promotion of pilot projects within the third system - not the tertiary system, as it is often incorrectly called or translated - which, in addition to creating jobs, is an efficient local means of participating in and providing positive answers to social, environmental and cultural requirements.
At this point, I have to say that, not meeting expectations, with the proposal we are discussing today, the Commission is allocating a reference sum of ECU 420 million, excluding the initiative of the first section.
Frankly, it seems a little strange to me, as it does to Parliament, and inconsistent with the indications and choices of the European Parliament accepted by the Luxembourg Council.
<P>
In addition to approving the Commission proposal, it is therefore also necessary to correct what has been mentioned above and include it in the proposal legal basis, as proposed by the rapporteur, whom I congratulate.
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<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Chanterie">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would also like to start by thanking Mr Pronk for the work he has done on his report, which could be seen as ground-breaking as far as this Parliament's work is concerned.
I would also like to make clear from the start that I am in favour of the growth and employment initiative.
The European Parliament has made ECU 150 million available, and all this is primarily for the benefit of small and medium-sized businesses, businesses with up to 250 employees, as set out by the European Commission.
We are unanimous in this Parliament in our support for this scheme.
Yet I would like to put a few objections to Parliament and the Commission, Mr President, in the hope that we will also remain critical when seeing through this entire initiative.
<P>
My first objection concerns the fact that 90 % is allocated to the so-called technology facility for SMEs.
It concerns sub-sectors which chiefly employ highly-qualified people.
This kind of support should go hand in hand with investments in education and professional training; if it does not, we might see an increase in the shortage of technologically-skilled people.
Today the papers are reporting that the Belgian government is looking for 5 000 computer specialists, and that in Great Britain Tony Blair is looking for 20 000 to tackle the millennium bug.
These people are simply not on the market at the moment.
We need further training.
<P>
Secondly, I am pleased with Amendment No 3 which aims to extend this initiative to the third sector, especially to sectors such as public health, education and culture.
These social angles have great value in themselves, and could lead to numerous jobs, which will not so much affect highly-skilled, as semi- and unskilled workers.
The fight against structural unemployment should be introduced in this environment above all.
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My last comment, Mr President, is that we must take care that we are not dealing with the phenomenon of the cuckoo in the nest, as when important subsidies are passed on to SMEs with jobs being not the main, but the secondary concern.
That explains why it is so important that this initiative is implemented, and more specifically that jobs are created.
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<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="Gallagher">
Mr President, I would like to pay tribute to Mr Pronk on the preparation and presentation of a very fine report.
I am particularly pleased that small and medium-sized enterprises have now been placed at the top of the European agenda, recognizing their important job-creating role within the Union.
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SMEs are the backbone of industry, commerce and the service sectors throughout the Union, with one third of all jobs in the private sector within the Union in enterprises employing fewer than ten employees.
Coming from an almost ultra-peripheral region in the north-west of Ireland and representing the constituency of Connacht and Ulster, which has a high rate of unemployment and a per capita income less than 75 % the European average, I can very much identify with enterprises with less than ten employees and fully appreciate their importance.
We must create an economic climate which is conducive to investment in such small enterprises.
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The creation of an enterprise culture within the Union is absolutely essential.
It is not the responsibility of the Commission or indeed Member State governments to create employment.
However, it is their responsibility to create conditions conducive to investment and job creation.
Favourable economic conditions, terms of competitiveness and labour market flexibility are an essential prerequisite to job creation.
Therefore, in conclusion, I welcome Parliament's decision to provide additional financial resources of ECU 450 million and also welcome the proposal for a Council decision to assist SMEs.
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<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Raschhofer">
Mr President, advertising is dominated by the big companies and multilateral corporations.
Their presence in this sector establishes them firmly in the minds of the people.
Just think of Coca-Cola, for example. Every child, no matter where, knows the name.
However, the real mainstay of our economy is not the handful of big businesses but rather the many small ones, the SMEs.
These account for 66 % of total employment in the EU and are marked by a strong gross employment growth.
I therefore welcome any initiative which enables us to provide financial assistance to these highly efficient businesses, for one of the biggest problems facing small entrepreneurs is the generally poor availability of own capital.
<P>
Only by subsequent assessment will it be possible to establish whether or not the aim of the programme, namely to create more jobs, has actually been achieved.
The earlier we carry out this assessment, and the greater the detail of our reporting, then the greater will be the success of the programmes and the effectiveness of the financial resources used.
I therefore fully support the adoption of Amendment No 10.
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<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="Waddington">
Mr President, this report on financial assistance for innovation and job-creating SMEs carries the promise that resources will be made available to encourage the sort of entrepreneurship which will provide for sustainable growth in employment.
Regrettably, however, the Commission's proposal for a Council decision fails to mention the role that women entrepreneurs might have in this process.
This is a serious omission because women probably represent the greatest potential in this field.
Currently only 30 % of SMEs are run by women but those businesses, according to the relevant statistics, are the ones most likely to be successful.
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The excellent Mr Pronk has kindly agreed to my suggestions in this regard.
Amendment No 8 draws attention to the need to secure the wide dissemination of information concerning financial assistance, especially to women entrepreneurs, and Amendment No 11 calls for an assessment of the schemes which takes into account equal opportunities.
I hope that the Commission will listen to us on this point and will truly mainstream opportunities for women within this financial assistance.
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<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Formentini">
Mr President, the report we are examining is certainly positive, as well as a reversal of the trend in speeches by the European Community.
But I have the impression that it is like a drop of water in the desert, totally inadequate, all the more so as now, with the entry into force of monetary union, the difficulties of SMEs will increase.
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We are faced with a situation where a certain amount of flexibility will no longer be permitted and where the lack of democratic control by an elected Parliament over measures taken by the governments and by the European Commission makes this problem even more difficult.
It is made difficult by the serious discontentment felt in the world of real production.
Take Italy, for example, where I have been elected, a country which has got its accounts more or less into order, intensifying the tax pressure on SMEs and planning to do so even more in the future; the European Commission should pay a great deal of attention to that need.
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There are instabilities. There is an area in the north of Italy, where SMEs are concentrated, that will certainly become unstable, precisely because of these policies.
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The Italian state has not yet entered Europe. It is already thinking of diverting resources to the south, taking inspiration from the usual practice, that should certainly favour the great capital, that has deindustrialized the north and which creates virtual businesses in the south where there is no independent growth, because the slightest real business activity is suffocated by the Mafia world.
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It is therefore right for the Commission to allow the idyllic visions to be dispelled and realize that great instability will be caused by the Italian state, particularly owing to the revolt of the SMEs in the north of the country.
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<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="de Silguy">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Members of the House, Mr Pronk's report follows on from the "growth and employment' initiative which you mentioned, and which Parliament approved by making the necessary resources available during the 1998 budget procedure.
This very clear political signal from the European Parliament made a very substantial contribution to the success of the European Employment Summit last November in Luxembourg.
On this basis, the Commission was able on 21 January to present its legislative proposal, and is both delighted and thanks you for the speed with which your committee has handled the matter.
<P>
There is no miracle response, no simple solution to the challenge of employment.
The strategy recommended by the Commission is the continuation of a healthy macroeconomic policy at Community level and the strengthening of the coordination of national economic policies and employment policies.
Within this framework, the growth and employment initiative intends to develop specific actions in favour of small and medium-sized companies which create employment, as Mr Chanterie and Mrs Ghilardotti have just pointed out.
No sector is excluded; all sectors are admitted.
The SMEs are the reservoirs of employment in Europe.
I would remind you that in the United States, it is estimated that 3 % of companies - those working basically in biotechnology, telecommunications and in the cutting edge sectors, have created 80 % of jobs in that country.
<P>
Hence the Commission has adopted the mechanisms which are the most efficient in terms of the creation of sustainable employment, and they aim in particular at lightening the financial burdens placed upon SMEs.
<P>
In response to your questions, I will look briefly again at these three programmes, which are parallel but complementary.
<P>
Firstly, we have the European Technology Force "start-up initiative' which is a venture capital mechanism run by the European Investment Fund.
The EIF will invest in specialist risk capital funds, and the proposed arrangement will strengthen the European Technology Force - the ETF - which has already been implemented by the European Investment Bank (EIB), but this will take place exactly where the EIB cannot intervene.
This new mechanism will set great store on the market segment for venture capital which finances the establishment and start-up of small and medium-sized companies, and where the need for finance is higher and the risk greater.
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The ETF start-up is purely an initiative for job creation, irrespective of the field or type of small or medium-sized enterprise - Mrs Ewing, I reply to you on this point - and of course, for the smallest companies, companies which are set up or run by women, there are no constraints or limits in this field.
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We nevertheless note that, in spite of recent efforts, risk capital is underdeveloped in European countries, in particular as regards start-up risk capital.
That is why we drew up this proposal.
<P>
Why is it not possible to change the name?
This is because it is a complementary initiative to the EIB, hence the marketing, by which I mean the advertising and communication which focus on this initiative.
A moment ago, Mr Harrison, you pointed out that it was particularly difficult for SMEs to know when these schemes existed. Accordingly, we have paid special attention to efficiency in our marketing.
That is why this initiative, associated with the EIB, will be implemented in accordance with the EIB.
Moreover, in our opinion it was unnecessary to add the term "Euro' and call it 'Euro Start-up' , as this did not add a great deal.
<P>
That is my response to your comments on the first initiative.
<P>
With regard to the second initiative, the joint European venture, which was less frequently mentioned by Members of the House, I would say that it will help in setting up transborder SMEs within the Union, enabling them to make better use of the opportunities offered, in particular, by the single market.
This programme provides for contributions to a maximum amount of ECU 100 000 per project, for expenditure on market studies, development of corporate plans, and for subsidies which may cover up to 10 % of fixed capital formation.
This mechanism is based on a pilot initiative which was adopted by the Commission in 1997.
I would add that a similar programme - namely the JOP - is intended for the Eastern European countries, and has already shown its capacity to create new business and jobs.
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The third and last mechanism is the SME guarantee facility, managed by the European Investment Fund.
This facility is intended to increase the volume of loans available to small or recently formed companies, on the basis of shared risk with existing guarantee systems.
The Commission is relying on the leverage effect of such an instrument, which will add to the capacity to raise real credit for the relevant small and medium-sized companies.
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Overall, these three mechanisms could add up to some ECU 9 to 10 billion of extra investment in Europe, and will be rapidly made available.
In this respect, the Commission has taken up your request for a rapid and in-depth evaluation of the efficiency of these measures.
Mr Pronk, there are no supplementary conditions.
We accept, like you, that the agreement should last three full years, of course, and I would say to Mr Schiedermeier that we are in fact trying to ensure more transparency and accessibility for this proposal.
<P>
The Commission has already made a certain number of things available for venture capital.
This programme is limited, but it will significantly improve the availability of own or quasi-own capital to small and medium-sized enterprises.
Having said that, it is not enough simply to provide them today with what they need most.
We have to exploit all the advantages offered by the single market.
In this respect, institutional and regulatory barriers, market fragmentation, taxation and obstacles to as the development of a vast single European capital market will persist, and we will need to tackle these questions too.
<P>
I do not think that the growth and employment initiative is, on its own, enough.
That is why the Commission will, this very afternoon, set up a special committee on risk capital, with a view to the 1998 Cardiff European Council, which will, therefore, play a fully complementary role.
<P>
In conclusion, allow me to add my congratulations to Mr Pronk on this report, and to say that this is an excellent example of successful institutional cooperation.
In this respect, I can tell you that the Commission can take over most of the rapporteur's amendments, sometimes with certain changes in the wording.
However, it cannot support the amendments relating - as I said a moment ago - to a change in the name of the action itself, nor those which discriminate between the beneficiary enterprises.
Mrs Ojala and Mr Wim van Velzen, any enterprise is acceptable, as any job is worth creating.
In other words, the second part of Amendment No 3, Amendments Nos 4, 5, 6, the second part of Amendment No 11 and Amendment No 15 cannot be accepted.
On the other hand, to Mrs Boogerd-Quaak, I would reply that we can accept Amendments Nos 16 and 17 and Amendments Nos 8 and 10, which were tabled, I believe, by Mrs Raschhofer.
<P>
I have a final word about the budgetary aspect, in response to Mr Ghilardotti.
The formal position of the Commission is that shown in the financial statement of the proposal, in other words, ECU 420 million for measures of financial assistance for SMEs.
This amount in entered in the lines B 5-510 and B 5-511; these two lines which correspond respectively to the SME technology initiative and to the joint European venture.
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<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Chanterie">
Mr President, I would simply like to ask Mr Commissioner - whom I thank for his replies - whether I have properly understood that Amendments Nos 3, 4, 5, 6 and 11 have not been taken over.
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<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="de Silguy">
Amendments Nos 3, the second part of Amendment No 5, Amendment No 6 and the second part of Amendment No 11 have not been taken over.
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<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Velzen, Wim">
Could you please explain to me what you mean by "not the second part of Amendment No 3' , because that is our own amendment.
May I point out that the collective nature of this project meant that, in addition to the SMEs we also wanted to incorporate innovative actions in the labour market and in the third system?
We added Amendment No 3 so that the original character of the deal would be restored.
I would like to point out that this is not just some marginal discussion. If Amendment No 3 is a problem to you, then the interpretation we gave to the original accord must have been a problem to you.
If this is the case, then you are making it very difficult for Parliament to approve this proposal.
I therefore urge you to be extremely careful before you cast Amendment No 3 aside.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="de Silguy">
<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="Pronk">
I understood the Commissioner to say that the Commission is of the opinion that as it stands at present the proposal by the Commission makes it possible to provide finance for the things mentioned in that paragraph which he does not want to be part of the legal base.
Is that not correct?
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<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Silguy">
Yes, it is covered.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
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The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Follow-up to the world summit on social development
<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0105/98) by Mrs Schörling, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission's communication on the European Union's follow-up to the world summit for social development (COM(96)0724 - C4-0142/97).
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<SPEAKER ID=133 NAME="Schörling">
Mr President, as you just said, this report is about the Commission's communication on the world summit on social development in Copenhagen in 1995 when heads of state and government from 117 states and from the EU signed the Copenhagen Declaration.
They thus agreed that the overriding objectives on which people should cooperate were the eradication of poverty, an increase in employment and the fostering of safe and just societies.
<P>
In just over a month, in May, the UN's Economic and Social Council is to hold a meeting in New York at which the question of the implementation and follow-up of the Copenhagen summit will be discussed.
It is therefore particularly important that we in the European Parliament have the opportunity through this report to give opinions before this meeting.
As we know, a new General Assembly is going to be meet concerning these issues in the year 2000. It will then be time for people to show what they have done to live up to what they have agreed.
I therefore welcome this communication from the Commission and think it is good that we have had the opportunity to discuss it in committee, including with the Commission's presence.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank my colleagues on the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs for good cooperation and for their valuable points of view.
At the same time I regret that, unfortunately, the opinion from the Committee on Development and Cooperation came a little too late for me to include anything from it.
However, I believe that most of the points of view of that committee are still covered in the report.
<P>
In addition, I would like to say that the main responsibility for the implementation of measures falls primarily to the Member States.
However, EU policy and the EU as an international player have of course a special responsibility.
This may concern the negative environmental and social effects of the single market.
It may, for example, concern the effect of EMU on employment and cutbacks in the public sector, economic convergence but no social criteria, and it may also concern the EU's role as an aid donor.
<P>
When I read the commitment which the Copenhagen Declaration entails, I am, to say the least, surprised that in the summary on the first page the Commission writes that at both national and Community level we have implemented a policy which corresponds to the commitment in the Copenhagen Declaration.
I must ask how we are going to get to grips with social and environmental problems if we close at least one of our eyes to reality?
Considering how many unemployed and how many poor people we have in the EU today, I think it is a bit of a joke for us to say we have done so well.
In addition, there is not a word about the poverty action programme which has yet to be adopted by the Council.
<P>
I am also looking for a strategy from the Commission to encourage and exhort the signatories of the Copenhagen Declaration to really adopt concrete targets for social development and to involve the citizens in decisions and priorities about measures.
It is good that there is such a heading, but unfortunately there are only eight lines of text concerning this important extension of the debate and the involvement of civil society.
An involvement of civil society is in some way fundamental to the success of the policy. That applies not only at EU level, but, of course, also at international level.
In developing countries we must establish a partnership, a cooperation with the local population in a totally different way.
We must replace the old donor/recipient mentality with the idea that we have to solve the world's future problems together.
<P>
One disappointment with the outcome of the Copenhagen Summit was that we did not put sufficient emphasis on the necessity of debt relief for the poor countries, and that we did not succeed in arriving at a code of conduct for financial markets and world market trading.
At some stage the rich countries will have to take the initiative to break the trend whereby the gulf between rich and poor just keeps on growing.
In recent years the world's total aid has fallen to its lowest level in modern times.
That is why I am so anxious that we really vote in favour of paragraph 14 which concerns a global tax on international currency speculation, which has been proposed by Nobel Prize winner James Tobin. The income would go into a fund to be administered by the UN's Social and Economic Council.
I think it is time that we accepted such a fund, and time that we in this Parliament repeated yet again that it is now time for the rich world to really take a big step.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schmidbauer">
<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Pronk">
Mr President, I am standing in for Mrs Glase who has dealt with this issue on behalf of our group and has prepared it in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, but is sadly unable to be present here today due to illness.
<P>
Mr President, what we have here is a good statement from the European Commission.
I would like to thank Commissioner Flynn most sincerely for this. I believe that what the statement says is very good in itself, and that it tries to resolve a number of issues which have landed on the European Union's plate.
The suggestions by the rapporteur, Mrs Schörling, whom I would also like to thank for what she has written, contain a number of useful and important additions.
<P>
But Mr President, that is about it.
I would have preferred it if we had stayed closer to what the Commission had given us as a statement, and had not gone too far.
Because now we are dealing with a strange situation.
Mrs Schörling, a representative from Sweden, takes a rather anti-European Union view.
She is fully entitled to that, but this view implies that her country should remain as independent as possible.
That is also her right.
But now we have the strange situation in which we are going to include a text from Ms Tongue in this report, dealing with very centralized, harmonized measures which encroach on the Member States' autonomy to raise taxes.
Mr President, if you understand this, than I must congratulate you.
At the moment it is hardly comprehensible.
It is not possible to do two things at once.
You cannot resist European union, whilst at the same time proposing all sorts of measures which lead to the type of harmonization that really goes one step too far.
And that is a very major problem with this report.
I understand that the Socialist group let this pass rather more easily than we do, but we are not able to accept this under any circumstance, Mr President.
Should we for some reason come off the worst, then we will not be able to support this opinion, primarily on account of this point.
There are a few other points on which we have submitted amendments that attempt to make some improvements to the opinion.
But as to the point in the text by Ms Tongue, there is no room for discussion.
We would have to make a complete volte-face.
In fact, Mrs Schörling has made a complete volte-face herself by suggesting this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
Mr President, one of the most important tasks we have at national, European and international level is to prevent poverty and exclusion and to create social, economic and sustainable environmental development.
We shall do that at EU level together with Member States which also gave their support to the Copenhagen Declaration and its ten detailed commitments.
<P>
Parliament also supports this and welcomes the Commission's communication on a more detailed and concrete follow-up of the commitments of the world summit.
However, things are going too slowly and the commitments are too weak.
I think that in her report the rapporteur sums up in a very worthwhile way a proposal which goes further.
Poverty must be tackled through a combination of measures.
There is not one measure alone which prevents poverty, but several, including trade, aid, partnerships, positive economic development, employment programmes, more companies, skilled work and family life on equal terms.
We have now prioritized three measures at both national and EU level.
Firstly, as regards trade and reduced tolls and taxes, the EU has a special responsibility.
Secondly, there must be joint arrangements, such as the 20: 20 initiative combining development aid with social programmes in the recipient countries.
Thirdly, we need social and ethical rules or regulations in international trade, including WTO rules.
<P>
The Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party largely supports this report.
However, a majority of the group is opposed to a Tobin Tax and wants to reduce the number of references to ethical regulations in paragraph 17. In other words, we support Amendments Nos 9 and 10.
Personally, I have no difficulty accepting a Tobin Tax, and I believe both the demands the rapporteur is proposing are worth trying in order to get a bit further with the commitment to partnership and the eradication of poverty in the world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, the latest United Nations report on human development defines poverty as a denial of the choices and opportunities to lead a tolerable life.
It also says there are 1 300 million people in that situation, surviving on less than one dollar a day. One thousand million people are illiterate, and even more have no drinking water.
It seems to us that in recent years, not only has the situation not improved, but it has not even stabilized; in fact, it has deteriorated.
<P>
That same United Nations report says that, whereas in 1960 the poorest 20 % of the population had a 2.4 % share of world income, today that share is 1.1 %. Furthermore, whereas in 1960 the difference between the richest 20 % and the poorest 20 % was 30 to 1, today it is 78 to 1.
So the situation is not improving or even stabilizing: it is getting worse.
<P>
This is why we completely agree with the Schörling report, including the controversial Tobin Tax. We especially agree that all countries should comply with the United Nations resolution calling for 0.7 % of GNP to be allocated to development cooperation.
Only four European countries comply with that resolution.
<P>
In recent years, not only are donations from these countries not increasing, but they are going down.
This year's average is 0.27 %.
We think that for there to be a proper follow-up to the Copenhagen Summit, it is essential for all those countries which do not yet comply with this demand to come to a decision in that respect.
<P>
The United Nations study contains a very interesting sentence: "Economic globalization is advancing very rapidly with no compass or map, and all it does is favour a very powerful minority of the world' . Decisions need to be made.
For example, we need to approve the fourth programme to combat poverty, although we do not know where it has got to, and it is being held up by problems. Decisions have to be taken about making the 0.7 % compulsory, and about cancelling the debts of the poorest countries.
Of course, we also have to think about a tax like the Tobin Tax, which would affect currency speculation. Just a 0.5 % tax on this currency speculation would be enough to cancel the debts of all poor countries.
<P>
We appreciate that the Right has problems accepting this suggestion, but if we do not make all these decisions today we will be talking here for ever, and never make any progress towards eradicating poverty.
And in ten years time, we will be debating poverty here again and still talking about the thousands of millions of people still in the same situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if my memory serves me well, social justice is the central concept of the Christian doctrine.
I believe that Plato was absolutely right when he said that one cannot build a community without justice.
We are now living in a state of globalization and the world is now a global community, even though we may not always be as mindful of this as we should be.
<P>
To stand up and say that the world market will take care of this, that the technological development and deregulation actually taking place will somehow solve the problems, is simply unchristian, and what is more it is foolish.
I am therefore simply astonished that those on the Right of this House are saying: no, we cannot do that under any circumstances, particularly since I would like to remind you that even in the run-up to Copenhagen this Parliament agreed by majority vote to do and to call for this very thing.
What matters is whether we succeed in actually using the process of the UN Summit to reverse the trend of blind globalization and ideological globalism, and whether we succeed in steering towards social justice, ecological sustainability and democratic co-determination, even for those living in the poorer countries.
<P>
The Copenhagen commitments must be realized.
The Commission has played a very positive role here, though Mrs Schörling has indicated, and quite rightly in my opinion, that there is still work to be done here.
In this respect, we would like to support the Commission, in full recognition of the work which it is doing, but also with the intention of promoting and accelerating this work, for the decision which is at stake will affect the future of the planet.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papakyriazis">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I feel as if, with the opportunity of this debate, the European Union as a whole is undergoing a kind of test, a trial.
I believe we talk about globalization every day, we talk about the world society, about the global village, and we must finally grasp the fact, declare and demonstrate what we mean by it all.
Could it be that globalization of solidarity lies beyond and outside this view?
Perhaps that is what we, the EU, ought to stress.
Among globalization's many aspects and dimensions, there is also and predominantly the aspect of globalizing solidarity.
I think the great debate that began in the world - and I am being literal, not exaggerating - with this Conference must represent an opportunity for the EU to adopt a responsible stance, to claim the role it rightly has in world society and demonstrate, by its own example, what it is capable of and what it is doing.
As an example by which we will be particularly judged, let me mention too the fourth programme on poverty.
I have no hopes that the programme will eliminate poverty.
It is, however, a sample, an indication, through which we can demonstrate to ourselves first of all and then to the world community what the EU says and does, and I believe that with other similar examples, such as those mentioned in the excellent report by Mrs Schörling concerning what we, Europe can do, that emphasis will indeed be given.
Commissioner Flynn, I consider that the EU now has a real opportunity, with Parliament's support, and I should like to hope that Parliament will express that support unanimously, without small-mindedness and without counting the pennies.
Let us hope that tomorrow the European Parliament will give the European Union the support it needs at this historic time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, we believe that economic and social development is not an abstract concept but is combined with the fundamental concepts of peace, safety, respect for the environment and, not least, respect for human rights.
The Luxembourg Summit on employment, in addition to trying to respond to the consequences of the globalization of the economy, emphasized the need to draw up suitable policies to combat the resulting social exclusion and poverty.
<P>
We support the Commission's proposal when it hopes for the ratification by the Member States of the UN Convention on the situation of migrant workers and their families, recalling, however, that within the Union itself, workers who have emigrated from the Community countries still do not fully enjoy fundamental rights - which are the "buttonhole' of the Union - and experience real situations of exclusion that need to be rectified.
I am referring to the more than five million Italian workers in the world who still cannot exercise their fundamental right to vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Burenstam Linder">
Mr President, poverty can above all be tackled through economic growth, with rising real wages and growing tax bases.
Economic growth is based on technical development, not least by saving on resources, and so also provides new opportunities for growth with environmental improvements.
<P>
For the members of the Green group who see economic growth as something objectionable and technical development as a threat, the only thing left is to cling to the idea that you can eradicate poverty through declarations, conferences, resolutions and conventions.
Mrs Schörling's report is characterized by this idea.
The report does not contain a single word about economic growth as a condition for economic improvement.
The rapporteur's efforts are praiseworthy, but this way of approaching the problem is risky, especially since it awakens the general public's hopes which are frustrated by disappointment over false commitments and declarations which lead to nothing.
<P>
In paragraph 14 Mrs Schörling urges the Commission to take the initiative for a global tax on international currency trading.
For a person who represents a party which believes that its own country should leave the European Union, it is surprising to put forward a proposal which means that the EU should introduce such a gigantic and bureaucratic project as a tax on all currency transactions.
The fact that a well-known economist has previously talked about such a system is not a guarantee for the idea's political wisdom any more than that of the person who has an exaggerated respect for the games an advanced theorist plays with reality.
<P>
The proposal is also an example of a common finance policy which the rapporteur opposes in other respects.
If you dislike currency trading, you should also be a keen supporter of EMU, since when this currency union is created on 1 January 1999, the scope for currency trading between the eleven Member States will disappear.
However, because Mrs Schörling is an opponent of EMU, this idea is not mentioned in the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pailler">
Mr President, I would have liked the honourable Member to provide the proof that monetary union would effectively give us what all the other commitments have given us.
<P>
The social summit of Copenhagen ended in March 1995 with the adoption of ten commitments which fixed as priority objectives the fight against poverty, support for full employment and social integration.
The ink of the signature at the foot of the joint declaration was barely dry when the OECD countries began negotiations on the MAI, which totally contradicts the Copenhagen commitments.
The secrecy of the negotiations made the MAI negotiators blind and deaf to any other concerns than those of the multinational firms, and they have only taken into account the legal, political and moral commitments made in bodies such as the United Nations and the ILO.
They have just received a big slap in the face from the European Parliament.
<P>
Following on from the Copenhagen Summit, we have to call into question the heavy trends of current economic and social system of organization and tackle the domination of the financial markets over all human activity, a domination which has not really its progress.
This is what was said in the report on the resolution on the respect of human rights voted through here on 17 February, which considered that poverty and unemployment were indeed violations of human rights.
<P>
We also support the principle of the Tobin Tax, and we are happy that Mrs Schörling shows determination, unlike our colleagues from the PPE.
We have time and again called for this within the group.
The governments of the Member States have got better things to do today than to undertake secret negotiations aimed at satisfying the interests of a few investors.
They must implement, as they have promised, the decisions of the social summit of Copenhagen, and take effective measures to fight unemployment and poverty.
And that is a matter of figures, sir!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lannoye">
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="Flynn">
Mr President, first of all my thanks to the rapporteur, Mrs Schörling, and to all of her colleagues who have contributed.
We welcome the Parliamentary resolution, which identifies a number of concrete priorities both at European Union level and at the international level to follow up the Copenhagen Declaration and Programme of Action.
The Commission shares these concerns to a very large extent.
The Copenhagen summit has given a strong impetus to governments, to the Community, to NGOs, United Nations bodies and a lot of others to develop and strengthen their actions in the field of social and human development.
A lot certainly remains to be done but since the Copenhagen summit a great number of actions have been launched and they should be referred to here.
<P>
Allow me just for a moment to make the following specific observations, particularly referring to points 2 and 4, dealing with the people-centred approach and the environment.
I should remind the House that the Commission did not wait for the Copenhagen recommendations to adopt the human-centred and environment-conscious approach to development cooperation.
The 1992 Council regulation on cooperation with the countries of Asia and Latin America already stated that 'the aim of the Community development and cooperation policies shall be human development.
The human dimension of development shall be present in all areas of action.'
The same regulation regarding environment issues also stated that 'protection of the environment and natural resources and sustainable development shall be long-term priorities.'
So these efforts, strengthened by the declaration, are being maintained.
<P>
All this is absolutely consistent with Article 130u of the Maastricht Treaty which emphasizes sustainable economic and social development, the campaign against poverty in developing countries, and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Moreover the Community has committed itself to the implementation of the new Development Cooperation Strategy for the Twenty-First Century presented and adopted by the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD in 1996, which particularly emphasizes people-centred development.
I would like to refer to point 5, the fight against poverty, because the matter has been raised by virtually all of the contributors today.
Yes, we agree that the fight against poverty and social exclusion should be a top priority for the European Union because it remains a serious problem for so many of our European citizens.
<P>
The European Union's single main tool for fighting against exclusion from the labour market is the Integra Community employment initiative within the Structural Funds.
The aim of Integra is to promote measures to improve access to the labour market and employability for those who find themselves excluded from it.
After two project selection phases, one in 1995 and the other in 1997, 1 600 Integra projects have been selected.
One of the principal objectives of the tabled proposals for the new Structural Funds is to combat and to prevent unemployment and exclusion.
Point 6, dealing with the legal instruments for combating poverty and exclusion, should be referred to.
<P>
The Amsterdam Treaty, once ratified, will create new legal bases for action at Community level to combat exclusion, which can complement the present actions which have a labour market focus.
The Commission will discuss how to make best use of this with all the relevant actors and specifically with the Non-Governmental Organizations.
Mrs Schmidbauer gave this as a top priority and I agree wholeheartedly with her comments there.
The Commission is also actively involved in the work of the DAC to strengthen coordination and coherence amongst donors as well as the work in the Commission for Social Development of the United Nations ECOSOC and other multilateral organizations and bodies.
<P>
Some reference was made to debt reduction.
This is point 12 in the document and the Commission has strongly supported the World Bank and IMF Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative which was launched in 1996, and has proposed new measures at the EC level to reduce the debt of these countries.
<P>
Given in particular the Asian financial crisis the Commission is concerned by possible effects of instability in world financial markets and the damage which can be caused through it and believes that proposals such as the Tobin tax are worth examining.
I noted the difference of opinion on that particular matter between Mrs Schörling, Mr Pronk, Mr Lindqvist and others.
The difference of opinion is there.
However, the point is that it is worth examining what is involved.
As far as labour standards are concerned, the Commission attaches very great importance to core labour standards and their application worldwide.
<P>
We firmly believe that public support for increased trade liberalization will be threatened if we fail to address the public concerns on this important issue.
Our new GSP scheme provides for special incentive arrangements starting on 1 January 1998 in the form of additional preferences which may granted to countries implementing core labour standards.
<P>
On 29 October 1997, the Commission adopted a proposal for the introduction in the GSP of a social clause on compliance with ILO conventions on child labour and freedom of association, of the right to organize and collective bargaining and of an environmental clause on sustainable management of tropical forests as defined by the International Tropical Timber Organization to ensure that these special incentive arrangements operate effectively.
The proposal for a regulation lays down the methods of monitoring application.
<P>
Finally, the Commission fully supports the current ILO proposal for a declaration on workers' fundamental rights and, especially, the need for a mechanism to be put in place to guarantee these rights.
With regard to cooperation with NGOs, I have one final comment.
The Commission greatly values the contribution of non-governmental organizations and citizen-based organizations to the development process and has an ongoing programme of support and cooperation.
<P>
Mr Wolf and Mr Amadeo made the very important point about social justice, i.e. that it was needed not just in the EU but also in the global economy.
I share that view and have been saying for many years, as Mr Wolf knows, that it is not just an economic development.
It has to be matched and parallelled by the social dimension.
That is important for the Union and it is also just as important in the global economy of the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Horizontal state aid
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0100/98) by Mr Berès, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) on the application of Articles 92 and 93 of the EC Treaty to certain categories of horizontal state aid (COM(97)0396 - C4-0512/97-97/0203(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 NAME="Berès">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission's proposal on which we have been consulted at one reading relates to regulations enabling the Commission to adopt individual rules for the exemption from the obligation to give prior notification of certain classes of horizontal state aid, which amounts to 83 % of total state aid in Europe.
<P>
This is the first truly significant use of Article 94 of the Treaty.
This tool enables the Commission, enriched with the experience it has acquired in this field, to exempt certain aid from the notification procedure.
The Commission's idea is to achieve in this area a procedure similar to that applicable to the control of concentration, which relies on revisable intervention thresholds, and the participation of third parties in the consideration and establishment of a consultative committee.
<P>
We fully approve of the Commission's approach, which focuses its attention on the cases of state aid which truly do require consideration, and to accelerate the granting of aid where there is no dispute as to the validity of the cases.
Such an approach is all the more necessary as 11 Member States are going to go into the euro, which will increase competition between territories where unfair practices were an incentive to out-sourcing.
<P>
The aid covered by the regulation concerns the aid for SMEs, where it is as effective as it is diligently allocated to research and development, environmental protection and employment and training.
In terms of education and training, the exemptions mechanism should give priority, in our opinion, to the best possible implementation of the conclusions of the Luxembourg Summit.
<P>
It appears that we should add to this list local public services, which have only a minor effect on competition policy, and a strong impact in terms of social and economic cohesion within the Union.
<P>
The Commission's proposal also stipulates that the Commission will be able to adopt a regulation which allows aid under a certain threshold limit to be exempt from notification.
This would provide a legal basis for a practice which is already longstanding.
We must be pleased about this, although we recognize that the impact of this regulation will vary according to the practice of the Member States.
<P>
As rapporteur, I nevertheless wish to make four general observations.
The first relates to the general line followed by the Commission in the field this text comes under, the aim being an undifferentiated reduction in state aid in the European Union.
Such a position might a priori be an obstacle to achieving two fundamental objectives, namely the strengthening of industrial policy, and the search for greater efficiency in public expenditure.
In other words, would it not be better in this field to give priority to a qualitative, rather than a purely quantitative approach, the latter being, it would seem, that which the Commission is seemingly proposing?
<P>
The Union should be thinking about a positive approach to aid, be it from the state or from the Union itself. Aid is becoming an effective and appropriate tool for an innovative industrial policy.
A final assessment of aid as used and applied as part of the ECSC Treaty should be drawn up.
The Union's approach with regard to state aid as an economic policy instrument should be drawn up and explained. The assessment of how far aid is compatible with the rules of the internal market should take into account general objectives of Community policy, relating to industrial competitiveness and economic and social cohesion within the Union, but also paying attention to the practice of our major competitors on the global market.
<P>
As a second comment, we need to be careful not to pick the wrong target in terms of the inspection and control procedures that we introduce for this aid.
The Commission's proposal can give rise to two sorts of reaction.
The Commission is calling for more powers, or the Commission is accepting the consolidation of the power that it already has in its hands.
It is absolutely clear that the second approach is the one we should follow.
We are not giving the Commission free rein, but providing it a posteriori with a measure of control.
Having said that, in the procedures for implementing this control, we should be aware not to excessively weigh down the conditions set on advertising, as this would run the risk of making for unwieldy control procedures and encouraging a plethora of litigation which would be detrimental to the safety of enterprises before the law.
It would be paradoxical if we were to end up with an obligation to give more information concerning this aid, which a priori does not pose any problems, than is required for far larger amounts of aid.
<P>
My third observation relates to the importance of the Commission's proposals with regard to the application procedures of Article 93 of the Treaty.
We will have the chance to return to this when we consider, in this House, the aid procedure.
<P>
My last point, Mr President, relates to the place of our Parliament in the implementation of enabling regulations to be proposed by the Commission.
In our amendments, we ask to be involved in this procedure.
I believe this is important, and I hope that the Commission will support our proposals.
We are also calling for the enabling regulations to be more adaptable, and we hope that this regulation is reviewed after three, and not five, years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wibe">
Mr President, I would first and foremost like to thank the rapporteur for an excellent report. I agree with all her proposals and conclusions.
In particular I would like to point out one amendment which did not achieve a majority on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, Amendment No 11, which proposes that block exemptions should also be granted to local public companies.
I believe it is necessary to make such a point.
I can say that in Sweden we have a large number of companies all over the country which employ disabled people.
I believe there are between 30 000 and 40 000 such companies in Sweden which sell their products on the open market and so compete with normal companies, but they are subsidized by almost the whole wage cost.
It is obvious that these companies receive a lot of public aid, but it is also obvious that they make an enormous social contribution.
It would be very important, I believe, to include the fact that this type of company belongs to the group which is granted exemptions.
<P>
In the same amendment, No 11, the rapporteur also removes two categories proposed by the Commission, namely export credits and export credit guarantees.
I think that what the rapporteur is proposing is good because there is doubt that export credits and export credit guarantees really are aid which falls under Article 92 and that they belong in this context.
<P>
After this I would still like to say a few words about the fact that the rapporteur and I differ on one point, that is, our attitude towards state aid in general.
I think it often seems in this House as if state aid just means that one country goes and steals work in some way, but that is only one side of the coin.
If the USA, for example, were to subsidize its car exports to Europe, it would mean above all that Europe received cheaper cars from the USA, in other words that Europe's consumers benefited from it.
In this respect there is no difference between state aid and, for example, the USA cutting the wages of the car workers.
It is the same in other areas.
For example, if Spain wanted to subsidize wine exports to Sweden, Swedish consumers would just get cheaper wine.
I do not actually see any great harm in that.
<P>
The rapporteur points out that state aid amounts to 1.7 % of the Community's GDP.
That may sound like a lot of money, but we should be aware that the socio-economic costs associated with this aid are perhaps a tenth or a hundredth of that amount and so amount to a few tenths or hundredths of one per cent.
I would therefore like us to have a somewhat less rigid view of this state aid.
However, my main point is that this is an excellent report which I hope will be approved by a large majority tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Areitio Toledo">
Mr President, I want to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Berès, for her report.
Certainly, the control of state aid is a big responsibility for the Commission.
We have on the table today a Commission proposal for a regulation seeking a more practical formula for controlling such aid, by exempting one category of aid and transferring responsibility for it to the Member States, because of a shortage of Commission resources.
<P>
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has taken a very clear stance on this.
We agree with the Commission's approach, but great care must be taken. We must not forget that it is the Member States who provide this aid, and to transfer control to them is - excuse the expression - like setting the fox to guard the henhouse!
<P>
So, we agree with a practical approach, we agree with the list of categories and aid proposed by the Commission - and our group is not in favour of either lengthening it or shortening it, as the rapporteur suggests - but we have made two comments which have been taken up by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
<P>
The first point is that production can be integrated, which means that by giving small amounts of aid to integrated businesses, the added value of the final product might be over-subsidized.
For example, aid might be given to the research sector, then to another company collaborating in the manufacture of the same product, and so on all down the line.
Integrated production has to be monitored, otherwise we are going to run into serious problems of very large subsidies in terms of a product's final added value.
For that reason, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has included an amendment that I myself presented to them, and I think the European Commission should study it.
<P>
The second comment is that this procedure - this new focus - requires the Member States to be monitored at a global level.
As we lose specific control of each type of aid, there has to be more global budgetary control over the total aid given by each country.
This theory has already been approved by this House with regard to the general report on competition policy, and it becomes increasingly important the further we progress with monetary union.
We cannot cease to exercise control over the possibility that a certain budget might in total devote more than a certain percentage of GDP to state aid.
That can and will happen.
Even today there are large differences between the Member States, and once monetary union comes into effect, if the Commission fails to take account of the risk that each Member State might devote a large or very significant part of its budget to helping its businesses, we will have competition problems within monetary union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Garosci">
Mr President, today we have to decide which type of direction to give to state aid in the future, how to involve the territory and categories as well as the controls and exemptions to be applied.
As we know, the distortion of competition is the most obvious disadvantage of state aid, but it is not the only one.
Just think of the cost for public finances or the cost resulting from the loss of competitiveness for businesses used to state aid, at a time in which it is being reduced or is disappearing.
<P>
The globalization of the market and the arrival of the euro will result in totally new scenarios.
In the immediate future, the EU will support the entry of new states, including financially.
Agenda 2000 will then oblige us to give preference to choices of quality over quantity. So aid will no longer be provided if it is not targeted and the result of projects and programmes based on actual requirements and resulting opportunities.
<P>
We obviously do not want to say that all state aid is counterproductive, as clearly maintained by the rapporteur, whom we thank for her work.
Aid can, in fact, favour an industrial policy where it is exists and is correctly applied. However, it should not just be aimed at large businesses and the industrial sector any more.
We should be looking in particular at small and medium-sized businesses and at new sectors: tourism, trade, services, crafts, the environment and research and development are sectors that are integrated and connected to each other, as recalled by the Spanish Member.
<P>
We believe that the Commission, as the body which supervises competition, will adopt decisions and measures in the medium term that will facilitate balanced growth.
For this purpose, we call on it to reassess the sectors and business sizes we have just mentioned.
The future of the Union's economic and social growth inevitably lies with the SMEs. State aid cannot fail to take them into account.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Riis-Joergensen">
Mr President, state aid is of course an exception to free and equal competition.
Therefore, it is important to adhere to regulations on state aid, and transparency is especially important in order to enable third parties, namely competitors, to see what is being given by way of state aid.
The Liberal group is delighted that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has supported us in requiring these subsidies to be made public.
Therefore, I hope that the Commission, too, will be in a position to support the committee's Amendments Nos 4 and 5, in which we emphasize the requirement for making public the various subsidies, and in particular Amendment No 5, where we urge the Commission to publish details of subsidies given to the individual countries in the Official Journal of the European Communities to ensure that the average business has access to this information.
<P>
Finally, on behalf of the Liberal group, I have to say that we cannot support Amendment No 11, which the rapporteur touched on, and nor can we support the amendment tabled by Mr Wibe of the Socialist group.
Nonetheless, I look forward to hearing the Commission's response on the question of transparency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, I agree with the Commission's view that, on the one hand, state aid must be made more public and controlled more effectively, but, on the other, the Commission must be given the opportunity to focus on more important and larger-scale cases, where group exemptions can be considered properly.
But this should not mean that complete transparency must not prevail, as state aid can seriously distort competition.
State aid should also be examined in connection with normal EU Structural Funds because it is awfully difficult at the moment to know what individual projects are being subsidized either through state aid or through EU structural funding.
<P>
It is a very serious matter that meagre public resources are causing grave problems, and we should ensure, as best we can, that the EU's basic purpose in public subsidies is being realized.
I can thus give a great deal of support to the rapporteur in her desire to make the state aid process more open.
In fact, I believe there should be a centre in every Member State where every citizen could have access to information on aid for each individual project, and not just state aid but Structural Funds.
<P>
This would have a far-reaching influence on the relocation of companies. As we know, many firms have learnt to get Member States and regions to compete, and this has an exceedingly unfavourable effect on the public economy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="McCarthy">
Mr President, I hope my voice is going to hold out.
Let me say that I understand the general thrust of this report is to ensure that we prevent distortion of competition while achieving a fair and level playing field.
I very much commend the work that Mrs Berès has done on this report, but we are talking about transparency.
<P>
Let me raise an issue with you in the Commission.
We in the Committee on Regional Affairs are very concerned at the lack of transparency in the document that you have adopted, the draft communication about the coherence of structural policies and competition.
I understand that Commissioner Van Miert has already signed an agreement with Commissioner Wulf-Mathies on making sure that these two maps are indeed coherent, and I wonder when you will refer that document to Parliament.
I believe it is our right to look at issues involving the Structural Funds and I understand you have also written to Member States.
I would like to know which legal base you are using to consult Member States on these issues.
Is it not the case that you will predetermine the national priorities of the Member States on where they wish to spend their structural fund money and state aid under Article 92(3)(c)?
Why, therefore, is it the case that we in Parliament are not looking at that?
I want to know what flexibility exists for a Member State to defend its own national priorities on state aid and whether you can legally enforce these issues.
Or is it simply a case of a voluntary agreement that you hope to have with Member States?
<P>
Finally, I would like to say to the Commission that I do not honestly see the logic behind this.
I believe the Structural Funds have a very different objective to state aid and I would simply refer to the case of rural areas.
In my own constituency in the Peak district, I do not think that we want to attract Siemens actually to come and re-establish itself in an area which is environmentally sensitive, where we are looking to establish small businesses.
The issue is not about actually attracting state aids in those kinds of regions.
I would therefore ask you to decouple and de-link these two areas and let Member States decide on their own priorities on structural fund eligibility maps.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Carlsson">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, state aid is one of the main causes of distortion in the single market.
Not only is it costly and an inefficient way to use public funds in the Member States, but it is also delaying an essential structural change which affects not only the individual region, but also the EU as a whole.
<P>
It is quite clear that several Member States are currently breaking or behaving in a very suspect way with regard to the rules we have on state aid.
The Commission is now trying, on the basis of existing conditions, that is, in spite of a lack of resources, to improve and monitor compliance.
<P>
I would like to congratulate Mrs Berès on her report which increases the chances of better compliance and control of state aid because it makes transparency and greater openness possible.
This is a credibility issue, not least in relation to third parties, that is, companies and their employees who are affected by unhealthy competitive disadvantages.
<P>
I would like to warn against Mr Wibe's enticing tones when he thinks that local public businesses in Amendment No 11 should be approved.
Today, local authorities and regions have a lot of different opportunities to exploit the system which means that we get more monopoly and less competition.
I think it was very good that we removed the amendment in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
<P>
The Commission's credibility now depends on sharpening the supervision of state aid which is talked about a lot in industry.
Since no-one else can monitor our compliance with competition on equal terms, I think the Commission must ensure that it approves the amendments which have now been added to this report.
Otherwise it will be difficult to ensure that we are complying with the demands which are rightfully made on the EU system.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="van Miert">
<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="McCarthy">
Mr President, on a point of order.
I did not ask about the policy.
I asked about when you intend to consult Parliament.
I understand that the Commission has exclusive competence for competition policy, but in my opinion you are wandering into an area where Parliament has a view on whether it is necessary, in all cases, to have complete coherence of maps.
We would like some flexibility.
Therefore, I would like to know when you intend to consult Parliament and, if you intend to force this, what is the legal base for the Commission to enforce the coherence of state aids and structural fund eligibility maps?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 NAME="van Miert">
I now understand the precise point of your question.
First of all, I am always available to Parliament to discuss this although it is an exclusive competence of the Commission.
As you know, the Commission has this responsibility for state aids on the basis of Articles 92 and 93, unless we make a proposal, as we are doing today, on the basis of Article 94, when the Council has to take a decision.
As I have already said, the Commission has already taken a decision as far as regional aid is concerned because it is the Commission's responsibility.
But I am readily available to Parliament or the relevant committees to discuss this matter and explain to you why we think this coherence between the Structural Funds map and the regional aid map is important.
It is up to you.
If you would like to invite me to a committee meeting, I would be happy to attend.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12: 00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Shipbuilding
<SPEAKER ID=160 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0101/98) by Mr Sindal, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on establishing new rules on aid to shipbuilding (COM(97)0469 - C4-0527/97-97/02499(CNS)) and on the Commission communication to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions entitled: "Towards a new shipbuilding policy' (COM(97)0470 - C4-0548/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 NAME="Sindal">
Mr President, may I begin by congratulating the previous rapporteur on the general discussion on competition policy.
Now that we are embarking on a more detailed debate on shipbuilding, the waters are parting, for it is very easy to agree on a general plan.
For this we owe Mr Van Miert our grateful thanks.
The report is excellent, but as soon as we go into detail, the waters begin to part.
The subject under debate today is fraught with emotion and history.
<P>
All of us present here today are aware of why this regulation has gone to consultation.
We are missing one single signature on an OECD agreement - that of the USA.
Now we are venturing a new regulation, perhaps the eighth in the series.
The discussion and the problems are partly internal to the EU and partly external, in that they concern how the EU relates to the world-wide competitive situation.
To my mind, the key elements in this debate are that our future internal policy must not distort competition for shipyards within the EU, and our aid policy must not cause social listing in some Member States and regions, as we have just heard.
<P>
There has to be a fundamental belief that the EU would be best served if the OECD agreement were to come into effect.
The OECD agreement is the best way forward for the Community's shipyards to be able to compete on a level playing field.
Since this is not happening, we are best served with an aid policy that is as restricted as at all possible.
We must strive for equality of opportunity for all and avoid creating a situation with competitors losing simply because they do not qualify for aid.
The new aid policy must avert creative book-keeping and speculation in aid systems.
That is not what it is intended for.
But the new aid policy is supposed to create jobs in the EU.
Unemployment is the biggest problem today, and in my opinion regional aid to shipyards is not part of the EU's social policy - nor should it be.
It would be naive to believe that would create more jobs.
That would be throwing good money after bad.
<P>
In shuffling jobs from one area to another, we would antagonize citizens who perceive this to be unfair - worse still if jobs are moved out of the EU altogether.
Therefore, at a time when the citizens of Europe are discussing confidence and belief in the European project, it is vital that our aid policy should avoid prejudicing citizens' understanding of justice by giving better opportunities to some than to others.
What is needed is a policy to ensure equality of opportunity.
<P>
What we need today is a long-term, visionary employment policy.
The new aid policy, which I support, Mr Van Miert, must not amount to featherbedding.
We must avoid giving support to such an extent that the shipbuilding industry forgets to think for itself.
Strong support may well be beneficial in the short term, but long-term it could turn European shipbuilding into a loser in the global marketplace.
<P>
Let me emphasize four things in the Commission's proposal.
Firstly, I support development, innovation, etcetera.
This is extremely positive.
It is the way forward.
Secondly, I find regional aid dissatisfactory.
I find it impermeable and prejudicial to competition.
But if we can agree on regional aid, we should decide whether to change the extent of such aid.
The third point is that we are concerned about how monitoring should be carried out.
That is embarrassing.
But history shows that we must be committed to one another.
The fourth point is the situation in the Far East and the massive aid given there.
This must not be allowed to lead to Korean shipyards becoming more dominant players in the market than they are already, for example.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to say that the three statements from the committees concerned and the statement from the Economic and Social Committee all point towards the need to think twice before implementing this plan unamended.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="Matilainen-Kallström">
Mr President, the object of Mr Sindal's report is to reform the complex network of aid schemes in place for the European shipbuilding industry, so that the EU will become more competitive with regard to third country dockyards.
<P>
The largest area of current aid is dedicated to shipbuilding itself, which has in fact distorted competition in the common market.
The idea of getting rid of aid, which Mr Sindal mentions in his report, is thus correct.
The ultimate goal of EU policy must be that the shipyards recover naturally through market demand.
<P>
The European Community has to guarantee Member States equal conditions for competition, promote research and development in shipbuilding, and motivate industrial cooperation.
The conditions for competition among shipyards in EU countries cannot be distorted by aid action which is different for every country.
I hope the Commission understands this.
<P>
The shipbuilding industry employs about 130 000 people in the EU.
Securing these jobs is important.
At the moment the EU share of the world market for shipbuilding is around 20 %.
In recent years, despite improvements, as far as competitiveness and productivity go, many shipyards have fallen behind greater competitors, such as Japan and South Korea. Furthermore, new shipbuilding nations have begun to come into the world market.
The market share these countries have, with their cheap labour, is also in the region of 20 %.
<P>
The EU countries have much scope for research.
The European shipyards should follow the Japanese model and concentrate resources on research and development in order to improve the design and production process and produce safe and efficient vessels.
The development of the shipbuilding industry is closely linked to developments in other sectors of technology.
The use of computerization and telecommunications, in particular, should be regarded as an essential part of developing a modern shipbuilding industry.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="Ilaskivi">
Mr President, as we are now debating Mr Sindal's report on the shipyards, I would also like to turn our attention to debating customs and Europarliamentarianism in general.
And why?
Well, when the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs was discussing its report, it had, in accordance with good practice, asked for the opinions of others, such as the REX committee.
But what happened?
The committee voted in the morning and only received the opinion it had asked for in the afternoon, at least as far as the REX committee was concerned.
I do not know if the committee was in too much of a hurry to adhere to its timetable or if it was a case of the REX committee coming late with the two opinions it had formulated.
My own was actually ready the week before.
<P>
My question is: what is the point of asking for opinions unless they can be relied upon to materialize and taken notice of?
We should consider this here to ensure that the work of Parliament is actually appropriate at all times.
<P>
But that is not all.
When we vote on the report in tomorrow's sitting, COREPER will have already started its debate on the issue; it did so last Thursday, to be precise.
It is still going on, and COREPER's view will be discussed by the Council, but the question remains: should a Parliamentary report not be ready when COREPER starts its own debate?
Otherwise, it seems as if each and every body makes its own resolutions without hearing the opinion of others.
<P>
The situation is an irritating aspect of Parliamentarianism, especially as it has happened again and again and will happen, I suppose, in the future also.
I wish the Bureau would look into this seriously.
It is a matter of the European Parliament's prestige and credibility.
<P>
As to the issue we are debating here, I will briefly state that shipyard aid has come to the end of the road.
This view is in agreement with the Commission's proposal and Mr Sindal's report.
Now that the main shipbuilding nations of Asia are in the grip of an economic crisis, and devaluation of their currency has increased their competitiveness in exports, it is a most opportune moment to embark on global measures to end aid. The USA, for its part, must accept the OECD agreement.
All interested bodies must set about ending shipyard aid as a condition of Asian financial aid. The countries of Europe have to get their act together in their affirmation of the fact that we cannot go on supporting a lame duck forever.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="Kaklamanis">
Mr President, the opinion I have prepared on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism related only to the Commission's communication to the Council and the European Parliament.
The Committee on Transport never discussed giving an opinion on the proposal for a Council Regulation, with which, however, Mr Sindal's report is mainly concerned.
<P>
Consequently, I am here to echo what the last speaker said: why were we asked for an opinion?
Because I have found that almost nothing has been taken into account by Mr Sindal's report.
This of course, does not mean that my group disagrees with very many points in Mr Sindal's report.
At the same time, however, we are very worried about why this process has taken place, which is quite unusual, at least during the three years or so that I have been a Member.
<P>
At the same time, I heard all the speakers and the rapporteur talking about support and competition, saying that state aid for shipyards must stop, and talking about the globalization of the economy.
Ladies and gentlemen, that is all very well, but we ought not to remember it only when America, Japan or Korea are asking us to bear in mind the globalization of the economy.
<P>
The European Union has an obligation, and this is very rightly addressed by the Commission and Mr Sindal's report, to put its own house in order: to care first and foremost for the existence, preservation and if possible the strengthening of Europe's shipbuilding industry, to retain jobs and above all, from now on, to secure a better future than before.
<P>
In conclusion, Mr President, I would like to ask the Commissioner and Mr Sindal what impact the euro is likely to have from 1 January 1999 on Europe's shipbuilding industry.
Will there be consequences or not?
And if so, what?
Will they be good or bad?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="Sainjon">
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Sainjon.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, having heard Mr Sainjon's speech, we must now suspend the debate on Mr Sindal's report.
It will resume at 9.00 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Question Time (Commission)
<SPEAKER ID=167 NAME="President">
The next item is questions to the Commission (B4-0272/98).
<P>
First however, ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to read you a series of recommendations from the Bureau to Members of this House.
I am sorry that Mr Wijsenbeek is not going to hear this too, because these recommendations aim to ensure that our work proceeds smoothly.
At its meeting of 9 March 1998 the Bureau adopted the following decisions, to make our current Question Time procedure as up-to-date and politically relevant as possible.
<P>
The first recommendation concerns the deadline for tabling questions.
Questions for each Question Time are only to be tabled during that part-session's period for tabling questions.
The relevant services are requested to no longer accept questions tabled before that date.
The honourable Members are reminded that the period for tabling questions for each Question Time begins as soon as the deadline for the previous part-session's Question Time has expired, and ends at 1.00 p.m. on the Thursday of the penultimate week prior to each part-session.
<P>
The second recommendation concerns supplementary questions.
The Bureau asks the President of the sitting only to accept requests to put supplementary questions once the main question has been dealt with.
Members are reminded that it is up to the President of the sitting to rule on the admissibility of supplementary questions, which must relate directly to the subject of the main question.
<P>
The third point is admissibility.
The Bureau recommends that the relevant services should be stricter in applying the admissibility criteria for questions, as set out in Annex II of the Rules of Procedure.
The Bureau particularly requests Members to respect the stipulations about the maximum length of questions, and to limit themselves to a single question within each text.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, you will all receive your own copy of these recommendations.
Today, however, with your help, we will begin to adjust to these recommendations from the Bureau.
<P>
Mr McMahon wishes to speak on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 NAME="McMahon">
Mr President, on a point of order.
It is on the same issue.
I have a copy of the document you are referring to and I am absolutely astounded by it.
I find it an affront to democracy in this House.
I have been a Member here for 14 years and have taken a great interest in Question Time.
I know we have had problems, and we have had changes.
I remember when we tried to change it before: Mrs Dury put forward a long report from the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities and there was a great deal of debate and discussion by Members.
<P>
What the Bureau seems to be resorting to here is diktat from on high, and it is very anti-democratic.
One of the benefits of publishing the names of the Commissioners who were going to answer questions was that if Members had, for example, an environment question, they could table it well in advance, knowing that they would receive a straightforward and knowledgeable answer from the Commissioner for the environment.
They would be unlikely to get someone else who had simply been handed a dossier, who was unacquainted with its contents and would just give a completely unsatisfactory off-the-cuff answer.
If you knew in advance that the individual Commissioner for that portfolio was going to reply, that would be advantageous.
So I feel this is a very retrograde step.
There has been no discussion on this in the political groups nor with the Members, and I take great offence at the dictatorial and high-handed attitude the Bureau has adopted.
I will raise this in my own political group and would urge other Members to do the same.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="President">
Mr McMahon, please listen to me.
I know you can understand Spanish but I would prefer you to listen to me in your own language, through the interpreters. I must inform you that what I have just read in no way suggests that Question Time is going to be altered as far as the Commissioners are concerned.
All these recommendations are trying to do is introduce a degree of order. In other words, questions are not to be tabled way in advance, but within the period established by our Rules of Procedure.
<P>
The second aim is to avoid the situation where the President of the sitting already has lots of supplementary questions even before the start, and Members who request to put a question but cannot be allowed to do so because somebody else has already asked.
What is being said is that from now on people will only be able to request the floor once the main question has started.
So these are small rules, Mr McMahon, intended to improve our work.
If in practice we find it is no improvement, I can assure you we will revise them.
I will convey that to the Bureau straight away, but at the moment I would ask that we do not start a debate on the matter, because these rules are designed to help us work better.
If they do not have that effect, we will change them again.
But let us start by respecting them.
It is not a question of being dictatorial, Mr McMahon, but it is the Bureau's responsibility to try to organize the work of this House in the best way possible.
Several people wish to make points of order, but I must point out that all these points of order will detract from the time available for questions to the Commission.
<P>
Mr Crowley wishes to speak on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="Crowley">
Mr President, I should like your guidance.
I have also received the same notice as Mr McMahon and I agree with him fully.
In the second part of paragraph 2, it says: ' It is up to the President of a sitting to rule on the admissibility of supplementary questions which must relate directly to the subject of the main question.'
Surely we as political representatives of the European people, must be able to decide whether a matter is related to a question or to an individual Commissioner, or to upbraid a Commissioner or the President-in-Office of the Council when they refuse to answer the question directly and we have to try another tactic to get around this.
I ask you to use your discretion in interpreting that aspect and to give us clear guidance on what latitude you will allow us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 NAME="President">
Mr Crowley, you will be able to test out the amount of latitude I am prepared to allow during the course of our work.
But I should warn you that Annex II of our Rules of Procedure states: "The President shall rule on the admissibility of supplementary questions and shall limit their number so that each Member who has put down a question may receive an answer to it' .
In other words, the President is not being given any new power. This is simply a reminder that the President has that power.
You will have noticed, Mr Crowley, that given the existence of that rule, the President has been exercising the natural flexibility which the liveliness of our Question Time demands.
So nothing new is being suggested - it is all there.
<P>
Mr Wijsenbeek wishes to speak on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, you mentioned me as the person who initiated the changes to Question Time.
I would like to point out to you, Mr President, that I wrote a report for the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, Verification of Credentials and Immunities. It was approved by that committee four months ago, and the Bureau is refusing to put it to the partsession.
The objections by Mr Crowley and Mr McMahon could at least have been discussed in the groups and in the part-session.
Now the Bureau is misusing my report to propose new rules on its own authority, instead of through the usual democratic procedures. But you and I agree on one thing: if we look around we see that we have managed to kill Question Time, which in most parliaments is a lively affair and the climax of the parliamentary week.
We are sitting here surrounded by a handful of people, whilst the Commissioners and Presidents-in-Office dish out prescribed answers and are not able to enter into a debate with us.
The long and short of my proposal, Mr President, is that we call the questions in random order, so that those who tabled a question six months ago do not have the first turn, but that everyone gets an equal chance to speak.
Secondly, we should have a true debate, in which questions are responded to succinctly.
If you would be so kind as to submit my proposal to the part-session, than we would at least be able to join in the discussion as Members and as backbenchers, rather than be told what to do by a group of vice-presidents who think they always know better.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=174 NAME="President">
Question No 41 by Concepció Ferrer (H-0301/98)
<P>
Subject: Policy in favour of small and medium-sized enterprises
<P>
The results of a survey carried out by the Court of Auditors show that of 33 enterprises considered small and medium-sized, 11 actually corresponded to that category while the remaining two-thirds of the enterprises investigated belonged to consortia, and in one case a business classified as a small enterprise had 2000 employees.
<P>
Does the Commission not believe that, in view of these results, the concept of small and medium-sized enterprises should be revised in order to bring it into line with the actual situation?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 NAME="de Silguy">
I have learnt a great deal, I am much more knowledgeable now, and I thank you for allowing me to participate in your debate.
<P>
When describing SMEs, the Commission applies the definition set out in the recommendation of 3 April 1996 to the Member States, to the European Investment Bank and the European Investment Fund.
Under this definition, the purpose of which is to put a little order into the situation you have described, a company must have less than 250 employees, a turnover not exceeding ECU 40 million, and total balance sheet value not in excess of ECU 27 million to comply with the definition of an SME.
To meet the definition of "small, ' a company must have fewer than 50 employees, a turnover of less than ECU 7 million, and a balance sheet of less than ECU 5 million.
<P>
Also, small and medium enterprises must be truly independent, which means that they must not be more than 25 % owned by another company.
The thresholds for turnover and balance sheet will be regularly adjusted, normally every four years, to take account of the economic changes in Europe.
<P>
Having said that, in certain specific research and technology development programmes, and in the 1994-1998 fourth framework programme, different and other definitions of small and medium-sized enterprises have been used.
But for the implementation of the fifth framework programme, that is, for 1998-2000, the Commission is proposing that the new definition that I have just given to you should be applied with an exception to allow the inclusion of companies with up to 500 employees.
<P>
Among the various criteria for this new definition is that of independence, and the Commission is aware of the fact that this criterion has, unfortunately, not always been respected.
As you note, Madam, with regard to the database on the participants in the technological research and development programme, the Court of Auditors' annual report states that of the 33 companies selected for the audit it carried out, 11 did not meet the independence criteria and one even employed more than 2 000.
<P>
Nevertheless, the Commission is intent on reassuring you and your House: the quality and the reliability of the databases is constantly being improved and updated.
This improvement will continue, in particular with the introduction in stages of financial and legal viability checks, which will also cover parent companies.
We will also continue our improvement by verifying the criteria applicable to SMEs on the basis of documentary evidence.
The Commission will certainly continue to insist that, in the future, the SME definition criteria are scrupulously respected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Ferrer">
I just want to thank the Commissioner for his explanation, which I think was needed.
It has been very useful because just this morning, in approving the Elles report, we stressed how many gaps there were in relation to the aid available to small and medium-sized enterprises which has not been used.
This is a waste, maybe not of resources, but of the chance to improve not just the situation of SMEs, but above all their job-creating abilities.
<P>
I would call on the Commissioner to ensure that, in accordance with what he has just said, the Commission is very aware of this, and turn his words into reality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Silguy">
I completely agree.
I have taken note of Mrs Ferrer's wish, and I am all the more in agreement with her because it is important that the Commission be able to target these measures at ad hoc companies, for if not, we will see aid being scattered, and allocated less efficiently.
I can, therefore, assure you that the Commission agrees with your analysis and will act along these lines.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 NAME="Ewing">
With regard to the actual situation, could I ask the Commissioner to look at certain areas where companies of fifty are really large companies and where the concept of a small company is nearer ten.
In areas like my constituency of the Highlands and Islands, it is often these companies that one looks to for job creation.
Would it not be possible for the Commission to consider an additional approach to give even more favourable treatment to the micro-small business?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Silguy">
This question is always a delicate one. On the one hand, we must take into account the need for a more or less harmonized approach at European Union level, for the sake of efficiency, and on the other hand, we must take into account specific situations.
My response to Mrs Ewing is that the Member States have introduced more flexibility than we have.
However, we are introducing flexibility, as we have fixed thresholds for micro-companies, employing less than 10 people, which must be precisely adapted to the situation in the islands you mentioned.
I would even say that in some Member States, flexibility is even greater, as the thresholds given are for maximum limits, and the criterion concerning the number of employees may be applied alone, without reference to turnover or balance sheet figures.
That therefore goes in the direction which you appear to wish.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 NAME="Crowley">
I want to thank the Commissioner for his response.
I have just two very brief questions to ask him on this point.
Firstly, can he give a guarantee here to us that this Court of Auditors' survey will not be used to try and reduce the amount of money which is being appropriated for the SME sector, and in particular for the employment-creation aspect of it?
Secondly, I may have misinterpreted what he said in his original answer, but am I right to understand that the criteria for the definition of SMEs and micro-enterprises will be updated and evaluated every year?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Silguy">
Very rapidly, my answer to Mr Crowley is yes for both questions.
With regard more precisely to the second question, I would point out that we plan to have an update of the criteria at least every four years, and sooner, if necessary, according to the change in economic data.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="President">
Question No 42 by Nikitas Kaklamanis (H-0314/98)
<P>
Subject: Increase in subsidized quantity of olive oil
<P>
Commissioner Fischler is reported as saying on a recent visit to Spain that the ceiling on the production of olive oil subsidized by the EU will be raised by 300 000 tonnes for Spain and Greece.
<P>
Will there in fact be such an increase in the ceiling on olive oil production, and how will this quantity be divided between Greece and Spain?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="de Silguy">
<SPEAKER ID=184 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Kaklamanis">
Thank you very much, Commissioner. I think perhaps I ought to be pleased by what you told me in your answer, but because we do not have to hand here all those figures you mentioned, at the end of the day I understood quite clearly that, indeed, what I asked about in my question is true, is it not?
In other words, I am not so interested in the figures - I am sure that those you have quoted will be correct and I believe them - but is it really true that what has applied to Spain and Greece until now might be increased by 300 000? Yes or no?
Because I have heard the figures but I do not know what the situation was before.
So are they the same, or more?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Silguy">
<SPEAKER ID=186 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Colino Salamanca">
I just want to remind the Commissioner of two things.
<P>
Firstly, he mentioned that the change to the maximum guaranteed quantity is based on five seasons, with the worst and the best being ignored.
However, in the specific case of Spain, the 1992-93, 1993-94 and 1994-95 seasons were all catastrophic because of drought.
That means that if those data are used to fix the amount for Spain, we are being penalized.
<P>
The second, very important thing is that the maximum guaranteed quantity for the whole of Europe will also be affected by these unrealistic Spanish data.
It is important for the Commission to realize that, so they can correct the data at some point, even during the Council phase.
If that is not done, the whole of Europe will be penalized, especially the Spanish production.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Silguy">
I have taken note of your remark.
It reminds me of the debate in the Commission when the proposal was drafted.
We had to attempt both to achieve a number of objectives, which can appear contradictory, and to consider the problem caused by the drought in Spain at the time.
<P>
The file is now in the hands of the Council. The comment that you have raised is very much in Mr Fischler's mind, and he will be heading negotiations.
However, it is the Commission's job to submit a proposal on the basis of objective and traditional criteria.
Now the negotiations are in the hands of the Council and I have no doubt but that all points of view will be heard and defended.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Camisón Asensio">
Commissioner, having heard your replies, I would like to know whether the Commission actually realizes the damage this will do to employment levels in Spain.
If the Commission continues to refuse to increase substantially the maximum guaranteed quantity - as I see it does - employment will suffer.
The fact is, apart from the drought problem which has been mentioned, the latest figure for Spanish production was 947 000 tonnes, which is very different from the maximum being set for that country.
If that difference is not subsidized, there is bound to be more unemployment in Spain, which is the very country with the highest unemployment rate in the whole of the EU.
<P>
There is not much point preaching about employment at the Luxembourg Summit if work is being thrown away, and if this threat hanging over Spain's olive groves actually materializes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Silguy">
I shall make the same reply as before: this matter is still being discussed.
I have explained the basis of the Commission's proposal.
I had explained also that the Commission was proposing to raise the maximum guaranteed quantity, as compared to the current quantity.
I know that, for a certain number of countries, this raises economic problems, and also problems, which we cannot overlook, in terms of market disposal of the olive oil.
<P>
However, I believe that all these elements are in the minds of the negotiators.
You have done well to emphasize them.
They will now become part of the negotiation which is to take place within the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr de Silguy.
<P>
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo wishes to speak on a point of order.
Excuse me, but which Rule does your point of order come under?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Rojo">
Mr President, I should like to point out that in the public gallery, all the way from Granada...
<P>
(The President cut off the speaker)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 NAME="President">
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, that is not a point of order.
I would ask you to please sit down and allow me to proceed with my work properly, with the following question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 NAME="President">
Question No 43 by Phillip Whitehead (H-0321/98/rev. 1)
<P>
Subject: Consumers and the euro
<P>
Will the Commission state whether it maintains the view that all bank charges that are compulsory should be free?
If so, how will this principle be implemented?
<P>
Can the Commission confirm when it will decide whether or not to propose legislation on the question of dual pricing?
What does the Commission believe is the final date for such a decision, given the time taken by the codecision procedure?
<P>
Can the Commission indicate the timetable for the development of codes of good practice between professionals and consumers?
<P>
What will be the role of the Euro observatories, and where will they be located?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 NAME="de Silguy">
<SPEAKER ID=195 NAME="Whitehead">
Thank you for allowing me in with this question.
I am also glad Commissioner Bonino is here now to hear her colleague's answer.
Can I ask two brief questions?
Firstly, how long will the Commission pursue the recommendations for good conduct, which Commissioner de Silguy has just described, before deciding whether they are effective or not and whether it needs to make mandatory provisions given the time for codecision and the 2002 deadline which means that we have to make some judgement on this well before 2002?
<P>
Secondly, on the question of banking charges, what has been the response of the banking community thus far?
How does the Commission itself propose to ensure continuity of contracts during the switch over from national currencies to the euro?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Silguy">
I shall be very precise on this point.
The Commission will make its recommendations in around two weeks, around 15 April, I hope.
These recommendations will be sent to the governments, with the hope of being able to include them in the conclusions of the European Council of 2 May, in order to give them a major political impact.
These recommendations will be sent to the various professional organizations, and to the consumers' organisations, with the instruction to work together, and draw up codes of good practice.
<P>
In the light of the various problems, we shall then consider what to do.
It is more urgent to look at bank charges, as from 1 January 1999 a certain number of questions will be raised in this respect, which means that we will have to move faster.
For questions of dual pricing, we have a little more time.
We should therefore not determine precise dates.
However, we have fixed the date for a meeting with the banking community in Autumn 1998. This will enable us to make take stock of this banking aspect.
<P>
I can tell you that the negotiations and reactions are rather positive since the banking community, prior to the round table of 26 February, had sent a letter to Emma Bonino, which I had a copy of, showing that they were willing to work in this direction.
We are now involved in a process which is fairly encouraging, and which operates on the basis of consultation.
We shall then make an assessment of the results.
As regards the continuity of contracts, all the information at our disposal leads us to believe that the current status of regulations is adequate and satisfactorily meets this legal obligation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr de Silguy.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, we have now used up the time allocated to Part I of questions to the Commission.
Question No 44 will therefore be dealt with in writing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 NAME="President">
Question No 45 by Marialiese Flemming (H-0227/98)
<P>
Subject: Transport of animals
<P>
In June 1995 the Council adopted Directive 95/29/EC on the protection of animals during transport.
At the same time the Council requested the Commission to employ more Veterinary Inspectors to monitor the implementation of these new rules.
<P>
In view of the increased resources available to the Food and Veterinary Office would the Commission say how many inspectors are presently monitoring the transport of animals and what plans are in place to increase the number to the twelve inspectors thought by the Council to be the minimum necessary?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 NAME="Bonino">
As Mr Flemming knows, today the Food and Veterinary Office has a vast range of responsibilities in monitoring the implementation of Community legislation on veterinary, food and plant health matters.
At present, the Food and Veterinary Office has 46 inspectors.
Some of the resources available for veterinary inspections are already specifically intended for controls relating to monitoring animal welfare, to which the Member is referring.
However, in relative terms, these activities still represent a small proportion of all inspection activities.
<P>
The Commission is currently increasing its personnel seconded to the Office to enable all its duties to be conducted.
However, the assignment and training of personnel will inevitably take time.
<P>
The Commission is certainly aware of the importance of animal welfare and this aspect will be taken into due consideration when implementing future decisions on the allocation of the resources required by the Office to perform its duties.
<P>
We also wish to point out to the Member that the Office is currently introducing a system of establishing the priorities of tasks, and this will ensure that the programmes of tasks can reflect a balanced assessment of the various control and inspection requests made to the Office.
<P>
The Commission must say that, at least once, all the Member States have been inspected with regard to animal welfare and these inspections are far from satisfactory.
Unfortunately, the current situation of employees and human resources is such that only two of the 46 inspectors deal with this sector.
The Commission therefore considers that a list of priorities should be drawn up, as is compulsory.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Bonino.
<P>
Sorry, Mrs Flemming, I will let you speak, but Mrs Jensen wants to make a point of order and the Rules of Procedure say that I must give her the floor.
You have one minute, Mrs Jensen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Jensen, Lis">
I was wondering whether the President could see me over here.
I asked to speak because naturally enough I find it extremely dissatisfactory not to have my question answered.
But, on a point of order, what I really want to be sure of is that I will be the recipient of the response.
My name is not Kirsten Jensen.
My name is Lis Jensen.
I would like to appeal to the administration to make this change when sending me the written response.
I cannot blame the administration for this mistake, because half of Denmark is actually called Jensen, but I find it unsatisfactory not to be able to receive a response today, because the actual question of the regulation on restraint of trade is of great interest to us in Denmark, not least in the run-up to the referendum coming up on 28 May.
I find this extremely dissatisfactory and I feel the President is being inflexible here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 NAME="President">
Mrs Lis Jensen, I am sorry your question could not be answered but I have no control over the clock.
I am its slave, just like you and the rest of the honourable Members.
As regards your name, I have noted your comment, but I should point out that Parliament's services have already made the correction.
So you can rest assured that if I had allowed anyone to speak it would have been Mrs Lis Jensen.
<P>
Mr McMahon, you have the floor on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 NAME="McMahon">
On the same issue, it is not just in getting the honourable Member's name wrong that the administration have boobed, in actual fact the question of restraint of trade is a question for Mr Monti because he is the one who has put the paper before the Commission and he is down for questions, so I do not see why it was tabled in the wrong section.
Secondly, why could you not give permission for it to be answered at the time when Mr Monti answered questions later on?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 NAME="President">
Mr McMahon, ladies and gentlemen, I would warn you all that spending time on points of order means there is less time left for questions to the Commission.
You have your rights, but it is my duty to remind you of that.
I should also point out to you all that Question Time is governed by rules, and when the clock shows that time is up, the President is obliged to go on to the next section of questions. It is not possible to change what has already been established.
<P>
I apologize to Mrs Bonino for our having interrupted her interesting remarks.
I also apologize to Mrs Flemming, but please understand that I am governed by the Rules of Procedure.
You now have the floor for a supplementary question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, I am sure that the two previous speakers have just as much interest in the welfare of animals as I and that their points of order do not portray indifference to the well-being of animals.
Directive 95/29 on the transport of animals lays down rules for the provision of food, water and rest-breaks when transporting different categories of livestock, and these regulations came into force on 1 January 1998.
In addition, all Member States are committed to the setting-up of officially approved stopping places which comply with the requirements of the directive.
The question which I would now like to ask you, Madam Commissioner, is this: can the Commission tell us here and now how many of these stopping places actually exist at this moment in time and whether veterinary inspectors - and I learn to my astonishment that you have 46 of them - are also actually checking that these establishments are being properly run, which is part of their function?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 NAME="Bonino">
As I said to the honourable Member, every Member State has been inspected at least once and the results are available.
We have discovered that some of the rules in the directive, which was implemented on 1 January 1998, are far from satisfactory.
Problems have been found at the following sites: livestock markets of national importance, border inspection posts, ports where animals are transferred from lorries to vessels, slaughterhouses and so on.
I can provide more details in writing.
<P>
I would like to tell the honourable Member that I have two inspectors out of forty-six.
There are emergencies such as BSE and classical swine fever and hygiene deficiencies in meat plants.
There are also legal obligations arising from other directives such as third countries requesting approval for exporting fisheries or for exporting fresh meat to the European Union.
I can make available to Members in writing all the obligations, emergencies, what we have done on animal welfare, what we have found and why the Commission itself is not satisfied with the situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="Elliott">
I am pleased to note that the Commissioner is not satisfied with the existing situation and I am grateful to her for being so honest and open with Parliament about the unsatisfactory nature of the current situation.
I would like to put one further point to her.
Another role of the veterinary inspectors is to monitor the export of trade of live cattle to third countries under the export refund scheme.
Could the Commissioner say what instructions have been given to the team of inspectors regarding monitoring duties when cattle arrive in third countries?
Will any liaison be established with those animal welfare organizations which so far, apparently, are the only ones to have exposed the cruelty of this trade?
It is a serious point and some of the Commission's problems could be helped a little by closer collaboration with animal welfare organizations working in this area who, I am sure, would be only too grateful to assist.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 NAME="Bonino">
This is an exercise we are trying to conduct in an informal way.
As you can imagine, the Commission can only have official relations with Member States authorities.
On top of that, many third countries - even the groups you are referring to - are not very strong.
So, we are faced with these two problems: firstly, the animal welfare groups are not very strong and, secondly, our formal counterparts are the Member States alone.
<P>
Nevertheless, I hope that the organizations dealing with animal welfare in the European Union will forge closer links with their counterparts in third countries so that we can establish another form of contact between the people who have to implement the law.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, Mrs Bonino, I should like to ask you a question, though admittedly you have answered most of it already: what is the situation in the countries of central and eastern Europe, particularly in Poland, where conditions are still pretty dreadful?
Is the Commission engaged in direct negotiations with these countries with a view to achieving a commitment that what they are exporting is treated as we would like to see it treated?
If this process does not work there from the start, then it may well not work for us either.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="Bonino">
I have already partly answered the question.
In the larger process of negotiation and enlargement due to the acquis communautaire , evidently this rule will be taken care of.
Of course, it is a long way ahead, so we need to find a quicker way of ensuring that the directive is implemented.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 NAME="President">
Question No 46 by Robin Teverson (H-0281/98)
<P>
Subject: MAGP IV: Beam trawler length
<P>
The Commission has allowed the Dutch MAGP IV implementation plan some credit for complying with a change to the Dutch national regulations.
A 1986 rule required that the maximum aggregate length of beams should be reduced.
Priority under MAGP IV is for those Member States, like the Dutch, who failed to meet MAGP III targets, to remove the overhang from the previous programme by the end of 1998 and allowance for this change to the rules would make a significant contribution to the Dutch MAGP position.
<P>
Does this mean that the Commission believes that technical conservation measures should be allowed to contribute to MAGP IV compliance, and have other Member States' fleets been similarly credited for national conservation measures?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="Bonino">
This is a very technical question but I think it has a political more than a technical meaning.
I think Mr Teverson wanted to know if technical measures have to be counted in the MAGP.
I must be very clear.
A reduction in beam lengths reduces efficiency rather than increasing selectivity, and, as such, would not be considered as a technical measure.
I can confirm that technical measures cannot be taken into account for the achievement of the MAGP IV objectives, as their effects on fishing efforts are considered to be additional to those of the MAGP.
No credit was given in terms of capacity for the reduction in beam length in the Dutch fleet.
It was accepted that the reduction in beam length resulted in a decrease in the efficiency of the vessel.
But it was noted that there was an increase in activity during the previous MAGPs, which compensated for any reduction in efficiency.
I hope that is clear.
<P>
Since this compensatory effect was recognized and calculated, account was taken of the reduction in beam length by reassessing the appropriate base-line level of activity for the MAGP for this part of the Dutch fishing fleet.
There was then no net increase in the fishing efforts base line for MAGP IV.
No Member State has therefore benefited from national compensation measures in the context of MAGPs.
<P>
We understand that it decreased efficiency but they increased their activities, so the result was equal.
For this reason, there was no compensation, and the technical measures cannot be taken into account for the calculation of MAGPs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 NAME="Teverson">
I thank the Commissioner for that reply and although, as she says, it is a technical subject, it is more a question of the interpretation of how we fulfil MAGP requirements.
I take it from that - although not necessarily agree with the point - that when technical measures mean selectivity they cannot be used towards MAGP targets.
That is understood.
<P>
However, from her reply it seems that somehow, even if it is a counter-compensation, measures that might be technical in nature, though not technical measures that reduce efficiency, could and therefore do have an effect on effort, and would actually then be seen as contributing towards MAGP targets.
That seems to me what actually happened.
The Commissioner mentioned that there was a trade-off in the Dutch fleet on beam length which was used as a compensation against increase in effort, which is within the MAGP target.
That seems to suggest to me that we can use decrease in efficiency methods or physical methods to actually achieve MAGP targets.
Is that true?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 NAME="Bonino">
Maybe I was not clear.
I must confirm that there are only three elements to calculate MAGP which have to reduce overcapacity as a first target.
The three elements that are taken into account are activity, tonnage and power.
<P>
The special case that you are referring to, because it was compensated was not in fact taken into account.
They have to reduce the activity, in any case.
This is the result of what I am saying.
They reduced the length of the beam but they increased their activity.
For us it was a non-starter.
Our request is that they reduce their activities.
Is that clear now?
Technical measures are additional but cannot be included in the calculation of MAGP IV.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=216 NAME="Bonino">
At the meetings held recently between the Commission and the Argentinean authorities, both before and after the adoption of the new fisheries law in that country, the Commission raised the points mentioned in the Member's query as points of great concern.
<P>
The Commission also expressed its concern that several provisions of the new law, particularly those relating to the measures the Argentinean authorities can take with regard to transzonal stocks in the sector adjoining the economic area, are contrary to international law, and the Commission pointed out that, in particular, they are contrary to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
<P>
According to the Commission, conservation measures applicable to international waters, such as those provided for by the new law, can only be taken within the scope of regional or international organizations.
The new Argentinean law on fisheries, as the Member knows, is now being considered by the Council, but at the same time the Commission has received the mandate to negotiate the creation of a regional conference or a regional area for the South Atlantic, if necessary, because the type of conservation measure proposed cannot be applied unilaterally.
<P>
This is the Commission's formal interpretation of the UN Convention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fraga Estévez">
I am grateful to the Commissioner for her answer but I would like to ask a couple of specific questions.
<P>
This question of the fisheries law is related to the notorious law on baselines for maritime zones, which gave rise to protest in its day.
As you know, that law contravenes the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
A few months ago Argentina made an amendment, and I would like to know whether or not that amendment is in accordance with the UN Convention.
<P>
My second question refers to something you mentioned: the famous South Atlantic Fisheries Organization. Mr Provan is here, and he produced a report on this subject some time ago.
I would like to know what stage that project is at, and what Argentina's position is. I understand that since the fisheries law that country has displayed opposition to this international organization, the so-called SAFO.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=218 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bonino">
With regard to defining the borders of the area, the Commission is studying the first documents forwarded by Argentina on the establishment of those borders. It remains understood, however, that any amendment, accepted by the Commission or otherwise, should be communicated to the United Nations, which, in the cases, or at least in one case we are aware of, was not applied.
<P>
So in answer to the first question, I can say that the Commission is studying the new definition of borders and may in the short term say whether the definition is consistent or not.
<P>
With regard to the second question, the Council has just given us the mandate to negotiate and we are exploring Argentina's true intentions to determine how the new fisheries law could fall under the terms of this new mandate.
Finally, I have to say that we have worked towards this negotiating mandate for a whole year, because the idea goes back to August 1995.
I think the time has come to confirm the actual availability and the actual willingness of the Argentinean authorities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Bonino.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Fraga Estévez' question marks the end of the time allotted to this block of questions, so Questions Nos 48 to 52 will be dealt with in writing.


<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, you often cannot help expressing your feelings but, as I said earlier, the clock is in charge here, not me.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 NAME="President">
Question No 53 by Jens-Peter Bonde, which has been taken over by Mrs Lis Jensen (H-0276/98)
<P>
Subject: National compliance with social directives
<P>
Will the Commission guarantee that the Member States may comply with directives in the social field by transposing them as collective agreements, even where trade union representation is below 50 %?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="Flynn">
Article 2(4) of the agreement on social policy provides that a Member State may entrust management and labour, at their joint request, with the implementation of directives adopted under the agreement.
In such a case the Member State must ensure that no later than the date on which the directive must be transposed in accordance with Article 189 of the Treaty, management and labour have introduced the necessary measures by agreement.
This is done in accordance with national law and practice, with the Member State concerned being required to take any necessary measures enabling it at any time to be in a position to guarantee the results imposed by the directive.
<P>
This provision is similar to those already incorporated into several directives in the social field and, furthermore, this principle was already acknowledged in the case law of the European Court of Justice prior to the adoption of the social protocol to the Treaty.
<P>
As a positive example of how the social partners have been associated with the implementation of directives, I would like to refer the honourable Member of Parliament to the agreement on the implementation measures concluded between the social partners' organizations in Denmark.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Jensen, Lis">
I would like to ask Commissioner Flynn a slightly more specific question, if he would kindly expand on the response he has already given.
A survey carried out by the School of Economics and Business Administration in Denmark shows that 50-60 % of employees in the private sector labour market have collective agreements.
The question applies equally to conditions for those in a situation where no collective agreement has been drawn up between the parties to the labour market.
How can implementation be assured for this remaining segment?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="Flynn">
Unfortunately, the answer is not quite straightforward.
According to the notification we have received in a specific instance in so far as the Danish authorities are concerned, the working time directive has been implemented by a combination of both statutory provisions and collective agreements.
The services of the Commission are currently undertaking an examination of the implementation measures in the light of the detailed implementation of the directive under both headings.
So we are talking about a global implementation report.
We cannot do that just yet because six Member States have yet to notify us of the implementation measures.
As soon as they do so the Commission will be able to proceed.
The matter is delayed for that reason.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Krarup">
Thank you for the information.
The working time directive is precisely what the question is aimed at since, as the Commissioner points out, the situation is such that the Danish government has announced that a relatively large segment of private sector employees are not covered by any agreement and, thus, the working time directive is not in effect for approximately 40 % of private sector employees in the Danish labour market.
The Commission has been informed of this, and although what the Commissioner states is obviously correct about no notification yet having been received from a number of other countries, it should nonetheless be possible for the Commission to take a stance on the issue and confirm that this level of implementation is not acceptable.
These questions are of enormous fundamental importance in Denmark, where many of us believe conditions in the labour market should be regulated by means of collective agreements, but on the other hand we do not believe that the current level of implementation can be considered adequate when the Danish government has announced that approximately 40 % of private sector employees are not included in any agreement whatsoever and are therefore simply not covered.
I would like the Commissioner to confirm that this level of implementation is inadequate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="Flynn">
I think it must be underlined that different directives sometimes have different aims.
That being said, some of them fall within the sole competence of the social partners, while others are regulating issues and would be the exclusive competence of public authorities.
In other words you have to be quite careful how you analyse the context of the particular directive that is involved.
We cannot take a decision until we have all the information available as to implementation.
Unfortunately we do not have it yet, but I would like to think that if the Member States comply with what we seek from them and we get the information, we will have the implementing report early next year, at which time we will be able to give you a complete answer to the basic point you have raised.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Flynn.
<P>
As the author is not present, Question No 54 lapses.
<P>
Question No 55 by Brian Simpson (H-0296/98)
<P>
Subject: "Star' Alliance
<P>
Does the current "Star' Alliance within the aviation sector fall within the scope of the European Works Council Directives?
<P>
If so, what action does the Commission intend to take?
If not, why not?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="Flynn">
<SPEAKER ID=228 NAME="Simpson">
As a supplementary, I should like to ask the Commissioner if he is saying that, basically, if this 'Star' Alliance starts to diminish the working conditions and contracts within that particular alliance the Commission will not act?
I am particularly concerned about those members of the 'Star' Alliance from the Far East who seem to have lower conditions of pay and service compared to their partners in the EU.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 NAME="Flynn">
At this stage, the 'Star' Alliance comprises only the pooling of the frequent-flyer programmes - you probably know that - i.e. common use of some lounges, check-in facilities and a better scheduling coordination.
The agreement is not binding and, in any case, it does not fall under Regulation 397/87 which applies to international transport outside the EU.
If the matter changes, perhaps you might wish to come back to the question at a later date.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Flynn.
<P>
As the author is not present, Question No 56 lapses.
<P>
Question No 57 by Bernd Posselt (H-0319/98)
<P>
Subject: Strengthening the family
<P>
In the light of the EU's latest demographic report and the alarming facts it contains, how does the Commission propose to strengthen the family as the basis of all effective social policy, and does it feel adequately supported in these endeavours by the Council and the Member States?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 NAME="Flynn">
The Commission is aware of current demographic trends and what they indicate about changes in family structures.
However, the European Commission has a limited competence in the area of policies on the family.
Our actions are based on the conclusions of the Council of Ministers responsible for family matters that took place in September 1989.
Since then the Commission has been active in promoting exchanges of information on family matters, monitoring measures taken for families in the Member States and financially supporting the promotion of family-friendly initiatives.
<P>
The exchange of information between the Member States is done through a group of national senior officials responsible for family matters, meeting several times a year at the Commission's invitation.
The next meeting will take place on 16 and 17 April.
The monitoring of measures for families in the Member States is conducted by the European Observatory on National Family Policies that the Commission set up in 1989.
A European network on family at work established by the Commission in 1994 has also been engaged in promoting family-friendly employment policies.
Innovative projects, studies and networks in relation to family-friendly policies have received support from the Structural Funds, mainly under the NOW initiative and from the action programmes on equal opportunities.
<P>
In the field of employment policy, all Member States have recognized the need for a substantially increased participation by women in the labour market and the 1998 employment guidelines state that Member States should translate their decision to promote equality of opportunity into increased employment rates for women.
At the same time it is explicitly recognized that this must be accompanied by family-friendly policies for reconciling work and family life and policies facilitating the return to paid work after an absence.
<P>
I would like to refer to the 1992 directive on pregnant workers, the 1996 directive on parental leave and the 1997 directive on part-time work in particular.
They are the main elements of the legal framework at European level which reconciles family and working life.
Parliament has been particularly supportive in its upholding of budget line B3-4108, that is measures in favour of family and children.
Although it is quite modest, the budget line enables the Commission to cofinance the promotion of familyfriendly practices and measures as well as comparative studies between the Member States.
Within the budget line's remit, the Commission performs demographic research analysis such as the demographic report which allows us to link demographic evolution and changing family patterns.
<P>
Finally, the Commission's intention is to continue the analysis of demographic trends and deepen the debate on their implications.
We are going to have a major European symposium on demographic change under the Austrian presidency.
We will do that in the latter part of the year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr Commissioner, thank you for your detailed answer.
I should just like to put two short questions to you.
You spoke primarily of working women.
I just wanted to ask if there were any studies or programmes - though particularly studies - which relate to the financial support of women or men, though it will mainly be the women who decide to devote themselves to raising children?
My second question is this: are there any studies or programmes which deal with the provision of old-age pensions for this particular group?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 NAME="Flynn">
Briefly, some work has been done on that matter.
Mostly it is done by national authorities but there is a certain element of coordination between what they do and what we are doing at Commission level.
Perhaps there is a need to go a little further in establishing the points you have made.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Flynn.
<P>
Mr Posselt's question rounds off the time allocated to this series of questions.
Questions Nos 58 to 62 will therefore be dealt with in writing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 NAME="President">
Question No 63 by Mark Watts (H-0033/98)
<P>
Subject: Proposed abolition of duty-free concessions in 1999
<P>
Is the Commission aware that the proposed abolition of duty-free sales in 1999 is estimated to result in the loss of 9 000 jobs in Kent in the United Kingdom, and a total loss of 140 000 jobs across the EU?
<P>
In the light of these independent forecasts, will it at least agree to a full study being carried out urgently to examine the social and economic impact that ending duty-free would cause?
Could it also elaborate on its proposals to cushion the impact of abolition?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 NAME="Monti">
In recent months, I have set out the Commission's position on duty-free sales within the Community on numerous occasions.
In particular, I was able to explain this position at the public hearing held on 27 October 1997 and at the sitting in November 1997.
Today, I am taking the opportunity given to me by Mr Watts to confirm that the position has not changed.
<P>
The deadline agreed back in 1991 by the Council for all those involved in the duty-free sales sector to adapt to the requirements of the single market was an exceptional measure.
This unanimous decision took financial concerns into account, which certain Members had expressed at the time.
<P>
As things stand, the Commission has also stated very clearly that it has no intention of undertaking a study into the social and economic consequences the expiry of the transitional regulations agreed by the Council could entail, thereby establishing the definitive nature of its decision.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 NAME="Watts">
I thank the Commissioner for his answer, but unfortunately he did not address the particular point regarding the proposals to ameliorate the impact of abolition which he put to the public hearing that he earlier referred to earlier.
Perhaps he could answer that particular point.
<P>
Secondly, as regards preparing for abolition, perhaps he could come to my constituency, speak to the company P&O Stena and suggest which particular members of staff they lay off and which ships they suspend from service.
That would be particularly helpful.
<P>
Thirdly, on the study, would Mr Monti confirm that, if ECOFIN vote for a study in May, as is possible and I think likely, he will enthusiastically implement that decision.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 NAME="Monti">
If I can start with the last point, I have every reason to expect that the ECOFIN Council will not ask for the Commission to conduct a study.
As a matter of fact, the issue did come up at the ECOFIN Council on two occasions, in November 1996 and again in March 1998, and as the President-in-Office of the ECOFIN Council, Mr Gordon Brown, said publicly on a recent occasion, there is no evidence of an emerging consensus within ECOFIN for any reconsideration of the decision taken unanimously in 1991.
<P>
In relation to the other two points, I can say that if we compare the solution and the problems sometimes aired by the categories concerned to the solutions provided for other professions affected by internal market legislation, customs freight forwarders, for example, did receive funds for reconversion of about ECU 30 million.
A seven year period allowing for an annual turnover of about ECU 6.5 billion does not appear, if I may say so, to be disadvantageous treatment.
<P>
Finally, I have repeatedly stated that, while the Commission is certainly not prepared to propose to the Council that the 1991 decision should be reconsidered, if there were to be proven and specific problems in certain regions or on certain transportation routes connected with the abolition of duty-free, then it will be possible for Member States, in a transparent way, to consider forms of state aid, which would of course have to be proposed by the Member States and in line with Community norms.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Monti.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, it is now 7.00 p.m., the time at which Question Time was supposed to finish. However, in view of the fact that we lost several minutes on points of order, I have asked Parliament's services if they would be kind enough to allow us to extend Question Time by ten minutes.
So we will finish at 7.10 p.m..
Mr Monti, I have two supplementary questions on the question we have just heard.
The first is from Mr Corbett, who may speak for one minute.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 NAME="Corbett">
Does the Commissioner agree that a study might be useful for a purpose other than that for which many have been asking it for, namely, to reassure the public that some of the wilder claims of job losses that will result from the loss of dutyfree are in fact perhaps an exaggeration?
A study would certainly help to clarify that.
A study might also identity the areas of specific problems that the Commissioner mentioned in his answer to the previous question.
<P>
Whereas I agree with him entirely that it is very unlikely that the Council, even if the Commission put forward such a proposal, would wish to reverse a decision taken many years ago and introduce a further tax break for the alcohol and tobacco industries - a tax break that is conditional on it being sold to international travellers, which seems preposterous - nonetheless a study would be a useful weapon in furthering this debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 NAME="Monti">
A study would be counterproductive.
I believe this very sincerely because it might well give false expectations and delay further the adjustments that might well be needed.
In fact, a very long period was given for adjustments, and it would be rather paradoxical and counterproductive if, when less than 15 months are left to the date of expiry of duty-free on intra-Eu travel, we were to engage in a study.
It is for Member States to indicate to the Commission whether they consider, on the basis of studies or any other elements that they might have available, that there is a need for a specific intervention.
<P>
Finally, it does not take a study to understand what is increasingly being perceived by public opinion, namely that duty-free is, in fact, a hidden, regressive subsidy, favouring the consumption of alcohol and tobacco to a large extent.
It is hidden because it is passed on to the general taxpayer, who is hardly aware that he is subsidizing duty-free consumption by others.
It is regressive because the ordinary taxpayer is normally less well-off than those benefiting from duty-free purchases; and, to a large extent, it sustains artificially and in a non-transparent manner the consumption of alcohol and tobacco.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 NAME="McMahon">
In view of his last answer, would the Commissioner close down the duty-free shop in the Commission for Commission staff such as himself?
Seriously though, my question is: what confidence will European citizens have in the Commission, given that Commissioner Scrivener promised away back in 1991 to carry out a study?
As the Commission has reneged on its promise, what confidence is this going to give the European Union in the Commission's honesty, integrity and determination to listen to elected representatives of the European population?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 NAME="Monti">
I understand Mr McMahon's question but I would submit to you that the Commission and the Council, following the Commission proposal in 1991, gave much more than a study.
It gave a more than seven-year adjustment period, something particularly long in terms of any adjustment.
I hardly dare touch on the subject of the confidence of European citizens in the Commission but I am sure that European citizens would hardly increase their confidence in a Commission that was to propose the continuation of a sort of hidden regressive subsidy at the expense of the general taxpayers in Europe going to a large extent into subsidizing forms of consumption that Community policies, if anything, tend to discourage.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 NAME="President">
Question No 64 by Bernie Malone (H-0228/98)
<P>
Subject: Abolition of duty-free sales in 1999
<P>
Mr Michel Vanden Abeele, the Director-General of DG XXI recently commented, in a letter to one of my constituents, that the Commission's policy of liberalization within the single market had promoted the increased competition that low cost carriers bring to the market.
<P>
An independent study by Symonds Travers Morgan has revealed that the abolition of tax- and duty-free sales will damage an otherwise healthy single market in air transport, causing a 20 % reduction in the number of routes that could otherwise expect the entry of low cost airlines by 2003, a reduction of 5 million in expected passenger levels, as well as massive job losses.
<P>
How can the Commission reconcile its professed concern for the competitive participation of low cost carriers within the single market at the same time as it presses forward with legislation which will obviously cripple these carriers, costing approximately 3000 jobs?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 NAME="Monti">
The expansion of the air transport sector has certainly favoured the development of cut-price flights and, like all others, these flights will feel the effects of the abolition of the duty-free concessions as from 1 July 1999.
<P>
In any case, the tax benefit deriving from these sales is relatively small if it is compared with other data.
One aspect that should be pointed out, in fact, is that air passenger transport has seen an increase of around 7 % and this increase certainly cannot be attributed to duty-free sales, but to other causes such as the liberalization of air transport as from 1 April 1997.
It is therefore presumed that this increase in passenger transport will continue and may give rise to broad compensation after the abolition of duty-free sales.
In other words, we want to have and we have got the benefits of the creation of a single market and, in this case, that of air transport, and it is difficult to try and gain the benefits of the single market and maintain archaic structures, which are totally incompatible with the single market, as are duty-free sales.
We also need to bear in mind that, at the moment, air transport benefits from an extremely favourable tax system, in terms of which the duty-free benefits are marginal.
<P>
In fact, total VAT exemption applies to all aircraft and the relevant equipment and intra-Community passenger transport is not yet taxed; moreover, supplies on board are currently tax-free and, unlike other means of transport, aircraft fuel and kerosene are not subject to either VAT or excise.
To conclude on this point, the Commission is aware of the fact that air transport is the means of transport which is growing fastest, and in which duty-free sales play a very marginal role.
Any restructuring of the sector should therefore be considered within the framework of the strategies for achieving ever greater efficiency and profits and not just as a result of duty-free sales.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 NAME="Malone">
I accused the Commissioner of being obstinate and arrogant at the public hearing which Parliament held.
Today, I have to tell you, Commissioner, that I find you are totally out of touch with people.
In your answer to me you say that the fiscal advantage to the air traveller will be very small.
A study that was carried out in Ireland just recently and published yesterday by SIPTU, a trade union organization, and by IBEC, representing business interests, shows quite clearly that between £15 and £17 will be added on to the cost of an airline ticket for the average traveller.
To an ordinary person that is a lot of money.
<P>
In the same letter I received from my constituent, your office said that there are a range of measures that the Commission has at its disposal to deal with any threat to employment.
Could you please define these measures, provide an estimate of the total cost of them, specify how they could be applied and outline the criteria for the allocation of these yet undefined measures?
After what Mary O'Rourke our Transport Minister has achieved in the Transport Council, you should be more optimistic about the outcome of the Ecofin meeting.
With the pressure on the various Member States from ordinary citizens, the Commission will just have to concede that a study will have to be done in this case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Monti">
I wish to thank Mrs Malone for her supplementary question.
I am not sure that the Commission is out of touch with the population.
Of course it holds a view that is different from that maintained by the duty-free lobbies but there are, of course, numerous positions taken recently by - may I say - broader representative institutions and the last one I have here is that of
<P>
COFACE, the Confederation of Family Organizations in the European Communities, notes that the current system is of virtually no interest for consumers.
Only a small percentage of consumers have the possibility of regularly buying from duty-free stores.
Furthermore, with the exception possibly of tobacco products, the advantages in price terms are often only apparent, as the competitive advantages of exemption are not always passed on to the final consumer.
<P>
(EN) And to the extent that the present duty-free system contains an element of subsidy that enables transport fares to be lower than they would be otherwise, that is the best proof that the present duty-free system implies a subsidy which is hidden and regressive, as I hinted.
In the case of transportation, as my colleague, Commissioner Kinnock, recently stated in response to one of the many letters on this point, no Member State subsidy in the form of continued tax-free sales would be possible.
He went on to say that Community rules provide Member States with the means to pursue legitimate public service goals in cases where no commercial operator will be able to meet these goals without public assistance.
This was the case in the Community guidelines on state aid to maritime transport.
I believe this would also be valid for other forms of transportation.
<P>
Finally, I stress that the Commission is certainly not insensitive to problems that might materialize from the abolition of duty-free on intra-EU travel, but it will insist that the appropriate instruments be used to tackle any such problems without re-opening an issue which, as I have stressed several times, simply implies having ordinary citizens bear the burden.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=248 NAME="Banotti">
Commissioner, it appears that you have set your face against the retention of duty-free sales.
It is interesting that in Brussels airport, at the moment, they are constructing a totally new duty-free shop in the middle of the airport.
I wonder why?
<P>
Respecting your request, I understand that the Commission is undertaking a report on commercial and retail activities in US airports.
I find it very difficult to understand when the Commission has consistently refused to undertake a similar assessment of EU airports.
Will you therefore make available to us the study done about the US airports?
<P>
I am picking up Mr Cushnahan's question here because, unfortunately, he had to leave.
I would be grateful if I could have an answer to this supplementary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 NAME="Monti">
There is no such study.
The Commission is looking at the situation in Europe and elsewhere.
We are interested in the shopping malls at US airports although there is of course no duty-free on domestic flights in the US.
We can look at those without any particular studies because they do open up encouraging possibilities for the former duty-free industry in Europe.
Although there will no longer be a duty- and tax-free system there will be captive customers around the airports and on other means of transportation and therefore a substantial demand.
Research by consumer organisations has confirmed that the duty-free prices for many goods are no more advantageous than in other shops.
There is a large captive market, even apart from the duty-free element and it is there to stay.
I have no particular axe to grind.
I have nothing against duty-free but I have a duty to implement the single market.
When we are working hard, with the support of this Parliament, to try and eliminate tax havens around Europe and promote employment, it would be illogical for me to crusade against tax havens and at the same time propose -or even consider - the continuation of localised tax havens connected with particular forms of transportation within the single market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Monti.
<P>
Since the time allocated to questions to the Commission has now expired, Questions Nos 65 to 106 will be dealt with in writing.
<P>
That concludes Question Time.
<P>
Mrs Hardstaff wishes to speak on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=251 NAME="Hardstaff">
I would ask you if you could look into the procedure by which the questions are put into the order they are on the order paper.
For example, every question in the first part of this session was tabled after my own question, which is being dealt with much later.
This is even allowing for the fact that it was actually tabled at the beginning of February and got lost.
The same is true of Council questions: at least nine questions which were tabled after my question are ahead of it.
I think there is quite a lot of resentment among Members on this issue and I would ask that this be sorted out, so that questions appear in the order in which they are submitted and there is some fairness.
<P>
Thank you very much indeed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 NAME="President">
Mrs Hardstaff, I will make sure your comment is taken into consideration.
However, I can tell you now that the first five questions are chosen by the President of Parliament, with priority being given to those considered to be most important. In other words, the choice is of a discretional nature.
The remaining questions should follow in order, as long as they relate to the specific Commissioners due to attend Question Time.
In any case, Mrs Hardstaff, I will give your comment some thought and let you know in due course.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 7.22 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Shipbuilding (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=253 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the report (A4-0101/98) by Mr Sindal, on aid to shipbuilding and a new policy on shipbuilding.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=254 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Glante">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, after 9.00 p.m. in the evening, I am almost inclined to greet everybody individually.
I am speaking on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists and have no wish to conceal the fact that I am, of course, also a Member who comes from East Germany. I still remember with gratitude the vote in this Parliament and the proposals by the Commission aimed at rectifying the problems neglected by the East German shipyards and in this respect I shall express myself in very moderate terms about the proposal.
I think the Commission's proposal is very good.
We live in an age when we must consider whether industrial policy can be ruled by means of subsidies alone.
Nevertheless, I have also made it known to my group that I - and subsequent speakers will no doubt go into this - have my difficulties with some of the amendments tabled by Parliament and the committee.
<P>
Basically it has to be said that productivity in the European shipyards has increased in recent years.
Of course it must also be pointed out that this was often due to numerous closures, lay-offs and reductions in capacity.
Unfortunately the OECD agreement was neither signed nor ratified, and I have the impression that some Member States are not angry about it at all.
<P>
In view of the crisis in Asia and the devaluation of the currencies there, the shipbuilding industry will come under increased pressure.
This has to be withstood and the Commission has submitted proposals which reduce the extent and amount of subsidies, albeit a moderate reduction.
To that extent, this is a reaction to the progress sought in productivity.
<P>
I have difficulties with some of the amendments tabled.
I am specifically concerned that in so-called Objective 1 regions, the local shipyards should not be disadvantaged in comparison with other industrial sectors in the Objective 1 regions.
We are strenuously pursuing this matter.
It is not an honour for any Objective 1 region to be labelled as underdeveloped, but more help and some regulations are still needed in order to extricate ourselves from this situation.
In this respect, I consider the proposal which has been submitted to be a good one.
All Members should examine critically the amendments tabled by the committees and other Members.
I nevertheless request that some consideration be given to the fact that our East German shipbuilding industry still has difficulties, and my colleague, García Arias, will certainly also bring up the subject of Spanish industry.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=255 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we still share your hope, Commissioner, that the OECD agreement of 1994 will still come into force.
We also appeal to the Commission and to the Member States to try again to exert pressure on the USA, so that this agreement is ratified.
Even if we succeed in this we have a further difficulty.
We really must insist that the new shipbuilding nations, such as the People's Republic of China and Poland, endorse the OECD agreement, as it is no use having only some of the countries sign up to the OECD agreement, whilst the People's Republic of China and Poland continue with their own shipbuilding policies.
<P>
We must probably now say, however, that the prospects for the OECD agreement coming into force are very slim and it is somewhat questionable whether the new shipbuilding nations will sign up to comparable regulations.
We therefore need, as the Commission proposes, a new shipbuilding policy.
But it is very important to have a shipbuilding policy which is both inward and outward looking.
I myself come from a shipbuilding city.
It is the very last time, as the Commission says, that there will be a special five-year arrangement for shipbuilding.
After that, the shipbuilding industry can no longer say "another five years and another five years' ; that cannot go on indefinitely.
<P>
It is right to propose one more special arrangement now.
We also share the view that order-related subsidies should be abolished by 31 December 2000, even if some amendments tabled in this House still seek to shake our conviction through more and more new studies.
We know what the situation is, Commissioner; we do not need any more studies.
<P>
If we look at the shipbuilding programme, there are still subsidies for lay-offs and restructuring, for innovation and environmental protection; that is enough subsidies to apply over five years.
And, I should like to say to the previous speaker, you in Mecklenburg really have no need to complain at all that your subsidies are too low. I say to you and also to my Spanish colleagues, and I mean it very seriously: it is time for change.
Therefore, we also support the original proposal from Mr Sindal - and I hope Niels can listen and will not be diverted by the women again.
So, Niels, listen! Commissioner, we in the Christian-Democratic Group support his proposal to delete paragraph 7.
<P>
There must no longer be a loophole for additional subsidies, because it is so difficult in the regions.
It is a sector-orientated policy which we are deciding upon and there can be no new distortion of competition within the European Community.
We regard that as very important, and I hope that tomorrow there will be a majority in this House for it.
<P>
Commissioner, I believe we need a clear external shipbuilding policy, because unfortunately there is no guarantee that the other countries will end their subsidies.
At present we are in agreement, and I hope the Commissioner will say something to us on this matter. The whole House is of the opinion that, if the European Member States now help the Asian countries in overcoming their financial crisis, those countries must not be allowed to abuse this in order to create advantages for their shipyards over ours, by ridding themselves of their shipyard debts and through other protectionist measures, especially when it is our taxpayers' contributions which are helping them to overcome their financial crisis.
We cannot allow that.
We must, however, also consider - and Commissioner, I should be very interested to hear your view on this subject - whether we might use the WTO or the instruments of the Union's trade policy to bolster our own position slightly, and add to our ammunition. We cannot indefinitely allow the unfair competition practices of other states to put our shipyards out of business.
I believe - in fact I insist, Mr President - that in this area of the Union's foreign policy we need a new concept, and I hope that the Commissioner will say something to us on this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=256 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Parodi">
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to reflect on a few points.
After the difficult situation and painful reorganization of the 1970s, today I have the impression that we believe that the European shipbuilding industry, which today accounts for 21 % of world employment, is, at first sight, well positioned in the world.
In reality, in my opinion, the situation is not as bright as we might think, which is clear to those living in shipbuilding cities.
<P>
The European shipbuilding industry is experiencing a revival with a great increase in demand and has at least a couple of years' work ahead. However, if we in fact analyse the actual information on the sector and the medium-term projections, we realize that the sector is characterized by surplus supply and by surplus production capacity, owing in particular to the irresponsible doubling of plant engineering capacity in the last four or five years by the Koreans.
This has happened to such an extent that today Korea alone is able to produce more ships than all the European shipyards put together.
<P>
The fact that supply exceeds demand is shown indisputably by the fact that the prices of the new constructions have fallen or, when things are going well, stagnated in all sectors.
In current dollars, a new ship today fetches the same price as it did seven or eight years ago.
<P>
Along with this worrying situation of structural imbalance, there is the currency storm that has affected many Asian countries, particularly South Korea.
The 50 % devaluation of the Korean won has led to a situation that risks having particularly serious consequences for the Community shipyards and for employment in Europe.
In fact, it has been calculated that the Koreans could reduce the prices of their ships to 30 %, with their current internal margins remaining unchanged.
<P>
In this context, I believe it essential for the EU to apply a policy that enables the European shipbuilding industry, which is appreciated throughout the world for its high technological content, to be able to compete with the same weapons with the industries of the other countries in a system of transparent and balanced competition with the same rules for everyone and without any distorting intervention by the states.
<P>
Consequently, before the OECD agreement comes into force, before deciding to end the aid, the Commission should check the state and prospects of the sector in 1999, taking appropriate measures, if necessary, to protect the sector so that the European shipbuilding industry can face up to the threats that could undermine its survival.
<P>
To conclude, the loan granted to Korea by the IMF should be negotiated with the condition that Korea undertakes to limit its ship production and operate within a system of fair and transparent competition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=257 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Riis-Jørgensen">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are debating shipbuilding policy. This is a real hot potato, because everyone has an opinion on it.
It is almost as bad as agricultural policy. If you get five farmers in a room, there will be seven different opinions.
I think it is important to realize that we must strive towards the adoption of an OECD agreement.
I am also aware that we in Europe are working hard to achieve this.
Until such times as it has been adopted, I welcome the Commission's proposal to establish some ground-rules for a transition period in the run-up to the OECD agreement.
We must remember that state aid to shipbuilding is an exception, and we must ensure that we allow the minimum acceptable level of aid, just enough to put our shipyards on an even playing field with shipyards outside Europe.
That is the balance we must strive to achieve.
<P>
Thus, we have to examine the Commission's proposal to see whether it fulfils this, and it does.
I am in agreement with the Commission on many points.
What really matters to the Liberal group is point 1, namely the need for monitoring to ensure that the rules are adhered to.
That is of the utmost importance.
Point 2 basically outlines the need for transparency with regard to where aid is being given, and reference could once again be made to the report we debated this afternoon - the Berès report - when we also touched on the question of transparency.
That is an extremely important aspect of state aid.
<P>
A third aspect is also crucial to the Liberal group and that is the question of combining the various types of aid, which actually results in a very high ceiling for support.
I am concerned about the need to prevent shipyards from gaining aid through regional areas.
Thus, I would very much like us to support Amendment No 29 in order to avoid unfair competition within Europe so that shipyards will not in future be located only in areas that are eligible for regional aid.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=258 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, the Commission's new policy on shipyards is not in fact all that new.
It operates within a framework we are already familiar with, and which has had dramatic impacts on Europe's ship repairing industry.
<P>
The Commission proposes to place yet more restrictions on the production capacity of European shipyards, with the consequent loss of still more jobs, the complete abolition of operating aid in 2000, but allowing aid to be given for closures and to facilitate the further concentration of production in the few, powerful shipyards that are left.
All this is proposed while ignoring the fact that demand in coming years is forecast to be high and that the European Union's international competitors are continually increasing their production capacity and adopting support measures.
<P>
For countries like Greece, such a policy means abandoning and selling off a strategically important branch which has already sustained irreparable damage with incalculable consequences for the fabric of society and for the country's economy.
<P>
The European Union has learned nothing, either from the dramatic consequences of its policy or from the stance of the United States, which reserve for themselves the right to use only ships built in the USA for internal schedules.
Unfortunately, the rapporteur too is proposing that aid should be restricted still further, competition should be intensified to extreme levels, and essentially, that shipyards should continue to wither away.
<P>
Ultimately, what do competition and the existence of a shipyard industry and jobs mean for us? We cannot accept these proposals, whose implementation would complete the destruction that began long ago.
On the contrary, we call on the Commission to adopt measures to support the European industry, if necessary even ignoring the OECD agreement, so that shipyards can survive the annihilating and unfair competition from third countries.
We ask it to undertake specific initiatives at international level for the adoption of measures which will compel renewal of the ageing fleet - an essential prerequisite for improving shipping safety and bringing recovery to the shipyards - and to have ships checked by the state in which the port is located. It should also ban the entry of low-specification vessels into its ports as a way to bring about their withdrawal, and tackle the problems of taxation and social dumping in the field.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=259 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, we realize that these subsidies are necessary to create a level playing field on the world market.
They can, however, only be accepted if such aid is also transparent.
For this purpose the Commission must, in our view, procure its own right of verification.
It can be seen that there is worldwide over-capacity in the shipbuilding industry and it would therefore be absurd to further subsidise these existing capacities.
It would be much more sensible to subsidise innovative projects in this field, to give more intensive support to research and development and in this way to create an opportunity for genuine future markets in shipbuilding.
<P>
I should like to give an example from a very poor region in Sachsen-Anhalt, where a small shipyard, Roszlau on Elbe, had no chance of further contracts. It initiated a crucial innovation, namely the building of flat-bottomed boats, which do not require rivers to be widened for their use.
The environment creates jobs - that is all I can say - and in this case it succeeded!
We are talking about a new market which is urgently needed throughout Europe, which needs to be provided for, which will also be of global interest and which, at the same time, can secure jobs which had already been written off.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=260 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Buffetaut">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, what is the context in which we are considering the Sindal Report?
<P>
As has been emphasized by our colleague André Sainjon in his opinion, the OECD agreement whose aim was to eliminate direct aid to shipbuilding was stillborn.
In effect, it had to be so, as the United States Congress did not ratify it. This was only to be expected, as the American authorities have no reluctance whatsoever in subsidising their own shipyards.
<P>
At the same time, South Korea, which is going through the economic turbulence that we all know about, is preparing for a future as an even more formidable competitor.
The 'Challenges' newspaper this month emphasizes however that the financial crisis is temporary.
The country should soon return to normal, thanks to IMF funds.
The shipyards will work hard to catch up on lost time, and their sales people will once again be going around the globe to put spokes in the wheels of the Japanese and Europeans.
<P>
This is the context in which the Commission is apparently persisting stubbornly in doing away with direct aid in Europe, and strangely enough is sticking to the line which was defended at the time of negotiations on the OECD agreement, although these negotiations foundered.
The position is all the more astonishing since the aid from the IMF, in the final analysis, does in fact boil down to a subsidy paid by Japan, the United States and Europe to begin a high risk economic policy.
We therefore completely agree with the general comments made by André Sainjon and the amendments proposed by the Commission on External Economic Relations.
We believe indeed that it is extremely dangerous to commit to a date to end aid to orders, without prior analysis of the market situation and of whether or not there are non-competitive practices afoot.
Similarly, we are in favour of eliminating any regional aid which would risk introducing unacceptable distortions in competition.
<P>
In conclusion, once more, the Commission appears show either an strangely naive commitment to free trade, or an overwhelming ideological blindness.
Industrial policy and commercial policy, on the contrary, require realism and pragmatism.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=261 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank Mr Sindal for his splendid report. I agree with its main message that the shipbuilding industry should be left to recover in the longer term without state aid.
<P>
Mr Sindal's report, however, is turning into something that is unfortunately dividing the southern and northern European states.
Many of our friends in Spain, for example, have been very concerned about possible cuts to aid, and that is quite understandable.
We in the Nordic countries have already cut shipyard aid though, and we have noticed that the shipyards have actually been coping better since the cuts were introduced.
We have lost some, but the sturdier ones have remained, and they are competitive.
The policy of support had actually been distorting the picture in this sector.
<P>
I agree with Mr Sindal that the prompt implementation of the OECD agreement is especially important for the normalization of world ship markets.
The Commission, in its estimation, however, is rather gratuitously optimistic.
The USA, as you know, does not seem very willing to ratify the agreement.
The Commission should put more pressure on the USA as, if the agreement is not ratified, we will have to produce yet another directive on shipbuilding when the old 7th Directive comes to an end at the end of the year.
<P>
The present jungle of aid to shipbuilding has led to unfair competitive advantages between one European shipyard and another.
The EU must therefore aim to guarantee similar benefits to the industry both in Europe and overseas.
In this we must obviously be prepared for competition from countries where production costs are low.
<P>
Aid that differs from country to country and region to region, like regional aid and aid for structural change, is now making the status of the different European shipyards a variable factor.
I myself proposed an amendment to this report, in which I suggested the checking of the overlapping of aid and variable aid systems for the years 1999-2000.
The Commission has not itemized its aid programme meticulously enough for the years to come and this might lead to overlap instead of cuts.
My proposal for an amendment did not, however, get any response, even from my own group, and thus I did not consider it wise to present it to you here.
<P>
I assume that modern vessels are very intelligent. They thus call for much technological development.
They are high-tech products, and that is what we Europeans have to face up to.
<P>
Shipbuilding contracts have to be made in the knowledge that the industry in the Community is being assured of reasonable and uniform conditions for competition.
The ultimate aim of the EU should be that the shipbuilding industry in the longer term recovers without aid.
That would be consistent with the OECD agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=262 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pomés Ruiz">
Mr President, for a long time shipbuilding has been subject to strong commercial pressure from third countries - such as South Korea, China and others - which are causing serious complications to the market due to, among other things, the competitive devaluations of their currencies, with the passive consent of the International Monetary Fund.
<P>
Furthermore, there already is a suitable framework designed to realign the market, born of consensus and backed by the OECD.
Of course, it would be better if the United States and China were to sign it, but as a framework it is good.
<P>
In that context, we Spanish Members of the People's Party believe we should oppose any regulation which directly or indirectly might allow a reduction in the current system of aid to shipyards.
In the current market situation, we think it would be irresponsible to commit to withdrawing contract-related aid from shipyards from the year 2000.
<P>
We also disagree with the Sindal report's criticisms of any regional aid which the shipyards might currently be receiving.
Everybody knows that if a shipyard closes in a depressed area with a high unemployment level, the consequences for the workers are far worse than when a shipyard closes in the prosperous countries of the north, where there are jobs.
In addition, the Maastricht Treaty states that all the Union's policies should take their inspiration from the principle of economic cohesion.
<P>
Those arguments, and others, lead us to oppose the Sindal report.
We cannot support the proposed reduction in aid to shipbuilding, especially in the international context we have just been describing.
The OECD agreement should form the framework for regulating our aid in the future.
Moreover, every time a shipbuilding job is destroyed in Europe, another one is created in South Korea.
This is not the time to commit to any reduction in aid, unless in the context of the OECD agreement, which is good for Europe and good for all shipyards.
So it makes no sense for us to want to be more demanding than the established framework. We will vote against a possible toughening up of the 7th Directive, and we think it would be a very good thing if it were prolonged.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=263 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Girão Pereira">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, on several occasions the Parliament has drawn attention to the vital importance of adopting common standards for the shipbuilding market which is, after all, the ultimate objective of the OECD agreement.
<P>
We share this view and agree that the European Union should not submit proposals that might jeopardize the agreement's ratification.
On the contrary, every effort should be made to ensure that it enters into force.
Meanwhile, since it is impossible to achieve that objective, principally on account of the United States' protectionist measures, we welcome the Commission's proposal to extend the 7th Directive and to draw up a new shipbuilding policy.
<P>
We would, however, like to make two comments in this respect.
We consider the 31 December 2000 deadline for operating aid to be inappropriate and premature, particularly if competition is further distorted, for instance, by dumping or by the Far East crisis.
Before a decision is taken to eliminate aid, the most thorough possible analysis should be made of the situation of Community shipyards.
<P>
Our second point, briefly, relates to the rigorous compliance, application and monitoring of the new legislative framework.
The regulation should contribute to ensuring that the existing inequalities in competition between European shipyards do not increase.
Professionals in this sector frequently state that the playing field is not level, on account of local subsidies and aid which infringe the rules of competition.
We feel that the Commission has an important role to play in this respect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=264 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Moreau">
Mr President, over the last twenty years, the number of employees in European Union shipyards has fallen from 280 000 to less than 80 000.
<P>
In France, the number of employees has fallen from 32 000 to less than 5 000, and many yards have closed.
This situation, which is already catastrophic, would have been aggravated still further if the OECD agreement of July 1994 had been applied, as its aim was to eliminate aid while maintaining the American protectionist legislation arising from the Jones Act and reserving a monopoly to the American merchant fleet shipbuilders.
<P>
The proposal for a regulation from the Commission aimed at banning operating aid from 31 December 2000 anticipates the OECD agreement, which has still not been ratified by the United States.
<P>
Our group favours neither the early application of the OECD agreement, nor the fixing of a date to get rid of aid.
Rather, it would be necessary to renegotiate the OECD agreement by taking into account changes in the world market, and more particularly the Asian crisis, which very much looks like leading to more dumping by Far Eastern shipbuilders.
<P>
Quite the contrary of what has been planned, we ask that measures be taken to promote the shipbuilding and maritime business in the Member States. We should give them a boost, by putting right the unfair competitive practices at global level, by maintaining the system of State aid, and introducing Community preference for shipbuilding, in order to promote the purchase of ships built in European yards.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=265 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, shipbuilding is a global industry and should be approached as such.
It should not be viewed from a regional or national perspective.
The relevant market is the global market.
The Commission's proposal unfortunately does not take this sufficiently into account.
Moreover, it goes against agreements which have been made on cutting back subsidies for shipyards whilst reducing capacity.
<P>
The sector has been going through a process of reorganization for years.
This proposal increases the risk that capacity might creep up with the aid of government support.
This would wipe out in one fell swoop the organizational achievements which have already been made.
<P>
The Commission document does not mesh with European competition policy.
It even flagrantly contravenes the principles of the internal market; one yard may get 3 to 9 % in aid, whereas another may get 60 to 70 %.
Paragraph 7 regarding regional aid should therefore be deleted.
The restructuring aid is also completely superfluous.
With these proposals the European Commission is killing off the best European shipyards, whilst lesser yards are maintained artificially.
A recent study by Ernst and Young highlights this conclusion.
<P>
The strategic importance of the European shipbuilding industry is evident.
We want to continue to be able to build our own ships, even if we are forced to help the sector.
But let us not create a mess with all kinds of obscure regulations within the European Union, and squander tax revenue.
It will not be of any help to the sector itself.
The ultimate goal must still be the abolition of all types of government support, so that every yard gets the price it deserves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=266 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pérez Royo">
Mr President, the report on aid to shipbuilding which we are debating tonight refers to matters of great importance for the European Union and particularly for certain regions. One such region is Andalusia, especially the provinces of Cadiz and Seville, where shipbuilding is virtually the only heavy industry still in existence, although it is experiencing enormous difficulties.
<P>
The shipbuilding sector is in crisis, as the honourable Members are well aware. Furthermore, it is a sector which is greatly exposed to competition, especially from Asia, as has been underlined several times this evening.
The production capacity and actual production of South Korea alone are greater than for the whole of the Community.
Furthermore, as has also been stressed tonight, that ability to compete is reinforced by the strong devaluation of the Korean won, caused by monetary instability in Asia.
<P>
For that reason it is important to call on the Commission to exert pressure on the US Congress, to get them finally to ratify the OECD agreement on competition conditions in the shipbuilding sector.
And not just in the context of the OECD agreement, either: there is also the World Trade Organization, where the Commission should make its voice heard in order to achieve fair competition conditions for the world market.
<P>
In its regulation, the Commission proposes that contract-related aid should cease on 31 December 2000, but the recitals of the same regulation introduce a safeguard clause to cover that eventuality.
It specifically says: "Whereas, one year before that date the Commission will monitor the market situation and appraise whether European yards are affected by anti-competitive practices.
If it is established at that or a later stage that industry is being caused injury by anti-competitive practices including injurious pricing, the Community will consider introducing appropriate measures...' .
<P>
Well, Commissioner, we are very worried that if this study were carried out, the conclusion would be that in fact anti-competitive practices are still being used in the world market. If that were the case, we hope the Commission would be up to the situation, and come up with suitable measures to solve this extremely serious problem.
So we are surprised that the safeguard clause I quoted from the recitals nevertheless fails to be reflected in the actual text of the regulation, and we are strongly in favour of it being formally incorporated into it.
<P>
We are also in favour of retaining Article 7 in the regulation. Several speakers this evening have said that this article distorts competition, but it does nothing of the sort.
It is founded on the principles of regional policy so it could be said that, even without being specifically mentioned in the body of the regulation, aid arising out of regional policy would still be applicable.
<P>
Lastly, Mr President, I listened carefully to the words of my compatriot Mr Pomés Ruiz of the Group of the European People's Party, who expressed clear views on this regulation.
It just remains for me to say one thing: the Spanish People's Party, to which Mr Pomés Ruiz belongs, currently has a seat in the Council of Ministers.
Let us Spaniards hope that the stance taken within the Council by the Spanish Ministry of Industry is as firm as the one we have heard tonight.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=267 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
<SPEAKER ID=268 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Torres Couto">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the House is today discussing the creation of a new Community legislative framework for the granting of aid to the European shipbuilding industry.
<P>
The objective here is to fulfill the principles enshrined in the Treaty by providing the shipbuilding sector with fair and uniform conditions of competition within the Community so that, subsequently, the sector may survive without state aid, in compliance with market rules and conditions.
<P>
In this connection, the agreement signed in 1994 between the European Union, Japan, South Korea, Norway and the United States, under the auspices of the OECD, which should have entered into force on 1 January 1996, may today be said to be a dead letter in that, under constant pressure from US shipyards, the US Congress has failed to ratify the agreement.
<P>
This position may be understood in the light of the fact that, over and above the many millions of dollars allocated in aid to the opening of a shipyard in Philadelphia, the US authorities wish to add a new payment with which the US Navy may openly finance the construction of non-military vessels.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, shipbuilding today is undeniably a global industry and the European shipbuilding industry should enjoy the same conditions as its international competitors.
Therefore, steps should be taken to extend the standards in force within the European Union to a global level, preventing any distortion of competition.
It is essential to incorporate the existing instruments of economic policy, together with those to be created in the future, within a policy which seeks to achieve a uniform international shipbuilding market without distortions of competition and without dumping of any kind.
<P>
The United States' protectionist measures, China's total freedom to ignore commitments of this type, together with the crossed subsidy mechanisms made possible by the vertical and horizontal composition of the Japanese and South Korean shipbuilders undermine the objectives of achieving uniformity.
<P>
South Korea's position, which combines its 25 % market share, which it clearly aims to increase, with a devaluation of the won in excess of 50 %, has had and continues to have disastrous effects on the world market.
For instance, the increase in the number of jobs in Korean shipyards in the last decade is equal to the number of jobs lost in my country's shipbuilding and repair yards.
<P>
It is therefore urgent to force countries like South Korea to correct the imprudent industrial policy they have pursued and force them to eliminate their excess capacity.
Thus, the 7th Directive should be extended.
The Commission should maintain the 31 December 2000 deadline for eliminating subsidies if it ascertains that anti-competition practises do not exist.
If that is not the case, then it should be extended, until at least 31 December 2003, the date on which this regulation expires.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=269 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García Arias">
Mr President, I am glad to see we are joined tonight by the two Commissioners dealing with this matter, in the contexts of industrial policy and competition policy.
It would have been nice if Sir Leon Brittan had also been here, because of the international importance of the subject.
<P>
I am not going to repeat here what everybody has been saying about the international situation.
What I want to do is put the following question to the Commissioners: what aspect of the world situation has changed, for there to be this change in attitude in the Community strategy towards defending the shipbuilding sector?
So far we have been prolonging the directive while waiting to see what happened with the international agreement. Also, there has been the crisis in Asia, and all the current phenomena we have just been talking about here.
The Commission now realizes, as we all know from the newspapers, that European companies have lost international contracts or tenders because obviously those devaluations, that excess capacity, and perhaps that indirect aid being diverted from the IMF aid, are having an effect.
<P>
So, what has happened to make us change our strategy?
Is it because the Nordic countries have joined?
That is what can be deduced from what we are hearing here in Parliament.
Is that the international change which has taken place?
In the debate on this question, Parliament's position is that we should not set a date for the prolongation of the directives, because as soon as we set a date we are adopting and announcing unilateral policies.
And now it turns out that we have here the regulation which announces that unilateral disarmament on the part of the European Union.
<P>
Mr President, in view of what we have been hearing I would like to say two things.
I go a little further than what has been said by my colleague Mr Pérez Royo and the Spanish People's Party.
I would like to hear the Minister declare publicly that he is defending that position at the Industry Council.
I think it would be very interesting and very important for the shipyards and the Spanish regions to know that that position is being defended because, as we are hearing, that does not seem to be the case.
However, at this time of night I do not wish to go any deeper into the question.
I would prefer it if the two Commissioners here - and I wish Sir Leon were here too - would tell us what change has occurred for us now to find ourselves with a proposal for our unilateral disarmament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=270 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, after having as is customary, thanked and congratulated Mr Sindal and the draftsmen of the opinions, and our two Commissioners for their presence here, I wish to begin my speech on the future of aid to shipbuilding by making three observations.
<P>
Firstly, in the course of the past five years, every time a job has been lost in the European shipbuilding industry, another job has been created in the Korean shipbuilding industry, and our sacrifices have therefore been perfectly useless.
Secondly, in Korea, it is neither low wages nor industrial organization which has made Korea dominant, but the cross guarantees of the conglomerates, supported by the Korean government, making actual financial backing unnecessary.
Thirdly, in Europe, every time aid is given to a shipyard in difficulty, the European Commission demands a reduction in capacity, whereas of course in Korea, Japan and the United States nothing of the sort happens.
<P>
The result of all this can be summarised in four points.
Firstly, Europe has imposed on itself measures which its competitors did not.
Secondly, tens of thousands of jobs have been destroyed with all that ensues in terms of social difficulties and misery.
Thirdly, Europe has lost a substantial market share.
Fourthly, contrary to what occurred in other industrial sector, in particular the steel industry, there is no guarantee that what is left of our production capacity will actually last.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, a few months ago, we nearly hit rock bottom in this area, as aid under the 7th Directive was about to disappear on behalf of an OECD agreement that our competitors had not even ratified.
For once, we all together were able to say no.
Today it is being proposed to us that the European Union should unilaterally apply, to itself, the principles set out in the OECD agreement, although it is not ratified.
And here I say once again that we must be more pragmatic.
If in the year 2000, we see the market is sufficiently healthy for us to be able to do without aid, I will doubtless agree to it being done away with.
But today, who could say as much?
The Commission itself acknowledges the need for appropriate measures although it cannot say what these are.
So now, I beg of you, do not shut the doors.
But if we are to shut the doors, let us at least keep the keys, and between now and then we shall be able to study exactly the changes in the market before fixing final dates and taking definitive measures.
Shipbuilding is not an industry like any other. That is why I call on our Parliament to be cautious, and I call on the Commission to accept the amendments which I hope will be voted through and which will allow us between now and the end of the year 2000 enough margin for manoeuvre.
Once and for all, in this sector, as in many other sectors, we should, Mr President, stop being masochistic.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=271 NAME="van Miert">
<SPEAKER ID=272 NAME="Sindal">
If I could have your attention, Mr van Miert - thank you for your reply and for contributing positively this evening.
This is a consultation procedure, and I think this process is in fact intended to help expose the problems facing not only the Commission, but also the citizens of Europe, and I believe we can all sympathise with one another.
However, I do also look forward to the Commission and the Council coming up with a workable solution.
That was one point I wanted to make.
<P>
I am actually speaking in response to criticism from some Members before the break to the effect that the procedure prevents the various opinions from those committees asked to give an opinion from reaching the corresponding committees in time, thus preventing them from being heard.
As rapporteur of this proposal, I would like to say that I have endeavoured to get this put back a little, but the fact is that British Presidency wants the matter settled in May, and the Commission did not want it to be postponed.
I am saying this with regard to the protocol.
At some point, we must learn to deal with matters in their correct order.
This is my response to criticism from my two colleagues this afternoon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=273 NAME="van Miert">
Mr President, I wish simply to make good an unpardonable omission.
I did not even congratulate Mr Sindal on his excellent report.
I deeply regret this, as I know how hard he has worked, and I hope that my omission now has been made good.
<P>
I was so keen to give a quick response to the comments of substance, that I forgot to congratulate you, but I do so, believe me, with all my heart and with conviction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=274 NAME="President">
Our congratulations echo yours, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Passenger vehicles
<SPEAKER ID=275 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0113/98) by Mr Murphy, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on special provisions for vehicles used for the carriage of passengers comprising more than eight seats in addition to the driver's seat, and amending Council Directive 70/156/CEE (COM(97)0276 - C4-0545/97-97/0176(COD)).
<P>
I welcome Mr Bangemann, who joined us during the previous debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=276 NAME="Murphy">
Mr President, I should like to begin by putting on record my thanks to Parliament services for assisting with this very complicated dossier, the Commission for its assistance and, in particular, the bus builders of Europe, the bus operators of Europe and those people who use the buses of Europe, for their great assistance in drawing up this report.
<P>
Yet again Parliament is making one of its traditional errors.
We spent the whole of this morning contemplating our own budgetary navel.
That is important to us but here we are this evening, as a Parliament, talking about ship-building and buses and coaches which are very relevant to the citizens of Europe.
I know which reports my constituents in towns like Wolverhampton and Dudley would like to see us talking about in front of the media and not here in front of a few interpreters and a few hardy souls such as ourselves.
<P>
I welcome the Commission's proposals.
They are an important step forward towards the completion of the single market.
They protect national and regional preferences in vehicles and in this respect, from the United Kingdom's point of view, I am pleased that our traditional double-decker buses - and in London the Routemaster buses - are under no threat whatsoever from Europe.
I am pleased to be able to say that.
<P>
Also, very importantly, I welcome the mandatory provision for disabled accessibility to class I vehicles.
This is very important.
As the rapporteur I have spoken widely to various interest groups, as I said at the beginning of my speech.
Not all are going to be happy with my proposals but I can assure you that I did my best to meet all their main aspirations in a realistic, technical and cost-effective way.
<P>
There are a few key points from my report that I would like to bring to the Commission's attention and to invite their support.
Firstly, we are widening the single market here.
But I would ask that instead of adopting a derogation approach to vehicles which are not typical throughout the European Union, such as double-decker buses and midi-buses - which are used in certain parts of the European Union, I think we ought to allow type approval for them all, provided they are safe and not a hazard to citizens.
We should grant them type approval.
Nobody has to actually use them but why separate them out?
Why not have a complete market in buses and coaches?
I would urge the Commission to look at my Amendments Nos 4, 5, 28, 29 and 41 in that respect.
<P>
Secondly, we ought to widen the accessibility provisions to include class II vehicles.
The Commission is currently involved in a study looking at the technical feasibility of accessibility for class II vehicles.
It is my prediction that Commission study will report in favour of mandatory accessibility provisions for those vehicles before the Council has even adopted its first common position.
We, as a Parliament, ought to be looking at class I and class II vehicles because this is technically feasible.
I have seen the vehicles, I have been on them.
Included in that we ought to start a study into class III vehicles, coaches and class A vehicles and minibuses.
<P>
The key challenge to this House is to accept that we have a duty here to widen accessibility as far as is technically and affordably possible.
I say to my colleagues in the EPP group on this: please accept this challenge; what I am saying is reasonable and achievable.
I am not coming forward with some super-fantastic idea here.
I would say to the EPP and the UPE groups: please, let us put this in at first reading; let us test the waters.
I believe that by the time we get to our second reading, the Commission will be backing us on class II vehicles.
<P>
I would not want to waste what is a golden opportunity.
I myself know how difficult it is to get on and off buses if you have a slight disability.
I had a broken ankle a couple of years ago.
It is impossible to get on and off vehicles with high steps.
A friend of mine told me about a woman at a bus depot in Wolverhampton who had a child in a push-chair. She had to wait for different vehicles to pass until the right one came along, with a low floor, so that she could actually get on that vehicle.
<P>
I am saying here, this evening: let us take this opportunity to widen the single market, to increase the accessibility provisions from class I to class II, with the various bits and pieces of technical amendments we require.
<P>
There has been a lot of fuss made about my report in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
That has been based largely on a series of misunderstandings.
As far as I am concerned, this is an important piece of single market legislation; it is an important report for the citizens of Europe.
But what is more, I can assure you it is technically feasible, undoubtedly affordable, and eminently achievable.
I think it is a good response to a good Commission proposal.
I ask the House to support it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=277 NAME="Schmidbauer">
Mr President, Commissioner, the directive on the regulation of vehicles with more than eight seats in addition to the driver's seat - generally known as buses - is aimed at standardizing the type approval system in the context of the Single Market and at the same time improving safety.
The whole report is very technical; nevertheless, these technical details have considerable repercussions for the people.
The Commission has fortunately taken into account accessibility for people with restricted mobility, but it is the fine details which are causing the problems.
I have therefore mainly addressed this problem area in my opinion.
I thank the rapporteur for having incorporated to a large extent the opinion of the Committee on Transport and Tourism in his report.
<P>
In its proposals on accessibility, the Commission concerns itself solely with wheelchair-bound persons with strong arm muscles.
We intend to extend the concept of "persons with reduced mobility' to include not only all disabled persons, but also elderly people and those who, for various reasons, have difficulty in boarding; for example, passengers with heavy luggage, passengers with pushchairs or bicycles and even pregnant women.
This new definition of the term will entail a whole series of technical changes which will, however, make it possible and/or easier for people to use public transport.
<P>
The second fundamental change which I propose is to stipulate accessibility for persons with reduced mobility for all types of vehicle.
We want to have this accessibility not only for local but also for long-distance buses.
Boarding aids should be available for at least one door.
We are not satisfied with a promise from the Commission that it will submit a proposal on this subject in the near future, because it does not want to make a decision at present as to the best technical solution.
<P>
We have waited years for this directive and have repeatedly demanded mandatory obstacle-free design.
We do not want to be put off any longer.
<P>
In non-binding declarations, demands for the integration of people with disabilities are made repeatedly.
With the acceptance of the amendments tabled, we have an opportunity to make a start on integration, at least in the field of transport.
About 10 % of the population lives with some form of disability.
A large proportion of these people have difficulty in using the roads.
They are reliant on public transport.
Because of their reduced mobility it is important for them to be able to get out and about, to be able to lead an independent life.
Public transport must be designed in such a way that it does not constitute an obstacle for this group of people, so that they can reach their place of work, but also so that they can participate in leisure activities, reach holiday destinations or keep up family or social contacts.
<P>
Alongside people with disabilities, there are approximately 100 million elderly people in the EU, and this figure - as we know from demographic statistics - is set to climb even higher.
Elderly people are particularly reliant upon public transport.
It is estimated that about 50 % of these people do not have a private car at their disposal.
It must be made possible for all of them to gain easy access to public transport, thereby saving them from the threat of isolation.
However, it also makes sense, from the economic point of view, to invest in the additional costs of removing the various obstacles.
The assertion that this is too expensive is simply wrong. According to the most recent calculations, it does not even amount to 10 % of the total investment.
Offset against this is a large number of potential new users, if obstacle-free design enables them to use the service.
<P>
I appeal to all Members to vote for the amendments to the report, in order to make integration something which is there for all to see and experience.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=278 NAME="Billingham">
Mr President, I add my congratulations and approval of this report and I praise Simon Murphy for the assiduous and sensible way in which he has crafted this proposal.
At the same time I acknowledge the work the Commissioner has played in it too.
The details contained in the report, as has already been said, are the result of extensive consultation with all the key interest bodies.
The report has gained approval from very diverse organizations: from manufacturers and industry, trade union representatives as well as consumer and disability groups.
<P>
During the passage of this report through EMAC the depth of the research into detail that Simon Murphy had carried out was evident to all of us.
It is a proposal for a Council directive which takes a positive step towards the completion of the single market and at the same time provides a framework for the harmonization of construction standards between all Member States which in itself will engender and encourage trade between them.
<P>
Important though these aspects are, the prime reason why the citizens of Europe will recommend the Murphy report is the emphasis it rightly places on safety and accessibility for everyone.
Getting on and off buses is the point at which most accidents happen, especially to those who are vulnerable.
Alongside the recommendations of low-floor buses, buses which in effect kneel at the kerbside to give easier access, many other safety features are contained in this report.
All of these will make all of our travel, on coach or bus safer and more risk free.
<P>
Let me underline once again that this directive will only apply to new buses and will not threaten double-decker buses or Routemaster buses.
Tomorrow we vote in this House and I hope we will keep the integrity of the Murphy report with its focus on helping passengers with reduced mobility, disabled people, the elderly, small people, parents with children and pushchairs and - dare I say, Commissioner - nimble grannies-to-be who, in the very near future, could be the beneficiaries of this report and be grateful to it.
<P>
Finally, and unsurprisingly, need I remind the Commissioner that very similar transport modes already exist in my constituency of Northamptonshire and Blaby where buses have been pioneered with great success which do just what the Murphy report recommends: low-floor buses which kneel to let people on and off are already a feature of our local travel and much welcomed by the users.
The Murphy report is splendid and prepares the way for better and safer public transport in the future.
Parliament would be well-advised to give it splendid and resounding support tomorrow and I am confident it will.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=279 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wibe">
Mr President, I would like to begin by saying that I am very impressed by Mr Murphy's work.
He is dealing with an extremely complicated directive, but he has clearly mastered it down to the smallest detail.
I also appreciate the rapporteur's clear main thrust for amendments, which is to make it easier for disabled people to have access to public transport.
<P>
However, I would still question whether this type of directive should really be dealt with in such a detailed way in this Parliament.
It is still an extremely complicated directive with a lot of diagrams and formulas which are extremely difficult to understand for people other than experts.
I wonder whether the best solution for any similar reports in future would not be to make a statement of principle and then leave it to the experts to work out the details.
I may be wrong, but allow me just as an amateur in this area to point out some things which surprise me a little.
These include, for example, Amendment No 54 from Mr Murphy.
It discusses the fact that the text on buses showing the destination should be white or yellow on a black background and at least 12 cm high.
It is possible that this is the most readable at the moment, but it is quite conceivable that a technology may be developed tomorrow which makes it best for the visually impaired to have a black text on a white background.
I wonder if it would not be better just to say that people should use the best available technology.
<P>
The same amendment also says that the destination should be announced by recorded voice, inside and outside the bus, when the bus stops at bus stations etcetera.
In the bus I can understand, but should the destination also be announced by a loudspeaker outside the bus too?
I think that would lead to a terrible racket in many towns where there are a lot of buses.
In addition, it says that the voice should be recorded.
In Sweden we have buses which travel perhaps 300-400 kilometres and may stop only two or three times on the route because we have such large distances between towns and villages.
In that case it might be simpler for the driver to do as he does today, which is to say that we have now arrived at Burträsk or wherever it may be.
<P>
Another matter which does not relate to any amendment, but which is part of the directive itself and is mentioned in Amendment No 87, concerns the fact that when buses have a wheelchair lift they should have three flashing lights and an audible signal when the lift is in operation.
With current technology such wheelchair lifts cannot be controlled remotely from the driver's seat because it is too dangerous.
That means that the driver must go out and stand by the wheelchair when it is raised.
I therefore wonder again whether it is necessary to introduce a requirement for an audible signal when this happens.
Lights may be appropriate, but audible signals are perhaps a bit doubtful.
<P>
As I said before, I am an amateur on the question of such technical matters. They were just a few comments.
I would like to return to my initial point which is that I think that, given the difficult material, Mr Murphy has done an excellent job.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=280 NAME="Howitt">
Mr President, it is now two years since we in this Parliament passed the lift directive which was setting a precedent that legislation for Europe's single market could and must be used to enable access for disabled people.
That precedent was then enshrined by agreements within the Treaty of Amsterdam, the draft Treaty of European Union.
Tonight we face our next test in addressing the buses and coaches directive and addressing too an issue which is most campaigned about amongst Europe's 35 million disabled people - the right to accessible public transport.
<P>
I congratulate Simon Murphy on this report and the amendments which he has tabled.
These are important amendments which everyone in this Parliament should support.
The amendments ensure that the definition of disability is not just one for wheelchair users but for all disabled people, including blind people and deaf people, and, as my colleague Mrs Schmidbauer has said, for pregnant women, people with children, people with heavy shopping, older people and others.
There are many people who will benefit from that amendment.
<P>
I call for support for the amendments which recognize specifically the needs of blind and partially-sighted people, including internal lighting and colour contrasts within buses and, for deaf people, to ensure visual displays for their information needs.
I support Simon Murphy's amendment to extend the provision from Class 1 to Class 2 buses so that double-decker buses and tourist coaches also enable disability access.
Even if the Commission tonight opposes the extension of this directive to inter-urban services, it should give us a clear commitment in advance to implement the study which it has launched.
I hope the Commissioner will respond directly to this point tonight.
<P>
I call on Parliament to support our amendments to reduce the initial step height to 24 cm or to ensure a boarding aid.
These are the only standards which genuinely ensure access for disabled people.
After all, this is only consistent with the findings of the research on low-floor buses which was published by the Commission itself as long ago as 1995.
I would appeal to the right of the Parliament, the Group of the European People's Party, to join us in supporting the amendment but I look in vain for its presence here tonight and for its contribution to this debate.
<P>
Instead, I send a simple message to disabled people in Europe.
This proposal has been delayed in Brussels because of the long fight which has been engaged to ensure that all new buses in our towns and cities from the year 2001 will offer full rights of access for disabled people.
It is a very significant victory and one that I commend to the House tonight.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=281 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, many years ago the European Community introduced pan-European standards for tractor seats.
We are still waiting for a solution for the electric plug.
We have gathered a great deal of experience in the field of standardization, and we have also been punished very severely for a great deal of our standardization, for example the angle of curvature of bananas.
<P>
Today we are talking about standardization in the case of vehicles for the carriage of passengers.
This is a very important area.
At this point, I thank the rapporteur, Mr Murphy, for his impressive commitment and his understanding of the detailed solutions mentioned.
The Group of the European People's Party largely supports these results, particularly as regards persons with reduced mobility.
<P>
I myself have proposed in committee that the definition of disabled should be made more specific and that it should be extended.
We are in favour of the use of boarding aids even for Class II vehicles, appropriate forms of handrails, entrances, luggage racks and special destination displays, in order to make the use of buses both possible and practical for disabled persons.
<P>
Our concerns lie in a different direction, however.
From today we are no longer regulating just tractor seats.
The European Parliament is about to design the perfect bus.
More than 100 amendments on technical details have been tabled.
There is mention of a radius of between 2.5 mm and 5 mm for corners, of retractable steps, of obvious markings on edges and even of hot drink vending machines and cooking equipment.
<P>
In our view, we must, however, distinguish between political initiatives and questions of technical standardization.
The latter should be dealt with by appropriate committees of experts, such as standards institutions - for example, the CEN - in other words, by specialists who build and/or use the buses.
We are therefore also convinced that some important political points must be addressed.
In this area, a SLIM initiative should also be implemented, which concentrates on the essential political aspects.
<P>
We believe that, above all, the proposals concerning the safety of vehicles and/or the accessibility of vehicles for the disabled, in Appendix 7, which go beyond those of the Commission, are sensible.
However, we should have a debate where it makes sense to do so; namely, in a technical committee.
That is also the reason why the Group of the European People's Party will tomorrow propose that it should be referred back to the relevant committee.
We believe that the extent of the debate should be clearly reduced, but should be all the more specific, so that it can contribute further to a proper standardization of this area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=282 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Koch">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when we speak today about a new bus directive which contains special regulations for the carriage of passengers with reduced mobility, we should bear in mind, particularly in view of the recent debate about increasing road safety - after all, 1.6 million people suffer often permanent injuries in accidents - that we could in fact ourselves be one of them tomorrow. We too would then have to cope with living as a disabled person.
<P>
At present there are about 37 million disabled people living in the European Union.
But it is not only they who often have problems with the use of public transport.
We must think of everybody: of elderly people with mobility problems, of small children, or of those in particular situations, such as, for example, pregnant women or passengers carrying luggage or pushchairs.
I therefore feel that the broad interpretation of the concept "persons with reduced mobility' is legitimate and should be welcomed.
<P>
To that extent, I support the social aim of the directive.
It deals with the right aspect, namely that of safety, but in respect of certain detailed solutions goes much too far in its regulation.
We must not absolve companies from their own responsibilities to seek the best solutions.
Such solutions could be of a technical, but also of a logistical nature.
Bus manufacturers already demonstrate in fact their great capability in respect of safety.
<P>
I am at all times very happy to support demands for equality of opportunity for people with reduced mobility.
However, I reject nonsensical and exaggerated regulations on detail.
The responsibilities which lie with the European Committee for Standardization, business and, in terms of subsidiarity, even with local authorities, should not be brought together by us under the umbrella of the EU Commission.
I therefore consider demands for 4 metre ramps at the entrance and exit of buses to be completely ill-considered.
<P>
Political demands and objectives which call upon both manufacturers and operators of buses alike to seek, in equal measure, innovative solutions, seem to me to be more suitable for doing something for the disadvantaged than rigid European standards which apply from Finland to Sicily.
Although the problems of disabled people across the European Union are comparable, the Member States must take into account climatic, territorial, traditional and other specific conditions in their efforts to procure a real place in their midst for disabled people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=283 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, I do not wish to make the same mistake as my friend Karel van Miert and I should therefore like to thank Mr Murphy very sincerely for his work, right at the start.
It has already been said during the discussion that this is a difficult report because it deals with a whole series of technical questions and an attempt had to be made to find a compromise in many respects.
I should, therefore, like to concern myself particularly with the questions which were directed at the Commission and from which it can be seen that a number of demands are being made.
<P>
First, I should like to refer to the fact that there are two different starting points for this directive.
One proposal is to create the Single Market by means of a type approval system.
For this we need precise regulations, because only such precise regulations can lead to the approval of a type.
Nothing can be allowed to remain unclear in such type approvals.
We need standardization of the technical regulations at Community level.
With undertakings like this a certain complexity sometimes cannot be avoided.
I am quite sure that our proposal is already being seized upon in the press as another example of over-zealous bureaucracy.
If we were to adopt all the amendments tabled - and I believe there are 120 - we would be at even greater risk.
In this I must agree with some of the speakers.
We can, of course, overdo this sort of specialization and attention to detail and then still not achieve what we actually set out to do.
A certain willingness to compromise is necessary here.
<P>
However, we also want to solve the safety problems.
Not only do we want to aim for the highest possible level of safety for vehicles in general, but we also want to guarantee that disabled people - however one wants to define this term, that is, persons whose mobility is reduced - can use these vehicles safely.
These are our aims.
<P>
If we now look at the amendments tabled, they can be roughly divided into three groups: firstly, there are the amendments which correct mistakes made by the Commission or propose better technical regulations.
That is, as ever, very desirable and we are pleased that we can adopt all 22 amendments here, without reservation.
I do not wish to read out the numbers of the amendments now.
We have them here; if it interests you, you can look at them afterwards.
Then we have a group, which make alterations or additions to the proposed technical requirements and finally a third group, which proposes fundamental alterations in respect of sensitive points.
Here we may quote as an example the derogation provided for by the Commission for the special situation in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
I should like to thank those British colleagues who praised us for taking this exceptional situation into account. And what is more, against all expectations, according to those well-known serious British newspapers where alarm reports were published, after an attempt to ban fish and chips, we also wanted to ban double-deck buses.
We did not do so.
I hope that we shall be appropriately praised by this press.
<P>
However, I draw attention to the fact that this is also a compromise between a national tradition and safety requirements, regardless of how much I can appreciate the pleasure of our British colleagues.
Anyone would probably concede that a doubledeck bus is not exactly the safest kind of bus, and it is clear that this type of bus can only be accessed with great difficulty by disabled persons.
<P>
It is evident from this that with all these problems, we are always moving in a direction which represents a compromise.
We have in fact done so.
We did not go as far as Mr Murphy's request, that we should, to a certain extent, recognise it as a type.
We therefore also provided for the possibility that other Member States might not permit this type of bus, which is approved in another Member State, in their sovereign territory, because they do not have this tradition.
We would like to continue to regard this as a derogation.
<P>
We then have two further amendments which we can adopt in part, and two amendments where we can adopt the substance.
What we cannot accept - and I want to say this here very clearly - are other technical proposals or an extension to other categories, as it is our opinion that what we have created here can hopefully go through in the Council.
We are not quite sure about that; in other words, we are still talking amongst ourselves here.
I fully understand if Parliament says that at the moment, it should like to assess another position but does not wish to adopt this one.
Whether or not it is very wise to reject this proposal, I leave to the wisdom of this House, in which I have boundless trust, of course.
I should like however to note that we have already come a long way and what is more, after a very long time.
That has also been said.
If maybe the Commission's proposal, apart from the amendments which we can accept, is approved without too many more additions, we shall make even more progress.
<P>
On the aspect of safety we have also reached a compromise, as a difference must be made between buses which are used predominantly on short routes, where rapid boarding and alighting is necessary for the bus to make reasonable headway, and other buses.
These buses stop very frequently, because of which accessibility is very much more to the forefront than with a bus which, for example, travels long distances, is mainly fitted with seats and does not stop very often.
Boarding this kind of bus may well require more time.
<P>
We want, however, to examine this class too.
I can confirm that we have already put this investigation in hand, so that we can perhaps deal with these further demands.
I would ask you to understand that in our case a role was played by our efforts to avoid imposing financial burdens, arising from excessive demands on the operating companies, particularly those in the public sector.
We must remember that we are not usually dealing with private companies here, but with towns or regions which have to use public means of finance and cannot therefore avoid cost pressures.
We are convinced that with this multi-level concept, we have proposed a solution which is acceptable.
<P>
We assume that it is realistic to prescribe access for persons with reduced mobility for all vehicles of Class I from the time the directive comes into force.
Without standardized regulations, there is an acute danger for the Single Market, as some Member States have already begun to put together their own regulations.
<P>
As far as the other classes of vehicle are concerned, we shall, as already mentioned, submit a proposal on the basis of the ongoing investigation as soon as possible to the European Parliament and the Council. The proposal based on this study also amends the directive, with technical requirements for Class II vehicles, which are used for both urban and scheduled long-distance transport.
That is our position.
I know that it does not meet all the requirements which have been expressed here.
<P>
I do not know what Parliament will decide tomorrow, but we are in the first phase here and we should really do what we always do.
If you believe, with a majority, that you have to adopt a different position, you can do so, but do not shoot the pianists, in other words, us.
We have to play this tune to the Council and hope for its applause.
I do hope, however, that we can then arrive at improvements during subsequent proceedings, which perhaps go more along your lines.
In any case, it should not founder in the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=284 NAME="Murphy">
Mr President, I thank the Commissioner for his comments and I note in particular his comments on double-decker buses being less safe or less accessible.
If he has a couple of hours to spare he could come with me to Birmingham, which has the busiest route for buses and coaches anywhere in Europe, and join me on the only two low floor double-decker buses actually in operation in Europe which would meet these standards and more.
So if you have a couple of hours I will take you on a journey to the West Midlands.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=285 NAME="Bangemann">
Of course I accept your invitation.
My only point was that, if the situation is as you say, why are you asking for an exception to be made for these buses?
Why can they not fall under the general rules?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=286 NAME="Murphy">
Mr President, I must just correct in that case.
Under my proposals the derogation would actually be removed and those vehicles would be treated just the same as any other because I happen to believe they are as safe and secure for passengers as other types of vehicle.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=287 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Trading of goods
<SPEAKER ID=288 NAME="President">

The next item is the report (A4-0102/98) by Mrs Lulling, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Regulation (EC) amending I. Council Regulation (EEC) No 3330/91 on the statistics relating to the trading of goods between Member States (COM(97)0252 - C4-0248/97-97/0155(COD)) andII. Council Regulation (EEC) No 3330/91 on the statistics relating to the trading of goods between Member States, with specific reference to the nomenclature of products, SLIM and Intrastat (COM(97)0275 - C4-0257/97-97/0162(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=289 NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, we all know here that statistics are somewhat unpopular, particularly in the eyes of those who have to supply the data.
<P>
In 1993, when the Single Market came into force and border controls were abolished, the consequence was the elimination of the corresponding VAT declarations and of the statistics whose reliability was assured by the customs departments.
<P>
Intrastat was created.
Its main objective, for all those involved, namely the national and Community administration companies, is to supply, at least cost, reliable and up-to-date statistics on the transfer of intra-Community goods.
Companies, particularly small and medium-sized companies, were not enamoured with this.
The introduction of Intrastat gave rise to a consideration of the way in which the suppliers' task could be simplified, of how to reduce costs for those on whom the burden of statistical information falls, as the smaller the company, the higher the relative cost of the administrative burden.
<P>
As regards reliability, it must unfortunately be said, five years on, that the operation of Intrastat is not satisfactory, in spite of the fact that the total annual cost for the 450 000 companies making declarations is estimated at ECU 500 million to which is added ECU 100 million for operations by national collectors.
This lack of reliability is illustrated by what in technical jargon is known as "mirror statistics' , which comes from the high inconsistency of the results.
<P>
Thus, this simulation exercise, which involves replacing the incoming goods for each Member State with the amounts of outgoing shipments to the fourteen others, proved, that for 1996 for example, imports for Germany must be increased by ECU 19 billion, and for France by ECU 11 billion.
For Germany, this means that the balance of trade surplus is reduced to zero, and for France, its deficit increases from ECU 7 billion to ECU 18 billion.
<P>
We have before us, Mr President, two proposals which arise from the SLIM initiative.
Unfortunately, they do not represent all the proposals of the SLIM team, which is why it is all the more astonishing that these proposals were favourably welcomed by the Commission and the Council.
Furthermore, the Member States do not even seem to be ready to follow these proposals, which are less extensive in comparison to the SLIM results.
Throughout the drafting of my report I was approached by the lobbies of the major industrial federations who are concerned that the small step towards simplification proposed in the field of nomenclature might result in the loss of information which they believe to be indispensable for their commercial policy, and which they could only procure through a great many costly surveys.
<P>
I wanted to highlight these divergent, and even antagonistic interests of the various players. In other words, there is, on the one hand, the small and medium-sized companies who want significant relief in terms of the burden of making declarations, and on the other, the users of the statistics who want detailed and high quality information on intra-Community trade to be made available.
<P>
However, things being as they are, and after organizing in committee a hearing on these antagonists, I have proposed amendments aimed at reconciling their interests, amendments which the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs accepted, Commissioner, as a block and on a unanimous basis.
<P>
We wish to avoid completely the situation whereby these regulations end up having less of an impact in terms of simplification as compared to the Commission's initial proposal.
On the other hand, we do have a great deal of sympathy for the federations and industries whose concern is that the simplification of the nomenclature might end up with a depletion of statistics which will no longer allow an analysis of the markets.
<P>
You know that I am very interested in viticulture, Mr Martin.
A reduction in the suppositions from 8 to 6 would no longer effectively give the necessary detailed information, namely the type of wine, red or white, or the region of origin.
What is important for this product, is not the same for others.
For example, for the centrifugal pumps, it is not absolutely necessary to know whether they are intended for aircraft, or whether they are submersible, single-stage or multi-stage pumps, and so on.
<P>
Our proposal therefore is to limit the burden of declaration by eliminating unnecessary data, such as the means of transport, and optional data, to limit the number of small and medium-sized companies required to supply detailed statistical data, and to simplify the use of the combined nomenclature, while preserving a single nomenclature for intra-Community trade and trade with third countries. We also propose establishing a partnership with national administrations and the representatives at European level of the suppliers and users of statistical information, as well as preserving, within the framework of this partnership, a sufficient time limit for the provision of information, in order to meet the special requirements of certain sectors, such as the wine sector which I illustrated.
<P>
We also clearly accept the need to preserve the level of information on intra-Community trade, and our action is satisfactory in the eyes of the Committee on Regional Policy.
We know that all this is not a true reform of the system.
It is a first step, Mr President, a first package of measures to be implemented pending more radical simplification.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=290 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martin Philippe-Armand">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for all of the companies and administrations in the Member States of the European Union, the entry into force of the single market has meant an upheaval for the administrative practices involving the trade in goods between Member States.
VAT declarations and statistics, which were previously dealt with by customs services have been changed.
However, of course, the need for such information has not thereby disappeared.
<P>
In this report, Mrs Lulling points out that it is essential for the data to be reliable.
Hence the export figures of one Member State should normally equal the sum of exports from the other Member States to the Member State in question.
However, the total discrepancy is in the order of 4.6 %.
Depending on which figure you use, the French trade deficit of ECU 6.4 billion would be more than doubled.
However, given the need to simplify the administrative burden on companies, the Commission is presenting us with two proposals, which enable us to simplify these declarations.
<P>
With this goal in mind, we must certainly welcome the Commission's initiative.
The amendments proposed by the rapporteur all go in this direction, and I support them.
However, along with several of my colleagues, I wanted to table a further amendment.
In fact, modifying the nomenclature must not reduce the information which is required, both for companies and professional organizations.
Changing the number of figures in the nomenclature from eight to six could lead to the elimination of an essential element.
In the case of wine, as Mrs Lulling reminded us a moment ago, it would no longer be possible to dissociate intraCommunity trade from one Member State to another Member State, be it Bordeaux, Burgundy, vins de pays, Champagne, etcetera.
The purport of my amendment is therefore to call on the Commission to ensure that these amendments do not lead to any such loss of information.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=291 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gasòliba i Böhm">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, I first want to congratulate Mrs Lulling on her constant work in the area of statistics which, as we know, is a fairly thankless task.
But those of us who follow her efforts are bound to appreciate them, because they provide something which will obviously be needed with the new economic and monetary dimension being adopted by the European Union.
<P>
As we have discussed in other reports on statistical matters, we obviously need to have reliable information in order to orientate activities and economic and monetary policies.
<P>

Mrs Lulling has the unanimous support of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy for the amendments she makes to the Commission's proposals. Her report deals with a situation which she knows how to balance perfectly: eliminating excessive burdens on small and medium-sized enterprises; maintaining the reliability of the necessary figures, so as not to lose the proper information; and maintaining the other information we have at present - also referred to in her report -, namely the regional aspect of statistics.
In other words, as when we were talking about the wine sector, for example, we have to take account of the various grape and wine-growing regions of the European Union - and I could, for example, add Penedés to the list we heard earlier. In those regions, knowledge of the exchanges within the EU markets is obviously extremely valuable, not just in order to establish the appropriate EU trade policies, but also so that companies can decide on their commercial strategies.
<P>
So I repeat our support for the amendments tabled by Mrs Lulling, and congratulate her once again on her work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=292 NAME="de Silguy">
<SPEAKER ID=293 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 11.00 p.m)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of Tuesday, 31 March 1998 have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="McMahon">
Mr President, I would like to refer to pages 20 and 21 of the English version concerning Question Time and the conduct of Question Time.
In particular, I would like to hear your views on this latest edict that has been passed down from on high regarding the rules governing Question Time.
It seems to me to be excessively bureaucratic; it seems to me to be excessively undemocratic; and it seems to me that it is imposing censorship on Members and their questions.
So I would like to know what was the rationale behind it, given that political groups have not discussed this; and I am asking you, as the person in charge of the organization here, to make a clear and categorical statement of why you arrived at this decision and whether it will be kept under review.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
It is very clear, Mr McMahon.
On the proposal of the Vice-President who chairs Question Time some rules - not new rules, but measures to organize Question Time better - were adopted by the Bureau.
The aim is simply to avoid questions being put months in advance, because then they lose their topicality.
The period fixed in the rules runs from the end of one partsession's Question Time to some hours before the next part-session; and we simply remind you that this is the period fixed, not some months in advance.
These are not new rules.
<P>
If anyone thinks there has been a change in the rules, which of course is not the case, I will submit the question to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
It is very simple: the intention of the Bureau was not at all to change the rules, it was simply to have better ways of dealing with Question Time, on the proposal of the Vice-President in charge, namely Mr Gutiérrez.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Wijsenbeek">
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Mr Wijsenbeek, you are an expert on the rules: you ought to know that it is not the Bureau which places the reports on the agenda, but the Conference of Presidents.
There were many reports from the Rules Committee and two of them have been put on the agenda of this session specially to make up this delay which is due to the many items this House has to deal with.
So your report will come up as soon as the Conference of Presidents can find a place for it on the agenda.
There is no discrimination against any report, and this afternoon I will be seeing the chairman of the committee at his request, precisely to consider the best time for its inclusion on the agenda by the Conference of Presidents.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="Falconer">
Mr President, I was interested in your reply to Mr McMahon when you said that if there was any alteration to the rules or the procedures you would obviously refer them to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
Given my interest in the voting in this Parliament during lunchtime, perhaps it is too late for that matter to be referred to the Rules Committee.
However, given that this is the last month that this will take place, can you give me and this House an assurance that any changes which are to take place regarding Members' interests will be put to the Members of this House the way the change in the Members' voting procedure should have been put to this House in January?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Of course, if there is any doubt you may be assured that we will refer it to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities and we will await its decision before introducing any changes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Elles">
Mr President, I rise on another matter but it does concern the role of the Conference of Presidents.
This concerns the Pex report on information policy, which we tried to put on the agenda for this part-session and which was then going to be on the agenda for the part-session at the end of next month.
However, I understand that you, as President, have taken that off the agenda and have refused to have this circulated for translation so that Members can read what the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media has decided.
We in the Committee on Budgets are concerned because we need this report to release funds to enable the information policy to continue to operate.
I would like your guidance on what is going on, because, once again, it seems to be a suppression of the interests of the Members of this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
Mr Elles, you have been wrongly informed.
I have not taken anything off the agenda because I cannot do so.
Simply, this report, like any other report, when it is drafted is examined by the services of the House.
As there was some doubt about its admissibility - taking into account that it was submitted rather late - the Conference of Presidents, the body empowered to take a decision, took the decision to wait until next month, May, so that it could examine it to see whether it was admissible or not.
My view is that this report goes against the rules of the House and the Treaties.
The Conference of Presidents will examine it tomorrow and take what decision it feels appropriate.
<P>
You know that no report is circulated until it is put on the agenda.
Until questions on admissibility are settled, reports are not circulated.
So this report has not been treated differently.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Pex">
Mr President, out of respect for you I have kept quiet this week about this matter, but now that it is being raised I would like to make some comments, otherwise you might think I agree with you.
Firstly, this report was discussed openly; a number of people from your services attended the discussions.
It is therefore extremely strange that its admissibility was not examined until a few days before this part-session.
Secondly, your Secretary-General told me on the telephone last week that the report presents no difficulties.
This was before the Conference of Presidents had their meeting.
<P>
Thirdly, I take exception to the fact that it was you who blocked the report, so that I was not able to defend myself as rapporteur.
If you are now saying in this sitting that the report goes against the Treaties, then I would like Members to be able to read the report, so that they can see for themselves what, according to you, is questionable.
<P>
Blocking my report makes it impossible for me to defend myself, and I do not think this is a procedure which befits a democratic organization.
I consider this censorship, Mr President.
<P>
Finally, the issue here is communication.
I have noted that the Bureau's external communications are extremely poor.
My report therefore deals with improving this situation.
Some will find this very hard to take, but I have to say that I find the internal communications even worse, because everything you have just said I only hear from you today.
Nobody in your services consulted me over the past two weeks, and I find that deplorable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
Mr Pex, I can state categorically that I myself, in the presence of other people, warned you about this several months ago.
You carried on with your report without taking account of either the Rules of Procedure or the Treaties.
Furthermore, I do not need to tell you about the Treaties.
Just like any other Member of this House, you should know them, and the Rules of Procedure too.
However, this is not a question for me to decide on, Mr Pex.
It is a matter for the Conference of Presidents, and they will decide on it tomorrow.
This is not my problem.
All I have to do is advise the Conference of Presidents that, in my opinion, this is an infringement of the Treaties and the Rules of Procedure.
We shall see, that is all.
<P>
Your report has been dealt with, Mr Pex, and I am not going to continue this discussion because it is not a matter for the House to decide on at the moment, since it is not on the agenda.
Your report has been treated in exactly the same way as other reports - no more, no less.
No report is granted any privileges, whether it comes from your committee or from any other.
Every report is examined, and if there are problems relating to the rules they are studied and resolved by the appropriate body, which is not the President but the Conference of Presidents. Then, if there is a discrepancy, it is referred to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
That is all.
If you do not think it is good enough, then present the Rules Committee with a proposal to amend our Rules of Procedure.
You can do that, just like anybody else.
<P>
Mr Pex, I am going to let you speak because I do not want it said that I insisted on having the last word on this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Pex">
Thank you for your explanation, Mr President.
I would like to make one comment on what you have said.
You told me about your objections a few months ago.
I did take these into account.
The text we had, and discussed at the time, is nowhere to be found.
I changed the report, and subsequently 126 amendments were tabled.
That is why it so regrettable that the text is not public, because the report before us now is a completely different text to the one we discussed a few months ago.
So reproaching me for not having listened to you is not right.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
Mr Pex, I am not reproaching you about anything.
I do not reproach any Member of this House who acts in accordance with their convictions.
I am simply trying to determine whether your report is admissible or not.
If it is, it will be published. If not, it will be sent to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities so they can report on the matter.
In any case, the honourable Members can quite easily find out which of the amendments to your report have and have not been accepted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Mr President, I wanted to comment regarding the vote on Mrs Theato's report.
<P>
A large majority, virtually all of the House, voted for the report under what were perfectly satisfactory conditions and thus there is not the slightest question of challenging what has already been voted for.
However, it should be noted that the conditions under which this vote took place may raise questions regarding its future interpretation.
<P>
As there was some dispute regarding corrections of a linguistic nature, the President of the sitting, Mr Cot, understandably wanted to put those corrections to a vote as he considered they could pose a fundamental problem.
There was undoubtedly a fundamental problem and it would have consequently been preferable to have an oral amendment enabling harmonization of the different linguistic versions.
However, the corrections were put to the vote and rejected, with the result that there is now a significant difference between many of the translations on a point which, although certainly not crucial, is not negligible either.
<P>
The President did not use the powers bestowed upon him by Article 102 of the Rules of Procedure.
In the case of differences between linguistic versions, it is within his powers to determine which version should be considered adopted, either the original language version - in this case German - or one of the other versions.
We will therefore be faced with a problem in the future.
<P>
I would like to request two things, Mr President.
Firstly, that the question of whether the President of a sitting can or cannot put linguistic corrections of a technical nature to the vote be submitted to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
Secondly, that the Committee on the Rules of Procedure be asked to clarify which linguistic version prevails when there are linguistic differences between the texts.
We cannot take texts to the outside world when they exist in different versions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="President">
Mr Bourlanges, it says in the Minutes, and I quote, "the rapporteur withdrew the corrigendum' .
Thus if the rapporteur withdrew the corrigendum, there is absolutely no reason to consult the Committee on the Rules of Procedure since we did not take a vote on it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Tomlinson">
Mr President, I think you have covered the point I was going to raise but Mr Bourlanges is being deliberately, or otherwise, disingenuous in the point of order he has raised.
I was the person who raised an objection to dealing with a matter of substance by way of a corrigendum.
To change the words 'European Public Prosecutor' to 'European judicial authority' is not just a technicality, and I am sure you, Mr President, as a jurist understand the significance of those changes.
If the words were incoherent in all languages other than German, it shows how ill-prepared the debate was in committee because we have debated all the way through on the use of those words 'European Public Prosecutor' .
But then, on the matter of substance, Mr Bourlanges is also wrong because it is in the recollection of everybody who followed it that Mrs Theato withdrew the corrigendum.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
This incident is closed.
I am not going to give more time to it.
We have a heavy agenda, and I am not continuing something which was closed yesterday by the President in the Chair.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Topical and urgent debate (objections)
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Mr President, I am only commenting as a matter of interest, given that the vote has taken place, but I was surprised that the code of conduct for arms exports was included within the issue of human rights.
It is not a question of human rights.
It could have been a supplementary point within the framework of a topical debate, but certainly not a point connected with human rights.
<P>
In the future, I would therefore like us to make sure that only questions truly relating to human rights violations are included in the category of "human rights' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Pasty.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Development policy - Cooperation Agreements with ACP countries - Decentralized cooperation
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following documents:
<P>
Statement by the Council on development and cooperation policy; -Report (A4-0085/98) by Mr Rocard, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the communication from the Commission on guidelines for the negotiation of new cooperation agreements with the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries (COM(97)0537 - C4-0581/97); -Recommendation for second reading (A4-0096/98), on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a Council Regulation on decentralized cooperation [C4-0008/98-95/0159(SYN)] (Rapporteur: Mr Vecchi).
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Short">
Mr President, I am very pleased to be here today to report on behalf of the Presidency on progress in international development policy.
I met the Committee on Development and Cooperation for a discussion in January and hope to meet it again to report on the outcome of the Development Council which will be meeting shortly.
<P>
One of the major priorities for our Presidency is settling the mandate for the Lomé renegotiation.
As you all know, Lomé is one of the major foreign policy instruments of the European Union.
It is the basis for the trade, development and political relationship between the Union and 71 African, Caribbean and Pacific countries.
The current convention expires in the year 2000 and the renegotiation is due to start in September 1998.
There has been a process of considerable and very useful consultation which has started to build growing agreement about what the next phase of Lomé should be about.
The Commission produced some very useful proposals at the end of January.
<P>
The General Affairs Council has twice discussed the Lomé renegotiation and has agreed that there is a need to strengthen and revitalize the relationship, that there should be - and this is uncontentious - a new concentration on systematic poverty eradication.
There is a need to strengthen and revitalize the political relationship to work to create a new spirit of partnership, and a need to simplify the agreement and not have so many complex sources of funding but be able to programme resources, give priority to very poor countries and reward successful developments.
This is needed to simplify what is currently a very complex agreement.
<P>
There is also agreement that there needs to be more support for good progress on human rights, good governance and more emphasis on conflict prevention and resolution.
Most of that is broadly agreed across all the Member States.
Trade, as Parliament will know, is the most complex area and the area in which it is more difficult to reach agreement.
<P>
However, at the General Affairs Council on Monday of this week it was agreed by all Member States that we all wanted to help integrate the ACP countries into the globalizing world economy so that the benefits of globalization would be shared across the planet.
There was also agreement that we must at least maintain the current access of the ACP countries to the European market and that the agreement should seek to be World Trade Organization - compatible, that further work is needed on reciprocal free trade agreements on either a regional or a country basis, but we will also consider the possibility of enhanced GSP access for those countries that cannot or do not want to agree reciprocal free trade agreements.
<P>
It is also agreed that the least developed countries' access must be improved in the way that the Council had previously agreed.
As Parliament will know, there are a range of opinions among Member States but, hopefully, we now have a broad agreement that will bring significant trade benefits to the ACP countries.
The next stage of these discussions will be at the ACP-EU Joint Assembly in April and my deputy, George Foulkes, will represent the Presidency there.
In May there is the ACP-EU Council and I will be there to represent the Presidency and have discussions with the ministers representing the ACP countries.
I reminded the General Affairs Council on Monday that the mandate is simply a basis for negotiations and that we need to take account of the ACP countries' views before finalizing the mandate.
<P>
The second major priority of our Presidency is to seek to persuade the Union to shape our development strategy around the international poverty eradication strategy.
Members will know that, as an outcome of the great UN conferences of the past fifteen years, there are now internationally agreed targets and strategies for making very significant and measured progress on poverty eradication, the overall target being to halve the number of people living in absolute poverty by 2015.
It is agreed by everyone that this is affordable and achievable if we can mobilize enough international political will to make significant progress.
Obviously, if the European Union embraces this strategy firmly, the possibility of mobilizing that international political will becomes much greater.
<P>
We held a seminar jointly chaired by Commissioner Pinheiro and myself on 17 March which was attended also by Commissioner Marín, ministers or high-level representatives from most countries, and we reached conclusions which will be brought to the next meeting of the Development Council that will push forward agreement on that framework to shape the efforts of the European Union in development cooperation.
<P>
Our third priority concerns the resolutions that have been passed previously on making the eradication of poverty and promotion of equality of women central to the European Union's development efforts.
On both issues, both of which are absolutely key to progress in development, there is good policy and the problem is implementation.
In the next meeting of the Development Council we shall be reviewing progress on implementation.
Preparations are in hand for that.
Obviously, as you all know, getting the policy right is one thing, but if we do not follow through on implementation we will fail to make progress.
<P>
Beyond that, on humanitarian aid, a joint conference is being organized by Commissioner Bonino and the Overseas Development Institute in London, at which I shall be speaking about the ethics underpinning our humanitarian aid.
You will all know that following Bosnia and Rwanda, we need to look carefully at the ethical principles when we distribute humanitarian aid.
Otherwise, further errors will be made.
<P>
On micro-finance, I know that there are very strong views and support in Parliament.
Under the Luxembourg Presidency the Development Council set a path for further work and detailed work is taking place in the working party.
I hope there will be internal guidelines soon that will enable progress to be made on that issue.
<P>
In conclusion, the other theme for important work in the Development Council for our Presidency is to strengthen evaluation of the European Union's development efforts.
Without strong evaluation one cannot get quality programmes.
We are also carrying forward that work.
I am optimistic that we will make major progress and that under our Presidency we will agree a useful mandate for the Lomé renegotiation and have broad agreement across the Member States and within the Commission for making the international poverty eradication strategy the framework for all our development efforts.
That will enable us to improve the quality both in terms of prioritizing poverty eradication and improving the implementation of those priorities in practice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="Rocard">
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="President">
Mr Rocard, in future it would be a good idea to ask your group for a little speaking time as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="Speciale">
Mr President, as you know, I am presenting this report, standing in for Mr Vecchi, who has had to leave for family reasons.
<P>
We have had to wait two years for the Council to establish its common position on the proposal for a regulation to provide a legal basis for the budget line with regard to support measures for decentralized cooperation, which was established in 1992, at Parliament's request.
<P>
Despite all this, the Council has not reached any positive conclusions. It has expressed a narrower view of the function of decentralized cooperation and has substantially worsened the proposal for a regulation, put forward by the Commission and partially amended by Parliament at first reading.
This is why the Committee on Cooperation and Development has unanimously adopted a package of 17 amendments which we are proposing to the House, in order to fully restore the position on which Parliament gave its opinion more than two years ago.
<P>
In accordance with what the European Parliament and Mr Rocard have confirmed, decentralized cooperation is not, and should not be considered to be, simply one more measure in the field of development cooperation.
Decentralized cooperation is a new vision of cooperation as a whole.
We want to involve more people in cooperation and the object is to involve those who are not part of the central governments so that the measures taken are closer to the local populations and contribute towards strengthening the structures of civil society. This is the fundamental point.
It is a contribution towards cultural dialogue, in various situations, and also to the processes of democratization.
<P>
Owing to its characteristics, decentralized cooperation is very different from the usual methods of providing state aid for development, and yet the insufficient results obtained in this field have led us to consider new forms of cooperation.
It must be said that the Council does not seem to have accepted this strategic challenge.
It is in fact a question of moving the focus away from individual projects and towards those involved, in order to allow an adequate development of the human resources and the organizational capacity in developing countries.
It would be better to achieve the objectives of cooperation based on the pursuit of human development, participation and sustainability.
<P>
Achieving such cooperation includes the full involvement of those involved in decentralized development, such as the local authorities, people's organizations, community groups, non-governmental organizations, etcetera.
This should lead to the development of an effective and widespread partnership between those in the North and the South.
We are thinking, in particular, of cooperation between cities and regions, but also of the development of relations concerning technology transfer, between business associations, cooperatives and centres providing business services.
<P>
To conclude, decentralized cooperation seems to be a privileged means of meeting the new challenges of development, particularly the fight against poverty and the development of the private sector, but also the protection of human and civil rights, which is so important.
<P>
Contrary to what the Council seems to maintain, it is a sufficiently tested approach.
We therefore believe that we need to move on from a marginal and experimental decentralized cooperation to its development as a priority, be it within the framework of external cooperation - Lomé Convention, MEDA Programme, and so on - or in the direct actions of the European Union.
In this connection, I believe it highly important for the MED programmes to be relaunched if we also want to contribute towards the relaunch of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership.
<P>
These are the considerations which have given rise to the amendments tabled, which are aimed at giving decentralized cooperation a central position in development strategy.
This is the reasoning behind this report and the amendments tabled.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="van Dijk">
- (NL) Mr President, the Committee on Women's Rights has noted with satisfaction that the Commission's understanding of issues can develop quickly.
Whereas the Green Paper on relations between the European Union and the ACP countries only makes an oblique reference to the issue of gender, the communication which we are now discussing says that gender issues must be incorporated into all macro-economic, sectoral and project assistance.
<P>
The Commission recognizes that there is a direct link between improving the position of women and the fight against poverty, that sustainable economic and social development cannot be realized without equality between men and women and that human rights are also women's rights.
<P>
But the intention to incorporate gender issues into all policy areas is sadly not being realized.
In those areas which are given most priority in the Green Paper, namely economic, financial and technical cooperation, not a single word is said about gender.
This is unacceptable, and even a step backwards from the Council Resolution on Gender and Development adopted in December 1995 which used "mainstreaming' as a starting point.
<P>
The new development cooperation agreements must promote equality between men and women in all areas, not only political and social, but also economic.
It must be clear to everyone that economic equality will exert influence over social structures and the balance of power within a country.
<P>
A fairer partnership should therefore not only deal with the relations between the European Union and the ACP countries, but also with the distribution of power within a particular society.
This means that we should have a coordinated and consistent policy of promoting equality between men and women, which is why the Committee on Women's Rights has argued for the ACP Assembly to establish a standing "Women in Development' Committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Kinnock, Glenys">
Mr President, may I first of all welcome the Secretary of State and thank her for her excellent overview and also, of course, thank Michel Rocard for his report.
<P>
There are very serious and clear messages in this report.
Although the political guidelines proposed by the Commission for negotiating the new cooperation agreements with the ACP provide a starting point for discussions on the renewal of our relationship, in too many areas I am afraid they are not much more than that.
I hope that the Commission and the Council will note in particular the serious reservations expressed in this report about the trade proposal as it currently stands.
We have used very strong words, ' is concerned that the Commission's proposal to negotiate regional free trade economic partnership agreements may be premature, impractical and lead to increased poverty and social tension in the ACP states' .
These reservations are expressed by the ACP themselves.
I fear that the critical poverty targets clearly identified by the Secretary of State could be undermined by the weaknesses of the current trade proposal.
Poverty eradication must, she says, be the overriding goal and should of course run through the entire agreement, including the trade section.
We cannot afford to forget that trade liberalization and economic growth alone are not sufficient to reduce poverty.
It is essential, therefore, that our commitment to poverty eradication, gender mainstreaming and conflict prevention should be fully integrated into the trade proposals, particularly in the context of the middle income countries.
<P>
It is all very well for us to argue as we do for integration into the world economy.
Of course we agree that this should happen, but we should also recognize that the preferred means of achieving this, namely WTO-compatible FTAs will carry with it very significant adjustment costs in what are, of course, extremely poor and vulnerable countries and economies.
It is just not good enough in my view to argue that FTAs will eventually stimulate economic growth.
Poor people live in the short term, in a day-today struggle to put food on the table.
We must not therefore promote a solution which puts their livelihoods in danger.
If by doing so we will be standing by the so-called commitment, we will not be standing by our commitments to attack poverty, to prevent conflict, as Michel Rocard says, and to promote gender equity.
That is why I have consistently proposed the idea of a ten-year waiver to cover the current trade arrangements, so I am very pleased that the Rocard report has taken up this point.
Mr Rocard also makes it very clear that the best solution is for the options currently on offer to be improved so that the ACP can be provided with real choices when any WTO waiver covering the current trade options expires.
I urge the Council and the Commission to take on board the issues raised in the Rocard report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="President">
May I remind Parliament that today is 1 April, and as the Bureau has already received some very strange documents, may I ask Members not to start raising points of order concerning texts which, clearly, are traditional April Fool pranks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="Corrie">
Mr President, this very long and detailed report follows on from the Martens report.
For the first time the Commission communication allows Parliament to state its views on the guidelines put forward by the Commission for the negotiation of new cooperation agreements with the ACP.
<P>
Much praise is due to Mr Rocard for this superb and detailed report.
Even more pleasing is the fact that Parliament's views are closely aligned with the Commission's thoughts.
Parliament has to consider two major questions: should ACP-EU cooperation continue after 2000 and, if so, in what form?
The answer to the first is a resounding 'yes' .
There should be a new and different relationship which adapts to the new world challenges and is based on a proper partnership.
A number of areas have to be considered.
Firstly, the Council agreed that the political scope for the ACP-EU partnership should be enhanced.
This highlighted the fact that the development of ACP countries was first and foremost the responsibility of the peoples in those countries.
This should be based on human development sustainability with sound macro-economic policies, social justice and the rule of law.
The political consensus which has been reached on both sides is an understandable political choice in the face of the worldwide challenges of the 21st century.
<P>
Increasingly rapid globalization will steadily reinforce economic, political and cultural dependencies but at the same time there will be a move towards regional cooperation and integration, particularly on the African continent.
This in itself should lead to new forms of economic partnership.
Poverty alleviation, popular economy, micro-credits and gender matters: all lead to conflict prevention within the regions.
It is up to the ACP countries themselves to decide on the speed of change and their criteria for that change.
One of the original features of the Lomé Convention was, on the one hand, including trade and, on the other, upholding provisions in this area designed to encourage the diversification and development of the ACP countries.
<P>
The rules of the WTO were drawn up with complete disregard for the needs of developing countries, particularly the poorest, and this must be seriously addressed by both sides in the negotiations.
Sadly, efforts to improve trade have not been successful and many developing countries have much reduced export trade compared with ten years ago.
Regional cooperation should give them the strength to improve this situation.
<P>
I am delighted to see that the Joint Assembly is now to be called the Parliamentary Joint Assembly as this will strengthen democracy, and my group fully supports this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="Andrews">
I wish to begin by welcoming this report by Mr Rocard.
Apart from the normal aspirations, however, it brings us no closer to the future of Lomé after 2000.
I support a strong political dimension to the new cooperation agreements with ACP countries, especially in the areas of human rights, good governance and the rule of law.
I am entirely in favour of the struggle against poverty being the central theme of post-Lomé IV arrangements.
I also support the mainstreaming of gender and the environment in all negotiations as a matter of course.
<P>
Ireland has consistently emphasized the importance of the semi-integration of the ACP countries into the world economy and the compatibility of new trade arrangements with the World Trade Organization.
Ireland considers market access to be of particular importance and will, for example, support the removal of remaining tariff barriers to the fullest possible extent.
<P>
When negotiating EU-ACP agreements it is essential to stress the need for simplification and rationalization of aid instruments with a view to gradual evolution towards direct budgetary support for ACP countries.
<P>
There is one extremely important issue that must be tackled in the framework of the new cooperation agreements and that is the issue of arms sales.
In the European Union there is free movement of goods, services, persons and capital with full regulation and, indeed, competition checks.
Compare this with the lack of European regulation or competition checks on arms movements from the EU to third countries.
There appears to me and to many other people in my country to be a conspiracy of silence on this issue.
A European Union arms export control agency should be set up in order to protect the human rights of the citizens of the ACP countries.
<P>
We must recognize economic development, social development, environmental protection and human rights as mutually reinforcing components of sustainable development.
I regret that the issue of arms exports has not been seriously addressed in the Rocard report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
Mr President, the Rocard report before us is a good report on the orientation guidelines of future cooperation agreements.
It is more than a report about the ACP.
It refers to the post-Lomé period, and I think that here we should support a ten-year transition period.
This is basically a report about the new framework for forming a new South-North policy.
Mr Martens made a start on this in his report.
Mr Pinheiro has introduced something new here, something very good, I think, by instituting a broad dialogue in the Member States in the run-up to the Green Paper.
If a good policy is to come from this good report, I hope that we can convince the Council together with the Commission that its content must be put into effect politically.
Mrs Short, this is a major task for you.
<P>
However, in development policy, a basic contradiction can be identified in the European Union and also in this House. On the one hand we try to integrate ourselves and the ACP countries into the world market.
We have accepted this with the WTO formula. We see the consequences at this moment in the discussion on bananas.
On the other hand, we want to take account of the regional situation and drive development forward here.
The regional situation is in the foreground in this report too, and I think that is right and important.
Bilateral free zones are not what we must support.
<P>
I therefore consider that paragraphs 59 and 77 of the motion for a resolution are important.
The proposal in paragraph 59 is that the extension of the exceptional regulations for the ACP states is necessary, because development cannot happen otherwise in these countries, the poorest of the poor. We should put this proposal into effect.
Paragraph 77 deals with the aims of development policy, the aims of development, about which we must jointly inform the WTO.
I do not regard the WTO as a democratic institution.
<P>
Consistency in trade relationships is necessary and appropriate.
We should take note of that in respect of our fisheries policy, ecology and human rights.
We and the ACP states should note that.
Regionalization is an important starting point.
It is a question of developing new instruments.
I believe that support for the process of African unity is important.
But we are creating our own contradictions there as well, in the MEDA programme for instance.
Here too there is a need for consistency.
I am glad that the amendments have been included in this proposal, that the Joint Assembly is explicitly mentioned, and I think that it must also be maintained to form the political process.
<P>
Much too little is said about armaments policy, restriction of weapons sales and the effective control of the weapons trade.
The Commission has made specific proposals here. That is to be welcomed.
Making a link between the targets of armaments restriction and development in the health and education fields is something very important.
The credibility of countries must be measured by this too.
<P>
In view of the imminent failure of the code of conduct, I would like to point out that in Amendment No 18 we put forward many specific proposals, and I ask you to support this amendment, and also Amendment No 17, which concerns the prohibition of antipersonnel mines.
It is a view expressed by this House and belongs in the Treaty.
My colleague Mrs van Dijk has pointed out the problem of women, the role of women in the development process.
There is much more to be added here too.
There is more in it than in the Green Paper.
The role of women must be more precisely defined, because they contribute to the development process.
Partnership is an important precondition, including partnership with NGOs.
Finally, I would like to emphasize again that we have always supported the budgetization of the European Development Fund.
That should also be put into effect.
I would like to have a reply from Mrs Short, on behalf of the Council about whether she will take the initiative, at the latest...
<P>
(The President made the speaker stand down.)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hory">
Mr President, at this stage in the debate I do not want to waste time repeating the content of the Vecchi and Rocard reports, which are both clearly excellent since the Committee on Development and Cooperation voted unanimously for them.
<P>
I would merely like to refer to one aspect of Mr Rocard's report in order to highlight the interest the Group of the European Radical Alliance has regarding point 25 of the motion for a resolution.
It relates to the possibility of countries who are recipients of aid themselves proposing the criteria relating to democracy and human rights which would need to be respected to avoid a suspension of European Union aid.
<P>
We think that this innovative suggestion is particularly pertinent.
On the one hand because it is in keeping with all our principles of intervention and, secondly, because it should prove to be more effective than the current measures.
We can see that the partnership we have today between the Union and the ACP countries does not fully escape accusations of neo-colonialism since the practical rules and democratic conditions are still by and large formulated unilaterally by the European countries.
<P>
The Rocard report proposes a break with this logic and we fully approve of this.
But the idea of handing over responsibility for defining the partnership's minimum level of democratic content to the ACP countries is clever in that it should improve the effectiveness of the rules.
Today European donors are naturally wary of punishing violations precisely because they do not want to lay themselves open to accusations of neo-colonialism.
As a result you see relative democracy flourishing.
Such a principle would be correct on this side of the Mediterranean but an error beyond it.
<P>
From the ACP countries' point of view the advantage is equally important.
Indeed, what happens at the moment?
An ACP country breaks the rules of democratic conditionality and immediately gets tacit support, I would even call it experienced complicity, from most of the other ACP countries.
All in all they keep their heads down and wait for European disapproval to fade into general indifference.
<P>
If the democratic criteria for aid are from now on defined by our partners, they themselves will be obliged to denounce violations and to apply sanctions.
From now on it will be up to them.
Perhaps this will be the occasion to deepen the dialogue on values mentioned in point 29 of the motion, from the basis of a respect for our differences.
<P>
It is because we consider that some of these values are of a universal nature that the Radicals unreservedly support Mr Rocard's report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Antony">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it cannot be denied that the results of the cooperation policy between the ACP countries and the European Union measure up neither to the frequently reaffirmed ambitions nor, above all, to the sums of money spent.
<P>
You could be forgiven for wondering whether the eighth EDF, which is ECU 13 billion over the period 1995/2000, that is FF 85 billion, is or will be put to better use than the seven preceding ones. This financial aid has been rendered largely useless for three reasons.
Firstly, the socialist model of development, which has been adopted by the majority of ACP countries, based on land collectivization and excessive industrialization. Secondly, corruption of leaders and nomenklatura, which have taken over control of a large part of aid funding.
Thirdly, complexes amongst the European leaders, which render them incapable of commenting on these issues for fear of being branded neo-colonialists. But Michel Rocard himself, far from considering these three points and learning lessons from them, and whilst remaining faithful - let us recognize this - to his socialist ideology, proposes a policy which will be detrimental to the nations of Europe as well as to the people of the ACP countries.
<P>
If he will excuse me, I will overlook the commonplace, the popularity-seeking proposals and pious wishes which fill his report for, what concerns us most in this expressed desire to renounce a development policy which remains under the control of Member States, is the substance.
<P>
What does the honourable Member want?
The budgetization of the European Development Fund, which would thus no longer be under the control of our nations.
Diplomatic and political links between supra-national bodies such as the European Union, on the one hand, and the African Economic Community, established in 1994, on the other.
The importance given to nongovernmental organizations, about which a great deal could, however, be said and the integration of our overseas departments and territories into regional groupings, thus preparing the way for a separation of these territories from their mother country.
<P>
We note that Michel Rocard is rightly concerned with the fateful logic that a free trade policy would have on the economic future of the ACP countries.
But, in reality, he only proposes tinkering with the internationalist logic.
His only positive point is the proposal for a productive return of immigrants who have come from the ACP countries, which is completely in line with our own position.
<P>
To recap, in general, the Rocard report has unfortunately abandoned, to Brussels' advantage, a development policy which, although not perfect, enabled the Member States to continue to play a major role.
But it is not through continually wanting to establish relations between blocs, it is not through globalization, it is not through bureaucratization that anything will be improved.
The tragedy is that, despite all the failures, Mr Rocard never wearies of his utopia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Junker">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Rocard and Vecchi reports should be approved with firm conviction.
Allow me to explain a few points.
The aim in Article 130 u of the Treaty of Maastricht is global.
Development cooperation should promote sustained development, particularly in the poorest countries, for the fight against poverty and a harmonious, step by step inclusion in the world economy.
The emphasis here is on step by step.
<P>
The Rocard report therefore points out that trade liberalization and economic growth alone are not enough to relieve poverty; there must also be access to resources and participation in decision processes.
That applies particularly to the participation of women, but I am happy to be able to say that we women no longer have to emphasize this point, because it has in the meantime become the common property of this House.
<P>
I would like to emphasize that in the course of the Lomé cooperation something like a Lomé culture has been formed, consisting of partnership, equal rights, maintenance of dialogue, mutual contractual relationships and accountability, and this means much more than efficiency aspects on the cost-benefit model.
<P>
It is a mark of the Lomé culture that conditions are not just imposed on the contractual partners, but that efforts are made to ensure that the measures proposed are supported by the country concerned, in agreement with the governments and the population.
Certainly participation on the part of civil society still leaves something to be desired.
Above all, the equal right of women to have a say is lacking, as has been mentioned. The correct course has nevertheless been set.
<P>
That is all the more important when not just economic but political reforms are concerned, and they must or should be in harmony with each other.
Now, in a mature relationship it must be possible to say critical things, and if necessary to make use of sanctions, including the suspension of cooperation.
The Lomé agreements include this possibility, but for good reasons it is only used with restraint, because it is always better to keep talking than to break off relations.
<P>
I think that one particular aspect of cooperation within the agreement must be extended in future: close cooperation with nongovernmental organizations, particularly those which are active in the ACP countries, and not just with our organizations in the Member States.
A cooperation strategy which is tailor-made for each situation must be developed, to pick out the special features of individual regions, regardless of whether their support is national, private or public.
<P>
To a greater extent than was previously the case, the supporters of development policy can be part of a concept for the future which promises success.
One of the special features of Lomé cooperation is regional cooperation, which has long been geared to supra-regional development.
The same is true of the demand for the dynamic development of the private sector, to which increasing efforts have been applied in recent years.
<P>
I would like to close with a quotation from my general report at the last ACP Assembly, which was accepted with a very large majority: ' By common efforts, development plans which are specific, social, staggered in time, adapted to the current state of development and the problem situation, regionally differentiated and consistent, must be established, with the answers which result for Lomé cooperation arising from the subjects of the big UN conferences.'
This should be our aim.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Günther">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first, sincere thanks to both the rapporteurs.
I regret that we cannot address them to Mr Vecchi in person.
At last we have a debate about development cooperation, and we all know that does not happen often.
<P>
In the case of the Vecchi report, it is rather a nuisance that it comes practically at the end of the process, and since the Treaty of Amsterdam has not yet been ratified, we have no possibility of ensuring that a series of proposals which have not yet been accepted will be included after all.
<P>
Madam President-in-Office, I welcome very much your firm emphasis on the fight against poverty but I would ask you to include as an essential pillar, so to speak, of your deliberations, the question of a health policy with particular reference to the health of mothers and children.
Year after year - we can almost say day after day - for thousands of women in developing countries, pregnancy is equivalent to a death sentence, because there is no way of combatting avoidable risks.
This must not be allowed to happen. Here in this Parliament, we have a cross-party working party for reproductive health.
So for us this is a special concern.
<P>
A further point of which we must certainly be aware is the question of stable currencies.
There is a special passage about it in the Rocard report.
Commissioner, my special plea would be that we ensure with the appropriate structures that increasingly stable and above all convertible currencies are created in the developing countries.
In this connection, I also draw your attention to the question of the CFA zone in the context of European Monetary Union.
A minor error concerning this matter has crept into the report, and I ask the services to correct it.
Paragraph 69 does not fit the context in which it appears.
It ought to be inserted after paragraph 80.
That is its proper place.
This is my final point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Giro Pereira">
Mr President, may I begin by congratulating Mr Rocard for the high quality of his report, and Mr Vecchi likewise.
We wish to take this opportunity, as we did in connection with the Martens report, and with the 8th EDF, to restate our commitment to partnership between the ACP countries and the European Union.
<P>
Indeed, as we approach the 21st century, we consider that a new, exemplary model should be laid down for this privileged relationship to which the countries of Europe have been committed since the outset of European construction.
The Union for Europe Group considers that the overall thrust of the Commission's approach is correct.
I say overall, because we do not consider the proposals relating to trade to be satisfactory.
The UPE Group is of the opinion that the process of adapting and integrating regional markets must be monitored, for which reason it earlier suggested to the Committee on Development and Cooperation, which agreed, that the current trade regime should be maintained throughout a transition period to end no later than the year 2010. The Committee on Development and Cooperation agreed.
<P>
The Commission has already agreed to extend the period from 3 to 5 years.
We hope that, vis--vis the Council and the WTO, it will defend an extension of the transition period to 2010.
In addition, our Group supports the Commission's guidelines and, like the rapporteur, welcomes the importance attributed to the regional and sub-regional integration process, provided that the integrity and unity of the ACP as a group is not affected.
In that connection, we direct attention to our group's proposals that the overseas countries and territories and the ultra-peripheral regions should be involved.
<P>
We welcome the objective of combatting poverty, which we consider to be a healthy and timely endeavour.
We believe that the time has come to emerge from a rationale of strict conditionality and to concentrate on a more fruitful dialogue, with a view to assessing governments' endeavours in the areas of human rights, democracy and good governance.
<P>
I will end, Mr President, by expressing the hope that the Joint Assembly, which is the prime instrument of political dialogue between the European Union and the ACP, will be strengthened.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Dybkjær">
Mr President, first of all I would like to compliment Mr Rocard and Mr Vecchi on their reports, and the Commission on its guidelines for the negotiation of the new cooperation agreements.
It is good news indeed that we have been able to confirm in no uncertain terms that we wish to pursue agreements with the countries concerned, and it is good news that we have got some of the key discussions under way on reforms - reforms that will be necessary if we are to get away from the post-colonial relationship of dependency between donor and recipient countries, if the position of women is to be improved, and so on.
It is also excellent news that discussions are taking place on this agreement in the various Member States.
<P>
However, I do deplore the fact that we have not managed to revise the list of countries covered by the Lomé Convention.
The needs of countries, not their geographical placement or their historical affiliations with Member States of the Union, should be the governing factor in the amount of support they receive from the EU.
The European Parliament should guarantee that in future, poor nations will be competing on a level playing-field as regards the distribution of EU support and access to EU markets.
This should preferably be achieved through revision of the list of countries covered by the Lomé Convention, but could if necessary be achieved by assuring countries not covered by Lomé V that they will benefit from the same conditions in relation to EU support and equal access to EU markets, regardless.
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<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Macartney">
Mr President, could I welcome the President-in-Office here?
We are very pleased to see her as a frequent visitor to Parliament's Committee on Development and Cooperation.
We appreciate her commitment.
<P>
She started her address by saying that we had to mobilize international political will.
I think that is precisely the task that faces us because there is a lot of easy talk and yet we need to mobilize that political will.
I commend in particular the cause of Jubilee 2000 which I think has caught the imagination of many people and which says, with a new millennium, let us cancel the debt of the poorest countries.
This point is tucked away in paragraph 74 of Mr Rocard's excellent report but should be right up there in lights as one of the essentials in the alleviation of poverty to which his report is largely devoted.
<P>
This is an excellent report by Mr Rocard, as there are so many aspects to it, any one of which could make a substantial difference to areas of policy and areas of the world.
For instance, we have paragraph 45 on monoculture, one of the really crushing problems for the Caribbean islands, for example, with their historic dependence on bananas.
We have the problem of the small island states, not just in the Caribbean but in the Pacific, which are totally at the mercy of global warming.
That is a very important commitment that we reiterate.
There is an excellent paragraph on landmines which are such a scourge for Africa and other parts of the world.
Arms sales are mentioned, again an extremely important ingredient in development policy.
Paragraph 77 talks about the need to develop fisheries agreements with a development component instead of a purely commercial one.
If we could achieve that, this again would make a huge difference to the coastal countries off which this Union fishes.
<P>
Last but not least, there is the 0.7 % UN target of aid; if we could achieve that for every single Member State instead of just for one or two noble exceptions, then we would be doing something noble.
<P>
I would commend the report and perhaps I can finish by saying that 'Nous sommes tous des rocardiens maintenant' , we are all Rocardians now.
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<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, research into and the implementation of effective measures to combat poverty will constitute the EU's greatest undertaking in its future relations with the ACP countries.
Following the Committee on Development and Cooperation's discussions in Brussels, the overall strategy proposed by the Commission within the framework of negotiations for the renewal of the cooperation agreements with the ACP countries, will be submitted next month, during the course of the Joint Assembly planned in the Mauritius Islands.
<P>
Alongside decisive support for a micro-economic approach, which is intended to encourage the poorer countries to invest in the development of micro-credit, the Union hopes to maintain preferential trade with the poorer countries and those which are more vulnerable economically.
As already negotiated within the scope of the Lomé agreements, preferential trade agreements have been renewed for a ten-year period and are incorporated into a clearly political perspective encouraging geographical differentiation, to emphasize regional differences.
<P>
The principle of respect for human rights and democracy will be an essential requirement in the philosophy of the cooperation agreements.
Consequently, through the regional authorities responsible for monitoring ethnic, economic, social and religious tensions, the EU should maintain peace and prevent crises and conflicts.
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<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Colajanni">
Mr President, on the basis of the work of Mr Rocard and Mr Vecchi, the Group of the Party of European Socialists has undertaken a commitment that has lasted for more than a year: it consists of a working group set up with the representatives of the ACP countries, which has studied this matter and discussed its proposals in Africa with the African leaders.
This is a new way of preparing for the review of these agreements, which must not be called into question.
This special relationship is important and should continue, but should be renewed broadly.
<P>
There are many reasons in the Rocard and Vecchi reports for renewing these agreements. It is a new and global concept that deals with all the issues, from democracy and human rights to conflict prevention, all important subjects on which I will not dwell.
<P>
An effort is being made to define cooperation and partnership more effectively, by reviewing the way of working but also looking at the mistakes and inadequacies so far, by looking critically at the disguised plundering by the large European companies, by looking to replace huge projects which are not always useful with a vision that is closer to the work and life of the people and the democratic development of society, by looking at new fields of intervention such as women, civil society, health, education and, as I said, by using more penetrating and effective ways of working.
<P>
In short, this approach is an attempt to propose a European alternative to the model Clinton has proposed for Africa, which does not seem to have pleased Mandela too much, precisely because it is a model of liberalization at all costs, when everyone is now questioning the role of the IMF - which has also brought disaster - and wondering how to deal with enormous problems such as the debt crisis with new mechanisms and objectives.
<P>
The EU therefore has to find an alternative.
With regard to the composition of the ACP countries, that is, the list of participants, the best plan is to review the possible entry of new countries, given the new problems, for example, in South Africa, within the scope of the current regional areas, maintaining the unity of this long-lasting relationship, which is of great political value in itself but which should be made more effective and reformed in depth.
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<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Liese">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, cooperation by the European Union with the ACP states must be reformed.
There is much that is positive in this cooperation, but there is also much which does not work.
Simply continuing the status quo is certainly not a model for the next millennium.
The present rules are above all discriminatory.
Countries like Bangladesh, Nepal, Bolivia and Nicaragua are excluded, although these are developing countries which need our help just as much as the present ACP states.
I consider that it is rather schizophrenic that in March Parliament adopted an urgent motion on Nicaragua's debt and pointed out the terrible situation of people in Nicaragua, but the accession of Nicaragua to the Lomé Convention was not even seriously discussed.
<P>
At its Congress in Toulouse last year, the Group of the European People's Party demanded that future cooperation should no longer be based so much on colonial links, but on income per head and its distribution, and above all on the willingness of those in government to contribute genuinely to the development of people in their country.
I expressly welcome what Mrs Dybkjær said about the expansion of the ACP states and the acceptance of new members.
It would be schizophrenic to restrict the acceptance of new members to Cuba of all countries. The pre-conditions have not really been fulfilled there.
<P>
Commissioner Pinheiro, your mandate for action is a tentative step in the right direction, to make cooperation effective in the future.
Keep at it!
We should support this step and encourage you to take further steps.
Do not be led astray by the protectionists of all countries, but go into the new millennium with a new concept!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldi">
Mr President, I briefly want to congratulate the rapporteurs, Mr Rocard and Mr Vecchi.
Development cooperation is undoubtedly the focus of a number of important issues at the moment.
I do not have a lot of time, but I would like to make a few points.
Mr Vecchi has pointed out the importance of decentralized cooperation because it means moving the focus from individual projects to those involved in the projects.
But this transition, which is very important, also needs to be demonstrated from another point of view.
The EU has the task of making countries who want to cooperate with us aware of their own resources.
Often we do not talk enough about the environmental and cultural wealth of these countries, which could be important resources for them, because, if they are aware of them, they can then understand how to use them to improve their economy in terms of tourism, and we too can offer them important support.
<P>
Culture, cultural and environmental wealth with the knowledge and awareness of what they have to give us. What is important and fundamental is that, when we talk about development cooperation, we should not forget foreign policy and humanitarian aid.
Just one development cooperation measure, if not in line with humanitarian aid measures and with foreign policy, could undoubtedly produce negative results that we do not want.
<P>
The EU should thus have a foreign policy on common security, that will enable dialogue in a field where we can really make substantial impact and a significant economic contribution.
<P>
We are still lacking in this, unfortunately.
However, I wish to thank Commissioner Pinheiro for the effort he is making for development and real cooperation, especially bearing in mind the need for the necessary financial means.
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<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Stasi">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, two or three years ago we were quite sceptical s to the future of the Lomé agreements, for many reasons.
A decline in the geo-strategic interest of the ACP countries after the end of the Cold War, the need for the European Union to contribute to the economic development and democratic strengthening of central and eastern European countries, the wave of ultra-liberalism created by the WTO along with, of course, a decline in the financial capacities of a Union sharply touched by crisis, can all be given as examples.
<P>
All of these factors came together to overshadow the horizon which, at last, seems to be clearing.
We are delighted to note an increased awareness within the European Union regarding a growing interdependence with the ACP countries, particularly with the African continent, an interdependence which concerns economic development, security, democracy and the influx of immigrants.
<P>
The Commission's Green Paper is clearly the source of this awareness, but we can be proud of the European Parliament's active contribution, and especially that of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, in reflections on the renewal of the Lomé agreements.
<P>
The Martens and Rocard reports, which have both been rightly praised, have drawn up a framework and defined the ambitions of a renewed and deepened cooperation, emphasizing the necessary political dimension of the agreements, the promotion of democratic values and the support for a process of regional integration.
<P>
I am personally extremely pleased at the importance which has been given to decentralized cooperation - indeed the Vecchi report was dedicated to this - because it responds directly to the needs and aspirations of the populations of the ACP countries and because, through local government and associations, it involves the citizens themselves in the process of cooperation. Decentralized cooperation brings greater effectiveness and democracy.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, the game is not yet won with regard to the Lomé agreements for the year 2000, but we will from now on have, thanks in particular to the Rocard report, intellectual instruments which will ensure that we do not miss this great opportunity.
We also have to fight to gain the necessary financial means.
Much will depend on the political will that Parliament shows.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Torres Couto">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a change is necessary in the way in which we pursue cooperation between the European Union and the ACP countries, with a view to establishing a renewed, real and fairer partnership.
<P>
The post-colonial period should be brought to a close.
We must shake off the old donor-recipient relationships and cease to cast the recipient in the role of a child.
The rationale of conditionality must be replaced by contract-based cooperation.
The main feature of this new partnership should be that populations themselves take their place in cooperation, while its main aim should be to eradicate poverty, prevent conflict, defend human rights and promote good governance.
<P>
This new partnership should therefore be given a strong political dimension, extending cooperation to include economic, financial and technical partnership, which should be decentralized to include new protagonists, in addition to governments.
We should remember, at this time, that democratization and good governance are, first and foremost, the product of a way of thinking that takes time to become firmly rooted.
<P>
I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere support for Commissioner Pinheiro for the intelligence he has shown in presenting and developing the new strategic approach which he proposes for such a very important issue.
May I also offer my warmest congratulations to Mr Rocard and Mr Vecchi for their outstanding reports.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, I will be very brief, because I fully agree with Mr Rocard's report, and I also greatly appreciate his input.
There is one point I would like to draw your attention to, and this is similar to the one Mr Liese just mentioned.
What I am concerned with is the relationship between the ACP countries and the overseas countries and territories, the so-called OCAT.
In addition to over 70 ACP countries, there are 20 overseas countries and territories, many of which are located in the Third World, often amongst ACP countries.
Their position in relation to the European Union changes frequently, is extremely unclear, and is partly dependent on specific relationships with specific Member States they may be part of.
As we know, this relationship changes from country to country.
In 1957, the Treaty of Rome promised them that they would be treated equally with the Member States themselves.
But this never actually happened.
The far-reaching equal status they were granted in 1991 has meanwhile been reversed.
<P>
Mr President, what should happen now?
Together with the new Lomé Convention a clear agreement should be drawn up for the OCAT.
This would be fair and honest towards the developing regions it concerns.
It would also be good if the links between the OCAT and the ACP Assembly were strengthened, by giving the OCAT a place in the Assembly as observer.
I am delighted that Mr Rocard has included this in his report.
<P>
Mr President, I would like the Commission to tell us when it thinks it will have a new OCAT agreement, and perhaps the President-in-Office can add something to this.
I am extremely pleased that the Committee on Development and Cooperation is to draft an own-initiative report to underline this issue.
Mr President, this is what I wanted to add to the debate. I would like to offer my full support to Mr Rocard's report.
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<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Putten">
Mr President, in the limited time that I have at my disposal, all I can offer is a few words.
The proposal amounts to keeping the general structure, the foundation of the Convention, upright.
This is the unique and only relationship we have with our southern neighbours in particular.
As far as trade is concerned, I believe the integration of the trade regime into the WTO should be gradual, whereby a transitional regime is developed for precarious markets which are still developing.
The question is whether five years is not far too short.
We really need an impact study on this.
Trade barriers, such as the rules of the place of origin, must be abolished.
We therefore need a parallel policy for trade measures.
In addition we should ask ourselves whether the proposed free trade zones do not constitute a threat to the ACP and, in fact, merely provide convenient access to markets for European products.
We should be very conscious of this threat.
<P>
To conclude, Mr President, I would like to mention something which has not been discussed yet in this debate, and which I consider to be an omission, namely the little attention paid to complicated procedures.
The Green Paper goes into it at length, and I think this is right.
But I think we should make much more of it.
If we want to make the funds accessible to civil society, then it would demonstrate courage if the Commission and the Council were to look at a proposal, made at an earlier Parliamentary ACP-EU Meeting, to set up a kind of ombudsman initiative in the Pacific and in the Caribbean, initially in a French and an English-speaking country. This would at least allow women's organizations and environmental organizations, trade unions, the press and the Chamber of Commerce access to EU legislation.
It is imperative that such a scheme is set up, but hitherto no one has taken up our proposal.
That is all I wanted to say for the moment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Robles Piquer">
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Howitt">
Mr President, I wish to devote my contribution to this morning's debate to the report on decentralized cooperation drawn up by its excellent rapporteur, Mr Vecchi.
Our contention is that EU development cooperation should be based on the same principles of partnership, subsidiarity and decentralization which we have put at the heart of the way we organize ourselves within the European Union and which, we therefore argue, must inform our relations with the developing world.
<P>
It fits squarely within the approach outlined by the UK Secretary of State this morning in that the biggest stimulus to achieving quality of aid, to which she pledges herself, is the participation by recipients themselves in the planning, implementation and evaluation of development projects with which we seek to benefit them.
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It is decentralized civil society organizations within developing countries which have the ability to adapt cooperation policy to local conditions.
It is decentralization which makes our aid more visible, thereby improving accountability.
It is decentralization which leads to better identification of need and support for smaller projects, with quicker funding availability than is possible in traditional programmes.
It is decentralization which encourages cooperation rather than competition between actors and equitable agreement at local level on the proper responsibilities of NGOs, vis-à-vis local and cental government.
It is decentralization which builds the capacity of civil society to monitor and assure norms of democracy, thereby promoting principles of good governance and respect for human rights.
<P>
Today's report seeks to agree a legal base for decentralized cooperation for the budget heading specifically created by Parliament as far back as 1992.
Yet I say to the Secretary of State that the Council's position represents two steps back rather than one step forward.
The Council seeks to restrict rather than encourage this approach by proposing a regulation which will remain in force for just three years.
It seeks to subject programmes to the bureaucracy of the restrictive II(b) commitology committee and to limit the finance available to just ECU 18 million over the three-year period.
<P>
In retabling our amendments at second reading, we therefore call on the Council radically to review its position.
Parliament wants the legal base for pilot initiatives on decentralized cooperation to be a strong - not a weak - instrument and one which is a starting point for mainstreaming this philosophy as a defining element in all of the EU's development cooperation efforts.
<P>
For all my political career, I have been a decentralizer, whether it has been in UK local government or in seeking to open up the workings of the European Union.
I believe the President-in-Office shares this conviction and hope she will do so once again today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Gillis">
Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner Pinheiro, I welcome this excellent report by Michel Rocard on a new cooperation agreement to replace Lomé 4.
The EU and ACP must reaffirm their partnership by strengthening democracy and respect for human rights, especially the rights of women.
The fight against poverty and illiteracy must form the basis of any new arrangements and the acquis communautaire must be built upon in political economic and financial terms.
In order to ensure maximum development in the ACP regions it is essential to take on board the question of peace and security.
The sale and distribution of dangerous weapons including, in particular, landmines must cease.
Peace is a prerequisite for development; without peace all effort is wasted.
It is also vitally important that developing countries be allowed fair access to the world market place within the WTO, thus helping them to achieve their ultimate goal which is the eradication of misery and poverty in these regions.
GATT and the WTO have done little or nothing so far to make increased trade a reality for these very poor economies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lööw">
Mr President, I would like to say that I think this is an excellent report.
The Commission's proposal and this report represent an important step forwards.
I also think it is good that clear emphasis is placed on increased regionalization and thus also decentralization, since it is clearly difficult to see how else we could achieve effective cooperation between ourselves and 70 states as different as those we have in the ACP agreement.
<P>
I think it is good to focus on poverty, the environment and women, amongst other things.
Personally, I think it is also essential for us to pay more attention to the issue of population, which is a very important one.
Whether or not we can solve the problem of rapid population growth depends on issues such as reproductive health and the living conditions of women, but it also depends on the ability of states as a whole to develop in the future.
<P>
What I miss in the report, however, and what I would like to have seen included, is a clearer indication of the fact that in the long term we are prepared to adapt the trade preferences which currently exist in the Lomé Convention to the WTO's rules.
I think this is the only sustainable solution in the long term.
I also think that long term protection of European agriculture is not a durable solution.
We must have the same standards for trade and agricultural policy as we have for aid policy in general.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="Pinheiro">
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Short">
Mr President, like Commissioner Pinheiro, I think what is most impressive about this debate is the amount of shared thinking there is across the Commission, the Council and Parliament - and right around Parliament.
Of course, there are some nuances of difference which we need to discuss further and to resolve.
This is a very powerful alliance and it bodes well for the next phase of Lomé that there has been some very careful thinking and there is a lot of agreement about the direction in which we need to travel.
<P>
Mr Rocard is to be congratulated on his report, and it has drawn praise and respect from all quarters of Parliament.
A lot of the thinking in the report coincides with Council thinking.
There are some details we need to discuss further - for example the best way to deal with AIDS in some of the poorest countries in the world - but we can come back to that.
<P>
I would agree with the stress on all sides on support for good governance and human rights as a precondition for eradicating poverty.
We only have to look at the Asian crisis to know that is right; you cannot promote and sustain development without democracy and human rights.
The Asian crisis shows that and, therefore, it is not an optional extra; it is part of sustainable development.
<P>
I am sure we all regret the fact that Mr Vecchi cannot be here, and we send our best regards to his family and hope all goes well.
<P>
I want to make it very clear that there is absolute agreement on the desirability of decentralization in cooperation.
The disagreement is about the commitology, but not about that principle.
So at least we agree about the direction of travel, even if we do not completely agree on everything.
<P>
I should like to say to Mrs Van Dijk that there is also now universal agreement that you cannot have development without educating girls and promoting the empowerment of women, because women and children are the overwhelming majority of the poor.
That, again, is now agreed and not just an optional extra.
<P>
I should like to say to Glenys Kinnock, who was very worried about the stress on regional free-trade agreements, that what we got out of the last meeting of the General Affairs Council was agreement that regional free-trade agreements are one option but an enhanced GSP is another option that must be at least as good as the existing Lomé access.
There must be better treatment of the least-developed countries inside or outside the ACP alliance.
Within that kind of framework - this, of course, is the area of greatest complexity and needs more discussion - there is room for different countries to choose the way in which they wish to travel.
If we can preserve those options, then it will be possible to go forward in the way that the countries concerned wish.
<P>
John Corrie placed a lot of emphasis on regionalization, and we all respect the work he has done on that.
I agree that is the way in which the world is moving but it is for the ACP countries themselves to decide the speed of that movement and not to have a sort of rigid formula that requires them to move in ways that they do not wish to go.
<P>
Mr Andrews stressed the need for simplification of the instruments, and we all agree.
The existing structures are far too complex, the agreement is far too complex and it makes rigid the flows of development assistance, and so on.
On budgetizing aid, there is no agreement.
As you all know, the Maastricht Treaty provided for a separate EDF, and that remains the position of some of the member countries.
So we all respect the decision of Parliament but there is not going to be immediate progress on that question.
<P>
Mr Telkämper, for the Green Group, stressed that the World Trade Organization and WTO-compatibility are not democratic.
In fact, the WTO is an organization of Member States with one state, one vote, and is potentially democratic.
The problem in this area is that change is so complex that not all states are equal at the table, and what we have to do is spread the analysis and get it shared so that developing countries can come to the table of the WTO clear about what is in their interests.
We need to work together to secure that.
<P>
Mr Hory talked about the paragraph in Mr Rocard's report on human rights being defined by the OAU.
I just wish to remind Parliament that all our countries have signed up to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Human rights are not regional, they are universal for all people, they cross civil, political, social and economic rights and our aspiration is to realize those rights for all people everywhere.
Methods of implementing and strengthening the OAU is a good idea but there are not different human rights in the south compared with the north.
<P>
Mr Antony said that some of the progress under the ACP-EU relationship in the past had not been as effective as we would hope.
There is some truth in that, and we have to face it in order to make improvements for the future.
He stressed that there had been too much emphasis on the role of the state in the past.
We have been through two eras: one that gave perhaps too much emphasis to the role of the state and minimized the role of markets.
We are coming out of an era that maximized the role of the markets and minimized the role of the state, and what we need is a new synthesis that puts both the state and markets in their rightful place to get the properly regulated, international and national arrangements that can promote sustainable economic growth.
That is the challenge of the next era.
<P>
Mrs Junker said that we must emphasize sustainable development.
I just wish to stress that in the international poverty eradication strategy there is a commitment that every country should have its sustainable development plan in place so that it can promote development that does not use up its natural resources in an unsustainable way.
<P>
Mrs Günther talked about progress on health being part of poverty eradication.
That is absolutely right, and the stark statistics of terrible infant mortality, low-life expectancy or maternal mortality are part of the picture of gross poverty in the world.
Again, one of the major poverty eradication targets is the provision of basic health care to all the people of the world by 2015, and access to reproductive health care for everyone and a reduction in maternal mortality and infant mortality.
So I very much agree that is part of the process of poverty eradication.
<P>
Mrs Dybkjær stressed that the least developed countries should have equal rights whether they are inside the ACP or outside.
That is absolutely right.
It was one of the commitments made in a previous General Affairs Council agreement.
We must make sure it is implemented.
I agree with those who say that logically the poorest countries should become part of the ACP.
But in fact the ACP is resistant and a lot of the poorest countries are not seeking to join.
What we need to ensure is that they are treated equally in terms of both trade access and development assistance.
Then we will effectively have equal treatment, even if we do not have it in theory.
<P>
I am grateful to Mr Macartney for his remarks.
He raised the question of Jubilee 2000 and debts.
The Council wholeheartedly supports the HIPC initiative.
What we all have to do is speed up its implementation and try to make sure that every highly indebted country is on track for getting the debt to a sustainable level by the year 2000.
<P>
Mr Amadeo said that we must give more assistance to the most vulnerable.
That is part of the broad agreement on development assistance - that there should be differentiation between the investment needs of the very poorest and the technical cooperation needs of the middle-income countries, and more resources ploughed into investment in health, education and so on, in the very poorest countries.
<P>
Mrs Baldi said not enough importance was currently attached to environmental resources.
Again, I should like to refer to the commitment in the poverty eradication strategy to a sustainable development strategy, including environmental resources in every developing country.
We need to put that in place.
<P>
There is a strong consensus that we should strengthen the partnership.
A partnership implies a relationship of equals and yet it was argued by one of the Members that we had to have conditionality in human rights.
Experience with development shows that if conditionality is imposed it is never effective.
The basis for the partnership has to be that we agree on the need to eradicate poverty and this calls for respect for democracy, human rights and good governance; within that framework we can then agree as equals on the details of implementation.
<P>
I share Mr Howitt's aspirations towards decentralization.
There is strong agreement in the Commission and the Council that is the way in which our efforts need to move.
I have one reservation: we cannot have all the Member States, as well as the Commission, working with NGOs everywhere.
We need to decentralize our efforts and then we need to decide in what areas the Member States should take the lead and in what areas the Commission should take the lead.
We should not be tripping over each other on the details of our cooperation.
<P>
The final point, raised by Mrs Lööw, is population growth.
In 1945 there were 2.6 billion people, now there are 5.7 billion and by 2015 the population of the world will be at least 10 billion.
If we eradicate poverty and improve access to health care and education it will increase to about 15 billion and then be sustainable.
If we do not develop the world economy it will go well beyond that and start to use up the resources of the world in a way that is not sustainable.
That is part of the challenge of development: that we hand on a sustainable world to the next generation and for that it is absolutely essential that we succeed in these endeavours.
<P>
I am very optimistic that we are going to make progress in the effectiveness of our development collaboration.
The consensus between Parliament, the Council and the Commission bodes very well for our future endeavours.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="van Putten">
Mr President, I am impressed by the breadth and clarity of the President-in-Office's answers but there is one point that I missed and that is the complexity of the procedures.
The procedures are becoming so complex that they are a serious deterrent.
It was one of the reasons for the underspending under Lomé and the inaccessibility of Lomé for chambers of commerce, women's groups and environmental groups in the ACP countries.
Can you, and maybe the Commissioner as well, go into that issue?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Short">
May I very quickly touch on the complexity of procedures?
If you look at the Lomé agreement, it is enormously complex, with very complex channels of funding, and we are all agreed that they have got to be simplified.
The administration has got to be decentralized so that it is less slow, less complex, more effective.
There is agreement across Commission and Council that we must make those improvements.
At the moment, as you will know, in all areas of European Union endeavour we have difficulty in disbursing the funds that we have available.
We must improve our capacity to do so.
That is agreed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Robles Piquer">
Mr President, all I want to know is whether the Commissioner and the President-in-Office of the Council plan to say something about the US President's visit now, or to the Committee on Development and Cooperation at a future date.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="President">
Mr Robles, perhaps I could ask them to respond in writing because we are out of time for this debate.
Members know the procedure.
We have a debate and a separate time for questions.
I have to move on.
I would like to thank everybody who took part in the debate, in particular the President-in-Office.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
EU-Russia relations
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Ryynänen">
Mr President, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media I should like to congratulate Mrs Lalumière on her excellent report.
<P>
The bonds that tie Russia and the European Member States are centuries old.
Russia is also important as a bridge between Europe and Asia.
Europe's relationship with Russia is a chance to further the principle of western democracy, which is a key element in cooperation with other nations.
<P>
Russia, as a superpower, however, goes its own way in matters of geography, natural resources, its population and its culture.
Progress in Russia is unpredictable, often chaotic, following no western model or timetable.
For that reason, an understanding of Russia's special features is a key factor in a successful partnership between her and the EU.
<P>
The Committee on Culture proposes increased reciprocal understanding and trust through a programme of education and study as well as exchange arrangements.
People should know more about Russia's rich cultural heritage with its many vital minority groups, which are worthy of our support.
<P>
Nevertheless, Russian cultural heritage is being threatened by economic problems and indifference.
The EU should be helping Russia to take stock of this heritage, promote information exchange and vocational training in the area of culture, as well as encourage legislative moves in favour of ethnic cultures.
The challenge for us is, above all, to give our support to nationwide and local democracy in Russia.
<P>
The countries around the Baltic and Barents Sea are especially well placed to establish more opportunities for cooperation with Russia.
The TACIS-Interreg cross-border cooperation and TACIS-PHARE programmes must be brought more into the picture.
But proper cooperation in education cannot take place just through TACIS projects: it will require a European foundation or an entirely separate source of funding.
In any case, resources have to be increased and cooperation has to be based on the reciprocal dealings of two equal partners.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Truscott">
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Lambrias (PPE) .">
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Carrère d'Encausse">
Mr President, compared with Hungary, Russia is not a model of democratic transition. Any such comparison would be incorrect and a political error.
<P>
Russia was subjected to communism for 75 years, that is, three generations.
That means that there is no memory of the brief democratic experience of 1905-1914, nor of the prodigious economic development and the spirit of enterprise of the turn of the century.
It is a unique case in history whereby a memory has been suppressed, replaced for three quarters of a century by the sole experience of a one-party system and a state-run economy.
<P>
What is more, Russian society has experienced an incomparable demographic tragedy.
Since 1970 - not since 1991 as was stated - life expectancy has done nothing but fall.
That leads a society to despair.
It is an unprecedented phenomenon.
<P>
It is with this in mind that the Russian efforts to build a rule of law and a market economy must be evaluated.
The rule of law is still not perfect, but let us not forget that in spite of malicious prophecies, all elections since 1993, both general and local, have taken place on the anticipated date and, according to the experts, have been properly conducted.
All national and regional institutions are functioning.
Serious crises have erupted, in particular the war in Chechnya, but they are already a thing of the past.
<P>
The market economy is coming up against serious difficulties, above all the corruption inherited from the Soviet regime, and a collapse in the economy in general.
This collapse also does not date from 1991. Soviet experts have been analysing it since 1982, when it was noted in the Novossibirsk report.
<P>
A reform of the economy is difficult under such circumstances. Nevertheless, the first signs of recovery are clear.
The consequence of the reforms has been to differentiate society, but we must not reduce this phenomenon to a contrast between the impoverished masses and the fabulously wealthy mafia.
Those who knew the Soviet Union well know that nearly everyone was poor then, with the exception of the ruling classes.
Today, 50 % of the population are poor - it is true - but the other 50 % are experiencing a continual increase in their standard of living and there are already the beginnings of a middle class.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Russia has considerable natural resources and a very highly educated population, often better than that of our older democracies.
This means that whatever happens, she will make up the lost ground in terms of political and economic backwardness in the near future, as she was doing at the turn of the century before the revolution put a stop to that progressive momentum.
<P>
It is a country which has shared our history and which is today making considerable efforts to align itself with us.
If we recognize these efforts, if we are able to measure the progress achieved in comparison with the disaster from which the country is emerging, we will be offering Europe an opportunity for cooperation which will strengthen it in terms of security, prosperity and spiritual enrichment.
If we refuse to recognize the breadth of the transformation underway, if we do not commit ourselves fully to helping Russia, we run the distinct risk of seeing this country turn quite naturally to other countries for support.
She will turn to the United States, or Asia, or the Muslim world, and our part of the continent will be weakened by this.
<P>
This is the essence of Mrs Lalumière's excellent report.
The Group of the European People's Party supports it and hopes that it will not be unduly modified.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Väyrynen">
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, I would respectfully like to thank Mrs Lalumière for her report.
The report shows just how much expert knowledge she gained in her splendid work as Secretary-General of the Council of Europe.
<P>
Russia has a key role in EU foreign relations.
She is still a superpower and her development and progress is vitally important for the security and well-being of the Member States.
With enlargement, the Union already shares a very long border with Russia, and one that will grow even longer with the next round of accessions.
Enlargement will mean the strengthening of ties between the EU and Russia.
<P>
Enlargement to the east will be on a far larger scale than is generally realized.
All eastern European countries, Russia included, are on the path to democracy and a market economy.
Before long, they will all fulfil the criteria required for membership as laid down at Copenhagen.
Despite all this, Parliament should not yet, in the opinion of the Liberal group, take a stand in any way on Russia's inclusion in the EU.
<P>
Mrs Lalumière's excellent report originally gave the impression, and still does to some extent, that there will be a new bi-zonal Europe made up of Russia on the one hand and the rest of Europe on the other.
To rid ourselves of this image we suggest new wording to paragraph 57 regarding the Council of Europe and the EU so that "to act as a link between the two halves of the continent' will read as "to promote genuine pan-European partnership.'
<P>
The Liberal group suggests a new paragraph should be inserted in the report, which stresses the importance of the EU Nordic dimension and provides for the start of close cooperation between Russia and the Council of Baltic states, the Barents Euro-Arctic Council and the Arctic Council.
We hope everyone will approve this addition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Mr President, the European Union must support the greatest possible development of relations and cooperation with the Russian Federation.
It will be impossible to build a stable Europe if we turn our back on that country or try to isolate it.
The enlargement of the European Union to include the central and eastern European countries, and the enlargement of NATO to the east, should be accompanied by a proportional increase in relations with Moscow.
The plan and proposals, presented by the Council and the Commission respectively, should aim in that direction, as of course should the proper application of the 1994 agreement signed with the Russian Federation, which has just come into effect.
<P>
Russia is going through a difficult transition in political terms, with a democracy marked by Boris Yeltsin's presidential authoritarianism.
Examples have included the assault on Parliament some years ago, the war in Chechnya, and the most recent government crisis, not to mention the general lack of respect for many human rights.
<P>
Some institutions in Russia are weak as a result of that same authoritarianism.
There is a profound economic crisis, caused by ultraliberal approaches. And of course there is an extremely serious social crisis, which manifests itself, for example, as poverty, public servants being unable to draw their salaries, and even - though it is hard to believe - a decrease in people's standard of living and life expectancy.
<P>
It is a question of cooperating with Russia on equal terms, to help to ensure that the European Union has a democratic and socioeconomically consolidated partner.
Such a partner is essential for security in Europe. Security and cooperation with Russia cannot just be based on the founding act signed between Moscow and NATO: bodies such as the OSCE also need to be strengthened.
It is a question of having a reliable partner on the international scene, one which cannot be forgotten, as we saw during the most recent Iraq crisis and with the situation in Kosovo.
<P>
I want to end by saying that I am worried that countries such as France and Germany obviously might be tempted to enter into bilateral relationships with the Russian Federation, independently of moves from the European Union.
Lastly, I want to express our general support for Mrs Lalumière's magnificent report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, the sensitive reactions of the West to the risky government restructuring with which the Kremlin leader Yeltsin has startled his European neighbours in the last few days shows once again how profound the links between Western Europe and Russia are.
There is therefore no question about it: the challenge for Europe after the fall of the Wall is the clarification and restructuring of our relationship with Russia.
Basically, the question of European security will depend precisely on the success of the balance struck with Russia.
In the face of that, what the Commission calls an "action plan for the future relationship of the EU and Russia' seems to be a conglomeration of individual measures; it seems aimless, inadequate and unprofessional.
It is another demonstration of the poverty of our common foreign policy that in respect of what is our continent's key concern, neither a decent joint strategy nor a comprehensive set of ideas can be found in it.
<P>
I think I have made it clear: For the Green Group, there is no doubt that Russia can also become a member of the Union if it wants to.
Anyone who does not accept this not only ignores the EU Treaty on this point, but also rejects involvement in this great restructuring task of Europe.
Such a rejection is marked by the same spirit as the provocation which was caused by the expansion of military power systems during the Cold War.
It does not contribute to the settlement, peace and stability of this continent.
We need an investment in the partnership process with Russia, and that means an investment in the peace of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tatarella">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the members of the Italian National Alliance look favourably on the EU action plan for Russia, launched by the Council in May 1996 under the Italian Presidency.
<P>
The plan seeks to ensure good coordination between the various actions, both bilateral and Community, aimed at supporting the transformation of Russia.
It contemplates five major areas of cooperation: democratic reforms, economic cooperation, justice, safety and foreign policy.
In this respect, the National Alliance notes with satisfaction the efforts made by Russia with regard to political freedoms, the development of democracy and the protection of human rights.
It is, however, worried about a few uncertainties and a few steps backwards in this area and also hopes for marked, significant and positive developments in this respect.
We should therefore follow developments in this area carefully, helping and supporting them in all ways possible, without forgetting that only a year ago Russia was under the yoke of a communist and totalitarian regime.
<P>
We are asking the Russian government to pay greater attention to the control and suppression of local organized crime, which is spreading dangerously to Europe, and to give a strong commitment to environmental protection in order to avert further ecological disasters and repair the damage caused by the previous communist regimes, which were totally insensitive to these problems.
<P>
Finally, to ensure lasting peace for Europe and the world, we hope there will be a reinforcement of the political, economic and cultural partnership with Russia, which is undoubtedly a great world power today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Krehl">
Mr President, allow me to deal particularly with the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement in this debate.
In this agreement, there is already an effective instrument for carrying on a permanent dialogue with our Russian partners about all those questions of a political and economic nature which are central to our mutual relationship.
Let us not forget that it was the parliaments - the European Parliament and the Russian State Duma - which christened the first of the executive bodies of the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, the Parliamentary Cooperation Committee which I chair with my Russian colleague, Mr Ryshkov.
In this capacity I would like to emphasize particularly how profitable the work in this committee was last December.
<P>
I can assure you that we address the individual problems in the relationship between the EU and Russia very openly with our Russian colleagues, and that we are frank about the difficulties.
Continuity of contacts and regular mutual visits, which create mutual trust, are particularly important, even if the contacts on the Russian side are continually changing.
<P>
I think that it is not too much to say that the form of cooperation which we are developing is a future model for Russian-European cooperation.
In this way, the relationship with our Russian partners can be constructed and can be further extended without discussing Russia's EU membership.
Neither side needs to discuss that.
<P>
In this context, allow me to point out the importance of the TACIS programme.
In her report, Mrs Lalumière calls on the Commission to strengthen support for these projects, and demands that the priorities in TACIS aid for the improvement of daily living conditions should start with setting up the structures necessary for the rule of law.
I would like to underline this very explicitly.
We know that we must improve this TACIS programme, but we also know that preparatory work is essential for our future cooperation between Russia and the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, first I would like to congratulate Mrs Lalumière on her brilliance, because she reminded me of a colleague I once had, Mr Vergès, who was one of the best lawyers in the world, and to whom I once said: If I am ever found with a bloody knife next to a corpse, I would certainly take him as my advocate.
<P>
Mrs Lalumière, if that happens to me again, I would willingly engage you as my lawyer, because we must remember one thing, which was not mentioned here in the discussion, and my colleague Mr González Carnero has underlined it, that we must let caution rule in our relationship with Russia.
I would like to point out the following above all else here: Russia is today, in an era of worldwide decolonization, the last great colonial empire on earth.
The Chechen war showed that clearly, and there will be more colonial wars.
At any rate, I do not want any of my 18 grandchildren to die in a colonial war for the defence of Russia.
We do not need Russia in the European Union before decolonization has taken place, afterwards yes, but not before.
<P>
But I would like to point out the other fact, that Mr Yeltsin's last press conference has shown us how dangerous it is to leave the keys to nuclear weapons in such hands.
We must all be clear about that, and therefore we must think more about our security.
Obviously we do not want a war or conflict with Russia, but we must see the situation quite clearly.
I therefore have certain reservations about an over-optimistic representation of a situation which must simply be seen as it is.
The danger is still before us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cars">
Mr President, the European Union's policy on Russia is aimed at strengthening democracy, peace, trade with, and the economic development of, this large and important country of 140 million inhabitants.
If Russia's development is successful, a natural further step should be that Russia becomes a member of our democratic union, the EU.
On this issue, Mrs Lalumière is left quaking in her boots in her otherwise excellent report.
<P>
The EU was founded by six states with around 200 million inhabitants.
We now have 15 countries with 370 million inhabitants.
When we have accepted the 12 new countries which now want to join, we will number almost half a million people.
Surely a Union of that size which is functioning well could also open its doors one day and find room for a successful Russian democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, Russia's population is falling and poverty is spreading.
Nuclear waste and environmental pollution are a threat to the whole of Europe.
In the future, the EU will be dependent on Russia for her natural resources, especially gas.
The EU should not be sending any military signals that Russia might interpret as a threat to her national security.
A country like Finland should remain non-aligned, even if the EU were to have a common foreign and defence policy.
<P>
Mrs Lalumière's report brings to mind Karl Marx's book on the history of nineteenth century diplomacy.
It was never published in the Soviet Union because it brought up the question of Russia's foothold in both Europe and Asia.
<P>
We should not, however, adopt double standards when we look at the Russian issue.
The same criteria should apply in the West to President Yeltsin's dictatorship or the total indoctrination of the media as if that were what was taking place in our own countries.
The Russian people need money, good health, human rights, a clean environment and hope, just as we all do.
An equal basis for dialogue and cooperation requires the EU to look to Nordic policies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Féret">
Mr President, I enthusiastically support Mrs Lalumière's report and I pay tribute to her ability and perceptiveness.
<P>
On many occasions in this House I have had the opportunity of regretting that the European Union has committed itself to opening up to the west, to international high finance from across the Atlantic, and to the south, to an uncontrolled influx of immigrants, whilst I have dreaded the Union shutting itself off from the east, precisely where the European border remains to be drawn, since Russia straddles two continents.
<P>
If enlargement of the Union to the central and eastern European countries is to be brought to a successful conclusion, it must not be done to the detriment of our sister countries of the former USSR, in case we merely rebuild a new wall of shame a little further east.
It is probably unrealistic to envisage the accession of Russia to the enlarged European Union.
I have, however, always attempted to put forward the idea of unifying the enlarged European Union with the twelve member countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States in a structure such as a confederation. They would thus form the two poles of a future binomial partnership which would finally free our people from American protection.
<P>
Only as a Europe with a continental dimension can we become winners in a global economic war in which we have already lost too many battles.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
Mr President, the report on future relations with Russia is an important one.
I am therefore surprised and find it very regrettable that there are a number of strange deficiencies in the otherwise well thought out proposal.
<P>
Let me begin by mentioning paragraph 54, in which the rapporteur makes it clear that Russia is neither suitable nor desirable as a member of the EU, ' in view of the dimensions of Russia and its Eurasian interests and of the deeply integrated nature of the European Union.'
It is quite inappropriate for the European Parliament to make prejudiced comments on Russia's possible future membership, not least in view of the fact that Russia has not actually applied for membership.
It would be quite inappropriate to adopt paragraph 54 in its current form.
If such a statement of principle is to be adopted for Russia, it might just as well also be applied to other countries which could think of applying for membership, such as Belarus, Ukraine, Turkey and so on.
Regardless of whether people currently think that Russia should or should not become a member of the EU, such a point of view does not belong in the report.
It must be more in the EU's interest to establish strong ties with Russia which can develop into a closer cooperation in order to strengthen and guarantee peace and security internationally.
Europe's partnership for peace should clearly include the area from the Atlantic to the Urals.
<P>
The other flaw which I would like to mention is paragraph 46, in which the rapporteur suggests that it will only be possible to develop security relations with Russia once it has been decided to incorporate the WEU into the EU.
We must bear in mind that, according to the whole Russian establishment, NATO's enlargement is causing increased security worries for Russia.
The Russian military are now also demanding increased investment in Russian nuclear weapons as a result of NATO enlargement.
It is therefore very important for the EU to help reduce the worries which NATO's enlargement causes Russia rather than increase them.
<P>
Finally, I would just like to criticize the incomprehensible wording of paragraph 1 a, namely that the EU should foster the 'emergence of a middle class to provide a firm base for democracy.'
This wording belongs to 19th century thinking not to that of 1998.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lenz">
Mr President, I too would like to begin by congratulating Mrs Lalumière on her difficult report.
Although I have submitted a series of amendments, I know that we fundamentally agree.
A few days ago, the Russian human rights activist and Duma member Kovaliev expressed his concern about the anti-democratic tendencies which still exist in his country.
He is a man who loves his country, and anyone who reads his book 'The Flight of the White Raven' will see why he was in prison for seven years.
<P>
However, I would like to point out something which has hardly been mentioned.
He accuses both the old and the new leading elites of contempt for democracy and law.
These principles are conditions for the creation of a greater Europe, in which peace, freedom, the rule of law and democracy rule.
The European Union must take note of these questions.
It faces great challenges, because these relationships will have far-reaching consequences on the negotiations which have just begun with all countries.
<P>
Russia has joined the Council of Europe, to which all the Member States of the European Union belong.
It has thus said "yes' to the rule of law, democracy and human rights.
It has also said "yes' to the legal community which has been developing up for decades.
We in the European Parliament will approve the relationship with Russia, we want close cooperation, but we shall also pay close attention to, and when necessary issue a reminder about, the reform process in Russia towards a state which operates under the rule of law, respects human rights and establishes a civil society which acts democratically.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lehne">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me, in the discussion about this report, to say something about the developments in our cooperation within the delegation or within the joint committee which we have with the Russian State Duma and the Federal Council.
When I consider the development in the last few years, I detect that there has been a basic improvement.
Whereas in the joint sessions in the initial phase after 1994 we very often indulged in reciprocal statements - whereby the Russian side was sometimes quite emphatic in forcing us onto certain subjects, for example NATO membership of some east European states, subjects which really had nothing to do with the bilateral relationship between the European Union and Russia and prevented a rational dialogue - this has essentially changed.
<P>
It is now the case that we discuss many subjects of mutual interest and thus achieve agreement on many points, or can at least have an effective exchange of experience.
Take, for instance, the debate about TACIS, about the development of the partnership agreement, about Russian or European internal questions, such as the development of international crime, the rule of law or the tax system in Russia.
<P>
I believe that it is the task of the European Union to encourage the development towards a stable democracy in Russia, but to observe and follow it critically.
Russia is not yet a stable democracy, because there is still no stable combination there of the elements necessary for it.
The clashes and movements in internal politics make this clear, as we have seen recently.
Nevertheless I believe that Russia is on the right path, and we as Europeans should accompany her and be vigilant.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Piha">
Mr President, despite the over-optimistic tone of the report I would like to thank the rapporteur for her work.
The most important problem with the report is the lack of examples.
Mrs Lalumière mentions as one main goal the strengthening of security for Europe and her closest neighbours, based on equal partnership.
What does this actually mean, though?
<P>
The Finnish government aims to put the Union's Nordic dimension on the agenda during her Presidency in the latter part of 1999.
The Nordic dimension is a security project, broad in scope, which focuses, for example, on the TACIS programme, on Russia's commitment to regional cooperation in the areas of environmental concern and nuclear safety, and on the multi-faceted relationship that exists between the Baltic states.
<P>
Cooperation with Russia can be a success only by means of a step-by-step policy that addresses one issue at a time.
Russian stability will not be aided by grandiloquent, celebratory eulogies even in this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="van den Broek">
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="President">
Commissioner, thank you for battling against the noise.
I have to say that it never ceases to amaze or depress me how ignorant this House can be when people are speaking.
It is the same people who session after session stand up and talk about the dignity and importance of this House who treat it like a street market.
It is quite a disgrace.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken at voting time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gröner">
Madam President, I refer to Article 48 of the Rules of Procedure. On 9 March we gave the starting signal.
The European Parliament wanted to declare 1999 the European Year against Violence against Women, and to start a European campaign for this.
The initiative from the Committee on Women's Rights exceeded the required number, 314, today.
We have 323 votes.
<P>
Never have things moved so fast in the history of the European Parliament.
We managed to reach this number in only six and a half days of sittings.
I now ask the Commission and the Council to make preparations as quickly as possible, so that the women's organizations, churches, associations can start to prepare for this European year.
The women in our countries are waiting for support.
Once again the European Parliament has come forward in the vanguard of women's rights.
Sincere thanks to all my colleagues, men and women, who have signed the declaration.
But it is still possible to sign!
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="President">
Like you, I am extremely pleased that this resolution has been so successful.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Falconer">
Madam President, I would also like to congratulate our colleague Mrs Gröner on achieving the 323 signatures.
<P>
However, as usual I rise on the voting procedure.
I advise you now that I will be present and voting so you will have no problems.
However, I note that the voting list distributed to Members advises Members when there will be a roll-call vote.
There are ten roll-call votes for this particular session.
Two or three could be added to this making perhaps twelve to thirteen.
Therefore, if I stay for seven roll-call votes, I could then leave having completed the 50 %.
These rules are absurd, the way the Bureau treats them is absurd and the quicker they are removed the better.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="President">
There are about fifteen roll-call votes, Mr Falconer.
I bring this to your attention for whatever purpose it may serve.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Howitt">
Madam President, on a point of order.
I alerted the services to this point in advance this morning, but it was not taken even though it is relevant under Rule 19(4).
Last month this Parliament passed a resolution in favour of human rights in Nigeria.
In the debate I called for safety for the detained Ogoni human rights activist Batom Mitee, brother of the acting president of their movement.
At the time Batom's whereabouts were unknown, but a released detainee has confirmed on Tuesday of this week that Batom is held in the Delta Rubber Plantation and, after suffering torture including daily beatings, is in deep fear of his life.
<P>
I ask you, Madam President, on behalf of Parliament to write urgently to the Nigerian authorities to press for respect for this Parliament's will consistent with human rights law and our February 1998 resolution.
Batom Mitee continues to be refused visits from his family or any medical care and yet he is paralysed on his left side, cannot stand or eat unaided and has lived in the same soiled clothing for over three months.
<P>
I would be grateful if you could convey to the President that I have discussed this issue with Mrs Kinnock who also wishes to express her concern.
If the President kindly agrees to write the letter as requested, she will present it with her other colleagues at the EU-ACP Assembly due to take place next week.
Thank you for your cooperation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Howitt.
I will, of course, pass on your comments and your wishes to the President.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindholm">
Madam President, regarding the document for Mrs Schaffner's report which is only available in French.
Madam President, you promised to come back with information on how we should deal with Mrs Schaffner's report.
I would like to have that information.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="President">
Firstly, we verified the facts.
It is true that the document to which Mrs Schaffner's report relates exists only in French.
It is indeed a problem.
<P>
One possible solution would be to have the debate but not to vote until the report has been translated into all languages.
Mrs Schaffner is showing her approval of this proposal.
Does anyone have any objections to this?
It appears not.
<P>
Thank you, Mrs Lindholm, you have an answer to your question and, as you see, we have done what was necessary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="President">
Mrs Berès, do you have a procedural motion?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berès">
I would like to draw your attention to a letter signed by the Secretary-General, Julian Priestly, which we have received this morning.
<P>
According to this letter ...
<P>
(Laughter.
Heckling: ' April fool!' )
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="President">
Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, but procedural motions are an expression of democracy.
You know very well that every Member has a right to express himself or herself, including Mrs Berès.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berès">
I am happy to have been a victim of the British sense of humour and I thank the House for its understanding.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="President">
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
Proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the noise emission by equipment used outdoors (COM(98)0046 - C4-0122/98-98/0029(COD))
<P>
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Madam President, today I do not want to ask for signatures against criminality in Brussels, although we have only until Friday to do so, but I would like to propose, in accordance with Article 129, that the Murphy report should be referred back to the responsible committee, since there are over 100 amendments, which are mainly of a purely technical nature, and to make a SLIM initiative myself.
Two additional directives about measurements, dimensions and technical features of buses are added.
We should therefore agree in a working party on how we intend to proceed with these three directives, in accordance with the rules.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Wogau">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as chairman of the committee responsible, I must first inform you that the committee decided by a small majority to bring the Murphy report in this form to a sitting of the European Parliament.
I therefore do not speak as the committee chairman, but as a member of the Group of the European People's Party, and as such I support the proposal to refer this report back to the committee.
<P>
Why?
It has been my opinion for many years that we as the European Parliament can in future no longer afford to pass technical legislation by means of hundreds of amendments.
<P>
Since Maastricht, we have had co-decision in these matters.
The new directives are no longer directives of the Council alone, but directives of the European Parliament and of the Council.
As Parliament, in the case of this legislation, we can contribute to ensuring that the protection of the health and safety of citizens and of disadvantaged people is taken into account.
That is extremely important. We have always done it successfully in the past.
<P>
But what we need here are not 112 technical amendments, which none of those present understands and about which no-one knows what interests lie behind the individual amendments. We need one amendment which states that buses must be designed which are suitable for the disabled.
The execution of this legislative instruction of the European Parliament is then the responsibility of the technical bodies.
<P>
(Applause) This is called the legislative procedure of reference to technical standards, which I have always supported and which must always be the way in which we operate in future.
For this reason, I personally would be happy if it was possible to discuss it again in the committee, so that we can find a sensible solution in this matter.
I will now make a personal declaration: If this proposal is not referred back to the committee, I shall stay here, but I shall not take part in the vote.
I ask that this should be minuted, because as a parliamentarian I am not prepared to cooperate in this nonsensical kind of legislation.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Murphy">
Madam President, I hope not to take as much time as Mr von Wogau.
I have some sympathy with what he says that we have been dealing with a technical matter here but I would ask the House to consider this. Are we saying to the citizens of Europe that we are not competent enough to actually legislate on something which will affect people's lives?
I put it to you, the committee had every opportunity to debate this report.
They had every opportunity to discuss with me the amendments I was moving.
<P>
I accept that there are a lot of amendments but many of these are absolutely necessary.
If it is so technical for members on the other side not to have been able to understand what is going on, why were some 20 amendments actually moved by members from the other side of the House?
I would argue that they did understand what the issues at stake here were and I would come back to what the Commission said last night.
Commissioner Bangemann, when this point was put to him, said he could see no reason why Parliament should not actually take a position on the report and, indeed, he gave an indication that the Commission was prepared to accept 22 of our amendments.
<P>
So I say to Members on the other side of the House, we have had every opportunity to debate this issue, yes it is complicated, yes it is technical, but let us not abrogate our responsibilities.
We have an important job to do here; let us get on with it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Metten">
Mr President, I have just one question for the chairman of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy who was speaking here in person.
There have been three or four debates, and he has had every opportunity to submit an amendment, as just noted.
I would like to know why he did not accept that responsibility.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Wogau">
Madam President, I would like to reply to that personally.
As chairman of the committee, I asked the rapporteur to proceed, as I said, by proposing an amendment about the disabled, but to refer the rest of all of it to the technical bodies.
It was then shown that there were difficulties in doing this.
I therefore proposed setting up a working party to look for a sensible solution.
I proposed this before the vote in the committee.
We then voted on it, but the majority party in this House voted otherwise.
The result was that the Murphy report, which in my opinion was not ready for discussion, came to the House against my will as committee chairman.
I am therefore not now speaking as the committee chairman, but as a member of the Group of the European People's Party.
That is my answer to what Mr Metten has said.
<P>
(Applause and heckling)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Donnelly, Alan">
Madam President, I particularly want to respond to the comments by Mr von Wogau.
I joined this House in 1989 and under his predecessor, Mr Beumer, we dealt with a mountain of technical legislation which went through this House to complete the internal market and it is a nonsense for the Economic Committee chairman to say that we are not competent to deal with this legislation in this House.
<P>
The reason why they do not want this on the floor today is because they voted against the amendments to help the disabled in the design of buses and coaches.
That is why they do not want the legislation on the floor of this House.
I tell you, disabled people around Europe now are watching to see how the Christian Democrats vote on this issue because we have passed amendments in the committee to support the disabled and they want this report off the agenda.
<P>
(The matter was referred back to the committee responsible)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0110/98) by Mrs Randzio-Plath, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on democratic accountability in the third stage of EMU.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Berthu, for drawing attention to these linguistic confusions.
I am sure the ensuing debate will clarify any unclear points, and it is therefore my great pleasure to call upon Mrs Randzio-Plath to speak.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="Randzio-Plath">
President, what matters in the question of democratic accountability is the creation of transparency and credibility.
It is not a question of the control of the future European Central Bank, because the Treaty of Maastricht establishes the independence of the future European Central Bank very clearly.
This European Parliament, in its decisions and reports, has left no doubt that the future European Central Bank, in the conception of independence, is also a constituent part of European monetary union, which will begin on 1 January 1999.
<P>
This leads one to the conclusion that one side of the coin is the independence of the European Central Bank, but that the other side of the coin is transparency of decisions and their context, which find expression in a duty of accountability of the European Central Bank.
Besides, the Treaty of Maastricht and the statute of the European Central Bank already provide for a duty of the future European Central Bank to report.
<P>
The place in which this duty to report as an expression of transparency must be fulfilled is Parliament.
This transparency is an obligation in a democratic system for all institutions and establishments, and therefore also for the first supranational, federal European institution, the European Central Bank.
This transparency must be expressed before the only legitimized European body, the European Parliament.
Therefore, what is necessary today is to define in what form this European Parliament wants to see this monetary dialogue with the European Central Bank.
<P>
We also make demands on the basis of our experience of the debates with the Boards of Governors of Central Banks, the European Monetary Institute, in the Sub-Committee on Monetary Affairs, and also in the sittings of this Parliament. This experience shows the importance of regular monetary dialogue, which actually concentrates on the monetary subjects which are currently of intense topicality, does so calmly and will continue to do so.
We must also consider the ideas of the Treaty, which says very clearly that the European Central Bank must pursue the aim of price stability and also support the economic policy of the European Union, provided that the aim of price stability is not affected.
It is therefore important that we know all about the definition of price stability, about the decisions and the backgrounds to them, about the monetary aims and how the instruments are used.
<P>
That is all part of the dialogue of the European Parliament with the European Central Bank, as is publishing the reports of the European Central Bank.
This publication and this dialogue create transparency, not just in the interests of the European Parliament, the functioning of the democratic system and in the interests of the European population.
No, I believe that this transparency is also in the interests of the European Central Bank itself, which can only gain credibility, acceptance and trust through this transparency of its decisions.
We all know that right now in our Member States important questions are being asked about the start of monetary union.
It will therefore be particularly important that this European Central Bank should gain trust, credibility and acceptance.
<P>
It is therefore so important that we as the European Parliament should participate in the nomination procedure.
We are being heard.
I assume, and presumably this is also the view of the European Parliament, that no candidate will become a member of the Executive Board of the future European Central Bank without the approval of the European Parliament, even if this rule has not yet been written into a treaty.
The candidates will surely gain credibility and certainly weight as a result of their competence and by giving evidence of their previous position to the European Parliament.
<P>
This new European Central Bank gives us the possibility of entering into a dialogue with its President.
But at the same time, in all Member States, the national parliaments will have to enter into a dialogue with their national central bank presidents.
What matters, therefore, is that use is made of this right, so that Parliament is the place of openness, and above all so that this European Parliament is the place of that European openness, which is still lacking.
That is in the interests of the population, and also of the markets, for as the great economist Schumpeter once said, everything a people wants, does, suffers and is, is reflected in its monetary system.
I hope that the stable community of the European monetary union really will offer possibilities of creating the overall economic conditions within the European Union that enable the euro to contribute to the fight against unemployment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 NAME="Herman">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the power to mint or issue a currency is a considerable one, and history shows that those who hold this power have rarely resisted the temptation to abuse it.
<P>
People who have been the victims of such abuses of power thus always want to put safeguards in place.
The French, after suffering the "assignat' bank notes issued during the French Revolution, made such a mythical rush for gold that General de Gaulle himself took out a loan.
The Germans, traumatized by two monetary cataclysms, found maximum protection from the political control they rightly feared through the independence of the Bundesbank , which was imposed on them from outside.
You can understand, then, why governments were keen to ensure sufficient guarantees before renouncing national monetary sovereignty in favour of a common currency.
These they gained beyond all expectations.
The independence of the future Central Bank will be stronger than that of any other similar institution, as I explain in the opinion which is submitted to you.
<P>
But independence does not imply irresponsibility.
In a democracy, all holders of power must be answerable to those who gave them that power and in whose name they exercise it, in this case the people of Europe who we here represent.
The Randzio-Plath report, as it has been adopted, finds an acceptable balance between independence and responsibility.
In today's world, the credibility of the future Central Bank will depend on its accuracy of analysis and its explanation of decisions.
Mr Lamfalussy and Mr Duesenberg were the first to understand this and this is why they have lent themselves so easily to listening to, and dialoguing with Parliament, rightly considering that they would thus acquire greater legitimacy than that conferred on them by the Treaty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="Donnelly, Alan">
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mrs Randzio-Plath on an excellent report and also thank my colleagues in the other political groups for the enormous amount of cooperation we have had in the formulation of this report.
<P>
The EMU, as we know, is the most historic development that will take place in the European Union since the creation of the European Economic Community.
Therefore we have to make sure that we do it right.
We have to make sure that it is particularly friendly to the citizens.
I want to say to my German colleagues in particular, who seem to feel that those who want accountability of the Central Bank in some way want to impede its operation, that the citizens in the rest of the European Union do not have the same confidence and warmth for the ECB that you probably have for the Bundesbank.
The Bundesbank has been enormously successful.
The European Central Bank is a new institution that has to earn the confidence of the public.
The way to do that is to make sure it is accountable to the only democratically elected body we have among the European Union institutions.
<P>
There is nothing incompatible in defending the independence of the bank.
The Socialist Group will defend the independence of that bank wholeheartedly.
But we want to make sure that the currency we are creating is a citizens' currency; something that the people in the European Union feel confident with and feel is acting on their behalf.
This is not merely a currency for the large financial institutions and multinationals. It is for the 370 million people who live in the European Union.
So we need to put in place systems that will guarantee that public confidence.
Those of us who have had the chance to talk privately to Mr Alexandre Lamfalussy and other people who may find themselves on the Executive Board of the European Central Bank have always said that it is essential that the European Central Bank does not simply act as a collection of bookkeepers but that it acts very much as an institution of the European Union acting on behalf of its citizens.
<P>
I say to all Members of this House, the Commission and the potential candidates for the ECB: please understand that the success of that bank, operating in Frankfurt, will depend upon its public acceptability and its public accountability.
<P>
There is another point which is important from the point of view of accountability: we will have a centralized monetary authority but we will have a decentralized fiscal policy in the European Union.
We have to make sure that when national parliaments are setting their national budgets there is a feeling that there is a democratic body at a European level overseeing the monetary policy that is being set in the name of the citizens of the European Union, on behalf of the whole European Union.
We have to make sure that there is a link between the work of national parliaments and the European Parliament in ensuring that we have the democratic accountability of our Central Bank.
If we fail in this project then I think it will impede any further development we want to see in the future of the EU.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Friedrich">
Mr President, after some irritation over treaty changes, a vote of no confidence and so on, the RandzioPlath report is now before us in a version on which we can agree to a large extent.
The European Parliament today shows by a convincing majority - at least in the vote - that it is conscious of its great responsibility for the independence of the Central Bank and for the lasting stability of the euro.
The Christian Democrats have one signal to give today.
It is that we want a European currency which contributes, within Europe and globally, to ensuring that the citizens can rely on having long term political and economic stability.
But such a signal must also be demanded from the Heads of States and Governments.
Their task now is to appoint the President of the Central Bank as soon as possible.
Trust in the euro and European monetary union depends on the time and progress of this decision.
<P>
But - and I must say this openly - anyone today who, like the SPD candidate for chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, calls the euro a deformed premature birth, disqualifies himself as an interlocutor to be taken seriously.
How will such a man carry through a long term European policy, if he gives way to moods and vague fears and, against his better judgement, deliberately denigrates the greatest project of the post-war period?
<P>
I appeal here to the Social Democrats in this House: put a bit more mental effort into finally teaching your own candidate for chancellor the ABC of European politics.
Mr Schröder may manage to buy a steelworks at the taxpayers' expense and to sit on the Volkswagen Supervisory Board, but he is not up to forming a strategic monetary policy or to buying Rolls-Royce.
That needs political heavyweights like Kohl, Waiger and Stoiber, and not SPD lightweights like Schröder and Lafontaine.
<P>
If the Socialists in this House do not manage to help their candidate for chancellor back onto his feet in terms of European politics, they remain paper tigers, and the man from Hannover will bring them yet more horror stories about Europe.
We, the European Christian Democrats, want to make our contribution to making the euro into the most important and most stable currency in the world, next to the dollar.
We owe that to our citizens!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Mr President, as rapporteur I would like to ask that the election campaign in certain Member States should remain outside the House at a time of such an important decision for the future of European democracy and for the historical project of monetary union.
<P>
I am outraged that this historical hour is being used in this way, that we are squandering this time, which has been provided for the important democratic debate that should really do honour to this European Parliament.
Mr President, I ask you to ensure that it does.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="President">
I can assure you, Mrs Randzio-Plath, that this was not an item on the agenda.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Mr President, with regard to electoral campaigns, in France we have already given an opinion and I would prefer that we keep to the subject in hand.
<P>
This Parliament, which represents the citizens of the Union, will naturally have a role to play within the framework of the third phase of Economic and Monetary Union, which will necessarily lead to greater powers for certain institutions.
Clearly, the independence of the European Central Bank will be greater than that of any other national central bank and whilst we can imagine enforcing democratic control of the ECB at European level, I am not at all certain that the Bank will be able to draw its legitimacy from a control which is too nit-picking.
This legitimacy will come rather from its success in managing the European Union's monetary policy.
<P>
Amongst the interesting proposals in this report, I would like to mention the one inviting the President of the ECB to participate in a general debate regarding economic and monetary developments, along with the relevant Commissioner and the President of the Ecofin Council. This would be on the basis of an annual report from the ECB and the annual economic report drawn up by the Commission, which requests the ECB to give an explanation of decisions previously taken on monetary policy and requests a description of the way in which monetary policy will support the economic policies of the Union.
<P>
I would merely like to remind you that some of the initial proposals of the rapporteur were not acceptable, nor were they in accordance with the measures of the Treaty.
For example, the idea of requesting the ECB to publish a summary of the discussions of the Executive Board, which was in direct contradiction with paragraph 4 of Article 10 of the ESCB statutes, which anticipated that these meetings should be confidential, with the board deciding whether or not to make their deliberations public.
<P>
It was the same for the idea of giving the European Parliament the right of censure and of joint nomination of the Executive Board, which assumed a revision of the Treaty, in particular paragraph 4 of Article 109.
<P>
On 18 March, the initial report was substantially modified in committee and our group is extremely pleased with this.
All of these modifications are good in that they have enabled the report to be more lucidly refocussed.
Thus modified, Mrs Randzio-Plath's report is acceptable to us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gasòliba I Böhm">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to express the support of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party for the Randzio-Plath report, which addresses a matter which will be of particular importance when EMU and the single European currency come into force.
This process should, of course, take place with full respect for democratic accountability.
<P>
Mrs Randzio-Plath's report expresses the very wide majority obtained during debate in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on the effort she put into producing the report, and on the broad consensus emerging from today's presentation to the House, all of which leads us to support the report without any reservations or difficulties.
I would just like to expand or emphasize one or two points which I think are especially important.
<P>
Firstly, what we are trying to do with this report is guarantee democratic accountability and the participation of the European Parliament, without calling into question the independence of the European Central Bank nor the achievement of its main objective of price stability, which is established in the Treaty.
<P>
Secondly, we are well aware of the need to establish an interinstitutional agreement to allow us to participate in directing the economic and monetary policy which, in fact, must provide the background to the management of the euro, and is determined by three fundamental elements: the annual economic report from the European Central Bank itself; the European Monetary Institute's report; and obviously, when required, a report on excessive deficit.
Democratic accountability, and therefore Parliament's role, must be guaranteed throughout that whole process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
<SPEAKER ID=144 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, I think it is plainly dangerous that the world's most independent bank, the European Central Bank, is going to become a sort of ivory tower in Frankfurt.
The danger is that the bank and its directors will withdraw from normal society and that exaggerated price stability will, in the end, pose a threat to peace within EU society.
<P>
This must be prevented by the board of the ECB becoming involved in institutional dialogue with the other political bodies.
The decisions the board takes must always be transparent.
They must be stated publicly, and I am totally convinced that public opinion will still accept that the European Parliament has a key role to play in this matter, and in the monitoring of democracy.
<P>
Obviously it is not a question of the ECB receiving binding instructions from political bodies.
Rapidly dwindling capital resources simply will not sustain this sort of old-fashioned policy.
But it is quite clear that the European Parliament should propose bold amendments to the Treaty of Rome.
<P>
Now, unfortunately, Christa Randzio-Plath's splendid report has little left in it of this courage, and little left of the proposals she originally made.
The Green Group supports the idea that the ECB board should be appointed by the same process as exists with the European Commission, a body to which Parliament has an important role in appointing members.
I think it is essential that everyone should be in a position to remind the Central Bank's Executive Board of its mortality. This could come about in such a way that Parliament, say by a given majority, could make recommendations to the Ecofin Council in extreme cases concerning the dismissal of even the President of the Bank.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Group of the European Radical Alliance fully supports the Randzio-Plath report.
I consider it an excellent text which attempts to show what dialogue there could be between the Central Bank, which in fact will be the most independent in the world, and other institutions, especially Parliament.
<P>
I would ask Mrs Randzio-Plath to be so good as to take on board the amendments we have presented, which move in the same direction as the report, whilst trying to strengthen it somewhat in order to encourage even greater dialogue.
We must strengthen the possibility of the European Parliament becoming the place of dialogue with the ECB, the place for transparent and regular exchanges - at closer intervals, in my opinion - the place where the President can express himself and where, on behalf of our people, we can question him without challenging its independence.
I think such dialogue would be extremely important to show public opinion that we are not creating an ivory tower but a body required to account for its actions before an institution such as the European Parliament.
<P>
The proposal that I have made on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance suggests a monthly meeting for contact and dialogue with the future President.
I leave this on the table for your consideration.
I think this could strengthen dialogue, not only in spirit.
I understand the President of the Federal Reserve appears before the American Congress every fortnight.
Our other proposal is for the President designate, who will be in regular contact with Parliament, to give an opinion on the resolution that we are going to adopt tomorrow, on the basis of this report.
<P>
These are the two proposals that I would like you to consider, and I hope that you will vote in favour of them tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, scarcely a month before the choice of countries to be irreversibly, according to the expression drummed endlessly into us by Commissioner de Silguy, blended together in European Monetary Union, Parliament has finally become concerned with the essential question of its democratic accountability.
<P>
Many good people, amongst them federalists, some within this Parliament, are beginning to show serious concerns about this dangerous flaw in the European institutional system.
But raising the problem of this democratic shortcoming is not enough, we must also look for possible remedies.
<P>
This is what the Herman report, in particular, tried to do, by not evading the "taboo' issues such as lack of a political mechanism to warn us of any abuse of monetary power on the part of the ECB which might be to the detriment of the general interest, or the risk of seeing day to day decisions on the external value of the euro being taken by the ECB and not the Ecofin Council, contrary to the measures of the Treaty.
<P>
It would have been preferable to agree to put the Herman report back on the agenda for this part-session, as my colleagues Mr Berthu and Mr van Dam proposed on behalf of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, in order to give the debate its true dimensions. This was not done.
The Randzio-Plath report is therefore the only one on the table today.
It limits itself to a number of pertinent comments, it recognizes that the ECB will become the first supranational monetary authority in history and will thus consequently hold unprecedented power, far greater than that of the German Bundesbank or the American Federal Reserve and that, for the first time, an area in which federal political decisions are taken within the European Union will emerge.
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But whilst the report admits that this unprecedented independence calls for a similarly high level of democratic accountability, no concrete proposal is made as to how this might be achieved.
The report makes no mention of the essential role that national parliaments have to play in this control.
It contents itself essentially with reminding us of a few powers of consultation that are reserved for the European Parliament, which seem really quite derisory in the face of the central question raised by Mr Herman: to whom are these holders of quasi-absolute power going to be answerable?
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Mr President, under such conditions we cannot support this report and we fear that the birth of the first truly supranational institution of the European Union may be synonymous with a decline in democracy.
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<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Mr President, the problem we are dealing with today is both a theological and a teleological one, that is, a question of purpose.
Theological because it is a question of belief, of dogma.
The independence of central banks should be a factor of efficiency.
The Bank of England was the model for the dependent bank, along with the Bank of Japan, and everyone knows that these two countries were inefficient.
Economic literature does not enable this problem to be solved.
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For example, France during the 90s did not have any inflation, but their central bank was nevertheless dependent.
If we look at German history we can see there is a German desire to resolve their neuroses: Weimar, independence.
People say that the Germans have been very prosperous and they have had an independent central bank.
But the Germans are also blonde, yet is this a factor in their prosperity?
In this case, let's dye all the Spaniards' hair blonde and there will no longer be an economic problem in Spain.
Must all Europeans give up sugar just because its German grandmother is diabetic?
Perhaps the German situation is explained by the fact that they have not been involved in wars in Indochina, or in Algeria?
Germany lost the Second World War and has put its efforts into household electronics instead of military electronics.
Is this factor not important?
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There are no choices but ideological ones, of the same type as that of Vincent Auriol, "I'll close the banks and lock up all the bankers' .
We have come a long way since then.
It is revealing that Mrs Randzio-Plath has talked constantly of the ECB, rather like we talk about BSE.
First the mad cow, now the mad single currency!
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There is a teleological question. What is the purpose?
Why have a monetary Europe? Why have an independent central bank?
For monetary stability? Is our aim in life, man's destiny, the independence of the Central Bank?
The mystery of life on earth, the single currency, are they monetary stability?
I believed that Europe was the little Eurasian continent, a model of democracy.
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Mr President, when a governing body receives orders from no-one and is made up of a very small number of people, what is it called?
Government by a few is known as an oligarchy, and there stands the tragedy of the European continent, the model of democracy, which ends up with a monetary oligarchy, or at least, a Prussian one.
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<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lienemann">
Mr President, in her report Mrs Randzio-Plath rightly quoted Joseph Schumpeter's comments in which he said that the state of a nation's monetary system reflected all aspects of the nation's intentions, actions, vicissitudes and, indeed, its very essence.
There is therefore nothing more important than democratic accountability of monetary policy.
It has to be noted that within our institutional framework - which has been ratified by our people, our parliaments and our authorities - the current Treaty gives the European Central Bank power and independence without democratic accountability.
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Within this overall unsatisfactory framework, the quality of Mrs Randzio-Plath's report is that it attempts to see how Parliament may make its voice heard better and how we could use the measures within the Treaty to go as far as possible, not in the sense of controlling the Central Bank, for there will be no control given that there are no sanctions, but in the sense of a dialogue with Parliament and a capacity for transparency.
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I thus approve of the proposals which have been made.
It is in this context, above and beyond Mrs Randzio-Plath's report, that it is important for the House to encourage some readjustments in how democracy functions in Europe.
I believe that a Central Bank - if it were independent - would need checks and balances in a number of areas.
It is not normal that it takes its independence from a treaty alone.
As Mrs Randzio-Plath said in her report, whether it be the American Federal Reserve or the German Bundesbank , central banks are usually controlled by parliaments because their jurisdiction is set by legislative acts which can at any given time be amended or changed.
This is unfortunately not the case with the European Central Bank.
It would be appropriate, in the future, to provide national parliaments, and above all the European Parliament, with the means to have an influence in this direction.
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Secondly, it is important to highlight the fact that the Ecofin Council now finds itself in a position where it has the capacity to intervene with regard to the exchange rates of currencies such as the dollar or the yen, but with limited powers.
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I have one small regret with regard to Mrs Randzio-Plath's report. It is that, when she rightly explains that the concept of monetary stability is a concept which must be tailored to the circumstances of the situation, she gives the Central Bank, rather than the Ecofin Council, the role of fixing the criteria for stability, which could have moved the balance back a little bit in the other direction.
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But more fundamentally, Europe needs an economic government. a political government which, a little like the case of the German government in relation to the independent central German bank today, is in a position to make other reasoning, apart from the logic of monetary stability alone, prevail.
I am talking about employment, prosperity and social justice and it is not satisfactory to see the Euro Council be no more than a vague instrument of consultation.
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I will finish by saying that my great regret is that Amsterdam has not enabled this institutional readjustment.
Failing this at Amsterdam, let us move quickly on to a new stage, which is essential and which Parliament desires since it wants major reforms to have taken place before enlargement.
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<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Peijs">
Mr President, should the Central Bank be accountable to this Parliament?
The answer is "yes' .
Should the bank be corrected by this Parliament?
The answer is certainly not.
I come from the Dutch tradition of an independent central bank.
Dutch politicians, and certainly the Dutch parliament, have, as far as I know, never formally tried to exert influence over the bank.
The European people, and this is my firm conviction, have nothing to gain from political influence over monetary policy.
Economic research has shown that independent central banks are more successful in achieving lower inflation rates than banks which are guided by politicians.
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Politicians are reelected every four or five years.
This entails, by definition, a markedly short term vision.
Public confidence and faith on the part of the markets is crucial to the EMU.
That is why it must be guarded with a long term perspective in mind.
That is why the President of the ECB will be appointed for a term of eight years.
As he cannot be reappointed, he does not have to please anyone.
One of the bank's central tasks is to achieve price stability and he therefore forms an element of continuity and stability within European monetary policy.
Of course the ECB should not operate from an ivory tower. Mr Donnelly, I would like to say to you, being independent and having a central position in society does not have to be a contradiction in terms.
That is why a provision has been made for intensive debates between the President, the Executive Board and this Parliament on the annual report or the quarterly reports.
The presidents of the national banks will also start a dialogue with their parliaments.
Finally, the bank will not receive political instructions, but neither will it be blind or deaf to the needs of European society, because it will be in touch with all the important forces in society.
If this is its position, its monetary policy will be supported.
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<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wurtz">
Mr President, as the structures of the single currency are put in place, fundamental questions are coming to light.
Some of them cannot be satisfactorily answered without rethinking some of the measures anticipated by the current treaties.
Today's debate on democratic accountability of the ECB is a significant example of this.
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The resolution shows that the objective of European economic and monetary policy must be to assure a high level of growth and employment.
Indeed, this is common sense.
It also notes that in a democracy, there must also be control of the ECB's monetary policy.
This seems unquestionable.
However the statutes provided for the ECB by the current treaties do not move in this direction at all.
On the one hand, its level of independence - unsurpassed in the world - is so far removed from the citizens and their elected representatives that any effective control of its activities would seem to be illusory.
On the other hand, the mission conferred on it by the treaties is to ensure, not a high level of employment but price stability, which is totally different.
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As the reports on convergence from the Commission, the European Monetary Institute and the Bundesbank have reminded us, this stability will be obtained by keeping salaries in check and lowering the overall cost of labour.
From within this concept then, the ECB is more ultra-liberal than the United States Federal Reserve itself, which officially has the main objective of high employment.
If one day we should criticize the President of the ECB for being overly concerned with a strong euro and ignoring all social considerations, he will merely reply that he is only doing his job.
This is why I think that if you truly want a monetary institution that does not ration, but relaunches the necessary finances for employment and growth, and one which the citizens' representatives can effectively monitor in this objective, we cannot economize on the reorientation of the construction of Europe.
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By chance, the very day that we are debating this question an official report has sent out a warning regarding the levels of poverty and insecurity in France.
It is the same throughout Europe.
Faced with these issues, which touch on the very core of values essential to our society, we cannot let the financial markets make the rules, nor be satisfied with potential control over an all powerful ECB.
European construction has greater ambitions!
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<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Trizza">
Mr President, the establishment of a European central banking system is drawing near, planned for the first half of 1998, following the decision to participate in the third stage of EMU.
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The European Central Bank will have the fullest legal status and, as soon as it is set up, will take over the residual duties of the European Monetary Institute.
As specified by the rapporteur, the European Central Bank will have the specific task of controlling price stability, which is achieved specifically by means of a cautious and impartial monetary policy, and by conducting exchange transactions, managing the foreign currency reserves of Member States, promoting the operation of payment systems and, finally, authorizing the issue of bank notes and coins.
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Price stability throughout Europe and the independence of the European Central Bank will give rise to trust on the markets and, consequently, we should achieve a fall in interest rates, particularly in the long term.
This will be extremely favourable to small and medium-sized enterprises, which represent the highest percentage of European businesses, particularly in the economically weaker areas.
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However, I share the rapporteur's concerns when she notes that, as established in the Treaty, in exercising its powers and performing its tasks and duties, the European Central Bank is totally independent, which means that none of its bodies can accept or request instructions or orders from any government or other organization.
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As laid down by Article 7 of its statutes, it is certainly the most independent central bank in the world.
The sovereignty it will hold should, however, ensure an impartial monetary policy for all the Member States, thereby ruling out the risk that, lacking any democratic control, the European Central Bank is free to interfere at will in any questions dealing with the monetary policy of Member States.
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I therefore believe it absolutely essential that, in view of the necessary operational independence of the European Central Bank, appropriate mechanisms are provided for consultation with the European Parliament, which is a democratically elected body.
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<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Metten">
Mr President, the European Central Bank, which will be set up in three months time, will be more independent than any existing bank in the world.
It would be a misconception to think that it does not have to take any notice of anybody.
It will not be operating in a vacuum, and it will have to acquire credibility and authority.
The ECB will find this easiest if it is able to show results, but this will take some time.
Moreover, although the ECB will be born in an era of historically low inflation, no one knows how the monetary instruments which have proved their usefulness on a national level will work on a European level.
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During its initial phase, ECB policy will have to be characterized by a cautious, searching approach.
It will be extremely difficult to acquire public credibility through such an approach.
It can only be achieved in one way, namely by reporting back continuously and by explaining what the ECB does, and why.
This is the paradox of the ECB; it will be the largest independent bank in the world, but it has the most to gain from transparency and accountability.
This is where the interests of the ECB and the European Parliament meet, because the European Parliament is the only public forum the ECB has the duty to report to, as laid down in the Treaty.
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We therefore think it would be useful to reach agreement with the ECB on how, in the interests of both, this transparency and accountability can be effected in as meaningful a way as possible.
It will require regular verbal or written reports about such issues as which monetary objectives are set and why, the degree to which objectives are implemented and the reason for any possible divergence and the effects of monetary policy on the economy and employment.
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The willingness of the ECB to be as transparent as possible and to be accountable in a meaningful way will be particularly crucial during the initial phase.
Without this, it might seem that the ECB is making a false start and is unsuccessful in building up credibility and authority.
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That is why Parliament will have to ensure that belief in the principles of democracy and a willingness to be accountable are significant factors in the choice of prospective board members.
We will not only ask those who may not win the confidence of a majority in this Parliament to withdraw their candidature, but we will also call on Member States' governments not to appoint any candidates who cannot rely on the support of this Parliament.
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In view of the ECB's extreme degree of independence, the democratic attitude of individual candidates most definitely matters, and this includes candidates for all posts.
That is why the candidate hearings next month will not be a mere formality.
If the ECB is to be imbued with the principles of democracy, it should be done now.
That is what is at stake at the moment.
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<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Christodoulou">
Mr President, the establishment of the single currency is an unprecedented historical phenomenon.
For the first time in the world's history, independent states and democratic societies have decided to give up a significant part of their national independence - their currency - to a common instrument, to be managed for the benefit of all.
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I therefore think the debates now taking place about transparency, about the "absolute management' method, or the fears being expressed about whether the European Central Bank will act imperiously or in ways that do not benefit the societies it represents, are rather unnecessary.
In democratic societies such as ours, public opinion and the democratic process are facts of life. Since central banks everywhere, and especially the European Central Bank, are supposed to be working for the good of all Europe's peoples - and that is the reason why they exist, otherwise they would not -, public opinion will compel them both to operate transparently and to deal with the issues for which they are responsible in the best possible way.
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I therefore think that the debates from time to time about lack of transparency, and the concerns expressed by one side or the other, are unnecessary and should cease as soon as possible, since the other extreme, that of complete openness, would make it impossible for the Central Bank to do its work.
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Mrs Randzio-Plath's very good report, as it has developed, proposes precisely a balance between those two factors and, I think, expresses a very correct opinion. I hope Parliament will adopt it in a way that protects the interests of Europe's peoples while at the same time enabling the new system to operate as effectively as possible.
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<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Raschhofer">
Mr President, the full independence of the European Central Bank is quite rightly anchored in the Treaty.
The highest aim of its monetary policy is to ensure price stability.
The decision on how far the European Central Bank supports the general economic policy of the Community thus depends on its assessment of a possible effect on the aim of price stability.
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Price stability at any price, even at the price of increasing unemployment!
That is, to come to the point, the public discourse, which in the end means one thing: monetary policy is not neutral.
That is why it is necessary to involve the European Central Bank in a dialogue about politics.
I do not believe that the independence of the European Central Bank on the one hand and the required democratic transparency on the other must necessarily be in contradiction to each other.
But I am certain that monetary union needs the acceptance of citizens to be successful.
This, however, can only be achieved by the transparency of the decisions of the European Central Bank and by their democratic legitimization.
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<SPEAKER ID=155 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pérez Royo">
Mr President, Mrs Randzio-Plath's report addresses one of the most important questions facing us as we wait at the door to monetary union, the very central pillar of which will be the independence of the European Central Bank, in the terms laid down by the Treaty and the bank's statutes.
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That the issuing institute should be independent is no mere dogma or axiom of economic science, or the result of abstract reasoning. Instead, it is a working method vouched for mainly by historical experience.
On both sides of the Atlantic, in the two best known examples, experience has shown the practical advantages of an independent monetary authority for guaranteeing price stability.
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Well, as has been said here this afternoon, independence certainly does not mean irresponsibility.
In a democracy, every power - and the European Central Bank will be a power - even if it is independent of political power, as is the case with the European Central Bank or, in another area, the judiciary, should be able to explain to the citizens and public opinion the reasons underlying its actions and its choice of objectives, and why it chose the methods it adopted in order to achieve those objectives and goals.
All of that should be true both a priori and a posteriori .
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For democratic control demands, firstly, dialogue with the parliamentary institution - with this Parliament and the national parliaments - and also transparency of information.
In both those respects, the Randzio-Plath report is realistic and balanced.
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I conclude, Mr President, by saying that we have to realize that in setting out along this road, Parliament must show that it is up to its new role as the European Central Bank's main partner for dialogue.
At the same time, it must also be stressed that along that road we should not rule out the possibility of eventual reforms, even of the Treaty itself - as has been called for here this afternoon - in order to give greater depth to that same democratic control of the European Central Bank.
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<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Secchi">
Mr President, as has been clearly stated, the independence of the European Central Bank is a valuable asset and is therefore beyond discussion.
In a federal system, it provides a fundamental guarantee for the participating states and also gives credibility and authority to the Bank on the financial markets.
Accountability, which we have been talking about this afternoon, is not only a democratic requirement but also an essential requirement for maintaining the authority and credibility of the Bank.
Firstly, therefore, it is in the interests of the ECB itself to adopt adequate methods of referral to public opinion, obviously taking into account the enormous difference between explanations given prior to action programmes, which can only be expressed in general terms, and statements after implementation on the lines followed, which should be more analytical.
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In my opinion, therefore, it is not a question of laying down rules, but rather of encouraging behaviour towards the European Parliament, a behaviour that can establish a climate of trust through transparency and availability to explain and discuss its actions, which, in the context of our debate, we are calling accountability, and which is in the interests of the authority and credibility of the European Central Bank.
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<SPEAKER ID=157 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fayot">
Mr President, unlike all the other people who have spoken in this debate, I come from a country where, prior to the euro, there has never been a political debate on currency.
Luxembourg, united with Belgium in monetary union since 1922, has never truly had the right of speech within this union.
Economic and Monetary Union will give us that right.
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With monetary union, the citizens of my country are discovering the importance of everything surrounding the issue of currency.
This is why the purpose of dialogue between the European Parliament and the Central Bank is to raise awareness amongst the general public of the importance of monetary policy within social and economic policy in general.
The ECB's objective has been stated as price stability.
What will the consequences of this be on the Member States' policies?
Let me give you an example.
In Luxembourg, incomes are largely indexed to price levels.
It is an important factor in my country's policy of redistribution of income and social policy in general.
If, for example, the ECB were to give an opinion on this, it needs to be possible to discuss this question publicly, along with the choices.
I therefore think that public support for the ECB's monetary policy is essential for the birth of the new currency. The Bank's public presentation of its choices and interventions will also be essential.
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I would like to finish, Mr President, by congratulating Mrs Randzio-Plath on her report and above all on the work which she has achieved over the last few years, as chair of the Sub-Committee on Monetary Affairs, in putting monetary union in place and getting it onto the European Parliament's agenda.
Given the weight of the future European Central Bank, I think that the European Parliament should seriously consider creating a Monetary Committee, within the framework of which, dialogue with the Central Bank could be developed.
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<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García-Margallo y Marfil">
Mr President, all the speakers have said we are facing the most historic event since the signing of the Treaty of Rome.
That is true, and this Parliament - which has always been the driving force behind European integration - should do everything that can and must be done to ensure the euro is a success.
And in order for the euro to be a success, we are all agreed that we need to guarantee price stability.
I am not going to question that, but I am glad that Mrs Randzio-Plath's report also talks of other objectives, particularly that of job-creation.
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We are also agreed that monetary policy should be designed and implemented by a European Central Bank which is independent.
I will not question that either, but I am also glad that the Randzio-Plath report talks about the need to coordinate monetary policy with the rest of our policies, in order to achieve the European Union's great objectives.
I think the institutional agreement suggested by Mr Herman is a clever idea, and I think it represents a first step which we will probably have to evaluate in the future, revising the Treaties if need be.
As noted in the report, the economic government of Europe constitutes a necessary counterweight.
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To conclude, I think it is important that the European Central Bank should not just be a bubble in the air, a sort of aristocratic Neoplatonism, and the European Parliament should play its part here.
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<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="Harrison">
Mr President, in a few weeks' time the European Union will be choosing the governor of the European Central Bank and Britain's future bank manager.
Make no mistake about it, the setting of interest rates by the ECB governor and his or her board of five governors will profoundly affect the United Kingdom's interest rates, inflation levels and the strength of the pound sterling.
So we parliamentarians had better get it right when we help to confirm the choice of Europe's bank boss, especially when we hold the unique inquisitorial hearings in Parliament in Brussels in May.
To scrutinize the candidates for the ECB is in no way to challenge the independence of the ECB. Indeed its independence, guaranteed by the Maastricht Treaty, is even more sharply defined and delineated than that of the Bundesbank, its original model.
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But Europe and its peoples do demand that we subject the ECB to legitimate, democratic accountability, that we verify that what is done in the name of the independent bank, is done for the people, of the people and is by the people; that the central objective of price stability leads to the palace of prosperity and jobs, not to the den of deflation and recession.
Such accountability is merited, not only to satisfy Europe's democratic needs, but also and more importantly to shore up the credentials of the bank itself.
This point was itself made to me by candidate Duisenberg last week in the European Parliament's monetary sub-committee and this committee, too, must adopt and adapt.
Its fledgling role as banking committee for the citizens of Europe must be developed and essentially the ECB governor should present not only the bank's annual report but also offer regular, possibly quarterly, explanations of its interest rate decisions, and the minutes themselves should be published in summary form showing the decisions made plus explanatory commentary.
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Only in this way will the European Parliament perform its task of independent custodian of the independent bank as set out in the exemplary and pioneering report so finely chased and chiselled by my colleague Mrs Christa Randzio-Plath.
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<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ilaskivi">
Mr President, when the European Central Bank begins operations, it will have immense economic power.
Seriously, it will take decisions on all economic policy, because, for example, the hands of financial policy will be bound by convergence criteria.
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European trade-cycles will in the long run depend on the ECB Board being able to take the right decisions and avoid making mistakes during its eight-year term of office.
Whether or not we find an Executive Board for the bank made up of six men and women with practically supernatural abilities is the old sixty four thousand dollar question.
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Independence is a proper issue, but we also need to have Parliamentary dialogue.
Unopposed power easily leads to its misinterpretation and abuse.
The Board must work in close cooperation with the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
It must also be able to resolve problems in monetary policy, and growth and employment policy.
A very orthodox monetary policy might very well lead to stagnation.
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Ladies and gentlemen, the euro has to create stability for Member States.
The euro should become the third international reserve currency alongside the dollar and the yen.
How well this is to succeed depends on the efforts of the ECB's directors.
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<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Katiforis">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the reports by the Commission and the European Monetary Institute have brought us into the finishing straight for the single currency's establishment, an historical event for the building of a single Europe.
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For the single currency's management, Europe is at last getting a Central Bank equal to the task, a bank that will exercise Europe's monetary policy in a unified way that takes into account the needs and interests of all the single currency Member States and, I hope, those of the countries which are not yet members of the single currency but aspire to become so soon.
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It would be a mistake to think that there has never before been a single currency policy in Europe.
Such policies have existed from time to time, but not with a spirit of cooperation.
They were implemented under a spirit of imposition by one or another powerful central bank in Europe, or even by a powerful bank outside Europe.
That will not happen in the future.
But to be able to implement its monetary policy in a fair and balanced way, the European Central Bank must be sure of its independence.
That independence is not threatened, but safeguarded by the provisions for democratic accountability advocated by Mrs Randzio-Plath's report.
Responsible information of Parliament will consolidate the bank's authority among Europe's peoples, and will enable it to do its work guided only by the general interest and without being influenced by the interests of special groups.
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In the process of democratic accountability advocated by the report we are debating, Parliament will be able to point to the general interest, according to circumstances, and so create a climate which provides a framework for the Central Bank to fulfil its duties in the best possible way.
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<SPEAKER ID=162 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fourçans">
Mr President, although from my point of view there is no question of challenging the ECB's independence, the problem of knowing how to control those who implement monetary policy, their power to do both good and evil - in the field of economics, of course, because it is not a question of preaching morality - is the decisive factor.
It is clear that democracy demands that those in charge of monetary policy should not be allowed to operate without ever having to justify their actions.
It is appropriate that these people should account for their policies and that such policies should be widely discussed, particularly within Parliament as this is the only elected body at European level.
Mrs Randzio-Plath's report more or less respects the balance between independence and democratic accountability extremely well.
The Group of the European People's Party, myself included, are generally in favour.
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Nevertheless, I would like to raise one doubt.
It is with regard to Article 3 which points out that monetary policy has an influence on growth and employment.
I do not question this position, but I think it lacks precision.
Certainly, currency influences growth and employment, but it is a temporary and not a long term influence.
To believe that currency has a long term influence on growth and employment, as was the case in the preliminary report, has devastating consequences for monetary policy.
If this were so, there would be no reason to follow a monetary policy of price stability.
On the contrary, it would be necessary to apply a permanent policy of reflation.
It would only be a question of the President of the Central Bank getting into his helicopter - for I am sure he will have one - and throwing tonnes of 500 euro notes down on the heads of the astonished but delighted populations of Europe.
It is in order to avoid this sort of misunderstanding that I thought it necessary to clarify this point, for it must not be misunderstood by the Commission, the Council or public opinion.
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<SPEAKER ID=163 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Torres Marques">
Mr President, this report is fundamental to the future of the European Parliament.
The European Central Bank is totally independent, and that is how we perceive it.
However, the legitimacy of its operations and the possibility of monitoring it in a democratic manner are matters that have been widely discussed in all countries.
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In Portugal, one of the most controversial and widely discussed subjects is the European Central Bank's lack of democratic accountability.
The European Parliament, which will examine the candidates to the board of the European Central Bank, is entitled to hear the President and respective board regularly.
In our view, in the European Parliament, when we vote for and approve the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, they assume the responsibility of any elected individual to render accounts.
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While the European Parliament will not intervene in the European Central Bank's decisions, the Bank itself has everything to gain from explaining its decisions in a regular and systematic manner to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and the Sub-Committee on Monetary Affairs in the manner previously practised by the heads of the European Monetary Institute.
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In Portugal, we have a saying that "if you owe nothing you have nothing to fear' .
Therefore, let the European Bank come regularly to the European Parliament to discuss its decisions with us.
European citizens will then know that the European Central Bank will hear and render accounts to those who legitimately represent them in Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="von Wogau">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the debate until now has shown that in this House there is a very broad majority for the independence of the European Central Bank.
But on the other hand, something else is clear: this European Central Bank must not live in an ivory tower because the decisions which are made there will have an direct effect on the lives of many people in the European Union.
In future anyone who wants to build a house, take out credit or buy a car on credit will be directly affected by a decision of the European Central Bank.
Therefore, the President of the European Central Bank must justify his actions, be accountable, explain to people why he has made certain decisions in favour of monetary stability, and he must be involved in a dialogue.
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But we now have the problem that there is not yet a European public in the same way as there is a German, a French, an Italian and a British public.
Consequently, the European Parliament is the place in which this discussion with our people must first be concentrated.
For this reason, we demand a constructive dialogue with the President of the European Central Bank.
This dialogue must take place firstly here within the European Parliament, when he presents his report once a year and explains how he intends to form the policy of the European Central Bank in future, and secondly in the standing committee, in individual discussions with the Central Bank President, in which there must be no technical talk.
We need a broad dialogue with the Central Bank President, not just about the specialist questions of monetary policy, but also about economic policy, tax policy in the European Union, about budget policy, competition policy, to the extent that these policies have an effect of the stability of the currency.
What we want is a broad dialogue.
The real challenge which faces us is that of carrying on this dialogue firstly with the Central Bank President, but secondly with the European Commission, as we already do, and with the Council Presidency and the finance ministers of the Member States, who have become accustomed to reporting at regular intervals to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy about their stability programmes.
The real challenge which faces us is the necessity, now that we have a common European monetary policy, of also formulating a common European economic policy.
The President of the ECB needs a strong partner when he makes his decisions.
Who should this partner be?
I do not believe in the idea of a European economic government, because we have European institutions.
We have the European Commission, which must be an important interlocutor.
We have the European Council, the Heads of States and Governments, who come together twice a year and can provide guidelines for economic policy.
The European Council is without doubt the strongest institution of the European Union.
We have the Ecofin Council, and we have the European Parliament, where this debate must be focused, and where the reasons for certain decisions at European level must be explained to the people.
I believe that it is important, when we discuss today Mrs Randzio-Plath's report, which I approve in its present form, that we are clear that it is not just a question of the monetary policy of the European Union or the control of the European Central Bank, as some people say, but a question of a broad dialogue about the future monetary and economic policy of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="de Silguy">
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
It is a great pity that the many speakers who have left the House did not hear your excellent answers.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Results of the European Conference in London
<SPEAKER ID=167 NAME="President">
The next item is the statement by the Council on the results of the European Conference in London.
<P>
It is my great pleasure to welcome Mr Henderson, who will present the statement on behalf of the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 NAME="Henderson">
Mr President, progress on European enlargement has been one of the key priorities of the Presidency.
We are determined that the European Union should seize this historic opportunity to banish for ever the divisions that have sadly scarred our continent for too many years.
That is why I am pleased to confirm that the remit of the Luxembourg European Council on enlargement has been successfully completed.
<P>
We opened the European Conference on 12 March.
We secured European Union approval of the terms of the accession partnerships.
We successfully launched the accession process on 30 March and we launched accession negotiations with the Six on 31 March.
Each of these points represents a vital element in our efforts to secure successful enlargement.
I would like to deal with them one by one.
<P>
Firstly, the European Conference.
The first meeting of the Conference on 12 March was a historic gathering.
It was a clear demonstration that all participants are part of the European family.
The day was full of symbolism.
We welcomed the important contribution of President Gil-Robles on that day.
12 March showed how conference can add value.
The 26 countries agreed the chairman's conclusions establishing the broad framework of the Conference. The Conference will allow the participants to consider issues of common concern and to make their cooperation in the international community more effective.
Discussions will focus on drugs and crime, the environment, foreign and security policy, regional cooperation and economic matters.
<P>
The 26 countries also agreed a statement on Kosovo and they decided to set up an expert group on drugs and crime which we are taking forward urgently.
The next meeting will now take place at the level of foreign ministers during the Austrian Presidency.
We are pleased that we have established a Conference as a body which addresses the issues that have a direct impact on people's lives and which enables all the participants to consider issues on an equal footing.
We regret but respect Turkey's decision not to attend on 12 March in London.
But the Conference sent a clear signal that the door remains open for Turkey.
<P>
Secondly, we were pleased that the accession partnerships could be adopted on 24 March.
They are a crucial element of the reinforced pre-accession strategy.
We were grateful for the European Parliament's cooperation on the last occasion I was with you in the plenary.
Now we must ensure that the applicants get the help they need quickly and that they use it effectively.
<P>
Thirdly, we completed the remit of the Luxembourg European Council by launching the accession process.
The process was successfully launched at foreign minister level on 30 March in Brussels. It will demonstrate that enlargement is all-inclusive.
The next ministerial meeting will take place on 29 and 30 May at the level of the JHA ministers.
We hope that at that meeting the 26 countries will conclude the pre-accession pact on organized crime.
<P>
Fourthly and finally, we have launched accession negotiations with the Six: Estonia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia and Cyprus.
These negotiations were launched on 31 March by foreign ministers.
Now it is down to the detailed business.
The task ahead of us is a great task.
We must ensure that we carry public support as the process moves ahead.
It will be especially important to explain the benefits of enlargement to our citizens and to win their hearts for this historic project which will at last enable us to spread the benefits of the European Union to the wider Europe.
We look to the European Parliament to help us in this endeavour.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I truly believe that this has been a historic month for Europe, because of the European Conference, the discussions about accession partnerships and the first round of negotiations.
Mr President-in-Office, you spoke about symbolism and symbols, and we have also seen many photographs which have documented the start.
But, thankfully, you have also told us that there are matters of substance.
It was this Parliament, and above all this party, which pointed out that the European Conference will become a farce if it is merely a social framework, if occasional photographs are all that matter.
<P>
I am very glad that a start has been made with matters of substance, and that perhaps some people who saw things as very open and very casual have now changed their conception, that we are actually talking about subjects which are very important for Europe and the future.
In the short time available, I would just like to mention a few points: First, we must point out in this framework and these discussions at the European Conference that we want a larger Europe, but a stronger Europe.
The enlargement and the larger Europe must not proceed at the cost of Europe's strength.
We see day after day how many deficiencies we have in our common foreign and security policy, and also in other areas.
This is also important because quite a few of the countries which now want to join have only achieved their independence very recently, and are asking themselves whether joining a new community can be combined with their striving for independence.
They may urgently want to join the Community, but they imagine it to be looser and less binding whereas it is important to us that the Community does not develop in this way.
<P>
Second, because the negotiations and discussions about accession will continue for a long time, we shall have to set some signals in the next few years, signals which say to the countries: the moment of accession has not yet come, but you are preparing well for it.
You are on the right path.
Such signals are expected.
I say that because I was recently in the three Baltic states with Pauline Green and saw how hungry they are for signals from Europe.
At the same time, Europe has just partially introduced obligatory visas or visa charges.
It is grotesque - to take just this example - that we expect countries and people in Europe to act on the basis of the Schengen rules, and at the same time force other countries - including Austria - to introduce obligatory visas or visa charges.
This practice is incomprehensible and unacceptable, and I believe that we should change it.
<P>
Third, I would like to point out that the discussions with Slovakia are very important.
We are very sad that the Meciar regime is operating a policy which damages its own people, and I believe that the European Conference is the right framework for forcing Slovakia into pro-European behaviour.
It is also decisively important to consider today how the European Conference can be further developed, and what the relationship is with Russia, Ukraine and in particular Turkey.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office, I thank you for your report.
I believe that it was a good start!
It will be Austria's responsibility to continue this good start.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Brok">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that this first European Conference was an important contribution to the whole field of the enlargement and unification process in Europe.
It can be seen as a preparation, a part of a link in a new European order.
It was developed to involve one country, but I believe that we should make it clear that such a European Conference only makes sense in the long run if it is open to all those who from their own point of view or that of the European Union do not yet want to hold accession negotiations but feel that eventually they belong in the European Union.
If countries like Switzerland and others could find a link here, it would surely be easier for another country such as Turkey to go the same way, and to rejoin this process.
<P>
I think that the five points which were discussed in London are essential questions.
I really hope that the group of experts which the British Presidency has put together in connection with the fight against cross-border organised crime will produce in 12 months results which will then have a practical impact on the safety of our citizens. Questions of environmental protection, competitive economies, foreign and security policy and regional cooperation are in the common interest not only of members of the European Union, but also of those who are holding immediate accession negotiations and those who are anywhere in the neighbourhood of the European Union.
I think that is obvious.
<P>
I really believe that in this way this European Conference also offers the possibility of bridge-building beyond the future borders of the European Union.
I hope that the foreign ministers at their first conference under the Austrian Presidency will continue this initiative accordingly.
I believe that if it is begun in this broader and content-based way, it will also be possible to rebuild the bridges to Turkey. Unfortunately they were broken for reasons which we do not need to investigate today, but I hope that they will soon exist and be usable again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 NAME="Collins, Gerard">
Mr President, I would like to say a word or two of appreciation and thanks to the President-in-Office for his valuable contribution to the European Parliament this afternoon and to take the opportunity of wishing him and his colleagues who are guiding the UK Presidency continued success for the remainder of their term.
<P>
The opening of negotiations with six applicant countries this week in Brussels constitutes an historic step in the evolution of the European Union.
I welcome this first step in the process of expanding the Union into central and eastern Europe and I look forward to the opening of the negotiations with the rest of the countries who have applied for membership.
The process of enlarging the Union will be difficult both for the applicant countries and for the existing Member States.
<P>
The recent publication of the Santer package of proposals has clearly shown that the existing Member States will have to take difficult decisions concerning the size of the European budget and the future operation both of the Structural Funds and of the common agricultural policy in order to prepare for enlargement.
The applicant countries will also be confronted with a difficult process of adaptation in many areas; for instance, justice and home affairs issues are central to the enlargement process.
<P>
It is essential that the applicant countries put into place the body of EU law already adopted to fight organized crime across Europe.
As this area of EU law is constantly evolving, I believe they need to give it top priority and to do so they must take immediate steps to ensure that those who are responsible in their countries for the fight against organized crime, such as judges, police and customs departments and tax authorities, have access to the necessary programmes to improve their skills and operational methods in what must increasingly be a joint effort to combat organized crime.
<P>
International criminal groups have huge resources at their disposal in terms of finance, technology, networks and expertise and the European Union must continue to develop the means to put criminals operating with impunity across all borders behind bars.
We expect and demand no less of our future partners.
<P>
The Council has just reached a political agreement on making it a criminal offence to participate in a criminal organization in the Member States of the EU.
This will strengthen our hand in combatting organized crime and I do hope that the applicant countries will keep pace with us in this regard, not least in the area of dissuasive criminal penalties.
In the future I want to see more joint EU surveillance exercises such as operation PEGASUS which is aimed at detecting the smuggling of cocaine and other prohibited or restricted goods by passengers arriving by air from certain South American and Caribbean countries and continuing in transit to other EU destinations.
Extending such joint surveillance exercises into the applicant countries should be an early objective.
<P>
Finally, I would urge the three Member States which have not yet ratified the EUROPOL convention to do so without delay.
The full extent of the EUROPOL convention cannot be enforced unless this procedure is completed and it is a poor example to the applicant states if we ourselves cannot complete the ratification process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, on the walls outside the House there are photos taken 30 to 40 years ago, which symbolize the success of the European Union.
Another set of symbolic photos has been taken recently, and I hope that in 20 years time, these will be another illustration of success.
This will depend largely on what we do during the coming years.
It will entail much homework for candidates, but also for the Union.
<P>
The Union must finally start acting as one, and I have to say that the discord which the Union has been displaying, for instance with regard to Cyprus, is downright disgraceful, and worse still, harmful to our relations with both Cyprus and Turkey.
The threat made by the French to exclude Cyprus is tactically extremely unwise, because no negotiator gives away his bottom line before the negotiation process has even started.
<P>
The Union needs to stick to earlier pronouncements, as the British Presidency finally did at the start of the negotiations.
The work can start now.
I can of course get all worked up about the Turkish warnings that there might be a new war.
I can also get worked up about the refusal of the Turkish-Cypriots to take part in the negotiations and about the continuing annexation, at least verbally, by Turkey of Northern Cyprus.
Perhaps we should just put this down to attempts to block the negotiating process.
The Union must learn its lessons and be brave enough to act as one with respect to Cyprus.
<P>
The Union should rethink its policy on Turkey.
We cannot pursue the policy suggested by Greece without looking at what lies behind it.
Turkey, too, is a candidate which deserves intensive cooperation.
I therefore welcome the Commission's new statement on this.
What policy has the Council in mind, Mr President-in-Office?
And my last question is: will our Greek friends drop their resistance to financial cooperation?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, I think the President-in-Office of the Council has adopted a restrained position with regard to the London Conference, and it must indeed be restrained because we ought not to forget that the London Conference was largely planned to accommodate Turkey's presence.
We, too, are sorry that Turkey was not there, and believe that as a country it will take the necessary steps in relation to democracy and respect for its neighbours that will soon allow it to upgrade its relations with the European Union.
We view the fact that the process of the Republic of Cyprus's accession has begun as important, with talks about accession which not only represent a beginning but must promise an end to that process.
There are many obstacles and there is a real danger that the island may be partitioned, as we see from the extreme statements in Ankara which regards Cyprus as one of Turkey's provinces. Ankara's attitude to the part of Cyprus occupied by Turkish troops is the same as its attitude towards its Kurdish provinces.
I think the European Union, working together with the Republic of Cyprus, has a responsibility to ensure the integrity of the Republic and this should be made clear to Ankara, at the same time, of course, as the wish of both the European Union and the Republic of Cyprus that accession should include representation of the Turkish-Cypriot community with full rights, with respect for its special claims and problems but within a framework of the Republic of Cyprus's existence as a single and undivided entity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, with merely one minute's speaking time I am compelled to confine myself to one point, namely Cyprus.
The accession negotiations alone will under no circumstances lead to a resolution of the political conflict which is tearing Cyprus apart.
On the contrary, without a solution to this conflict, a successful accession is highly unlikely.
That is why the European Union should invest time in simultaneous negotiations with Cyprus, but also in seeking a way out of this political impasse.
Furthermore, it is obvious that the Turkish community should be able to participate in the negotiation process with a clear mandate, so that they do not feel the odd one out.
Two pitfalls must be avoided.
The Union must not bow to threats from Turkey, but it must offer Turkey a better and more concrete perspective for accession.
<P>
Secondly, the Union must, in conjunction with the United States, ensure that the arsenal of long-range weapons in Nicosia is defused.
If this does not happen, we will be in a new phase of military build-up and that is most unlikely to lead to a solution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, there is a saying which says that if you are at the ball, you must dance.
This is indeed the situation we find ourselves in and when I hear Mr Brok say that everything is going well I have the impression of hearing, "things could not be going better, ma'am!' .
<P>
I believe that the Europe in preparation, the Europe of fifteen, of nineteen, of twenty five, is certainly not the Europe which the founding fathers wanted.
It has no ambition. It wants to absorb the countries of eastern Europe with a mere 1.27 % of the budget, when we know how great were the sacrifices and the ambitions of the American project at the time of the Marshall Plan.
We should keep this very clearly in mind.
I think we should very rapidly envisage a federal Union of a few states and continue to work on this great project.
It is urgent for a certain number of Member States, undoubtedly not that of the President-in-Office, to come to an agreement to bring about as quickly as possible a federal Europe.
<P>
I would like to say something to Mr Brok.
It truly shows great optimism to think that following this conference in London we are going to be able to resolve the drugs problem in twelve months when thirty years of prohibition have done nothing but aggravate the situation.
It is time to give up this rather blind optimism.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 NAME="Nicholson">
Mr President, first of all can I say I welcome the President-in-Office's statement this afternoon in which he underlined the British Presidency's commitment to a successful programme of enlargement.
<P>
When I last spoke on enlargement in this Parliament, I said that I understood the disappointment felt by those countries which had failed to make it on to the list of the new Member States.
I was therefore pleased that the London conference brought together existing Member States, the fast lane applicants, and those in the slower lane.
The conference itself may have appeared to be more cosmetic than substantial in terms of what it achieved, but I believe the value of the conference will become more apparent as time goes on.
From the point of view of the applicant countries, it must be encouraging for them to see their Heads of Government and foreign ministers now with a high profile and able to deal directly with the Heads of Government and foreign ministers of the existing 15 Member States.
<P>
I do not think that the concluding statement from the conference, claiming that a new era had begun for European cooperation, was an overstatement.
The more that representatives of the applicant countries are involved with us, the more likely we are to achieve the goal of stable democracy and respect for human rights and economic development throughout Europe.
<P>
Most of us in the Parliament support enlargement.
The more difficult question is how much we are prepared to pay to achieve it.
We heard this week that the 10 eastern and central European countries are to be offered 1.8 billion a year in new grants to help them to prepare for membership of the Union.
I welcome the fact that this offer is to be subject to the condition that recipient countries must keep to an agreed timetable for political and economic reform.
We should of course remember that democracy has only come recently to some of these countries and that the timetable should reflect the need to move forward cautiously.
That may cost more in grant aid in the short term if we are to achieve permanent stability in Europe in the long term and the cautious approach must be followed.
<P>
We are now halfway through the Presidency, a Presidency which has adopted an extremely ambitious project in getting the European conference under way; it is fair to say I believe that ambition has been fulfilled.
I have only one slight reservation and that is the position of Cyprus.
I must question the wisdom of the approach and I am concerned by your actions; you could well have made a protracted problem more difficult to resolve.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Muscardini">
Mr President, the emphasis placed here on the conclusions of the London Conference seems to be inversely proportional to the attention given by citizens to what is considered an historic event by the Council.
<P>
The decision to begin the overall expansion process can certainly be considered an historically significant fact as the reconciliation between states that were enemies and the consolidation of stability in freedom are factors of extreme importance for the commencement and continuation of European cooperation.
<P>
But why is this importance not perceived by European citizens?
Is it because of the inability of the media to convey a positive message or is this feeling of indifference the result of the employment crisis and fears of monetary union caused by the restrictive measures imposed by governments?
<P>
It is a fact, however, that even if the expansion is historic, it does not rouse enthusiasm but creates fears for various reasons, including the fact that the average wage in the new states applying to join the Union is, at best, one-third or even one-sixth less than the average wage in the 15 current Member States of the Union, which will certainly affect the problem of employment and unemployment and that of company relocation.
<P>
The achievement of political union between 15 countries, which has not yet happened, will become even more difficult with 21, owing to the still unsatisfied need to establish the new institutional organization of the Union and the problems connected with common foreign and security policy.
<P>
The recent declarations made by the Slovenian Ambassador to Rome show how, in that country, at least one line of thought is quite different from the spirit of the governments and member nations of the EU.
The Italian National Alliance therefore believes it is necessary, before Slovenia joins the Union, to define the problem of compensating Italians for confiscated goods and the final condemnation, and all its consequences, of the annihilation that took place during the notorious feuds.
<P>
Cyprus' accession is very positive for us. Its territory is still divided and the problem of the Islamic unitary policy obliges the Union to work with greater commitment and good will to strengthen relations with Turkey, a necessary step to achieve greater protection of human rights and for Turkey to join the Union, a Union which needs to be rebalanced between north-east and south.
<P>
Finally, the Kurdish problem cannot be considered a problem of the individual states with regard to immigration control, but a Community problem.
The National Alliance therefore wishes to remind everyone that political union should be achieved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Mr President, we started off with the President-in-Office of the Council giving us a report on the London conference, which showed that the European Council - and it is not a precedent - has in some way taken up some of Parliament's earlier proposals.
It was a joint ceremony involving all the countries and had a certain solemnity, which is especially important at times of historical significance.
There was acceptance of the idea that this process should be of a global, inclusive nature, involving all the countries and ending to some extent the division into two groups. There was also acceptance that this is a process which is open to emulation and competition between the countries.
<P>
Based on what I have just said, my comment relates to my experience as a member of the European Parliamentary delegation, headed by President Gil-Robles Gil-Delgado, to the Bucharest Conference, where we met with the heads of parliament of the candidate countries.
We talk a lot about public opinion and the participation of civil society, but basically it has to start with a decisive participation on the part of the parliaments.
<P>
And I must point out, Mr President, that in those countries there is a profound historical aspiration - which I think we should take up - to be reincorporated into a process from which they were brutally cut off, as a result of the division of Europe. That means we must provide the impetus, and a political vision which goes beyond discussions of accounts and what could be termed "shopkeeper's book-keeping' .
In other words, it is important for us to calculate the sacrifices we have to make, but we must also remember the advantages we already enjoy.
<P>
While on the subject, I should also like to point out the concern which can be observed in some of those countries that they may be relegated to a sort of "second division' .
I think it is important for us to be able to admit, again with that political impetus, that many of those countries can even speed things up during the marathon process that incorporation will turn out to be.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, I have a comment about Turkey.
I believe the British Presidency and the Commission are making efforts to reincorporate Turkey into this process, but I also think we must remind ourselves and our Turkish friends and partners that we currently have a customs union with them, and that to enter into a verbal escalation with one of our Member States is not the best way of conducting relations with us.
I think that is a message which, I repeat, our Turkish partners and allies can and should accept.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
Mr President, the British Presidency has made a good start with the two-track approach. This has been expressed through symbolic events.
One was the strengthened accession partnership which it tackled in a highly directive manner. The other, which is clearly related in spirit, but does not form part of the accession process, was the multilateral consultation and the European Conference where everyone is more on an equal footing.
This is a good thing, and has been effectively put into practice.
<P>
The Presidency emphasized that priority must given to good governance, democracy and human rights.
It did not just confine itself to economic issues.
It also talked about the environment, and so forth.
I believe that this is an important issue.
The third pillar is becoming increasingly important for the European Union, because we are characterized by the fact that we are an association of democratic constitutional states.
In order that accession countries achieve this as well, it is of extreme importance that they undergo cultural change.
<P>
In this context I am a little surprised at what is sometimes said about Turkey.
My question to the President-in-Office is whether Turkey has in fact made clear, substantive policy changes, so that it becomes obvious that we have been wrong?
Is there no need for Turkey to take any further steps, and will it be increasingly received with laurels the more arrogantly it approaches the discussions surrounding the European Conference?
I think it is a little strange to pretend that the usefulness and value of the European Conference depends on the presence of a state which is not a constitutional state.
It is much easier to talk about the third pillar with countries which are constitutional states and full democracies.
I would like to ask the President-in-Office what his thoughts are about this, and whether he is getting any signals that Turkey is making substantive steps towards us, instead of our being forced to make steps towards Turkey.
<P>
The second point I wanted to make is about the foreign policy convergence of which the President-in-Office spoke.
Will some kind of action plan be developed during the British Presidency to achieve convergence in foreign policy?
We will have to arrive at a situation in which European politicians do not only inspire confidence in their own country, but amongst all European citizens, so that they can see that European responsibilities are dealt with effectively and thoroughly by the European authorities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Mr President, it was important that the European Conference should get under way and that European integration is a step nearer.
<P>
On the agenda were environmental issues and matters to do with regional cooperation.
Dealing with issues of the environment with all applicant countries right from the start is essential.
If this matter is not given the attention it deserves there will be a danger that the Union's short timetable for enlargement will mean the environment getting swept aside in favour of economic and trade agreements.
The environment has to feature in all issues, not least of all transport and agriculture.
<P>
The EU's unique and comprehensive process of enlargement makes security on a broad scale an even more urgent notion in the EU decision-making process, and that of its various bodies.
EU enlargement must come about while stressing the concept of sustainable development in the areas of both the environment and social welfare.
Cooperation in matters of the environment must be very necessarily included in the strategies prior to enlargement.
In this we need to make the most of the ISPA financial instrument and derive from it the means to solve environmental problems as far as possible while negotiations for membership are still going on, so that the transition periods involved can be as short as possible.
<P>
Another matter that came up at the conference was that of regional cooperation, and the connection with the environment here is important.
Just think: after enlargement the Baltic Sea is going to be an inland sea of the EU.
We know the problems there are with protection of the Baltic.
Without the presence of Russia in all of this there can be no sustainable development or improvement in environmental conditions in the Baltic Sea.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langen">
Mr President, all the speakers have said here that the conference was very important and a success, although Turkey did not take part.
Actually this conference was conceived to involve Turkey.
I would like to associate myself expressly with this judgement, and I do not understand why the socialist party is apparently split on this question, because the former President and present Vice-Chairman, Mr Hänsch, said yesterday in an interview that the European Conference could be dissolved, and that it should be made clear to Turkey once and for all that it cannot join.
It would then no longer be possible to fulfil the purpose of the European Conference.
That has not been stated here, and I am surprised that former presidents do not give this opinion here in the House, but in press statements.
<P>
Since the decision of the EU Summit in Luxembourg, relationships between Europe and Turkey are in a difficult phase, and likewise those between Germany and Turkey.
I will not mention the reasons, but when we consider how to improve this situation, we must discuss the preconditions which were formulated at the Luxembourg Summit.
I think that parts of these preconditions were such that Turkey could not be a member without loss of face from the start, because border questions which are disputed between Greece and Turkey were made the yardstick, and not, Mr Oostlander, a question of the rule of law or human rights.
I also want to reject decisively your claim that Turkey's status as a state of law is disputed.
He does not listen, but he goes on spreading these inaccurate opinions.
I must expressly point out that in Turkey women achieved the right to vote in 1923, and that many other aspects of a democratic constitution are in place.
<P>
I demand that the Commission, the Council and Parliament should start talking again with Turkey, and that we formulate preconditions which enable Turkey to be present at the next European Conference.
It is actually the case that we must have the greatest interest in finding a reasonable basis with Turkey.
It is not the champions of the Christian West, as Mr Yilmaz said, who prevent Turkish accession, but primarily the still unfulfilled preconditions for accession.
But it is precisely because they have not yet been fulfilled that the European Conference was founded, and it would be completely wrong now to make the next hurdles for the European Conference so difficult that Turkish participation is made impossible.
I therefore ask the Commissioner to negotiate with the Council and Turkey to change this situation!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, there has been much talk of accession today, although actually the European Conference should definitely not be seen as an instrument of pre-accession strategy.
For this reason, Turkey, which I do not consider to be a candidate for accession although I share Mr Langen's political assessment in all points, was accepted into the conference.
But in my opinion this European Conference has an important task to fulfil apart from accession, and therefore it should be opened to other states, as Elmar Brok said.
It should be opened to states which are not yet at the gates as candidates for accession, either because they have been internationally slandered - like Croatia, which is at least as ready for accession as Slovakia or Cyprus - or because, like Ukraine, which still has to live through a difficult time, and which we must help massively, they are not yet in a position to move closer to Europe or the European Union.
<P>
However, the London Conference, in spite of the difficult, unclear position in which it found itself, made one specific statement.
That was its declaration on justice and internal affairs.
My report about expansion eastwards and internal security will be presented tomorrow.
But beyond that, the European Conference can achieve a Pan-Europe of law and internal security before the last agricultural problem in the European Union is solved.
<P>
People will only accept a greater Europe if it results in more, not less security.
This approach, putting internal security at the centre of this conference, is therefore to be welcomed.
Also to be welcomed is the consideration of Kosovo, one of the most important problems which the whole of Europe will face in the next few years, and there it is important that Turkey as a partly European and Islamic country should be involved in this region, because of its special historical connection.
We must restore the autonomy of Kosovo under international control with international peace-keeping troops, for we have already gone beyond the eleventh hour there.
I am therefore glad that the European Conference has concerned itself with this subject, although the outcome was inadequate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Aid for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia - post-SFOR strategy
<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0123/98 by Mr Schwaiger, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation 1628/96 relating to aid for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (COM (98)0018 - C4-0105/98-98/0023(CNS))-A4-0106/78 by Mrs Daskalaki, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on a post-SFOR strategy in Bosnia and Herzegovina containing a proposal for a European Parliament recommendation to the Council
<SPEAKER ID=185 NAME="Schwaiger">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, if all programmes and budget lines are taken together, more than ECU 350 million annually are available from the European Union for the reconstruction of BosniaHerzegovina and the other countries which were involved in the war.
Our involvement is therefore not just moral and political, but also financial to a very large extent.
But if we take as our basis the resources which have actually been used, in the years 1996 and 1997, less than ECU 100 million, that is about 15 %, were spent.
<P>
The USA, with its splendidly organized team on the spot, manages to spend 95 % of the US$ 200 million which are available each year.
What are the reasons for the vast gap between our intentions and the reality which is expressed in these statistics?
The activities of the European Union are hardly visible on the ground, apart from a few secondhand tram-cars with European Union written on them.
There are many reasons for this, and they can be divided into objective difficulties on the ground and the behaviour of the Commission and the Council of Ministers.
<P>
First, the difficulties on the ground: it is true that since the Dayton Agreement the weapons have been silent, but peace has not yet returned to Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Political conflicts continue to smoulder, the animosity of various population groups has been stirred up towards one another.
People around Karadzic and Mladic, and others, are particularly responsible for this.
Intimidation and threats to refugees who want to return still continue in some places, particularly where they form a minority after they return.
The central government of Bosnia is still incapable of acting.
Even the institutions of the sub-republics, such as the government of the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Republic Srpska, are only slowly getting into gear.
In 1996 and 1997 they were either non-existent or ineffective.
Nevertheless the resolute process of pacification of the country continues, under the decisive leadership of the High Representative Carlos Westendorp and his deputy Jacques Klein, with the help of SFOR troops.
Of course, as well as numerous functions to aid the construction of authorities on the ground, they carry out peace-keeping tasks, and do it very well.
The elections at the end of the year may bring further stabilization in terms of concentration on reconstruction and more cooperation between the sub-republics.
<P>
The Dodik government in Republic Srpska is gradually acquiring the ability to act.
It is ready to allow its refugees to return and to cooperate closely with the European Union.
But the previous broad administrative and financial paralysis of the Commission and the Council of Ministers can be corrected in important points by a change to Regulation 1628/96, which is now on the agenda.
We therefore support the proposals of the Commission in principle but they do not go far enough.
<P>
A new start is possible in which the institutions of the European Union, the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament cooperate closely but this depends on a fundamental change to the Regulation.
That is our opinion in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, but also the opinion of the ad hoc delegation which visited Bosnia from 21 to 24 February.
As for the behaviour - unfortunately I must say misbehaviour - of the Commission and Council: neither the Council nor the Commission, through the necessary cooperation, has created suitable instruments and legal bases to meet the special challenge of reconstruction, and to adapt to the difficulties on the ground.
<P>
Summarized in one sentence: reconstruction aid for Bosnia with a non-existent or non-functioning administration of the whole state or the sub-states is something different from European legislative procedure or classical development aid with partners which can act and function administratively in the normal way.
The Council and Commission have not adapted to these circumstances.
For that reason, the goal-oriented, coordinated use of financial, technical and material resources on the ground was largely absent.
Success-oriented management on the ground is still not evident enough.
<P>
The Council has enforced a complicated and inefficient Regulation.
It forced the Commission to juggle with three different budget lines: ' Reconstruction' , ' Return of Refugees' , ' Europe for Sarajevo' . They are known by the Bosnian term OBNOVA and only formally combined.
The Council has stymied itself by subjecting all projects over ECU 2 million - that is Article 12 of the Regulation - to a complicated procedure of a governmental committee, which almost always delayed the necessary decisions by several months.
<P>
We in the European Parliament are no longer prepared to accept such a situation.
A new start is necessary.
In the name of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, I propose today to the Council and Commission nothing less than this new start.
The Commission must have an efficient action and decision summit with a general plenipotentiary on the spot, carrying the responsibility, equipped with the most extensive autonomous powers of action and decision, and provided with a strong management team.
That may cost up to 10 % of the operating expenditure.
The Americans need 15 % for theirs.
If cooperation by the European Union with the Member States and the aid organizations is to be improved, regular coordination meetings, if possible monthly, must be possible.
I would therefore like to put the question to you, Mr President-in-Office, whether you are prepared to accept our amendments, as they are summarized in paragraphs 1 to 23.
If you do not see it as possible at this moment, what procedure do you have in mind?
We have a conciliation procedure from the year 1975, and there are other procedures, which give us the possibility of providing and arranging cooperation with the Council - this has already happened with the Commission to a large extent, and the Commission has supported us in our amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="Daskalaki">
Mr President, two years have passed since the Dayton Agreement and all the signs are that although important steps have been taken, the agreement's implementation is still very slow in many areas.
For example, we see delays in the operation of political institutions, there are still problems with freedom of movement and with the return of refugees.
Since the beginning of 1998, there have of course been positive indications that reconstruction could take place more quickly.
The High Representative is particularly dedicated to the agreement's implementation, the Serbian Republic has a moderate Prime Minister whom we have already had the opportunity to welcome in the European Parliament in the context of the relevant Joint Parliamentary Committee, and more generally, there are better hopes for an acceleration of the reconstruction process and the repatriation of displaced persons in light of the September elections.
<P>
Those are the optimistic points.
However, we also know, and can see, that the peace is still fragile and indeed over a wider area, where as recent events in Kosovo have shown, focuses of tension still exist.
In Bosnia-Herzegovina mistrust still prevails between the various sides. More particularly, the functioning of common institutions is always problematic.
At some points, such as Mostar, there are important local government problems.
In some districts the spirit is opposed to municipal elections.
There are no laws about landmines and the disarmament issue has not been resolved. There are problems related to human rights, and monetary and economic problems in a very sensitive, if not fragile economy.
<P>
It is therefore common ground that a stable and secure environment must be established so that the peace agreement can be fully implemented and the country reconstructed.
The Peace Implementation Council has recognized and supported the existing understanding to continue the military presence after 1998.
Those of us who went to Bosnia as electoral observers on behalf of the European Parliament had the opportunity to confirm that understanding and wish on the spot.
<P>
That presence is deemed necessary to preserve a stable and secure environment and to ensure the prerequisites for action, both by the High Representative and by international organizations, in order to implement the Peace Agreement.
Since December, NATO has been examining the alternative solutions for sending a multinational force after SFOR, whose tenure lapses in June.
The European Union applauds that.
But beyond that point, since the Union's political and economic commitments in BosniaHerzegovina and the military commitment of its Member States are huge, it would be better to have more consistent and visible common action for active Community participation in the multinational force that is to succeed SFOR.
For that reason, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy believes with this report that it should be the WEU's job to coordinate the efforts of the Union's Member States in the context of a NATO enterprise and under NATO's leadership, a thing that would also stress the efforts to build up the CFSP.
<P>
A European commitment of that kind would also improve non-military cooperation in the area, aiming gradually to reduce the need for a military presence as reconstruction progresses.
This Community participation should be linked to compliance of all the parties with the agreement and with arms control, and the European Union must insist that there is no rearmament of the contesting parties.
The production of landmines and their export to the country must also cease.
<P>
In parallel with what has already been considered, it would be good if the Member States made a commitment to preserve and assist the European Community Monitoring Mission, the ECMM as it is called.
Its members, who have offered a great deal, are the only people who, for the time being at least, are a visible sign of the EU's presence and Mr Schwaiger has stressed that this presence is not very much felt in the area.
Because, that too, is one of the many paradoxes: despite the bundle of money the Union has spent there, despite the real and human sacrifices made by the Union, Europe seems not to be present at all.
<P>
With these thoughts, we call for common action for European participation in the post-SFOR force along with the other efforts already being made, such as the training of local police forces in the context of the UN policing mission.
<P>
As a recommendation to the Council, this report aims to contribute towards positions that will stress Europe's involvement and presence on behalf of peace and the reconstruction of Bosnia-Herzegovina on the basis of the Dayton Accord.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 NAME="Giansily (UPE)">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at the time of the debate on the budget for the reconstruction of the former Yugoslavia on 19 June 1996, I underlined the unsuitability of the PHARE Regulation in respect of this situation.
At the time of the same sitting - and you will have to excuse me as I am going to quote myself - I called for "a regulation far better adapted to the exceptional situation of the former Yugoslavia' .
It has taken twenty one months for people to realize that the Committee on Budgets, on whose behalf I was speaking, was correct in this matter.
<P>
I would like to remind you of an elementary principle of administrative policy which every local councillor learns in his first year of office: you can only administrate well from close at hand.
Within the context of managing a way out of this crisis, where it was essential that a close, numerous and qualified presence be shown, concerned for the interests of the ex-combatants, the Commission chose an ill-adapted method of administrating from afar, bogged down in its own regulations.
These regulations are clearly useful when it is a question of making the countries of Europe participate in markets implemented in complete safety, but they are totally inadequate when it is a question of ensuring that the victims of the most recent European conflict are housed, looked after and reintegrated, after a period of insecurity and exclusion, into a Europe which is ashamed of having let this conflict get increasingly worse for six years, leaving 200 000 dead and more than a million and a half refugees and displaced people.
<P>
No, Commissioner, the reconstruction of the former Yugoslavia is not an issue like all the others.
Since no one has the gift of ubiquity, I do not believe that you can play the simultaneous role of scrupulous and attentive examiner of candidates to accession of the Union as well as that of effective reconstructor of the former Yugoslavia.
These are two totally absorbing activities if you want to carry each one out scrupulously and yesterday, in this House when the Elles report was being examined, not one single voice could find an excuse for a process which appeared incomprehensible to the majority of Members present.
<P>
Konrad Schwaiger's excellent report, resulting both from your request for modification of the Regulation and the visit to Sarajevo on 21 February made by the delegation led by Tom Spencer, will definitely enable the process of reconstruction to be speeded up, but I consider that this remains largely insufficient.
Commissioner, please listen to the voices of Members who are often elected at a local level and who know full well that if there is not a "Mr Reconstruction' on the ground, who is responsible to the Council, the Commission and Parliament, many of the problems we have encountered over the last two years will be perpetuated.
<P>
Commissioner, make a true gesture of goodwill with regard to Parliament: accept the appointment of such a post, whose role will be to enable Europe to put to really good use the financial means so unanimously voted for on 20 June 1996.
<P>
In my role as rapporteur for the Committee on Budgets I have, for the moment, decided not to recommend the freeing up of the funds put to one side by Parliament.
Let me say this to the Council: you have a General Affairs Council on 27 and 28 April.
Make use of this meeting to consider this question seriously.
Listen to the voice of good sense, that is, the voice of those who speak to you on behalf of the people of Europe and who do not let themselves be guided by strictly national interests.
Make use of this to assess the difficulties created by the addition, by the Council, of Annex VII to Regulation 1628/96, which I believe represents nothing but a cake to be shared out between some of the senior civil servants who are so full of ultra-liberalism when it should be a case of showing intelligence and generosity after so much blood and tears.
It is often said that European foreign policy has no real image.
I say to the members of the Commission and Council, in Sarajevo let us give it a face!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 NAME="Henderson">
Mr President, this is a very important debate and people throughout Europe and in a wider field will be watching how we conduct our affairs in this matter.
They will want to check that we are serious in our intentions and that, where we believe we can improve our ways of dealing with things, we take appropriate action at an appropriate time to make sure that changes take place.
<P>
We have invested a great deal of time and money in Bosnia but the unique circumstances on the ground have clearly shown that the European Community aid effort is less than ideally equipped to deliver aid as effectively and as quickly as is needed to help support peace and reconciliation.
I very much agree with Mr Schwaiger that we need the maximum of cooperation between the Commission, the Council and Parliament to overcome the problems we face.
<P>
Last October the Council called on the Commission to review the European Community effort in Bosnia.
As a result the Commission has brought forward a proposal which aims to provide the tools required to get the aid quickly to those who need that aid most.
The Council supports the Commission proposal.
Since the Commission presented its proposal in January, the Council has worked quickly so that measures can be in place when they are most needed, at the start of the Bosnia reconstruction period in April, which I am sure everyone who knows anything about the geography of Bosnia will recognize.
<P>
Given the tight timetable, the February General Affairs Council wanted to take a preliminary view pending a parliamentary opinion.
Ministers unanimously indicated a political will to back Commission thinking.
The Council will of course look again at the proposal in the light of the important report from Mr Schwaiger and his committee which highlights some areas where effectiveness could be increased.
The Council will look constructively at the amendments and I can say to Mr Schwaiger, in response to the point he raised about the conciliation process, that I cannot commit the Council to that formal method.
What I can say is that the Presidency will ensure that we keep in close touch with him, as the rapporteur for that committee, on our thinking on timetables and on developments.
<P>
The Council shares Parliament's wish to improve the European Community aid effort in Bosnia to better meet the needs of the Bosnian people.
The Commission proposal already recognizes and addresses many of the key areas identified by Parliament's delegation which visited Bosnia in February.
In particular, the Council and the Commission are already agreed on the need to better coordinate on the ground in a regular and structured manner, making the best use of pooled expertise.
<P>
The Presidency and the Commission will take steps to put this in place urgently.
The decentralized Commission operation and the ability to deal with local authorities on the ground will give the greater flexibility needed to respond better to real needs in Bosnia.
Direct dealing with local authorities will also give the Bosnian people themselves a more direct stake in aid projects and in their delivery.
<P>
I would like to say a few words about the amendments which are included in Mr Schwaiger's report.
I do not think that the Council will have a great deal of difficulty with a number of those amendments.
If one takes, for instance, Amendment No 6, where Parliament proposes that the Commission work with the high representative, I do not see any major problem with that proposal.
Amendment No 11: Parliament defines areas where restricted tendering should apply.
Again, I do not see any great difficulty with that issue.
<P>
Amendment No 15: Parliament proposes regular meetings between the heads of the mission and the Commission.
Again, I can see no great difficulty in dealing with that particular issue.
<P>
I move to Amendment No 12, in which Parliament calls for the recruitment of specialist staff.
It is suggested at the moment that one of the main reasons why the aid cannot be disbursed effectively is that the current level of staffing is inadequate.
I can understand that there are special circumstances in an area like Bosnia, and the level of staffing appropriate in that situation would not necessarily be the same as in other situations.
<P>
I can also understand that once a budget has been set expenditure has to be allocated within that budget and it has to meet all the various claims on resources, including some of the staffing resources required to disburse the main part of that aid.
So I have a lot of sympathy with the committee's views on the need for change.
Indeed, the Court of Auditors has made the same observation.
<P>
Clearly the public does not want to see aid wasted because of excessive bureaucratic costs, and a balance has to be struck in getting the aid disbursed effectively and, at the same time, having an efficient system of management.
<P>
If the Commission were to look at this again in a revised report at a later stage, then the Council would want to respond.
So I have a lot of sympathy on that point.
I would remind you that Parliament can ultimately have a further say in this matter, because it is Parliament which finalizes the budgetary procedure for successive periods.
<P>
On Amendment No 14, I do not have the same sympathy or hope.
Projects over ECU 2 million currently have to be approved by the Member States' committee.
The proposal before us suggests that this should be increased to ECU 5 million and the Council has agreed.
Difficulties would arise if Parliament were to continue to push for a cut-off point of ECU 10 million, because as I understand it that would have a very significant impact on the number of projects on which the Member States' committee had to give an opinion.
A lot of Member States will take a firm view that they believe they should have an input into this process.
<P>
Amendments Nos 13 and 18 are really matters for the Commission rather than the Council and they should be directed towards colleagues in the Commission.
<P>
It is reasonable to ask why the Council reached a view before Parliament was asked for an opinion.
This was not because of some ideological determination to avoid a discussion with Parliament.
The Council took the decision for very practical reasons: the situation was urgent.
Peace and stability in Bosnia are very much connected with success and the reconstruction of society.
That, indeed, is what the whole aid programme is about.
We would all recognize that the spring is a key period for the beginning of work and if that period is missed it means a considerable delay in any reconstruction process which involves the building industry.
We cannot afford any further delay and I hope Parliament will recognize that this is an important political and practical point.
If Parliament does recognize that, then Parliament can play an important role in achieving what I think are our common goals.
Parliament will recognize that I need to take amendments back to the Council - I am not empowered to reach decisions on that today.
In the meantime, Parliament could approve the Commission proposal and the Commission could then return at a later stage, if necessary, with modifications based on Parliament's observations which have been outlined in the document.
<P>
What I have to say to Parliament is that a failure to agree with this approach will lead to delay, it will damage the reconstruction process in Bosnia, it will delay refugee returns and it will undermine stability, peace and reconciliation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 NAME="van den Broek">
After the words of the President-in-Office of the Council I will be brief.
<P>
Firstly, I wholeheartedly thank Parliament and the committees involved for dealing so swiftly with our proposals, in particular the fact that a special Parliament mission under the leadership of Mr Spencer went to Sarajevo to get acquainted with the situation on the ground.
More specifically, I would like to thank Mr Schwaiger for the great effort he has made to publish what is, in our view, a very balanced report which clearly shows that he has an understanding of the situation on the ground.
<P>
We need not talk too much about the past.
One thing is for certain: things can be improved on our side.
In the past two years we have been confronted with situations that nobody could have foreseen; be it the lack of coordination in the central authorities; be it non-compliance with Dayton which, in the Republika Srpska, has led to only 2 % of the total aid going to that particular region; or other forms of non-transparent infrastructure at the receiving end which has made the distribution of aid and money a hazardous and often impossible affair.
<P>
That has also led to rigorous centralization in Brussels over the past two years for the simple reason that deconcentration and delegation under those circumstances was not feasible.
<P>
Mr Schwaiger's report, in combination with the measures that we prepared a couple of months ago and which very much complement each other - the Schwaiger report and the measures under preparation - show that there is a clear, common understanding between Parliament, the Commission and the Council about what has to be done.
We have embarked upon a strengthening of our staff in Sarajevo.
Redeployment is taking place from Brussels. We are undergoing deconcentration and decentralization.
All of these meet the desires of Parliament, according to the recommendations in Mr Schwaiger's report.
<P>
Regarding the proposals for changing the regulations, I would say the same thing: more flexibility, in particular by enhancing the thresholds above which the Member States have to give their approval to projects from 2.5 to 5 million.
I agree with the President-in-Office that there is very little chance - I speak from experience - of the Council agreeing to a further increase from 5 million to 10 million.
Eliminating any Member State's influence in projects up to 10 million is a bridge too far at the present stage.
<P>
As far as the operational cost is concerned - the famous 10 % question - with the Council Presidency it is ultimately Parliament that decides this.
I suggest that I talk to my colleague, Mr Liikanen, and that we undertake to make a proposal to the Council for a significant increase in the present percentage, which is 3.5 %.
I have to have an agreement with him on this.
Again, it is Parliament that will eventually decide this.
That meets Parliament's wishes.
<P>
In our very constructive preparatory discussions for this debate today we were in agreement that on the basis of further evaluations the Commission is prepared, during the course of this year, to make other proposals that may increase the flexibility and efficiency of our total operations.
We can talk this through on the understanding that Parliament is prepared to accept that we do not encroach on the life of the current regulations, which lapse at the end of 1999, so that we do not run the risk of creating any kind of legal vacuum.
<P>
We are prepared to remain in touch to see whether, and what kind of further proposals can be made at a later stage.
With the President-in-Office I say: do not let this delay, in any way, the present proposals that are on the table.
If it is deferred back to the Commission at the end of April - I say with due respect to Mr Spencer - that would be beyond the point where the next General Affairs Council would be able to formalize this modified regulation.
We would lose more time, whereas what we are talking about is a matter of utmost urgency.
In that sense there is no difference between Parliament and the Commission.
<P>
All three institutions are very close together in their proposals and understanding of what has to be done.
I hope that ultimately reconstruction and, not least, the return of refugees in Bosnia and Herzegovina will benefit from the results of this debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, the debate is now adjourned to 9.00 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Question Time (Council)
<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="President">
The next item is questions to the Council (B4-0272/98).
<P>
We are starting questions to the Council 15 minutes late, so we will extend it accordingly. I hope Parliament's services, especially the interpreters, will be kind enough to make the appropriate arrangements, because Question Time will end today at 7.15 p.m.
<P>
Mr Truscott would like to speak on a point of order.
The Rules of Procedure say that I must allow it, but I must request that you keep within the allotted minute, Mr Truscott, because we must start Question Time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 NAME="Truscott">
Mr President, I am very conscious of the time but I do have a point of order under Rule 41 which deals with Question Time.
The problem is that the first ten questions deal with an issue that is not a matter for the Council, i.e. the Elgin Marbles, and therefore I am asking you to rule the first ten questions out of order as they are clearly a matter for bilateral discussions between the Member States concerned and not a matter for the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 NAME="President">
Mr Truscott, I respect your opinion, but this question has been accepted in accordance with all the established rules, and it is now up to the Council whether to reply or not.
<P>
I shall not allow any more points of order.
Mr Henderson has requested to speak.
Good evening and welcome, Mr Henderson.
You have the floor, before we begin Question Time with that block of ten questions Mr Truscott mentioned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 NAME="Henderson">
Mr President, can I just make a procedural point before I take up question one?
I am afraid I have to leave at 7 p.m.
I am happy to extend Question Time on some other occasion.
I was not responsible for the delay today.
If at the next occasion you wish to extend Question Time over the lunch period for a little while I would be very happy to cooperate with that by bringing forward the agenda to perhaps a 2.30 p.m. start but I cannot wait today.
I have to leave at 7 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 NAME="President">
Mr Henderson, I very much enjoy your presence here but I am not going to make you stay, or turn you into a hostage.
Not at all. You are free to leave this House whenever you see fit; this is an area of freedom.
Now as President of this sitting, my agenda states that there is an hour and a half of questions.
If we cannot count on the valuable presence of the Council during that time, then we cannot have an hour and a half, but I would like to be able to do so.
You may go whenever you want to.
However, I must say that since we have started late, my wish as President of the session is that we should finish after an hour and a half.
Your invitation to move to lunchtime seems a very good idea, especially if the food is Mediterranean.
However, I prefer to keep lunchtime for relaxed, peaceful conversations, not for questions to the Council, which is not so relaxed. Indeed, sometimes there is a certain amount of tension, as now.
<P>
Mr David has the floor on a point of order.
But please, Mr David, help me to get started with Question Time itself.
If people ask to make points of order, I do not deny it to anybody, least of all you.
You have the floor on a point of order, but it will detract from the time we have available for Mr Henderson and his invaluable answers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 NAME="David">
Mr President, I will be extremely brief.
I just wanted to say that I think we should take up the minister on his very kind offer - giving up part of his lunchtime in a future plenary session.
I am sure that many of my colleagues in the Parliament appreciate that and, if it cannot be done formally, perhaps some of us could meet him informally for a question session.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=198 NAME="Henderson">
As I said in my previous address I have to leave at 7 o'clock and I would like to do so with the blessing of the House.
I will be happy to extend my attendance at a future sitting at an earlier time in the day if that would be helpful.
<P>
In relation to Question No 1, as honourable Members are undoubtedly aware, although the 1982 UNESCO recommendation stated that the sculptures should be returned to Greece, the recommendation went on to say that they should be returned for reincorporation into the Parthenon.
The Parthenon sculptures are not a matter for the Council as the European Community has no competence in this subject.
It is entirely an issue between the United Kingdom and Greece.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, Europe is being united, the currencies are being united, Berlin was united years ago, and the Parthenon, which constitutes the cultural identity of a European country and is a unique, ecumenical cultural monument, is divided by a 'wall of shame' .
<P>
The Minister's answer is incorrect.
<P>
On the first point, the answer is "yes' : the European Union should cooperate in implementing any UNESCO decision.-On the second point, which claims that the issue is not a matter for the European Union: Article 128(2), paragraph 3 of the Treaty says that 'the Community's action shall be directed towards strengthening cooperation between the Member States' -, 'if necessary, to support and supplement their action for the preservation and survival of the cultural heritage important to Europe' .In that sense, since the Minister's answer does not apply and since the Treaty requires cooperation, I want to ask what direction the Council of Ministers could pursue and what initiatives will the government now holding the Presidency adopt?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="Henderson">
I say to Mr Alavanos that I do not accept his point about the competence of the Council.
Even if I did, there has to my knowledge been no referral to the Council by either the United Kingdom government or the Greek government for assistance in conciliation.
Therefore, I still believe that this is a matter for those two nation state governments to determine.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 NAME="Lomas">
Mr President, on a procedural matter.
We were given notice that the Minister would be replying to all ten questions at once.
He has only replied to Question No 1.
Before I have my minute, could you tell me if the Minister is intending to reply to all the questions separately or is that the complete answer to all ten?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 NAME="President">
I thought, Mr Lomas, that I had explained very clearly.
Mr Henderson is replying jointly to the ten questions. In other words, his first comment was an answer to all ten questions.
<P>
Mr Lomas, now that I have explained that point, you have a maximum of 60 seconds.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 NAME="Lomas">
If the Council was to refrain from commenting on matters where it had no competence, there would be very few matters in the world that it would be able to comment on.
Does the Council not feel that, in view of the fact that these sculptures were taken from Greece under Turkish occupation, they are not something in isolation like a painting, but are part of the Parthenon, a building, and they ought to be returned there?
Also, given that there is such overwhelming, massive support in the United Kingdom, as shown by the surveys, including a television survey which recorded 94 % of people in favour of their return, would the Council like to give an opinion as to whether this would be a practical and good thing to do, since it comments on matters all over the world on which it has not the slightest influence?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 NAME="Henderson">
As I outlined, the constitutional position is that the Council has no competence on this matter.
If Mr Lomas wishes to raise this question with the British government, then I am sure that the appropriate minister would be happy to respond to him.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sanz Fernández">
<SPEAKER ID=206 NAME="Henderson">
Again I say to Mr Sanz Fernández, he actually can, if he wishes, communicate with the British government.
He will not be able to do that in the British parliament but he would have an opportunity to contact the British government and express his view and seek a response from it and, as I said to Mr Lomas, if he did that then I am sure the minister responsible would be able to reply to him.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
I fully agree with the questions which were asked about the return of the Parthenon art treasures to Athens, but I would like to place this issue in a wider context.
This is, of course, not the only looting which has taken place.
I thought it might be worthwhile if I broadened this Question Time into something more general.
Then several countries have bilateral problems.
Under Napoleon, the French took the first mosasaur head, which is now in Paris.
We have tried to get it returned to Maastricht in Limburg.
You know the city.
Up until now we have not heard anything from the French.
I believe true European integration, real European cooperation, can only take shape if this kind of cultural injustice is put right.
Might the President-in-Office and his successors be able to help with this in future?
And I do hope that the Elgin Marbles will be returned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 NAME="Henderson">
I would say to Mr Bertens that some of those matters were discussed in theory when we were dealing with the Amsterdam Treaty.
The Council has a clear remit which is currently authorized from previous Treaties.
There are authorizations in the Amsterdam Treaty.
If my interpretation is correct, I do not believe that when the Treaty is ratified it will make any difference to the competence on this issue or the issues to which he refers and I can really go no further than that.
It is for each state to give its views on that matter and you should address your questions to them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 NAME="Gillis">
I am more than a little disappointed with the answer from the President-in-Office, but it may well be outside the competence of the EU as he has said.
However I asked a slightly different question and I think it might still be possible for it to be answered.
Does the Council agree that the cultural policy in the EU must, or should reflect the feelings of the European people?
I think that is a slightly different question from the one you have been answering.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="Henderson">
I thank Mr Gillis for his supplementary but he is really trying to make the same point as Mr Bertens, from a different angle.
The question of cultural standards and cultural policy within the European Union is largely a matter for the Member States.
When it is a matter for the Council, it is already established in the Treaties and subject to some modification in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
But as I said to Mr Bertens, if my reading is accurate, I do not believe that the Treaty of Amsterdam would give the Council jurisdiction to deal with a matter such as this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Miranda">
Mr President, I will be brief.
This is a situation that involves two Member States and the specific question posed to the President-in-Office was as follows: is a political will necessary to resolve this issue that involves these two Member States.
Does the British Presidency have the political will to contribute to resolving this matter finally and effectively?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="Henderson">
Again I say to Mr Miranda, I am not here to express views on behalf of the British Government, I am here to express views on behalf of the Council and if he wishes to put a question to the British Government, as I said already to two of his colleagues then I am sure that the responsible minister would be able to give him a reply to the matters that he raises.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Castellina">
Mr President, I wish to remind the British Presidency that the Treaty of Amsterdam has in some ways extended the EU's competence with regard to culture, in a paragraph which states that culture should be present in all aspects of Union politics.
<P>
It is quite clear that the EU's policy of harmonization and cohesion has to include a cultural dimension. The fact that such a delicate cultural question is present in the Union's internal relations - I am talking about the refusal to restore the Parthenon frieze - can only discredit the rest of the European policy.
Do you not think that the Treaty of Amsterdam also made an innovation from this point of view?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 NAME="Henderson">
I say to Mrs Castellina that, again, it is a matter of interpretation as to what the Amsterdam Treaty says on this.
My understanding is that it would make no difference to competence in regard to this matter, and any points she wishes to raise on this she should raise with the British Government or the Greek Government.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="Ewing">
Speaking as the Member for Elgin - where we are very ashamed of the past history of Lord Elgin - I wish to say to the President-in-Office that by way of follow up to Mrs Castellina, who is chairman of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, I was chairman of that committee in 1985 when it passed a report which included the restoration of works of art in the broader sense of Mr Bertens.
That report was adopted by this Parliament.
No-one challenged our competence at that time.
<P>
On the day that Greece took its seat I lodged a resolution to restore the Elgin marbles.
I wish to remind everyone of the excellent precedent created recently by England when it returned Scotland's Stone of Destiny to Scotland.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 NAME="Henderson">
I am pleased that Mrs Ewing has raised the point on behalf of the town in her constituency which has the same name as the diplomat after whom the marbles are named.
She will not know this but I was an election agent in her constituency in 1970, having been sent up there by the Glasgow Labour Party to help out.
So I know the views of the people of Elgin on these important questions.
I have to say to their representative that if she has very strong views which she wishes yet again to press she should raise this matter with the British Government.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="President">
As they deal with the same subject, the following questions will be taken together:
<P>
Question No 11 by John Cushnahan, which has been taken over by Alan Gillis (H-0273/98)
<P>
Subject: Effects of abolition of duty-free sales
<P>
What measures do the Member States intend to implement to deal with the social and economic consequences of the abolition of intra-EU tax and duty-free sales in accordance with the terms of the 13th recital in the preamble to the Directive 91/680/EEC and the 23rd recital in the preamble to Directive 92/12/EEC ?
Question No 12 by Pat Gallagher (H-0368/98)
<P>
Subject: Transport Council request for a study on social effects of the abolition of duty free
<P>
In view of the decision at the March 17 Transport Council to request Finance Ministers to ask the Commission to undertake a study into the social effects of the abolition of duty free, can the Presidency confirm that this issue will be on the next agenda of the ECOFIN Council?
<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="Henderson">
In the directives referred to by Mr Cushnahan the Council agreed that duty- and tax-free sales on intra-Community journeys could continue for a transitional period up until 30 June 1999.
The intention was to minimize the social and regional difficulties which might arise from abolition by allowing operators time to adjust.
It is for individual Member States to decide whether any further action is required to deal with particular social or economic consequences.
<P>
As to Mr Gallagher's question, the President of the Transport Council has written to the President of Ecofin reporting the views of transport ministers on the need for a Commission study.
No decision has yet been taken on whether to put this issue on a future Ecofin agenda.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="Gillis">
The answer again is more or less what I expected, because we have been listening to it for a long time.
However, it does not address the unemployment question or the downside, negative aspects of the abolition of duty-free in terms of airports, airlines and, indeed, shipping companies that are already under severe pressure.
It would be worthwhile if we had this study brought forward as quickly as possible, perhaps with a more open mind, to see if it is possible to retain duty-free sales.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 NAME="Henderson">
I have very little to add to my initial response to the questions.
As I said, the matter has been raised by the Transport Ministers but Ecofin have not yet decided whether to place it on the agenda.
It is a longstanding decision. To change the decision would require unanimity.
It is up to the Commission whether it decides to produce a report.
As I said at the last plenary when I addressed this subject, there is a lot of speculation as to what the impact of the abolition of duty-free within the European Union will be.
There is speculation that jobs will be lost and speculation that jobs will be gained, speculation that consumers will gain overall, speculation that some consumers will lose.
Individual Member States have to make their own calculations.
They have had a considerable period of time in which to make an assessment.
I can add no more at the present time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="Gallagher">
I am pleased that the Transport Council has communicated with the Ecofin Council.
I sincerely hope that the Ecofin ministers will respect the wishes of the Transport Council and commission a study.
<P>
However, I am particularly sad to hear the President-in-Office this evening talk about speculation.
There should be no reference to speculation.
It should be fact.
The only way we can establish that is by having an impact study carried out on the socioeconomic effects.
Then it will not be speculation, it will be fact.
From studies that have been carried out in my own country it has been established - not speculated upon - that tens of thousands of jobs will be lost throughout the Union, with no alternative source of employment for those people.
There will be an additional £17 per fare for the many hard-pressed citizens throughout the Union.
<P>
I would like the President-in-Office to confirm that unanimity is not required for the Council to call on the Commission to undertake an impact study on the socio-economic consequences arising from the proposed abolition.
Could he confirm that to me?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 NAME="Henderson">
I can confirm that the Council could request a study without a unanimous decision, but to change the decision which was reached previously would require unanimity.
<P>
It would be interesting if every study which was ever produced guaranteed that the facts would emerge.
I am not as confident as that.
A lot of judgment would be involved as to what the impact might be.
I say that as someone who has an airport in his constituency and thus has a vested interest in these matters.
But there are other wider considerations that the Ecofin Council and the Council of Ministers must take into account.
I would hope Mr Gallagher would understand that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="Cassidy">
I would like to congratulate the President-in-Office and encourage him to stick to his guns in the face of all the persiflage which comes from those who claim to be concerned about duty-free.
They have swallowed whole the arguments of the duty-free industry.
The President-in-Office is quite right to cast doubt on some of the forecasts of job losses, about which I am extremely sceptical.
However, I was a little concerned because his reply to the earlier question appeared to be rather less forthright and firm than it was last time he came to this House, when he repeated - and I supported him - that there were no plans in Ecofin to return to this subject.
He did not put it quite as firmly this time.
Can we have a firm undertaking that there are no - I repeat, no - plans to re-open the whole debate?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="Henderson">
Mr Cassidy's comments show that there are many views on this subject which cross the political spectrum of this House and no doubt other political institutions throughout the European Union.
I said at the last plenary that there were no plans by the Ecofin Council to place an item of this nature on the agenda.
That was the position at that time.
Subsequently, a decision has been taken by the Transport Council and the wording I have chosen today, that no decision has been reached as to whether or not to put this issue on the agenda, is a better way of expressing the kind of response that Ecofin might make to a request from a sister Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="Evans">
I will be very brief.
I would like to thank the President-in-Office for his clear answers, but the questions also refer to the social consequences and social benefits of this matter, and I wonder if he would agree with me that the abolition of duty-free would also reduce the levels of consumption of both alcohol and tobacco and that the consequences of this can only be beneficial to public health in Europe.
Would he agree that the abolition of duty-free, which is, as he says, a long-standing decision, would allow both sea- and airports to resume their primary role, which is to transport people from one place to another.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="Henderson">
I think my professor of economics would have told me that the marginal propensity to consume might be pricesensitive and that before giving an answer to that question one should conduct some surveys on whether that was the case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="Barton">
Just on that last point from the President-in-Office, I think he has answered the point that Ecofin ought to put to the Council of Transport Ministers: some more objective studies are needed.
Is the President aware that this Parliament has had a previous clash with the Council and the Commission on a similar point, when we were insisting on an objective study of safety for users of superbikes.
When we were successful, the people who were opposed to Parliament's position believed that the conclusions defied gravity and that in fact the superbikes were proved to be safer than other machines which the Commission and Council had no objection to.
In that situation the decision of the European Union - or European Community as it was then - was made under very different procedures which did not involve co-decision.
Does the Council accept that there might be a case for considering whether the legislation is satisfactory or whether an over-hasty decision was taken under the old procedures and does it also accept that a study would assist us in reaching a sound decision now?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 NAME="Henderson">
It is superficially attractive always to allege that legislation which was agreed in a previous circumstance would not be approved were it to be before a political institution currently.
I do not dispute Mr Barton's observation in general.
But that does not mean that we can reverse all legislation which has been introduced in the past.
It is not that long ago that a decision was reached on this but it was still seven or eight years ago and this has given outlets who benefit from duty-free the opportunity to consider the effect on their businesses and to make alternative provisions.
There has been that opportunity in the past.
No decision has yet been taken by ECOFIN.
I cannot say more than that at this point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Andersson">
I do not believe there is much hope that the finance ministers will change their minds.
On the other hand, it should be possible to provide what the transport ministers have requested, namely an impact analysis, partly with regard to employment and partly with regard to taxes, since the idea was that taxes should be harmonized during this period, which has not been done, and which may in turn have consequences for travel between different countries and consequences for ultraperipheral countries.
It should therefore be possible to provide this.
<P>
What Mr Cassidy said is not true, that only the industry has carried out studies in this area.
This was first done in Sweden, and now there has been a government study which emphasizes exactly what the industry's studies did previously, namely that this will have an impact on employment in my country, costing around 2 000 jobs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 NAME="Henderson">
I refer to my previous answers that one can speculate as to what a study would indicate and, indeed, on how accurately the study may be able to predict consequences.
At this time, although the Transport Council has taken a decision, no decision has been reached by the ECOFIN Council on whether or not to take this matter further.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 NAME="President">
Question No 13 by Jens-Peter Bonde, which has been taken over by Ulla Sandbæk (H-0275/98)
<P>
Subject: Equal treatment for lesbians and gays
<P>
Will the Council amend the legislation so as to introduce full equality of treatment for homosexual men and women and thus to nullify the discriminatory judgment of the Court of Justice in the Lisa Grant case?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 NAME="Henderson">
The honourable Member who originally tabled the question and Mrs Sandbæk will be aware that the Treaty of Rome does not currently provide the Council with competence in the area of sexual orientation.
However, the Treaty of Amsterdam will, when ratified, provide the Commission with the legal base for future action.
The Council will continue to work with the Commission in bringing forward measures that benefit all citizens of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
I am, of course, fully aware that the Treaty of Rome does not grant these powers, but I do appreciate the answer and would like to convey my thanks.
However, would it not be possible for you to expand on this and be a touch more specific?
In your answer, you indicated that you would endeavour to do something.
This appears to me to be a rather non-specific choice of words.
I am curious to know exactly what you have in mind.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 NAME="Henderson">
I think Mrs Sandbæk is asking me to do the impossible.
If the honourable Member had wished to ask a specific question then I would have done my very best to answer it.
But I surely cannot be asked to predict a range of specific questions which I might wish to give answers to.
Therefore I cannot really help the honourable Member.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, I understand completely that you have difficulties in foreseeing the future.
I just wanted to ask you if perhaps in this preparation for the future, for which you are responsible, you would bear something in mind, namely that if this equalization were carried out, an absolute economic inequality would result, in which communities without children would have considerable economic advantages compared to those who have children, quite apart from the fact that it would contribute to our continent slowly dying out!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 NAME="Henderson">
These are very delicate matters and I understand that, but I do not understand the point that the honourable Member was making.
Is he suggesting that where discrimination is outlawed among people who do not have children, they have an advantage over people who do have children and who are not discriminated against in a particular instance?
I do not follow the logic.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 NAME="President">
Question No 14 by Ioannis Theonas (H-0278/98)
<P>
Subject: Severe repercussions for weakest economies of introduction of euro
<P>
Opposition is intensifying among workers and experts on economic affairs to the imminent introduction of the euro.
A particularly important issue in this respect is the status of the currencies not forming part of the euro zone, the impact on the economies of those countries, combatting speculation and other pressures and the effects on workers' living standards and social rights.
<P>
Has the Council looked into this matter?
On the basis of which studies and communications from the Commission - which has not notified Parliament of any relevant details? What policy decisions will it take to relieve workers of the burden they are enduring in the name of the euro and to offset the severe repercussions which will particularly affect the weakest economies?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 NAME="Henderson">
Far from intensifying opposition to the introduction of the euro, the most recent Eurobarometer poll shows an increase in support, though I acknowledge that this was not the case in the honourable Member's home country, which is a matter of concern.
The Council has been very conscious of the need to ensure a social dimension to its work.
The Amsterdam European Council underlined that economic and social inclusion are complementary aspects of the more cohesive European society that we all seek.
The policy changes which preparation for the euro has required make sense in their own right and will benefit workers.
They help to ensure the correct macro-economic climate for stability and growth.
In many parts of the Union we are seeking the benefits of those policies now. These benefits have not been bought at the expense of workers in other parts of the Union.
Growth across the Union is in the interests of citizens of all our countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, I would like to thank the President-in-Office, but he gave me a very general answer and I would like to help him with certain specific facts, so that we can see what reactions are being caused.
Recently, Greece decided to bring the Drachma into the Exchange Rate Mechanism.
That entry was accompanied by a 14 % devaluation of the national currency.
That devaluation is already worsening all the Maastricht indicators concerning EMU.
The public debt, and servicing it, demand an additional sum equal to 1 % of GDP, so instead of a 4 % GDP deficit we will have 5 %.
Economists tell us that for every three percentage points of devaluation, inflation increases by one percent.
Here, even if 3 % is too much, even with 4 % or 5 % devaluation for 1 % inflation, we will increase inflation in Greece by 2 to 3 %.
Public debt is increasing by 5 % of GDP.
Are working people in Greece not justified in expecting that the agreement between the Council and the Greek Government will act against their interests, when they hope that Greece will satisfy the convergence criteria in 1999?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 NAME="Henderson">
I say to Mr Theonas that it is a matter of judgement by the various countries within the European Union how they can best manage their economies.
It looks as though eleven will wish to manage them in a monetary sense by membership of the euro.
Greece has indicated that it intends to join the eleven.
It has joined the ERM. There are consequences of these decisions and the timing of those issues is a matter for the governments concerned.
<P>
The general principle is that it is in the interests of all citizens of the European Union to have a stable economic situation.
The Council believes that to achieve a stable economic situation there must be a stable monetary situation, and that is why many of the Member States within the European Union have tried to put their economies in a position where they can contribute to that stable monetary situation and benefit from it.
<P>
The warning in the long term for us all is that if we have instability and monetary disunity, then the likelihood is that there will be significant inflationary consequences in the short, medium and long term.
Those are consequences that an economy which is competing in a global context cannot afford, and that is why the policies of the Union are geared to achieving monetary stability.
It may well be that, although there is pain for the Greek economy in the short term, as the economy begins to restructure itself the benefits accrue in a longer-term perspective.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 NAME="Kerr">
I wish to congratulate the President-in-Office on his last answer.
I agreed very much and, therefore, it reinforces the problems of those countries not in the euro.
I single out here the British economy and the UK.
Would he not agree that the situation in Britain is that not being part of the euro is damaging British industry?
We are seeing high interest rates in the UK, which are having a detrimental effect; we are seeing an overvalued pound, which is likely to lose a hundred thousand jobs in the UK economy next year.
Would it not be better for the President-in-Office to advise the British government that the best way it can bring about stability in Europe and stability in Britain is to declare an early entry into the ERM and an early date for joining the euro?
Perhaps he ought to tell Mr Blair to stand up to Mr Murdoch and the Sun and declare in favour of that.
That would be the best thing to help the British economy and help stabilize Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 NAME="Henderson">
I have to say that Mr Kerr very rarely misses an opportunity to take a pot shot at the British Government.
However, I am here to respond on behalf of the Council and the Council has acknowledged the coherence in the British Government's approach to the euro.
<P>
The Council has acknowledged that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, speaking in the House of Commons, indicated that between November 1997 and a time after the next general election a convergence process could take place and the British Government could then decide whether or not it was in the economic interests of that country to seek membership of the euro at that date.
The Council has acknowledged that the other partners in the European Union and industry and commerce in Britain and elsewhere - and, indeed, the workers and their organizations in those countries - have a better understanding of the British position.
The stability brought to the British economy by this relationship to the European economy and the euro has been acknowledged.
I cannot therefore agree that the Council should approach the British Government to give the advice that Mr Kerr seeks, although he knows himself that if he wishes to give that advice to the Chancellor of the Exchequer he is free to do so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 NAME="Donnelly, Alan">
Would the President-in-Office like to comment on the fact that even if it were not for the single currency there was a need for consolidation of the European economies, given the fact that we are now competing in a global environment, in particular in those countries which have weaker economies and could be most at risk as a result of globalization?
<P>
Secondly, would he like to comment on the fact that we need to make sure that all countries of the European Union, not just those that will be joining on 1 January 1999, must start preparing, because all their businesses will be affected?
Given Mr Theonas' question, is it not the case that those weaker economies need to make sure that they have prepared fully for the single currency, so that their small and medium-sized enterprises can take full advantage of the stable and very large euro area that will be created next year?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 NAME="Henderson">
Mr Donnelly makes a very valid point that there is a need for all of the economies of Europe to make the changes that are necessary to achieve a more competitive position within a global economy.
There is a strong view, which the Council has acknowledged, that the establishment of the euro will be a major contribution to achieving that.
A number of countries who will seek to join the euro at an early stage will recognize that they need to take further action to reinforce that decision so that they can get the best out of their economy in a competitive sense.
<P>
Other economies who will choose not to join the euro or may not be eligible to join the euro at its inception will also recognize that they need to make changes in their economies as well, whether or not they enter the euro at a later stage.
<P>
For those who seek to enter, the question of convergence and preparation is of vital importance to their economies.
But even if a country within the Union did not seek to accede to the euro at a later stage, clearly businesses within their economy would probably want to link their calculations to euro calculations.
Indeed, there is already evidence that this is the case.
It is very important for the governments of those countries to do what they can to assist their industry and commerce to make the changes that are necessary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 NAME="President">
Question No 15 by María Izquierdo Rojo (H-0279/98)
<P>
Subject: Euro-Mediterranean relations with Algeria
<P>
In the context of the Euro-Mediterranean process of cooperation with Algeria, what practical form is the wish for partnership expressed by the Council actually taking? What programmes and projects have been launched in the past two years?
What is the outlook for the immediate future?
To what degree do young Algerians benefit from the EU?
Does our intention to offer protection reach Algerian women?
Will measures and programmes be introduced to combat corruption?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 NAME="Henderson">
The European Union is developing cooperation with all 12 Mediterranean partners, including Algeria, within the Euro/Mediterranean process launched in Barcelona in November 1995.
A wide range of initiatives have taken place in fields as diverse as the environment, investment, cultural heritage and industry.
The needs of women and young people, as well as the necessity of combatting corruption, are taken into account when drawing up initiatives under the process which is supported by ECU 4.7 b in European Community financial assistance for economic transition under the MEDA programme.
<P>
Negotiations are also under way for a new association agreement with Algeria.
The Presidency hopes that good progress can be made in these negotiations during the course of the year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Rojo">
The President-in-Office of the Council has answered the question without saying anything concrete. It was almost a compromise answer, and overly evasive.
However, I would remind him that at the moment, Europeans want to get involved and do something to support the people of Algeria.
Please give me a more concrete answer, because you have told us absolutely nothing apart from vague remarks.
<P>
Do you not think, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, that this would be a very good time to establish a specific programme in favour of Algeria, to take effect immediately, before the association agreement negotiations?
You must realize that because of its nature, the association agreement is a long term measure, although negotiations have begun.
The reality is that young Algerians are not benefitting at all from the European Union, and neither are Algerian women.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=248 NAME="Henderson">
I cannot add a lot more to what I said in my original reply.
What I can say to Mrs Izquierdo Rojo is that there will be a conference of the Mediterranean countries and the EU in Palermo in June.
That will be a further opportunity to discuss many of those issues.
But it is the aim of the Union to seek to build links with Algeria.
Economic links are important and must be accompanied by a commitment to the other things that would be incorporated into any association agreement such as democratic procedures and human rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 NAME="President">
Question No 16 by Jonas Sjöstedt (H-0285/98)
<P>
Subject: The EIB's information policy
<P>
The European Investment Bank lends money to a series of projects both in the EU and in the applicant countries.
Compared with other banks like the EBRD and the World Bank, which lend money to similar projects, the EIB provides very little information about the environmental impact of projects. This applies both before projects are approved and after the decision has been taken.
For example, the EBRD - unlike the EIB - publishes an environmental impact assessment before decisions are taken on various projects.
The World Bank also publishes documentation on the environmental impact of projects before decisions are taken.
<P>
Does the Council consider the information provided by the EIB about the environmental impact of various projects to be adequate?
If not, what improvements does it feel that the EIB ought to make in this area?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 NAME="Henderson">
. Since the European Investment Bank's task is to contribute to the balanced and steady development of the Community, it is bound to act in respect of the provisions of the European Community Treaty concerning the environment, in particular Article 130r which states that 'environmental protection requirements must be integrated into the definition and implementation of other Community policies' .
<P>
The Council has not taken a view on whether the information provided by the European Investment Bank on the environmental impact of particular projects is adequate.
In general this is for the Commission to judge and the Honourable Member may therefore want to direct his question to that source.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=251 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
The reason why I asked this question is because I have been in contact with a number of eastern European environmental organizations which are very unhappy about the way the European Investment Bank has acted in certain projects in eastern Europe, that is, when environmental impact assessments are not carried out until after grants have been made to projects which are very suspect from an environmental point of view.
<P>
I think the Council itself should take overall responsibility, since this affects the environmental situation in the applicant countries.
They expect major adjustments which could, for example, affect biodiversity which is also affected by these projects.
I think the Council itself should have an overall view about how the European Investment Bank acts in eastern Europe, and about the fact that it has a significantly worse policy than, for example, the World Bank or the EBRD.
<P>
I wonder whether you really do not see this as part of your responsibilities, since it is part of the Union's overall policy in the area of the environment in relation to the applicant countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 NAME="Henderson">
I very much agree with Mr Sjöstedt that environmental policy is a very important policy within the Union and that Community policies generally should be taking much more account of environmental matters.
Indeed, in the Amsterdam Treaty which has not yet been ratified, of course, there is an additional Union obligation to give environmental considerations a higher priority.
Currently, under existing Treaty provisions the EIB publishes an environmental policy statement which sets out its general approach.
In relation to the countries who wish to accede to the European Union, environmental matters are important matters for them and from my discussions with them they have all recognized that.
One of the things which can be identified in the accession partnerships is the need to take action on the environment.
I am sure that when those matters are identified by the countries which wish to accede to the European Union the Commission will respond with appropriate funding within their remit.
<P>
I think all the countries who want to be on the negotiating line for membership of the European Union - at the moment there are six - recognize that they have to make many environmental changes before they will be able to accede, and that involves very many issues.
One of the key issues is having the necessary regulatory expertise to be able to monitor environmental considerations and make any necessary recommendations for change: from matters relating to power stations, to matters relating to environmental standards in public parks, across a wide range of diverse issues, I agree with Mr Sjöstedt that it must be given higher priority and I am sure that the EIB is aware of its obligations in this regard and I can say that the Council will do everything it can to assist that process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
Only today we have discussed a matter in Parliament relating to the follow-up of the Copenhagen Summit on Social Development, especially in developing and less developed countries.
This included proposals which were approved by Parliament today to introduce ethical rules into trade agreements, rules which move in the right direction with regard to social development and child labour, but also with regard to environmental requirements.
It was very pleasing to see Parliament support these demands.
<P>
I see the Council's answer as very positive and would just like to ask a supplementary question.
You say that the rules are such that you cannot always fulfill our requests for environmental impact assessments.
In that case, is the Council prepared to help change the rules for the EIB and other EU institutions in the right direction, so that environmental impact assessments can be made?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=254 NAME="Henderson">
The EIB generally has to follow the policies of the Union but it has its own decision-making structure and the Board of Governors is composed of finance ministers from the Member States and they are charged with implementing the policies of the Union in the execution of their duties.
I think in relation to agreements with third world countries one needs to strike a balance.
One cannot expect poor third world countries to immediately meet environmental standards that one would expect to be applied in rich countries within the European Union, but that does not mean that one ignores environmental matters.
I am sure that the first to recognize that would be the governments and the peoples of those third world countries themselves where they genuinely want to develop their economies, but they want to do it on a sensible basis.
They do not want to destroy their environment and I think it is wise to agree programmes over a longer period and those should rightly include environmental considerations, but not exclusively.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=255 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, I would be interested to know whether the best practice model would also be possible for the information policy of the EIB, because listing the most successful projects would have a considerable effect on the future of the other projects.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=256 NAME="Henderson">
I would say to Mr Rübig that what he says makes sense.
I hope that the bank would adopt that policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=257 NAME="President">
Question No 17 by Veronica Hardstaff (H-0288/98)
<P>
Subject: Arrangements for the agrimonetary systems for non-EMU states
<P>
Will the Council be making recommendations on arrangements for an agrimonetary system for countries remaining outside the "Eurozone' when the decision is made in May as to which countries will be the founding members of EMU?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=258 NAME="Henderson">
The Commission has indicated that it will submit draft proposals to the Council for agri-monetary arrangements to apply after 1 January 1999, shortly after decision on single currency participants are taken in May.
The Presidency will ensure that the Council undertakes an examination of the Commission's proposals as early as possible after due consultation of the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=259 NAME="Hardstaff">
I thank the President-in-Office for his reply.
It is a matter of great urgency and anxiety among the agricultural community in those countries which are not going to be in the first wave of EMU because they are subject, not merely to the vagaries of weather and climate and the changes in CAP reform, WTO and GATT, but will continue to have considerable anxieties about the vagaries of currency exchange.
I would urge that our agricultural communities be given this information as quickly as possible so that they can plan ahead knowing that at least one area will not be as uncertain as many others in the years ahead.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=260 NAME="Henderson">
I can give Mrs Hardstaff the commitment she is looking for: the Presidency recognizes the importance of this issue, and a speedy response will be given as soon as possible after the date to which I previously referred.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=261 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, this is of interest both to the countries within the single currency and to those which remain outside.
Can Mr Henderson tell us whether there is a tendency to equalize the green exchange rates with the commercial exchange rates of the currencies?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=262 NAME="Henderson">
Thank you for that further supplementary.
That would be a matter that the Commission would need to consider, and the Council would liaise with the Commission on that matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=263 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Henderson.
I fear you want to leave us.
When we started Question Time, I suggested extending it to 7.15 p.m. but you told me that your plane would not wait and you would have to leave at 7.00 p.m.
This Presidency greatly enjoys your company and the chance to listen to the answers you give to the honourable Members of this House, but I cannot keep you here against your will, when you really cannot stay.
Let us hope that in the future we can organize the work of this House better, so we can keep precisely to the time we have both agreed upon.
Thank you for your presence and your replies.
<P>
Questions Nos 18 to 40 will be dealt with in writing.
<P>
That concludes Question Time.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 7.05 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Aid for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia - post-SFOR strategy (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=264 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0123/98 by Mr Schwaiger, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation 1628/96 relating to aid for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (COM(98)0018 - C4-0105/98-98/0023(CNS))-A4-0106/98 by Mrs Daskalaki, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on a post-SFOR strategy in Bosnia and Herzegovina containing a proposal for a European Parliament recommendation to the Council
<SPEAKER ID=265 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by congratulating Mrs Daskalaki and Mr Schwaiger on their reports.
Admittedly neither of them is present, but I hope that they have not already given up hope that their reports will be considered and decisions about them made.
<P>
They are two very good reports, two short but pregnant reports, which also go in the right political direction.
What is more, both Mrs Daskalaki and Mr Schwaiger have worked very constructively with the other groups in the committee.
<P>
When we consider the situation, particularly in Bosnia-Herzegovina, we must weigh up the positive as well as the negative developments or non-developments there.
On the one hand we must say that the development in Republic Srpska has been thoroughly positive.
We have there a president who is certainly no angel on the political scene, but who has nevertheless begun to cooperate with Europe and the USA.
<P>
We have a prime minister whom we have recently been able to receive in the European Parliament, Prime Minister Dodik, whose work is thoroughly constructive.
We can surely record this as one of the positive developments in Republic Srpska.
We have not yet reached the end, and we must be careful, because the nationalists may still gain the upper hand.
<P>
Secondly, we have made progress in economic and infrastructural development.
I was recently in Sarajevo, and the picture there today is quite different, not only compared to the war period, during which I also visited it, but also in the period afterwards, up to about nine months ago, when I was last there - and that applies not only to the infrastructure, but also the life of the people and their enjoyment of living, which is becoming evident again there.
<P>
On the negative side: the return of the refugees is still faltering.
I do not say that nothing is happening, but much too little is happening.
It's a roundabout that no-one really wants to get going, and they are all waiting for each other.
The Croats are waiting for the Bosnians, the Bosnians for the Serbs, the Serbs for the Croats, or however they want to set the ball rolling.
In any case, it is still unsatisfactory, and I believe that we must do everything we can and that all of us must encourage the High Representative to continue to work there.
<P>
The second thing which is very serious is the situation in Kosovo, in Albania, in Macedonia and in Serbia itself.
We get the feeling, and the Bosnians are getting it again, that they are still in a very weak situation.
They are the only ones who have no supporting power in their area.
The Croats have one, the Serbs have one, and there is also the Kosovo problem, which is interpreted at least as a problem of the Islamic minority in a Christian environment.
I therefore believe that it is necessary to continue to have troops on the ground, even at lower strength, and perhaps with a stronger European engagement.
In that I can entirely support Mrs Daskalaki, who is just coming in, regarding her report and the Schwaiger report.
We need more efficiency, more decentralization and more coordination on the ground.
These are also some of those points to which the Commission led by Tom Spencer correctly referred.
I have been able to see these deficiencies for myself in the past few years at the Donus conference, in Sarajevo and in other places.
<P>
We have spent a lot of money, but not efficiently enough.
This must stop!
We must spend the money more efficiently.
There must be more coordination, and more must be decided on the spot.
I believe that it is impossible to control things centrally from Brussels to this extent, because we do believe that we have them under control.
We do not have them under control because our approach is a strongly centralist one.
I am therefore glad that the Commission has presented the proposals, and I am also glad that the Presidency is going in this direction.
That is due, not least, to the initiative of this Parliament.
In this way we can hope for a happy ending, the sooner the better.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=266 NAME="Spencer">
Madam President, can I add my congratulations to both Mr Schwaiger and Mrs Daskalaki for their excellent reports.
I had the honour of leading the ad hoc delegation to Bosnia some weeks ago.
I have to say I came back very angry and rather ashamed that the European Union should be represented in quite such a way, should be quite so ineffective in a crisis of extraordinary proportions.
I was angry with the Commission; but I would like tonight to pay tribute to the way the Commission has responded in the last three weeks to pressure from Parliament and in particular pay tribute to Hans van den Broek and to everyone involved in the Commission for the agreement they reached with Parliament on Monday night in the vote in the Foreign Affairs Committee.
<P>
I have to say that until about 5.25 this afternoon I was also extremely angry with the Council because Parliament had been very critical - the delegation had been very critical not only of the Commission, but also of the Council for its failure to coordinate on the spot in Bosnia, for its insistence on lunatically complicated tendering arrangements.
I want, however, in a rare mood of openness to congratulate Doug Henderson, the President-in-Office, for what I thought was an extremely constructive speech earlier this evening.
I was impressed by the way he commented on Parliament's amendments, and I was impressed by the way he offered talks with Parliament to resolve this matter by the end of April.
<P>
I have therefore suggested to colleagues informally tonight a timetable that would meet his requirements and I have circulated that timetable to colleagues so that the groups can discuss it tomorrow morning.
That timetable, which would culminate in a parliamentary vote at the beginning of the next plenary, would allow us to have time for discussions with the Council and with the Budgets Committee so that we could honour our side of the bargain by releasing the ECU 30 million that could be immediately spent in Bosnia.
I think we are very close on this issue.
Everything that goodwill and intelligence and flexibility can do I promise, from my committee.
This is an issue where the cooperation of the three institutions here in Brussels and Strasbourg will actually, at the end of the day, contribute to the cooperation of all three institutions and the proper representation of the European Union in Bosnia where it matters.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=267 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Caccavale">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me first to complain that this debate has been held in two parts, as often happens, unfortunately, in this Parliament, with one Commissioner, Commissioner van den Broek, attending the first part, and then another Commissioner, Commissioner Flynn, a worthy representative of the Commission but someone less interested in Bosnia-Herzegovina: this is something reprehensible, I have to say.
Moreover, the Council is no longer here and what the political groups say is of no interest to anyone.
<P>
Having said that, I too want to congratulate Mrs Daskalaki and Mr Schwaiger for their excellent work.
The first thing we have to bear in mind is that with the Bosnia-Herzegovina question Europe has given off its worst impression of the last 40 years, since the Second World War in fact.
We have witnessed a massacre, a massacre a few steps away from home, without the European Union being able or knowing how to say a word.
After giving off this bad impression - the Americans had to intervene to find a solution! - the EU seems to be showing its own inefficiencies, its own inability with regard to reconstruction too.
It is right that attention is drawn to what is happening with regard to reconstruction.
<P>
So what is happening?
Simply, the political instability of Bosnia-Herzegovina remains, despite all the expenditure by the European countries, by the EU; the central institutions are non-existent to such a point that we did not even know who to sign undertakings with; the Brussels centralization, which Brussels wanted, which the European Commission wanted for control and transparency, has had negative effects; it has actually been counterproductive. The more Brussels asked for control and transparency, the more obviously fraud and embezzlement multiplied.
<P>
Allocations are already rare. European public opinion is already looking at us because of budget restrictions in every country.
So we can no longer allow ourselves to have this type of attitude. We should learn from Bosnia-Herzegovina to establish an innovative approach to Community aid: no longer non-refundable subsidies, but rather partnerships and returnable loans.
<P>
I think that only one independent plenipotentiary representative, with exceptional powers and with specific decision-making powers can help in this respect.
Europe is watching us!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=268 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cars">
Madam President, let me first stress the importance which the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party and I personally attach to the effectiveness of aid for the former Yugoslavia, so that reconstruction takes place quickly and people can return to their homes.
Against that background we were very concerned when we received the report from the Parliamentary delegation which recently visited the former Yugoslavia and returned home saying that the situation there with regard to aid is not being managed in a good and efficient way.
A large number of proposals were also made regarding how the aid efforts and administration could be improved so that the aid really got where it was meant to go.
<P>
As I understand things, the Commission has accepted the line proposed by Parliament and is prepared to ensure that a more efficient organization than the one we had before is created to take responsibility for these aid efforts in the former Yugoslavia.
We think that is good.
<P>
I also thought that what Mr Henderson said today gives us reason to believe that the Council is also going to ensure that it does whatever is in its power to make the efforts effective.
Against this background, I recommended to my group this evening that we should support Mr Schwaiger's proposal tomorrow and vote the report through. The group unanimously supported my recommendation.
<P>
Let me finish by saying that if any conclusion may be drawn from this, it is that Parliament has performed a very important function, precisely the function which falls to Parliament, namely to ensure as a supervisory authority that when there is cause for criticism, that criticism is made, and to ensure that measures are taken to correct what has gone wrong.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=269 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Madam President, the Dayton Agreement was established by military might, by imposing military intervention and interference.
<P>
Two years later, our rapporteurs have made an assessment - both of them, and many speakers as well - and have found that something may have been achieved by military means but nothing non-military has been achieved at all.
The refugees have not gone home, arms may have brought peace but it is fragile, millions of ECU remain unabsorbed, the central administration does not function, the system of democratic liberties and human rights is not working properly.
So what are the results of this militarily imposed Treaty?
They have assessed the situation and I agree with their assessment.
I disagree, however, with their conclusions because what is it that they are asking for?
An extension of the military presence, and not only that, but its reinforcement too, they are recommending that to make its presence felt the European Union must play the tune of calling for mobile military forces, interventions by the WEU under NATO's leadership, more and more military intervention, and for what?
To get the same result, which cannot be cured by military presence and intervention, as we see from the self-evident outcome, from the two-year assessment of Dayton.
<P>
What is the issue here?
Let the Bosnians, the Herzegovinans, the Croatians and the Serbs bury the dead you are responsible for because of the conflicts you created. Let them bury their hatreds and passions and find for themselves how to cooperate peacefully, so that economic and social reconstruction and development can progress.
That is how the European Union can show its presence - by staying out of it. Leave those peoples alone, before you spread more general conflict in the Balkans.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=270 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet (V).">
Madam President, like Mr Caccavale, I actually find this a rather farcical parliamentary debate when the groups start to speak the moment the Presidency is no longer here, and we have a different Commissioner who is following up these matters.
I have been in this Parliament for twelve years now, but this really beats everything I have ever experienced. This is what happens when you are in the European Parliament.
<P>
As far as the core of the issue is concerned, the Green Group supports the two reports by Mr Schwaiger and Mrs Daskalaki.

I would like to start by speaking to Mrs Daskalaki's report because it is clear that if a continued SFOR presence in BosniaHerzegovina is not guaranteed, anything might happen again.
So it is vital that the presence is continued, and it is clear that there have been plenty of signals from the United States to suggest that it is going to lessen its participation. What's more, I think it is perfectly normal that the European countries accept responsibility for pursuing peace-keeping operations in what is a European country, after all.
To me, a very important point in Mrs Daskalaki's report is that attention is rightly paid to the force which not only has to provide for a shift towards Europe, whereby Europe finally accepts its responsibilities, but also for a new relationship between the military and the police presence.
The UN group which will be deployed for policing operations will therefore be more prominent, and will focus on training local police, and everyone in Bosnia knows how important it is that this strategy is persevered with.
<P>
In conclusion, I would like to say a few things about Mr Schwaiger's report.
To be honest, Mr Spencer, I am not as optimistic as you, because this Parliament came up with exactly the same analysis as the one expounded in Mr Schwaiger's report.
We have known for two years that things are not working out this way, that the situation is untenable.
We also knew which changes were needed, and they have not been implemented.
As far as that is concerned both the Commission and the Council are most certainly not without responsibility, and I think this ought to be stated pointedly here.
I believe there is hope for the future.
I am always an optimist, so I am happy to go along with this and I think it is important in this context that Parliament keeps something in reserve not to give immediate approval to everything we are promised, but to see what will be decided at the Council on 27 and 28 April.
We will not give the green light until we know that what we are getting is what we should be getting.
If together we work towards that, ladies and gentlemen, we know we will have done something for Bosnia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=271 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, the agenda is set by the party leaders, and this time in the knowledge that on Wednesday evening neither the Commission nor the Council can be present. I just wanted to let you know this.
That is how it has been set.
I regret that there was no alternative, but is was not a surprise.
It was not evil intent on the part of the Commission, there was an agreement to do it in this way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=272 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Zimmermann">
Madam President, as a member of the ad hoc delegation I was able to see for myself how difficult the situation for people in Bosnia is at this time.
Mr Schwaiger's report pointed out, in many proposals, what action must be taken to bring about an improvement.
However, for me as a member of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, it is important that the coordination and preparation of specific projects in the context of an inclusive repatriation programme have the highest priority this year.
For this purpose, the efforts of the NGOs and other organizations on the ground must be more strongly supported and coordinated by the Commission.
<P>
Reconstruction has been delayed because mine clearance work is not yet finished.
Also, reconstruction of the whole infrastructure, and gas, water and electricity, and traffic links, schools and health care must be more strongly supported.
For this reason, the return of refugees cannot yet take place this year in some places, but must be properly prepared, so that the refugees themselves can decide to return.
If today too many refugees are sent back too early, the region may be destabilized, and that may permanently prevent the final repatriation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=273 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
Madam President, I too was in Sarajevo some time ago, where I heard the story about the parliament building.
The parliament building was going to be reconstructed with European aid as a symbol of effective decision-making and good practice.
Since that time it has remained ruined and it is now a symbol of the inefficient decision-making of the European Union.
It is in fact terribly sad that the European Union Ambassador told me at the time, "Look, you have floods of money from the European Union, but you have decisions from the USA' .
<P>
Madam President, shortly after the war we used to make arrogant jokes about the Americans in the Netherlands, and we used to say: you have the money, we have the brains.
But now the situation seems to have been reversed.
At the moment it is the Europeans who have the money, so to speak, and it is the Americans who are making the intelligent and effective decisions.
We have to put this down to the fact that the European Union is made up of a number of Member States who are much more interested in their own gains when it comes to construction projects, rather than a union of individual members who are capable of outstepping themselves in order to meet their responsibility.
That is the painful reason why we are lagging behind the Americans and have started to act a bit like a satellite.
That is all we are really.
I welcome Mr Schwaiger's report wholeheartedly.
I think it is excellent and well thought out, in particular when he says we should make ourselves more visible through decentralized decision-making processes, by increasing our presence with a clearer figurehead, with a large, effective staff and a wide remit to coordinate and take decisions.
I think this is a very important issue and I thoroughly welcome the fact that it has been given so much attention in this report.
The return of refugees, and the restoration of order in a strategically positioned enclave in Europe is, of course, of significant interest to Europe.
If this is successfully achieved, then the SFOR force should stay, because if refugees are starting to return to the area, then we will need a SFOR which tries to bridge the gap between military and civil aspects, and which is able to act during riots and to make arrests, if necessary.
I find this an excellent element in Mrs Daskalaki's report as well, and I would like to offer my sincerest congratulations to both rapporteurs on the remarkable results they have achieved on behalf of this Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=274 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Frischenschlager">
Madam President, I would like to concentrate for the moment on the Daskalaki report, which I think is excellent. I would like to emphasize a few of its points.
First, it makes quite clear that peaceful reconstruction work is obviously a priority after such a terrible war, but that unfortunately it can also be necessary to secure reconstruction militarily, as we are finding in the case of Bosnia.
I believe that it is very important that this is put in writing.
<P>
Secondly, this report appeals very clearly to Europe's own responsibility in matters of securing peace and of reconstruction in this war region.
I consider this to be quite important, because the consequence that the Western European Union was activated is a quite excellent development, and since we know how important it is to develop further the common foreign and security policy of the European Union.
One thing has almost been forgotten yet again: that essentially it was the United States which took on liability for the failure of European security policy, and I would not like to imagine what would have happened if the USA had ended its involvement and we had probably left the country in a state of chaos again.
My plea, therefore, is that we should finally work consistently to construct a common foreign and security policy in the European Union, a common foreign and security policy which actually deserves the name.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=275 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stenzel">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Dayton peace agreements unfortunately continue to require to be secured militarily.
The Daskalaki report about a strategy for the period after the expiry of the SFOR mandate next June therefore comes at just the right time before the decision of the North Atlantic Council about the new provisional operation plan, which will then be confirmed by the NATO foreign ministers in May 1998.
Securing a peace - perhaps we should rather say a state of non-war - must become more and more a European responsibility.
The demand that the Western European Union should organize military action in the context of a joint SFOR operation led by NATO with Austria also taking part would be an appropriate symbol of a European security policy in the Balkans.
<P>
Unfortunately the reconstruction of Bosnia leaves a great deal to be desired.
Not because the European Union has made too little money available for it - on the contrary, it is the biggest donor, with ECU 408 million last year - but because these resources, as the Schwaiger report shows in detail, are not being appropriately administered and distributed on the ground.
A senior official with appropriate power of decision can and must remedy this.
Bosnia-Herzegovina was and is a test case for the influence of the EU in this area, an influence which must be made much more effective, particularly in view of the new crisis in Kosovo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=276 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the two reports with which we are dealing today are closely related, and anyone who, like me and others here, has followed events on the ground for years, realizes that without the presence of the SFOR soldiers the civilian peace process has no chance.
I would recommend to Mr Ephremidis that he should go to Sarajevo and its surroundings; he would come back with the same realization.
He could not do otherwise.
But if you do not open your eyes, you do not change direction.
<P>
The soldiers prevent open hostilities, they sometimes help to seize war criminals, they support the reconstruction literally with their own hands, for example, by building bridges.
They - at least the Franco-German brigade - are also actively involved in the repatriation of refugees, because they systematically collect data and facts village by village, which are the necessary preconditions for return, and they then pass them on to the appropriate German authorities.
For our financial help to flow and reconstruction really to start, we need an instrument other than the PHARE programme, which, for its implementation on the recipients' side, assumes structures which do not yet exist and will not exist for a long time.
Just imagine that the Marshall Plan had had to function in these circumstances after World War II.
We would still be waiting for its beneficial impact.
<P>
Thank heaven, the Commission is prepared to follow up the discoveries of the delegation which was in Bosnia, so that finally the financial aid is reaching its target.
For egoistic national reasons, the Council shared the guilt for the previous mismanagement, but in the main it passed the buck to the Commission.
The Council must finally accept Mr Schwaiger's proposals, for the sake of Europe's credibility.
We need a truly responsible plenipotentiary of Europe on the ground. Otherwise, we shall lose to the Americans what little is left of our credibility, influence and respect!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=277 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Methane emissions .
<SPEAKER ID=278 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0120/98) by Mr Marset Campos on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection on the communication from the Commission to the Council and to the European Parliament on the strategy for reducing methane emissions (COM(96)0557 - C4-0001/97)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=279 NAME="Marset Campos">
Madam President, Commissioner, the Commission's initiative on the reduction of methane emissions at European level is essentially correct and positive.
However, on the one hand, it is somewhat late given the commitments made and our support, demonstrated in Maastricht and Amsterdam, to lead our society towards a sustainable model.
And, on the other hand, it suffers from inadequacies in terms of the first-hand detailed studies on this issue at European level which could lay the foundations for specific, global proposals adjusted to the actual situation.
Finally, therefore, it is lacking in all the proposals it puts forward.
<P>
We in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection have approved this report with the very positive incorporation of the contributions made by both the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development. The Commission's communication is appropriate and positive since methane gas is the largest contributor to the "greenhouse effect' after carbon dioxide.
Its impact is 62 times greater than that of carbon dioxide.
In addition, it affects the ozone layer because of the fact that it reacts with hydroxyl radicals.
Added to this, methane emissions increase by 1 % a year - almost 500 teragrammes per year. Since the average life of methane in the atmosphere is relatively short and varies between 8 and 17 years, it is more effective to combine the fight to reduce methane emissions, either through a decrease in emissions or combustion.
<P>
This initiative is somewhat tardy, since other industrialized countries - such as the United States, Australia and Canada - have effectively adopted global strategies intended to reduce emissions.
<P>
Nevertheless, we believe that the initiative is also insufficient since we do not have a detailed study in Europe on this issue - there has been one on the basis of national studies, but never a specific one -, and there are inadequacies in the proposals.
I would like to look at several of them.
<P>
In general, the initiative is positive since it sets out all the undertakings given under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Conference, the Fifth framework action programme on the environment "Towards Sustainability' , as well as the Environment Council of 1994 and the demands of the Council's Ad Hoc Group on Climate, in accordance with the Berlin Mandate.
However, some points need to be added which we believe to be important.
<P>
Firstly, we must urgently adopt an ambitious package of legislative, economic and social recommendations.
<P>
Secondly, we believe that we should establish a European Climate Agency to coordinate all measures, including those proposed here.
<P>
Thirdly, we consider it essential to provide greater access to gas pipelines for the most important sources of methane already mentioned.
<P>
Fourthly, we should incorporate three specific issues into the proposal. As regards agriculture, we must study European rice cultivation; we must also look at livestock farming in a more realistic way to ensure that our livestock industry is not harmed in comparison to other livestock industries; and we must thus give more consideration to the CAP in terms of its environmental impact.
In terms of landfill sites, the proposal must be included in our European energy policy, and as regards the use of energy, we must improve the control of leakages from all types of gas pipelines and from coalmines.
<P>
There is another aspect which is worth mentioning briefly: the improvement of research.
This is important because we believe that we are missing the train in terms of providing instruments and materials in a growing market, precisely on this issue of controlling methane emissions.
<P>
We should also provide economic assistance, tax exemptions and all sorts of benefits for those European companies which are achieving a reduction of methane emissions abroad.
<P>
And finally, we need to increase public awareness regarding these issues so that they also get involved and participate in an active way and that we are not merely dependent on legislative measures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=280 NAME="Linkohr">
Madam President, I would first like to thank Mr Marset Campos for his really excellent report and also the recommendations which he has presented to Parliament.
But I would also like to express praise for the Commission, because the communication which it has presented to us is excellent and of much help for the debate.
Thirdly, if you will allow me, I would like to excuse my colleague Ulrich Stockmann, who has prepared an opinion for the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
I am speaking in his place. Unfortunately he has had to undergo an operation and cannot be here today.
<P>
To get to the point: First, it occurs to me that we are living in a time of great surprises, because who would have thought ten or twenty years ago that such a commonplace molecule as methane would be the subject of an evening sitting of the European Parliament?
This puts me in a reflective mood, because it is quite possible that in future we shall discover that other commonplace things are also vitally important.
<P>
Research exists to discover things which we do not know.
It is possible that in future we shall make some unpleasant discoveries which force us to reflect.
<P>
Second, I would like to note that when I talk about research, we should really do research not just with the purpose of solving problems, however important that is, but also to discover the unknown.
This is something unknown which we have actually discovered.
The problem which faces us in this context is that methane, like other gases which affect climate, has a global impact, but that we have no global decision centre.
I am therefore especially thankful that the idea of a Climate Agency, a European or perhaps even better an international Climate Agency, is really being considered.
I know that at first such a thing raises fears of a new bureaucracy.
But I ask, in a world in which there is no proper decision centre, where can global management be done if not in new institutions which we set up?
We must do the calculations.
We must submit a global report, we must discuss in the parliaments and governments, and we must also act globally.
<P>
At the same time, and that is the paradox in this situation, we are not just dealing with a global subject, but with a decentralized one, because the sources from which the methane comes are distributed very diffusely over the whole world.
Mr Marset Campos has indicated what these sources are.
At the same time, we also need decentralized action, enlightenment, we need to educate the people who now participate directly or indirectly in the human production of methane.
<P>
There are many examples, which are also listed in the Commission's communication.
But that brings me to the question of how these examples can be acted upon?
What is the motive which causes people to carry out such action or to invest money in it?
Not everyone reads the Commission's communications.
Not everyone reads the decisions of the European Parliament, and even if people read them, I am not yet sure that they are personally motivated by them.
What moves people?
There must be a material reason for taking action.
<P>
That brings us to the question: How is it financed?
What is the personal profit, in the spheres of agriculture and waste disposal, of acting differently from the way we have had to act until now?
I would like us to put the emphasis on that when we discuss climate in future.
How can the good advice that we give, the good analyses, actually be put into effect?
That is in fact the central question, to which until now we have basically given no answer.
We always say that the Commission must make a proposal to us, the Commission has the right to make proposals.
It is a splendid right, but sometimes also an unpleasant duty, because the answers are not always immediately to hand.
<P>
Nevertheless we hope that in the future the Commission will make proposals to us in accordance with the maxim "We must do it' rather than "We could do it, we ought to do it' , and that it also explains to us how it is to be financed.
That would be my request to the Commission.
It is expressed in the decision.
I thank you for listening to me.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=281 NAME="Jackson">
Madam President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on his report and to thank him for the work he has put in on it.
On behalf of my group we welcome the report, although we have reservations over one or two of the paragraphs, particularly the recommendation on the European Climate Agency and paragraph 5.
I do not think we will be supporting that.
We do not see any need to set up a separate agency and I do not imagine the Commission does either, although we noticed that Mrs Bjerregaard is not gracing us with her presence tonight.
<P>
The largest sources of methane in the environment are defined by the report and by the Commission document as livestock and landfill.
I wish Mr Flynn all success in pursuing Agenda 2000, which is the only way, as far as I can see, that we are going to reduce the methane emissions from livestock in the end.
I want to concentrate very briefly on this issue of landfill.
The paper emphasizes the possibility of high levels of methane elimination.
I wish whoever had written this in the Commission had had a word with whoever was writing the directive on landfill.
<P>
When this point was taken up by the Committee on the Environment, I as rapporteur was told by various officials in the Commission that 90 % or at any rate 100 % elimination of methane emissions via energy recovery systems or flaring was virtually impossible.
Flaring might perhaps produce very high levels of methane capture but anything else, they said, could not go above about 70 %.
They were extremely pessimistic.
I now read in the Commission's document - pages 12 and 13 of the English text - ' Several options can reduce methane emissions from landfills, some of them by up to 90 %.'
That was denied by the Commission again and again in the Committee on the Environment, and I think that is very regrettable.
<P>
What will now happen is that we have two Community instruments fighting against each other.
The landfill directive will now make it very uneconomic for landfill operators to invest in methane recovery systems because the Commission's own instrument demands of them that they put less biodegradable waste into landfill progressively over a period up to 2010.
The objectives set out in this strategy are therefore combatted by a proposal from the Commission.
I think that is regrettable and I do not suppose Mr Flynn will have anything very constructive to say about it, but I thought I would put it on the record.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=282 NAME="Flynn">
I should like to thank Mr Marset Campos and all those who contributed to the debate.
<P>
The aim of the communication of the Commission is to examine the problems related to atmospheric methane emissions and to identify the main emission sources and sinks, to review some cost-effective mechanisms for reducing these emissions and to provide some options that could be used in a Community greenhouse gas emission reduction strategy.
<P>
The options focus on three sectors: agriculture, waste and energy.
The communication also provides a first response.
In the light of the Kyoto Agreement that aimed at reducing a basket of six greenhouse gases, including methane, by 8 % by the year 20082012, it will be necessary to examine further the contribution that methane emission reduction can make to the Community's overall target.
<P>
The report by Mr Marset Campos and the accompanying motion for a resolution show that he is fully in tune with the concerns that are set out in the Commission's communication.
Moreover, the debate on this communication could not have come at a better time since, following the agreement on the protocol at Kyoto, the Commission is now very actively engaged in further reflections on how best to implement the commitments it has made with respect to emission reduction.
Reductions in methane, as the second most important greenhouse gas, will certainly be an important consideration in the Community's post-Kyoto strategy.
<P>
Methane is the second most important greenhouse gas after CO2 .
Given that the major proportion of methane is man-made it is vital for these emissions to be restricted and reduced.
All of those who have contributed made that point very forcefully.
<P>
In 1990 agriculture accounted for 45 %, waste for 32 % and energy for 23 % of European Union methane emissions.
Calculations in the communication show that by 2010 a reduction of up to 15 %, compared with 1990, is feasible based on current policies.
But a reduction of up to some 40 % or more in the same period is estimated to be the maximum technically feasible, assuming that significant policy changes are made.
The Commission can therefore largely share the views set out by you, Mr Marset Campos, in your report for addressing the emissions of methane.
<P>
On the motion for a resolution itself I would like to make a few specific points.
On paragraph 2: the Commission has made some further studies, aimed at obtaining more detailed information on methane emissions.
Specifically as regards methane hydrates I can inform you that the Director-General for Research has an ongoing project on this particular topic.
This will be very welcome news to you.
<P>
On paragraph 3: the Commission is in the process of drawing up a strategy to meet its Kyoto commitment of reducing its emissions of six greenhouse gases by 8 % by 2008-2012 compared with 1990.
Mr Linkohr will be very anxious to have that kind of measurement achieved.
That is our aim.
The scope for reducing methane emissions will be an important consideration in this strategy.
That is the point you make.
<P>
On paragraph 5: the Commission takes note of Parliament's wish to see a European climate agency as a means of coordinating public and private climate protection.
I note the difference of opinion on both sides of the House as far as this particular recommendation is concerned.
It is an interesting idea.
I say to Mrs Jackson, who makes the point very well, that there are a number of implications that need further study in this regard.
<P>
On paragraph 9: the Commission recognizes that gas leakage from old pipelines - a point made specifically by the rapporteur - in the former countries of the Soviet Union is an important source of methane emissions.
The deployment of European Union funds for repairs to these pipelines would certainly bring environmental benefit.
Such actions would have to be considered in the overall framework in so far as the overall priorities are concerned and the availability of money.
<P>
On paragraph 21: the Commission certainly subscribes to the view that greater public awareness is essential if emission reductions are to be achieved.
This effort needs to be taken not only at Community level but also at national and local levels if it is to be really effective.
<P>
I welcome the contributions that have been made.
Even though my colleague Mrs Bjerregaard is not here, she can rest assured that I will bring the matters raised by you to her attention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=283 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Suitability of blood donors
<SPEAKER ID=284 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0112/98) by Mr Cabrol on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection on the proposal for a Council Recommendation on the suitability of blood and plasma donors and the screening of donated blood in the European Community (COM(97)0605 - C4-0027/98-97/0315(CNS))
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=285 NAME="Cabrol">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the current Council recommendation applies essentially to the first section of the previous Commission communication which related to blood safety and self-sufficiency in the Union, for which I was rapporteur.
This first section is devoted to the safety of transfusions and more particularly to the two primary conditions of this safety: donor suitability and screening of donated blood.
Self-sufficiency is mentioned incidentally, when it is a question of volumes of blood donations.
<P>
Firstly with regard to donor suitability, the Council wishes to have exhaustive information on these donors, whose gift is clearly a generous one - this needs to be underlined as we are asking, in Amendment Nos 14 and 18, for the application of the principle of voluntary donations - but it is not without consequence for the donor or for future potential recipients of transfusions.
This information must be encouraged - this is the objective of Amendment Nos 1 and 5 - in order to gain a better understanding of, and cooperation from, potential donors.
<P>
In order to find a donor who is at the origin of a contaminated donation, it is important to set up a register to include the name of the collection centre and precise identification of the donor in the form of a code number which would guarantee confidentiality of information.
It seems essential to us that statistics should be held centrally on a single register within the Union, with a unique identification code enabling precise traceability.
This is covered by Amendment Nos 8 and 11.
<P>
To reduce as far as possible the harmful consequences that a donation could have on either the donor himself or on possible recipients, the Council is proposing a detailed questionnaire on donor criteria.
This questionnaire is in response to the demands of Parliament itself in its previous resolution on blood safety.
There are three points in this questionnaire worth drawing your attention to.
The first relates to risks connected with journeys outside of the European Union.
Of course, many illnesses only exist and can only be caught in some countries, for example, malaria.
Nevertheless, it would be useless to discriminate in this matter and to exclude certain third countries such as North America, where some illnesses are, nevertheless, endemic.
This is the objective of Amendment No 20 which corrects the original text in this sense.
<P>
The second point relates to sexual activity.
Wherever there is sexual activity, absolutely wherever, in no matter what country, even in the European Union, there is also the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases.
This is why we recommend voting against the two points in the Council's questionnaire which mention sexual activity.
The first is aimed at Africa, we do not want this included, and the second is aimed at countries other than in Africa, for the same reason we do not want this included.
This removal would render Amendment No 21 null and void.
<P>
The third point relates to homosexual practices between men.
These practices still carry very high risks, the rectum holding up much less well to the virus than some other mucous membranes.
We therefore reject Amendment No 29, which would limit the danger to high risk male homosexual relations, as if no other male homosexual relations carried a danger.
I repeat that, medically, all male homosexual relations carry risks, very considerable risks.
The exclusion of donors on the basis of these criteria could be definitive or temporary, depending on the case and the illness.
But in any case, absolute confidentiality must be guaranteed in order to respect the rights of donors and to maintain the generosity of the general public.
Amendment No 10 is intended in this direction.
<P>
Full and specific tests must be carried out on donated blood and plasma and we must be continually informed of the existence and validity of new viral markers.
This is the intended direction of Amendment Nos 7, 9 and 13.
But these tests only show positive after a certain period of time in the contaminated donor, a period during which antibodies are produced yet during which the antibodies are still not sufficient to be detected by the tests.
This is where the need for a questionnaire comes in, as it is the only way of removing these high risk donors during this period.
Finally, the Council makes recommendations on the volume of blood to be taken from donors, and the frequency of donations.
The standards advocated by the Council seem a little too high to us and we would rather recommend those of the Council of Europe.
This is covered by Amendment Nos 24 and 25.
<P>
In conclusion, Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, apart from the important questions we have raised, we advocate voting for this recommendation and our amendments.
This text will undoubtedly contribute to greater safety in blood transfusions which, without reducing the risk to zero, will enable patients within the European Union to benefit from the lifesaving support of a blood transfusion when they need to.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=286 NAME="Whitehead">
Madam President, I support and, indeed, salute Mr Cabrol for the breadth of experience, knowledge and compassion that he has always brought to this subject.
<P>
I am speaking on behalf of our shadow rapporteur for the Group of the Party of European Socialists, Mr Needle, who cannot be with us, courtesy of Air France, who have done their best this week to make this a shadow Parliament.
<P>
All of us here want to see a speedy passage for this Council recommendation. my group is concerned that the proposal before us has no binding force.
We look to the Council of Health Ministers on 30 April.
In Amendment No 17 we call on the Member States to work together and with the Commission on binding legislation by the end of this year, and certainly no later than 1999.
<P>
The Commissioner will know of the concern in my country, and probably in his also, at the danger, however remote, posed by new variant CJD in the matter of blood plasma products.
We are deeply concerned that there should be a field of safety and of common practices throughout the European Union in the matter of blood products and their safety.
My own view, and that of my group, on this is that, whilst the emphasis put on donor selection and the appropriate testing of donations is fairly adequate - and it has been outlined by Mr Cabrol in his remarks - we still need to look very carefully at the monitoring of recipients of blood transfusions.
We need to be certain that throughout the Community the same measures are in effect, the same points of contact are available and information is wisely considered, assessed and shared.
<P>
One thing that concerns my group very greatly is the issue of voluntary donations, and here I agree with Mr Cabrol.
It seems to me wrong that we should be legislating here on the basis that there is not a marked distinction between voluntary donations and paid donations.
We may be a single market but there is not a market in blood: there is a community in blood.
We are in the most literal sense blood brothers and blood sisters.
<P>
The book that has most influenced my life is that by Professor Richard Titmus called 'The Gift Relationship' , which sets out how much the principle of altruism relates to the giving of blood.
We should do nothing in the course of this legislation that makes it harder for people to offer this most precious of donations.
But we should also do nothing that makes it harder for us to trace those who, for whatever reason, might spread an infection and endanger others.
We are wholly in support of Amendments Nos 1, 3 and 18, tabled by Mr Cabrol, and those on the issue of voluntary donation, which have been tabled by my group.
<P>
One last word on Amendment No 29: we need to draw a distinction between unsafe practices between men and any sexual practices between men.
There are many unsafe sexual practices between the sexes, as well as between men, and we should not stigmatize the entire gay community in what we say tonight.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=287 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valverde López">
Madam President, I think we all agree that this proposal is aimed at establishing a Community strategy to improve confidence in the safety of the blood transfusion process.
And it is not a new proposal, since we already have an excellent directive from 1989, which provided for quality, security and effectiveness in terms of medical products derived from plasma.
However, we must not forget that the Convention on European Pharmacopoeia, with an excellent technical monograph, has also been ratified.
Therefore, this proposal contributes by giving more security to the entire process. For that reason we give our full support to Professor Cabrol's report, to which he has imparted the best of his knowledge and professional authority.
However, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has approved several amendments to which I would like to draw the attention of the European Commission since, if they are approved, they would actually distort the proposal and the Community law which is currently in force.
<P>
I will look firstly at the reference to the Council of Europe's recommendation.
It is not that I disagree with it, but there is an accepted Court of Justice doctrine that we should not make cross-references since they are based on different legislation and we would therefore lose legal security.
<P>
Secondly, Amendment No 14 refers to the establishment of the legal principle of voluntary and unpaid donations of blood or plasma.
But talking about the legal principle seems to me to be truly absurd.
As a political objective we should move towards self-sufficiency, but establishing a legal principle, if we realize what we are talking about, is unacceptable.
Maybe I should explain in this Parliament that the Community institutions all agree that every policy should be directed towards achieving full employment. But establishing the legal principle of full employment in the European Union would be truly absurd, despite the fact that we all want to see this objective realized.
Confusing a political orientation of an ethical nature with a legal principle is a legal aberration which should not be brought about by any report from this Parliament.
I would draw the attention of the European Commission to this question so that, although it is proposed here, it acts as a sort of filter, it carries out a reasonable job - as the European Commission usually does - and does away with this reference.
<P>
In the same way, I cannot accept the attempt to apply the same principles and demands to blood and products derived from it.
I would not need to provide any example here but blood does in fact undergo a determined treatment, while derived products are treated completely differently.
I trust in the European Commission's good judgement to ensure that these amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment are properly done away with and that they are not taken into account. The original proposal would be thus much better with the amendments tabled, which are also original, from Professor Cabrol.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=288 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the safety of donated blood is a matter of life and death.
That is why the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party supports the request by the rapporteur for binding legislation towards the end of next year on blood products, donated blood and blood plasma.
On behalf of my group, and of my colleague Mr Eisma who is not able to be present here tonight, I would like to draw attention to the following points.
First of all, we wish to underline that blood should be donated on a voluntary basis, and that donating blood should therefore be unpaid.
It is vital that the principles recommended by the World Health Organization, namely that donations should be unpaid, voluntary and anonymous, are implemented by the Member States in cases of medical intervention to the human body.
This has not been expressed clearly enough in the proposal, which is why we fully support Amendment Nos 14 and 18 which deal with this issue in greater depth.
<P>
Moreover, we consider it extremely important for health reasons that the amount of blood a donor is allowed to give per session is reduced from 800 to 650 millilitres.
<P>
Finally, we do not wish to refuse people giving blood purely on the basis of their sexual orientation.
We think it is essential that all applicant donors are fully aware of the risk that donated blood and plasma can transmit contagious diseases.
But it would be a form of discrimination to exclude a priori all homosexuals.
Homosexuals might only pose a risk when they engage in unsafe sexual practices.
I ask you to support the Liberal Group's Amendment No 29 which deals with this subject, and consequently not to consider this group amongst the excluded groups in Appendix 5.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=289 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Marset Campos">
Madam President, Commissioner, our group is in complete agreement with Professor Cabrol's report on the Council's proposal on the suitability of blood and plasma donors.
We also agree with the amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
<P>
We would like to highlight three issues which have been sufficiently discussed: confidentiality and respect for donors, regardless of any stigma; the need to create a central identification service in Europe - as already pointed out in other epidemiological reports; and the adoption of all the precautions necessary to avoid the transmission of diseases or new risks.
<P>
Nevertheless, there are other aspects which we would like to underline. Firstly, the maximum quantity to be donated should be the same, independent of weight, since volume of blood and body mass are two different things, and there is no direct relation between the two quantities.
Secondly, in our view, it is very important that donations are voluntary since we must remember that AIDS in fact originated in North America due to the abuse of trade in blood from Haiti.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=290 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pradier">
Madam President, faced with the dangers of using blood and blood products, one necessity alone should guide all our actions and attitudes: the safety of the sick and wounded.
This is based on two factors: the competence of the doctor providing the transfusion and the quality of the transfused product.
<P>
To treat the issue lightly, or to content oneself with an approximation on the subject is a criminal attitude which has already causes dozens and dozens of deaths, not only in France, I am told.
<P>
However, the text proposed to us by the Commission seems to contain, alongside sound demands, some outrageous remarks which I was surprised had got this far without being noticed.
The fact that it is considered far more dangerous to have a sexual encounter in Pretoria than in Bangkok leaves me truly confused.
On the other hand, it is a little ridiculous to make no mention of whether sexual relations are protected or not, whilst male homosexuality is rejected as a whole regardless of the methods practised when it relates to blood donations.
<P>
On the other hand, it seems inappropriate to become alarmed when the possibility of setting up a circle of transfusion centres or of tying them into a central body is considered, for in each of our countries national blood transfusion centres collect perfectly confidential statistics, which are coded and permit traceability.
<P>
I would like to indicate finally, Madam President, that the centralization of information at European level would seem to be as safe as that at national level - I say that for the benefit of certain worried people, particularly in my country where, as everyone knows, harmful political forces are developing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=291 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Madam President, it is impossible to imagine modern medicine without blood donation.
It saves lives.
Yet there will also be risks attached to transfusions.
These risks should be limited as far as possible, and that is what this proposal aims to do.
Thankfully, we do not need to reinvent the wheel in Europe as far as blood screening is concerned.
Much important work has been carried out by the Council of Europe.
A reference to the recommendations made by the Council of Europe is therefore in order, and I wholeheartedly endorse Amendment No 1.
But there are two things I would like to draw your attention to.
Firstly, I believe that in principle, donations must remain voluntary.
A paid donation is essentially no longer a real donation, because a quid pro quo in the shape of money is expected.
This is a step back.
Neither for the donor, nor for safety is it desirable that blood or blood products are donated for money.
There will be an increased chance of less safe donors coming forward, and the aspect of solidarity with one's fellow human beings will be lost.
<P>
Secondly, I would like to add a little explanation to the amendments I have tabled.
In my amendments I point to the ISBT 128 system for the identification of donated blood.
ISBT stands for International Society for Blood Transfusion.
It is a recognized body in the world of blood transfusion.
The system I have just referred to amounts to a standardized, personal identification code which is allocated to each blood donation.
This system is recognized by the United States, Canada, and a number of European countries.
It would be obvious to choose this as the general standard for Europe.
<P>
Lastly, I would like to say something about safety.
I see the enclosed survey as an extremely important selection mechanism for donors.
The questions about sexual behaviour may come across as a little inappropriate, but we all know that certain types of sexual behaviour are more dangerous than others.
As long as the responses are well protected, this should not present any problems.
The safety of the people at the receiving end is more important in this case.
<P>
Finally, a word of thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Cabrol.
It is an excellent report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=292 NAME="Flynn">
Madam President, I ask for your indulgence in advance because I wish to take a few moments longer than anticipated as I want to deal with a lot of the amendments which are extremely important for blood and blood safety in the Community.
<P>
Parliament has voiced its concern in several reports and resolutions about the safety of blood and blood products and the attainment of self-sufficiency in the Community, and the Commission welcomes the committee's report this evening.
Parliament has noted that the recommendation is a logical sequel to the Commission's communication presented on blood safety and selfsufficiency.
It correctly pointed out that only the first two activities, that is donor suitability and screening of donations, were addressed.
These are the very first two phases in the blood transfusion chain.
The Commission considers it sensible first to focus on them.
But I can assure the honourable Members that steps are already under way to address the other identified activities in the development of the blood strategy.
<P>
I wish to thank Mr Cabrol for his contribution and also those others who have contributed this evening.
<P>
With regard to the amendments proposed by Parliament, the Commission is prepared to accept fully Amendments Nos 5, part b. of 13, and 23, and to accept partially Amendment No 2 - which requires some editing; No 9, the intention of which is acceptable but will require the establishment of common criteria for the parameters to be collected that are comparable throughout the Community; No 10, the wording of which will have to reflect the fact that much of current practice is experience - rather than evidence-based - and efforts will need to be promoted to obtain good scientific evidence here; No 11: the intention here should be to have a unique coding system with relevant information communicated to all Member States and to the Commission and not a unique and common code; part of No 15: editing here too should reflect that although the risk is still theoretical, appropriate measures need to be taken to minimize any hazard associated with possible transmission of new variant CJD via blood components and manufactured plasma derivatives.
The Commission proposed such measures in its prospective donor deferral criteria.
Part of No 16: we have to reflect here the need for common parameters at Community level and for the collection of epidemiological data.
Part of No 19: rewording is necessary here due to potential legal difficulties with the term 'partner' , which must be linked to legal and administrative provisions in the Member States.
Part of No 20: although acceptable from the aspect of travel outside the European Union, it goes beyond the Commission's intention of recommending Member States to pose certain questions and should, therefore, I suggest, be reformulated.
Part of No 21, which exceeds the Commission's intention of proposing that Member States pose questions if they so wish.
There are some additional amendments as well - Nos 27 and 28 - and that is dealt with under Amendment No 11; and No 29, which is acceptable.
We would like to think a little further about the actual wording there.
<P>
The Commission finds the following amendments unacceptable.
I would like to go through them very quickly.
Amendment No 1: it is important to recall that in adopting Directive 89/381/EEC, which governs the placing on the market of medicinal products made from human blood and plasma, the Council agreed that Member States should encourage the voluntary and unpaid donations of blood and plasma as the starting material for the manufacture of medicinal products.
There is, however, no definition of such donations in the directive, and significant differences exist among the Member States as to what it really means in practice.
The definition of voluntary non-remunerative donation adopted by the Council of Europe is much more restrictive than what applies in most Member States and strict adherence to it in the Community may have an adverse affect on supplies.
<P>
Amendment No 3. Because the Commission considers that measures to be introduced at Community level should take into account, in addition to those of the Council Europe, national and international standards, guidelines and recommendations including those of the WHO and our major partners such as those in the Food and Drug Administration of the United States.
You must remember that considerable volumes of plasma and plasma products are used in the Community which originate in the United States.
The Commission considers therefore that any reference to international standards should be as general as possible.
<P>
Amendment No 4 which is unacceptable as written because the concern is not at the risk of new variant CJD to blood products but the still theoretical risk, not yet scientifically proven, that new variant CJD could be transmitted by them.
The use of plasma as an excipient in medicinal products coming from countries which have had no confirmed cases of new variant CJD is a recommended precautionary measure and the wording used of 'imported blood between Member States' is totally lacking in clarity, I suggest.
<P>
Amendment No 6 would only lead to some confusion and final medicinal products like plasma derivatives, derived from blood and plasma, can already move freely in the internal market, as long as they meet requirements of quality, safety and efficacy and therefore may be shared with other Member States.
But the difficulty arises when labile components, for example red blood cells, platelets or plasma prior to fractionation, are prevented from being shared with other Member States.
<P>
Amendment No 7 is unacceptable as it implies that there are Member States that are not responsible for collecting blood and plasma, which of course is not the case in reality.
The second amendment is also unacceptable because many donors do not wish to be in registers and we have to bear that in mind.
<P>
Amendment No 8 is similar to Amendment No 7 and while a common donor identification and registration system is certainly the ideal, donors themselves, on whom the entire blood transfusion chain is dependent, are reluctant to be even on national registers and a single donor identification and registration system common to all Member States contradicts the Commission proposal for a mutually compatible system.
<P>
Amendment No 13 is unacceptable because the Commission uses the word 'blood' in its generic sense.
With regard to 9c, whether the plasma is recovered from a whole blood donation or is collected through the process of plasmapheresis, it is a sample of the donor's blood taken at the time of donation that is tested, not the plasma.
<P>
As far as Amendment No 14 is concerned, Directive 89/381 requires Member States to promote voluntary, unpaid donations for plasma used as source material for medicinal products.
The exact wording must be maintained here.
<P>
Amendment No 17: first we oppose it because it is necessary to clarify what is meant by 'blood products' .
The labile components that do not come under Community legislation and the plasma-derived products must adhere to existing pharmaceutical legislation in respect of quality, safety and efficacy.
<P>
Now with regard to the labile components, there is no legal basis for the Community to introduce binding legislation and Article 129 only provides for recommendations or incentive measures but excludes, of course, harmonization.
In future harmonization legislation might be possible if and when the Amsterdam Treaty is ratified.
<P>
Amendment No 18: the definition of voluntary, non-remunerated donation of the Council of Europe is more restrictive than the term 'unpaid' as used in Directive 89/381, and there are significant variations in the Member States as to what constitutes such donations.
<P>
Amendment No 24 regarding the proposed donation frequency stems from the implicit assumption by the authors that each and every donation is made at the maximum possible abstraction of blood volume.
<P>
In Amendment No 25, the whole purpose of course of automated plasmapheresis is to arrive at volumes that may exceed 15 litres but in a way that is safe for the donor.
<P>
Now finally may I take the opportunity to make a further comment on new variant CJD because Mr Whitehead brought it up specifically.
For plasma-derived products the issue of the assessment of risk of new variant CJD in blood is under very close scrutiny by the Committee of Proprietary Medicinal Products which advises the European Medicines Evaluation Agency in collaboration with the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee.
<P>
The issue is also under discussion in the Scientific Advisory Committee on Medicinal Products.
We are awaiting the advice of these bodies just now.
<P>
With regard to blood for transfusion there is no legal recourse, under Article 129, for us to take any action apart from non-binding recommendations.
As I said earlier, we have already done this.
As Members will be aware, this is the first proposal for a Council recommendation from the Commission under Article 129 of the Treaty. The Commission took the decision that you should be fully consulted even though some Member States in the Council had some initial hesitation, given that there is no formal requirement to do so under Article 129.
Mr Cabrol's report confirms to me that the Commission was right to do so. I want to put it on record for you, Mr Cabrol, and for your colleagues, that I will insist that you continue to be consulted on all future recommendations under Article 129.
Parliament must have the opportunity to actively contribute to recommendations with a bearing on public health.
<P>
The Commission considers that this recommendation is a major step along the road to giving effect to the Community blood strategy that the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament helped to put in place in the years 1994 to 1996.
<P>
I regret the length of my reply, but this is a vitally important matter for all citizens of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=293 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=13>
1999 budget procedure - Adjustment of the financial perspective
<SPEAKER ID=294 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=295 NAME="Dührkop Dührkop (PSE).">
Madam President, since we are having a debate on three reports together, and I am the rapporteur for two of them, we will look firstly at the motion for a resolution which, at first glance, is more technical; that is, the report on the adjustment of the financial perspective, after the technical adjustment, to take account of the conditions of implementation.
I will then go on to look at the guidelines for the 1999 budget procedure in - if you do not mind - a lighter tone to make these late hours somewhat more agreeable.
<P>
The process of adjusting the financial perspective to take account of the conditions of implementation refers to the transfer of appropriations for commitments that were not implemented in the previous year from the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund to the new budget year and to the appropriations for payments. This would guarantee, when necessary, as stated in the Interinstitutional Agreement, an orderly progression in relation to the appropriations for commitments.
<P>
This year, we must take account of the fact that the adjustment is different from that of previous years, since 1999 is the last year of both the financial perspective and the Structural Fund programming period.
And this has led to the Commission transferring all the unused appropriations from 1997 to 1999.
<P>
Taking all this into consideration, and looking at the conditions for implementation in accordance with paragraph 10 of the Interinstitutional Agreement, the Commission proposes transferring to the 1999 budget ECU 1 433 million which were unused for the Structural Funds in 1997, and ECU 101 million of appropriations for commitments unused for the Cohesion Fund in the same year; in other words, a total of ECU 1 534 million.
<P>
Taking into account previous adjustment decisions, we find ourselves with an increase in the Category 2 ceiling of approximately 18 % in relation to the 1998 budget.
<P>
Until now the Commission proposal has strictly adhered to paragraph 10 of the Interinstitutional Agreement.
Nevertheless, this is not the case as regards the proposal on adjusting the appropriations for payments. In this respect, the Commission adopts a position contrary to the strict application of the financial perspective provided for in paragraph 10 of the Agreement, since it proposes no increase in the ceiling for appropriations for payments, on the grounds that it will be perfectly possible to face up to requirements.
<P>
Although I know fully well that an adjustment in the appropriations for payments is not limited to Category 2, I believe that the ceiling for appropriations for payments is underestimated and that the increase in Category 2 for 1999 will worsen to an even greater degree the proportion between the appropriations for commitments and the appropriations for payments.
<P>
In its arguments concerning the appropriations for payments, the Commission constantly makes reference to the Interinstitutional Agreement.
At one point, it even states that additional payments might have been made to the value of ECU 1 000 million above the appropriations for payments provided for in the budget for 1997.
<P>
It is at the least surprising that the Commission proposes not to increase the ceiling for the appropriations for payments.
<P>
I believe that the Commission is combining two procedures: on the one hand, the financial perspective, which is a framework in itself; and on the other hand, the 1999 budget, which sets out the estimated actual requirements.
<P>
I would insist that we keep these two procedures separate and consequently call for the overall ceiling for the appropriations for payments to be raised by ECU 300 million.
It remains to be seen whether the Council will accept this.
If it does not, there will be a new tripartite dialogue before the presentation of the draft budget.
<P>
Having said this, I will move on to a more light-hearted consideration of the guidelines for the 1999 budget procedure.
Since I have been a member of the Committee on Culture, I am taking this poetic licence.
<P>
I do not think I am being original when I say that politics is the art of the possible.
The budget is, in fact, the practical concretion of the principles of every Community policy that we debate and approve in this House.
Making policies always involves making decisions.
<P>
We will have to adhere to these guidelines which we are going to approve throughout the entire budget procedure which I hope - since we are now in spring - turns out to be a bed of roses, rather than a calvary, despite the fact that we are about to enter Holy Week.
<P>
We are therefore now going to approve certain guidelines rather than going into the financial aspects at the moment.
Eventually, when the Council's first reading has taken place, it will be time to earmark a total figure for each heading and line.
<P>
I have tried to make this report as brief as possible so that the political priorities can be clearly distinguished.
I understand and am sorry about the fact that the views of certain committees are not reflected but I would thank them all for having made it possible to have clear and concise guidelines.
If we had done otherwise we would now find ourselves with a telephone directory which would prevent us from separating the wheat from the chaff.
As rapporteur, I have taken on board all the opinions of the committees except, of course, those which would contradict the resolution being approved.
<P>
The report aims to present the 1999 budget as a bridging budget between the financial perspective which is ending and that which we are discussing.
Since that year marks the end of the current financial perspective and the beginning of the consideration of the new one, with the debate on Agenda 2000, this budget not only brings to a close an era, but also must be considered as a "bridging budget' towards the future.
The millennium is ending and we have the honour of witnessing a historic change in our continent.
This will also be the first budget denominated in euros, our common currency, which will unite Europeans even further and which will promote economic growth.
In the medium term, we will see the enlargement of the European Union to include countries which were always European.
<P>
In addition, the Union will have to continue with its objective of economic and social cohesion because it is necessary to have solidarity between the regions, so that economic development and the new technologies do not lead to an increase in the differences between the rich and the poor.
<P>
We want to draw up a budget with its own meaning for 1999; a budget for the people and one which can respond to their expectations of the European Union.
This does not simply involve determining income and expenditure, but it must also be able to sound out the opinion of a political union in a changing world.
<P>
European citizens, through the Member States, have transferred authority to the Union, including part of their sovereignty, so that we can thus meet their needs more successfully.
<P>
In this respect, the report refers to Article F.3 of the Treaty which states that "the Union shall provide itself with the means necessary to attain its objectives and carry through its policies' .
<P>
Therefore, the Union's budget should be distinct from, and complement the budgets of, the Member States.
The EU budget and those of the Members States are not comparable since the tasks and perspectives of each one are different, as is their method of facing up to common challenges and problems affecting the citizens.
<P>
In order to fulfill its task, the Union must have an influence on those aspects where there is, let us say, a "European Value Added' which justifies strengthened action on the part of the Union.
<P>
In addition, we must note that the European Parliament has acted and cooperated responsibly in recent financial years in order to ease the path towards convergence for the Member States.
And it will continue to do so, although it will not lose sight of the budget's political significance.
<P>
Parliament is in favour of rigour, in the sense of a more efficient and rational use of financial resources.
<P>
I do not want to wave the teacher's stick, but I must in order to reprimand the Council and the Member States for not having done their work, since in order to fulfill the commitments made at Edinburgh concerning the package for Structural Funds, and at Cannes, for the PHARE programme, this 1999 budget must face increases estimated at around 18 % for Category 2 appropriations and 36 % for Category 4.
<P>
Moreover, we must condemn the scandalously inadequate implementation of the Structural Funds in certain Member States.
This does not represent a saving for the European Union, but a fraud against the citizens, who are deprived of European intervention which would help relieve their problems.
<P>
Nevertheless, Parliament must be clear on the fact that, in the budget procedure, the Council is neither an enemy nor an adversary nor a rival.
We should not mistake this for a war.
The Parliament and the Council share piano and stool in playing a "duet' .
We need loyalty in the interinstitutional dialogue through which the two branches of the budgetary authority come to agreement on the score.
<P>
Among the main tasks of the melody to be interpreted are the priorities established in paragraph 3 of the report: the creation of employment through investment in infrastructure and research and development; support for small and medium-sized enterprises; and measures to combat youth unemployment.
<P>
We also want to develop the concept of the Europe of knowledge which encompasses education and training as well as research and development.
There is no doubt that Europe's greatest potential is in its people, in the human value of the Europeans raised in an age-old society.
<P>
In the same way, the 1999 budget must pay careful attention to the environment, in accordance with the commitments made at the Kyoto Conference.
<P>
I will now conclude my speech, ladies and gentlemen.
Music has always united our countries, overcoming all sorts of frontiers and barriers.
I hope that the genius of our great composers enlightens us and that Parliament and the Council can emulate Arthur Rubinstein in the interpretation of this "suite' which is now beginning.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=296 NAME="Viola">
<SPEAKER ID=297 NAME="Sonneveld">
Madam President, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development on the budget for 1999, I greatly appreciated the fact that the general rapporteur, Mrs Dührkop, had started to consult the different sectors, in particular the agricultural sector, at a very early stage.
Both the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development are determined to continue the procedure followed for the 1998 budget as far as agricultural expenditure is concerned.
It is important that this procedure, which in the meantime has been christened the "Tillich-Mulder' procedure, is also adopted by the Commission and the Council in equally positive terms.
The precise description of this procedure can be found in the working document of the Committee on Budgets, namely Working Document 12 of 2 February this year.
<P>
As far as the report at hand is concerned, I contributed to the more precise wording of paragraph 13 on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
Three points are emphasized in this paragraph. The total figure set by the Commission for Category 1 in its draft budget, should not be taken as a ceiling.
This figure may be based on possible estimates, but these have no normative character as such.
The final figure in this budget category should continue to be adjusted for as long as possible on the basis of more current expenditure estimates, in other words, right up until the second reading.
A possible amendment for the Council and the Commission will then be a rather binding guideline.
Should cuts be necessary in the meantime, these should be made selectively for certain budget items, which must be looked at anew, and not across the board.
<P>
Finally, the problem of the reserve should be further clarified.
In the area of agriculture, where more clear-cut estimates will made in future, a reserve provided for by resources, is essential.
The reserve system which will have to be drafted in general terms could be used to fall back on in part, but general uniformity would sell short the specific character of the agricultural budget.
This clear method of approach guarantees a good basis for an effective agricultural budget policy, and gives Parliament a bigger involvement in the agricultural expenses than has been the case for many years, an experience which will be valued by the Commission and, hopefully, by the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=298 NAME="Rübig">
Madam President, in the budget for 1999 we are not just preparing for a new millennium, but we are also laying the foundation stone for the greatest challenges to European integration for many years.
Since the announcement from the Commission and the European Monetary Institute about monetary union, we now have fairly precise information about the timetable for a common currency as well as its prospects and the risks involved.
<P>
The continuation of the information campaign about the introduction of the euro remains an important matter, to prepare the European population fully for the conversion, because in this field we can look very positively into the future.
On the other hand we are already setting course for the ambitious project of expansion to the east in the next millennium.
There is much for us to do there, too.
So we must strive to accelerate further the completion of the internal market, to remove existing obstacles from our path.
We should therefore pay special attention to suitable measures such as the action plan for the internal market.
<P>
We must also strengthen the trust of the citizens in the problem-solving skills of the European Union.
This includes, above all, the ambitious driving forward of the employment initiative, on which we decided last year.
I would like to point out once again the role of small and medium-sized enterprises in creating jobs.
We have already heard this week that the measures to support small and medium-sized enterprises which have been provided are now almost too numerous to count.
Yet the resources are apparently far from exhausted in many fields.
<P>
We therefore need a comprehensive, precise evaluation by the Commission, so that suitable measures can be carried out within the next budget plan, and so that the efficiency of support for small and medium-sized enterprises can be effectively increased.
One more thing must be clear to us in this context. The most effective support for companies is the kind which from the outset leaves the resources and effort in the companies.
Therefore, in the budget procedure, we should conform exactly to the principles of SLIM legislation, that is of a SLIM initiative, on which we have already voted today in this House, or to general bench marking.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=299 NAME="Ferber">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy has naturally considered in detail the guidelines for the 1999 budget.
There are two particular subjects which we regard as particularly urgent.
They are, first, the transition from the fourth to the fifth research framework programme, and second, in the field of energy policy, the conversion of the Kyoto decisions into a clear policy of the European Union.
<P>
First I would like to thank the rapporteur for including both subjects in the guidelines.
We are conscious of this honour, because not every committee manages to have its subjects included in the guidelines.
On the other hand, the rapporteur promised us that in a kind of new Dührkop Dührkop procedure all opinions of the committees would be included in the decision.
Unfortunately that was rejected by the Committee on Budgets.
We regret that very much, Mrs Müller, because we are already conscious of the problems regarding the financial resources of the fifth research framework programme, and because we also know that, in particular, the question of how we are to handle the year 1999 in terms of budget policy is not altogether easy to answer.
It would have been very sensible if the Committee on Budgets had accepted the proposals of the Research Committee, so that, in particular, we can manage the transition next year in an orderly fashion.
We hope that during the first reading more precise numbers will be available, including those from the Council, so that we can make progress in providing financial resources to the specific programmes.
<P>
Regarding energy policy, there is an urgent need to act at European level.
I do not think that the statements in the guidelines do justice to this problem.
We hope that at first reading, which we as a committee will follow very closely, we shall succeed in getting support for our concerns, even in the Committee on Budgets.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=300 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, the 1999 budget exercise is getting under way in an atmosphere of serenity and interinstitutional cooperation.
There are encouraging signs that it will live up to the great challenges of the Union: employment creation, Economic and Monetary Union and the preparation of enlargement.
<P>
In 1999 Economic and Monetary Union will enter into its third stage.
The recent reports and the reactions have underlined the continuing determination of the Member States to improve the health of their public finances.
This climate of budgetary rigour cannot be ignored at Community level either.
The guidelines concerning the Community budget for 1999 show that all institutions are ready to assume their responsibilities in this respect.
Bringing the increase of payment appropriations roughly in line with the growth of national budgets - as proposed by Barbara Dührkop Dührkop - indicates a very responsible approach by the European Parliament.
<P>
Within a rigorous setting, the 1999 budget must meet the obligations of the Union and focus on growth and employment creation.
<P>
With regard to agricultural expenditure, the Commission expects - for the time being - credit requirements at the level of the 1998 budget.
Should these forecasts change significantly during the year, the Commission will follow the successful procedure last year and submit a late rectifying letter.
I take note of this procedure - it is called the Tillich-Mulder procedure in your report.
<P>
For the structural actions, 1999 marks the end of the current programming period.
The tentative agreement at the budgetary trialogue yesterday to increase the ceiling of category 2 by EURO 1534 million in commitments and the overall ceiling for payments by EURO 300 million paves the way for correct conclusion of this programme.
<P>
For internal policies, the institutions should jointly underline the efforts to contribute to growth and employment creation: the fifth research framework programme - for which a satisfactory agreement must be found well before the end of the year - the reinforcement of the Trans-European networks and the 'employment and growth initiative' are the principal priorities in this respect.
The 'employment and growth initiative' is a joint success of the European Parliament and the Council.
It is a three-year programme and should therefore continue to be the focus for the 1999 and 2000 budgets.
<P>
On external action, the particular emphasis will be the transformation of PHARE into an effective pre-accession instrument.
The Commission will propose reinforcing PHARE by ECU 150 million in a supplementary and amending budget for 1998 to bring its multi-annual envelope into line with the decisions of the Cannes summit.
Naturally, this proposal will have to be accompanied by a detailed assessment of the scope for implementation.
<P>
On these elements there seems to be a convergence of views among the institutions.
It is also encouraging that yesterday's budgetary trialogue agreed to relaunch discussions on the question of 'legal bases' at a technical level.
<P>
It is in this framework that the Commission will discuss and adopt the preliminary draft budget for 1999 at the end of this month.
I have every hope that the reinforced interinstitutional cooperation which has permitted a successful 1998 budget will again bear fruit for the next year.
This would then perfectly set the tone for the next interinstitutional agreement which we should discuss in the months to come.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=301 NAME="Wynn">
Madam President, if Mrs Dührkop Dührkop can wax lyrical at this late hour I am sure you will allow me a little bit of levity if I say first of all that Commissioner Liikanen has virtually stolen my speech.
He said the things that I was going to say and when he began by saying that this is a budget which is surrounded by serenity, following Barbara Dührkop's analogy with playing a piano.
I am reminded of Eric Morecambe, the great comedian from the UK who is now dead.
<P>
There was a sketch where Eric Morecambe is playing and is making a real honky-tonk noise.
It sounds absolutely awful and André Previn says, ' you are playing all the wrong notes, ' and Eric says, ' I am playing the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order.'
That has always seemed to be the way we have done the budget in the past, and Barbara's analogy with playing a piano is not too far out, because this year is different.
<P>
I said it when Helen Liddell first came to the Budgets meeting.
We do not deal with the Commission like this - we even had a Scots interpreter in the English language booth doing it with a Scots accent for Helen Liddell.
It seems that everything is going so well and that is good.
I think it shows the partnership that is being developed and a maturity towards the budget from the three institutions involved.
<P>
On Mr Viola's report, I think we have to say that the fact that it is unamended and went through Committee unamended shows the consensus from all the groups as far as these guidelines are concerned - what we expect from the budgets of the other institutions.
We congratulate Mr Viola on the work he has done and we hope that consistency will continue as we go through the year.
<P>
On the Dührkop report on the adjustment of the financial perspective, the trialogue which occurred earlier this week, as Commissioner Liikanen said, has been extremely fruitful, carried out in an atmosphere of cooperation where the three institutions want to get a settlement.
It is not an adversarial situation where we are trying to score points off one another; instead we are actually trying to get a budget which we can all agree to and this adjustment of the financial perspective.
One hopes that when Mrs Liddell goes to the Council she can come back and report to Parliament that the additional resources that have been provisionally agreed can be agreed in total.
It would be a major achievement if we could see that.
<P>
On the main report, the political group which I represent as coordinator supports it throughout - to such an extent that we wanted it to be kept, like Mrs Dührkop's, as short as possible.
As to the amendments which have been proposed, we agreed last week not to support any amendments, and I say this mainly for colleagues like Mr Brinkhorst.
We see nothing wrong with his Amendment No 1, but we actually think it is better placed within the first reading.
On this occasion we would not be inclined to support it.
Having said that, several of my colleagues see no reason why we should not support it, and I remain to be persuaded that we should support it between now and voting time tomorrow; so do not give up hope yet, Mr Brinkhorst.
If we do vote against, let me make it clear that it will not be because we disagree with the content of that report, but because we took a stand to keep this report as short as possible.
We can apply that to many other amendments, but please try to understand that it is not for dogmatic reasons, it really is a matter of simplicity.
<P>
It is a budget, as Commissioner Liikanen said, of prudence: we use the terms 'a citizens' budget' and 'a taxpayers' budget' in the same sentence and I think that is what we are trying to achieve with these guidelines.
When we look at the priorities, as far as our group is concerned the main priority is about job creation, about creation of employment; no matter how we do it, whether it be through infrastructure, whether it be through research and development, whether it be through support for small and medium enterprises.
That is the thrust of our approach to this budget.
<P>

We also support the phrase 'Europe of knowledge' which Mrs Dührkop has introduced - one would expect her to give priority to education and training, having known her for many years; and we would want to see European funds spent in the area of education and training and research and development.
The thrust of the report you can find in paragraph 8, and I think we can give our full support to what it says there.
At the end of the day it is about getting that agreement, about making sure that the three institutions are working together.
And who knows, at this rate we may end up with one reading of the budget.
Oh that it were so!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=302 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fabra Vallés">
Madam President, I would like to state that I agree with the budgetary guidelines contained in Mrs Dührkop Dührkop's report.
<P>
This agreement indicates that, apart from the discrepancies in terms of economic policies, there is a common concern among the groups of this House as regards European problems in fighting unemployment and strengthening the European dimension of the Community budget.
<P>
It is hoped that the 1999 budget procedure will maintain a similar procedural basis and form as that used in 1998, when the European Parliament was able to defend its own priorities before the Council, thereby achieving the extension of the ad hoc procedure including that of the late rectifying letter to the PDB, not to mention the almost unanimous commitment of this House to defend appropriations earmarked in the PDB for the Structural Funds in Category 2.
<P>
It is true that this year the process is even more complex since it marks both the end of the current financial perspective and the beginning of Agenda 2000 and the problem of using up the remaining appropriations for commitments.
Our opinion is that the appropriations provided for in Edinburgh for 1999 should be strictly respected, and among the existing alternatives we should choose that which guarantees that every last ecu available will be fully committed for the Structural Funds for Category 2.
<P>
We will continue to show that the current financial perspective should be the basis for the next perspective, particularly as regards the percentage of own resources: taking 1.27 % as a base and not as a ceiling should be the financial expression of the European effort for enlargement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=303 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Ladies and gentlemen, there is a common link between this evening's discussion on the guidelines for the 1999 budget exercise and yesterday's debate on the procedure for discharge of the 1996 financial year which has of course not escaped you.
The link is the importance recognized in the execution of the budget and the fight against fraud, whilst proposing to make the 1999 budget the "taxpayer's' and the "citizen's' budget.
<P>
Indeed, having arrived at a crucial and decisive stage in its development, with the creation of the euro and the commencement of accession negotiations, Europe needs to be explained to its citizens and to be understood by them more than ever before.
Europe can only be credible and can only inspire confidence if the tax payers' money is managed soundly.
<P>
The rapporteur's second concern is to make the 1999 budget the budget of the people and on this point also, I like the sound of what she is saying.
The public must be convinced that Europe is made for them and it seems to me extremely important to strengthen social and economic cohesion.
Without this understanding they will end up punishing us, there is no doubt about this.
<P>
More than a management budget or a simple "bridging' budget, the 1999 budget could, above all, be a pivotal budget which will determine the conditions of the financial future of the European Union.
With the new financial perspective, with a new interinstitutional agreement at the beginning of the third stage of Economic and Monetary Union and within the context of the Agenda 2000 negotiations, the 1999 budget will be seen as a budget for revival, whilst at the same time taking up the already well known priorities which must be continued: budgetary action for jobs - a commitment in the 1998 budget gained support from the European Council of Luxembourg in November 1997 - priority to jobs through investment in infrastructure and research and development, support to SMEs, measures to combat youth unemployment, and to provide education and training for a "Europe of knowledge' .
<P>
A pivotal budget, a revivalist budget, but a realistic budget as well, one which recognizes that the increase in appropriations for payment for 1999 must not surpass the average growth in Member States' budgets in relation to the 1998 budget, but within certain acceptable conditions such as respect for the Edinburgh objectives for Structural Funds.
<P>
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Union for Europe Group and I support the rapporteur's approach, and are convinced that the budget exercise will commence auspiciously well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=304 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Madam President, the significance of the debate on the budget at this stage is, as Commissioner Liikanen said, that it gives joint guidelines for the Commission in its forthcoming preliminary draft budget.
From listening to the debate so far it seems that we are going to have a very easy ride.
The Commissioner has pre-empted matters by referring to a number of points in Mrs Dührkop's report.
During the life of this Parliament we have seen significant progress.
When Parliament itself give clear and concise guidelines it will have an impact on the Commission's preliminary draft budget.
<P>
I congratulate Mrs Dührkop for being very concise and having the courage to inject useful but limited guidelines on the number of sites.
She has withstood the temptation of becoming a telephone directory, as she herself said.
The ELDR largely share the priorities expressed in the House by many others.
<P>
Let me just concentrate on one point raised by Mr Wynn, who was so kind as to say that the Socialist Group, having not finalized its view, still thought that for reasons of principle it should not vote for particular amendments which our group would like to put forward.
I would hope that Mr Wynn could reconsider this point.
It concerns the Treaty of Amsterdam.
That Treaty will enter into force by 1999.
It will be useful for the Commission to understand the signals from Parliament that it is already taking the view that the Schengen information system and Eurodac, which are key elements in transforming the first pillar into an area of freedom, security and justice will actually be incorporated.
<P>
We hope, therefore, that you can go one step further so that we can give this guideline to the Commission to introduce it in the preliminary budget.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=305 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Miranda">
<SPEAKER ID=306 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Madam President, I would first like to thank Mrs Dührkop and Mr Viola sincerely for their reports.
I believe that they are balanced guidelines, and it seems particularly important to me that we should build a so-called bridging budget, which begins to mark out our vision for expansion in the years 2000 to 2006.
<P>
I am particularly glad about the setting of priorities, and that the rapporteur has observed the canon of priorities so consistently, to give it special emphasis, and I am obviously in particular glad about the priority for the post-Kyoto process with the new budget for 1999, which allows us to make a decisive contribution.
At this point I would like to announce to the rapporteur some fireworks, good proposals from my party, fireworks which on this occasion do not produce any CO2.
<P>
I would like to make, on behalf of my party, proposals which aim at information campaigns to encourage the use of products whose manufacture uses little energy.
I would like to promote restructuring in the research budget, modern energy-saving technologies which lead to a real breakthrough.
I would like the rapporteur to promote pilot projects in the budget, heating insulation for private houses, offices and energy-intensive industries.
And of course, particularly in view of the newcomers in the European Union, I would like to put through a realignment of the SAVE and ALTENER programmes.
<P>
Last but not least, a million solar panels, a programme for the acceptance of photo-voltaics.
I believe that if the rapporteur, as she has shown until now, is disposed to 'putting butter on the fish' , and to allowing the priorities to be followed by deeds, a real contribution to the post-Kyoto process can be made in the next budget.
I hope so, and in this spirit I hope for continued good cooperation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=307 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Madam President, budgetary discussions continue and I am extremely happy that this debate is taking place in Strasbourg and not in Brussels like last year.
I hope I see in this a desire to respect the decisions of the Court of Justice rather than a simple hazard of the calendar.
<P>
However, the discussions are being undertaken in an almost grotesque fashion, to such an extent that one wonders if some people are not celebrating April Fools' Day in their own way.
In fact, 24 hours ago, we were rejecting the 1996 discharge because the Court of Auditors could not guarantee the overall regularity of payments in the 1996 budget.
Today, we note once more the continuing irresponsible desire to spend more.
Whatever happens, Parliament has to spend everything and spend more.
It refuses at all costs to relinquish credits, or cast doubt upon certain policies, as if it is in some way a question of honour.
<P>
The most flagrant example of this perversion concerns the Structural Funds.
True to itself, the Committee on Budgets continues to state that the decisions taken in Edinburgh on this subject must be applied to the letter and that the budget approved constitutes an objective for expenditure.
But decisions taken in the past should not prevent all political reflection in the present per se .
I refuse to let myself be dragged into the scandalous situation whereby we are constrained to search desperately for a means, a way, a legal loophole which will enable us to spend the money of the Member States' taxpayers.
<P>
Furthermore, as is the case with every budget exercise, we will not be able to avoid the litany of demands coming from those who push things just that little bit too far.
One of the main priorities mentioned by the rapporteur is that the budget must continue to be a budget for employment.
It is more likely to be a budget for architecture.
In 1998, Parliament devoted as much money to the acquisition of the ostentatious D3 building in Brussels as it did to the famous "jobs' initiative.
<P>
Finally, the Treaty of Amsterdam has not yet been ratified by the Member States and yet we are already applying its financial measures - a good example of respect for democracy, and a further reason for the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations not to vote for this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=308 NAME="Samland">
Madam President, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, the new buildings in Brussels also created work, at least in Brussels.
But I really wanted to say something about the 1999 budget: Commissioner, your speech was not bad, but the one which you made about the budget ratification was better, because you made it in French!
You yourself classified it as more sexy.
<P>
As for the 1999 budget, I would like to make five points.
First: the 1999 budget is a bridging budget, as Mrs Müller has already said, because no one can still be of the opinion that we can discuss the 1999 budget without bearing in mind that the new financial perspective for 2000 to 2006 is being dealt with simultaneously.
<P>
Second: this means that we must come to terms with the difficulties that the 1999 budget has produced.
No one can explain away the fact that an 18 % rate of growth in the appropriations for commitments for Structural Funds is of a dimension which is beyond the discussions and the possibilities of a budget discussion.
I would like to quote a sentence: ' This is not of this world.'
It is appropriate here if people believe, as someone once wrote in Edinburgh, that the matter can simply be prolonged.
<P>
Third: in the case of the foreign policy programmes, we have a spending situation which is equally haywire.
If resources of ECU 2 300 000 000 were not committed and ECU 3 200 000 000 were not paid out within the PHARE programme alone, it must be clearly said that in 1999 it makes no sense to increase the PHARE programme by 36 %, only to put into the budget cashbox money which was deducted from other foreign policies by 10 % reductions.
Projects in South Africa, South America and Asia, and all sorts of NGO programmes, are suffering as a result, just to present something which actually will not happen in the budget year.
These are the problems which confront us when we discuss the 1999 budget.
<P>

We have, that is Mrs Dührkop Dührkop has found a formulation in paragraph 8 of her guidelines, in which, as never before in this House, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, she states in writing that Parliament is only prepared to join in creating a 1999 budget growth rate which is on the level of the budget growth rates of the Member States.
We have never before committed ourselves to such a condition.
But if that is what is wanted, the problems which I have just mentioned must be solved.
And if we want to solve them, we shall have to find ways whereby the future financial perspective can be announced at the same time.
That must be based on more flexibility, and on the principle that no Member State can be forced to effect expenditure that takes money from the Community budget, if it itself is not prepared to take this money.
<P>
In the informal three-way discussion, and in the three-way discussion on Tuesday, I said, " The 1999 budget will only materialize - and I say this here very clearly, above all so that it is on record for the Council - if there is an interinstitutional agreement between the three institutions about the questions of the legal bases.'
Please, let no one hide behind the legal process which has been initiated before the European Court of Justice.
We need a solution to this problem in principle.
Parliament is ready for it, and I have the impression that the other two institutions are too.
But prepare yourselves - I am not fooling around - there will be no 1999 budget if this problem is not solved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=309 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Tillich">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, we started the 1998 budget procedure during or around the time of the Ajax Amsterdam football match.
This evening there is also a football match, between Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund.
I shall come back to this point again at the end.
<P>
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy mentioned the first of April. We would surely rather have seen the football match, but the seriousness of the situation, namely the 1999 budget discussion, keeps us fixed in the House at this hour.
<P>
For the first time, information policy is not firmly anchored in the guidelines.
We have assumed that we shall have a viable concept between the Commission and the European Parliament of how information policy in 1998 is finally to be controlled.
However, unfortunately this does not seem to be the case, and I would like to remind at least those who have been elected from this House as representatives to the Bureau or the Conference of Presidents to look again at the budget decisions of 1996, 1997 and 1998 in paragraphs 18 of the 1998 guidelines, 30, 31 and 32 of the 1998 first reading, and 11 of the 1998 second reading, and paragraphs 9 of the 1997 guidelines, 17, 48, 49 and 50 of the 1997 first reading, because precisely in view of the morning discussion today that is certainly not unimportant for the Bureau and the Conference of Presidents.
<P>
But now to the content of the guidelines before us. Ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Dührkop, you have in paragraph 2, I believe, a mistake which only originates in the German version, because again it refers to an employment budget.
That might be a problem for our party, but I know that you mean a budget for more employment, and therefore I ask you to make an alteration, at least before the vote tomorrow.
<P>
In the fourth starred point of paragraph 8, again at least in the German version, there is such an unfortunate formulation that I do not understand it at all.
In paragraph 9, I consider that your own formulation is excellent, and I believe that it hits the nail on the head.
Therefore, our party will apply for a split vote, above all on the question of a vote on the critical mass and the policy of the Commission, because in our opinion this does not belong to it in principle.
We consider that your formulation is better.
<P>
In paragraph 15, which concerns the employment initiative which was defined and voted on in the 1998 procedure, the second part is at least unclear, if not actually wrong.
We have quite clearly declared ourselves for the three main aims of this employment initiative, and also voted for them.
At midday today we finally voted on the Pronk report as the legal basis, and we also said that small and medium-sized enterprises should be taken into account in the field of the third system together with others, but what it says there now is that they should be given priority.
That is not what we voted for.
<P>
As far as the amendments before us are concerned, we agree entirely with the submitter of the first amendment, Mr Brinkhorst, at least as regards its aims, but we have not yet formed a final opinion.
<P>
To come back to the football match: today in Spain, in Madrid, the match was delayed by an hour because the goalposts fell down.
Since Mrs Dührkop comes from near Barcelona, and such a thing never happens in Barcelona, I wish the rapporteur, and the other rapporteur Mr Viola, great success in remaining standing throughout the 1999 budget discussions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=310 NAME="Tomlinson">
Madam President, I wish to begin by congratulating the two rapporteurs, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop and Mr Viola, on having produced guideline resolutions which are just that.
They are guidelines and they have strenuously resisted what so often happens if people try to turn the guidelines into some sort of advance and premature first reading.
What we have here is a very clear view of principle.
<P>
I merely want to refer to a couple of paragraphs in Mrs Dührkop Dührkop's excellent report and underline them, in particular recital D where she emphasizes that what we have to concentrate on in the budget procedure is the whole question of the collection of revenues so as to avoid wastage.
We spend so much time dealing with expenditure that we have to prioritize the proper collection of own resources as a major, fundamental and integral part of the budget procedure.
<P>
The other point I would highly commend her for is the incorporation in paragraph 9 of her report of the response to the challenge laid down by Commissioner Liikanen some two years ago about the policies of critical mass.
Today in the guidelines motion he has Parliament's response, and we hope that, having had Parliament's response, we get preliminary draft estimates that reflect that response in a way that we can see.
If you read paragraph 9 carefully, Mrs Dührkop has there accepted the challenge that it means looking at those policies which should be continued and even reinforced, but also at those which should no longer be thus considered.
So it has bitten the bullet, it is a serious response, and one which I commend.
<P>
For the rest of my time, I want to turn to Mr Viola's report which, again, is excellent.
The points I would underline in his report are as follows: in paragraph 4 he makes the very important point about the European civil service.
I hope when we are talking about the European civil service as we proceed into the detail of the budget, we will perhaps extend some of the thoughts set out there and talk about both appointment and promotion being exclusively actions which should take place on merit.
This should be the only criterion for appointment and promotion within the European civil service.
I note and welcome in paragraph 5 the view that no new post ought to be created in 1999, and I hope that, as we progress into the budgetary procedure, the caveat expressed there is one that can be dropped.
<P>
I commend very fully all the points that are laid out in clear chronological sequence in paragraph 8 of the report, where there are a whole series of matters on which this House, as part of the budgetary authority, needs further information.
<P>
I particularly turn to paragraph 9 - property policy.
Today, as has already been recalled, is 1 April.
I received, I suppose, what has been the most complicated April Fool's Day hoax in the form of what purports to be a report to the European Parliament from the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, a report that would have us believe that something like ECU 36 million is going to be spent on converting the Belliard I and II buildings to meet their purpose.
I say to them: nice try on April Fool's Day but we look forward to receiving the genuine report on what should be made available for the conversion of those buildings.
<P>
Yet there are serious challenges before us in the buildings area, and I am sure that, in the approach that Mr Viola is taking, he will continue with the same level of serious scrutiny as we have had in the past.
<P>
The only area that I see seriously lacking in the Viola report - but I think we can take it for granted - is in relation to communications policy.
We have lots of discussions coming up on communications policy.
I just want to add one thought, and I say it with great respect to you, Madam President, as something you can take back to the Bureau.
I am increasingly of the view that to understand what Parliament's Bureau actually does and decides you have to be a Kremlinologist to read their minutes and get any meaning out of them.
So at this time when we are talking about communications policy, you can perhaps translate into the Bureau minutes the same degree of clarity, lucidity and transparency that this Parliament is trying to instil into the European Central Bank.
It would be a great service to parliamentary democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=311 NAME="Tappin">
Madam President, I should first like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Dührkop, on an excellent report on the guidelines.
As you might expect as the Committee on Budgets' rapporteur for the satellite agencies, I would like to concentrate particularly on paragraph 18 in her report.
This has appeared again this year in the guidelines.
<P>
The question is why should we have a paragraph on the satellite agencies again.
Many Members of this House and members of the Committee on Budgets will think that with Parliament's acceptance of the Kellett-Bowman report on matters relating to satellite agencies, the matter has been done and dusted.
This is not so.
Mr Liikanen has used the word 'serenity' but, as an Americanist, I would always say that 'eternal vigilance' is the key.
With the satellite agencies eternal vigilance is certainly the key as far as we are concerned.
<P>
While we want to pursue our paragraph in the guidelines, there is the question of the annuality of the budget procedure.
Over the last three years, great strides have been made in presenting the budget lines for the satellite agencies.
We have insisted on a number of guiding principles which I am glad the agencies have taken up.
And these have been pursued with the help of Mr Liikanen and his colleagues in the Commission.
<P>
What are these guidelines?
Firstly, there are prior information and prior spending patterns.
We are looking at the way in which resources have been used for previous years, i.e. the take-up or utilization of each agency's budget.
This must play a role in the future allocation of agency funding in the European Union.
When we look at this year's Kellett-Bowman report on the discharge, we see that for Dublin there was an underspend of ECU 140 000; for Thessaloniki an underspend of ECU 1.28 million.
There are reasons for this, but these come into play when we look at future spending patterns.
I am sure the Commissioner is aware of these.
However, most importantly, we are concerned to look at the work programme which is set out and properly costed.
That work programme must be agreed with the various policy committees.
<P>
The second issue is transparency.
What we have tried to ensure is that the agencies come forward with a staffing organigramme.
We have succeeded in persuading the agencies to do this, but the work programmes are costed and we can see horizontally through Title I, Title II and Title III expenditure of the agencies' report, what each project is going to cost.
This is most important for us as a Budgets Committee, more important for the substantive committees, and it will be important for the rapporteur for the Committee on Budgetary Control when we come to look at the discharge later on.
We are making progress here.
<P>
My last point concerns accountability.
The key issue is how we allocate resources.
As Mrs Dührkop, Mr Tomlinson and Mr Wynn have said, we are utilizing EU citizens money'.
This must be seen to be done in a manner which is transparent not only to Parliament but also to the client group of the agency and the citizenship itself.
To achieve these goals, we have established and will continue to hold regular meetings with the agency heads and the rapporteurs of the substantive committees.
That process will continue this year.
<P>
How can we conclude?
Mr Liikanen made the point about 'serenity' .
He said that peace has broken out.
It certainly has.
Peace has broken out with the agencies.
We have a new process set up, but that vigilance is going to be important.
I know that one of his colleagues, Mr Bangemann, said about Alicante that we must be vigilant.
The Budget Committee of Alicante is spending ECU 24 million on a new building about which the Commission knew very little and about which Parliament was not even informed.
Vigilance is the key, Mr Liikanen!
We must tighten up procedures and we will monitor them both through the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Budgetary Control.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=312 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Ghilardotti">
Madam President, I too wish to congratulate Mrs Dührkop on her specific and essential report and recall that, within the framework of the rigour imposed by the Union and the Member States this year, the 1999 budget, as the rapporteur mentioned, should be the first budget of the implementation of the Treaty of Amsterdam, and should therefore contain choices that relate to the innovations of the Treaty itself.
This means that the budget should favour employment, as has been point out, through investment in infrastructure, support for small and medium-sized enterprises, investment in research and development, but also support for measures within the framework of local employment initiatives and regional pacts for the third system, in line - unlike what Mr Tillich maintained - with the commitment assumed by the European Parliament last October, as precisely stated by Mrs Dührkop in her report.
<P>
Training and refresher courses are considered to be two of the key instruments for developing adaptability and entrepreneurship and, above all, for enabling young people and women to find jobs.
These are the guidelines, and they were also recalled at the Extraordinary Luxembourg Summit.
That is why the LEONARDO and SOCRATES programmes and, more generally, education and training programmes need adequate financing.
<P>
Social dialogue, which is given an ever more important role by the Treaty itself, should find the necessary corresponding provisions and strengthening measures in the budget.
Mrs Dührkop rightly considers that the 1999 budget should be the citizens' budget, aimed at enhancing and improving economic and social cohesion.
In this context, the activities and networks of nongovernmental organizations, which make a fundamental contribution to the development of the European social policy for the elderly, the disabled and for the fight against social exclusion and which represent an essential means for citizens to take part in the construction of Europe, should continue to receive adequate support.
<P>
I wish to conclude by taking up a point, mentioned by Mr Samland, that seems particularly important to me: an essential condition for ending the procedure on a positive note is for the Council to sign the agreement on the legal bases.
I do not think the Council has any alibis any more from this point of view, and so I wish to conclude the debate - as I am the last one to speak - with this commitment: the Minutes of this meeting should be forwarded to the Council so that it knows that Parliament is no longer prepared, this year, not to reach an agreement on this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=313 NAME="Dührkop Dührkop">
Madam President, although it might be out of the ordinary in terms of procedure, I would like to say to Mr Tillich - and this is very important - that I am from San Sebastián and that I am a Real Madrid supporter because otherwise I would have problems with my two children when I go back home.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=314 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
However, I would like to draw your attention to one more thing. You still have the opportunity, for 24 more minutes, to play an April Fool's trick or have one played on you.
Be careful!
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 11.35 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of Wednesday 1 April have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, I wish to comment on the Verbatim Report of Proceedings, to which someone has drawn my attention.
I do not usually read my own speeches, but someone read this out to me.
There are two words in it which I would like to have deleted, because they were addressed to another Member and were not part of my speech.
The words are: ' Be quiet' .
Someone annoyed me, and I asked him rather sharply to be quiet.
He really did annoy me.
This was not addressed to Mrs Lalumière, and so must be deleted from the Verbatim Report of Proceedings.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr von Habsburg. In any case, that is not part of the Minutes but of the Verbatim Report of Proceedings.
The problem will be solved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, I have some sympathy with Mr von Habsburg.
Nevertheless, our proceedings are supposed to be recorded accurately and that clearly is an accurate part of the proceedings.
I think he was entirely right in his comments but I think we should have the full rich tapestry of this House recorded rather than some sanitized version that suits us if we want to look holier than thou.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="Kerr">
Mr President, it arises from the Minutes and the session news, which record my splendid contribution in which I attacked the British Government for its failure to join the single currency, thereby sacrificing 100 000 jobs in Britain.
Unfortunately it says that I am a member of the Party of European Socialists, and I am sure that they would not want to be embarrassed by that.
Perhaps we could have it corrected to recognize that I am an independent Labour member who sits with the Green Group in the Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindholm">
Mr President, we decided yesterday that the debate on the Schaffner report should go ahead, but that we would let the voting wait.
Of course, the delay arose because the High Level Panel's report was only in French.
I forgot to point out something at the time which I hope is quite obvious, namely that the deadline for tabling amendments also depends on when voting is to take place. In other words, the groups should be able to table amendments once we all have the text and can read it.
That is what I would like.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Mrs Lindholm, I think your comment is justified.
I would like to say that the debate will take place, although there will be no vote.
It is only common sense that the deadline for tabling amendments must be extended, and that will be done.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved )
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Rules of Procedure (new Rule 44a)
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0054/98) by Mr Crowley, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on insertion of a new Rule 44a on other reports and the annual reports of other institutions in Parliament's Rules of Procedure.
<P>
Since for some reason beyond his control the rapporteur is not yet here, you will understand if I call on Mr Ford to speak.
So we are starting the debate with Mr Ford's speech.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, I was going to suggest that maybe we should take Mr Dell'Alba's report first, which is going to be very short and is also on the Rules, but if you wish to do it the other way round, I am quite happy to start.
Maybe it will give Mr Crowley a few minutes to arrive if Mr Dell'Alba is with us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
Mr Ford, your idea is extremely helpful, and I might have suggested it myself if Mr Dell'Alba had been here.
But he is not here either, so I would therefore ask you to open the debate.
I cannot go on to the other report because Mr Dell'Alba is not here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, thank you very much.
I was going to rise to congratulate Mr Crowley on this report.
I still congratulate him in his absence.
It is a report that actually clarifies the situation with respect to the proliferating number of annual reports that we have in this House.
There was some difficulty in the Rules Committee initially and this report took some time before it finally emerged from the Rules Committee but when it did emerge it did so unanimously.
We have now got an agreement, at least in the Rules Committee, across the House with respect to this whole plethora of annual reports and it means that we have a clearly laid down procedure that we can follow in future and we will not have the constant debate about what route, what institutional route, a particular report should follow.
The Socialist Group will therefore be supporting the report and I congratulate Mr Crowley on it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
Thank you for your comments, Mr Ford, and for having helped me to get our work started.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Donnelly, Brendan">
Mr President, flexibility is the name of the game in political and economic systems these days and I think that Mr Crowley's report is to be welcomed because it is a contribution to this flexibility.
Mr Ford has already pointed out, and I am sure that Mr Crowley would have done so had he been here, that we lack flexibility in the organization of one aspect of our work: the response we have to reports that come from committees or outside bodies.
Mr Crowley's report restores that flexibility to Parliament, to the Conference of Presidents and to the relevant committees and I welcome it on that account.
<P>
There was some suggestion in the Committee that perhaps this report did not formally change the position but simply reordered and clarified it.
If that is so I would welcome it because I think that it is not merely the function of the Rules of Procedure to provide a minimum framework, a simply reductionist approach to the rules, but to encourage the right and rational outcomes.
Over the coming months and years, time in the plenary will be at a premium and it is undoubtedly right that Mr Crowley's report gives us the opportunity to be more flexible, to be more rational and to be more successful.
<P>
Since we are having difficulty in getting Mr Crowley and Mr Dell'Alba, let me make a general remark about the work of the Rules of Procedure Committee.
Sadly, with the exception of course of the people who are here today, attendance at the Rules of Procedure Committee is not always of the best, and yet the curious thing is that - like education - the Rules of Procedure are something that everybody has an opinion on, both in the groups and in the plenary.
I would like to think that in future the very interesting matters that we discuss in the Rules of Procedure Committee will attract the attention from all colleagues that they deserve.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, I wish to thank Mr Crowley for this excellent report and to comment on the utter Irishness of it, because not only is the rapporteur not there but it is a non-solution to a non-problem.
You could not in fact make a better job of it.
It is rather striking that the rapporteur for the next report, Mr Dell'Alba, is not there either.
Oh, he has just come in!
Perfect.
That is timing!
<P>
The fact is that we used to have just a single annual report by the Commission.
Now we have a proliferation of different annual reports by different institutions.
It turns out, however, that there is a difference between, let us say, those annual reports that are presented by the institutions as required by the Treaty and the other annual reports.
What I would have liked to have seen in the report by Mr Crowley was for us to do something with the reports, and that is not indicated.
We just have a debate, or we do not.
That is a non-solution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wibe">
Mr President, like the other speakers, I would like to start by thanking the rapporteur, who is not present, for an excellent report.
Of course, the aim of this report is actually to try to simplify Parliament's treatment of all the annual reports we have to deal with.
In his report, I think the rapporteur counted 25 different annual reports which are dealt with in depth in this Parliament, which means that we can handle two or three annual reports at most in each part-session.
Furthermore, this seems to be a growing trend.
If it carries on like this, I think we will find in a few years' time that most of our work involves dealing with such annual reports.
I do not think there is any other Parliament in the world that examines and pronounces in such detail on what different authorities have done in the past year.
<P>
I also think there is a link between these large volumes of opinions which are generated on annual reports and the low turnout at voting in our Parliament.
Last year - that is, before we had a financial incentive to take part in votes - the average turnout here in the Chamber was between 50 % and 60 %, which I believe is the lowest in any democratically elected assembly in the world.
When I am out and about talking to people, they often ask me why so few Members of Parliament vote.
The simplest answer is that an awful lot of our work involves expressing views which are virtually meaningless.
<P>
If we can simplify these matters with the Crowley report, so that we do not spend so much time producing views on these reports, but deal with the main and most important questions instead, I think we will have done something to make this Parliament's work much easier.
<P>
That said, I would like to thank the current rapporteur, and I will be listening very carefully to what he himself has to say.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Corbett">
Mr President, it is a very interesting innovation that this debate be rounded up with a contribution from the rapporteur, and why not!
<P>
I wish to welcome Mr Crowley's report.
This is a useful adaptation of the Rules of Procedure.
There was nothing quite so preposterous as to see this Parliament debating time after time reports on reports, especially, for example, the report that comes every year from the Committee on Institutional Affairs - usually with Mr Valverde López as rapporteur - where Parliament receives the annual reports on European Union from the European Council.
It is a report, of course, on the previous year.
We usually receive it half way through the next year.
The Institutional Committee then drafts a report on this report, and we end up debating a year and a half later the events of a year and a half before on the basis of a report on a report.
<P>
This was, of course, nonsense, and there are many examples of this nonsense.
This change to the Rules of Procedure will enable us to get rid of this sort of nonsense, and where we do not have a very good reason for having a special report on a report, or a special debate on a report, we will no longer need to do so.
So I welcome this change to the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Crowley">
Mr President, I will not need the five minutes as my esteemed colleagues have covered the most essential parts of the report.
I wish to apologize to you, Mr President, and to the House.
Unfortunately, I had a puncture in my wheelchair this morning and that is what delayed my arrival - I had to get it repaired.
<P>
I would like Members to be reassured that this is not an attempt to get certain issues off the agenda and stop them being debated within Parliament or to prevent committees from drawing up reports that they feel are politically important for those committees.
Rather, it is an attempt to try to bring into line the proper workings of this Parliament, to give more time for this House and this Chamber to respond more rapidly to the ever-changing political events that are taking place.
<P>
My colleague, Mr Corbett, has already mentioned that with certain reports we are debating a report on a report.
I would go even further and say that in other annual reports that have come before this Parliament, not only are we dealing with a report which may be two years old but we are also regurgitating and recycling information that was put in an annual report three or four years ago, and yet we feel that it all has to be included again each year, year on end.
That certainly wastes the time of this Parliament; it puts the services under tremendous pressure to be translating into 11 working languages huge rafts of documents which every Member does not read, which every Member does not take notice of and, most importantly of all, which the public and the media ignore totally.
<P>
The reason why there was some difficulty with this report initially was that certain Members who felt that issues of importance to them - I would cite Mr Ford, who had an annual report on racism in the European Union - were afraid that they would be knocked off the agenda.
I hope that my amendment which was agreed in committee will overcome those problems for them.
It also requires a bit of diligence from the Conference of Presidents to ensure that they do not derive undue power from the little bit of leeway which we have given them in this report.
<P>
Finally, I wish to say to the House and to Members that, with all of my heart and all the persuasive argument that I can muster, I commend this report to the House.
I also wish to inform Members that, because of the changes taking place in the Treaty of Amsterdam in the way this House operates, we will be dealing with more reports from the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities in this Parliament that will be far more wide-ranging and innovative in changing the way this Parliament operates.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place today at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Modification of Rule 141 of the Rules of Procedure
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0111/98) by Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on amending Rule 141 on subcommittees.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, I am sorry I was not able to help with a possible reversal of the order of the two reports. Having said that, I would like to start by explaining my report.
I must say, I am very pleased it has finally arrived in the Chamber, because the question is an important one. In particular, it helps to correct a situation we are aware of, which has not prevented our work but which, I believe, should be corrected from the point of view of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
What is it about?
The Rules of Procedure, in their current form and interpretation, give us to understand that the subcommittees, of which there are three in this Parliament, can only be composed of full or substitute members of the main committee.
This has led to practical difficulties in application, at the level of the political groups.
We are aware of the complex nature of these subcommittees. I am thinking particularly of the Subcommittee on Human Rights, which deals with human rights worldwide, and the fact that many of those countries, such as those in the third world, fall within the remit, so to speak, of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, for example.
Consequently, there is widespread interest, not only among the members of the main committee - in this case the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy - but also in the other committees represented in the Subcommittee on Human Rights. We have found the same interest in the other two subcommittees, albeit to a lesser extent.
So these rules and this interpretation of the Rules of Procedure have been ignored by the European Parliament which, through its political groups, has appointed to the subcommittees representatives who are not members of the main committee, as shown by the statistics in the annex to my report. This has created a breach, if not of the Rules of Procedure, at least of their interpretation.
<P>
We have heard the question asked by the chairman in response to a request from several members of the Subcommittee on Human Rights, and the Committee on the Rules of Procedure was greatly embarrassed. We either had to reassert the right - a right which had been violated - or, I would not say adapt to the reality, but recognize that, in fact, this situation might not be ideal.
<P>
Being responsible for this report, I have tried to summarize the opinions on both sides, reaching a solution that may seem to be a compromise but which in fact seemed the best way to guarantee both the fundamental link with the main committee and also the flexibility we consider essential to ensure the greater participation, the greater involvement of everyone in the important activities of the subcommittees. As we well know, such activities very often include reflection, discussion and investigation rather than legislative and operational matters.
So it did not seem to compromise the general rules to propose this amendment to the Rules of Procedure, which we will vote on later.
The formula is simple: that full members of the subcommittees should be full or substitute members of the main committee. In this way we are maintaining the fundamental link I mentioned, and maintaining the principle that the position of chairman of these subcommittees will therefore necessarily fall to members of the main committee, but we are not specifying and therefore leaving the door open to the fact that substitutes who are members of Parliament but not full or substitute members of the main committee may be appointed.
<P>
This seemed to be an elegant way of accepting the practice of this House, allowing other members to join the subcommittees and, in so doing, maintaining two principles: the fundamental link, but also the opportunity for greater involvement.
That is the proposal we are making and we hope Parliament will see fit to approve it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, I congratulate Mr Dell'Alba on his report on the membership of subcommittees.
As he has told us, there are three subcommittees at the moment: security, human rights and monetary affairs.
It has been clear for some time that people outside the foreign affairs remit - such as those involved with development - are interested in particular in the membership of the Subcommittee on Human Rights.
Also, there has been some interest from the committee on which I sit, which is the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs and which deals with human rights in the European Union but is rather interested in human rights amongst the applicant countries that technically, at the moment, are dealt with by the Subcommittee on Human Rights of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
<P>
We welcome Mr Dell'Alba's proposal to clarify the situation as it stands, which means that only full members of a subcommittee must be drawn from the membership of the committee; therefore, by analogy, implying that substitutes on subcommittees can be drawn from other committees as well.
<P>
I note that Rule 163(3) says that unless we specify otherwise at the time of the vote - maybe by an oral amendment - these rules come into operation on the first day of the next part-session.
The next part-session will start on 11 May - so that the adjournment, as Mr Corbett has just told me, will be the longest in our history, from March until May - and at that date we will find that the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs is not affected, but that suddenly two members of the Subcommittee on Security and Disarmament will no longer be eligible to be members, along with three members of the Subcommittee on Human Rights.
We need to clarify that.
Certainly the Socialist Group will be happy to accept that this new rule change comes into force at the beginning of the next Parliament.
But that is something for Mr Dell'Alba to propose, or else the consequences will be as I state.
<P>
Finally, I thank Mr Dell'Alba again on resolving a problem which, unlike Mr Wijsenbeek's intervention last time, certainly has a political dimension and is one that we are interested in resolving.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Donnelly, Brendan">
Mr President, like Mr Ford, I should like to congratulate Mr Dell'Alba on an excellent report.
In describing it he seemed a little reticent about calling it a compromise.
Perhaps to his Italian radical temperament the idea of compromise is one that is a little more suspicious than it is to the pragmatic British.
On the contrary, I would regard it as a great benefit and advantage of the report that it is a very sensible compromise between two desires, two considerations, one of which is to have a wide range of opinion and expertise working in the subcommittees, while the other is to have a clear line of responsibility between the subcommittees and their principal committees.
<P>
I am not entirely sure that, if we adopt it as it is, it will have the effects that Mr Ford fears.
After all, we have ignored the provisions of the interpretation up until now.
It would be slightly surprising if we became more dogmatic and more draconian in our application as a result of what we might adopt today.
<P>
One final point: quite rightly, Mr Dell'Alba did not make a strong point of the proposition that in reality the present interpretation is ignored.
I would not want to be committed to the view that if a rule is ignored it should necessarily be changed.
If it is a bad rule it should be changed; if it is a good rule it should be applied.
That is something that is of wider general application than simply to the matter of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="Evans">
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mr Dell'Alba on his report.
It is a short report but also a significant one.
It has been quite a long time in committee, it has had a long gestation period, but even if Mr Ford is proposing - and I think he is correct to do so - that we delay its birth, it will still be very important.
<P>
It is always the responsibility of the parent committee to ensure that it knows what is going on in its subcommittees.
The purpose of a subcommittee is to report back to the main committee.
So the parent committee has to be sure that the subcommittees are clear in their purpose, that they are being consistent in the work that they do, and that there is continuity between the subcommittee and the main committee.
The previous rule, which was quite clear, was being ignored.
<P>
I take Mr Donnelly's point that just because something is being ignored you should not necessarily change it.
But there was an anomaly in the way the previous ruling was being interpreted, so that you could even have a subcommittee meeting - although it may never have done so - where none of the members of the subcommittee were actually members of the full committee.
Now, with this rule change, it is quite clear that the full members will have to be members of the main committee.
<P>
We considered having the majority of the members, but in the end we have settled for the full members.
That will make certain that the committees are not just independent but that there is interdependence between the subcommittee and the main committee.
It is for those reasons that I will be supporting the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wibe">
Mr President, like the other speakers, I would like to start by thanking Mr Dell'Alba for an excellent report.
As I see it, it meets two requirements.
Firstly, it reinforces the links between a subcommittee and the main committee by stipulating that all the full members must also belong to the main committee.
On the other hand, it also permits a certain degree of flexibility by allowing the substitutes to come from another committee.
That may be necessary of course because, as Mr Dell'Alba says, there are some cases where matters need to be coordinated.
So it is a good thing for members from other committees to be included in dealing with such matters.
<P>
Some people have expressed fears about this structure, because it could mean that a rapporteur belonging to a subcommittee might be a member of another main committee. In other words, they could be a substitute in the subcommittee and then become rapporteur for a matter which was then taken up by the main committee.
That would mean that someone who was not a member of the main committee could present a report on that committee's behalf.
As I see it, this is a purely theoretical risk, since appointing the rapporteurs on individual matters is still the job of the main committee.
Presumably we can rely on the main committees not to appoint any rapporteurs who are not their own members.
<P>
Having said that, I would like to thank Mr Dell'Alba once again for an excellent report which I am certain will be passed by a large majority today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, I would like to take up Mr Ford's suggestion, which I think is a wise one.
With the agreement of the chairman of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, I would therefore like to propose that it should be recorded in the Minutes that these rules come into force after the summer recess, on Monday 14 September, to allow us to adapt to the situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place today at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Report of the High Level Panel on the free movement of persons
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0108/98) by Mrs Schaffner, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the report of the High Level Panel on the free movement of persons, chaired by Mrs Simone Veil (C40181/97).

<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="Schaffner">
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="Thors">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the High Level Panel has done an excellent piece of work.
As Mrs Schaffner said, this is of course a problem which we in this Parliament have been aware of for years.
But it is an important task which needs to be carried out now, at a time when I believe mobility must increase and continue to increase with the euro.
We know that progress has been made with the other three freedoms, but that has not been the case in this field, partly because of a lack of legal instruments but also, I believe, because the political will is not there.
Also, we have weakened the position of citizens of nonMember States far too much.
<P>
There is a weakness in one respect, and I would like to point out that not even the High Level Panel has really agreed on how tax matters are to be resolved.
The report also reflects the fact that national legislation has ceased to reflect human reality.
We have a number of different kinds of mobility: moving completely from one Member State to another; working in border areas and living in one Member State and working in another; and having permanent links with a number of Member States.
This is a familiar feature of the Commissioner's homeland and my own.
We have experienced cars being seized when the authorities in one of these two countries take the view that the person in question is actually domiciled in the other.
<P>
I would therefore like to emphasize the proposal of the working group that, in regard to taxation, we need a common definition of residence.
I would like to ask the Commission what action it has taken in the light of the High Level Panel's report.1 I also think that an important element in the argument is that there is a legal basis in the Treaty, Article 100, which has provided authority for coordinatio on other matters of taxation.
<P>
I also think we should adopt the proposal that Member States should be able to read other Member States' so-called "smart cards' when it comes to entitlement to social security benefits.
Only an expert can deal with the jungle of the E111 form and so on.
It is now time to put this on the agenda.
<P>
Finally, I would like to point out that there is an error in the Swedish version when it comes to the national ombudsmen's duties, but this does not apply to the other language versions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="Schiedermeier">
Mr President, first of all I wish to express my sincere thanks to the rapporteur.
She had a difficult task to accomplish.
On behalf of my colleague Anne-Karin Glase, who cannot be here today, I wish to present extracts from her opinion on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
<P>
The complexity of the overall problem meant that the committee had to restrict itself to questions of access to employment and social and family status.
The objective of the EURES network established in 1994 is to create transparency in the European employment market.
However, the fact that the employment market database has too little to offer is still the weak point of this system.
EURES is not well enough known either to businesses or to employees, and so is not getting enough information or use.
<P>
One problem is the recognition of proof of qualifications in the private sector.
As far as the non-regulated professions are concerned, unfortunately neither employers nor employees recognize the value of the qualifications demanded or offered in other relevant employment markets.
Earlier attempts to address this matter failed because of rapid job changes and because only basic educational qualifications are taken into account, not professional experience or further training, among other things.
<P>
Meanwhile, the regulated professions have achieved quite satisfactory results, with the exception of a few unsolved problems.
The situation in the public sector is another matter, because freedom of movement is far less well developed.
Being a national of the country in question is often a requirement for employment.
<P>
Free movement involves the social rights and family status of EU citizens.
The provisions based on Regulations 1408/71 and 574/72 have made effective coordination between very different national insurance models possible, but there are still some matters to be resolved.
<P>
Such matters are of two types: those which can be resolved within the scope of existing regulations, and others for which this has not yet been possible because of the differences between national legislations.
The full principle of free movement also includes the right to take family members to the host country, but it turns out that in many cases social benefits are reserved for nationals only.
Another set of problems arises if the spouse is a national of a third country.
A detailed examination should be made of which stipulations based on Regulation 1408/71 apply here.
<P>
With regard to divorce, minimum protection should be maintained for a specific period, in order not to create potential pressure on the spouse due to any dependency.
However, I fail to understand why some circles in the European Parliament are trying to make previously unjustified immigration possible on the basis of family status.
This trend is expressed, for example, in paragraphs 9 and 11 of our opinion, and also goes against the vote of the Group of the European People's Party.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="Guinebertière">
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, further to the excellent work by the High Level Panel chaired by Mrs Veil, Mrs Schaffner has submitted an excellent piece of work as the European Parliament's rapporteur.
Although I have to say that my opinions differ from Mrs Schaffner's on almost all aspects - I shall explain why shortly - I must compliment her.
She has produced some very careful work, and made it easier for us to understand the essence of the interpretation of free movement on the Conservative side of the Chamber.
So, many thanks to Mrs Schaffner for having made her report so clear.
Clear explanations are easier to handle, and help to highlight distinctions.
<P>
Mrs Veil makes 80 proposals and recommendations on how to overcome the difficulties confronting EU citizens, as described by the rapporteur and the draftsman of the opinion, in order to take advantage of the freedom of movement specified by the Maastricht Treaty.
I have the impression that the Schaffner report appreciates what Mrs Veil says, but then describes how the difficulties which Mrs Veil wishes to eliminate could be accentuated.
The crucial factor - and I am grateful to Mr Schiedermeier for having spoken so clearly when standing in for Mrs Glase - is that we do make distinctions.
Firstly, who benefits from freedom of movement?
"The citizens of the Union' , everyone says.
According to Mrs Schaffner, only nationals of an EU Member State are citizens of the Union. People who are long-term residents of the European Union, legally and with all the necessary permits, are not citizens of the Union but third country nationals, and must therefore be treated differently.
<P>
Let us consider, for example, the US businessman who works for Chase Manhattan Bank in Frankfurt, lives there with his family, earns and spends his money there and participates in local life.
He is only allowed to do so in Germany.
If he is transferred to another country, a very difficult phase in this man's life in the European Union begins.
He must overcome a wealth of permit provisos from the European Union against third party nationals.
I deliberately mention the US businessman, because I do not want to make it easy for you always to speak of the people you are really thinking about in the debate about third country nationals.
That is why I refer to this US businessman.
<P>
I think it is a good idea to set up information and advice bureaux on European citizenship, although I do not think it is particularly sensible for European citizens to receive advice there from students, Mrs Schaffner.
I think qualified legal advice should be given by fully trained people, though I do not wish to belittle the status of students, who are sometimes cleverer than Members or lawyers, as we know.
<P>
The term "freedom of movement' in the Maastricht Treaty concerns people being allowed to exist with equal rights, as well as capital, services and goods.
That is why it is stated that capital, services, goods and persons have freedom of movement in the European Union.
We guaranteed this from 1 January 1993.
Your report shows that you can take goods, services and capital wherever you want in the European Union, at any time of the day or night.
Freedom of movement of persons, however, belongs to the Union of Mistrust, which you want, and which is far from reality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Nassauer">
Mr President, I note with pleasure that you allowed Mr Schulz to speak for a minute longer, and I am sure you will permit me to do the same.
First of all, I would like to say that I quite honestly think even more highly of Mrs Schaffner's report than the Veil report on which it was based.
<P>
However, I do not wish to deny the Veil report my appreciation, and I want to make it clear that we were pleased to note the extent to which freedom of movement has already become a reality in Europe, in law and in fact.
The first and most fundamental finding of this report is that we have considerable freedom of movement, to the benefit of all citizens of the European Union.
<P>
Further improvement to freedom of movement depends less on laying down new rules than on implementing the existing ones in the spirit of freedom of movement.
This is not least a request to all the authorities concerned, which are sometimes still petty in their actions and give us the impression that European freedom of movement is restricted rather than generous and liberal in its interpretation.
Having said that, credit is due to the Veil report for having pointed this out and to Mrs Schaffner for having highlighted it.
<P>
Of course, there are problems.
There are problems, for example, with workers' access to employment.
This is firstly because qualifications and diplomas are not fully recognized. However, it is also because language in Europe does not just unite us, but can also be divisive when it comes to applying for a job.
I do not know what the solution to this problem is either.
Historically, other multinational systems have often had a common language: Latin in Ancient Rome, or the languages spoken in the Empire, and so on.
I see nothing here to help solve our problem, but the fact remains that there is a problem - we do not have a common identifying language. I mention this as an aside.
<P>
Mr Schulz mentioned the legal situation of third country nationals.
Under the Treaty, there is indeed a distinction between third country nationals and citizens of the Union.
That is established in the Treaties, and the fact that third country nationals cannot take full advantage of the rights of citizens of the Union is primarily their own doing.
They are free to acquire the nationality of a Member State, but most do not want to.
So it is up to them to break down the barriers.
<P>
This report shows that we have achieved a great deal in the area of freedom of movement.
I think that to be able to note this on a day when two Member States, namely Austria and Italy, are joining the Schengen Agreement in terms of freedom of movement should make us feel proud of what we have achieved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Nassauer.
With regard to what you said at the beginning of your speech - could you please put your headphones on - regarding your comment on speaking time, I would like to say that, in the absence of Mr Newman, the Socialist Group merely distributed their time between two speakers: one minute for Mr Schulz and one minute, which has yet to come, for Mrs Zimmermann.
<P>
That right is available to the political groups and is not up to the Chair, and that is why an extra minute was allotted to Mr Schulz.
So far as the power of the Chair to allow a little more time for Members to speak is concerned, all the political groups have had the benefit of my indulgent discretion in that respect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Kaklamanis">
Mr President, Mrs Schaffner's report raises issues which cause financial, political and social problems to those who either live or move within the borders of the European Union.
I wish to offer my warm congratulations to Mrs Schaffner for attempting to provide answers and propose solutions to these problems.
In this sense, the report is extremely forward-looking and not at all conservative.
If it were conservative it would not propose solutions or face up to the problems.
However, it is forward-looking in that it sees the problems, confronts them and proposes solutions to them.
The problem, however, is not whether there is Community legislation on all these issues.
We all know very well that the three institutional bodies have dealt with these issues.
The problem is that national legislation in the Member States either does not exist or has not been harmonized in a common direction, along common political lines which would make it easier to solve these problems.
A third point I would like to mention is that my group will of course be delighted to vote in favour of the report, but we disagree - for very specific and fundamental reasons - with Amendments Nos 8 and 9 and with the second part of Amendment No 11. We are under an obligation, firstly, to solve the problems of the European citizen by strengthening European cohesion and secondly, to deal with the problems of people from third countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wiebenga">
Mr President, soon the new single European currency, the euro, will be introduced.
This is the finishing touch to the free movement of capital and goods.
Mr Schulz was of course right in saying that the free movement of capital and goods is being fully taken care of with the introduction of the euro, but we are not quite there yet as far as the free movement of people is concerned.
<P>
The Simone Veil High Level Panel has done excellent work, and I would like to say to the banks in question that I am proud that Mrs Veil was once the chairman of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reform Party in this House, as well the President of this Parliament.
We can recognize her liberal approach in this text.
<P>
But for people to move around freely is not yet as easy as is sometimes suggested.
May I remind everyone that we debated and adopted three guidelines proposed by Commissioner Monti. Those are now with the Council and everything has suddenly gone quiet.
They deal with the abolition of internal border controls; the unimpeded travel of people from other countries, that is third countries; and the abolition of restrictions on workers' residency.
The ball is now in the court of the Council of Ministers, and I believe Parliament should use the present debate to draw attention to this.
<P>
Organizational measures must be taken, certainly, as well as other measures.
I will deal with one of these organizational measures.
We believe that in the next European Commission, one Commissioner should be responsible for the entire field of the free movement of people.
<P>
Furthermore, complaints bureaux are very important, but it is also important for civil servants, particularly at the European level, to become more helpful and citizen-friendly.
<P>
Mr President, I would like to conclude with one sentence.
The Veil Panel has produced good work, and so has the rapporteur; it is now up to European policy makers and civil servants.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Mohamed Alí">
Mr President, the free movement of persons in the European Union must be one of the objectives in the construction of a political Europe, taking into account the fact that free movement and its effective implementation are intimately linked to the concept of citizenship of the Union.
<P>
Many things must be improved in order to achieve truly free movement of persons in the Union, and the report by the High Level Panel, chaired by Mrs Simone Veil, recognizes this in its conclusions and recommendations.
It underlines, in particular, the fact that the main problem in this field concerns the actual application of directives and regulations rather than a lack of legislation.
<P>
I would like to point out that both the report by the High Level Panel and Mrs Schaffner's report highlighted the problems connected with the free movement of citizens of the European Union, paying less attention to the problems related to the numerous citizens of third countries.
<P>
If we want to build an integrated Europe, but one which both shows solidarity and is open to the social and cultural contributions of other civilizations, we must also take care to improve and increase the transparency of the legal status of nationals from third countries.
<P>
In order to have a true citizenship which takes account of people from third countries, the procedures for granting visas must be improved, there must be better information and openness in these procedures, and the right to family reunification must be extended and strengthened, while always ensuring respect for fundamental rights and the right to dignified treatment and privacy.
In this respect, it is also essential to do away with unequal treatment between EU citizens and nationals of third countries, which exists because of certain national laws on aliens.
<P>
According to the Treaties, the free movement of persons should also apply to people from third countries who are legally resident in the Union. We must therefore demand that they be treated in the same way as any citizen in the Union in terms of their political, social and economic rights.
<P>
Finally, we must support a Europe which believes that its convergence with other cultures and civilizations is socially and culturally enriching and is not a danger for public order or internal security.
We want an open and united Europe; not a Europe which has turned into a veritable fortress.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindholm">
Mr President, the report on the free movement of persons from the High Level Panel chaired by Simone Veil is well received by Mrs Schaffner.
It is perhaps possible that Mrs Schaffner is right to some extent at least.
But despite the report's very good, detailed explanatory section, it is impossible to relate Mrs Schaffner's report to the High Level Panel document, as this is only available in French.
I sincerely hope there will soon be an end to this unacceptable situation, in which essential documents are lacking in one or more languages.
It undermines public support and trust in both MEPs and Parliament itself.
<P>
As my French is not that good, I can only comment on the Schaffner report itself.
The main conclusion of the report is that free movement has largely become a reality.
I think there are many EU citizens who would not agree, and who time and time again have problems themselves or meet people who have.
Nor can the problem be reduced to an administrative, bureaucratic matter, but depends of course on whether the Council is prepared to do what it should have done on 1 January 1993.
This deadline has been postponed time and time again, and the question is, when will it end?
<P>
What surprises me greatly as a Swede is that no account has been taken of the experience and knowhow which the Scandinavian passport system, which has existed for forty years, has to offer.
This is a different approach, but I believe it has a great deal to offer.
<P>
Mrs Schaffner makes a clear distinction between EU citizens and those of non-Member States.
She even argues in favour of discrimination.
In paragraph 23 we read: ' Calls on the Commission to make it clear that workers from non-Community countries are not entitled to the full freedom of movement of Union citizens' within the Union.
We believe this is totally unacceptable.
Free movement must apply to everyone who is lawfully in the Union.
Freedom of movement is not just about showing your passport.
<P>
Mrs Schaffner also looks favourably upon the compensatory measures.
The Green Group in the European Parliament has always distanced itself from compensatory measures, and we do so again now.
There cannot be any freedom of movement with them.
We are moving into a grey area of controls.
<P>
We are also opposed to the report's assumption that the Schengen Agreement and the Treaty of Amsterdam are already clear and ratified.
Two countries will be holding referenda on the Treaty of Amsterdam: we do not know how these will go.
The European Union and Parliament must not go so far that democracy becomes a sham.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pradier">
Mr President, the Schaffner report is a good report and the usual congratulations must make way for genuine thanks for the quality of this work.
It covers the conclusions of the report published by the High Level Panel ordered by the Commission, and its text unambiguously underlines the obstacles and reticence which are still hindering the free movement of persons, even though the dissenting voices are somewhat more muted.
<P>
But to tell it as it really is, the quite scandalous and completely unacceptable situation in which we find ourselves is the fault of the Council, the Member States and the national governments.
Scandalous because the Treaties imposed the establishment of true freedom of movement as of 31 December 1992 and it is now 1998.
Scandalous because, despite the iterative judgments given by the Court of Justice which upheld the Treaties, things have hardly moved on at all.
And scandalous because the governments of the Member States continue to drag their feet when it comes to implementing that freedom which is most important in the eyes of our fellow citizens.
We have actually been very rigorous in making arrangements to allow capital, services and merchandise to move freely yet when it comes to people, the Member States and governments have used all sorts of delaying tactics to hinder the initiatives from Parliament and the Commission, whose aim is to create a veritable union of European citizens free to move about as they choose.
<P>
The Council is the main institution responsible for this resistance.
Their timidity, the restrictions and the barely hidden sacred cows are holding back our national officials.
The Member States who are sitting on the directives governing freedom of movement should be sanctioned for non-application of the Council's decisions, however timid.
As for the national governments, they remain faithful to their traditions of conservatism and faint heartedness and refuse to apply the directives, thus adding to the already large number of petitions on the freedom of movement and appeals to the European Ombudsman.
The Commission itself uses a great deal of restraint when applying its right to take action against Member States who are in default.
<P>
I would like to take this opportunity to welcome the initiative to compile all the provisions relating to free movement into a single clear document so that these texts finally become accessible to the citizens and practitioners of European law.
The proposal to hand over responsibility for the free movement of persons to a single Commissioner is in the same spirit and should be actively supported.
However, the report remains tarnished with a worrying failing.
In paragraph 23, it mentions that workers who are citizens of third countries do not enjoy the same freedom of movement as EU citizens.
They are only allowed to stay or work in a different Member State as a result of the freedom of movement of services by right accorded to their employers.
This situation is quite simply unacceptable.
We must arrive at a situation in which anyone legally residing and working in the territory of a Member State of the Union is entitled to do so in any other Member State.
The practice of granting freedom of movement to the employer as opposed to the individual must be completely stamped out.
<P>
I believe that the two amendments proposed by Mrs Zimmermann, Nos 8 and 9, should replace the original text.
Whether or not they are adopted by Parliament will determine how the members of the Group of the European Radical Alliance use their vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, the High Level Panel report on the freedom of movement of persons in Europe has perhaps disappointed some of its initiators because it does not put forward any fundamental modifications to the existing legislation, and that is perhaps why it is so difficult for Members of Parliament to obtain a translation of this text.
<P>
Anyway, the report seems to say that the general legal framework is already in place, and that first and foremost it is a question of applying the existing texts.
As I am in the fortunate position of speaking and writing French, I have been able to understand the basic report and can inform my colleagues that this text is totally without bias and hence sits very well with all the rest of the literature on the subject.
For example, the report does not systematically wage war on border checks on people travelling between different Member States and even states, and I quote, "that the removal of such border controls should not be done to the detriment of security' .
<P>
Similarly, the report painstakingly avoids confusing the freedom of movement of European citizens with that of citizens of third countries, a mistake which is all too easily made in our circles.
Better still, it emphasizes the fact that the right to free movement of European citizens, as set out in the Treaty, should not necessarily be taken to imply the right to move about or stay without completing all the specific formalities.
<P>
Finally, the High Level Panel has burst yet another bubble by explaining that the free movement of citizens of Member States does not mean that they should necessarily enjoy the same rights everywhere.
On the contrary, each Member State should be able to retain a certain number of specific laws and the situation should not arise in which, in order to simplify the lives of 5.5 million people voluntarily living outside their own country, they complicate the lives of 360 million other Europeans who live at home and ask for nothing.
We would hope that common sense could be applied in all European policies, especially the single currency.
<P>
Once this framework has been reasonably established it becomes easier to examine the proposals put forward, which are not all equal.
Some are contestable at times, such as those concerning public office. Others however are more useful, such as the arrangements for retaining certain welfare benefit rights when working in several Member States successively.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Stirbois">
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Zimmermann">
Madam Commissioner, I am glad you are here today.
Ladies and gentlemen, I think we are deluding ourselves if we believe that the free movement of persons in Europe has already been achieved.
Many of us have commented on the many restrictions. But I think the report of the High Level Panel chaired by Simone Veil also shows how changes can be brought about.
It is quite clear from the 80 points included what the problems are - problems with which I myself have been very familiar for 27 or 28 years, I must say.
I am Dutch and have lived in Germany since 1970.
'So what?' you might think.
"You are a citizen of the Union, so that is not a problem.'
I could tell you of many problems which I still experience.
Of course, I now have a German diplomatic passport which makes things a bit easier.
But I also have a residence permit, which is crazy, but that is the way it is.
This applies to many of us if we want to take advantage of what is actually in the Maastricht Treaty.
The Maastricht Treaty also states that there could be many more people like myself whose nationality is other than that of the country they represent.
But it also states that we are entitled to take up employment in one country and live in another country, for example like transfrontier workers, who live in one country and have insurance in another.
<P>
I come from the Aachen border region, and I am aware of all these problems and the difficulties which exist.
But what happens if these people get divorced, as happens in almost one in three marriages?
Major problems then arise regarding entitlements to pensions, social security benefits, family allowances, and so on.
I could go on and on.
<P>
I welcome the fact that we are tackling this problem and that much of it is addressed in the Veil report.
But I have been talking about people who have a European Union passport.
Suppose we now consider those people who do not have a European Union passport, or who have not changed their nationality, whether consciously or unconsciously, perhaps for the same reasons as myself, but have lived here for 30 years.
We brought them here to work for us.
You could say they have done their bit, and now they are out on their own.
These people have a great many problems.
Mr Schiedermeier says that perhaps they want to come in by the back door, but I would like to tell him about a problem I have at the moment.
The family in question has German nationality. Two children went to school abroad, but were not in Germany when they were 16, which means they have no right of residence.
Six children live in Germany and have a right of residence, as have their father and mother.
The other two must go back.
What sort of a country is that, if we send these people back, if we do not give these people the opportunity of being able to stay with us?
<P>
When we see that only Germans are accepted into the public sector - I was in the public sector myself for 30 years - and that many provisos apply to non-Germans, that there are no permanent residence permits, and so on, then I think we still have a very long way to go.
<P>
I hope our amendments are accepted, because that would then also let us show the Member States where we are heading at the start of the 21st century, namely towards a common Europe, where all citizens have the same rights and the same opportunities to cooperate in building this Europe, irrespective of nationality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, it is not very often that, in order to rightly praise the work of a rapporteur, I can agree with the words of Mr Schulz.
But in fact, Mr President, I believe two things can be said about Mrs Schaffner's report: it is balanced and it agrees with the Treaty in force.
Mr Schulz has said the report is "Maastrichtian' .
Well, if that is what he wants to call it, then it is "Maastrichtian' .
It is in line with the text of the Treaty in force and I am therefore in favour of it.
<P>
Mr President, I agree with many of the points raised so far, so allow me to look at two more general points which I believe are relevant.
<P>
Firstly, we live in a frontier territory where everything that has been done so far casts both light and shadow.
Of course there have been shadows, Mr Schulz, but there has also been light, and many achievements.
And in response to an excellent speech by Mr Pradier, I would raise my first point. Mr Pradier, in fact the fourth freedom still remains to be developed, but we must not forget that one of the great successes of the Maastricht Treaty is that through Article 8 it bestows a political nature upon this fourth freedom, this free movement of persons and, if that is the case, it must also be the derived law.
<P>
So as well as the free movement of goods and capital, as well as the free movement of services - not forgetting, Mr Pradier, that behind every service, as you pointed out, there is normally a person who has the rights that any social and democratic country recognizes - the fourth freedom, the free movement of persons, is the fundamental political crux which transfers the centre of gravity of the European Union from the relationship between consumer and market to the relationship between citizen and rights.
That is a great achievement, and that is how we must highlight it and all its consequences.
<P>
Of course, from now on, the Amsterdam Treaty presents us with a challenge: incorporating into the acquis communautaire that which up until now has been, as I said, the frontier territory of the third pillar, in particular the free movement of persons.
That is our challenge and there is no doubt that it will present many problems.
However, it is also included in the Amsterdam Treaty; that is a great achievement and one which will have to be developed with all due caution.
<P>
The second point which I believe is relevant and has not been mentioned is the need to guarantee and consolidate the direct effect of Article 8A. If Articles 8 and 8A are purely supplementary legal bases for the adoption of the rules of derived law, then the right of movement and residence of the citizens of the Union is based on the Treaty itself and not on the directives.
This must be remembered.
These rights are inseparable from EU citizenship, as are the other rights contained in paragraphs b), c) and d) of Article 8.
<P>
The report from Mrs Veil's High Level Panel supports this theory of the direct effect, and demands that every EU citizen should be able to invoke it in establishing the application of the principle of non-discrimination.
We would point out that the Court of Justice has not yet given a ruling, and we hope that in the near future, when it gives its ruling, it will help to consolidate this theory.
<P>
As regards the Commission, we must point out that in the proceedings brought before the Court, the Commission has maintained this theory of direct effect.
However, in the second report on citizenship, which is being debated in Parliament at this moment, the Commission only makes an ambiguous statement: that it would be logical if Articles 8 and 8A together generated rights relating to entrance and residence.
Nevertheless, in the last analysis it resorts to the legal bases of Articles 49, 54, 56 and 6 of the Treaty.
<P>
I will finish, Mr President, by saying that I think we must also point out that we are still lacking a single legal base for free movement.
In my view, these are the fundamental challenges which must be developed, from now on and with the Amsterdam Treaty in hand.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, of the four freedoms mentioned in relation to the internal market, the free movement of persons still poses some problems.
But that is no surprise. Did the people who drew up the Treaty realize how broadly this freedom might be interpreted?
And could they imagine how far-reaching the consequences of the free movement of persons might be?
<P>
The abolition of internal borders was in reality only possible in combination with compensatory measures and a very strong external frontier. Has this really been so useful to the citizens in the end?
All the same, the strengthening of the Union was an unavoidable consequence of the ideal of open borders.
<P>
Mrs Schaffner's reports discusses the High Level Panel's contribution to the debate on the free movement of persons.
To my mind, it goes a little too far, for example in its interpretation of the Treaty's regulations and in its exaltation of so-called "European citizenship' , an imaginary concept which is far removed from the people, but is forced upon them through promotional campaigns.
<P>
The amendments from both the Green Group in the European Parliament and the Group of the Party of European Socialists are truly unacceptable.
As far as the Greens are concerned, I would like to say this. The reference to the anti-discrimination article in the Treaty of Amsterdam is superfluous in a report on the free movement of persons.
But if you are going to quote, make sure it is complete. Why table an amendment which lists sexual preference and age as well as disabilities, but leaves out gender, race, and religion or belief.
<P>
Through their amendments, the Socialists clearly want to give people from third countries more rights than EU citizens.
The logic of this escapes me.
At present a French citizen can settle freely in the Netherlands, as long as he can support himself. The person concerned is not a Dutch citizen, after all, covered by Dutch legislation.
This is a restriction, but to my mind a necessary restriction, otherwise there would be all kinds of social abuse in the various Member States.
If there are restrictions for EU citizens, than why should these not apply to citizens from third countries?
Indeed, why should they get more freedoms than EU citizens?
These amendments are unrealistic, and if they are adopted we will most certainly vote against the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Cellai">
Mr President, on behalf of the representatives of the Alleanza Nazionale, in expressing our keen appreciation for Mrs Schaffner, we also wish to say that the High Level Panel's report shows considerable awareness of the vastness of the problems in the field of the free movement of persons.
Even if there have been considerable improvements over the course of the years, there is a need to eliminate the distortions that continue to delay the full application of the rules on the matter.
Reading Mrs Veil's report, we can see how the main problems relating to the free movement of persons are caused not so much by a gap in the legislation but rather by the non-application of the directives and regulations, which are at times obsessively complex.
There is also a problem with adapting Community law to national law, as in many cases the former is only partly included rather than in full.
<P>
So we need to put everything in order. We should try to regulate the various aspects of this question with single directives or regulations, thus avoiding the problem of complex, indecipherable regulations.
<P>
At the same time, citizens' rights will be better defined through this process of simplification.
Citizens who decide to settle in another Member State of the Union should be able to benefit from the same treatment as citizens who do not leave their countries of origin, and not be penalized for making that choice.
The fundamental concept should be unique, based on equal treatment and the combating of discrimination out of respect for human rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Lancker">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by making an appeal to the European Parliament and all my colleagues. This Parliament has always been the driving force behind the principle of the free of movement of persons as a fundamental freedom.
I hope this will continue to be the case during the debate and the vote on Mrs Schaffner's report.
The European Parliament must continue to counter the tendency found in many Member States to turn in on themselves and erect institutional and actual barriers to the free movement of persons, and even to discriminate against citizens on the basis of their nationality.
In my speech I would like to go into a particular point, namely the status of third countries in the context of the free movement of persons.
<P>
In my country, Belgium, a debate is taking place at present on the local election voting rights of migrants who have been resident in our country for many years.
My party, the Socialist Party, has been won over to this, but it is a terribly difficult debate, which has to cut across people's fears, people's racist reflexes.
However, it is incredible how many other forms of discrimination exist alongside this one against people from third countries, who are in fact permanently resident in Europe.
The right of residence, of being able to work in paid employment, or to become self-employed and even, Mr Schiedermeier, the right to live with one's family - a fundamental human right laid down in international conventions - are not evident to these people, and are even challenged by you.
Even though the High Level Panel had a limited mandate, it makes good recommendations.
I believe we should support these in this Parliament. Or do we think that a Turkish migrant from Genk in Belgium should not be able to look for work in Aachen in Germany, 35 km away, whilst his Italian neighbour is able to do so?
Do we think it is normal that a young Turkish person should have to apply for a visa to follow his football team on a trip to London, whilst his Spanish friend can do so without one?
Do we think it is normal that people from third countries cannot invite their ill relatives to come over here if they can guarantee that they can support them? Or is it humane to make a woman who has been abandoned by her husband leave the country, for the simple reason that she is not a European Union citizen?
<P>
My group, ladies and gentlemen, supports the abolition of all types of discrimination between citizens of Member States, and between EU citizens and citizens of third countries who are permanently resident here.
That is the purport of a number of our amendments.
I note incidentally that both the Veil High Level Panel and a number of proposals tabled recently by the Commission take quite a big step in that direction, and I hope you will be able to endorse our philosophy.
But after this debate I no longer harbour any illusions about the attitude of some of the political groups in this Parliament.
I would like to thank in advance the members of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, the Greens, and all the others who will support our amendments willingly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cederschiöld">
Mr President, to the citizen, freedom of movement within the Union is perhaps the most concrete expression of what Europe means.
People can live and work in different countries and decide in which country they want to live, in the long or short term.
<P>
In the referendum on whether Sweden should join the EU, freedom of movement was one of the decisive arguments in favour of membership, but many transfrontier workers still have problems drawing their pensions and supplementary pensions, and problems when they want to register in another country.
<P>
Freedom of movement is on the way to becoming a reality, but some governments are dragging their heels.
There are reasons for showing them up as examples and a warning.
So we will take up Mrs Thors' topic.
The EU prohibits discriminating against citizens of other countries, but is it in accordance with the Treaty to discriminate against your own?
<P>
In Sweden, a large number of knowledge-intensive companies are having problems finding well-trained people.
Ericsson, the telecoms company, has threatened to move its entire development department and corporate management to another country if it cannot get foreign people with leading-edge skills to move to Sweden.
But they do not want to do so for tax reasons.
To solve the problem of high taxation, the Swedish Government wants to introduce special tax exemptions on the grounds of nationality.
Ordinary Swedish workers will have to keep on living with income tax at over 50 %, while at the same time, well-trained, highly mobile workers get tax relief - and this, according to my information, with the support of the Commission, which is thus directly supporting tax dumping for localizing businesses.
This exception for highly-trained workers will protect the high taxation policy which otherwise would become impossible.
Otherwise, freedom of movement would lead to lower taxes and equalized conditions between Member States.
<P>
The prevailing competition on tax has shown that a lower tax burden favours companies.
But if they are discriminated against if they stay in their country, and forced to pay tax to their homeland if they leave, then confidence in the EU will evaporate.
<P>
In our country, we are now seeing the principle of living standards dictated by nationality, which enshrines the principle of unequal pay for the same work.
Scandinavia is a very good example when it comes to a passport union, but it is an equally poor example when it comes to tax.
There is still a lot to be done when it comes to freedom of movement and freedom itself.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Elliott">
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="De Esteban Martín">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Madam Commissioner, I too would like to thank the rapporteur and the High Level Panel, chaired by Mrs Veil, for their work.
<P>
I believe that one of the most important successes of the European Union is the single market, which covers much more than the purely economic field.
This single market also involves new freedoms and opportunities for citizens in their roles as employees, consumers or members of a family.
<P>
So today, Community citizenship has taken on a new dimension.
Nevertheless, we must be aware of the fact that there are still many difficulties to be faced in order to achieve the complete freedom of movement which should have been possible since 1993.
<P>
The general conclusion is that the existing legislation is adequate.
So the problem that needs to be solved is ensuring that Community rules are effectively applied and, in my view, that is a great challenge.
<P>
As a member of the Committee on Petitions and the Committee on Culture, Youth, Unemployment and the Media, I can assure you that the existing problems, mainly relating to the recognition of professional and academic qualifications and residence permits, as well as such day-to-day issues as the use of motor vehicles, have direct repercussions on the private and personal lives of citizens and their families.
<P>
Nor must we forget that the lack of available information is to a large extent responsible not only for the obstacles to free movement, but also for a great deal of disappointment when citizens realize that their expectations are not compatible with Community law.
For example, many people are not aware of the steps which must be taken to ensure that their contributions to social welfare benefits are recognized in another Member State. Or to give another example, the costs of transferring money abroad are a serious difficulty for those people - such as pensioners - who live outside their own country for a considerable period of time.
<P>
In my view - and I agree with the report in this respect - gaps such as these could be filled by improving the public information campaigns on the rights of Europeans.
In the same way, it is essential to promote administrative cooperation between national and Community bodies and institutions, with a view to achieving transparency and comprehension of Community legislation. That would make it easier for citizens to ascertain their rights and obligations.
<P>
It would also be extremely useful to have the opportunity to run training courses for people working in administrative bodies, covering the most commonly encountered problems, so they can be resolved at a level which is closer to the citizens.
<P>
Finally, I would like to emphasize the measures presented in the field of education.
The study of foreign languages, cultural exchanges, and a consideration of the difficulties facing trainees and people with grants or scholarships are all problems which must be given special attention.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, the construction of a common educational territory is, in my opinion, the most important support needed in order to achieve our ultimate objective, the building of an area of true freedom and security within the European Union, towards which we must all strive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Gradin">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I welcome Mrs Schaffner's report on the report on the free movement of persons produced by the High Level Panel chaired by Simone Veil.
Of the four fundamental freedoms, it is the freedom of movement and the right to reside anywhere in the Union which are really taking a long, long time to introduce.
That was why the Commission set up the High Level Panel.
Their task was to examine any concrete obstacles to the free movement of persons within the Union, and to propose appropriate solutions.
<P>
The High Level Panel concludes that legislation on the free movement of persons already largely exists, and that most problems can be identified and solved without the legislation being amended.
The Panel considers that the main problem is the implementation of these rights.
To make it easier for individuals to exercise their rights in practice, the Panel has formulated 80 recommendations, which mainly concern: better information; which rights apply to the freedom of movement; increased cooperation between Member States; better training for national civil servants; and how to make it easier for people to seek work in another Member State.
I think today's debate is precisely about all these problems.
<P>
The report touches on citizens of non-Member States.
It mainly deals with how to coordinate the social security system which needs to be extended to cover those citizens completely or partially.
The High Level Panel also recommends more mobility for citizens of third countries who work in service companies.
The report is also in favour of mobility for the family members of citizens of third countries, but I would also have expected it to come up with more statements of principle when it comes to citizens of third countries residing legally in our fifteen Member States.
I believe they expect things of us.
<P>
Mrs Schaffner, the rapporteur, supports the many valuable recommendations from the High Level Panel.
A number of these recommendations will also be debated here in Parliament, for example in relation to the proposal on supplementary pension rights for workers moving within the Union, and the proposal to extend the social security system to citizens of third countries moving within the Community.
<P>
I share Mrs Schaffner's view that real work is required in the area of information, as regards both the citizens and the authorities.
As Parliament knows, the Commission has also taken a number of initiatives in this field, such as the EU's Information Programme for the European Citizen which was launched in 1996, and the Carolus programme for the exchange of civil servants between Member States' administrations.
The aim here is that the legislation covering freedom of movement in the single market should also be applied in practice by all our civil servants.
In other words, we need civil servants who provide a good service to all our citizens.
<P>
In reply to the report's exhortations to the Commission, I would also like to mention two important measures which have been taken and will help to ensure that the principle of the free movement of persons becomes a reality.
The first initiative is a plan of action for the single market.
One of the aims of this plan is to create a single market which will benefit all citizens.
In order to achieve this, work is now in progress to abolish personal ID checks at borders; review the provisions on housing; defend social rights; and make it easier for people to move around in the labour market within the EU.
Action is also being taken to improve dialogue with the citizens.
<P>
The other initiative I would like to mention is a plan of action for the free movement of employees, which the Commission of course adopted in November 1997, and which also affects some of the recommendations from the High Level Panel.
<P>
The second proposal made by the High Level Panel will be found in the Amsterdam Treaty.
On this point, the Commission is working to implement these amendments to the Treaty in the shape of practical policies as quickly as possible.
I believe both the High Level Panel's report and the Schaffner report provide a good basis for further discussion on what concrete action is needed to achieve real freedom of movement for the citizens of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Gradin.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be postponed until the High Level Panel's report is available in all languages.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Enlargement and cooperation in the field of justice and home affairs
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0107/98) by Mr Posselt, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the implications of enlargement of the European Union for cooperation in the field of justice and home affairs.
<P>
Mr Schulz wishes to speak on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
Mr President, I refer to Rule 96 of the Rules of Procedure and would ask you not to open the debate now.
My reasons are as follows. We have 6 minutes left before voting begins.
Anyone who regularly spends time in the Chamber knows what will happen here in a few minutes time: a very undisciplined mass of Members will pour in, with no interest in any debate. They are only interested in the fact that voting is about to begin, and have no interest in the debate.
That is unfortunate for Mr Posselt, the rapporteur, and Mrs Spaak, the draftsman of opinion, and also for those who are still to speak this afternoon.
However, it is our duty to carry out these debates in a reasonably acceptable manner, and that is no longer possible.
<P>
Secondly, Mr President, I would ask you to convey the protest of at least the Social Democrat members of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs to the Bureau of the European Parliament.
Every time, we have the extraordinary pleasure of having to debate our reports at a time like this, which I think is inappropriate in view of the importance of the topics.
Perhaps that could be taken into account in future scheduling.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="President">
It is up to the Presidency to decide whether or not to postpone a debate.
I can see from your applause that you are in agreement with this, but I will give the floor to the rapporteur, Mr Posselt, to allow him to state his position.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I regret the circumstances which have led Mr Schulz to make his justified comment.
But I think it is completely justified, and I would like to state quite categorically that I wish to protest at the way this part-session is being conducted, both on behalf of my group, and as rapporteur.
I have absolutely no objection if these reports are discussed on Thursday afternoon or Friday morning.
I will certainly be here, and I think that each day and hour of the part-session is as important as any other.
<P>
However, I also think there are specific topics which are of interest to a wide public, and the extremely important matter pertaining to the Rules of Procedures which we discussed this morning, which is very important to us internally but is of no public interest, is quite definitely not one of them.
I wish to protest at the absurdity of us debating matters pertaining to Parliament's Rules of Procedure in the morning, at the most effective time for press coverage, and then postponing the important topics which are of public interest until the evening.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="President">
In accordance with what you have just said, I put it to the House that the debate should be postponed until 5.00 p.m. this evening.
<P>
(Parliament gave its assent)
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 11.55 a.m. and resumed at 12.00 noon)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I have the pleasure of welcoming today a delegation of 12 members of the Maltese Parliament, headed by Mr Spiteri, who are seated in the official gallery.
<P>
The delegation has come to Strasbourg for the tenth meeting of the Joint Parliamentary Committee.
Today they have attended meetings with their colleagues from the European Parliament, concerning both Agenda 2000 and Malta's relations with the European Union and its future prospects. There were discussions on the different fields of culture, education, research and development, cooperation on policies concerning immigration and the fight against terrorism and drugs, and the Union's Mediterranean policy, particularly the Euro-Mediterranean process.
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I hope they have a pleasant stay and a very fruitful debate.
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Mr Chichester wishes to speak on a point of order.
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<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="Chichester">
Mr President, I wanted to thank you for allowing a gap between the debates this morning and the votes at 12 noon to allow Members to come in and take their seats.
I am sorry some colleagues have been so tardy in doing so but thank you anyway.
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<CHAPTER ID=7>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="President">
Mr Dell'Alba has the floor to make a clarification about when this would come into force.
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<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, I simply wish to confirm what I requested during the debate: that this regulation should come into force on 14 September, so as to give the subcommittees concerned time to adapt to these new regulations.
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(Parliament adopted the decision)
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<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Dührkop Dührkop">
Mr President, I would ask for a revision to be made of the translations in the different language versions, in particular the German version, where I have noted that certain translations could give rise to misunderstandings.
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Before the vote on paragraph 8
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<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, before you call a vote on compromise Amendment No 22, I would like to intervene regarding paragraph 8 in its entirety.
If adopted, this amendment will replace two amendments: Amendment No 11 by the Group of the European United Left and Amendment No 19 by the Europe of Nations Group.
Naturally, as this is a compromise amendment, it is put to the vote beforehand.
<P>
Well, our Amendment No 19, which referred to paragraph 8, sixth indent, had two objectives: one, to add the words 'more rigorous use' ; the other, to delete part of the text.
I wanted to say that I am quite prepared to remove the addition of our Amendment No 19, but could we vote separately on the words Amendment No 19 was aiming to delete, in other words, the sixth indent of paragraph 8A - ' the possible incorporation of the EDF into the community budget' ?
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That is my request.
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<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="President">
You are right, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, the compromise amendment does not exclude the amendments to which you have referred.
They will be voted on afterwards.
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(Parliament adopted the resolution)
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<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Samland">
Mr President, we have now taken a vote on this report.
I assume - gentlemen of the Council of Ministers please take note - that the fact that Parliament has just voted in favour of the motion does not mean that transfer of the reserve resources will happen automatically, but we expect that the assurances given by the Council presidency to this House will also be observed in implementing the resolution in the Council of Ministers.
Should that not be the case, the resources will remain in the reserve fund, to make it clear to those who must pass a resolution on this in the Council that this opinion is not just one for the wastepaper bin, but that it must be adopted into the directive as we have discussed it here.
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<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, what Mr Samland of the Committee on Budgets has just said was obvious to us, of course.
This view is shared unreservedly by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
I think the Council and its Presidency are aware that they now have to act to make funds available for Bosnia-Herzogovina.
The Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy fully supports what Mr Samland said.
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<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Schwaiger">
Mr President, yesterday when Mr Henderson responded to my requests to comment on the various points, I had the impression that he was willing to talk and will remain so over the coming weeks.
Further to this vote, however, I will interpret my duty as representative of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy and of Parliament to mean that I can have a discussion with Mr Henderson on the points to which he has not yet been able to agree, so that we can assert our view as far as possible.
Some major points concerning the Commission's capacity to act are still to be implemented.
We must push this through, in the interests not only of Parliament, but also of the European Union as a whole, so that our aid in Bosnia-Herzegovina can finally be effective and we can catch up with the Americans.
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<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Spencer">
Mr President, I do not want a debate but just so that we understand the relationship between what the Foreign Affairs Committee was recommending and what my colleague, the chairman of the Budgets Committee, has just said, can I just for the record confirm that I was impressed by what Mr Henderson said yesterday as President-in-Office of the Council in responding to our amendments from the seat of the Presidency.
I am convinced that there will be time now before a final decision is taken in Council for discussions to continue.
I do not wish to delay, and neither did the Foreign Affairs Committee at any moment wish to delay, the delivery of aid to Bosnia or indeed to delay this regulation.
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I think it is important, on the wider issue of our relationship with the Council on CFSP and other matters, that there be absolute consensus among the groups of this House which is why I did not press this matter, as you know we could have done, earlier.
I am content now to rest on the assurances we had from Mr Henderson and I am sure now this will actually lead to progress and I will sit down before you hit the hammer.
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<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Spencer, but your speech would have been more appropriate during the explanations of vote.
We will continue with the votes.
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<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Cabrol">
Mr President, I shall be voting against this amendment which refers to the 128 encoding system, for two reasons.
First of all, the author has been unable to explain to me what this system is, and I would like to say that when someone proposes an amendment with references such as this one, they should at least supply the documents to which it refers.
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My other reason for voting against this amendment is that I have finally been able to find out what it is about.
It is in fact a very expensive, primarily American bar code system to replace a very simple Eurocode system which will cost next to nothing.
There is therefore no doubt in my mind that this amendment should be rejected.
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After the vote on the text of Annex 2(8)
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<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bloch von Blottnitz">
Mr President, I am terribly sorry to have to point out that there were no voting machines working in this whole row of seats, which can be proved. And we would all have voted against the motion.
They did not work.
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<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="President">
I am very sorry.
This will be recorded in the Minutes and the officials will go and test it.
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<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, on this side too, there was a whole row, an entire block of voting machines which did not work. Could you repeat the vote please?
Because I have a feeling there was a more serious reason for them not working.
I have a feeling they were switched off.
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<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="President">
Mr Wijsenbeek, since you were once the chairman of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, you know that once the result of a vote has been given, it cannot be repeated.
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<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langen">
Mr President, please repeat the voting procedure.
The German interpretation gave your words as: ' Please raise your hand clearly' .
No-one here realized it was an electronic vote until it had finished, so the vote must be repeated.
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<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="President">
There may have been an error in the interpretation of what I said.
I think that was the case.
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(The President repeated the vote)
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<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="de Vries">
Mr President, I do not know why, but during these last few votes there was a clear divergence between the numbers you read out and the numbers listed on my group's voting list, which in fact correspond with the numbers some of the other groups have. That is why there is clearly some confusion over exactly what we are voting on.
Could you please call out the numbers, Mr President? Because I have votes here, for example, on Amendments Nos 21 and 25, and on a number of original sections of texts, but it is not completely clear what is covered.
I think this is an important subject, so I want to know exactly what we are voting on.
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<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="President">
Mr de Vries, we have just put the original text of Annex 2(8) to the vote.
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After the vote on Annex 3
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<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Falconer">
Mr President, I would like to inform you that I am present in the Chamber, I am voting and my machine is voting.
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<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Falconer.
That will be noted.
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(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
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<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Jackson">
Mr President, on a point of order.
Could you inform the House, before we start Mrs Lalumière's report, whether there are any appels nominaux in the course of the vote?
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<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="President">
I believe there is no roll-call vote, Mrs Jackson.
I will announce it as the texts are put to the vote.
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<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Falconer">
Mr President, does not the advice you just issued to Mrs Jackson defeat the object of the exercise?
If we know there are no roll-call votes we can all go out now and have lunch!
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<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="President">
Mr Falconer, I am sure the Members of this House do not need to be told in advance whether or not there are any roll-call votes in order to fulfil their duty.
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Before the vote on Amendment No 5
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<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lenz">
Mr President, as the objectives of the amendments tabled by the Group of the European People's Party and the Group of the Party of European Socialists accommodate each other very well, we also agree with the amendment of the Socialist Group if they agree to insert the word 'democratic' before the word 'Russia' .
The sentence would then read: ' considers that the European Union must develop special links with a democratic Russia...' .
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(Parliament approved the oral amendment)
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(Parliament adopted the resolution)
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<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schleicher">
Mr President, the air in here is not just very warm, but stifling. It is affecting our concentration.
May I ask to have it checked so that the air in this Chamber is better at 3.00 p.m.
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<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="President">
I will pass this on to the House's services so that they can confirm your request and look into the matter.
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<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Berthu">
The European Parliament report on the guidelines for the forthcoming 1999 budget is written in diplomatic language and is at pains to mask the two major contradictions which need to be addressed, that of the Structural Funds and that of the single currency, not to mention the question of enlargement which will come later.
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On the subject of Structural Funds, the application of the 1993-1999 financial forecasts, approved by the 1992 Edinburgh Summit, would, given the late payments, give the 1999 budget a figure of 1.325 % of Community GNP in credit commitments and 1.235 % in payment credits, in other words considerably above the ceiling of 1.10 % allocated in January during the orientation debate (which in turn was lower than the maximum of 1.27 % allocated in Edinburgh).
This progression raises the question of Structural Fund inflation and the fund's usefulness, which has already been highlighted by my group in a recent study entitled 'Welfare Europe or Europe of the Nations' .
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It also raises the question of the legal nature of the interinstitutional agreements such as Edinburgh which claim to definitively link Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
It is quite clear that these agreements do not have the status of a Treaty and that the Council in particular still has the right to change its mind when circumstances dictate.
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The second problem concerns the implementation of the single currency.
We can predict with certainty that this will lead to an increase in Community spending on inter-regional rebalancing.
This guideline will go against Member States' wishes to continue to reduce their public deficits in the years to come (as the figure of 3 % is a ceiling, not an ideal level), and in a wider sense to keep Community expenditure within reasonable limits.
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Will this upwards pressure on expenditure be felt in the next year if the euro comes into effect on 1 January 1999?
The resolution of the European Parliament suggests that this will come to nothing, and that is perhaps true since the full effects of the new system will not be felt immediately.
However, Parliament is prudently arranging an escape route by stating that the Union's budget must always conform to the terms of article F3 of the Treaty of European Union, according to which: ' the Union shall equip itself with the necessary means to achieve its objectives and carry out its policies effectively' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="des Places">
The Commission has set out the guidelines for the pre-draft of the budget by highlighting the need to adopt a strict budget in order to alleviate the tasks expected of Member States preparing for EMU.
The budget is intended to increase by 3 % whilst monetary depreciation in the Member States stands at 1.8 % on average.
In real terms, the increase in the budget should therefore be of the order of 1.2 %.
<P>
However, when the principal budget items are analyzed, the wide range of the changes becomes clear: namely +8 % for the Structural Funds, +3 % for the programmes aimed at the central and eastern European and Mediterranean countries, +3 % for internal policies and 0 % for the agricultural budget.
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We can therefore deduce that the agricultural budget is considered by the Commission to be a secondary item, despite the fact that in 1997, farmers' incomes dropped by roughly 3 % and agricultural expenditure was significantly lower than provided for in the agricultural section of the guidelines.
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Our group is asking for an increase in agricultural spending in 1999 of an amount equivalent to that put forward in the pre-draft of the budget and in the draft of the 1998 budget.
It is important to reiterate that the final 1998 budget was reduced by ECU 550 million.
<P>
To this end, our group has submitted six amendments to the conclusions of Mrs Dührkop Dührkop's report.
In fact it needs repeating that it is essential to continue to subsidize incomes according to the measures set out in the 1992 CAP reforms, or else the credibility of the CAP - the aim of which is to guarantee a viable rural environment - would be jeopardized.
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An examination of the agricultural proposals of the Santer Package, presented to us on 18 March last, raises a great many questions about the future of the CAP.
If the principle of income subsidies is flouted in the draft 1999 budget, our fears will be fully justified.
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Given the state of mind of the Commission and the European Parliament, we wanted to reiterate in another amendment the compulsory nature of agricultural spending in terms both of the level of pricing and of income subsidies.
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Finally, as rapporteur for the 1998-1999 agricultural prices, I have been able to carry out a detailed analysis of the Commission's proposals.
As Commissioner Fischler said, the package price remains stable virtually in its entirety.
In reality, as I have already told my colleagues in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, agricultural prices and subsidies will see a twofold drop: firstly due to the 1.8 % monetary depreciation in relation to the previous year and secondly, as of 1 January 1999, a drop of approximately 3 % for those Member States participating in the euro, due to the withdrawal of the green ECU.
There is no trace of any compensation for the loss of income associated with the green ECU in the budget pre-draft.
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The farmers are therefore going to get the impression that they alone are financing the implementation of the euro, both through the resultant budgetary constraints and through the withdrawal of the green ECU.
This situation cannot be tolerated!
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<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Le Gallou">
The 1999 budget will be the last European Union budget before the Council of Ministers adopts the new 2000-2006 financial perspectives and the euro becomes a reality.
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Mrs Dührkop Dührkop has found herself on the horns of a difficult dilemma, namely how to maintain the strict budgetary controls adopted by the Member States whilst incorporating into the European budget the financial consequences of the third stage of economic and monetary union, the Treaty of Amsterdam, Agenda 2000, and the pre-accession of the central and eastern European countries.
There is no response to this question in the report.
<P>
On the contrary, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop attempts to reconcile conflicting interests without identifying actual priorities and satisfying the various parties and lobbies who enjoy the Community manna.
With the exception of agriculture, which is strictly ring-fenced, there seem to be no strict budgetary controls.
Paradoxically, with the ECU 150 million adopted at the Luxembourg Summit, employment looks like the poor relation in the European budget.
In truth, only simple cosmetic measures have been taken.
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This budgetary conformism accurately sums up the budgetary guidelines of the European Parliament for 1999.
It does not break with its bad traditions, which we have challenged on numerous occasions, namely: clientelism, fraud, wastage, politicization and United Nations embezzlement.
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Cabrol report (A4-0112/98)
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Ahlqvist, Andersson, Hulthén and Theorin">
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Caudron">
I always pay attention to the work our colleague Mr Cabrol does in this House because he contributes valuable and extremely precise professional help, together with a tremendous sense of responsibility in the area of public health.
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I also believe that the amendments proposed by the rapporteur point towards increased safety for both donors and recipients.
In that sense, they can restore confidence to both parties, which is something that is much needed.
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However, we must not forget the problems associated with a lack of blood and derived products within the European Union.
The quality and safety criteria are happily taken into account by the Commission. These measures will be instrumental in wiping out the stigmas caused by the contaminated blood crisis and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in France and in Europe.
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Although we might consider that there is now virtually no risk as regards AIDS, it is vital that we take all known measures to eradicate all risks of transmitting the BSE agent.
Mr Cabrol's amendments meet this safety requirement.
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As regards imported blood, we must, at all costs, avoid repeating past errors so that the recipients of blood transfusions can once again have complete confidence in the procedure.
There is a heightened duty of transparency and vigilance.
<P>
Finally, I would like to insist upon blood and plasma donations remaining free.
That is the only way to avoid corruption.
This point needed repeating, and that has been done in the report.
There are many of us who fight for this - whether blood donors like myself or not - and who support these proposals.
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<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Ephremidis">
Timely and reliable clinical and laboratory control is a necessary precondition for the collection and provision of blood.
In this connection, the proposals contained in the Cabrol report are especially significant and are a positive step aimed to guarantee the monitoring which must be carried out both on the donors and on the storing and availability of blood supplies and blood products.
<P>
We consider that, to avoid a repetition of the defective monitoring procedures that are becoming ever more widespread in the EU, resulting in the spread of serious diseases that have justifiably given rise to social unease, responsibility for the collection and provision of blood and blood products must be assumed exclusively by public organizations which have the necessary experience and infrastructure. At the same time we must ensure that this vital treatment, which offers substantial help to those suffering from serious chronic conditions or diseases which require the immediate intervention of the medical services, does not become a means for unaccountable large multinational corporations to indulge in profiteering.
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Moreover, the products of blood donation, which must be voluntary and not undertaken in return for payment, must be made available free of charge for those in need.
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The coincidental problem of the long-term lack of blood at national level calls for common regulations to be implemented by national bodies, with a permanent system of continuous intercommunication on the system of blood donation, existing supplies, and methods for storing and transporting these supplies. This will ensure the timely and safe use of these reserves throughout Europe.
<P>
We cannot legislate for morals.
However, it behoves us to guarantee all those preconditions that will ward off anything that is opposed to individual and social rights to health and life.
Raising the awareness of the general public, ensuring the highest level of scientific research, and monitoring national and scientific bodies to prevent the production of products which will threaten an individual's health, are necessary safeguards against the criminal phenomena of distributing contaminated blood and blood products.
<P>
We accept the need for checks on the blood that is collected, and we demand regular analysis and monitoring of data on the indicators of viral diseases in an attempt to prevent the danger of them spreading.
However, we must denounce attempts to create a new apartheid with the proposals that have been made regarding the exclusion of donors who have travelled to Africa.
Moreover, we must express our deepest concern about attempts to introduce, under the guise of health protection measures, the unacceptable measures provided for in the Schengen Agreement concerning the invasion of an individual's private life through the setting up of questionnaires relating to their sexual behaviour and sexual relations. These measures do not avert any danger whatsoever - they are merely being used as a pretext to make the violation of the private life and dignity of the individual both socially acceptable and commonplace.
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<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Grossetête">
I would like to thank and congratulate Professor Cabrol on his report on the Council's recommendation concerning the admissibility of blood and plasma donors and the tests carried out on blood donor samples in the European Union.
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I would like to make a point of restating that both on ethical grounds and in order to guarantee the safety of blood products, blood donors and blood users, it is absolutely vital that donations remain free and are done on a voluntary basis.
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This text should pave the way for achieving the highest level of safety.
The donor exclusion criteria which should prevail throughout Community territory, as set out in Annex 5 - with the exception of the criteria excluding homosexual men which seemed to me to be wholly discriminatory - will help to provide this level of safety, which each citizen has a right to expect.
<P>
Furthermore, the setting up of a single donor registration and identification system common to all the Member States certainly constitutes a step forward.
It will be much quicker to consult the resultant centralized database and this will provide an added product safety measure.
Needless to say, this data must remain strictly confidential, and one of the main guarantees of this is the donor identification encoding system which is unique and common to all the States.
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<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Hory">
It might seem astonishing that a Member should vote against a report whose goals he shares.
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Of course, everybody is in favour of improving the safety of transfusions and therefore of surrounding blood donations with precautions aimed at protecting the health of the recipients.
But the guarantee so given must be on technical grounds and must not disguise political, moral or religious beliefs.
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It therefore seems to me that the Council's recommendation - barely improved by the proposals of our committee and its rapporteur - distances itself from concerns for public health to give a normative legal value to highly discriminatory prejudices.
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In the first place, building a database of people excluded from giving blood is contrary to the principal of confidentiality which must go hand in hand with the detection and treatment of certain illnesses, particularly AIDS.
Even if it were possible to guarantee the confidentiality of the database, it would still supply personal information about these illnesses to persons other than the sufferers and the doctors treating them, which is in contradiction to the rules adopted in most countries of the Union.
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Above all, section 5 of the explanatory statement, recitals 21 and 25, and paragraph 5 of the recommendation of Annex 2 of this text are completely unacceptable when taken together.
It emerges that from the Council's point of view, the following are excluded from giving blood and should possibly be filed as such: homosexual men; persons who have had sexual relations in Africa; and persons who have been sexually active in another country - to be specified - other than Africa.
In addition, journeys outside Western Europe and North America should also be declared.
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What emerges from these proposals is that for the pseudo-scientists who drew up this text, the threat posed by a person cannot be attributed to risky behaviour - which is something that everybody could understand and accept - but to their sexual orientation, the place where they live and their race.
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The European Parliament would be doing itself a service by refusing such proposals a great deal more energetically than has the rapporteur.
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We have already seen through other recent reports that the road to hell is often paved with good intentions.
Our very legitimate compassion for the victims of transfusion accidents must not be allowed to eclipse the principles of non-discrimination upon which the European Union is founded, nor should it be allowed to encroach in even the slightest way on essential civil liberties.
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<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats have voted in favour of Mr Cabrol's report.
The report, which is a recommendation to Member States, underpins the Danish desire for voluntary and unpaid blood donations.
Article 129 of the Amsterdam Treaty introduces a high level of health protection in Community policy, including measures aimed at setting high standards with regard to quality and safety of organs and substances of human origin, blood and plasma.
This is to prevent blood and plasma from becoming common commodities.
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<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Lienemann">
The Cabrol report of course addresses a major problem, namely that of the safety of the supply of blood donations in Europe.
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Nevertheless, I believe it is legitimate to question the effectiveness of the principle of creating a donor exclusion database and related European files.
But above all, in spite of the references to confidentiality, the very principle of building such a database poses serious problems with regard to the protection of civil liberties and the individual, as do the exclusion criteria which in places have discriminatory aspects - homosexuals, prostitutes, and so on.
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Although the existence of a blood donor exclusion register in each transfusion centre might be acceptable, extending it to cover all the countries of Europe is a very risky undertaking.
<P>
That is why I believe the Council should review its position.
I have therefore voted against this report.
<P>
Lindqvist (ELDR), Eriksson, Seppänen and Sjöstedt (GUE/NGL), Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling (V), Krarup and Sandbaek (I-EDN), in writing.
(SV) We the undersigned Members have voted against Mr Cabrol's report on the Council's recommendation on the suitability of blood and plasma donors and the screening of donated blood within the European Community.
We have done so for a number of reasons.
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Firstly, we believe it is totally superfluous to introduce a central register, and hence central registration, of donated blood and donors.
In any case, the volume and type of data which would have to be registered is overwhelming.
We believe it would be much better to transmit the information directly from country to country if it is needed.
<P>
Secondly, the report and the Council's approach violates personal integrity.
We see absolutely no reason why a donor should give information about any sexual activity in Africa, let alone who he or she may have had relations with and when.
<P>
Thirdly, we would very much like to see the Council of Europe, which has been dealing with this area for years, continue to do so.
We cannot see any reason why the EU should deal with this area as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Verwaerde">
I would like to congratulate our colleague, Professor Cabrol, on his report on the Council's recommendation concerning the admissibility of blood and plasma donors and on the screening methods used for blood donations in the European Community.
<P>
This recommendation is aimed at providing a high level of safety, and for this reason donations must be both voluntary and free.
Donors must also answer a series of questions which are listed in Annex 2, and must meet certain criteria which are listed in Annex 5 and which, of course, should not be discriminatory.
<P>
A single, common system for the whole Community territory for the purpose of identifying and registering donors and related data would provide much quicker access and consultation.
The confidentiality of such information would, furthermore, be guaranteed by an identification encoding system.
<P>
Lalumière report (A4-0060/98)
<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I abstained from the voting on the Lalumière report, although it is really excellent.
However, some amendments have diluted the report somewhat.
The report does justice to the task, accurately describing Russia as one of the European Union's major partners and specifying a clear strategy for the European Union's cooperation with Russia.
However, I regret that talking about the question of Russia's membership or non-membership of the European Union gave the impression that this was under discussion.
It was not, and is not, under discussion.
If that is made clear, I think we may be content with the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Mr President, I voted in favour of Mrs Lalumière's report.
It is an extremely important one.
However, I would like to point out that some of its content does not entirely reflect my own views on foreign and security policy, especially in connection with EU/WEU/NATO- Russian cooperation.
But I think it is essential that the EU should give its support in any way it can to developing relations and cooperation between NATO and Russia.
That is why this report is an important one. I voted for it, although I cannot completely agree the solutions which were approved in the part-session.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Ahlqvist, Andersson, Hulthén, Waidelich and Wibe">
Paragraph 54 of the proposed report states that the EU will develop close links with Russia through the partnership and cooperation agreement, but also emphasizes that Russia cannot be a Member State in view of its size and its Euro-Asian interests, and in view of the EU's highly integrated nature.
<P>
For the European Parliament to pronounce on Russia possibly eventually joining the EU is totally inappropriate, not least because Russia has not actually applied to join.
<P>
Rather, it must be in the EU's interest to establish close links with Russia which could be developed into close cooperation to strengthen and guarantee international peace and security.
<P>
It would be totally inappropriate to adopt paragraph 54.
If such arguments were adopted in the case of Russia, they could also be put forward if Belarus and the Ukraine applied to join in the future.
<P>
Paragraph 46 emphasizes that it has only been possible to develop security links with Russia since it was decided to integrate the Western European Union with the EU.
But we have to remember that, to the Russian establishment as a whole, the extension of NATO means an increased threat to Russia's security.
The European Union therefore has a very important task: to help reduce the unease which the extension of NATO means to Russia, rather than increasing it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Caudron">
This report, on a subject which is acknowledged to be difficult, and presented by our colleague Catherine Lalumière, is important for several reasons and great care has gone into producing it.
This is no less that we would have expected from its author, whom I would like to congratulate most warmly.
<P>
Although everybody can rejoice at the economic and democratic transition which is forging steadily on, real questions and worries remain.
<P>
I believe it is vital to enter into real collaboration against organized crime since this appears as an ever growing threat not only in Russia, but in the whole of Europe.
Needless to say, this collaboration will not be possible without the participation of Russia, by means of a frontal assault on the corruption which is endemic to the country.
<P>
This effort will also provide a solid basis for lasting and healthy economic relations between the European Union and Russia.
There can be no true area of free exchange without this pre-condition.
We must be able to say this to our Russian counterparts.
But are they capable of listening?
<P>
With the dismantling of the USSR and its satellites came the hope of a peaceful and stable Europe.
However, the reality is far from this.
Of course, we might legitimately think that the risk of a major conflict has gone, but Yugoslavia and Kosovo are there to remind us that low intensity conflicts can still arise which could lead to major crises.
<P>
Finally, whilst reiterating my support for this text, I would also like to emphasize that I share Mrs Lalumière's position on not inviting Russia to join the European Union.
It seems to me that this is a position which none of the parties want.
It would be far better for another democratic body to be organized in the East around Russia, which could negotiate economic, cultural and political agreements with the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Ephremidis">
Relations between Member States of the European Union and Russia can only be based on equality and mutual benefit.
Institutions expressing the interests of large multinational corporations are making concerted efforts to make the people of Russia serve their illegal interests. Unfortunately the European Union, in complying with the dictates pronounced by NATO, is also attempting to form in Russia a developmental model which is consistent with its own interests, while remaining indifferent not only to the repercussions this will have on the Russian people but also to the dangers of destabilization and conflagration in the region.
<P>
Following the overthrow of the USSR and the promotion and support, direct or indirect, of the so-called Russian Mafia, which controls a large section of the economic and therefore the social life of the country, plans are being pushed through to strengthen the process of democratization, which aims to completely marginalize the Russian people and to subject them to the geopolitical dictates of NATO and the USA. The enlargements of NATO and of the European Union aim to create a new border, which will bring NATO forces and interests into direct contact with Russia.
It is to be noted that European Union strategy with regard to Russia promotes reform of the latter's political structure, by means of funding programmes, and especially by means of the TACIS programme, to the point where the need for the emergence of a middle class to support political power is underlined.
<P>
In the context of the new carving up of the markets, there is an attempt by large monopolistic interests in the European Union to secure the Russian market for their own economic and geopolitical interests, thereby intensifying the exploitation of working people.
<P>
We support proposals which are aimed at direct contact and dialogue between analogous bodies and institutions in Russia, the European Union and its Member States, whose aim will be to look for opportunities and to fashion agreements for the development of cooperation on all sides. Such cooperation will fulfil the need to create an area of peace and prosperity in Europe and to avoid friction and conflict between the various parties.
We are radically opposed, however, to the substance given today by the European Union to the promotion of a dialogue, the sole aim of which is to overcome the resistance of this country to accepting the leading role of the USA, closely followed by the European Union, in Europe and throughout the world.
<P>
It is crucial for the European Union radically to change its position, to reexamine the objectives it has set itself and the methods it uses, and to accept the significant role that Russia is being called upon to play in developments both in Europe and further afield. The European Union must recognize the fact that only through equal relations based on mutual benefit will peace and stability be guaranteed in the region, and it must allow Russia to heal the wounds caused by the overthrow of the USSR in the way it chooses.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Lindqvist">
Russia is an unstable country in terms of democracy.
What we have to prevent at all costs is the construction of an EU and European partnership which Russia perceives as a threat.
This can be done by integrating Russia in European cooperation as far as possible.
This includes NATO, which the report does not cover.
<P>
To keep on building the EU up towards a kind of EU state is the worst possible way of establishing good relations with Russia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Souchet">
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has voted in favour of Mrs Lalumière's own-initiative report on the future of our relations with Russia.
<P>
The general tone of the text is correct when it highlights the fact that the current weakening of Russia represents a transition in its history, and that the equilibrium of the European continent will largely be determined in the coming years by the role Russia plays.
Our own development is also linked to that of Russia: we need only think of the vast untapped energy reserves and natural resources in Siberia, which Russia must exploit with our active help.
<P>
The priority given by the rapporteur to consolidating Russian society is completely pertinent.
Let us not confuse the Russia of today with an emerging country whose financial difficulties can be alleviated with traditional financial aid.
First of all, the new democratic Russia needs us to take into consideration the huge efforts it must make to overcome the legacy of 80 years of communism.
We must help Russia overcome the traumas left behind by 80 years of a planned economy and abnegation of political and social life by single party rule, the outcome of which is the absence of an elite trained in anything other than nomenklatura , the absence of a middle-class, and the absence of a long period of maturation of a civil society.
Gaps like these cannot be made up in one day!
They must start from scratch: after a very long and painful hiatus, Russia must get back to the dynamism and poise it enjoyed at the beginning of the century, which the revolution of 1917 stopped dead in its tracks.
<P>
The Lalumière report has the merit of deliberately placing itself outside the two stereotypical visions of today's Russia, namely the anecdotal and catastrophic view disseminated all too frequently by our media and the menacing view maintained by those who have not yet understood the magnitude of the transformations which have already taken place and who want to think of Yeltsin's Russia as simply a continuation of Brezhnev's USSR.
<P>
However, those who knew Brezhnev's USSR and witnessed the first Russian democratic presidential elections are in a position to measure the chasm separating the two eras.
The Russian people fairly and squarely turned the page and rejected the Communist regime in free and open elections.
<P>
It is with this Russia, which has emerged from the Soviet Union which had engulfed and disfigured it, that we must increase our ties.
We must renew the old links and develop new relationships at all levels, the main one being, of course, intergovernmental relations, a point on which the rapporteur remains much too discrete.
It is actually up to the heads of state and government and those who want to see an active Russian policy to break free from the attitude of distant observation which has been all too prevalent up till now, to draw up guidelines for intensive cooperation with ambitious and bold objectives, and to resolutely back the Russian reformers.
We should congratulate ourselves on the confident atmosphere surrounding the recent tripartite summit between the Presidents of France and Russia and the German Chancellor.
The Community cooperation programmes can make a useful contribution towards the development of a vast partnership in all domains.
True, as set out in paragraph 31, strict controls over the funds allocated to Russia must be observed, but the rapporteur could have insisted in a symmetrical article on the need for the Commission to exercise equally strict controls over its own services operating on Russian soil, which have not always given the impression of integrity and professionalism which we would all like to promote.
<P>
Whatever happens, the Member States of the European Union must guard against their actions being driven by the politics of the bloc which the Russians themselves rejected, which would carry the risk of very quickly erecting a new and completely artificial wall on the continent of Europe.
<P>
Certainly, security - our security - now involves cooperation with Russia.
In this respect, it is particularly regrettable that the majority of the European members of NATO allowed Washington to impose an enlargement of the organization upon them, an act guaranteed to further raise the suspicions of the Russian leaders and mar Russian opinion rather than inspire confidence.
It is high time Europeans overcame their reluctance, their mistrust, their stubborn prejudices and the inertia generated by years of the Cold War and fundamentally changed their approach to defence and the way it should be organized by closely linking it with Russia.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 13.34 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Topical and urgent debate
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>
B4-0391/98 by Mr Bertens and Mr Eisma, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, on the forest fires in Brazil; -B4-0396/98 by Mr Dell'Alba and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the forest fires devastating the north of Brazil; -B4-0404/98 by Mr Azzolini and others, on behalf of the Group Union for Europe, on tropical forest fires in South America and South-East Asia; -B4-0405/98 by Mr González Álvarez and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the forest fires in Brazil; -B4-0410/98 by Mrs van Putten and Mr Newens, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the forest fires in Latin America and South-East Asia; -B4-0415/98 by Mr Habsburg-Lothringen and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the serious problems caused by the weather phenomenon El Niño in particular in Peru and Ecuador; -B4-0418/98 by Mr Telkämper and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the new forest fires in South-East Asia; -B4-0421/98 by Mrs Aelvoet and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the forest fires in Brazil.

<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, in Latin America, Brazil and Asia the world's lungs are on fire.
Kalimantan and Brazil have been ravaged by massive fires for weeks.
The Brazilian Government is refusing help - let us not beat around the bush - and in doing so appears to be supporting the large landowners.
It is a disgrace that short-term economic gain is pursued this way, at the expense of the most beautiful and most vital parts of the natural world.
Europe should not stand idly by.
It is in our interest that these fires should be extinguished as soon as possible.
<P>
We should put pressure on the countries concerned to accept all international support, and the European Union should give technical aid alongside the United Nations towards actually extinguishing the fires.
Existing European Union budget lines are not being effectively utilized, or at least not sufficiently.
Obviously, structural measures must also be taken to prevent a repeat of these disasters.
Countries in South-East Asia and Latin America must implement effective legislation and take different measures to combat the slash-and-burn methods, or manage them better.
<P>
The Commission should also move more quickly in drawing up guidelines for importing tropical hardwood into the Union.
More support must be given to the sustainable management of crops, whilst the Mega-Rice project should be examined critically, at the very least.
We must prevent erosion and further deforestation.
The Union could take the initiative and organize an international conference on the issue.
I hope Parliament will support my amendment on this shortly.
<P>
Lastly, Mr President, El Niño is blamed for everything.
Let those countries remember that El Niño will have grown up before too long, and that the situation will only get worse.
For the moment, they can still control this child.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Girão Pereira">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Commissioner, I would like to put a preliminary question in this debate on disasters.
The European Parliament has considered this phenomenon, this problem of disasters, with remarkable regularity every month. We take decisions, but most of the time we have no idea how those decisions are followed up.
What I mean is those decisions do not get any further than being mere declarations of intent or solidarity, because any possibility for financial support to mitigate the effects of disasters has been withdrawn from the Budget.
<P>
That is why, following up a suggestion we put forward here three or four months ago, we think the Commission should implement a Community strategy defining not only the kind of actions to take but also how they should be followed up, with regular constant monitoring of results.
<P>
In this case we are not dealing with a disaster on European territory, but one in a particularly sensitive and important area, namely Amazonia, the very lung of the world.
And the news from Amazonia is worrying.
According to a note I received today from the Brazilian Embassy, the most recent reports indicate that there are twenty fires burning along a line stretching nearly 400 kilometres. Satellite photographs also show fires of similar intensity in Guyana, and of greater intensity in Venezuela.
The note also emphasizes that there are nearly a thousand firemen in the area, particularly from the Argentine Fire Brigade, awaiting the arrival of a further 500 men and specialists from the United Nations.
<P>
What happens in Amazonia or the great tropical forests - whether in Indonesia or Africa - is obviously of world-wide concern.
This, therefore, is a problem of international concern and responsibility, which requires an international combination of efforts, assistance and solidarity.
I do not think it is enough to accuse those countries of inertia or negligence.
In our opinion, so far as Amazonia is concerned, there should be an international treaty or agreement involving all the countries of the Amazon, under the auspices of the United Nations, clearly defining a policy of protection and sustained development for the whole of that area.
<P>
The international community should contribute to the technical effort in terms of human and financial resources.
In our opinion, the European Union also has an important role to play here.
We support the proposal put forward in the joint motion for a resolution on the G8 meeting.
We think that would be an forum of sufficient importance, with the necessary powers to hammer out a solution to this problem.
Finally, I should like to ask when there will be a clear common EU policy on forests.
We do not think the present policy is bold or supportive enough, particularly as regards the reforestation of the southern regions, which are threatened with increasing desertification.
We should not leave the protection of forests to others.
It is also in the interests of the world that we Europeans should look after our own.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="van Putten">
<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Weber">
Mr President, there is no doubt that the tropical forest fires in Indonesia were started by criminals and that the Indonesian Government is certainly implicated.
We are familiar with the system of concessions.
There is always a promoter on hand to slip a bulging envelope to a member of the government or a member of their family, then, once the tropical wood has been exploited, the land is turned into plantations.
<P>
I think that the NGOs' appeals for a boycott of tropical wood are completely justified, and now more so than ever.
We must find a system which guarantees transparency for consumers, particularly by supporting certification systems such as the Forests Stewardship Council system.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, first of all I would like to state that I am very pleased that this resolution means we are examining the forest fires in Brazil and Indonesia.
However, our urgency gives rise to a dual approach to a certain extent, because we are combining two elements here: the 'self-induced' if you like, or environmental disasters and forest fires caused by man; and the El Niño phenomenon, which has had a far more widespread effect than the forest fires.
Both must be dealt with, both are necessary, and I would say that these are two disasters which complement each other, but are not necessary connected.
<P>
We are currently talking about Brazil and Indonesia.
When we add El Niño to this, it will be many more countries tomorrow, and perhaps even ourselves the day after that.
I received some information from the Peruvian Embassy this morning about the damage caused in that country so far by El Niño.
The number of dead is currently around 300, with 70 000 homeless, 15 000 homes destroyed, 120 bridges broken, the main hydroelectric plant at Machu Pichu completely wrecked by landslides, and about US$ 1.2 billion's worth of damage.
That is about 3.5 % of the country's gross domestic product.
<P>
If we consider the scale of the destruction - which affects not only Peru but also Ecuador, and could just as easily affect Brazil or Indonesia - it is very clear to me that far greater international solidarity is required of us. We must discuss in more detail firstly how we can exert influence to mitigate the effects of the El Niño phenomenon as much as possible, and secondly how we can cope with these disasters and also exert a certain amount of pressure on the appropriate governments.
<P>
I would like to state in this respect that it is very regrettable that the plenary session of the Earth Summit in New York in 1997 rejected the international Global Forest Convention, which was tabled by the European Union, amongst others.
As we are talking about forest fires so much, I would like to take this opportunity to ask the Commission and those responsible to table this Convention again at the next possible opportunity, because it is urgently required at international level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, on 15 January about 40 000 indigenous people and small peasants lost their villages, provisions and fields.
So far, a quarter of the Brazilian state of Roraima has been destroyed by forest fires.
This is as much as Belgium and the Netherlands put together.
<P>
The Brazilian Government, however, has been more than reluctant to help, and even more reluctant to ask for international aid.
The first time it asked for this was only two weeks ago and, by that time, the international press had already pushed the alarm bells and the President finally had to admit that there was a catastrophe in the region.
It is not just a catastrophe, it is also a man-made tragedy.
<P>
The Government does nothing to stop the fires because there are big-money interests involved.
Brazil has given large concessions to international mining companies but, as the area is rich in mineral resources, the Indian reservations have always been an obstacle to the mining companies' interests.
As far as they are concerned, the full destruction of the area is welcome because it is the easiest way of getting rid of the indigenous problem.
According to scientists, it will take about a hundred years or more before the people there will have forests and a normal, natural life again.
That is to say that for about a hundred years there will be no Indians to annoy the mining interests.
The Indians have the right to use the land but do not have the right to what is underneath it.
In other words, they will not get a penny from the mining.
What is more, not even the Brazilian people will profit from the mining resources which will be sent out of the country to the industrialized countries.
<P>
I really think it is very tokenistic to ask for some aid programmes for the area.
We really need to ask whether the economic model of plundering natural resources, without any regard for the people or the ecology, is acceptable.
What is going on here is neoliberalism, which is very similar to neocolonialism, and it is being done with the help of the Brazilian Government.
If this is the outcome of our international trade agreements, I really think we have to start changing this situation and changing it quickly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Newens">
Mr President, destructive fires on a vast scale in both South America and South-East Asia have caused unprecedented damage to the world's rainforests over the last year.
<P>
In the state of Roraima in Brazil, reports indicate that 700 000 hectares of pasture and forest were destroyed in three months and, up to very recently, a line of fire stretched for some 400 kilometres.
Mercifully, heavy rain has now come to the aid of the firefighters from Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela who have been seeking to stop the advance of this disastrous conflagration, and many of the fires have been put out.
It is vital, however, that a new strategy be adopted if the rainforests are to survive.
<P>
Amazonia is the home of an incredibly rich variety of plant life, terrestrial species and several hundred AmerIndian cultures.
Rainforests everywhere also have enormous importance for environmental and climatic conditions throughout the world.
It is deeply worrying that greater resources were not made available at an earlier stage to fight the fires.
<P>
Preparations need to be made for a much more effective and earlier response in future.
The European Union, its Member States and the United Nations should participate.
Perhaps the matter can be given priority at the so-called G8 meeting in May, taking place in Birmingham in the United Kingdom.
<P>
The El Niño phenomenon made a large contribution, but the fires were largely caused by slash-and-burn methods of agriculture, and then got out of control.
What occurred this year could be a forerunner of still worse fires in the future.
It is vital that preventive steps be taken beforehand.
Land reform to provide the landless with alternatives to clearing the forests, effective legislation and provision of guidance to prevent reckless burning are desperately required.
As in South-East Asia, logging should be stopped.
<P>
Destruction of the forests should be brought to a halt.
In 1995, apart from fires, 29 000 square kilometres of forest were cleared - an all-time high.
Although the Brazilian Government restricted clearing to 20 % of any holding, holdings of less than 250 hectares were exempted.
While we respect the sovereign rights of the people of developing countries, protection of the rainforest and the prevention of fires is in their interests even more than those of the world as a whole.
<P>
International assistance has been provided through the World Bank, but the experiences of the last year in South-East Asia and South America underline the need for a new strategy to be adopted now.
I very much hope that the Commission will be prepared to tell us something about the input it is prepared to make in the process of working out and implementing such a new strategy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, the environmental tragedies that have affected Brazil and South-East Asia are further proof, if that were necessary, that market forces should not and cannot be the only guidelines followed by the national and international communities.
Many natural and other disasters in recent years, and many of the unsustainable situations with regard to environmental pollution suffered by capitals worldwide, are the result of a lack of self-control of the imaginary market rules.
<P>
The market, for example, requires an ever greater number of cars to be produced and sold, but the same market does not care that our European cities are already full of cars, that our children no longer have any space to play in, that the air is unbreathable and the historic centres are sustaining irreparable damage to their cultural wealth.
<P>
All this affirms that it is not market forces but politics - and, therefore, the primary interests of the people and communities - that should direct or guide our ways of life.
<P>
We now come to the point we are dealing with: the fires and destruction of the tropical forests in Amazonia and South-East Asia.
There is no doubt that these devastating fires are the result of commercial greed and a blinkered outlook on life.
You need to be blind and insensitive not to see the disastrous consequences for everyone, and for the speculators themselves, resulting from these natural disasters: hectares and hectares of forest going up in smoke coincide with the overheating of the earth's atmosphere, with the creation of phenomena such as the greenhouse effect and El Niño causing flooding, hurricanes and extraordinary climatic changes worldwide.
<P>
Politics are therefore not dying, and should not die.
Nation states or supranational communities, such as the European Union in part, should do everything possible. They should reach agreements and find the appropriate means of pressure so that these states or speculators with no interest in health or the future of the earth's atmosphere are made to see reason, within the scope of the international community.
<P>
If the Black Sea is one of the most polluting seas in the world and this sea flows into the Mediterranean, the coastal countries cannot fail to intervene to end this lethal pollution.
The same applies to the fires in the Asian tropical and subtropical forests.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, I will use this additional time you have granted me to welcome Commissioner Pinheiro and to welcome the decision of the Commission which, in Solomonic fashion, as we are dealing with Asia and Latin America, thought of asking the Commissioner responsible for Africa to reply.
<P>
We are certainly very concerned, and we are pleased that it has been possible to include this subject as an absolute priority among the urgent matters to be dealt with at this sitting.
We are very aware that, beyond El Niño, human responsibility is very high, both in the Asian continent and with regard to the Brazilian authorities, which are still delaying the arrival of the United Nations mission that should have become operational several days ago.
I have to say, however, that we are very concerned, Commissioner Pinheiro, about the state of use of the EU budget line for tropical forests, which was keenly desired by our Parliament, a line which, as you know, in the same way as many lines relating to foreign actions, has sustained considerable delays of execution.
We are asking for one more effort to be made, with this resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="Pinheiro">
Mr President, the European Commission is very closely following the latest developments in South-East Asia, and in particular in Indonesia, ever since the outbreak of large-scale forest fires in 1997.
While rains have occurred in Sumatra and Java, the rest of the country is dry and may continue to be dry until May 1998.
The recurrence of fire hotspots was detected on 19 January with prevailing fires occurring mostly in the northern areas of East Kalimantan where rain has not fallen since December 1997.
<P>
As you are aware, the Commission in the short term has no other means of responding than with humanitarian assistance.
I am pleased to say that my colleague, Emma Bonino, through ECHO has allocated more than ECU 1.5 million to alleviate the acute needs of food and health care in Indonesia, in particular in the regions most severely affected by the fires and drought.
The funds have been channelled through the International Committee of the Red Cross and also Médecins sans frontières de Belgique .
<P>
A mission will be carried out by ECHO to Indonesia in April to assess further humanitarian needs in vulnerable areas, including Kalimantan.
The mission will enable the Commission to programme its assistance in 1998 to areas where humanitarian needs are most urgent.
<P>
Also, and in a more long-term perspective, the Commission and Member States in Jakarta set up in 1997 a joint European Union Fire Response Group (EUFREG) composed of forest fire experts from various Commission and Member State projects in Indonesia.
The task of the Response Group is to provide the Government with relevant information and advice if needed, to monitor and assess the situation on a day-to-day basis and to assess possible needs, for example, regarding fire-fighting equipment, to improve the efficiency of measures taken by the Government.
<P>
At the same time, the Commission is working with the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) team in order to assess the regional impact on a short and long-term basis of phenomena such as El Niño.
We will continue to fund the project on fire prevention and control in South Sumatra which we hope will be a pilot case that could be extended to other regions.
<P>
As regards Brazil, we have heard today that, thanks to the rain that has fallen in the last few hours, roughly 90 % of the fires are now virtually extinguished and this is good news.
As far as we understand, more than 34 000 sq km have been devastated by this fire in Roraima.
In the short term, the European Community Humanitarian Office - ECHO - envisages channelling funds towards the communities affected by the forest fires, namely indigenous communities.
Several European non-governmental organizations have shown their interest in working in the affected areas.
ECHO is proceeding to analyse their requests for funding, and a meeting is being held today, 2 April, at the Delegation of the European Commission in Brasilia.
At this meeting, among others, are participating Oxfam, the Indigenous Council of Roraima and representatives of Member State embassies to coordinate European aid.
<P>
However, as several honourable Members have mentioned, the problem is not just a short-term problem: it is also the long-term prospects for sustainable management and a sustainable policy in tropical forests.
I am happy to say that the European Union has been financing some projects in that regard.
One known as PRODESQ concerns fire monitoring and afforestation control and the second one, known as ECOFORCA, aims at developing and applying low-cost monitoring technologies for the detection of fire in forest areas.
<P>
Besides these two specific projects, there is a larger one under the acronym of PP-G7 which encompasses not only the promotion and conservation of sustainable forest management but also some programmes on research and some pilot cases with regard to some of the communities.
<P>
We think that, regardless of all these efforts, the idea of holding an international conference on this issue would be very much welcomed because the consequences of such fires are not just bad for the countries where they occur but for all humanity.
<P>
I wish to say that from 1992 to 1997, a total of ECU 300 million has been committed under the tropical forest financial instrument, which Parliament has granted to the Commission.
Unfortunately, despite this commitment only ECU 130 million has been disbursed during this period.
This is why we have decided to ask for an evaluation of all our projects from an independent external expert because we have to correct this mismatch between commitments and disbursement.
<P>
Finally, I wish to say that, even if we do not have budget lines specifically for disasters, the Commission takes the resolutions seriously.
If honourable Members want to follow what has happened, there is one thing that used to come after Question Time called 'les suites données ' which is very boring but you can always identify what has been the follow-up to the proposals that have been made in this House.
Second, it is very difficult to identify beforehand what disasters may occur but my colleague, Emma Bonino, and ECHO deserve our sympathy because they always manage to respond very quickly and effectively in order to mitigate as much as possible all the disasters that have occurred, at least on the humanitarian side.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Pinheiro.
I hope you will not see my bad pronunciation of Portuguese as an insult to that beautiful language, which I admire so much.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 4.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>
Arrest of Dino Frisullo in Turkey -B4-0409/98 by Mr Vinci and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the arrest of Italian national Dino Frisullo in Dyarbakir (Turkey); -B4-0411/98 by Mr Vecchi, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the arrest and detention of Italian national Dino Frisullo in Turkey; -B4-0412/98 by Mr Graziani, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on respect for human rights in Turkey; -B4-0420/98 by Mr Orlando and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the arrest of Italian national Dino Frisullo in Dyarbakir (Turkey);
<P>
Cameroon -B4-0392/98 by Mrs André-Léonard and Mr Fassa, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, on freedom of speech in Cameroon; -B4-0401/98 by Mr Hory and Mr Scarbonchi, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on freedom of speech in Cameroon; -B4-0403/98 by Mr Pasty and Mr Azzolini, on behalf of the Group Union for Europe, on freedom of speech in Cameroon; -B4-0408/98 by Mr Pettinari, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the United Left - Nordic Green Left, on human rights in Cameroon; -B4-0417/98 by Mrs Aelvoet and Mr Telkämper, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on freedom of speech in Cameroon;
<P>
Death penalty in the United States -B4-0407/98 by Mr Manisco and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal in the United States; -B4-0423/98 by Mr Orlando and Mrs Roth, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal in the United States.
<P>
Arrest of Dino Frisullo in Turkey
<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Vinci">
Mr President, we have all seen on television recently the attacks made by the Turkish police on the Kurdish population of Dyarbakir, which was calmly celebrating its feast.
We have seen elderly Kurdish women being kicked in the head, and photographers and journalists beaten.
Three Italians were arrested and one of them, Dino Frisullo, is still in jail.
This is a question of human rights, democratic freedoms and the rights of the Kurdish people in Turkey.
This is the level of respect shown towards agreements signed with the European Union by the political and military leading class of Turkey.
<P>
We have also learnt today that the Turkish Government will essentially be responsible for Cyprus joining the European Union with the annexation of the north of the island occupied by Turkish troops.
It has been maintained by the EU, recently and over the course of the years, that the so-called "lay Turkey' should be encouraged to democratize the country and that Turkey should be protected from the so-called "Islamist danger' .
We signed the customs union for those reasons, despite all reservations.
But the tragedy of Turkey is the leading lay Turkish class.
In the name of the modernization of Turkey, the genetic code of this leading class includes military expansionism and ethnic cleansing within the country.
This Turkish leading political and military class only understands the language of force.
<P>
To conclude, the European Union should suspend the customs union.
The EU Member States should stop supplying arms to Turkey. Finally, the Member States should formally warn Turkey against annexing the north of Cyprus or other acts of hostility against that country.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Graziani">
Mr President, I would like to say that it is really discouraging to see how, once again, the Turkish Government does not want to understand why negotiations have not got under way for its accession to the EU. It does not want to understand, to the point that it is attacking a free demonstration on the part of the Kurdish people, in which European pacifists have participated, including my fellow countryman who is currently in jail in Turkey.
The Turkish Government does not want to understand how it is impossible for the country to be able to join the European Union if it fails to respect human rights.
<P>
It is not that the Christian club does not want an Islamic country. In fact I agree here to a large extent with Mr Vinci, when he says that it is the lay component that contains something totalitarian and dictatorial, to such an extent that the lay state of that country is guaranteed by the armed forces, an anomaly that I do not believe exists anywhere else in the world.
<P>
That is why, Mr President, it will be necessary for people who, like me, support the need to approve the customs union, to review our positions vis-à-vis Turkey, at least until the rights of the people are respected, particularly the Kurdish people.
<P>
I recall, Mr President, that after the First World War, based on the Treaty of Sèvres, the Kurds had the right to independence in a country that was to be called Kurdistan.
Then that Treaty, like so many others relating to minorities like the Kurds, became a scrap of paper, and there is no longer any trace of it in our history.
<P>
We need to resume this dialogue. We need to tell the Turkish Government and the neighbouring governments that they have Kurdish populations in their countries, and the time has come to restore independence and trust to a people who currently do not have any trust other than that of those visiting the Turkish jails, like our colleague who was awarded the Sakharov Prize two years ago.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
Mr President, as those speaking before me said, on 21 March the Kurds celebrated their new year, the "Newroz' , during which demonstrations took place defending the rights of the Kurdish people. Representatives of nongovernmental organizations, pacifists and MPs from several European countries took part.
Those demonstrations were followed by unacceptable action on the part of the police, who tackled many of those taking part, arresting some of them, including Dino Frisullo, who is still in prison.
<P>
I would like to say that, as I know Dino Frisullo personally, I can assure you that he has always shown peaceful intentions and interest in non-violent choices aimed at favouring dialogue between the parties.
<P>
The Turkish Government, however, rather than try to talk with the Kurdish people, has chosen repression, preventing the lawful exercise of the right of expression and demonstration of Kurdish and Turkish citizens and citizens of several European countries.
<P>
Within this framework of failure to respect the international agreements and unacceptable repression of human rights - by a country which not only maintains cooperation relations with the EC and has achieved customs union with the EU, but, from a legitimately certain point of view, is also aspiring to join it - it is essential for the EU, and for the European Parliament in particular, to support the action of the Italian Government, which has firmly requested the immediate release of Dino Frisullo.
<P>
I think we should make the Turkish Government understand that European public opinion, together with Italian public opinion, cannot tolerate a country with which the above relations are maintained still being able to oppress human rights in this way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in all sincerity I believe that we are not so much discussing the problem of the Italian citizen, Dino Frisullo, as the Turkish Government and the role Turkey is playing in its relations with the EU.
Two fundamental questions arise: the first relates to respect for human rights in Turkey, and the second to the support the EU has always given to the Kurdish question and, more generally, to the rights of minorities wherever they are.
Today, Turkey is at a crossroads. It has to choose which way to go.
It is a historic and cultural crossroads that this important country has often reached.
However, its Government has to realize that, if it wants to maintain serious relations with the EU, it has certainly not started out on the right track.
<P>
Cameroon
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="André-Léonard">
Mr President, the Cameroon is a signatory of the Lomé Convention which states that development aid is subordinate to respect for human rights and fundamental liberties, such as freedom of speech.
<P>
The two year imprisonment of the journalist Pius Njawé and the six month imprisonment of Michel Michaut Moussala are unacceptable on the grounds that they infringe the freedom of expression which is normally guaranteed by the constitution and laws of the republic, and the law governing social communications.
<P>
Do the Cameroon courts have several interpretations of the law?
I fear they do, since violations and infringements of civil liberties have shown a dangerous increase and mirror the worsening of the situation in terms of human rights.
There can be no democracy in a country which censors the media.
Gagging the press and preventing news from being broadcast is a serious infringement of basic civil liberties.
<P>
I therefore appeal to the Cameroon Government to stop these practices, to free the two journalists, and to return to a situation in which human rights are rightfully in place, as they are in all states who have a fundamental respect for themselves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Scarbonchi">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, Pius Njawé is the director of a private press group known as 'The Messenger' and has been detained since 26 December 1997. He has just been heavily sentenced to two years' imprisonment.
His crime is that he allowed an article entitled 'Is Biya ill?' to appear in his newspaper, which referred to a mild heart condition suffered by the President of the Republic of Cameroon.
<P>
Another journalist, Michel Michaut Moussala was condemned to six months' imprisonment.
Pius Njawé, who has been imprisoned several times and is considered to be the father of the freedom of the press on the African continent, has once again paid a heavy price in the necessary fight for the freedom of the press in countries where the tradition of a single party still survives and where no opposition is tolerated.
<P>
The freedom of speech is sacred.
It is one of the pillars of the democratic process on which the European Union is founded.
We therefore demand the immediate release of these two journalists and that human rights and freedoms, of which the freedom of expression is fundamental, be respected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, anyone acquainted with Cameroon - as I am - has a great liking for the country. Its people are particularly friendly and reasonable, and generally it is still a relatively well-managed country, compared to its neighbours.
It is therefore all the more regrettable when events take place there which absolutely contradict our principles.
<P>
However, I would like to point out something else. We have the Lomé Convention with these countries, and Article 5 is clear and unambiguous.
But what happens?
To be honest, I have always had the impression that this Article existed on paper only and is not implemented.
If we do not draw the consequences of what we are demanding, we must not be surprised if the governments and people revert to a tradition which is not so very old. After all, people alive today remember when things were still quite different.
If we do not insist on the implementation of our provisions then it is not surprising.
However, it should make us examine our consciences. Are the attitudes we support credible?
Is our support of human rights and international law credible? Are we really credible, and do we use the great opportunities we have to enforce them, not only in a moral sphere, but also in an economic and social sphere, as we always trumpet?
<P>
I think we should take up the case of a friendly country such as Cameroon, not in order to criticize it but in order to criticize ourselves, so that we can finally achieve credibility.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the question of Cameroon raises a more general problem: that of freedom of expression, and particularly freedom of the press, in some of the developing countries, particularly some African countries.
<P>
In my experience as an MEP, this is not the first time I have had to face such a question.
A journalist has been tried and condemned for publishing false and biased news.
This is not the right way to interpret freedom of the press: you cannot censure the falseness or otherwise of news to impose penalties that go way beyond anything the conscience of any civil people can bear.
That is our problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Vanhecke">
Mr President, I have of course read the joint motion for a resolution on the freedom of expression in Cameroon with a great deal of interest, and I can obviously agree with its recommendations. Or at least with the obvious position that freedom of expression occupies a prominent position in the list of fundamental freedoms every single human being is entitled to.
I hope you will allow me, however, to point out to this Parliament that freedom of expression is sadly not only being jeopardized in Cameroon. In earlier resolutions, this Parliament itself wanted to restrict freedom of expression, in particular in the resolutions which have become a boring tradition, which under the guise of combating racism and xenophobia, argue for muzzling legislation against people who do not necessarily and indiscriminately consider the so-called multicultural society as an ideal to be pursued.
<P>
I note that on our continent as well, for example in France as a result of the communist Gayssot Law, people were recently awarded heavy sentences, and even reduced to poverty, after simply expressing an opinion.
<P>
Only a few moments ago our colleague Jean-Marie Le Pen lost his political rights, and therefore his mandate in this Parliament, for two years because of an innocent election clash.
I wonder what is being said in Cameroon about this kind of situation, and whether the Parliament of Cameroon will vote on a resolution on political freedom in France.
<P>
I note - one of many observations of this kind - that in my own country the Minister of Justice is starting a criminal law reform whereby press offences, which is what we are talking about today, will no longer be tried by the Crown jury, but by a college of politically appointed judges. The Minister of Justice stresses that it is his deliberate intention to curb the freedom of expression of one opposition party, namely my party.
<P>
We cannot merely denounce the events in Cameroon and advocate freedom of expression in that country; we should also do so in our own countries and on our own continent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, of course I emphatically support the release of Mr Njawé and Mr Moussala.
I also think we must attach more importance to the question of press freedom, including in the Lomé states which are closely associated with us.
<P>
However, I think we must view the problem in a wider context.
I am very pleased that Article 5 of the Lomé Convention is emphasized so strongly in the resolution.
I think that the freedom of the press is endangered from time to time in the majority of Lomé states, and that it is true that Cameroon is the one-eyed king in the country of the blind.
If we look around the region and consider Nigeria or the Congo, for example, the circumstances are quite different.
I am therefore of the opinion that Cameroon is one of the states characterized by relative stability, which also affects the rule of law.
Nevertheless, this event cannot be excused.
We should draw conclusions for our policy as a whole.
<P>
As Mr Pinheiro, one of our best commissioners by far, is here today, I would like to take this opportunity to appeal to the Commission and also the Member States to use our development aid much more than in the past, to promote programmes in the fields of education and training which underpin the rule of law.
Educating junior political leadership, public sector officials, judges and all those connected with the media, including journalists of course, is necessary, because freedom of expression is threatened from various sides.
I therefore think we have a very great duty in the field of education and training, to educate junior leaders who will break out of the vicious circle and ensure that a policy is pursued in most of the Lomé states which complies with Article 5 of the Lomé Convention.
We have a very great task here, which we must finally face up to.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, I think Mr Posselt is both right and wrong. We do indeed have a great task here.
However, we have to carry out this task not as if we were masters of the universe, but as people of solidarity who are not trying to teach the Africans how it should be done.
If we consider the history of the 20th century in Europe or the history of European involvement in Africa over the last 300 years, it becomes clear that we are not in a position to rebuke anyone.
We have a common task of basic solidarity.
Cooperation with non-governmental organizations and democratically elected governments are at the forefront here.
We must work with them to find ways and develop initiatives which no longer make an appeal to civil and human rights seem an empty gesture.
<P>
Death penalty in the United States
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Manisco">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, although it is true that silence kills, it is not so true that the words, the distress calls, of this Parliament are enough to save a man's life - a fair man, an innocent man, a real fighter for freedom and racial equality like Mumia Abu-Jamal, who has been awaiting his legal assassination in the arms of death in Greene Jail in the State of Pennsylvania for many years.
<P>
It happened once, less than two years ago, when the protest, not just of this House but of almost all the Western government leaders and states, had the desired effect: that of postponing - but only postponing - his execution.
On 1 October last year, Mumia Abu-Jamal's lawyers submitted an appeal for the case to be retried by the Supreme Court of the State of Pennsylvania.
Five months have gone by and the Court has still not pronounced judgment, but there is reason to fear the worst as the postponement tactics, under the veil of a concealed, silent indifference that has descended onto the case, could prove lethal for Mumia AbuJamal.
<P>
That is why the European Parliament should once again break through this shroud of silence, raise its voice in protest, and ensure that it is not just a question of flatus vocis , of a formality within the framework of business as usual, of an appeal to the heart of the authorities of a state which, since 1982 - since the air bombardment of a district of Philadelphia, the headquarters of the black movement Move - has been merciless to those who, like Mumia Abu-Jamal, have fought for the emancipation and equal rights of Afro-Americans.
That is why there is still all the more reason for our resolution, in favour of Mumia Abu-Jamal and against the death penalty in the United States, to be incorporated, and made clearer and more effective by means of the amendment asking European businessmen to move their investments in the United States to those states where there is no death penalty.
<P>
Time is short, and not just for Mumia Abu-Jamal but for more than 3 000 people condemned to death in the star-spangled Republic.
In June, when our Parliamentary delegation meets American Congressmen in Houston, Texas - near Huntsville, known as the executions capital of the USA - another 28, or possibly 35, human beings, including another woman, will be brought to the place of execution, and they will not be able to follow the conclusion, albeit foregone, of the interparliamentary exchanges across the Atlantic.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lenz">
Mr President, a great deal has already been said.
Once again, we have a new case of the death penalty.
This time it is the Mumia Abu-Jamal case, and this time it is in the State of Florida.
What has repeatedly motivated us as Europeans and the European Parliament in these matters is firstly the fact that the death penalty still exists at all in the United States, and secondly the circumstances under which it is carried out.
<P>
Each case which is judged or sentenced in this way certainly involves its own tragedy and its own drama.
During the meeting in Geneva recently of the UN Commission on Human Rights, we had the opportunity to speak to a Texan attorney who opposed the death penalty.
He drew attention again to one particular factor which I think we do not appreciate.
First of all, most people in the United States know very little about why and how the death sentence is pronounced.
They do not hear about it and are not even particularly interested.
They usually only ever hear of the dramatic cases.
Also, the nature of the sentencing differs widely from one state to another.
<P>
Stepping across a state boundary is practically enough to avoid being sentenced to death for the same crime.
This difference in the severity of the penalty is something which concerns us in all cases, most particularly if it involves the ultimate penalty, the death penalty.
<P>
There is no uniform case law on this subject.
The same deed is assessed in different ways.
Sometimes it might be a mass murderer, sometimes a first-time murderer.
Murder is murder and is always dreadful.
But I think we should make it clearer to the Americans why we are so concerned about the death penalty in the United States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pradier">
Mr President, the Americans have a great country, a great nation, and are a great people.
All European citizens will be eternally grateful for the fact that they sent over their young people to free us from Nazism, a large number of whom fell on the Normandy beaches and in the push into Germany. They live in a country which vigorously defends human rights - freedom of thought, freedom of expression, the right to association, the right to publish - and yet they allow the most basic right of all to be attacked by the state itself.
<P>
This surrender to violence exemplified by the execution of an innocent person twelve years after a highly contestable guilty verdict - exemplified also by the fact that firearms are placed in the most untrained of hands and are made available to the most unstable of people, causing the deaths of dozens of innocent people - this collective surrender to violence has to be pointed out. We Europeans call upon the citizens of Pennsylvania.
Wake-up!
Stop this state-sponsored violence! Demand an end to the execution of human beings, and in particular today of one human being, namely Mumia Abu-Jamal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pinheiro">
Mr President, I hope you do not consider my Spanish to be an insult either.
<P>
Mr President, as far as the arrest of Mr Frisullo is concerned, permit me to remind you that on 4 March last, the Commission adopted its annual report on the development of relations with Turkey since implementation of the customs union.
In its report, the Commission notes that the human rights situation and the process of democratization have not made any substantial progress over the past year.
Furthermore, in its communication on a European strategy for Turkey adopted on the same day, the Commission confirmed its intention to continue giving financial aid to the Turkish NGOs working towards an improvement in the human rights situation in Turkey.
The Commission also wants to cooperate with the Turkish authorities, especially on the training of the police force.
<P>
Despite Ankara's recent decision to suspend all political talks with the European Union as a result of the conclusions of the European Council in Luxembourg, the Commission still intends to continue informing the Turkish delegation of EU concerns over questions relating to human rights and respect for the democratic principle.
In this spirit, the Commission will not hesitate to take up Mr Frisullo's case with the Turkish authorities, and call for more substantial information and explanations on the subject.
<P>
As to the question of freedom of expression in the Cameroon and the case of the two journalists, I would say that I share your concerns over their recent sentencing.
It poses a serious threat to the freedom of expression of journalists, a freedom which we all know is one of the vital ingredients of true democracy and one which is also covered by Article 100 of the Lomé Convention.
<P>
Indeed, in recent times there has unfortunately been a tendency for those in power in the Cameroon, as in other African countries, to curb freedom of expression with the help of a judiciary system which lacks independence from the government.
<P>
Despite everything, I hold out strong hopes that the Court of Appeal, which is this very day examining the appeal launched by Mr Njawé, will not confirm this trend.
I believe it is important for you to know that, via Directorate-General VIII, the Commission has already made its concerns on the subject known to the Cameroon authorities.
I can assure you that it will continue to strive for adherence to Article 100 of the Lomé Convention by closely monitoring the way the human rights situation develops in the Cameroon, and in particular the situation vis-à-vis the two journalists in question.
<P>
To conclude, Mr President, the question of the death penalty has once again been raised in this Parliament.
The Commission's position is in fact well-known because it has so often been repeated.
I simply want to say that as far as the United States is concerned, we consider that it is vital that all guarantees enshrined in the International Pact on Civil and Political Rights and other pertinent instruments are respected.
The Commission believes that the US judicial system will ensure that they are.
It is, however, regrettable that a civilized country such as the United States, one of the major world powers, should continue to pursue such a barbarous practice as the death penalty.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Pinheiro.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, as Mrs André-Léonard was saying, our debates have been short, though that does not mean that the quality or importance of the issues covered have been in any way compromised.
However, we have reached the end of our debates. Therefore, I would propose that we suspend the sitting until 4.30 p.m.
<P>
Mr Posselt has the floor to speak on a point of order for a maximum of one minute.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I would like to comment on one of my favourite subjects - the Conference of Presidents.
As you are one of the few Presidents who always provide information about what is said here in a part-session, I would like to point out that it is strange that the Conference of Presidents decided against placing such an important topic as Kosovo on the agenda, on the grounds of lack of time.
<P>
Unfortunately, the majority of the House was not in favour of including the topic either.
Consequently, we have discussed three topics today, have interrupted the sitting for twenty minutes, and a current crisis in central Europe has not been discussed.
I feel we should set our agendas much more efficiently and expertly than the Conference of Presidents has done this time. Please let us return to the urgent debate in full, so that time is also available for the necessary topics.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Posselt.
This will certainly be recorded in the Minutes and the group chairmen who make up the Conference of Presidents will read and take note of your comments.
I am a Vice-President and a member of the Bureau, but I am not a member of the Conference of Presidents.
In any case, in my current role of responsibility, I note your comments and will forward them to the people concerned.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended until 4.30 p.m.)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="Provan">
Mr President, you may notice looking around the room that there are a large number of my colleagues who cannot be here tonight because of the flight arrangements that make it difficult to get back to London and the UK generally from Strasbourg.
My colleagues send their apologies but I think it is very difficult for any Member of this House to carry out their duties when they cannot get to and from here, as was raised by Mrs Green on trying to get here earlier this week.
The problems of getting home from Strasbourg are just as bad and colleagues have had to leave here at lunchtime today so that they can be home for tomorrow morning.
That is a ridiculous situation and I hope that this will be looked at by Parliament's Bureau because you have made decisions regarding Members and their voting records here that are now being disrupted by the travel arrangements that they have to make to travel to and from Strasbourg.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="President">
Mr Provan, there are two parts to your point.
On the first part, we will continue to press the airlines and the appropriate governments for an improvement in the service.
On the second part, that will be taken into account when we review the operation of the roll-call vote system, which we shall be doing shortly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="President">
We now come to the vote on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
VOTES (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="President">
The rapporteur proposes that throughout the French text the term contrôle démocratique should be replaced by responsabilité démocratique.
<P>
Are there any objections?
<P>
(Parliament agreed to the oral amendment)
<P>
Before the vote on paragraph 5
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 NAME="President">
The rapporteur, who unfortunately cannot be with us this evening, has asked me to propose an oral amendment.
Where it currently says 'to hold the ECB to account' the rapporteur is asking for this to be replaced by 'for the ECB to be answerable to' .
<P>
(The President established that there were more than 12 objections)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Wogau">
Mr President, I wish to apologize, because I wanted to ask the rapporteur, who is unfortunately not present, whether she could repeat the question.
It concerns paragraph 5.
This is a difficult situation for me.
I am chairman of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and I would have liked to have heard what the rapporteur had to say on this.
I know what was agreed - an oral amendment was agreed with Mrs Randzio-Plath which she wanted to table here - but I do not know the exact wording.
Under the circumstances, I would therefore recommend a separate vote, whereby we are in agreement with the first section to 'must ... be exercised ...' .
I would not vote in favour of the second section from 'and that, as the only directly elected institution at this level, the European Parliament is a particularly appropriate institution to hold the ECB to account' in its current form, but in the form which Mrs Randzio-Plath wished to propose now.
That was the problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="Green">
Mr President, I think it is important to actually say why Mrs Randzio-Plath is not here as there may be some opposition to this because of the fact that she is not here.
You will know that she was extremely distraught at lunchtime that her report was not taken because her husband is ill and she has had to go home.
That I think is something we can all understand and I would ask colleagues here who know she is a very hard working woman to please understand that.
She did try this morning to get the report voted as you know but many other of our colleagues walked out and would not stay on to vote.
That is to be regretted, she was very distraught and I would ask you please to be understanding at least of that point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Samland">
Mr President, Mrs Randzio-Plath has informed you of the oral amendment tabled, with which Mr von Wogau is not familiar.
There were colleagues here in the Chamber, unfortunately from your own group, Mr von Wogau, who rose when the President asked whether the oral amendment was approved.
There was a sufficient number of them, which resulted in enough colleagues rejecting the oral amendment.
That is the problem we are faced with.
Otherwise there could have been no doubt.
Mrs Randzio-Plath had expressly submitted the oral amendment to the President in advance because she could not be present today.
I would therefore ask for the vote to be taken again on the existing wording.
It was not we who blocked it, but the colleagues who rose.
Then we shall see who has a majority.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="President">
Let us try to keep calm about this.
I have a number of Members who want to make points of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I regret that it was not possible to vote on the agreed oral amendment tabled.
But it is those people who actually took a gamble on the whole process, and have now done so again, who must bear responsibility.
Now we should vote on the original text.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herman">
Mr President, insofar as it is just Mrs Randzio-Plath's absence which is causing the problem, there is a compromise which we found following an agreement within the committee, which was voted in.
We had honed this agreement to perfection when at the last moment, we found that the term which accurately translated the term we had agreed on, namely 'to hold to account' was felt by some people to be too aggressive towards the Bank.
Two or three words were suggested but our British colleagues did not consider them to be appropriate. We therefore decided to wait until we found the appropriate wording and this morning, Mrs Randzio-Plath and I found it.

<P>
(Mixed reactions) It is deplorable that in order to prevent an agreement being passed, twelve people felt obliged to rise. That is regrettable.
<P>
That said, Mr President, to extricate ourselves from the blind alley in which we now find ourselves, we could start by voting on what Mr von Wogau has proposed, with Parliament then voting on the rest.
I would like to point out straight away that there is practically no difference.
It is merely a question of nuances.
Certain people have become so hysterical over these nuances that they have made a mountain out of a molehill.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, I would like to say for the Minutes that we should take up the proposal made by Mr von Wogau and Mr Herman, that we all sympathize with Mrs Randzio-Plath, and that no one in our group took part in the boycott of this proposal, which you did not read out, incidentally.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="President">
I misunderstood your last point.
I quite clearly read the proposal out.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Friedrich">
Mr President, many people in this House know that almost every word counts, particularly in this report.
We had wording which allowed us to assume that a broad majority accepted it.
However, some of our colleagues did not actually know that a situation had arisen in this case, for reasons which Mr Herman has just explained, which cannot really be resolved by the usual application of the Rules of Procedure.
If we now adopt a resolution which does not take account of the oral amendment, we shall be doing something which the majority of the House did not want.
<P>
I would propose two solutions, which I think are correct, to get us out of the situation.
If you, Mr President, would ask the question again as to whether the oral amendment is to be allowed, we could ask those Members who rose previously with good reason to remain seated, now they know what it is about.
If we had the opportunity to vote on the oral amendment, we would have the result which the vast majority of this House wants, and the majority would be correct.
Should this not be possible, we must resort to what Mr von Wogau proposed.
However, the first solution would be more correct, in my opinion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Wogau">
Mr President, first of all I would like to say that we made great efforts in committee - and I expressly acknowledge Mrs Randzio-Plath's efforts - to help reach an agreement.
We had reached agreement on practically all the points in committee, as Mr Herman said.
It was accepted by almost all the members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
The fact that the expression '... hold the ECB to account' in paragraph 5 seemed to many members of my group to be too strong remained unresolved.
Then people said: ' We shall reach agreement.'
I must say that I myself took no part in this last discussion, but Mr Herman did.
He says he has now found this word, which is the right one.
However, I have the impression that not everyone in the House understands what this word is.
<P>
I must say that I do not have it in writing either.
I would therefore suggest, even if it is not strictly in accordance with the procedure, that we ask Mr Herman again to say quite clearly what the subject of the oral amendment is, as tabled by Mr Friedrich.
I would suggest that we reach some sort of agreement.
I think it is reasonable to expect that we do this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="President">
It is clear that if the oral amendment were put to the vote, it would be carried.
There is no question about that.
But the rules exist to protect minorities in this House and that is the purpose of 12 Members being able to stand up and object to an oral amendment.
No one from the groups who voted against the oral amendment have objected or said they misunderstood.
I now have one person from each of these two groups asking for the floor.
I will hear what they have to say before taking any decisions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Mr President, I was one of the twelve Members who stood up earlier and I would like to make a small comment.
Mrs Randzio-Plath is absent and the coordinator of our group is also absent.
It is he who was to have given us the information.
I knew this discussion had taken place within the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, and I knew there had been an attempt at conciliation.
I think it is a good thing that an agreement was reached between Mrs Randzio-Plath and Mr Herman.
But neither our group nor the other groups were informed.
And I would like to take this opportunity of reminding everyone that this Parliament has more than two groups. It has several.
<P>
I am quite happy to say that had I been correctly informed, I would have voted in favour of Mrs Randzio-Plath's oral amendment.
However, I believe just as strongly that as a matter of principle, the two large groups should not ignore Parliament's other groups.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=155 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, you have been given the responsibility of presiding over our debates. I would be grateful if you would do so according to the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
It was not right to ask again whether 12 Members were opposed to the amendment, since the first test had shown that there were more than twelve of us, in accordance with Rule 150.
Nor is it right to allow Members to be pressurized.
Pursuant to Rule 2, we exercise a mandate and should not receive instructions from anybody. Those people who stood up did so freely, of their own volition, in good conscience, and in accordance with the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
We have now been speaking for roughly five minutes about a question which has already been adopted.
So we must move on to the next item, but we must do so according to the Rules of Procedure.
We cannot ask for a split vote less than an hour before the beginning of the sitting.
<P>
We shall therefore continue with our work in accordance with the voting list we have in front of us.
That is what sticking to the Rules means.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="Harrison">
Mr President, I wonder whether we can make a molehill out of this particular mountain.
You have acted correctly according to the Rules of the House.
Twelve Members stood up; I regret that they stood up but they did.
However, let us return to the original text, which many people tried with great goodwill to modify because there was perceived to be a nuance in terms of the original text being too strong.
My own view is that it is a very fine difference and, indeed, to say that we want to hold the European Central Bank to account is generally acceptable to the majority of people in this House.
I would advise you now to go forward to the vote.
If you wish to take a split vote, all well and good, but my advice to the House is to vote both parts and to vote for them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="President">
Mr Harrison, that is precisely what I intend to do.
<P>
After the vote on paragraph 5
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I formally contest the way you have proceeded.
<P>
Rule 116 gives the President the power to fix a deadline other than of one hour. It does not give him the power to accept at the last minute a split vote which has not been submitted within the allotted time.
<P>
This deadline is set at 9.00 p.m. the previous evening for all the groups and all the Members.
You did not amend it before the sitting and you cannot accept a request for a split vote if you have not amended the deadline beforehand.
<P>
If you like, I can read you Rule 116...
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="President">
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, I do not know if you were here at lunchtime and I do not know if you were awake at lunchtime but only four hours ago we did exactly this.
It is not a precedent.
It is something we have done regularly in this House.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, throughout the intergovernmental conference which paved the way for the Amsterdam Treaty, a strict rule was adhered to by the negotiators - namely, no mention was made of the single currency - and it is imperative that we do not reopen Pandora's box!
<P>
The result is that today, in a month chosen by those taking part and nine months from the theoretical launch date of the euro, some of their number are realizing the dreadful truth that the Maastricht Treaty has stripped the national democracies of their power without creating any equivalent controls at other levels, and that monetary union will be controlled by no one.
People are asking themselves whether a monster has been created which will devour us all.
<P>
The European Parliament, in order to give the illusion that it is trying to react - in spite of the fact that it is jointly responsible for the situation - is therefore taking the initiative of adopting a report on democratic accountability in the third stage of EMU.
However, this is a purely cosmetic exercise, for three reasons.
<P>
First of all, the European Parliament obviously cannot correct the Treaty.
It therefore works on peripheral tasks such as improving the presentation of the ECB reports or the procedures governing its directors, as it is doing today.
These proposals - assuming they are accepted by the other institutions - will not change the system fundamentally.
<P>
Secondly, in order for the ECB to work in a democratic environment like the national central banks, even so-called independent banks, a European state would have to exist. That is a condition which is not and certainly will not be fulfilled in my lifetime.
<P>
Lastly, the present situation is exactly what the authors of the Maastricht Treaty wanted.
As there was not and still is not a European democracy, it was decided to make people think that the single currency could be a purely technical matter, one which could be managed without the involvement of politics.
The German leaders have again today latched on to this illusion to keep their citizens in the dark while definitive decisions are taken.
<P>
And that is why the Herman report, which made the mistake of putting the question of democratic accountability too clearly, was suddenly withdrawn from the agenda of the present part-session.
The people will therefore have to wait to be plunged into monetary union before they finally discover the true nature of the system.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Thomas">
Mr President, I voted in favour of the report on the European Central Bank, although not until there had been significant corrections by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
The attempt to push through amendments to the Treaty concerning the appointment of the ECB presidency by the European Parliament failed.
There will rightly be no vote of no confidence against the president of the European Central Bank, and there will be no 'Banking Committee' as a control body.
We owe our word to the citizens that the independence of the ECB will not be not undermined.
As the future guardian of the currency, it must be able to work without any political interference.
Only then will it earn the same high reputation as the Deutsche Bundesbank has in my country.
It will guarantee that there will be absolutely no waiver in stability and budgetary discipline.
<P>
The dialogue between the ECB and the European Parliament must be constructive in respect of objectives, specific decisions and coherence between monetary and economic policy, but also social and employment policy.
We therefore say 'Yes' to an open exchange of opinions, but 'No' to mistrust and abstruse control procedures.
<P>
Another piece of good news: today the German Federal Constitutional Court has rejected the petition against the euro.
The path for the introduction of the single European currency is now clear.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="Andersson and Hulthén">
We would like to thank the rapporteur for a highly relevant report on democratic accountability in the third stage of EMU.
We are aware that the Maastricht Treaty establishes that the ECB is to be independent in terms of personnel, organization, operation and finance, as well as politically.
On the other hand, we do not believe this totally excludes a more pronounced democratic responsibility for the ECB, which is also apparent from Article 109B(3) of the Treaty on the role of the European Parliament.
<P>
In view of the single currency's importance for the positive development of the European Union as a guarantee of employment, sustainable growth and social welfare, it is essential to realize the need for democratic accountability and openness for the ECB.
So the report on the strengthening of openness and democratic accountability is very welcome.
<P>
We believe that the European Parliament, as being the only one of the Union's institutions directly anchored in the population, should be able to play an active role together with the ECB to guarantee democratic accountability and openness within EMU.
We also believe that strengthening democratic accountability and openness will help legitimize EMU without affecting the independence or credibility of the ECB.
The European Parliament should also play a key role here.
<P>
We also believe that it should not affect the ECB's independence to have all the decisions taken and all the reasons for those decisions published soon after they are made.
Equivalent rules apply to the US central bank without significantly affecting its operations.
<P>
Finally, we would like to emphasize the need for the Council, the Commission and the European Monetary Institute to consider this report seriously, together with its proposals on democratic accountability in the third stage of EMU.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="Bébéar">
When it was being set up, the European Central Bank needed an unprecedented degree of independence, much more so than any national central bank, since economic and monetary union was being introduced.
<P>
Today, the approach can no longer be so restrictive.
We have reached maturity and on 2 May, in an extraordinary sitting, we shall give our decision on the countries to adopt the euro when the single currency is introduced.
<P>
The European Central Bank no longer suffers from a lack of financial credibility.
Monetary sovereignty is in the process of being progressively transferred to it, and nobody doubts any longer that it will be able to contribute to lasting growth.
The ECB therefore now needs the European Parliament to see its operations strengthened and better promoted thanks to the democratic controls exercised by an elected Assembly with universal suffrage.
<P>
I am therefore in favour of Mrs Randzio-Plath's report.
<P>
The overly extremist requirements presented during the Parliamentary committee debates should be put aside.
The ECB must not become a poor imitation of the United States FED.
By contrast, the Maastricht Treaty makes the European Parliament an essential part of the legislation.
It enables us to play a positive role in the European Union's monetary policy.
Let us therefore build a basis for regular democratic dialogue and a network of mutual information, but let us guard against it becoming a blocking tool.
<P>
The euro must be the shared responsibility of all the citizens of the European Union if it is to create prosperity and employment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="Blokland">
At the core of the debate on this report is the notion of "independence' .
In her report, the rapporteur attempts to explore the limits of this notion.
The central question is to what extent monetary policy can be influenced, controlled and possibly even adjusted by political bodies, without affecting the formal independence of the European Central Bank.
<P>
To my mind this is not the right starting point for this report, which is supposed to deal with accountability .
In the former, there is the implicit view that, by using monetary policy, it is possible to implement the aims of an economic policy which are considered important, such as adequate investment, employment and increased welfare.
At the hearing held by the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs in the spring of 1997, Mr Duisenberg, the current president of the European Monetary Institute, clearly stipulated that monetary policy can only achieve so much.
<P>
As it now transpires, the rapporteur has - still - not grasped this point.
This inspires little confidence for the future, when it is argued that the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs should play an important role in the process known as democratic accountability.
It is for these reasons of principle that I voted against this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="Caudron">
It was not without a certain amount of pleasure that I learnt of Mrs Randzio-Plath's report. I was glad to see politicians dare to ask for increased democratic controls over those who hold the economic reins and who do not always have the desired legitimacy.
I wanted to highlight this brave act at a time of exacerbated liberalism whose merits are constantly being heralded without opposition.
<P>
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it needs to be said loud and clear that independence is not necessarily a byword for irresponsibility and that, on the contrary, it is through true democratic accountability, and indirectly through greater transparency, that the European Central Bank will gain legitimacy in the eyes of European citizens.
Naturally, the purpose of our colleague's work is not to call into question the independence of the ECB. Rather, it is to mirror certain questions regarding the methods used to implement this necessary democratic exercise.
<P>
The committee debates were difficult and interesting.
Furthermore, whilst I regret that the vote of no confidence has been abandoned - while also recognizing that this type of amendment to the Treaty would be difficult - I have to admit that we have achieved a worthy compromise, and one which constitutes an important step forward in ECB controls.
<P>
I can also assure you that I will be vigilant over the question of legal consolidation relating to the nomination of candidates which is henceforth subject to the approval of the European Parliament.
<P>
Faced with a debate of such importance, and on the subject of regrets, I want briefly to return to the question of employment and that of the Parliamentary banking committee.
As regards the latter, I question the deep-rooted nature of certain groups' refusal, especially since this committee clearly has the role of informing and creating initiatives and not of controlling.
<P>
Eighteen million people out of work, a similar number of people in insecure jobs, a European Council on employment, and governments fighting to reduce unemployment in their respective countries, and there are still political leaders who believe that the fight against unemployment is not a priority.
<P>
That is what I wanted to say in relation to Mrs Randzio-Plath's report, which I support and applaud once again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="Darras and Berès">
The ECB will conduct a single currency policy for all the Member States participating in European monetary union. As a consequence, the democratic controls must be exercised on a European level.
The European Parliament, which is the only directly elected institution at this level and which enjoys certain powers bestowed upon it by the Treaty, will be ideal as the ECB's privileged political point of contact.
<P>
The disruption caused by the introduction of the single currency will occur before political union has truly emerged.
However, in a democracy, legitimacy is born of universal suffrage.
There is therefore a risk that if the ECB acts without political consultation, when all is said and done it will be held responsible for all ills, which in turn will lead to public condemnation of the entire project.
The Central Bank will be independent, but it will not be able to be irresponsible.
<P>
Calling it independent involves defining what it is independent from and taking steps to ensure that its political counterpart is as strong as it is, failing which there will be no equilibrium.
Its responsibility implies a dialogue and a transparency between it and public opinion, through the elected bodies of the Council and the European Parliament.
That is why we fully approve of Mrs Randzio-Plath's proposals for codifying this responsibility.
<P>
In this spirit, the ECB's annual report should clearly take growth and employment into consideration when covering the way monetary policy supports the general economic policies in the Community.
<P>
Ultimately, many of us would welcome an amendment to the Treaty to enable the European Parliament on the one hand to have the same powers in this matter as it does in nominating the Commission, and on the other hand to submit a vote of no confidence against the president of the forthcoming ECB to the Council of Economic and Finance Ministers for their decision, should the Treaty be contravened.
Such a development would increase the legitimacy of the ECB's decisions.
<P>
As regards the coordination of economic policies in Europe, the European Council of Luxembourg made progress on more extensive coordination of national economic policies and more especially those concerning employment.
We believe that the European Parliament should involve itself more in this process.
It is in this area that a great deal of work will be done in the coming years, and it is a sine qua non for balanced economic and monetary union.
In the third stage of EMU, the democratic responsibility concerns both the ECB and the coordination of economic policies.
However, the monetary side of the union is today a great deal more structured than the economic side.
<P>
To become a reality, the initiative set in motion needs political guidance: operating on a purely economic basis is not enough.
This represents an enormous responsibility for the Socialists in the European Parliament, and an expectation of new proposals.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
During the part-session in Strasbourg from 30 March to 3 April, the Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have voted in favour of the report on democratic accountability in the third stage of EMU.
The report emphasizes, among other things:
<P>
1) the need for the future ECB to provide information on the definitions and operational objectives it uses to achieve the set objective of price stability;
<P>
2) the need for publication of the minutes of ECB board meetings;
<P>
3) the need to ensure a dialogue between the European Parliament and the ECB on economic and monetary affairs.
<P>
The Social Democrats in the European Parliament have voted in favour of the report, based on the fundamental approach of requiring the greatest possible transparency and openness in the institutions of the EU.
In this connection, it should be emphasized that the Social Democrats in the European Parliament are still of the opinion that the four Danish reservations are not under discussion, including the reservation on the third stage of EMU.
<P>
Lindqvist (ELDR), Eriksson and Sjöstedt (GUE/NGL), Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling (V), Krarup and Lis Jensen (I-EDN), in writing.
(SV) EMU is a centralized, high-risk project with little popular support.
The priorities of EMU are price stability and low inflation.
There is a serious risk that unemployment, which is already high, will increase still further.
The regional differences between growth areas and areas of depopulation may be exacerbated.
EMU will lead to a major centralization of currency and foreign exchange policy, which may grow to include tax and finance policy.
EMU is a political project which increases the federal aspect of the EU and reinforces the trend towards establishing a state.
<P>
EMU and the European Central Bank, or ECB, will have more independence and power than any other bank in the world, the United States FED included.
The members of the ECB, who will be elected for eight years and cannot be removed, will have incredible power over currency, interest and other economic policy which has a direct effect on people, regions and nations.
EMU will centralize and reserve economic policy to a handful of bank directors, which will considerably undermine democracy.
The proposals for better supervision and democratic control presented in this report can scarcely reduce the democratic deficit in the third stage of EMU.
<P>
For this reason, we have voted against the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 NAME="Nicholson">
This report is full of good ideas on how the new European Central Bank will be held democratically accountable before this Parliament.
It reflects the criteria laid down in the Maastricht Treaty regarding consultation with Parliament on the implementing measures.
<P>
However, I fear that there will be no more transparency and democratic accountability in this regard than there has been in the process to date.
So far the Commission has ploughed ahead with its own strategy without any interest in transparency or accountability.
Consequently, we had the bizarre declaration from the Commission last week that eleven countries are economically strong enough to join EMU, among them Belgium and Italy.
The inclusion of these two Member States in the list of first-wave countries demonstrates clearly that the Maastricht criteria were not adhered to and that massaging of figures is acceptable practice.
Italy and Belgium come nowhere near the condition of restricting public debt to no more than 60 % of national wealth.
Indeed, they are more than double that figure.
I hope that when Heads of Government meet under the British presidency next month for the formal vote they will have a better regard for the criteria than the Commission has displayed.
<P>
Given the Commission's commitment to pushing the project forward without regard to the economic circumstances in each Member State, it is difficult not to conclude that it views the scheme in a political light.
The result of this can only be instability within the system and severe economic consequences for those Member States outside it.
The political nature of the project will also surely undermine the position of the Central Bank and make democratic accountability harder to achieve.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="Smith">
Whilst in general I can support the worthy objectives of greater transparency and accountability in the workings of the ECB, I find that this report which continually uses the phrase 'democratic accountability' has, in fact, confused accountability with the giving of an account.
<P>
The dictionary definition of accountability says it is being 'responsible to someone or for some action' .
It is wrong therefore to suggest that the ECB is in some fashion responsible to Parliament.
It is in my view a mistake to give the impression that Parliament's right to be informed translates as a form of accountability, in the accepted sense of the word.
<P>
I will not therefore be supporting this report as it relies so heavily on the suspension of disbelief.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="Spiers">
I have voted for the Randzio-Plath report because the degree of accountability it calls for is better than nothing.
However, it acknowledges - and even welcomes - the fact that the Bank will remain wholly independent.
The Bank will control monetary policy, and will do so with one overriding aim: to achieve price stability. If this chokes growth or causes unemployment, so be it.
Nothing that Parliament or Ecofin can say will prevent it.
<P>
True democratic control of the Central Bank would require the creation of its analogue, a central European government.
Without that, we have the creation of a free market Europe, dedicated above all to the interests of bankers.
This has been described as 'the spectatorship of the proletariat' , though that is only part of the story.
<P>
This is not to suggest that we should be trying to create a central European government.
There is no consent for that, and there can be no confidence, on the EU's past form - CAP etc. that such a central government would be successful.
<P>
The overhasty rush to create a single currency has left us in a fine mess, and we are left resorting to sticking plaster in a vain attempt to patch things up.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 NAME="Theonas">
To surrender monetary policy to third parties is to surrender to others a significant part of a country's national independence.
Indeed, the dimensions that such an action assumes when it is carried out by more countries is unprecedented in modern history.
<P>
Such an action, even if it should prove to be of benefit to those nations, must be prepared with a great deal of care and attention. All means of ensuring that those who take on this responsibility will be carefully monitored must be scrutinized and safeguarded, so that they can operate and act in a way that will serve national interests and social prosperity alike.
<P>
We currently find ourselves faced with a necessary fact of life, which has been commonly accepted.
The European Central Bank is in the process of formation and it will take over the shaping and control of monetary policy. This will directly affect hundreds of millions of citizens, without the people of the countries taking part in the euro - or their governments - having any opportunity to exercise any democratic control.
Nor will the EC and the constituent bodies of the EU be able to exercise control. Why?
Because the ECB has been created with the sole aim of serving large financial and political interests and of safeguarding the conditions in which they can increase their profits. It has not been created to achieve the aims of social prosperity and a higher standard of living for the working people and citizens of Europe, nor to combat the scourge of unemployment and the continuous degradation of ever broader strata of the population.
<P>
The report we are debating today constitutes the most irrefutable proof.
It establishes the lack of democratic control by providing evidence, even if indirectly, that the creation of the ECB is an expression of the attempt made by big business to evade national and popular control, and even the completely downgraded control of national central banks.
<P>
However, when the supporters of Maastricht voted for the Treaty they were very well aware of what they were creating and what its repercussions would be.
Even if they did not realize it at that time, they should at least have demanded that this Treaty be amended with the revision of the Amsterdam Treaty.
But that did not happen.
On the contrary, any debate on EMU was excluded from the intergovernmental conference on the revision of the Treaties.
<P>
The declaration that democratic accountability will be guaranteed or that the aims of the ECB will be broadened to include other aims apart from monetary stability is a conscious attempt at disorientation, when not only is this not provided for in the Treaties but, on the contrary, the Treaties make every provision for the independence of the ECB from any possible national intervention.
These provisions restrict the number of people on its board, thereby ensuring that it is not represented by all Member States. Furthermore, they allow board members to serve a long term in office, thereby ensuring their independence from any political show of force.
<P>
We fully endorse whatever measures may bring about transparency, or indeed measures to inform democratically elected bodies of the policy and operation of the ECB.
However, we believe that these measures will not be able to reverse the unacceptable situation brought about by the creation of the ECB.
The only solution is to repeal the Maastricht Treaty and not to ratify the Treaty of Amsterdam.
For this reason, we remain firmly committed to the aim of national referenda on the Treaties, in order to give people the opportunity to express their opposition to this policy and to the surrender of their important sovereign rights to supranational, hermetically sealed, unaccountable bodies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="Trizza">
<SPEAKER ID=173 NAME="Wolf">
The question of the democratic accountability and embedding of the European Central Bank is the last major unresolved matter in the run up to the launch of the euro.
It must be made clear that it is not a question of restricting the independence of the ECB and the European System of Central Banks - this is a fundamental condition of monetary operation.
On the contrary, it is a question of interpreting it correctly. We will counteract the monetary Utopia of 'apolitical currency' , which becomes a dangerous illusion if dogmatists implement it in economic practice, with the realistic concept that monetary policy remains a specific dimension of the overall economic policy in which it is to be embedded by binding, institutionalized discourse.
This report takes a first hesitant step in the right direction.
It is regrettable that the prevailing idea in the House of the 'grand coalition' has resulted in the original report being watered down and becoming much less consistent.
We were never under the illusion that our amendments would change anything in this respect.
Nevertheless, the extent to which the Group of the Party of European Socialists has fallen behind the original approach of the rapporteur must be recorded here.
<P>
Daskalaki report (A4-0106/98)
<SPEAKER ID=174 NAME="Eriksson and Sjöstedt">
We have voted in favour of the report in question.
We believe a continuing international presence is necessary in Bosnia, under a UN mandate.
We also believe it is important not to add to the tension in the area by exporting arms.
On the other hand, we distance ourselves from the demand to use the articles of the Amsterdam Treaty on military action or the outdated military alliance of the WEU.
The Member States of the Union can contribute to peacekeeping actions with the UN and ECSC as the basis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted against the report on post-SFOR strategy, because Denmark is exempted in the area of the common foreign and security policy.
<P>
Marset Campos report (A4-0120/98)
<SPEAKER ID=176 NAME="Hyland">
The Commission's communication on a strategy for reducing methane emissions is timely.
It makes some worthwhile proposals and some which need to be reconsidered.
<P>
Methane has negative as well as positive claims.
It is negative in the sense that it is a greenhouse gas second only to carbon dioxide or CO2 emissions.
It is positive in the sense that it can be harnessed to provide a cleaner and less polluting energy source.
It can also be used in the manufacture of industrial products such as synthetic rubber and chemical fibres.
<P>
The natural sources of methane include animals, wetlands and marine flora while the anthropogenic sources include the burning of fossil fuels, landfill emissions, waste water and sludge treatment.
The latter account for 70 % of existing methane.
<P>
While the increase in methane emissions appears to be slowing down, this is not a reason for inaction.
Landfills are a major source of methane emissions which we can turn to our advantage.
<P>
Essentially, what is required is an appropriate plan of action aimed at halting or reducing methane emissions.
However, agriculture should not be made the scapegoat.
The Commission considers that to take account of the digestive habits of ruminant livestock, in other words cattle and sheep, there should be livestock reduction.
This is not a feasible solution.
Firstly, this is already taking place because of milk quotas and BSE.
Secondly, it would open the door to competing third countries.
As the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has pointed out, we should call for more research into improving animal diets and better management of livestock effluents in intensive farming regions.
<P>
If we are serious about sustainable development, let us look at exploiting the potential of methane for energy and industrial purposes.
Electricity can be produced from the re-use of methane from landfills.
This could also open new opportunities for small companies.
There should be appropriate financial incentives.
<P>
We need more research, more public information.
It is a challenge which, if approached properly, can lead to a range of new opportunities.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Enlargement and cooperation in the field of justice and home affairs (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=177 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0107/98) by Mr Posselt, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the implications of enlargement of the European Union for cooperation in the field of justice and home affairs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, the European Union is undergoing its greatest upheaval since its establishment in the 1950s.
Major enlargement, coupled with fundamental reforms, is imminent.
Apart from the question of the single currency, on which a vote has just been taken, there are three principal processes which concern us.
The first is the question of enlargement.
Concrete negotiations on enlargement began this week.
This is a historic moment, because it involves the greatest enlargement in the history of the EU.
<P>
The second point is the ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which is also taking place this year, by which our institutions will be reformed - at least in part, if by no means adequately - and by which a broad spectrum of further development and cooperation will be opened up, particularly in the areas of justice and internal affairs.
<P>
The third area is the ratification of the Europol Convention which is currently taking place, under which Europol, the European police force, will at last be able to act.
It is now time to link all these processes together in practical terms, as the communitization of the important areas of asylum, immigration and protection of external borders will be important in the five years following the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty.
However, the creation of operational authority for Europol is also important, and it would be a mistake if we did not use the simultaneous process of eastwards enlargement of the European Union, and the negotiations on it, to make all these new policies pan-European and involve the candidate countries as fully as possible.
We are therefore of the opinion that we must ensure that the European Union should set the stage for the corresponding integration of these states now.
<P>
In the case of Austria - which has thankfully been a full member of the Schengen Agreement, which it implements in full, since yesterday - we had the problem that that country joined first and only then began to create certain conditions.
We should not repeat this mistake during eastward enlargement.
We must use the years between now and 2003, 2006, 2008 or whenever the first stage of enlargement takes place - in a region which suffered from dictatorship and repression for decades - to establish the rule of law and develop criteria for a state in which the rule of law prevails, for which spot-on qualification is just as necessary as the oftquoted single currency criteria.
<P>
We believe these states have achieved a lot by their own efforts, by liberating themselves, establishing the rule of law and making great sacrifices.
However, we must of course help them.
One of the focuses of my report is therefore education and training - the training of junior managers in justice and administration, who will then actually be able to apply European law and the acquis communautaire, which are currently undergoing rapid enlargement.
<P>
The Czech Minister of Justice has stated quite clearly that she has not been able to implement much European law so far, and the little she has been able to implement in her country could not be applied by civil servants because they had not been trained to do it.
We urgently need to focus our efforts by expanding our programmes to cover the central and eastern European countries and equipping them with the appropriate material resources.
<P>
I therefore suggest as a follow-up the establishment of a European Academy for Internal Security, in the existing border area between the European Union and the candidate countries, possibly in Lower Bavaria or the Oberpfalz.
Deggendorf would be a possibility, where there has been a major border control force establishment.
This European Academy for Internal Security should work towards one of our long-term objectives, namely a European border control force, because we are of the opinion that the individual states cannot assume control of external borders in the long term and that this should be under joint control.
<P>
Of course, the current situation is that we still have national border control forces which work well and have proved themselves.
Naturally, we shall require transitional periods on the existing external and eastern borders, even after eastward enlargement.
Austria has shown us, however, that every transitional period comes to an end at some time.
We must develop perspectives now for the time following the transitional period.
The idea of a European border control force has thus been developed and has thankfully met with broad consensus in the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
In this connection, I would like to thank the other groups in this Parliament for their intensive cooperation on my report, particularly Mr Schmid from the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
I must also thank other Members who have ensured that we reached a consensus in setting an important stage for the future.
<P>
I believe there is a broad consensus in the European Union, particularly in the areas of combating crime, drug smuggling and trade in people, and the major problem of money laundering, and that there is also interest in the candidate countries, because this is not a matter of patronage, but of partnership.
Give and take already exists on both sides.
I therefore believe that this can become an engine for enlargement of the Community as a whole.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 NAME="Goerens">
Mr President, I speak on behalf of Mrs Spaak and rise to present the results of her studies.
<P>
The Committee on Institutional Affairs shares the rapporteur's concern that the applicant countries should set in place stable institutions which guarantee democracy, the rights of their citizens, and the ability to take on the obligations of the Treaty and the acquis communautaire.
<P>
The first amendment from the Committee on Institutional Affairs highlights three problems: firstly, the five-year deadline for the adoption of measures aimed at the free movement of persons; secondly, their applicability to the procedure contained in Article 189 B; and finally, the decision about strengthened cooperation.
<P>
The Committee on Institutional Affairs thus insists that clauses relating to the field of justice and home affairs be revised when the institutional reforms take place, which should occur before the first enlargement.
The Committee is concerned about the risk of fragmentation of the European legal landscape.
In fact, the option which allows Member States to declare whether or not they accept the pre-judicial jurisdiction of the Court of Justice in the area of Title VI is dangerous for everybody, but more especially so for applicant countries, given the difficulties they face in adapting their legal systems.
<P>
Finally, I would like to draw the rapporteur's attention, if I may, to Amendment No 4 concerning paragraph 17, which was accepted by the Committee on Institutional Affairs but rejected by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
This amendment deals with the delicate problems of transition periods, which can only result from a precise and concrete evaluation of the existing situation in the new Member States at the moment of their joining.
This modest amendment has the merit of shortening and simplifying paragraphs 17 and 18 whilst still covering the essentials.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, to put it simply, the Group of the Party of European Socialists will vote in favour of Mr Posselt's report.
We shall do so for several good reasons, including some which are not directly related to its substance, but to the rapporteur, upon which I shall elucidate in a moment.
<P>
When I entered this Parliament, I was given a lurid description of Mr Posselt.
I shall not repeat everything I was told about him, but he will pardon me for saying that he can generally be described as a 'hardline right-winger' .
Over the years I have established that it is simpler to be a hardline left- or right-winger in this House.
We get on better if we talk to each other openly and honestly.
It is immeasurably better to speak plainly from one side or the other instead of developing wishy-washy formulations which nobody can understand!
<P>
That, Mr Posselt, is why we have been able to cooperate with you positively on this report.
Surprisingly, you have not only maintained an open style of communication within our committee, but have adopted a host of our suggestions into this report.
We are very grateful to you for this, because it helps to ease an ideologically charged - or doubly ideologically charged - subject.
<P>
The eastward enlargement of the European Union is also difficult to discuss because we are, of course, burdened by the fifty years since the Second World War, which were always strained by the division of continental Europe and the dictatorship of communist repression.
We know that forces are still active in the very areas in which we have to work together - which were originally involved in this repression - namely, justice and the police.
Particular attention is thus logically required on our part, and this has to be said, even if it is not easy.
If we are talking to future partners who have decided in favour of democracy, but do not admit that they were not always democracies and that, of course, the leftovers of the apparatus of repression are still present in the current machinery of government, that is a truth which must be looked straight in the eye!
<P>
So that is an explanation of why we necessarily require training, and why we must provide an introduction to the basic structures of the democratic state governed by the rule of law for those who have little experience of them.
That is why the proposal to establish a European Academy for Internal Security is a very good idea.
I do not know whether it has to be in Deggendorf, Mr Posselt.
Let us attribute that to the local elections in Bavaria!
We appreciate that you have suggested it here.
It could also be somewhere else, but Deggendorf is a nice place!
<P>
Right at the beginning of the enlargement negotiations, Mr Posselt tried to make it clear in both his report and the discussions - correctly repeating it today - that the enlargement of the European Union must not be submerged in debates on economic, financial or currency policy.
No: we must maintain a lively interest in ensuring that the precise area of the third pillar of integration gets special attention.
Wherever there is a transition from a command economy to a market economy, we can observe that the underground economy flourishes and blooms - or more precisely, organized crime finds fertile ground like no other, with inadequate or no legislative measures accompanying the process.
If police and judicial cooperation are inadequate, due either to infrastructural shortcomings or to a lack of knowledge, it is disastrous.
That is why your report's proposals are an urgent necessity.
<P>
When I think of the applicant countries with which we have now opened negotiations, the crux of this area appears to be the question of money laundering.
There cannot be a greater magnet for crime anywhere than the opportunity to convert ill-gotten gains into apparently legally-gotten gains.
For this reason, special attention must be given to legislation against money laundering and cooperation in these negotiations.
<P>
There is a shortcoming in the third pillar, which we currently practise - namely a deficit in democracy, about which I complain repeatedly.
As the European Parliament, we do not have enough rights or powers to act as a legislature.
This will become more difficult if further states join and police and judicial cooperation remain in the third pillar, unless there is sufficient transfer of powers to the Union.
We shall then increase the democratic deficit which already exists today, if we already know there is an urgent need for harmonization on one hand, to fight the European Union of crime which already exists, but permit ourselves the permanent luxury of national sovereignty on the other.
We must try to penetrate the consciousness of the Council of Ministers with this report and anchor it in the consciousness of the national governments, as Mr Posselt has indicated.
Then we shall be making progress!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, it would probably not come as a surprise to you if I wanted to begin, like Mr Schulz, by saying that the Group of the European People's Party will vote in favour of this report, though probably not because Bernd Posselt is a hardline right-winger, but because he has prepared a report which tells it like it is - exactly as Mr Schulz has described very accurately - and which demonstrates the necessities which exist in this area.
If we are talking about realities here, permit me to begin with a minor factual correction or small remark.
The term 'eastward enlargement' is used again and again in this House.
As an Austrian, this always surprises me, when I consider that two of the applicant states have their capitals located a good distance west of Vienna.
The enlargement we are considering is an enlargement into central Europe.
If we were going to expand into Belarus and the Ukraine I would be happy to talk about eastward enlargement.
<P>
One aspect of this report which seems tremendously important to me is the fact that it reveals that the Community, or European Union, is changing more and more from an economic community into a political and thus a security community.
It reveals the security dimension, namely the security dimension which we must extend to the applicant states.
I think this is tremendously important, because the external - but also internal - image which the Union conveys again and again is, unfortunately, purely economic.
That cannot be correct.
<P>
Those states which wish to enter the EU expect certain solutions, particularly in such areas as security.
Each of these states has its own problems with ethnic groups or minorities, just as each Member State of the European Union does, without exception.
I believe this is particularly important if we are referring to the causes of this problem and trying to suggest solutions, as for example in paragraph 4, as regards ourselves - that is, the fact that the field of justice and home affairs must be integrated in the next institutional reform, which must take place before enlargement.
<P>
There is a further point in this report which I would like to emphasize because it seems particularly important to me as an Austrian. Mr Posselt has already mentioned it: the need for a European border control force.
In Austria, we have experienced the consequences of exposure to such rapid change, to a very, very great extent.
We have had to make massive changes to our border control units in Austria over recent years.
Thank heavens our borders with Germany and Italy in the south were opened one or two days ago.
This is hopefully the last major step we have had to take for the next three or four years.
Then there will be further changes, as soon as the enlargement of the European Union has actually taken place.
I do not regard it as particularly practical for us to demand massive measures in the area of border security now from the applicant states, in whose infrastructure we shall have to make massive investments if they have great difficulty in actually implementing them.
I believe that is also one of the key points of the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Goerens">
Mr President, by an unfortunate coincidence, the start of negotiations on the enlargement of the European Union with the central and eastern European countries clashes with the Posselt report on the effects of EU enlargement on cooperation in the field of justice and home affairs. I would nevertheless like to congratulate Mr Posselt on his excellent work.
<P>
This report is born of the desire to create a European space of freedom and justice.
Furthermore, the actions undertaken in this field will be subject to an annual review, which the Commission will pass on to the Council and the European Parliament.
This review will be useful as it will enable us to judge the capacity of the central and eastern European countries to fulfil two of the three Copenhagen criteria, namely the political criteria and the ability of the candidate states to take on the acquis communautaire .
<P>
The challenge is just as great for the European Union - and the indefatigable Mrs Spaak unstintingly insists on the absolute necessity of deepening the European Union as a prerequisite to any enlargement - as it is for the central and eastern European countries, who face a double challenge.
In fact, it is not only a question of adopting the measures in record time, which will allow the measures being addressed in the present debate to be transposed into national law. It is also a question of linking up with the cooperation effort initiated by the Fifteen in the field of justice and home affairs.
<P>
It is actually more a matter of changing their mentality than a problem of budgetary means.
Although the path ahead of us remains long and the tasks before us remain considerable, we must acknowledge the work already accomplished by the central and eastern European countries.
<P>
The remarkable area of individual freedom regained in most of the countries which until recently suffered under communist dictatorship is to the credit of the candidate countries and is a very encouraging sign for the future.
<P>
Mr President, Lech Walesa, the former president of Poland, is reputed to have said: ' It is easy to turn an aquarium into fish soup' and went on to compare the task ahead of us by stating that: ' The degree of difficulty associated with the transition of a totalitarian state into a democratic state worthy of the name is comparable to the task of turning a fish soup into an aquarium' .
I believe he was not entirely wrong, and it is in the light of this wise observation that we should measure the efforts being made by the central and eastern European countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, now that the hardline right- and left wingers have paid tribute to each other - you obviously have to be hardline to be a member of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs and I am very glad to be a member of the Committee on Institutional Affairs and able to do without this attribute, which I find very dubious - I would merely like to remind the members of the Committee on Internal Affairs that they are also members of the Committee on Civil Liberties, which is something which is frequently forgotten.
<P>
There are many ludicrous clauses in the Treaty of Amsterdam, but one of the most ludicrous is probably Article 29, which has, of course, also been included in this report.
It says: ' The Union's objectives shall be to provide citizens with a high level of safety within an area of freedom, security and justice by developing joint action among the Member States in the fields of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters and by preventing and combatting racism and xenophobia' .
The word freedom is not repeated. The word justice is not repeated.
Only the word security - or safety - is repeated.
This imbalance is also reflected in the imbalance of this report.
<P>
Anyone who makes an unbalanced policy out of an imbalance of the values of law, freedom and security, and disturbs this balance, is using popular fear to do so.
Fear is not removed, but whipped up.
A major criticism of this report is the imbalance between the area of law and freedom and the security policy.
It may well make demands for guarantees of the rule of law and the stability of democratic institutions, but not, as we might expect, on us, where these things are strained, but on the countries of central and eastern Europe.
As if the rule of law would be guaranteed in the area of security by the establishment of the European Court of Justice, or civil rights protected by a charter of civil rights with the involvement of Parliament.
As if we should not be the first port of call for reproaches about the instability of institutions and the lack of the rule of law.
The report does not include a single word about this.
<P>
The report demands a common policy on asylum, but does not say a single word about the Geneva Convention, which is being removed piecemeal precisely by the policy of the European Union.
Reference is made to the rule of law, but only as an obligation for others.
This imbalance represents a serious imbalance in our system of values.
<P>
The second imbalance in this report has seldom been expressed so blatantly.
It is the imbalance of the burdens under which we are placing ourselves and the countries of eastern Europe.
With this policy, we are turning the countries of eastern Europe into a buffer zone for security, immigration and refugees for the European Union.
We are turning them into a glacis by telling them to solve our major problems, without helping them to do so.
<P>
Schengen prior to entry, a visa policy prior to entry, and adoption of the common asylum policy prior to entry, with nothing in return!
That is no policy to bring about an area of freedom and the rule of law.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Buffetaut">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, at the Yalta Conference, the states of western Europe in a way bought their freedom at the price of the servitude and ruin of the central and eastern European countries.
And, unfortunately, it is a cause for regret that the Member States of the Union and the European Union itself did not really contribute to the liberation of these countries, despite which, and thanks to truly exceptional men such as Lech Walesa, Václav Havel and of course, Pope John Paul II - not to mention many others - they liberated themselves.
If, in the words of that great Pope, Europe is now breathing with both its lungs, it is primarily thanks to the resistance and freedom of thought of these individuals and peoples.
<P>
We therefore owe a debt of gratitude to these countries and we must help them regain the freedom that comes with a democratic state.
As was mentioned earlier, many judges, police officers and civil servants in those countries have only known the totalitarian and repressive ways of the state.
They therefore have to re-learn that they are now living in a society which respects individual, civil and political rights.
<P>
That is why Mr Posselt is absolutely right to ask for greater cooperation with the applicant countries in the name of this moral debt which we collectively owe, to help them effectively set up this democratic state.
The rapporteur was also right in underlining that the measures contained in the Treaty of Amsterdam concerning the crossing of external borders, the abolition of border controls, asylum and immigration will be particularly difficult to implement for these countries in the short term, and again I agree with the Prince of Habsbourg-Lorraine on this point.
<P>
Whilst it is true that we have a duty to help in the development of the eastern European countries and to contribute in such a way as to help them fundamentally return to a society which respects the rights of the people, it is also clear that we must proceed with tact and not act like school teachers.
<P>
To conclude, I would like to pay homage to the fact that Mr Posselt has reminded us of our duties towards the nations of eastern Europe.
The same thing applies to international relations as to human relations: life is composed not just of rights, but of duties too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Madam President, Commissioner, there are four matters I would like to raise, but the first thing I would like to say is that I am really glad that it is Commissioner Gradin herself who is present here, given her commitment to the fight against the trade in women and children, which also forms part of this report.
<P>
So, moving on to the four matters I would like to bring up: firstly, I hope that the so-called acquis document which will be started with the applicant countries will be applied to all countries equally, irrespective of whether we are negotiating or not.
We have heard rumours of dangerous conflicts.
<P>
The second thing is the cooperation which is to take place between administrations - in other words, that the 1 500 people who will be sent from the Member States to work in the applicant countries really will be working in the legal and judicial sphere.
This is a case of people helping administrators in the field, which is what we need more than anything else.
<P>
Thirdly, it is not enough to ratify conventions, they must also be implemented, such as the UN Convention on Children's Rights.
This is what the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party took account of in our amendment.
<P>
Fourthly and finally, I am unhappy that it is not only trade in human beings we are dealing with here, but also the trade in organs in the applicant countries.
Unfortunately, we have heard in Finland that this has happened in the applicant countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="Gradin">
<SPEAKER ID=187 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
I now hand the floor over to Mr Schulz who has requested to speak pursuant to Rule 108.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
Madam President, I am referring to this Rule of Procedure because I cannot leave Mr Voggenhuber's speech unanswered insofar as it affects me.
<P>
I would like to mention three things which affect me personally and also take me aback.
Firstly, I utterly reject the statement that discussion has taken place between a coalition of hardline extremists - to paraphrase Mr Voggenhuber.
I described what was said to me about Mr Posselt by summarizing it, saying he was a hardline right- winger.
This was a quotation and not my own choice of words.
Let that be made clear.
<P>
Secondly, I announced the support of the Group of the Party of European Socialists by stating that Mr Posselt had largely accommodated us.
I shall now say why. He has made the areas of civil rights, human rights, minority rights, the establishment of the rule of law, the removal of discriminatory provisions and the adoption of increasing EU vested rights the central point of his report.
Let that be stated.
Thirdly, let that be stated because it is the case, and it is possible to be informed - or rather, Members must know, if contributing to this debate - this is a hint to Mr. Voggenhuber -, that the Rules of Procedure do not prohibit them from reading reports before they talk about them!
<P>
<P>
(Mr Voggenhuber asked for the floor)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 NAME="President">
Mr Voggenhuber, we cannot start a debate.
Nevertheless, I will give you the floor for a point of order, if that is the reason for your request.
The Rules do not provide for replying to a Member who has invoked Rule 108.
I will, however, allow you to make a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Madam President, I would also like to make use of this Rule of Procedure - and I think more justifiably, having been mentioned by name, which I did not do in my speech, in which I did not name the Member.
However, I will happily grant him the right to do so. I believe that, had Mr Schulz been listening to me, he would have noticed that precisely the point which he uses was one of my major criticisms, namely that the legal guarantees, the demand for the rule of law and the stability of institutions is not directed at ourselves, as the state of affairs would make necessary, but at the countries of central and eastern Europe, with incredible moral arrogance.
I think I made it clear that the precise criticism is that in this third pillar, the position of the European Court of Justice has not been clarified in cooperation between justice and home affairs, that we have no list of basic rights, no parliamentary and judicial control over this area, and that the moral finger should be pointing at us, before we point it at others.
That is an evident shortcoming of this report. It is significant that it does not mention it once.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="Posselt">
Madam President, I have been mentioned twice, so I should really be able to speak twice under Rule 108.
I would like to thank my colleagues most sincerely for their support and positive cooperation, particularly Mr Schulz and others.
However, I would also like to say that Mr Voggenhuber should either read reports in future or change his speechwriter if he has not got the time to do so, because my report struck a fine balance between the rule of law and internal security.
By the way, I have no hesitation in mentioning that I adopted suggestions and proposals from Mrs Roth - not as many as she would have liked, but some.
However, there were some major amendments on which we also achieved a broad consensus.
Mrs Roth abstained in the final vote.
All the other members of the committee voted in favour.
She did not table any amendments during the partsession.
Neither did you. I wonder why not?
Seen from this point of view, I think this is a last-ditch stand to which we should not attribute too much importance.
<P>
(Applause from the Group of the European People's Party)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 NAME="President">
Mr Posselt, in any case, regardless of Rule 108, it is quite obvious that you cannot refuse to let a rapporteur speak when he asks to do so.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
<P>
Mr Voggenhuber, I think you are out of order.
I would gladly give you the floor, but it does not make much sense.
I believe the explanation was very clear.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Madam President, I hesitate to try your patience. However, if I am to be not only addressed personally but attacked twice in a debate, I also have the right to respond to both speakers.
I shall not exaggerate, and thank you for your generosity.
<P>
I would just like to say one thing about not reading reports.
I do not know if it is possible to write reports without reading them, but in case it is possible for some Members, may I just quote one passage which was also quoted by Mr Posselt as if it referred to the EU itself. However, it must be expressly interpreted as a condition of entry for the countries of central and eastern Europe.
Perhaps it is possible to be a hardline right-winger in this Parliament, but people should, I think, at least know their own reports, in order to be able to defend them rather better.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Mutual legal assistance in criminal matters
<SPEAKER ID=194 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0122/98) by Mr Buffetaut, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the draft Council Act establishing a Convention on mutual assistance in criminal matters between the Member States of the European Union (5202/98 - C4-0062/98-98/0902(CNS)) and the draft joint action adopted by the Council on the basis of Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union on good practice in mutual legal assistance in criminal matters (13300/97 - C40069/98-98/0903(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 NAME="Buffetaut">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the increased cooperation between the Member States of the European Union is completely legitimate under the principle of subsidiarity when it is clear that joint action is more effective than individual actions within the various Member States.
Can there be a more legitimate area for such cooperation than in the fight against international crime?
It would indeed be a paradox if the main beneficiaries of the free movement of goods and persons were lawbreakers, international criminals and gangsters.
The removal of all border controls will necessarily lead to an escalation of such activities.
Now more than ever it is vital that we bring about concrete, practical, realistic and effective mutual assistance in criminal matters between the Member States of the European Union.
<P>
In their now famous appeal, seven European magistrates underlined the fact that alongside the visible, official and respectable Europe being built - to quote them - there was a hidden and much darker Europe, that of the Mafia and criminal activities.
To combat this, they notably asked for a review of the European Convention on mutual assistance in criminal matters, and recommended a series of practical measures such as allowing European judges to directly address judges from other European countries.
<P>
It is these concerns which are addressed in part by the draft Convention on mutual assistance in criminal matters and the draft joint action on good practice in mutual legal assistance.
As it happens, both these texts are also part of the action plan against criminality adopted by the Amsterdam European Council.
<P>
It seems that the Member States encountered difficulties, since the text submitted to us is somewhat truncated and not very definitive.
Indeed, modified versions, with which we have not been supplied, are now in circulation.
It is quite exasperating and unsatisfactory that we should be giving a verdict on texts we know to have since been modified.
It is important to highlight the fact that in addition, last December's Justice and Home Affairs Council decided to suspend dealing with certain particularly delicate questions and instead to refer to an additional protocol about which we know nothing.
This exemplifies the major difficulties encountered by the negotiators in the difficult field of justice - namely the lack of mutual confidence between Member States as regards their respective legal systems.
<P>
This is in spite of the fact that all the nations concerned recognize the state of law, although the legal traditions and philosophies differ from one Member State to the next: Common law, droit romain and the Napoleonic code.
Moreover, law and punishment touch on essential elements of the freedom of individuals and national sovereignty.
<P>
We must be pragmatic if we are to achieve positive results in these areas.
Inter-state cooperation remains without doubt the most effective way of progressing because it reassures the Member States and avoids conflicts of principle.
<P>
That said, what is the essence of the amendments adopted by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs?
To make the Council's text more effective, if not bolder.
We therefore believed it necessary to remind everyone of the strategic importance of legal cooperation in the fight against organized crime; to highlight the need to place consistent and easily applied instruments at the disposal of the justice professionals; to affirm that it is important to develop mutual trust between judicial systems; to take into consideration the requirements for speedy inquiries and court cases, whilst still respecting fairness and justice; to try to eliminate the obstacles in the way of legal cooperation; to take into account defence requirements; and finally, to encourage direct communication between the judiciaries.
<P>
I would like to emphasize this last point.
This is actually one of the recurrent requests of the justice professionals and a prerequisite for effective administration of justice.
The draft Convention makes provision for this facility, yet immediately grants Member States the option of not joining this simplified mechanism.
However, this direct communication is an essential constituent of an effective procedure.
That is why we believe that allowing Member States an opt-out actually carries the risk of divesting the Convention of one of its most useful aspects.
<P>
To conclude, I would like to thank all my colleagues in the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs who have provided me with their highly competent and courteous support. I would also like to say that it is a matter of regret to me that the Council is asking us for a verdict on texts which have since been modified.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 NAME="Ullmann">
Madam President, we are once more confronted with legislation which makes us painfully aware of the contradiction between true Union law and mere international settlements.
The Convention and the joint action are only a continuation of the 1959 European Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters and a similar Benelux Treaty of 1962, which is to be updated by a link with the Schengen Agreement and adaptation to modern systems.
<P>
Has this project succeeded?
The amendments tabled by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs shows how much remains to be done here.
The amendments tabled by Mr Buffetaut should therefore be accepted in any case, including the reduction of the limit proposed by this Parliament, as it concerns indispensable refinements.
There is one exception, however - permit me, Mr Buffetaut, to say this. In Amendment No 23, the Council text, insofar as it concerns part (b), should be given preference.
In my opinion, the amendment entails dilution, which does not correspond to the tone of your remaining amendments.
<P>
Have we thus gained legal instruments which are suitable for the contemporary demands of fighting crime and upholding the law?
I do not think so, any more than the so-called communitization of the Schengen Agreement was achieved by the Amsterdam Treaty.
What we need is not the continuation of antiquated treaties with more and more bureaucracy, but the real communitization of the legal dimension in cross-border traffic, immigration, refugee and asylum law and the protection of the civil liberties of EU citizens, which have gained a requirement for regulation in the interim.
But where is the political will for such communitization?
That is a question which must be put to us, the European Parliament, first!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the draft Convention and joint action go back to the Council's action plan for combating organized crime.
I hope I shall not fall out with listeners or Members yet again if I say that combating organized crime is an imperative. It is indispensable.
<P>
We must therefore also consider that the Convention passed to us on 14 and 20 January initially represents a major contribution by the Council to implementing the objective of the action plans.
Mr Ullmann has just indicated that existing agreements should be developed.
The objective is to develop, expand and facilitate the application of the European Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters of 20 April 1959, its Additional protocol of 17 March 1978, the Convention of 19 June 1990 applying the Schengen Agreement, and the Benelux Treaty on Extradition and Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters of 27 June 1962.
<P>
You can see the difficult problem with which we are confronted and the difficult task Mr Buffetaut has had from the list of treaties and the details I have mentioned.
He has had to try to do justice to the requirements emerging from European integration - particularly economic integration - on the basis of old treaties, which were concluded at times when the institutions which now exist were undreamt of.
In one aspect it cannot be helped: the unlimited economic activity which is possible in the European Union also entails unrestricted activity in the underground economy, which is initially being combated by an attempt at intensified police cooperation.
I repeat: an attempt - because Europol is still not getting into its stride to the necessary extent, to say nothing of the millstone around its neck - at least, it is a millstone in the view of the Group of the Party of European Socialists - of the overdue need to grant it operational powers at Union level, which lies in the distant future.
<P>
If we assume that this European police force exists, with rights and, of course, powers of control under the rule of law - so the Member who has just spoken need not get excited - this would not mean that the results which such policing would bring could be used judicially to the correspondingly necessary extent.
That is where the debate on Mr Buffetaut's report must begin.
<P>
The current draft specifies the procedure under which mutual assistance is granted and the observance of the forms and procedures specified by the petitioning Member State in accordance with which mutual assistance is to be granted.
The return of the proceeds of crime, the procedure required, and cooperation in telecommunications traffic between Member States - a very difficult topic - are described.
It specifies how the transmission and transfer of procedural documents is to take place, including the necessary translations of the procedural documents to be transferred.
Facilities for examinations, how they can take place by video-conferencing, and how the corresponding translations can be made during video-conferencing, are specified.
<P>
A host of other matters, which I do not wish to mention at this point, are described, which would be necessary to make judicial cooperation possible between two states in proceedings from the confiscation of the proceeds of crime to video-conferencing, whilst observing the existing institutions of the other respective state.
If this is multiplied to involve 15 Member States cooperating with each other, whilst strictly maintaining their existing institutions, hell will have frozen over by the time we have translated the proposals, I am sure.
We shall not get anywhere like this.
What we need is what Mr Buffetaut has indicated, to our surprise: an intensification of the will to harmonize.
<P>
We must begin by harmonizing quite distinct areas of judicial cooperation.
I know I cannot always say this without being punished from within my own ranks.
To me, harmonization means that if the European Union wishes to gain executive powers in the long term - including in the area of judicial cooperation - rights must be transferred to it by the Member States.
We have been transferring rights from national sovereignty to the European Union in stages, including in recent months.
We are all pleased that we shall soon have monetary union in the European Union. We hope that all the Member States of the European Union will soon have the euro as legal tender.
We know that all the groups in this Parliament who have voted for the introduction of the euro have done so because they hope that it will intensify integration.
On the other hand, as the debate on the Buffetaut report has shown, we are faced with the major difficulty that we are not prepared to transfer powers where the nation state is still at its mightiest: police and the judiciary.
<P>
If we go on creating an economic area of this type, as we are doing, equipped with a single currency, but holding on to the idea that only our public prosecutors in the Federal Republic of Germany, France or Belgium are in a position to fight crime on the basis of their respective national law, like a child with a favourite toy, then I am going to turn to crime at some stage.
That is simpler than being a law-abiding citizen in Europe.
<P>
What we are talking about here is the future capacity of the European Union.
I see all the clever lawyers, including on my own committee, sitting over there saying: "There he goes babbling to himself again, with no idea how the legal system works.
If he knew what all the obstacles were he would not talk like that.'
But, precisely because we need the courage of non-lawyers in order to make progress in judicial cooperation, I will tell you again: in the opinion of our group, the best thing about the Buffetaut report is that he tries to make it clear that we shall only make progress in judicial cooperation and mutual assistance in criminal matters by intensifying harmonization in cooperation within the scope of application of joint actions and in the stronger and stronger application of methods which have proved themselves on the basis of mutual experience. This is astounding for a Member of his group.
<P>
One last remark on the procedure of this House.
If we are to be consulted, the Council must appreciate that the consultation procedure forms part of the legislative process.
This is not a courtesy shown to Parliament. It is a constituent part of the legislative process.
If, as Mr Buffetaut indicated, Parliament is discussing the submission from the Council as communicated to us - in this case under pressure, because we want to keep to the Council's deadline - and the Council changes its text in the middle of this consultation procedure, it makes what we do here cosmetic.
This is probably not the fault of the Council representative present here, who should tell his masters that this Parliament will not, I hope, permit it to trample all over its rights, particularly in the third pillar.
It is democracy which is being trampled underfoot, which is something which democratically elected governments should avoid if possible!
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=198 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, I will begin by saying that my group will support Mr Buffetaut's report, which represents excellent work by the rapporteur and admirable cooperation on the part of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
<P>
Having said that, Mr President, allow me symbolically to address the people listening to us in the gallery and interpret what they must feel watching us here today debating this issue, and watching the way in which we are doing it.
I am sure they must feel a mixture of confusion and impotence at what we are in fact acknowledging, because, Mr President, the problem is very clear.
<P>
We have seen massive demonstrations in various Member States against organized crime, from the demonstrations against terrorism in Spain, to the "white march' in Brussels, and every other type of protest.
In all the Member States, there is a common awareness that this is a common problem that we can only tackle together.
<P>
And in the face of this, the political initiative, the political impetus of the Member States is lagging way behind.
When making declarations, we talk about the need to create a single judicial, police and legal area.
However, when putting these declarations into practice, we continue to get lost in a sea of regulations - regulations among which, in many cases, even the most experienced, knowledgable lawyers have difficulty finding their way.
<P>
And meanwhile, as we have heard from all sides of the House - because I believe our position in this respect is unanimous - the internal market benefits, above all the criminals, even though this is a macabre irony.
<P>
Mr President, this report, which undoubtably puts forward some suggestions, must be welcomed, but it represents progress in only very small steps.
It is almost, if you will allow me a certain degree of irony - although the seriousness of the issue does not warrant it - a "lame' step.
Why do I say "lame' ?
Because in this case, Mr President - and I am referring to everything that was also said from the seats here in this House - we have lacked from the beginning interinstitutional respect and, to a much greater degree, respect for the citizens.
<P>
Mr President, it is no longer a case of us having been sent a draft Convention which does not correspond with what we are currently debating.
The problem is that this draft Convention is actually nothing of the sort.
We cannot consider a convention which from the very start has been incomplete to be a draft convention.
There are certain articles, for example Article 4, whose only content is "deleted ' .
The same is true of Articles 8 and 9.
What sort of way is this to draw up regulations?
What kind of legally binding content does it have?
And then there is the usage of suspension points: paragraph 2 of Article 12 has three suspension points; subparagraphs e) and g) of paragraph 6 of Article 12, three suspension points plus three more suspension points, six suspension points in all; paragraph 6 of Article 15 contains more suspension points; and there are also some in Article 16.
There is also the usage - and the Council should tell us what purpose they serve - of "square brackets' which are unfamiliar to us. In the Council's language, these correspond to issues that are being debated by the Member States.
But we do not know what significance there is in asking for Parliament's opinion on those sentences included in the "square brackets' .
<P>
Mr President, this procedure is not satisfactory.
We have condemned it many times in this House.
We cannot allow this procedural game.
We cannot allow it, because we must defend our institutional competencies - and here I would like to thank the Commission which, on the contrary, shows a deference in these matters concerning the third pillar which is worthy of praise.
We also cannot allow it because we must defend our authority as an institution.
But, more particularly, we must not allow it because we are representing here the European citizens; citizens who are sitting here today and who, I imagine, will take away a very confused idea of the progress we are currently making as regards the third pillar.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Mr President, I consider the Convention on mutual assistance in criminal matters between the Member States of the European Union, on which the report is based, to be a suitable instrument for reducing, if not removing, the existing shortcomings in the combating of cross-border crime, allowing for the justifiable criticism and amendments mentioned by the rapporteur.
<P>
International telephone tapping, observing the respective internal legal arrangements, must be just as possible as controlled service, the transmission of procedural documents, the audio-visual examination of witnesses and expert witnesses across borders, and the spontaneous exchange of information between prosecuting authorities, on as simple a basis as possible.
<P>
These are instruments which have long been available to organized crime, and their extension to prosecuting authorities should reduce the technical lead enjoyed by organized crime.
We therefore agree with the report in full.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="Gradin">
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Buffetaut on a valuable report on the draft of the Convention and joint action on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters.
Both these instruments are necessary in the fight against organized crime.
It also means that we are defending the security in law of the individual in a Europe without borders.
<P>
I have long argued in favour of facilitating cooperation between the courts and other judicial organizations in the Member States.
In the work on fighting embezzlement of Union funds, I have seen for myself how delays in exchanging information between different legal systems are a direct encouragement to crime.
The appeals to Geneva from a number of prosecutors are another example of why something has to be done.
We will not be able to meet the challenges which today's organized crime presents unless we have effective legal cooperation.
<P>
The Convention on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters is intended to improve and complement the way we work now.
One basic assumption is that the courts in different Member States will in future be able to exchange information and request assistance from one another directly.
This is an important principle.
I think any exceptions to this principle should be kept to the absolute minimum.
Among other things, the Convention will also make it easier to question witnesses and obtain evidence between Member States.
At the same time, the Convention leaves room for further improvements in terms of cooperation.
<P>
Mr Buffetaut complains that there are a number of questions which have not been settled in the Convention.
For example, the report states that raids and seizures have been dropped and will be covered by a later rider to the Convention.
The same applies to the question of data protection and the role of the European Court of Justice.
I can understand the rapporteur's concern, but increasing cooperation on criminal matters will not grow overnight.
It is a long-term task which is about a process in which, at the same time as improving practical cooperation, we are also working on harmonizing our various laws.
<P>
The rapporteur also proposes that Europol should act as a channel for communicating proposals for mutual legal assistance between Member States.
Europol has a good chance of getting a request to the right address fast, so I think the proposal is interesting.
It is also in line with the discussions already under way on giving Europol's liaison officers a coordinating role for letters rogatory.
<P>
Joint action is an important complement to the Convention.
It lays down a number of principles as to how Member States are to handle a request for mutual legal assistance.
I particularly welcome the provisions on set times for action.
Of course it is possible to discuss joint action, as the rapporteur has done, and a convention is not the best way of laying down fixed principles for action.
On the other hand, I believe the important thing for both the rapporteur and myself is that the Member States should apply the principles quickly and effectively.
<P>
The annual reports are an important tool here.
They can be used both to assess the situation in each Member State and to make comparisons between them.
Like Mr Buffetaut, I believe the European legal network should be included in the report work.
The network will contribute knowledge and experience on how to develop and intensify mutual legal assistance between Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Driving disqualification
<SPEAKER ID=202 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0121/98) by Mrs Reding, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the draft Council Act establishing a Convention on driving disqualifications (5217/98 - C4-0061/98-98/0901(CNS))
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 NAME="Reding">
Mr President, the figures speak for themselves: 45 000 dead and 1.6 million injured on our roads, and all the pain and suffering that goes with these horrifying statistics. A cost of ECU 1 million to the European Union for each citizen killed.
Ladies and gentlemen, these figures are shocking. In order to counter such a distressing situation, a twopronged assault combining prevention on the one hand and repression on the other is envisaged.
<P>
Prevention is achieved through campaigns aimed at alerting people to the dangers of drink driving and educating them about the fight against illegal substances; compulsory technical vehicle inspections; improvements in the provision of signals; and so on and so forth.
These preventive measures are intended to improve road safety in general and remove the cause of certain accidents before they can occur.
Hand in hand with prevention, we must also organize suppression, since even the best prevention campaigns have not stopped some of our fellow citizens from flouting traffic regulations.
Sanctions already exist in our Member States and these range from fines for minor offences to driving disqualifications for more serious offences.
<P>
The European institutions have already been very active in the area of prevention.
Under the auspices of this Convention, the suppressive aspects of this European action need to be strengthened.
The Convention proposes to inaugurate the recognition by a driver's country of residence of a decision to ban them from driving taken in another Member State.
To put this more clearly, measures are needed which will bring about a situation whereby a ban in one Member State would also be enforced in the country of residence and, by extension, everywhere that a driving licence is required in order to drive a vehicle.
In future, these cowboys of the road will no longer be protected from prosecution in their countries of residence for offences committed in another Member State.
<P>
That said, certain organizations and several colleagues have told me of their concerns over the protection of citizens against the consequences of applying this new Convention.
I can now reassure them on this point.
The Convention has been painstakingly put together and incorporates barriers against all forms of abuse or unjustified complications relating to the people in question and furthermore, the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs has adopted a number of amendments which will further strengthen citizens' protection.
I do not intend to list all of them but I will mention the most important ones.
<P>
First of all, the Convention does not apply to minor offences.
The catalogue of offences concerned only includes very serious offences which endanger people's lives.
It is not therefore aimed at pursuing minor traffic offences. On the contrary, it is aimed at stopping dangerous drivers.
<P>
Next, driving disqualification does not rely on a so-called centralizing bureaucracy in Brussels, but on the relevant authorities in the Member States of residence, who alone have the right to choose whether or not to apply the Convention.
It is not, therefore, a remote and ill-known entity which will decide, but an authority close to its citizens.
<P>
Finally, the Convention makes provision for a number of cases in which it does not apply, the most notable of these being the situation where the offences committed do not carry a disqualification in the country of residence.
For example, if a resident of Luxembourg is disqualified from driving in another Member State because of a blood sugar level of 5 parts per 1000, this decision would not be applicable in Luxembourg where the limit is 8 parts per 1000.
<P>
The Convention is not applicable if it can be established that the person concerned has not had the opportunity of defending themselves correctly, especially due to procedural irregularities or language problems, for the right to a defence is a fundamental right which must be respected.
<P>
Furthermore, the Convention also makes provision for several procedures aimed at taking into account the differences in administrative or legal methods in the different Member States.
<P>
I am therefore of the opinion that even though the present Convention may not be perfect, Parliament's amendments have rendered it logical, legally speaking more correct and transparent, and therefore better placed to protect the rights of our citizens.
By respecting the law and being transparent, the amended Convention constitutes an important step forward.
I therefore ask Parliament to support the Council in this initiative.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Zimmermann">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Reding has just spoken most comprehensively about her report and I must congratulate her most sincerely.
I believe that what she has said here, and the content of the unanimously adopted amendments, show that this report was not only prepared very well, but also that its content addresses the points in question.
Nevertheless, I would like to state that this report affects us all, although only a few Members are present, because any of us could commit a traffic offence in another country resulting in disqualification from driving in that country, but not in another.
Although this Convention provides for the respective country of residence to decide whether the driver should be disqualified, there are some cases in which we must ensure that no-one is disqualified from driving when they would not have been disqualified at home.
<P>
It is fundamentally necessary that we should get round to making uniform regulations at a European level which are applied uniformly, particularly where traffic legislation is concerned.
As Mrs Reding has stated, a step has been taken in the right direction and I hope that others will follow.
Although there are countries in which the alcohol limit for driving is zero and others where it is 80 mg per 100 ml of blood, these differences should be removed, if we want to have a unified Europe.
I would welcome the introduction of real, uniform regulations in Europe, whether for speeding, the alcohol limit or other areas of traffic legislation, so that we had European rules for disqualification from driving, instead of more rules made under bilateral agreements.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Nassauer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the legislation we are debating affects all European drivers and thus a large number of people, which ensures it will get attention, but this also justifies the need to give it careful consideration, which is our intention here.
Firstly, some misunderstandings must be cleared up.
This is not a matter of harmonizing road traffic legislation in Europe. It is not even a matter of communitizing the consequences of driving offences.
The objective of the Convention only concerns disqualification from driving, which is a relatively advanced stage for drivers.
That is the sole objective of this Convention.
<P>
It has now been asked whether such a uniform ruling can be made, in view of the diversity of laws on driving in Europe.
If we, as Europeans, use the entire area of the European Union as drivers, we must also accept that uniform rules apply, in principle.
Should a driver therefore commit such a serious offence in one European country that he is disqualified from driving, it must also be accepted that this will have consequences at home.
<P>
To put it another way, road hogs must not get away with shaking the dust of one Member State off their shoes and carrying on driving at home, as if nothing had happened.
That is why this rule is correct in principle.
There have been objections from drivers' organizations.
They are quite entitled to take a critical attitude to such a regulation and we want to consider it.
<P>
The question is whether disqualification from driving can be enforced at home, in view of the differences in regulations, but also in view of the different legal systems.
It is the old story: how much Europe do we need?
Or, as a major German newspaper recently asked: "How much Europe can we stand?'
This regulation does not apply without restrictions.
It is restricted by safeguards within the rule of law.
This Convention will initially only apply to serious offences which are individually listed, not to every offence.
<P>
Secondly, it must for example be stated that disqualification can only be enforced at home if, of course, it concerns an offence which is also punishable at home.
The notorious example of someone losing their licence for drink driving in Sweden with 30 mg of alcohol per 100 ml of blood would not be implemented in Germany, because such behaviour in Germany is not normally punishable.
<P>
There is thus a host of rules which demonstrate that the principles of the rule of law apply.
However, there is a further objection, namely the differences between legal systems, of which there is a comic example.
In one of the most delightful Member States of the European Union, exceeding the speed limit can be detected by a police officer with the naked trained eye, as it is said.
This would, of course, not be recognized everywhere.
It can therefore be disputed whether it makes sense.
But if we accept that every Member State enjoys the rule of law, we can have confidence that the judicial authorities act within the rule of law in principle. Should we enter the sovereignty of such a state, we must accept that slightly different rules may possibly apply there.
However, Europe as a whole is subject to the rule of law and we can also put our confidence in it in this area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, Commissioner, the way the draft of this Convention has been handled in the European Parliament shows once again that this Parliament is the right institution to protect civil rights and questions of protection in law.
If the Council had listened to Parliament on the subject of Eurodac or criminalizing working in organizations, I believe we would have had clearer rules than is actually currently the case at the Council.
<P>
Secondly, I hope this Convention actually becomes a reality, unlike so many others.
<P>
Thirdly, I really believe - as I said before - that the rapporteur's amendments will make ratifying the Convention more attractive to the Member States.
I am thinking of Amendment No 13 to Article 8 and also the amendment to Article 9.
<P>
What I am slightly doubtful about, on the other hand, is the amendment to Article 4, as we in Scandinavia, for example, have a number of police authorities working together well.
I can imagine we would need this to have the coordination system which is part of any legal system.
So I feel slightly critical of this amendment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, the implementation of the free movement of persons within the Union leads to the urgency of the measure being discussed.
We thank Mrs Reding for her excellent work and, while awaiting an approximation of the national laws, we hope the Council's proposal will at least serve to establish, at European level, recognition by the country of residence of a decision to penalize a driver by withdrawing their driving licence on the part of another Member State.
<P>
The subject draws attention to identification documents in general.
I will take this opportunity to report a paradoxical situation, which is that of the obligation to hold a passport for various Community citizens within the Union. For example - and this causes them problems - young Italians born in Belgium, but not having Belgian citizenship, do not hold an identity card but simply a residence permit that does not allow them to travel in Europe.
<P>
We are therefore asking for a real European identity card to be introduced and for the current, anachronistic Community residence permit to be changed to a residence permit and free pass.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, in principle we have two methods of achieving road safety objectives.
The first is penalties, which we are discussing today.
I would also like to comment that disqualification from driving is a threat to the livelihood of many people.
We have experienced many suicides following disqualification.
It is really an extreme measure which should therefore be used carefully.
<P>
We have a second method, namely using incentives.
We should emphasize training very intensively, particularly on the roads, as lifelong learning.
We should emphasize research to improve the safety of vehicles, their drivers and the roads, and we should emphasize infrastructure, meaning electronic systems, simply to make traffic safer.
I believe that a combination of both methods will ultimately lead to success in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Mr President, nobody wants road hogs to endanger life. The tone of this report is therefore welcome.
However, it seems to us that the implementation of its intentions has not succeeded.
Apart from the legally unusual construction of Article 3 in conjunction with Article 5, the main problem is, in my opinion, that errors occur for a wide variety of reasons in proceedings abroad, particularly in the investigation of the circumstances, and remain unchallenged, again for a wide variety of reasons.
The linking of the place of residence to findings in the decision in the state in which the offence was committed does not appear to permit the accused to exhaust the full potential for defence to which he would be entitled under the laws of his country of residence.
<P>
The facility for the Member State to reject enforcement in a case in which rights of defence have been breached does not, in our opinion, constitute sufficient compensation, for practical reasons.
We would prefer proceedings to take place in the respective country of residence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="Gradin">
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating Mrs Reding on her valuable report on the Convention to ensure mutual recognition of driving disqualifications.
<P>
As you are all well aware, the number of accidents on Europe's roads is far too high.
Many of them are caused by careless or unauthorized driving.
Disqualification has proved an effective tool in the work of improving road safety.
At the moment someone who has had his driving licence withdrawn in a country other than his home country can legally get it back when he returns home.
This is absurd.
The Convention on driving disqualifications will close some of the existing loopholes.
<P>
The Commission shares Mrs Reding's view that a Council decision on the Convention is urgent.
I can tell you that political agreement was reached at the Justice and Home Affairs Council on 19 March and that is a step in the right direction, and the United Kingdom presidency is very optimistic concerning the possibilities of adopting the Convention at the next meeting of the Council at the end of May.
<P>
The Convention establishes a notification mechanism between the state where the offence took place and the state of residence of the offender.
The state of residence will ensure that the foreign penalty is enforced or that a suitable domestic sanction is imposed on the offender and, if necessary, other Member States will be informed that the driving licence in question has been withdrawn.
The report suggests that strict deadlines should be introduced for the notification, recognition and implementation procedures.
The proposal is an interesting one.
It would make for greater predictability and security in ensuring that the necessary measures are also adopted in time.
<P>
In her report Mrs Reding also stresses the importance of cooperation under the Convention being practicable.
What we must seek to do is establish the fastest and simplest procedure possible.
This is a praiseworthy ambition.
<P>
I also welcome Mrs Reding's proposal that, in future, a Member State should only be able to notify procedural changes which make for simplification.
However, we must, at the same time, remember that the Convention is the outcome of a negotiation process.
There will certainly be room for improvement, so we must make an assessment of how the Convention has worked a couple of years after it enters into force.
<P>
With more than 45 000 deaths on Europe's roads each year, we must take road safety extremely seriously.
Once it has entered into force, the Convention on driving disqualifications will be an effective instrument for combating this kind of offence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 NAME="President">
I would like to thank both the Commissioner and the rapporteur, Mrs Reding.

<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=13>
Abolition of duty-free sales
<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions to the Commission:
<P>
B4-0279/98 - O-0073/98 by Mr Cornelissen and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the social and regional consequences of the abolition of duty-free sales in the regions affected; -B4-0283/98 - O-0087/98 by Mrs Ewing and Mr Castagnède, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the duty-free sales system.
<SPEAKER ID=213 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Cornelissen">
Mr President, the decision taken by the Ecofin Council in 1991 to abolish duty-free sales for travellers within the European Union from July 1999 has thoroughly stirred up feelings recently.
This is not surprising and in itself not alarming.
What is worrying, though, are the reports that the abolition will lead to the loss of a great number of jobs in some regions and sectors.
I would like to mention for example the ferries, regional airports and certain tourist regions.
The Irish Minister for Transport expects 30 000 to 50 000 jobs to be lost.
The sector itself quotes a figure many times higher.
Amongst the priorities of the European Union are combating unemployment, and the development of deprived regions.
Partly in view of the fact that many workers in the relevant sectors are feeling a sense of unease, we believe there should be clarity.
I am therefore asking the Commission whether it would be prepared to carry out an independent study into its possible effects, looking in particular at the sectors and regions most affected.
Mr President, I trust you will give me a positive reply, in view of the promises made by the Commissioner initially responsible, Mrs Scrivener, during the Parliamentary debates in 1990 and 1991.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 NAME="Ewing">
Mr President, this House probably knows that, representing the Highlands and Islands, I have a great connection with the Scotch whisky industry with its hundreds of distilleries and hundreds of types of whisky - a very important employer in areas where there is often no alternative employment.
I would like to follow on from Mr Cornelissen: I do not need to repeat what he said but I endorse his demand for a full study.
What annoys me is that this was promised by the tax Commissioner in November 1990 and May 1991.
Commissioner Monti came before the EMAC Committee and I was present on that particular occasion when we put these points to him and he seemed to me unrepentant and rather debonair about the fact that such a promise had been made and that the promise was broken.
I am still wondering if we could get an explanation from the Commission as to why the promise was not kept.
<P>
We have had other studies of course.
We have had a study from a research department of Parliament which has caused some of the concern among citizens because, as Mr Cornelissen said, we do not know how many jobs are at stake.
But there are estimates that far more than 40 000 jobs may be lost, and this at a time of enormously high unemployment.
The effect on peripheral areas would be very serious because, as I have said already, such areas have very few employment alternatives.
<P>
We have received justifications from the Council for a refusal to reconsider this matter.
One is that it is necessary for the single market; but is it not rather ironic that, so far as alcohol is concerned, we do not have a single market?
We have not yet managed to tax in accordance with any sensible rule, for instance alcohol strength.
We have not got a level playing field so far as alcohol is concerned.
So the first justification does not seem to me to hold water.
<P>
The second justification - there are probably many others that the Commissioner might be able to put forward - is that ECU 2 billion is the cost of the loss in duties.
But some of the studies suggest there is no proof that amount would be made up even if duty-free is abolished.
There is no doubt of course that, in many cases, duty-free affects the cost of airport fares and ferry charges.
We know that to be true, we do not disguise the fact.
But I go back to the effect of these costs, if they have to rise in peripheral areas.
There is enormous concern among the citizenry.
I know it would have to be unanimous, but please, in view of the concern, could we not ask that the Council look at this again?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="Monti">
Mr President, the Commission is aware of the questions raised in some Member States about the situation which will arise after June 1999, the date on which intra-Community duty-free sales will end as decided by the Council of Ministers in 1991.
<P>
I am sure that you also appreciate that the Commission is aware that the large majority of finance ministers have made it very clear twice in November 1996 and very recently in March 1998 that the decision taken in 1991 to end intra-Community duty-free sales will not be reconsidered.
The Commission therefore remains convinced that the transitional period of more than seven years granted to the duty-free sector was sufficient to meet the duty-free trade's legitimate concern about the phasing out of such sales.
<P>
The Commission has been asked several times, including during the present session, whether it intends to carry out a study of the implications of the abolition of tax-free sales.
The answer is short.
The answer is "No' .
There is no reason for doing so.
Let me once again explain why.
When the Commission between 1989 and 1991 discussed the tax arrangements for the establishment of the internal market with this Parliament, the then Commissioner responsible for fiscal matters declared herself ready to carry out a study on the social and economic consequences for all professions whose future was to be concerned by the entry into force of the internal market arrangements on 1 January 1993 and to look for appropriate solutions where necessary.
<P>
This declaration was made to meet inter alia the concern expressed by Parliament about the consequences of an immediate abolition of duty-free sales on 1 January 1993 and to see if some arrangements for a phasing-out of this activity were justified and possible.
Against this background, the Commission, which had not proposed any specific measures in favour of this activity in its own proposal, finally welcomed in the following discussions within the Council the introduction of a derogatory regime of more than seven years.
It also kept the competent committee of Parliament closely informed about the solutions then agreed.
I must stress that, having received this information, your institution never again mentioned the study initially envisaged until very recently.
<P>
The Council, by adopting such a specific regime which largely overcomes the need for a study - seven and a half years is more than a study - took into consideration the socio-economic dimensions of tax-free activity, as this is clearly reflected in the 'whereas' clauses of the relevant directives.
Consequently, the Commission remains convinced that this specific regime was an appropriate and practical answer to the concern expressed at the time by the European Parliament.
<P>
Comparing this long derogatory regime to the solutions provided for other professions affected by the internal market legislation, for example, customs freight forwarders who receive funds for reconversion and so on of about ECU 30 million, a seven-year period allowing for an annual turnover of about ECU 7.5 billion does not appear to be disadvantageous treatment.
<P>
Moreover, launching a study now is not only unjustified but would be slightly irresponsible on our part.
Launching a study now, just over one year before the end of the actual derogatory regime would be most counterproductive as it might be seen by the taxfree industry as a way of re-opening this issue and further delaying the inevitable.
This would run against the necessary and overdue adjustment of the industry which constituted the primary reason for allowing a seven-year period.
The Commission does not intend to give the wrong signals.
<P>
I would like to elaborate on the regional effects that are raised in the question.
I welcome this regional dimension which is focused on some real, specific and limited problems which might arise as a consequence of abolition.
The Commission, however, underlines the fact that it will be up to the individual Member States concerned to consider if, and to what extent, specific regional difficulties may occur and to take appropriate measures, including research, assessment and evaluations of local or regional effects on which demands by Member States themselves might be based.
<P>
It may well be the case that Community funding could be available to alleviate any specific problems caused by the abolition of duty-free sales.
It will, however, be for Member States to identify any such problems and then to assess what kind of action, if any, would be appropriate.
If Member States then wish to seek support from the Community they will need to do so under existing procedures: for example, those applicable to structural funding.
Cases would then be examined in partnership with the Commission and decisions taken on the merits of each individual case.
<P>
In the case of Structural Funds, interventions are aimed at reducing regional and social disparities.
Together with the Member States and the regions concerned, the Commission has established a framework for these interventions covering matters such as priorities, financial resources and forms of assistance, which are usually implemented by means of an operational programme.
The current programme runs until the end of 1999.
The next programming period for the Structural Funds will run from 2000 to 2006.
<P>
On 18 March this year, in the framework of its Agenda 2000 package, the Commission adopted its new draft regulations on the operation of the Structural Funds.
In its new Article 4, it allows Member States to propose for eligibility under the national Objective II quota any areas facing or threatened by a high level of unemployment arising from an ongoing or planned restructuring of an activity of key importance for the agricultural, industrial or service sectors.
Sea and air transport form part of the service sector.
<P>
Community rules also provide Member States with the means to pursue legitimate public service goals for transport links when commercial operators are unable to meet these goals without public assistance.
Community guidelines already exist in this area - for example, on aid to maritime transport links.
<P>
Honourable Members will therefore see that well-known and tested procedures already exist through which Member States and the Commission can work in partnership to help in situations where specific problems might arise in relation to the abolition of intra-Community duty-free sales which will take place on 30 June 1999.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 NAME="Miller">
Mr President, thank you Commissioner Monti for your explanation.
I think you will actually find, if you look back in the records of this House, that the study has been requested for some time now.
It is not just a recent phenomenon; we have been requesting the study for some years now.
<P>
This motion calls for a study of the economic and social implications of the abolition of duty-free.
It does not call for the retention of duty-free.
I think that is a point that has to be made at the very start.
I listened carefully to what you had to say, Commissioner Monti, and I know that on more than one occasion you have said no to carrying out such a study even though it had been previously agreed to.
I understand the reasons that you have given.
When you initially said that duty-free was to be abolished on 1 January 1993, a study was appropriate in the run-up to that period but when the derogation was agreed until 1999 then the study, as you say, is no longer applicable.
<P>
You have also pointed out in the past that in the intervening period of seven and a half years the duty-free lobby were supposed to run down their operations and in fact what has happened is that the duty-free lobby have done the exact opposite and have expanded it.
I take those points on board.
We have noticed that there have been several studies carried out, many of them indicating job losses, some of them indicating the exact opposite.
Can I say that I do not believe any of them?
I do not believe any of the studies from either side because none of them has been carried out by an independent assessor.
They have all been carried out with vested interests and therefore I think it is appropriate at this time that we have the true picture, the clear picture of what will happen post duty-free.
That is why we need an independent assessment.
But as I have heard you say, Commissioner Monti, you are still saying no.
<P>
Can I take you back to a meeting, a joint hearing of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and the Committee on Transport and Tourism which was held last year on the question of duty-free, when you said that you were prepared to look at ways of ameliorating the effects of any unemployment.
The question I have to ask is how can you look at ways of ameliorating the effects without a study?
You tried to turn that slightly in your answer earlier by saying it is up to the individual Member States to look at that and to look at ways of utilizing the Structural Funds by diverting them into those areas that may have unemployment caused by the abolition of duty-free.
I would say that is not the duty of the Member States because if we do that then all of a sudden we will have a piecemeal policy on the Structural Funds and that is the last thing that we want within this Chamber, especially when we are coming up to the review of the Structural Funds.
<P>
What we have also got to look at is the economic consequences and there are a number of unanswered questions here, too.
An example that has been used on many occasions is if a ferry travels between two EU countries and passes through international waters what are the passengers entitled to?
Are they entitled to duty-free or are they entitled to pay duty at the port of departure or are they entitled to pay duty at the port of arrival?
There are economic questions here that have to be answered and therefore a study, I think, would address this balance and I would accordingly urge you to take this up.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Cornelissen">
Mr President, I am surprised and disappointed at the Commissioner's negative reply.
It is hard to believe that, in 1999, authorities are introducing measures without knowing what the effects will be on employment and regional development.
May I point to the statements made in this House by the President of the Commission, Mr Santer, about how much store he sets by good cooperation with the European Parliament?
The Commission's reply does not square with this.
Nor does it show much respect for the tens of thousands of anxious workers in the sector.
I would draw your attention to the march in Brussels last year in which 5 000 people took part.
The reply is also at odds with the citizens' Europe the Commission is so keen on.
Could I therefore ask the Commissioner in the strongest possible terms whether he is prepared to discuss this disappointing outcome with Mr Santer.
Could I also ask him, partly in view of the recent request made by the Transport Council, and in the interest of tens of thousands of worried people, to carry out the requested study urgently, so that we all know what we are talking about.
We are adult enough, Mr President, to judge whether it is correct or not.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="Fitzsimons">
Mr President, I rise to support Mr Cornelissen, Mrs Ewing and Mr Miller.
My group supports the resolution.
It has already been said that promises were given in this House by the Commission that it would undertake a social and economic impact study into the abolition of duty-free sales.
Mr Cornelissen has put his finger on the pulse.
<P>
The reality is that the Commission representatives continue to refuse to make any analysis even in the face of the decision taken by the Transport Council last March to call for a study of the situation.
Regardless of what position individual Members of this House have on the worth of the continuation of duty-free, my group strongly supports this motion as it addresses the failure of the democratic process whereby the Commission continues to ignore the wishes of those who are elected by the citizens of Europe.
It is they who have the right to expect that their interests are represented wholeheartedly.
So let us have the study and then we can take the necessary decisions on this issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="Cox">
Mr President, in passing laws which affect people, trade and places, we all have a duty of care and a duty to care.
Conscious of this, more than seven years ago I proposed the amendment, prior to the decision to abolish duty-free, that we should undertake a study.
In Parliament, as has been said, on behalf of the Commission in the clearest terms Mrs Scrivener pledged to undertake just such a study.
That promise was never fulfilled.
I deplore and regret the Commission's breach of good faith.
<P>
Two years ago I wrote to Commissioner Mario Monti renewing my call for a study.
I reject, therefore, the views of those today who argue that this debate is a late attempt to derail the abolition of duty-free.
Had the Commission been as good as its word, such a study and its consequences would long since have been dealt with.
Without prejudice to the question of substance - the abolition of duty-free - the call for a study remains as valid today as it was before, and I renew it now.
<P>
For many, the duty-free question has taken on a certain symbolic significance in respect of tax harmonization and the single market, a symbolism disproportionate to its market share and substance.
This has resulted in proponents and opponents alike paying inadequate attention to the practical consequences of abolition.
The Commission, with some justification, points to industry's failure to make adjustments.
So, too, the Commission has a case to answer.
Not all the questions of abolition relate to industry; they touch on significant areas of public policy, such as regional, tourism and employment policy, and they are not questions for industry alone.
<P>
On revenue and fiscal erosion, a question: can the Commissioner say with legal certainty what will be the state of play in exciseduty terms for vendors, Member States and consumers after the abolition in 1999?
Will excise duties vary for on-board sales as ferries and planes cross between territorial waters?
Will there be zero excise in international waters?
Is there a policy to deal with such chaos in the mind of the Commission?
I regret that tonight we have not had a commitment to do a study.
It is overdue, it is necessary.
Politically I believe in a political Commission.
I am sorry we got a bureaucrats' answer tonight.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we would not be having this debate if there was not a powerful lobby which has pulled out all the stops to rattle public opinion, and which has even succeeded in mobilizing most of the groups.
We have known for a long time that the Council and the Commission together proposed to abolish duty-free sales at some point. More than seven years were allocated to this process of abolition, nor does it make any sense in a common market to keep such a scheme.
<P>
Moreover it is clear that most of the duty-free shops will not suffer at all, as people do not buy there because it is cheaper - in fact often it is more expensive, as I know from experience - but because people have time on their hands, and they want to buy a gift, and so on.
We are behind the Council and the Commission.
We believe there is something to be said for a study, if only to work out a concrete action plan. Proof can then be established that there will only be a shift in jobs, and that the possible social and transport problems in peripheral regions will be countered in all earnestness.
This we support; no more, but also no less.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="Nicholson">
Mr President, I certainly find the present debate on the future of duty-free ridiculous to say the least.
If ever we were trying to remove from the public something they want to keep, this is it.
The vast majority who travel abroad do so either on holiday or on business and they like the availability of duty-free.
It is the one little perk they have.
<P>
What are we proposing?
We are proposing to remove the small advantage they have.
And what will be achieved?
All we will do is anger European citizens who travel, and all in the name of the European Union and the single market.
On top of that, we are going to put a lot of people out of work.
I thought our business was about retaining and creating jobs, not putting people out of work.
<P>
I would take this opportunity to urge the Commission and the Council that rather than reply as they have done this afternoon in a very bureaucratic way, as Mr Cox said, they should recognize the deep feeling and concern that is held on this issue by citizens throughout the length and breadth of the European Union.
This will only increase as many people do not yet realize what is going to happen to them very soon.
I urge that, instead of letting that resentment against the European Union deepen, we take positive steps to ensure that this does not happen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 NAME="President">
At the close of the debate I have received six motions for a resolution .
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Piecyk">
Mr President, I have to live with the name of Piecyk, which is pronounced incorrectly again and again.
This does not represent a problem.
Mr President, in contrast to Mr Cornelissen, I am not surprised by the Commissioner's statement.
It was almost what I was expecting.
However, Commissioner, I believe that politics must be capable of measuring the decisions it makes against real life, and of having them measured.
It may be said that a decision was made under certain circumstances and things did not happen as we perhaps expected or intended.
<P>
I have the impression that you are ultimately shying away from acquiring data, under the motto of what the eye does not see, the heart does not grieve over.
As has frequently been mentioned here, I find it remarkable to have to press for something to which the then Commissioner committed herself in 1991.
We received this commitment from the Commission several years ago.
It is also a question of good faith between Parliament and the Commission.
<P>
There is another question. All those people, including myself, who are committing themselves to the retention of duty- free sales, because of their concern about the imminent job losses with which they are confronted, are working with shock figures provided by the duty-free industry and pressure groups.
That is the real reason for saying that we need a correct, verifiable and wide-ranging survey, so that we can reach a reasonable, rational conclusion.
<P>
I do not know whether 140 000 jobs are really at stake in the Union. I do know that several thousand jobs will be lost in the daytrip and ferry crossing business in my own area of Schleswig-Holstein on the Baltic Coast.
I do not know which airports and airlines will be affected, but I do know that smaller, regional airports, connections to remote areas, and Baltic ferry traffic, especially with Finland, will be particularly affected.
<P>
I do not know what the precise fiscal effects of the abolition of tax- and duty-free sales will be, but I do know very well that assistance for the transport sector in the affected regions and for social security contributions from the unemployed will be back on the agenda, as you have indicated.
For all these reasons I say that we need a proper, correct survey before we go on arguing about the whys and wherefores.
I can imagine that you want this.
However, the Transport Council has demanded it, Parliament will demand it and, if my understanding is correct, we have a joint motion for a resolution tabled for tomorrow morning by many groups.
For this reason, the Commission should not continue to refuse at this point, but should provide this study, so that we can then hold a reasonable discussion about it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langen">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my committee held a hearing and a report by Mr Garosci is available.
We must make a distinction between the demand for a survey and the abolition of duty-free.
I share Mr Piecyk's opinion that a survey would illuminate the false stories spread by the lobby, as parliamentary democracy is being put under massive pressure by completely unfair means.
There can be no doubt that the coastal regions which are particularly affected will receive specific aid if necessary.
On the other hand, the discussion is really about cancelling the abolition of duty-free decided on in 1991.
The debate is being dominated by Members from countries in which there are high taxes on consumer goods, or which have borders with such states.
It thus involves Member States in which extensive use is made of tax advantages, which is not justified within the sense of the entire population of the European Union.
Weekend speeches emphasize the importance of tax harmonization again and again, but on Monday morning everyone wants their own tax breaks.
<P>
That is why, Commissioner, I share your opinion that duty-free sales must be abolished, because it conceals the concept of cheap shopping - frequently quite blatant consumer deception.
Those who say that airports are in danger must be asked whether the ordinary citizen should subsidize business travellers, by continuing to give them the opportunity to shop tax-free?
I do not think so, and there is absolutely no reason to grant special advantages if we want to harmonize certain fiscal regulations within the scope of the euro.
We can, Commissioner, discuss this much better, and you will be in a better position, if you commission a survey of the regional effects and take the wind out of the sails of the entire lobby!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
<SPEAKER ID=226 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, having listened to the Commissioner's speech I am of the opinion that the issue was displaced, since we were faced with a double challenge.
<P>
Mr Commissioner, the first challenge is this: you said that after a transition period lasting seven years we did not need a report, and that we would not draw up a report.
However, you also admitted that there would be repercussions on employment, on the ports, on travel and on the market.
<P>
The second challenge is this: there will be repercussions.
Each Member State will face up to these repercussions and rectify the situation.
However, was it the policy of each Member State individually that caused these repercussions or was it Community policy?
This Community policy must be responsible for coming to the aid of each Member State to put these repercussions right.
In the meantime, Mr Commissioner, the people working in the sector say that 145 000 jobs will be lost, mainly affecting young people who work in the duty-free shops.
<P>
I want to ask you what these young people will do.
Do you know why you are delaying the study?
Do you know why you will never submit it?
Because you cannot be bothered to look and see what will happen to these people.
That is why you are avoiding it.
If not, it would have been very easy for you to produce evidence to show that such and such would be the repercussions, such and such would be the tax gains.
You do not want to get involved in the issue of what will happen to the 150 000 people who will be thrown out into the streets. These young people will swell the ranks of the 20 million unemployed, made jobless by your notorious, infamous unified market and the policies you implement to promote it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, first of all I think it is outrageous and very irresponsible of the Commission that it should actually pursue something without first having an independent assessment of its consequences.
Especially for island states in the EU including Ireland, it really warrants particular attention and I wonder what the Commissioner is actually afraid of by refusing to carry out the study that so many people have called for.
With its harmonization of the tax system, the EU is gradually assuming all the characteristics of a single state.
<P>
Irish politicians from the main political parties are now queuing up to score points on this issue, but they should be criticized for their unflinching enthusiasm for the single market in the past.
For example, the leader of our own government in Ireland, Mr Ahern, is only a recent convert to the duty-free cause.
When he was Ireland's Minister for Finance in 1991 he joined other EU finance ministers in agreeing that duty-free sales should cease by the end of the decade.
I really think it is irresponsible of the EU to push something through without a proper study being carried out and, as Mr Miller said, any studies done to date have been by vested interests on both sides.
We need proper studies that are independent and will give us the whole story and it is the responsibility of the Commission to carry that out.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 NAME="Hendrick">
Mr President, can I start by saying that if somebody was thinking of inventing duty-free tomorrow and they actually came forward with these ideas I am sure they would never be taken up.
However, we are not in that position.
The original rationale behind duty-free is clearly flawed and clearly the people who had the idea never envisaged the single market which we are trying to work towards at the moment.
The same could be true of something like smoking.
If we could have banned smoking before it started I am sure we would have done so, but clearly all we can do for the moment is try and discourage it.
So it is there, we have got to deal with it.
The question is, how do we deal with it?
We all know, because many of us in this Parliament travel as often as we do, that certainly ports and airports use the advantages of duty-free to actually reduce the costs of fares and of travelling to passengers.
In my own region in particular I have two airports, Manchester Airport and Blackpool Airport, that benefit considerably from duty-free and indeed there are jobs tied up in that.
<P>
There is a point which has already been made by many other speakers: there has not been an independent study, and we need one.
Jobs are tied up in this.
Whether 140 000 jobs would go, as Mr Ephremidis estimates, we do not know.
Clearly, some of the people working in those shops will continue to work there; some will not work there because the profitability is not the same.
What we need to know is what the impact will be, how many jobs will be lost, and then a decision can be made about what to do.
That decision may incorporate some adjustments of regional funding in order to take account of that fact.
Like Mr Miller, I do not believe there should be a piecemeal approach to this but nevertheless if extra money was forthcoming from the Commission or elsewhere to take account of this fact, I am sure it would not be refused by the regions concerned.
<P>
We need a way forward, we need to be objective about this, we must not just bow to vested interests.
What we need is an objective analysis, and I ask the Commission and the Council to come forward with proposals on that basis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langenhagen">
Mr President, must we remain loyal to our single market principles come what may, or are we interested in people as well?
Come to the North Sea spa of Cuxhaven, where I come from, which attracts a lot of visitors, not least because of duty-free.
Speak to those who will lose their jobs, according to the shipping lines.
We do not have any other jobs.
We are fighting for our fishing industry and have just one small shipyard left.
The hinterland is rural, arable farmland and pasture, without many SMEs.
All in all it is a rural area experiencing difficulties, soon to be without 5b status or the new Objective II status, Mr Monti.
Agenda 2000 does not provide any security.
<P>
The unemployment rate where I live on the North Sea coast is 11 % and rising.
The position is the same in other areas along Europe's 80 000 km coastline.
You can see that the problem is not local.
We are in it up to our necks, though we are working on solutions for the future.
Our long-term goals are lively networks of small and medium-sized harbours, coastal management, protection of salt marshes, the sustained establishment of maritime information and technology systems and attractive tourist resorts.
These could be implemented successfully by the coastal states, if Europe helps them.
We are counting on this.
Our future depends on it.
<P>
We are currently expanding our harbour in Cuxhaven, with EU assistance, but you, the opponents of duty-free sales, are blocking the entrance.
A harbour without ships is like a sea without fish.
The symbiotic relationship between the coast and inland areas, between economically weak and economically strong areas, has been successful with duty-free, though seldom sufficiently so.
The volume of business has increased rapidly since 1991 and with it the number of jobs.
Not even a modern economic programme such as the trans-European network has yet provided such economic and social cooperation.
<P>
I know it will take a miracle to overturn the Council decision, but I do not belong to the Council.
I represent the people.
What am I supposed to tell the families who are hit by job losses?
I do not think that anyone in Europe can be insensitive enough to wilfully destroy these achievements.
The cost of unemployment benefit and restructuring projects will far exceed the tax revenues lost on duty-free sales, and no fiscal harmonization is in sight anyway.
<P>
I therefore demand further examinations of the regional effects.
Perhaps there is also a legal interpretation which permits an exemption, as there was for sea travel to Heligoland, the jewel of the North Sea.
The Transport Council has decided this in the meantime.
I would like to ask you, Mr Monti, and those Members who oppose duty-free sales, to follow this route.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, if the Commissioner says it is possible to get support instead of the traffic which might stop, I would say this to him. Firstly, ferry traffic is not eligible for trans-European network support, unless both ports are part of it.
<P>
Secondly, structural support is not operational support.
I say this in reply to your statements that we should look at the support side.
<P>
Thirdly, you have said a lot about duty-free sales being an indirect form of support.
But the indirect support which is available today in the form of flagging out rules is much greater and could have much more serious consequences, namely the flagging out which would take place in ferry traffic if duty-free were abolished.
<P>
I still wonder why the Commissioner is so against making this investigation while at the same time insisting that the Commission has information about the ferry routes which are most threatened.
I am thinking about what lies closest to my heart, namely the most northerly all year round ferry route in the Northern Straits.
Thousands of signatures were sent in support of this route, well before any lobbying started, Mrs Aelvoet.
Unfortunately, those signatures were not received by Commissioner Monti.
The aim is to safeguard jobs in the area, but there are also environmental reasons for protecting the ferry links.
One study, for example, says that using this ferry link saves millions of marks on the environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, let me say first of all that I recognize the logic of the eventual abolition of duty-free.
We must in Europe work to phase out the anomalies in the fabric of the single market and one of these anomalies is intra-Community duty-free sales.
But in Europe we need to harmonize other things as well, or at least approximate them - levels of excise duty, VAT and other taxes.
Yet the problem of intra-Community smuggling of duty-paid alcohol and tobacco is probably on a greater scale than the loss of revenue by the continual existence of intra-Community duty-free.
<P>
The question is why is the abolition now, why is it so urgent and why are we doing it in the dark?
There have been a number of studies done by a variety of people.
Many of those on both sides of the argument are possibly flawed but they have indicated at various times a potential loss of something between 112 000 and 147 000 jobs in the EU, with 90 % of those job losses in a period of two years of the abolition of intra-Community duty-free with major impacts on employment in Spain, France and the United Kingdom.
The European Commission has claimed that duty-free is costing Member States' exchequers ECU 2 billion in lost revenue yet there are some studies that claim that the result of the abolition of duty-free will be that Member States will be worse off because of increased transport costs and other tax losses.
<P>
There have been claims that it will cost the average person taking a charter flight in implicit costs, adding up all the costs together, an extra 14 for each time they travel from their Member State and back again.
It has been claimed that EU destinations will become less competitive than nearby non-EU destinations, that Turkey will benefit at the expense of Greece, that there will be a loss from the United Kingdom of 635 000 visits a year within the EU, partly offset by a rise of 124 000 extra visits to non-EU destinations.
<P>
So that is the problem we face.
Now despite what the finance ministers claim to have said, the reality is that on 17 March this year - less than three weeks ago - at the initiative of the Irish delegation on the Transport Council and with the support of eight other Member States, namely Sweden, Belgium, France, Germany, Finland, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom, there was a demand for a study of the possible employment and financial effects of the abolition of duty-free in June 1999.
Commissioner Monti says that two wrongs do not make a right; because the promised study was not done at the proper time it is now too late to do it at all.
It is Catch 22.
He said Community funding might be available to help alleviate the impact, but the impact is going to be short and sharp immediately after the abolition.
Yet he refuses to allow for regional employment impacts to be assessed in advance.
<P>
Tomorrow Parliament will vote for the resolution demanding such a study.
The Council of Ministers is already in favour of such a study by nine votes to six at worst.
Why is it now that the Commission alone sets its face against such a study that it initially promised?
If the case is so powerful for that abolition, Commissioner Monti, why do you not demonstrate it by actually having the study?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, I have to say that you have sorely disappointed me.
For years now, like many of my colleagues, I have been battling to explain to the various different lobbies that duty-free shopping must be abolished in an internal market.
Well I must say, the arrogant way in which the Commission has responded to our legitimate questioning makes us literally feel as though we have been stabbed in the back.
I feel it is important for you to know that.
The line of argument you used in answer to Mr Cornelissen's question was, if I may say so, quite unworthy.
<P>
You told us two things: firstly, that we would not be doing this study because it had been set for an immediate decision.
The decision had been put back, therefore the study was not to be done, as if it had become superfluous, as if the analysis of the consequences of a decision become superfluous as soon as the date of application of the decision changes.
That is the sort of reasoning that says a blind person can drive a car as long as they do so slowly.
That is simply not the case.
<P>
The second argument you deployed was the lateness argument.
Many years have elapsed between Mrs Scrivener's promise and your being here today without having honoured that promise.
Whose fault is that?
Under such circumstances, you are not in a position to accuse us of being late in taking part in the debate, when for years you yourself failed to respond. It was also mentioned earlier that you were asked questions during Parliament's Question Time.
There is a Latin proverb, a Roman law adage I am sure you know, which goes: ' Nemo auditur propriam turpitidinem allegans' - none shall invoke their own turpitude.
<P>
In any case, Mr Commissioner, you do not have the right to refuse Parliament or the citizens of Europe an analysis of the consequences of the decisions you take, simply because a decision has already been taken.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 NAME="Malone">
Mr President, I too am amazed that Commissioner Monti, having had time to reflect on the discussions we had earlier this week at Question Time and having heard the strong feelings that the majority of the House - we, the messengers of the people - have on this issue, is not prepared to relent, even at this very late stage, and give us a more positive response.
By just saying 'no' he is just burying his head in the sand.
<P>
The success of the Irish minister at the Transport Council has been documented here.
There are now nine Council members around the transport table who are prepared to ask for a study.
There is no reason to assume that the same majority, or more, would not obtain, if the Commissioner had a study and allowed the Ecofin ministers to look at the issue again in a clear and factual way.
Politicians do not see any shame in this.
The many thousands of workers who marched in the streets of Brussels recently - airport workers, industrial workers, generally from the duty-free industry - should not have to beg for their jobs.
They are entitled to look to our institutions to protect their jobs.
For every measure we take here, we are supposed to have an employment audit.
So how does the Commissioner reconcile that with just getting rid of all these jobs in one fell swoop?
The accusation the Commissioner made here that it is for people in favour of abolition and that we who are against it want to support the hidden subsidies to the alcohol, tobacco and travel industries is not true.
It is very simplistic.
What is happening here is that we have looked at all sides of it and we have come down, on balance, in favour of employment.
<P>
I appeal to the Commissioner to give us a more favourable response this evening, because the vote tomorrow will go in favour of the study, and it is time for the Commission to face up to that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 NAME="Monti">
I would like, first of all, to thank each of you for your remarks.
The Commission is not making any particular proposal.
Some of the remarks assume the Commission was making proposals.
This was a decision taken unanimously by the Ecofin Council in 1991.
The Commission is not pushing for anything.
As was made clear, the reference made by my predecessor, Mrs Scrivener, to the study was to the effect of identifying whether or not the decision to abolish duty-free should take effect on 1 January 1993 like all the other measures concerning the single market.
You know what the outcome has been: no study, but a seven-and-a-half year postponement.
<P>
As to the pretended request of the Transport Council for a study, the outcome of the Transport Council of 17 March was that the presidency of the Council noted the strong support by a majority of delegations for the Irish intervention and decided to report to the Ecofin Council concerning further measures to be decided by the ministers of finance, if appropriate.
The Ecofin Council has repeatedly stressed its unwillingness to ask the Commission to do this study.
<P>
There were questions concerning the important issue of whether there are clear rules that are going to be applied after June 1999 or not.
Yes, I can be very positive and reassuring in that respect.
Rules exist in terms of VAT and excise legislation that apply now and will also apply after June 1999.
I refer to Article 23(1) of Directive 92/12 and Article 8 and following of the Sixth VAT Directive.
<P>
As to the specific question Mr Miller raised, the mere passage through international waters does not modify the internal market rules.
They will be modified only if the vessel were to touch land on third-country territory.
<P>
As you can imagine, I am as sensitive as you are to the issue of employment.
There are serious ways of approaching employment issues.
Some of them have to do with taxation.
As Parliament will be aware, the Commission is - and I am personally - working very hard with the support of Parliament and, in particular, the competent Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, to arrive at some form of tax coordination that is the serious response of tax instruments to the employment challenge.
The Commission is prepared, as you know and as Parliament supports, to consider reduced VAT rates on labourintensive services.
Even much more important, we are engaged in strenuous efforts to fight harmful tax competition.
You know, as I do, that the taxation of capital on this continent has gone down by 10 % in the last 15 years.
Taxation on labour has gone up 7 %.
What is the reason for that?
A lack of tax coordination.
<P>
In December 1997, for the first time, we persuaded the 15 finance ministers to agree on a package of measures against harmful tax competition.
That is the first step towards eliminating tax havens in Europe so that taxation on labour can be slightly reduced.
How can I go to the finance ministers and press them for the continuation of this serious fiscal policy for employment that Parliament supports if, at the same time, I were to go and ask them to please consider leaving in existence localized tax havens such as duty-free?
<P>
(The speaker was interrupted by Mr Cox) No-one can escape logic.
Believe me, I am deeply committed to making taxation policy in Europe favourable to employment.
<P>
(The President interrupted the speaker)
<SPEAKER ID=235 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I would ask you please not to interrupt the Commissioner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 NAME="Monti">
I am grateful to those of you - and there have been some - who have noted the constructive approach that I brought here this evening.
A study may have two components.
One is to identify what specific difficulties a particular regional airport or ferry line might have.
No one is better placed than the Member State concerned to identify that.
There is one way in which the Commission can be helpful and that is to identify the appropriate instruments of regional policy, of transport policy that might, in the event that there are serious problems, be helpful.
I have committed the Commission to do that, not the phantom study which by now in the public perception could be associated with a reconsideration of the deadline for duty-free.
<P>
Finally, it is not for me to judge whether the Commission is an appropriate political body or whether it gave you bureaucratic answers this evening.
However, I can assure you that the Commission, in its political responsibility, is not prepared to deceive European citizens by doing something that would, in effect, conflict with a serious employment policy based on tax coordination.
The Commission is not prepared to do anything that would help retain a hidden subsidy, in the sense that it is not transparent, that it is regressive because it is paid by the general taxpayer who is normally less well off than travellers with access to duty-free, that goes to a large extent to subsidize the consumption of alcohol and tobacco.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, in his reply to the debate the Commissioner referred to the pretended wish of the Transport Council for a study.
I should like to read to you a letter from Gavin Strang, chairman of the EU Transport Council, to Gordon Brown, chairman of Ecofin.
It says: ' Dear Gordon, you will be aware that at the 17 March 1998 Transport Council the Irish Minister raised the issue of abolition of intra-EC duty-free under 'any other business' and called for a study to be undertaken into the possible employment and financial effects of the abolition of duty-free in 1999.
Eight Member States supported the Irish Minister's request, including Sweden, Belgium, France, Germany, Finland, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom.
In my summary of the discussion I agreed that I would forward these views to you as chairman of Ecofin.
Ecofin will no doubt wish to take into account the support given by Transport Ministers to the Irish request that the Commission should undertake a study into the possible employment and financial effects of abolition of intra-EC duty-free sales.'
<P>
It seems to me that is not a 'pretend' decision of the Transport Council, it is a decision.
Commissioner Monti may not like it, but it exists.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Ford.
We shall not be re-opening the debate.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 8.05 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of Thursday 2 April have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, this concerns item 4 of yesterday's Minutes and Article 24 of the Rules of Procedure, on the duties of the Conference of Presidents.
Paragraph 5 says: "The Conference of Presidents shall draw up the draft agenda of Parliament's part-sessions' . In other words, the Conference of Presidents decides which reports will be on the agenda, and when.
It does not say that the group chairmen decide whether a report is acceptable to them or not.
This means that the Conference of Presidents should not judge the reports appearing on the agenda on their contents.
This was the case with my report on the partsession which was discussed this week, and it was especially the case with your own report on the voting system.
I really wonder, therefore, whether the Conference of Presidents is in fact blatantly and grossly violating the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Mr Wijsenbeek, you have been chairman of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities for some time now, and you are one of the many people in this Chamber who have a great deal of parliamentary experience.
You know, as indeed we all do - I do not claim any privilege to this knowledge - that, in the final analysis, the Conference of Presidents is elected by Parliament. When changes are to be made to the agenda, the final word is always left to Parliament, which also votes.
Therefore, you need never worry that there is an elected organ of the House which was not elected by the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herman">
Mr President, this is the text relating to the Randzio-Plath report.
<P>
Yesterday, it was agreed during the vote that the words 'responsabilité démocratique' would be used instead of 'contrôle démocratique' .
That change has been made in one of the titles, but not throughout the whole text.
For example, paragraph 8 still says "contrôle démocratique' .
The words "contrôle démocratique' must now be replaced throughout the text with "responsabilité démocratique' .
That is what was agreed yesterday.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
I have made a note of it, Mr Herman, and we shall look at all the texts to make sure that it is done.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="Martens">
Going over the attendance register, I noticed that my name is not on it.
Perhaps I forgot to sign it, but I did take part in all the votes yesterday.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Mr Martens, you may have forgotten to sign, but there are a lot of us here and we can vouch for your continued presence in this Chamber which, I think, holds you in great respect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Corbett">
Mr President, you just responded to Mr Wijsenbeek and stated that he was chairman of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
May I inform you that my colleague Mr Fayot is chairman of the Rules Committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
Mr Corbett, you must remember that Mr Wijsenbeek presided over the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities for a long time, and he knows the Rules of Procedure perfectly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hory">
Mr President, I would just like to point something out.
My name does not appear on Monday's record of attendance, although I was present and voted by the electronic voting system, which must be easy to check.
I should be grateful if you would arrange to have it checked.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
Thank you very much. I have made a note of it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, there is an omission in the Minutes.
On page 19 you will see that Mr Lataillade spoke.
It does not record his deep concern and compassion for the plight of Mrs Randzio-Plath!
We shall be sure to extend similar compassion to him in the future...
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Falconer">
Mr President, I rise not on my usual point of order but on something arising from what Mr Herman said.
I would remind you that the point Mr Herman was making during yesterday's session was exactly the same point Mrs Randzio-Plath was suggesting in an oral amendment.
Twelve Members opposed this amendment.
We then proceeded to the vote and the words were: ' To hold the ECB to account' .
That is the decision that was made yesterday. It is recorded in the Minutes and therefore I hope it holds.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
Mr Falconer, you were here yesterday.
Several of us were here yesterday.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lataillade">
Mr President, I would just like to say that my name does not need to be recorded.
The whole House expressed sympathy for Mrs Randzio-Plath.
<P>
I am grateful to Mr Ford for acknowledging my presence, but it was unnecessary.
Thank you, Mr President.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Hallam">
Mr President, I raised the following matter on the Friday of the last part-session.
I refer to the discrimination in terms of television coverage of the Friday morning session.
We are here to do a job and it should be recorded both for the archives and for television just like any other session.
What progress has the President made with this request?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
Mr Hallam, I totally agree.
I would say there is another reason for Friday morning, and we will look into it.
But I would add that, on the whole, television coverage is not an issue which is regulated by the Presidency. I wish it were regulated by the Presidency and by the House.
Television has its own rules and regulations, and we are not in a position to have any influence over it. I am afraid we are often under its influence, and not always to the good.
We will look into it, however.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Mr President, I was astonished to see that my name is not on the record of attendance.
I really thought that I had both attended regularly and signed the register.
But I may be wrong.
In any case, I think a number of speeches and rollcall votes prove that I was here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="President">
Yes, I believe you made a speech during the sitting.
So it really is a bit much.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
Mr President, at the end of this vote in the presence of representatives of the Council I would like to mention something which is very important before the final vote.
We have had a text conveyed to us by the Council. Mr Buffetaut has worked on this text, we have given our views on it, and we have voted on the committee version today in the final vote.
During this process, and even before we were able to vote today, the Council has again changed the text which was conveyed to us, which we have worked on.
In other words, it did this before listening to the outcome from Parliament.
I consider that a flagrant contempt of Parliament, and ask that this should be communicated to the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="President">
Mr Schulz, I have made a note of your comments, and the Presidency will not fail to take the necessary steps.
<P>
(During successive votes, Parliament adopted both legislative resolutions)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Reding">
Mr President, I would like to make two comments.
Firstly, the committee deleted Amendment No 4 concerning Article 4, paragraph 1(b) of the Council proposal.
In the meantime, however, we have satisfied ourselves that this Article merely serves to establish that no-one may be punished twice for the same matter.
In other words, it is a question of the legal principle ne bis in idem , and we therefore ask you to vote against this deletion so that the original text is restored.
<P>
That is the first point.
The second point I would like to bring to your attention is the fact that the rapporteur's language, the original language, is French, and Amendment No 7, as it is written, is the official version.
It says that when the person concerned has not had an adequate opportunity to defend himself, "inter alia ' because of language problems, the term "inter alia ' which is in the French text, means that it is not exclusive, and other possibilities can be envisaged.
I know that it is not stated in some other versions, but it is more in the citizen's interest.
But it is the French version, which is the official version, and I would be grateful if you would arrange for it to be corrected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="President">
I would ask the House to consider the rapporteur's comments, Mrs Reding.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
Mr President, I strongly urge that Mrs Reding's oral amendment should be accepted.
We must point out that we made a mistake in committee, which for once might mean us spoiling a good idea from the Council.
That is why it is imperative that Mrs Reding's oral amendment should be supported.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="President">
Mr Schulz, Mrs Reding did not make an oral amendment; she made oral observations which, I trust, the House will take into account.
Please do not cause confusion, as we will have problems if you do.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
I am particularly glad that Mrs Reding has noticed this matter, which is important to countries where there is already extensive cooperation between the authorities, for example.
That is why our group decided to vote as you proposed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="President">
Mrs Thors, we will not debate this here.
The rapporteur always has the right to make a comment, indeed many comments. However, we shall not repeat the debate which took place in committee.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I would like to point out that Mrs Thors has introduced a good amendment, by which progress in implementing the rights of the child should be included.
However, we do not want to place more emphasis on this than on other legal concerns, such as human rights and minority rights. We therefore ask that the text up to 'of the Convention on the Rights of the Child' should be dropped.
We want to insert that between human rights and minority rights without any additional formulations.
<P>
(Parliament approved the proposal)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I had not intended to slow down our Friday voting, but a short while ago a Dutch colleague drew my attention to the fact that a mistake has crept into the Dutch version of my report, at paragraph 16.
The words 'vis-à-vis third countries' are missing at that point.
I would ask you to check this in all language versions on the basis of the original German text.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="President">
Mr Posselt, I have made a note of your comments, of course, and the Presidency will make sure that the language of this report is looked at.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have voted today for improved legal cooperation in criminal cases.
This is a necessary element in the fight against organized crime.
<P>
We support better, more effective, practical cooperation between Member States.
Serious effort should ensure speedier processing, and enable practical difficulties to be resolved more effectively.
This could be brought about through direct contact between the authorities concerned in mutual legal assistance, for example.
However, we remain adamant that as far as possible, national traditions and styles of practice should be respected, and law and order should at be paramount at all times.
<P>
Reding report (A4-0121/98)
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="Lindqvist">
It is good that the question of revoking driving licences is being dealt with in a convention and not through harmonizing legislation.
However, it is very doubtful whether the home Member State will be responsible for implementing a decision to revoke a driving licence issued in another country under that country's legislation without examining the matter itself under its own laws.
<P>
Posselt report (A4-0107/98)
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="Berthu">
Over the next ten years, the European Union is going to be faced with one of the greatest challenges in its history, when it welcomes the almost simultaneous accession of ten new countries, at a time when the candidate countries are experiencing a difficult transition period.
In fact, they have to deal with the disorder which has followed in the wake of the collapse of the communist systems - social unrest, disorganization of controls, corruption, organized crime, migration of populations - and they must build democratic states governed by the rule of law.
<P>
It will be particularly difficult for both sides to maintain a balance between this transition period and accession to the European Union.
To simplify the task, the Europe of the Nations Group some time ago proposed the creation of a Europe of "variable geometry' , on the basis of several cooperation associations, which would enable candidate countries to join the European Union by moving progressively from one association to another, as appropriate.
We pointed out at the time that the first cooperation association to be set up, the most urgent cooperation association, should relate to internal security.
<P>
We are therefore delighted that, at their meeting of 30 January, the EU justice and home affairs ministers invited their counterparts from the candidate countries to sign "pre-membership' pacts on combating organized crime.
We saw in this a reflection of our position, or at least a certain fellow feeling.
<P>
However, if the Amsterdam Treaty comes into force, it will not simplify matters because it does not encourage flexibility.
For example, in order to prevent international crime, it would be preferable for the candidate countries of eastern Europe to be able to join Europol now.
But will the incorporation of Europol into EU procedures not complicate the problem?
<P>
Similarly, it is difficult to understand the aim of the European Parliament's proposal to create a specialized European service drawing on the experience of competent national services with regard to external border control.
If this proposal means that a system of financial aid needs to be set up, at the European level, to support Member States which are experiencing serious difficulties with regard to the control of their external borders, we are in agreement. We had, in fact, already suggested it.
But we believe it is essential for each country to remain directly responsible for its borders. Otherwise, an integrated system would not motivate anyone, and in fact, it could have the opposite effect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="Holm">
I have voted against this report, as I cannot support the arrogant attitude which the EU is taking towards the applicant countries of central and eastern Europe.
<P>
The EU cannot demand, amongst other things, that the applicant countries modify their visa policies with third party countries to bring them into line with the EU's before they even join the EU, and before the EU's provisions in this area under the Amsterdam Treaty are accepted.
Not all the EU Member States have ratified the Amsterdam Treaty as yet, so I fail to see how reference can be made to this.
<P>
When it comes to police work, I do not think Europol should develop and charge the applicant countries at all.
Interpol already exists and is working in the areas which the EU wants to hand over to Europol.
Instead of Europol, I think we should continue to rely on Interpol in the fight against international crime.
<P>
As for the situation in the applicant countries, in important areas, I believe the EU will have to accept a number of transitional rules if the countries join.
What I would really like to see is the EU handing over many of its powers in favour of the national parliaments, which would make enlargement easier.
The way things look now, the EU seems to want to annex the countries of central and eastern Europe, as they would have to accept all the EU's laws without having any influence over their substance.
I cannot accept this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Iversen and Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of Mr Posselt's report.
We have done so in the belief that we must ensure that prospective Member States in central and eastern Europe develop sound, democratic communities based on the rule of law.
The report sets the scene for closer cooperation between existing Member States in the field of justice and home affairs.
Denmark has one reservation in this field, but we do not wish to preclude other nations from entering into closer cooperation.
We do, however, retain the right to remain outside.
<P>
Our most important consideration is to ensure that the candidate countries of central and eastern Europe should be given financial and political backup in their efforts to develop democratic authorities.
This also applies to supporting projects for the training of administrative officials and police.
To ensure that democratic measures are upheld, the people who will be administering the new laws must be trained for this purpose.
<P>
The Danish Social Democrats oppose the view that the institutional changes should be in place prior to enlargement.
Our stance is that Parliament must not put obstacles in the way of enlargement.
Applicant countries should be assured of their inclusion in the European Union once they have fulfilled the objectives set out in the individual partnership agreements.
The enlargement process must not be delayed by a stipulation on the part of the European Parliament that the distribution of mandates and weighting of votes should be in place before the first countries can be accepted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="Parigi">
As the communist regime destroyed every rule of civil life during its rule, the accession to the European Union of ex-communist countries presupposes a type of revival by the applicants, to make their internal structures compatible with the rules and spirit of the European Union.
<P>
This also applies to relations with the police, legal matters, the mobility of goods, services and citizens, civil rights and the protection of minors.
<P>
When this tedious adaptation process has reached maturity, it will certainly be time for these states to join the European Union.
<P>
Joint resolution (B4-0424/98, B4-0426/98, B4-0427/98, B4-0428/98 and B4-0429/98)
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="Corbett">
Mr President, I can happily live with this resolution which calls for a study, if only because a study might actually show that some of the wilder allegations of job losses are perhaps greatly exaggerated.
In any case, there is no harm in finding this out.
<P>
I admire Commissioner Monti and the way he has resisted the pressure from the alcohol and tobacco industries to try and have this decision reversed.
I hope that the economic and finance ministers will be similarly resolute.
From the point of view of a finance minister, there is surely no sense in reintroducing a tax break for the alcohol and tobacco industries: a tax break which curiously is available only to people travelling internationally, usually a group of people who are, on average, better off than the ordinary citizen.
<P>
I hope therefore that this resolution, even if it calls for a study which may provide more objective facts than some of the studies that have come from partisan organizations with an interest in this matter, will nonetheless help confirm the decision taken long ago by the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="President">
I am satisfied that the positions you have adopted are not just yours but that they are supported by other Members.
Of course, there are quite a few Members who hold the opposite view.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="Querbes">
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Global Satellite Navigation System
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0109/98) by Mrs Langenhagen, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Decision on the agreement between the European Community, the European Space Agency and the European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation on a European contribution to the development of a global navigation satellite system (COM(97)0442 - C4-0043/98-97/0231(CNS))
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Langenhagen">
Mr President, in the last few years, satellite-assisted positioning and navigation systems have become increasingly widespread.
The purpose of this technology is the permanent, environmentally compatible, secure and guaranteed mobility of individuals and goods through better traffic and transport management.
This is not just true of air transport.
This new technology is being applied in other areas as well, such as local public transport, the railways, and the transport of goods - but also in cars, farming and the fishing industry.
<P>
You do not have to be a prophet to foresee that this technology will progress further.
It will undoubtedly be used more widely in the area of leisure, for example.
Sailing and walking enthusiasts may perhaps only pursue their hobbies in the future with this high technology.
There are already two systems which operate on a world-wide basis: the American "global positioning system' , known as GPS; and the Russian global satellite navigation system called GLONAS.
However, neither of them meets all the requirements of civilian users.
Both systems are nationally controlled, were conceived for military purposes, and have been artificially weakened in some respects for civilian applications.
<P>
The accuracy is inadequate, there is an unacceptably high probability of technical errors, and warning times for system failures are too long. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that the system will be permanently available, and no-one is responsible for the functioning of the system.
All these reasons compel us as Europeans to launch an initiative of our own. This is the background against which the Commission's proposal should be seen.
<P>
As long ago as 1994, the Commission and the Council took the initiative in this area with the support of the European Parliament.
The agreement on which we have to decide today is a consistent continuation of previous developments.
Its purpose is to govern cooperation between the European Union, ESA - the European Space Agency - and EUROCONTROL - the European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation.
These three European institutions are to work towards a European contribution to the development of a global satellite navigation system.
In particular, the plans and projects of the participants are to be coordinated and combined.
As a first step, the existing Russian and American systems are to be supplemented, to correct the technical defects and inaccuracies I have just described.
Technical problems can be solved in this way, but the fundamental institutional problem - namely the lack of civilian control and a guarantee for the system - will remain.
<P>
That is why a second step is required, with the objective of developing our own independent civilian system with a guaranteed optimal performance at all times and in all places.
We are working away steadily at this.
In a global situation in which the market for satellite navigation could be dominated by the United States, this agreement will undoubtedly help to ensure that European interests are protected, and that it is easier in practice to realize the full potential of satellite navigation technology.
<P>
The importance of state-of-the-art technology for Europe as a location for industry is underlined time and again.
With this agreement we can recover lost ground and lay down our own European standards for satellite technology in the future.
<P>
Of course, the budgetary aspect still has to be considered.
That is why I referred in my report to an action plan for the financing of such a project.
In all honesty, I must admit that future civilian users still regard the project with scepticism.
It is quite clear, however, that without the participation of European industry and other partners it will be impossible to finance such a project.
So in order to ensure the involvement of a large number of collaborators in the development of a global satellite navigation system, a coherent strategy with a financial perspective should be formulated as soon as possible.
The European Union is today called upon to enter into international cooperation, the major advantage of which is a reduction in costs and investment.
In this connection, potential partners are - and will continue to be - the USA and Russia, whom I have already mentioned, together with Japan.
<P>
Therefore the agreement with which we are dealing today has a symbolic character as well, since it underlines the resolution and the will of Europeans to make their own contribution in this area, and that is why I ask you to approve it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Stenmarck">
Mr President, let me first thank Mrs Langenhagen for the excellent report she has presented.
<P>
New technology is developing rapidly in aviation.
Used correctly, it will make flying safer and also create an opportunity to deal with some of the constantly recurring delays we have to live with at present.
<P>
What we have to decide now is whether we want Europe to be part of this developing technology, or if we want to remain on the sidelines.
We are facing a highly strategic choice which could have major consequences for the future development of navigation systems.
The question is, should we develop our own navigation system or should we simply modify those already in existence?
<P>
There are a lot of indications that it would be cheaper to be involved in developing the existing system.
At the same time, it means putting a lot into research and development to try to develop our own system and the comfort of not always being dependent on someone else.
<P>
I think there are reasons for being positive about further development, and hence for entering into this agreement between the European Community, the European Space Agency and the European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation.
This represents an opportunity to be in there and influence future developments, which I think is a good thing.
<P>
But there is also good reason to warn that we risk digging ourselves into an incredibly costly project which may not give the results we are justifiably hoping for.
There are also reasons to be alert.
So I believe the plan of action which Mrs Langenhagen has included in her report is extraordinarily important.
<P>
Against this background, I would like to mention a letter from the Association of European Airlines.
This letter, dated 6 March, states amongst other things that 'improvements, if any, could be achieved in a much cheaper way' .
I would welcome the Commissioner's comments on whether it is possible to achieve comparable improvements more cheaply than by the route we have to decide on today.
If that question cannot be answered today, I would be grateful if the Commissioner responsible were able to comment in writing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Malerba">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the GNSS Global Navigation Satellite System is an example of the dual value of technologies for military and civil use.
Satellite positioning, which arose in a military environment during the Cold War for the surveillance of ballistic missiles, today offers the possibility, in civilian times, of establishing the position of ships, not by means of the stars, lighthouses or radar, but by satellite.
<P>
In fact, the satellite sector is far from being a minor aspect, in terms of value, of the potential services that can be provided on the ground. The satellite signal can be used to help with navigation, assistance, safety, choosing a route by land or sea, and fleet management; even taxis are beginning to use satellite signals on board.
<P>
Today's document is not a strategic document, but it creates a useful premise for a European strategy on satellite navigation which we will be discussing in the near future.
The document sets out the rules relating to the cooperation agreement between the European Commission, ESA and EUROCONTROL, and so it seems a fairly positive first step to take.
<P>
We are voting on the recognition that the Commission, as a European institution, should provide the political impetus, ESA should play the role of technological architect, and EUROCONTROL should be the first of a number of service providers for those using the air service.
<P>
I think two things still have to be recommended in this organizational architecture, and they are taken up by the rapporteur, Mrs Langenhagen.
Firstly, the three-party agreement should remain open to other partners to ensure that satellite positioning services can be extended quickly to all sea and land services. Secondly, a European authority or agency should be set up - you choose the name - to be responsible for certifying the service and approving the equipment.
With these two comments, which the rapporteur has taken into account, I approve the report and await further debate, which should take place shortly, on the Commission's document on satellite navigation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="President">
Mr Malerba, I think you are more qualified than most people to speak to us about these issues, from the heights from which you have seen these events.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Scarbonchi">
Mr President, satellite navigation is a strategic sector which represents, together with the information superhighway, one of the technological battles of the future.
Europe has a duty, and the potential, to take part in it.
But Europe must express a political determination to do so, and must make a clear choice of strategy.
That is the point of Brigitte Langenhagen's report, which proposes an agreement between the European Commission, the European Space Agency and EUROCONTROL for the development of a global navigation satellite system.
<P>
We have a clear choice today between an autonomous, independent European system, at an estimated cost ranging from ECU 400 million to ECU 4 billion, or cooperation based on the existing American GPS and Russian GLONAS systems.
<P>
The Group of the European Radical Alliance is in favour of the rapporteur's proposal for several reasons.
The main reasons are as follows.
Why should we entrust our interests to others, in a critical sector, if we have the ability to safeguard them ourselves? Why should we be dependent upon the Americans, yet again, in this technological and scientific area, when we have the means within Europe of ensuring our own independence?
<P>
There is no doubt that the high cost of a European system means that partnership between public and private industry in Europe will be necessary.
But if we wish to remain independent, in such an important, essential and potentially profitable sector for Europe, with the prospects it offers, we must not waste any time. We must adopt a real strategic decision quickly, as the rapporteur recommends.
In this respect, I agree with Commissioner Kinnock, who is afraid that if we do not reach a decision soon, we will remain in the slow lane as far as progress is concerned.
In other words, we will be excluded from this technological and scientific undertaking.
That is why we have no time to lose.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, the agreement between the European Community, the European Space Agency and EUROCONTROL aims to make a European contribution towards the development of a global navigation satellite system, or GNSS.
These parties set certain objectives. The first is the introduction of a so-called European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service, abbreviated to EGNOS.
The current GNSS system will be given additional capabilities for geographical positioning with satellites, integrity and wide-area information for its users.
<P>
The second objective is to set up a complete operational version of GNSS-1, and the third is the preparation of a new European navigation satellite system, GNSS-2.
<P>
As far as EGNOS is concerned, the European airlines have announced that they have no need whatsoever for such a product.
They believe that if improvements are needed, these might be achieved at much less cost.
I therefore wish to put the following question to the European Commission: which users will benefit from EGNOS, and will these users be prepared to contribute to its operational costs?
<P>
If there is indeed little interest in EGNOS, would it not be better to concentrate our efforts on developing GNSS-2 further?
There appears to be no controversy surrounding the benefits of these new generation navigation satellite systems.
<P>
Lastly, the opinion of the Committee on Budgets merits attention.
It notes that the financial contribution from the Community has not yet been set, yet large amounts of money have already been spent.
That is why the Committee on Budgets requested that the Langenhagen report should not be adopted until the financial situation had been thoroughly investigated.
<P>
Nonetheless, the report was discussed and approved in the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
I would be grateful if the rapporteur could tell us why she dismissed the clearly stated opinion of the Committee on Budgets.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, I am a pilot myself and have experienced the change-over.
The advantages which the satellite navigation systems provide are sensational.
They represent a significant increase in safety, and the computer capacity and the software which lie behind these systems are also a great advantage for a pilot, because they allow your work in the cockpit to be of a significantly higher quality.
I am also pleased that the Commission has informed us that the funding will come from existing resources - from budget line B5-700, among other things.
I believe this decision will have very important implications for competition in Europe, and that competition in this market is urgently needed on a worldwide basis as well.
<P>
We know that economic development in particular is very heavily dependent on three factors, namely education and training, research and infrastructure.
All three areas are addressed in the best possible way with this system, and I would like to congratulate Mrs Langenhagen on this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="President">
Mr Rübig, I see that the House has the good fortune to have at its disposal a lot of experience, which indeed makes its own contribution to the examination of these issues. We note this with great interest.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Gradin">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on the Commission's behalf, I gather that Parliament supports this agreement which permits a European contribution to be made towards developing a global navigation satellite system.
This agreement will be the first formal basis for an agreement to be concluded between the Commission, the European Space Agency and the European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation, EUROCONTROL, for the joint development of a global infrastructure for satellite navigation.
A European contribution here is essential for a number of reasons.
Firstly, global navigation satellite systems will contribute to a viable development of constantly increasing air and sea transport.
Secondly, such a system will allow major improvements to be made, in terms of safety.
Finally, the proposal will mean opening up new potential markets for the European industry, which is excluded from these markets at present because of the USA's dominant position.
<P>
Satellite navigation is a promising, dynamic area, but progress in this sector calls for a wide, deep partnership.
Hopefully, this agreement will create an effective partnership structure designed to make the best use of the resources of each of the parties involved.
<P>
The Commission is preparing another step through the communication which we adopted in January.
This deals with the general strategy for Europe's contribution to the global navigation system.
To Mr Stenmarck, I would simply say that I will pass his question on to the Commissioner responsible, and he will then receive either an oral or a written answer. I am not the person to examine the cost aspects on this point.
The Commission is looking forward to a wide-ranging debate with Parliament on strategy in connection with future discussion of this communication. It is essential that we decide how Europe is to be involved in all this work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Nicholson">
The global navigation system seeks to organize cooperation between the EU and the European Space Agency and the European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation.
It is our determination to ensure that we achieve above all else total safety.
<P>
The existing system permits geographical positioning and navigation control in all modes of transport.
We are now faced with either developing this new mode of transport control or continuing to stand by all the systems of the past.
<P>
There are no easy solutions to resolve the problem we face, but we must accept the most efficient and secure proposal, to ensure traffic congestion is eased for all.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Construction of the Chernobyl shelter
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0076/98) by Mr Adam, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the proposal for a Council Decision (Euratom/EC) concerning a Community Contribution to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) for the Chernobyl Shelter Fund (COM(97)0448 - C4-0499/97-97/0235(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Adam">
Mr President, the shelter or sarcophagus which was constructed over the No 4 reactor at Chernobyl following the disastrous accident in April 1986 was assembled in a remarkably short period of time.
It achieved its primary purpose of providing protection for the immediate population and enabled the remaining reactors to continue in operation.
<P>
However, it was recognized that the construction was not adequate in the long term.
In particular, none of the beams which were put in place to take the roof of the shelter has a reliable support inside the sarcophagus.
There are problems with radioactive dust in the former reactor hall, and there is an accumulation of radioactive water in the basement rooms of the reactor area.
Until now there has been no design acceptable to all the parties to stabilize this structure.
The risk of extremely high radiation doses to workers has been the main problem to be overcome.
<P>
The Memorandum of Understanding, which was signed between the G7 countries, the Commission and the Government of Ukraine in December 1995, provided for the closure of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant by the year 2000 and recognized that the structure over reactor No 4 had to be dealt with.
<P>
However, there was no agreed plan, nor an estimate of the cost involved.
We now have the Shelter Improvement Plan, which has been agreed as a result of detailed technical discussions, and we should note that the TACIS programme has been particularly active in the development of the plan.
<P>
The purpose of the report is to set out the provision of the financial contribution from the European Union, which will not exceed the sum of US$ 100 million, for a total estimated cost of US$ 750 million.
The Shelter Improvement Plan is unusual in that it arises from a political decision of the G7. It will be implemented by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
It is important to note that the final shape will not be known for four or five years, because some aspects of the final design are part of the plan.
The final shape and nature of the shelter; the question of the removal of the fuel-containing material; how to deal with the dust inside the sarcophagus; and the treatment of the accumulation of water will only emerge during the implementation stages.
The final shape will also depend on the ability of the G7 countries to raise the estimated funding that is required, and, at the moment, we are only at the halfway stage.
<P>
This report deals with the financial and management issues linked to the construction of the shelter.
There are associated engineering works, such as plant to handle radioactive material, which are essential before work on the shelter can begin.
Therefore, it was necessary for Parliament, as part of the budgetary authority, to be satisfied that the associated works are in phase with the shelter project.
<P>
It should be noted, in connection with the implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding, that the reform of the electricity market in Ukraine is the most important single issue: whether the electricity is produced from nuclear power stations or thermal power stations.
Unless the electricity market is operating in a manner which will allow funds to be available to the operators, there cannot be the required level of maintenance and improvement which the situation requires.
<P>
The text of the Memorandum, the framework and all the legal texts relating to this are produced as an annex to my report.
They are in English only but I hope colleagues will find them a useful reference.
<P>
The plan does not exist in a vacuum: as it has been prepared considerable progress has been made by the Ukrainian Regulatory Authority, under Mr Smyshlyayev, the head of that authority, who will have the responsibility for the safety standards under which the work in the shelter will be carried out.
The nuclear industry has been reorganized under Mr Nigmatullin, and Energoatom, the company which operates the nuclear sector in Ukraine, in free market conditions, produced 47 % of the electricity last year.
A high-level working group, headed by the Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Reform, Mr Tigipko, has been created to draw up a plan for the modernization of the power sector.
These are not inconsiderable achievements in a country whose economy is still reeling from the collapse of the Soviet Union.
<P>
Paragraph 54 of my report sets out the conditions for Parliament to agree the transfer of funds from the 1998 budget reserve.
Most of these, and certainly the most important ones, have now been fulfilled.
<P>
Paragraph 55 sets out the information which should be made available to Parliament by the Commission and the EBRD during the implementation of the plan.
<P>
Paragraph 56 lists a number of activities where, in my opinion, the Commission could, and should, give further assistance to the plan.
I am satisfied that the guidelines in these paragraphs provide a basis for consideration of the budgetary decisions by Parliament in the future years of the project.
<P>
The EBRD have taken positive steps to involve Russian expertise.
After all, the reactor is of Russian design.
The Kurchatov Institute, which is known to some of us on the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, will have a role to play.
<P>
This is a very technical and complex report but I wish to conclude with one or two more general political observations, and to point out that the nuclear industry in Ukraine is a relatively young industry, in that many of the reactors have a long-life potential.
It is absolutely clear that the national policy is to continue to have a nuclear industry, partly to reduce dependence on Russia for gas, oil and coal supplies.
But we have also got to note that the Russian connection is not something that can be ignored, because through the SYNERGY and TACIS programmes the links between the Union and the Ukraine in terms of oil, gas and electricity are gathering pace and are linked closely with the adjacent countries.
So, for these reasons, it makes sense that we should encourage nuclear standards which are acceptable throughout Europe as a whole and we should recognize that the Russians are intent on developing their own reactors.
<P>
The recently appointed Minister for Atomic Energy in Russia, Evgeni Adamov, is known to some of us and we know that he places considerable importance on improving the safe operation of nuclear power stations and attaches importance to collaboration between Russian scientists and those in the European Union.
All these facets of the energy scene in the Ukraine need to be kept in mind.
While the government is firmly committed to closure of the plant, we should remember that this is not supported by all political forces in Ukraine.
It is especially true of the people who represent the Chernobyl area where unemployment is already high.
That is why it is important that in implementing the Plan the EBRD should take every opportunity to ensure that the implementation of the project brings as much work as possible to the local people in Slavutich, the nearby town where most of the workers involved at the plant live.
<P>
It is also important to recognize that there will be no complete closure of the plant until the second reactor at Khmelnitsky and the fourth reactor at Rovno are completed.
Recently Ukraine has made arrangements for Russian funding to be available and it is imperative that the EBRD makes up its mind as to the G7 contribution to this project.
<P>
To put it bluntly, Ukraine believes that the commitment to complete those two reactors was inherent in the Memorandum of Understanding.
They see the failure to help with the loan finance for this work by the European Union as a failure to honour that agreement.
Without that loan finance, K2 and R4 will not be completed to western safety standards, but they will be completed.
The assembly of donor countries has appointed Dr Hans Blix to be its chairman.
Dr Blix is the former General-Secretary of the International Atomic Energy Agency and is well respected in that field.
He has already told me he would be willing to meet the Parliament's committee at a suitable juncture and the EBRD officials responsible for handling the account are also willing to do the same so that we can be kept closely in touch with developments.
The production of a newsletter by the EBRD which will keep Members informed is a welcome development.
<P>
Parliament has an important role to make sure that this project goes ahead to time and to budget and I have suggested in the report that it might be expedient that two experts might be appointed to help in our assessment of the work.
That proposal is contained in paragraph 64 and I hope that the Budgets Committee will take this idea up at a later date.
Throughout all the discussions and meetings related to the preparation of this report, I have stressed that the Memorandum of Understanding should be implemented as quickly as possible.
<P>
There has been no evidence made available to me to suggest that the agreements relating to the Shelter Improvement Plan could be materially changed with advantage at this stage.
I therefore urge the House to adopt the report in the form in which it was adopted unanimously in the Budgets Committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="Holm">
Mr President, this is not actually my statement. My colleague Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz drafted the opinion of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy but unfortunately she cannot be here today.

<P>
Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz' statement was adopted unanimously by the committee.
The main thrust of the statement involves not just the financial aspect, but also a whole host of the technical aspects which are so important with regard to this subject.
The Commission's proposal is of course primarily about funding, in accordance with the donor conference which was held in New York last year.
It concerns the Shelter Improvement Plan, which aims to build a new concrete shell to seal the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl where the disaster occurred in the spring of 1986.
<P>
That the EU should be included in this project, and help pay for it, is obvious.
It is also pleasing that the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which manages the fund in question, should be supported by the EU.
However, we still have to decide how much money will be provided from the TACIS funds, as the Commission's proposal merely refers to a maximum of ECU 100 million.
I hope the Commission can clarify what the amount involved might be.
Another thing to remember here is that it would be more appropriate and simpler in organizational terms if the Commission could harmonize its internal criteria for awarding the financial resources with the conditions which the EBRD laid down for handling the funding project.
<P>
As far as the reactor itself is concerned, the Commission aims to convert the existing shelter over the destroyed reactor to an environmentally safe system.
This aim is unrealistic.
No-one can guarantee complete safety, even if the plan might lead to an improvement in the present disastrous, highly threatening situation at Chernobyl.
<P>
The committee also believes that we must ensure that all the water on the inside of the wrecked reactor is removed as part of the work of building a new shelter, and that steps must be taken to ensure that the new shelter merely seals the wrecked No 4 reactor without affecting the future dismantling work in reactor block 3.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Tillich">
Mr President, I want to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Adam, on his excellent report.
I would like to point out that he took on a very important responsibility in drafting this report.
Not least, he went to Chernobyl in person, in order to see for himself both the progress made and the condition of the sarcophagus in situ .
That represented a certain personal risk for him, of course.
We should record that fact here.
<P>
There was excellent cooperation between him as the rapporteur for this report and myself as the rapporteur for the 1998 budget.
Because once again, a decision has been taken elsewhere about where the European Union should make its financial contribution.
During the 1998 budget procedure, we were confronted with the fact that the sum of ECU 100 million was to be made available for the safety of the sarcophagus as "front loading' , in other words immediately.
In 1997 we held a hearing on this matter in London, together with the Commission and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, where we were informed about the details of the procedure and the project.
<P>
Both from our responsibility for the budget and as representatives of the Group of the European People's Party, we are in favour of the sarcophagus being made safe.
But we must formulate some conditions, of course.
We also made resources available as front loading for the reconstruction of the war-damaged former Yugoslavia.
We know about these problems.
We discussed them just this week.
That is why the most important precondition is adherence to the agreement between the Ukraine, the European Union and the USA under the auspices of the G7.
That means that the agreed obligation to provide financial resources must be simultaneously fulfilled by all the parties, and that, in the case of the ECU 100 million which we now want to make available, we initially assume that this sum will be available for the overall project until 2005.
Because we know there is a funding shortfall of more than ECU 300 million or US$ 300 million in the case of this overall project.
We shall undoubtedly be confronted with this shortfall again at some point.
That is why we have explicitly recorded that the European Union for its part is ready to make ECU 100 million available, as contractually agreed, and to do so in the next two years, 1998 and 1999.
<P>
We have created a special budget line in the budget procedure.
In so doing, our intention was - as we also informed the Commission - to prevent the Commission from on the one hand redesigning the TACIS programme as basically a nuclear safety programme, and on the other hand reducing the large arrears in the TACIS programme with a cheque for ECU 100 million.
We want more transparency here.
At the end of the day, this also offers the opportunity to show the public the value of nuclear safety in Europe, and what we are doing for the sake of achieving it.
That is why there is a separate budget line.
Mr Adam has mentioned the fact that it is very, very important for us to receive competent and adequate information about the proper use of the funds in situ .
<P>
In the knowledge that only coordinated action by everyone in the world will bring genuine progress in improving the nuclear safety of the sarcophagus at Chernobyl, and that the Ukraine itself and those of its people with political responsibility are the key to success in this process, the PPE will vote in favour of this report by Mr Adam, and his amendments.
The only proposal from the Green Group in the European Parliament which we shall vote for is Amendment No 17, by Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Kaklamanis">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the problem of the use of nuclear energy and the dangers of a nuclear accident resulting from this use has three dimensions as far as the European Union is concerned.
The first relates to nuclear plants within the European Union. Naturally we speak of these only rarely, and even more rarely do we talk about nuclear waste.
The second aspect relates to nuclear plants in countries which border on the Member States of the European Union, such as the Koslondooi site. The third concerns those nuclear sites located in distant countries, such as Ukraine, and I refer more specifically to the issue addressed by Mr Adam's excellent report - Chernobyl.
<P>
However, radioactivity knows no borders.
In the event of a nuclear accident we are all in danger.
In this sense, therefore, the European Commission and the European Parliament quite rightly decided, together with other donors, to contribute towards the construction of a shelter over the Chernobyl reactor.
However, in my opinion two problems remain unsolved.
The first concerns the financial contribution from the other donors who, at least in the past, have not shown the necessary sensitivity and consistency that have been shown by the European Commission.
In other words, Madam Commissioner, there has been a repetition of what happened in Bosnia, where it appears that the European Commission is the only donor to have so far contributed anything.
The second problem relates to the proper use of the money that has so far been given to Ukraine because of Chernobyl.
Total transparency and continuous monitoring are required with regard to the handling of that money.
Madam Commissioner, there is a suspicion that the assistance provided in the past was not put to correct use by the Government of Ukraine.
When I put two questions on this matter to the Commission, the reply from Commissioner van den Broek only served to strengthen those suspicions.
I was far from reassured that the money had been used for the purpose for which it had been given.
Of course, our ultimate aim must be to close down the Chernobyl reactor, and I would like to remind you all that there was already a shelter, even before 1986 when the accident occurred.
We are not now going to construct something which did not already exist.
Nor do I know what political forces in Ukraine Mr Adam was alluding to, which oppose the closing of the reactor.
What I do know, however, is that whatever these political forces are, they have not contributed a single ecu to the issue of the reactor in their country.
So we are to remain ignorant of these political forces and, since we are paying - and, I repeat, quite rightly so - our ultimate aim must be to close down the reactor.
<P>
In finishing, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Adam, since it was a technically difficult and politically very sensitive report.
My political group will support it, together with almost all the amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Virrankoski">
Mr President, Mr Adam has produced an excellent report on the EU's involvement in constructing a shelter which will cover, once and for all, the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl.
I thank him for the report. It goes into the matter thoroughly and the result is a clever and justified proposal.
<P>
The report shows just how problematic the issue is.
Besides the destroyed reactor at Chernobyl there are three other old reactors all in uncertain condition.
Repairs to them are continually having to be carried out.
Progress is slow; the work consumes 6 % of Ukraine's gross national income.
Ukraine cannot meet the cost of achieving even a passable standard of safety, and therefore needs outside help.
<P>
Because Chernobyl presents a risk to the whole of Europe, it is right that the EU should share these costs.
That is why the report's proposal that the EU should contribute ECU 100 million is justified.
The overall cost of the operation is going to be pretty enormous.
For that reason, the report's suggestion that costs should be shared among different agencies is right.
It is a matter of concern that only half the funding is clearly available.
The proposal in the report that the EU should fund the project as it proceeds is thus a safe and reasonable solution.
<P>
In questions of nuclear safety, the best is preferable to the merely OK.
That is true of the Ukrainian nuclear industry.
Two new and reasonably up-to-date atomic power stations are nearly ready for use in the Ukraine. They are Khmelnitsky 2 and Rovno 4.
When they start production the power stations in worst condition could be shut down.
At the same time, the Ukrainian economy would get into better shape as it could focus on more valuable projects than fixing up old nuclear power stations.
That is why we should speed up the financing of these projects out of the European Development Fund and get things moving.
<P>
Mr Adam proposes in his report that finance should come partly from the TACIS fund and partly from a specially constructed budget.
This is an excellent idea.
It is absolutely right for the report to urge the Commission to examine TACIS funds in this respect.
On the other hand, it is true that nuclear safety has so far accounted for a full 13 % of TACIS appropriations.
This is quite justifiable.
Possible nuclear accidents could be catastrophic and cause untold destruction.
<P>
TACIS has achieved good results in this area.
It has supported improved technology and safety.
Communications have got essentially better, as each power station has someone employed by the EU with direct access to information and expertise in the outside world.
Communication delays can thus be avoided, and steps can swiftly be taken to put things right in the event of something unexpected happening.
That is why I should like to express my sincerest thanks to the TACIS body for its good work. I support Mr Adam's report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, this matter clearly illustrates the sort of problems any future common foreign and security policy might cause for the smaller nations.
At the meeting of the G7 countries, the leaders of the largest EU countries drew up a proposal that EU funds could be used to build a shelter over the Chernobyl plant.
The decision was the right one. The problem is that those leaders did not have the authority to take such a decision.
<P>
In the end, the promise lacks a proper legal basis.
This has led to money for the purpose having to be taken out of the TACIS aid programme, which was not originally meant for the construction of a shelter at Chernobyl.
<P>
The EU's Court of Auditors, according to a special report, says we cannot be certain that TACIS funding to develop the Ukrainian nuclear industry has always had the desired result.
There has been negligent monitoring of the spending. That is why the demands of Mr Adam and the Committee on Budgets are justified.
A watchful eye has to be kept on spending.
<P>
Because the unofficial G7 resolution is not legally binding we must ensure that other parties honour their promises too.
We still lack half the money we need.
If the G7 and the EU stop paying out, where is the other half supposed to come from?
The demand that the EU share be a mere ECU 100 million sounds unrealistic, but we have to stick to it.
<P>
From the Ukrainian point of view, they need energy there just like everyone else.
That is why the realization of the agreement made in December 1995 to close Chernobyl requires other decisions to be taken on energy production.
Consequently, we have to take a stance with regard to seeing through the construction of the reactors Khmelnitsky 2 and Rovno 4.
If Chernobyl closes down these new plants will go into production, or else the Ukraine will have to be given a massive amount of energy aid.
<P>
I personally oppose the building of new atomic power plants.
If, however, we insist that Ukraine shuts down the Chernobyl plant and concentrates on the construction of the two new reactors, the demand seems unreasonable if we do not provide economic aid, which we nevertheless find distasteful.
As Mr Adam says, Ukraine in any case sees the agreement and the new power stations as being part and parcel of the same thing.
<P>
If new reactors are going to be built anyway, the question is how they can be made safe.
That means new funding problems, which will have to be solved by the bank.
If the Chernobyl plant is to be shut down and we give aid accordingly, we are reluctantly moving in the direction of support for nuclear power in Ukraine.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Mr President, Mr Adam has really put a great deal of work into this report, as is apparent from the explanatory notes.
However, the Green Group in the European Parliament has formulated a number of amendments, through Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, to make a good report even better.
<P>
The Commission's aim is to convert the existing shelter over the wrecked reactor at Chernobyl to an environmentally safe system.
As I said before, this aim is totally unrealistic.
The plans drawn up by the international group of experts may undoubtedly lead to improvements in the current disastrous and highly threatening situation at Chernobyl, but no-one can guarantee complete safety.
There is no way of establishing an environmentally safe system, as there is radiation involved.
To achieve this would require a total cleanup, both of the damaged reactor and its very high radiation levels, and of the environment itself.
This project, which we are forced to employ to improve the safety of the destroyed reactor, is desirable but would be incredibly expensive.
In order to achieve a truly environmentally safe system we would also need a complete, safe, final disposal method for all radioactively contaminated sections of the wrecked reactor, as well as the shelter.
This would also involve totally dismantling the other three reactors at Chernobyl, and safe final disposal of everything in the Chernobyl area which has been exposed to radiation as a result of the accident and the operation of the nuclear plant.
Until now, however, the technology required for this has not been available, either for dismantling the wrecked reactor or for the safe final disposal of the radioactive material.
<P>
The radioactivity is still there.
I remember when Chernobyl was destroyed in the spring of 1986, and the Swedish Government's nuclear inspectorate said no radiation problems would remain after six months.
Nothing could have been further from the truth.
A few weeks ago, a report appeared which showed that radiation levels have in fact increased in some areas of Sweden.
The problem is enormous and cannot just be swept away somehow.
<P>
When it comes to the funding conditions and handling the financial resources, the EU authorities have once again shown themselves to be masters of bureaucracy and unnecessary expense.
Quite why a separate item has to be set up for informing the public is also unclear.
But the exception to precise control of how the funds are used should be that funds are handled in as unbureaucratic a manner as possible, so that large parts of the funds do not get swallowed up in administration but instead go to where they are intended.
<P>
A rapid improvement of the unacceptable security risks at Chernobyl must be the absolute top priority, and the bureaucratic expenses required to achieve this aim must be kept to the absolute minimum.
<P>
The Commission points out that the Community's contribution to the funds for sealing the reactor will ensure that the shelter plan, under the agreement between the G7 nations and the Ukraine on shutting Chernobyl down, will be carried out by the year 2000.
Apart from the safety of the wrecked reactor being improved immediately, it is essential that the entire nuclear power plant at Chernobyl is shut down.
<P>
The EU's contribution to the funding of a new sarcophagus should also be independent of the building of the two Ukrainian power stations which are under construction.
We should make it quite clear to the Ukraine that they must expect significant reductions in the contribution unless the promise to close Chernobyl is kept.
So, even before it is finally closed, we should insist on seeing evidence that the technical and organizational measures required for a shutdown have been taken.
<P>
Nuclear power is not safe, either within the EU Member States or outside, such as at Chernobyl.
Nuclear power does not belong to the future.
We need new technology. We must not be negative about the technological developments we can all benefit from, which the EU has so finely stated in the new Treaty of Amsterdam, on the aims of an ecologically viable society.
Nuclear power is not one of them!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Blot">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I agree that the technical quality of Mr Adam's report is very high, and I shall vote in favour of the provisions proposed in it.
I can see that we really have no choice, and with regard to Chernobyl, we are obliged, for essential safety reasons, to provide European Union aid, more or less as a priority.
<P>
However, it is permissible to question the economic and political rationality of the situation forced upon us, and to look at what alternatives we have.
Certainly, the Government of Ukraine claims that in order to close down Chernobyl, it is necessary to build new power stations as soon as possible.
We are in a situation where the Ukraine Government could request a quite considerable amount of economic and financial aid.
It is a pity that the possibility of considering a non-nuclear solution has never really been envisaged at any time.
<P>
However, such a solution exists.
It is much less expensive and more rational in all respects. But it is dependent on increased cooperation between Ukraine and the Russian Federation, as it is mainly the Russian Federation which could, in the short term, supply the gas and oil which Ukraine needs to operate the thermal power plants it could use to replace Chernobyl.
It is a pity the European Union, which usually promotes cooperation between the various European countries, does not do so between the Ukraine and Russia, although continuing to respect Ukrainian sovereignty.
<P>
Furthermore, I note that at a diplomatic level some world powers are playing a questionable role by exacerbating the dissension between Ukraine and Russia.
I do not think this is in anyone's interests, either geostrategically or economically. This irrational policy should be abandoned in order to promote cooperation between Ukraine and Russia, which would help to solve their energy problem, among other things.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Gillis">
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Adam for this exceptional report.
<P>
In 1986 we saw the beginning of a terrible tragedy with the explosion of reactor 4.
The people working on the site and living in the surrounding areas have paid a very heavy price for faulty design, very poor maintenance and a very risky working environment.
They are still paying that price today.
Many have lost their children, their health, their homes and livelihoods.
This experience has shown that the environmental damage from such a disaster knows no boundaries and respects no frontiers.
Therefore Chernobyl's problems are our problems, too.
<P>
I wish to support the report by Mr Adam on the Chernobyl Shelter Fund and I agree with him that the Memorandum of Understanding between the G7, the Commission and the Ukraine Government should be implemented as quickly as possible.
<P>
The principal purpose of the Shelter Improvement Plan must be to close and decommission the plant completely, as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately it is clear that nuclear energy will continue to be Ukraine's electricity plan for the future, so high engineering and security standards must be paramount in all other nuclear sites if a repetition of the 1986 disaster is to be avoided.
Unfortunately, even if all these extensive repairs and the construction of an effective and secure shelter for reactor 4 can be completed quickly, there will be no guarantees and, in my view, no question but the whole project will still be environmentally unsafe because the technology to render the dismantled reactor safe, on the one hand, and to eliminate the radioactive waste, on the other, does not yet exist.
We need continuous research into safer plant design and a fuller answer to these very difficult problems.
Otherwise mankind will continue to live with an unacceptable risk.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Mr President, Commissioner, I believe we have an exceptionally good report before us from Mr Adam, who shows that politicians will have to keep their finger on the pulse, and will manage to do so through this procedure.
Mr Adam touches on a number of very sore spots.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development may not have enough experience, for instance.
It remains unclear how the project will be monitored.
It states correctly that a lot of money is going to Western companies.
Extremely complex interests are at stake, and for that reason it is crucial that we keep our finger on the pulse. The procedure, as selected by the Committee on Budgets, is a very astute move.
Nonetheless I continue to have concerns, about liability, for instance. Is Amendment No 3 enough of a guarantee that the Community assumes no liability?
Nuclear power is difficult to insure, so I assume that if things get out of hand again, it will not be insured, and Western countries will be liable once again since such enormous interests are at stake.
That is why safety controls and monitoring are so absolutely vital.
<P>
Mr President, I would like to devote my remaining time to the political subject of Ukraine's independence.
I have been to that country, and it says on the one hand that it does not wish to be independent from Russia.
That is a reasonable argument.
But on the other hand, I believe Ukraine is not addressing certain issues sufficiently - energy conservation, for instance.
Huge amounts of energy could be saved in that country.
No other country in the world could achieve so much with a method such as the total energy principle.
During all these negotiations, we did not quite manage to achieve this.
It is therefore my view that the European Union in particular should argue for a new energy policy for the Ukraine.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Piha">
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Adam for his excellent report.
The threat of a nuclear accident is a good example of a danger that lurks outside the borders of the EU but nevertheless threatens EU Member States, which would remain defenceless against it.
I think the European Parliament must make sure the agreement is put into practice as quickly as possible.
It will also diminish the chances of our nations being contaminated by radiation due to a nuclear disaster.
<P>
The closing down of the plant at Chernobyl is part of the renewal process for the whole of Ukraine's energy sector.
As the powers that be in Ukraine are obviously not unanimous in their desire to shut down Chernobyl, we should agree with the rapporteur's view on the Commission's responsibility.
The Commission should make sure that, in return for the EU's money, they get proof on a regular basis from the Ukraine Government that the Chernobyl plant is being shut down in accordance with the agreed timetable.
I also agree with Mr Adam that the Commission should provide resources only after the other parties to the agreement have used up their share.
<P>
It is reasonable for the European Union's share of the finance to cover the period when the design for the reactor's shelter is being put into practice.
In this way we will be better able to ensure that EU funds are not continually milked for this important project, but that it is carried out within the confines of the funding agreement.
<P>
Mr Seppänen's remarks on what money has been spent and whether there will be enough for the future are futile.
The funding situation will most certainly be due for review after 2005, and I think we must share in the responsibility considering the safety risk involved for our countries.
The report is excellent, and I support it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
Mr President, there are undoubtedly a lot of people who, like me, remember 26 April 1986.
I myself was out on an island in the Swedish archipelago, at Sandhamn.
We heard on the radio that radioactivity had leaked from a Swedish nuclear power station close by in Forsmark.
I remember it well.
It was three days before the report was changed, and it turned out to be a Russian reactor thousands of kilometres from the island in the archipelago where I and my friends were staying.
Those of us in central and northern Sweden were hit particularly badly: mushrooms, wildlife, berries and animals were contaminated with radiation.
This made many people who depended on natural products in the affected areas realize that nuclear power is an unsafe and highly dangerous source of energy.
<P>
Sweden has decided to stop using nuclear power.
The decision was actually taken before 1986.
Every effort has to be made to ensure that the proposals in this report are implemented.
The shelter, funding, information, training, environmental safety, and so on are all essential.
Of course, we have to provide resources along with Ukraine and the G7 group of countries.
Advice, expertise and money must go to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
<P>
It is particularly important that openness, information and close contact with employees and the general public are a constant feature of this work, and that no money is used for operating and extending new nuclear power stations.
Environmental safety, control and monitoring must have top priority for as long as the project lasts, between 1998 and 2005.
I would like to ask the Commissioner how the Commission proposes handling this excellent report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Gradin">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to congratulate Mr Adam on a well produced report. It supports the Commission's proposals on Community support for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development for the fund for improving the shelter over the Chernobyl reactor.
<P>
In setting up this fund, international society has taken up its responsibility to help Ukraine put the 1986 Chernobyl disaster behind it and make that nuclear plant environmentally safe.
Through the Commission's TACIS programme, the European Union has put itself at the forefront of these efforts.
The TACIS programme will be subject to constant follow-up and reporting back.
<P>
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has also played an important role by taking on the heavy responsibility of managing the project on the donors' behalf, and it has managed to get the project under way quickly.
It is my hope that, after the Parliamentary elections in the summer, Ukraine will see the European Union's contribution as a sign of our friendly relations and solidarity.
<P>
The Commission can accept most of the amendments, but one important question remains - namely, when the EU will pay its contribution to the Chernobyl fund.
The Commission is proposing here that the EU's contribution will be paid in the initial years of the project.
This is mainly because most of the project's costs will arise at the start.
<P>
The Chernobyl fund operation has got off to a rapid start, which also shows that the project itself will be implemented quickly.
A number of tender procedures for the so-called "early biddable projects' and project management have already been announced, and so the contract will be signed in the near future.
What is even more important is that the Ukraine authorities are planning finally to shut down the Chernobyl nuclear power station in the year 2000.
One express political requirement is that considerable progress be made before then.
<P>
Parliament's report proposes that payments should be extended to cover the period 1998-2005.
According to Parliament, this is because the Community will be paying its contribution at an early stage, and then the other contributors will go back on their promises.
I believe I can set Parliament's mind at rest on this point.
Of the US$ 400 million promised to the Chernobyl fund, US$ 178 million of fixed commitments have already been made for 1997-1998.
After the European Union, the next largest donor is the United States: their fixed commitments for the period 1997-1998 amount to US$ 54 million.
The cash already in the fund's account amounts to nearly ECU 50 million: this does not include the contribution from the European Union.
In view of this, the Commission is certain that it is both necessary and appropriate that the EU's contribution should be paid at an early stage.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Gradin.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
I would like to delete the word "primarily' from the first sentence, so that the text instead reads: ' With the aid of Community funds, the following technical aims will also be achieved as a new shelter is constructed' .
This means deleting the word "primarily' , which I think Mr Adam can accept.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, are there any objections to this oral amendment?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Adam">
Mr President, I would be quite happy to accept the amendment with the deletion of that word.
The important point is that we are approving the plan as a whole and we cannot therefore select particular parts of it as being priorities.
If the word 'primarily' as it appears in English is taken out that would be very appropriate.
I would then support it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, we have heard the rapporteur's opinion.
Since there are no objections to the introduction of this oral amendment, I shall put it to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament approved the oral amendment)
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Flemming, Habsburg-Lothringen, Pirker, Rack, Rübig, Schierhuber, Stenzel">
As Austrian members of the Group of the European People's Party, we set great store, in connection with the Shelter Improvement Plan and the agreement between the G7 countries and the Ukraine, on the closure of Chernobyl by the year 2000. Therefore we have chosen to approach the voting in a way which accords with our consistent anti-nuclear policy within the European Parliament.
<P>
On the basis of the community assets, we resolutely defend all measures to guarantee greater safety in the nuclear sector.
In this process, however, any link between the closure of old and highly dangerous nuclear reactors and the possible completion of new atomic energy plants must be resolutely rejected.
<P>
In line with these views, we also recognize the need for the European Parliament to proceed coherently in the implementation of the agreement and the solution of the Chernobyl problem, but without thereby supporting the completion of other nuclear construction projects, especially in this region.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
EC - USA competition laws Agreement
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0104/98) by Mr Malerba, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council and Commission Decision concerning the conclusion of the Agreement between the European Communities and the Government of the United States of America regarding the application of positive comity principles in the enforcement of their competition laws (COM(97)0233 - C4-0559/97-97/0178(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Malerba">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in the global economy society we live in, there is an ever increasing number of multinational companies and mergers.
Dominant positions and restrictive market practices are also more frequent and have transnational effects.
<P>
The authorities which protect competition have several instruments at their disposal to combat restrictive international practices, the authority par excellence being the World Trade Organization. However, one of the most widely adopted methods is that of the extraterritorial application of national competition law.
This means that penalties are also applied when behaviour within the territory of a third country has negative effects on their markets.
<P>
In 1991, the European Commission and the US Government concluded a bilateral Agreement on the application of competition rules between the two parties.
That Agreement was approved by this Parliament and I reported on it a couple of years ago.
Section 5 of the 1991 Agreement introduced the concept of comitas gentium - positive comity - for the first time in relations between the EU and the USA. This is a rather special concept which should possibly be explained.
When a party is the victim of anticompetitive behaviour within the territory of a second party, the first party can ask the second to take measures applying the second party's anticompetition laws.
<P>
The Agreement on which the House is now being called upon to vote represents further progress in relation to the 1991 Agreement. Not only does it provide directives on how to deal with requests for positive comity, but it also implies that when a party considers itself the victim of anticompetitive practice in the other party's territory, the first party should generally suspend the measures laid down by its regulations, in other words stop implementing extraterritorial measures.
<P>
The central point, therefore, is the extraterritorial application of competition rules.
From time to time, the USA and the EU try to apply their rules of competition to behaviour in other countries as well; in particular, the USA claim competence to apply their competition rules even when they are prejudicial to their exports, and not only when they are prejudicial to the consumer.
This Agreement therefore seeks to replace international cooperation in the methods of extraterritorial application of the rules of competition to regulate anticompetitive practice.
So the Agreement, even if it is only bilateral, seems to be going in the right direction and I recommend its approval.
<P>
A word of caution and concern has been expressed, however, by the economic circles of the EU on the provisions for confidentiality of information exchanged between the competition authorities.
That is particularly the case because there is more information available at the European Commission than at the American competition authorities.
<P>
At this point, I recommend that the Commission take this concern into account when drawing up a second-generation agreement, that is in the process of being prepared, as well as the possibility of agreeing to the exchange of confidential information even without the parties' consent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Karamanou">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this is not the first time that issues relating to the new EU-USA relations have been debated in Parliament. On each occasion, serious reservations have been expressed on all sides of the House, since there is still a general climate of mistrust on both sides of the Atlantic.
<P>
Nonetheless, the laborious efforts of the Vice-President of the Commission, Sir Leon Brittan, to push forward the plan for a new Euro-Atlantic market cannot be overestimated, in spite of the difficulties it faces on both technical and above all political issues, as was discovered last Monday at the General Affairs Council.
<P>
It is well known that very serious objections have been raised by France, which of course cannot be ignored.
Reservations have also been expressed by other Member States which, it is true, do not in principle disagree.
However, they put terms and conditions on the promotion of a common Euro-Atlantic market, such as the safeguarding of WTO regulations, and the solution of problems arising from the implementation of the infamous extraterritorial Helms-Burton and D'Amato-Kennedy acts. Naturally, there is also the condition that sectors of the agricultural economy and of audio-visual communication will remain outside the plan.
<P>
As regards cooperation in the implementation of competition laws, which is dealt with in Mr Malerba's report, the proposal of the Council and the Commission is of course constructive, and no-one can have any objections to a framework of regulatory provisions.
Nevertheless, the Agreement has serious weaknesses to the extent that its implementation is neither obligatory nor does it have a strong legal basis. Rather, it is a political undertaking to cooperate, which in particular excludes company mergers.
<P>
So it is natural that reservations and concerns should be expressed by European businesses, especially concerning confidential provisions and the exchange of financial information. European businesses are worried about a possible undermining of legitimate interests if the United States gains free access to all secret information.
It is only natural for there to be fear and mistrust, since our partner on the other side of the Atlantic is burdened by a host of international violations, which show that it is no respecter of laws and international agreements. At the same time, the United States' insistence on maintaining extraterrestrial laws, despite the recent relaxing of measures against Cuba, is typical behaviour.
It is a fact that the United States demands respect from others for the laws of competition and the free market, whilst reserving for itself the right to violate them.
<P>
There is also another serious issue.
While we have decided that, in each agreement concluded between the European Union and third countries, there will be clauses to ensure respect of human rights in accordance with European humanitarian values, I have the feeling that this is systematically passed over when it comes to our powerful partner on the other side of the Atlantic.
I am referring in particular to the issue of the death penalty, which is retained by many states. Every now and again public opinion is shocked by an execution, and I am also personally shocked by the public executions in the United Arab Emirates and in the United States.
<P>
An equally serious concern is the reduction in US contributions to aid for third world countries. As a result, child deaths have risen to 12 million a year.
In other words, whereas the European Union currently gives 0.4 % of its GDP as developmental aid, the USA gives only 0.1 %, even less than Japan at 0.28 %.
It is also a well-known fact that it is a very bad payer with respect to the United Nations Organization.
<P>
These issues do not prevent the creation of a common conception and a common agenda on issues of democracy, international cooperation and a just and viable world order such as we envisage in the European Parliament and the European Union.
Therefore, in spite of all this, we will vote for the Agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kittelmann">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to offer sincere thanks to the rapporteur for his excellent report.
The Agreement presented here constitutes a renewed attempt by the two largest markets in the world - the two most important trade partners - to reach an accord where previously there have always been recurrent difficulties.
<P>
On behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, I should like to say that we approve of this Agreement.
Admittedly, highhanded US behaviour ensures time and again that US legal regulations are applied in a way which is dubious under international law; Helms-Burton and D'Amato are just two examples of this.
In international competition law as well, people in Texas or elsewhere believe they can apply their own rules and do not have to take account of international law.
But none of that should prevent us from attempting, step by step, to persuade the people of the USA as a whole to enter into agreements which they can then comply with too.
<P>
Incidentally, I do not fully understand what the death penalty or insufficient development aid has to do with it.
If you look at the European budget lines in national Parliaments, you will see that development aid is being reduced bit by bit even where Socialists are in charge.
The pot should not call the kettle black.
<P>
High-handed US behaviour is one thing we must recognize.
However, we must also recognize that we and the Americans have jointly achieved a great deal in many areas.
If the USA and Europe had not stuck together, there would never have been any expansion of GATT-WTO.
We need to recognize the positive side as well from time to time, not always take a sledge-hammer to the Americans.
<P>
So our idea of competition law must gain international acceptance.
If the Americans and Europeans reach an accord, we shall have made a significant step forward.
That is why extension by means of a clear framework agreement is necessary, and that is being attempted here.
The Agreement itself is no more than a statement of political commitment.
As a consequence, however, the agreed trade rules will in any case lead to efforts being made to arrive at a rational outcome in cases of dispute, and this should be warmly welcomed.
That is why there is no need for a special, outstanding effort to give approval to this Agreement here.
<P>
With the Agreement, I am glad to say we are advancing into an area which is of decisive importance for the maintenance of a free world economy at a time of increasing globalization.
International cooperation in the area of competition will be one of the main tasks of foreign trade and investment at the start of the 21st century.
<P>
Globalization, as we all know, leads to world-wide competition.
Europe is part of this world-wide competition.
After the introduction of the euro, we shall play an even more significant role in international competition.
Our efforts to reach an accord must be all the greater.
The conclusion of the present Agreement is a step - albeit a small one - on the way to the comprehensive liberalization of all areas of transatlantic trade.
From my remarks you will see why the Group of the European People's Party gives its support, and I would ask Parliament to give its approval to this Agreement in its totality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, competition and freedom of competition are often said to be non-political matters that global capitalism needs to survive. The USA tries to impose its own laws on other countries.
An instance of this is provided by the Helms-Burton and D'Amato-Kennedy acts, by means of which the USA has enacted political laws.
They are at odds with freedom of competition.
So markets and competition are not at all non-political matters and do not represent complete freedom of competition.
<P>
We politicians in Europe must make political decisions and laws: that is our job.
Consumer freedom means not having to buy US hormone-treated meat or genetically manipulated soya.
There is a clear conflict of interests between freedom of competition among US producers and the health of consumers in Europe.
<P>
US companies and multinationals want freedom of competition based only on making a profit, with little in the way of social and ecological responsibility.
Competition can harm or kill, so politicians must take responsibility generally and protect people and the environment.
<P>
In this whole area, I would like to say that non-political competition does not exist.
The rules can be clarified in the form of the Agreement now being prepared, and it would be wise to approve it.
However, we are already taking the next step: namely, the MAI Treaty.
Politicians are gradually submitting to market dictatorship, which is what constitutes complete freedom of competition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Seppänen.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, so as not to distract attention from the important things being said here this Friday morning, the Presidency would ask the Members of the House to please switch off their telephones during the debate.
This is not obligatory, but it is distracting and it would be better if we could manage without them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, Mr Malerba's report recommends the revision of an Agreement negotiated by the Commission in a particularly sensitive sector of our relations with the United States: the extraterritorial consequences of different competition laws.
But the Agreement does not solve the fundamental problem of the extraterritorial nature of recent US federal and local legislative provisions.
<P>
The main question today is therefore whether the Commission is going to retract the suspension of the WTO panel relating to the Helms-Burton law, which it requested nearly a year ago, in the unfounded expectation of an amendment of Title 4 by Congress.
The suspension therefore has no purpose today, and if it is not withdrawn before the mid-April deadline the whole procedure carried out by the Commission will be a failure, to the detriment of European interests.
<P>
Violations of international law should not, in any case, be negotiable, as the chairman of our Committee on External Economic Relations, Mrs Castellina, has just pointed out.
The Commission's attitude is so laxist that you have to wonder how it would handle the negotiations to create a transatlantic free trade area.
The process would not be unbiased anyway, because a large number of areas referred to in the project fall within EU competence on this side of the Atlantic, whereas in the United States, they are the responsibility of the federal states.
<P>
And how can we expect Washington to relax trade barriers when the legislative and supervisory bodies are independent from the political authority?
<P>
The United States has always, by various means, tried to obtain a sort of right to take part in the internal operation of the European Union.
If they support Sir Leon Brittan's personal initiative today, it is because they see an opportunity to enter the European decision-making process, in the era of the euro and enlargement.
<P>
It is not a question of blaming the Americans for defending their own interests carefully and intelligently.
No, what is surprising is the little resistance to their efforts offered by a divided Commission - which makes you question the principle of collective responsibility - and a timorous Council, which is allowing itself to be led by Sir Leon's personal project.
Mr President, does that sort of European Union really defend the interests of the European people?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, there is no doubt that the Malerba report is a good one, and well written.
Nevertheless, I must express some reservations about its whole orientation and also about some speakers' contributions to this discussion.
I very much value what Sir Leon Brittain has done, because I know he has endeavoured somehow or other to achieve a situation in which we can create a reasonably tolerable community with the USA in this particular area.
It is therefore a very valuable attempt.
Nonetheless I have to say that there are many signs that this attempt cannot be very successful, for a simple reason: the Americans are certainly our friends.
We owe them a great deal of gratitude.
But on the other hand, it cannot continue to be the case forever that one power asserts itself in the economic area, imagining itself to be outside international practices and laws, and intervening where it has no business to do so.
<P>
I would particularly like to refer to what is implemented time and again by means of extraterritorial legislation.
The way in which US industrial interests repeatedly manage to find loopholes - the very thing with which the Japanese are reproached - verges on the brilliant. They do this so that in practice they do not have to keep to what they have committed themselves to in writing.
This situation arises particularly in the matter of international legislation.
I would like for example to mention here a fact which undoubtedly affects our trade: I refer to the new US measures under which sporting events that take place in Europe can no longer be shown on television because they display advertising for drinks such as wine and other alcoholic beverages.
That has a very great effect on our interests.
That eliminates us from competition in advance.
I believe we should be clear about one thing here - and I would like to endorse Mr Souchet's remarks, although I do not share his views on all matters. Unfortunately the Americans have a strong Government that knows what it wants and has laid down a political line, and we still do not have a real decisionmaking body to guide foreign policy for us.
If we did, we would be much better off!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Gradin">
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Gradin.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="President">
Mr Rübig has asked for the floor pursuant to Rule 19 of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, pursuant to Rule 19 of our Rules of Procedure, I would like to inform you that the deadline for signing the written declaration 'Sign Against Crime' expires today.
So far 154 Members have signed this written declaration in accordance with Rule 48 of the Rules of Procedure, and I would like to offer them my sincere thanks.
In this respect, I would also like to thank you most sincerely, Mr President, for your readiness to give active support to our concern.
Brussels must become the safest capital in Europe.
<P>
As you have rightly commented, we particularly need police reinforcements in the Europe quarter, a police station of our own, and an international, multi-lingual emergency number as a contact point in case of criminal incidents.
According to Rule 19 paragraph 4 of the Rules of Procedure, you represent Parliament in external matters as well.
I would therefore request your continued commitment to representing our concern. I hope you will soon be able to report something positive to the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Rübig.
<P>
Mr Manisco has asked for the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Manisco">
Mr President, I simply wish to say that I voted against the Malerba report.
You only mentioned two abstentions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Manisco.
I am sorry; I did not look towards the left and in my case, ladies and gentlemen, that is even more difficult to understand.
So I apologize both to you personally and to the area where you are sitting.
I looked towards the right, towards the centre and towards the left, but not towards the extreme left.
I am sorry Mr Manisco, and I note that you have voted against.
<P>
Mr Schulz wishes to speak on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
Mr President, I have one comment to make in relation to Mr Rübig's remarks, if you would allow me.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="President">
Mr Schulz, that is not a point of order.
In any case, this could open a debate.
I would ask you not to open a debate, but that we merely note Mr Rübig's opinions, which were made pursuant to Rule 19 of the Rules of Procedure, and record them in the Minutes, as is fitting.
But if you insist, Friday mornings are very special mornings so I will give you the floor for one minute.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
Mr President, I knew you were an understanding man.
I am sure you will also find a Rule which makes it possible for me to speak for a minute and a half.
As someone who deals with cooperation between the police and justice systems in the European Union, I support the concern of my colleague Mr Rübig in principle.
<P>
Please do not clap too soon.
Mr President, please subtract the applause and the heckling from my speaking time.
I support it in principle, Mr Rübig, because you are defending the safety of our colleagues in this Parliament.
I merely want you to bear in mind something I consider to be very important in negotiations with the Belgian authorities.
Apart from anything else, we play a role in the lack of safety in the Leopold quarter.
In the eyes of a great many people, including criminals of course, we are people worth attacking. This leads to the situation - you were right to use your hammer in support, Mr President - whereby the people who live in the Leopold quarter on a day-to-day basis are of course victims of crime as well - in other words the Belgians, who suffer at our hands in any case because prices have been driven up because of the European Parliament, as far as rents and land prices are concerned.
So in future please let us not just mention ourselves, but also the people who live there.
The police station which is to be established there is to serve Belgian citizens as well.
I consider it right and proper, Mr Rübig, that we should mention all the affected parties.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I would ask you not to open a debate.
Two opinions have been given.
I believe we should now get ready to end this part-session calmly instead.
<P>
Parliament has come to the end of the agenda.
The Minutes of this sitting will be presented for Parliament's approval at the beginning of the next part-session.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me once again the satisfaction I have every Friday of thanking all Parliament's services for their cooperation, especially with the prospect of a few days' rest: rest for our throats, rest for our muscles, but especially rest from the tension arising from the responsibility of our daily work in this important institution.
At the beginning of this morning's sitting, Mr Hallam gave me another reason to reflect on the value of the work carried out here by Members on Friday mornings.
On Friday mornings there are no television cameras.
It is an irregularity that I am going to look into and will try to sort out but, in any case, it is also very commendable that you, ladies and gentlemen, are here without the possible gratification of your images and work being transmitted on television.
<P>
Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I declare that you are the distinguished members of the Friday club.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="President">
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 11.35 a.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 3 April 1998.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Tribute
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, it is my sad duty to inform you of the death of our colleague Spalato Belleré on 21 April.
Mr Belleré was a medical doctor and a colonel in the reserves.
He was elected to the European Parliament in June 1994 and was an active member of the Committee on Transport and Tourism and the interparliamentary delegation for relations with Kazakhstan.
<P>
Furthermore, as you all know, on 23 April the former President of the Republic of Greece, Constantino Karamanlis, passed away in Athens.
As a statesman, he was responsible for the restoration of democracy in his country and its entry into the European Union, and he deserves recognition from all Europeans.
<P>
I would ask you all to observe a minute's silence with me.
<P>
(The House rose and observed a minute's silence)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
The Minutes of 3 April have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Striby">
Mr President, next Saturday, 2 May, in Brussels, we are going to make an historic decision with regard to a number of aspects concerning the introduction of the single currency.
Whatever my personal opinion regarding the euro, or that of my group, we would like to remind you formally that the Edinburgh agreements confirmed Parliament's seat as Strasbourg and it is thus there that we should be meeting on Saturday.
As a Member of this House and a native of Alsace, I protest against the choice of Brussels for this extraordinary sitting.
Yet again, the House is ignoring the treaties and shunning Strasbourg.
<P>
(Applause from various quarters)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Mr Striby, as you know, the Treaty that you mention permits extraordinary part-sessions to be held without specifying where they should take place.
Thus, by a large majority, the House decided that this extraordinary sitting would be held here in Brussels, which also enables the unique possibility of holding the session in the same place as the meetings of the Ecofin Council and the Council of Heads of State or Government.
Thus, for functional reasons of an extraordinary nature, it is being held in Brussels.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth">
Mr President, as a European, I would like to say that I am perfectly happy about meeting here in Brussels on Saturday.
Mr President, I would urge you to press for the release of Vincent Cochetel on behalf of the European Parliament.
Mr Cochetel works for the High Commission for Refugees.
Three months ago today he was kidnapped in Russia.
During the night of 29 January he was taken away by armed men and he has not been seen since.
Mr Cochetel is 37 years old and has two children.
He leads the delegation of the High Commissioner for Refugees in Vladikafkas, which is looking after 100 000 refugees and exiles from the Caucasus region.
I would ask you to intervene and urge you to do everything in your power both here and in the Russian Federation to ensure the release of Vincent Cochetel.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Imaz San Miguel">
Mr President, less than three weeks ago an important peace agreement was reached in Northern Ireland, which we should all be very happy about. We should congratulate ourselves and, especially, the people of Northern Ireland as well as all the political actors who have had the courage to reach this agreement, including the former British Government under Mr Major, the current one under Mr Blair, and the Governments of the Republic of Ireland.
<P>
From the Basque Country, a significant majority of the population has watched this agreement with political interest, in the hope that dialogue may soon bring about an end to the sad and violent conflict we are experiencing.
We hope ETA may have the same courage as the IRA, to renounce arms and use political negotiation to try to reach agreement through their representatives. We also hope the Spanish Government will have the same political courage the British Governments have shown, so as to embark on a process of this type.
I hope this House will soon be able to celebrate a peace agreement for the Basque people, and I hope the European institutions will offer sincere support in this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Imaz San Miguel.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
It is my pleasure today to welcome a delegation from the Australian Parliament, made up of members of the Senate and the House of Representatives, led by Mrs West, the Vice-President of the Senate.
<P>
Our Australian colleagues are in Brussels to take part in the twenty-third interparliamentary meeting between the Australian Parliament and our institution, co-chaired by Mr Nicholson.
<P>
Madam Vice-President, ladies and gentlemen of the Australian delegation, on behalf of the Members of our institution, I welcome you to the European Parliament.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Northern Ireland
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
The next item is the Council and Commission statements on the recent peace agreement in Northern Ireland.
<P>
It is a great honour to welcome to the European Parliament today Dr Marjory Mowlam, the UK Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Mr David Andrews, the Irish Foreign Affairs Minister, and Mr Santer, the President of the European Commission.
<P>
It gives us all great pleasure to welcome them here today.
<P>
During my talks in London, Belfast and Dublin, I was able to understand and observe the enormous determination with which both governments committed themselves to the peace and reconciliation process.
Today we have the opportunity to show our unfailing solidarity with them and with the people of Northern Ireland.
Like you all, I cherish great hopes that it may now be possible to turn this sad and bloodstained page of modern history once and for all.
<P>
Mrs Mowlam, you have the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Mowlam">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is a great pleasure and honour to be with you today to talk about the agreement that was reached on Good Friday and to have a chance to thank people here for the help they have given us in moving the peace talks in Northern Ireland forward to what I hope is a stable and lasting settlement.
Part of that has been the economic help that has very kindly been given by the European Union but just as important is the support given to us by individual Members of Parliament, individual Commissioners, and the Presidents of both Parliament and the Commission over the past year.
The money is most welcome; it makes a big difference.
But it also makes a difference when individuals give of their time and their energy to support what is happening in Northern Ireland.
That makes a real difference.
So I thank everyone who brought with them some hope, some belief in the future, some vision of where we could go and their assistance.
<P>
I also acknowledge the help that the three Members of the European Parliament from Northern Ireland - John Hume, Jim Nicholson and Ian Paisley - have given by working together in Europe to get support for Northern Ireland.
<P>
I know it is potentially unfair but may I thank John Hume in particular for the work he has put in.
<P>
(Applause) It has to be said that the work he did over the years when this was not a popular issue has made a difference today.
I am also very pleased to be speaking alongside my colleague, David Andrews, from the Republic of Ireland.
It is when the two governments have worked together, as people do in the European Parliament, that we have managed to make progress.
We must never forget that.
<P>
(Applause) Finally, I acknowledge the work of the Commissioners and not just Jacques Santer.
I say a special thank you to Monica Wulf-Mathies.
I will refer later to the work she has done for us in Northern Ireland.
I would also mention Padraig Flynn and our good friend and comrade Neil Kinnock for their support.
<P>
(Applause and laughter) I mean comrade in the 'comradely' way.
We are all comrades in a certain sense and that is how I mean it.
<P>
I also, in a 'comradely' way, thank the Council for the endorsement they gave to the historic agreement setting out what we hope is a new beginning, the chance to achieve what we hope will be a lasting peace settlement.
As the Council acknowledged, it is the courage and the determination of the party leaders and the people of Northern Ireland which has been central in making this opportunity for peace happen.
We have been aided by the courage and determination of those party leaders and by the economic help that the EU programmes have given us.
The agreement reached is one that is based on the principles - which were very crucial in the agreement - of consent, cooperation, fairness and justice.
They are the underlying principles that guide the agreement.
<P>
It is a unique agreement.
It is unique in the sense that it is the result of talks between Nationalists, Unionists, Loyalists and Republicans.
It is the first time for 70 years that they have been round the table reaching an accommodation.
There is no doubt, as many in Parliament know, that we still face difficulties in the weeks, months and years ahead.
In the immediate future we still have some splinter groups on both sides of the divide that have not signed up to a ceasefire and to the talks.
In fact, they are out to destroy it.
That is a continuing problem with the violence that it entails.
Many of you will have seen last weekend the most recent murder victim was a young 22-year-old student on his way home.
Those are the difficulties we may still continue to see in the future but our response must be, as the President of this Parliament on his recent visit to Belfast said, there will always be attempts to stop the process reaching a peaceful settlement.
It is necessary to be prepared for that and to have a strong determination not to let things be spoiled by them.
I echo your President's words on that.
<P>
I do not want to go into a lot of detail about the agreement but just let me say that none of the parties get 100 % of what they want.
But there are gains there for everyone.
It both respects everyone's cultural and political identity and paves the way for a fair, workable and lasting accommodation.
It has been reached because everyone was willing to compromise.
Everybody has moved a little and as a result everyone - and I mean everyone - can be a winner as a result of this agreement.
It includes cooperation within Northern Ireland, within the communities in the North, between the North and the South and between the UK and the Republic.
<P>
I want to mention briefly some aspects of the agreement which refer specifically to Europe.
As part of the overall settlement there will be a North-South ministerial council which will seek to build greater cooperation than already exists.
It will bring together members of the Irish Government and members of the new Northern Ireland administration provided the referendum goes through on 22 May, with bodies below the ministerial council to implement decisions.
One of those will be related to the European issues.
EU decisions of a cross-border nature will fall under that implementing body.
There will also be a new body bringing together the British and Irish governments with new devolved institutions in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales to consider matters of mutual interest, including European Union matters.
They will also take advantage of what I believe are the radical constitutional changes taking place within the United Kingdom where we have greater cooperation for trade and EU cooperation between Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England.
<P>
I will not go into the detail but everybody in this Parliament knows the amount of economic help you have given Northern Ireland over the previous years through various programmes.
Over the last six years we have received well over £1.3 billion.
It has made an enormous difference and we thank you for it.
At times when things have been very tough it has been of great help to know that the European Union has always been there.
Some people come late to success and I want to acknowledge very clearly today that when things were tough the European Union was there with us.
I can remember times when, after a particularly horrific weekend, when Monica was due to come over, I would think: ' Will she come, will she cancel?'
And she came.
And it shows that if you keep going with confidence and determination you can get to where we are today.
So I thank those who came in person and the help they gave.
<P>
(Applause) The Structural Funds have been, and will continue to be, an important aspect of funding to Northern Ireland.
Objective 1 status was given to Northern Ireland because of the special political and economic circumstances that we found ourselves in.
It has made a tremendous difference to us.
Under the proposed post-1999 reforms we recognize that qualifying for Objective 1 status is going to be harder but I want to stress to you today what a difference it has made across Northern Ireland in helping to build the opportunities for peace.
<P>
I would also take this opportunity to thank people for the special money in the Peace and Reconciliation Fund which is there to help develop socio-economic policies underpinned by working with Community groups.
It has made an incredible impact in Northern Ireland and one of the reasons it has made an impact is because projects have to be either cross-community or cross-border.
There have been 19 000 applications to benefit from that fund. The fund has managed to meet 11 500 of them.
What that means on the ground is that many people have benefited from help from Europe.
There is a trauma centre in Belfast where people who have lost loved ones can go when the pain is very real to talk and discuss and come to terms with the pain that has been created.
There is a women's centre in Ballybeen.
That has meant that women can get retraining, can have a future after the children have gone and can also have a voice.
Their voice is not always heard in Northern Ireland.
There is the Ballymena Business Development Centre which allows small businesses the chance to grow and provide what is so crucial to the peace working, namely jobs.
<P>
There are some like the Greysteel Community Centre - people will remember the shooting in 1994 in the Rising Sun Pub where six people were shot at random.
Thanks to the European Peace and Reconciliation money we now have a community centre there where both sides of the divide go and we are beginning to rebuild after that hurt.
That is the kind of difference that programme has made and I thank all who made it possible.
<P>
I also want to touch on one other aspect of that Peace and Reconciliation Fund which is so innovative and so constructive.
It developed in Northern Ireland but has an impact across many European countries.
The money was not handed out by us in central government, not given by Ministers or departments.
Monica Wulf-Mathies created an environment where partnerships developed - 20 of them across Northern Ireland - bodies made up of community representatives, local politicians, trade unionists, business people who sat round the table and decided for their local community where the money should be spent.
The difference that made was that when we went through very tough times in the talks and people were not playing and not talking, there were 26 tables across Northern Ireland around which people were talking, people from both extremes and regardless of what had happened they kept going.
<P>
It will not be up to me but up to the parties after the referendum to decide, but I hope that structure is kept and provides a model for others of what is possible.
We thank you very much for creating that.
<P>
(Applause) Finally, I would just mention the International Fund which the European Union has contributed to over the years: the recent ECU 17 m per annum for 1998 will enable the fund to continue its important work.
So the message today really is, thank you for the support.
We would not have got to where we are in Northern Ireland without the help from the European Parliament.
You have been there for long enough that enough people have benefited from the programmes that have been put in place that they have been willing to support and encourage people to reach the agreement we reached on Good Friday.
Europe has been an inspiration to people in Northern Ireland.
You have supported us on a practical level which makes a difference to people and which is what our EU presidency is about: jobs, crime, education; but you have also given us a hope and a belief that we can build a future, that if we work collectively in Northern Ireland we can do so much better than we can as individuals.
You have shown that if we look to the future and believe and trust in a vision we can get there.
You have made a difference in the past.
I know we will continue to work together in the future.
Thank you one and all for your support.
<P>
(Loud and sustained applause)
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Andrews">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am very honoured by your invitation today to join with my British colleague, the Secretary of State Mo Mowlam, in marking the agreement reached in the multiparty negotiations in Belfast on Good Friday, 10 April.
It is fair to say, as expressed by Mo Mowlam, that the immense welcome the agreement has received from our friends across the world and in particular from within the European Union underlines its truly historic and momentous nature.
Like Mo, I would like to express my deep gratitude for your solidarity and for your encouragement.
Both qualities are deeply appreciated and not taken for granted.
<P>
It is fair to say that the agreement itself is the culmination not just of two years of difficult negotiation but of decades of shared endeavours by the British and Irish governments and by political leaders of vision and courage.
I must in particular salute a distinguished Member of Parliament already mentioned by my friend and colleague, and 'comrade' from time to time, Mo Mowlam, namely John Hume.
I would like to place on record the pivotal and crucial role at all stages of the process from beginning to end of my friend and colleague John Hume.
Throughout the negotiations the Irish Government has been inspired both by the European ideal and by the real and concrete achievements of the Union.
We are deeply appreciative of the crucial role the Union has played in preparing the groundwork for the agreement.
Europe, in particular, has shown how age-old rivalries and bloody conflicts can be transcended through new partnership structures.
<P>
We have also learned the lesson that, to adapt the words of the Treaty establishing the Coal and Steel Community, a new Ireland can be built neither through coercion nor through rhetoric.
It can only come about through practical achievements which will first of all create real solidarity.
Our experience as a small country within the Union has shown that there are many sectors in which there is a true commonality of interest between the two parts of the island of Ireland.
In this Parliament, too, the three Members for Northern Ireland - John Hume, Ian Paisley and Jim Nicholson - despite acute differences between them on political issues have been able to work together on many matters of importance to those they represent.
The EU structures have themselves been a guide to us in the negotiations on arrangements for cooperation and joint action within Ireland, the North and the South.
<P>
The European Union's economic support through, for example, the Peace and Reconciliation Programme and its contributions to the International Fund for Ireland has been vital and critical in making the peace process a tangible reality for many individuals and communities, both in Northern Ireland and the border counties in the south of the island.
We are deeply grateful to our partners, the Commission and the European Parliament for their consistent and generous assistance.
I wish to re-echo the expression of gratitude by Mo Mowlam to the President of the Commission, Jacques Santer, to Commissioners Wulf-Mathies, Kinnock and Flynn.
And to all colleagues who, one way or another, assisted and supported the peace process.
We welcomed the presence of the President of Parliament in Belfast and we particularly welcomed the presence of Jacques Santer.
As a member of the General Affairs Council of the Foreign Ministers, let me say that his support on Monday was critical to the magnificent declaration which emanated from that meeting.
It is deeply appreciated.
<P>
The European Union's economic support for the programmes has been tremendous.
The European example has also been of great moral significance.
The conflict in Northern Ireland which has led to so many terrible and needless deaths and injuries has been an affront to the values of our shared European civilization.
But Europe has shown that no society is condemned by some iron law of history to pace the treadmill of its past.
Just before the agreement was signed the Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble spoke about how the accord could represent an epoch-making end to our internal Cold War which would be enormously liberating for the people of the island as a whole.
<P>
Within the past decade we have seen the end of the Cold War in Europe and its replacement by an new era of partnership.
We have seen the Berlin Wall torn down and the Iron Curtain collapse.
There are physical barriers between communities in Belfast still.
There is a border between North and South but the true frontier is that which runs through the hearts and minds of people.
The real difference lies between those who look to the future, to new ways of peace and cooperation and those who cling to the past, to the old ways of violence and division.
That is the divide we wish to break down.
<P>
The agreement does not pretend to be a final and definitive settlement but it creates institutions within which a new relationship of trust can be developed and offers guarantees both individual and collective of the fundamental interests and rights of all.
As Mo has said, the agreement is complex and complicated and contains many elements which must in their practical operation be synchronized and meshed together.
The transition to the working of the structures and policies contained in it will be a challenging and continual process.
In that sense the agreement is an opportunity as much as an achievement.
<P>
The continuing support of the European Union will be critical if we are to meet the new challenges presented by the agreement.
My government, together with the British Government, looks forward to working with the Commission, the European Parliament and our partners and meeting the challenges of peace and reconciliation.
I therefore welcome Monday's agreement at the General Affairs Council that the Union should continue to play an active part in promoting lasting peace and prosperity in Northern Ireland.
As you know, there will be simultaneous referendums North and South on 22 May.
When they come to the ballot box the people of Ireland will be asked above all else to vote for peace.
They should have on their minds the profound example, the triumph offered by Europe's transformation of itself.
I am confident that the people will together and concurrently endorse the agreement and allow its immense potential to be realized.
<P>
Again, I extend my deep gratitude on my own behalf and that of my government for the invitation by the President of Parliament to be here and thank you and your colleagues once again.
<P>
(Loud applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="Santer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am very honoured to address the European Parliament today in this debate of importance and significance for all of us in the European Union.
Barely two weeks ago agreement was reached in the multi-party negotiations on the future of Northern Ireland in Belfast.
This agreement required considerable political courage and great determination.
Today before this House, on behalf of the European Commission, I would like to pay tribute to all those who are playing a part in this peace process: to the governments of the United Kingdom and Ireland, to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Dr Mo Mowlam, and to Ireland's Minister for Foreign Affairs, David Andrews, both of whom we particularly welcome here this afternoon; to the parties in the talks; to the outstanding chairmanship of Senator George Mitchell and his fellow independent chairmen - former Prime Minister Harri Holkeri and General John de Chastelain.
<P>
We welcome the Agreement although it is not our role to pass judgment on it.
That is a matter for the people in the North and South of Ireland to decide in the referendums on 22 May.
But we can - as we always have done - continue to support wholeheartedly the peace and reconciliation process.
Surely in political life there is no more noble a cause than trying to bring people together inclusively in the pursuit of peace and reconciliation - from whatever their backgrounds, rich or poor; from whatever their religious or ethnic origins, and to bridge the gaps of intolerance and hatred, to break down fear and insecurity, to build confidence and a belief in a new future and to offer hope, opportunity, freedom, the chance for happiness, the chance for a decent future for future generations.
There is no more noble cause than that.
To try and try again in this task and to be determined to succeed in the end: that is what we applaud today.
<P>
Indeed, does this not mirror the spirit that symbolises the whole history of the European Union itself?
As committed and dedicated Europeans is this not the credo of our daily lives - to bring all European peoples together in friendship, peace and reconciliation, in a spirit of tolerance and mutual respect, fulfilling the guiding principles of our Treaty.
Yes, this is our raison d'être and our lasting success.
So, today, in this House we rejoice in the progress that is being made.
During the talks leading to the agreement I believe the European Union has played an important role in three major ways.
<P>
Firstly, the European Union has provided a stable political reference point for both communities, a reference point that has shown how formerly divided communities and divided European countries can work together, trust each other and grow together successfully in the modern world.
Secondly, because our institutions - this Parliament, the Council of Ministers, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions - have all provided important political venues where members of the United Kingdom and Irish governments and politicians from Ireland, North and South, have been able to meet and work constructively together on many subjects.
But the European political process has shown that these disagreements can be resolved amicably without resulting in malice or recrimination.
So our institutions themselves have played their part.
<P>
Thirdly, I believe we have played a generous part in a deep and continued European involvement to underpin, practically, the efforts of both governments to bring about peace and reconciliation.
We have done this by a twin-track approach of assistance for economic and social regeneration and direct support for cross-community reconciliation.
In 1988 we became a major contributor to the International Fund for Ireland.
Overall we have contributed ECU 135 million.
25 000 jobs have been created.
After the cease-fire in 1994 we launched the Special Programme for Peace and Reconciliation in Northern Ireland and the border counties of Ireland, a programme that has been unequivocally supported by the MEPs from the Province.
This has been a big success.
<P>
On my recent visit to Northern Ireland I saw at first hand some of the cross-community and cross-border projects - such as my visit to the Shankill Women's Centre or when I listened to the Ray of Hope Choir.
They were moving experiences.
Few people know that the special programme is financing no fewer than 11 000 projects - bringing together more than 2 000 people, one-seventh of Northern Ireland's population!
So I am very pleased to announce before this House today that the Commission has agreed this morning in the provisional draft budget to propose a further ECU 100 million for the Peace and Reconciliation Programme for 1999.
<P>
This brings the total for this programme to ECU 500 million over five years.
I am sure this will be supported by the European Parliament.
<P>
Let us not forget either the role other Community funds have played: the general Northern Ireland programme under the Structural Funds, INTERREG, URBAN and other Community programmes.
Over ECU 1.3 billion has been earmarked under Objective 1 of the Structural Funds for Northern Ireland.
Our practical assistance to Northern Ireland has been constant, committed and additional.
We have provided sustained support for all the communities over a long period of time - and rightly so.
Let me add that the Peace and Reconciliation Programme has been a laboratory for new forms of cooperation and implementation of our Structural Fund programmes and a source of inspiration for more decentralized implementation in the next programming period.
<P>
In the future the European Union will continue to support social and economic regeneration in Northern Ireland as we have in the past.
Community funding will be present in the initial phase in 1999 with our proposal to extend our contribution to the Peace Programme, and its effects will be felt for longer still.
And, in addition, I am confident that by working with both governments, all the political parties and all strands of opinion we will be able to find new, creative ways of supporting the fresh opportunities which an agreement will bring.
I can assure you of our commitment in that respect.
<P>
Let me conclude my remarks this afternoon by saying that we salute the great courage of the people of Ireland, North and South and all of those who are involved in the peace process.
We support the huge efforts that have been made on the road to peace and reconciliation.
And we continue to pledge our support to underpin this bold and courageous process - now and in the future.
Václav Havel provides me with the words and thoughts I need to express my feelings and conclude my remarks this afternoon.
He said 'Je crois profondément en la coexistence de communautés régionales au sein d'une communauté globale de tous les hommes ' .
So do I.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Santer.
<P>
Mr Hume has the floor, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Hume">
Mr President, I have to say that I am very pleased that the leadership of my own group has asked me to speak for the group today because I am quite sure that the vast majority of the people of Northern Ireland would want me to speak for them today to express their deep gratitude to all of the European institutions for the powerful strength and support that they have given to the peace movement on our streets.
<P>
Could I begin by expressing their gratitude, and my thanks, to you for representing this Parliament and coming to our streets and thereby strengthening the will for peace and the mood for peace by showing the people on the streets, who have been neglected for so long, that Europe and the outside world really did care.
That strengthened enormously the will for peace among the people.
In so doing you are building on the strong foundations, already laid by the European Commission, and let nobody underestimate the strength of those foundations.
<P>
When the cease-fires were called, Jacques Delors approached us immediately to ask what he could do to help and he initiated the special programme for peace and reconciliation.
His successor, President Santer, came to our streets to meet with people at local level and, of course, the fact that the President of the European Commission came to the streets was an enormous statement, not only of goodwill but of positive support for the peace process and of strength for that process.
<P>
The fact that his colleague the Commissioner for regional policy with major responsibility for Northern Ireland, Monica Wulf-Mathies, has come to our streets many times and has gone to the areas of highest unemployment and has brought together people from both sides on their common ground - economic regeneration - has been a very important factor in the healing process that we believe is now under way.
Of course, the two governments who are represented here today and in particular the two people who are representing them who have been involved in very detailed work during the talks leading to the agreement have put enormous efforts into it, together with previous governments who have also made very strong moves towards peace in our country.
<P>
We have, I believe, an historic opportunity now for a new beginning in which we can leave behind us our terrible and tragic past.
It is a new beginning in which there will be no victory for either section of our people because in divided societies victories are not solutions.
<P>
What we have is an agreement that underlines and proposes accommodation and respect for the identities of both sections of our people and for the ethos of both sections of our people and creates the circumstances in which both sections of our people can work together in their common interests and by so doing can break down the barriers of the past.
There again, we see the enormous influence of the European Union because, as I have often said the European Union has been a major inspiration to the philosophy of creating peace.
People often talk of European Union as economic this and economic that, but fundamentally, as I have often said on my streets, it is the finest example in the history of the world of conflict resolution.
<P>
Just imagine fifty years ago: for the second time in a century, after millions has been slaughtered, who could have forecast we would be altogether today?
But we are.
How was it done?
How it was done involves the philosophy I am talking about, not just in Northern Ireland but in every area of conflict in the world because at the end of the day all conflict is about the same thing - it is about seeing difference as a threat.
<P>
(Applause) The peoples of Europe decided that difference - whether it is your race, your religion, your nationality or your ethnicity - is an accident of birth and not something that you should fight about; it is something you should respect.
Looking at the philosophical principles that create peace, what the peoples of Europe did was to build institutions - and those three institutions are represented here today - which fully respect the differences of their peoples.
No one in Europe has lost their identity but, and this is the important point, make them work together in their substantial common interests which are social and economic, as I often say 'spilling their sweat and not their blood' , and by doing that we can breakdown the barriers and centuries and the new Europe will have evolved.
<P>
Those are the principles that go to the heart of this new agreement if you read it.
They are creating institutions within Northern Ireland and between North and South and between Britain and Ireland that respect our differences but which allow us to work together in our common interests based on partnership, on equality, on mutual respect, on consent and agreement.
As we lay those foundations now, as the two governments have laid those foundations for us by their work for this agreement, let us hope that by working together the real healing process in Ireland will begin and we will break down the barriers of prejudice of centuries and the new Ireland will evolve in the way the new Europe has but with no victory for either side but based on agreement and respect for diversity.
<P>
Indeed, Mr President, as that is happening I have no doubt that the continued support from the European Union and from the European Commission and Council of Ministers in particular, through economic regeneration, will play a major role in strengthening the common ground enormously and in expressing to our people at grass-roots level the massive international goodwill that exists for peace in the offshore island of the European Union.
The representatives of all sections of our people face the challenge of harnessing that massive international goodwill and translating it into real benefits for our people and in doing it together to break down the barriers of centuries.
<P>
We look forward in Northern Ireland to continuing support from our friends in the European Union and we thank you for it.
We are very confident, and I know I am speaking for the vast majority of our people from both sectors of our community when I say we are looking forward to laying our past permanently behind us.
As we move into the next century let it be the first century in our island history in which we will have no killing on our streets and no emigration of our young people to other lands to earn a living.
<P>
(Loud and sustained applause)
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Banotti">
Mr President, this is a time of great hope and gratitude in Ireland: hope for the future of the two referendums we are facing shortly, gratitude to all our friends and colleagues who throughout the years have given us such wonderful support.
Congratulations also for those who were directly involved over the last few years and particularly in the last few months in bringing this process to what we hope will be a good conclusion.
And particular congratulations to those who chose the long and consistent and patient path; notwithstanding the many disappointments and great griefs that they encountered along the way: Thank you, John.
<P>
Throughout this process Europe was there with us. It was there not just with the financial aid but also with the human and political aid that we have gained from colleagues who visited us and the very real and genuine concern across all political groups in Parliament.
This agreement is one great step but we have a long process ahead of us as has already been said by both our ministers and the big process I believe we have to face in the next few years is how we bring the plain people of Northern Ireland in both communities together.
Not just the communities within Northern Ireland but the communities in the North and the South, between whom there still exists unfortunately a great void.
It was not just a physical boundary but it was also the boundary of the minds that divided us and that will be our most challenging job for the next few years.
There is so much we can do together; there are so many great opportunities; let us seize them.
<P>
Finally, I would like in addition to pay tribute to all those concerned, to make a special reference to the contribution the women of Northern Ireland have made, both between themselves and also with the South.
The Women's Coalition made a significant contribution to this process and I believe they should be recognized as well.
Thank you all, colleagues and thank you everybody, particularly the Commission and those who worked so hard for this great day for us all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Collins, Gerard">
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Cox">
This afternoon is a very special parliamentary occasion.
It is historic because both the British and Irish Governments are commending to this House and to the peoples of Ireland and the British Isles in general a unique agreement which heralds the prospect of a new beginning for Northern Ireland and its wider relations.
<P>
The Belfast Agreement reasserts the role of democracy, the rule of law and the primacy of constitutional politics.
For these reasons, European Liberals commend the agreement to the peoples of Ireland, North and South, for their approval.
Great credit, we believe, is due to all the political leaders who have had the courage to break free from the failed political stereotypes of the past.
<P>
This deal offers the best prospect in a generation, perhaps in a lifetime, to secure a partnership, as has been remarked, based on consent, equality and mutual respect.
In referendums the electorate in both parts of Ireland will have within their power the capacity to rob the men of violence on all sides of the slightest shred of legitimacy.
These people never acted for the majority, whatever they claimed.
An overwhelming 'yes' vote is the clearest way to drive that message home and to secure a lasting peace.
<P>
Some who sat silent for months we see now shouting the loudest and mouthing the old and jaded clichés of the past.
The new opportunity must be grasped and we welcome the support that Mr Santer and the Commission have announced again today.
It is good to see that the solidarity which has been there remains, and has been deepened.
<P>
To conclude Mr President, it was Jean Monnet who, speaking of Europe remarked, and I quote, ' we are not forging coalitions between states but union among peoples' .
The European liberals believe that this House in our vote tomorrow should commend Monnet's vision of a union among peoples to all the peoples of Ireland and that is our political message from this debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Puerta">
Mr President, like the other groups in Parliament, my group has followed with great emotion the agreement signed in Belfast on 10 April by the British and Irish Governments and the parties representing the communities of Northern Ireland.
We are very pleased to see Mrs Mowlam and Mr Andrews here together today, sharing the same philosophy and the same commitment.
Their understanding, toughness and commitment mean that the European Parliament can feel proud today.
<P>
Our group showed its commitment to peace in Northern Ireland, during the previous parliamentary term, through the members of the Irish Democratic Left, and also through the work of Vice-President Gutiérrez Díaz in his capacity as rapporteur for the International Fund for peace in Northern Ireland and as member and chairman of the Committee on Regional Policy.
His work was a sign of our group's commitment, because we are convinced that in Ireland there are many men and women of good will, many men and women who believe in democracy, many men and women who also think of themselves as Europeans.
So it is easy for them not to fear peace or democracy today.
As the President of the Commission, Mr Santer, said here: there is no need to be frightened of peace.
The dangers of peace are always far less than the dangers of violence.
<P>
So, as the European Parliament, we want to make a firm commitment.
We want to encourage the Commission and the Council to develop all these programmes and plans for solidarity because we want to share the fruits of peace. In a few years' time, we want there to be Irish Members of the European Parliament who can greet each other warmly, who are committed to the same political project of democracy for Europe and the European peoples.
For every problem, in every country, there are different solutions.
But the philosophy of renouncing violence in Ireland and making a commitment to peace and dialogue applies to everybody.
We cannot draw any other conclusion.
We cannot confuse one problem with another and propose a single, general solution, but what is clear is that European commitment, democratic commitment, and the renunciation of violence are applicable to everybody. That is why we are pleased today with this agreement and the fact that all the Irish people, from the North and from the South, can be fully European, by regaining peace and democracy for their children and for the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="Ahern">
For too long in Britain and Ireland we have been united only by grief and therefore with all my heart I welcome the Good Friday Agreement and I warmly welcome here today Dr Mo Mowlam, the Northern Ireland Secretary, and David Andrews, our own Minister.
<P>
The Agreement is a development of deep historical significance and must be supported by all those who wish for an end to this ancient conflict.
Those who continue to say 'no' have no solution other than continued violence.
There can be no doubt that 'yes' vote in the two referendums is a vote to end violence and that is something we must all wish for.
<P>
The two Governments, together with most of the political parties of the region, have agreed a set of proposals which transcend the narrow confines of nationalism - whether of the British or the Irish variety.
I hope that in time we can develop a set of political arrangements where identity and territory are no longer the defining ideologies of state-building.
The political darkness in the North was in a large part due to its standing in the long dark shadows of both British and Irish nationalism locked in a struggle to the death.
Only movement by the two Governments on the key underlying constitutional issues could move that shadow and lift some of the darkness.
<P>
The Agreements on police reform, prisoner release, victim support, human rights and equality legislation are vital and need to be acted upon with generosity and imagination.
We are all equal citizens of the European Union and, as my colleague John Hume has said, we must learn to treat each other with equal respect.
<P>
Just one note of caution.
As currently structured, the decision-making systems of the new assembly tend to reinforce and institutionalize the current divide.
There is something distasteful about public representatives who, after all, are intended to represent the whole of the Community following rules rooted more in ethnic labelling than in democracy.
I hope that over time these elements can be ironed out of the arrangement as reconciliation builds, trust grows and a true democratic consensus begins to develop.
<P>
I know that this is an ideal, that the painful move away from conflict has not at present been accommodated but in particular we must not allow the women who have done so much to keep and create cross-community action during the years of conflict to be excluded from building the peace.
In this context I would like to give a particular thanks to Commissioner Wulf-Mathies for the way she has structured the programme for Peace and Reconciliation that has been deeply embedded in the Community as we have heard from Dr Mowlam today.
That is a vital and important part of the resolution of this conflict and I could recommend it to anybody, anywhere.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Ewing">
Mr President, I want to thank my group for giving me the opportunity to speak on their behalf in what is a truly historic occasion.
Perhaps it is because I represent the nation of Scotland which is near in geography but also in culture.
We once shared the same language and culture as Ireland and we care deeply for all parts of that noble island.
We praise those who found the words.
I once read the words of a British ambassador to Dublin who said: ' This is a land where words can turn into weapons' .
Throughout the hard talking that took place I noticed how carefully Mo Mowlam had to choose her words and yet every word was spoken from her heart.
She had an enormous part to play.
I have to praise also my longstanding friend from the 1960s, John Hume, who has given his lifetime to the process of patient, peaceful talking.
All the others, the Prime Ministers past and present, the politicians like David Andrews here today and David Trimble for holding the line when many Unionists panicked.
<P>
War-weariness set in.
3 600 people dead, most of them civilians.
I read what an IRA man said: ' I joined the IRA when I was 20.
I am now in my 40s and I have been to too many funerals' .
As the war-weariness set in there began to be a total realization in the minds of everybody that violence was getting nowhere.
All sides have yielded cherished positions and shed traditional attitudes. In the words of John Hume they have drawn and shaped new relationships.
These magnificent politicians have built a bridge of hope and the optimists have beaten the pessimists.
<P>
Real concessions were made.
Ireland gave up the claim to the North and Nationalists in the North accepted that there could be a solution for Northern Ireland short of a united Ireland.
So we praise them all and the European Union.
British tabloid newspapers are always criticizing the European Union.
When faced with this, I have to say that if the only thing we achieved was peace in Northern Ireland, the European Union would have been worthwhile.
<P>
We have provided a meeting place for all the parts of Ireland to get together informally and to work together for the benefit of the whole island.
The silent majority of Ireland want peace; let them now vote for it!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="Nicholson">
Mr President, I should firstly like to identify myself with the tributes paid to yourself, President Santer, Monica Wulf-Mathies and others who have been involved.
For thirty years the people of Northern Ireland have not been able to enjoy or benefit from a normal society.
They have suffered grievously over that time from countless evil and wicked acts by terrorists.
It does not matter what letters of the alphabet the terrorists use to camouflage their atrocities.
We still have a long way to go for there are still those who wish to keep the people of Northern Ireland at each other's throats.
I would like today to put on record my admiration for the people of Northern Ireland who have withstood the pressure and managed to remain in control and calm in the face of adversity.
<P>
I would also like to put on record the immense debt we the people of Northern Ireland owe to the security forces and the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the Royal Irish Regiment, formerly the Ulster Defence Regiment and the army which on many occasions in the past 30 years stood between sanity and oblivion.
I have to say that on many occasions they never received the credit they deserved.
There is still a long way to go.
Please do not believe that all our problems are over.
There are many deep scars in both communities which will take a long time to heal.
Many families will never be able to forget their own personal loss and I hope we can understand that.
<P>
We should not believe that this agreement will be accepted by everyone.
Many of the people I represent are extremely concerned that those who murdered and bombed for the last 30 years have not decommissioned one bullet nor one ounce of Semtex.
There are many people who are extremely sceptical of these unreconstructed terrorists' long-term motives and have doubts about their intentions to follow the democratic path.
The European Union has been very constructive in the support it has provided in recent years.
It will require sustained and positive action by the European Union to ensure that we can rebuild our divided communities and restore that confidence.
The future of Northern Ireland and its ultimate destiny lie firmly in the hands of those who live and reside within Northern Ireland.
This settlement is not and cannot be considered interim; it is permanent.
<P>
I know there will be difficult days ahead.
The road to peace will not be easy, it never is.
But there comes a time when one must grasp the opportunity.
The easy way is always to say 'No' , to demolish and destroy.
The difficult way forward is to say 'Yes' and to pick up the challenge and build a new future for all the people of Northern Ireland.
<P>
The people of Northern Ireland are a warm and generous people.
They deserve better than they have had.
The future is in their hands.
They will decide, they will vote and I trust they will choose wisely.
I tried very hard earlier today to obtain consensus on a joint resolution.
Unfortunately, because of the Socialist Group's attitude, I was unable to achieve it.
It is a bad start.
I hope it reconsiders and adopts a better attitude in the future.
If we cannot have consensus on a joint resolution in this Parliament, we will have difficulties ahead of us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="Paisley">
Mr President, I rise to speak on behalf of people who have no voice now in Northern Ireland.
They had a voice when they elected me top of the poll - the position I have occupied at every election for this Parliament with the largest number of voters taking part in the election.
And why can these people not speak?
It is because they have been butchered and killed by the IRA and other so-called Loyalist groups.
I do not know how many people in this House today have read the Agreement or know what it contains but it does not contain some of the things that have been attributed to it by some speakers today.
They cannot have read it.
<P>
It is proposed that all unreformed terrorists will be released inside 24 months.
The Secretary of State says that it is based on justice and everyone is a winner.
Who is winning and what sort of justice is that?
I have not time today to talk about some of the people but let me give you one example.
In 1993 - which is not long ago - Paul Magee from Belfast was convicted of killing Special Constable Glen Goodman in Tadcaster, North Yorkshire.
He was also a member of the IRA active service unit, nicknamed the M60 Gang after they killed five security force members in Belfast.
That is the type of unreformed terrorist who is going to be loosed onto the streets of Northern Ireland.
<P>
I have before me copies of a paper with every police officer they murdered during their campaign.
Here we have all these young men who gave their lives in defence of both Roman Catholic and Protestant people in Northern Ireland, all murdered by the IRA.
And those who are serving time for their murders are to be released within 24 months.
But there is one exception.
In the South of Ireland where a garda was shot, the government has made it clear that those responsible will not join in the amnesty.
I say: What is the difference between him and the Royal Ulster Constabulary men who fought and died to guard the people of Northern Ireland?
What is the difference?
<P>
Someone in this House said that this is peace.
These gunmen, once released, will have access to the greatest terrorist arsenal in the whole of the western world - not one gun surrendered, not one ounce of Semtex surrendered - and when they do not get what they want, they will take it out not on this Parliament, not on the people of Europe, but on the long-suffering people of Northern Ireland.
Someone said: Do not be afraid of peace.
Go and tell the widows.
Go and tell the orphans.
Go and tell the slaughtered in Northern Ireland that.
How can they lie in their beds when they know that those who murdered their kith and kin are to be released on to the streets with access to the weapons of murder.
This is a serious matter.
<P>
Let the people of Northern Ireland speak.
The government is spending £3 million in order to win this referendum.
But the Ulster people will not be bullied and they will not be bribed.
And when they speak we will hear the real Ulster.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="Moorhouse">
Mr President, the peoples of Northern Ireland and, to a considerable extent, of Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland, have, as we have just heard, suffered grievously from constant terrorist activity over the past 25 years and more.
Certainly it has been hard for the people concerned to endure.
But now - and here I part company from Mr Paisley, whom I greatly respect in many ways - thanks to the unremitting efforts of the British and Irish Governments, thanks to our parliamentary colleagues, thanks to the Commission, there is now real reason for hope.
I firmly believe it is a new beginning for Northern Ireland and we must build on that.
Speaking as a British Conservative, I hope that the people, North and South of the border, will give the Agreement their approval.
<P>
Inevitably there are matters outstanding that cause us legitimate concern.
I tried in the negotiation on this resolution to insert reference to them but my colleagues did not feel able to agree.
At the same time, I have signed the compromise resolution because this is an opportunity to voice such matters.
I have to ask also for your indulgence for two very important points.
I refer to the matter of the decommissioning of arms in not only Northern Ireland but the Republic of Ireland and elsewhere maybe.
Secondly, the release of convicted prisoners and, incidentally, but not to be under-rated, the future of the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
The hard fact is that the terrorist groups continue to be well armed and, alas - and the House should be aware of this - murders continue almost daily, even now.
We should be aware of that.
The peoples of both the UK and Ireland are bound to be concerned if prisoners convicted of murder are allowed to go free before serving out their sentence as seems to be happening.
<P>
I would ask the Ministers present today to give us an undertaking that these issues will be given proper consideration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="Gallagher">
Mr President, at the outset I want to thank my colleagues for giving me the opportunity to say a few brief words on this historic day for the European Parliament.
I want to congratulate all of those involved in bringing about peace and the peace accord of Good Friday.
In particular, I want to welcome to the European Parliament our own Foreign Minister, David Andrews, and Secretary of State Mo Mowlam, both of whom have played an integral role and both of whom have spent long and arduous hours in negotiations, culminating in this accord.
Parliament, the Commission and in particular the President of the Commission and his Commissioners Wulf-Mathies, Flynn and Kinnock continually lent their support and goodwill to the efforts to reach a peace agreement, responding at all times in a positive and practical manner through the International Fund, through Peace and Reconciliation and I am confident that Parliament will warmly approve the Commission's recommendation of another £100 million before this year's budget.
<P>
I know that the Union will continue to support the process and it is absolutely essential.
But they should do so now by granting Objective 1 status on a cross-border basis.
This would ensure priority access to European funding for regional, social, agricultural and fisheries development - on a cross-border basis, I emphasize.
This will bring much needed jobs to the many unemployed in the region.
<P>
In conclusion as a representative of the border region, I want to pledge myself to assisting the peace process in a positive and practical way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Watson">
Mr President, it is in helping to solve problems such as those in Northern Ireland that Europe shows its added value to the citizen.
The idea which inspired our European Union is not just the idea of peace but the idea that what unites us - our common humanity - is more important than what divides us.
That fundamental creed is summed up in a poem by my fellow countryman, Robert Burns: ' A man's a man for a' that' .
<P>
If the proceedings of this House had been heeded fourteen years ago the ideas put forward by our former Danish colleague, Niels Haagerup, might have held sway.
If the proposal taken to Downing Street in the early 1980s for a British Isles Youth Forum along the lines of the Council of Europe's Youth Foundation or the European Community's Youth Forum had been taken up, we would be further down the path of peace.
<P>
I welcome the Presidency's recognition of the role that the European Union and others have played in reaching this historic agreement.
I hope that the Union might serve as a model to Northern Ireland, that so much more can be achieved collectively than apart.
I look forward to the day when Ministers refer not to the two communities in Northern Ireland but instead to the community.
My party in Northern Ireland - the Alliance Party - has worked tirelessly for the building of a non-sectarian society.
It is fitting that the European Union should complement and underpin the peace process through the Peace and Reconciliation Fund.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="McCartin">
I, too, in the short period that I have want to welcome the Agreement and to say that I sincerely hope it will be supported by the vast majority of the people of Ireland, North and South.
I want to congratulate, of course, especially John Hume for the immense investment he has made in time and sacrifice in this Agreement.
I want also to recognize the leadership of David Trimble in bringing the majority of the Unionists of Northern Ireland alongside and I want to thank Jim Nicholson, too, a Member of this House also, for giving his considerable assistance and influence in support of David Trimble's effort.
<P>
I want also to remember all the Prime Ministers of Britain and Northern Ireland in the past who made an immense effort and their contribution is, I believe, part of the success of this agreement.
I want also to recognize the efforts of the American President in this.
He gave a lot up to the very last minute and I believe what America has done here is an example for Europe as well of what a major power, through its influence and good diplomacy, can achieve throughout the world.
<P>
We would like to especially thank the EU for its quiet and unintrusive role in Northern Ireland, the framework of the European Union which helped Irish and British Ministers to work together the common agricultural policy, the common policies that created the single market where the people North and South cooperate together now without any border to prevent them from growing together and cooperating and trading together.
Europe has done that for us and it is a big effort.
<P>
I would like to thank Mr Santer and Mrs Wulf-Mathies for being the visible face of the European Community in Northern Ireland and I want to say that I hope we can continue with the assistance we are giving which has meant so much.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="Cushnahan">
Mr President, having served as a politician in both parts of Ireland I am only too well aware of the difficulties in trying to negotiate an agreement which will be acceptable to all parties to the conflict.
The Good Friday Agreement is an historic achievement and I wholeheartedly congratulate all those who contributed to it, both Governments and the party leaders, particularly John Hume who has been praised here today, John Alderdice and especially David Trimble who has had the courage to lead Unionism to an honourable deal with their fellow citizens in Northern Ireland.
Let me say to Dr Paisley, when he talked about the votes he received, one vote for peace and reconciliation and an end of conflict is worth more than a thousand votes for a continuation of the conflict.
<P>
It is inevitable, given the complexity of the problem, that everyone will have some significant reservations about some part of the package.
However, it is a package and there can be no cherrypicking by anyone - the choice is either to accept the package in total or to reject it.
If the worst were to happen, and this package were rejected, another 20 years of negotiations would take place, resulting in a similar package and resulting in the same reservations that have been expressed.
A similar deal was on offer in 1974, 25 years past, and thousands needlessly died and suffered and we must not condemn the peoples of Britain and Ireland and especially Northern Ireland to another prolonged period of violence.
<P>
I passionately support this Agreement, it is a fair and honourable one and should be wholeheartedly endorsed through both parts of Ireland.
It is appropriate that the European Parliament should have the opportunity of endorsing it; this Parliament symbolically represents the conflict over two World Wars and many other European quarrels and let us hope we can show the way to the people of Northern Ireland.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="Gillis">
I am delighted to have the opportunity to express my wholehearted support for this historic Agreement which puts relationships within Northern Ireland, between the two parts of Ireland and between Ireland and Britain on a completely new footing, based on partnership, consent and mutual respect.
<P>
Since the signing of the Treaty of Rome, the European Union has succeeded in providing a forum in which EU members sit around a table to debate their differences without resorting to violence.
Hence the signing of this Agreement.
<P>
I welcome the historic opportunity for the people of Northern Ireland to resolve their difficulties by exclusively democratic and peaceful means.
I firmly oppose the use or threat of force to achieve any political objective.
<P>
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the politicians involved throughout this long and painful process, which has involved successive governments on both islands, and in particular to commend the courage of those Northern Ireland politicians who have taken that extra step which has got us where we are today.
Furthermore, I wish to acknowledge and to thank the European Union for its constant support and its encouragement.
I would hope that this support will be continued in practical terms.
<P>
In my capacity as an elected representative, I join with the signatories in commending this Agreement to the people of Ireland, North and South, for their approval.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="President">
I have received 8 motions for resolutions, pursuant to Rule 40(5) of the Rules of Procedure .
<P>
Mrs Mowlam now has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="Mowlam">
On behalf of the Presidency, can I just very briefly pay tribute to the work and the commitment of the RUC which I have done on many occasions before and just make the point, that many speakers have this afternoon, that many people on all sides have lost loved ones, many people have gone through pain as a result of the troubles.
What keeps me going is when I get letters, day in and day out, from people that have suffered, that have family members that are injured and that have people that have been murdered.
They say, yes it hurts when you go in the Maze, yes it is not easy but if that means that another family does not have to go through what we have gone through - then let us build for the future.
<P>
Can I just say, Mr President, that I think the key words for the future which were mentioned by a number of speakers in the Parliament are respect and confidence.
Confidence and respect in the future, and between us I believe we can have a settlement that holds.
Thank you very much.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Mowlam.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
European Group on ethics, science and new technologies
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="President">
The next item is the Commission communication on questions relating to the work of the European Group on ethics, science and new technologies.
<P>
Mr Santer has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="Santer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to be able to present to you today the new European Group on ethics, science and new technologies, which takes over from the advisory body on the ethics of biotechnology.
<P>
The origins of this initiative are to be found in the Commission's commitment to all matters relating to science and technology which bring up issues of an ethical nature.
The end of this century has been marked by the spectacular emergence of science and new technologies, mainly in two areas, those of biology and information.
These developments are bringing about profound changes, both at the level of society in general and in our daily lives.
The prospects for progress are huge in areas such as employment, growth and improvement of quality of life.
Nevertheless, these advances create fears due to the speed at which progress has been achieved and the global dimension of these technologies.
This is why an ethical accompaniment is more than ever necessary to ensure that the progress achieved is in harmony with basic values and human dignity.
<P>
The European Parliament soon set out to provide an ethical dimension to scientific progress in this field and to the scientific application which has accompanied this progress.
I am convinced that the creation of an ethical group is in line with the concerns of your institution.
I would like to explain to you the new characteristics of the European Group on ethics, which provides continuity to the work of the previous advisory body.
I would also like to take this opportunity to highlight the role and competence of the members of the previous body, particularly its chairperson, Mrs Noëlle Lenoir, who undertook their responsibilities in a remarkable way, in particular encouraging dialogue between our institutions.
<P>
Firstly, I would like to mention the characteristics which the former body and the new group have in common.
These are the characteristics of a classic ethics committee.
The new group, like its predecessor, is consultative, independent, multidisciplinary and multinational.
<P>
It is consultative in that its main task is to draw up non-binding opinions for the Commission and to prepare the ground usefully for decisions to be taken.
<P>
It is, of course, independent: it represents no particular economic or political power.
That is why each one of its members is appointed on a personal basis, according to their reputation and competence, and why it is made up of 12 experts, a number which does not correspond to the number of Member States.
The group is able to organize its work freely.
Thanks to a new rule, the group will also be able to agree on its own internal regulations next May.
<P>
Finally, the group is multidisciplinary and multinational.
Each member has a different approach depending on his or her specialization: science, law or humanities.
This pluralism is a source of wealth for ethical reflection.
<P>
So, what are the main characteristics of the new group?
It seems to me that there are three: the first innovation is the broadening of the scope of activity of the group.
Indeed, historically, the preceding group had been deeply anchored in the sphere of biotechnology.
This one remains at the centre of scientific development, and thus at the centre of our concerns.
Cloning is the most obvious example. However, that is not all.
How can we not be concerned by the development of the information society and the protection of human dignity on the Internet? How can we not respond to the fears that are caused by access to personal genetic information, or human tissue banks?
<P>
We wanted to reply to these new challenges by giving the group the task of dealing additionally with scientific developments in general, including research and the information society.
These new responsibilities will require sufficient expertise.
This is the second new characteristic of this group, which has been strengthened and whose membership has been increased from 9 to 12 members, appointed for three-year terms.
<P>
Finally, and this third innovation is a considerable one, the group must base its work on closer cooperation with the other institutions.
The group is certainly closely linked to the Commission and presents it recommendations to that body.
Nevertheless, I understand the wish of the other institutions to have access to the reflections of the group, even to be involved in them.
The European Parliament expressed this desire in its resolution of June 1977.
Personally, I want the group to follow the path of dialogue and transparency begun by its predecessor.
Many debates were organized on its initiative, with active participation from the House, which encouraged the establishment of a climate of fruitful collaboration.
I also attach great importance to the fact that every opinion should immediately be passed on to both yourselves and the Council.
In this spirit, and on my request, the Commission has invited Parliament and the Council to specify the different themes which should be the subject of an examination by the group, or even of an opinion from it.
I would like to underline that this new possibility of referral is an unprecedented innovation.
<P>
Mr President, we need a European Group on ethics.
Its opinions will be important in the formulation and implementation of Community legislation.
In this context, I would like to remind you that, since 1991, the previous group enabled a widening of the debate at European level by involving all parties concerned, including the general public.
It was able to reconcile scientific expertise with the general public's understanding of these issues, which is not easy when it comes to ethics.
I am convinced that the European Group on ethics will continue this important mission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cot">
Mr President, may I thank President Santer for personally presenting this European Group on ethics to us, which is, furthermore, attached to the Presidency of the Commission.
Before moving on to my question, I would also like to thank the advisory body on the ethics of biotechnology, chaired by Mrs Lenoir, for its good work, particularly in the assistance it provided to institutions in order to guide the directive on the patentability of biotechnological inventions to a successful conclusion, through precise, concrete and motivated advice.
<P>
The new group which you have just introduced to us, Mr President, is an enlarged group with extended responsibilities.
You are aware that Parliament would have preferred a committee with an interinstitutional vocation, in order to guide our overall work more precisely, not regarding individual demands for patents - we never requested this - but in order that this institution would be of a nature that went beyond simply advising the Commission.
<P>
You raised some legal objections to this, which I understand, and which I accept.
My question is, nevertheless, the following: how, in practice, will Parliament be able to submit questions to this new group?
Will they, in some way, be filtered by the Commission, which would, I have to say, hinder the collaboration we would hope for from it?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="Santer">
I thank Mr Cot for his question.
Indeed, we feel it extremely important that Parliament should have every possibility of contacting this group and we thus consider that it can, of course, put questions to the group.
It is clearly for Parliament to draw up the practical application of this procedure but, from our side, no filter - as you have called it - will oppose requests for referral made by Parliament.
It is for Parliament alone to decide in what way it wants to submit to the group.
We will not interfere in this regard.
But it is for you to formulate a procedure; it is up to you, for I would not want to interfere in your internal procedures.
In any case, the group is open, and its members have agreed to collaborate as actively as possible with the other institutions, especially with Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Heinisch">
Mr President, I would like to offer an immediate response to the matter just raised.
Last week at the request of Parliament and its President we formed a working group on bioethics in the Committee on Research.
I would like to ask how you envisage cooperation between the Commission's Group on ethics and this ethics group which has now been formally set up in the Committee on Research.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="Santer">
Of course, Mr President, this European Group on ethics is ready to collaborate fully with all the groups which are active here.
As I said, it is an independent group, a neutral one, which is attached to the Commission, but it will of course be open, in order to assure close collaboration with all other bodies created through other initiatives and other legislative procedures.
That seems clear to me.
Coordination efforts must also be ensured in the various groups.
It will thus certainly examine all of these questions, insofar as it is requested to do so by the more particular and specific groups that have been created.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="Ahern">
At first reading of the patent directive the European Parliament called for the setting up of an ethics committee to assess all aspects of biotechnology and in particular with regard to patents.
The response of the Commission is not what Parliament demanded; we asked you to submit proposals to the European Parliament but your response has been to expand your previous committee.
<P>
Evaluating biotechnology is not the same as evaluating the ethical implications of patent applications.
An example is that biotech produces therapeutic treatments which are intended to benefit patients.
Patenting such treatment may not, however, be in the patients' best interests or may be prohibited on public policy grounds, preserving doctors' rights of treatment without depending on a monopoly supplier or researchers' rights to produce alternative treatments from the same genetic material.
<P>
I would like to ask President Santer: how can the committee act as an ethical scrutiny body on biotechnological inventions as Parliament wants, when its remit is only to look at basic ethical principles and not at individual issues raised by patent applications?
How much time and resources will be committed to detailed scrutiny of biotech inventions?
What resources will be made available for widespread public consultations on key ethical issues?
<P>
We have heard about access but access is not what Parliament wanted; we want to request the committee to give a direct opinion to Parliament on specific issues.
Will the Members have that direct access to the committee to give an opinion on any specific issue, not through the Commission?
Thank you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Santer">
Firstly, I would like to emphasize that the group is a consultative body with the task of examining general questions on fundamental ethical principles.
Thus, it is not intended to systematically give opinions on individual cases such as, for example, the ethical dimension of a patent request or the authorization for marketing of a specific product.
The group is there to examine all questions, as I said, on fundamental ethical principles.
Nevertheless, it could also be asked to examine other issues.
It is therefore possible to give the European Group on ethics responsibility for evaluating all ethical aspects of biotechnology.
It is already clearly a delimitation of its powers, but we have to ensure that the group is not overloaded with tasks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, I am a little afraid that the task of this new committee may be somewhat vague because its mandate has been expanded.
I would therefore like to ask whether we could also conceive of the group giving general advice to others, in other words, a fiche d'impact d'éthique , which could be considered in the assessment of all political questions.
I hope, for example, that we would be able to avoid a situation in which economic arguments are used in assessing human dignity, as has sometimes happened in earlier periods here in Europe.
How does the Commission intend to ensure that the work is well defined and that ethical opinions are included in other areas, such as through this assessment?
<P>
Finally, I would like to say that it was gratifying to hear that we will get these opinions from the group immediately and do not have to be satisfied with three-year reports.
I would like to make sure that we will get the opinions from the group immediately.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Santer">
I do not share the Member's concerns at all.
This group has already proved its experience in the past, under the leadership of Mrs Lenoir, and its work has been much appreciated.
We have now widened it to deal with other issues and its membership has been increased.
Its members are independent, of high quality and well known. The expertise of its new members will enable it to cope with the broadening of its remit.
Furthermore, the pluralism of the group, which is essential, will most certainly enable it to ensure ethical reflection adapted to the range of questions likely to be put to it.
All opinions are passed on immediately, not just in four-monthly reports.
<P>
The question you are raising regarding closer relations with the European Parliament can be raised at the next meeting to be held between the chairman of the group and the President of the European Parliament. I believe this will be held on 29 April, that is, tomorrow, and it will then also be possible to discuss all of these issues, if you still have concerns as to how this group will function.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="White">
Terminator crops are those crops which when planted are genetically pre-programmed to probably last only one season, at the end of which they die and the farmer in question has to buy new foods from the supplier.
I believe that raises an ethical issue, President, and can I therefore ask you how I, as a Parliamentarian, can obtain the opinion of this new committee?
<P>
President Santer, you are aware of my concern about this because of course on Monday of this week I sent you a fax asking you how as a Parliamentarian I could obtain the opinion of the new committee.
I would like to do that and I am aware that there are no current rules in existence and therefore the situation may be somewhat difficult.
Nevertheless, your advice would be very welcome.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Santer">
I can confirm that you did indeed submit a question on this subject to me and I immediately passed your letter on to the group to give an opinion.
It is now for the group to organize its work in order to give you a response.
What I want to ensure is that the procedure is not an overly complex one and that Members of this Parliament may have direct access to the group.
This is why I replied earlier, in answer to a question from Mr Cot, that it is for the European Parliament to agree on a procedure to enable its Members to contact the group directly.
We have no problem in accepting such a procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Liese">
Mr President, I would like to thank President Santer for his personal involvement in this issue.
President Santer, we were not entirely happy with the work done by the original group.
The debate here over the last year provided evidence of this.
However, I think that by appointing new members and with the increased plurality of the group we will find the work more satisfactory.
In my view, one problem which was particularly evident in the position on human cloning was that there was insufficient time for consultation with the scientific institutes which work in the areas of ethics and science in Europe.
My question is this: in future how will the group integrate the work which is done in Europe and is in part supported by the Commission with the work done by this advisory group - will there be a first reading followed by a report from the institutes which operate in this field, and then a second reading?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="Santer">
Mr President, from a scientific point of view, the work of this group, like that of the previous group, can certainly be compared to work which has been undertaken by groups on ethics in other countries.
I hope that it will be comparable to the work undertaken at a national level.
So we must not demand more from this group than from those at a national level.
Frankly speaking, some criticism could also be made of those groups but we do not live in a perfect world, so let us limit ourselves to having a procedure and let us allow this group to work in full independence.
We want an independent group, so let us work to ensure that members of the group have this independence.
We nominated and selected them.
I believe there are highly valuable personalities in the group, each specializing in a particular field.
Let us leave the group to work independently without interference, as otherwise they cannot be independent.
<P>
On the other hand, there is no doubt that the group will avail itself of as much scientific advice as possible, and it will certainly get in touch with foreign scientific institutes.
Consultation will clearly take place in this respect, and I hope that the results of the work of this group will be useful in enlightening not only the work of the Commission but also that of the other institutions, including the European Parliament.
But please, do not ask about the group's precise procedures, for it will get bogged down in this and will lose its necessary independence.
The value of this group lies precisely in the fact, and I will repeat this because it is important, that it will be able to work completely independently, without being subjected to any internal influence on the part of the Commission, or external influence due to pressure from economic or other groups.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gebhardt">
Mr President, President Santer, you are full of praise for the new ethics advisory group in the way that a good father speaks well of his children, even if they have failed.
Bravo!
The range of tasks accorded to the advisory group is impressive.
It now covers communication technology, information technology and biotechology.
But there has been no increase in the work to be done.
Instead, top-class experts have had a muzzle put on them.
It may look fine, but it remains a muzzle which prevents the advisory group using its teeth.
Or do you really believe that twelve top-class scientists, men and women, who are used to being very thorough in their work, will be able to carry on working in the same way if the range of their assignments is extended ad infinitum?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Santer">
I do not think we have muzzled this advisory group.
I disagree.
It is not a matter either of my being proud of the individuals we appointed.
We believe we have selected those individuals in various organizations who have a reputation that is good, is scientifically justified and can certainly stand comparison with the various scientific institutes and bodies elsewhere.
That much is clear from the work they have done.
Although I am no scientist, recently over the past two to three years I have had to accept various scientific reports.
Mind you, I must admit that even those scientific reports were not always drawn up in the way I, as a legal expert, would have imagined.
So let us show some humility, even before great scientists.
I believe that this group is doing its work.
Allow it complete independence to get on with its work, allow the individuals to develop fully.
I am convinced that then in retrospect you will not only applaud the appointment of this group, but will also appreciate properly the work it has done.
In any case, I deny that we have in any way put a muzzle on this group!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Mr President, of course it has everything to do with the patenting directive.
We will return to it at length when we discuss it.
I have made a note of the fact that it will be an advisory and consultative body and that its remit will encompass more than biotechnology alone.
But because we in this Parliament wish to see a strict and strong advisory group, I would like to argue for the remit to be not too broad, but in fact as specific as possible.
If its remit is too broad, the force of the group will be lessened.
I would be grateful if Mr Santer could give his response to this.
Furthermore, science is never free from value judgments.
Has any provision been made for the European Parliament's input into the composition of this advisory, consultative body?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Santer">
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr President.
Your comments thus bring this question and answer session to a close.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Convergence and the single currency
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="President">
The next item on the agenda is the report (A4-0130/98) by Mr von Wogau, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the opinion of the European Parliament on the Convergence Report of the European Monetary Institute (C4-0201/98) and the document from the Commission entitled "EURO 1999-25 March 1998 - Report on progress towards convergence and its recommendation with a view to the transition to the third stage of Economic and Monetary Union' (COM(98)1999 - C4-0200/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="von Wogau">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in December 1991 it was agreed in the Maastricht Treaty to introduce a single European currency.
In this Treaty the latest date for implementation was set at 1 January 1999.
However, only those Member States with an already stable currency would be members of the inner circle of monetary union.
To ensure that this would be the case, firm criteria for stability were anchored in the Treaty.
<P>
Right from the beginning, these criteria were the subject of vigorous debate.
To some they appeared too weak and ineffective to achieve sufficient stability. To others, however, they were much too harsh and restrictive.
As events have unfolded in the years since Maastricht, the criteria have proved to have fulfilled their role superbly.
There is a culture of stability developing in the whole European Union which is of fundamental significance to the success of the single currency.
<P>
On the recommendation of the European Commission, 11 countries have qualified for entry into monetary union on 1 January 1999.
In the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy we have looked at this recommendation in great depth.
The report by the European Monetary Institute provided us with a very important basis for our work.
<P>
I have aimed to produce as balanced a report as possible, one in which indisputable successes are acknowledged.
However, in doing this, critical points were not neglected.
The actual measurement for the stability of a currency is the rate of inflation.
Even the most strongly stability-orientated central banks assume that inflation rates of less than 2 % actually mean currency stability.
I believe that the public is not yet sufficiently aware that all 11 candidate countries have rates of inflation below 2 %, and therefore have stable currencies.
<P>
In 1997, four of the candidate countries had an inflation rate of 1.9 %: these were Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain.
Two countries had a rate of 1.5 %: Belgium and Germany.
One country, Luxembourg, had an inflation rate of 1.4 %; another, France, had an inflation rate of 1.3 %; and three countries reached 1.2 %: Finland, Ireland and Austria.
The average inflation rate for the 11 candidate countries in 1997 stood at 1.5 %.
This shows that, with a view to monetary union in the entire European Union, a culture of monetary stability is already developing.
Long-term interest rates show clearly that the markets are reckoning on the continuation of this trend.
Interest rates in all 11 candidate countries are markedly below the reference value of 7.8 %.
A year ago, the European Mortgage Federation still held that 10-year fixed mortgage rates would increase around the time of the introduction of the euro.
Its assertion has not been borne out.
This, too, indicates that the financial markets are counting on a stable start for the euro. Consequently the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy believes that, for its launch in January 1999, the stability of the euro is guaranteed.
<P>
However, to ensure that the stability of the euro is sustainable, it is very important that the Member States provide a stable environment in terms of their budget deficits and levels of debt.
We were particularly careful to check that these criteria had been met.
In all the candidate countries, budget deficits are below 3 % of GDP, and budget plans and forecasts would suggest that a further reduction is likely.
<P>
The level of public debt is not so easy to evaluate.
This view is also held by the European Monetary Institute.
Here we should assess whether the reference value of 60 % of GDP has been observed, or whether the total debt of a given country is moving towards this quickly enough.
We must also ask the important question of whether debts are largely financed from within the country itself, or whether it is a matter of short or longer-term debt financing.
It is worth noting here that in the two countries which are most heavily indebted there is also an above-average savings ratio and that debts are largely internally financed.
This was important for our assessment.
Furthermore, it is possible to distinguish an improvement in structural debt with the result that maturity periods are slowly but surely increasing.
<P>
The report which I am presenting to you calls for firm undertakings from the governments of these countries to continue the process of consolidation.
The proposal presented to Parliament also requires all participants in European monetary union to observe strictly the Stability and Growth Pact.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has taken these facts into consideration and has come to the conclusion that the European Commission's positive assessment of the ability of all 11 countries to meet the debt criterion should be approved.
<P>
One further formal criterion for participation in monetary union is the independence of each country's central bank.
The legislative procedures required for this have not yet been completed in all the candidate countries.
However, I am confident that the necessary measures will be in place by 1 July 1998 in time for the establishment of the European Central Bank.
<P>
Unemployment trends may not be a formal criterion of the Maastricht Treaty. However, this is the greatest challenge facing the countries of the European Union today.
For this reason we included questions about employment in our total assessment and we call for consistent implementation of the resolutions adopted at the Luxembourg Summit.
After careful consideration of all these trends, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy agreed by a large majority that all 11 candidate countries should take their places at the starting line for monetary union on 1 January 1999.
<P>
On 1 January 1999 the European Central Bank will take over sole responsibility for monetary policy.
However given a single monetary policy, it will be all the more important to increase cooperation in economic policy.
The budgetary policies of the Member States, the shaping of fiscal policy, the decisions of tariff partners on wages and earnings, labour market policies and decisions taken on certain social and ecological conditions will have ever greater effects on growth and employment in all the Member States of the Union.
<P>
The European Parliament is the appropriate and democratically legitimate forum for a public discussion on the formulation of European economic policy.
We feel, therefore, that it is our most important challenge to deepen the existing dialogue on these issues with the European Commission, the Council of Ministers and the Economic and Finance Ministers of the Member States, and to develop a dialogue with the President of the European Central Bank.
The European Parliament has already submitted our proposals on this issue.
Now we await this weekend the Council's appointment of a candidate for the Presidency of the European Central Bank, and we hope that the candidate will be appointed for the full eight years of office, as stipulated in the Treaty.
<P>
The introduction of the single currency is a milestone in recent European history.
The resolution which we are debating today will prepare for the opinion of the European Parliament on this epoch-making decision, as stipulated in the Treaty.
Appropriately for a decision of this significance, broad Parliamentary agreement must be reached, for only then can we make it clear that the directly elected European Parliament is equal to its responsibility for the future of the European Union.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Hughes">
Mr President, the resolution in the name of Karl von Wogau represents a package and paragraphs 24 to 33 in that resolution form an integral part of that package.
It is a mark of the good working relationship between our two committees, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, that the opinion from my committee has been incorporated as a whole into this resolution.
That shows our joint concern and our concern as an institution to stress the importance of linking sound macroeconomic policies on the one hand with greater coordination of economic and structural policies on the other.
Clearly that needs to be reflected in the overall management of monetary union.
<P>
I see the recognition of the importance of growth and employment alongside stability in the resolutions of the Council, and the incorporation of an employment chapter and a new employment guideline procedure in the Treaty of Amsterdam, as good clear signals that the importance of this overall linkage has been recognized for the management of the Union's affairs as we move into monetary union.
<P>
In our own opinion we call on the Member States to intensify coordination between economic policy and active labour market policies and to speed up the implementation of the provisions of the employment chapter and the initiatives agreed at the special employment summit in Luxembourg last November.
In particular, we see the need to create a favourable framework for conditions for the strengthening of internal demand and investment as being of paramount importance.
<P>
Monetary union cannot be achieved or sustained at the cost of continuing high levels of unemployment.
This Union is founded on the principles of sustainable development and a high level of employment.
The central importance of these principles is clearly recognized in this resolution and, as chairman of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, I am happy to recommend its acceptance to the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="Donnelly, Alan">
Mr President, I should firstly like to thank the rapporteur for his report and for the work he has done in committee.
The vote in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and also the negotiations we have been able to engage in ensure that when we vote on this report tomorrow we can get a commanding majority across the House.
<P>
This is a very important time for the European Parliament.
Over the next two or three days the European Parliament will be the only democratic body to be able to express opinions on the very important subject of economic and monetary union.
On behalf of the Socialist group, I should say at the very beginning that we warmly welcome the recommendations by the European Monetary Institute and by the Commission that 11 countries should join the first wave of EMU on 1 January 1999.
When you look at the convergence criteria set down in the Maastricht Treaty, it is a remarkable success story for the European Union.
Many people who saw the convergence criteria within the Maastricht Treaty supported it because they believed it would be impossible for the countries of the European Union to achieve this level of convergence.
The 15 Member States, and certainly the 11 that will join the single currency, have proved the doubters wrong and it is a testimony to what can be achieved in the European Union when the political will exists for us to work together as a Community.
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We now have a historically low level of inflation and we have price stability.
That means that when the single currency is created we will have opportunities to address a wider agenda.
My group wants to ensure that when the European Central Bank is established and when the 11 countries create the euro zone, without prejudice to that price stability, we begin, with some urgency, to address the wider issues within the European Union, not least the question of growth and unemployment.
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It is essential as a means of convincing the citizens of the European Union that this has been a worthwhile project, the project of consolidation in terms of our economies, that we can demonstrate that the EMU project is not just a monetary union but an economic union and a social union that will bring about reductions in long-term, structural and cyclical unemployment throughout the European Union.
We also have legislation for a balanced budget - the Pact for Stability and Growth.
I would say to Commissioner de Silguy that we achieved our balanced budget legislation with far less hype and excitement than the United States of America.
That means that we will have sustainability in convergence.
We will maintain price stability and we will maintain budget deficits within containable levels and I hope a balanced budget over the economic cycle.
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However, on behalf of my group I give a warning that in accepting the strict application of the Pact for Stability and Growth, we accept the pact that was first proposed during the Irish presidency.
We will not accept new terms and conditions that emerge from any particular Member State either on Friday night when the Ecofin Council meets or at any subsequent point.
We have a Pact for Stability and Growth and we will accept the strict application of that pact but no further measures to place the economies of the European Union in a straitjacket.
That would be unacceptable.
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Finally, in relation to the presidency of the European Central Bank, the Socialist Group expects that this weekend a president for the European Central Bank and an executive board will be nominated.
We expect that president will operate for eight years and no less.
I give notice that if a candidate is presented to us next week who cannot give a commitment to serve a full eight-year term, then there will be a question mark over whether or not my group would wish to support that nomination.
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<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Friedrich">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr von Wogau, we all know that in the long term only a stable currency can guarantee prosperity and jobs.
The European Parliament, therefore, must state unequivocally today that it takes seriously all the provisions and criteria set out in the Treaty and that these must be strictly and closely observed.
The requirement in the von Wogau report that two Member States consolidate their total debt in accordance with the Treaty is, therefore, correct and necessary.
Close observance of the Treaty should equally be one of the requirements for the appointment of the President of the Central Bank.
If the Treaty states that the period of office is eight years, then this must be the case.
To construe the requirements of the Treaty differently or to manipulate them is wrong and must be utterly rejected by the European Parliament.
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The undignified tug-of-war concerning the new President must also stop immediately.
Europe needs confidence, Europe needs clarity, particularly in the sensitive questions about monetary policy.
We know that these days the whole world is watching to see how Europe is dealing with these very issues.
Strict observance of the Treaty is the best visiting card the euro could have.
Not only has the euro earned an excellent start, but it has also earned the right to serve as a long-term global anchor of stability for everyone, first and foremost for Europeans.
This will be possible if we adopt the von Wogau report today with as few amendments as possible.
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<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Karl von Wogau has known since 15 April that our group supported his excellent report and that consequently we approve of the Commission's recommendation which provides for the beginning of the third stage of EMU on 1 January 1999 with 11 Member States.
Thus, without dwelling on this extremely interesting report, and after offering well-deserved congratulations to President Jacques Santer, Commissioner Yves Thibault de Silguy and all of the Commission, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, I would like to return to the issue of the absolute necessity for the European Parliament to be closely involved in the European Central Bank's process of democratic accountability.
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The euro is the culmination of efforts undertaken since the appointment, by Antoine Pinay on 21 July 1952, of Jean Monnet as the first President of the European Coal and Steel Community, the embryo of a Europe which has constantly improved over the years and whose culmination can be seen in the introduction of the single currency.
But the end of this cycle is also a beginning.
The single currency opens a new era in the monetary, economic and social policies of Europe.
That is why our group has been requesting a new European economic order for a number of years, because with regard to overall economic and budgetary balances, nothing will be the same again.
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For this reason, I would like to highlight two extremely important facts regarding French policy towards the euro.
Firstly, for twenty years there has been great continuity in this policy, which has always overshadowed partisan differences.
Thus, whether by the adoption, in October 1986, of the Single European Act or by the plea for ratification of the Treaty on European Union, through the referendum in September 1992, the President of the French Republic, Jacques Chirac, has firmly committed France to the process of implementation of the single currency and, from my point of view, he will have given as much to Europe on this issue as many politicians who have now passed into posterity.
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This is why I am happy to propose that the House should make the French National Assembly's recommendation, made on 21 April of this year, its own.
This recommendation was made at the request of Valéry Giscard-d'Estaing, himself a great European, for in June and July 1978 he played an essential role which is at the root of our reality today. He proposed, in fact, providing the Community authorities with a parliamentary committee on the euro, half of which would be composed of Members of the European Parliament and the other half composed of members of national parliaments, members of the finance committees in the member countries of the euro, appointed through proportional representation.
This committee would give regular opinions on the directions of the European Central Bank's monetary policy and would thus successfully complement the triptych which has been behind the success of the construction of Europe. By this I mean: firstly, a high-level technical team responsible for implementing the common policy initiated by the Council of Ministers; secondly, the specific case of Ecofin in its improved form, known as "Euro X' and whose composition is currently being formulated; and thirdly, parliamentary control which, since the creation of the ECSC, has always enabled those elected by Europe's nations to be involved in European policy.
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This measure is essential in order that parliamentary representatives of the eleven European nations participating in the euro, along with their representatives - in Strasbourg as in Brussels - elected via universal suffrage to defend the point of view of the people of Europe, may be deeply involved in this historic act of the introduction of the euro.
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<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Cox">
Mr President, I must say that I cannot help being somewhat bemused by the suggestion from Mr Giansily about what Mr Giscard d'Estaing would like.
I have heard precious little from him since having presided over the Liberal group he got political asylum in the EPP Group some years ago.
I am glad to hear that he is alive and well.
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On the issue we are debating here today, I would like to say that we face a weekend that is immensely important for the Union.
We stand on the threshold of realizing a shared strategic political goal in the form of launching EMU.
I agree with Mr Donnelly that the convergence achieved is a powerful recognition of what political will and shared political will can bring about.
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As we stand on the threshold of launching this irreversible project, it is important to take stock of some of the unresolved issues.
I want to state, in the clearest possible way, that the Liberal group not only notes with regret but with growing irritation the failure of the Council to resolve the controversy surrounding the nomination of a president for a future European Central Bank.
The Treaty is clear.
The terms of the appointment are clear.
The length of the appointment at eight years is clear.
To interfere with this for political reasons would be an appalling start to this major irreversible strategic project.
We expect the Council to build confidence into this system and not undermine it.
The way to demonstrate that is by making a clear strategic choice this weekend in line with the rule of law and the Treaty in terms of the length of appointment.
What is not at stake is the question of national pride.
What clearly is at stake is the successful launch of the currency.
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We have had an interesting debate in producing this report in committee.
My own group has studied with great interest the work of the European Monetary Institute.
It has signalled politically that we need to be concerned in the medium term about some of the pension systems and we share that concern politically. It has signalled that the need for budget consolidation has not ceased but rather that now, on the threshold of this new system, it has deepened.
We in the Liberal group share that view.
Politically we cannot avoid taking strategic responsibilities.
I like the current shape of the von Wogau report.
I salute the balance and leadership that Karl von Wogau has brought to it.
When we come to vote on this report tomorrow, we will support the candidature of the 11 candidate states.
We want to have a deal that has everyone on board but not at any price.
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<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, this weekend the ruling powers of the European Union are entering the final strait in the realization of the most important choice of the Maastricht Treaty, the introduction of the euro, the common currency, from 1 January 1999.
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Unaware of the dramatic, harmful repercussions - unemployment, poverty, social exclusion - on working people and on the broad strata of the population, the European Commission report and the report by the European Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy alike celebrate and welcome a convergence that has been achieved in name only.
They are aware, however, that the people and the workers are not celebrating, and that they are not even applauding.
Perhaps from Monday the celebrations will be taken up by others - financial market speculators, international stock markets and those representing large financial institutions, who will see that, by sacrificing the people and their rights, they have gained a strong new currency with which to play their speculative games.
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Working people cannot but be worried, especially about the next steps.
The spokespersons of financial institutions, encouraged by the visibly imminent inception of EMU, demand further hardening of fiscal policy, the immediate implementation of the Stability and Growth Pact, and measures for the immediate adjustment of the labour market and the commodities market, in order to further strengthen the euro.
Unfortunately, the European Parliament is reserving this role for itself by adopting many of the proposals of the von Wogau report, a report which insists on placing stricter conditions on EMU than not only those of the European Commission but also those of the Treaty itself.
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Under these conditions, Mr President, our group cannot vote for the von Wogau report.
We are all sure about one thing however: the people of Europe will not sit with their arms folded. They will fight back, they will overturn this course of events and they will open the way for a different Europe, a democratic and socially prosperous Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, the vast majority of the Green group agree with the basic view of the Commission that 11 countries can now start the formulation of a common currency.
This view excludes the idea that some kind of European nucleus is going to be created that will keep an important section of the Union on the outside.
We have never supported that and we are happy to see that the euro is starting off on a very broad base.
We do realize just how huge this project before is. We do not want to create illusions.
There will certainly be problems, but we also recognize the opportunities that a single currency will provide.
We want Europe to grow, socially and ecologically, and we would like to see the euro used to enhance monetary stability on a global scale.
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Mr von Wogau's report is a very positive one, particularly with regard to employment and the economy.
It appears that the extreme neo-liberalist economic ideas have become somewhat mollified, and this brings with it the hope that we really can create a social Europe.
It is vital to tighten economic cooperation, to act as a counterweight to convergence.
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There are, however, problems with the report.
We cannot accept that new demands are suddenly to be made on countries adopting the euro.
Nor do we think it wise or at all acceptable that some should be saying that the Stability and Growth Pact must be strictly applied.
Either it is applied or it is not, but we should like to enquire as to what "strictly applied' actually means.
We do not think these are the sort of signals we should be sending out.
Furthermore, we do not see that the trend in Belgian and Italian public debt is a matter for concern in itself, as the report suggests.
We believe the trend is in the right direction and we trust that things will continue that way for Belgium and Italy.
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Another problem is that the report fails to mention the fact that economic development can happen on quite different time scales among the various regions of the Union.
Shock waves occur from time to time that put Member States in difficult situations.
For this reason, it is vital to install mechanisms whereby Union action can ease the burden on Member States in situations such as these.
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And finally, monetary policy can in no way be entirely separated from economic policy.
We wish to stress that we need dialogue on these both, and the European Parliament has a very important role to play here.
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<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Castagnède">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, provided with two reports on convergence, that of the EMI and that of the Commission, the main task of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy was to give its opinion on the outline of the first circle of euro participants, and with regard to this central question, the committee's analysis is completely unambiguous.
There is broad agreement in noting, firstly, the Member States' performance in relation to the convergence criteria and, secondly, in approving the immediate introduction of the euro in 11 countries which want it and which satisfy in general the criteria established by the Treaty on European Union.
Mr von Wogau's report expresses clearly this broad agreement on the fundamentals and this is already a sufficient reason for us to approve it.
The discussions which have consequently arisen have only dealt with incidental elements, which have perhaps been overemphasized due to the fact that agreement had been reached on the essentials.
In any case, it seems vital to us that, by tomorrow, all efforts should have been made to ensure a clear position on the part of the House on what is, once again, the most fundamental issue: the introduction of the euro in 11 countries.
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Apart from this, on the occasion of this debate, we would like to note a few concerns.
The first relates to what is called the democratic accountability of the European Central Bank, a subject which was mentioned during the debate on the report presented by Mrs Randzio-Plath.
We had the opportunity of saying that the European Parliament was the appropriate body to undertake this supervision, which should be exercised while respecting the principle of the Bank's independence.
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On the other hand, we are worried by the prospect of a multiplication of the places and control procedures which transpired on reading a number of the amendments to be submitted to us tomorrow and which state that the European Central Bank must be answerable to national parliaments.
Such a levelling down of democratic accountability, apart from being impractical, would change that principle itself and threaten, in reality, the construction of a single and independent monetary policy.
It is perfectly desirable that the national central banks should fulfill their duties of informing the national parliaments.
But it seems essential to us that the democratic control of the European Central Bank should remain a matter for the European Parliament.
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Our second concern, which I will speak on only briefly since it has already been mentioned, is the issue of the presidency of that Central Bank.
All we would say is that, in order to be a legitimate and effective instrument of a common European future, the European Central Bank must not appear to be something shared between only a few right from the very start.
This is something we hope will be taken into consideration on Saturday.
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Other concerns are mentioned by Mr von Wogau in his report.
It is a question of counterbalancing the single monetary policy with other instruments for economic action.
In this respect, we hope that our Parliament and the Commission go a little further than the stage at which common reflection has arrived today and will envisage that, alongside the introduction of a common monetary policy, instruments for joint economic action other than purely monetary ones should, in the near future, be made available to the Union. These must involve taxation and budgetary measures.
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<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Gaulle">
Mr President, in the whole of its history, France has never entered into a coalition where it found itself in this minority position.
To claim that Europe is increasing France's power in the world is nothing but a miserable attempt to dress up as politics the outpourings of vanity and the need for personal glorification.
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This illegitimate and artificial construction which is known as the European Union is a planned attack against France, against the sovereignty of the people, the state structures and the society.
But all is not lost, for sooner or later, when the revolutionary forces come to power, a referendum will give a voice back to the people to confirm the superiority of French law over the European treaties.
And justice will be served, for we know the disregard for, or even scorn of, the treaties with which Eurocrats from all quarters claim that the convergence criteria are being satisfied.
Little importance is therefore given to applying the criterion relating to overall debt to Belgium and Italy, or applying the criterion relating to annual budget deficit to Italy, which would have fallen from 6.7 % to 3 % in one year, with a growth rate of only 1.5 %.
Unbelievable, is it not?
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French people are still unaware of this plot, which is the biggest hold-up of the century, and the fact that the franc could disappear completely in 2002 has been completely hidden from them. This is an accident of the calendar, in the middle of a presidential election!
The French will thus sanction this President who, instead of raising France up, will belittle her, thus betraying the mission confided in him by universal suffrage.
This will be true unless, in a sudden burst of dignity, he puts to a referendum the issue of the concrete introduction of a currency which, until that date, will essentially be only the unit of the external accounts of the State.
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<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Trizza">
Mr President, speaking also on behalf of the National Alliance, I agree with Mr von Wogau's report where it records the innumerable efforts made by the various Member States to adapt to the Maastricht Treaty.
A lot could be said in this connection about the measures taken and what really needs to be done to ensure that all the sacrifices made this year are not wasted and so that we can remain permanently in the Union.
In fact, the emphasis of the last few days risks leading us to forget that, in displaying a great deal of energy and ability, each state will have to be able to adapt its system of development to the single currency and to forget about the need to inform both the economic sectors most involved and, on the other side, the weakest categories of the real opportunities and risks of the euro.
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It is certainly useful to establish the independence of the European Central Bank to enable it to carry out its tasks, but it is also necessary and important to hold periodic consultations with the European Parliament.
I believe the second guarantee in the process of implementing the single currency associated with the Stability and Growth Pact is needed in order to balance national budgets during the economic cycle, with a ceiling of 3 % each year.
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I therefore consider it necessary to establish appropriate strategies aimed at resolving the major problem of unemployment, particularly for the less developed European regions, both through suitable macroeconomic policies aimed at containing inflation and through a greater coordination of European structural policies.
The problem of unemployment can only be resolved through coordinated measures that must be taken in the individual national labour markets by means of education, followed by work experience or by a subsequent apprenticeship, by providing vocational training mainly aimed at the demand of companies and at the needs of the region.
In defining and building the European single market, it is therefore essential to support small and medium-sized enterprises, and provide real fiscal harmonization, thereby ensuring that competition is not distorted.
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Finally, Mr President, on behalf of the National Alliance, I wish to stress that monetary union must represent a first step towards political union, without which Europe would be much diminished and deprived of its historic vocation.
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<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Mr President, the possibility that monetary union will begin on 1 January 1999 is the realization of a dream: the people of Europe have said yes to more Community spirit and to a degree of cooperation which goes beyond that of previous structures.
Following the promised strict examination of the prerequisites for participation in monetary union, and after checking the convergence reports from the European Monetary Institute and the European Commission, the European Parliament will quite rightly proceed on the basis of the report by Mr von Wogau to follow the recommendations of the European Commission in supporting a broad monetary union.
With 11 Member States, this will be a broad union which will facilitate the smooth running of the internal market; 300 million people are bound together in a strong economic force with considerable economic output which will make up 20 % of global trade and 20 % of the global GNP.
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It is important that it is a broad union; this European Parliament has always been in favour of European Economic and Monetary Union starting with a large number of Member States.
Mind you, on occasion we doubted that so many countries in European monetary union could achieve the stability required to join.
Fortunately, the European concept of progress within the framework of European integration proved its worth again: we lay down conditions and set a timetable for meeting them.
This concept has ensured that many Member States can meet the convergence criteria, and we can check this.
This means that the European Parliament can tell Europeans today with optimism and on the basis of a reliable assessment that this European monetary union will be a stable community. The historically low inflation rates are not a nine-day wonder.
Their development over a number of years can be demonstrated. The acceptance of this process by the markets can be seen in the low long-term interest rates; the exchange-rate stability emphasizes how seriously the Member States are taking their commitments and how great have been the political, economic, financial and monetary efforts in recent years to achieve a result culminating in this broad monetary union.
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This process was not fixed on 31 December 1997, but this date became the obvious one at the first convergence check, when we had to say that monetary union could not start on 1 January 1997.
Even then we knew that Europe would pull together, that Europe knew it would be a challenge, that we are a small area of the world and that only a united effort, the combination of all our efforts will lead to success and render us fit for the coming century, for the coming millennium.
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So today we can confidently say that the European Community will be a stable community, and it is clear that processes which were started in the past are justified in the present.
In particular, those Member States which had to make special efforts because their monetary policy was not as stable as others have undertaken to prove once again through medium-term financial planning that they take not only monetary but also fiscal convergence criteria seriously.
In this way, the European monetary union is uniting us in a community of solidarity with a common destiny.
The success we have achieved so far must be continued.
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<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Secchi">
Mr President, I would like to concentrate on the subject of the public debt: this is an important subject as its level is directly linked to the aim of ensuring that the euro area allows the financial markets to operate well, particularly with regard to the public component.
This is essential to give the euro stability and credibility to ensure that the single currency has the positive effects we are all hoping for.
The question should therefore be seen from two aspects: the fact that the debt should not interfere with the requirements of euro in terms of stability and credibility; and the fact that it allows the euro area to be characterized by great development.
I therefore believe that we should assess the overall financial balance of the various countries and the prospects in question, which, in addition to the public debt, comprise the financial situation of the private sector, the trends in saving, the net external debt position and the recent performance of their financial markets.
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I therefore believe that the single currency does not require a static and purely accounting, almost Manichaean, vision of public finance, but the ability to combine fiscal rigour with prospects for development, which is still the basic reason for Economic and Monetary Union.
Moreover, with high rates of growth and a trend towards reducing debt, the criteria for reducing the ratio between debt and GDP will soon be met.
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I wanted to illustrate these concepts because I have proposed three amendments, included in the von Wogau report, to paragraphs 13, 14 and 15.
To conclude, Mr President, I wish to insist on the fact that the most important challenge we are faced with at the moment is that of proving that the fiscal rigour and stability that will characterize the euro area will form the basis for establishing a development policy which continues to be the main purpose of Economic and Monetary Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Malerba">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am one of those who have supported Mr von Wogau's report from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, and I believe that, despite the narrow vote, this report deserves full consent on all the fundamental points.
I support the formal confirmation that the European Parliament is preparing to give to the choice of the euro to 11 countries as from 1 January 1999, not only because this includes Italy but also because I believe in the political significance of this very broad participation in monetary union.
Today's Herald Tribune maintains that, by taking this step, the European Union is now something of a federal state: perhaps it is exaggerating, but the political message is clear.
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The political impulse of monetary union should now spur on the governments of the states to faster structural reforms, to a reduction in public expenditure, to a lightening of the tax burden, to a reduction in the excessive rigidity of employment and to an effort to make services efficient, and here I am thinking of the banking system in particular.
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If these guidelines adopted by the Member States complement the objective of price and currency stability set by the Central Bank, companies will begin to invest again and so create jobs.
Preparation for monetary union has benefited from the virtuous cycle of lower interest rates, which it began itself.
I think that, even without definite orders, all countries, particularly those that have benefited most from the fall in rates, should continue to operate strictly.
Finally, it seems to me that, while expressing satisfaction over this historic stage for Europe, we should not forget the need to strengthen democratic control in the balance of the European institutions, by reviving the Union's institutional reforms and policy.
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<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the labour pains have started, the birth of the euro is unstoppable. This undeniable assertion should not blind us to the fact that the single currency is still an infant at risk.
It urgently needs time if not in the incubator, then in the beneficial environment of a socio-ecological reorientation of European economic policy, instead of growing up into a neoliberal, monetarist monster of a supposedly unpolitical currency whose real and exclusive interests are those of the financial asset holders.
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This is a highly political decision.
But we need to differentiate politically between two very different questions, that is, the plan to complete the European internal market using European monetary union, and the monetarist, neoliberal plan of the dictates of the financial markets.
Fortunately, we can see that the first phase of the neoliberal monetarist project has largely begun to flag.
The social struggles which in different Member States have produced new governments with new European agendas and sparked off a new debate in Europe had a lot to do with this.
The reforming French government should be given special credit for having placed the debate on an entirely new basis.
The original monetarist convergence criteria are actually being implemented with a great deal more sensitivity.
Tietmeyer thinking has not been setting the tone in Europe.
The idea of a core Europe has foundered in reality.
That is the good news. It makes it possible for us to agree to launching the euro with 11 Member States.
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But we must counter all attempts to say what a wrong-headed German Deutsche Mark-nationalism wants to hear by playing an eleventh hour European poker game.
Belgium and Italy should have no further requirements to meet, and the crazy proposal to reserve the windfall profits to reorganize debts and to forbid the French and others their employment policy must also be thrown out.
To act otherwise would mean the euro was really being introduced on the backs of the unemployed, and that is something we cannot tolerate!
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As we all know, some corrections must be made. We need an employment policy and effective coordination of macroeconomic policy.
The European Central Bank must have a democratic foundation, and this will probably require the Treaty to be revised.
We must speak plainly, Mr Friedrich. The Treaty must be applied, and no arguments!
And no qualifying amendments!
Pacta sunt servanda does not provide carte blanche for a late game of poker!
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<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too wish to thank the rapporteur, Mr von Wogau, for this report, and at the same time express just one criticism and one recommendation to him and to those of you listening to me.
I have allowed myself this small criticism, although I am aware of the difficulties of the work of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. We have obviously reached an historic point in the building of Europe.
We are faced with a transition which seemed impossible and inconceivable a few years ago, even a few months ago. We are faced with an effort made by many countries to try and catch this train, to try and give life and substance to this hope that Economic and Monetary Union might - necessarily for those who believe in us, for those who think that this is the plan for the future - lead to the political union of Europe.
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From this point of view, some countries have had to make greater efforts, while others, and here I am also talking about Mr von Wogau's country, have had to deal with a 3 % ceiling that suddenly became difficult, even for the countries that seemed to be the champions of monetary virtuosity.
At a time when the European family is faced with this fact, and there will certainly be opportunities for insisting on this point, we should not spoil this opportunity, disregarding and maintaining criticisms, doubts and uncertainties that may give rise to difficulties, in respect of one country or another.
I believe we should make an assessment - which we can do better than the European Council because we can give an opinion independently - for all countries, taking into consideration those countries that may not have acted in an entirely crystal-clear manner to arrive at the 3 %. However, this cannot be done in a document that rightly or wrongly has to give a feeling of strong acceptance and also of recognition of the efforts made by the Eleven, for two countries - and one in particular, it would seem - to be more fiscal-orientated than others: not because it is wrong to say this but because there may be other ways.
Moreover, we want this Parliament to be the arbitrator, or at all events the privileged judge or interlocutor of the Central Bank on the policy to be implemented.
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To conclude, I believe that the recommendation, or the hope, that I give with my amendment, that will lead Parliament to ask the Council to appoint the President during this European Council, a President in office for eight years, is the recommendation to be made and the request we can make to the people we represent.
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<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, this week fundamental decisions are being taken which will directly affect the future of Europe and of the citizens of the Member States.
The chief historical significance of these decisions is that they will be taken without there being much clarity about their consequences, and without it being clear to the citizens why they are being taken.
The Commission's recommendation that eleven countries commence with EMU removes all foundation for any sensible economic argument about this kind of monetary union.
The heterogeneity of the participating countries is such that it will be difficult, if not impossible, to realize the economic objectives of EMU.
It should be blatantly obvious that the convergence criteria have been disregarded.
Eight countries have applied one-off transactions.
In the case of two countries this appeared to be necessary in order to meet the 3 % budget deficit criterion.
It is these two countries - and I am talking about France and Italy - which will be the problem children of EMU.
It is a sign of reckless behaviour when the governments of these countries are going to introduce the 35- hour working week after all, as if the expected effects of ageing in the case of uncovered pensions systems are not disastrous enough in themselves.
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Maintaining a sound budget policy is of crucial importance if the scant confidence in EMU is not to be undermined any further.
In itself the Stability and Growth Pact is a good instrument for this.
But fundamentally, this Pact is also a demonstration of the mutual distrust between the EMU participants.
It surprises the majority of people that, in spite of all this, the politicians continue to emphasize the value and necessity of EMU, as whole-heartedly as Cato desired the destruction of Carthage.
The reason we have this problem is that drastic economic resources are being deployed on behalf of a debatable political goal.
Observant citizens know that they will be landed with the risks inherent in this course of action, while they have not or are not being asked for their opinion.
<P>
The EMU of the eleven does not comply with the agreements made in Maastricht.
At present we are faced with the dilemma that calling off EMU leads to economic chaos, whilst proceeding with EMU is a big step full of political and economic risks.
Irresponsibly, the leading politicians have placed themselves in a trap.
We did not take part in such controversial behaviour, nor will we.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="President">
Well, now that we have heard Mr Martinez' prayer - sorry, speech - it is time for Mr Metten to speak. He has the floor for three minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Metten">
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García-Margallo y Marfil">
Mr President, today, as all the speakers have said, is a solemn occasion; somebody said it is almost religious.
And the von Wogau report underlines that solemnity with elegance and simplicity.
But above all, the von Wogau report highlights the fact that the euro is a leap forward, a big bang, in this process of continental political integration which began 40 years ago.
The von Wogau report thus invites us to preserve the culture of stability, to engage in institutional dialogue - centred on this Parliament -, to coordinate economic policies, to reduce fiscal differences and - more importantly - to do whatever may be necessary to preserve the welfare state, creating jobs and maintaining the social security benefits which are the trademark of the European social model.
<P>
But, Mr President, if I believe and hope in religious terms, I also want to say - and I am sure you will let me make a special comment here, since I am the first Spaniard to speak - that for our country, for my country, today is an extraordinarily important moment.
Historically, when Spain stopped looking towards Europe, she turned in upon herself and became selfabsorbed, and a long process of civil conflicts began, creating the image of the two Spains in the eyes of the world.
When Spain once more looked towards Europe - following the teachings of Ortega, among others -, we were able to achieve a peaceful transition, a national reconciliation, culminating in our incorporation into a democratic Europe.
<P>
Less than two years ago nobody expected to see Spain in this small family of the single currency, but today our country has made the religious effort to join, because if you believe, you can do anything.
I am glad about that and I will conclude by saying that as a Spaniard I believe in what we are doing and I hope and I pray. And as a Christian by religion, I know just as much as Mr Martinez.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Garosci">
Mr President, only eight or nine years ago, anyone thinking of a week like this would have been taken for a day-dreamer.
Today we have managed to guide the ship carrying all the essential products for a single currency into port: trust, stability, common commitment and a collective logic that goes beyond the individual.
As on all ships that have made a long voyage, a few germs have got on board, such as uncertainty and scepticism, which we are overcoming with the great medicine of hope.
<P>
To paraphrase slightly the words of Mr von Wogau, whom we thank for all his work, who states in his report, "For the first time since the Roman Empire, Europeans from the Irish Sea...' - and today Ireland was fortunate enough to be congratulated in this Parliament for the peace achieved - "...to the Mediterranean will be using the same currency' , to my Mediterranean.
The praise for all this, although much remains to be done, does not just belong to us, but belongs in particular to those who have believed in us and who have worked from the outset.
Like the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, our group will support Mr von Wogau's report, recognizing in the work of the chairman of the committee the sum total of the work carried out over all these years by all the European institutions but also, and above all, by thousands of unknown people in our daily lives.
<P>
The summary of Commissioner de Silguy's thoughts, whom we thank for his hard work and his patience, is as follows: we have made the euro and now we have to make Europe.
We obviously agree with him, but we also have to take all possible measures to combat the major problems faced by the Community; we have to make the citizens understand that Europe today is about the single currency but tomorrow it will be about political union. Finally, we have to set up the Bureau of the European Central Bank, in the most logical and complete form possible, to ensure that all the necessary preconditions for granting the ECB total and independent supremacy on economic policy as from 10 January 1999 are created as soon as possible.
<P>
Today we have achieved the single currency. This is a lot, a great deal, but it is not everything.
European citizens are now expecting great and urgent things from us.
They are asking us to fight to achieve these victories we are winning in the economic field, as well as in the social field, so as to help solve the major everyday problems.
But today, for now, we can calmly quote what Gandhi said: "One step at a time is enough for me' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the reports from the Commission and the European Monetary Institute on the transition to the single currency are prisoners of the financial criteria defined by the Maastricht Treaty and for this reason they present a completely superficial analysis on convergence between European countries.
We need to examine more closely the underlying national realities in order to distinguish, over and above financial convergence criteria, three great criteria for divergence.
<P>
Firstly, there is the divergence in the economic needs of the different countries. Levels of unemployment, labour costs, levels of tax and social security deductions, social and tax structures and the phases of economic cycles all differ greatly from one country to the next.
At the beginning of next year, for example, the future Central Bank is to apply the same universal interest rate to economies which are about to overheat and to others which are in a state of slow growth.
This seem completely impossible to us.
<P>
Secondly, there is the divergence of political conceptions.
On the eve of the launch of the single currency, essential questions regarding the management of the future monetary union have still not been resolved, such as those regarding its democratic supervision.
Some want very little control, as stipulated in the Maastricht Treaty, under the pretext of the independence and even the sovereignty of the Central Bank, according to the extraordinary statement in the von Wogau report.
Others want to put in place a form of control which was not anticipated in the Treaty, at the level of the European Parliament, others still would like that control to be carried out by national parliaments.
Which view will prevail?
We are jumping into monetary unification with our eyes closed.
<P>
Finally, and above all, there is the divergence of public opinion.
The single currency project does not enjoy massive consensus within Europe, something which would be absolutely essential in order for it to succeed.
Even in some crucial countries, public opinion is clearly hostile.
That is why the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations is calling on the Council to take a global view of the situation and not to be limited by financial criteria, as stipulated in Article 109j of the Treaty.
We call on the Council to realize that today monetary unification is not possible in an area such as Europe, where a number of different peoples co-exist, without running major risks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Blot">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Karl von Wogau's report comes within the perspective of a forced march towards the euro which has been imposed on the people of Europe.
You congratulate yourselves on the success of convergence, but you have to consider at what cost, in terms of unemployment, these results have been achieved.
Monetary union between countries disparate in terms of productivity will cause an increase in unemployment in the less productive countries and will oblige the other countries to pay considerable sums of financial solidarity, thus causing an increase in fiscal pressures.
This model has already been historically observed in Germany: unemployment in the East and an increase in taxes in the West in order to subsidize the East: that was the result of German monetary unification.
<P>
In its report of 25 March 1998, the Commission was forced to recognize this.
I quote: "the exceptional costs linked to German monetary reunification continue to be widely felt' .
Thus, monetary reunification was desired, for political reasons which I will not judge, in the knowledge that it was having perverse effects on the economy.
Similarly, in Europe, the euro is the result of a political desire to remove anything that is national, without consulting the people in a referendum, and regardless of the economic cost of the move.
This will create a political situation which will be difficult to handle.
When French citizens understand that the power to create unemployment in their country will be situated in Frankfurt, it will be detrimental to the cohesion of our peoples.
<P>
What is more, we are playing with democracy.
Our colleague's report says clearly that monetary sovereignty - he uses the word sovereignty - will reside in Frankfurt.
Fiscal and budgetary sovereignty will be curbed by the Stability Pact put in place elsewhere.
Unemployment and technocratic power, that is what this gives us.
I doubt that people will accept such a policy.
You are proclaiming prosperity and democracy, but you are going to exacerbate the injustice of unemployment and maintain the fiction of a democracy, which increasingly hides the real power of stateless technocrats.
<P>
The great Greek orator, Demosthenes, once said that no unjust and untruthful power can last for long.
This is what I foresee for the current governments, who want to force the hand of the peoples of Europe by taking their national sovereignty away from them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berès">
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herman">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, before it is even achieved, monetary union has already produced two spectacular results.
It has forced Member States to put their public finances in order.
This was not so easy to begin with.
It has also protected the European Monetary System from the financial disturbances that have affected the countries of the Far East.
It is the first time that a crisis on such a scale has not resulted in an attack on weak currencies such as the pound or the French or Belgian franc, or in a rise in the Deutsche Mark, a currency of refuge on such occasions.
<P>
Besides the numerous arguments which are regularly repeated in favour of the euro, there is one that is rarely mentioned, and I have not yet heard it today. It is the recovery of the use of the monetary instrument which is now completely frozen due to the need to maintain stability of intra-Community exchange rates under the punctilious supervision of the markets.
The impact of these rates currently affects half of Europe's GDP.
After monetary union, it will only affect 10 %.
That which has been the unique privilege of the United States will also become that of the Europeans, if they want it.
The best way of facing up to the challenge of globalization is to give the political powers the means to escape the tyranny of the markets.
<P>
That the communists and the National Front find themselves united today in a nostalgia which turns its back on the state of the world should not surprise us.
Our gifted public entertainer, the political satirist Martinez, deserved the line given to him and which I draw on now, from an editorial by Claude Humbert, "the old enemy accomplices now find themselves amongst the nationalist odds and ends under the overturned effigies of Marx and Déroulède.
Red and white, it is the time for cherries and the old France of borders and the bugle' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Formentini">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report we are asked to give our opinions on, irrespective of the aspect of greater or lesser rigour in respect of one Member State or another, involves the approval of the forthcoming intergovernmental decision on the entry into force of Economic and Monetary Union.
The electorate I represent have shown that they are against this Europe that is about to be born and believe that is a real swindle for manufacturing in Padania.
At the time, the establishment of convergence criteria gave rise to a race to balance the books, which was often more apparent than real within the individual states.
Italy, in particular, managed to make its fairly contrived accounts credible, thanks to a marked growth in tax revenue, brought about by increasing the tax burden to the detriment of manufacturing industries.
Staying in Europe will now require further belt-tightening and this will weaken the competitiveness of the system even further.
Our competitors, both outside and within the European Union, are rubbing their hands at the thought that businessmen in Padania will be forced to fight in an increasingly competitive market, with the burden of the welfare state, the Italian national political class and the South on their shoulders.
Obviously, in Padania, that is within a self-confident community, tensions will arise with unforeseeable consequences and it is no secret that Padania has already started on an institutional path that will lead it to independence.
<P>
I therefore believe that these peoples, who no-one consulted on this monetary union, will soon make the weight of their own opinion felt.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Ruffolo">
Mr President, we are about to take an historic step in the true sense of the word, that clearly separates the "before' from the "after' .
It is also a step that is beset by problems, not those that a certain type of bigotry sees in the debt of countries that have for several years undertaken a credible, irreversible financial recovery with no miracles - Italy achieved its miracle when, from being a poor, backward country, it became the fifth economic power in the world -, but rather the problems of a political vacuum between the transfer of monetary supremacy and the strict conservation of national fiscal and political supremacy.
We will have to fill this vacuum.
Following the adoption of a single currency, nothing in Europe will be the same again.
<P>
Today we can measure the dramatic rift that would open in the Union between core countries, which virtually coincide with the Deutsche Mark area, and countries driven back into an anxious and unstable periphery.
Now they all have to move along the lines of development indicated by monetary union: the consolidation of stability, the guarantee of democratic responsibility taken by the European Central Bank, the construction of a Union macroeconomic policy, the democratic strengthening of its political institutions.
One eminent American economist, known for his mistaken predictions, has seen in the future of the euro the threat of civil war between the European countries.
While preparing to vote for the euro, we see a future of solidarity between the nations of Europe and a more reasonable balance in relation to the domination of the dollar.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Stevens">
I congratulate Herr von Wogau on the efforts he has made in this report.
British Members of the Group of the European People's Party greatly admire his chairmanship of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee.
It is with regret, therefore, that we will abstain on his report.
We do so in the first instance because the United Kingdom is not going to be a founder member of the monetary union.
That is a fact, as Members know, which I personally very deeply regret.
But I believe it right to demonstrate that the hope of the British Government that it is possible to be both at the heart of European affairs and evade the resolution of British Membership of EMU is a dangerous illusion.
<P>
We also wish to demonstrate that while we understand the desire in this Parliament to achieve the broadest possible political support for this report, that has been achieved at the cost of denying the serious future difficulties that participating governments will have in running their public finances in line with the stability pact.
<P>
Let there be no doubt, British Members of the Group of the European People's Party want monetary union to succeed.
I personally have devoted a large part of my time in this Parliament to the creation of the euro.
It is from this standpoint that we support the efforts of Finance Minister Waigel in wishing further undertakings from all Member Governments to run balanced budgets over the cycle and reducing historic debt to 60 % of GDP.
<P>
I wish the Parliament had supported Mr Waigel more.
It is a pity that there are those in the Socialist Group and elsewhere who have attacked the absolute independence of the Central Bank which was the cornerstone of the Maastricht Treaty but who are reluctant to enhance our overview of Member States' budgetary arrangements.
This is a particular pity since it would open up the possibility of serious cooperation between the European Parliament and national Parliaments.
Therein lies the best chance of correcting the democratic deficit.
<P>
I myself am absolutely convinced that the euro of eleven will succeed in the long run.
That success may be a rougher ride in the markets because we have chosen softer words today than we should have done.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pérez Royo">
<SPEAKER ID=87 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Thomas">
Mr President, the efforts of our Member States to reduce budget deficits, to restrict total debt considerably and to consolidate public budgets have been successful.
It is not only those with political and economic responsibility who have worked hard, which is evident from the historic low in inflation rates and long-term interest rates; our citizens, too, have taken these restrictions on board in the clear knowledge that Europe will only become competitive and have a real future if it steers a steady course for stability.
This course will only be held, and Karl von Wogau's well-balanced report goes into this in detail, if the convergence criteria are safeguarded in the long term.
For this reason, the Stability and Growth Pact must be implemented with all due haste; it should be monitored by the European Central Bank whose independence and authority as the highest guardian of the currency should be preserved from any tinkering whatsoever.
<P>
As freely elected members of Parliament, we will be its partners in dialogue.
Our citizens, who have no time at all for the tactical power games in the wrangle for the post of the ECB Presidency, are relying on this.
They are relying on the strength of the euro, which is no sickly premature baby, to bring about more investment and new, employment-creating growth, so that unemployment figures go down.
They are relying on better coordination of the Member States' campaigns and measures for economic and structural policy which were adopted at the Luxembourg Employment Summit, and on the acceleration of initiatives for a more active labour market policy; they are also relying on additional education and training meeting the demand for qualified workers.
Given a complete package like this, our citizens will identify with the new domestic European market and with the euro.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Andersson">
<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, Mr von Wogau, ladies and gentlemen, as I was travelling from Strasbourg to Austria following the last sitting in Strasbourg, I was delighted to note that the frontier barrier between Germany and Austria had been removed.
This time, when I return from Brussels to Austria, there will be a fixed exchange rate between the Deutsche Mark, the schilling and the Belgian franc, and in fact throughout all the 11 states.
This brings great immediate advantages for our companies.
The risks of the exchange rate are removed, and we can make more precise calculations more easily; we will be able to enjoy these advantages next week.
On January 1, we will have a single currency.
That too will bring with it huge advantages, not only for company balance sheets, but also in the comparability of the various deals on offer. As a result, Europe will become more competitive.
Who would have thought back at the beginning, when discussions about the euro started, that 11 countries would be involved right from the start?
The more pessimistic among us thought there would be 6 or 7 countries.
Today there are 11, and I forecast that by 2002, there will be 15!
<P>
It is my belief that countries will not be able to afford to stay outside, and we must think about how we can help those countries who are willing to join.
We have many tasks ahead of us, and I am proud that Europe is able to cope with them!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fayot">
Mr President, on entering Brussels at the moment, you can see a large poster with the slogan, "Let us be concrete and positive' , with regard to a Belgian political party.
I like this slogan because it is reasonable and moderate.
It is, I think, the spirit that we should have with regard to monetary union, in the face of the nationalist demagogy and the gloom-mongering of the extreme Left who rant and rave against monetary union.
I, too, would like to take up this slogan.
<P>
Yes, let us be positive with regard to monetary union.
As you know, the Socialists voted against Mr von Wogau's report in committee, not because of the work of the rapporteur, which was excellent, but because of certain amendments which were voted for in committee and which have weighed the issue down.
I do not think that the European Parliament should be more orthodox than the most orthodox of central bank presidents.
The Stability and Growth Pact must be respected; we add "rigorously' to this in our report.
I could propose any number of adverbs to you: formally, absolutely, clearly, sincerely, exactly, and so on. These are just differences in style, nuances which add nothing.
The socialists want to be positive and want to vote for Mr von Wogau's report, on condition that a serious and reasonable approach with regard to respect for stability is approved.
I think this has finally been achieved.
<P>
We also want to be concrete.
On a financial and monetary level, the current situation is full of potential.
This is due to the movement towards the euro. The euro has already created, and will create, new potential to respond to the hazards of the economic situation and to create jobs.
It will also deepen political union and curb warlike nationalism.
<P>
Mr President, let us therefore have a firm desire to put this potential to good use.
Let us be positive and concrete in the face of the enormous opportunities with which the euro presents us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Harrison">
May I rebut John Stevens' suggestion that the Socialist Group is soft on the independence of the ECB.
We are not but we are equally passionate on ensuring that bank's democratic accountability.
On the brink of historic decisions for Europe and the introduction of the euro, we should step back and contemplate and celebrate the remarkable achievement of eleven Member States qualifying for EMU.
<P>
The benign scenario of low inflation and low interest rates is a resounding tribute to the countries entering EMU.
Sometimes commentators do not see the wood for the trees - two countries in particular have been singled out for fevered attention on the sole question of the viability of their public debt to GDP ratios.
A strict reading of the Maastricht Treaty does permit them to qualify, as verified by the Commission, EMI and by the German Federal Court, an August body indebted to no one.
<P>
Moreover, we have the back-stop of the Stability and Growth Pact which will ensure sustainability of this fiscal rectitude and the promise of Belgium and Italy themselves to continue to consolidate their public debt ratios.
<P>
Now is the time for us to raise our heads from the minutiae of the convergence criteria.
Let us gaze on the sunlit uplands of the euro which beckon ever more strongly.
The golden prize which is ours for the taking is a dynamic single European market, quickened by the introduction of the single currency.
It is that market, the world's biggest market, which will offer jobs and prosperity for our people and let us never forget we have the market to create the currency for the benefit of the people of Europe and not the other way around.
In the not too distant future, when Britain is emerged from the slough of despond of the Thatcher and Major years, the United Kingdom too will join the long march of Everyman to the city on the hill.
We, too, will apply a single currency in a single market in our singular Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
<SPEAKER ID=93 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, as we have seen, the decisions which will be made in Brussels in the next few days will be observed by many of us with excitement, and by some with enthusiasm.
However, a great number of citizens of the union are sceptical and concerned about the introduction of the euro.
The fact that in figures for total debt, only three candidate countries were under 60 % and two were over 120 % is in fact deeply worrying.
This makes it all the more important to stress, as does Mr von Wogau's report, that the strict observance of the Stability and Growth Pact by all participants in the European currency union is imperative.
<P>
The European Parliament must call for a guarantee that the euro will be as stable as the most stable of those currencies which it will replace.
I would like to use the brief minute I have at my disposal to express in all objectivity my personal congratulations to Mr von Wogau on his well-balanced report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="de Silguy">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on the eve of an historic European Council, given that the Heads of State or Government are going to take a decision on the launch of Economic and Monetary Union, Mr von Wogau's excellent report enables us to measure the distance covered.
For once we can be delighted with this, and I am pleased with the extremely favourable response that the Commission's recommendation for the 11 Member States has received.
Indeed, throughout this long debate, in which some 40 of you have spoken, I have heard no criticism of the quality of the Commission's work, nor of the actual content of its proposals, even if the debate on economic policy is a wide and open one, as is normal in a democracy.
<P>

I agree with Mr Giansily, Mrs Randzio-Plath, Mr Rübig, Mr Harrison and Mrs Berès, who have put the debate into perspective, an historic perspective I believe, since in effect it concerns the culmination of the great achievement which Europe has now been working towards for more than 40 years.
It gives me great satisfaction to see what work has been accomplished.
Who could have imagined such an achievement even a year ago, perhaps even in this distinguished House itself?
<P>
This is not the result of chance, or even of the Member States' remarkable efforts regarding convergence. This success is the result of a common political will to respect the conditions and the timetable laid out in the Treaty on European Union.
On this subject, and since the debate has been a general one, allow me to reflect for a few moments on the method which has led us to this success and which is worthy of some consideration, before I make a few comments and provide some information on the no less important task ahead of us.
Indeed, we should not now be concentrating on 2 May, but on what lies ahead after that date.
The euro must not be a problem child, but tomorrow it will be a new-born baby, and we must take responsibility for its harmonious and balanced development.
<P>
First of all, the arrival of the euro is the success of a method based firstly on political will.
Without this political will, such a venture could never have succeeded.
It has been the essential guarantee of an achievement unique in European history.
Every European Council since 1995 has, in spite of everything, expressed this unshakeable will on the part of the Heads of State or Government.
They have been able to use the political and practical consequences for each of them in order to proceed, for example, - and this is important - towards improving their public finances, and to reducing their deficits to less than 3 %.
<P>
I believe it is this very political will which enables me to inform you today that the statutes of the national central banks, mentioned less than a month ago in the convergence report as still not fully in conformity, are so today.
The four countries in question, Austria, Spain, Luxembourg and France, have completed or, in the case of France, should complete this evening, the parliamentary legislative procedures enabling compatibility of all of the central banks' statutes.
<P>
With regard to the European Central Bank, since many of you have mentioned this, and in order to dispel any misunderstanding, I would like to say that it is the Commission's position that the Treaty should be strictly enforced.
The Council cannot cut a mandate in two, they must appoint a President for the length of the mandate provided for in the Treaty.
Nevertheless, the less said for the moment regarding the problem of the European Central Bank, the better.
Let us leave it to the Heads of State or Government to do their job since it is they who must decide.
Mr Friedrich earlier said on this subject, "Europe needs confidence' .
Well, I believe that this will come naturally in the meeting, when the Heads of State or Government unanimously appoint the President of the Central Bank and members of the Executive Board.
<P>
The second important factor in the method is convergence.
Since you know the figures as well as I do, I will give only one example: improvements in public deficits.
Let me nevertheless remind you that in 1993, the average public deficit recommended for the 11 countries was 5.5 %. This was reduced to 2.5 % in 1997.
I really have to say, especially to those Members situated on the extreme right of this House, that these figures have not been fiddled. They have been verified, they are correct.
As a representative of the Commission, I cannot accept the slightest suspicion regarding the quality of work that has been carried out, particularly with regard to statistics and with regard to the information which has been made available to you to enable you to make a judgement.
<P>
This result, which is all the more impressive given the unfavourable economic climate, thus means that improvements in public finances have essentially been achieved through an effective reduction in expenditure: given an overall reduction of 3.7 % for the 15 countries, the reduction in expenditure has been 2.8 %.
You can thus see that it is largely a reduction in expenditure which has enabled the reduction in public deficit to be achieved, rather than the economic climate or one-off measures which have become long term measures, or an increase in revenue.
It is this which leads us to say that the improvements in public finances are lasting ones, and the markets have recognized the lasting nature of convergence.
<P>
I have heard little mention of the durability of convergence during the debate, and this seems to me to be an essential factor in the transition to the single currency.
The markets have noted it, since interest rates are today at an historically low level.
This permits me to say that from now on there exists a true culture of stability in Europe which now needs to be consolidated, meaning that the commitments undertaken, in particular in Amsterdam, must now be implemented without delay, and without taking on new commitments, I can assure you, Mr Donnelly.
<P>
The third element of the method is a systematic preparation for the introduction of the euro.
I would, however, like to remind you, as we have worked closely together for three and a half years now, of the wonderful work that we have accomplished together with regard to technical legal regulations; meticulous work, essential for the proper functioning of Economic and Monetary Union.
Indeed, to ensure a good currency from the start, a good legal framework was required, a good regulatory framework.
This was an essential factor in its credibility and to do this we needed to ensure, with necessary prior warning, the visibility and readability which companies needed in order to prepare themselves in good time.
This is now an established fact, and the House contributed greatly to this.
Within this preparatory work I must also mention the remarkable work carried out by the European Monetary Institute, which will become a reality in a few days from now as a result of the decisions to be taken by the European Central Bank.
<P>
Finally, the fourth element of the method, and I am surprised to have heard so little about this this evening, is the mobilization of the life blood of Europe.
Would we have achieved such a mobilization without the initiative taken - primarily by this House - to develop informative action within all the Member States as from 1996, without further delay?
Today, if the European, national, regional and local public administrations, banks, companies and social partners are mobilized, it is largely due to this initiative which was jointly undertaken by Parliament and the Commission.
<P>
I say all of this because I believe that we should be proud of ourselves.
And why not, for once?
The achievement of the euro has been a model of interinstitutional cooperation.
This must continue as soon as the European Council has come to an end, in order to ensure the democratic accountability which many of you mentioned earlier, and to bring about growth and employment as effectively as possible, for that is indeed the objective of EMU, but also of the Union, on the eve of the birth of the euro.
It is on this second point that I would now like to concentrate a little, to share with you my thoughts on what I think our plan of action, our agenda, must be for the coming months.
<P>
Firstly, there is the continuation of budgetary improvements.
The return to a balance in public finances in the medium term is the only way to free up savings for job-creating investment and to find budgetary leeway once again. That is why this is the central objective of the Stability and Growth Pact, although you should be aware that, in relation to the current level of deficit in the European Union as a whole - 2.5 % -, to find a balance once again means freeing up nearly 150 billion euros for investment.
I believe that the current period of economic growth must thus be put to good use in order to speed up budgetary consolidation.
We must not spend the money before we have it; efforts at budgetary improvements must be maintained.
The hardest part has been achieved and Europe is already reaping the benefits, so we must not relax our efforts now.
<P>
Similarly, within this framework and in answer to Mrs Berès, I want to emphasize the importance of coordinating of economic policies, not only with relation to budgets but also in the fields of employment and competitiveness.
We have the tools: the broad outlines of economic policy, the stability programmes.
We have the bodies: Parliament, the Ecofin Council, the euro Council.
It is now important for our governments to prove their political will by implementing all of this.
<P>
The second absolute priority for economic policy is the challenge of employment.
To Mr Hughes and Mr Paasilinna, I would say that EMU does not necessarily mean more unemployment. On the contrary, EMU should signify more jobs.
This is why, through the Luxembourg Council - Mr Thomas Mann mentioned this - the Union made employment an issue of common interest, a priority for our economic policy.
Beyond the development of a healthy macroeconomic policy, only adequate and concerted structural reforms will be able to reduce unemployment in Europe in the long term.
In this respect, the euro must be the catalyst in the fight against unemployment.
Tomorrow, we will be discussing the broad outlines of economic policy.
This year, a common strategy for employment will be at the heart of the Commission's overall work.
Similarly, the Commission is currently examining national plans which have just been presented and will give its conclusions in Cardiff.
<P>
There are two other issues which are important for the future. I will only mention them in passing, given the lack of time to go into any depth.
One is the international dimension of the euro, on which we have said little this evening.
How, with the euro, will Europe be able to speak with one voice? This is also a major challenge to be taken up, if we want to derive all the advantages and benefits that the introduction of its own currency will give to the number one economic and trading power in the world.
<P>
Finally, the last challenge is that of ensuring acceptance of the currency by all.
On one point, at least, I am in agreement with Mrs Schörling, that is, the importance of people.
We cannot ignore them, and within this framework each person must be able to familiarize himself rapidly with the new currency and use it comfortably and with confidence.
That is the reason why communication strategies must be accelerated in all Member States.
<P>
In conclusion, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me once again to say how pleased I am with the excellent collaboration we have had over the past three and a half years, which has been one of the keys to the success of this historic project.
I would personally like to thank Mr von Wogau, in particular, as well as Mrs Randzio-Plath, for their tireless commitment and their support of the euro throughout these last months, which have not always been easy.
I now believe that the European Parliament is going to see its role extended, whether in relation to the process of coordination of economic policy, in relation to the democratic accountability of Economic and Monetary Union or in relation to efforts to convince public opinion.
I am very happy with our collaboration.
I am also very happy with your sense of responsibility and since Mr Garosci said earlier, "We have made the euro and now we have to make Europe' , I would say that this is a fine ambition to have.
Mr Fayot said, " Let us be positive and concrete' . This, too, is a fine attitude.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
1998 annual economic report
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0133/98) by Mr Gasòliba I Böhm, on behalf of the Committee on Economic Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on "Growth and Employment in the Stability-Oriented Framework of EMU - Economic policy reflections in view of the forthcoming 1998 Broad Guidelines' (COM(98)0103 - C40135/98) (Annual Economic Report)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Gasòliba I Böhm">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I wanted to say thank you for all the collaboration I received while working on this report in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, and for the fact that it was approved almost unanimously in committee.
So the report was produced not by me but by the committee. It reflects a series of points which were mentioned during the previous debate, but focusing on what must be done - and I stress that - after the euro.
<P>
I also want to point out that when my report was being discussed in committee we already had the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, and their main proposals have been included in the report.
That was not the case with the opinion of the Committee on Regional Policy, which arrived later.
But as rapporteur, I would have no objection to that committee's proposals being incorporated into the report's conclusions under the Hughes procedure.
<P>
To make sure that Commissioner de Silguy does not complain that we have taken no notice of the Commission's report, I shall point out that, obviously, the report I am defending here refers to the Commission's Annual Economic Report. This annual report is slightly special because it does not conform to the normal structure of that institution's annual economic reports, but is a response to the specific situation of what we could call "the year of the euro's constitution' .
So it focuses on two aspects - growth and employment - and uses a methodology we have accepted.
However, our report points out that it should be different in future. It should consider and offer a different type of analysis from that used in this year's report, introducing, for example, a medium-term analysis a methodology - which exists in economics - based on scenarios; it should not just envisage a linear development of the European economy, but take account of the effects of what we call "asymmetric shocks' , not just at Member State level but also at regional level.
<P>
Having made those points to show the Commissioner that we have paid attention to the European Commission report, I want to use the few minutes left to reflect on two aspects.
The first of these is growth.
Growth is a basis - not the only one - for progress, and also for employment.
The present report mentions some aspects which have perhaps been marginalized by the very line of stability and solvency demanded by monetary union and the euro, but which need to be taken up again.
For example, we have to bear in mind the need to boost public and private investment for productive purposes - an essential aspect of increasing the productivity and competitiveness of the European economy; we must pay attention to and strengthen essential aspects of research and development, education and professional training; and, obviously, we must take account of all those aspects which can make this Europe, strengthened by the euro, competitive at an internal level - or in other words, see that it offers more opportunities for the economies which can adapt to the new demands. This is also true at international level, because I agree with Mr de Silguy's statement about the importance of the euro's international dimension.
<P>
The second aspect I want to mention concerns employment.
In our report we have been very conscious, based on the European Commission's report, of the euro as a driving force for employment.
We have also talked about the need to make the labour markets more flexible, decrease the indirect costs bearing on the creation of a new job, and take account of the fiscal climate. Obviously, this whole process needs to result in renewal within the business sector, and we especially stress the role of small and medium-sized enterprises as an engine for development, progress and job creation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="van Velzen, Wim">
Mr President, this is in fact the first annual report since the Treaty of Amsterdam and the Luxembourg Summit.
In itself it is understandable that the employment guidelines envisaged there receive little or no attention in this report.
I hope that in future reports they will always form an integral part of the report, as well as benchmarking in the sphere of labour market strategy.
<P>
One of the important objectives of the Amsterdam Summit and also of the Luxembourg Summit was to create coordination, a balance, between macroeconomic policy and employment policies.
I must confess that I do not really understand why scarcely any attention has been paid to this balance, this coordination, in the annual report before us.
You will see in our report that we urge that proposals for coordination are made as soon as possible.
The Ecofin and Social Council should discuss this subject together - I am not saying how often, but it should be at least a few times a year - and not stay put in separate camps.
<P>
An article in the European Voice shocked me. In it, a statement to be put to the Summit this weekend was leaked in which government leaders are asked to say that reducing public debt levels rather than reducing unemployment is their main priority.
The argument often used is that this leaves more room to do something about unemployment in future.
I wonder if you could tell me, Commissioner, when this future will start?
Recently, last weekend, appalling elections took place in Germany, in which the right had an unexpectedly huge result.
If you do not link this to the unbridled unemployment there, than you must be wilfully blind.
I would like to stress this emphatically so that you will finally understand that for many people the future must start now. I would like to stress emphatically that it is madness to expect the euro to mean something if we do not start to take concrete measures which will allow people to gauge whether the authorities are addressing unemployment.
This report does not meet these criteria at all, and in this regard I think that what I have read about the proposals for the end of this weekend is a disgrace.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Donnelly, Alan">
Mr President, I welcome the report of Mr Gasòliba and congratulate him on the content.
As he has said, it is the result of collaborative work and we in the Socialist Group are largely very happy with the content.
Perhaps even more important today, can I also thank the Commissioner and his services because we in the Socialist Group have long been calling for a better type of annual economic report from the Commission which addresses the real problems facing our citizens.
I am glad to say that for the first time in recent years we now have a report which can not only be read sensibly by people outside the European institutions but which also reflects their concerns.
I would like to thank the civil servants in the Commission for the work that they have done on this.
<P>
In particular, I want to draw attention to a number of points that have been highlighted by the Commission and which Mr Gasòliba has taken up in his own text.
The first question is in relation to investment.
The Commission have recognized in the Annual Economic Report the fact that during this period of consolidation we have seen a very serious fall in the level of investment, and in particular public investment, within the European Union and the Commission themselves recommend that Member States must be very cautious that during the period of consolidation not to completely undermine public investment.
We should seek ways to boost that, in particular, by public-private partnerships.
I hope that Commissioner de Silguy will press this point when he meets the Finance Ministers to discuss the conclusions of the European Parliament's report and the Commission's text.
<P>
In particular, in relation to monetary policy, we made the point earlier in the debate on economic and monetary union, that under Article 105 of the Treaty when price stability is guaranteed then the monetary authority can address the wider objectives of the European Union.
We want a monetary policy that will help to promote employment and growth within the European Union.
The Commission have mentioned this in their text in a very clear way and we want to make sure that the monetary authorities in Europe, particularly the European Central Bank, address this point too.
<P>
In addition, for the first time in the Commission's report they also highlight the fact that the European Union is largely an internal trading community.
90 % of our GDP is generated by internal trade within the European Union.
For the first time the Commission have said that the macroeconomic policy of the European Union must be based upon stimulating internal demand within the fifteen Member States.
<P>
In the broad economic guidelines we want specific proposals from the Commission on how we stimulate internal demand within the European Union.
It is not a question of international trade, it is a question of internal demand.
<P>
Let me say, finally, I particularly welcome the fact that we have held these two debates today.
I believe we are not only looking at a monetary union but we are looking at an economic union and it is right today that we should address the process of establishing a monetary union at the same time as we deal with the Annual Economic Report of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Gallagher">
First I would like to welcome the Gasòliba Report on the Annual Economic Report from which I believe it is clear that within the European Union there has been stable economic growth since 1996.
Investment growth is estimated to be about 4.7 % in 1998 and, hopefully, 5.5 % in 1999.
2.5 %, of course, of the domestic demand is forecast for the next two years.
<P>
A small but stable growth in unemployment has been registered and 1997 is at a new level.
The macroeconomic pillars for the future coordination of national economic policies would, of course, be based on a monetary policy for the stability of prices and reduction of public debt.
<P>
What is important about all this is that we can be assured of low inflation and interest rates and in my own country, Ireland, the public deficit has been reduced by 11 % of GNP since the 1980s and the public debt has been reduced from 115 % to 65 % in the same period.
But it is also true, thankfully, that the situation is improving elsewhere within the Union.
<P>
It is clear for Ireland that EMU will result in continued growth, job creation, low inflation, low interest rates and elimination of transaction costs.
It is good for mortgage-holders, businesses and a country like Ireland exporting a substantial percentage of our goods to other parts of Europe that we will now have the same currency.
<P>
It will be helpful, of course, for tourism which is also so important for our country.
It will stifle, of course, currency speculators and we recall only too vividly the situation which we had a few years ago.
<P>
In conclusion, congratulations to Mr Gasòliba on the presentation of a fine report in the Annual Economic Report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Mr President, the Annual Economic Report for 1998 should have been an opportunity to evaluate the roads we have travelled along and to correct strategies and policies.
Those opportunities have been missed, because the road to the euro has acquired such real and symbolic significance that it has dented, if not destroyed, our ability to evaluate, and, a fortiori , to correct and retrace our steps.
<P>
The Gasòliba report adopts the stance that has virtually become dogma, namely that the euro and the Stability Pact are essential tools for growth and job creation, and that the obstacles preventing these tools from doing their work are non-labour costs, lack of adaptability on the part of workers, and over-regulation.
If we could dispose of those obstacles, uncouple the ECB from the economic situation and co-ordinate economic policies under the iron collar of the budget, we would be in 'euro-Eldorado' .
<P>
That is not the way we see it.
We are worried about the emphasis placed on wage differentiation in this scenario, in the way it is in the United States.
There is a clear tendency for gaps to widen - and the American 'model' would accelerate that tendency.
That is why we are pleased to note that the rapporteur considers the American case too extreme to be used as a model.
We also want to draw attention to our amendments: a tax on speculative capital profits, a reduction in working hours without loss of pay and an evaluation of how the development of EMU will affect unemployment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Soltwedel-Schäfer">
Mr President, this is a question not only of economic growth, but of economic growth which makes sense.
A European economic policy means a socio-ecological market economy.
This requires not only the rapid introduction of the energy tax - and here I would thank Mr Monti for his energetic work - but also a social and environmental situation and also a Union.
What has the annual report to do with the frightening percentages achieved by a right-wing party in Germany?
A great deal.
Unemployment and youth unemployment create helplessness, and the right wing parties in Germany and throughout Europe benefit from that.
<P>
On 2 May we will celebrate the historic creation of a single European currency here in the European Parliament.
This is good and I am delighted about it.
In conclusion, I would like to say that I am happy because it will be an historic fact and because monetary union, which in ten years' time will be taken for granted, will be rid of its doom and gloom merchants, including those in my own group!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Angelilli">
Mr President, I congratulate you on the Gasòliba report on the Annual Economic Report because it showed clearly, on the basis of the Commission's information, major obstacles to European economic growth and employment.
Excessive tax and administrative burdens borne in particular by SMEs in the face of increasingly fierce international competition, inadequate vocational training, excessive rigidity of the labour market, preventing the development of new job opportunities and high non-wage labour costs reduce companies' capacity to invest and grow.
<P>
I cannot entirely agree with several points made in the report, however, particularly the assessment of the reduction in working hours, dealt with in paragraphs 39 and 40 of the report.
While in keeping with the principle of subsidiarity paragraph 39 confirms the inadvisability of a compulsory reduction in working time throughout the European Union, the following paragraph 40 provides a series of reflections.
In the first part of the text of paragraph 40, we read that Parliament "is in favour of reductions in the working time...when suitable' .
Obviously, such a definition lends itself to more than one interpretation.
In fact, the general and abstract formulation of a principle of a need to reduce working hours seems destined to generate misunderstandings and ambiguities, for not only is it absolutely general but there is no specific reference in the report to the assumption of a reduction in working hours as a matter of necessity.
<P>
In short, paragraph 40 can be read as meaning it is the prerogative of each individual state to identify a general principle of need to impose an indiscriminate reduction in working hours over the entire national territory.
This latter assumption contradicts the considerations expressed in the Commission's report which, indicating the risks of the so-called statutory 35hour week, limited itself to admitting reductions in working hours only at microeconomic level or through negotiations between the social partners.
<P>
To conclude, owing to its general nature, paragraph 40 seems to be the result of a confused political agreement.
Consequently, on the basis of the considerations listed, I call on Parliament to vote against paragraph 40 of the Gasòliba report.
In addition to this, I would like to hear Commissioner de Silguy's assessment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Metten">
Mr President, those who believe that the euro and the uniform monetary policy which we will have from 1 January next year will automatically yield all sorts of benefits, are seriously mistaken.
A monetary policy requires a coordinated and intelligent economic policy.
Without this a great deal can go wrong.
In short, the lack of commitment to a coordinated economic policy really must be brought to an end.
<P>
I would like to give you an example. The European Central Bank will in practice direct its monetary policy at the average rate of inflation within the euro area.
For each individual country this means that internal low inflation coupled with rising inflation elsewhere could lead to higher interest rates, and could act as a brake on economic development.
In short, every country taking part in EMU has an interest in other euro countries keeping their inflation down, otherwise the independent ECB will punish them unrelentingly, with negative consequences for the low inflation countries as well.
<P>
Fortunately, the Member States have sufficient instruments at their disposal to keep inflation down, for example by taking specific tax measures when the economy threatens to overheat.
Sometimes pressure will be needed to take these undoubtedly unpopular measures in good time, in the interest of the others as well.
The global guidelines for economic policy covering the policy mix at European level and within the Member States will thus be given overriding importance.
If this is to become successful it must have political support.
This means that parliaments must be able to exert genuine influence.
In order to close the existing democratic gap, an interinstitutional agreement, as requested by this Parliament two weeks ago, is urgently needed.
<P>
An important characteristic of the Europe of the single currency is that it is dependent on a mere 10 % of external trade.
This means that we can determine our own prosperity or lack of it.
The policy mix at European level should take into account that the euro area must take care of its own growth impulses.
Export growth will make a contribution, but in a very limited way, and this year it is actually zero.
<P>
The core recommendations of the global guidelines of recent years, namely continuous cutbacks, strict monetary policy, and wage restraint whereby the wage increase remains 1 % behind productivity increase, cannot continue unchanged. A time schedule must be set for the cutbacks, or the monetary policy or wage restraints must be relaxed.
Without suddenly breaking with the existing policy, the political message should be that growth and employment are now being given priority.
This will mean in practice that every country must be recommended its own particular policy mix , so that Europe as a whole is able to pursue a policy aimed at growth and job creation which does not jeopardize inflation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, I wish to say that the economic policy of 1998 has been sealed by the introduction of the euro and I think that the move towards the euro is pervaded by a broad conflict. On the one hand, we have the unilateral adherence of the leaders of the Member States and of the European Union to the financial criteria, the public debt.
This is now reaching gigantic proportions.
We are talking of stability agreements that will last ten years.
On the other hand, we have the anguish of the European communities concerning employment, which, I believe, was expressed with a very strong warning during the elections in Saxony, and we have to take account of the fact that one out of four young people voted for the extreme right.
<P>
From this viewpoint, we are in total disagreement with the position of the Commission.
In the report by Mr Gasòliba I Böhm I can see that there is an orientation towards issues of development and employment, but I fear that this positive orientation of the rapporteur is being sacrificed in the name of consensus.
In this sense, there are blatant contradictions: in paragraph 40 we are for the reduction of working hours; in paragraph 39 we are against; in paragraph 25 we do not want a reduction in the wage of unskilled workers; in paragraph 26 we do.
I think that a clearer orientation is called for, that this unilateral policy should be broken and that we should endeavour to make the euro popular rather than detested by the citizens of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, in spite of this report's rather over-optimistic slant, it covers all the relevant points with great clarity.
Given that - as everyone knows - Europe's main problem is excessive unemployment, and we must realise that it is essentially a structural problem.
The competitiveness of the European economy frankly leaves a lot to be desired.
We must, therefore, urgently increase resources for research and for the promotion of state-of-the-art technology both at European and national level.
We must place at the top of the agenda measures to promote competition favouring small and mediumsized enterprises, including a decrease in their administrative burden and an easing of access to risk capital.
The issue of occasionally but obviously excessive fringe benefits and the reduction of the tax burden on work will be priorities for European economic policy over the coming years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Mr President, the report from the European Commission and the report by Mr Gasòliba I Böhm clearly emphasize that we are making preparations for using the opportunities of globalization and of European integration to favour growth, investment and employment, and to contribute to an increase in prosperity and social justice in the European Union.
It is clear both in this Annual Economic Report and in the report by Mr Gasòliba I Böhm that we have come through the period of confrontation, with supply-side policy on the one hand and demand-orientated measures on the other.
We believe that in the European Union we need measures both in the areas of macro and micro policy, and also supply-side and demand-orientated policies.
<P>
A range of measures is on the table which ought to be used.
We know that we can only follow this approach through to ensure a high level of employment, as is rightly required and emphasized by Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union - as well as through the employment chapter in the Treaty of Amsterdam, the resolutions of the Employment Summit and the strategies during the British Presidency of the Council and the forthcoming Austrian Presidency which we hope will point the way - if, together with structural policy and measures in the labour market, education and training policies, a further basket of measures makes economic growth of 3 % to 3.5 % possible.
<P>
The introduction of monetary union on time is certainly indispensable, since exchange-rate fluctuations in the internal market which are economically damaging will then cease, a better policy mix will be possible and it will also be possible to avoid conflicts between budget and monetary policies.
However, above all, and I would again like to express my support for this, at last it will be possible to devise coordinated economic policies worthy of their name.
Up to now, the fundamentals of economic policy have required nothing from any Member State.
I hope in the wake of this Annual Economic Report and this debate in the European Parliament that the coordination of economic policies in the European Union will finally make it plain that political union also means joint economic policy which is in the common interest and which stimulates growth, investment and employment.
I would like once more to stress that the extent of the reduction in public investment is irresponsible!
We must, therefore, take more account of the stimulant of public investments for private investments and move forward in this area; otherwise, it will be impossible to achieve the growth in employment which we urgently need in the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Carlsson">
Mr President, even before it has come into force, monetary union is a success.
It accelerated necessary debt rescheduling which is now leading to increased growth in the European economy, and which has also increased self-confidence in the EU.
<P>
In order to take full advantage of EMU and to strengthen our competitiveness and the conditions for prosperity in Europe, policies must be directed at structural reform.
Budget reorganization has affected the everyday lives of the citizens.
Now a correctly designed structural policy can create better conditions for the EU and its inhabitants.
The remarkable thing is that structural reforms which cost nothing appear to be more difficult to accept than budget reorganization, probably because they challenge strong special interests.
That is why I would like to congratulate the Commissioner on a courageous document which discusses the importance of reformed labour markets which work better.
I am pleased about this and would also like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Gasòliba I Böhm, whose report shows that we in Parliament are prepared to accept and make a constructive contribution to the essential debate and to accelerate the decisions which need to be taken in order for people to be able to reform inflexible markets with far too many left over monopolies.
<P>
I also think that the Commission's report is worth drawing attention to as far as the annexes of statistical information are concerned.
The aim of the report is not to assess the development of individual countries, but the columns speak clearly.
We can see how countries whose political leadership has neglected and delayed modernization of the labour market in particular have increased the tax burden and thus reduced levels of employment and reduced common resources.
On the other hand, we can see how other countries which make proper use of the new conditions are able to increase growth, employment and prosperity.
Let these figures and the Commission's reasoning represent both alarm bells and carrots when the work on the economic guidelines is completed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Hernández Mollar">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the fact that the Commission's 1998 report is entitled for the first time "Growth and Employment in the Stability-Oriented Framework of EMU' is very important. I also want to underline, as some of my colleagues have already done, the historical importance to all European citizens of the momentous decision we the representatives of the European people are going to adopt in this Parliament on 2 May to introduce the new currency.
<P>
It is also true that the Treaty of Amsterdam and the Luxembourg Summit marked a "before' and "after' in the employment policies of each Member State.
But we have to realize that the people of Europe are hoping that our political debates will materialize into concrete deeds, so that our young people, our women, our long-term unemployed and disabled - the sectors suffering the worst unemployment - see a fulfilment of their logical hopes of being able to work and develop personally and socially in the new Europe we are all building.
<P>
It is also important, ladies and gentlemen, that we have almost achieved a general consensus on the measures to adopt to improve the worrying unemployment figures suffered by the European Union as a whole.
But along with the nominal economic convergence already achieved, we also need much more progress in the social convergence which facilitates the strengthening of the internal market, the breaking down of language and cultural barriers which hinder worker mobility and the harmonization of social security systems. These, together with a far-reaching reform of education and training systems, can allow our citizens to adapt to the demands not just of the national job markets but of the whole European market.
At the same time, the new European society also has to adapt with almost breathtaking speed to the new technologies which surprise us daily and which call for a radical change in the traditional concept of work and business.
For example, teleworking, electronic commerce, telemedicine or the development of the Internet itself call for a major effort on the part of the Member States so that our young people in particular can adapt to this mutation within society.
<P>
In short, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let us ensure that the Europe of the euro is the Europe of work, solidarity and wellbeing.
If these objectives fail, it will be the failure of we who on Saturday will be turning European history on its head.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, the Commission's annual report states that a long-term economic revival has begun.
Exports are increasing and the euro will have a favourable exchange rate with the US dollar.
It is now up to us to shape a European Economic and Monetary Union which is based on employment, public investment and increased competitiveness in Europe.
<P>
Although the Commission's annual report ignores the difficulties the crisis in Asia is causing for the European economy, the Commission has succeeded in compiling a very competent and comprehensive document.
It is, however, rather rash to discuss the five-year economic situation without, for example, carrying out detailed cost analyses.
I only hope the future proves as rosy.
<P>
The rapporteur says it is important to create a means of making comparisons in investment and employment throughout the Union.
I think the level of public investment at present in the Union is totally insufficient to improve European competitiveness.
Actually, it is quite obvious that public investment gives encouragement to private investment, for example in infrastructure financing.
<P>
The Commission's proposal to reduce VAT in labour-intensive sectors is most worthwhile.
I myself have often spoken of a transaction tax on currency trading, which is a very lucrative business.
Furthermore, Jacques Delors and many others have proposed this.
In this way we could introduce tax relief systems for sectors that employ large numbers of workers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pérez Royo">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first I want to add my congratulations to those being expressed generally to my colleague and good friend Carles-Alfred Gasòliba I Böhm for his report and for the flexibility with which he has incorporated the amendments.
This is a balanced report, which properly identifies the main lines of action in economic policy at Union level and makes well-placed comments or clarifications in relation to the Commission's report.
<P>
I want to add a few comments to back up what I have just said.
Firstly, there is the reference to employment, which is treated at length, with the accent placed on growth, investment and structural reforms, including an interesting reference to the concept of employability which was popularized by New Labour - Tony Blair's Labour Party - and is becoming a keyword in the employment debate.
<P>
Secondly, the report insists on the need to coordinate the economic policy of the Member States within the monetary union.
We would like to deepen that coordination to the point of having a real economic government of the Union, to serve as a counterweight to the monetary authority. However, it is not just a question of a counterweight, but also a matter of achieving an economic government able to extract the full potential of the new panorama being created with the introduction of the single currency.
<P>
Thirdly, I think it is important to stress the insistence on investment as an essential element for growth and to improve competitiveness.
On this point, I completely agree with what Alan Donnelly said a little while ago.
<P>
Fourthly, another point in the Gasòliba report which deserves mention is its strong support for maintaining the European social model, as set out in paragraph 25.
<P>
Finally, although I could add more, I will conclude by saying that I am pleased with the realistic approach to the question of reduced working hours, that is, the 35-hour week.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Hendrick">
Mr President, I congratulate the rapporteur on an excellent report.
The Commission report was extremely optimistic.
It talked about a renewed upturn in the spring of 1996 which is gathering momentum and is expected to turn into a self-sustained expansion.
I would like to err on the side of caution.
The Commission talks about this being driven by demand from outside the EU and clearly it has taken into consideration the recent developments in Asia.
The developments in Asia have not stopped and Japan, in particular, is in difficulty and I predict its difficulties will increase.
<P>
I do not know exactly how much the Commission has revised its growth figures as a result of what has happened in Asia but the potential for catastrophe has not gone.
The Commission also claims a virtuous circle in terms of the economy for three reasons: the favourable monetary conditions, strengthened internal demand and improved confidence.
My criticism of the report from the Commission is that it does little in the form of positive policy support for the strengthening of internal demand.
How can we tackle unemployment if we do not create the conditions for internal demand, in particular at a time when external demand from Asia may be significantly reduced.
The Commission is relying on endogenous growth and it is a leap of faith which I fear many European citizens will not make.
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I was elected to this Parliament in 1994 when the Delors report was all the rage and we had a quest to reduce unemployment by 15 million by the year 2000.
We are not being totally honest with the European public because unemployment in the European Union has not been reduced by anywhere near that amount.
People have memories and while we accept that 2 to 3 % growth will take place, it is not near enough to the 4 % that the US has consistently experienced to create the millions of jobs that it has to.
I want to see Europe create millions of jobs, too.
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<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="de Silguy">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all my congratulations go to Mr Gasòliba I Böhm on his excellent report inviting us to reflect on the options to be considered for the broad guidelines of 1998 economic policy, which the Commission will present on 13 May this year.
The broad guidelines of economic policy will be the first post-euro guidelines and for this reason they are important.
They are also the first to fall within the framework of the Luxembourg European Council's conclusions on employment.
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Thus, the Commission's Annual Economic Report is presented this year as a first stage in the formulation of these broad guidelines.
It is an important exercise and I am glad that you organized a meeting with economic experts on 17 March to prepare this report.
I can assure you that the Commission will take your observations and suggestions duly into account when drawing up its proposal.
Since it is getting late, I would like to reply very rapidly to the questions which have been raised and say a few words on the state of the European economy before reminding you of, or outlining, the Commission's principle recommendations.
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With regard to the state of the European economy, the recovery which commenced in the spring of 1996 is gaining momentum and should lead to a process of self-sustained growth.
This will have a favourable impact on employment which, nevertheless, remains one of our main concerns, as you know.
Mr Hendrick, I could say to you that we are not over optimistic.
Our growth forecasts correspond in general to those laid down by the large international institutions.
Last March we revised them downwards slightly, to 0.2 points for 1998 and 0.1 points for 1999, in order to take into account the effects of the Asian crisis.
Having said this, growth will nevertheless be 2.7 % in 1997 and 2.8 % in 1998. This is already an improvement.
The Commission is following the situation in Asia closely, particularly with regard to Japan, international trade and sectoral aspects of the crisis, where we have identified eight sectors in particular which seem to be the most exposed.
We are following this closely.
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I would like to echo here one of your rapporteur's requests, in collaboration moreover, with what I believe Mr Paasilinna mentioned.
You must not believe that the Commission does not consider the risks which could threaten its central scenario.
On the contrary, the Commission has taken serious note of your suggestion for an alternative scenario and a medium-term analysis.
I can assure you that it will make an effort to reply to this over the coming years.
But today, Europe's growth is based increasingly on its own strengths, on internal demand.
This issue was raised by Mrs Randzio-Plath, Mr Paasilinna, Mr Pérez Royo, Mr Donnelly and Mr Metten amongst others.
Private consumption is increasing, from 2 % in 1996 to 2.6 % in 1998 and 1999.
It is reassuring for the development of domestic demand.
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Similarly, investment levels have been supported above what was forecast and capital investment will increase from 6.4 % in 1998 to 7 % in 1999.
This is compared with 4.4 % in 1997.
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These figures are the result of a return of confidence.
On this point, I would like to clarify to Mr Donnelly that it is true that public investment as a percentage of GDP has fallen from 2.9 % in 1990 to 2.2 % in 1997, and that this trend must not continue.
The Commission has taken every opportunity of stating this and, in particular, we will insist on this point in the new broad guidelines for 1998 economic policy.
This said, do not underestimate the impact of investment because of the cofinancing of certain investments in the private sector, which can give a slightly distorted view of the figures.
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Finally, on this aspect of demand, I will say to Mr Metten that demand must not, all the same, be artificially stimulated by new budget deficits or overly rapid increases in salaries.
This would pose a threat to the recovery which our economy has benefited from over a number of years, and we would lapse into a situation of deficit, with the consequence of higher interest rates and the ensuing negative effects on growth and employment.
Thus, the economic strategy advocated by the Commission, which is also advocated by the monitoring which Member States have been carrying out for a number of years, is beginning to bear fruit, particularly in terms of job creation.
In reply to Mr van Velzen: look at the figures.
Europe created 600 000 jobs in 1997.
On the basis of our forecasts, another 2 800 000 should be created in 1998 and 1999 meaning that, in total, we will have created 3 400 000 jobs over three years.
It is encouraging, even though I am aware that it will not compensate for the 4 500 000 job losses registered throughout the 1990s.
These figures illustrate the need to promote more sustainable, employment-creating growth.
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Mr Gasòliba suggests using benchmarks for this.
Allow me to remind you that the Commission's recommendation for the first guidelines on employment contained quantifiable objectives, and it was the Council which did not accept them and which did not follow the Commission in this matter.
But to promote growth which provides more jobs remains the essential objective of the broad guidelines of economic policy and it is the second point I would like to touch upon very rapidly with you now.
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At the request of the Amsterdam European Council, the broad guidelines for economic policy for 1998 will emphasize the need for better coordination of macroeconomic policies and structural measures.
These two policies are inseparable if you want to promote growth and employment, as the rapporteur rightly pointed out.
With regard to macroeconomic policy, we had the opportunity of discussing this in the previous report and so I will not go into the details.
Mrs Randzio-Plath is right.
We must avoid confrontation between a supply policy and a demand policy.
The Commission has always tried to do this.
I have noted over the past few years that the broad guidelines of economic policy advocate a stable macroeconomic framework within Economic and Monetary Union, of which the three pillars are, naturally, a monetary policy based on price stability, the durable consolidation of public finances and a salary policy compatible with price stability and a return on investment.
EMU and the euro will strengthen this stable economic framework for all the Member States.
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In this respect, I am glad the European Parliament supports that strategy.
But beyond this macroeconomic policy, in order to produce the maximum effect in terms of jobs, this framework must be complemented by structural reforms, reforms firstly at the level of the market for goods and services.
In order to invest, businessmen must not be discouraged from the start by overly bureaucratic regulations.
Similarly, greater growth should also bring about greater demand for labour.
There still exist too many administrative rigidities, too many administrative formalities, access to the capital markets is still too difficult for small and medium-sized enterprises in Europe, as the rapporteur noted.
I remember, nevertheless, that on 31 March the Commission proposed an action plan on access to capital investment on the part of small and medium-sized enterprises.
This action plan will be implemented as from autumn 1998 if, of course, the Heads of State or Government approve it in Cardiff.
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Reforms are also necessary in the labour market.
A number of options must be examined including the reduction of non-wage labour costs, it being understood that, for budgetary reasons, only a reduction in non-wage labour costs targeted at the bottom of the salary scale is possible. In any case, this is only realistic if accompanied by a containment of social expenditure.
The second option is salary differentiation. Is it right that the unemployment rate in 25 regions of the European Union should be less than 5 % whilst in 25 others it is more than 22 %?
This leads us to consider the problem of salary differentiation depending on productivity levels and according to regional skills, even sectors of activity.
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The final option which has been mentioned, and I must say a word about it, is the reduction of working time.
I believe it was Mrs Angelilli who particularly questioned me on this matter.
We must beware of ready-made slogans and ideas on this issue.
A reduction in working time could have complex and contradictory effects on employment for, contrary to a generally accepted idea, employment is not a fixed quantity.
It is, on the contrary, an endogenous variable in the economic system, which fluctuates according to all the other variables.
We therefore have to be careful and to weigh up all the consequences of the measures to be taken.
A reduction in working time may encourage employment, but only under certain conditions.
Here, too, we must remember that it must not have consequences for the recovery of public finances and it must be neutral from the point of view of the cost borne by companies.
We must, in fact, avoid a reduction in company profitability, as this could cause a reduction in investment, with negative effects on employment in the long run. It should also be avoided if such a reduction implies a lowering of salaries within the companies concerned.
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In any case, with regard to a reduction in working time, I would say that this subject cannot be dealt with in a general manner nor out of context.
It must be assessed within the overall context of work organization.
This issue is for negotiation between the social partners at a microeconomic level - the branch or the company - as I think the rapporteur mentioned.
But beyond a particular interest in specific measures, a reduction in unemployment can only be achieved through the steady continuation over a period of time of global, coherent and specific policies which, as Mr Caudron highlighted, cover aspects of research, education and training.
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In conclusion, I would say that this exercise of drawing up broad guidelines for economic policy is set within the structure of the issue of employment, and the objective is clearly to define a framework which is propitious to growth and employment, whilst assuring the smooth running of Economic and Monetary Union.
All of this is not contradictory.
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Mr President, rapporteur, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission thanks the House for its contribution to these reflections and I can assure you that it will take your recommendations into account in drawing up the broad guidelines for economic policy.
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<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Soltwedel-Schäfer">
Mr President, Commissioner, the link has been made twice or even three times here between unemployment, lack of hope and right-wing voters, to the applause of the House.
May I ask you kindly what your response to this is, for I believe that you are just as frightened and troubled as we are at the German result of 13.6 % for the German People's Union, financed by one person, a right-wing party without an agenda.
I would like to hear your opinion on this subject.
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<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="de Silguy">
I can answer very clearly that unemployment is the scourge of Europe.
The problem of unemployment will not be solved by increasing deficits, indeed past experience has demonstrated the complete opposite.
The greatest growth has been experienced in those countries which have reduced their deficit, thus enabling the creation of more jobs. Take the example of the Netherlands or Ireland.
But this is not sufficient to solve the unemployment problem.
The very roots of the problem also have to be tackled.
That is why coherent structural policies must be pursued.
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On a political level, it seems to me rather easy, for populist aims, for the aims of politicians, to look for scapegoats, to look for people responsible where there are none.
Let us not try to lay the blame on Europe when, at the moment, it is through Europe, through greater Europeanism, and through more concerted actions at European level that we will manage to conquer the scourge of unemployment.
But it will take time.
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<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
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The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
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<CHAPTER ID=9>
Textiles and the clothing industry
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions to the Council and to the Commission on textiles and the clothing industry, by the following Members:
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Soltwedel-Schäfer, Hautala and Wolf (B4-0273/98 and B4-0274/98), on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament; -Puerta and Ribeiro (B4-0275/98 and B4-0276/98), on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left; -Ferrer (B4-0277/98 and B4-0278/98), on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party; -Gasòliba i Böhm (B4-0284/98 and B4-0285/98), on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party; -Pasty, Azzolini, Kaklamanis, Podestà, Donnay, Girão Pereira, Viceconte, Arroni, Gallagher, Garosci, Mezzaroma and Guinebertière (B4-0386/98 and B4-0387/98), on behalf of the Groupe Forza Europa; -Sainjon (B4-0462/98), on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance.
<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Soltwedel-Schäfer">
Mr President, this will now go forward to the Council and the Commission.
You have before you my motions for an amendment.
Briefly, they concern increasing the ecological awareness of the whole textile industry.
This is not the first time that I have raised this topic.
There are detailed debates and discussions on this subject, including some with Commissioner Bangemann.
So I would ask what plans the Commission has and what procedure the Council intends to implement in terms of urgently increasing the ecological orientation of the textile industry, for example, in relation to the removal of pollutants in textiles themselves which can lead to allergies, and in relation to the danger to employees in manufacturing these products, as well as the danger to the environment through air, soil and water pollution?
Mr Bangemann told me here a year ago that there was a working group dealing with this issue.
Guidelines were being drawn up.
That is one thing.
My various inquiries to the Commission - in writing, too - have produced no response, in other words, there is no answer to them.
I would like to hear what you have to say about this.
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I have one final point about child labour.
As you know, child labour in the clothing and textile industries, particularly in Portugal, is mentioned in a wide range of opinions by the European Parliament.
This is a dreadful phenomenon in Europe, and I would ask you to clarify your position on this too.
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<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Mr President, representatives of the Council and the Commission, the oral questions, and the resolution that has come from them, are an attempt to send a clear signal from this House to the Industry Council on 7 May, which, we hope, will be assessing the Commission's proposal on a 'plan of action to increase the competitiveness of the European textile and clothing industry' .
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The purpose of this regulation formula is to tell you that neither by omission nor by mere observance of a ritual abandon will Parliament abandon its duty to state its opinion on the competitiveness of a major industry like textiles and clothing, which is of vital importance to the economy and jobs in some Member States.
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It is also intended to express our dissatisfaction with what the Commission has called a 'plan of action' , which it is not.
It may be a strategic reflection document, but if it is to be a plan of action it needs projects, timetables, and the allocation of funds.
Furthermore, it would have been sufficient to give it that status, and allow it to be debated as such, if some of the recommendations expressed by our social partners in their reports had been approved.
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Then again, it amounts to a declaration of those things Parliament regards as necessary and urgent.
For our part, we want an approach that is neither fragmented nor unbalanced, one that covers the industry as a whole, as a production line , with special attention to labour-intensive activities.
We want competitiveness in the industry in order to fight against unfair and unbalanced competition, especially where social conditions are concerned, and that means we have to adopt ILO-based social clauses in our bilateral and multilateral planning.
We want certification of social and environmental conditions, and we want national certificates recognized at European Union level.
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To make the industry competitive we also want incentives for new products and technology, better access to foreign markets, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, more training, particularly for female workers, but the list and details of these matters, and others, will be found in the report we are in the course of preparing.
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Finally, this regulation formula is intended to tell you that we in Parliament are drawing up a report based on the Commission's document.
This is being taken seriously because it has the weight of an institutional statement demanding the right to participate in processes of this kind and have its work taken into account; if only because this 'construction of Europe' would be a poor thing if a matter as important as the competitiveness of the textile and clothing industry went no further than the document the Commission has submitted.
The process must go on, and the European Parliament must take part in it. That is Parliament's duty and it is what the industry demands and needs .
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<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Ferrer">
Mr President, I want to begin by saying that I regret the fact that the Industry Council planned to make a statement on the Commission communication about measures to favour competitiveness in the textiles and clothing sector without waiting to hear Parliament's position on that communication.
So the purpose of this debate is very clear: to indicate the main lines of action that Parliament thinks should be proposed to increase competitiveness and thereby guarantee the survival of the European textile and clothing sector.
In contrast to what some people might think, this sector is neither in crisis nor headed towards extinction.
In fact, thanks to the reorganizations which have taken place, the quality of its products and designs and its ability to respond rapidly, the textile and clothing sector is today ready to confront the great challenge of international competitiveness and face the future with optimism.
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Therefore, the Group of the European People's Party thinks that the Commission and the Council should place more emphasis on effective reciprocal access to third-country markets. The accompanying action plan does not go far enough in this respect.
Do the Commission and the Council realize that in total it is estimated that there are 600 tariff barriers hindering the free export of Community textile products?
If the Council and the Commission really want to favour the competitiveness of the textile and clothing sector, they should demand that third countries respect the rules and disciplines of GATT, propose effective and flexible coordinated measures to combat fraud and the falsification of certificates of origin, protect industrial property, and get third countries to respect basic social and environmental rules.
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It is true that many other measures are needed - in the area of research and development, for example, and in training - but no measure will be effective if there is not real access to the international markets and respect by everybody for the same rules of play.
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To conclude, Mr President, I want to say how frustrated my group is at the draft conclusions prepared by the Council, which absolutely fail to respond to the needs of a key sector. So I beg the Council to think again and take account of the opinions of this Parliament.
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<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gasòliba i Böhm">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think it is significant that the whole political spectrum represented within this Parliament is worried about the future of the European textile and clothing industry.
I believe that the fact that different political views are united in expressing this concern shows the importance of this sector which, on the one hand, has a very long tradition in European industrial development and, on the other hand, is characterized by something so important at the moment that it has not escaped anybody's attention - something we have addressed in our earlier debates this afternoon: the ability to generate employment.
So the social dimension of the textile and clothing industry should also be taken into consideration.
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The crux of the various speeches is a request to the Commission and the Council to do something to guarantee the continuity of the textile industry, under the best possible conditions.
It is not a question of maintaining it in its current situation.
It is not just a question of helping it to survive.
It is a matter of providing it with a series of mechanisms to guarantee its competitiveness in an open market which is becoming increasingly competitive in the global economy in which we operate.
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So we are putting a series of proposals to the Commission.
Firstly, we need to ensure that technological innovation, technological improvements and access to new technologies - basically, information technology and electronic commerce - can be applied correctly within the textile industry, and that the Commission analyses it.
Another very important aspect is that the whole production chain should be considered, not just a few specific subsectors of the industry.
And thirdly, it is also very important to ensure that people receive the appropriate training so that - I repeat - the competitiveness of the European textile industry can allow it to survive and maintain the employment level we all want.
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<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Novo Belenguer">
Mr President, the textile industry is very important to the European Union but is also very delicate, as my companions have already said.
It is important because it is a basic industry in many Structural Fund Objective 1 regions and provides work for more than two million citizens of the European Union.
And it is delicate because of its disheartening statistics.
More than 600 000 jobs have been lost in the sector over the last six years and, according to forecasts, more than 800 000 will be lost in the short term.
This is a dramatic time for the sector.
We in this Parliament should denounce the situation and announce urgent remedies.
No matter what sector we are talking about, we cannot continue to have unfair competition and constant dumping in the European market, with adverse effects on our businesses and, finally, our people.
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The current state of the European textile sector has partly arisen as a result of infringement of international and Community market rules, such as those relating to respect for the environment, and social and intellectual protection.
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I have already mentioned the importance of the textile industry in most of the Objective 1 regions, the least developed of the European Union.
Perhaps for that reason, those regions are very vulnerable, not just to the effects of dumping we are complaining about here, but also to the Community market policy itself, with the recent entry into force of agreements with third countries such as Turkey, or liberalization with regard to countries in the east.
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The entry into effect of the second phase of the WTO textile agreement is particularly important, since it opens the way for a greater liberalization of the market.
All these factors are hitting our Community textile industry.
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At least the Commission's document on textiles in the European Union is necessary and important. However, it lacks a real plan of action which takes account of all the difficulties currently being experienced by the textile industry and the Objective 1 regions and does not include a real policy of economic and social cohesion.
And this is where we must insist and call upon the Commission to implement a Community policy which meets the needs of our textile industry and, above all, the needs of the regions involved.
It would be a good move for the Commission to increase the funding in Agenda 2000 and provide continuity for the Retex programme, which is so important for the sector.
That could only improve the competitiveness of our textile industry and of the regions concerned, while making a positive contribution - as we have already said - to economic and social cohesion within the European Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="Griffiths">
Mr President, I should first like to thank the five honourable Members for tabling and speaking to their questions and the five other honourable Members who have stayed to hear the replies and for giving the Council the opportunity to reaffirm its support for this vitally important European industry.
The Council is very aware of the challenges which face all European industry in a world of increasing globalization and new technologies.
It has recognized that competitiveness in European industry provides the very foundation for growth, creating jobs and raising living standards for us all.
The European clothing and textile industry is a key economic sector in Europe in terms of production and employment.
The Council has always recognized the need for Community support to ensure the competitiveness of this sector of the economy.
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In this context it might be helpful if I set out some of the background to the current initiatives.
The guidelines governing the Community's policies in this area were defined by the Council in 1994.
These guidelines established a general framework for European industrial strategy in the textile and clothing sector.
The strategy was devised to take particular account of the specific features which characterize each industry.
These guidelines established a general framework for European industrial strategy in the textile and clothing sector and the current initiatives in the textile sector can be traced back to the conclusions of the Industry Council of 28 March and 14 November 1996. These concerned, respectively, the impact of international developments on the Community's textile and clothing sector and also on the competitiveness of subcontracting in the textile and clothing industry in the European Union.
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These conclusions were followed up on 3 November 1997 by a Commission communication entitled Action Plan to increase the Competitiveness of the European Textile and Clothing Industry.
That communication was prepared in the context of the dialogue which has been taking place at the Commission's initiative between the parties involved in the textile and clothing sector and, in particular, the national and Community public authorities and the social partners.
The Commission's action plan defines a number of priority areas on which the actions of different parties concerned should focus.
It is currently being examined within the relevant Council bodies and it is on the agenda of the next meeting of the Industry Council on 7 May 1998.
At this stage the presidency envisages that the Industry Council will make an initial response to the Commission's communication in the form of conclusions.
These would spell out the Council's position on the initiatives identified by the Commission as areas for priority action.
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All the issues raised by the five honourable Members today are highlighted as areas of activity within that plan.
In particular, the Council will want to consider five key questions: jobs and training; the development and dissemination of new products, methods and equipment in the communication and information technologies; the proper operation of the internal market; access to the markets of third countries and strict compliance with the rules and disciplines freely accepted under international agreements; and regional development.
Honourable Members and in particular Mr Ribeiro have raised the question of the precise resources required for training if the competitiveness of the textile and clothing industry is to be improved.
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The Commission's action plan does not contain details on which to base an assessment of its financial consequences.
The initiative suggested will be funded from within the current budgetary framework.
I commend the excellent document prepared by DG III in conjunction with Eurotex, the European Textile and Clothing Federation, which details in 91 pages and by sector where in each Member State funds can be accessed.
Although there is no suggested timetable for the initiatives under the action plan we hope to make steady progress.
We would also expect the continuation of the Commission-led dialogue with all those involved in the sector, including the Member States and the social partners.
This would help to ensure constant monitoring of progress and allow us to adapt measures to structural and economic developments.
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I will turn now to some of the more specific questions tabled today and which are not directly covered by the action plan.
Firstly, the question by Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer.
The matter of child labour is covered by many ILO conventions to which all Member States of the EU are individual parties, in particular Convention No 28 on forced labour and No 138 on child labour.
This question has also been dealt with at Community level by Council Directive 94/33/EC on the protection of young people at work, Article 1 of which states that Member States shall take the necessary measures to prohibit work by children.
Ensuring the correct implementation of this directive is a matter for individual Member States and the Commission.
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Honourable Members have also raised concerns about health and safety and the environment.
These are matters which the Council is concerned to take into account in all its policies.
Any measures taken to modernize the textile and clothing industry in the European Union will need to comply with the Community's current rules on workers' health and safety and on protection of the environment.
These would include, among others, the framework directive 80/1107/EEC on the protection of workers from the risks related to exposure to chemical, physical and biological agents at work, and all the subsequent individual directives.
Framework Council directive 89/391 on the introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the safety and health of workers at work and all the subsequent individual directives are also covered.
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Two other points were raised to which I want to respond directly.
There was a suggestion and a concern that the European Parliament has not been given an opportunity to give its opinion.
I know this Parliament will pass a resolution tomorrow and I will ensure that the Council considers this carefully before it considers its action programme at the Industry Council on 7 May.
Members were concerned about market access.
This is a key target for the action plan which asks for strict compliance with rules and disciplines under international agreements.
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In conclusion, the Commission communication has had the valuable effect of instigating a broad discussion around the idea of a genuine European strategy for the textile and clothing industry requiring the full participation of all Community institutions and bodies as well as Member States and social partners.
In that context, the Council will not fail to take account of the opinions delivered here by the European Parliament on this subject.
I look forward in particular to hearing your views during the course of this debate.
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<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="de Silguy">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am happy to be able to explain to you the Commission's position on the overall policy it is pursuing, or attempting to pursue, with regard to the textiles and clothing industry.
I will reply successively to the different aspects of the questions which have been raised, either verbally or in writing, whilst trying to be as general as possible.
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Firstly, concerning the evaluation of financial aid given to the textiles and clothing industry, this sector does not receive aid from any arrangement which would be specific to it.
We currently have a number of horizontal programmes: Retex, SME, ADAPT and Emploi , along with actions in the field of the targeted technologies and in traditional industries.
The number of applications which are approved depends on the quality of the projects and the capacity for coordination between the industry and the social partners.
With regard to all the Community initiatives, evaluation reports are currently underway, which should enable us to examine the impact of these initiatives on the modernization of the industrial fabric of the regions concerned and of the coherence of these objectives with industrial policy.
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Secondly, I want to mention sectoral adjustments, on the eve of the liberalization of world trade.
I would first of all say that this liberalization has already occurred, and it resulted in a deep restructuring and modernization of the sector. However, overall, increases in productivity, the strengthening of competitive advantages, know-how, a high value added and innovation all allow the textiles and clothing industry to safeguard its dominant position in world trade, since the sector is the world's largest exporter of textile products and the third largest exporter of clothing.
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With regard to the measures envisaged to alleviate, at regional level, the social and economic consequences of restructuring efforts, let me state that numerous instruments are available to accompany and support transformations in this sector. I am thinking in particular of the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund, which play an important role in regions where the investment and social costs of restructuring are particularly high.
That is the role of Retex, the role of the frameworks for Community initiatives or Community support frameworks.
In addition, there are programmes for training workers to adapt to industrial change, which enable stable jobs to be preserved within the Union.
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On this subject, for the new programming which will cover the period 2000-2006, the Commission approved a draft regulation on 18 March, relating to general measures for the Structural Funds.
In this draft, the Commission proposes, in particular, the implementation of a new Objective 2 which should support the economic and social redevelopment of regions faced with restructuring, especially those particularly affected by textile restructuring.
These actions, which are currently being carried out through the framework of the Retex initiative, could be renewed in the context of the new Objective 2.
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The fourth issue is child labour.
Let me remind you that Directive 94/37, relating to the protection of young people, forbids child labour in Member States.
According to this directive, the minimum age is set at 15 or 16, according to the education system in place.
Member States have had two years to transpose this directive into their national legislation.
The Commission is currently examining the notifications of each Member State to see in which states this has been carried out and how the transposition has been effected.
Furthermore, within the framework of social dialogue, the unions and management have signed a charter of good conduct relating to working conditions in the European textiles and clothing industry.
The social partners have committed themselves to assuring the promotion of this code of conduct and to following up its progressive accomplishment, particularly through an annual evaluation.
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The fifth matter is the environment and public health.
Clearly, they constitute a key factor in the modernization of the textiles and clothing industry.
Nevertheless, it is appropriate to ensure that national legislations, which are sometimes different, do not create new and possibly unjustified technical obstacles to the running of the Community market.
That is why the Commission is carrying out an examination of this issue, taking the greatest account, of course, of consumer protection and the environment. In certain cases, harmonization at Community level is insufficient, for example, this is the case with azo dyes.
In other cases - I am thinking especially of heavy metals - the pursuit of analytical work is still necessary, and an evaluation of the health risks which could occur through the use of these dangerous substances is underway.
<P>
Sixthly, can we quantify the necessary financial resources required for training in order to improve the competitiveness of the textiles sector?
The amount needed to restructure the sector cannot be specified by the Commission.
Indeed, it is for the companies themselves to specify their financial needs for new investments and to use the amounts which are set aside for this purpose in the Structural Funds or within the framework of research and development programmes, or within the framework of Community initiatives such as ADAPT - ECU 1 400 000 000 - or Emploi , with the same amount.
All of these programmes can provide close support to the changes in this industry, especially with regard to training.
<P>
My seventh point concerns the questions by Mrs Ferrer and Mr Gasòliba to the Commission concerning the timetable set within the framework of Community initiatives, and concerning the action plan.
In its action plan, the Commission described the initiatives which have been taken, and which are going to be taken, as a whole.
May I remind you that these actions are the responsibility of Member States and the social partners, and thus the Commission cannot impose a precise timetable.
The Commission is also in the process of establishing a set of performance indicators which will cover specific actions.
On the basis of these indicators, the social partners, the Commission and the national political powers will evaluate the progress achieved, within the framework of a meeting which will be organized by the Commission's services at the end of this year.
<P>
Developments in the sector over the last few years have highlighted a number of strong points and a number of weaknesses.
The problem is integrating this new sector into the technological revolution and giving it a modern character.
That is why, in its action plan, the Commission is convinced that the competitive advantage linked to innovation, creation, quality and know-how enable it to play the role of leader in the international markets, although over the last few years the sector has shown remarkable competitive performance.
It holds the future, and that is why the strategy of industrial policy must take account of the specific characteristics of the textiles and clothing industry, whilst integrating it into an overall industrial strategy.
And I will reply to Mr Novo Belenguer that its impact and its running have been widely discussed within working groups with all the economic operators involved in Europe.
It is on the basis of these results that the Commission has drawn up a communication which outlines the guidelines of an action plan.
This communication has been submitted to Parliament, to the Council and to the Economic and Social Committee, accompanied by an analytical table of the specific actions to be carried out between now and the year 2000.
<P>
Finally, the last question involved financial action and support for research and development.
With regard to Community activity, several areas are concerned.
One of these is the social domain. In this aspect, it is clear that respect for basic labour law standards is essential.
The Commission underlines the necessity of respecting these basic standards, whilst of course rejecting the protectionist purposes which some could be tempted to use them for.
<P>
Finally, with regard to the environment, discussions are underway in the WTO's Committee on Trade and Environment.
The Union is involved and is in the process of commencing an analysis of the environmental effects of trade liberalization and of the commercial effects of legislation in areas of concern to this sector.
<P>
Lastly, in conclusion, let me say that, in the field of intellectual property, the Commission is currently participating in discussions concerning the application of the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights agreements under the auspices of the World Trade Organization.
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<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="President">
Pursuant to Rule 40(5) of the Rules of Procedure, I have received a joint motion for a resolution from seven political groups on oral questions relating to competition in the textiles and clothing industry.
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<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="McCarthy">
Can I say, Commissioner, that certainly the very rosy view that has been written for you by the textile unit in DGIII is not my personal experience of the textile sectors within my region and I am sure Mr Caudron will also have a different view from the French region that he represents.
<P>
Indeed, every day I hear of job losses in the textile sector in the East Midlands which I represent and only last month I learned of another 350 jobs that have gone in a women's clothing and child wear sector in Huthwaite in Nottinghamshire.
I have to say that the majority of these problems and restructuring come indeed from the strength of cost competition from developing countries.
The cost advantages that these countries have will not go away.
Markets are becoming increasingly liberalized as has been said by other Members in the debate, and this inevitably means that overseas competition will intensify.
We cannot rely in the EU on traditionally high levels of tariff and quota protection.
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The European textile industry has global advantages and these must be developed and strengthened.
Unfortunately, the Commission action plan does not go far enough in this direction.
A recent study by the UK Government, which I am sure the President-in-Office may like to comment on, looked at benchmarking and our partnership with business with the textile industry.
We looked at the world-class strength of the UK, we looked at fashion, design, IT, just-in-time techniques, and supply chains as Mr Ribeiro said, and we discovered that we can actually learn from other countries.
For example, the Italians have successfully moved into overseas markets, based on their strength and customer service, and they have actually avoided competing head-on with low cost imports.
<P>
Let me finally say that I believe that the Commission has an inconsistency in policy.
I am very disappointed that the Commission, in its anti-dumping policy, does not always comply with Community interests.
I feel that there must be more coherence by the Commission in how it approaches the needs of the textile industry.
You must listen to the industry and when you take your decisions on anti-dumping you must listen to the Member States.
When Members States vote 10 to 5 against anti-dumping procedures, which they believe will not be in the interest of the industry, then you and the Commission must accept those decisions.
Therefore, I ask Council to take on board those issues in the Industry Council on 7 May.
That is why we, as Socialists, have asked for the European Parliament to be associated with the anti-dumping investigation, for Parliament to have a role in terms of transparency and accountability, and not for the Commission to take unaccountable decisions counter to subsidiarity.
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<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Chanterie">
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Moreau">
Mr President, neither the Council's nor the Commission's comments correspond to reality, as one of my colleagues has said.
Indeed, since 1992, 100 000 jobs have been lost every year.
The crisis in the textiles industry is due essentially to management decisions to relocate and to an increase in imports, which as well as causing job losses have contributed to significant backwardness in the areas of training, research and equipment modernization.
It is so much more practical to produce in a country with low salaries and a large supply of labour than to make improvements in machinery.
A lack of purchase power has also led to a drop in consumption.
However, the textiles industry is still an industry of the future, with more than two million people employed in 120 000 companies throughout Europe.
Steps must therefore be taken, at both national and Community level, to put a stop to the haemorrhage of jobs and to contribute to the development of the textiles sector.
<P>
The support planned for restructuring which Mr de Silguy mentioned does not reassure me.
First of all, we must put a stop to the trend towards relocation, imports must be reduced, for they risk increasing even more with the Asian crisis and the progressive dismantling of the Multifibre Arrangements between now and the year 2005.
The Confederal Group of the European United Left proposes the establishment of social clauses within trade agreements.
They could be in the form of a social anti-dumping tax on products reimported into the European Union by firms established in low wage countries, something which is rightly mentioned in paragraph 5 of the joint resolution.
In any case, national and European public aid must be withdrawn from those companies which relocate.
Indeed, if I have understood correctly, existing subsidies make up redundancy payments, which we cannot accept.
<P>
In its communication, the Commission unfortunately follows the employers' recommendations, since its proposals aim at improving the competitiveness of companies, essentially, and finally, by putting pressure on the cost of labour and by developing flexibility, a solution which has been proved ineffective, as tax gifts also have.
Thus, whilst eliminating distortions in competition and combating social dumping - and I would like to have the opinion of the Council and the Commission on the precise measures which are being envisaged in this area - it is also necessary at European level to commit substantial sums of money to encourage investment, research and development, training and equipment modernization.
Preferential loans for those companies creating jobs should be established, European regulations, in particular the OPA, must be reviewed, and clearly at national level, an increase in purchase power would allow for an increase in consumption and would thus be a means of reviving the textile industry.
In response, I would therefore like to have the Commission's opinion on these proposals and also on the level of funds committed, because we have not been given many details in this respect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I personally noted in my report on European industrial competitiveness that, in spite of everything, the textiles and clothing industry remains, for me, an important factor in European industry, in its power and its future.
If I add to this the fact that this sector is established in areas which are beset by many serious difficulties, which began with the restructuring of the mining industry, the steel industry and now textiles, you can see how important this issue is and thus how serious this debate is in our regions.
<P>
Before Mr Ribeiro's report on a textile action plan is even discussed in the House, we need to know the precise intentions of the Commission and the Council with respect to this industry and, by way of consequence, with respect to the regions which are struggling to find a way out from a deep economic and social, if not moral, crisis.
<P>
The Commission's response to this question is vital, since we are told that hundreds of thousands of jobs are still under threat, in spite of the past loss of more than 600 000 jobs.
Our regions have today reached their limit.
And under such conditions, strong, clear, specific measures need to be implemented in favour of this sector to reduce the costs which weigh on jobs with a low added value.
I will say this once again, it is also necessary to fight against the savage and economically unjustified relocations which are taking place.
I know there is reluctance on the part of the liberalist purists, alarmed by the prospect of such aid.
But it is the only way to combat the social dumping being practised by certain countries, which constitutes unfair competition for the European Union, its industry, its jobs and its social model.
<P>
I am sure Mr Ribeiro's report will be an important document.
It is just as important that the Commission and the Council move in this direction from now on.
It is also a question of putting all the resolutions of the Luxembourg Employment Summit into practice, as well as the necessary and vital fight against unemployment which, we all know very well, strengthens a little the position of anti-European extreme right-wing nationalists throughout Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Filippi">
Mr President, facing the requirement to provide a positive answer to the problem of employment, the Luxembourg Employment Summit last November, and the Ecofin Council in the same period, pointed out, among other things, the possibility of intervening by lightening the tax or contribution burden in the highly labour-intensive sectors.
In the manufacturing industry, textiles and clothing certainly constitute the most highly labour-intensive sector, particularly in terms of female labour.
If we want to protect employment and the manufacturing sector, we need to be consistent with our declared objectives, without penalizing the workers and their wages.
The Commission's action plan should therefore provide answers on how to meet the serious implication of the cost of labour on the overall costs in this sector.
We also need to help highquality products by adopting a policy to support small and medium-sized enterprises in the sector, to increase the fashion content and the quality of the raw materials used.
For this purpose, an integrated policy for spinning should be implemented in the areas involved and in the textiles and clothing districts such as the Carpi region, where I come from.
<P>
We have often talked about equal opportunities in this Parliament.
If we really want to promote employment, particularly for women, this is a sector to be defended and consolidated by the extension and positive administration of the Multifibre Arrangement, as well as rigorous controls at specialist points on the frontiers, to avoid the abuse of outward processing traffic.
<P>
In the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, we have started discussing the Commission's action plan with regard to textiles and clothing, a plan which seems inadequate to deal with the problems in the sector.
The proposals should be revised, improved and made more specific and feasible.
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<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Burenstam Linder">
Mr President, this resolution must not be interpreted as an open or covert demand for protectionist measures to reduce the EU's import of textile products.
During the 1960s and 1970s Sweden's textiles and clothing industry, for example, was exposed to competition which led to an extensive shake-up and demands for change.
The countries responsible for strong rises in exports included Portugal, Italy and Finland.
These exporting countries demanded free trade in textile products and did not tolerate any departure from trade commitments, and Sweden also resisted domestic demands for trade restrictions.
<P>
If the EU now resorted to trade barriers, such as by referring to social clauses or the need for anti-dumping measures, this would also damage EU countries which have already reformed their textiles industry to benefit from free trade.
It would also reduce the scope for poor developing countries to participate in international trade.
In the long term the whole of the EU would lose from protectionist intervention.
If the EU resorted to import barriers, it would be met with counter measures from other countries.
This would then hit the kind of production in the EU which has a higher processing value than textiles and which will provide more jobs for EU countries in the long term.
Certainly there are cases of anti-dumping, but this argument is often misused when the real motive is pure protectionism.
The same applies to social clauses.
<P>
It is important to see the challenges for the regions exposed to demands for change.
Coping with competition from new countries requires dynamic companies and flexible labour markets.
The ability to implement changes and create new industries is the dynamic process which provides increased prosperity.
That is our mission, Mr President, not trade barriers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 NAME="de Silguy">
Mr President, I will be brief, given the time and the fact that my earlier longer response anticipated a certain number of the questions which have been put to me.
<P>
It is clear that the textiles industry is a highly sensitive sector.
You do not have to tell me, Mrs Moreau, I am as aware of this fact as you.
It is also a sector which has experienced considerable restructuring but which has subsequently greatly strengthened its competitiveness and is now making sure it is the world market leader.
This said, of course, the future is not all rosy, I agree with you.
That is why efforts must be continued, based principally on the establishment of an environment favourable to the development of businesses, in order to enable them to adapt and to draw on their assets, assets which include a high added value, innovation and quality.
It is therefore up to the public authorities, essentially at national level in this respect, given the lack of content, at least in the French sense of the word, of the so-called industrial policy at Community level.
<P>
Secondly, it is important that at European level the single market, the domestic market, is effectively put in place, for it is the size of the market alone which will finally enable each company to have greater potential for outlets at their disposal.
Thirdly, and this seems important to me in relation to third countries, a policy which is both aggressive yet fair must be followed.
When I say aggressive, I mean that when exporting, we must use all our abilities in international negotiations to ensure that the obstacles to trade which our companies encounter when they export may be removed.
This is the challenge of past, and above all, future negotiations.
<P>
With regard to imports, it is also vital to ensure that the rules are uniformly applied.
I can assure you that in the area of antidumping, the Commission enforces the rules strictly and takes the decisions that it has to take.
Mr Chanterie, you mentioned Russian carpets earlier.
I seem to remember that not so long ago, measures were taken.
I believe that with regard to Brazil, the Commission is examining the situation.
Apart from that, I would refer you to what I said earlier regarding the means available within Community programmes.
I am not going to discuss this again.
Within the different aspects mentioned, the Community programmes enable the necessary support to be given to those European companies who so desire it and who fulfil the conditions, for them to continue their modernization efforts, which will enable them to develop and to make the most of their assets.
<P>
I will end on a point concerning international organizations, that of the social clause.
The Commission attaches a great deal of importance to this.
My colleague Padraig Flynn knows this much more than I, particularly within the framework of the International Labour Organization and, as far as environmental clauses are concerned, as I noted earlier, these are currently the subject of in-depth studies, within the framework of the World Trade Organization's groups.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Apprenticeship training in Europe
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0135/98) by Mr Castagnetti, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Decision on the promotion of European pathways for work-linked training, including apprenticeship ((COM(97)0572 - C4-0064/98-97/0321(SYN)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 NAME="Castagnetti">
Mr President, this decision essentially has two objectives. The first is to promote the mobility of trainees, and in this sense it is included in the subject we are dealing with in this session: the euro helps us to integrate Europe even further, to bring the European Economic Area even closer, to consolidate the internal market, and therefore to consolidate an area in which the free movement of people and, in this context, the free movement of trainees, should actually be promoted.
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The other objective is to direct training increasingly at market and industry requirements, to provide answers to the changes requested, to make training a real start in the world of employment, and in this sense I believe that this measure also answers the numerous actions identified by the European Summit held last November in Luxembourg on combating unemployment.
<P>
How can these objectives be promoted?
Through mobility: mobility between school and work, training mobility between one country and another, mobility between one occupation and another.
Who are the people for whom this mobility is intended?
It is aimed at workers, young people in training and the training officers themselves, and through the promotion of mobility among young people in training, training officers, workers who lose their jobs and who must, and in some respects want, through training, to find another occupation, we will also achieve mobility, not only of training models but also of cultures and industrial techniques.
Everyone, every young person, every apprentice moving from one country to another, from school to a company, also takes with him skills and cultures that are beneficial to the person taking him on.
<P>

We know there are limits to the Treaty; Articles 126 and 127 protect the independence of the academic and training regulations of the individual countries and in this sense this European pathway is seen as a means of training that is applied to existing programmes. It is not a new programme, it is a type of work-linked training, it is a means offered as an opportunity to the Member States and therefore implies voluntary acceptance.
<P>
The preparatory work we have undertaken in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs was first and foremost a discussion, to find out whether this decision answered the demand put by the social parties.
We have discussed the matter with other Parliamentary committees, we have discussed the matter with other Community institutions, with the Economic and Social Committee, with Chambers of Commerce, with Craft Chambers in various European cities, with trade unions and with manufacturers' associations, and we have received a positive response.
<P>
The Informal Council of Ministers of Education and Employment, held in London last March, confirmed this direction, in the sense that it confirmed the commitment to promote work-linked training through partnership experiences.
<P>
In this spirit, the committee almost unanimously presented a series of amendments which I hope can be approved unanimously that substantially aim to create synergy between the incentives the Commission will have to produce and the actions of the national states, not in the spirit of a Commission that is not watchful and is limiting itself to recording what the Member States are doing but one that is encouraging and asking them to accept this proposal.
These amendments aim to monitor, through the EURES network, the experience acquired in the past, its effectiveness and the existence of a network of companies prepared to accept young trainees.
In short, we should use all the means the Community has established over the years.
<P>
With these amendments, we also want to encourage an initiative taken by the Commission and the Member States to identify the most receptive production structures, in terms of the workforce, so that vocational training becomes increasingly more effective in creating actual jobs.
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With our amendments, we want to promote the actual application of this decision by urging all Member States to take part, even those that have not yet provided for training in their regulations.
We want to guarantee security, the protection of these experiences in work places that are healthy and welcoming for our young people who adopt this system of work-linked training.
We want to guarantee a minimum three-month period for this experience to ensure that there is no breach of the spirit of work-linked training and that it does not turn into educational tourism.
We need actual workplace experience.
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In short, with this decision taken by the Commission and Council, our ambition is to start a process of modernization, of real Europeanization of knowledge and training processes.
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<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="Wolf">
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="Waddington">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this proposal has the potential to encourage the development of apprenticeships with an added European value.
It aims to provide opportunities for those who are taking part in work-linked training and their employers to benefit from the trainees or apprentices receiving part of their training in another Member State and for that training to be accredited.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, when considering this proposal for legislation, sought to make significant improvements and in his speech our rapporteur Mr Castagnetti has already explained some of the thinking behind his very helpful proposals.
<P>
Perhaps I could highlight some of the issues which we would like the Council and Commission to consider.
We think that this proposal should be seen and implemented as part of the whole package of measures that the EU is engaged in to encourage employment, education and training.
Several amendments refer to the need for synergy between this measure and other Community programmes and initiatives.
It is also very necessary to ensure that such European pathways are open to all groups and that there is real equality of opportunity built in.
Since it is very likely that the majority of those who take up these opportunities will be young people, it is particularly important that health and safety aspects are considered.
Young people at work or training in another European country will need a level of protection.
<P>
We would also like to see the involvement of the social partners and small and micro businesses in this initiative.
We want to see the provision of training for the mentors themselves and an agreement on the minimum period for placements of training.
We certainly need effective systems of monitoring and evaluation and last, but by no means least, a Community budget.
With the suggested improvements that have come forward from the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, this scheme could improve both the mobility of apprentices and the quality of work-linked training received by apprentices and therefore make a contribution towards raising skills levels in the EU.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Thomas">
Mr President, almost two years ago the Florence European Council called for a report from the Commission on the value of dual vocational training.
In my country, this form of training has a long tradition.
Knowledge is acquired, skills are learnt through training, social behaviour and the ability to integrate are learnt through practice.
The very practical nature of dual training qualifies young people for the ever more complex demands of the labour markets and helps to reduce youth unemployment considerably.
The basis for this is cooperation between schools and businesses.
If it works and is constantly checked for new challenges from the point of view of education, organization and content, then the dual system has a future and offers a future to others.
However, within Europe, dual systems are still different, as indicated by Mr Castagnetti in his excellent report, so we must bring them closer together, aiming for European vocational training channels whilst actively involving employers and employees.
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Measures in the Member States acquire a European added value at the same time as subsidiarity and responsibility for vocational training are preserved. This is made possible through intensive exchanges of information and experience, through implementing model projects and promoting mobility and trips abroad, tailor-made for individuals and financed by Community programmes such as the Leonardo da Vinci programme.
Today we are debating and tomorrow we will adopt two important issues simultaneously.
Firstly, there is the convergence report on the euro and the Member States.
But we are also looking at part of the future of vocational training.
If everything goes according to plan, from 1 January 1999 we will have a single currency and a common vocational training programme.
The path from the internal market to the European domestic market involves small steps as well as large ones.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="Crowley">
Mr President, I too would like to welcome the Commissioner to the House and to pay tribute to him and to Mr Castagnetti for their initiative on this proposal for the promotion of European pathways for work-linked training including apprenticeship.
There are 18 million long-term unemployed in Europe at the moment.
Yet, in any country in Europe there are employers and businesses crying out for staff and they claim they cannot get them.
This is not just because of low wages nor just because of lack of social protection.
It is because of a lack of skills and a lack of work-related skills.
<P>
We are in the process of ratifying the Amsterdam Treaty which includes a special chapter on unemployment and we are introducing this new coordinated path of having national employment plans submitted to Brussels to be assessed by the Commission and evaluated at the end of the first year.
So we must guarantee that we can deliver real skills and real training to people to allow them to get real jobs, not simply massage the figures to take them off the unemployment statistics for a few months.
<P>
Between 1994 and 1999 the state-training agency in Ireland received £428 million for vocational training and education.
This had a dramatic impact on improving the available workforce to the growing industrial base and services base in Ireland.
From an Irish point of view it is essential that this funding continue after the year 2000 and up to the year 2006.
It is also essential that we look at new models and new ways of training, and that we create this synergy between the employers, the trade unions and the unemployed themselves to develop the best models for coping for them.
<P>
In Ireland at the present time there are 14 000 apprentices of which about 11 400 are in the new system of standard-based apprenticeship and roughly 2 600 in the old system which was time-based.
It is essential that we in Parliament and the Commission, keep our minds, and our ears and our eyes open, for new ways of tackling the unemployment problem.
<P>
Finally, I should like very briefly to quote the following: ' Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for life' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Ghilardotti">
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Castagnetti on his excellent work and also express my appreciation to the Commission for the initiative taken.
One of the problems faced by all Member States in attempting to promote employment among young people is that of promoting and encouraging closer cooperation between schools and businesses, and this is also one of the objectives contained in the White Paper on the learning society.
The Institute of Apprenticeship, while operating under various procedures in the various Member States, is considered a privileged meeting place between these two worlds and therefore a sector for priority intervention by the Union.
<P>
The mobility of students, workers, teachers, training officers and trade unionists throughout Europe has had a great boost in Europe on account of the Commission's incentives, provided through programmes such as PETRA, COMETT and FORCE in the past, or Leonardo and Socrates today.
This trend should be supported, or rather encouraged, with particular reference to the placement of students in industry and the requirements of work-linked training for apprentices.
<P>
However, alongside the essential quantitative increase in mobility, we also need to provide a counterbalance in terms of quality in the consensual determination of rules and behaviour able to guarantee the educational efficacy of placements and exchanges.
We should therefore welcome the proposal we are debating today on the establishment of the "European pathways' programme and the "EUROPASS' certificate intended to establish specific quality standards for the promotion and achievement of placements and to introduce the practice of certification within a modus operandi that is currently too deregulated and lacking in guarantees for those taking part.
<P>
However, this proposal is not enough in itself to resolve all the problems and remove all the obstacles connected with mobility in the area of work-linked training.
The Commission has recognized this and has announced that, within the context of the new Leonardo programme, it wants to create an ERASMUS for apprenticeship to facilitate mobility in this area.
Not only do we need to create an ERASMUS for apprenticeship, but we also need to provide the social security resources to enable the mobility of apprentices and set up a monitoring system, as the rapporteur said in his speech.
<P>
As the European Parliament, we will ensure that the Commission keeps its promises, in the context of the proposed training and educational programmes for future generations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pirker">
Mr President, there can be no doubt that the superb report by Mr Castagnetti is a milestone on the way to better youth employment. The report highlights two core elements.
One is the mobility of young people, which must be increased in order to increase their opportunities.
The second is the actual qualification and the quality of training. This must generally be raised, especially in the area of qualifications for skilled workers, and this is an issue that has been mentioned here many times.
Without doubt, mobility will be increased by the proposals, by means of mutual recognition, documenting vocational training in a Europass and pulling down bureaucratic barriers.
The other element is dual training which will increase quality.
One problem is the fact that we are training far too many young people for the wrong careers.
In my country, we train up to 80 % of young people for only eleven careers, so the chances of finding an adequate job are correspondingly low.
<P>
I would, therefore, like to add a proposal to this excellent report, a proposal which might bring us one more step forward. We should request that the Commission draws up an annual qualitative occupational needs analysis, which highlights what the labour market really requires in the medium and possibly also in the longer term.
This information should then be made available to countries as a service, to give them something to use on a voluntary basis as a point of reference.
This would mean that they could adjust or convert their vocational training systems so that later, young people would really be trained to meet actual demand in the labour market.
That could be an additional incentive: to train young people to meet precisely this demand and give them the opportunity to find their first job.
This would open up a whole new approach.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Piha">
Mr President, I would also like to thank Mr Castagnetti for the excellent work he has done in preparing this report.
There are two dimensions to sandwich courses and apprenticeship training: the financial and the socio-economic, and they complement each other.
On the other hand, it is important to stress that small and medium-sized companies have a special role as employers.
The viability of this sector will have large-scale effects on European prosperity and the employment of the young.
That is why common resources must be put into this sector, enabling it to offer apprenticeships and places for young trainees.
<P>
Mr Castagnetti also outlines a process for linking this with the work of the labour market organizations.
The Commission should mention in its proposal just how important the role of the employers' associations is.
This latter has been underrated for a long time now as a fully-fledged participant in social dialogue within the Union.
<P>
Harmonizing apprenticeship systems also means broader aims for harmonization in examinations.
Successfully getting the young into work and making the free movement of the workforce viable will require exams to follow a pattern that is common to all Europe in terms of their structure, length, content and degree of difficulty.
The main responsibility for the harmonization of exams and the training and apprenticeship periods that go with them belongs to the authorities in the Member States of the Union.
Only through direct cooperation and sharing information can the necessary confidence be created to form a basis for the general responsibility of the European nations for exams.
It is no advantage to European educational systems that so-called reliable standards have always been, as it were, handed down from on high.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="Flynn">
Mr President, let me straight away thank Mr Castagnetti for his great efforts on this report and all those who contributed to the debate.
The aim of the proposal to the Parliament and the Council for the decision on the promotion of the European pathways for work-linked training, including apprenticeships, the Commission's objective is to promote mobility of people in training in Europe whatever their age .
This was particularly remarked upon by Mr Castagnetti and I support him.
<P>
This corresponds to three major thrusts of Community policy: completing the internal market, building a citizens' Europe and creating a Europe of knowledge.
In all of these three aspects mobility of people under-going training is so very important.
The Community's experience of bi-lateral and multi-lateral cooperation between Member States, demonstrates clearly that there is a keen demand for training at all levels, including higher education.
<P>
Between 1995 and 1997 the Leonardo da Vinci programme has enabled 100 000 people to receive support for a period of training in another Member State.
On this basis of the experience which has been build up and in view of the strong growth in need and demand, it is important for us now to increase this mobility and to ensure that it is as fruitful as possible.
To do this we must agree at European level on a common quality framework to develop real European pathways of training and to increase their visibility.
<P>
The proposal which is based on Article 127 of the Treaty has a two-fold purpose.
Firstly, it seeks to define the content and shared general quality principles for periods of work-linked training in another Member State, linked to the training which the person concerned is following in country which she or he comes from.
Secondly, it aims to ensure that the training is more easily understood and has a higher profile thanks to a certificate known as the Euro Pass Training which validates the work or training experience acquired.
As Mr Castagnetti has pointed out, it is also linked of course to the European Union's employment policy and the guidelines which were agreed at the Job Summit last November.
<P>
I would like to take the opportunity to thank all the Members of the House, and especially Mr Castagnetti, rapporteur for the Employment and Social Affairs Committee, for your suggestions.
The Commission has noticed, the interest which this proposal has generated in other committees: the Committee for Culture, Youth, Education and the Media for which Mr Kerr was the rapporteur; the Budget Committee with Mr Bösch and the Committee for Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy with Mr Skinner, all of whom I would like to thank.
<P>
Parliament proposed 28 Amendments, 26 of which can be accepted including Amendment No 28 in part.
These amendments improve our proposal and in some cases even reinforce it.
I would mention in particular the amendments which highlight the role of SMEs and crafts in developing work-linked training, because the specific character of these types of business requires particular conditions, and those which stress the social partners and the other parties involved in the apprenticeships.
<P>
Then there are the amendments which aim to promote good information and wider based support systems for those European pathways such as health care, safety in the workplace and languages.
I would like to thank Mrs Waddington, who drew our attention to this element which is a key factor for their success.
<P>
Thirdly, there are amendments which stress the voluntary character of the implementation of the European pathways.
The Commission is conscious of the diversity of polices in the Member States and this proposal does not seek to modify either the organization or the content of training systems and machinery in the Member States.
<P>
On the other hand, the two Amendments relating to duration could pose some difficulties.
I have in mind Mr Castagnetti's Amendment No 19 which specifies that the overall duration should not be less than three months and Mr Ettl's Amendment No 21 which seeks to ensure that the pathways should not lengthen the period of training provided for in the Member State of origin.
<P>
I understand the concerns underlying these Amendments, no one wants these European pathways to amount to mere tourism, as was referred to in the contributions.
We must be sure that they provide periods of real quality training.
This is why the Commission proposes that their duration should be closely linked to the objectives of the European pathway and to the skill to be acquired.
All this must be specified in advance in an agreement between the sending partner, host partner and the beneficiary.
The diversity of systems, the specificity of particular branches of activity, but also the wide range of durations suggested in the course of the debate, show the difficulty of fixing a minimum duration.
<P>
To conclude Mr President, I can assure you that what you propose for the future, particularly regarding the new programmes, and with a special emphasis on the Leonardo da Vinci programme, will be very carefully considered.
This latter programme must increasingly promote mobility for people engaged in work-linked training and become as my colleague Edith Cresson has said on more than one occasion an 'Erasmus for trainees.'
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Flynn.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Supplementary pension rights
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0134/98) by Mr Ettl, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Directive on safeguarding the supplementary pension rights of employed and self-employed persons moving within the European Union (COM(97)0486 - C4-0661/97-97/0265(CNS)).
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<SPEAKER ID=147 NAME="Hughes">
Mr President, I am speaking instead of the rapporteur tonight.
Sadly, he cannot be with us. He has to attend to important business in Austria.
That is a pity because he has produced excellent work in the form of this report.
In fact, it is a mark of the success of his work as rapporteur that the report was adopted unanimously in committee.
Just one point of difference remained which had not been adequately addressed in the vote and that is now covered here in plenary in the form of Amendment No 18 with the full backing of the Socialist, EPP and Liberal Groups.
That degree of consensus is not arrived at easily; it requires hard work, and I should like to congratulate Harald Ettl for the success of that work.
<P>
The proposal concerns the safeguarding of the supplementary pension rights of employed and self-employed workers moving within the European Union.
As such, it concerns an important practical step towards giving realization to freedom of movement.
That freedom of movement for workers is enshrined in the Treaty but in practice a mass of real practical difficulties stand in the way of its proper realization.
One such practical difficulty concerns the shortcomings in the coordination of supplementary pension schemes between the Member States and the fundamentally different weightings of state and supplementary social insurance systems in the various Member States.
These pose very real obstacles to freedom of movement.
<P>
This proposal will not remove all the difficulties by any means. Those difficulties have to be seen against the backdrop of the Commission's 1997 Green Paper on supplementary pensions; that itself arose from the failure of a proposal for a directive on the freedom of management and investment of pension funds which was submitted in 1992 and then withdrawn.
That was followed by a 1995 directive attempting to tackle some of these difficulties. That was itself stalled after reaching the Commission, much to Commissioner Flynn's frustration at the time.
That in turn led to the establishment of a high-level panel of experts on the freedom of movement of persons chaired by Mrs Simone Weil.
<P>
All of these various attempts have focused on three main difficulties facing workers in relation to freedom of movement and supplementary pensions.
The first is the long qualifying periods which are necessary in some Member States for acquiring pension rights.
It is clear that several years' employment in a company is required before an employee acquires rights, that is an obstacle to free movement.
The second is the transferability of pension rights and the third is the issue of double taxation.
<P>
An interim report of the Weil Group in November 1996 focussed on an approach which offered at least a start to the solving of some of these difficulties.
The approach suggested in that interim report is followed in the proposal we are considering here tonight.
It restricts itself to securing the principle of equal treatment for migrant workers. It places emphasis on the preservation of rights of migrant workers as opposed to the transferability of rights from one scheme to another.
<P>
There are four main component to the proposal.
The first is in Article 4 which ensures that the vested rights of members of a scheme are preserved when the member of the scheme moves to another Member State.
Article 5, the second component, ensures that members of the scheme who live in another Member State receive payments in respect of all benefits to which they are entitled under the scheme.
The third component concerns the situation of workers posted abroad. That is dealt with in Article 6 and 7.
The final component - which will be very important - is contained in Article 8. That requires the managers of pension schemes to provide all relevant information for scheme members wishing to exercise their right to move to another Member State.
<P>
All these provisions are important.
The main amendments submitted in the report from Harald Ettl, is Amendment No 4.
It draws attention to the fact that this directive can only be seen as a first step towards the regulation of the supplementary pension system within the Member States of the Union and says that where necessary the Council in future will need to adopt further acts on waiting periods and the general and cross-frontier transferability of vested pension rights.
This proposal is a step in the right direction.
I hope the Commission will take particular account of Amendment No 4 and I congratulate the rapporteur on his work.
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<SPEAKER ID=148 NAME="Ferri">
Mr President, I believe that, as Mr Hughes said, this proposal can only be considered to be a first step because it is a proposal for a restrictive directive in relation to the significance of the problem, which is to ensure effective mobility of workers, according them status of some importance.
It is true that Amendment No 4 aims at pension rights held, that is, acquired rights; unfortunately, however, one amendment proposed by the Committee on Legal Affairs and by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has not been accepted. This lay somewhere between the long periods laid down by some states, and the overly short periods laid down by others, and adopted the solution of the high-level panel, chaired by Mrs Simone Veil, which proposed five years.
<P>
However, the Commission's proposal takes its idea from an amendment, or rather adopts it, of the Committee on Legal Affairs on the interpretation of Regulations Nos 1408/71 and 574/72, that is Amendment No 1.
This is very important because it offers an additional framework, from the legal point of view, between this proposal and the regulations the Commission had interpreted too rigidly, providing an interpretation connected with the compulsory pension schemes.
<P>
In fact, by replacing "only' with "primarily' , Amendment No 1 opens the way to supplementary voluntary, contractual pensions and therefore an integration that harmonizes the legislation fairly adequately.
In my opinion, this is therefore a positive proposal overall, which we should naturally see incorporated into the Green Paper which this Parliament will soon receive and which will constitute the mosaic in which the central problem will be situated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the draft directive before us is indeed a minimalist proposal.
It is simply aimed at applying the principle of equal treatment to migrant workers.
It is particularly unacceptable that a worker who, in the course of his professional life has made use of his right to free movement and who has paid contributions towards supplementary pension schemes in various Member States has only limited rights to a supplementary pension at the end of his career.
<P>
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has proposed six amendments in its opinion.
On the one hand, it wants to stress the importance of the free movement of workers not only between Member States, but also within them, as a precondition for the proper running of the internal market and monetary union. It also wants to stress that in future we will have to pay attention to the transferability of pension rights and to reducing the long qualifying periods.
On the other hand, it has presented a new definition of workers posted abroad from a Member State and of Member State origin.
<P>
The proposal for a directive does not aspire to solve all problems.
It is a first step in the field of supplementary pension schemes.
The group chaired by Mrs Weil argued that Europe should restrict itself to applying the principle of equal treatment for migrant workers.
All the same, the debate continues over the remaining obstructions, for example long qualifying periods and the problem of transferability of pension rights.
<P>
The most controversial point concerns the amendment which adjusts the definition of posted worker.
It pointed to the fact that Regulation No 1408/71 refers only to secondment within the company and thus not to workers who go to work in a different company, even if the latter forms part of a multinational group.
That is why we thought that Directive 83/349, which defines the term multinational concern , should be added to Regulation No 1408/7.
The legal department of this Parliament nonetheless prefers Directive 96/71 which refers to the posting of workers and thus covers the secondment of workers.
That is why we gladly support Mr Ettl's amendments on that subject.
<P>
Mr Ettl has produced an excellent report and I hope that it will not only meet with the approval of this House, but also with the approval of the Ministers for Social Affairs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Weiler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to explain the position of the Socialist group.
As our chairman has already said, this report was adopted unanimously in committee and there is broad consensus amongst all the groups in the House on this issue.
I would, therefore, like to start by thanking Harald Ettl for his very hard work on this very complicated issue.
And we should not forget the panel of experts chaired by Simone Veil which deserves thanks for its excellent work for Parliament and, I hope, also for the Commission's legislative proposals, as we are particularly keen to hear these.
<P>
At the moment, around 300 000 men and women are working within the Member States of the EU in a different country from the one they previously lived in.
Actually, this figure is much less than we once thought, and we have assumed from the beginning of the internal market that it would increase.
There are many reasons for this, certainly some individual, but also some political ones.
It is our task to look at the political reasons.
They are an issue which we have covered in great depth in recent months, especially in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and the Committee on Women's Rights.
The issue has been debated in detail in recent months in Parliament, and we are becoming ever more aware that national regulations and provisions raise an incredible number of obstructions; I would almost go so far as to say they amount to harassment.
This is one of the political reasons for the situation.
<P>
The second reason, Commissioner Flynn, and I will say this openly, is that in the past the Commission was somewhat hesitant and sluggish in dealing with this issue; any progress made was blocked by the Council - the same old story.
However, a small step has been taken and it is a good one.
In any case, it will ensure that employees in Europe will not be worse off if they make use of the freedom of movement which they have been guaranteed.
Of the three pillars of pension provision, the company supplementary pension scheme is still relatively small, especially in my country; in Germany it makes up less than 5-7 % of contracts.
But we know that in future these supplementary schemes will have a more important role than they had in the past.
What must be important to us is that...
<P>
(The President cut off the speaker)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Menrad">
Mr President, Commissioner, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, I welcome the proposal of the Commission. I would also like to congratulate Mr Ettl for his objective and balanced report.
He describes clearly the issue of migrant workers who under certain circumstances face reduced entitlement to supplementary pensions if they work in different Member States. This naturally has a negative impact on the freedom of movement and often on necessary mobility.
In past years there were repeated calls for the supplementary systems to be assigned to Regulation No 1408, which previously only applied to the statutory social insurance schemes of migrant workers.
The multiplicity of supplementary pension schemes simply does not permit a straightforward addition of periods of contribution payments, as is the case under 1408.
<P>
This proposal for a directive contains only some initial steps - as several speakers have indicated - towards a common approach to supplementary schemes.
I would prioritize their urgency and the need for them as follows: firstly, protection of entitlement already acquired from company or supplementary pension schemes; secondly, transnational payments of pensions from company pension schemes, in other words, exportability of benefits as envisaged in Regulation No 1408; thirdly, the establishment of special arrangements for short-term employment postings to other Member States.
<P>
Mr Ettl's report sets out the objectives of the directive better and replaces imprecise definitions.
The directive contains some of the measures proposed in the Green Paper on supplementary pensions.
In addition, the Green Paper places particular emphasis on enabling transnational investment in pension funds, thereby improving freedom of movement.
This type of fund already plays an important role in several EU Member States.
In my own country, Germany, we have just started to develop these. However a key to the new asset policy which so many parties are striving for is to make shares in this kind of unit trust attractive, particularly to employees with lower incomes, by extending the statutory range of investment facilities beyond asset formation by employees.
<P>
In my view, profit-sharing from property ownership for employees is an important way forward, if not as a second pillar alongside statutory pensions, then as supplementary income in old age.
The Ettl report does not cover this perspective of course, but rightly concentrates on the proposal for a directive from the Commission and improves it in some important points.
For this reason, the Group of the European People's Party will vote for the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Mr President, this report deals principally with the cross-frontier transferability of pensions, and it has been rightly pointed out by a number of my colleagues that it is a first step and that the directive is in fact a rather limited one.
I was actually rather taken by what Mr Ferri said in his report on the free movement of workers, that this requires a completely different approach to the transferability of pensions.
I think we will have to sort this out when we are dealing with the Green Paper, as the entire issue will obviously come up again there.
Nonetheless, in his written contribution Mr Ettl has pointed to problems, such as double taxation and in some countries the long qualifying periods for pensions, which should be consigned to the past.
You cannot tell workers that their behaviour should be more flexible on the one hand, and tie them down on the other - and I say this to Mrs Menrad in particular - with extremely long qualifying periods.
To be honest, I think this is a form of theft from the worker.
We should have the courage to resolve this from within Europe.
<P>
A number of issues have been improved by this report, in particular with regard to the definition of posting, I believe good proposals have been made.
I hope the Commission will want to adopt them.
<P>
I would also like to thank Mr Ettl sincerely for his admirable cooperation, and I hope our chairman, Mr Hughes, will pass this on, because I believe that the cooperation in this case has been excellent.
But, again, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President, Commissioner, this is really only a first step on the way to solving an issue which we have to solve with regard to pensions.
The Commission can expect a great deal from us if we are able to cooperate as we are doing in this Parliament at present.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Andersson">
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Ettl in his absence for a good report.
In general, I can surely say that I believe the pension system is something which is being discussed in all Member States, in view, among other things, of the rising proportion of elderly, which means that more or less all pension systems need to be revised, especially state ones.
We are not discussing that here today, but these systems are the most important, and I would like to emphasize that for our citizens.
<P>
It is the supplementary pensions that are being discussed here.
As a previous speaker said, they are becoming increasingly important.
The problem with supplementary pensions is, above all, the difficulties with regard to the single market and the restrictions which exist in terms of the freedom of movement.
This is discussed in part in the Commission's proposal, which says that workers who are sent abroad by their employer should be able to belong to the system which they belonged to before.
Guarantees are also given that they will be informed of their right to a pension and the rules which exist in the EU when they move.
These are of course, as several others have said, important proposals.
However, they are not enough and are only a first step.
<P>
The difficulties which Mr Ettl has pointed out, the long earning periods, the problems of transferability and the question of double taxation are issues which must be raised in future and supplemented in future proposals from the Commission in order for freedom of movement to be realized.
Meanwhile, I am of course supporting this proposal, which is a good one, but it is important to emphasize again that this is a first step.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="Flynn">
Mr President, I should like to thank all those who have contributed.
I should preface my remarks by saying that you are all quite right.
This is just a start, a very small start, and it must be followed up in due course by further proposals.
In that context I should like to congratulate the rapporteur.
Even though he is absent, Mr Hughes has done an excellent presentation on his behalf.
I thank all of you for the excellent work done here.
<P>
We are all allies in the task of removing obstacles to free movement related to supplementary pensions and making progress towards achieving a fundamental principle of the Treaty.
The purpose of this proposal for a Council directive on which your opinion is requested is to provide protection as regards supplementary pension schemes for the pension rights of workers and members of their families who move from one Member State of the European Union to another.
This proposal takes into account the conclusions of the high level panel on free movement chaired by Mrs Weil.
It constitutes a first step in removing identified obstacles in this area.
The proposal will have a positive affect on labour market mobility since workers will be less hindered from going to work in another Member State.
<P>
Similarly, the proposal will make it easier for companies who wish to second workers within their organization to work in another Member State.
As emphasized in the 1997 Green Paper on supplementary pensions and the single market, supplementary pension schemes play an important role as a second pillar of social security which complements the protection provided by the statutory schemes.
As more and more Union citizens turn to these supplementary pension schemes as a way of guaranteeing adequate income in their retirement, protection of the rights in these schemes becomes more important.
<P>
In this Green Paper the Commission looked at several issues, a number of which are intended to deepen the analysis of obstacles to free movement and are outside the scope of this present proposal.
In particular, it addressed the question of long vesting periods, difficulties with transferability of vested pension rights and tax difficulties linked to acquiring pension rights in more than one Member State.
The proposal before us today, once adopted, should form the basis for renewed political effort to remove the remaining obstacles.
And that is the key point.
This is the start.
It must lead on to further efforts to remove the obstacles.
I can accept eleven of your amendments in the belief that this will enable the Commission proposal to go ahead and to be adopted by the Council.
We hope this is going to happen in June under the United Kingdom presidency.
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The amendments the Commission is willing to accept are as follows: Nos 2 and 3 in principle, part of No 4 and Amendments Nos 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, 13, 14 and 17.
These amendments clarify the existing provisions and reflect the concerns of Parliament about legal certainty and its commitment to further action to be taken to remove the remaining obstacles to free movement.
Amendment No 1 raises some technical legal complications that require further consideration.
So I must reserve the Commission's position on this amendment for today.
I must also reserve our position on Amendment No 18 which I have seen for the very first time tonight and which would seem to require some very careful consideration.
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I cannot accept Amendments Nos 10, 11, 12 or 15 because these restrict the scope of the proposal.
Amendments Nos 10, 11 and 12 restrict the personal scope of the directive.
Amendment No 15 restricts the material scope of the directive since the trans-border affiliation for posted workers provided for by Article 6 should be limited only in schemes of comparable entitlement in the host Member State and in the country of origin.
As far as Amendment No 16 is concerned, it cannot be accepted at this stage because it goes beyond the aim of Article 7 to which it refers.
You will note that Article 7 deals with taxation aspects of supplementary pensions contributions made on or behalf of a posted worker.
This is the most sensitive aspect of the proposal for which a political agreement in the Council is going to be very difficult to achieve anyway.
The tax aspects of supplementary pensions need a broader approach in order to find suitable solutions to the existing problems and by avoiding additional and simultaneous double taxation for persons moving within the European Union.
These tax aspects are under discussion with all involved parties in the context of the Green Paper.
<P>
I trust that on this basis we can consider that we have a political agreement and that the Commission proposal can go forward for adoption by the Council, as amended following the adoption of Parliament's opinion.
I look forward to making further advances on this matter at a later date.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Flynn.
<P>
The debate is closed.
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The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Weiler">
Mr President, you have chaired this evening's sitting very fairly, so I would again like to point out that my group applied for three minutes for me, otherwise I would have planned my speech very differently.
Secondly, there was no red light after two minutes were up.
I would be grateful if you could take note of this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="President">
I should explain, Mrs Weiler, that according to my notes here your speaking time was two minutes.
So far during this debate, you are the Member who has gone furthest over the allotted speaking time.
That is why I had to interrupt you, because you were already over your time-limit by a third.
We are probably both right, but that is what happened and I wanted to explain it to you.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Judgments in matrimonial matters
<SPEAKER ID=158 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="Verde i Aldea">
Mr President, 30 years ago the then European Economic Community realized that increased international trade meant that the Member States of that Community had to reach a convention to determine competence and how to implement sentences in contractual matters.
Contracts were - and are increasingly so today - international contracts, especially in the Union, and that convention was absolutely necessary.
It was drawn up in the form of a convention because the Community had no competence in that area.
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Thirty years later, we can say that that 1968 Brussels Convention, under the jurisdictional tutelage of the Court of Justice, has progressed satisfactorily during that time.
Having reached this point, the Member States have realized that there is another area too - that of the freedom of movement of persons - which has given rise to a situation of transfers and contacts between the different countries within the Union, which has led to increasing numbers of marriages between nationals of different Member States.
At the same time, another phenomenon has arisen - maybe not parallel, but also on the increase: the phenomenon of marriage breakdown, with sentences of divorce, separation, annulment and so on.
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The Council has realized this and has now presented this draft convention on matrimonial matters, under the guidelines of what is beginning to be a Community competence - judicial cooperation - which so far involves Articles K of the Treaty on European Union.
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This Parliament is just acting in a consultative capacity as regards this convention presented by the Council.
The Council is not here for this debate, so I do not have to make any very profound remarks to try to convince them of the value of our amendments. However, I will say that Parliament and the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights have been inclined to accept this convention.
We know it has been debated at length in the Council because this question has given rise to tensions between Member States, - especially between the Nordic countries, which also have a convention and have done so for a long time, and others. The effect has been to make this an extremely delicate text, and any amendment could once again call into question the whole convention.
<P>
The amendments presented by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights - where they were approved almost unanimously - do not attempt to make any great change to the convention.
There was a proposal from the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs to try to achieve a new convention, with a view to the forthcoming implementation of the Amsterdam Treaty.
But obviously, the Amsterdam Treaty is not in force, so it is better to base things on the current competences of each of the institutions.
So I have restricted myself to accepting some of the amendments from that committee.
<P>
Mr President, the amendments are certainly not an attempt to change the convention.
They try to clarify some important points. I will only mention one of them, which would create a special article concerned with questions of language and how these declarations have to be notified.
And on that point, which may seem the most innovative, I want to mention that there is a Commission proposal along almost the same lines, which refers to the Brussels Convention.
It seems to me that if the innovation is valid for that convention, it would be a good thing to make use of it for this one too.
<P>
Those are the outlines, Mr President, of this convention. I hope the Council will take account of the thoughts we have expressed verbally and in writing - they are thoughts rather than amendments - and that one way or another, and as quickly as possible, the convention will reach a happy conclusion and can be published in the Official Journal and enter into force as soon as possible, because society really needs it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 NAME="Oddy">
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Verde i Aldea for his studious and thorough work.
This is an important plank in judicial cooperation and a major subject of human interest.
The proposal seeks to alleviate the difficulties experienced by couples in seeking to extract themselves from failed or unsatisfactory marriages and other legal relationships where there is a cross-border element.
It also covers children of such marriages.
<P>
This draft convention known as the Brussels II Convention applies to civil proceedings with divorce, legal separation and marriage annulments and civil proceedings relating to parental responsibility over a child of both spouses.
Like the Brussels Convention, it assures that a court order obtained in one Member State should be recognized in another Member State without any special procedure.
Similarly a child parental authority judgment given in one Member State can be enforced in another Member State.
It is especially important with increasing cross-border marriages and mobility of people and the need to protect children of such marriages.
<P>
Finally, I should like to thank the UK Presidency and. In particular, a former colleague on the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, now a minister in the Lord Chancellor's Department, Mr Hoon, and the Lord Chancellor for piloting this important judicial cooperation reform.
Like Mr Verde i Aldea, in the name of my group I should like to support the amendments he has proposed.
I thank him again for his work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 NAME="Banotti">
Mr President, on behalf of my group I should like to thank Mr Verde i Aldea for this very important piece of legislation, in particular as it relates to a very human issue and, one which is increasing and poses problems for many of us.
On behalf of my group I should like to say that my group congratulates Mr Verde i Aldea for his report.
I give my group's official position first, after which I will make a couple of points myself as the President's mediator for transnationally abducted children.
<P>
The group considers Amendments Nos 3, 6 and 10 as very important.
They refer to points D, E and F. The group is against the opinion of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs because it was adopted without formal procedure.
It was announced as a letter even on the agenda of the Civil Liberties Committee on the day of adoption and no deadline was fixed for amendments.
It is against Amendments Nos 4, 5 and 8 for legal reasons.
<P>
The two previous speakers have outlined the history and need for this Convention.
I hope very much that it will get unanimous support from Parliament.
The reason why I have asked to speak particularly tonight is because one of the amendments refers to my role as the mediator for the President of the European Parliament on transnationally abducted children.
Amongst the many difficulties we are facing in this area is the very frequent refusal of courts from one Member State to recognize judgments made in another.
<P>
This has a two-fold effect.
It often prolongs very real human misery but as far as I am concerned one of the major problems it provokes is that of the abduction of children.
There is a genuine human fear at the heart of many of these abductions of a child.
We must be able to reassure both parents, either the custodial parent or the non-custodial parent, that they can rely on the support of the courts in their own country and the courts of the country where a child may be living to ensure that they will have access to their children.
Very often this fear of the loss of a child results in an abduction.
Sometimes there is not just one abduction but even two and, in extreme circumstances, even three.
That is to say, one partner abducts, the other abducts and then the other abducts again.
We must arrive at some form of genuine cooperation between the courts; there are a great many areas in the legal systems in all of our countries that need to be carefully reassessed in the light of this very difficult and growing problem.
<P>
That having been said, I accept that not only do we need the legal underpinning that your excellent report gives us but we also need considerably more training for the judges in all our countries.
Obviously I would very much like to see it in non-Union countries as well, where we experience very considerable difficulties, in particular in the North African countries, when children are abducted.
<P>
The report recognizes pragmatically the realities of a very recently introduced divorce law in Ireland and also historical realities which relate to the annulment of marriages and agreements with the Holy See.
I would like to thank the rapporteur for his work and congratulate him.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sierra González">
<SPEAKER ID=163 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ullmann">
Mr President, it could be argued with the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs that this is not an appropriate time for this Council initiative in view of the ongoing ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam and in view too of the current revision of the Brussels Convention of 1968.
However, I take a different view and thank the rapporteur for showing us the merits of this initiative.
The draft has a clear legal basis in Article K.3.
Its definitions are narrow and rigid, but clear, and despite the tight framework - here I refer to Mrs Banotti's speech -, it takes account of children's rights which are particularly worthy of protection.
As it aims to replace existing conventions, it represents an important step towards Union civil law.
Parliament, therefore, should follow the proposal of the Committee on Legal Affairs and its motions for an amendment and support this important Council initiative for a European Union civil law.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="Gradin">
Mr President, I am one of those who has long argued that it is unreasonable for it to be possible in the European Union to be regarded as married in one Member State and as divorced in another.
I therefore warmly welcome the report by Mr Verde i Aldea on the Convention on jurisdiction, recognition and enforcement of judgements in matrimonial matters.
The convention is a concrete example of what we at EU level can achieve to improve the quality of life of citizens, families and children within the Union.
It is natural that questions of jurisdiction, recognition and enforcement are brought to a head when countries move closer together.
Closer cooperation leads to increased contact and relationships between individuals, institutions and companies.
Consequently, there is also an increase in the number of disputes which cross the home country's borders.
<P>
In 1968 the Member States of the Union decided on a convention which regulates the question of jurisdiction, recognition and enforcement of civil law judgements.
It is aimed, above all, at companies and other financial operators.
However, matrimonial and custody questions were entirely excluded.
Since then, developments have gone towards citizens coming increasingly into the centre of the cooperation.
The free movement of persons is an objective which today has largely become a reality.
More and more citizens are marrying citizens from other Member States. More and more are like us in that they choose for various reasons, for longer or shorter periods, to live or work in a Member State other than their own.
This is of course a welcome development.
It is therefore natural to also develop the framework for international civil law.
An objective for us must be that disputes between individuals which involve the legal systems of more than one Member State can be resolved quickly and efficiently.
<P>
Matrimonial and custody disputes are both often heart-rending for all those concerned.
It is therefore particularly important that these disputes can be resolved without being complicated by procedural difficulties.
The European Parliament knows better than most the problems which rules of procedure for matrimonial disputes can cause for individual EU citizens.
A large number of petitions have been sent to the European Parliament on this issue.
In practice, the current situation means that a decision on divorce in one Member State is not automatically recognized in another Member State.
This can have serious consequences.
A couple can thus be legally divorced in one Member State while at the same time being regarded as married in another.
For the individual concerned this is of course entirely unacceptable.
It has particularly serious consequences if either of the parties wants to enter into a new marriage.
The result can then be that the new marriage is regarded as bigamy in another Member State, which is a punishable offence.
<P>
The draft Convention on jurisdiction, recognition and enforcement of judgements in matrimonial matters sets clear and exhaustive rules on who shall have jurisdiction in a particular case.
The basic principle is that jurisdiction is decided according to where the parties have their permanent place of residence.
In exceptional cases, nationality or place of abode may decide.
The convention also includes a number of rules which simplify and speed up the procedures for recognition and enforcement.
In practice, the rules mean that a ruling in a matrimonial case will automatically be enforced in another Member State.
<P>
In the event of divorce or separation, the children are often the most vulnerable.
Therefore, it is important, as far as possible, to create conditions for the children to maintain close contact with both their father and their mother after a divorce.
When more than one Member State is involved, the rules must be formulated so that the question of custody can be resolved unambiguously.
The starting point must always be what is best for the children.
In this regard, the convention is a considerable improvement compared with the current situation.
In future, the court which decides on matters of divorce will also be qualified to make decisions on the question of custody if the children have their permanent place of residence in the Member State.
The court will also be able to decide questions of custody if the children are resident in a different Member State on condition that at least one of the parties has custody of the children and that both parties accept that the court shall have jurisdiction.
<P>
In his report, the rapporteur raises the question of the role of the Court of Justice in the interpretation of the convention and finds that it is limited.
A preliminary ruling can only be requested by a court of appeal or by the highest legal authorities in a Member State.
I share the rapporteur's view that it would have been good if the Court of Justice had been given greater scope to give preliminary rulings.
I note in particular that the limitation is more extensive than is the case with the 1968 Brussels Convention.
<P>
The Convention on jurisdiction, recognition and enforcement of judgements in matrimonial matters is an important step towards the Europe of the citizens.
It is my hope that the formal decision on the convention is taken at the Council of Ministers for justice and home affairs on 28 and 29 May.
It is therefore important that the Member States also ratify the convention afterwards.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Gradin.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=13>
Aspects relating to world trade
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0125/98) by Mr Pimenta, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on environmental, health and consumer protection aspects of world trade.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Pimenta">
<SPEAKER ID=168 NAME="Pollack">
Mr President, I should first like to endorse the latter parts of what Mr Pimenta said.
I hope not to repeat them.
More and more often we are seeing results of appeal decisions at the WTO which have negative effects on the environment and, despite the provision of Article 20 of GATT, environmental protection seems to be far to the back of the minds of many of the international trade lawyers involved in this work.
In our own work in this Parliament we have watched decision son baby sealskins, leghold traps, animal testing for cosmetics, all coming to grief simply in the face of threats of the WTO, let alone actual cases.
<P>
For instance, I do not know if the officials who are developing the post-Kyoto policies and measures are taking precautions against future WTO attacks from, for example, the oil-producing nations.
But I certainly hope they are doing this.
The tuna dolphin and shrimp turtle decisions have increased the anxiety amongst NGOs and the public that the WTO is a threat to socially and environmentally sustainable development.
Yet, none of these cases are intrinsically trade disputes and ought to have simply been mediated.
If we had had more strong multilateral environment agreements, some of these problems could have been avoided.
It would be very sad if NGOs totally lost faith in the WTO because they could use the WTO tools for instance to battle for reductions in tariffs on environmental goods and services.
<P>
My group wholeheartedly supports Mr Pimenta's excellent report, including paragraph 8.
It should be an essential input to the main ministerial meeting on WTO and I hope that the Council of Ministers will listen to our concerns about the need to strengthen the WTO committee on trade and the environment.
The Commission has floated this idea of a high-level trade and environment meeting in Geneva in the autumn bringing together top-level policy-makers to push forward the debate on how to strengthen the CTE's work.
This could well be a useful initiative.
Mr Pimenta worries that this might be a delaying tactic and in many ways the work needs to be done beforehand by high level officials.
Nevertheless, it could be a useful step forward.
<P>
We are in a world where, to look at one area, increasing biotechnological innovations are threatening farmers' livelihoods in developing countries.
Natural herbal medicines from these countries are being pirated and patented by rapacious multinationals who then want to sell these products back at prices which cannot be afforded.
The Multilateral Agreement on Investment is being negotiated which may not yet contain sufficiently strong social and environmental clauses.
All these problems have a bearing on world trade and the way in which the WTO needs to develop and cope with them.
The WTO must be made to evolve so as to be able to work in a way which respects these important areas.
Mr Pimenta's report contains some very important and sound points and I commend it to the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Mr President, the GATT legislation, as you know, is of crucial importance to the promotion of world trade.
The Union too, our own European Union, and the Member States can benefit greatly.
But up until now the implementation of GATT has taken no account whatsoever of the environment.
It takes no account of unsustainable logging, it takes no account of highly intensive, polluting farming methods, it takes no account of cruel trapping methods, such as the leghold traps we have spoken of repeatedly in this Parliament. It takes no account whatsoever of general damage to the environment.
That is why this Parliament has urged, since 1993, that this connection should be made in the GATT.
We are still forced to conclude that the wording of laws currently in force establishes the prevalence of free trade aims over the aims of environmentally and socially sustainable development.
That is why Parliament insisted at the time that a committee for trade and the environment, the CTE, be set up.
Partly through the efforts of this Parliament, the committee and the working programme got off the ground, and was laid down in the Marrakesh Agreement.
However, far too little has changed since then.
There was no proper follow-up to Marrakesh.
With the WTO ministerial conference in Geneva in sight, this is the perfect time to give the process a new impetus.
The Pimenta report does so in an excellent fashion.
<P>
On the one hand, the situation appears to be improving, because, partly as a result of Kyoto, the United States has become more interested again in the environmental aspects of trade.
It also appears that a number of important points of dispute with the WTO, such as disputes over hormones and turtles, are being removed.
But on the other hand, further postponement of formal legislation in the WTO context might cause unnecessary political damage to that same WTO.
This own-initiative report by Mr Pimenta, which was unanimously adopted in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, is an important boost.
The work of the CTE must be taken up forcefully, and before the end of this century it must be in a position to fulfil the mandate set in Marrakesh.
<P>
The WTO should also take into account the precautionary principle, and "the polluter pays' principle.
The Commission and the Member States must in any case - and I am addressing the representative from the Commission in particular - take steps to urge their WTO partners in Geneva to enter into a binding declaration on the resolution.
<P>
We, the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, fully support Mr Pimenta's report, and we see any reason why it would not get through this Parliament unharmed tomorrow. The Committee on the Environment was unanimously in favour of this report, and if we want to be consistent as a political body, we will have to carry this unanimity in the Committee on the Environment through into this part-session.
I hope that we will all vote in favour of the Pimenta report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lannoye">
Mr President, I will not have the chance to say much in one minute, but in any case I will say that Mr Pimenta's report is excellent and we will vote for it without hesitation.
<P>
Indeed, Mr Pimenta clearly highlights the shortcomings of the current WTO and the fact that the values given priority at the moment put free trade before environmental and health protection.
The three best-known conflicts which have been settled by the WTO since the adoption of the Marrakech Agreements, those concerning hormones, bananas and fuel in the United States, are all conflicts which have given rise to decisions which are detrimental to both public health and the environment. This seems to me to be a vital point.
<P>
If we want this destructive process to end, we must get to the heart of the problem at all costs and not hesitate to challenge the very statutes of the WTO, where clear evidence of the principles of pernicious decision-making can be found.
I am thinking particularly of the fact that, when an individual state, or the European Union, wishes to adopt more rigorous measures in the areas of health or the environment, it is up to them to justify it.
Uncertainties regarding the harmlessness of certain products or processes are not sufficient to justify more restrictive measures, and this is not acceptable to us.
The beginnings of a change must be adopted in Geneva.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I must say that the Commission thinks it is very timely to be having a debate on this report before the second WTO ministerial conference and the OECD ministerial meeting, where the Commission hopes ministers will agree on the importance of holding a more open public debate, with better information about the repercussions for the world economy of the liberalization of trade and investments.
<P>
The Commission greatly appreciates Mr Pimenta's commitment to this subject.
The new report we have before us represents a fundamental contribution to the debate on trade and environment, both from a general point of view and in the WTO context.
I also think it is an essential element in the process of policy formation, since we are convinced that there can be no major progress in trade liberalization without the active support of civil society, not just in Europe but in other countries too, both developed and developing.
<P>
The Commission still believes that continuing the process of liberalization is good for the world in general, and for Europe in particular.
Nevertheless, the Members of the Commission also understand the worries globalization can cause, which have been expressed here this evening, and is convinced that we need to study more carefully how to define a framework for global liberalization which will guarantee that future growth benefits a great many people throughout the world and also represents a benefit rather than a cost to the environment of the planet.
<P>
That was the message of Sir Leon Brittan's speech on the environment to the Bellerive Foundation in Geneva on 23 March, and I hope the Commission can count on the support of this Parliament in producing new ideas in this respect.
Sir Leon was encouraged by the initially positive reactions of a large number of Members of this House, who are also following the debate on environment and development closely.
<P>
And in the same spirit, after the WTO ministerial conference in May, Sir Leon is going to ask his services to develop a transparent, wide-ranging dialogue about the repercussions of globalization so that, as we move towards the start of a future millennium round at the end of 1999, European public opinion will be not only prepared but also committed to the European objectives in these important negotiations.
<P>
Allow me next to deal in more detail, within this general political framework, with the report before us today.
This report poses a series of questions about the relationship between trade and environment.
The Commission does not think this relationship needs to be a source of conflict, and it should not be so.
As stated in our 1996 communication to this Parliament and the Council, we believe that trade and the environment can offer mutual support to each other.
Problems of adaptation will arise from time to time during the process, but that is exactly why the WTO Committee on Trade and Environment was created, as a first measure.
<P>
The Commission agrees with many of the comments made in the Pimenta report.
It also understands and shares the disappointment expressed in certain circles about the Committee's limited progress so far.
Maybe it has not progressed as much as some people hoped, but we should also point out that this lack of progress is certainly not due to any lack of effort on the part of the European Community, which has been a leader within the Committee ever since meetings began.
<P>
Nor should we underestimate the Committee's work in bringing together the responsible people from the worlds of trade and the environment, thereby helping them to understand the complexities of their respective sectors, or its valuable analyses throughout last year, and the progress made in removing the myths surrounding many problems.
<P>
I also want to say something about the shrimp-turtle decision.
The Commission is not in a position to make a specific comment on this case, in which the Community is not a direct party, since, as everyone knows, the WTO has not yet published the conclusions of the working group.
In general terms, the Commission considers that the conclusions of a series of earlier WTO working groups and of the dispute settlement body have, over the years, established a sort of jurisprudence which is developing coherently in the direction the Community has always advocated.
And as regards the specific working group I am talking about, I think we need to look beyond the rather sensationalist conclusions we have all read in the press, such as saying that the United States are losing the battle to save the turtles.
If we take a more technical approach and look at the data and the analysis which the Community presented to the special group, as a contribution from a third party, we can conclude that the question is probably a little more subtle.
The fact is, the United States prohibited shrimp imports from certain Asian countries, inviting them to negotiate an agreement on the protection of marine turtles.
And the special group could probably have reached a different conclusion if the United States had made a more serious effort to reach an agreement with the Asian countries before imposing the ban.
<P>
In any case, that special group will stimulate debate within the Committee on Trade and Environment, where the Community has constantly advocated that multilaterally agreed measures should abide by WTO rules.
So the basic reasoning follows the line taken by the Commission.
And while it is possible that the working group may find against the United States' measure, many of its conclusions can represent a step towards recognizing that WTO members have a lot of room for manoeuvre in adopting the environmental and conservation policies they feel are needed, including policies applied outside their own jurisdiction.
<P>
Mr Pimenta's report also addresses the question of WTO jurisprudence and Article 20.
Over the years, the conclusions of the various WTO working groups and the dispute settlement body have come to constitute a sort of jurisprudence, which is still making solid progress in the direction advocated by the Community. In other words, the measures adopted by WTO members to protect the environment outside their own jurisdiction should be taken into account when adopted multilaterally rather than unilaterally.
<P>
Although there has been progress in this area, the Commission believes it is not enough just to resolve the question of exemptions established in Article 20 of the GATT through juridical resolutions reached within the framework of the dispute settlement system.
Article 20 is so important that it should be dealt with at a political level, perhaps in the form of an interpretation or a general WTO agreement.
And the Commission is convinced that the constant progress achieved by working group resolutions will offer a good basis for any interpretation of this nature.
<P>
Moving on to the question of ethics and the protection of animals, which the rapporteur includes in the present report, I think this is an area which calls for a certain amount of caution.
I will just say that, in the current phase, we should avoid giving the impression that we want to lecture other countries about what they should do within their own jurisdictions.
<P>
When a problem arises in relation to their policies, the correct attitude is probably to collaborate with them and persuade them of our point of view, even through the use of binding agreements.
In any case, these questions should not be added to the agenda of the Committee which, in the Commission's view, should continue to concern itself with specific problems which really have a bearing on the environment.
<P>
Perhaps these are the sort of questions which could be addressed by the eminent persons group.
In principle, the Commission is happy with the idea of creating this group, but before we commit ourselves to it we need more details about what its precise mandate would be.
Obviously, it would be important for its work not to overlap with that of the Committee, and it would need a broad mandate, to include not just the traditional problems concerning trade and the environment, but also questions such as the ethical aspects of animal protection, human health, consumer protection and so on.
To start with however, as indicated in Mr Pimenta's report, our efforts should primarily be aimed at strengthening the work of the Committee itself.
<P>
As for what could be called the philosophical debate, the Commission would try to go along with the rapporteur's view, in the sense that the debate on trade and environment has matured sufficiently to allow intervention at a more political level.
This maturity is largely due to the Community's constructive efforts within the Committee, and that work should be increased now.
Nevertheless, as Sir Leon said in Geneva last month, the Commission also thinks it would be useful to have a high-level meeting on trade and environment before the WTO ministerial conference in 1999.
That meeting, under the auspices of the WTO, could strengthen the Committee's work, in the sense of increasing the importance of trade and environment in the eyes of governments, ensuring that the matter remains firmly fixed in the WTO programme in the run-up to the 1999 conference.
More importantly, a high-level political initiative of this type could remove the block which has so far largely prevented us from progressing as much as we would have liked, and could resolve many of the questions raised by Mr Pimenta in his report.
<P>
So the Commission wants to work with Parliament on initiatives like this which can allow us to place the environment right at the centre of our trade and ecological objectives, granting it a special place in the global round of negotiations.
<P>
To address some of Mr Pimenta's other comments, such as whether the Commission agrees with the idea of an eminent persons group, I have already said the Commission is sympathetic. The ministerial conference in May undoubtedly represents an intermediate phase between two ministerial conferences, and the Commission certainly has no plans to attach special importance to one particular subject or sector, and does not intend to propose anything on its own initiative.
However, it is willing to consider in a positive light anything suggested by other parties.
<P>
As for the Commission supporting the idea of a solemn political declaration in Geneva, as suggested by Mr Pimenta this evening, we see the May ministerial conference as an intermediate stage between two ministerial conferences, and the Commission clearly has no plans to place the emphasis on that question. However, we understand that the objective of such a declaration, according to Mr Pimenta's report, would be to regain the political impetus, and the Commission accepts that there is a need to revitalize the debate.
For that reason, as I said before, we have proposed the high-level officials' meeting.
<P>
Those are the basic aspects I wanted to comment on.
Also, I want to say to Mrs Pollack, as regards her mention of the Kyoto Protocol, that we do not see any danger of incompatibility with the WTO. As for the multilateral agreement on investments, the MAI, negotiated within the framework of the OECD, the Community is prepared to go as far as may be necessary - and I want to say that categorically - to guarantee that foreign investments respect national laws on environmental protection.
Those are some of the comments I wanted to make in connection with Mr Pimenta's report, to which the Commission is very sympathetic. We think it is very important, just like the speeches we have heard.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 NAME="Pimenta">
Mr President, may I first make a comment for the benefit of the Parliamentary staff: paragraph 4 is wrong in all languages.
It should not read 'the caution principle' , but the 'precautionary principle' .
I would ask the staff to correct the error, because this is an important matter.
<P>
Turning to the Commissioner, I would firstly like to thank him for being here, and tell him that I know him well and know from his background and his lifestyle that he is sincere when he speaks on environmental matters and participation in civil society.
Nevertheless - and I hope I can rely on your vote, Commissioner Oreja, as an ally of ours in defending these causes - I would like to make sure the whole Commission knows, first and foremost, that there must be a declaration on the environment in Geneva in May, because there was none made in Singapore.
Because in Singapore, as you know, the Committee on Trade and Environment (CTE) report was not even ratified, and if there is no declaration in May it will mean another year will be wasted on discussions at official level.
We need a political initiative at the highest level, within the WTO. Otherwise the debate will not be resumed.
<P>
Secondly, a high-level meeting should not be a meeting of senior officials.
It should be a ministerial initiative, because it is not the Director-Generals who answer to their national parliaments on policy and receive policy directions, however well qualified they may be technically; it is the ministers.
It is the ministers for trade, the ministers for the environment, as it is the Commissioners here.
I would ask the Commissioner to properly forward to the Commission the fact that this House is seriously interested in political initiatives, and raises these questions at political level, without wishing to detract from the excellent work that has been done by technical experts, and especially European technical experts, in this field.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
Mr President, I have certainly taken note of what Mr Pimenta said.
I will make sure I remember it and convey his opinion to the Members of the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Oreja.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=14>
European City of Culture
<SPEAKER ID=176 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0083/98) by Mr Monfils, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision establishing a Community initiative for the European City of Culture event (COM(97)0549 - C4-0580/97-97/0290(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 NAME="Monfils">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, since 1985 the choice of the European Cities of Culture has been left to the Union's Council of Ministers.
Decisions were not always based on the cultural value of the projects submitted.
Furthermore, in the year 2000, Europe has made no choice since it has accepted the designation of nine cities as Cities of Culture.
<P>
The directive presented by the Commission is aimed at giving greater importance to European cities and greater objectivity to the choices made.
At a procedural level, the directive proposes setting up a Selection Panel.
On the basis of its opinion, on the proposal of the Commission and after consultation with Parliament, the Council will designate the European City of Culture by a qualified majority.
The directive furthermore extends the choice of cities to the countries of the European Economic Area.
It also strengthens the demands relating to the content of the projects to be presented.
After a particularly in-depth debate, for which I would especially like to thank the members of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, some of whom are present today, I can say that this committee approved virtually unanimously the amendments presented to you here, which are furthermore in line with the suggestions I made in my report.
<P>
There are seven points worth highlighting.
Firstly, with regard to the choice of city, we are proposing to replace the previous intergovernmental method with a Community method.
Thus the cities will submit their applications directly, without going via their national government.
I am aware that there is clear opposition to this method within the Council of Ministers.
There are even some who would like the European City of Culture to be designated in turn by each Member State, or by the state holding the Presidency of the European Union.
Thus, after Great Britain, an Austrian city would be nominated by Austria for six months, then a Swedish one, then Danish, then Belgian and so on.
<P>
To do this would be to ruin completely the idea of a European capital of culture, which must not be designated by a State for reasons of circumstance or opportunity, but as the result of a proper cultural analysis of a project presented by the city and an appreciation of the capacity for influence within Europe of the candidate city's cultural project.
I am convinced that a very large majority of this House will share the virtually unanimous view of the Committee on Culture and will not accept the cheap selling-off of the very idea of the European City of Culture.
<P>
Secondly, we wanted to strengthen the independence of the Selection Panel and place the emphasis on quality, in particular at the level of cultural expertise.
<P>
Thirdly, on a procedural level, we are proposing to implement fully the codecision procedure for choice of city, which implies close participation on the part of Parliament in designating the city, and not simply giving an opinion.
<P>
Fourthly, we consider that a candidate city may present a specific cultural project in association with other cities, even if a state does not belong to the European Union - maybe to the European Free Trade Association or the European Economic Area, for example - but that the city presenting the project would be solely responsible to the European Union and would hold the title of European City of Culture.
<P>
Fifthly, the Committee on Culture wanted to add depth to the content of the projects to be presented by cities, by placing emphasis on the development of artistic creation. This implies not being satisfied with a simple show of cultural events imported from other countries or cities, but demanding that the cultural project should be rooted in the social fabric of the city, encouraging maximum participation in the cultural project on the part of the city's citizens and groups and insisting that conditions for a follow-up to the year's cultural events be presented in the project.
<P>
Sixthly, the new importance given to the designation of European City of Culture and the fact that stricter conditions for eligibility have been set mean that greater financial support is required.
We are proposing a sum of ECU 2 million, obviously without wishing to influence the possibility of receiving other benefits, in particular via the Structural Funds.
<P>
Finally, my seventh point, we stand by the proposal for a European Cultural Month for the countries which are not part of the European Union but who would have an undeniable interest in this if it were to be made more dynamic.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Culture and the European Parliament have worked quickly.
As I said, we wanted to make the designation of European City of Culture one of the strong points of the Union's cultural policy.
We obviously want to insist that the procedure should not be delayed, so that everything can be in place by the end of the year and we can thus apply the provisions of the new directive to the designation of European City for 2002. This is also what the European Commission hopes for, and in particular the European Commissioner, Mr Oreja, whose company we have the pleasure of here today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="De Coene">
<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Vaz da Silva">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased that I have been invited to be the first speaker on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, because I think the European City of Culture is a brilliant idea, a real stroke of genius.
I therefore hope we shall not strangle it at birth.
<P>
In 2002 this programme must stop being an extended intergovernmental pilot scheme and unreservedly become a Community initiative for which Governments, the Commission and Parliament share responsibility.
This is a change we consider fundamental in order to invest it with a highly important threefold function; the representation of national, regional and local culture, which is naturally dear to governments' hearts, the demonstration of a common European culture, which is naturally dear to the Commission's heart; and the expression of the vital forces of society, which is naturally dear to Parliament's heart.
The future of this important programme will be put at risk if we do not move forward towards the communitization, the codecision-based selection procedure proposed by Parliament.
<P>
The proposals in the Monfils report amount to an important signal to the people.
They prove that when a programme demonstrates its worth, European institutions are capable of recognizing it, in this case by proposing to increase the budget and extend the number of participants to enable the programme to realize its full potential.
Let us see whether the Commission and the Member States will match the generosity of Parliament, which is proposing a reference amount of ECU 2 million.
<P>
Since the event was first instituted in 1985, the European City of Culture has taken various forms, and in the last few years has shown a maturity which has been apparent not only in the consistency and innovation of most of the programmes suggested by the cities, but especially in the extent to which those cities have in some cases been transformed.
This is a fundamental way of guaranteeing the effect of an investment going beyond the festival year.
<P>
After 2002, if Parliament's proposal is accepted, the European City of Culture can no longer be an event that has nothing to do with the people who live there, or with other cities, inside and outside the Union, with which it is called to join hands.
It must not fail to be a link between the past and the future, making good use, as the report suggests, of the relationship between the continued exploitation of its heritage and contemporary creative work.
It must also seek to ensure that local initiatives are publicized so that they reach other cities and regions of Europe.
<P>
The future City of Culture must submit itself for selection directly, without having to go through central government. It must be selected by an independent consultative Selection Panel, and must finally be approved by the three European institutions.
In proposing this, Parliament is giving its clear backing to the initiative and responsibility of the cities themselves.
This may help to advance the claims of medium-sized and peripheral cities which would be unlikely to be put forward for selection if they were to rely upon being chosen by their Governments.
<P>
Parliament has had the courage to add to this excellent proposal by the Commission.
Let us hope Member States will be able to see the potential of this means we are offering them to achieve our common objective: to reinforce the cohesion of the European fabric through cultural cooperation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ryynänen">
Mr President, Commissioner, on behalf of my group I would like to thank Mr Monfils for his splendid report.
The notion that Melina Mercouri put forward thirteen years ago regarding the City of Culture event has been an undoubted success.
By the year 2000 all Member States of the Union will have their own City of Culture year planned. Actually, Finland is the only country that is having to share its designated City of Culture year with eight other cities.
There is nothing there can be done about this in itself, but I seriously think that Finland too, and perhaps especially, given her status as a relatively unknown new Member State, should have had her own individual City of Culture celebration.
Helsinki should have got her own City of Culture year considering her internationally respected, and at the same time totally indigenous, contribution to the Arts, as well as the cultural arrangements that are now being undertaken in preparation for the year 2000.
<P>
Sharing the City of Culture among many only serves to water down each city's visible contribution to cultural development.
In future programming the City of Culture status must clearly only be awarded to one city at a time.
The most important contribution the City of Culture project can make is, in the end, its permanent influence on society, and it is therefore necessary to try to get the community as a whole involved in events, to take part in them and get something out of them.
It is then that the influence the event has will carry on in an active and creative way long after the year in question is over.
The City of Culture year must be mainly based on the city's own resources and special features, its history and its challenges in the face of change.
You can then build a selected theme on that individual cultural base, taking advantage of reciprocal action and cultural offerings on an international basis.
<P>
The birth of lasting cultural cooperation is one of the key goals of the Union.
Although cooperation among different cities is to be aspired to, it is the essential responsibility of just one city, and, if it likes, that city can adopt a natural partner to help in the formulation of its City of Culture year, a partner that has something in common with its geographical situation, history or culture: one of the applicant countries, for instance.
I hope the Commission will continue to develop the European City of Culture notion, which is a splendid opportunity, for example, for associate countries to develop their cultural heritage and creativity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Heinisch">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, a common market, common political institutions and a common currency which we are seeking to set in motion today, are all the results of a European accord.
They should lead to the people within the European Union growing closer together and combining their energies.
Yet the foundations upon which the States in the European Union have been building their Community for almost a half century, and the soil in which it will thrive derive from something which has linked the peoples on this continent for several thousand years: their common culture.
The Community European City of Culture initiative is based on this thinking.
It takes the very thing that could persuade Europeans to consider seeking a political accord in the first place, and uses it to strengthen this accord.
<P>
From time immemorial, European cities have been centres of culture.
Art, music, literature, dance, theatre, film, architecture in the past and now thrive best where people meet and are culturally active.
The "European City of Culture' programme should awaken new interest amongst the citizens of the Union for the cultural heritage in our cities, and focus their eyes more keenly on their beauty.
However, in the quest to become European City of Culture there is no place for cities that are inwardlooking.
Cities only have a chance of gaining this distinction by placing their own culture in a European context.
Where are the city's European influences, and in what way has it influenced Europe?
It is the task of Europe's cities to illustrate this by means of cultural events.
And, in terms of the initiative we are to adopt today, this will be all the more successful the more cities cooperate with other European cities on their projects and involve creative artists from other cities in their campaigns.
<P>
All Member States of the European Union basically agree that, in order to maintain the cultural diversity of Europe, it is imperative to preserve the cultural sovereignty of the Member States.
Yet, in terms of the European City of Culture, it is a question of being aware of the riches generated by this diversity whilst keeping in view its common roots.
The great opportunity of this initiative is that it can reach all citizens of the Union, for everyone can be culturally creative and take pleasure from culture.
Precisely because culture has such a strongly integrating effect, we in the European Parliament would re-emphasize our call as a legitimate democratic body to participate in the decision on the European City of Culture from the year 2002 and to make available ECU 2 million as an annual contribution to finance the initiative.
Finally, I offer my warmest congratulations to the rapporteur for producing a sound report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by congratulating Mr Monfils on his excellent report.
"European Cities of Culture' is amongst the few projects which appeal to everyone's imagination, yield considerable economic benefit for the city concerned, and can look to the business community for support.
<P>
The rapporteur rightly stresses that neither the size of a city nor its political importance within a country is of overriding importance.
In the past we have focused mainly on capital cities.
This new directive intends to give smaller cities a chance.
One condition is, however, that the candidate cities present a clear project which is aimed at the future of the city and which has as its premise its individuality and its role in European history.
<P>
An important point regarding the participation of smaller cities in the programme is that Europe provides sufficient resources.
My city, Bruges, for instance, candidate for the year 2002, does not have the facilities and infrastructure which capitals have; this is why I support the amendment which provides for ECU 2 million.
<P>
In conclusion, I agree with the proposal that candidate cities should be able to submit their candidature directly to the European Commission, and not to their governments.
If added to this there will be an independent panel and a Parliament which can have the final say in the choice of the city, I can see a true democratization of the selection procedure.
We hope that the approval of this directive can be finalized this year, so that from 2002 the selection can be made according to this new directive, as planned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Monfils for the successful work he has done in drafting this report.
It is important to stress that the City of Culture programme ought also to be used to bring capital cities outside the EU to the attention of the public.
Lasting cultural cooperation can be furthered not just by concentrating on one city but through regional and cross-border projects.
One city should, however, bear the responsibility of coordinating the work.
<P>
Sufficient community funding must be found for these programmes, but even more important is the link between business and the events themselves.
The weighty contribution which business can make will guarantee publicity for the events and the region in question, and financial tie-ins can also help to promote the development of sustainable projects in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first I want to congratulate both Mr Monfils, on his excellent report, and the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media.
Parliament attaches great importance to the inclusion of the European City of Culture within the Community framework and demonstrates the need to support this event, which has met with increasing success ever since it was launched.
<P>
The purpose of the initiative presented by the Commission is to highlight the richness and cultural diversity of European cities and, at the same time, as Mrs Vaz da Silva reminded us a moment ago, draw attention to our common cultural heritage.
And that is in keeping with the spirit and the letter of Article 128 of the Treaty.
<P>
The Commission is pleased to accept most of Parliament's amendments, which undoubtedly improve the text markedly.
However, there are some amendments which we would prefer not to incorporate into the initial proposal: specifically, Amendments Nos 7, 10, 12, 13, 14 and part of No 9.
<P>
Let us consider Amendments Nos 7 and 14 first.
The funding for the European City of Culture initiative is provided for in the Commission proposal on the framework programme, which has not yet been adopted by the Commission.
So at this stage of the procedure the Commission cannot accept amendments with regard to funding since the budgetary provision has to form part of the framework programme.
<P>
As for Amendment No 8, insofar as it concerns the presentation of candidates, the Commission believes that the support and initiative of the Member States is indispensable for the event's success.
This is to avoid what we see as a potential waste of effort and money by cities with no real chance of being selected right from the outset, because of a lack of venues, for example.
<P>
In reference to the last part of Amendment No 9 and Amendment No 10, the Commission proposal certainly makes no attempt to marginalize Parliament. On the contrary, we want it to have a greater role in this activity which, from being intergovernmental in nature, is turning into a Community initiative.
<P>
The selection procedure proposed by the Commission tries to involve the Community institutions fully, and is flexible enough for the decision to be adopted quickly, allowing the selected cities enough time to prepare for the event.
<P>
The legislative procedure of codecision, provided for in Article 189(b) of the Treaty, is generally required when establishing measures to promote the cultural sector, but it does not seem the most appropriate method for the specific designation of the city. Given its complexity and length, it could stop the programme working properly.
<P>
As for Amendments Nos 12 and 13, the Commission does not consider their approach to be in keeping with the Community's commitments to associated third countries as regards the possibility of their participation in Community programmes and activities.
<P>
Finally, the Commission wants to stress the need for us to conclude all the procedures connected with the implementation of this initiative as quickly as possible. In that respect, I can tell you that the Commission will spare no effort and will do what it can to try to get the different institutions to adopt a similar position, so we can reach a satisfactory solution which preserves or even increases the vitality and success of this event.
<P>
To Mr De Coene, who said a moment ago that the Council had adopted a decision, I want to say that the Council cannot adopt any decision until you have adopted yours.
And at this point, allow me to put on my institutionalist's hat.
The Council can exchange opinions, but cannot decide, because first of all there has to be a first reading - which is what you are doing now - and then the Council will make a statement. There will be an opportunity for that on 28 May, which is when the Council will be able to examine a common position, if it wants to, and possibly adopt it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 NAME="Monfils">
Very rapidly, Mr President, I would simply like to say to the Commissioner that I am extremely disappointed by his response, in three respects.
I will pass over the problem of financing, one to two million, when the European Union's budget is ECU 900 million or 1 billion - what am I saying! - 100 billion per year, the issue is clearly ridiculous.
But there are two points to which I would like to draw your attention, Commissioner.
<P>
Firstly, you cannot accept Amendment No 8, which is the amendment enabling cities to submit their projects directly to the Commission.
I thought you were the defender and the promoter of cultural development in the European Union.
To hand the choice of cultural city over to the Member States is to trivialize completely the role of European City of Culture and, my apologies for saying this, but you are playing into the hands of the Member States and not that of the Community that you should be defending.
<P>
Secondly, when you say that codecision will slow things down, Commissioner, may I remind you that you submitted your report to us a little before the New Year.
I commenced my report around 10 January.
By 20 January it was being translated.
Any delays involved in this report have been through administrative reasons or reasons of timing only.
The Committee on Culture has completed everything in the shortest time possible.
To tell me that we are not capable, at the level of the European Parliament, of giving an opinion on a European city, that is, of saying yes or no to Brussels, Salamanca, Helsinki or elsewhere, is clearly to make a mockery of the work of Parliament.
We have proved that in less than three months, and with a series of delays which were not of our making, we have been able to draw up a report, discuss it, amend it and vote on it.
Consequently, Commissioner, I have the feeling that in this respect you are making a mockery of the work of Parliament.
<P>
I would like to end, Commissioner, in a word, by saying this to you: in your directive, you wanted a sign, a strong symbol for the European Union, in terms of culture, and we agreed with you.
Not only did we agree, not only did we propose it, but we also reinforced it.
Commissioner, do not destroy cultural symbols in a world such as ours.
They are essential in order to experience our culture in all its diversity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="De Coene">
Commissioner, I do not wish to call into question your expertise regarding institutional issues.
I know that you are a specialist on the matter.
I would merely like to say one thing, namely that if, in the common position, the Council was to amend the date the directive enters into force, and say 2005 or 2006 was laid down instead of 2002, this would in fact amount to the same thing. Promises have already been made to cities, and to countries at intergovernmental level.
Everyone knows this, and it has even been published in non-official publications.
So let us not be naive.
I know that you oppose this.
I know that you do not accept this because as Commissioner, you want to oversee the actual procedures.
But let us be honest. Simply through this simple amendment, the Council of Ministers for Culture can undermine your intentions and what we want.
This is what is happening at the moment.
<P>
So let us be sensible and let us react immediately and say that this is out of the question.
I only wanted to issue a warning about some demarches happening at the moment.
I really did not want to teach anyone a lesson.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
<SPEAKER ID=188 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Marcelino Oreja.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 12.05 a.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=0>
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="Billingham">
I rise, Madam President, to seek your support and in fact the support of the President of the Parliament for relief for the devastating floods and the effect of those floods in my constituency over the Easter weekend.
Some two thousand homes were affected and hundreds of families are now living in temporary accommodation.
To make matters even worse: in Northampton, alone, the area that was affected was a socially deprived one where people basically have very little insurance coverage.
I know that you will be aware of these floods; they hit the whole of the Midlands.
I have already written to the Commission seeking support and I seek your support too for some disaster fund alleviation of this really very tragic situation in which there was not only loss of property but tragically also loss of life.
So I seek your support this morning on this very serious matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Billingham.
I am extremely saddened by this disaster and will, of course, take careful note of your comment.
Naturally, I will inform the President and the necessary steps will be taken, you have my word.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="Perry">
Madam President, I rise on a point of order that I referred to this House back in September of last year following the tragic death of Diana, Princess of Wales.
I said this raised the issue of a possible intrusion by the press into the privacy of individuals.
At that stage, following a motion from Mrs Pauline Green, it was suggested that the matter should be referred to committee.
I raised the item again, earlier this year; that is a matter that to my knowledge has not yet been referred to any committee of this House although it was the decision of the House, as I say, in September of last year.
I wonder whether you can give us any information at this stage whether there is any intention to honour the wish of the House and refer this to committee, or whether there is somebody attempting some sort of cover up?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President">
In general, Mr Perry, I can tell you that we have the greatest intention to respect Parliament's wishes.
That is quite clear.
As regards the precise matter you are raising, I cannot give you any information at this precise moment, but we will look into it and ensure that, in this instance, the wishes of Parliament are followed. I will make sure of it.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
The Minutes of 29 April 1998 have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="Collins, Gerard">
Madam President, my name is not on the register of attendance for yesterday, through nobody's fault other than my own.
I was present at the House and I contributed to the debate on Northern Ireland.
I would appreciate the fact if my name could be included among those who were present.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Of course, Mr Collins. It was a mistake.
We did note your presence and the matter will be rectified.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Madam President, I should like to enquire when the results in connection with the declaration on crime in Brussels will appear in the Minutes.
According to the Minutes, Mr Schulz said that we are concentrating only on the protection of employees of the European institutions.
I should, however, like to stress that we are, of course, equally concerned with the protection of all citizens in Brussels.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
Absolutely, Mr Rübig.
If a declaration was made but not recorded in the Minutes, we shall look into the matter.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Services based on, or consisting of, conditional access
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0136/98) by Mr Anastassopoulos, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the legal protection of services based on, or consisting of, conditional access (COM(97)0356 - C4-0475/97-97/0198(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="Anastassopoulos">
Madam President, I cannot see a representative of the European Commission in the Chamber at the moment and I would not be prepared to proceed with the debate if there were no Commissioner present to follow it.
I would like to make a request to wait for perhaps a moment or two until the Commissioner arrives, since it is impossible for us to have a debate without a Commissioner here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
Mr Anastassopoulos, I had certainly noticed the Commission's absence.
I was hoping their representative would arrive during the procedural motions but that has not happened.
I am extremely sorry, and not very pleased about this.
It must surely be some problem with the planes.
Communication is not always easy everywhere...
<P>
(Mr Martens: "The Commission is in Brussels' ) It was a joke, Mr Martens.
<P>
Mr Anastassopoulos has made a request which I personally approve of, if there are no objections.
We shall suspend the sitting for a few minutes, while we wait for the relevant Commissioner to arrive.
I hope we shall be able to resume the sitting as soon as possible.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 9.10 a.m. and resumed at 9.15 a.m.)
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, we can resume the sitting.
Commissioner Monti was delayed due to a strike on the part of the officials at the Commission.
Mr Commissioner, there is no need to apologize.
Given your punctuality and the fact that you are always available to the European Parliament, we were not really worried and we were sure that the reason for your delay was of a pressing nature.
<P>
The rapporteur, Mr Anastassopoulos, has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="Anastassopoulos">
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Wolf">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the question of conditional access is a central interface for the whole range of services in our information society.
What we have here in fact is the question of what are the conditions under which conditional access should be introduced.
It is, therefore, a matter of defining the conditions for conditional access, and this poses a series of fundamental questions.
<P>
Firstly, the relationship between fee-payment and private acquisition must be determined, because we could not, of course, allow someone to acquire Shakespeare and subsequently demand a fee whenever Shakespeare's work is performed.
The fact of the matter is that our culture is always a combination of individual and joint achievements.
Corresponding lines of demarcation need to be drawn here.
<P>
Secondly, it is a question of the relationship between the information-rich and the information-poor.
We must not allow conditional access to lead to a situation in which essential elements of our culture, essential elements which are public property, are accessible only to privileged minorities who can afford to pay for them.
Ultimately, we are dealing with a segmentation of the public which can indeed restrict people's freedom to form their own opinions.
The appropriate conditions must be imposed here so that, if private acquisition is necessary and sensible, it can indeed take place and rights can indeed be properly exploited as well.
We just need to bear in mind that we shall keep coming back to convergence, and there would certainly be a connection.
But basically, we have here a first opportunity to talk about the problem of convergence at this interface as well.
<P>
I have also complained about the regulatory minimalism which the Commission has displayed, instead of using this interface aggressively.
We have been particularly struck by two points.
Firstly, the fact that national boundaries and technical ranges do not coincide. This leads to all sorts of inconsistencies in practice which have not been satisfactorily addressed.
If, for example, you use a decoder for Sky television as an English-speaking viewer in Belgium, is that structurally illegal?
Surely not!
<P>
Secondly, there is a very dangerous tendency for those who exploit rights to put themselves in the position of the copyright holders or of the originators, and to some extent to give these rights a subordinate character.
We must ensure that the originators and copyright holders are also protected. That seems to me to be a necessary condition.
When we talk about conditional access, we are at the same time talking about the conditions that we want to impose on private industry for the introduction of conditional access.
With that in mind, I think that this ought to be our fundamental approach to the subject.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Whitehead">
Madam President, I too would like to congratulate the rapporteur and his colleagues on the Legal Affairs Committee who have brought this matter to our consideration today.
<P>
It is our view, on the Culture Committee, that we are quite properly here looking at issues of delivery and not at issues of content.
There are many concerns about content and I will refer to them in just a second.
But, essentially, today we are looking at the protection of certain services from the point of view of the delivery of the signal to the individual consumer.
It is for that reason that we cannot vote for the latter part of Amendment No 20, despite all the real concerns about copyright.
They are legitimate concerns but we need a copyright directive to address them and we need it urgently to move in parallel with the subject we are debating today.
<P>
We all agree that the problem of piracy is substantial and it grows day by day.
In the end, content matters in this directive because the funding of content, the provision of the programmes for the increasing number of digital services, essentially relies for many broadcasters on the revenues from remunerated conditional access.
If you allow the pirates to flourish that revenue will be diminished.
If the revenue is diminished there will be fewer services available for the public at large.
<P>
Nevertheless, we want to make sure that in attempting to tackle this question of pirates, we very carefully delineate precisely what the actions are that we are prescribing.
We are not in favour of restrictions on the citizen and draconian punishments for the mere possession inadvertently of a smart card published for other reasons, perhaps in another state.
We are in favour of pursuing those who deliberately manufacture these instruments for profit.
That is why we support the phrasing of Amendment No 22.
<P>
My final point is that in all of this we need to have regard to the area of public broadcasting and broadcasting which is free to air.
Nothing in this directive should force broadcasters into encryption and into measures of protection not necessary in terms of the purposes which they serve.
That is the point of Amendment No 25 and of many of the preambles which I believe have been properly addressed by all the three committees that have looked at this matter.
I would certainly commend the directive to the Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Madam President, I think the word "piracy' has been used too much in this morning's debate.
The rapporteur, Mr Anastassopoulos, is Greek and knows that a pirate was a sailor who burnt boats belonging to other countries or other people. This caused people to die, and was a terrible thing to do.
At the moment, people seem too ready to use the term "piracy' .
There is no piracy here: we are dealing with the protection of certain economic interests.
Economic interests deserve to be protected.
On the other hand however, there are other rights which must also be protected, such as the right to information or the right to privacy.
I am saying this because it seems that, at least in the discussions in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, there has been a temptation to protect encoded communications as if they were a fundamental right.
But there are other fundamental rights.
All we are doing here is providing a certain amount of protection, to enable that activity to develop and the providers to be remunerated.
It is a simple question of economics.
In that respect, I think the Commission's proposal is good and well-balanced, because it protects those economic interests but without restricting people's rights.
<P>
I want to congratulate the rapporteur for being so understanding during discussions on this subject, because I think the 20 or so amendments which have finally been adopted are reasonable and balanced.
However, in the Group of the Party of European Socialists we have objections to the second part of Amendment No 20 and the second part of Amendment No 22.
As regards the former, Mr Whitehead has already mentioned the difficulties of protecting content which, in the end, might end up as the justification for protecting more than just remuneration.
Secondly, we object to the second part of Amendment No 22 because, in referring to the "sole intended purpose of enabling unauthorized access to a protected service' , it weakens the protection, because it does not cover the case of an instrument with a useful purpose.
In other words, with the exception of the second part of Amendment No 20 - specifically the words "or its content' - and the second part of Amendment No 22 - "for the sole intended purpose of enabling unauthorized access to a protected service' - the Socialist Group agrees with the amendments and, of course, we are in favour of approving Mr Anastassopoulos' report in its current terms We also congratulate the Commission on having achieved a balance in the proposal it has presented to us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Madam President, I must start by saying - and it is not just rhetoric - that it is an honour for me to be the first member of the Group of the European People's Party to speak following a rapporteur from our group.
It is an honour because the rapporteur has followed in the best European Parliament traditions of Members defending their ideas - their ideas about protecting citizens' interests - with all the energy they can muster, with no effort spared and, at the same time, eager to reach conclusions by means of dialogue.
<P>
Madam President, as the rapporteur rightly said, we are faced with a Commission proposal which we in this Parliament see as a response to a resolution passed in this House.
And in that sense, we have to agree with the rapporteur when he says that the Commission has not done everything this House requested. In other words, it has not dealt with the problems of non-remunerated encoded services or the possibility of offering more protection for authors' rights.
<P>
Having said all that, Madam President, and speaking now in a personal capacity - since the Group of the European People's Party will vote according to the rapporteur's voting list - I am going to mention a few doubts.
Madam President, I do not agree with some of the amendments proposed by the rapporteur and accepted by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
The reason is very simple: in Europe at the moment we want to "legislate less to legislate better' .
There is a declaration in the Treaty of Amsterdam which says that legislation must be clear, concise and aimed at a specific problem.
The Commission proposal meets those criteria.
It is true that the title of the proposal should have specified that it refers to remunerated encoded services.
That reference to remuneration should have appeared in recitals 5 and 12, in Article 1 and elsewhere, to make it absolutely clear which problem was being addressed.
And for the sake of that clarity we advocate, those recitals should also have mentioned that there are other large problem areas, such as non-remunerated encoded services, which should be addressed in other normative instruments.
<P>
Having said that, some of the approved amendments are not going to have the effect of harmonizing legislation or solving the existing problems. Rather, if they were included in the final text they would create even bigger problems.
I am not going to repeat what has already been said about the "sole intended purpose' , but blank tapes are not prohibited and, in that sense, there is no reason to think of banning an instrument which has a general use but can also be used for illegal purposes.
<P>
To pass on to other things, in Spanish we have a saying that: "He who attempts too much ends up doing nothing properly' .
And by including concepts such as direct or indirect profits, or content, we are creating margins for discretion, to be interpreted in the last analysis by the courts in each Member State. That could give rise to greater differences, if that were possible, in the very matter we are trying to harmonize.
<P>
So I hope, Madam President, that along this normative journey, we may reach a good solution which meets the criteria set out by the rapporteur - doubtless in other normative instruments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, the starting point is important with this directive, namely that we are trying to provide legal protection for the economic values associated with intellectual activity.
That is what should be important, not obstructing access to information, as one of our colleagues also said.
<P>
We should recognize that protection of services also creates an interest in developing high-grade products.
The liberal point of view is that private services should in principle have the same protection as public services in this sector.
We should not experience what happens in some places, namely that people are prepared to resort to repressive measures if the public service licence has not been paid, but not to protect commercial television.
The committee and the rapporteur have rightly pointed to the freedom of speech aspects, which are important.
<P>
I hope this directive really helps to create a single market for products which are needed for the information society.
We have a problem with the fact that there is no functioning market today, such as in the case of encryption to protect private interests.
<P>
It is important that we create rules which do not represent obstacles for the future.
The change we are proposing in Amendment No 22 is so that we can get such a development.
That is why my group is going to support it.
But just as someone from the Group of the Party of European Socialists said earlier, we cannot support Amendment No 20, because it would create confusion and not clarify the directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Oddy">
Madam President, I should like to thank the rapporteur and my colleagues on the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and also the draftspeople on this rather complicated directive.
In particular, I should like to thank Phillip Whitehead whom I have worked closely with on this subject.
This is an important subject for the citizens of Europe as television is such a popular pastime.
<P>
The directive recognizes that new technology is coming into the industry and that it will be moving towards digital technology.
It provides for protection for the smart cards which will allow access to pay TV.
The proposal is intended to protect the providers of these services.
I have had a huge postbag on this proposal and the reactions to it have been very mixed.
Essentially we need a balance between protection and access to service for the consumers.
The rapporteur has endeavoured to achieve that.
<P>
Some of the particular points of concern raised in correspondence from all sorts of sources - individuals as well as firms - has been that the possession itself of a smart card should not be illegal and I agree with that.
There has also been concern on the civil liberties aspect of this directive and some writers have felt that the proposal is draconian.
I hope the Commission has received similar correspondence.
It is important that ordinary citizens' voices are heard in this Chamber and by the Commission.
<P>
Another point of concern - and I have not had an adequate response from the Commission so perhaps Commissioner Monti could address this in his reply - is why the directive only applies to pay TV.
Some public service broadcast services are remunerated and, consequently, there is going to be a problem with litigation on which services are provided for remuneration and which are not.
In the interests of good law-making we should avoid unnecessary litigation.
<P>
In conclusion, I broadly support the proposal and the amendments although I may have some concern about particular aspects.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Pex">
Madam President, I would like to express my respect for the rapporteur and thank him for his excellent report.
Still, there is one point I would like to draw attention to and that is the protection of the rights of artists and authors.
They need strong legal protection, and they are entitled to it.
That is why I wholeheartedly support Amendment No 20 in its entirety.
Piracy must be combated forcefully.
It is not enough to forbid instruments which are specifically designed and made to give unauthorized access.
It is sometimes also possible to infringe copyright with legal and seemingly harmless software. This should also be combated.
Amendment No 22 limits this protection to equipment with the sole intended purpose of enabling unauthorized access.
This amendment must therefore be rejected, and most certainly the words "with the sole intended purpose' .
The European cultural world must not only be protected in special directives on copyright, important as this is, but must be protected in all cases, and therefore also in this directive.
<P>
That is why I ask the House to support Amendment No 20 in its entirety, and to vote against Amendment No 22.
Again, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, and could I ask Commissioner Bangemann and Commissioner Monti, present here today, to bear in mind the cultural dimension in their policy.
This is an extremely important issue.
It determines the cultural diversity of Europe, and that is Europe's strength.
They have to bear that in mind in their policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Berger">
Madam President, I am one of the admittedly small number of members of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights who voted in committee against some of our rapporteur's amendments, and subsequently also against the directive that had been amended in accordance with his proposals.
I should like to make it clear here that this rejection did not relate to all the changes.
I do give my full support to all the amendments which are aimed at protecting not only those services which are subject to restricted access for commercial reasons, but also to those which are restricted for reasons to do with the security and integrity of the information transmitted.
<P>
However, I believe that, for systematic reasons, the right of originators to bring an action, proposed in the report, ought to be dealt with not in this directive, but in the copyright directive which is also currently being dealt with by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, and that it should be considered by them at the same time as aspects which are essentially legal.
Otherwise we shall end up with a proliferation of requirements in a range of different directives, which would be of very little assistance to originators.
<P>
However, the greatest substantive problem I have relates, however, to the more or less clearly expressed demand that Member States should also criminalize private ownership of smart cards and similar devices.
This encourages more snooping around in people's homes, and on the whole I also believe that too little consideration is being given to the rights of free access to information.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="Monti">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I first wish to apologize for the delay this morning, owing to difficulties on this particular day.
I am very sorry and I would like to thank Madam President for being so understanding.
<P>
I would like to thank the draftsmen of opinion of the various Parliamentary committees and in particular the rapporteur for the Committee on Legal Affairs, Vice-President Anastassopoulos, for the complex and very thorough work done on this proposal, which is both important and difficult.
The proposal for a directive aims to protect radio and television broadcasters and the suppliers of new services in the information society from piracy, that is from the production and distribution of equipment that enables services normally provided for payment to be received free of charge.
It should be remembered that the start of pay television was also the start of a flourishing industry in commercial piracy which, by providing users with pirate equipment, caused huge losses to the service providers and hindered the development of this emerging sector.
Some Member States reacted by introducing a specific legal protection against piracy, while others did not do so for various reasons.
Moreover, the national legislations recently adopted are extremely varied.
Consequently there is no equivalent level of protection, and the Union is thus becoming a refuge for pirates and offers several possibilities for eluding the legal protection guaranteed in some Member States.
The proposal for a directive seeks to resolve this problem by introducing harmonized regulations within the scope of the single market.
<P>
I am pleased that the report from the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and the amendments proposed are generally in favour of the Commission's proposal. It should not be forgotten that this is the answer to a repeated request from Parliament, last made in Mr Anastassopoulos' previous report on the Commission's Green Paper of 1996.
<P>
I am also pleased that the Anastassopoulos report, in the same way as the reports from the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, contains numerous amendments that mainly help to clarify or reinforce the Commission's proposal.
I am referring in particular to Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 23, 24 and 25 which the Commission will accept in full, if not to the letter at least in spirit.
<P>
However, following a careful examination and taking into account the opinions of the various parties concerned, there are several amendments the Commission cannot accept.
This is the case, for example, with Amendment No 20, which aims to extend the scope of the legal protection to services using conditional access systems for reasons other than those of ensuring appropriate remuneration.
This type of amendment goes beyond the aim of the proposal, which is to deal with the fundamental problem of piracy, that is, the desire of certain users to obtain services they would normally pay for at reduced or no cost, and the interest of the pirate industry in satisfying this demand by providing users with illegal equipment.
<P>
These amendments, however, seek to extend protection to services using conditional access systems for reasons other than that of guaranteeing payment, such as the requirement to ensure observance of contractual agreements arranged between service providers and content providers, seeking to make it impossible to receive a service in territories other than those for which the rights were requested.
This goes beyond the scope of the proposal and cannot be accepted in the context of this proposal.
<P>
In this connection, however, I would like to point out, Madam President, and to the rapporteur, that personally I am convinced of the interest and need to examine this matter. I think it would be useful, for that purpose, to begin a study to establish more clearly the terms of the question, its compatibility with Community law and the possible means available to offer an appropriate solution that takes due account of the interests of all parties involved.
<P>
One further amendment the Commission cannot accept is Amendment No 22 for, by restricting the definition of illicit pirate devices, it risks creating loopholes and weakening the protection considerably.
<P>
The Commission cannot accept several other amendments which, in our opinion, are not sufficiently clear and could give rise to confusion or incorrect interpretations.
I am referring to Amendments Nos 5, 9, 11, 18, 21 and part of 23.
However, I wish to point out that despite the fact that several amendments cannot be accepted by the Commission, the agreement between the institutions on the objectives and the reasons for combating piracy and on the need to react urgently is broadly based and very encouraging.
I am sure that constructive cooperation between Parliament, the Commission and the Council will make it possible to achieve the objective, and I hope that every effort will be made in this connection.
<P>
Just one word, Madam President, on the point raised by Mr Pex, to reassure him that the Commission has taken maximum account of the cultural dimension, the value of cultural variety in Europe.
This spirit is reflected in the fact that we accept all the amendments made by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media.
Finally, with regard to the point raised by Mr Oddy, I have already partly explained that the Commission's proposal only guarantees protection for services using conditional access to guarantee payment, as it is only in these cases that there is a legitimate interest and a real requirement for protection.
<P>
I would like to add that intellectual property rights are not prejudiced, as simple reception, without reproduction or retransmission, cannot constitute a breach of an intellectual property right.
Moreover, when the service is not paid for, the service provider cannot sustain any direct financial loss as a result of unauthorized access.
<P>
This is a subject that should be examined further but, given the time constraints, I will stop here for the time being.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="Anastassopoulos">
Madam President, I would particularly like to thank the Commissioner and all those colleagues who took part in this difficult debate on a very difficult issue, which has occupied those of us on the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights - you yourself are aware of this as you are a member of that committee - for many months, with many opposing views and many sides who, in fact, maintained their views right up to the present.
<P>
Following Commissioner Monti's speech, I would like to highlight two points.
There is still a fundamental disagreement between us concerning the limits of legal protection.
This disagreement was expressed in the Commissioner's speech and also in his opposition to the basic Amendment No 20, or at least, as I heard, to a section of this amendment, which somewhat attenuates the disagreement.
But I would like to mention the Commissioner's statement, which bore witness to his good intentions, that together with his colleagues in the European Commission, he was prepared to launch a study aimed at discovering whether, in the future, he could go beyond the scope which the Commission itself determined and which, of course, Parliament seeks to broaden.
As a result of the Commissioner's statement, I do not have a problem in allowing the report to be adopted, whereas I would have had a problem had there been no such statement. Perhaps I should ask Parliment to refer it back to the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
We shall see how we can solve the problem of disagreement before the second reading.
<P>
I must point out of course that the Commission accepted 16 to 17 amendments, which is a detail I cannot overlook. Of course, I think that the efforts of all of us are aimed at finding syntheses that will serve every possible balanced outcome.
We always bear in mind that rights are affected, and one way or another we endeavour to find the best solution. I wish to point out that, for my part - and I have stressed this repeatedly - my intention is that public broadcasting services be covered by legal protection, since I place great importance on public broadcasting channels, for many reasons.
<P>
Having made these observations, I would like to thank you, Madam President, since we are now in a position to have a complete picture of this extremely difficult issue, which we shall be voting on at 11.00 a.m..
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place today at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
The internal market in natural gas
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0140/98), on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the common position established by the Council (C40103/98-00/0385 (COD)) with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive concerning common rules for the internal market in natural gas (Rapporteur: Mr Desama).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Desama">
Madam President, the vote which will follow today's debate brings to an end a file which has been open for six years, that of the internal market for energy, with its two components, electricity and gas.
I would like to highlight the continuity with which this has been handled within Parliament, since during these six years a single rapporteur has been dealing with this issue, yet during the same period we have seen three different commissioners and even more presidencies of the Council.
<P>
Having said that, how should we judge this gas directive, and the proposal for a common position which is put to us today?
Firstly, it should be recognized that, as with the electricity case, we find in it the main essentials of what Parliament voted for at the first reading in November 1993.
I will not list these points here. I would merely like to mention a number of essential points which give real structure to the future directive.
Firstly, of course, the creation of the new concept of negotiated access to the network.
It was, in fact, the European Parliament which came up with this idea.
It is taken up in the directive, and we are very pleased about that.
<P>
The second important factor is the desire for a progressive opening up of the markets, to take into account the large differences in the way the systems are structured. This we also find in the directive.
<P>
The third element is the implementation of the principle of subsidiarity, which is necessary not to protect national interests but to give the desired time for a rapprochement in organization and systems, as they are so different within the European Union.
<P>
The fourth element, finally, is public service mission.
I think that in the directive on energy, for both electricity and gas, we have probably reached the best solution with regard to the protection of the public service mission. In any case, these are far better solutions than the ones we jointly came up with for telecommunications.
So we are very pleased with this.
<P>
In the compromise which has now been reached, two positive factors can also be highlighted, for which I would like to congratulate both the Commission and the presidencies which persevered with the issue: the Dutch, Luxembourg and British presidencies.
These two compromises are important factors in the safety and supply of natural gas within the European Union, firstly that of the storage and use of installations and also, above all, that of the application of take or pay contracts, that is, long term contracts which guarantee the security of supply to a Union which is heavily dependent on external supplies of gas.
<P>
Of course, whether we see ourselves represented in this directive at an 80 % or an 85 % level, there is still a small margin with which we do not agree, but then, as Alfred de Musset said: "The pleasure is all the more intense for not being complete' .
It would be complete if we had today secured the eligibility of distributors and the eligibility of cogeneration.
It is not surprising that a certain number of Members have tabled amendments on this point.
It is a strong demand from the European Parliament that should undoubtedly be answered when the directive is reviewed in a few years' time although, by then, times will have changed and attitudes will undoubtedly be more mature.
<P>
With regard to the amendments which were retabled at the second reading, there are essentially three, since two of them are identical.
The first relates to the time-scale within which we are asking the Commission to give an assessment of the development of the issue.
We wanted to remind the Commission of this necessity, but I am perfectly willing to call on my colleagues to vote against these amendments if Commissioner Papoutsis can give us the necessary guarantees with regard to this.
<P>
Secondly, the eligibility of distributors.
We had already defended this point of view with regard to the electricity directive. Today, although in essence I share this desire, as rapporteur I am called upon to recommend you to vote against this amendment, since it could also have the effect of threatening the balance of the compromise and thus preventing both the legal security and the necessary links with the electricity directive.
It is for the same reason that I am opposed to the amendment on cogeneration, even though it has been tabled by my group, for on this issue too it has been difficult to reach a compromise.
To challenge this issue would be to challenge the whole directive, so I obviously call upon you to vote against these amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="McNally">
Mr President, firstly heartiest congratulations to Claude Desama for achieving this uncompleted business for us over the time-scale involved.
Of course he has the support of the Socialist Group.
That is quite obvious.
We shall be pursuing the amendment on cogeneration and I will explain why in a moment.
The timelag is, indeed, very long and during this period of years several things have happened.
For example, the United Kingdom experience of a very rapid liberalization of the market within that country demonstrated that there is some benefit in doing it more progressively, in doing it slower.
The United Kingdom experience was so rapid that the large loss of jobs and the difficulties associated with unbundling came over far too short a period.
That is not going to happen with this directive.
<P>
Nevertheless, the experience with the gas directive, as with the electricity directive, will be a faster liberalization than the directive actually demands.
In some ways the six years have made it a little anachronistic and there will be developments which are not foreseen in the directive.
The other thing that has happened in those six years is the development of environmental concerns, in particular expressed in the agreements made at Kyoto where cogeneration plays an important part, as one of the resolutions.
That is why we are representing our amendment.
The majority of the Socialist Group does not believe that Article 18.2 is appropriate.
Indeed, we believe it directly contradicts the Commission's communication on cogeneration.
We will therefore give people the opportunity when we vote to make it clear that they support cogeneration.
Nevertheless, like everyone else, we want the directive speedily.
We do not want to be obstructive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mombaur">
Madam President, after three legislatures, believe it or not, we are today reorganizing the last large sector of industry in the Union.
The Member States have given the Union the task of bringing their markets together into a single internal market, and of enforcing the freedoms of the Treaty, namely the freedom to trade and the freedom of settlement, in all sectors.
The gas sector must surely be the last one where these two legal objectives have not yet been enforced.
This directive thus represents the keystone of the internal market.
I would remind you of the lesson we have learnt from our knowledge of economics: wherever there are monopolies, it is easier for mistakes to be made because the costs have to be met by captive customers.
On the other hand, competition forces mistakes out into the open, because it puts companies which make the wrong decisions at a competitive disadvantage.
As a result, competition puts pressure on prices and provides a motive for suppliers to come up with the best solutions.
<P>
But when does competition arise?
At the point when the consumer can choose the same product from different types of supplier.
And that is what this directive achieves, by establishing that state of affairs - namely freedom of suppliers and thus freedom of choice for the consumer.
A different directive achieved this at the level of production at an earlier stage.
The gas directive achieves it in the area of transport and distribution, on a step-bystep basis, by abolishing legal monopolies and making it possible in practice to circumvent pipeline monopolies, since branch pipelines can be constructed, and there is a right to the freely approved construction of parallel infrastructure.
As a result, however, it is clear and important that practical monopolies will be abolished since, by being opened up to everyone, the pipelines can be used by third parties, with adequate protection being given to the owner as he receives a payment which covers his costs, and since the long-term supply contracts are given adequate protection.
A great many Member States were concerned about this point. In my opinion, the degree of protection it receives in the directive is in fact exaggerated.
Finally, there is also protection for Member States who set particular store by the ability to impose public service obligations on the companies.
<P>
After three years of discussion, the Council has unanimously agreed a highly skilful compromise, a very wellbalanced and sensitive compromise.
We have decided - I speak for my group in committee and here in Parliament - to approve and support this compromise, because the way to construct Europe is to advance step-by-step. What could have been improved?
In my opinion, the distributors have not been dealt with sufficiently well - but that is not the opinion of everyone in my group - and it could have been further improved in the area of combined heat and power.
However we recognize that important interests on the part of the Member States justify the arrangements proposed.
<P>
Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, what happens next?
Firstly, we expect clear statements from the Commission about regular and early reports, so that further steps can ensue.
Secondly, in those cases where states make use of the exemptions in relation to combined heat and power, we expect a report to Parliament so that that, too, can be discussed by it.
Parliament would like to follow this issue.
Thirdly, without further delay, we expect Commission reports on the need for harmonization in the areas of the environment and tax.
Fourthly, I want to make it clear that with this directive we are agreeing a level to which the applicant countries of the former Communist bloc in central and eastern Europe will have to adhere, and for which they must now prepare themselves.
Fifthly, I would like to voice my hope that the reformed and more efficient firms in the gas market will also become capable, as a result of this reform, of tackling the world market, where in my view they have so far been inadequately represented.
<P>
I thank the Commissioner, I thank the entire Commission, and I thank all the Members - first and foremost, Mr Desama - who have shown such a commitment to this directive over the years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Malerba">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to announce the favourable position of our group, the Group Union for Europe, with regard to the directive on the natural gas market and Mr Desama' s report.
This favourable position is the result of agreement with the other political groups in the European Parliament and also of mediation within our group.
I would have preferred the directive to be more ambitious, to provide more space for decentralized production, to introduce some more ambitious elements of competition promoting the districts and associations of small and medium-sized enterprises in particular.
However, we have listened with satisfaction to the undertakings given by the Commission in the discussions within our Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy. Consequently, the outstanding aspect that leaves us with most uncertainty is the treatment of the cogeneration plants, in which regard the directive still seems to be ambiguous and retains complete discretion on the input thresholds.
<P>
Nevertheless, I have listened to the reasons put forward by the various parties involved and the rapporteur's analysis, and, to conclude, it seems to me that the guideline of good in relation to better should prevail, as in the electricity directive, and that the gas market should be re-regulated well as soon as possible, rather than fight with the Council again, possibly for years, for something better.
<P>
Moreover, the amendment introduced by Mr Pompidou and accepted by the Desama report, which requires an assessment of the results of this directive over a certain number of years, offers the European Parliament a certain pathway along which to pursue our objectives.
<P>
I would like to conclude by congratulating Mr Desama and the Commission on their excellent work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, my group, the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, is very pleased with the directive on natural gas.
At last there will be an internal market for gas with the attendant market functioning and natural competition.
It means prices that conform to the market - in other words, lower prices for European companies and in future also for consumers.
I obviously congratulate Claude Desama on his result.
Although the market opening is still extremely limited, my group can agree with the Council's common position.
We support Mr Desama, apart from two issues on which my group has tabled amendments.
It is our job after all to ensure that Europe has effective legislation.
<P>
The European Union Member States are becoming increasingly dependent on gas for heat and electricity.
Although gas is a relatively clean form of energy, CO2 is released when it is burnt.
In view of the agreements made in Kyoto concerning CO2 reduction, it is important that we use our gas as efficiently as possible.
A technology which makes a contribution is cogeneration. Combined heat and power stations have an output of 80 % to 90 %.
This is almost twice as much as a conventional gas-fired power station.
Cogeneration should therefore be promoted and should benefit from the liberalized market.
<P>
The Council's position gives only the big combined heat and power stations the right always to buy gas freely.
Yet in reality, more and more small combined heat and power stations are being built, for example for companies which generate their own electricity and use the heat for an industrial process.
<P>
In the Netherlands combined heat and power, as well as CO2 from combined heat and power stations, is used in market gardening, a totally closed circuit which is efficient and environmentally friendly. Did we not agree with the Council that energy-efficient technologies ought to be promoted?
My group believes that all gas-fired combined heat and power stations should be entitled to buy gas freely.
We oppose Article 18. 2 and, with the Group of the Party of European Socialists, will support the amendments on this.
<P>
My second amendment concerns the position of distribution companies in the gas market.
Distribution companies are able to stimulate initiatives such as the construction of combined heat and power stations at local level.
It is therefore important that these companies can be considered full market players, and are able to buy their gas freely.
Only proper market functioning under equal conditions will ensure that energy is used as efficiently as possible.
If we wish to comply with the Kyoto agreements then this is a necessary condition.
On principle, our group will persevere with this as well.
<P>
To conclude, Mr President, the fact that the Council is somewhat casual in curbing the use of fossil fuels, and therefore CO2 , is made particularly manifest by the budget for the ALTENER programme which is being debated after this.
My group fully concurs with the opinion of the rapporteur, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz.
The budget is so low that all statements from the Council about greater efforts towards climate protection seem almost laughable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Elmalan">
Mr President, in spite of the absence of a common energy policy, we receive directive after directive adapting the energy market to the principles of free trade and competition.
After electricity, as has been said, it is the gas market which is to be liberalized.
<P>
Certainly, a compromise agreement was reached between the different governments on 8 December 1997, a compromise which the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy has not wanted to threaten with amendments, judging the Council's common position to be balanced and reasonable.
I, too, would like to congratulate Mr Desama on his work.
Nevertheless, the opening up to liberalization is progressive and not as strong as the Commission initially proposed.
Long term supply contracts are safeguarded and measures relating to public service obligations are recognized, in particular with regard to distribution.
<P>
But even if it is progressive and controlled, the opening up of the market to competition is no less real and will not fail to weigh ever more heavily on the development of this sector.
Manufacturers will benefit from price reductions due to competition between suppliers and, in compensation, domestic users will suffer an increase in prices.
This is, moreover, exactly what the president of Eurogaz admitted when he spoke to the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
Market pressures will be exerted on the principles and mission of public service, which risks being progressively dismantled in the face of attacks from competition.
Thus, before the directive has even finally been adopted, the French Government has challenged the monopoly of Gaz de France by opening up the market to the private sector in districts which are not currently served.
Furthermore, owing to a rapid return on investment, liberalization risks leading to preference being given to electricity production based on natural gas, to the detriment of other sources such as nuclear energy.
<P>
For all these reasons, the majority of our group, in particular the French Members of Parliament, are opposed to this directive to open up the gas market to competition.
In our opinion, in the absence of a common energy policy, there is no justification for the liberalization of the energy market, be it the gas or the electricity sector.
Our position is based both on Article 90.2 of the Treaty, which recognizes the possibility of each Member State organizing its public services contrary to the rules of competition, and also on the principle of subsidiarity, which must enable the special nature of energy to be taken into consideration. It is not a product just like any other and must not therefore be subject to free competition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Desama, who wrote this thorough report without wasting words, but briefly and concisely, which makes it easier for us.
<P>
This liberalization of the natural gas market has a number of advantages, but it also has disadvantages.
Mr Desama has raised some of the critical points.
However, I would like to add that people would like to see decentralized production favoured much more than stated in this directive.
There is also a problem with the existing criteria for entering the market, such as the threshold of 25 million m3 for industrial clients.
As far as this is concerned we must try to bring about some improvement in the future.
<P>
In many cases natural gas is better than both nuclear power and coal, but nonetheless it is not the best from an environmental point of view.
We must therefore work even harder with renewable sources of energy in order to live up to the objectives adopted during the Kyoto Conference.
To do so we need a lot more resources.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Sainjon">
Mr President, I am happy with this compromise, which I would describe as a flexible one. It will enable each Member State to move still further towards the creation of an internal market in natural gas whilst enabling a controlled opening up of the market and recognizing the obligation of public service as essential.
<P>
This compromise takes into account the different comments made by all the actors in this affair since 1993.
Parliament has greatly contributed to this outcome and I do not think, as some Members wish, that we should move towards conciliation at any cost.
This procedure is a last resort which tends sometimes, it is true, to show Parliament's importance and determination. Nevertheless, a weapon is never truly dissuasive unless used sparingly.
With the issue of gas, it can be said that we have reached a satisfactory balance at second reading.
It is essential, for example, that Member States designate eligible customers.
As with the electricity directive, the future gas directive leaves this problem to the realm of subsidiarity.
<P>
It is also essential that this agreement is, as I said, flexible - that is, that the Member States are able to move at their own pace with regard to opening up their respective markets, some wanting to move much faster than others.
Differences in the structure of consumption between countries must therefore be taken into account, and the minimum degree of opening up that is decided upon in the agreement consequently seems acceptable to me.
<P>
The Group of the European Radical Alliance would like to thank Mr Desama and approves of his report, which will give rise to a directive enabling clear rules to be formulated for such a strategic sector. Let us not forget that although Europe is going to find itself in a position of surplus supply in the short term, with greater competition between the traditional suppliers, new resources will be necessary from around 2005 and the Union's dependence on external gas sources will increase.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Linkohr">
Mr President, I should also like to offer sincere thanks to Claude Desama.
Following on from what he said earlier, we might also say that Council presidencies come and go, but the rapporteur Claude Desama goes on forever.
He has certainly worked on these matters for a very long time and has ensured himself a place in the history books of European politics.
The real problem we have in this case is Article 18.2.
It is our intention that it should be possible for combined heat and power to purchase gas as cheaply as possible, in other words to be accepted as a customer, everywhere, in every country.
<P>
Now the objection that arises is that people say: "Well now, that calls the Council compromise into question.
They went to a lot of trouble in the Council, so why should we now extend the procedure by means of a process of negotiation?'
I am sorry, but I cannot accept this argument.
If we accept this argument, then all proposals from the Council are reasonable as a matter of principle, and we can give ourselves a relatively easy life.
Translating this to national Parliaments would mean that, if the government makes a legislative proposal, it clearly will have had a reason for doing so, and consequently the Parliament would have to give its agreement.
I cannot go along with that, although I concede that the procedure will, of course, be extended as a result.
But there is also a second point in relation to this matter.
At the same time as we are debating this gas directive, the Commission has presented a paper, an interesting communication on combined heat and power.
We, the Parliament - the rapporteur is Mrs Estevan Bolea - shall also demand that the contribution of combined heat and power within the European Union should be doubled or trebled.
<P>
What Parliament is doing here is a contradiction.
On the one hand, we are calling for a doubling or trebling of the role of combined heat and power; on the other, we are afraid to write into our directive that they may buy their gas wherever they like.
If Parliament behaves like this, we shall lose credibility. That is the worst thing that can happen in politics, and we are being severely punished for it at the moment in some places in the Member States.
That is why I ask you to support the Socialists' amendment, and then we shall see what happens.
After all, we are dealing with sensible people!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, after almost ten years of debating the issue, the natural gas markets are now being deregulated.
I would like to thank Claude Desama for his excellent work on this matter.
The proposal for a directive is a good one, but I wish to point out one weakness in all this, which is that in the gas directive the status of combined heat and electricity production is inferior to that of other means of energy production.
Electricity producers will be allowed to pipe gas regardless of the size of the company, but if the company is a producer of combined heat and power, Member States may determine the minimum size of the gas company allowed to pipe gas.
I do not think this is right.
Combined heat and power production is surely one of the best ways of achieving the aims of the Kyoto conference, as it will lead to a reduction in greenhouse emissions as companies increase their overall efficiency.
Besides, I think it is very important that the implementation of the directive in Member States is monitored and that the Commission also shares its experiences with the European Parliament and Council by means of a report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremedis">
Mr President, this may not be in keeping with what has gone before, but I feel obliged to say that I am against the directive and the recommendation, and of course I cannot congratulate Mr Desama.
The reason for this is that both the directive and the recommendation operate within the framework of privatization, the most extreme liberalization, and free competition within an unregulated free market.
The directive is targeted towards the gradual exclusion of the public sector while, on the other hand, encouraging and promoting a private monopoly over natural gas in the shape of the integrated enterprise, whether vertical or horizontal.
If integration is horizontal, enterprises trading in other sectors, such as electricity, may enter the natural gas sector. Thus we will have enormous monopolistic business conglomerates which will rule in tyranny over society, holding in their power this most crucial element - energy - which is vital for growth and development, for the provision of social services and for the protection of the environment.
A private monopoly is incompatible with these three factors because it seeks profit and nothing else.
It will therefore rule in tyranny over the whole of society, which will be obliged, through taxation, to pay for structural work on behalf of these enterprises, and even for safety and protection.
For these reasons we will not vote for this action.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Papoutsis">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as we are all aware, the proposal for the internal market in natural gas is extremely important.
The gradual liberalization of this market, which has an annual turnover of more than ECU 100 billion, is inextricably linked with our aim of increased competition in the European economy, and also of reduced unemployment.
<P>
I would like to thank the European Parliament for its decision, first and foremost, to speed up the examination of the common position on natural gas in order to enable the timely submission of the second reading to the Energy Council to be held on 11 May.
The common position on the internal market in natural gas, which is being submitted to the European Parliament for second reading, is the fruit of intense negotiations.
During these negotiations we succeeded in laying the foundations of the new competitive electricity market, as well as those of the corresponding natural gas market, which form the fundamental pillars of the internal energy market.
These important results would not have been possible without the personal contribution of your rapporteur, Mr Desama.
I would therefore like to thank Mr Desama for his excellent work throughout those years.
<P>
It is true that the landscape of the internal energy market has changed radically.
The issuing of the electricity directive demonstrated the determination of Member States, the determination of industry and consumers, and also the determination of market forces, to open up the energy sector to competition.
In reality, as is clear from the recent Commission report to the European Parliament and the Council, Member States are opting for the fastest possible opening up of the market, with the widest possible range, in relation to what is called for by the directive on the electricity market.
This fact justifies the choices we made in issuing the electricity directive.
<P>
I believe it is in the interests of industry and consumers alike to put the gas directive into effect and not to delay it in relation to the directive on the electricity market.
The opening up of the natural gas market to competition must not be delayed.
The common position on the gas directive, which was adopted unanimously by the Council on 12 February, is a significant achievement and reflects the general agreement that has been established between the Member States.
It includes a large number of common rules which must be implemented by the Member States, in accordance, however, with their own idiosyncrasies.
<P>
In accordance with the intentions of the European Commission and Parliament alike, the present directive provides a common framework for the whole of Europe, leaving the definition of the relevant provisions to the principle of subsidiarity.
More especially, it provides for the existence of minimum levels of competition in the natural gas market.
The directive also guarantees that, from the outset, a large number of industrial consumers, as well as all electricity producers, will be free to choose their own natural gas provider.
This eligibility also includes combined electricity and heat producers and is therefore fully in line with the priority that is accorded to this sector.
Only in very special and exceptional cases is it possible for a Member State to institute reduced ceilings, which in any case will be communicated to the Commission and, in consequence, will be carefully monitored by the Commission as to the actual justification concerning the imbalances of the domestic electricity markets.
<P>
There are already indications that many Member States will restrict themselves to the basic demands of the directive, but they will open up their markets to competition.
According to these indications, the results of liberalization will be more significant than previously anticipated.
<P>
The directive also provides for the protection of obligations to provide a service, which Member States can impose on natural gas companies in their market in the broader economic interest.
Nor must we forget that liberalization of the market does not mean privatization.
Liberalization of the market means that public state enterprises and private enterprises alike must operate within the framework of the internal market, and respect the principles of healthy competition.
These obligations will be defined by the Member States in the context of the community framework and will subsequently be communicated to the Commission, which will monitor them on the basis of the provisions of community legislation.
This mechanism will allow Member States to counterbalance competition with public service whenever it is judged to serve the broader public interest.
<P>
As regards storage, we believe this cannot be regarded as part of a natural monopoly, since it is a commercial activity. For this reason, the Commission considers that there is no cause for special provisions in addition to what is already included in the proposal.
<P>
As regards the important issue of take or pay contracts, I am very satisfied with the unanimous and widespread support for the solution that has been achieved.
This solution allows the Commission to carry out effective control on the basis of clear and objective criteria.
I am determined to set up an efficient method of cooperation between the Commission and the Member States on this issue.
The Commission and the Member States are now called upon to play a very important role in this regard.
The common position incorporates a large number of amendments which were tabled during the first reading by Parliament and which had already been taken into consideration by the Commission in its amended proposal.
I have to say that these amendments contributed to the clarification of a number of important points, and also to the broader balance of the text.
I especially appreciate the work of Parliament's Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy in this second reading and I would like to stress that, in principle, the balanced structure and the value of the common position has been acknowledged.
<P>
As regards the amendment on the submission of a report after the directive has been in force for three years, I would like to say that the European Commission is willing to accept this amendment if Parliament considers it to be really necessary.
I would like to make it clear that, in any event, the Commission intends to submit reports to the European Parliament and to the Council whenever this is deemed expedient and a de facto imperative.
More especially, it will provide a good opportunity for a regular review of the possibility of implementation by the Member States of the special provision relating to the cogeneration of electricity and heat.
I would also like to emphasize that the Commission recently drafted its first report on the monitoring of the electricity directive, although the directive itself does not provide for this obligation.
I can assure you that what we do for electricity we shall of course do for natural gas.
<P>
These reports are of vital importance for the preparation of the next stages in the development of an internal energy market.
And I would like to add that the presidency fully shares this approach.
It is clear that it rests with Parliament to decide whether such an amendment is necessary after what has been said.
In any case, I consider the close monitoring, on the part of the Commission, of the implementation of the gas directive, in close cooperation with Member States, to be absolutely vital.
Moreover, it is the only way to avoid misinterpretation of the various provisions of the directive and to ensure the full, timely and effective realization of this important initiative.
In the case of the electricity directive, we successfully followed this approach, which proved to be effective and received a warm reception on the part of all the Member States.
<P>
As regards the other amendments which have been tabled, the Commission is not in a position to adopt them.
We cannot adopt the two amendments which have been put forward in relation to cogeneration since, as I have already explained, cogeneration is already eligible, except under very specific conditions which must always be communicated to the Commission.
<P>
As regards the amendment which has been put forward on distributors, this touches upon one of the most sensitive issues which have been debated in the context of the overall compromise.
Distributors are already eligible as regards the supplying of their own eligible customers, whether industries or electricity generators.
Any freedom of choice beyond this falls within subsidiarity, and this touches on the very essence of the compromise, especially in relation to the possible obligation of public services.
For these reasons the Commission cannot accept the amendment.
<P>
The Commission considers it vitally important to approve, as quickly as possible, the present directive, which is supported by consumers and industry alike.
Today's debate has clearly shown that this position is shared by the European Parliament.
<P>
I would like to finish by once again expressing my thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Desama, to all the Members of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy of the European Parliament, and to all the Members who spoke today in the context of the debate in this Chamber.
I wish to thank them warmly for their constructive contribution to this extremely important process, which we are completing today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Papoutsis.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place today at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
ALTENER II
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0143/98), on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the common position established by the Council (C40032/98-97/0106 (SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Decision concerning a multiannual programme for the promotion of renewable energy sources in the Community (ALTENER II) (Rapporteur: Mrs. Bloch von Blottnitz).
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<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Bloch von Blottnitz">
Mr President, the ALTENER programme is a typical example which illustrates the yawning gulf in politics between demands and reality.
I would simply remind you of the resolutions in Berlin, Rio and Kyoto.
We committed ourselves to a reduction in the emission of pollutants and CO2 .
It was said that this was one of the most important tasks that we face in the coming years.
In its deliberations on ALTENER II, the Council itself says that by the year 2000 we shall have an increase of 3 % in CO2 emissions, not a reduction.
It goes on to say - and I regard this as cynical - that ALTENER II should make a significant contribution to the increased use of environmentally friendly, renewable energy sources, and that it should represent a principal component of the Community strategy for the reduction of CO2 emissions.
<P>
I have to say, that strikes me as frankly outrageous when I see that only ECU 22 million have been provided for it.
What on earth can you do with ECU 11 million per annum?
The Council goes even further than this by restricting our budgetary authority, not de jure , which it cannot do, but de facto , and it even wants to prescribe how much we have to allocate in the budget next year.
That is not on, and under no circumstances can we can put up with it!
ECU 11 million this year, and next year we shall see.
Moreover, what we might call the last straw in this outrageous behaviour is the fact that the Council has not planned to put the issue on the agenda of the Energy Council meeting on 11 May.
This would mean that we would have no more money at all this year, that we would have no ALTENER II programme at all and once again would do nothing for renewable energies.
I would just like to remind you once more of the shameful fiasco - since there is not enough money - of SAVE, JOULE and THERMIE.
We all know that we are dependent on imports of raw materials.
And so of course all my nuclear friends come along and say, well then, what about nuclear power?
I tell you that is utter rubbish, we need uranium for nuclear power, and we have to import that as well, so let us just be clear on that point!
<P>
In addition, it creates many jobs.
It is an export opportunity for the next millennium.
It is environmentally friendly.
It is the only way we shall achieve a reduction in CO2 .
The Council says so, we know that, but there is no money for it!
I would just like us to get as much money for these programmes - only for four years - as we chuck at the nuclear industry each year, for fusion for example.
In that case, we blithely spend ECU 250 million, and sometime, possibly in the year 2050 ...
But in the case of something that is necessary, that creates jobs, is good for the environment, and contains enormous innovative potential, we simply do nothing!
I have to ask myself, where am I, what sort of play are we performing here? Is it a comedy?
It is no comedy; it is tragic. I would also like to point out again that, on top of everything else, it is envisaged in the programme that domestic waste should be accepted as renewable energy.
This, of course, makes me wonder what it is all about.
Domestic waste, I ask you!
That is not renewable energy.
Of course, it is quite clear that a number of industries have a good deal of interest in this, namely the waste incineration plants.
The point is that they are now in the hands of the large electricity supply companies. Because these companies were able to build up such large reserves for the disposal of nuclear waste, and they were able to put away billions in taxpayers' money, they were able to take over all the waste incineration plants.
And now we are expected to subsidize them as well, and allow domestic waste to be accepted as renewable energy!
What we ought to be doing is finally to put all the knowledge and all the money that we have into photovoltaics, into hydrogen, into geo-thermal technology and so on, in order to achieve some success in these fields for once.
<P>
What we also ought to be doing as a matter of urgency is to have at our disposal firm regulations on feeding electricity into the grid, otherwise we may as well not bother.
And of course, at the end of the day, the price would have to take account of how environmentally friendly they are.
That means we would have to tax the other energies to some extent because at the end of the day, the environmental costs and costs of illness are being imposed on society, while the profits are privatized.
Fine, I do not object to that, but we really must ensure that there is a fair division here.
All of this is lacking, and no country wants to introduce taxation.
We are all ducking and weaving our way around the issue.
We all continue to muddle through as we always have done in the past, and then we stage enormous international conferences, like the recent one in Kyoto, and say, of course, yes, CO2 reductions, we commit ourselves to 10 %.
Then the Council says, well, in fact we shall have a 3 % increase, but ALTENER is getting 11 million, and really we would prefer not to do anything; and since we are arguing, we had better quickly get it off the agenda of the Council meeting on 11 May 1998.
And, at best, suddenly we hear that we should be applying subsidiarity!
They fall back on that then, and every country is left to fend for itself.
<P>
If I look around at the individual countries, I discover that none of them is doing anything.
Each one says it just cannot afford to act because unfortunately it is part of the internal market now, it is in a competitive environment and so on.
I hope that at long last matters are being taken seriously, and we endow these programmes sensibly.
The Commission had proposed ECU 30 million.
Even that was too little in my eyes, but by comparison with what the Council is now dangling in front of us it is little short of a gigantic amount.
For that reason I would like to ask the House to approve the amendments which have been proposed by the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, which Parliament in any case approved at first reading.
At the end of the day, the Commission was also in agreement with these amendments, although it always makes a few very diplomatic changes.
I am more in favour of clear words, so there can be no excuses.
If this is not achieved, there is just one thing I want to say to you: the costs of our sloppy behaviour, in failing to act, are so great in the health and environment fields that we shall simply be unable to pay them in the next millennium.
At the end of the day, we do have a certain responsibility towards future generations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rothe">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Commissioner, I think I can very largely associate myself with the very clear words of the rapporteur.
The ALTENER programme is the only programme we have in the European Union that is available exclusively for the assistance of renewable energy sources.
By the year 2010, the proportion of total energy consumption to be contributed by renewable energy sources is to double, according to the European Commission's proposal in its White Paper on renewable energies.
They know that in calling for this, they are knocking at an open door as far as the European Parliament is concerned because, in the Mombaur initiative report, in my report on the Green Paper, we called for a significant build-up - at least 15 % - in renewable energy sources because of our profound conviction that, from the viewpoint of climate policy, from the viewpoint of environmental policy, from the viewpoint of import dependence, with regard to rural areas, and with regard to additional jobs, the European Union needs to do a great deal more in this respect.
<P>
I also know that it is not only - perhaps not at all, when it comes down to it - a question of European assistance programmes which will determine whether the desired goal is reached.
Political decisions which lead to genuinely fair competition conditions through fair access to the grid, and which lead to the internalization of the costs of different ways of generating energy through European energy taxes, are fundamental preconditions.
A political strategy which leads to a restructuring of taxes in energy policy needs to pervade almost all Community policies, and needs to be implemented through coordination between the Member States and the European Union.
Nonetheless, facilitating the use of new technologies for energy generation from renewable energies through financial incentives and through concrete assistance will be of exceptional significance if genuine market penetration is to be achieved.
<P>
The Commission has proposed a breakthrough campaign in its White Paper.
One million photovoltaic roofs and house fronts, 10 000 megawatts from wind, 10 000 megawatts from biomass.
ECU 4 billion of public funds are required for this.
I know that a good deal needs to come from the Member States as well.
But I also know that the 22 million envisaged for two years here is at best a drop in the ocean, and perhaps not even that.
That is why it has to be quite clear that there has to be some room for manoeuvre over the budget at least for next year, and that we can top it up.
Secondly - and you, Mr Commissioner, can be sure that you will hear from us when the time comes to consider the successor to ALTENER II in the energy framework programme. We expect that there will be a significant increase there as well.
Thirdly, and on this point I give my full support to the rapporteur, it is absolutely necessary that the Council really does reach a decision on 11 May so that measures can begin during the current year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Estevan Bolea">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Group of the European People's Party is also going to support all Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz' amendments, which have already been approved in the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
I have to say, Mr Commissioner and Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, that most of them are nothing but good intentions and an academic exercise similar to the squaring of the circle. Not only is there no money - because there really is not - but, as we are always saying in the Energy Committee, where we talk about renewable energy every day, all we are being presented with by the Commission are good intentions far removed from reality.
<P>
Perhaps in some cases we do not just need money to support renewable forms of energy, Mr Commissioner, but political decisions too.
If you look at the current renewable energy production figures for the European Union, you will see that we stand at 6 %.
In Spain the figure is 8 % because that country has made a great effort.
But of that 6 %, 90 % is conventional hydraulic energy, which means we have just 0.4 % from other renewable energies, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz.
You are trying to use biomass in your house and you know how difficult it is.
I think the Member States must make political decisions to favour hydroelectric energy, although most of the groups are opposed to it because they do not want dams. It is the cleanest energy we have; it is truly renewable; and it is the only renewable form which allows us to store electricity.
The rest cannot do that.
<P>
We will be laying great stress on research into renewable energies in the framework programme on research and development. I think that is the first step.
Obviously, that includes photovoltaic energy.
I think the future of renewable energy lies in solar photovoltaic energy, but not yet - it is still very expensive.
How can we help renewable energy?
Obviously, from the financial point of view, with investment - because all these forms of energy only work for very limited periods of time.
Wind energy is very interesting, but it only operates for 1500 to 2000 hours each year, and sometimes it works at night when we do not need electricity.
So we will need to support investment.
<P>
And I do think subsidiarity is important, Mrs Rothe and Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, because each Member State should make the greatest possible effort if they really believe in renewable energy. Otherwise, it is all just words.
In any case, Mr Commissioner, we support the ALTENER programme. We think it has very little funding.
We think Directorate-General XVII has very little money for all its programmes. However, there is something I want to say to you: maybe you do not just need money.
Maybe what you need is more courage and fortitude in your political decisions and more results and clarity with the Member States. Because, by the way, we have a liberalized electricity market which is working very well, and a gas market which is not going to be liberalized to such a great extent because - except in the UK, Holland and a bit in Denmark - nobody produces gas, so it is a very special type of transport liberalization.
That is why this directive was easier than the electricity directive and, in the end, no effort is too great.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Hyland">
Mr President, the continuing debate on renewable energy highlights again the importance of a coordinated and integrated approach to all EU development programmes.
The importance of alternative energy policy is widely accepted in this House.
To the extent that energy based on renewable resources is of significant importance in the utilization of our land resource and, therefore, offers potential to farmers and to job creation in rural areas, I would urge the Council and the Commission to coordinate their efforts in the formulation of long-term energy policy with the development of agriculture and to do so - and this is important - in the context of Agenda 2000.
<P>
In my view there is far too much fragmentation of EU policy and certainly not sufficient appreciation of the importance of developing the full potential of our European land resource.
The inevitable reform of the common agricultural policy highlights the importance of producing non-food crops.
Alternative energy programmes based on renewable resources offer a profitable alternative for our farmers and for rural dwellers and rural development programmes.
As I have already said, we have prioritized the importance of rural development.
We have identified the European model of agriculture based on the retention of the maximum number of farm families on the land of Europe.
That is widely accepted and supported in this House.
<P>
However, if we are serious about achieving our objectives under both headings we must coordinate energy policy with the development of agriculture and with employment in rural areas.
The technology for the production of alternative energy based on agricultural crops is clearly established.
The technology is there.
We now need a coordinated approach and a willingness at EU and national level to adjust policies and create the economic environment for the sustainable development of alternative energy closely related to, and based on, the development of our land resource and agriculture and with the central theme of retaining the maximum number of farmers on the land of Europe and the maximum number of people employed in Europe's rural areas.
So, if we are serious, we must adopt this coordinated approach and I appeal to the Commission and the Council to work more closely together in terms of the final production of European and national policy in the context of Agenda 2000.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, I want to say that the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left agrees with Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz' report too.
In addition, I would like to express our satisfaction at our constructive cooperation with the Commission - with the Commissioner, Mr Papoutsis. However, I wish to express our great dissatisfaction with, and protest at, the position adopted by the Council.
<P>
I think the Council's position with regard to the annual ECU 11 million basically places the ALTENER programme in cloud-cuckoo-land and thus deprives it of any real significance.
It is something which we, as a Parliament, must fight against and challenge, especially during the budget procedure.
It is very important that these inconsistencies be stopped.
We can see that there are opportunities for the vast exploitation of gentle forms of energy, such as wind power in the Cyclades, for example, and in the Islands of the Aegean.
And in spite of the few steps that have been taken, their exploitation will be much less than could be achieved. I would like to put this question to the Commissioner, Mr Papoutsis: what could be done here - in the context of course of the difficult financial possibilities which exist?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, for her report.
There is no doubt that the ALTENER programme must continue because it is the only programme in the EU in which people are dealing exclusively with renewable sources of energy, and also in view of all the money which the EU gives to other sources of energy.
The least we can request is that renewable sources of energy also get money.
So it is laughable that the Council is only able to agree to ECU 11 million per year.
<P>
But what has happened to all the fine words from the Council, including from the Kyoto Conference? What do these words mean?
Nothing in reality.
How is the goal of reducing CO2 emissions actually being achieved?
How did the Council see this?
Is the Council going to start performing magic or are people going to start juggling the emission figures?
There does not appear to be any other explanation.
<P>
The ECU 30 million which the Commission is proposing is also low, but it is still acceptable.
However, the Council's figures are totally unacceptable.
You cannot give less money to renewable sources of energy under these conditions when CO2 emissions are constantly rising.
If the emissions were to decrease sharply, then you could perhaps talk about stabilizing the programme, but not in this case.
<P>
Furthermore, the amendments are important, particularly Amendment No 3.
If you pollute nature you should also pay for it.
However, if you have a good environmental policy, then you should also pay less.
In that case it is important for the different figures to estimate the emission costs to be calculated in different ways too.
What is cheap should also be good for the environment, and what is bad should be expensive for companies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Weber">
Mr President, allow me to give a practical example.
At home, in my local area, just behind my house in fact, a windmill construction project is planned and a private developer is ready to invest between 150 and 200 million Belgian francs into it.
Curiously enough, opposition to this project has come from a cultural association, concerned about the beauty of the landscape and the fact that the nearby castle would suffer visually from the windmills on the plateau behind.
<P>
In this context, the ALTENER II project is a very appropriate means to carry out an impact study, enabling it to be proven by computer simulation that, from the castle, the windmills will not be seen and there will therefore be no visual impact.
Of course, I am more worried about the noise, and it is for this in particular that the ALTENER project will give us the means to finance these impact studies.
<P>
If you consider that an impact study for a project costs 1.5 million Belgian francs, then the ECU 22 million granted by the Council is exactly enough for 500 projects throughout the European Union.
I find this amount ridiculous and that is why the Group of the European Radical Alliance will vote for the amendments presented by Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, whom I would like to thank for her excellent work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pinel">
Mr President, like the rapporteur, I would first like to say that waste incineration has nothing to do with the issue of renewable energy. There is no connection.
It would be a fine example of cynicism to keep waste incineration in this report since it would be a question of a real misappropriation of funds to the benefit of large companies who could not care less about renewable energy sources.
<P>
Apart from this, "experiments' - I put the word in quotation marks - "experiments' in the field of renewable energy have been going on for years throughout the western world.
For years we have been told of such experiments and the Member States grant a handful of pittances in order to fool public opinion.
I think there have been enough experiments and not enough large-scale efforts. Apart from hydraulic power stations, renewable power sources continue to be nothing but gadgets designed to amuse people.
<P>
You might think this incapacity on the part of countries to pursue an active policy of renewable energy development - an incapacity which is explained particularly by the large economic interests of the energy lobby - would lead the European Union to compensate for these failings, to have an approach far more in keeping with the general interest, to climb above all these mercenary interests.
But no, we remain at a level of pious wishes, fine words and declarations with no follow-up.
Just a few months after the Kyoto Conference, which timidly indicated the path to be followed in order to preserve the balance of our planet, it would seem logical for the European Union to affirm a certain priority for renewable energy, which protects the environment and brings real potential in the areas of employment and technological development.
So, what has become of this priority that the Union should be showing? ECU 22 million, or rather two times nothing, not even a pittance.
<P>
In fact, I am truly embarrassed by this report.
I am embarrassed because I think Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz' work is remarkable, and I thank her for it.
The issues are expressed well in the document and it is clearly only the budget which does not match up.
To ensure that this work has not been in vain, I will of course align myself with the rapporteur's recommendations, but I am still convinced that we will be a long time yet in this energy Stone Age, especially as we will not have internalized all the indirect costs of conventional energy sources.
Given that the calculations are distorted, distortions in competition remain and no progress is made.
My wish is that there might be a new tax system, as soon as possible, in which as well as economic criteria, social and environmental parameters are finally taken into account within a rigorously accountable dimension.
<P>
We will vote for Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz' amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="McNally">
Mr President, rarely do we hear a subject discussed in this Chamber which brings so many groups together in enthusiasm.
That subject is renewable energy.
Renewable energy enables us to keep our promises, the promises made at Kyoto.
It creates jobs, it fits in with our priority of job creation.
<P>
I support wholeheartedly the report of Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz; except that I do not agree with her omission of domestic waste and will vote against it.
Colleagues, if you want Europe to matter to the people in your constituency, choose subjects which interest them.
Renewable energy interests European citizens.
We have a multi-pronged approach, we spend millions and millions on research into renewable energy.
We need, at the same time, to create the legal framework through access to the grid which enables it to prosper and we need a programme like ALTENER.
In every single Member State of the European Community ALTENER promotes renewable energy.
I know from the excellent work done by the South Midlands Renewable Energy Centre, the only one in the United Kingdom, that if we go out with the message that renewable energy helps the environment and helps jobs, we get public support.
Comrades and colleagues in this Parliament, we need public support for the European Union.
<P>
We need to look at the circumstances relevant in every geographical part of this Union, from Lapland to the Greek Islands and we need the renewable energy that is appropriate for every part of the EU.
<P>
The minister representing the United Kingdom presidency, John Battle, is one of the enthusiasts for renewable energy and he has personally reassured me that he will not allow ALTENER II to slip away until it is too late to implement.
He will do everything in his power to ensure that something of interest to all Europeans gets through an appropriate Council.
I believe that the budget in the preliminary draft budget has been much improved. That is an encouraging sign.
<P>
It seems to me that when the European Union started it looked at coal and it looked at nuclear energy; the energy to look at now is renewable energy and I therefore am delighted that the ALTENER II programme will receive support from every party in this Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, the Commission's goal to raise the share of renewable energy sources in total EU energy consumption to 15 % by the year 2010 is in keeping with the aims decided upon at Kyoto and Parliament must give it the support it deserves.
Actually, this target has been well exceeded in Finland.
With further development of the markets, the right training and guidance, and the existence of the ALTENER programme, we will be able to promote the use of renewable energy sources throughout the Union.
<P>
Owing to geography, circumstances in different countries vary.
According to proposed national quotas, an additional reduction in gas emissions will cost Finland more per ton of CO2 than any other EU country.
We have already begun to adopt all the easiest ways of reducing emissions, such as district heating, using wood for fuel, setting up combined heat and electricity production plants and following energy saving programmes.
It is only the expensive alternatives that are left.
High technology in Finland has a place in nearly every walk of life.
For example, our homes are built for our cold climate, and heat does not escape from them like it does in many other countries in the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Papoutsis">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first of all like to specially thank the rapporteur, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, for the work she has put in regarding the ALTENER II programme.
<P>
Before I come to the amendments that Parliament is proposing in this second reading, I would like to mention some more general developments.
You will of course remember that during Parliament's sitting of November 1997, when I presented the ALTENER II programme to you, I outlined to you the framework for the programme, and I also outlined the aspirations we had to strengthen our policy.
Just five months later, I have the pleasure of referring to the positive developments which ensued.
I announced to you then my intention to propose as soon as possible for approval in the European Commission the White Paper on renewable energy sources and the framework programme for energy.
Both these important proposals were unanimously adopted by the Commission and are now being debated by the institutional organs.
<P>
As regards the White Paper on renewable energy sources, it is anticipated that a resolution will be adopted by the Energy Council on 11 May, which will support our proposals.
This is important because the ALTENER II programme is an essential vehicle not only for the implementation of Community strategy but also for the implementation of the action plan, which is outlined in the White Paper.
<P>
At this point please allow me to refer to two specific issues, which were brought up by several honourable Members who spoke today.
But first of all I have to say that I fully share the view of Mr Alavanos, that we must strengthen wind power even more.
<P>
(The President interrupted the speaker)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, although I understand why there is a certain restlessness in the House, because the debate has been delayed through circumstances completely beyond our control, I must once again request Members to abstain from private conversations for a few minutes and treat speakers with a modicum of respect, enabling them to be heard with all due dignity, whether the speaker is a Member of this House or the Commissioner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Papoutsis">
Thank you Mr President.
I was saying that I fully share Mr Alavanos' view that we must strengthen wind power even more, especially in regions where conditions are favourable, such as the Cyclades, as he himself mentioned, but also in other regions of Europe.
I assure you that we will make every effort in this direction, in collaboration with Member States.
I would like to take this opportunity to stress that the Commission proposes that, from the year 2000, the Regional Fund should include actions for renewable energy sources.
And I hope the European Parliament will support this proposal.
<P>
As regards the issue raised by Mrs Rothe and Mr Pinel with regard to waste, in the context of the ALTENER programme and in accordance with Community policy on waste, priority is given to ecological management, such as biomass, chiefly of the organic part of the waste.
<P>
I must say, I am especially satisfied that the Council and Parliament alike declared on behalf of the Commission proposal for ALTENER II and approved practically without amendment all the actions provided for in the context of the programme under review.
The importance of ALTENER II is thus confirmed, as is the need for its immediate approval at the Council on 11 May, with a view to its immediate implementation from 1998.
<P>
I would also like to highlight something which I mentioned during the first reading: in the opinion of the Commission, the substance of certain amendments places them within the framework of the Community strategy for renewable energy sources rather than within the ALTENER framework.
<P>
More specifically, as regards the amendments which you propose, the Commission accepts, in principle, Amendments Nos 1, 2, 6, 7 and 9.
However, as regards Amendments Nos 1 and 2, in accordance with the position it outlined during the first reading, the Commission considers that it is more suitable to place the fundamental principles which are introduced with the respective explanatory statements Nos 20 and 19.
<P>
As regards Amendments Nos 7 and 9, they are already covered at other points in the ALTENER II proposal.
The content of Amendment No 6 is better placed with, and is covered in, the proposal of the White Paper on renewable energy sources.
<P>
As regards Amendment No 3, the Commission considers the reference to indirect costs and their inclusion in tariffs to be premature.
This possibility must be analysed and it could be introduced in a possible legislative proposal to be submitted later.
<P>
Amendments Nos 5 and 8 concern the amount which is entered in the budget.
In this regard, the Commission inserted in the minutes of the Energy Council of December 1997 a communication in which it opposed including in the text of the resolution any amount concerning the budget.
Moreover, the Commission considers that the budget which was approved by the Council for the two years is inadequate.
In consequence, we also consider the budget which was approved by the competent budgetary authority for the year 1998 to be inadequate.
Therefore the European Commission can accept Amendment No 5.
On the other hand, it cannot accept Amendment No 8.
Nor can the Commission accept Amendment No 10 concerning committee procedures.
<P>
The Commission has made every effort to incorporate Parliament's proposals as far as possible and as faithfully as possible into the legal text of the proposal we are being asked to decide upon.
<P>
I would like once again to thank you and your rapporteur, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, as well as the Members of the Parliamentary Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, for your support throughout this endeavour.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Papoutsis.
<P>
I apologize on behalf of the House for the way in which this debate was conducted.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place today at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Air pollution by motor vehicles
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0126/98), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council on 23 March 1998, with a view to adopting a Directive of the European Parliament and Council relating to measures to be taken against air pollution by emissions from motor vehicles and amending Directive 70/220/EEC with regard to light commercial vehicles (C4-0177/98-96/0164B(COD)) (Rapporteur: Mr. Lange).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="Lange">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in February we took a decision in relation to the Auto/Oil Programme on air quality in Europe.
One small component was missing, namely light commercial vehicles.
These are the vehicles which make deliveries in towns - postmen, small greengrocers, deliveries for suppliers.
It is for vehicles such as these that we need to add a component as soon as possible to ensure an improvement in the air quality in the towns of Europe.
<P>
This procedure at second reading is a perfect example of Parliament's ability to work quickly and efficiently.
We received the common position on 2 April and having completed our work on it today - at the end of April - we are now able to come to a decision.
That shows how quickly and efficiently Parliament can work.
That is why I do not want to make any grand speeches. I want instead to uphold this tradition and urge quickly and efficiently that we follow this recommendation from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, so that industry can plan with confidence, and so that the air quality in the towns of Europe is improved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, I should like to thank Parliament for enabling us to arrive at a result very quickly in this procedure as well.
I should also like to thank Mr Lange, and I would ask you to understand that, although we are now in a position to take this matter forward to the conciliation procedure, the Commission cannot accept amendments which go beyond the Auto/Oil Programme II. That applies in particular to Amendment No 5 and the other amendments connected with it.
However, it does not mean that we shall not cooperate with Parliament in a very open and positive way, as we have in the past.
Although not many people have heard this remark, that does not matter because it is well known that this is how we work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Bangemann.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place today at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I propose to our Parliament that we show solidarity with European Parliament staff, who are currently holding a standing general meeting to defend the independence of the European civil service against nationalization and politicization.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Banotti">
Mr President, lest there be any ambiguity, my group will be voting against all amendments.
We decided this procedurally.
We welcomed a common text which, very unfortunately, Mr Nicholson felt unable to sign.
Our position is to support this text unamended.
This should not be interpreted to mean that we do not agree with the substance of some of the amendments but we are satisfied that the Good Friday agreement contained strong commitments to decommissioning.
Therefore, my group will be voting for the compromise text debated yesterday.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Cox">
Mr President, I rise on the same issue.
The question of the decommissioning of weapons in Northern Ireland is a very delicate and deeply sensitive question.
I want to make it quite clear that the position of the Liberal Group is that we shall vote for the joint resolution and we shall not vote for any amendments.
I wish to say to Mr Nicholson and to the people he represents that we do so because we believe that the sensitive question of decommissioning is comprehensively addressed within the boundaries of the agreement.
For that reason we do not wish to pick individual items from the comprehensive text.
Therefore, we support what is in the agreement but will not be voting for amendments to the joint resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, we cannot have yet another debate.
That is for the explanations of vote.
You are now having a debate which, I confess, puts me in a difficult position.
Other Members have asked to speak.
I cannot let everybody speak, so I will just let two people speak and I will then close this debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Collins, Gerard">
Mr President, in relation to the amendments, quite naturally I would support the thrust of the amendments which is the active decommissioning of all weapons held by terrorists on both sides of the divide.
But I wish to state that it is very unwise to selectively highlight any one issue which is already covered quite comprehensively in the agreement.
Therefore, we cannot support any individual amendment at this stage.
In relation to amendments which use the term 'Republic of Ireland' , I would like to recall for colleagues that the official name of my country is Ireland.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Nicholson">
Mr President, I did not table these amendments this morning to create any trouble for this House.
But I have to say to Mrs Banotti, Mr Cox and Mr Collins that simply giving verbal support to them is not enough.
I say to this House today that you have a chance to say to all terrorists in Northern Ireland: Decommission your weapons!
Vote for my amendment.
That is why I tabled it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Green">
Mr President, I hope you will refuse explanations of votes from these people.
They have done them in advance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="President">
Mrs Green, you are absolutely right.
That is what I said, but you can see that Mr Hume now wishes to speak.
I am in a very difficult position, since this dance has started and I am not being fair in the eyes of the other groups.
I will let Mr Hume speak.
I cannot make distinctions between the political groups.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Hume">
Mr President, just to get the facts right.
Mr Nicholson raised a very serious issue - the decommissioning of arms of violent organizations.
We all agree with that.
However, I want to point out that in voting for the agreement and for the joint resolution, this is what the agreement says we are voting for: ' All participants to the agreement accordingly reaffirm their commitment to the total disarmament of all paramilitary organizations' .
That is what the House is voting for.
<P>
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Falconer">
Mr President, in accordance with the Bureau's instructions, I asked for the floor prior to the vote.
You should have called me prior to that vote.
My presence should be noted on this occasion for this vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="President">
Mr Falconer, I am very glad you keep reminding us of the Bureau's instructions, in case anyone should have forgotten them!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Gaulle">
Mr President, given that the implementation of the single currency is nothing but a political fraud, I will not take part in this vote.
<P>
Paragraph 11
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="von Wogau">
Mr President, I should like to propose the following oral amendment, namely to replace the final words in the German text, i. e, "zu vertiefen ' by "weiterzuführen ' .
<P>
Paragraph 16
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="von Wogau">
Mr President, paragraph 16 is important, but not central to this report.
In order to achieve as large a majority as possible in this House, I am prepared to delete this paragraph, and I would ask those colleagues who have difficulty with this either to vote against or to abstain
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="President">
Mr von Wogau, since you are the rapporteur and paragraph 16 is your paragraph, you have the right to withdraw it.
We do not need to vote for you to withdraw it.
<P>
Paragraph 26
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="von Wogau">
Mr President, in that case I propose as rapporteur that in the second sentence the word 'werden ' should be replaced by 'können ' , that is "will' by "may' .
<P>
Amendment No 7
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, we have accepted other oral amendments and so, with your consent and with the House's consent, but particularly with the rapporteur's agreement, I would like to propose an oral amendment because the amendment is incorrectly formulated in terms of the law.
It is - I repeat - a small technical amendment that I would like to read, if you agree: "The European Council is asked to observe its undertakings and to propose a single candidate for the Presidency of the European Central Bank during its forthcoming Summit, on 2 May 1998' .
<P>
I would like to hear the rapporteur's opinion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="von Wogau">
Mr President, we discussed the amendment in its original form in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, and we came to the conclusion that we should not agree to it because it contained two factual inaccuracies and was formulated in such a way that we could not accept it.
As it now stands, the formulation reflects a very broad extent of opinion in this House.
I have asked the different groups in the committee.
They all were of the opinion that what we now have is an expression of the view of the House.
That is why I would recommend that we agree to Mr Dell'Alba's amendment in its revised form.
<P>
Paragraph 43
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="von Wogau">
Mr President, in relation to paragraph 43 my comment is this. We had reached agreement in committee as regards the content of the compromise amendment but, because the formulation was not quite right, we came to an agreement on the following; paragraph 12, on which we have already voted, says exactly what has to be expressed here, and that is why, as rapporteur, I would propose that we vote against paragraph 43 and that those who have difficulty with this - and I would urge this strongly - should at least abstain.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Desama">
Mr President, because there were so few of us present earlier for the debate, I would ask the honorable Members to listen carefully to what I have to say now, for it is an important moment. I would like to state my position as rapporteur with regard to the different amendments.
In fact, the vote we are going to take today brings to an end a process which has been in progress for six years now.
<P>
We are going to vote on four amendments.
I would like to give an opinion initially on the first three.
Mr President, I will ask you to allow me to speak later on the last amendment which, paradoxically, is No 1.
With regard to Amendments Nos 2, 3 and 4, I would like to say that as rapporteur I am opposed to these amendments.
I therefore hope that the House does not vote for them, at the possible risk of causing upheaval within my own group, since Amendment No 2 is from my group, tabled by Mrs McNally.
<P>
The reason I am opposed to these amendments is clear.
They do not address the fundamentals. Yet the British presidency - which has put a great deal of effort into this compromise - the Commission - which can confirm this, if the Commissioner so wishes - and I myself, are all of the opinion that after six years of work it is not possible to reach a better compromise than the one we have at last reached, as regards the issues addressed by these amendments.
To send us to conciliation for these amendments would really create a major problem of blockage for a directive which urgently needs to be passed now.
All the players in the energy world are calling for it.
I am therefore asking you, please, whatever your position on the basic issues, show some political reason and reject these amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Mr President, just to increase the confusion on the left a little more, Amendments Nos 2 and 4, one from the Group of the Party of European Socialists, and one from the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, are identical.
The Socialists intend to vote for the first one, but against the second one.
I have a feeling this will lead to considerable confusion amongst the voters if we have a roll-call vote.
<P>
Amendment No 1
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Desama">
Mr President, the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy voted for Mr Pompidou's amendment in order to encourage the Commission to clarify its position on the issue, that is, to give Parliament the guarantee that there would very soon be a report from the Commission on the state of application of the directive.
In this amendment, we anticipated giving the Commission a three year period.
<P>
Earlier, Mr Papoutsis gave an opinion on this amendment saying that the Commission could accept it but that, in reality, the time-scales set by the Commission were even shorter than anticipated in the amendment.
Consequently, if my colleagues in the Group of the European People's Party will allow me, I think we should not try to be more catholic than the Pope and I therefore request that this amendment from the Committee on Energy be rejected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Papoutsis">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, following the vote on the Desama report I would like to thank Parliament, and especially your rapporteur, Mr Desama.
With today's vote a big step has been taken towards the completion of the internal market.
<P>
From a political viewpoint, today is very important because, after six years of negotiations, with the directive on the internal market for natural gas as well as the directive on the internal market for electricity, in less than two years, during this present legislature, we have given a new dimension to the European internal market, a market which represents ECU 250 billion a year or, in a few days, 250 billion euros. It is a market which has important beneficial repercussions for industry, employment, and the citizens of Europe.
<P>
For this reason, I would like once again to thank the European Parliament for its particularly important and especially creative contribution to this great effort.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mombaur">
Mr President, this vote marks the end of a debate which was under discussion for three legislatures.
On behalf of my group, I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Desama, for his extraordinary commitment and for the successes which the Parliament as a whole has achieved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="President">
Even if not provided for in the Rules of Procedure, Mr Mombaur, it is impossible to ignore such courteous remarks.
<P>
(The President declared the common position approved) Recommendation for second reading (A4-0143/98), on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Council Decision concerning a multiannual programme for the promotion of renewable energy sources in the Community (ALTENER II) (C4-0032/98-97/0106(SYN)) (Rapporteur: Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz)
<P>
(The President declared the common position approved (as amended) )
<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="De Luca">
Mr President, I would like it to be recorded that I am present from now on and I will not take part in the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="President">
Mr De Luca, we have taken note of it.
<P>
Amendment No 29
<SPEAKER ID=86 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pirker">
Mr President, even before this vote I indicated my wish to speak for a quite simple reason.
Clearly, a translation has been made that is liable to be misunderstood in several languages, and this ambiguous translation for Amendment No 29 may also lead to a quite different outcome in the vote.
We are dealing here with a measure against youth unemployment.
Many young people are qualified for the wrong occupations, for occupations for which there is no demand.
That is why we have here the proposal that the Commission should ascertain which occupations really are in demand, with a qualitative analysis of occupational needs.
This analysis should then be made available to the Member States, and the Member States will decide whether or not they make use of this information and change their training plans.
In other words, we are dealing with the provision of a service, and Member States will decide on a voluntary basis whether or not to make changes.
This appears in several translations as a binding proposal, and as a result it may lead to a distortion of the voting outcome.
I would ask you therefore to allow the voting on Amendment No 29 to be repeated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="President">
Mr Pirker, we will check the translation from German into the other languages.
You need not worry.
Your amendment has been adopted.
I did not give you the floor straight away but we try to get the vote moving, since if we did not we would go very slowly, and I cannot slow the pace down by allowing Members to speak all the time.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="President">
This matter is now closed. I cannot of course congratulate the rapporteur!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, I have requested the floor because the President cannot congratulate the rapporteur in this case, so I want to do so on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="President">
The Spanish are always courteous, and in the case of Mr Medina Ortega this is Socialist courtesy too, for which I am obliged.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Thors">
Mr President, we would avoid problems like that raised by Mr Medina Ortega if the rapporteur would not preside when we are dealing with his report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="President">
Mrs Thors, as you are aware, this is a common practice, and when reports do not present problems it does not matter in the least.
<P>
Report (A4-0134/98) by Mr Ettl, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Directive on safeguarding the supplementary pension rights of employed and selfemployed persons moving within the European Union (COM(97)0486 - C4-0661/97-97/0265(CNS))
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Soltwedel-Schäfer">
Mr President, I am sorry, but from here I was just not able to see as well as you could that in the case of Amendments Nos 3, 4 and 5 by the Green Group in the European Parliament there really was a clear majority of votes against.
<P>
To be quite honest, I cannot understand it either, because in Question Time on the issue yesterday the Council and the Commission were in agreement with it.
It has been confirmed.
There are already working groups in the ecological area of the textile industry.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="President">
Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer, as you are aware Parliament, in its wisdom, has the right to vote for whatever position it thinks it should take, without taking into consideration either the position of the Council, or the position of the Commission, or the positions of many of us.
That is what always happens. The important thing is what Parliament decides and what it values, and I do not think comments are necessary.
Parliament has decided.
It has rejected the two amendments and adopted the rest.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Ullmann">
The Green Group in the European Parliament is in agreement with the Commission and the majority in Parliament that the further development of the market for electronic services - pay-TV, pay-perview, pay-radio, online access to databases - on the one hand, and the current fragmentation of this market by national legislation, make regulation at Community level indispensable.
<P>
The present directive fulfils this purpose insofar as it provides a sufficiently comprehensive and flexible framework at Community level through its combination of definitions of protected services, the application of internal market rules and the exclusion of all unauthorized access technologies.
<P>
We share the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media that the importance of copyright protection against exploiting interests, the guarantee of access to public information independent of market interests and the ability to protect the private domain by means of encryption technologies should receive proper emphasis in this directive as well, in spite of regulations in force elsewhere.
<P>
We also agree with those who reject any restriction of the definitions in Articles 1c and e.
<P>
Resolution on Northern Ireland
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Malone">
Mr President, I really welcome this opportunity to speak.
Yesterday due to the constraints of time, it was not possible for all of us who wanted to speak to speak.
I believe it was very fitting that John Hume, who has played a most significant role in getting the peace process to where it is today, should have been our main speaker.
I want though to reject the criticisms of the Socialist Group made by Jim Nicholson yesterday and again today.
<P>
It is very clear to me that the Northern Ireland Agreement has to be accepted in its entirety; there is no question of cherrypicking.
I am glad that the overwhelming vote here this morning was in favour of the joint resolution which was drawn up and approved by representatives of all the major political groups.
<P>
I was delighted yesterday to see the Council and the Commission here continuing the support which they have always given to the Northern Ireland peace process.
Our role in supporting Northern Ireland has been a major success.
The financial support that has been given, for example to the partnerships, was the very first time that we saw Republicans and Loyalists sitting down together and working at grass-roots level.
The announcement of the continued financial support from the European Union is exactly what Northern Ireland needs at this critical time.
<P>
I am also delighted that our group initiated the proposal to have the debate here yesterday because it is important that Parliament 's views are expressed clearly and that our continuing good will is seen publicly.
I also want to pay tribute in finishing to the role played by the Women's Coalition in the process.
I hope that their voice in Northern Ireland will continue to be heard and strengthened.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="President">
I allowed you to go over your time because I must say I was feeling a little uneasy as during the morning I gave some of your colleagues the chance to speak.
I was in a very difficult position then as the House was, quite rightly, demanding that there should be no debate.
On the other hand, I had already given the floor to one or two people and I was feeling very uneasy in the face of your request.
So I gave you extra time to recompense you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Nicholson">
Mr President, I would like to make clear today why I vote against this resolution.
I hope Mrs Malone can remain in the House to hear why because it might do her a bit of good.
It was because the Socialist Group were not prepared to include decommissioning.
Mrs Malone, let me tell you I am not cherrypicking.
Can I further tell you that this agreement would never have come to place but for the courage and determination of my party leader in all of this.
<P>
Can I say to you and the Socialist Group that I speak in this House for the largest Unionist Group in Northern Ireland.
If the Socialist Group wish to discount what we feel, wish to discount what we say and wish to discount what we really believe in our inner hearts, then you can do so.
But you do so at a price and at a very serious price.
Your comrade, the Secretary-of- State, showed us here yesterday that she could not even be balanced when she came to this House in her contributions.
<P>
Mrs Malone, let me make it clear in this House today, I want all terrorist groups to lay down their arms.
I want them to give them up.
I know they will not give them all up but they at least should give an indication of how much they will give up.
I would like to say, unfortunately, this House sent the wrong message to the Unionist people that I represent in Northern Ireland.
I will have to take back to my party leader a message that is not a good one.
Fine words are not enough, we need action; if you want consent, if you want consensus you have got to work for it.
I did not see any attempt to create consensus in the Socialist Group here in this Chamber.
I do not have anything against any other group in those negotiations, it was only the Socialist Group.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Crowley">
I wish to express my full support for the agreement reached by the Irish and British Governments and the political parties in Northern Ireland on Good Friday.
The commitment shown by the two governments and in particular the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and the Prime Minister is a reflection of the deep desire of the majority of people on the island of Ireland and Britain for a just and lasting peace for all the people.
<P>
Time does not permit me to go through the list of all the participants to the process. However, it would be remiss of me not to recall the tremendous courage and vision of the former Irish Taoiseach Albert Reynolds and Prime Minister John Major.
The success of the present negotiations can be traced back to the signing of the Downing Street Declaration of 1993 which set the parameters of joint cooperation, mutual respect, equality and reform of inequities that were inherent in the systems.
<P>
The much pilloried Hume-Adams Document was significant in bringing the nationalist parties to the table.
However, the inclusion of the representatives of loyalist paramilitary groups helps to ensure that all traditions are encompassed.
<P>
The ongoing support, both financial and moral, of the institutions of the European Union has been a vital ingredient of the process.
Europe never lost faith in the Irish people to reach an accommodation that reflects the differing traditions whilst building on common goals and ideals.
<P>
On 22 May the island of Ireland will vote in dual referenda on the agreement and the proposed changes to the Irish Constitution, British constitutional legislation and the establishment of new North-South Bodies.
My wish is for a resounding majority support for the agreement: "opportunity comes to pass but not to pause' .
<P>
I would like to finish with two quotes, first from Abraham Lincoln: ' with malice towards none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in.'
<P>
Finally the often quoted lines from the poet William Butler Yeats, in the Lake Isle of Innisfree: ' and I shall find some peace there for peace comes dropping slow; dropping from the veil of the morning to where the cricket sings.'
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Hyland">
<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, in the vote on the von Wogau report on convergence conditions for the introduction of the single currency, the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations wanted to carry out a test in order to clearly demonstrate the wide abyss between the ideas of the European Parliament and the national parliaments with regard to how monetary union should be controlled.
<P>
We tabled two amendments, which repeated word for word the demands of the French National Assembly in its resolution of 22 April last.
One was a request that the President of the future Central Bank would periodically give an account of the bank's objectives and actions before the appropriate bodies of the National Assembly. The other was the wish that an interparliamentary committee on the euro be created, composed of representatives of both European and national parliaments, which would have responsibility for regularly and publicly hearing from those in charge of the ECB with regard to future monetary policy guidelines.
<P>
The test seems to be completely conclusive.
The European Parliament has massively rejected these two proposals, and has even adopted a contrary proposal by voting for the following text and I quote: "Being the EU's only directly elected institution, the European Parliament has a formal role interacting with the European Central Bank' .The European Parliament text continues by defining an extremely lightweight control over the Central Bank, which does not question its sovereignty.
Those are the words of this House.
<P>
So in this declaration, the possible role of national parliaments is completely eliminated.
We were well aware, and I want to highlight this most strongly, that if our amendments had been adopted they would not have fundamentally altered the antidemocratic nature of monetary union, but their rejection makes the lesson that much stronger, a lesson which the French National Assembly should remember: the European Parliament will never allow the slightest real power to be given to the national parliaments of the Union, because what it really wants is their complete subordination, along with that of the nations they represent.
But at the same time, its control will never have the legitimacy of national parliaments, for it is too distanced from the people.
Thus, European monetary union is constructed in such a way that the most legitimate parliamentary control is also the most impossible.
We predict a very bad time for democracy if the system is really launched in its current form.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="President">
Mr Berthu, I am not in the habit of making comments, of course, but I must say you have taken a really very prophetic tone.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Ripa Di Meana">
Mr President, I have voted against this report because it follows the line of eurofanaticism, a line obsessively aimed at the sole objective of the single currency, without trying to outline a common economic policy at the same time.
For the future Central Bank, the report also accepts a leading role, a status of inaccessibility, with no kind of democratic control.
By submitting to all this, the majority is unfortunately reserving a subordinate role for the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Ahlqvist, Theorin and Wibe">
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Bébéar">
Yesterday marked the beginning of a historic week.
The many years of work towards economic and monetary union have finally come to fruition, for we have now chosen the first wave of countries who will participate.
<P>
During the past months and years, we have been able to examine the strengths and weaknesses of virtually all areas.
There is, however, one issue which I would now like to come back to, and which was the subject of much discussion two weeks ago.
<P>
The forthcoming transition to the euro is, in fact, of great concern to the many economic and political players in the African, Caribbean and Pacific regions. At the time of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly, the issue was discussed at length.
<P>
One of the main concerns is the redistribution of influence in these regions, to the detriment of Europe and to the benefit of a fluctuating dollar.
They also fear the social, ethnic and political tensions which may result, particularly in central Africa, in the short or long term.
<P>
The introduction of the single currency must not make us forget our overseas economic partners.
A better integration of Africa and the Caribbean/Pacific regions into the world economy must remain one of our highest priorities.
<P>
Monetary cooperation must be maintained in its present form, and will have the result of truly anchoring the euro.
This principle, set out in the Treaties of Maastricht and Amsterdam, does not seem to be questionable.
Nevertheless, we must remain vigilant, given the legal ambiguities of the Treaties.
Here too, Parliament has an important political role to play in global stability and the development of third countries.
<P>
I approve of the von Wogau report in all its aspects.
However, it must not make us forget that the future euro zone can help to strengthen our partners' economies and offer us wider access to the market in general.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="Cardona, Rosado Fernandes and Girão Pereira">
For many people, including ourselves, this report represents the latest political position to be taken by the European Parliament on the basis of the single currency before it is formally adopted.
Obviously other positions may be adopted later, but nothing will ever be the same as it has been till now.
This is why we treat this report as being much more important than its contents strictly indicate.
<P>
We still have reservations about 'Euro Now' , especially as regards the fact that the Union has opted to claim that there is nominal convergence between Member States before the event, when we would have preferred to see real convergence coming first. It has been said, and is still being said now, that real convergence will follow the event, as if in its wake.
Similarly, it has been said and is still being said, that the single currency will be a panacea for the various problems facing the EU, of which the foremost is the problem of unemployment.
Being realistic, we do not agree.
<P>
On examination, this is not a bad report in itself.
Some of its statements are true, although it does add some value judgments which in our opinion it could have done without.
It justifies the political criterion for allowing two more countries to join the euro 'vanguard' , which introduces the concept of flexibility as regards the fulfilment of the criteria laid down in a Treaty, which we can only applaud. Furthermore, it affirms the transfer of sovereignty of Member States to the Community sphere, in terms of monetary policy at this stage, which we consider represents a degree of intellectual and political honesty which many people have been unable or unwilling to express for a long time.
<P>
A vote in favour of this report, therefore, would be tantamount to saying that we have always agreed with the road we have been travelling along from the beginning, in terms of adopting the single currency, which is not true. If, on the other hand, we were to vote against this report, we would be casting doubt on the rules of democracy, and failing to recognize the efforts of so many people, particularly the Member States concerned.
In a word, it would be to refuse to give the benefit of the doubt. We have therefore abstained, without intending at any time in the future to make party political capital out of the difficulties we foresee arising as a result of the euro.
The subject is of course much more serious than that ...
That is why our abstention amounts to an additional vote in itself. Let us hope we are mistaken!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of Karl von Wogau's report on the introduction of the single currency.
The report concludes that eleven Member States - Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Austria, Portugal and Finland - fulfil the requirements for participation in the third stage of EMU, and that these nations should be included from the beginning on 1 January 1999.
The report by the Commission, ' EURO 1999' , accepts that the eleven Member States mentioned above fulfil the necessary conditions for participation in the third stage of EMU.
The Danish Social Democrats are of the opinion that these eleven nations may participate in the third stage of EMU and we do not wish to prevent these nations from entering into closer mutual collaboration.
This stance is consistent with the position of the government.
<P>
We also welcome the following key stances:
<P>
The need for democratic accountability of the European Central Bank.
It is important to secure openness in EU institutions.-Lifetime learning based on strengthening the education system is important in countering unemployment.-The report's appeal to the Council to implement the obligations of an active employment policy that were entered into at the extraordinary summit in Luxembourg.The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament do not support sections of the report on the coordination of fiscal systems and rates.
We emphasize that Denmark's four reservations, including the reservation concerning the third stage of EMU, are not affected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR), Eriksson and Sjöstedt (GUE/NGL), Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling (V)">
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="Lienemann">
I am in favour of a single currency.
I voted "Yes' to Maastricht.
Yet I am saying "No' to the transition to the euro, as it currently stands, and to Mr von Wogau's report because the minimum democratic and social guarantees are not fulfilled, and because the overall balance presented at Maastricht is not being adhered to.
<P>
In its current state, the transition to the euro does not represent a transfer of sovereignty from nation states to democratic European institutions, but a pure and simple abandonment of the sovereignty of the people.
Monetary power is completely transferred to the ECB, which will be the most independent bank in the world.
The ECB draws its powers from a treaty.
The American Federal Reserve or the Bundesbank draw their powers from laws, enabling parliaments and governments to amend them at will, which guarantees the latter the power to be heard in case of a serious problem.
That is not the case with the ECB. It thus has a free hand.
<P>
The absence of a European economic authority makes the situation worse for, in view of this, the ECB will have no legitimate power of EU representation and will therefore not have to "implement government policy' , as is currently the case for the Bundesbank .
Furthermore, Mr von Wogau's report does not even mention the EuroCouncil, which it would be hoped might slowly evolve into this essential economic authority.
<P>
Thus, we are delivering our monetary destiny into the hands of an institution with no control and no democratic forces of opposition.
That is unacceptable enough. But the situation is made worse by the Stability Pact which sets in stone all of the decisive criteria for macroeconomic policy, placing our economies under an enduring yoke.
You could discuss endlessly the legitimacy - I would say, illegitimacy - of the levels agreed upon, and the risks they will cause to our social security systems as well as to salaries and the future of public services.
This is part of the normal debate which exists in a democracy.
But the most serious thing is that these parameters - macroeconomic choices so essential for jobs and our daily life - will no longer be controlled by governments or a European government, according to circumstance, decided on by the people through an electoral procedure.
They will be inviolable, decided once and for all, and will even be imposed in a draconian manner since rigorous sanctions are anticipated for countries which contravene them.
<P>
From now on, monetary and macroeconomic choices will no longer be subject to political arbitration.
We will pay a heavy price for rejecting the supremacy of democracy, achieved with such difficulty by those who, in the past, had to oppose the forces of money and power in favour of the common good and the sovereign choice of the people.
Moreover, at the time of the vote on the Maastricht Treaty, achievement of EMU was set in a much wider context.
At the same time as setting up a single currency, European political union was to move forward to a new stage, and the IGC was to work on decisive institutional improvements. Yet Amsterdam gave birth to a mouse.
EMU advances at an enforced rate, political Europe makes no headway and there remains only a trace of a social Europe.
<P>
The anticipated balance between economic-monetary issues and social issues has not been achieved.
Even at that time, the nagging question of unemployment and growth haunted us.
Jacques Delors presented a White Paper on growth and employment, in which he envisaged, in particular, a reflation of the economy through a large programme of works. This has never seen the light of day.
He recommended changes in taxation and social security payments to put balance back into the relationship between labour and capital, the latter always being more valued, recompensed and favoured, to the detriment of workers and producers.
<P>
Neither domestic boom nor a fairer tax system have enabled a significant reduction in unemployment to be achieved.
There is the fear that the economic policies of the Stability Pact as a whole, and the impossibility of being involved on a monetary level, may leave only one parameter with which to influence competitiveness: the cost of labour, which will be dragged down, as is already too often the case.
<P>
Similar tendencies towards dumping emerge with regard to taxation, allowing the continued existence of enormous risks for the financing of social security or public actions.
Here, the idea of harmonization emerges more or less on the horizon.
In the area of social issues, that is, defence of the workers or the weakest sectors of society, no significant concrete convergence is envisaged.
Social Europe is on hold, as it was at Vilvorde and sometimes, unfortunately, the orthodoxy of competition at all costs causes unemployment and social decline.
That cannot go on any longer.
<P>
Thus, with regard to political and social issues, the Maastricht promises have not been kept.
The euro must happen but, for it to succeed, the Stability Pact must be rejected and a new Treaty urgently drawn up to create a European economic authority that strengthens the democratic institutions and the cohesion of the EU, establishing criteria for social convergence, and harmonizing upwardly.
<P>
At the moment EMU is weakening the political and social Europe; a balance needs to be reestablished so that the three pillars of European construction may be achieved in unison.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Lukas">
Because of the poor translation, Mrs Raschhofer, Mr Hager, Mr Linser and Mr Lukas confused Amendment No 11 and Article 11.
We wanted to approve Amendment No 11.
We voted against it in error.
<P>
Moreover, Mrs Raschhofer and Mr Lukas wanted to approve Article 12.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Pinel">
With the birth of economic and monetary union, we are living through a sadly historic moment and one of unusual importance.
EMU sounds the death knell for the sovereignty, freedom and independence of our nations.
We are not owners of this sovereignty, we are only its trustees. We received it from our fathers and it is our duty to pass it on to our children intact.
<P>
Apart from the disappearance of the CFA franc, EMU also tolls the bell for France's cooperation policy with Africa, and it is to be strongly feared that this loss will not be made up for by a federal Europe.
It tolls the bell for many decades of relations, sometimes inept, but of great wealth and human warmth.
<P>
As Dominique Souchet noted, given that the death of the franc is a fatal blow to the CFA franc, it is thus also a fatal blow to the whole of French-speaking Africa.
By accepting EMU, the government and President of France must assume, in the eyes of history, the overwhelming responsibility for abandoning French-speaking Africa.
<P>
The Europe of the single currency is a Europe of mercenary selfishness, which ignores and scorns Africa, when it is France's and Europe's duty to help the black continent to develop and thereby enable it to offer a means of survival to all its children.
<P>
This Europe of money, which despises men and nations, is not ours.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Rovsing">
The von Wogau report recommends that Parliament should approve the Commission's proposal that the third stage should begin on 1 January 1999 with eleven Member States.
Economic developments in Europe in recent years have shown that it is possible for the nations of Europe to stabilize their economies.
Interest rates are low, inflation low and stable, and in many European nations, the level of unemployment is on its way down.
This stabilization will ultimately prove crucial to prosperity and thus to peace in Europe.
With a common currency and one European Central Bank, the foundation for further economic progress will be assured.
The cost of business transactions will fall and pricing levels will be more transparent.
All in all, a major advantage for companies and consumers alike in Europe.
I applaud the section of the report addressing the need for further reductions in large national debt quotas and I give the report my unequivocal support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Souchet">
Mr von Wogau's own-initiative report clearly has no ambition but to echo blandly and faithfully the Commission's position and to remind us that we should peacefully, and if possible happily, play the role of recording studio for a song which goes: "Let's all rejoice to see the same currency circulating soon from the Irish to the Aegean Sea..' .
<P>
We are assured that the euro will be stable, strong and a creator of jobs and that it will strengthen price stability even more.
We are basking in a forced euphoria.
All the real problems that the transition to the euro pose have been carefully passed over.
The only matters of importance are for "monetary policy sovereignty (sic) to be transferred to the European Central Bank on 1 January 1999' and "the immediate implementation of the terms of the Pact for Stability and Growth' .
<P>
Amongst the forgotten problems, in particular, is a privileged relationship in terms of development: that which unites France with the countries of the franc zone.
<P>
The franc zone is an important factor in development, in particular because it favours direct European investment within a zone of monetary stability and it facilitates the access of African countries to the European capital markets.
<P>
What will the impact of the euro be on the future of the franc zone?
It is a serious question which must be discussed on the basis of serious and precise economic and financial studies - an obligatory precondition - and not by begging the question in an ideological manner.
<P>
Where are these studies?
Having noted their absence, I requested that this point be added to the Rocard report, and Parliament agreed with me.
It is, indeed, not right that up until now only the IMF has drawn attention to a certain number of risks that the move towards the euro causes for the competitiveness of the African countries concerned.
<P>
The official doctrine is that the franc zone, which was the result of a budgetary agreement and not a monetary one, will not be affected by the transition to the euro.
Is that so certain?
How can the franc zone remain a franc zone when the French franc, the national currency of reference, will have meanwhile disappeared?
How will parity between the CFA franc and the euro be handled?
The franc zone is regulated within the framework of the French budget and, we are told, will not be a euro zone.
But how can you preserve a bilateral framework when France itself will have moved into a multilateral context?
<P>
Some of France's partners, such as Germany, suggest that responsibility for these monetary agreements be transferred to European level.
After having objected to this analysis, it seems that the French Government, at least if I am to believe Mr Strauss-Kahn's statements on 25 March to the French National Assembly's Committee on Foreign Affairs, recognizes the need to accept shared management, with France continuing to manage the agreements on a day to day basis, but the opinion of its European partners becoming essential in the event of a modification of the parity of the CFA franc or the admittance of new members into the zone.
<P>
What guarantee of stability will this co-management of the franc zone offer the African countries?
Does it not risk causing serious disagreements within the EuroCouncil when the time comes? It would result in great uncertainty about the exchange rates of the franc zone countries, about the way they are set, even about the very existence of the zone, if it occurred to one of the eleven members of monetary union to consider the zone a factor of instability impacting on the management of the single currency, even if the money supply concerned is relatively unimportant.
This is an element of uncertainty and trouble which risks weighing heavily on the economic and social future of partner countries which had, until now, placed all their hopes in a close mutual development with France and Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="Spiers">
I cannot support the von Wogau report.
It welcomes the introduction of single European currency.
I do not believe that the currencies of eleven diverse economies can be unified without either recession and unemployment in the less competitive countries or a great increase in the political and economic powers of the European Union.
This trend to political union is, of course, the reason that many people support the single currency, but I do not believe that a huge growth in the powers and budget of the European Union has public consent.
Nor do I believe that power can ever be adequately controlled in a democratic way over an area as large and diverse as that envisaged.
<P>
The European Monetary Institute's report implies that the eleven chosen economies are truly convergent.
There has, indeed, been an impressive degree of convergence but the decision to start EMU with eleven members is clearly political, not technical or objective.
No one can doubt that if Sweden had wanted to join, they would have been admitted.
If Italy had announced that they did not wish to join, it is unlikely that they would have been told that the terms of the Maastricht Treaty legally necessitated their membership.
<P>
The single currency project has been driven by politics and is designed to end in political union.
I do not regard that end as desirable.
Nor can I justify the pain that the journey will cause.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="Torres Marques">
I voted in favour of the report on the introduction of the single currency, and I am delighted with the progress that has been made in Member States of the EU in terms of convergence in readiness for the third stage of EMU. That progress has led to low inflation, low long-term interest rates, a reduction in monetary fluctuations and the clear consolidation of public budgets.
<P>
I am especially delighted that, owing to the adoption of the right combination of economic policies by the Portuguese Government, my own country has met all the necessary convergence criteria to enter the third stage of EMU on 1 January 1999.
This has been achieved without any increase in the tax burden, and with a marked increase in both public and private investment. This has been principally due to support from Community funds and a significant increase in the level of social expenditure in the state budget.
<P>
I congratulate the Group of the Party of European Socialists on having succeeded in obtaining the removal from the report of the call for the immediate implementation of the Stability and Growth Pact, since this could have been interpreted by European citizens as a sign of a negative attitude to the euro.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="Virrankoski and Väyrynen">
EMU is a centralizing, high-risk project which lacks popular backing.
EMU prioritizes price stability and low inflation.
The EU is not an optimum currency area, and the economies of the various Member States are much too divergent to introduce a single currency.
There is a high risk that EMU, with its one-sided emphasis on controlling inflation, will lead to increased unemployment.
The gaps between growth regions and areas of rural depopulation may widen, resulting in increased regional imbalances.
<P>
EMU will bring about a high degree of centralization and a loss of democracy in economic, monetary and exchange rate policy which, by extension, may come to include fiscal and financial policy as well.
This also emerges from the report, which speaks of a "stepped-up coordination of tax systems and rates' .
<P>
EMU is concerned with economic affairs, but it has considerable significance as a political project geared to greater supranationality and centralization.
EMU increases federal pressures in the EU towards the formation of a state - the EU State.
<P>
EMU and the new currency, the Euro, is to be controlled by the European Central Bank, the ECB.
The ECB will have greater independence and power than any other bank in the world.
The members of the ECB Executive Board, who are appointed for eight years and cannot be removed from office, will have unprecedented influence on exchange rate and interest rate policy and other economic policies directly affecting people, regions and nations.
Democratic control is weak.
<P>
Desama recommendation (A4-0140/98)
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="Bernardini">
Today we must give an opinion on the Council's common position concerning common rules for the internal market in natural gas.
Through our vote, we will endorse all the measures designed to establish the internal market for energy.
<P>
Drawing inspiration from the electricity directive, the gas market will have to respect the same broad principles of access to the network, subsidiarity, reciprocity and so on.
<P>
Whilst congratulating the rapporteur, Claude Desama, I would like to insist on an important idea: the progressive and controlled opening up of the market.
We cannot accept that a market so sensitive to competition be opened up virtually overnight, and this done in the name of consumer interest.
We do not reject the opening up in itself. We merely want a period of adaptation for the operators.
We want to avoid an "anarchic' situation, which would challenge the principles of public service distribution.
<P>
As far as we are concerned, it is not a question of defending monopolies, but of defending the interests of the citizen in his or her right of access to public service and, in particular, to the broad laws which regulate it.
<P>
Finally, I am also thinking of the staff of these companies, to whom I pay tribute, and I hope to be able to reassure them in the face of their fears regarding the opening up of the market.
<P>
The Council's common position represents a good compromise; we need to keep to it and not give in to "liberalism at any price' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of Claude Desama's report.
We have done so in consideration of the desirability of a common position in the natural gas market.
The agreement now in place is a compromise between Member States and we consider it to be the best possible agreement that could have been reached, in view of the material disagreements that exist.
Furthermore, the European Parliament has had a major influence on the present proposal by the Commission.
The Commission's proposal is flawed in that it fails to propose a time-scale for revising the application of the directive.
Thus, we welcome the tabling of an amendment to have the Commission undertake a revision three years after the directive has been adopted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="Lindqvist">
There should be great restraint in the development of natural gas if the environmentally friendly, sustainable and renewable sources of energy, such as bio energy, bio gas, wind power and solar power are to be able to grow strong.
<P>
Bloch von Blottnitz recommendation (A4-0143/98)
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="des Places">
The ALTENER II programme is complementary to the framework programme for research and development established by the Commission which, by means of JOULE and THERMIE, provides funding for research and development programmes (JOULE), demonstration programmes (THERMIE) and programmes of technological diffusion (accompanying programmes).
<P>
The ALTENER II programme is thus situated downstream from actions undertaken within the context of the framework programme, and aims to facilitate their market penetration by increasing user confidence with regard to renewable energy technologies.
So this programme does not deal uniformly with all renewable energies, but gives priority to technologies which are sufficiently mature for their use to be developed for the market.
<P>
Last February, at the time of the vote on the Hautala report on fuel quality, the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations voted for the introduction of environmental standards in the use of bio-fuels.
The ALTENER II programme must therefore include bio-fuel within its list of renewable energy sources and we are happy with the Commission's initiative.
<P>
Nevertheless, in terms of consistency, we have a lot of questions.
Indeed, within the Agenda 2000 framework, no specific measure to allow bio-fuel development is envisaged.
On the contrary, within its reforms of the "large-scale farming' COM, the Commission proposes a 0 % compulsory rate of fallow land, along with an alignment of the aid to oil-producing crops with that of aid to straw cereal crops, on the pretext of both the Blair House agreements limiting huge amounts of fallow land and a future possible gain in profitability in oil production using, of course, genetically modified seed.
We therefore request that, on this point, the Commission should plan specific measures to allow the use of agricultural products for non-food use, in particular with regard to renewable energy.
<P>
With regard to the Commission's consistency, we raise questions when we find out that it is criticizing a Member State - in this instance, France - which, in order to encourage the use of bio-fuels, and thus fuels which represent an improvement in environmental terms, is implementing the incentive of a partial tax exemption.
<P>
In conclusion, on this issue as on many others, we are asking the Commission to be consistent.
Some of the actions pursued by its different Directorates-General are contradictory and cancel each other out.
In this particular case, the Commission plans to develop a programme facilitating the use of renewable energy sources, whilst preventing the Member States from taking tax measures to encourage the use of renewable energy sources and whilst eliminating all the efforts European farmers have made to create and invest in the area of using agricultural products for fuel purposes.
<P>
Castagnetti report (A4-0135/98)
<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="Bernardini">
We can only be pleased with the Commission's proposal concerning systems and measures for work-linked training in Member States.
This is another approach to the fight against unemployment which hits young people in particular.
<P>
I fully support this initiative of European pathways for training, enabling young people to alternate their work-linked training between Member States.
This experience, which has been proven at the level of university education through the ERASMUS programme, must be based on close collaboration between the training establishment or body and the host partner.
<P>
The rapporteur rightly refers - within the framework of the LEONARDO programme - to the creation of an "Erasmus for apprenticeships' .
Let us therefore give means to its existence, let us launch pilot projects without delay.
Millions of young people could benefit from apprenticeships.
We must open the European horizon to them, allowing a fruitful exchange of experiences.
<P>
Finally, let us not forget to target those who are the most interested, and I mean the SMEs. Indeed, as creators of jobs they must be integrated into, and committed to, these European pathways for training.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="Darras">
I am pleased with this report, which responds to the Commission's initiative, with the objective of encouraging transnational mobility in the area of education and training.
Furthermore, at a time when the European Council of Luxembourg has committed itself to supporting youth employment and improved training for young people, we can only welcome this proposal.
<P>
However, as a member of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, I would like to repeat the comments of Mr Kerr, our rapporteur.
We must be given the means to implement our policy, unless we want to raise hopes that will not be met.
We must plan strong accompanying measures - financial, legal and social - so that the vital mobility of apprentices becomes a reality.
<P>
That is why I support this report, whilst underlining that mobility goes hand in hand with: defining a statute for apprentices, covering their rights and obligations; coordination between the Commission, the Member States and the social partners with regard to awareness raising amongst the general public; the availability of the necessary means - financial, legal and practical - for the people in training; and follow-up to this training.
<P>
Monfils report (A4-0083/98)
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="Lindqvist">
No tenable reason has been given for abandoning the successful intergovernmental project for the 'European City of Culture' event.
Nor is there anything to support the idea that placing it within the framework of the Community's work on integrated cultural programmes, common financing and so on would be a better arrangement.
However, widening the selection to include cities throughout Europe is positive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="Papakyriazis">
"The European City of Culture is an event which was launched, on the initiative of Melina Mercouri, by the Council of Ministers on 13 June 1985 with the aim of bringing the peoples of Europe closer together.'
<P>
Thus begins the Monfils report, as also set out in the preamble to the European Commission document.
<P>
As proposed by Melina Mercouri, in 1985 the first "European City of Culture' was Athens, and then, in 1997, the first in the "second round' of the institution was Thessaloniki.
<P>
I believe that the initiative and vision of Melina Mercouri have been justified through the general success and favourable impression of the institution, which is regarded as a symbol of the viability of culture in the European Union.
<P>
The Monfils report, which we are debating today, as well as the initial proposal of the European Commission, aims to further strengthen and support the institution of the "European City of Culture' .
<P>
In this sense, I will gladly vote for the Monfils report, in the certainty of knowing that it will shape an even stronger and more effective European cultural idea and policy.
<P>
Anastassopoulos report (A4-0136/98)
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament are voting in favour of the Anastassopoulos report.
However, in our opinion, many of Parliament's amendments are unclear, both in their wording and in relation to their anticipated results.
We have grave reservations about amendments that could imply intent to criminalize the transfer of information facilitating unauthorized access to information services - even when no commercial purpose is being served.
We cannot give our support to this rationale.
We even doubt the necessity for very restrictive regulation at Community level in this area.
Many of the problems addressed are already being solved satisfactorily within Member States.
<P>
Ettl report (A4-0134/98)
<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of a proposed directive to facilitate the movement of employees and the self-employed within the EU.
Moving abroad would be simpler and easier to grasp if it were possible to maintain supplementary pension schemes set up in the home country.
This proposed directive would enable people to keep their entire pension entitlement in one place - in their home country - and supplementary pensions could also be paid out to persons living abroad.
<P>
In common with the Danish Federation of Trade Unions, we have reservations about foreign workers looking like rats in host Member States.
Supplementary pensions are part of your salary, and if workers stationed abroad do not have the same working and employment conditions as workers in their home country, they may indeed look like rats.
However, the problem is that the principle of making payments into an existing pension scheme forms the very basis of the directive.
Thus, we are voting in favour of the proposed directive.
And we hope that a solution will be found to the problem in Council.
This could perhaps be achieved by the social partners recognizing contributions paid in the country of origin and contributions paid in host Member States as equally valid.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="Theonas">
The proposal for a directive currently under review is one of the measures announced in the Commission Green Paper relating to supplementary pensions in the EU.
The proposal is part of the more general move to strengthen private employers' supplementary pension schemes, in an attempt to make the cuts in provision and the tightening of the conditions for pension rights through state social security systems acceptable to working people. It is aimed at tackling the extremely serious problem faced by transient workers - who see their supplementary pension rights being fundamentally eroded or lost - and at adapting the Community institutional framework to actual reality.
<P>
This proposal for a directive focuses on the issue of equal treatment for transient workers and of safeguarding the rights they have acquired when moving to another country.
However, it does not tackle the problem of the long periods of residence required to build up pension rights, or the problem of double taxation if vested pension rights are transferred to another country.
In this view, it is necessary to take supplementary legislative initiatives and, in this regard, we support the relevant amendments.
<P>
We believe that the vested pension rights of an employed person in a supplementary pension scheme must be maintained, if that person moves to another Member State, at the same level at which they would be if that person stayed in the country of origin, having safeguarded his or her pension right.
We believe it is important to ensure receipt of benefits in the country of residence and to provide for special arrangements for those workers posted abroad.
<P>
The report correctly pinpoints certain inadequacies of the proposed directive and we agree with some of the amendments.
We believe the rights of workers must be fully safeguarded even when they move to another country, and we support any measure to be taken in this regard.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="Titley">
I am supporting this report today as the pension rights of too many of our citizens are not adequately protected when they take up the EU ideal and move to another Member State.
So it is up to those of us with a say at EU level to put this right.
<P>
It is time that the pension rights of people who pay in to supplementary pension schemes were properly protected when they move country.
This protection should include both employees and self-employed people.
The thorny question of how to tax these contributions and benefits whilst avoiding double taxation is one that will have to be examined at European level to ensure fair play for both the public purse and the hard-working citizen.
<P>
Such international workers with supplementary pensions are in fact doing two of the things which previous generations of political leaders have encouraged them to do - ' getting on their bikes to look for work' and not relying on the state to provide for all their pension needs.
They should no longer be penalized for following the advice of those they elected to government for so many years, not least in my own country.
<P>
Gasòliba I Böhm report (A4-0133/98)
<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="Berthu">
The Gasòliba I Böhm report notes an economic recovery in Europe, and proclaims that the framework of economic and monetary union will be able to increase this in the future by creating the conditions for a zone of stability.
<P>
Our opinion is far more moderate. If there really is a recovery in Europe at the moment, fortuitously accelerated by the decline in South-East Asian capital, then on the contrary monetary unification, and the super-state soon to follow it, run a high risk of limiting growth.
Furthermore, I do not believe that EMU is going to give the European economy a stable framework. By implementing monetary unification when the conditions are not all met, we will instead be establishing a zone of European instability for several decades to come.
<P>
Another factor which is unfavourable to growth is that the European Central Bank will clearly set short term interest rates higher than they are today in order to build up its credibility, especially if the euro zone covers 11 extremely heterogeneous countries.
<P>
Finally, monetary unification is going to require tax increases, which are never favourable to growth.
The reduction in public deficits over the past few years has largely been obtained through increases in tax and social security payments, which reached a record level of 42.4 % of European GDP in 1996.
But that is not the worst of it.
Monetary unification will structurally require new taxes.
New proof of this is to be found in the Gasòliba I Böhm resolution, approved by the European Parliament which, "strongly agrees with the Commission's view of an enhanced need for structural adjustment - with the active and enhanced use of the European Structural Funds - after EMU' .
Thus the European Parliament, just like the other European institutions and the governments, is convinced that, by removing the possibility of economic adjustments through the flexibility of internal changes, monetary unification is going to require a strengthened European budget with the aim of taking responsibility for a financial redistribution between countries in compensation.
<P>
We are thus going to replace the spontaneous adjustments of the money markets with extremely costly bureaucratic adjustments.
We are going to remove uncertainty with regard to internal changes by causing considerable perverse effects throughout the economy.
Thus, the positive effects of simplification achieved by monetary unification will be wiped out, and the final result will not be favourable to growth.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="Fourçans">
I am, on the whole, satisfied with Mr Gasòliba I Böhm's report.
He holds with the Commission's vision with regard to the economic performance of the European Union as a whole.
Growth is returning, and interest rates and inflation rates are at an all time low.
Overall, most European Union countries have managed to achieve the criteria set out in the Maastricht Treaty.
It covers so many indicators that we can be led to hope for a long term economic recovery.
<P>
This being so, as the rapporteur highlights, we cannot show smug optimism and merely drink in the good figures. For the fact is, unemployment remains high in many of the Union's countries.
And even if we now have the basics to help us resolve the problem of unemployment and to support long term growth, they are not enough.
It must be remembered that there are important obstacles preventing us from successfully completing our venture.
Investment levels remain weak; non-wage labour costs remain high; overly heavy and rigid administrative formalities prevent companies from operating and acting efficiently; the workforce is still not adapted to technological change.
On the basis of this assessment, important reforms remain to be implemented.
They must cover the above-mentioned areas, but also taxation via a minimum platform of fiscal coordination between the Member States in the euro zone and a reduction in the costs which weigh down salaries, in particular those of the less qualified.
<P>
Finally I would like to mention my approval of the report's scepticism with regard to a reduction in the working week, which would be obligatory in the European Union and which, moreover, would go against the principle of subsidiarity.
I would also go further and say that it is a bad idea to impose it at Member State level.
Let the social partners negotiate this at the level of the individual company, for this is where the information needed to take these decisions lies.
Unfortunately, I fear that in my country, our leaders do not see it this way.
<P>
In conclusion, and following the example of the rapporteur, I will add that we should be careful before announcing our victory.
We may be witnessing a recovery, but it does not mean that it will be a lasting one.
Our economies can be affected by certain impacts, such as strong fluctuations in the dollar, or the still unmeasured effects of the South-East Asian crisis.
It is also for this reason that it would be useful for the Commission to provide a study which covers a perspective of more than two years.
<P>
I congratulate the rapporteur on an excellent report, for which I will vote favourably.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of the report by Carles-Alfred Gasòliba I Böhm on growth and employment in a stabilityoriented EMU.
The report states that the rapid reduction of public deficits in many EU Member States prior to the start of the third stage of EMU has had unfortunate consequences for employment in the EU.
Thus, it is important for EU Member States to intensify their efforts in countering unemployment, just as Denmark has done.
<P>
The Danish Social Democrats are of the opinion that unemployment is one of the worst problems currently facing the EU and we welcome the following key positions:
<P>
With reference to the Luxembourg Summit, efforts should be intensified to counter unemployment.-Increased mobility of different occupations and sectors.-Benchmarking should be implemented as part of a process to develop monitoring of the labour market.-Drastic wage cuts for unskilled workers is not a viable way to create employment.
It only serves to create a new poverty and could jeopardize social interdependence in Europe.-A need to coordinate minimum levels of taxation across EU Member States to avoid countries stealing jobs from one another by means of tax dumping.The Danish Social Democrats do not support a joint lowering of taxation rates, nor do we share the belief expressed in the report that reductions in VAT would have any significant impact on employment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="Lienemann">
<SPEAKER ID=133 NAME="Lindqvist">
This report includes several good proposals to increase employment, such as reduced taxation on work, investment to increase domestic demand and reducing bureaucracy.
EMU is not the right way to achieve sustainable growth, a good environment and regional balance.
Tax changes, shorter working hours, investment in industries of the future, such as the environment and new technology, must take place within the framework of an economy with increased regional and local diversity and reduced centralization.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="Theonas">
Once again the Commission is refusing to learn the necessary lessons from the repercussions of the policy which the EU and the Member States are pursuing.
On the contrary, it is demanding even tougher austerity and financial constraints, by further reducing public spending, by reducing the "burden' of state pensions, and by reducing health expenditure and unemployment benefits.
<P>
It is becoming increasingly clear that not only monetary and foreign exchange policy but also economic policy is essentially being made in the EU, while national governments are being turned into mere administrators and executors of the oppressive dictates of Brussels.
<P>
The Commission has even gone so far as to shift the responsibility for the growth of employment onto workers' trades unions, urging "pragmatic collective agreements' , because, if they did not, they would be responsible for the increase in unemployment and the wave of relocations.
Social dialogue is being used in the most provocative way, as a Trojan horse to quash labour relations and the social security system.
<P>
The report does not contain the slightest mention of the living standards of working people and the consequences of austerity, or any specific initiative for productive investments, beyond the well-known theories on the competitiveness and yield of investments, which are non-existent.
The Commission is not even taking the trouble to question itself because, although capital is facing favourable conditions - which the Commission itself has confirmed and which consist of increased exports, increased profits, reduced corporation and property tax, and labour costs per unit of production below 1970 levels - it is not making productive investments.
<P>
The report by the European Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy goes in the same direction.
It accepts the Commission's guidelines and the entire logic of EMU, and calls for the acceleration of the dismantling of labour relations and the state social security system.
The relevant comments, some of which may be true, are nevertheless inadequate, given that, for example, no-one can claim that inadequate domestic demand and private consumption are factors which inhibit growth and development and then call for further cutbacks in expenditure, "continued wage moderation' , a reduction in non-wage labour costs and the safeguarding at all costs of a "high level of productivity' , in other words, high profits.
It is not by chance that the amendments which we tabled in committee were rejected by the Socialists and the Christian Democrats.
<P>
We will vote against the Gasòliba I Böhm report because it is part and parcel of the logic which has so far caused the problem of employment, poverty and marginalization to take on such explosive dimensions and which has proved to be detrimental to any notion of progress and real convergence.
<P>
Especially today, on the eve of the decision as to which countries will take part in the euro from 1 January 1999 and of the transition of the EU into a new phase of integration, we stress that the only solution for tackling the extremely serious problems faced by the European economy and by the working people of all the Member States is to abandon the logic of nominal convergence and stability and to promote another alternative logic for growth, which, by also exploiting the opportunities offered by advances in technology, will support the income of working people and safeguard and increase their gains. It will promote productive investments, put a stop to the unaccountability of large corporations and open the way for broader changes which will promote the vision of a different Europe, a Europe of peace, progress and social prosperity.
The onset of the third stage of EMU and the implementation of even harsher incomes policies in the context of the provisions of the Stability Pact will make people more aware of the need for such a solution.
We will be the prime movers in such a direction, and we are determined to support their struggle at both national and Community level.
<P>
Resolution on the textile industry (B4-0438/98)
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="Cellai">
The fact that at least 600 000 jobs have been "scrapped' in the textiles and clothing sector in less than five years with a massive, continuous redundancy process is causing anguish.
<P>
It is hoped that the Council will outline a new common strategy to encourage the adaptation of the sector, on the eve of new liberalization worldwide.
The dissemination and transfer of technologies, as well as the use of the information technologies, may undoubtedly help the sector recover from the crisis into which it has fallen.
But that is not enough.
<P>
To a certain extent, it is very important to revitalize and stop the inequality of industrial growth in the sector in question, because some industries are adapting to the economic changes quickly while others remain frustrated at the starting post.
<P>
The European Commission action plan is important and welcome, but does not constitute a real strategy, for the simple reason that it does not contain any real measures that can be adapted to specific cases and, even more seriously, it does not have adequate funding.
This is even more disconcerting as the textiles and clothing sector represents the vital backbone of the development of many regions of the EU, which are already in serious economic difficulties.
<P>
We need to reconsider a new strategy in the textiles sector that can aim to achieve one of the basic principles of the very construction of the EU: the economic and social cohesion of the regions in which the industry has strong roots.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 NAME="Ewing">
The Highlands and Islands of Scotland has a lot of area heavily dependent on the textile industry: Harris Tweed, Johnstone Mills at Elgin, Brora Mills and Shetland Knitwear.
Some of their products are adversely affected by imports and some of the exporting states do not obey international conventions in social and employment conditions.
<P>
We support the action plan and the European observatory for textiles.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="Torres Marques">
I voted in favour of the proposed resolution on the competitiveness of the textile and clothing industry because, as a Member for a country where that industry is of major economic importance, it seems to me that the Commission should improve its action plan for the sector, bearing in mind that this is one of the EU's largest industries, with 2.25 million jobs, mainly occupied by women workers, in a total of over 120 thousand companies.
<P>
When amending its action plan, the Commission should take account of the fact that many regions of the EU depend on the textile and clothing industry - many of those regions being under-developed or in industrial decline - and of the need to make more financial aid available to render those regions and the sector itself more competitive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="Theonas">
The action plan presented by the Commission on the textile industry is part of its more general strategy to increase competitiveness by reducing non-wage labour costs, changing labour relations and by further promoting "prosperity' .
<P>
There appears to be little concern about the fact that this is a traditional industry which is of strategic importance for some EU countries.
Nor does there appear to be any concern about the fact that more than 600 000 jobs have been lost over the last few years, that we see the use of flexible and short term employment, that overall we have a serious fall in productivity, and that those regions which depend directly on the industry are in a state of decline.
Nor indeed is there concern about the fact that it is an industry with a large percentage of relocation in the context of the demand by large corporations for ever larger superprofits.
<P>
We are afraid that the directions taken by the Commission portend the negative direction of the debates which will take place in Council and, therefore, the people employed in the industry and the many SMEs have nothing to gain from the planned structural intervention of the EU.
Even at the level of special programmes, the new proposals for the Structural Funds within the framework of Agenda 2000 provide for the abolition of the RETEX programme.
<P>
The EU bears the profoundest responsibilities for the US-inspired liberalization of the global market in textiles and for its accession to the GATT regulations.
It has not made any attempt, even in a rudimentary way, to safeguard European production in the face of unfair competition from those countries which practise social dumping.
Now, after the event, it talks hypocritically of the need for protection, when this excellent social provision was not included in the WTO agreement. Nor, of course, is any safeguard provided by the inconsistent and non-binding Singapore Declaration.
<P>
The EU must tackle the phenomenon of companies relocating which, in Greece, has assumed substantial proportions and is used by employers to threaten workers into accepting the non-implementation of collective agreements and medieval working conditions.
This phenomenon has other dimensions, if we take into consideration the strong regional character of the industry, the shrinking of which, apart from the problems it creates for the economic and social fabric of entire regions, widens the gulf between less developed economies - such as the Greek economy - and those of the more developed countries of the EU.
<P>
The EU also bears the most serious responsibilities for the policy it is pursuing in relation to one of the major raw materials used in the industry - cotton.
Instead of supporting production in this weak area of cultivation, and contributing to increased investments in the textile industry by means of regulations implemented within the framework of the CAP - reduced production and an increase in the limits of co-responsibility - it promotes de facto relocations or the placing of the initial investment in third producing countries with cheap raw materials.
<P>
The joint resolution of the European Parliament, although it contains many interesting proposals, especially concerning the funding of the industry, the implementation of international labour agreements and measures against social dumping, greatly limits its horizon and avoids setting out the enormous problems in the sector - the relocations which are fatally affecting the European textile industry, the general crisis within the industry - and the measures for combating it.
<P>
The overall problems in the industry cannot be solved without a more general re-examination of the policy of "competitiveness' , and of the industrial and commercial policy of the EU.
Only a radically different policy to tackle the issue of competitiveness from the standpoint of support for production and investments and the modernization of existing units of production, to promote full and stable employment and take measures to combat commercial and social dumping, will lead to growth and development in the industry and increased employment.
<P>
Pimenta report (A4-0125/98)
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="Souchet">
In the last GATT agreements, which gave birth to the WTO, two essential factors were missing: an environmental clause and a social clause.
<P>
With regard to an environmental clause, which needs to be the subject of an overall approach, covering not only environmental protection but also consumer protection and bioethical aspects, a few timid advances have been noted with, among other things, the creation of the Committee on Trade and Environment.
<P>
The issue of the relationship between commercial activity and respect for the environment began to be tackled at the end of the 1980s, with regard in particular to the formulation of regulations aimed at protecting marine mammals, victims of the drift nets tens of kilometres long used in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
Faced with this problem, the European Union aligned itself with the standard set by the UN, limiting the length of these drift nets to 2.5 kilometres.
Scientific studies have shown that the number of dolphins caught by European fishermen has been very small since this limit was applied, a limit which does not apply in the Baltic Sea where fishing with drift nets up to 21 kilometres long is still permitted.
It is particularly regrettable that, on this point, the Commission decided to disregard the international rule, by looking for the total abolition of the use of drift nets in the Atlantic and Mediterranean, for this proposal is not based on scientific considerations but in reality stems from political bargaining.
In an effort to overcome the deadlock imposed by a minority, the Commission agreed to the continuing use of 21 kilometre drift nets in the Baltic, with no proven scientific grounds. That is an example of exactly what not to do.
Environmentally friendly control measures must always be based on serious scientific fact, unless one wants to lose all credibility.
<P>
In 1986, at the very time when agricultural products were being introduced into the perilous cycle of trade globalization, with no recognition of their specific nature, the question of the relationship between trade and the environment did not appear in the mandate given to the Punta del Este negotiators.
It was only added, in extremis , in the last phase of negotiation of the Marrakesh Agreement, and the Committee on Trade and Environment was only set up just before the Singapore Ministerial Conference in December 1996.
Since Marrakesh, the United States has systematically endeavoured to reduce environmental considerations and consumer protection as much as possible within the framework of the WTO.
Their extremely restrictive attitude during the Kyoto Conference on climate change clearly illustrates this wish.
Issues currently under discussion within the WTO, such as bananas or the use of hormones in beef production, show that the principles of precaution and sustainable production are completely sidelined by American pressure groups.
<P>
For example, in paragraph 123 of the decision on hormones by the WTO's Dispute Settlement Body, the principle of precaution is completely overlooked.
It states: "We nevertheless consider that it is useless, and probably inadvisable, for the Dispute Settlement Body to take a position, in this appeal, on this important but abstract issue.
We note that the expert group itself has not established any final conclusions with regard to the status of the principle of precaution in international legislation and that the principle of precaution, at least whilst outside the framework of international legislation with regard to the environment, awaits authoritative formulation.'
<P>
With regard to bioethics, international legislation declares itself in favour of the patenting of human and animal genes, even though products derived from nature, including animals raised for agricultural purposes, are all treated as "similar products' whatever their method of production - hyper-intensive livestock farming, environmental degradation and so on.
Consequently, WTO international legislation protects the use and propagation of genetically modified organisms, whilst ensuring that there are no non-tariff customs barriers for meat "pumped up' with synthetic hormones, or for those using production processes which ignore the environment, consumer protection and animal welfare.
<P>
Under pressure from the environmental lobbies, the European Commission regularly draws up extremely sophisticated directives on water quality, animal welfare and transportation of live animals, whilst at the same time signing, in a completely contradictory manner, free trade agreements which "forget' to stipulate restrictive clauses obliging imported products to conform to the production conditions imposed on European agriculture.
By way of example, in order to set up a pig farm in France, it is necessary to carry out impact studies and obtain the necessary authorization which requires an administrative delay of several years.
In the United States, this authorization process takes just three days and environmental constraints are virtually non-existent.
<P>
New legislation regarding the well-being of laying hens has just been submitted to us, obliging the area per chicken to be doubled, which will paradoxically lead to an increase in the death rate amongst chickens due to cannibalism (CNEVA study) and will increase production costs by 40 %.
At the same time, we are subjected, via the globalization of trade and the dismantling of Community preference, to increasingly fierce competition on the part of producers in third countries who, naturally, are under no obligation to respect this kind of standard.
<P>
In conclusion, the legislation drawn up by the Commission will end up penalizing European production, since it will also remove the principle of Community preference.
Even though the European Union wants to develop a "social' component, there has been no request from the Commission demanding WTO recognition of the social clause.
In the case of bananas, for example, the Commission prefers to dismantle European production - in Martinique and Guadeloupe in particular - to destroy the Lomé agreements with ACP countries and to encourage the establishment of the "dollar banana' , quite simply forgetting that bananas imported into the European Union from third countries do not respect the social and environmental clauses which are imposed on our producers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="President">
That concludes the vote.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="President">
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 1.05 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 30 April 1998.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
The Minutes of Thursday, 30 April 1998 have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="Hardstaff">
Mr President, in order not to waste Parliament's time, I handed in a change of vote in writing.
It has not been recorded properly.
I ask that it be corrected and that my vote on Amendment No 2 of the Desama report be changed from 'Against' to 'In favour' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President">
Thank you. We will do that.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Composition of Parliament
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
<CHAPTER ID=4>
The single currency
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, today we are taking part in an event which is unprecedented in history.
After serious efforts to ensure that their economies converge, eleven countries are about to join together in a very important way, by sharing a currency.
They are doing so voluntarily and with the support of their respective parliaments. However, in accordance with the Maastricht Treaty, the European Parliament, the legitimate representative not only of those eleven countries but of all the citizens of the Union, must also state its opinion.
Today this House must debate the proposal from the Economic and Financial Affairs Council and ratify or rectify our opinion in keeping with the fact that it is a decision which will change the future of our people.
<P>
Monetary union is another step along the road we have all embarked on towards an ever closer union between the people of Europe, as the Treaty recalls.
The common currency is a way of achieving that objective.
At this historic time, I would like us all to be guided by clarity and wisdom.
<P>
I would like to welcome to the European Parliament the various dignitaries in the official gallery who have decided to join us on this special day for the future of Europe, and the representatives of the press who are taking great pains to make the public aware of our deliberations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation by the Council concerning the Member States fulfilling the necessary conditions for the adoption of a single currency in accordance with Article 109j(2) and (4) of the EC Treaty (7884/1/98 - C4-0250/98-98/0812(CNS)) and on the proposal for an opinion by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on this recommendation, pursuant to Rule 79a of the Rules of Procedure (Rapporteur: Mr von Wogau).
<P>
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy wishes to speak on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, at the beginning of this debate, I would like to move a procedural motion which aims to have this matter refused due to its inadmissibility, pursuant to Rule 128 of our Rules of Procedure.
I do this for procedural reasons and for reasons of substance.
<P>
As regards procedure, I would point out that Article 109j of the Treaty on European Union has not been respected and that Rule 79a of our Rules of Procedure, which was adopted hastily, could not be considered to be in keeping with correct procedure.
Today we will listen to a proposal from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs which will be presented to us orally.
We are requested to say either yes or no to all of the Council's recommendations.
No amendments may be tabled.
This is an assent procedure and not an opinion procedure as provided for in the Treaty.
The Council itself was wrong in mentioning in its recommendation the European Parliament's opinion of last Thursday, which complied neither legally nor politically with the Treaty.
This is a real perversion of the institutional process, which means that the Council is not fulfilling its responsibilities, nor performing the role conferred on it by the Treaty, and which will further mean that Parliament too will not respect the debate it is granted.
I know that we do not want to have this debate.
I would add, Mr President, that as regards substance...
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, Rule 128 states that this motion shall be put to the vote immediately.
I shall therefore proceed immediately to the vote.
<P>
(The President put the motion to the vote) The result leaves no doubt.
We shall continue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
The President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Brown, has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="Brown">
Mr President, Members of the European Parliament, at the start of this day of historic significance for Europe, let me begin by giving, on behalf of the Council of Ministers, our warm thanks to Parliament for their contribution to the conduct of the procedures which lead up to today's decisions.
We succeed by working together.
It is wholly in accord with the democratic conditions and traditions of our continent for this Parliament to play an important role in the historic decisions we are making.
I know I speak too on behalf of the Council which meets this afternoon when I record that your opinion, which will come from this morning's deliberations, will be much valued by all of us.
<P>
Fifty years ago when the founders of the European Community began their work the establishment of arrangements for permanent peace in Western Europe was their greatest priority; to set aside for ever age-old feuds and enmities and to establish a framework cooperation and progress for the peoples of Europe.
In their wisdom they recognized that enduring peace in our countries could only rest in the prosperity of the peoples. So, beginning with the Treaty of Rome, they began to fashion this European Union, a unique experiment in human history which has laid the basis for over half a century of peace in Western Europe and hitherto unknown prosperity for our peoples.
<P>
Right from the beginning those founders began to set out the path which has led us to the historic decisions on monetary union which we will take today.
For in the resolution passed at the Messina Conference almost 43 years ago they called for the coordination of monetary policies permitting the creation and development of a common market.
So now, after half a century, in which, building from the ruins of war, Europe has moved closer together, Europe today enters a new era.
Our ambition, by creating a single currency of the countries of Europe today, is to create greater employment and prosperity for the peoples of Europe tomorrow.
<P>
When the euro is introduced there will be over 290 million people in Europe using it, 5 % of the world's population.
The single currency of 11 countries will account for one-fifth of the world's output, the same as that of the United States.
The euro area will be one of the world's largest importers and exporters and our shared aims - high levels of growth and employment for all - depend critically on its successful introduction.
<P>
So, first I want to report to the European Parliament the recommendations of the Finance Ministers of our 15 Member States following their meeting last night.
So that Economic and Monetary Union is sustainable and durable, the decisions we recommend are based on a consideration of whether the Member States have fulfilled the conditions of both legal and economic convergence set down in the Maastricht Treaty.
We have unanimously agreed with the Commission's recommendation that 11 Member States - Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Austria, Portugal and Finland - fulfil the necessary conditions for the adoption of the single currency.
<P>
We have agreed that these Member States have all taken the necessary steps to ensure their national legislation is compatible with the Treaty and the Statute of the European system of central banks.
So, they have met the condition of legal convergence.
We have also agreed that these states have achieved a high degree of sustainable economic convergence; progress on achieving price stability; a high degree of exchange rate stability; convergence in long-term interest rates and there has also been progress on bringing budget deficits under control and reducing debt, although as the EMI report has said, further fiscal consolidation is warranted to achieve lasting compliance with the fiscal criteria.
However, it is important to say also, as we recommend this momentous decision, that the progress countries have made must not represent a one-off commitment to meeting a target for one particular year, but must be part of a continuing commitment to stability and discipline.
<P>
On behalf of the Council of Ministers, I also want to report to you on the important declaration which we set out last night.
To lock in our commitment to fiscal discipline and economic reform the new declaration sets out how we should implement immediately and in the period ahead, the commitments already entered into in the Stability and Growth Pact and do so in the most effective and timely way.
It is by locking in our commitment to monetary and fiscal discipline that monetary union can become the platform for long-term stability on which growth and employment can be built.
<P>
The declaration also emphasises the need for economic reform.
Indeed, economic reform is now established as the next big challenge for Europe to create employment opportunity for all, making product, labour and capital markets more effective, improving the adaptability of employment markets, ensuring that national education and training systems are more effective, seeking to encourage entrepreneurship, enabling easier access to capital markets for small and medium enterprises, increasing tax efficiency, avoiding harmful tax competition, all to create more growth and jobs.
<P>
The declaration reflects the importance we attach to addressing the needs of 18 million unemployed if we are to make monetary union work more successfully.
The declaration emphasizes just how important it is to tackle unemployment by welfare, tax and social security reform as well as by measures for training and education and ending social exclusion if we are to have both a successful single currency and a successful economy.
<P>
(Applause) Monetary union is not only an achievement, it also sets a challenge to make the economic reforms essential for the high levels of growth and employment we all want to see.
Fellow parliamentarians, Economic and Monetary Union is born out of our shared objectives for growth and employment.
It is founded on our common commitment to long-term stability.
It is now driven forward by our mutual interest in fiscal discipline and economic reform to secure a society that is both enterprising and fair.
<P>
Let me say finally here from this Parliament today that our great achievement, the test of our success, will not be in declarations or in documents or even in new institutions or procedures.
It will be in jobs for people, growth for people, prosperity for people - a People's Europe where everyone has opportunity and everyone has a contribution to make.
<P>
(Applause) That, with all of us working together - Parliament and governments - is our task.
That, in time, will be our achievement.
<P>
(Loud and sustained applause)
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Santer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, you are here today in an extraordinary sitting to express the European Parliament's opinion, between the meeting of the Finance Ministers and that of the Heads of State or Government.
You are thus going to pledge your Parliament's responsibility for this unique decision.
The euro is happening today, because today eleven of our countries are preparing together to change the destiny of our Union.
Today, Europeans are turning a vision into a reality, and for this thanks also go to you, ladies and gentlemen, Members of the European Parliament, you who have been involved since the beginning.
For months and years the Commission too has done everything in its power to ensure the success of today's deadline.
This was one of its main objectives.
So that is why the scenario envisaged in Madrid has become a reality.
And yet, I must remind you that nothing can be taken for granted.
No-one would have believed even a year ago that such a degree of economic convergence was possible.
The member countries, that is, the nations and their people, were asked to make unprecedented efforts and I congratulate them on their success.
<P>
Mr President, that investment in convergence was an investment in prosperity.
Economic conditions have never been so good.
The efforts aimed at convergence have created a foundation for growth, investment and employment.
From tomorrow, the euro will give the internal market its full meaning, by eliminating transaction costs, putting an end to speculation, improving price transparency and strengthening financial integration.
The euro will facilitate trade, investment and the movement of Europeans from one country to another.
The euro will not only be a guarantee of the irreversibility of those efforts, but also a catalyst for incredible change.
<P>
Firstly, these efforts are irreversible because with the euro there is no longer the possibility of turning back.
The high degree of convergence will become a real and intrinsic part of monetary union.
In addition, the euro represents a catalyst for incredible change since it allows the creative spirit, the spirit of enterprise and innovation in a strong Europe to come to life, and in this sense the euro is indeed an instrument, as I have always maintained since my appointment as President of the Commission. It is not an end in itself.
That is why we must continue our struggle against unemployment and exclusion, on the basis of the decisions taken at the Luxembourg employment summit and within the framework of the sound macroeconomic conditions created by the Economic and Monetary Union convergence process.
<P>
Finally, the euro will also become the most tangible sign of integration that our citizens have had.
That is why its introduction, as I have said, must not take place at the expense of the consumer.
For it to be accepted, there must be no supplementary costs, total price transparency and optimum preparation.
Moreover, thanks to the euro, Europe will at a stroke make its mark on the financial and monetary world map. It must be ready from now on to contribute to the formation of a balanced and stable international monetary system, a secure refuge in times of crisis, and a centre of attraction for our partners.
It is thus a strong Union which will welcome our friends and partners from central and eastern Europe.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is now up to you to vote.
Your vote will be an historic one.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="von Wogau">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the decisions being taken this weekend are of historic significance for the future of the European Union.
We are deciding which countries will be lining up for the start of the single currency on 1 January 1999.
We also expect to see candidates being nominated this weekend for top posts in the European Central Bank.
And, equally important, major decisions have to be taken which will affect future exchange rates.
As this could well have a substantial impact on the financial and foreign-exchange markets, we have had to choose a time when the stock exchanges would be closed.
For this reason, the three institutions involved, namely the Ecofin Council, the European Parliament and the European Council, have gathered together in Brussels this weekend in order to prepare and take the necessary decisions.
<P>
We are today required to give our opinion on which Member States fulfil the criteria of the Maastricht Treaty.
In this respect the Maastricht Treaty assigns an institutional role to the European Parliament.
This House has to hear the proposal of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council before the Heads of State and Government make their decision.
As the Finance Ministers were unable to make their recommendation until yesterday evening, an extraordinary sitting of Parliament had to be called this Saturday morning.
For this same reason it is necessary for us to reach our decision by oral procedure.
<P>
The President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has this morning informed the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy that the Council accepts the recommendation of the European Commission.
This means that the European Parliament, in the decision it will take today, can refer directly to the resolution which was adopted last Thursday by a very large majority.
<P>
In this resolution the European Parliament made the following declaration on the basis of my report: Since the signing of the Maastricht Treaty each Member State of the European Union has made substantial progress towards convergence.
This is reflected in the low inflation rates, low long-term interest rates, minimal exchange-rate fluctuations and in a perceptible consolidation of budgetary positions.
<P>
The Maastricht Treaty sets down that only those countries which have achieved a stable currency will be admitted to monetary union.
This is of particular importance, because a stable currency is a fundamental requirement for the success of a social market economy.
The real indicator for price stability is the inflation rate.
The central banks work on the assumption that in practice inflation rates of less than 2 % produce price stability.
The good news from the reports we have before us is that all eleven participating countries have inflation rates of less than 2 %.
This means that only Member States which at this moment have a stable currency will be lining up for the start of monetary union.
In 1997, the reference year, four participating countries had an inflation rate of 1.9 % - namely Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal and Spain.
Two countries had an inflation rate of 1.5 %, namely Belgium and Germany.
One country had an inflation rate of 1.4 %, namely Luxembourg, and one an inflation rate of 1.3 %, namely France.
Three countries even achieved inflation rates of 1.2 %, namely Finland, Ireland and Austria.
<P>
The average inflation rate of the eleven participating countries in the reference year was 1.5 %.
This shows a growing awareness of the need for price stability throughout the whole European Union with a view to the introduction of monetary union.
Long-term interest rates suggest that the markets expect this trend to continue.
In all eleven participating countries, long-term interest rates are substantially below the reference value of 7.8 %.
<P>
The stability of the euro will be safeguarded when it comes into being in January 1999.
All the reports which have been made available to us indicate this.
The great efforts of recent years and months have borne fruit.
Now we have to secure for future years that which has so far been achieved.
Alexandre Lamfalussy, the first President of the European Monetary Institute, always insisted that we should not ask too much of the instruments of monetary policy.
The budgetary policies of the Member States must also play a part in securing long-term currency stability.
For that reason we have been very careful to ensure that the debt criteria of the Treaty were being fulfilled.
The budget deficits of all participating countries were below 3 % of GDP and the budgetary plans and forecasts point to a further decline in deficit levels.
<P>
With regard to the debt situation in the Member States, we established in Thursday's resolution that the overall government debt in some countries continues to give cause for concern.
Here we have to examine whether the debt burden of these countries lies within the reference band allowed by the Maastricht Treaty.
What is important here is whether the debts are financed mainly by the country itself or whether short-term or longer-term liabilities are involved.
It should be borne in mind that the two most indebted countries have at the same time an above-average savings ratio and that their liabilities are for the most part financed internally.
Furthermore, an improvement in the debt structure can be observed to the effect that the terms are gradually, if slowly, being extended.
<P>
In addition, we have, in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, held talks with the Finance Ministers of the countries in question.
At this point I wish to mention specifically that the comments expressed by Finance Minister Ciampi on the substantial and successful efforts made in Italy towards budgetary consolidation contributed enormously to the positive assessment made by the Committee members.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy acknowledged these achievements.
We came to the conclusion that we should approve the positive assessment of the Commission and Council in respect of the fulfilment of the debt criteria by all eleven participating countries.
However, in order to provide further safeguards, our resolution of 30 April 1998 called for the Stability and Growth Pact to be strictly applied in all eleven countries.
We also expect the governments of those countries particularly affected to make real commitments to continue the consolidation process.
<P>
Unemployment, while not formally one of the Maastricht Treaty criteria, nevertheless constitutes the greatest challenge facing the countries of the European Union.
For this reason we have included the issue of employment in our overall assessment and are calling for the decisions adopted at the Luxembourg Summit to be consistently implemented.
<P>
I come now to my oral proposal.
At the sitting of 2 May 1998, the recommendation of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council of 1 May 1998 was submitted to the members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy in accordance with Article 109j(2) of the Treaty.
In its recommendation, the Council comes to the conclusion that the following countries fulfil the necessary conditions for the adoption of a single currency: Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Austria, Portugal and Finland.
In this closed session the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, presented the text of these recommendations to the Committee.
This was followed by a discussion of the Council's recommendations.
The members of the Committee determined that the proposal adopted by the Council was in keeping with the Commission's recommendation of 25 March 1998, on the basis of which Parliament gave its assenting opinion on 30 April 1998.
<P>
On this basis I asked the Committee to propose that you give your approval to the Council recommendation of 1 May 1998.
My proposal was accepted by 54 votes to 3, with 2 abstentions.
I therefore submit a proposal to this House, under the oral procedure, that the recommendations of the Council of Ministers be approved.
<P>
Pierre Werner, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and Helmut Schmidt, Jacques Delors, François Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl, these are the eminent statesmen who have stamped their mark on, and who will continue to shape, the great achievement that is European Economic and Monetary Union.
Without their input we would not be able to take the historic decisions which are before us today.
Neither should we forget the many others who have worked towards EMU, many of whom are present in this Chamber today.
<P>
If you now accept my proposal, then we shall be advocating the adoption of a single currency by eleven Member States on 1 January 1999.
Let us say "yes' , for the euro represents an important step from the Single Market to a proper European home market.
Let us say "yes' , for the euro will lead Europe into the 21st century and will significantly improve the competitiveness of the European economy.
Let us say "yes' , because the history of a European currency since the signing of the Maastricht Treaty has already been a success in terms of financial stability.
Let us say "yes' , because with the euro we will be creating a major international currency which will strengthen Europe's position around the world.
Let us say "yes' in the realization that this will be the most momentous decision in Europe's history since the founding fathers of the European Community signed the original Treaty of Rome at the Capitol in 1957.
I therefore call upon this House to vote "yes' to the proposal.
<P>
(Loud applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="Green">
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Azzolini">
Mr President, Presidents of the Commission and Council, ladies and gentlemen, today, 2 May 1998, we are celebrating an historic event for Europe and for the whole world: the euro has been born, the new unifying and invigorating symbol, as I see it, for Europe and for our peoples, in a spirit of stability, solidarity and peace.
Klaus Emmerle himself, bishop of Aquisgrana, said at the Fifth Symposium of Bishops of Europe that, "unity has always been felt in the history of Europe, a unity that does not even out differences but that embraces tensions, that preserves the different elements and that in the end leads them to a synthesis from within' .
<P>
The euro is, in fact, a synthesis of our desire for unity; the euro is important as a visiting card because it will tell the whole world about the history of Europe, with its successes and its problems, but it is also an indication of the state of health of our economy.
The European Central Bank will have full independence to guarantee monetary stability, but the governments, with their economic and budgetary policies, will have to ensure the optimum conditions for a stable and strong euro in time.
There is no doubt that celebrating this historic moment is just the beginning of an even more important and demanding path, which requires constant confirmation of the desire of national governments to work together in total harmony for a strong and stable currency.
<P>
These are the essential premises for the Stability and Growth Pact, the guarantee that the member countries admitted to EMU have to deposit to ensure the efficacy of their work, to make sure it does not spend all its time giving notification of undesirable fines.
<P>
We are pleased that almost all the applicant countries have been accepted into the monetary union.
We are all aware of the miracles some countries admitted to EMU have had to perform to present their accounts.
I think that the decision to set up the monetary union with the Eleven has also been dictated by the belief that the countries structurally furthest behind know how to show that they can transform miracles into serious, continuous and highly responsible recovery and development programmes, in which inflationist and welfarist policies which eat up resources, which will now for better or worse be common policies, finally give way to policies to promote healthy management of public budgets and a strong commitment to economic recovery. And this will be achieved not with welfare and benefits but with careful policies on tax, investment in production, flexibility and retraining, which are today the only guarantees of development in creating jobs and a real and more firmly based social solidarity.
<P>
To conclude, Mr President, I would like to draw attention to the fact that the Europe of monetary union and the Single Market need a political Europe, a European government that is decidedly more democratic and closer to the wishes of its people, to manage a totally integrated Europe with decision-making processes underpinned by sufficient democratic legitimacy.
<P>
Finally, our thoughts go to everything that has been done, from the foundation of the European Union to date, for Europe to reach this historic stage, the founding fathers and the other architects that have developed "Project Europe' with conviction and tenacity.
It is thanks and in homage to them that I have to say that the famous saying "c'est l'argent qui fait la guerre ' becomes for us, today, "c'est l'argent, l'euro, qui fait la paix ' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="de Vries">
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Puerta">
Mr President, with the birth of the euro and the decision on those countries which will participate in the single currency, we are witnessing an exceptional moment in the difficult and exciting process of the construction of Europe.
The adjective "historic' is not an exaggeration today and befits the importance of the decision and the consequences for the future.
The Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, with its diversity of experiences and concerns according to the various countries and parties - a diversity which will be reflected in the vote - is taking part in this Parliamentary sitting with conflicting feelings of hope and concern as regards the balance of advantages and risks of this single currency.
<P>
From my personal point of view, which is similar to the position of many of my colleagues, I can express these feelings in a short sentence: "yes to the euro, but not this way' .
<P>
I say "yes to the euro' insofar as the concept and the reality of a single currency imply the reasonable completion of the common market and an element of transparency for citizens as consumers.
I also believe this because the euro represents a way of saving internal resources and is a defence against the aggressiveness of the North American dollar and the Japanese yen; it is a defence against the easy speculation of the international financial market against the existing national currencies.
In addition, there is no doubt that citizens will psychologically see the euro as a key element of European unity, an element which is much more striking than the existing symbols and common institutions and, in the medium term, this could mean the acceptance of and even the demand for political union.
<P>
I say "but not this way' because a single currency model has been imposed on us which starts from the obligation to meet certain convergence criteria which, besides being arbitrary, have negative effects on the fight against unemployment and on the social policies of the Member States.
One of the fathers of the single currency, the former German Chancellor, Helmut Schmidt, wrote that it has never been justified why the national fiscal deficit must not exceed 3 % of GDP, nor why there should be a 60 % limit on public debt.
In his opinion, they are criteria derived from a deflationary ideology which establishes economic and monetary dogmas which go beyond a reasonable fight against inflation.
It is also true that, as regards these dogmas, ultra-liberal economic policies have appeared in the European Union and that the situation becomes more serious if those criteria are to be perpetuated by the Stability Pact.
<P>
We are also very concerned about the simultaneous establishment of a European Central Bank independent of political guidelines and without any real democratic control, and which by its very nature will sacrifice economic growth and employment if there is the slightest hint of inflation.
<P>
It must be made clear that the proposed euro Council has no power to define binding guidelines, no more than the European Parliament has sufficient authority to exercise effective democratic control.
<P>
Moreover, in the European monetary area, in the context of globalization, the irregular economic crises which occur can have very negative effects on the most vulnerable countries, since they have neither a European government of the economy nor mobility of the workforce between the various Member States.
<P>
It is not unlikely that rivalry between the dollar and the euro may arise in Europe with the loss of jobs and a decrease in salaries for the sake of false competitiveness.
Faced with this situation, there are still those who say that we need to reduce solidarity funds and that the countries participating in EMU should not receive Structural Funds or Cohesion Funds.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, representatives of Europe's citizens, we are not alarmists, and to an even lesser degree are we Eurosceptics.
We are committed pro-Europeans, but we are critical pro-Europeans from the Left.
We believe that the construction of Europe is a project which is desirable, democratic and progressive, and one which must strive for solidarity and common prosperity.
However, we also believe that the current monetarist model is capable of becoming an instrument to be used in the service of ultra-liberal policies and could increase the threat which already exists for the welfare state and the European social dimension.
As President Mitterrand said in this Parliament, Europe cannot be built against the interests of workers.
<P>
Let us remember today the Luxembourg Employment Summit, the priority of the fight against unemployment and the important objective of economic and social cohesion.
Let us remember the need to increase the Community budget in order to have the capacity to counteract the regional imbalances that the market and the single currency can generate.
Let us call for a harmonization of employment, social and fiscal policies in the European monetary area.
I hope the President-in-Office of the Council is paying attention.
<P>
From our position as left-wing parties grouped together in the European United Left, we are calling for a new direction for the construction of Europe: this should be based on solidarity, on joint responsibility and on fully democratic institutions.
When the Europe of the euro is born it is essential to have a European political union in which citizens can participate.
<P>
In conclusion, I, on my own behalf and on behalf of my group, sincerely wish every success for the progress of the eleven countries - including my own - who are going to share the single currency, its potential positive results and its risks. However, we do not consider the British, the Danes, the Greek and the Swedes to be any less European.
And it is no small paradox that we currently have a British Presidency of the Union.
The future belongs to everyone and together we must all share fully in the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as Brecht once said, there is nothing I love more than discontent with the changeable, and nothing I hate more than deep discontent with the inalterable.
A majority of the members of our Green Group will be supporting today's euro proposal.
Our Group embraces a variety of opinions.
But the majority will support the proposal. They will do it with conviction, not in a light-hearted manner but guided by Brecht's thinking.
We have always supported the idea of a single European currency.
But we have from the outset warned of the economic and social risks of a monetarist policy.
The euro is coming, that is an inalterable fact.
It is coming in a form which is better than had been feared and that is down to the fact that discontent among the social forces in Europe has led to real changes.
I only wish that the European Parliament would adopt this desire for change, for we should be playing a bigger role than that of mere film extras.
<P>
With eleven countries participating, the euro is not going to be a divisive factor for European integration.
It will not be separating the core from the periphery.
This is a good thing.
We welcome the fact that when deciding on participation the Treaty's margin of interpretation was used to the full.
And that too is a good thing.
No-one should be playing another card, as electoral candidate Waigel - the European ringmaster - tried to do again yesterday.
We want no additional conditions which would restrict the political and fiscal freedom of the individual participants.
<P>
Everyone is calling today a historic occasion.
Everywhere you can sense the desire of great men to make history.
I only wish that these same people would learn something from history.
The edifice that is the European Union should not end up like the Tower of Babel.
It remained unchanged, for those who built it were confused.
They did not see eye to eye.
The overall plan had got lost.
There were disputes. The work was slipshod.
The builders disappeared and the Tower went to ruin.
<P>
We have to know what we are building and why.
The history of the European Union does not end here today.
It has to go on, and that will require the coordination and reorientation of economic policy, the strengthening of the role of the European Parliament and the democratic inclusion of the European Central Bank.
<P>
The introduction of a common taxation policy to control the damaging competition which exists between the different taxation systems, and more importantly a real and an effective employment policy.
Stability which is much more than just a figure in the accounts.
Democracy and social justice - these are the fundamental requirements for stability.
<P>
(Applause) We must work at building something more than just a monetary union, for if we do not at the same time create a social union, a democratic union, then our citizens will look on monetary union as an edifice which they must fear.
They want to feel and experience that this Europe is their Europe, a Europe which gives them jobs, inner peace, bread, fresh water, good wine, in other words a future.
Monetary union is a good thing, but it is certainly not everything.
It would be fatal for Europe to devote all its energy to this alone.
This is not the day for unveiling monuments.
It is a topping-out ceremony for the European Parliament.
The shell of the house is in place, now we have to make it fit to live in.
Mr Brown and Mrs Green have spoken in such enthusiastic tones.
Well, Pauline and Gordon, if it's so important, why the hell do you not join?
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lalumière">
It is rare that monetary issues arouse passions, apart from the panic we sometimes see when a crisis occurs.
But here today many among us feel positive emotions; there is a serious yet optimistic feeling.
This is firstly because real political will has been shown.
Significant efforts have been made by the eleven countries which were finally chosen.
Some of them have made up for lost time and I would like to express my admiration for our friends from the South.
Nor am I forgetting the efforts made by the successive governments of my country.
Others have been able to overcome their prejudices and reservations; we should pay tribute to Germany and the courageous vote of the Bundestag.
These individual efforts are in themselves a sign of political vitality; it is very exciting.
<P>
Our group is equally aware of the fact that the euro also represents a political victory on the financial markets.
At long last, our countries are going to breathe a little more freely, for it will be easier for them to break out of the hold of those who speculate on currencies and put pressure on governments.
Even if external pressure cannot be totally ruled out in future, from now on the more stable single currency will be more resilient. It is also an important political advance.
<P>
Finally, if we know how to use this instrument, the euro should accelerate political integration within the European Union.
As regards the institutions, we are among those who wish to go further than the modest provisions in the Amsterdam Treaty.
We can expect, or hope, that the operation of the single currency will move in this direction, and that will be a good thing.
In particular, the role of the European Parliament should be strengthened, for it is Parliament, and only Parliament, which has the democratic legitimacy to supervise the political approach adopted in the work of the Central Bank.
<P>
As regards the content of several policies which are necessary for our citizens, such as economic, fiscal, social - particularly employment - and environmental policies, etcetera, we might also imagine that the euro should have a two-fold advantage: encouraging approximation, perhaps the harmonization of these policies; and compelling the European authorities to take their responsibilities seriously.
<P>
Consequently, we hope that with this stage of the creation of the euro having - thankfully - been reached, the European Council and the Council of Ministers will be able to resolve those issues which are still outstanding.
I am thinking, in particular, of the decision on the President of the European Central Bank.
Good sense calls for, or rather demands, a clear and rapid solution; this is the direction taken by Parliament in its vote last Thursday.
Indeed, it would not be very wise to split into two the term of the first President of the Central Bank by appointing two successive presidents; that would be an infringement of the Treaty, and would no doubt create a regrettable precedent at a time, Mr President, when nothing should tarnish this great day.
<P>
We can only hope that the countries who today could not or did not want to adopt the single currency will join us soon so that our family can be reunited.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, reports have been published in newspapers and professional journals in recent months advancing strong arguments that the European Union is not well prepared for EMU.
It is true that the short-term outlook is good due to the economy picking up. There is a danger, however, that participants in EMU will forget that structural reforms are necessary - within EMU - to be able to face a possible recession.
We should take as a warning the fact that the Council does not say a word in its recommendation about the towering public debts.
<P>
Why go on with EMU then?
If it serves to raise living standards, that is mainly in the strong economies of Western Europe, while the countries of Eastern and Central Europe are ending up in the position of third-rate countries. Is there no such thing as a moral obligation to admit these countries as full members of the Union as quickly as possible?
<P>
There is another moral objection.
EMU operates as a driving force for the transfer of powers to other policy areas, especially social and fiscal policy.
This is despite the unmistakeable pronouncements of government leaders in December last year that economic policy and wages policy remain national responsibilities.
EMU leads to an unacceptably high concentration of power in European institutions which are accustomed to judging most political issues by the yardstick of efficiency.
However, materialism and market-thinking do not by any means always serve the good of society and the wellbeing of its citizens.
<P>
Mr President, we have chosen to have a European Union of independent, democratic European states which is as broad as possible.
The EMU straitjacket will put cooperation under pressure for a while and put countries which are doing less well at too great a disadvantage.
Furthermore, its citizens are better served by administrations which are based nearer where they live and which pursue policies which do not only take material interests into consideration.
We will therefore vote against.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Muscardini">
Mr President, I am a little anxious: will the advent of the euro signal an increase in the nineteen million unemployed living in the Union?
Yet I really feel we can achieve that goal, which we have been pursuing since the end of the 1960s, and I hope that the single currency will become the starting point for finally achieving political union.
The currency alone cannot loosen the binds that today still torment European society and have not yet allowed political union to get under way.
A technical device such as the euro, essential as it may be, cannot provide a satisfactory answer to unemployment, which requires coordinated strategies and political solutions at Community level.
<P>
I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr von Wogau, for his work and for emphasizing the need for Community agreement on the question of unemployment.
On behalf of the Alleanza Nazionale delegation, I am delighted at the successful outcome of one of the most controversial objectives of the Maastricht Treaty, but on this solemn day of celebration our real thanks go out to the people of Europe who have made great economic sacrifices to achieve an ideal that cannot and should not be just an economic one.
<P>
The Alleanza Nazionale reminds each of us that the founding fathers were committed to political union, social and cultural integration, and the aim of a lasting peace that only mutual reciprocal respect can guarantee.
For this reason, we urgently need to reinforce the complementarity between economic policies and active policies on the labour market and strategies designed to fill the social and economic gap between the regions of the Union. For this reason we agree with the proposal to institutionalize a parliamentary dialogue with the monetary authorities.
<P>
The approval we are giving to the Council's recommendation should not reduce the House's commitment to achieving political union, without which the gap between the two Europes, the Europe of the single currency and the Europe of national currencies, would widen.
These threats, which are an attack on our unity, can only be faced once political union has been achieved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Mr President, today is indeed a great and historic day.
Monetary union will change the face of Europe.
For the first time ever, a common currency will be in use all over Europe from Flensburg to Sicily and from Dublin to Helsinki. This represents an important step, and a proper one, towards the ever closer union of the peoples of Europe.
Day in and day out we will personally experience the euro as tangible proof of European integration.
For the first time we will see a European federal authority.
For the first time nation states, acting freely and without coercion or the threat of war, have renounced their sovereignty over monetary policy.
But in reality this relinquishment of sovereignty means a greater sovereignty for all, for the European monetary union, with its 300 million people, with its 20 % share of world GDP and world trade, will acquire greater sovereignty and the capacity to shape its own political destiny for the benefit of Europe and its people, and will be able to face the threats of globalization with greater self-assurance.
<P>
The introduction of the euro will remove obstacles to trade in the internal market, will eliminate exchange rate risks, will increase certainty in economic planning, will reduce transaction costs and will therefore allow us to make greater use of Europe's scope for growth, its potential for innovation and its employment opportunities.
We know that we are stronger when we stand united than when we stand alone.
Europe is ready for the euro.
The euro will be a stable and a secure currency.
At long last a culture of stability and historically low inflation rates has gained acceptance.
The degree of convergence will transform monetary union into a community based on stability.
In times of upheaval people are happy to look to the future, but all the same they do so with scepticism and uncertainty.
It is our duty as the European Parliament to give them guidance and confidence in the future, for at the end of the day the euro has to be accepted not only by the markets but also by the people.
<P>
We have profited from the lessons of the past.
Price stability is essential for social and political stability.
Exchange-rate stability is essential for price stability in an open and integrated internal market.
In the long run both can only be safeguarded by a common monetary policy and an independent European Central Bank is an appropriate means to this end.
But in the future monetary policy will be made for the benefit of all those participating in European Economic and Monetary Union. We are pleased to see that this currently comprises eleven Member States and hope that they will soon be followed by the others.
The Maastricht Treaty rightly obliges the European Central Bank to support the economic policy of the European Union.
In this way European monetary union will contribute to stability in real economic terms, something which is urgently needed to promote investment, growth and employment, and in this sense it already represents an element of political union.
<P>
We also need to make progress in the areas of employment and social policy.
Dumping and unfair competition when measured against normal social and environmental standards, not to mention the destructive competition that exists between taxation systems, are irreconcilable with the spirit of the European Community and the internal market.
We therefore need greater progress in the areas of common employment and social policy.
Future generations will ask why we took so long to adopt the euro.
Monetary union constitutes a new European commonwealth. In this respect monetary union has quite justifiably become an important instrument for Europe's role in the 21st century.
Willy Brandt once said: Europe belongs to all of us.
It is our responsibility to find the right response to the challenges of our time and to do this at the most appropriate moment.
Well, the euro has arrived at the right moment.
Let us make the most of the opportunity.
That is why the euro belongs to all of us.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Christodoulou">
Mr President, given that the principal objective of Economic and Monetary Union should be to present Europe with a strong common voice and given that, during the last few months, everything has gone unexpectedly well, it would be a great political mistake for us to create problems which may undermine the credibility of EMU.
This must be the unambiguous political message of this important moment.
Petty pedantic speculation or issues of national egoism, such as the issue of the President of the Central Bank, should not obscure the true context of Economic and Monetary Union, the common vision of European integration, which must not of course be a reason for excluding and marginalizing some countries.
<P>
For this reason I would now like to draw your attention to the case of Greece which, irrespective of the reasons why it does not meet the criteria - and here I must say that it is due in part to the fact that it has very high defence expenditure - will essentially be the only country which remains outside EMU against its will.
Whereas, due to its relatively small economy, if it did belong to EMU it would not have a negative effect on the economies of the other Member States, it will now suffer all the adverse consequences of non-participation.
And this means that in practice from now on much more effort than before will be necessary for it to achieve convergence in interest rates and in exchange rate stability, convergence which would have been much easier from within EMU.
<P>
This criticism does of course not mean that entry into EMU should be free of conditions.
And it has quite rightly been made clear to the Greek government that it must finally take the appropriate structural and other measures, which it must implement immediately and consistently.
However, in parallel, a positive and irrevocable commitment should be made that the entry of Greece will finally take place within the same interpretive framework as the first 11 Members.
Otherwise, I believe that the euro will be all powerful and, in consequence, will not be affected by such peripheral cases.
This must come about so that the people of Greece can share this day of hope and not feel disappointed at a time when the other peoples of Europe look forward with optimism to the announcement of their official participation in the euro.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Mr Presidents, ladies and gentlemen, the date of 2 May 1998 will mark an important turning point in the history of the construction of Europe by definitively, and without doubt irreversibly, paving the way for the introduction of the euro, the single currency, for 11 of the 15 countries of the European Union.
<P>
The introduction of the euro represents a successful outcome in itself, but also, and more particularly, a point of departure for a new future which we must build together from now on.
A successful outcome, firstly, marking the completion of the internal market, which has often been marred by past monetary upsets but which is also the result of the diligent efforts aimed at economic convergence that have been so resolutely made by the governments of the Member States since 1992.
However, the hardest work undoubtedly remains to be done and the introduction of the euro will give the signal for a new departure on a path fraught with pitfalls.
<P>
From today, a new European economic order must be conceived if the euro is to be a popular success. This means that it must not only be the result of economic convergence but that it also allows for the social convergence which must remain the ultimate aim of the European adventure.
By doing away with exchange-rate fluctuations between European currencies, the euro will make competition between companies in the Union even more effective and more transparent. Companies will thus need to make further efforts in terms of management, innovation and market adjustment.
<P>
Since economic adjustments can no longer be made by changing currency parities, the risk of them being made through employment or salary levels should not be underestimated.
To avoid these dangers, which would be fatal for the construction of Europe, the economies of the different Member States will have to be guided towards the specific objective of guaranteeing the highest possible growth rate with a view to creating the maximum number of jobs.
In parallel, significant incentives will have to be introduced to accelerate the necessary structural reforms. This should involve giving greater priority to training and constantly helping workers to adjust to technical progress which will inevitably continue to accelerate, to facilitating mobility when necessary and to using all possible means to promote scientific and technical research and innovation.
<P>
The credibility and the international role of the euro, particularly in relation to the dollar and the yen, will depend on this.
Strong and dynamic economies make for strong and respected currencies and not the opposite.
With the introduction of the euro, there can be no easy policies.
Europe's citizens and governments must realize that the euro represents new constraints which will put pressure on them to ensure that they behave virtuously - and we all know that virtue is not spontaneous. But firstly, efforts have to be made by individuals and governments must have good fiscal sense and fight waste.
The path marked out by the euro will be a promising one, but only if we can adopt a 'highway code' which will allow us to avoid skidding and swerving into the ditch, always a danger to careless or simply negligent drivers.
<P>
In conclusion, Mr President, I would like to illustrate my remarks with a comparison. In a few weeks, my country will be staging the World Cup.
With respect to the euro, we would have liked to form a rugby team with 15 players along with our British friends.
We will have a football team with 11 players who have had to make tremendous efforts in order to qualify. The euro team is going to be up against the dollar team and the yen team in a world-level competition which is very open yet ruthless.
<P>
Our team has been well prepared by the coach, Yves Thibault de Silguy, but the supporters in the stands, in other words, public opinion, as represented by the Members of the European Parliament and those of national parliaments, are anxious.
They are worried that the referee responsible for ensuring that the rules of the game are respected, the President of the ECB, has still not been appointed; the supporters are also concerned, for they still do not know who will be organizing the game and drawing up the strategy which will allow the euro team to win.
<P>
But one thing is certain, and I am drawing to a close here, Mr President: the supporters will expect a lot of the players. They will not hesitate to boo at their team if it scores an own goal or if it lets too many goals in.
Ladies and gentlemen, we all hope that our team will win, so let us behave like supporters and be both enthusiastic and have high expectations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dijk">
Mr President, it seems we are not allowed to criticise the euro today, but precisely because the Union is close to my heart, I also want to point out the risks which it brings with it.
The currency which ought to be a powerful symbol of European integration, nevertheless threatens to sow division.
A majority in this House demanded strict observance of the Stability Pact last Thursday.
That was ill-advised, Mr President.
Paradoxically enough, that Pact increases the risk that monetary union will disintegrate.
It is a recipe for a political and monetary crisis as long as there is no unity in Europe on the strict budget requirements and draconian sanctions.
<P>
Some say that it is precisely monetary union that will enforce unity in the social, environmental and fiscal domains.
But that is wishful thinking at the moment.
There are strong forces working against this, such as the net payers who want to fleece the European budget and in the Netherlands the four biggest parties have meanwhile pledged to make substantial cut-backs in contributions.
<P>
Our parliamentary quickie today is a pointless clapping exercise.
Nevertheless I will take the vote seriously, as it is in fact about Italy.
The authors of the Maastricht Treaty wanted to detach Italy from the continent, thereby splitting the Union.
Fortunately they have been disappointed.
Since I don't want to side with the 'spaghettiphobes' , I will vote 'yes' today.
<P>
Too much of the debate on the euro has been spent dealing with side-issues.
Should it be the Frenchman Trichet or the model German Duisenberg who becomes President of the Bank? Is Italy ready for the euro?
However, unfortunately the question of whether Europe is ready for the euro has not been asked enough.
The market and currency Europe must also become the people's Europe and environmental Europe.
If we do not start working seriously on that, the euro could well end up as so much monopoly money.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in giving their definitive consent to the changeover to the single currency, maybe there are some of you who will believe that they are voting in favour of the European Union?
However, in reality that will be a vote for disunity.
The single currency and the ideology of convergence and unification which goes along with it involve imposing uniform laws on nations which are very distinct, with their own traditions of liberty, democracy and national sovereignty.
<P>
By imposing itself on this diverse nature, which is essential for Europe's wealth and which should indeed be allowed to express itself, the ideology of unification is going to give rise to serious conflicts in the years ahead.
Rather than making Europe stronger, it will instead turn it back towards its own internal conflicts for at least a decade and will ultimately weaken it in front of its major global partners.
It will also penalize growth and employment by preventing each country from deciding on an economic policy suitable for its own specific circumstances. In short, it is going to subordinate national democracies without replacing them with any sort of equivalent at European level.
<P>
Indeed, if you approve the changeover to the single currency under the present conditions, you will have voted for a law which undoubtedly gives complete authority to a body of international experts and bankers, and which will seriously reverse democracy in Europe.
Today, the peoples of Europe have not been given an honest explanation of the ultimate objectives the single currency hopes to achieve.
If you were to succeed in imposing it in these circumstances, it would be a very grim omen for our liberties on the eve of the 21st century.
<P>
But that will not be the case.
We think that, from the beginning, when the euro is first used, our citizens will understand what kind of trap they have been lured into; they will soon understand that the euro is the enemy of Europe.
Then we will be able to begin to realize our ideal, that of a Europe of liberties and of national democracies, known as the "Europe of Nations' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Le Pen">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are most certainly experiencing an important moment, convened here for an extraordinary sitting on a Saturday, to in fact confirm the death sentence of 11 of our currencies.
That is exactly why this act is important, and particularly because these currencies are the sum of the work of those people who created them and who should have been consulted.
Our citizens, who are indeed the owners of their currency, are being excluded from this decision to expropriate them; they are in fact doubly excluded, both now and in perpetuity.
<P>
I say that they are being excluded now, because here in the European Parliament, which represents the citizens of Europe, your vote has no more political significance than a conversation in learned society.
But the exclusion of our fellow citizens, who are in fact sovereign, will also be permanent.
The administration of the future euro is being entrusted to the European Central Bank, whose Governing Council, in its building in Frankfurt, does not take orders from anyone and is not supervised by anyone, apart from a vague and spurious euro Council, which only involves the control of a dozen senior officials.
The euro will be run in an oligarchic manner.
<P>
The people are therefore excluded from it; this cannot continue without something being destroyed.
The first thing to be destroyed will be the solidarity that exists within nations.
In a Europe without frontiers, indeed, where there is free movement of goods and people, a single currency will be a bonus for the cheapest product, that is the one manufactured with the lowest social costs.
<P>
That is why Europe means less basic social requirements, less social protection, less solidarity.
The Europe of the euro is based on capital, run by capital and run for capital.
By further dividing our societies, where there are 20 million unemployed, Europe is going to destroy the freedom of our nations.
As we know, the aim is to have a single economic and budgetary policy, with a single government; this means the disappearance of our nation states.
<P>
However, a currency is alive, it is where a nation's heart beats; wanting to do away with it is a bit like wanting to re-enact Abraham's sacrifice of his son, Isaac. But God was there to stay his arm.
Will he be able to stop the vote when voting for the sacrifice?
I hope so, otherwise it will stay with you as a shameful mark of the blood of the 11 nations you have made disappear, and history will say of you: "Ruont in servitudinem' .
<P>
(Loud applause from the extreme right)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="Donnelly, Alan">
Mr President, I thank the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Ecofin Council for their recommendation which this European Parliament warmly endorses.
I also say to the whole House that this is an important lesson to the rest of the world of what can be achieved in Europe when the political will exists.
It is a marvellous example to our own citizens and to the rest of the world.
It is for that very reason that the people on the far right of this Parliament are so frightened when the political will of Europe speaks as it has done today.
<P>
The President-in-Office of the Ecofin Council referred to our citizens, to the need to create jobs, to the need to deal with social exclusion and poverty.
What we want, President-in-Office, are not solemn declarations from the Council.
We want to see the detailed work that is being conducted on monetary union followed up with detailed work dealing with social exclusion and dealing with unemployment.
That is the strongest signal we can send to our citizens that this process is for them and not merely for the capital markets.
This afternoon we expect an extremely strong commitment from the Council that we will see, in particular with the broad economic guidelines, proper measures to tackle unemployment in Europe.
<P>
Of course we want to achieve stability in the European Union.
We see this as a way of tackling unemployment, as a way of strengthening the internal market of the European Union.
But it must be complemented by flanking measures to boost education and training, to give young people a chance, to ensure that the peripheral regions of the European Union are involved and benefit from this process.
It is on that basis that the citizens of the European Union will judge this process, not only on whether or not the Central Bank can maintain price stability but whether or not it can deliver investment-led growth and new jobs for our citizens.
<P>
Another important point that needs to be addressed - and I hope the President-in-Office can refer to this today - is the whole question of political coordination.
I looked at the declaration today and for me it confirms that the Ecofin Council is the body responsible for economic coordination in the European Union.
That is very important.
It should not be left to informal organizations to deal with economic coordination.
It is the responsibility of the official institutions of European Union.
We welcome your statement today but please move forward on these other agenda items, in particular the issue of unemployment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hoppenstedt">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, sufficient tributes have been paid to this historic occasion.
Nevertheless, I would again like to thank the many people who are not in the limelight and who have helped make this historic weekend possible. This naturally includes the many interpreters working in the booths around us.
The euro will become a strong currency, despite the negative noises coming from the chancellorship candidate from Hanover, who believes that the euro is premature and will be a sickly infant.
In fact, the euro is coming into the world after having been on a diet for several years and after following a strict fitness programme.
The stability pacts which have been agreed, and which were again ratified at yesterday's meeting of the Ecofin Council, will help the young euro to develop with a clear eye on the future, instead of losing sight of life's objective, for too long stricken with the burden of high government debt.
<P>
Properly equipped, the euro will now be in a position to win the confidence of our citizens.
This will put out of business all those whose ill-considered remarks have been confusing the issue.
The main focus for the coming months should now be a well-planned information campaign, primarily via the electronic media, which will give our citizens answers to those questions which are still outstanding.
Each and every Member State should realize that from 1999 it will not just be the large and medium-sized enterprises which will be using the euro as currency - the State too will have to set a good example.
Each government must incorporate the euro into its functions and must ensure that the new currency becomes part of daily life, and hence part of the national consciousness, as quickly as possible.
<P>
The consumer has a right to transparency - and above all transparency in the relationship between the national currency and the euro.
This should be achieved through voluntary dual pricing from 1999 to the end of 2002, which should rule out the possibility of potentially costly transfer scenarios during the first half-year.
On this day, 2 May, we are giving the green light to the euro.
We in the Group of the European People's Party intend to keep to our commitment to follow the clearly defined objectives of EMU towards a better future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, the European Parliament seems all set to vote by a large majority for a premature birth.
A baby named euro is to come into the world at a time when important conditions for its harmonious development and functioning have still to be met.
Since we consider it wrong to induce a premature birth when this is not absolutely necessary, we Members of the Austrian Freedom Party intend to vote against the proposal.
In doing so I am not speaking against the baby euro as such.
It is in the interests of the citizens of Europe that this premature birth does not become a miscarriage.
But every effort now needs to be made to push ahead vigorously with those stages of the harmonization process which are still to be completed, so that monetary union is put on a secure footing.
<P>
As one who intends voting against today's proposal, I should like to express my commitment to support these efforts and to call upon all Members who also intend voting 'no' not to look too much to the past but rather to adopt a critical, yet constructive approach towards the future of our new currency...
<P>
(The President asked the speaker to stand down as the speaking time had been exceeded)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, the Spanish Socialists are congratulating themselves on having arrived at this moment.
During the period of almost 14 years when Spain had a socialist government headed by Felipe González, not only did our country join the European Union but it also cooperated exhaustively in the construction of Europe.
In particular, the name of Spain's capital, Madrid, has been linked to the euro on at least two important occasions: the Madrid European Council of July 1989 adopted the Delors plan on Economic and Monetary Union; and the Madrid European Council of 15 December 1995 saw the establishment of this new European currency.
<P>
Accordingly, the Spanish socialist government strove to fulfil the convergence criteria and in 1994 the then Minister for Economic Affairs and Finance, Pedro Solbes, submitted the convergence plan for the Spanish economy. The change of government which took place in 1996 did not alter the direction of the Spanish policy.
The present government has continued with that policy and I congratulate them on that. Therefore, we have every reason to congratulate ourselves on the fact that we have moved to a new stage in the construction of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herman">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the path leading to the euro was, from the beginning, arid and strewn with obstacles.
A great deal of firmness of purpose and courage was needed to get where we are today.
All the players in this performance deserve praise in that respect.
I will not mention them all in my two minutes.
History will remember their names.
<P>
Today, however, we are only raising the curtain; there is still much to be done to ensure that the fruit surpasses the promise of its flowers.
If the euro is to enjoy the climate of confidence it requires, the European Council must, even today, put an end to this quarrel from a previous age.
Once we acknowledge that there is only one currency, that there is only one monetary policy and that the Central Bank will be independent, what is the point in indulging in a psychodrama with a whiff of nationalism about it, as to whether the person in charge will be French, Dutch, Finnish or whatever.
It does not matter what nationality the candidate is, as long as he is competent, credible and independent.
This obvious abuse of the right of veto, this blackmail, which still exists today, should no longer be tolerated when it comes to appointing those holding important posts.
We will have to remember that tomorrow, when we will be amending the treaties in the run-up to enlargement.
<P>
Another task awaits the Council, that is, the coordination of economic policies, which will remain national, and monetary policy, which is federal.
The provisions of the Treaty in this respect are perhaps inadequate, and in particular, the Council's behaviour up to now has demonstrated the need for some impetus from elsewhere, and particularly from Parliament.
<P>
Finally, and this is my last remark, we will also need to ensure, given that we now only have one common policy on external matters and within large international organizations, that Europe speaks with a single voice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Moretti">
Mr President, where is Europe?
Where is the real Europe so much publicized by you as the sole remedy for the great evils that afflict the European nations, starting with unemployment and organized crime?
The governments' omnipotence has brought forth the euro, but there is no corresponding will on their part to build the Europe of the people, the Europe of the regions, the federal Europe, the Europe of the nations.
<P>
Today we are celebrating the victory of subsidized big money, the victory of the powerful economic states which, helped by disinformation, are making their citizens and small businesses pay the enormous cost of the euro.
The enthusiasm of small and medium-sized enterprises is being stifled every day by an increasingly interventionist technocracy, fed by the interests of the large-scale capital interests that run Europe.
It will certainly not be these financial solutions that resolve the major problems in Europe.
Once again we are forgetting the real origins and foundations of the Union, the role of the communities, the municipalities and the regions.
<P>
Today is the death-knell of the dream of a federal Europe!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Colajanni">
Mr President, I take the opposite view to the previous speaker.
Today the European Union has taken a decisive political step for the future of our continent and is showing the way for the other great regions of the world, a way of drawing together, of overcoming the nationalist tendencies that bring conflict and war.
It is our most important contribution to a new world order.
<P>
We are proud that Italy has believed strongly in this enterprise: it shows the merit of the Italians who have understood and accepted the burden of proof and of the leadership that has been credible and determined.
Now, after an eclipse that has lasted for many decades, Italy can contribute towards the future of the Union with an appropriate role.
We will contribute decisively to ensuring that the Union has a real common economic policy and strong representative political institutions.
As from today, Europe is more credible as an example of supranational union.
It will be more credible to Europe's citizens if it uses the strength of the euro to resolve the problem of employment and the future of millions of young people on this Continent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Peijs">
Mr President, we are at a turning point in European history.
The introduction of the euro is a symbol for the removal of barriers between countries, it is a symbol of our will to work together, the first sign of unity which our citizens will have in their hands every day.
<P>
After the Second World War and even before, attempts were made to link the currencies of Europe to each other, first indirectly by linking them to the dollar, later in the snake and EMS.
Tensions arose from time to time, such as in 1992 and 1993, and also in the early stages of EMS.
Incompatible responses from central banks led to countries sometimes being forced to leave the system.
The euro now puts an end to national monetary policies in the euro countries, decades of exchange rate adjustments and disunity on the strategy to be followed for monetary policy.
<P>
The time has now come to intensify cooperation and coordinate economic policy.
I want to make an urgent appeal here today to the European Council not to replace disunity over monetary policy with disunity over the President of the Central Bank.
It will do untold damage to Europe if the picture of a harmonious transfer to the new currency is disrupted by the pursuit of national interests.
<P>
I reject postponing the choice because it is of the utmost importance that the European Central Bank should go ahead straightaway to ensure that its own establishment is properly organised by 1 July and the Bank is at full strength and able to take the onerous task of European monetary policy in hand.
The candidature of the President of the EMI, which is the forerunner of the Central Bank, brings continuity in the changeover from the EMI to the Central Bank.
That was the reason why Alexandre Lamfalussy left the European Monetary Institute early.
I appeal to the Council to stick to this line.
<P>
Finally, in the interests of the citizens of Europe, I wish the euro a stable and safe existence, even when the economic climate is poor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fourçans">
Finally, we are there, ladies and gentlemen.
Finally, we have reached the promised land.
Finally, the euro is going to exist.
And what about the convergence criteria?
Think back to all those prophets of doom who maintained that the criteria were going to deal a fatal blow to our economies.
Exactly the opposite has happened. They have established the conditions necessary for high and sustainable levels of growth and employment.
<P>
So, the euro has arrived.
We must now see to it that it works.
In other words, it must be well managed.
In this respect, we can trust the European Central Bank and its employees, regardless of their nationality.
We cannot emphasize enough that the ECB must and will be independent.
This does not mean that those in charge must be above ordinary mortals.
Without calling into question their independence, they must be the object of a clearly identified system of democratic control, in which our Parliament must have a central role to play.
<P>
But the euro will only be a success if we also manage to coordinate our economic policies better.
This is where the importance of the euro Council comes in; not, I repeat, to act as some kind of counterbalance to the Central Bank, but to define with it the common objectives of economic policy.
<P>
Having said that, I have a word of warning: it is not a question of deceiving public opinion and making our admiring populations believe that, as if by magic, the euro is going to solve all our unemployment problems, or, even worse, that it will bring fortune and happiness to each and every one of us.
As regards employment, we must be clear.
To put it simply, let us say that in terms of its advancement, one quarter depends on European measures and three quarters depend on national measures.
But the single currency will be of enormous assistance.
It will bring about conditions favouring the introduction of national structural reforms, which I am convinced will become inevitable.
<P>
To conclude, allow me to make a wish, ladies and gentlemen: I hope that the euro strengthens our sense of belonging to the same people, the European people, and it will do just that.
It will do so without erasing our specific national and regional characteristics, which also form part of our wealth.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Avgerinos">
Mr President, the representatives of the Socialist Party of Greece welcome today's decision, which is of historic importance and which ushers in the single currency.
We believe in the vision of a United Europe, without national hatred and conflicts, a Europe based on mutual trust, understanding and political unity among its peoples.
The establishment of a common currency is a decisive step towards the strengthening of European integration.
For this reason it has our support.
<P>
However, we do not entertain any illusions. The cooperation of the Member States at the political level and the single currency do not in themselves solve the economic problems which weigh down on the European worker.
They do not solve the problem of unemployment, of poverty, of marginalization. They do not in themselves eradicate discrimination in the workplace on the grounds of sex or age.
They are not sufficient in themselves to promote real convergence between the less affluent and the more affluent societies of Europe. Let us therefore set about constructing a social policy and let us place the single currency at its service.
Let the strong economy be placed at the service of the whole. Let us bring about the dawn of a great new era for a social Europe, a great new hope, a great new inspiration for all its citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Areito Toledo">
Mr President, today is a day for hope.
Money has often been the reason for conflict between states and peoples.
Today, Europe is turning it into a reason for union between its citizens.
The process has been long and difficult.
The people and governments have made tremendous efforts in the last years of convergence.
The case of the Spanish government has been exemplary and decisive in ensuring that today the euro is coming into being with 11 members.
<P>
Tomorrow - and I am using your words, Mr President - our citizens will feel Europe in their pockets, and it is our responsibility, and an important one, to ensure that the currency - the tangible expression of the united Europe - has the necessary credibility, stability and sturdiness that it needs and that we desire for Europe.
To guarantee that, on this historic day which opens a new stage in the construction of Europe, this Parliament must renew a three-fold commitment to our citizens: firstly, it must ensure that the European Central Bank is independent and efficient; secondly, it must ensure the coordination of economic policies which generate employment; and finally, it must promote solidarity and cohesion among all the citizens and regions of the Union.
If we do this, we will leave behind for our children not only a common currency but also the guarantee of a peaceful future, a true raison d'être for the construction of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Marinho">
Mr President, the whole of my country is proud that Portugal has been confirmed as being among the eleven founding Member States participating in the launch of the euro. This has been the desire of most Portuguese citizens, and strengthens the ties which have bound us to the European Union for twelve years now.
<P>
For the first time this century, thanks to a democracy which is not much more than twenty years old and a deep desire to be a genuine part of Europe, Portugal is in the vanguard, side by side with the most forward-looking countries and nations of our continent.
It has been a great challenge, and the effort required has been no lesser one.
But it has been worth it, because we have achieved the right goal at the right time.
Through the work of her Government and António Guterres, her Prime Minister, Portugal is now at the heart of the construction of Europe, with the support of the great majority of the Portuguese people.
<P>
But history does not end there.
We are now living out the first day of the ancient dream of a united Europe.
With the same determination with which we opted for Europe, and the same prudence through which we succeeded in meeting the convergence criteria, Portugal will go on helping to make the euro credible through the stability of her policies.
We Portuguese, Mr President, continue to need Europe.
And from now on, Europe can rely more than ever on the enthusiasm, the conviction and the hard work of the Portuguese.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berès">
Mr President, you will all understand why at this point I would like to pay tribute to Jacques Delors and François Mitterrand whose European plan made such an important contribution to the phase the Union is preparing to enter.
But, today, the fact that the euro is possible for Europe is due to the fact that the peoples of Europe have accepted those efforts needed to ensure that their countries can find a shared sovereignty, a new freedom.
<P>
This newly found sovereignty only has any meaning if it is put to some use.
To do that, we must have a collective political will.
We must not play fast and loose with the objectives of Economic and Monetary Union, and must subject it only to the logic of the market.
We need to make progress towards the coordination of economic policies.
For that, we need democratically controlled economic management in which our Parliament must play the main role.
The next reform of our institutions must not ignore that.
<P>
The changeover to the euro demonstrates the viability of the Community approach.
The same determination will be needed in future to create a political union, a social Europe and a Europe of solidarity.
The euro is giving Europe the opportunity of a fresh start.
It is now up to those who hold the political reins to use this newly acquired sovereignty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Castagnetti">
Mr President, today we are handing over to the post-war generations, who have experienced the divisions of the continent, the result of a utopia that has become a reality, and to the new generations a reason for commitment and hope for the future, a concrete myth, as Alcide De Gasperi said.
A currency has come into being that is changing the world scene, which is now directed towards monetary bipolarity; the foundations of a new European federalism are being built in the relationship between the European Central Bank and national banks; a moral fabric is being reconstructed in European society, around the strong values of responsibility and civil virtues, required by the obligations of the new currency, and the signs of a further path ahead of us: after monetary union, there will be economic union.
Discussing the options of economic policy means making politics together, every year.
We need new European institutions that are more efficient, more transparent and better at making decisions.
<P>
Just three years ago, Mr President, it was thought that monetary union would relate to five countries.
Today, it is involving eleven, thanks to their extraordinary performance, not least the performance of my country which, by managing to find faith in itself and European ambition, has helped to extend the area covered by the new currency and to give this day the historic significance it deserves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Metten">
Mr President, how many people in Europe realize the historical significance of the step we are taking today, because the decision we are taking today to enter into Economic and Monetary Union with eleven Member States will change Europe in a more radical way than any decision since the formation of the EEC in 1957.
But let us not deceive ourselves: a single currency and a single monetary policy is not enough.
EMU can only be successful if economic cooperation really improves.
It will only be accepted and valued by our population if it brings not only greater stability, but also more growth and jobs.
That is why the introduction of the euro is not only the finishing line of one major project but the start of an even greater project to reduce unemployment in Europe through our joint efforts.
Let us make a start today on that new economic and social project.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Porto">
Mr President, this is a highly significant day for Europe and the world. We have taken a decision that will make a decisive contribution to progress and bring people and nations closer together.
<P>
Since the necessary conditions have been fulfilled, the euro is clearly strengthened and made more credible by being adopted from the start by most of the countries of Europe, both north and south.
Time will show that the fears of those who preferred to limit it to an area approximately equivalent to that of the Deutsche Mark to begin with are unfounded, in the light of the absence of speculation between our currencies over the last few months - when there could have been speculation - which is unequivocal evidence of the mutual confidence that already exists.
And there is a new, strong image created by a currency that is not divisive, but, on the contrary, is beginning to bring together all Europeans striving for the same end.
<P>
For Portugal, joining the Euro, and clearly meeting the Maastricht criteria, is also unequivocal evidence that we are both capable and united, having started the journey under our previous Government and continuing it under the present one, which represents a large proportion of the people, maintaining appreciable rates of growth and unemployment levels which are among the lowest in Europe, even though there is an even greater need now for structural reforms, which cannot continue to be postponed.
<P>
As we watch the irreversible and desirable process of opening up to an outside world in which the Portuguese-speaking countries to which we are so closely bound are becoming more and more relevant, we are also delighted to be among the first participants in a currency which is not obviously hostile to anyone, but on the contrary, one which will be an important factor for stability and progress both inside and outside Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lööw">
Mr President, we all know that there are considerable misgivings with regard to monetary union in my homeland, Sweden.
I do think, however, that all of us, both those - myself included - who believe in the euro as a logical consequence of a common market and a way of strengthening economic policy in Europe, and those who are hesitant or quite simply against the whole idea, are nevertheless agreed that a historic decision is being taken today.
We can also agree that it is an important decision, not just for those countries whose membership we shall soon be voting on; it is also very much a decision which concerns those of us who, for one reason or another, will stay outside.
<P>
I would like to say here today that, even for those of us who will not be part of it from the start, it is important that the euro should be a success and that it should become a real platform for growth and employment.
I hope that my country can nevertheless contribute to this policy for growth and employment, even though we have opted now to remain outside EMU.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stenzel">
Mr President, seldom has a birth been awaited with such mixed emotions as that of the euro.
But it is neither a premature birth nor a miscarriage.
For a country like Austria, which has been linked to the Deutsche Mark for twenty years, it is only logical that we should enter monetary union along with Germany.
We are also relieved that Italy is with us, a country whose currency fluctuations have brought us real losses in recent years.
A large internal market can only work with a common currency.
However, the euro is of itself no guarantee.
Its value has to be safeguarded on a permanent basis.
A European currency commits us to adopt a mentality of European stability, not least in the interest of social security and employment in Europe.
The euro must win our trust - and this trust has already been damaged by the dispute over who is to head the European Central Bank.
<P>
The parents should not be arguing before the child is even born.
Only when the euro becomes the political cement holding our Union together will this weekend in Brussels deserve to go down as a moment in history.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the euro is the strongest bond which we have yet devised for holding together the different states of our European Union.
Speaking as an Austrian, I am proud that my country is to join monetary union in the first wave and I am glad that our main trading partners, particularly Germany and Italy, are to do likewise.
Nevertheless, a fair measure of tact and intuition will still be needed to demonstrate to our people that we have a united Europe, a citizens' Europe, and that we wish to strengthen these ties by adopting the euro.
Concerns about employment and the need to safeguard jobs are key elements here.
We have to demonstrate that a figure of 20 million unemployed is absolutely unacceptable.
We must show day after day that we have been economizing so that we can have a more healthy and more productive system of government which can operate a positive employment policy.
<P>
The taxation system must be reformed so that European entrepreneurs are encouraged to create jobs.
The idea of the euro and monetary union has already penetrated our thinking, but many of our citizens have not yet taken it to their hearts.
This is the task which we will have to accomplish in the years ahead.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ilaskivi">
Mr President, today the citizens of eleven member States of the EU are more closely united than ever before.
A common currency does not only mean a new dimension in economic cooperation, but it also has a bearing on political matters and security.
I am proud that Finland, although she is the last mentioned on the list of included countries, is one of the three nations involved that meets all the original convergence criteria.
This is the result of single-mindedness and the model economic policy that Finland has practised.
<P>
Next on the agenda is the selection of the European Central Bank's Executive Board.
I hope that it will represent the wider economic view, and that the question of equality is not ignored.
Finland fulfils both these conditions splendidly with its excellent candidate for the Board: the present Chief General Manager of the Bank of Finland, Mrs Sirkka Hämäläinen, D. Econ.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Willockx">
Mr President, colleagues, this weekend is an historic moment for European integration.
The introduction of the euro marks at one and the same time the end of a long process and a historical new beginning.
In theory, the arrival of the euro offers great opportunities, not only economic opportunities but also opportunities in relation to employment.
The low exchange costs, stable prices and interest rate trends which will result from it will promote growth.
The crucial point now is to provide strong support for the introduction of the euro, not only by coordinating the economic policies of the Member States, but also with a voluntary Europe-wide economic policy.
<P>
We are especially encouraged by the fact that steps have recently been taken in the right direction since the changes of government in France and the United Kingdom.
An early embryo of economic government has arrived.
We have to continue on this path now.
Employment really has to become the main objective for Europe.
We must also try to use the arrival of the euro like a lever, a lever to achieve better fiscal, social and ecological coordination.
This is necessary to guarantee that the added value of the euro makes a maximum contribution to a Europe which is a better place for all its inhabitants to live in.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="McCartin">
Mr President, I am glad to have the opportunity to speak in this historic debate.
The European Union has taken a great stride towards political as well as economic integration today.
The euro will, hopefully, become a symbol of our interdependence and an incentive to the states of the European Union towards further cooperation.
I want to recognize the efforts of Karl von Wogau, his committee and, indeed, this Parliament for their dedication to this project over the years.
We must also recognize the leadership of Chancellor Kohl.
Without his strength and his vision we could never have arrived at where we are today.
<P>
On this historic occasion I want to say that I hope all Member States will join the single currency before too long.
I have a special word of appreciation for the Irish Parliament for its pragmatic and sensible approach to this project.
When Ireland joined the European Union it had 59 % of the Community average.
Today we are at Community average.
The European framework has been good for Ireland.
It will be better still with the single currency and it will be good for all small Member States.
We need it more than the larger states.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sindal">
Mr President, Denmark has demonstrated that it is possible to combine efforts to secure a sound economy with efforts to reduce unemployment.
This needs to be the EU's objective.
On a day such as today, we must remind one another that Economic and Monetary Union is intended to be a citizens' project.
Employment is not only a matter of economic incentives, it is also a question of having a qualified workforce.
There is no doubt that the euro will have a major impact not only on the eleven participating nations, but also on those watching from the sidelines.
Denmark will no doubt benefit from a successful start to the third stage of EMU.
Denmark will shortly be voting on the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Let me state clearly that Danish reservations concerning EMU remain 100 % solid.
That is a decision made by the people of Denmark.
But on behalf of the Danish Social Democrats, I wish the eleven nations every success with the euro.
We are voting in favour.
Danish reservations do not prevent others from taking part.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Reding">
Mr President, the controversy surrounding the presidency of the European Central Bank is certainly not essential.
On this historic day, when Europeans are consolidating their common destiny, only the introduction of the euro should interest us.
<P>
The people of Luxembourg are proud to have contributed throughout these decades to the genesis of the single currency.
They were at its inception.
I would remind you here of the Werner report from the beginning of the 1970s, in which the then Luxembourg Prime Minister created the elements to make up the future single currency, elements which were ultimately used to create the euro.
<P>
For us, the single currency represents good economic sense, an effective way of strengthening Europe's position in a world of globalization and, above all, an instrument which makes the Union irreversible, with a view to consolidating peace for our future generations.
Mr President, together with the people of Luxembourg, I am excited and proud to be able to participate today in this unparalleled contribution to the history of the European people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Mr President, in formulating solutions for the future of Europe and its citizens we find ourselves in the same situation as the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy amid the complicated series of events in "War and Peace' .
We understand the historical significance of the moment but we have to admit that we still cannot see the matter in its entirety.
Events that prove to be historic develop step by step, event by event, from one moment to the next.
An event in its entirety is visible only when it has fully taken shape and become what is recognizable as the past.
Finland, as a new Member State and following a severe recession at the start of the 1990s, is a country that is politically determined and ready to play a key part in the shaping of Europe's future.
The decisions have been taken consciously and on the basis of current information and the best possible forecasts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fayot">
Mr President, I feel very fortunate to witness the birth of monetary Europe.
As a further strengthening of European integration, monetary union is thus an additional guarantee against the aggressive nationalism which has led to so much misfortune in my country, as in all of Europe, during this century, and which is threatening to resurface.
The best way of combating that aggressive nationalism is by working together to guarantee our economic and social prosperity. The euro will contribute to that, if we have the necessary political will.
<P>
Being a citizen of a small country, I am convinced that the euro will enable us to participate in a common monetary sovereignty which will be stronger than it would have been if we had each remained in our own corner.
That is why we must call on those countries which balk at joining the monetary Europe.
By staying out they are weakening themselves and they are making us weaker.
I appeal to our British, Swedish, Danish and Greek friends to join us as soon as possible.
It will be good for you, it will be good for us, it will be good for everyone!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Malone">
Mr President, Irish Socialists too are very pleased that we have arrived at this moment.
As other speakers have said, this is probably the most historic moment in Europe in the last 40 years.
I think the euro will succeed.
However, in my contribution I want to draw attention to one point I feel has not been adequately dealt with.
I refer to Article 109m of the Maastricht Treaty which provides that the management of exchange rates must be done in the common interest.
In my opinion the Commission and the Council have not yet addressed this issue to a sufficient extent.
<P>
There is an onus on all Member States, but in particular those who have decided not to take part in EMU from the outset.
Obviously I am referring here to the UK, Sweden and Denmark.
They have to manage their currencies in the common interest.
This is of vital concern to my own country, Ireland, and to Finland.
I would hope that Britain will not be allowed to engage in sudden devaluations of the pound sterling.
Perhaps the President-in-Office could reassure us on this point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="David">
Mr President, on behalf of the British Labour delegation, I warmly welcome this historic decision.
Europe has come a long way over the past 40 years but today's decision is undoubtedly one of the most momentous ever taken.
Europe is in the process of opening a new chapter in its development.
Today we are seeing the creation of a Europe of ever closer cooperation, a Europe of real peace and stability and a Europe of greater economic prosperity.
I am proud of the fact that this decision has been taken under the British presidency.
I am equally proud that the British Labour Government is the first British Government to have a principled commitment to the United Kingdom's membership of the single currency.
<P>
I am sure that the euro will be a strong and successful currency and I am confident that the British and the European economies will increasingly work together, thereby opening the door for Britain's participation in this great European venture.
Today, let us go forward together, united in our shared commitment to ensure that the euro works for the benefit of all our peoples.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="Brown">
- Mr President, it has been a privilege, not just as one of 15 Finance Ministers, but a privilege as a citizen of Europe, to have been here in this Parliament today to hear nearly 50 speeches in support of the recommendations of the Finance Ministers.
I want first of all to acknowledge the eloquence, the passion, the commitment and the sense of history that has been brought to bear in these debates this morning.
I want to give an assurance that the rights and responsibilities of Parliament will not only be recognized today but in everything that we do in the future.
<P>
I want to join with all those who have thanked the Commission, the European Monetary Institute and thank Parliament's staff for the expeditious and orderly way we have brought ourselves to the point of making this historic decision today.
I also want to thank all those who in these last 50 years, as a customs union became a common market, as a common market became a single market and now as a single market becomes a single currency, have contributed their vision to what is now an achievement which is acknowledged throughout the world.
<P>
(Applause) In answer to the points which have been made in this discussion, I can tell Parliament that not only was the decision of the Finance Ministers which we are recommending today unanimous, but we have also followed as we will continue to follow in spirit and in letter our Treaty obligations.
I can state also that in the creation of Euro-X, the coordination role of Ecofin - the Finance Ministers of the 15 - has not only been recognized but is being strengthened in the way we will survey and monitor economic policy throughout the Community.
<P>
I was asked about the European Central Bank.
I can report to Parliament that progress is being made and I believe we will soon be able to report to you the progress achieved.
Let me also say, as almost every speaker has done, that the decisions we are recommending today are not only the end of a process of negotiation and agreement but they are also the beginning of a new challenge for our continent.
I would agree with almost everyone who has spoken that the single currency we are creating is being created not for itself but for a purpose.
The purpose is the creation of higher levels of growth, employment and prosperity throughout our continent.
<P>
(Applause) It is for this reason that the employment action plans and the new guidelines on reform that I bring before you today are regarded as so important by the Finance Ministers.
Let me say one other thing.
The decisions we are making show a Europe that is not only more united in itself but also more able to look outwards, to be internationalist and to respond generously to the needs of the poor throughout the world.
<P>
Finally, we are conscious of our mutual interests and our linked destinies.
We are determined together to further the shared objectives through discipline and reform.
We are resolute in our support of growth and employment to achieve prosperity for all.
We are mindful of the needs of the unemployed and those who are socially excluded.
On that basis let us together move forward resolutely with confidence in the future and let us today, with the same vision that was shown over the last 50 years by those people who founded the European Union, approach the great challenges that together we will not only address but together we will meet.
<P>
(Loud and sustained applause)
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
Before proceeding to the vote, I would like to thank all the officials of our Parliament and other Community institutions whose work during this holiday period has made it possible for us to take this decision properly.
<P>
Our vote on the recommendation by the Council concerning the Member States fulfilling the necessary conditions for the adoption of a single currency in accordance with Article 109j(2) and (4) of the EC Treaty (7884/98 - C4-0250/98-98/0812(CNS)) and on the proposal for an opinion by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, pursuant to Rule 79a of the Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament is based on the following:
<P>
the Recommendation of 1 May 1998 by the Council, meeting in the composition of the Ministers for Economic Affairs and Finance, concerning the Member States fulfilling the necessary conditions for the adoption of a single currency; -the consultation by the Council, meeting in the composition of the Heads of State or Government, in accordance with Article 109j(2) and (4) of the EC Treaty; -Rule 79a of our Rules of Procedure; -the proposal submitted orally by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.Mr Gollnisch wishes to speak on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Gollnisch">
Mr President, I will be very brief.
We have listened to the very moving plea of the President-in-Office of the Council who is, I believe, a British minister.
We can only be surprised, when listening to this extremely moving plea, that the government...
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="President">
Mr Gollnisch, this is not a point of order.
I am sorry, you are continuing the debate which has been closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament approved the recommendation and thereby gave its assent to the text)
<P>
(Parliament welcomed the result of the vote with loud and sustained applause)
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="President">
I will forward Parliament's assent to the Council, meeting in the composition of the Heads of State or Government, and to the Commission.
<P>
(In the presence of Mr Brown, President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Santer, President of the Commission, Mr von Wogau, Chairman of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and rapporteur, and Mrs Randzio-Plath, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs, the President of the European Parliament signed the letter forwarding Parliament's opinion)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Garoscio">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, today we have managed to guide the ship carrying all the essential elements for a European single currency into port: trust, greater stability, common commitment and a collective logic that goes beyond the individual.
As on all ships that have made a long voyage, a few germs have got on board, such as uncertainty and scepticism, which we are overcoming with the great medicine of hope.
For the first time since the Roman Empire, Europeans from the Irish Sea to the Mediterranean will be using the same currency.
Although much remains to be done the praise for all this is not just ours, nor is it the result of a temporary policy of some Member State's government, but rather the end product of the sacrifices made by the workers and the professional classes and all our citizens.
<P>
Our group supports this commitment, and has voted in favour, apart from a few who have voted otherwise on individual grounds.
We have seen in today's document the product of the work carried out over all these years by Parliament and by all the European institutions.
After the euro, we have to make Europe.
We have to take all possible measures to combat the major problems faced by the Community: unemployment, injustice, violence, environmental protection, cultural growth and personal freedom.
We have to make all our citizens understand that Europe today is all about a single currency but tomorrow it will be about political union.
<P>
Today the single currency is a reality. This is a lot, a great deal, but it is not everything.
Europe's citizens are now expecting great and urgent things of us.
They are asking us to fight to achieve the same victories we are winning in the economic field in the social field as well, so as to help solve the major everyday problems.
But today, for now, we can without reservation quote what Gandhi said: "One step at a time is enough for me' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Madam President, the vast majority of the Green group voted for eleven countries embarking on the creation of the euro region at the start of next year.
A broad base is essential for the euro area, without divisions in the EU.
<P>
The biggest challenge in the world is the creation of stability, with capital moving freely and globally.
The euro must be used in cooperation with the other major currencies to make for worldwide stability, but at the same time it is important to strengthen democracy in the EU.
Citizens must be able to have considerably more say in Union matters than they do now, so that the gulf between them and the decision-makers does not widen even further.
<P>
The political opportunities that await us should not be allowed, however, to obscure the view that the economic effects of the euro are largely unpredictable.
There is a need for better risk awareness and joint responsibility.
The various national economies are still different from one another in character and they are at different stages of progress.
Any shocks and crises an individual Member State may experience in the future must be mitigated with the help of the Union.
We should not be in any hurry to change fiscal policy, as it would have a substantially adverse effect on community peace and employment.
<P>
Monetary policy must be open and accountable.
The European Parliament has an important duty to see that the European Central Bank openly justifies its decisions and that it justifies them generally.
The euro must be used to create a social Europe and the Union should dissociate itself from neo-liberal thinking that would harm the structure of a social Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
Madam President, I feel like someone standing on the quayside waving farewell to the beautiful, unsinkable Titanic.
I sincerely hope that those in command on the bridge do not keep on squabbling until the ship sinks.
But if sink it must, it is better for it to sink now, while the passengers can still swim ashore, clutching their national currencies like life belts.
The truly perilous voyage begins in the year 2002, when the life belts are to be cast away.
Then there could be a dangerous mutiny, with squabbling and worse between France and Germany.
The euro is a dangerous experiment leading to the necessary international collaboration for hatred, and my group has today voted against it.
<P>
I must congratulate the eleven euro nations on their ability to disregard all economic theory.
Which textbook says that a monetary union performs best in terms of monetary and foreign exchange policy alone?
Where on earth does it say that exchange rates should be fixed regardless of whether competitivity decreases or improves?
For the sake of the eleven nations, I do hope the experiment succeeds.
At the end of the day, its chances of success are greater than those of the Chinese cultural revolution, which also put itself beyond the laws of economics.
But common sense tells us that the EMU in its present guise will either founder when it meets market forces, or it will have to be backed up by a political union with a common government determining income policy, fiscal policy and all other economic policies, meting out precise doses to benefit the people of Europe.
Remember: a common currency is not the purpose of life, but at best, a tool to make people happy.
When currency union was adopted, there were 12 million unemployed.
We now have more than 18 million out of work, so if currency union is to be called a success, there must be something wrong with the yardstick.
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<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Bladel">
Madam President, the Dutch people within the Union for Europe Group are in favour of the euro but have voted against.
For the euro, because the historical necessity is obvious to us.
Against the euro, because the criteria for a stable euro have not been adequately met in the short term and there are no enforceable sanctions to keep us to the criteria.
The best thing to do would be to postpone the euro, which is why we still want to hold a referendum in our country.
Otherwise, the older generation who built Europe up risk being the ones to suffer and there is a danger that there will be no consent for possible further integration of European policy.
None of the traditional political parties in the Netherlands have made the euro an important issue in their campaigns for the coming elections next Wednesday.
That is an extremely bad portent for a democratic Europe, and we want absolutely no part in it.
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<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Ripa di Meana">
Madam President, the Treaty of Amsterdam left the European Institutions in prehistory, not least by having a Parliament without any final decision-making powers.
The monetary fundamentalists tell us that the single currency is the only way to anticipate European political unity.
This interventionist orthodoxy cultivates the naïve hope of breaking up the nation states from within.
But the lessons of history tell us that it has always been political bodies that have determined the currency, and not the other way round.
Today we are not proposing that the European State should mint the currency, but that the currency should mint the European State.
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The European Union is going ahead with a supranational Central Bank, in the absence of political union, and without a common fiscal policy.
Monetarist integration has been demonstrating its limitations for some time: high unemployment among young people, the absence of a common economic policy, widespread crises in the social state, stagnation of environmental policies, increased poverty and marginalization of the weakest.
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People say that the single currency meets the requirements imposed by globalization.
But is it not more a question of creating a regional block to compete seriously with the United States and Japan?
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In short, the sequence of European integration has been turned upside-down: instead of starting from the logic of treaties between states, and moving towards that of the European constituent, we are opting for the single currency and taking a leap into the void.
It is a game of chance that involves very high risks without offering any guarantees or rewards.
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I have worked for a different Europe for years and I cannot vote for something I believe to be an authoritarian and illogical adventure.
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<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Farassino">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am not voting in the same way as the rest of my group as I personally believe that, at this historic stage, none of the issues involved in the single currency amounts to a real question of conscience and so, in my capacity as an MEP who has always flown the flag of the Europe of the nations and the Europe of the regions, I am bound to welcome the advent of the single currency, the first great and real push against the sovereignty of the centralist nation states who are opposed to any autonomy.
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For me, this represents the fulfilment of a commitment solemnly entered into between me and the electors of Piedmont, Val d'Aosta, Liguria and Lombardy, who genuinely believe in the reasoning behind political and cultural autonomy.
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This is my justification of my personal vote in favour of the proposal, which is at odds with the declaration made by the spokesman for my group.
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<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Macartney">
Madam President, like most colleagues in this House, I would like to join in the general rejoicing at this great historic day.
But my joy is tinged with sadness because my own country, Scotland, will not be part of this historic move forward for Europe.
As a Scot, I would like to put on record that I believe that most people in Scotland would have supported a move towards a single European currency had they had the chance in a referendum.
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You may ask why does Scotland not move forward?
Mr Bonde used the analogy of the Titanic.
We are like the lifeboat that is attached to the Titanic.
Unfortunately the London Government has been steering in completely the wrong direction and I find it quite ironic that a year to the day after Mr Brown and Mr Blair entered Downing Street, they celebrate by yet again missing the euro-boat.
However, this is a temporary aberration and I confidently forecast that before long a Scottish Parliament will vote to join the European currency and Scotland, along with the rest of Europe, will go forward to our joint destiny.
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<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Thomas">
Madam President, today a vision has become a reality.
The euro will be a new symbol of the unity of Europe.
It will lay the necessary foundations for greater investment, solid growth and lasting employment.
The working population of Europe, in other words the great majority of our citizens, will benefit from a situation in which inflation rates are low, public debt is down, long-term interest rates are falling and exchange-rate fluctuations are no longer to be a factor.
The Commission has now informed us, the European Parliament, of its recommendation for the eleven countries which are to comprise the euro area.
The day before yesterday we delivered our opinion, as we did again a few moments ago.
At this juncture I wish to express thanks to the German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, for his tenacity and for the ability he has shown in giving early political impetus to the euro project.
He has demonstrated enormous staying power and has consistently refused to be put off by the ditherers and by those lacking objectivity.
It is this attitude which is the basis for our justified confidence in the euro and in the future stability of Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Nordmann">
Madam President, I thank you for allowing a liberal voice to emphasize the historic significance of our vote and this entry into the euro which, through the choice of a stable currency, represents a choice of society. It also represents a sort of wonderful farewell to the 20th century, to the end of this long and grievous episode which started with the First World War, during which monetary fluctuations and the loss of reference points progressed in parallel, due to the lack of cohesion based on confidence in the social contract that currency represents.
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It is also a choice of power, giving us the ability to play a part in world affairs, an ability which the World Wars had eroded, and which corresponds to the choice that General de Gaulle had wanted to make regarding a return to the gold standard.
Of course, the instrument will be different.
Instead of a physical standard, we will have a contractual aggregation, defined by administrative rules, but the aims are the same: to prevent a privileged player from acting in an arbitrary way and monopolizing a role essential for the general interest.
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Madam President, we should therefore give the praise it deserves to this joint, paradoxical and posthumous victory of General de Gaulle and Raymond Poincaré.
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<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Madam President, in this exceptional case, out of respect for yourself, for my colleagues and for the officials who are here and who are waiting, on this day when a great deal is being asked of them, I would ask your permission to give my explanation of vote in writing.
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<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
Madam President, as a Swede I am also relieved, taking up Mr Bonde's analogy, to be left on the quayside as the Titanic sails away.
As a European, however, I deplore the fact that workers, women and the socially vulnerable of eleven countries are being forced to embark as third class passengers on this hazardous voyage.
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As the EMU ship sets forth, the helm is locked in position for the voyage; the captain cannot take any advice, whether it be from his crew or the passengers.
EMU locks us into dogmatic monetarism, an established policy of the right.
The price of that policy is already being paid by the unemployed, and in terms of widening gaps between the classes.
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EMU is economically risky and democratically deficient, and it is being implemented for political reasons: the dream of a European superstate, a dream which is not shared by the majority of the Union's population.
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<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Eriksson">
Madam President, after all the grand words and promises about the excellence of EMU which have been heard here today, I now take the floor to present views from the many millions of citizens who have not been consulted and are not going to be consulted, whether by politicians or by representatives of the media.
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On my own behalf and on behalf of my party and our voters I have voted 'no' today, even though Sweden has opted to stay outside for the time being.
I believe that, in so doing, I have voted for several million women and poor and unemployed people in Europe who are oppressed by the economic policy currently being pursued, the policy which has now been ordained as the only one for Europe, neo-liberalism.
I regret this historic event.
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<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Madam President, in declaring my vote in favour of the Council's recommendation, I must give three reasons: firstly, I believe that the single currency is the first significant step towards creating genuine European sovereignty, beyond that expressed some time ago by the states alone; secondly, I believe that the Europe of the euro is an essential means of building a federal Europe, the Europe desired by Altiero Spinelli, open to the active contribution of the nations and the regions; thirdly, the single currency is the most significant answer to all the attempts made today, in my country too, to destroy Europe.
The proponents of statalism and nationalism will not waste a single opportunity to exploit any difficulties, particularly economic ones, which may arise during its construction.
So let us set aside any neo-governmental egoism, not just in the interests of a new currency but also of a new policy, and particularly of a new European society.
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<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Madam President, I voted "yes' , but it is important that no new provisos are created for the Growth and Stability Pact in respect of EMU, but, on the contrary, that we should leave some room for manoeuvre, economically speaking, so as to improve employment and create a social Europe.
Alongside the criteria for EMU there must be equally strong criteria based on the employment objectives that EU Member States committed themselves to at the Luxembourg Summit.
If we want to get the approval of the citizens of Europe for EMU, we must be able to reduce mass unemployment.
The EMU project must promote the welfare and employment of citizens.
The development of internal markets must not be allowed to be at the mercy of the markets themselves.
It is important that welfare and employment are shared fairly among all our citizens.
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<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Seillier">
Madam President, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I do not intend to cast doubt on the intentions of all our colleagues today, but despite the communist experience, I see sadly that Marxism is triumphant in Europe.
I do not believe or accept that monetary and economic infrastructures are determining factors in what Marx used to call political or other superstructures.
In addition, we have seen today what is really a stopgap measure rather than a real study of remedies for the catastrophic situation which affects all spheres of activity and which is present in each of our different countries in Europe.
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For what good is monetary stability when social stability does not exist, when we are faced with a real disintegration of our societies?
Moreover, in going back to the great intellectual and humanist heritage of Europe, I am appealing for an in-depth review of economic science, which is not a science like any other, but which is a human science.
Today, we have witnessed a defeat of thought, a defeat of economic thought and a defeat of political thought.
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<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Madam President, the two European Members of Parliament of the Communist Party of Greece voted against the single currency because we firmly believe, and are convinced by what we have heard here, that the euro and Economic and Monetary Union will simply deepen and worsen the exploitation of working people both within and outside Europe, and at the expense of certain peripheral regions of Europe.
It will not reduce by even one person the 25 million unemployed, nor the 50 million people who are starving.
The fact that these people have existed for so many years is not because there was no euro or Economic and Monetary Union.
But there are reasons for their plight and these will be exacerbated by the instruments of Economic and Monetary Union and the euro.
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Secondly, we voted against the single currency because of a double challenge to democracy.
You all say that what you voted for relates to the present and the future of Europe and of the peoples of Europe. However, this has been done without their knowledge and without them being able to give their opinion.
You carefully avoided putting it to a referendum so that the people could give their opinion.
And since much has been said about history and historic steps, please allow me, concerning the outcome of your vote, to refer to a historical outcome, that of Cambronne.
This is your victory.
And for this victory you, the winners of this vote, when you find yourselves facing the storm of popular uprisings, you will say "Woe to the victors!'
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<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Madam President, on this historic day, due to the fact that my country has joined the single currency as well, I cannot let the day go by without warning and recalling that in Italy there is and remains what we call the Italian "curse' .
The Secretary of the left-wing Democratic Party, Massimo D'Alema, said a few days ago, "In Italy, there is no freedom of the press' .
It is his party in particular, Madam President, that is stifling freedom of information in Italy, stifling the possibility that, for example, a radio station, such as Radio Radicale , can continue to perform its institutional task, which is to ensure the live broadcasting of Parliament, live broadcasting of the democratic life of our country: a country which is joining the euro, but in which Marco Pannella, our former colleague, and thousands of others are on hunger strike at the moment to ensure the freedom of information that is denied to us today, that is denied to the country, something which really concerns us, and which we want to warn the European Parliament about.
Italy has joined the euro, but the Italian "curse' , at least from this point of view, threatens to return into the European limelight.
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<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Madam President, the Members of the Portuguese Communist Party declare, with the solemnity which the occasion demands, but which the euphoric desire to impress public opinion does not permit, that:
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their vote is a consistent expression of their opposition to this project, the way it has been conducted and the interests it serves.
It is not a vote against price stability, balanced budgets or the control of debt, mechanisms and instruments.
It is, however, a vote against the use of these things to impose strategies that concentrate wealth, aggravate unemployment, intensify disproportion and inequality, create more and new forms of poverty and social exclusion, diminish national sovereignty and reduce democratic rights; -it is also a vote against the formation of the hard-core of the ECB Executive Board, favouring geographical-monetary zones and sharing out influence among the big political party groups, with an obvious polarisation of power in an institution which will condition all the Member States' policies; -they will hereafter continue to fight the already existing and foreseeable evils inherent in the mechanisms and instruments that have been set up. They will likewise endeavour to contribute to making the most of their virtues; -finally, they much regret that Parliament should have wasted the opportunity to acquire some credibility as a democratic institution and given way to the pomp and circumstance of a ritual approval or confirmation of the proposals submitted to it.
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Ahlqvist and Theorin">
We have chosen to vote 'no' on this issue.
The reasons are as follows:
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It is not our business to decide what countries should form part of EMU.
Those which are to join EMU must decide this for themselves.
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EMU means increased supranationality and will restrict the freedom of individual countries to pursue the economic policy they want.
Hence EMU in effect amounts to a restriction of democracy.
Surrendering the power to take decisions on monetary policy to a centralized ECB means that an important means of economic policy action is taken away from national parliaments.
In reality, however, it also means that national parliaments will relinquish the right to decide on financial and fiscal policy, since it is not expedient for these to be out of line.
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EMU is a high risk venture whose consequences we cannot easily predict, but it is the weakest in society who have most to lose if it fails.
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Another key reason for our voting stance is that there are considerable misgivings with regard to EMU in most of the EU Member States.
Opinion surveys have shown that large sections of the population are opposed to EMU, especially in Sweden.
Politicians have a responsibility to lead and convince, but also to listen to ordinary people.
This is much too important a decision to be rushed through.
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We consider that the objectives of the convergence criteria should not focus one-sidedly on price stability and growth, but that some thought should also be given to the individual human being in the form of an unemployment criterion and social criteria.
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<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Amadeo">
The Alleanza Nazionale delegation is satisfied with the arrival of the euro and with Italy's participation in it, and at the same time confirms that Italians want to join and stay in the euro family but without any kind of subjection and without going "cap in hand' .
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Today, it is not just our government and the powers supporting it that are celebrating the achievement of this objective.
The whole country, and therefore the opposition parties as well, is joining in this celebration.
An opposition which, although it has made various assessments of the strategies aimed at achieving participation in monetary union and although it considers it advisable for the political and institutional union of Europe to be strengthened first, has never put obstacles in the path of the recovery of the Italian economy. Instead, it has preferred this to be carried out by means of structural reforms and lasting cuts in useless expenditure.
Nor has it ever obstructed the two branches of Parliament and, above all, it has never used the increased tax burden as an argument for stirring up hostility in our country against the construction of Europe.
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It is our country, Italy, as a whole, that is joining the euro today, free from the dangerous divisions and open hostilities that thrive in other Member States of the Union.
France is, in fact, almost split in two, with the extreme left and the extreme right united in rejecting the single currency, and the centre-right showing signs of uncertainty.
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In Germany, the Communist party and the extreme right are rejecting the euro, and the Social Democrats are also critical.
The Austrian right, the Spanish extreme left and the Portuguese extreme left are also hostile; a section of the British body politic and of public opinion is also sceptical, not to mention the upsurge of euroscepticism in Denmark.
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The European project, particularly as it will inevitably have to be combined with political union and therefore with a common foreign and security policy, cannot do without the enthusiasm and solidarity of Italy.
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For these reasons too, Italy is not joining the euro through the back door but through the front door.
For this and many other reasons, sincere pro-Europeans in Europe should be pleased that Italy is joining the single currency from the outset.
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<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Anttila and Ryynänen">
We have voted against the EMU proposal presented by the Ministers of Finance to the European Parliament.
In accordance with the position of the Finnish Central Party, we oppose the creation of EMU in its present form and Finland's entry into the single currency in the first wave.
We wish to justify our opinion by stating the following:
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1.Finland's economic structure makes it a very special country, whose sensitivity to movements in the economy is greater than with other EU Member States.
If Finland, as a member of EMU, loses its independent monetary policy and if its financial policies are restricted, we will require new mechanisms to cope with economic problems.
EMU strengthens the development of a worldwide economy that focuses productivity and know-how on heavily populated regions.
The structure of the regions of Finland, the EU's remotest country, is already becoming lopsided, which will lead to local problems in times of economic hardship.
As a counterweight to centralized development, national regional policy should be strengthened.2.Finland is ill prepared to face the stiffening competition and structural changes that EMU will bring.
Joining is a risk that Finland, in her present state of mass unemployment and with her debt-burdened economy, should not be taking.
Taking this risk would require a complete overhaul of her economic structure as an incentive to business and to promote employment.3.The proposed model of the eleven-state monetary union will not be of benefit to Finland.
The fact that we are sliding away from the Maastricht criteria is not a good basis for a stable EMU.
With Sweden, Denmark and Britain staying out, the currency zone will not prove very profitable as far as Finland is concerned.
The risks could accordingly be greater than the benefits.4.People's welfare and employment should play a more important role in the philosophy of EMU.
EMU as it stands would be a threat to Nordic welfare, the stabilizing role of the public sector and to regional and social equality.
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Marinho, Torres Couto, Apolinário, Barros Moura, Campos, Candal, Correia, Torres Marques, Lage, Moniz">
The euro will come into force on 1 January 1999.
There is no doubt that it has categorically refuted the negative allegations of its many detractors.
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Contrary to the predictions of those who would not have given a brass farthing for her chances, Portugal has passed all the tests with distinction and is in the first rank of the founder countries, sharing with pride in this moment, absolutely crucial as it is in the history of Europe, and a sign of our determination not to grow old or decay.
And we have also confounded all those who swore that the immediate interests of the people would have to be sacrificed to the attainment of the euro, and at the same time predicted a national production crisis.
In this last lap of the Euro race, Portugal has refuted all the academic theories and received wisdom: the country's economic growth has accelerated, the Portuguese people's living standards have risen and their export capacity has increased.
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All this has been achieved because the great majority of the Portuguese people have identified with this great project, because workers and companies have succeeded in turning favourable economic conditions to the best advantage, and because, and this has to be said, the Socialist Government has skilfully combined expansion in internal demand with public investment and has backed private enterprise, which has been energised by low interest rates.
All this has been achieved against a social background of calm and solidarity of which the introduction of the guaranteed minimum income has been the greatest symbol.
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From now on, the critics of integration and the sceptics will have to change their tune.
Facts are facts.
They are already beginning to voice doubts over the capacity of the Portuguese economy to live with the competition in the Single Currency area and the Single Market.
They foresee or prophesy crises on the horizon of our life as a nation.
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It cannot be said that there will be no problems or difficulties.
Yet, just as our country has shown itself capable of the unexpected performance levels it has achieved, so we shall also be capable of taking the opportunities ahead of us with the same spirit and dynamism, and catching up more quickly with the average standards of wealth and competitiveness of our partners in the euro, with whom we are setting out on this hitherto unexplored path in contemporary history.
This path does not mean we need not concentrate on the political and social dimension of European integration; on the contrary, that is what it requires.
It is time for Europe to speak as a political unit.
Priority must be given to making the European Union work as a democracy with the involvement of its citizens.
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We, who have always fought for and dreamed of this moment, sometimes silently fearing that we would never know the joy of actually getting there, know how to thank those who have shown us the way and made it possible for us.
We are living through a unique moment in the history of Europe, a beginning and not an end, and we are conscious that, at this new stage of the European project, this institution will have a major role to play in the destiny of Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Banotti">
I am full of hope for the success of the euro.
This is the most historic day since the end of the war.
The single currency will have profound economic consequences some of which will undoubtedly be difficult - but above all it will have profound symbolic significance for all the people of Europe, both those who are part of the process and those outside.
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It has been a slow journey but on that journey we have learnt to know and respect each other and inevitably have drawn closer together - I am so proud that my country is in the front line.
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This is due to the prudent management of successive Irish Governments - it augurs well for the future of the youngest population in Europe.
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We must ensure that these young people continue to value the great vision and achievements of the past leaders in Europe.
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We on our part must reargue the case for Europe in every generation.
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The advent of the euro is the beacon for the new millennium.
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<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Barros Moura">
At this point, for the sake of political openness and responsibility, I propose to make an express statement of the reasons for the position I have taken on the creation of the single currency.
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From the outset I have supported the Maastricht Treaty and called for more.
I have supported the single currency and Portugal's adherence to the proposed conditions and dates.
I am delighted with the policies of António Guterres's Government, which have created the conditions to enable the efforts made by the whole of Portuguese society to succeed.
I am also delighted to have been able to take an active part in this change of historic proportions, from which Portugal can be expected to derive wider opportunities and more modernisation and development, despite the difficulties.
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I consider that this qualitative change in the EU demands greater political and social integration, on federal lines, to secure democracy and the co-ordination of economic policies, a genuine 'economic government' that will enable us to overcome the ill-effects of neo-liberalism, fight unemployment and preserve the European social model by reforming it.
It also demands a European taxation policy and an EU budget designed to ensure economic and social cohesion.
Finally, it demands foreign and defence policies which safeguard European independence and support development, human rights and peace.
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This political dimension will not spring automatically from the euro.
It needs the democrats and the progressive forces of Europe to show the political will and readiness to fight for it.
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<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Berthu">
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Buffetaut">
Eleven Member States have been allowed to participate in the euro.
Incidentally, there was no suspense since the governments concerned had carefully avoided any consultation of the people regarding the final changeover to the single currency.
Everyone knew the list of countries the Council would accept and Parliament's vote was taken as read.
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It is essential to make a few comments in order to take stock.
The convergence criteria have been manipulated somewhat to ensure that 11 countries have been accepted for the single currency, for seven would have been excluded from it if the initial criteria had been adhered to.
The Council based itself on very formal convergence criteria, that were also rigged, and deliberately neglected divergence criteria, which are themselves very serious and represent the economic, social and psychological reality of the nations.
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The Commission, that hybrid institution without real political responsibility, will exercise, in the name of the Stability Pact, a kind of haughty supervision over the economic policies of the countries participating in the euro, and can even impose fines on them.
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Finally, according to the Council and the European Parliament themselves, the European Central Bank will enjoy monetary sovereignty, without supervision or responsibility.
The sovereign Bank with absolute power: that really is an extraordinary innovation in the history of government of the people!
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These facts put a worrying stamp on the launch of the euro and our governments, as well as our colleagues, should undoubtedly show a less complacent form of optimism.
But politics is the art of reality.
We must therefore look towards the future.
Tomorrow's battle will be for democratic control of the European Union.
It is now necessary, more than ever before, to send out a cry of alarm, a "democracy SOS' .
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The Europe that is being built for us, hidden from the people's view, threatens to kill off the European idea.
We must open the debate on institutional reform by calling for the end of the Commission's hegemonic power, and steer it back towards a purely administrative role.
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The Council must take upon itself the initiative for European texts and exercise executive power.
National parliaments must be involved, beforehand, in the legislative work, together with the European Parliament.
We must put an end to the concept of a centralized state, which goes even further than a federal state, as it is applied to the construction of Europe.
It is essential that we concern ourselves with guaranteeing transparent and democratic European cooperation, under the supervision of public opinion.
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Europe will not be built despite the nations, but with them, for the happiness and peace of our people.
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<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Burenstam Linder, Carlsson, Cederschiöld, Stenmarck and Virgin">
. (SV) The Swedish members of the PPE Group have been working in the European Parliament to promote the EMU project and have today supported the decision on which countries should join the circle of the first members of this monetary union.
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We regret that the Swedish Social Democratic Government, despite its obligations under the Treaty, has not devoted its efforts to bringing Sweden into this group.
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We are endeavouring to bring about a greater understanding in Sweden of the great significance EMU will have for the future of Europe.
Swedish opinion has also been developing in a positive direction.
It is our hope that Sweden will soon be a member of EMU.
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<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Chichester">
In voting against the proposition that eleven countries fulfil the necessary conditions for the third stage of Economic and Monetary Union and that it should begin on 1 January 1999, I do not oppose the right of the eleven countries to proceed.
That is, of course, their prerogative and choice.
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My principal reason for voting no is my belief that the conditions laid down in the Treaty have not been fulfilled and that the eleven countries will be proceeding on a basis of flawed, fudged convergence criteria as hinted in the Report of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on the introduction of the Single Currency.
In particular I refer to the paragraphs of the report deleted and therefore suppressed by a majority vote of the Parliament.
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My vote is also a protest against the tactics of the French authorities in seeking to subvert the principles laid down in the Treaty concerning the independence and integrity of the proposed European Central Bank both in seeking to subject it to excessive political intervention and by bringing forward their own candidate to be head of the ECB late in the day against the consensus of the other Member States.
This action coupled with the rumours of the private deal to shorten the term of the first ECB President must seriously undermine confidence in the markets and the wider world.
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I have plenty of other reservations about the single currency and the possibility of UK participation at some future date which I believe are shared by many of my constituents, in particular the small businesses and self-employed in Devon who mostly see only costs and disadvantages in this project, but I do not propose to list them on this occasion because the issue of UK membership is not under consideration at this time.
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There is, however, a respectable argument that, because there is no question of the UK becoming one of the initial members of EMU under our opt-out, UK MEPs should either abstain or stand aside from this vote.
In my view, on this occasion, for such an important vote, it is all the more vital that we British MEPs exercise our right to vote in the Parliament and express what we judge to be the views of our constituents.
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Finally, I recognise that my no vote may well be one of only a small number of dissenting voices.
In the consensus, coalition style of politics that the electoral system of proportional representation, predominant in the European Parliament generates, there is a tendency towards an impatient intolerance of any view that goes against the majority because the majority must be right and how could anyone disagree.
This is not good for democracy, in my view, and is another reason why I am voting no so as to be a small bit of grit in the works.
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<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Cassidy">
The United Kingdom will have the best of both worlds.
Those of its citizens who want to use the euro, will be able to.
Those who don't won't have to.
They can continue to use our national currency.
<P>
The City of London, especially the Banks and its futures and options traders will deal profitably in euros as they deal now in ECUs.
Some British companies are being required by their customers to quote their prices in euros.
Others are insisting that their suppliers do the same.
British holiday makers who travel in the euro area will use it too.
<P>
But, for those who are not in business or who do not take their holidays abroad (the majority of my fellow citizens are in that second group) nothing will change.
<P>
I could not vote in favour of the Finance Ministers' recommendations because they allow a 'fudge' over the Italian and Belgian public debts and ignore completely the European Monetary Institute warnings over the looming pensions crisis particularly in France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
<P>
To vote against would be an impertinence towards the eleven sovereign states who have decided to join the Euro.
<P>
So, as the United Kingdom will have the best of both worlds, I abstain.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Caudron">
Today, 2 May 1998, I am voting for the euro with enthusiasm and emotion!
<P>
Having been a European federalist since my innocent childhood days, I am voting without any reservations or hesitation for this essential federalist instrument a single currency represents, our single currency: the euro.
But, for me, it is only a stage and not an end in itself.
Very soon, following the single currency, we will have to build a political Europe, a social Europe, a citizens' Europe, and a Europe against unemployment.
That is the challenge of the next five years.
Nothing should stop now, everything should accelerate.
<P>
For the socialist that I am, the framework exists to move in this direction, on the condition firstly that it is wanted, and then to do everything possible to achieve it.
It is a necessary political struggle and I am optimistic about our chances of winning.
<P>
That is why, I repeat, the euro vote today is a rare moment.
It is the result of the action of European militants, who must be thanked.
<P>
It is, above all, a new starting point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Crowley">
I wish to put on the record of this House my full support for the introduction of the euro, and to welcome the decisions of the Council of Finance Ministers on the inclusion of eleven participating countries.
<P>
We now have the opportunity to ensure that the financial instability of the past can be consigned to the files of history.
However that is not to say that there will not be problems.
There is still a huge lack of information getting to the consumer despite the enormous amounts of money being spent on promotion of the euro.
This situation cannot be allowed to continue.
Information and understanding are essential to garner the necessary public support for the currency and this cannot be left to chance.
<P>
There are other problems which will particularly affect the retail sector, especially small and medium sized enterprises.
The necessary alterations in technological terms must not mean an onerous administrative or financial burden on this sector, governments must give assistance, in either taxation relief or financial terms.
<P>
Finally, the present argument over the Presidency of the European Central Bank must not detract from the necessary operational terms for that Bank.
There will be regional disparities in the overall European economy and intervention should not be ruled out at the outset.
<P>
This day will be the start of a new beginning in which we will see greater economic stability, further economic growth, and a brighter horizon for future generations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Cushnahan">
I feel honoured to be present today and to be a party to this historic decision.
The establishment of the single currency will be of major benefit to the country I represent and Europe as a whole.
We can face the future with renewed confidence.
This is especially important as we export over 70 % of everything we manufacture and produce.
This activity will in the future take place against a background of economic, financial and currency stability.
Irish and European citizens will also benefit because lower inflation, lower interest rates, lower mortgage repayments, cheaper consumer goods, etcetera will eventually follow.
Furthermore, in the context of the euro area, the days of inconvenience and excessive costs relating to currency transactions are numbered.
<P>
I am proud that my country met the criteria and is in the first wave of entrants to the single currency.
However, my joy is tempered by the fact that the UK will not join us.
This could cause problems for our economy but it has also fundamental implications for relationships between both parts of Ireland.
<P>
Many of us had hoped that Europe would provide the framework for reconciling both parts of Ireland.
A British opt-out regrettably establishes an increasing economic border on our island.
I sincerely hope that the courage shown by the current British government on both the issue of Europe and, indeed, Northern Ireland will culminate in a decision to join the single currency and that they will take this decisions sooner rather than later.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Daskalaki">
I voted "yes' to the euro because I believe that this is an historic moment in the construction of Europe and, as things have taken shape, "yes' to the euro means yes to Europe.
Even if the Maastricht criteria did not really fulfil the aspirations of the peoples of Europe, a "no' at this moment would mean the rejection of all the sacrifices made by the peoples of Europe in order to arrive at this momentous occasion.
It would also mean the rejection of the enormous sacrifices made especially by the people of Greece, who, in accordance with the agreement, are looking forward to January 2001, when they can come together with their partners in the single currency, to which the latter have already committed themselves.
It would also mean a kind of dangerous isolation for Greece.
<P>
Finally, "yes' to the euro means "no' to anti-European voices which can be heard in Europe from the Far Right and from a section of the Left, in a Europe which has been constructed in order to sideline extremist ideologies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Delcroix">
The euro is an instrument.
It is an essential instrument in ensuring that the perverse effects which have accompanied the birth of the internal European market do not continue to deal harsh blows.
<P>
Unfair competition, in the form of competitive devaluations, the relocation of firms in search of regions with lower taxation, or lower salaries and employment-related costs, and high unemployment have shaken our citizens' confidence in the construction of Europe.
<P>
The euro will help to reduce the differences we have experienced since the approval of the Single European Act.
But that will not be enough; other steps will have to follow quickly.
Otherwise, unfair competition, no longer able to feed off the exchangerate fluctuations, will seek out other methods which will cause more damage.
<P>
We must tirelessly continue the work of creating a balance in Europe, with a view to restoring Europe's popular legitimacy.
<P>
I am glad to use my first vote in the extraordinary sitting to approve my country's entry into the euro.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Díez de Rivera Icaza">
There is no doubt that with this vote the European Union is entering into a single monetary policy, and this is of great importance.
The introduction of the single currency in 11 Member States marks an historic milestone, overshadowed, however, by the high level of long-term, structural unemployment in certain Member States and also by the high level of public debt in others.
<P>
Today is a day which brings us down to earth, from the European dream to the citizens' reality, and while we may congratulate ourselves on this enormous step, we must also call today for better definition and completion of other policies: social, environmental, political, fiscal, etcetera, so that the single currency can truly be a factor of stability, growth and peace.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Without being afraid of finding myself isolated among the performers in this so-called historic day that this meeting is supposed to represent, I have voted against the Ecofin Council's recommendations to the European Council to the effect that the latter should decide to launch the single currency with the participation of 11 of the 15 Member States.
<P>
I have done so without any hesitation because I still believe that the single currency presents grave dangers for the construction of Europe and that it does not address the economic and social conditions of the Member States.
<P>
We are establishing a European Central Bank whose independent character and sovereignty we are at pains to stress, and which will function without being supervised by any democratic body. We are also imposing on 11 states a Stability and Growth Pact which will certainly deprive them of any freedom in economic, budgetary, financial and even social terms.
Through both these measures, the euro is striking a fatal blow at the sovereignty of Europe's nations.
<P>
This brutal attack is taking place without any democratic consultation, in accordance with an approach that can only be described as totalitarian: no debate on the advantages and disadvantages of the single currency has ever really taken place, and the people of the Member States of the European Union have not really been consulted, even though their right to give their opinion on the majority of the policies which directly concern them will be abolished in future.
There is a great risk that when realization dawns it will be a difficult moment, when our populations experience the true trauma that their leaders are imposing on them by doing away with their respective national currencies.
<P>
Moreover, the single currency is being introduced in a context where there is still high unemployment, which would require mobilization on the part of all the economic operators, when they will find themselves penalized by the practical consequences of the rapid changeover to the euro.
The undignified rush to comply with the Maastricht criteria, often achieved by accounting or budgetary sleight of hand, has already had a high cost in terms of jobs.
Unfortunately, we can bet that tomorrow the constraints of the Stability Pact will have even more negative consequences.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, the major stages in the construction of Europe have been achieved with caution and by democratically respecting the will of the peoples of our great and ancient nations.
This will not have been the case in the monetary field.
We should, in fact, have followed the path of the European Monetary System by introducing a common currency, which would not replace national currencies, and would which allow us - since such a choice would not have been irreversible - to take stock of the situation after several years before contemplating, if need be, and with the approval of our citizens, progress to a further stage.
<P>
The choice made today is first and foremost an ideological one: it is the choice, imposed in silence, of the federal state, free from any democratic and political constraints.
It does not really take our economic environment into account.
In the light of all this, I therefore cannot give it my approval.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Ferrer">
The aim of my explanation of vote in favour of the recommendation by the Council is simply to join in the significant debate which we have just completed and which has made us privileged joint protagonists in the chapter of European history that we are writing today.
<P>
It is a debate that opens the door to the adoption of a single currency by 11 countries of the European Union on 1 January 1999 and, with it, the establishment of a platform of economic stability. Thanks to this, we can achieve a level of economic growth which will allow for the creation of jobs and thus achieve one of the fundamental objectives of the process of European integration: the economic and social wellbeing of the citizens of the Union.
Hence the importance of the Stability Pact, since the existence of a healthy and stable economy is dependent on the benefits of the euro being translated into new jobs.
<P>
But the euro, and with it monetary union, is also, and above all, a symbol of European unity; hence the historic nature of today's sitting. This is because the single currency will allow us to take a qualitative jump towards that union of the European people which forms the basis and foundation of the construction of Europe.
The benefits go beyond its undeniable economic advantages, beyond its contribution to job creation and beyond the advances which it will undoubtedly bring in the long term in the fiscal field, in the social field and particularly in the decisive area of political union. The existence of a single currency will unquestionably contribute to increasing, among the citizens of the Union, that feeling of belonging to a single community, which is essential in order to conclude the work of peace and solidarity designed by the utopian architects of the construction of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Gallagher">
I welcome the fact that Ireland is going to join up to a new single currency beginning on January 1st, 1999.
The benefits of a European single currency for the Irish economy are the following:
<P>
Lower interest rates which is good news for small and medium sized enterprises. The elimination of transaction costs which is good news for our exporters and will clearly have an effect of increasing the number of tourists to Ireland.The Economic, Research and Social Institute in Ireland has carried out a report stating that it is clearly in Ireland's interest to join up to the first stage of Economic and Monetary Union within the EU The ERSI further stated that it is to the benefit of the Irish economy to sign up to a European single currency even if Britain opts out of joining the Single European Currency at the first stage.
<P>
It is an imperative that extensive and well financed dual pricing campaigns are put in place in all supermarkets and stores in advance of the introduction of a Single European Currency so that consumers and users of the currency are aware of the real value of the euro notes and coins compared to the value of the Punt and to ensure no confusion arises.
The information deficit relating to the Single European Currency is a real issue and must be comprehensively addressed.
<P>
The introduction of a Single European Currency is a real challenge.
The mistakes that took place when decimalisation was introduced in 1972 cannot and must not reoccur.
<P>
The Single European Currency is a logical step forward from the internal market which recently has been completed within the European Union and which resulted in the existence of the free movement of persons, services, capital and goods within the EU.
This must be welcomed by the Irish people. It is good news for our economy and good news for our future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Girão Pereira, Rosado Fernandes, Cardona">
Saturday, 2 May 1998.
This is believed to be an historic day, and it will be.
For the nations of Europe, for the European Union and for the world.
Its raison d'être is the single currency and its prime cause is the determination of the states that have applied to join the euro.
This too will be remembered, as happens with all historic days, whether for good or ill.
<P>
Having always accepted that Portugal would not be able to stand alone in monetary competition, however unfair, we have both in the past and in the present offered responsible criticism of the path we have taken to the adoption of the single currency.
If it had been up to us, we would have pushed for real convergence of the European nations, and might perhaps have waited a little longer. We would certainly have involved the people of Europe in our decision.
<P>
We voted on the losing side against the Maastricht Treaty in the Assembly of the Republic.
Since we respect the rules of democracy, a decision of our Parliament, even one with which we do not agree, is law.
If it is law, we shall respect it as such.
<P>
It is now proposed that the European Parliament should give its opinion on a decision which has already been taken, and not by Parliament: the list of countries entitled to join the third stage of EMU.
Since we do not believe it possible to say 'no' to something that is a matter of record, we Portuguese Members now prefer to emphasize the fact that we belong to a country whose people have managed, through a great deal of self-denial, to overcome the greatest difficulties in order to see the reward of some of its efforts here in the EP today.
It is now to be hoped that solidarity, which also means economic and social cohesion, and is furthermore enshrined in our Treaties, will not be forgotten as from today, Saturday, 2 May 1998.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Gutiérrez Díaz">
Some of us in our group, including the Members from the Nueva Izquierda and the Iniciativa per Catalunya , are going to vote in favour of the proposal concerning those countries which are going to enter into the single currency.
<P>
However, we believe that the process is getting off to a less than perfect start.
<P>
In order to be able to progress with a minimum of stability, economic policy needs fiscal harmonization to go hand in hand with the single currency.
<P>
But, in addition, to build a fair Union, along with economic policy it is essential to have a social policy and institutions which are run completely democratically.
<P>
None of this is provided for to the extent necessary.
<P>
Despite this, we will vote in favour because we believe that you should not cut off your nose to spite your face. No, the answer is to fight to obtain, as quickly as possible, what you are lacking.
<P>
We also believe that, from a constructive point of view, in this way we will feel more justified in demanding that we urgently overcome the shortcomings in the system.
<P>
The political, economic and social importance of the decision we are taking today, and to which we are adding our vote, could turn into a mere smoke screen, that is, into a failure, unless we all contribute responsibly to the establishment of fiscal equality, social justice and complete democratic legitimacy in the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Hindley">
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Hyland">
As an Irish MEP I welcome the Single Currency, which is a further positive step on the road to European integration.
<P>
I am particularly proud of my country's success in meeting all aspects of the convergence criteria.
<P>
Ireland has demonstrated what can be achieved through planned economic goals and commitment to their implementation.
<P>
The strict fiscal policy of EMU provides the long term economic base for continuing growth and will prevent the short term political temptation to base decisions on grounds of political popularity.
<P>
Long term today's Parliament decisions will be a major factor in dealing with unemployment and consolidates the economic base of the EU to meet the challenge of world trade.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Imaz San Miguel">
The PNV is voting in favour of the euro for economic reasons, but also because of its political consequences.
<P>
The euro will consolidate the internal market, eliminate exchange-rate costs between European currencies, help to improve the competitiveness of our companies and increase stability, which could assist investment and employment.
<P>
For consumers it will also mean improved supply, greater price transparency and less costs when they travel throughout Europe.
<P>
The euro gives us access to a positive scenario of competitiveness, but forces us to keep a watchful eye on those who may have more difficulties.
That calls for more territorial solidarity in the European Union and a strengthening of the social cohesion in our societies.
<P>
But, above all, the euro opens up a whole political process.
The exercise of monetary power in Europe requires better coordination of economic policies and implies an acceleration of European integration.
This is good news for those of us who are in favour of a federal Europe.
<P>
Furthermore, this process of integration weakens the role of the states and presents an historic opportunity to enable people and nations, such as the Basques, to directly participate in a united Europe which respects the diversity of the people it is made up of.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Kaklamanis">
Almost 50 years have passed since the day when the founding fathers of Europe set off on the great journey leading to a united Europe.
<P>
Throughout those years many politicians and millions of people have believed in and worked hard to construct a Europe of solidarity, of work, of quality and not quantity, of multilingualism, of a European spirit.
<P>
And today, 2 May, just one day after "Labour Day' , the European Council, unfortunately with the blessing of the European Parliament, laid to rest the Europe of our visions and delivered up its peoples into the hands of bankers.
Using the alchemy of book-keeping they even violated the Maastricht criteria, which they themselves set.
<P>
No-one has explained to us under what criteria countries like Italy and Belgium are to join the first wave of EMU.
<P>
No-one has explained to us when there will be "a light at the end of the tunnel' of unemployment and poverty, which have turned Europe into a "society of the two thirds' .
<P>
No-one has told us why the political integration of Europe has been sacrificed to numbers and to the will of bankers, such as the Frenchman, Mr Trichet, who is a candidate for the first President of the European Central Bank and whose name, coincidentally, means "cardsharper' in his language.
<P>
Those who, with their vote in the European Parliament (indirectly) and in the European Council (directly), are contributing today to the freakish cloning of an "Integrated Europe' , will soon be called upon to explain their decision to the peoples of Europe.
<P>
I hope they will have the political courage, shortly before the coming European elections, to remain faithful to their current positions and views.
<P>
Those of us who are truly Europeans and not "Europeans' with a small "e' , say YES to political and truly economical convergence and NO to the spurious, nominal "convergence' of Europe.
For this reason I have maintained a negative stance in the European Parliament, which I expressed by abstaining in the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
It is an irrevocable fact that the euro will be adopted on 1 January 1999 by eleven countries in the European Union.
I welcome this unreservedly.
The adoption of the euro by only 6 or 7 core countries of the Union, as is the wish of Bavaria's Minister-President Edmund Stoiber, Member of the European Parliament Ingo Friedrich and Theo Waigel, the German Finance Minister - all of whom are members of the CSU Party - is something which I could not have voted for.
Such an arrangement would inevitably cause a split in the European Union and would drive a wedge between the peoples and the countries of the EU.
<P>
But this is not the time to put our feet up and to leave future policy making to the European Central Bank.
The EU needs a coordinated economic and employment policy to deal with the extremely high unemployment rate in the Member States, which experts have put at as much as 34 million.
Simply sticking to price stability will only increase unemployment and create unimagined social tension.
This would lead to renationalization and a swing to the right in the EU countries, something which we in the Green Group do not wish to see.
It is therefore imperative for the European Central Bank to be put on an effective democratic footing so that it does not feel committed solely and exclusively to the concept of price stability - important though this is - without any reference to a common European economic, social and employment policy.
We therefore need to set up an Economic Council alongside the ECB, to ensure that the policy of the European Central Bank is bound by the same political objectives as that of the EU as a whole.
<P>
We must reject the proposal put forward by Finance Minister Waigel, that the rules be changed during the game and that special arrangements be applied to some countries, such as Italy and Belgium.
We cannot bring the Stability Pact forward and rule that government surpluses are to be used exclusively for repaying the government deficit.
This would severely restrict a government's capacity to act, for example by launching an employment programme, and would constitute an improper infringement of national sovereignty.
EU policy should be dedicated to the well-being of all its citizens, not just the rich.
This makes it all the more urgent for us to have a well-coordinated macroeconomic policy which includes combatting unemployment as one of its most important priorities.
The ECB therefore has to commit itself not merely to a rigid monetary policy, as called for in Mr Wogau's report.
This was one of the reasons why I have voted against the Wogau report, which aims to subordinate the well-being of the citizens of the EU purely and simply to a monetarist neo-liberal policy.
<P>
Nor is it my objective to use the euro to set up a European hegemony.
The European Union should use its strength and authority, which will undoubtedly be extended with the introduction of the euro, to develop a social, ecological and solidary world economic order.
The euro must not be misused to build higher and stronger walls around the European Union.
In view of the oft-quoted "globalization of the world economy' , this would be a real mistake, for such a development would only produce further tensions and rifts, both within the EU as well as around the world.
There must be a clear rejection of the monetary policy being proposed by the CSU.
Together with France and other EU countries, and a change in German policy after the Bundestag elections of 27 September, which will again focus on the more than legitimate concerns of ordinary people, the euro can serve as an instrument for the advancement and opening up of the European Union.
The success and stability of the euro, and not least its acceptance by the citizens of Europe, will depend on a social and ecologically-oriented economic policy.
I wholeheartedly welcome the introduction of the euro, especially as regards Germany's political incorporation into the European Union. However, we now have to get on with making the necessary corrections.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Lienemann">
At this stage, the European Parliament's vote, which is being delivered without comments or amendments, can no longer influence the course of affairs or the conditions surrounding the changeover to the euro.
<P>
I shall abstain today.
I would have liked to be able to vote in favour at this historic moment because I support the single currency.
But the framework currently proposed carries too many risks for our democracy and for our social model to allow me to approve of this step.
<P>
The euro could be a fantastic asset for our people if it allowed for the acceleration of political union and the democratic strengthening of Europe, if it provided economic leeway which enabled unemployment to be eliminated and a new era of social progress to begin, and if it allowed our continent to assert a different concept of our planet's future in the face of American hegemony.
<P>
But that is not the case today.
The framework for the introduction of the euro does not provide for a transfer of sovereignty from the nation states to democratic European institutions - which would be a positive move - but for a true abandonment of the people's sovereignty.
<P>
The ECB, which will be the most independent bank in the world, and considerably more powerful than the American Federal Reserve Board or the current German Bundesbank, will have absolute power and will receive no parliamentary supervision. Nor will it have to implement the policy of a European government, since, by not forming an economic government, the European Union has deprived itself of that essential tool.
<P>
Thus, all control over monetary options is being taken away from the people or Europe.
With the Dublin Stability Pact, they have also lost control over macroeconomic options, which are nevertheless of great importance for their life and their future.
<P>
Not only does the Stability Pact put our economies in a monetary straitjacket, but, even more seriously, it introduces a true economic constitution, depriving governments or parliaments of any macroeconomic arbitration and even going as far as sanctioning offending states.
<P>
What purpose will elections serve if these extremely important decisions can no longer be amended?
I refuse to hand over our common destiny to the powers of money and to the supporters of monetarist dogma.
<P>
Some see the euro as a stage leading to strengthened political integration in Europe.
There is nothing to support this hope.
The internal market, the free trade area, which currently serves as a European project, does not need a strong political Europe.
If anything, the opposite is true, for we will see that making the economic and financial sphere autonomous, exempting it from all collective and democratic regulation, tends to relegate the political side of things to the sidelines.
Moreover, the Maastricht Treaty provided for the establishment of the IGC to strengthen political integration and improve the institutions.
Thus, the progress with political Europe should have taken place at the same time as EMU was being concluded.
<P>
It has to be said that Amsterdam has yielded any significant progress.
Political Europe is powerless and the monetary, economic and political balance heralded in Maastricht has not been fulfilled.
<P>
In response to the concerns of the people of Europe in the face of increasing unemployment, the European authorities predicted the creation of millions of jobs and the publication of a White Paper.
Since then, neither major projects nor the improved capital taxation arrangements needed to mitigate imposts on employment have materialized.
<P>
Unemployment has grown in the euro area, and this is particularly true if you consider that the official unemployment figures do not take into consideration all job seekers, nor those "poor wage-earners' whose number is increasing.
<P>
So, the promises of Maastricht, particularly those on the democratic and political strengthening of Europe and on employment, have not been kept.
More seriously, the Stability Pact only leaves countries one form of leeway - fiscal and social dumping - in order to face up to increased competition.
The current framework for the changeover to the euro threatens to accelerate Europe's liberal drift and its alignment with the American model.
Our people have nothing to gain from that, but they do have a great deal to lose.
<P>
I hope that the leap, which was unable to take place before the changeover to the euro, to establish a political Europe and a social Europe worthy of their names can take place in future.
<P>
Being a demanding European, I will make that my priority.
<P>
Lindqvist (ELDR), Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling (V), in writing.
(SV) EMU is a centralizing, high-risk project which lacks popular backing.
EMU prioritizes price stability and low inflation.
The EU is not an optimum currency area, and the economies of the various Member States are much too divergent to introduce a single currency.
There is a high risk that EMU, with its one-sided emphasis on controlling inflation, will lead to increased unemployment.
The gaps between growth regions and areas of rural depopulation may widen, resulting in increased regional imbalances.
<P>
EMU will bring about a high degree of centralization and a loss of democracy in economic, monetary and exchange rate policy which, by extension, may come to include fiscal and financial policy as well.
This also emerges from the report, which speaks of increased coordination of taxation systems and tax rates.
<P>
EMU is concerned with economic affairs, but it has considerable significance as a political project geared to greater supranationality and centralization.
EMU increases federal pressures in the EU towards the formation of a state - the EU State.
<P>
EMU and the new currency, the euro, are to be controlled by the European Central Bank, the ECB.
The ECB will have greater independence and power than any other bank in the world.
The members of the ECB Executive Board, who are appointed for eight years and cannot be removed from office, will have unprecedented influence on exchange rate and interest rate policy and other economic policies directly affecting people, regions and nations.
Democratic control is weak.
<P>
The Commission has put forward a recommendation to introduce the single currency in eleven Member States on 1 January 1999; the Ecofin Council has given its backing to this recommendation.
It is what these countries have chosen.
The Swedish Riksdag has decided not to participate in the third stage of EMU from 1 January 1999.
This is a wise decision.
EMU suffers from the same economic and democratic deficiencies, irrespective of how many countries are members of the currency union.
In view of the above, we have voted against the recommendation.
<P>
The position we have taken is not directed against the decisions or economic policies of individual countries; it is based on an appreciation of the EMU project as such.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Lucas Pires">
I have voted in favour of the decision of the Council appointing the founders of the Europe of the Eleven, including my own country.
<P>
For Europe this has created a magnificent symbol of identity, a lever to give us power in the world and a means of economic development, intra-European cohesion and solidarity between citizens.
It will be the watchword of 300 million people speaking different languages.
<P>
We must, however, move forward to a more unified tax policy, greater democratic legitimacy, an at least adequate social policy, greater mobility within Europe, a more Community-based budget and the solidarity to withstand any asymmetric shocks.
<P>
For my country, it means joining the list of the founding fathers of the Europe of the future and making up for decades of isolation or backwardness with our new hopes.
Our responsibility is therefore greater today, but we shall be fully involved in this revolution in European history, the most important since the building of the Community began and the firmest guarantee of its irreversibility.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="Lulling">
As a member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, which has devoted a great deal of time and energy during recent years to the introduction of the single currency, but which has not been allocated speaking time during the debate, I am anxious to clarify that I voted in favour despite the fact that in its recommendation, and particularly in section 1, the Council quite simply skirts round the criterion relating to long-term debt, which should not exceed 60 % of GDP.
<P>
Things being what they are in this field, this is still incredible, since the criterion concerning participation in the exchange-rate mechanism, which is less important in my opinion, is given serious consideration, for example in noting that Sweden does not meet the conditions.
It is true that Sweden does not yet wish to form part of the euro area.
<P>
Fortunately, there is the Ecofin Council's declaration, which is in fact more solid on a certain number of points which I believed to be important and which, in the resolution adopted following our report on convergence, did not find favour with the Socialist group.
I am therefore glad that the Stability Pact will enter into force on 1 July, which the majority in this Parliament did not dare write; that the Council recognizes that we are sitting on a time bomb in terms of the funding of pensions due to the demographic situation; and that as regards taxation, the main concern should not be to do away with fiscal competition, but to avoid unfair and harmful competition. In other words, this is no more or no less than that decided by the Ecofin Council on 1 December 1997.
<P>
I have voted in favour, bearing all these points in mind, and even did so willingly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Marin">
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Marset Campos">
The United Left has sufficiently demonstrated its criticism of the current social economic model that has been developing over recent years in the EU under the monetarist discipline of the Maastricht criteria.
<P>
In the same way, we have been extremely critical of the content of the Stability Pact, which implies higher unemployment and a precarious welfare state.
<P>
We actually need a different economic policy which gives priority to full employment and social welfare.
<P>
The current model on which the euro is based represents the hegemony of the market, to the detriment of democracy and political union.
<P>
At this stage when only those countries which meet the conditions for participation in the euro are being assessed, we must abstain, as we believe that the euro, the single currency, as it has been introduced, means uncertainty and precariousness for workers. Instead, the single currency should have been formed on the basis of other parameters guided by solidarity, full employment and social welfare.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Martinez">
It's settled!
By 467 votes to 65, the sect of the Euro-monetary temple has just decided the suicide of eleven nations.
<P>
We have just witnessed the elimination of the lira of Italy of the cities, the peseta of Spain, whose empire reached as far as here, Brussels, the pound of Ireland of the wild ponies, the escudo of the great Portugal of Vasco da Gama, all these currencies which are the summary, the symbol, the identity of the nations.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, listen to that; outside, in front of the Hemicycle, you cannot possibly not hear it. A German army orchestra is playing.
You can hear its drums, trombones, crescents.
What are they playing?
The Preussen Gloria.
Nothing less than that, a goose-step, a march from the Prussia of Frederick II, here in a Parliament, on 2 May 1998, to celebrate the death of the national currencies and the birth of the euro.
<P>
What else do they want?
The Central Bank in Frankfurt, the goose-step and the music of the German army, Theo Waigel's budgetary rationing pact, the euro; this is the monetary Anschluss of ten currencies, including the franc, by the Deutsche Mark.
<P>
We here have forgotten everything.
Our currencies arose from the sacrifice of thousands and thousands of workers from steelworks, coalmines and the textile industry, from Pas-de-Calais or Lorraine to the Asturias, from the sacrifice of fishermen, from Brittany to Spanish Galicia, from the toil of Europe's peasants.
A currency represents all of that.
It is the very blood and the heart of a people.
<P>
To do away with a currency is to suppress, to deny this time of sweat and sacrifice.
This is why you cannot do it.
This is why, by doing it, you have become usurpers.
You have gone beyond our powers.
The nations have the right to survive for themselves in monetary terms.
Whatever the European Parliament thinks and does.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Megahy">
I am voting against this proposal in order to register a protest against this ill-conceived, undemocratic and economically disastrous plan for a single currency.
<P>
I know that many people have been working for years to bring this currency union about, and their euphoria is therefore understandable.
I believe also, however, that in the not-too-distant future they will look ruefully back on this euphoric feeling, much as the passengers on the Titanic must have done as the ship sank into the Arctic Ocean.
<P>
We British have been told many times that we should join the euro in the first wave, that otherwise there was a danger of missing the boat.
The case of the Titanic, however, demonstrates that there are some boats which it is best not to be on.
I do not believe that this vessel is seaworthy, and I am sure there are icebergs up ahead.
As with the Titanic, also, it will be the passengers on the lower decks who will suffer.
Most of the people who have pushed this scheme through, with no real reflection or opportunity for genuine democratic debate, will be safely in the lifeboats when the euro ship goes down.
It is working people, the unemployed, and the most vulnerable groups in our societies who will be, as always, the ones who suffer when this leaky vessel disappears beneath the icy waters of economic reality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="Moreau">
The vote that this House has just expressed involves the future of our countries.
It does not lead us to a path lined with roses, but one which is full of traps and sacrifices for our people.
<P>
The introduction of the euro will in fact mark a new stage in the ultra-liberal Europe, which already includes - to its detriment - almost 18 million unemployed and 57 million poor people.
Drastic limits are going to be, and already have been, imposed on national budgets by the convergence criteria and the threat of sanctions provided for in the Stability Pact, whose implementation has just been brought forward.
The unique nature of the exchange rate will lead to enormous pressure on salaries and to overexploitation of workers, along with deregulation and flexibility.
<P>
Dominated by the financial markets, the Europe of economic war still prevails, and is even on the increase, opposed to a progressive policy.
It is this Europe that we criticize, while we work towards a different Europe.
We want to contribute to the reorientation of the joint development of equal and sovereign nations, to a Europe which shares costs and knowledge, and to a Europe which is open to the world and which bases its relations on solidarity and mutual interests.
<P>
In short, we want a Europe that is capable of responding to the challenges of the 21st century: a Europe that is capable of mobilizing resources to combat unemployment and exclusion, which is concerned about an upward harmonization of social legislation and which is able to prevent conflicts and guarantee the security of every country.
<P>
In this connection, we have decided to bring many people together in order to, for example: challenge the Stability Pact and replace it with a growth and employment pact; ensure too that the Central Bank's status and mission are reviewed; achieve real monetary cooperation, with a common rather than a single currency, based on the national currencies, which would allow appropriations to be increased to favour employment; and guarantee that the public services, which contribute to social cohesion, have the necessary resources to fulfil their duties in the common good.
<P>
In order to exist, that Europe needs the intervention of the people.
The first significant euro demonstrations took place over the last two years; they show the possibility of uniting in the struggle to reject the recession, of loosening the vice of the financial markets and of promoting alternative solutions which make good use of the enormous assets of our people.
In a word, we want to make the construction of Europe more democratic.
<P>
We intend to devote all our efforts to this, and our "no' vote today represents our support for the construction of a different Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="Müller">
I have voted for the introduction of the euro because I am firmly convinced that this single currency will bring the citizens of Europe closer together, and that it will do so with greater speed and intensity than any intergovernmental conference could ever do.
<P>
As a German Member of this House I of course regret that such a revolutionary move as the adoption of the euro has only been decided on by an intergovernmental conference and that we in Germany were not able to back this decision up by a referendum.
<P>
This democratic deficit has meant that many people in Germany have received far too little information about the advantages of the euro.
We in Germany should also have had the courage to organize a broad-based and conscious decision in support of integration.
<P>
The citizens of Europe will grow and develop with European provided that they can really see that they are actively involved in these decisions.
<P>
A second point which I would like to raise is that there will be no confidence in the new currency for the foreseeable future unless this united, and soon to be extended, Europe of ours is kept in balance.
In this context keeping a balance does not just mean a one-sided emphasis on price stability, but also means fighting for social stability with the same degree of commitment.
<P>
The introduction of the euro is therefore not the end of the line for our political vision of Europe, in fact quite the reverse. It represents the starting point for more Europe, more integration, for the more effective coordination of economic policies and for a strengthening of the fundamental social rights of the citizens of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="Nicholson">
The decision to proceed with the Single Currency is premature and has been forced along by political considerations rather than concern for economic growth and lower unemployment in the EU.
<P>
I am concerned at the effect which this premature decision will have on the people I represent in Northern Ireland.
As the Maastricht criteria have been disregarded in the case of some of the eleven countries, particularly Belgium and Italy, the euro project itself begins on very insecure foundations.
The introduction of the euro will have as much effect on those countries which remain outside the project as those which go in the first wave.
My constituency is the only part of the United Kingdom which will share a land frontier with a participant country.
Therefore I am extremely concerned that the negative impact which Belgium and Italy are bound to make on the project will have repercussions in my local economy.
<P>
I am pleased that the UK Government has adopted the responsible position of not participating in the first wave.
The Euro project has the potential to undo the success of the EU.
The UK Government has wisely decided not to throw the British people into the unknown.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="Newens">
I have been in favour of a single European currency to enable goods to be purchased at the same price across the European Union, to do away the cost of changing money to carry out transactions in each Member State and to boost trade.
A single currency should end the possibility for speculators to target national currencies and make huge profits at the expense of ordinary citizens, as has occurred in the past.
<P>
However, provisions to safeguard the most vulnerable sections of the people have been gravely neglected in the present proposals.
<P>
Jobs, in my view, are as important as price stability.
However, the restrictions on public spending and the tight ceiling imposed on budgets will deprive the Member States of monetary means of helping less competitive areas which lose jobs and investment.
<P>
We can see how unemployment has soared in Germany, particularly in less competitive areas since reunification and the achievement of a single German currency.
<P>
Much more needs to be done to counter growing unemployment and poverty and I abstained to demonstrate my deep dissatisfaction on this score.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="Olsson">
The forging of an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe has been the main aim of European integration since the 1950s.
<P>
The decision now being taken on the adoption of a single currency and the establishment of Economic and Monetary Union is one of the greatest and most important stages in this process.
Hence EMU is an important contribution to the cause of peace and will strengthen the European Union in its efforts to extend its borders to Central and Eastern Europe.
The decision marks out Europe as a single, coherent and powerful actor in the world economy.
<P>
During the debate on EMU in Sweden and in my party, I persistently affirmed the view that Sweden should share in the responsibility for and advantages of this cooperation.
It is also my conviction that Sweden, after a period of reflection, will come to participate in this historic project.
<P>
For these reasons in particular, I think it vital to vote 'yes' and thereby demonstrate my conviction regarding European cooperation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="Orlando">
It is up to us, the people and states, and the European Parliament, to make the euro into a great shared house and not an unfinished tower of Babel.
The euro obviously has its advantages and disadvantages as well: that is often the case for things that subsequently end up badly, but it also applies to things that end up well, as a result of ambitious projects.
Monetary integration, yes, but followed immediately by integration of the law and the judiciary, defence, economic development and the environment and, most important of all, social welfare and employment.
<P>
Two positive notes: the unexpected participation of Portugal, Spain, Italy and France provides a consistent and specific follow-up to the requirement to build one Europe: both central European and Mediterranean.
The unexpected participation of Italy has blocked separatist moves, preventing a rich north from opting for separatist causes to the detriment of a south "guilty' of preventing that integration.
<P>
Now that Italy is a full member of the European system, any local issues certainly can, and with a little imagination will, be solved in an original way.
I hope this will be the case for Sicily and Sardinia, and I hope we understand this in the regions, in the islands I have the honour of representing in this European Parliament.
<P>
In June, Palermo will host the Euro-Mediterranean meeting of the 27 foreign ministers from the European countries and African and Asian coastal countries. This will demonstrate all the strength and all the opportunities and all the confidence associated with Italy's participation in monetary union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="Pailler">
For a long time, I have chosen Europe, a Europe of employment, of social progress, a democratic Europe, close to the people and respectful of national cultures, a Europe capable of standing up to America's hegemonic business.
<P>
I have opposed the Maastricht Treaty, with the single currency as its centrepiece, because I thought that it could not respond to this idea of Europe.
The Europe which has been developing subsequently has confirmed my fears.
<P>
Even if they are of some interest, the declarations and resolutions on social matters have not really corrected the heavy ultraliberal trends in the construction of Europe.
<P>
The single currency represents both a result and a new point of departure for a European Union which penalises the weak and favours the strong.
<P>
Rather than promoting cooperation, it aggravates competition between countries, between regions and between peoples.
I will quote the words of Mr Tietmayer, President of the German Bundesbank, one of the main architects of the euro: "the challenge today is to create conditions which promote sustainable growth and confidence among investors; we must therefore control public budgets, lower taxes and duties to reach a level which can be maintained in the long term, reform social protection systems, and get rid of the inflexibilities of the labour markets so that a new phase of growth will be achieved once again, but only when we make an effort at achieving flexibility in the labour markets' .
<P>
The euro will put the economic and social policies of the Member States in a straitjacket - one that Germany wanted to tighten still further with the so-called Waigel declaration at yesterday's Ecofin Council - without any real democratic supervision, either by national parliaments, or by the European Parliament.
<P>
This Europe, based on the single currency and its Stability Pact, will represent a significant obstacle to the new stages in the changes desired by the French, who voted for a left-wing government, and will prevent the existence of any truly transforming political will.
<P>
I have voted against the euro for all of these reasons.
<P>
As the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu recently pointed out: "We must choose between the confidence of the markets and the confidence of the people.
Any policy which aims to keep the confidence of the markets will lose the confidence of the people' .
For my part, I prefer the confidence of the people and to have confidence in them, for I believe that the struggle has not ended.
The increase in contradictions linked to the introduction of the euro could lead the people to impose other demands and other guidelines on the construction of Europe.
<P>
I intend to continue with the work of providing information and explanations with a view to contributing to the development and coordination of the struggles at European level, in the hope of putting employment, culture, social progress and democracy at the heart of the construction of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayiannakis">
Today's extraordinary sitting marks the end of a chapter which opened with the Maastricht Treaty.
We are not yet witnessing the completion of monetary integration, which will be complete only when all the Member States of the European Union are also Members of EMU. I wish to add that I welcome the fact that the Ecofin Council has declared its conviction and its hope that my country will also be able to be part of EMU by 1 January 2001, on the same terms as the 11 countries which have already achieved convergence and the adoption of the euro.
<P>
However, the creation of the euro is already of historic importance.
It means the completion of the single market, which it serves and promotes.
It opens up extremely important opportunities for Europe to play a distinctive and decisive role in the world, not only in the world economy and in the markets.
Even more importantly, the euro means that a clear and positive political will will prevail over the "natural flow of things' in the economy and the markets!
It demonstrates the scope of European political will when it exists and when it is approached with consensus and determination.
<P>
I hope that political will of this kind will also be evident in the fight against unemployment and social exclusion, in promoting continuous growth and, of course, in the march towards the institutional and political integration of the European Union at a federal level.
<P>
We now have a fundamental tool, the euro.
Let us decide to use it to these ends.
With this evaluation, this hope and these demands, which are always the demands of the European, radical and ecological Left, I will vote "yes' to the proposal that is being put to us for the launching of the euro.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="Pinel">
The most pious supporters of a federal Europe are claiming that Economic and Monetary Union is a miracle cure, boasting about its virtues on every occasion, and often, in the wrong context, happily asserting that the euro will promote even greater economic and social cohesion. They also maintain that it will contribute to the fight against unemployment, while Chancellor Kohl has clearly stated that "the euro will not create jobs' .
<P>
In reality, EMU is going to worsen the imbalances between the prosperous regions in the centre of Europe - the Benelux countries, the Paris region, the Rhine and Rhone valleys, northern Italy - and the peripheral regions, disadvantaged by their geographical distance - Finland, southern Italy, southern Spain -, as well as less populated rural regions.
<P>
When a market expands, we witness industrial specializations in every region and every town.
Every region and town will try to make the most of the situation.
While the regions which have the benefit of modern infrastructures can hope to pull through, by the same token the regions furthest from the economic centre of Europe, the agricultural regions, have a lot to fear from Economic and Monetary Union.
These areas, which are in fact much less densely populated, are smaller markets which the large industries will neglect, particularly since transport costs there will also be higher.
The effects these imbalances will have on the environment should be a cause for alarm.
<P>
Of course, the Structural Funds will be there to put a dressing on the wounds; the Community manna will come down to soothe the discontent.
However, according to distinguished economists such as Professor Rosa, even if the Structural Funds were used effectively, which is far from being the case at the moment, they will "no more be able to alleviate the local differences than aid from Milan has been able to resolve the problems of southern Italy' .
<P>
Once more, it has been shown that the Europe of the single currency is a Europe of selfishness, which condemns the weakest for the benefit of the few.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="des Places">
Here, as elsewhere, it is good form to congratulate ourselves on the creation of the euro.
However, in reality, many problems still remain and the promoters of the single currency willingly hide the negative consequences of the euro, particularly those affecting European agriculture.
<P>
The first false argument in favour of the euro concerns price stability.
I must firstly remind you, as I have already said and as I wrote in my report on agricultural prices, which will be presented to the plenary in June, agricultural prices and compensation are paid in green ECUs.
We are now told that one euro will be equal to one ECU.
Will there be a green euro?
There is no response from the Commission.
In the absence of a green euro, will there be a compensation coefficient?
There is still no response from the Commission, apart from the fact that this will cost the Community budget ECU 400 million for each percentage point of discrepancy between the green ECU and the euro.
The current average discrepancy between the parity of the green ECU and the euro is 2.5 %.
A simple multiplication shows that the cost of introducing the euro for European agriculture should be of the order of ECU 1 billion, more than FF 6 billion.
Yet nobody is talking about this: neither the politicians in charge of agriculture, nor the professional agricultural organizations.
The euro will therefore hit prices and farmers' salaries.
<P>
The second false argument in favour of the euro concerns the abolition of agrimonetary measures.
During the last European Agriculture Council of 20 and 21 April 1998, a qualified majority adopted an amendment to Regulation No 724/97 establishing measures and compensation relating to appreciable revaluations that would affect farm incomes; this of course includes the Member States which would not participate in the euro.
The agrimonetary measures will therefore continue for the so-called "out' countries.
British farmers will have a "safety net' while their government, and many British Members of the European Parliament, continue to fiercely oppose the CAP and try only to ensure the total abolition of the Community preference, to the benefit of the globalization of trade.
Thus, contrary to what the great thinkers behind the euro had told us, agrimonetary measures will continue.
<P>
The third false argument in favour of the euro concerns its role as a counterweight to the dollar.
As we can see from the last OECD report on global agricultural forecasts, the European Union's market share in global exports of cereals, milk products and meat products is continuing and will continue to fall.
We all know that global rates are and will always be calculated in dollars.
The Chicago futures market is still there and will continue to be there.
The ECU was a basket of currencies which did not all react in the same way to the fluctuations of the dollar.
The ECU thus had a certain degree of stability.
The euro itself will fluctuate much more noticeably.
I would remind you that refund values are defined for periods of two weeks.
In order to continue their work, European exporters are going to have to play poker and actually become speculators.
The Commission authorities will not take that risk; they demonstrated this recently in terms of export certificates.
That will be the greatest curb on European exports.
Some see in these difficulties the possibility of eventually doing away with even the principle of refunds and levies.
European markets will therefore be brought into line with world markets and the Community preference totally abolished.
<P>
The fourth false argument in favour of the euro concerns limiting the distortion of competition between Member States.
In his speech of 30 April before the European Parliament's committee responsible for economic, financial and monetary affairs, Commissioner de Silguy stated: "For example, apart from generating high unemployment, the countries participating in the euro with lower than average salaries cannot hope instantly to come into line with the level of wages paid in the wealthiest countries: they will firstly need an increase in the productivity of labour.'
French fruit and vegetable producers will appreciate that.
Spanish strawberries will be able to continue to oust French production.
Regardless of the type involved, specialized agriculture using a labour force will increasingly relocate to those Member States which have the lowest levels of salaries.
In fact, Commissioner de Silguy forgets that labour productivity, in macroeconomic terms, does not have the same value as the analysis of the productivity of sectoral labour.
<P>
Besides these false arguments, I agree of course with all the speeches made by colleagues from my group and I am voting against the introduction of the euro.
European and French farmers will soon realize that the euro is, in reality, a tool to destroy the common agricultural policy, to this day the only common policy which works.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="Reding">
The Europe of monetary union must also be the citizens' Europe.
<P>
Although the term "historic' is much misused these days, it is nevertheless an appropriate one to describe the events of this weekend.
After twenty turbulent years we have now finally fired the starting pistol for the European single currency.
Something so often denounced as a pipe dream, as an illusion, is now becoming reality.
<P>
Little Luxembourg has always advocated a common currency.
We have always been quick to recognize the financial and economic advantages of being part of a large European single currency area.
As early as 1969 the then head of the Luxembourg government, Pierre Werner, set out the fundamental concepts for a single currency - in the so-called "Werner Report' - which today form the basis for monetary union.
<P>
The Luxembourg economy will profit from the euro. For our mostly export-based companies the new monetary stability will mean less financial risk and greater savings, which will help improve the country's competitiveness.
In the long term this will certainly have a positive impact on the employment situation.
<P>
As Luxembourg is a relatively small country, its consumers are constantly having to deal with other currencies and therefore have to accept transaction costs and the problems of price comparison.
The euro will put an end to these problems - there will be no more irritating conversion costs and real transparency in cost comparisons.
Moreover, we can be proud of the fact that we are the only country to have concluded a consumer protection agreement with traders which guarantees a clear and proper transition period. This means that there will be no hidden price increases and that prices will be displayed both in euros and in Luxembourg francs.
<P>
However, apart from these practical aspects, we must not lose sight of the political objectives and consequences arising from the introduction of a single currency.
The Euro represents a major step towards "the ever closer union of the peoples of Europe' . The single currency is a powerful symbol of the deepening sense of common membership of Europe.
This deepening relationship will also be enjoyed by the Member States and monetary union will make common political decisions virtually inevitable.
<P>
We therefore need all EU Member States to join EMU sooner or later, so that they can participate in this process of merging together. What is more, the euro makes Europe irreversible and as such it guarantees the security of future generations.
<P>
It only remains for me to express my hope that financial and economic cooperation will have its sociopolitical parallel, so that the Europe of Economic and Monetary Union will also become the citizens' Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="de Rose">
We hope that this day will go down in history as an "historic' one!
<P>
The Council, the Commission and the European Parliament have agreed to apply strange criteria in a peculiar way, by obscuring some of them. This has caused much ink to flow.
<P>
The result is that we have 11 countries instead of 15, it is a semi-failure. Monetary union is not unanimous.
Public opinion is hostile or resigned.
<P>
I must therefore oppose this premature decision which, right up until the last moment, has not followed any truly democratic procedures.
<P>
Floods of propaganda have led us to believe that for the euro, as for "the pudding, the proof is in the eating' .
<P>
We must now watch out to ensure that the monetary process does not carry everything along in its wake, thus depriving the Member States of a degree of economic manoeuvre. They will no longer be able to justify this to their citizens, who have agreed to numerous efforts for hypothetical benefits which are still being put off until tomorrow.
<P>
Europe's main problem today is unemployment: 20 million citizens are looking for work. This is not inevitable, as we see the United States announcing at the same time that less than 5 % of its citizens are unemployed.
Was it reasonable to omit employment from the criteria?
<P>
Politicians' satisfaction should be dependent on the satisfaction of the people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="Seppänen">
The euro is a political currency, for which there is little economic justification.
It is an important and supposedly irreversible step in the direction of a federal EU.
As EMU leads to closer political union, the basis for a federal EU will be strengthened.
Inevitable institutional reforms will follow on from EMU (loss of Member States' right of veto and increased decision-taking by a qualified majority), as well as a common foreign and defence policy, which will perhaps lead to non-aligned countries being coerced into NATO membership.
<P>
Most of the countries opting for membership do not really meet the convergence criteria of the Maastricht Treaty.
A political crime will have been committed in the name of criteria ratified by the parliaments of the various countries if the euro is introduced prematurely, before the correct economic preconditions are in place.
<P>
Under the Maastricht Treaty, monetary policy will pass into the hands of the Community, but the Stability Pact, the regulatory agreement entered into in Dublin is also an essential part of the EMU process.
It restricts the economic independence of individual states and deprives them of their own mechanisms for financial policy-making.
EU economic policy will be controlled by the cyclical problems of the larger Member States.
<P>
If the introduction of a single currency is to be justified in the various countries, those countries have to start to harmonize and standardize.
That will inexorably lead to deflation in Europe and the resultant continuation of mass unemployment.
Although the fixed exchange rates may be correct at the time EMU is born, and the currency stable, because of historical and structural differences in the various countries, the introduction of the euro could cause enormous problems.
It is because of these very differences between the countries involved that the benefits and disadvantages are unevenly shared.
<P>
The EMU will be under the control of the European Central Bank, which will be run undemocratically and in a nonparliamentary fashion.
The ECB will represent a huge step backwards in the development of political democracy. It will be associated with the inviolable sanctity of markets and the irreversible transfer of power from politicians to so-called market forces.
<P>
There are no good economic reasons to have EMU.
There has never been a political solution which has made use of a political currency without corresponding policy-making, supervisory bodies and authorities.
<P>
It is not a union of states, that is to say a Europe of independent states, which is being built, but a federation: a political union with its supranational decision-making bodies.
This means that individual Member States will be forced to demonstrate, as a result of the decisions of others, a new kind of flexibility that will most probably prove to be intolerable to the trade union movement and the Nordic countries' model of the welfare state.
<P>
For the Nordic countries EMU means greater social inequality and, furthermore, greater inequality on grounds of gender.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="Sornosa Martínez">
My vote, which is in accordance with the views of the Nueva Izquierda party, is in favour of the proposal being made as to the countries to participate in the single currency.
<P>
I believe that the introduction of the single currency opens up a new perspective in the construction of Europe through the consolidation of the single market, but which needs, in turn, economic practices involving employment and fiscal harmonization policies, without forgetting that the objective is a Europe of solidarity and diversity.
<P>
I am voting in favour because I believe that, given the joint responsibility for the decision, I am entitled to continue to demand a fair fiscal policy which safeguards the entire acquis communautaire , particularly the welfare state, and to continue to work from now on towards political union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="Souchet">
We are here to take stock of the situation.
<P>
Faced with the forced euphoria and the streams of propaganda surrounding the 'euro-rush' , some of us, a minority, do not want to allow something we believe and our people feel to be a major political offence against our nations and against Europe to be completed in an atmosphere of general self-satisfaction.
<P>
As regards the single currency, we keep hearing about an irresistible and irreversible "sense of history' , which it would be useless to try to resist.
We must beware of utopian ideas: we have no excuses, we know where they lead.
<P>
When we are faced with a group of different societies and heterogeneous economies, as is the case today in the Europe of Eleven, or the Europe of Fifteen, and will be even more so tomorrow in the broader continental Europe, the imposition of a single currency, artificially forced on us, is a source of tensions and conflicts, while the fluctuation of exchange rates between different currencies is a source of peace.
<P>
Does recent history not teach us that artificial constructions are destined to collapse?
<P>
Even those who have limited diplomatic experience know that exchange-rate fluctuations act as an indicator of neutral and depersonalized management which help to take the heat out of conflicts, while in contrast the choices, orders and discriminations of a central authority bring them to the fore and add fuel to them.
<P>
How will the nations and the people who remain as distinct and as attached to the respect of their identity as we do, particularly those from the middle and lower classes, react in the face of the sanction mechanisms provided for by the Stability Pact?
How will our people react in the face of judgments, condemnations, penalties and exclusions which will be personalized and which will directly challenge the management of the governments they have elected to implement their wishes?
How will they react to orders which from centralized bodies, whose location is clear, but which the citizens do not identify with: the Ecofin Council and, in particular, the "sovereign' European Central Bank?
Will they not consider them an intolerable interference?
<P>
When economic, social and cultural behaviour is not similar, the exchange rate seems to be an irreplaceable safety valve for avoiding the spread of a localized crisis throughout an entire geographic area.
Will the inflexibilities of a single currency not, on the contrary, facilitate the spread of local crises, to the point of directly threatening the stability of the whole of Europe, in the case of a major shock?
<P>
It is difficult to see, in any case, how such tensions can be overcome in the absence of a totally united European nation, which does not exist at all.
It is easy to see, however, how those tensions could be at the root of a disintegration of European unity, which has barely been achieved, and a resurgence, particularly between France and Germany, of forgotten antagonisms.
Will the euro not poison Franco-German relations over the years to come?
<P>
It does not augur well that the history of the ECB is beginning with a bitter quarrel over its president.
What will it be like then when the differences no longer concern people who share the same philosophy, but the fixing of interest rates on which the vitality of specific economies is dependent?
<P>
At a time when the nations have just freed themselves at least from the blocs which had tried to break them up, why try to create, in the form of the euro area, a "new type of empire' , according to Mr Moscovici's formula in Aix-la-Chapelle, a new bloc, in other words, a new source of division and confrontation in Europe?
The mechanism of the single currency had been directly established by the Delors report, before the fall of the Berlin Wall, in a context where the blocs still existed.
Far from being the symbol of a new post-Soviet Europe, the euro is, on the contrary, the supreme symbol of a construction of Europe which was conceived during and out of the Cold War, and which has not been able to reconsider its foundations and objectives in the light of the new geopolitical situation.
<P>
Launching the euro today means launching the euro complete with all its risks.
The adventure is fraught with too many threats to be undertaken light-heartedly.
To try, with a Promethean approach, with the aid of the single currency, to force the homogenization of the present economies and societies of Europe's nations, is to go a step too far, and to risk overturning the entire reconciled European ship. It would also make it impossible to reunite the greater Europe that had nevertheless been destined to replace the Europe which was mutilated at Yalta.
<P>
Europe's strength resides in the synergy of the enterprising nations it is made up of, not in the elimination of their sovereignty in favour of central power.
We now talk about the construction of Europe as a kind of self-evident fact, at a time when, through monetary unification, we are setting about destroying the very spirit of European dynamism.
We could say instead that we are embarking on an adventure which will lead to self-destruction.
<P>
We will wonder tomorrow about the strange genesis of the single currency.
Who wanted to see the end of national currencies and the creation of this single currency?
Which nations?
Where is the democracy?
What economic necessities forced it upon us?
Where is the concern for the common good?
<P>
In reality, we are faced with a technocratic diktat drawn up by a small conniving circle and blindly adopted by the Heads of State or Government, who allowed themselves to be deprived of the responsibilities with which they had been entrusted by their people.
They have all subjected themselves to the arrogance of experts driven by a dream of power, to which the nations' persistence represents an obstacle and which they have therefore decided to reduce.
Because of this weakness of the Council the people and their wishes are totally absent from this debate.
<P>
The inventors of the single currency have found in it a pure instrument of supranationality, without any further trace of an intergovernmental element; this vital instrument will successively eliminate the decision-making national authorities which still remain.
The Stability Pact has already been beefed up by the Ecofin Council and the federalists have declared that the single currency will only be effective if we move very quickly towards greater cooperation and convergence.
The process which we are condemning is working at full steam.
<P>
But this policy does not address the will of the people.
They do not want a construction of Europe based on confusion, where the Chancellor of the Exchequer presents us with proposals which his government does not agree with, and where the Members of the European Parliament from those countries which are not participating in EMU vote on the creation of a euro area to which their own countries do not belong.
<P>
We shall soon see that the people do not want a vague Europe built on a never-ending rush forwards.
There are thresholds which must not be crossed.
The adoption of the single currency has established a process which could in fact lead the people one day to reject the whole idea of the construction of Europe.
The burden of responsibility on those who launched and who support such a project, and on those who support it, will then be clear for all to see.
<P>
We have rejected the Ecofin Council's recommendation so that the nations can continue to act for the common good, in the interests of the people they represent; we have rejected it so as to preserve the unity and stability of Europe and to ensure the lasting future of Franco-German friendship. In this respect, we believe that it is essential to maintain, in contrast to the "irreversible' process of the single currency which is put to us, the people's right to self-determination.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="Spiers">
<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="Striby">
Personally, I wished to abstain from today's historic vote.
<P>
I am aware of the importance of the decision we have just taken.
The idea of a single currency is perhaps attractive, but I have always expressed strong reservations about its introduction by a limited number of Member States.
I have always expressed my conviction that the single currency should have been the crowning achievement of the European Union, and not a means among others of attaining it.
<P>
We have just launched the euro with only 11 of 15 countries; I regret this deeply.
<P>
The premature nature of the introduction of the euro will have destabilizing economic, political and social effects, and today we still cannot measure the extent of these effects.
<P>
That is why I will not be able to reconsider my position on the euro until the day when all 15 Member States participate in Economic and Monetary Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
The birth of the euro signals the march towards the integration of the notion of a Europe of capitalism, of multinationalism, of despotism and repression. The road to Calvary is becoming ever steeper and more inaccessible for working people.
<P>
A Europe without borders and without discrimination, a Europe of the people, of working people, of cooperation, of peace and democracy, remains the dream of millions of European citizens, of working people who continue to fight tirelessly for their own society of justice and equality, of harmonious development, the centrepiece of which should be mankind and universal values, not profit and money.
<P>
The euro will impede this struggle and place yet another foundation stone in a society of exploitation and social injustice.
This common feeling has, however, been crudely brought about by the callous policy of the current leaders of the EU and of the Member States.
Popular opposition to the plans of the multinationals will become ever more intense and they will not allow their plans to succeed.
<P>
The introduction of the common currency is accompanied by the breaking up of the so-called European social state, with dramatic repercussions for the employment, social and social security rights of working people.
<P>
The stance of the European Parliament has not reflected the responsibilities of those who, with their decisions and their policy, have contributed to this catastrophic state of affairs. On the contrary, it gave the go-ahead to the Heads of States and Government and to the notorious Ecofin Council to continue their reactionary and unpopular policy.
<P>
The pacts of stability and financial discipline, of "locking into' exchange rate parities, are the means by which an extreme monetarist policy is being implemented, which seeks to safeguard the interests of the money markets and to force the Member States to adopt an economic policy in the interests of those markets.
The so-called independence of the European Central Bank, which is now being set up, will effectively marginalize people and allow the money markets to make decisions not only without the irksome interventions of popular movements but also without the intervention of governments themselves.
<P>
Exploitation and austerity, attempts to overthrow the social security system and the dismantling of labour relations will become even more acute in the context of the draconian measures of the agreements and provisions to promote the euro and the strengthened multilateral control mechanisms.
<P>
When the dust has settled after all the celebrations, the phoney image of European integration and the false visions will soon be replaced by the true picture of the human misery which will overrun Europe, working people and nations alike.
The nominal convergence criteria will come into conflict with real divergence within the economies of the Member States, reflecting social conflicts and the relative and absolute degradation to which working people throughout Europe are being driven. This will highlight even more clearly the consequences for Europe of multiple speeds and concentric circles.
<P>
Whatever happens, as long as the power and the interests of the money markets are armour-plated, social opposition will spiral.
The workers will fight to overthrow this stable structure.
They will build their own Europe, a Europe centred around mankind, a Europe of peace, of mutually beneficial cooperation, of progress and social prosperity.
A Europe of Socialism.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="Torres Marques">
I have been the only Portuguese Member on the European Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy in an active capacity from the beginning of the legislative process. Thus, in addition to taking part in the exciting day-to-day work of creating the euro and all the legislative and political measures necessary for its introduction, I have had the opportunity of being one of the Members who drafted one the 14 reports prepared on the subject and approved by the European Parliament since 1995.
<P>
It has been a colossal task, but extremely rewarding.
I have held from the start that the euro should be introduced by the greatest possible number of countries on 1 January 1999, and that delaying this step would have enormously serious political and economic consequences for the kind of EU I believe in and for the future of Europe.
<P>
The euro will lead to far greater integration of economic, fiscal and employment policies and to a clear increase in support for education, scientific and technological development and professional training for Europeans.
<P>
This challenge is not an easy one, nor is it without obstacles; but, just as Portugal has successfully taken it up and for the first time joined the group of countries that is inaugurating an historic change of direction such as the one we are now involved in, so the EU has shown that with political will and determination it is possible to overcome internal and external opposition to change and has moved forward to create a political area that will be carry weight in the world.
<P>
That is why I have voted in favour of the decision on the eleven countries to be included in the third stage of EMU as from 1 January 1999.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 NAME="Ullman">
I have voted for the adoption of the euro on 1 January 1999.
This I have done in the conviction that this decision is in the interests of the citizens who elected me to this House.
<P>
Whether this conviction is shared by the citizens of Europe themselves, at least by those in Germany, is open to doubt.
The democratic deficit of the European Union has in turn resulted in a serious information deficit.
The abundant distribution of glossy brochures cannot compensate for this.
Advertising can never be a substitute for forming democratic opinion.
<P>
No arrangement was ever made with the citizens of the European Union that the new currency area was to be a political area which would in future compel their governments to speak with one voice in monetary and economic negotiations conducted at international level.
<P>
I shall therefore continue to advocate that the opportunity to hold referenda on issues affecting all the citizens of the Union should in future be part of the obligatory democratic conditions of membership of the European Union and that this provision must also be adopted in Germany.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="Van Dam">
Many people have spoken of an historic moment today.
They are right.
The strange thing is that seldom has such a radical decision been taken in such a careless way.
<P>
Council, Commission and Parliament have stretched the admission criteria to such an extent that EMU is starting up with a group of countries which is too large and too heterogeneous.
The structural budget deficits of two participants are well over three percent of their GDP, despite economic window dressing.
Ideas on economic policy and the role of the government are in some cases diametrically opposed to each other.
In this context it is irresponsible of Member States to let very important policy instruments slip from their hands to be left to the whims of occasional coalitions in Ecofin and the Euro 11 Council.
<P>
The larger groups in the EP are furiously working on the problem of pensions.
The importance of reducing the public debt is obvious, in view of the future ageing of the population.
While a paragraph on this was removed from the resolution, a corresponding passage in the Council's statement seems to command universal support. Careless?
Anyway, hardly confidence inspiring.
<P>
I am against the formation of EMU and the introduction of the euro for political reasons.
But the amazingly superficial lack of care is yet one more reason for voting against.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="Väyrynen and Virrankoski">
We the undersigned, representing the Finnish Central Party in the European Parliament, support the position of our party, which is taking a stand against both the establishment of a single currency and Finland's presence among the first countries participating in the third stage of EMU.
<P>
We oppose the decision to take Economic and Monetary Union into the third stage as well as Finland's presence in the process for both political and economic reasons.
<P>
Economic and Monetary Union will lead to a federalized Europe.
This we oppose: we think that the Union should have developed into an alliance of independent states.
<P>
The EU will not be able to create an optimal situation where a single currency region could work successfully.
<P>
Earlier attempts to create a common currency exchange rate policy for the EU failed.
The last currency hullabaloo took place at the start of this decade when the exchange rates of many key Member States also changed.
It is unrealistic to suppose that the economies of EU Member States could in some way have harmonized since then, and that a single currency could work successfully.
<P>
All this aside, when monetary union comes about, there will be a growing need to bring in measures to redress increasing discrepancies in regional development and to support Member States when they suffer particular hardship for economic or structural reasons.
<P>
We also oppose the draft resolution prepared for Parliament, particularly because Finland should, in our opinion, have aligned herself with Britain, Denmark and Sweden in opting out of the third stage of monetary union.
<P>
Switching to a single currency is an immense political undertaking.
The countries participating will lose their own currency, which means serious restrictions on the independence of their economic policy.
Thus, Finland will acquire a currency whose interest rate level and value against other currencies we shall have no real influence on.
The economic policies and development of other countries will, instead, have a decisive effect on our own economy and society.
<P>
Finland is a geographically remote country: we are a long way from the principal EU markets.
The structure of our society and economy differs greatly from that prevailing in core Europe.
Finland will surely suffer on account of the single currency, both structurally and economically.
In setting up monetary union no one has taken stock of these problems in any way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 NAME="Voggenhuber">
A single currency in the European Union constitutes a huge step towards European integration.
It makes the union of Europe a perceptible reality for all its citizens and creates a new sense of mutual responsibility for all the countries and companies of the EU.
A single currency can therefore represent a significant step towards overcoming nationalism.
The euro will bring a series of economic benefits and in the long term could well become a counterbalance to the global power of the US dollar.
For this reason I am today supporting Mr von Wogau's report on the Council's recommendation.
<P>
But this is not the time for Parliament to start cheering about the current state of monetary union.
There have been too many bad decisions in an economic policy which has been one-sidedly monetarist. There was the appalling failure of the Amsterdam Summit to initiate the political union which is necessary for monetary union and finally to give European integration a social and employment policy dimension.
A scandalous ignorance has been displayed in the practical development of monetary union in the face of mass unemployment, the creation of a new type of poverty and the increasingly unjust distribution of wealth and income.
<P>
These mistakes make it all the more difficult for the citizens of Europe to accept the integration project and have created serious social problems.
The Green Group has been resolutely opposed to this abuse of the fundamental concept of a single currency by the prevailing and increasingly militant neo-liberal ideology and the undue influence exerted by the financial markets.
<P>
In spite of these highly questionable circumstances, I am aware of the reality of the situation which has been created by the established political forces and which at this advanced stage makes it impossible, without undue risk, to make good the failed attempts to establish political and social integration before we finally enter monetary union.
<P>
However, I do not wish to ignore the fact that positive developments have been achieved in recent months and that these have clearly helped to reduce many of the risks.
Notable among these is the decision to launch monetary union with eleven participating countries and thus to avert the risk of splitting the Union by creating a "core Europe' .
We also welcome the wide political discretion which was used when interpreting the convergence criteria, in the same way as the tentative, though still completely inadequate, steps towards a coordinated economic policy, the ending of the destructive practice of tax dumping and the creation of a European employment policy.
<P>
The development of a political union, which has so far eluded us, the setting up of a European democracy and the creation of a social union are all indispensable and these will remain the crucial challenge for European integration over the next four years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="Wolf">
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="President">
Parliament has completed its agenda.
<P>
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 1.06 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 2 May 1998.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, you are all aware that Italy is currently undergoing a time of great suffering and sorrow because of the tragic mudslides and floods which have affected various localities in the region of Campania, particularly Sarno, Bracigliano, Quindici and Siano.
So far, there are known to have been 135 victims, and the number of people missing may be even higher.
Ninety-five people have been injured, and more than a thousand have lost their homes and possessions.
<P>
I think that at times like this it is important for the whole European Union to show solidarity with the victims and their families.
If you agree, I will convey our institution's condolences and sympathy to the Italian authorities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="Monti">
Mr President, the Commission shares these sentiments regarding such a serious and immense tragedy and, for its part, is considering the possibility of some form of concrete intervention to show this solidarity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Ahern">
Mr President, I would like to inform this House that today at 13.00 hours GMT India made an underground thermonuclear test similar to the one that she conducted in 1974.
I would ask this House to condemn these nuclear tests outright and condemn India for not being part of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
I would also ask this House to criticize the acknowledged five nuclear powers for setting a bad example and in particular for the nuclear test in Mururoa some time ago.
We in the European Union have set India a bad example and I would also like this House to condemn the transfer of civil nuclear technology to third countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Ripa di Meana">
Mr President, a very quick point of order to express the wish that the Commission may rapidly set aside an adequate sum to deal with the serious disaster which hit Campania and the Sarno valley.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bianco">
Mr President, I had already asked to speak, but you were sensitive enough to open this sitting by immediately remembering the victims in the Sarno valley.
I would like to thank you and Professor Monti for this solidarity.
Parliament must urge the European Council and the Commission to intervene effectively, so that these tortured people - whom I have visited and seen for myself the conditions in which they are living - can know that Europe is not far away.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Marinucci">
Mr President, I would like to thank you for the sensitivity you have shown, by dedicating the opening of this sitting to the tragedy which took place in Campania.
I hope very much that the warmth of feeling and sensitivity shown by my colleagues who applauded your initiative and the sensitivity shown by Commissioner Monti, who made some promises, will truly allow Italy to feel that Europe is close at hand at these tragic times.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Díez de Rivera Icaza">
Mr President, I would like to know if there is anything you can do to find out why Air France has cancelled its regular and special flights to Strasbourg.
<P>
Yesterday it took me 14 hours to get here.
When I finally arrived in Strasbourg - which is an enchanting city and the headquarters of this Parliament - I was so tired I felt like I had travelled to India.
I would therefore be very grateful, Mr President, if you could do something to find out why the Air France flights have been cancelled.
<P>
Secondly, since you opened this sitting with sympathy for the catastrophe in Italy, I would be grateful if you could also mention another enormous catastrophe - not in terms of human life, but in terms of people's livelihoods, and the unique European habitat of the Doñana national park.
I would be grateful if you could express our solidarity to the relevant authorities.
Thank you very much.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Díez de Rivera Icaza.
I shall do so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Christodoulou">
Mr President, during the sitting of 29 April, the European Parliament honoured the memory of a great Greek statesman and a great European.
Konstantinos Karamanlis was a national leader who had the approval of all parties, transcended party politics and had the good fortune of being alive to see the recognition of his work by political friends and foe alike.
He acquitted himself with prudence, moderation and insight.
He turned the visions of a nation into reality and consistently and responsibly carved out the most advantageous national policy and laid the foundations for the growth of prosperity in the region.
But Konstantinos Karamanlis was also a great European, not only because he was a unique and wonderful leader who, literally by himself, placed Greece among the ranks of the European Communities, but also because he always had a clear and definite idea of the European ideal.
He believed that only a united Europe could achieve great things and safeguard democracy, prosperity and peace for its peoples.
<P>
Tomorrow morning at 8.00 a.m. in the Palais, the Greek Members of the European Parliament will hold a short memorial service to honour Konstantinos Karamanlis and all those colleagues who would like to take part will be welcome.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pomés Ruiz">
Mr President, this Parliament, which has so often demonstrated its desire to defend human rights, must not ignore the fact that last week the terrorist organization ETA once again attacked a politician, a defender of liberty, in Spain. He was Tomás Caballero, a member of the Navarre People's Union and that political party's spokesman on Pamplona city council.
ETA also murdered a sub-lieutenant in the civil guard, Alfonso Parada.
<P>
Mr President, today ETA still represents the most flagrant violation of human rights within the territory of the European Union.
<P>
This Parliament cannot ignore these crimes, and we should condemn these attacks.
I beg you, Mr President, to convey this condemnation to the Spanish authorities and the victims.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, on behalf of the Spanish Socialists, I want to express my condolences to Mr Pomés Ruiz for the murder of a fellow politician, and join in with the condemnation of this vile attack and the murder of the civil guard, Mr Parada.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gutiérrez Díaz">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, our painful denunciation of the assassinations of two more European citizens is not just a ritual. In the face of the murderer's fascist irrationality, we are affirming once again the principles which form the basis for the construction of the European Union: democratic coexistence, respect for minorities, and the recognition of the wishes of the majority.
<P>
By saying "no' to attempts to establish violence as a way of imposing the will of visionaries, we are restating our decision to defend democracy, using democratic methods and means. This is not to be seen as weakness but rather as an expression of our profound conviction that although irrational, fascist violence can kill democrats, it can never assassinate democracy.
<P>
The pain we feel for the victims and our sympathy with the people closest to them commit us to the cause they stood for and for which they were murdered.
So, in saying "no' to any form of fascism - though it may be disguised as nationalism - it is worth remembering that while cowards might murder European democrats, they cannot weaken our conviction nor breach our solidarity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="Morris">
Mr President, while endorsing what my colleague Mrs Ahern has said about the Indian nuclear tests, I wish to draw to the attention of the House that this week in the UK it is Christian Aid week.
I would hope that we could send a very clear message from this Parliament to the G8 meeting in Birmingham that we are all in favour of them urgently addressing the issue of world debt.
This is killing so many millions of people, especially young children, and I do not think that we would wish to neglect sending a very clear message that they must now at last resolve the issue of world debt and the way it is affecting young children in particular in the Third World.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Schifone">
Mr President, I am attending the European Parliament for the first time, and I am also a regional councillor for Campania, therefore I must mention your consideration for the people of our region who were affected in recent days by the mud slide, a tragedy which has destroyed whole communities, and caused victims, while there are still many people missing in the rubble.
<P>
I should also like to emphasize that our region is living through, and now paying the price of, an insane policy over recent decades and that an intervention plan is therefore necessary, which the region is preparing through a plan for the monitoring, identification and prevention of natural disasters.
<P>
All of this also requires the effort and solidarity of the European Union however, and I therefore thank you and all my colleagues who have asked the European Commission to intervene as quickly as possible to give a tangible sign of European solidarity towards our region.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Vallvé">
Mr President, going back to what my colleagues Mr Pomés Ruiz, Mr Medina Ortega and Mr Gutiérrez Díaz said, I also want to express my condemnation of the outrages in the Basque Country and Navarre last week, and our condolences to the victims and their families.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Vallvé.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Request for the waiver of Mr Ribeiro Campos' immunity
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0155/98) by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on the request for waiver of the parliamentary immunity of Mr António Carlos Ribeiro Campos.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, it is my honour to present, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, this report on the Portuguese authorities' request for the waiver of the parliamentary immunity of our colleague in this House, Mr Ribeiro Campos.
<P>
The conclusion reached by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, by seven votes in favour to two against, is that there are NO grounds for a decision from this Parliament in relation to the Portuguese authorities' request, because the dossier they sent does not provide sufficient reason.
I will return to this later.
<P>
Secondly and in parallel, the Committee on the Rules of Procedure has declared itself in favour of Parliament's report making it clear that there would be NO obstacle placed in the way of Mr Ribeiro Campos appearing in court - although this would have to be in the capacity of a witness, without the slightest compromise to his rights - especially those rights he enjoys as a Member of this Parliament - and, of course, without any coercion.
<P>
So the measure adopted by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities is in two parts: NO reason for a decision and NO objection on Parliament's part to Mr Ribeiro Campos appearing and being heard in these proceedings.
<P>
Mr President, this is actually an old problem, which we have been dealing with in this Parliament since at least 1976, ever since the election of MEPs by direct universal suffrage made people realize that there was a need for a single MEP's statute.
This is a very clear demonstration of the problems caused by not having a single MEP's statute.
Because in order to examine this question, we have to refer to Article 10 of the 1965 Protocol on the Privileges and Immunities of the European Communities, the 1976 Act concerning the Election of Representatives of the European Parliament, and the Constitution or legislation of each Member State. The situations in the Member States are very diverse: no parliamentary immunity in the UK, and others with a totally different type of parliamentary immunity.
That creates unnecessary differences.
This Parliament increasingly represents the citizens of Europe.
So there should be mechanisms to protect its Members - because parliamentary immunity is nothing more than protection for the work they do in this Parliament.
And that protection should be provided with full respect for the principle of equality between Members.
<P>
In that sense, Mr President, I should like to go back to the second part of the decision adopted by a wide majority in the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
Notwithstanding the disparity caused by referring to the legislations of the various Member States, as Community legislation obliges us to do, that committee has been trying for a long time to establish a jurisprudence - a line of conduct to constitute a common practice.
And the basis of that line of conduct should be an absence of artificial differences between an MEP and a normal citizen.
An MEP is a normal citizen in the eyes of the law, but he or she is also a representative of the people and, as such, should be protected against legal proceedings which might compromise, not themselves, but what they represent - compromising the citizens of Europe, in fact.
<P>
That, Mr President, is the reason for the clarification in the second part of the decision adopted by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
What that committee wants to convey to the Portuguese authorities is that it places no obstacle, but upholds the guarantees to which any Member of this Parliament is entitled, by the very fact of being so.
Therefore, the committee clearly states that at the moment there are no grounds for a waiver of immunity, and requests that we should be sent more information once the proceedings have reached a more advanced stage. Meanwhile, there is no objection to Mr Ribeiro Campos being heard under these conditions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wibe">
Mr President, let me begin by thanking Palacio Vallelersundi for an absolutely excellent report, the conclusions of which I entirely agree with.
Let me say also that the matter of principle which we discussed in the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities concerns where in the judicial process parliamentary immunity shall start to apply.
It thus turns on a judicial process which can be said to extend from an inquiry via preliminary investigation to prosecution, judgement and sentencing.
The question is therefore where in this process parliamentary immunity shall start to apply.
<P>
As we know, there are instances of parliamentary immunity which cover solely the actual penalty; one can be prosecuted and judged, therefore, but not punished.
However, immunity of this kind does not apply to Members of the European Parliament.
We end instead before the point of prosecution.
The principal question is then whether a preliminary investigation, as is involved in this case, shall also be covered by our immunity or not.
We have of course decided that it is not covered by our immunity.
The Portuguese authorities may accordingly initiate preliminary investigations in this case, but if they reach the point of prosecution, in the case of Mr Campos, they must come back with a request for the lifting of immunity.
<P>
There are two reasons why we do not consider that a preliminary investigation should be included in the requirements for immunity: In the first place, it can be said that a preliminary investigation is needed to clarify the exact nature of any offences which the person is said to have perpetrated; a preliminary investigation can thus clarify the situation for us here in the Parliament.
<P>
The second reason is precisely that mentioned by Palacio Vallelersundi, namely that we would like to minimize this right to immunity as much as possible and ensure that it will not imply any privilege for Members of this Parliament.
It shall instead be just what it is intended to be, namely a safeguard for our freedom of expression.
With that I would like to call for this report to be approved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Request for the waiver of Mr Rosado Fernandes' immunity
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0154/98) by Mr Wijsenbeek, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on the request for waiver of the parliamentary immunity of Mr Raúl Miguel Rosado Fernandes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, although the facts, it is true, are different from those in Mrs Palacio's earlier report on Mr Campos, this request is in fact concerned with the same thing.
<P>
The Portuguese Public Prosecution Service wishes to start enquiries into the charges which, although not otherwise relevant here, are concerned in both cases with charges of misuse of European Union agriculture funds.
We, in Parliament, have gradually built up a law of precedent and in this case, indeed in both cases, we could say that it is a matter of fumus persecutionis .
Nevertheless, we do not want to do that, precisely because in recent years we have taken the line that we ought not to give the press and public any reason at all to think that we would wish to protect our Members, and that they can do or say virtually anything without sanctions by availing themselves of parliamentary immunity.
<P>
Parliamentary immunity is intended, and must be used and continue to be used, so that the institution as such can safeguard itself from the obstruction of our duties as a co-legislator in the meantime.
This means that Members as individuals cannot claim protection against criminal investigation.
This brings us right to the heart of the problem that lies before us today in Mrs Palacio's and my reports.
<P>
Article 10 of the Protocol says that Members enjoy 'in the territory of their own State, the immunities accorded to members of their parliament' .
Members of Parliament in Portugal cannot be cross-examined, not even as witnesses - Mr President, I must just explain this - without their immunity being formally waived, whereas we assume that no waiver of immunity is needed for our Members to be cross-examined.
<P>
Once again we are having to pay for the lack of a detailed statute of our own and equal immunity for all our Members regardless of their nationality.
It is high time that the Bureau came up with the necessary proposals for this, which have been held up as false hopes for so long, otherwise, yet again, nothing will come of it before the next session.
<P>
My committee has tried time and time again to come to an informal agreement with the Portuguese authorities, because this is certainly not the first time that the Member State of Portugal has asked us to waive immunity, in particular with regard to Mr Campos. We invariably reply that the authorities can proceed with their cross-examination and enquiries as long as Parliament as an institution, or in this case the Members concerned, are able to carry out their duties freely and without disruption.
After all, the question of waiver of immunity cannot arise for us yet, because no charges, criminal or otherwise, have yet been brought.
<P>
A delegation from our committee will soon be making a working visit to Portugal to raise this issue once again, when it will be done directly and not only through an exchange of correspondence with colleagues from the Portuguese Parliament and the relevant authorities at the Ministry of Justice.
<P>
Meanwhile, we stick to our proposal not to respond positively or negatively to this request.
We ask the Public Prosecution Service to conduct the necessary enquiries, including cross-examining the Members, but to keep us informed and not to take any measures against the Members in question which could prevent them from carrying out their duties in our institution before we have been given an opportunity to express our view.
<P>
Mrs Palacio and I ask the House to support this recommendation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wibe">
Mr President, I would like to say again that I have no objections whatsoever to the report which Mr Wijsenbeek has drawn up.
As he himself says, the question of principle of course is actually the same as in the previous business, that is whether a prosecutor shall have the right to initiate a preliminary investigation, or whether this requires us to lift Members' immunity.
In this case the same resolution applies as in the Campos case.
<P>
However, there is a certain difference between these two cases which may merit attention.
I believe that we are almost completely in agreement in the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities as regards what parliamentary immunity shall actually cover, to be precise, freedom of expression for we Members; it must not therefore be able to be restricted in any way.
In principle, this means that we shall not be able to be prosecuted for anything which is said from the rostrums in this House.
<P>
We are likewise completely in agreement that when it is a question of "ordinary' violations, that is to say criminal offences, then we Members of Parliament shall quite simply be able to be prosecuted and our immunity lifted.
<P>
However, I should like to point out that there is a grey area between these two extremes.
It is thus conceivable for a Member to make a speech in Parliament which he cannot be prosecuted for.
If the Member then returns to his native country and makes exactly the same speech, with a political content, shall he then be able to be prosecuted for this?
Are we thus to lift his immunity for this?
This is roughly what applies in the Campos case, but does not apply in this other case, which concerns a possible offence entirely unrelated to work as a Member of the European Parliament.
<P>
With these detailed observations I wish to congratulate the rapporteur once again on a quite excellent report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Legal protection of biotechnological inventions
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0170/98), on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the common position established by the Council (C4-0132/98-95/0350(COD)) with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions (Rapporteur: Mr Rothley).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Rothley">
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Barzanti">
Mr President, in Europe a directive is required which harmonizes the procedures for patenting biotechnological inventions.
The question has been open for more than ten years.
Finally it can be closed, by approving the balanced and efficient text of the common position established by the Council without further amendment.
I agree with the report drawn up by Mr Rothley.
<P>
There is an urgent need for order and clarity in a situation which is chaotic and confused, to avoid disagreements in interpretation and age-old disputes which continue to penalize Europe, leaving the way clear for the large American and Japanese multinationals.
This directive is the result of the urgent need to define European rules, given the framework of standards which is becoming more precise and detailed at international level: the Council of Europe's Convention on Biomedicine and Human Rights and the Rio Convention on Biodiversity, which is now subject to verification in Bratislava.
<P>
Anyone who has not accepted from today the establishment of the directive in discussion considers that the patent, in the context of a global economy which does not allow marginal or exceptional solutions, is fundamental to guarantee research, allow control, circulate results, and encourage the consequent widespread economic development.
<P>
As for biotechnology, it is a retrograde step, in my view, to state an ideological and prejudicial "no' , although I respect that.
In my view, it is necessary to govern it, direct it, deal with the specific and restricted sphere of patenting methods, fixing precise and insurmountable ethical limits; this is the specific European dimension, on the basis of the proposals which our Parliament put forward at first reading.
<P>
I do not recall the features of the text which are stated here.
Much inaccurate criticism was expressed on the agreement reached; it should be confirmed that it is not true that techniques of genome line genetic engineering can be patented; it is not true that blocking patents can be created, because the patent confers rights on the process which refer to a drug restricted only to the function shown.
I cannot underestimate the possible imbalances damaging agriculture and favouring industry and the risks of aggressive exploitation in the South of the world.
Europe must be in the forefront in fighting for effective cooperation and choices which are consistent with the protection of biodiversity, respecting nature and the rights of people, but it must do it with courageous policies, it is not with the ability to give patents and with this directive that one can have an instrument for this purpose.
<P>
For this directive we must think positively however, when looking at the future of biotechnology.
To those who call to mind suggestive and frightening images of pig men or new Frankensteins, as Dario Fo stated recently, I recall other monsters, real and not imaginary: serious illnesses which are not yet beaten, scourges such as cancer and AIDS.
This directive can help us to conquer them, giving certainties in terms of regulations to research and industry.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mosiek-Urbahn">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to thank the rapporteur for his patience, his commitment and his incredible staying power during this ten year legislative procedure.
I would like with wholehearted conviction to support his recommendation that we accept the common position unchanged.
<P>
I, too, recognize explicitly that the common position which is now before us represents an improvement over the first text.
It presents many things in a way which is textually clearer and more easily understood.
Nonetheless, I cannot refrain from pointing out that in the case of the second draft, which is now before us in the shape of the common position, we are not dealing with any basic change to the result that we achieved in the Conciliation Committee.
At that time, the Group of the European People's Party voted by an overwhelming majority for the compromise reached in the Conciliation Committee, and it is fully behind it.
I would like to point this out in order to counteract the impression that a genuinely acceptable text has become available only in the context of the second legislative procedure.
<P>
Nonetheless, as I have already said, the present text is more clearly drafted and for that reason it is to be welcomed.
Any problems in relation to the acceptability of this directive are based on a fundamental misunderstanding.
It is assumed, for example, that all concerns in the area of ethics also need to be regulated in the context of the patent directive.
That is to miss a number of points.
<P>
On the one hand, patenting an invention does not in any sense mean that the patent holder is also allowed to deploy it or even to make use of it on an industrial scale.
National laws alone determine this.
In the field of biotechnology, these are, in Germany for example, in the first case the Gene Technology Act, the Embryo Protection Act, and law on medicine.
If standardization is desired in this field, we shall need a European Gene Technology Act and a European Embryo Protection Act, but you cannot make a start on this in the context of the bio-patents directive.
<P>
In addition, and contrary to the first impression, the rejection of a patent application, in other words the refusal of patent protection, does not mean that all exploitation of the invention is excluded.
It simply means that it is then freely available for anyone to use, provided that its use is permissible under general national laws.
<P>
It is important to point this out in order to gain an understanding of the directive, be it in its first or second draft, and in order to classify it correctly in terms of its legal character.
Only if we bear these aspects in mind will we be in a position to take an objective view in the context of this legislative procedure.
Patent law is not an instrument for postulating a European legal and moral order.
In this respect, I give my unreserved agreement to the substantive explanations of the rapporteur.
We need this directive, and if we adopt it tomorrow, as I hope we do, by agreeing to the common position, we shall achieve a strengthening of Europe's attraction as a location for biotechnology, and as a result we shall be able to hold our ground far better in terms of the law of competition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pompidou">
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Monfils">
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, we will vote against both the common position and the Rothley report since it approaches this issue, which is of vital importance for the present and future of mankind alike, with technocratic and financial regulations. Nor does it provide for and establish rules and strict, pre-emptive, repressive, continuous and effective controls to prevent the risk of causing an affront to mankind and nature and the overturning of social life and of human growth and development.
On the contrary, we believe that, whether the report or the common position wishes it or not, these regulations make it easier for oligopolies and monopolies to lay their hands on these biotechnological discoveries and inventions and to apply them on behalf - always - of their own unregulated and inhuman profit.
For this reason I said that we would vote against the report and the common position and we request that they receive a radical overhaul in a direction and with a content which correspond to the true mission of science, which is at the behest of mankind. Finally science, with its discoveries, must enable mankind to make its life better and more secure and not to make it worse and to place it in danger of being destroyed by a holocaust.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
Madam President, the Green Group's opposition to this directive is well known, and our motives are also well known and clear.
<P>
The directive proposes to patent living organisms, their genes and parts of their body, including those of mankind.
This is an absurdity clear to each and every citizen: a living organism is not an object, a thing, an invention, even if some of its genes are modified, using biological systems which exist in nature.
At most these genes are discovered, but the discoveries cannot be patented.
<P>
We are not prejudicially against patenting techniques which allow modified organisms to be obtained or to isolate and replicate genes: but this does not authorize the patenting of organisms and genes.
<P>
Genes are information, information which is written with a molecular alphabet, and this information is the property of the person to whom it belongs; it can be stated at most that it is the collective property of humanity, but it cannot be for any industry to transform it into goods.
To define this information as patentable - for example a human gene when it is isolated and reproduced outside the body - is like stating that the literary writings of Homer, Dante or Shakespeare - today the cultural property of humanity - can be patented if they are reproduced on another system which is the result of human technology, such as a compact disc for example.
I think we all agree that it is the compact disc which can be patented, not the work of Dante or Shakespeare.
And in the same way the technologies can be patented, not the genes and organisms.
This logic may lead to very dangerous consequences: for example it questions the Convention on Biodiversity, and the sole objective is the companies' profits.
<P>
For this reason we think that it is not acceptable to patent living organisms, and to do so constitutes above all a dangerous block for scientific research, as stated by the National Institute of Health in the United States of America, which now refuses to patent genes.
<P>
In addition, gene therapy will only be available for the most common diseases, given that the companies will not be interested in developing therapy for rare diseases which cannot offer sufficient profits.
<P>
The European Parliament has already modified this directive, but the Council has rejected all the amendments which we have proposed, in particular for bio-piracy, concerning the "farmers' privilege' and the mistreatment of animals.
<P>
For all these reasons we the Greens state that this directive must be rejected, or at least the amendments which were approved by the Parliament must be reinstated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="Ewing">
Madam President, my group will be voting against this directive.
I would like wholeheartedly to endorse what was said by the last two speakers - Mr Ephremidis and the speaker from the Greens - and re-echo all their points about the debasing of the currency of humanity.
<P>
It seems to me we are being asked to give carte blanche to multinationals' profit motive in the pharmaceutical sector.
I do not think that sector needs a lot of sympathy from us.
We are really being asked to be the handmaidens of patent law.
Some of the claims that have been made have been quite false.
We were told that the common position takes into account 66 crucial amendments that Parliament passed, but on examination you find that is not the case.
And yet that has been put about, making people who object to this seem unreasonable.
But in fact some have been changed, some have been deleted.
I give an example of Amendment No 13 where the word 'rights' is omitted and only the word 'obligations' remains.
I take issue with that.
<P>
There is also a contradiction in the way the supporters of this directive are putting it forward.
They are able to say 'we are against patenting the human body' , but then they are making it legal to give a patent on an isolated gene on a gene sequence.
There is a certain misleading aspect to much of this publicity.
The claim is that legislation is needed to prevent a patchwork of national laws on intellectual property rights. It interferes with the single market.
But surely ethical considerations are much more important than that. We cannot leave our humanity behind us just to talk about patent law.
<P>
I have a letter from Mr De Clercq, the Chairman of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on which I sit, who argues that the present lack of protection is causing a brain drain of research towards the US and Japan.
I say that is another question altogether.
There are many false claims being put forward that multinationals will not advance this competitive market of drugs unless they get this particular protection.
While I am sympathetic to patient groups, many of the patient groups have come to me and said they were misrepresented.
<P>
I really regard this as a very serious matter for Parliament! I appeal to your common humanity to deal with it correctly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
Madam President, unless the amendments are adopted, I, too, will be voting against this directive.
The reasons for this are many and varied and time does not permit me to elaborate on many of them here, but two matters are of particular importance to me.
On the one hand, I do not believe that the Council's common position actually safeguards research into rare diseases, and on the other hand, the common position makes it extremely difficult for us to meet our obligations to the poorest part of the world.
<P>
I still have a serious problem with the patenting of genes.
A gene is a piece of information and it does not really make sense to say that you can take out a patent on a copy of a gene, that is, patent a piece of genetic information, because the difference is so slight, if there is indeed any difference at all.
I can agree with the idea of taking out a patent on the information concerning a very specific application of the gene, but only for that particular application.
That should be sufficient to secure potential earnings for the industry, and at the same time, it would also provide a greater incentive to carry out research into rare diseases.
<P>
My other concern is that the Council's common position undermines the ability of developing countries to protect the wealth of nature in their countries, and, not least, the moneymaking potential of this.
It was established at the Convention on Biodiversity that ownership of genetic material is nationally determined.
Ensuring that this principle is adhered to is a straightforward matter.
All that is required is to abide by the laws of the country in question, or to obtain free consent from the person at the root of the invention.
This is an effective way of safeguarding the interests of developing countries.
<P>
I simply cannot accept the argument that a requirement such as this could be contrary to the TRIPs agreement.
In the forthcoming negotiations on this agreement, the European Union must work towards safeguarding the interests of developing countries, and this House must ensure that in these negotiations, the Commission has a clear position in favour of the Convention on Biodiversity and a fair distribution of income from the wealth of nature in the developing countries.
<P>
In conclusion, I would simply like to urge everyone to support these two important amendments, which safeguard our obligations to sick people and to developing countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gebhardt">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, some here would like to get the directive on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions out of the way with all possible speed.
That is not the task of the European Parliament.
Our task is to ensure that at second reading we do not allow the Council to deprive us of what we agreed at first reading.
Otherwise we shall be creating a dangerous precedent which will undermine the rights of Parliament.
That is why there are some amendments to the common position which we simply must accept.
I shall limit myself to two examples.
<P>
Firstly, even if we have decided that the building blocks of human life and parts of the entire animal and plant world may be patented as inventions, we should not be throwing the doors wide open to bio-piracy.
<P>
That is why at first reading we demanded at least evidence of the origin of biological material. This will prevent misuse, and if necessary will allow claims for damages.
The Council deleted this.
We must write evidence of origin back in.
<P>
Secondly: we must preserve the ethics committee in the form which we agreed.
The new European Group on Ethics appointed by the Commission, whose tasks range from communications technology to bio- and gene technology, is not good enough.
<P>
How on earth can twelve scientists, even top-flight ones, seriously cover the whole field of modern technologies, alongside their main activity?
In an area which is full of hopes and fears, our fellow citizens are expecting reliable guidance, not a token body.
That is why the European Parliament must hold out for a separate committee on bio-ethics in the context of the patents directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Casini, C">
Madam President, when we first voted in this Chamber on the common position discussed by the Council, I strongly supported the defence of the common position.
I did it for a reason which seemed to me to be ethical: I simply told myself that the value of human life is the basis of each legal system and must be at the basis of all political programmes, in short that to encourage research, in particular medical and pharmacological research to fight terrible illnesses is a way of safeguarding and even promoting ethical principles.
<P>
But Parliament considered that other ethical requirements had not been sufficiently taken into consideration and the first common position of the Council was rejected.
The work recommenced and the ethical requirements were considered in particular by Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
At first reading Parliament voted a series of amendments which made the directive clear and respectful of ethical requirements, even in the new open areas.
<P>
The Commission stated that it recognized all these amendments voted by Parliament.
The Council considered, however, that it should make some modifications.
Now, I believe that the key point, about which everyone expresses his own opinion and I believe that this opinion is personal but shared by many colleagues, is that the litmus paper showing the openness of the modifications brought by the Council is the question of the human embryo and on this point the Council made modifications which make ambiguous a language which was previously clear.
To make it comprehensible to all in a subject which is complex legally, I will note that Parliament stated, "the human embryo is never patentable, either as the product of a process or as an instrument of a process' .
<P>
The Council has introduced a language which, instead of interpretation, instead of transforming the European directive into internal State law, will allow the patenting of processes which use embryos and the embryos themselves.
This is my opinion as a lawyer.
At least an element of ambiguity was introduced.
I believe that it is the duty of this Parliament to remove this ambiguity.
I shall therefore vote for Amendment Nos 1, 14, 19 and 24 which aim to remove this ambiguity.
<P>
I know the fundamental discussion is not a legal one, nor an ethical one, but a practical one.
This directive has been before the European Parliament for too many years, and is a fair directive which will be approved, without wasting any more time.
<P>
I agree that the directive as a whole is a good one, but I would like to correct this point.
Why did the Council introduce some modifications which made clear language ambiguous?
Or does it mean, as was stated in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and as will perhaps be stated in this Chamber, that these changes are only lexical and do not change the substance?
I cannot imagine that an amendment which makes clear what now appears ambiguous to me, may produce delays and prevent the Council from accepting this amendment of Parliament.
Or perhaps there will be a new battle on this point, but to use an Italian expression, it means that behind these expressions which are somewhat ambiguous "there is more to this than meets the eye' , that is, they want to leave their hands free for something which the Parliament does not want done.
<P>
For these reasons, while I still express agreement with the basic choice to encourage research to fight illnesses which are serious to human life, I hope that Amendment Nos 1, 14, 19 and 24 - which basically all have the same aim - will be approved.
I trust that this will not delay the final approval of the directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Hyland">
Madam President, in my previous contribution to this debate, I acknowledged the importance of carefully managed genetic research and its role in meeting the challenge of world food production and maintaining the commercial viability of family farming.
I am, however, very disappointed that previous Amendments Nos 95, 76 and 78 which were debated and agreed on by this Parliament have re-emerged in the context of the proposal before the House.
I do not regard that as a very democratic system and it is certainly not a system which fully reflects the views of the Members who spoke here.
<P>
When this original directive was voted on by the European Parliament, a specific clause was inserted, known as Amendment No 95, which recognized the right of small farmers to freely re-use all patented seed and to save and further develop their own seed.
Fundamental to farmers' practice of constant innovation is free access and exchange of seeds and genetic material.
If Europe is to protect the future diversity of crops, it must ensure that farmers are guaranteed such free access and use.
Farmer privilege must be protected in this regard so as to protect the social and economic unit of the family farm throughout Europe.
Otherwise we may as well hand over the monopoly of food production to large multinational corporations, which would be a very anti-social development indeed.
<P>
My final point is that I do not support - and I made this point previously - genetic engineering as it applies to humans.
Life is not a commodity that can be bought and sold.
I welcome the fact that the revised directive excludes the following issues from patentability: processes of cloning human beings, processes for modifying the genome line genetic identity of human beings and use of human embryos for industrial and commercial purposes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="De Clercq">
Madam President, Commissioner, as chairman of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, I take the view that the current draft directive on biotechnology is a textbook case of European legislation.
Never has the European Parliament had so much influence on European regulations as on this matter.
First the Commission, then the Council, have accepted just about all the amendments of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizen's Rights, its rapporteur and finally Parliament.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights greatly appreciates this and throws in its lot with the common position of the European Council of Ministers.
<P>
I hope that this will also be the case in response to this debate and that, after ten years of debate, the way will at last be open for legal protection of biotechnological inventions at European level.
Indeed, we cannot wait any longer for a European regulation on this, as a lack of protection for biotechnological inventions will result in a brain-drain to the United States and Japan.
We risk losing an important market which is growing very rapidly completely.
Jobs play a role in this too.
<P>
Industrial applications also continue to get behind, certainly in pharmaceuticals, which is the area where 96 % of biotechnological discoveries find an application.
Of course, it is unworthy of man to allow animals to suffer needlessly.
The common position provides a solution for this.
But it is equally unworthy of man to allow children and the terminally ill to suffer when there is a solution to hand.
<P>
I consider, therefore, that the right balance has been found in the draft directive, the right balance between technological and ethical dimensions.
We, as the European people's representation must not be frightened of biotechnology.
On the contrary, we must show that we are equal to the challenge of biotechnology and that we dare to make a start on it through appropriate legislation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
Madam President, both the European Union and its Member States have signed the UN Convention on Biodiversity.
What, then, have we pledged to respect?
<P>
It is already laid down in the preamble to the Convention that every state has the right to its own biological resources, including genetic resources.
This is developed further in Articles 3 and 15.
It is also made entirely clear in Article 15.5 that the utilization of genetic resources shall be preceded by obtaining the permission of the state of origin.
This is not consistent with this common position which we are deciding on.
It is crystal clear and unacceptable.
<P>
Today the majority of genetic resources are found in the developing countries, that is, in the poor world.
A patent system which does not respect the Convention on Biodiversity risks developing into a system in which large transnational companies can take control of the genetic wealth of these countries which they must then buy back in various forms.
I believe that this is wholly unacceptable.
<P>
These formulations can be improved if Amendment Nos 25 and 5 are adopted, but it is still not enough.
Out of respect for the Convention on Biodiversity and for other ethical reasons, I feel that this proposal should be rejected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Ahern">
Mr President, I hope that Members will not be deluded by the rapporteur's assertion that the common position respects this House.
There are 68 changes in the common position text from that adopted by Parliament at first reading.
This should demonstrate that this document does not accurately reflect the wishes of this House.
After ten years and one previous rejection we still have not got it right.
<P>
I am not going to repeat all Green objections - you have heard them before.
I am going to put on the record the views of some of those sections of civil society whose voices have not been heard in the preparation of this directive.
<P>
I have circulated to Members a list of those patients' organizations who oppose the patenting of human gene sequences.
Here is the position of the Official Genetic Interest Group in the UK: ' If a patent is granted on a product or therapy or pharmaceutical product which incorporates or relies upon knowledge of a gene sequence, the patent protection should not cover the sequence itself.
A different product or therapy incorporating or using knowledge of the same gene sequence should be covered by an entirely separate patent and there should be no derivative patenting.'
<P>
The Irish Inherited Disorders Organization has complained that it was misled and misinformed and its position misrepresented.
It does not support the patenting of human gene sequences.
<P>
The German Society of Human Genetics, through its chair, states: ' We are opposed to the patenting of the human genome and the DNA sequences it contains.
We support the position of the World Medical Association, the Committee of European Physicians, in opposing the patenting of human genes without any exception.'
<P>
The British Society for Human Genetics says: ' Article 5 appears both to permit and to exclude the patenting of human gene sequences.'
<P>
The confusion exists because this House adopted in July at first reading a conflicting proposal which both allowed and prohibited the patenting of the human genome.
A sustained campaign by lobbyists financially supported by Smith-KlineBeecham misrepresented and misinformed MEPs about the patients' organizations.
<P>
Our Amendment No 22 tries to correct this directive's drafting.
The European Ecumenical Commission for Church and Society says: ' We are still deeply dissatisfied with this directive.
We strongly urge Parliament to reinstate the need for a separate ethics committee able to look at patent application and Amendment No 76 regarding material of foreign and human origin' .
<P>
Our Amendments Nos 4, 11 and 12 restate the ethics amendment in full.
The Commission's own group of advisers on the ethical implications of biotechnology, Opinion No 8, paragraph 2: ' An invention based on the use of elements of human origin having been retrieved without respecting the principle of consent will not fulfil the ethical requirements.
The common position does not guarantee this' .
<P>
I wish to say to my colleagues on the use of embryos: let us be clear, we cannot commercialize the use of embryos.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Barthet-Mayer">
Madam President, for ethical reasons the Group of the European Radical Alliance is opposed to any form of patenting of human beings or any of their biomolecular elements.
<P>
My Group had indicated that it disagreed with the rapporteur, who did not adequately take ethical aspects into account.
Yet the new common position of the Council, which has been taken up by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, substantially alters the actual text which we adopted, and the changes tend to weaken the ethics by broadening still further the field of application of patents.
<P>
We cannot condone this.
Even if we weigh up the pressures, lobbies and financial issues against the advances made by the USA in this domain, biological piracy runs counter to the humanist philosophy which I hope a large number of us share in Parliament.
<P>
At a different level, the Council has also removed an ancestral practice; the privilege clause which entitles farmers to reuse the seed they produce and resell for agricultural use.
Our group will support Amendment No 28, in particular, which aims to reintroduce this practice.
<P>
Moreover, according to the proposal submitted to us, it would also become possible to patent old varieties.
This could have far-reaching effects.
By way of example, I will cite an Indian variety of Basmati rice which has been patented by an American company. This means that it will no longer be possible to export this type of rice to the USA as previously.
We do not wish to campaign on a simplistic anti-American agenda here. We only wish to do our work as politicians and, on the basis of our common values, resist the cold logic of profit for profit's sake, which unfortunately the Member States seem to be unconcerned about having imposed upon them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Madam President, once again Parliament is tackling a common position of the Council concerning the directive on patenting of inventions derived from biotechnology.
<P>
We were unable to support the Rothley report at first reading.
This was for ethical reasons.
It is our conviction that human beings, animals and plants are unique creations of God and so can never, even in reconstructed, synthetic components, be called a human invention.
This is regardless of the debate about how genetic knowledge is used.
The directive turns genetic material into a mere resource for commercial gain.
It is also questionable how far patenting will benefit patients: patents are requested for commercial not charitable purposes.
<P>
Meanwhile, we have a second common position and Parliament seems to be tired of the struggle.
The economic benefits for industry seem to have completely overpowered the ethical reservations, so much so that the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights is not retabling a number of important amendments tabled by Parliament which were not adopted by the Council.
The rapporteur recommends adopting the common position as it stands.
Did we adopt these amendments for nothing?
We, like a number of others, have retabled the most important amendments again.
It cannot be that the rapid implementation of the directive is more important than achieving a directive which is balanced in its content.
<P>
Finally, I would like to observe that the ease with which the economic interests of this directive have dominated and the socalled naivety of the ethical objections cause me concern.
The patenting of genes is not something to be taken for granted.
Only with a great deal of goodwill can synthetic genes be considered to be inventions.
Human dignity, respect for animals and plants within God's creation remain important issues to discuss.
It is too easy to detach this so-called purely technical directive from moral and ethical considerations.
Anyone who thinks that by approving the common position they will be done with these recurring ethical questions has got it wrong.
The debate has only just begun and will not be made any easier by the approval of the current common position.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Raschhofer">
Madam President, some considerable time ago 1.2 million of my compatriots signed a petition to put on record their opposition to the patenting of biotechnological inventions.
Against this politically explosive background, I have read this report even more carefully than usual.
The observation that the Commission and the Council's common position have taken up amendments from Parliament does not stand up to close scrutiny.
There has been a weakening of significant points by surreptitious means.
<P>
The Council's common position specifies in Article 5, paragraph 2 that an isolated component of the human body can be an invention that can be patented.
This provision is a de facto circumvention of the ban on cloning human life forms.
It is further specified that the use of human embryos for industrial and commercial purposes may not be patented.
The exclusion of patentability thus does not cover the use of embryos for therapeutic and diagnostic purposes.
I, however, think that all use of human embryos ought to be excluded from patentability!
<P>
The original position of the Parliament concerning the so-called "farmers' privilege' has also been weakened.
The derogations envisaged are nonsense, because although farmers are permitted to use crop material for generative and vegetative reproduction, economic exploitation of the application patents is deliberately excluded from the derogations.
As a result, there can be no exchange of seed material between farmers without the payment of licence fees.
Small seed associations will go out of existence for economic reasons.
The result will be a market cleansing.
The same also applies to animal breeding.
For these reasons, we reject the draft.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Oddy">
Madam President, I would like to thank the President for all his hard work.
I have followed this proposal with interest and was a member of the original conciliation which failed.
<P>
The directive represents a delicate balance between granting a patent and respect for animal welfare and dignity of humans.
<P>
It should be noted that pharmaceuticals are a world leader in the European Union and represent a considerable amount of wealth in this Union.
I have letters from trade unions in the UK who support this directive, who fear for job losses if we do not have some kind of directive.
But do not be naive - the rejection of this directive will not prevent experiments in biotechnology.
Research and jobs in this area would simply go elsewhere in the world and the European Union would be the loser.
<P>
I broadly support the common position although I share some of the concerns of my colleagues in relation to animal welfare and ethical control.
However, some of my colleagues in this House are being less than sincere by pretending to oppose the directive because of the wording of certain ethical constraints in the proposal.
The reality is that they would never be prepared to accept the proposal, whatever the wording.
I think they should come clean on that.
<P>
As for the arguments as to whether or not the lobbying we have had represents patients - I believe this is a sterile debate.
Which organisation have you ever come across which has had no dissent from its members?
It is the overall balance of the membership's views which is important.
<P>
In conclusion, I broadly support the common position although I have some concerns with the ethical considerations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Liese">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the present common position on which we shall be voting tomorrow is better than its reputation.
I see no grounds for euphoria, and, in contrast to Mr Rothley, I am also of the opinion that one or two things could perhaps be even better formulated, but the text on which we shall be voting tomorrow is better than the text which a majority of the Parliament rejected in February 1995.
There have been very many improvements, and I believe that the Parliament had good reasons to vote against it at that time, but now we have equally good reasons to resist calls for the rejection of the common position.
<P>
At that time, the clear exclusion of manipulation of the gene sequence was missing.
The common position contains this clear exclusion of the breeding of human beings through intervention in the human gene sequence.
At that time, we had a very woolly formulation on the farmers' privilege.
Now we have a stronger formulation.
As far as patients are concerned, I must really caution against using their support for any particular position.
There are some patient associations which support the directive and there are others which oppose it.
Both have good reasons.
Nobody here in Parliament can claim with a clear conscience that it will have any particular effect on research into medicine X or medicine Y. Certain serious scientists argue for the one position, and other equally serious scientists argue for the other, and we should not let ourselves get carried away with polemics, as have some of our colleagues.
<P>
We should see this directive for what it is, an internal market directive and a directive dealing with economic factors and unemployment.
However, we should spare no efforts in pointing out the ethically motivated limits that have been set, to which the Parliament has always attached importance.
Because in contrast to what the Green Group is claiming, it is just not true that we want to create jobs through cloning, but through possible applications in the field of gene technology which are ethically undisputed in the view of the majority in this House and, I believe, the majority of European citizens as well.
<P>
However, we must formulate these ethically motivated limitations very clearly.
That is why I am pleased that in the common position the Council has arrived at a very far-reaching formulation on cloning.
The cloning experiment on Dolly the sheep and the publication of this experiment have caused legitimate fear amongst many people in Europe and elsewhere.
The cloning of human beings is not a fantasy.
Unless we remain alert, there will be cloned human beings sooner than we imagine.
<P>
That is why it is a good thing that we as the Parliament - and now the Council as well - want to set a clear limit here because what the European Commission's bio-ethics advisory body proposed was not very clear.
What it said was that only the reproductive cloning of human beings should be rejected, and that would have meant that cloning experiments on embryos were to be permitted and only the creation of a cloned baby would be reprehensible.
However, that is a very inconsistent approach, firstly because the right to life and human dignity apply from the very beginning, and secondly because the creation of a cloned embryo is the decisive technical step on the way to the emergence of a cloned baby.
<P>
That is why it is good that we have this formulation under which cloning is defined as the creation of human beings with the same genetic information as other human beings.
As a result, our position is stronger than the cloning protocol of the Council of Europe, because in this case the term "human being' is also defined in the interinstitutional file.
Any attempts to weaken this ban on cloning will be resisted by the Group of the European People's Party now and in the future.
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<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
As we only have a minute in which to speak, Madam President, I will be brief.
We also regard the improved text as a step forward, if we compare it with the first reading. But it has not gone far enough yet.
I think there are reasons enough to go to conciliation with the Council on a number of points.
One of these points is the European Group on Ethics.
Only very recently, we listened to President Santer's interpretation of this Group and I still do not understand why the European Commission wants to expand that package of duties with the addition of information technology.
Let the Commission provide a good explanation as to why it cannot adopt the tabled Amendment No 11 and why it considers its own text, its own interpretation, to be so much better than that of Parliament.
<P>
Finally, Madam President, this is about animal welfare.
We tabled an amendment, not only the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party but also David Martin and 29 others, to exempt animals if it would cause them to have a physical handicap.
Mr Rothley may say that is merely a couple of words but they mean something for the welfare of animals.
I hope, therefore, that this House will adopt this amendment this morning.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Querbes">
Madam President, it cannot be denied that biotechnology can contribute to the progress of humanity in the areas of foodstuffs, the environment, health and lasting development which creates jobs and businesses.
<P>
Europe must not be left behind.
In the pharmaceutical research sector, only 15 % of patents are of European origin whereas 65 % come from America.
<P>
A directive on biotechnological inventions ought to help Europe close this gap, but not at any price.
Biotechnology poses new problems whose solutions demand transparency, democracy and ethics.
The Confederal Group of the European United Left was of the opinion that the 1995 conciliation report sacrificed these factors on the altar of the economy and of profit, and for this reason we voted against it and helped ensure that it did not succeed.
<P>
The Commission's new proposal has drawn some lessons from this failure, but it is still not enough.
Parliament has adopted 66 amendments which have been practically integrated into the Council's common position in order to clarify patenting conditions and exceptions.
<P>
As we have heard, the human body and certain plant varieties and animal species are not patentable.
The "farmers' privilege' is affirmed, allowing him to use the products of his harvest for reproduction or propagation by himself on his farm.
However I regret that the Council did not retain the European Parliament's amendment which aimed to protect the rights of developing countries as regards genetic inheritance.
<P>
Despite these advances, this text gives rise to legitimate fears, for there are real risks.
Since 1995 these risks have been reduced by protecting the dignity and integrity of human beings and by setting boundaries.
Moreover, the common position states that patent law does not replace or do away with legislation which for ethical reasons limits, prohibits or controls research and the use of its results.
However the critical question remains that of the means of control of the people and their representatives over the area of developing biotechnology.
Human beings will not draw benefits from biotechnology unless they have a say in the details of its development, in place of the multinationals which only see it as a new source of profit.
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<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Madam President, the rapporteur and all those who advocate accepting the common position of the Council have recognized that the present common position contains improvements over the draft at first reading.
<P>
Mr Rothley, that is an acknowledgement of criticism, because at that time you wanted to accept the original common position.
If we had followed your advice, we would not have these improvements today, and this report would be linked to your name and it would be worse than the other one.
Let me make myself clear: I am in favour of a directive, but I am also in favour of it being qualitatively sensible throughout.
I am rapporteur for the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, and the so-called "farmers' privilege' has been improved in the present common position by comparison with the first draft.
However, what the Agriculture Committee wanted, and what this Parliament voted for, has not been included.
<P>
Mr Rothley, you should not give up before you cross the finishing line.
Even if you are exhausted, I can keep going!
We have worked together on this issue for 10 years, and that is why I am in favour of having an argument with the Council and going into the conciliation procedure with this amendment which we have once again proposed.
I am fairly sure that either the Council will not even launch the conciliation procedure and will immediately accept the point, or we will get our way in the conciliation procedure.
Why should we give up the opportunity of an improvement when we both support the same position on this point, because, as has been said, the draft from the Council lacks internal conviction and logic.
So, Mr Rothley, please listen to the critics one more time and show a little patience, then we shall have an improved draft, and then Parliament will be in a strong position in its argument with the Council.
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<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Berger">
Madam President, many of the earlier speakers have expressed the view that the Parliament now needs to do nothing but accept the common position in its present form.
It has been said that the Council has in any case accepted many of Parliament's amendments, that the directive is now much better than the earlier drafts, and in particular that it is significantly better than the draft directive from the Commission.
<P>
I would like to associate myself explicitly with these findings, but not with the conclusion which has been drawn from them.
We must certainly thank our rapporteur for the significantly improved legal quality and consistency of the directive.
However, the fact of the matter is that, contrary to what has been claimed, the Council has not accepted some of the amendments which were agreed with widespread support in this Parliament.
And if it is conceded on all sides that the directive was much improved after its first reading in the European Parliament, we can reasonably conclude that the directive can be further improved at second reading...
<P>
if all the amendments which have not so far been accepted by the Council are re-introduced and agreed.
The timing and the deadlines do not militate against the acceptance of further amendments.
The Council agreed the present common position quickly, and the present amendments do not seek to make any changes to those points which were essential for the Council compromise.
<P>
We may therefore assume that the directive will come into force rapidly even if we accept further changes and come to an understanding with the Council either in a rapid conciliation procedure or perhaps even earlier.
<P>
However, I simply cannot understand why the Council did not accept Parliament's formulations on one matter, and that was the derogations for farmers.
As many here know gene technology, especially in agriculture, is rejected by a large majority, particularly in Austria.
Among our farmers, there have just been the first signs of a greater open-mindedness, and they can see that seed and reproductive material that have been genetically modified might be beneficial to them as well.
<P>
However, if they are now forced to recognize that this directive will make them economically dependent again because the derogations for farmers are too limited, this will do nothing to promote the acceptability of biotechnology in agriculture.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Madam President, as the last speaker from the Group of the European People's Party, I think the first thing I want to do is stress my congratulations.
I think the common position will be consolidated into a directive tomorrow, and this Parliament and the Commission deserve to be congratulated.
I think the verbatim report of proceedings should record the fact that Mr Vandergheist, whom I see sitting here, has worked magnificently.
<P>
But most of all I want to say that during the last few years, I have come to have great respect and admiration for the rapporteur.
I have not followed this directive for the full 10 years, Mr Rothley, but ever since I arrived at this Parliament, this directive has been on the table, causing problems.
Through it, I have had the chance to get to know a great lawyer and parliamentarian.
It is a very self-centred thing to say, but it has been useful to me.
<P>
Madam President, this is not a "lesser evil' directive.
No: this is a good text.
Perhaps it is not what the expert would have produced, and no doubt there are imperfections, but it is a good text.
In that sense, we must contradict the odd statement which has been made, such as that Mr Rothley wanted to accept the text at first reading.
That is not true.
Mr Rothley has fought very hard to arrive at the present version.
A compromise is better than the text which resulted from Parliament's amendments.
Those amendments reflected the agreement between the different groups but I insist that, technically, this text is better.
<P>
Allow me to give you some examples: firstly, farmer privilege.
Well, Amendment No 28 is an attempt to modify Regulation No 2100/94.
This is a patents directive.
That has been repeated several times, and I can only endorse the words of Mr Barzanti, Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn, Mr Pompidou and Ms Oddy.
This directive is a patents directive.
If anybody wants to modify Regulation 2100/94 then let them do so, but you cannot make modifications through the back door, by means of the present directive.
<P>
The same is true of the piracy which has been mentioned.
The TRIPs agreement, among other international texts, which binds all Member States of the European Union, establishes the three criteria for patentability: innovation, inventiveness and industrial application.
Mr Pompidou reminded us of that.
We cannot introduce a fourth one.
It would be null and void.
Obviously, if anyone obtains an element fraudulently and patents it, the Member State's substantive laws will come into play. It will be a civil or criminal offence, as appropriate, and the whole body of law and justice will be applied so that, if appropriate, the patent can even be annulled.
But we cannot include in a patent law new criteria which do not exist in international agreements, just as we cannot modify substantive laws through the back door.
<P>
Madam President, the fact is, as Mr Barzanti and Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn said, there is a lot left to do.
There obviously is, but not in a patents law.
In a patents law, we have to keep to the matter in hand.
<P>
And I must make one last comment about what was said by my colleague Mr Casini, whom I greatly admire.
It is not true that Article 6 is unlawful.
Article 6 establishes, for the first time in an international text, protection for the embryo as contained in the Oviedo Convention on Bioethics, which is expected to come into effect subsequently.
And that phrase, which is in fact inessential, is no major impediment because this is a question of an open list in an article preventing the patentability of anything contrary to ethics or public order.
<P>
To sum up, Madam President, St Augustine said you have to be wise to know what to change, even wiser to know what not to change, but true wisdom is knowing when you have reached an acceptable text.
I think that moment is now, so I hope it will be consolidated tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-Van Gorsel">
Madam President, the directive we are debating today will produce harmonized legislation on patents for biotechnological inventions within the European Union.
This is essential to guarantee that the biotechnology sector in Europe is able to compete.
It is this sector of all sectors which will provide many jobs in the years to come and only with good legislation will Europe be able to catch the United States and Japan up.
This is a better therapy for Europe than a Treaty text on employment.
<P>
Remarkably, the Netherlands has isolated itself within Europe by being the only Member State to vote against this directive in the Council of Ministers.
The Netherlands has actually passed national laws prohibiting the patenting of plants and animals, thus isolating the Dutch biotechnology sector internationally, so that it will be doomed to dwindle to a backward position.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party's Amendment No 9 to Article 26 does not put scientific research on genetic material already obtained at risk.
Not now, nor in the future, as the directive does not come into force with retroactive effect.
The amendment guarantees correct information and the free consent of donors of genetic material, independently of national provisions.
<P>
Finally, Madam President, I appeal to my colleagues to use their legislative powers to ensure good, transparent and ethically responsible legislation in Europe and not to be intimidated by the threats of the Council to reject the directive if Parliament tables amendments.
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<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Madam President, the European Parliament is now taking a position on the whole question of human ethics: what is right and fitting from the point of view of life, and what is not.
The proposal is about the patenting of natural life forms on behalf of major European companies, so that they cannot enjoy the same unethical rights that their counterparts in the USA do.
<P>
Parliament must now assess to what extent the amendments we approved last summer have been incorporated into the new draft Directive.
A particular area of controversy is Amendment No 76 which we approved, but which was shot down by the Council. But it goes into every aspect of the problem: whether genetic material is capable of being patented in general, relations between the pharmaceutical industry and the developing countries, and the basic issue itself: can you rob naturally produced material of its secret by patenting it for exclusive use?
It is essential that Parliament reviews the amendments.
If not, this sort of patenting practice may well be compared to the kind of biological gold-digging that goes on in the nonindustrialized world. Four fifths of the world's genetic polymorphism happens in the developing countries.
<P>
I am convinced that this debate has shown, especially to Mr Rothley, Mr Pompidou and Mr Monfils, that this issue is linked to many such problems, which they have neglected to touch on in their speeches.
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<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ullmann">
Madam President, Commissioner, I am afraid that I am not able to follow the rapporteur's recommendation to accept the common position, for the reason that certain minimum requirements which are all in the interest of the matter itself have not been fulfilled.
The first minimum requirement relates to the fact that the freedom of the Member States to exercise their rights under international conventions is restricted by the present wording to the duties which are linked with them.
<P>
Secondly, the ethics committee which has rightly been envisaged has neither the necessary specific and comprehensive competences, nor the necessary independence.
Thirdly, no account has been taken of the detailed provisions in relation to the distinction between living creatures and inanimate objects in Articles 3, 4, 5 and 9, which the churches had urged.
I put the following question to those, who are in the majority, that want to accept the common position: do you really believe that you are serving biotechnology well by doing so?
You can bring the debate here to an end with the vote, but in society the debate and the political and moral arguments about this issue will continue all the more vigorously.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="White">
Madam President, I do not believe for one minute that this is something that we have been discussing for ten years.
The strict position is that the last time this came before the House we rejected it at third reading after the unsatisfactory conciliation.
My contention is simply that we rejected the previous proposal because it did not include within it an ethical dimension.
Therefore, my Amendment No 78 on the new proposal called for an ethical dimension and more particularly for the establishment of a proper ethics committee.
<P>
Can I remind the House that I asked that a committee should be set up to assess all ethical aspects of biotechnology and its utilisation in particular with regard to patents.
The Commission should summit proposals for the composition and terms of reference of that committee before this directive comes into effect.
That has not been done.
In my view, and I speak as the author of the socialist group amendment, that is not reflected in the common position that we are asked to debate today.
Accordingly, I do not accept that the proposal on the ethics committee is satisfactory and on this I would expect the Commission to give us some answers.
They did not when we discussed the matter recently in Brussels.
<P>
I have already asked the new ethics committee for an opinion on terminator crops.
Neither have I had an acknowledgement from the President of the existing committee, nor have I had an acknowledgement of my request from the President of the European Commission.
The reason for that is quite simple. Parliamentarians currently have no access to that committee.
That is something we should put right.
<P>
How are we going to achieve gender equality?
Why are there so many men on that committee and why are they almost exclusively professional ethicists?
What happens when a particular development in biotechnology requires an ethical consideration?
Will there be the possibility of maybe calling for a moratorium in a given development?
All of these questions need to be answered.
None of them has yet been properly dealt with in what we have got before the House.
I say this to those people in biotech wearing the yellow tee-shirts in the gallery: I am a supporter of biotechnology but I do believe that it must be firmly and properly controlled by a properly organized ethics committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Jensen, Kirsten">
Madam President, our rejection of the proposal in 1995 was well worth the trouble.
Today we have a proposal that takes far greater consideration of animal protection, humanitarian and ethical issues.
We must promote research into, and development of, methods of treating people with genetic diseases.
Many are pumped with chemicals all their lives without ever finding a real solution to their suffering.
We must respect our obligations to the original people.
Even though it is already a part of the text, I do support the amendment clarifying informed consent.
We support the "farmers' privilege' , so that the rights of farmers to sow their crops without paying royalties are not restricted.
<P>
In my view, the Santer European Group on Ethics seems a bit dubious.
If it is permitted, why is a regulated ethics committee not grounded in the Treaty?
Naturally, we welcome the promise of transparency, but I would rather have a right to transparency than be assured of it as a favour by the President of the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="Malone">
Mr President, as you can hear, we have a huge clash here between ethical and moral considerations of many religions and cultures and the ambitions of the pharmaceutical industries to secure their position in global markets.
I still judge that the draft directive does not provide adequate protection for farmers either here in Europe or in developing countries.
<P>
As we know, many new plant varieties patented by biotech companies are based on traditional wisdom handed down through the generations, and now farmers are being asked to pay for these patents.
We in Parliament have exercised a certain amount of power already with regard to this piece of legislation, and it would be a pity if we did not continue to exercise this power wisely.
By voting for the amendments, then going to conciliation on issues such as the patenting of human embryos and provision for a proper ethics committee, as Mr White has just pointed out, we would see the advances we want in medicine and agriculture but with the various safeguards built in.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Putten">
Mr President, I have great respect for the rapporteur, he knows that, and the text has been improved, but like many others I do not think it is enough.
My country, the Netherlands, has resisted right through to the end on principle the right of people to patent plants and animals, while a great deal of important medical research is done in the Netherlands and biotechnology is, indeed, an important sector.
It was the Group of the Party of European Socialists which tabled Amendment No 76 - I was the original rapporteur on that.
The new text does not contain an amendment giving Third World countries in particular, but countries in general, the right to protect their own biodiversity.
I have to say to you, Mr President, I was shocked to hear that a representative of the Commission in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights expressed the view that the European Commission need not observe the Biodiversity Convention, signed by all fifteen European Union Member States, because it is not legally binding.
Meanwhile, we have a declaration from the Biodiversity Convention in Vienna, where delegates from 34 countries, who are meeting at this moment in Bratislava, are opposing the absence of Amendment No 76.
Thirty four countries, I will not read the list out to you but we will make sure that the Commissioner and the rapporteur also get a copy of that text.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cot">
Madam President, Commissioner, the text which has been submitted to us for debate is a new improved text, as we have heard. So I am rather surprised at the conclusions which some people are drawing from it.
<P>
In effect we have started with a new proposal from the Commission which at first reading was radically changed by Parliament. The changes relate in particular to the definition of patentable materials, where we have used the wording of the bio-ethics advisory body, and also to the exceptions to patentability for reasons of public utility where we have taken up the proposals of Mr Liese in particular.
In the common position, the Commission and the Council have included all our amendments, with one exception which I will come back to later, without greatly altering their substance.
So today we are discussing our own text.
It was drawn up by the European Parliament.
<P>
Do we really need to improve it as some Members of this House are suggesting?
The Group of the Party of European Socialists and the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights take the line that we should vote for the text as it stands without any amendments, and they do this for two main reasons.
Firstly, in order to retain the coherence of the text, to avoid ambiguity and the one-sided declarations which spoiled the first conciliation.
As you will recall, Parliament quite rightly rejected the result of this first conciliation.
Today the text before us for approval is clear, honest and coherent. It is not polluted with unbalanced statements which could distort or complicate the understanding of it.
We must preserve this coherence.
<P>
Secondly, we will cause yet further delay if we start a conciliation which we feel is pointless, for this text has already been pending for ten years. If it goes to conciliation, we risk reopening the Pandora's box of the debate within the Council itself.
And if things go badly in the Council, we will not reach a result in the discussion before the end of this Parliament which is fast approaching. This would mean a catastrophic delay for us, blocking economic investments and, more importantly, scientific and medical research.
<P>
Madam President, I would like to say a few words here about the patient groups.
Mrs Ewing said they were misrepresented.
Doubtless the patients' organizations have a wide range of views on this issue, and that is as it should be.
I note that the large French organizations are in favour of adopting the directive.
But I would particularly like to protest at the injustice done to these associations in accusing them of being in the pay of the pharmaceutical industry, an accusation which was repeated here by Mrs Ahern.
This kind of attack is not fitting in such an important debate, particularly since otherwise I note that the Commission and the Council have largely taken into consideration the concerns expressed by the authors of the present amendments.
<P>
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection again tabled its amendment on the origin of patentable materials.
As Mrs van Putten well knows, this amendment poses serious problems in terms of proof before a national judge.
Further, I note, and doubtless Commissioner Monti will confirm this, that the Commission has undertaken not only to respect the Rio Convention on Biodiversity, but also to present an annual report on this to enable us to review the situation.
<P>
Mr White's amendment on bioethics was taken from a different subject matter, but above all we had a formal declaration from President Santer, who gave us a number of assurances, particularly that Parliament could refer directly to the new European Group on Ethics which has been set up.
<P>
As regards the amendment on animal suffering, I would like to ask Mr Monti here if he can assure us that these two wordings are in fact effectively identical, and that the fact of having removed three months does not change anything in terms of the actual application of patentability on this point.
<P>
Finally, I would like to say to Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf that doubtless he spoke from a personal standpoint on the problems facing agriculture, but the Committee on Agriculture did not support him and has not re-tabled his amendments.
He is today thus not speaking on behalf of the committee, which was unable to support him.
<P>
Madam President, for all these reasons, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I recommend that we vote for this text without amendment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Monti">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Commission and myself, I wish to express my deepest gratitude and admiration for the very important work carried out by the European Parliament during the legislative procedure on this directive.
<P>
The Commission is convinced that the text on which you are now being asked to give your views is a good text, clear and of high quality, in which the specific nature of the patent rights and the legitimate concerns regarding ethics are properly balanced.
This text is the result of an intense collective effort, during which the opinions and arguments of everyone, inside and outside the institutions, were openly considered and evaluated to obtain a final result which I am convinced represents something of importance for the Community.
<P>
On 16 July 1997, at first reading, the European Parliament adopted 66 amendments.
The Commission included all of them, except one, because it was incompatible with current international law.
And yet, at the moment of adopting the common position, with a further effort to understand the requirements expressed through this single rejected amendment and with an undoubted willingness to show openness and compromise, the Council and the Commission agreed to reconsider the essential points of Amendment No 76.
I consider that to modify them, in the sense shown by some, would be neither useful nor wise.
It would not be useful because it would lead to a clash with the Council, which has current international law on its side and the clarity of the present legal structure, which would be compromised by the requested modifications.
It would not be wise because the distribution between the Community dimension and the national dimension, here established through careful use of the criterion of subsidiarity, would be altered in favour of the Community, but without the Community being able usefully to establish certain rules and being able to bring in any added value.
<P>
On 27 April last, during a meeting of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, I intended to give some clarification to explain why the common position of the Council could be accepted as such, thus supporting the position of the rapporteur, Mr Rothley.
With the vote of 28 April, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights confirmed that the common position of the Council could be accepted as it adequately included the amendments adopted by the European Parliament at first reading.
I am very pleased at this decision of the committee.
Now Parliament must make known its views at a sitting of the House.
It is therefore up to you to confirm the approval of the text by your vote, thus opening the way to its final adoption.
<P>
I do not think it is useful to repeat in detail here, at this time, the reasons - in the opinion of the Commission - in favour of approving the text adopted as the common position.
However, I think, having listened closely to this debate, that there are still four points on which it would be useful, Madam President, to confirm the position of the Commission so that you can make a decision in full knowledge of the case.
<P>
Firstly, I should mention the European Group on Ethics, Science and New Technologies, to remind you of what President Santer has already confirmed to the Parliament during his speech on 29 April, and that is that this Group is and will remain independent and will ensure total openness as regards its work.
The European Parliament will be able to question it at will, based on a procedure which the Parliament itself must establish.
I have always stressed fully the important role which the committee already plays and will be asked to play increasingly in this delicate matter.
I am completely convinced of the substantial contribution which Parliament can make, and it is my duty to confirm this today in particular.
<P>
Secondly, concerning the embryo.
It can be confirmed here that, in the opinion of the Commission, the essence of the position expressed by Parliament has been reflected in the common position, as it specifically excludes any manipulation to exploit the embryo and as these procedures in favour of the embryo are clearly stated, to protect it, and Parliament never intended to exclude this latter aspect.
<P>
Thirdly, concerning the protection of biological diversity.
The Community is heavily committed, internationally and internally - the annual report is part of this - to defending this diversity and has no intention of retreating from these positions.
For this reason, the case of the American patent on Basmati rice is a good example for the Commission in favour of its own consistency.
Such a patent could not be issued in Europe simply because the directive would forbid it, because it is not an invention and it is a vegetable variety which is specifically excluded.
<P>
Fourth and last point: the suffering of animals.
The objective to prevent, through the patent right, atrocities and acts of cruelty against animals and the legal instrument for this are present in the text because we are all in agreement on this point.
Not having taken up the reference to physical harm has no particular significance: simply it seems that the concept of suffering already includes it, it is difficult to imagine physical harm which does not cause suffering.
It is only for that reason that the Commission does not believe it is necessary to mention this aspect.
<P>
Madam President, Mr Rothley, ladies and gentlemen, the debate on the proposed directive within the European Parliament - and I am not saying this out of deference - has been absolutely fundamental and the text of the common position respects it fully.
For all of us the experience of 1995 was a serious and important time and I believe that I can say that we all tried to draw reasons for reflection to recommence our work with tenacity, humility and calmness.
I trust that the misunderstandings which existed are now overcome, because we have discussed them at length and because the text is much clearer.
The part relating to the patentability of elements of human origin is valid for us all, where the common position of the Council includes the text of the European Parliament fully to the letter.
The Commission is convinced that, by confirming the position of the Council, the European Parliament will reap the rewards of its important work.
<P>
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I conclude by thanking you for this important work and for your kind attention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Madam President, I am speaking now to express my view that Mr Cot needs to show proper respect for his colleagues in his dealings with them: for example, he voices the suspicion that we are not capable of reading the text because it is identical with the amendments which the Parliament introduced.
It is one thing to say that it is the same in substance - which one might argue about - but it is another thing to claim that the text is the same.
In any case, I am not saying that you have been bought by the gene technology industry.
I was not the one who started causing offence!
That is the first thing.
<P>
The second thing is that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development cannot introduce any amendments in this procedure nor can it introduce them in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, because that can be done only by individual Members with the appropriate number of signatures, namely 29.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has written a letter to the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, which is not the subject of the procedure, but in order to express the fact that the position of the Parliament was not accepted in the question of "farmers' privilege' .
<P>
As rapporteur, in discussions with colleagues, I gathered these 29 signatures in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and introduced them, because that is what is envisaged by the procedure.
The fact that there were socialist Members on the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development who were somewhat hesitant in adding their signatures cannot be taken to mean that overall this was not an expression of the views of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr Cot.
I must protest if you seek to give the impression in Parliament that I might mix personal interests with the interests of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development!
I will not put up with that, make no mistake!
If you want a fight, you can have one, otherwise please take matters seriously and show respect for the dignity of your colleagues!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Putten">
Madam President, I did not hear Mr Monti give an answer, in his response to Parliament, on the Commission's vision of how Europe and the European Union should implement the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity.
I have already commented on this, reflecting on what was said about it in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights. Is it not rather bizarre that the European Commission flies off to Rio de Janeiro with a plane full of civil servants and then takes the view that there is no real need to incorporate the Convention on Biodiversity into legislation?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Monti">
Mr van Putten, I can refer in particular to Article 1, paragraph 2, of the directive where it states, "This directive shall be without prejudice to the obligations of the Member States pursuant to international agreements, and in particular the Convention on Biological Diversity and the TRIPs Agreement' .
I believe that, setting aside my opinions, this is the definitive textual reference.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Second banking directive
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0152/98) by Mr Wijsenbeek, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the Commission's interpretative communication on freedom to provide services and the interest of the general good in the second banking directive (SEC(97)1193 - C4-0465/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Madam President, we must be grateful to the Commission that it has realized that not much has come of the original intention of the second banking directive to promote cross-border banking services.
We must also be grateful to the Commission that it wished to consult Parliament on the document before us, even though it was not obliged to do so.
Still, and you would probably have expected this from me because I follow the comings and goings of the Commission with a positive attitude but still with "Argus eyes' , I have something to say about the form, namely the communication.
<P>
No matter how desirable it would be to have more precise detail, in fact too much is still being left open because there is a statement at the end of the communication to the effect that the communication, which was drawn up in response to a judgment of the Court of Justice, can ultimately only be finally and conclusively judged by the Court of Justice.
Although Parliament as an institution would be the last body to want to undermine the subjection of the effect of legislation to the judgment of the courts, those who use the law, that is the banking institutions of the Member States which wish to operate in other Member States, and in so doing wish and are able to make the internal market and competition credible, are still left in uncertainty.
<P>
I would appreciate it, therefore, if the Commissioner would like to clarify for us why they resorted to this instrument of the communication and not a new or amended directive, seeing as that would have force of law and so no longer be subject to doubt and uncertainty.
<P>
The greatest uncertainties are twofold. How can you clearly define the public interest, on the grounds of which Member States can stop a banking institution from one Member State setting itself up in another Member State?
When is a service being provided to a client who does not live in the country where the bank was first established, but who is introduced by or from the head office, whether or not with the aid of electronic communications?
The second question is important because it can influence a dispute at law to a large extent.
<P>
It is best for the client and cheapest, of course, if any legal procedure takes place in his own country.
Looked at the other way round, it is important to the banking institution that it does not find itself in a disadvantaged position and it is better, therefore, if it can also formally have a branch in the same country as the client.
<P>
The first question, in my opinion, ought not to be asked at all, Why is it actually necessary that banking institutions be subject to a notification procedure before they set up in another Member State?
Why can the doctrine of the Cassis de Dijon case not also be the underlying assumption for banks?
When a bank is subject to strict supervision by the central bank in its own country, and wants to provide services elsewhere in the Union, the authorities in the other Member State should have confidence that this supervision has been exercised with care and that clients in other Member States are therefore also protected against failings in the area of solvency, liquidity and other requirements. Or is it the case that the Commission has reason to believe that banks will misuse their branches elsewhere in order to escape the requirements of their own central banks?
Does the arrival of the euro, which one can assume will increase the drive among banks to expand their services throughout the Union, not also mean that the supervision of credit institutions and of their supervisory authorities, that is the national central banks, will be centralized?
<P>
You see, while the communication was intended to resolve certain questions, you could say it has raised more questions than it has answered.
I hope that the Commission will look into these questions and I would like to thank all my colleagues who worked with me on this report which, in my opinion, brings a free internal market closer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Peijs">
Madam President, may I remind the rapporteur of the Crédit Lyonnais bank which used its branch in the Netherlands to do things which it preferred its head office not to know about.
<P>
This report examines the regulations for credit institutions which are operating in the Member States of the European Union.
The second banking directive from 1989 is required to ensure that the regulations in the different Member States are harmonized to guarantee freedom of establishment and the freedom to provide financial services.
That is an important matter.
The internal market in financial services will only increase with the coming of the euro and the expansion of information and communication technology.
<P>
The Commission's communication looks at two parts of the second banking directive: the notification procedure and the right of establishment.
Banks have to inform the supervisory authorities of the Member States in which they are operating of any cross-border operations.
It was not always clear when they had to do this.
The communication clarifies a number of points in this area.
I think it was too easy to say in the report that the SLIM project would render this communication superfluous.
Not all Member States were represented in the SLIM group for the banking system, which means that not all Member States would want to abolish the notification procedure just like that.
And I think that is how it should be.
So the communication really is important as long as abolition has not been achieved.
<P>
The second part of the communication clarifies the conditions under which a Member State can appeal to the public interest in imposing restrictions on banking institutions.
I agree with the view of the rapporteur that the communication could help in the event of conflicts between interested parties.
The conditions for an appeal to the public interest are set out in a structured way.
<P>
I would like to comment on paragraph 8 of Mr Wijsenbeek's report, which says that the notification procedure is only for Community banking institutions in relation to banking institutions from third countries.
That seems wrong to me.
Banks from third countries have to apply for a licence to operate in the Union and they then come under exactly the same rules as Community banking institutions.
The WTO speaks of national treatment for banks.
So there is no difference in treatment between the two, perhaps just a small observation from a member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy to a lawyer.
<P>
Madam President, I would like to apologize to you, the Commissioner and the rapporteur, because I was attending the public hearing of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy with members of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank.
Please accept my apologies that I was unable to attend the whole debate on the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rothley">
Madam President, the Group of the Party of European Socialists will agree with the substance of the Wijsenbeek report.
I should like to comment on the institutional aspect of this problem.
I do not believe that the Commission is competent to place communications on the interpretation of legal documents in the public domain.
<P>
Neither the European Parliament nor the Council - in other words, the two legislators in the European Community - expresses views before the European Court of Justice on the interpretation of a legal document which they have enacted.
The Commission has still less authority to express views on the interpretation of legal documents which the European Parliament and the Council have enacted.
In this area there is no competence attaching to the Commission.
That is why such communications, insofar as they are intended to expound legal effects, which is indeed the intention, are unlawful.
<P>
I believe this is a profoundly political problem.
<P>
The European Union suffers from the fact that it presents a diffuse image to the public.
No one knows exactly who is responsible for what.
Who is accountable?
That is why we must take account of such matters, I believe, we must take account of responsibilities.
Moreover, the European Court of Justice confirmed this last year, when it declared such a communication from the Commission - it must have been in February - to be unlawful.
That is why, Commissioner, if we are to maintain this clear responsibility, if we are to ensure that in the eyes of others the European Union has a clear profile and shape, it would be helpful for the Commission to refrain from such communications in future.
<P>
Either there is a necessity for a directive to be changed, and in that case the Commission can make a new proposal, or there is no such necessity, and in that case it should leave well alone!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mosiek-Urbahn">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in order to achieve the free movement of services for everyone who wants to make use of this right, it is necessary for there to be clear, unmistakable and reliable Community rules.
The second banking directive made an attempt at this but, as has been shown in practice, this objective has not been achieved.
To this extent recognition should certainly be given to the fact that, with this communication, the Commission has attempted to reduce uncertainties in the interpretation of various terms.
<P>
However - and here I agree with those who have spoken before me, Mr Rothley and Mr Wijsenbeek - the chosen route of a communication may be regarded as a suitable instrument only if two conditions are fulfilled.
The communication cannot and must not undermine or circumvent the democratic legislative process - clearly the codecision procedure in this case - in which the Council and the Parliament are legislators with equal rights, and it must in addition be subject to the express proviso of any further judgement by the European Court of Justice.
<P>
Given these pre-conditions, I nonetheless consider the Commission's communication to be a practically focused measure which may be extremely helpful.
With the imminent start of monetary union, all the experts anticipate that there will be a significant increase in cross-border services in the banking sector, so we need clarity quickly.
<P>
In my view, the main merit is that the communication gives a systematic presentation of the extensive judgements which have already been given by the ECJ in the area of the free movement of services and the general interest clause in the second banking directive.
It thus mainly serves the cause of greater transparency and greater information.
I should like to deal with one concrete point, the question of the electronic counter.
I believe that in this case we must await developments with great care, and any premature commitment to the application of the right of settlement or the right of service provision must be left up to further technological development.
<P>
In conclusion I should like to inform you that the Group of the European People's Party will support the rapporteur's report in its entirety.
Taken as a whole, the communication will be of use to banks and also consumers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Monti">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to express my appreciation for the report presented by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, and in particular I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Wijsenbeek.
We are particularly satisfied by the fact that the committee is in favour of abolishing notification in the case of the provision of cross-border financial services.
As is known, the abolition of Article 20 of the second banking directive was recommended by the SLIM task force for banking questions and the Commission supported the recommendation in its report to the Council.
<P>
To abolish the notification procedure, in the case of the provision of cross-border services, means recognizing that it is no longer essential to establish with accuracy in which Member State a financial service is provided, making superfluous a distinction which is increasingly difficult to operate, given that financial services are more often provided through electronic means, such as the Internet.
<P>
However, it would not be correct to state that the abolition of Article 20 and the consequent irrelevance of the place of provision of a service means that the consumer has a greater choice of place where he can seek legal redress.
Legal redress and the competence of the courts, in fact, are a different problem, governed by distinct regulations.
<P>
I would also like to mention some principles of the single market for financial services which should be considered in the examination of points 4 and 8 of the report.
The supervisory authorities of a host Member State are never asked to issue or refuse authorization to a foreign credit institution, either for reasons of general interest or for any other reason.
One of the fundamental results of the single market for banking services is that only the supervisory authorities of the Member State of origin are able to adopt such a measure.
The second banking directive, in fact, states the principle that a credit institution must request authorization from the supervisory authorities of the Member State of origin.
This credit institution can therefore provide, in any other Member State, the financial services for which it has obtained authorization in its Member State of origin.
<P>
I would like to demonstrate that the Commission's communication presents a view of the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice and expresses the position of the Commission concerning these questions, therefore it does not in any way constitute a binding document.
It is therefore an attempt to contribute to a clear interpretation on the part of the Commission, which is the guardian of the Treaties.
On the other hand, I agree, what is this communication based on?
It is based on a compilation of the relevant case law of the Court of Justice in this field.
If you like, this is the added value brought by the Commission: to collate the material based on the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice, certainly not with the creation of additional pieces of legislation.
We consider that this initiative is useful and essential to increase openness in banking, because we cannot honestly expect that the European citizen is informed - or that all European citizens, if we want to be more optimistic, are informed - of the most recent developments in the case law of the Court.
<P>
This is why the Commission has not followed the legislative procedure; if the Commission decides to adopt a proposal for the abolition of Article 20, the European Parliament will obviously be asked to carry out its role of codecision in full.
<P>
Finally, Madam President, two points.
The question on the second banking directive and the Cassis de Dijon case is interesting.
In fact, the second banking directive is no more than the pure application of the doctrine of Cassis de Dijon in the sense that it applies the principle of reciprocal recognition, but the idea of having notification within the terms of free provision of services was to have reciprocal information for the supervisory authorities in the respective Member States.
<P>
However, in the light of new technological developments, such as the Internet, this request for notification, when financial services are offered in another Member State, seems to be slightly dated.
This is why the Commission will propose the abolition of this need for notification.
<P>
Finally, my last point, with reference to the specific request of the rapporteur, Mr Wijsenbeek, ' But why?
Would it not be more logical to modify the second banking directive rather than issue an interpretative communication?'
Concepts such as "the general interest' are developing: the Member States may have very different ideas, as regards the specific aspects of the principle of the general interest; only a system of legal re-examination can guarantee respect for this principle with sufficient flexibility.
<P>
If we try to define this concept in the directive, the directive will become subject to frequent modifications.
On the other hand, the legislative process is such - and no one knows this better than I - that modifications to directives take a long time.
If the Commission had announced the abolition of Article 20 of the second banking directive, before being able to remedy the legal uncertainty it would have taken a few years from the beginning of the legislative procedure.
<P>
We therefore decided to clarify the situation immediately, and in this context, I can also announce that a proposal concerning the abolition of Article 20 of the second banking directive will be examined shortly by the Banking Advisory Committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="President">
Many thanks, Commissioner Monti.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 7.45 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Mr President, I would simply like to say that I was here yesterday but my name is not on the attendance register.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Thank you.
Are there any more comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sisó Cruellas">
Mr President, I have to inform you that although I was here for yesterday's sitting, my name has not been recorded in the Minutes.
Thank you very much.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Thank you.
Your comment will also be recorded.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schiedermeier">
Mr President, the same applies to me, I was present, but I am not in the Minutes either!
<P>
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Mr President, I would like clarification on the deadline for tabling amendments to the recommendations we will be considering tomorrow concerning Parliament's vote on the appointment of the Executive Board, President and Vice-President of the European Central Bank.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
Mr Giansily, if I recall rightly, you were present in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy that met yesterday evening.
I was present too and I recall that the President spoke of a deadline, 8.30 p.m. yesterday. I have no further information.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Yes, in fact I tabled an amendment at 7.45 p.m.
Given that the deadline was 8.30 p.m., I tabled it in time.
It was just that I was told confirmation was required from the House.
That was why I asked for clarification.
But I am quite happy with your reply, given that my amendment was tabled within the deadline.
There is thus no problem with the House considering it tomorrow. Thank you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
Mr Giansily, I have only mentioned what I witnessed yesterday evening.
Actually, the chairman's reply seemed rather ironic, as he gave it at 8.32 p.m.
That is why he said that the deadline was 8.30 p.m.
But I think the chairman, Mr von Wogau, can explain better than I can.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Wogau">
Mr President, yesterday evening I proposed that the deadline for amendments should be set at 8.30 p.m.
I realized that this would not work particularly well.
But I would like to ask my colleague, Mr Giansily, to consider whether he could not achieve the same thing either by an oral amendment or by a separate vote.
It is after all only a question of the words "for 8 years' , and of whether there can be a separate vote on this issue.
I therefore request that we invite the experts on the Rules of Procedure to examine whether this possibility exists.
This would mean that our colleague, Mr Giansily, is being treated fairly, because it is entirely legitimate for him to make this demand.
The problem was that we had to work exceptionally quickly and a deadline for amendments was therefore not necessary.
The problem we are dealing with here is essentially a political one.
That is why I take the view that my colleague, Mr Giansily, has the right to express his opinion on this issue.
While this does not concur with my own view in this particular case - which is quite an unusual turn of events - I nevertheless consider it legitimate that this opinion should be expressed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
Normally, when voting on an applicant, the vote is a "yes' or a "no' without amendments.
I think that Mr von Wogau's proposal can be accepted by Mr Giansily and by my other colleagues as well, and in this way we can accept a request for separate votes.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Decision on urgency
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Monti">
Mr President, the Commission shares the reasons put forward by the Council in asking for these motions raised by the Commission to be included according to the urgent procedure.
They are, in fact, connected with the Fifth Framework Programme to the extent that the rules on participation and dissemination of the results of research are necessary to implement the Programme.
<P>
The Research Council will meet on 22 June next.
If the European Parliament agreed to give its opinion during the sitting in Brussels on 27 and 28 May, rather than during the June sitting in Strasbourg as currently planned, the Council would have the information to adopt a common position in good time.
<P>
(Parliament agreed to the request for urgent procedure)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Conciliation procedure concerning investment services
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
With regard to the failure of the conciliation procedure on investment services in the securities sector, in accordance with Rule 78(1) of the Rules of Procedure, I would like to make the following statement.
<P>
Since the entry into force of the Treaty on European Union the codecision procedure has proved its worth: it has enabled Parliament and the Council to adopt jointly legislative acts in the interest of European citizens covering a very wide range of subjects.
<P>
To date 124 acts have been completed under this procedure, including 77 for which no recourse to the Conciliation Committee provided for by Article 189b of the Treaty was necessary.
Meetings of the Conciliation Committee were necessary to seek agreement for the other 47 texts.
Over the last four years there has only been disagreement within the committee on one occasion: in 1994 on the subject of voice telephony.
<P>
Now, however, another conciliation procedure has ended in disagreement.
In a letter dated 3 April 1998, the co-presidents of the Conciliation Committee concerning the proposal for a Directive establishing a committee on securities (C4-0228/98-95/0188(COD)) informed Parliament and the Council that the committee had been unable to approve a joint text in the 8-week period available to it.
<P>
Despite considerable efforts, it was impossible to bridge the gap between the two institutions, in particular with regard to the type of committee to be chosen for the act.
<P>
As far as the continuation of the procedure is concerned, the Council has said that it does not intend to confirm its common position.
Consequently, in line with Article 189b(6) of the Treaty, the proposed act is deemed not to be adopted.
While regretting this setback in the Conciliation Committee, I should point out that this is a possibility provided for in the Treaty itself.
In deciding not to confirm its common position, the Council has opted not to take up one of the prerogatives it enjoys under the current codecision procedure.
I welcome this decision, which anticipates the application of new procedural rules which will be binding once the Amsterdam Treaty comes into force.
<P>
For the first time, Parliament and the Council can establish the lack of agreement within the Conciliation Committee as the final stage in a codecision procedure.
This illustrates the fact that the two institutions are now on an equal footing, two branches of a genuine Community legislature. This equality will be reinforced once the new procedural rules come into force.
<P>
Evidently the two institutions are still far apart on the question of commitology.
I hope that this failure to reach an agreement will encourage them to seek common ground when discussing the new Commission proposal due to be submitted at the beginning of June.
<P>
Parliament will certainly aim to do so but without dropping its fundamental requirements concerning a simplification of committee procedures and the need to ensure that implementing measures are monitored by the two branches of the legislature in a balanced and efficient manner.
<P>
There are three measures planned in this respect, which I would ask you to follow carefully.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fontaine">
Mr President, it will do no harm just this once to admit that the conciliation procedure has failed with regard to the committee on securities, in spite of the efforts of a number of people. I would like to pay tribute in particular to the rapporteur, Christine Oddy, who has taken great pains to bring this to a conclusion in spite of all the odds.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we came up against the Council's stubbornness in wanting to impose a type 3b committee, which we have always denounced as anti-democratic. We sincerely hope this will disappear within the framework of the overall solution the Commission will very shortly put to the European Parliament with regard to commitology.
<P>
Mr President, I mention this failure with regret, of course, but with no bitterness, and I also know that Mrs Lidl has personally shown a great deal of availability and understanding with regard to this issue.
In reality, the factor which I have just mentioned was the determinant one for our delegation.
On the eve of the search for a new commitology agreement, we could not accept a solution which could have committed us to an unfortunate precedent, likely even to compromise the issue of future negotiations.
<P>
I would like to thank the members of the delegation very sincerely for having been willing to accept that this institutional aspect should prevail in this case, in spite of the importance of other issues. I would like to thank our institutionalists, in particular the chairman of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, Mr De Giovanni, for his enlightened assistance on this sensitive subject.
I would like to emphasize that our delegation's decision was a unanimous one.
<P>
The Council chose the option of not confirming its common position.
As the President clearly said in his announcement, it was a wise decision which we must note positively since it anticipates the application of a new Article 251 in the Amsterdam Treaty which, as we hoped, will remove the much discussed third reading.
It now only remains for us to hope that an agreement will be rapidly reached so that conciliation procedures may be once and for all released from this widespread and nagging problem which affects so many issues.
<P>
We hope that the Commission will show some understanding - I am looking at Commissioner Monti as I speak - and will help us to make the Council realize that implementation measures must also be adopted out of respect for transparency and democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Oddy">
Mr President, I wish to state that the decision of the conciliation team was completely unanimous.
I also wish to thank colleagues for the support and steadfastness they showed through very difficult negotiations; particular thanks to Mrs Fontaine and the President of Parliament who took a personal interest in the dossier; also the staff who supported me and even rescued me from some bad dreams.
<P>
The conciliation failed for the following reasons. Firstly, Parliament did not want to create a precedent.
It has never accepted a type 3b committee in conciliation.
<P>
Secondly, Parliament believes that commitology is anti-democratic: essentially it bypasses Parliament and may allow amendments to directives to be made without recourse to Parliament.
The current modus vivendi is, by all accounts, not satisfactory.
<P>
Thirdly, the Commission has announced a review of the commitology procedure.
Again, the conciliation team felt strongly that the deliberations on the dossier should not prejudice the commitology review and, as Mrs Fontaine has said, there is to be a new procedure in the Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
Fourthly, the Commission was not particularly supportive, if I may say so.
When Parliament indicated it was prepared to support the Commission's position, the Commission did not take up that offer.
<P>
Fifthly, the Council did not, again in my humble opinion, negotiate in true good faith.
It wanted Parliament to do all the moving and not to move at all itself.
<P>
As COREPER has recently visited my constituency, I can assure colleagues that no permanent damage has been caused, and cordial relations have now been resumed.
<P>
It was also unfortunate, for reasons outside her control, that the British Minister was unable to attend the original meeting.
Had she been able to, then the common sense and persuasive skill she could have brought to bear would have been available right from the beginning of the eight weeks.
I would say that in future we should never start conciliation without a minister present, as a matter of principle, and we should not create a binding precedent.
<P>
Parliament has done the right thing, and I wish to congratulate my colleagues for standing by me through quite a difficult eight weeks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Monti">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission shares the positive opinion you have expressed on the functioning of the codecision procedure to date and, in particular, on the fruitful result of the work carried out by the Conciliation Committee in those cases in which it has taken measures to reach an agreement.
<P>
It is in this favourable context that the Commission considers it advisable to examine the conclusion reached by the Conciliation Committee on the proposal for a directive to set up a Securities Committee and it wishes to provide two keys to a reading today.
<P>
On the one hand, we regret that, despite the commitment of the parties involved, it has not been possible to reach an agreement.
We are very grateful to the Conciliation Committee which, under the admirable chairmanship of Mrs Fontaine, has devoted time and attention to this matter.
I would also like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Oddy, for the role he has played.
<P>
The Commission, allow me to recall, has played its role to favour approximation between the positions of the two parties, particularly by clarifying the technical nature of the implementing duties provided for in the proposal and by proposing several respectful forms of compromise on the political responsibility which the Treaties attributed to the Commission as the authority responsible for the implementing measures.
<P>
On the other hand, and this, Mr President, is the second key to the reading, I think that the lack of agreement on the Securities Committee should be seen as an entirely negative result.
This result has enabled the co-legislators and the Commission to note, to see with their own eyes in a specific case, the extent of the basic problems of the decision taken in December 1987 and therefore to calmly confirm the need for a revision.
<P>
To conclude, Mr President, I confirm that the Commission is discussing today the final direction to be given to the new proposal on commitology, which will be submitted at the beginning of the summer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
I think this brief exchange of ideas has been useful and interesting for all of us to hear.
This situation has actually never arisen before and we have found that it has not been possible to take the essential institutional requirements of the European Parliament into account.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Control of synthetic drugs
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0157/98) by Mr Pirker, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the Commission communication to the Council and the European Parliament on the control of new synthetic drugs (designer drugs) (COM(97)0249 - C4-0244/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Pirker">
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="Burtone">
Mr President, I wish to express my satisfaction at the rapporteur's work. I also agree with the analysis made by this House and confirm the gravity of the phenomenon in Europe.
<P>
Synthetic drugs have burst onto the scene and we have to take note of the increasingly more difficult situation. It will be increasingly harder to prevent, deal with and suppress drug abuse.
That is why we have to work with great commitment and, in particular, not underestimate the problem.
<P>
Unfortunately, as the rapporteur said, some people including authorities in the scientific world, have tried to spread extremely serious attitudes: some maintain that it is possible to live with the Saturday night drug.
These statements do not take into account the serious, even physical, potential consequences connected with the use of drugs, destroying brain cells.
They do not see the extreme gravity of the mental effect these drugs have on young people who, initially in a state of euphoria, suddenly fall into severe depression.
The consequences increase if we take into account the fact that synthetic drugs are often associated with the use of natural drugs and alcohol: this produces a real phenomenon of refined psychology.
These consequences are firstly social: we need simply think of the unmotivated violence of so many young people, gangs of youths, road accidents, Saturday night destruction and, finally, the increase in suicide.
<P>
We believe that the spread of synthetic drugs should be taken into great consideration.
We agree with the suppression of criminal organizations, but we also believe that measures need to be taken to reduce demand and therefore to think of prevention aimed at promoting values, not constructed pleasure, but spontaneous pleasure.
<P>
Finally, I believe that the European Parliament should ask for a commitment.
Today more than ever, we are seeing this constant change in the world of drugs and, consequently, it is not possible to outline the consumption of the various drugs.
We need to say a decisive "no' to all drugs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Heinisch">
The threat which is posed by synthetic drugs is directed almost exclusively at the health and the lives of young people in our society, and this is where synthetic drugs differ from conventional drugs.
It is natural that as the representative of the Committee on Culture, which is also a committee on youth, I should deal in particular here with the question of how preventative measures can be employed as part of a direct approach to young people.
<P>
An essential step must be to inform young people more fully about the risks of consuming synthetic drugs, to ensure that education starts at an early age, and above all to involve parents, teachers, educators, doctors and pharmacists.
Many amendments based on this realization have already been introduced in the Committee on Culture.
A further peculiarity about synthetic drugs is that they are consumed almost exclusively in the techno and rave scene, which is part of the culture of many young people at all levels of society.
<P>
That is why it is especially dangerous for this scene to be glamorized in the media, and above all on the Internet - where there is quite literally advertising for certain new drugs.
Not only must we counteract the pernicious influence of the Internet, we must in turn use this medium to launch an educational campaign.
<P>
It is important that the dialogue with young people should be conducted seriously, as it is with adults.
In my country, antidrugs discos, as they are called, are now part of the scene.
But at the same time we have to make one thing absolutely clear: taking drugs is never risk-free.
It is self-evident for me, as a pharmacist, to know that no medicine is without its side-effects, and this also applies to the so-called designer drugs.
Even the smallest dose of these synthetic substances can be dangerous, and what one person can cope with may cause serious physical harm in another.
<P>
That is why I particularly support Mr Pirker's call for a network of drugs-free schools.
I have been advocating this for 20 years, but I have to say that while the schools may be made drug-free, the students will all too often have taken the stuff before they get there.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="d'Ancona">
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="De Esteban Martín">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I too want to congratulate Mr Pirker on his excellent report.
Once again in this Parliament we are debating a phenomenon with devastating effects on our citizens: the drugs phenomenon.
Like the rapporteur, I want to stress the special risks associated with the consumption of so-called "synthetic drugs' .
I think it is better to say "synthetic' rather than "designer' drugs, because the word "designer' has positive connotations which can cause confusion, especially among the young people who are the main consumers of these drugs.
<P>
At the present time, the drug consumption pattern which has emerged is predominantly juvenile, centred around these synthetic drugs and associated, in some cases, with the consumption of other drugs, especially hallucinogens, amphetamines, cannabis and cocaine.
It is a sporadic form of consumption, closely related to lifestyle and weekend leisure, which is becoming the dominant pattern in a certain sector of young people.
At the moment, this "constellation' of drug-taking, together with alcohol abuse, constitutes a serious epidemiological and social problem which requires our full attention.
<P>
I agree with the rapporteur on another aspect of this report: the special set of problems these drugs present due to the ease with which they evade controls.
So we need to develop uniform programmes and models to promote effective cooperation measures between government authorities. I also think it is very important to promote expert investigation into the chemical substances which could be used to produce illegal drugs, for monitoring and regulation purposes, without interfering with trade or the legitimate commercial or industrial use of such substances.
<P>
To conclude, ladies and gentlemen, our efforts should be particularly directed towards prevention and training, with a special emphasis on strengthening positive values and alternative behaviours as the basis for turning away from drugs.
By offering realistic information about the harmful effects of these substances and the dangers of using them, between us we will be able to achieve our objective, which should be a drugs-free society.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Schaffner">
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wiebenga">
Mr President, synthetic drugs have been around for a long time.
The Beatles' splendid, classic number "Lucy in the sky with diamonds' is already more than 25 years old, so it is rather strange that we are only now starting to pay attention to these drugs and that, according to the report, so little is known about them.
What we do know is that large quantities of synthetic drugs are made and consumed in the European Union.
My country, the Netherlands, is among those at the forefront of this.
<P>
The resolution before us is a good resolution.
It is right not to speak of legalizing these "designer drugs' .
We have discussed legalization many times in this House and that does not produce much harmony.
<P>
Just as with the general policy on drugs, the view of the Liberal group is that we also have to have a threefold policy in this area under the slogan: prevent, combat and treat.
That means a combination policy, therefore.
The approach to tackling synthetic drugs must be part of the general drugs policy, and not become a separate sector.
<P>
The principal policy points in the report - to summarize briefly - are more research by the drugs observatory, harmonization of the relevant penal provisions and better cooperation with eastern European countries.
The Liberal group is very ready to agree to the main points of the report and I would like to compliment rapporteur Pirker sincerely.
In principle, as things look at the moment, we will be able to vote for his report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pailler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I approve of the Commission's proposal, especially with regard to the fight against trafficking, as it adopts a balanced approach which is fully in line with the spirit of the current negotiations on the United Nations convention.
This, in fact, relates primarily to traditional drug traffickers, but also includes new methods relating to those who supply the products which enable new drugs to be made.
<P>
Much as we support this fight against drug trafficking, however, the Confederal Group of the European United Left and I cannot support this motion for a resolution whilst its punitive nature is maintained, as this will have absolutely no dissuasive effect on young people whatsoever.
We already know this for a fact.
For a long time in France now, and against the better judgement of many, people have continued to be punished for drug consumption.
Consumption, however, has not decreased.
<P>
We are told that these young people are completely unaware of the risks.
Perhaps it is precisely because they know the risks that they take the drugs.
When will we finally take on board the existence of social suffering in relation to drug addiction, the fact that it is clearly the result of a social disease, that it is also due to the individuals themselves who, sometimes, have no other way of expressing their desire to put their life at stake, to attempt to give it some meaning, when society, their family and parents, have not been able to instil into them a desire for living?
So let us put an end to these dissuasive efforts aimed at consumers!
<P>
Secondly, my group cannot accept the fact that the preamble states that these people "are not conspicuous in society' .
It is unacceptable and that is how young people are pushed into criminal activity.
<P>
My group will not support this resolution unless there are certain amendments removing the strictly punitive aspects linked to consumption and, above all, the contemptuous attitude of a society which produces young people who sometimes feel obliged to seek their future in the taking of such risks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cohn-Bendit">
Mr President, in a parliament it is always difficult to enable the truth, and what is right, to come out.
You will always be able to say this or that with regard to synthetic drugs, and you will always be able to call for punitive measures but you will not be able to reach the people you want to protect because they do not want your protection.
<P>
It is very simple: since LSD, there have been people, the young and the not so young, hoping to find pleasure in one drug or another.
It is clear that to mix pleasure and drugs is dangerous.
Synthetic drugs and alcohol together are dangerous.
But we have known this for a long time, as we also know that driving after having taken alcohol or LSD is also extremely dangerous, for others as well as for yourself.
<P>
The problem here, the problem with this report, is that it is trying to reform a society which does not see things the same way.
So either you accept harsh regulations on tobacco, alcohol, synthetic and natural drugs, or you understand that there are people who have a different view of the world, different values, different lifestyles. Otherwise we will continue to make speeches in parliaments, but they will never come to a successful conclusion.
<P>
Punitive measures, which we find strengthened in this report, are not only an error, they are also counter-productive.
You are not marginalizing young people at the bottom of the social ladder, you are marginalizing the mentality of a whole section of society which rejects the idea that, when there is a problem, the only solution is a repressive one.
This is why, if the report stands as it is, without amendment, we will vote against it because it is mistaken, it says nothing and it goes against the realities of society.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur for the clear description he gives of this phenomenon in his introduction.
I would, nevertheless, add a few minor qualifications.
He says there are five million consumers of synthetic drugs, a number which is far from marginal.
He speaks of the particular social situation of these consumers.
Daniel Cohn-Bendit has just mentioned it.
The rapporteur also notes the little information we have on the levels of danger of this phenomenon.
This seems important to me.
He speaks, and this is important, of the simplicity of producing these drugs.
He also mentions the fact that some states have already established, aside from a system of legalization, controls on the quality of these forbidden products.
<P>
However, we do not agree with the report's conclusions on the measures to be requested of the Commission, the Council and the Member States.
You cannot reasonably envisage having five million policemen, one in each kitchen, one in each attic, one in each cellar, for this is where these drugs are made.
We know that these drugs are easily transportable and that they are not detectable using the means normally used to detect other drugs.
Yet the rapporteur proposes penalizing the consumers and the producers - who are often themselves consumers - along with completely ineffectual methods of combating organized trafficking.
Let us say it again, is it not because our friends in the Group of the European People's Party or others in Very New Labour , or the Scandinavians have realized they have lost the first war against traditional drugs that they must invent a new war, one which is already lost, moreover, since there are already five million consumers of synthetic drugs?
<P>
What rapidly needs to be considered, in terms of prevention and in terms of information, is the creation of a legal system which will restore the Member States' ability to control this phenomenon.
Because if it is a question of finding new wars then I invite Mr Pirker and my friends in the Group of the European People's Party to make war on parachuting, with a mortality rate of one in every 80 000 jumps.
Ecstasy and synthetic drugs have a mortality rate of one for every 3.4 million times that Ecstasy is taken.
They should therefore begin to consider the fact that those who want to pump up their adrenaline by parachute jumping are far more dangerous to society and themselves than those who take Ecstasy.
I think we should start to see things from this perspective, to see them rationally, whilst endeavouring to bring back under the control of our Member States a phenomenon which, as five million consumers show, is currently completely out of control.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Buffetaut">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Pirker's report clearly and meticulously describes the worrying phenomenon of the consumption of new synthetic drugs.
I would like thank him for this.
It seems that almost five million young people are taking drugs within the European Union.
These drugs are now even considered as a normal recreational activity in clubs and discos.
<P>
Apart from the fact that we know these drugs can have a harmful effect on health as well as self-control - heart problems, increased blood pressure, hallucinations, depression, aggression and so on -, it is also difficult to fight against these drugs because they are constantly changing and easily produced.
It therefore seems clear that we must fight them by using all the measures at our disposal, preventive, curative and also punitive, and to assure better cooperation between Member States in this fight.
It is the duty of the European Parliament to be the best advocates, the best defenders of true liberty, real liberty, that is to say, responsible liberty, the exercise of which increases human dignity.
<P>
It would be absurd for this Chamber, in one way or another, to encourage the free consumption of substances whose primary effect on the consumer is the loss of self-control, which is one of the conditions of the dignity of free human beings.
This is why Mr Pirker's report, by recommending both preventive and punitive measures - which in themselves may have a preventive and pedagogic effect - seems to us balanced and worthy of support as it stands.
<P>
In conclusion, Mr President, I would like to mention a recent experience.
I was in Turin last weekend where there is a footpath alongside the river Po, which is known as the junkies' footpath.
The sight of the degenerate youths who hang around there is enough to compel anyone to carry on the fight to free our society from drugs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Angelilli">
Mr President, I too wish to congratulate Mr Pirker on his excellent report, which was very thorough but also very specific.
<P>
The report indicates that the traditional subdivision between light drugs, such as marijuana and hashish, and heavy drugs, such as heroine, is not the most realistic subdivision.
The increasingly more extensive and varied circulation of synthetic drugs has completely revolutionized the narcotics scene.
Synthetic drugs are being used more and more by very young people, they are the ones that are most in fashion, but they are also the ones whose long-term negative effects on health are not yet fully known.
We need a wider and stronger initiative to provide information and prevention and particularly a commitment on the part of the Member States to suppress the manufacture and trafficking of these new substances.
<P>
Consequently, from my point of view, we need to contest the logic of those against prohibitions firmly for, with regard to synthetic drugs as well, they say that legalization would limit the harm, at least by eliminating illegal profits, as if the problem of drug dependency were only a problem of public order.
<P>
In the campaign against drugs, resigned acceptance is unacceptable as it can often cost lives.
As pointed out in the report on the 1996-2000 common campaign against drugs, the only way to actually reduce drugs trafficking is to try and remove the causes establishing demand.
We therefore need to give young Europeans specific answers to their unease and their problems, offer them new opportunities, work, culture and solidarity. But certainly not legalization!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Pirker for the splendid work he has done in preparing this very important report.
The question of the control of synthetic drugs is a vital one for the future of the struggle against the whole drugs problem.
If the problem is not tackled seriously, the drug users fraternity, as a result of the existence of synthetic drugs, will extend to those outside the so-called marginalized group.
The protective barriers that prevent a normal young person from becoming a user of synthetic drugs will weaken if drugs are easily and cheaply available and if they are perceived as being a part of modern youth culture, as they are in many countries today.
Give the Devil an inch and he will take a yard, because using synthetic drugs is a step on the way to becoming a user of harder drugs.
<P>
The issue of the fight against synthetic drugs, which was raised by the Dublin European Council, needs concrete proposals and prompt combined action.
One particular problem is the control of the trafficking of synthetic drugs in its early stages, as such drugs can be manufactured quickly and close to their markets.
Surveillance operations must be quick to react in the same way all over Europe.
<P>
Central to the matter is the creation of a real-time data system which can be used by customs, the police and the judicial authorities, into which up-to-date information on new synthetic drugs that have appeared on the market can be fed.
It will be important to undertake a survey on what kind of technical solutions and systems already in place could assist in the creation of such an operation.
Furthermore, an alliance with eastern European countries in this matter right from the start would lend the process credibility and increase cooperation in such a way that the principles of free movement may be safeguarded.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="Andrews">
Mr President, let me, at the outset say that our group is entirely in favour of Mr Pirker's report.
<P>
Some months ago there was a move in this House to legalize cannabis.
Now we are suggesting that LSD and Ecstasy are consumer products that should be distributed like sweets.
Perhaps we should hand out landmines to everyone in the House, because it is not dissimilar to saying that drugs are not dangerous.
<P>
In my own city, Dublin, we have seen whole communities devastated by the scourge of drugs.
I am not saying that Mr Dupuis, the Greens and the Socialists are not right to open up the argument.
On the contrary.
They are quite right to put their side of the case so that we can reply to it.
While I welcome the debate - I welcome both sides of the debate taking place in this House - I say to the Greens that I am very disappointed at the type of amendments they have put down in the House supporting the regulation and free distribution of drugs.
<P>
The overall objective of nearly all the amendments is undeniably dangerous.
Where the Pirker text puts the case for enforcement penalties for trafficking, pushing and consumption of synthetic drugs, the Greens seek to delete the reference to consumption.
They also want these drugs to be regulated.
In other words, they should be available and capable of being sold in machines, supermarkets and other outlets.
<P>
I recommend to the House Mr Pirker's report without reservation. I thank him for his efforts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindholm">
Mr President, I, too, would like to congratulate Mr Pirker on his good report and I agree with much, if not all, of it.
To Mr Andrews and others I would like to stress that the Green Group is not unanimous in its view on drugs, there are differences of opinion.
<P>
That the fight against drugs will be built on cooperation and will is something on which we probably all agree.
What, however, we do not agree on is the harmonization of criminal law, for example, and whether that should be desirable.
This is, in my opinion, a matter for the separate Member States.
I consider it impossible that Article 129 be used as a basis for harmonizing laws and policies on drugs, and so obviously does the Commission, too.
<P>
I am afraid Mr Pirker belittles the addictive nature and dangerous effects of the synthetic drugs and also the social exclusion they prove to lead to.
Nor do I agree that synthetic drugs are mainly to be found only in music circles.
<P>
Our objective here in Parliament and in the Member States must be a drug-free society.
I hope Parliament will repudiate the amendments which, directly or indirectly, plead for legalization.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Vanhecke">
Mr President, I have to say that I was very pleasantly surprised by the work of our colleague, Mr Pirker, because this Parliament's reputation in the field of policies to combat drugs is evidently determined more by a minority in this Parliament which shouts the loudest.
Members will remember that only a few months ago here in the Hemicycle, a report was blocked with great difficulty, which wanted to install a far-reaching policy of tolerance, along the lines of the Dutch model, for drugs which are ten times more dangerous than the synthetic substances we are discussing today.
Mr Pirker, in contrast, very rightly describes the enormous risks associated with all kinds of drug use, confirms the serious criminal nature of drug trafficking and proposes a number of preventive and repressive measures. The report rightly argues that repressive measures must not only be passed but also actually implemented.
That seems obvious but it is not.
<P>
I would also like to add something to the report before us.
I want to point out the essential role of the traditional family in the prevention of drug use.
I remain convinced that a great many of the serious evils of our society today can be ascribed to the decline in the role of the family as the cornerstone of society, as protector, place of learning and example to children.
Perhaps the Commission should come up with a recommendation to file a complaint against putting the family in many Member States at a material, moral and even fiscal disadvantage.
<P>
Finally, of course it is extremely difficult to put in place a healthy form of cooperation between sovereign Member States on combating drugs while a number of Member States, principally the Netherlands and now unfortunately by own Member State, Belgium, has put in place a policy of tolerance of drug use.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Mr President, I have just been considering the dangers which would be posed to society by parachutists who are on drugs.
After all, Mr Dupuis did mention parachutists.
But on a more serious note, I should like to give my most sincere congratulations to the rapporteur on his report.
It always reassures me to know that reports on this particular issue are being dealt with by the rapporteur in question, because I believe that his involvement guarantees that our children will not be put at risk by misguided liberalism.
<P>
The particular characteristics and side-effects of the synthetic drugs described in the report - and particularly the tendency of leisure addicts, if I can use the term, to seriously underestimate the effects of their habit - account for the special threat which they pose.
The fact that these fashionable drugs are being distributed for profit as part of a new organized-crime network means that the measures being proposed in the report, and particularly those aimed at an effective system of prevention, have now become a matter of urgency. We shall accept the report for all these reasons.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="Elliott">
Mr President, on the whole I do not have too many problems with the Pirker report.
It is important that we do not fall into the trap of giving some form of social approval to any form of drug-taking.
Having said that, hopefully almost all of us now recognize that a purely punitive approach will not work - indeed is not working - and that we need to do a great deal more in the fields of health care, education and trying to wean young people away from the drug culture.
<P>
I have one particular difficulty with the Pirker report: it is far too optimistic, far too ambitious to think that we can, at this stage, harmonize or integrate in any way the drugs legislation in the Member States.
Just imagine trying to reconcile the approach of the Netherlands, for example, with that of Sweden.
It just will not happen.
That is why I think we have to let each Member State deal with this issue in its own way.
Of course there should be a coordination of activities; of course there should be cooperation.
But Amendment No 21 in the name of Schulz and d'Ancona, which says that it is impracticable at the moment to talk of harmonization, is a sensible amendment. If that is carried I do not have any great difficulties in supporting the report.
But I am against Amendments Nos 19 and 22 which do not help very much in this situation.
<P>
This is a very serious issue.
I wish this report could have been dealt with at the same time as the d'Ancona report, in a broad ranging debate.
But there it is. The report is before us this morning.
With the qualifications I have mentioned, we should support the line indicated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Gradin">
Mr President, Mr Pirker's excellent report deals with one of the most important problems we have to wrestle with in Europe today.
We all know how synthetic drugs are now spreading like wild fire among the young people of Europe.
The trend is equally clear in all the Member States within the EU.
That is something we could clearly see already in 1995 at the conference on drugs, jointly arranged by the Commission, the Parliament and the Spanish Presidency.
The two latest reports from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction in Lisbon have also confirmed our worst fears.
No-one can any longer doubt the fact that synthetic drugs have become one of the gravest threats to young people's lives and health in our Member States.
<P>
The reality behind the figures is frightening.
We are talking about a conscious campaign here run by powerful international criminal forces.
The purpose is clear: to create widespread drug addiction among a new generation of young people.
New preparations are handed out free of charge outside schools and youth centres to attract beginners to start and experiment.
The effects are dedramatized and minimized.
The tactic is to associate synthetic drugs with a new and attractive youth culture, to associate them with dancing, music and a strong feeling of togetherness.
Gone are the unpleasant needles, the nasty smelling pipes and the give-away smell of smoke.
The strategy has so far been effective.
<P>
The EU Heads of State or Government raised the problem at the Dublin Summit in 1996.
Immediately thereafter I and my officials brought a number of proposals forward for concrete action.
One of our starting points was that it takes too long today to ban new substances that keep appearing.
UN conventions are quite simply not enough.
The result is that it becomes difficult for prosecutors and the police to work effectively.
<P>
Another starting point was that the input from the Member States in this area needs to be better coordinated, not least making use of one another's resources and expertise.
The conclusion was that improvements were needed on three points. Firstly, we have to create a more effective system of exchange of information between Member States.
Secondly, we need to be able to make joint and scientifically based risk assessments.
Thirdly, we must see to it that synthetic drugs are banned rapidly in all Member States; it is not good enough for one or two Member States to act; joint action is needed.
<P>
This is also the significance of the joint action adopted by the Council of Ministers on 16 June 1997.
It has been extremely heartening to see how intensively both Europol and the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction in Lisbon have worked to implement this decision.
The result today is that we have a well functioning information system.
Before the end of the year the first joint scientific analysis of a new form of Ecstasy, called MBDB, will also have been completed.
Then the Council of Ministers will have one month to take appropriate measures.
<P>
In Mr Pirker's report there is a recommendation to include too the central and eastern European countries in this work, a thought I support wholeheartedly.
During my travels in many applicant countries, it has been repeatedly confirmed to me that the manufacture of and addiction to amphetamine, methamphetamine and Ecstasy is rapidly spreading there as well.
It is therefore, without the slightest doubt, in our own interest to include these countries as soon as possible in the fight against drugs.
The idea to associate the applicant countries with the decision on a joint action to combat synthetic drugs will also be discussed at the Council meeting at the end of this month.
My hope is that we will be able to go further still.
I am in the process of identifying all the agreements reached by the Council of Ministers in the sphere of the third pillar, and to which the applicant countries can affiliate themselves more or less straight away.
<P>
Another point that Mr Pirker raises in his report deals with the control of chemical precursors.
This is a question I also mentioned in the 1996 communication on synthetic drugs.
I then pointed out the need for reinforcing the control of chemical base elements, used in the manufacture of the new synthetic drugs.
I can mention here that the Commission has already put forward amendments to the two directives which today regulate the manufacture and trade of these base elements.
These amendments have, by the way, already been forwarded to the European Parliament for opinions.
<P>
Mr President, that the EU now takes up the struggle against synthetic drugs is of great importance for our international credibility.
Combating drugs will, as you know, be high on the agenda of the United Nations' special session on drugs in June this year.
Today a frighteningly large proportion of the manufacture of amphetamines, methamphetamines and Ecstasy takes place within the EU circle.
It is therefore about time we swept our own front doorstep clean.
<P>
The special session in New York in early June is, to my mind, one of the most important of this year's UN meetings.
The Council of Ministers is busily preparing for it, and, as you will know, the Commission has contributed to that work with a communication presenting our thoughts and ideas.
This communication is at present being scrutinized by Parliament, I hope.
I shall be present myself in New York together with my colleague, Commissioner Marin.
The Commission would welcome the presence of Parliament, too, at this important meeting.
We are therefore in the process of looking into the possibility of including representatives from the European Parliament in the delegation from the Commission.
As far as I understand, the prospects for this look good.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place today at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Preliminary draft general budget for 1999 (presentation)
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="President">
The next item is the presentation by the Commission of the preliminary draft budget for 1999.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, on 29 April the Commission adopted the preliminary draft general budget for 1999.
On the basis of its orientations of January and the results of the budgetary Trialogue, the Commission proposal totals 97 billion euros for commitments and 86 billion euros for payments.
The 1999 PDB is the first to be denominated in euros.
Compared to the Community budget for 1998, these totals represent growth rates of 6.5 % for commitments and 3.4 % for payments.
<P>
To establish the preliminary draft budget for 1999, the Commission has had to reconcile two contradictory objectives: on the one hand, to respect the commitments of the Interinstitutional Agreement of 1993 and, on the other hand, to maintain a rigorous budgetary orientation.
<P>
As a result, the 1999 budget draft proposal is characterized by a high and inevitable growth rate for structural actions which is more than 16 % in commitments and 9 % in payments.
All other categories taken together are proposed to grow by only a half percent in commitments and payments.
<P>
At the same time the Commission proposes a supplementary and amending budget for 1998.
It would permit a reimbursement of ECU 1.3 billion to the Member States on the basis of the underspending of 1997 and higher estimates for traditional own resources.
<P>
Taken into account in this reimbursement is additional expenditure for the Social Fund to the amount of ECU 450 million, for PHARE ECU 150 million in commitments, and for humanitarian aid ECU 150 million in commitments and ECU 100 million in payments.
<P>
The preliminary draft budget for 1999 marks an end and a beginning: it is the final PDB within the framework of the Interinstitutional Agreement of 1993, and it prepares the ground for Agenda 2000 which should permit the historic enlargement of the Union to central and eastern Europe, even in today's more rigorous climate for public expenditure.
<P>
In the Interinstitutional Agreement of 1993, the European Parliament, Council and Commission adopted two principal financial priorities for the Community until 1999.
Firstly, to reinforce fundamentally financial support for the economic and social cohesion of the Union in the continuity of the 1988 Agreement, giving full relevance to the Maastricht Treaty; and, secondly, to strengthen in particular the financial means for external cooperation.
Following the ambitious decisions of the European Council of Cannes, this effort was mainly directed at the central and eastern European countries as well as third Mediterranean countries.
<P>
It was also clear that the agricultural reforms decided in 1992 would require a substantial budgetary effort, but should permit stabilization of spending requirements in the medium term.
<P>
With the 1999 Community budget these objectives can be achieved.
With a final major effort, the full amount of funds for structural actions will have to be made available.
In 1999 prices, and including the effects of Community enlargement, these will represent 208 billion euros.
In 1999 the share of structural actions in total commitments will, for the first time, be virtually the same as for agriculture, at a level of 40 %.
The final effort for 1999 is certainly considerable.
<P>
For external cooperation, the amounts proposed for PHARE and MEDA are as decided at the Cannes Summit.
Taking into account the supplementary budget for PHARE in 1998, the promises made by the Heads of State and Government will be fully financed.
<P>
The new orders of magnitude for the financial support of the eastern and the southern neighbours of the Union have required fundamental changes in the management of these programmes and the organization of the Commission.
To mention just a few examples: the new orientation of PHARE; soon, the new regulation for cooperation with the former Yugoslavia; and, on the organizational side, the creation of the resource directorates and the imminent launch of the common structure for external programmes to streamline the administration of the external operational activities.
These measures should improve the conceptual and organizational underpinning of the external cooperation programmes in the future.
<P>
With regard to the common agricultural policy, financial requirements have grown by one-third since 1992, in particular to finance the first round of reform.
But they should remain stable in 1999 for the third year in a row.
While the objectives of 1993 in the Interinstitutional Agreement can thus be achieved, they will require considerably less Community resources than expected in Edinburgh.
The preliminary draft budget for 1999 has been established at 1.11 % of Community GNP.
Compared to the ceiling of total payments in the Financial Perspectives of 1.24 %, this represents virtual savings of some 11 billion euros for the Member States in 1999 alone.
<P>
It is certainly true that the resources from the new Member States from 1995, favourable world market conditions for some agricultural products and a maximum effort to avoid over-budgeting in payment credits have significantly contributed to this result.
But, nevertheless, it is also undeniably the fruit of a deliberate change in budgetary strategy.
The Commission and the budgetary authority have succeeded in bringing the Community budget in line with the budgetary efforts of all Member States in the run-up to Economic and Monetary Union, while respecting the main priorities of the Interinstitutional Agreement.
<P>
In 1998 the growth of the Community budget in payments is 1.4 %.
Including the supplementary and amending budget it would be 2.1 %.
At the same time public expenditure in the Member States grows by 3.2 % which means that Community spending is below the average of the Member States.
For 1999 the currently available projections indicate a growth rate in public expenditure of some 3.6 % in the Member States.
The 3.4 % proposed in the preliminary draft budget is therefore 'roughly in line with the growth of national budgets' , as the European Parliament called for in its resolutions on the guidelines for the 1999 budgetary procedure.
<P>
Another illustration of the change in budgetary strategy are the margins under the Financial Perspectives for internal, external and administrative spending.
These margins are possible through a policy of clear priorities.
In Category 3, internal policies, the emphasis is again on employment and growth-creating expenditure: the employment and growth initiative of the European Parliament, the Fifth Research Programme and the reinforcement of the trans-European networks.
<P>
Category 4, external action, focuses as mentioned before on the conclusions of the promises made at the Cannes summit.
The new proposal for the ACP banana products has also been taken into account.
It is proposed to roll over most external cooperation programmes but an effort has been made to integrate some reconstruction and rehabilitation programmes into the appropriate geographical programmes.
<P>
With regard to administrative expenditure, the Commission request is for no more than the final 110 posts connected with the last enlargement.
Internally, the Commission is repeating last year's exercise of forming a pool of 1 % of all posts of each department and DG for potential redeployment.
Additional measures have been taken to reduce the number of vacant posts.
Excluding pensions, the Commission's administrative appropriations would need to grow by just 1.3 %.
For the other institutions the Commission estimates an equally strict approach.
Given the growth of pensions for all institutions of 6.7 %, this would allow growth of expenditure in Category 5 to be limited to under 2 %.
<P>
Finally, I would draw your attention to the fact that in the context of the 1999 preliminary draft budget, the Commission has confirmed its intention to propose an additional 100 million euros for the PEACE Community initiative.
The Commission expects that the necessary appropriations can be found in the general reprogramming of the Community initiative which it will propose during the budget procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="Dührkop Dührkop">
Thank you, Mr President and thank you, Commissioner Liikanen, for your thorough presentation of the preliminary draft budget for 1999.
I also want to thank you for having presented your preliminary draft earlier than expected, which means we can work on the budget ahead of schedule this year. This will allow us to hold three-way talks with the Council on 17 July, instead of at the end of that month, and means that this Parliament and the relevant committees do not have to panic about the first reading.
<P>
I also want to say that, in broad terms, this Parliament has already expressed its priorities for the 1999 budget and although we agree that it has to be a rigorous budget the Union's commitments should not be compromised just for the sake of the endof-year figures.
<P>
In any case, Commissioner, this is not the time to start a debate.
So I will content myself with thanking you for your presentation and pointing out that there are some details we cannot go along with, on which the relevant committees will have to state their opinion.
All that glitters is not gold.
<P>
There is one point I would like to stress: you know very well, Commissioner, that your supplementary and amending budget does not solve the problem, in this 1999 budget, of the discrepancy between commitments and payments.
I hope a solution will emerge during the deliberations.
<P>
Otherwise, Commissioner, thank you for your collaboration and I hope that between us all - yourselves, Parliament and the Council too - we can steer this budget to a happy conclusion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop asked whether the discrepancy between commitments and payments remains in 1998.
What we are proposing is to add some ECU 560m to the payment credits of the Social Fund.
That is because of the situation where the payment credits have not been sufficient to cover all the commitments.
At the end of the last year some expenditure in the Social Fund had to be postponed to the following year.
To try to alleviate the situation so that this would not happen to any great extent, we have added this ECU 560m.
We do not know if it is entirely sufficient but at least it will make it a bit easier.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Tobacco advertising
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0150/98), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States relating to the advertising and sponsorship of tobacco products (C4-0034/98-00/0194(COD)) (Rapporteur: Mr Christian Cabrol).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="Cabrol">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are today going to give an opinion on the common position of the Council with regard to the proposal for a directive on - and I would like to emphasize the title - the approximation of national legislations relating to the advertising and sponsorship of tobacco products.
<P>
Firstly, to cut short any discussion on the subject, I would like to say that this directive has a firm legal basis in Article 100a, since, as its title indicates, its aim is to remove the profound differences which exist between the legislative provisions of Member States, profound differences of a nature which would hinder the freedom to provide services in this domain and cause distortions in competition impeding the functioning of the single market.
I would therefore like to repeat that there is no problem with regard to the legal basis of this report.
This was, moreover, confirmed by Parliament's legal service in an opinion dated 27 March 1998, although even the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights would have had us believe otherwise.
Article 100a was, furthermore, confirmed as the appropriate legal basis by the European Parliament at first reading and has been questioned by none of the institutions participating in the subsequent legislative process.
The adoption of amendments challenging the legal basis would make an absolute nonsense of this second reading and I would like to request formally that they be rejected.
<P>
Secondly, I would also like to stress that Article 100a is absolutely appropriate in this case for, in paragraph 3, it explicitly provides that the European Commission, when proposing measures relating to the operation of the single market and touching upon issues of consumer health and protection, must take as its basis a high level of protection for those consumers.
That is thus the case with this directive which, in order to do so, brings currently divergent national measures into line, through a ban on direct and indirect advertising of tobacco products in order to obtain a high level of consumer protection.
For tobacco kills: 500 000 people pay the price every year in the European Union, be it cancer of the mouth, the airways, the lungs or the bladder, be it diseases of the heart or arteries, or illness through passive smoking, for example, children suffering from chronic respiratory conditions because their parents smoke.
Tobacco advertising encourages smoking and creates this senseless mortality rate.
To encourage people to smoke is truly inciting them to murder, all in the name of the financial interests of the tobacco producing firms.
<P>
Thirdly and finally, this common position will be satisfactory to Parliament in that it takes on board the majority of amendments proposed at first reading.
The text is clearly not perfect, but it does make considerable progress in this field.
Whilst banning direct and indirect tobacco advertising, it leaves to Member States, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, the task of regulating certain areas and provides a deadline of three years hence for national provisions to be imposed.
It also provides extended deadlines with regard to the press and sponsorship.
In its current state it is thus the best compromise possible, allowing time for all the necessary economic adjustments, of which I am well aware.
<P>
As you know, this text is the result of very difficult discussions which have lasted nearly ten years.
That is why, in order to avoid opening up new discussions which might risk breaking this fragile balance and might delay unduly, even postpone sine dia this directive, we have requested that it be adopted without amendment.
Yet, in spite of this recommendation, this common position is the subject of a veritable flood of amendments.
Make no mistake, ladies and gentlemen, although some of these amendments have been made in good faith, out of concern for improving the common position - which risk ruining it however - the majority of these amendments have been submitted by experienced parliamentarians, fully aware of what they are aiming to achieve, under the influence of certain pressure groups, and in no way - and I have proof of this - supported by public opinion in their countries.
In reality, their amendments are merely pretexts to make this directive fail by means of successive procedures.
<P>
Such a thing is unacceptable.
This attitude on the part of Members is incomprehensible, especially given that they are so demanding when it comes to defending air or water quality, lack of which can certainly be dangerous, but a lot less so than tobacco consumption.
So, ladies and gentlemen, let us not stand guilty of this mass homicide in the face of history but let us adopt this common position as it stands in order to obtain commercial regulation of - and I will emphasize it once more - advertising, which needs to be uniform throughout the European Union, so that incitement to such self-destruction, such absurd self-mutilation, will finally come to an end.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="Janssen van Raay">
Mr President, as a non-smoker I have others who smoke to thank for my cough.
<P>
I agree with Professor Cabrol's passionate plea to drive back tobacco.
He argued the case before the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection for a general ban on tobacco to be proclaimed on the grounds of public health.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights did not talk about tobacco.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights did not talk about public health. The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights asked itself whether a total ban on advertising would further the operation of the single market, yes or no.
<P>
It is obvious that a ban on cars or alcoholic drinks is the antithesis of furthering the operation of the single market, so Article 100a is not the right means.
The German Bundestag has already decided to bring it before the Court of Justice; not Parliament, not the Commission, not the Council, but the Court of Justice, which always follows the rule if there is a special article in the Treaty on the subject.
That will also be used and not a general article.
In other words, if this directive is accepted, the Court of Justice will reject it because there is no legal basis for it.
There is a basis.
Since Maastricht, there has been Article 129 which calls on us to promote public health and the route for those who want to ban tobacco is Article 129 of the Treaty.
<P>
There are more victims of car use, innocent third parties.
If people want to reduce the use of the car on public health grounds by banning advertising which restricts trade and hinders the operation of the internal market, they should do so on the grounds of Article 129.
Professor Cabrol will get my support on that, but this is absolutely the wrong method.
That is why it is being referred back to the Commission.
The Council's legal service has also said no.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Díez de Rivera Icaza">
Mr President, on Parliament's own initiative, we have spent nearly nine years, during one presidency after another, trying to ban direct and indirect advertising of tobacco products within the Union, together with the sponsorship of sporting events.
<P>
The damage tobacco does to the health of both active and passive smokers is only too well known, and we Members who have spent nearly a decade on this attempt have repeated them endlessly.
<P>
Tobacco kills, as Professor Cabrol said.
Its consumption is linked to 30 % of all cancers.
It is also the leading cause of premature death: more than half a million people die in the Union every year because of this fatal habit which has been promoted for years. Additives have even been added in a criminal fashion to increase addiction among adolescents and children, some of them just five years old.
That is really monstrous, Mr President.
<P>
I am not even going to mention those irrational arguments based on suspect reasoning, such as saying that cars are dangerous too. What we are talking about here today is protecting people's health and life, not luring them, as the tobacco companies do, towards a process of disease and sorrow for the sake of private financial interests.
<P>
There is no doubt that direct and indirect advertising and the sponsorship of sporting events have played and continue to play an important role in the promotion of tobacco consumption among young people. We all know that.
But there are too many financial interests behind it, as was made patently clear by the scandalous attempt at an agreement on the part of the North American tobacco companies.
<P>
The common position we are now considering is a first step.
It is the result of a compromise which has not been at all easy. It goes in the right direction, and as such we welcome it, although cautiously too, because it is hard to see why we should continue to allow sponsorship until the year 2006, or why in some regions there should still be subsidies for tobacco products which do such serious damage to health.
<P>
Nevertheless, it is still a worthwhile first step in our anti-cancer strategy, and we will vote in its favour.
<P>
I do not want to end my part in this historic debate, Mr President, without congratulating the rapporteur, Professor Cabrol, and the presidency, both the current one as well as the previous Luxembourg Presidency. Their work has enabled us to reach this agreement, within the single market, despite the biased interpretation from the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, which also happened, Mr President, at first reading.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Grossetête">
Mr President, we are today confronted by a particularly political subject which quite simply places the defenders of the tobacco industry in opposition to the defenders of public health.
Within this Parliament, I would wish our main priority to be that of the defence of public health.
As a woman, I shudder when I see young pregnant women smoking.
We all know very well that smoking whilst pregnant is especially harmful to babies, who will be born with a low birth weight and size.
<P>
Who is tobacco advertising aimed at?
It is aimed quite simply at young people, because the tobacco industry needs to replenish the number of smokers in the population.
So young people are targeted, knowing full well the impact that advertising will have on impressionable youngsters, who are looking for role models and keen to assert their personality.
Once they are hooked, we know that they will never manage to stop smoking and we know that then, advertising will no longer have an effect on them.
<P>
Given this situation, what do Members under the influence of the tobacco multinationals do?
They put forward legal arguments.
They invoke Article 129, which permits only measures beneficial to public health to be taken.
Well, you cannot ignore the facts.
If the legal basis of Article 100a is not applied, we will end up with a distortion of competition since there are enormous differences in national legislations concerning tobacco advertising and sponsorship within the internal market.
These disparities will create hindrances to the free circulation of goods, especially for advertising agencies.
With regard to health, Article 100a enables a high level of protection to be introduced, and that is what we want.
<P>
Furthermore, I reject the argument that we are going to kill the funding of large sporting competitions or the activities of small sports associations.
Such arguments are insulting to all sponsors except the tobacco industry, who make enormous efforts to finance these competitions.
Let me quote, for example, the large sailing competitions and the name of Fleury-Michon.
<P>
A large majority of the citizens of Europe, including those in Germany, are in favour of a ban on tobacco advertising.
They expect Parliament to take a political decision.
So I say to my colleagues who have done all they can to harden the position of the text purely so that it will not be approved: yes, I know that a number of German political meetings are sponsored by the tobacco industry; yes, I know that Germany thought the Council would not reach an agreement, that it commenced negotiations on this directive only belatedly.
It is this strategic error that Germany is now trying to repair by whatever means necessary.
<P>
I deplore the fact that my group, the Group of the European People's Party, has judged it wise to give speaking time to a greater number of Members in favour of tobacco advertising.
I find this somewhat petty-minded, quite apart from the fact that it gives us a bad image.
Let us all vote as free individuals, voting in the interests of our citizens, the citizens of Europe.
<P>
There is an article in "Le Monde' today, which is a serious newspaper as I am sure you all know, which states that according to the WHO, the only cancer which is likely to develop in the future is lung cancer, simply because of an increase in the number of smokers.
The WHO furthermore specifies that tobacco kills 3.5 million people throughout the world every year and that this figure will reach 10 million by the year 2020.
<P>
That is why, whilst leaving you to reflect on these figures, I propose that we follow the advice of the rapporteur, Mr Cabrol, and vote for the proposal as it stands, without amendment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hermange">
Mr President, Mr Cabrol, ladies and gentlemen, allow me firstly to congratulate Mr Cabrol on his tenacious and sincere commitment to the banning of tobacco advertising and for his report, which clearly recommends approval of the Council's common position on the proposal for a directive on the approximation of laws, regulations and administrative provisions of Member States relating to the advertising and sponsorship of tobacco products.
<P>
I would like to assure him of my full support.
On behalf of the many direct or indirect victims of tobacco, as Mrs Grossetête has just said, and the 13 000 European doctors - ten of whom are Nobel Prize winners - who have signed a petition in favour of this directive, may I thank him for the courageous position he has taken, which we must follow.
<P>
We must be perfectly clear that tobacco kills 548 000 Europeans every year, more than road accidents, alcohol, murders, drugs and suicides put together.
It has also been noted that tobacco advertising has a considerable influence over the behaviour of young people, encouraged to smoke in order to identify with an unrealistic lifestyle.
But it is young people, the life's blood and future of Europe, whom we must protect and inform so that they can consciously and freely make their own choices in life.
<P>
In the face of this living reality, the legal arguments being advanced by the tobacco industry through a skilfully orchestrated lobbying campaign seem intended to evade the debate on the substance of the matter by replacing it with a debate on procedure.
For, let us make no mistake, ladies and gentlemen, it is a political decision that we have to make by voting for the Cabrol report.
<P>
Let the Court of Justice decide on the issue of a legal basis, if it is referred to them. That is their right.
But we in the European Parliament, the voice of the people of Europe, cannot let this opportunity to defend a healthier Europe, so close to the hearts of our citizens, pass us by. It is an opportunity to defend a voluntarist and pragmatic vision of Europe and - it will do no harm just this once - to ensure that a political decision prevails over administrative circumspection.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, our group supports the positions of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and Mr Cabrol - which are the same - in the sense that we reject all the amendments which could weaken the Council's common position. Some amendments, while presented with the best of intentions, can only have the effect of changing the Council's position.
And 37 Members in the Committee on the Environment voted in favour of this report's proposal, proving that members of all the groups support the Cabrol report in its present form and the Council's common position.
<P>
It is very clear that there are all sorts of pressures.
And it is also very clear that the use of the legal basis is a subterfuge to try to invalidate the Council's common position.
When people say we should use Article 129, they forget that, according to that article, it is not possible to adopt measures to harmonize the Member States' legal and statutory provisions.
So it is just a subterfuge; so much so that we think there has been an attempt to devalue the position of the Council and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
<P>
We also agree with the recommendations Mr Cabrol makes at the end of his report, where he requests that this measure - the banning of advertising - should not be the only one.
We have to look again at tobacco labelling and the addictive nature of additives. There should also be moves towards the upwards harmonization of the taxes on tobacco consumption.
<P>
A little while ago, there appeared in the Spanish press a report that in 1983 a tobacco company - I do not want to mention names, but it is the foremost cigarette manufacturer in the world - got one of its laboratories to do a study into the addictive effects of nicotine.
When the scientists presented it with the results of the study, which clearly showed that nicotine is addictive, the company destroyed the study and dismantled the laboratory.
So they are fraudulently misleading people, especially young people, who enter the world of tobacco without really knowing what they are getting into.
<P>
We are in favour of Mr Cabrol's report, so we are going to support it here in this Chamber.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
Mr President, the Greens are certainly not in favour of prohibitionist or repressive measures with regard to substances such as tobacco, which are consumed for personal pleasure by a large number of people.
However, when faced with a significant cause of tumours, respiratory conditions and cardio-circulatory diseases - around 500 000 people die in the EU every year as a result of smoking -, we need to adopt serious preventive measures. In particular, we must try to change people's attitudes and give them more information.
On the same subject, it is quite absurd that the EU should spend money on such preventive measures if it then risks being thwarted by direct or indirect advertising and sponsorship.
<P>
Having said that, we feel the common position could certainly be improved and the date on which the ban on sports sponsorship comes into force - 2006 - is too distant for many who are concerned by the serious consequences of active and passive smoking.
However, we are aware of the difficulties this proposal has encountered over around nine years and would like to answer the numerous requests made by ordinary people, consumers, associations combating cancer, medical workers and organizations dealing with the prevention of tumours and respiratory diseases, including UNICEF, the European office of the World Health Organization, the International Agency for Cancer Research based in Lyons, and the European Society for Respiratory Diseases.
These are just a few examples to help you understand the extent of the problem, but I could also mention the hundreds of doctors committed to this cause.
<P>
To answer these requests, the Greens consider it advisable to accept Mr Cabrol's invitation to approve this common position without any amendment and without amending the reference article of the Treaty.
We therefore support Mr Cabrol's report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pradier">
Mr President, we all agree that we must protect our young people against the damaging effects of tobacco.
We all agree that we must thus oppose the flood of tobacco advertising.
We therefore have no problem in voting for the text of the common position.
<P>
Having said this, we must be careful, for I fear that this virtuous attitude of protection of the young, although widely shared, fits too well into a moralistic, repressive, prohibitionist, politically correct trend which, in the name of modernity, follows the example of the United States of America blindly, although they themselves lag far behind in dealing with problems in society.
<P>
So instead of bans, let us take a different attitude, a more difficult, more determined, more modest one, too: one of educating the youth in our countries.
Pleasure is not forbidden.
Tobacco, bungy jumping, motocross, caffeine, cannabis, alcohol, all of these are dangerous.
But they should all form part of an ongoing educational effort on our part.
We must help our youngsters along the difficult path to knowledge.
Prohibition creates delinquency.
Let us beware of a society in which there are so many bans that everything which has not been banned is therefore compulsory, and that's how all of society's problems are solved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, it seems we are reaching the end of a process of almost ten years' tug-of-war.
The ban on advertising tobacco products is almost a fact, at least provided the ship does not come to ground after all here in Parliament, in the Council, or perhaps even in the Court of Justice.
The concept of subsidiarity has played an important part throughout this debate.
That is a principle that I have a soft spot for, so at first sight a ban on tobacco advertising is indeed a matter which should be left to the Member States themselves.
However, if you opt for the economic point of view, things turn out differently.
Advertising is a completely normal economic activity.
It must not be confused with freedom of expression.
If we once start on that, we would have to start counting advertising as one of the fundamental human rights.
Noone would be very keen on that.
Advertising, therefore, is a form of service which can sometimes become an undesirable form of service.
That is why this economic activity also has to be subject to boundaries.
Just as industrial operations have to be confined within a framework of environmental legislation, so advertising is also subject to regulations.
Of course, it is always the case that, on the one hand you are serving public health, and on the other hand you want to prevent unfair competition.
<P>
In the case of the ban on sponsorship and advertising of tobacco products it is obvious, of course, that this serves the interests of public health, and that is no small goal either.
Half a million deaths in the European Union as a result of addiction to smoking is not nothing.
This law on advertising is, to use that lovely expression, a way of creating a level playing field for the advertisement of tobacco products.
I take the view that this common position is rightly founded on Article 100a and I will vote for it.
I will not support any of the amendments.
Even the amendments tabled on behalf of the I-EDN group should be rejected.
If this directive is adopted, the European Union will be giving a clear signal that the free market economy is important but that it is subject to limiting conditions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="Needle">
Mr President, six years after these proposals were last debated and overwhelmingly endorsed in this Chamber, today we have both new and old voices arguing again over principles and even more over technical issues.
May I suggest that we pause for a moment.
Let us simply ask why rather than how we are doing this.
We are seeking to phase out the advertising of tobacco products, because this is an action which will make a real difference between life and death for some European citizens, particularly those who are most vulnerable.
So let us not fling statistics about like insults at a football match.
<P>
One unnecessary death from smoking is one too many if we can prevent the deceptive peddling of the products which may cause it.
Let us not claim threats to personal or press freedoms.
One baby breathing in killer smoke has no freedom to save itself.
The arguments about cars, alcohol or even about sweets being banned next all founder against the reality of the effects of passive smoking, and we have plenty of other safety measures for those products.
<P>
Similarly, let us not set jobs against health.
Listen to and see the agony of a doctor who has to tell a non-smoker that she has cancer because she breathed the smoke of someone who thought that smoking looked cool on a screen or on a page.
That is a very different agony to a redundancy notice in an industry where profits often exceed the wealth of states.
Instead let us thank those who have worked to create a modest, serious, legal and practical measure with an important impact, one which will help others to create even more effective measures in future.
We should be proud and grateful to the Commissioners and the officials, our own rapporteurs and ministers and the campaigners and the doctors who have fought for this moment for their determination and courage to do the right thing.
Let the producers and the promoters and their armies of lawyers and apologists also ponder for a moment their shame, their deceit and the destruction they have caused.
Future generations will come to wonder how they have flourished for so long.
<P>
Tomorrow our votes for Mr Cabrol's brave and accurate report, for the common position without amendment, will literally bring a breath of fresh air for future generations of European citizens.
So this is that rare incisive moment in a frantic world: it is a market measure which will help save lives.
We should celebrate it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Florenz">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the control of smoking in Europe is undoubtedly one of the greatest challenges that we face.
This is something which we should all become involved in.
My colleague said just now that we were again discussing the ban on tobacco advertising six years after our first efforts in this area.
Well, I would like to inform him that, as budget rapporteur, I have tried six times in the last six years to cut ECU 2bn from the tobacco subsidies in this budget, which is an area in which we do have appropriate powers.
I have never been so isolated in this House - not even now - as when I was seeking support for this idea.
And when I was trying to change the system of tobacco subsidies, I got precious little support from those who have been making grand speeches on the subject here today.
<P>
No, not everyone, but the majority!
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, every day we spend ECU 5m on subsidizing European tobacco which not a single person in Europe wants to smoke!
And then they have the nerve to sell this tobacco outside Europe, notably in the Third World.
In the same breath, we are raising tobacco taxes from the citizens of Europe - 20bn alone in my own country, for example!
And then we think we can simply decide not to accept advertising for this product.
I once talked this over with my children, who are aged between 13 and 20.
They simply could not understand this behaviour.
That is why I think this report is tackling the problem the wrong way.
We all agree about the objectives.
What is more, we all have the same fears, including me.
But if we are to pursue our objectives, then we shall have to adopt a different approach.
<P>
What does indirect advertising, by way of a Benelux news agency, have in common with a tobacco firm in Europe?
Can we really ban indirect advertising so easily?
I do not believe that it will be as simple as this.
If it were not to go beyond tobacco, then I would understand this approach.
But, Mr Flynn, you demonstrated the domino effect some while ago, because the next directive on banning car advertising has been lying in your office for quite a while.
We shall soon be discussing the subject of alcohol, and so on, and so on.
<P>
I believe that we must take a more global approach to this subject.
If we really want to tackle the problem, this proposal is too simple in its structure.
We need a concerted campaign to give real protection to our young people, to change our consciousness, to make real progress in reducing subsidies.
And we need a standard of behaviour towards non-smokers.
Of course we need this.
I get the impression that there are many people who believe that they can make progress by throwing the baby - and a cleanly-washed baby at that - out with the bathwater.
But in doing this they would not even be washing their own hands of the matter!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Kaklamanis">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have read with great care the report by the venerable professor, Mr Cabrol.
I do not disagree with the scientific evidence in the report concerning the harmful effects of smoking on people's health.
Besides, I am a smoker and I am aware of them more than anybody else.
However, I have reservations about the following points: firstly, tobacco, as Mr Florenz quite rightly said, is a product which is subsidized by the European Union, circulates freely and the products of which are manufactured freely.
I therefore wonder how strong the legal basis is, which Mr Cabrol mentioned.
Or perhaps Parliament will find itself in the difficult position of seeing advertising companies claiming vindication when they seek justice from the European Court of Justice.
Secondly, the best way to reduce smoking is not to increase tax or to ban advertising but through health education, which must take place in schools from the first year of primary school.
And I have not heard a single word spoken about this today in this Chamber.
Thirdly, I do not accept the claim of those colleagues who said that whoever has reservations concerning the report has no interest in public health, because many of those colleagues have given their support to the free circulation of soft drugs, as if soft drugs did not constitute a danger to public health or to society.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Monfils">
Mr President, this directive is unsound for three reasons. The first of these is its legal basis.
As all the previous speakers have demonstrated, this initiative is based on the risks of tobacco addiction for health and thus this directive should have Article 129 of the Treaty as its legal basis.
This article allows only for measures of encouragement rather than binding measures of harmonization, and so the directive could not have been presented in its current form.
The Commission thus chose Article 100a as the legal basis, that is, harmonization of the single market.
But the directive is absurd since, on the one hand, it wants to remove all barriers to competition whilst, on the other, it allows each country to implement the provisions of the directive either immediately or not until the year 2006.
<P>
If the market needs to be harmonized, then all the countries must be put on an equal footing and we cannot thus ban the sponsorship of sports and cultural events by the tobacco industry in one country whilst a neighbouring country still permits it.
This is, in itself, a distortion of competition and the ultimate irony is that it is a directive which is allowing this.
<P>
Secondly, as regards the substance, it is not acceptable to ban the advertisement of a product which is freely available for sale and which, moreover, is authorized and financed by the European Union.
<P>
Thirdly, there is complete chaos and total hypocrisy within the European Union with regard to the fight against addiction.
Tobacco advertising is cracked down on ferociously, smokers are endlessly bullied, and yet at the same time many Member States, including my own, show laxity in the fight against drugs by authorizing individual consumption even, and especially, amongst the young.
So it is dangerous to smoke a cigarette but to smoke a joint is evidently good for your health.
<P>
In reality, this directive is riding the waves of fashion and easy virtue.
It is time that the Commission had the courage to define a reasonable and appropriate policy for fighting addiction in all Member States.
As it stands, this directive authorizes nothing but disorder in sporting events over the next six years. My own region, which is the home of the Francorchamps circuit, will feel the full force of the disastrous economic consequences of this directive and, what is even more serious, as statistics from countries where tobacco advertising is banned show, tobacco consumption will not be reduced.
It will thus be a failure both economically and in terms of public health.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Mr President, first I would like to congratulate Mr Cabrol on his guidelines for bringing into effect a ban on the advertising of tobacco.
At the same time, I would like to congratulate Commissioner Flynn on the common position taken by Council.
I earnestly hope that the Council's common position will be approved as it stands.
<P>
It is often claimed that there is no researched evidence as to how the anti-smoking lobby and a tobacco advertising ban leads to a reduction in smoking.
We Finns are very experienced in this matter, however; an advertising ban is an effective means of reducing the consumption of tobacco.
Research undertaken by the International Union Against Cancer has succeeded in showing that banning tobacco advertisements has reduced tobacco consumption in Finland by 37 %.
It has also been noticed that, in a general sense, educational programmes that started in the 1950s show up clearly in statistics: figures for lung cancer in men have fallen dramatically.This is without doubt an indication that an advertising ban is necessary and that it will have far-reaching significance for the issue of public health.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ullmann">
Mr President, Commissioner, you cannot base health policy measures such as the ban on tobacco advertising on Article 100a because that is expressly forbidden in Article 129.
That is the legal position.
That is why a majority of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights considered that the Community had no regulatory powers whatsoever in this matter.
Of course, that is going very wide of the mark.
The Union does have powers in relation to crossborder advertising, and it should make use of them, and in my opinion this should include tobacco advertising as well.
But an outright ban, or a ban on free gifts in the Member States, is not covered by Article 100a.
<P>
This is why the Commission ought to act under Article 129 (2) to see that a ban is imposed in the countries concerned - insofar as that is possible - in the interest of public health.
Anyone who does not want to lose the case before the European Court of Justice should at least vote for Frau Roth-Berendt's amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Macartney">
Mr President, it is quite clear that this House has to support this common position or nothing.
I have heard sophistry from various sides of the House questioning the legal basis which is to my mind just a diversionary tactic, questioning the tobacco subsidy in Greece, etc.
It is quite clear that this is the moment of truth when we have to stand up and be counted.
<P>
There is a tremendous amount of interest in this debate and this vote today.
I have had a full mail bag, as I am sure many Members have from all parts of their constituencies and their countries.
If I could just quote a professor of medicine who said in twenty years she has never taken up any political activity or lobbying but she is moved to write today to plead because she feels very strongly that advertising bans can reduce the number of people taking up and continuing smoking.
She goes on, ' I was very disappointed with Mr Blair's decision to exempt motor racing from the tobacco advertising ban, as large numbers of individuals, particularly youngsters, watch this sport' .
<P>
I think that there are two important things to note here.
Certainly, I think that the British Presidency is shameful in diluting the impact of this common position but nevertheless it is that position or nothing.
If we do not vote for the common position, we are saying to young people, yes, it is OK, it is trendy to smoke.
I think that if we support this ban, there will be quiet relief right across Europe.
If we reject it, the people celebrating will not be those in the cancer wards - they will be those in the board rooms of the tobacco companies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="des Places">
Mr President, the text we are currently discussing is the result of nearly ten years of conflict.
<P>
As Mr Cabrol highlighted in his report, each year more than 510 000 people die in the European Union because of tobacco addiction.
It is thus necessary, as I have already explained in previous speeches, to limit tobacco advertising and promotion. However, it has to be done intelligently.
Let us thus commence this work by applying Article 129 of the Treaty, which stipulates specifically that, "The Community shall contribute towards ensuring a high level of human health protection by encouraging cooperation between the Member States and, if necessary, lending support to their action' .
<P>
As a former member of the Committee of Inquiry into BSE, I would like to state that I wish the Commission had also applied Article 129 in that particular case.
But that is another story.
With regard to tobacco advertising and sponsorship, strict European regulations are required, which should be applied to all Member States.
A large number of sporting events, for example, are retransmitted throughout European territory. We must not witness a relocation of advertising towards those Member States with more lenient regulations.
In France, for example, there is already restrictive legislation with regard to tobacco and alcohol advertising.
But what do we see nowadays?
Advertising for French brands at European sporting events in which a French team is competing, in another Member State, of course.
This cannot go on any longer, for no-one understands a Europe which lets itself be used for the sole benefit of a few companies.
<P>
I would, however, like to add that this directive is just one step in the fight against tobacco addiction in the European Union.
It consequently needs to be placed within the framework of a more general approach to tobacco consumption, which includes both regulations regarding the labelling of products incorporating additives, and the limiting of their use to the harmonization of excise duties, in order to avoid fraud and illegal trafficking.
<P>
Let me take this opportunity of reminding you that I am opposed to any reduction in European tobacco production.
The European Union is a strong importer of tobacco, and of high quality tobacco.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth-Berendt">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, those of you who have known me for many years know that there can be no possibility of me being put under pressure, as Mrs Grossetête or Mr Cabrol seemed to think, for I am a free-acting Member of this Parliament.
Everyone who knows me is also aware of the fact that I prefer to speak freely and unambiguously.
If the views which I am advocating today in this House are not popular, then this only shows that I am speaking out of personal conviction!
<P>
I share your opinion that cigarettes are dangerous, and I do not want to argue over the legal aspects of this today, even if I do believe that we shall be making fools of ourselves in the European Court of Justice.
But that is not my concern.
Nor is it my concern that there are tobacco subsidies.
What is my concern is the question of how we can allow a dangerous product to be legally produced if we believe that it is so dangerous.
If we are convinced that cigarettes are dangerous and lethal, we ought to have the courage to ban their production.
If we do not have the courage - and none of you has - then we have to think hard about what we should do about legal products which are legally produced, and which are allowed.
How can we restrict their sale if we believe that such restrictions are necessary?
<P>
I share the view of some of you that dangerous products ought to be subject to restrictions.
I think we should declare that cigarettes may only be sold in certain places.
We can say that no cigarette machines are allowed.
We can say no advertising in young people's magazines, or wherever.
I am on your side as far as that is concerned.
If you want to say that a certain risk level is to be associated with a certain type of product, and that this will determine how the product can be marketed - in terms of the type and amount of marketing used - then such a risk hierarchy is possible, and it will get my support.
But then we also have to introduce a similar system for alcohol, Mr Flynn!
I cannot wait to see how you will argue against the advertising of Guinness and whiskey in Ireland, because I can give you any number of reasons why whiskey is dangerous, and lots of other things too!
<P>
Those of you who are saying today that a ban on tobacco advertising will at least stop someone somewhere from taking up smoking should take a look at what is happening in the former Eastern bloc countries or in Greece.
There are just as many young smokers there, even though there is no advertising.
There were just as many smokers in the Eastern bloc states even when advertising was not allowed.
If we want to be logical, we must allow restrictions and back these up with educational campaigns.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Collins, Gerard">
Mr President, nicotine is regarded as a highly addictive drug.
The reality is that very few young people kick the habit of smoking during their lives.
It has become well documented that if people do not start smoking before the age of 18 the chances are that they will not become smokers at all in later life.
Therefore, there is a degree of urgency from the perspective of the tobacco manufacturers to lure and corner the teenage market with innovative and inviting forms of advertising relating to various cigarette products.
<P>
In Europe alone, tobacco manufacturers spend a total of £320 million a year on tobacco advertising.
I firmly believe that our young people need to be protected from the scourge of smoking.
The banning of the advertising and promotion of tobacco products within the Union is a positive step in the right direction, so that this very important social objective is achieved.
<P>
European governments and the EU institutions must now focus their attention on promoting health education in schools in the area of making young people aware of the dangers of smoking.
The appropriate financial resources must be made available to facilitate this process.
<P>
The attention of European legislators must also focus on the need to secure more financial resources for greater medical research into cancer prevention and into the health consequences of passive smoking.
The facts speak for themselves in this regard: over half a million people die in the Union as a direct consequence of smoking each year.
In my country 6 000 people died in 1997 as a direct consequence of smoking.
Decreasing the usage of cigarettes in the Union serves only a positive function in terms of protecting the health of all our citizens.
<P>
The report today must be supported as it is a real and positive step in the right direction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, I am very grateful to you, but we were upstairs in the Conference of Presidents meeting on the topical and urgent debate and the sun was shining on the screen.
I think that is why I was rather late seeing my name.
Please accept my apologies.
<P>
May I begin by saying that, after some hesitation, I personally, and that also goes for a large proportion of my group, and certainly for a large proportion of the Dutch CDA delegation, will support the proposal to limit tobacco advertising.
I think, and many agree with me, that we have to do anything we can to reduce tobacco consumption.
That does not take away the fact that the ban on tobacco advertising, as proposed, brings a lot of problems with it.
I would have preferred it if we could have made do with a code of conduct, which operates very well in a number of Member States.
<P>
Having said all that and having clarified our position, I say that the common position lacks cohesion.
The common position, when you read it through, is simply the result of a political compromise.
So I ask myself what possible ways does the European Commission envisage clarifying a number of points either through implementation decrees or through the Council.
<P>
I would mention, for example, paragraphs 2 and 3 of Article 3, which are to do with indirect advertising.
I think the way the texts are worded at the moment do not make the issues abundantly clear anyway.
All I want to do is ask Commissioner Flynn: how do you think people can deal with what is currently on paper in this position in a decent manner?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sichrovsky">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that it goes against the democratic principles of this House to criminalize someone who holds a different view by referring to the influence of lobbyists.
That is a form of character assassination that we can well do without.
I claim the right - despite the risk that as a non-smoker I shall be denounced as a paid agent of the tobacco lobby - to assert that it is the job of the state to protect consumers, not to patronize them.
As regards controlling the contents of cigarettes in respect of toxicity and addictive effect, and restricting sales to young people, the state should intervene and should also try to protect young people.
But the state's role cannot be - as in George Orwell's book "1984' - to patronize its citizens and to protect them by laying down what they can and cannot do.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Jensen, Kirsten">
Mr President, despite the legal guidance underlying the proposal, its actual legal basis is still in question.
I do not believe we can resolve this matter by returning the proposal to the Committee on Legal Affairs.
That is still made up of politicians.
No, the matter must be adopted so that it can proceed and be finally determined by the Court of Justice, and I suggest that is where the tobacco industry should present its legal opinion.
<P>
I would be amazed to find that the tobacco industry is alone among commercial activities failing to make contact with new customer groups through its advertising.
However, the lobbyists inform us that that is the case.
They maintain that they are only endeavouring to persuade established smokers to change brands.
But really, established smokers are not infantile enough to be swayed by lively, youthful advertising.
There is already legislation banning tobacco advertising on television.
Thus, it stands to reason to ban tobacco advertising in other media.
Tobacco is manufactured legally like many other products that cannot be given unrestricted coverage - medicines, weapons and poisons, for instance.
Tobacco is habit-forming and harmful to health, and it can have catastrophic consequences on the individual, costing society dearly in terms of health outlay.
That is one of the reasons why I have always been against EU financial support of tobacco production.
We do not subsidize imported tobacco, after all.
ECU 1 billion towards tobacco production and a mere ECU 11.2 million to combat cancer!
Half a million people are dying of smoking-related diseases while the EU supports 135 000 tobacco producers!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Thyssen">
Mr President, the proper functioning of the internal market requires harmonization of laws on tobacco advertising, and that this harmonization results in far-reaching prohibitions is in line with Article 100a of the Treaty, whether you like it or not.
Since we know that more than half a million people die every year in the European Union as a result of addiction to nicotine, that smoking is a definite danger to public health, and that tobacco advertising and sponsorship are certainly not only about promoting brands but also about encouraging smoking and getting young people to start smoking, as we know, then we have to make a stand against this advertising in a directive on approximation.
We know that, so what could hold us back?
<P>
We must certainly not be held back by the legal technicalities which some colleagues are using to knock up legal constructions which have only one purpose: to topple the directive.
I respect their legal expertise but have to say that they have not convinced me to depart from my legally founded political conviction for three reasons: firstly, Article 100a is fine as a legal basis, so we do have the necessary powers; secondly, there is no valid reason to demand further consultation; and thirdly, there is very little scope under the regulations for amendments.



<P>
Mr President, we can only come to a different decision if we no longer take our own legal services seriously.
I refer to the opinion given by the legal adviser on 1 April this year. The same is true if we disregard our own vote of 2 December 1993 and act as if we have not yet incorporated the Treaty of Maastricht, and as if we want to send a signal to the world that Parliament does not see the resemblance between its own amendments and the common position, nor do we recognize the difference between minimal and radical amendments to the text.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, let us continue to take this seriously.
Let us take a deliberate stand for public health by approving the common position and follow the recommendation of the rapporteur in that sense.
We have the opportunity now, later we may not.
To colleagues who advance as arguments the subsidies to tobacco growers or the right to vote in drugs matters, I say: because people behave stupidly twice, or fail twice, does not mean that you have to behave stupidly a third time, or that you should not continue to fight to get a third chance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Marinucci">
Mr President, ten years ago, I represented Italy at a WHO Conference held in Lisbon, entitled "Tobacco or Health' .
On the last day, a journalist responsible for leading the debate between delegates from different countries on the subject of measures to be taken to reduce the use of tobacco, solemnly began by reading the list of political victims of the fight against smoking, in other words, the ministers who had lost their jobs and never regained them, because in their countries they had promoted laws to ban advertising or to ban smoking in public places.
We know that these and other threats have achieved the desired effect, and it is also true that this directive has been waiting for years to be approved.
This is therefore a great day and we should ensure that the approval of this directive is not delayed and that the efforts of the Commission, the Council and the Presidency are rewarded.
<P>
Other measures will have to be taken, as the rapporteur rightly suggests: tax increases to discourage consumption; health education, because many young people believe that smoking does not do any harm and many adults, including teachers and doctors, set them a bad example; control of cigarette vending machines, etcetera. The objection will be raised that Italians, Spanish and Greeks in general want to continue supporting the European tobacco growers.
That is true, but it is not a contradiction: why should we penalize our own economies in favour of producers from other continents?
We know that Europeans smoke mainly American tobacco, and the products currently spreading throughout developing countries are not our own.
For the same reasons, we are not prepared, nor do we ask, to penalize European producers of beer or alcohols. The problem is education, dissuasion and non-promotion.
We need to prevent people taking up smoking and continuing to smoke. The same applies to alcohol and all other drugs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, I speak as a member of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and spokesman for the Group of the European People's Party on matters involving a conflict of legal basis.
And in committee, I voted along with all my colleagues from all the political groups, in a majority decision that this is not the right legal basis.
<P>
The first thing I want to do is speak out on behalf of them all against this Manichean approach. It is not a question of being in favour of health or against it.
We are in favour of health and in favour of life.
And we know perfectly well that in all the Member States of the European Union there is a tendency towards restricting tobacco advertising.
But first and foremost, Mr President, we are in favour of the rules on coexistence established by the Treaty, and of respecting them.
<P>
Mr President, obviously it cannot be said that this is a minor technical matter, that we are attempting subterfuge through a question of procedure.
There is indeed a technical question, but it is a different one: it is a problem of venire contra factum propium on the part of Parliament itself, which twice pronounced itself in favour of using Article 100a as the legal basis, even in December 1993 after the Maastricht Treaty.
<P>
The approach taken by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has been strictly political rather than juridical - juridical too, but strictly political.
And the reason for that approach lies in simple questions such as the following. What are the objectives of the proposed measures in relation to the Community's obligations?
Health, we are all agreed.
So we must act accordingly.
<P>
Does the proposed action relate to a matter of exclusively Community competence or of shared competence with the Member States?
I think the answer is fairly clear here too, at least it was to us.
<P>
What is the Community dimension of the problem, and what measures have been taken so far?
What is the added value of the action planned by the Community, and what would be the cost of an alternative action?
What type of measures can the Community take?
<P>
And lastly, is it necessary or possible to have a uniform set of rules which also prohibit?
In other words, what we are doing here is harmonizing the free movement of services which are not going to move because they are not going to exist.
Or, in accordance with the Treaty, do we need to establish a measure - which may be a measure which affects all the Member States - but a measure based on Article 129?
<P>
Mr President, this is one of those situations where the Brussels leviathan is being told to do something we cannot often do at Member State level.
We know from experience that that is a bad method which only causes complications.
The complications arise because, in the last analysis, we can spend ten years debating this problem, but it is very likely - and this is up to the Court of Justice - that this directive will be repealed within two years, which means we shall have wasted our time.
<P>
I think it would be better to tackle it Treaty in hand and adopt, with the correct legal basis, measures appropriate to the objective being sought.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lienemann">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I hope that Parliament will approve Mr Cabrol's report.
It would be a significant political act which meets the aspirations of our people.
I believe that the issue of tobacco is one of the biggest issues for public health on this planet.
Furthermore, the Director-General of the WHO indicated, at the time of the publication of their annual report, that the fight against tobacco addiction was one of the main priorities of the World Health Organization.
Europe must therefore play a full role.
Of course, there are many actions necessary, and we cannot be satisfied with merely banning advertising.
I am thinking of the price of tobacco, taxes on tobacco and health education.
Many of my colleagues have insisted on these points.
But the banning of advertising is an essential step, which is all the easier to take as we have a legal basis for it: it is in the name of the free market that we can ban advertising, even if our objective is first and foremost one of public health protection.
<P>
With regard to the issue of a ban on advertising, I would like to sound the alarm, for some of our colleagues consider that we should go further. They consider that since we subsidize tobacco, we do not ban the product and hence we should not ban its advertising.
Tobacco, in itself, is not a banned product and no one here would want it banned.
This is, firstly, because all prohibitionist policies have proved themselves to be ineffectual and secondly because, by nature, there is no foundation for a ban.
What should be banned is the abusive use of tobacco, and for this we must base our action on the individual responsibility of enlightened citizens.
Advertising deceives the enlightened citizen.
It gives no information about the risks tobacco causes or about tobacco abuse. On the contrary, it projects a positive image with the aim of increasing tobacco consumption.
<P>
I thus think that the method chosen is the right one.
In fact, in France there is already a similar law in force which covers alcohol as well.
It has proved effective.
All surveys made of young people show that there has been a considerable increase in awareness about the risks and the need for behavioural change.
I hope the European Union will follow us with regard to this issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Filippi">
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Apolinário">
Mr President, the European Union has a common fisheries policy. I am also on the Committee on Fisheries, and I was amazed to discover the other day that the European Union spends more on tobacco production than it does on the fishing industry, and that, even in countries like Portugal, which are largely dependent on it, fishing only gets 40 % of the financial contribution that is provided for tobacco.
<P>
This is a serious anomaly, if we also stress what is happening in the field of public health, because it makes no sense to keep on investing in the public health area while at the same time increasing tobacco production subsidies.
<P>
So there is a clear message here.
Let us go on gradually reducing production subsidies and adopt the common position of the Council in relation to the prohibition of tobacco advertising.
There are existing, although limited, examples that show that a 14 to 37 % fall in consumption can be achieved through the use of advertising restrictions.
<P>
Yes, because the tobacco habit causes 540 000 deaths a year in the European Union, and if we limit this discussion to a legal point, academically interesting, though it is, we are mounting no more than a lightweight assault on an industry which has powerful resources to defend it.
To change the Council's position or refuse to approve the directive through lack of Community powers would mean taking public health back to national level which, when all is said and done, runs contrary to the meaning and purpose of the Treaty itself.
The reference to subsidiarity is a desperate attempt to condition the opinion of the national authorities, when at the end of the day the Council's position represents the guidelines for those same authorities through their Health Ministers, who want the guidelines to be a way of bringing in laws regulating the tobacco market and demanding a high level of consumer protection.
This is why we cast our vote in support of the Cabrol report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Jackson">
Mr President, I wish to begin by saying how much I resent and reject the idea that anybody who stands up in this Chamber and speaks against, or raises questions about, this directive is being manipulated by the tobacco industry.
I am not, and I do not think Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi was, and anybody else who has objected to the directive ought to be given the benefit of the doubt and allowed to voice their doubts without being accused, as I say, of being somebody who is simply speaking on behalf of the tobacco industry.
<P>
I am in favour of ending tobacco advertising and sponsorship.
I would also like to end the subsidization by the European Union of tobacco.
One of the interesting things to come out of this debate is that the European Union spends three times as much on subsidizing tobacco production as the tobacco companies spend on advertising their products within the European Union.
<P>
The question for people like me who want to see an end to tobacco advertising is: will the directive work?
The real answer, I suspect, is no, it will not, because it will end up in the Court of Justice with a lot of doubts and, possibly, no directive at all at the end of it.
<P>
There is clearly a legal problem.
This is something which the British government is ignoring in the Presidency of the Council of Ministers because it wants an easy victory.
It would have been possible for Mr Blair to have introduced a ban on tobacco advertising and sponsorship in the United Kingdom but he ran into political trouble.
He has therefore run to Brussels to get himself out of it and, as I say, to get what he thinks is an easy victory.
<P>
There is a clear problem with qualified majority voting.
I do not like the idea of introducing a ban which is introduced by a very narrow majority.
However, if you want a directive, then you will not really be able to get one under Article 129, because the Member States will never agree.
If you want a recommendation, that will not ban tobacco advertising either, because you cannot square a recommendation with the idea of common rules for the internal market.
<P>
The answer is two things.
One is to go for a code of conduct on tobacco advertising, as some have asked, but that probably will not give you a universal ban on advertising: it will leave it up to each Member State to do what it wants.
Or you can do what effectively we are doing: we are saying 'yes' to this directive and we are leaving it to Mr Flynn to tidy it up, because, as we have discovered in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, there is a lot wrong with this directive: it does not deal very adequately with the idea of the use of established brand names on existing goods; it does extraordinary things about world sponsorship.
You are looking at Mr Flynn over there as the man who is effectively being asked to do the business that MEPs will not do because we are being subjected to emotional blackmail.
I apologise to the interpreters.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Mr President, a ban on the advertising of tobacco and tobacco products is all about public health on a large scale and the prevention of diseases, and I think this is the direction a common European Union common health policy should be taking: more for its causes than for its effects.
<P>
Has advertising any importance, then?
I wonder why vast amounts of time and money are spent on advertising if it is not important.
Tobacco advertising has an impact just like any other, and tobacco advertisers are very clearly endeavouring to increase consumption, which means to increase the number of people who smoke.
<P>
Can advertising be targeted at just one group?
Can the young be unaffected by advertising?
I do not believe so, and when we learn the results of surveys on whether young people are more vulnerable when it comes to advertising, this claim will be even harder to justify.
Advertising that stirs the imagination is what young people are especially exposed to, and the tobacco industry purposely uses this sort of advertising especially in the sponsorship of events, where the aim is to achieve an image of a jet-set lifestyle.
<P>
Advertising prohibition has had an impact.
Owing to an advertising ban, Finland has seen a fall in tobacco consumption over twenty years by 37 %.
The ban has been significant, especially for the young: before the ban 35 % of 15 to 24 year olds smoked, a figure that fell to 23 % after the ban.
<P>
I do hope that Parliament will show a sense of responsibility and approve Mr Cabrol's report without amendments.
We now have an opportunity to bring into effect a Europe-wide ban on the advertising of tobacco products.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schleicher">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I do not regard the ban on tobacco advertising as the right means for protecting public health.
The general opinion envisages not only a total ban on the advertising of tobacco products but also a total ban on indirect advertising, for example for Camel boots or Davidoff cosmetics.
The only exceptions apply to Greece, which was the price paid for Greece's agreement and thus for achieving the necessary majority in the Council of Ministers against the votes of Germany and Austria, with Denmark and Spain abstaining.
<P>
A ban is the strictest of all conceivable instruments in a liberal economic system.
Before legal requirements of this kind are enacted, they must be considered in the light of whether they are really suitable as a means for achieving the declared objective, namely the protection of public health.
A ban on tobacco advertising gives rise to hopes and expectations which cannot be fulfilled.
No-one can dispute that smoking is harmful and often leads to death.
That is why it would be logical, and here I agree with Mrs Roth-Berendt, to ban the manufacture of harmful products such as cigarettes.
<P>
In a liberal economy, advertising does an important job in providing information, and it is a potent instrument for effective competition.
It ought, as a matter of principle, to be possible to advertise products which are legally manufactured and distributed and legally consumed.
A total ban on tobacco advertising is an attack on the liberal economic system.
Once this first domino falls, the rest will follow.
<P>
I should like to ask Commissioner Flynn if it is true that there is a Commission document which states that motor vehicles are freely available industrial products which are often prove lethal.
Because there is no European legislation in the context of health policy for such far-reaching interventions, even under the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Council and the Commission often resort to the harmonization instrument known as competition, despite their own better judgement.
<P>
We want to construct an internal market, and we want to make a political decision as to who is permitted to advertise freely offered products, and who is not.
This proposal has exactly the opposite effect.
We await with eager expectation the predictable complaints from Member States to the European Court of Justice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="White">
Mr President, I do not usually respond to Mrs Jackson but can I just remind her that this discussion about tobacco advertising has been going on for more than ten years and we were not reconsulted on this until February last year.
Mr Blair, who she suggested has come running to Brussels, has been Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for a much shorter period than that.
What we are dealing with is a European directive.
<P>
Can I congratulate Mr Cabrol on the work that he has done on this.
I personally would have gone a lot further and I would in normal circumstances have preferred to have gone to conciliation.
It is only the effective persuasion of the rapporteur which makes me think that we should accept the common position and I shall vote accordingly.
<P>
Can I also say, again in domestic terms, that the impression was created in the United Kingdom in the English language press that a decision was made about the ban on tobacco advertising by the UK Prime Minister and by somebody who is responsible for Formula One.
Can I just remind the English language press that what we are considering today is a European Council and a European Parliament directive, and as always in codecision, even at second reading, this Parliament has the final word and so it should.
<P>
I would like also to say that in considering my position not only have I consulted industry but I have also consulted the trade unions.
I wish we had not had the argument about the legal basis.
I cannot believe that it is right that the Legal Affairs Committee should come in on this occasion and give a different view and that the Environment Committee, which is the lead committee in these circumstances, should be dissuaded from taking the view that it took on the first reading.
I shall support this and I shall support it unamended on the second reading.
I hope that by the time the afternoon is over we shall see a ban on tobacco advertising within the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Nassauer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have every respect for those who oppose smoking and want to ban the advertising of tobacco products.
But we are not here to decide on our convictions or on a political resolution, we are here to decide on a European legislative proposal, something which is to become European law.
The European Union is a community in law.
It can only make laws if it is empowered to do so in the Treaty.
In the view of most people who have dealt with this matter, there is no legal basis in the Treaty for this directive.
So the Union is taking upon itself a right that it does not possess.
This was made clear in the expert opinion delivered by the Council's Legal Service in 1993, which states that the Legal Service concludes that the proposal for a directive cannot be accepted either on the basis of Article 100a or on the basis of any other Article of the Treaty.
<P>
This opinion has never been revoked.
That is why, in legal terms, this directive rests on shaky foundations.
It could be based on Article 100a only if it concerned harmonization.
But it does not harmonize, it bans.
It is also clear from the procedure that we are dealing here with a health directive.
That is why, quite logically, the Commissioner for Health is sitting here and defending it.
That is why the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has taken the lead in Parliament, rather than the committee on competition.
<P>
In short, if this directive becomes law, then we as a Parliament will be doing exactly what we are always reproaching the Commission for doing, namely laying claim to powers which are a matter for the Member States.
That is why we should reflect on this very carefully!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Correia">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in spite of the legal difficulties which may arise from the approval of this proposal for a directive, which seeks to do away with direct and indirect advertising of tobacco products, I have to say I agree with the premises on which it is based.
<P>
Tobacco consumption continues to be one of our greatest public health problems. It is responsible for over 500 000 deaths a year in the European Union.
Nearly 50 % of all deaths from cancer among men aged between 35 and 69 are due to the effects of tobacco, not forgetting the part it plays in aggravating acute and chronic cardio-respiratory disease.
<P>
Nevertheless, to ensure that the measures proposed here are rendered more effective we must include them in a wider strategy, and of necessity that means preventing tobacco consumption by means of campaigns drawing attention to its harmful effects - essentially directed at the younger age-groups - and by discouraging tobacco-growing in member countries of the European Union by paying producers subsidies that will enable them to grow something else instead.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Nassauer">
Mr President, I have a point of order.
Literature is being distributed outside the Chamber on the biopatents directive.
An attempt is being made right outside this room to influence our voting behaviour.
I would ask you to check whether this is permissible under the Rules of Procedure.
I for one doubt it!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Nassauer. The Chair notes the point and will have it checked.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Hardstaff">
Mr President, I give far greater weight to the pleas of doctors for the health of their patients than to those of tobacco companies trying to justify their deliberate targeting of their advertising to attract new young customers to an addictive substance to replace the hundreds of thousands of customers they kill every year.
<P>
I need no lectures about subsidies to tobacco producers, having consistently opposed them since election to this House.
<P>
I also reject pleas from companies advertising other products using the same brand name as major cigarette brands.
Here are depicted beautiful, young, cool and trendy people alongside the logo of a cigarette brand.
Why do they not use an independent logo to promote their goods - a logo not associated with a product that kills?
<P>
It is absurd to claim that the rules of the Community demand that young people should continue to be targeted in this way through sports sponsorship and through trendy designer products.
<P>
The Treaty of Rome says the Community exists for the well-being of its citizens.
The health of our citizens must take precedence over the profits of multinational companies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Malone">
Mr President, I think that this is a very noble initiative and it shows Europe at its best.
It shows us standing up for the common good and rejecting the very well-financed, and at times, almost threatening campaigns of the tobacco lobby and of the medium moguls.
<P>
I would agree with Dagmar Roth-Behrendt and others who have spoken here, that adults have free will to take up smoking or to take up drinking, but it is deplorable that young people are encouraged to take up smoking as the result of billboard advertising and advertising generally.
<P>
Tobacco advertising tends to glamorize smoking, but there is nothing glamorous about smoking, about cancer, chronic bronchitis and all the other tobacco-related illnesses that kill many millions each year.
Our next step must be to convince young people, especially young women, not to go down this road.
I know from the very impressive representations that I have received from the medical profession - and I want to thank them for that - that more young women are actually suffering now from lung cancer.
So Mr Flynn, our Commissioner, is to be congratulated and I would urge Members to vote in support of the common position.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Malone.
<P>
I would ask Members to take their seats and at least make it possible for Commissioner Flynn to be listened to with the respect due to a Commissioner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Flynn">
Mr President, I would like to thank all those who have contributed to this very important debate today.
The discussion on the proposed directive on tobacco advertising is very significant indeed and there is very big public interest in that discussion here in Parliament today. It comes after a long period of reflection in Council which finally reached a common position on 12 February.
The text of the common position fully reflects the spirit of the Commission's proposal so the Commission was able to accept it as it stands.
<P>
In the Commission's view the common position represents the most satisfactory arrangements possible to deal with the complex issue of tobacco advertising in the internal market context.
As several Member States have already introduced national restrictions or bans on tobacco advertising, practical problems of application have arisen as the possibility of internal market border checks disappeared.
Therefore, as with many other sectors of economic activity, a common solution needed to be found.
<P>
Article 100a of the Treaty obliges the Commission to take a high level of public health protection as its basis when making internal market proposals.
I regard the reference to seeking an alternative legal basis as something of a red herring so far as this proposal is concerned.
I would remind Members of Parliament that this legal basis has already been used in the case of existing directives on tobacco labelling and on tar content.
It has also been used to ban TV advertising and indirect advertising.
<P>
It has been used to ban the marketing of oral tobacco.
It has been used for the advertising of other medicinal products and it is in accordance with decisions taken by the European Court on other issues.
It certainly follows the latest advice given by the European Parliament's legal service.
Some Members made reference to Article 129, but I say that article specifically excludes any harmonization of the laws and regulations of the Member States.
Article 129 is not a suitable legal basis and it must be rejected on that account.
<P>
Furthermore, a total ban on the advertising of tobacco on TV was, as you all know, agreed in 1989.
Associated with this principal objective of an internal market nature, the Commission has had to take a high level of public health protection into account.
This is demanded of us by our obligations under the Treaty.
<P>
This brings me to the smoking prevention issue which was the subject of a communication in December 1996.
The proposed restrictions on tobacco advertising should be seen as part of a more general approach by the Community to address what is undoubtedly the number one preventable cause of death and disease in Europe today.
I should like to put that on the record just once more.
The question of subsidies to tobacco growing has been raised.
I have always been against giving subsidies to tobacco growers...
<P>
...and I look forward to the day when we can stop it.
I was not able to get full agreement but I was able to achieve some progress in that regard.
I look forward to the not too distant future when the whole matter will be reviewed again and when the subsidy to tobacco growing, as part of the policy of this Union, will cease.
<P>
I do not have to remind Members of the enormous health impact of smoking.
The World Health Organization estimates the yearly death toll from tobacco at more than half a million European Union citizens - so many victims of cancer because of the consumption of tobacco, be it smoking or passive smoking.
The question for this House is: Can this House do something at European level to reverse that trend?
They can, by voting to support this common position and voting down all the amendments, which are only a way of getting around the situation and making it more difficult to achieve the purpose we are all supporting.
<P>
Mr Needle made a very telling point when he said that the House has a rare opportunity.
This is a moment of truth for all concerned who support what this proposal seeks to achieve.
And do not forget that industry itself is on record as saying that it sees the 14 to 24-year-olds as tomorrow's cigarette business.
That is what advertising is all about: attracting young people to the habit so that they can maintain their market and maintain their profits.
We have to put an end to that here.
Advertising of products causing such suffering and so many deaths is clearly unjustified as many Member States have already decided.
To act now at the Community level is, I believe, timely, necessary and entirely proportionate to the problem.
<P>
By adopting this measure the Community will remove an incentive for young people to begin a habit that will bring illness and premature death.
This initiative of removing the encouragement to smoke is even more vital if we remember that most smokers take up the addiction before they are 18 years of age and indeed, they take it up much earlier.
We have a responsibility to the future citizens of this Union to seek to take the first step to turn the tide against death from cancer produced by smoking!
<P>
The rapporteur, Mr Cabrol, has already clearly identified the issues that are involved here in tobacco advertising.
He does that so excellently in his report. It was adopted without amendments by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
Many members of that committee remarked on the importance of putting a Community system in place without further delay as envisaged in the Council's common position.
<P>
I agree fully that this compromise is a good and workable solution.
It represents a balance - a satisfactory balance between the interests concerned - and allows the necessary transition time for new arrangements to be found for those presently involved with tobacco promotion.
There is no need, there is no logic, in amending the Council's text which indeed takes account of the points raised by Parliament at its first reading.
The Commission will therefore not support any amendments to this common position which, as Mr Cabrol and the Environment Committee have said, is an acceptable text as it stands.
<P>

Mrs Oomen-Ruijten and Mrs Jackson raised a point about indirect advertising.
The objective of the common position on indirect advertising is a very practical approach to a complicated issue - how to stop other products being used to promote tobacco, or to stop tobacco being promoted using the name of other products.
The common position also takes into account the special case of existing products.
In all of these cases the position lays down clear objectives.
<P>
As we know, this directive will be transposed into national law according to the timetable laid down.
It is the Commission's responsibility to ensure that these national rules are in conformity with the intention of the directive.
I should say to Mrs Oomen-Ruijten that the Commission will be coming forward with regular reports under Article 6 and it will make Parliament and the Council responsible and take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that the directive is transposed and implemented as it was intended.
<P>
I would like, finally, to call upon all the honourable Members of this House to adopt without amendment this important issue which will have such great significance for our young people now and in the future.
It is this common position or nothing!
That is the choice we have here today and tomorrow.
<P>
(Applause ) The European Parliament stands to make a momentous and historical breakthrough in the support of its single market and in the protection of its citizens.
I ask you to act accordingly!
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Killilea">
Mr President, just before you commence the voting, I would like to draw your attention to the rules of this House and to the avalanche of lobbyists that are in the corridor outside this House.
Harassing and interrogating Members at the doorways coming into this House are against the rules.
I would ask you as a very respected senior Vice-President of this House and present President-in-Office: would you have the security services remove from outside the doorway?
<P>
I make the point because this document was stuffed into my hands coming in the door.
I am a diabetic and were it not for biotechnology from the liver of a poor innocent pig I would be a dead man today.
Stop this nonsense out in the corridors of this esteemed Parliament immediately.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="President">
Mr Killilea, I immediately gave orders to control the presence of members of the different lobby groups, but naturally I would like to believe that in the final analysis no Member of this House is affected by any activity of any "lobbyists' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Perry">
Mr President, I rise on the same point of order.
There were outside this House people wearing a distinctive form of uniform. I might very well be sympathetic to their cause but Members of this House really must be free to come into this Chamber without lobbyists outside the door pursuing their case whatever that case is.
We look to you and to the officers of this House to uphold our rules and orders.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Antony">
Mr President, I would like to echo what has just been said.
It is not the first time that pamphlets have been handed out at the doors of this Chamber, but I think that the dignity of the House is now in danger.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="President">
We can stop these comments here.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="President">
Please withdraw the banner from the Hemicycle.
I shall be forced to adjourn if the banner stays; Parliament cannot be turned into a theatre.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended until the banner was withdrawn)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Provan">
Mr President, I have a point of order.
I do not want to disrupt the proceedings, but I would ask you if you have given permission for that television camera to be present and, if you have, who it is and why they have been given permission to film unruly behaviour in this House which does this House no credit whatsoever?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="President">
Mr Provan, I do not know who gave permission for the filming, but the camera crew has already left.
Moreover, the issue has been covered.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
Mr President, I consider requests of this kind to be unjustified, for on many occasions we have seen the television cameras in this House and those television cameras, when authorized, provide a guarantee for the citizens who have elected us to be able to see what is happening in this House: the guarantee of democracy is a price we should know how to pay!
If people are afraid of what they are doing, if they need to hide when they are acting, then I do not think they meet the requirements for the votes they have obtained.
If some people here answer the multinationals' lobby, obviously they do not want people to know what they are doing.
But I believe the European citizens have a right to know!
<P>
(Mixed reactions)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="President">
Mr Tamino, there is always full coverage of the work of Parliament by cameras in the area provided for them and all of us are always in the spotlight.
Special filming is not necessary and there are regulations which must be adhered to.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Mr President, this is a vote in the European Parliament and, if I understand matters correctly, those who are entitled to vote in the European Parliament are the Members of this House.
There is clearly a troupe of actors in costumes in the Chamber.
I would ask you to refrain from voting...
<P>
... or else to acknowledge what you are, namely freely elected Members of this House and not a Punch and Judy show!
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="President">
Members of this House, this debate must be closed.
I cannot allow more than two or three of you to speak.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Mr President, as President of this sitting, you are the captain of the ship.
Well, this ship has been boarded by pirates.
Do you really intend to permit this act of piracy with regard to our voting time, or are you going to behave like the captain of a triumphant ship and expel the pirates!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="President">
Mr Giansily, I, like everybody else, enjoyed the way in which you phrased your comment.
<P>
However, the banner has been removed and the way in which Members of this House dress is up to them, and I cannot intervene.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, what is extremely annoying here is that while the big banner has been removed, it is true, the little banners are still in this room.
I think the members of the Green group ought to know that there are more people in this House who are concerned about the directive as it stands at the moment.
Mr President, I request that you also have the small banners removed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth">
Mr President, it is a question of the dignity of this House, as has already been said.
I should like to say to one of the previous speakers: you ought to pay a visit to a Punch and Judy show, then you would see that Punch and Judy is one of our cultural treasures.
But there is one thing that I would ask for, and that is an apology from Mr Ferber.
If he thinks that he can call our group a band of pirates, then he knows nothing about dignity, democratic argument or style.
I await an apology from you, and if that is not forthcoming, then we all know what to think!
<P>
(Applause from the Green Group)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="de Vries">
Mr President, on a point of order.
I came to this sitting on the understanding that we were here to vote.
We are about to vote on a most important topic and we should do so in a calm, dignified and responsible manner.
<P>
It serves no purpose to discuss the way in which various Members of this House dress.
It is everyone's personal right to dress as they please.
If people wish to demonstrate, they should do so outside, not inside, this Hemicycle.
Could we now move to the vote?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="President">
Mr de Vries, I believe that many of us agree with your comments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Mr President, what is happening is extremely distressing.
I would propose that you suspend the sitting and ask our colleagues to behave decently.
<P>
On Amendments Nos 6 and 28
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Mr President, there was a certain amount of bad temper in yesterday's discussion of these amendments.
It was claimed that the amendments had not been submitted by the Committee on Agriculture.
Well, there is not the slightest possibility of any committee introducing an amendment in this procedure, not even the Committee on Agriculture.
That is why it was decided that, as rapporteur in this matter, I should collect the signatures of members of the Committee on Agriculture, and these appear in the list below the amendments.
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Our committee has also written a letter to the Committee on Legal Affairs, expressing the fact that our interests are at stake and I am talking here about the right of farmers to continue breeding animals and plants.
I just wanted to draw this fact to your attention.
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(The President declared the common position approved)
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<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Perry">
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="President">
Mr Perry, We cannot keep restarting debates and letting Members of the House speak.
However, your comment has been noted.
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(Several members of the Green Group in the European Parliament waved piracy flags)
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<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="d'Aboville">
Mr President, in case you were not aware, the Jolly Roger has a precise meaning in terms of international law.
It represents a refusal of law.
That is why I regret that a number of Members of this House have chosen this method of expression and it is why I find it disgraceful that you have let the vote take place in the presence of such a symbol.
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(Loud applause)
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<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="President">
Mr d'Aboville, each of us has the right to his or her own opinion and judgement.
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<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="Falconer">
Mr President, as Mr Perry has been so kind as to mention my name, may I advise him that, if he is to follow and adopt my principles in these matters, he may wish to go further.
The working people of my country, and I am sure all European countries, can recognize conservative Tories, because they are always wearing the same uniform and it is normally double-breasted pin-striped suits!
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<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="President">
Mr Falconer, I do not think that we should carry on with comments on dress code, but I am not convinced of the accuracy of what you have said. There are others who wear suits like those you mentioned.
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<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Thank you, Mr President.
I have a comment to add to what has already been said by other speakers, pursuant to Rule 19 - though at the wrong time, since the vote has already been taken - and Rule 109. I just want to say, let us hope this precedent will not be remembered on other occasions as a justification for using some other symbol in this Hemicycle.
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Symbols serve a purpose, Mr President. They are not fancy dress or a fashion statement.
They are symbols, and symbols have a meaning. That is our culture and our civilization.
Thank you.
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<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cohn-Bendit">
Mr President, I would simply like to ask everyone who wishes to speak to do so every time.
It is a good point for us, so carry on!
Is there nobody else who would like to lecture us?
We have not quite understood what you are trying to say to us!
Explain to us what is wrong so that we may understand.
I am asking colleagues to take their time and to explain to us what is wrong in what we have done.
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<SPEAKER ID=118 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth">
<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="d'Ancona">
<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, if we vote on an amendment in this House and the amendment gains a majority, it is adopted.
I have never heard of people voting on an amendment and then saying: it is the initial paragraph we are voting on.
That is not how it is done.
That is against the rules of the House.
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<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="President">
Mrs Aelvoet, a vote has been taken on part of the amendment which does not cover the whole text.
The rapporteur was of the opinion that the original should also be put to the vote.
The Presidency has accepted this opinion.
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<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, I would just like to make it clear that the amendment, or that part of it which has been accepted here, must be incorporated into the original text.
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<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="President">
Mr Swoboda, that was also my assessment.
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(Parliament adopted the resolution)
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<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, if you will permit me, I would like to speak simultaneously regarding two reports, that of Mrs Palacio and that of Mr Wijsenbeek.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations supports the conclusions of these two reports, with a number of reservations which I would like to expand on.
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This relates to a particular case, that of Article 157 of the Portuguese Constitution, which has a particularly protective system of immunity for parliamentarians.
Paragraph 2 of Article 157 stipulates that Members may not be heard as witnesses or as the accused, without the authorization of the House, the decision to grant such authorization being mandatory, in the second instance, where there are strong indications that a crime has been committed which is punishable by a term of imprisonment of not less than three years.
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Following the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities in this, Parliament is anxious to show that, and I quote, "European parliamentary immunity is, in general terms, independent of the various national parliamentary procedures.'
They want to lay the foundations of a truly European immunity, which would succeed in creating equality amongst its Members, whatever their nationality.
With regard to this, I would like to say that, as on many occasions, this is nothing but a pious wish. Declarations from the majority of this House are not currently able to remove the national status of a Member and there is no such thing as European or independent immunity.
It all depends.
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Furthermore, this position - and this is my third remark - leads the Committee on the Rules of Procedure to propose a provision, unfortunately accepted earlier by a majority, which is not at all in accordance with our Rules.
Rule 6(4) of the latter only anticipates adoption or rejection of a request for immunity, with the possibility of the recommendation being divided up if the request seeks the waiver of immunity on several counts.
It furthermore stipulates that, "the committee's report may, exceptionally, propose that the waiver of immunity shall apply solely to prosecution proceedings and that... the Member should be immune from any form of detention or remand...' .
There is no provision for the measure we have just adopted, Mr President, that is, to decide not to take a decision on the request and, so that we can support the request for a waiver of immunity, to make no objection to the magistrate concerned hearing Mr Rosado Fernandes in the same way as Mr Campos.
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In reality then - and this is what our group approved of - we have lifted the immunity in the sense of the Portuguese Constitution, that is, we have permitted those involved to be heard before the Portuguese judicial authorities.
This is not what we have said, but it does not mean this is not what we have done.
By drafting paragraph 2 of our decision in this way, we have not altered the character of the waiver of parliamentary immunity.
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Wijsenbeek report (A4-0152/98)
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="Theonas">
In its "interpretative' communication on the implementation of the second banking directive the Commission is promoting the further deregulation of the banking sector and the restriction of the sovereign rights of Member States, and in so doing is transgressing the official legislative process.
This communication is bound up with the context of the more general policy of the EU, which is defined by the integration of the single market and the adoption of a common currency.
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The Commission, by blatantly transgressing the official legislative process, is overstepping its responsibilities and violating the principle of the separation of powers, thus infringing the rights of Member States.
The right of the Commission to issue interpretative communications is restricted to executive matters which fall within its sphere of competence - such as those concerning state assistance and competition policy -, whereas the right of interpretation of primary and derivative law rests with the Court.
If we combine this with the fact that a similar process is being followed in the insurance sector, we fear that an attempt is being made de facto to go along a certain path and to brush aside the protests of Member States.
Even more questions arise if we consider that, as the Commission itself points out, its interpretation is not binding on the Member States and does not prejudge the possible position of the Court.
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It is undeniable that technological progress, especially the challenges posed by the information society, makes it necessary to adapt the law.
For example, the growth of cross-border services by electronic means necessitates the clarification of notions which are susceptible to a flexible interpretation and the adoption of clear criteria in order to define, for example, the "place' of service provision.
However, these criteria cannot be imposed unilaterally and arbitrarily. They must come about as a result of agreement and they must not violate the fundamental principles of international private law, given the enormously significant implications they have for the definition, among other things, of applicable law and the system of taxation.
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We are particularly concerned about the direction taken by the Commission and the Court alike with regard to, among other things, the precepts of "general good' and also about the proposed abolition of the notification procedure in the case of the provision of services.
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The second banking directive determines that the banking institution which carries out activities in the territory of another Member State in the context of mutual recognition, that is by means of branches or a system of free service provision, must comply with the provisions relating to the general good which are in force in that state.
Ever since then, the competent institutional bodies of the EU have systematically attempted to introduce ever more and increasingly complex criteria to evaluate the rules of internal law in areas which are not covered by Community regulation.
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This process, which even violates the provisions and aims of the directives on the liberalization of banking activity, leads to a serious diminution of the sovereign rights of the recipient state, by restricting its supervisory rights and by making its broader legislation conditional upon its acceptance by bankers and organs of the EU. It also violates the famous principle of equality of treatment and essentially places banks in a more favourable position while exempting them from the obligation to comply with a number of legal rules which apply to banks that are governed by internal law.
In consequence, the banks of Member States which impose fewer and more lax administrative and legislative conditions and formalities are being rewarded.
Under the conditions of an integrated economy this situation leads de facto to a reduction in consumer protection.
At an institutional level this process translates into EU intervention in areas which are essentially regulated by the Member States, such as civil law - especially contract law - and procedural law, without prior harmonization and thus without a legal basis.
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We believe that each Member State must be able to judge which rules it is to impose on all who carry out financial activities within its territory, while in parallel it must be in a position to safeguard the possibility of effective monitoring by the competent supervisory authorities, as a means to ensure the sound operation of its banking system and the protection of the general good.
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We disagree with proposals for the flexible implementation of the notification procedure in the case of the provision of services to another Member State and, even more so, with any thought of abolishing it.
We also believe that the pursuit of customers for the provision of cross-border services cannot be dissociated from the obligation to notify.
The supervisory authorities must be informed in order to make their supervisory duties and their task easier.
Moreover, the aforementioned activities are usually the prelude to a more systematic penetration of the market of the state in question.
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The notification procedure must also be adhered to in circumstances where services are performed with the dematerialization of work without displacement, such as via the Internet.
Although the agency which provides the service is not located in the state of the purchaser of the service, the place of the "typical provision' of the service is that state and, in addition, it is a clear case of the provision of a service to another Member State.
Any other interpretation would lead to substantially undermining the procedure in question due to the continuous expansion of cross-border services.
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For these reasons, in other words, due to the unacceptable nature of the process that is being promoted and the directions that are being promoted in the interpretation of the second banking directive, we cannot vote for the report.
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Rothley recommendation for second reading (A4-0170/98)
<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, the Green Group was united in voting against the Rothley report.
We consider it to be completely irresponsible from an ethical point of view that the way is being opened up for thousands of genes - whether from human beings, plants or animals - to be put to commercial use.
Parliament has given dispensation for a massive push towards the commercialization of the human body.
It is also disgraceful that Parliament has so clearly caved in to the huge lobbying interests of industry.
Only three years ago Parliament had the courage to reject this very same report.
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Today it is agreeing to virtually the same document.
It surely demonstrates the inadequacy of Parliament that we are simply swallowing whatever the Commission serves up, or as it would say: let us allow Parliament to go on voting until the result suits us.
I think that the lobbying in support of the patents directive was one of the most aggressive that the European Parliament has ever experienced.
But that should not prevent Parliament from allowing ethical sense to prevail.
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Parliament has failed pitifully.
It has failed to create a clear legal framework which sets down ethical limits for industry.
It has legalized bio-piracy and the road which leads there is now ready for multinationals to travel down.
They will be able to re-interpret the genes of plants, animals and human beings, which they have done no more than discover, as their own invention and to designate them as their property.
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The patents directive will lead to an enormous privatization of nature, and it is a disgrace that it is also leaving the back-door open for the cloning of parts of the human body and the patenting of human embryos for research purposes.
It is disgraceful that the directive has not even succeeded in excluding things of this kind.
I think that today is a black day for human rights since human beings are clearly being debased by this patents directive and will become nothing more than raw materials for industry.
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<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Mr President, if the patents directive which has now been adopted by Parliament is better than the one we debated and then rejected in Parliament the first time around, it is thanks to those who essentially voted against the directive at that time.
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We saw to it that improvements were made, and in my view the wording which has now been adopted cannot be compared with what we rejected in Parliament on that previous occasion.
But I am also of the opinion that we should have completed the procedure and should have confirmed at second reading what Parliament voted for by a large majority at first reading. This would have enabled us to go into the conciliation procedure with the Council armed with real possibilities for putting forward, and having accepted, views which a majority in Parliament voted for at the first passage.
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Parliament has not made full use of its potential here and we have ended up badly placed vis-à-vis the Council and the Commission, despite the fact that we are normally anxious to ensure that Parliament's position is strengthened.
This we failed to do on this particular occasion, and that is why I too voted against the amendments.
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<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="Banotti">
Mr President, I voted for some of the amendments to this directive.
I find it extremely offensive that Mrs Breyer feels that anybody who supported anything to do with this directive was in some way lacking in any form of moral judgement on it.
No directive has caused me more concern and more anguish in reaching my decision.
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There has been considerable criticism of lobbies.
However, for some reason those who lobby in favour of Mrs Breyer's group are not lobbyists and, apparently, those who have a different point of view are lobbyists and thus decried.
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I have checked with many of the patients' groups who are alleged to be opposing this directive, and they have told me absolutely categorically that their names were used without their consent.
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There are many areas in this directive that have caused us concern.
I do not believe that my vote today has made the world a worse place.
I hope very much that we will recognize that significant medical achievements can be achieved through biotechnology.
I, too, have had reason to be grateful for biotechnological advances as I am an insulin-dependent diabetic and I use insulin.
I am glad that we do not have to kill 50, 000 pigs every time to get the insulin.
Thanks to biotechnology, insulin is now produced in a much more safe, consistent and stable way.
I am grateful for that.
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However, I recognize that we have serious ethical considerations in this directive.
Yesterday, listening to Commissioner Monti, I became convinced by his reassurances that the ethics committee in relation to biotechnology will be a serious one with which we as a Parliament can interact on a regular basis.
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<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I wish to raise a point of order.
Earlier on I approached the Chair to have my name put down for an oral voting declaration not just on the Pirker report but also on the Rothley document.
I was wrongly informed that only written voting statements would be allowed.
But I assume that what applies to my colleagues applies to me as well, and I should therefore like to make an oral voting declaration.
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(The President.
No, no!)
But surely, Mr President, I was given the wrong information.
I was told that there are only written declarations in the case of second readings.
But since Mrs Breyer, Mrs Banotti and many others have been allowed to make oral declarations, I consider it important, on the basis of equal treatment, that I too should be allowed to make my own voting declaration orally.
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<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="President">
Mr Posselt, there is no express provision in the articles of the Rules of Procedure.
However there is a parliamentary practice and this was mentioned to you by our colleagues of the President-in-Office.
This parliamentary practice is that there are no explanations of vote in such circumstances.
Since the matter was very delicate and there were colleagues who wanted at all costs to speak, I allowed myself, if you like, one more interpretation than is customary parliamentary practice.
I have this right since there is no article in the Rules of Procedure which obliges me to do it this way or that. I usually follow parliamentary practice.
In this case however I judged that I should depart from normal practice. I will therefore allow you to speak as I did for the other Members.
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<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="Hallam">
Mr President, firstly may I write into the proceedings of Parliament today that there was a lot of criticism of my colleagues from the Green Group for dressing up as pirates.
However, people were packed into the public gallery, presumably paid by pharmaceutical companies and those who stand to gain by this, wearing uniforms proclaiming the ludicrous slogan 'Patents for Life' . That was not referred to at all.
It is wrong that people were allowed to display that slogan in that particular way.
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This is a black day for Europe.
This is the only European patenting directive and today we have opened a Pandora's Box which our children and our children's children will deeply regret.
We have given the go-ahead for large multinational companies to plunder and play fast and loose with the world's genetic resources.
Time and time again in Holy Scripture we are warned against what is called genetic confusion.
Today's decision gives the green light for the industrialized mixing and mutation of genes from unrelated species.
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We do not have an ethical or moral framework which is workable.
We do not even have a basic ethical committee.
For a long time we will pay a huge cost for this while certain capitalist countries will earn huge profits.
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<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, as I said before, I did not wish to criticize anyone, I simply wanted everyone to have the same rights.
I share the opinion of my colleague, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, that we have succeeded in improving essential aspects of the directive.
I take the view, and this goes well beyond my colleague's position, that we have made major improvements to the directive and I am proud to be one of those who offered strong resistance to it the first time around.
It was said at the time that, if we say no, there would never be legislation, there would never be any directive, and better a bad regulation than no regulation at all.
All this talk has been proved wrong.
The directive before us today is now very much improved.
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Nonetheless, I would have preferred it if we had done what my colleague Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf proposed on a number of points, including primarily the four amendments on embryo protection, in other words, I wish we had completed the procedure in full.
I take the view that we should have adopted a series of amendments and for this reason I voted in favour of just such a thing.
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<SPEAKER ID=133 NAME="Ahlqvist, Hulthén, Theorin and Wibe">
The Rothley report is an immensely complex report with considerable implications for the future.
Not only does it contain the possibility to coordinate the patent systems of the EU countries into one system, but also moral and ethical risks which, in our opinion, have been treated in too stepmotherly a fashion.
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We wished that the demand for a special ethics committee in relation to biotechnology had been met; we consider that the implications for countries in the Third World remain unclear, and we think that biodiversity has not been given sufficient consideration.
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Our hesitation does not imply that we are against the creation of a joint European patent system, we can see the need for that.
But due to the question marks still shown in the report, we are extremely hesitant in supporting this report in its entirety.
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<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="Andersson, Lööw and Waidelich">
We note that a majority of the amendments suggested by the European Parliament at first reading have been adopted by the Council.
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We support two amendments in this vote, Amendments Nos 10 and 25 on marking of origin.
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We do not consider it necessary to set up a special ethics committee, but share the views of the Council that the tasks can be fulfilled by the existing committee.
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Even if these amendments do not get the necessary majority, we shall support the report in the final vote, and thereby the Council's proposal, as we consider it a matter of urgency that the patenting rights in this field now be regulated.
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<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="Cushnahan">
<SPEAKER ID=136 NAME="Delcroix">
<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="Graenitz">
While the common position contains improvements vis-à-vis the first proposal submitted by the Commission, there is still an absence of provisions relating to the safeguarding of evidence of the origin of genetic material, which is especially important for the diversity of species and for animal protection.
There is also a need for improvements to be made in the area of agriculture, more specifically with regard to breeding.
We require a rule on the setting-up of an ethics committee to deal specifically with bio-technical inventions.
I regret the fact that too few Members of Parliament were in agreement with the amendments.
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<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="Lindqvist">
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="Martin, David">
This directive must achieve a balance between the needs of industry and the general population's wider concerns.
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Biotechnology has the potential to do much good in the treatment of genetic diseases.
Work pioneered at the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh (in my constituency) is a good example.
The introduction of a human gene into a sheep programmes the animal to produce a human protein in her milk which has great potential for treating emphysema and cystic fibrosis.
The common position will enable scientists, researchers and those who finance them to obtain a reasonable return on their investment.
That is to be welcomed.
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However, I am not convinced that the common position has done enough to meet the genuine concerns that have been expressed about developments in this area.
I would have liked the common position to be clearer about the need for a firm distinction between discovery and invention.
I believe we should have a separate ethics committee to look at patent applications.
There is need for informed consent in respect of material obtained from human subjects or from Third World countries.
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Finally, the common position should have been clearer in stating that any animal suffering must be in proportion to the realistic human benefit.
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While I acknowledge its genuine attempt to find a compromise between competing interests I cannot support the common position in its present form.
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<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="Martinez">
Once again the directive on legal protection of biotechnological inventions is before us and, along with it, the whole legitimate debate between, on the one hand, the European pharmaceutical industry's wish not to be deprived of its technical resources, which its competitors in the United States are allowed to use, and, on the other hand, the need to avoid the trend towards committing revolting atrocities in order to remain competitive.
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In this respect, if people are already nervous about the patentability of life and the intrusion of the market into an area which some see as sacred, can they be expected to accept the use of human embryos "for industrial and commercial ends' , with or without the false smoke screens of ethics committees?
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Indeed, the problem is simpler than it appears if the principles and needs in question are firstly listed and then prioritized.
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The list of parameters is as follows, in no particular order: not to hinder research, because of the improved well-being it can bring to mankind, as has been confirmed by the terrific progress achieved in the field of medicine since the Pasteur revolution; not to handicap our high-tech industries, in particular the pharmaceutical industry, where all drugs are the product of grey matter; not to withdraw the traditional right of the small farmer to re-use the products of his land; not to interfere with what is sacred, for without these things there is no society and because life is sacred; not to inflict needless suffering on animals.
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From then on, once the parameters are listed, prioritizing is easy.
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At the top of the list we have life, which is sacred, life and above all the embryo.
We need to study and understand it, of course.
However, we must do everything to stop life being patented, marketed, manipulated, cloned, merchandised.
The market must stop where life, which is sacred, begins!
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Only in this way can we prevent the stupidity of the use of babies' corpses for experimental purposes, to test car seats for example.
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Secondly, small farmers must have the right to re-use the seeds they produce without having to pay royalties.
If not, it would mean their return to the legal status of serfs, with the agrochemical giants as lords and leeches.
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With these overriding standards in place, the remaining field must be opened up to science, to progress and to the beneficial effects which science brings to humanity.
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<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="McKenna">
I am voting against this proposal for many reasons.
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The Greens have worked consistently to mitigate the worst defects of this directive, but the common position is unacceptable in its present form.
The refusal of the rapporteur, Willi Rothley, to admit any failings in the text, despite the clear evidence that Parliament's amendments at first reading have been ignored or corrupted beyond recognition, is deeply worrying and the democratic process will be seen to have failed if this position is upheld in plenary.
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According to doctors and medical researchers, the directive will stifle research and multiply the costs of treatment.
Already the Manchester Regional Genetics Centre has received demands for royalty payments whenever it tests for the cystic fibrosis gene.
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The patenting of genes would reduce collaboration between scientists and increase costs for charities fighting genetic diseases too rare to be commercially interesting.
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Corporations owning patents will acquire a monopoly on part of our humanity.
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Major corporations have been involved in underhand campaigning techniques such as a group of wheelchair-bound protestors who had allegedly received expenses and 'gifts in kind' from Smithkline Beecham.
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Life is not a commodity which can be bought and sold.
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The industry lobby argues that the directive will increase food production.
Enough food is already being produced, the directive will require farmers to pay royalties on seeds and force more costly monocultural farming methods.
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With the current wording of the directive, a patent can only be challenged if the likelihood of physical suffering to an animal can be demonstrated: even proof of a physical handicap would not be sufficient.
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Human genes and embryos, animals and plants will all become patentable, legalized theft of genetic resources from developing countries will continue and farmers will be serious disadvantaged.
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Article 5 'appears both to permit and to exclude the patenting of human gene sequences' . That is the view of the British Society for Human Genetics - the clinical practitioners who will have to work with this text - and is a prime example of the way logic and common sense have been corrupted.
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The existing patent treaty (European Patent Convention Article 52.4) prohibits patents on surgical and therapeutic treatments and diagnostic methods for reasons of public policy and doctors' freedom. Although this is acknowledged in one recital (35), it is negated in another (42).
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Article 6 will prohibit patents on 'processes for cloning human beings' .
The definition of such processes has been taken out of the articles and inserted into the (non-mandatory) recitals, which is a strange place for such an important and controversial issue.
It leaves the door open for patenting of cloning processes on anything less than a whole human being.
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Parliament passed a clear statement in the first reading that all methods in which human embryos are used should be made unpatentable.
The common position text has qualified this to say that it is only industrial or commercial uses which are nonpatentable, leaving the door open for patents on research models using embryos.
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BioPiracy is the unauthorized expropriation and commercialization of genetic material without the proper informed consent of the donor.
Consent to donating genetic material for medical research is not the same as consent to commercialization of any resulting products.
Parliament recognized this problem in its Amendment No 76 which introduced a new article requiring voluntary and informed agreement of the person of origin as a precondition for a patent application.
The common position has deleted this provision, substituting only a poorly-worded recital calling for 'an opportunity' to give such consent, citing data protection problems as the reason for rejecting Parliament's text.
There is no guidance on what happens if the 'opportunity' is not taken or is rejected,
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Parliament voted to extend the wording of the farmers' derogation to re-use farm-saved seed and to breed from patented livestock because the Commission's origin proposal was technically very limited.
The common position reimposes the same restrictions in defiance of the views of farmers.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights ignored a request from the chair of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development to reinstate these amendments.
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<SPEAKER ID=142 NAME="Nicholson">
While I recognize that the common position is an improvement on the proposal which was put before us the last time we debated biotechnology patenting, I am concerned that ethical questions have not been entirely resolved.
Where there is an issue with an ethical dimension it is not enough to simply argue for a straightforward balance between the needs of a given industry and moral concerns.
The balance must always be tilted towards those moral concerns. That is why I have supported the amendments, particularly those tabled by Members of my own group, which sought to strengthen ethical controls.
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Like every other Member, I have sympathy with the patient groups who have campaigned for adoption of the report without amendment.
It is understandable that those groups want to see the issue sorted out as soon as possible.
I regret, however, that I cannot accept the argument that there is no more need for conciliation.
It is clear from the number of concerns which have been raised that the ethical dimension needs to be watertight, otherwise we will face enormous difficulties in the future, difficulties which would benefit no-one, least of all the people whom the patient groups represent.
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I share the view of many Members that farmers' needs are not adequately met in the common position.
There appears to be a fundamental misunderstanding of how farming operates.
It is absurd to impose a financial sanction on farmers simply because they wish to continue innovative practice as they have done for centuries.
I strongly resent those provisions which exclude the 'farmer's privilege' .
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<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="des Places">
Discussions on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions have been going on for more than ten years now.
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It is paradoxical that the international institutions, especially the World Trade Organization, consider legal protection of biotechnology possible although only with regard to foodstuffs as such, without taking into consideration the production process.
We have a current example right now, with the banning of imports of hormonized meat into the European Union, which is considered reprehensible.
<P>
With regard to agriculture, the legal protection of biotechnology must not be carried out to the detriment of what is mistakenly known as "the farmer's privilege' .
That is why the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations tabled Amendment No 6 and cosigned Amendments Nos 28, 29 and 30.
In fact, from time immemorial, farmers have had the right to use their own seed and have developed a specific system known as "farm-saved seed' .
<P>
Only recently, the Commission made aid to durum wheat production dependent on the use of certified seed, consequently causing an increase in production costs for farmers.
As a result, a reduction in the area sowed with durum wheat can already be noted in the so-called "non-traditional' production areas, which only benefit from a reduced level of aid to production.
<P>
The "farmer's privilege' , that is, production of seed on the farm and self-reproduction of the seed is the best possible barrier to the development of genetically modified seeds.
Indeed, their low production cost obliges the multinational seed companies to abuse their dominant market position.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="Sandbæk, Bonde and Lis Jensen">
We voted in favour of a number of amendments to Mr Rothley's report on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions.
We did so in the interests of having the directive sent to the Conciliation Committee because we believe it to be a poor draft.
<P>
There are at least three major problems with the directive in its present form, now that Parliament has rejected all the amendments: the requirement of proof of invention has not been included in an acceptable form; the "farmer's privilege' has not been safeguarded; and the potential for patenting genes under Article 5 - not only for specific applications - deserves sharp criticism.
<P>
Each of these problems individually constitutes adequate grounds to reject the Council's common position, but regrettably, this was not to be.
We find the decision to adopt Mr Rothley's report quite irresponsible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 NAME="Spiers">
I supported most of the amendments to Mr Rothley's report.
<P>
I have listened with respect to many of the arguments in support of the common position, including representations from my union, MSF, and from the UK Bioindustry Association, as well as from Mr Rothley and other MEPs.
I recognize the potential that biotechnology has for curing genetic disorders and for creating jobs in Europe.
I also appreciate that granting a patent does not, in itself, allow the patented product to be used.
<P>
Much of the lobbying from both sides has been misleading and even, in some cases, dishonest.
This is unhelpful to the lobbyists, as well as to MEPs trying to reach a position in an extraordinarily complex area touching on law, science and ethics, as well as many political questions.
Claims that approving the common position will result in cures that will otherwise be prevented, or that rejecting it will fatally harm European industry are unjustified.
By the same token, many opponents of the directive have exaggerated the practical consequences of granting a patent and have made arguments that imply that any patented product is approved for use.
<P>
Nevertheless, I cannot support the common position, primarily because the battle over the directive has become a political battle over whether or not there should be a speedy and lightly regulated expansion of biotechnology.
The significance of the directive goes beyond its specific provisions.
That is why it was important to establish a credible ethics committee, as proposed in Amendments Nos 11 and 12; to safeguard the rights of people in developing countries; to safeguard farmers' privileges; and to protect biodiversity.
<P>
Given the powerful economic and political forces now looking to make money from biotechnology in the developing world, there is a serious danger of traditional rights being undermined and the poorest people in the world being further exploited.
Adopting a model on biotechnological patenting close to the US model, we are bringing into being a powerful bloc that may force biotechnology on the rest of the world.
<P>
This would be undesirable.
We need to go more slowly.
My votes registered my concern.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="Telkämper">
Today, companies like Bayer, BASF, Hoechst and Bohringer are trying to ensure that they enjoy legal protection for the gene business.
The Directive on legal protection for biotechnological inventions is designed to ensure that companies like this can make monopolistic claims by way of patents on the use of biological materials from animals, plants and human beings.
While these companies could then assert what are in effect rights of ownership of genetic information in the form of patents, the jobs and possible cures promised by the biotechnology industry are by no means guaranteed as a result.
What is certain, however, is that European biotechnology companies will profit from the directive.
<P>
Most of the resources and knowledge for the so-called biotechnological inventions of the northern hemisphere and the resulting patents come from Third World countries.
Indeed, 83 % of genetic diversity is to be found in Africa, Latin America and Asia, and this is a source of enormous profits when combined with traditional knowledge about the use of this biological diversity which has been acquired by the indigenous people and local communities in these regions.
This is particularly true for traditional medicine and agricultural knowledge.
At the moment, one in four pharmaceutical products is manufactured from tropical plants.
These remedies have often been developed from the traditional pharmaceutical products of indigenous people.
<P>
As a rule, the knowledge and biological resources of indigenous people are put to commercial use by multi-national companies without the approval or even against the wishes of those people.
The profit margin is considerable: Bayer, Agr.Evo, BASF, KWS and Hoechst are all in the top-ten list of world companies in agriculture, veterinary medicine and pharmaceuticals.
These profits will multiply with the EU patents directive, without any decision, approval, legal protection, control or participation on the part of those concerned.
<P>
These industries would also have access to human genetic material in the EU and the patenting of isolated parts of the human body would no longer be excluded.
Isolated genetic information would be regarded as the result of technical processes and thus as inventions which could be patented.
There have already been several attempts in the past to patent cell sequences of indigenous people against their wishes.
<P>
The European Parliament is now engaged in a vote on the compulsory expropriation of genetic resources.
For this reason I am voting against the Rothley report.
<P>
Pirker report (A4-0157/98)
<SPEAKER ID=147 NAME="McKenna">
I abstained on this report for a number of reasons.
The whole drugs issue in Europe and the way people deal with it is very disturbing.
People are refusing to accept that there are drug addicts out there, that there are people suffering from drug addiction and that something must be done to ensure that these people are protected and that they are not criminalized.
They are victims of exploitative people.
We have to deal with that.
<P>
There seem to be two different sides in this Parliament.
On the one hand, people are saying that drugs should be liberalized and others are saying that we are refusing to deal with the issue.
People have a duty to address the realities of life and one of those realities is that drugs are available and that young people and vulnerable people are being exploited by this.
We need to deal with this and should not run away from it.
Even the d'Ancona report some months ago hyped up some very cynical arguments.
<P>
We have to deal with the realities of life.
We have to deal with the fact that not only are the victims of drug addiction but their families too are suffering.
We should not criminalize these people but look at ways of dealing with the root causes of the problem.
Until we deal with that and stop running away from the problem, we are never going to find a solution.
The reason I abstained on this report was because there were some positive things in it but there was also a reluctance to deal with the reality of the situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I simply wanted to say briefly that I am very pleased to see such a large majority in support of the Pirker report, for this constitutes a turning point in EU drugs policy which first became evident in the debate on the d'Ancona report, which unfortunately was referred back to committee.
<P>
The Pirker report has finally made it clear that there is in this House a large majority in favour of a hard and clear line against drugs.
I believe that what is important now is to ensure that this change of direction is also taken up by the individual Member States.
In Germany, for example, the debate has fallen a long way behind the position we reached on this issue in the European Parliament.
I only wish there were as much unity of purpose over drugs policy and the fight against drugs in national politics as there is in the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 NAME="Ahern">
It is inconceivable that in a week when the European Parliament will endorse the ban on tobacco advertising, we should not take seriously the threat to life and health from so-called designer drugs.
We all know of the tragic deaths that have occurred amongst young people from Ecstasy but the insidious long-term damage to the brain and nervous system is not so widely known.
It is unfortunate that the proponents of the Amsterdam Treaty have not recognized the downside to the rush to European harmonization.
<P>
Crime has also been given the green light.
Customs posts on our Western seaboard, such as Casteltownbere in Cork, have been abolished just as we need increased vigilance concerning the trafficking of all kinds of illegal drugs.
Cannabis is legal already in Holland and there is a drive to legalize it from some Member States in the European Union which will only increase pressures.
We should say NO to the Amsterdam Treaty and NO to drugs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="Ahlqvist, Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw, Theorin, Waidelich and Wibe">
We would like to point out that the Pirker report is an excellent report supporting the Commission's proposal of an early warning system for discovering new synthetic drugs.
We do not, however, share his opinion that harmonizing the sanctions for the use of drugs would be desirable, as in several EU Member States today the use of drugs is not a crime.
Harmonization would mean that Sweden risks abandoning its present legislation.
<P>
We support the amendment that legislation should not only be based on punishment and bans.
We regard the Swedish line which amounts to punishment being turned into care or treatment to be successful and desirable.
Finally, we repudiate firmly any proposal for the legalization and the controlled use of drugs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 NAME="Bébéar">
As Hubert Pirker highlighted, the share of so-called synthetic drugs - Ecstasy, LSD and amphetamines - within drug consumption as a whole is continually increasing.
Something thus needs to be urgently done with regard to this phenomenon, which affects young people during their leisure time in particular.
<P>
The different legislations regarding these drugs, whose exact content we are for the most part unaware of, do not offer a satisfactory and homogeneous defence within the 15 Member States.
They constitute a form of protection, which is even less capable of halting or reversing that increase.
Whilst carrying out preventive actions, we must also rapidly harmonize the fight against drug trafficking, possession and use of drugs.
<P>
That is why I support the Pirker report, particularly its dissuasive and preventive aspects.
<P>
The progressive ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty gives us new legal means and methods of policing to act against this particularly structured and organized from of crime.
Greater cross-border cooperation, in particular, could help greatly in this area and remedy the development of raves.
<P>
We ensure the protection of minors and young adults in many different ways.
This area should not leave us indifferent.
It is a part of the same logic as the fight against organized crime or public health protection, as is the fight against the other socalled traditional drugs.
For the same medical and social reasons, as a Member of this House and a doctor, I could not countenance their legalization.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 NAME="Cushnahan">
Mr President, I welcome the production of this report by Mr Pirker.
<P>
Designer drug usage has greatly increased and it is vitally important that the EU co-ordinates its activities in response to the problem.
<P>
All national legislation should be carefully scrutinized to ensure that no loopholes exist which permit the manufacture of synthetic drugs merely by altering the chemical formula.
<P>
This should also be complemented by increased police and customs co-operation throughout the EU which targets criminals who ply this evil trade and who profit so much from the human suffering and misery they create.
The profit margins are considerable.
An Ecstasy tablet costs 20-25p to produce yet is sold for between five to ten pounds.
The rewards far outweigh the punishments that are meted out.
It is therefore essential that EU Member States harmonize their sentencing policy to ensure that the punishment fits the crime and acts as a major deterrent.
<P>
Action at a local level also has a critical role to play.
It should not be forgotten that these drugs are mostly sold in premises frequented by young people such as discotheques and bars.
Pressure must be brought to bear on the owners of these premises to ensure that they are taking every possible precaution to prevent their circulation.
It is proven that they knowingly allowed drugs to be sold in their establishments then the local police and local courts should proceed to revoke their licences.
<P>
It is therefore clear that if we are to successfully respond to the threat caused by designer drop then strong coordinated action at a local, national and EU level must occur simultaneously.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="Deprez">
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="Holm">
<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of improved control of so-called designer drugs in the EU.
Since criminal activities do not respect national boundaries, we consider close collaboration between Member States crucial to the fight against these criminal groups.
However, there should be no doubt that we firmly support the Danish derogation in judicial matters.
Thus, we do not endorse the approximation of penal legislation in Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="Le Gallou">
It is high time we became aware of the damaging effects of the production and consumption of both the so-called traditional drugs and the so-called synthetic drugs.
It is also time to envisage, and take, all necessary punitive measures to fight against their production and use.
<P>
We are satisfied with Mr Pirker's report which, with regard to the control of these new synthetic drugs - LSD, Ecstasy and amphetamines - upholds an approach based on suppression.
<P>
Use of all drugs - narcotics, psychotropic substances, Ecstasy, LSD or amphetamines - must be banned.
<P>
Cooperation must be increased between police forces in the fight against drug trafficking.
<P>
For all these reasons, as the National Front never ceases to repeat, we must say no to the legalization of drugs, no to their free use and no to a society of and for drug addicts.
<P>
There needs to be a real awareness of the risks associated with synthetic drugs.
Indeed, apart from undesirable side effects such as anxiety attacks, hallucinations and confusion, they can cause liver disease, cramp, apoplectic fits, coma and even death.
<P>
These drugs, which are for the most part consumed by the 15 to 25 age group at raves, are dangerous.
It is vital, if only for this reason, that they are banned and that their sale and use be severely suppressed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 NAME="Lindqvist">
<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="Lucas Pires">
The doubly black market in synthetic drugs - which are extremely varied and unidentifiable - is one of the greatest threats to our young people.
The Pirker report is an excellent contribution and a fundamental alarm signal in the fight against this scourge.
I would especially underline two proposals that are contained in it - that we appeal to the Drugs Monitoring Centre in Lisbon to intensify its efforts to control synthetic drugs, and, most of all, the suggested creation of a Europe-wide 'drug-free schools' campaign, which indeed has been symbolically launched today in Strasbourg.
This is an idea which I think is a very positive way of encouraging young people to protect themselves against drugs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 NAME="Novo">
Although we have some reservations - especially as regards the creation of special supra-institutional units, a proposal we consider particularly negative, and also as regards the question of harmonizing legislation - we consider the report generally positive, because it faces up to the use of synthetic drugs, which has become a part of the world-wide drugs problem as a whole.
<P>
It accepts the principle that users should be penalized - although that never means criminalized - and the need to stop the production and prevent the sale of these drugs, and also highlights the urgent need for further research into questions associated with the use of these kinds of drugs, particularly their social and health aspects.
<P>
We should, however, have liked to see a much clearer and more direct approach to the need to attack the production of these drugs and the interests associated with them, preferably using the existing laws on the matter which, unfortunately, have only been implemented to a limited extent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 NAME="Reding">
Synthetic drugs are dangerous even if they are often trivialised.
Because they are "untypical' and consequently cannot be lumped together with popular drugs - heroine, cocaine, etcetera -, they are often alleged to be harmless.
<P>
Specialists know that this is not the case.
But young people are also well aware that designer drugs and "Ecstasy' are far from harmless.
According to one survey, 95 % of the young people who were questioned classified the synthetic products as "drugs' , while 90 % admitted that "Ecstasy' damaged your health and 77 % knew that taking designer drugs led to addiction.
<P>
Nevertheless, many young people fall victim to these substances.
Because designer drugs have long been part of a certain youth culture, they are taken by young people at public or private dance venues; they are consumed mainly by the 17-25 age group, but some are as young as 13!
In the European Union, 5 million young people are understood to take synthetic drugs on an occasional or regular basis.
The phenomenon is so acute in Luxembourg that the Centre for the Prevention of Drug Addiction has had a report prepared on the problem of synthetic drugs in Luxembourg.
<P>
Synthetic drugs are manufactured in kitchen laboratories using chemicals.
That is why it is also vital for us to gain control of these substances, which often come from central or eastern Europe.
A ban on the production of and trade in designer drugs and amphetamines is absolutely necessary, and this must be introduced equally in all EU Member States.
National legislation must be adapted to meet the new situation.
<P>
The use of preventive measures and the provision of information are indispensable if the damage is to be limited.
Useful experience has been acquired in some Member States - including disco evenings and the use of the Internet - and this should be disseminated as widely as possible.
<P>
It is also important to improve research into the effects and side-effects of these relatively new drugs, so that particularly dangerous substances are recognized in good time.
<P>
However, what matters above all is to recognise the new drugs as dangerous substances, to take steps to prohibit their production and sale, and to educate young people so that we can limit the amount of damage done.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 1.45 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Water quality
<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0146/98), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Council Directive on the quality of water intended for human consumption (C4-0083/98-95/010(SYN)) (Rapporteur: Mr K. Collins)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Grossetête">
Mr President, this is the second reading on this subject, having had the first reading one year ago.
We can thus be pleased that no time has been wasted between first and second readings, which is not always the case, as we saw this morning.
<P>
Consequently, we can be happy that the Council's common position incorporates the factors which Parliament considered to be of particular importance at first reading of this "drinking water' directive, especially the request for the development of a harmonized method of sampling in order to monitor the lead content of water.
I introduced an amendment on this subject at first reading, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, and this point has been taken up.
I am very pleased about this.
<P>
There is also another point on which we are extremely satisfied.
It relates to the definition of points of compliance.
The Council took up this amendment, approved at first reading, which defines the point of compliance as the tap normally used for human consumption. This enables monitoring of the conformity of garden taps, for example, to be avoided.
<P>
Nevertheless, there remain several points which we think pose a problem and I would just like to raise that of where copper is placed in the annexes.
Even at first reading, I insisted greatly on this point, noting that we wished to see copper moved from Annex B, an annex relating to chemicals, to Annex C which covers iron and manganese.
This change in annex would mean that, if the copper level was exceeded, as for all of the parameters in Annex C, Article 8, paragraph 2 would apply. According to this article, the Member States would have to implement corrective measures, as quickly as possible, to restore the quality of water, if this is a problem.
This, to me, represents a basic guarantee of the quality of drinking water.
I therefore want to insist on this point in particular, and there are many of us who clearly wish to see this amendment taken up.
<P>
There are other improvements brought about by the amendments, in particular with regard to the parametric values of certain chemical substances such as trihalomethanes or physical parameters such as radioactivity, which should be considered in the light of the Euratom directive.
<P>
On the request for studies concerning endocrine-disrupting chemicals, I insist on the fact that we are waiting for the Commission to put these research programmes in place as speedily as possible so that we have all the necessary information.
<P>
With regard to lead, which has also been the subject of a number of discussions, the Member States must provide a statement on the incidence of lead piping, having a period of five years in which to produce a report on how they intend to replace it.
This relates to Amendment No 12, which seems to be a good solution.
<P>
According to the text agreed by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, Member States have five years to reach an initial level of 25 microgrammes per litre; they must then conform to the standard of 10 microgrammes per litre within ten years, and not fifteen, as agreed by the Council.
<P>
In conclusion, Mr President, I would simply like to note that the cost of this measure for some countries which have lead piping in use within their water distribution networks has to be carefully considered.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldi">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are discussing an important directive on water intended for human consumption: it is important both because it seeks to protect our health from the negative effects of water contamination and pollution, and because it will finally provide the Member States with a more flexible and appropriate framework of regulations than the current one, which goes back a good 18 years.
<P>
The directive will enable us to have a Community policy on drinking water and, finally, will enable consumers to be better informed.
The Member States will have to face investment, which will amount to around 100 000 million euros over the entire Community territory.
This is important because control programmes, methods of measuring and analysing the quality of drinking water and widespread control of the entire system of all drinking water supply networks will be implemented.
More than 50 million kilometres of old pipes will certainly have to be replaced as well.
<P>
Unfortunately, however, water contamination causes various problems, despite being the source of life, as Mr Florenz pointed out at first reading.
Water is no longer odourless, colourless and tasteless.
Measures therefore need to be taken, in compliance with the provisions of the World Health Organization.
It seems incredible to me, and I fail to understand why the values of the WHO are taken into consideration for certain elements and not for others.
I am referring to copper, which is still included in the table of chemical parameters, which lists arsenic, cyanide, mercury, lead and other poisons.
Although the WHO has specified that a level of 2 milligrams of copper per litre of drinking water offers a suitable level of safety; although the European Parliament, you will recall, voted in favour at first reading, including copper in the table of indicative parameters; although the use of pipes with a low copper content could enable considerable savings to be made for the Member States; although there is no alternative system as yet...
<P>
(The President cut off the speaker)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="Collins, Kenneth">
Mr President, I apologise for not being present when the debate opened.
I was chairing the Conference of Committee Chairmen and I have not yet perfected the art of being in two places at once.
<P>
The priority principle that we are tackling here today is the principle of ensuring a supply of good quality drinking water throughout the Community; water that does not harm human health and which is of a high environmental quality.
The directive we have in place at the moment has not really been well implemented.
The previous speaker has made the point: it is complex, confusing and, furthermore, it is sometimes based on scientific knowledge that was perhaps all right at the time but is now outdated.
<P>
The proposal presented by the Commission in 1995 - which is what we are dealing with now - established parametric values to be met by the Member States, based on the latest research findings and WHO standards.
We believe that it represented a significant improvement.
The common position was a further improvement on the original Commission proposal largely, if I may say so, due to the work of Parliament at first reading when we secured, for example, a total pesticides limit and concessions on keeping consumers better informed.
<P>
The proposal we have on the table today I believe to be a good one.
The reason is that it has been the product of cooperative and open decision-making.
I would like to congratulate the people who have taken part in the work leading to the paper today. That includes the Commission and its staff; it includes many people in the water industry; and it includes many of the NGOs.
Without them we would not be able to have the proposal that is here on the table today.
<P>
There are just one or two issues I want to raise.
First of all, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection is not at all happy about the common position insofar as it deals with derogations.
We want to tighten up derogations, most importantly on lead, where we have reduced the time which Member States have to implement the lead parameter from 15 years to 10 years.
We have also introduced a requirement for Member States to produce a plan within five years, stating how they intend to meet the lead parameter established in the directive.
<P>
I want to make it clear that we are not suggesting that Member States should eliminate lead within five years.
What we are saying is that Member States should produce a plan telling us how they are going to do it, at some time in the future.
<P>
Secondly, there is the question of endocrine-disrupting chemicals.
We have introduced a parameter for endocrine-disrupting chemicals and we have called for a study. We think this is necessary given the growing political sensitivity of this across the Community.
<P>
Thirdly, there is the question of trihalomethanes.
We have tightened the parameter for trihalomethanes and we have introduced a requirement that Member States must produce a plan, again detailing how they intend to meet this parameter.
<P>
Fourthly, there is the question of radioactivity.
The committee has endorsed an amendment calling for the directive to include a radioactivity parameter to ensure that drinking water supplies do not become contaminated.
<P>
Fifthly, there is the question of copper.
I have made my views clear on the lobbying activities of some people associated with the copper industry.
I must say that they have been rather less than responsible in the way they have behaved. Phoning my assistant at night on her home telephone number is not my idea of responsible lobbying.
It is not the whole industry, but some areas of it.
I deplore that.
But the committee decisively overturned the copper amendments, which have been resubmitted to plenary.
I am following the committee's line and would therefore ask colleagues not to support these amendments: Amendments Nos 31 to 34.
<P>
Sixthly, we have dealt with distribution and points of compliance.
We have attempted to clarify confusion over the definitions of the points of compliance and differences that exist between public and private premises.
We have tried to remove the ambiguities there.
<P>
The last point that I want to make is that the committee has endorsed my call for a stop to the practice of cutting off water supplies to private individuals.
In the part of the Community where I live, this is already illegal. You may not cut off water supplies in Scotland.
In a civilized Community I believe we should not be depriving our citizens of one of the most basic means of survival - namely, a clean supply of clean drinking water.
<P>
Finally, sources of drinking water in this Community are varied.
Some countries rely on ground water, others on surface water.
The drinking water directive has to be able to allow for disinfection of water from all possible sources in order to make water safe for human consumption, while still being flexible and respecting the principle of subsidiarity.
This is a difficult balancing act which I believe this directive manages well.
<P>
Amendments Nos 1 to 30 improve the directive.
I commend them to the House.
This directive is an improvement on its predecessor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Jensen, Kirsten">
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Collins, for his eminent work on the directive on drinking water.
It is good to see European Parliament amendments incorporated into the common position.
Clean water in Europe is not to be taken for granted.
Even today, the majority of countries have to purify their drinking water either by proper technical or straightforward chemical treatment.
The strategy for Europe's drinking water should, therefore, be based on pollution prevention and monitoring water quality.
However, the problem of monitoring water is that we only find what we are measuring for.
Therefore, it is very positive indeed that the directive on drinking water sets up monitoring requirements for substances that we suspect may be harmful to humans.
I also believe it is important for drinking water to be free of hormone-like substances, as mentioned by Ken Collins.
<P>
The fact that the overall boundary limit for pesticides in drinking water has been brought back into the directive is very gratifying.
We are living in a time when agriculture, in particular, has to take responsibility for its use of chemical substances and the consequences this has on natural resources.
I am glad that the reference to water as a commodity has been removed from the common position.
I concur with the chairman of the committee in advocating that Member States should produce a plan to replace lead pipes and taps for domestic water supplies within the next five years, and it is also my belief that more rapid implementation of the directive will be required.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Dybkjær">
Mr President, on the whole I can concur with the comments of the previous two speakers - the rapporteur of the Socialist group and the chairman of the committee.
Today, we are dealing with an important motion here.
Looking at the world situation in this area, an incredible number of children die because they really are not able to get adequate, clean water, which is critical to their development.
<P>
Thus, it is of course also important for us in Europe to ensure that we are approaching a position where clean water will be par for the course.
As the previous speaker said, in a very large part of Europe, it is not to be taken for granted.
Thus, it is equally crucial that areas where there currently is clean drinking water should be able to ensure an ongoing supply of clean drinking water for the future as well.
On behalf of the Liberal group, therefore, I support the amendment under discussion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Miranda">
Mr President, we have also looked carefully at the major problems with this report. And, generally speaking, we share the evaluation and approach adopted by the Committee on the Environment as regards its position on water intended for human consumption.
<P>
But there is one aspect on which we differ: I refer to the question of copper.
On that point we actually agree with the majority position on the Committee of the Environment, and prefer the earlier position taken by Parliament in the House at first reading.
<P>
This is because there is no current scientific research, particularly by the World Health Organization, that justifies the inclusion of copper in Annex 1, part B. We therefore do not understand the insistence on putting copper in that category, which we also find somewhat surprising when we observe that no precautions are normally taken when using copper for water pipes, although the results of research in that field are public property.
<P>
We therefore consider that the appropriate course would be to confirm the position adopted by Parliament at first reading, namely that copper should be included in Annex 1, part C. This, moreover, is the only attitude that ensures that the effects of copper on water will be constantly and strictly monitored.
<P>
These are the main reasons why my group, and I myself, were persuaded to sign an amendment, as other groups and smaller groups of Members have done on this subject.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lannoye">
The Green Group in the European Parliament fully supports Mr Collins' excellent report.
The vote at first reading was already a good one and the common position significantly improves upon the 1980 directive.
<P>
Having said this, a number of the amendments retabled at second reading seem essential to us.
We are particularly interested in Amendments Nos 25 and 26.
The first relates to endocrine-disrupting chemicals.
We are aware of the fact that, according to scientific studies, these substances are likely to have a devastating effect on the hormonal system at extremely low levels.
<P>
Furthermore, the second amendment, concerning radioactivity, shows that here too, since 1980, a number of things have changed.
We now know that there is no threshold with regard to the effects of radioactivity.
Thus, even low levels of radioactivity cannot be acceptable in drinking water.
They must be minimized as far as possible, given that it is not possible to eliminate them altogether.
<P>
I would particularly like to draw your attention to tritium, which is an extra-heavy form of hydrogen.
Tritium has two properties, that of forming tritium water, but also that of incorporating itself into organic particles.
With regard to this, given its long life, it could play a potentially serious role in the area of cancerization.
Scientists are divided on the subject but I believe that, if we are to observe the precautionary principle, it would be wise to adopt the values agreed on by the Committee on the Environment.
<P>
I consequently entreat the Commission to support this amendment and we will thus be voting for a directive which is clearly an improvement on the previous one.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kronberger">
Mr President, when we talk of water or water quality, we need to be clear that there is only one body of water in the world.
Dividing water into two types - one which we can pollute and poison and use as a vehicle for carrying away our rubbish, and one which we need for our vital requirements - is just not a viable long-term proposition.
That is why we must provide the best possible protection for our entire water system in every corner of the globe, because the Earth's water system all connects up together.
<P>
This report - and here I repeat myself - naturally constitutes the right step in the right direction.
Wrong decisions taken mainly in the past, such as the use of lead pipes which are a threat to human health, should be corrected as soon as possible.
The introduction of thresholds for radioactivity is no less important.
Given that the disinfection of water is particularly good business for the chemical industry, it will be important in future to ensure that the addition of chemicals is kept to an absolute minimum.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Apolinário">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to express my general support for Mr Collins's report, particularly as regards water quality.
Cases such as those which occurred a few years ago in Cornwall, in the United Kingdom, and in Evora, in Portugal, put water quality on the front page and caused questions to be asked in Parliament, because they were matters of concern to public opinion on environmental problems.
<P>
And the viewpoint emphasized here, which gives priority to supplies, protection and the recovery of polluted waters, putting water quality first, is one that deserves our support.
Thus there is clearly greater demand for the control of trihalomethane - I would draw your attention to the fact that there are a number of systems where no such analyses are carried out -, and for the long-term replacement of lead pipes.
<P>
The proposal contained in this report is therefore a good one, just as the proposal that came out of the first reading was positive.
As at first reading, however, the point on which I disagree concerns the classification of copper as a chemical parameter, instead of an indicative parameter.
We consider that the Commission has not changed its position.
In its introductory memorandum (COM(94)0612), the Commission stated that the use of copper materials in water distribution systems was not in itself harmful to human health, unless there was any difficulty in meeting a parameter value of 2 mg/litre with appropriate controls on the water treatment process; since then, the Commission has so far shown no evidence of change.
<P>
To quote my friend Mr Collins, it appears that there has been greater sensitivity to other lobbies, perhaps those supporting substitutes for copper, than there has been concern to treat the existing research with appropriate rigour.
For that reason we have once again signed an amendment making copper an indicative parameter under this directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="Jackson">
Mr President, like others I welcome this directive and the report on it.
It is an important directive because it simplifies the original very complicated directive on drinking water and it tightens up some of the limits in a very important way, particularly as regards the content of lead which we allow to enter water.
<P>
The question I have to ask is one which has not really been highlighted so far in this debate - I know the rapporteur is very well aware of it - and that is the question of who pays for this.
The United Kingdom is one of the countries which has a problem with lead piping.
Friends of the Earth, which is an environmental organization, estimated a few years ago that there were four million houses in England in which the lead concentration in drinking water exceeded the limit proposed in this directive.
It is worse news if you are Scottish: not only do you have Mr Collins as your MEP - or one of them - but you also have 589 000 homes out of a total of 2.1 million which have lead piping.
Clearly something has to be done about that.
<P>
I wonder whether the Commission might like to comment on Amendment No 12, which Mr Collins highlighted.
Mr Collins has added something to the directive which was not in it and which asks that the Member States be required to produce a report and forward it to the Commission on the incidence of lead piping in households within their territories and to come forward within five years with a plan to replace the lead piping in these homes.
In other words, it is the Member States, not the Commission, which are to produce the plan.
It would be interesting to know whether the Commission backs this idea or whether the Commission itself has it in mind to tackle the incidence not simply of lead piping for the water suppliers but the lead piping in homes.
<P>
Has the Commission any up-to-date statistics by Member State as to how much this would cost?
The figures I have seen relate to 1993 and they came to £2 billion in England and Wales for the replacement of water companies' lead pipes and £6 billion for the replacement of domestic pipes.
That is a very large amount of money and I would be interested to know whether the Commission has any figures on that.
<P>
Finally, we have to go into this issue with our eyes open about the likely cost.
We have a terrible record on this: for example, the nitrates directive, which has been on the statute book and is being widely ignored because the Member States cannot afford to implement it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
<SPEAKER ID=174 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Mr President, the common position has clearly progressed at Parliament's second reading of the proposal on the quality of water meant for human consumption as the debate has gone on.
For that I am grateful to Mr Collins. The proposal addresses the current insistence on human health, although, as has been said, things have gone too slowly.
Nevertheless, it is important, and this has also been said here, that we are certain that the plans to get things on the right footing will come into being within the next five years at the latest.
<P>
The amended proposal will guarantee greater flexibility with the removal of the limitations of Article 13.
The present proposal also addresses environmental challenges more closely.
As a whole, the directive means the demand for good quality drinking water has been met in its proper proportion in respect of health standards.
We have to be prepared to pay for good drinking water.
In such a vital and influential matter as health and health care, we cannot afford to allow a policy to exist that would end up in the quality of drinking water being bargained over, due to limitations in standards of quality.
<P>
Finally, I would like to say, regarding the matter of copper, that it must be regarded as a health issue, and addressed as such.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, annexed to the directive on drinking water is a classification of substances that can have an effect on the quality of drinking water according to their degree of danger.
After Parliament's first reading, the Council changed the classification of copper and put it in the same class as poisons like arsenic.
Copper has been a good, safe and durable material for making drinking water pipes for many decades in Europe.
If the Council's proposal goes through and copper becomes classified as a poison, a very misleading message will be going out to the consumer.
<P>
It is true that copper is dangerous in large doses, but our bodily system actually needs small amounts of it, which is what the Commission did itself acknowledge.
It has also been scientifically ascertained that a copper deficiency is a bigger concern than an overdose of it.
In a study undertaken by the World Health Organization in 1997 it was stated that there was no scientific evidence that the use of copper as a material for manufacturing pipes for drinking water would lead to health-related problems caused by drinking water.
Another study done in Stockholm in 1997 showed that copper is not harmful to babies.
If copper comes into contact with a group of noxious substances it is easily replaced by those other materials, the effect of which is unknown.
<P>
In this world of all sorts of additives, colouring agents and preservatives, it is right that the quality of our drinking water is controlled, and this report is on the right track in this respect, but there should be moderation in everything.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, on behalf of the Commission, I would like to thank the Members for their thorough treatment of the Council's common position.
I also appreciated the comments by the rapporteur, Mr Ken Collins, on the collaboration between the Commission and the European Parliament.
We, too, found this extremely positive, with the entire procedure being handled in complete openness, thus also making it possible to involve too the NGOs Mr Collins particularly mentioned.
Before making my own comments on the amendments, I would like to emphasize that the Council's common position took shape in the wake of tough, long-drawn-out negotiations between the Council and the Commission.
Thus, some of the provisions are not entirely to the satisfaction of the Commission, but on the whole, this is an acceptable compromise, fully endorsed by the Commission.
<P>
With this in mind, the following can be accepted: Amendments Nos 6, 8, 15 and 19 can be accepted in their entirety.
Amendments Nos 12, which Mrs Jackson particularly asked about, and 29 can be accepted in part.
In principle, Amendments Nos 13, 26 and 30 are acceptable.
The Commission cannot accept the following amendments: 1-5, 7, 9-11, 14, 16-18, 20-25, 27, 28 and finally 31-34.
Let me briefly comment on the most significant amendments, not least because they have figured in today's debate.
<P>
First, I will consider the derogations, that is, Amendments Nos 16, 17 and 22.
The Commission has accepted the proposals put forward by the House at first reading; these have been incorporated into the proposal.
However, they have subsequently been amended by the Council, since this was one of the most difficult issues in the negotiations.
I must emphasize, however, that derogations will only be granted when health is not at stake.
Derogations will be time-restricted, and the Commission will be involved.
Thus, the major reservations of the House have been taken into consideration.
Unfortunately, my impression is that it would be extremely difficult to renegotiate this point with Council.
<P>
The rapporteur, Mr Collins, and Mr Lannoye both mentioned parameters for radioactivity, touching on Amendments Nos 23 and 26.
I am delighted to be able to report that the Commission accepts the introduction of parameters for radioactivity in Annex 1 part C of the directive, dealing with indicator parameters.
This is the first time such parameters have been incorporated into a directive not covered by the Euratom Treaty, so I must congratulate the House on this amendment.
<P>
Amendments Nos 8, 25 and 30 then deal with hormone-like substances.
Naturally, the Commission has made careful note of Parliament's reservations on this point, and I, too, share these reservations.
The Commission's services are currently investigating the matter and guidelines will shortly be produced on what the policy should be.
I am aware of Mrs Kirsten Jensen's reservations on hormone-like substances, put before the Committee on the Environment on 22 April 1998, because this is also in the works.
The same applies to the question the rapporteur asked the Commission.
<P>
Reference to Article 4, section 1(a), is acceptable, but at present, it is too early to introduce parameters into Annex 1 part B. I especially welcome the idea of a study of hormone-like substances, provided, of course, that the necessary budgetary funds are made available and approved by Parliament.
However, it is neither necessary nor appropriate to convert this idea into a directive.
<P>
Finally, we come to the provisions regarding lead, that is, Amendments Nos 12 and 28, which Mrs Jackson particularly mentioned.
The rapporteur's idea of requiring reports from Member States on how to tackle the problem of lead is an interesting one. It can be accepted with essential rewording at one point.
Amendment No 28, where a period of 10 years is proposed for complying with requirements on lead, cannot be accepted.
The Commission has proposed 15 years, and this has been accepted by the Council.
It is to be hoped that this period strikes a reasonable balance between considerations of public health and the practical difficulties of complying with the standards, and Mrs Jackson's point about the costs of the existing proposal should perhaps be mentioned.
<P>
Finally, we come to Amendments Nos 24 and 29 on trihalomethanes, THMs.
The idea of a report along the lines of parameters for lead has also been accepted.
The proposal for a more stringent limit on THM cannot, however, be accepted.
Let me also state that the reference to Directive 89/106 on building materials is a very useful amendment; it is acceptable in its present form.
<P>
In conclusion, allow me to make a few comments on copper.
As Mr Collins stated, all the amendments were rejected by the Committee on the Environment, and yet it seems to have played a part in the proceedings.
This has at least been emphasized by a number of Parliamentarians speaking today.
The Commission's proposal follows the limit value for copper put forward by the World Health Organization, WHO.
This value was not changed in the WHO's ongoing review that took place in Geneva in April 1997.
Since the basis for this value is health, it is reasonable to retain it in Annex 1, part B. Should new documentation be produced warranting a change in the classification of copper, this will obviously be taken into account.
As far as the Commission's services can ascertain, the WHO has not changed its stance so far.
Therefore, we see no reason to propose a change to Council.
<P>
The Commission agrees with the section of the amendment dealing with prior consultation with Parliament.
However, I would like to draw the attention of the House to the fact that this is already covered in Article 11, section 1.
Adjustments can only be made to parameters for copper and other parameters following a Parliamentary hearing, since this is a matter of procedure under Article 189c. Finally, I would like to quote the comments of the rapporteur, Mr Collins, to the effect that many other provisions in this directive are more important than this one point concerning copper.
<P>
Mr President, that concludes my main comments on the amendments.
Thank you for your attention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, I would only like to focus on the fact that in the speeches that related to the subject of copper there was no intention of changing the limit value of copper, but its classification, from B to C. We all fully agree on its limit value.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 NAME="President">
That, Mrs Matikainen-Kallström, seems to me to be more of a comment than a question.
I therefore think we must let it pass, but Mrs Baldi also has a question she would like to put.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldi">
Mr President, I would like to know whether the Commission believes it is right to include copper among the chemical products, or rather the poisons, such as arsenic, cyanide, mercury and lead, despite the fact that the WHO has declared that a level of 2 milligrams of copper per litre of drinking water provides an adequate level of safety.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Grossetête">
I would simply like to ask the Commissioner if she realizes the impact her decision may have with regard to copper.
In very many countries, we currently have water mains pipes made from copper.
By classifying these pipes in the same way as arsenic, you could mislead people into thinking that they are dangerous.
I think this is particularly serious.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, on the basis of what the Commissioner has said, I have a written text from competent organizations to the effect that the 1997 revision of the WTO accepted that there was no scientific basis for the rumoured acute effects on health of copper in drinking water and described the recommendation which it had made at that time as provisional.
And, to finish my question, that same Commission, in document COM(94)612, accepted that the use of materials from copper in the water distribution system was not in itself harmful to the public health.
I would therefore like to know, since, from what the Commissioner said, she gave different answers without answering my question: is what I gathered from the documents wrong?
Does it not stand up to scrutiny?
Or perhaps the Commissioner was not fully informed and answered in that way in order to stick to the fact that she did not accept the amendments, in other words to transfer copper from 1B to 1C, and remained silent with regard to the failure to mention asbestos as one of the dangerous materials.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Miranda">
Mr President, still on the subject of copper, I would like to raise a question I mentioned in my speech, which has not been answered by the Commissioner.
The question is this: if we accept that the Commissioner's information on the hazardous nature of copper is correct, then some other products will have to be substituted for it.
And I put it quite bluntly: what product are we going to use to replace copper and what research has so far been carried out on the proposed replacement?
That is the specific question I would like to have an answer to, inasmuch as no answer has yet been given by either the Commission or the Committee on the Environment, and I think the answer is of the greatest importance.
For that reason I hold all the more firmly to the position I have already stated, namely that the World Health Organization does not, as a matter of fact, recognize copper as being as hazardous as the committee says it is here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="President">
I now give the floor to Mrs Flemming, but may I remind you that these questions must not turn into a second debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Mr President, it has been stated that copper presents no risk to health.
That is simply incorrect.
Very young children, for example, can be seriously harmed by this substance if a certain genetic predisposition is present.
There have been actual cases of cirrhosis of the liver in infants.
There was a case in Austria where a mother prepared tea for her child every day with the first water that came out of the tap in the morning. This water contained copper accumulated overnight from the copper piping.
The child died.
This was complicated by the fact that the mother used a copper kettle to prepare the tea.
Very young children can therefore die from the effects of copper poisoning.
People have got to be made aware of this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 NAME="Collins, K.">
Mr President, I have to say that this lack of discussion really ought to be in the form of questions.
So I shall put one or two questions and stick to the normal procedure.
<P>
Will the Commissioner agree with me that the copper industry should be congratulated because of the efficiency with which it has been able to persuade people, who otherwise know nothing at all about copper, of the efficacy of the case?
<P>
Will she further agree with me that the committee overwhelmingly threw out the copper amendments because it believed that it was not a question of copper being outlawed as a means of conducting water to households, but of a means of making sure that we operated proper health standards?
<P>
Nobody is suggesting that copper should be replaced in households.
Nobody is suggesting that it should be thrown away and replaced with something else.
We are introducing parameters relating to lead.
We are, for example, asking for studies on endocrine disrupters.
We are aware that there is no perfect way of making sure that water is supplied to households.
What we are doing is in fact making sure that when households receive that water, these households are healthy.
<P>
Will the Commissioner agree with that assessment of the situation and will she agree that the Environment Committee - which, incidentally, was not attended by any of the people who have raised this matter - will she agree with me that the Environment Committee got it right?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, I do not wish to get involved in a post-mortem on the debate in the Committee on the Environment, who voted and who did not.
What I have noted - as emphasized by Mr Ken Collins - is that the proposal was rejected.
With reference to the many questions asked, I have to say it is obvious that our basis in this regard is the WHO.
It has amazed me that several speakers today have questioned the health guidelines prepared by the WHO.
From all our experience, my political position is that if the WHO adopts health-based guidelines, we would do well to follow them.
I must say that Europe is not going any further than the countries we normally use as a comparison.
The USA and Japan both have extremely stringent standards in this area, and in addition to Mr Ken Collins' comments on the copper industry, I have to say we are not aware that standards in the USA or Japan have had any significant impact on the copper industry in those countries, so I do not share his concerns here either.
Thus, I cannot endorse the amendment switching copper from section B to section C.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Bjerregaard.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Limit values for pollutants in ambient air - Strategy to combat acidification - Sulphur content of liquid fuels
<SPEAKER ID=188 NAME="President">
The next item is a joint debate on the following reports:
<P>

A4-0161/98 by Mrs Pollack, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Directive relating to limit values for sulphur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, particulate matter and lead ambient air (COM(97)0500 - C4-0662/97-97/0266(SYN)); -A4-0162/98 by Mrs Hulthén, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on a Community strategy to combat acidification (COM(97)0088 - C4-0436/97); -A4-0174/98 by Mrs Hautala, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Directive relating to a reduction of the sulphur content of certain liquid fuels and amending Directive 93/12/EEC (COM(97)0088 - C4-0283/97-97/0105(SYN)).

<SPEAKER ID=189 NAME="Pollack">
Mr President, experts suggest that at least 40 000 people across Europe suffer from the effects of air pollution, and those who have respiratory ailments are at risk of early death from the dangerous cocktail of chemicals in the air they breathe.
It exacerbates the suffering of the vast numbers of children who have asthma.
<P>
City dwellers suffer most, of course, since pollution from vehicle traffic is becoming a bigger problem every year.
In fact, as pollution from industry declines, the sheer increase in the volume of cars on our roads ensures that clean air is becoming a scarce commodity.
Health problems aside, vegetation in forests, crops and vulnerable eco-systems are succumbing to steady poisoning, and our precious European cultural heritage - buildings and monuments which have stood for centuries - are being eaten away by aggressive chemicals in our air.
<P>
The draft directive we are discussing today is a radical and far-reaching attempt to put an end to this tale of disaster.
It is the first time legally-binding emission limits have been set.
I should like to congratulate the Commission on its proposal.
Members should understand that the standards being proposed are the result of unanimous agreement over two years in broadbased working groups and are based on the latest World Health Organization's standards for protection of human health.
They have been subjected to cost benefit analysis and are very stringent.
<P>
Four different air pollutants are being tackled in this first daughter directive, and more are going to follow in future directives.
These four: sulphur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen and particulates and lead were laid down in a framework directive as the first air pollutants to be tackled.
<P>
I cannot go into the details of the proposals here in the short time allotted to me.
Each pollutant has different limit values and the whole thing is very complex but, briefly, the directive sets limits for emissions to be achieved by 2005 and 2010.
It demands publicly-available and government-approved action plans for areas where emissions are at present higher than these limits to ensure that concrete steps are taken to meet the deadlines.
This is very important.
In some cases it provides alert thresholds to inform the public about the air they breathe and it has a built-in review in 2003.
<P>
It also establishes uniform measuring criteria and techniques.
Because of the gaps in scientific knowledge of the effects of some of these pollutants, there are plans for more research.
One of the things I have done is to suggest some specific areas where research is needed, where the scientific information is simply not available at the moment.
<P>
Briefly, the main amendments agreed in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection do the following: firstly, we have attempted to increase public information at every opportunity.
We have added alert thresholds for NOx and particulates.
I know the Commission has a bit of a problem with accepting the idea of an alert threshold for particulates and I accept that the WHO does not set any safe limit and therefore cannot set a level at which the public ought to be informed.
I still feel that we ought to try this.
The UK has such a threshold.
For NOx, the Environment Committee has asked for the alert threshold which is used by France. It is lower than that existing in the United Kingdom.
<P>
We have set a lower threshold excedence for SO2 which I recognize is quite optimistic but, in view of the serious effects on public health of high levels of SO2 over even a short period of time, I hope the Commission and the Council will find a way to reduce their existing figure, even if they feel they cannot go the whole distance.
The working group on this did not recommend an hourly limit figure but I believe it is more realistic to try to reduce excedences than to go for the drastically lower limit value that some colleagues want.
However, SO2 limits need to be looked at again in the review in 2003 and we must be aware that some Member States have a lower figure than that in the text.
<P>
There is a slight problem with the Commission's proposal on protecting eco-systems from SO2 .
The WHO guidelines looked at a range of values for different sorts of vegetation - crops, forests, sensitive vegetation and lichens.
The Environment Committee has decided to go for the limit value set to protect lichens which are the most sensitive, and this is considerably tougher than the Commission text.
My feeling is that the Commission and the Council ought to look at this again to see if they can find a better way of setting the appropriate limits.
Opting for an arbitrary number when you are trying to deal with four different things is quite difficult.
<P>
Amendment No 32 is a compromise text for the siting of measurement stations in small areas of sensitive eco-systems which I believe is a considerable improvement on the Commission text.
We have also, rather reluctantly, opened the door to some localized tolerance of excedences on lead where some non-ferrous metal smelting works will simply not be able to meet the deadline even with the best available technology.
Obviously that will have to be watched very carefully.
<P>
Colleagues from the Green Group want considerably stricter limits on NOx and particulates; these amendments are wellmeaning but absolutely unrealistic and were all defeated in committee.
Nevertheless, we need to look carefully at progress by 2003.
The substances are dangerous, and I share their desire to go faster.
But the levels in the text already mean a big reduction in NOx and particulates and, in order to achieve what they suggest, we would practically have to ban cars and shut down industry.
As a Londoner, I know only too well the problems of air pollution caused by traffic and there are no easy solutions.
But a number of other directives in the pipeline are going to contribute towards this.
<P>
Finally, I should like to thank the Commission, the UK representation, the committee secretariat and my own assistants for all the hard work they have done.
I hope that regional and local authorities will be able to implement the very strict limit values which are laid down.
I commend the directive and the amendments to the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 NAME="Hulthén">
<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, in February we voted on reducing the sulphur content of fuels in vehicles, so that car exhaust emissions might be cleaner.
Now we have a proposal from the Commission which aims to lower the sulphur content of slightly heavier fuels: this is a matter of industrial fuel oil or industrial diesel, where we are talking about a sulphur content which is many times higher.
In the Auto Oil programme we had to reduce sulphur content to values in millionths. Now we are talking about percentages.
The basic premise is that the oil industry has to be able to rid the process of this yellow stuff so that it does not pass into the atmosphere.
This is technically quite possible, and the costs are not unreasonable.
<P>
The Commission's proposal is the first real proposal for a directive to look into the issue of acidification, a matter Mrs Hulthén just spoke of.
This is important particularly for the environment, nature and, obviously, for the preservation of mankind's cultural heritage.
The facades of many fine buildings are now peeling away because sulphurous emissions are damaging them.
We should, however, stress that this measure is also important for local air quality.
This is what Mrs Pollack has been talking about here.
<P>
Sulphur emissions from liquid fuels could react with particulate matter and cause harm to people's health.
It must be said that this is really not just a problem of acid rain in northern Europe, but in all communities: in all built-up areas of the European Union there are problems which stem from poor local air quality and sulphurous emissions.
<P>
I wished to suggest that this proposal should also cover maritime fuels.
The Commission originally outlined something of the kind, but there is nothing on the subject in this proposal for a directive.
Parliament is, in all probability, going to approve the proposal by the Committee on the Environment that the EU should start to reduce the sulphur content of maritime fuels.
This seems totally justified.
In fact, I have the impression that the Commission's own calculations suggest that the costs of the whole acid rain operation could be reduced by 15 % if maritime fuels were to be included in this directive.
International negotiations have been held at IMO, the International Maritime Organization, but nothing has been achieved, and I think we will have to wait.
In the same connection it has also been agreed that the Baltic Sea should be designated a special area where no maritime fuels may be used which have a sulphur content that exceeds 1.5 %, but obviously someone has fouled up somewhere in the talks because the North Sea and the Irish Sea have been excluded from these special-case zones.
They should be included; there is no doubt about it.
<P>
I now wish to turn to the matter of diesel, or light fuel.
This is not only an important issue for the environment but is also one of political interest, as Austria, Finland and Sweden were allowed a four-year transition period during which they were seen to be able to enforce their tighter restrictions on sulphur content for gasoline.
The committee now supports the position that the threshold currently in force in Austria, which is 0.1 %, is the right one, although it is less than the Commission proposes.
<P>
The Committee on the Environment has also decided to propose Article 100 as a legal basis for the directive.
As the rapporteur, I must say I differed on this point, as this could very well serve as a measure to protect the environment, in which case Article 130 could be selected. This might well help Austria to insist on its more stringent limit if the Commission does not bring the Austrian sulphur content figure into the picture.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 NAME="Lange">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are dealing here with an internal market problem and with an environmental protection problem.
In this case we are not setting threshold values for fixed installations, refineries or large combustion plants.
No, what we are doing here is setting threshold values for fuels which can be freely traded on the internal market.
We have now heard from a number of speakers that burning these fuels is the cause of the acidification of our forests and countryside.
But at the same time there is also the internal market aspect.
On 18 February, we adopted the directive on diesel oil and petrol by a large majority, and here we also want to see a reduction in sulphur levels.
Now we have to do the same for heavy and light fuel oil, because its sulphur content is still very much higher.
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Let us then strive to ensure that there are uniform standards for light and heavy fuel oil in Europe, because in my view there is simply no justification for allowing a hotchpotch of measures, whether this applies to the internal market or indeed to environmental protection.
What does it in fact mean when we say that only the Member States can decide what thresholds they should set?
In practice this means that some will go further than others, and that will result in serious distortions in the internal market for light and heavy fuel oil.
I have checked the figures and I would be pleased to let the Commission have these yet again.
In some Member States, more than half of their requirements are met by imports and exports, so we are not talking about small quantities as far as the effect on the internal market is concerned.
And then there is also the environmental aspect.
It may well be the case that one country permits a 0 % sulphur level for light and heavy fuel oil, while others do not.
Sad to say, the clouds that carry acidification do not stop at borders.
The country where 0 % applies may perhaps be worse off than before.
No, we need uniform standards.
That is why this is an internal market problem.
That is why we need Article 100a as the legislative basis.
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Secondly, we must include marine diesel, because 14 % of all N and X emissions and 16 % of all sulphur emissions come from the shipping sector alone.
There is a real need for something to be done here, and this also includes the retrofitting of old ships.
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So, ladies and gentlemen, let us get to work, let us turn the fuels of Europe into a sulphur-free zone.
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<SPEAKER ID=193 NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, the Commission's proposal for a strategy against acidification is important and on the right track.
It focuses on a reduction in acidic emissions.
The strategy is still, however, not ready for a decision on it. Before the plan is approved there are some background details that are out of date and inadequate, and that badly need putting right.
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Because of acidification it is essential that a reduction in emissions plays a priority role in the strategies of countries applying for EU membership.
In connection with the issue of enlargement, supporters for the protection of the environment should look at the possibilities of reducing emissions which drift over certain frontiers.
The introduction of new technology to these countries may well achieve important results for Europe both more speedily and more effectively.
Furthermore, the directive on the reduction of the sulphur content of liquid fuels must be extended as quickly as possible to include regulations for solid fuels and factories that use them.
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As the IMO have not limited the sulphur content of maritime fuels they will not be included either in the EU directive on liquid fuels.
Some of the Baltic States are not controlled by EU directives.
It thus follows that ships can go to these countries outside the EU to fill their tanks if bunker oils are covered by the directive.
This is of no advantage either to the Baltic Sea or the Union. Other action needs to be taken.
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In connection with oil refining, the nature of the work gives rise to a considerable number of non-commercial by-products, which the refinery uses as fuel.
It is not very appropriate to impose separate restrictions on refinery fuels.
Results can be just as good for the environment by restricting oil refinery emissions as by restricting individual properties of fuels themselves.
It is important for the European oil refining industry to demonstrate flexibility of choice with refinery fuels.
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<SPEAKER ID=194 NAME="Bowe">
Mr President, on behalf of the Socialist Group I would like to welcome the reports of Mrs Hautala, Hulthén and Pollack all of which make an important contribution to improving air quality and protecting human health in the environment within Europe.
By setting down these new standards for air quality in our cities we can oblige industry to start to take the necessary measures to tackle the current sources that are causing the problems of air pollution within our cities.
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In particular, problems of sulphur, sometimes SO2 and of course nitrous oxides, NOx, in our atmosphere that originate from the burning of a variety of dirty fuels in factories, motor cars and from other sources such as ships.
One should not underestimate the extent of this problem.
In its first stage it is invisible and very gradual in its effect but finally results in lifeless rivers, decayed forests and thousands of early deaths due to respiratory disease.
This is a price that we cannot continue to pay and therefore these reports are absolutely necessary to avoid further damage, decay and death in Europe.
The proposals to reduce sulphur content to 0.1 % by weight in a variety of fuels are technically realizable and within reasonable cost limits.
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Other measures of particular note are the proposals to create an SO2 emission control area in the North Sea.
This proposal and its associated measures will tackle a source of emissions previously beyond EU regulation.
In particular Mrs Hautala's report also questions the legal basis of that proposal.
Is it a market measure or is it a measure to protect the environment?
My previous remarks demonstrate that to me it is first and foremost a measure for environmental protection.
However, I am prepared to listen to colleagues and accept that there are very real market implications to the proposal which are needed to control sulphur.
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Finally, the proposals in this package can only be seen as necessary steps and I would therefore urge the Commission and the Council to accept Parliament's reports and amendments in the sure knowledge that rivers, forests, towns and cities from Middlesborough to Milan will be healthier, cleaner and better places to live in future.
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<SPEAKER ID=195 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, the people of Europe need cleaner air, and I think that the Commission's proposals on air pollutants are splendid.
They are a major step forward.
Anyone who comes from a country which has very strict threshold values cannot expect all the countries of the European Union to fall into line overnight.
We have to set more modest targets and be grateful for any gradual progress made.
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However, I hope that you will permit me to offer three observations from an Austrian point of view.
Firstly, in relation to Article 8 on informing the public, I would like to offer a few basic observations.
According to the Commission's proposal, information is to be regularly passed on to relevant organizations.
Experience in Austria over many years has shown that it is not necessary to have an active system for passing on this information.
While there may be a keen appetite for it at the beginning, interest soon tends to fall off.
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In Austria, information of this kind can be obtained at any time by teletext, Internet, telephone or fax and, since everyone now has access to one of these information channels, it is proposed that this information should not be actively transmitted but simply made available.
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As far as the threshold for sulphur dioxide is concerned, a one-hour limit value of 350 micrograms has been set, which is derived from the WHO's 10-minute average value of 500 micrograms.
Austrian experience has shown, however, that the proposed one-hour threshold cannot guarantee compliance with the 10-minute average value.
We propose that the one-hour threshold should be set at 250 micrograms in order to achieve the right correlation.
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As regards nitrogen oxides, it has to be said that, although an alarm threshold is a wonderful idea, a value of 800 micrograms is really much too high, Madam Commissioner.
We propose that this value should be lowered to 400 micrograms.
Even if these proposals cannot be adopted immediately, I would still hope that in due course all European countries will be able to comply with these Austrian limits.
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<SPEAKER ID=196 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cabrol">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the proposal for a Council Directive on the reduction of sulphur in certain liquid fuels, in particular fuel oil and diesel fuel, should enable us to fight against certain atmospheric pollutants known as "acid rain' .
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The effects of this pollution are well known, above all in urban areas.
Besides, I dealt with this issue in my report on the 19992000 Community action programme on pollution-related disease within the framework of sulphur dioxide emissions.
But this legitimate concern for environmental protection must not let us forget the economic aspect, in particular with regard to the competitiveness of Member States' industry.
Indeed, there are great disparities here.
Some are large consumers of heavy fuel oils, others use less.
I thus tabled some amendments in committee, so that Member States could take the necessary measures to guarantee that heavy fuels could not be used on their territory if the sulphur levels exceeded 2.5 % in weight instead of 1 %, as the Commission specifies.
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This would enable greater respect for competitiveness. However, it appears that the standards demanded are increasingly stringent and risk endangering industries which - and I insist on this point - understand the common interest and the need to fix reasonable levels.
This severity leads to a danger of seeing these standards reduced.
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Nevertheless, the Commission's proposal seems acceptable overall.
I would ask you to respect this text, rejecting unnecessarily severe amendments to the text. It is already very demanding and should avoid the even more constraining and unrealistic standards of the rapporteur.
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<SPEAKER ID=197 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Mr President, when I read Mr Hulthén's report about the strategy to combat acidification, it makes me think of my own country, the Netherlands.
The discharge of ammonia by the agricultural sector in the Netherlands has only decreased by half of what it should have done, and that very disappointing result does not, unfortunately, come as a complete surprise.
This makes it clear that extra measures are needed to achieve the desired environmental objectives.
So I am very pleased, as is my group, that the Commission has worked out a strategy to combat acidification and we are in full agreement with the tightening up in the Hulthén Report.
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The fact of the matter is that the Commission proposes that the critical threshold of acidification, which was exceeded in 1990, the year of reference, be halved by 2010, but I think that this plan could be tightened up slightly.

I agree with Mrs Hulthén that this target must be brought forward to 2004 and that by 2015 the critical thresholds may no longer be reached anywhere in the countryside.
Furthermore, agricultural subsidies must be coupled to stronger requirements on ammonia discharge.
That is what we call integrating the environment into agriculture.
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It is absolutely essential, in this context, that sustainable organic agriculture is encouraged, otherwise we will not get there at all.
I hope that Commissioner Bjerregaard will have enough influence on her colleague Mr Fischler to achieve this target; however, as we read Agenda 2000, Mr Fischler's proposals to the Commission are also encouraging for the environment, including the proposals on agriculture.
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Finally, I think it is extremely important that the fight against acidification does not stop at the current boundaries of the European Union.
Candidate countries must be helped, and must be prepared, to meet these standards.
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<SPEAKER ID=198 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, alongside the fuel burners in power stations, car engines are a serious risk to people's health.
We have to acknowledge this, even though the people who vote for us may be car owners.
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We are now imposing limit values for liquid fuels, apart from kerosene.
This is a positive step.
They must be made more stringent for solid fuels also, especially coal.
In accordance with the EU energy strategy, the exploitation of natural gas and renewable energy sources is to grow.
Improving fuel efficiency and the combined production of electricity and heating will reduce emissions.
As, however, energy consumption is growing by 1 % a year, the same limits must be achieved for coal as those we are now imposing on oil.
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The soil is becoming acidic, and I would especially like to remind the Commissioner that the more stringent limit values achieved in the northern regions, in Finland, in Sweden and in Austria must be allowed to be maintained, and the EU should impose the same limits on other countries too.
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<SPEAKER ID=199 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gahrton">
Mr President, the three reports on limiting air pollution leave me both pleased and infuriated.
On the one hand, they deal with such problems that the EU should pay much more attention to, problems which by their nature cross borders and demand international legislation that is binding.
Overall these reports signify a reinforcement for combating air pollution, even though there are shortcomings, aeroplane fuel, for example, has been left out.
Overall, however, attention has been paid to acidification, for instance, which is a greater problem in my country than in many other EU countries.
This is good.
It has full support from the Green Group and also from my own Swedish Environment Party.
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On the other hand, however, the constant ambitions for power among certain EU Parliamentarians has cast an ugly shadow on the Hautala report, against the wishes of the rapporteur.
The Committee on the Environment demands that the legal basis be changed from Article 130s to 100a, which is not based on environmental care, but solely on the wish of the European Parliament to change the decision procedure from cooperation procedure to codecision procedure.
This may of course be justified at times, but in this context it means that the rules be changed from a minimum of rules to total harmonization, which may have negative effects on the environment in countries with stricter rules, Sweden being one.
Besides, Article 100a prevents EU countries from proceeding with stricter rules in future.
Referring to 100a(4) is pointless, as everybody knows it is no guarantee for the environment, but a barely reduced possibility for exemption, which can hardly ever be used; and what is more, the Amsterdam Treaty will make it even worse.
It is a good thing, therefore, that Parliament wishes to sharpen the fight against air pollution, but it is a bad thing that given the choice between environmental protection....
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(The President cut off the speaker.)
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<SPEAKER ID=200 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, with regard to the directive on the reduction in the sulphur content for certain liquid fuels, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection does not seem to have followed the advice of the rapporteur, who recommended approving the legal basis proposed by the Commission, opting for Article 100a which, if accepted by Council, will make this legislative act dependent on the codecision procedure.
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The Committee on the Environment has insisted on the fact that the benefits obtained by a reduction in the sulphur content of fuels would be far greater than the costs borne by the industry to adapt the refinery machinery.
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We hope that common sense will prevail in codecision and that, to give an example, the fact that North Sea oil has a very low sulphur content, unlike Mediterranean oil, will be taken into account.
Consequently the southern countries have different problems from the northern countries, for which harmonization will have to take both environmental and employment problems into account.
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<SPEAKER ID=201 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graenitz">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, among the many types of environmental damage to which people are exposed, air pollution is considered the worst by most people, and is classified as the most unpleasant.
That is why I very much welcome the reports which we are discussing this afternoon: a strategy on acidification, directives on thresholds for sulphur dioxides, nitrogen oxides, lead and particulate matter, and a reduction in the sulphur content of various liquid fuels.
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I would like to thank the rapporteur, and I think that her work is well-suited to the task of both reducing air pollution over, or in, the European Union, which complements the legislation adopted under the Auto Oil Programme, and also of making water cleaner, because we should not forget that 50 % of water pollution is caused by airborne pollutants.
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Air pollution is a transboundary phenomenon, but it is also a local one, and both phenomena can be effectively reduced by these directives. That is because air pollution which is due to the high sulphur content of liquid fuels, especially in narrow mountain valleys, is the precise cause of pollution at local level, whereas in other places, where the topography is flat, where there are wide valley floors, transboundary air pollution becomes much a more perceptible phenomenon.
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I think it is very important for industry, which is confronted with these directives, to choose new technological solutions, and not so-called end-of-pipe strategies, when it upgrades; otherwise industry will not improve, its products will merely become more expensive.
I would like to point out that some 15 years ago the town in which I live had the worst air pollution problem of any town or city in Austria, and that by the introduction of new technologies the emission of industrial pollutants were reduced to a mere 10 % of the previous level. Furthermore, the industry in question is now in better shape than it was then.
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The adoption of this directive is an important step towards preventive health care, and I think that it should be accompanied by a strategy for preventing the formation of low-level ozone.
I hope too that the amendments to the Hautala report, where the Committee on the Environment voted for one of the Austrian/Finnish/Swedish thresholds for sulphur and fuel oil, will be accepted by the Commission and that a further step will therefore be taken towards an improvement in air standards in the European Union.
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In conclusion I would like to add one more thing.
In the Middle Ages it used to be said that "town air makes you free' .
During the twentieth century it often had to be said that town air makes you ill.
I look forward to the day when we can say that everyone in Europe is able to breathe sweet and pleasant air.
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<SPEAKER ID=202 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Grossetête">
Mr President, I am not going to dwell on the already well-known damage which acidification causes to the environment as we have already talked about this in great detail.
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With regard to the reduction of sulphur levels and Mrs Hautala's report in particular, I support a change to the legal basis and feel that we could thus adopt Article 100a on the internal market and harmonization of legislations, in order to avoid distortions in competition.
We know very well that sulphur levels differ when it is a question of a fuel coming from the north of Europe, as opposed to one from the Persian Gulf.
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Paragraph 4 of Article 100a enables Member States to apply far more stringent national provisions for environmental reasons.
This thus enables Austria, Finland and Sweden to continue to impose much stricter limits.
This would thus not cause a problem.
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I must, however, say to Mrs Hautala that I believe she perhaps goes a little too far and that consideration should be given to the economic problems which her report may give rise to.
I am therefore not in favour of widening the field of application of the proposal to include heavy fuel oils and diesel fuel, nor aviation kerosene, which represents only 0.2 % of total sulphur emissions and which only affects the upper layers of the atmosphere.
Similarly, with regard to bunker fuel, I think it is preferable to wait for the negotiation of the MARPOL Convention within the framework of the International Maritime Organization, which should soon be concluded and which should set levels for the sulphur content of bunker fuels and define special protection zones.
I think it is reasonable to wait for the end of these negotiations and not to disturb their progress.
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Finally, still for economic reasons, I would like reasonable deadlines for the reduction of sulphur levels to be fixed for heavy fuel oil and diesel fuel.
If a deadline of 1999 is set when we are already halfway through 1998, I think the timescale is too short and that this will be detrimental to the economy.
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<SPEAKER ID=203 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Virgin">
Mr President, the three reports we are now discussing are closely related.
The Pollack report concentrates on air pollution as a threat to citizens' health.
I am convinced that it is quite possible to set higher demands than the Commission has done, at least in some areas.
Certain countries have already achieved more.
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I shall, however, concentrate on the Hulthén report on a common strategy to combat acidification.
It is a good report on a very serious environmental problem.
The Committee on the Environment considers a more ambitious goal to be in place by the year 2015.
In certain areas the critical limit will be exceeded, but those areas ought to be very easily counted.
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In Sweden the subsidies towards the liming of lakes in order to raise the pH level have been reduced.
It is calculated that this measure alone may be the reason why a fish stock of approximately 3 000 and one million invertebrates are eliminated.
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In many parts of Europe there is significant damage to forests through acidifying emissions.
In 1993 the use of coal was responsible for 60 % of emissions of sulphur dioxide.
The proposal to stop national subsidies for coal is therefore significant.
Instead, penalty fees ought to be levied on coal for the emissions of sulphur.
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The rapporteur has also mentioned other effects of acidifying emissions, the effects on health, for example.
Seeing data from the Commission's own external report on different types of energy, it becomes clear that if we replaced nuclear power with coal power over a ten-year period, the Union would have had 20 000 more cases of cancer than we have today.
We should also admit that the safe Western nuclear power provides a considerable contribution against acidification as well as the greenhouse effect.
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I am also convinced that calculations of the total costs for air pollution will show that it pays to try to achieve Parliament's objectives, and it ought to be possible to support them with effective economic resources.
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<SPEAKER ID=204 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schleicher">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, European and national measures to control air pollution have been in force for almost 20 years.
But traffic continues to be one of the main sources of pollution.
Our group has from the outset underlined the importance of combating pollution at its source.
This is also the objective of the two directives which are dealt with in the reports presented by Mrs Hautala and Mrs Pollack.

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Our group also supports basic proposals for improvement in this area, although I think it important that the new legislation should be compatible with other basic provisions, such as the IPC directives dealing with plant approval.
In many Member States there is also the problem of inherited contamination, due to the centuries-long practice of ore mining.
This long-term degradation means that greater levels of contamination are to be found in and around lead smelting works, and pollution of this kind can hardly be reduced by the required amount in the period of time prescribed. I therefore think that a tightly drawn derogation is necessary in this area.
The relevant amendment which has been proposed by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection goes too far in my view and would in practice make derogations possible for just about every town and city.
That is why I have introduced my amendment.
Furthermore, I would ask for consideration to be given to a typical problem which is encountered on the borders with the former Eastern bloc countries of Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland.
While we should continue to keep a record of the high quantities of pollutants which, for the foreseeable future, will continue to be blown into our territory from these countries, this contamination should not be charged to the EU countries when emission thresholds are being assessed.
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I call on you to support these amendments and I would also like to ask the Commission if it is prepared to accept them.
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<SPEAKER ID=205 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schnellhardt">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, sulphur dioxide emissions represent a major problem in Europe.
For some regions this means damage to forests, for others it constitutes a threat to important historic monuments.
However, for us all it is a matter of the health of the people of Europe.
Measures have to be introduced in different areas.
One of the most important is undoubtedly a reduction in the sulphur content of vehicle fuels.
The Auto Oil Programme, in which Parliament has stated unambiguously what is required in terms of environmental policy, is currently at a difficult stage of conciliation with the Council.
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Today's debate concerns an important supplement to the Auto Oil Programme and relates to certain fuels which in some respects constitute a considerable proportion of total SO2 emissions.
This applies particularly to heavy oils.
The threshold values advocated by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection will make it possible to improve the situation without making excessive demands of anyone.
This will be guaranteed primarily by the derogation provision which allows the sulphur limits to be exceeded in cases where SO2 pollution can be justified.
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Nonetheless, the Commission's proposal needs to be modified in two respects. The scope of the future directives should be extended to bunker oil and marine diesel.
In justifying its proposal, the Commission itself referred to the fact that we are dealing in this case with a significant source of emissions, especially in the area of the Baltic and parts of the North Sea.
However, it would be wrong simply to await the outcome of international negotiations.
It would be better for the European Union to exercise a degree of pressure by setting thresholds in its own area.
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In my view, the same importance is attached to the question of what the legislative basis of the directive should be, that is to say Article 130s or 100a.
We all know that this is a question of law for which the European Court of Justice has developed clear criteria.
The Commission has put forward certain reasons for choosing Article 130.
I do not wish to comment on these reasons or go into details.
I would just say that, in the arguments in favour of Article 130s, there has so far been no discussion of why the directive from the Auto Oil Programme is based on Article 100a.
In this case we have the same conditions and the same legal basis.
Article 100a therefore applies here too.
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<SPEAKER ID=206 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Estevan Bolea">
Mr President, I agree that we have to combat acidification, but I also want to point out that Europe is very diverse and the Swedish lakes are not the same as certain arid areas in the south. So, Madam Commissioner, we need to be much more flexible when producing legislation.
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Madam Commissioner, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am worried by the problem we have with environmental legislation.
In general, it is not complied with.
You know that, Madam Commissioner.
It is hardly complied with at all.
And it seems to me that the problem is partly due to the legislation being unsuitable.
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I want to repeat that although the strategy to combat acidification is very important - reducing the sulphur content of fuels - we have to take account of certain sectors.
I tabled some amendments - which were not accepted by my group - about oil refineries and cement factories.
Oil refineries are going to be subject to the directive which limits emissions from large combustion sources, so I do not think it makes sense to have a double regulation, especially when this stricter one already exists.
And cement factories burn all sorts of fuel. They do not permit sulphur oxide because they incorporate it into the clinker, and that should be taken into account, Madam Commissioner.
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In any case, I welcome the whole set of rules on regulating acidification, but bear in mind that if they are not flexible they will not be complied with, and that will cause enormous frustration.
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<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="Bjerregaard">
<SPEAKER ID=208 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
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The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
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<CHAPTER ID=10>
Eco-label
<SPEAKER ID=209 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0119/98) by Mr Poggiolini, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on a revised Community eco-label award scheme (COM(96)0603 - C4-0157/97-96/0312(SYN))
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<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="Poggiolini">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Madam Commissioner, today we are at first reading of the revision of Regulation No 880/92 on the Community eco-label, an ecological quality label for low environmental impact products, five years after its adoption.
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In these five years, the system has not operated very well. Very few EU citizens have seen products on their supermarket shelves labelled with the European logo, a little flower consisting of a corolla of 12 stars around the "E' for Europe.
The many difficulties and delays in implementation, obvious problems of conflicting jurisdiction and the excessive red tape involved in the procedures have meant that criteria have been defined for just 12 product groups. For this reason, only 40 licences had been granted to 22 manufacturers up to September 1997.
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While the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection fully supports the Commission in its aim of maintaining and improving the Community eco-label, it has nevertheless introduced significant and courageous changes. Numerous amendments have now been approved.
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First of all I will deal with the Commission's proposal to set up a legally recognized European eco-label organization with the task of establishing the criteria for each product group. In view of the difficulties of this approach, I proposed the replacement of the new agency by a technical committee for the eco-label within the Commission.
This was made up of competent national bodies but presided over by the Commission itself, whose important role as a political mediator and technical coordinator should be maintained, in our opinion. The consultation forum, which the Commission had inexplicably abolished, was then reintroduced and reinforced, to enable all the parties concerned to have more say in the decision-making process.
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The scope of the regulation has also been extended to services. This represents a significant opportunity for small and medium-sized businesses and for craft businesses.
One result of this could be, for example, a car body shop that only uses ecological paints. Another important factor we now consider is technical reliability as determined by product quality.
We should ensure that ecologically sound products are also of good quality and that consumers are satisfied and prepared to buy them a second time. If they are not good quality there is a risk that no-one will buy them, however eco-friendly they may be.
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One change has been introduced that will be appreciated by eco-label users: a 50 % reduction in the cost of annual duties for small and medium-sized businesses and for developing countries.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has chosen a logo showing a single flower, which is much better than the extremely complicated system proposed by the Commission. Additional information on at least one and no more than three factors of environmental impact - such as low atmospheric pollution, energy efficiency and toxicity - may also be added.
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The last but no less important obstacle to overcome before we relaunch the European eco-label is its relationship with the numerous national systems already existing in various Member States. These are known and respected by many European citizens: for example, the Blue Angel in Germany or the White Swan in the Scandinavian countries.
Our European flower will have to co-exist with no fewer than eight European systems.
In Article 11, the Commission proposed that national systems should be replaced by the European system within five years of this regulation coming into force, but only for those product groups for which specific Community criteria have been established.
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It is not true that we want to abolish existing systems.
As evidence of our very real desire to ensure that the various labels can co-exist in harmony and to ensure the European system is as strict as possible, I hereby as rapporteur express my full support for Amendment No 52. This was submitted by the Greens and by the GUE/NGL as an amendment to Article 11, and it is also supported by many members of other groups.
It calls for an independent study, requested by the Commission, to ensure the environmental criteria laid down for the European label are at least as strict as the standards set by the best national system. For the European eco-label to take off, it must also be properly publicized.
Only then will it at last be recognized and appreciated by consumers as an important means of contributing to a greener and cleaner world. These ideas are perfectly in keeping with a European Union that has given itself a common currency and that aspires to expansion and to increasing economic and political integration.
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<SPEAKER ID=211 NAME="van Putten">
Mr President, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur.
I remember our interesting and sometimes emotional discussions about the subject in which I was impressed by his democratic and charming behaviour.
But what about the issue?
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The European Union's eco-labels scheme is a good initiative to protect the environment within the internal market.
As a voluntary scheme aimed at promoting environmentally-friendly processes of production and helping consumers to make an informed choice about their purchases, eco-labelling is a potentially promising instrument.
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I therefore welcome a revision of the EU eco-label scheme, because until now the eco-label scheme has not had the success it could have, as Mr Poggiolini pointed out.
The Commission's proposal, however, will not in its present form result in the success of the EU eco-label scheme.
It has been sharply criticized by, amongst others, stake-holders such as consumer and environmental organizations in the industry.
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First, the introduction of the graded label is not supported by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection because of its complexity.
Consumers will not have the chance to understand why more than one flower will be attributed.
This graded label will be too confusing, since it is difficult to understand the reasons behind the attribution of two or more flowers to a product.
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Our group will therefore vote in favour of an eco-label with one flower which also gives extra information about the environmental criteria used for attributing an eco-label to that specific product.
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Secondly, our group agrees with the rapporteur that the formation of an independent European Eco-label Organization (EEO) will not overcome the difficulties that arise from the complex procedures for establishing criteria for eco-labels.
<P>
Our group supports the rapporteur's initiative for a compromise - the establishment of the technical committee for the ecolabel under the responsibility of the Commission.
We also agree with the rapporteur's proposal to bring this in line with Article 100a of the Treaty.
<P>
Finally, we cannot agree with the Commission on the total harmonization of the national and private eco-labels for products that have received an EU eco-label.
I should also like to refer - as Mr Poggiolini did - to the Nordic Swan and the Blue Angel.
For the time being they should be recognized as strong labels.
Before we harmonize, we have to create a time schedule so that in the future we can bring them together.
<P>
Finally, I hope the Commission will succeed in getting the European public to recognize a strong eco-label.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
Mr President, Mr Poggiolini's report is, on the whole, an improvement on the Commission's proposal.
One big problem, however, remains, namely, section 1 of paragraph 11 of the Commission's proposal on the possibility of banning national and multinational eco-labelling systems.
<P>
In my opinion there is no disadvantage in having parallel systems.
In Sweden, one of the countries with the best functioning eco-labelling, we have two competing systems, which is all to the good of eco-labelling.
Besides, it is by no means certain that the EU flower will have reached the same qualitative level or will include as many products as the existing system, even after five years.
There is an obvious risk here of destroying an eco-labelling system which is working well, providing consumers with good information.
Why cannot the Commission, which is otherwise so keen on free competition, be so in this case, too?
That is something we would appreciate!
<P>
The best thing would be for section 1 of paragraph 11 to be left out, that is, to be done away with.
We have also tabled such an amendment.
The next best thing would be to adopt Amendment No 52.
That would at least limit the potential damage that would be caused by interfering in national systems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, we all have good reason to support Mr Poggiolini's endeavours to improve the EU's ecolabels, but the truth is the eco-labelling system is not working at the present time.
The Commission's proposal contains a very serious mistake, which Mr Sjöstedt and Mrs van Putten referred to.
And that is that there is a wish here not to permit free competition between the various label systems, and that the Commission is proposing that in five years' time alternative ecolabel systems will have been eliminated.
The Commission calls this harmonization.
I find this puzzling, as generally the Commission defends free competition and the market economy.
<P>
We think that good and successful eco-labels should not be withdrawn in this manner, and I call on the rapporteur to approve our amendment, which is based on the belief that this would be a rash move.
It would be best if the Commissioner for the Environment, who is from Denmark, were to agree to take out of the Commission's proposal the point relating to the proposed withdrawal of the alternative labels in five years' time, because it might mean that perhaps the world's best eco-label system, the Nordic Swan, will meet its death.
<P>
I would now ask everyone if this beautiful eco-flower should administer the deathblow to our swan, among others, which works so very well.
It works because national organizations are involved in the decision-making process, and the whole operation is very open.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Mr President, I would like to pursue this theme.
Discovering which eco-label is best in practice depends simply on use and the market.
Eco-labelling is practically the only means environmental policy-makers have that provides the consumer with information on the environment when that consumer makes meaningful purchasing decisions.
The more consumers assimilate the significance of the eco-label and demand it of the products they buy, the keener manufacturers will be to start manufacturing more durable and environment-friendly products.
<P>
The Nordic Swan has achieved this kind of consumer confidence.
It is visible and reliable. Here in Parliament, for example, it is on the photocopy paper.
On the other hand, the European eco-label is still a long way off from being instantly recognized and accepted. It is not known any more among manufacturers than it is among consumers.
<P>
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection voted on whether we would get rid of national eco-labels.
The verdict that they would be withdrawn within five years was carried by a majority of one.
Now I hope that debate on the matter in the part-session will result in a decision that the national labels will be replaced only if the common European eco-label proves to be better than any single national label.
Otherwise, it will be a pity if perfectly good systems are ruined in this way, or their impact weakened.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Hulthén">
Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking the rapporteur for a good report.
I believe a common European system will also be able to give consumers the guidance they need when making good and correct environmental choices and getting products manufactured in an environmentally friendly way.
<P>
I would like to emphasize what Mr van Putten said: that one flower is enough for guiding the consumer correctly; too many flowers would cause confusion.
I also hope that in future this will not only be confined to goods, but that we will be able to eco-label both transport and services.
<P>
Like many others here I share the anxiety about removing existing systems, private, regional and national.
I do hope that both the Chamber and the rapporteur take note of this anxiety and ensure that we keep the systems that already exist and work well today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, first of all, my thanks go to the rapporteur, Mr Poggiolini.
I will cover the various components of the report.
As has been mentioned, EU eco-labelling is one aspect of a broader strategy intended to promote sustainable production and consumption.
This coincides with efforts by the House aimed at improving the standing and knowledge of consumers.
Even though considerable progress has been made over the last two years with the Community scheme in its present form, there have been practical difficulties with the effect of the statutory instrument.
Based on experience gleaned so far, along with strong indications from the Council, the Commission concluded that it was necessary to improve and streamline the approach, methods and work routines of the scheme in order to make it more effective and transparent.
Thus, on 10 December 1996, the Commission adopted the proposal we are dealing with here today.
There is no need for me to explain the proposal yet again.
The House has, after all, made an excellent job of stating the principles behind it.
<P>
However, following various informal discussions with Members of the House, the Member States, the responsible ecolabelling organizations and NGOs, the Commission recognizes that a number of points in the proposal are simply not good enough.
Nonetheless, the Commission's overall attitude is that the Commission must defend its own proposal at first reading before the House.
The Committee on the Environment has proposed some comprehensive changes to the report, and at the present time, the Commission is only able to accept 7 of the 34 amendments approved by the Committee on the Environment.
<P>
At present, the Commission cannot accept some of the additional five amendments either, due to be voted on in the partsession.
Nevertheless, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Poggiolini, very much indeed for the considerable amount of work that has gone into this proposal.
I think it is natural to inform the House that at this point in the decision-making process, the Commission can only accept this limited number of amendments, but that the Commission will, however, be willing to consider further improvements to the proposal later on in the procedure.
<P>
The Commission has taken note of the points in the financial review.
Regarding the amendments, therefore, my comments today are as follows: with regard to the establishment of the European Eco-label Organization, the Committee on the Environment rejects the original idea and proposes establishing a technical committee on eco-labelling.
In defence of the scheme that we ourselves have prepared, I can say that, to a large extent, the question is whether the structure we are creating can be considered to be a legal entity, and whether it can consequently carry out the technical tasks to be dealt with.
<P>
The original Commission proposal to introduce a graduated eco-label has also been rejected, as was mentioned here today, in Amendments Nos 5, 12, 26 and 28.
The idea of having one flower along with a selection of further information to the consumer disregards the original proposal, because the House does not accept the original idea of having several labels to give consumers the information they need.
Thus, this amendment amazes me, but I have followed the line of reasoning set out by the House today.
<P>
Finally, there is the amendment to extend the area of application of the scheme to include services as well.
This is covered in Amendments Nos 3 and 14, and I regard that as an interesting possible development for the eco-labelling scheme.
However, that would mean some sections of the provisions of the proposal would need to be reworded, and we will have to come back to that some other time.
The amendments to lower the fee for using the Community label - Amendments Nos 31-34 - go further than the Commission's proposal to set a ceiling of ECU 4 000.
That, too, is an interesting proposal, but the Commission has not assessed the financial consequences of the EEO; consequently, these amendments cannot be accepted.
<P>
A crucial element of the Commission's proposal is increasing transparency and streamlining procedures.
Re-establishing the former eco-labelling consultation forum - as in Amendments Nos 16, 17 and 27 - is an original proposal, approved by the Committee on the Environment.
It aims to reintroduce current hearings of special interest groups in the revised scheme.
The current role of the consultation forum is not satisfactory, mainly because its input is only taken into consideration at a very late point in the decision-making process.
The idea of revamping the eco-label advisory forum cannot be accepted, partly because of the unsatisfactory representation of small and medium-sized companies and non-European producers and the need for better technical expertise.
<P>
The Commission endorses the principle of financial contributions to non-state consumer and environmental organizations as mentioned in Amendment No 17.
However, since there is already provision for this kind of financing outside the framework of the eco-labelling scheme, the Commission views this amendment as superfluous.
The Committee on the Environment is asking for the legal basis of 130s, part one, to be extended to include 100a. The two articles together require the inclusion of 189c and 189b as well, and since these two procedures are inherently contradictory - at least, under current provisions - we cannot accept this amendment.
<P>
A number of other amendments have been tabled by the House, but, as I have stated, we cannot endorse many of them at the present time, and I will refrain from elaborating on all of them, except for some specific amendments for which the House desires a more detailed explanation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
(The sitting was adjourned for three minutes)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Question Time (Commission)
<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="President">
The next item is questions to the Commission (B4-0464/98).
<P>
Before we begin, Mr Wijsenbeek wishes to speak on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, I wish to speak in connection with Rule 41 of the Rules of Procedure and Annex II.
I submitted a question on 31 March, directed at Mr Kinnock whose turn it is to answer questions today.
So I was a bit surprised yesterday, when document PE268.631 was given out in which the questions are listed, to see my question as Question No 77 under other questions, not therefore among those which will be answered by Mr Kinnock, so that there is hardly any chance that my question will be answered.
I would like to point out that my question would have been the fourth question if it could have been answered by Mr Kinnock.
<P>
I am very pleased now to see that Commissioner Van Miert is here today, who also knows about the subject of my question, that is, ship insurance and the system of ship insurance.
I would like to put the question to you, because my question, normally speaking, should have come up for discussion, and under Rule 41 only the President of this institution can decide whether a question is admissible or not, the President evidently has done that, but I do not see that the Commission can change who my question is addressed to on its own authority and can say: no, that question should not go to Mr Kinnock or you cannot ask Mr Kinnock that question.
Our President should deal with that and, at the very least, the questioner should be informed earlier than the day of Question Time.
I am therefore asking you as a matter of priority whether Mr Van Miert would like to answer my Question No 77.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 NAME="President">
Mr Wijsenbeek, as a great expert on the Rules of Procedure - I modestly admit you are more of an expert than I am - you know that the admissibility of a question is a matter for Parliament, whereas it is up to the Commission to decide which Commissioner should reply.
So, Mr Wijsenbeek, all we can do is accept the Commission's choice of whichever Commissioner they think should reply, whether they are right or not.
That is the reason for what has happened to your question.
So, now that the Commission has heard your comment, please let us begin Question Time, since this Presidency has no powers to resolve your concern.
<P>
So, we shall now commence Question Time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="President">
Question No 39 by Concepció Ferrer (H-0472/98)
<P>
Subject: Free movement and transport of goods
<P>
Over the last few years groups of French farmers have attacked lorries carrying Spanish fruit and vegetables on their way to various EU countries.
Last December the Court of Justice condemned the passivity of the French authorities because they have been unable to prevent these attacks.
<P>
Bearing in mind that there have been a number of road blocks and incidents in Brittany and that such events happen year after year, does the Commission intend to take any steps to remind France of its obligations when ensuring compliance with Articles 5 and 7 of the Treaty on European Union?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 NAME="Monti">
In the wake of the judgement pronounced by the Court of Justice on 9 December 1997 during case C-265/95, the Commission called upon the French authorities, on 9 March 1998, to respect the obligations imposed upon them by the EC Treaty - particularly Articles 5, 30 and 171 - and by common agricultural product market organizations.
The Commission also submitted a proposal for a Council Regulation (COM(97)0619/def. of 18 November 1997) with the aim of establishing a mechanism that would enable the Commission to ask the Member State to adopt necessary and appropriate measures quickly in order to eliminate particularly serious obstacles to the free movement of goods.
This proposal is being examined by the Council and Parliament.
<P>
In the reply made on 9 April 1998, the French authorities described the measures they considered appropriate for complying with their obligations.
These measures are organized into three levels and provide specifically for a Franco-Spanish agreement, a preventive public order mechanism and a legal mechanism.
<P>
Now that French farmers have made further threats against the marketing of horticultural products from other Member States in France, the Commission is insisting once again that the French authorities should apply the new measures with the necessary rigour and efficacy to ensure free movement of agricultural products.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Ferrer">
Actually, Commissioner, I do not so much want to ask a supplementary question as to say thank you for what the Commission has done in this case, insofar as there is no question but that real respect for fundamental rights in the EU depends on actions such as the ones which have been initiated. One of these rights is the free movement of goods.
And that becomes much more important now when, together with the citizens, we are trying to build Europe.
<P>
Because these rights are not respected, many people feel that Europe is turning its back on its people.
So besides thanking you for these actions, I would like to repeat my request that you should continue to make sure that France fulfils its obligations, so that these regulations, these measures that have been adopted, can really be put into practice in order to guarantee free movement once and for all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Monti">
On this point, I also wish to confirm the importance the questioner attaches to this subject.
<P>
Freedom of movement of goods is certainly not a peripheral matter, but absolutely central to the credibility of the single market and the entire construction of Europe.
This is why the Commission drew up the proposal for a regulation in November 1997, which I referred to, and why, in executing the mandate assigned to the Commission by the Amsterdam European Council, we are trying to find a satisfactory legislative solution to this subject.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
My question concerns the proposed legislation put forward by the Commission to the Council of Ministers to guarantee freedom of movement.
This proposed legislation has met with some criticism, not least from the unions.
A potential conflict has been foreseen between the right to strike and carry out actions on the labour market and the demands for maintaining mobility.
There has, for example, been a strike in Denmark recently.
It has clearly affected the freedom of movement in many ways.
<P>
Can the Commission guarantee that the proposal which has been tabled does not in any way limit the possibility of disputes on the labour market and employees' abilities to take proper legal action which could also affect transport?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Monti">
Thank you for this question which gives me the opportunity to clarify two points.
<P>
Firstly, the original proposal for a regulation presented by the Commission clarified, rightly I believe, that we are not questioning in any way the right to strike or other fundamental freedoms guaranteed by Member States' legal systems.
<P>
The Commission has also gone on to express its acceptance of wordings that make this concept absolutely clear during the course of further discussions, particularly on the Council. The regulation cannot now be interpreted in any way as implying limitations or interference in the exercise of these fundamental rights.
I can therefore give you every assurance on this subject.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, Commissioner, I remember that we had the same problem before, and then traffic came to a complete standstill because of the strikes by customs officials.
In your statement or in the rules which you are preparing, Commissioner, you should refer first and foremost to the fact that national governments have the responsibility of ensuring that traffic can move freely in Europe.
However traffic may be restricted, and for whatever cause, ensuring the free movement of traffic is one of the most important responsibilities of national governments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Monti">
Thank you, Mr von Habsburg, for your question and your comment, relating to a fundamental freedom of the single market.
The free movement of goods justifies this proposal for a regulation, and the Internal Market Council has confirmed on several occasions, the last occasion being on 30 March, its political desire to find a satisfactory solution in line with the mandate conferred on it by the European Council.
<P>
During the course of various meetings held by the Council's working party, the Member States and the Presidency proposed various solutions, while the Commission maintained its initial position on the regulation.
<P>
The final proposal put forward by the Presidency took the form of a regulation, again based on Article 235, and on a resolution.
The regulation would comprise three new aspects: firstly, Member States' obligations to take measures to eliminate obstacles, in accordance with the regulation, and to report back to the Commission; secondly, the creation of an early warning system; and, thirdly, Commission intervention in the form of notification.
<P>
The Presidency hopes to obtain political agreement on this final proposal during the Internal Market Council on 18 May, that is, next Monday.
In the meantime, the Commission's proposal is being examined by the European Parliament. The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs have already met once in April.
<P>
Consequently, Mr von Habsburg, our various institutions are coming together to look for ways to ensure our other fundamental rights without affecting our right to strike and to safeguard the essential aspect of free movement of goods more effectively.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 NAME="President">
Question No 40 by Graham Watson (H-0491/98)
<P>
Subject: Ticket allocation system for the 1998 World Cup
<P>
Is the Commission satisfied with the CFO's arrangements for the distribution of the remaining World Cup tickets via the "hotline' ?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 NAME="Van Miert">
Of course, you know how this matter has developed.
We have debated it in this Parliament.
You know that the Commission did not agree with the way the sale of the tickets had been organized and also at the time we urged that the tickets still available, only about 5 or 6 %, should be made available to citizens of the European Union who live outside France, by way of compensation.
<P>
Unfortunately the committee did not accept that and that is why, as you know, we are taking the procedure, the infringement procedure, further, and why we are currently working on the preparation, or engaged in drawing up what are known in English as the statements of objection.
<P>
More specifically, the question is about the regime, or formula which the organizing committee has worked out to make the remaining 110 000 tickets available, not only to citizens from outside France but to residents of France as well.
There is one bright spot to mention, in the sense that there are another 60 000 extra tickets available.
They are tickets which were given to football associations outside Europe but which they have been unable to sell.
They got more than they needed.
Those extra 60 000 tickets are now being made available to citizens of the European Union and that is a bright spot.
I would like to underline that.
This brings the total to 170 000.
<P>
Apart from that, as you know, dozens of telephone lines have been made available for citizens who wanted to telephone to try to get hold of a ticket.
I believe it is working quite well on the whole.
Some things have been brought to our attention which we are looking into at the moment to find out whether the system is proceeding in a completely non-discriminatory way.
I cannot tell you any more about this for the time being, but if anything is brought to our attention which could point to discrimination, it will be investigated immediately.
So if you have knowledge of any facts of that nature, let us know.
That is roughly how things stand at the moment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 NAME="Watson">
Commissioner, thank you.
You spoke of bright spots.
If there is a bright spot here it is only insofar as every cloud has a silver lining.
The organization of the 1998 World Cup has been a disgrace: over 60 % of the tickets have been available exclusively to French citizens, despite the intervention of the Commission, the CFO has refused to make even 160 000 tickets available to football fans outside France.
<P>
FIFA and the CFO are making a mockery of European Union law.
For fear that the Commission would not act, I and other MEPs started a court action. My questions to you today are these.
Will the Commission associate itself with our court action?
What action will the Commission take unilaterally, and how far will the Commission go in pursuing this?
It is no good saying that this hotline is functioning smoothly: any British fan trying to get through to France just knows that 'smooth' is anything but the description of how it has worked.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 NAME="Van Miert">
Since we have already had a general debate in plenary we do not need to have one again.
You know very well what I said: that, indeed, we fundamentally disagree with this kind of system and, therefore, it should be reviewed.
<P>
I must say that the organizers of the European Championship in the year 2000, which will take place, as you know, in the Netherlands and Belgium, are already talking to the services of the Commission - to my officials - in order to sort things out now before one ticket is sold.
So the message has been well understood.
That is a positive result.
<P>
For the rest, as you know, we continue to pursue the appropriate procedure, but we have to do so according to the rules.
Legally speaking we must adhere to them.
Again, I confirm we will do so to the very end.
However, the Commission will follow its own procedure as usual, probably on the basis of Article 86, and, therefore, obviously we will not intervene in what you are doing but we will continue along our own way.
That is the situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Larive">
Commissioner Van Miert, can you tell me what the point was of the expensive studies which DG X carried out in 1993?
I was rapporteur on sport at the time and they produced a huge volume about the impact of EU activities on sport.
There were three pages at that time, five years ago, about exclusive ticket sales.
The Commission's position in black and white in that report, dating from five years ago, states that exclusive ticket sales are fundamentally wrong and in contravention of Articles 85 and 86.
I am pleased that you will now be keeping a close eye on the Belgian and Dutch organizers for the European Championships in 2000.
My question is why it had to take such an extraordinary length of time and whether there was any point to those expensive studies at all?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Larive.
<P>
Excuse me, Mr Van Miert, but when you listen to the question in one of the languages you understand, you forget that our interpretation system takes a certain amount of time to convey the information to all the Members and, especially, the President.
So I did not interrupt you for taking the floor spontaneously, but because we had still not heard all of Mrs Larive's interesting speech.
I now invite you to reply to her question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Miert">
These studies were carried out, as you yourself have indicated, on behalf of DG X. They were dealing with general policy in this area but, as you know, DG IV is looking into matters relating to competition.
Things happened in the past, for example where the sale of tickets was tied to the sale of travel facilities for example, or hotel rooms.
We have always said that that must not be allowed.
If the client wants that, there is no problem, but, for example, a travel agent cannot lay that down as a condition.
Now and then we receive complaints because it still seems to happen here and there.
So we have, meanwhile, tackled a number of problems already.
<P>
Here it was about a different kind of discrimination, that is to say that a large proportion of the ticket sales were being reserved for the citizens of one country.
Once again, action was taken when that came to light.
Unfortunately, most of the tickets had been sold in the meantime.
<P>
I can remember that similar things happened on earlier occasions without there being all that many complaints.
What is new on this occasion is that people will not take it any more and that the citizens of the European Union rightly believe that they are entitled to be treated in a non-discriminatory way.
<P>
I am pleased about this and, to repeat, we will keep watch to ensure that such things do not happen at future sports events.
This is a warning to everyone.
However, may I remind you again that sports associations are not too keen on turning to the Commission.
Most of them dispute the authority of the Commission.
There is not much to dispute now, as far as I am concerned, or as far as the powers of the Commission are concerned, certainly with regard to competition, but it is not always so evident that they will take that.
I would just like to remind people of that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="De Coene">
<SPEAKER ID=237 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Miert">
Parliament is sovereign to, as it were, organize its own appeal.
The Commission has to stick to the instruments it has been given.
Either we establish that there is an infringement, for example on the grounds of Article 86, then we can act; or, if that is not the case, we cannot.
But you know what our intention is and I would like to confirm that here today.
<P>
Apart from that, if you know of actions which do not fit in with what has been agreed, let us know.
I have also already received, I have to confirm, a couple of letters from Belgium from citizens who tried to get a ticket in the normal way and evidently say: yes, if we do not take the rest as well, we do not get any.
That is wrong.
On the other hand, it must not stop at borders either.
People cannot, for example, refuse to sell a ticket to a German citizen.
That is not permitted; that has been agreed quite clearly.
However, I am afraid, just as you are, that things are going on here and there, bearing in mind what has happened in the past too, which are not always as they should be.
But if we get any opportunity to take action against this, we will take it and I can tell you, we will take it vigorously.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
<P>
Mr Wijsenbeek wishes to speak on a point of order.
Mr Wijsenbeek, let me remind you that whereas I will always grant you the floor on a point of order, it means there is less time for questions from other Members of this House.
You have the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
I will be brief, Mr President.
On the grounds of Annex II, B(2) of the Rules of Procedure, I am asking you now and I would be very grateful for your reply, to raise Question No 77 since Commissioner Van Miert is still present.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 NAME="President">
Mr Wijsenbeek, I must inform you that the order has already been established with the agreement of the President of Parliament and the Commission, and it is impossible for the Chair to alter it during the sitting.
I have taken good note of your comment and will convey it to the President and the Commission, Mr Wijsenbeek, but I an certainly not going to change the pre-established order.
<P>
Question No 41 by Marie-Paule Kestelijn-Sierens (H-0440/98)
<P>
Subject: Sale of drugs via the Internet
<P>
In view of the disturbing increase in the supply and unmonitored sale of drugs on the Internet, can the Commission say how it will ensure that European suppliers of drugs via the Internet satisfy all Community and national provisions in respect of permission to market, the advertising of drugs and the sale of drugs requiring a prescription?
What action can and will the Commission take, in view of the international dimension of the problem, to protect cyberconsumers from this unsupervised sale of drugs?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, the question must contain two answers.
One is very formal and relates to what we have already done together in order to ensure that sales of medicines on the Internet are conducted in a proper manner, and the other deals with the practical implementation of these regulations.
<P>
For one thing, it may well be a contravention of Community law if, for example, there is no authorization for trading in the medicines sold.
The purpose of such an authorization is, after all, to guarantee the quality, safety and efficacy of the medicine.
There may also be a contravention of the directive which prohibits public advertising, particularly in the case of medicines requiring a prescription, and there may of course also be a contravention of the directive which specifically allows Member States to prohibit the marketing of medicines in their territory through agreements on distance selling.
<P>
Moreover, in certain Member States the national regulations, or the pharmacists' monopoly, or other established practices, may be contravened.
These are all clear legal regulations.
But the question of course, and this is the only important question, is what effect do they have in practice?
Well, in practice, action can be taken against any company which commits such contraventions from a base inside the Union, because offences committed by one's own citizens can of course be punished.
However, because of the increasing importance of the Internet as an international organization, it is impossible, both in practice and also in law, to take action against companies or individuals who are proceeding in accordance with the laws of their home country while acting outside of EU laws or national regulations.
If they act in accordance with the laws of their home country, then they are in any case legally protected.
If they contravene these laws, prosecution of the offence is a matter for the home country concerned.
<P>
In other words, there are only limited possibilities open to us.
We can bring proceedings against our own companies, but not against others.
That is why we have made several attempts to settle this issue at international level.
There would then at least be an internationally valid legislative basis.
We are having discussions with industry about questions of voluntary commitment, with other countries about common rules, and also with international organizations, in this case the World Health Organization, with a view to establishing these rules.
However, I should emphasize here and now that even if we do have international rules, given the technical character of the Internet it will not be easy to prosecute and punish contraventions of such rules.
We must always bear this in mind, and that is why we are looking more to practical measures than to legislation, or at least not just to legislation, for this cannot guarantee the necessary degree of protection.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
Mr President, I would like to thank the Commissioner for his reply.
I would have liked to hear from the Commissioner what he plans to do about these problems within the Union.
Naturally, this is a problem of consumer protection, if a medicine which has to be dispensed on prescription can be bought via the Internet without prescription.
And there have been two notable examples of this.
Just consider melatonine, which is freely available in the United States but has to be dispensed on prescription here.
There is also the recent example of the medicine Viagra which can be obtained freely via the Internet, which could have harmful effects on the user.
What is the Commissioner going to do about investigating infringements and has he already been able to investigate specific infringements?
In other words, how can control be exercised?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bangemann">
Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens repeats the question which she has already put in writing, and I could now repeat the answer which I have already given.
But that would not get us much further.
I said that we have legal regulations in the Union and in the Member States which afford adequate protection to the consumer.
<P>
You have yourself quoted a case where these legal provisions are not effective.
If, for example, a medicine is permitted in the USA, which no-one could describe as a wild and under-developed country where all sorts of things can be sold, then a manufacturer or someone else who wants to offer this medicine for sale is able to do so via the Internet.
That is not prohibited.
While this would not be permitted by our legislation in Europe, the distributor in question is not travelling to Europe, he is in fact selling the medicine from a base in America.
<P>
The fact that the Internet extends to every country in the world is due to the technical nature of its infrastructure.
That is why the distributor is in a position - at least under international law - to sell his products in America and, furthermore, to send them to any European consumer who wants them without breaking European law.
Nor does the consumer make himself liable to prosecution or contravene any laws unless he is intending to buy medicines which are clearly prohibited.
But in the case which you have mentioned the consumer does not make himself liable to prosecution.
<P>
So the only possible way in which we can settle this is to seek an international agreement under which, for example, the American manufacturer undertakes, by way of a voluntary commitment, to supply his medicines only to countries in which they may be obtained without the need for a prescription.
This is the only solution which will work.
We cannot tackle these problems using legislation alone.
<P>
There is also a problem in respect of competition, because if the restrictions we are discussing today apply to European companies or pharmacists, we shall see these pharmacists, traders or businesses being put at a competitive disadvantage vis-àvis other countries where such medicines are allowed to circulate freely.
We therefore have a problem facing our industry and it is one which cannot simply be solved by passing a new law, in fact quite the reverse.
I am convinced that we must review existing laws to do justice to both sides of the argument, namely protecting the consumer while at the same time safeguarding the competitiveness of our industry.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Bangemann's reply brings us to the end of the time allocated to Part I of questions to the Commission.
So Questions Nos 42 and 43 will be dealt with in writing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=246 NAME="Pinheiro">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Fourth Lomé Convention follows on from the Maastricht Treaty in emphasizing the objectives of combating poverty and encouraging respect for human rights and democratic principles.
<P>
This general emphasis is also apparent in the draft mandate the Commission has put before Parliament and the Council, which is now being debated, and which relates to a new partnership with the ACP countries.
<P>
To give the Member a direct answer, however, the Community has not so far expressly considered support for the disabled as a specific priority for cooperation.
Nevertheless, within the context of its programme for the reform and rehabilitation of health systems, the Community does support many forms of action, particularly for the benefit of victims of war and, even more specifically, victims of anti-personnel mines and crippling diseases.
<P>
This is particularly true in the case of Angola, Mozambique and also certain non-ACP countries such as Cambodia.
These actions in ACP countries are financed not only by the European Development Fund but also from a number of budgetary categories relating to emergency aid and rehabilitation.
<P>
The Community also supports numerous non-governmental organizations such as 'Handicap International' , ' Help the Aged' , ' Médecins Sans Frontières' and others.
That support is designed to assist with development, particularly in terms of orthopaedic clinics, medical supplies. infrastructures, professional training schemes and health projects for victims of mines and burns, among others.
So far as the Lomé Convention is concerned, the Commission intends to go on giving priority to this work, since it is estimated that the number of victims, or people affected, by anti-personnel mines is over 60 000 in southern Africa alone.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 NAME="Howitt">
Mr President, I thank the Commissioner for his sentiments.
But I have to say that I disagree and I think the majority of the Members of this Parliament will disagree when it is said that disability is not a high priority for development cooperation between the European Union and the ACP countries.
I ask him to reflect during the course of negotiations on whether or not we should give it a higher priority when one in four poor families in developing countries have a disabled member; when there are only 3 % of the 500 million disabled people worldwide who are literate; when the mortality rate for under-fives in developing countries is well under 20 % - it is between 60 % and 80 % for disabled children.
Truly, there should be no higher priority than to meet those needs.
Could the Commissioner, in response to my supplementary, give a firmer commitment to actually quantify the assistance we give?
He failed to do that in his answer.
Would he give us an indication of how he will deal with this issue in the negotiations with the ACP?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=248 NAME="Pinheiro">
So far it has not been a priority.
I made a factual statement.
We have worked in many areas in which, in one way or another, disabled people were the focus of our attention, namely in regard to the anti-mine action in Southern Africa.
<P>
I believe that among the main actions that are being carried out, especially regarding the health system, disability is being addressed.
What is lacking - I will be very honest - is the social integration of disabled people.
Training has been virtually nonexistent in our agreements hitherto.
But I will take on your suggestion because, especially in some countries, the figures justify an explicit statement on those lines.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 NAME="President">
Question No 45 by Bernd Posselt (H-0463/98)
<P>
Subject: Burden-sharing in staffing
<P>
What progress is being made with the initiative to share the burden of staffing in connection with sudden refugee movements, and also movements of asylum-seekers?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 NAME="Gradin">
In March 1997 the Commission put forward a proposal for joint action on temporary protection in situations of mass flight.
Article 5 in that proposal aims at making it possible to offer support in different forms to Member States which receive a particularly large number of people in need of international protection.
The idea is that a decision about such support be taken on the basis of an annual report on the situation, to be worked out by the Commission.
<P>
The proposal is in line with earlier positions in the Council of Ministers.
I am thinking specifically of the resolution adopted on 25 September 1995, and which deals with burden-sharing on receiving and providing temporary accommodation for fleeing people.
I am also thinking of the Council's decision of 4 March 1996, and which deals with the way the European Union is to share the responsibility for people in need of temporary protection.
<P>
The Commission's proposal has been discussed on many occasions in the Council of Ministers during the past year, particularly during the Luxembourg Presidency.
At the informal Council meeting at Mondorf in October 1997 this question was on the agenda.
The discussions we had then show that the question of burden-sharing demands further consideration.
Some Member States consider Article 5 in the Commission's proposal to be too far-reaching; others consider it too limited.
<P>
At the express wish of the Commission, the Council of Ministers also consulted Parliament, of which you are, naturally, aware.
Parliament supported the proposal on 23 October 1997.
We then had 22 amendments; two of these, Nos 12 and 13, were aimed exactly at the need for the article on burden-sharing to be extended, and for it to be made more concrete.
Against that background, the Commission has now considered putting forward a separate proposal on burden-sharing.
The reason is that it would be very sad if the initiative on temporary protection for people were to be delayed because of the question of burden-sharing.
<P>
It is now my hope, Mr President, that a separate proposal from the Commission will lead to a solution.
I therefore hope that during the Austrian Presidency we shall not only reach a decision on temporary protection, but also find a separate solution for what is burden-sharing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=251 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, thank you for your detailed answer.
However, I still fail to understand whether or not the Commission has in fact now submitted to the Council a concrete proposal for personnel burdensharing.
I am forever being told that the Commission does not want to submit such a proposal because it does not expect to get a majority in the Council.
I have to say quite openly that the acid test has to be tried, we have to establish precisely which governments may be trying to slow things down, so that we can turn the spotlight on them in terms of their political responsibilities and discuss this both in Parliament and also in public.
But none of that will be possible unless we have a very detailed proposal on personnel burden-sharing in the form of a fixed formula between the Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gradin">
The Member knows very well that the debate on burden-sharing has been going on for many years.
It is not the Commission's fault that we have not solved this issue.
You could say that there have been such deep differences of opinion within the Council of Ministers that we have not succeeded in finding a solution.
<P>
The Commission has tried to find compromise solutions many times, but these have not fallen on good soil.
We are now working on a new set, having sounded out many governments on the issue.
We are trying, among other things, to remove the issue of burden sharing from the proposal on temporary protection and turn it into a separate issue.
Then we await the reaction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 NAME="President">
Question No 46 by Eva Kjer Hansen (H-0493/98)
<P>
Subject: Protection of the Community's financial interests
<P>
As the Commission indicated in its answer to Question P-3615/97, the opportunities for protecting the Community's financial interests will improve following ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
<P>
Has the Commission, on the basis of the revised Article 209a (Article 280 in the Treaty of Amsterdam), planned any action to harmonize legislation designed to protect the Community's financial interests, including legislation to safeguard against fraud affecting the euro?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=254 NAME="Gradin">
According to Article 209a of the Treaty, Member States are to take the same actions to combat fraud against the economic interests of the Union as they would to combat fraud against their own.
The Member States are thus invited to coordinate their actions to protect the economic interests of the Union against fraud.
The Commission will assist with organizing close and regular cooperation between the administrations concerned.
<P>
Unfortunately, Article 209a does not include an operational legal basis.
In order to make decisions on joint actions in this field today we have to use Article 235 instead, which, as you will know, requires unanimity.
This will change with the Amsterdam Treaty, when it comes into force.
Firstly, Article 209a will be changed into a new article, Article 280.
This provides legal ground for joint actions to protect the economic interests of the Union.
Secondly, the work will be simplified, as it will be possible to reach decisions by qualified majority voting.
Thirdly, it will establish that protection of the economic interests of the Union be equal in all the Member States.
<P>
These changes will strengthen our means to protect taxpayers against fraud and cheating.
While awaiting the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty, we do not at present plan any concrete proposal, based on these revised articles.
<P>
As regards the question of preventing counterfeiting of the euro, the Commission's working schedule on cheating and fraud of 1998-1999 was adopted on 6 May and includes several measures for the protection of the common currency.
This means that the Commission has already entered into discussion with Member States on how to combat fraud and cheating.
Effective protection must, in my view, be in place before the euro is in circulation on 1 January 2002.
It will then be of utmost importance to build up a stable legal framework for the exchange of information and to set up a common database.
Close cooperation and mutual assistance will also have to be established between the Member States, the European Central Bank, Europol and Interpol.
<P>
The objective must be that the measures introduced to protect the euro will act as an equally strong deterrent in all the Member States.
The achievement of this will demand actions within the first as well as the third pillar.
My colleague, Commissioner de Silguy, and I plan therefore to submit a report to the Council and to the Parliament even before the summer on what kind of actions will be needed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=255 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Kjer Hansen">
I would like to thank the Commissioner for answering the question and I would like to say that we are of course looking forward to receiving more specific proposals regarding which initiatives are to be put into practice, and I am delighted that this is taking place before the summer recess, because I think it is important to follow up on this matter right now while we are discussing the euro.
With regard to the new Article 280 in the Amsterdam Treaty, I must say I am amazed that the Commission is still unwilling to commit to specifics, because to me, it is a good argument alongside many other good arguments in favour of the Amsterdam Treaty.
For the sake of EU citizens and in the interests of the taxpayer, I believe it is important to come up with specific initiatives to prove that any initiatives are being started at all in this area, and this is, after all, one of the areas in which we urgently need to change the way decisions are made.
Thus, my question is actually more of an appeal to the Commissioner to ensure that specific mandates are given.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=256 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gradin">
I think we should also look at what initiatives to take in order to put this into practice.
I consider it a matter for great regret that the Member States have not ratified one single instrument regarding the protection of the economic interests of the European Union.
Once 1 July is passed, the deadline laid down in the Amsterdam Treaty for ratification in the Member States, there is reason to start discussing whether we should not turn these instruments into first pillar instruments and directives instead.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=257 NAME="President">
Question No 47 by Mark Watts (H-0088/98)
<P>
Subject: Failure of Member States to transpose EU transport directives
<P>
Given that 60 % of the Single Market Directives adopted in the field of transport have not been transposed by Member States - the worst rate of non-transposition in the EU - what action does the Commission propose taking to ensure that Member States fulfil their objectives and complete the single market in this sector?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=258 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
Mr President, according to the so-called single market scoreboard report adopted by the Commission last November, the rate of non-implementation of single market directives is high in the transport sector, as the Honourable Member indicates in his question.
A partial explanation for that is provided by the fact that much of the single market legislation in the transport sector is relatively recent.
For example, there have been 38 transport directives in the 1990s, compared with just six directives in the insurance sector, the last of which was adopted in 1992, where the transposition record is best.
The main reason for this significant amount of legislation in transport is obviously the evolution of the common transport policy and its application in the changing context provided by the single market.
<P>
Despite that practical explanation, however, the Commission is concerned about the non-transposition of law which Member States have after all agreed upon in Council.
In general, the majority of Member States are adopting national transposition measures after a significant delay and only after reminders have not elicited a productive response and infringement procedures have been instigated by the Commission.
For example, infringement procedures relating to two-thirds of Member States have been opened in relation to the 19 transport-related directives for which transposition was due to be completed by the end of 1997.
<P>
The Commission will of course continue to pursue these and other infringement cases until the Member States have properly implemented the directive.
At all times actions will be determined entirely by the duty of the Commission to secure adherence to the law which the Member States in Council have obviously endorsed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=259 NAME="Watts">
I should like to thank Commissioner Kinnock for his answer.
Quite rightly he is stressing the amount of effort the Commission, and in particular his directorate, are putting into ensuring that directives and regulations agreed by Member States are transposed by those Member States.
I am very pleased to hear that much progress has already been made following the publication of the single market scoreboard.
However, does he agree with me that we could, perhaps, further highlight some of the poorer Member States in terms of transposition by producing a league table of those least effective Member States - maybe a list of shame to try to ensure there is public pressure in the Member States concerned to ensure that Community law is complied with?
<P>
Secondly, does he agree with me that perhaps Parliament, too, could support his efforts by putting more emphasis on monitoring and enforcement?
Perhaps we could devote more of our committee time to these issues rather than examining fresh legislation.
I would welcome his views on both of those ideas.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=260 NAME="President">
Commissioner, no doubt you are enticing us into the House of Commons' enviable habits of speed and spontaneity; so it is no bad thing.
On the contrary, we should all imitate your example, having seen the liveliness of the House of Commons.
I invite you to reply to Mr Watts' question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=261 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
I would simply say to the honourable Member that I am grateful for his comments.
In his proposition for a league table he has suggested one of the very best uses to which a written parliamentary question can be put.
He can be certain of receiving a candid and full answer.
So far as naming and shaming is concerned, I am not sure that would be the effect but I am prepared to work on the basis that if a law is worth passing in the Council of Ministers, it must be worth transposing and, indeed, it must be worth applying and enforcing in a Member State.
One would presume that we would be assisting the governments of the Member States in trying to ensure that public notice was drawn to the gap between their willingness to pass the laws and their willingness to turn them into domestic legislation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=262 NAME="McMahon">
While I welcome the Commission's commitment to enforcing the procedure in the transport sector, I would draw the Commissioner's attention to the case of a constituent of mine, Salvatore Colucci, who is attempting in vain to operate as a merchant marine officer in United Kingdom shipping.
He has had tremendous battles with the United Kingdom authorities, in particular with the previous administration.
We discovered that the Maritime Marine Agency would not accept his qualifications, although the EU directive said it should.
There is an aliens act in the UK which goes back to 1911, which meant that merchant ship officers had to be UK citizens.
We are waiting for this legislation to be repealed.
<P>
I do not know if the Commissioner is familiar with this.
I am prepared to pass the correspondence on to him.
It is very important that we get the qualifications of merchant seaman agreed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=263 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
If I can say to the honourable Member I do not honestly know the detail of the particular case mentioned so I would be obliged if he could write to me as he suggests.
He will know of course that under current legislation Member States do reserve the right to stipulate the proportion of nationals who are appointed to offices in certain categories of shipping.
If he would like to write to me I will certainly pursue the matter and indeed if he were to take up the matter with Mrs Glenda Jackson who is the current Maritime Minister in the new United Kingdom government it is conceivable that he would find a cooperative reply.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=264 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Kinnock, for your reply and your willingness to help. I am sure Mr McMahon will convey your message to the individual in question.
<P>
Question No 48 by Anne McIntosh (H-0185/98)
<P>
Subject: Lorry Blockade in France
<P>
Will the Commission investigate why the French Government has now confirmed that the British hauliers who suffered as a result of last year's lorry blockade in France will receive no compensation despite the disruption to the Single Market?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=265 NAME="Kinnock">
The Commission has made enquiries about the matters raised by the honourable Member in her question and I have to report to the House that we have not been able to find any evidence of any communication by the French government to the effect that British road hauliers would not be compensated following the 1997 strike action by French road transport workers.
<P>
At all times the Commission has made it clear to all concerned that it expects the French government to honour any legal obligation it may have to compensate those road hauliers who are directly and adversely affected by the dispute last year regardless of their nationality.
The honourable Member may already be aware that the United Kingdom Department of Transport has informed the Commission that all cases relating to United Kingdom hauliers in respect of the 1996 strike have been addressed and that procedures are in place to resolve outstanding cases from the 1997 strike without undue delay.
If the honourable Member can provide references to justify the assertion made in her question the Commission will of course investigate the matter further despite the fact that, as the honourable Member knows, compensation arrangements are entirely within national law and procedures and consequently not a matter covered by the legal authority of the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=266 NAME="McIntosh">
<SPEAKER ID=267 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
The honourable Member is a fastidious attender in this House and a fastidious attender to the Treaty.
She will know, therefore, precisely what the legal position is.
I repeat that insofar as compensation arrangements are concerned, as she knows very well, the Commission has no power.
There is no juxtaposition of events which could give the Commission power so far as compensation is concerned.
<P>
Secondly, the honourable Member will know very well the extent of the authority exercised by the Commission so far as its ability to intervene in domestic industrial disputes is concerned.
Those limitations may frustrate me as someone who wants to safeguard freedom of movement, but I observe the law, as she says, in my role of guardian of the Treaties.
<P>
So far as scenarios, real or otherwise, are concerned, she would not expect me to comment on the envisaged possibilities.
But she will know very well - I trust that she will pay reference to this in the forthcoming month or so - that there is no preventative power afforded to the Commission under the Treaty; neither is there any ability in the Commission to preempt the conduct of a dispute.
I hope therefore that whatever other action is taken or proves to be necessary in the course of future months, no one, least of all the honourable Member, will try to give a totally distorted and exaggerated view of what the European Commission can do in the event of any extremely unfortunate, highly regrettable and totally counterproductive action that might be contemplated in some quarters at the time of the World Cup in France.
God knows, people wanting to see that World Cup in France will have enough to put up with in any case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=268 NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Unlike the previous speaker, whose petty, insular views were apparently preoccupied only with British lorry drivers, I would say, Commissioner, that only 10 % of all the lorry drivers concerned from all over Europe have been compensated by the French authorities.
Does the Commissioner not therefore think that he needs the intervention mechanism that the Council now seems to be refusing the Commission and that with this intervention mechanism there needs to be some kind of Commission fund from which, before the Member States go over to paying only one-tenth, it could forward the money that is owed to those people who, from no fault of their own, have got involved in these strikes and roadblocks?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=269 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
The European Community, as I am sure Mr Wijsenbeek will know - indeed, this is a view he will support - is a free association of democracies.
This means that unless and until the Council endorses a proposal relating to intervention of the kind that he suggests, it would be not only inappropriate but highly offensive to everything we believe in as democrats to award to the Commission power to intervene to impose compensation requirements or in other ways to try to dictate the direction in which affairs should go at the time of, or following, an industrial dispute.
<P>
Whatever his personal opinions may be, or, indeed, whatever possibilities for action I could contemplate, for as long as the Council refuses interventions of that kind, I will respect the will of the government representatives of democratic administrations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=270 NAME="Hardstaff">
Commissioner, some of the lorries from my constituency caught up in the blockade in France last year were transporting perishable goods, particularly fruit and vegetables, as, indeed, were many lorries from Spain and Portugal: they suffered complete loss of their consignments, not just the late delivery of goods.
Many of them are still awaiting the promised compensation from the previous, much more long-drawn-out blockade.
<P>
Will the Commission maintain its pressure to persuade the French Government to honour also this previous commitment to pay compensation and, incidentally, suggest to them that this would considerably mitigate the increasing irritation felt by other Member States towards France, not just because of their mishandling of the lorry blockade issue but also, more recently, their mishandling of the distribution of World Cup tickets?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=271 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
<SPEAKER ID=272 NAME="President">
Question No 49 by Felipe Camisón Asensio (H-0394/98)
<P>
Subject: "Open skies' agreements with the United States
<P>
What information can the Commission provide on the infringement procedures against those Member States which have concluded "open skies' agreements with the United States in the civil aviation sector?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=273 NAME="Kinnock">
Mr President, a short question sometimes provokes a lengthy answer so I apologize in advance for what must unavoidably be a fair degree of detail in response to the honourable Member.
<P>
In November 1994, the Commission communicated to the Member States its concern that bilateral air transport agreements with the United States of America would affect internal Community legislation.
It drew the attention of the Member States to the Commission's view that such negotiations could therefore only be conducted at Community level.
Assurances on the issue were sought from the relevant Member States in February 1995 and, when they were not forthcoming, the Commission initiated proceedings based on Article 169 of the Treaty in June of that year.
<P>
Discussions on aviation relations with the United States meanwhile continued in the Council and in June 1996 the Commission was given a partial mandate for negotiating a common aviation area between the European Community and the USA.
Since this signified the possibility that an approach that conformed with Community law could be established, the Commission then suspended the infringement procedure.
That mandate awarded in 1996 did not, however, include market access issues such as traffic rights and capacity, which are plainly vital for the purposes of any successful comprehensive air services agreement.
Discussions were nevertheless held with representatives of the USA in accordance with the mandate.
The only tangible conclusion reached, however, was that a common aviation area could only be agreed if negotiations involved all of the relevant issues.
<P>
The Commission has pursued its efforts to obtain a full mandate for some years and, at all times, has emphasized its total commitment to taking detailed account of the concerns and interests of all Member States so that none would encounter any disadvantage whatsoever.
<P>
Regrettably, the Council has thus far not been willing to agree on any workable mandate and, in recent Council meetings, discussion of the issue has not been substantive, although attention is now being given to the issue at working group level.
The Commission consequently advised the Council that the suspension of the infringement procedure could no longer be justified.
In March this year therefore, the Commission issued reasoned opinions to all of the eight Member States concerned.
<P>
As the honourable Member will know from other parliamentary proceedings at which he has been present, the Commission's view and its action are completely consistent with our duty to uphold Community law.
<P>
In addition, as you will also be aware, the Commission is strongly motivated by a practical desire to negotiate conditions in civil aviation that will be fair, balanced and certain to uphold the interests of the Community, of all its Member States, of the civil aviation industry of the European Union and of the citizens of the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=274 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Camisón Asensio">
I must admit, Commissioner, you are acting splendidly in this matter.
And though it may seem you are facing the danger alone - like Gary Cooper - do not believe it! I want to assure you that many Europeans support you and are grateful for your efforts to consolidate our common market.
<P>
If this goes unchecked, it will result in the creation of serious discriminations and distortions of competition, causing EU rules to be ineffective and European law itself to be violated.
<P>
Also, these "open skies' agreements would make it impossible to be sure of eliminating the imbalances which would result between the national markets and the main companies arriving here from the US, without any reciprocity at all.
<P>
So I urge you, Commissioner, to continue fighting in the same direction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=275 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Camisón Asensio.
<P>
Mr Kinnock, you now realize that you are not alone, although there are not many people in this Hemicycle.
In any case, you have our support on this question, as Mr Camisón Asensio said. I invite you to reply to his supplementary question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=276 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
Mr President, I am very grateful to you and to the honourable Member.
As he says, this is not 'High Noon' , I am not Gary Cooper and I am certainly not accompanied by Grace Kelly.
I am, if time permits, willing to sing to the honourable Member 'Do not forsake me, oh my darling' - but I won't.
I might indeed lose support if I inflicted my voice upon people here.
<P>
What is true, of course, is that Parliament's view - consistently taken - is a source of great strength, so far as the Commission is concerned.
But the good news is that, in addition, there are Member States who increasingly can see the joint and individual advantage of negotiating as a Community with the United States of America.
I am therefore confident that the day will come when the full mandate will be given to the Commission to negotiate on comprehensive issues and gain the best possible deal for our carriers, our citizens and our Member States.
<P>
My one concern is that agreement to a mandate may not come early enough for us to be able to deploy our full negotiating strength simply because a multiplicity of bilateral deals could award the Americans nearly all that they want without European carriers being able to get a balanced and equivalent amount of access to the very rich United States market in return.
<P>
Therefore, the sooner we get the power to negotiate comprehensively, the better it will be for the whole Community.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=277 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Konrad">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think it is very sensible that a supplementary question can also be put during Question Time.
I frequently make use of this facility, but what we have been witnessing in the course of the last few questions is not the putting of supplementary questions but rather - with all due respect - the exchange of pleasantries. While this may well be good for the mood of the House, it does not help me much because I shall not now be able to put my question since the session will shortly be closed.
Mr President, I would ask you to chair the session rather more tightly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=278 NAME="President">
Mr Konrad, I admire your ability to distinguish in advance between a question, a compliment and a comment.
I cannot do that. In any case, Members of this House have one minute - which I am strict about - to use responsibly in whichever manner they feel is appropriate.
Since you have used that minute for points of order, obviously you cannot use it for a supplementary question, because at 7.00 p.m. we shall be suspending the sitting.
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Question No 50 by Jan Andersson (H-0418/98)
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Subject: Transport links in the Öresund region
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A study, partly financed by the EU, has been carried out into the feasibility of building a tunnel linking the Swedish town of Helsingborg and the Danish town of Helsingør, which are only about 4 km apart.
As both towns are situated in a densely populated region in which cross-border regional cooperation is increasing in a number of areas, there is an urgent need for a tunnel.
Improved transport infrastructure would most definitely boost cooperation in the region.
<P>
What could the Commission do to help ensure that a tunnel linking Helsingborg and Helsingør is built as soon as possible?
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<SPEAKER ID=279 NAME="Kinnock">
As the honourable Member points out in his question, studies into the feasibility of building a tunnel connecting Helsingør in Denmark and Helsingborg in Sweden have received support under the European Union's INTERREG IIa programme.
The Commission, is, however, not aware of any decision to construct such a tunnel link and the Commission has not received any request for Community support for such a project.
If such a request were received, it would be considered through the normal procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=280 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Andersson">
I would like to thank the Commissioner for the answer.
I would also like to say thank you for the resources the Commission contributed towards making the study; it shows that the costs for this tunnel between two countries are less than the costs for communications on land on the Swedish side and also on the Danish side as regards the link by bridge between Malmö and Copenhagen.
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I can very easily understand that decisions are required by the Swedish as well as the Danish governments before the Commission will be able to give further financial assistance, but I would like to put the following question: supposing the Swedish and Danish governments were to agree to build such a link, might the EU then assist in the same way as in the matter of the link between Malmö and Copenhagen?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=281 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
As the honourable Member will know, the INTERREG Programme does not afford a facility for providing grant funding for infrastructure development.
I can only repeat what I said earlier that if Member States, individually or collectively, were to make a proposal under the relevant funds for support of some kind in the development of a major infrastructure link of the kind that has been mentioned, serious consideration would naturally have to be given to it.
I would not want to mislead the House or the honourable Member into believing that there was any automatic right of allocation.
Every proposal obviously has to be studied very closely and thoroughly on its merits.
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<SPEAKER ID=282 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Kinnock.
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Ladies and gentlemen, we still have two minutes left before 7.00 p.m.
Taking advantage of Mr Kinnock once again, I propose that he replies to one last question.
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Question No 51 by Maj Theorin (H-0430/98)
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Subject: Rail transport
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There are several major European firms currently transporting goods by road which would like to transfer heavy road haulage to rail, primarily for environmental reasons.
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Does the Commission think that this is a good idea and, if so, what is it prepared to do to facilitate such a transfer to rail?
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<SPEAKER ID=283 NAME="Kinnock">
In view of the shortage of time I am tempted just to say 'yes' , but I think the honourable Member would like more detail than that.
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We have consistently and actively sought to promote the transfer of goods transport to rail as an alternative to road transport.
The common transport policy contributes to increasing the competitiveness and attractiveness of rail transport through various actions including the so-called PACT programme - Project Action for Combined Transport - the removal of technical and regulatory barriers to international freight transport - which is absolutely crucial - the efforts to complete the internal market in rail, which will enhance efficiency and attractiveness, and also other policies like the development of the trans-European networks which, because it is very substantially balanced in favour of rail, can also make its contribution to increasing sustainability of transport.
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<SPEAKER ID=284 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
I am grateful for the "yes' answer, as that is most important of all.
As the Commissioner is well aware, the problem today is that the railway cannot quite compete pricewise, due to a very peculiar system, with each country setting its own prices.
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Today 50-70 % of the railway wagons go empty, at the same time as these large transport companies would like to double their capacity on the railway.
They want to make use of 40 000 wagons.
Otherwise, they would be forced to use 80 000 lorries, which is something none of us would like to see.
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It would make me very happy if in some way we could give them the reply that in the near future a concrete initiative may be taken by the EU to help these transport companies which do want to transport their goods by rail.
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<SPEAKER ID=285 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
I will send a full reply in writing to the honourable lady, but I am grateful for her close interest.
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Perhaps I could illustrate the point she makes further by saying that if the rail-freight freeways - just one freeway - which the Commission has worked with others to organize, were used, it could mean the removal of 70 000 trucks every year from the roads of the European Union.
That would work to the advantage of competitiveness, employment and a sustainable environment throughout the Union.
When I send her the documents I am sure she will be interested enough to want to set them to music - they are real poetry.
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<SPEAKER ID=286 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Kinnock.
As you all know, these 60 minutes are shared out between three Commissioners, and it was Mr Kinnock's turn today for a very long contribution to Question Time.
As is his wont, he has answered as meticulously and thoroughly as we have come to expect.
But I must thank him specially today for all his hard work.
So once again, thank you very much, Mr Kinnock.
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Since the time allocated to questions to the Commission has now expired, Questions Nos 52 to 119 will be dealt with in writing.
<P>
That concludes Question Time.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 7.03 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
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<CHAPTER ID=12>
Towards a Europe of Knowledge
<SPEAKER ID=287 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0166/98) by Mr Perry, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the Commission communication to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: "Towards a Europe of Knowledge' (COM(97)0563 - C4-0649/97).
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<SPEAKER ID=288 NAME="Perry">
Mr President, Britain's Labour Prime Minister, now the President of the Council of Ministers, began his administration by saying that his priorities were 'education, education, education' .
I have observed that he has adopted many sensible policies and priorities from the previous Conservative administration, and I am happy to say that I share with him those priorities and I believe that for the European Union too our priorities should be education, education, education.
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Students, however, please note that does not mean I am about to propose the introduction of tuition fees for students across Europe.
Indeed, without seeking to labour a political point, I would urge all members of the Council of Education Ministers to consider how unilateral actions on their part, such as introducing charges for students, can, perhaps unintentionally but nonetheless, do great damage to the task of helping students gain part of their higher education in different parts of Europe.
So when I say 'education, education, education' , I recognize in my report that substantial extra resources are needed.
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This Parliament showed its commitment to that in the conciliation process in last year's budget when we fought for and achieved additional funding for the present Socrates programme and the Commission and the Council do not doubt the overwhelming agreement across the parties in this Parliament to put extra money into education.
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It is in that perspective that I shall ask Parliament to reject Amendment No 2 to my report, which seeks a doubling of the funding, if possible.
Since we are dealing with what are in reality very modest sums of money, why limit ourselves to doubling?
Two times very little is still very little and budgetary policy is always constrained by what is possible.
So I say to the Council: ' put your money where your mouth is' .
I know it is an old cliché often raised in this House but we have put almost ECU 1bn into tobacco growing, ostensibly for employment protection.
Put that sort of money into education for employment promotion and to positively help the people of Europe, help our people prepare for new jobs, not just protect old jobs.
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Of course, it is not for the European Union to undertake the responsibility for education across Europe but we need to recognize that Europeans must be assisted to get the best out of the opportunities of the single market, which is where the European Union must be involved.
The Union must provide an add-on extra to the educational provision by the Member States.
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I am quite clear in my mind that this means building on the existing programmes.
Keep the existing names for the programmes Socrates, Leonardo, Youth For Europe.
It takes a long time to get public recognition, and constant changes of name make the schemes obscure and little known.
The schemes can be modified and should be modified and updated, but the name should remain.
<P>
Those students who embark on these schemes are putting the European ideal into effect.
They must be congratulated and helped and certainly must not be penalized for doing so, which is why it is particularly important to have proper recognition for the study time spent in other EU states.
For the most part this works well, but not always.
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On a related matter, I want to raise the question of our redoubling our efforts to get mutual recognition of academic certificates and qualifications.
Failure to achieve this is becoming a real inhibitor to mobility across Europe, and it is a vital necessity in the days of the euro and the single currency to help the labour force to be truly flexible.
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I have drawn attention to the need for a European dimension in ancillary education services, such as vocational guidance.
Possible employment opportunities in other countries of the Union should not be a closed book, and with facilities such as the Internet, there is every possibility for students to be made aware of employment opportunities throughout Europe.
That is why in the report I support the Netdays and Netyear projects, which help our students link up to the Internet and put it to good use.
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I have touched in my report on elements of the school curriculum and I wish to emphasize in this speech the importance of including in our programme links with central and eastern Europe with the accession countries.
I see this as especially important for a country like Slovakia where we need to help its people develop their fullest democratic potential, and educational exchanges are especially useful in that respect.
Similarly, we need also to develop educational links with other neighbouring countries and cultures.
I would particularly cite our neighbours in the Islamic world where mutual understanding and respect still need much promotion.
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To turn to the amendments, I have already explained that Amendment No 2 is too limiting and too precise about funding.
Let us just agree that we mean what we say when we say a substantial increase in funding is needed.
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Amendment No 1, dealing with the reformed Structural Funds in the European Union vocational programme, is very useful, and I welcome that.
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The third amendment I must leave to the House.
We need to be very careful not to behave like ostriches on the question of language and ensure that we concentrate on a core language so our people really can achieve that flexibility across the whole of Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=289 NAME="Hatzidakis">
Mr President, first of all I would like to express my warmest and most sincere congratulations to Mr Perry on his report. I would then like to say that my congratulations to the Commission are not quite so warm because I have good things to say and bad things to say concerning this Commission communication on the Europe of Knowledge.
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There are good things in this report such as, let us say, among the principles which govern the programmes, the restricted number of objectives, the focused actions and the emphasis placed on the partnership relationship and the promotion of the principle of partnership.
However, beyond this, a feature which governs this Commission communication is its generality, its lack of detail.
There is no appreciation of old, existing programmes, Socrates, Leonardo and Youth For Europe.
The interim report on the Leonardo programme does not shed light on the profile and the numbers of participants nor on the impact of the programme.
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There is a problem with regard to the complementary nature of objective 3 and the new training programmes.
No account has been taken of the interaction of the programmes in question, what objective 3 does, what the new programmes do.
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There is a vagueness as to what the outcomes of the decisions of Luxembourg will be regarding the programmes that concern us here.
In relation to the simplification of procedures, it is well known that the Court of Auditors, in its 1999 budget report, decided that there would be two procedures for the choice of schemes under the Leonardo programme and, for this reason, the Commission quite rightly talks of decentralization in decision-making and of a new procedure, but I think that it is going from one extreme to the other.
The Structural Funds and the necessary procedures for the Structural Funds are one thing; Leonardo, in which the Commission must maintain its administerial and coordination duties is quite another.
<P>
I will finish by saying what we would wish for.
On the part of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs we would like, first of all, a communication without any of these weaknesses and, secondly, we would like to see importance being given to measures relating to language to facilitate mobility and the promotion of information technology.
This is extremely important in view of the incursion into our lives of the information society.
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<SPEAKER ID=290 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Elchlepp">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the communication from the Commission wishes to establish guidelines for future Community initiatives in the area of general vocational training for the period 20002006.
We will discuss these in detail after the Commission has presented its specific proposals on 4 June of this year.
<P>
Today, however, I would like, on behalf of my Parliamentary group, to note that increased cooperation in the field of education in Europe is an important prerequisite for the integration process.
The issue of sufficient funds for exchange programmes and the related question of equal opportunity in terms of access to training and culture for all Europeans should be seen in the context of ideas currently under consideration for a more active labour market policy in the EU.
We must reach a point where all school leavers can speak at least one language and that all young people have the opportunity to gain experience abroad during their vocational training.
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The Commission also considered this context itself in its communication; this makes it all the more incomprehensible that on the one hand, the sums of money being made available for language visits for schoolchildren and young employees within these training programmes are completely inadequate, and on the other hand, the Member States, despite their primary responsibility for educational policy, have done much too little in terms of experiences of other cultures, tolerance and mobility to prepare the youth of Europe for easier access to the common European market.
Only 10 % of schoolchildren, 1 % of vocational trainees and 5 % of students currently take part in exchange programmes.
It is still not bad though!
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I appeal to the Commission and the Council of Ministers to consider, when reorganizing the Social Action Fund for a more active labour market policy, ways in which in future resources from the Social Action Fund can be used for employmentoriented training measures and of course ways too in which Socrates and Leonardo could be considerably better equipped to complement in an innovative way the European Union's efforts in the field of employment.
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Therefore, as far as the quite excellent training programmes are concerned, I have tabled an amendment to the brilliant report by Mr Perry which not only demands a considerable increase in funding but also requests that, if possible, the level of funding be doubled from the year 2000 onwards; without this, even today's tasks cannot be completed in view of the enlargement of the EU towards the east and the level and availability of individual funds which in socio-political terms are currently unacceptably low.
Vague statements being interpreted in one way or in another does not help young people much; it is in the final analysis the credibility of Europe which is at stake.
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<SPEAKER ID=291 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Heinisch">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in its communication on a Europe of Knowledge the Commission provides guidelines for the next generation of European training programmes.
I think that anyone who is involved in politics, whether at a European level or within the Member States, is aware of the crucial importance which thorough planning of our customary training programmes will have for the European Union in the 21st century.
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However, is it a prerequisite of a successful working life to ensure that as many different people as possible have a general education and vocational training? Do programmes which promote the European exchange of culture and training or look after the education of the young individual contribute significantly to the political integration of the Union?
In this context I welcome the Commission's plan to simplify the administration which will be required to implement the programmes and to ensure greater openness and transparency in its organization.
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It also seems important to me, however, to lend continuity to incentive measures in the area of training.
It is specifically in schools and in the area of youth that cooperation structures have been built over the years.
They represent a potential which we should take advantage of.
I therefore consider it important that the three programmes be continued separately in their current form.
We should attempt, in doing so, to introduce improvements into the existing system by building on a careful evaluation of programmes to date.
In any case, the network of solid human relations that has been established with the help of previous programmes and which is also the goal of these programmes must not threatened by changes which are meant well but are not well thought out.
<P>
Finally, I would like to offer Mr Perry my congratulations on his very good report.
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<SPEAKER ID=292 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Guinebertière">
<SPEAKER ID=293 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ryynänen">
Mr President, the Commission's communication now being debated by the European Parliament on the working principles and aims of education and youth programmes in the next millennium is of vital importance to the citizens of the Union.
Mr Perry's excellent report provides a good basis for further discussion.
I hope that the Commission pays attention in their forthcoming proposals to the talks both the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media and Parliament have had, although inexcusably little time has been allowed for them to have had an effect.
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The reform of the education and youth programmes is not just a technical process but a great opportunity to hold discussions on just those European values we wish to base our future on.
At their very best the EU education and youth programmes are the very tool we can use to bring the citizens of the Community closer together and realize, in practical terms, our goals of tolerance, equality and sustainable development.
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The Amsterdam Treaty stresses how important it is for everyone to have the opportunity to receive a high standard of education and work as a committed citizen of the Union.
The active participation of citizens is best helped by a motivating European youth policy that offers, furthermore, a variety of learning contexts outside the classroom.
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The role of national organizations in lifelong learning should be given more weight.
We should also be able to pull down the old barriers between college, jobs and the so-called third sector.
Through interaction we can achieve partnerships and forms of cooperation that will open up new opportunities for personal development and finding employment.
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I believe that we are all convinced of the great importance of the European education and youth policy and the need for its development.
Now is the time to recognize its importance in concrete terms too, and draw the right conclusions which will be clearly translated as increased figures in future education budgets.
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<SPEAKER ID=294 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, I want to say that I agree with the position of the rapporteur, Mr Perry. I would like to mention three obstacles, in my opinion, which relate to the creation of a Society of Knowledge, young people and the role of the European Union in all this.
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The first obstacle is - and I think Mr Perry also referred to it - the reduced sums of money utilized by the European Union. We cannot give, in the name of subsidiarity, such a low priority to culture and education when it comes to funding.
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The second obstacle is the difficulty of access to third level education, which has become extreme in some countries such as Greece, where the possibility of whether the child will enter further education or not has become a drama for the families concerned.
At the end of the day this is a matter which affects not only Greece but the rest of Europe.
<P>
The third obstacle, in my opinion, is the need to retain a cultural dimension, especially in matters relating to language.
There is a problem with regard to languages which have the support of fewer population groups and I think the European Union needs to put into effect special measures on their behalf.
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In finishing I would like to mention the importance of supporting and pursuing the teaching of the mother tongue, such as Ancient Greek and Latin, of many countries of the European Union in the face of what we see happening in various countries.
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<SPEAKER ID=295 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Leperre-Verrier">
At a time when society is reflecting upon the issue of transmission of our knowledge and values to future generations, it is particularly reassuring to see the European institutions looking into the concept of knowledge.
I would like to congratulate the Commissioner for the work she has undertaken so far, for she has been deeply involved in the White Paper which the Commission recently proposed to us.
Indeed, at a time when the youth and education programmes are coming to an end, it is necessary not only to be able to evaluate them, but also to give a new direction to their actions according to previously agreed central themes.
In this respect, I understand and appreciate the desire to emphasize training and education and to ensure that it is encouraged throughout life.
<P>
Secondly, we know that employment policy is inseparable from education policy and that it is thus necessary to give everyone a chance to be trained.
I therefore support the desires which have been expressed to rationalize the objectives, to develop transnational mobility, to encourage recourse to new educational tools and to promote language learning.
In this respect, particular efforts must be made to help schools enter a new era and to learn to communicate through new technologies.
<P>
Apart from these comments, I would like to highlight what some colleagues have already said, in particular the rapporteur, Mr Perry, whom I would like to congratulate on the quality of his work.
Indeed, it is absolutely necessary to keep the current names of the programmes.
The youth of Europe know these names now.
I am thinking in particular of the Socrates programme, so appreciated by young people.
It would be a shame if they lost a little of that recognition because their names were changed.
It is undoubtedly necessary to move beyond these programmes and to create a true status for students in order to encourage their mobility.
Furthermore, I think it necessary to implement youth programmes which are distinct from education programmes.
<P>
In conclusion, I would like to remind you that these new programmes must not only help European youth to embark upon the new millennium but they must also mark the opening of our Union towards the east, and perhaps also towards the south and that, in this, young people have an irreplaceable role to play.
These are therefore the challenges which lie before us.
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<SPEAKER ID=296 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sichrovsky">
Mr President, the financing issue mentioned again and again here is unfortunately only a part of the solution.
What is still lacking are programmes whose content concentrates not only on learning but also on learning needs.
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Also missing are direct links to other areas.
One example of such a link would be the Dutch report, "Culture 2000' , which for the first time creates a link between education, a training programme and the culture market in a country.
So people no longer say that culture requires more and more money and more and more subsidies but that there is a solution to subsidies in the area of culture if we learn more, experience more, buy more books, go to the cinema more often, visit more museums and thus spend more money on the culture market.
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This report, however, also mentions briefly the problem of language, which has not yet been discussed here.
The problem of language diversity in Europe cannot be reduced to a purely practical problem; instead, it must take into account the cultural needs of the individual countries.
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<SPEAKER ID=297 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papakyriazis">
Mr President, the Europe of Knowledge and learning in the global information society of today and tomorrow must be the main objective, I believe, of the European Union.
Moreover, the Amsterdam Treaty has already given a clear direction to the European Union towards this objective as an obligation in the broader sense.
I would like to remind you that, with the Amsterdam Treaty, the Member States are under an obligation to promote the development of the highest possible level of knowledge for all people.
Naturally the substructure of this attempt can only be the younger generation.
In very simple terms this means that our greatest effort must be directed towards our young people, that is to say, the future of tomorrow and the future of today.
This means that any programme which reinforces the natural tendency of children to communicate, the mobility of youth within the Member States and familiarization with customs in other countries must be the foundation of our policy.
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I believe that the programme presented to us by the Commission constitutes a real basis, as was demonstrated moreover by the debate which took place in the Parliamentary committees, and I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Mr Perry on the main report and Mr Hatzidakis on the opinion which was drawn up in my own committee, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
The debate which took place in the European Parliament and the debate which is taking place today, as well as the final decision which I hope we will come to, show that such an ambitious, great and difficult attempt can be enriched and pursued in this direction.
I believe, for example, that the proposal which is contained in this programme, that in other words there must be a common axis for action to enable this activity to be better coordinated and supervised, is quite right.
This, in my opinion, does not mean that there is any contradiction in retaining the names of the programmes as they are today.
<P>
I would like to make just one comment on the issues related to training, since I am on the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, as I have said.
I believe that, given the direction the new professions are taking and the historic crossroads at which the European Union finds itself with the opening up of the European Union to the countries of Eastern Europe, professional training today must be at the very centre of our policy. This will not only provide working people with the opportunity of achieving life-long retraining but will enable the unemployed to gain access to the world of work.
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<SPEAKER ID=298 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Vaz da Silva">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, as the Commission says in its communication, the society of the future will be founded on knowledge; knowledge in terms of quantity, but most of all the quality and the up-to-date validity of that knowledge.
And this is true not just for a few people, but for people of all classes and all ages.
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I recently heard it said that nowadays 'we need to share out knowledge in the same way as we once needed to share out bread' .
A learning process that lasts a lifetime - not just a few years while we are young - opens the doors to employment, but also, let us not forget, to personal fulfilment.
Education and culture release the potential for freedom that exists within every person.
We must bear that in mind if we do not want to become a society of robots or yes-men.
<P>
I would like to mention a few points that ought to be of concern to us.
<P>
Firstly, the 'Europe of knowledge' must of course be the whole of Europe.
In the field of knowledge it makes no sense to create exceptions, exemptions and transitional measures for the single market or agriculture. central and eastern Europe are as much an inseparable part of the common European fund of knowledge as Southern or Northern Europe.
<P>
Secondly, there must be a European dimension in our school curricula; not as a subject in itself, but permeating the whole system.
And the European languages should not be taught only as foreign languages; they should become a vehicle for teaching the various subjects.
<P>
Thirdly, the creation of 'info-points' to be used in common by the Union and other international organizations concerned with education and youth, such as the Council of Europe, UNESCO or the OECD, would be a powerful means of achieving the cooperation that is much discussed but little practised.
<P>
And, finally, if the Union recognizes the primary importance of education, it must express that recognition by means of firm political decisions which will enable it to be successfully implemented.
I would specify three: a visible increase in financial resources, indexing them at a minimum percentage of the Community budget immediately; rapid general availability of access to the new technologies from primary school age; and a bold language programme - this is very important - consisting of teaching two foreign languages from the elementary stage onwards, a European language which can be used as a common means of communication between all citizens, reinforced by a second language, not forgetting that non-European languages are increasingly being spoken in Europe.
<P>
We are the heirs of '48' , when the idea of Europe was conceived.
Fifty years on, it is our duty to give that Europe fresh impetus by instilling new values and new priorities.
That is what Mr Perry has tried to do in his report, and I congratulate him on his excellent work.
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<SPEAKER ID=299 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Poisson">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on his interesting work, which enables us to alert the Commission once more to the tremendous challenges which education, training and youth represent.
It is vital to the future of the European Union to preserve and expand these proven programmes, despite a low level of funding.
As the rapporteur highlighted, and I quote, "in the context of limited financial resources, European added value can be achieved only by developing the future programmes as real transnational 'European laboratories for innovation'' .
<P>
Europe must make use of shock treatment, for tomorrow's society will be one of intelligence, research and knowledge, bringing with it work and wealth.
The emphasis on the need to lay the foundations of an integrated youth policy, as distinct from education programmes, seems extremely important to me.
By stimulating young people's creativity, we can get them involved in the fight against social exclusion and violence at home and at school.
Continuing education, gained within youth organizations, in particular sports organizations, must be recognized and encouraged.
In my region, I support pilot initiatives for young people from inner city areas, which involve them in sport and other activities and encourage knowledge, creativity, and contact with young people in rural areas.
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We have an enormous task before us in Europe.
Determination and consistency are required.
Unfortunately, traditional accountancy methods attach little importance to intangible assets.
At a time when the euro is being introduced, is it not necessary to consider the creation of a currency of knowledge?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=300 NAME="Evans">
<SPEAKER ID=301 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Todini">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, I would first like to congratulate Mr Perry on his exhaustive report and say that it has come at a particularly opportune time because, at the moment, we are - quite rightly - not doing anything except talk about the European monetary system and financial issues, and tomorrow we have an important vote to cast.
However, it is absolutely essential to talk about a Europe of knowledge and to resolve to create a true European educational system in which priority is given to knowledge, citizenship and the development of employment skills, all issues requiring effective promotion of education and training.
<P>
There is certainly something to be said about Mr Perry's report. The main thing is the way it has been sidelined by the Commission.
On a bitter note, we can see immediately that the document has been forwarded with a certain amount of delay, and this is always a problem: Parliament is called to give its opinion late on the Commission's decisions.
I would like to hope that this will not happen any more because the proposals drawn up by the European Parliament - which is after all made up of Members elected by the people of Europe - are extremely important.
We are all aware of the importance of the topics we are examining, and it is therefore fundamental that we work hand-in-hand.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=302 NAME="Tongue">
Mr President, I would like to thank our rapporteur for a very comprehensive report which I think has brought together all the feelings and the interests that we have as a committee. I will try not to repeat any except the necessity of incorporating the European dimension in education.
In that I think, Madam Commissioner, that you can lead as a facilitator although of course it is naturally up to nation states to build that into their national curriculum.
<P>
We talk incessantly about the globalization of the economy and yet we constrain our young people within a very national curriculum; that clearly has to change if we mean what we say about them becoming employable in a global economy and in particular in a European single market.
All that you can do is to emphasize to Member States that they build into every subject that European dimension - that in mathematics they learn who Pythagoras was, where he came from and the contribution that somebody like him made to mathematics as a whole.
<P>
Mr Evans picked up a key point in Mr Perry's report on the need for civic education which again is critical in terms of ensuring that our young people understand the society within which they live.
On behalf of the Federal Trust and the Secondary Schools Association of the European Union I would like to thank you, Madam Commissioner, and your Directorate-General for the invaluable support that you have given to a project on citizenship.
It has enabled this project to develop teaching materials on citizenship, and European citizenship in particular, containing a whole module on European democracy and in particular this Parliament.
I believe it should have disseminated across our secondary schools in the European Union as a matter of urgency before the European elections next year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=303 NAME="Cresson">
<SPEAKER ID=304 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Madam Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=13>
Protection of minors in audiovisual and information services
<SPEAKER ID=305 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0153/98) by Mr Whitehead, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the proposal for a Council Recommendation concerning the protection of minors and human dignity in audiovisual and information services (COM(97)0570 - C4-0670/97-97/0329(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=306 NAME="Whitehead">
Mr President, this is the first substantial debate which we have had since the grand arguments over television without frontiers on the costs and benefits of the new information services.
The services that are offered - more or less, point-to-point, on-line, and now in the wonderful random universe of the Internet - we acknowledge can expand horizons: they cross every border, they enter every home, directly or indirectly they influence us all.
They can multiply almost to infinity the range of information and educational exchanges.
It can be the best of times, but we need to be vigilant that it is not the worst of times too at the hands of those who use these services, not to enable and to enrich but to exploit, degrade and to threaten human dignity.
<P>
This is a debate as old as human society itself: the debate about how that society is enriched.
When I was a student I sat at the feet of Sir Isaiah Berlin in Oxford and heard his lectures on the two concepts of Liberty: positive and negative liberty, freedom to and freedom from.
Freedom to expand horizons, to be challenged, to communicate, and freedom from others who invade our space and destroy the integrity of our lives.
It is the balance, if you like, between Article 10 and Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
How do we reconcile these?
<P>
I welcome the fact that Parliament and the Commission have come together in this matter and have been given full support by the Council under the presidency of my own country and, indeed, before that.
We are coming together, as the Member States have done, to acknowledge a common aim in pursuing the pedlars of illegal material and the systems through which, freed from restraints of time or scarcity, they can sometimes entrap the young and the vulnerable.
The vulnerable are not always the young and the young are not always the vulnerable.
We need vigilance and we need cooperation between police forces in the Member States who can be effective against illegal material, be it child pornography or race hatred, throughout our Community and, indeed, beyond.
<P>
There is much that is not illegal and for which a free society should have tolerance but which can, nevertheless, be harmful to some.
Following very much along the lines of the recommendation from the Commission, and I welcome the fact that two directorates have come together with a convergent recommendation in this matter, and an action plan. This is a wonderful state of affairs, for which we are deliriously happy now.
We call in the report for a process whereby technical development and convergence go hand in hand with a monitoring review of the way in which these different services operate.
That is what the report from the Commission essentially recommends. It should be on the basis of self-regulation responsibly exercised by service and content providers with the maximum linkage to domestic filtering schemes - like the PICs scheme in my own country - and the close involvement of citizens' initiatives like the Internet Watch schemes pioneered in the Netherlands and elsewhere.
<P>
The recommendation and the action plan invite the Member States to be proactive, to promote research, to involve teachers as well as parents and to facilitate the exchange of information.
These are worthy aims.
The four-point plan set forth in the proposal for the Commission to bring about definitions of good practice, to facilitate research, the sharing of experience, the linkage with the authorities of law and order are wholly commendable.
The Birmingham assizes under the UK presidency address this issue.
<P>
I should like to congratulate my very old friend, Mark Fisher, for his work with our Secretary of State, Chris Smith, to see that this proposal has a fair wind through the Culture Council in May.
<P>
Commissioner Oreja, I am delighted to have you with us.
We listened to you with interest in Birmingham a few weeks ago.
We are grateful, also, for the support of your team from DG X who are alongside you tonight, and I am grateful for the work of my colleagues and my two assistants who have worked on this report.
<P>
Our recommendations and our amendments are pretty self-evident also.
I pass over the sonorous platitudes which every report has in the recommendations in the preambles and turn only to the more hard-edged recommendations for toughening up the four points at the end of the report.
<P>
Commissioner, I hope you can address, in particular, Amendment No 19 which calls for an evaluation report by the Commission to be placed before Parliament and the Council within two years.
We hope you can commend this as a measure of the effectiveness, and not merely the effects, of self-regulation with an indication of what further measures may be necessary.
<P>
It is precisely that form of precautionary scrutiny aimed at bringing the best out of the self-regulators of tomorrow which will be a benchmark for those efforts.
They, of course, may fail.
Colleagues have evidence of failures in other fields where it has probably been the hacker rather than the huckster involved up until now.
We hope they succeed.
But whether they do or do not, we have to make certain that Parliament and the Commission together have played their part.
They and we travel hopefully, but warily, down the electronic highway together.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=307 NAME="Casini C.">
Mr President, firstly we need to applaud the Commission for taking action as much as for its intentions: it does not duck issues in a field where the Community is not really competent to act.
<P>
Secondly, I will deal with the request to discuss measures already existing at Community level: we have already adopted the "Television without frontiers' directive which rules that no programme should seriously harm the physical, mental and moral development of minors. This particularly concerns programmes containing scenes of violence, pornography or gratuitous violence.
Various joint actions have already been undertaken.
More specifically, we are encouraging exchange programmes between people responsible for combating the trade in human beings and the sexual exploitation of children. Another joint action within the same field aims to combat racism and xenophobia.
<P>
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights believes it necessary to extend all three joint actions, and also the Europol Convention to specifically include the protection of minors and human dignity within the audiovisual and information services, and to adapt the legal system accordingly.
It believes all this to be very important.
<P>
The Commission's proposal mentions the protection of minors and the protection of dignity.
It is not just a question of protecting minors, but also of protecting human dignity. This applies to everyone, not just minors.
Sooner or later we need to make a thorough examination of the present-day pornographic industry, which can reach out to a potentially larger market through new information media, particularly the Internet. We must understand this change is motivated by money and not freedom of thought.
I think these issues must be tackled.
Recent news events show that persistent, obsessive pornographic messages are closely connected with serious acts of violence that have occurred recently, which include extreme forms of violence against minors.
<P>
For these reasons, while accepting the Commission's proposal, I think that in future we need to emphasize the need for wider reflection on the entire subject of pornography. We should not be content with self-regulation but should implement effective regulations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=308 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Ahlqvist">
Mr President, the report we are now dealing with leads us into a very important discussion of principles.
Two fundamental values are set against each other: the need to protect our children against damaging materials, such as violence and pornography on the one hand, and on the other, the principle of freedom of expression, something we Swedes care greatly about.
<P>
It is important to emphasize the value of new technology and the Internet from the point of view of information.
There are not only advantages but disadvantages as well with the new technology.
One of the advantages is that people who, for reasons of geography or culture, have not had access to information, libraries or bookshops can now take in what information they wish.
Once one has learnt to navigate on the Net, it is like wandering around the world's biggest and best library.
<P>
The Internet may, however, also be a source of disinformation which can have serious consequences, especially for the weaker members of society.
I am thinking of the children.
Freedom of speech is a sacred principle, but it cannot be applied at the cost of our children's right to grow up harmoniously.
It is very difficult to set up joint rules on illegal material.
It will be even more difficult to agree on how to define the concept of "damaging' .
<P>
I support my party friend Mr Whitehead's proposal on joint rules for marking lists of contents with the aim of simplifying the identification of illegal and damaging contents.
I also support a regular review of a system of self-regulation and a review of this action plan after two years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=309 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Añoveros Trias de Bes">
Mr President, Commissioner, in the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media we have been very clear about Mr Whitehead's report, so when we examined it on 23 April we approved it unanimously.
I must make two clarifications, following on from what my colleague Mr Casini said, about our views on this protection.
<P>
We have to consider on the one hand the protection of minors from certain contents which can affect their physical or moral development and, on the other hand, the protection of human dignity from illegal content, which is banned throughout society, regardless of the age of the potential recipients, and which goes against the very foundations of society: specifically, as I said, our dignity.
<P>
As the rapporteur states in his magnificent report, the new communication media offer their content to any user anywhere at any time. That has to be regulated to retain protection for the weakest.
But let us not forget that the Member States regulate this matter, and therefore this regulation is not enough unless it is accompanied by active government policy. Without promoting cooperation between the police and the judicial authorities, it might be possible to limit the excesses, but it would not be possible to put an end to the illegal activities.
<P>
There have to be minimum guidelines, based on four key elements: consultation, a code of good practice, national authority and regular review.
Those are the objectives the European Union is proposing.
Will it all work in practice?
At least we agree that it is worth a try.
And, Mr President, at least so far, we have an enormous degree of consensus.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=310 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Todini">
Mr President, Commissioner, the subject we are dealing with this evening seems to me to be extremely important and I wish to take up an idea already expressed by Mr Carlo Casini, namely, that the audiovisual and information services industry cannot disregard respect for human dignity and, above all, the protection of minors.
The idea of protecting human dignity is therefore of paramount importance.
<P>
Member States should therefore assess their own national systems by applying a procedure drawn up at European level. The idea would be to promote national self-regulation of on-line services while also testing other new means of protecting minors.
Apart from these technical and operational methods, we also need to continue to stimulate and encourage adequate training and education for minors and families in the use of new digital resources. If we fail to adopt a two-pronged approach, nothing will be of any use.
<P>
It is therefore important for all Europe to adopt a common moral approach to the information society. It is right for each of the Member States to be responsible for its own internal affairs and it is perhaps important for states that have already adopted these types of regulations to be able to provide models for others.
For example, Italy has recently adopted a code of conduct that regulates the relationship between the television industry and minors and it seems to me this is moving things along in the right direction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=311 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ryynänen">
Mr President, when we speak of preserving human dignity and protecting the under-aged in audiovisual services we are in a very sensitive area.
It is easy to see it as a black and white issue, where there is support, on the one hand, for freedom of expression and a condemnation of censorship, and on the other, for the protection of children and a condemnation of greedy, commercial exploitation.
I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Philip Whitehead, whose report balances the points of view splendidly and goes into the problem in depth, at the same time skilfully managing not to bring the two attitudes to a head.
<P>
I believe that we all broadly agree on the need for protection, as it stands.
The police and the judicial powers in different Member States are becoming aware of the need for closer cooperation in prohibiting, for example, illegal or in any way harmful, offensive or fraudulent material on the Internet.
<P>
A new media industry, however, requires a new approach.
The old, paternal-style control from on high simply will not work with the new services, and the Commission suggests self-regulation as a solution to the problem.
In an action plan, governments are urged to promote self-regulation through an extensive network of cooperation.
This really must lead to the creation of an industry, rights of use and services with providers.
An alternative approach is the creation of custom and practice regulations on a national level, and it would then be the duty of the Commission to coordinate and support a network of national self-regulatory systems and information sharing.
<P>
Self-regulation is certainly to the benefit of all enlightened service providers, but are all service providers so enlightened?
If they were, the problem would be eliminated.
But self-regulation on its own is not always enough.
There must also be the desire to establish international standards that are effective, but which, at the same time, take stock of cultural differences.
No internationally-based agreement can work unless there is practical commitment through ongoing cross-border partnership.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=312 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Mr President, information technology is indeed progressing in leaps and bounds and is dismantling the technology of the state of law at national level, while the state of law at European level is simply marking time.
At the moment we are lacking the means of researching and intervening in these issues, as Mr Whitehead quite rightly described, and for this reason we are lacking the organized will to carry it out.
The Commission's proposals are adapted to our weaknesses.
Mr Whitehead put it well and was right in proposing that we strengthen the measures to control the monitoring of self-regulation.
However, I do not believe in these measures, I do not have faith in them; they will not produce any results.
<P>
Perhaps the Commission, operating as a think tank, could draw up a scenario, as it has done in the past, on what we would do if, in fact, we had a politically united Europe with a truly European state of law. How would we react to this attempt to surrender our children to the powers of profit and money and to total indifference to anything else?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=313 NAME="Tongue">
Mr President, I would like to start by congratulating Phillip Whitehead on his report.
He has worked with great speed and erudition and shown a clear understanding of the issues and great complexities involved.
On the one hand he has encouraged creativity and commercial success on the Internet, but he has also defended freedom of expression, respecting privacy and reconciling this with the need to defend human dignity and protect minors.
As Phillip himself has said, in a generally literate climate there will always be those who will want to trade in cruelty and fear in order to debauch society.
<P>
It seems possible that everyone can go almost everywhere on the Internet.
People can often go where they did not intend to go.
A teacher recently informed me that in her class children were able to access adult material the minute her back was turned.
In another class an innocent search using a pop group's name led them into material that would be illegal for adults to download.
Obscenity is clearly endangering the benefits of the Internet.
Because of fears such as this parents tell me that they may buy their children a PC but not the modem that will give them access to the world-wide web.
This is the real problem that we have to address.
<P>
The Internet has a great potential to be an educational tool, a means by which our citizens can communicate across frontiers, bringing Europe closer together, a vital tool of citizenship, a complement to public service broadcasters, a window on open government, a means of addressing the powerful.
But it will never be any of these things unless parents can be confident that they can leave their children alone with a PC and a modem.
<P>
What is the role of the European Union?
As we advance into the dilemmas posed by online services the European Union has a vital role to play in developing the Internet as a citizenship tool.
It can enable us to maximize transfrontier cooperation.
In a medium that is still developing it can enable us to share the very best practice.
Mr Whitehead rightly places emphasis on a systematic review of how national systems of self-regulation are working.
He is also right to call for an assessment after two years as to whether regulatory action is needed.
Self regulation, as you heard Mr Oreja in Birmingham, always needs oversight of last resort if the self-regulators should falter or even fail.
<P>
Most important, I believe, is Amendment No 6 where Mr Whitehead reminds us that competition is not the be-all and end-all of human endeavour.
Industry has a responsibility to the wider society.
If the Internet is to move into every home, we need to look to the communications industries now for effective means of ensuring that self-regulation and maybe regulation exist to ensure that the Internet is both safe and beneficial to all our citizens.
<P>
I look forward, thanks to the collaboration between the Commission and Parliament, to an early adoption of this recommendation under the UK Presidency, particularly with the blessing of British Ministers Chris Smith and Mark Fisher.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=314 NAME="Banotti">
Mr President, about 20 years ago I was talking to an elderly gentleman about the generation gap.
He said to me: ' Of course there is a generation gap.
The only exposure I had as a child to anywhere outside the street where I lived in Cork was when we went down to a neighbour's house and put our ears up to an old steam radio and heard somebody far away singing 'When the red red robbin comes bob bob bobbing along'.
Look at what my grandchildren are seeing now.'
He was, of course, at that stage referring only to the television.
<P>
We are extremely happy to totally support Mr Whitehead's excellent report.
As has already been said, it was supported unanimously in committee.
I am also conscious, as somebody who still has not managed to crack this system, of the difficulty for all of us in legislating for such a volatile and dynamic medium.
Parents are rightly concerned.
Unfortunately, just as with the television set, it is not always possible to leave your children alone.
Many voluntary groups concerned about the material which is undoubtedly appearing and, as Carole Tongue has rightly said, is very easily accessible need to go back to some of the most simple rules when, whether you can understand it or not, you try to accompany your children on some of their journeys into cyberspace.
You might not quite understand what is going on, you might have to pretend you understand, but the mere fact that they are aware that you are interested and with them might in itself be a very useful way in which we can deal with this.
All to frequently almost on a daily basis we see evidence that children have become desensitized by some of the material they have been exposed to, both on the Internet and on our television screens.
Often with deeply tragic results.
<P>
I wish to join the chorus of praise for Mr Whitehead.
This was a totally unanimous report.
None of us have any problems in supporting the points he made and we hope very much that the effectiveness of voluntary regulation will be demonstrated as soon as we get the first report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=315 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Daskalaki">
Mr President, the issue we are debating is something more than just important, as everyone has said, and it behoves us to extend our warmest congratulations to Mr Whitehead on his meticulous work.
I wish to stress that our group fully supports his proposals, which were adopted unanimously in the relevant committee.
The protection of minors and the protection of human dignity in audiovisual services and in information services in general is a very important issue in an age of electronic convergence.
This protection is urgent and necessary, when we bear in mind the type of illicit material which has begun to circulate widely on international networks.
<P>
The Commission recommends that the Member States work towards a national framework of self-regulation, encourage the experimental implementation of new methods to protect children and help to make parents aware, and other related measures.
It also seeks a code of conduct from industry, while the Commission itself is called upon to facilitate the networking of those authorities which have undertaken to determine and implement national networks of self-regulation and to facilitate measures against illicit material.
<P>
The rapporteur for his part provides significant clarifications concerning self-regulation and judges it desirable to advance European cooperation to strengthen the effectiveness of technical measures and to determine a common ethical approach.
We must see how best to achieve this approach - its weaknesses have already been highlighted by certain quarters - and this is a fundamental aim, since it must be achieved over and against all the other pressures and possible interests.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=316 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Poisson">
<SPEAKER ID=317 NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, some debates are especially pleasing, and this is one of them.
It is pleasing firstly, because this is an important matter which affects the European model of society; secondly, because it achieved unanimity in committee; and thirdly, because it is practically identical to the Commission's earlier proposal.
So I have to say it is with great satisfaction that I am here for this debate, to listen to the Members and see how we are tackling this important matter, with a much-needed on-line programme, and with determination and decision.
We would like to go further, because self-regulation might not be enough, but this is all we can do at the moment.
The truth is, I think this is a good beginning - a good start to what we need to do.
<P>
Next I want to congratulate in particular Mr Whitehead.
He has done extremely good work, and has given a masterly presentation of it here today.
It is also important because it is not one of those routine reports that Members have to do. It is the result of Mr Whitehead's conviction.
He has done this because of his conviction, and that is why he has also been able to convince other people. I sincerely congratulate him on the work he has done, both as rapporteur for the Green Paper on the protection of minors and human dignity and in this recommendation.
<P>
I also think there has been excellent collaboration between Parliament and the Commission right from the outset.
I hope that continues in the future, as regards this subject and others, but especially in connection with this one.
<P>
I think this recommendation is an important step for the European Union for several reasons. My first reason is of a general nature.
On several occasions, I have mentioned the importance of the ethical dimension of the information society.
Things are happening today, such as the euro coming into force, which has now become a reality.
However, together with this and other events, such as the internal market, there is something we cannot forget: a final political project based on ethical limitations.
We would not achieve anything, no matter how much progress we make with economic or monetary problems, without an ethical project to guide our actions. This is just that sort of project.
<P>
It also seeks to provide a high level of protection of general interests, which is also one of the European Union's priorities. It addresses what I referred to at the beginning of my speech: the meaning of the European model of society.
I think that is one of the things which should concern us at a time like this.
The European social model is not the same as others, as we are seeing all the time.
We must stick up for and protect that European model of society, and this recommendation and this report address precisely that idea and that model of society.
<P>
Furthermore, it is also essential - nobody could doubt this - to increase the competitiveness of audiovisual and information services, since that helps to create the climate of confidence necessary for their development.
And in that sense the protection of minors - our children and the citizens of the future - is essential, so they can grow up in a suitable audiovisual environment.
<P>
I want to underline something many of the speakers here have said. There is concern to protect minors, but it is not just a question of minors, but also of protecting human dignity.
Mr Whitehead said so, and so did Mr Casini and Mr Añoveros Trias de Bes.
Many speakers have mentioned what this concern about human dignity means, not just for the protection of children - which is very important - but also for the individual as such, who has a right to that suitable environment.
<P>
Another important aspect of this recommendation is the scope of its application and the nature of the instrument being created.
I think the European Union has managed to provide itself quickly with a legal instrument for audiovisual and information services, as well as for the new on-line services such as those available on the Internet.
<P>
The European Union has clearly demonstrated its ability to react.
I think we are sometimes criticized for being unable to react immediately, but we have done so here. We have reacted and we have reacted quickly.
When the Green Paper was approved, in October 1996, the new on-line services scene posed many questions about how to apply the law. The people involved were themselves often defeated by the challenges and legal complexity of on-line services, beyond the simple statement that anything illegal off-line is also illegal on-line, as must be the case.
In other words, it made no sense to treat the two things differently.
And the work that people have been doing has achieved a consensus, which was so badly needed.
At the moment, the new industry demands a high level of protection of general interests. It is not a matter of questioning the existing set of regulations.
The question is how to facilitate the application of the laws so that the new agents can work in an orderly fashion to produce codes of practice, which is something that was mentioned in all the contributions.
And the keyword is selfregulation, a word which, although delimited by the legal framework, always turns out to be indispensable.
<P>
Furthermore, the recommendation is the first legal instrument to refer to the content of the new on-line audiovisual services. It is also a new normative focus for the definition of guidelines for national measures, to prevent the appearance of guidelines which might be too restrictive for this new industry or, perhaps, too disparate to allow the free movement of services.
<P>
In his report, Mr Whitehead also takes the self-regulation approach. He recognizes its advantages while also stressing of course, in a completely justified manner, its limits.
The judicial and police responsibilities - the competences of the law enforcement authorities - need to be developed in parallel. We must also develop the use of content labelling and filtering schemes.
Most of all, there is a need for monitoring and supervision. We must evaluate how the recommendation is being applied, and do so very carefully.
The rapporteur proposes some amendments to the text which specifically address this aspect and the Commission's intentions. In my opinion, these amendments perfectly reflect the spirit of the recommendation.
<P>
I think the last amendment deserves special attention.
It invites the Commission to present Parliament and the Council with an evaluation report on the implementation and effectiveness of the recommendation.
Several of the speakers have mentioned this, particularly Miss Tongue.
<P>
I want to say here in this Chamber that I will try to make sure that Parliament's wishes on this point are respected in the final text which may be approved by the Council on 28 May. I must add that in satisfying Parliament, it will also satisfy me, because I fully agree with this proposal put forward by Mr Whitehead.
<P>
Also, in the same amendment, the Commission is asked to organize regular consultations with the Member States.
I also want to say, Mr Whitehead, on behalf of the Commission and with all the solemnity implied by a statement made in this Chamber, that the Commission intends to hold periodic meetings on its own initiative with the competent national authorities, as part of the regular monitoring of this recommendation's implementation.
Otherwise, I think it would be a little lame.
I think it is important not just to rely on the recommendation. I think we need this evaluation you have mentioned, on the one hand, and also this meeting with the relevant authorities, in order to find out exactly how far we have got and how things are progressing.
<P>
In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, while the United States, for example, has to some extent failed to get over the Supreme Court's invalidation of the provisions for the protection of minors contained in the Communication Decency Act, I think the European Union has managed to provide itself quickly with a coherent instrument for audiovisual and information services, which can only help to guarantee a high level of protection for minors and human dignity on our continent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=318 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=14>
Interim agreement on trade with Mexico
<SPEAKER ID=319 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0156/98) by Mrs Miranda de Lage, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning the conclusion of the interim agreement on trade and trade-related matters between the European Community, on the one part, and the United Mexican States, on the other part (COM(97)525-11619/1/rev. + 11620/1/97 rev. 1 - C4-0024/98-97/0281(AVC)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=320 NAME="Miranda de Lage">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, the first comment I want to make is that today the United Mexican States make up a nation which, since the start of this decade, has been turning itself into a forceful and promising economy.
The effort to modernize production and the financial system has been accompanied by institutional modernization. In just a few years, the institutional and party system has undergone spectacular change.
Today the institutions are more diversified and participatory.
And as was demonstrated in the most recent elections, the Mexican people have made their choice without being tied by limitations based in the past, thereby becoming the real protagonists of modernity and change in a nation which is now the thirteenth economic power in the world.
<P>
My second comment concerns its ties to the various choices for regional integration and economic blocs.
Mexico plays an increasingly important role in the world economy.
Most notable is its membership of one of the most powerful trade and economic blocs in the world: NAFTA.
Almost 80 % of its exports are directed at the US market.
However you look at it, that degree of dependency is excessive. The reason is that, as is well-known, Mexico's economic autonomy has been reduced ever since 1994, because of the crisis which caused the United States to intervene in that country's economy.
<P>
That fact should not be allowed to detract from the good results being obtained with NAFTA, such as increased investment and industrial modernization - in short, economic awakening.
Nor should it be forgotten that in recent years Mexico has joined organizations such as the OECD or APEC.
But it would also be a good thing to have a fairer distribution of the economic boom and the current benefits.
<P>
My third comment concerns the relationship between the European Union and Mexico.
Our current ties are based on an agreement signed in 1991, the trade aspects of which are limited, and which is obsolete today for the reasons I have given.
I will repeat two of them: Mexico's links with NAFTA, which have significantly reduced our bilateral trade; and, secondly, the fact that Mexico's export pattern has changed so much that today only 9 % of exports to the EU come from the agricultural sector.
<P>
The European Parliament, following the recommendation of the Committee on External Economic Relations, indicated back in 1994 that the situation was beginning to attract attention. At that point, it requested that the Union should place more importance on its political relations and consider negotiating a free trade agreement to provide us with a more balanced presence in the region.
If Parliament ratifies this agreement, the negotiations to open up the markets will be able to start in 30 days' time.
Parliament's recommendations for the final phase were reflected in the explanatory statement and resolution on the communication which were approved in 1995, and should be included in the global agreement.
So we have several months ahead of us, and during that time Parliament will have the chance to follow the negotiations and their progress closely, and make a statement on the final result once negotiations have been completed.
<P>
My fourth comment is that this report has been prepared at a time when the situation is rather complex.
The violent events of the last few months, especially in the state of Chiapas, which have been condemned by all believers in democracy, have meant that this debate - of great importance politically and for the future, no matter how you look at it - has not been quite as relaxed as it might have been.
The inclusion of the democracy clause is a new element in the bilateral relationship, and is directly linked with the new Mexican reality I mentioned earlier.
The process announced in 1994 is still not finished but there has been obvious progress. It would be very short-sighted to deny that.
The fight for fairness, more effective justice, equal opportunities and regional development has still not been completed, nor the objectives achieved, but the same is true of our own societies.
<P>
The EU-Mexico agreement will contain progressive elements and compromises which can help with modernization, regional development, the fight to overcome inequalities and an improvement in the human rights situation.
We will be able to help with this.
<P>
In keeping with Parliament's positions, with the analysis of the current situation and with our policy of cooperation with Latin America, the Committee on External Economic Relations - which has the basic responsibility - the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy and the Committee on Development and Cooperation have all recommended ratification, by a wide majority in each case.
However, our responsibility does not end there.
By means of parliamentary dialogue, established in the protocol signed by the chairman of the relevant delegation, Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra, we have provided ourselves with an instrument to allow us to monitor the relationship and the progress of the signed undertakings, especially the democracy clause.
<P>
Mr President, I conclude by thanking everybody who has helped me: not only the draftsmen of opinions but other Members too, and members of the Committee on External Economic Relations and civil society. They provided elements which are reflected in the explanatory statement, which I believe should satisfy everybody.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=321 NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
Mr President, after congratulating the rapporteur, I would like to say that giving our assent for the interim agreement with Mexico is not the end of the road but the beginning of a new stage in relations between the EU and Mexico.
<P>
Because of its population, size and strategic nature, Mexico - which, under President Zedillo, is immersed in an unfinished process of reforms - is one of the powers of the American continent, and is a real bridge between the United States and Central America. It is also a privileged port of entry for all those foreign investments anxious to establish themselves in the emerging market of Latin America.
<P>
But like the other countries of Latin America, Mexico is not just a market, no matter how important.
This interim agreement, which concerns trade aspects, fits into a wider and more innovative scheme, such as the one the EU wants to establish in the face of the fickleness of other powers, giving total priority to political will.
<P>
The clearest expression of this priority appears in the democracy clause which inspires, or should inspire, all the areas of cooperation in this agreement. Parliament regards this clause as fundamentally important, and it is intended to be mandatory.
<P>
Parliament expressed its concern about the human rights situation in Mexico with its January resolution on the tragic events in Acteal. The Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy wanted to reflect that concern in its opinion.
<P>
The committee also wanted to request that the voice of civil society be taken into account in some way when it comes to monitoring and evaluating this question, which is so sensitive and important.
<P>
To conclude, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur again on her work. I also want to remind people, Mr President, that the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy unanimously recommended giving our assent for this interim agreement, not as a blank cheque but with the view that it will be a useful, valuable element to give EU-Mexican relations the importance they deserve.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=322 NAME="Newens">
Mr President, I wish to congratulate the rapporteur on her work on this report.
Trade between the United States and Canada on one hand and Mexico on the other has been given a very considerable boost by its inclusion in NAFTA, following the Mexican economic crisis.
Without a new agreement with Europe, relations between Mexico would inevitably suffer in political, cultural and other spheres as well as commerce.
<P>
I have a strong antipathy to many aspects of what is described as economic modernisation, to neo-liberal policies, to deregulation and privatisation.
However, the globalization of our economies is an inevitable development and we in this Parliament must surely support an agreement which will help to stimulate trade between Mexico and Europe to our mutual benefit and help tilt the balance against Mexico becoming even more dependent on the United States.
<P>
In the European Parliament we have quite rightly adopted a strong stand on human rights issues.
We have passed a number of resolutions against suppressing the Zapatistas by force of arms, condemning the massacres of last December and appealing for greater social justice for those who are desperately poor, discriminated against and deprived of the communal rights to land.
<P>
We must continue to raise these issues for the very reason that we do care about the Mexican people.
The agreement will strengthen our power to do this; its rejection would lessen the attention paid to our views.
I very much hope that the Commission will fully recognize the importance of monitoring the human rights situation and stressing the deep concern that we feel.
I trust that some indication will be given to us this evening of the acceptance of this notion and how it will be put into practice.
In supporting this agreement I hope that it will assist development on both sides.
<P>
Many Mexicans, above all the indigenous population living in conditions of squalor and degradation without access to the means of obtaining a good standard of living, decent housing, proper education, adequate health care or full recognition as equal citizens, are at the present time demanding changes to provide all their citizens with their basic needs and we must express our solidarity with them and oppose attempts to crush them by violent means.
<P>
The government must, as it has pledged itself to do, pursue peaceful means to resolve the process by following it through to the end.
It must not blame the problem on foreigners, who are continually being deported at the present time.
We hope very much that the agreement will contribute to prosperity, from which all will benefit, and on this basis I hope that it will get the full support of this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=323 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valdivielso de Cué">
Mr President, I want to acknowledge the work and effort put into this report by the rapporteur, Mrs Miranda de Lage.
<P>
Back in 1995, this Parliament recognized the need to broaden and deepen the scope of the agreement which still governs relations between the EU and Mexico because that agreement, dating from April 1991, does not satisfactorily address the new needs of the signatories. Parliament declared itself in favour of a negotiation strategy centred on the conclusion of a new political, commercial and economic agreement, to include strengthened political dialogue and the progressive, reciprocal liberalization of trade in goods and services and investment conditions.
<P>
I want to emphasize the inclusion of the democracy clause as an essential element of the agreement. This clause did not exist in the 1991 framework agreement.
With this clause, the signatories commit themselves to fulfilling their obligations in human rights, as well as social and environmental matters, which are very important in these countries of the American continent.
If they do not, the clause means that the agreement can become invalid.
<P>
In any case, I want to quote what I consider to be the key paragraph in this recommendation: "the imperative need for economic policy to reflect a firm desire to promote greater social equality and a political system that is genuinely democratic and pluralist and which respects human rights' .
<P>
That is what we really want for Mexico, a country which is so important for the European Union and greatly loved, especially by all Spanish speakers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=324 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, my compliments go to Mrs Miranda.
The Liberal group will vote for the interim agreement.
This has not been an easy decision: the human rights situation in Mexico, we know, bloodbaths in Acteal, negotiations with the ZNLA have come to a standstill, the activities of paramilitary gangs go unchecked and unpunished, all these things continue to give cause for concern.
<P>
Nevertheless, we will vote for it, as the elections this year are the first step toward political pluralism and, moreover, the interim agreement contains a democracy clause and provisions are now being made for cooperation in the area of what is known as 'civil society' .
<P>
However, the situation continues to call for vigilance, as is illustrated by the difficulty the Mexican government had in accepting democracy in human rights clauses.
That is why we have to develop control mechanisms and the human rights clause must not remain a dead letter.
We have to use the clause and the whole agreement as an instrument for the modernization of Mexico.
<P>
The Union must insist very strongly that the Mexican government find a peaceful solution to the conflicts in Chiapas.
In addition, extensive cooperation between NGOs must put an end to human rights violations.
<P>
I want to put a question to the Commissioner: how does the Commission think it can ensure the dynamic implementation of the human rights clause?
I invite the Commission to report on an annual basis on the human rights situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=325 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, as is almost always the case with delicate subjects, the decision is a difficult one. In this case, the discussions have been going on for a long time, and information has been received from the Mexican government, the pro-human rights NGOs, and so on.
<P>
There are reasons for voting in favour of assent, for example, the role Europe should play in Latin America generally and Mexico in particular; the fact that Mexico should diversify its trade and relations, so they are not, as they have been so far, 90 % with the United States, but so that trade with Europe can be extended; the fact that there are cultural and emotional ties, especially with the people of Spain, who will never forget that Mexico welcomed certain Spaniards after the Spanish Civil War; and the fact that Mexico's democracy is becoming stronger all the time.
<P>
Also, one of the paragraphs in Mrs Miranda de Lage's report clearly specifies that this agreement opens the way for cooperation in relation to financial aid for social programmes, programmes for the indigenous communities and programmes in favour of human rights.
Some of the conclusions of Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra's opinion also make it clear that there must be monitoring to make sure human rights are being complied with.
<P>
Nevertheless, as I said at the beginning of my speech, there are also reasons for a "no' vote. I have here a report from the International Civil Commission for the Observation of Human Rights.
It is certainly a very serious report. They interviewed not just members of the indigenous population, not just people who live close to the indigenous people - like Bishop Samuel Ruiz -, but also members of the government and the human rights attorney, Mr Madrazo, whom we met on one of the delegation's visits.
<P>
The report is dedicated to José Tila López and Trinidad Cruz, who were murdered after providing information about what was happening.
<P>
If we also think back to the massacre at Acteal and the circumstances surrounding it, we can conclude that there are also reasons for a "no' vote.
<P>
Nevertheless, we think that an active abstention would perhaps be the best approach. That does not mean you do not know what is happening.
It means constantly monitoring what happens after the agreements. Especially, Commissioner, if we manage to set up mechanisms to monitor compliance with the democracy clause and human rights, and if we also manage to get a report before the global agreement, to show us what progress has been made with human rights in Mexico.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=326 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Mr President, when we requested that a human rights clause be included in the new agreement with Mexico the government called it unacceptable interference in internal matters.
The same argument is now being used to expel international observers from Mexico.
Such diversions damage our confidence in future improvements in relations.
Yet the people of Mexico have high expectations of the new EU/Mexico relations, particularly where human rights are concerned.
We should not disappoint them.
The clause must not remain an insignificant piece of rhetoric and the agreement must not be a general absolution for the government.
We know that the Mexican government needs the approval of the treaty as a sign of international recognition as its reputation in its own country is diminishing constantly and we would very much like to give this approval if it helps human rights.
<P>
An important step would be a rapidly drawn-up report on the human rights situation.
Is the Commission prepared to present such a report to the EP at short notice?
Will the Commission present an annual report to the Parliament?
Will it involve human rights groups in the drafting of the report?
Will there be someone in the EU delegation who is responsible specifically for human rights?
How does the Commission wish to involve Mexico's civil society in political dialogue?
<P>
Without these elements we will not be able to approve a global agreement.
Then the interim agreement would not serve any purpose either.
We therefore urgently require specific information which is not based solely on statements from Mexico's government as, unfortunately, theory and practice have so far been too far apart there.
This is something we owe to ourselves and to Mexican society.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=327 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Dam">
Mr President, Mexico has lived through major changes in recent years, at an economic and at a political level.
For instance, Mexico has become a member of NAFTA.
While exports from the United States to Mexico have increased considerably as a result of this, exports from the European Union have decreased.
By and large, Mexico has become extremely dependent on the United States.
<P>
There are, therefore, economic reasons enough for the European Union to revise the 1991 framework agreement by means of the interim agreement proposed now.
The general agreement to be approved later will lead to a gradual liberalization of markets on both sides.
However, a number of comments do need to be made on this agreement.
<P>
I recognize the economic motives of the European Union, which wishes, of course, to strengthen its competitive position vis-àvis the United States.
I have to point out though that the balance of trade with the European Union still always shows a considerable deficit for Mexico.
It is open to question whether Mexico is ready to take on freer competition with the European Union at the moment.
The European Union really will have to look at home for solutions and really open up the Community market to Mexican exports.
I look forward to hearing whether the Commission and the Council do intend to do this.
<P>
In addition, we cannot ignore the gulf between rich and poor in Mexico which despite - or may I say, precisely because of - economic growth is getting bigger and bigger.
It is good that the agreement addresses cooperation on social affairs and poverty as well as questions relating to refugees.
Whether this will be enough to allow the whole population to benefit from the agreement is questionable.
Time will tell.
Let us follow this closely and maintain contact on these issues, not only with the Mexican government, but also with social organizations which have to face reality on a daily basis.
<P>
That brings me, finally, to the question of human rights.
Social reality paints a harrowing picture.
There is the situation in Chiapas, where death squads have murdered thousands of Indians.
The suspicion still exists that these squads have contact with government troops.
The human rights clause which has been taken up in the agreement is something new which we can be pleased with.
<P>
To sum up: approval of the interim agreement is the best tactic now, but caution is still called for, both against too much greed on the part of the European Union and too little democracy and distribution of wealth in Mexico.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=328 NAME="Howitt">
Mr President, in March I took part in a UK delegation studying human rights violations in Chiapas in southern Mexico and tonight, as we consider the EU-Mexico Agreement with its human rights clause, I want to describe the situation there.
<P>
Seven thousand new soldiers drafted in since December; one village I saw where there was one soldier for every family; where the army sites its barracks illegally and, in many cases, in schools, driving the teachers away and depriving the children of their education; repeated and extensive evidence of paramilitaries operating alongside the security forces, waging a dirty war against the civil population symbolized by the bloody massacre at Acteal where I heard that seven hours of bloodshed took place as the security forces stood doing nothing three hundred yards away; vicious and unwarranted attacks on brave human rights defenders; the Catholic priest accused of raping an old woman, of conducting black masses and of blessing arms when he and his colleagues simply seek to bring humanitarian aid across the lines of bitter division.
Foreign observers are systematically expelled and international aid is deliberately obstructed, and there is an economic war against the indigenous population shifting up to 17 000 people off their land.
<P>
I congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Miranda, on bringing forward this interim agreement, allowing us to use the democracy and human rights clause before considering the full agreement.
To the European Parliament and the Commission I ask that we establish a permanent mechanism to monitor and report back on the human rights situation in Chiapas and the rest of Mexico - one which incorporates NGOs involved in the defence of human rights and which offers them increased direct European support.
To the Mexican Government I say: you tell us you wish to end excessive militarization, to disarm the armed groups, to welcome bona fide international assistance and to promote the rights of indigenous people.
We in Europe can work with you to achieve those aims.
It is a test of your commitment to this agreement whether you do so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=329 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Porto">
Mr President, I congratulate my colleague, Ana Miranda de Lage, on her report, and I have no hesitation in supporting her proposal that this House declare itself in favour of the agreement between the European Union and Mexico.
<P>
This will contribute to the restoration of the emphasis on economic relations between the two parties, although we must express our concern at the relative loss we have been sustaining as a commercial partner. For example, we have seen trade fall from 11 % in 1990 to 6 % in 1996.
<P>
This has been a natural consequence of Mexico's commercial preference for other countries which are her partners in a free trade area, in this case as a member of NAFTA.
But the prospects opening up in this area are in turn an additional attraction, and Europe must be in a position to obtain wider benefits from the effects of the growth expected for member countries.
<P>
Apart from an understandable European interest, it will certainly be of great interest to the Mexicans, with greater opportunities in the biggest world market, the European market, and a corresponding reduction in their dependency on a single country, the United States of America, whose share of Mexican trade rose from 69.3 % in 1993 to 75.5 % in 1996.
<P>
It should also be emphasized that the agreement with the European Union covers fields such as competitive tenders in publicsector buying, intellectual property and respect for democratic principles, that are not taken into account in NAFTA, which has a strictly commercial philosophy.
<P>
Our political concern, as expressed later in Article 1, should serve to dispel the reservations expressed by some in the light of the difficulties experienced by the country's authorities.
It is not, therefore, a question of ignoring the problems. On the contrary, we are trying to open a way which will contribute to solving them.
<P>
On the economic side, the rules on public-sector buying should be emphasized, because this is an area of interest to both parties, and may be especially interesting to European entrepreneurs, with good opportunities in a market which we hope will expand accordingly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=330 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the interim agreement on trade and trade-related matters between the European Community and Mexico, being considered for ratification by Parliament today, constitutes an essential stage in the ambitious journey we embarked on three years ago now, which should culminate in the approval of the global agreement on economic collaboration, political coordination and cooperation.
<P>
Both agreements belong in the framework of European strategy towards Latin America, which we designed in 1995, and which is resulting in the adoption of policies adapted to the different protagonists within the region, depending on their particular characteristics and specific circumstances.
<P>
In that context, the new situation in Mexico has stimulated the European Union to define a different relationship of a strategic nature, based on reciprocity and association, built on a basis of shared interests. These include: the interest in helping to build an international community based on democratic principles, the rule of law and full respect for human rights; the interest in reasserting in the international debate that it is possible to conclude bilateral trade agreements which are compatible with the World Trade Organization; the interest in invigorating our economies and thereby promoting the growth of world trade; and finally, the interest in consolidating our respective presences in geographical areas of mutual importance.
<P>
That is how Parliament saw things back in 1995, when Mrs Miranda de Lage presented her report, which in the last analysis is what allowed us to provide the necessary political impetus to progress towards more ambitious objectives.
In that sense, Mrs Miranda de Lage, the Commission wishes to congratulate you once again. I must say that as regards the description of the political background and the Motives - with a capital "M' - justifying Parliament's assent to this agreement, the European Commission fully agrees with your reasoning.
<P>
I now want to reflect briefly on certain aspects some of you have raised.
Firstly, we are talking today about the interim agreement. The aim of the interim agreement is to enable the Commission to carry out negotiations to establish a free trade area between the European Union and Mexico.
To answer some of your doubts, of course the European Parliament will have to give its final opinion once the negotiations have been concluded, because a decision will also have to be taken on the final global agreement.
Of course it is entirely possible for you to establish a monitoring mechanism, as suggested by Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra, Mr Bertens and somebody else, I am not sure whether it was Mr Howitt or Mr Newens. You have the opportunity for discussion, dialogue and meetings.
<P>
To address the arguments which have been used for or against accepting this agreement, you will not be surprised by what I am about to say, because you know me well enough.
Given a choice between dialogue or breaking off relations, I prefer dialogue. What sense is there in saying "no' ?
Will we automatically resolve the Chiapas problem if we say no to Mexico?
Of course not.
I would even say to those people who have reservations and propose active or positive abstention that by choosing dialogue and accepting cooperation we can, through negotiation, resolve certain problems in this new framework of political cooperation.
I will tell you something else. I have had a direct meeting with the representatives of CONAI and, in particular, with Bishop Samuel Ruiz.
CONAI is in favour of this agreement.
In other words, the organization which protects the interests of the indigenous people of Chiapas is in favour of this agreement, because it sees this political dialogue as a useful mechanism.
Finally, I want to remind you that the Troika, in the Rio group, has already had a very intense session in Panama, in which Mexicans and Europeans exchanged opinions about the Chiapas problem.
And it was extremely useful.
I also want to remind you that you organized a hearing on the Chiapas question here in Parliament, with the participation of civil society, NGOs and also the Mexican government, and that deserves thanks.
At least with us - the European Union - the Mexican government is respecting the rules.
So regardless of any reservations people might have about human rights and the Chiapas situation - and nobody denies that there is a problem there, not just to do with indigenism but also to do with marginalization and poverty -, this agreement, because of its democracy clause and mechanisms for political cooperation, also establishes elements of dialogue which are extremely useful for our privileged relationship with the Mexicans.
<P>
I will conclude by mentioning something I think is important, which most of the speakers have referred to: the Mexico of the Zedillo era is going to be a different Mexico.
I have inherited the 1991 agreement, and the Mexico of the Salinas administration was not the same as the Mexico of the Zedillo administration.
We must recognize that fact.
There have been changes which would have been unimaginable a little while ago.
Mr Howitt spoke of the Acteal massacre, but that massacre, which was carried out by paramilitary forces, has also had political repercussions in Mexico.
The Interior Minister and the State Governor were removed from office.
Knowing the history of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, the fact that the President sacked the Interior Minister and the State Governor represents a qualitative change in policy which deserves recognition.
<P>
So, with the "yes' with abstention, the "yes' for reasons of political vision and the "yes' because of problems of economic balance, the Commission thinks this is an extremely useful instrument for organizing a political dialogue on the delicate subject of human rights and the problems of indigenism in Mexico, and that if used properly - with respect and a sense of its usefulness - it can be extremely useful for resolving this problem.
<P>
As regards the vision of the future in economic terms, I go along with the description given by Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra in his speech.
We find Mexico very interesting for the reason you indicated: it is a solid platform, which is recovering from the "tequila effect' and which, within NAFTA, represents a significant opportunity for the European Union, which is what we want to make the most of.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=331 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner Marín.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=15>
Community customs code
<SPEAKER ID=332 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0149/98) by Mrs Peijs, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Regulation (EC) amending Regulation (EEC) No 2913/92 establishing the Community customs code (transit) (COM(97)0472 - C4-0489/97-97/0242(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=333 NAME="Peijs">
Mr President, the immediate reason which led to the revision of the Community customs code was the report by the committee of enquiry of the European Parliament into fraud in customs transit.
The approaching completion of the internal market, increasing complexity, the lagging behind of computerization in the customs services and the extremely high indirect taxes on some products create problems in the handling of customs transit.
We are talking here about products like cigarettes, one of the so-called susceptible products on which there is a great deal of profit to be made if they are 'lost' and sold on the black market.
<P>
The Commission proposes a number of measures to clarify and simplify the laws.
Parliament heartily endorses that.
Let there be no misunderstanding on that.
The measures which the Commission wants to take can be divided up into three groups: revision of the legislation; better cooperation between the customs services in the Member States; and computerization of the communications between customs services, the new computerized transit system.
<P>
It is unacceptable at a time when the Commission is running so many programmes to get business and industry to computerize, that we go into the 21st century with customs services with 20th century technology.
I estimate that we are three years behind, Commissioner, and that it will be 2003 rather than 2000.
Is it true that as important a country as Germany has refused to take part in the pilot project which has already been simplified?
How can the Commission solve that one?
<P>
The revised legislation lies before us.
I am not going to go into all the details.
The most important point from the Commission's proposals is that they want to trim down the customs code and they want to transfer the formulation of the regulations to the procedure of the customs code committee.
Of course, Parliament can see the advantages of that system for the Commission, namely greater flexibility and speed.
So naturally Parliament would like to cooperate where possible.
However, Parliament also sees disadvantages, for example that the regulations can be changed on a regular basis which involves uncertainty for parties in the market, without any opportunity for Parliament and industry to stand at bay.
<P>
In principle, the Commission can take very radical decisions which I, as rapporteur, think should not be left to the committee.
The two most important examples of this are the rules for the provision of security, including the test of reliability, Article 94, and the limiting of opportunities for Member States to introduce simplified procedures, Article 97.
<P>
Why is Parliament not completely behind the Commission's proposals which look so reasonable?
Once again, Parliament is completely out of the picture in the committee procedure.
In itself, that is no great disaster and it could have advantages.
Still I have opted to continue to include essential points in the code and only to leave implementation provisions to the committee.
My attitude, Commissioner, would have been different if business and industry could have been guaranteed a clear say in any changes introduced by the Commission, for example by being included in the code; not the feeble surrogate say which is now on offer and does not give industry a chance.
<P>
Since no better arrangements can be guaranteed anywhere else, I have tried in the report to find the right balance between flexibility and democratic control by the European Parliament.
Apart from this demand, which in our eyes is justified, Parliament has been extraordinarily cooperative, both towards the Council and the Commission.
That is why we are convinced that both these bodies could demonstrate understanding of Parliament's standpoint which is based on democratic arguments.
<P>
We know the Commissioner to be a good democrat and so have confidence in the outcome.
There is no shifting Parliament on the issue of democracy.
<P>
It became clear during the discussions with the Commission and the Council that the Commission cannot accept Articles 92 and 97.
It appears that the Council stands behind Parliament on Article 92.
The Committee on Budgetary Control of our Parliament let it be known in its letter of 22 April that it wants to follow my proposals.
<P>
Since it looks as if the common position will be close to Parliament's standpoint, I urgently request the Commissioner to adjust his standpoint in the direction of Parliament and the Council.
Article 97 is more difficult, I think, and Article 97 above all things is a crucial point for Parliament.
In order to amend this article, the Commission will have to come back to Parliament at some time in the future.
We do not want it to be done in a committee procedure.
This is because this guarantees business and industry a fair chance of being heard when real changes are being made.
<P>
I am not prepared to compromise on this point, Commissioner.
So I am hoping for your good will.
It would damage the very nature of our people's representation without the European Commission making any attempt at all to put something in its place for business and industry.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=334 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wibe">
Mr President, let me just raise one question of principle which I often tend to do when speaking on issues such as this.
It is about where the lines are to be drawn for the area of competence of this Parliament.
<P>
The Commission's proposal aims at simplifying customs procedures.
An important part of this simplification means moving decisions which at present fall within the customs code, that is the constitution itself, to a committee procedure.
The rapporteur is somewhat sceptical about this.
She does point out that it may mean greater flexibility, but there are risks with it as well; on the one hand, the committee may inadvertently make decisions for the economy; on the other hand - and maybe first and foremost - a committee procedure implies that this Parliament will no longer have the right to codecision in matters concerning customs code on transit.
<P>
May I say that I take a somewhat different view on this matter, despite standing politically to the left of the rapporteur.
My fundamental view is that Parliament should mainly occupy itself with working out general guidelines, that is, frameworks.
It should then hand over to committees of experts and authorities to work out the details.
One of the problems with our Parliament, I think, is that we occupy ourselves far too much with detail in areas where we really lack basic competence.
<P>
I can agree with the rapporteur that there are risks involved in allowing a committee of experts to work out the details.
"The devil is in the detail' as we say in Sweden.
I do not, however, think we should exaggerate these risks, as a committee of experts would, naturally, know all the requirements for commerce and industry.
I do not believe it realistic to imagine that a committee of experts who really know all the details in the case would put forward a proposal that would come as a total surprise to commerce and industry.
<P>
As to Parliament's insight, a committee of experts could, of course, turn in the completely opposite direction from what Parliament and the Commission may think, but then there is always the possibility for us to step in and alter the directives or regulations on such questions.
<P>
Let me highlight a problem that may occur.
It concerns Amendment No 5 from the rapporteur, dealing with the exemptions from giving economic security.
The Commission wishes to transfer this to the committee, briefly put, and let the committee decide which companies are to be trusted.
The rapporteur introduces a number of rules here.
She says, for example, that transports on the river Rhine or its tributaries should be granted permanent exemption.
I only ask, whether it is really reasonable to write into acts that transits on a certain waterway generally be granted exemption.
I lack expert knowledge in this particular matter, but I wish to use this to illustrate the problems that appear when legal texts are made too detailed.
Apart from that, I have no other objection to the rapporteur's excellent report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=335 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, first I would like to thank the rapporteur for the very useful suggestions put forward in detail in this report.
<P>
One area of transit is the problem of fraud, which is quite a considerable one.
In the last year we have had 5 162 cases with a total loss of ECU 1.4 billion; this is a considerable sum and also represents an enormous cost for the EU budget.
Another area is the huge number of daily goods deliveries.
<P>
It is the role of customs to carry out inspections, to ensure smooth handling and to ensure that government revenue is correctly paid.
Senders and receivers want to transport their goods from A to B quickly and as simply and cheaply as possible; the forwarding agent also wants to transport the goods simply and cheaply.
<P>
We must bear in mind that in the European Union we are concerned primarily with small businesses, SMEs; for this reason procedures for the majority of goods transport must be as straightforward as possible.
There are of course sensitive areas, such as tobacco, alcohol and agriculture.
Here, procedures must of course be very strict and every care must be taken to ensure that there is no illegal trafficking.
While ensuring these sensitive procedures for an infinitely small sector of goods transport we must not, however, forget those for which procedures must be simple and practical.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=336 NAME="Monti">
Mr President, I would first like to congratulate Parliament, and particularly the rapporteur, Mr Peijs, and thank him for his excellent work and the good report he has drawn up on such a technical subject.
<P>
The revision of Community customs code provisions relating to transit is an important question as the new provisions will lay down fundamental principles for a deep-seated reform of customs procedures. Current procedures have led to numerous frauds that have resulted in considerable financial losses to the Community, individual Member States and businesses.
<P>
The Commission's proposals for transit reform are in line with the recommendations of Parliament's Committee of Inquiry.
Our aim is to protect public access and to offer businesses reliable means of safeguarding safety, flexibility and a free arena within which they can compete on equal terms.
<P>
Most of the amendments proposed by Mr Peijs are consistent with this approach and can therefore be accepted by the Commission, with two exceptions.
<P>
The first involves Amendment No 3, relating to release from the transit system.
The current regulations are not sufficiently clear with regard to the obligations of the customs authorities and operators' liabilities.
The Commission proposes that the operator's liability should end when he has performed his contractual obligations, in other words, on presentation of the goods and documents to the office of destination.
Release would thus take place at destination, even if the inspection to ensure that the operation has been conducted properly takes place in the country of departure.
The amendment tabled by the rapporteur does not specify the point at which the operator is released from his obligations and does not therefore improve on the current situation.
Release would, in fact, continue to depend on an administrative document issued by the office of departure.
<P>
The second amendment the Commission cannot accept is Amendment No 7. This relates to a simplified transit procedure, which the Member States can establish through bilateral or multilateral agreements or apply to transit operations within their own national territory.
The Commission recognizes the need to ensure flexibility at Member State level, but considers that the fundamental principles of the transit procedure should always be observed, particularly the guarantees it offers.
The amendment proposed by Mr Peijs suggests that these fundamental principles do not need to be observed in the case of simplified procedures applied to national transit movements.
In other words, goods could be moved under the transit system, for example from Hamburg to Munich, without observing the Community transit guarantee system, or without any guarantee at all come to that.
But in a market without internal frontiers, how can we ensure that these goods do not end up in Vienna or Paris instead?
Within the single market, the same guarantees should be applied to transits between Strasbourg and Bordeaux as to those between Strasbourg and Stuttgart, as the same financial interests are at stake in both situations.
The Commission's approach to guarantees is therefore closer to the spirit of Mr Peijs' Amendments Nos 4 and 5, which specifically aim to ensure a more standard approach to the implementation of guarantee provisions.
<P>
I will not stop to comment on all the other amendments which, as I have said, the Commission finds acceptable, but I am prepared to answer any questions.
<P>
I would like to add two further points. One of the reasons why we can accept most of the amendments tabled is that we share the desire to specify the regulations in detail in the code.
This leaves less room for regulations decided by the committee.
The other aspect I wish to clarify relates to the serious and important problem of computerization.
As Parliament knows, and as Mr Peijs is well aware, implementation of the new computerized transit system has been delayed. This is essentially due to problems with the contractor.
It is therefore impossible to begin implementing the new computerized transit system in 1998.
The Commission and participating countries have agreed a new system implementation strategy.
The idea is for the basic functions to be initially introduced in five selected countries - the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Spain -, so that the central services, network and database are available by the end of the first quarter of 1999. This will mean that the system can at least be fully operational for the five countries I mentioned by the beginning of the year 2000.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=337 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner Monti.
<P>
Mrs Peijs requests the floor.
Is it to ask a question?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=338 NAME="Peijs">
Mr President, the story is that Germany has dropped out of the pilot project, which would be an enormous disaster, because Germany accounts for the largest share of destinations, arrivals and departures.
If Germany has dropped out of the project, I would like very much to hear from the Commissioner how Germany is going to be replaced or that you are going to put extra pressure on Germany to take part after all.
<P>
Now I will mention the refinement of Article 92.
At the moment, the time that documents have to be back or in any case known to the customs office at the place of departure is unacceptably long.
All in all the time before the business community knows whether it is susceptible to fraud or that fraud has been committed is extremely long.
We did not want to set a time period, but if the Commissioner wants to have a period, I would suggest three months: after three months the documents must be back.
<P>
As regards the Commissioner's last comment on Article 97, I am a bit surprised.
I think there is a translation error somewhere, Mr Monti, because what I wanted to do in that amendment is precisely what you are saying that I am not doing.
What I tried to do was precisely to restrict the flexibility of Member States, as far as difficult cases of security are concerned.
So I think we have done exactly what you would have wanted and that there is a translation error somewhere.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=339 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I would remind you that you can only ask questions, not open a new debate.
Please ask your question as quickly as possible, Mr Rübig.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=340 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, I have only one question: how much of a saving does the new system represent for the economy of Europe?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=341 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Monti">
As regards Germany, I can confirm that the idea is to introduce the basic functions initially in five selected countries, including Germany, so that the central services are available by the end of the first quarter of 1999. This will mean that the system can be up and running - at least in the five countries I have mentioned - by the beginning of the year 2000.
We are checking this entire operation so that no further delays arise.
<P>
The last question on the quantitative benefits of the system is very difficult to answer.
All the technical investigations - and we know that the matter has been discussed with all parties concerned - suggest that the benefits will be considerable.
However, I am unable to offer specific quantitative estimates.
<P>
The long delays, Mr Peijs, are certainly a problem and it is precisely for this reason that we are placing so much emphasis on computerization.
<P>
Finally, on the point relating to the simplified procedure proposed in one of the amendments, I have to say that the amendment would have been more acceptable to the Commission if it had found - perhaps it still can - a way of offering the same guarantee, a satisfactory guarantee.
As I emphasized in my speech, it is the lack of guarantees that concerns us, particularly in an environment that is no longer able to distinguish clearly between transit within a Member State and transit between Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=342 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 11.44 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Delcroix">
Madam President, I would just like to point out that my vote on the first amendment, which is No 26, in the Rothley recommendation, was not recorded.
I intended to vote against the amendment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Very well.
It will be recorded, Mr Delcroix.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Falconer">
Madam President, I rise on a point of order for a meeting, which will take place on 14, 15 and 16 May in my colleague, Mr Smith's constituency at Turnbury.
It is by a group called the Bilderberg Group.
This is a very strange group because it does not allow any press or interference with its meetings.
<P>
My point of order is on the central register of Members.
Could I ask the Bureau to inform Members that, should they be participating in this group, then they should declare that under the 'Members' interests' .
This will ensure that the same transparency and openness exist in this Parliament as in other parliaments, such as in Britain, where members of the Labour Party, i.e. Tony Blair, Giles Radice and Denis Healey, have all declared their interests in the operations of the Bilderberg Group.
I trust that other Members of this House will take note and do likewise.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Falconer.
I have made a note of it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Madam President, I refer to Rule 127 in conjunction with Rules 95 et seq of the Rules of Procedure and welcome the Conference of Presidents' decision to include on today's agenda, in place of the Council and Commission statements on safety in cities, items on the dramatic events taking place in Kosovo and the nuclear tests in India.
Nevertheless, like many of the other members of this House, it is my view that safety in the cities of Europe is also an important and urgent matter.
Just this weekend a jeweller in Vienna was murdered by the Russian mafia.
I therefore believe it is important that we debate the Commission's statement at the next part-session.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="Green">
Madam President, yesterday we were told in this House about a dreadful incident in Turkey where a very prominent human rights activist, in fact the President of the Human Rights Association of Turkey, Akin Birdal, had been shot in his office in Ankara by unknown civilians.
<P>
Akin Birdal is known to many of us in this House as somebody who, with great courage and integrity, has been leading the fight to enhance and strengthen human rights in Turkey.
This, as you know, is one of our major demands to the Turkish authorities.
<P>
I would ask you to speak with President Gil Robles immediately and ask him to send to Akin Birdal - who is critically ill - and his immediate family, firstly, our sympathies and, secondly, our best wishes for his recovery.
Secondly, he should write to the Turkish Government urging them with all speed to bring to justice those who have perpetrated this act and also to take on board the criticisms that have been often made in this House about the way in which human rights are regularly abused in Turkey.
This sort of paramilitary activity must cease.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Green.
I think the President has already planned to take that action, further to Mrs Roth's speech yesterday, but having said that, I will of course discuss it with him.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Appointments to the Executive Board of the European Central Bank
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendations by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on the appointments to the Executive Board of the European Central Bank (Rapporteur: Mme Randzio-Plath).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Madam President, on 1 July 1998 the European Central Bank will be able to start work on preparations for a successful and independent single monetary policy for the euro zone with eleven of the Member States.
This is the result of the hearings of the various candidates for appointment to the Executive Board of the European Central Bank held in the European Parliament.
I propose that the appointment of these six candidates be confirmed.
<P>
They were each able to convince us of their personal integrity, their professional experience and their high level of technical expertise.
They hold clear positions on economic and monetary policy which correspond to the objectives of the European Central Bank as defined in the Maastricht Treaty.
In short, they will provide the European Central Bank with the Executive Board it deserves.
They all emphasized the priority they would accord to price stability, whilst at the same time indicating that with an inflation rate of 2 % it can be assumed that the goal of price stability has effectively been achieved.
Europe's historically low inflation rates mean that the European Central Bank will not have to start its life with a policy of raising interest rates in order to prove its credibility.
The candidates also implied that there would be no need for an excessively rigid interest rate policy in order to prove the ECB's independence and trustworthiness.
<P>
The European Central Bank will be able to build on the confidence enjoyed by the existing national central banks.
Finally, the future single monetary policy will be shaped by the European System of Central Banks, not by the European Central Bank and its Executive Board alone.
At the hearings, all the candidates expressed their reluctance to see monetary policy used as a tool in the struggle against unemployment beyond the achievement of price stability.
They stressed that monetary stability represents the greatest contribution the European Central Bank can make to combating unemployment in the euro zone.
<P>
Only with a guarantee of continued price stability can further measures, such as the reduction of short-term interest rates, be considered.
However, all the candidates gave fairly clear indications that they are familiar with the provisions of Article 105 and Article 2 of the Maastricht Treaty which, alongside the primary objective of price stability, also bind the European Central Bank to supporting the economic policy of the European Union and the objectives stipulated in Article 2, that is the achievement of a high level of employment and economic and social cohesion.
In fact, their importance is such that they are self-evident.
<P>
The task in hand is to examine, within the framework of monetary dialogue with the European Central Bank, how this contribution can be shaped.
The duty of democratic accountability laid down in our resolution on the democratic accountability of monetary institutions in Strasbourg means that we can expect the European Central Bank to report to us, detailing how it is exercising its scope for independent action in matters of monetary policy.
Exercising this scope for independent action in matters of monetary policy will be both possible and necessary.
<P>
Unlike American legislation on the US central bank, the Maastricht Treaty stipulates that the European Central Bank must pursue the objective of price stability as its primary task.
The US central bank is obliged to pursue the objectives of price stability and growth and employment.
This results in a different type of monetary policy and consequently creates a different role for monetary policy.
Thus, over recent years, it has been possible for US monetary policy to make a greater contribution to creating an appropriate and balanced policy mix in the interests of investment, growth and jobs.
<P>
As has already been mentioned, the candidates made it clear that monetary policy can be used to support growth and employment by preventing interest rate speculation through the safeguarding of price stability and thereby guaranteeing macro-economic stability and, above all, a low level of long-term interest rates.
On the basis of the hearings it was clear that the European Central Bank - and this is something which was stressed particularly by the candidate for the presidency of the European Central Bank - will exercise its scope for independent action on matters of monetary policy once inflation targets are reached and sustained development looks probable.
<P>
For the first time, this will allow us to use monetary policy to support economic policy in the euro zone and to pursue the secondary objectives which the European Parliament will consider particularly important in its debate on the annual economic report and the economic guidelines.
These issues will be particularly important in the dialogue between the ECB and the European Parliament.
We must ask the European Central Bank to provide statements on resolutions relating to monetary policy in order to assess its contribution to the creation of a balanced policy mix.
This will also prove to be a useful yardstick by which we can measure the quality of our selection of candidates.
As a result, practical dialogue with the European Parliament will be very important.
<P>
The events which took place in the European Council on the weekend of 2/3 May have done nothing to further public confidence in the independence of the European Central Bank.
The hearings in the European Parliament, on the other hand, have helped to redress this lack of confidence and to that extent our hearings were a confidence-building measure which benefited both the European public and the future European Central Bank.
Of course, the Maastricht Treaty provides for the political appointment of candidates.
And that is rightly so.
However, the political decision was reached by means of a procedure which has left behind it an unpleasant aftertaste since neither the age nor the nationality of a candidate should be seen as a condition for the success of the common monetary policy and therefore, quite rightly, neither are stipulated in the Treaty as selection criteria. The sole selection criteria are personal and technical competence.
<P>
The President of the ECB's eight year term of office is proof of his personal independence.
This is something which the European Parliament had continually stressed.
And this is why, at the hearing, we sought confirmation from Wim Duisenberg that he alone and nobody else would decide when his term of office would end.
<P>
(Applause) The candidate made it quite clear that he sees his independence as completely uncompromised.
He was persuasive in his determination, the clarity of his arguments and his plain speaking, thereby underlining the fact that this political nomination and the establishment of the European Central Bank will put an end to the exertion of political influence on monetary policy by individual governments and mark the start of independence from political instructions.
<P>
So the hearing showed that there must be no renationalization of the decision-making processes and illustrated that the requirement of unanimity has once again pushed the European Parliament to the limits of its tolerance and the people of Europe to the limits of their patience and understanding of the process of European integration.
This procedure must be changed!
<P>
We would particularly like to welcome the fact that the appointment of Mrs Hämäläinen will see a woman on the Executive Board of the ECB, enabling more women than has previously been the case to make their voices heard in important decisionmaking bodies.
<P>
(Applause) The hearing, like the future monetary dialogue, has contributed to the credibility and perceived trustworthiness of the democratic European system, but also to the credibility and perceived trustworthiness of a future European Central Bank.
As such, it is to be welcomed that, alongside the debate on the ECB's annual report, there will also be a debate on the annual economic report and the economic policy guidelines and that regular monetary dialogue - on a quarterly basis - was supported by all the candidates.
<P>
Of course, the negative response to the proposed publication of the Minutes of the ECB's decision-making bodies after a lapse of five years was unsatisfactory since their publication is necessary to achieve greater transparency in monetary policy.
In my view, these hearings have shown that the end of the confirmation procedure marks the start of a new era in which the first federal European authority will have to justify its actions to the European Parliament in the interests of communication with the European public.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="Brown">
Madam President, this is the second stage of the consultation which began on 2 May, when I addressed the European Parliament with the recommendation that 11 countries had fulfilled the necessary conditions for the adoption of the single currency.
In line with the democratic traditions we value in this continent, it was right that this Parliament was able to play such an important part in this significant event.
Following that debate, to which almost 50 speakers contributed, this Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of the eleven.
<P>
The results of this historic vote were reported by your President to the Council and, on behalf of the Council, let me say how much we valued the opinion of this Parliament.
Let me also formally report that, in line with the views of Parliament, the Council unanimously decided that 11 countries should join the single currency.
<P>
As a result of these historic decisions, in which the European Parliament has played its full part, the vision of the founders of the Union at the Messina Conference that called for the coordination of monetary policies permitting the creation and development of a common market, will become a reality on 1 January.
It will be a single currency which covers around a fifth of the world's trade.
Let us remember also that this single currency is designed to achieve the stability that will help us meet our shared aims of higher employment and greater prosperity for the peoples of Europe.
<P>
Our aim for Europe is high levels of growth and employment, and the precondition of that, in a global economy where countries have to draw their investment funds from all round the world, is stability with low inflation.
It is because of the need to deliver that stability that the debate on the appointments to the Executive Board of the European Central Bank is of such central importance, as was recognized by your rapporteur only a few minutes ago.
<P>
The European Central Bank will be established by 1 July; it will assume responsibility for the monetary policy of participating Member States on 1 January next year, and the Treaty, of course, requires the Council to nominate a president and vicepresident and up to four additional members of the Executive Board.
<P>
The Council has recommended that Mr Wim Duisenberg should be appointed as the first President of the ECB for a period of eight years.
This Parliament has had a chance already to hear Mr Duisenberg answer questions before it.
The detailed proposals which we have made, including Mr Duisenberg's own personal statement about his intentions, are now before Parliament.
Mr Duisenberg will make his own decisions about retirement, and this procedure is in accordance, and fully in accordance, with the Treaty.
<P>
The Council recommends that Mr Christian Noyer should be appointed as Vice-President for a term of four years, and the following should be appointed to the rest of the Executive Board: Mr Otmar Issing for a term of eight years, Mr Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa for seven years, Mr Eugenio Domingo Solans for six years and Mrs Sirkka Hämäläinen for five years.
I say to Parliament that, whatever the evidence you have taken in the last few days on individual members, their views and their comments, this should also be seen in the context of the Treaty's commitment to make for proper and regular reporting, scrutiny and accounting to the European Parliament.
<P>
Let me remind Parliament of the importance we attach to the role of Parliament in ensuring proper reporting from the European Central Bank to the people of Europe through this Parliament.
The European Central Bank must address its annual report to this Parliament, as well as to the Council and Commission.
The European Central Bank President must, in future, present the annual report to Parliament, as well as to the Council; the European Central Bank President and other Board members may be called before the expert committees of this Parliament; and this Parliament is, of course, consulted on all future European Central Bank Board appointments.
<P>
Your resolution as a Parliament on 2 April included some helpful and constructive suggestions on how this Treaty might be implemented in practice.
In particular, I welcome your suggestion that Executive Board members are invited to participate in quarterly parliamentary meetings on monetary and economic developments.
<P>
This is a good way forward.
It is a positive signal to Europe's citizens.
The people of Europe, as the rapporteur said only a few minutes ago, need confidence in their new Central Bank, confidence in its independence, confidence in its proper accountability, and that is what we are seeking to achieve through Parliament and governments working together.
<P>
Let me make one other remark that is of significance for the long-term future: the movement for greater openness and transparency in monetary policy is now becoming a powerful movement right across the economic world, an idea whose time has come.
There is now a recognition that the clarity of objectives and the setting of operational rules, that is central to credibility in modern monetary policy decision-making, requires also to be underpinned by greater openness in economic government to ensure that maximum credibility is reinforced.
Last month all the countries represented in the interim committee of the IMF proposed a new code of monetary and financial practice that requires greater openness.
This new momentum for openness, transparency and accountability is now a force for change, being recognized throughout the world.
I welcome the role of the European Parliament in its future dialogue with the European Central Bank, a role that will be important in ensuring that there is proper reporting to a democratically elected institution.
<P>
Let me say in conclusion that we should never lose sight of the fact that the arrangements for the single currency are for a purpose: they are to achieve the stability that will give us the high levels of growth and employment that we need and we want to see in Europe.
Let us, as a Parliament and as governments, never lose sight of our duties and responsibilities to include those who are socially excluded and to help back to work the 18 million unemployed who need, deserve and should have our support.
<P>
From its beginnings in the search for peace, its birth in the commitments made at Messina, 43 years ago, this movement for greater economic coordination and integration, a movement that has as its purpose greater growth, employment and prosperity throughout Europe, is now reaching a new point of decision-making this morning.
I urge Parliament and governments to continue to work together to make these new institutions work and ensure that this is the opening of another chapter in the progress of Europe.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Donnelly, Alan">
Madam President, I should like to warmly welcome the Chancellor of the Exchequer's words.
To hear the President-in-Office spell out support for the role the European Parliament will play over the years in the supervising role of the European Central Bank is very welcome to all parts of this House.
The European Parliament behaved in a very responsible way in conducting the hearings for all six candidates.
Our approach was to ensure that all candidates gave a commitment to price stability and independence and, indeed, all six candidates fulfilled that obligation.
<P>
But in the Socialist Group we also place great emphasis on full respect for Article 105 of the Treaty which means that when price stability has been achieved the Central Bank helps in the broader objectives of the European Union, in particular in job creation and growth.
We also place great emphasis on the question of democratic accountability.
This played a crucial role for us in the hearings and all candidates were questioned very carefully on this matter.
<P>
We have to ensure that beyond the achievement of inflation control at a low level monetary policy can make its contribution towards fighting unemployment.
I was glad that the President-in-Office mentioned that this morning.
On democratic accountability we heard from Mr Duisenberg his views on how we will deal with the European Central Bank in the future.
On behalf of the Socialist Group today, I would like to say that we need to meet with Wim Duisenberg before the summer recess of this Parliament to flesh out and spell out in detail the way in which the European Parliament will in future deal with the European Central Bank.
We cannot allow this to slip later into the year.
We need to start spelling that out now and working out the method of operation in ensuring democratic accountability.
<P>
I should like to make a few remarks about the procedure and about the hearings.
On Monday evening the Socialist Group expressed a reservation about one of the candidates.
I know some people in this House were angry about that.
The purpose of confirmation hearings is to hear the candidates and to assess them objectively, not on nationality or on politics but on their views as potential members of the European Central Bank.
Our group did that and we will not suspend judgment on any of these candidates simply because of the historic importance of this moment.
Therefore, on Monday we expressed our reservations about one of the candidates.
<P>
Having said that, and I made the point on Monday, our group last night discussed this fully and we feel that all six candidates are competent members of the European Central Bank and we will be voting for all six today.
We believe that this Executive Board has a crucial role to play in building confidence for the euro amongst our citizens.
The way they have to do this is by setting interest rates that are going to maintain stability and also, as the President-in-Office said, setting interest rates that will guarantee growth and full employment in the European Union.
We want an interest rate policy for all of our citizens, not only for the rich heartland of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herman">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, some interesting observations were made at the hearings.
The six candidates amply satisfy the selection criteria stated in the Treaty.
They are on the whole well qualified, but they obviously have individual differences, sometimes surprising, of which we should be careful.
Every teacher knows that the most brilliant pupils do not always achieve the most brilliant careers, and we all know of less able pupils who have later turned into real high-fliers.
If Harry Trumann had had to appear before our jury, he would probably not have attained the highest grades.
I shall not be unkind enough to remind my socialist colleagues of their former unflattering opinions of some of our commissioners to whom they pay tribute today.
<P>
Secondly, judging from both their oral and written replies, the six candidates have a relatively coherent view of their future roles.
Despite attempts by some of our colleagues to show contradictions in their respective statements, these only appear to be slight, the result of differing experiences, rather than any real differences.
We should not have any serious concerns about the homogeneity of the future management team.
I should like to add at this point that the socialists are not alone in having stressed that once objectives relating to stability have been achieved, the bank must also focus on the other objectives of economic policy. I believe that most candidates agree with this point of view.
This should not be a party political matter.
<P>
Thirdly, I will make an interesting observation, positive as far as Parliament is concerned, which is that all the candidates have recognized the need to maintain a special relationship with the European Parliament.
They all believe that the European Parliament is the institution to which they are accountable for their activities, to which they must explain and declare their intentions and announce their opinions on various subjects.
They all agree on the need for transparency, they all recognize that accountability is the normal counterweight of their independence and their considerable power.
All, with some small differences, accept that it is the European Parliament, not national parliaments, to whom they must pay special attention, but they have also emphasized the role that central banks, which will not disappear, will continue to play with regard to national parliaments.
It will therefore be by means of the governors of the central banks, which will still be in existence, that the relationship with national parliaments will continue, which is entirely true to the principles of subsidiarity and the federalist system.
<P>
I should like here to address my hearty thanks to the President-in-Office of the Council for having expressed what has now become important in the light of the Asian crisis: ' transparency is central to credibility in modern monetary policy' .
I am glad that this is recognized today and that, at the same time, the European Parliament's role has been recognized, and I hope that we shall be worthy of it and that we will take part in this debate in as responsible a manner as possible.
<P>
I should also like to thank all the members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, who have helped to make these hearings serious, responsible and objective. Madam President, in order to comply with your request to be brief, I will end here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, on 7 and 8 May, under the firm yet courteous authority of President Karl von Wogau, we conducted a hearing of the six candidates for appointment to the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, in an atmosphere of mutual trust and esteem.
It seems to me that we must consider the Council's decision concerning them by asking ourselves three questions.
Are they the best candidates, are they the advocates of stability, and will they form a coherent team?
<P>
I answer the first question as follows: the nominee for President is obviously, and above all, the governors' choice.
They have chosen him because they consider him to be the most capable of carrying through this tremendous change in the European banking system.
Everyone knows that in our political groups and parties, we always choose the person we consider will best defend our ideals and our interests.
By analogy, I do not see why it should be any different for central bankers.
In fact, I cannot see why the Peter Principle should apply to such an institution.
I must confess that I have some doubts about the smoke screen that he has raised with regard to the length of his term of office.
But, he has undoubtedly adopted François Mitterrand's motto that to be unambiguous can only be to one's own detriment.
Be that as it may, by the end of the hearing, we could have no doubt as to either his competence or his integrity.
And that remark with regard to competence and integrity is also valid for the five other candidates.
<P>
Now for the second question, are they advocates of monetary stability?
It seems to me that the six candidates unanimously agree that inflation will fluctuate between 0 and 2 %.
In fact, it would have been surprising if one of them had announced that his model was the Albanian Central Bank, with its formidable loan pyramid system.
Or again, that his greatest ambition was to increase inflation for the slightly sadistic purpose of bankrupting savers.
<P>
Having been reassured on that point, we therefore come to the third question: will they form a coherent team?
Without doubt they seem quite compatible, but as with all teams, time will tell.
This is why I personally would have preferred, and I think the Union for Europe Group would have unanimously preferred, an overall vote on the whole group of candidates whom, in all probability, we would have massively supported.
<P>
We will therefore not object to any of these candidates, as they are all well qualified, remarkably experienced, and have excellent reputations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gasòliba i Böhm">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, on Saturday 2 May this Parliament celebrated the constitution of monetary union with eleven Member States of the Union.
<P>
Monetary union brings with it a single currency, the euro.
<P>
This decision marks the consolidation of a new and important advance in the economic and monetary dimension of the Union, which also has enormous political importance.
The issuing of a currency implies sovereignty, and the single European currency expresses a European sovereignty which should result in a greater deepening of the political dimension of the Union.
<P>
Unfortunately, when the time came for the European Council to propose the president, the vice-president and the other four members of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, after the European Parliament had made its decision, elements of uncertainty were introduced.
What should have been presented as a historic agreement was distorted in the public eye by a controversy which should never have happened.
<P>
Luckily, the substance proved more important than the means, the international financial community has clearly demonstrated its acceptance of monetary union and the euro, and the proposed team has been warmly congratulated by the most internationally outstanding and prestigious economic and financial institutions.
<P>
As regards the hearings held in the European Parliament, I want to say that the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party supports the proposals in the report presented by Mrs Randzio-Plath, the chairman of the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs.
And as for the specific proposal about the president, we stress our full respect for his independence, including the mandate for which he has been proposed.
<P>
At the hearing, the current president of the European Monetary Institute confirmed his qualities and personality, which we already knew from the contributions he had made in that capacity.
We welcome his independence from any pressure which might limit the fulfilment of the objectives set for the European Central Bank by the Maastricht Treaty.
<P>
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, a new and very important stage in the consolidation of the euro is now beginning.
The European Central Bank is the keystone for the fulfilment of the objectives set for it by the Treaty and we will watch to make sure this process is complied with in full transparency, and that the obligations the Board members committed themselves to at the various hearings are also complied with.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Moreau">
Madam President, the role and status of the European Central Bank have been defined in accordance with the aims attributed to the single currency: to attract capital to the financial markets, to the detriment of social welfare and democracy. Their absence is becoming critical and less and less acceptable to the people.
<P>
Price stability, the main aim attributed to the European Central Bank, was achieved by reducing the creation of money and credit, to encourage better returns on investment.
That has destroyed employment and increased government deficits.
We believe that this system of economic warfare should be replaced with a strategy of cooperation, particularly at the monetary level.
That means that the ECB's objectives should be quite different, based on growth and employment.
Transparency and the democratic control of the activities of the European Central Bank must be achieved, along with accountability to the European Parliament and the national parliaments and a public debate on the main issues.
<P>
In this respect, the controversy relating to the appointments to the Executive Board of the European Central Bank is surprising, to say the least.
Judging by some comments on this subject, it would have been better to accept without reaction the coup by the central bankers who had decided that their candidate should be the President of the ECB.
But the Treaty states that the Heads of State and Government are responsible for appointing the Executive Board, and I think that it is useful to reaffirm that the Member States have more authority than the banks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Madam President, I should like to start by reminding the House that our group voted, by a large majority, for the timely introduction of the euro with eleven Member States.
I mention this fact by way of introduction, since this whole debate is taking place in the midst of a media circus where individual issues are drowned out by the argument for or against the euro.
<P>
The question which needs to be addressed is a specific one. What is our reaction to the outcome of the hearing?
In order to assess this, we have to be clear about what we actually are.
Are we a personnel recruitment commission?
No.
Are we the board of a central bank?
Hardly.
We are a democratically elected political body.
Which means that we have to discuss the political programme advocated by the candidates.
If we were a personnel recruitment commission, we would have to vote for the candidates.
They were all competent individuals.
If we were the board of a central bank, we would also have to give a positive signal, because a negative signal at this time would encourage speculation.
<P>
As a democratically elected political body, however, we have to look at three questions.
Firstly, what is our view of the nomination procedure which Mr Duisenberg himself described as having left "an unpleasant taste in the mouth' .
As far as I can see, the unpleasant taste is still there.
And whatever efforts are made to get rid of it, the fact remains that Mr Duisenberg felt obliged to assure us that no political pressure had been exerted upon him.
That in itself leaves a rather nasty taste.
<P>
Secondly, we need to be aware that this nomination procedure, which is far more restrictive than the provisions of the various treaties require, was rushed through at great speed.
That, too, leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.
Then there is the big problem of monetary policy.
The Maastricht Treaty provides for a small amount of leeway which is in fact greater than the candidates like to admit.
Fighting deflation cannot simply be equated to playing down inflation!
Yet that is what most of the candidates - including Mr Padoa-Schioppa - did.
We highlighted this distinction in our amendments and we must not forget it in our responses to the arguments put forward by the populists on the Right that the euro will be weak.
<P>
Lastly, we must also see that on matters of transparency and democratic accountability the candidates were arguing mainly with a view to the financial markets and the general public, and that they envisage only a loose form of dialogue with the European Parliament.
For this reason the only response can be a negative one.
In our own group, opinions on the matter are divided, not in terms of the actual analysis, but in terms of the question which is actually being asked.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Castagnède">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is the duty of Parliament, when the European Central Bank is being set up, to assert clearly its role as the single legitimate body of democratic control of the new European monetary authority. Parliament must confirm just as clearly its commitment to the construction of a monetary and economic Europe, in compliance with the treaties.
The treaties state that the Heads of State and Government, that is, a political authority, should appoint the Executive Board of the European Central Bank.
They also state that the European Central Bank is independent.
<P>
The compromise somewhat labouriously reached in Brussels by the Heads of State and Government, and taking Mr Duisenberg's oral statement into account, ensures compliance with these provisions of the treaties.
The information given by the future President of the European Central Bank to this Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, reinforces belief in the independence of the European Central Bank, without jeopardizing the gentlemen's agreement made in Brussels.
It therefore seems to us that to dispute the terms and conditions of that agreement would be detrimental to the efficient launch of the euro.
We hope that today's debate will not provide an opportunity for that.
<P>
The democratic control of the European Parliament has been exercised extremely resolutely by means of the hearing procedure during which the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs listened to each candidate seriously and at length.
There is no need, in this respect, to look for any form of higher authority to confirm that the body in charge of democratic control played its part responsibly and efficiently.
All the candidates at the hearings showed different, but complementary, personal qualities, and the competence and integrity necessary to their function.
Moreover, they have shown that together they will form a team worthy of Parliament's trust.
<P>
We are therefore in full agreement with the relevant conclusions of Mrs Randzio-Plath's report recommending the approval of these six candidates.
<P>
It remains for us to express two hopes: firstly, that in future, members of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank will continue the debate with the European Parliament as readily as they have done during these hearings.
Secondly, that the European monetary authority which is being set up will be complemented and counterbalanced by means of budgetary and fiscal instruments that will enable the Council of Ministers to ensure efficient economic management of the Union, to promote growth and employment within a context of stability ensured by the European Central Bank.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Madam President, on behalf of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations I attended all hearings with the prospective candidates for the Executive Board of the European Central Bank last week.
There were some striking differences in the way both the written and the oral questions were answered.
Some candidates knew exactly how to deal with the questions.
Mr Duisenberg, Mr Issing, Mr Padoa-Schioppa and Mrs Hämäläinen gave clear answers in writing and/or orally, and made it convincingly clear in the time available that they were well to excellently qualified for their job.
<P>
The prospective Vice-President, Mr Noyer, and Mr Domingo Solans fell short of this.
What conclusions should we draw from this?
If we are talking about an opinion here with a limited judicial review, or about the assessment of a team as a whole, I do not have much difficulty with the rather noncommittal opinion that we are dealing with a strong team.
If we are talking about a serious opinion, and if we are asked to give a thorough assessment of each individual candidate, then a problem does arise.
Can we distance ourselves sufficiently from the nationality and the political colour of the candidates nominated?
I rather doubt it.
It seems to me that, likewise, the Council's prime focus is not really on capability and quality, but rather on regional spread; a German, a Frenchman, and an Italian, in any case, and another three members from different countries, but obviously spread out.
<P>
Does this provide us with the strongest team?
Mr Duisenberg is Dutch and a Social-Democrat.
Neither the first, Dutch nationality, nor the second, being a Social-Democrat, qualifies him for this function.
What is relevant is that he is an experienced central banker, is capable of achieving price stability, and does not shy away from lecturing governments. He did so for eight years in the Netherlands, thoroughly and consistently.
He knows how to inform the public, and communicates in a relaxed and transparent fashion with the European Parliament.
It appears that to the French government the nationality of the President of a bank does matter.
It is a little strange that there should already be consensus as to who should take over from Mr Duisenberg.
The next four to eight years of professional experience no longer seem to matter. Incidentally, it gives us the opportunity to start a comprehensive file on all Mr Trichet's actions.
We have at least four years, hopefully even eight, to prepare ourselves for the hearing with Mr Trichet.
<P>
The rapporteur, Mrs Randzio-Plath, chose not to give a differentiated assessment for each candidate.
She prefers a brief, general evaluation which is the same for each member.
On reflection, this is extremely unsatisfactory, and does not do any justice to the candidates.
The candidates are not equal, after all.
The only possibility we have left now for expressing this difference between candidates is to do so during the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berès">
Madam President, the independence of the Central Bank, of the first truly federal institution of the European Union, should not be the independence of isolation, solitude or irresponsibility.
Nevertheless, the institutional provisions contained in the Maastricht Treaty and the changes made since then, form a minimum starting point.
In this initial institutional balance, the powers of decision given to politicians must be used to the full.
<P>
First of all, there is the power to appoint the Executive Board of the European Central Bank.
Because this appointment is political in nature, the Heads of State or Government cannot and should not merely accept a co-option agreed between central bankers.
They should also take into account the geographical balance of the euro zone.
In the future, it will be the responsibility of the euro Council and of the Ecofin Council to set up a dialogue with the European Central Bank.
<P>
Then there is this Parliament's power of consultation.
It seems to me that we have successfully completed that first stage.
The responsibility and professionalism with which we have prepared, conducted and today evaluated these hearings must reinforce this institution's legitimacy and authority as the main parliamentary interlocutor of the European Central Bank.
Our use of this power will be based on a strategy of prevention rather than a strategy of conflict. I am delighted to say that.
<P>
With regard to the actual evaluation of the candidates' proposals, my group has highlighted two questions.
Under what conditions do you envisage a dialogue with the European Parliament?
This question relates to democratic responsibility.
How do you interpret Article 105 of the Treaty which, when price stability has been achieved, asks you to support the economic policies of the European Union and its objectives as defined in Article 2 of the Treaty?
In short, a high level of employment.
<P>
On these two points we must have serious discussions with the European Central Bank.
The evaluation we have undertaken today of these six candidates provides us with a unique opportunity, given that the length of the terms of office of the members of the Executive Board is variable.
Their proposals vary, but they have obviously shown great independence and great coherence of thought.
For the rest, opinions differ, depending on how used we are to this kind of procedure.
Although we are not expected to give them marks, I should nevertheless like to commend Mr Padoa-Schioppa in particular.
<P>
Having made such a good start, we must now adapt our schedules and our structures so that, alongside the main orientations of economic policy, we can attentively ensure that our monetary policy is compatible with coordinated economic policies, in order to benefit employment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Secchi">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, here are some thoughts that stem from the experience gained in these extremely interesting and important hearings.
<P>
I would first of all like to say that, with regard to the procedure followed by the Council between Saturday 2 and Sunday 3 May, what is important is to take note of the fact that the markets, that is to say European savers, welcomed the appointments with satisfaction, and therefore the European Parliament - expression of the people's will - must also take account of this fact, which also represents a desire for the euro that is probably much greater than the opinion polls show.
However, the Council's behaviour at the political level will have to be assessed, and thought will have to be given to the inadequacy of a muddled decision-making process that is not very transparent and continually the hostage of the principle of unanimity, totally anti-historical factors considering the gradual assertion of the common European dimension.
<P>
Other Members - the rapporteur in particular - have already dwelt upon the issue of commitment to stable prices.
<P>
I would now like to make a few observations on another important issue that has arisen, that of the accountability of the European Central Bank.
The problem is of the utmost importance, in that it concerns the need for democratic control and transparency as well as the need to strengthen the reputation and credibility of the ECB.
It is therefore important, in my view, to focus mainly on appropriate behaviours for such purposes rather than on formal rules which would risk providing only a bureaucratic and superficial solution and jeopardising the independence and good functioning of monetary policy.
<P>
In the course of our hearings, the problem also arose of the overall strengthening of the management of the European economy, a problem that can no longer be put off, not only because there has to be a better balance between monetary policy and the other economic policies but also in the light of the need - as a result of Economic and Monetary Union - to give a common dimension to problems until now considered national.
In such a context, for example, I could dwell at length - but I will not - on the need to speed up forms of coordination for fiscal policies.
<P>
In conclusion, Madam President, I think that not only is it possible to judge positively the team selected to head the ECB but it is an extremely satisfactory one.
That is of course a good prelude to a successful launch of the euro.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Malerba">
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="Cox">
Mr President, the hearings in Parliament and the confirmation vote which we have later today on the president, vice-president, and Executive Board members for the Central Bank mark for this House the last significant step in the beginning of a very significant and historic enterprise for Europe.
<P>
The quality of the proceedings in the House, I believe, has restored some dignity to the appointment process which unfortunately, because of the prolonged and rather bitter exchanges on 2 May at the European Council, was rather marred at the outset.
<P>
The Council recommendation to the House, consistent with the Treaty, commends a term of office of eight years for Mr Wim Duisenberg as nominee for Central Bank presidency.
We will pass a resolution confirming the appointment of the president later today on these terms.
One has no objection to that.
However, I recognize that the reference to an eight-year term for the president is no more for all of us than a fiction, since clearly Mr Duisenberg is unlikely to serve for that length by his own admission.
<P>
In a statement on 2 May Mr Duisenberg explained that in view of his age he did not want to serve a full term but added that in future, the decision to resign would be his, and his alone.
Our hearings helped to elicit further understanding of this matter.
The nominee for president intends, health permitting, to serve at least until the switch-over from national notes and coins to euros has been achieved.
Furthermore he stated he did not intend to stand down at a specific moment in time.
On further questioning he added: ' I can assure you that there is no link between the terms of one executive director or vice-president and that of any other.
There is no link that I am aware of - no link whatsoever.'
In terms of the complete independence and discretion that should go with this high office, this latter quote is an important reassurance.
<P>
In this light the Liberal Group emphasizes the desirability for continuity of leadership in the Board of the bank and suggests that an early or simultaneous succession of both the president and vice-president should be avoided.
Of course this matter is entirely in the hands of Mr Duisenberg himself.
I accept his reassurance that there is no link whatsoever between the terms of one appointment and those of any other.
But we, in the Liberal Group, think there can be no more graphic way of confirming this in substance than by his remaining in office to ensure a smooth transition from the first appointee as vicepresident to that person's successor in office.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, with today's proceedings the European Parliament is participating in the constitution of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, a body which, as the preceding hearings have substantiated, will be independent from the instruments of political and democratic control of the Member States and of the European Union itself. It will also be independent of informal centres of power, as was shown by the political accommodation reached in Brussels, a body which regards itself as committed to implementing a tough monetarist policy, aimed at monetary stability and low interest rates, and fundamentally ignoring the effects this policy has on the social condition of the people of the European Union.
<P>
In the name of all those who, in the most dramatic way, pay for the consequences of this unpopular, neo-liberal policy, we refuse to use our vote to legitimize this body and the role that has been assigned to it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, I hope the procedure used to appoint the board of the European Central Bank will never be repeated.
The insistence on unanimity among Member States is extremely damaging, and only serves to allow one large country to put pressure on others.
The unofficial agreement to share the president's term of office is fortunately only part of an unworthy show, as it will not be legally binding.
Let it serve as a warning, however, that monetary policy in the euro area cannot be subordinate to national interests.
<P>
I would like to make a few critical observations regarding the hearings.
Firstly, the nominees displayed a pretty incredible mood of reserve when it came to demands for openness on the part of the Central Bank.
Wim Duisenberg even went so far as to say that the contents of the Minutes of the Board could only be made known in sixteen years' time.
This we simply cannot accept.
The European Parliament must immediately initiate talks on this subject with Board members.
<P>
The nominees also stressed the need to fight against inflation, even more than is required of the Maastricht Treaty.
But I would say, let last week's hearings serve as a starting point for future dialogue between the Central Bank and the European Parliament.
Such talks must lead to establishing a balance between targets for inflation and targets for employment.
They must also give weight to the fact that the ECB, described as the world's most independent bank, must in the future operate in such a way that it is accountable both to the European Parliament and to the general public.
This will be quite a challenge for the European Parliament.
But I am convinced that the general public will also agree on how important it is for the European Parliament to monitor the work of the Central Bank.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Trizza">
Mr President, on behalf of the National Alliance, I express approval of and satisfaction with all the candidacies proposed and among these I would like to underline the particularly prestigious nomination of Mr PadoaSchioppa.
Nevertheless, I must stress the need to review some of the mechanisms for the future appointments to the Executive Board of the European Central Bank.
Indeed, even though in a context of virtually widespread consensus, there is also widespread dissatisfaction on the part of the Parliament.
<P>
With regard to the principle of democracy, in fact, the Parliament must have a more decisive role in selections that like this one have direct consequences on the individual economies of the States.
It must be recognised as having the possibility to re-examine these candidates and submit them to a more detailed verification, candidates who initially do not provide an executive framework of their attitude on monetary policies, on democratic control and on the transparency of the work that they are called upon to do on behalf of and in the interest of the European Union.
<P>
I confirm, as already stated at the sitting of 1 April, my total agreement with the autonomy of the Central Bank, but in addition to providing for dialogue with the European Parliament and dialogue at the time of the appointment of the Board and at the time of the debate on monetary choices of particular strategic importance, it is essential that we advance to a situation of political cohesion that alone can guarantee that we will not risk being faced with a giant that is purely economic, but lacking any political dignity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Metten">
Madam President, before we held the hearings with the candidates for the European Central Bank last week, we obviously already knew that, legally speaking, we had no veto right against the candidates.
In the meantime it has become clear that, politically speaking, this veto right does exist.
None of the candidates is able to function as a Member of the Board if he or she does not have the confidence of a large majority within this Parliament.
Even this Parliament does not seem to be sufficiently convinced of this important fact.
The discussions about one candidate, who clearly performed less well than the others, have made this clear.
What conclusions can we draw from these hearings?
<P>
Firstly, that proper preparation pays off.
A few months ago my group approached leading European experts who acted as advisors and sparring partners for the social-democratic interviewers.
We commissioned independent experts to compile political profiles of all the candidates.
Some of us sought advice in the United States, from the Senate and the FED, on the American experiences.
<P>
The organization of the hearings worked well.
Our own approach with one leading interviewer per candidate, always from a different Member State than the candidate, is undoubtedly worth following.
The method used by some of the other groups, whereby the interviewing was preferably done by people from the same country as the interviewee, who, to top it all, prided themselves on their friendship or joint activities with the candidates, clearly does not bear repeating.
<P>
Secondly, it seemed to me that there was sufficient awareness amongst all candidates of the importance of openness, active communication and good relations with the European Parliament.
Only a few weeks ago we, the Group of the Party of European Socialists, had to put up a tough fight over the Randzio-Plath report in order to emphasize the need for openness. Many of our conservative colleagues were still associating openness in the ECB with infringement of its independence.
These misunderstandings have now clearly been dispelled.
I can even see agreement being reached on the anonymity of the Minutes of the European Central Bank.
<P>
Thirdly, it has become very clear during the hearings that price stability, the necessity of which my group also expressly endorses, is being achieved at the moment. It has also become clear that the ECB will immediately be faced with the question as to how it is going to give shape to its secondary task, namely supporting general economic policy.
<P>
Unfortunately I have to note that the answers to this question were always very vague.
It seemed as though, as far as those in the Central Banks were concerned, the interest rates could only go up.
My final conclusion is that the candidates demonstrated sufficient awareness of the uncertainties entailed in monetary policy at European level, and that they did not proffer traditional, national solutions for European problems.
This openness of spirit gives me enough faith in the fruitfulness of the constant dialogue which we will enter into with the ECB.
For this Parliament this dialogue will become one of the most important tasks.
It is a fascinating challenge which we will gladly accept.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Peijs">
Mr President, listening to Mr Peijs leaves a bit of a bad taste in the mouth.
As if the Group of the Party of European Socialists are the only ones here in this Parliament who defend openness and transparency where the Central Bank is concerned.
Let no one be under any misapprehension, the Group of the European People's Party was only against this Parliament being able to dismiss the Board of the Central Bank.
I would like to remind everyone of Mr Metten's fine words about dismissing one of the candidates, or rather, abstaining from voting, but tomorrow or this afternoon he will be voting in favour again.
Strange, Mr President, I do not think Mr Metten lives up to his fine words.
<P>
Mr President, on the subject of the hearing, Mr Duisenberg's replies to my questions reassured me.
He will decide himself, he says, when he should resign his office.
He thinks it is absurd to start talking already about the nationality, let alone the name of his successor.
Despite much tooth-brushing at Mr Duisenberg's suggestion, the bad taste in the mouth caused by the weekend of 2 and 3 May has not yet entirely disappeared.
It also appears that being president requires a truly professional approach in such circumstances.
Some suspicion continues to linger in the minds and hearts of the people.
To remove all their doubt, I call from within this Parliament on Mr Duisenberg to stay in place until 2003 at least, as a way of demonstrating beyond doubt to the political world that the European Central Bank is independent.
The replies to questions about democratic accountability occupy a central position for this Parliament.
<P>
The candidate for the Presidency of the Bank is prepared to appear before the European Parliament four times a year.
The quarterly report will then be discussed.
The Vice-President, Mr Noyer, says he also sees the importance of this accountability.
The Presidents of the national central banks are able to explain the monetary policy in their national parliaments.
It is sensible of Mr Duisenberg, who is ignoring the wishes of the French Parliament, to make the members of the Executive Board of the ECB appear in the national parliaments.
Just imagine, Mr Duisenberg in the French Assemblée . Marianne would topple from her virginal pedestal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Janssen van Raay">
I have one comment and one question.
My comment is the following. From a Dutch perspective the 1987 Currency Act will have to be amended by law, and this could be an excellent reason for using the new resource of the referendum, as every Dutch person has to deal with the guilder.
This would be the opportunity to ask the Dutch people whether the majority wants to get rid of the guilder or not.
That was my comment.
Sufficient mandate has been given to the minimum of 40 000 people who are required by law to initiate a referendum.
<P>
The question I wanted to ask is the following.
In the wake of the two previous Dutch speakers I want to know whether we will be assessing a president who will make use of his sovereign will to step down midway? Or are we giving a judgment about a president who makes use of his sovereignty by staying put for eight years, as argued for by Mrs Peijs?
Because this uncertainty exists.
The Prime Minister spoke in this spirit, but the Minister of Finance seemed to say something else.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Mr President, in the talks Members have conducted on the nomination of the ECB Executive Board, it has been frequently mentioned that the Bank must endeavour to achieve the greatest possible openness and always keep Parliament informed of its activity.
<P>
I would like to mention another aspect of the matter, namely that such openness will be of benefit to the Bank itself, and even vital at the beginning.
In its endeavour to succeed, the European Central Bank will need the confidence of the public in addition to that of the market.
In this respect the European Parliament could act as one side in an excellent partnership.
Open dialogue on monetary policy with Parliament will furnish the Bank with the feedback from the Community that it needs, and will help reduce the distrust that people have of the Bank.
I hope that the nominees for the Board, all of whom I give my support to, will appreciate the advantages of openness and democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="Harrison">
Mr President, I was pleased and honoured to attend all the hearings of the Central Bank governors and the remaining five members of the Executive Board held in Brussels last week.
These hearings were a resounding success for the European Parliament and hence for the people of the European Union.
Moreover I believe our hearings went some way to assuage the appearance of uncertainty which characterised the meeting of the Council in Brussels the weekend before, where the eventual choice of Duisenberg and Trichet for a 12-year incumbency of the ECB governorship was a success but the nature of the deal which buttressed it left something to be desired.
<P>
Why were Parliament's hearings a success?
First of all our forensic questioning evinced from Wim Duisenberg the clarion call of his independence.
There was no going Dutch with this Dutchman.
He has been given an eight-year mandate and he alone will decide any date of any departure.
<P>
Secondly, Wim Duisenberg placed on record, as did Mrs Hämäläinen and Mr Issing, that in accordance with Article 105 of the Treaty, once the overriding principle of price stability has been secured and established then it is an obligation not just an option - wisely exercised using all instruments available to it - for the ECB to support the broad objectives of the European Union to promote growth and employment.
There are 18 million unemployed, as mentioned just now by President-in-Office Gordon Brown.
This obligation can entail lowering interest rates across 'Euroland' to stimulate growth.
<P>
Thirdly, the EB established a clear and future dialogue with the present board of the ECB.
As Chancellor Brown has just exhorted us, we will conduct purposeful hearings on a quarterly basis with the ECB, not to infringe its executive independence but instead to invoke the necessary public accountability to which even this August and powerful body must submit - it will indeed be 'August' for the people.
In this respect I deplore the leader in Monday's Times which in its habitual ignorance scorned the coming importance of the EB in effecting democratic accountability.
<P>
The European Parliament is coming of age.
After these hearings its first grey hairs are appearing, and in a few months time the éminences grises of Parliament will begin their historic task of entering into regular dialogue with the ECB.
This is the task which will put the European Parliament on the political map forever.
I believe, on the evidence of the hearings, that we are up to this task and I look forward with pleasure to the European Parliament working with Mr Duisenberg's team for Europe's common and exciting future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langen">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think that we should compliment the Council on its excellent proposal for the first Executive Board of the ECB.
Its proposal has successfully met all the obligations stipulated in Article 109 a of the Maastricht Treaty.
It is my conviction that any further debate on the term of office of the future president is unnecessary since Mr Duisenberg has been appointed for eight years and this is in accordance with the Treaty.
<P>
However, the Maastricht Treaty requires a unanimous vote in the Council, in other words the appointment is a political decision, and so there must also be negotiations with regard to the individuals involved.
The independence of the Executive Board is guaranteed exclusively by the fact that re-election is not permitted.
This is not a matter which we really aired with Mr Duisenberg, although we did discuss the length of his term of office.
The hearing revealed that the six names proposed are all excellent candidates.
Although there were differences in their statements and in their presentations to the House, there can be no doubt as to their qualifications.
All the candidates explained quite clearly that they would advocate a mixture of monetary control and inflation targets as the number one tool in ensuring the monetary stability of the euro.
In actual fact, contrary to what Mrs Randzio-Plath said earlier, under Article 105 the primary objective is monetary stability, to which the question of employment is only secondary.
Only a stable euro, a coordinated finance policy and strict observation of Article 104 taken in conjunction with the stability pact can offer a guarantee of sustained success.
Inflation is not the key to labour market problems as we heard quite clearly at the hearing.
<P>
Allow me to make one further comment on Mr Metten.
The members of the socialist and communist groups questioned the qualifications of one of the candidates.
I have the impression - and this was borne out in the vote - that this was due not to a genuine question of suitability, but rather to the fact that the candidate in question was an adviser to a Christian Democrat prime minister and, in addition, had worked for many years for the Employers' Association.
I would ask you to leave these arguments to one side and to vote together for a good, sensible Executive Board.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Katiforis">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has conducted the hearings of the candidates for the administration of the Central Bank in, I believe, an exemplary way, which does credit to our Parliament.
With regard to the candidates, the Treaty lays down that they are pan-European personalities of known repute and professional competence.
Nationality does not and must not play a role in our judgment but, naturally, their conception of economic policy does.
This is something we cannot ignore.
But perhaps these are all issues which take a back seat in the face of the fact that there are now two large central banks in the world; one is the new European Central Bank and the other is the Federal Reserve in the United States.
<P>
We hope that these two large institutions will cooperate to stabilize the international money system and the global economy.
However, if we compare the constitutional aims of the two institutions, I am forced to acknowledge the superiority of the American institution.
The aims which are defined in the charter of the European Central Bank are one-sided and somewhat clumsily phrased.
In their haste to emphasize the need for price stability, which we all sympathise with when it is carried out in a logical and responsible way of course, those who drew up the charter forgot the main technical objective of any central bank, which is to supply the economy with money, and relegated employment to the side lines.
On the other hand, the starting point of the charter of the Federal Reserve is the autonomous need for a central bank to supply money to the economy, taking care equally of price stability, employment and a logical level for interest rates.
This one-sided nature of the charter either forced or allowed the candidates to present a united front on the issue of price stability and essentially, like other Pontius Pilates, to wash their hands of the matter of employment.
There were certain undertones to this issue.
The role of Parliament, in the context of the general acceptance of all of the candidates and in the context of respect, naturally, for the independence of the central bank, is to point out to them that, with whatever policy they practice, they must rectify the one-sidedness of the charter and move towards the position of the American Federal Reserve.
I want to believe that this was the meaning of the opinions expressed about the candidates by the Group of the Party of European Socialists and I hope that the voices of criticism which have been heard will be taken into consideration by the future members of the Executive Board.
<P>
To date, price stability in Europe has been borne on the shoulders of the 20-30 million unemployed.
It is high time that a part of that burden was borne by an economic and monetary policy which is more efficient and more sensitive, and it is hoped that the members of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank will play their role in this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="Stevens">
Mr President, British Members of the Group of the European People's Party intend to vote against Mr Duisenberg and Mr Noyer.
This is not a vote against them personally: it is a vote against the deal struck at the Brussels Summit on 2 and 3 May.
It is also not a vote against monetary union.
Members know that I could never tolerate that.
On the contrary, it is a vote for the success of the single currency.
That success depends not just on the credibility of the new Central Bank but on the credibility of all the European institutions, not least on the credibility of this House.
<P>
We voted on 30 April overwhelmingly against any modification of the President's eight-year term and against any setting in advance of the nationality of the President's successor.
Less than three days later, these votes were just thrown back in our faces by the Council.
Mr Duisenberg's off-the-cuff remarks to us subsequently do not alter this fact at all.
<P>
I know many of you share our outrage at this.
Some have spoken out and then gone silent.
Some, to their shame, have sought to hide their submission to the Heads of Government by picking on Mr Solans.
That is the coward's course.
Some of us must have the courage to reveal what this Parliament believes but cannot say.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pérez Royo">
Mr President, the Treaty, as you all know, contains a clear design for the way the European Central Bank should work. It stresses the autonomy and independence of the Central Bank, which should be immune to all sorts of pressures or political instructions.
<P>
At the same time, however, the Treaty reserves a special moment for politics - that is, the moment of nomination.
That nomination falls to the Council, but there is also a provision for Parliament to express its view following hearings or interviews with the candidates proposed by the Council.
Well, at the moment I am pleased to say that the European Parliament has played its part correctly, and has thus been able to correct the bad impression caused by the meeting of Heads of State and Government the previous weekend.
<P>
Mr Duisenberg's responses to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy have removed the doubts on some aspects which had not been cleared up at the Summit, especially with regard to his possible retirement.
To quote Mr Duisenberg from the verbatim report of proceedings: "I do not intend to stand down at a specific moment in time' .
And he went on to say: "I want to emphasize that the decision to step down will be my decision and mine alone' .
I think that is an important clarification, especially in relation to what Mr Stevens was just saying.
<P>
The second point I want to mention is of particular importance to Parliament, especially for those Members of this House who are of a progressive or left-wing persuasion. It concerns the willingness of the candidates to make sure that the basic function of maintaining price stability and low inflation is compatible with the general objectives of the economic policy promoted by the Union - or which should be promoted by the Union - aimed basically at growth and job creation.
In general, we obtained satisfactory replies from the six candidates in this area, although with different shades of opinion, of course.
<P>
My third point is especially important for us. It concerns the relationship with the European Parliament, which from now on is going to be - has to be - the privileged partner in the task of democratic supervision of the future European Central Bank.
In this area too, we obtained satisfactory answers from all the candidates, who assured us of that important point: the European Parliament's role as a privileged partner.
The national parliaments will have their role with the governors of the national central banks, which will still exist of course, at national level.
<P>
Lastly, there is another matter which is also very important for us: transparency and public information on monetary policy decisions and the reasons underlying them.
That is an essential point, as we have often said. In this area too, we were given satisfactory replies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Brok">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, once before in Europe, 128 years ago, to be precise, there was another position which needed to be filled.
On that occasion it was in Spain.
And on that occasion the French government sent a telegram to Bad Ems which, as a result of a few changes, created the necessary mood to start preparations for war.
<P>
Once again there has been a dispute over an appointment. Once again it has involved the Germans and the French in particular.
But this time, two days later, the two main protagonists sat down together in Avignon and made plans on how they would proceed in Europe in the future.
This shows, I believe, how enormously different things are this time. In other words, how much progress we have made in Europe.
Issues which once led to wars are now argued out in joint institutions, then differences are set aside and work is resumed.
This shows the level of political stability we have achieved in Europe today.
This political stability represents a foundation stone for the economic and monetary stability we are endeavouring to achieve within the European Monetary Union.
It is not simply a question of personnel. The Maastricht Treaty, the Stability Pact, stipulates a framework which includes the independence of the Central Bank, the European System of Central Banks and so forth, and, in my view, guarantees that it is built on solid foundations.
<P>
However, we should also make it clear that the independence of the European Central Bank will have to be defended.
Mr Duisenberg's paper gives the first possible date for stepping down, but not the final one.
So he is correct in his definition when he says that after four years things will start to look up and that we will then be able to defend the independence of the Central Bank should any national government try to exert unreasonable pressure on its head and his good team.
<P>
Allow me to make one final observation.
There is only one reason for the great fuss which surrounded the appointment of the President of the Commission and which has surrounded this case, and that is that these questions still have to be decided unanimously.
For this reason, in the next institutional round, to ensure that the situation is not repeated, Parliament must stress the fact that in future such personnel appointments should be decided by a majority decision at Council level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, I wish to thank Christa Randzio-Plath for her excellent work in producing this splendid report.
<P>
The Central Bank will have greater freedom than any other institution in the world: its executives will wield immense power.
It is therefore obvious that power cannot be completely unaccountable.
Money, especially monetary policy, is not at all a neutral subject.
It is hot, it is electric, it is all-powerful, and it affects every citizen in the Union.
<P>
The hearings were important.
We did not take a position, as if we had there would have been five unsuitable candidates, in our opinion.
One candidate did not fulfil all requirements, in the view of our interviewers.
It must be said that the Bank system must be awfully delicate if it cannot allow one no-vote, not even in Parliament.
Fortunately, the market thinks differently.
<P>
The positive side to all this is that we have initiated intensive talks with the Central Bank and you can be sure we will be thorough when we discuss financial and employment policies.
I am wary of the opinion that the European Parliament should be some kind of press outlet for the Central Bank.
Parliament will create a procedure and will present frameworks within which the ECB can practise monetary policy.
<P>
I think it is very important that the ECB makes it part of its monetary policy to report back on its assessment of how much monetary policy has given real support to common economic policy.
Its key target should be greater employment. That is the biggest problem in the Union.
The euro is not always going to be stable if it is based on such mass unemployment as there is.
<P>
Certain candidates for the Central Bank's Board have not conceded that monetary policy could have different effects in various parts of the euro area.
It is well known, however, that countries find themselves in different economic cycles at different times.
The economic cycle experienced in small countries like Finland and the employment situation there are different from those in the larger countries.
The European Central Bank must also take account of the possibility of asymmetrical shockwaves affecting the economy when it determines appropriate monetary policy in Europe.
<P>
Now we have embarked on a partnership with the Bank, I hope and believe that something good, vital and significant will come of it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Thyssen">
Mr President, on the basis of the candidates' CVs and their written and oral replies to our questions, we have been able to conclude that each of the proposed candidates deserves our support.
I am convinced of the qualities of these five men and one woman, of their integrity, and their determination. I am also convinced that they will ensure that the Treaty will be complied with in all its aspects, and that the candidates possess suitable experience to fulfil their mandate with dignity.
<P>
The candidates have all shown their willingness to enter into permanent dialogue with our European Parliament as the Executive Board of the European Central Bank.
Moreover, the candidates have shown in advance that they have the predisposition to operate as a team.
<P>
After having heard the candidates and having read the conclusions of the European Council, we can only conclude that the Treaty and the Statute of the European Central Bank are being respected.
I will therefore vote with pleasure in favour of the appointment of each of the candidates.
<P>
Unfortunately I am not able to express the same pleasure about the way the European Council has acted.
The people of Europe have few words of praise for those who are responsible for the poor preparation of this Council. Nor do they have much praise for those who, even at such a historic moment, did not manage to suppress their inclination to give priority to the national prestige of their country over a well-understood general European interest.
But the government leaders who summoned the patience and courage to lunch for hours on end, and in doing so managed to achieve the result which we will endorse today, do deserve our congratulations.
Our congratulations are also due to those who organized the work in our Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
I hope, Mr Metten, that the groups will retain the political freedom at the next opportunity to each organize themselves internally as they see fit.
<P>
The decision-making procedure of the Council must of course be changed.
We can no longer have a situation in which one country is able to exercise its veto when appointments are being decided on.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Torres Marques">
Mr President, the creation of the euro is an event of the greatest significance.
It will be a new reference currency of great economic potency, and I very much hope the euro will help to turn that into great political potency.
<P>
The euro will be managed by an independent Central Bank, and our interviewing of the members we appointed to manage it was among the high points in the life of the European Parliament.
The process by which the Council selected the President of the Central Bank, however, was lamentable.
Yet the credibility of the appointed members, and the solidity of the European economies, were sufficient for the financial markets to erase the memory of some nationalistic decisions which, we hope, will not be repeatable.
<P>
Taken overall, this is not the ideal form of governing body we hoped the European Council would present us with.
Nor did I have an equal opinion of all the candidates; that was to be expected.
But the interviews we conducted enabled us to obtain the necessary assurances that all members of the Executive Board, especially the President, Wim Duisenberg, will recognise that the legitimacy and credibility of the European Central Bank and the strength of the euro will depend for their security on the quality of the accounts submitted to the European Parliament and the seriousness of the monetary dialogue they will set up with us.
<P>
All the members we interviewed convinced us that they are highly knowledgeable on the subject and have a proven track record of lifelong integrity.
I would particularly congratulate Mrs Hämäläinen, not only on her birthday, which she celebrated on the same day, but also because of the pleasure it gives me to see a woman on the Executive Board of the European Central Bank.
<P>
Let us hope that others will join her in the future, as is natural in a democracy.
Thus, just as we have come to know the Board of the European Central Bank a great deal better, so they have undoubtedly realized that for us monetary policy is neutral, and that, in their dealings with national Parliaments, European Members will be attentive and vigilant in ensuring that the operation of the European Central Bank fulfils all the obligations imposed on it by the Treaty: price stability, but also war on unemployment, support for economic growth, and economic, social and regional cohesion in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="Hendrick">
Mr President, may I start by congratulating Mrs Randzio-Plath for her tireless efforts as rapporteur and Members and staff from the secretariat of Parliament for their work.
<P>
A successful single currency will improve the single market, which will contribute to growth and high levels of employment, commensurate with Article 2 of the Treaty of the European Union.
In the long term it will provide for both monetary and economic stability and low inflation.
<P>
I believe that this Parliament has conducted itself with dignity.
Our efforts on Thursday and Friday last week, during the hearings, have given both ourselves and others in the wider world a glimpse into the hearts and minds of our future ECB governors, in a way which has never been witnessed before.
<P>
The commitment to openness and transparency is, as the President-in-Office mentioned earlier in his speech, an idea whose time has come.
In addition, all the candidates gave their commitment to a variety of forms of democratic accountability, which is to be welcomed with open arms.
All the candidates were competent and some held views which some of us did not agree with.
But to pretend, as Mr Stevens did, that to vote against the presidency of Mr Duisenberg helps either the euro or the role of this Parliament is a misrepresentation of the truth and is a deception.
<P>
Mr Stevens' comments are more a courtesy to his leader, Mr Hague, at home in Westminster.
We are all Europeans and decisions made in this House are made in the interest of Europe as a whole - this is not an intergovernmental institution.
We are on the threshold of an era - which, I believe, in the next few years will include all 15 Member States - an era which will bring employment and prosperity to Europe in a way we have never seen before, and give the people of Europe a weight and an influence in the world commensurate with their importance.
I look forward to that era.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="von Wogau">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the first weekend in May was a weekend of great historic importance for the European Union.
With the decision by eleven of the fifteen Member States to introduce the single currency on 1 January 1999, the European Union has set its course for the 21st century.
However, this historic event was overshadowed by the debate on the future President of the European Central Bank.
The only question for discussion in the media was: will Wim Duisenberg's term of office be four or eight years?
<P>
This is something I regret wholeheartedly.
It was not, indeed it is not the most important question.
It is true that the six members of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank have different terms of office.
This was organized so that the entire management team will not be forced to stand down at the next election.
It ensures that their joint experience can be passed on.
So, a shorter term of office bears no relation to the level of independence of the European Central Bank.
Its independence will be evident in its daily activities.
It is also true that the appointment of the President of the European Central Bank is a political decision.
This is the same the world over.
However, in its activities the European Central Bank will be completely independent.
<P>
At the end of the day, what was the cause of the debacle on the first weekend in May?
One thing is certain - preparations for the Council meeting on 2 May 1998 were far from ideal.
As we know, it is the task of the presidency to take a leading role in advance preparations for personnel decisions which must be unanimous.
The Luxembourg Presidency started the process by putting forward a suggestion which was, in fact, very similar to the solution finally adopted.
The British Presidency then continued these efforts.
Unfortunately, the proposal which British Prime Minister Tony Blair finally put to the Heads of State and Government at lunch on 2 May 1998 failed to meet with general agreement.
Unfortunately again, a crisis meeting with the Dutch and French heads of state, who were effectively blocking each other with opposing candidates, failed to achieve an outcome.
Finally, Chancellor Helmut Kohl was forced to take on the role of mediator. In a meeting later designated as the longest lunch in the world - lasting from 2 pm to 3 am the following morning - he managed to achieve the solution which is now on the table.
For this Helmut Kohl has earned our thanks and our recognition.
Applause please!
<P>
(Muted applause) In Wim Duisenberg the first President of the European Central Bank will be the preferred choice of 14 Member States and the preferred choice of the European Parliament.
This is particularly important during the first, formative years of the European Central Bank.
At the start of his professional career Mr Duisenberg collected academic experience.
Then he moved into the world of international monetary policy through his work at the International Monetary Fund.
He was the Dutch Finance Minister, then a highly successful president of the Dutch Central Bank.
He is currently President of the European Monetary Institute.
Thus Wim Duisenberg has the very best credentials for the post of first President of the European Central Bank. He will bring his whole life experience to the job.
<P>
Furthermore, we must not forget that a whole team is being appointed and that the President of the Central Bank will not be making decisions alone, but with his team.
This team has an excellent captain in the shape of its President Wim Duisenberg.
The team will also contain two other very strong players: Padoa-Schioppa from Italy, an excellent individual whom we all know, and Mr Ottmar Issing, Chief Economist at the German Central Bank and the author of the standard reference works on monetary policy and monetary theory.
I myself read his works before I started dealing with monetary policy.
As I had to tell him at the hearing, by rights it was not really I who should have been examining Professor Issing, but rather Professor Issing who should have been examining me!
So he is a most excellent person.
Professor Issing has been appointed for eight years. So he will be on board for the whole eight-year period.
Then we know - and Mr Donnelly also knows this - that at the end of the day interest rate decisions will not be taken by the President and the Executive Board alone. In fact, the Executive Board and the Central Bank Council will take these decisions together, and Trichet and Tietmeyer will therefore also be represented.
In other words, we will be starting with a great team.
I can only advise you to vote for this great team!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="Brown">
Mr President, this debate and, indeed, the proceedings of Parliament have been an exercise in both accountability and consensus-building which does great credit to this Parliament.
This means that the future relationships between Parliament and the European Central Bank will be in very good order.
I believe I speak on behalf of all the Council of Ministers when I pass my congratulations to this Parliament for the excellent way in which these proceedings have taken place.
<P>
I want to add only two things.
Firstly, I will pass on not only the vote of Parliament but also its views to the next meeting of the Finance Ministers on Tuesday.
I will tell them what I believe has been said by all speakers here - your view, my view, the view of all the Council of Ministers - that the Treaty will be, and should be, upheld and upheld in all respects.
<P>
The second thing I will pass on is that this is an exercise in consultation which is not the end of a process but the beginning.
The transparency, accountability and openness which almost every speaker has referred to in their remarks is, in my view and in the view of these proceedings, absolutely essential, not just in itself because it is good for the working of the single currency, but because it will make for the greater stability that will allow for high levels of growth and employment in Europe.
<P>
It is, therefore, on that basis that the consultation has been effective and will in future be effective that I urge you to pass on your consultations to the European Finance Ministers and the European Council in the spirit of the speeches we have received today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, I am personally affected since I was unable to distinguish between irony and sincerity in Mr von Wogau's speech, particularly if I take Mr Brok's reaction into account.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Metten">
Mr President, Mrs Thyssen has attacked me on two points.
Firstly, she says that the Group of the European People's Party has always favoured more openness.
She has a short memory.
I invite everyone to read what she said on the previous Randzio-Plath report. This provides the definite answer.
<P>
Secondly, could I say something about the strength of my backbone with regard to the criticism which I made in respect of a few candidates?
I invite everyone to consult the result of the roll-call votes shortly, then it will become clear how strong my backbone is.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Wogau">
Mr President, as Mr Wolf addressed me directly, may I assure him that I would be more than pleased to make available to him a written copy of the speech I have just made.
If he then compares it to the actual events, or asks Gordon Brown whether that is how things actually happened, he will find that the current President-in-Office of the Council will confirm my version of events.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place today at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Euro-Mediterranean cooperation (joint debate)
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions:
<P>





B4-0466/98 - O-0111/98 by the following Members: Viola, Fabra Vallés, Martens, Friedrich and Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, to the Council, on Euro-Mediterranean cooperation; -B4-0288/98 - O-0083/98 by the following Members: Speciale, Terrón I Cusì, Napoletano, Roubatis, Swoboda and Carlotti, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to the Council, on the Euro-Mediterranean association agreements; -B4-0290/98 - O-0092/98 by the following Members: Azzolini and Pasty, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, to the Council, and B4-0383/98-0-0093/98, to the Commission, on Euro-Mediterranean cooperation; -B4-0384/98 - O-0094/98 by the following Members: Elmalan, Carnero González, Papayannakis, Ephremidis, Alavanos, Gutiérrez Díaz and Sierra Gonzalez, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, to the Council, and B4-0385/98-0-0095/98, to the Commission, on the Euro-Mediterranean association agreements; -B4-0467/98 - O-0112/98 by the following Members: Fabra Vallés, Viola, Theato, Lambrias, Martens, Friedrich and Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, to the Commission, on Euro-Mediterranean cooperation; -B4-00389/98 - O-0099/98 by the following Members: Aelvoet, Cohn-Bendit, Gahrton, Tamino and Orlando, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, to the Council, and B4-0390/98-0-0100/98 to the Commission, on the Euro-Mediterranean association agreements; -B4-0465/98 - O-0103/98 by Mrs Lalumière, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, to the Council, on the Euro-Mediterranean association agreements; -B4-00469/98 - O-0114/98/rev.1 by Mr Souchet, on behalf of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, to the Council, on Euro-Mediterranean cooperation; -B4-00471/98 - O-0116/98 by Mr Caligaris and Mr Fassa, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, to the Council, and B4-0472/98 - O-0117/98 to the Commission, on the Euro-Mediterranean association agreements.


<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Viola">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Euro-Mediterranean process is today facing the difficult and important moment of resumption after the weakness of Malta, the labourious agreement with Jordan, the delay in the ratification of the Euro-Mediterranean agreements already concluded, the dramatic events in Algeria, the stalling of the peace process, the complex candidature of Cyprus and, finally, the difficult blocking of the MED programmes.
<P>
Euro-Mediterranean dialogue will resume in Palermo where, in June, the informal Summit of Foreign Ministers will be held, a summit that should open the way - hopefully downhill - to the forthcoming Conference in Berlin.
<P>
This return is beginning under favourable auspices: first of all the resumption of the MED programmes, and therefore a regained confidence in the possibility of once again giving civil society the necessary strength to link the two sides of the Mediterranean and providing it with the adequate funds.
<P>
Another positive sign is the imminent creation of the Euro-Mediterranean Forum which is nothing other than the completion of the Barcelona declaration itself.
<P>
These good auspices notwithstanding, the risk remains nonetheless that the arduous peace process between Israel and Palestine, which lately has also been showing all its problems and the inadequacy of a European diplomatic presence in the negotiations led by Washington, will negatively affect - as has already occurred in Malta - the European attempt to consolidate a dialogue with the southern rim of the Mediterranean.
<P>
The Middle East issues are arising in the Barcelona process, but they are inevitably part of its passage to completion and continue to be perhaps one of the weakest points of this process.
<P>
If the Union's common foreign policy is still not up to such tasks, perhaps the future Euro-Mediterranean Forum will be of help in keeping the channels of dialogue open between all sides.
<P>
Today, we are also discussing the resumption of the MED programmes.
It is my wish that this be complete and efficient.
There will be complete resumption once the emergency phase is entirely over and if we follow what was voted last year by the Parliament on the report by Fabra Vallés.
<P>
Total resumption of Euro-Mediterranean dialogue through decentralized cooperation will actually be complete only when all the MED programmes have been resumed, in particular those aimed at a greater involvement of civil society and the small and medium-sized enterprises along the Mediterranean rim.
<P>
There will only be efficiency when the European Commission has enough staff to clearly prevent those operators who in the past had made cofinancing commitments but then did not keep their word, from participating in the new programmes.
<P>
I hope that the Commission has understood the high cost - not only in quantifiable financial terms but also in the difficult-to-quantify terms of the loss of trust in the European Institutions on the part of the Mediterranean non-member countries and especially on the part of civil society - caused by the inevitable blocking of the MED programmes, blocking that, mind you, was rightly sought by Commissioner Marín and effectively monitored by this Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control which gave its own positive opinion that decentralized programming could resume only when the Commission provides sufficient guarantees that there will be a resumption of sound programming and financial management.
<P>
I have dwelt upon the resumption of the MED programmes because the debate that we are holding today arose from this, anticipating the discussion already scheduled in June on the situation in the Middle East.
<P>
The Group of the European People's Party is obviously not avoiding such a debate, considering it in any case useful and timely.
The colleagues of the group following me will address the individual issues more specifically.
<P>
In conclusion, I consider it both useful and timely to arrive at a joint resolution on which all agree.
As far as our group is concerned, I believe that such an objective is easier to achieve if an agreement can be reached on the compromise resolution, which could take the form of two simple oral amendments which make recital G positive and update paragraph 10 which today could be objectively surpassed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fabra Vallés">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all allow me to remind you of the importance of the European Union's actions in favour of the associated countries of the Mediterranean.
<P>
With the MEDA programme alone, up to 1999, we are talking about ECU 3400 million.
That money is aimed at providing help wherever the worst problems are encountered: that is, in the area of essential basic services for the welfare of the people.
Priority is given to projects in the fields of education, professional training and health.
<P>
Although I fully agree with the Commission on the basic principles, there are still some question marks over the implementation of those principles and the way in which the money provided in the Union's budget is spent.
<P>
In that context, we all know that the moment of truth has not yet arrived, even though, in an exemplary demonstration of transparency on the part of the Commission, the implementation figures for the budgetary planning for the Mediterranean are currently available on the Internet.
That is good.
<P>
The figures are excellent as regards commitments, but the question goes further than that.
Will it be possible to respect those commitments?
Will the available money be spent?
In other words, will the promises be kept?
Or will we run into the same problems in the future as we met in the PHARE and, especially, the TACIS programmes?
That is the question on which the Commission will be judged in the end.
<P>
The Court of Auditors' report on financial and technical cooperation with Mediterranean third countries which was presented a few weeks ago may give rise to doubts, for example about the Commission failing to provide enough human resources to implement the programmes, and about the lack of clarity between the Commission's various services on the one hand, and between the Commission's headquarters in Brussels and the territorial delegations, on the other.
<P>
And that Court of Auditors' report ends by saying that these problems could get worse if we lose sight of the importance of the MEDA commitments and the ambitious payment rate.
What is the Commission's reaction to this risk?
And remember, we are talking about the MEDA programme, where there was no problem, and everything was done absolutely by the book.
<P>
My second worry is about the decentralized cooperation programmes - the MED programmes.
Here we need to know if the Commission is planning to do everything needed in order to follow up Parliament's resolutions on the MED programmes.
It is good that these cooperation programmes have been relaunched on a new basis.
Nevertheless, three questions arise in this context. Will the Commission respect all Parliament's conditions?
Will the Commission act in such a way as to allow the recovery of all moneys from those projects which were cancelled because of irregularities?
And will the Commission provide the judicial authorities with all the information at its disposal, so that possible criminal responsibilities can be determined?
<P>
Mr President, Commissioner, I wonder if people need reminding that this is a sine qua non for authorizing the discharge of the 1996 budget.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Speciale">
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Azzolini">
Mr President, in 1995 when the Intergovernmental Conference in Barcelona was opened, conference that was followed by other ministerial meetings - Malta in 1997 and the civil forums in Barcelona in 1995 and Naples in 1997 - the government and parliamentary institutions as well as civil society expressed unanimous support for closer and more profitable Mediterranean cooperation.
<P>
Indeed we cannot underestimate the fact that the Mediterranean basin, in addition to being a geographical area, is a strategical area in geopolitical terms, increasingly sensitive to migratory flows and of growing interest for economic, trade and cultural relations.
<P>
However, after these past three years, we cannot say that we are satisfied.
Having personally participated in a parliamentary delegation led by the Member, Gutiérrez Díaz, at the Intergovernmental Conference in Malta in 1997, we recognize that a lot of problems, including political ones, in certain areas of the Mediterranean basin are an obstacle or at least a brake on the launching of substantial cooperation.
<P>
Nonetheless, we believe that these obstacles must not become an excuse to halt a process of collaboration that is becoming increasingly more urgent and pressing.
But I notice from the compromise situation agreed by the Socialists, Liberals, Left and Radical Alliance that there is a desire to relegate the European Union's action to a wait-and-see role or a role of judge.
Instead we believe that the European Union must play a much more important role, especially by developing a capacity to mediate that is more than just passively taking note of the problems that are afflicting the democracies of certain third countries of the Mediterranean basin, not taking into due account the fact that the harmful effects are for the entire Euro-Mediterranean system.
<P>
We too strongly condemn the systematic violation of human and civil rights and note with regret that the peace processes are at times rendered more and more difficult; but it is precisely with realism and a sense of responsibility that we must look at phenomena of such scope and complexity, especially since they go far back in history.
It is indeed true that the intertwining of political, religious, economic and cultural reasons can make disentangling this intricate situation seem arduous, but it is precisely here that we measure the role and capacity of our Institution.
<P>
Our mediation work and our role of promoting closer and more profitable collaboration must be based precisely on these objective facts, which must not cause rupture and discrimination but lead us to careful reflection to find the most appropriate and responsible solutions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wurtz">
Mr President, I am going to talk about the main difficulty that is impeding the Barcelona process - the crisis in the Middle East.
<P>
Let us not forget the image of Yitzhak Rabin at his last meeting, and what a meeting it was - with moving lucidity uttering the pacifist words he once condemned.
At that time, not so long ago, the prospect of a peace process was in sight, in Israel as well as in Palestine, as a feeling of interdependence had grown up between the two peoples.
One of President Arafat's favourite sayings summed up their mutual interests: territories in exchange for peace.
<P>
Mr Netanyahu's irresponsible policy is in the process of annihilating that prospect and that dynamic process, to the point of rejecting a plan by Israel's main ally, which asks for a modest 13 % military withdrawal from the West Bank.
So what does the ultra-right want?
To force the United States to withdraw?
To push the Palestinians to exasperation point?
Neither side seems prepared to provide an excuse to drop the Oslo process officially.
But for how long can this unprecedented situation last?
<P>
I hope that the European Union will become fully involved in the vital issues of this serious crisis.
The traditional reluctance of some European leaders to do anything to annoy their American allies is out of place here.
Collective pressure must be brought to bear on those who seriously threaten to break the peace, so that the implementation of the Oslo agreements can be resumed.
Now is also the time for Europe to show those in doubt that Europe can play a useful part in the decisive negotiations, where the most important questions will be discussed, particularly the question of colonies, refugees, Jerusalem and, naturally, the State of Palestine.
<P>
This is an excellent example of common European diplomacy which is within our reach.
For the sake of peace and for Europe, I very much hope that it can be put into practice and that it will be successful.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cohn-Bendit">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I do not want to repeat what has already been said on the subject of the role of the Middle East peace process or on the subject of the Euro-Mediterranean agreements. I believe that we all agree that there is a hard core which is capable of blocking or unblocking the situation.
<P>
I believe that, in general, as far as the Euro-Mediterranean problem is concerned, we should understand and accept that Europe will not play a fundamental role in resolving contradictions unless it has the tools to implement its policy.
Therefore, the fact that Europe pays, but is incapable of using political pressure to ensure its objectives are put into practice, shows that there is a need for a common foreign policy with common structures. This applies not only to human rights but also to other problems, and here, if you do not mind, I will turn to the situation in Algeria, as another example.
<P>
We can see that there have been extraordinary changes in that area, in Morocco in particular.
At the same time, the Algerian problem forms another hard nucleus. It is, in fact, obstructing the whole process for the simple reason that today, in Algeria, despite all the negotiations that have taken place, there are so many contradictions that Europe has to become fully involved on three levels.
<P>
First of all, it must admit that the social and economic problem in Algeria which was imposed by the World Bank is also Europe's problem and that Europe must clear up that problem.
Secondly, it must agree that a policy of prevention of any form of terrorism, in Algeria, can only be implemented in compliance with human rights.
Thirdly, it must take civil society into consideration: in Algeria you must learn to count to three!
There are not only soldiers and fundamentalists there; there is also a civil society, not just a diabolical dichotomy. Europe also needs to get involved.
<P>
If we do not understand that, we will not be able to play our part in a vision of Europe based on the concept of social welfare and freedom.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Novo Belenguer">
Mr President, I think we can really all agree at the moment that, throughout this debate, we are clearly seeing the importance of making sure that the conclusions of the Barcelona Conference of November 1995 and the Malta Conference of April 1997 are respected, made concrete and put into practice.
That is necessary in order to remove the paralysis currently affecting the proposals contained in these resolutions.
The results of both conferences are vital for preserving peace and economic and social development in the Mediterranean basin, which undoubtedly benefits that region's relationship with the European Union itself.
<P>
Furthermore, we applaud the Commission's decision to relaunch and give fresh impetus to the MED programmes - URBS, MEDIA and CAMPUS - as requested by this Parliament. We need these programmes in order to tighten Euro-Mediterranean cooperation.
<P>
We must stress that Euro-Mediterranean association is even more important at the moment, if that were possible, because the blockage in the Middle East peace process is threatening the conclusions agreed at the Barcelona Conference.
So the EUROMED parliamentary forum, which will take place all this year, becomes especially relevant since it should strengthen and complement the Barcelona process, ensure that its resolutions are complied with, and increase political dialogue.
<P>
Despite everything that has been said, Mr President, and despite being in agreement with the Barcelona conclusions, I want to underline that any strengthening of the Euro-Mediterranean association must take full account of the repercussions for the Objective 1 regions of the European Union. As you all know, most of those regions are located in the Mediterranean basin and their industrial activity is similar to that of the associated third countries.
Specifically, we are talking about textiles, ceramics and agriculture.
A free trade which took no account of these regions would only harm them and endanger economic and social cohesion, which is such a fundamental part of the European Union ideal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, the decentralized cooperation programmes, developed by countries of the European Union in order to help improve the structure of partnerships between the North and South of the Mediterranean area and thereby contribute towards the stability of the Euro-Mediterranean zone, are going to be resumed. This will take place after the actions already undertaken and the methods of implementation have been evaluated.
It is important for us to know about these, to know what practical actions the MED programmes have lead to, what stabilizing effects they have had, particularly in the fundamental area of the development of SMEs.
Have they managed to avoid damaging the farming and fishing industries by adopting codes of conduct to prevent possible destructuring effects?
<P>
The implementation of the MED programme must be exemplary.
Have the serious irregularities found by the Court of Auditors in its 1996 report on the Commission's management been corrected and, if so, how?
Remember that the Commission subcontracted the whole of the financial and administrative management of the MED programmes to ARTM, an international non profit-making association under Belgian law, created by the Commission, whose income comes exclusively from contracts granted to it by the Commission.
<P>
This delegation of the Commission's competence to a third party, without legal basis, without a decision on principle, without competitive tendering for contracts, which are mostly awarded by mutual agreement, has created a very serious confusion of interests. The same firms of consultants were involved in the design of the programmes, in the preparation of proposals for financing, in the management of ARTM and in the technical monitoring of programmes.
The delegation of competence, the weakness of the design of the programmes and the unsuitability of the Commission's management and monitoring tools have been rightly criticized by the Court of Auditors.
<P>
This type of practice, for obvious reasons with regard to transparency, has been prohibited in most Member States because it is a permanent source of financial mismanagement, corruption and nepotism.
<P>
Does the increase in the number of programmes managed at Commission level and the continual widening of their scope not mean that there is often likely to be a lack of control?
We would like to know, in this case, what solutions the Council has implemented or intends to implement in order to safeguard the efficiency of MED Community funds and re-establish transparency in their use.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Caligaris">
Mr President, now that the euphoria over European Monetary Union has died down, it is only right to turn again to common foreign policy, aspects of which are certainly no more encouraging.
This is especially true for the Mediterranean basin, still marginalised on the edge of Europe and today the source of such potential and existing crises that they eclipse the extraordinary potential which exists.
<P>
Moreover, it does not seem out of place to recall how the Holy Roman Empire, frequently held up today as a model for European construction, really failed precisely because it was incapable of combining the reality of Central Europe with that of the Mediterranean.
The past can also serve as a lesson for the present.
<P>
In the immediate post-War period, the Mediterranean's marginalization began again and its certainly harmful effects are today palpable.
Barcelona showed that the course had to be resumed in a positive manner, but the meeting that followed in Malta was certainly disappointing.
The bilateral relations between the European Union and the individual Mediterranean third countries have been conducted until now in this context, but it is doubtful that this could be of fundamental importance in the context of general Euro-Mediterranean policy.
<P>
Our resolution, which supports resumption, therefore ends up being an over-ambitious cahier de doléances barely offset by some reasons for hope, including the unblocking of MEDA funds, the meeting of the 27 Foreign Ministers and the launch of the Euro-Mediterranean Forum.
Although these steps must not be underestimated, it is certainly not like this that the process of European Monetary Union was approached, and probably if it had been approached in this way, no one would even hear about it today.
<P>
In short, without a common foreign policy for Europe, from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, little will truly be able to change and resolutions like this one will be repeated without offering great expectations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="Henderson">
I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in this debate to try to respond to the questions which have been raised, although I will leave it to my colleague, Commissioner Marin, to deal with the technical points.
<P>
Before I try to set out some of our responses to those points in a more general context, I should like to mention a related matter - the assassination attempt on Mr Akin Birdal, the chairman of the Human Rights Association of Turkey, whom I met when I visited Turkey in the autumn of last year.
I believe that decent people throughout Europe will be shocked and outraged by this tragic incident.
I know that the hearts and minds of those good people of Europe will be with Mr Birdal and his family at this difficult time.
We all wish him a speedy recovery.
The presidency and all decent people in Europe will, I know, want to give every support to the Turkish Government and the judiciary in bringing to justice those responsible for this atrocity.
<P>
On the general context of the EUROMED process, I should like to begin by stating that I believe that this partnership is of the highest priority to the Council.
As regards ratification of the Euro-Mediterranean agreements so far signed, the Council can only note that the ratification process by national parliaments of the agreements already signed is indeed a very long one.
The presidency has, on several occasions, urged Member States to speed up their ratifications.
The Council has, however, no power to interfere in the internal procedures for ratification by those Member States.
<P>
The Barcelona Conference in November 1995 agreed the goal of the EUROMED free trade area by the year 2010.
We are now working hard to reach this target.
A key element in this strategy is the negotiation of the new EUROMED Association Agreements.
<P>
As far as negotiations on agricultural products are concerned, the Council notes that notwithstanding the sensitivity of certain products, negotiations were successfully concluded with Morocco, Tunisia, Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan.
The Council hopes that the remaining negotiations will soon be successfully concluded.
A new negotiating round with Lebanon took place on 23 and 24 April, and with Egypt on 7 and 8 May.
I can also tell Parliament that negotiations with Syria are scheduled to start on 14 May.
<P>
In December 1997 the Agricultural Council adopted conclusions on the Commission's study on the impact of concessions to the Mediterranean countries.
It stressed the importance of taking into account the socio-economic repercussions of the proposed concessions on the Community agricultural market.
It also noted the need to develop a consistent overall strategy when defining the Community position in negotiations with third countries.
<P>
As regards the fight against terrorism, the negotiating directives for an association agreement with Algeria, as adopted by the Council in June 1996, do not provide for the inclusion in the agreement of provisions concerning this issue.
<P>
In the framework of the European Union/Algeria dialogue the Algerian authorities have underlined their interest in pursuing discussion on what might be done to prevent and combat terrorism.
The Council has repeatedly reaffirmed its interest in a broad-based dialogue to discuss any concerns and proposals that the Algerian authorities might seek to bring to its attention, including on how to combat terrorism.
That is in line with the draft resolution which is before Parliament.
<P>
The Council is now looking at the best way to start a political dialogue on this sensitive issue both at bilateral level and within the EUROMED context.
The Council has strongly condemned terrorist attacks against the Algerian population, including massacres, other murders, abductions and rapes.
At the same time, it has expressed solidarity with the Algerian people and, consequently, has repeatedly called on the Algerian authorities to make every effort to actively protect the population from attacks.
<P>
Equally important for the Council is the promotion and protection of human rights in Algeria.
To this end, in the context of the 54th United Nations Human Rights Commission, the Presidency, on behalf of the European Union, urged the Government of Algeria fully to respect human rights and to approach the fight against terrorism within the rule of law and international standards.
<P>
In this respect, the Council is also concerned at allegations of arbitrary executions, arbitrary detentions and torture and has urged the Algerian authorities to redress these issues.
The Council has encouraged, and will continue to encourage, the Algerian Government to promote transparency through dialogue on human rights with the international community.
It has called on Algeria to facilitate early visits of United Nations' special rapporteurs on torture and extra-judicial summary or arbitrary executions.
<P>
The MEDA programme is an essential component of the strategy of cooperation between the European Union and its Mediterranean neighbours.
The Union has committed ECU 4.7 billion for 1995-1999 to assist the process of economic transition now under way.
<P>
After in-depth discussions between the Commission and the European Parliament, the Commission has recently announced its intention to relaunch three decentralized Mediterranean cooperation programmes: MED CAMPUS, MED MEDIA and MED URBS.
The MED Invest Programme itself was not relaunched but its main objectives have now been incorporated into the wider MEDA programme.
The Council notes with satisfaction this decision taken just a few weeks before the Palermo ministerial meeting.
This will enable substantial cooperation to be developed in line with the Barcelona Declaration between actors of the civil society promoting better mutual understanding.
<P>
The ad hoc ministerial meeting which will take place in Palermo on 3 and 4 June will be an opportunity to assess jointly, with all the Mediterranean partners, the activities undertaken under the Euro-Mediterranean partnership and to give it a renewed impetus in view of the next formal ministerial meeting in Germany in April 1999.
<P>
Concerning the risk of contamination of the Barcelona process by the Middle East peace process, the Council stresses that the partnership should be sustained along the lines agreed in the Barcelona Declaration which sets out long-term objectives.
The present difficulties encountered by the peace process should not be allowed to overshadow this perspective.
The two processes are complementary but separate.
<P>
The recent visit of Prime Minister Blair and Foreign Minister Cook to the region and the talks held in London on 4 and 5 May are a concrete sign of the Council's close diplomatic engagement in the Middle East peace process.
Again, it is in line with what is contained in the draft resolution which is before this Parliament and we hope that that will be a basis on which the dialogue continues and there is some optimism that there will be a way forward shortly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="President">
Thank you, President-in-Office.
I would thank you, in particular, for raising the matter of the recent assassination attempt in Turkey.
As you probably know, it was raised in this House on Tuesday and again this morning.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Henderson, President-in-Office of the Council, I would like to start my speech by reminding you of something which is sometimes forgotten.
Up until just two and a half years ago, when the Barcelona Conference took place, the European Union's Mediterranean policy was relatively modest and limited in scope.
All we offered to each Mediterranean third country was a series of trade concessions and an amount of bilateral financial aid.
Many very important areas did not even enter into this relationship.
I am thinking of political dialogue, economic transition, free trade, cultural cooperation and cooperation with civil society.
Also, the financial aid was of a conventional nature.
It consisted of financial protocols, normally with a slow disbursement and priorities which were basically decided upon by the Union, with no real spirit of association between the north and south of the Mediterranean.
<P>
The Barcelona Conference brought a real change of direction. It was there that we established an association strategy formulated and implemented jointly with our Mediterranean partners, based precisely on commitments freely entered into by all parties.
Association is a far-reaching project which now addresses all sectors of common interest, from questions of politics and security, through economic and financial cooperation, to the social, cultural and human dimension.
So nobody should be surprised if the changeover to this new system has given rise to certain teething problems or problems of implementation, which the Commission cannot hide.
<P>
Firstly, it is no secret that the MEDA regulation was blocked in the Council for eight months, for strictly political reasons that you are all aware of.
That eight-month paralysis in the Council was caused by the situation which arose in connection with the problem of our relations with Turkey and the veto of a Member State.
<P>
Secondly, the exponential increase in aid at the Cannes Summit came at a time when politically it was not possible to increase even slightly the Commission's human resources for implementing that aid.
The Cannes Summit, which resulted in a very considerable increase in the MEDA programme, was held just at the time when the Council and the European Parliament were deciding on zero growth for the European Commission in terms of personnel.
Furthermore it is true that, because of the management problems we found with the decentralized cooperation programmes, I myself made the decision to suspend them until we could be completely satisfied with their transparency and good management.
<P>
Today we have a policy with coherent and ambitious long-term objectives, based on the establishment of free trade, support for economic transition, and the promotion of direct investment.
In short, with the phase we are in at the moment - and it is good to be having this debate in the European Parliament - it could be said that we have reached cruising speed.
Despite the difficulties - and the additional problem of contamination by the peace process, which is causing us many difficulties in our everyday work - the MEDA programme has reached cruising speed, after two and a half years.
<P>
In the first place, we have now managed to sign five Euro-Mediterranean agreements. The rest are progressing rapidly, though I cannot hide the fact that there are difficulties in the sections on agricultural trade and the readmission of illegal immigrants.
Those two areas have become the two biggest political problems in the association agreement negotiations. Even so, I have to say we must be consistent.
To ask for Euro-Mediterranean policy to be implemented, or to be in favour of EuroMediterranean policy, on condition that the countries of the region cannot sell a tomato, a lettuce or a cucumber in the Community market, is simply to be against Euro-Mediterranean policy.
You cannot ask for something and its opposite both at the same time.
That needs to be said straight away.
In commercial terms, the Euro-Mediterranean policy involves a cost for the Community economy.
To fail to understand that is to deny the evidence of the process itself.
<P>
As for the national indicative programmes, there has been substantial progress now that they have all been approved.
The fact is that, as has been rightly pointed out, there is of course an imbalance between the commitments and the payments.
Naturally, the final balance will have to be found at the end of the process, but I must point out that many of the payment operations are linked to operations of structural adjustment, so the money will be paid if those countries fulfil the objectives of the macroeconomic programme signed with the World Bank and the European Union, as regards privatization law, changes to banking legislation and public sector reorganization.
If they do not comply then obviously those sums will not be paid, because in this specific case the Commission's obligation is, precisely, not to pay.
I have to make that clear right away, because I have already made a negative decision about one Mediterranean country which has not fulfilled its privatization law. That meant I had to say we could not pay for the adjustment programme, although negotiations are underway.
<P>
I want to confirm another important point, Mr Wurtz: the problem of the peace process is seriously contaminating the Barcelona process.
You have no idea what miracles we often have to perform to get the Barcelona committee to carry on working, simply because the situation in the Middle East has a very negative influence on the whole process.
Our objective is to remove that contamination from the Barcelona process as far as possible at Palermo, at the summit meeting of foreign ministers from both parties.
We cannot have a repetition of what happened at Malta, where we had to get up from the table without even making a final statement.
We cannot carry on like that, because it is very negative and causes us a lot of difficulties.
<P>
I now want to make a few quick remarks.
<P>
The Court of Auditors' comment about not having enough human resources is absolutely right.
It is true that Parliament's decision in favour of MEDA - to install what is known as technical and administrative support - is helping us. It has already been implemented at headquarters and in each delegation.
However, in the matter of personnel we once again have a situation where it is very difficult for the Commission to explain what is going on. The Court of Auditors has noticed that we do not have enough staff.
The European Parliament has noticed that we do not have enough staff. If in October this year the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament decide on zero growth, then you already have the answer for next year: I will still have no staff.
<P>
So in October I will say once again to the European Parliament and the Council: "If you have observed that I do not have enough staff, then give me more. Otherwise, you already know the answer for next year: I have no staff.'
<P>
So, what have we done?
We have relaunched the decentralized cooperation programme. In doing so, as we have explained and will do so again to the Committee on Budgetary Control, as regards Mr Fabra Vallés' report, we have satisfied all the conditions set by the European Parliament, except one.
And that is just because we do not have the staff.
That one condition is the one concerning direct management of the programmes.
What we have done - and there can be no doubt about it because it was published in the Official Journal of the European Communities - is to subcontract with external assistance both technical and financial management.
And that has been done through a process of public bidding, announced in the Official Journal and via the Internet, and is subject to the new strengthened contractual conditions approved by the Commission in July last year.
<P>
Why did we decide to do that?
Because we have no staff. In any case, we have taken the greatest possible precaution, which is to separate technical and financial management.
They are going to work independently, besides which the Commission has limited the contract to just two years to see how it works.
Of course, I would like to be given more staff in the October budget so we can run these programmes directly.
<P>
As for the decision on whether or not to refer these cases to the judicial authorities, the Commission is going to deliver a report about this to the Committee on Budgetary Control on 20 May during the debate on the discharge of the 1996 budget.
<P>
As regards Algeria, about which Mr Cohn-Bendit has expressed concern, we are in a situation right now where we need to decide which approach to take with the government.
This very week, a delegation from my services, from the DirectorateGeneral, is in Algiers trying to find out what we should do.
<P>
This is a problem which also concerns not commitments, but payments. It is no secret that at the moment ECU 400 million from the Algerian budget heading, the Mediterranean protocols and the new MEDA programme have been frozen.
And the problem needs to be stated there.
If we open a tender for a rural development programme in Algeria and nobody puts in a bid because of the security situation, what can the Commission do?
<P>
I cannot make the Member States' technical staff go there, because they refuse to do so.
I cannot make the technical staff who normally work in Brussels go there, because they think it is a very difficult country to work in, for internal reasons.
Nevertheless, we are working in Algiers this week, in order to find a solution.
<P>
Then there is another reason for the delay in implementing the programmes, which is never talked about but which I must mention: the delay on the part of the Member States in ratifying the association agreements.
<P>
I have spoken again to the Ministers for Foreign Affairs, because the average time taken to ratify the Mediterranean agreements in the national parliaments - Tunisia was the first case - is two years, four months.
And the agreement with Morocco has still not been ratified by all the national parliaments.
<P>
So that part of MEDA which is concerned with cooperation committees simply cannot be put into operation.
It cannot be put into operation until there has been ratification by the Member States.
And in that sense, I hope our Member States will try to ensure that they can explain their position when they arrive in Palermo on 6 June.
<P>
I have to say that Morocco is the most worrying case - not to mention Palestine, Israel or others.
<P>
In conclusion, do not forget that while we continue to apply the Maastricht Treaty's provisions in relation to mixed agreements, it is very difficult to work on the implementation of cooperation agreements. I think this is a peaceable debate for another intergovernmental conference.
<P>
I am experiencing this with MEDA, but exactly the same thing is happening with PHARE and TACIS.
The average time for ratification by the national parliaments is currently between two and a half and three years.
That is very serious indeed from the point of view of the European Union's general image.
<P>
We cannot do anything else because of what the Treaty says, but I expect - because it is just common sense - that in the future the whole system of mixed agreements will have to be revised in the context of a new intergovernmental conference. Because believe me, working like this is very, very difficult.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Terrón I Cusí">
Thank you, Commissioner, for what you have just said.
I want to say that I heartily agree, especially with the last part of your speech. It saves me having to say some things I had planned to say.
I think it is right to begin by stressing how pleased we are that the MED programmes have been put into operation. They are greatly valued by this Parliament, which is always very keen that the citizens of the Union should be able to participate in decentralized Community initiatives.
They have been put into operation - and this needs emphasizing - in compliance with the requests this Parliament made to the Commission.
<P>
As pointed out by Mr Samland, chairman of the Committee on Budgets - which, by the way, is not well known in Parliament for being particularly kind or charitable - the Commission is showing an exemplary degree of transparency in this field, and I believe it should serve as an example for the other cooperation programmes we have underway.
<P>
The high level of implementation of the MEDA programmes is also very positive.
And I want to ask a question in this respect. Does it make sense, with this high level of implementation, to propose less funding for 1999 to comply with the Cannes agreements?
What effect will this have on the continuity of the programmes after 1999?
I think reducing the immediate funding for the MEDA programmes despite the high level of implementation is a negative political signal.
<P>
The situation in Israel is worrying for us all.
The Council representative told us that the political situation in the Middle East should not make us forget our long-term objectives.
Obviously, we want the long-term objectives of the Barcelona Conference to be complied with, but if we do not know how to implement the agreements signed with the Palestine National Authority because nobody even knows what territories they will apply in, then it is difficult to deny what the Commissioner said so clearly: that the failure to comply with Oslo is contaminating the Barcelona process.
<P>
I want to conclude on the positive note with which I started, by welcoming the fact that the EUROMED parliamentary forum is going to take place.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Hernández Mollar">
Mr President, as an inhabitant of Melilla, I live next door to the friendly country of Morocco and a few kilometres from the Algerian border. As such, and as a Spaniard, I consider myself particularly sensitive to the questions which affect the two coasts of the Mediterranean.
Next week, this Parliament's delegation to the Maghreb will be visiting Morocco and Mauritania to promote political and parliamentary dialogue with these countries in the spirit of the Barcelona Conference and the association agreement with Morocco, which certainly has an ambitious development plan underway in the north which deserves our attention.
<P>
The problems of debt, immigration, drugs, lack of mutual cultural familiarity, mistrust and understandable concern about fundamentalist movements - which are unfortunately leaving bloodstains on countries such as Algeria - require a mutual effort of collaboration and aid.
For that purpose, various procedures have been developed, such as those arising from the MEDA programmes and the bilateral agreements on economic, cultural and social development.
Whether or not Mediterranean cooperation achieves good results depends on the parties concerned.
The European institutions should put in place the necessary means so that aid can reach these countries as quickly and transparently as possible, and so that a suitable information policy can allow interested businesses, organizations or individuals equal access to the planned programmes.
<P>
In the area of regional and local cooperation, it would be a very good thing for the third countries of the Mediterranean to make real efforts as regards the participation of civil society in the field of human rights and freedoms, women's equality, and special attention for young people, as well as making their administrations more flexible, removing bureaucracy and making their actions more transparent.
<P>
During the visit of this Parliament's delegation to Algeria, we gained a lot of experience.
We came to the conclusion that together with economic cooperation - with the difficulties explained to us by Commissioner Marín - there should also be a profound political cooperation. That is essential in order for us to be able to talk openly about terrorism, human rights, and social and cultural cooperation.
<P>
The European Parliament has offered this political dialogue, which we have already started in the context of the delegation to the Maghreb.
In order to do this, as Commissioner Marín said, we need the association agreements to work effectively.
It is very important, as has been said here, to speed up the process of ratification in the national parliaments, including those agreements currently being negotiated, as is the case with Algeria.
These agreements constitute the basic instrument to act as a framework for political dialogue, which should of course not end with their signing and ratification.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, in three days time I will be leaving for Egypt as rapporteur on the association agreement, but I realize that the political aim of the Barcelona initiative is in danger, and along with that the development of a zone of stability.
<P>
Mr Henderson illustrated the powerlessness of the Council just now when he mentioned that the ratification of the agreements already signed cannot be pushed any further.
Yet this is essential, as Mr Marín has just said.
<P>
On the subject of agriculture; what is being done on the eve of enlargement to harmonize the adjustment of the common agricultural policy with the legitimate demands concerning agricultural exports in Northern Africa?
<P>
As far as human rights are concerned, Morocco is making great improvements, but other countries are lagging behind.
Something should be done about this, too.
<P>
As far as terrorism is concerned, I agree that terrorist activities are carried out in many countries, yet London is constantly mentioned as the point from which terrorist initiatives make their way to the countries of Northern Africa.
London is mentioned over and over again.
London keeps quiet.
London should do something.
Only Belgium has done something.
<P>
To conclude, it is not right to hang the entire Mediterranean policy on the blockage of the Middle East peace process.
This seems wrong to me.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="André-Léonard">
Mr President, it is obviously necessary to speed up the negotiation process with Mediterranean countries, otherwise there is a significant risk that the United States, already in that area, will have everything their own way.
The area in question is a sensitive area in terms of stability and peace and it is also a vast commercial area.
And although I regret Europe's protectionism with regard to agriculture, which does not really make integration possible, I regret as much, if not more, the attitude of some of the countries involved. Those countries seem to have lost sight of the principles of peace, of respect for human rights and of the rule of law described in the Barcelona Declaration.
<P>
It is true that the European Union is partly responsible for the slowness and mismanagement of the programmes, not to mention financial corruption and inadequate supervision of the management of projects.
The differences between the Fifteen, which are sometimes comprehensible but often prejudicial to any real prosperity in the Mediterranean region, do not help to solve migration problems, social, environmental and cultural problems, as well as problems of security and terrorism.
<P>
It is clear that Europe must get more involved in the Middle East peace process and in solving the problems that are rife in Algeria.
We have to admit that Europe has not played a major role in the Algerian situation.
Whether that is due to different political positions on how to resolve the conflict or to economic reasons, the result is very disappointing.
Terrorism is more rife than ever, so are violations of human rights. I refer, of course, to torture and to the many missing persons.
<P>
The Barcelona Declaration states that all signatory countries must respect the principles of peace, democratization and human rights, in a spirit of freedom and dialogue in civil society.
I sincerely hope that Europe will increase its cooperation with Mediterranean countries and speed up the process of ratification of the agreements.
But I also call upon some of those countries to cooperate more fully with Europe.
It would be of benefit to us all, and would contribute towards stability, prosperity and peace.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sierra González">
Mr President, the process of dialogue begun at the Barcelona Conference represents a new pattern of regional dialogue between the peoples of the Mediterranean, committed to achieving three main objectives: political stability; security, based on the strengthening of democratic institutions; and economic development.
<P>
But at the moment, this association dialogue lacks credibility.
It is suffering constant attrition due to the Middle East situation, the infringement of human rights in Turkey and the instability in Algeria.
<P>
As regards the Middle East, the peace process has been blocked by the Israeli Government, and by that country's lack of commitment to having a meeting in the near future in order to continue with efforts towards peace.
This attitude reveals obvious contempt for the United Nations Security Council resolutions, the Oslo Accords and the principles agreed at the Madrid Conference on the Middle East.
<P>
The European Union must demand that Israel complies with these obligations.
If that does not happen, we should reconsider the limits of our agreement with Israel, whose government is endangering the region's stabilization and integration.
<P>
To move on to other questions, we also need to demand an end to human rights violations in Turkey, and support Algeria's democrats.
In planning its future strategy, the European Union should examine its part in the Middle East peace process and its political role in the Mediterranean area, with which we have ancient historical, cultural and human ties.
<P>
The European Union should not just be an economic partner, but also a political mediator.
On that role depends not just the credibility of Mediterranean dialogue but also the very construction of Europe as a political project.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="President">
The debate will be resumed this evening.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Falconer">
Mr President, I rise on a point regarding the imposition of the Rule on the 50 % voting on roll-call votes.
You will recall that you advised this House that this new procedure was going to run for a trial period for three months.
That three-month period is now over.
May I ask you if you will be putting to the House any change in these procedures so that the House can then take a democratic vote on it?
<P>
We are about to discuss the appointment of the Board of the Central Bank.
Much has been made of the openness and transparency of the operations of the European Central Bank.
It is only right for Members of this House to expect the same openness and transparency in the conduct of the work of the Bureau.
I would advise you, Mr President, that while I seem to be alone in my objections to these particular impositions, I can assure you that many Members of this Chamber from all political groups are as concerned as I am about the imposition of Rules from a Bureau which does not make itself accountable to this House.
<P>
Therefore, I would conclude by asking if you will be placing before this House any procedures which will authenticate the current, obscene and daft 50 % ruling, as you have done on the current voting system?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="President">
Mr Falconer, I shall be submitting this matter to the Bureau during one of the next sessions so that it can review the system following the three-month period.
I have no intention of removing from the Bureau its power to review the system after we have been practising it for three months.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, yesterday during the vote on the Pirker report there was an amendment tabled by the Green Group in the European Parliament, two parts of which had been adopted by the majority in this Parliament.
These were additions or amendments to the existing paragraph 8.
Afterwards the President of the sitting at the time asked for a vote on the original paragraph 8.
I then intervened in the part-session to say that this could only mean that everything compatible with the already accepted amendments had been adopted.
Now it turns out that a substantial part of an approved amendment has not been included in the approved text.
I must raise a formal objection to this.
It is contrary to every parliamentary practice. It is also contrary to the rules of this House.
I therefore ask for a rectification, so that justice will be done to the decision taken by a majority here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="President">
Mrs Aelvoet, we will check the Minutes to find out what happened, although this is not the right time to comment on the Minutes.
Nevertheless, this matter is so important that it will be checked.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Falconer">
Mr President, I am still not entirely clear.
Are you advising this Chamber that you will be consulting the Bureau to look at the position of the voting system but you will not be putting the decision to the House as a whole?
Are you prepared to put any recommendation from the Bureau to the House as a whole?
That was my question.
Honourable Members of this House have a right to debate and vote on these matters in their groups and to vote on them in this Chamber.
You cannot change the conditions without honourable Members' rights being abused.
<P>
I ask you again if I am correct in my understanding, namely that what you said was that you will put the matter to the Bureau.
You have had the three-month review.
I would have thought the Bureau would have discussed it last month.
If, however, you are going to put it to the Bureau again, are you saying that you will put the Bureau's decision to this House?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="President">
Mr Falconer, when a Member of this House or anybody else is calling for their rights to be respected, the first thing they have to do is make sure they know them.
So please read the Rules of Procedure, which describe the rights of Members of this House.
And the Rules of Procedure, as they stand at the moment, bestow that competence on the Bureau not Parliament.
There is a very easy way to change that: by proposing an amendment to the Rules of Procedure.
I will not oppose that.
Propose an amendment to the Rules of Procedure, as any Member is entitled to do, so that Parliament takes these decisions rather than the Bureau.
I am bound by the Rules of Procedure just like yourself and the 626 Members here, and while those Rules say that the Bureau takes such decisions, I am obliged by Rule 5 to abide by that.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Mr President, Members from the European Right did not take part in the vote because we do not agree with the principle or the composition of the Executive Board.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="President">
Mr Martinez, you are an admirable jurist.
You know that this is not the right time for explanations of vote, which are at the end.
<P>
After the vote on recital E
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, before we move to complete the vote on Mr Duisenberg, I would like to ask you if Mr Duisenberg is here to declare his respect to the European Parliament when we vote on our position on whether or not he is appointed to the European Central Bank.
Is Mr Duisenberg present?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="President">
Mr Alavanos, I cannot see him and I am told he is not here at the moment.
I would remind you that he is not being appointed today. It is a question of whether Parliament is in favour of his appointment, which will be a matter for the Council in any case.
<P>
(Parliament approved the recommendation)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I wanted to speak before the roll-call vote opened.
I am sorry that you did not invite me to speak when I made the request.
<P>
It is customary for votes on appointments to be taken by secret ballot.
That is the case, for example, with appointments to the Court of Auditors.
Here we are giving an opinion on people who are nominated for appointment to the European Central Bank.
I think that it would be right for us to follow our usual practice and, even in the event of a roll-call vote, to vote by secret ballot.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="President">
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, as a member of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, you know that a secret ballot has to be requested by one fifth of the Members before the vote opens.
I did not receive requests from one fifth of the Members.
Furthermore, this is not an election, or even an appointment, it is an opinion on the basis of which the European Council will decide whether or not to make an appointment.
Therefore, the provisions you refer to are not applicable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, I do not propose to say what the other Members have said.
Since I voted against this recommendation and the meaning of the recommendation, I wish to justify my position, because I realized that Parliament had made a parliamentary...
<P>
(The President cut off the speaker) ... this supreme post was surrendered to a Mr Duisenberg, who despises us and is not even present...
<P>
(The President cut off the speaker)
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Rojo">
Thank you very much, Mr President.
Because of a seating problem - I still have not found the right place - I want to say that I was here for the last vote and my vote is a 'yes' .
Please take that into account.
<P>
I also want to point out that the seats we have been provided with have no microphone, which makes it very difficult to make your presence known.
<P>
So, Mr President, please count me among the votes in favour, because I was here and, if possible, please could we have a microphone in these seats.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="President">
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, that will be sorted out once we have the new hemicycle.
While the seats remain as they are in the present hemicycle, those who arrive first will enjoy that privilege.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bloch von Blottnitz">
Mr President, I do not want to miss this opportunity to make the following remark, which should also be reiterated as insistently as possible in the forthcoming budget debate. We are about to vote through these various proposals for the SAVE Programme for the promotion of energy efficiency without a report.
You must all be aware, however, that in actual fact it is dishonest of us to include these six countries in the SAVE Programme as we do not have a single penny for them!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="President">
Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, this is not the time for an explanation of vote or a debate.
<P>
We shall begin the vote.
<P>
(During successive votes, Parliament approved the six Commission proposals)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, as you rightly reminded us, this text requires a qualified majority.
We have just voted on an amendment to the first indent, which was rejected, but in my opinion the original text of the first indent should now be put to the vote to see if it obtains a qualified majority.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="President">
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, the Treaty stipulates that, at second reading, amendments have to be approved by a qualified majority, but nothing else does.
The text itself is not put to the vote.
It does not have to be voted on and, furthermore, it is based on an idea expressed by a French President during the discussions on the Maastricht Treaty.
<P>
<P>
(The President declared the common position approved (as amended) )
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Collins, Kenneth">
Mr President, I simply wanted to draw the attention of the House to the fact that Mr Cabrol, the rapporteur on tobacco advertising, is, in fact, the third rapporteur of this Parliament to deal with the matter, and he is the one who got it through, and this House ought to congratulate him.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="President">
May I remind you that demonstrations in the public gallery are prohibited.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Provan">
Mr President, yet again we see the services allowing television cameras to film demonstrations in this House.
It is most regrettable, and the Bureau should do something about it and make sure that firm instructions are given that no publicity be given to demonstrations that are illegal in this House.
<P>
(Mixed reactions)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth">
Mr President, following on from the proposal made by the previous speaker, may I ask the President to investigate why yesterday during the vote on Mr Rothley's report several journalists, including representatives from Reuters, APE, AFP and Nordfoto, were expelled from the public galleries and why the services of the House refused to allow the Italian television company RAI to broadcast pictures of the vote.
This surely amounts to censorship...
<P>
..., and may I implore you to address the question of what is really meant by public accountability and the right of the press and the media to information in this House, which after all calls itself a democratic institution!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Muscardini">
Mr President, as I have already done on other occasions, I recommend that you also look towards the right side of the House, where often we have to wave our arms about to obtain the floor.
<P>
I would just like to add something to those statements.
It's true that demonstrating in the House is prohibited, but it's also true that citizens have the right to be informed of what is happening in the European Parliament.
Furthermore, it goes without saying that the rare occasions when the European Parliament ends up on television in the European countries, especially in Italy, is when there is some demonstration.
I therefore ask that more attention be given to the news services reporting on parliamentary work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen.
I apologize to Mrs Muscardini.
I am becoming shortsighted.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote on the draft decision.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the decision)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, I was a little surprised just now.
I opened what I thought were the amendments in Finnish and I saw that inside were Mr Viceconte's amendments on a report on the prevention of rare diseases.
I would now like to put right a basic misconception.
My report in no way deals with rare diseases, but very common ones.
Forty thousand people in the European Union die from air pollution every year, so there has been an unfortunate misunderstanding somewhere.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="President">
We will of course check the translations to ensure that everything is in order.
Please note that there are two corrigenda, one in the Spanish version, and one in the Portuguese version.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Poggiolini">
Mr President, I would like to invite the Socialist Group, in particular the shadow rapporteur, Mrs Van Putten, to withdraw Amendment No 51.
The reason for this is if Amendment No 52 presented by the Greens, and which has my full support, is approved, we will be certain that the strict criteria of this European eco-label will in no way be inferior to the criteria of national labels.
Now if, as I hope, Amendment No 52 is approved, Amendment No 51, although not incompatible with No 52, nonetheless creates some distortion, since it refers to vague criteria such as recognition, long life; Amendment No 51 therefore creates some distortion in a regulation that is looking quite good, especially if the Commission, at second reading, accepts our amendments.
I therefore invite the Socialist Group to withdraw Amendment No 51, and if this is not possible, I invite the House to vote against it.
I recall that we have already voted for Amendment No 50, presented by the Socialist Group.
I understand perfectly the concerns of my colleague, Mrs Van Putten, whom I thank for contributing to the work and moving this regulation along in the committee, but I will request that she withdraw Amendment No 51.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Putten">
No, Mr President, as an addition I continue to think that they go together very well, and that it strengthens our hand in respect of the Commission and the Council during the second reading.
I am sorry, I would like to go some way towards it, but in this case I cannot.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Garosci">
Mr President, when we voted for the euro on 2 May, in a speech in the House in Brussels I talked about a ship that had finally left to accomplish its institutional duties.
Today we have given that ship the navy officers needed to sail it; I speak of officers because the seamen are all of us European citizens with our work, with our daily commitment.
<P>
Selecting the six members of the Board of the European Central Bank and its first president was the main act to render the single currency operational.
Just one minute after this vote we consented to the practical launch of the euro, confirming the proposals of the Member States on the names of the six directors of the ECB for the forthcoming years.
Let us now look to them with confidence, knowing very well that the job that awaits them is not easy operationally or materially speaking; let us look at their expertise which comes from previous jobs and let us especially look at their autonomy in relation to political interference which would attempt to disrupt the work of the Board, as it is clearly written in the treaties.
<P>
Similarly, we would like the European Parliament to be more involved in future in the work of the ECB.
It is worth recalling that the Parliament is actually the only elected Community Institution, directly appointed by the citizens to whom it is accountable and whom it must inform daily of the Board's forthcoming activities.
<P>
Lastly, we would like to see a rapid solution to the appointment of the new president of the EBRD, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, a job vacant for some months now.
Here too we must await a choice that unfortunately is not made by this Parliament but by the Ecofin Council, a choice coherent with the Community spirit of forming a team whose members operate in harmony to achieve common objectives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, the rapporteur of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, Mrs Randzio-Plath, explained to us earlier that the hearings of the nominees to the Executive Board of the future European Central Bank, had led her to a positive assessment.
All the candidates consider that the price stability objective has more or less been achieved in Europe, which should help, in the future, to keep interest rates low.
Similarly, according to the hearings, the financial competence of the candidates, as well as the legacy of seriousness that central banks will bequeath to the ECB, should ensure the latter's credibility and also contribute towards low interest rates.
<P>
However, we think that some opposing factors should not be concealed. These are very powerful and will doubtless tend to keep interest rates structurally higher than necessary in the euro zone.
Indeed, given that this zone will be economically heterogeneous, given that it will also be psychologically heterogeneous, as there will be no massive united support by public opinion in Europe for the Central Bank, it will constantly have to face divergences far stronger those within a national State.
It will have to compensate perpetually for this lack of credibility by means of interest rates higher than the potential average national rates if they had still existed.
Furthermore, as the price stability objective will be a priority for the ECB, it will have to react each time any slippage is likely anywhere, as it could cause an imbalance in the whole area.
That is another factor of automatic over-estimation of interest rates.
And, once again, the situation will not be accidental.
It will be the result of the very idea of European monetary unification, which will put a single Central Bank in the centre of a heterogeneous area.
That will be one of the costs of the euro, that we are pretending to be unaware of today, and that citizens will discover when they are thrust into the new system.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Mr President, I voted for Mrs Randzio-Plath's recommendation on the appointment of the six candidates for the Central Bank's Executive Board.
However, I have no wish to conceal the fact that considerable doubts have arisen as to the regularity of the voting procedure.
<P>
Of course, we could ask which high ranking politicians - Mr Chirac or Mr Kohl, perhaps - or which second-string politicians, Mr Waigel or individuals such as Mr Tietmeyer, for example, are responsible for the procedure.
In my view, however, the most important issue is to recognize that the provisions of this section of the Maastricht Treaty need to be changed.
<P>
I would make the following plea to the Council, and in particular to the forthcoming German Presidency of the Council. If in the future we want the citizens of Europe to regard the euro as a reliable and stable currency, then the individuals serving in this Central Bank must also have been elected by a procedure in which the citizens can have the greatest confidence.
<P>
This means, firstly, that we must move away from the requirement of unanimity.
It is unacceptable that a Member State should be able to delay approval of a decision on the question of who should be proposed by the Council until the end of an extremely boring lunch, as was recently the case.
Secondly, it must be made quite clear that the European Parliament is doing more than making a simple recommendation.
In the future, the European Parliament must be able to elect these candidates in the same way as the Council, that is by a majority.
These candidates will then also enjoy the confidence of the general public.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Le Gallou">
Mr President, the members of the European right did not take part in the vote on the European Central Bank, because we do not approve of the abandonment of national currencies, or of the devolution of monetary sovereignty to a college of experts cut off from the people.
<P>
In this respect, I would like to be sure that the very people who are enthusiastic about the euro today will not be explaining to us that it is necessary to replace it with the dollar tomorrow.
What I mean is this: in 1987, the single market was proposed and, in 1992, we were told that because we had a European single market, we needed a European single currency.
Today, Commissioner Brittan and others, particularly some members of the British Presidency, are telling us that we need to create a transatlantic single market.
So, if they get their way, and we do create a transatlantic single market, no doubt the same people will tell us, in 2004, 2005 or 2006, that because we have a transatlantic single market, we need a transatlantic single currency, which could of course only be the dollar.
<P>
So, we want to protect the franc today, in order to avoid the dollar tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Mr President, I welcome the European Parliament's approval of the appointment of Mr Duisenberg as President of the European Central Bank.
The European Parliament today managed to outvote with a large majority the small-mindedness in the European Council.
In this context I would like stress the importance of the adopted amendment of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, which calls for the avoidance of an early or simultaneous succession of both the President and the Vice-President.
By accepting the amendment the European Parliament is giving a signal that the continuity of the leadership of the Central Bank's Executive Board must be guaranteed.
The amendment emphasizes furthermore that it is up to the President or a Member of the Executive Board alone, and I repeat alone, to decide when to stand down, and that the mandate of the person in question must not be meddled with from the outside; all of this is in the spirit of the Treaty.
<P>
In conclusion I believe that the appointment procedure followed on 2 and 3 May turned out to be highly unsatisfactory. It should be improved in future if we want to strengthen public confidence in the euro.
The sinister political sparring calls for further powers for the European Parliament in this area.
We can assume that the European Council will not voluntarily relinquish the power to appoint.
It is therefore up to the citizens of Europe to exact more democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Ahlqvist, Theorin and Wibe">
Because Sweden is not taking part in EMU, we are abstaining from the vote on the recommendation regarding the appointment of the above persons.
It is the participating countries that must decide whether these persons' competence and political outlook are appropriate for this commission of trust.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Alavanos">
We are unfortunately moving towards a common currency, the euro, and Economic and Monetary Union, with an increasing democratic deficit, an all-powerful and unaccountable European Central Bank and a European Parliament which has a minor role and exists for decorative purposes only.
<P>
On 2 May the European Parliament convened an extraordinary sitting, for the first time on a Saturday, to endorse the decisions of Ecofin concerning the 11 countries which were to take part in the euro. Whether the European Parliament endorsed them or rejected them, nothing would change since its opinion was simply advisory.
I cannot agree with the direction taken by the Chair of our Parliament to participate in these rituals, albeit without powers, albeit without competences, in order to obtain some crumbs from the unprecedented publicity campaign that is being waged for the euro.
We should not have consented to the construction of an Economic and Monetary Europe, without a Parliament with the powers to express the sovereignty of the peoples of Europe.
For this reason I too elected to absent myself from this "school speech-day' which was decided upon at the last minute simply for the media which, in my opinion, made a mockery of rather than supported the European Parliament.
<P>
Today, during the part-session in Strasbourg, it is assumed that we will endorse the administration of the European Central Bank.
During the hearing which took place in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and, when asked what he would do in the event that the European Parliament did not endorse his appointment as president, Mr Duisenberg replied that it was not a matter for him but for the Council.
And the Council, under the presidency of the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Brown, confirmed this morning that the role of Parliament was "advisory' .
<P>
We are moving forward, we are setting up the European Central Bank and in parallel we are going backwards into parliamentary shadow, which is reminiscent of the parliaments prior to the French Revolution which exercised an "advisory' role to the monarch.
<P>
Under these circumstances I will not take part in the appointment of the administration of the European Central Bank and I will abstain in the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw and Waidelich">
Of course we are voting for the recommendation on the appointment of the President and other members of the European Central Bank's Executive Board, because the common European currency affects development in all European countries.
<P>
We wish to contribute in every way towards EMU becoming a successful project since this benefits all of Europe's citizens, including the Swedes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Caudron">
What took place on 2 May at the Brussels Summit has caused great dissatisfaction and bad feeling.
The squabbling between Member States has relegated the birth of the euro to second place and has diminished its importance as an event.
<P>
It was nevertheless worth holding a debate on who should have the authority to make decisions.
It took place, but it was unpleasant and far too nationalistic.
It must be resumed when tempers have cooled.
Politicians must make the decisions, not governors.
Since then, Parliament has done its job by conducting high quality hearings.
<P>
Should we have been less lenient with regard to any particular nominee?
The question was raised in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, and on Monday evening, I myself abstained from voting for one of the candidates.
It was a necessary warning.
But today we have no major reason for not approving the proposed team.
<P>
From now on, we shall have to ensure that Parliament exerts real control and, in particular, works determinedly towards a political Europe.
If administrators are experienced and independent, more responsibility has to be taken by politicians on behalf of the citizens they represent.
That will be our task over the next five years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="de Rose">
The European Parliament's resolution on the appointment of the President and members of the ECB has, at least, made it possible to create a team of monetary experts whose professional qualities are recognized by all.
<P>
The main objective described during the hearings was to ensure the strict application of the Treaty, that is, the absolute stability of the euro.
Furthermore, note that the 'independence' of the ECB remains unclear and vague.
Independence with regard to whom?
<P>
But, even if the debates organized over the last two days have allowed Members to cover quite a wide range of subjects, from the individual situations of the nominees to their concept of the role of the ECB, including technical questions on the money supply or on the euro/dollar parity, it is still particularly difficult to judge the 'theoretical' competence of each nominee at a single hearing.
<P>
We will have to judge the competence of each nominee on a day-to-day basis, within the framework of the implementation and application of monetary policies and the solutions they will have to find in order to react to the fluctuations that are sure to affect the financial markets.
<P>
Of course, recommending monetary stability in order to institute a 'healthy' economic environment is commendable, but in no event should we lose sight of the aim, which should be a priority for both politicians and monetarists: to reduce unemployment.
<P>
Because, finally, in order to remain credible in public opinion, and remember that our aim as elected representatives is to defend it, it is imperative that the policies adopted provide an efficient solution for the twenty million unemployed, because they have little interest in the independence and supervision of a European institution in charge of monetary matters. They are more concerned about having a decent quality of life and a decent standard of living.
<P>
Finally, may I add that it is too early to worry about the ECB President's age. Why are we talking about his successor when he has only just been appointed?
Wait until we have implemented a policy which is operating satisfactorily.
<P>
France was the driving force behind the construction of Europe for many years, but little by little has lost its touch.
It still has the ability to make what looks like a compromise but, on the big issues, despite all the jokes prior to the appointment of Mr Duisenberg as head of the ECB, that is where France's power stops.
This soap opera has done little to advance Europe's cause and our country's.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
g. (SV) The undersigned have abstained from the vote on the above report for the following reasons:
<P>
We oppose the EMU project per se; all previous projects with common standards of value and/or fixed exchange rates have collapsed.-Sweden is not involved in EMU, and we therefore have no reason to consider the appointments of persons to posts within the ECB.
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling">
We believe that EMU's policy of economic restraint may lead to social and political unrest within the EU and is therefore an enormously high-risk project.
EMU also rules out an economy that is sustainable in the long term for "green' reasons.
<P>
The six candidates proposed for the European Central Bank's Executive Board must follow this constitutional economic policy.
During the hearings none of them have given the slightest hint of an interpretation that takes ecological and social factors into consideration. They all follow the "hard' line.
<P>
Furthermore, when asked whether the ECB's operations will be characterized by openness and democratic accountability, the candidates once again answered NO.
The candidates for the ECB's Executive Board all defend the Bank's independence, while at the same time disputing the idea that they should be accountable to the European Parliament for their actions.
They also all underline the need for all of the Bank's business to be conducted behind closed doors, which prevents the European Parliament and the people of Europe from being kept informed of what is going on.
<P>
We feel that the 'horse-trading' that has taken place regarding the ECB President's term of office and the manner in which the European Parliament has been consulted is unworthy and degrading.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Gallagher">
As a member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy of the European Parliament, I welcome the key decisions that were taken during the weekend of 1-3 May by the European leaders which have given the final green light to the introduction of a single European currency in Europe.
<P>
I welcome the fact that 11 countries are set to join the new currency which will encompass a population of over 290 million people.
If only six or seven countries were to have joined up to the new currency then this would have only resulted in the building of a two-speed Europe.
<P>
I am pleased that Ireland has joined up to the new currency because this will result in lower export costs for our manufacturers.
Lower interest rates are certainly going to be a result of our membership within the European single currency regime which is good news for small and medium-sized companies, and the fact that transaction costs are eliminated will be good news for the Irish tourism industry.
<P>
The European Central Bank will be run over the next 12 years by two of the most experienced bankers in Europe, Mr Duisenberg and Mr Trichet.
Both gentlemen have impeccable credentials in international banking finance and administration and are well suited for the respective position as head of the European Central Bank.
<P>
The debate about the new head of the European Central Bank must not detract from the achievements to date in bringing about a new European single currency.
<P>
We must also remember, however, that real challenges lie ahead with regard to Irish participation in a new European single currency.
<P>
Interest rates are now controlled by the European Central Bank.
Therefore, if Ireland is to succeed within the arrangement of a single currency then we must remain competitive within the marketplace, keep prices down and ensure that inflation is kept low.
<P>
In conclusion, I am confident that Britain will join up to the new currency in the near future because British industry wants it and because Britain will be a big loser in terms of attracting outside direct foreign investment as long as it stays out of the new euro zone.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats are abstaining from the vote on appointments to the Executive Board of the European Central Bank.
We voted on the list of countries that are to have the common currency because that falls within Denmark's qualification of not wishing to prevent other countries from having it.
Nevertheless, we find it difficult to take a stance on the quality of the management to apply to participating States.
Moreover, we are abstaining because the result of the nominations of candidates is still under discussion.
Voting in favour would go beyond the stance based purely on principle that we took on 2 May.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="Lucas Pires">
The appointment of the President of the ECB has already been ratified by the markets and public opinion - and that is a very important evaluation factor, on the democratic as well as the economic level.
While Duisenberg's half-mandate may devalue the presidency, it can enhance the standing of the institution, the Board of which is, furthermore, competent and has generally shown itself to be convincing.
Apart from this, the suspicions that have been aroused will inspire the institution to be more vigilant.
And it is a positive element that, owing to the statement of superior political will revealed by the appointment process, the ECB's principal objective - the control of price stability - can now be placed in the wider context of the stability, balance and cohesion of the European Union as a whole.
In any event, it is not worth brooding over the past. We should start filling in the 'flesh and bones' of the European Union by completing it politically and socially.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Martinez">
We have been consulted with regard to the appointment of the President of the Central Bank.
But we have only been consulted.
We have no authority to decide, which shows the small extent of our power, and the contrasting large extent of the European Central Bank's.
It has full, independent and exclusive competence.
The total independence granted to it by Article 107 of the Maastricht Treaty really means an absence of control.
<P>
Furthermore, it was both revealing and pathetic to watch the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy beg for scraps, at a hearing of a senior official, Mr Duisenberg in this case.
I quote: ' How often, Mr President, would you be prepared to meet the competent committee of Parliament?' .
Note the words 'would you be prepared...'
Furthermore, Mr Duisenberg replied that he would agree to meet the Committee once every quarter.
He will even condescend to accept 'any invitation to Committee meetings' .
<P>
But as far as the ECB's accountability is concerned, he considers that it is only accountable 'to the general public' .
In practice, it will only be accountable by means of 'an open and transparent communication policy' , which is unlikely to lead to very severe sanctions by the 'general public' ...
<P>
With a sincerity that nobody can doubt, Mr Duisenberg even agreed that the ECB was 'accountable to Parliament' .
Indeed, in response to the Committee on Monetary Affairs' nineteenth question which asked whether he would wish to continue to solicit the appointment if the European Parliament were to recommend his rejection, his answer could not be clearer: ' I cannot adopt a position on that question' .
Is there any real accountability, if a responsible person clearly refuses to leave when his accountability has been questioned?
<P>
So it is easy to see that, without control, the ECB will be all-powerful.
So the monetary and economic government of Europe will no longer be based on democracy but on oligarchy.
<P>
This will cause the decline of the institutional history of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Papayiannakis">
The hearing of the candidates for the Executive Board of the European Central Bank and the corresponding vote for their endorsement by the European Parliament is indeed an important political moment in the necessary completion of EMU and the euro.
However, this precise moment reminds us of the political deficiencies of the progress so far towards European integration.
The vote of the European Parliament is purely consultative.
The national parliaments do not have the competence to decide the appointment of the head of the ECB, whereas they do decide the appointment of the president of their own central banks, as the Greek Parliament recently did.
The head of the ECB is thus appointed by governments, often with transactions of low quality, and parliamentary supervision is taken away from national parliaments but is not given to the European Parliament.
This demonstrates yet another of the inconsistencies which arise from the inadequacy of the progress that has been made so far towards the political integration of Europe.
This inconsistency will become even more noticeable the more the evolution of EMU progresses.
We will soon have to face up to it: either EMU does not lead to the political integration of Europe along federal lines, in which case we must worry about its future, or it de facto and inevitably leads towards that objective, in which case we must say so clearly and prepare ourselves appropriately.
On these grounds I prefer to abstain in the vote without naturally calling into question the suitability of the persons that are being proposed to us and even less the historic importance of EMU and the single currency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Porto">
We are delighted with the vote, by which the European Parliament has made yet another significant contribution to making the euro credible.
<P>
This has followed our work on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy in connection with the assessment of CVs and the interviewing of the candidates.
<P>
Having freely reached a positive judgment on each of them, we have helped to strengthen the credibility the market has given the euro by consigning to oblivion the less felicitous proceedings at the Brussels Summit; that credibility will not be dented in the slightest by Mr Duisenberg's voluntary early retirement (which constitutes no violation of the Treaty).
<P>
The credibility of the euro will be even further strengthened by the rotation system agreed at the Summit, with a date already set for a Portuguese member to be on the Executive Board, together with the permanent participation of the Governor of the Bank of Portugal on the Bank's Board, which will meet at least ten times a year and will take all the most important fundamental decisions by a simple majority vote (in principle), each vote having the same weight.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Ribeiro">
After the 'foundation' and the appointment of the 'founder members' of the euro, the process of installing the first Executive Board of the ECB exceeded our worst fears, displaying a totally undesirable degree of short-sightedness and opportunism.
<P>
The show that was put on to impress public opinion was followed by a spectacle generally acknowledged as depressing, but only one or two commentators stressed the revealing absence of democratic mechanisms and processes.
<P>
For our part, we have not discussed personalities, the sharing-out of influence among the 'grandees' , combinations and 'setups' .
As a matter of mental hygiene, so to speak, and of keeping policy exemplary, we abstained from those votes which decided nothing, those 'makeweight' votes which continue the same pretence 'for the benefit of public opinion' , although they cannot hide what they do not wish the public to see. This must be denounced as a matter of urgency.
We must show that the taking of decisions is being removed further and further from the people, even though they are informed and responsible participants.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="Wolf">
A majority of our group has voted against all the Executive Board members nominated, because they consider that the monetary policy and the central bank practice that all these candidates stand for, with some subtle differences in Mr Padoa-Schioppa's case, are unacceptable and urgently need to be reexamined.
Combating inflation when there is no inflation is not a sensible option in monetary terms, whereas avoiding deflationary trends is.
Opening up the central banks to the public at large and in particular to the 'specialized public' of the financial markets may appear humdrum, but democratic anchoring of the independence of the central bank in a structured monetary dialogue to be institutionalized at both European and national level is a task that remains to be achieved.
<P>
A considerable minority within our group did not consider that it made sense to vote 'No' in such a critical situation.
<P>
Now that the European Parliament has approved the nominations by a large majority, we Greens will make full use of the scope Parliament offers to formulate political demands and objectives, and of every kind of institutionalized dialogue, to work towards rectifying political guiding principles in future.
We are convinced that clearly and precisely formulated differences - as reflected in our amendments, which were rejected by a majority of this House, and also in our voting pattern - are the right starting point for the discussions to be held with the Executive Board of the ECB over the next few years.
Accordingly, we must now ensure that the limited willingness to hold a dialogue that the candidates have displayed so far is exploited to the full.
We do not, however, intend to go away and sulk: we will try even harder to make sure that our critical stances and demands make a contribution to the dialogue between the ECB and the European Parliament, which is overdue.
<P>
The logic of this explanation also applies to the following votes on the nomination of the ECB Executive Board members.
<P>
Cabrol recommendation for second reading (A4-0150/98)
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, the decision taken in this House today marks a great day for democracy and for the health of citizens throughout Europe.
Obviously the Greens would have liked to have seen this directive strengthened, but we know that the tactics of the tobacco lobbying industry were to try to get an amendment put in so that when it went back to the Council the majority there would change it, because of undue pressure by Germany, in particular.
<P>
The German Government was pressurized by the print media and the newspaper industry because they were faced with the prospect of losing a huge amount of money from tobacco advertising.
They put pressure on a number of Member States to change their position within the Council.
I think it is appalling that vested interests within governments and countries are totally disregarding the health of people throughout Europe.
<P>
It is quite clear that tobacco advertising has an appalling effect on young people in particular.
When you look at the health effects of tobacco and smoking it is quite clear that the number of people who die as a result of tobacco is very high.
For example, an organization in Ireland called ASH estimates that the tobacco industry and its appalling campaign to ensure that more and more young people take up smoking kill six times more people in Ireland each year than road accidents, work accidents, drugs, murder, suicide and AIDS.
It is quite clear that smoking is a danger to health.
<P>
Any kind of advertising which promotes something that is a danger to health must be unacceptable in a civilized society.
I am glad to see here today that the tobacco industry did not get its way and that Parliament put the interests of the health of people throughout Europe before vested interests.
<P>
Unfortunately in the two larger groups in the European Parliament, many of the German Members caved in to the lobbying by these vested interests and put the interests of money before the interests of the people and their health.
However, we are glad to see that this has gone through.
It is not perfect, but at least it is something.
<P>
The Greens were in a difficult position in trying not to amend it because we knew what the end result would be.
It is quite clear that the tactics of some people in this House were very sinister indeed: trying to put amendments in; trying to get people who are health conscious to vote in favour of them.
When the time came, would these same people support those amendments in another situation?
I do not think they would.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, I did not vote for the common position for two reasons. My first reason relates to its legal basis.
Our Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has clearly shown that the Treaty does not contain any legal basis for banning the advertising of tobacco products today or of wine, for example, tomorrow.
They are manufactured from agricultural products which are not prohibited. On the contrary, such products are even heavily subsidized within the framework of the common agricultural policy, which is the case with tobacco.
<P>
It is not a question of being for or against smokers, for or against the prevention of cancer.
It is almost psychotic, not to say hypocritical, to vote sanctimoniously for a ban on all advertising of tobacco products.
Nobody starts smoking because of advertising and nobody will stop smoking because tobacco advertising is banned. By the by, the ban will be of most benefit to the government monopolies that manufacture the most harmful cigarettes.
<P>
Because the ban on advertising in the Community will probably destroy thousands of jobs, particularly women's jobs, in my country especially, to the benefit of multinationals in third countries, I have decided not be a hypocrite, and have voted against it.
Furthermore, I would like to see Commissioner Flynn show as much enthusiasm and vitality for creating jobs for women as he has shown in this House for the ban on tobacco advertising, which destroy jobs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fantuzzi">
Mr President, I voted for the Cabrol report.
However, I would like to draw your attention to the attitude taken by Commissioner Flynn when he closed the debate on this report.
In fact I want to censure this attitude: Commissioner Flynn spoke out against aid to tobacco producers in a rather heated harangue in search of applause from part of this House.
But the problem of aid to tobacco producers was not on the agenda of this debate!
I believe that the two are to be kept separate, as the Commission has done, deciding to maintain aid for tobacco production, something that we will discuss in a forthcoming report by the Parliament.
<P>
Secondly, I believe that a Commissioner in this House is always obliged to express the positions of the Commission as a collegiate body, not to express personal opinions.
I know his personal opinion and respect it, but he must also respect the European Parliament and our working rules.
Therefore, Mr President, I ask that you convey my censure to Commissioner Flynn and request, if possible, an answer to his attitude.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="Alavanos">
I voted for the common position of the Council with regard to the advertising and supplying of tobacco products, since I consider that we must not encourage the use of tobacco products by means of advertising, because of the harmful effects on health, especially for the young.
However, this is a completely different issue from the position of tobacco in the common agricultural policy.
Should tobacco subsidies be abolished, as was proposed yesterday by Commissioner Flynn, this would create an enormous social problem and would lay waste whole semimountainous regions of the European Union.
It would not, however, reduce consumption by even a single cigarette but would simply benefit imports - especially from the USA - to the detriment of Community production.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="Barros Moura">
I voted with the losers on the essential points, particularly on the legal basis.
<P>
There is a fundamental reason for this: so long as the production and sale of tobacco products remains a legal activity, there are no grounds for prohibiting them from being advertised.
Advertisements, furthermore, are required to make clear mention of the dangers of tobacco consumption and encourage freedom of choice.
There are also advertisements warning of the illeffects of tobacco.
<P>
There is an anti-fundamentalist reason: having given up smoking ten years ago, I do not understand the all-embracing fury against smokers on the part of people who want to impose their moral values. And I will not tolerate that.
<P>
There is a political reason: Commissioner Flynn has expressly associated this decision with measures against the production of tobacco in the European Union and against support for agricultural tobacco producers.
This is an improper position; it takes no account of the unfavourable economic and social effects of such a measure, which disregards European interests vis-a-vis the United States of America, and finally it is not associated with a thoroughgoing reform of the CAP, particularly in favour of agriculture, fruit-growing and oil and wine production in the countries of the South.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="Bébéar">
After more than 5 years of legislative stalemate, we are about to vote on one of the most difficult texts in the history of the European Parliament.
Our vote today should make it possible to ban tobacco advertising in the European Union.
This decision is fundamental to public health and expresses our determination to prevent all forms of addiction, whatever they are.
<P>
Thanks to Professor Cabrol's work, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has finally reached a consensus on banning all forms of tobacco advertising and sponsorship.
With the majority of us in agreement, it is the best possible compromise at the present time because it strikes a balance between the interests of all those involved.
Important temporary sectoral derogations and adjustments have been allowed in order to prevent economic losses in agriculture, the press, and so on.
<P>
I therefore formally support the common position adopted by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, as described in the Cabrol recommendation for second reading.
I ask all my colleagues in favour of public health to show the same determination.
<P>
As an ear, nose and throat specialist, I should like to refer to some of the aspects that have helped us to make this decision, which is not in the least excessive or disproportionate, in comparison with the public health risk.
<P>
The advertising of tobacco products is being aimed at an increasingly young audience.
That audience has become the main target of manufacturers, who thus aim to safeguard their markets for tomorrow and to replace the 500 000 smokers who die every year in Europe.
It is intolerable, under cover of the freedom of expression, to allow the behaviour of young people to be influenced, because they do not consider the risks they are taking.
Since 1995, the United States has adopted severe measures with regard to minors and young adults.
Why should we allow American manufacturers to do in the European Union what they are no longer allowed to do at home?
<P>
As tobacco advertising aims specifically to stimulate this type of demand and to increase this type of consumption, it is important that we control it permanently.
Every year, directly or indirectly, more deaths are caused by smoking than by road accidents, drinking, drugs and suicide put together.
We have united to create a single currency.
Now let us unite to limit the use of this potentially harmful product, which causes a major health problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="Bonde and Lis Jensen">
On the whole, the content of Mr Cabrol's report is very sound, and we certainly endorse it.
Today we have supported a number of amendments, which, if they had been adopted, would have led to the directive being amended to a recommendation.
We did so because we do not believe there is a legislative basis for Mr Cabrol's report, but because the content is sound we would very much have liked to see it adopted as a recommendation.
<P>
Council's own legal service and Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights have both come to the same conclusion and, because we feel very strongly about defending the rights of Member States to make their own laws, we can only support Mr Cabrol's report as a recommendation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="Cushnahan">
On the last occasion when this was discussed in the European Parliament I opposed the proposal to ban tobacco advertising. I did so on the grounds of censorship.
I was worried that a ban on tobacco advertising would be followed by bans on advertising other products encouraged by those who have very narrow ultra-conservative views.
<P>
While I took the decision on genuine libertarian grounds, I have since changed my mind.
My outrage at the manipulative behaviour of the tobacco industry which shows a callous disregard for ethics and public health concerns far outweighs the previous reservations that I had.
<P>
Certain tobacco producers have cynically targeted young people.
They increased the nicotine content of some of their products so as to addict young people for life.
They target young people with seductive advertising without caring about the long-term damage that is being inflicted on their health.
Profits take precedence over humanitarian concerns.
<P>
I cannot accept these practices and for these reasons I will support the ban on tobacco advertising.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="Delcroix">
Tobacco is a poison which kills hundreds of thousands of human beings every year and maims, or inflicts serious illnesses on, millions of others.
<P>
We know that from a health point of view, a pure and simple ban would be justified, but impracticable.
We cannot therefore ban tobacco production and consumption.
<P>
It is contradictory and intolerably hypocritical for advertising alone to be banned, whilst production continues to be supported by subsidies which are larger than the amounts spent on health.
Over ECU 1 billion per year!
Our decisions should be more coherent.
<P>
Despite this hypocrisy, which I deplore, I will vote for the tobacco advertising ban and hope that other measures will be approved in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="Deprez">
After six years of discussions, the Council has finally, by an extremely small margin, adopted a common position on a total tobacco advertising ban.
<P>
Personally, I am in favour of adopting the project as it stands without any amendments.
In fact, smoking should be one of our top priorities with regard to public health.
Indeed, an advertising ban may only be a first step, but it is a step that we can take now.
So, let us stand firm and adopt the Cabrol report!
<P>
Furthermore, I think that if we adopt amendments, we will give people who are opposed to the principle of a ban an opportunity to ensure that the project as a whole fails, and I do not want to run that risk.
<P>
Finally, it has in all events been explicitly stated that Member States wishing to adopt stricter requirements more quickly may do so.
Each Member State can therefore act under its own initiative if it considers that the time scale indicated in the text is too slow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="Díez de Rivera Icaza">
Today's vote is a historic vote.
Today, after a 9 year struggle, this Parliament - the direct representation of the citizens of Europe - by accepting the Council's common position without amendment, has managed democratically to impose its view.
<P>
Today is a historic occasion for the health of all our citizens, despite the fact that the Spanish Members of the Partido Popular voted in favour of encouraging tobacco consumption and its dramatic consequences for health.
<P>
On a day like this, it is an honour to be a Member of this Parliament, as I said in the debate yesterday, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="Graenitz">
Although the common position does not clarify all areas completely and the question of the legal basis is disputed, I did not vote for any of the amendments since I take the view that we must give a clear signal at European Union level that the health of our citizens is a matter of great concern.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="Grossetête">
I should like to congratulate warmly the rapporteur, Professor Christian Cabrol, for the excellent work he has done in preparing the second reading of the proposal for a directive on banning the advertising and sponsorship of tobacco products in the European Union.
<P>
I share his convictions on this common position.
In putting health protection before any other consideration, he has chosen to defend a courageous political position.
<P>
Six years after the first reading, the Council has finally reached a common position.
The text is the result of difficult negotiations.
Detractors of this proposal for a directive argue that its legal basis should be changed.
I do not agree.
Indeed, although this is a public health problem, it also relates to the approximation of the rules on advertising throughout the Community.
From that point of view, I think Article 100a is eminently suitable.
<P>
If the legal basis was a real problem, not just an excuse used by some Members and Member States, it could be referred to the Court of Justice for a ruling.
<P>
It is Parliament's job to voice a political opinion.
That is what Parliament has done today, on the very day after the publication of the WHO's annual report, which states that 3.5 million deaths are caused by smoking throughout the world every year, and estimates that there will be 10 million deaths per year by the year 2020.
This increase is directly linked to a foreseeable increase in smoking, particularly in developing countries.
The report also states that the number of cancer victims is decreasing overall. It should stabilize by the year 2005, with the exception of lung cancer, the only type of cancer that is on the increase.
<P>
I am very pleased with the result of this vote, which shows this institution's determination to safeguard the health of young people and future generations.
A great step forward has been taken in the area of public health protection.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="Hautala">
The European Parliament can today congratulate itself on giving its support to a ban on tobacco advertising in the European Union.
Although the decision, which has dragged on for some time, is an unsatisfactory compromise, it is the lesser of two evils.
Parliament wisely refrained from proposing any amendment to the decision taken by Ministers for Health last December after years of talks.
It thus also evaded a wolf in sheep's clothing, i.e. mainly German representatives, who are trying to water down the whole tobacco advertising ban issue with arguments relating to health, and legalistic distortions.
<P>
The advertising ban is opposed by those who wield massive economic power, such as the tobacco industry and the giant newspaper firms.
EU legislators have brought to light the consistently great pressure they exert.
<P>
Now is also our last chance to enact the tobacco advertising ban.
In a few years' time the Union will be joined by countries in eastern Europe, which oppose restrictions on markets.
The Union must show them too that it seriously intends to improve public health.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
As an active non-smoker since birth, I am far from being a supporter of tobacco consumption, let alone an advocate of overlooking its possible dangers.
For this reason, I take the reservations which have been expressed very seriously indeed.
Nevertheless, I also want to see an honest and straightforward policy and cannot therefore endorse the proposal for the directive on the tobacco advertising ban.
<P>
The decision for or against smoking is a fundamental one and must be treated as such.
It is hypocritical to speak out against tobacco advertising whilst at the same time accepting tobacco subsidies in the European Union.
<P>
This debate is taking place on a side stage which is developing a quite different and dubious direction.
One of the fundamental principles of the market economy, and therefore an integral part of a single market, is the provision of appropriate information about goods which are legally available.
This is in keeping with the treatment of the consumer as a politically mature individual who is able to use information correctly.
This advertising ban opens up dangerous issues for our free market economy.
What about an egg advertising ban?
Or one for cars?
Not to mention alcohol or coffee?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="Klaß">
The European Union wants to guarantee the free movement of goods and services and realize the single market.
However, the tobacco advertising ban is the wrong way of achieving these objectives.
Each product which can be freely sold must also be able to be advertised.
As a consumer I have the right to know which products are on the market and what these products offer.
<P>
There is no legal basis on which to pronounce an EU-wide tobacco advertising ban.
The fact that smoking damages health is undisputed.
The health dangers of smoking are indicated on cigarette packets.
However, these restrictions must be commensurate with their intended purpose.
The tobacco advertising ban as outlined in the Council's common position certainly is not.
<P>
I am also afraid of a domino effect that will not stop at a tobacco advertising ban. An advertising ban for alcoholic drinks, fast cars, drugs or toys might be the result.
Where should we draw the line?
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, a sensible explanation to the public of the dangers of tobacco consumption is a far better and more efficient solution for reducing levels of smoking in the European population than anti-competitive advertising bans.
Therefore we should concentrate our efforts on health initiatives such as the "Europe against Cancer' campaign.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="Lindqvist">
g. (SV) Tobacco is the largest single cause of diseases and fatalities that can be prevented.
Within the Member States of the EU, over 500 000 deaths every year can be attributed to tobacco, 200 000 of which are caused by cardiovascular diseases.
<P>
Scientific research shows that tobacco advertising has the effect of encouraging people's smoking habits.
Research also shows that banning tobacco advertising, in conjunction with other preventive and informative measures, reduces smoking habits.
<P>
One question that has been discussed is whether the proposed directive represents a restriction of freedom of expression and therefore of the Constitution.
Contacts with experts in this field show that this is not the case.
There are no valid arguments against the proposed ban on direct and indirect tobacco advertising and sponsorship of tobacco goods.
I have therefore voted in favour of the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="Nicholson">
While all of us want to see a dramatic reduction in tobacco advertising, it is regrettable that the need for better education among young people has become overshadowed by the superficially attractive argument for a blanket ban on advertising.
If the Commission is serious about its anti-smoking policy then it would serve itself and the European public better by concentrating on education programmes rather than seeking publicity by ill-conceived and badly executed means.
<P>
That the matter has not been properly thought through is evident from the fact that Article 100a is not the legal basis on which tobacco advertising should be addressed.
In my opinion, the credibility of the EU is undermined by such manipulation of the Treaty.
<P>
It is also unfair to accuse Members, who genuinely believe that the legal basis for this proposal is wrong, of being under the control of cigarette manufacturers.
I have listened to the arguments put forward not only by the manufacturers but also by anti- smoking campaigners and by the trade unions who represent workers employed in the industry in my own constituency.
I remain convinced that a blanket ban is not the answer to the problem of tobacco consumption and that it will not be achieved anyway on a legal basis which cannot be justified.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 NAME="Reding">
Doctors are agreed that tobacco smoking endangers health right from the very first cigarette.
And that it affects not only smokers but also passive smokers around them.
<P>
Experts have proved that both direct and indirect tobacco advertising are most influential on the young, encouraging them to enter into the "drug' culture of tobacco.
<P>
For this reason a large majority in the European Parliament, supported by a majority in the Council of European Health Minsters, has drawn up an EU directive on the banning of tobacco advertising.
<P>
Despite the concentrated opposition of the tobacco industry, which in a massive public relations campaign has left no stone unturned in trying to win politicians over to its arguments, reason has triumphed.
After a transition period of three years to allow time for the reorganization of the economic structures involved, both direct and indirect tobacco advertising and sponsoring will be banned in Europe.
<P>
There are some 548, 000 tobacco-related deaths per annum in Europe.
With 654 victims per year Luxemburg is no exception.
Our task, therefore, is to reduce the consumption of tobacco and to prevent young people in particular - who are specifically targeted by many tobacco advertisements - from acquiring this dangerous habit.
As it is a proven fact that few people start smoking after the age of 20, stepping up prevention amongst children and young people represents a logical political step towards improving public health.
<P>
Strong in my conviction and backed by the moral support of the doctors of Luxemburg and the Fondation luxembourgeoise contre le cancer , I will be voting for the tobacco advertising ban.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="Rovsing">
Whether or not it can be considered desirable to introduce regulations banning tobacco advertising, the proposed directive should not be adopted.
Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and Council's legal service have both concluded that the Community does not have the power to issue the directive - regardless of whether article 100a or any other article of the Treaty is cited as the legal basis.
<P>
Should the directive be adopted, a complaint would in all probability be brought before the Court of Justice to the effect that the document should be declared invalid under Articles 173 and 174 of the Treaty.
Thus, it must be up to each Member State to determine whether to introduce such legislation.
I am, therefore, voting in favour of the declaration of intent to reject the Council's common position, tabled by Mr Nassauer and his co-signatories.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="Rübig">
<SPEAKER ID=136 NAME="Rack">
This question is about much more than the tobacco advertising ban.
I reject the ban on the grounds of basic considerations relating to the procedure used by the Committee on the Environment which has resulted in the European Parliament disassociating itself from an important European legislative project.
Because we are taking it upon ourselves to discuss in this House a draft which was dealt with by the European Parliament over six years ago in a quite different context.
<P>
Even more important for our position, however, is the fact that by using the selected procedure the European Parliament is performing a legal act which undoubtedly exceeds the scope of its legal competence.
None of the powers of jurisdiction currently vested in the European Union covers such a wide-ranging ban on the direct and indirect advertising of a product the consumption of which is not only not banned, but - to cap it all - to the production of which the European Union has actually contributed for many years in the form of EU funds, e.g. for tobacco and tobacco products.
<P>
We would consider ourselves far more bound by a principle of subsidiarity which does not produce a sort of rarefied EU centralism and in which a European legislator in Brussels does not see himself as authorised to intervene in anything and everything.
<P>
Finally, may I say that we fully support the concerns of all those who take the danger to health posed by tobacco seriously.
Above all, we want the European Union and the European Parliament to find other, legally permissible ways of giving this matter the status it deserves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="Schlechter">
As a non-smoker, I would have no difficulty whatsoever in joining those who are going to vote today with great enthusiasm for a total ban on tobacco advertising.
<P>
But I am not going to follow the recommendations of our rapporteur, Professor Cabrol, because I am not convinced that this ban will have the expected result.
<P>
Instead of concentrating all our efforts on trying to persuade our fellow citizens to stop smoking, instead of teaching our young people to make up their own minds with regard to advertising, we have chosen the easy way out, that is, banning advertising. We are showing them once again that they are old enough, for example, to vote for Members of Parliament to represent them, but in everything else they are still children.
<P>
Banning tobacco advertising is therefore the easy way out.
But where will it take us?
Are we really going to regulate everything which in any way resembles an indirect form of advertisement of tobacco consumption?
In my opinion, we have got it wrong.
<P>
In order to remain coherent, are we going to ban smoking film stars from cinema screens, are we going to ban the advertising of perfumes because they are named after a cigar, or an actor or a famous sportsman who is a smoker?
<P>
I sincerely believe that national legislation gives us enough power to regulate the advertising of any product. I agree here with our Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and the Council's legal service, both of whom say that Article 100a cannot form a legal basis for a ban on tobacco advertising.
<P>
I am convinced that banning the advertising of tobacco products will harm small producers. All it will do is redistribute the market shares of the large manufacturers of tobacco products, but it will have no effect on direct consumption.
<P>
Furthermore, I am afraid that banning the advertising of tobacco products is a step towards banning other products in the future - alcohol, for example.
Is that what we want?
<P>
To conclude, I am against the hypocrisy of subsidizing European producers of tobacco to the tune of several billion ECU on the one hand, and on the other, of banning tobacco advertising, which helps to sell it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="Schleicher">
I am sorry that the important amendments to the Cabrol report proposed by the European Parliament did not meet with majority approval.
I can see no legal basis for the common position in the Treaty on European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="Souchet">
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations is well aware of the very harmful consequences of smoking, and cannot fail to support the strict regulation of the advertising and promotion of tobacco products.
<P>
In fact, a reduction in advertising and promotion alone will lead to a reduction in tobacco consumption.
Everyone knows that the habit of smoking is very often acquired at the end of adolescence or at the beginning of adult life.
In that respect, we approve the regulation of the advertising and promotion of tobacco.
European legislation will be useful in order to prevent a sort of relocation of advertising to the more lenient Member States.
In fact, various media with audiences located throughout the Member States broadcast sporting and cultural events.
It is therefore necessary to prevent advertisements, which are banned in some Member States from being broadcast without control by the media of other Member States.
<P>
Nevertheless, this group wishes to reiterate its position with regard to European tobacco production.
A large number of Members of this House from non tobacco-producing Member States regularly want to withdraw all aid from tobacco production.
Now, it is important to remember that overall the European Union shows a deficit, and that it imports far more tobacco than it exports.
The withdrawal of aid from European tobacco production would lead to its total disappearance.
Imports would increase, with a negative effect on the balance of trade of the European Union, and it would have no effect on consumption.
<P>
Tobacco production is extremely labour-intensive.
It would be wrong to withdraw aid from tobacco production, because that would have a devastating effect on particularly sensitive rural areas.
<P>
Finally, the Cabrol report raises an important question of law.
Even if the rapporteur's intentions are essentially good, he recommends that the Commission should draft a directive which is totally contradictory to the existing legal system, which interferes with national competences, and obviously violates the principle of subsidiarity.
<P>
Public health protection does indeed fall exclusively within national competence, not within the scope of the Community, and should therefore not be the subject of any directives whatsoever.
<P>
This is an extremely dangerous precedent: it may lead the way to activist intervention by the Community, on the basis of the majority vote, in practically all the areas that fall within the competence of the Member States.
It therefore creates an atmosphere of legal insecurity, by showing that European institutions have little respect for the laws applicable to them, that they overstep their competence and that they consider that the law is subject to a changeable majority vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="Taubira-Delannon">
The scrupulous observance of procedures is a guarantee of democracy, and it is important that we should always be vigilant in ensuring that important decisions, which have an effect on citizens' daily lives, are made in compliance with freely agreed rules.
<P>
The question of the legal basis of a text is therefore always fundamental.
In that respect, the intention and, in this case, the use, to which the legal basis argument can be put in delaying tactics, are not insignificant.
<P>
The coherence of this Parliament's political decisions reflects on our credibility and our efficiency, and with a political courage dictated by necessity, we must act as scrupulously as possible with regard to public health risks.
<P>
Furthermore, the technological environment has an effect on commercial practices, and when information - and advertising - technologies make it possible to cross borders, the de facto approximation of market rules cannot be considered innocuous.
<P>
Having made the above statement of principle, we now have a choice. We have a choice between a society in which freedom - of the strongest and most fortunate - is a doctrine and not an achievement used to protect the most vulnerable, and a society in which accountability is a political asset, even if it threatens some financial interests.
<P>
Making this choice does not mean evading the culturally difficult problem of teaching young people to construct their own rules of behaviour as consumers. It does not mean evading the usually difficult and politically obdurate question of the financial involvement of Members States in the tobacco industry and in other public health threats such as alcohol, taxation of income from prostitution, and so on.
<P>
But 10 years of discussion, reflection and hesitation is the time it takes for a child to become an adolescent and to discover such destructive and fleeting pleasures, without being ready to measure and to master them. It seems preceding generations have been unable to show them any other way of achieving their dreams.
<P>
The approximation of the laws regulating this type of advertising does not require all that much courage.
Let us be capable of taking on this responsibility.
<P>
Kenneth D. Collins recommendation for second reading (A4-0146/98)
<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="Alavanos">
The Council directive on the quality of drinking water is of great importance and its de facto application must be ensured.
It is significant that in the second reading the Marinucci amendment was adopted, which transfers copper from Part B to Part C of the Annex, as prescribed by the scientific facts, but which at the same time provides the opportunity to amend prices and to classify parameters on the basis of the evolution of scientific knowledge.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 NAME="Buffetaut">
Who could possibly not be in favour of safeguarding the quality of water intended for human consumption?
<P>
That is an objective which Member States, local authorities, companies and individuals should pursue energetically.
But, in practice, in order to achieve the required aims, clear, relevant and measurable parameters must be defined.
<P>
It is also necessary for the options adopted during definition and classification to relate to the real world, not to be based on ideological rather than scientific judgements.
The provisions of Annex 1 Part B, relating to copper, in the common position, do not appear to be based on current scientific knowledge or factual information on the effects of copper on the body.
<P>
That is why we considered it particularly useful to vote for Amendments Nos 31 to 34, which were submitted to us.
Most of the Members of this House agreed with us. We cannot help being pleased about this, particularly given that currently there is no easy and safe replacement for copper in the consumers' water supply.
<P>
This morning, the European Parliament has shown realism and responsibility with regard to an issue that is certainly technical, but whose economic consequences are not insignificant.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="Grossetête">
This proposal for a directive has been examined by the co-decision procedure and was already significantly improved by the European Parliament, at first reading in December 1996.
<P>
The Council's discussions were completed within a fairly satisfactory time scale.
It only took one year!!
Compared with other texts, it is quite an achievement.
<P>
But, above all, the Council's common position has incorporated some of Parliament's basic amendments such as:
<P>
the need to develop harmonized methods of sampling for testing the lead content in water, which I introduced on behalf of the PPE group at first reading.
This is essential, because data must be comparable between one Member State and another; -the definition of points of compliance: the Council has taken up my amendment, which was adopted at first reading.
In fact, with regard to the water provided by a distribution system, the point of compliance must be the 'tap normally used for human consumption' , which makes it possible to avoid ensuring the conformity of garden taps.
That will facilitate the enforcement of this directive considerably.Nevertheless, some areas of the common position could still be improved.
<P>
With regard to copper, the European Commission and the Council have not taken up the amendment adopted at first reading.
Note that neither has given Parliament a reason to justify that decision.
<P>
On behalf of the PPE group, I am delighted that the amendment, which moves copper from Annex B relating to chemicals, to Annex C, relating to iron and manganese, has been adopted today.
This change of annex means that if the copper content, like any other parameter in Annex C, is exceeded, paragraph 2 of Article 8 is applicable. According to that article, Member States must take corrective measures as soon as possible to restore the quality of the water.
That is a fundamental safeguard of the quality of drinking water.
<P>
The PPE group is also pleased that amendments have been adopted relating to:
<P>
parametric values regarding specific chemical substances, such as trihalomethanes, or physical parameters, such as radioactivity, which will of course have to be taken into consideration in the light of the Euratom directive; -the request for a study relating to endocrine disrupters.
May I emphasize that it is true that we do not yet have sufficient scientific data?
But I should like the research programmes set up by the Commission to be speeded up immediately.
That would comply with the principle of prevention that the Union has imposed in environmental matters and with regard to public health.With regard to lead, Member States will have to provide a report on the effect of lead piping on the quality of water.
They have five years in which to develop a plan to replace it.
That is a good solution, which provides a reasonable period of time to plan what needs to be done, in the light of the effects of lead.
It would of course be preferable for the cost of these plans to be calculated and programmed, but that will fall within the competency of each of the Member States.
<P>
I would like to point out that with regard to 'lead' standards, Member States - mainly the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Belgium and Ireland, whose water distribution systems contain lead piping, will need huge financial resources - ECU 35 to 50 billion for the whole of the European Union.
<P>
Finally, the possibilities of derogation provided by the common position have been reduced and stricter requirements introduced with regard to time.
We should congratulate ourselves on this.
It was nevertheless necessary, in exceptional cases, for Member States to be able to ask the European Commission for a further derogation.
<P>
I should like to congratulate warmly the rapporteur, Mr Ken Collins, for the work he has done at first reading, and now at second reading.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="Lindqvist">
g. (SV) The water supply is primarily a national question.
Shortages, environmental problems, natural disasters and such like make it a European and global issue.
I can therefore support a common water policy, providing the Member States are permitted to have higher standards.
This is also proposed in the directive.
I have therefore voted in favour of the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 NAME="Nicholson">
Mr President, it is important that water quality is protected and improved throughout the European Union.
The people have a right to expect no less.
<P>
While I feel it is useful to set standards, it must be for the Member States to implement, while they must improve and increase their standards - and there is great scope for improvement.
<P>
We must look at how best we can remove all contact with lead piping and each Member State should draw up proposals which will lead to the removal of lead.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="Rovsing">
The directive on drinking water is one of the most significant legislative initiatives of EU environmental policy.
Key aspects of the directive are the principle of prevention and the principle of making polluters foot the bill.
We must stand by these important criteria if we wish to assure consumers of an ongoing supply of clean water.
It is gratifying to see Commission, Council and Parliament collaborating successfully in the preparation of clear provisions for the directive, which is worthy of full endorsement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 NAME="Souchet">
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations voted in favour of the common position of the Council on the quality of water intended for human consumption.
However, a hierarchy of water policies must be established in order to simultaneously guarantee the safety of the water supply, restore polluted waters and prevent any further deterioration of water quality.
These three political priorities must be controlled simultaneously in order to satisfy consumers' needs.
It is therefore important to ensure the coherence of the proposals and efficient auditing of compliance, on the basis of reliable data and methods of analysis.
<P>
It is therefore necessary for Member States to comply with the framework objectives established, using appropriate techniques and technologies.
In the water industry, like many other environmental sectors, it is necessary to apply the principle of subsidiarity to the full, so problems can be solved more efficiently.
However, with regard to the purification of polluted water in particular, cooperation between Member States must be facilitated, as catchment basins do not stop at national borders, which form artificial administrative limits.
We all know that the Rhine, after crossing Switzerland, France, Germany and the Netherlands, flows into the North Sea.
Any attempt to establish standards relating to the quality of water intended for human consumption will be futile if cooperation between Member States is not ensured.
<P>
Rather than allowing European institutions to adopt ever more stringent standards, cooperation between Member States must be encouraged, to enable decision-making to take place as far as possible at a local level, effectively applying the principle of subsidiarity. It is also important to ensure the implementation of the most suitable measures and technologies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 NAME="Titley">
I am glad to support this report by my colleague, Mr Collins.
Water quality is obviously a vital matter of concern for each and every European citizen.
It is good to see that the EU's governments have taken up nearly 40 of this Parliament's amendment since first reading.
This is a good example of people's elected ministers and their elected MEPs working together to improve consumer standards.
<P>
However, I support the rapporteur's amendments aimed at limiting the scope for Member States to be let off meeting EU standards of water quality.
He is right to argue that whilst they should be allowed to set higher national standards than required by EU law, countries should still have to apply minimum EU standards for the sake of consumers.
<P>
In this House we are often busy legislating on issues which although important to one group or another do not always affect many people in their daily lives.
This report should be backed by the House to let everyone in the EU know that we also act to ensure their health and the protection of their environment - I understand that in Mr Collins's native Scotland the whisky is often called the water of life, but his report shows that he knows the importance of ensuring that drinking water, the real water of life, is as safe as we can make it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 NAME="Wibe">
This type of report should not pass through this Parliament.
It does not lie within the competence of Parliament to lay down guidelines on such matters as the level of radioactivity in drinking water.
Parliament should decide on general guidelines but then leave expert bodies to work out specific details.
One major failing with regard to the functioning of this Parliament is precisely that too much time is devoted to details (within fields where Parliament lacks competence), and too little time to general guidelines.
<P>
Parliament should set objectives; the expert bodies should decide on the means to achieve these objectives.
<P>
Miranda de Lage recommendation (A4-0156/98)
<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="Alavanos">
I refused to give a positive vote to the European Union-Mexico agreement because of the human rights situation, particularly in the Chiapas region.
Unfortunately the Mexican government has taken a tough stance and is allowing an act of genocide to unfold in the region in question and is placing obstacles in the way of international observers. Naturally I must point out that it is significant that there is a human rights clause, which has been by-passed on more than one occasion, according to experiences in other countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 NAME="Deprez">
I am, like you, very pleased that the adoption of the interim agreement to which we have given our assent will enable commercial negotiations between the European Union and Mexico to start soon.
It is understood that the modernization of the Mexican economy and its membership of NAFTA make it necessary to reform the framework agreement on cooperation. It was, however, only signed between the European Community and Mexico in 1991 and is still in force today.
The European Union could, furthermore, not fail to react to the increasing instances of violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms, social disparities and poverty in Mexico, after the events in Chiapas and the financial crisis of December 1994.
<P>
As our rapporteur says, the new agreement comprises three cooperation arrangements, which aim to encourage the democratization of Mexican society, and which were not included in the 1991 framework agreement.
We are all pleased about them.
However, like the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, one cannot help noticing that, so far, the above-mentioned arrangements, which form part of the political dialogue, are not expected to involve civil society.
That is a shortcoming, which in my opinion, needs to be remedied.
In my opinion, the global agreement should stipulate procedures which ensure the active participation of NGOs and other associations and organizations of civil society in the political dialogue.
More generally, it is important that both parties ensure that democracy has an actual operational role in the final agreement.
<P>
With regard to the final agreement, I cannot conclude without saying that I am in complete agreement with the opinion of the Committee on External Economic Relations.
It is essential that the European Parliament retains the power to give its assent to the whole agreement after the publication of the results of the negotiations which are about to start.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 NAME="Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We support extended economic, political and sociocultural cooperation and exchange with Mexico.
In spite of this, we have not voted in favour of this report.
We do not in the present situation believe that Mexico fulfils the requirements regarding respect for human rights.
<P>
In Mexico, and especially in the province of Chiapas, infringements of human rights are constantly taking place.
Many tradeunion and human-rights activists have been murdered by paramilitary groups with indirect links to the army.
Mexico also in many cases contravenes human rights with regard to its treatment of several national minorities that belong to its indigenous population.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="Wurtz">
French Communist and allied Members have declared themselves in favour of the suspension of the partnership and cooperation agreement between the European Union and Mexico.
We have recommended this exceptional measure at the request of many personalities in Chiapas, and in Mexico, for the same reasons that I described to this House, on 15 January, the day after the terrible massacres in Acteal.
We shall therefore not vote for the report.
<P>
Since the beginning of the year, serious violations of human rights, the militarization of the area and the presence of paramilitary groups have been common.
The population lives in an atmosphere of violence and constant tension.
The risk of further conflict is increasing, inasmuch as the real instigators of the massacre of Acteal remain unpunished to this day.
Dozens of indigenous people are in prison for demonstrating, or because they took part in the establishment of independent municipal structures in compliance with the San Andrés agreements of February 1996.
<P>
The Mexican government seems to want to ignore the proposed reforms of the Constitution based on indigenous cultures and rights, written by the 'Commission for Concord and Peacemaking' , which, however, was legally elected.
<P>
This attitude is contrary to the spirit of the San Andrés agreements, which aim to find solutions by means of dialogue.
The partnership agreement between Mexico and the European Union was drafted within that context.
To approve it today would mean endorsing a completely different policy.
If we suspend its application, it may help former commitments to be met: that is what we propose.
<P>
Peijs report (A4-0149/98)
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="Reding">
The reform of the Customs Code, drafted some time ago, has come at the right time, when the shocking losses in the Community budget caused by large-scale fraud have just been announced.
Europe has to reform this legislative framework.
Indeed, the single market and the free movement of goods were not set up to facilitate large-scale deals by criminal organizations.
The cost of the various types of customs fraud amounted to some ECU 2 billion in 1997.
Within a context of budgetary restrictions in most Member States, the publication of such losses has a very negative effect on the image of the Union and of national administrations.
<P>
The reform of the Customs Code is a reference framework for future proposals and initiatives by the Commission in this area, and is therefore welcome and necessary.
Customs administration officials have been asking for a long time for the legislation and procedures governing their work to be simplified.
Firms will find it easier to comply with transparent and simplified legislation.
Furthermore, it should be possible to amend the provisions of the Customs Code more quickly and more easily.
<P>
These aspects of the proposed reform are clearly steps in the right direction and will enable opportunities for fraud to be considerably reduced.
Nevertheless, some remarks have to be made.
First of all, it is necessary to ensure democratic control: it is important that speeding up procedures does not lead to a situation in which the European Parliament has lost all democratic control.
The rationalization of amendment procedures must not mean reducing opportunities for consulting the firms involved, or uncertainty about the content of the Commission's implementing regulations, or that decisions are reached without reference to elected bodies.
To compensate for the extra time taken to consult the European Parliament, the Commission's proposals will not only have to be explicit, they must also be detailed and flexible enough to make successive amendments unnecessary.
<P>
Secondly, we must prevent confusion: the simplified procedures must reduce the administrations' reaction times in new situations.
In other words, it must be possible to close any loopholes which had not been thought of quickly, and thus to prevent fraud due to grey areas in the legislation.
On the other hand, repeated, frequent changes over a short period of time could cause confusion for the administrations and could be detrimental to the firms involved, which would have to change their working methods continually.
An atmosphere of confusion is as favourable to fraud as the temporary existence of grey areas in texts.
That is why the extra time required to consult the European Parliament will not necessarily have a negative effect.
<P>
By adopting the amendments proposed by the rapporteur, Parliament has adopted a position midway between the rationalization of procedures and the requirements of democratic control, whilst considerably increasing the future efficiency of the system.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="Ribeiro">
One day, when the true story of this rush to liberalization is told, if it ever is, there is no doubt that the efforts of the customs professionals to moderate attacks on the regulations and mechanisms aimed at protecting economies based on national territories against the smugglers who have so promptly and rapidly taken advantage of the new ' facilities' and the rush to liberalization, will finally be recognized.
<P>
This is quite apart from the fact that as a profession they have been the most immediate and worst affected victims of a process for which, furthermore, they have had no preparation in terms of technical training or equipment.
<P>
The current edition of the Customs Code once again reflects the general attitude.
The customs professionals' reservations and suggestions appear to have been overlooked or disregarded, particularly those relating to conditions of representation for declarants, for the sake of the higher interests of the State.
<P>
In any event, we must safeguard the customs officials' role as essential operators in the customs area, particularly as regards the collection of duty and the prevention of smuggling. We seem hell-bent on casting doubt on the very existence of the customs and those who work for it.
<P>
We have naturally voted in favour of protecting the public interest, which we still think is served by the customs officials and all professionals involved in the fight against the deregulation of the procedures and indiscriminate access to them, in the context of the urgent need to prevent smuggling, which, for its part, serves interests that transcend all national boundaries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="Rübig">
As a former member of the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry into Customs Fraud I support, in principle, any initiative designed to make the procedure more effective and resistant to fraud.
<P>
However, I can only support this amendment to the Community Customs Code with reservations.
I want to see a reasonable and practicable reorganization of EU customs law.
New regulations must meet both SLIM and Fiche d'Impact requirements.
In addition, it is also necessary to involve all the interested parties - customers offices, buyers and vendors, carriers, banks and insurance companies - in the decision-making process.
<P>
Pollack report (A4-0161/98)
<SPEAKER ID=157 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, I wholeheartedly agreed with the three reports on acidification.
We welcome the proposals by the Commission and the amendments from this Parliament.
We can be quite satisfied with the policy against acidification pursued hitherto.
Since the 1970s, measures have been taken in Europe to control the emission of sulphur and nitrogen oxides.
And this policy is working.
Despite the increase in energy use, the emission from these two chemicals has fallen dramatically.
Let us therefore count our blessings!
Thankfully, reductions of more than 50 % since 1980 are no exception in the majority of Member States.
It might even be possible to achieve the planned reductions for sulphur and nitrogen oxides for 2010 as a result of the new standards for car exhaust emissions.
This is hopeful.
<P>
Yet sadly we cannot be solely positive.
Pollution resulting from fine dust particles and ammoniac is extremely persistent.
Pollution as a result of particulate matter, in other words fine dust, is a clear threat to human health.
That is why I am pleased to see that qualitative objectives have been set for this.
I should add straight away, however, that they strike me as ambitious.
As you know, the particles are released chiefly in traffic.
If traffic continues to grow as it has been doing over the past few years, particle emissions will increase as well.
This is extremely worrying, because one particle is already enough to be fatal amongst certain risk categories.
The limit values in the Commission proposal will thus turn out to be "wish values' .
<P>
Ammoniac pollution is an issue in agriculture in particular, and varies from region to region.
We most definitely need qualitative objectives, but a policy aimed at results will have to ensure that reductions are achieved.
Less intensive cattle farming seems the only real solution.
National policies are the answer here, as the intensity of the pollution varies so much from country to country.
<P>
My conclusion is that the acidification strategy pursued by the Commission looks good, but I believe we need an additional particles strategy.
I wish the Commission luck, however, because curbing traffic is no easy job.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 NAME="Díez de Rivera Icaza">
Those of us who voted for the Hautala report obviously also support Mrs Pollack's report, since the quality of the air we breathe makes a substantial contribution to protecting our health.
<P>
We all realize the harmful effects which the pollutants addressed in this directive have on public health and the environment, and the urgent need for binding limit values.
Indeed, one of the merits of this directive is that it relies for that on the new guidelines established by the World Health Organization.
<P>
However, since I do not have much time, I would like to concentrate on two points which I do not think have been adequately resolved in the text being considered today.
One of them is that the number and location of measuring stations is particularly important for the smaller islands of the EU, or islands which form part of an archipelago, since that will probably be the only source of measurement and hence public information.
The other point is how these measurements will be made in tourist areas, which at least triple their population during the holiday period, or in areas with fewer than 250 000 inhabitants.
<P>
With the rapporteur's agreement, we have introduced various amendments to cover this gap in the legislation, since every citizen has the same rights in all matters and, of course, to the quality of the air they breathe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="Titley">
I am voting in favour of this report today as the people who send us here to represent them have a right to expect that we back measures aimed at cleaning up the air that we all breathe.
<P>
Earlier this century my own constituency in Greater Manchester was one of many parts of industrial Britain to benefit from Clean Air legislation by our own governments.
But today we realize that air pollution can harm not only our own children and our own district, but that one nation's pollution can be carried on the wind to damage the international environment.
<P>
This report by my colleague Mrs Pollack represents a classic example of the principle of thinking globally whilst acting locally.
Uniform standards of measuring air pollution across the EU should be used to inform the authorities and the public locally of the air pollution they have to face each day.
This kind of regular information can act as a real incentive to our governments and business to reduce pollution levels.
<P>
Alongside national action such as the British Government's commitment at the recent Kyoto Earth Summit to tackle pollution levels, EU law can also add a weapon to our arsenal in the fight for clear air for future generations.
<P>
Hautala report (A4-0174/98)
<SPEAKER ID=160 NAME="Buffetaut">
The proposal for a directive relating to a reduction of the sulphur content of certain liquid fuels is one of the aspects of the action to be taken within the framework of the Community strategy for the prevention of the acidification of the atmosphere.
<P>
Sulphur dioxide (S02 ) is one of the pollutants that contribute towards acidification as a result of depositing excessive quantities of acidifying substances in soil or water.
The effects of these acid deposits are dependent in particular on the characteristics and the sensitivity of receivers and, of course, on the quantity of the deposits.
<P>
I note, by the way, that the combustion of coal is the most important cause of sulphur dioxide emissions.
<P>
It is surprising that this fact is not taken into account.
Similarly, I wonder whether it is appropriate to set very low general thresholds with possibilities of derogation or whether it might not be more sensible to do the opposite and set very low thresholds for sensitive areas?
<P>
The question of the fuels used in refineries is also important.
Refineries are already subject to strict sulphur dioxide emission limits.
Is it therefore reasonable to impose additional constraints?
<P>
To conclude, the proposal for a directive submitted to us will lead to large investments in desulphurization units, when many regulations already limit SO2 emissions. It would be preferable and more efficient to produce a new general strategy of prevention of acidification and establish national ceilings that take into account geographical variations in acid deposits.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 NAME="Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling">
We have voted in favour of the report because of its subject matter. However, we are strongly opposed to a change in its legal basis - contrary to the will of the rapporteur - from 130s to 100a, since this restricts the ability of the Member States to take tougher environmental protection measures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="Grossetête">
Although I do not always agree with her, I should like to congratulate Mrs Hautala on this report and the work she has done.
<P>
I am glad that Parliament has adopted the amendment, which changes the legal basis of the proposal.
In my opinion, Article 100a is a far better basis for a directive establishing limit values for the sulphur content of certain liquid fuels, in order to prevent both acidification and the present distortions of competition in the European heavy fuels market.
<P>
In fact, sulphur levels vary considerably between one Member State and another: not only before processing the fuels, because that depends on the area they come from - Persian Gulf, North Sea, and so on -, but also after processing, since requirements vary considerably from one Member State to another.
<P>
In this respect, I wish to point out that paragraph 4 of Article 100a allows Member States to enforce more stringent national standards if they are justified for environmental reasons.
I hope the European Commission will take this vote into consideration and will revise its proposal on that basis.
<P>
Overall, the European Commission's proposal was well balanced and did not require any significant improvements.
On behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, I deplore the fact that the scope of this directive has been enlarged to include bunker fuel oils and marine diesel oil and that the standard recommended by the European Commission regarding gas oil has been toughened.
These amendments are not economically realistic and are not justified from an environmental viewpoint.
I am, nevertheless, pleased with the adoption of amendments intending to involve the European Parliament in information procedures.
<P>
Furthermore, by the end of the year, the European Commission will have to submit proposals for economic instruments which may contribute to reducing sulphur dioxide emissions.
That approach would have been worth including in the present proposal.
<P>
Poggiolini report (A4-0119/98)
<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="Fayot">
Consumers as well as many producers often experience difficulties in finding their way through the myriad of eco-labels currently on the market (of which there are reportedly over 50 worldwide).
<P>
In some respects, in fact, it might be said that this lack of regulation quite shamelessly makes light of the environmental consciences of our citizens.
It would be a good thing if, within the European single market at least, there were one environmental symbol on which the consumer could rely.
<P>
However, there are no signs that this is likely to be achieved in the near future.
<P>
For the EU not only has to deal with the myriad of existing national systems, it also has to fight against deceptive "ecological' advertising.
<P>
This explains why practically no one is familiar with the European eco-label, even though it has been in existence for over five years. There is hardly a consumer who would recognize the flower on the star background symbol.
However, blame for this must be shared with the Member States, where implementation of the first regulation was not a success.
<P>
The new approach being taken here should hopefully be more serious, thanks to the creation of a "European Organisation for the Environmental Symbol' .
In the interests of the consumer, we can only hope that this will indeed be the case.
The most important task is the coordination of national and European symbols.
Quite naturally, countries with high environmental standards do not want to give up their eco-labels simply to introduce a weaker one.
<P>
Luxembourg, which does not have its own national environmental symbol and imports many of its goods from abroad, would greatly welcome the final implementation of this regulation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="Kristen Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of revising eco-labelling.
A single common label throughout the EU, based on the same strict criteria that apply to successful national labelling today, is the long-term goal.
National labels should be able to function instead until such times as the EU eco-label is properly operational or even awarded.
Choosing from several flowers instead of one flower is unsuitable.
Instead, we advocate giving the consumer more information as to why the flower has been awarded.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="Lindqvist, Ryynänen and Virrankoski (ELDR), Eriksson, Ojala, Sjöstedt, Seppänen and Svensson (GUE/NGL), Gahrton, Holm and Lindholm (V)">
We have voted in favour of the motion to prevent eco-labelling schemes currently used at national level - such as the "Nordic swan' , the "peregrine falcon' and the "bra miljöval' ( "the right environmental choice' ) - from being abolished, to be replaced by the EU's "eco flower' .
<P>
We believe that existing eco-labelling schemes should be maintained in parallel.
It would be wrong to decide on a common EU eco label that leads to the abolition of labelling systems that are already functioning well and highly regarded.
<P>
The "Nordic swan' is an example of a label that currently operates in several countries and has come into being as a result of intergovernmental cooperation.
This type of labelling requires public confidence and a link with the environmental movement.
Eco-labelling systems that have been successful on both of these points should not be allowed to be superseded by the EU's "eco flower' .
From a consumer perspective the proposal is unjustifiable.
Different labelling schemes can exist simultaneously.
In this case, competition is preferable to a monopoly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="Rovsing">
Regarding the proposal to review arrangements for the awarding of a European eco-label, I would like to emphasize two points that I consider to be very positive initiatives.
<P>
The Commission's proposal incorporates important initiatives towards reducing bureaucracy in the procedure in order to speed up the awarding of eco-labels.
This is the only way the European label can assure increased competitiveness to products qualifying for the label.
The parliamentary report proposes that the area of application of labelling should be expanded to include services as well.
This is a particularly relevant initiative that will benefit small craft businesses, for example - when a small company makes a special effort to use environmentally friendly products, for instance.
<P>
Whitehead report (A4-0153/98)
<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Seillier">
Mr President, Mr Whitehead's report relates to an essential area, complementary to our vote two years ago on the 'Television without Frontiers' directive.
The subject here is the protection of minors and human dignity in new audiovisual and information services.
We have a full consensus on the subject of violence and the need to regulate it by means of a number of procedures. But I should like to say something on the subject of pornography, in addition to what our colleague and indeed all the Members of this House have said.
<P>
Some have said that we should have more detailed discussions on pornography.
In fact, we have a full consensus on banning and taking legal action against pornography involving minors, or which is likely to be viewed by minors. But we have no such consensus around the fact that pornography, all pornography, involving adults and viewed by adults, is a violation of human dignity.
However, the subject of this report is the protection of minors and human dignity.
I am not talking about eroticism, which may have some connection with art.
Pornography, ladies and gentlemen, is not freedom of expression, it is not art: it is business, a scandalously profitable business in every society, on an international scale.
<P>
I therefore look forward to a time when every society will consider that all pornography is a violation of human dignity. I look forward to a time, when, not only at a European level, but also at an international level, at a UN human rights level, ethical standards will be established prohibiting pornography in international society.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 NAME="Caudron">
The drafting of a Green Paper on the protection of minors and human dignity is an excellent thing in itself and I read Mr Whitehead's report with great satisfaction.
I should like to congratulate him because his report is not only coherent, it is also discusses the subject pragmatically.
<P>
It is one thing to be able exert control over all kinds of audiovisual broadcasts, it is another to expect to control the expansion of the Internet.
With regard to the Internet, all we can do is try to work in partnership with the service providers and hosts of the global system.
<P>
But, we must see things clearly.
Protecting individuals with regard to information, is a difficult and hit-or-miss endeavour.
There are many examples, which unfortunately support that observation.
<P>
In order to be efficient, we must mobilize all the players involved in the problem of violation of human dignity, with regard to minors, of course, but also with regard to any human being.
Every day new sites are created whose only subjects are hatred and violence.
<P>
To fight against this scourge, whose form is not new, but whose means of distribution is, it is necessary, as I said before, to carry out a campaign in the professions responsible for distribution. It is also necessary make Net surfers aware of the fact that they too must take part in this combat to ensure that areas of freedom and tolerance are safeguarded.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="Cushnahan">
The production of this report by Mr Whitehead is timely and opportune.
<P>
It is important to recognise that the rapid expansion of the Information Society, especially the Internet, raises serious questions and in particular the abuse of this system by sinister groups.
We need to introduce measures especially to protect children and to emphasize human dignity.
<P>
I support Mr Whitehead's proposals for self-regulation involving the industry plus access and service providers.
<P>
However, self-regulation alone is not enough.
It must be complemented by national and EU legislation which facilitates prosecution against those responsible for abusing the Internet for immoral and unacceptable practices.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="Darras">
I should like to thank the rapporteur for his extensive and methodical work. I have to agree with him.
As he points out, ' The new services are too pluriform, too novel, to adapt to top-down regulation of the kind familiar in the development of European broadcasting' .
<P>
We must therefore think of something else.
The Commission has suggested self-regulation, asking the industry to cooperate on the establishment of codes of conduct, and to evaluate their efficiency at the national level.
The Commission itself has undertaken to support the creation of a system of national self-regulation frameworks, and to encourage cooperation and pooled experience between the police and the judicial authorities in Member States and with their equivalents in other countries.
Furthermore, the Commission has asked Member States to support efficient self-regulation actively amongst service providers.
<P>
This proposal should certainly be supported and implemented; nonetheless great vigilance is required.
That is why the rapporteur has my full support when he says that national practices vary according to each country's culture, which means there must be some convergence between codes of conduct.
<P>
Similarly, it will be necessary to review these national self-regulation codes regularly, in order to evaluate their efficiency and see whether we can possibly envisage regulation in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 NAME="Fayot">
Though I shall be voting for Mr Whitehead's report, I am nevertheless aware that it represents no more than a drop in the proverbial ocean.
<P>
We all know that today children and young people are exposed to enormous moral and spiritual pressure and pollution through a whole range of violent images and other trashy products on the Internet and other audiovisual services.
<P>
We also know that for many of them this causes serious behavioural problems and stunted intelligence which go on to mark them for the whole of their lives.
<P>
But we also know that in a liberal system, given the worldwide spread and networking of communications, there can be no effective resistance.
Because no one wants to limit freedom of communication, and no one could do it even if they wanted to.
<P>
There is, therefore, no surefire means of protecting young people and children.
<P>
However, it would be catastrophic for our modern times if we were forced to lay down our arms without resistance.
<P>
So, the Commission's regulation, like Philip Whitehead's report, contains a willingness to choose the difficult route of creating a long-term strategy designed to improve moral standards which will not restrict freedom.
<P>
A long-term strategy consists of many small stages: "a soft form of convergence' as the report explains, with internationally recognized standards, evaluation systems, self-discipline on the part of the large producers, but also active legal and police policies at European level.
<P>
We are just beginning to realize the enormity of the problem which faces us.
Global mastery of communications must be balanced by a joint international willingness to practice self-regulation and control.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats are voting in favour of Mr Whitehead's report.
The Commission's proposal for the Council's recommendation is a positive initiative.
And it is gratifying to see such a strong focus on the principle of self-regulation.
<P>
This matter is a good example of a problem that cannot be solved satisfactorily at the national level.
New cross-border media require international solutions.
We are delighted that Council has taken the problem of the legal basis seriously in this matter and has re-worded the proposal to harmonize better with article 130, item 3.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 NAME="Rovsing">
I am delighted that the Commission has tabled a motion in which Member States are urged to practise national self-regulation to ensure basic rights for children in the matter of audiovisual and information services.
<P>
Children are a particularly vulnerable group who deserve special measures to protect them in this area which is so difficult to regulate.
Thus, encouraging national self-regulation is the best way forward.
However, for these measures to work effectively, there also needs to be coordination at the European level.
Specifically, these measures must be monitored to check whether they are producing the desired results. Thus, I am also very satisfied with the proposals to this effect in the report.
It is worthy of full endorsement and I am, therefore, voting in favour.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, I am happy to be voting for this report by my colleague, Mr Whitehead, today.
The threat posed to our children by obscene images and the like being posted on the Internet is one that is now widely recognized.
Indeed, measures to prevent children being exposed to such material via the new electronic media are part and parcel of programmes in Britain aimed at increasing access to the Internet in schools.
<P>
Given the number and variety of such new electronic media the report rightly argues that, for the time being at least, a topdown EU regulation would be unworkable.
Instead the chance should be given to businesses working in these new technologies to show that they take consumer worries about obscene material seriously.
The bright minds behind Internet services should set to work to block such material from children's access.
<P>
I also back the idea of setting out some common guidelines to make possible the identification and labelling of illegal and harmful content.
However, as Mr Whitehead points out, if problems are seen to exist with these guidelines after two years, we should reserve the right to consider regulatory action.
<P>
The industry should know that, whilst we back moves to an information society where technology is available to all, we will be watching to make sure that our children are not exposed to obscene material by unscrupulous operators.
<P>
Hulthén report (A4-0162/98)
<SPEAKER ID=175 NAME="Des Places">
The Hautala, Pollack and Hulthén reports all relate to the problem of air pollution.
During a previous part-session, we voted for restrictive standards to improve the quality of fuels by reducing emissions of pollutants.
On the same basis, the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has voted for the above three reports.
<P>
Appropriate solutions are now available, including biofuels amongst other things, which make it possible to reduce emissions of pollutants.
<P>
I should like to take this opportunity to reiterate some of my concerns about the Commission's Agenda 2000 proposal.
In fact, as far as large-scale farming is concerned, nothing is being done to promote the use of agricultural products for non-food purposes.
Biofuels are a possible outlet for agriculture, they are beneficial to the environment, and they must not disappear because the Commission has "forgotten' about them.
<P>
European agriculture has developed a biofuel sector and its efforts must not be reduced to nothing by arbitrary decisions.
<P>
Finally, on a technical level, I would like to say that European car manufacturers claim that reducing the sulphur content of fuels is technically indispensable in order to operate the new anti-pollution systems with which cars are equipped, catalytic converters, particle traps, and so on.
<P>
The reduction of the aromatics content in petrol seems imperative.
During combustion, the aromatics contained in the petrol are converted into benzene, in particular, which is carcinogenic.
It is therefore indispensable to reduce the aromatics content to acceptable technical limits and, thereby, benzene emissions.
<P>
As biofuels do not contain sulphur or aromatics, the overall pollutant content of fuels can be reduced, which satisfies the technical requirements of European car manufacturers.
<P>
Perry report (A4-0166/98)
<SPEAKER ID=176 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Seillier">
Mr President, this report raises interesting questions about the evaluation of former programmes and ongoing programmes, with regard to the Commission's document, but in my opinion it does not go far enough.
The purely quantitative approach is not good enough.
We need to know who is really benefiting from these programmes.
I also think that the rapporteur agrees rather too much with the Commission's opinion that the massive introduction of new information technologies in schools will solve a lot of problems.
<P>
I do not really think it will.
I think that we must very positively and attentively study academic failure, which is endemic in all our countries, and ask ourselves why academic failure exists and how to remedy it.
I do not mean that new technologies cannot help us here but I believe that it is a dangerous delusion to think those technologies will be our salvation.
<P>
Furthermore, it is quite certain that the highly desirable exchanges between pupils of all ages throughout the European Union are only of use if the young people involved have full mastery of their own language.
So, why do so many exchanges or programmes not have the expected results?
Here too, it is because we put the cart before the horse.
We must first ensure that exchanges take place under conditions that are beneficial.
<P>
Furthermore, confusion reigns, in all these reports, with regard to the concepts of education, training, a Europe of knowledge, and so on, and one word seems to me to be too often missing.
The word is culture, particularly general culture, which we should be able to exchange between our countries so that many young people, not only from underprivileged backgrounds, have access to the general culture which basically enables exchanges to provide the results we really want.
<P>
With regard to the European dimension in education, I am very sorry that more resources are not allocated to meetings, research, and the purchase of modern audiovisual equipment.
All the great events of European history have taken place in the various European countries on a basis of unity and diversity, for example, monarchism, universities, and so on.
It would be very interesting to introduce a European dimension at the level of European culture.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 NAME="Bernardini">
In 1999, three Community programmes relating to education, training and youth will come to an end.
<P>
In its communication, the European Commission has presented to us its guidelines for future actions in these areas for the period 2000-2006.
It proposes a limited number of objectives - increased access of citizens to educational resources, implementation of pilot projects, wide distribution of good educational practice.
<P>
We realize that its intentions are good although they are evasively drafted.
For my part, I do not think that the Commission has really taken into consideration the positions upheld many times in this House.
<P>
What about the needs of underprivileged groups, whom the communication ignores?
I agree with the rapporteur that opportunities to take part in the programmes need to be increased.
Too often, candidates find that management is chaotic, and that selection is based on financial circumstances.
The Commission has not provided any solution.
And yet, that is one of Parliament's traditional demands.
<P>
As far as the budgetary resources for a Europe of Knowledge are concerned, we still want a significant increase.
But no figures have been given.
<P>
We should consider that, by means of an efficient education policy, we can give young people a chance to enter the labour market.
We therefore need substantial resources with which to launch and consolidate our educational policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 NAME="Cushnahan">
The recent publication of the Commission's proposals for EU educational programmes post 2000 has provided a useful basis for discussion.
I endorse their emphasis on encouraging life-long learning and supporting the employment policies of Member States.
I support also their commitment to developing a concept of citizenship based on common core values and their recognition of enhancing language skills and suggestions for increasing educational cooperation with the countries of central and eastern Europe.
<P>
However, I hope that the Commission will take note of Parliament's proposals that there should be a European content to the curriculum, a separate youth programme with a broader based goal to combat exclusion and racism and an EU lead to promote new technology and the information society.
<P>
The value of the EU's educational programmes in contributing to European integration was brought home most vividly to me when I had the honour of participating in a Comenius project in a school in my constituency.
The school was St Paul's, Dooradoyle, in Limerick and its partner schools were from Grumbach, Austria, and Trieste, Italy.
The teachers and pupils of this school showed tremendous commitment, displayed many skills, expended much energy and enthusiasm in fostering European cooperation and mutual cultural understanding.
It was indeed a pleasure to be part of this experience and it strengthens my own support for the continuation and expansion of EU educational programmes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 NAME="Darras">
The aim of this communication is to start a debate on the guidelines for future Community actions in the areas of education, training and youth for the period 2000-2006.
It relates in fact to the new generation of programmes or actions that will replace or continue the Socrates (education), Leonardo (training) and Youth for Europe programmes.
<P>
The rapporteur has done an excellent job, of which I heartily approve.
The subject is vast and important and I am sorry that the Commission has not given us more time and, above all, that the Commission does not have a more specific vision of the future in this area.
Will the three programmes exist separately or will they be joined together in a more general framework?
What analyses can we obtain from studying the past?
Can budgetary resources be increased, or must we be content to act within the limited framework of current funding?
Our proposals will depend on the answers to all these questions.
<P>
These educational programmes are now well known in the various countries, and we must safeguard what has been achieved and increase its repercussions.
Mobility must be encouraged, and new technologies integrated.
The "netdays' experiment has been very positive and I speak here as the elected representative of the Pas-de-Calais where, thanks to that initiative, we have been able to help primary and secondary schools obtain computer equipment.
Such results should be taken into consideration in the new programmes and/or new actions.
<P>
It is also necessary to involve the social partners more, to encourage them to cooperate more closely with the world of education and vice versa so that links between education and training are more accessible and more useful to participants.
This means implementing the conclusions of the Luxembourg Summit on youth and employment.
It is also necessary for us to consider young people as a whole, which means actions or a programme must be set up, which are not associated with education and training.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 NAME="Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
g. (SV) We have abstained from this vote because we believe that the Commission's text was better.
<P>
However, we share the approach that is advanced in Amendment No 2, which expresses concern at the socially biased recruitment to the study programme.
We do not, however, feel that this recruitment bias will be remedied by doubling the budget allocation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 NAME="Hawlicek">
The Community's current programmes in the fields of general vocational training and youth policy are set to come to an end in 1999 after a period of five years.
<P>
For this reason, the "For a Europe of Knowledge' report is intended to "set out the guidelines for future Community measures in the areas of general vocational training and youth policy for the period 2000 to 2006' .
<P>
In my view, it is quite proper that its main focus should be not simply "measures to promote employment' but also, and with equal status, "measures to promote knowledge' .
For education is not simply an instrument of labour market policy. Education is much more than that.
This is why the wide-ranging definition of education already given in the White Paper has been adopted for use in the programmes.
<P>
We must build on the success of the three programmes, for continuity is particularly important in the field of education.
A forward looking approach and new ideas are important, but both Socrates and ERASMUS as well as "Youth for Europe' have all become highly respected programmes in Europe over recent years and this situation should continue.
I welcome the Commission's proposal to define objectives and measures clearly and above to all simplify administrative procedures.
Nevertheless, it will be necessary to maintain the national coordinating offices for the existing programmes in order to ensure continuity of action at Community level.
<P>
Access to the mobility programme must be simplified. This means more than the appropriate increase in the budget suggested in the Commission's proposal.
In my view, it would have to be doubled in order to achieve an increase in the level of subscription to the programmes and to achieve a subscription level of at least a 10 % in line with Commissioner Cresson's target.
<P>
This is the only way in which we can achieve the goal of creating a Europe of Knowledge and improving skills for all.
The Commission will submit its drafts for the new programmes to the Council on 4 July, at which time brisk discussions can begin in the European Parliament and the Committee on Education.
I would be particularly pleased if it were possible to submit the common position on the new programmes during the Austrian Presidency, i.e. by the end of 1998.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="Wibe">
g. (SV) Point N of the draft report states the following: ' cultural understanding can be fostered by inclusion of a European dimension within the national curricula' .
<P>
To introduce a chapter about such a European dimension into the Member States' curricula in this artificial fashion by order of the EU would be absurd.
In Swedish schools, for example, we have always had a European dimension.
In both civics and history lessons, Swedish pupils read about a host of European topics, including Charles the Great, Napoleon, the Paris Commune, the development of European Imperialism, the rise of the workers' movement and of democracy, etc.
<P>
There is today a European and global dimension to the instruction that is given in the EU countries.
I am certain that the Member States are themselves best placed to bear the responsibility for educating their citizens without any pointers from the European Union.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 1.50 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="President">
I should like to warn all Members and speakers in this debate that our time is severely restricted.
We have already been unable to hear all the speeches listed for this morning in full because the stipulated speaking times have been exceeded.
To enable the first three points on the agenda, that is to say the Tindemans report, the Council's statement on nuclear tests in India and the statements by the Council and the Commission on Kosovo, to be debated before 'Question Time' , in order to ensure that the whole of the proceedings can take place in the presence of the Council, therefore, I would remind all members of the need to observe speaking time limits scrupulously.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Common defence policy
<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="President">
The next item on the agenda is the report (A4-0171/98) by Mr Tindemans, on behalf of the Committee on External Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the gradual establishment of a common defence policy for the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 NAME="Tindemans">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is noticeable how in Europe since 1945 the problem of security and defence has kept coming to the fore, but it has usually also led to disagreement.
I can only list the instances, for which I apologize.
1947: the Dunkirk Treaty between Great Britain and France; 1948: the Brussels Treaty; the Dunkirk Treaty between the Benelux countries; 1949: the establishment of NATO.
In 1951 the ECSC came into being and in 1954 an attempt was made to set up a European Defence Community.
This failed, however.
In 1954 the Western European Union was established amongst the countries included in the Brussels Treaty. This enabled the incorporation of the German Federal Republic, which was allowed to set up a Bundeswehr .
In the 1960s there was the Fouchet Plan, in three versions.
In 1970 political cooperation commenced.
In 1976 a report was produced, at the request of the European Council, under my name, which contained the sentence: European Union is unthinkable without a common foreign and security policy.
Then there was Maastricht.
In Maastricht it was decided to give the European Union a common foreign and security policy.
Then, in 1994 we went up to 15 Members.
Presently, negotiations are being conducted with the five plus one, and there will probably be further pressures on security.
At the Intergovernmental Conference in 1996 - when proposals were expected - the institutional problems were not resolved; nor were they in 1997 in Amsterdam.
This is where we are at present.
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In the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy we decided to devote an own-initiative report to security and/or defence.
The Bureau of this Parliament agreed to this.
Obviously the world has changed since the implosion of the Soviet Union and the events in Central Europe.
We had the decision from Maastricht, with much still needing to be resolved institutionally, and we tried to come to an agreement in the Committee.
The members of the Committee will remember that this gave rise to interesting debates, but also to difficulties, to such an extent that it was split up into two parts.
The first part was to be devoted to security, the second part to defence.
This first part was approved over a year ago.
At the moment we are discussing the second part, defence, and we are called in this Parliament to give our decision on it tomorrow.
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In Maastricht it was said, however, that henceforth the Western European Union should be the European pillar of NATO. This is why we are faced with big problems.
On the one hand we have Economic and Monetary Union.
This is a great initiative, if you will allow me to say so.
As a result we have a say in the global economy, and we will be on equal footing with the dollar zone, the yen zone.
It is difficult to overestimate the significance of this EMU.
It is therefore unthinkable that such an economic and monetary entity would ignore international developments, even those which influence the economic situation.
This would be absurd and is unthinkable.
We will have to reflect even more on these issues now that the European Union is to be enlarged.
How can we help to guarantee peace in Europe without falling into the old factions or ententes , whilst giving credibility to the foreign policy supported by a security and defence policy.
That is the big question.
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Amsterdam did not bring the desired clarification.
We are trying to push forward a number of issues, that is, to convey our ideas, especially to the Council, and obviously also to the Commission.
A report was therefore drawn up, and we have already approved it in the Committee.
In my opinion this report stands midway between the actual situation in Europe and the ideal desirability of developing the European personality.
It aims to provide clarity and transparency in the relationship between NATO, the European Union and the Western European Union.
It wants to clarify how this directly elected Parliament sees the objectives of a sound defence, and in which direction a meaningful development ought to go if Europe wants to prevent or resolve crisis situations, even when these concern territorial integrity or the defence of justified interests.
How Europe views peace also affects neighbouring countries and ultimately the whole world.
The report proposes that a White Paper on defence be drawn up every year.
It suggests a European police force is set up, linked to the departments of justice and internal affairs, and with a permanent, but limited planning unit within the European Union.
It calls for closer links between the Union and the Western European Union as suggested in the Treaties, or as is being proposed, at the level of ministers, parliament, assemblée , officials, and for a planning entity for foreign policy through which, according to an earlier decision, this cooperation ought to be realized.
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It is obvious that this report does not solve everything, but it lays the foundation for a credibility, a reliability and a selfawareness within Europe.
I venture to conclude this short introduction by saying, Mr President, that those who reject all this - the credibility, reliability and self-awareness in the area of security and defence - are, in fact, rejecting the European idea. These people do not want there to be a European personality, even in this sphere.
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<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Mr President, the Committee on Budgets has taken note of the report by Mr Tindemans with a great deal of interest.
Although we are only here in the second line on this point, it is important, even though much in the Tindemans report will perhaps only be realized in the future, that at this present moment in time Parliament has a clear picture of what this will mean financially and in terms of the budget.
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In the context of the Treaty of Amsterdam it is important that the second pillar issues are financed within the framework of the European budget.
We had to fight for this, but it has been achieved.
However, it is also clear that where the Petersberg tasks, the European Armaments Agency, and the integration of new services are concerned, there is obviously not enough room within the European budget.
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We see it as our principal task to plead that from the outset, as is the case with the establishment of the European Central Bank, Parliament is fully involved in the preparation and the further elaboration of plans on that point.
It is therefore also an attempt to create the necessary room for this Parliament to exert the influence it is due from the outset, as is the case in other areas.
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We gladly agree with Mr Tindemans that after European monetary union has come about, the discussions on the political development of Europe obviously cannot stand still.
It is in this context as well that the Committee on Budgets has drawn up a number of footnotes.
We are delighted that Mr Tindemans has been prepared to submit the two specific amendments which I as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Budgets tabled in the context of his report.
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Mr President, this is the contribution from the Committee on Budgets.
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<SPEAKER ID=187 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating Mr Tindemans on the completion of this extremely difficult task and thanking him for the extremely flexible way in which he has approached this debate and for the fact that he has been prepared to take on board the observations of other members of the committee.
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This report is without a doubt an important contribution to the debate.
It is important because it is not a flight of fantasy but is very firmly set in the context of the existing institutions which are responsible for security and defence in Europe, notably the OSCE and NATO.
It respects existing members' responsibilities towards the North Atlantic Treaty.
It is also firmly rooted in existing decisions of the Amsterdam Treaty and the Petersberg, Berlin, and Madrid Declarations.
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Then it goes on to signal some of the difficulties we have to overcome in this field in the future: the difficulties of the relationship between the WEU and the EU, not to say the difficulties that would arise if those two bodies were ever integrated.
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It also indicates the problems about a European identity in defence, if we are ever to conceive of some form of independent action within the context of the Berlin Declaration: the fact that we miss out on strategic lift capacity, satellite communications and intelligence.
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It also emphasizes the importance of trying to get a common armaments policy, because, without an effective technological base, we can never have an effective European defence identity, while at the same time recognizing that we are concerned about disarmament.
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Most importantly, it recognizes the differences in the new security situation: the fact that peacekeeping in conflict prevention is now so important.
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Our main concern is that the Tindemans report fails to strike an appropriate balance in these matters.
We need to put more emphasis on peacekeeping and conflict prevention; we need to put more emphasis on bringing other countries outside the European Union into conjunction with us.
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It is often said that politics is about providing yesterday's solutions to today's problems.
To a degree we have been guilty of that in this report.
We have to address some of the problems that stem from peacekeeping.
For example, the British army is at the moment more fully committed than at any time since the Second World War.
How do we deal with that problem when we talk about extending peacekeeping forces?
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The Tindemans report also makes the mistake of assuming that the WEU and the EU are integrated, while the Treaty only mentions the possibility.
The phrasing of our independent action is a little bit too loose.
We must clearly root that in the Berlin Decisions.
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Finally, we must also bear in mind that we should not be too concerned about the harmony of the process but about the effectiveness of the outcome.
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On defence, we have to ensure that we can walk before we can run.
We have to take on board what is set out in the Amsterdam Treaty before we can take this debate any further forward.
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<SPEAKER ID=188 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Brok">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this discussion of the Tindemans report comes at a very interesting phase in the development of the European Union.
Since the resolution was passed on 2 May, we have largely completed economic and monetary integration.
We now have to admit that, thanks to the level of internal integration it has achieved, the European Union has become a community of peace unprecedented in world history.
But our ability to secure internal peace has not yet been developed to the same extent outside our own borders.
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When talking to our European citizens we often meet with a high degree of disappointment that the European Union is unable - I say unable because it does not yet possess the required instruments - to secure peace outside its own borders.
I believe it is fitting that, at such a vital time as this, a man like Leo Tindemans should have grasped the opportunity to start such a debate, rather as he did in the 1970s with his report on the development of European Union.
It really is in this context that the report should be seen.
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With the collapse of Communism and the end of confrontation between the Eastern and Western blocs in Europe, regional wars on the traditional model are once more a possibility.
And we have still to find an answer to them.
Until now we have hoped that NATO, though it was not really conceived for this purpose, would look after things for us.
In Bosnia peace got its chance when a credible military power, the United States, gave its backing to the peace initiatives.
However, we cannot always expect the Americans to be there for us in the future.
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It shows great hypocrisy always to be cursing the Americans as some soft of international police force, while portraying ourselves as the great diplomats.
In the interests of burden sharing in Europe and with a view to the credibility of the continued existence of the Transatlantic Alliance, we must develop the relevant capabilities ourselves.
And for this reason we must make the very best of the opportunities offered by the Amsterdam Treaty, though I do have my doubts as to whether the provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty will actually prove to be sufficient.
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Leo Tindemans points out that the strategy and planning group, for example, is vitally important.
Have we finally managed to get an institution capable of submitting proposals from a community point of view - as is the case with internal community policy?
The Council of Ministers may deny that this is the case, but it is forced to argue from a Community position.
Moreover, this strategy and planning unit stipulated in the Amsterdam Treaty must be conceived in such a way that it does not become a COREPER-3 organization or a new organization of political directors and their representatives.
It must be shaped to include the Commission in such a way that it represents a Community position rather than simply a collection of national positions.
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The same is evident from a range of other examples.
For example, what is the point of a strategy which has to be passed unanimously in the European Council?
If it relates to a fundamental principle which can achieve unanimous support, then all well and good.
But if it goes into detail, it will surely run into difficulties and fail to make progress.
Therefore, it should pass only general resolutions from which the Council together with the Commission can then develop practical measures on the basis of a majority vote.
The potential is there, it just has to be put to practical effect.
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<SPEAKER ID=189 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, may I congratulate Mr Tindemans on his truly remarkable and excellent report on the gradual establishment of a common defence policy for the European Union.
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At a time when Europe is expanding to reach the confines of the whole continent and the single currency is being established, can we remain unaware of our inability to play a political role on the international stage which is commensurate with our economic power and which, above all, meets all the expectations of the countries bound to us by the ties of history and culture in Africa, America and Asia?
Those countries expect a great deal of Europe, of a Europe that no longer aims to dominate, that aims to promote balance and peace in international relationships.
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The European Union will not be able to play that role if it does not gradually establish a common defence policy to safeguard its territorial integrity, its vital interests, and its ability to take part in conflict prevention and peacekeeping operations.
In order to meet that challenge, Mr Tindemans proposes to bring the structures of the Western European Union and the European Union closer together, with a view to long-term integration of the two institutions, with the WEU becoming to some extent the fourth pillar of the European Union.
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This approach has the merit of being pragmatic and gradual.
But it will only succeed if the European Union asserts the political will to provide itself with the defence infrastructures, which are at present severely lacking, and which, unfortunately, make it too dependent on the logistics of the Atlantic Alliance.
Although the US accepts, under certain conditions, the deployment of WEU forces without American participation, using the Alliance's infrastructures, it is merely the proof of positive forbearance, to which they hold the key.
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Do the Member States constituting the European Union today have the will to move forwards towards the establishment of a truly independent common defence policy?
General de Gaulle's European Europe?
Do they have the will to equip themselves with the indispensable resources and infrastructures, particularly satellite communications and radar coverage infrastructures, needed for independence?
Above all, do they have the will to provide themselves with democratic and legitimate political institutions capable of designing and implementing a common defence policy?
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The proposals to strengthen the WEU and to integrate it gradually into the European Union, submitted by Mr Tindemans, must be discussed in relation to that long-term objective, which probably cannot be achieved quickly.
The majority of the members of the Union for Europe Group support that step, but nevertheless stress that it must not be imposed upon Member States of the European Union that do not wish at present to be associated with it.
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The gradual establishment of a common defence policy must take place within the framework of strengthened cooperation, as the provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty propose.
The practical proposals submitted by Mr Tindemans are an excellent basis for discussions along those lines.
Thank you, Mr Tindemans.
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<SPEAKER ID=190 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Goerens">
Mr President, as the former President of the WEU Assembly, I had the honour of meeting the rapporteur, Leo Tindemans, at the end of the Eighties, when he was the Belgian Foreign Affairs Minister.
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Since that time, he has given ten years of his life to Europe, and his determination, and the visionary and pragmatic sides of his character remain unchanged. Furthermore, I believe that this is the only way for Europe to move forward in the area of security and defence.
This is an area whose obvious shortcomings become apparent during crises, such as the former Yugoslavia. It is an area, however, in which we do not have the resources to remedy such shortcomings.
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We have a long way to go in order to achieve the objectives established in the Maastricht Treaty in this respect. One has to admit that the governments of the Fifteen as a whole and people's mentalities are not yet ready to accept responsibility for what needs to be done to ensure the territorial defence of Europe and prevent conflicts in peripheral regions.
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The great challenge of conflict prevention, the indispensable emancipation of Europe in a transatlantic alliance, without cutting the ties that unite us with the United States, the gradual integration of a Europe of defence, of the Western European Union, into the institutional framework, are well covered in this report.
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This debate is very useful because it underlines the political nature of the move towards greater security by showing Europeans, starting with the political authorities, where their responsibilities lie. It is their responsibility to consider from now on that the European Union is predestined.
If that concept were unequivocally accepted, the ideas put forward by Leo Tindemans would have greater chance of success.
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<SPEAKER ID=191 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Mr President, what is very clear to everybody is that the end of bipolar confrontation means we need to construct a new model of pan-European security - a model which can guarantee peace, consolidate stability, prevent conflicts and manage any crises which may arise.
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The European Union has an objective interest in the construction of this new model of security on our continent.
But at the same time, we should realize that it will only be possible to build this model if the Union is fully committed to it, and has a real common foreign and security policy.
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Now, for that foreign policy to be effective, it is also essential that it should include a defence policy.
It is clear that the progress in this direction represented first by the Maastricht Treaty and then by the Treaty of Amsterdam is positive but insufficient.
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We are talking about a defence policy which is not based on a classical concept, but on a renewed definition, guided by the principles contained in the United Nations Charter, the Helsinki Final Act and the Paris Charter.
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In short, this should be a defence policy which is not offensive in nature, but cooperative and shared; a defence policy which does not create new costs but maximizes the usefulness of those that already exist, and favours their reduction in any case; a defence policy which is also useful for coordinating the existing arms industries, decreasing their independence with regard to third parties, and controlling any sales outside the Union.
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To do that, I think it would be necessary to coordinate the Member States' armed forces, in order to carry out the so-called Petersberg missions.
And of course I am in favour of integrating the Western European Union into the European Union.
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I think there is no doubt that we have to see our relationship with the Atlantic Alliance in that context. At the moment, that institution forms part of the framework of security in Europe, as we all know, but it should not be the only institution involved in that security.
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Furthermore, in that same direction, we should also think about regaining a balance in the EU-USA relationship, in security and defence terms.
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<SPEAKER ID=192 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, the report ignores the fact that there are different views of what constitutes suitable security plans within Europe.
In addition, it is a great mistake for the European Parliament, during the ratification process of the Treaty of Amsterdam, to be dragging out plans which were rejected by the Amsterdam summit itself.
The idea that the EU can guarantee security in Europe with a common defence policy is a throwback to the time of the Cold War. And the Cold War is over.
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The EU has enormous advantages over the institutions of the Cold War.
Why do we not want to use them?
It has instruments for the integration of good relations between neighbours.
It can create balance, it can build up close economic relations and on this basis offer strong economic cooperation and financial support.
It is also these instruments which will enable the EU to assume the responsibility at world level which it needs to ensure common survival in this world.
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With a defence policy, on the other hand, Europe will be living dangerously because the problems of today's world can no longer be solved by confrontations, threats and provocations.
We have experienced just such provocation in the last few days as India triggered a new race for the production of the machinery of destruction with its nuclear tests.
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The Greens absolutely reject this form of employment creation measure for the industrial armaments facilities of the EU States and instead advocate the strengthening of disarmament and conversion projects.
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<SPEAKER ID=193 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Tindemans did not have to show us that he was a visionary, he did not have to show us that he was stubborn.
I do not think he wanted us to know that he was rather disappointed, but I think his conclusions have made that obvious to anyone who was ready to listen.
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The report he submitted to us today is certainly not the report he wanted; it is certainly not the report that I wanted and that the Group of the European Radical Alliance wanted; it is a report which has encountered many problems before reaching today's sitting, and may I say that I detected a certain irony in the speech made by our British friend, Mr Titley.
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As far as the relationship between the WEU and the European Union is concerned, it is indeed Mr Tindemans' wish that these two institutions should be rapidly integrated, and I believe it is also the wish of a majority of the Members of this House, although certainly not of our Socialist colleagues, as they have shown throughout the amendment procedures. Similarly, a majority of Members of this House wish rapidly to establish a European peacekeeping and peacemaking force, unlike the members of the Group of the Party of European Socialists and the members of the Green Group, who have shown their wishes by rejecting the amendments tabled on the subject.
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I should therefore really like to congratulate Mr Tindemans on having resisted them as much as possible and I call upon him, and all our colleagues, to accept the remaining amendments to this report, in order to strengthen it at the last minute.
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I think that we are all aware that the British are not part of monetary union today, because they hoped, and I think they are wrong, to enter it with the pound sterling higher than the euro.
That will not be the case.
They have no interest today in joining a European Union of security and defence, because they have not yet understood what its benefits will be.
However, I believe that a majority of Europeans, a majority of Members, understood it long ago.
We hope that it will not come to that, but if tragic developments take place over the next few months we do not want Europeans to have to put up with a Europe that is powerless and shamefaced with regard to Bosnia, as they had to put up with it for three years.
In the coming months, we must be able to react. We must be able to stop the dictator, who is still in power in Belgrade, who was responsible for the tragedies of Croatia and Bosnia, from organizing a third tragedy in Kosovo.
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With the Amsterdam Treaty, and the Petersberg tasks, we are not only able, it is also our responsibility to obtain the means of intervention to carry out peacekeeping and peacemaking operations.
This is not a wish; it is not a vision. This is something we must do immediately.
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<SPEAKER ID=194 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
Mr President, in the 1970s, the Belgian Premier and Foreign Minister gave his name to the Tindemans report on direct elections to the EU Parliament and a political union.
At that time, these plans were rejected in Denmark.
They were said to stand no chance.
Today, almost all the proposals of the Tindemans report have been adopted.
And today our Belgian premier is giving his name to a report on a joint EU ministry of defence, joint weapons production and joint armed forces.
According to the Danish Foreign Minister, Niels Helveg Petersen, this is "a blast from the past' .
In common with most Danish politicians, the same Mr Helveg has opposed the Tindemans report every step of the way, yet when it comes right down to it, they have voted in favour of every 'blast from the past' .
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In the same way, the Danish government will eventually vote in favour of joint armed forces if Denmark votes "Yes' to the Amsterdam Treaty - otherwise, that would be the first time a government had remained unmoved.
The Tindemans report on joint armed forces is serious and dangerous.
It suggests a gradual build-up in line with the Amsterdam Treaty.
If there is an attack on an EU country, NATO must defend us, but all other wars are EU business.
The Union can send troops anywhere and at any time, for any purpose.
The limitation is neither legally nor geographically defined.
The only limitation is political, since unanimity is required for the dispatch of troops.
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A simple majority in the Danish parliament could relinquish Denmark's reservations on military matters and a simple majority in the Danish parliament could allow participation in military action following a specific decision.
The Danish derogation expressly permits other States to continue with their joint armed forces.
Thus, Denmark is the only country without the right to veto military action carried out in the name of the Union.
As we can see, the Tindemans report is not simply a paper explaining what is happening.
The Tindemans report will repeat the exercise with the Western European Union.
I hope Mr Tindemans will come to Denmark before the referendum and explain whether he is indeed - in the words of Mr Helveg - simply a 'blast from the past' .
To me, the Tindemans report looks more like an insight into a scenario of the future if we were to vote "Yes' to the Amsterdam Treaty.
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<SPEAKER ID=195 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lang, Carl">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, India has just carried out three nuclear tests, China is continuing its experiments, others countries are equipping themselves with or developing atomic weapons, yet the rapporteur managed to talk about the defence of Europe, without ever mentioning the concepts of nuclear dissuasion or nuclear armament in his report.
And yet, that is a very crucial area with regard to the security of Europe, because unfortunately goodwill and good intentions will not safeguard the external and internal security of our countries in the future.
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I also regret that the report does not show any real determination to emancipate Europe from the United States of America and therefore from NATO.
In a spirit of submission, dependency and weakness, France has, on the contrary, made a public act of allegiance by rejoining NATO command, even though the Soviet threat has disappeared.
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We believe that the Western European Union should become a tool of emancipation and not an instrument of the new international order and of domination by the American Government.
But that will require financial, technological and human resources. We must stop dismantling our armies, and moral disarmament must cease.
A number of principles need to be reaffirmed: the creation of a new so-called 'European alliance' treaty, not only uniting the countries of the European Union but forming an alliance of sovereign European States, independent of course from the United States of America but also from NATO structures, the enforcement of the European preference rule in all areas relating to arms, the establishment of a budgetary policy, which enables Europe to regain its security, independence and freedom, taking into consideration new threats such as terrorism and bacteriological threats, the development of training structures, organizational structures, and civil protection structures and finally the establishment of rules enabling French nuclear dissuasion to be used for the joint benefit of the European alliance.
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We regret that these considerations were not mentioned in the report.
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<SPEAKER ID=196 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, first of all I should like to congratulate Mr Tindemans on his report.
Mr Tindemans is just explaining a few things to Mr Bonde who cannot, I believe, have read the report.
If he had done, he would not have been able to talk as if things were being imposed on individual countries.
But if Mr Tindemans is indeed explaining things to him, then he need not listen any further because he will know exactly what I know myself.
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European security policy rests on three pillars.
The first pillar is the preventive security policy - the avoidance and prevention of crises.
The second pillar is a common foreign and security policy which, in my view, and here I agree wholeheartedly with Mr Tindemans, must be supported by a common defence policy.
As I see it, the third pillar is disarmament.
The existence of fewer weapons in Europe would make an important contribution to security.
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All three pillars are underdeveloped and there is perhaps a difference between Mr Tindemans and myself in that I believe that he places too little emphasis on pillars A and C - that is prevention and disarmament.
But that is not to say that the second pillar is not important.
We must develop this common security policy within the EU, but also with the United States, with Russia and the Ukraine, and with the countries of the Mediterranean.
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Why is this sort of foreign and security policy, supported by a common defence policy, so important?
First the question of credibility: If we have to deal with individuals like Mr Milosevic - and yes, Mrs Schroedter, we do indeed have to deal with such individuals - words and a show of goodwill are not sufficient.
He will not show goodwill unless he is sure that our words are backed by arms, and not just as a last resort.
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Secondly, we need a more unified voice.
We have too many organizations working in an uncoordinated manner.
The EU, the WEU, in the case of Kosovo and Yugoslavia alone, and the contact group, NATO and various other institutions... Too may institutions, with too many different memberships, making it impossible at the moment for them all to speak with one voice.
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Thirdly, I believe that Europeanisation is very important.
A Europeanisation which does not stand in conflict with the USA, but which gives the countries of Europe greater weight within this alliance, and here I mean any European countries who wish to become involved.
But it is up to us to take this Europeanisation in hand, particularly in the field of the so-called lowthreshold defence policy - which makes Mr Tindemans proposals on the police, and the compromise, very important. We cannot rely on others.
Another important point is greater democracy.
Cooperation between and, one day, the integration of the EU and the WEU would mean greater democracy if this House won more rights and greater influence as a result.
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Lastly, Mr Titley said quite correctly that we have to learn to walk before we can run.
I agree with him absolutely.
But, there are so many crises where we have to learn to run quickly if we are going to be of any help.
So let us learn. But let us learn quickly.
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<SPEAKER ID=197 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Piha">
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Tindemans for this excellent report.
The report is the result of some delicate balancing, and shapes a logical future for talks on a common security policy.
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The European Union has a clear angle on security, regardless of whether there are elements of military security in future Union operations.
The notions of security and defence partly overlap.
It is obvious that the creation of interdependence in itself will increase security and stability in our continent.
We should remember that European integration is, by its nature, its aims and its fundamental structure, one vast security project, with defence as one of the principles of the Maastricht Treaty.
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Specifying the role of the Western European Union as part of a single defence policy is linked to some extent with the simultaneous enlargement process in respect of NATO and the EU.
With NATO about to receive members from central and eastern Europe its membership will become more heterogeneous, but at the same time the organization's so-called European pillar will be strengthened.
Although it might be claimed that the interests of the eastern European countries in NATO membership are ultimately focused on military security, it must also be said that when the countries of central and eastern Europe join, the organization's role as one of regional, collective security will grow.
It is essential that the Union also considers its own role in this manner.
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To clarify the future status of the WEU and make its work effective, it will be necessary to reassess the status of its associate and supervisory members.
If it is the specific task of the WEU to implement military operations in the future, the role of the supervisory members in active participation will be hopelessly vague.
I see that in the near future all those concerned, including my country, Finland, must be part of the WEU operation, as a result of equal and fully-fledged membership.
And the same obviously goes for the future members of the Union.
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The Petersberg tasks, which were written into the Amsterdam Treaty on the initiative of Finland and Sweden, and which allow all Union Member States to participate in regional peacekeeping operations, will create a supporting structure for a single defence policy.
The development of a viable peacekeeping capability is a precondition of the growth of a single defence policy, although peacekeeping is not always directly linked to defence.
It will also be seen as a step on the way to a more united identity for European security policy.
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<SPEAKER ID=198 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Caccavale">
Mr President, I too would like to thank Mr Tindemans, and I too consider that he did an extraordinary job, especially given the great resistance that he encountered along the way.
I too believe that he would have liked, would have tried to do much more than he succeeded in doing in the end, and that it was therefore extremely difficult for him to arrive at this point with results that are, honestly speaking, modest from the point of view of whoever considers this issue - common defence policy - an essential point, if Europe is not just thought of as the Europe of the single currency.
<P>
The WEU must be integrated into the European Union: this is the first step, and it seems to me that Mr Tindemans was extremely clear on this.
We have before us the shame of what occurred in Bosnia, where American intervention was necessary.
Let us never forget this!
Anyone who says that the Americans are the world's policemen because the Europeans engage in diplomacy is a hypocrite.
This is only the sign of Europe's weakness and the hypocrisy of the European countries which continue to be political dwarfs, continue to only think of themselves internally.
Furthermore, anyone who has said that the Tindemans report should focus more on prevention and less on the matter of interventions has assumed a hypocritical approach because, while it is true that prevention is the top priority - this is clear - it is also true that Europe is forced to just chatter away, to utter useless waffle, because in reality it is not possible to intervene in cases of regional conflicts, like in Bosnia or Albania a few months ago.
<P>
At this point the road to common destiny opens for Europe: the European countries can no longer afford not to understand this.
Whoever thinks that the British Empire or the French and German powers can still exist is living under a vain illusion.
We can and we must contribute to Europe's future in peace and stability.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, a reliable visionary must be a realist, and that is why Mr Tindemans was the excellent rapporteur of a report which was, naturally, excellent.
<P>
In principle the Union must be able to take military action on its own.
This does not, for instance, mean replacing NATO, but being an addition to it.
An adult European Union must be able to enforce its foreign policy by military means, including during the times the United States do not support this.
<P>
The rapporteur has clearly stated in his report that a common defence policy is pointless without a common foreign policy.
Many Member States are still putting up barriers against effective realization of the CFSP. Realism is therefore called for when we are talking about defence.
As many Member States as possible should make use of NATO joint task forces if desired.
By the way, the Union should do its best to avoid constructing a parallel military structure.
The people of Europe can do without higher defence budgets.
<P>
Concrete steps are rightly argued for here. The Ministers of Defence should also be able to meet in Union context.
Commission services involved in security and defence must also be strengthened. The European Parliament must have more regular consultations with the Secretary General, the President and the assembly of the WEU than it has at present.
<P>
In conclusion, Mr President, as chairman of the relevant subcommittee I support the proposal in the report to change the name of the subcommittee, presently security and disarmament, to Subcommittee on Security and Defence Policy.
Disarmament does of course in principle form part of this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, I think that the rapporteur, Mr Tindemans, has produced an important piece of work, despite the fact that the nature of the subject is such that it is as if we were charting unknown waters.
Where the political options of governments and the Council stop, there is room for many scenarios and many ideas.
Perhaps this is the role of Parliament, perhaps this is what we did with Political, Economic and Monetary Union in other eras.
It is my opinion however that we must try and take care to consolidate and integrate what we have achieved thus far, before we open up other roads, such as defence, which are paved with many difficulties.
<P>
In my opinion, the problems which are arising in the former Yugoslavia are connected not with the European Union's lack of a defence policy but with the inability to make specific choices or the making of wrong choices such as in the case of Bosnia.
Within this meaning of placing special importance on and consolidating what exists today, I would like to put a question to Commissioner Van den Broek, who has been patiently following this entire debate.
Both at Amsterdam and in the Treaty there is the notion of external borders, the notion of the integrity of the European Union and there is the notion of mutual political solidarity.
<P>
I wanted to ask Mr Van den Broek: are there borders between the European Union and the East? Or just the North, South and West?
Is there European Union integrity?
If all this exists, why this apathy?
Perhaps it is more a matter for the Council, but I would like his opinion.
Why this apathy of the main organs of the European Union towards a number of disputes currently taking place on the part of Turkey concerning islands which, as everybody knows, belong to a Member State and to the whole of the European Union?
I would like an answer from Mr Van den Broek.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, firstly, I find it quite incredible that Mr Tindemans is being hailed here as a visionary.
I do not know how someone living in the Dark Ages, who believes in military blocs, global militarization and imperialism can be considered a visionary.
It is a ludicrous thought.
<P>
On the issue of imperialism, it is quite clear in paragraph 4 of this document that 'the purpose of a common defence policy is to protect the Union's interest in all areas, including security of supply' .
That is disgraceful.
You are saying that you want a defence policy and defence system, not to protect yourself against potential aggressors, but to protect your fundamental selfish interests.
That such a thing should be true in this Parliament is an absolute disgrace.
<P>
Ireland is holding a referendum on the Amsterdam Treaty.
Our government and the main political parties are telling us that the Amsterdam Treaty has nothing to do with defence.
Yet, as Mr Tindemans says, the Amsterdam Treaty makes a common defence policy a more credible prospect given that it strengthens the organic bond between the European Union and the Western European Union, created by Maastricht.
The Western European Union is a military alliance committed to the nuclear deterrent.
<P>
Furthermore, Article J(7) of the Amsterdam Treaty, a protocol attached to the Treaty, was an Irish addition and intended to prevent the Irish people from knowing the real implications of the Amsterdam Treaty.
It says that the European Union, together with the Western European Union will jointly consider future requirements in strengthening mutual cooperation within one year following the entry into force of that Treaty, in order to give the WEU, ' as an integral part of the development of the Union' , an organizational framework.
It is quite clear that what you are doing here is militarizing the EU, turning it into a military alliance, the main purpose of which is to protect its selfish interests and get easy access to global resources.
<P>
(Applause from the Green Group )
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, before starting any discussion on European defence, an essential remark must be made: the collective defence of Member States of the European Union does not depend on the European Union, but on the Member States and on the alliances to which some Member States belong.
<P>
That is why I regret the use that is made, in the Tindemans report, of some inadequate and ambiguous concepts, the concept of the legitimate defence of the European Union, for example.
<P>
Having said that, thinking about European defence today means asking a series of questions.
Whether the European Union is really the most relevant framework within which to approach the current defence problems of our continent, in terms of the new threats that have replaced the Soviet threat.
Whether the aim of a European defence policy should be to put everyone into a straight jacket or whether it should be organized on the basis of a variable geometric concept, taking into consideration the Member States' very different wishes with regard to defence.
What should be the relationship between the European Union and the WEU?
The Amsterdam Treaty does not propose to integrate the latter into the former and overall, it keeps the existing relationships as they are.
It only contains two innovations: the incorporation into the CFSP of cooperation in the field of armaments, and the Petersberg missions.
<P>
It obviously goes without saying that arms policy is an intergovernmental matter.
Because of its specific nature, it is important in the defence sector to ensure that sovereignty prevails over market forces.
The objective of the European Armaments Agency must be to maintain the capability for independent research and production at the highest technological level in Europe, in view of particularly aggressive American competition.
<P>
The Tindemans report also mentions strategic air transport, space intelligence and satellite communications.
In such areas, the establishment of European poles of competence by Member States who wish to do so will make it possible to gain control, particularly of information, and to put an end to our dependence on the United States.
<P>
These are areas in which the scale of the costs involved in the projects justifies the adoption, by virtue of the principle of subsidiarity, of joint programmes, whose funding will have to be provided over a period of time by Member States, which freely decide to take part.
<P>
Member States with a tradition of neutrality, which make up one-third of the Fifteen, have accepted the integration into the Treaty of all the Petersberg tasks, but have however clearly refused the collective defence guarantee instituted by the Brussels Treaty among members of the WEU.
<P>
Article 17 of the Treaty of Amsterdam also reflects the deep divisions between Member States with regard to defence policy.
Even leaving aside the question of Member States with a tradition of neutrality, it states that common defence must be brought about through the integration of the WEU into the European Union and, at the same time, that this has already been achieved within the framework of NATO.
These legitimate differences form the very fabric of Europe and it is essential that the will of the people and of Member States be respected, particularly in an area as sensitive as defence.
<P>
The Tindemans report rightly underlines the fact that any common defence policy is dependent upon the clear identification of common interests and proposes that a Council White Paper should try to outline them.
It also underlines the need to give form to the European security and defence identity which the Berlin Summit....
<P>
(The President asked the speaker to conclude) These areas seem important to us and have obtained our approval.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tatarella">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I congratulate Mr Tindemans for the work he has done and for the direction given to the report whose contents we fully endorse.
Of course more could have been done, such as asking for the process of common defence to be speeded up more, but the rapporteur wanted to have as much unity and consensus as possible.
Perhaps, with his experience as a man of government, he was not wrong.
The common defence policy cannot advance by relying heavily on majorities that he could nevertheless have sought and obtained.
<P>
It is nonetheless extremely significant that this debate is taking place precisely today, the same day our Parliament has expressed its favourable opinion for the names proposed by the Council for the members of the Board of the European Central Bank.
It is perhaps the best way for our Parliament to respond to the rightful criticism of those afraid that the European Union is only an agglomeration of financial and monetary interests.
We must reaffirm here once again that monetary union without political union is ridiculous, a useless effort for the European people.
An essential accompaniment to political union is undoubtedly a common foreign and security policy combined with a common military and arms strategy.
<P>
Today, Europe is witnessing an important moment, a happy moment.
The single currency must soon be followed by a common defence policy so that Europe can guarantee peace, including beyond its own borders.
<P>
The effort of Mr Tindemans reminds me of the overwhelming commitment in this Parliament of the late Member, Mr Spinelli, who from these same benches from which arise today obstacles on which there is not always agreement, argued and fought for Europe to become a political subject and therefore to have a common, military and foreign policy.
<P>
The delegation of the National Alliance, the democratic and moderate Italian party, will vote in favour of the report to reaffirm its own choice for European Unity and in so doing to confirm the need to make those essential choices and give political and international dignity to our Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
<SPEAKER ID=205 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Burenstam Linder">
Mr President, this report once again gives us an opportunity to voice our great appreciation of Mr Tindemans' expertise and commitment.
The distinction between security policy and defence policy has become less obvious in so far as the risk of an armed attack on EU members has, in the phase in which we now find ourselves, diminished. This has been accompanied by an increase in the risk of crises in our immediate neighbourhood.
Crises can, however, escalate into full-scale hostilities.
We must not close our eyes to the fact that developments in Russia, for example, can quickly give rise to a more serious situation with regard to defence policy.
Europe needs both a deterrent protection of its borders and the capacity to intervene forcefully in order to resolve crises.
<P>
NATO forms the basis for European cooperation in the field of defence.
A more active defence cooperation within the EU should be developed not as a replacement, but as a complement, for NATO.
Such a complement is needed.
Nevertheless, European defence cooperation within the WEU has lacked strength.
The problem lies not so much in the fact that new countries outside military alliances have applied the brakes, as in the lack of a strong political will at the heart of the EU.
There has been no force akin to the one that has driven EMU forward.
A functional defence policy must also be based on a common foreign policy, but the EU has not yet reached this point.
<P>
The Tindemans report gives us an opportunity to reflect on this point.
The question is whether Europe can entirely rely on NATO, and thus on the USA's commitment. It is realistic to envisage crises and threats of this kind arising in situations where the USA might well be in agreement with the EU, but lacks the motivation to intervene in the way that we in Europe would wish.
Major enlargement of the EU would in all probability reduce the degree of unity between the EU and NATO, thereby reinforcing the need for defence cooperation within the EU.
<P>
The European Union aims to promote peace in Europe.
In this respect the EU has been a total success.
The peace initiative is being further advanced through eastward enlargement.
This burgeoning cooperation has already produced significant results.
In order to gain membership of the European Union, the applicant states are striving to promote human rights, settle internal disputes and conflicts between themselves and also with other countries.
This is important.
It is not only in the Balkans that a diverse ethnic mix has the potential to result in serious complications.
Here is a modern, present-day version of the EU's peace mission.
For example in my own country, there is every reason to point to the major role that the EU continues to play in developing peace in Europe.
The tragedies in the Balkans, that is, outside the EU and outside the circle of applicant states, shows how badly things can otherwise turn out.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Kaklamanis">
Dear Mr Tindemans, I have read your report and listened to what you have said and I want to give you my warmest congratulations.
There is no doubt that your report will be voted for by the European Parliament.
Unfortunately, however, for you who have worked so hard, unfortunately for the European Parliament and unfortunately for the people of Europe, the gentlemen of the Council will throw it in the bin.
<P>
The gentlemen of the Council did not manage to agree on the President of the Central Bank, making a mockery of the euro before it even gets off the ground.
In truth, do you believe that they will agree on this extremely important issue?
They are not interested in a common foreign policy and in the defence of Europe.
They are not interested in the interests of Europe nor in the people of Europe.
The only thing that matters to them are the interests of banks and bankers.
Look at what happened at Dayton.
The Americans made a decision and Mr Van den Broek, despite his effort, simply pays from the Commission Fund.
In Cyprus, in the Middle East, in Kosovo and in the Aegean, Mr Holbrooke and Mr Miller discuss and decide and Europe simply carries out their decisions.
I do not want to disappoint you.
I wish your report good luck but I am afraid it will not have good luck.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Caligaris">
Mr President, I congratulate Mr Tindemans on the skill and especially the tenacity and patience that he demonstrated in writing this excellent report: a controversial report, not because of its contents but because this Europe of ours is still faced with the growing difficulty of dealing serenely and seriously with an issue like that of its own security and defence, even though it knows that the success of its own political process certainly depends in large part on finding a solution to this.
<P>
Its discomfort can also be seen in the proliferation of institutions to which it delegates this issue that it does not know how to handle.
As has already been recalled by other Members, we have at least four institutions: the European Union, the WEU, the OSCE and NATO which, although in theory should collaborate between themselves, in reality are at odds and interfere with one another.
As if that were not enough, the WEU - which is to become the military arm - is waiting to be integrated in the European Union at that noble moment when, if and when, the governments decide that this operation can be carried out.
I would not like it to be like in Manzoni's Promessi Sposi , that is to say that, in the view of someone or indeed of many, ' this marriage must not take place' .
<P>
Furthermore, six years ago, almost to the point of convincing the public that it was possible to do better, the Pietersberg agreement was invented to conduct peace missions: not one has ever been carried out, and I wonder when one will be.
<P>
I conclude by saying that the Tindemans report is a courageous stone cast in the pond of political indolence. I hope that it will finally succeed in promoting that debate that until now has been lacking.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, following the example of the other Members I too will congratulate Mr Tindemans since, with the very fine and elaborate phrases which his long political experience allows him, he manages to reveal what he wishes, that is the redevelopment of the European Union into a military-political, police-controlled terrorist organization.
He is driven not by personal criteria but by criteria of class.
This is what he expresses.
The financial money markets, the huge monopolies and the multinational companies must be able to digest - without inconvenience - what they gain with monetary union and all the other attendant factors which currently govern the European Union.
The NATO - WEU - OSCE trinity aims to create special intervention forces, armament programmes, a military arms industry and aerial information centres etc., all paid for by the European taxpayer.
Naturally this poses a question: will this European Union not have a defence policy?
He does not clearly specify, however, who the enemy will be and against whom.
There is not even the slogan "Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact' and he implies that the enemy is the people and their revolt under this oppressive policy.
You wish to keep this in check and on this basis you want the freedom to intervene wherever, within and outside the perimeter of the EU, the interests of the European Union, that is of multinational corporations, are - he says - affected.
<P>
And one last point, since a lot has been said about Mr Milosevic...
<P>
(The President cut off the speaker)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Féret">
Mr President, during the debate last year on Mr Tindemans' first report on a common security policy for Europe, I expressed the wish that the enlargement of the European Union to include central and eastern European countries would not go hand in hand with an identical enlargement of NATO. European and American interests are more and more often divergent and it is high time the people of Europe took charge of their own destiny.
<P>
My wish has been fulfilled, and I thank the rapporteur, who argues in favour of the integration of the WEU into the European Union and the accession to the WEU of future Member States of the Union.
This must take place with the close cooperation of the CIS.
Even if, and particularly if, it displeases the Green Group. They are bribed to increase European nations' subjection to the Americans: at the economic level - illustrated as clearly as possible by their attitude, which by the way, was grotesque, to the vote on the patenting of biotechnological inventions; at the military level, as the amendments they tabled on this excellent report by a great statesman, Mr Tindemans, have shown.
<P>
Europe will soon have a single currency.
It will also need an army.
That is the price of our independence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sakellariou">
Mr President, I am afraid that after Mr Kaklamanis' Marxist analysis of the European banks and Mr Ephremedis' class-conscious considerations, I shall look a little bland as I just want to make a few comments on the Tindemans report.
<P>
I, too, would like to congratulate Mr Tindemans for taking on this very difficult task.
The task was indeed a difficult one, as I know from our work together on the committee.
It was to formulate a common defence policy for fifteen independent, sovereign states and for 75 to 80 parties - I am not sure exactly how many parties are represented in this House, but I know that they represent very different opinions.
These opinions stem from different traditions in defence policy and it is my view that we shall only be able to achieve a successful defence policy if we are prepared to accept and respect these different traditions in its formulation.
<P>
I would like to mention three principles which are important as I see it, which go beyond what you have written and which will form the subject of various amendments.
Firstly, we should endeavour to define a new defence policy which is embedded in a new security policy and which is based more on collective security models such as the OSCE than on models from the Cold War like NATO and the WEU.
<P>
Secondly, under certain circumstances today preventive conflict solving and the triggering of a new disarmament spiral - a disarmament rather than an armament spiral - can be a more effective instrument of defence than any multipurpose weapons which may be in the pipeline.
<P>
Thirdly, if we develop our own defence policy we should do it not to relieve the American budget, but in order to reflect our own identity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Brok">
Mr President, I just have a comment on the Rules of Procedure relating to speaking time.
I should be grateful if you would be much more generous in allocating time to Mr Ephremedis in the future, for when otherwise do we have the pleasure of listening to old Stalinist speeches.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="President">
I do not think those remarks were quite proper, but, since we are also sometimes lacking in humour, you are forgiven.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, do I owe Mr Brok anything?
Let me settle with him.
If I owe him anything, I will settle it with a cheque.
In euros, when it comes into circulation...
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 NAME="President">
I was going to say that I could invite you to speak, to make a personal statement, at the end of the debate.
But as you have already taken the floor, you no longer need to speak at the end of the debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Lambrias">
Mr President, during those days when 56 Foreign Ministers and Ministers of National Defence - 56! - from 28 European Countries, 10 of which are Members of our Union, took part in the celebratory sitting of the Western European Union under Greek presidency in the beautiful town of Rhodes, two American envoys, Mr Holbrooke and Mr Gelbard, went back and forth between Belgrade and Pristina in a desperate attempt to find, between Serbia and Albania, some treatment for the bleeding wound of Kosovo.
<P>
In the multi-paged text of conclusions which was given out yesterday the many ministers of the WEU expressed, among many other ambiguities, their own concern and their readiness to promote a realistic and clear approach to tackling the problem.
<P>
However, the difference between the two simultaneous demonstrations of international diplomacy is telling: in the first, in Rhodes, there is comfort, luxury and the slow pace of ceremony.
There is no sense of time and, above all, no binding nature of specific solutions.
It is quite the opposite with the on-the-spot visits-cum-forays of the American envoys.
Often, because of the study of and demand for practical solutions, they do not avoid dangerous complications and injustices.
Thanks are owed to Mr Tindemans who, with missionary zeal, insists on mobilizing Europe into shaping a common foreign policy.
Since 1975 he has been striving in this direction, proclaiming ever since that only in this way can Europe protect its values and acquire its political substance.
At exactly the time when we are welcoming the inception of EMU and the establishment of the euro, the long and faltering march towards the OSCE, the vagueness concerning the incorporation of the WEU as an arm of defence, despite the wishes of Maastricht and the minced words of Amsterdam, are restrictive burdens which inhibit the integration of Europe.
In a world of rapid developments, such as today's, delays are alarmingly dangerous.
And we have already had bitter experience.
<P>
Personally, I can only express a single disagreement with the Tindemans report: the shaping of a common foreign policy must not go forward gradually, as the text says.
It is an immediate priority.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Frischenschlager">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report prepared by Mr Tindemans sends out a very positive signal because it is, at long last, a document which clearly highlights the European Union's responsibility for its own security.
Because what is the question here?
In theory, our entire foreign and security policy has been established since Maastricht.
In practice, however, it is a fiasco, as we all know.
So what does it mean?
What is the objective?
Not just to condemn, but also to invalidate the misuse of force in politics!
That we shall be able to achieve when the European Union is finally able to distance itself from individual national security policies and instead combine the political, the economic and, at the end of the day, the military potential of the Union in the interests of crisis management and peace-keeping.
They both amount to the same thing.
<P>
The second issue which I would like to highlight is the following: Since Maastricht, we have been working towards the objective of a common foreign and security policy and we have been saying that we want to make the Western European Union an instrument of the European Union.
Perhaps we should stop talking about it and actually get on and do it!
<P>
Lastly, many people would prefer to leave the security of the European Union in the hands of Washington.
In my view that would be a pity!
For, quite legitimately, American security policy is concerned with safeguarding its own interests.
Secondly, American security policy very, very often depends on the prevailing domestic political situation.
Under certain circumstances, that could actually represent a security risk for Europe.
We must therefore continue to pursue the goal of a common foreign and security policy, merge the EU and the Western European Union in the interests of crisis management and peace-keeping, not only in Europe, but at world level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, Mr Tindemans' s report is a declaration of war by militarists in this Parliament against European peace policy.
It was written by an agent from the weapons' industry, whose home country has never been in the frontline of military threat.
Mr Tindemans and Mr Titley wish to manufacture weapons a long way from the front for those who will have to fight there whenever, according to the report, the basic principles of the EU are made a laughing stock of.
Such full employment is not one of the EU's basic principles.
<P>
My country has never been occupied.
How many of you can say the same, you who are now planning a common arms industry, a common arms capacity and a common military doctrine?
If it comes to the crunch, will you homefront arms manufacturers be offering to help out those who are joined with you in a union, but against their own wishes, get involved in armed conflict?
To all war-mongers now suffering from trauma as a result of occupation or the Falklands conflict I say: do not try to force us defenceless countries into a military alliance via a single EU defence policy.
You are too poor a bunch of soldiers to give others guidance on security.
<P>
As chairman of a labour organization I would like to say to Mr Brok that he, in the service of the firm of Bertelsman's , as he is, has no right to advise free European representatives on what they should say.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=218 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
Madam President, the report is entitled 'establishment of a common defence policy for the European Union' , but the content exudes thinking and rhetoric from the Cold War.
The report is based on the idea that conflicts and problems are resolved by military means.
<P>
Foreign and security policy are based on different components: foreign policy, aid, trade, peace and conflict resolution, disarmament policy, refugee policy and military defence.
A security policy is therefore not the same as a military defence.
<P>
It appears to me to be out of touch with reality to write a report with the tenor of the study that Mr Tindemans has produced.
According to many commentators, including the WEU's political assembly, the realization of a common defence policy has been removed from the agenda for a long time to come as a result of the Amsterdam Treaty.
It seems to me most remarkable that Parliament, which has no power to decide on a common defence policy, is once again tabling a motion on this matter, quite contrary to the will of the Council of Ministers.
The idea of a common defence policy seems to be a mantra: if it is repeated often enough it will perhaps become reality.
<P>
From a modern security perspective, the security of the people is the central consideration.
The threat to the people may be anything from environmental disasters to social exclusion.
At present, conflicts between states are becoming increasingly unusual.
Instead, intra-state conflicts are growing ever more common.
Most of these conflicts have their origins in social antagonisms of an ethnic and/or religious nature.
Such conflicts cannot be resolved by military methods or with bullets and bombs.
<P>
Amidst the federalistic euphoria it should not be forgotten that the UK, Denmark, Ireland, Austria and Sweden do not accept a common defence policy as proposed by Mr Tindemans.
In Sweden, 70 per cent of the population are still opposed to a common defence policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stenzel">
Madam President, the European Union will only carry any weight if it succeeds in growing beyond its achievements to date.
Here for the first time we have an opportunity to develop the Union on three institutions - the traditional European Community, the Economic and Monetary Union and the political union - freely, that is without extreme pressure from outside as was the case during the Cold War with its threat of nuclear strikes.
<P>
This requires a will - as outlined in the Maastricht Treaty - to create a common foreign and security policy and, step by step, a common defence policy.
This is enshrined in the Maastricht Treaty which the Austrian Presidency, aware of its responsibility in its forthcoming presidency of the Council, will soon ratify.
To date, both the common foreign and security policy and the foreign defence policy are rudimentary and vague, not to say non-existent.
This is highly unsatisfactory in view of the regional conflicts currently going on in Europe.
May I point out to the previous speaker that unfortunately security problems in Europe are not restricted to natural disasters.
<P>
Our dependence upon the will of the USA to intervene in crisis regions in Europe as a policing force within the framework of NATO not only illustrates the weaknesses of the current European position, it has also become an almost unbearable burden for the USA.
The current trend is for the US to withdraw from European trouble spots, leaving the EU with a still greater responsibility.
The Tindemans report therefore points the way to European independence in the narrower sense of defence policy.
<P>
It is therefore logical for Austria to support the complete integration of the Western European Union into the EU and to take part in the creation of a common European defence policy.
However, this cannot and should not take place in opposition to NATO.
Eleven out of fourteen of our EU partners wish to create a European security and defence identity within NATO.
The WEU depends on NATO capacities and NATO logistics in many respects.
The remit of the WEU and the NATO Partnership for Peace are largely similar.
Any unnecessary duplication of existing mechanisms should therefore be avoided.
<P>
What we need is solidarity and cooperation in building a common security and defence policy.
The enlargement processes both in the EU and in NATO should be seen in this light.
The Tindemans report forms a good basis from which the Council and the Commission can formulate policy in this area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Madam President, there are three reasons why I cannot agree with the basic tenets of Mr Tindemans' s report.
Firstly, its view on security is, to my mind, outdated and based on the supposition that there may be a conflict between states, resolved by the use of force.
Of the twenty-seven wars or conflicts that went on in 1996, only one, the dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, was between different countries.
Conflicts, particularly those in Europe, require improved methods of stabilizing crises and improved peacekeeping operations.
In this respect, I believe the initiative on behalf of the foreign ministers of Finland and Sweden is the right one.
<P>
Secondly, the report does not sufficiently get to grips with general European security, and especially the development of security between the EU countries and Russia.
This sort of cooperation is required, for example, in the development of the Baltic region and in the Nordic sea regions.
<P>
Thirdly, the notion of developing the European Union as a defence organization does little to aid EU enlargement.
An emphasis on EU military endeavour will, I believe, affect the issue of enlargement for the countries bordering on Russia as well as for Cyprus.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Imbeni">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, do you remember one of the replies from President Chirac of France to the protests to nuclear testing?
It is also for you, he said, your security and your defence!
It is too bad that the other heads of government did not take the President of the French Republic literally, at the time, and did not insist on arriving in Amsterdam at a truly new result for the common defence policy.
It did not happen that way and we had a disappointing result.
<P>
Basically, the real significance of the Tindemans resolution is, in my opinion, this: the European Parliament says to the European Council, to the Council of Ministers 'the time has come to include this difficult topic on the agenda' .
Do not turn away, do not try to escape, let us not give the awful performance that we gave with the Bosnia tragedy.
We are about to increase from fifteen to twenty six, we cannot do it without reaching a new parameter, that of the international identity of the European Union, of a common defence policy.
It will be difficult, certainly, it will be very difficult, but there are no alternatives.
Of this at least I am convinced.
<P>
The Member, Mr Tindemans, has been defined a visionary; in my opinion he is a realist.
People who are visionaries and also dangerous are those who, looking to the past, are only able to propose again a situation that we have already experienced.
So, from the past let us keep the different languages, cultures, the enormous wealth of our European Union, but let us leave in peace the worst results from the dictatorships, the wars, the racist ideologies and cases of nationalism.
Let us look forward with a little courage.
A short while ago at the funeral of an official of the Western European Union, who passed away too soon, a wreath of flowers was brought by colleagues of the deceased.
Next to an affectionate message to the loved one was a curious signature in French: ' Friends of the Accidental European Union.
There's a small mistake: Accidental European Union.
However, we need a genuine union of the people and the States, not an accident of history!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Konrad">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the WEU is developing its operational capacities on the basis of internal optimization.
This means that, in accordance with the widening of its remit in 1992, it is on the way to becoming an instrument of efficient crisis management in Europe.
For this reason it is important that we continue to follow this process in this House, as we are doing today.
<P>
In my view, the WEU has two main tasks. Firstly, to oversee the integration of new partners from Eastern Europe and, secondly, to strengthen the European pillar of the Euro-Atlantic alliance.
In this context, it is extremely important that relations between the WEU and both the EU and NATO are shaped with the necessary sensitivity.
<P>
This sensitivity is necessary firstly with a view to relations between Europe and America, but also in relation to various EU Member States, such as the United Kingdom, Denmark, Ireland, Austria and Sweden where, for a variety of reasons, the idea of the development of a military arm of the European Union is received with a certain amount of caution at the very least.
But, to address Mr Bonde from Denmark, we have absolutely no intention of influencing the Danish referendum on 28 May with our debate today.
Like every other country, since the Treaty of Amsterdam Denmark is entitled to opt out of any matters relating to military initiatives.
However, I do believe that we would be ill-advised not to take seriously the concerns of the citizens of the neutral countries.
<P>
I also have great sympathy for the position taken by the United States which - most recently on Corfu - advocated continued adherence to the NATO agreement to make independent collective resources available to the WEU only where this is required for urgent CFSP operations within the context of a specific crisis.
<P>
I am also resolutely against granting the WEU basic and permanent autonomous planning and intervention capacities within NATO, but - and here I direct my comments to the Europe of the Nations group - there can be no question of the WEU organizing European worldwide recognition à la Paris alongside NATO and without transatlantic agreement.
Its future role will be limited to dealing with crises like the current situation in the Balkans with a CFSP restricted to the performance of joint operational, humanitarian and peace-keeping WEU initiatives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Eriksson">
Madam President, I would like to start by thanking Mrs McKenna, Mrs Theorin and Mrs Ojala for their contributions, which I regard as small shafts of light in an otherwise rather dark and gloomy debate.
<P>
I find this just as depressing as the other day when I actually read the Tindemans report.
Nor - I regret to say - did the amendments to the report make me any happier.
This is, after all, an own-initiative report from the European Parliament.
I therefore feel that it would be profoundly regrettable if this were to be the signal that this elected Chamber sends out to its voters.
For example, no consideration whatsoever is given to any new aspects, not even to the policy pursued by the four neutral states, which are, after all, members.
I sincerely hope that we shall reject this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="Truscott">
Madam President, I too would like to congratulate the rapporteur on producing his timely report.
Mr Tindemans is right to point out that not all EU Member States are ready to work towards a common defence policy, despite the fact that at Amsterdam the WEU was regarded as an integral part of the development of the EU.
<P>
The Amsterdam Treaty, in developing a more effective common foreign and security policy, stressed the importance of closer institutional and organizational links between the EU and the WEU, including the evolution of the Petersberg humanitarian and peacekeeping tasks.
<P>
I welcome the references in the report to the role of Combined Joint Task Forces, the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, the Partnership for Peace programme and the importance of establishing a European armaments agency.
The report also points out the importance of the objective of global disarmament, the Pact for Stability and welcomes the draft EU code of conduct on the arms trade.
<P>
However, there are areas of the report that I would disagree with.
The integration of the WEU into the EU is not a realistic proposition in the near future.
I do not accept that the purpose of a common defence policy is to protect the Union's interests in all areas, including security of supply.
<P>
Furthermore, I do not agree that security and defence issues should come under the authority of a Commissioner or that a White Paper on defence should be drawn up by the Policy Planning and Early Warning Unit for approval by the European Council.
Nor should the EU be in the business of signing military cooperation agreements with Russia and the CIS countries.
<P>
Amending the Treaty on European Union to include Article 5 of the WEU Treaty is also not a feasible option.
<P>
For these reasons, as the report currently stands - I stress as it currently stands - I regret I will not be able to support it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="Donner">
Mr President, I do not belong to the group of colleagues here who are congratulating Mr Tindemans.
The report as it stands today seems to forget that there are four militarily non-aligned members of the Union and that their consent is necessary to fulfil the dreams of Mr Tindemans and others to integrate the WEU into the Union.
<P>
On the other hand, as has been mentioned, one improvement to the Amsterdam Treaty was realized on the initiative of Sweden and Finland, namely the inclusion of the Petersberg tasks.
This implies that the non-aligned countries are as interested as all others in developing a common defence policy.
Common defence and common action will ultimately depend on geopolitics and national interest.
That applies to big Member States as well as small ones, as was shown in the mishandling of the Yugoslav crisis.
I for one would welcome sending troops into Kosovo if other solutions fail.
<P>
Finland at present being the only Union member having a common border with Russia sees the development of mutuallybeneficial and peaceful relationships with that country as all-important, in marked contrast to NATO strategy.
Portugal might view this differently.
Decisions on European defence policy should not be made in Washington, as has happened in the past.
The weakness of the present wording of the report is that it combines false dreams with nice words.
If the Socialist proposals for amendments fall, many of us will have to vote against the entire report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wiersma">
Madam President, I believe I am the last speaker on behalf of this House in this fascinating debate. It is not the first debate on this subject, nor will it be the last.
It is fascinating thanks to the forward thinking reports by Mr Tindemans, who has occupied himself with this subject for decades.
I was and remain sceptical about the opportunities to develop a genuine defence policy within the Union context.
I am not opposed to it on principle, but consider it sensible to leave NATO on this point for what it is.
What's more, it does not seem sensible to me to put the cart before the proverbial horse.
The discussion on the defence of own territory has been pushed into the background somewhat over the past few years by a much more important discussion on the role of NATO, the European Union and the WEU in crisis management.
I am therefore much more interested in the question of whether the Union will be capable of carrying out the so-called Petersberg tasks should the situation arise.
Then we will be dealing with crisis management elsewhere.
This is therefore the crux, I believe, of a military debate at national level.
The realization of this option, for which the foundations were also laid in Amsterdam, and preparing ourselves for the possibility should be given priority over the coming years.
It also concerns the practical interpretation of the relationship between the European Union and the Western European Union in this sphere.
What the Union needs above all, and I have often said so, is positive practical experience.
With such an experience in the sphere of possible crisis management, common defence might also come into view.
So I would like to turn it all around.
The Union must learn to trust itself regarding security issues.
The introduction of the euro will also without question lead to the necessary dynamism in this area.
Economic union leads to political union; this has been said often enough.
As far as that is concerned I believe that the security experts in this Parliament can expect a sunny future.
<P>
The last thing I would like to say has been said frequently before.
The best contribution the European Union can make to security in Europe is its enlargement.
This does not involve any military instrument.
The proof that the scope of the security instruments of the European Union is extensive must, I think, remain the starting point in the debate in this Parliament on the security role of the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="van den Broek">
Madam President, I would also like to express my great appreciation for Mr Tindemans' report on the common defence policy of the European Union.
I am not surprised at the quality of the report, nor at its inclination towards compromise, when I think of Mr Tindemans' wisdom, which he acquired during a long period of governmental responsibility and of ministerial office in Foreign Affairs.
I also remember very well the reports made by Mr Tindemans in which he repeatedly argued in favour of activating a clear common defence and security policy as the ultimate objective of a strong European Union.
And certainly after the step which was recently taken towards a common monetary union, the CFSP, to my mind, deserves extra and renewed attention. We should capitalize on the cohesive impulse which will also emanate from monetary union to arrive at a closer common defence and security policy.
<P>
The topical value of this Tindemans report could not have been greater.
I have already mentioned a few reasons for this.
But added to these is the fact that, in the past, during such a discussion on a European defence policy we were able to refer to the tragic developments in former Yugoslavia and were able to point to the lessons which should be drawn from this.
But today it is no longer possible to speak in an abstract way about this topic, because Europe is yet again faced with a situation which, if precautions are not taken in time, might show a repetition of the horrors of an ethnic conflict.
<P>
I will deal with the situation in Kosovo separately in a moment.
But it seems to me that it should also be discussed in the context of this debate, as there are so many points of reference with the remarks put forward by Mr Tindemans in his report.
The political, economic and also the humanitarian consequences of an escalation, an overspill of the conflict in Kosovo into other regions, will directly affect the interests of the Member States and those of the applicant countries of the European Union.
And I am thinking not least of the possibility that once again huge numbers of refugees will get on the march.
Absorbing such a situation has also so often been the subject of debates in this House.
<P>
Yesterday I spoke with Mrs Ogata, the High Commissioner for Refugees of the United Nations, who told me that inside and outside Bosnia Herzegovina there are still approximately 1.8 million displaced people and refugees for whom a solution is not yet in sight.
But in other areas too we will be busy for a considerable time to come consolidating the situation in Bosnia Herzegovina, which is only improving slowly.
That is why there is every reason for us to reach a state of affairs in which all the resources the Union has, or is able to have, at its disposal are dedicated fully to preventing the situation in Kosovo and the surrounding region from worsening.
<P>
And I am most definitely referring to a possible contribution by the Western European Union to initiatives intended to limit as much as possible the risk of the conflict spilling over.
Here I am thinking, of course, about the measures for the benefit of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and of Albania in particular.
As indicated by Mr Tindemans, the European Union last year failed to play a conflict management role in Albania via the Western European Union.
All credit to Italy, by the way, which, only three months after the European debate and with the support of a number of other countries, managed to be present in the country with a stabilizing unit and, indeed, managed help to stabilize the situation.
But it would most certainly have been the European Union and the Western European Union's responsibility, mindful also of what has been laid down in the Amsterdam Treaty with regard to the so-called Petersberg tasks, to take a leading position in resolving the crisis which erupted in Albania at the time as a result of the pyramid investment scandals.
However, a comparable situation is currently arising, but it is by no means certain whether there is enough political will at the moment to implement actively the security aspect of the common defence and security policy.
<P>
This afternoon someone, I believe it was Mr Lambrias, already pointed to the WEU meeting on Rhodes which took place yesterday and the day before yesterday.
But the results of this meeting do not indicate that spectacular initiatives have been agreed.
The question then arises as to whether it would not have made sense if the European Western Union had at least been asked to conduct an analysis of the security situation in situ, coupled with a number of recommendations about the way the Western European Union might possibly help to achieve security in the region.
<P>
It is right and it makes sense that this issue is also being looked at from within the NATO context.
But why should a specific input from the European Union, from the Western European Union, not be one of the possibilities?
The absence of concrete and specific activities is making a debate on the place of the Western European Union in the security architecture really rather theoretical.
<P>
The Tindemans report mentions the European security and defence identity; all of this seen against the background of the Western European Union's place in the Atlantic Alliance.
The question is, and I am in fact concurring with the comments made by Mr Wiersma just now, whether it is really all that advisable to start a broad discussion with each other on a common defence policy when we have not been able to make any progress on common foreign policy, and most definitely not on common security policy.
Would it not be preferable if the Union was to start by focussing on implementing what was understood by the so-called Petersberg tasks, also in the Treaty of Amsterdam? Peace-promoting tasks, including peacemaking, humanitarian actions, etcetera.
Should this not already be a possibility, or lead to concrete actions, then you may wonder whether we should have any big illusions within the European Union about the defence identity.
When we are talking about defence identity and link this to the protection of independence and the territorial integrity of a territory, I do not believe anyone in this House will dispute that the prime responsibility for this lies with the Atlantic Alliance, NATO, in the foreseeable future as well.
But what we are talking about here, and where Amsterdam has in fact made some progress, is taking action ourselves, with military resources as well, in the field of regional crisis management for instance.
And I repeat my question: having not taken the opportunity a year ago in Albania, should we have been surprised by events yet again this year when there is the threat of a crisis in Kosovo?
And will we later be asking ourselves why no timely precautions were taken?
<P>
Like Mr Tindemans, the Commission, in its recommendations which preceded the Intergovernmental Conference at the time, argued that the Western European Union should ultimately be integrated into the European Union.
This could lead to matters being better attuned, including the diplomatic, economic and military resources available to the Union.
<P>
Should the Union not succeed in formulating and implementing a more decisive foreign and security policy, which is supported by military resources with the aim of crisis prevention, then the credibility of the entire common defence and security policy will in our view be seriously affected. This foreign and security policy was based on what was agreed by treaty, both in Maastricht and in Amsterdam, and which was endorsed by all Member States without exception, with regard to the Common Foreign and Security Policy.
Now of all times, when the Union has set the enlargement process in motion, this credibility must not be put on the line.
An enlarged European Union will also and particularly have to adopt a political position which corresponds to its economic size and interests. It will also have to be able to look after these interests with all the resources at its service.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 NAME="President">
Many thanks, Commissioner Van den Broek!
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Nuclear tests in India
<SPEAKER ID=229 NAME="President">
The next item on the agenda is a statement by the Council on the nuclear tests in India.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 NAME="Henderson">
Madam President, on 11 May the Government of India announced that it had conducted three underground nuclear tests.
The presidency subsequently issued the following statement: ' The presidency expresses its dismay at the news of the Indian nuclear test which was carried out earlier today.
The European Union is fully committed to the implementation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which seeks to discourage the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
The European Union has a strong interest in the peace and stability of South Asia and is concerned about the risk of nuclear and missile proliferation.
The presidency is ensuring that the implications of this test are discussed by Member States at the Political Committee on 12 May' , which in due course took place.
<P>
The Government of India has today announced that it has carried out two further tests, which it says complete the planned series.
These tests have been carried out in flagrant disregard of international opinion.
This is a deeply unwelcome step which can only serve to destabilize security in the region.
The tests are contrary to the disarmament process to which the overwhelming majority of the international community are committed.
<P>
The Political Committee agreed that the European Union should make démarches to the Governments of India and Pakistan.
These are being carried out today.
The watchword in South-East Asia is that there must be restraint.
The European Union will continue to urge Pakistan and India to resolve their differences through bilateral dialogue. This offers the only realistic hope for a solution to the issues that still divide them.
<P>
There will be a discussion on the implications for European Union-India relations at the 25 May General Affairs Council.
At that Council the European Union will decide on its response.
But it must be measured and proportionate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Rocard">
Madam President, Minister, I only have two minutes and in two minutes one can only be brief.
The five nuclear tests India has just carried out - we have just learnt, in fact, that there were two more this morning after the three the day before yesterday - are exceptionally serious.
<P>
India is, in fact, in a situation of unresolved territorial conflict with two of its neighbours: one is China, a recognized nuclear power and the other is Pakistan, a potential and perhaps even clandestine nuclear power.
But China and Pakistan both signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the CTBT, in September 1996 in New York, although as far as I know they have not yet ratified it, and until now they have respected it.
This is therefore an act of defiance and a step towards escalation into nonpacific handling of the conflict.
<P>
It is extremely dangerous.
Unlike many commentators on this subject, Minister, I personally am not surprised.
India's explanatory speech when it refused to sign the CTBT was significant and premonitory.
<P>
India now has a vehemently nationalist government, whose establishment almost everyone here regrets, but the fact that it has been possible to carry out these five tests less than two months after that government came to power shows that everything was obviously ready and that the whole nation was committed.
<P>
India is a great country with a very ancient and remarkable culture.
One cannot visit India, as I have done, without learning to love it. Perhaps India is expressing the feeling that it has been forgotten or is despised by the international community, and its lack of confidence in the ability of the international community to conduct peaceful conflict-solving processes.
<P>
Many nations have reacted angrily, but also seriously and deliberately. However, the Russian Republic has been heard more or less to say, although I exaggerate, ' that sanctions should not be envisaged against India because it is a good customer' !
<P>
American strategic leadership of the world is in crisis. It is being made to look ridiculous by India, by Pakistan, which recently tested a missile, and by Mr Netanyahu.
<P>
Europe's responsibility, Minister, is therefore becoming overwhelming.
Are we capable of together imposing the required diplomatic and economic sanctions?
Are we capable of forcing France and the United Kingdom to launch the complete nuclear disarmament plan suggested by the Canberra Commission? That is the only thing capable of calming regional tensions in the Indian subcontinent, provided that major powers start it.
<P>
International events will not await our procedural hesitations.
Minister, the European Union's first great initiative in terms of foreign and security policy must be nuclear.
This is an emergency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 NAME="Smith">
Madam President, the agenda says that we will have a statement by the Council on nuclear tests in India followed by questions.
I, in my innocence, assumed from reading this that we were allowed to put questions to the Council.
I merely wanted to ask the Council to refresh my memory: did it voice the same dismay when France carried out the nuclear tests?
Did it condemn France for doing that?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 NAME="President">
Mr Smith, I assume that we both have the same agenda for today, and my agenda says the following: Statement by the Council on the nuclear tests in India, followed by questions, statement by the Council and the Commission on Kosovo, followed by a debate.
<P>
I have been informed that the groups have agreed to organize a debate instead of the questions and have therefore registered speakers.
I believe the matter has been discussed jointly in the groups.
I really am very sorry that I cannot now give you the floor to ask a question, but this is what has been arranged.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 NAME="Spencer">
Madam President, my group would wish to condemn these tests but we would recognise in so doing that this was a political explosion in response to a party political programme: and to that extent I agree with Mr Smith that it is actually very similar to the last French tests.
It seems to me therefore that it requires a political response.
<P>
It really should not be necessary to go around exploding bombs in the world in order to attract the attention of the international community, and I fear that for too long the European Union has shown a blindness towards South Asia.
It is not wise in my group's view to try to ignore a quarter of the world whether on nuclear issues or on climate change issues where India and China also play a key role.
<P>
I want to address two questions, if I may, to the presidency: would it consider convening a regional summit on security in South Asia?
This seems to me a more useful response than the American sanctions proposals, although I suppose the two might be conducted in parallel.
Secondly, will the President-in-Office come to the Foreign Affairs Committee at the end of this month, the day after the Council meeting to which he referred, since we will be discussing the André-Léonard report on the new European Union-Indian partnership agreement and our views on that might obviously be affected by what happens in the next few weeks?
I believe the British presidency has a key role to play in defusing what is an unfortunate incident before it becomes a regional disaster.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Malerba">
<SPEAKER ID=236 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Madam President, the five nuclear tests are not making the situation any more comfortable in the meantime, and are undermining the momentum for nuclear disarmament which has been in existence since the end of the Cold War, the signing of the CTBT and the extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
I dare say India is a threshold country, but it is also on the threshold of a dangerous instability in the region.
Mr Spencer is quite right when he says that it is not solely a military issue, but principally a political issue.
<P>
India should be reprimanded, agreed, but this reprimand must also act as a warning to other countries.
In recent agreements the countries in possession of nuclear weapons have committed themselves to nuclear disarmament.
We are not seeing much evidence of this, Madam President.
Instead, the United States is conducting subcritical tests and the START-II Treaty is not being ratified by the Russian Duma.
It is of the greatest importance that all nations concerned take part in the disarmament which is now finally able to take place.
Unilateral condemnation of India is not right, of course, but other countries concerned must indeed be warned by this incident.
Only through a joint approach will we be able to reach our goal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wurtz">
Madam President, the seriousness and irresponsibility of the new Indian Prime Minister's decision cannot be sufficiently emphasized.
It is likely to start a process with unpredictable consequences in a region where over a third of humanity lives, which has been the scene of several wars over the last few decades.
It is a challenge to the international community unworthy of the prestige that great country has earned in the past.
<P>
I believe the time has come to resume the debate on nuclear weapons and their permanent destruction in every country, without exception.
By signing the Non-Proliferation Treaty, declared nuclear powers have signed a solemn commitment, Article 6 of the Treaty, to work towards the achievement of that aim.
It is the prerequisite of radical, universal and controlled non-proliferation.
But, we are far from achieving it.
<P>
I should also like to take advantage of this House to appeal to all pacifist movements and personalities that share my conviction that the campaign for disarmament is still, or is now becoming, very urgent indeed.
Let us hold meetings.
Let us consider together what initiatives to take to express a strong protest against these tests and more generally to stimulate public opinion on the issue of peace.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Madam President, I believe that the nuclear tests carried out by India, now five in total, are indeed a big step in the wrong direction.
The whole region is in turmoil.
Look at the reactions from Pakistan.
China, too, has given a heavy response.
In addition, we are seeing that this decision is provoking many reactions throughout the world, and rightly so.
In that respect I am not entirely reassured by the words of the President-in-Office when he says that we should respond, but moderately.
I would like to say: let us respond clearly and through diplomatic means, and with specific economic measures.
In that context I think we should indeed take a thorough look at the cooperation agreement between the European Union and India, particularly as far as the transfer of sensitive technology is concerned.
I really believe we should look at how we deal with this, not least in the context of the report by Mrs André-Leonard.
<P>
Naturally, on the other hand, not enough emphasis can be placed on the hypocrisy of the five nuclear powers who have done nothing about nuclear disarmament, even though this was also provided for in the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
To point a finger at others who promote proliferation, something I naturally find extremely negative, without taking any responsibility oneself for disarmament, is, I regret, something that will no longer convince the world.
We will not become credible as a European Union, and this applies to both the United Kingdom and France, unless they take initiatives in this matter.
I have not seen anything of this kind so far.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Vandemeulebroucke">
Madam President, the five underground nuclear tests which India has carried out obviously caused a shock wave throughout the world.
The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is not applicable to India as it has not ratified the Treaty.
We should be honest, India feels threatened by Pakistan, by China, and is often right to feel this way.
<P>
The question is not only whether the fifteen countries of the Union will speak with one voice internationally, but also what we will be doing as from next week, when a vote is held in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy on the signing of the cooperation agreement.
The question then will be: what is our position? In other words, will we decide not to sign as long as India has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty?
At the same time this will also mean that we must pursue a much more active policy so that, as Magda Aelvoet has said, there will finally be an end to the hypocrisy of the nuclear countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Gollnisch">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the dissemination of nuclear weapons may cause one to feel anxiety, which is understandable, but it is no excuse for hypocrisy.
The President-in-Office, a British minister, is part of a government which has nuclear weapons, which is obviously quite agreeable when you do not want other people to have them.
<P>
We hear that sanctions are going to be taken against India by the United States of America, in the name of morality, of course as always, although the United States is the only country to have used a nuclear weapon against civilian populations, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Can you explain to me, Mr President-in-Office, why it is right, fair and decent in that area for China to have an unacceptable nuclear weapon, yet immoral and scandalous for India to have one?
Did the Communist Party, to which Mr Wurtz belongs, not welcome Stalin's acquisition of the atomic bomb, at the time?
<P>
Mr President-in-Office, do you not think that the solution to the problem of nuclear proliferation should be political?
We have to use the good relationships we have with all the parties involved to try, by mediation, to decrease the tension in the area.
Superpowers must not try to evade the rules of conduct they wish to impose on others.
The rest of the world will look upon anything else as an intolerable and hypocritical diktat.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
Madam President, it is a very serious matter that India has conducted these tests since this could lead to a new global nuclear arms race.
This situation clearly requires both political and public responses.
The EU must respond, not simply verbally but also in the form of action.
The citizens of the EU should do exactly what they did during the French nuclear tests, that is, to react with the instruments at their disposal.
<P>
The Swedish government has today, with immediate effect, halted a cooperation agreement with India amounting to SEK 900 million.
It is also important, however, to bear in mind that India's argument for not signing the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons was that it did not contain a paragraph on total nuclear disarmament.
This argument must today be directed back at India and utilized, if it really was seriously intended.
<P>
However, it is also important to remember that every nuclear power should be treated equally.
They are, in fact, currently contravening their undertakings to reduce their nuclear weapons under Article 6 of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
This is something we should also bear in mind when taking action against India's nuclear weapons tests.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
Madam President, since nuclear testing was resumed on Mururoa under the aegis of the French President Mr Chirac, it was of course to be expected that such conduct would be copied by countries in Asia and elsewhere.
We accepted the existence of nuclear weapons with a bad conscience at the time, Madam President, because of their deterrent effect.
That national pride should be attached to the possession of such a weapon is obviously completely mad.
It seems that nationalist politicians have been calming their consciences for a long time with the idea that national interest and national honour will justify everything.
Against this kind of politics our political ancestors at the time invented European integration against nationalism, because nationalism in fact means war.
These are things which have been said here before by people such as Helmut Kohl and Mr Mitterand.
That is why the European Union must be the first to condemn the dangerously macho behaviour of India.
It would be of great significance if the people of India were also to discover that their government has committed a blunder, and that it has not gained anything.
Because of financio-economic measures we must cooperate with countries which are capable of exerting financio-economic pressure, such as America and Japan, to see what our role should be in guaranteeing peace in this region.
I extend my good wishes to the Council, that it may be able to proceed with the speed and effectiveness hoped for in the Tindemans report, to respond well to these matters, and thus to play an acceptable and respected role on the world stage.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="André-Léonard">
Madam President, as rapporteur on the strengthened European Union-India partnership, I am particularly shocked by India's dangerous and incomprehensible attitude.
The five nuclear tests have changed the European Parliament's whole perspective on the strengthened partnership.
Our report aimed to be comprehensive and gave the necessary political support to the declared determination of both parties to make their cooperation more efficient.
India has just seriously breached the mutual confidence which had been built up over a number of years.
<P>
I will therefore encourage the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy to consider that current circumstances are no longer conducive to strengthening the partnership; on the contrary, they must lead to a temporary halt in the process until India has permanently stopped carrying out nuclear tests, has signed and ratified the Non-Proliferation and Comprehensive Test Ban Treaties and has begun to contribute actively towards improving relations between states in the region, more specifically with Pakistan.
<P>
On 25 May, the Committee on Foreign Affairs will have an opportunity to discuss this, within the framework of my report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Günther">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, like the previous speaker I find it extremely worrying that India has carried out these tests and that no criticism is coming from inside the country itself.
Given this fact, the sanctions which have been announced are more likely to result in an act of defiance than any sort of understanding that as a large, democratic country in the region India also has a duty to set an example to its neighbours.
<P>
A show of strength may achieve the desired domestic effect for the moment, but this will be far outweighed by the damage it will cause at international level.
A State which cannot solve the problem of poverty in its own country should not be seeking to enhance its domestic reputation through demonstrations of this kind.
<P>
The last thing we need in a developing country is an arms race.
Already, India spends 12.5 % and Pakistan 27 % of its budget on military expenditure.
In view of the arms race in the region, however, calling for India alone to put an end to testing would now seem to offer little chance of success.
The European Union must also ask itself whether, after the French tests in the Pacific, it did not sit back a little in relief rather than making energetic calls for more countries to join up to the existing Treaty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 NAME="Henderson">
Madam President, thank you for the chance to make a short response to the points which have been raised in this short but important debate.
<P>
I would like to say to those who raised questions that the points which have been highlighted will be considered as part of the agenda on 25 May by the General Affairs Council when it considers the Union's response.
<P>
There are two inaccuracies I wish to correct.
One is that there was a sense of neglect in India - I cannot accept that there has been any neglect by the Union.
Indeed, the presidency has had a political dialogue with India within the last month and a wide range of issues have been considered.
But even if there is a perception of neglect, I do not believe that this in any way justifies the act which the Indian Government has taken in carrying out those nuclear tests.
<P>
The second inaccuracy was a point raised by Madam Aelvoet who said that I had said that there would be a moderate response from the Council.
Well, I did not say that there would be a moderate response.
What I actually said was that there should be a measured and proportionate response and that is quite a different thing.
<P>
The important point of the debate is that it has been an opportunity for us all to focus on this subject, to think of the way in which the Union should respond and to suggest options so that on 25 May the Council can consider what action should be taken.
But above all we must make sure that we give proper regard to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and that these form the background to our discussion on 25 May.
<P>
Our main purpose should be to devise an appropriate response so as to have the maximum impact on the Indian Government and also to do our utmost to secure regional stability and restraint in South-East Asia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Agenda
<SPEAKER ID=247 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, the debates held this morning and during the course of this afternoon have drawn out somewhat, as you can see both from the agenda and the time.
This means that we now have to adjust the agenda for this evening. I would suggest the following order of business for this evening's session.
<P>
According to the agenda there is Question Time from 5.30 p.m. to 7.00 p.m.
I suggest that we continue the debate on EuroMediterranean co-operation, which we left unfinished this morning, after the evening recess at 9.00 p.m.
That would then be followed by the debate on Kosovo, the report by Mr Caudron on the competitiveness of European industry, the report by Mrs Mann on a European initiative in electronic commerce, then the recommendations for the second reading of the report by Mr Hendrick on a procedure for the provision of information in the field of technical standards and regulations, the recommendation for the second reading of the van Velzen report on operator number portability and carrier pre-selection and, finally, the report by Mr K. Collins on the labelling of certain foodstuffs produced from genetically modified organisms.
<P>
Does anyone have any objections?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=248 NAME="Titley">
Madam President, on a point of order.
I recognize the tremendous difficulties we have got ourselves into with the agenda.
Clearly, there is no point in having a statement on Kosovo and a debate several hours later when the Council, I understand, will not be here.
I should like to suggest that we have the statement on Kosovo from the Council and the Commission, we take one speaker from each group, as foreseen, and finish the debate there.
Those of us who are further down the list are prepared to sacrifice our position, provided we can get one statement from each group, so we can have a debate on Kosovo, finish it there, and then take Question Time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 NAME="President">
I have just quickly added up how much time that would take. I shall therefore propose a compromise to your proposal.
We shall ask the Council Presidency and the Commission to introduce the subject of Kosovo, and the debate will then take place later as I have suggested.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Madam President, Kosovo is currently one of the major political problems and major trouble spots in Europe.
We wanted to find another time to discuss the matter.
But we were told that it would be better to do it today since a Council statement was scheduled and the debate had therefore been arranged for today when we set the agenda on Monday.
<P>
Then yesterday at 5.00 p.m., when almost no one was in the Chamber, it was suddenly announced that today's agenda had been changed and now we find ourselves in a situation where the debate on Kosovo is due to take place after the debate on the nuclear tests in India has been squeezed in.
A statement from the Council which is not followed by a debate is nothing more than a Council press conference!
Why do we need a European Parliament if contributions to the debate are banished to the night.
Mr Titley's proposal really is the most acceptable compromise.
We are already very loathe to accept it, but what you have suggested is no compromise, it is simply the original proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=251 NAME="President">
Mr Posselt, that would mean that Question Time would be cut short.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Madam President, I have only one thing to say. Question Time has so often been shifted in the past because certain parties did not like the questions, that I would suggest the discussion on Kosovo should take place now.
That is simply the most logical solution. It is a burning issue for us.
And it is nonsensical that we should be dealing with a non-European matter instead of such a vitally important issue as the Kosovo question.
I would therefore strongly urge you to consider this solution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 NAME="Cars">
Madam President, on a point of order.
Today the Presidents of the Federal Republic and Kosovo have agreed to meet in Belgrade.
That, of course, has caused quite a new situation.
It would be ridiculous to discuss that situation without the presence of the Council.
I follow Mr Titley's suggestion that we postpone all of it, because there is no point in discussing this without the presence of the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=254 NAME="President">
Many thanks!
If I have understood what you just said correctly, we can proceed as follows: We will introduce the debate on Kosovo and the speakers from the various groups will be allowed their previously allocated times.
I would, however, ask you to stick to these times.
We will have the first round and the rest of the debate will have to take place this evening.
Question Time will, however, be cut by the amount of time - some 15-20 minutes - which we require to do this.
On the agenda, Question Time starts at 5.30 p.m.
It will, however, be cut short and at 9.00 p.m. we will return to the order of business as scheduled on the agenda.
If you are in agreement I will take that as being decided.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Kosovo
<SPEAKER ID=255 NAME="President">
The next item is the Council and Commission statements on Kosovo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=256 NAME="Henderson">
Mr President, thank you for the opportunity to take part in this debate on Kosovo.
I got into some difficulty with your colleague on questions before when there was an attempt to rearrange the agenda.
I hope he will understand that part of this understanding is that the length of Question Time will be reduced because of the debate on Kosovo.
<P>
There is an increasing spiral of violence in Kosovo which is deeply worrying.
Hardly a day goes by without reports of new confrontations.
The Serb security forces are undoubtedly entrenched.
Involvement of the Yugoslav army, until recently keeping its distance, is a further worrying development.
The deteriorating security situation further underlines the urgent need for a political process involving full and unconditional dialogue.
It is a sad fact that increasing violence makes the goal of unconditional dialogue that much more elusive.
<P>
However, as many will recognize, there can be no other way to resolve the crisis satisfactorily.
The Balkans, as we all know, has already seen far too much bloodshed.
The international community's rapid and firm response has sent a resolute signal that we are not prepared to see a return to the appalling acts which we witnessed in the Balkans at the beginning of this decade.
We have recognized that we were too slow to act in the past and we are determined not to make the same mistakes again.
<P>
The European Union has fully endorsed the measures taken by the contact group of countries which sent a tangible message to President Milosevic in Belgrade that the international community will not tolerate the brutal acts of repression and violence committed by his police and security forces in the province as at the end of February.
<P>
It is simply not credible for the Belgrade Government to justify such actions as legitimate counter-terrorist measures when so many women and children are victims.
At the same time, the European Union has made clear its firm opposition to the use of terrorism to achieve political goals.
It is now the case that the level of distrust between the two sides is such that for any process of dialogue to stand a realistic chance of succeeding, some form of international facilitation is clearly essential.
<P>
The European Union has therefore appointed Felipe González as its representative to the FRY to work in tandem with his mandate from the chairman-in-office of the OSCE as his personal representative.
Belgrade's response so far to Mr González' mission has been disappointing.
It continues to claim that Kosovo is an internal affair.
But we reject such claims.
There are serious human rights concerns and these have no boundaries.
The situation in Kosovo also poses serious risks to the security of neighbouring states and to the stability of the region as a whole.
<P>
The governments of those states which stand to be affected most, namely Albania and Macedonia, have taken a constructive approach to Kosovo which we very much welcome.
We recognize their concerns and will continue to work with them in exploring ways of preventing the situation in Kosovo from affecting their own security.
We have already increased the number of European Community mission monitors on the Albanian border with Kosovo and have also placed monitors in Macedonia.
<P>
It is our firm desire to see that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia takes its rightful place in the European family of nations and plays a full part in the international community.
President Milosevic has a clear choice. Choose the path of peace and reconciliation through dialogue or continue down the path of ever-increasing violence and confrontation and face continuing and deepening international isolation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=257 NAME="van den Broek">
Madam President, I gladly concur with the Presidency's plea.
I would like to add that the Commission is also strongly convinced that solely a dialogue and negotiations, with the involvement of international observers or those who can facilitate the process, will offer the chance of a solution. It is therefore unacceptable that President Milosovic continues to take the position that this is an internal affair, and that all interference from outside can be rejected.
But at the same time it also means there is a risk that the conflict will escalate further, particularly after President Milosovic organized a referendum with a predictable outcome in which the population also turned against international interference, to call it that.
Then the international community will be left with two choices.
<P>
The first is to step up the pressure.
The Commission is in the process of implementing the decisions made within the Contact Group with regards to blocking the foreign assets of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, whilst at same time also stopping investment aid.
A proposal of this kind will soon reach the Council.
<P>
Secondly, the Commission has also set out which positive measures President Milosovic could obtain in the event of his being actively prepared to cooperate.
I am thinking of the support we would like to give to the implementation of the education agreement which has been drawn up.
I am thinking of the humanitarian aid which is still being given despite Milosovic's political resistance.
<P>
But I am also thinking of the trade preferences which might be promised to Milosovic if he cooperates.
I am thinking of the technical assistance as part of the PHARE Programme which Serbia is not able to claim in the present circumstances.
I am also thinking of the trade and cooperation agreement which was offered to Serbia at the time, if they were to keep to the recommendations in the Gonzales report.
<P>
In other words, those who might feel that President Milosovic is not given any encouragement whatsoever to cooperate in a peaceful settlement of this conflict, should realize that there are plenty of offers on that point.
For that matter, I am also thinking of the American sanctions which could then be lifted.
And I am thinking of Serbia being readmitted to the OSCE and the United Nations.
In other words, a whole series of positive measures that could return Serbia to the framework of the international community, yet Milosovic's interest in Kosovo still seems to have the upper hand.
<P>
Mr President, I conclude by observing once more that the European Union, too, should accept its responsibility in taking precautions where the protection of the borders of Albania and the former Republic of Macedonia are concerned.
This is in fact the second precautionary measure the international community should take in this situation while there is the risk the situation might escalate further.
NATO is looking into the situation.
We know this.
We also think that the Western European Union should conduct an investigation and should come up with possible recommendations, so that we will not end up once again in a situation where we might have cross-border conflicts leading to great streams of refugees. The European Union might blame itself for not having prepared itself in time, let alone for not having taken measures against it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=258 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Madam President, thank you for accepting the compromise proposal put forward by Mr Titley against his own best interests.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Commissioner, in principle I can endorse today's two reports.
I would like, in particular, to underline the Commissioner's words on the subject of the plan, what I as a parliamentarian would call a "carrot and stick' approach, a plan which in all likelihood promises a positive outcome.
Not because we have any sympathy or support for Mr Milosevic, but because we must endeavour to do everything in our power to save the situation before the crisis escalates.
This is neither the time nor the place to go into the missed opportunities of the past.
<P>
On the other hand, however, it only makes sense if Mr Milosevic realizes what will happen if he follows a certain course of action.
And, Mr Commissioner, I would also like to lend my full support to your comments on the investment ban.
I believe it is true that the sanctions, which are hurting, have made time a more critical issue for Yugoslavia.
But sanctions only hurt if they are truly universal and are observed by everyone. Here the contacts with Russia are particularly necessary.
<P>
I would also like to endorse this plan on behalf of my group.
Sanctions must hurt, but on the other hand there must also be a pay-off, in the truest sense of the word, if Milosevic is prepared to operate a reasonable policy.
So our absolute support goes to Albania and FYROM.
I am delighted that the WEU has decided to become involved. This is linked to the report which we have already debated at some length.
We must use all the measures available to us.
I also believe that the joint deployment of police forces would be very significant since the Serbian police do not enjoy a sufficient level of confidence and trust amongst the Kosovo Albanians.
<P>
Finally, I also believe that it is very important that we talk to the forces in Bosnia. As far as they are concerned, nonintervention in Albania, in Kosovo and in FYROM is tantamount to an invitation to stir up the conflict again.
For this reason I would like to give my support to the reports and above all to the package of measures which the Commissioner has outlined.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=259 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Madam President, for some time now Mr Uschkin Hoti, a Kosovo Albanian professor and a great European, has been languishing in a Serbian jail because years ago he dared to suggest a European negotiated solution for Kosovo.
In our resolution we call for his immediate release and we should take what he says as a warning.
This is not the sudden escalation of a conflict. Kosovo has been the scene of systematic discrimination, torture, expulsion and even genocide for years.
<P>
1989 started with a quasi-coup by Milosevic abolishing the autonomy of Kosovo in breach of the then Yugoslavian Constitution.
Today we can be in no doubt that it is Mr Milosevic who must bear the principal responsibility for what is happening, which is not individual cases of infringements of human rights, but crimes against humanity.
For this reason I am very grateful to Mr Swoboda for Amendment No 3 in which he gives voice to this fact.
Crimes against humanity can never be a domestic matter, even less so than infringements of human rights.
In my view, the rightful place for Mr Milosevic and his thugs is before the tribunal in The Hague, not in the negotiating room.
<P>
There can be no doubt that we must strive for a negotiated solution.
So the policy of the carrot and the stick is undoubtedly the right one.
Sometimes, however, I have to say that I would like to see a little more of the stick.
First and foremost, we must be clear that it will be difficult to get the better of Serbia with sanctions - as Mr van den Broek said very clearly earlier. What we must do is leave Serbia in no doubt that, if this genocide continues, it will end up alienating itself from the international community, with all the resulting consequences.
<P>
We need not only international observers, we also need international peace-keeping troops to monitor the return to autonomy in Kosovo, leaving the Kosovo Albanians free to come to an independently negotiated solution with Belgrade.
In truth, I do not believe that the current murders will stop until we decide to impose our presence in Kosovo through observers, through the long-planned EU office and, if possible, through peace-keeping troops.
<P>
As the European Union we should not shy away from taking independent initiatives.
Of course we need the contact group, but we should not allow ourselves to become hostage to it.
Anyone who followed the meeting of the G8 Foreign and Finance Ministers in London saw how the G8 collapsed because Russia was completely unprepared to back the measures. In other words, Moscow is choosing to turn a blind eye to the genocide.
We must be clear that this is quite clearly affecting the work of the contact group.
Which is why, in addition to the contact group, we also need to project a clear and unambiguous voice from the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=260 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cars">
Madam President, according to information I have received from Belgrade, an agreement was reached last night, with US mediation, between Presidents Milosevic and Rugova. Under this agreement, they are to meet in Belgrade and there, in private and without a prearranged agenda, they will discuss the framework for continuing intensive negotiations at lower levels.
I am surprised that Mr Henderson neither made any mention of this nor even appeared to be informed of it: in any event, he made no comment about it.
<P>
I believe that a very significant step has been taken here.
Milosevic has thus accepted that the Kosovo question is a federal issue and not merely a problem within the Serbian province.
Rugova, for his part, has renounced the demand for international participation in the negotiations - at least as far as the meeting in Belgrade is concerned.
I feel that Mr Holbrooke can be congratulated on his achievements.
The Council of the European Union and Mr Henderson will presumably be informed in due course of any concessions he may have had to make in order to bring about this agreement - in the form of reduced sanctions, for example.
<P>
The armed conflict in Kosovo that was mentioned by Mr Henderson has escalated.
For example, two police patrols were recently attacked, one of them in Pristina itself.
The road between Pristina and Pec has been blocked off, there are reports of artillery shelling of Kosovan villages, and new victims are being claimed every day.
Under these circumstances, the events there must be regarded as a low-level war, which poses a threat to peace and security throughout the region.
<P>
Clearly we hope that the negotiations between Milosevic and Rugova on freedom and autonomy for the Kosovo Albanians will result in a reduction, or better still a cessation, of hostilities.
We cannot be sure of this, however.
There is a risk that one or other of the parties in the conflict (or both of them) may want to exploit the negotiation situation or demonstrate against it by escalating the violence.
<P>
I know that I can rely on support from Parliament in urging the parties to refrain now from violence and in demonstrating through our actions that we wish to give both the negotiations and the peace a chance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=261 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
<SPEAKER ID=262 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Madam President, I think the people of Kosovo are as worthy as the people of Montenegro. They should therefore be given a charter which matches this, but obviously within the confines of the new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
I fear that without a formula of this kind no definite peaceful settlement will be possible. It is true, the acute problem is getting people around the table and getting them to accept that international mediation is appropriate.
In that respect, both parties have allowed opportunities to pass.
I fully support the comment that human rights and the rights of minorities can never be reduced to an internal affair. For that matter, the entire situation over there proves that there are immediate consequences for neighbouring countries; think of Macedonia, Albania, and how they respond to it.
<P>
Secondly, I believe that, if we are talking about both encouragement and sanctions, we will have to be careful as far as sanctions are concerned. They must hit Serbia and not Montenegro as well.
It is difficult to carry out some economic sanctions towards a federation without all the parts of that federation bearing the consequences. This while Montenegro has a far more open attitude; and I believe firmly that Montenegro's offer should be incorporated in such a way that a solution is sought within the federation, and that everything is not made dependent on Serbia alone.
<P>
There is one specific point I would like to draw attention to. This is the problem of the presence of Albanian migrants and Albanian refugees in the Member States.
We all know that quite a few of these people are involved in buying and supplying arms which end up in Kosovo.
On that front many Member States are failing to seize a great many opportunities to gain contact with these Albanians, to organize meetings with them, and to show other perspectives and make these possible.
This is not an idealized picture; a meeting like this took place in Germany with great success.
I think it would be very useful if, on this point, we were to try, as part of common policy, to give some proper direction to the difficult but real potential of the Albanians from Kosovo who are with us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=263 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I have a number of questions.
There are a number of strange factors which make it seem possible that the UCK's activities are in fact a giant stratagem, manipulated, organized and orchestrated by Belgrade.
Do the Council and the Commission have any information on the subject?
Do they intend to carry out an enquiry into this question?
<P>
Mr President-in-Office, you say that the Belgrade government is no longer credible.
Could it ever have been credible with Mr Seselj amongst its members?
<P>
Question three. As Mr Posselt said, the Kosovan leadership has sometimes shown certain weaknesses.
A number of its members, who are in prison, are nevertheless very important, intelligent people, whom we have been able to meet, to discuss things with.
They have been tried and sentenced under conditions one can only imagine.
In particular, Mr Hoti has shown that he has quite clear ideas about the future of Kosovo and the future of relationships between Kosovo and Serbia.
Have the Commission and the Council taken any steps to secure the liberation of Mr Hoti and other political prisoners in Kosovo?
<P>
Question four. The European Union has a habit of intervening when a crisis has already broken out.
Is it not time to take measures before a crisis, to work to establish the logistics of a peacekeeping and a peacemaking force, to send observers directly to the borders between Albania and Kosovo and between Macedonia and Kosovo, and in any event, to prevent the Belgrade government from continuing to manipulate the situation?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=264 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tatarella">
Madam President, fellow Members, the crisis in Kosovo - a consequence of the fibrillation to which the former Yugoslav world is still prey - risks, as in the case of Bosnia, turning into a tragedy, with its resulting ethnic cleansing and counter-cleansing.
<P>
The National Alliance delegation considers the real popular revolts which occurred in this region to be more the consequence of the illiberal and despotic regime in power in Serbia than a real desire to reunite with Albania on the part of the population of Kosovo which is of Albanian origin and culture.
However, the real supporters of European Union are overcome with a sense of helplessness when they consider that once again - faced with the prospect of an ethnic, and not only ethnic, war that could erupt in a region very close to us - Europe is finding it hard to be a valid interlocutor between the parties.
In fact an interlocutor, to be credible, also has to throw its political weight on the negotiating table and the possible consequences of the failed agreement between the parties.
<P>
And here we come to the crux of the problem with regard to the European Union, which, until it has a common foreign policy, no one, or almost no one, will have any weight to settle the conflicts, including those closest to its borders.
And thus we read about the attempts of the American mediator, Mr Holbrooke, who is meeting with the Serbian President Milosevic and the Albanian President while Europe is still discussing whether the crisis in Kosovo is an internal crisis of the Serbian Federation or can become a battle between States.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the National Alliance delegation considers that the institutional reform relating to the voting mechanism in the Council can no longer be put off, and therefore that unanimity must be abolished for foreign policy decisions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=265 NAME="President">
The debate is adjourned.
<P>
It will continue this evening.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Question Time (Council)
<SPEAKER ID=266 NAME="President">
The next item is questions to the Council (B4-0464/98).
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, we are starting this Question Time 30 minutes later than stated in the agenda we all approved.
Now, just as we are about to start, and bearing in mind that we cannot extend this debate beyond 7.10 p.m., I am being asked to allow two points of order.
I will permit them, because the Rules of Procedure say that I should do so.
However, I would ask you all to remember that the time used up on points of order detracts from the time available to people who have questions to ask.
<P>
Mr Sarlis, you have the floor on a point of order for one minute at the most.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=267 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Sarlis">
Mr President, I am a registered speaker on Kosovo so please tell me when the debate will continue.
I understand and respect the fact that questions must take place, but you must tell us when we will talk about Kosovo since it is not possible - and I have been in the European Parliament for 9 years - to strike off speakers who have been announced and who have been approved by the party.
Please tell us the time during which the debate on Kosovo will continue and I hope that the President-in-Office of the Council will be able to organize his trips and his return accordingly so as to be present during the debate.
But if he is not present we must still carry on with the debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=268 NAME="President">
Mr Sarlis, please listen to me.
You were here when we approved the agenda.
It is not the Presidency's fault that we are behind schedule.
The debates will be resumed this evening at 9 p.m.
At the moment, Mr Sarlis, all I can offer you is the chance to start Question Time, two minutes later now than it already was.
So, Mr Sarlis, the debate will continue from 9 p.m. this evening.
<P>
Mr Dupuis has the floor on a point of order.
You have one minute.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=269 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Just a few words, Mr President.
In fact, I think there is some mistake, because we agreed that there would be a mini-debate with representatives of the groups and therefore an introduction by the Commission and the Council, a statement of the views of the various groups, and a reply by the Council and the Commission.
Otherwise, it would not make sense.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=270 NAME="President">
Yes, Mr Dupuis.
But you should raise this question with your group chairman, because it was not the Presidency which organized this debate but the chairmen of the various groups.
At the moment, all I can do is manage the time allocated to me.
And we are already behind schedule.
I can assure the honourable Member that I have spent the last 30 minutes waiting to begin Question Time.
I would ask you to raise your disagreements about the organization of our work with your group chairmen, because they are the ones who set the agenda.
The Presidents of the sittings only try to implement what they have been allocated. And sometimes, like now, we have the problem that you are not happy because you have been unable to contribute, and the Presidency is unhappy because of having been unable to start at the proper time.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, I now consider the matter closed and we shall begin questions to the Council, as I said, 33 minutes late. We shall be unable to recover all the time we have lost, because Mr Henderson has to leave, and we Members of this House have other commitments.
<P>
Question No 1 by Mrs Ulla Sandbæk was to have been taken over by Mr Bonde, in accordance with the Rules of Procedure.
However, since he is not here, the question lapses.
<P>
Question No 2 by Lyndon Harrison (H-0388/98)
<P>
Subject: SMEs' participation in the Single Act
<P>
Does the Council believe that the long-awaited Late Payment on Commercial Debt Directive and the recently published Venture-Capital Programme for SMEs will encourage these vital, job-generating agents to participate more decisively in the Single Market?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=271 NAME="Henderson">
Late payment inhibits the competitiveness of small and medium enterprises and acts as a barrier to small businesses participating fully in the single market.
The Commission transmitted a proposal for a Council directive to combat late payment in commercial transactions and presented its proposals at the Industry Council on 7 May.
The Council looks forward to discussion of the directive at a working group meeting before the end of the United Kingdom presidency.
<P>
The Luxembourg job summit of 20-21 November welcomed the initiative of the European Parliament on the strengthening of budgetary resources earmarked for employment and invited the Commission to make formal proposals, for speedy adoption by the Council.
On 21 April the Council gave its political backing to a package of up to ECU 420 million over three years for three strands of measures, including a venture capital facility run by the EIF to be targeted at an early start-up stage at SMEs with high growth potential.
<P>
The Commission has produced a draft paper on risk capital and job creation in the European Union, analysing the venture capital market across the European Union in comparison with the United States and concluding with an action plan outlining further work required at both Member State and European level.
The Council hopes that these measures will boost in particular the small and innovative firms which are so vital to growth and employment across the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=272 NAME="Harrison">
I am very grateful to the President-in-Office for that very positive reply because I know that the British Government has made this a priority for its six months.
It may not be achieved now but I hope that it will be carried over to the Austrian presidency and brought to fruition, because this question of late pay really is the scourge of small businesses throughout the European Union.
<P>
Only recently, indeed this week, we have had the latest Grant Thornton report which demonstrates the enormous payment periods which still afflict small businesses in the southern states of the European Union.
But even in the United Kingdom half of invoices are still paid late.
50 % are deliberate and SMEs wait 50 % longer than big businesses to receive their pay.
If we can unlock this problem for small businesses in the European Union, the dividends in terms of jobs and getting our people back to work will be absolutely enormous.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=273 NAME="Henderson">
I would like to thank my honourable friend for his supplementary.
It is a very important issue.
There are many small companies throughout the European Union who have believed that there are contracts that they could well take on but are often deterred from doing so because they feel that they will not be paid in a reasonable time period; therefore they would end up with very difficult cash flow problems which could in some extreme examples put their businesses into bankruptcy.
<P>
If one wants to improve competitiveness generally within the European Union, which I would hope we all would want, this is an important area which we should tackle.
I hope that the draft directive will go a long way to improving the climate in which these small businesses operate and lay down clear guidelines to the larger sectors of the market that when they take on contracts with small businesses they should make the payments with in a reasonable period.
If they do, and if this directive helps them to do that, that will go a long way to improving competitiveness by boosting the small company sector.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=274 NAME="Hardstaff">
I would like to welcome the President-in-Office's response to my colleague's question but pick up the part about venture capital.
This is a huge problem for small businesses.
The European Union says a great deal about its support for small and medium-sized enterprises, but it is exactly such a company in my constituency that has been having great difficulty in accessing money from the European Investment Bank precisely to expand and provide additional jobs in an Objective 5b area.
I would ask the President-in-Office if he could give me some assurance that it will be made easier for such companies to access such funding.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=275 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Hardstaff.
<P>
Mr Henderson, as you can see, this Question Time is getting off to a good start because everybody is congratulating each other.
Let us hope you continue to receive just as many congratulations throughout the hour and ten minutes we have available.
Would you like to reply to Mrs Hardstaff's question?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=276 NAME="Henderson">
I thank my other honourable friend for her further supplementary - which I think covers another aspect of this.
It does raise the important point that, given the initial difficulties that small and medium-sized companies have, which were highlighted by Mr Harrison, they have to have an assurance or a belief that they will be paid on time.
If they cannot raise the capital to finance a particular project which might involve additional investment then, even if they thought that the contract would be deliverable, and even if they thought that they would get paid, they might not be able to put enough cash up front to be able to make perhaps a minor modification to their equipment, or whatever, in order to be able to fulfil the contract.
Therefore any measure which helps a small company to be able to tap into venture capital is a very desirable measure, and I hope that we will be able to push this as far as we can, making the necessary progress to be able to give that additional support to the small company sector throughout the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=277 NAME="President">
Question No 3 by James Nicholson (H-0390/98)
<P>
Subject: Disparity between the pound sterling and the Republic of Ireland punt
<P>
Does the Council recognize the disadvantageous trading position being faced by Northern Ireland traders at present as a result of the serious disparity between the pound sterling and the Republic of Ireland punt and will the Council give a view on when the present position can be alleviated and whether it will act to ensure equal and fair trading between both jurisdictions?

<P>
<SPEAKER ID=278 NAME="Henderson">
The Council recognizes the importance of exchange rate stability for the effective functioning of the Single Market.
As recognized by the 1997 broad economic guidelines, sound macro-economic policy management creates the conditions for stable exchange rates within the Community.
<P>
Member States reaffirmed their commitment to pursue stability-oriented economic policies at the Ecofin meeting on 1 May.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=279 NAME="Nicholson">
Mr President, I would also like to welcome the President-in-Office here today and thank him for his answer - brief though it was.
<P>
The reality of course is that the difference between the pound and the punt has been as great as 22 %.
As Northern Ireland is the one part of the United Kingdom that has a land frontier with another European Union country, that difference is immense.
It is affecting retailers and petrol stations and is putting people out of jobs in the border areas between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and is causing very serious damage to traders in that particular area.
<P>
I particularly wonder if the President-in-Office or his government or, indeed, the Council, would consider commissioning a study into the effects of this.
We are now approaching the time when the single currency will be introduced in the other Member States.
Taking into account the fact that the United Kingdom is not going to be part of that single currency and the Republic of Ireland will be, will he undertake to have a look at the damaging effects this will have on retailers and all the businesses in Northern Ireland, even though it is a crystal ball gazing exercise at this stage?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=280 NAME="Henderson">
The honourable Member raises an important point which clearly is felt by his constituents.
The exchange rate differences between the punt and the pound will have always had an effect on the border area between the Republic and Northern Ireland.
I can remember not so long ago when the relationship was quite the reverse.
<P>
I can reassure him that Ecofin is committed to monitoring the way in which exchange rate movements take place as we move into an era of the single currency and its relationship to the other currencies it affects.
<P>
I can also say - and this is not a matter for the Council - that the British Government itself will be monitoring the way in which there are movements in the economic situation between single currency countries and the United Kingdom. That would obviously include the Republic of Ireland and the Northern Ireland part of the United Kingdom.
That is part of the process of monitoring the degree to which any convergence takes place.
<P>
The honourable Member will know that it is the stated aim of the United Kingdom Government that there should be a period during which convergence could take place between the economy that is determined by the pound currency and the economy which is determined by the single currency.
<P>
So there will be a monitoring by Ecofin.
But additionally, the United Kingdom Government will be conducting their own analysis.
That analysis they will, I am confident, raise in Ecofin, which will help to build part of a pattern for the Council to monitor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=281 NAME="President">
Question No 4 by Felipe Camisón Asensio (H-0393/98)
<P>
Subject: Creation of a European agency for safety in civil aviation
<P>
What information can the Council provide on the possible creation of a European agency responsible for safety in civil aviation?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=282 NAME="Henderson">
In December 1996 the European Commission made a recommendation for a Council decision authorizing the Commission to start negotiations on establishing a European Aviation Safety Authority.
Since then the Council has been actively considering the issue.
<P>
The Council recognizes the need to achieve a high uniform level of aviation safety in Europe and therefore supports EASA's establishment.
Council bodies are carrying work forward on the assumption that the Safety Agency will take the form of an international organization based largely on the joint aviation authority system.
Interested parties recognized at European level have been consulted and support the quick establishment of such a safety agency.
The Transport Council is expected to consider a decision on a negotiating mandate at its June session.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=283 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Camisón Asensio">
<SPEAKER ID=284 NAME="Henderson">
I thank the honourable Member for his supplementary.
It is a very obvious point. It is a matter that has to be subject to the consideration of the Council.
There is a view that it needs to be as wide as possible so that the highest safety standards can be monitored, scrutinized and agreed over that wide area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=285 NAME="von Habsburg">
I should like to ask the President-in-Office whether at the conference, which as he said, is going to create such an agency, consideration will also be given to safety inside the aircraft.
For many years now there has been a decision that you could only take one piece of hand luggage into the aircraft.
I fly a lot and have noticed that this is not respected by most airlines.
It is one of the main factors of aircraft insecurity in the event of accidents or difficulties.
Does he intend to take steps to ensure that this particular problem is included in the negotiations and in the preparations for the agency?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=286 NAME="Henderson">
It really is a matter which should be for the airlines.
I know that I have been a sinner in that regard on a number of occasions: I have tried to take too many bags on and sometimes I have been told by the airline to leave the bag at the steps and it gets put in the hold.
This is one of the issues which could be covered by the Safety Agency.
The intention is that it would be responsible for all areas of aviation safety - specifically aerodromes and air traffic control - but it would certainly also cover the area suggested.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=287 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, as a pilot I myself am often in the air and it occurs to me that, contrary to what we may imagine, with Eurocontrol in particular, interfaces often do not meet safety standards.
I believe we need new standards legislation in this area to form the basis for a single European agreement based on the same software and hardware platforms.
<P>
Secondly, GPS has brought us new opportunities in navigation.
Not too long ago I was in Moscow where we will be getting another system in the form of GLONASS.
This heralds the start of a new era in navigation.
To what extent will this new agency's remit include setting safety standards for future projects?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=288 NAME="Henderson">
The honourable Member has raised a very relevant point.
I would certainly hope that the remit of the Safety Agency would cover responsibility for looking at the impact of new technology in many areas of aviation safety, and a capacity to make recommendations on the testing of new technology and on requiring higher safety standards to be met.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=289 NAME="President">
Question No 5 by Alan Gillis (H-0395/98)
<P>
Subject: Money laundering
<P>
Given the illegal activities of non-resident registered companies in Ireland what action does the Council intend to take within the context of European anti-drug policies to persuade the Irish Government to close these companies which the government has admitted are involved in money laundering activities?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=290 NAME="Henderson">
A Council directive on prevention of the use of the financial system for the purpose of money laundering has been place since 1991.
The Commission draws up reports on the implementation of this directive at regular intervals and submits them to the European Parliament and the Council.
The Commission has not so far submitted any proposal to change legislation on money laundering.
<P>
As for the specific question put by the honourable Member, the problem to which it refers has not been discussed within the Council's bodies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=291 NAME="Gillis">
I would like to thank the President-in-Office.
I am very disappointed that this very important issue is not further up the agenda.
One could almost call it an outrage, in fact, given the hundreds of thousands of EU citizens - most of them very young people - whose lives are being completely destroyed by the drug barons who make themselves vast fortunes, assisted very often by inadequate company legislation.
Most of these young people go to a very early grave.
<P>
We in Parliament have made the whole drugs issue a top priority.
In view of this, I should like to ask the President-in-Office: does he not think that he should also make money laundering and the fight to combat drugs and drug trafficking a top priority, bearing in mind that the European Union has almost no borders now and there is free movement for these traffickers?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=292 NAME="Henderson">
I agree very strongly with the point the honourable Member raises.
Undoubtedly there is a link between the provision of drugs for drug abuse and money laundering from the profits of drugs and, indeed, sometimes securing the finances to purchase them in the first place.
I would say to him that if he believes that there is some way that current regulations are not being applied, he should draw this to the attention of the authorities.
<P>
The presidency has made the whole question of combating this trade in drugs and allied activities like money laundering a top priority.
The European Conference set up an experts' group to look at how drugs could be combated across a wider area than just the European Union but also covering the countries which wish to accede to the European Union, some of which are often involved as transit countries from the source of drugs and are therefore linked in with the provision of the financial resources to purchase them or get profits out of them.
<P>
It is a top priority and I am sure that the Cardiff Summit will want to address this issue.
It has been a high-profile issue.
It is very much a people's issue - parents and others throughout the whole European Union are terrified that their children might come into contact with drugs and end up as drug abusers.
I have no doubt that they will give full support to action the European Union - or any of the nation states within the European Union - can take to combat this evil trade.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=293 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
I was the rapporteur on enlargement in Eastern Europe and internal security.
What we are currently seeing is that, due to the large privatization programme, coupled with uncertainties in terms of law and order, large scale money laundering is going on in countries wishing to accede to the Union, in some cases the laundering of money which comes from the European Union and is then transferred back to it.
Does the question of money laundering have a role to play in the structured dialogue with the countries of central and eastern Europe and in the preparations for accession?
This issue was introduced into my report by Mr Schmid of the Social Democrats.
Countries wishing to accede to the Union must take energetic measures to counter money laundering prior to accession.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=294 NAME="Henderson">
The honourable gentlemen is absolutely right that there is and should continue to be a dialogue between the Union and the countries that wish to accede to the Union on the whole question of combating this trade in drugs and the allied problem of money laundering.
<P>
I hope I can also reassure the honourable Member by highlighting the fact that as part of the screening process, there is a need for those countries which wish to accede to the Union to meet the Union's acquis.
That covers the banking system; and one of the elements of the banking system which is important in this is to follow banking regulations which, in very simple terms, require people to identify the source of large sums of money which they are depositing in the banking system.
I do not know whether that applies already in some of the countries which wish to accede to the Union.
It may in some areas, it may in some banks.
But, as a banking unit, that will form part of the screening in the banking area and can be an important protection.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=295 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schmid">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the European legislation on money laundering to which you referred earlier does not apply in Gibraltar, does not apply in Jersey, does not apply in Guernsey, does not apply on the Isle of Man - though all of these are British sovereign territories - and does not apply in small countries such as Andorra, Monaco and the Vatican State.
Has the Council discussed how these loopholes, which are very important in practical terms as they represent the central concentrations of money laundering in Europe, can be closed?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=296 NAME="Henderson">
I do not wish to respond about the specific territories that were referred to by the honourable Member.
Without prior notice and a detailed analysis of the situation in each area, that would be wrong.
However, in general terms, I can say that it is very much in the interests of those offshore banking sectors that they meet the normal regulations that apply internationally.
If they are found not to be meeting those standards, there will be a loss of confidence in their ability to fit into the rest of the world banking system. That would deprive them of a lot of deposits they would find attractive.
<P>
For instance, I know that on the Isle of Man strong efforts have been made to make absolutely clear that the level of regulation required there is the same as would be required in the City of London.
You can argue about the adequacy of the City of London's regulation; but the Isle of Man authorities, as one example, are very keen to ensure that is the case.
In Gibraltar too measures have been taken by the government to make sure they were able to reassure any potential investor that the same kind of international standards in banking applied there as applied elsewhere.
<P>
So there is an awareness by those authorities, for their own commercial interests, that they meet international standards.
That should be a reassurance for investors and should also be a deterrent for any potential money launderer who thinks he can have an easier ride there than in one of the banking systems within the main part of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=297 NAME="President">
Question No 6 by David Bowe (H-0400/98)
<P>
Subject: Environment Council of 23 March 1998
<P>
Is the Council happy with the outcome of the Environment Council of 23 March 1998?
If not, why not?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=298 NAME="Henderson">
I am happy to report a very satisfactory outcome from the Environment Council of 23 March.
The Council reached four common positions, agreed four sets of conclusions and made good progress in a number of key areas such as climate change and air quality.
This work should make a valuable contribution to improving the quality of life for people in Europe.
A good part of this success was due to the availability in good time of Parliament's opinions, thanks to the work of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection of which I know the honourable gentleman is a member.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=299 NAME="Bowe">
I thank the President-in-Office for his compliments about the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
I will relay them to my colleagues.
I would agree with the Council's analysis of the first meeting of the Environment Council during this presidency.
It is an excellent step forward in shaking off the last vestiges of the image of the UK in particular as the 'dirty man of Europe' .
<P>
However, I would like to ask what else - this is only the first step - will the presidency be doing or does it think it has already done during this presidency to achieve more in the field of the environment and completely sweep away this image of the UK as being 'the dirty man of Europe' ?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=300 NAME="Henderson">
I thank the honourable Member for his question.
The presidency and the Council at this time have taken the whole question of environmental improvement as a top priority.
In addition to the points to which I have already referred in my initial answer, I am also pleased that common positions on three directives on landfill, emissions from light vans and emissions of volatile organic components from certain industrial processes have been agreed.
There is now, I understand, an opinion from Parliament on those matters.
<P>
The Council also agreed conclusions on climate change which assess the outcome of the Kyoto Conference last December and set out the main priorities for work to be done on emissions trading and other matters before the next conference of the parties in Buenos Aires in November.
These are all important pieces of work which have been done to improve our environment throughout Europe, and I hope they will give a bit of momentum to the whole question so that the work can be carried on by the honourable Member's committee and, indeed, by future presidencies of the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=301 NAME="McIntosh">
I should like to welcome the President-in-Office to this other place and ask him if he shares my concern that the informal Council of Environment and Transport Ministers have indicated their desire to introduce a kerosene tax which would have dramatic effects on air travel?
Would the minister not accept that, in fact, air transport is probably one of the cleanest, most environmentally friendly ways of transporting people and goods across Europe and that it would be wrong to target air transport in this way?
Would he not also agree that imposing a kerosene tax, which I understand is the desire certainly of the Environment Department in the United Kingdom and others across Europe, would have a very detrimental impact on what is an environmentally friendly form of travel and on the local economies and those employed at airports and by airlines?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=302 NAME="Henderson">
It is always a great pleasure to receive a question from the honourable Member, whether it is in this Chamber or in another place.
I know she takes a keen interest in the matters we are discussing.
<P>
There is no question of the Union targeting a particular sector of economic activity and requiring that sector to make a larger contribution than other sectors to environmental matters.
The important principle is that all sectors of economic activity should, on all occasions, carefully monitor and scrutinize the environmental impact of anything they do.
Indeed, the Treaty of Amsterdam requires the Union to take cognizance of that in any of its measures.
<P>
I hope I can reassure the honourable Member that, at the moment, the matter to which she refers is a proposal.
All the various agencies which will be examining this proposal will be looking at what the effects are to see if the desired result would be likely to accrue.
When we have further analysis and further consultation, then I will be in a better position to be more definitive.
I am sure that the honourable Member will come back again, if not in this place then in another place, with a similar interrogation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=303 NAME="Martin, David">
I know Miss McIntosh has to divide her time between two parliaments these days but I wonder whether she is aware that at lunchtime today this Parliament voted against the concept of a kerosene tax and the Labour Members of this Parliament supported that position on the advice of Her Majesty's Government.
I wonder whether the minister would welcome that decision?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=304 NAME="President">
Mr Henderson, you have the floor if you would like to reply to that question.
You have the right to reply or not to reply.
I invite you to take the floor, but this question goes beyond the precise scope of the original question.
So it is up to you to decide whether or not to reply to Mr David Martin's comment-cum-question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=305 NAME="Henderson">
Mr President, I cannot resist one of your invitations.
I say to the honourable Member that I was not aware of that decision, but it is something that will be taken into account by the Council in its deliberations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=306 NAME="President">
As they deal with the same subject, the following questions will be taken together:
<P>
Question No 7 by Pedro Marset Campos (H-0405/98)
<P>
Subject: Situation in Palestine
<P>
In view of the unacceptable behaviour by the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Netanyahu, during the recent visit by the EU Minister-in-Office, Mr Cook, does the Council not think that the European Union should adopt a firmer attitude, irrespective of the consequences, and demonstrate clear support for the Oslo peace agreements and the UN resolutions by urging Israel to comply with all UN and UN Security Council resolutions?
<P>
What action is the Council planning to take in order to ensure that the Israeli Government adopts and complies with the UN resolutions?
Question No 8 by Sören Wibe (H-0414/98)
<P>
Subject: Economic sanctions against Israel
<P>
The conduct of the UK Foreign Secretary, Mr Cook, on his recent visit to Israel/Palestine was extremely courageous.
The Israeli Prime Minister, however, showed no will to negotiate and acted very arrogantly.
<P>
Does the Council not consider that more practical action must be taken against Israel, possibly in the form of economic sanctions, to persuade them to respect the peace agreement?
<SPEAKER ID=307 NAME="Henderson">
The Council's approach to the Middle East peace process is firmly based on international legality, including United Nations Resolutions 242, 338 and 425.
The Council has, over the years, constantly been urging Israel to comply with these resolutions.
The Council believes firmly that the Oslo process and the principle of land for peace represent the best prospect for a solution offering justice for the Palestinians and security for the Israelis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=308 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Marset Campos">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, thank you for your answer, but I think it is inadequate, for the following reason. The State of Israel was created 50 years ago, and it is also 50 years since the UN committed itself to the Constitution of the State of Palestine.
<P>
Israel has a great ally - the United States, with its lobby - whereas Palestine should get special help from us, both for the sake of peace in the Middle East and for the sake of the future of the Mediterranean.
<P>
Does the Council not think the European Union should make more of a contribution, in order to have - as has always been the case - a vision of solidarity and scrupulous compliance with international legislation, in the face of Prime Minister Netanyahu's actions, which place constant obstacles in the way of this peace process?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=309 NAME="Henderson">
I very much agree with the point raised by the honourable Member that there is a need and it is proper that the European Union should be involved.
Indeed, it has a responsibility to try to do what it can to resolve the various differences in the Middle East.
I cannot recall being at any Council meeting over the last year when there has not been a discussion of activities which could be undertaken on behalf of the Union to try to make a contribution to the peace process.
<P>
During the presidency there have been two visits to the Middle East, the second by Prime Minister Blair, resulting in a conference in London at which there was an attempt to take the peace process further.
The conference in London was important because it re-established the dialogue.
There is now an opportunity for a further dialogue to take place at the invitation of the American Government.
As I understand it, the remit which has been issued by the American Government is broadly acceptable to President Arafat.
At the moment steps are being taken by both the American Government, with the support of the European Union, to try to persuade Mr Netanyahu to also take part in those talks.
We have been aided by our special representative who has undertaken a lot of hard work on behalf of the Union in the Middle East in the recent past.
<P>
It is crucially important, given that we are the largest donors of aid to the area, that we also exercise our political obligation to try to help the peace process and continue to put the maximum pressure on the parties involved to try to broker a settlement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=310 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wibe">
I would like to thank the President-in-Office both for his reply and, above all, for the British Presidency's efforts in this area, which I truly appreciate.
However, I still wonder - like Mr Marset Campos - whether rather more concrete measures are perhaps needed, in the form of political or economic pressures on Israel, in order to persuade it to take part in the peace process.
<P>
I would like to ask a concrete question: Has the Council during its presidency, for example, requested or demanded of Israel that it should permit the millions of Palestinian refugees who for generations have lived in refugee camps outside Israel to return to their former homeland?
Has it, for example, also required of Israel that it should return the Palestinian properties that were stolen from the Palestinian people in connection with the 1948 war?
<P>
I believe it is this type of concrete requirement that needs to be made in order to persuade Israel to modify its current dangerous behaviour.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=311 NAME="Henderson">
I thank the honourable Member for his question.
On many occasions during this presidency the Council has tried to put pressure on the parties in the Middle East, including Prime Minister Netanyahu to try to persuade them to take action on the issue to which the honourable Member refers and indeed many other issues.
<P>
It is important to make progress little by little, if that is the only way that progress can be made.
Many who are involved or who have a knowledge of the circumstances recognize that there really has to be the kind of dialogue that tackles simultaneously the various political and economic questions so that there are steps forward as part of a package to which all the parties are committed.
<P>
The problem of trying to put emphasis on one part is that progress on a piecemeal basis is not always permanent and often leads to a situation in the near future where there is a regression from any advances that have been made.
That is why there is a need for a wider dialogue involving the political and economic issues.
We have been urging the Israeli Government to take part in this latest American initiative.
At least the dialogue is back - to some extent - on track after the London talks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=312 NAME="President">
Question No 9 by Anna Karamanou (H-0411/98)
<P>
Subject: War scenarios in children's electronic games
<P>
According to a recent investigation by the Greek newspaper , the war industries have found suitable territory for expanding their business enterprises in the games market with the aid of simulation technology.
Using war scenarios and simulated battlefields, children are trained in the techniques of war, the use of violence, in cunning and guile in order to become the 'super-warriors' of tomorrow.
The deserts of Iraq and Kuwait are the settings for games such as Desert Tank, Super Battletank, M1 Abrahams and Desert Strike in which the players are called on to drive tanks and pilot helicopter gunships and destroy the hideouts of the 'non-Christian terrorists' .
<P>
What measures will the Council take to protect the minds of children from all such profiteers and warmongers and how will it intervene to pass on to the new generation European peaceful values and a rejection of war and violence as a means of resolving differences?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=313 NAME="Henderson">
The Council has been examining two proposals on related subjects.
First a draft decision for a multi-annual Community action plan on promoting safe use of the Internet.
The action plan would promote several measures against violence and illegal material on the Internet including, firstly, systems for labelling or rating material according to its level of violence, for example.
Parents would be able to use the so-called filtering programmes which can block access to material which has been labelled as violent.
Secondly, hotlines for Internet users to report illegal material and enable law enforcement authorities to prosecute its originators.
Thirdly, other awareness-raising measures so that parents know what tools are available for protecting their children.
The Council is also examining a proposal for a recommendation on the protection of minors and human dignity in audio visual and information services.
The proposal recommends that Member States voluntarily establish national frameworks for the protection of minors in the fields of broadcasting and on-line services, in particular by encouraging the parties concerned - users, consumers, businesses and public authorities - to take part in developing and implementing measures for that purpose.
It also recommends the establishment of self-regulatory frameworks and codes of conduct at national level for on-line services.
I hope that the Council and the Parliament can continue to work closely together on both measures to make sure that they are adopted as soon as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=314 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Karamanou">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, from your answer I gained the impression that the issue is not being faced with the attention its seriousness demands.
It is not possible to treat as insignificant the fact that the education of the younger generation of European citizens has literally slipped out of the grasp of institutional bodies and is now in the hands of profiteers, especially those who benefit from the cultivation of violent behaviour among the young, and those who through video games and CD-ROMs - and I am not simply referring to the Internet - essentially involve our children in war scenarios and literally teach them war techniques, I would say, à la Ancient Sparta.
Every day we are witnesses to the increase in the violent behaviour of children and in criminality and I think that the Council must come up with more serious measures than just advice. I thing that the existing legal system at the level of the European Union does not cover the issue, which I regard to be of vital importance.
I also think that few markets are as dangerous as those of video games. There is a relevant article in the January 1998 Economist which, Mr President-in-Office, I would recommend that you study.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=315 NAME="Henderson">
I thank the Honourable Lady for her supplementary question.
I think she gives further emphasis to the need to take action.
I cannot really add to what I have already said on the action.
It is practical, but I know that there are many millions of people throughout the European Union who feel very strongly about this.
That is why it is important that we come forward with proposals to do what we can in a practical sense to try to create a better environment for technologies such as the Internet.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=316 NAME="Elliot">
<SPEAKER ID=317 NAME="Henderson">
The honourable Gentleman raises two important points.
There is a very real point about parents being able to take action on the Internet to block material which they do not want their children to see.
I find it difficult to operate a video properly, and I usually have to get my son to show me how to work it, but that is very simple technology compared to the Internet.
It is a very real point, and maybe local public authorities could be offering parents advice on how they might come to grips with the technology.
<P>
On the question of what should happen to those who are the perpetrators of material which is in contravention of the law: if it is in contravention of the existing law, then it should be reported to the authorities, and it would be up prosecuting authorities throughout the Union to decide whether or not there was a case which they could take to court.
As to whether or not the situation changes after the Amsterdam Treaty, there is a further onus on the Community to make sure that any action it takes is non-discriminatory, and that is something which will be borne in mind in any activity that we take as a Union to try to counter the effects of some of those damaging products which are on the Internet.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=318 NAME="President">
Question No 10 by Hans Lindqvist (H-0416/98)
<P>
Subject: Harmonized EU eco-labelling
<P>
Sweden is well endowed with reliable eco-labelling systems, having three of them, namely Bra Miljöval, Svanen and KRAV.
Eco-labelling has achieved a success in Sweden that is unparalleled in other EU Member States.
This is the result of conscious efforts by the environmental movement to stimulate demand for eco-labelled products and of the great interest shown by increasing numbers of consumers who are committed to protecting the environment.
<P>
The EU is preparing to prohibit Swedish eco-labelling schemes.
There is a new proposal for a directive, pursuant to which only the EU's own eco-label, the flower, will be permitted.
Independent eco-labelling schemes, such as the Swedish Nature Conservation Society's Bra Miljöval, are to be banned.
Despite the substantial efforts made since 1992, the EU scheme still has no more than a handful of licensees.
Its drawbacks are so great that it has not been attractive to licensees or consumers. Environmental organizations will reportedly no longer be guaranteed places in the Commission's consultative forum.
<P>
In view of this, what will the Council do to stop the Commission changing things for the worse in relation to the environment?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=319 NAME="Henderson">
One aim of the Commission's proposal for the division of Regulation 880/92, which established a Community eco-label award scheme, is to ensure greater consistency and complementarity between that scheme and other schemes operating within the Community.
<P>
The proposal does not seek to prohibit other schemes operating at a national or regional level.
Rather, the effect of Article 11 of the proposed new regulation would be that within five years national schemes should be limited to those product groups for which there were no criteria established under the Community scheme.
<P>
The working group of the Council has held an initial discussion of the proposal, attended by representatives of the Commission, and this was one of the issues on which a number of Member States expressed concern.
There are no plans at present for further discussion of the proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=320 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
We have, of course, only today discussed a report on this question in Parliament.
During that discussion, Parliament backed demands that no deterioration should be permitted in the national regulations as a result of the introduction of EU regulations that are to apply throughout the territory of the EU.
It was stated very clearly that it must be possible after a period of five years to guarantee that the Community's eco labels are at least as rigorous as the labels used in the best of the national eco-labelling programmes.
<P>
My supplementary question is: Does the Council support this decision of Parliament, and what other conclusions does the Council draw from the extremely positive debate that has taken place in Parliament today?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=321 NAME="Henderson">
As the honourable Member will know, and I thank him for his question, there has not been the necessary support in the Council for a similar proposal.
<P>
Whether or not the Council would accept modifications which are suggested by the honourable Member's committee is something that I cannot comment on at this time - it was only adopted today.
But it is something which is before the Council and it will be for the Council and the Member States to make an assessment of the impact of the proposals on the general scheme of things and to see whether or not their original reservations have been met.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=322 NAME="President">
Question No 11 by Maj Theorin (H-0417/98)
<P>
Subject: Common military defence
<P>
The issue of common military defence and immediate integration of the WEU into the EU has been removed from the Treaty of Amsterdam, whereas humanitarian, peacekeeping, early warning and conflict-solving tasks have been considered to be important matters of common interest.
In spite of this, proposals concerning common military defence are constantly referred to Parliament.
Does the Council consider that common military defence will become a reality in the near future?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=323 NAME="Henderson">
After ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty, the new Article 17 of the TEU will stipulate that 'the common foreign and security policy shall include all questions relating to the security of the Union, including the progressive framing of a common defence policy, in accordance with the second subparagraph, which might lead to a common defence, should the European Council so decide' .
<P>
Subject to the adoption of such a decision by the Member States 'in accordance with the respective constitutional requirements' , the new Treaty therefore describes common defence as a possibility left open for the future under the conditions set out in the article.
Upon entry into force of the Treaty this text will define the parameters of the Union's handling of the question of common defence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=324 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
Thank you for answering my question.
The Council's representative is absolutely right in stating that this is what the Treaty says, and it also says if the Council so decides .
That these words have been introduced since the Maastricht Treaty is, of course, also due to the fact that there are a series of countries in the EU that do not currently back a common defence policy.
And many have also made it clear that the Treaty of Amsterdam as it stands means that the question of a common defence has now been put aside for some time to come.
This applies to the UK, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, Austria and Finland, all of whom say that they are not prepared to enter into a common defence policy in its present form.
<P>
As I interpret the situation, the Council's reply to my question is therefore that a common defence policy is not on the agenda for the near future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=325 NAME="Henderson">
I would like to thank the honourable Member for her question.
I hope I can reassure her that the Council has currently a capacity to debate foreign and defence policy and, indeed, does so on many occasions.
But the articles to which the original question referred was a matter of common defence.
<P>
The position which was adopted in Amsterdam is a position which is acceptable to all the countries within the Union.
It is one which allows a debate, it is one which allows as much common action as is practical under the Petersberg tasks, where there is a need for activity to relieve a crisis or whatever.
<P>
The question of military defence is something which has to be determined in another forum.
There are different views on that matter.
There are different associations within the European Union on defence matters and I foresee in the near future no change in that regard.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=326 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Henderson.
We have exactly 5 minutes left until the deadline we agreed on.
I propose a joint reply to Questions Nos 12 and 13.
I am sure that with your customary conciseness and the discipline of Mr Newens and Mr Gahrton, we will be able to finish at 7.10 p.m. as agreed.
<P>
As they deal with the same subject, the following questions will be taken together:
<P>
Question No 12 by Arthur Newens (H-0419/98)
<P>
Subject: Iraq - UN Agreement
<P>
Would the President-in-Office make a statement on the way in which the recent agreement between the United Nations and Iraq on site inspections for weapons of mass destruction and for increases in the supply of food, medical and humanitarian aid is working out in practice?
Question No 13 by Per Gahrton (H-0455/98)
<P>
Subject: The Iraq embargo
<P>
At an EU conference on humanitarian aid to Iraq held in early April, a member of the Commission, Mrs Bonino, directly attacked the Iraq embargo on the grounds of its anti-humanitarian impact.
<P>
Does the Council share Mrs Bonino's view that the embargo is doing more harm to the innocent than to the Saddam régime?
Is it prepared to initiate action to alleviate or lift the embargo?
<SPEAKER ID=327 NAME="Henderson">
UNSCOM's inspections of sensitive sites began again on 6 March.
All went ahead with full Iraqi cooperation, albeit with some bureaucratic delays.
Inspections of presidential sites followed shortly afterwards on 26 March and 4 April, proceeding without any major difficulties.
The United Nations humanitarian aid programme under Security Council Resolution 1153 will not come into force until the government of Iraq has submitted a distribution plan to the UN and that plan has been agreed by both sides.
<P>
Food and medicines have never been subject to sanctions.
Under the UN humanitarian oil-for-food programme, the Iraqi government is able to export large amounts of oil to fund the purchase of humanitarian goods.
Following the UN SecretaryGeneral's recent recommendations for improving the oil-for-food scheme, Iraq will be able under the next phase of the programme to more than double the volume of its oil exports to USD 5.3bn over a six-month period.
<P>
The recent European Union meeting, which discussed the humanitarian situation in Iraq, demonstrated the continued commitment of the European Union and the international community to do all it can to help the Iraqi people.
Regrettably, this commitment is not shared by the Iraqi regime.
The regime has ample resources available to it under the UN humanitarian programme but chooses not to use them to help ordinary Iraqis.
The EU will continue to support the efforts of the UN to persuade the government of Iraq to deploy the resources available to it to best meet the needs of the Iraqi people.
The conditions for lifting the UN sanctions regime against Iraq are clear: when Iraq complies with all the relevant UN resolutions, sanctions can be lifted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=328 NAME="Newens">
Does the President-in-Office accept, nonetheless, that the agreement made with Iraq by the United Nations Secretary-General has not led to any real increase in the level of imports of food and medical supplies, which are only at about a level of a third of the volume imported prior to sanctions, occasioning great hardship and many deaths which, of course, are partly the fault of the Iraqi dictator?
<P>
Will he take up through the appropriate channels the serious bureaucratic delays occasioned by the United Nations Sanctions Committee and also the exclusion of a large number of items, including things like microscopes, eye glasses, spatulas, thermometers and vaseline, which cannot be considered as military supplies and are hitting the most vulnerable sections of the population, not Saddam Hussein and his particular clientele?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=329 NAME="Henderson">
I thank the honourable gentleman for his question but I have to say to him that it is Saddam who is using children to play politics.
The capacity has always been there for the Iraqi Government to have food and supplies for oil. That was reinforced in the agreement brokered by the Secretary-General of the UN.
The opportunity is still available if Iraq meets the very reasonable terms which have been laid down.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=330 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gahrton">
The Council's representative says that it is Saddam who is using children to "play politics' .
All of us here are, I am sure, convinced that Saddam's regime is a repugnant dictatorship, but surely it is rather too easy to blame everything on this regime.
There are, as we all know, reports from numerous humanitarian organizations, which in no way support the Saddam regime, about the dreadful consequences that have ensued as a result of the boycott.
<P>
My question was prompted by the fact that Commissioner Bonino has also realized that the effects are dreadful.
Nevertheless, is it not the case that the Council must take into account the real effects of the boycott and not simply blame Saddam?
I would therefore like to pose the following question: Precisely what conditions need to be fulfilled?
How are we to know that Iraq has fulfilled all of the UN's conditions? How will we ever be able to prove that there is not a single illegal weapon in Iraq?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=331 NAME="Henderson">
While thanking the honourable Member for his question, may I say to him that the food and medical supplies for oil are available because the Council and our international allies in the United Nations are aware of the potential impact on a society of not having access to those important commodities.
That is why every effort has been made to enable Iraq to purchase the necessary equipment and supplies.
It is Iraq that has chosen not to meet the very reasonable conditions which have been laid down and reiterated by the UN Secretary-General in his recent proposal with the Iraqi Government.
The facility has always been available.
It is still available and it is up to Iraq to respond to a very reasonable position on behalf of their people who are desperately in need of those supplies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=332 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Henderson.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, since the time allocated to questions to the Council has now expired, Questions Nos 14 to 38 will be dealt with in writing.
<P>
That concludes Question Time.
<P>
I would like to thank Mr Henderson.
<P>
Mr Papakyriazis has the floor on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=333 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papakyriazis">
Mr President, the point of order I want to raise is obvious. I wish to express my concern and make a protest, since we did not have the time to examine more questions.
I naturally understand your position and fully respect it, but this is the reality.
I also take into consideration the fact that a debate such as the one on Kosovo is a very serious reason for this delay.
However there is a point at issue, and I hope that you realize this. I would like to ask a question which is not simply rhetorical but fundamental: if I consider that my question is timely and serious and, given that its debate has been adjourned for this specific reason, can I bring it up again at the next sitting?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=334 NAME="President">
Mr Papakyriazis, I have two things to say.
Firstly, the agenda is set at the meeting of group chairmen.
So I would be grateful if you would address your complaints about the agenda to your representative at those meetings.
This Presidency had to wait half an hour today before being able to start Question Time.
So I would be extremely grateful if you would address any comment you might have on the matter to your group chairman, since I am only responsible for the implementation.
<P>
The second point is that if you withdraw your question you can reformulate it.
But if you do not withdraw it, it will be answered in writing, as I said earlier, within the next 48 hours.
So, Mr Papakyriazis, you have the choice of receiving a written reply within that period, or of withdrawing your question. In the latter case, it would be entered for Question Time again, but I can give you no guarantee that it would be dealt with here in this Chamber.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 7.15 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Euro-Mediterranean cooperation (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=335 NAME="President">
The next item on the agenda is the continuation of the joint debate on oral questions to the Council and the Commission on Euro-Mediterranean agreements.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=336 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sakellariou">
Mr President, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, this morning's news headlines ran as follows: "Palestinian in Jerusalem stabbed by Jewish extremists and bombing of southern Lebanon by Israeli air force with four civilians dead' .
<P>
Such is Mr Netanyahu's style of peace process.
Let us not deceive ourselves: the peace process between Israel and Palestine has reached a deadlock, if indeed it exists at all any more.
The Oslo Agreement, the foundation of this peace process, is no longer being respected by the Israeli government.
We must take note of this fact as it has a drastic effect on the whole EuroMediterranean Partnership.
At the beginning of the Partnership we tried to separate the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership from the peace process.
I hope that it is now clear to everyone that this is not possible.
If we want to make progress in the EuroMediterranean Partnership we must get involved in the so-called peace process.
Then, when Israel and Palestine are negotiating, we must have a say.
<P>
A second point which has concerned us recently, and which is also closely linked to the Barcelona process, is Algeria.
The European Parliament delegation has, as I see it, opened a door of dialogue with Algeria.
This Parliament now also sees many things in a new light, particularly as our colleagues who were there and who have presented us with a detailed report have now been able to correct a considerable degree of false information.
We must proceed resolutely down this path.
We must seek cooperation with our colleagues in the Algerian National Assembly and assist them in continuing the process of democratization in Algeria, which was begun successfully by means of the elections.
We cannot do much but we should be prepared to do what we actually can do, which is to help Algeria by taking on its concerns, by being prepared to work together with the Algerians, for example by fighting terrorism, not in Algeria but in our own States, in Europe.
So far we have been very negligent in this area and we have allowed terrorism to flourish here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=337 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Dimitrakopoulos">
Mr President, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, this is indeed an important sitting of the European Parliament, insofar as it is concerned with the future and the significance of the MEDA programme and its relevant aspects.
There is no doubt that both this programme in its entirety and the relevant MED programmes are an important - perhaps the most important - tool for the success of Mediterranean policy. This is a policy - and you, Mr VicePresident of the Commission, have said it yourself on many occasions this morning, and I agree with you - which faces problems, mainly due to the fact that there are flashpoints in the important area of the Mediterranean.
There is no dissent, on the contrary I think that there is agreement in this Chamber, that the MEDA programme must not only move forward but must also cover the largest possible spectrum with regard to the Mediterranean.
Nor is there any doubt that the contribution of the MEDA programme to finding political solutions, together with what can be achieved through the MEDA programme, may be significant.
<P>
However these flashpoints, in Turkey, in Cyprus, in the Middle East and in Algeria, which typify the Mediterranean at this moment, cannot be tackled simply using financial means; political solutions and political proposals are necessary.
I direct this remark to the Council.
It is not enough to complain about the fact that problems exist.
It is not enough to realize that we are often not present.
We must go one step further.
We must put forward proposals and these proposals can be put forward.
We often speak about the Middle East question and we will speak about it on many more occasions. It is an important issue.
However it is not enough just to ascertain that there is an issue, we must put forward concrete proposals to cover not only the bilateral relations between Israel and Palestine, but the remaining countries in the region such as Syria, the Lebanon and Jordan. These are countries which are important factors in peace and stability in the Middle East.
We speak about Algeria and we will speak about it on many more occasions, and I agree with Mr Sakellariou that the European Parliament has opened a large door. It is now in the hands of the Council and the Commission alike - and, Mr Commissioner, I welcome the fact that you have sent a group to Algeria - to turn this opening to practical advantage.
It is not enough to say that Islamic fundamentalism is an anathema.
We must find the right way to combat it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=338 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayiannakis">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, today, as in 1972, we are proposing general cooperation or financial aid for the Mediterranean, this time of course at somewhat higher levels.
<P>
Now, as then, however, in the wider Mediterranean region, political issues and claims are emerging in the face of which the European Union continues to be helpless or inconsistent, cowardly or absent, even though now of course it is proposing some vague dialogue.
Nevertheless, in Algeria it is being sought, in the Western Sahara it is absent, in the Middle East it is essentially a spectator, and in Cyprus it is politically downgrading its original constructive involvement. Towards Turkey at times it takes "a tough stance' without any obvious effect, and at other times it tolerates the unacceptable interference of this country in the internal issues of the European Union, such as with the recent singular veto which Turkey imposed on Community programmes on islands inhabited by Greeks.
<P>
I do not need to go on.
I think that as long as there is no real common foreign policy to guarantee security, integrity, peace, freedom and co-development, today's attempt will run the risk of failing in the same way as the attempt in 1972, which we called "Overall Mediterranean Policy' , somewhat ironically perhaps.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=339 NAME="President">
I would inform you that I have received seven motions for resolutions, submitted pursuant to Article 40 of the Rules.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=340 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, I just want to reply briefly to what was said this morning.
Do not lose sight of the fact that, when all is said and done, the Euro-Mediterranean programme of the Barcelona Conference is barely two years old. Such a long-term programme as the creation of a free trade area is going to take much longer than that, and these two years have been the initial phase, with a lot of teething problems.
<P>
As I said before, do not forget what the situation was like before, and where we are now.
<P>
In the first year of the MEDA programme's implementation, the European Parliament decided to establish a negative reserve of 20 %.
Last year it was 10 %.
This year there is no negative reserve.
<P>
Also, the decentralized cooperation programmes for the Mediterranean, which had caused problems, have been relaunched.
In other words, we now have the MEDA programme completely operational for the first time.
A lot of things are still not working properly, of course, but the important thing to know is that the programme has now reached cruising speed.
<P>
Furthermore, we cannot overlook an obvious aspect, which Mr Sakellariou and the rest of the speakers have mentioned.
While the lack of peace in the Middle East continues to contaminate the Barcelona process, we can work properly on the second pillar, that is, the association agreements.
However, we cannot work properly on the first pillar - security, peace and stability, confidence measures and the Mediterranean Charter - for obvious reasons.
As for the third pillar - sectorial conferences and civil society - our work is very difficult. As you know, last year we had to cancel at least three sectorial conferences because some people came but not others, and some people would not come if certain other people did.
<P>
So this is a very serious matter.
I hope that between us, on 6 June at Palermo, we will be able to resolve this situation.
What the European Commission is trying to do is precisely to separate the Barcelona Conference from the ups and downs of the peace process, because all the while people are reproaching each other, it is very difficult to get on with the day-to-day work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=341 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Marín.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
Voting will take place at 12.00 noon tomorrow.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Kosovo (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=342 NAME="President">
The next item on the agenda is the continuation of the debate on the statements by the Council and the Commission on Kosovo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=343 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, I rise, not in the normal way to contribute to the debate, but because earlier this afternoon the debate on Kosovo was curtailed and there was a certain degree of chaos because we were trying to get the statements from the President-in-Office of the Council and from the Commission, and contributions from Members of the political groups.
<P>
During that melee Mr Cars asked a question of Mr Henderson, the President-in-Office, about a meeting he had heard about between Mr Milosovic and Mr Rugova to try and resolve some of the problems in Kosovo.
Mr Henderson was not able to respond to that point by Mr Cars.
He has asked me to confirm that such a meeting will be taking place and that the presidency has, late this afternoon, issued the following statement:
<P>
' It is good news that Milosovic and Rugova will meet face to face on Friday.
This meeting has been made possible by the sustained pressure from the EU, the contact group and others in the international community on both sides over the last two months for a meaningful dialogue to begin.
We have all called for President Milosovic to line up clearly behind the necessary political process.
We now look to both sides to make full use of this opportunity for constructive political dialogue, particularly to the authorities in Belgrade, given their primary responsibility as a government to seek a negotiated solution.'
<P>
I am sure this Parliament will respond enthusiastically to this news as it is exactly what we were pressing for.
Mr Henderson has asked me to indicate that he apologises for not replying directly to Mr Cars, but this was a consequence of the circumstances.
<P>
But I understand that this single meeting in Belgrade will be followed by negotiations in Pristina within one week and that there will be weekly meetings thereafter.
Therefore this is a major breakthrough in the dispute.
It is exactly what Members of the European Parliament were demanding.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=344 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Sarlis">
Mr President, for the second time I must protest about the way in which the debate on Kosovo was handled.
For reasons I am unaware of the debate on Kosovo was curtailed since questions had to follow.
I do not wish to attribute responsibility to your colleague, who had the presidency of the Parliament, but in any case someone is to blame or someone is not doing their sums correctly when it comes to the time available.
It is not possible to have issues extended, in this case the problems of India, and for us, who have been registered by our groups, not to be able to speak.
<P>
In the first place I must say that the speech by the President-in-Office of the Council did not tell us of the meeting which is to take place on 15 May between Mr Rugova and Mr Milosovic, and I must say that at least our colleague here is conveying to us what some of us in the Chamber already knew, in other words that this meeting had been decided upon.
I am delighted that the European Union helped to achieve this meeting but I wonder why Mr Hamilton gave no hint as to the efforts being made to bring it about.
He also forgot to mention that the person who was the creative force and the prime mover was not the representative of the European Union, Mr Gonzáles, but Mr Holbrooke, the American special envoy, who arranged the meeting between Mr Rugova and Mr Milosovic.
I think - and I address myself to the Council, which is naturally not listening - that we should at least protect Mr Gonzáles, a very successful Prime Minister, from being appointed representative and intermediary, and the two sides should not deal with each other and make contact through Mr Gonzáles, but operate via the American intermediary.
Of course the meeting is a new development in the right direction, but I must say to you that there are still bloody episodes in Kosovo.
Another constructive development is the decision of the Western European Union in Rhodes, where the Foreign Ministers and the Ministers of Defence of the Western European Union unanimously said that, on the one hand, the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia must not be maintained, while in parallel terrorism must stop and the Yugoslavians must do something to bring about some fundamental dialogue.
In addition the proposals put forward by the Western European Union must have support.
Words are not necessary, nor is the deception that is being perpetrated against the European Parliament on the part of the Council.
I will finish, so that you do not strike the gavel, by saying that, in his speech, Mr Van den Broek was very constructive and very modest.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=345 NAME="President">
I would inform you that I have received seven draft resolutions, submitted pursuant to Article 37 (2) of the Rules.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Competitiveness of European industry
<SPEAKER ID=346 NAME="President">
The next item on the agenda is the report (A4-0138/98) by Mr Caudron, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the competitiveness of European industry (SEC(96)2121 - C4-0025/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=347 NAME="Caudron">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is often thought fashionable to bemoan the supposedly poor performances of European industry.
Having reached the end of my report, which I began a few months ago, I can and will say that this is not fair and, indeed, it is in many ways very unfair.
<P>
Of course, this evening, at the end of all this work, there is no question of my not being aware of or not mentioning our weaknesses.
I will mention five of them in particular.
The first is the inadequacy of our investment, both public and private, in recent years, which has undoubtedly curbed both innovation and gains in productivity in our industry.
Our second weakness is our serious shortcomings in the area of information technology and in the production of computer goods as well as in biotechnology.
Our third weakness is a tax system which is cumbersome, often unfair and which often curbs competitiveness in our industry.
The fourth is European industry's poor visibility regarding its competitors, be they American or Japanese.
The fifth is for example the great difficulty which all of our societies have in adapting to all technological change, and this applies to all sectors and all people.
<P>
These problems are important and require, both on the part of the European Union and on the part of the Member States, the adoption of clear, readable and simple measures which are timed appropriately.
In my report I propose some of these, basing them on two main areas.
<P>
The first of these areas involves the changes necessary in the environment of European industry, for which I have seven proposals.
<P>
First, the implementation of a global economic policy for the European Union, coordinating the economic policies of the Member States.
Of course this is already underway but we can do a great deal more in this area.
<P>
Second, the coordination of fiscal policies, particularly in order to fight against all forms of fiscal dumping and all other forms of deregulation.
<P>
Third, the modernization of our Member States' public administrations in an effort to achieve administrative efficiency, which is undoubtedly one of the key factors in improving the business environment, and to return to a genuine notion of public service.
<P>
Fourth, the strengthening and improvement of the Internal Market in line with the advent of the euro which, as we all know, will play a very important role and will at the same time be an excellent lever of European citizenship.
<P>
Fifth, the European society statute, which must at last be removed from the midst of the decision-making network in order to further the constitution of large European groups, large industrial groups.
<P>
Sixth, a commercial policy for the Union which would no longer be embryonic and which would, in particular, allow our competitors in the rest of the world to respect the rules of international competition.
<P>
Seventh, finally, and without putting in doubt our drive in favour of small and medium-sized enterprises, we should not forget that, like small and medium-sized enterprises, large companies have an important role to play in the development of the world economy, nor should we forget that research and technological development depend to a high degree on large companies who alone have the means to place themselves at the forefront of the research/development process.
<P>
The second area involves proposals which affect the internal adaptability of the company.
<P>
First, the introduction of information technology on a massive scale.
The computer must become a universal tool in relations within a company, between companies and between business and the public.
<P>
Second, the issue of training. Greater consideration must be given to this, particularly by company managers; furthermore, it would be possible to integrate this training into the procedures currently under discussion with regard to reducing working hours.
As for these arrangements for reducing working hours, we are aware of the debate which divides us to a certain extent and I, personally, would like to say that if, in my capacity as rapporteur, I cannot support the GUE's amendment on this issue, then as a French socialist I support Amendment No 4 of the Confederal Group of the European United Left.
<P>
Third, businesses must be capable of adapting to the market fluctuations to which they are subjected.
Incidentally, the solution, which involves quite simply eliminating regulations in order to make the labour market adaptable, this solution or these proposals are neither realistic nor socially acceptable and I believe that we can only give businesses the chance to adapt if and when salaried employees are guaranteed a solid base of social entitlements and assurances regarding the sharing of the benefits of growth and progress.
<P>
Finally, as a fourth and last point, as product life cycles are becoming increasingly short, protection by means of patents in Europe must incorporate new data.
A rapid reform is required here.
<P>
These, ladies and gentlemen, are the results of my own reflections and of our joint efforts, both in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and via the Internet, which helped me a great deal in drafting this report.
I do not claim to have done a revolutionary piece of work; I hope simply to have brought the debate forward and to have widened it, to have removed it from the traditional confinement of 2 or 3 points which are ideologically difficult or too difficult.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=348 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank Mr Caudron for his excellent proposals.
European industry still represents production processes, professional skill and experience at the highest level.
Scientific and technical know-how are also top-notch, but we lag behind in information technology, and especially in the area of applications and content.
So training, brainpower and diversity will also be essential elements in economic competitiveness.
For this reason, we must pay special attention to the development of training schemes, support for teachers and creating an innovative environment.
High level research in Europe also needs to be improved in terms of effectiveness, so that we do not lose our researchers, for example, to the hard cash research institutes and universities of the USA.
<P>
Increased competitiveness in industry and improved productivity cannot really happen at the expense of cutbacks and flexibility in the labour markets.
Europe will not be competitive as long as it is struggling with the problem of unemployment, which is a waste of human resources.
Europe's strength lies in the diversity of its peoples and cultures.
We have better education systems, equality and social security.
These are the basis of a sustainable information society.
<P>
The production of content in the information society is the area of business that is developing fastest.
Europe should set up multiform and flexible networking bases, where content industries could be developed through invention, innovation and research. They should be simultaneously both local and global.
<P>
Productivity in the European economy seems to hinge very much on the investment stage.
Public sector investment has, in particular, been at a staggeringly low level.
The Commission should put forward a proposal to create a framework for a new European industrial policy.
I expect guidelines based on measures to promote public and private investment.
We must also be able to target action and risk financing at those innovative sectors of industry that are creating jobs.
Similarly, the burden of taxation has to shift from the shoulders of the workforce to such areas as, for example, speculative currency dealing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=349 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Carlsson">
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Caudron on the open-hearted manner in which he has accepted points of view and incorporated them into his report, which we in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy have considered at length and with great care.
I would also like to express my appreciation of the efficiency and prudence he has shown in seeking the views of industry and also being influenced by these views.
<P>
I would also like to congratulate the Commission on the sound and straightforward account that we now have of the situation we find ourselves in.
Competitiveness needs to be analysed at global level, precisely as the Commission has done.
It is also important to discuss the competitiveness of European industry because it provides the basis on which we build a large part of our prosperity.
The greater part of the EU's exports are industrial goods.
Industry has a decisive role to play for large sections of the knowledge-intensive service sector.
<P>
We in the PPE group are satisfied that there is agreement on the analysis of the importance of a good operating environment and incentives.
At a time when changes are occurring at an ever increasing pace, a long-term, predictable and sustainable regulatory framework is an essential prerequisite for an improved commercial and industrial climate.
In our view, additional investments, special rules for certain sectors and a selective economic policy are ineffective and costly and will, in the long term, destroy entrepreneurial activity.
<P>
The structure of tax systems, employment legislation and infrastructure in the broadest sense are crucial for growth, employment and competitiveness.
At the very least, this means that the present barriers to growth in small companies must be removed.
Structural reforms are required.
Globalization of the economy increases the need for reforms.
<P>
As previously mentioned, most of the amendments tabled by our party grouping were adopted. However, we would like to have seen greater emphasis placed on the importance of better functioning markets, in which measures against the distorting impact of state aid and monopolies must be intensified.
Exposure to competition must increase with improved observance of public tendering and privatization, along with continued liberalization and deregulation of markets.
I am saying this because it is important for the business sector as a whole, as well as for industry.
<P>
The problems are well charted and the Commission's document, which we welcome, is an important piece of homework, not least for the EU Member States.
But we cannot afford to waste time: this task must be carried out now - especially if we are serious about mastering unemployment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=350 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, my colleague Mr Caudron's report reflects the view of the competitiveness which the Commission defends and is trying to impose horizontally.
<P>
This kind of competitiveness is based on increasing and apparently limitless adaptability of wages, that is to say employees, in an ever-widening deregulation of the market, and especially of the work-force, and the acceleration, if that were possible, of the privatization process, following the example of the United States with its wage dispersion and lack of social protection, and on doubts about the advantages and costs of reducing working hours.
<P>
It is true - and I congratulate Mr Caudron on this - that his report has many positive, that is to say moderating, features: the improvement of professional training, more support for research and innovation, criticism of a strategy based only on labour flexibility, the need for and the importance of public investment, and the preservation of publicly-owned and public service companies.
<P>
We should very much like the framework to be less submissive and the strategic moderations and corrections to be more forthright.
It is in that frame of mind that we have submitted some amendments which we hope the rapporteur will accept, although we have already had some replies, not all of which were positive, but, in any event, I think those that have been accepted can improve this report even further.
My compliments to the rapporteur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=351 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, I believe that to say that the report is very cautious and unsystematic is to do Mr Caudron an injustice.
Nevertheless, we should remember that this problem was discussed in all its detail and all its contradictions in the Delors Report of 1993, and we should also remember the tenth chapter where a strategic conclusion - that of the need for a new development model - was at least hinted at.
<P>
In my opinion, before beginning the debate we have to redefine at least two things, and despite his many sensible ideas Mr Caudron was not able to remedy this.
The first is the term "industry' , which can be defined in many ways, perhaps as the demarcation of industry and the craft trade in terms of repairs, or perhaps as the development of new branches of the industry which no longer resemble the old ones, such as in terms of contents production, the information society or the transport/telecommunications sector which give the term "industrial structure' , which Mr Caudron rightly uses, a whole new meaning.
<P>
Secondly, we must consider more carefully the importance and meaning of the term "competitiveness' .
It is not simply a question of costs; it is also a question of quality and particularly of benefits for others; it is not so much a question of export surpluses, in any case not in a large European Economic Area whose export quota is under 10 %.
<P>
Mr Caudron addressed real problems: for example, the lack of investment.
But I believe that we should not conceal the fact that it is linked to a situation in which for the last 15 years cost cutters have had control of both the private and public spheres and this has had devastating results.
<P>
It should also be noted that, as far as the technologies of the future are concerned, Europe is currently giving away the lead it had, and to a certain extent still has, in environmental technologies.
Because of this I, as a member of a small parliamentary group, wish simply to quote the great axis analysis strategy which could alternatively be applied and which in some ways agrees with what Mr Caudron proposed but is further-reaching.
<P>
First of all, at a European level, we urgently require something like a gouvernement économique which then also takes control of the various dimensions of dumping - fiscal, social, ecological - and, by means of a new policy relating to market economics, sets new conditions of development.
<P>
We then need a renewal of the European model of society and consensus, which itself is a condition for innovation and also a factor of productivity.
If complaints are being made about a lack of innovation we should not forget who caused it.
I think it was neoliberal deregulation policy which caused it; this frightens everyone and prevents innovation.
<P>
The third requirement would be a necessary axis of social and ecological reconstruction as a systematic exploitation of technologies, procedures and resources appropriate for the future, moving towards a revolution in efficiency and sufficiency and a refocusing of the economy on local and regional requirements.
This would finally be a practical discussion, unlike the quite old debate on the question of whether we should have an industrial policy or the debate brought up again by Mrs Carlsson about the purpose of deregulation, as those are the wrong debates.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=352 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Sainjon">
Mr President, two minutes is a very short time to discuss a subject of this importance but I thank Mr Caudron for his excellent report which places Community industrial policy among the principal areas of European construction.
<P>
Mr Caudron's report opens several areas for consideration.
I will mention only two or three of them.
First is the importance which we must attach to the way in which SMEs and large industrial groups are complementing each other increasingly.
We all know that SMEs in Europe, of which there are approximately sixteen million, are the main vehicles of job creation today and that for the most part they depend on or cooperate with the large companies.
In my opinion we must therefore encourage synergy and - why not? - work towards creating a statute for European society which would make it more efficient in terms of international competition.
<P>
With regard to the second area of consideration, I believe that this development must be accompanied by an obligation on the part of the Union to promote research, innovation and training, which are prerequisites in the fight against unemployment and in social advancement, assisted also by technological progress.
This brings us to the question of the financing which would be required to achieve these goals, from both public and private capital.
I think that venture capital offers concrete ways in which we can contribute to the development of the companies which are in the process of innovating.
Perhaps today we should have an impartial approach to the issue of pension funds and their contribution to economic development and employment.
Of course this would require a strict professional code of ethics as these funds are also supposed to go towards the payment of pensions.
<P>
I would have liked to discuss working hours and the reduction of these hours but I do not have enough time.
I believe, however, that it is a major problem because, quite simply, it concerns employment.
We must above all avoid being strict to the point of reaching deadlock.
Everything in life is in constant motion and the organization of work today, in particular in terms of the number of working hours, needs and will need to be adaptable and flexible, even up to a period of one year.
<P>
I would have liked to discuss the harmonization of tax systems and many other areas which agree with Mr Caudron's analysis, which my group will of course support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=353 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, the discovery that, given the same level of growth, the United States creates more jobs than Europe, either with a higher or a lower net product, is fundamental.
With unemployment of 18 million a direct relationship must be established between competitiveness and job creation.
A competitive industry simply creates more jobs.
The field in which Europe, both at Community and national level, has a genuine need to catch up, is industrial research.
<P>
Our efforts must be concentrated much more on commercial realizability.
Due to flaws in the coordination of research policies in the Member States, some of the most valuable synergy effects are lost.
Particularly in the area of information technology, a research and development policy with excellent coordination and funding could make a significant contribution towards improving the competitiveness of European industry.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=354 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wibe">
Mr President, Mr Caudron addressed seven points from his report.
I shall address three matters that are not included, but should have been.
<P>
The first concerns the reason why during the past five years the USA has enjoyed higher growth than Europe.
I am rather surprised that no one has mentioned the obvious fact that the USA has not had a convergence programme.
The USA has not had the same strict monetary policy as Europe.
Nor has the USA been so intent on combating inflation.
<P>
My second point concerns taxes.
In the report taxes are mentioned only as something which hampers growth and productivity.
The only theory to support this approach is the one stating that taxes reduce people's desire to work.
But surely this theory can scarcely apply to the present situation in Europe.
Whatever it is that the 20 million unemployed have, it is surely not a lack of desire to work!
I believe it should have been added here that taxes are returned to the citizens, either in the form of benefits or in the form of aid to the public sector, and that taxes therefore help to increase demand, which is, after all, the major motivating force behind innovation.
<P>
Furthermore, I feel that reference should have been made to the significance of the increasingly uneven distribution of income.
A rich man has a marginal propensity to consume of almost zero, while the propensity to consume of a poor man is almost one.
When the distribution of incomes becomes increasingly uneven - which is unfortunately what is happening in Europe today - what we get is an automatic reduction in demand.
This in turn reduces production and growth, and therefore also innovation.
<P>
I would like to have seen these three points included in both the rapporteur's report and the Commission's original statement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=355 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Imaz San Miguel">
Mr President, first I wanted to congratulate Mr Caudron on his interesting report, which is a valuable contribution to our reflections on the competitiveness of European industry.
Because our society's first priority is employment, and let us not forget that within our society, industry is the basis for growth, wellbeing and the creation of employment around us.
So the competitiveness of European industry is a basic necessity for our socio-economic model itself and for the very wellbeing of European society.
<P>
The single currency is going to favour this competitiveness because, on the one hand, it creates stability for investment, consolidates the internal market and decreases exchange costs for businesses and, on the other hand, it brings low interest rates too, which also help to improve the funding and competitiveness of European business.
<P>
All of that is necessary but insufficient because we are also in a climate of globalization, which has to be seen as an opportunity but which requires European industry to be competitive and to adapt more quickly.
And the truth is, we cannot compete on the basis of a flexible labour market and an overall reduction in the total wages bill as the basic premises of this competitiveness.
We have to look for other sorts of measures to ensure that European industry can take advantage of the opportunity provided by this globalization. To do so, we need measures such as, for example, strong support for innovation.
In Europe at the moment, we are very advanced in terms of basic research, but it requires an effort to translate that into industrial innovation, the product and the production process. We have to take steps to build that bridge, to allow competitiveness to improve.
We have to support the coordination of economic policies - including fiscal policies - to create a climate that will favour investment and competitiveness in European industry. We also have to support a framework of European industrial policy which can, for example, contribute aspects such as those mentioned by Mr Sainjon, to create synergies - incentives to create synergies between European small and medium-sized enterprises - innovative financial instruments for the fundamental promotion of risk capital development, so that innovation can progress.
I also think that a competition policy like the one being implemented is a positive measure.
<P>
I will end by saying that, basically, we need training for our human resources.
At the moment, energy can be bought, technology can be bought and moved around, raw materials can be bought and moved around, but our competitiveness and our future fundamentally depend on our people.
So: training, training and training should be our objective for the sake of competitiveness.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=356 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Porto">
Mr President, the Commission's initiative and Mr Caudron's report are both of the most immediate relevance to the competitiveness of European industry, and I therefore commend it. This is the only way of promoting competitiveness in a world where frontiers are being progressively opened up, to everyone's advantage.
<P>
It was important in the first place to put the problem into perspective. The rapporteur is right to underline in his explanation of his thinking that the recent predominance of the market should not lead us to abandon 'public action at regional, national or European level' .
<P>
Furthermore, it was precisely in this decade that the Maastricht Treaty had a chapter on industry inserted in it, not prohibiting public involvement in production (with a few rare exceptions), but making it clear that public involvement is essential to the removal of imperfections and the creation of external economies. This is the only way we can hope to exploit to the full the possibilities the market offers.
<P>
The reference to nations at regional and European level should, however, have been reflected in the recitals and paragraphs of the resolution, defending structural policies which, by promoting less favoured areas, help to promote aspects of competitiveness which have hitherto been less developed (since the only justification for regional policy was then social and political).
<P>
Without in any way denying the importance of the major groups and alliances, such as referred to in nº 22, for example, and as mentioned by Mrs Carlsson and Mr Sainjon, we also consider that emphasis should have been placed here - or in another paragraph - on the role of small and medium-sized businesses (only mentioned in one recital, Recital D), which in many cases are highly competitive (even the most competitive) both in the European market and in other more developed markets, such as the United States and Japan.
As is rightly stated in the Recitals, furthermore, they complement the big companies, and the support programmes mentioned in the report and the resolution are more appropriate to them, since the big companies do not need these measures to the same extent.
<P>
Finally, the problem of making the labour market more flexible should have been examined in greater depth (the way it is dealt with in Recital H seems to me to understate it).
Obviously this does not cast any doubts on the need for social support, and it is an essential factor in the creation of new opportunities. Members of the European Parliament, as representatives of all European citizens, should therefore be concerned not only with people in work but also with those who are unemployed, young people in search of their first jobs in many cases.
None of these will be impressed by a rigid and unrealistic European 'social model' , which may be based on the best wording (idealistically speaking) of the Treaty and other texts, but which does not put into practice the entrepreneurial dynamism that is essential to creating jobs. Otherwise, there will be a negative general reaction to something it is important to safeguard, namely the correct European social model.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=357 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, the debate has shown that progress has been made in the discussions which we have had in recent years about terms such as competitiveness, productivity, deregulation, flexibility, etc.
For this reason I would like to congratulate Mr Caudron on his report as, even if not all points made in it reflect his own personal views, it clearly reflects the fact that we have developed certain areas of common ideas and reflection.
This in itself is very positive.
Of course there will always be dissident opinions but these opinions are increasingly becoming those of the minority.
Mr Wibe, who has unfortunately gone now, gave us an almost admirable description of classic socialist theory which, I believe, is not shared by Mr Wolf, and this is quite significant.
<P>
This means that there are always ideas which originate in the past and are defended vigorously but which do not bring us forward because they are not capable of gaining majority acceptance and above all because they cannot be implemented.
In the last week we have held the debate with the Council of Ministers for Industry about competitiveness in the light of our report, which is also the subject of Mr Caudron's report, and we were, on the whole, in agreement on this.
We have now done sufficient analysis and drawn up sufficient plans.
It is now a question of beginning at a specific point in order to draw up a common European policy which will then have certain outcomes, the positive or negative aspects of which we will discover in due course.
In my opinion theoretical arguments about, for example, whether deregulation creates jobs or destroys jobs, are, in view of our experience in telecommunications, for example, quite futile.
As can be seen from the statistics, today there are essentially two areas in which new jobs are created in Europe: the information society in the broad sense of the term, and biotechnology, i.e. two modern fields of technology which, thankfully, are ours once again, after we had lost some time in these areas.
I will not blame anyone for this as a debate of this kind must go on for some time so that people can get used to it, but now we have caught up again.
<P>
There is another possibility which we introduced in the debate and which Mr Caudron also mentioned: benchmarking.
Without much difficulty we were offered two examples: New Zealand and Ireland.
Firstly, these are small countries which did not start out with a high level of industry but were peripheral nations with a mainly agrarian structure.
New Zealand, we could say, is on the periphery of the world and Ireland is on the periphery of Europe.
Both countries have come through this change with great success.
They have created more jobs, particularly better paid jobs and not just jobs which combat poverty but jobs which bring with them good prospects for survival.
These examples will not be able to be applied fully to other countries but it is clear what the broad outlines of such a project would involve.
<P>
Then there is the question of research and development, innovation, the role of small and medium-sized enterprises. We now have enough projects in this area.
We should continue them. The debates on the fifth Framework Programme on Research and Development have not yet come to an end.
The man who said that has also gone.
The problem is always that those who require explanations go while those who do not require any stay.
For example, for a long time now we have been applying our research to processes and products close to the market, to things which have direct impact.
Years ago we came away from the idea that research is a noble affair which has to be conducted far away from the market.
In small and medium-sized enterprises we now have the first visible progress, which my colleague Christos Papoutsis is pursuing resolutely.
<P>
Flexibility of the labour market is of course quite a critical problem because everyone here thinks it is possible to advance by dismantling social rights, although that in turn reduces the quality of life.
If we examine this closely - and I believe there can be no general assertions which are correct - we can see some positive aspects.
In our White Paper we began to look more closely and to ask about the current situation regarding jobs which do not require any specific qualification.
By this I mean jobs which - even if we place considerable emphasis on qualifications, which in our opinion is important and right - must still be available as there will be a large number of people who do not possess the relevant qualification, because they are unable or do not wish to do so, and this is always a possibility.
<P>
A society which can only offer jobs for a particular level of qualification is also not ideal.
Incidentally, we have lost a lot more of these jobs than the USA has. The interesting thing is that our labour productivity is higher than in the USA because we have lost these jobs for the lesser qualified.
However, if we retain these or perhaps wish to create more of them, we must reduce the tax burden there.
This is quite a simple, normal possibility.
Unfortunately none of the Member States has done this to date so we must consider how we can encourage the Member States to put this part of the tax reform into practice.
<P>
With regard to the other option - whether or not to reduce wages - it has always been my opinion that it is dangerous to pursue a simple policy of reducing costs, reducing wages or cutting jobs to the point where the very existence of a company is at risk, as in this way it loses the potential that it will need when it recovers, and we see now in European industry that new jobs will be created because competitiveness has increased and better production is now possible.
<P>
Thus, only cutting costs, only saving, is certainly wrong, but reducing unnecessary costs, for example in general input, energy, telecommunications, is the correct policy.
As a result of the monopoly in the Union's energy market our energy costs are still higher than in the USA. In energy-intensive industry this of course represents a disadvantage for competitiveness.
At this point I would like to say to Mr Wolf - without wanting to touch on a sore point, as I am much too liberal and humane for that - that to increase the price of petrol in Germany by DM 5 will of course result in a loss of jobs.
This has nothing to do with environmental technology.
Of course we can introduce changes to our environmental technology but if we drive our energy costs up as high as this, which in environmental terms would be justifiable, we must accept the negative consequences which this has on jobs.
This means that, as always in life, we must compromise and we must also sometimes set priorities.
I have now come to believe that if there is to be any point to such a debate on competitiveness and jobs we must have the courage to set this priority.
<P>
There is no point in saying that we will now make environmental policy with great aplomb if we continually claim that unemployment is our number one problem and our social systems are no longer capable of eliminating unemployment.
<P>
Mr Caudron's remark that he personally would like to support this reduction of working hours tempts me to comment on this too.
We can reduce working hours if we introduce greater flexibility in the Working Time Statute and are prepared to do this.
We can even do it to increase productivity.
However, it is very obvious that a general reduction of working hours without making the working time statutes more flexible leads to even higher labour costs and as a result jobs are lost.
<P>
With some people you could be forgiven for thinking you were having a debate with deaf-mutes because sometimes certain basic facts are simply not accepted.
Thankfully we have now gone past that stage.
I am thankful that the report which the Commission presented, and which we will in future present annually, has met with such a good response.
I hope that the result of this debate and of further debates will be what we have already established in the Council of Ministers.
We must now take action.
<P>
We have really talked long enough now.
Even if we do something wrong it is still better than doing nothing at all.
So let us begin, even if it goes against all Mr Wolf's theories, as I believe that in the end the most decisive factor in politics is the outcome, not whether or not someone was proven or will prove right in theory.
We can always try that, and there are of course wonderful battles, but these battles do not help the unemployed.
For this reason I think that we should now begin to do something which has in the meantime proven to be very successful and when we see how it turns out we can progress from there.
<P>
We must not pursue a policy which makes the same mistakes for ten years; however, we can now begin to learn from our experiences, to take action and then after two or three years to see what comes of it.
Then we will see that we are not in such a bad position.
<P>
We have in the meantime improved considerably in terms of competitiveness and in some aspects we surpass both the USA and Japan.
The euro will also make a considerable contribution to the competitiveness of European industry.
So there is no need for pessimism but every need for action.
If that is the outcome of this debate then we have helped many people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=358 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Bangemann.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
Voting will take place at 12.00 noon tomorrow.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=13>
Electronic commerce
<SPEAKER ID=359 NAME="President">
The next item on the agenda is the report (A4-0173/98) by Mrs Mann, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication by the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee on the Regions on a European initiative for electronic commerce (COM(97)0157 - C4-0297/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=360 NAME="Mann, Erika">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to thank my colleagues for their very intensive cooperation and willingness to compromise, which resulted in a report which can hopefully consolidate a little the European Union's policy in the area of electronic commerce and business transactions.
I would also like to thank the committees involved, the Commission, the Council, the companies, trade unions and consumer organizations with whom I communicated continually.
In particular I thank the Secretariat of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, which worked around the clock and participated in the drafting of this report.
<P>
Electronic commerce and business transactions are becoming increasingly important for companies and citizens of the European Union.
Without having to make a huge investment, firms now have a global market place.
In theory the SMEs can profit most from this.
There are, however, still many legal uncertainties and conditions are not ideal for either buyers or sellers.
<P>
The aim of the Communication of the Commission is to introduce a series of measures which allow the potential which electronic commerce offers the Internal Market to have full effect.
The Communication of the Commission can be seen as a response to the initiative of the US government, which was presented in person by President Clinton on 1 July 1997 and broadcast live on CNN and C-SPAN.
It drew up an ambitious timetable according to which the sphere of action should be defined by the year 2000.
The electronic market place is a virtual place where information is exchanged and contracts are entered into, goods are bought and paid for, and there should be binding rules.
It is almost like real life and yet there are some important differences.
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The electronic market is part of the Internet.
This cyber reality is a world of its own which is strongly rooted in the real world but with some independent characteristics which must be included in a comprehensive trade policy of the European Union.
We are on the verge of a change in paradigms which will influence existing structures greatly.
The European Union should take its opportunity this time.
Its potential which results from introducing the Internal Market is huge.
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My report contains a clear message and my colleagues have supported it: regulate where it is necessary and useful but do not regulate for the sake of regulation.
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The legal security which currently exists in the virtual world of the Internet is on extremely fragile and fragmented.
It will be necessary to create greater legal security in the electronic market.
So far, a situation where national, European and international legal systems coexist successfully exists only in its initial stages and in the minds of a few specialists.
International harmonization or recognition of standards in this area will be absolutely essential.
In this context I made a suggestion which asks the Commission to sign an agreement of mutual recognition with the Americans in the area of data protection.
The data protection directive must be incorporated into national law by 1 October.
We are afraid that, once again, this will not be done consistently.
I would like to ask the Commission to propose, as soon as possible, ways in which this can be avoided.
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The legal framework should be flexible and adaptable.
Self-regulation can be a convenient way of achieving flexibility in the electronic market place and also to maintain it.
However, it does require the actors involved to take on a considerable degree of responsibility, which must go further than non-binding rules.
The introduction of ethical standards must be embodied in private law, liability law and in particular the law of contract.
The European Union must have an active role in the necessary regulation.
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I agreed with my colleagues on many points.
We pressed for this and tried to formulate answers which we hope the Commission and also the Council will draw on.
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We need a directive of a horizontal nature.
This directive must be ready in the next two months.
It should encompass in particular the areas of private law, advertising, commercial communications, freelance work and trademarks.
Furthermore, we need international coordination and harmonization in many areas.
We believe that such international coordination should go beyond the proposal made by Mr Bangemann in the context of the international charter.
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We support the attempts made by the Commission in the context of the WTO and the domain names, as well as the international charter initiative, although in a more wide-ranging form.
My proposal of a single point of coordination in the Commission in the area of electronic commerce could support this process.
It may be useful to extend it to cover the whole information sector.
We also require tax harmonization.
A Communication of the Commission will be available at the next Ecofin Council.
I suspect that in its current form this initiative will be sufficient to achieve a useful harmonization of taxes; after initial analysis it gives the impression of being a rush job which will not quite hit the mark.
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I look forward to Commissioner Bangemann's reply.
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<SPEAKER ID=361 NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations I would like to start by congratulating Mrs Mann on her excellent report about this crucial subject.
The development of electronic commerce is dependent on effective and precise legislation, standards, simplicity and certainty according to principles which apply preferably across the whole world, as electronic commerce will be primarily international commerce.
In addition, a global legal framework for electronic commerce must be clear, transparent, simple, technologically neutral and should stimulate competition. It must offer both the consumer and producer adequate protection.
The market, however, needs to stimulate the growth of electronic commerce, and too much regulation or the wrong kind of regulation might nip the potential of electronic commerce in the bud.
Electronic commerce must not be regulated to death.
It slows down the resolution of a number of important and sensitive international issues, such as, firstly; what should be done about taxation?
Mrs Mann has already mentioned this a short while ago.
The idea of tax neutrality of electronic trade is widely supported within Europe and the United States, and no discrimination should be allowed to take place between traditional and electronic delivery of services.
Unequal treatment leads to trade distortion and thus to unfair competition.
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My second point is privacy.
The consumer must be certain that the electronic environment is safe.
Buying products electronically without the payer's personal details being fully recorded should be a matter of course.
Small payments are normally made in cash without divulging personal details.
The transaction is anonymous, and it should be thus on line .
This leads me to my last point.
What is the Commission's position on VAT levies on the Internet?
I ask you this question, Commissioner Bangemann, as I understand that the Commission is proposing a control system for electronic invoicing of VAT.
This strikes me as extremely controversial in view of the protection of data and privacy, and the wish of many people not to have VAT on the Internet.
So I look forward with interest to the Commissioner's response.
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<SPEAKER ID=362 NAME="Malerba">
Mr President, Commissioner, I do not think it necessary to reiterate the growing importance of electronic commerce and its promise: the Member, Mrs Mann, did this very well, and her report deserves full congratulations.
As rapporteur of the Committee on Research, it is my duty to underline a few important points concerning the guidelines of support for research and development to facilitate the growth of electronic commerce.
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I think that it was certainly a positive move to liberalise the telecommunications market to facilitate the lowering of prices through competition.
This is not enough, however: it is necessary to broaden, on the one hand, the base of users, to help those who invest in the development of applications and software, to help small and medium-sized enterprises that want to launch out into the international dimension with telematics, to encourage the administrations to become computer literate, also offering in this way with the new technologies better services for the citizen, to develop the culture of interaction with computers not only through school and the workplace but also through new types of training and involvement for all ages.
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In addition to encouraging the market's expansion, Europe's telecommunications equipment industry must be kept competitive and innovative.
While it is true that in the computer industry we have lost the race with the United States, as regards the telecommunications industry, it seems to me that competition is still open.
This is competition that counts: the future is being played out more on the interconnection of everything than on computing.
That is why I want to recall only a few of the research themes: switching technology, statistical access technology, data compression technology, long wave broadcasting via cable and satellite, new multimedia terminals and, finally, work on standards to enable Europe's industry to participate in the definition and assertion of these new standards on the market.
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Finally, I would like to recall a point that we discussed at the preliminary stage in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, a point that in my opinion is very relevant for the promotion of electronic commerce at the world level - as the Member, Mrs Mann, has already observed - which is that of international cooperation for the Internet.
It is essential to strengthen the trust of the user and to avoid growing chaos - fraught with controversies and lessons learned out of error or frustration - and, naturally, to ensure as well that Europeans have fair access to the networks, to avoid excessive American control which is basically harmful for everyone.
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We have already begun to list the topics; I am certain that on topics like these, where international cooperation must be strengthened, we will find in Commissioner Bangemann a very dynamic person who wants to find solutions not of the bureaucratic kind but solutions that enable a harmonious development of the market.
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<SPEAKER ID=363 NAME="Read">
<SPEAKER ID=364 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Velzen, W.G.">
Mr President, I should also like to start by congratulating Mrs Mann on her excellent report and above all for the excellent cooperation.
Thanks to her method of working we have a very good report with which we, as European Union, are able to fulfil a part of our, as it were, leading role in this field.
Mr President, the Internet is the driving force behind the accelerated rise of electronic commerce.
Large opportunities are awaiting Europe in this field and when we are talking about jobs or employment it is always good to have another look at the figures.
Then we see, for instance, that the software and services sector has an annual growth of about 10 %.
This growth means 50 000 jobs in Europe every year.
So, in other words, it offers a great many opportunities, but we should also set conditions, of course.
We must ensure that education and re-training will take place properly, and that there will be more flexibility.
But we must also remove barriers.
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Mr President, I believe that the introduction of the euro will be a powerful shot in the arm for trade within the European Union.
Consumers will be able to compare prices, and conversely, electronic commerce might contribute to the acceptance of the euro, as this form of trade breaks down the barrier to buy abroad.
The European regulations must give the consumer the necessary confidence to make use of electronic commerce and, that way, allow him or her to enjoy the benefits of the internal market more.
Respect for the privacy of the consumer is an essential element in this, and previous speakers have rightly pointed this out.
The supervision of the implementation of the EU directives for data protection which will have to be transformed into national legislation by October this year must therefore be carried out carefully.
The free movement of electronic services within the European Union is an essential prerequisite if the internal market is to function well.
We must avoid variations in national regulations which will result in a fragmented European market. I look upon the Commission's statement as a very important and appropriate first stab at a European approach which deserves further development.
I would like to spur the Commissioner on to present a proposal for a directive regarding the provision of services in the information society.
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Mr President, well-trained computer programmers are much needed.
The European Union will have to pull out all the stops to get rid of this shortage against the background of the millennium issue.
At the same time it will offer many European young people who are about the choose a college or university course a good chance of finding a job.
I therefore wonder whether the European Union and the European Commission might not be able to fulfil some kind of information provider role in this area.
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For small and medium-sized enterprises, Mr President, electronic commerce offers big opportunities.
Electronic commerce offers SME's the opportunity to bring new and remote markets within easy reach, and to find new market segments at low cost.
Nevertheless, companies will have to prepare themselves properly through education and extra training measures.
I believe the fifth framework programme could also play an important part on that point.
But an essential element, Mr President, and this was repeated by previous speakers, is the element of confidence.
Consumer confidence in electronic commerce is vital.
Without this, it will not work.
Other important issues are, for example, what happens to the electronic signature?
How reliable is it?
What happens to electronic money?
What is the situation regarding liability?
I also believe the law on agreements, the recognition of contracts, is of vital importance.
It is obviously essential that we will finally have certainty concerning the tax issue.
It has already been mentioned.
On that point we will have to reach decisions.
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It is quite a policy and quite a legislative agenda we will be facing over the coming period, and it therefore requires international action.
I am anxious to know whether the Commissioner can confirm whether the United States is able to accept the proposed Charter.
The Group of the European People's Party believes the Charter is a most important proposal and we would like to support it wholeheartedly.
But everyone knows that we will not get much further with this Charter if it is not accepted by the United States.
Perhaps you could tell us something about this.
It only remains for me to say, Mr President, that the Group of the European People's Party would be glad to agree with the resolution and the report by my colleague Erika Mann.
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<SPEAKER ID=365 NAME="Gallagher">
Mr President, at the outset I want to congratulate Mrs Mann on the preparation and presentation of a very fine report.
My group fully endorses the proposal aimed at stimulating the vigorous growth of electronic commerce in the European Union.
The US and Japan already have a head start. Therefore the EU cannot afford to be left behind.
We need our own road map for the future.
The recent growth of electronic commerce has essentially been driven by the Internet.
It is therefore open to everyone everywhere.
If the US had its way we would already be on the road to a free trade zone on the Internet.
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We need to know where the dangers are and clearly identify and make known the benefits.
Two years ago consumer sales over the Internet came to some $ 600m and by the year 2000 they could amount to ECU 200 billion world wide.
There is a clear message.
The sector offers a huge range of opportunities, development potential and jobs.
But, what assurances can the Commission give me today that the full benefits of electronic commerce will come to the west and north-west of my country.
I am calling for positive discrimination in favour of such ultra- peripheral areas and the small and medium-sized companies that are operating there or, indeed, more importantly, have the potential to operate there.
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The high cost of telecommunications has acted as a major stumbling block for all electronic commerce in Europe.
I hope that putting in place a package of liberalization measures will result in lower and more flexible prices.
As it crosses frontiers, it is essential that consensus be achieved at world level and the creation of a favourable regulatory framework for electronic commerce.
One of the major hurdles to be overcome is successfully creating confidence for all Internet users in their transactions.
Education and skills are vital.
So too are concerns about cyber-crime, security and data protection.
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In conclusion, business on the Internet covers everything from mass market retailing to electronic payments, advertising and business-to-business markets.
The development of an Internet mass market could leapfrog if access can be made cheaper and electronic payments guaranteed.
A Europol cyberpolice could be essential.
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<SPEAKER ID=366 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Mr President, Commissioner, you must get tired of hearing the same old stories over and over again, but we, the representatives of various groups, would like to have our say.
I am afraid my remarks are similar to what you have already heard.
The Mann report is good, in particular because of its broad approach to the problems.
Electronic commerce has the potential to become the personification of the free movement of goods, as people will be able to shop in any country from behind a computer. I am having a go at it myself, and I must say that it is rather nice to discover that the territorial aspects of trade can be ignored.
Sometimes it is a bit difficult, at least for semi-literates like me.
But comparing prices is simple, and the advent of the euro will make the process only easier.
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In view of the speedy development of the Internet and the cross-border character of electronic commerce, it is of great importance that there should be international cooperation on the creation of a regulatory framework.
But in order for that to be possible, Europe must first of all put its own House in order, and this problem is truly urgent.
I do not believe that putting its own House in order is something the Commission fudges.
On the contrary, I believe the European Commission has made some very good first moves, but that does not mean that the Member States are all in line.
In order to become more competitive, it is crucial that the internal market for electronic commerce functions well.
In other words, the preconditions for this type of trade must be met.
I will repeat them once more.
These preconditions include consumer confidence in the security of the medium, which is extremely important, for example, with regard to money transactions.
Safeguarding confidential information, in other words using robust encryption technology, is another condition.
I believe that we need a code for resolving trade disputes, and in addition we need a few other issues, already excellently described in the Mann report. These include promoting computer literacy amongst all sections of society and promoting access to the Internet, thus preventing unequal use of the Internet amongst the population.
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Another point is developing the SME sector and encouraging young talent.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, it is my personal experience in conversations with small firms that venture capital is still a burning issue despite the initiatives we have taken at European level.
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Mr President, I must also briefly deal with the problem of tax.
America has proposed a free trade zone on the Internet, and this may be of interest in the short term. If we take measures too quickly now, and if the Member States arrive at fiscal measures independently, we will be going about it the wrong way.
We must start by establishing our own position on the Internet and that is why I think it necessary to dissuade the Member States from taking action which will be damaging to the creation of a uniform European system in the long term.
In this context I would like to support Mrs Plooij's question regarding VAT.
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<SPEAKER ID=367 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Passilinna">
Mr President, I would like to thank Erika Mann for the work she has put into her report.
The growth of electronic commerce is giving rise to many complex questions. They concern consumer protection, employment, tax and the fear of being edged out.
Unregulated electronic commerce poses questions of accountability - who is responsible when people have access to instructions on how to make bombs, or if an ordered CD is just blank?
The Commission should not delay in addressing problems of copyright, trademarks, misleading advertising and safeguarding personal data.
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Electronic shopping is going to prove more lucrative in many sectors than traditional shopping.
The effects on unemployment could be considerable.
Things could go the way they have in my country: electronic banking has lost half the jobs in the banking sector.
Investment has been responsible for losing more jobs.
The situation is complex.
When we talk of freedom of choice in commerce, the choice should also take employees into consideration: a choice between work and unemployment.
New jobs are certainly being created, but the old ones are disappearing rapidly.
New services, therefore, have to be found, which create jobs and an added value component, but which do not eat away at other jobs.
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Rationalization that gets rid of jobs is easy.
I myself was a company director, and rationalization is one of the easiest things to resort to.
Creating something completely new will be difficult and that is our test in Europe.
We have to create new forms of transaction, because, for example, there does not appear to be any upper limit to spending, as there is, for example, to consuming.
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It is true that electronic shopping enables people in peripheral areas to enjoy the facility.
The old and the disabled can order merchandise if their computer is fitted with a modem.
The right equipment and a connection to the Internet should therefore become every citizen's right.
Only a Europe-wide network will create a real internal market for Europe, and that will provide a yardstick by which to gauge the real level that European society has reached.
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<SPEAKER ID=368 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is not long - only about 5 or 10 years - since the people of Europe would not have understood the term "Internet' .
If we look at developments which have taken place since then we see that we are in fact eye witnesses of a revolution in the field of data exchange and are therefore experiencing a revolution of our society and of human coexistence.
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However, I would venture to say that we are only at the beginning of a very complex transformation process.
Gradually we notice more and more new fields of application for telecommunications.
I published a book on this subject in the spring of this year and when I read it again today I see that some parts of the book are already out of date.
I believe that we must overcome these ever-recurring obstacles and changes.
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For this reason I am grateful for the Communication of the Commission and for the extraordinary commitment of the rapporteur, Erika Mann, and also of Wim van Velzen for a European initiative in electronic business transactions.
The Internet is therefore no longer only suitable for data exchange and transmission of information but also for modern business developments and in fact for conducting business simply, cheaply and quickly.
This means that excellent opportunities in general, as well as possibilities for employment, are opened up to consumers and to many small and medium-sized enterprises.
These new opportunities in turn create completely new service opportunities.
Thus I support the aim of keeping electronic commerce in a European context and preventing the fragmentation of the Internal Market.
We want international agreements and coordination.
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<SPEAKER ID=369 NAME="Bangemann">
I have already thanked Mrs Mann on several occasions for the quality of her reports.
This is another example of the fact that such a discussion with Parliament can also be very informative for us and we gain important new ideas from them.
It is perhaps even more significant that large sections of the report agree with the positions which the Commission has so far put forward, and this is important because in the debate about regulations we must speak with one voice with other trade partners and competitors if we are to succeed.
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We are a little proud of the fact that since the beginning of electronic commerce we have been the opinion leaders, to a certain degree, perhaps not in terms of the fact that the subject is already such an important one here - in the USA it is only in its early stages - but more so in view of what it means in terms of development and what we have to do to promote this development.
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At the Bonn conference in 1997 we dealt with a number of issues which at that time were very much to the fore, and started on a series of legislative measures which are now available.
I would point out, however, that it is not necessarily only solutions of a legislative nature that are to be considered.
Of course we can use all other possibilities, such as self-commitment of those involved or, something which I proposed myself at an international level, i.e. regulation by political consensus and similar.
This will also help us in our debate with the USA as the USA is not always in favour of a very liberal and far-reaching type of self-commitment; as is shown by the inscription example it is sometimes considerably tougher and more rigid than we here in the Union are.
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However, in any case we can say that if we reach this political consensus and if there is a certain degree of equivalence in terms of content, the way in which it is reached will not be important.
This also applies to data protection, for example.
We have a complete and correct guideline for this, i.e. a legislative measure.
If in the USA more consideration is given to doing this in line with self-commitment, then content is more important. How it is in the end realized is not decisive.
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The charter which we proposed, and of which Mr van Velzen asked the Americans' opinion, met with broad approval.
We are in the process of preparing it.
In the Council we have a working party.
We invited American and European industry to an initial round table.
Of course we will extend that to include industry from other countries.
We have contacted all international organizations which will be involved in this and we will be in constant contact with the Americans.
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At the beginning there were some misunderstandings because the Americans believed that we wanted to create a type of new international authority with strict regularization.
When we clarified this there were no further concerns.
There are certainly still issues which we must discuss but if we want to make overall practical progress we must set the ball rolling because factors which can pose a threat to the Internal Market can of course also pose a threat worldwide.
If it does not succeed in creating a solid foundation for use it could be that these new opportunities will not be used as they could be because people will be concerned if we do not succeed in establishing a reliable basis for use.
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We are currently dealing with the issue that Mrs Mann also addressed, i.e. data protection and data security, digital signatures and consumer protection - we have now taken legislative measures regarding both of these - copyright, taxes and customs, which I will deal with in detail later, illegal and harmful content and Internet governance.
These are partly technical but no less important issues involving ways in which one can best use the Internet.
I would be very pleased if it were possible to cooperate with you given the expertise represented here in Parliament.
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Allow me to comment on four further points individually as they were also mentioned in the debate.
We can always think about this coordination point.
We have practically done it already.
We have a group in which all Commissioners involved in the information society are represented.
If we wish, we can give it a certain basis of support so that everyone knows whom to consult.
Secondly, the Commission also supports the US proposal of a duty-free zone, as it was called, although this is misleading as in fact it involves customs.
The proposal is only to introduce no new customs duties but to stabilize the situation as it is today.
We have absolutely no problem with that and we will certainly find a solution in the near future.
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As far as the question of taxation is concerned there are two positions: on the one hand we say "no discrimination' , i.e. no additional new taxes - bit taxes or anything else being considered - and on the other hand we say "no privilege' , i.e. every tax regulation which applies to trade in services or goods on the Internet must be similar in form to those which apply offline.
Let us take a specific example: if we did not have to pay VAT on a book that we bought via the Internet and did have to pay VAT for a book bought in a bookshop, this would be discrimination of normal trade and that cannot work.
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The considerations which are obviously behind many of the critical remarks made here do not represent a Commission position; they are the initial view of a Directorate-General which approached the issue largely from the point of view of its own tax considerations rather than from Internet considerations.
For this reason there is no cause for concern.
We will be able to sort it out.
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Of course we also want to prevent the Internal Market from fragmenting; this is obvious.
We firmly believe that with electronic commerce the Internal Market can gain considerable importance, as well as much more.
What we are talking about is a global network.
As far as jobs are concerned there is an unending list of success stories.
I will quote only one: for example, the company "Alfa Cie.
Metallurgy Company, based in the east of France, specialized in mechanical parts.
This enterprise has expanded from 40 to 400 employees in 3 years, broadened its client base from 1 to 23 countries, reduced time to market for new products from 6 to 1 week, improved reliability, ' etc.
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There are also several examples of small and medium-sized enterprises which have met with new opportunities as a result.
I would like to say to my Irish colleagues that Ireland is an example of a country where the use of new opportunities has resulted in a new dynamism in the economy and created jobs.
So if I were Irish I would not be concerned about it having no benefit for Ireland.
It has already done this to a considerable degree.
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Of course, as already mentioned here, we must create a series of technical and clear legal regulations.
Data protection is a very important example.
People always think that it is only important for data protection specialists who have strange ideas of one kind or another.
No, it will be a crucial factor in the decision of every consumer regarding whether or not to use electronic commerce.
If it is not guaranteed many people will refrain from using it.
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Naturally we must also make certain global regulations in this area, if possible, as data protection which applies only to Europe or only to the USA is worthless if data is used globally.
However, as I said, this is possible because it is not a question of the differences in procedures but of the content.
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It is easy to see the creation of new jobs in those areas where figures are already available: in 1996 7.4 million were employed in the IT industry in the USA.
In the year from 1995 to 1996, 230 000 new jobs were created in the IT industry.
Such figures also exist for parts of Europe.
Even if the results of analyses are only partly available we can still say that on the whole we have an area in which new jobs exist and where old jobs are also secure, as considerable savings and in particular increases in productivity can be achieved by allowing or cushioning a high wage level and improvements in productivity.
For example there is the fact that the competitiveness of the European shipbuilding industry has improved solely due to the introduction of such modern procedures.
If in terms of outsourcing we also interpret this as an information network between the firms producing the systems and the suppliers, then new competitiveness is really being created.
<P>
The fact that we are still currently slightly behind the USA is due to a combination of factors; it is partly due to cost, as already mentioned, but particularly to the greater popularity of the PC.
Incidentally, this will change in future as there will be quite different ways of accessing the Internet, not via PC but, for example, via television sets.
So if access becomes easier and cheaper we will witness a considerably greater driving force being set in motion in Europe than we saw in the USA.
For this reason I would not be concerned about this. We can catch up if we continue our efforts in the same way.
This is an essential requirement.
But I have no doubt that all the Member States will realize what is important.
The Parliament, as this report shows, quite clearly has the same opinion.
I am quite glad that Mrs Mann has come back as I felt quite alone when she went away.
That shows how much I rely on her cooperation!
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<SPEAKER ID=370 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Bangemann.
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The debate is closed.
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Voting will take place at noon tomorrow.
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<CHAPTER ID=14>
Provision of information in the field of technical standards and regulations
<SPEAKER ID=371 NAME="President">
The next item on the agenda is the recommendation for a second reading (A4-0151/98) on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a directive of the European Parliament and the Council amending Directive 83/189/EEC, relating to the provision of information in the field of technical standards and regulations (C4-0035/98-96/ 0220(COD)) for the third time (Rapporteur: Mr Hendrick).
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<SPEAKER ID=372 NAME="Hendrick">
Mr President, the rapid pace of expansion of new information services calls for innovative ways of regulating them to the extent that is needed without hindering their development, or of adapting the existing regulations that could prove outdated or counterproductive.
Community legislation may in some cases be necessary but most of the new regulations will stem from the Member States themselves.
As the Commission pointed out in its proposal, there is a risk of Member States issuing contradictory or inconsistent regulations, thus damaging the internal market by restricting the free movement of goods and services.
Hence the need for coordination in this particular field.
<P>
The Commission chose to use an existing mechanism directed towards technical standards which has proven to be effective in its own field.
At its first reading Parliament supported this approach. However, our institution raised several concerns embodied in 17 amendments to the Commission proposal.
These amendments could broadly be grouped in the following categories.
Firstly, the social, societal and cultural aspects to be considered, in particular the need for expert advice in these areas.
Secondly, preservation of sector-specific rules.
Thirdly, freedom of establishment to be ensured.
Fourthly, active cooperation between Member States and with the Commission.
Fifthly, clearer definitions of concepts and their scope, future review and related EU initiatives, legal and formal aspects.
<P>
Now, looking at the common position itself, at first view - and despite the relatively broad support by the Commission - I must say it looks disappointing.
Only one amendment, a very minor one, is included unchanged.
However, even if their wording has been substantially altered, most of Parliament's points have been considered.
The concern of our institution about cultural aspects was shared by the Council who specifically excluded any involvement of the procedure in the area of cultural policy and audiovisual.
<P>
Other sector-specific aspects were considered, namely financial services, in a way which shows a convergent analysis of what an efficient regulatory attitude requires.
Most of the issues raised by Parliament relating to formal or legal aspects are taken into account or otherwise resolved.
Not everything is entirely satisfactory, however.
I have tabled five amendments for this second reading, all of which relate to points already raised at the first reading.
<P>
Amendment No 1 calls for further Commission action to adapt rules as necessary in response to developments in the sector.
I believe that this is important as the directive should not be regarded as static, but rather as an evolving tool for the regulation of Information Society services.
Amendment No 2 concerns the establishment of an expert consultation group.
Wide consultation, I believe, is vital and expert advice will be ever more important in a field which is becoming technically more complex.
I would like to see a strong commitment to consult of experts from industry and academia, ideally as a group.
Amendment No 3 concerns the freedom of establishment of a service operator.
Failure to allow freedom of establishment poses a major obstacle to the effective operation of the single market.
It means that rules established in one Member State may be used to block organizations from another Member State from setting up in that particular country.
With Amendment No 4, both the Commission and other Member States are entitled to submit detailed opinions explaining why they believe that the measures envisaged create barriers to the free movement of goods.
If the Member State in question does not take account of such opinions it must give clear reasons why it is unable to do so.
This provision applies only to the Information Society services aspects of the directive.
Amendment No 5 refers again to provisions for the freedom of establishment of service operators and it is justified for the reason I have already given.
<P>
I believe the amendments to be realistic; I believe the amendments to be minimalist; and I believe the amendments are aimed at achieving maximum consensus and therefore, I hope, a qualified majority tomorrow in Parliament.
I look forward to the support of this House for the second reading.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=373 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Carlsson">
<SPEAKER ID=374 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, technical standards and regulations are an extremely important instrument of economic policy.
Their function is to create transparency and promote communication.
I would like to distinguish between two levels: the horizontal level, which involves activities in the Member States, and the second, European, level.
It seems to me quite important to include in these considerations those countries which seek accession and finally also to initiate communication with "the rest of the world' .
<P>
The vertical level is also very important.
I believe that by means of harmonization we have achieved a certain degree of progress on the vertical level, but also that the system of mutual recognition has also brought with it many advantages.
<P>
A third level, the duty of provision of information, can also provide a basis for the free movement of goods.
I wonder if it would not be advantageous to allow these systems to exist side by side.
For us it is important that the market can react quickly and at a low cost.
The question is how we in Europe can support the formulation of standards.
I believe it would be useful to set up a task force for these new regulations.
Something could also be done within the Framework Programme on Research and Development in order to be able to take any emerging developments into account in advance.
For this we need infrastructure, although it may be possible to merely reorganize existing infrastructure, and of course we also need education.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=375 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, I can limit myself to speaking briefly, although in doing so I would not quite do justice to the significance and quality of the report.
It is significant in that if we can implement such a rule here and in the area of goods, an achievement now possible due to the efforts of Parliament, we avoid fragmenting the market; as our experience shows, this cannot be achieved using any other method.
What we are discussing today is undoubtedly a very important development.
But in view of time restrictions and the fact that we are basically in agreement on all matters, I will merely thank the rapporteur and note that we will adopt all the draft amendments presented by him, so within a short time we hope to have as our legislative basis a considerably improved proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=376 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Bangemann.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
Voting will take place at noon tomorrow.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=15>
Operator number portability and carrier pre-selection
<SPEAKER ID=377 NAME="President">
The next item on the agenda is the recommendation for a second reading (A4-0127/98), on behalf of the Committee of Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a directive of the European Parliament and the Council amending Directive 97/33/EC relating to operator number portability and carrier pre-selection (C4-0104/98-97/0250(COD)) (Rapporteur: Mr W.G. van Velzen).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=378 NAME="van Velzen, W.G.">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by thanking my colleagues for the pleasant and effective way in which we have cooperated. I would also like to thank them for the speed with which we have been able to complete the second reading, as far as Parliament is concerned.
Now that businesses in particular have been the first to benefit from the liberalization of the telecommunications sector, I am pleased that, with the present proposal regarding number portability and carrier pre-selection , the ordinary consumer will finally also be able to benefit from the liberalization process.
The proposal has as its aim the introduction of number portability and carrier pre-selection.
This way consumers will be able to keep their telephone number when changing their telephone company, and, in addition, by keying in a simple code they will be able to switch operators for each call.
Mr President, I am absolutely convinced that these instruments will substantially stimulate competition between the telephone companies, and this usually leads to prices falling. This is good news for the consumer, of course, particularly if the service also improves at the same time.
<P>
Mr President, an amendment was tabled on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy. If competition in the telecoms market is to develop healthily, it is vital that users are not discouraged from moving to a different telecoms operator.
At the beginning of January we saw the effect this has. National regulatory authorities must therefore ensure that interconnection pricing for carrier pre-selection is based on cost and that any direct charges to consumers do not discourage use of the facility.
Accordingly, your rapporteur has tabled an amendment which was accepted by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
I am using the definition of cost-based as used in the Interconnection Directive, and this means the dominant market position of the parties must be taken into account.
This obviously does not apply to entrants into the market, the new, smaller companies.
I would therefore like to ask the Commission to monitor the introduction of number portability and carrier pre-selection stringently.
I would welcome an annual report from the Commission to the European Parliament.
I pay tribute to the Commissioner in that once again the Commission tackled five Member States yesterday, because these Member States are not implementing, or not implementing properly, the licensing system nor the Interconnection Directive.
<P>
Mr President, I would also like to say something about the European emergency number 112, and this means venting some frustration.
I already asked the Commission some questions about this a few months ago, and I was given a reply which left me none the wiser.
We later asked some more questions, and hitherto have not received a reply.
The 112 emergency number in the European Union was to become operational not later than 31 December 1996, pursuant to the Council Decision of 6 August 1991. But over the past few months, Mr President, it has turned out that, in practice, the emergency number has been leaving much to be desired.
Many foreigners, for example, experience difficulties with 112 in a number of Member States, as the staff manning the emergency switchboard do not speak enough languages.
How can I as a Dutchman make myself understood in Greece when I dial an emergency number?
In addition, in some Member States the new number has been introduced alongside the old number.
I would point out to you that in Belgium, for example, the police are still driving around and displaying the old emergency number.
Belgacom issues lists which do not mention the 112 number.
My response is, Mr President, that the parallel existence of two emergency numbers, a national and a European number, is not in keeping with the intention to have a single European emergency number.
I also think this means that the symbolic function will be lost on our citizens.
I would therefore like to ask the Commissioner which countries have not yet introduced the 112 emergency number?
If the Commissioner does not have this factual information, would he see to it that an urgent inquiry is launched.
My second question is, which steps, what action will the Commission take to ensure that the Member States meet their obligations resulting from this decision?
What are his views on the idea that emergency switchboard staff in Member States should speak at least three of the most commonly-spoken languages, in order to able to respond adequately when addressed by a hapless tourist in this respect?
<P>
In conclusion it remains for me to say that my group would be glad to agree with the common position supplemented by the amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=379 NAME="Read">
Mr President, Mr van Velzen must be tired of hearing my congratulations.
We spend our time congratulating each other late at night, with only the Commissioner to hear us.
But nevertheless, it is the conclusion of another piece of the jigsaw in the telecommunications internal market. I congratulate him on it.
<P>
I have little to add to his own remarks except to say that I very much support his comments about the need to recognize the merging of the mobile and fixed point telecommunications markets.
It is happening so fast that from the consumers' point of view, they really do not care too much whether they make their telephone call from a fixed point or a mobile, as long as they get through efficiently and cheaply and can make their calls.
It seems to me entirely reasonable to be calling for number portability in the field of mobiles as quickly as possible.
I very much hope that the Commission will be able to make some comment about that.
We have the famous review coming in 1999 but we really cannot bundle everything into the review.
We must make sure that where the market is merged we have regulations and a legislative framework to recognise that.
<P>
My second point is about something in the explanatory statement which the rapporteur has referred to, and that is the use of the 112 number.
I should like to add an extra question to those of the rapporteur to Mr Bangemann. Is there any evidence that in certain countries, consumers using a mobile phone to make an emergency call, whether on the 112 number or any other, have to pay for that call?
If you do not have that information I would be very grateful if you could let me have it in writing.
<P>
There needs to be a great deal more caution than perhaps the rapporteur's explanatory statement would suggest in introducing a change from national emergency numbers to the 112 number.
The picture that the rapporteur paints is very worrying. But I perhaps would come to a different conclusion: that far from accelerating the process we need to take a great deal more time and trouble on a programme of public education to make sure that before we make a final and irrevocable move, consumers and citizens - particularly the elderly and those who are not so used to using the telephone - are absolutely sure what the emergency numbers are and what the procedures are for using those emergency numbers, both for fixed point telephones and mobile telephones.
<P>
So I am urging caution and would appreciate an answer to that particular question.
Otherwise we support Mr van Velzen's report and commend it to you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=380 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, what Mrs Read said is correct.
We do not need to congratulate ourselves once again; we worked very well together.
The rapporteur's proposal for this is also acceptable to us.
<P>
I will merely go into the issues.
As Mr van Velzen already said himself, if the amendment tabled by him is adopted it will lead to a situation where the Member States cannot fix the costs of carrier pre-selection for those market participants who hitherto have not had any great market power.
But he said that himself so we do not need to argue about it any further.
We will then formulate it accordingly.
<P>
As far as the 112 number is concerned, the only country which has not yet implemented it is Greece.
We will therefore continue our proceedings against Greece.
However, we cannot continue our proceedings against the other Member States who did not originally do so as it is de facto no longer valid.
<P>
However, we do want to take Mrs Read's comments very seriously.
We must discuss with the regulation authorities and in a different way the Member States who are introducing this new 112 number the issue of advertising the number and publicizing it, as otherwise quite an odd situation arises, one in which there is a new number which is not known.
The old number, which is known, can no longer be used.
The two must go hand in hand but it can definitely be done.
<P>
The requirement that emergency operators should be in a position to work in at least three Community languages - well, in principle, as the satirical Radio Eriwan would reply - will be very difficult to implement in practice: if even the control towers at airports are not in a position to speak English and that is the only language that should be spoken there, then I have my doubts as to whether it would work immediately with three languages at these telephone exchanges.
However, we can examine this; we can advertise it and see how far we get, as these numbers are used by people who are visiting or who just cannot speak the language of the particular country.
I believe those were the questions I was to discuss.
I hope that the final decision will soon follow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=381 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Bangemann.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
Voting will take place at noon tomorrow.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=16>
Labelling of certain foodstuffs produced from genetically modified organisms
<SPEAKER ID=382 NAME="President">
The next item on the agenda is the report (A4-0181/98) by Mr K. Collins, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on a draft Council regulation relating to the compulsory inclusion in the labelling of certain foodstuffs produced from genetically modified organisms of further information in addition to that specified in Directive 79/112/EEC (COM(98)0099 - C4-0227/98-98/0811(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=383 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Liese">
Mr President, it is a pity that the rapporteur is not there but I would like to discuss the position of the PPE group regarding the Collins report.
<P>
On Friday of this week we celebrate a memorable anniversary.
The novel food regulation will have been in force for one year without the citizens of Europe experiencing any effects of this in practice.
This is certainly due to the fact that we still do not have any legally binding rules of implementation and to the fact that the products which have already come onto the market in great style - genetically modified maize and genetically modified soya - were removed from the novel food regulation or the Commission's interpretation did not hold these to be novel foods.
At the time I was annoyed about this but I find it positive that it is now being proposed to label these foods too.
Mr Bangemann, you have been much criticized in recent years in connection with this dossier.
Here we have the opportunity to praise you for presenting this proposal and I believe that the proposal is, on the whole, not as bad as it is sometimes made out.
<P>
There are some points on which we could argue.
On the whole, the PPE group is in favour of the proposals of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection but opinions can vary.
We are of the opinion that a de minimis threshold should be set but that it should not be 5 %, as suggested by some, as this would mean that in principle we could not assume that there are any genetically modified foods.
Everyone would be able to interpret it as they wished.
Instead, much lower thresholds must be set and the Scientific Committee for Food must make suggestions here.
A list of products which must not be labelled could be useful but I believe that none of the parties should become too involved in this argument as a compromise must be possible.
<P>
I personally am of the opinion that the Commission's proposed "' may' provision' is not so stupid; according to this proposal, if it is not known whether something contains genetically modified products this should be allowed to be labelled "may contain' .
My main request to the Commission, but also indirectly to the Council of Ministers, is: please reach an agreement at last!
Everyone must be willing to compromise.
Those who hold extreme positions should make concessions.
It simply cannot be possible that despite a regulation people must wait for rules of implementation.
We need a clear decision so that industry and consumers know where they stand, and for this it is essential that everyone is willing to comprise.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=384 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lannoye">
<SPEAKER ID=385 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Lannoye.
The Chair will interpret the rules in a very indulgent way and agree that, as an emergency measure, our colleague, Mr Bowe, shall deputize for our rapporteur, Mr Collins.
But this is strictly on the basis of a highly indulgent interpretation, and I would like to make the point that the Chair should be given plenty of notice of requests for deputies to speak in such circumstances. They should not be left until it is almost time to take a decision.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=386 NAME="Bowe">
Mr President, this proposal is extremely important in that it brings to what has in the last year been an extremely unclear and confused situation a degree of clarity which is long overdue.
The issue of labelling genetically modified food is a crucial one in order to maintain public confidence and trust in the development of the biotechnological industry and in placing on the market biotechnological products.
<P>
The problem we have had is that with reference to particular products derived from GM soya and maize appeared on the market before the novel foods directive came into place.
Consequently, there has been a legal vacuum and no really effective labelling procedure for them.
The original Commission proposal, which is still under discussion in the Council, tries to address some of the problems relating to the labelling of genetically modified products.
However, I have to say that if you examine the Commission proposal, it is rather like the curate's egg - good in parts.
<P>
In particular, I would take issue with the Commission proposal where it suggests that there should be a label 'may contain' .
It would seem to me that the 'may contain' label is one designed to create confusion, distrust and lack of confidence among the public, rather than trust.
Consequently, Parliament has come forward with a proposal which will clarify the situation, ensure that products which contain an element of genetically modified produce that is identifiable by reasonable tests, at a reasonable price and of reasonable accuracy, are adequately labelled.
This will engender some trust on the marketplace and hopefully a degree of sympathy and understanding within the population, which will encourage the continued production of genetically modified products and the biotechnology industry in general.
One should not underestimate the importance of public trust and confidence in establishing a clear framework in which the biotechnology industry can develop.
Legal frameworks are fine and are extremely important and legal stability and clarity are fine. But, in addition, you need public confidence if these products are to be marketed properly.
<P>
The proposal you have in front of you provides rules and regulations which are clear, understandable, based on sound science and provide the public with the information it requires to make an informed choice.
It is quite clear that if we take these present rules and regulations and apply them to products in the marketplace, a substantial number of products in the ordinary supermarket will be labelled.
I do not think we should have any fear or concern about that.
We should be pleased that the public is given information, on the basis of which they can make a choice.
Having been given that information and having a quiet confidence and trust in the product, I feel quite confident that in the case of some of the early products that have been placed on the marketplace - I refer, for example, to the genetically modified tomato paste which is now outselling ordinary tomato paste in the United Kingdom by 2 cans to 1 - you will see a slowly developed preference for genetically modified products amongst the population when they realize they are harmless, of good quality, dependable, reliable and that in no way reflect the will of a large biotechnological company seeking to make profit or a dangerous product which may threaten their health.
<P>
I think that the public, once it has had the labelled product before them and seen the benefits that derive from the use of genetically modified products in the marketplace, will think that our work tonight - of this happy few who are here tonight, almost this band of brothers - will be a stepping stone towards a much more logical, sane and sensible arrangement of the European marketplace.
It is one in which biotechnological products are accepted as normal, sensible, healthy and acceptable, against the current view which treats them with suspicion, distrust and almost as the product of some strange unacceptable science.
<P>
I hope the Commission hears what we say and is prepared to modify its proposal because we know what the public thinks.
I am telling you now, if you want to sell these products they need this labelling.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=387 NAME="Bangemann">
<SPEAKER ID=388 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lannoye">
Mr President, I have a query for the Commissioner.
There must be an error or an inaccuracy in the draft regulation as it mentions products which had been on the market and labelled before the regulation came into force.
The English word is "products' but I assume it should in fact refer to previously existing stocks or supplies.
It means that which is already in stock.
But if the term used is "products' this is ambiguous.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=389 NAME="Bangemann">
In my opinion no misunderstanding is possible here as the relative clause states clearly: "which were on the market before entry into force' .
This means that it is either a stock or a product but it must have been on the market before entry into force.
This is completely clear!
Whether it was a stock or a product that is perhaps only in the production process is therefore irrelevant, it depends on the timing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=390 NAME="Bowe">
Mr President, I have one short question for the Commissioner.
If the Commission wants people to accept these products, why does it not give people what they want, which is simplicity and clarity.
Get rid of 'may contain' .
Why do you want 'may contain' ?
Just give people simplicity and clarity.
Let them choose.
Have some confidence in the people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=391 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
Voting will take place at 12.00 noon tomorrow.
<P>
(The House rose at 11.38 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of Wednesday 13 May have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, please permit me, despite the fact that today is Thursday - a play on words which perhaps only Scandinavians will understand - to ask for a correction to the Minutes.
The fact is, my name was missing yesterday, even though I was demonstrably present at the vote.
I would therefore request a correction.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="Killilea">
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President">
Mr Killilea, your observation is of course a courtesy for which I must thank you, but I do not think the Minutes are the proper place to portray reactions to comments or the way in which the sittings are conducted or not conducted.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Improvements in the functioning of the Institutions
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0117/98) by Mr Herman, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on improvements in the functioning of the Institutions without modification of the Treaties - making EU policies more open and democratic.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="Herman">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, experience has shown that, for the most part, institutional improvements yielded by successive amendments to the Treaties have not so much been the result of negotiations at the Intergovernmental Conference as the sanctioning of established practices, either by means of institutional agreements or following Court of Justice decisions - for example, in the isoglucose ruling - or by extensive use of existing procedures so as to widen existing breaches, as was the case in the budgetary procedure.
<P>
It has also been noted that Parliament has acquired new powers as a result more of a gradual evolutionary process than of intermittent major advances.
We have made the transition in various areas from the information stage to consultation, from consultation to cooperation, from cooperation to codecision, from codecision to simplified codecision and sometimes even directly to the assent procedure.
The proposals set out draw heavily on this approach, which is more modest and less spectacular but would appear to be more effective in the long term.
<P>
Your rapporteur's proposals are moreover among those pursued with continuity and perseverance by the Committee on Institutional Affairs.


In saying that, I am thinking mainly of the Aglietta report on commitology, the Anastassopoulos report on a uniform electoral procedure, the Theato report on the improvement of budgetary control and the Randzio-Plath report on democratic scrutiny of the ECB, as well as of proposals by Parliament which have the same aim, that of improving the functioning of the Institutions without amending the Treaty.
<P>
Owing to the demands of the timetable for introducing monetary union and the need to examine the other problems in greater depth, I have split this report into two parts.
For the moment we will discuss only the first part, for reasons of urgency, as we must take advantage of the occasion of monetary union to do what the Treaty of Amsterdam was not able to do.
It was in effect decided when drawing up the Treaty of Amsterdam that the provisions relating to monetary union should not be touched in any way.
The general feeling was that opening this Pandora's box would create a series of difficulties.
It is true that at the time the Treaty of Amsterdam was being prepared the problems of the unemployment crisis had priority and it was very dangerous to approach monetary problems, which were very much disputed in certain countries.
That is why this area was left aside, while recognizing that the broad aim of the Treaty of Amsterdam was to improve democratic control and transparency.
But Parliament did not interfere with the area involving monetary union.
It was however admitted that in areas where greater coordination of economic policy was necessary, for example in the whole problematic area of unemployment, it was necessary to include Parliament in the consultation procedure, but this did not happen in the monetary area.
That is what needs to be put right with great urgency, which is what we are doing with this report.
<P>
We propose to sanction current practices with the Commission but not yet with the Council.
The Commission in effect took the initiative in consulting us.
It consulted us effectively, it continues to do so and it even did so yesterday.
In the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy we were consulted on recommendations relating to broad economic policy guidelines, or GOPES in our French jargon.
So we are consulted on these guidelines, but this consultation is informal.
What we ask is that the Council and the Commission, with Parliament, create a procedure by interinstitutional agreement which would formalize today's practices.
<P>
That is the main part, which falls within the scope of today's report.
It will be followed by other proposals in a second part, and I would ask you to excuse the fact that the report is not complete.
It had to be dealt with quickly because it was so urgent.
<P>
I would like to say immediately to my colleague, Mrs Randzio-Plath, that the report's references to the democratic scrutiny of the Central Bank did not, at the time the report was written, mention her report.
It is not that I wish to take any less farreaching measures than she does, and I will ask straight away that a reference to her report be introduced in the amendments, to show that we are on the same wavelength.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Mr President, this report is highly significant, because ever since the beginning of the second stage of monetary union the European Parliament has been calling for an interinstitutional agreement between the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission, so that in the excessive deficit procedures, and more particularly in the basic aspects of economic policy and its enforcement, we can get to grips with the problem of democratic deficit.
<P>
We need the European Parliament to be actively involved in decision making, not only in all the other areas but also - crucially - in the area of economic and monetary union.
It is not just monetary union which begins on 1 January 1999, it is economic union as well.
It simply will not do for Parliament's involvement to be repeatedly thrown into doubt just by applying the principle of unanimity.
That is why the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy was emphatic that interinstitutional agreements should be reached in this area.
<P>
We must also consider to what extent it would be possible to use this agreement to achieve even more effective coordination of EU economic policies, because any distortion - such as that which currently exists between economic and monetary union - will be harmful to the European Union when it comes to tackling mass unemployment, stimulating investment and creating jobs.
It has been said quite rightly that the lack of economic coordination in the European Union will damage the prospects for growth, and that is something we simply cannot afford to let happen.
<P>
The European Council is therefore called upon to seize the initiative in this area and to respond positively to the approaches which Parliament has been making for many years, by concluding an agreement, or at least by agreeing to a proper cooperation procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Barros Moura">
Mr President, the recent decision to proceed to the third stage of economic and monetary union and the stability pact, with the creation of the euro, represents a qualitative advance in the creation of a supra-national political power, but one which needs consistent institutionalization and democratic legitimacy.
<P>
After power has been transferred from the Member States to the European Union, these things can only be found in the European Parliament, because the control exercised by national parliaments is quite clearly insufficient and lacking in authority.
Furthermore all observers, whether in favour or critical of the European Union, have pointed out that monetary union is dangerous without effective coordination of economic policies within the Union, and without a budget capable of creating economic and social cohesion and a European taxation system. At the very least it would prevent us from realizing all the benefits of the single currency.
<P>
Also, everyone is concerned to find a way of ensuring that the institutions of economic and monetary union are responsible and accountable, without prejudice to the technical independence of the European Central Bank.
<P>
The Herman report provides an excellent reply to all these anxieties. The substance of the report is that if our expectations regarding the institutional reform of the Treaty of Amsterdam are frustrated, then we shall have to have recourse to the implementation of the Treaties - all the Treaties - making the fullest use of the opportunities they already offer, to give greater effectiveness to the European Union's actions and to democratic control by a Parliament elected by direct universal suffrage.
<P>
And it will be so, if the political will exists to achieve it, both on the part of the European Parliament - whose work will have to be improved and whose responsibilities have already increased - and on the part of the national governments and political forces, which cannot be allowed to maintain the narrow nationalism which casts a shadow on the Council, the founders of the euro.
<P>
One of the methods that should be used is that of the interinstitutional agreements which have long been proposed in order to ensure that the European Parliament can exercise effective control and intervene effectively in the mechanisms already provided by the Treaty. If the political will is there, these will lay the foundations of a genuine 'economic government' .
In order to counterbalance economic aspects with social considerations, there will have to be an increase in the mechanisms which the Treaty and agreements have already succeeded simultaneously in introducing in the field of employment.
<P>
There are a number of other important areas that still remain outside the democratic control of the European Parliament.
We must implement the proposals in the Herman report, which represent our determination to overcome the serious lack of democratic control in many areas of economic and social policy at European level.
That lack of control is all the more serious inasmuch as the institutional life of the European Union is experiencing an increasing tendency, similar to the one we are familiar with at national level, to drain real power away from Parliament to the executives or mere de facto economic influences - lobbies, professional associations, international financial capital, and so on - as regards our economic and social programme, the democratic monitoring and control of decisions and the periodic evaluation of their effects.
<P>
The Herman report seeks to strike a blow to make Parliament really influential, and I want to support and applaud that course of action. I want to make it clear that it is also our responsibility to promote participation by the people, by our social partners and by the European Union's decision makers and all who are associated with them in that process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Méndez de Vigo">
Mr President, 2 May was a historic day.
Were it not for the fact that the term 'historic' has been overused on many occasions, no doubt we would be able to use it in this instance too.
I think the only other comparable day was that day many years ago now when the EEC Treaty was signed in Rome.
Many years from now, we will realize what a giant step was taken in the construction of Europe with the launch of the euro.
<P>
The truth is that on the evening of 2 May, the least that can be said of the heads of state and government is that they were not on their best behaviour, but I do not think the anecdote should be given too much importance.
Also, I think the European Parliament has provided proof of its enormous responsibility when it comes to contributing to the launch of the euro. So I think it is now time to get down to work.
<P>
And that is what Fernand Herman's report does: it gets to work.
<P>
For a long, long time, ladies and gentlemen - almost since the time of Mr Anastassopoulos' ancestors - all ideas on political science and political sociology have been leading in the same direction: so as to arrange things in such a way that power limits power, as Montesquieu said, so there is no autonomous, completely independent power which is not answerable to anybody.
<P>
The system we have created - and that the Maastricht Treaty created in establishing a European Central Bank - is a system which is answerable to nobody. Precisely in order to guarantee its freedom and independence, no counterbalancing power was included in the Treaty.
<P>
What Mr Herman's report tries to do is to ensure that, whilst safeguarding the European Central Bank's autonomy, we representatives of the European peoples are informed of what is happening and can pass on our impressions to the directors of that bank.
<P>
That is very important because, in the resolution we passed in this Parliament on 20 November 1997, we laid the foundations of the European Union as a union of states and a union of peoples.
So it is important for this Parliament to be kept informed, to be consulted and to state its opinion, in order to guarantee democratic responsibility.
<P>
That is what Mr Herman is trying to do in his report, and especially in the draft interinstitutional agreement.
So my group is going to support it, because we are convinced that it will help the European Central Bank, the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council to collaborate efficiently.
We are going to support it.
And we are also going to support some of the amendments, which improve the text.
<P>
Mr President, as I said at the beginning of my speech, it is a good text with which to begin our work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cardona">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I sincerely applaud the principles of openness and democracy in the operation of democratic institutions wherever they are upheld.
Yet whenever these matters are mentioned, we also talk about two essential sides to the question: the Community decision making process and the informing of Community institutions, particularly the European Parliament, as regards open questions.
<P>
On the first aspect, I would not wish to understate the fact that I consider the events of 2 May to have been historic.
I myself voted for the European Parliament's recommendation on the creation of the euro.
But on this point, we are discussing matters concerned with the decision making process, and I am referring to questions of unanimity versus majority votes.
One of the things public opinion, and even some politicians, found most shocking, was the delay in taking the decision.
As we say in my country: "Alas for the King, it took eleven hours!'
And it did!
It might have taken longer - or indeed, not so long!
The important thing, from my point of view, is that the countries harmonized their opinions and reached a final decision.
There are areas, ladies and gentlemen, where I think this rule should be kept when taking decisions.
<P>
With regard to democratic participation in Community institutions, I applaud Mr Herman's report and consider it an important step towards raising the awareness not only of MEPs, but also of the national parliaments, as I would like to take this opportunity to underline.
I really do think the national parliaments should play an important part in checking and monitoring decisions, and in providing the information considered appropriate to enable everyone to participate properly in decisions that affect us all.
<P>
I am one of those people who believe that Europe will be richer, better and more acceptable to all its citizens if all those people, without exception, who have political responsibilities and have been elected by their peoples are able to participate in and be informed about decisions which, I repeat, affect everyone.
<P>
So to conclude, I think the report is an excellent step, an excellent resource, and an excellent way of starting out on the road to democratizing Community institutions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Spaak">
Mr President, that part of Mr Alban's text which is devoted to economic and monetary union, and on which I congratulate him, takes on a new dimension following the designation of the 11 countries which will take part in economic and monetary union, and the European Parliament's approval of the composition of the executive board of the European Central Bank.
Personally, and I wish to say this before Parliament, I regret that such importance was given to the events surrounding the appointment of Mr Duisenberg.
The media and certain MEPs failed to distinguish correctly between the essential issue - the launching of a key phase of European construction - and issues of secondary importance, that is, the Council's inadequate preparation for solving a problem which had been on the table for more than a year.
<P>
But let us get back to the essential issues.
The European Parliament, for the first time in its history, becomes the sole interlocutor of an institution as powerful as the European Central Bank. That represents a huge step forward in terms of Parliament's legitimacy.
It has exclusive contact compared with the Council, the Commission and the national parliaments.
It now remains for Parliament to prove its ability to deal with this new responsibility, as regards its contacts with the ECB, for example the responsibility of becoming a link to the citizens and the opinions which are expressed. That will be the subject of Mr Herman's future report.
<P>
It was Mr Schioppa himself who said in his excellent speech that the European Central Bank will need to explain its actions, not only to the market operators but also to the Community institutions, to public opinion and to the media.
The European Parliament, by means of its competent committees, will have to organize these relations.
Finally, how could we fail to be pleased by the conviction shown by several of the directors when they firmly stated that the need for economic and monetary union will be dependent upon the institutional progress of the European Union towards stronger and better integrated institutions, which would compel us all to clarify the objectives of the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herzog">
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate Mr Herman.
His proposals are very useful.
He notes the need to reinforce the control of the European Parliament in areas such as economic and monetary union, and in particular the coordination of economic policies, but also competition policies, external commercial policies and even a revival of the issue of social policy.
So it is a very useful report, and one which is very relevant to events we are currently witnessing.
<P>
I must also say that the importance of coordinating economic policies was eclipsed by all the problems of control, strictly speaking, of the European Central Bank. It is surprising that we made so much of the opinion on the appointment of the executive board, which is not a core issue, while we are not currently discussing the content of the choices to be made in terms of coordination.
Perhaps favourable economic conditions are masking the importance of this issue.
<P>
There will only be democratic supervision of the European Central Bank if, simultaneously, a capacity for cooperation of national economic policies is demonstrated within a balanced concept of the institutions and the running of the institutions.
This requires a power capable of maintaining dialogue with the European Central Bank.
From this point of view, I understand the demand made of the European Central Bank in the report, that it clearly states its objectives, including those objectives which do not come strictly within its responsibilities, such as growth - and here I will add employment -, so that the dialogue between Parliament and that institution is fertile and so that it can be judged in full knowledge of the facts.
<P>
Having said that, allow me to underline two limitations to your approach.
Firstly it assumes that the European Parliament is capable of playing a political role in the substance of political and economic options.
Secondly, you are examining its relations with civil society and the social players, and you are confining yourself to a procedure within the institutions.
<P>
I regret that the proposal which you voted for here following my 1996 report was not applied, although there was an ample vote in favour.
It proposed that the European Parliament should deliberate economic policy options even before a Commission recommendation or Council decision.
And I proposed that our Parliament should have an annual meeting with representatives of civil society.
<P>
Your text proposes an internal resolution, following a recommendation by the Commission.
Why does the European Parliament not wish to take its political role more seriously?
This is a test.
I will end by saying that in order to reflect on the consistency between the social objectives of the Union and the choices of financial and monetary policies, we absolutely must become much more involved in dialogue with the social players, the representatives of civil society.
That is the extent of your report, which is nevertheless excellent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Mr President, as a colleague of mine on the Committee on Institutional Affairs, the rapporteur knows that I am not one of those people who simply follow established ritual by thanking and complimenting each and every rapporteur.
I therefore thank Mr Herman not because it is traditional to do so, but out of great personal respect for his influential voice in the debate on the democratization of the EU.
I consider this report to be very important indeed.
<P>
The report's achievement lies in producing a frank and somewhat singular diagnosis of the democratic deficit in the EU and, by way of a clear and definite strategy, in producing a host of proposals, which I fully endorse.
However, I would like to say something about the rapporteur's basic strategy.
The second part of the report is sadly missing from the diagnosis.
The original reason given for this was that the report had to be submitted by 2 May.
We are now well past that date, so perhaps that decision was not quite the right one. However, as has been said, we shall have to deal with the second part later.
<P>
The essential part of this diagnosis, in my view, lies in the fact that the rapporteur very clearly shows that parliamentary control is being withdrawn from the national parliaments in an increasing number of political spheres without this control being transferred to the European Parliament.
I consider this to be a quite decisive statement, because it is something which has not yet been properly grasped by the public at large.
It means quite simply that the EU's chain of legitimacy has long since been broken.
It means that the public no longer has an insight into the institutional system. It means that our citizens' right to parliamentary control - and hence to public control - of the executive has been undermined.
This leads me in turn to criticize that practice, that pragmatic strategy, which the rapporteur is proposing in order to extend parliamentary rights and tackle the problem of democratic deficit.
<P>
The previous strategy of muddling through, of continuous negotiation, of reinterpretation, of stretching things to the limit, certainly brought the EU success over the years, but I think the rapporteur overlooks the fact that this strategy has not been able to prevent the ever widening gulf between centralization in Europe and democratization in the EU, or the increasingly frequent breakages in the chain of legitimacy, or the emergence of major legal uncertainties in the structure of EU institutions, or the institutional system's growing lack of transparency in the eyes of the general public, or the fact that such a strategy has failed to create a republican system of government, or that...
<P>
(The President cut off the speaker)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, I congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Herman. On behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, he highlights a number of points, doubtless some of the most important, which leave the European Parliament dissatisfied following the Treaty of Amsterdam, and which above all propose a way to try to overcome this shortcoming.
<P>
Without by any means withholding my support, I ask the question: what can be done?
We asked a lot of things of Amsterdam and hoped it would provide more adequate answers for Europe.
Those answers were not forthcoming, but I think they are essential; otherwise a Europe of twenty or twenty-five will not be possible.
<P>
Having said that, there are two questions I would like to ask in this debate. I address them to Mr Herman, who knows my position well.
Firstly, can we continuously list after the event, so to speak, the litany of the causes of our dissatisfaction, which should have provoked a more vigorous reaction on our part when it was adopted, when we gave our political agreement to the Treaty of Amsterdam?
Secondly, are the interinstitutional agreements the appropriate formula simply because there is no other solution?
We saw this in the case of the Central Bank...
However, were we not committed to an interinstitutional agreement?
Of course but, by way of reply, we do not have one!
So is this formula the right one because the other side does not wish to agree with us?
<P>
Those are the two questions I wanted to ask, and I would like to congratulate the rapporteur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, the Herman report regrets the fact that in European politics there are areas where national parliaments are deprived of democratic control, without this being replaced by European Parliamentary control. To solve the problem without amending the Treaty, he proposes that agreements be concluded between the European institutions in various sectors, thus allowing the powers of the European Parliament to be extended.
<P>
This type of process calls for various comments on our part.
Firstly, a situation where there is no democratic control is of course reprehensible, but if we complain about it - justifiably - we should not then also approve its extension.
But this is what is going to happen with the draft Treaty of Amsterdam, which the majority of this Parliament approves, but which will reduce democracy in Europe and deprive the national parliaments of their powers without offering any equivalent democratic control.
<P>
For example, may I remind you that the new Title IV of the EC Treaty provided by Amsterdam will remove from the national parliaments all decision making powers in the field of immigration, without providing any replacement control for at least five years, and then only the inadequate control of the European Parliament.
<P>
Such deficiencies cannot be remedied by simple interinstitutional agreements which have the distinction of being prepared in obscurity, leaving out the national parliaments, and not being ratified by the people.
The method and the objectives have to be changed.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations believes that to overcome the democratic deficit in Europe we need a new treaty - note the use of the word 'treaty' rather than 'interinstitutional agreements' - to restore the national parliaments' role within the European decision making process.
In this respect, I regret that Members have once again shown ostracism, a few days ago, by excluding on principle the national parliaments from control of the euro.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schäfer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Amsterdam Treaty constitutes a significant step on the road to the democratization of the European Union, and our journey down this road must continue.
The Intergovernmental Conference has agreed that the common institutions should use every means to improve their functioning without any change in the Treaties.
There is room for manoeuvre and the Herman report suggests various themes which we think are of prime importance.
<P>
Firstly, economic and monetary union.
The future president of the ECB has ensured us that he is willing to hold regular quarterly meetings to exchange ideas.
We emphatically welcome this readiness for dialogue, but it is something which should not just depend on the goodwill of whoever is in charge at the ECB.
That is why we want an interinstitutional agreement - one which also incorporates Parliament's participation in the procedures for coordinating EU economic policy.
<P>
Secondly, Parliament continues to play a weak role, both in the area of foreign trade and payments policy, and in competition policy.
The current information procedures are in need of improvement.
The details of this should also be decided by interinstitutional agreements.
<P>
Thirdly, employment and social policy.
The fight against unemployment and the development of the European social model are priority issues, the importance of which is also confirmed by the Amsterdam Treaty.
The latter makes Parliament an equal legislator in many areas of social policy.
But there is a yawning gap in the democratic process where agreements between the social partners at European level are to be implemented by Council decisions.
The fact that there are no plans to involve Parliament is in stark contradiction to the principle that legislative actions always require Parliamentary legitimation.
Such a process must now be established, at least on an informal basis, and this is something which also requires an interinstitutional agreement.
After all, as we know, it is still true to say that more democratization in Europe logically means more reforms.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, the decision making process over the euro has demonstrated again that the degree of democracy in the European Union is still in need of urgent improvement.
Admittedly, we have made important progress with the Treaty of Amsterdam.
I estimate that some 80 % of legislation and the budget will soon be controlled by the European Parliament, but that does not alter the fact that a number of important areas are not included, as my colleague Mr Herman has indicated in his report.
Agricultural policy, fisheries policy, common trade policy, competition policy and development cooperation policy - none of these types of areas are yet controlled in this democratic way.
We are not likely to be able to do anything about this before the next round of Treaty changes.
Mr Herman has made an excellent proposal to try and improve this control in the meantime by concluding interinstitutional agreements.
I find this an excellent proposal, and I think we should do it - not just in relation to the area discussed in the report, but also in other areas.
At the same time we must ensure the Treaties are changed, and give our support to this, before a number of new Member States join.
<P>
Mr President, perhaps we should also get ready to show our teeth, because I for one am of the opinion that we should now start to withdraw our cooperation from measures which are not subject to democratic control, exercised by either national parliaments or by our own Parliament. We could do this at the consultation stage.
<P>
In conclusion, I would like to emphasize that cooperation between national parliaments and the European Parliament ought to be improved.
Many parliaments have so-called joint committees.
These do not yet exist in the Netherlands, but I hope that the newly-elected Lower House in the Netherlands will soon introduce such a joint committee, so that the twilight zone of institutional cooperation can be better controlled, by the national parliaments as well as by the European Parliament.
I should like to support Mr Herman's proposal wholeheartedly. His report deserves wide support today, from the entire Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Neyts-Uyttebroeck">
Mr President, congratulations! You are making great strides in Dutch.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this Parliament likes to complain, and does so frequently, about the slowness of the European decision making process. We also tread new paths, as is our duty.
We like to signpost new routes for the future.
Despite this, European reality sometimes progresses more quickly than expected.
The promises about a continuous dialogue between the executive board of the European Central Bank and this Parliament strike me as a good and happy example of this.
My group and I will in future unfailingly continue to contribute to an increase in openness, transparency and accountability in all the Union's institutions, as we have always done.
Some of these institutions are beginning to understand that the people of Europe will only continue to accept the Union if 'accountability' , as it is called in English, is implicit.
The Commission understands this, and the executive board of the European Central Bank seem to understand this too.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to conclude by sharing with you my opinion that it is the Council, as an extension of the governments of the Member States, who have the greatest difficulty in understanding their duty with respect to safeguarding democracy in the entire Union.
Together with the rapporteur and our colleagues in this Parliament, we will see to it that their understanding continues to improve.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Miranda">
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Mr President, the Herman report is commendable, indicating as it does the democratic deficit that exists within the Union.
The report shows very clearly something which, in effect, we already knew: that is, how much is wanting as far as democratic control, democratic legitimacy, openness and transparency are concerned.
This is a very serious democratic problem, not least in respect of EMU, the euro and economic policy.
To employ temporary arrangements to rectify or compensate for these democratic shortcomings retrospectively is perhaps akin to crying in the wilderness.
<P>
Nevertheless, I must support the interinstitutional agreement proposed in the report, since it at least helps to do something about the democratic deficit.
I shall also be voting for the amendment by the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, which states that such an agreement requires consultation with the Member States and also greater influence for, and consultation with, the national parliaments.
But the real deficit is surely the lack of support among the citizens for such issues as EMU, and the lack of dialogue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="Corbett">
Mr President, I would like to pay tribute to the rapporteur who is pursuing a line this Parliament has always pursued, namely taking the Treaties as they stand, recognizing their insufficiencies but trying to interpret them in the most creative way possible, trying to take the Treaties and, as it were, stretch them like a piece of elastic to try to get as much out of them as is reasonably possible.
Mr Herman is a veteran of the Committee on Institutional Affairs.
He knows very well what is possible and what is not possible in this regard. He has come up with another admirable piece of work today.
<P>
Our colleague from the Europe of Nations Group, however, claims that this is undemocratic, that it is changing the constitution by means of backdoor deals in closed rooms between the institutions.
I must beg to differ with that view.
After all, what is done can only be done in the context of the Treaties.
It cannot change the Treaties.
So the Treaties as ratified by all our national parliaments will not be changed by the back door.
<P>
But there is always room for interpreting Treaties and for going for one interpretation rather than another.
It is quite legitimate for us to do this.
It is something Parliament has done in the past with great skill and we are doing it again.
Far from being undemocratic, any interinstitutional agreement is between the elected governments who meet in the Council on the one hand and the directly elected Parliament on the other.
It is an agreement reached in public whose text is voted in a public vote in the elected Parliament.
It is not undemocratic.
<P>
I very much regret that the EN Group - which I believe officially stands for the Europe of Nations Group but should really stand for Eurosceptic Nutcases - takes this particular view.
I am sure that the overwhelming majority in the European Parliament will back the resolution that has been put before us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Lucas Pires">
Mr President, the Herman report is very much to the point and has the relevance we have come to expect from our intelligent and tireless colleague.
Firstly, because the democratization of European economic policy is more necessary than ever since the arrival of the third stage of monetary union.
Also, because Amsterdam alone has not resolved the problem, since economic and monetary matters were excluded from the negotiations.
<P>
We do know, however, that it is becoming more and more difficult to get anything out of intergovernmental conferences, however hard you squeeze them.
An interinstitutional agreement to involve the European Parliament in the decision making legitimization chain is appropriate with the advent of an economic policy that will of necessity be more and more a joint one, in the wake of the single currency.
<P>
An independent single currency is the very symbol of an emancipated European civil society, of which the currency is more truly the expression than any political power.
That is another reason why the only body that represents that civil society - the European Parliament - should be brought into the front line of political participation.
So an interinstitutional agreement may be the right way to plug the gaps in the Treaties.
<P>
What is more, in some of the cases I have described, the European Parliament has already acted informally.
And the Council also accepted the institutionalization of participation by the European Parliament only last week, particularly as regards Agenda 2000.
Everyone, therefore, is aware that our most important future task should be democratization above all.
I would like to thank Mr Herman for his work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Mr President, I would like to concentrate on the lack of democratic control pursuant to the Euratom Treaty.
<P>
This is not an abstract issue but a very specific one.
Nuclear matters are an important part of European activities, and the powers of the Commission under the Treaty, especially in the context of international agreements, are quite extensive.
<P>
The present issue of non-proliferation in India is a case in point.
Paradoxically, the role of the European Parliament is minimal, or rather, non-existent in this area.
This is no longer acceptable in 1998-40 years after the signature of the Euratom Treaty.
I am therefore very pleased that Mr Herman has taken this point on board in paragraphs 15 and 16.
<P>
We are now faced with the specific matter of KEDO, the Korean Energy Development Organization, which raises geopolitical issues and issues of nuclear non-proliferation, safety and energy, but the European Parliament is playing a very marginal role.
<P>
I am very pleased to see Commissioner Oreja here and I call on him to take the initiative to agree to institute a formal consultation procedure on the important matter of KEDO.
<P>
I hope also for the support of this House for Amendment No 3, which asks the Commission for information on the financial consequences of this important issue before signing the agreement.
<P>
I think I have covered this in just under one and a half minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Svensson">
Mr President, the procedure with interinstitutional agreements is, in my opinion, extremely questionable from a democratic point of view.
In the first place, it is not possible in any democratic country to amend constitutional laws in this manner.
Such amendments must be effected in a manner that is open and subject to the control of the citizens.
<P>
Secondly, the European Parliament cannot replace the authority of the national parliaments.
The national parliaments are, of course, founded on what we call the principle of national sovereignty - that is, they are the leading legislative institution within the state.
The European Parliament, on the other hand, is of course bound and trapped in a complex structure where the citizens truly lack influence and which is not ruled by the openness that prevails in national systems.
Moreover, the national parliaments have historically been carried forward by parties and movements struggling for democratic and civil rights.
The European Parliament, on the other hand, has been created "from above' , and its tragedy is that it really lacks a civil foundation.
<P>
Thirdly, a genuine democratization of the Union would actually require a radical reform of its entire structure.
The power of the Commission should decrease, since public officials are not supposed to have political power or to be as important as elected politicians.
The power of the national parliaments should increase.
The Council's power should also increase, since it, of course, consists of government representatives who have parliamentary accountability in their home countries.
<P>
Finally, the overall organization of the Union should be substantially reduced in size.
It is both wrong and unproductive that we sit here in the EU's institutions, including Parliament, and decide upon enormous amounts of details and regulations.
Instead, we should be focusing all our energies on the major pan-European problems and questions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="Spiers">
Mr President, I too welcome Mr Herman's report, particularly some parts of it that have hardly been touched on by previous speakers: the need to control power at European level where it has been lost by national parliaments, the need for greater parliamentary control over agricultural and trade policy and, in particular, its recognition that the European Parliament itself must be made more open and more effective.
<P>
We often criticize the democratic deficit and shortcomings in other institutions, but are less critical of our own.
Inevitably, however, our minds are on economic and monetary union, and I even welcome Mr Herman's comments on the democratic accountability of the ECB.
I would prefer that the bank were under proper political control, but it seems that we are all now, or most of us, in thrall to the new religion of 'central bankism' and the best we can hope for is that when the bank screws the people of Europe it will have to come to the European Parliament to account for it.
<P>
There is one major shortcoming in any possible control that this Parliament might exercise over the ECB and in the latter's accountability to it, and that is the statement by Mr Duisenberg in the hearings that the minutes should only be published after 16 years.
This is wholly unacceptable.
The governors of the ECB are appointed for a fixed period and cannot be got rid of no matter how abysmal they turn out to be.
They have that at least in common with Members of the European Parliament.
They cannot be got at and it is therefore quite unacceptable that they should continue to behave as if they were members of some religious cell answerable only to the God of the Market.
<P>
I believe that the minutes of the ECB should be available to this Parliament in a matter of weeks - not after a period of 16 years, and unless we can find out how the deliberations go in a much shorter period I think that the whole notion of accountability is something of an illusion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Mr President, the European Parliament must fight for its democratic rights.
That has been the case in years gone by and the future will certainly be no different.
Interinstitutional agreements are an excellent way for the European Parliament to acquire, in important areas, those rights which are appropriate to a democratic European Union.
Mr Herman's excellent report indicates a number of important areas in which progress can be made and where our efforts must be directed in the near future.
I should like to direct our attention to some of the other major questions which will face us in the coming months and years, issues in which the European Parliament wants to - and indeed must - become more deeply involved, as is in keeping with current Treaty law.
<P>
Major reforms are imminent in the areas of the common agricultural policy and the structural policy.
We have had to negotiate a new financial perspective for the years ahead, and for all the areas in question it seems important for the European Parliament to be involved in the decision making process in a manner which is proper and appropriate to a democratic Union.
We shall have to fight for these rights.
<P>
In a quite significant area - namely in the pre-accession strategy and agreements - the British Presidency has already commendably stated its readiness to grant Parliament many of the rights and opportunities which we simply do not yet have under current Treaty law.
I am expecting the Austrian presidency to do likewise and to give this Parliament the opportunity to participate in the decision making process when it comes to the major issues facing the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
Mr President, the Danish referendum on the Amsterdam Treaty is now only two weeks away.
One reason many Danes are contemplating voting 'No' is because they feel the system is closed, bureaucratic and undemocratic.
In many ways, I believe the EU system far outshines its reputation.
The European Parliament is much more open than the majority of national parliaments.
The Commission is surely no more bureaucratic than other state bureaucracies.
However, that does not mean we can rest on our laurels.
Many problems are waiting to be tackled and we should always be on the lookout for any improvements that could make us more open and democratic.
<P>
Interinstitutional agreements are often a good idea in our quest for more openness and democracy in the EU.
However, there is at least one area mentioned in the rapporteur's excellent report in which I do not wish to see interinstitutional agreements increasing the influence of the European Parliament.
This is social dialogue.
Social dialogue is still in its infancy, and it is important for us to leave it to the parties to the labour market to achieve mutual agreement and establish a framework for collaboration.
Preferably, we should not get involved.
Now that the UK, too, has been included in the social protocol, there is even more reason to wait and see.
Now there is some hope of really speeding up the negotiations.
In terms of competition, no-one now stands to benefit by remaining outside.
In short, I am voting in favour of the rapporteur's excellent report because of the many positive elements it contains and because we must never stop investigating how to make the EU more open and democratic.
But I have no desire to interfere in social dialogue; let us keep our fingers out of the pie!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Piha">
Mr President, I would also like to thank Mr Herman for an excellent report.
The immense new challenges of the European integration process, such as the eastwards enlargement of the Union and the single currency, will require a lot of time for the formulation of opinions. The imparting of information to our citizens takes unconditional priority.
An examination of the institutions is essential in this regard.
<P>
Openness and the democratic machine are difficult terms to define when we talk of a citizens' Europe.
It is the people that make up Europe, not the institutes or the Member States.
Nevertheless, there is still only the vaguest reference to ordinary citizens when legitimizing so-called major projects.
<P>
Economic and monetary union has caused national powers of decision making to pass into the hands of the ECB, which is not controlled by any democratic body whatsoever.
A rather sadly comic example is that the EMU issue was discussed by a Union institution behind closed doors and barbed wire, hidden away from other people.
The media followed the EMU debate in the European Parliament unusually closely that weekend, because that was the only institution that was discussing the matter with the doors open.
<P>
It is important to correct the democratic deficit with increasingly effective partnership between the European Parliament and national Parliaments, in order to safeguard common parliamentary interests.
<P>
Increased openness cannot create a creditable base for a citizens' Europe unless the institutions meet the great new challenges ahead.
The fateful and foolish decision of the Amsterdam Conference in favour of common democratic surveillance and reform of the institutions will inevitably have an effect on the timetable for enlargement.
How could our citizens give their support to an enlarged Europe if, despite the fact that the Commission has issued papers in a variety of colours, everyone can see that Union institutions and national governments do not have the political will to embrace real change, and openness seems merely a catchword?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I want to congratulate Mr Herman on his excellent report, which is another parliamentary initiative designed to make the European system increasingly democratic and responsible, especially when the provisions of the Treaty leave areas of uncertainty with regard to the quantity or quality of democratic control.
<P>
As the rapporteur has underlined this morning, the Treaty of Amsterdam represented major progress with respect to codecision, as regards both its scope and its procedures - in the appointment of the European Commission, in parliamentary control over the implementation of the budget, and in executive activities in general.
I would remind you in this respect that the Commission is preparing the review of the commitology decision of 13 July 1987.
<P>
I also want to mention the growing role of the national parliaments and COSAC, the conference of specialized parliamentary committees.
Undoubtedly, the development of this process of participation by the national parliaments and close cooperation between representatives elected democratically at European and national level has benefited from the very positive climate of collaboration which has been established between the European Parliament and the national parliaments.
And in that sense, I also thought it very timely that Mr Herzog mentioned the role civil society should play, and the suggestion of regular meetings.
<P>
The subject raised by the rapporteur is the strengthening of Parliament's powers or, as it says in the proposal, its increased participation in essential sectors of the Union's policies, using measures which do not modify the existing Treaties but guarantee democratic control, at least until the new intergovernmental conference.
<P>
In my opinion, most of the proposed measures are very useful and offer prospects for agreements to be negotiated at institutional level.
In that sense, we eagerly await the second part of the report, already announced by Mr Herman.
For example, I think that in monetary or foreign policy issues, the European Parliament should be able fully to exercise the right of control, without questioning the provisions of the Treaty until the next intergovernmental conference.
<P>
These sectors are too important to the future of the Union for there not to be efficient democratic control.
Of course, it is not a question of either subjecting the provisions of the Treaty to force or creating obstacles which might delay decisions, since these must be taken quickly.
But it is essential to remove the barriers which, in practice, prevent the European Parliament from fully expressing its point of view, which should of course be taken into account by the other institutions.
So we need to find and create that margin for interpretation, as Mr Corbett said, and as I understand it, that is also the rapporteur's intention.
<P>
On the other hand, I think we need to avoid the excessive fragmentation of interinstitutional agreements.
The report proposes a series of sectors in which the agreements should accompany the Treaties, in a manner of speaking.
The rapporteur has identified these sectors well. However, I wonder if it is really essential to have a specific agreement for each of them, or whether it is not better to define, jointly, some principle of general application, instead of negotiating specific rules sector by sector.
But I am just asking a question. I do not have the answer.
I think it is something we can take into consideration.
<P>
Also, I do not think the interinstitutional agreements should distort certain Treaty provisions.
For example, I am thinking of the problem of approving agreements made by the social partners.
I do not think the approval procedure needs to be made more complicated. As everybody knows, it is of an almost legal nature, I would say.
The institutions can decide whether or not to approve that type of agreement but, of course, what they cannot do is decide to modify them.
I wonder if the European Parliament - which has to assess whether it wants such agreements or not - has not already got enough ability to express itself politically, both during and at the end of negotiations.
Also, we must remember that basically social policy is not implemented through this sort of agreement, but through the other Treaty procedures.
I would remind you that President Santer had to hold a conference for the social partners, to check their willingness to use social agreements for specific matters.
<P>
I am not going to repeat the details of this excellent report.
My aim with these comments is to show you that I have studied the Herman report in depth, because it merits careful study.
I also want to say that it ranks among the initiatives taken by the Committee on Institutional Affairs with a view to getting the Treaty of Amsterdam applied in the most appropriate fashion and, above all, guaranteeing that the Union's decisions are democratic. That has always been Mr Herman's concern, not just in this report but for many years, and he always gives important clues about how to carry on making progress in the right direction.
<P>
This process, which extends the guidelines expressed by this Parliament in January 1986, is being followed attentively by the European Commission, which places itself at Parliament's disposition.
In its resolution to approve the Single European Act - Mr Herman will remember it - the European Parliament made a highly realistic commitment in welcoming the new Treaties and helping to improve the building of Europe, both through reforms and using an intelligent and forward-looking application of the existing rules.
<P>
Mr President, I note that Parliament is continuing along those same lines today.
We have seen how the speeches have demonstrated a clear majority in favour of these views, and therefore I want to repeat my congratulations to the rapporteur.
But a lot has been said about 2 May and I do not want to finish without mentioning the dates 8 and 9 of May, which saw the recent European Movement congress 50 years after the Congress of Europe in The Hague in 1948.
And I want to convey to you the fact that many of the speeches made there, especially the one by the President of this Parliament, stressed that this century must not end without a great initiative being launched to allow us to create an institutional framework in keeping with the great progress we have seen in Europe over the last few years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place today at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Information and communication policy
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0115/98) by Mr Pex, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the information and communication policy in the European Union.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, our debate is running slightly late.
I must draw your attention to this. We are keen to vote on Mr Pex's report at noon.
I therefore request everybody to respect their speaking time strictly, and I will remind people of this where necessary.
<P>
Mr Pex, you now have the floor for six minutes. Please begin by setting us a good example.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="Pex">
Mr President, in its budget the European Union has allocated 27 eurocents per head of population to informing the citizen about what is happening in Brussels and Strasbourg.
That is not very much, which means this small budget must be managed carefully and everything must be done to ensure that the communications and information activities are as effective as possible.
<P>
This Parliament's Committee on Budgets, and latterly also the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, have made efforts over the past few years to improve the information policy.
This has led to the own-initiative report which I am able to present to you today.
The report carries my name, but the text is the fruit of the excellent cooperation between all the members of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, the Committee on Budgets, the Committee on Institutional Affairs, and the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
I thank all my colleagues for their cooperation, and especially for their input.
<P>
Briefly, these are the things my report deals with.
Firstly, actually improving the coordination of information activities.
<P>
Secondly, improving the coordination of activities between the different European Union institutions, especially between the Commission and the European Parliament.
Other institutions could become involved in this.
It is this point in particular which has created difficulties in the past.
In my opinion, this policy has focused too much - and sometimes still does - on demonstrating the merits of the respective institutions, and not enough on the citizens' need for information.
<P>
The third aspect is the decentralization of activities down to the level of Member States and the regions within the Member States.
The message from Brussels does not always come across.
The message needs to be translated for the local culture and views, if the message is to be understood.
That means more must be done by the national offices of both the Commission and this Parliament, so it is important that these offices are reorganized.
<P>
The fourth is the creation of so-called "European Union Houses' , which are an amalgamation of the national offices of the Commission and this Parliament, so that the citizen can access information in a single location.
It is of the utmost importance that these European Union Houses should be established where they can be easily recognized and accessed by the citizen.
They should be able to enter them as easily as entering a shop.
Separate counters should be provided for Parliament and the Commission if required, as each European institution must continue to be able to retain and fulfil its responsibilities, irrespective of the amount of cooperation.
<P>
The fifth point is to improve the quality of information, partly by employing modern communication techniques, an improved audiovisual service, and the proper use of electronic information technology.
<P>
The information policy is not a means to an end.
What matters is that the citizen becomes interested in what Europe does for him and what it means to him.
In the Netherlands we have a saying: "The farmer does not like what he does not know' , and also: "Unknown, unloved' .
All the surveys show that people are not terribly interested in European issues, and they do not know much about the institutions.
This is made manifest by the most important poll of all, the European elections.
In my country, the turnout for the 1994 election was a mere 35 %.
What will it be like in 1999, if the policy does not change?
The issue is, first, to arouse interest amongst the citizens of Europe, and after that, to meet the information requirements adequately.
<P>
The organization of common activities of both institutions requires special attention.
A moment ago I mentioned the need for actual coordination, and this means we cannot leave it at fine words about good cooperation, as was the case until recently.
It means that the organization, management and control should be set up in such a way that there is true coordination.
In this, a distinction must be made between political management and implementation.
According to the rules of this Parliament, the political responsibility for information policy rests with the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media.
Carrying out the specific information activities of this Parliament falls within the remit of the Bureau of this Parliament.
And the general information initiatives carried out in conjunction with the Commission are the responsibility of the interinstitutional Working Party on Ongoing Information Activities which is to be set up.
<P>
This is a clear structure which is, in fact, already in existence and headed competently by Mr Anastassopoulos.
However, it should be used more specifically, so that the policy can be laid down appropriately and implemented.
The advantage of this approach is that we will be able to start implementing the new policy tomorrow.
<P>
A practical aspect of the cooperation between the Commission and Parliament is that they can both use the communication infrastructure.
I am thinking of audiovisual services and press facilities.
Cooperation here means cost savings and higher effectiveness, and a better service for the press.
We need good communication channels.
I have sought to let the relationship with Euronews function on a new basis, and to intensify the relationship.
This could also be the case with other broadcasting organizations, of course, especially with regional and local ones.
'Europe by satellite' could play a special role here.
This, too, requires a customer oriented policy.
<P>
I would like to conclude by thanking my committee and my colleagues for all the work which has been done.
I hope that all those involved in the policy, and first and foremost the Members of this Parliament, will want to participate in this customer oriented policy, placing the citizens at the centre, with the institutions subservient in the background.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="de Clerq">
Mr President, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights paid particular attention to the institutional question of a modern and efficient information policy.
Essentially, the situation is simple.
The European Union has a duty to inform people and this is implied in the Treaties, its powers and its objectives.
The citizen is entitled to receive accurate information about what we do for him.
It is true, no other international organization in the world has such a direct impact on the lives of ordinary citizens.
<P>
A working party chaired by myself as far back as 1993 highlighted the information policy's lack of strategy guidelines.
There is no general message common to all the institutions in which the citizens can recognize themselves.
If the message is to get through, it must be expressed in clear and simple terms.
Moreover, if it is to be understood, it must reflect reality, and that means that the message to the citizen must present an accurate and unambiguous image of the European Union.
Who is to convey this message?
Undoubtedly, both the Commission and Parliament play a part.
The Commission, as a supranational body and guardian of the Treaties, retains a leading role in communication.
But the European Parliament, whose impact and role continue to increase, must be able to fulfil its obligation of communication towards the citizen.
Not only as far as the overall policy of the Union is concerned, but also primarily concerning its own input into the European integration process and its impact on life in the European Union.
Or, to put it briefly: we, as Parliament, must show the citizens that the political institutions are there for them, and not the other way round.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="de Coene">
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Anastassopoulos">
Mr President, in a report which I submitted to the Bureau on 21 March 1995 on an information policy for the European Parliament, among other things I recommended the drawing up of a report by the competent Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, and an annual debate in the House on this important issue.
However, it has taken three whole years to arrive at today's debate.
<P>
During this time, the information issue has not ceased to concern us greatly and the Bureau has pushed forward a number of actions which have sketched out a new policy.
Our starting point was the realization that a great lack of communication separated the European Union from its citizens.
I am not a blind devotee of opinion polls, but when in all the opinion polls, year after year, 60 to 70 % of citizens declare that they have no knowledge of what is happening in Europe, or that there is a lack of information on the subject, the problem can only be regarded as crucial for democracy in Europe.
How can there be serious discussion about a citizens' Europe or citizens' participation under such conditions?
<P>
To begin to reduce somewhat this significant lack of communication, we attached primary importance to the development of cooperation with the European Commission, which has more general responsibility for information on European activities.
The Commission responded and set up an organizational working party chaired by Mr Oreja and myself.
This group has worked hard over the last few years and laid the foundations for more methodical coordination and a more systematic policy.
Such terms as partnership, decentralization, dialogue with the citizens, and communication without propagandist undertones took on a new meaning.
The PRINCE programme for the three major actions in this field served as a laboratory for the implementation of our new ideas and methods in an effort to turn the rapidly developing new technology to advantage.
We also had the satisfaction of seeing our original cooperation with the Commission finally take on a trilateral dimension, as the governments of 11 Member States signed agreements with us and shared in the joint effort.
Thanks to the spirit of cooperation shown consistently not only by Commissioner Oreja but also by his colleagues, for which we thank them, the framework of our actions has thus been traced out and put to the test.
And from within this general framework has come the report we are debating today, after so much delay.
<P>
The problem of our communication with the citizens naturally remains, and it is enormous.
The little progress that has been made is not enough to significantly reduce this lack of communication.
We need more money.
The approximately ECU 100 million a year represents little more than the budget of an average European company which normally advertises a single product.
We need even better cooperation with the Commission and even better coordination.
We need even better cooperation with governments, and governments must cease to claim all successes as their own and to present the European Union as the scapegoat for all failures.
We need to make even greater use of the new technologies and to have greater access to television, which is the chief or only source of information for 70 % of citizens.
The main thing, I think, is that we must not be discouraged by the difficulties, and we must persevere.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Guinebertière">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the citizens of the European Union will very, very soon be faced with this electoral date which is going to be very important for Europe, that is the re-election of Parliament, without forgetting, of course, the reappointment of the Commission.
<P>
Unfortunately, I am not sure that the communication policy applied today has achieved its aims, whether this policy is specialized or intended for the general public.
Who is familiar with the functioning of the institutions?
Who is familiar with the content of the Treaties?
Who knows the risks of enlargement?
Who knows our decisions?
Only the farmers know about the worrying CAP plans.
Their organizations have an excellent system of communication.
As a result, information is achievable.
Let us try, therefore, to make the general public aware of what the European Union has achieved and the advantages it presents. This would help them in their choice, and create support for a European construction which is in accordance with their wishes.
<P>
In all parliaments, the risks of communication are political and are therefore a matter for the democracy and authority of their executive.
The Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media is also, as its name indicates, the committee responsible for media. It therefore has a duty to consider and form an opinion on the subject of this policy.
<P>
Our group was involved fully in this work and while we always supported the theory of the rapporteur, Mr Pex - which was to optimize the joint resources available at an institutional level - we defended the idea that Parliament did not necessarily have the same political ideas to communicate as the Commission.
In effect, this diversity of opinion prepares the public for an understanding of what is at stake.
A committee on European information was proposed by the rapporteur as a kind of executive of the communication policy.
I, for my part, have never supported this idea and today it seems that its adoption would not have any binding legal value.
<P>
Our political group recognizes the importance of the overall consideration which has been given to this important topic and congratulates the rapporteur, Mr Pex, on the work which has been accomplished. We agree with the main objectives which have been determined: objectives of decentralization, interinstitutional cooperation, intensifying contacts with citizens, value for money, research and transparency.
All of this is extremely important to us.
<P>
The fundamental message of the Treaty of Amsterdam was to force the European Union to communicate more intensively with its citizens.
Let us try to apply the Treaty ourselves, and let us prepare the citizens for an understanding of what is being decided for them.
I would not like to finish without congratulating the rapporteur once again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Monfils">
Mr President, since the outset this report has created a certain feeling of uneasiness, as also demonstrated by our President, Mr Gil-Robles Gil-Delgado's speech, an extremely rare event in a public sitting. He thinks the text goes against the Treaty and Parliament's Rules of Procedure.
<P>
This ambiguity remains after amendment.
If it is a question of ensuring a more effective information policy, it will suffice to study the improvements which can be made in the functioning of the Directorates-General responsible, with full respect for Parliament's Rules of Procedure, and obviously in relation to Parliament's Bureau.
Many of Mr Pex's suggestions are also interesting in this respect.
<P>
The report goes further, however.
In paragraph 16 it grants a degree of power to an ad hoc body, but in this case it must guarantee its objectivity.
That is not the case.
The composition of the working party, which is made up essentially of political representatives and not civil servants, shows the exclusive presence of the two large political groups in this Parliament.
This situation is unacceptable for a body which goes beyond the study and research of better means of communication, the only task which the President of Parliament, Mr Gil-Robles Gil-Delgado, had suggested, but which the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media did not accept.
<P>
In the form in which it is presented in paragraph 16 of this report, and given its powers, this working party which the report proposes to institutionalize could be turned into an EU ministry of information, a ministry which, moreover, would not be democratically accountable.
Ladies and gentlemen, to this we can only say no!
Pluralism is essential in the information society, but not in a form which consists of two speeds, one being direct control by the PSE and the PPE, and the other being a vague monthly report on the body's activities, intended for the other political groups.
So if the majority of this Parliament does not vote in favour of our amendment on pluralism, I will, regrettably, vote against this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Mr President, information policy is an important aspect of democratic culture, but it is also a power issue.
The way in which an institution behaves in this critical area is an indicator of its democratic qualities.
The background to this report, the inadequate objectives which have been set, and the composition of the working party all clearly demonstrate that a majority of the Members of this House regard information policy as purely a power issue.
The result is a tendency to confuse information with propaganda, and the representation of Parliament becomes confused with the self-representation of the majority groups.
<P>
Mr President, it is already a mouth-watering prospect that according to paragraph 6 of the report, information policy should ensure that "European citizens are provided with quality information, targeted where possible, which reflects their concerns and gives them a positive image of the European Union.'
<P>
Is it the duty of the European Parliament's information policy to give people a positive picture, or the knowledge which allows them to form their own independent and critical judgement?
The attitude of mind which prevails on this issue in this House can be seen in recent events, when the majority groups actually used the protest demonstrations - which are quite normal, which have occurred hundreds of times in the history of this House, and which still go on - as a motive simply for conjuring up images of the downfall of democracy.
To withhold pictures of these demonstrations from the television companies, to expel photographers from the gallery, shows an attitude of mind which does not shrink from censorship and which, instead of informing the people, only seeks to indoctrinate them.
In my opinion, such actions are hardly a fitting testimony for the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Leperre-Verrier">
Mr President, in taking the initiative of studying the problem of information in the European institutions, the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media has done something worthwhile.
<P>
However, even though everyone sees the need for it, the actual completion of such a project is not an easy thing.
We must thank Mr Pex for having buckled down to the task, and our colleagues from the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media and the Committee on Institutional Affairs for having helped him to avoid certain pitfalls.
<P>
Nevertheless, whatever false images people may have of Europe and its institutions, it is important to distinguish between information for the citizens and the actual communication policy.
Information includes helping our fellow citizens to have a better perception of the European institutions and a greater knowledge of the decisions taken, while communication, in political terms, is the duty of the political groups and the Members of the European Parliament themselves.
<P>
Our mandate obliges us to learn to pass on the message and to explain our choices.
No institutionalized communication policy could replace this.
Furthermore, simpler institutions which are easier for people to understand would ease their sometimes conflicting relationship with Europe.
This is a question which cannot be evaded, but it goes beyond the scope of this debate.
<P>
More specifically, with regard to the problem of setting up a permanent working group, my group has reservations.
Nevertheless, such a body could not exist without all the political groups being represented.
We are therefore voting for the amendments which go in this direction.
This is the sine qua non of a true information policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, you wish to vote at 12.00 noon. I would like to ask you to explain clearly why Mr Pex's report was still not ready for distribution last Friday, and why the amendments were not available until yesterday.
Which powers wish to hamper a normal parliamentary discussion?
<P>
The citizen generally views the increasing European integration critically.
The national administration may be remote from the experiences of the citizen but the distance between the citizen and the European institutions is even bigger.
As Europe is gaining more and more powers, this distance must be reduced.
That is why I am pleased with Mr Pex's lucid report.
In the run-up to the 1999 European elections it is necessary, amongst other things, for the citizens to know that their choice in these elections is of real value.
It must also be pointed out to them that the strengthening of European integration, in which citizens can all but follow the policy makers, is a battle which is not over yet.
<P>
I have a few questions and comments about the report's substance.
The report rightly points out how inadequate information about the Union's policy is.
The report argues that this is caused by the lack of successful public support for European policy.
To a certain extent this is true.
If the citizen does not know which decisions about what are made at European level, it is unlikely he will quickly become very enthusiastic about it.
However, we need to put this into perspective.
The argument has been put forward several times that better information will convince the citizen of the benefits of the Union.
Citizens will begin to realize the good things about European integration "as a matter of course' , as a result of better information.
<P>
This causes me to ask what kind of information goes out to the citizen?
Is it genuinely objective information supplied to the citizen as part of the improved information provision, or is it merely propaganda further to stimulate European integration?
Of course, it remains to be seen whether, as a result of openness in European decision making, the citizens will indeed be convinced of these benefits.
This openness could also lead to them forming a clearer idea of the disadvantages.
<P>
The core of the resolution consists of a proposal to the Commission to submit a legislative proposal with the aim of integrating the information services of the Commission and this Parliament.
In itself this would seem beneficial, because this way the citizen will be given unambiguous information.
How to explain what distinguishes the institutions from one another, however, seems to me to be a difficult task.
This point therefore merits attention in the evaluation mentioned above.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Vanhecke">
Mr President, the very first paragraph of the explanatory statement to Mr Pex's report already shows the mentality with which this document, and occasionally this Parliament, are imbued.
I quote: "European Citizens are in general not very enthusiastic about the development of European integration.
One of the major reasons seems to be a lack of communication with Brussels and Strasbourg and a lack of information about targets and means by the European Institutions' .
<P>
So, if I understand the report correctly, people who are critical of the current state of affairs in official Europe are either stupid or badly informed.
This demonstrates, with all respect, a certain Euro smugness.
<P>
In my own country of Flanders, for example, there was for many years a rather general positive preconception, which I also shared, about European construction.
If this positive view is now crumbling, it is not because people are badly informed but, on the contrary, because they are becoming better informed.
And because they conclude, on the basis of extremely concrete facts, notwithstanding all the constantly biased European propaganda, that the subsidiarity principle for instance, which is so highly praised, is being violated systematically, deliberately and continuously.
That Europe should lay down who should have the right to vote in my country, for example; that European institutions do not show the least respect for the language laws of Flanders; that Europe avoids referendums like the plague; that benefits of scale in the form of efficiency, so highly praised, are by no means always realized.
<P>
Those who wish to gain more enthusiasm from the European citizens for the European project should not spend billions, but should start by respecting the European nations who do wish to cooperate closely, but who are not interested in European uniformity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="Morgan">
Mr President, I wish to congratulate Mr Pex for personally pushing this item onto the agenda of the House.
It has been a critical area which has been neglected for a number of years, because the lack of visibility within the EU, in particular within the Member States, has been lamentable and there was, and still is, a need for better direction within DG X and our own information policy within Parliament.
<P>
There is a massive amount of work to do, and it is not surprising on the basis of the way some of the offices of the Commission work within the Member States.
<P>
I want to talk specifically about the disaster of the Cardiff Office of the Commission in Wales.
For years, this building has been proudly standing there.
For 15 years we have not heard a squeak from it.
How could the Commission have allowed this situation to continue for so long?
How could the Commission accept such inactivity?
It has cost thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money to maintain such a building, a silent building, which has told the Welsh people nothing about the EU.
<P>
It is not only that: the office has had the cheek to pass on information requests to the Commission to Members' offices.
Last Thursday I found out what the office is doing for Europe Day: nothing, absolutely nothing!
What I want to know is this: how typical is this of other offices within the Member States?
<P>
At last the Commission is starting to pull its finger out and will soon be appointing someone. But it has taken almost a year to appoint someone for the Cardiff Office.
By the time that replacement is there the opportunity to ride on the back of the British Presidency will have been lost and the Cardiff Summit will be over.
Mr Pex's report will make sure that this situation never arises again.
<P>
DG X is changing and it is improving, and there are some great examples of direct communication, especially using the Internet.
<P>
I just want to put it into perspective: the EU spent 10 % of what Pepsi Cola spent on telling us about the difference between changing its coke cans from red to blue - so we must keep it in perspective.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Vaz da Silva">
Mr President, the proposal on the future of the European Union's information and communication policy, on which Parliament is invited to vote, contains a number of important points which I would like to highlight.
First of all, however, I must congratulate the rapporteur, Peter Pex, on his initial audacity, but also for the flexibility he has shown in this long and complicated process.
<P>
It is that flexibility that has enabled him to complete this report, which deals with a highly important subject for all the Union's institutions.
The text we are to vote on is the possible wording.
But, if there is sufficient political will in the institutions - and that is a critical point - it could be an excellent instrument to strengthen our citizens' sense of being Europeans.
<P>
The essential points I wish to bring out are these: it should be customary for Commission and Parliament to cooperate together, and for both of them to cooperate with the other institutions; Parliament should have more control over the definition and implementation of policies; there should be more openness from the ordinary citizen's point of view; and, finally, information policy and the profit/cost ratio should be more efficient.
<P>
I would, however, like to emphasize one aspect the report does not touch on, Mr President, and that is the irreplaceable role played by the regional and local media in keeping the people informed.
Since the press is one of our targets, we should specifically make room for the means of information that are closest to the people, because it is they that keep institutions in touch with local life, and are able to translate the Union's political messages into specific terms.
If we fail to do so, we shall be throwing away a valuable ally.
<P>
The attention the report proposes to give to regional television stations should be expressed by using the initiatives that already exist in that field, particularly the regional CIRCOM, which consists of 376 regional stations in 39 European countries.
The European elections in 1999 will be the next major test of how serious we are in our attempts to improve the idea Europeans have of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldi">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like first of all to congratulate Mr Pex on his excellent work and his delicate mediation in drawing up this own-initiative report.
<P>
An efficient and organic information policy represents a fundamental instrument to ensure that the citizens understand the values on which the European Union is based, the objectives proposed and the efforts required to attain these objectives.
<P>
In fact, it is only with clear, continuous and open information that the citizens can know and participate in the mechanisms and complexity of the European structure, and sometimes unexpected results and contributions can be achieved.
<P>
It is therefore necessary to enable the citizen to have easy access to sources of information, to encourage him to know more, to examine matters closely, and become close to the institutions, and not to see them as inaccessible and incomprehensible.
It is therefore important to identify, on the one hand, the best communication systems, and on the other hand, what should be transmitted.
<P>
I believe that information transfer systems must always give priority to the principle of ease of access, and it is desirable to coordinate the structures in which Parliament and the Commission can physically share their technical resources and infrastructures.
<P>
This point is in agreement with the rapporteur's idea of decentralizing the information centres, to make it easy to make contact even with people who live far from the capitals.
<P>
As for content, it is most important to consider the objectives in the major areas, the direction in which the European Union is going, and the fundamental role the citizens play in this development.
Secondly, the function of each of the institutions - Commission and Parliament - should be considered: their common and individual objectives, and their different responsibilities.
<P>
Cooperation between the European Parliament and the Commission is very important, above all to identify the effects of information on major topics, to coordinate the specific contribution of each of the two institutions.
However, any strengthening of coordination must leave each institution sufficient autonomy, and safeguard the visibility of the roles and responsibilities of each.
In fact, if it is feared that the citizen has difficulty distinguishing between Parliament and the Commission, the solution is not to unify the image but, on the contrary, to show the different roles clearly.
On this point, it should be stressed that it is the job of Parliament - more than any other institution - in its capacity as an assembly of directly elected representatives, to show the decisions taken by the assembly and the various bodies it consists of, respecting and reflecting the diversity of opinions which are expressed within it.
Lively, pluralistic information is the fundamental element of democratic debate.
Parliament must vouch for it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ryynänen">
Mr President, first of all I would like to state that the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party intends to vote in favour of this report.
<P>
The future of the European Union depends on the support of its citizens.
No excellent information policy can cover for a chaotic structure or poor decisions, but much of the dissatisfaction felt by our citizens stems from the EU's distant stance.
It is hard to discern any connection between Brussels and its bureaucratic decision making machine and normal, everyday life.
The big challenge for the EU's information and communication policy is to bridge the abyss that separates the EU institutions and the people.
It will require information to become communication that goes in both directions. The bridge over the abyss can be built only through partnership, involving both the institutions of the Community and the Member States.
<P>
The new telecommunications technology will allow more and better interactive communication.
At the same time, the EU information machine must regionalize. It must bring our citizens closer, with the aid of regional information outlets and local media.
For example, libraries make an excellent place for this kind of activity.
It is obviously also important that the language of EU information should be as clear and comprehensible as possible in all communications.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dijk">
Mr President, the European Parliament is not very successful in its information policy.
There is little doubt about that in this House, but unfortunately opinions tend to differ somewhat on the reasons for this.
However, I can assure you that it does nothing for the credibility of our information policy if the services of the European Parliament remove the cameras when things happen which are not agreeable to a large part of this Parliament, or take other measures to avoid the press finding out about them.
To be honest, not only did this happen this week, it happens regularly here.
It contributes nothing to the credibility of the information policy.
<P>
Moreover, this Parliament also manages to ignore its own failures when criticizing the information policy, whilst blaming others rather easily. Yet it would add to this Parliament's credibility if it were to show its teeth once in a while in instances when it is able to do so.
I only mention the inauguration of the Commission, or the customs union with Turkey.
These are just a couple of examples.
<P>
Consider this Parliament's buildings policy, or the fact that we have to meet in more than one assembly. I can assure you, that adds nothing to the credibility of this Parliament in the eyes of the outside world.
An information policy is hardly sufficient to counter this kind of thing, even if you try to implement it in conjunction with the European Commission.
There is really no point, unless this Parliament polishes up its own credibility. That would truly be the best way to convince the voters of the European idea.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Elchlepp">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too wish to congratulate Mr Pex on this long overdue report.
If Europe is to become a Europe of the people, then its tangible benefits, its aims and its perspectives must be more clearly understood by the people.
<P>
That means democracy in its absolute sense, and the right to have things explained.
We all know from our own national organizations just how much uncertainty and ignorance still prevails on the subject of Europe.
There is a serious information deficit - incidentally this also applies to the national governments - and a clear disparity between the successes of the EU and its image.
This has resulted in the unpleasant fact that interest in the EU has long centred around negative stories from Europe, and the sceptics have been gaining ground.
<P>
As has already been said, people do not know about the European Parliament's rights of codecision after Amsterdam, for example.
How many citizens of the EU are aware of the legislative rights of this House?
Do we even know how the great euro information campaigns permeated down to the ordinary citizens?
Was the success of these campaigns ever analysed or discussed with us?
<P>
How did we ever get into such a situation of no confidence in the democratic legitimacy of decisions taken at European level?
I believe we need a more efficient front-line mediation structure, and information on European Parliamentary decisions must be circulated quickly.
We must also pay attention to the amount of information we supply and to the language used, particularly with regard to those target groups who are in urgent need of it.
<P>
I would just like to say one more thing. I cannot imagine that efficiency will be further enhanced by setting up more wonderful - and wonderfully expensive - EU offices and other bodies in Brussels.
This will only be achieved by a further decentralization of our information services.
The "Europe Info Points' , which proved a big success, would be eminently suitable for this task. These units must be extended, for they operate at the grass roots and offer the ordinary citizen a shortcut to EU information.
Local authorities are willing to cooperate here.
Let us make use of the opportunity provided by central, regional and local authorities, and let us at last launch a confident offensive for the European cause.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Kristoffersen">
Mr President, there is a lot of discussion about drawing our citizens closer to the EU and its institutions, but this is surely just as much a matter of the institutions, the European Parliament included, coming out to meet citizens and learning what priorities they place on the various interests. The institutions must make themselves more transparent, easier to comprehend and perhaps a bit less boring.
They should endeavour to get people to take an interest in European affairs, encouraging them to want to get involved in things, thus motivating them to take a stance while also giving them a sense of value in doing so.
As we discussed here earlier this morning, that is also important for democracy.
And the positions and efforts of national parliaments at the European level could contribute to making citizens more aware of European issues.
What we need is a personal dialogue.
Dialogue does not just mean campaigns, because to me, the term 'campaign' sounds almost like psychological rape.
Forthcoming policy in the area of information will have to mean taking citizens seriously and treating individual countries with sensitivity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Raschhofer">
(NI). (DE) Mr President, the rapporteur correctly points out that the EU's information and communication policy should be made more efficient.
But what does he mean by this?
He comes to the conclusion that by increasing efficiency in this area we would be able to dispel the negative climate of opinion surrounding the EU, and consequently force the pace of European integration.
I do not share this view.
The widening gulf between the citizens of Europe and its institutions is not being caused by the inadequate information policy but by the unsatisfactory answers which have been given to Europe's most burning questions, such as that of the 18 million unemployed.
<P>
While the rapporteur stresses the multilingual talents of the people of Europe, the Committee on Institutional Affairs is already discussing the future adoption of Esperanto as a common European language.
While the rapporteur stresses the importance of the moving picture, Members of this House are proposing that the cameras be removed from the Chamber.
While the rapporteur underlines the importance of intelligibility in the drawing up of legal documents, Members are declaring that they are unable to understand the language of the regulations which have been submitted on agricultural reform.
<P>
As these examples show, the claims which have been made simply do not live up to reality.
Pretty wrapping paper is not enough - the contents of the package must also be right.
If the communication policy of the institutions is to be regarded...
<P>
(The President cut off the speaker)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Jensen, Kirsten">
Mr President, the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media wishes to coordinate visiting and information policy for EU institutions.
This may sound alluring, but that is not necessarily the case.
A certain degree of coordination and exchange of ideas may be fine, but we should remember that the institutions are independent units.
People should be able to differentiate between the Court of Justice and Parliament, the Commission and Council.
When visitors come here, they obviously often say they are going 'down to the EU' , but there is no need for us to confirm that all the peas are from the same pod.
<P>
In this matter, our only responsibility is to the European Parliament.
The others will manage just fine.
We should allow visitors access to the House so that they can see the openness with which we operate.
For example, our committee meetings are open compared to those of the national parliaments.
Visitors should have access to our work rooms so they can get the feel of a democratic, open institution.
I have often asked the administrative management of the House to make proper rooms available for visitors.
The Danish Social Democrats alone will probably have up to 3000 visitors this year, and that is only for four members.
We must find space for them, and that might well be some meeting room where the parties can set up their stands and computers.
Our information policy has two key elements.
On the one hand, we must provide information about ourselves, and resources have been set aside for this, but beyond that, we must also be accessible to the representatives of the public, including the press.
Over the last couple of days, I have been shocked to hear colleagues complaining about the zany dress of other Members and the fact that the media were curious to know what these Members meant by it.
It seems utterly idiotic for us, in a democratically elected Parliament, to have any interest whatsoever in restricting press access to our official meetings.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, this report represents a large collection of contributions by various groups on the question of information, and is also a clear indication of Parliamentary cooperation.
<P>
When we remember that communication is a core issue in the information society, and takes place mainly via the mass media, we could hardly be dealing with anything more important. That is because the legitimacy of the whole Union rests very much on the image that people get from our work - the very people who directly elect us.
We struggle with the professional media, we struggle with the advertising used by mega-corporations, and sometimes it is in downright desperation that we wonder how democracy might be marketed so that it might come to the attention of the people, people whose lives, nevertheless, still depend somewhat on democratic decisions made both at home and in Europe.
<P>
I think we must continue to improve our information systems, because the appropriation we allow for the provision of information is very little compared to what, for example, is put into the worldwide marketing of a drink extract or a trademark.
This means that democracy has, as it were, been bypassed by mainstream information systems, as global companies attract international notice and, in certain countries, are already entering our schools.
As long as we bear this in mind, we shall be on the right track.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="Howitt">
Mr President, my own county, Essex, is the gateway to Europe, home of the major ports of Tilbury and Harwich with airports at Stansted and Southend, a major beneficiary of European defence conversion, industrial adaptation, fishing and social funds.
And yet it is still too often known falsely for its notorious Euro-sceptics.
That is why I would like to announce two pieces of good news in this morning's debate.
<P>
First, this week's EU announcement of a new European Information Centre serving the business community in conjunction with Essex County Council.
Essex has been a black hole in the Brussels network with many local small businesses giving up before they had started with European programmes, tenders or exports.
This new European Information Centre will give them direct and free access to all European documentation.
It will make the requirements of European legislation and the opportunities for European funding easily understandable to them.
It will provide an opening to other businesses through the network of 232 centres throughout the European countries.
<P>
Secondly, on 28 April we had a coming together of local government, education and business representatives over the whole of the East of England.
They have agreed to improve coordination of European information.
That is very good news, which I wanted to pass on to colleagues this morning.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Darras">
Mr President, I will say briefly that it was about time Mr Pex's report came before the House.
The compromise which was reached was approved unanimously by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, in the presence of the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Budgets and the DGIII and DGX services of Parliament and of the Commission.
I support it too.
<P>
I would also call for vigilance on the part of our Parliament to ensure that this European body which we are setting up can, in addition to its tasks of coordinating common areas of information, also exercise control of this information and communication policy which we want so badly.
We must not, by passing it off as an otherwise desirable decentralization, privatize this sector by entrusting it to external offices made up of experts from outside the Commission and Parliament, and thus without any form of control.
That would also open the way for harmful misuse.
<P>
Let us therefore pay close attention to ensure that the elected members of this body exercise their political mandate independently and resolutely.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will make this a very short speech, although I must admit that Mr Pex's important report deserves a long comment.
<P>
I want to congratulate him on his initiative.
I share his concern over the need for the European institutions to promote and develop an active and effective information policy.
It is not an easy task.
It is not easy, simply because of the technical complexity of the decisions taken at Community level. It is also not easy for a structural reason, because it is difficult to talk about the existence of public opinion in Europe, at a European level.
There are national public opinions, but it is hard to convey the content of our institutions' decisions at Community level, to public opinion at a Community level.
<P>
The basic message of Mr Pex's report is that there should be more coordination between the information activities of Parliament and the Commission.
Thus he rightly stresses in his report that the Commission and Parliament have objectives in common, but that they are not identical, which means that communication policy should either be developed jointly or in a differentiated manner by each institution.
<P>
So I fully share his view that we have to coordinate and collaborate better wherever such coordination and collaboration is possible, with full respect for the institutional autonomy which allows each one to develop its role efficiently.
<P>
In regard to the report's two sections, I am not going to make any comment about the Commission's information policy because I agree, and these are partly policies which are already being implemented.
<P>
So I will concentrate on the second part of the report, on the mechanisms to ensure cooperation between Parliament and the Commission.
I must confess, I have certain reservations here as regards parts of paragraph 16 of the report.
Firstly, the Commission is invited to present a legislative proposal by 30 September 1998, in order to create an interinstitutional working party.
I think it will be hard for the Commission to adopt a legislative proposal on this question by that date.
A whole series of questions needs to be examined first, of a legal, technical and institutional nature, before we would be ready to formulate such a proposal.
Furthermore, I note that the rapporteur himself fails to request in his report that the proposal be presented by reason of Article 138 B, which is the channel provided for in the Treaty to request the Commission to propose Community acts.
<P>
Thirdly, I think it could be a good idea to set up a working party like the one mentioned in the report, and I fully agree, but I do not think we need to create a new body in order to put this idea into practice.
It is working well and yielding results, and it needs to work better and better.
In my opinion, it is not necessary at the moment to create new institutional structures in order efficiently to develop a better coordination of information policy.
<P>
As regards the "European Union Houses' , I just want to say one thing. Parliament and the Commission can be based in the same building or in neighbouring buildings, and that is a good approach.
I share that objective.
That is exactly the policy I have been following ever since I have been responsible for this area.
What we must do is avoid duplications, and I am sure that, together, we will manage to establish and share archives, libraries and conference rooms.
<P>
As for the other matters mentioned in paragraph 16, I agree with the whole set of initiatives - Euronews, ' Europe by Satellite' , and the European Union on radio and CD-ROM.
On all these points, I fully share the rapporteur's views.
<P>
I will conclude by saying that those are the reflections sparked off by Mr Pex's important report, which has the great merit of raising important, urgent questions affecting the European institutions' policy of information and communication with the people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place today at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="President">
It is my great pleasure to welcome Mr Dan Tichon, chairman of the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset , who is doing us the honour of visiting the European Parliament and who is seated in the official gallery.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="Falconer">
Madam President, Members will recall my question to the President yesterday in this Parliament: he advised us that it would be the Bureau, and only the Bureau, which would review and make decisions relating to the 50 % voting attendance in Chamber during roll call votes.
This is what the President told us.
As Members of this Parliament, we believe this is undemocratic.
We believe that the Bureau is taking decisions which could have a knock-on effect in the future because a precedent is being created.
We have therefore decided to protest in this manner.
This is the only avenue of protest that we have regarding the way the Bureau is handling this particular crisis.
Therefore, my presence in the Chamber is noted for this roll call vote.
I may wish to vote on some occasions but on this occasion I merely wish my presence to be noted.
I appeal to other Members to do likewise.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Falconer">
Madam President, my presence in the Chamber should be noted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, presiding a sitting would not be the same without a comment from Mr Falconer.
It has become a pleasant habit. We take it in good part.
<P>
Mr Falconer, we note that you are not taking part in the vote but that you are indeed present.
<P>
(Mr Falconer requested the floor) Mr Falconer, I cannot allow you to speak again; that would be once too often.
<P>
After the vote on Amendment No 18
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="President">
Yes, Mr Falconer, you are still there. I can see you.
<P>
Are you going to insist, Mr Falconer?
If it really is for a point of order, it will be the last.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Falconer">
Madam President, that is not what the instructions from the Bureau say.
The instructions from the Bureau say that you will make it known at the vote.
I wish to be known at the vote and so therefore I wish to be recorded before the vote takes place.
That is what the instructions say, so please obey your own instructions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="President">
Mr Falconer, to save time I promise to check that you are present, but you will understand that I am not willing to participate in your game.
We have a lot of amendments.
I can see you are there. Whether you vote or not, I know you are present and I have recorded it.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="President">
Mr Falconer, I will allow you to speak on condition that it is for a final point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Falconer">
Madam President, if the opposite side and other Members in this House wish to bleat like sheep and act like sheep when someone tells them what to do, and then they follow blindly, how can their electorate expect them to represent them?
How can the electorate have any faith in this Parliament when their own representatives are being dictated to?
<P>
Madam President, you said: ' I am not willing to participate in your game' .
Mr Falconer did not start this game!
The game was started by the Bureau.
It was the Bureau that held these instructions down, not Mr Falconer.
I therefore ask you to withdraw those words!
I ask Members of this House to stop behaving like sheep!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lenz">
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Dimitrakopoulos">
Madam President, this concerns an oral amendment which has two parts.
I have the French text in front of me.
<P>
Recital G begins: ' Inquiet du non respect par Israël des engagements... '
The first part of the oral amendment consists in replacing this phrase with the phrase: ' Convaincu qu'Israël doit respecter ses engagements... '
<P>
The second part of the amendment consists in adding at the end, after the phrase 'novembre 1995 ' , the phrase: ' et des accords d'Oslo ' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Dimitrakopoulos.
<P>
Are there any objections to this oral amendment?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Madam President, on behalf of my group I would just like to express my approval and full support for this oral amendment.
<P>
(The President noted that there was no opposition to the oral amendment)
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Sarlis">
Madam President, we all know that yesterday it was decided to start a dialogue between the population of Kosovo and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
In paragraph 3 we call on them to begin this dialogue.
I would therefore recommend the following changes in paragraph 3.
This paragraph will start with the words: ' welcomes the opening of a dialogue between...' . It continues: ' without preconditions on the future status of Kosovo' .
This is all that is in paragraph 3.
<P>
(The President noted that there were more than twelve objections)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cohn-Bendit">
Ladies and gentlemen, there is something I do not understand.
There is a request for an oral amendment.
You did not protest initially.
At the end you can always vote against.
Your attitude is completely stupid.
First you listen and then you say: ' No, I did not want to listen' .
It is completely contradictory.
We were within the framework of the procedure.
You cannot begin at the beginning again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="President">
One day someone should explain the rules clearly to you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Cars">
When the resolution was drafted we did not know what was then happening in Belgrade.
We did not have the facts as now presented by the speaker.
We should have been given the chance at least to put arguments in favour of the proposal before it was rejected.
I regret we did not have that chance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="President">
One thing which is certain is that we are not going to start a debate on the matter.
We are all aware that the rule was fully respected in this case.
We were faced with an oral amendment of which, by force of circumstance, our colleagues were unfortunately not aware in advance.
That is what happens in such cases.
<P>
I shall now give the floor to Mrs Pack, since she will tell us the reasons for this opposition to the oral amendment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
I should just like to point out that no new information whatsoever has been forthcoming since yesterday.
We already knew by midday yesterday that Mr Rugova and Mr Milosevic intend to meet tomorrow.
More than this we do not know.
We therefore have nothing new to add.
We hope this discussion can commence without any preconditions, as stated in the resolution.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Madam President, on the subject of this Amendment No 4 on the reduction of working hours, taking account of the debate underway in a number of countries in the European Union and taking account of the votes in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, I wanted to say that, as rapporteur, I cannot ask for this to be supported.
However, as author of the report, I support this amendment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="President">
Good, I think the House is now clear on this.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Herman">
Madam President, I will be very brief.
The third indent refers to a working document which, in the meantime, has been replaced by Mrs Randzio-Plath's resolution, and therefore it must be updated.
I would ask for Parliament's indulgence to amend as necessary to 'having regard to its resolution of 2 April 1998, doc.
A4-0110/98' .
I will ask for the floor in a moment, on the subject of paragraph 9, for the purposes of a very minor amendment.
<P>
(During the vote on the amendments, Mr Falconer requested the floor several times)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="President">
No, Mr Falconer, we agreed that that was your last point of order.
I am sticking to that and I think I have been very patient.
<P>
(Mr Falconer insisted - protests from the House) Mr Falconer, this is really very unpleasant.
I will speak frankly: I am asking you to stop!
<P>
All the Presidents who have occupied this rostrum have shown a great deal of patience.
But that is the end of it.
I would like us to continue with the vote.
<P>
On paragraph 9
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herman">
Madam President, I would ask you to change the wording slightly, not for purposes of economy but to avoid any possible differences in interpretation between Mrs Randzio-Plath's report and mine.
I propose to replace the words 'or given the chance' with 'to enable it' .
<P>
(The President noted that there was no opposition to the oral amendment)
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="President">
I congratulate Mr Herman and I apologize to Mr Pex but it is too late to vote on his report now.
The vote will take place this evening, following the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
I wish you bon appétit and I now give the floor to Mr Falconer!
<P>
(Mixed reactions)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Falconer">
Madam President, I hope and trust that you will respect my rights.
Obviously Mr Blak does not want to respect them but that is for his electorate to judge.
My point was this: how many persons have approached your services to advise them that they will be in the Chamber but not voting?
That is my first point.
My second point was to ask: can your services identify if they were still in the Chamber?
I believe that is a genuine point of order.
It is part of the procedure which we have adopted.
I know that one person approached me and told me that he had registered that he was going to be in the House.
I did not see that person in the House during the vote and I am just enquiring as to how many more persons actually did that to register their protest.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="President">
Mr Falconer, I will reply immediately.
The presence of the Members is checked throughout the votes. I can assure you of that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Green">
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Green.
I appreciate what you say.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Smith">
Madam President, I should also like to thank you for your patience.
I also thank Mr Falconer for standing up for the rights of Members.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Deprez">
Like our rapporteur, I am delighted about the Council common position organizing the introduction of operator number portability in the telecoms sector and of carrier pre-selection.
These are two very important measures to guarantee that competition in this sector functions properly and thus to promote the interests of the consumer.
The deadline of 1 January 2000 for most Member States also seems adequate.
<P>
Also like our rapporteur, however, I regret that the Commission has submitted no proposals for introducing number portability in the mobile telecoms sector.
<P>
I agree with him that it is essential to make the use of the 112 emergency number operational in all countries of the European Union.
I believe that the citizens' Europe can more easily be made reality by means of practical measures like this than by a proliferation of incantatory declarations.
<P>
K. Collins report (A4-0181/98)
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Deprez">
Given the complicated title of the proposal for a Council regulation which is submitted to us, it would be useful to remind you that the text on which we are going to give our opinion aims to indicate with precision which genetically modified soya or maize based products must be labelled as such and, where necessary, precisely how they should be labelled.
<P>
In my opinion it is essential that we take a firm stance in favour of clear wording in the case of these products, especially as this regulation will probably be used as a reference for precise measures for the labelling of new foodstuffs and ingredients, for which we have waited a long time.
We cannot drop our guard now, knowing the effort we have had to make to gain acceptance of the principle of a specific supplementary labelling, one as complete as possible, within the context of the adoption of the novel food regulation.
<P>
Consequently, I fully support the amendments which aim to reinforce that part of the wording which is fully justified and which is submitted to the consumer, as well as to clarify its content.
I support in particular the development of a better scientific evaluation of the presence of GMOs. This means doing away with the possibility of a 'may contain' label and replacing it with the clear label 'contains a GMO product' , and the possibility, where necessary, of an abbreviated label 'genetically modified' , which has the advantage of not being excessively long or complex while still remaining sufficiently clear.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Ford">
I am voting in favour of this report that will force the labelling of certain foodstuffs that contain genetically modified organisms - GMOs.
I would have liked it to go a little further.
Yet let me make it clear, as a scientist my judgement is that GMOs are safe for public consumption.
However, as has been so sadly proved on many occasions, science and scientists are not infallible.
I want Community law to allow those consumers who make a different judgement to mine to be able to exercise that choice in Europe's shops and supermarkets.
That is why labelling is necessary, in that without forbidding GMOs it maintains the individual's right of choice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats do not endorse the report because it compromises the labelling of GMOs.
Removing the possibility of labelling foods with the wording 'may contain' is an affront to the consumer's desire for information.
It was a European Parliament proposal that originally advocated that doubtful cases should be labelled.
This assures genuine choice for those consumers who categorically do not want foods which contain GMOs.
<P>
Tindemans report (A4-0171/98)
<SPEAKER ID=92 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Madam President, I am presenting this explanation of vote on behalf of my Group, namely the Green Group in the European Parliament.
It relates to a report which has produced a fundamental change in the policy of this House.
The Green Group, like a few other groups in this Parliament, belongs to that section of the House which does not consider it necessary to be armed to the teeth in order to achieve a democratic, ecological and socially just European Union.
In this respect, we condemn the fact that in spite of massive protests by a minority in this House during the ratification process for the Amsterdam Treaty, and despite the fact that some Member States of this European Union are neutral, such a report was put on the agenda.
The result is that this initiative by the European Parliament anticipates matters which go much further than the Amsterdam Treaty and therefore will severely disrupt the ratification process in the neutral states. Most importantly of all, it will certainly not be in the interests of freedom of choice for the citizens of Europe.
We were given no mandate from the people to do this.
<P>
In the midst of all this confusion a serious change has taken place.
At the conclusion it was not made clear that the name of our committee, the "Subcommittee on Security and Disarmament' , has been changed to the "Subcommittee on Security and Defence' .
This too goes far beyond the Amsterdam Treaty.
On behalf of the Green Group, I wish to register a strong protest against the attempts which are being made to change the procedures in the European Union by way of initiatives, and to do this against the will of the European people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Ahlqvist, Andersson, Lööw, Theorin, Waidelich and Wibe">
Foreign and security policy consists of different components: foreign policy, aid, trade, conflict resolution and peace, disarmament policy, refugee policy and military defence.
Security policy is therefore not the same thing as military defence.
<P>
From a modern security perspective, the security of the people is the central consideration.
The threat to the people may be anything from environmental disasters to social exclusion.
Conflicts between states are becoming increasingly unusual.
Instead, intra-state conflicts are becoming ever more common.
Most of these conflicts have their origins in social antagonisms of an ethnic and/or religious nature.
Such conflicts cannot be resolved by military methods.
<P>
Many of the EU Member States do not accept a common defence policy.
In Sweden, 70 % of the population is opposed to this.
<P>
The realization of a common defence policy has been removed from the agenda for a long time, to come as a result of the Amsterdam Treaty.
Parliament does not have the right to decide on a common defence policy.
Unanimity is required within the Council of Ministers in order to adopt such a policy.
We cannot support the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Crampton">
I voted against this report because although I want the EU to move towards a common foreign and defence policy as part of a federal Europe, I cannot support the basis of that policy as that of nuclear deterrence.
The British and French nuclear weapons should be dismantled in accordance with Article 6 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and in line with the judgement of the International Court of Justice in 1966.
Then we can develop a common defence policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Cushnahan">
I support the development of an EU defence policy.
I consider that it is an indispensable part of European integration.
Therefore I totally support the proposals contained in Mr Tindemans' report.
<P>
However, I would like to take issue with Ms McKenna's remarks during her contribution to the debate.
She has claimed, wrongly, once again that the Amsterdam Treaty establishes a European defence policy, thereby undermining Irish neutrality.
<P>
It does no such thing.
The Amsterdam Treaty specifically respects the current defence and security polices of each Member State.
This is a specific Treaty commitment to respect Irish neutrality.
<P>
An EU defence policy can only be established if it is agreed unanimously at a future Council meeting.
Furthermore, it would require amendments to the EU Treaties and would therefore be subject to a referendum in Ireland.
She should desist from making those fraudulent claims which she and her colleagues have made during every referendum in Ireland.
The fact that they have consistently proved to be without foundation unfortunately does not prevent their repetition.
<P>
I also take exception to her personal remarks about Mr Tindemans.
They are intemperate, offensive and ill-advised.
Mr Tindemans is the spiritual father of European Union and no-one in this House has done more than he has to bring about permanent peace and reconciliation in Europe.
Ms McKenna and her colleagues would do well to follow his example rather than criticize him.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Deprez">
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Donner (PSE), Paasilinna (PSE), Myller (PSE), Paasio (PSE)">
The Tindemans report as approved stands for a thinking that at least partly reflects Cold War attitudes.
It is wishful thinking, considering the Amsterdam Treaty and the four militarily non-aligned countries, to talk about integrating the WEU into the Union.
Finland is at present the only Union Member State having a common border with Russia.
We do not see Russia as an enemy and we hope that the ties between the Union and Russia will be strengthened, creating an even larger area of peace, stability and prosperity.
<P>
We do not see military means as a primary answer to the problems facing us in the immediate neighbourhood of the Union.
This was the reasoning behind the Finnish-Swedish initiative to include Petersberg tasks within the scope of the Union.
The Tindemans report is not based on clear-headed thinking about European defence and security needs.
We therefore had to vote against the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats have chosen to vote against the resolution.
The Tindemans report regards the EU from the outset as a military power and, in its recommendations, goes further still in its efforts to make the EU the standard-bearing regional superpower.
<P>
The report concludes that Union initiatives with regard to problems arising in areas such as the Middle East and the Balkans have been too little and too late, and that the European Parliament's natural role as a responsible player on the world scene has not been very evident to the Commission or the Council of Ministers.
As social democrats, we cannot take issue with that.
However, the report's proposed solution to this problem involves suggesting a rapid assimilation of the WEU into the EU.
An EU as a potential military superpower is a step in the wrong direction for a united, peaceful Europe.
<P>
The report also sets out a number of points to accelerate the integration of the WEU into the EU, strengthening the common defence profile that Mr Tindemans so earnestly desires.
However, the rapporteur offers no solution to the difficulties the EU would face in explaining itself to its neighbours, who would object to an EU bent on arming itself.
Similarly, taken to its logical conclusion, a common defence policy would mean French and British nuclear weapons having to come under Community jurisdiction.
So, like others in the social democrat group, we have chosen to vote against the resolution.
Europe already has a joint security identity in the form of NATO and the OSCE.
It does not need another one.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR), Eriksson, Seppänen and Svensson (GUE/NGL), Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling (V)">
We have voted against the Tindemans report because it represents a considerable step on the path to militarization of the EU, which unfortunately confirms the fears that many of us have been voicing for some time about trends in EU cooperation.
Through the Tindemans report, the European Parliament is lining up behind the view that the EU must be developed into a military superpower with objectives broadly in line with those of most of history's superpowers: the unilateral defence of its own interests, including security of supply, by force of arms.
The report also represents the view that the EU should be entitled to act as a kind of "global police force' and intervene militarily in other countries' affairs as it sees fit.
<P>
We advocate an international legal system, which may also include peace initiatives of a military nature of the type undertaken for some time by the UN and the OSCE.
We can also envisage various forms of reinforcement, within the framework of the UN Charter, of the UN's and OSCE's roles in this connection.
We are opposed, however, to individual superpowers or regional blocs independently pursuing military interventions outside the UN framework, for which the Tindemans report unfortunately paves the way.
<P>
It is also evident that the vision of security policy underlying the Tindemans report does not in the long term leave any room within the EU framework for non-alignment by the Swedish model.
This unfortunately also bears out fears that we have voiced in the past.
<P>
In conclusion, we would like to point out the significant fact that the Swedish version of the title of the Tindemans report translates 'defence policy' as 'security policy' , which is such a serious misrepresentation that it gives a wholly misleading picture of what the Tindemans report is actually all about.
<P>
Joint resolution on Euro-Mediterranean cooperation
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Caudron">
Do I need to say it again?
For us, the Mediterranean Sea is an inland sea.
<P>
Our relations - and the quality of those relations - with all the countries bordering on it are vital, both for them and for us.
<P>
That requires partnerships and voluntary actions, with full respect for our differences, our constraints and our histories...
<P>
This process has been improving for a few years. However, there have been too many delays, too much mixing of genres, and sometimes too much of a superior attitude on our part, not to mention hints of neocolonialism.
<P>
On the subject of Algeria, Morocco or the Middle East, no-one has "the perfect answer' .
<P>
Certainly, we all agree that we must eradicate terrorism, perfect democratization and relaunch the peace process.
<P>
We may have ideas or suggestions and defend them keenly, but we must be able to listen to those who are in contact with these grave and dramatic problems.
<P>
Laxness, denial and pretended superiority should not form the European guidelines.
<P>
Nor should we forget to demand that the Member States of the European Union ratify their agreements quickly, so we can make the necessary funds available, help the countries of the south, open our markets and also demand that our political weight be recognized in our common quest for solutions.
<P>
I believe in our success if, and only if, we manage to use political means.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Cellai">
Euro-Mediterranean cooperation, launched by the Conference of Barcelona in November 1995, is a sustainable element of stability and economic development of the entire region.
<P>
In fact, for the European Union it is a matter of promoting growth to reduce unemployment in the region and decrease migration pressure, contributing in general to the stability and security of the Mediterranean countries.
<P>
This strategy will consequently have positive repercussions on European security.
Europe is discovering a basic concept: an ECU invested in Asia will create jobs, wealth and security in Asia, while an ECU invested in the Mediterranean will create security for the whole of Europe.
<P>
That is why the European Commission must relaunch decentralized cooperation, which has been paralyzed for too long, as quickly as possible.
<P>
When does the European Commission intend to reactivate the application of the MED programmes?
<P>
These programmes do not function through national governments, but with a multilateral cooperation decentralized to regional and local level.
In other words, they are very important as they make it possible to form direct links between persons, groups and organizations which share the same interests and which have the same aims, both within the EU and the Mediterranean partners, and between those partners.
<P>
In this way economic development can be encouraged, through the formation of a ruling and entrepreneurial class which represents the various strata of society and not only the positions of the élite.
<P>
And this will be good not only for the Mediterranean region but for Europe as a whole.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of the motion for a joint resolution on Euro-Mediterranean agreements.
We have done so based on considerations of the importance of supporting EU projects in this area.
We should be involved in helping to secure peaceful development in terms of trade, democracy and human rights in the countries bordering on the Mediterranean.
<P>
One deficiency in the motion for the joint resolution is that it does not put strong enough emphasis on human rights.
The Danish Social Democrats wish to urge the Commission at the earliest opportunity to propose a strategy to promote adherence to human rights in the Mediterranean area.
Furthermore, the Danish Social Democrats consider it a matter of importance for pressure to be brought to bear on the Commission to increase grants to promote adherence to human rights in this area.
Setting aside ECU 9 million for such initiatives is not enough.
Sufficient funds should be set aside to allow activities to be expanded and programmes to be made more comprehensive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Müller">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, while I have every respect for the Commission's efforts in launching the MEDA programme and the MED-MEDA programmes, I do have a specific criticism to make on behalf of my group.
<P>
The MED programmes have been terminated by Commissioner Marín, though no individual criticism was directed at them, solely as a reaction to the deplorable state of affairs generally.
In this way, good projects have paid the penalty for the failures of the Commission.
This course of action is extremely unpolitical and is indicative of the Commissioner's helplessness.
His intervention in yesterday's debate was also, regrettably, quite out of place.
<P>
I would therefore ask the Commission to put a stop to such behaviour when similar circumstances arise in the future.
Terminating good programmes unfortunately does not make up for poor programme execution, in fact quite the reverse, for even greater damage is inflicted.
I only hope the Commission now puts the MED programmes into effect with even great urgency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Madam President, I should like to stress that I was happy to vote for the Kosovo resolution, even though I was extremely annoyed about the manner in which yesterday's debate was handled.
I do not believe there is any sense in having such a discussion when the representatives of the Council and Commission are not present - and some of them even failed to attend the evening session.
<P>
I also think it was an awkward situation, because the Council and the Commission are obviously not acquainted with the latest developments in this area, for these were not entered into.
The manner of the postponement, with the undoubtedly important and interesting debate on India being brought forward, is at the very least questionable.
<P>
I am nevertheless convinced that we have to debate this matter in much greater depth, and that in doing so we should not lose sight of the real culprit - for he sits in Belgrade and not in Prishtina.
In 1989 Milosevic acted unconstitutionally in annulling Kosovo's autonomy and he is without doubt also guilty of those crimes against humanity which were recently perpetrated in that country. There is therefore no doubt in my mind that he should not be sitting at the negotiating table but rather standing before the Court in The Hague.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="Eriksson and Svensson">
We have abstained from voting on the resolution on Kosovo.
Our inability to vote for the resolution is due to point 6, in which a request is addressed to the UN Security Council, the OSCE, NATO and the WEU to take all necessary measures to prevent the conflict spreading.
We believe that this request should only be sent to the UN Security Council and the OSCE, which make decisions on measures based on a political analysis.
The solution to the conflict in Kosovo is not a military question, but a political and diplomatic one.
In other respects, however, we view the resolution as a correct analysis of the current political situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Müller">
In our resolutions we continuously reiterate the need to support the forces of democracy in Kosovo.
It is then all the more regrettable that to the best of my knowledge not a single project has been funded this year through the PHARE democracy programme.
On behalf of my group I would therefore like to ask the Commission exactly what it intends doing in the very near future to organize help from the democratic programme for the civilian population of Kosovo.
<P>
If the Commission is looking for proposals, then my group is ready to submit ideas right now.
<P>
Caudron report (A4-0138/98)
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Deprez">
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="Kirsten Jensen and Blak">
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of Mr Caudron's report on the competitiveness of European industry.
In our opinion, the report contains several good points regarding how to ensure that European industry can become more competitive.
<P>
However, we cannot endorse the rapporteur's view that all countries should impose an equal burden on their companies as regards environmental requirements.
In accordance with Article 100 A(4) of the Treaty, each Member State should have the option of creating whatever environmental legislation it may deem necessary with regard to sustainability, health and welfare, and in the future, environmental policy will increasingly be based on Article 130, implying that Member States may build on EU minimum requirements.
We are also against the rapporteur's approach to the harmonization of fiscal policy, in paragraph 15.
We strongly distance ourselves from any type of harmonization of income tax.
<P>
E. Mann report (A4-0173/98)
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Cushnahan">
Madam President, given the rapid increase in European-wide teleshopping, I support the rapporteur's proposal that it should be regulated at an international level through the World Trade Organization.
It is also vitally important that action is taken to ensure that the teleshopping trade is subject to the highest consumer standards.
Consumers must be protected against purchasing defective or dangerous products.
<P>
I have noted the rapporteur's suggestion that the Commission should investigate whether or not it is feasible to tax Internet sales.
However, I would point out that any such decision should not simply be to dissuade EU consumers from buying cheaper items by taxing them.
Our energies should be more directed to ensuring lower and more transparent prices within the EU itself so that non-EU products are no longer an attractive alternative.
Hopefully, the introduction of the single currency will significantly contribute to achieving this.
However, harmonization of the various VAT and other rates also has an important role to play.
<P>
Herman report (A4-0117/98)
<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Madam President, Mr Herman's report on the reform of the functioning of the institutions without modification of the Treaty shows a surprising approach which I regret that no-one here in this Parliament is reacting to.
<P>
On the main subject of the report, that of control of economic and monetary union, we are blandly told that the weakness of democratic control is unacceptable, which we have known since the beginning, but that the negotiators of the Maastricht Treaty did not want to weigh it down, and those at Amsterdam did not want to do anything either for fear of reopening Pandora's box.
<P>
In other words, to avoid giving rise to a new debate, it was better to tolerate an indefensible situation.
The result is that today, on the eve of the entry into force of the single currency, everyone is worried about the weakness of democratic control and the European Parliament is reduced to having to come up with emergency secondary measures to give the impression that the citizens will have a say in the matter.
<P>
The Herman report notably proposes initiating reforms by means of so-called interinstitutional agreements between the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament.
These agreements do not by any means have the value of a treaty, but allow those in favour of integration to agree among themselves on progressively extending the powers of the European Parliament, in order to create a situation which will later be presented as an established fact.
<P>
We obviously do not agree with this type of procedure.
The Herman report succeeds only in making the constant manipulation of recent years plain for all to see. The aim of this manipulation is to have only scraps of discussions approved, to constantly postpone full debate and to prevent the citizens from giving their considered opinion on the process of monetary unification.
If any additional measures are required for this monetary unification, let them be discussed and put clearly to universal suffrage.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Ahlqvist and Wibe">
g. (SV) We cannot vote in favour of this report because its thrust is that the European Parliament should be the channel through which democratic control is gained over the European Central Bank and other political issues.
This essentially means a weakening of the national parliaments. In many Member States, the national parliaments have double the democratic legitimacy of the European Parliament.
The level of participation in the various elections around the EU Member States speaks volumes.
<P>
In order for the European Parliament to acquire the democratic responsibility to function better in the EU, it would be better if its Members were chosen by the national parliaments.
It is around the time of the elections to the national parliaments that democratic political debate occurs in Europe today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Deprez">
Since its first election by universal suffrage in 1979, the European Parliament is truly the product and the representative of the citizens of the Union.
Anxious to absorb the democratic deficit of the European institutions, we constantly aim to bestow on our House all the attributes which belong to a true parliament in a state of democratic law.
From Intergovernmental Conferences to revision of the Treaties, European construction is advancing gradually down this road.
We should note that, while the Maastricht and Amsterdam texts are going in the right direction, they remain nonetheless insufficient in this area.
<P>
The citizens of the European Union are losing patience.
Despairing of better transparency and greater democratic control in the functioning of the European institutions - which are too often regarded as a technocratic machine insensitive to their true aspirations - some citizens will from now on be tempted to withdraw into themselves.
Following the Brussels Extraordinary Summit and the adoption of the single currency, the report we are examining today comes at just the right moment and proposes a number of measures which, even if they can only be provisional, nonetheless represent a necessary palliative to a persistent democratic deficit.
<P>
While awaiting another new and necessary Intergovernmental Conference in the future, we need to conclude agreements of interinstitutional cooperation in those areas of competence in which the loss of control by national parliaments has not been replaced by that of the European Parliament.
<P>
In fact it must be obvious to everybody that the citizens of the European Union will not accept that issues as crucial as economic and monetary union, the Stability and Growth Pact and foreign economic policy should escape the control of their elected European representatives. We all know the impact these issues have or will have on employment and social questions.
<P>
In implementing the different proposals for interinstitutional agreements contained in the present resolution, the European institutions will contribute significantly to reducing the lack of comprehension which separates a number of our fellow citizens from a European construction which many of them claim to want.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="Kirsten Jensen and Blak">
The Danish Social Democrats are abstaining from the vote on Mr Herman's report, despite the importance of ongoing considerations of how to make EU operations more open and democratic without amending the Treaty.
Moreover, it is correct to highlight interinstitutional agreements as an important means of achieving this goal.
<P>
The report contains several excellent proposals.
We endorse the ideas of more openness and democratic control of the European Central Bank and general economic policy within the euro zone.
Despite Denmark's legally binding derogation concerning participation in the third stage of EMU, it is of great importance to us that decisions made in these areas should be as open and democratic as possible.
<P>
However, paragraph 6 of the report contains wording that could be interpreted to the effect that compromises made in Amsterdam and Luxembourg in the area of employment are devoid of tangible content.
That is not our perception.
These compromises are an important contribution to the strengthening of employment policy in Europe, and the results are already beginning to manifest themselves little by little.
<P>
Furthermore, we would like to emphasize that we cannot endorse the idea of the European Parliament becoming involved in social dialogue.
Social dialogue must be supported and expanded, and in our opinion, that is best done by giving the social partners the freedom to negotiate to their mutual satisfaction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="Lindqvist">
g.
(SV) What is needed in order to strengthen democracy, improve openness, increase public participation and thereby reduce criticism of the EU is reform from the bottom up. That will not come about via this report.
<P>
The powers of the national parliaments must increase with regard to proposals, current business and control.
The powers of the Council must also increase.
The Commission's powers, on the other hand, must be substantially reduced.
Its exclusive right to submit proposals is completely unacceptable.
It is as if only the mayor were to have the right to submit proposals in the municipalities - an absurd thought!
<P>
The powers of the European Parliament must not increase, since this would lead to a federal system.
However, the European Parliament's working methods must be improved with a view to achieving more contact with the general public, less time spent in Brussels and more time in the homeland, more direct contact with the national parliaments, more questions of principle and concentration on the major political issues and dispensing with all questions of detail.
<P>
The undemocratic system of dividing up speaking time through the group leaders must be abolished.
A more democratic model needs to be created that gives all elected representatives the opportunity to speak on questions in which they are involved.
Speaking time must also be adapted to match the importance of the issues in question.
That two weeks should be devoted to questions of detail, but two and a half hours to the most important question - the EMU debate - during the entire session of Parliament illustrates the current imbalance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="Verwaerde">
I thank our colleague, Fernand Herman, for the own-initiative report which he has drawn up on possible improvements to the functioning of Community institutions without modification of the Treaty.
<P>
The democratic deficit which the institutions of the European Union generally suffer from and the possible solutions to this are set out perfectly clearly.
<P>
Like our rapporteur, I believe that the most substantial institutional improvements have been the result more of practices established on the basis of either institutional agreements or case law of the Court of Justice of the European Communities, or indeed of the extensive use of existing procedures, than of formal modifications of Treaties.
<P>
The role of the European Parliament must be strengthened urgently in two areas: social policy, which is particularly important in the eyes of European citizens; and economic and monetary union.
I would stress the problem of democratic responsibility in the economic and monetary areas, where the European Parliament, according to the Treaties, does not have any formal role.
<P>
We cannot, for all that, neglect the areas of common commercial policy, international agreements and competition policy.
In future, we should even extend our thinking to include foreign policy and police and judicial cooperation.
<P>
Our rapporteur recommends reaching an interinstitutional agreement.
I share his view entirely.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 1.27 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Topical and urgent debate
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>


B4-0498/98 by Mrs Günther and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the situation in Sudan; -B4-0506/98 by Mr Telkämper and Mrs Aelvoet, on behalf of the V Group, on the situation in Sudan; -B4-0523/98 by Mr Vinci and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the political situation in Sudan and the humanitarian crisis in southern Sudan; -B4-0534/98 by Mr Bertens and Mr Fassa, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the situation in Sudan; -B4-0539/98 by Mr Hory and others, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the situation in Sudan; -B4-0541/98 by Mr Newens, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the situation in Sudan; -B4-0552/98 by Mr Pasty and Mr Andrews, on behalf of the UPE Group, on the situation in Sudan.

<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Günther">
Madam President, the Sudan lies at the heart of a region where stability is often threatened.
In the forefront there is of course the clash of cultures, in this case the Muslim-Arab north versus the non-Muslim south.
Consequently the Islamic State of Iran backs the Khartoum faction - and China too, though this is mainly to annoy the USA - while the neighbouring countries are frightened because a united fundamentalist Sudan seems to them a dangerous prospect, as this religious spark, as it were, could well flash over into the Muslim populations of these nearby states.
<P>
The hope attached to the Nairobi talks resides in the fact that a compromise may be possible this time due simply to the respective weaknesses of both sides in the conflict, for at the fruitless peace talks held six months ago the same peace plan, more or less, was on the table.
<P>
The intention now is to agree, for a transitional period, on a loose federation between north and south and then, after several years, to put to the people in a referendum how they wish to be governed.
However, it is to be regarded as a sign of the helplessness of the European Union and the rest of the international community that we are now grateful for being allowed to provide aid to the suffering population of that country, while it is those very people in power in Sudan who should be responsible for this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Madam President, when you talk about the Sudan, you are talking about my family.
My two children were born there, and the country means something to me.
To see 400 000 people once again near starvation, it gets me, it gets everyone.
Especially if you know that the cause is the ceasefire which has not been declared by the governing party, let alone by the resistance movement in the south.
<P>
The Union must increase pressure to the maximum.
They must be persuaded to take up the numerous peace initiatives again.
I would have thought all types of pressure are legitimate, including the freezing of IMF and World Bank funds, because 400 000 to 500 000 human lives are at risk.
In the meantime, this same Union must not renege on the humanitarian front.
That is why I thank Commissioner Marín, and in any case the Commission, for the recent ECHO flight with ECU 8.8 million in emergency aid.
People must not lose interest in the helpless Sudanese.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="Macartney">
Madam President, sometimes when we put forward topics for discussion marked 'urgency' people say: ' Where is the urgency?'
There can be no doubt whatsoever that Sudan is an urgent situation, even though we have discussed the tragic situation in that land on many occasions.
<P>
Pictures on the television screens of Europe are sometimes what it takes to alert people to human tragedies, such as the continuing crisis in Sudan, and we are absolutely right to come back to it.
<P>
We are not alone, however, because at the ACP Joint Assembly in Mauritius recently, to everybody's agreeable surprise, there was a solid majority of the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries voting separately, at their request, from the EU, condemning the Sudanese.
<P>
That is not, however, enough.
We have to look for a long-term and permanent solution.
This is where the example of Eritrea and Ethiopia, which were in a similar situation not that long ago, is instructive, and so we should welcome the prospect of a referendum, and reinforce the right of self-determination of the south.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="Newens">
Madam President, over the past 15 years a million people are estimated to have died in the civil war between north and south in Sudan, and hundreds of thousands more are now threatened by imminent starvation caused partly by a twoyear drought but primarily by armed hostilities.
In the hardest-hit region of all, Bahr-al-Ghazal, northern-backed forces are reported to have burned crops and grain stores, and here and everywhere else deliveries of emergency food aid have been barred, while people have been eating their seed stock and leaves and dying in swarms.
In this merciless conflict human rights have been totally ignored. Action by the international community must be stepped up to try to avert an even greater human tragedy than has already occurred.
<P>
The Sudanese government has an appalling record of ruthless repression in north and south alike, apart from its military operations: imprisonment, torture, execution and the use of terrorism against its own and neighbouring peoples.
The Sudanese government has ignored UN Security Council resolutions on human rights.
In these circumstances, sanctions on development aid, but not on humanitarian aid, will have to be maintained.
<P>
Peace is desperately needed, and it is therefore sad that talks in Nairobi this week broke down.
Peace, however, is only possible on the basis of accepting the right of the peoples of Sudan to democracy and democratic self determination.
We must welcome the fact that agreement has been reached to lift some restrictions on food aid destined for those in dire need, but all possible pressure must be maintained to ensure that humanitarian aid gets through everywhere.
The European Union has already made an important contribution, but we must ask that efforts be intensified to provide relief in this appalling human catastrophe.
This is the aim of this motion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Madam President, everyone knows that the drought of the past few years has quite plainly only aggravated the problem of the war in Sudan.
In other words, the main obstacle to combating famine and promoting peace must be removed by working on peace negotiations.
We know that the result which has been achieved as part of IGAD is still incomplete at the moment, and that both parties still have some way to go.
Yet I think it is important to signal from within the European Union that we expect further results as part of IGAD.
Secondly, as far as the problem of the now acute food shortage is concerned, and since access is possible again now - thank God! - the European Union should also take the lead in ensuring that the food reaches the starving population for the time being.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schiedermeier">
Madam President, I have been dealing with this question for five years in the ACP-EU Joint Assembly.
Sadly, nothing positive has yet been achieved for the people of Sudan.
We need an immediate ceasefire, we need negotiations between all parties, otherwise nothing can be achieved - for partial negotiations have so far not proved successful.
Human rights and democracy, the right of the population of southern Sudan to self determination, these must be respected, and we urgently need humanitarian aid before another 100 000 people starve to death, helpless in the face of the current conflict.
<P>
What we need are sanctions against the government of Sudan, and these should be imposed not just by the EU but also by the international community, so that more pressure can be brought to bear and the neighbouring countries can be protected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="Marín">
Madam President, as the honorable Members are aware, the Commission stopped all development aid to the Sudan in 1989 because of the persistent lack of respect for human rights, the absence of democracy and the lack of significant attempts to negotiate a peaceful end to that country's civil war.
Since there has been no sign of real change, and unless substantial progress is made with regard to the peace process and human rights, there is no reason for the Commission to change its position.
<P>
Nevertheless, the Commission is following developments in the humanitarian situation in southern Sudan very carefully.
In 1997, the Commission was the largest aid donor, with ECU 23 million. Added to the Member States' bilateral aid, that represents 65 % of all the humanitarian aid received by the Sudan.
In November 1997, a decision was made to give the Sudan ECU 6.7 million, out of the total sum of ECU 23 million I just mentioned, to help the world food programme.
I should point out that a large proportion of the food currently being distributed in Bahr-al-Ghazal, in the south, forms part of this contribution.
<P>
On 23 March this year, the Commission approved a decision to the sum of ECU 11.8 million, in the form of an overall plan for humanitarian aid to meet the needs of the victims of the war in the Sudan.
That aid - from this year, 1998 - is being implemented by 35 non-governmental organizations and this time covers both the south and the north of the country. It basically focuses on the medical, food safety and health sectors, especially drinking water.
This decision also includes a reserve of ECU 1 million which is being used to provide additional funding for certain activities in Bahr-al-Ghazal, again in the south of Sudan.
<P>
Nevertheless, the situation in the north of the region is still very worrying and may deteriorate when the rainy season arrives. That may hamper the delivery of humanitarian aid, as has happened in the past.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>


B4-0504/98 by Mr Macartney and Mr Weber, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the possible re-entry into service of the Mochovce nuclear plant in Slovakia; -B4-0509/98 by Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz and Mr Voggenhuber, on behalf of the V Group, on the entry into service of the Mochovce nuclear power plant in Slovakia; -B4-0515/98 by Mrs Flemming and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the entry into service of the Mochovce nuclear power plant; -B4-0524/98 by Mr Papayannakis, Mr Campos and Mr Sjöstedt, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the Mochovce nuclear power plant; -B4-0536/98 by Mr Eisma, Mr Frischenschlager and Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the entry into service of the Mochovce nuclear power plant; -B4-0542/98 by Mrs Graenitz, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the planned entry into service of the Mochovce nuclear power plant.

<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="Macartney">
Madam President, the resolution on Slovakia is a compromise resolution.
I think all of us have reservations about certain points.
For example, I have reservations about recital F. A point one should make to our Slovak colleagues, if they are listening to us, as I am sure they will be, is that we are not singling out Slovakia in particular for criticism.
In this House my group put forward a proposal to bring in Dounreay in Scotland as well because the situation there in many respects is just as serious.
So we are certainly not singling out Slovakia. When we say that the Slovak authorities have failed to provide any clear answers to the problem of nuclear waste storage, as in paragraph 5 of the resolution, that certainly obtains in many other countries too.
<P>
What I would say is that the resolution is a package.
If you take recital H which expresses doubts about the safety of the Mochovce station alongside paragraphs 2 and 3, these add up to a reasonable request that the evaluation study which will be published, we understand, within two or three weeks should take into account any criticisms and problems.
All of this adds up to a responsible, balanced and fair package and should therefore be supported.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Madam President, the history of nuclear energy in eastern Europe is that of unparalleled decline, whether you take the defunct reactors in Bohunice and Chernobyl or the Mochovce nuclear plant.
This sad decline has for years been accompanied by anxious resolutions from the European Parliament, which have basically done no more than lag behind events with half-hearted measures aimed at risk limitation.
<P>
These have all come to nought, as the case history of the Slovak nuclear plant shows.
This plant is being built without containment, it is full of defects and it is to feature equipment from a Russian nuclear reactor which has never even been tested.
Even the most impartial observer must now realize that the strategy of the European Union, which has been to re-equip the nuclear plants of central and eastern Europe and bring them up to Western safety standards, has now failed. I believe the reason for this is all too evident.
<P>
As long as the European Union fails to realize that nuclear energy cannot be made safe and that we need to develop a non nuclear-based energy policy for the future, then we shall continue to lag behind events.
Our main demands are: no start-up of the Slovak nuclear plant; complete shutdown of the defunct reactor in Bohunice; and no reduction in European nuclear safety standards as part of EU enlargement, until such time as this view finally prevails.
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<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Madam President, I first wish to thank all the people whose support has led to the adoption of this joint resolution, and also the operators of the Mochovce nuclear plant and all those NGOs which were prepared to provide us with comprehensive information in this field.
Of course it is the right of every sovereign state to make its own decisions on the use of its primary energy sources, but in recent years, and certainly since Chernobyl, we have come to realize that we are all nextdoor neighbours when it comes to the nuclear plants of Europe. It is the right of every neighbour, in the face of such potentially dangerous technology, to demand the application of those safety standards which are taken for granted in Germany, France and the UK.
This is all part of the acquis communautaire .
Without adherence to the strictest possible safety standards there can be no talk of accession to the European Union.
<P>
Two international panels of experts have visited the Mochovce plant in recent weeks.
It was taken for granted that the start-up of the plant would await the outcome of these investigations and any identified defects would be put right beforehand.
But no, the operators announced to an astonished public that whatever happened, they intended to commence operating trials on 21 July.
This is something we cannot accept.
<P>
We are also still owed an answer as to the nuclear waste, for this material certainly cannot be sold to Russia.
The law is absolutely stringent on this.
Neither Austria nor the EU can force Slovakia or any other country to collaborate with us, but compliance with the findings of the two panels could constitute the starting point for creating international structures for greater transparency in nuclear matters, and for this Slovakia would earn the gratitude not only of Austria but of the whole European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Madam President, our draft resolution asks for a very small number of reasonable things from Slovakia: an assessment, and the promise that the findings of that assessment will be respected.
<P>
I remind you, however, that at Mochovce, as a result of a previous assessment, 201 cases of inadequate safety measures have already been detected, some of which are outrageous, such as the lack of insulation, corroded material and inexistent fire protection.
I therefore think that we have the right to intervene and to call on Slovakia not to go ahead with putting this nuclear plant into operation. It is not simply a matter for Slovakia alone.
We know very well that it is a pan-European matter and, I would venture to say, a global matter. We would be more convincing, Madam President, if we announced a programme to replace nuclear energy throughout the whole of Europe and if of course we promised credible assistance to Slovakia, to ease its way through this period during which it will need energy until it can give up its own nuclear energy.
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<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Madam President, this is not the first time we have discussed Mochovce.
More than three years ago we came together here to form an opinion on the same topics.
I think the safety of the nuclear plants in central and eastern Europe will keep us busy for many years to come.
The situation in Slovakia becomes increasingly urgent when we look at the nuclear plants over there. The Slovak authorities intend to start up the nuclear plant in Mochovce in just a few weeks' time.
We are very worried, because there is still no clarity about the storage of nuclear waste and the safety of the installation itself.
I therefore beg the Slovak authorities to postpone the start-up as long as this uncertainty still exists.
That is why it is so important for us in this Parliament to make a statement today.
In a few weeks' time our Joint Parliamentary Committee is due to meet with Slovakia, and they should be given a proper brief from this entire Parliament.
<P>
Madam President, I hope we will all adopt this resolution unanimously, so that our imminent delegation to Slovakia knows the position of the European Parliament, and the position the Slovak authorities ought to adopt.
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<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graenitz">
Madam President, I have been asked by many people why such an urgent resolution on Mochovce is being tabled now.
I believe this resolution has become important for the following reasons. The inspection visits carried out last week and the week before by independent international experts have shown that progress has been made, not least because funding has been provided through the PHARE programme.
They also showed, however, that some questions have still to be answered, particularly that of evaluation.
<P>
The investigations revealed that some problems have still to be solved, particularly the lack of any containment in the normal sense, and that the systems which have been installed for this purpose have not been inspected to see whether they are capable of guaranteeing safety in the event of a serious incident, such as occurred at Three Mile Island or Chernobyl.
It is worth recalling here that the results of radioactive contamination from Chernobyl can still be detected in the European Alps.
<P>
Secondly, I think the results of these inspections should be submitted prior to the commencement of operating trials, so that any improvements deemed necessary can be undertaken before rather than after the event.
In this context, I must also mention that it seems strange to me that one expert was excluded from the visit.
This particular person was involved with the Greifswald nuclear reactor and his experience would be most valuable.
<P>
I should also like to point out that the last meeting of the Council of Ministers, which discussed the problems of integration and enlargement, dealt with the subjects of Mochovce and also the shutting down of Bohunice, in the event that other energy sources are available.
Everybody there was of the opinion that nuclear plants which are not safe should be shut down.
We are very concerned about the safety of the citizens of Slovakia, the transition economies, the European Union and everyone in Europe.
I do not want to see - and I think this goes for all of us - any irreversible steps being taken in Slovakia which might threaten the safety of all these people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="Adam">
Madam President, this Parliament must respect Slovakia's right as a sovereign country to determine its own energy policy and to operate a nuclear plant if it so wishes.
We should note that Slovakia has signed all the international conventions, that it was a Member of the International Atomic Energy Agency Board between 1993 and 1996 and that Mr Lipar, the head of the regulatory authority, is vice-chairman of the Nuclear Safety Assistance Coordinating Committee which is operated by DG XI in the European Commission.
<P>
Because of a previous resolution in this Parliament, the completion of Mochovce has gone ahead without European Union financial assistance.
As a further result, there is no legally binding international agreement to close Bohunice number 1 reactor when Mochovce is in operation.
This Parliament bears the prime responsibility for that situation.
It is to the credit of Slovakia that the completion has gone ahead not only with their own national engineers and with the assistance of the Russian designers but also with the involvement of Siemens, EDF, Westinghouse and Framatome, all western experts in the nuclear field.
The completion has been made to standards set by Risk-Audit, an organization established by German and French nuclear safety authorities.
<P>
There has been a study carried out.
The indications I have had are that it is a favourable study but we ought to wait for the study before we jump to conclusions.
It is due in June, and the date that I have for the proposed start-up of Mochovce is July.
Most of this resolution is irrelevant to the Mochovce circumstances.
What we need at European level, and we still do not have, are standards which all the countries have to apply to the safety of their nuclear reactors.
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<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Estevan Bolea">
Madam President, we all want the central and eastern European countries to progress economically and to have safe nuclear plants.
Just as we want all the nuclear plants in the world to be safe, together with coal mines, factories and every other type of installation.
<P>
I have heard a lot of silly things being said here, Madam President, and I am surprised that people say such things without knowing what they are talking about.
I am a member of the delegation to Slovakia.
They have explained a lot of things to us.
I think they have the sovereignty to do whatever they think is right, and it is their responsibility to protect the Slovak people, their neighbours and the whole of Europe.
In 1995 this Parliament refused all assistance.
That was a great mistake, but they have no right to say the things they are saying now.
<P>
So, Madam President, I shall not be supporting some points of the resolution.
It will not be fully approved, Mr Eisma, because it is not particularly correct.
Slovakia imports 15 % of its electricity. It is growing a lot and it needs help.
I wish them great success, and I hope the Mochovce nuclear plant works well and safely.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pompidou">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, a letter from Austrian MPs to the Slovak government and to the Members of the European Parliament reports on the possible dangers associated with putting second generation reactors into service in the nuclear plant in Mochovce in Slovakia.
<P>
On behalf of the Group Union for Europe, I must note firstly that the Slovak Republic ratified in 1995 the convention on nuclear safety which was adopted by the IAEA in 1994.
This convention came into force in 1996.
Secondly, the modernization of sections 1 and 2 of the nuclear plant in Mochovce, although it was not subsidized by the EBRD and thus does not benefit directly from European funds, received financing which affects the whole of Europe.
This work was granted to Slovak companies and to a consortium of Czechs, French, Germans and Russians.
The prescribed level of security will from now on be identical to that of Western sectors for the same technology, and it meets IAEA criteria.
<P>
International experts recently confirmed that all precautions had been taken in terms of the safety of modernized installations.
<P>
In this context, one cannot help but be surprised by the terms used in the letter addressed to the Slovak President.
Slovakia must guarantee energy production at the level required by its population.
It cannot say no to Mochovce.
From now on there is no reason to do so, in that all nuclear safety precautions have been taken for starting the operation of second generation reactors, which are henceforth as safe as the reactors used in the European Union.
<P>
So let us wait for the results of the evaluation, which we will have at the end of June, and allow the Slovaks, who are sovereign in this area, to bring back into service, for the benefit of its population, a nuclear plant which guarantees all necessary security standards.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kronberger">
Madam President, the start-up of the Mochovce nuclear reactor is a decision which will have farreaching consequences for the entire future of nuclear power generation.
This reactor would never have been approved as safe either by an EU Member State or in the USA.
The nuclear industry is placing its high-risk installations right up against the borders of the EU.
This is a cynical gesture to the safety of the whole of Europe.
<P>
Added to this is the fact that we are for the first time faced with a situation in which the start-up of a suspect nuclear plant may well be part of an election strategy.
The Slovak Prime Minister, Vladimir Meciar, is keen to show the world that he heads a determined and strong government, prior to the autumn ballot.
The nuclear plant is to go into operation in spite of the fact that internationally recognized experts consider that building a new installation would be more cost-efficient that refitting an old one to meet international safety standards.
<P>
A panel of experts has recently examined the plant and their findings are to be made known shortly.
I propose that the European Parliament should invite these experts to a hearing on safety standards at the plant.
Slovakia does not have a credible energy policy.
I recall that the Slovak government originally promised that the start-up of Mochovce would be accompanied by the closure of the two unsafe units at Bohunice.
This was also the basis on which the German-based Hermes Bank provided a credit guarantee for Siemens-KWU to supply equipment for the start-up of the Mochovce plant.
<P>
Contrary to all promises, Bohunice is being refitted, rather than closed, at a cost of over ECU 150 million.
Slovakia recently declared that Bohunice would be put into service along with the start-up of Mochovce.
The European Parliament and the Hermes Bank have clearly been deceived.
In view of these events the resolution in question is very restrained, but it can be accepted as a minimum response to the situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="Perry">
Madam President, I will be brief and make just two points.
I would say to the people of Slovakia that nuclear energy may in many respects be a clean form of energy but it is one that allows no room for any mistakes at all.
That is why neighbours worry and I understand the Austrian position in this.
I am from the south of England and had to take environmental health officers to France where we wanted to look at French nuclear power stations.
Those are concerns people have about any nuclear energy.
<P>
However, I would say to this Parliament that, as the vice-president of the joint parliamentary committee with Slovakia, I met yesterday senior safety officials from Slovakia and the Slovak Electricity Authority.
I have no doubt they take their responsibilities very seriously, and we should welcome the action of the Slovak government in inviting an independent panel of experts to inspect this plant.
If those independent experts give it a clean bill of health, we should respect that and, just as we often pass condemnatory motions on Slovakia, we should also respect good news when it comes from Slovakia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="Marín">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, you will remember that after independence the Slovak authorities decided to complete the two first reactors with Western assistance, for which they requested a loan from Euratom and another one from the EBRD.
Because of that request, the Commission promoted a major modernization programme for these reactors during 1994 and 1995.
The programme consisted of a large number of measures which, if implemented, would have guaranteed safety levels absolutely equivalent to those in the West.
However, before the Commission and the EBRD had announced their decision about the loans, the Slovak government decided to withdraw the loan requests and use other resources to finance the installation of the reactors.
<P>
The project was indeed carried out, mainly with the assistance of the Czech Republic and Russia. Certain Western companies also participated, by means of bilateral export credits.
As a result, the Commission ceased to participate in the management of the project or in defining the safety improvement programme.
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In its opinion on Slovakia in Agenda 2000, and in the association agreement for Slovakia's accession, the Commission has mentioned the need for the Mochovce nuclear plant to work to international safety regulations, and for the implementation of a realistic programme to close the Bohunice reactor.
At the moment, the Community's participation in this project is limited to supporting the Slovak authorities.
The PHARE programme is funding a project for experts from the EU to review the Mochovce units under the direction of Risk-Audit, which is a company effectively composed of independent organizations of safety experts from France and Germany.
<P>
In order to evaluate the safety of the reactor, the Commission agrees with Parliament that it is important for the experts to have access to all the documentation related to the modernization programme, and other details about the reactor.
This assessment, by the independent organizations I just mentioned, could be available by the end of 1998.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Madam President, the murder of Bishop Juan José Gerardi is seen by many as an attack on the peace process.
He played an important role in opening up the files on the murders and attacks which took place during the time of the civil war.
It is essential for the consolidation of this peace process that lawlessness is brought to an end, and that is why the perpetrators of this murder should be found and punished quickly.
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The so-called high level committee which has been set up by the government must work with speed and credibility.
Maintaining credibility is essential for the progress of this same peace process.
We think the murderer, or murderers, tried to upset this peace process.
They must not be allowed to succeed.
<P>
The EU must call upon the Guatemalan parties and support them in continuing down the road towards this difficult and lasting peace.
The EU was there to condemn the civil war; now we must be in Guatemala to promote and maintain peace.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
Madam President, on behalf of my political group, I also want to express our most energetic condemnation of the murder of Bishop Gerardi and our solidarity with the Catholic community and the whole of the Guatemalan people.
<P>
I think the compromise resolution satisfactorily covers not just Bishop Gerardi's worthy pastoral activities, but also his firm and resolute commitment to democracy, human rights and the peace process in Guatemala. The government of that country has expressed a strong desire to identify the perpetrators of this horrible crime and bring them to justice.
In order to do so, as Mr Bertens mentioned, it has set up a committee, which we hope can act as quickly and diligently as possible.
<P>
I think, Madam President, that if we were to ask ourselves who benefits and who is harmed by this assassination, there can be no doubt that it was a hard blow for all those people who have shown determination and commitment to the Guatemalan peace process, which was so difficult to achieve.
<P>
So, Madam President, I believe the best way of paying a tribute of admiration and respect to the memory of Bishop Gerardi and the ideals for which he laid down his life is for the European Union to continue in its efforts - and now I am addressing the Commission and its representative here, Mr Marín - to carry on making all possible efforts to support the Guatemalan peace process, as it always has done.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Madam President, I think we have talked about impunity many times during this session, and about the way these murders are sometimes directed against the people who defend human rights.
I think Bishop Gerardi's report, which contains more than 5000 statements from people whose rights were violated during the previous era, is aimed precisely against that impunity.
The objective of Bishop Gerardi's report is that acts such as those which took place in Guatemala should never happen again.
In fact, when he finished his report, he said: ' Now I can die in peace.
May nothing like that ever happen again in Guatemala' .
So the other speakers are right to say that the peace agreement should remain. It should remain, but in the absence of impunity.
<P>
During the course of the afternoon we are also going to discuss human rights in Colombia.
More than three human rights activists have been murdered, two of them after having spoken to Members.
We think it is extremely serious that there should be this impunity, which allows the constant disappearance of the people who defend human rights in either of these countries.
As Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra said, the Commission must make whatever efforts it has at its disposal to prevent this from happening.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Cabezón Alonso">
Madam President, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, as has already been said, during the night of 26 April, Bishop Gerardi, the auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of Guatemala was murdered in Guatemala City.
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In expressing our regret and condemnation of this crime, we must also express our solidarity with his relatives and collaborators, and with the Guatemalan people in general.
<P>
As has been said, Bishop Gerardi had coordinated the documents reflecting the human rights violations which occurred in that country during the years of armed conflict, and the conclusions of that work had just been presented to the public.
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We must of course be somewhat prudent and not speculate at the moment, but we must demand that the Guatemalan government and judiciary complete their investigations.
We are obviously keen to hear the conclusions of those investigations.
<P>
Violent acts of this nature cannot go unpunished, and cannot be used cynically as a tool against the peace agreements for anybody's selfish interests. The Guatemalan government is committed to those agreements, as are most of the parties and civil organizations in that country, as well as the group of friendly countries which supported the dialogue which culminated in those peace agreements.
<P>
The European Union must also carry on lending its political and economic support to the content of the Guatemalan peace process.
<P>
Such an act, so painful and worthy of condemnation, cannot call a country's image into question, but we find it worrying as an expression of a violence still all too present within Guatemalan society.
The people of Guatemala deserve the best possible future after decades of armed confrontation and violence.
<P>
Peace in Guatemala also marked the culmination of a process of pacification throughout Central America.
The Guatemalan people deserve our full support for the way they are relying on solving the conflicts through dialogue rather than violence.
<P>
We trust that the investigation into the crime against Bishop Gerardi will have a more satisfactory conclusion than other processes underway, such as those relating to the murders of the politician Jorge Carpio Nicol or the lawyer González Dubón.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Madam President, the authorities and the military in Guatemala should take responsibility for the serious and systematic infringement of human rights in that country.
This was one of the main aims of the thousand-page REMHI report which was prepared under the direction of Bishop Juan Gerardi.
As the latter said in one of his last interviews, this will not suit a lot of the people who are seeking to make a clean break with the past.
Bishop Gerardi's brutal murder took place against a background of continuing impunity.
Neither the armed forces nor the secret services have been exculpated as a consequence of the peace treaties.
The report finally names the people responsible and calls for action to be taken.
This includes the immediate disbandment of the military and civilian instruments of repression, the prosecution of paramilitary groups, an end to impunity and compensation for the victims.
REMHI restores the dignity of the people.
Project collaborators must be given protection, and this includes those working up-country.
<P>
Europe supports many projects in Guatemala, including the build-up of new security forces.
Here it is essential for the EU to ensure that no support whatsoever is given to human rights violators of the old guard.
We should back the establishment of an international commission to investigate properly the fate of the people who have disappeared.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Madam President, we all sympathize with the death of Bishop Gerardi, which has been a grave loss for the people of Guatemala.
I believe, however, that even at a moment such as this we should be focusing on the fact that his work must go on.
But international intervention certainly produces no results.
The Guatemalan government has recently shown how anxious it is to establish peace and order.
After 30 years of civil war, however, it is simply inconceivable that such a thing can be achieved overnight.
However, given my experience of the Guatemalan people, which certainly does not compare with that of my friend Mr Kreissl-Dörfler, I continue to fear that if we intervene too vigorously they will do just the opposite of what we wish.
Nevertheless, we should make every possible effort to administer the legacy of Bishop Gerardi, and do everything we can to achieve his aims.
<P>
Colombia
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Madam President, the murder of Eduardo Umaña Mendoza has shocked us all.
This sudden, politically motivated crime is the worst attack to date on the human rights movement and on all the opposition groups in Colombia.
This lawyer of many years' standing was known to some of us personally.
He was even told that the recent cases he had been working on would cost him his life, for as Colombia's most distinguished lawyer he had for 20 years consistently and uncompromisingly represented the victims of human rights violations.
It is an open secret as to which of the state and military forces were behind this murder.
Furthermore, those who are promoting economic cooperation with Colombia and granting customs waivers through the GSP are accessories to a terrible spiral of violence which continues to be fuelled by those who benefit from it.
<P>
Only yesterday afternoon some 30 soldiers with search warrants forced their way into the offices belonging to Justicia y Paz and other human rights organizations, allegedly in the hunt for would-be assassins.
Such intimidation of human rights supporters is completely unacceptable, and the Council should distance itself unequivocally from such a policy.
The Commission must review the terms of its entire policy of cooperation with Colombia, otherwise the people fighting for human rights in Colombia will soon not just be muzzled but murdered!
Commissioner, I would be pleased if you could for once give us answers to some of these questions.
I know you are a master of diplomacy, but a response would be most appropriate in this case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Marset Campos">
Madam President, as a doctor, I can only deplore the development in Latin America of an aspect of epidemiology known as the epidemiology of violence.
<P>
It is not an act of nature.
It is not like the other diseases which are studied epidemiologically. Rather, the cause of this epidemic is the support given by North America to the dictatorships these countries have suffered.
<P>
In contrast, Europe is constantly defending human rights, justice and equality, so I think it is our responsibility to ensure that people realize the difference between the North American influence, which sows corpses, and the influence of the European Union, which sows peace and concord.
<P>
So the Commission should act forcefully to clarify and apply the necessary conclusions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Miranda de Lage">
Madam President, it is with sadness, regret and anger, and also a sense of frustration, that I rise once again in this Parliament to condemn violence - all the violence committed in Colombia, and the rest of the world too.
<P>
This is a terrorist form of violence which is preying upon the defenders of human rights; which has murdered Eduardo Umaña Mendoza, just as two days previously it cut down the lives of María Arango Fonnegra and Jesús María Valle Jaramillo, and so on and so on; a terrorist violence which also murdered the former defence minister, MPs, lowly town councillors, journalists, peasant farmers, women and children - in other words, everybody.

<P>
This violence is committed in the name of justice - what irony! - or to demand justice; a violence which blackmails and kidnaps; a violence which is fascist, drug-related, and mafia-like. It is a violence which threatens those who believe in democracy and the rule of law, and who do not resign themselves to this state of affairs because they believe there are ways to achieve peace, and who are so generous that they act as human shields in the fight for democracy, peace and liberty by means of dialogue alone.
<P>
Madam President, as counterbalance and hope, I want to emphasize the efforts of thousands of Colombian women and men who, with profound democratic convictions and different ideologies, are providing a real lesson in human dignity and civil heroism in a difficult and complex situation.
<P>
In a few days' time presidential elections will be held.
It is important, necessary and essential for the process to take place peacefully.
Peace cannot wait much longer.
We must be vigilant and support these efforts. Most of all, we must call upon the violent groups to renounce violence, to realize that their time has passed and that, unless they want to kill everybody, they must understand that with democracy you win, whereas with violence you always lose.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lenz">
Madam President, like the previous speaker, I can only point out that yet again we have to draw attention to the atrocities - and how often have we already condemned such actions? - which are being committed primarily in Colombia, which, one regrets to have to say, is a land of violence.
Eduardo Umaña Mendoza is the third human rights activist to be killed in a very short space of time.
We really must demand that these human rights representatives are given better protection as they go about their work.
<P>
The government is clearly unable to take decisive action, but violence is not the solution - certainly not for the people of the country, who have suffered most from it. Colombia can to all intents and purposes now be considered as a country where violence prevails and its citizens can do nothing about it.
<P>
Nor will the elections of 31 May bring an end to the killings, as indicated by the murder of the former General Fernando Landazabal, who was advising presidential candidate Andrés Pastrana on various matters, including a future peace plan.
Other candidates' names are also on the death lists, and this includes people on both sides.
This is no way to achieve democracy. This is no solution.
We call upon the government authorities, the candidates and all the parties to come to a peaceful political solution and at long last to bring democracy and peace to the people of Colombia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Madam President, in its recent report on human rights the US State Department called the situation in Colombia poor, and that is saying something.
In particular, the culture of lawlessness was regarded as a deterioration in the situation there.
We have seen what this can lead to.
Human rights activists do important work, in Colombia as well.
The Colombian government has an interest in this.
I think the Commission and the Council must give another clear signal to Colombia that we are getting serious now.
Today's motion for a resolution rightly calls for a Commission report on the human rights situation in Colombia.
Our agreement with Colombia contains a human rights clause, and for good reason.
I am also asking the Council, which is meeting on 18 May, to pay attention to this.
We must be on our guard.
<P>
Turkey
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langen">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, once again this House has occasion to express its concerns about human rights and freedom of speech in Turkey.
We do so without any exaggerated view of our own capabilities and without belittling our own problems, even within the European Union.
Nevertheless, the cowardly attack on Mr Birdal, the president of the Turkish Association of Human Rights, and the legal actions taken against members of the former Refah Party, in connection with political views which had been expressed, are quite dreadful events.
<P>
Democratic states are convinced that banning political parties hardly constitutes a solution.
It is certainly no solution to the internal arguments which have been waged in Turkey between those holding different political views, such as Erbakan's party or the successor Fazilet Partisi (Virtue Party).
Democratic states are quite rightly not very keen on banning political parties, for such bans soon get a reputation for being themselves undemocratic and for stifling political activity and freedom of speech.
<P>
Turkey itself is undergoing the process of transition to a normal society, which is something the laical constitution of Kemal Atatürk cannot live up to, for in my mind this constitution does not allow sufficient scope for religious freedom and for the religious activities of its citizens.
Neither a ban on political parties nor the threat of imprisonment can prohibit this process of transition, and this is a problem which Turkish society and the Turkish political parties themselves will have to solve.
<P>
Respect for human rights has certainly improved in a number of areas in recent years.
This is a fact which we should not conceal.
Nevertheless, it is shocking that attacks on journalists and human rights activists are not prosecuted with the necessary vigour.
Prime Minister Yilmaz has promised that firm action will be taken to find those responsible for the cowardly attack on Mr Birdal.
We can only hope that this will be the case.
<P>
The same applies to Mr Erdogan, the mayor of Istanbul, who was given a 10 month prison sentence for expressing his political views.
In our opinion, this state of affairs cannot continue indefinitely.
We are therefore calling on the Turkish government and Parliament at long last to grant its people freedom of speech and freedom of conscience.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="André-Léonard">
Madam President, like most of you I think, I had the opportunity to meet Mr Akin Birdal, president of the Turkish Association of Human Rights.
He always had a certain sorrow in his eyes, a sorrow which is easily understood because in a country like Turkey you need not only courage, indeed foolhardiness, but also obstinacy to devote your life to the defence of other people's lives.
The murder attempt of which he was victim does not surprise me.
I think Mr Birdal expected it too.
He had received several threats and he had never been able to receive any police protection whatsoever.
<P>
I sincerely hope that Mr Birdal will survive and will continue his activities.
I call upon the Turkish authorities to bring the perpetrators of this attack to justice.
<P>
Turkey, a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, cannot continue with its policy of repression and persecution towards journalists, magistrates, parliamentarians, defenders of human rights, Kurds and ordinary citizens.
The sentence pronounced against Mr Erdogan, mayor of Istanbul, is a further sad example, if one were needed.
Turkey must understand that there will always be Birdals, Erdogans and Leyla Zanas, to shout loud and clear that we cannot kill freedom.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Karamanou">
Madam President, the assassination attempts, the incarceration of intellectuals, politicians and reporters, the immunity of the para-state and paramilitary organizations, the policing and penalizing of political life, the political prosecutions, the rigged incidents, the trivializing of politics and democracy, this is unfortunately the political reality of Turkey today.
The assault on the president of the Turkish Association of Human Rights, Akin Birdal, is the product of an unwholesome political climate which favours and breeds violence, and the activity of the para-state against the democratic and human rights of the Turkish people.
Moreover, on the pretext of an existent or non-existent Islamic threat, a pogrom of prosecutions has been launched against the political opponents of the regime, which has not hesitated to ban an entire party. Nor does it hesitate to fabricate legal rulings aimed at removing senior politicians, such as the mayor of Istanbul, Mr Erdogan, from public life.
We are waiting to see what will be the fate of Recai Kutan, who was this morning appointed president of the Fazilet Party.
<P>
The European Parliament must take urgent action and force the Turkish government to respect the rights of the Turkish people and to abide by its obligations, which arise both from the customs union and from its other international commitments.
We call for the immediate unmasking of those guilty of the assassination attempt against Akin Birdal.
We also call for the repeal of the ruling by the state security court against the mayor of Istanbul and the 16 businessmen.
We call for the release of all political detainees in Turkey.
Human rights are not simply an internal matter for a state.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we are shocked and we are indignant, we are sad and we are enraged to learn of the brutal attempt on the life of Akin Birdal.
My dear Akin, we hope you will be restored to health, we hope that for today, for tomorrow and beyond you will be, and you will remain, the old Akin Birdal, always courageous, always determined, always full of hope, the Akin Birdal who was at all times full of humanity, full of cheer and above all uncompromising.
<P>
The attack on you, Akin, was an attack on democracy in Turkey; an attack on human rights; an attack on all those who are fighting for democracy in Turkey; an attack on all who are pleading for a political solution to the Kurdish problem. The democratization of Turkey is directly bound up with the political settlement of this issue.
<P>
We call upon the Turkish government at this late hour to take the issue of human rights seriously, and not just to make proclamations at the prayer-wheel, but to create a proper and stable foundation for citizens' rights, human rights, basic rights in Turkey, and to grant freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom to establish political parties. This must apply to everyone, even members of the Fazilet Party.
<P>
Finally, we call for talks to begin, because only dialogue can produce a political solution.
The military way is no solution.
What happened to Akin happens every day to many, many people.
The violence has got to stop.
Please, Akin, get well soon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the reason for today's debate and resolution is the conviction of a number of politicians who were members of the former Refah Party.
It is bad enough for a country to think that it has to conduct its political arguments in a court of law, that political arguments with Islam, political Islam, fundamentalist Islam, have to be conducted in court and by application of court judgments.
But what is even worse is that something even more inconceivable has now taken place with the attempt on the life of Akin Birdal.
<P>
As has already been said by a number of speakers, Akin Birdal was, and is - and it is hoped will remain - a champion, an indefatigable and fearless champion of human rights, both in Turkey and elsewhere, because of the shining example he has set.
He never gave up the fight for human rights, even though he knew and felt that something such as this could happen to him.
That is why we are making a common appeal to Turkey.
<P>
Turkey wants to join the European Union, and it could well be that there were a few hitches - and in my view there certainly were - in the talks which were held primarily with the Council last autumn.
Nevertheless, the pure and simple fact remains that we can only accept Turkey into the EU when it decides to uphold human rights, among many other things.
<P>
Turkey must take note of one thing: upholding human rights also means protecting those who speak up for human rights and protecting those who fight for human rights.
I am convinced - for I am an optimist - that no-one in the government and no-one in the military was happy to hear of this attempt on Mr Birdal's life.
But that is not enough.
What Turkey should be doing, instead of just being "not happy' about it, is taking every possible measure to prevent such outrages. That is what we need to see before we can welcome Turkey as a member of the European Union.
The Turkish government must be absolutely clear about that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Hatzidakis">
Madam President, the two issues we are debating today - the assassination attempt on Akin Birdal, the president of the Turkish Association of Human Rights, and the prison sentence of the mayor of Istanbul, Mr Erdogan - have one thing in common: the idiosyncratic conception of human rights held by the Turkish establishment, particularly the Turkish army.
The assassination attempt against Mr Birdal is the culmination of a series of attacks and prosecutions perpetrated against him, often encouraged and instigated by the authorities, because of his sensitivity to human rights.
Turkey's establishment cannot tolerate discontent, protest or a different outlook.
<P>
The sentencing of the mayor of Istanbul, on the other hand, shows the attempt to impose a secular state by means of violence.
It is undeniable that fundamentalism constitutes a threat to democracy. However, true democracy cannot be defended through persecution and violence.
It is defended through reasoning.
Excesses such as sentencing the mayor to prison for reading a poem strengthen rather than weaken his position in the eyes of the public, insofar of course as his position is indeed fundamentalist.
It must therefore be made clear: Turkey's road to Europe has to pass through respect for human rights.
Let us hope the Turkish government will be able to move in this direction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Madam President, however justified Turkey's criticism of the European Union might be - that they feel abandoned in the context of MEDA, in the context of the customs union and in the context of accession - it does not relieve us of the duty to continue to point out to Turkey that they must observe human rights. In this context, the attack on Birdal was a blow to us, as was the sentencing of the mayor of Istanbul to ten months' imprisonment for questioning the secular state in a political speech.
It is unthinkable that someone should be given this kind of sentence for that, and we expect the Turkish authorities to make every effort to summons the person who carried out the attack on Birdal.
We also expect the court's sentence with regard to Erdogan to be revoked.
<P>
To conclude, Madam President, we urge the Turkish government to do something about the legislation needed for further democratization on the basis of the principle of free speech.
In this respect, I have nothing to add to what Claudia Roth has said.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Vanhecke">
Madam President, it goes without saying that I concur with the present resolution which rightly denounces the worrying violations of the most elementary human rights and freedom of speech in our neighbouring country of Turkey.
However, I would like to add that, as far as freedom of speech is concerned, this is no longer always guaranteed in our European countries either, for instance when I stand up for my political beliefs.
I hope you will allow me to say, nevertheless, that this resolution carefully avoids the crux of the matter, as is the case, for that matter, with that other subscriber to human rights violations, the People's Republic of China.
<P>
The crux of the matter is that the European Union as a whole, and the Member States individually, have never ever spoken plainly towards Turkey, if this plain language were to mean more than a paper protest.
This very same Parliament approved the customs union with Turkey some years ago, and also 14 to 15 billion francs in European aid until the year 2000, without setting even the least suspensive conditions.
Yet at that time we knew just as well as we do today what the human rights situation was in Turkey. We knew that the Turkish army was occupying part of Cyprus, and that in Turkey cultural genocide, if not worse, was being exercised on the Kurds, to give just two examples.
<P>
I must add that with this resolution we are once again missing an opportunity to say to the Turkish government and the Turkish people that we wish to maintain the best possible relationship with our neighbouring country and our neighbours, but that Turkey will never be able to join the European Union for the simple reason that culturally, historically, ethnically, and even geographically Turkey is not a European country.
If we do not have the courage to say that, then problems will only increase in future, and I am thinking not least of the problem of the millions of Turkish guest workers and temporary immigrants in Europe.
<P>
Malaysia-Indonesia
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dijk">
Madam President, the situation in Indonesia has been getting completely out of hand over the past few weeks, and in particular over the past few days.
The regime is taking extremely tough action against the demonstrators, and this has led to dozens of fatalities.
This is absolutely unacceptable.
<P>
Suharto said for the first time yesterday that he would consider stepping down once he had lost the trust of the people.
It is high time he did, then, because he has clearly lost this trust.
The economic crisis, which this regime is responsible for, is being shifted onto the people of Indonesia.
I must say in all honesty that the IMF is demanding measures from Indonesia which do not really improve the situation for the people, but which will lead to even greater poverty.
<P>
Nobody is pointing out the responsibility borne by the regime and the clique of friends around it, who have seriously enriched themselves over the past decades.
<P>
At the same time we are looking at Malaysia, where there are thousands and thousands of people from Indonesia, whether they have arrived there recently as refugees or not.
Others have been there longer and these people are being deported wholesale back to Indonesia, without respect for the person and without looking at their motives for fleeing their country, where a number of them are bound to be at great risk.
This situation really must come to an end.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Madam President, decades of political omnipotence, familial enrichment and a complete lack of interest in the fate of the Indonesian citizens have rendered the latter helpless and desperate.
They have nothing more to lose, except for a president.
Let us hope, as Mrs van Dijk said, that Suharto is indeed drawing certain conclusions.
His totally undemocratically arranged re-election already heralded a period of absolute terror.
The financial problems have got worse as well, and as a result of the political unrest and the way Suharto's troops acted, it seems to me that the IMF and the World Bank might have to review their ideas.
<P>
The European Parliament, as usual, needs to make a clear appeal to the Indonesian leaders, and perhaps also to Suharto's successors, to democratize. The Council and the Commission must stop all aid, except for humanitarian aid.
Likewise, the American government must do the same, with conviction.
Clear action to deal with the crisis will have the most effect. We are dealing with a huge country, and I think we will be able to avoid huge problems if we act in this way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="Harrison">
Madam President, in January this year I was part of the European Parliament's delegation which undertook a fact-finding visit to Malaysia.
We were there at the height of the financial and stock market crises.
We sympathized with the Malaysian authorities as they struggled with the consequences of these troubles which include the plight of the immigrant workers of which there are some 1 million out of a population of 22 million.
<P>
Imagine our sorrow therefore to learn of the unacceptable repatriation of tens of thousands of mainly Indonesian foreign workers as a response to the economic crisis and to be acquainted with the deaths of eight Indonesians under detention at centres for illegal immigrants.
We were further disillusioned to learn of the threat of imprisonment of Lim Guan Eng, whose father we met in his role as opposition leader, for the simple reason of his articulating public concern over the treatment of a celebrated rape case victim.
It is a violation of the tenets of democratic freedom to deprive Lim Guan Eng of his seat in Parliament simply because of his mild criticism of the Malaysian government.
<P>
It also appears discriminatory that the Prime Minister's daughter, Marina Mahathir, has not, on the other hand, been targeted by the authorities although she too has been a critic of the government from time to time.
In passing, I would say that our delegation was very impressed by her and her foundation's work in combating the AIDS epidemic in Malaysia.
<P>
In conclusion, it must be right to emphasize that sustainable trade, investment and economic development cannot be achieved in the absence of the development of democracy, the rule of law, civil society and human rights.
We will always be ready to be friends with Malaysia to try to achieve these worthy ambitions and aims.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is a regrettable fact that the economic and political situation in Indonesia is getting completely out of control.
The Group of the European People's Party calls upon the Indonesian government to stop immediately the attacks by police and army units on peaceful demonstrators, and also to protect the country's Chinese minority from attacks by looters.
A number of murders have already been committed among the Chinese community and it is the responsibility of the police to put a stop to this.
<P>
I fear, however, that the situation in Indonesia will ultimately only be brought under control when the political rulers of Indonesia step down in favour of a truly democratic government - and this means all those at the top, not just the President.
<P>
Let me conclude by appealing yet again to the Malaysian authorities, and to the Supreme Court, to respect the right of freedom of speech - and particularly that of the parliamentary delegates.
We have confidence in that court - we only hope our confidence is justified.
<P>
Tibet
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
Madam President, we are deeply affected by the fact that a continually growing number of Tibetan activists have decided to make the extreme choice of dying in a hunger strike.
It must be realized that all of this is the result of the desperation of the Tibetan people after 40 years of Chinese occupation and non-violent struggle.
<P>
The Tibetan people have made some requests which, we should point out, are addressed above all to the United Nations.
They want the debate on Tibet to be resumed on the basis of Resolutions 59, 61 and 65; a special envoy to be appointed to investigate the situation in Tibet; and a referendum to be promoted by China under the aegis of the UN, to ascertain the will of the Tibetan people. I believe we must show our solidarity with the Tibetan people and request with some insistence that the question of Tibet is placed on the agenda of the next General Assembly of the United Nations as quickly as possible, and that the Tibetan militants' other requests should be met.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the problem of Tibet is now in the news more than ever.
The United Nations, as has been said, can and must adopt at least three measures: firstly, to resume discussions on Tibet on the basis of its own previous resolutions; secondly, to appoint a special envoy for that region; thirdly, to ask China to promote a referendum to ascertain the Tibetan people's right to self-determination.
<P>
These things were and are being requested by all the people of Tibet, and in particular the six hunger strikers, who have been prevented by the Indian police from continuing their protest on a pretext.
<P>
The second measure they request is particularly important: the appointment of a UN envoy, to which should be added the appointment of an EU representative for Tibet. It is deplorable that despite an earlier request by the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission, nothing has yet been done.
The European Union cannot continue to be strong with the weak and weak with the strong.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Madam President, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, our Parliament cannot help but notice that its policy and proposals are systematically ignored by the Council and the Commission, with the exception of Commissioner Marín's positive collateral measures and initiatives.
<P>
We have had no follow-up to our requests on the liberation of all political prisoners in Tibet, on the liberation of the Panchen Lama, on respect for human rights, on setting up a committee of inquiry, on the appointment of an EU high representative for Tibet, or on negotiations between Tibet and China.
<P>
Unlike our American friends, we did not even achieve the liberation or, even better, the expulsion of certain famous dissidents such as Mr Wei Jingsheng or Mr Wang Dan.
The European Union is not achieving anything and after long months, or even years, of requests from Parliament, we notice that there is a genuine obstruction of Parliament's requests on the part of Mr Brittan and several members of the Council, at least.
<P>
I believe we could easily put into Mr Brittan's mouth the words of Churchill at the time of fascism in Italy, if we were to paraphrase them slightly. He said: "If I were Italian today I would be fascist' .
Mr Brittan, like his famous colleague Churchill, could say: " If I were Chinese today I would be communist, or national-fascist' , which is the same thing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Colajanni">
Madam President, I understand the reasons for preparing this text and I agree on the whole with the proposals.
However, I should like to point out that at the moment the troika is visiting Tibet for the first time, and will be there for some time.
We think it would be better to wait until this visit is over, and ask the Council to report on its results, because I think that might add something to Parliament's position. Once that has been done, our group is ready to discuss the matter with the Council and prepare a resolution which takes all these elements into account, a global resolution proposing the main point again - the request by the Dalai Lama for direct negotiations, without conditions - and many of the points stated by those who have spoken before me.
<P>
I think it is important to look at the conclusions reached by the troika on this visit, because it is the first time it has gone there.
<P>
That is the first point.
Naturally, our group agrees with the activists who are currently staging a dramatic hunger strike, and we state our commitment to bringing the question of Tibet to the forefront, with political discussion and a more complete resolution.
<P>
I would also like to say something on the subsequent text which relates to the organizations.
We think there is nothing to evaluate for our part.
We also wish to remind the House that in a few weeks, Parliament's delegation will be visiting China.
Perhaps it would be appropriate, rather than voting on a resolution on which we do not have definite information, to ask the delegation to raise this question and try to acquire information during its visit.
Otherwise, I do not understand what these delegations are being sent to do.
When it returns, if these points are confirmed, we shall form a resolution on this subject.
That is the position of the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Moreau">
Madam President, the two resolutions submitted to the European Parliament join the fifty or so adopted since 1994 which accuse China.
No other country in the world receives such treatment.
<P>
The Commission and the Member States are anxious to develop good relations with China, which does not exclude certain disagreements, notably on the issue of human rights.
<P>
Unfortunately, the European Parliament, under pressure from some of its Members, goes against this trend. Sadly, the majority remain indifferent, as there are scarcely twenty of us present.
<P>
The resolution on Tibet is based on events in India.
As for the resolution on the sale of organs, it is the result of a campaign without proof, orchestrated in the United States and Germany.
<P>
The encouragement of separatist tendencies which inspired the resolution on Tibet, notably with reference to a Tibetan government in exile, calls into question a basic international rule: respect of the territorial integrity of each country.
It is a dangerous attitude which will not in any way help to improve the situation.
<P>
Peace, like dialogue on human rights, implies mutual respect, particularly when it is a question of a country with over a billion inhabitants such as China.
<P>
That is why I call upon my colleagues to reject these two resolutions about China.
<P>
Sale of human organs in China
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="André-Léonard">
Madam President, arbitrary arrests, death sentences, executions, removal of organs, this is the terrifying scenario which must, with the utmost urgency, cease in China.
Executions of prisoners are increasing all the time, with 2100 executions in 1995 according to Amnesty International.
<P>
For fear of compromising its investments, the international community refrains from condemning these violations of basic human rights, or does so half-heartedly.
<P>
We know that the prison system in China remains largely impenetrable today.
Organs are removed from prisoners to then be sold and transplanted without the consent of the person concerned or his family.
<P>
As the Union is incapable of taking steps in relation to these violations, the parliamentary delegation which is due to visit this country soon must use all its powers of persuasion to put an end to these despicable practices.
In the meantime, the Commission must examine the possibility of establishing European legislation to deal with the trade in organs.
<P>
We ask that the Commission and the Council take all the necessary measures at an international level to put an end to this vile trade.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dupuis">
Madam President, since Mr Colajanni raised the question of the European Parliament delegation's visit to China, I would like to ask my colleagues how many weeks there are in a year.
Well, there are 53.
And when did our delegation go to China?
The week of the anniversary of Tiananmen.
This is due to our secretariat, our delegation for relations with China.
This is our Parliament, this is its way of following up our request, our denunciation of the violation of human rights, the denunciation we are making today of an abhorrent fact - it cannot be called anything else - which is affecting Tibet. This is the response to Tibet, Turkistan, Inner Mongolia and the fate of one billion, three hundred million Chinese people who - until proved otherwise - do not live in a democracy.
<P>
It is time to stop saying that we shall wait for something.
The Tibetans have been waiting for forty years and have had no response. The Chinese have been waiting for fifty years, since the Long March, and have not seen any progress in human rights.
We can continue to complain about India, and its nuclear experiments.
No-one is in favour of nuclear experiments, but, like France and England, which were faced with a Nazi regime in the 1930s, India - which is an imperfect democracy, no-one will deny that - is faced with the largest totalitarian empire in the world, and someone wants it to give up the possibility of defending itself!
I would appreciate it if we began to reason a little on this point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
Madam President, I believe we are faced with two very serious facts, which are occurring in several parts of the world: firstly, the continued use of the death penalty as an inhuman method to deal with crimes; and secondly, the international traffic in organs.
These are two facts which exist in several parts of the world, but which are concentrated in the same country when we talk about China.
If anyone has any doubts about the existence of the death penalty in China - but how could it be denied? - clearly for that person within this House, China still represents a beacon of democracy and communism.
<P>
The other important point is that commercialization, which is a feature throughout the world, is clearly also seen in China.
The information is sufficiently valid to show that, in China, along with repression, there is traffic in human body parts - a traffic which is spreading throughout the world and which we have favoured even within our own countries, with patents on living organisms.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, I hope you will not mistake me for Mr Falconer if I now say something about the roll call.
But first let me just point out that Mr Avgerinos is not present.
It is he who was entrusted with the work of reviewing matters of topical and urgent debate.
I myself am always present for the urgencies, but I rarely see Mr Avgerinos.
So it comes as no surprise to me that some of the ideas contained in his proposals are rather confusing.
<P>
Now to the urgencies. When one looks at what is going on in China, when one hears what previous speakers have said about the alleged trade in human organs, when one reads the reports presented by various organizations, such as China Watch and the Fresenius company, then it is like being in some kind of horror film.
Death sentences are being carried out to order and the condemned persons are being executed in such a way that certain organs remain unaffected, so that they can be turned into cash.
The number of death sentences, the executions and the methods used are treated as state secrets.
The new code of criminal procedure has been drawn up so that court procedures can be handled in such a way that the legal defence of the accused is impossible and something so basic as the presence of observers at court trials is totally out of the question.
<P>
The European Parliament has always pleaded for people sentenced to death, and has always spoken out against the death penalty.
Naturally we cannot remain silent about the gruesome consequences of these death-penalty decisions.
We have to adopt a clear position here.
I therefore believe that it is only natural for us to make minimum demands, for example that practices of this kind should be stopped.
The United Nations which, so we are told, this year at long last is to investigate the slave trade - an action which I believe has been inspired by a resolution from this Parliament - should also set up an international committee of inquiry, and the Council and the Commission should do everything in their power at least to put a stop to the activities of those European firms involved.
This is an issue which should certainly be addressed by our delegation during its forthcoming visit to China.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 NAME="President">
Thank you very much.
I would only like to say that Mr Avgerinos and I were invited yesterday to a meeting and on that occasion he ask me to excuse him.
I think he has had some problems recently.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 NAME="Manisco">
Mr President, on the issue of the death penalty and its macabre exploitation in the Republic of China, we are now confronted by an extraordinary phase of routine horror.
<P>
On this issue at least, we appeal to this House to abandon its tradition of not letting the facts stand in the way of political and economic convenience.
The facts - not propaganda, which nowadays is going in the opposite direction - are overwhelming.
They show that thousands of executed people in the People's Republic of China are exploited in a most cruel fashion to meet the growing demand for transplanted organs by rich individuals in Japan and in the West.
<P>
Last month, we asked to no avail the diplomatic representatives of China in Brussels, Mr Huang Daosheng, Mr Wang Wen and Mr Wei Min, to provide us with documented evidence disproving such ongoing horror.
We are still waiting!
For us, the moment to act is now. Or shall we conclude that in this House, to act in moral equilibrium means our most sacred values must never be tested?
<P>
Capital punishment in Burma
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dijk">
Mr President, in Burma, too, people are being executed.
Last week six prisoners, whom Amnesty International clearly regards as political prisoners, were sentenced to death. Before that, 20 other prisoners who should also be considered as political prisoners died in prison.
From all appearances, this is actually another form of death sentence, or execution, which is being implemented.
<P>
Moreover, the Burmese army takes tough action against ethnic minorities and also executes people without any form of trial.
We would like to urge the Burmese government to abolish the death penalty, and, in any case, to stop the executions, whether or not these follow a sentence.
Individuals have a right to a fair trial, and political prisoners ought to be released.
It is high time we in the European Union urged the business sector to stop investing in Burma and start withdrawing investments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, the military regime in Burma continues to persecute political opponents without restraint.
At the end of April two students were sentenced to death.
These two were part of a group of 40 people arrested in January because of opposition activities.
The other 38 were given prison sentences from 3 to 14 years.
Over the past few years, more than 20 people have died in prison.
So we know what this may mean.
<P>
Last week another 6 death sentences were passed.
They were all Burmese citizens who are regarded as political prisoners by Amnesty International.
That makes 8 death penalties and 38 heavy prison sentences in the space of a few months, with all the dangers which accompany prison sentences.
<P>
It is a good thing Commissioner Marín is present here.
In 1996 we abolished the preferential system for Burma after a series of exasperating acts of violence by the military regime. The United States, and also the US Congress, want to introduce an investment ban.
In February we asked this House whether we should not be coming up with more measures, including an investment ban.
Is it not high time we implemented this restriction on investments, together with the USA?
We would thus force the military regime in Burma to respect democracy and human rights, and above all, to give Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi, the elected president, who has been imprisoned at home for six years, the right to take up the seat she is entitled to, namely the presidency of her country.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this Parliament has considered the dramatic problem of the death penalty more than once. We have always been inflexible with the United States of America, and we are also inflexible with the Republic of China, even if it does not appear to please some people.
We must be even more inflexible with Burma, if possible. There are many reasons: firstly, the lack of respect for the least guarantees in terms of court proceedings, which should by right be recognized in all countries; secondly, the nature of the crimes with which the condemned are charged, which are purely political and a matter of opinion; and thirdly, the systematic use of this instrument, not as a penalty, but as a pure and simple repression of dissent, so that the army is accuser, judge and executioner at the same time.
<P>
The European Union must do everything necessary, useful and appropriate, including the strictest economic sanctions, to put an end to this intolerable situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, I am going to reply en bloc to the various resolutions on the different questions raised by the honorable Members.
As regards Guatemala, the Commission shares Parliament's sorrow and indignation over the assassination of Bishop Juan Gerardi, whom I had the opportunity to get to know personally, as did many of you, because as you know, the European Union has been heavily involved in Guatemala's pacification process and now, recently, in the peace process.
This crime, like others linked to human rights, is a frontal attack on the peace process itself, and all the more so because of the symbolism of murdering Bishop Gerardi when he had just finished his report on the truth about the terrible civil war in that country during the last 30 years.
<P>
What should we do?
At the moment, the European Union has already made the appropriate contributions in terms of political cooperation with that country, and it is obvious that we need to reconsider a lot of issues, in general terms. This would be a good opportunity because the new consultative committee which accompanies the peace process is meeting in June.
This time the meeting will probably take place in Washington, with the Latin American Development Bank.
We need to reconsider how these things are happening, and why.
Above all, we also need to invite the Guatemalan government, the political forces and public opinion to make an effort, so that the peace agreements can really take shape and develop. In some aspects, these peace agreements are experiencing a really worrying delay.
<P>
So we are going to continue to point out to the Guatemalan government the need, firstly, to identify the perpetrators of the crime, and then to gradually regain the spirit of the peace agreements, so that such murders are not repeated.
<P>
What can I say about Colombia and the Umaña, Arango and Fernando Landazábal murders?
I agree with the speakers' descriptions of human rights in Colombia, especially the speech by Mrs Miranda de Lage.
Colombia's problem is very simple.
At the moment, elections are just about to take place - on 26 May - and really serious things are happening in that country.
Human rights in Colombia will have to come as a direct result of peace.
If there is no peace, I very much fear that this situation of domestic disintegration will continue.
<P>
So the first obligation of the next president - not to the international community but, above all, to the Colombian people themselves - is resolutely to seek for peace, so there can be an end to all the causes which are provoking this sort of atrocity.
Because there are atrocities by the paramilitaries; there are atrocities by the guerillas; and there are atrocities - I believe - in a situation in which it is now very difficult to say who is responsible, resulting in that spirit of impunity which creates this sort of situation.
<P>
In any case, as you know, the Colombian authorities have created a special committee as part of the public prosecutor's department, and it is going to investigate these murders.
We shall wait and hear what conclusions it reaches.
<P>
Meanwhile, what should we do?
At the moment, the most we can do - and we want to do it, and have said so, even on our own account, without waiting for the United Nations - is to maintain the human rights office in Bogotá, which is in charge of monitoring the situation.
That does not fundamentally alter the domestic situation, but it is no small matter to maintain an office to monitor events there.
And in order to do that, as you know, we have taken the decision to renew for another year the EU's participation in that office, which is run by the UN representative, Mrs Robinson. We were not obliged to do that, because our commitment was only for one year.

<P>
On the other hand, something we shall have to see about in the future is how to increase our cooperation with Colombia in the judicial area.
It is true that the Colombian authorities have already made that request, but it would be quite interesting to see how, in this aspect of judicial cooperation, we can gradually make progress in the future.
<P>
But I repeat, whatever happens in the elections, no matter who wins the Colombian elections, the first priority is to seek peace, which will require major negotiations. From then on, the priority will be gradually to reduce the current tension in that country, which gives rise to the situations we have seen there recently, which are so hard to understand.
<P>
As for Turkey, the Commission also condemns the attack on Mr Akin Birdal, the Turkish human rights activist. Obviously, like Parliament, the Commission also wants the perpetrators of this crime to be found quickly and brought to justice.
<P>
As you know, the Prime Minister, Mr Yilmaz, the Deputy Prime Minister and many other ministers and MPs have also condemned this attack.
Furthermore, the Commission shares the European Parliament's concern about the repercussions of the judgement against the mayor of Istanbul in connection with freedom of expression in Turkey.
<P>
We are equally worried by the events of January, sparked off by the decision of the Turkish Constitutional Court to order the dissolution of the Prosperity Party, to which Mr Erdogan belonged.
And the Commission is of course concerned that this sort of decision may have adverse effects on democratic pluralism and freedom of expression in Turkey.
<P>
As for the more general aspects of our relations with that country, the Commission of course fully abides by the conclusions of the Luxembourg European Council, which restated that the consolidation of Turkey's ties with the European Union also depends on that country continuing with the political reforms which have been started, especially to bring its human rights regulations and practices into line with those of the EU.
And despite Ankara's decision, in principle, to end all political dialogue with the EU, the Commission intends to continue to inform its Turkish partners of the EU's concerns in this area.
<P>
As for Malaysia, the South-East Asian economic crisis has grave social consequences for the people of the countries concerned, mainly unemployment and emigration.
During the last few months, the Commission has been fully engaged in a constant dialogue with the beneficiaries and other donors on how to increase our support for the region.
At the moment, following the ASEM conference in London, we are reconsidering, within the Commission, our cooperation programmes with that area and that country, in order to target additional funds on the most severely affected countries.
<P>
As regards the conviction of the MP Lim Guan Eng, the Commission's delegation to Malaysia will follow this case closely, along with the appeal which has just been lodged with the Federal Court.
<P>
And as for the situation in the overflowing Malaysian detention camps, the Commission again shares Members' concerns about the reports of bad treatment and human rights violations.
<P>
So I can assure you we are making sure that these concerns - about the refugee camps - are passed on to the Malaysian authorities, and we are going to urge the government to continue to cooperate with the High Commissioner for Refugees and the various non-governmental organizations in helping the refugees.
<P>
Turning now to Indonesia, we are of course also worried and concerned about that country's current situation and the use of violence by the security forces to repress the latest demonstrations which, as you know, has already caused the death of a number of students in Jakarta.
<P>
The Commission is still in contact with the government on the question of human rights. At last, we have managed to arrange for a jointly funded human rights seminar to be held in Jakarta in June, organized by the current presidency of the Council of Ministers and the Indonesian National Human Rights Commission.
This will be the first open debate to be held on human rights in Indonesia with the joint participation of the European Union and the Indonesian National Human Rights Commission.
It is only one step, but it is an important step.
<P>
As for direct aid to the Indonesian people, because of the economic situation, there has already been an on-the-spot mission to assess the true situation.
<P>
The first assessment which has been made - by this team working on the question - is that there is often a difference between what the media depict and what is revealed by in-depth study.
Despite the images we have seen of people crowding round lorries to collect rice or other essential foodstuffs, in fact there is no general shortage of food.
<P>
There are some localized areas suffering shortages of food and drinking water, and a lack of logistics and distribution, especially in the most vulnerable parts of the country, and affecting the most vulnerable sections of the population. We are already starting work there as regards emergency aid.
But I repeat, in principle the situation does not seem to be as dramatic as suggested by the images we have seen.
<P>
Turning now to Tibet, the subject of that country is raised regularly, and the religious dimension of the Tibetan identity forms a constant part of human rights talks with China, and will continue to do so.
The Commission is going to evaluate carefully the results of the recent troika visit by EU ambassadors to Tibet, and will of course inform Parliament as soon as possible.
<P>
As for the sale of organs in China, I shall first give the background.
There is specific dialogue on human rights between the EU and China, which began in 1997.
That dialogue has helped to achieve some concrete results, especially as regards China's participation in the UN human rights instruments.
The question of the death penalty, and particularly the legal and administrative conditions governing executions, has been addressed in the context of this dialogue, and will continue to be raised in the future.
<P>
As regards the trafficking in human organs reported by the international media, the Commission will raise this problem with the Chinese authorities within the context of the human rights dialogue, on the basis of a detailed analysis of the facts.
<P>
Nevertheless, although this certainly does not mean we are not worried about it, the Commission would remind you that intervening in such matters is the responsibility of the Member States since, as you know, Article 129 of the Treaty does not confer legislative powers upon the European Community in this area.
<P>
Nevertheless, I repeat that although the Commission does not have the institutional competence, we are closely following the work of the competent international organizations: the Council of Europe is working on this, at European level, and supports cooperation between the Member States on this point.
<P>
As you know, the European group on ethics, science and new technologies - which has replaced the group on the ethical implications of biotechnology - will issue a statement in 1998 on the ethical aspects of human tissue banks.
<P>
Lastly, once the Treaty of Amsterdam has been ratified, the Commission will be able to study the possibilities for work in this field - that is, as regards the regulations which should be adopted in relation to the distribution or transfer of organs.
Perhaps that would be the right time to raise the problem generally, to consider not just the illegal circulation or transfer of organs from China - assuming the existence of such trade is confirmed - but also its occurrence in any other country.
<P>
As for Burma, you know that we in the Commission have always deplored the widespread human rights violations in that country, and we are aware of the recent death sentences passed against six prisoners.
Nevertheless, we think there is reason to be hopeful about these death sentences, insofar as no death sentence has been carried out in 1998.
Let us hope the military junta continues along these lines, and at least does not decide to execute these six prisoners.
<P>
As for the possibility of an investment ban, as suggested by Mrs Maij-Weggen, the European Union is not able to forbid private investment on the part of European companies.
Apart from the moral and ethical judgements each one of us can form for ourselves, there is no instrument at the moment to allow us to act at that level.
<P>
In any case, you know the state of our relations with Burma. There are no relations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>




B4-0502/98 by Mr Macartney and Mr Hory, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the arms export code of conduct; -B4-0505/98 by Ms McKenna and others, on behalf of the V Group, on the European code of conduct for arms exports; -B4-0520/98 by Mr Oostlander and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the PPE Group, on a code of conduct for arms exports; -B4-0522/98 by Mr Bertens and Mr Frischenschlager, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on a code of conduct for arms exports; -B4-0529/98 by Mrs González Álvarez and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on a code of conduct for arms exports; -B4-0546/98 by Mr Titley and Mr Wiersma, on behalf of the PSE Group, on an EU code of conduct on arms exports.

<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="Macartney">
Mr President, often in these so-called urgencies we are dealing with things which one might argue are not urgent.
However, here we have a chance to put our point of view and make a decisive contribution to an urgent decision which will be taken in ten days' time when the General Affairs Council of the European Union will be asked to endorse a Franco-British initiative to have a proper code of conduct for the exportation of armaments.
<P>
It is hard to imagine anything that is more important for the long-term future of a world which is beset by strife of all kinds.
European weapons are responsible for the killing and maiming of many people. So we have to ask the Council to endorse that initiative and to extend it to all Member States, not just the two Member States which are proposing it.
Equally, we have to say that the European Union cannot solve all these problems itself, and we have to look to support from the United States, Russia and China.
<P>
It is far from being a futile gesture for us to put forward a European code of conduct.
On the contrary, this is something where the European Union can lead the world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, at the beginning of the British Presidency Tony Blair was making great play of the fact that Great Britain was going to take action on a code of conduct on arms exports, and we, the Green Group in the European Parliament, welcomed this warmly.
At last an initiative was to be taken at European level.
When Belgium drew up its arms export act in 1991, the perennial argument on the part of Belgium for not going the whole hog was that this issue should be regulated at European level, otherwise Belgium would be at a relative disadvantage.
So there was genuine hope that Europe would grasp this opportunity.
Unfortunately, we have to conclude that the proposals which have so far been developed by the British Presidency in conjunction with France are frankly a disappointment.
<P>
During the ACP meeting in Mauritius on 20 to 23 April we saw that a majority of both the Europeans and the ACP representatives also raised this issue.
They clearly complained that the code in its present form will have no impact on the unstable regions, on countries which spend an excessive part of their budget on defence, and even on the countries which violate human rights.
Also, the fact that the draft does not expressly include the sale of light weapons in the regulation - those light weapons which are wreaking such havoc in Africa - is the cause of much regret.
On a procedural level there are also a great many snags, as a Member State which refuses an export licence must inform the others, but the length of time allowed for this is not defined.
There is no common certificate of end use, so the multiplicity of certificates, which has always led to chaos, will continue to exist. The problem of arms manufacturers from third countries operating with a licence from a Member State company has not been considered at all.
As far as we are concerned, we are calling very urgently indeed for this code to be made binding and meaningful after all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
Mr President, when we learned of the Franco-British initiative for a code on the arms trade, we got the impression that we should be on our guard more than usual.
I think Parliament's resolution indicates clearly that we are indeed prepared to be on our guard, and to strengthen this Franco-British initiative where possible.
It is unacceptable, of course, that when some countries are behaving properly with regard to arms exports, in particular when they are desisting from exporting arms, others fill the gap.
Then the outcome is zero, morally speaking.
There is a great need to combat this cynicism.
<P>
Earning money from misery is a serious business which Parliament must take a stance against. It is very good that this Parliament is firmly unanimous about this resolution, so that the Council knows, and others also know, that the representatives of the European citizens have no doubt about what should happen on that front.
Hitherto the actions have always been very weak, for example against Serbia, which already manufactures excessive numbers of weapons itself.
A ban on arms exports to Serbia is in fact one of those useless hollow gestures.
It is much better to take a general line, with criteria which must be employed, including under those circumstances which make it economically less attractive to behave decently.
<P>
Mr President, this sort of proposal often tends to be symbolic in nature, and that is why I am underlining that one of the last parts of the proposal talks about the need to combat illegal arms exports.
It is all very well for us to organize everything by law, but if we do not ensure that the illegal export of arms is genuinely combated in an effective way, then we still do not achieve our objective.
That is why I think it is good that this resolution concludes with that point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, the three previous speakers have already partly articulated what I wanted to say.
The Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party is disappointed about the outcome in practice.
The Member States do not have to accept this as binding.
It remains a political declaration of no value. There are no sanctions.
They are merely obliged to inform each other.
<P>
What are we gaining?
We are not gaining anything.
This Parliament must make it clear here and now that this is not nearly enough.
The present proposal does not deserve to be called ethical politics, as the British Presidency still referred to it at the beginning of the year.
<P>
The scandal surrounding Sierra Leone and the American refusal - would you believe - to supply arms to the United Kingdom because of poor export controls, should send clear signals to Europe, as well as to the British, for that matter.
<P>
Let us start putting some real effort into strict and binding European regulations on the arms trade.
That is why the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party is pleased that this resolution adopts a clear position, and asks the Council to remove the weaknesses in the proposals.
Transparency, Mr President, and multilateral consultation between all Member States are essential ingredients for a common policy.
Any concession on this front to the so-called sovereignty of the Member States makes a laughing stock of the European rules.
I therefore call on the Commission, as well as the forthcoming Austrian presidency, to continue the work of the British in case we end this presidency with a weak compromise. The Commission obviously also has a job to do in this.
We are all awaiting with great interest what the Commission will do.
<P>
In conclusion, I hope the G8 will conclude international agreements during its next meeting, and I definitely also hope that the EU Member States who will be present will support the proposals for adopting the OAS code.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="Truscott">
Mr President, on behalf of the Socialist Group I would like to welcome the initiative by the British Presidency to establish a new code of conduct for the arms trade.
<P>
There is no doubt that the code of conduct governing the sale of arms, so that weapons from the EU are not used for internal repression or external aggression, is long overdue.
It is important in terms not only of enhancing human rights outside the Union but also of giving European defence companies a level and fair playing field in the sphere of arms exports.
Undercutting, when one country's defence sector steps in to supply arms refused by another Member State, must become a thing of the past.
<P>
The latest draft of the code, in addition to defining circumstances of internal repression or external aggression, which would trigger denial of exports, states that consideration would be given to whether 'the proposed export would seriously undermine the economic and social development of the recipient country' .
Furthermore, Member States would reserve the right to operate more restrictive national export policies while working to adopt the common list of military equipment covered by the code.
<P>
It is, however, to be hoped that the envisaged annual reports to the Council will be used as a basis for discussion and scrutiny in the European Parliament.
Further work needs to be done on countering the illegal export of arms.
Arms brokers and end use will require close monitoring.
<P>
The next step will be to extend the principles of the code to countries like Russia, China and the United States.
Nevertheless, the fact that we are on the verge of agreeing a historic code of conduct on arms exports, which I hope will be agreed on 25 May, is a hopeful sign for all those seeking a safer world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, everyone in this House, with the exception of Mr Truscott, now understands that the British Presidency's solemn announcement of a code of conduct for arms exports is nothing but a carte-blanche for the arms industry.
What all this is about is not the avoidance and prevention of arms exports, but the improvement of European arms cooperation, and especially an improvement in the position of the UK arms industry within this framework of cooperation.
<P>
Even the focus of the British Presidency - namely the implementation of a policy for the protection of international human rights - breaks down when it comes to the protection of arms exports.
The proposed code still permits exports to Turkey and even allows the UK government to send weapons to Indonesia and Sierra Leone, in spite of the embargo.
<P>
In view of this new situation, the German Bundestag is currently deciding about easing national regulations on arms exports in order to improve Germany's position as an arms trader.
The UK presidency has misled all those who have been pleading for an effective control of arms exports.
We therefore call on the Commission to submit a draft proposal containing clear demands which are in line with those often expressed in this House and repeatedly voiced by the NGOs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the last few years there have been repeated calls both inside and outside the European Union for greater transparency in conventional arms exports.
The EU has taken the initiative in this respect in establishing common rules, in the form of a code of conduct on the transfer of conventional arms.
<P>
This draft code of conduct aims to establish a set of principles upon which to base all arms export decisions, and to provide a well-defined framework for action, as a context for discussions of each case of arms transfer.
The draft code of conduct also establishes the criteria for use in evaluating all arms exports.
Nevertheless, it must be made clear that the final responsibility for arms exports rests with the national governments.
<P>
The European Union has a great interest in seeing these principles widely accepted, including by the world's leading arms exporters.
And having an agreement which covers the whole of the EU and has a consistent internal approach is important when it comes to putting pressure on third parties to adopt similar practices.
<P>
Progress has been made in drafting the code, especially in relation to the appropriate legal instruments for its adoption, and the future elaboration of eight criteria.
<P>
We do not deny that serious obstacles remain, and the presidency has offered the possibility of holding other limited consultations between governments during the next few days, after which a report will be presented to the Council - on 25 or 26 May - assessing the situation, and I should imagine a series of compromise solutions will be presented by the presidency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>


Doñana National Park -B4-0492/98 by Mr Eisma, Mr Gasóliba i Böhm and Mr Vallvé, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the Doñana ecological disaster; -B4-0508/98 by Mrs Roth and others, on behalf of the V Group, on the severe toxic spill disaster in Doñana National Park, Spain; -B4-0521/98 by Mr Valverde López and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the environmental disaster affecting the Doñana National Park caused by the collapse of a dam for channelling mud from the Aznalcollar mines (Seville); -B4-0531/98 by Mrs González Álvarez and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the Doñana environmental disaster; -B4-0548/98 by Mr Aparicio Sánchez and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the toxic spills near Doñana with serious economic and social consequences;


<P>

Italy -B4-0497/98 by Mr Bianco and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the hydrogeological disaster in the Italian provinces of Salerno, Avellino and Caserta; -B4-0530/98 by Mr Vinci and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the floods in Campania (Italy); -B4-0535/98 by Mr Fassa, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the tragedy in the Campania region of Italy; -B4-0549/98 by Mr Colajanni and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on floods in Campania; -B4-0551/98 by Mr Azzolini and others, on behalf of the UPE Group, on the flooding of 5 May 1998 in Campania (Italy); -B4-0559/98 by Mr Tamino and others, on behalf of the V Group, on the flooding in Campania (Italy).


<P>
Doñana National Park
<SPEAKER ID=191 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Vallvé">
Mr President, in my capacity as president of a Spanish national park - Aigüestortes y Estany de Sant Maurici - I can only lament the disaster which has happened, or which may happen, in a large part of the Doñana National Park, which is the biggest and most important national park in Europe and has been declared a World Heritage Site.
<P>
Faced with this situation, I think the first thing to emphasize is the need for coordination in that region between all the authorities concerned, including those with responsibility for industry and mines - the precise cause of the catastrophe was the storage of waste water from mineral purification - as well as those directly responsible for the protection of the nature reserve.
<P>
I think we must also mention the need to increase our solidarity with all the people concerned, who have suffered harm on account of the polluted water which has flooded the zone.
In that sense I think that in future this sort of situation should be anticipated, and there should be no storage of dangerous substances which can damage wildlife areas such as Doñana.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Mr President, once again an inconceivable environmental disaster has occurred, this time in a valuable and sensitive area of southern Spain, in Andalusia.
The Doñana National Park, which was designated one of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites, is now severely damaged.
Large areas were flooded with over 5 million cubic metres of contaminated hazardous waste water from mining operations when a retaining dam burst.
Over 2000 hectares of cultivated land has also been destroyed.
<P>
The fact that it is a Swedish company that is operating the mine in Andalusia is distressing, but at the same time it is also a challenge.
Green politicians from Sweden took part last Sunday in a large demonstration in Andalusia with over 10 000 participants.
The demonstration was arranged by environmental and peace organizations.
Together with the Greens in Andalusia, the Swedish environmental party demanded that the Boliden company should accept the economic and legal responsibility, compensate the victims and finance the remediation and regeneration of the area.
<P>
However, it is not only Boliden that is responsible. In fact, many parties are involved in this incident, which is one of Europe's worst environmental disasters.
In 1996 a local organization obtained a report smuggled out by a sacked technician about the problem with the dams.
On 27 February 1996 the company was reported to the Commission, which decided, however, that there was no risk.
The entire investigation was abandoned after having only heard from the local environmental authorities.
Boliden had added to the dam without permission.
Cracks had also been found in the dam, which were reported, but nothing was done.
Now we must accept collective responsibility!
The Commission must take action and support the affected parties.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valverde López">
Mr President, first of all I want to express my solidarity with the victims of the floods in Italy and add my support to that shown by all the political groups in drafting this resolution about the Doñana National Park.
It is important for the European Commission to find the means to grant urgent aid, and to work in close collaboration with the Spanish government and the Andalusian regional government in order to reprogramme the structural and cohesion funds to support the plan being prepared to decontaminate, restore and strengthen environmental protection in the area around Doñana.
And I think it is time to follow the advice of the committee of scientists which has been appointed and remove the toxic sludge as fast as possible, to prevent the irreversible spread of the pollution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, Commissioner, as my colleague Carmen Díez de Rivera Icaza said at the start of this part-session, and as José Luis Valverde has just said, we deeply deplore what has happened in Italy because human life is the most valuable thing of all. There can be no doubt about that.
<P>
But Carmen Díez de Rivera Icaza asked for attention to be paid to the Doñana catastrophe, and it is quite right that we should do so.
<P>
We state here and now that we are going to vote in favour of the joint resolution, because it refers to Community law, shows solidarity with the people affected, requests expert assistance and financial aid from the European Union, and suggests that all the authorities should unite so as to be able to tackle the problem.
<P>
Well, we are presenting three amendments, together with our colleagues from the Green Group in the European Parliament and the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party - Mrs Carmen Díez de Rivera Icaza and Mr Collins, the chairman of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
<P>
These amendments address aspects not covered in the joint resolution, and we thought it would be appropriate to include them. I am going to defend them even though I do not have much time.
Firstly, environmental protection groups should be included in the committee of local authorities, experts and so on, because they have years of experience of protecting Doñana against dangers, and they know a lot about the reserve.
<P>
Secondly, a committee should be set up to investigate and clarify responsibilities. Nobody is answerable here, but we can see a few people who should be.
We think the Hydrographical Confederation has a responsibility.
They say in the press today, in a study, that the aquifers which feed Doñana are at serious risk. We think the regional government of Andalusia has a responsibility, and the Spanish government.
And in the third amendment, we also think the European Commission has a responsibility.
<P>
In 1996, a complaint was lodged by CEPA.
The European Commission requested information from the Spanish government, trusted what they told them, and archived the complaint. So the European Commission also has a certain responsibility for what is happening in Doñana.
<P>
I shall conclude by saying that we shall probably learn something from this catastrophe: that it costs far more to restore what has been destroyed than it would have cost to take preventative measures.
And of course, the mining company had the greatest obligation to take such measures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Aparicio Sánchez">
Mr President, the Commission should put all its effort into helping both to correct a situation which still today continues to threaten the Doñana National Park - which is one of the most outstanding jewels of the ecological heritage of the whole Union - and to prevent similar disasters from happening in the future.
<P>
In reaching a decision on this joint resolution which I have the honour of proposing on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, Parliament should be aware of three things.
Firstly, the bursting of the dam owned by the Boliden company near Doñana and the resulting spillage of toxic sludge is such a serious matter and poses such a threat that the Commission should not just implement its maximum financial and technical assistance, but should also ensure that such assistance is not discontinued as soon as the danger to the reserve is over, but should extend it in the medium term until the affected sectors have fully recovered in economic terms.
<P>
Secondly, so far there has been no damage within the reserve, and the damage caused to the ecosystem is not yet irreparable.
<P>
Thirdly, it is nevertheless extremely urgent that the leaked toxic matter be removed, because every day that passes without such removal being achieved represents an extremely high and growing risk.
<P>
Mr President, the Spanish administrations are collaborating mutually to solve the problem, and are counting on dependable scientific advice to help them, but it is enormously important for the Commission's support - which the Commissioner has already announced in Spain - to be emphasized and extended along the lines suggested in our proposed resolution.
<P>
Italy
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bianco">
Mr President, Commissioner, I hope that the tragedy which took place on 5 May, when a mud slide destroyed several communities and produced hundreds of victims and thousands of evacuees, will be taken as a warning that a new land policy should be implemented, not only in Italy but also on a European level.
<P>
I am aware that the Commission has already taken some steps which may be important.
I hope the Structural Funds can be used to restore and relaunch these communities. However, I can tell you that my greatest wish is for the European Union and the Commission to implement an adequate policy throughout Europe - where these tragedies have occurred, such as Doñana which we have just discussed - in order to avoid these disasters, which cause so may victims.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Manisco">
Mr President, 145 dead and 135 missing: these are the first totals, which are increasing daily to give an even more tragic number.
It is certainly not the task of this Parliament to establish what was immediately responsible for losses which have affected three Italian provinces: disorganization of emergency services; inadequate means; criminal behaviour on the part of the local and state administrations.
That is a matter for the Italian judiciary.
<P>
The European Parliament has the larger, more demanding task of mobilizing Community resources and technology in a preventive plan of hydrogeological restoration in a territory which for a quarter of a century has been devastated by abuse, corruption, and environmental neglect.
But this is not only a tragic problem for Italy. As shown by the recent environmental disaster in Spain, other countries within the Community are exposed to similarly severe disasters caused solely by an insane and criminal exploitation of the land.
The alarm for an Italian region should become the alarm for the whole of Europe. The institutions of this Europe, over and above their triumphalist self-praise for the single currency, must now - not tomorrow - defend the most basic rights of its people, who are threatened by a desire for profit and the theft of the environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, I have come to this House today to express profound grief and remember the very serious disaster which affected not only the Italian community but also the European community.
<P>
The natural events which recently affected the Campania region were certainly exceptional, but at the same time we cannot say with any certainty that they were unforeseeable.
For many years, the local authorities had been told that the areas struck by the disaster we are remembering today were in complete hydrogeological disorder. The authorities themselves denounced the situation.
<P>
There are two astonishing facts, which the President of the Italian Republic rightly referred to.
The first is that people are looking immediately for political responsibilities, rather than legal responsibilities - which sometimes appeared instrumental - rather than being led by a real desire to shed light on the facts. Secondly, people are attempting to use the tragedy in Campania as a pretext for satisfying national party political interests, which risk having little to do with a real reorganization of land management responsibilities.
<P>
I have said several times that the problem of southern Italy is not so much a national question as a matter for the entire European Union.
The Commission must therefore take into consideration the possibility of allocating Community resources to the financing of programmes, both to reconstruct and to relaunch the productive activities of the area.
But at the same time we cannot forget that Italy, which has recently entered the single currency with great emphasis - as stated by Mr Manisco - must show that it knows it truly merits the aid which, I am certain, will be given by the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="De Giovanni">
Mr President, the terrible extent of the tragedy in Campania has already been discussed: 150 dead, 150 missing - it is difficult to imagine that there will be any more survivors - four communities damaged and in confusion, two provinces - Avellino and Salerno - seriously affected, and destruction of the land.
<P>
It is clear that responsibilities exist, and that they will be investigated.
Now is the time, first of all, for grief - which the European Parliament has already expressed at the opening of the sitting. Soon afterwards comes the time for solidarity - concrete solidarity.
I would like to emphasize this last point, because I was very pleased with what Commissioner Monti said, on the first day of Parliament's current part-session, when he stated the possibility of concrete intervention.
This is the point I would like to emphasize, and on which I would like a response from Commissioner Marín - the possibility of using regional funds not used for their original purpose.
Can we have a decision from the Commission?
Naturally, precise purposes must be established, and controls, as well as extremely clear agreement between the national, regional and community authorities, in the hope for clear management which is not excessively bureaucratic.
<P>
This would of course represent the concrete solidarity of Europe with those areas which have suffered the disaster we are remembering here.
We must try to provide this, and contribute to the rebirth of these very beautiful areas which have been so unfortunate in suffering the events which have occurred there over so many years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Azzolini">
Mr President, after listening to my colleagues from Campania who spoke before me, I think it is only right not to repeat the same observations and considerations, which occur naturally to anyone who, like them and like myself, has been to those places and comes from there, and has lived with those people through their drama of despair, profound grief, and great human dignity.
Anyone who saw it on television - and a great many people did see it, not only nationally but throughout Europe - could see great despair in the eyes of those people, but also great dignity. That is perhaps what most struck the journalists, who have become used to grief and profound sorrow.
<P>
Now we have to respond to that dignity, because it is difficult now to give answers to the dead. We must answer the survivors, who need an answer, but I use a euphemism, because it would have been better for the Italian state, and the whole of the Community, to give an answer early enough, rather than have to count the missing as dead and the deceased as victims.
<P>
My point is along the lines of what Mr De Giovanni said a moment ago, which is to help these people understand what help can be given to relaunch the economy of the area. I shall give one example.
In Sarno, a hospital has been destroyed which is not only a central point for the health of the area, but a part of the economy, where 400 people live and work. This means that the area's economy will be repressed, if it is not immediately relaunched.
<P>
With the availability expressed by Commissioner Monti, we should remodel the resources and structural funds which, like Objective 1, have more often been shown to be lacking in terms of cost capacity rather than planning.
We need to help the region, the land and the local bodies to reprogramme these resources, using a simple procedure, which allows immediate and optimum use of investments, Obviously the affected parties would not be compensated in the immediate future, but a significant programme would be provided, to remove the anguish of tomorrow and provide more certainty and hope for the area, and a social aspect, which we must all be happy with when it is implemented.
<P>
On behalf of my group and my colleagues in Campania, I am requesting commitment, which can be translated into realities rather than verbal solidarity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
Mr President, we are certainly all deeply affected and wish to express our grief for the families of the victims, because there are nearly 300 people dead and missing, very many injured and thousands evacuated.
But with this natural disaster as with others, it has to be said that bad luck has nothing to do with it. This tragedy is the result of human and political action, which caused the hydrogeological problem in Italy, which means that today small normal natural events can cause disasters.
We are therefore faced with the situation that we must have a serious prevention policy to prevent similar natural events.
<P>
For this reason we must ask the Italian authorities to provide stable and conclusive information, firstly as regards the persons evacuated. As soon as possible afterwards, however, we need information on preventive action, with an updated map of the risks in all the hydrogeologically compromised regions in Italy.
Above all, we ask the government to complete the necessary reorganization of land management responsibilities. For this reason we also ask the Commission to examine the possibility of using Community funds, together with the national and regional funds, to deal with these problems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Pettinari">
Mr President, I believe that the very serious tragedy which took place in Campania must be seen as a warning and an alarm signal for the European institutions and all Member States governments.
It should be seen as a warning because I think it is now a matter of urgency to define Community instruments of civil protection which can intervene with the speed which unfortunately our country cannot provide on its own.
<P>
On this point I agree with the call made by Mr De Giovanni, and I ask the Commission to respond. There is a tragic emergency in Campania; there is a request to use funds; these funds are needed to bring life back to a region of the European Union.
<P>
I believe bureaucracy should be overcome, and we should try to resolve this problem.
Another reason why it is an alarm signal is that what happened in Italy has made it clear that without a serious land protection policy - with, on the contrary, ruinous work being done on the land - the perfect conditions are being created for these tragedies to occur.
<P>
I call upon the Commission to act as an intermediary, so that it can quickly do what has not been done in many of the EU Member States: to get to know the dangers in an affected territory, and monitor them properly, so that more tragedies do not occur on the scale of the one affecting my country.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, due to a bureaucratic misunderstanding our group has not presented a resolution on this subject, but obviously we are happy with the arrangement upon which we shall shortly be voting. I think it is important to state not only our solidarity but also the need for these questions - which will undoubtedly become more frequent in the common European fabric which we are trying to build - to be dealt with on a European level.
<P>
From this point of view, I believe there are two possibilities. Either our demonstrations become pure ritual, as is often the case, or the European Union must really show not just solidarity, but that in some fields - in particular in land management in Europe - it can draw up a policy to deal with the situation.
<P>
In recent years we have destroyed the budget line which dealt with disasters and provided an immediate and concrete contribution in unfortunate cases such as this.
<P>
I think these disasters must make us reflect in the short term, so that we can activate instruments which show the citizens that Europe is not an abstract entity, but can deal with these requests and needs. However, we also need to think about the medium and long term, so that we can implement concrete planning operations, for example in relation to defence and rigorous management of the land.
It would also be useful sometimes for Member States to be able to resort to measures on a European level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, once again we are called upon to weep for the victims of natural disasters.
In the case of the recent floods which hit some areas of Campania, the emotion is even greater because of the high number of victims and the fact that they included several babies and children.
<P>
The National Alliance delegation supports the contents of the joint resolution and joins in the grief for the families of the victims. However, we can already imagine what the Commissioner will reply in response to the request for aid from the Commission: that there is no EU budget line for immediate and visible aid to affected populations.
<P>
The National Alliance therefore hopes that in the next EU budget, which is already at an advanced stage, this line will be inserted.
<P>
Furthermore, while deploring the fact that the joint resolution is incomplete - if our Italian colleagues in the other groups had had the sensitivity to consult us informally, we would have raised this point - we ask that the government and the region of Campania be allowed to transfer a part of that region's Structural Funds, for use in the reconstruction and restoration of the land. Unfortunately Italy's land is violated to a great extent by building speculation and regulatory plans at district, provincial and regional level, drawn up in many cases for the benefit of clients and parties.
Also, hill and mountain areas are gradually being abandoned, because people find it impossible to live there. This is partly because there are not enough government programmes to support them, and because they are lured to anonymous urban peripheries by commercial strategies, sometimes shown to be based on false appeals, which promote the idea that city life is infinitely better than living in the country.
<P>
To conclude, Mr President, how can anybody fail to see, in this violence and lack of attention to the land, a typical sign of our civilisation which has desecrated everything, and where everything tends to be seen in rational and scientific terms?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by addressing the resolution on the floods in Campania, in view of the fact that, compared with the other ecological disaster, there were human victims here, which we greatly regret of course. The Commission would like to express its most sincere condolences to the families of the people concerned.
<P>
Having said that, I must now go on to explain exactly what can be done in the two cases.
Firstly, for quite unconnected reasons, the fact is that in last year's budgetary debate it was decided to stop the budgetary line concerned specifically with urgent aid in cases of catastrophe.
So that is the situation, and unless you decide to reinstate that budgetary line, as things stand at the moment it is not possible to act by means of the urgency procedure.
<P>
Secondly, it is possible to act through the structural policies procedure.
And in this case, as far as the region of Campania is concerned, I have to tell you that the Commission has in fact been discussing what can be done in that area, which fully meets the Structural Fund Objective 1 requirements.
So the affected areas can benefit from the rehabilitation measures provided for in the multifund operative programme of the European Regional Development Fund.
<P>
Furthermore, the guidance section of the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund can also help, with measures to promote rural development and combat the abandonment of farm land, and to address reforestation.
Lastly, it is also possible that the Social Fund may be able to fund work-related training activities, especially in the field of prevention.
<P>
As for the Doñana National Park, I want to say that at the moment the Commission is of course receiving information from the Spanish and regional authorities, in accordance with their areas of competence.
In that respect, the first official meeting took place recently, in New York, between my colleague Commissioner Bjerregaard and the Spanish minister, Mrs Tocino, during the meeting on sustainable development.
As to what can be done, my answer to you is that in fact the area around the Doñana National Park which has been affected by the disaster is also included in Objective 1 of the ERDF.
However, you have to bear in mind - and we would like to make this point very clear in the case of Campania and of Doñana - that, because of the lack of a budgetary line for natural catastrophes, there may be a temptation to use the ERDF every time a catastrophe occurs, but the regulations do not make provision for urgency aid to be provided from this source.
I want to make that clear.
Nevertheless, it is possible, as Mr Valverde López said, to carry out an immediate reprogramming exercise so as to give priority to the disasters caused in the area around the Doñana National Park.
It is possible to do that, and in fact the Commission is already in contact with the Spanish authorities and the regional Andalusian authorities with a view to carrying out this exercise, and letters were exchanged on the subject last week.
So it will be possible to provide an answer to this situation too.
<P>
As regards one of the amendments defended by Mrs Laura González Álvarez, my comment is this.
The complaints system is always a contradictory procedure, not just in the case of Doñana or Campania.
So in the case of Doñana, just as with any other complaint lodged under Community procedure, the Commission can never archive it unilaterally.
It is always done by means of a contradictory procedure.
What you said is right: a complaint was lodged by the organization you mentioned.
The Commission conveyed that complaint to the Spanish government, and the Spanish government replied on 31 January 1997, describing the measures it had taken.
The Commission conveyed the Spanish government's reply to the complainant, who accepted the explanation.
Before the complaint was archived, on 25 March 1997, the complainant you mentioned still had two months, according to Community procedure, to reopen the case.
They did not request to reopen the case.
I am telling you this for your own information, and to point out that, in Community procedure, no complaint can be archived without there having been a contradictory procedure, as is quite right.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Votes (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="Falconer">
Mr President, I only seek information: can you advise me whether, under the Rules concerning the 50 % voting, the roll calls for urgencies and the roll calls for the Pex report count towards that 50 %?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 NAME="President">
Yes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 NAME="President">
That concludes voting time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="Berthu">
The Pex report on the European Union's communication policy announces with a surprisingly clear conscience that this policy aims to "awaken European citizens to the cause of European integration' (recital A), that its effectiveness constitutes the "conditio sine qua non for obtaining the support of most European citizens for the integration process' (recital B) and that it is necessary to step it up " in view of the great events approaching the EU in the coming months' (recital C).
<P>
For our part, we see in this all the foundations not only of a reasonable information policy, but also of propaganda campaigns aimed at convincing the citizens that there are no options other than those defined for them by the Eurocrats.
<P>
In our amendments to this report, which have been rejected by the European Parliament, we asked that a code of good conduct finally be drawn up to define, for purposes of information, the principles of transparency, neutrality and respect for pluralism and partnership.
This code should consist of four sections.
<P>
Firstly, European information campaigns must not interfere with national electoral campaigns.
No information campaign funded by the Union or by bodies which it subsidizes should be able to be organized in a Member State during the six months preceding referenda or legislative European or presidential elections.
<P>
Secondly, information campaigns must not involve the unilateral development of a particular opinion on a subject which is not supported unanimously.
They must allow the expression of all opinions which reflect the political trends represented in the European Parliament.
The institutions of the Union, their administrations, their offices and officials should, in exercising their duties, always provide neutral and objective information.
They must not in any circumstances become involved in a national debate, either directly or indirectly.
Finally, a committee on ethics, made up of representatives of all political groups in the European Parliament and representatives of the national parliaments, should give a prior opinion on European information campaigns. It should, in particular, peruse electronic information, radio communications and television advertisements before they are broadcast.
<P>
Thirdly, information campaigns must be conducted in close association with all the partners.
No campaign should be launched within the territory of a Member State without the prior agreement of the authorities of that state, and those authorities should be involved in it.
No public meeting related to an EU information campaign should take place in a state without inviting elected representatives of all political leanings to participate in it.
Papers, periodicals and documents of all types published by the European institutions, or by the bodies linked to them by contract, must, where they mention certain opinions, be fair in terms of the space given to the different theories represented within the European Parliament.
<P>
Fourthly, information campaigns must adhere to the rule of financial transparency.
At the end of each year the European institutions must publish the following, in separate documents made available to the public at no cost: an exhaustive list of the information campaigns which have been carried out, including their references and costs; an exhaustive list of the organizations which have been subsidized for the purposes of information, communication or education campaigns, or who have received funding which could be used for this purpose; an exhaustive list of experts who are remunerated in various ways and are involved in information campaigns where they do not appear officially as salaried staff of the European institutions.
<P>
In conclusion, the European institutions should refrain from financing political parties, either at the national or European level, or associations linked to these parties, even for projects which are supposedly for simple purposes of information.
They must also refrain from financing or subsidizing projects from which certain parties would benefit.
The committee on ethics already mentioned should ensure with particular vigilance that the principles of transparency are respected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 NAME="Holm">
Had it addressed the core problem of the lack of openness within the EU then this could have been a very good and valuable report on the information and communication policy in the European Union.
<P>
But information can be misused as an instrument of power in society, and can easily be replaced and exploited as propaganda.
Reading between the lines, it is evident that this is the way in which people want information and communication to be issued from the institutions of the EU.
Quite simply, the intention is to convey the vision of the EU's infallibility.
<P>
I certainly agree that the EU institutions must be more open and less bureaucratic.
A start could have been made by introducing the principle of public access to official records, proper filing routines and recording of incoming post.
But this is not included in the report.
<P>
In the light of the situation in the European Parliament's part-session this week, which saw proposals made to prohibit TV crews from filming during voting, it is clear that there are many who wish through censorship to prevent the political debate within the European Parliament from reaching the citizens.
Instead, the intention seems to be that communication with the EU's citizens should take place in advance via arranged information campaigns.
In my opinion this is entirely the wrong course to take.
<P>
At numerous points in the report reference is also made to the fact that the citizens are ill informed about how the EU operates and are therefore negatively disposed to the EU.
But surely it is not the institutions in themselves that are the major problem, but the policies for which they are responsible that leads to criticism of the EU.
These are two separate issues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="Iversen">
<SPEAKER ID=213 NAME="Lindqvist">
The report formulates an information policy for the EU.
The first question asked is why such a policy is needed in the first place.
Are the citizens not satisfied with the Union?
<P>
The report is totally unacceptable.
It mixes up information, communication and propaganda.
Proposals such as the one advocating that large sections of the population that have "negative feelings about Europe' need to be informed evoke unpleasant reminders of the political propaganda of fallen empires.
<P>
Of course there is a need for information, but it must be based on entirely different premises to those set out in this report if we are to succeed in converting distrust into confidence. I have therefore voted against the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 NAME="Muscardini">
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="Nicholson">
<SPEAKER ID=216 NAME="Raschhofer">
In view of the fact that the President asked me to stand down at the end of my contribution to the debate, I should now like to complete my statement in writing.
<P>
I have already said that pretty wrapping paper is not enough, but that the contents must also be right.
If the information and communication policy of the European institutions is regarded in such a way that its content can be changed by the use of pretty wrapping paper, then it is not worthy of the name 'information' - we should change it to 'manipulation' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="Wibe">
I warmly welcome the rapporteur's view that this Parliament must pursue a policy of complete openness and transparency with regard to the way in which this institution operates (recital E).
Moreover, the rapporteur is absolutely correct in stating that information campaigns cannot simply consist in unilaterally developing a specific position on a proposal that does not meet with unanimous agreement (recital H).
<P>
It would be splendid if the EU institutions were to live up to this.
For the EU institutions simply to canvass for more power for the EU, a United States of Europe, increased federalism, EMU membership and so on using the taxpayers' money is neither particularly humble nor democratic.
To run a campaign using such devices as the comic-strip character "Captain Euro' in order to convince people of the merits of the euro is to underestimate the citizens' intelligence and the ways in which they form their own political opinions.
<P>
Many citizens are evidently suspicious of the EU.
Increased bureaucracy, the increased divides between citizens and their politically elected representatives and wastefulness in respect of taxpayers' money make many citizens quite justifiably suspicious of the EU as a project.
The citizens' scepticism about the EU is not based on ignorance.
It is based, rather, on the fact that they cannot envisage themselves having any influence over the organization, and on fears that a federal EU will become profoundly undemocratic, bureaucratic and controlled by market forces.
This is a question of political evaluations, not ignorance on the part of opponents of the EU.
<P>
If those who hold the political responsibility within the EU's institutions do not appreciate this fact, then it will never be possible to develop an information and communication strategy that is capable of achieving two-way communication with our citizens.
<P>
Unfortunately, the above points are, in my view, missing from the Pex report.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Competition in the air traffic sector
<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0141/98) by Mr Scarbonchi, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for Council Regulations (EC):
<P>
I.amending Regulation (EEC) No 3975/87 laying down the procedure for the application of the rules on competition to undertakings in the air transport sector (COM(97)0218 - C4-0258/97-97/0137(CNS)); II.on the application of Article 85(3) of the Treaty to certain categories of agreements and concerted practices in the sector of air transport between the Community and third countries (COM(97)0218 - C4-0259/97-97/0138(CNS)) (Draftsman of the opinion: Mr Ribeiro, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy ( Hughes Procedure).
<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="Scarbonchi">
Articles 85 and 86 of the Treaty of Rome provided the Community with a legal basis for assessing alliances and mergers.
Article 87 also provided for the adoption of any appropriate regulations 'to give effect to the principles' presented in these articles.
The secondary legislation which has been built up since then gives the Commission the power to consider cases where the competition rules were being disregarded, but initially excluded transport.
<P>
The first liberalization package adopted in December 1987 included Regulations 3975 and 3976, although their scope was restricted.
The first allowed the Commission to apply the competition rules in the air transport sector, imposing penalties and granting exemptions, but only in respect of traffic between Member States.
The second regulation allowed the Commission to adopt block exemptions for certain practices but under the conditions laid down in Article 85(3) of the Treaty.
<P>
What justification is there for the Commission's proposal?
The Commission believes that a number of new factors have intervened since 1989: the liberalization of the aviation market since 1997, the weakness of external flights resting only on bilateral agreements between Member States and third countries, and the future development of agreements with the United States and the countries of central and eastern Europe all mean that a precise framework is needed more than ever to deal with the inconsistencies or gaps in the current system.
<P>
These factors have to be added to the grounds put forward in 1989, regarding the legal uncertainty facing the airlines.
So, in order to cope better with the new liberalized framework of rules, to protect consumers' interests, to protect small and medium-sized carriers and to ensure balanced competition between the various European and non-European operators, the Commission is calling for the same powers in respect of transport between the Community and non-Community countries as it has on intra-Community routes.
<P>
The first proposal for a regulation will extend the scope to cover all air transport services, including international routes.
A new article 18a has been added to resolve any legal conflict with Member States or third countries by obliging the Commission to consult the competent authorities before withdrawing an exemption.
<P>
Nevertheless, the network of bilateral air service agreements between Member States, third countries and their national airlines pose a formidable legal challenge to uniform and compatible competition rules in the air transport sector.
It remains to be seen how these conflicting powers will resolve themselves in practice.
<P>
Secondly, the Commission proposes a regulation allowing the non-application of Article 85, for a limited period, in certain categories of agreement between airlines, decisions by associations of undertakings and concerted practices on international routes.
The Commission's decisions may relate to joint planning, the coordination of capacity and timetables, revenue sharing, consultations on tariffs, slot allocation and joint operation of services.
<P>
These two proposals represent substantial changes as regards the application of Community competition rules in air transport, especially in its international aspects.
They improve the Commission's powers to monitor alliances between airlines.
Despite the reservations expressed by several companies, the Commission can already use its powers in accordance with Article 89 of the Treaty of Rome, and is indeed obliged to do so as guardian of the Treaties responsible for applying Community law.
The main advantage of our proposals for all parties concerned - airlines, governments, legal services, the European Commission and, of course, passengers - is to set up a homogeneous framework, with definite legal guarantees, for the whole of the European Union, and to promote the position of civil aviation companies within the European Union.
<P>
Of the amendments proposed, the three principal amendments accepted by the Committee on Transport - Amendments Nos 4, 5 and 6 - aim for greater coherence in Community regulation by using the wording and scope of the regulation on competition rules in the maritime sector.
<P>
Amendment No 4 limits the powers of the Commission to the application of competition rules only to routes which depend on a Community airport.
This amendment defines the scope of the powers of the Commission, which would have no jurisdiction in a commercial alliance or agreement between two non-European companies which did not affect Community air traffic.
<P>
Amendments Nos 4 and 5 aim to clarify the procedure to be applied where bilateral agreements between two companies, one from the Union and one from a third country, are in conflict with the European Community's competition rules.
The present proposal for a regulation specifies simply that, in cases of conflict, the Commission must consult the relevant authorities in the country concerned.
<P>
Amendments Nos 1 and 3 propose new recitals referring to air transport security, public services and duty free. I will not oppose them during the vote.
I accept them because the sentiments expressed are shared by everybody although, legally, they do not seem to be really appropriate in the context of the two regulations.
<P>
To conclude, I will briefly mention the three amendments tabled by the Group of the European People's Party.
I am not in favour of these because they go against the European interest, against consumer interests, and against the interest of fair competition by which we must be guided, at least in the sphere of air traffic.
The airlines are against this regulation because they judge it to be contrary to their own interests, with the provision for the European Commission's anti-trust authorities rightfully to prosecute any cartel involving the airlines of the European Community and a third country if the benefits contravene competition rules.
<P>
I call upon my colleagues not to pass up the opportunity, once again, to grant the Commission clear and unequivocal procedures and powers to guarantee uniform application of competition rules throughout Europe, whatever the airline or the alliance in question.
<P>
Those, ladies and gentlemen, are the reasons why we are making these proposals, which have been put to the vote and accepted by the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 NAME="Ribeiro">
Mr President, being responsible for the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, I am pleased to have taken part in this work, on which I compliment my colleague Mr. Scarbonchi.
<P>
My pleasure derives from the fact that we have been able to contribute to the inclusion or strengthening in the proposal submitted to the House of some aspects of air transport which we consider to be of the greatest importance, and which are always relevant when proposing amendments to the regulations covering competition rules and approved agreements and practices.
<P>
We refer to the question of safety, which in this type of transport must be given priority in the context of the Community and international competition rules.
<P>
We also refer to the so-called services of general interest, with the support of Article 7(D) of the Treaty currently undergoing ratification. We think air transport services should be seen as public services in the case of peripheral and island regions, particularly the Azores, the Canaries and Madeira.
<P>
We would further refer to our concerns about the effects the changes now taking place and the liberalization of the Community air transport market may have on jobs and workers' rights in the sector, and also on users, with particular emphasis on the position of small and medium-sized companies.
<P>
Finally, we would also refer to the scope of the proposed regulations, which should apply to airlines operating out of or into one or more airports within Community territory, and the processes for consultations and the settlement of any disputes, which should not exclude the participation of representatives of the Member States involved in them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="Watts">
Mr President, air transport is a vital growing sector with more and more people flying each year.
Thanks to increased competition, the level of fares in the EU - on some routes at least - continues to fall and more and more passengers are able to fly.
<P>
It is our duty to protect the interests of passengers by encouraging more small airlines to set up and expand and by not allowing large airlines to completely dominate the market by wiping out all competition.
We must therefore ensure that, in areas where air transport is an essential means of transport, it is not destroyed or damaged by excessive competition.
<P>
The Commission, in my view, is to be congratulated on its efforts to persuade Member States to give up their bilateral agreements and to allow the Commission to negotiate for the Community as a whole.
<P>
Consequently, on behalf of the Party of European Socialists, I am pleased to offer our support to the rapporteur tonight.
<P>
The Commission has powers in these areas which we believe should and must be extended.
<P>
Mr Jarzembowski's amendments, on behalf of the PPE, appear to support the Community approach rather than the Member State approach but we feel that they will have completely the opposite effect.
The object of the amendments, in our view, would be to confine the Commission's competence to apply competition rules to its right to negotiate agreements.
We believe that is not acceptable.
One effect, for example, would be the omission of the Atlantic routes.
<P>
Indeed, in my friend and colleague's report - Mr Seal's report on the effect of the third liberalization package - he pointed out that there were still a number of obstacles which would prevent the entry of new airlines.
These would affect areas such as slot allocation and certain network alliances.
We therefore cannot agree that Mr Jarzembowski is correct in wanting to limit the Commission's application of competition rules to its present mandate.
This, as he knows full well, will restrict their ability to make progress to just Switzerland and the central and eastern European countries and we would regret that.
<P>
We therefore support the Commission's demands to have more rights to negotiate, for example, the open sky agreements.
Any limitation on the present Commission mandate is in contradiction of our request to encourage the mandate to be extended.
<P>
In conclusion, we believe the rapporteur - and indeed the Commission - deserve our support in improving aviation in the European Union and beyond because we believe their proposals will ensure fair competition, they will be good for the consumer and they will be good for competitive airlines.
I commend them to the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we in the Group of the European People's Party think the Commission's proposals to extend the competition rules on air travel to include third countries are logical in principle because, Commissioner, internal and external regulations are bound together for practical reasons, which makes it essential to have one single regulation.
<P>
Yet in some respects the Commission is trying to run before it can walk, for only when the Council has fully transferred to the Community the responsibility for negotiating air traffic agreements with third countries - a policy which we in the PPE Group support - does it become logical to transfer to the Community sole responsibility for competition rules governing our relations with third countries.
You cannot do the second without the first.
Is the Council really prepared, and - if I can put a direct question to the UK government, if Mr Watts wants to have a word with Mr Prescott - is your government ready, to transfer jurisdiction in this area to the Community?
<P>
We hold the view that in the complex field of international transport it would be logical for the Community to be in charge of air traffic agreements for all Member States.
But the Council is not prepared to do this, and I have not seen the UK presidency submit any proposal to this effect within the Council of Transport Ministers.
For years the Commission has been asking for jurisdiction in this very area, but even the UK presidency has failed to be moved.
But if we deny the Commission its wish, then we will be unable fully to extend the rules of jurisdiction to our relations with third countries, because this would create a bigger overlap between the Community's competence and that of the Member States, and the airlines would suffer as a result.
That is not something we wish to see.
<P>
I would say to the rapporteur, Mr Scarbonchi, that if the AEA supports these proposals, as we do, then this will benefit all European airlines, for you know how difficult it is to get any kind of agreement out of the AEA, with British Airways, KLM, Sabena and Lufthansa always at each others' throats.
But if the AEA adopts a common position, then there will be real support for this as the best solution.
We are therefore asking the other groups to support our three amendments.
<P>
In this connection, Commissioner, I would ask you to give us more details of your intended decisions on the cooperation agreement between British Airways and American Airlines.
We support your efforts to apply certain conditions to this agreement, such as those which seek to reduce the dominance of both companies in the transatlantic route to and from London and to ensure that there is fair competition on the transatlantic routes.
<P>
Commissioner, you have now suddenly decided to look again at the old alliances, and to do the same to the new ones, in order to establish how far they comply with competition rules.
We think that is a good thing to do, we are not at all unhappy about it, in fact quite the reverse, for we believe these alliances all have to be investigated in the same way.
However, you should present and discuss with us your guidelines for reviewing and handling inter-company alliances, and you should do so either today or within the next few weeks - as you announced in the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
<P>
We know that competition law is your domain. All the same, I think it is important to discuss the guiding principles with one another.
But whatever you decide to do, Commissioner, to remove and prevent distortions of competition, I have certain misgivings about it all.
We want to open up the market for competition between airlines.
We do not want to replace competition - deficient though this may well be - with state intervention.
Above all, we should not distort competition by applying state intervention or even market allocation orders.
In this respect, Commissioner, we are anxious to know if you can tell us something about the guiding principles you intend to use.
By the way, you know we tend to support you in these things, which is more than the Council does.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, the European Commission, when looking into alliances between airlines, should not lose sight of the global competitiveness of these European companies.
Strategic alliances are now of fundamental importance in strengthening the international competitiveness of the European air travel sector.
Our airlines should therefore be supported by their own authorities when going through the process of restructuring.
<P>
Unfortunately, support of this kind is rarely forthcoming and instead highly expensive conditions are imposed on airlines for the licensing of alliances - such as the withdrawal of slots and flight traffic restrictions.
The Commission should only intervene when a violation of competition law has actually occurred.
Its competition policy should not involve measures which will only handicap the European air travel industry and jeopardize the future of European airlines, particularly the smaller companies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Correia">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the liberalization of air transport, which was completed in April 1997 with the introduction of rights relating to mainland-island connections, has caused profound changes by bringing this sector into line with market rules.
<P>
It should be noted as an exception, however, that there is a set of conditions in the Community legislation which give Member States and the Commission the right to intervene in order to deal with certain situations and needs.
In that respect, bearing in mind the importance of the sector to the European economy, to jobs and to internal and intra-European communications, and the fact that air transport plays a vital role in reinforcing economic and social cohesion, by providing rapid transport links between regions and, most particularly, access to peripheral island regions, Community legislation has allowed for the possibility of imposing public service obligations and joint operation agreements between airlines to ensure that these transport links are maintained.
<P>
In spite of what I have just said, those obligations have not been complied with in some cases, as a result of labour disputes, among other reasons, and this has jeopardized economic and social cohesion and citizens' freedom to travel to and from the regions in question.
To be specific, I refer to the events which have frequently affected the ultra-peripheral regions of Madeira and the Azores, as they did once again only a few days ago.
<P>
For that reason, I consider that any airline which has exclusive rights to a specific route by virtue of its being a public service, and which is subsidized by the state on that basis, in the interests of economic and social cohesion and the accessibility of the region in question, must provide those services and serve those regions in a properly professional manner.
<P>
In any event, regardless of the selfish and unbefitting attitude of the pilots, who are putting privileged interests before those of the public and other company employees, I think the government should open the sector up to competition between airlines, with the same quality and safety requirements and the same financial support, to compensate the islanders for their isolation and remoteness.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="Van Miert">
<SPEAKER ID=226 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
I had asked the Commissioner to comment further on the policy which is to be applied to alliances between airline companies.
Perhaps he can do this in writing or even speak to me on the matter sometime in the near future.
Time is short, but the guiding principles for agreements in the air travel sector are of fundamental importance, in my opinion, and we need to have more contact on matters such as this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="Van Miert">
<SPEAKER ID=228 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Code of conduct for computerized reservation systems (CRSs)
<SPEAKER ID=229 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0089/98) by Mr van Dam, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) amending Council Regulation (EEC) No 2299/89 on a code of conduct for computerized reservation systems (CRSs) (COM(97)0246 - C4-0418/97-97/0148(SYN)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, computerized reservation systems, hereafter to be called CRSs, occupy a relatively unknown but powerful place in air transportation.
These enormous, fast networks are responsible for the lion's share of the airlines' turnover.
85 % of all seats on scheduled flights are sold globally via the five independent CRSs.
The oldest CRS, SABRE, was set up in the past by American Airlines, but is now making even more profit than American Airlines itself.
<P>
Airlines which do not participate in a CRS are strongly limited in their opportunities to sell tickets.
CRSs also offer their subscribers - travel agents - and the traveller the advantage of speedy information and reservation.
Guarantees are required, however, to ensure that the client receives objective information when he makes enquiries at the travel agency about the options.
Since 1989 there has been a European code of conduct in order to guarantee this objectivity.
CRSs and airlines are obliged to give equal treatment to all parties concerned.
<P>
The Commission proposal we are discussing at the moment aims to improve the operation of the code of conduct.
It includes the subscribers - in other words the travel agents - in this, in order to promote fair information and to prevent inaccurate reservations.
A valuable new component is the possibility of integrating rail services, particularly high speed trains, into what is being offered.
<P>
I regard it of great importance that, for short and medium distance journeys, travellers are made expressly aware of the alternative of the train.
Flying consumes a great deal of energy and is a major cause of air pollution, so there is every reason to consider the train if the time difference is not too great.
The integration of rail transport into the CRSs must be done with the necessary preconditions.
Amendments Nos 2, 4, 6 and 10, which relate to this, aim to promote equality between flights and high speed rail links.
<P>
Carriers and alliances will continue to be able to sell tickets independently, without having to give neutral information.
However, in that case the traveller must be aware that he is buying from a particular supplier, hence Amendment No 1.
This principle is further extended to the Internet in Amendment No 9.
The opportunities to reserve tickets via this worldwide network are growing quickly.
When browsing Internet pages, we should always remain aware of who is supplying the information.
<P>
The CRSs have gigantic amounts of market information at their disposal, including travel agents' sales figures.
They offer this information for sale in an electronic format, but because they only offer the complete package, it is only the wealthy airlines that can afford to buy it.
So that gives them an advantage in negotiations with travel agents.
They would like to have selective amounts of information, for example, just for the region they serve.
Amendment No 7 opens up this possibility of selective acquisition of information, which thereby comes within the reach of the travel sector.
<P>
A sticking point in the present division of costs is the fact that each reservation leads to costs for the airline.
Amendment No 8 limits this to routes for which actual tickets have been issued.
Amendment No 13 ensures that the link between ticket and route is safeguarded.
<P>
The Committee on Transport and Tourism proposes in Amendment No 11 that a distinction should continue to be made between travellers having to change aircraft, possibly including an interval, and situations when the aircraft is only making a stopover.
Bearing in mind the overall picture, I would like to draw the following conclusions.
The code of conduct has been fulfilling an important function since 1989, but there was cause for further improvement and for bringing it up to date.
The Commission proposal contains a number of significant improvements which benefit travellers in particular, but also travel agents.
The proposal rightly creates the possibility of displaying high speed rail links as an alternative to flights over shorter distances.
In order to make the rail alternative feasible in practical terms, a number of preconditions must be met, such as an agreement between the CRS and the railway company.
In order to avoid the customer wrongly thinking that he is getting a neutral offer, the fact that he is consulting an airline or a group of airlines must continue to be displayed.
The Internet is developing as a new sales channel for airline tickets.
In that case, what must also be shown throughout is which provider the client is logged on to.
CRSs occupy a powerful position, both in the field of marketing and in marketing information.
This should not be allowed to become a monopoly position de facto, just because it is only the financially very strong companies which can buy that information.
My final conclusion is that there is still room for some improvement in the area of providing the best possible information for the customer, and in the area of combating double or fictitious bookings.
<P>
I am grateful to the Committee on Transport and Tourism for their cooperation.
Unfortunately Mr Kinnock is not able to attend this debate because of the time at which it is being scheduled.
He was kind enough to write to me to say he considered my report to be of an extremely high standard.
<P>
In any case, I have tried to treat this important matter with the greatest possible care.
Besides, I think it is extremely important that in future travellers will be able to make a considered choice between the plane and the train.
This will not only promote fair competition, but also help to protect the natural world and the environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rehder">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it used to be when you wanted to travel somewhere that you would go and stand at a counter.
You then had to wade through piles of brochures, a process which could often be complicated and not always successful, before you got to your destination.
The computer has now taken over this work and has made the whole thing much less complicated.
This new technology now gives us access to an unwonted supply of information and a wide range of choices, and what is more, at very competitive prices. As such, it has been very well received by the consumer.
<P>
Now that the computer is with us, we really must stop hoping and believing that the computer is always an objective thing.
On the contrary, the computer is a real box of tricks and there are now many thousands of people whose only job is to manipulate the computer to suit one supplier or another.
The airlines, and even the travel agents, have tried to give customers the illusion of objectivity, while all the time they were only looking to increase profits.
While there is of course nothing wrong with wanting to make a profit, this has done very little for the consumer.
<P>
The proposals before us, including those of Mr van Dam, are very sensible and will lead to better consumer protection.
I also see that we need this interconnection when it comes to the modal split with rail transport, so that at the push of a button the traveller knows which system is better, which is cheaper and, furthermore, which is more environmentally friendly.
I believe that Members of this Parliament will also benefit from this, but that is just by the by.
<P>
One final point: the review of these systems is not something which will be finished and done with today.
It will have to be repeated at regular intervals, because you can be absolutely sure that there will always be someone in the know trying to get round the regulations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
Mr President, I shall try to be brief.
The important thing is really to thank the rapporteur, for he has submitted an excellent report which has been unanimously approved in committee.
With quite a few countries in the middle of election campaigns, it is always very nice to be able to say that a report has been carried unanimously because of its absolute objectivity.
Thank you very much, Mr van Dam, for this report.
<P>
Reform of the code of conduct is very sensible, and it will increase the objectivity of the information provided.
The most important thing now is to include high speed trains in this system, so that people are better able to recognize those routes where it is more practical to take the train than to fly.
This is something we want to see for shorter trips - in other words, more journeys by train than by aeroplane - in order to decongest air space and preserve the environment.
In this respect the advantages are enormous.
<P>
Unlike the Commission, I consider the display of code share flights to be a sensible move.
Here I agree with the rapporteur. This system has proved to be very effective.
<P>
Finally, I think it is right to produce a consolidated version of the three pieces of legislation, so they can be more clearly understood by consumers.
In this respect, codification is something the Commission should be following up.
I believe we can reach a consensus here: we have a good proposal and this is now to be improved upon by Mr van Dam.
I hope the Commission accepts the rapporteur's proposals and then everyone will be happy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Stenmarck">
Mr President, I would like to note by way of introduction that I have a somewhat sceptical attitude towards rules of this type as a phenomenon.
I believe that we in the EU must beware of formulating too many detailed rules.
We may, quite unintentionally, create a market situation without any fresh ideas, in which we preserve the status quo by means of legislation.
I am fairly convinced that if the EU had not interfered in the problems concerning reservation systems, the market would have solved them automatically.
Travel agents and airlines are well aware that customer service is one of their most important competition tools.
This is my principal standpoint.
At the same time, this cannot be said to be a new phenomenon, since the code has been in existence since 1989.
<P>
On a more pragmatic level, I would like to start by congratulating the rapporteur on the very fine work he has put into this report.
In spite of my basic standpoint, I believe that the Commission and Mr van Dam have both succeeded in striking an extraordinarily important balance in this matter.
<P>
I feel that the positive aspect of this report is that the railways will be included in the reservation system.
This is perhaps something one would not normally think about in this context, but this may actually be one of the most important steps towards a liberalized railway sector.
The railways will in future be allowed to compete side by side with airlines, and consumers will be able to make a much clearer choice between trains and planes.
This ties in with the fact that the railway companies will in future be operating in a much more competitive market than at present.
<P>
A key question in this report must also be the matter of fares.
I would like to emphasize that the railways must join in and bear their costs in order to be included in the CRS system.
We cannot once again subsidize the railways but not the other forms of transport.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, on behalf of my colleague Neil Kinnock, allow me to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr van Dam, on his report.
Not only have you managed to initiate yourself into the mysterious technical terminology of computerized reservation systems, but you have also managed to propose a series of amendments which substantially improve the proposal.
<P>
Computerized reservation systems are extremely complicated databases which offer a wide range of subscribers - travel agents, tour operators, hotels, ferry companies, hire companies - the means to access information about air lines and other services and, at the same time, make it easier to reserve and issue tickets.
<P>
Parliament will be interested to learn that computerized reservation systems are thought to be the world's largest users of computerized services, and offer instant access to the services of more than 140 000 travel agents throughout the world.
There are four major systems in the European Union, and one of them has a market share of more than 70 % in 10 of the 15 Member States.
Of course, this high level is what has provoked the concern of the legislative authority.
But Community regulations also allowed this to be dealt with on the basis of competition rights.
Although the code has worked very well, our recent review suggests that some improvements are needed, in view of the latest advances in the Internet or in high speed trains.
And that is the basis of the Commission proposal to modify the code, as Mr van Dam has described in his report.
<P>
As I said at the beginning, most of the amendments propose very constructive changes to the existing text.
So the Commission can accept the amendments proposed by Mr van Dam, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, except on two points.
<P>
Firstly, the Commission feels unable to accept the second part of Amendment No 8, dealing with billing information on magnetic media.
As far as billing information is concerned, we think all billing media should receive the same treatment, and the amendment would treat magnetic media differently.
Also, we think it is superfluous to propose that participating air lines should not be charged a fee for bookings they have disallowed.
<P>
Secondly, the Commission does not find Amendment No 11, on the classification of flights, acceptable either.
The Commission proposed a new classification, in order to take account of recent advances in the aviation sector.
We think that to return to the old classification system, as Mr van Dam and his committee suggested, would be to fail to take these changes into consideration.
<P>
Apart from these two points, as I said, the Commission thinks that Mr van Dam has done an excellent piece of work. I want to congratulate him, and also thank the Committee on Transport and Tourism for their helpful work on this subject.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Marketing of seeds - Implementation of Regulation (EC) No 1467/94
<SPEAKER ID=236 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following two reports by Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development:
<P>
A4-0128/98 on the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directives 66/400/EEC, 66/401/EEC, 66/402/EEC, 66/403/EEC, 69/208/EEC, 70/457/EEC and 70/458/EEC on the marketing of beet seed, fodder plant seed, cereal seed, seed potatoes, seed of oil and fibre plants and vegetable seed and on the common catalogue of varieties of agricultural plant species (COM(97)0403 - C4-0459/97-97/0217(CNS)); -A4-0129/98 on the report from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the implementation of Council Regulation (EC) No 1467/94 of 20 June 1994 (COM(97)0327 - C4-0492/97).
<SPEAKER ID=237 NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Mr President, Commissioner Fischler, the first report, dealing with the directive on the marketing of beet seed, fodder plant seed, cereal seed, seed potatoes, seed of oil and fibre plants and vegetable seed, or in short the seed marketing law, produced an amendment not that very long ago and also resulted in a positive debate with the Commission.
The matter in question concerned the adoption of a simplified certification system for conservation seed which was intended at the very least to restrict the genetic erosion of threatened species of agricultural plants.
<P>
You know that these directives on agriculture are dealt with in Article 43, in which the European Parliament has only a consultative role.
If we submit our amendments to these directives and the Commission, after taking due note, states that it is regrettably unable to accept Parliament's amendments, and if we then put our proposal to the final vote, it will all be a pointless exercise as far as we are concerned.
<P>
The Council can then ignore the substance of Parliament's submissions when drawing up its decision.
However, if we adopt a different approach, in that we suspend the final vote and reach a compromise with the Commission, so that the Commission and Parliament have a common position, then we will be in a relatively strong position when it comes to agriculture, even with respect to Article 43, for then the Council will only be able to reject this common position unanimously.
Unanimity in the Council is a rarity.
This happened only once, when we wanted to change the legislation - and Mr Fischler, you will recall that this concerned the labelling of beef, when you conceded Article 100a to us and the Council again committed itself unanimously to Article 43, only then to reach compromise after compromise in the matter - and this was only done to achieve unanimity in the face of the Commission and Parliament.
<P>
I hope we can also reach agreement over this small amendment and consequently get a good result, for this time the issue is not the simplified registration of conservation seed, that is to say old varieties and local varieties, but rather the adoption of a simplified procedure for the approval of certified seed or basic seed for propagation.
The Commission has carried out tests over a period of time and has come to the positive conclusion that external examiners and inspectors can also be used for the official inspections, that inspection at a higher level, involving the agencies of the state, is only necessary under certain precisely defined conditions, and that the process of seed approval and quality certification will not suffer as a result.
<P>
We have, for the most part, accepted this view.
We have only made some slight amendments.
For one thing, we would like to see a swearing-in procedure for those carrying out the inspections.
Such a commitment should ensure greater personal responsibility.
We have made proposals as to the size of the plant sample which should be taken by the official inspectors, and have also proposed measures to be taken in the event of violations.
I expect we can agree with the Commission on this.
<P>
The Group of the Party of European Socialists has tabled an amendment which concerns the swearing-in of inspectors, but I prefer the amendments which we approved unanimously in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
The second report which I am presenting here is connected with the seed marketing law.
After two years of negotiations with the Commission, focusing in particular on the certification of seed which is severely affected by genetic erosion, we were able to achieve success.
<P>
The matter in question concerns a Community programme for the conservation, specification, collection and use of the genetic resource base in agriculture.
Parliament submitted this programme to the Commission in 1993, after it had been established in Rio that the great diversity of plant life which we have constitutes one of the most important elements for future civilization on this planet.
We therefore launched a programme, with its own budget heading, which was designed to account for the genetic diversity of agricultural plants and animals.
It was also intended that efforts would be made not only to ensure the safety and protection of this genetic diversity - and even to extend it - through databanks and gene banks, but also if possible to strive for genetic diversity in farming practice.
<P>
Unfortunately, the Commission adopted a somewhat hesitant approach to this programme.
Of the ECU 20 million which was made available over the following five years, the budget for 1997 was even cancelled completely.
The problem clearly lay in the insufficient availability of manpower.
This is incomprehensible, because obviously staff are available in other areas and they could have been redeployed.
Clearly - and the Commissioner will no doubt soon enlighten me - this programme is not one of DG VI's more spectacular achievements.
I would be happy to stand corrected on this.
<P>
The programme in question has acquired a considerable reputation at international level.
When the WHO held a conference on genetic diversity in Leipzig in 1996, the EU was the only region in the world which was able to present such a programme.
It was interesting to see how the Commission vaunted this about, and indeed with justification.
I supported this at the conference.
But surely the necessary steps then have to be taken in the pursuance and execution of this programme.
<P>
Let me just add one more comment. We must create a closer link between this programme and those which have been set up under Regulation 2078, or with programmes associated with the environmentally friendly use of the countryside, so that we get a complementary effect and the in situ conservation and support of genetic diversity can be secured via these programmes.
If, as Agenda 2000 intends, we then provide economic backing for these programmes in the form of structural aid, and if we see to it that those products which are made from the great variety of plants and animals available continue to be in demand as quality produce in the local markets, then and only then will we achieve a form of stability which is not limited - if I can take a drastic example - to conserving genetic diversity in museums and in some botanic garden in the countryside, but actually constitutes an economic basis for the farming industry.
I am convinced, when applying all those compensatory measures which can and should be taken, that the focus of our efforts must lie in safeguarding the economic basis for agricultural activities, and this includes those special varieties of plants and animals.
That is the only way in which we can achieve the necessary long term stability.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 NAME="Hardstaff">
Madam President, I should like on behalf of my group to congratulate Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf for his two excellent reports.
There are a lot of things that irritate our citizens about the EU when it is perceived to be imposing new rules or removing ancient rights without justification.
Usually these perceptions are misconceived - the result of gross distortion of facts by tabloid newspapers.
However, the proposal to limit the availability of traditional varieties of seeds, particularly for fruit and vegetables used by amateur gardeners as well as those used commercially by smaller farms, has led to deep opposition being expressed by such well known and respected bodies as the Henry Doubleday Research Association.
<P>
Many concerns have been expressed that the great wealth of varieties which still exists within the countries of the European Union could be reduced as a result of official Community policy to a few standard strains of seeds throughout Europe.
The Socialist Group therefore welcomes the Commission proposal to facilitate the addition of new species to the list of recognized species.
Commercial farmers have also been concerned that they too could lose out and be forced always to buy a limited number of expensive seed strains from big seed breeding companies.
<P>
I represent several such companies in my constituency and recognize the value of their work in developing pest resistant crops and seed varieties that are especially suited to particular climates and terrains.
However, the right balance needs to be struck between their interests, those of the commercial and non-commercial growers and the need to certify conservation seeds, that is, seeds of plants useful for biodiversity.
The proposals by the Commission to simplify the inspection process of these seeds are to be welcomed in principle but the Socialist Group shares the concerns of the rapporteur and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development as a whole that there should be additional safeguards to ensure that inspections are carried out by qualified objective personnel.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mayer">
Madam President, Commissioner and those ladies and gentlemen who have remained patiently with us, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf has already said something about the decision making side of things.
I would like to restrict myself to the subject of seed and seed marketing.
As we all know, seed is an important resource for agriculture and it is also the basis for foodstuff production.
The provision of good seed is ultimately a prerequisite for a secure nutrition system.
What is more, the quality of the seed has a decisive effect - a very decisive effect - on the quality of the food produced, in many cases even regardless of the various processing stages.
For these reasons, the inspection of plant and seed stocks naturally assumes great importance.
Most countries today are accustomed to having their seed crop certified mainly by public bodies. However, such a system has made the inspection process somewhat more cumbersome.
<P>
Against such a background, the Commission has now submitted its proposal for the simplification of this inspection process.
There is already a substantial need to create a greater sense of responsibility in this sector.
Seed breeders and cultivators have to be incorporated more closely into the seed recognition procedure.
Simplification in this area is indeed desirable and would also mean that unofficial inspectors could carry out the prescribed examinations.
Here the spotlight will naturally fall on the employees of seed producing companies, as Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf has repeatedly pointed out.
These people, with their knowledge and experience, are absolutely made for the job of seed inspection.
Admittedly there is a risk that this will lead to conflicts of interest, and this is something which we shall have to counteract.
<P>
On the whole we in the Group of the European People's Party can accept this report, retaining as it does the necessary amendments.
Thank you very much, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, especially for your pertinacity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Kofoed">
Madam President, firstly I would like to compliment Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf on his first report, at least. It is positively excellent.
I agree that there should be controls to ensure that seeds coming into the market are of the right quality and meet requirements.
My question to the Commissioner is, can a seed firm now have its analyses carried out in any recognized laboratory anywhere in Europe - that is, not only in that particular country's own state controlled laboratories, as certain countries are claiming?
<P>
Furthermore, I have a couple of comments on the diversity of our seeds.
I must distance myself somewhat from Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf's statements, because if we want a seed market, then there has to be a certain level of quality, and there should be close scrutiny to ensure that seeds on sale are of the declared quality.
Therefore, we should be a little cautious about the existing great diversity.
We need to be careful to avoid a situation whereby whatever is in the gene banks comes into our market and destroys it - the world market and the European market alike.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Barthet-Mayer">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the aim of one of the two regulations we are debating today in the context of Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf's report is to coordinate, support and promote, at Community level, the conservation, characterization, collection and utilization of genetic resources in agriculture.
<P>
These genetic resources are made up of all traditional plant and animal varieties which correspond, in general, to clearly defined geographical areas or soils. They represent a great variety, a great diversity of genetic heritage, of hardy and robust plants and animals.
They are in all cases much better adapted to the implementation of sustainable development in agriculture, something to which many of us are attached. They are much better adapted than some new creations - I am thinking in particular of genetically modified organisms - which are linked to the sole objective of ever greater profitability and, let us not deceive ourselves, increased profits for certain large industrial groups.
<P>
Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf's report, of which we approve and which I congratulate, in passing, on behalf of my group, rightly underlines our interest in preserving varieties of plant or animal species to conserve the genes which could be useful for agriculture in the future.
<P>
This report also underlines, albeit more indirectly, the role which these banks and conservation networks play in the service of the Community, which is, a priori , a good thing.
<P>
Having said that, I cannot help thinking that with the legal protection of biotechnological inventions which Parliament adopted on Tuesday, we will paradoxically be helping both to bring into the Community system costs related to gene conservation and, by means of technological patents, to privatize the profit from these same genes, which will have been conserved using money from the European taxpayer.
But you will doubtless think I am trying to cause trouble.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 NAME="Nicholson">
Madam President, I wish to begin by congratulating the rapporteur on both reports.
They have certainly given us a lot to think about.
<P>
Some experience in my own constituency leads me to say that we must produce seed of the highest quality.
To achieve this we must have strong inspection measures in place.
While no-one likes to have inspection measures, it is the only way in which control can be accurately implemented.
<P>
But while we must have inspection measures, they must not be overly bureaucratic, because that is one of the problems that aggravates farmers most.
The measures must be so structured that they gain the confidence not only of the producer but of all involved in the industry.
And we must ensure that there is a balance between the commercial and the non-commercial producer.
I certainly feel that random sampling is something we are going to have to learn to live with.
It is not going to be nice; it is not going to be easy; some people will object to it; some people will not like it; but that is part of life, that is the way things go at times.
<P>
We must also be sensitive to the needs of the seed producers, so I would certainly appeal for the careful and sensible implementation of this particular regulation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Happart">
Madam President, I am delighted that the Commission is simplifying the certification procedure for seeds intended for propagation.
The Member States will have to show themselves worthy of each others' confidence and the confidence of the Commission, the guarantor of the Treaties, by the care they take in exercising the controls for which they are responsible.
Absolute accuracy in exercising the various controls will have to rid us at last of our phobia of fraud of all kinds which, like a cancer, eats away at confidence in the construction of our Europe.
<P>
We often hear it said that Europe is involved in too many things.
I believe that Europe is facing up to its responsibility by ensuring control of the conservation and safeguarding of seeds, our joint world heritage.
Furthermore, in the decades and centuries to come, these seeds will need to be used as a standard to restore certain characteristics to the plant species which have undergone genetic modification. In some cases it is impossible to predict the harmful or perverse effects which could result from these practices, which are not always necessary for the wellbeing of mankind.
<P>
Once again, we must remain vigilant to ensure that mistakes do not become irreparable, for lack of caution.
It is therefore incumbent upon all the people responsible to be precise regarding inventories and the management of collections so that no basic species or important variety of these species is forgotten.
Madam President, Commissioner, I believe that this sound report puts us on the right track.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 NAME="Gillis">
Madam President, I would first of all like to thank the rapporteur and, indeed, the Commission for bringing up this issue again.
<P>
It is very important that we prepare an up-to-date inventory of the state and nature of the genetic resource base in agriculture.
It is also necessary to conserve and protect these valuable resources of both seeds and animals.
Many varieties of seed, both cereal and vegetable, are no longer in everyday use.
We must make every effort to protect and save them for the possibility of future use.
I give you the example of the now famous International Rice Bank where research into cross-breeding of many out of use and local strains of rice has led to the development of a new variety which is now showing up to a seven-fold yield improvement.
<P>
Similar possibilities apply to animals.
For example, some rare breeds of cattle, now almost extinct, may provide disease resistant traits and food producing improvements when cross-bred with conventional breeds.
<P>
So we must make the investment, not only in records and inventories, but also in gene banking and conservation of what still remains.
Also, it will be necessary to encourage interested people to continue to breed these rare animals.
This will require financial support, as this activity is a labour of love and not economic.
<P>
In conclusion, in my opinion, one of the most important aspects of conservation of seeds and animals is the ever increasing possibilities in the area of biotechnology which these genetic resources may provide for the absolute benefit of a rapidly growing world population, much of which is already undernourished in many regions of the southern hemisphere.
<P>
The approach to research through biotechnology will also give us seeds and plants with the ability to survive and produce in arid, infertile areas with above normal temperatures and shallow soils.
Biotechnological research must continue and must be properly funded.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Iversen">
Madam President, I would like to begin by thanking the rapporteur for a successful report.
It is important for common regulations to be drawn up in the area of certification as regards seed types and approved inspectors.
However, we must guard against losing confidence in the certification system by allowing absolutely anything under the sun to be accredited.
Firstly, it would be far too expensive, because the certification process for new seed types is long and costly.
Certifiable seed types should be those intended for cultivation.
Secondly, the processing time for certification would be lengthened unnecessarily if all types of wild grain were to be certified.
One of the purposes of certification must be to test out new types of seed that are resistant to plant diseases in order to reduce the use of crop sprays.
<P>
In my view, another important aspect is to obtain an assurance that inspection will be carried out under reliable conditions.
Inspectors will have to be authorized by the state.
We must ensure that farmers in all Member States are treated equally by the inspectors.
There is some cause for concern at developments tending towards the random awarding of inspection contracts.
That would not be in the best interests of either farmers or consumers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wibe">
Madam President, in Amendment No 1 the rapporteur suggests that the new inspectors should be sworn in before they are officially licensed.
I personally cannot support this proposal.
<P>
I do not know exactly what the situation is in other countries, but in the Nordic countries there is only one professional group that swears an oath of office, and that is the judiciary.
Unfortunately, it would only invite ridicule if we were also to oblige inspectors of potatoes and flower seeds to swear such oaths.
Moreover, it would make no difference as regards the possibilities of imposing penalties for offences such as incorrect or fraudulent inspection.
Requiring inspectors to be sworn in would unfortunately, I believe, merely over-complicate the whole situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 NAME="Fischler">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to thank the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, and in particular the rapporteur, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, for the very constructive way in which the Commission's proposal has been handled.
The task before us was to secure the amendment of seven seed marketing directives, dating back to the late sixties and early seventies, in order to clarify, simplify and facilitate the marketing of seed within the European Union.
<P>
The Commission proposal has three basic aims.
Firstly, to extend the scope of the current provisions for the carrying out of temporary experiments, by which alternatives can be explored for improving the provisions laid down in these directives.
Secondly, to facilitate the inclusion of new plants in the catalogue of plants covered by the directive, and thirdly, to lay down provisions on the suitability of plant names.
<P>
The Commission's proposal also simplifies the procedures used for the official recognition of certified seed in respect of the clause by which plant stocks which are to be used for seed production do not necessarily have to be inspected by the official agents of the seed certification authority, but may also be certified by other inspectors.
Independent persons, appointed by companies engaged in seed production, seed propagation, seed processing and seed distribution, could in future also act as seed inspectors.
In this connection I should like to point out that the answer to Mr Kofoed's question is 'yes' .
<P>
The broad agreement which the proposal has received in Parliament is a clear sign that we are on the right path.
I should therefore just like to say something about the only aspect which has given cause for slight controversy, namely the on-site inspections.
Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf referred to the procedure laid down in Article 43.
Each institution has to be fully aware of its function.
But it is not my personal wish, nor that of my colleagues, to disregard the procedure on position taking simply because it is only a position and nothing more.
On the contrary, where it is possible and when it is justified for practical reasons, we shall of course take appropriate account of the amendments which are being submitted here in Parliament.
<P>
I am therefore pleased to be able to inform you that the Commission unreservedly accepts Amendment No 4 for the evaluation of the new procedures within a period of four years.
The Commission also accepts Amendment No 1, relating to the swearingin of inspectors, in the form proposed by the rapporteur, and likewise Amendment No 5, with a small alteration.
However, we are of the opinion that both amendments taken together fail to convey the right meaning.
<P>
Amendment No 2 is acceptable to the Commission provided it is extended to take account of the amended decision of 1995, which further provides in certain cases for a reduction in the level of official inspections to 5 % and 15 % respectively.
<P>
Amendment No 3, which contains the proposal that action shall be taken in the event of contravention by licensed inspectors of the rules governing official examinations, can also be accepted in principle by the Commission.
However, since it is the view of the Commission that the measures contained in the amendment could be lacking in balance, it is thought that these should be reviewed further in a comprehensive study.
Furthermore, for legal reasons the amendment should be edited and an appropriate wording employed throughout.
<P>
Let me now move on to the second item in this joint debate.
At this juncture I also wish to thank the rapporteur for the keen interest shown in Regulation 1467/94 and I can assure him that the European Parliament's position will be of great value to the Commission in its deliberations on how to proceed with this regulation.
<P>
In addition, I would like to thank the members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development for the generally positive way in which they have received the Commission's report.
This report shows that the regulation in question is already allowing important work to be done in the Member States, and that this is contributing to the objectives of the common agricultural policy, particularly in respect of the relationship between agriculture and environmental protection.
Thanks to this regulation, Europe can now coordinate the efforts which are being made for the preservation and environmentally friendly use of the genetic resources of the agricultural industry.
The results of this are already being disseminated, primarily via the Internet.
This is acknowledged throughout the world, as Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf has already pointed out.
<P>
The important work which has been done towards the conservation, specification, collection and use of the genetic resources of the European agricultural industry, which has been funded within the framework of Regulation 1467, has significantly strengthened our position in the international negotiations taking place on species diversity in agriculture and on genetic resources for the agricultural industry.
In his report, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf indicated that the budget funds for Regulation 1467 must be increased and that greater manpower resources must be deployed in this sector.
<P>
The Commission is very aware of the problems which exist in this area, and as far as staffing levels are concerned I can only point out once again that in DG VI we are still experiencing major difficulties in providing the appropriate level of cover for all the tasks in hand.
As regards the comment often made in this House that all these tasks could easily be attended to by redeploying personnel, I should just like to record that I stand by what I have already said, namely that we are willing at any time to have the offices of DG VI undergo public screening.
Then everyone can tell us which operations are to be cancelled or postponed.
We have a problem here and I can therefore only appeal to the budget authorities, in view of the acknowledged importance of this regulation, to provide adequate support for the Commission's proposal.
<P>
I should, however, like to express my thanks to Parliament once again for the interest it has shown in this report and for the positive manner in which it has been received.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=248 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Fischler.
The rapporteur has asked for the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Madam President, I should like briefly to pick up on two points.
The first concerns the matter of swearing-in.
In our country it is customary for persons taking up public positions to be sworn in.
This practice may possibly be unusual.
It is intended not only as a commitment to duty but also to ensure impartiality in cases involving mutual interests.
There are indeed inspectors who also work for seed companies.
The report makes a reference to this and indicates that inspectors have to be given greater independence to carry out their work without pressure from other quarters.
<P>
My second point is a question for you, Mr Fischler.
The second report states that we think it would be sensible for this programme - and I am now also extending this to programmes covered by Regulation 2078 - to be made available to those countries in the transitional phase of membership.
I am not looking here for a promise which you cannot give us at this juncture.
But the fact remains that we now have to look at this issue, because in the countries concerned such resources could well be lost partly through changes in agricultural practice, and we would then have an awful lot of catching up to do.
Proposing to those countries undergoing transition that they apply measures which are in line with the objectives of this and other programmes, whose aim is to promote an environmentally friendly agricultural industry, therefore seems to me to be eminently sensible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Fischler">
Madam President, I would like to look at this question once again, for it seems to me to be an important one.
Within the framework of the accession procedures and the new funding packages which are to be provided from the year 2000, it is planned to give priority to developing the processing sector and to creating a stronger management structure and a more effective environmental policy in agriculture, with ECU 500 million to be made available to the 10 applicant countries for agricultural purposes.
I am quite prepared, particularly now when there is a need for programmes to be drawn up in talks with the countries concerned, to bring this matter up during these discussions and to make the applicant nations aware of the importance of this issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=251 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Fischler.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 7.40 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Pex">
Mr President, I would like to ask the Bureau a question arising from the Minutes.
The vote on my report took place yesterday afternoon under the direction of your good self. I would like to thank the 225 Members who voted, 168 of them backing my report.
Over 400 of those present this morning were present for voting yesterday morning.
Votes have often taken place at half past one, even at a quarter to two on some occasions.
Before voting commenced yesterday morning, it was reported that voting would be suspended at a quarter past one.
I would like to ask whether the Bureau intends to introduce variable voting times.
Sometimes we vote until one o'clock, other times until a quarter past or half past one.
It all seems rather arbitrary.
I feel I am the victim of voting being suspended at a quarter past one.
I would like to ask the Bureau to put forward concrete proposals on fixed voting times so that this sort of thing cannot happen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
We have fixed voting times but not fixed subjects for the voting period: we cover as many items during the voting period as we possibly can but, if we run out of time, the reports not voted on are carried over to the next voting session.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fontaine">
Mr President, I would just like to make a point which may perhaps have escaped Mr Pex.
For some time now, the agenda has made provision on Thursday evening at 5.30 p.m. for votes on topical and urgent subjects and the continuation of the morning's votes.
I can understand that that might have escaped you, Mr Pex, but I think it is very important and that in future we will have to plan our work according to the agenda.
<P>
As President of the Thursday morning sitting, I could in theory have closed the sitting at 1.00 p.m. sharp, but thanks to the flexibility of the House, I was able to let it continue until 1.15 p.m. I sincerely hoped to put the Pex report to the vote but this was not possible.
Everyone knew, however, that if the vote had not been held by 1.15 p.m., it would have taken place the same evening.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, I have no comment to make on the Minutes but would like to draw both your attention and that of fellow Members of this House to the fact that we have a lady in our midst today who is celebrating a very important birthday.
The lady concerned is Mrs Ursula Schleicher who often chairs the Friday sitting here.
I think it might be nice, Mr President, to offer her our warmest congratulations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
Many Happy Returns, Mrs Schleicher.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Amendment No 1, which has been approved and tabled by the Committee on Agriculture and Amendment No 5 from Mr Fantuzzi contradict each other; they are not compatible.
I prefer Amendment No 1 which was adopted by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
The Commission has indicated that although it could live with both of them, if I have understood matters correctly, the amendments are incompatible and cannot be supplemented either.
So we have to make up our minds, and I am in favour of Amendment No 1.
<P>
After the vote on the amendments
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Mr President, before the vote on the legislative resolution I should just like to confirm again that the changes which the Commission has made to Amendments Nos 2 and 3 are of an editorial nature rather than a substantive one - insofar as an amendment represents a supplement to the existing legal text - in other words, that these changes are in accordance with what we are voting on here, so that we shall then have a common position from Parliament and the Commission.
If you nod now, we can vote!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
The Commission has nodded.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution) Report (A4-0129/98) by Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the report from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the implementation of Council Regulation (EC) No 1467/94 of 20 June 1994 (COM(97)0327 - C4-0492/97)
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Dam">
Mr President, the European Commission would like to extend the application of the rules on competition to international air transport services.
If the Council decided to do so, the Commission would be given the exclusive right to assess the cooperation agreement between European and foreign airlines.
The Commission currently shares this right with the Member States.
According to the Commission, this gives rise to legal uncertainty amongst the airlines concerned.
<P>
European rules on competition for the air transport sector are designed to prevent unlawful constraints on competition between airlines on the liberalized internal market.
Tariff agreements are not, for example, permitted within the European Union.
<P>
On an international level, there is however no liberalized market.
On the contrary, international air traffic is generally based on detailed bilateral agreements.
In a situation such as this, it would be impossible to apply rules on competition.
In bilateral negotiations, air transport is often just one part of an entire package.
Package deals are the norm.
<P>
In my view, it would be better to keep things as they are with powers shared between the Commission and the Member States.
Member States would, within certain limits, then retain the right to conclude air transport agreements with third countries.
Article 89 of the Treaty states that the Commission may intervene by arrangement with the relevant Member State if an agreement would have the effect of overly restricting competition.
<P>
Better cooperation between the Commission and the Member States would significantly reduce the legal uncertainty amongst airlines.
I freely admit that the two do not appear to be working very well together at present.
This is because both the Member States and the Commission have been staking out their own territory in the new situation created by air transport alliances.
I am sure that cooperation between the Commission and the Member States will improve over time.
These are the reasons why I voted against the Commission's proposals.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="Donnay">
We are all aware of the importance of the principle of subsidiarity. It allows Member States to solve their own problems, if their action is likely to be more effective than intervention by a European institution.
<P>
In my opinion, and in that sense, the question of air transport agreements between Member States and third countries should not make it necessary to extend the scope of the Commission's powers too much.
<P>
However, in these two proposals for Council regulations, the Commission wishes to extend its powers to enforce Community competition rules on air transport between the Community and third countries.
<P>
May I remind you that, at present, the Commission only has the Council's mandate to enforce competition rules with regard to air transport services provided inside the European Economic Area.
<P>
If the Commission's proposals were adopted as they stand, its powers to influence relationships between Member States and third countries would be extended.
<P>
For my part, ladies and gentlemen, at the very least I think it would be premature to extend the Commission's powers in that way.
In fact, at the present time, we have no common external policy in the area of air transport.
Furthermore, the background debate on this subject has only led to a limited number of negotiating mandates.
<P>
Furthermore, I would also like to say that no agreements have yet been signed with any country which does not belong to the European Economic Area.
<P>
To conclude, it would be a pity if the Commission tried to extend its powers by what I would call devious means, using proposals for regulations to get involved in an area which is at present within the sovereign competence of Member States, except in cases where the Commission has a negotiating mandate.
<P>
I believe it would be more appropriate initially to extend the Commission's powers only to countries for which the Council has given the Commission a negotiating mandate.
<P>
Graefe zu Baringdorf report (A4-0128/98)
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Souchet">
The proposal which the Commission has submitted to us simplifies the procedures for the certification of seed for propagation.
The methods envisaged provide for greater involvement of seed firms in inspection procedures.
Official inspections undertaken by seed certification authorities will be partly replaced by inspections for which seed producers will themselves be responsible.
<P>
In principle, we approve of this simplification.
Nevertheless, it will be necessary to ensure that self-monitoring procedures are properly implemented, so as to avoid possible discrimination between seed producers in different Member States.
It will therefore be essential to ensure that inspectors responsible for supervising the implementation of self-monitoring use standard procedures in all Member States.
It will also be necessary to apply serious penalties in case of fraud or rigging of inspections.
It will be necessary to ensure that inspectors have greater personal responsibility and that seed firms and producers do not put pressure on inspectors.
<P>
This group supports all the amendments, particularly the amendment which provides for the supervision of inspections by sworn inspectors.
In fact, because of the seasonal nature of agricultural products and the need to use temporary labour to carry out self-monitoring procedures, it is necessary for supervision to be carried out by sworn inspectors.
Indeed, that is the only way of increasing the personal responsibility of inspectors, in case of fraud or manipulation of inspections.
<P>
I would also to point out an inconsistency.
In the Rothley report on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions, we adopted the principle of the patentability of seeds whilst restricting the 'farmer's privilege' . Parliament now has to vote on a report on the promotion at Community level of the activities of conservation, characterization, collection and utilization of genetic resources in agriculture.
The aim of the report we are considering today is to promote centres for the conservation of genetic resources and to facilitate information at a European level.
Does this not mean that, on the one hand, we are going to prevent or reduce the production of agricultural seeds and, on the other hand, finance and promote centres for the conservation of genetic resources, for the sole benefit of multinational seed firms?
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Payment card crime
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0164/98) by Mr Schmid, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the draft joint action adopted by the Council on the basis of Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union concerning arrangements for the better exchange of information in respect of payment card crime between Member States' law enforcement agencies and between those agencies and the payment card industry, where such information is required for the investigation of offences (5683/98 - C4-0136/98-98/0906(CNS))
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="Schmid">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, alongside unemployment, the fear of crime has become a major concern for many people.
In this context, organized crime is increasingly perceived as a problem.
Mind you, there is a widespread but inaccurate assumption that organized crime essentially manifests itself in spectacular serious crimes.
There is an equally widespread misconception that organized crime is essentially committed by organizations which do not share our nationality but come from abroad.
Both these views are wrong!
<P>
Organized crime is basically just the systematically organized committing of repeatable criminal offences, even minor ones, to make a profit.
Most people think of drug-dealing in this context.
Drug-dealing should certainly be included, but it is only part of what we are concerned with.
Systematic theft or the systematic counterfeiting of credit cards, for example, should also be included.
I want to illustrate this by means of an example.
If a pocket is picked, for example in Brussels, we may be dealing in some cases with a drug addict acquiring money so that he can buy his drugs.
But we may also be dealing with specialist pickpockets who are flown into the city and spend a whole day there working systematically. In the evening they are back on the plane, on their way to another continent.
As for the stolen cards, they are flown to somewhere in Asia.
They are used to buy things there and the goods purchased are turned back into money by fence organizations.
That is organized crime.
<P>
Organized crime is increasingly involved in the area of credit cards.
The loss is estimated by police authorities at some US $1 billion per year.
That is a lot of money!
The techniques that are used range from misuse - the forging of signatures - through tampering with credit cards, to complete counterfeiting.
<P>
This sum of US $1 billion which I have mentioned is initially smuggled back into the criminal money circuit and, after moneylaundering operations, it eventually ends up in apparently respectable businesses.
<P>
The British government has now put forward a proposal for joint action to facilitate the work of the police in this area.
The objective of this proposal is to ensure more rapid exchange of information about credit card crime, for example about new modi operandi and such like.
This swift exchange of information would take place not only between police authorities; there would also be better arrangements for the reciprocal exchange of information between the credit card industry and the police.
Both of these initiatives are right.
That is why our committee pronounced itself in favour of this proposal.
But at the same time we also say that it makes little sense to build up a separate information system for every type of offence in the area of organized crime.
It would be more logical - my colleague, Mr Schulz, will go into this in more detail in a moment - to get Europol involved in this matter as soon as possible instead of building up parallel structures.
That would only lead to confusion.
<P>
Secondly, what has been proposed is good, but it does not go far enough.
If we are to proceed effectively against credit card crime we need at least two more measures.
On the one hand, we need a standardization of security markings on credit cards.
Most of you may not be aware that every credit card has its own security markings by means of which it is possible to determine whether it is a forgery.
Some of these markings are not visible, sometimes they can be seen under ultra-violet light, and some of them are known only to the initiated.
The problem is that every credit card organization that issues a card uses different markings.
That means that those who accept credit cards in a shop would have to learn 8, 10 or even more different security markings, but no-one does.
What we need is standardization, along the lines of what happens with banknotes, where there are two or three markings which are known to every cashier.
To this end we in the European Union at least need proposals from the Commission; the matter will have to be legally regulated.
<P>
There is also a common belief that the credit card industry voluntarily takes all manner of steps to prevent the misuse of credit cards.
The truth is that there is a cost-benefit analysis, not unlike the calculation which you may yourselves make when you consider if it is worthwhile taking out insurance or running the risk of damage, because in the long run it works out cheaper than paying for insurance.
Credit card organizations act in a similar way.
That is why so far we do not have the safest basis that there could be, namely not paying with your signature but following the same procedure as with cash dispensers, whereby there is a chip on these plastic cards and you sign with a sequence of four numbers which only you know, in other words a chip and a PIN.
<P>
However, the pre-requisite for such an approach would be the availability in restaurants and shops of machines where the code could be entered.
This has for a long time been possible with the use of the Carte bleue in France but not in other countries.
It was done in France not for reasons of security, but to skim off the market.
But that does not matter, it is the result that is important.
The credit card industry is resisting this approach partly with the argument that a silver shop in India would never raise enough money to buy such a machine. The industry argues that the introduction of such an approach would hinder the further spread of credit cards.
<P>
So the industry is not automatically interested in the highest standard of security.
But society does have an interest.
It must be of major interest to us that organized crime should be fought wherever possible, because ultimately it represents a danger to society.
That is a further reason for legal proposals in this area.
<P>
In conclusion, I would repeat that what the British government has suggested is a step in the right direction, but it does not go far enough, and the Commission is required to act in response to our far-reaching demands.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank my colleague, Mr Schmid, very sincerely for submitting this report.
His statements have shown that we are dealing with a true expert in the subject.
At the start of my own statements, allow me to remark in jest that, having read Gerhard Schmid's report, I would easily be in a position to try my hand at things other than being a Member of the European Parliament because, if it were not illegal, you could make a lot of money that way!
<P>
Mr Schmid has completed a very precise analysis of the technical pre-requisites for this type of crime.
His report highlights a quite significant danger, namely the fact that as a result of technological progress, notably in cashless payment transactions, new dangers of misuse emerge at the same time and in the same areas where simplifications appear to have been achieved. This is the case unless clear definitions are made of the limits and frameworks within which comparable standards are developed to make it easier to control the usability of this new technology, not only for the user but also for the manufacturer of the technical pre-requisites.
In doing so, Mr Schmid has pointed to the crux of the matter.
<P>
As the example of France shows, the credit card industry is interested in simplifying the buying of goods by means of credit cards and in encouraging as many people as possible - that is after all the purpose of credit cards - to be able to buy goods with greater ease in an economy which is becoming more and more entwined internationally, so tempting them to buy goods.
But in that case the party which derives most profit also has to ensure that the consumer is adequately protected.
Mr Schmid has just made use of a classic example to demonstrate how, although sealing off one Member State's market within the internal market benefits both the Member State and its consumers on the one hand, it amounts on the other to a contravention of our Community's rules on competition.
This only goes to show that the development of a new, integrated economy in the European Union brings a host of dangers in its wake.
<P>
One of the dangers which I want to address is the fact that we have not as yet developed a coherent security system in the European Union.
If the collections of data which are needed to create comparable security standards are now to be fed into a new, separate system yet again, it will be the umpteenth system that we have developed in the EU.
In order to provide protection against organized crime, there is not only a security system in the area of credit cards, but also, for example, the Schengen information system or the customs information system.
And then there is also the European information system which collects a range of data from other systems.
<P>
So there is a danger - and there has often been critical comment about this in the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs - that we shall see the development of several different systems which to some extent collect the same sets of data.
In this case it would make more sense for us to transfer protection against misuse, and the development of strategies for such protection, to the institution which is in fact responsible for such matters, namely Europol.
If Europol is really to be developed as the European Union's data collection body and as the organization which is to carry out the exchange of data while at the same time checking thoroughly that data protection is being respected, then it makes no sense if Europol is not involved with credit card fraud of all things, one of the growth industries for organized crime.
That is why I make the following demand, as an essential supplement to what my colleague, Mr Schmid, has said: instead of overloading Europol politically with issues - for example, nuclear smuggling - which really have nothing to do with it, as often happens, it would, for example, be better to transfer to this body competence for the area described by Mr Schmid.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, first of all I should like to thank Mr Schmid very sincerely for an excellent report.
We should not be surprised; he does after all come from Bavaria, and all sorts of good things come from Bavaria.
<P>
This report yet again illustrates in a particular sector the extent of the problems caused by internationally organized crime.
The latter has a decisive advantage.
At a time when there is really an explosion of knowledge, when new technologies appear virtually every day, there are still governments which always arrive on the scene too late, like Dad's Army.
They clamp down only long after the matter has been resolved.
They shut the stable door only after the horse has been stolen.
That is the real problem, and it is good to highlight it in an area which directly affects our citizens, namely credit cards.
<P>
We have a completely new dimension today, with a world-wide struggle against internationally organized crime which is obstructed by political conditions.
Before the Second World War there were perhaps 20 countries in the world that were of any great significance.
<P>
Today we have 190 in the UN alone.
Many of us - I know because I used to be on the Committee on Development and Cooperation - do not even know their names.
These countries are increasingly and deliberately being targeted and bought up by international crime and certain dangerous sects, so that a new situation is emerging in international relations as a whole.
<P>
In addition, we are also dealing with the problem of major international speculative capitalism.
According to a report from the World Bank, these groups have at their disposal nowadays a sum of between 800 billion and 1 trillion dollars.
If you believe the news, we shall shortly experience another great international crisis like the one in 1992.
That is why we have to proceed on the widest front. Today it is a question of creating security in the area of credit cards.
<P>
But we should not stop there; we should go further, because there are even greater dangers in store.
We face a major international struggle against international forces which are criminally organized and which respect no laws, because they are always quicker than those who are law-abiding.
I would like to thank Mr Schmid for pointing this out.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, following the sign against crime campaign when we dealt with crime in Brussels, today we come to the "vote against crime' .
We would like to give our full support to Mr Schmid's report.
I think that it is urgently necessary to proceed consistently against organized crime.
Indeed, we ought also to have had a debate here this week, which has had to be postponed because of the urgency of another topic.
I am confident that we shall be able to have this debate with the Council and the Commission in our next Strasbourg sitting.
<P>
In Germany we have heard that gangs of children were shipped into Germany from Romania with the job of picking pockets.
If they had not picked a certain number of pockets by the evening, their lips were burnt with cigarettes or their lower legs were slashed with razor blades.
The organizers were caught in this case.
We can see that our cities face entirely new dangers in the area of crime.
Credit cards were also stolen in the course of these pickpocketing incidents, and were used for fraud, with enormous sums being lost. This is quite unacceptable to us.
<P>
That is why I have made the proposal - and anyone who travels can see this in the ASEAN countries for example - that like the German railway pass, credit cards should automatically incorporate photos of the credit card owner, so that you can immediately tell whether the person in question really is the owner of the card.
These cards should also perhaps incorporate a fingerprint so that trained personnel could quickly identify, alongside the signature, whether a credit card was being presented by the legal owner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are two reasons why the Commission welcomes today's debate on Mr Schmid's report.
Firstly, it is important that the European Parliament should be able to express its views in matters of cooperation in the fields of justice and home affairs before the Treaty of Amsterdam comes into effect.
<P>
Secondly, by virtue of their quality, Mr Schmid's report and the amendments it contains should give the Council cause to consider it carefully.
In short, the Commission welcomes this proposal for a joint action.
It should be seen as a practical instrument which facilitates the work of all those who deal with investigations in connection with payment card fraud, and one which respects privacy and human rights.
<P>
We are particularly pleased that this initiative is based on a project that was financed with budgetary funds from the European Union, or, to be more precise, with funds which Parliament and the Council made available to assist initiatives in the fields of justice and home affairs.
In addition, I should also like to point out that this initiative should be regarded as a concrete measure to implement the European Union's action plan to fight organized crime, which has been extensively discussed in this House.
At present, the Commission is concluding its considerations in connection with the task with which it was entrusted in the context of the action plan, of elaborating proposals for measures against fraud and against the forgery of all types of means of payment, including credit cards, and of examining inter alia the introduction of harmonized bases for punishable offences in relation to certain actions.
<P>
All these initiatives, among which we should also include the entry into force of the Europol agreement which is expected this year, and which will mean that Europol is at last fully able to act, show that the European Union intends to proceed with determination against criminal wheeling and dealing in the area of the European Union.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Gahrton, Holm and Schörling">
g. (SV) We certainly feel that it is important for action to be taken to combat crime within the payment card industry.
It is absolutely clear from the explanatory statement accompanying the report that the proposal should concentrate on such areas as the production of payment cards, their distribution, production of card readers and other payment card-related services. All of these areas are important.
<P>
We are wondering, however, whether this is a specifically EU-related problem.
We believe it is not.
The measures mentioned here are all international.
Quite clearly, payment cards do not exist only in EU countries.
<P>
Consequently, we do not feel that these matters should be entrusted to Europol, but instead that Interpol, the international, intergovernmental police commission, should take the matter up.
Fraudulent payment card transactions are international and therefore a job for Interpol.
We have thus voted against the legislative resolution.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Use of antibiotics in animal food
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions:
<P>


B4-0286/98 - O-0075/98 by Mr Olsson, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, to the Commission, on regulation of the use of antibiotics in animal food; -B4-0287/98 - O-0082/98 by the following Members: Aelvoet, Roth, Schörling, Gahrton, Hautala, Graefe zu Baringdorf, Lindholm, Holm, Lannoye and Tamino, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, to the Commission, on the use of antibiotics in animal feed; -B4-0289/98 - O-0084/98 by Mr Barthet-Mayer and Mr Vandemeulebroucke, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, to the Commission, on antibiotics in animal feedingstuffs; -B4-0388/98 - O-0098/98 by the following Members: Cabrol, Pasty, Azzolini and Santini, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, to the Commission, on antibiotics in animal feedingstuffs; -B4-0463/98 - O-0102/98 by the following Members: Sonneveld, Goepel, Böge, Funk and Schierhuber, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, to the Commission, on the rules governing the use of antibiotics in animal feed; -B4-0468/98 - O-0113/98 by Mr Souchet, on behalf of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, to the Commission, on the rules governing the use of antibiotics in animal feed; -B4-0470/98 - O-0115/98 by the following Members: Roth-Behrendt, Fantuzzi, Iversen and Hulthen, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to the Commission, on the use of antibiotics in animal feedingstuffs.




<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Olsson">
Mr President, Commissioner, we are aware that the problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is growing.
This is a problem within human health care, above all in cases where diseases that were previously relatively harmless are today tending to become extremely hard to cure using standard antibiotics.
<P>
One of the reasons for this is the widespread use of antibiotics in both human and veterinary healthcare.
But it is also due to the fact that we often use antibiotics routinely in order to prevent diseases or to cure "minor' diseases, by mixing antibiotics in feedingstuffs and giving them to animals on a daily basis.
Instead, we could employ good herd management and a good environment for the animals.
Then it is possible to forgo the use of antibiotics in animal feed.
It is also probably true to say that we must not hide a poor animal environment by curing the animals daily with a dose of antibiotics.
This is the wrong way to handle the means we have at our disposal.
<P>
But aside from the fact that it is justifiable to remove antibiotics from an animal welfare perspective, we must also restrict their use as far as possible so that in future we shall be able to use antibiotics to combat bacterial diseases in humans.
We must therefore strive to prevent the routine use of antibiotics - and also other medicinal preparations - in feed either as growth promoters or to prevent disease.
<P>
I believe it is important that we should obtain more research and produce more evidence in this field.
We already know a great deal today, but we can never be too sure.
One argument that I often hear is precisely that there is no conclusive proof.
But even if some people think that we do not have sufficient knowledge, the duty of care should be applied in this context, in other words, even the suspicion that this might in the long term lead to difficult human health problems should mean that we now stop using antibiotics in feedingstuffs.
<P>
Some Member States introduced this type of ban long ago.
We know from experience that this has been successful: production can be equally efficient, even if more care is exercised with regard to the animals' environment.
<P>
Once again I would like to put this question to the Commission and to Commissioner Fischler: What does the Commission intend to do to increase knowledge about the link between in-feed antibiotics and antibiotic-resistant bacteria?
Does the Commission intend to prepare measures to reduce or prohibit the use of in-feed antibiotics within the Union?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Mr President, Commissioner Fischler, ladies and gentlemen, antibiotics are a good example of the way in which an invention that was a blessing can turn into a genetic time bomb.
Invented and used in the Second World War, at first on the Allied side, it was a blessing in their care for the wounded, then used in the case of serious illnesses and in operations on people to save lives by using a medicine "against life' - antibioticum which is equal to anti-life - subsequently spilling over into veterinary treatment as well, but finally generating a flood of prescriptions now that doctors resort to antibiotics whenever anyone gets a cold.
What is interesting is that dangerous bacteria are not on the retreat as a result and are not checkmated over the long term by this medicine.
Instead these bacteria are reacting, they are reacting with mutations, they are reacting with resistance. In turn, the response to this has always been to develop new antibiotics, and the wheel turns faster and faster.
<P>
And then things go completely mad: now people have begun to make use of this means of prolonging life, that is so important for injured and ill people, as a prophylactic or preventive ingredient in animal food, because this medicine overcomes latent illnesses in herds of animals and above all does so in herds which are not kept in an appropriate and ecological manner, where serious mistakes are made in stock-keeping.
In these cases, the antibiotics exercise their greatest effect in improving yield because they suppress illnesses which would otherwise break out.
Now the circle is being closed even more quickly.
We are observing the development of resistance here as well, in the case of animals, in the prophylactic field.
<P>
New antibiotics are being invented with ever greater speed, at ever shorter intervals.
We have a great raft of antibiotics which are no longer effective in the case of most animal illnesses.
A time bomb is ticking away because, although there is no direct connection between antibiotics in animals and in human beings, there is an indirect one in the way in which "life' becomes resistant to applied medicines and then threatens us in the shape of disease germs.
<P>
Commissioner, all this could take on the same dimensions as BSE.
I think that there is an urgent necessity for the Commission to turn to scientific work and in the first instance to take the preventive action that Sweden has already taken, namely banning prophylactic use in animal food, and for us to develop scientific bases in order to hold our own in WTO negotiations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Barthet-Mayer">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, approximately 80 % of the antibiotics produced around the world intended for animals are administered in animal feed.
That is the conclusion of a report by the "Commission Interprofessionnelle et Interministériel de l'Alimentation Animale' in France, a body responsible for animal nutrition.
In other words, almost all complete feedingstuffs for animals are supplemented with antibiotics.
<P>
Since the BSE crisis, consumers no longer find it acceptable for animals to be systematically fed with foods that invariably contain antibiotics. The risks are obvious according to recent WHO studies which show that, as we have already heard, the systematic use of antibiotics during fattening can have harmful effects, such as the emergence of strains of bacteria which have become resistant to antibiotics and are very difficult to eliminate.
<P>
The joint resolution therefore asks the Commission to take advantage of the experience of the Member States which have prohibited some antibiotics in order to check if all antibiotics used in animal nutrition are harmless.
At the same time it also asks the Commission to define stringent scientific standards possibly prohibiting the use of such substances as food additives, or even as drugs, and to ensure that the prohibition also applies to imports from third countries.
This all arises by virtue of the crucial precautionary principle. Compliance with that principle must be formally stated in the revised directive, in order to protect not only the health and safety of consumers but also the interests of farmers.
<P>
That is all I have to say with regard to the content of the resolution, but I would like to add that, for this approach to be completely logical, it is not enough to stop using antibiotics in animal feed in order to protect the health and safety of the consumer.
It is also necessary to enforce the directive on maximum residue limits in meat. Even if animals are not regularly fed on foods supplemented with antibiotics, the maximum admissible antibiotic doses may possibly still be exceeded during treatment of these animals.
<P>
So it is also necessary to reinforce the tests for antibiotic residues in meat and carcasses produced in the European Union and imported from third countries.
This is based on the same understanding which leads us to oppose countries which, for example, continue to allow the use of hormones as permanent growth factors in animal husbandry, which European consumers do not want.
I therefore believe we would do well to support amendments which complement the resolution in that respect.
<P>
Finally, I would like to ask Commissioner Fischler a question.
I understand, Commissioner, that the Commission has arranged for studies to be carried out on the antibiotic resistance of micro-organisms and on antibiotic residues in meat, and this, if my information is correct, within the framework of promises of veterinary transparency made during the work of the committee of enquiry on BSE.
Would it possible, Commissioner, for us to see those reports?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, having witnessed the havoc caused by mad cow disease and the great feeling it rightly aroused in our fellow European citizens, we no longer have any right to compromise on what is called the precautionary principle.
It is absolutely necessary for serious research to be carried out with the greatest despatch in order to establish whether antibiotics used in animal feeding, in hospitals and for medical purposes are in any way responsible for the disquieting antibiotic resistance that is emerging.
In fact, tuberculosis is reappearing all over Europe and anxiety is being expressed at a scientific level.
If a serious bacterial epidemic were to occur tomorrow, we would perhaps no longer have the means to combat the disease and the risks it represents.
<P>
It is therefore necessary to speed up the work currently being carried out by the Scientific Committee on Animal Nutrition.
Pending the adoption of European regulations, each country should also organize epidemiological surveillance of antibiotic resistance, according to the use of antibiotics in animal production. This would encourage the reasonable use of antibiotics until more stringent regulations are adopted and would restrict the overall quantities used, as recommended by the World Health Organization.
Above all, it would encourage efforts to improve hygiene in animal production, as Mr Olsson said earlier. Antibiotics must not be used as a means to compensate for bad production methods.
<P>
Furthermore, it is also necessary to control the use of antibiotics by general practitioners in hospitals, because we all know that the total quantity of antibiotics used in human medications is far greater than the quantity of antibiotics used as additives in animal food.
<P>
We must also ensure that the proposed regulations put an end to existing distortions of competition within the single market.
Mrs Barthet-Mayer has very opportunely reiterated the need to make the testing of residues in meat standard at European level.
And, of course, we must work within the World Trade Organization to ensure that the rules we impose upon ourselves in the interests of human health are not only applied in Europe, but also in third countries which supply us with meat and cattle feed.
<P>
Under these circumstances, and as these opinions are broadly shared by all the Members who have spoken, this group, which is joint signatory of the joint resolution, supports it and will also support the amendments tabled by the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations which Mrs Barthet-Mayer moved earlier.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="Gillis">
Mr President, I participated fully in the drafting of this joint motion for a resolution on antibiotics in animal feed.
I would hope that, after this debate, the House will give it its full support.
<P>
Medicated feed or feed containing pre-mixed antibiotic additives have one very definitive purpose on large units: to treat sick animals.
Such feed should only be used for this therapeutic purpose; they should only be used under strict licence and under strict supervision.
This is the only practical way to administer treatment in the case of a disease outbreak in large units.
For example, it would be almost impossible to treat a pig-breeding and fattening unit of, say, 5 0-10 000 pigs in any other way than in feed and drinking water.
It would not be possible to catch and inject thousands of pigs every day for perhaps a week.
So applying treatment through the feed is the only way in practice.
However, strict rules and codes of practice must apply to all such use.
Indeed, I am happy to say that in most Member States I know this system already applies.
<P>
I feel there are many elements in such a code of conduct, a few of which might be outlined as follows.
Medicated pre-mixes and compounds can only be manufactured by registered compounders on receipt of a veterinary prescription from the state veterinary services, giving full details of the numbers of animals to be treated, the withdrawal periods and the sizes of the batch.
Only the tonnage specified on the official prescription should be manufactured.
Batch numbers of this feed must be carefully recorded from manufacturer through to final farm delivery and use in order to ensure maximum traceability.
Medication must not be incorporated into feed to be used for animals within one month of slaughter.
The locked-box or locked-store system must apply to the manufacturer and on the farm where the feed is to be stored and used.
All transporters, lorries and storage bins must be fully flushed before reuse with unmedicated feed.
Residue testing, pre mortem, through urine and blood samples, and post mortem, through kidney and meat sampling, must be carried out by the competent veterinary authorities to ensure maximum food safety.
<P>
The use of medicated feed for prophylactic or growth-promotion reasons cannot continue to feature in management, as is the case in some feeding systems and in some Member States at present.
These farms should be given a limited period to change this practice and find alternative methods.
Medicated feed must not be used to support or underpin poor farm management or weak animal health and welfare standards.
<P>
It should be noted that the overuse and misuse of antibiotics is not confined to farmers and the agricultural industry: there is plenty of evidence that the medical profession does not have clean hands when it comes to over-prescription.
Nevertheless, the use of antibiotics in animal husbandry should never compromise or put at risk the health of human beings.
Misuse of antibiotics in prophylactics or in therapy can never replace good management.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, Commissioner Fischler, antibiotics are used in animal husbandry in two forms: by introducing antibiotics into animal feed and by using antibiotics for therapeutic purposes in veterinary medicine.
<P>
With regard to EC regulations, we already have a directive which establishes a list of authorized additives for use in animal feed and a regulation which defines a Community procedure establishing the maximum residue limits for veterinary drugs in foods of animal origin.
<P>
As it is quite conceivable that the excessive use of antibiotics can lead to the development of resistance to antibiotics, not only in animals but also in humans, it is necessary to implement a policy limiting their use to an absolute minimum.
For that purpose, it is therefore necessary not only to control the use of antibiotics in nutrition, but also their use for therapeutic purposes.
We must therefore take into account maximum residue limits for pharmacologically active substances in foods of animal origin, including meat, fish, milk, eggs and honey.
These maximum residue limits must be established on the basis of the precautionary principle, in order to protect public health.
<P>
In this respect, I condemn the ambiguous attitude which is prevalent in the European Union.
For example, some antibiotics authorized by Community regulations as coccidiostat are prohibited in Sweden as additives in foods intended for animals, but are authorized as veterinary drugs, and do not comply with Community regulations relating to the evaluation of maximum residue limits.
Those maximum limits are essential to ensure that veterinary drugs are used correctly in accordance with veterinary prescriptions, whereas the use of additives is tightly controlled by regulations and checked within foodstuffs.
<P>
Consequently, we ask the Commission immediately to demand the enforcement of the maximum residue limits in all Member States.
The enforcement of these standards must also be ensured with regard to all imports of foods of animal origin from nonCommunity countries, including meat, fish, milk, eggs and honey.
The residue standards must be clearly defined within the framework of international agreements and particularly in the WTO agreement.
I repeat that animal production has a very important place in European agriculture, and production conditions must not be imposed on producers which render them no longer competitive with imported products from third countries which do not comply with the same conditions or constraints.
<P>
In this matter, we must not restrict ourselves to examining the use of antibiotics in animal food, but rather adopt a more global approach and include in our analysis the antibiotics used in veterinary medicine.
If scientific research shows that the development of antibiotic resistance is due to the use of antibiotics in animal husbandry, we will have to ensure that everyone complies with resistance standards in order to protect the interests of European farmers and European consumers, and that means not just producers in all the Member States of the European Union, but also all imports from third countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Iversen">
Mr President, during the part-session in Strasbourg in February, a significant step was taken towards healthier feedingstuffs.
This was secured by the European Parliament voting in favour of an amendment - of which I was the author - to the Poisson report on a ban covering the use of antibiotics in feedingstuffs with specific nutritional purposes.
The many reports on the possible health consequences are too serious to be ignored.
As stated earlier in this debate, the use of antibiotics carries the inherent danger of bacteria becoming resistant.
They become resistant to medicines used to cure sick people.
We are courting a situation where many people will die from diseases that could easily have been treated with antibiotics.
Further, it is a recognized fact that as long as farmers ensure high standards of hygiene in animal husbandry, the use of antibiotics is completely unnecessary.
<P>
An important point for future agricultural policy reform will be to ensure that regulations on animal husbandry will render the use of antibiotics superfluous.
Currently, several Member States have already banned the use of antibiotics in feedingstuffs, in some cases on the basis of analysis results available from the WHO.
These analyses demonstrate that the use of antibiotics can be extremely costly in terms of treating human diseases.
The WHO therefore recommends stopping the use of antibiotics.
<P>
One of the EU's distinctive marks is the free movement of goods.
All Member States should be free to sell their goods within the EU.
This implies that we have a responsibility and a duty to assure consumers that goods are produced responsibly.
Consumers should be able to choose EU products confidently without having to worry about whether production methods could wreak havoc on citizens' health, a catastrophe that could result in many more deaths than the BSE crisis, with far more widespread impact.
In this regard, we must not forget that the EU is part of the world market, too.
It is a matter of concern that in many parts of the world large doses of antibiotics are used in feedingstuffs as growth stimulants for animals.
Of course it is important to tighten up EU regulations.
However, we should also focus on improving regulations in the global market.
<P>
I have three main requests.
The first is to ask the Council to take note of the recommendation by the House for a ban covering the use of antibiotics in feedingstuffs with special nutritional purposes.
My second main point is that at the earliest possible opportunity, the Commission should prepare a list of the most harmful types of antibiotic growth stimulants and have them banned.
Eventually, all these types of antibiotics should ideally be put on the list of banned substances so that we can put a stop to the use of these health hazards.
I would like to encourage the Commissioner and the Commission to begin focusing on alternative methods of animal husbandry to replace and render superfluous the present consumption of antibiotic growth stimulants.
These are steps that must be taken if we are to be able to look European consumers in the eye.
The European Parliament must help ensure that healthy food will not become a meaningless phrase.
<P>
Finally, allow me to ask the Commissioner to explain firstly what is going to be done to promote more sustainable and humane animal husbandry.
Secondly, when can we expect tangible results from research into the use of antibiotics in animal feed?
What types of monitoring and preventative measures has the Commission introduced in the meantime?
Thirdly, is the Commission currently working on a revision of the relevant directive on the use of antibiotics in animal feed?
Fourthly, as a consequence of this, is the Commission currently considering proposing a ban on the use of antibiotics in animal feed?
<P>
Today, we are voting on a joint motion for a resolution.
I would like to encourage everyone to do so.
We are taking a somewhat cautious step, but it is a step in the right direction towards better, healthier food.
However, it is also absolutely crucial for the Commission to understand the issues involved and to come up with a positive response.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am grateful to you for giving me the opportunity to present the position of the Commission in relation to the problems of medicinal residues in animal foods and the use of anti-microbial medicines - I am referring in this context to a larger group of medicines, not only antibiotics - in animal nutrition.
The recent report from the National Consumer Council entitled "Farm policies and our food - the need for change' was mentioned in the questions.
That report is known to us and is currently being studied in detail by the Commission's various services.
<P>
As you know, measures for the monitoring of certain substances and certain residues in live animals and their products are regulated by Council Directive 23/96.
This requires Member States to draw up residue plans every year as certification of veterinary medicines, including anti-bacterial substances, pesticides and environmental contaminants.
Compliance with maximum values for the above-mentioned substances, set on a Community-wide basis, has to be monitored within the framework of these monitoring plans.
<P>
The directive provides for targeted controls specifically in relation to the use of antibiotics for fattening animals.
Article 8 of the directive provides that from 1998, in other words from this year onwards, Member States must publish the results of their investigations of residues.
In the coming year, the Commission will present a report to Parliament and the Council on the basis of the results submitted by the Member States.
If the specified maximum values are exceeded in the case of animal foods which are imported from third countries, Council Directive 675/90 provides that a strengthened and targeted check must be made of several successive consignments from the same origin at the external borders of the Community.
<P>
Now to the question of anti-microbial medicines in feedingstuffs. The ban on antibiotics which has been called for by the Parliament has already been explicitly incorporated into the proposal for a directive on feedingstuffs for particular nutritional purposes, so that the use of antibiotics is now regulated solely by the directive on additives, Directive 524/70.
In the intervening years, this directive has been modified five times in the interests of increasing consumer safety.
I shall not go into the details of the many and often complicated requirements which have been laid down for the production, trading and use of additives.
<P>
One thing is clear in relation to the question which we are discussing today: when manufacturers make an application, they have to give not only technical information but also details of residues and indicate whether risks to human health may arise from the use of antibiotics.
Before the Standing Committee on Feedingstuffs gives its approval to any use, manufacturers' applications are also examined by the Scientific Committee on Animal Nutrition.
<P>
The following medicines are currently approved on a Community-wide basis for certain types of animal: Pacitracin, Spiramycin, Virginiamycin, Flavophospholipol, Thylosin, Monensin, Salinomycin and Avilamycin.
Virginiamycin for piglets, Pacitracin for chickens and piglets and Avilamycin for turkeys may be approved by Member States, but do not have to be.
<P>
Although these three substances do not yet fulfill all the criteria for use with these types of animal, there is so far no indication that the substances mentioned represent a risk to animal or human health.
The Commission has proved in the past that it will ban additives if there is a scientifically justified suspicion of a risk to human beings or animals.
That has been demonstrated inter alia by the fact that we have banned 16 antibiotics in all since 1970.
Those most recently banned were, as you know, Avoparcin and Artacin.
<P>
The Commission will continue to examine carefully any indications that resistant strains may be formed and that these may be transferable from one animal to another or from animals to human beings.
The most recent modification of the additives directive provides that all substances approved before 1988 will have to undergo a systematic re-examination from September 2000.
This applies in all to six of the eight substances mentioned.
Moreover, from 1 October 1999, approvals will be given only for a maximum of ten years, and will be Community-wide.
There will then no longer be national approvals as are currently possible in the case of Virginiamycin, Pacitracin and Avolamycin.
<P>
In its accession treaty, it was conceded that Finland could maintain its ban on Spiramycin and Tylosin until 1997.
Under its accession treaty, Sweden may maintain its general ban on antibiotics and other anti-microbial substances in animal food until the end of this year.
Before the expiry of these deadlines, the Commission will decide on a possible Community-wide ban, on the basis of scientific arguments to be submitted by Finland and Sweden.
I am afraid that I have to inform you that the arguments so far submitted by Finland have failed to convince the Scientific Committee on Animal Nutrition.
The arguments put forward by Sweden for a general ban in animal feedingstuffs are currently being examined by the multi-disciplinary working group on "anti-microbial substances' .
<P>
On the basis of the protective clause in Article 11 of the additives directive, Virginiamycin was banned in Denmark in January of this year.
However, the same Article 11 provides that appropriate and detailed arguments are to be put forward in relation to such bans by the Member States concerned, and that the Commission's Standing Committee on Feedingstuffs will decide on these arguments.
<P>
It is clear to the Commission that neither our animal fatteners nor the additives manufacturers would accept a ban without appropriate scientific arguments.
The fatteners would feel that they were at a disadvantage vis-à-vis their competitors outside Europe, and the manufacturers would overwhelm us with an avalanche of law-suits if the validity of our action could not be proven.
International law also obliges us to apply scientific criteria.
<P>
At the same time, we must take the fears of consumers into account.
That is why we need a scientifically correct basis for our decisions.
In well-founded cases of doubt the Commission can apply the precautionary principle, as indeed it did in the case of Avoparcin.
In the context of its research programmes, the Commission is encouraging science to develop alternatives which might replace these antibiotics in animal feed in future.
I would mention the term probiotics.
A proposal for a first project is currently being considered by the relevant experts.
<P>
I also expect a great deal from improvements to the conditions in which animals are kept.
If these could be raised to the level of the best, the use of antibiotics for animal feed would a priori be of no economic interest.
For its part, in order to acknowledge growing concern among consumers, the feedingstuffs industry has made known its readiness to carry out a programme to monitor developments in bacterial resistance.
This monitoring, which is to begin over the next few days, will look at whether and to what extent there is any increase among economically useful animals in agriculture in bacterial strains that are resistant to medicines which are also partly used in veterinary medicine and some of which are part of the same family as antibiotics which are approved for human medicine.
Some ECU 900 000 are being made available for this programme in the current year.
<P>
In April 1998, in relation to the subject of resistance development, the Commission's Scientific Steering Committee agreed on the appointment of an inter-disciplinary working group which will probably submit relevant findings at the end of this year.
In particular, the working group will deal with the problem of the increase in resistant strains as a multi-disciplinary task.
In the process, there is to be a critical examination of all the fields of application in which antibiotically active substances are used, namely in human and veterinary medicine and in animal feed.
<P>
The working group will look in detail at the following questions, inter alia: firstly, the use and misuse of anti-microbial medicines in animal and human medicine; secondly the use and misuse of anti-microbial medicines as additives; thirdly, the question of resistant and multi-resistant germs; and, finally, the factors responsible for the increase in resistant strains.
<P>
In pursuing this initiative, the Steering Committee is following the direction which the World Health Organization suggested for this subject at its conference in October 1997 in Berlin.
The working group's concluding scientific assessment will put the Commission in a position to assess the applications by various Member States relating to a ban on antibiotics in animal feed, on the basis of a solid scientific foundation.
At the same time, consideration is to be given to the concerns felt by representatives of health-related professions and of consumers in relation to the development of resistant strains of bacteria.
In those cases where the scientific risk assessment is uncertain or defective, the Commission will in any case allow itself to be guided by the precautionary principle.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="Hardstaff">
Mr President, I should like to start by thanking the Commissioner for his statement.
However, there remains a great deal still to be done to allay the growing concerns amongst citizens across the European Union about the emergence of strains of bacteria resistant to most antibiotics due to overuse both for animals and human beings.
<P>
When I wrote the opinion of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development on the Commission Green Paper on food legislation, this concern was reflected in the fact that not only was there no opposition to my proposal that antibiotics should only be used to treat illness in animals and not routinely as a prophylactic, but the wording was actually strengthened in the committee.
It was agreed that high standards of animal welfare and husbandry are essential to eliminate any need for such prophylactic use of antibiotics.
<P>
For the Party of European Socialists the essential issue here is human health rather than the possible effects on the meat market.
We have all seen what can happen to the meat market when the safety of consumers is neglected, allegedly to protect the market.
<P>
My group was nevertheless prepared to accept the joint resolution in its entirety, including paragraph 5, although not totally happy with that paragraph, in the interest of reaching the widest possible consensus.
However, since the Europe of Nations Group has broken the consensus by putting down a number of amendments, the PSE feels justified in voting against paragraph 5 so that the joint resolution concentrates on the real issue concerning this House - the need to reduce the use of antibiotics in animals in the human food chain to the absolute minimum required to treat specific cases of disease in individual animals and herds whilst further research and exchange of information are carried out.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Piha">
Mr President, I also would like to thank Mr Fischler.
Nothing reassures people so well as lengthy scientific discourse: doubts remain, nonetheless.
<P>
It is a fact that antibiotics are used widely throughout the EU both for medical purposes in respect of animals and to speed up the growth of animals.
As has been stated, bacteria become used to antibiotics after years of use and build up a resistance to them.
In recent years the hypothesis has been put forward that these resistant bacteria can get into a meat-eater's bodily system and weaken that person's immunity to infectious disease.
<P>
Although at the scientific level there is some dispute concerning this problem, which is difficult to examine, we must tackle the matter now.
Some vets think that the use of antibiotics as a growth stimulant must be unconditionally prohibited.
There is no real water-tight proof as yet, but it is true that a person who is treading warily at one end of the food chain does not really know how many boxes of antibiotics he is about to savour the taste of when he orders his Chateaubriand or his McDonald's hamburger.
<P>
Finland and Sweden, in their negotiations on joining the EU, received a special dispensation in respect of banning certain antibiotics in animal food.
In many other countries, however, they use the so-called safe antibiotics, as listed by the Commission.
The Commission realizes, as the Commissioner said, that it cannot ban all antibiotics without sufficient proof of serious harm to health.
But just who can define what sort of harm is serious enough to adversely affect people's health?
Is not merely the fact that there is doubt enough?
<P>
The citizens of the Union move freely from one country to the other, on business or for pleasure.
It is hard to believe that it is only the Finns and the Swedes that could have strict requirements pertaining to the quality of food.
Consumers cannot be treated differently from one country to the next.
I think the EU should most definitely adhere to a principle of caution, especially when it is a question of protecting the health of our citizens, and be strict in the use of antibiotics in animal feed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Virrankoski">
Mr President, Commissioner, the issue dealt with by Mr Olsson and others of the use of antibiotics in animal feed is a timely one.
The dispensation made in respect of Finland and Sweden is about to come to an end and the whole EU area must now consider how to approach the problem.
I wish to thank Mr Fischler for his comprehensive response.
<P>
Antibiotics are drugs which are this century's best discovery in the war against disease.
All humanity has derived enormous benefit from them.
However, microbes have the property to rapidly develop strains that are resistant to certain antibiotics.
For that reason, drugs are constantly being developed to overcome the problem of such immune strains.
<P>
With modern factory farming methods, however, the conditions of growth for animals are difficult.
Very often the size of the rearing unit is large, space is cramped, and disease can easily spread.
So there is an attempt to prevent the outbreak and spread of illness by, for example, introducing even more antibiotics into the animals' feed before any really serious disease manifests itself.
This kind of indiscriminate use of antibiotics is common in the EU, but is even more so in powerful countries that practise industrial agriculture, like the USA.
The result of this is that the use of antibiotics is so widespread that immune strains of microbe are being born at an ever increasing rate. This is considerably harmful to public health.
That is why this issue is such a very important one at this time.
<P>
The issue actually means taking a position on reforms for the whole of EU agricultural policy and the creation of a European agricultural policy.
The question is whether we want to copy the American agricultural production model, with its large-scale use of antibiotics and hormones, which would mean pushing the issue of public health aside.
Or do we want to evolve a European agricultural system which is both ecologically and ethically based on a sustainable programme, and produce, through broadly approved methods, high quality and healthy foods?
These are the alternatives that will be weighed at the AGENDA 2000 talks.
<P>
The use of antibiotics in animal feed is a big problem that is tied to sustainable development.
It is a shining example of how contemporary greed, in this case the desire for cheaper food, is seriously endangering the ability of future generations to combat illness caused by bacteria.
That is why I give my support to the joint motion for a resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, the issue here is the problem of factory farming.
Production is carried out in large units and economic considerations are thus often more important than people's health.
Especially problematic in the EU is Holland's pig and chicken economy.
We should now debate the use of antibiotics for fattening up animals.
We have evidence that there is scanty scientific foundation for the use of growth hormones to fatten up animals.
The use of growth hormones is forbidden in the EU area, but one and a half billion ecus worth of them are sold.
The Nordic countries' line in this is a better one than that in the EU as a whole.
The internal market is not protecting people's health.
We have to recognize that the Commission does not have the resources to solve this problem.
Surveillance is in the hands of the Member States and the Commission should in no way obstruct it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Mr President, we now know that antibiotics are our most important medicine and often the only means of curing bacterial diseases.
At present, one of the greatest threats to public health world-wide - and also in the EU - comes from bacteria that have developed a resistance to antibiotics, due to incorrect and extremely liberal application of antibiotics. This applies especially to use in animals, but also, of course, to humans.
The bacteria have become resistant to antibiotics and are spread from animals to humans, also via foodstuffs.
<P>
I do not fully understand why the Commission cannot use the same arguments with regard to antibiotics in animal feed as are used on the question of hormones in the discussion with WHO, that is, that the precautionary principle should apply.
We all know, of course, how incredibly difficult it can be to prove something by means of research, in other words, there has to be solid evidence, as stated by the Commission.
Nevertheless , reports have been produced, one example being a WHO study in the autumn of 1997, which highlights four resistant bacteria - among them Salmonella and Coli bacteria - that cause major public health problems.
It is said that these bacteria have had too much contact with antibiotics and have developed a defence and undergone genetic changes.
We therefore have four exceptionally hazardous bacteria that are thriving here in Europe.
<P>
We also know that the Swedish government and Swedish researchers, with support from international colleagues, have shown that at least one of these groups of bacteria - the Enterococci - has demonstrably acquired its resistance because of antibiotics in animal feed.
I have now also read that the British parliament's agriculture committee has recently presented a report recommending an outright ban on antibiotics in animal feed.
It is said that virtually conclusive evidence has been obtained that resistant bacteria can be transmitted to humans.
I believe that this is an opportunity for the Commission to apply the precautionary principle, which I feel it should do.
In the light of BSE, etcetera, there is no reason for us to accept the major risks that are posed by antibiotics in animal feed.
<P>
In Sweden such use of antibiotics has been prohibited for the past ten years.
So what have the farmers been forced to do?
Well, they have been forced to invest and work on a long-term basis to improve the environment and management of animals.
The Commissioner did not directly mention animal production in Europe.
And that is where the whole problem lies: the industrial manner in which we treat animals, the poor housing conditions, the large herds.
It is clearly in this area that work must begin.
In my opinion, this is what the Commission should be taking up the cudgels for: whether we are to have confidence in your agricultural policy for the consumers and for those who must eat the products that agriculture supplies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, the large-scale use of antibiotics in animal husbandry is giving cause for concern.
Microbiologists have for some time been warning about the possibility of resistant bacteria finding their way into the human body through meat consumption.
This might have the effect of making people resistant to human antibiotics.
It is a very worrying development, particularly in cases where only one group of antibiotics will help.
<P>
It is therefore very important that we restrict the use of antibiotics in animal husbandry.
I am well aware that little is known about the possible risks posed by certain substances.
The knowledge we have gained about the risk of resistance arising from the use of substances such as avoparcin does however mean that we should exercise caution in our dealings with other substances.
Antibiotics must be available to fight sickness.
What we need to do is question the continued administration of these medicinal products via animal feed, particularly substances that are closely related to human antibiotics.
<P>
Restricting the use of antibiotics in animal feed must be accompanied by increased research into alternative feed savers.
We should not forget that feed savers play a useful role.
Research has shown that the Dutch livestock industry produces 6.5 % more nitrogen and phosphates without feed savers.
Growth and feed conversion also drop 4 to 8 %.
The industry itself has begun to develop alternatives such as organic acids and oligosaccharides.
Europe should lend its full support to this type of research.
It is also very important that we switch to a less intensive breeding programme that is less dependent on the prolonged use of medicinal products.
<P>
The approval procedure for the use of antibiotics also needs to be tightened.
In the light of all that has been said, it is remarkable that antibiotics can still be approved for use as a prophylactic without being tested for any risk of resistance.
Whether they are used as a prophylactic or to treat illness, there are and there will remain antibiotics that carry a risk of resistance.
Although antimicrobial agents to stimulate growth are necessary in the fight against infection, I would like to see them registered as medicinal products and therefore tested for resistance.
<P>
Finally, the battle against resistant bacteria is not a lost cause.
Research has shown that reducing the use of antibiotics brings a drop in the number of resistant bacteria.
We should tackle this problem energetically - not least for reasons of public health.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wibe">
Mr President, we in the Socialist group warmly welcome this resolution, even though we feel that it could have been a little stricter.
This debate has dealt mostly with the risks of antibiotic residues being transmitted to humans, but of course it is the animal 's health that is the major problem here.
<P>
There are at least three reasons for restricting the use of antibiotics.
The first reason has in principle been touched upon by all of the speakers here, namely that the excessive use of antibiotics can result in the development of resistant bacterial strains.
This has been quite clearly proven from a medical viewpoint.
<P>
There is, however, another reason that should be noted.
This concerns the impact on immunological defence mechanisms in both animals and humans.
For example, an increased incidence of allergies has been observed in humans in recent decades.
The precise reasons for this are not known, but one conceivable theory is that it is due to the increased use of antibiotics in young children.
This means that diseases that were previously left to the body's natural immunological defences to combat are now tackled with antibiotics.
In this way, the immune defence is weakened.
It is clear that the long-term effects of this process are completely unknown.
<P>
The third reason for not using antibiotics is more speculative, but people have genuinely begun to wonder whether this too could in the long term impact on the genetic structures.
There is, of course, no direct effect of antibiotics on the genes, but there is an indirect link insofar as antibiotics can affect natural selection, that is, nature's own evolutionary process.
The longterm consequences of this are totally unknown.
<P>
As many speakers have already stated, Sweden and Finland have for many years very wisely had a ban on antibiotics in animal feed.
I genuinely believe that this resolution should include a few appreciative words about this wise policy.
The only reference to be found in this resolution is in point 5, which contains a proposal from the Union for Europe Group that the Commission should investigate whether our ban has damaged the market for meat.
I must say that this point - which we Socialists shall be voting against - quite clearly means that we look first and foremost to the interests of the market, with public health taking second place.
It is evidently the case that both our citizens and everybody here believe that public health must be the prime consideration.
<P>
I would like to conclude by saying that there is clearly a growing body of opinion within medical science against the use of antibiotics.
The best solution would be a general ban on this use, failing which the next best option would be at least for those countries that already have such a ban to be permitted to maintain it in future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, Commissioner, I believe, as many have already stated, that the matter under debate poses even greater health risks than BSE.
Besides discussing the fact that bacteria have become resistant, we might also note that they have, in certain cases, become more aggressive, for example in hospitals.
Economics must not take precedence over health.
<P>
The Commissioner brought both good and bad news in his speech.
The good news was that once again we heard that the precautionary principle is to be observed.
But the question is, exactly when and how will it be observed?
I believe that it is important to renew the directive on feed additives, starting with the aims that are set out in the resolution.
<P>
Secondly, I applaud his comments on the interdisciplinary committee, which is to work through until the end of this year and look into the misuse of antibiotics.
I only hope that the question will not be buried there, meaning that there is a delay in the overhaul of the directive on feed additives.
<P>
The bad news was that Commissioner Fischler once again stated that Finland has unfortunately not produced sufficient evidence.
Commissioner, might we not here too apply the precautionary principle in respect of the continuation of the bans imposed in Finland and Sweden?
<P>
A further piece of bad news, which was noted by the previous speaker a moment ago, was that there was no mention of a good animal environment.
Is it not valuable in itself to ensure that animals have a good environment?
It is a political decision that is needed.
History is being repeated: we pay general lip service to good animal health and the precautionary principle, but when it comes down to money and legislation this ceases to apply.
<P>
We have heard an extremely comprehensive enumeration of various mucins.
We must not forget, however, that there is also a risk of cross-resistance.
We cannot place our trust in a technical classification which states that certain substances can be prohibited and others permitted.
<P>
Finally, I would like to thank all of the other groups that have so ably given their support to the initiative taken in this debate by my colleague Mr Olsson and the ELDR, enabling us collectively to put pressure on the Commission in this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to express my sincere gratitude for the fact that the position which I have presented here on behalf of the Commission has generated so many positive reactions.
I believe that through the policy which it has pursued over the years the Commission has proved that it is ready to take account of the precautionary principle. It will naturally continue to do so in future.
<P>
I should like to deal only briefly with a few things.
Firstly, several speakers have raised the question of multi-resistance and cross-resistance.
In this connection I would like to stress that these phenomena in particular have a great deal to do with the manner in which antibiotics are sometimes used in human medicine, to which for example Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf rightly referred.
We should be in no doubt that it is important to avoid the occurrence of additional risk as a result of the use of such substances in feedingstuffs.
But the impression should not be given that the use of antibiotics in feedingstuffs is the sole cause of the problems which we face today.
<P>
Secondly, I would like to remind you - as I already explained in my statement - that an evaluation is under way of what was conceded to Finland and Sweden in the accession treaty, and that there will be a conclusive evaluation during the current year.
<P>
Thirdly, I would like to remind you that the Scientific Steering Committee has appointed a multi-disciplinary working group which is to deliver scientific results by the end of this year.
The Commission will of course subsequently submit an overall evaluation of the opinion of the scientific committees to Parliament as quickly as possible.
All the scientific results will, of course, also be accessible to you.
We want to be transparent, and that is why there are no problems at all with this.
<P>
I believe, however, that we should certainly not give the impression that we now want to put the scientists under pressure; the scientists need a certain amount of time in order to be able to carry out this evaluation.
We must ensure that they have this time.
<P>
Finally, I would also like to stress that the example of Avoparcin in particular has demonstrated our readiness to act appropriately whenever any cause for suspicion arises which prompts such an action.
We would be truly ill-advised to act without a scientific basis, because if we did we would probably fail and in the process do great damage to agriculture and also the food industry.
<P>
In conclusion, I would like to stress the following: whenever we are considering the extent to which such additives may be used, we should not overlook the true cause of the problem which is to be found at least in part in the mass rearing of animals.
For that reason, in connection with the proposals which we have put forward in Agenda 2000 for the area of investment assistance for agricultural businesses, we shall pay particular attention to the principle which we have embodied there, namely giving greater assistance to especially animal-friendly and species-appropriate animal-rearing, in the development and elaboration of rural development programmes.
As far as possible, we must jointly take this approach into account because the use of these types of anti-microbial substances will then become less and less interesting from an economic point of view.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Mr President, please allow me to put one more brief question to Commissioner Fischler.
I would like to know whether this multi-disciplinary working group which is being appointed by the Steering Committee will also deal with the problem that, as a result of genetic manipulation, resistance to antibiotics is being produced willy-nilly, and more or less as a waste product.
There are investigations which demonstrate that a bacterial strain which is resistant to antibiotics is being specifically developed in milk processing to ensure that residues which may possibly occur in the milk are not effective.
Will these problems be investigated by this working group as well?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Olsson">
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like first of all to thank Commissioner Fischler for his replies.
They were, in my view, extremely comprehensive and, on certain points, quite satisfactory.
As far as the residues problem is concerned, I believe that we are, for the most part, in agreement.
I would also like to thank all of those Members who have made extremely positive contributions to this debate.
It appears that there is a large measure of understanding in Parliament with regard to what we are doing here.
<P>
I am, however, at the same time a little uneasy.
I would therefore like to put one question to the Commissioner.
The fact is, he said that a good animal environment may mean that we do not need to use antibiotics.
I have great respect for scientific research and share the Commissioner's view that we must have this, but the choice between having a good animal environment or making use of research is actually a political choice.
This question needs to be pursued both in Parliament and within the Commission.
Does the Commissioner not back this point of view?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Iversen">
Mr President, I wonder if the Commissioner would be so good as to answer the following question? If Sweden and Finland - and Denmark, too, where these matters have also been considered - wish to maintain a ban on antibiotics, will the Commission permit the EU Court of Justice to judge in these matters, or what exactly did you have in mind?
I have the impression that you not exactly enamoured with the idea of applying the precautionary principle.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, I shall deal first of all with the question raised by Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf. A definitive decision is currently being taken in this multi-disciplinary working group about all the subjects which can and should be dealt with.
The list of subjects is already extensive.
The identification of the factors involved in anti-microbial resistance is one of the questions which needs to be clarified.
It would be entirely appropriate to deal with your concern under this item.
I shall pass the point on to the relevant units in DG XXIV.
<P>
Secondly, our aim is not to have the European Court of Justice decide; rather, we want to have both the Swedish and the Finnish application evaluated by scientists in the first instance.
We should not pre-empt the result but wait to see what result emerges from this scientific evaluation.
<P>
Now, I will consider the question from Mr Olsson. I do not believe that this is really a matter in which research is necessary.
I believe that there is already a great deal of knowledge in relation to the conditions under which animals are kept.
It is more a matter of creating an economic environment which makes it possible for farmers to put these animal-friendly rearing methods into practice.
In my view, the truth is that the more species-appropriate a system of animal rearing, the lower the vets' bills are, although there are higher investment costs to be faced.
If we therefore provide for greater assistance to these methods of rearing compared with other methods in the context of our new Agenda, the incentive to switch to such methods will be greater.
However, insofar as additional research is necessary within the framework of the current research programmes, if appropriate projects are submitted by the Member States and by the different research bodies, there is, of course, nothing to prevent further investigations being carried out.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Fischler.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
Joint motion for a resolution on antibiotics in animal feed
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Audit of certain aspects of German reunification measures (Court of Auditors report)
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0144/98) by Mr Garriga Polledo, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the Court of Auditors' Special Report No 4/97 concerning the audit of certain aspects of German reunification measures involving EAGGF compensation payments and export refunds, together with the Commission's replies (C40348/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Fabra Vallés">
Mr President, Mr Garriga Polledo cannot be with us today for medical reasons, so he has authorized me to present his report on the Court of Auditors' Special Report, auditing certain aspects of German reunification, in relation to compensation payments and export refunds made during 1992.
<P>
The Court of Auditors' Special Report analyses the measures taken to integrate the agriculture of the former German Democratic Republic into the common agricultural policy in three sectors: the eradication of leucosis; export refunds in the beef and veal sector; and the reduction of milk production.
<P>
The Court of Auditors comes to the conclusion that there has been, firstly, a cumulation of subsidies in the three cases, although it does not quantify the amounts involved.
A simple example of this cumulation of subsidies is provided by analysing and listing the measures adopted in order to eradicate enzootic bovine leucosis (EBL).
<P>
Let us examine the refunds paid for beef export and the compensation granted for the reduction of milk production, as a consequence of applying the quota system.
The animal suffering from the disease is slaughtered and compensation is given.
Similarly, the slaughter of the animal is entered into the accounts as reduction of milk production, and payment is provided again, on this basis. Lastly, since the animal had not developed the disease and is considered fit for sale outside the EU - to prevent falling prices in the Community market - it is exported and another payment is made for export.
<P>
Mention is also made of irregularities in the leucosis eradication programme.
In the financial checks on the EBL eradication programme in the new Länder it was found that animals slaughtered prior to 1991 had been included in the programme, compensation claims had been submitted for animals which had not been slaughtered, double claims had been made for the same animal, and claims had been presented for animals slaughtered at the wrong time.
I would emphasize that the Commission has imposed the appropriate financial corrections.
<P>
In analysing the situation, Parliament's resolution of 4 April 1990 has to be kept in mind. This underlines the role the Commission should play to facilitate unification, and its participation in the expenditure for the reconstruction of the economy of the Federal Republic of Germany, so as to display solidarity with its people.
<P>
The Court of Auditors overlooks the political objective decided upon by Germany and approved by the Commission and the Council: to integrate the five new Länder into the Community.
That implies the full application of the common agricultural policy, retrospectively and with no transitional period, all of which should be done at the least possible cost to the Community and without disrupting the common market.
<P>
The market situation in the Federal Republic of Germany was serious, especially in the beef and veal sector.
The task was not at all easy, but there can only be one conclusion: the operation was a success.
And the leucosis eradication programmes have been investigated and the correct fines imposed. Also, financial corrections have been made for the exports and for certain irregularities.
<P>
As for the cumulation of subsidies, there is no objection to providing compensation for the slaughter of an animal and again for exporting its meat.
In the first case the aid goes to the owner and in the second, to the exporter.
The same is also true of counting the slaughter of the animal as reduction of milk production.
The allowances are intended for different purposes in the three cases.
By coincidence they are juxtaposed, but it is clear that each form of assistance has its own legal base and objective.
<P>
Finally, throughout the whole Court of Auditors' report the point of view is much too narrow.
Many specific considerations have not been taken into account, such as the absence of a transitional period and the retrospective nature of certain measures.
For all those reasons, Mr President, we must congratulate Germany and the European institutions, since the political objective has been achieved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wemheuer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today, on 15 May 1998, we are dealing with a historic event that took place over eight years ago: German unification.
This was and remains a historic event.
Let us deal with a quite minor side issue which came about only as a result of this situation.
We have often dealt with matters which took place long ago, but it only really makes sense to do so if there is a danger that the event with which we are dealing constantly recurs in a similar form because there is a failure in the system.
<P>
Such a danger does not exist in this case, according to the information from the Commission and the Court of Auditors, which we have discussed at great length and in considerable detail in committee.
The Court of Auditors itself has said, in response to a question from the chairman of our committee, that it is very improbable that a similar situation will arise again.
To that extent, the whole matter is of historical significance, even if the report itself does not fully attain the historical significance of German unification, without wishing to offend the rapporteur.
What we are dealing with is the past.
<P>
But I should like to offer a few observations, to the Court of Auditors rather than to the Commission. If you are dealing with this type of occurrence - and you cannot just sweep everything under the carpet because of the particular historic situation - you ought instead perhaps to complete the reports a little faster.
It is typical that we are only now dealing with it.
The reason is not that we were so slow, but that it took an infinite amount of time to progress from the first criticism of events, which cannot be denied, to a report from the Court of Auditors, and to the completion of this report and its submission to us.
That happens quite often, and that is why I really want to criticize this aspect alone.
<P>
If the Court of Auditors wants to make a sound contribution to our work, it must, like Parliament, have an interest in ensuring that our discussions take place as near to the time concerned as possible, so that justified criticism is not rejected with the argument that everything happened at some point in the past, and that it has all changed since then.
It is not always as easy, as in this case, to check whether everything really has changed since then.
<P>
I would like to thank the rapporteur, even though he is not here today, for the work that he has done.
Now we can all draw the same conclusions from it: if we had received the report somewhat sooner, we could have dealt with it sooner, and there might have been greater interest in it than there is today.
The report was unanimously approved in committee.
There are no amendments.
I would say that Mr Fabra Vallés has given us a thorough presentation of the facts of the matter, and we can only endorse that presentation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, I understand that Germany is a big net payer to the EU.
I quite understand that the Germans would like more out of the EU for their membership subscription.
It is natural that if eleven billion ecus of German money goes on the needs of others, they should wish to make a smaller contribution to the EU budget.
<P>
What I do not understand is why Germany is swindling the EU out of its money.
The basic contention by the Court of Auditors is that the same cows have been paid for twice over.
I think Mr Garriga Polledo is splitting hairs in his report.
He says that those who have received overlapping funds have not necessarily been the same people.
The main problem is that the same cows have been paid for twice over.
Policy has to be implemented under the terms of EU regulations.
<P>
It is still unclear to me whether leucosis-infected beef is being sold to Russia or other trade partners of the former GDR.
This has not been denied either in the Court of Auditors' report or in this one.
If it has been going on, which I doubt, it is an absolutely reprehensible matter.
I would have liked the report to enlighten me on this.
<P>
We know how, after the BSE slaughter, much meat at compensated prices was exported from Britain.
In Holland ten million pigs have died from swine fever, and in Germany one million.
I wonder what happened to the meat after the swine fever slaughter.
Did the Commission monitor the proper use of this meat?
I greatly appreciate Mr Fischler's work in this matter, and I will leave it up to him to explain what happened to the meat after the swine fever slaughter.
<P>
I do not understand how the report could have been accepted in its present unsatisfactory form.
The rapporteur does not know why Germany does not have to pay back the eleven million ecus demanded by the Commission, but only one million.
This ought to have been cleared up before the report was approved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, we should undoubtedly acknowledge that certain objectives which are listed in this balanced report have been achieved without major additional expenditure being incurred by the Community.
I should like to emphasize the fact that, in this case, the Community has made a welcome contribution to integrating agriculture in the new Länder into the structures of the common agricultural policy.
The fact that the Community has shared in the costs of re-structuring the economy of the GDR and has provided proof of its solidarity with the people of the GDR in this way is very much to be welcomed.
<P>
It is all the more regrettable that the report by the Court of Auditors also indicates certain tendencies towards mismanagement on the part of the Commission in this very delicate area.
In addition to considerable delays in controls and wrongly paid subsidies, individual assistance programmes were not even properly coordinated with one another.
The Court of Auditors thus complains in its report that farmers could have claimed three different subsidies for the slaughter of one of their animals, which would have made multiple payments possible.
<P>
Such cumulations of subsidies must be avoided at all costs in the future, particularly bearing in mind the massive organizational challenges which the Union will have to face in the near future.
How can citizens in the Member States otherwise be expected to gain confidence in the European Union in the face of the serious shortcomings that constantly occur?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to thank Mr Garriga Polledo sincerely for his report on the Court of Auditors' Special Report on the audit of certain aspects of German reunification measures in 1990 and 1991.
<P>
There is no need for me to emphasize how difficult and complex German reunification was in its entirety.
I am sure that there is no need either for me to emphasize that reunification was the only correct decision in this historically unique situation.
We had to integrate the new federal German Länder into Community law without a transitional period.
As far as the common agricultural policy in particular was concerned, the process was far from straightforward, as you can imagine.
I am grateful to Mr Garriga Polledo for his explicit recognition of this fact in his report.
<P>

In all, three measures were adopted for the integration of the former GDR: firstly, funding of the programme for the slaughter of cattle which were infected with enzootic bovine leucosis; secondly, the introduction of a regulation on the disposal of the meat through special export refunds, since this meat is quite suitable for human consumption; and thirdly, compensatory payment for the slaughter of animals to comply with the milk quota.
These measures fully accorded with Parliament's resolution on reunification in April 1990.
<P>
In its report, the Court of Auditors puts forward the view that there was a cumulation of subsidies and irregularities in the application of the programmes because the measures overlapped.
It also finds fault with the fact that there was no qualitative differentiation in the special export refunds.
However, it has to be borne in mind in this respect that the stock of East German cattle was simply too big for it to have been possible to comply with the milk quota regulation from the outset.
The stock was also partly affected by bovine leucosis.
The Commission had to get to grips with the difficult situation quickly, and implemented the three measures which I have mentioned.
Different assistance conditions applied in each case for the measures in question.
As a result, the number of animals affected was clearly not always the same, and similarly the number of those receiving assistance was not the same.
<P>
The fact that all three measures benefited some animals does not constitute a contravention of the provisions of Community law.
That is why, in the Commission's view, the Court of Auditors is totally unjustified in its conclusion that there was an inadmissible cumulation of subsidies.
As far as the irregularities are concerned - this also applies to point 5 of the draft resolution - the Commission has provided for a financial correction for Germany in the sum of DM 6.9 million after considering all the available data.
The Commission is currently in the process of collecting this amount from the German government and in December 1997 it deducted half of the amount - to be specific, DM 3.4 million - from payments for the eradication plan for 1996.
The other half will be deducted in the same way in the second half of 1998 from payments for the eradication plan for 1997.
<P>
As regards the failure to differentiate qualitatively in the export refunds, the Commission points out that healthy and normal commercial quality is the only available criterion for export refunds, so that there was no case for any more detailed differentiation.
I am glad that the rapporteur largely supports most of the Commission's arguments, particularly in relation to the cumulation mentioned by the Court of Auditors, and that he has endorsed them.
<P>
In order to prevent delays in on-the-spot financial controls in the framework of the EBL eradication plans, the Commission immediately introduced special controls after learning of possible irregularities in this area.
Unfortunately, the Commission has at its disposal only limited resources for on-the-spot controls from programmes which are cofinanced.
However, it has set itself ambitious objectives in this area.
I should also like to add that systematic administrative controls are being constantly carried out, particularly by comparing technical reports from the Member States with the final financial reports.
<P>
In conclusion, I should like to offer the rapporteur my sincere thanks for his acknowledgement of the problems which the Commission had to overcome in this difficult situation in connection with the integration of the former GDR into the common agricultural policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Combined heat and power
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0145/98) by Mrs Estevan Bolea, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on a Community strategy to promote combined heat and power (CHP) and to dismantle barriers to its development (COM(97)0514 - C4-0596/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="Estevan Bolea">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, cogeneration is the simultaneous production of electricity and heat, or electricity and steam, and I think it is very important for the problems we constantly address in this Parliament, such as the pollution of the atmosphere, which is the most fragile of the ecosystems which form our planet Earth and our life upon it.
<P>
Cogeneration allows a lot of energy to be saved, and I want to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that the cleanest energy of all is the energy which is not used.
So Europe has to move towards using more cogeneration.
<P>
This technique has been used for many years.
The paper industry has been using cogeneration for more than 50 years.
What has changed now is the technology.
We now have greatly improved technologies, with higher efficiencies, which is why we can say we should greatly promote cogeneration.
<P>
Furthermore, in the European Union we are trying to promote the use of gas for many reasons.
For example, it is a cleaner technology than coal or oil. Also, we have to buy gas from the new producers, such as Russia, Azerbaijan or the United Arab Emirates, because the world contains large reserves, and the efficiency is higher.
<P>
At the moment, cogeneration accounts for 9 % in the EU.
In its communication, the Commission says it would like to achieve 18 % within a few years, in about 2005.
That is not an easy matter, ladies and gentlemen.
We have to remove the barriers.
And if cogeneration has so many advantages - such as high energy efficiency, less pollution, and energy savings - why is it not more highly developed?
Well, because nothing is easy in today's complex world of globalization, economic development and the liberalization of the electricity and energy markets, so we shall have to see how we can promote all of this.
<P>
There are a lot of auto-producers, but the electricity companies are also powerful. So what is the key to the whole situation?
As always, ladies and gentlemen, the key lies in the prices.
In previous years, in order to promote these technologies - which, as I say, offer every advantage and hardly any disadvantages - those kilowatt-hours fetched a very high price, an aboveaverage price.
But obviously, the electricity companies have their plants, and they cannot be paralysed so that we can just use the energy from the auto-producers.
<P>
So I want to draw your attention to paragraph 8 of the resolution in my report, where it says two things I think are very important.
Firstly, Mr President, it says that in the liberalized electricity markets, electricity produced in these industrial installations should be given priority but, at the same time, it also says that this should be at market price, not subsidized, because we are already subsidizing national coal, renewable energies and other aspects of the components of electricity prices.
So the auto-producers, who use cogeneration, will have to compete in the markets.
<P>
We have just approved the directive on gas liberalization, during the last sitting, in Brussels.
The electricity market has also been liberalized.
And the auto-producers will have to function within that market.
<P>
Energy from gas is a clean form of energy - though not to the same extent as hydraulic energy, for example, or other renewable forms such as wind energy - and we need the Commission to provide a stimulus.
We also need that for renewable energies.
The Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy approved all the amendments which were tabled, Mr President, apart from one.
That was one which Miss Ahern retabled, and I am not going to support it because it is unrealistic.
We can wish for anything we like.
But if it is out of step with physical reality, it will not make much sense.
So I am not going to support the Green group's amendment to paragraph 11, but I am going to support the rest of the amendments.
<P>
I also want to say that one of the advantages of cogeneration is very important: the desalination of seawater.
The electricity companies already get high efficiency from gas using combined cycles, which is the second part of cogeneration, but we should make use of gas and these techniques to desalinate seawater.
This represents a great technological market for the EU. The whole of the Mediterranean and the world will need water, which will be the big problem of the twenty-first century.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Elchlepp">
Mr President, my group also very much welcomes the Commission's intention to provide greater assistance to combined heat and power.
The technology has, after all, long been well known, although for a long time it was deployed only as emergency unit technology in hospitals etcetera.
Far too little use has been made of it in the area of town planning and local authority development plans, and in this context it still runs up against obstacles because of certain minimum running times.
<P>
However, the advantages are obvious.
Alongside the necessary demand for renewable energy, this is a very good contribution towards the better achievement of Kyoto's political energy targets.
It has rightly been said that combined heat and power is sensible because it leads to better utilization of primary energy and to a reduction in atmospheric pollution.
Above all, it offers interesting new possibilities for combination with bio-mass utilization in agriculture and industry, and particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises.
It holds out very interesting prospects of reducing the burden of energy costs on small and medium-sized enterprises and of contributing towards self-sufficiency in energy supply in Third World countries as well.
<P>
I should also like to stress that there are very interesting models for the better use of agricultural waste, mainly in winegrowing, in a combined technology of bio-mass utilization and combined heat and power.
<P>
I am glad that it has now been possible to reach agreement on the fact that the operators of CHP plants will be recognized as qualified generators of electricity.
I must say to my colleagues in the PPE that I regret the fact that you rejected such recognition a little while ago in the case of the gas directive when it was a question of putting it on a proper legal basis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, the Commission's announcement on the promotion of a combined heat and power industry in the EU area is an important step forward for energy policy.
I would like to thank the rapporteur of the Parliamentary report, Mrs Estevan Bolea, for her work in producing it.
The added benefit of combined production is that it gets us much closer to the aims set out in Kyoto.
Thus, the time has at last come when we can raise the strategic profile of this issue at EU level, especially as we cannot afford to let slip away any means we have available to us to reduce and eventually rid ourselves of the damage caused by the greenhouse phenomenon.
<P>
The growth of the use of the combined system is still being hampered by the reluctance of the electricity market to open up.
Producers of electricity can still restrict the number of new players entering the market.
This makes many otherwise commercially viable projects unprofitable.
Furthermore, producers of combined heat and power of any size must have the right to gas in a free market.
Free access to gas is a key factor in profitability when it comes to constructing private or smallscale power stations.
<P>
Combined production of heat and power can be fuelled by coal, gas or using biomass.
The Union should, however, try to promote the idea in its entirety and provide it with a market where decisions could be made as to what might be the most competitively-priced fuel.
The method is said to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by raising the overall efficiency of the power plant.
It must be remembered that that will happen especially if and when renewable carbon dioxide-free biomass is used.
I am afraid the lobbying of gas as a fuel will not be enough, especially as the directive on gas expresses the desire to restrict the entry of small plants into the market.
<P>
The combined production of heat and power has been a feature of industry for over fifty years.
Today it is found, at least to some extent, everywhere in the EU. However, it is only in Finland, the Netherlands and Denmark that it accounts for more than 30 % of all electricity produced.
Its promotion is tightly bound up with the national aims of different Member States.
Despite this, we also need input both at Community level and from industry.
As it says in the report, the combined production of heat and power provides a strategy whereby, in the short or medium term, we can promote the effective use of energy in the EU both significantly and cost-effectively, and have a positive impact on EU environmental policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, in the EU area we can discern certain mega-trends in the field of energy.
Firstly, the demand for energy is growing by around 1 % per year.
That means that gas emissions will increase if nothing is done about it.
Secondly, the EU's level of self-sufficiency in energy will have gone down from the present figure of 70 % to around 30 % by the year 2020.
Thirdly, electricity accounts for 40 % of all energy produced, and that figure is rising.
Fourthly, it is realistic to suppose that the use of gas, and specifically imported gas, will increase rapidly.
<P>
All these large-scale trends can be influenced positively by increasing the combined production of heat and power.
It will improve the efficiency of energy usage in EU countries, it will save on energy resources, it will reduce gas emissions and it will lessen the growing dependence on imported energy.
<P>
The production of energy, however, is not the affair of the EU.
It is mainly up to the Member States, which may derive support from the Commission.
The support has so far been modest and that has been mentioned in publications and speeches.
The CARNOT programme, which aims at improved fuel efficiency, simply does not have the resources, and there are even fewer to spread the word on the combined production of heat and power.
The EU is no more than a paper tiger in this matter; the responsibility lies with Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Weber">
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kronberger">
Mr President, we have reached the end of a century in which we have squandered more energy resources than in the entire previous history of mankind.
War has been waged, and is still waged over these resources.
Even today there can be no mistaking the consequences for the environment.
It is high time that we radically re-structured our entire energy system.
Success in this endeavour will assuredly be one of the central issues for the next century.
At present Europe is dependent on other countries for 50 % of its energy, a state of affairs which presents a problem not only in ecological and social terms, but also in terms of peace policy.
<P>
That is why the development of combined heat and power systems is an essential step in the right direction towards energy self-sufficiency in the European Union.
However, the efficiency of these measures in terms of energy policy will become really effective only if importance is attached in this development to giving priority to renewable sources of energy over fossil fuels, with the eventual aim of full substitution.
This would have to be guaranteed above all by fiscal incentives and fair access to the electricity market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, Commissioner Fischler, ladies and gentlemen, yesterday we dealt with an urgent motion in relation to energy policy here, and we tackled safety issues in the area of nuclear power.
We all know that the acquis communautaire must be applied in the internal market, so that the decision on whether to operate nuclear power stations is a matter for each Member State itself.
<P>
However, I consider it important that the European Parliament should repeatedly stress safety and should above all focus on its commitment to alternative forms of energy in relation to energy generation.
We believe that energy generation in the future is a very special issue to which we must pay a great deal more attention.
This also includes combined heat and power.
I should like to thank Mrs Estevan Bolea most sincerely for her report which points out very clearly how important production is in this area, as well as use in power stations for heating.
I believe that entirely new dimensions are possible in this area.
<P>
The prospects of increasing from 9 % to 18 %, in other words of doubling the present contribution of combined heat and power to the Community's overall energy generation gives me confidence as far as the economical and appropriate use of our resources is concerned.
That is why I have to support the course pursued by the Commission in the White Paper "Energy policy for the European Union' .
<P>
For some time there has also been an intensive liberalization of the internal market for electricity.
We have had not only the internal market for energy but also a liberalized gas market for a few days.
Combining these two areas with each other naturally opens up entirely new possibilities.
This framework creates largely free access to the market and welcome competition. This competition means numerous advantages for the economy.
I believe that, as a result, Europe can be significantly more competitive on the international stage and that, as a result, there is the opportunity to create many new jobs, but in the process, special status must be accorded to combined heat and power.
<P>
It is in particular the combination of electrical energy and heat, which occurs in the case of combustion in engines, that has the advantage of double use and thus a very high energy output.
That is why the distribution companies should also accept this form of energy as a matter of preference, and I consider this passage in the report to be of special importance.
Combined heat and power guarantees efficient and ecological energy generation.
Whatever economic, legal or administrative obstacles stand in the way of its development should be removed as quickly as possible to ensure that it occupies a fitting place and acquires a sufficient market share in the internal market.
<P>
But I must not forget to stress that renewable energies overall and energy saving are a quite central issue and are an entirely new opportunity for Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to express my gratitude to the rapporteur, Mrs Estevan Bolea, for the important contribution which she has made to the discussion on the Commission communication which is the subject of this debate.
<P>
Global climatic changes present us with new and comprehensive political challenges.
In Kyoto in December 1997, as several speakers have rightly mentioned, agreement was reached on intensifying our commitment in this area by laying down quantified targets for emission reductions.
The European Union committed itself to achieving an 8 % reduction in the emission of greenhouse gases by the period 2008-2012 in relation to the 1990 level.
If this target is to be reached, the Community will have to exhaust all the possibilities which are available to it.
Combined heat and power is one of the possibilities for improving energy efficiency and thus reducing emissions.
<P>
However, only limited use has so far been made of CHP's potential for electricity generation in Europe.
Currently, combined heat and power holds a share of only 9 % of overall gross electricity generation.
The Commission has proposed a doubling of this share by 2010.
If the Community truly intends to achieve this target, the strategy presented in the Commission's communication is of the greatest significance.
The internal markets for electricity and for gas are on the threshold of being fully realized.
The European Parliament has made valuable contributions to this.
<P>
Overall it can be expected that liberalization will have a positive impact on combined heat and power, although certain problems can arise for the operators of plants which work according to the principle of combined heat and power, as a result of increased competition and the accompanying lower electricity prices.
That is why it will be absolutely necessary in the years to come to monitor closely the consequences of the competition rules applicable to the energy markets and, where necessary, to introduce appropriate measures.
<P>
The Commission is pleased that the rapporteur agrees with the proposal to lay down a provisional target.
This is one of the main elements of the CHP strategy.
There is scope to discuss the exact value.
What matters to the Commission is to have a target that is both ambitious and realistic.
The idea of raising the target by the year 2010 not to 18 %, in other words a doubling, as proposed by the Commission, but to 25 % seems to us to be too ambitious.
<P>
I am also pleased to be able to confirm that the rapporteur agrees with the Commission on the need for CHP to be assisted while fully upholding the principles of the internal market.
In this connection, there is a range of different instruments and procedures which can assist CHP without leading to distortions in competition.
<P>
As regards the amendment which has been tabled, I would like to point out that energy efficiency and assistance to renewable energies are priorities in the proposed regional funds regulation.
The definition of these priorities for Objective 1 areas and for the measures to be implemented there is, however, a task for the Member States who have to submit their detailed proposals to the Commission, and not vice versa.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, Parliament has completed its agenda.
Today's Minutes will be submitted for Parliament's approval at the start of the next sitting.
<P>
Before drawing our work to a close, it is my pleasant duty to thank Parliament's services - the ushers, the interpreters, Parliament's secretariat and the translation and publication services, who work at a slightly greater distance from us - for their help and hard work.
<P>
Without a shadow of a doubt, ladies and gentlemen, it is no exaggeration to say that the two sittings we have had this month, in Brussels and here, have been historic sittings.
We have opened the door to the single currency with a large majority and, again with a large majority, we have approved the executive board of the European Central Bank.
The importance of that is not lost on anybody.
As our President, Mr José María Gil-Robles Gil-Delgado said so succinctly, from now on the citizens of Europe will carry Europe in their pockets, and we all know how important that is.
However, ladies and gentlemen, although that is important we do not think it is enough.
We must ensure that the people of Europe carry Europe in their hearts too, and to do that, ladies and gentlemen, we have to carry on working together with wide majorities so that they are not disappointed in their hopes of democratic participation and social justice.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, I am sure we shall continue to work along those lines. So I bid you farewell, and wish you a pleasant and well-deserved weekend.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="President">
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 12.00 noon)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 15 May 1998.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Tribute
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, it is with profound emotion that I have to honour the memory of our colleague Francisco Lucas Pires.
Professor Lucas Pires had been a member of our Parliament since Portugal joined the European Union and was twice its Vice-President. He brought a brilliant and cultivated mind to the ideal of European construction, and enriched our Parliamentary debates by contributing the historical experience of one of the oldest European nations.
<P>
The example of Francisco Lucas Pires, whose last public act was to open the European Union pavilion at 'Expo 98' , will remain with us as a model of European citizenship, and as a man deeply committed to his country's causes, but always able to understand and defend the imperatives of European construction.
<P>
The flag of the European Union is being flown at half-mast in his honour.
I would ask you to observe a minute's silence in his memory.
<P>
(The House rose and observed a minute's silence)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
The Minutes of Friday, 15 May 1998 have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, I would just like to have recorded in the minutes that during our last week in Strasbourg the French police did a splendid job of guarding the European Parliament, and that they were visibly present in the proximity of the Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, the employees of the company Air France have announced that they will be on strike for two weeks, starting from next Monday.
If this strike takes place, we MEPs will not be able to get to Strasbourg for the next part-session.
Has the Presidency taken any precautionary measures, in view of this possibility?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
Mr Medina Ortega, all I can do is constantly remind the French authorities of the regrettable state of transport provisions to Strasbourg. I am doing this, and last week I spoke to the minister concerned.
Of course, in view of the strike announcement, I will contact him again, and ask him to take the necessary special measures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Banotti">
Mr President, I am sure that you are going to mention it and I am sure colleagues will share our joy in Ireland at the ratification of both our referenda.
<P>
(Loud applause) It was a stunning victory for the Belfast Agreement, a slightly less stunning but nonetheless sixty percent victory for the Amsterdam referendum and we hope now that we will see a similar result in Denmark in the next couple of days.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
Mrs Banotti, you expressed it much better than I could have.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I refer to Annex V of the Rules of Procedure, Article 1(1)(b). This deals with the reproduction and distribution of reports from the Court of Auditors.
Let us remind ourselves of the Treaty of Amsterdam. It frequently refers to transparency but in the last few days I have had to ask myself what the actual state of transparency and openness is here in our House!
Firstly, it is absolutely preposterous that an official interim report from the Court of Auditors on the reimbursements and allowances of Members of the European Parliament has been available to the President for about a month, according to our information, that it has been available to the Bureau since 13 May, but that not all the groups have been informed. Moreover, Members of this House have not received this important document, and have had to obtain details from the press!
<P>
I have to tell you that I think that both the President and the Bureau have behaved in a really irresponsible way in this matter and that such behaviour leads to mistrust on our part.
<P>
(Heckling from Mr Wijsenbeek) We call for the immediate publication of the report, both internally and externally, and demand information on whether there are further reports or whether there is an annex, for example.
<P>
Secondly, it is completely unacceptable - would you please shut up, Mr Wijsenbeek - if a subject which affects all members of all groups is discussed and decided upon by the EDU behind closed doors and excluding our group, the ARE Group.
Our Secretary General was expelled from the room this morning. That is why we are calling for a special session of the Presidents' Conference because it is inadmissible that such decisions, such debates whose scope really affects each and every one of us should be handled in a body on which all of the groups in this House are not represented!
<P>
(Applause) Thirdly, our strongest criticism is directed at the way in which necessary reforms which have long been called for are being systematically delayed and obstructed in this House, reforms which are desperately needed if the European Parliament wants to be credible, if it wants to be accepted, if it wants to seek more rights for itself.
<P>
(Noise) The report from the Court of Auditors tackles precisely these shortcomings...
<P>
(The President cut off the speaker)
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
Mrs Roth, when you quote an article, you must read it first.
The article you invoke states that the Court of Auditors' special reports must be printed and distributed, together with the replies from the institutions.
The document you are referring to is not a report, but consists of preliminary observations.
So this Parliament's Bureau, which is the competent body, has not yet issued its replies.
<P>
Secondly, Mrs Roth, all the political groups received a copy of the document yesterday.
Those preliminary observations have been sent to all the political groups.
So if you want to communicate them to the members of your group, you can of course do so, just like any of the other group chairmen. It is up to you.
It has not been kept secret: it is in your hands.
What I cannot do is give out a confidential document, which has to be examined by the Bureau, before the Bureau has seen it.
The VicePresidents have to see it first, which is what has happened.
Read the Rules of Procedure - not what the Green Group wants to read, but what the Rules of Procedure actually say.
And if you want to change them, then do so through the appropriate channels.
Unless they are changed, I do what they say.
<P>
Mr Brinkhorst, are you going to comment on the Minutes?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Mr President, to react to what you were just saying: I understand that the Bureau would like to discuss this but I believe that we have a right to know soon what is happening.
The press is constantly attacking us in Germany, the Netherlands and in other countries.
So from that point of view I hope you have some understanding that there is a concern about these issues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
I appreciate what you say, but my first obligation is to apply the Rules of Procedure.
In accordance with those rules, I first forwarded the observations - which, I repeat, do not constitute a report - to the Bureau, which is the body responsible for such matters. Secondly, when there were questions about that report, it was given to all the political groups.
So, the report will be printed and distributed once it is in its final form, not in its current provisional form.
Speak to your group chairman, who will give it to you.
<P>
Mr Wijsenbeek requests the floor, to reply to personal statements.
What statements are you referring to, Mr Wijsenbeek?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, I should like to make a statement pursuant to Rule 108 on grounds of personal remarks:
<P>
If we are talking here about people shutting their mouths, we all know whose mouth is always open and who arouses suspicions in respect of hard-working and honest colleagues because the Greens would like to base their election campaign on these suspicions, and that is why I open my mouth.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Agenda
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="President">
I would remind you that in our sitting of 12 May, Parliament decided that the report (A4-0188/98) by Mr Marset Campos, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the rules for the participation of undertakings, research centres and universities in the implementation of the Fifth Framework Programme, would be included as the last item of today's agenda.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="De Melo">
Mr President, it appears to me that a communication from the Commission on some urgent and very important political issues has been cancelled.
I would like to ask a question.
In view of recent events in Indonesia, there is an urgent need for the situation of all political prisoners to be dealt with here, especially Timoreans and their political leader, Xanana Gusmão.
My question, Mr President, is: has this subject - the first one on the agenda - been cancelled or postponed until a more convenient date?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
It is indeed postponed to another day, because at this time the Commission prefers to make its statement on urgent matters relating to the preparations for the European Council meeting in Cardiff on 15 and 16 June.
So, if there are no further comments, we shall approve the amendment to the agenda and proceed to debate that matter.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Preparation for the European Council meeting in Cardiff
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="President">
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on preparation for the European Council meeting in Cardiff on 15 and 16 June 1998.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Cook">
Mr President, at the start of my address may I say that I should offer my apologies if what I have to say about Cardiff is not as interesting or as exciting as the points of order you have just heard.
I regard it as a privilege to be able to listen in to such an exciting and robust exchange of views.
It is a tribute to the health of democracy in our continent.
<P>
I am here this afternoon because in just two weeks' time the European Council will meet in Cardiff. This will mark the culmination of our presidency.
We have sought to use the presidency to demonstrate the changed approach of Britain towards the European Union.
The government of Britain came to power determined to show that Britain was now a committed and constructive partner within the European Union.
I believe that our presidency has underlined our success in making that transformation of Britain's approach to Europe.
<P>
Two of our key priorities were to get enlargement off to a flying start and to get the third stage of Economic and Monetary Union under way.
Both of those key priorities have already been achieved.
I suppose that prompts the question whether there is enough left for us to do at Cardiff to avoid the summit of our presidency being an anticlimax to the achievements that have already marked the historic milestones of our presidency.
I am pleased to say to the European Parliament that there will be full, busy and important agendas before us at the European Council in Cardiff.
In the course of the summit we will examine economic reform, Agenda 2000 and the future of the European project.
We will also explore some of the ways Europe can make a difference in the areas that directly affect our people: on crime and on the environment.
We will also at that summit welcome - and welcome for the last time - President Mandela who will be joining the Heads of Europe for lunch on the second day of the summit.
At his request we are meeting with him in order that before he leaves office he may say farewell to the leaders of Europe who have worked so closely in partnership with his leadership of South Africa to achieve one of the major gains for democracy and ethnic tolerance that we have seen in our generation.
<P>
Before we get to that point in the Council we will have completed a large amount of business.
Let me start with the issue of economic reform.
We came to the presidency determined that throughout our presidency jobs would be a key theme and a high priority.
At Cardiff we will be completing much of the work that we have been putting in place over the past five months.
We will be reviewing the progress that Member States have been making on the single market and will be agreeing to further actions to help take us towards an effective, competitive economy which includes within it an inclusive society in which everybody has the opportunity to contribute and participate through work.
<P>
We also plan discussion of the competitiveness agenda.
If Europe is to prosper in the long term we need to create an environment in which small and medium-sized enterprises can flourish.
They need to be able to have access to the finance that will enable them to flourish.
They need to be free from unnecessary red tape.
Europe has no shortage of creativity and imagination.
We must provide the opportunity for that creativity and imagination to express itself through entrepreneurship which will bring Europe prosperity and jobs.
<P>
Also we will be reviewing the employment action plans drawn up by Member States since the special Luxembourg Council.
This will be the first European Council to have in front of it action plans from every Member State on how they intend to promote employment and to reduce unemployment.
We will want to see what conclusions and lessons can be learned from those plans.
We want to make sure that every Member State can share the best practice of other Member States on their policies on employability, adaptable labour markets and on equal opportunities in the marketplace.
There are, of course, difficult policy questions raised by those action plans: questions on how we reform our tax and welfare systems so that it pays to work and how we can make it possible for women to combine work with family.
If we are to get it right, we need to make sure that we share the best practice in each of those areas.
<P>
The European Council in Cardiff will also give high priority to an interim discussion on the Agenda 2000 issues: reform of the Structural Funds and reform of the common agricultural policy; on discipline in our budget procedures and on how we adapt the European Union so that we ourselves are prepared for the enlargement for which so many aspiring candidates are now preparing their economies and their societies.
Since the Commission published its detailed proposals on Agenda 2000 in March, as the presidency, we have set up an intensive work programme to carry forward discussion on the Commission proposals.
<P>
Ministers throughout a number of the Council meetings have reviewed that work and have discussed how they relate to each other.
At the General Affairs Council only two days ago we had a two-hour discussion on the presidency's report of the work in progress on Agenda 2000 and that extensive discussion, in which every Member State took part, will be of great value to the presidency in preparing a text for the European Council which can provide authority and direction to both Commission and Council officials in carrying forward the Agenda 2000.
We are very mindful that the European Parliament would like to see decisions taken on these matters before the next elections to the European Parliament.
It would be our aim to achieve successful conclusions at Cardiff consistent with a timetable which would enable a special European Council in the spring of 1999 to reach final decisions on Agenda 2000.
<P>
I would also stress that a key theme of Cardiff will be to demonstrate how, throughout our presidency, we have sought to make Europe work for the people, to make sure we focus on issues that our people care about and the issues that affect them directly.
If the European summit is a success, it will only be so because the people watching what the Heads of Government perceive that what they are talking about and what they are deciding has relevance to their lives.
We must not portray an image of the European Council meeting to discuss matters that are only of concern to top politicians.
They must be seen to take forward an agenda that is relevant to the concerns and the lives of the ordinary families of Europe.
<P>
There are two particular issues on which we will be focusing attention at Cardiff: improving the environment and fighting crime.
The joint Transport and Environmental Council meeting which we held in April - the first such joint meeting between environment and transport in the history of the Union - showed how we can integrate environmental concerns into the development of other European policies.
At Cardiff the Council will discuss a Commission report on how we can make sure that precedent of bringing together environmental strategy with transport policy becomes the norm across the work of the European Union and not the exception.
<P>
The Council will also discuss the progress we have made in fighting crime together, in particular in the work we are now carrying out through the European Conference with all the applicant countries to make sure that existing Member States and future Member States work together now - not after they become members of the European Union, but now - on the common problems of cross-border trafficking in crime which affect both the existing members and the future members.
<P>
So, there will be a busy agenda for Cardiff.
There will be a lot of ground to cover and I hope I have demonstrated that much of the agenda will be on practical, specific measures which demonstrate to our peoples that real progress is being made.
But, while we take forward that practical agenda, it is important that we also keep in front of us the vision of the kind of Europe we are trying to create.
Having brought together all the heads of government of Europe, it seems only right that we should find space in that crowded agenda for them to address the question of what kind of Europe we are trying to build.
And that is why at this European Council, unlike most recent European Councils, at the lunch for heads of government they will have an open discussion on the type of Europe we want to see for the next century and what its model might be; on what more we need to do to create a Europe which can function and function well with 26 members as opposed to the 6 members with which Europe started.
And, in particular, how do we take forward those institutional issues which were not completed at Amsterdam but which are necessary if we are to reform the structures and the decision-making processes of Europe in order to make it fit for the new larger Europe which we will see in the first decade of the next century.
<P>
That is an exciting task.
I do not think that many people in our own countries have yet grasped the immense historic step which enlargement represents for Europe.
Very few of our own people yet understand that sometime over the next ten years we will see a Europe which will stretch from Portugal to Poland, from Scotland to Sicily, a Europe which will be almost half as large again in land area and a third larger in terms of population and in terms of consumers within the single market.
That is a tremendous quantum leap for Europe.
That is why it is right that when we meet in Cardiff we should find space to reflect on what that means for Europe and what type of Europe and model for Europe we can best offer that will meet the continuing vision of those who are present members and the hungry aspiration of the new members to join in the democratic family of nations we have built.
If we have a successful discussion on that theme we will have an agenda for Cardiff with the right balance between practical, detailed progress and visionary discussion about the model of Europe for the future.
I look forward this afternoon to hearing the input of the European Parliament as to how we can take both those parts of the agenda forward at Cardiff.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Santer">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, Members of this House, this afternoon, with an eye towards the forthcoming European Council in Cardiff, I would like to conduct a brief survey of the current state of European integration and also raise the major political topics to be tackled at the summit in Cardiff, before outlining a few avenues we might explore for the future.
<P>
First of all, my message to you today is one of optimism.
It seems to me, as we approach the Council meeting in Cardiff, that a wind of success and progress is blowing through the Union, stirred by the imminent introduction of the euro and Economic and Monetary Union.
Again, as the Cardiff meeting approaches, it seems to me that confidence is being restored and is growing; in effect, the macroeconomic balance sheet is healthy and forward-looking, interest rates are down, inflation is minimal, public expenditure is under tight control, the upsurge is making itself felt in many sectors, economic reform on the supply side is beginning to produce results and the first signs of drop in unemployment are beginning to make themselves felt.
<P>
Add to that the fact that the Treaty of Amsterdam should be ratified shortly, that the detailed proposals we submitted within the framework of Agenda 2000 are now at the negotiating table and that enlargement is under way.
Is this not proof positive that the European Union is up and running, that it abides by its commitments, that it keeps to its deadlines and that it is on the right track?
Mr President, I am delighted that this programme submitted by the Commission should now be under scrutiny.
<P>
In close cooperation with the Parliament and successive presidencies of the Union - I will take this opportunity to thank the British presidency for having devoted so much effort - our institutions are now performing their motivating function to the full in this powerful movement towards increased integration.
The political message that Europe would like today to send out to the rest of the world is crystal clear: it can take action and is taking action.
From a political standpoint, we should seize the day.
<P>
But there is one item that seems to me to be even more important: in truth, I detect an increasing political consensus, both here and in the Member States, concerning the resources required to tackle the remaining structural problems.
The national employment plans, approved by the European Council in Luxembourg, are especially important in this context.
These alone bear witness to a wealth of exciting ideas, the convergence of policies to combat unemployment constructed around common guidelines, and joint mobilization with social partners.
<P>
I also sense the existence of a common political will to bring the domestic market swiftly to a successful conclusion, in accordance with our plan of action in favour of the single market.
I am also especially pleased to note that the incorporation of Community regulations is improving and deservedly so.
<P>
I note too that we all feel the need for a more enterprising Union, a Union able to take new technologies and ideas on board and to expand upon them within the Union: able to help small enterprises take off, grow and prosper and capable too of eliminating red tape and allowing our creative talents to flourish; able, finally, to take job creation and rising prosperity in its stride.
These subjects will certainly be uppermost in the minds of those in Cardiff.
<P>
To conclude, I also feel that the majority of us are aware that we could do better in terms of justice with regard to domestic matters and the CFSP; we simply need to establish the necessary collective political will.
<P>
The debates planned for Cardiff will address the matter of economic reform, Agenda 2000, enlargement and our external priorities.
We will also have the opportunity to speak about the environment, in particular the way in which we might incorporate environmental issues when drawing up other Community policies.
All our institutions should swiftly build upon the progress already made towards achieving this objective.
I assume, too, that this touches upon the question of progress made by the Community and Member States towards fulfilling the commitments they have made under the terms of the Kyoto protocol with regard to reducing gases generated by the greenhouse effect.
<P>
In addition, I am extremely glad that time has been set aside for a debate on the future direction and development of the European Union, the challenges it must face, the need to gain the trust of our people and the vision we need to attain that goal.
<P>
The debate on economic reform will span the entire range of policies needed to reinforce and maximize the advantages of Economic and Monetary Union.
Obviously, the aim is to further employment prospects through increased competitiveness and social cohesion in a stable macroeconomic environment.
Amongst other subjects, our discussions will also focus on the approval of our major economic policy guidelines with a view to rounding off this excellent procedure by intensifying microeconomic control for closer monitoring of the extent of integration of products, services and capital markets throughout the Union, in order to boost the gains of a single currency.
<P>
The European Council will also examine progress made in terms of national plans of action to promote jobs.
Of course, we are still at an intermediate stage, but I am impressed by the determination of all our Member States to get the process off the ground.
In Cardiff, we will brush up on the main topics that emerge today: increasing the capability for vocational integration, promoting equality of opportunity, improving the adaptability of job markets, creating a favourable climate for the development and growth of the spirit of enterprise, especially with respect to small companies.
This constructive process will give rise to a mutual, multilateral development and communal emulation through peer pressure.
<P>
Between now and the meeting in Vienna under the Austrian presidency, we have four stages to work through in order to improve employment strategy.
In effect, from the outset, we must define common indicators and a specific terminology.
Secondly, we must encourage the Member States to incorporate their job action plans in their national budget.
Thirdly, we must bolster cooperation and implementation with our social partners and, finally, establish links between the national plans of action for jobs and the projects financed by the European Social Fund.
<P>
On 18 March last, the Commission submitted its legislative proposals for Agenda 2000.
This autumn, those proposals will be accompanied by a report on the operation of the own-resources system.
All the individual elements will then be examined together to reach a decision regarding all of these measures with full knowledge of the facts, since we require legislative decisions before the new European Parliament is elected.
Furthermore, we should seek practical methods enabling the Parliament to perform its function fully, as it did last time, within the tight schedule imposed on us.
The initial intensive negotiations, under the British presidency, have already begun.
<P>
The various opinions I have heard strengthen my conviction that our basket of measures is fair and balanced.
In Cardiff, we will take note of the progress achieved.
Either the agreement is absolute, or there will be no agreement.
However, I hope that we will be able to record the existence of a significant convergence of views in several areas: the need to intensify reforms of the common agricultural policy, the need to reform the Structural Funds based on the concentration, simplification and clear demarcation of responsibilities; substantial pre-accession provisions in the agricultural, structural intervention, investment aid and administrative aid sectors, inculcating a sense of community spirit amongst all the candidates; a balanced financial framework to finance the reforms and pre-accession assistance, within the budgetary discipline and leaving a sufficient margin to finance the first new membership wave; finally, we need to negotiate a new interinstitutional agreement based on the same fruitful cooperation that governed relations between the two budgetary bodies during the last period.
<P>
If we find that we can proceed on this basis, we should be able to take major steps forward during the course of the year.
I hope that the European Council will take on this commitment in Cardiff and will set a timetable for the entire process.
In Cardiff, we shall assess the considerable progress made in the implementation of the Luxembourg conclusions regarding enlargement.
Since the last European Council, the overall enlargement process has taken off successfully.
The European Conference met in London on 12 March, thereby officially opening a forum seeking to bring together the Member States of the European Union and those European States wishing to secure membership and sharing internal and external values and goals.
<P>
The European Commission regrets that Turkey has still not confirmed its intention to take part in this Conference and hopes that that country, a most important partner, will be in a position to decide that it can participate in the near future in the work in progress in this context.
<P>
Aside from this, eleven candidate countries have committed themselves to the accession process and negotiations have already begun with six of them.
We believe that a major breakthrough has been made through development of the accession partnership with the ten candidate countries from central and eastern Europe.
As with the national strategies deployed in those countries, the accession partnerships have opened the way to successful future negotiations and, hopefully, their eventual integration in the European Union.
<P>
In Cardiff, the European Council will also take account of the many events that have taken place during the last six months externally.
I shall confine myself here to summarizing the encouraging result obtained during the last summit between the European Union and the United States of America on 18 May last, in London.
The political agreement concluded at the highest level will enable us to settle the trade conflict generated by the Helms-Burton and d'Amato Acts.
We hope that the commitments undertaken by the government of the United States will be fully endorsed by the Congress.
<P>
Mr President, when I announced my 'Less action, but better action' policy at the beginning of my mandate as President of the Commission, I intended to make it a broad guideline for our future work.
In other words, I hoped to focus our efforts - the right of initiative of the Commission - on key priorities, in total compliance with the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality.
<P>
The Commission will submit a report on the situation to the European Council.
This report is entitled: "The facts' and it records a very serious decline in new legislative proposals since 1990.
Our consultations with partners of the Commission have increased, we have improved the quality of our legislation, we have also simplified that legislation, we have kept our citizens better informed and incorporation is steadily improving.
<P>
But this report also notes that too frequently we are compelled to take action in areas that should not lie within the jurisdiction of the Community, that the pressure on us to legislate, exerted mainly by Member States - sometimes by the European Parliament itself - is unceasing, especially in technical fields, mostly from those Member States waving the flag of subsidiarity most ardently.
Finally, the simple, extremely sensible proposals we put forward are subsequently converted into instruments of a complexity that I would willingly qualify as "Byzantine-kafkaesque' .
<P>
(Laughter ) The Commission must continue to play its political role forcibly and quite independently.
It must remain the custodian of the Treaty.
We shall submit proposals seeking to intensify and expand European integration in the field covered by the Treaties.
This is our role, confirmed yet again, I might say, by the Treaty of Amsterdam.
<P>
Nevertheless, we should be aware of the direction we seek and we must also find the means and the opportunity to persuade other institutions that we are on the right track.
In effect, if we look closely at our political balance sheet, one thing stands out clearly: it is generally in those areas where the Commission performs a motivating and stimulating function based on its right of initiative, that real progress is made.
<P>
This is why I say yes to subsidiarity, yes to a more political and better-defined European Union, but I say no to those who wish to use subsidiarity to slow down the process of European integration and I say no, even more vehemently, to those who seek to upset the institutional balance of our Union.
<P>
Mr President, I would like to make the European Union the first world platform for trade and international investment.
I would like to think that together we are building a European model of growth and prosperity of a truly universal nature, offering opportunities, partnerships and stakeholder status to our social partners and all members of society, based on equality of opportunity and fairness.
<P>
To achieve that goal, we must continue to move forward and I feel we need to think again in terms of reinstating the dynamics of social dialogue and establishing a social Europe; fresh ideas about what we understand by the "public interest' ; new conceptions regarding the relevance of the world market as an economic reference point; new methods for incorporating ethics, science and the environment in our policy-making process; a broader view of trade, encompassing the environment and social rights, an intensification of the multilateral nature of the Union since it has always been to our advantage in the past and will continue to be so in the future; a strengthening of our ability to act with firmness.
<P>
I also believe that the time is ripe for us to reflect once again on our collective roles: that of the Commission, of course, but also the Parliament and the work of the Council.
The stakes have never been more obvious; we need to create, for the European Union, an institutional system that is better than any other in the world, in other words a more flexible and responsive system, better adapted, more efficient, democratic and wholly transparent that meets the expectations of our citizens, that can attract their interest and encourage them to take a deeper plunge into the process of European integration and, finally, a system that can tackle without delay the numerous decisions arising from the immense European interests.
<P>
In conclusion, Mr President, we need an extensive body of legislation, external relations and cooperation, which represent for the Union a genuine institutional asset in the coming new millennium.
I am convinced that the European Council in Cardiff will mark an important stage in the process towards these bold objectives.
<P>
(Applause )
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="David">
Mr President, at the beginning of the British presidency, the British Prime Minister called for a Europe that works together as a team.
Tony Blair said that the mission of the UK presidency was to 'make Europe work for the people' .
<P>
As we approach the Cardiff summit and the end of the British presidency, we in the Socialist group firmly believe that the British Government has been true to its word.
Jobs and employability have been given the attention they deserve.
Agreement has been reached for the launch of a single currency on 1st January next year.
The process of enlargement has begun and the presidency has not flinched from ensuring that a firm start has been made on difficult issues like the reform of the common agricultural policy and the Structural Funds.
But I would hope that all the legislative procedures with regard to Agenda 2000 will be implemented by June 1999 and that this European Parliament is fully involved in all of the procedures.
Mention should also be made of the progress towards a creation of a more effective Common foreign and security policy.
I would like to congratulate Mr Cook in particular on his initiative with regard to a code of conduct on arms exports.
<P>
Progress has been made on these and indeed on many other areas but I would particularly like to refer to the fact that the British presidency really has had a very real physical presence in the European Parliament.
For example, I have been doing a little homework and I have been very pleased to find that British ministers have appeared at every plenary session during the presidency.
There have been sixteen appearances covering thirty separate debates; there have been forty eight presidency appearances before committee and by the end of the presidency over eighty British Government ministerial appearances will have taken place.
That is a very good example and if anything marks a clear break with the previous government, it is that very material presence of this administration with the European Parliament.
<P>
As we approach the Cardiff summit, we must not only take stock of what has been achieved but perhaps more importantly we need to look to the future.
We need a focus on the issues which will take us from Cardiff to Vienna and for the Socialist group top of the agenda has to be the issue of the economy and employment.
We warmly welcome the fact that following the Luxembourg job summit employment plans have been submitted by national governments.
The urgent task now, however, is to ensure that both plans are implemented as quickly and effectively as possible.
<P>
The plans, of course, will vary from one Member State to another but it is important for us all to recognize the need for common themes among our various approaches.
For example, if Europe as a whole is to prosper in the global economy we have to compete effectively in that global economy.
Competitiveness is not a take-it-or-leave-it option, on the contrary competitiveness is an essential prerequisite for sustainable economic success.
At the same time, we need to recognize that there are a number of factors which determine whether or not we can compete effectively.
Amongst these are the skills, adaptability and the motivation of our workforce, the extent to which we can develop an entrepreneurial and innovative culture and a degree to which we can invest in our economy for the future.
<P>
It is therefore essential that we all recognize the importance of research and development and of science generally.
I would in this regard urge the Council to make available appropriate funds for the Fifth Framework Programme on research and technological development.
<P>
Finally, as the Member of the European Parliament representing Cardiff, I am immensely proud that the European summit is being held in the capital city of Wales.
Today, Cardiff is emerging as a truly European city.
It is a city proud of its traditions but also a city optimistically looking towards a future.
Indeed, given that this summit will come at the end of a presidency which I am sure will be judged as a resounding success, there could hardly be a better host city than Cardiff.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Provan">
Mr President, we in the European People's Party are looking forward to a great success in Cardiff.
We want a great success because, let us face it, the presidency at the present time needs a success.
<P>
As a British Member it is with a certain sense of sadness - not anger, not political antagonism - that one hears repeated references to the lack of success of this presidency in leadership of the European Union.
The key to all successful presidencies is leadership.
To what extent can a Foreign Secretary, whose standing in his own country has fallen to a relatively low point, have any claim to speak on behalf of the European Union?
So far, this presidency has done little to combat the Union's lack of influence, even on our own doorstep.
We have not achieved very much in Algeria, Israel, the Middle East or, as the President of the Commission referred to, in Turkey.
<P>
This presidency, unfortunately, will go down in history as having been responsible for the worst-managed senior appointment in international terms ever made, that of the Presidency of the European Central Bank.
This could have been avoided and far-reaching damage could have been avoided if, when the problem was obvious, the need for compromise had been recognized earlier.
The EMU project as a whole would not have been made to look as ridiculous as was done on 2nd and 3rd May.
<P>
Indeed, the whole political system in the European Union was made to look ridiculous at that time.
Let us be more positive, we want to see a success.
What could be achieved at Cardiff to redeem this sadly discredited presidency?
<P>
First we need to see real progress on Agenda 2000.
Agenda 2000 is important as everybody has so far mentioned.
It is important because the World Trade Organization and its negotiations will be starting in early 1999, as was agreed in Geneva last week.
It looks at the present time as if the European is awaiting pressure from outside in the World Trade Organization talks to force CAP reform.
Well, we have been talking about CAP reform for many years and it is time we actually started to make progress so that enlargement can take place.
<P>
Enlargement is probably the most important single issue facing Europe at the present time We need to hold out our hand of friendship because it is nine long years since the Berlin Wall started to crumble.
Not only do existing policies need to be reviewed but also how decisions in the European Union are going to be taken in the future.
Those are important issues, ladies and gentlemen, and I hope that the Council can move them forward in Cardiff.
<P>
The third really important aspect, as the President-in-Office of Council has mentioned, is employment.
We need an inclusive society and that means that we have to tackle some of the current heavy regulation.
Twenty million unemployed is not a good record and the record of job creation is also lamentable at European level.
We need flexibility, lower taxation, freer trade and a reduction in social costs.
President, I hope we can look forward to success at Cardiff.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we expect three major policy guidelines from the next summit in Cardiff.
Firstly, a political revival, a wish expressed by Chancellor Kohl and President Chirac during the last Franco-German summit, of the institutional reform of the European Union, which was totally sidelined when the Amsterdam Treaty was adopted.
Not only must this reform take place before the current accession negotiations are completed, but if it yielded clear policy guidelines quickly, it would greatly assist the Amsterdam Treaty ratification procedures currently in progress.
<P>
In truth, it is difficult to impress upon public opinion the need for new delegations of power to European institutions until their ultimate architecture has been defined, whether this relates in particular to the weighting of votes for a qualified majority, linking national parliaments to the drafting of policies concerning the second and third pillars or, indeed, the phasing-in of a credible mechanism aimed at guaranteeing compliance with the principle of subsidiarity.
Finally, the summit in Cardiff must formulate policy guidelines concerning the negotiations known as Agenda 2000.
Agricultural workers in the European Union need to be placated regarding the future of the CAP and its financing.
But, to date, they have not received the reassurances they wanted.
They are not opposed to a reform of the CAP in the sense of a fairer distribution of aid, but they do not wish to be sacrificed to the world free-trade ethic or the financial constraints imposed by enlargement.
Similarly, the existing beneficiaries of the Structural Funds seek some sort of guarantee regarding the implementation of policies pursued to reinforce social and territorial cohesion in the European Union.
<P>
Finally, with a view to the implementation of the Amsterdam Treaty on the convergence of employment policies, the summit in Cardiff will need to examine the action programmes tabled by the individual Member States.
It is important that this should not be seen as a purely formal exercise and that the President-in-Office of the Council confines himself to collecting the essays handed in by individual pupils in the class of Europe and leaves the teacher to allocate the good and bad marks.
What we need is the introduction of a common strategy with regard to job creation that should be steered towards a significant reduction in the burden hampering those least qualified in the labour force, the harmonization of VAT rates which should be reduced in the case of activities shouldering a substantial share of the wages and welfare costs, and seriously encouraging the development of job creation sectors, such as small and medium-sized enterprises, craftsmen, the liberal professions and ancillary services.
<P>
It would seem that a huge consensus exists regarding all of these matters that are actually on the agenda for the summit in Cardiff, but we note, from one Council to the next, that this consensus is not actually translated into tangible implementations that can be seen to reflect those good intentions.
So we look forward finally to a firm response to the considerable expectations of our European fellow citizens.
Let us hope that the summit in Cardiff will not be, for them, a further cause for disappointment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="Watson">
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Moreau">
Mr President, inclusion of the employment problem on the agenda of the summit in Cardiff tells us that we can no longer ignore the social and democratic needs that manifest themselves in our countries.
Whilst we have been told for decades that prosperity abounds, our peoples note with bitterness the continuing encroachment of unemployment and poverty.
What is good for the financial markets is not good for them.
<P>
I shall confine my address to the recommendations concerning employment and growth, which mark a leap forward that we should greet with enthusiasm.
But they are gripped in the vice of the single currency market which seeks to lower the cost of labour and public expenditure.
This is why the measures incorporated in national plans oriented towards adaptability, in other words flexibility, or even deregulation, take precedence.
In our opinion, we should follow a different direction, giving priority to social viability rather than financial viability, thereby giving the lead to human development and replacing competition with cooperation.
<P>
Some of the measures proposed by the Member States foster this approach.
Thus, in France and Italy, we have a commitment to reduce working hours.
In France too, jobs for the young.
At European level, we have the EIB decision to introduce subsidized interest-rate credits for jobs.
To this end, we are proposing three series of measures to promote genuine competitiveness based on sound premises.
Firstly, of course, a reduction in working hours without loss of wages, but also upward harmonization of welfare protection legislation, the development of lifelong training and the organization of qualifying courses, vocational routes and the promotion of public services.
<P>
We propose financing resources to alleviate corporate financial overheads, not loan charges.
Mr President, you spoke of red tape.
Or course, such bureaucracy exists, but what a burden financial charges impose on company accounts.
This is why we are tendering the notion of a selective-rate credit policy for employment, a method of taxation that militates against speculation with the Tobin levy, a democratic check on public employment assistance to ensure that they do not lead to lay-offs, firm action against social dumping and relocation, now even more urgent following the campaign against child labour.
We believe that the margins allowed in the current financial year should foster social progress rather than be devoted exclusively to cutting public deficits, which hinders growth and therefore public revenues.
Finally, new rights, real powers for workers, their trade unions and the citizens at large must be established.
European works councils, for example, must have the power to intervene rather than simply the right to be informed.
<P>
We believe that these proposals face up to the major challenges of our day.
We think that awareness is growing, where misfortune is not fatal.
And our group intends to make a contribution by relaying the social movement to the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, as I listened to your speech I thought of the saying from my country: "Nimm dir nix vör, dann slei dir nix fehl' - in other words, if you never try your hand at anything, you'll never have any failures!
There has been an abundance of subjects for initiatives and events during your Presidency, as Mr David has said.
I would be happy to contradict Mr Provan on the matter of implementation, but the longest lunch was an implementation disaster!
Let us take the convention on arms exports. I congratulate you on seizing the initiative, but the results are nothing to be proud of.
There was nevertheless an agreement on annual meetings and we can only hope that there we will be able to make appropriate improvements and arrive at binding multilateral regulations.
<P>
My impression is that there has been a great deal of fuss about speeding up procedures, but at the expense of political substance.
The Presidency also carries some of the responsibility for the state of the Union and cannot just settle for its skills of packaging and word-spinning.
The central problem is simply this: if we want to offer ordinary people something, we have to offer them politics which affect their interests.
We have to show them that European politics satisfy their interests better, and geographical lists do not help them.
Geographical lists of who is who in Europe will not feed the unemployed, or create jobs, and they will not open up any new prospects either.
The British Presidency, as your speech made clear, has no clear project, which of course also means that there is no failure to be recorded.
In employment policy, there has been no clean break with the failed neoliberal policy model, which Mr Provan - I can contradict you on this point - has offered here once again.
Deregulation, wage reductions, are supposed to create more jobs and stimulate growth at some point and in some miraculous way.
You yourself no longer believe any of this!
<P>
Luxembourg saw a fall from grace when employment policy was largely confined to labour market policy.
France and Italy were left out in the cold.
The creation of new jobs by reductions in working hours, a new economic policy, or tax restructuring by means of eco-taxes, none of these is on the agenda.
There is clearly the danger that some Member States will revert to the Essen procedure, under the national action plans which have now been submitted.
This is a matter in which the Commission, in my view, Mr Santer, has an obvious responsibility: in its evaluation it should spell this out clearly and also demand improvements so that we really do arrive at a binding procedure, and so that the objectives do not just appear on paper but are implemented and supported with measures and not just with philosophical reflections.
Nor do we need measures which are already being implemented in any case, or which other bodies, such as local authorities, are supposed to implement.
<P>
At the very least, we need an energetic response to youth unemployment, and we are not getting this in the present state of affairs.
We are taking very seriously the "no' which the Commission's President has formulated in this case; the misuse of the principle of subsidiarity for the purpose of re-nationalisation fundamentally serves the interests of the right-wing and ultimately its unsavoury representatives.
We must join forces against this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Macartney">
Mr President, the President-in-Office said that in two weeks time a very important event takes place.
I do not have to remind you that event of course will be watched by the whole of Europe, millions of viewers, when Scotland takes on Brazil in the opening match of the World Cup.
I am sure the President-in-Office will join me in wishing the best to the Scottish team.
<P>
I applaud his enthusiasm for the Cardiff summit, which follows that event.
Perhaps I could make a point that the challenge for us as politicians is to make the Cardiff summit as important to the citizens as the World Cup.
You may say that this is a tall order but there are many aspects of the decisions which will be taken over the next year or so which are going to be of profound importance to the citizens.
The challenge for the British presidency and the Austrian and every other one that succeeds is acceptability.
How do we make the Europe that we are trying to build acceptable to the citizens?
I believe the choice of Cardiff as a summit location is an inspired one.
The people of Wales demonstrated last year that they were prepared to exercise their democratic right of self-determination and so Cardiff will become the home of a democratic assembly for the first time in its history.
The people of Ireland just last weekend voted again for major steps forward in democracy and I believe we are at the beginning of a new development which includes my own country of Scotland.
<P>
Before the Cardiff official summit takes place there will also be an alternative summit of some of the stateless nations of Europe who are deriving inspiration from the example of Wales and Northern Ireland, the Irish Republic and Scotland.
They will be putting forward an alternative vision of Europe but it will not be confined to questions of constitutional change because we believe there are some very important issues which unite the many peoples and regions of Europe.
<P>
I am very glad to see the President-in-Office and the President of the Commission stressing the importance of Agenda 2000.
This could have a very profound impact on both the people of Europe and the acceptability of the whole European project.
The plea I would make is that whatever comes out of Cardiff gives us plenty of time, in the European Parliament, to study the implications of the outline that is proposed at that time.
I know it is a thankless task for the Commission as for the Council but we need to get this one right.
<P>
Unemployment, and I could not agree more with the President of the Commission, is the key task which faces us.
If we manage to crack unemployment and solve it and produce a growth economy in Europe, then the whole euro project will prove to have been worthwhile.
If we fail, people will wonder what it was all about.
<P>
Just two last points, the resolution which is before the House tomorrow commends the international criminal court as an important reform which my group has been very active in pursuing, I hope there will be support for that.
<P>
The last point I would make in summing up the challenge for the UK presidency and echoing the points made by Mr Pasty and others, is that institutional reform cannot stand still and I believe that it will be a great fillip if during the Cardiff Summit we are able to come up with a common statute so that Members of this House are not discriminated against by nationality.
We all should have the same terms and conditions; we were elected on the mandate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Muscardini">
Mr President, Minister, in this Chamber we have celebrated the single currency.
When will we be able to celebrate achieving political union, the only way to make Europe no longer just an area of free trade, run by individual countries and their interests or by certain multinationals, but a true citizens' Europe with common objectives and a more certain and peaceful future?
<P>
At the Cardiff Summit we urge that some concrete progress finally be made towards the achievement of political union, and for this reason the debate must be opened on reorganizing the European institutions: certainly more decision-making power should be given to the European Parliament, but we also need to identify a body that can represent all the Member States, initially at least, for matters relating to common defence, the fight against major crime, the defence of twenty million unemployed and forty million new poor, a body which may also begin to consider how to craft the Union's foreign policy.
Indeed the Council of Ministers represents the individual governments and does not represent a common European will.
<P>
Today, in the absence of this body, foreign policy should be determined not only by the Council but above all by the European Parliament, the voice of Europe's citizens.
The fight against major crime can never be achieved if Europol, for example, continues to be blocked by the failure of the Member States to achieve a coherent view.
If Cardiff turns out to be a carbon copy of the other Summits or makes absolutely minimal progress, we risk having a Europe no longer made up of citizens who see hope in the euro, but of citizens who at the same time worry about a lack of political direction that gives the economy certain objectives to be achieved: in fact, the lack of political direction even makes economic recovery very uncertain.
<P>
It is not enough to say that Maastricht imposed stability and that stability now enables the application of rates which are clearly lower than before if we then find banking systems in the various Member States which operate in some cases in a way that is completely different from what we declared with so much enthusiasm and emphasis in this Chamber on 2 May.
If the lack of political union risks, because of the electoral results of one country or another, bringing back the cyclical problem - Europe exists or does not exist as a supranational entity or it is not always...
<P>
(The President interrupted the speaker)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="President">
I have received five motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, I would like to begin by personally congratulating the President- in-Office on his success in achieving a code of conduct on arms exports.
This code of conduct establishes some important principles which represent a major leap forward in the EU's contribution to peace and stability in the world.
The code of conduct will also provide a clearer framework for the rationalization of the European defence industry, which in turn will lead to the greater interdependence which will make national undercutting obsolete in the future.
<P>
I would also like to congratulate him on the way he has never failed to take forward the human rights agenda during his term as President-in-Office.
In particular, the success he had in taking that agenda to the Chinese and moving forward the Chinese agenda has been one of the successes of this presidency.
<P>
Clearly the major success has been carrying forward the Luxembourg conclusions on the enlargement process.
Not only was the very complex negotiating process begun on time but the European conference was launched in such a way as to ensure that it immediately got down to discussing matters of direct relevance to the European citizens, particularly drugs and crime.
These were considerable achievements but it is important, now we have launched the process, we do not allow other political priorities like a single currency to push enlargement into the background where it would be in danger of becoming bogged down in technical discussions.
<P>
So it is important, in my view, that the Cardiff summit sends out a number of clear messages.
Firstly, it should send out a clear signal of our continuing political commitment to the enlargement process.
Secondly, it should reiterate the Council and the Commission's commitments to keeping the Parliament informed of the enlargement process and of recognizing the important role the Parliament can play.
I would to commend to future presidencies the meeting that Mr Henderson held with the bureaux of the joint parliamentary committees as a way forward.
<P>
Thirdly, we have to assess the progress which has been made on the screening of the acquis and on the evolution of the pre-accession strategy.
I would hope that special attention can be played to the social dimension in central and eastern European countries which is of particular importance.
We must ensure that the Commission's first annual report, which is foreseen for later this year, is on time and on schedule.
<P>
Finally, as other speakers have said, we must take forward the Agenda 2000 proposals because it is very important if we are to keep enlargement on track that we complete the legislative procedures before June 1999.
Therefore we have to have political agreement by the Vienna summit.
<P>
Elsewhere, I would congratulate the British presidency on taking forward the Luxembourg conclusions on the Middle East peace process.
The Socialist group recognizes the tremendous efforts made by the British Foreign Secretary and the British Prime Minister to restart that process and to carry out the conclusions of Luxembourg, particularly in drawing to the attention of the Israeli Government the lack of wisdom in proceeding with these settlements and of the need to develop economic strategy on the Palestinian side.
<P>
Finally, I would hope the Cardiff summit looks forward to the Bosnian elections.
This is another step in the process of peace and stability in the former Yugoslavia and I would hope that we will support those elections to the fullest.
<P>
I would compare the presidency of the European Union with the British Grand National, or the Derby.
It is important to success to be able to finish the race.
It is even more important to success to finish, as the British Government is doing, in style and with panache and with still something to spare in the tank.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Hernández Mollar">
Mr President, the current context for employment policy debates is obviously not the same as in previous years.
Monetary union is now a reality.
The national employment plans have now been presented, and economic convergence has created a climate of confidence, which is encouraging for the growth of employment.
This presidency has had the luck to come at the end of a long process in the construction of Europe.
Some countries, such as Spain, having adopted rigorous economic and social policies, are already seeing the results of their governments' actions. The formulae for creating employment - which will always be better than sharing it out - have been stated and repeated often enough, from the Essen Summit to the one in Luxembourg.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, we are on the threshold of the twenty-first century.
The technological revolution, the globalization of the economy and the large markets demand that Member States make a great effort in the field of education and training.
Being able to guarantee jobs depends on qualifications and training, and also on educational establishments awarding professional qualifications which meet the demands of the labour market.
<P>
I also want to emphasize how essential it is to ensure that social dialogue provides the context for updating the organization of work, as regards job stability, lifelong training or the reorganization of working hours.
For example, I do not think it is right for governments to decide to reduce the working day. In fact, it is the actual dynamics of a company's productivity or size which can provide a guide, enabling workers and management to come to an agreement on such matters.
<P>
Finally, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the whole of society needs to be involved in creating jobs. The employment plans presented by countries such as Spain and Italy emphasize that regional or local authorities also need to be given responsibilities here.
The employment services should adapt to the needs of management and workers. They should also scour the new sources of employment for opportunities to provide jobs for the people desperately looking for work.
<P>
Unemployment and under-employment lead to exclusion, poverty and despair.
People have heard enough speeches and promises.
The euro and the employment plans are a way of turning people's right to work into reality - their right to work in that society of prosperity and solidarity we all want to create in this new Europe we are building.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="Collins, Gerard">
Mr President, firstly I welcome the opportunity of congratulating the United Kingdom presidency on its success on behalf of all of us in the European Union.
I wish them continued success for the next couple of weeks and that Cardiff will be like the finishing of the Grand National, as was said by Mr Titley.
The fact that the President-in-Office is red-haired does not in any way mean we should compare him to Red Rum who was one of the best stayers on the Grand National course.
If my memory is correct, he won three times in all.
<P>
I should say that the United Kingdom presidency brought with it great enthusiasm, energy and a high quality of organizational ability which we all very much appreciate.
In particular, I am glad that at all times they fully respected the role of Parliament and its Members.
I would like to thank the United Kingdom Government and its Prime Minister for their tremendous effort in guiding the peace process in my country to where it is at the present time.
As everybody knows it received massive backing by all the people on the island of Ireland only last week.
The summit meeting in Cardiff provides an ideal opportunity for the European Union to assess how best it can aid the process of peace and reconciliation which was given this overwhelming support by the Irish people and the referendum.
The Union has given considerable political and practical support to this process over the years and I very much hope that the British presidency will ensure that the important developments of recent weeks are given due consideration in Cardiff.
<P>
Recently, the Commission put forward a package of proposals which, amongst other things, called for a reform of the CAP, the Structural Funds and the entire budgetary policy of the Union.
The summit should concentrate on elaborating broad political guidelines concerning this package of proposals which will have a major impact, not just on the functioning of the European institutions but also on the daily life of the citizens over the coming years.
It is important, for example, that European leaders reaffirm their commitment to the central role of the family farmer in agricultural and in rural development policy.
Any reform of the CAP should be geared towards preserving and encouraging the continuation of the family farm as the foundation of the European agricultural sector.
It is equally important that the reform of the CAP should be considered in parallel with the reform of the Structural Funds because an essential component of structural policy throughout the Union should be the preservation of present population levels in rural areas and in the relatively isolated areas on the periphery of the Union.
This can only be achieved by recognizing that agriculture will continue to play the pivotal role in rural areas for the foreseeable future and that structural policy should be geared towards the maximizing the development of allied sectors such as agri-tourism, food processing and the preservation of environmentally sensitive areas.
<P>
Finally, again I say to the UK presidency: keep up the good work, two weeks left and remember the last hurdle is also an important one to negotiate before you successfully make the finishing line which I am sure you will.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Mr President, when national leaders meet in Cardiff, public interest will clearly focus on how unemployment can be reduced and what is going to be done about it in practice.
It is good that we will in future be able to assess employment schemes better than before.
We need reliable and comparable data, for example, on whether unemployment among young people and the long-term unemployed is coming down in EU countries.
Merely examining national programmes will not necessarily be sufficient to tell if the strategy for growth and employment is working at the pan-European level.
I believe we need a European contribution to programmes to reduce long-term unemployment and unemployment among young people.
There should be a principle arising from the Cardiff summit that the creation of new jobs in the Agenda 2000 programme should provide a more important basis than it does now for the granting of assistance by the EU.
The success of an active employment policy is ultimately the yardstick by which we can gauge whether Europe can solve the mass unemployment crisis of post-industrial society.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, in the short period of six months it is hardly possible for a Council Presidency to have a strong impact on the European political process.
That is why continuity and cooperation between successive presidencies are all the more important.
However, our citizens are given the impression, conveyed in part by national media, that each Presidency functions in historical isolation.
Every six months Europe is invented anew, so to speak.
My question to the British Council Presidency, therefore, as an Austrian Opposition politician, is this: in July, do the Austrians start again from scratch, as seems to be the case, or is there genuine co-operation between the British Presidency and the future Austrian Presidency which will ensure that processes already begun will continue to run smoothly?
If the answer is yes, in which areas is there agreement, and where can Austria build on preparatory work by Britain?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Velzen, Wim">
Mr President, when the Presidency announced that it already intended to review the plans for employment in Cardiff, counting myself among the sceptics, I thought that rather precipitate and even unkind to Vienna, where the process would have to take place.
Now that I have a clearer picture of the situation, I am actually extremely glad that the Presidency did that, thereby giving an extra boost to the process of the Luxembourg Summit.
When you look at what has now been achieved by the Member States since the Treaty of Amsterdam and since the Summit, you see that it is in fact many times greater than what everyone expected then.
I myself was afraid that the response to the Presidency would have been: we need more time, just wait a while.
The situation now is that they have all done their job.
However that does not mean that we are already there because, when you come to assess the plans, there are still a lot of points to consider.
I hope that a contentbased approach will be adopted in Cardiff.
Too many Member States are sitting back and taking the attitude that the guidelines apply to the other Member States, but they are measuring up.
That is nonsense.
Not one Member State can claim that it already conforms to all the guidelines.
<P>
I would point out that those national plans must be more than a technical operation in which sheets of paper are neatly filled in; they must focus on the quality of measures taken, on renewal and reactivation.
Also it must not be possible for Member States to pick out two pillars from the four that have been decided and leave aside two really important ones, namely equal opportunities and adaptability, in order to concentrate on re-employment or employability and entrepreneurship.
The last two, for me, smack too much of attitudes on the lines of: you are out of work and you only have yourself to blame for that.
You should be more employable .
Or, do not be so apathetic, go and set up a business!
I think the other two are immensely important to the Member States, because they challenge the responsibility of the Member States and the social partners.
It is not by chance that these two have been disregarded up to now.
<P>
One last point.
Both Amsterdam and Luxembourg focused on a balance between a macroeconomic policy approach and an active labour market policy.
Up to now there has been no real content-based consensus.
Another feature of the process is that different Directorates-General and different Councils are dealing with those matters.
I call upon the Presidency to take a first step in Cardiff towards joint action by the various parties involved, in both preparation and decision-making.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schiedermeier">
Mr President, during this discussion, as the Chairman of the Catholic Workers' Movement in the Regensburg Diocese, I have found myself thinking of something that Cardinal Cardyns said: every single young worker is worth more than all the gold in the world.
This is an old saying, but its message is still relevant.
Jobs are important, but hitherto there has been too much talk, and here I would agree with my colleague Wim van Velzen, and not enough success.
<P>
Now there are action plans.
I only hope that they will be implemented quickly and successfully, otherwise even the best action plans will be of no use.
Best practice is fine, but I hope that it is quickly adopted in those countries which have not hitherto adopted it.
We are always hearing about assistance to SMEs but no Council Presidency and no Commission has yet been able to ensure that small and medium-sized enterprises have simple requirements so that they, too, can put them into practice.
Taxation and welfare systems should bring about a reduction in accessory costs to wages, but they must also be fair so that employees do not again bear the burdens alone.
Structural reform, Agenda 2000 - Commissioner Santer, rural areas seem to me to have been treated very shabbily in this goulash Objective II.
Something more has to be done in this area.
<P>
As regards the environment, allow me to say that we need both people and nature, and not nature without people!
I also have a question about the operation of the own resources system: why do we have no money for computers when at the same time we are giving away billions of marks in own resources?
Perhaps for once you could do something about this.
Please implement the social market economy as quickly as possible in the new accession countries so that we are not confronted there by problems which are the same as our own.
Do not forget subsidiarity even if as a central government you sometimes are not so happy about it!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="Andrews">
Mr President, I would first of all like to thank the British presidency for their participation in the peace process in Ireland.
As far as Mr Blair is concerned I believe he is the first British Prime Minister ever to make Ireland a priority.
I would like to thank the British Government for rejoining Europe because we badly need them in Europe.
<P>
I and many Members of this House admire very much Mr Cook's stand on the armaments industry and control.
I want to pay tribute to him on that.
<P>
In Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic still remains in situ in former Yugoslavia and he has much to answer for.
The European Union stood by and watched the genocide in Yugoslavia; I hope we will not do the same in Kosovo.
We must call Milosevic's bluff.
I admire Mr Cook for his condemnation of the slaughter in Kosovo.
I know Robin Cook is a moral man and is sincere in his condemnation of the slaughter and ethnic cleansing in that country.
He is, of course, outraged as we are in this House at what is happening there.
We must stop the Serb minority in Kosovo.
I also hope that he will raise the issue of East Timor at some stage as a matter of urgency, perhaps in Cardiff.
The horrors of Algeria and the lack of response from the government in Algeria to an independent human rights Commission to visit Algeria to see what is happening there is something that should also be raised.
I want to congratulate the British presidency.
It has been a marvellous presidency and I want to pay tribute to you personally, Mr Cook, for your courage in taking on very major issues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Papayiannakis">
Mr President, the motion for a resolution which I support contains a number of proposals to promote employment.
However, there are a number of points which need to be retabled and emphasized.
I refer to the reduction in working hours, which the thirty-five hour week merely symbolizes. We all know that, if there are no accompanying measures, companies will easily be able to use leading-edge technology in order to make up the hours lost.
Perhaps, therefore, we need to discuss more drastic reductions in working hours.
<P>
I would also like to highlight the emergence of new professions which meet real social needs but which are not recognized on the work market.
These could be promoted by providing healthy financing, as suggested in the Delors White Paper or as introduced on an experimental basis by the French government.
<P>
Lastly, Mr President, we need to retable the question of investment in the famous trans-European networks which would, we were told at the time, lead directly and, more importantly, indirectly to new jobs throughout Europe.
This plan has been undermined by ministers of finance in Member States throughout the Union, some of whom will most likely attend the Cardiff Summit, Mr President, without giving so much as a second thought to the contradiction which that represents.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="Donnelly, Alan">
Mr President, I warmly welcome the reference Mr Cook made to the need for economic reform.
Many of us in this House believe that, in completing the process of Economic and Monetary Union, it is now very much the job of the European Union to turn its attention to economic reform.
With the euro area accounting for around 20 % of the world's output and the world's largest importer and exporter, it is essential that we have economic reforms within the European Union that are going to make the single currency a success.
<P>
Our shared task is to ensure that our economies work not only effectively but in a way that combines economic dynamism with social justice.
It is essential that in Cardiff the presidency and the heads of government launch a new European way in bringing about economic reform.
This must address the issue of pro-enterprise and a pro-opportunity agenda with measures to encourage enterprise combined with policies that ensure economic employment and educational opportunity for all, building on our long-standing strength of stability and cohesion.
<P>
This Parliament strongly supports an economic reform agenda balanced with the process of monetary union.
The Socialist group has identified three specific areas which I hope the President-in-Office will take with him to Cardiff.
The first is the reform of the labour markets.
Europe has 18 million unemployed and while 10 % of the unemployed in the US have been unemployed for more than a year, nearly 50 % of Europe's unemployed are long-term unemployed.
The US is more successful at getting its long-term unemployed back into work.
We need a new way, recognizing that in a fast-moving world of constant innovation and technological change, governments can help to equip people to cope with inevitable change.
While there is far less that government can do to stop people losing their last job, there is a lot more that government should do to help people gain their next job.
<P>
We are very concerned about the capital market and there needs to be capital market reform.
The US has a huge capital market and equity market to help in venture capital.
Europe has a fragmented and inadequate equity market.
We need to make sure that there is venture capital available for small and medium-sized enterprises.
In Cardiff it is essential that we start the process of building a Europe-wide equity market for venture capital and for investment.
<P>
The third area which needs reform is in the product market.
We have a single market but it is still fragmented.
We still need steps to build the internal market of the European Union.
Cardiff is a marvellous opportunity to accept the process of monetary union and to begin the important and essential job of economic reform.
If that is the aim of Cardiff, Mr Cook has the full support of this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="De Giovanni">
Mr President, Amsterdam is still being ratified but already we are beginning to talk about institutional reforms again.
I must say that I was very happy to hear, today, both the President-in-Office of the Council and the President of the Commission recall the importance of institutional affairs for the future of the European plan; moreover, signals have also been coming from beyond the official institutions: various personalities - from Jacques Delors to our President Gil-Robles, to the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Blair, a few days ago - have expressed concern about the difficulties that may arise with the Union's decision-making mechanisms in an enlarged Union.
<P>
I do not want to go into the merits of these reforms here or voice any opinion on the matter; I just want to try and understand why we are returning to the subject of the institutions, with Amsterdam still in progress.
In my view it is for one fundamental reason: because the challenges facing the Union require these institutional reforms.
The challenge of monetary union: monetary union is pushing us towards political union - no one denies that - but we are in great need of a political-institutional will, because nothing in history happens automatically.
And then enlargement: no one has any real doubts about the institutional consequences of enlargement, because it is clear that the emergence of two types of Europe is possible: a much more diluted Europe could be formed, very similar to a large market, and there could naturally be a political Europe.
That is therefore the reason why institutional reforms are increasingly unavoidable, whatever their merit.
<P>
How should we proceed from there?
That is what I would like to say briefly in the second part of my speech.
There is a resolution of the European Parliament of November 1997.
We propose a particular route: we ask the Commission to produce a document on the institutions before the end of the year, and we ask the Commission to do this because we respect its role of initiative and because we consider that the role of the institutions is fundamental in resuming the debate on them.
And we ask the Council to give the Commission a mandate for this initiative.
<P>
That is the fundamental point!
Once again I will not go into the merits, but I'd like to recall that only by clearly defining a relationship between institutions and the objective to be achieved can we respond to the question of Europe's future, what kind of Europe we want, what plan we want to achieve.
I think it is extremely important that this Parliament send a message to the future Parliament - the Parliament which will be elected in 1999 - a message that there must necessarily be innovations to the institutions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth-Behrendt">
Mr President, Mr Santer, colleagues, there have been several treaties - the Maastricht Treaty, the Amsterdam Treaty - in which we have repeatedly expressed a commitment, for example in Article 6 of the Treaty of Amsterdam, namely the demand that environmental policy and protection should not only be included, but should also be a high-level objective in determining and implementing Community policies.
<P>
I have been in this Parliament for nine years. I know what we say we will do, but I also know what our achievements are.
What we say we will do is always splendid, and the British Presidency's achievements have been outstanding, but now, in common with this House and also, I hope, with the Commission, Mr Santer, I have high expectations as regards the Cardiff Summit.
If it is our conviction - and, as far as I know, it is the conviction of the British Presidency - that environmental policy is an important Community objective for the people of this Union, and if, at the same time it is our conviction that fighting unemployment is the most important task that we have to face, we should be sufficiently intelligent to link these two objectives.
If we can prove - and we can do so - that environmental policy, higher environmental standards, new environmental standards, developed with the Commission, with the European Parliament, but also with our partners in industry and the trades unions, that these new policies can create jobs, that is what we have to do.
Are we doing it?
No, we are not!
<P>
Unless we finally start to incorporate environmental standards and protection and the checking of environmental compatibility and sustainability into all other Community policies, we can forget all the other speeches here.
Then Mrs Bjerregaard can give up her work, I can do the same, and so, too, can large parts of the Union too.
So we have to change things.
What will we change?
We must have binding framework legislation which says that environmental policy is part of transport, energy and economic policy, as Mr Donnelly has already explained.
<P>
It is no longer enough for this to appear in Article 6 of the Treaty.
I am tired of reading treaties - I have done so long enough as a lawyer - and I also know what they can amount to.
I would like to see the Commission being supported by the Council Presidency, by you, Mr Cook, by the British Council Presidency and by the new German Government after 27 September of this year in ensuring that the integration of environment policy into other Community policies is obligatory.
I would like to see a binding commitment to this end, that means I would like to have from you, Mr Cook, and from the Cardiff summit an obligation on the Commission to submit framework legislation, and I do mean legislation which imposes an obligation, not another meaningless commitment!
<P>
In conclusion, allow me to say the following. When I was a child, I liked to play with soap bubbles.
You can blow them up and they get really big, they shimmer with all the colours, they're very impressive, then they lose their colours, burst and disappear.
I have no desire to see yet another summit lose its colours, burst and disappear.
Please, Mr Santer, please, Mr Cook, make sure that after the Cardiff summit we have obligatory legislation and that environmental policy is an integral component of all other Community policies!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
Mr President, President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I am the last speaker in this debate but I hope that the topics that I shall address will be placed high on the Council's agenda.
I would like to make two requests, to you, Mr Cook, and to you, Mr Santer, two requests to take an urgent inquiry from the European Parliament with you to Cardiff.
Fighting organized crime is one of the absolute priorities of the Council and of the Commission, and also of the work of the European Parliament.
We know that wherever it is possible to do business without frontiers, it is also possible to do illegal business without frontiers.
That is why, as a strategy to counter the freedom of having no frontiers which those who are able to misuse our economic system enjoy, we also need cooperation, which as far as possible is not affected by frontiers, between the police and our justice systems whose role it is to pursue the criminals who operate their network on a panEuropean basis.
<P>
The trouble is that this process, which can be so compellingly described, is not advancing as fast as the European Parliament would like.
In our view, this is in part due to the fact that, after the finely turned phrases of the summits on European integration have faded away, an integration which must of necessity be implemented in areas of the third pillar as well, the national sovereignty reserve, especially in the case of police and justice co-operation, weighs more heavily in the balance than the pragmatic necessity of co-operating at the European level.
That is why I want once again to formulate precisely the European Parliament's request which is contained in innumerable resolutions, and which was drawn up by us specifically in relation to the initiatives and the common measures subsequent to the report from the high level group on fighting organized crime, the request which is expressed in these opinions: show greater courage and go beyond the level of national governments; do more to remove obstacles especially in the case of cooperation between the police - but also between justice systems, which is no less important.
Show greater courage as the Commission and demand of the Council that more competence and authority under Community law for fighting organized crime should be transferred to you!
<P>
I consider that one of the top priority tasks in the immediate future is that we should learn to integrate Europe not only in the economic sphere, and that we should learn to organize the instruments that we need to fight misuse not only at the national level.
Unless we remedy this divergence, organized criminals in Europe will continue to have an advantage over the police.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="President">
That concludes the debate.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Common foreign and security policy for 1997
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0169/98) by Mr Spencer, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the role of the Union in the World: implementation of the common foreign and security policy for 1997.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Spencer">
Mr President, under the Treaties we are required as a parliament to hold an annual debate on the development of the CFSP.
My report discharges that duty in the same format as we did last year.
There is a tabular comparison of the details of the use of joint actions, common positions and declarations over a four year period.
There is a review of the CFSP on a regional basis, starting with our near abroad and moving outwards.
<P>
There is nothing of particular interest to note in the use of these instruments other than their continued failure to address the real challenges which Europe faces in the world.
In fact, in 1997, apart from the Amsterdam Treaty, the most interesting thing to happen was the interinstitutional agreement on the financing of the CFSP and on parliamentary involvement.
That involvement is going to depend for its effectiveness on good cooperation between the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
Also, from that agreement, flows the commitment from the Council to provide us with a document on 'the main aspects and basic choices of the CFSP' .
That is a minimalist document stripped of meaning by pre-publication editing in Council working parties.
It is historical, it is narrative, it devotes only a page and a half to the future and then in the vaguest of terms.
It needs to be improved next year.
<P>
Observant colleagues will have noticed that we have changed the title of this year's debate to 'the role of the Union in the world' so that we may look at the whole period to draw lessons from the past and project them into the future.
Europe's role in the world is more than just the limited and, as yet, undeveloped activities covered by the CFSP.
It encompasses the commercial and other competences of the Commission, the role of this Parliament, its presidents, committees, delegations.
It must also encompass the foreign policies of the Member States.
As I say on page 9 of my report, we are creating a common foreign policy, not a single foreign policy.
The parallel with the common currency and a single currency may be instructive if not exact.
A common policy magnifies effective influence.
A single foreign policy would be the product of a single state which the Union is not.
<P>
In my view we should be striving to maximize Europe's influence in the world for our own good and, I would argue, for the good of the world.
To do so we should use all our resources in all the institutions and in the Member States.
The period of 18 months that we are looking at covers three presidencies conducted in three very different styles with three very different degrees of experience.
I can assure the President-in-Office that I am not going to engage in either the public puffing of the presidency by Mr Cook's PPS and sous-chef Mr Titley, nor indeed, Mr Provan's public pricking of the presidency's pretensions.
I am going to stand back and look at all three of those presidencies as regards common foreign policy.
And I have to conclude that it is currently impossible to run an intellectually or politically satisfying presidency, given the tensions between the current institutional structures and the overblown and ambitious rhetoric of the CFSP itself.
<P>
Time and again we see Europe accepting that the real decisions are taken by the Americans.
We tamely follow them around, voting funds and troops into situations such as Bosnia where we have abdicated from effective decision-making.
They say and we pay.
That is not good for them and it is not good for us.
An optimist would say that post-Amsterdam the CFSP is in transition.
Surely the position will be improved when, instead of sending the President-in-Office on a one-day administrative errand to Ankara which fails to persuade the Turks to turn up even to their own association council, we could instead send the High Representative.
Surely the existence of an analysis and planning unit would improve our state of preparedness.
At the moment we manage to be ill-prepared not just for the predictable, such as the Indian test, or the perennial such as Saddam Hussein, but even for the frankly overdue such as Kosovo.
<P>
At the moment we have the worst of all worlds.
We are too proud to hand over Europe's interests lock, stock and barrel to Uncle Sam.
We are too vain to remain decently silent.
We have too much memory and not enough vision to create our own foreign policy.
So, what do we settle for?
A peacock diplomacy that is for display and not for use.
The prime role of this Parliament and the foreign affairs committees of national parliaments is not to control the executive in their conduct of foreign policy.
It is to encourage them to have a foreign policy worthy of the name in the first place.
To have a Europe which is impotent in the Middle East peace process, silent on the sub-continent and sidelined in the Balkans is quite simply not good enough for the European Union.
I commend the report of the Foreign Affairs Committee to the plenary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="Cook">
Mr President, I should like to respond to Mr Spencer's observations and may I say to him straightaway that there are formidable problems in forging a common foreign and security policy.
I fully understand the frustration which he has very well expressed and I can understand that must be a frustration that is widely shared throughout the European Parliament.
It does not help us, however, to come to terms with our sense of frustration if we do not understand the very formidable problems that are engaged in forging a common foreign policy among fifteen Member States who have different histories, different historical ties born of those histories, who have different linguistic and cultural links to other countries which bring them with different attitudes to conflicts around the world, who have today different conflicts with neighbouring countries which are not shared necessarily by all the other fifteen.
<P>
That is why when we meet in the General Affairs Council it is not unusual - as we found on Monday on two occasions - for one country to be standing out against the other fifteen.
It is not always the same country.
I am not seeking to particularize or to put any individual blame on any one Member State.
From time to time most Member States sometime or other say that this issue is of fundamental importance to us and we cannot achieve a consensus that the other fourteen can agree on.
I want to put it to Mr Spencer that the problem and the frustration which arises from it is indivisible from the assumption that each Member State has the right to maintain its own foreign policy as an attribute of the fact that it remains a nation state in its own right, with its own participation in international forums.
Mr Spencer's party is not suggesting that we change that principle nor, frankly, are the governments that are represented in the European Union, members of whose parties are here in the European Parliament.
<P>
Therefore, if we have recognized that starting point, we have also to be realistic about what can be achieved on a common policy starting from that particular difficulty.
I am entirely prepared to accept as a broad caveat on our common foreign and security policy that we are seeking here to forge common positions among fifteen Member States who may not approach each problem with the same perspective, the same historical background or, indeed, the same pressures of public opinion.
If the European Union is to be a success we have to make sure that it has the flexibility to recognize the differences of history, culture and public opinion.
<P>
Against that background and with that very large qualification, I would submit that if one looks back over recent months, there is much that the European Parliament and the Council can take satisfaction in, having built common positions, built a common approach to the world outside and upon occasion - because we had that common approach - making an impact.
If I might start with the agenda of human rights and democracy which is high on the agenda of our own domestic policy in Britain and has therefore been high on our agenda of the presidency, it is the case that on Monday we achieved agreement on a code of conduct on arms exports.
That code of conduct represents two significant steps forward.
It establishes common standards by which each Member State will judge applications for a licence for an arms export.
The nations of Europe will certainly still compete against each other for these orders but they will compete against each other on price and on quality.
They will not compete against each other on standards of observance of human rights.
<P>
Secondly, that code includes a notification mechanism by which any Member State can notify all the others that it has decided to turn down a contract on grounds of human rights and any other Member State who wishes to pick up such a contract must first notify and consult the country that first refused it.
That is an entirely new mechanism which can give some confidence to Member States that if they turn down a contract on grounds of human rights, democracy, or concern about fuelling aggressions, no other partner is going to take advantage of their decision by picking it up or, at any rate, cannot do so without first telling them, which will be an effective deterrent.
<P>
I do not think that the code is perfect.
If I may say so, I regret that it was only possible for us to get consensus on the code by dropping some of the objectives we had for achieving transparency.
I am prepared to think Mr Spencer and others would be perfectly entitled to voice criticism of that code.
But in voicing that criticism we should not overlook the fact that it represents a significant step forward.
One of my domestic critics said I have only got half a loaf but I should at least be congratulated on having got half the loaf.
That may necessarily be the condition in which we take forward a common policy among fifteen Member States.
<P>
Secondly, Mr Spencer refers to my visit to Turkey.
The problem we have in Turkey is not actually a problem we have in Europe.
Europe is ready for an association council with Turkey.
Turkey has taken the view that it is not ready for that association council and that is a view we must respect.
Turkey is not a member of the European Union.
It is not a party to the common foreign and security policy.
It is not part of any internal discipline that we may ourselves have as Member States of the European Union.
I think Turkey made a mistake.
There is a chasm between us which it would be important for Europe and for Turkey to bridge but we cannot build that bridge simply from one side of the divide.
Turkey must also assist us by being willing to build a part of the bridge from their side of the divide as well.
<P>
I would also report to the European Parliament that while I was in Ankara I visited Akin Birdal, the chair of the human rights association, on whom there was an attempted assassination two weeks ago.
I found Mr Birdal in amazingly good spirits and in a state of courage and determination that I found both inspiring and humbling.
Mr Birdal was shot at close range and had fourteen entry and exit bullet wounds.
When I saw him only seven days later he was sitting up in bed, lucid and determined and expressed to me the view that it is people like him who are urging the path of human rights and good governance and open transparent democracy in Turkey and putting Turkey on the true European path.
That is a view which everybody within the European Parliament would surely wish to echo.
<P>
I would also like to pick up the observation made by Mr Spencer about our role in the former Yugoslavia.
I would put it to Mr Spencer that he undervalues what has been achieved in the last year.
There has been a significant shift in Bosnia towards implementing the Dayton process.
When I was last in Sarajevo earlier this year the Foreign Minister of Bosnia said: ' Nobody won the war, we all lost the war' .
It was a statement that was absolutely and plainly true but it is also a statement that no senior Bosnian politician would have made until the last few months.
There is now a sober recognition across a large part of the political community in Bosnia that the way forward is to accept the Dayton agenda of ending ethnic confrontation rather than trying to recapture the ground that each different ethnic groups feel they lost during the years of conflict.
<P>
Europe has played an important part in that process.
Firstly, we played an important part in that in the recent months we have shown a renewed robustness towards the war criminals.
In my own strong view there can be no meaningful reconciliation and ethnic justice within Bosnia unless those who were responsible for the worst atrocities in the conflict are seen to be brought to justice.
I am pleased to say to the European Parliament that because of that robust approach we now have half the indicted war criminals awaiting process before the tribunal.
This is something we would have had difficulty hoping for a year ago.
<P>
Secondly, Europe has made a major contribution through the High Representative in enforcing open and fairer standards of access to the media.
It was the robust approach which the High Representative took towards television within the Republika Srpska that played a very important part in the election of a government in Republika Srpska which, for the first time, since the end of the conflict is now committed to the Dayton process and in taking it forward.
As the presidency of the European Union, I was the first foreign minister from outside Bosnia-Herzegovina who had the opportunity of addressing the assembly of the Republika Srpska and encouraging them on the path towards ethnic reconciliation and towards implementation of the Dayton process.
<P>
So there is progress within Bosnia - slow progress, inadequate progress - but there is progress which is in part a result of the work of the European Union, of the Council and of the Commission who have responded to the election of that new government of the Republika Srpska by packing it with additional resources and aid.
The problem in the former Yugoslavia is that the two neighbouring countries to Bosnia still remain countries dominated by politicians who often do not appear to have the commitment to the Dayton process one would expect from people who signed the Dayton Agreement.
<P>
In Croatia the Council has condemned the repeated failure of President Tudjman and his government to make more serious progress towards refugee return.
That is why at the most recent General Affairs Council we requested the Commission to review whether Croatia can retain its autonomous trade measures while it continues to be in default of its commitment under Dayton.
In Belgrade the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is still dominated by President Milosevic whose conduct towards Kosovo has dominated so much of our international discussions over recent months.
I regret to say that all our efforts at those international meetings both at European level and at contact group level have as yet failed to produce stability and an end to the violence in Kosovo.
Indeed, the violence in recent days has been particularly acute.
Several villages have been destroyed and there has been a sharp increase of several hundred refugees a week now seeking refuge outside Kosovo across its borders with Albania and with Montenegro.
<P>
The great tragedy of this situation is that the only people who are benefiting from the conduct of Belgrade within Kosovo is the Kosovo Liberation Army for whom President Milosevic is the best recruiting sergeant.
I welcome the fact that Belgrade and Pristina are now in dialogue but I have great doubts as to how successful that dialogue can be against a background of continued violence.
President Milosevic has engaged in dialogue but that engagement is unlikely to be successful while he continues to use violence against the Kosovans themselves.
For those reasons, the European Union moved fast after the contact group decisions to put in place a battery of measures against Belgrade - an arms embargo, a visa ban, a freeze on their assets outside the Federal Republic.
Those measures are now fully in place and Europe put them in place within ten days of the contact group meeting.
<P>
But there is also another side to our dialogue with Belgrade and that is our repeated willingness to end those measures and to offer to the Federal Republic the same embrace within the European Union we have offered to many of the other countries of the region.
The great tragedy for the people of Serbia is that President Milosevic has now left them more isolated than any other country of that region of the continent.
I have met some of the younger generation in Belgrade, for instance those who run the B92 independent radio.
They are cosmopolitan, forward-looking young people such as you will find in any capital in Europe.
It is with them that the hope for the future of Serbia lies.
It is important that while we put maximum pressure on President Milosevic, we also make it clear to those who would wish an alternative form of politics that we are on their side and there will be a welcome for them if they can succeed in the internal political debates within Serbia.
<P>
I will concede - and it is fair to do so after Mr Spencer's introduction - that we have not solved the problem of Kosovo but I would certainly very firmly assert that, in responding to the Kosovo crisis, the European Union has shown more urgency, more solidarity and has achieved a common position much more rapidly and firmly than it ever did in the early years of Bosnia.
Had we shown that urgency and that firmness in the early years of the Bosnian conflict, we might not now be starting to claw back from such a far deeper problem in which we now find ourselves.
<P>
I should also like to illustrate the success we have shown in a common position by reference to a number of the other problems of the world beyond our own continent.
Tom Spencer mentioned the Middle East peace process.
The peace process remains in deadlock.
Every Member present in this Chamber must be alarmed at the fact that deadlock remains in place.
I have grave concerns that some in the Government of Israel imagine that there are two choices.
One is between making progress in the peace process which may be of disadvantage to their interest and the other is status quo with the present deadlock which does not require them to make further compromise.
I fear that is a false perception of the two choices.
The choice in reality is either we make progress on the peace process or we slip back into confrontation and violence and instability within the region.
The status quo is not sustainable in the medium to long term.
<P>
But although everybody present has every right to be dissatisfied that there has not been more progress on the peace process, I would robustly assert to Parliament that we have never had a moment in the whole of the last three to four years since the Oslo peace process began in which the European Union presidency has been more engaged in the process.
The recent London talks were hosted in the capital of the presidency.
Both the Americans who took the initiatives on the package on the table and the partners to the talks throughout those two days met repeatedly with the presidency.
Indeed, the presidency can claim considerable credit for having persuaded the Palestinians that they should attend those talks and should accept the American package, thereby putting the pressure on the government of Israel also to accept the package.
<P>
The presidency has also provided a security advisor to the Palestinian authority and through our special envoy, Mr Moratinos, we have created a permanent security committee with the Palestinian national authority in which we are directly and in practical terms addressing the security issues.
It is the European Union which has put most resources into making a reality of the Gaza airport and it is the European Union and European companies which are investing most in the Gaza industrial estate.
If we can get the breakthrough on the question of the further redeployment it will be the European Union that will be the leading party in making sure that both those interim agreements are up and running with very real value to the economy of Palestine.
<P>
Similarly we can claim credit for the fact that we have achieved a very successful summit with the United States two weeks ago with a very real breakthrough of immense importance to Europe in that the United States administration has signed with us an agreement on sanctions legislation which explicitly rejects extraterritoriality which is of great importance to us.
We now have the basis on which both sides of the Atlantic can achieve a common position against Iran rather than Iran becoming a basis of division between the two powers on the different sides of the Atlantic.
On Africa, as recently as last Monday we adopted a common position within the General Affairs Council which stresses our commitments to good governance, human rights and development.
This is in itself a very important step forward because, if we are candid, one of the problems that Africa has had, even in the post-colonial era, is the rivalry between European powers who previously were the colonial powers in Africa.
The historic achievement we made on Monday is to finally put that cast of mind behind us and to agree that we actually have common interests in Africa and should achieve a common position in which we advance those common interests rather than pursue the mistake that we have different interests as different national powers within Europe.
<P>
So, on all those grounds, I would robustly assert that there has been progress towards common positions, common shared objectives to the world outside and a lot of solidarity shown among the nation states.
There have been other areas where I could have wished that we could have achieved a more robust and a more united approach.
I will be frank with the European Parliament and say that, although I welcome the fact that, on Monday we were able to get a clear statement condemning the recent Indian nuclear tests, it would have been better if that statement had been backed up by a more robust set of measures to give substance to our words.
But there is no difference among the Member States as to where we stand in relation to the nuclear tests.
We are dismayed by them.
We believe they are damaging to the international nuclear proliferation regime.
We believe they will fuel regional tensions and we believe also that it would be far better for the security of India and the other countries of the subcontinent if we could find a solution to Kashmir which would be much more productive for an easing of tensions within the subcontinent than any amount of nuclear tests by either side.
<P>
To sum up, given the difficulties and given the realities, we have made very real progress towards achieving a common foreign and security policy which is having a marked impact on the world outside.
I want to close by saying that as we approach enlargement, we should also recognize that not only will that enlarged Europe offer us a capacity for more prosperity, it will also offer us more capacity for more influence in the world.
We will have more power in the world.
The question we have to ask ourselves is how do we use that power? How do we make the European power of an enlarged European Union a power for good in the world?
One of the things we must do is make sure that we use that power to reinforce and support the values of the European Union and the values expressed by the robust democracy of the European Parliament.
<P>
Until recently it was fashionable to see a tension between a commitment to human rights and good governance on the one hand and a commitment to trade, exports and prosperity on the other.
It is still possible among some British politicians who have not moved with the times and fail to perceive that they are still trapped in the time-warp.
I am bound to say that after the recent Asian financial crisis that dichotomy looks very wide of the mark.
What has been fascinating in the recent Asian financial crisis is that the countries who have been best able to respond to financial pressure have been those countries with the most transparent and accountable systems of government and freedom of speech.
Those countries which had the most allowance for individual liberty and initiative have been better able to seize the new technologies and to cope with open transparent financial markets.
<P>
Conversely, those countries that have been more reluctant to share power with their people, to share knowledge with their people, to share liberty with their people have found themselves having most difficulty in responding to the pressure of financial markets.
There is no longer a tension between those objectives of promoting our values and promoting our prosperity.
They go hand in hand.
Therefore, we should make sure that first recognizing the problems we continue to build a common foreign and security policy and make sure it is a common foreign and security policy that projects our common interests as Europeans and also projects our common values as Europeans.
If we achieve that we will have achieved a common foreign and security policy in which we can all take a common pride.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, of course I thank Mr Cook for that particularly detailed response to Mr Spencer's report, but I am surprised that there has been absolutely no reaction from the Presidency, and I would like to know why not, to the debate on Cardiff.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the ample and well-drafted report that we have just heard from the British Presidency should be of great comfort to us all.
It is commonplace to say that the European Union does not have a foreign policy, despite the many rhetorical statements and statements of hope which are often made; but the Presidency of the "Foreign Affairs' Council tells us that significant progress has been made on a number of points, underlining the role of the European Union.
<P>
All of this is, in my view, a condition which we can define as necessary but not sufficient.
In other words, we are now faced with a series of quantitative increases in EU foreign policy, due to a certain euro-enthusiasm and the fact that we have approved the single currency. But despite this greater effort to craft and to want to have a common foreign policy, we think there is still a lot to do.
And there is still a lot to do in terms of the quality of foreign policy.
As a Member of this Parliament, I believe that we must hope that foreign policy becomes a constant and common theme of all the political forces in the next European elections.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, I would like to thank the President-in-Office for that extensive report.
One of the problems while discussing the Spencer report has been that we are looking backwards to the working of the CFSP in the last year, knowing full well that the world we are discussing is going to change.
It will change when Amsterdam is ratified. Amsterdam will be seen as a turning point in the working of the common foreign and security policy.
Amsterdam recognizes, in a way that Maastricht did not, that we are now operating in a completely new security situation following the end of the Cold War which requires broader instruments and broader measures to maintain European and world security.
<P>
In this debate we should really be looking at the implications of those changes and how we can maximize their effectiveness so that some of our concerns about how the CFSP has operated in the past will not be replicated in the future.
In particular, I would hope that the Amsterdam Treaty will mark a point where we stop becoming obsessed by the harmonization of the process and become rather more concerned about the effectiveness of the outcome.
It is not whether there is a common foreign and security policy worth its name that exercises my constituents, it is whether or not we are able to achieve peace and stability on the European continent.
<P>
Amsterdam takes us forward in a number of ways.
The policy planning and early warning unit allows us at long last to analyse what we mean by a common foreign and security policy.
The existence of a High Representative who will be able to deal with the day-to-day issues and the establishment of common strategies will enable us to start to have a more coherent approach.
We also have to look at some of the challenges created by Amsterdam.
For example, this Parliament is extremely supportive - and quite rightly so - of the Petersberg Tasks.
But the British Army, relative to its size, is now more heavily committed than at any time since the Second World War.
What are the implications, therefore, of developing the Petersberg Tasks for our national foreign policies and our national capacities to fulfil our ambitions?
<P>
One area where we need to move forward is the link between the Council and the Parliament.
This Parliament, in its approach to Algeria, and to Albania, in the establishment of the conflict prevention network, and in its approach to the interinstitutional agreement on the financing of CFSP, has always shown that it is capable of developing a mature dialogue with the Council and the Commission.
I would therefore urge that, when Amsterdam is ratified, the Council works more closely with Parliament in the future to develop the CFSP.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Günther">
Mr President, first of all I should like to thank the rapporteur sincerely for the work which he has presented to us.
I would like to deal with two items, both from the viewpoint of my group and from the viewpoint of the Committee on Development and Co-operation.
We are talking about a common security and foreign policy.
The question arises in this context of how we should deal with conflicts.
The rapporteur stressed this in his report, but it continues to be the case that we come up against unpleasant surprises in this area.
We have already invoked conflict prevention several times, and I would like to acknowledge in this context that we have now arrived at a code of conduct for the arms trade.
We shall need to examine the document carefully as well, although we should not overlook the fact that none of this will have any effect on the illegal arms trade - which continues to be our major problem.
<P>
It has been a source of some regret to me that the Council Presidency has not now dealt with some points in the report which are essential in my view.
In the interests of brevity, I shall do no more than quote the numbers, namely paragraphs 10, 14, 15 and 17: these are the questions that need to be addressed.
Although the Council Presidency has said it is a matter for Member States, and has passed the buck, it would have been interesting to hear whether there are any approaches which it would be worth pursuing.
<P>
There is one more point that I would like to mention, namely the question of the human rights clause which is to be incorporated into treaties with third countries, a demand which has in fact largely been realized in the development sphere, and for which the legal bases have also been created.
This shows that foreign policy can sometimes learn a thing or two from development policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Daskalaki">
Mr President, the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs has drafted an extremely detailed report, which was discussed at length by the Committee and approved unanimously.
<P>
Every year the European Parliament examines the progress made towards a common foreign and security policy and every year we are forced to admit that progress has not exactly been decisive, to put it mildly.
<P>
Mr Spencer's aim was to bring a greater dimension to this question and to look at it from a broader perspective.
Bearing in mind that the common foreign and security policy is at a transitional stage and that foreign policy differs in nature from the other policies of the Union, he stresses - and he emphasized this in his speech earlier - the need for a common, rather than a single foreign policy which also highlights the role of the European Parliament, a role which is the subject of a great deal of discussion but which has yet to meet our expectations.
<P>
In addition to specific references to the mechanisms for preventing conflict, for which provision is made in the Amsterdam Treaty, the rapporteur has included an extremely balanced reference in his report to the recent nuclear tests in India and the thorny problem of the code of conduct for controlling the sale of arms.
There is insufficient time to comment on these questions individually.
I merely wish to say that the report examines all the crucial questions which occupy the Union and that, generallyspeaking, our group as a whole supports the report, with just a very small reservation of minor significance as regards the idea of converting the Commission's offices abroad into embassies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, 1997 was not a good year for the CFSP.
The Council does not seem exactly prepared to make active use of the instruments of Community foreign policy.
What was achieved in Maastricht as the great step forward to a real common policy in that area has turned out to be a damp squib.
The Union must learn to refrain from making grand promises.
That is a great pity for its relationship with the ordinary citizen.
The figures in Mr Spencer's excellent report speak volumes.
The number of Community actions even decreased in comparison with the previous year.
The Union is withdrawing into its shell.
That surely cannot be true.
In the Middle East, in the Great Lakes area, or in Latin America the Union is allowing others to run rings around it, and is paying for them to do so.
<P>
Last year was also the year of Agenda 2000.
I still fear that the Commission's financial perspectives are built on quicksand, but this is not a time for short-sighted penny-pinching.
Enlargement of the Union is after all one of the most important international challenges it faces in this decade.
These years are years of transition.
The Treaty of Amsterdam is being ratified.
Progress has been modest so far, however.
Experience will show how much Amsterdam has delivered.
The right of veto could set us back even further.
I hope that the Member States can look beyond their short-term interests and understand that their common interest lies solely in an effective common policy.
The obstructive tactics by which the French Government has prevented a genuine improvement in the code of conduct on the arms trade is a glaring example of the effects of the veto threat.
I only hope that ordinary citizens will understand that it is their governments, not this Parliament, which are responsible for this manifestation of impotence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Mr President, in a process of transition towards a new world order characterized by unipolar attitudes and globalization, unfortunately the European Union is still not up to it.
This is because the political will and the appropriate mechanisms are lacking.
Unquestionably, what we already have is not being used enough. Also, the Treaties have not been adequately reformed in this respect.
Albania, Kosovo and Algeria, as well as the latest Iraq crisis, are examples of what the public is understandably so dissatisfied about.
The political and economic aspects are out of balance, and the terms undoubtedly need to be changed.
<P>
What should be the objectives of an EU common foreign and security policy? First of all, security in Europe.
Secondly, for human rights and reduced poverty to be the main focus of external action, bearing in mind also the impetus provided by enlargement. In my opinion, we must first make sure that Member States' foreign policies are not too disparate.
Secondly, we must adopt more common positions and actions. And, of course, we need to anticipate events, using what could be termed "preventative diplomacy' .
<P>
There are obvious priorities.
I have already mentioned Kosovo, but we should not forget the Mediterranean, Cyprus and Turkey, the Middle East and Western Sahara.
This Parliament has requested that a common position be adopted on this.
I should like to know the Council's view.
And the matter of the International Criminal Court is still pending.
<P>
We should congratulate ourselves on the arms code, but not on the understanding reached on the Helms-Burton Act and the extraterritorial laws between the British presidency of the Council and the United States.
Personally, I think this understanding goes against our own interests and does not abide by the principles underlined so many times by this Parliament and the Member States themselves.
I think the report from the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy is along those lines.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, I think that the picture painted in the Spencer report is a fairly realistic reflection of the way citizens in Europe view Community policy.
The reality is that every time a major confrontation develops - remember Bosnia, think of Kosovo today, think too of the nuclear tests in India - the general impression is that the European Union seems powerless to act and fails to reach a consensus on how to react to actual developments outside its borders.
On that score it is and remains the case that, if one asked an ordinary citizen whether we have a credible and effective common foreign policy, there is no doubt what the answer would be.
Yet I think that the answer from Mr Cook contains a large element of truth, in that the core problem is a lack of political will among the Member States actually to achieve a common foreign policy.
We could also see that in the Barcelona process, not only in connection with the stalling of the peace process, for which of course Israel currently bears the greatest share of responsibility, but also in the laggardly way in which partnership agreements are concluded. What we see are often blocking tactics which have everything to do with petty-minded national interests but nothing to do with a common foreign policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lalumière">
Mr President, the debate on the common foreign and security policy for 1997 evoked some quite contrasting opinions.
To begin with, I endorse entirely the report from Mr Spencer which clearly outlined the positions adopted by our Commission with regard to foreign affairs.
In other words, the report is excellent in that it contains justifiably strong criticisms concerning the current state of the CFSP.
In effect, and this is my second comment, we have scant reason to congratulate ourselves on the development of the CFSP since last year.
The situation is, to say the least, not encouraging, even if the President-in-Office of the Council endeavoured, with a measure of clarity and skill, to illustrate what has been achieved.
<P>
I would stress a number of items.
Institutionally, we are still waiting for the Amsterdam Treaty to be ratified, to the extent that we have still not achieved unity in terms of planning or vigilance, nor even a senior representative in the form of Mr or Mrs CFSP.
As regards the role of Parliament, within the context of the institutional agreement on the methods of financing the CFSP, whilst we may be delighted to see some progress with regard to the means of parliamentary control over the actions of the Council in this respect, we cannot help but notice that the documents supplied by the Council to date are somewhat short on detail and too lame to excite any enthusiasm in the more demanding parliamentarians.
Indeed, Mr Spencer deplored this situation in his address.
<P>
With regard to the substance of foreign policy questions, an assessment of the past year leaves us with something of a sour after-taste.
Many statements were made but few common positions and actions were pursued.
Moreover, the major dossiers were hardly surveyed by the European Union.
I might cite the case of Turkey.
Frankly, our relations with this major partner have not been conducted with consummate skill, with the result that today we find ourselves at a dead end.
Turkey continues to maintain a hostile stance, Greece and our Parliament continue to block the financial protocol, the Cyprus dossier has been sucked under and the Fifteen choose to assume different positions whereas we need to adopt a clear and consistent common position.
With regard to the Commission, we are still waiting for it to advise us of the document relating to the strategy to be adopted towards Turkey, which we have now been awaiting for some years.
<P>
This example shows us the dangers inherent in a lack of a genuine common foreign policy.
We are flying without instruments and this is not very effective.
If I may refer to the excellent report from Mr Tindemans, adopted a fortnight ago, I would make the same comment with regard to the security policy.
In fact, it is all a question of political will, others have said this and I would like to stress the point, nothing important will happen if we do not want it to.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, the annual report on progress achieved in implementing the CFSP, irrespective of those who drafted it, relates less to an assessment of the specific results of actions conducted in this context than the progress achieved towards promoting a shared Community responsibility, gradually eroding the intergovernmental nature of the CFSP as defined in the treaties, whereas the latter offers the only opportunity to exist and is the only measure of its effectiveness, as we point out in our Amendment No 10.
Regretfully, the report fails to mention, for want of effectiveness, any individual action by a Member State to the benefit of the whole of Europe, as in the case of Italy with regard to the Albanian crisis.
We might have hoped that the moderating role played by France in avoiding a disproportionate military action in the face of Iraqi obstruction could be invoked yet again in 1998.
No, the only genuine progress worth mentioning must be freed of any link with an individual Member State.
<P>
So the report prefers to linger on the major breakthroughs achieved by the Amsterdam Treaty which are, in its opinion, the shared Community responsibility for operational expenditure on the CFSP and the ability to take certain foreign policy decisions on a majority vote and, under that impetus, to advocate the institution of a common European diplomacy, beginning with the conversion of the Commission delegations into genuine diplomatic representations of the Union.
<P>
On the contrary, we consider it essential to reaffirm clearly that this is the purpose of our Amendment No 11, drawing a distinction between Commission delegations and the embassies of Member States, which latter enjoy only diplomatic status, as the main source of information required for initiatives undertaken within the context of the CFSP and which constitutes the main vector of their deployment.
On this unambiguous basis, close cooperation could be possible between the individual services and might prevent damaging confusion arising in the host countries.
Depending on the profile adopted by the CFSP in the future, whether serving a modest complementary function or a maximalist function as a replacement for national diplomacy, depending on whether it tends towards a variable geometry or multiplies the votes by majority, it will prove either effective or unrealistic.
<P>
Consequently, the ignorance of national parliaments, the ill-defined extension of its jurisdiction with regard to CFSP matters as sought by the European parliament, backed by the abuse of intergovernmental agreements already practised, do not bode well.
It is not in anyone's interest that the intergovernmental nature of the CFSP might soon assume a false front that conceals a quite different reality.
It would then slide in the direction of a purely declaratory and abstract exercise of an artificial and superficial nature.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Antony">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the excellent words of our colleague Mr Souchet allow me to set aside the speech I had prepared and instead tell you how, in light of the minimalistic, realistic way in which our colleague Mr Spencer dealt with the subject under discussion, I would like to respond to Mr Cook's long statement and, whilst not seeking to reply individually to each item he raised, I would like to make the following points.
<P>
With regard to Yugoslavia, I appreciate the way in which he pointed out our sluggish response to the problem.
But we should bear in mind that we were motivated mainly by a belief in the legitimacy of the federal, Serbo-communist, Serbo-bolshevik yoke, as I prefer to call it.
With regard to the refugees, I understand his denunciation of the dilatory response of the Croatian and Serbian governments but, for my part, I also believe that it would have been better than forcing them to return to the place where they lived, where their houses had been destroyed, which only creates further cause for conflict.
I myself have helped house more than 300 orphans from Croatia and Bosnia with the help of the Christian solidarity group I chair.
I know these countries very well. I have passed through them and I believe that wisdom suggests that if we can keep Serbian refugees in Serbia and Croatians in Croatia, that is the way it should be.
Let us keep our dreams of a totally integrated human race for another time.
<P>
With regard to the Middle East, it is almost impossible to ignore the fact that nobody today speaks of the Lebanon.
But the problems existing in Israel and Palestine are closely related to those in that very country.
We have been told that the Syrian president Hafez-el-Assad is to arrive in France in July.
As I understand it, these are inter-state relations, but Hafez-el-Assad is a dictator just like Saddam Hussein.
He is probably an even worse dictator: the destruction of the town of Hamra, the assassination of the French ambassador Delamarre, the assassination of our paratroops from Drakkar.
Mr Hafez-el-Assad is coming to Paris, although Lebanon does not yet know freedom, occupied as it is in the south by Israel, in the north by Syria, and Samir Geagea has just experienced his 1500th day of detention, along with the majority of the Christian resistance forces.
There is a great deal to be said. I just do not have the time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="Van den Broek">
Mr President, may I join with previous speakers and, in particular, the Presidency in thanking Mr Spencer for the very comprehensive and expertly produced report he has presented on the implementation of the CFSP in 1997.
He has considered every aspect and on many points I can agree with his analysis.
<P>
Mr Spencer himself points out that 1997 should in fact be viewed as a year of transition.
A year of transition in the sense that in Amsterdam new elements were added to the Treaty which would bring about changes in the foreseeable future to the effectiveness of the foreign policy pursued by the Union.
The picture that emerges from the reports shows that further improvements are needed on many points.
When it comes to more geopolitical questions, the Union is practically always able to reach common policy agreements.
I refer here in particular to the CFSP in the wider sense and have in mind the policy that has been and is being implemented in respect of, for example, enlargement of the European Union, which is also an important area of external policy.
I would also mention the initiatives in the field of Euro-Mediterranean cooperation, the deepening of cooperation with Russia, the Ukraine and other CIS countries, attention to the Baltic region and the regional approach to countries of South-Eastern Europe.
<P>
The Commission has also produced, among other things, communications on relations with China and the new Trans-Atlantic agenda.
Initiatives which will all be followed up by consultations in a Council framework.
At the same time it is positive that the Union is playing a major role in the matter of more horizontal questions of human rights, democracy, nuclear safety, nonproliferation and mine clearance.
The Presidency has also given a number of examples of those.
<P>
I do agree with the report in that perhaps too little attention is being devoted to developments on the African continent.
No doubt a common position has been adopted on the prevention and resolution of conflicts in Africa, but the individual disputes in that area, with often terrible humanitarian consequences, perhaps do not feature sufficiently in the deliberations of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs.
Perhaps they are still inclined to regard Africa more as a subject for the Council of Ministers for Development and Cooperation.
<P>
But this time too it has to be noted, just as last year, that the Union is still in fact failing to react adequately when it comes to acute crisis situations.
When prompt decisions need to be taken, national reflexes often take over or, at most, consultations on the strategy to be pursued take place in a limited framework, that is, involving a small number of Member States.
<P>
Yes, I agree with Mr Cook: the political will to make use of existing instruments is sometimes lacking and, as I already pointed out in the debate on Mr Tindemans' report on the Union's defence policy last year, when a crisis arose in Albania following the pyramid scandal, we missed the opportunity to play a recognizable role by making use of the possibilities of the Western European Union in bringing the chaotic situation there under control.
<P>
I think it must also be said that we have perhaps again been too hesitant in deploying preventive resources in order to avert a spillover in the crisis surrounding Kosovo.
There have not even been the beginnings of a discussion on a possible request to the Western European Union to undertake an analysis of the situation and to make recommendations which would then be examined by the EU and used as a basis for any decision to be taken by it.
In fact the EU waited until NATO took responsibility for the matter.
The Western European Union remains more Sleeping than Beauty.
<P>
Will the Treaty amendments agreed last year in Amsterdam, once they are ratified, mean a change in the stance of the EU in such crisis situations and contribute to an increase in the effectiveness and visibility of our foreign policy?
The appointment of a Mrs or Mr CFSP, who would bring more continuity and cohesion into our external policy, may indeed be a major step forward.
The establishment of planning and analysis capacity, drawing upon the combined knowledge and information of the Member States, the Commission and the Western European Union, may certainly represent value added.
<P>
The weak point remains of course the decision-making process.
Certainly the European Council can formulate a general basis for policy by voting unanimously, on which the General Affairs Council can subsequently decide by qualified majority, but the question remains of course how well such a concept would work in the particular case of more topical and acute questions on which decisions must be taken rapidly.
Fine, experience will be the test, and the next report will no doubt take a view on that.
<P>
I do entertain a certain optimism in my hopes for the new approach based on the Treaty of Amsterdam.
It is an approach capable of promoting greater involvement of all the Member States, hence offering scope for the development of a broader support base for a common foreign policy.
A major contribution to this support base will be provided, and I emphasize this, by the European Parliament, not only by holding debates on current political situations and adopting resolutions, but also by being directly involved.
I am thinking here of visits by parliamentarians to third countries and of activities, such as election observer missions and the like, performed by parliamentarians.
This support base is of great importance, particularly in view of the forthcoming enlargement of the Union.
In addition I take the view that, as has already been stated, monetary union will exert a cohesive influence.
The common monetary policy will undoubtedly have a positive effect on other policy areas.
<P>
By giving concrete content to the new Treaty provisions, but also by then actually carrying out certain Petersberg Tasks, the Union can at least make a start on developing a common security policy.
In the longer term a common defence policy could evolve, through which the Union would be able to play a role in the European security architecture on an equal footing with other actors.
The current assessment is that, even where conflict situations are being played out within Europe or at its borders, we are not yet able to perform a key role on an equal footing.
That vacuum is quickly filled by others and the European Union is then usually approached exclusively in terms of its financial resources, as Mr Spencer has rightly pointed out.
Only a well prepared and implemented common foreign and security policy can bring about any change in this situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Mr President, first of all I want to welcome Mr Spencer's report.
He has managed to avoid that rather nagging tone which sometimes characterizes parliamentary contributions on foreign and security policy, which simply recite our growing list of failures. On the contrary, I think Mr Spencer has managed to achieve a positive tone.
The Presidentin-Office of the Council, Mr Cook, has assessed the British presidency's performance in this field, now we are halfway through the year, and I think he did it well. Allow me to contribute to this topical debate by saying that I agree with the President-inOffice of the Council that we really are very different, with different histories, and sometimes we are engaged in disagreements, but the fact is that there is a major contradiction between foreign policy and what we are doing in other fields.
In the context of Economic and Monetary Union, we have decided to launch the euro despite our great differences. This was even done under the British presidency, which is a good manager despite the fact that the UK is not taking part at the moment.
Nevertheless, in foreign policy we always bring up differences and problems. To sum up in a very fundamental statement, I believe that foreign policy projects and develops a country's domestic strength.
That has been true throughout history.
<P>
I would add that there is a clear demand for the EU's presence on the world stage. We are present and, despite our failures, we are developing our presence, for example with enlargement and with Russia.
There are also EU representatives in Bosnia and the Middle East.
Furthermore, they are there all the time, not just when the television cameras are there, and they even try to act with a certain amount of consistency. I welcomed the bravery of Mr Cook, the President-in-Office of the Council, in Jerusalem.
As for the United States, there was an example today of the sort of things that happen. In the Knesset , the speaker of Congress, Mr Gingrich, referred to the US Secretary of State as "the agent for the Palestinians' .
So far, I do not think we say such things about each other.
<P>
I believe improvements are needed, and we are continuing - I think - to consolidate everything, but some important instruments are missing. I do not think we went far enough at Amsterdam.
We have appointed a president of the European Central Bank, we have extended the troika, consolidating the Commission a bit, but then we have a Mr or Mrs CFSP which, at the moment, is an invisible post.
Parliament has managed to join in, in budgetary terms. Nevertheless, we are not taken into account when it comes to forming an interinstitutional agreement in order to listen to our recommendations and suggestions.
I think there is still time, not by changing the Treaty of Amsterdam but by trying to improve our relations.
So I welcome Mr Spencer's proposals in this respect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stenzel">
Mr President, unfortunately the European Union's common foreign and security policy continues to be more a matter of wishful thinking than a reality.
That is why the Spencer report is quite right to stress that the public has not been given the impression of progress in the development of a European foreign policy.
The lack of an inter-institutional agreement on the right of the Parliament to be informed and consulted is also a weakness.
We can only observe with regret that there continues to be a mismatch between the EU's foreign policy and its trade policy activities.
<P>
Given the major foreign policy challenges of the European Union resulting from the enlargement process, the citizens of Europe must be allowed to participate in this process through the involvement of the European Parliament, not in order to throw a spanner in the works but to strengthen the acceptance of enlargement in Europe.
The European Union will be tested repeatedly against the yardstick of its ability to act in foreign policy matters.
It is important for the EU not only to speak politically with one voice but also to have available the necessary security policy instruments in order to take peace-keeping or peace-making measures, for the purposes of crisis prevention, whether it be in Albania or Kosovo.
The deteriorating situation in Kosovo is a priority for Austria as the next Council Presidency but as long as the political will is lacking to exercise real influence here, all initiatives threaten to become a demonstration of impotence, and the European Union runs the risk - as has already happened in the Balkans - of becoming an onlooker at an uncontrollable development and of letting slip the need to act.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, the title of the report, "The role of the Union in the world' , is nothing if not grandiose.
This grandiose title is followed by a total of 9 headings and 26 points. And all of them are peevish, whingeing statements of the obvious, not one of which is bold enough to get to the heart of the matter.
Relations between the European Parliament and questions of foreign policy: there is no interpretation, Parliament's opinion is sought neither by the Council nor the Commission, decisions are not taken at a cross-institutional level which would make the demands of the Treaties binding.
<P>
And what about the common foreign and security policy itself: this has progressed from non-existence to inadequacy.
As the report says: public opinion does not value it. That is a fact.
There is no coordination in arms exports.
But the report does not say why or how coordination can be achieved.
<P>
My third point relates to the Community values which it preaches; the following are not included as a sine qua non in the individual clauses of agreements with third countries: human rights and everything else which one could include in these agreements.
It makes no reference to the typical example of Turkey, which has no respect for anything but which....
<P>
(The president cut off the speaker)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tatarella">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, unlike my colleague who preceded me I congratulate the President on his excellent report.
It is an important and well-written document because this debate is not resolved in the usual annual meeting but instead it is a great opportunity, firstly, for an analysis and in-depth clarification of the state of foreign policy and the role of Europe in the world; secondly, for a clear and strong awareness on the part of the European Parliament of its role, its prerogatives and its strength; and thirdly, for a precise and specific indication of proposals and suggestions which may lead to real progress in matters of foreign policy.
<P>
On this point, the European Parliament's claim of its right to be informed and consulted on international negotiations and bilateral and multilateral commercial agreements is significant and important.
Our Regulations, Mr President, should be adapted as soon as possible to reinforce the role and powers of Parliament, to guarantee information and consultation which are efficient and detailed.
At present, the Council and the Commission snub Parliament: with the information given intermittently to the Parliament they are not fulfilling their obligations with regard to the Treaty, and above all, their duties with regard to the citizens of Europe.
This is a Parliament which represents 300 million citizens, it was elected by direct universal suffrage in fifteen Member States and it is the strongest democratic Assembly in the world.
<P>
Given this democratic strength, we must demand a greater role for the Parliament to contribute to giving the European Union an authentic foreign policy which, today, as we are all aware, is lacking or is completely insufficient.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Truscott">
Mr President, I would like to thank the President-in-Office and the Commission for their statements this afternoon and Mr Spencer for his report.
<P>
May I begin by congratulating the President-in-Office on securing a ground-breaking agreement on the EU code of conduct on arms exports this Monday.
I welcome the strengthening of the eight criteria agreed at the Luxembourg and Lisbon European Councils which mean that arms exports from the EU must not be used for internal repression, external aggression or supporting terrorism.
The code of conduct will enhance the effectiveness of the common foreign and security policy.
Can I, however, make the plea that the Council's annual consolidated report on the code is published, so strengthening transparency and giving the European Parliament an opportunity to debate and comment on the code's implementation.
<P>
On the operation of the CSFP in 1997, it is fair to note that there have been a number of successes including democratic consolidation in central and eastern Europe.
The creation of a policy planning and early warning unit and the office of the High Representative, outlined in the Amsterdam Treaty, and already mentioned this afternoon will help improve the visibility of the CSFP.
However, further work will have to be done on creating closer organizational links between the WEU and EU which under the protocol on Article J VII of the Amsterdam Treaty must be in place within a year of the Treaty entering into force.
This is necessary to make the CSFP, the Petersberg Tasks mentioned by the Commissioner and the European security and defence identity a reality.
An inter-parliamentary delegation between the WEU Assembly and the European Parliament would assist in this task.
<P>
In 1998 we have witnessed further progress under the CSFP and many of these have been outlined by the President-in-Office, particularly, I would say, the successful launch of the historic enlargement process.
<P>
Over the coming year, I hope the Council will establish an ever closer working relationship with the Parliament as the CSFP continues to evolve.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sindal">
Mr President, with reference to Mr Spencer's report, the House has in fact been in general agreement that little progress has been made.
I, too, concur with this.
I can also agree with a further three points.
Action is notable by its absence when it comes to the will to prevent conflicts, for example in the Balkans, as we have heard.
Further, there is the matter of interinstitutional collaboration and formal regulations.
I, too, would like to draw attention to the importance of proper Parliamentary involvement, if this is to be considered a project of the people.
I agree with the comments made regarding CFSP and the analysis unit, but I would like to emphasize that I regard this analysis unit as a support to the Council, not some lofty new institution.
<P>
However, there are points I must disagree with.
As a Dane, I am somewhat alarmed at the good intentions described in the report, overshadowed as they are by armament and proposals to integrate the WEU into the Union.
Naturally, I must distance myself from that.
The Petersberg agreement is accurately represented, and I endorse this.
The Amsterdam Treaty describes what could practically be called the prospects of welding together the foreign policies of Member States - as Mr Cook, the Foreign Secretary, said previously - while respecting the wishes of each individual country.
We must beware of being so ambitious that the project will become untenable.
New security structures alone do not produce results; the crucial factor is the will of the Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Donner">
Mr President, Mr Cook made an impressive statement about the achievements during the British presidency.
He forgot to mention that the football championships will start in June; maybe that is also due to the British efforts.
<P>
There is an abundance of talkative well-wishers within the Union; the Council issued 124 declarations during 1997 on foreign policy.
Did they change the reality?
The answer is No.
In the Spencer Report as it stands today there is the wish to integrate the WEU into the Union.
Maybe some people will have a clear conscience after that.
<P>
Everybody is talking about the weather, nobody is doing anything about it.
Everybody is talking about foreign policy but where is the substance?
If too much time is consumed by secondary matters there is less time for crucial issues like enlargement and the partial inability to act.
<P>
General politics remains the heart of the matter within the Union.
Everybody wishes to preserve peace and stability but the willingness for joint action remains limited as was shown in Albania.
One example, as the Middle East peace process slowly dies - thanks to Mr Netanyahu - despite heavy Union investment in the area, the whole prospect of a common, foreign and security policy must be re-examined including, in this case, economic and other sanctions.
<P>
The Spencer Report clearly shows that there is almost no progress in the foreign policy field.
Congratulations to Mr Spencer for stating the obvious.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Cook">
- Mr President, I find myself in sympathy with most of the objectives that have been expressed in the course of a very full debate in which all those taking part spoke with vigour and obvious commitment.
<P>
If I can straight away dispose of the one speech with which I did not agree.
I could not find myself in agreement with what Mr Anthony said about refugee return in the former Yugoslavia.
Let us not forget the basis on which those refugees were created.
They were created by vile, violent and ethnically-based confrontation.
It is a very important as we construct a new Europe that we construct a new Europe on principle of ethnic pluralism and tolerance of minorities; that is after all one of the standards we apply to countries seeking to be members of the Union and it should also be a standard we apply to countries that seek to be in trade agreements with us.
<P>
I said earlier this afternoon how much we welcome President Nelson Mandela coming to Cardiff.
We cannot celebrate the abolition of apartheid in Africa, only to tolerate it being created at home in a corner of Europe.
<P>
Otherwise, I find myself in much agreement with many of the objectives stated here.
The one point that I did feel running through the discussion is that there was sometimes a failure to grasp that it was not enough to state the aspiration in order to deliver the outcome.
I was particularly impressed at Mr Carnero González listed as failures of the common foreign and security policy: Albania, Algeria, Kosovo, Western Sahara, the Middle East peace process.
<P>
There are immense problems in the world and there are some severe cases of conflict.
I believe we are setting ourselves a totally impossible task which is bound to leave us all with a sense of frustration if we make the test of a common foreign and security policy whether it has resolved all conflicts within the world.
<P>
First of all, that is unattainable.
Secondly, I would also counsel colleagues against a modern form of imperialism by thinking that the solutions that we ourselves decide are the right solutions in Europe are necessarily acceptable to those who are involved in conflict in other continents of the world.
We have an obligation to offer our best offices to assist them in finding a solution and to take measures against those who willfully and irresponsibly prolong conflict or prolong violence.
Within those two objectives of seeking to achieve a resolution of conflict and to deter people from the use of violence as a means of resolving conflict, we should ourselves find a common position among our countries.
That will not always produce the solution but we certainly have an obligation to find that common position.
<P>
If you look back over the events of recent months, on a number of these conflict issues, Europe has indeed adopted a common position, has sought to seek to achieve solutions.
It has not always succeeded and in those cases where we have success, like Bosnia, the process of clawing back from the bitter hatreds of recent years is inevitably going to take time if not a generation to complete.
I would ask the Members of the European Parliament, whilst they are perfectly entitled to demand a common concern and common action from the Council, to recognize that will not necessarily produce outcomes and will certainly not produce outcomes that will be acceptable in the immediate short term.
<P>
Finally, can I pick up one or two colleagues who have referred to the mechanisms provided for by the Amsterdam Treaty to improve the common foreign and security policy.
It is indeed the case that when we have the planning and early warning unit and when we have the High Representative in place, we will have a better mechanism for giving expression to the common positions we adopt.
They will, of course, not have any legal basis until the Amsterdam Treaty is ratified.
That is up to the Member States.
Colleagues within the European Parliament can go back to Member States to make sure that they are achieving all possible speed in making sure that they do ratify.
I am pleased to report to you that we have now almost completed the parliamentary processes in Britain for ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty.
If other Parliaments achieve the same timescale, we can achieve ratification within the next few months and that will give a legal basis to these steps forward in common foreign and security policy.
In the meantime, we have used our Presidency to take forward the preparation so that from the moment we have the legal basis to proceed we can proceed quickly with the changes in personnel, the arrangements, the provision for resources in place so that within the legal basis we can act immediately.
<P>
I end with one plea to all Members, I have listened with great interest to a number of speeches this afternoon demanding a common foreign and security policy and condemning the Council for lack of political will in achieving it.
I am bound to say that in each of the countries from which I heard speakers speak eloquently and passionately this afternoon, I could recite lists of cases in the past five months when their Member State has held out against the others in achieving a common foreign and security policy; particularly in the case of Madam Lalumière who made the most rigorous demands for a common foreign and security policy.
<P>
Building such a common position is not easy, it requires compromise all round.
We will never get a common foreign and security policy by one nation demanding that the rest of Europe adopt their common foreign and security policy.
It will require trade-offs between us and if we are going to achieve it our best prospect of achieving it is if we go into it openly recognizing that all countries are going to have to work for the common good and at times are going to have to abandon their own national positions in order to do so.
<P>
Sometimes, and my own country reserves that right, we will have to say no we cannot abandon this particular national perspective because it is too important.
We have to retain that right to defend a national interest.
That makes it difficult, of course, to oppose a common foreign and security policy but I would submit to Parliament that it is also an essential part of making sure that we get the popular agreement and the popular support for the legitimacy of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
South Africa
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="President">
The next item consists of the statements of the Council and the Commission on the situation in South Africa.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Henderson">
- Mr President, I should like to say how pleased I am that Parliament has chosen to debate this important subject at this important time.
As Parliament will know, since 1994 the European Union has made a series of commitments to help South Africa through its transition from the apartheid regime.
We remain determined to continue to help South Africa during the economic and political transformation in its society.
We in Europe have seen how achieving common goals of economic development and prosperity binds societies together.
We would all recognize that trade and cooperation between nations is much more likely to bring them closer together.
The best way for the European Union to help South Africa is to allow South Africa greater opportunities for trade and economic development that will help that country to heal the divisions in its society caused by so many years of hatred and oppression.
<P>
I also believe that South Africa has the potential to be one of the catalysts for growth and development in Africa as a whole.
The European Union must continue to do everything it can to help to build on that potential.
Many of the European Union's commitments which I mentioned earlier have already been fulfilled.
One undertaking we made was to offer South Africa qualified accession to the Lomé Convention and I am pleased to say that this accession will finally enter into force on 1 June now that it has been ratified by all Member States.
I look forward to South Africa's full participation in the political dialogue between the ACP and the European Union that lies at the heart of the Lomé relationship.
<P>
The European Union and South Africa also concluded a science and technology agreement in November 1996 and talks on separate agreements covering fisheries and wines and spirits continue to make progress.
In terms of aid, the European Community has committed substantial development assistance of over ECU 100m per year to South Africa through the European programme for reconstruction and development which will continue at least until 1999.
I can tell Parliament that it is a UK presidency priority to make as much progress as possible in the negotiation of a trade and cooperation agreement with South Africa and on the related agreements on fisheries and wines and spirits.
In the last few months we have come a long way but I believe that there is a political will to go substantially further before the end of June.
<P>
The trade negotiations have been slow in the past but they gained a renewed impetus last autumn with a detailed South African offer.
Chief negotiators on both sides believe that a deal which is fair and beneficial to both sides is within reach.
Indeed, on 30 March the General Affairs Council asked Coreper, together with the Commission, to examine options for improving the European Community offer.
Talks are now at a critical stage.
Efforts will be needed on both sides to show flexibility.
The presidency has remained in close touch with the South Africans throughout as well as working closely with the Commission and other Member States.
I am encouraged by the repeated statements from South African ministers of their determination to conclude an agreement.
<P>
Both sides will need to look again at areas such as increased coverage of overall trade in order to reach a WTO-compatible agreement.
Any agreement will also have to meet the concerns of both sides about their offensive economic interests, for example in the agricultural and industrial sectors.
Naturally, taking account of Community sensitivities and economic interests remains a key objective for our negotiators.
Throughout the negotiations the Council has been very aware of the potential effects an agreement may have on the neighbouring countries of the South African Development Community.
Both the European Union and South Africa have repeatedly made clear that the concerns of those countries will be taken into account during the negotiations.
The European Union/South Africa Agreement must be positive for the whole region.
<P>
With this in mind the Commission has said that it will consider technical assistance to countries of the Southern Africa Customs Union during any economic adjustment period and I strongly believe that the economic benefits an agreement would bring to South Africa will be shared by South Africa's neighbours.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank honourable Members for the interest they have shown in the Council's efforts to reach an agreement with South Africa.
In particular, I would like to thank members of the delegation for relations with South Africa whom I met earlier in the presidency and whose expressions of support for the negotiating process have been extremely welcome.
I hope all honourable Members will continue to support these efforts during the critical weeks to come and in the future when the final agreement will require the assent of this body.
<P>
The European Union will have a further opportunity to show the importance it attaches to relations with South Africa at the European Council in Cardiff when President Mandela will be having lunch with the assembled heads of state or government.
I would like to reiterate my belief that with hard work and good will on both sides a satisfactory result to the trade negotiations can be achieved.
I hope we can continue to make rapid progress towards concluding the agreement and honouring the commitments we have made to South Africa.
I again thank this House for its continued interest and support and sense of urgency and priority that a trade agreement is reached with South Africa.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Pinheiro">
Mr President, it will soon be three years since we launched an ambitious set of negotiations with the new South Africa, after the Union had set itself a unique goal: that of establishing a long-term framework for cooperation with this important partner, that would underpin its historical transition to democracy and reflect the dual nature of its economy.
<P>
ln April last year, we had the pleasure to welcome South Africa as the 86th member of the Convention of Lomé.
At the ACP/EC Council of Ministers in Luxembourg, a special protocol was signed which gave South Africa qualified access to the Lomé Convention.
This fact marked the conclusion of the negotiations on the first track of the envisaged framework for EU/South Africa cooperation.
<P>
But after three years of hard work, we have to note with some regret that the second track, that will lead us to a bilateral trade, development and cooperation agreement, is not yet finalized.
We have made a lot of progress and tentatively agreed on most sections of the future agreement. But work remains to be done in several important areas before we can conclude.
<P>
Last month we had our 18th round of negotiations and a further round is planned for 10 and 11 June.
At several points the gap between the EU and South Africa remains to be bridged.
This being said, I believe that there is still a good chance to finish the work soon.
There remains a window of opportunity for us to use.
The Commission is making every effort to complete these bilateral negotiations with South Africa before we enter into the post-Lomé negotiations next autumn.
On the South African side, we also understand that there is a wish to conclude the agreement with the EU before the start of the electoral campaign for the country's next general elections that are due to take place in the first half of 1999.
<P>
What are the main outstanding issues?
Firstly, a few problems remain on non-trade issues, notably on the wording of our proposed non-execution clause and on the question of the future financial resources that will be available for development cooperation with South Africa.
No financial amounts will be mentioned in the agreement, but the Community is called upon to give the political reassurance that financial assistance to South Africa will indeed be continued beyond the year 2000.
<P>
Secondly, several issues are still outstanding in the area of trade-related aspects, which are essential to any free trade arrangement.
Further discussion and negotiation will be necessary to agree on precise undertakings in the areas of anti-dumping, safeguards, competition policy, government procurement, intellectual property and maritime transport.
<P>
Finally, some real obstacles need to be resolved in the trade sector in order to arrive at an agreement with South Africa that meets the principles which the Community considers essential, and to which I will refer briefly.
The first principle is its full compliance with WTO requirements.
As you know, it is widely understood that a free-trade agreement should cover not less than 90 % of total trade between the parties in order to avoid possible interpretative discussions in the context of the World Trade Organization.
The current EU offer covers 89 % of imports from South Africa.
The South African offer proposes to liberalize 81 % of its own imports from the European Union.
Both offers therefore represent a significant step towards improved market access, but they are not attractive enough to the other side, and they may not be sufficient to secure the WTO compatibility of the agreement.
The time has come for both sides to increase the coverage of their respective trade offers.
<P>
We know it is not an easy step to make, because it touches on sensitive sectors and interests on both sides.
But we need to move in this direction while bearing in mind the two principles of reciprocity and asymmetry which underpin our trade talks.
Tariff elimination on the European Union side will in principle be quicker and achieved within 10 years.
The South African offer is based on a 12 year transitional period.
If we can move towards additional trade concessions, we would secure deeper improvements in market access and, at the same time, a significant element of differentiation that would take account of the differences of development between the two sides.
<P>
The second principle is coherence with EU common policies.
The trade agreement with South Africa must be coherent with existing European Union policies such as the European Union's common commercial policy and, in particular, the common agricultural policy and the common fisheries policy.
South Africa is the first case in the Union's history of a preferential agreement where the objective of free trade also applies to agriculture.
The bulk of the European Union's agricultural concessions to South Africa are scheduled to begin after 2003 or 2005, so that they can dovetail with progress in the CAP reforms.
Some agricultural products will, for the time being, remain excluded from tariff elimination.
But even for these products, partial liberalisation may be considered in certain cases and a regular review should be foreseen.
Tariff concessions are also envisaged on fisheries products but they remain conditional upon the progress achieved in the negotiations for a separate fisheries agreement.
<P>
The third principle is the coherence with the provisions of agreements with other preferential partners.
Our agreement with South Africa must also be consistent with the European Union's existing external agreements, with particular attention to Mediterranean countries and the countries of the ACP group.
Fine-tuning will be necessary in order to protect the key export interests of these countries at the European Union market, but also to assure that the terms of SA access to the EU market is comparable with that of countries in a similar position.
Consistency will also be sought in the area of rules of origin.
<P>
Finally, the fourth principle is that we must have a strong developmental dimension, for the benefit of South Africa and its neighbours.
It is our definite objective to ensure that the EU/SA agreement will have a positive developmental impact not only for South Africa itself, but also for the southern African region and the ACP group at large.
<P>
From the outset of the negotiations two years ago, we began a process of regular consultations with the ACP group and various sub-groups whom we meet regularly.
Based on what we have heard during this process, we are confident that, if successfully worked out, the agreement between the European Union and South Africa will be of benefit not only to both parties, but also to many others that have strong economic ties with South Africa.
<P>
How can we assure the positive impact that we are aiming for?
I would say that the answer is in political commitment informed by sound economic analysis.
The political commitment is there.
We are still working on the analysis.
In our view the impact of this European Union/South Africa free-trade agreement will be felt in three concentric circles.
First, there are benefits to accrue to the BLNS countries - Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland - the four neighbours of South Africa which belong to the South Africa Customs Union, SACU.
Second, there will be benefits for the SADC region - the broader circle of 14 countries covering the whole of Southern Africa.
And third, we have to look at the wider ACP family.
<P>
We expect ongoing studies to confirm that the free trade agreement will bring significant gains for consumers and entrepreneurs alike.
The business community will have access to a cheaper and more diversified range of supplies for their inputs and capital goods and they will thus stand better prospects for investing, exporting and hiring additional staff.
Job creation and an investment drive in the region are expected to be the main positive effects of our free trade agreement with South Africa, and will be enhanced by a more intense economic cooperation.
<P>
The principles which guide the Union in its negotiations with South Africa give no ground for controversy.
They echo the ambitions of the new South Africa, which has placed itself at the forefront of an 'African Renaissance' .
As the European Council prepares itself to greet President Mandela in Cardiff next month, it is essential for us to ensure that the Community translates its commitments into a generous and innovative agreement that will foster trade, enhance development and promote peace and stability in the region.
<P>
As we enter into a decisive phase of these ambitious negotiations with South Africa, we are fully aware that the agreement we shall reach is of importance to many others and will be seen by many ACPs as a crucial test for the future of Lomé itself.
It is for us to demonstrate that free trade can take place in a developmental context and to reconcile mutual interests with solidarity.
I hope our Member States will join us in expressing these views and if this is so in Cardiff, I am confident we will succeed very soon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Kinnock, G.">
Mr President, I should like to thank the Commissioner and congratulate the UK presidency on the clear commitments they have made to these trade and development talks.
I would also like to thank the Minister of State himself for his willingness to prioritize this matter with us in the European Parliament.
As they have both said, we have reached a very critical stage in these negotiations.
Neither of them actually mentioned the fact that we have had the postponement of the nineteenth round which was due to take place this week.
This is a very worrying delay in a very difficult process.
It is one that I have been aware of since I was the rapporteur on the interim agreement.
<P>
However, in the light of the South African negotiating team's willingness now to put forward a new - and significantly improved - offer of possibly 85 % product coverage, does the Council anticipate that there will be commensurate adjustments coming from the Commission in the negotiations on our side?
Let us be clear.
The South Africans now are saying that they are willing to make substantial adjustments themselves in order that we can see some clear progress.
Unless the European Union is prepared to take clear initiatives to revitalize these talks, we risk jeopardizing the whole process.
<P>
I do not want the President-in-Office to think that I am alarmist but the reality is that the EU has only two weeks to prepare an appropriate response which can ensure that the essential elements of the trade components of the negotiations are concluded and ready for discussion in Coreper the following week.
Naturally, we do not anticipate a final or complete agreement but we should aim for 'fine-tuning' and no more during the Austrian presidency.
This will happen if we have substantially agreed the main and most contentious trade issues.
Obviously asymmetry has to be taken out of the cupboard and given a good dusting down and has to be discussed very fully in the negotiations.
The Commission has mentioned that already.
<P>
In the context of a global changing market, any agreement on the liberalization of trade set to take place in the timescales envisaged would be unlikely to survive.
There is the reform of the CAP, there are the new GATT negotiations, so is it not likely that they will be both outdated and meaningless in the timescale being dealt with?
Let us be prepared to get back to basics.
Let us stop getting bogged down by product-by-product wrangling.
We need to be generous.
<P>
President Mandela is approaching the end of his presidency after showing courage and unrelenting determination to ensure a better future for South Africans.
We have a clear part to play.
The President-in-Office may recall that in January I asked him in Strasbourg if it was possible that we could invite President Mandela to Cardiff to sign an agreement.
He is now coming to Cardiff to say farewell to heads of state - and to savour the delights of the capital city of Wales!
Would it not be icing on the cake if we could acknowledge at that time that broad agreements had been reached between the European Union and his country of South Africa?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, I also want to have a more global approach to this problem and step back somewhat from the details of the negotiations.
When I was a minister, I myself had to take part in various negotiations in the Council of Ministers, including those relating to transit agreements with Austria and Switzerland, and I know how you can get bogged down in details if you lose sight of the whole picture.
<P>
When South Africa, after a long, dark period of apartheid, achieved a very honourable return to democracy the Western World rang with laudatory declarations and promises for the future of the country.
The European Union too rallied behind those declarations and promises.
The economic boycott which South Africa had had to endure was to be transformed into economic cooperation, and South Africa was to get generous aid from the European development funds.
That was the picture shortly after the achievement of majority rule.
And, happily, it came to fruition.
That has all been detailed again by the President-in-Office of the Council and by Mr Pinheiro.
South Africa receives considerable financial aid to overcome the effects of apartheid and those projects are faring well, as far as I have heard.
<P>
The major problem, however, is in the trade agreement, which has been dragging on for three years now.
Precisely that agreement is of great importance to South Africa because, after the years of economic boycott, South African agriculture and industry need a chance to grow and export, to Europe as well.
That is indeed the only real way to fight poverty in South Africa and to stimulate employment, also for the black population.
There is 40 % unemployment in the country, especially among young people.
That is far too high.
We have to realize that.
It represents a grave danger for stability and perhaps even for democracy in that country.
The increasing crime rate is also bound up with that.
Against that background it is hard to understand why the negotiations are dragging on so long, and it is also hard to understand why they have got bogged down in such details.
Of course South Africa has also had problems.
We are well aware of that, particularly in relation to the surrounding countries, and that is also a serious point.
But the real brake on the negotiations is in the hands of the Member States which have refused to make concessions, particularly in the area of agriculture.
That is the nub of the problem.
<P>
My group considers that it is high time to put a stop to that insidious process of detailed negotiations and to make a gesture towards South Africa.
This means that every Member State must give some ground.
But the result can be a real agreement.
We think that when President Mandela comes to Cardiff - I have had the pleasure of meeting President Mandela several times - that generous gesture must be made to him.
Perhaps the heads of government must have the courage simply to draw a line under the negotiations and say "let us go ahead and do it' .
We want to reach out a hand to Mandela and we want South Africa to be able to conclude good agreements with Europe and thereby gain a chance to develop its economy.
We need that, Mr President.
Hence my general political appeal, avoiding the endless details that are being dished up again now.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Collins, Gerard">
Madam President, I would like to thank the Council and the Commission for the statements they made before Parliament today.
We are all disappointed at the rate of progress in the negotiations for the trade cooperation and development agreement with South Africa but it is important that the end result of the negotiations is an agreement which is beneficial to the long-term interest of both parties to these negotiations.
South Africa is the major economic force in sub-Saharan Africa and the European Union is its principal trading partner.
It is clear that any agreement will have far-reaching implications, not just for our future relationship with the Republic of South Africa but also with its neighbouring countries.
<P>
Parliament should take the opportunity presented by today's debate to reaffirm its commitment to the political aim of reaching a wide-ranging and comprehensive agreement with South Africa which is fair to the interests of both parties.
I would like to express my full confidence in Commissioner Pinheiro and his team of negotiators who I know will make every effort to conclude an agreement in line with the negotiating mandate they have been given by the Council of Ministers; a mandate which did not reflect the public statements or commitments given by heads of state or government to President Mandela which, of course, raised very highly the level of expectations in South Africa.
<P>
In April the Commission officials put forward a series of proposals which would allow a level of openness of 95 %, a significant improvement on previous European proposals.
I hope that South Africa will shortly be able to respond to this improved offer and that every effort will now be made to conclude the negotiations as near as possible to the target date of mid-1998 or at latest by the end of the year.
<P>
I would also like to take this opportunity to say in my capacity as chairman of Parliament's delegation for relations with South Africa, that I and my delegation colleagues have had extensive discussions with South African government ministers and representatives of NGOs concerning the European programme for reconstruction and development in South Africa.
It is my belief that this aid programme continues to make a valuable contribution towards the promotion of the economic developments of the disadvantaged within South Africa and I hope that this programme will be continued after 1999.
I will conclude by inviting the Commission to submit a proposal for the continuation of the EPRD to Parliament and the Council as quickly as possible for our consideration in good time before the end of the present programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, what began as the start of a new era has in reality been a malodorous affair up to now.
The dual approach of South Africa involving qualified membership of the Lomé Convention and bilateral negotiations geared to free trade is the right one.
The results in practice have been less appealing.
Exclusion of 45 % of agricultural products is in conflict with the spirit of that approach.
The Union must make a generous gesture.
What is at issue here is an asymmetric agreement with a country in which, for the moment, everything is not as it should be.
<P>
The Union must prepare a follow-up reconstruction and development programme. When the current one runs out in 1999, it merits immediate continuation.
I should like to hear from the Council and the Commission whether more attention can be devoted in the aid-giving process to the security aspects of development.
South Africa is ravaged by crime, and a culture of violence has taken a grip on the country.
<P>
There must be more control of arms flows.
Perhaps the Council can also comment on the action programme of the Union on small arms and the conference it recently held in South Africa.
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<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Querbes">
Mr President, the advancement and the conclusion of negotiations between South Africa and the Union marks, in our view, a vital step forward.
The stakes, as the President-in-Office of the Council reminded us, consist in consolidating the human and democratic progress achieved in that country to contribute to a development generating business and jobs and to promote, through South Africa and its extensive influence throughout southern Africa, stability, peace and the future development of an entire part of the African continent.
<P>
To this end, we hope that the next meeting between President Mandela and European Union leaders may record not only further advances in the negotiation process, but also the ability to bring them to a conclusion.
To achieve this, the Commission and the Council must provide evidence, as their representatives have just confirmed, of the generous spirit that spurs European governments forward in their relations with South Africa and provide a measure of the mutually advantageous consequences that might derive from the furtherance of economic relations between the European Union and South Africa.
<P>
Of course, the promotion of interactive relations with South Africa must not cause us to sacrifice a production sector in the Union, particularly agriculture, which too often serves as a common currency in agreements between the Union and Third World countries.
But in this case, the problems are not comparable.
Not a great deal of our production is truly competitive, due to the problem of distance and the reversal of seasons which may contribute towards promoting complementarity as opposed to competition.
We must pay great attention to these matters.
So, within the context of a necessarily asymmetrical approach, we must spread the spirit of solidarity that binds us through all production sectors in the Union.
In addition, by reviewing the product exclusion list on an annual basis, we will better understand the competitive situations and will be able to restrict the number of products concerned from the outset.
<P>
To conclude, I would say that our co-development and solidarity actions should be expressed through other instruments of the Union, such as direct financial aid or the Lomé Convention.
With this in mind, I would hope that the Commission and the Council might seek in the coming weeks to conclude an economic agreement which would reflect the support of the people of Europe for those who conquered apartheid.
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<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Madam President, I would like to express the grave concern of my group over the state of the negotiations between the Union and South Africa.
Years ago the European Parliament had already formulated very precise proposals taking account of the legacy of apartheid and of the need for regional integration, and making a clear appeal for asymmetry for the benefit of South Africa.
The Union proposals that are still on the table make no response whatsoever to the demands which had been very clearly formulated by the European Parliament.
I would like to focus attention on four points.
<P>
Firstly, the problem of inadequate access for South Africa's agricultural products to our market, while at the same time heavily subsidized farm products from the Union wreak havoc on the South African market.
Thus, on the point of consistency with other EU policy sectors, the European Union must examine its own conscience.
<P>
Secondly, protectionism with regard to certain finished products from South Africa.
<P>
Thirdly, concessions which mean very little in the short term or come into effect so late that by that time the exporters have long been forced off the South African market.
<P>
Finally, the point of loss of income from customs revenue, for Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland: no satisfactory proposal is currently on the table from the European Union.
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Hence my appeal: let us indeed be generous.
Let us be innovative, for up to now this has by no means been the case.
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<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Macartney">
Madam President, when South Africa achieved the impossible and had a peaceful transition to democracy, the whole world applauded the inspiration which President Mandela gave us.
The whole world also applauded the sacrifices made by the front line states in leading up to that achievement: Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Namibia and the other states.
All of them have a very specific vested interest in the outcome of these talks because those countries are locked in to a protectionist regime which benefitted them.
It was not that they wished it but that was the system.
I am not convinced yet that the proposals from the European side are going to replace that dependency which they have been landed with.
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I would echo the sentiments from all sides in the House for generosity and I am very encouraged by the unanimity with which this is being approached.
This is a time when Europe can come to a conclusion and sweep aside some of the detailed objections from vested interest and come to Cardiff and say to President Mandela: we applaud you, we salute you but not just with fine words but with action.
I echo the spirit of the House and I ask the Council and the Commission to take this as one of their top priorities.
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<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
Madam President, it is regrettable that no real progress has been made in the important negotiations between South Africa and the EU on trade policy.
For more than three years South Africa&#x02BC;s democratic government has had to fight against a discriminatory trade policy on the part of the EU.
The EU is South Africa&#x02BC;s major trading partner.
Nevertheless, some countries are pursuing a protectionist policy with regard to products such as wine, fish and agricultural produce.
For example, the EU subsidizes tinned tomatoes and thus completely ousts South African tomatoes from their own market, resulting in growing unemployment.
This is particularly damaging because it is primarily women that are affected, each of whom, by working in this industry, supports 7-8 people.
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The white population continues to own 87 % of all land.
One-third of the population is unemployed, one-third has work and one-third has informal work.
The problems facing South Africa are substantial.
It will, for example, take at least 20 years to get to grips with the housing shortage.
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South Africa is a country that has risen from apartheid and political oppression.
There is a broad-based political movement that is resolutely fighting to create a new South Africa - something which none of us who for many years worked in the antiapartheid movement dared even to dream about.
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It is especially important that the EU should support this young democracy in its battle for peace and stability and that it should help to increase the prosperity of the country.
South Africa has now made further concessions in the negotiations.
The Presidency has a special responsibility for ensuring that the EU is now finally ready to sign this agreement.
It would be both significant and fitting if Nelson Mandela were to be permitted to put his name to this important agreement for South Africa while he is still President.
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Olof Palme once said "Politics is a question of the will' .
Now is the time for the EU to show that will!
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<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Madam President, now that South Africa has become a model of democracy, an exception in that part of the world, we in the European Union should do everything to support that process.
Let us also be clear: at this time when the Truth Commission under the chairmanship of Archbishop Tutu is working to dispel frustration, hatred, violence and oppression, a word of support and appreciation, admiration even, is worth a lot.
Certainly, when we hear Mr Cook, as President-in-Office of the Council, in his speech earlier saying that we must do everything to promote democratization in the world and we then proceed in a childish, indeed, petty manner to refuse to allow access to our market and to sign an association agreement, then I think there is only one thing we have to add for the British Presidency: no Presidency has more to do than the present Presidency in Cardiff, when President Mandela, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, comes to speak to all the members of the European Council, in order to hand him an agreement ready to sign.
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We are counting on the British Presidency to know clearly how to play things, but we also know that the resistance does not emanate from the Commission and it is not Parliament that is resisting the agreement. It is the fault of the Council and the Members of the Council that no agreement can be reached and that does not do you credit, Mr Cook.
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<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Spiers">
Madam President, I too welcome the steps that have been taken to conclude a trade agreement under the British presidency and the personal commitment of the President-in-Office but I hope that these efforts will be rewarded so that when President Mandela comes to Cardiff he will not simply be thanking European leaders for help in the past during the apartheid years but will be able to thank them for taking steps to achieve a full and fair trade deal.
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Commissioner Pinheiro said that the need was for a political commitment informed by sound economic analysis.
I have to say there is also a need here for a moral dimension; a recognition that business-as-usual EU agricultural protectionism is causing real suffering in South Africa.
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Mr Henderson mentioned the work of the EU South Africa delegation but what are we to say when we meet South African Parliamentarians who tell us that surplus EU beef in Namibia is destroying beef production in Southern Africa or that subsidized EU fruit and vegetables are undercutting domestic production and destroying the South African canning industry.
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Earlier this year the largest canning firm in South Africa laid off two thousand seasonal and four hundred permanent workers.
High tariffs in the EU and cheap EU subsidized exports to South Africa were cited as the major factors.
In the context of up to 50 % unemployment, the impact of those job losses is clearly disastrous.
If the EU had been more forthcoming three years ago, this might have been avoided and those jobs saved.
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One could go on product by product, category by category.
There are also as the President-in-Office I am sure knows, serious problems with regard to dairy products and the South African Government needs more time to conclude a regional strategy before it opens its markets to further imports of subsidized products from the EU.
The problem really has been this going on category by category, this book-keeping attitude and what is obviously now needed is the generosity and goodwill that various Members have spoken of.
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I should say in conclusion and with regard to Mr Wijsenbeek's remarks about the problems in the Council, that if some of the Members here had been able to convince their own national governments of this attitude we might be having fewer problems now.
It is at least heartening that this House is united.
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<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Junker">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union shares in the responsibility for the democratic and economically prosperous development of South Africa.
Given the tussle over questions of detail which are at times hard to explain, it may reasonably be asked what market disruptions the European Union has to fear.
It is the largest trading community in the world.
Millions of jobs in our countries are accounted for by export activity which makes a major contribution to European prosperity.
However, with 373 million consumers the European Union is also an exceptionally important import market which should not be subject to any protectionist barriers, and certainly not in relation to developing countries which are dependent on access to world markets and which urgently need the income from exports in order to deal successfully with their transformation processes.
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South Africa also urgently needs a trade policy outlook in order to secure sustainable development in peace and stability.
This will be to the benefit of the entire region of southern Africa, as has rightly been said a number of times.
Truly it is time to launch a non-discriminatory trade system with South Africa and to settle any unresolved questions without further delay, so that the negotiations on the free trade agreement can be concluded favourably at the Council meeting, without any smallminded restrictions.
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There is an old saying: where there's a will, there's a way.
If the European Union has the genuine will - and this applies to the Council in particular - to arrive at a positive conclusion, it will also strengthen the readiness of its negotiating partner to compromise.
I rely on the good will of the British Presidency to achieve a breakthrough and so to set the course for the positive development of Africa and thus of the whole area of southern Africa.
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<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Smith">
Madam President, I begin where Commissioner Pinheiro finished, namely on political commitment.
What has happened to the European Union's pledges of support to the process of consolidating South Africa's fragile democracy?
When they meet him in Cardiff, can European leaders look President Mandela in the eye and say we have fulfilled that promise?
South Africa in the past year has made tremendous strides and tremendous efforts in transforming and opening up a closed economy.
What has the EU done?
The EU has continuously changed the parameters on the basis of which South Africa entered these negotiations. From a five-year transition period to no transition period at all, from an FTA based on maximum asymmetry to an FTA in strict conformity with WTO rules.
The European Union still insists on parallel dismantling of trade tariffs in certain key sectors.
I am rather struck by the irony of the Commission now using South Africa as a model for future Lomé trade negotiations.
This will be the test after South Africa itself was refused Lomé trade access as it was not a typical Lomé country.
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We cannot be complacent about the consequences that these negotiations are having and will have on the people of South Africa.
In Capetown this Friday over 30 representatives of South African trade unions and members of the South African parliament will be meeting to discuss the impact of the agreement on the livelihoods of the South African people.
It is their duty to find out what their concerns are and I hope they will be addressed in the coming months.
Also, parliamentarians from the SACU countries recently presented their written submission to Commissioner Pinheiro and to the UK presidency.
We need to look at these concerns and I would ask that copies of this document be made available to all Members of this House.
As far as regional strategy goes, I would suggest to the Commissioner and to the UK presidency that we consider a statement of intent signed by the Commission and South Africa, which would address how regional concerns would be addressed in the future.
<P>
Finally, until this proposed free trade agreement is acceptable to our parliamentary colleagues in South Africa and in the SACU countries, I, for one, will consider that this proposed agreement is not acceptable and I would urge this House to vote the same way.
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<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Barros Moura">
Madam President, I share the general concern over what already seems to me to be the excessive prolongation of negotiations with South Africa. And, like all my colleagues, I consider that the European Union should honour its responsibilities and support the consolidation of a non-racial democracy in South Africa by means of economic development.
That economic development will also enable South Africa to deal with the crime and lack of security that have been mentioned.
I also agree that the European Union should support Nelson Mandela, that great world figure, whom we look forward to seeing soon in Cardiff.
<P>
But I would like to know, and I therefore ask Commissioner Deus Pinheiro, who will have no difficulty in replying in Portuguese, what is happening? What is holding up an agreement which will bring a fair deal both to South Africa and, of course, to European producers?
Is it just a matter of groundless European protectionism or are there serious reasons?
Which agricultural and other products are causing most problems, and what alternatives might we find to exclusion, pure and simple?
<P>
Another thing: what effect will an agreement between the European Union and South Africa have on its neighbouring countries?
And how can the Lomé rules be applied to South Africa without detriment to most deprived ACP countries?
That is to say, how can we help South Africa to fulfil its role as the driving power of economic development in Africa, in our mutual interest, genuinely but without undue domination, and with due consideration for other states in the region?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Henderson">
- Madam President, I should like to make one or two remarks in conclusion.
I do not propose to cover the points I made in my initial remarks or in the remarks made by Commissioner Pinheiro.
One thing I would like to say is that I am impressed by the sense of priority given to this issue from all quarters in this Parliament and to the need to conclude a trade agreement.
It is very important to have that bedrock of support.
I am pleased to see that support also extended into the important area of agriculture, one of the more difficult areas in negotiation.
<P>
A number of participants in the debate raised the question of what kind of flexibility will be shown?
Is the Commission in a position where it can show flexibility?
The starting point is that there needs to be more flexibility on all sides if negotiations are to proceed more swiftly to a conclusion.
In the event that more flexibility is shown by the South Africans - and I hope that will be the case - on the basis of the Council discussions on this matter at an earlier stage this year the Commission has some flexibility to be able to respond to any initiative which might be forthcoming from our South African colleagues.
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On the matter of the South African Summit and President Mandela's visit, I would think that all of us would very much welcome that visit in the broadest political context.
My honourable friend Mrs Kinnock said that it would be icing on the cake at Cardiff if an agreement could be reached by then.
I agree that it would be icing on the cake but the importance of President Mandela's visit is that it can act as a vital spur to us all to proceed as swiftly as possible through the issues, not making concessions where we cannot make concessions and not ignoring issues which need to be addressed.
But it is a spur to us all to tackle those issues in a positive and constructive way so that even if the icing cannot be on the cake at Cardiff, it can perhaps be there by the autumn.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Pinheiro">
- Madam President, I think we are all agreed that the moment of truth is at hand for both sides, and within the European Union this means the Commission, the Council and Parliament.
Let me be clear that the British presidency has been extremely important and of great assistance in pushing forward this dossier in a manner which I would like to emphasize publicly.
As we have all heard, Parliament has been pushing and putting all its political weight behind getting more flexibility and more generosity.
<P>
Having said that, I should like to touch upon two or three points which might be important.
Firstly, this round of negotiations was not postponed because of the Commission but because the South Africans were not ready.
They wanted a further postponement which we refused for one simple reason.
If we have our meeting on 10 and 11 June, there is still a possibility, if we work hard, of reporting to Coreper.
We must do our utmost in order at least to give the British presidency a broad draft of what we would be seeking a blessing for in Cardiff.
We cannot miss that opportunity.
I have consulted my colleagues who have been more involved in the negotiations and they are prepared to work 24 hours a day if need be in order to push it as far as possible and give the British presidency a chance.
This is not easy but we know it is willing to take it.
<P>
Secondly, regarding BLNS countries, of course we have been looking at it very seriously and I would like to tell Parliament that as we did for economic union in UEMOA we are prepared to devise a similar programme in which for a transitional period the loss of income from customs will be compensated.
In the medium and long-term there is an automatic compensation but in the short term problems may arise and we have told the countries we are ready to assist them during that period.
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Another matter I should like to touch on is that it may have been true a few years ago that beef exports from the European Union were competing unfairly in South African market but not for in the last two years.
What is happening now is that the cheap beef from Argentina comes at such a price and with such devious ways of entering the country that this is really the problem now.
We have slashed export subsidies by nearly 80 % in order to make sure that is not the case as regards South Africa.
<P>
As regards wine, imports from South Africa have increased 150 % even with the current tariffs so you will understand that having excess wine production in Europe there is some concern about liberalizing the market.
This is not some kind of book-keeping.
We are talking about serious issues and we have to be coherent in the different aspects of our policies.
<P>
Finally, regarding asymmetry, this has nothing to do with WTO.
We can have whatever asymmetry we want.
What we cannot do is come up with an agreement and afterwards WTO tell us it is not compatible.
So, we must make sure that what we propose to WTO is compatible so we will have legal security with regard to our agreement.
My final point is that the political commitment made by the European Union to South Africa justifies the kind of flexibility the Commission has proposed.
I sincerely hope the Council will approve what we proposed which is a significant step forward as regards the European proposal.
Unfortunately, it is up to the Council to decide.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="President">
Many thanks, Commissioner Pinheiro.
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I have received six draft resolutions in accordance with Article 37 paragraph 2 .
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The debate is closed.
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The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
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<CHAPTER ID=8>
Economic policy guidelines of the Member States and the Community
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on the report (Doc. A4-0193/98) by Mr Gasòliba i Böhm on behalf of the Committee for Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on the Commission's Recommendation for the Broad Guidelines of the Economic Policies of the Member States and the Community (drawn up in conformity with Article 103 (2) of the Treaty establishing the European Community (COM(89)0279 - C4-0291/98)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Gasòliba i Böhm">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the debate on the broad economic policy guidelines ensures proper transparency and participation in relation to the correct framework for the management and direction of the euro and the first steps and guidelines for monetary union.
The broad economic policy guidelines are essential for defining the European dimension of economic and monetary policy, as demanded by monetary union and the euro.
<P>
The report I have the honour of defending before the honorable Members expresses a broad consensus on the part of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, where it was approved virtually unanimously with no vote against.
This consensus should be adopted by all the European institutions too - the Council, the Commission and Parliament - because the construction of monetary union and the euro requires very extensive, firm agreement, precisely in order to guarantee the necessary solidity and strength of the European currency, and sustainable growth of the EU economy. That can lead to higher employment levels and thereby allow us to resolve our most serious problem, unemployment.
<P>
The report emphasizes and respects the prime objective of maintaining price stability, but it also gives important indications about aspects essential to orienting the European economy and guaranteeing steady growth with high employment levels.
So it stresses the importance of investment, which will be favoured by an economy with a low inflation rate and low interest rates. Everybody knows that favours investment, and also saving.
The report also recommends that the conditions set out in the Stability and Growth Pact are adhered to as rigorously as they deserve to be, and in accordance with the agreement made when that pact was established. That means reorganizing public finances and continuing with the processes of convergence and economic coordination between the Member States.
<P>
The report does not envisage an increase in fiscal pressure because we believe that could distort investment. However, investment is taken into account as an important factor for growth in the European Union.
The wage factor plays an extremely important role in this growth, and is considered essential in order to ensure a better level of employment.
So there is a proposal to decrease the non-wage costs which penalize job creation.
<P>
Social security benefits must be maintained, but consideration has to be given to their funding, based on economic growth itself and on appropriate agreements between the economic and social players, so that these agreements can offer positive results thanks to fruitful social dialogue.
<P>
The report also stresses the need to increase the competitiveness of the European economy in an open and globalized situation, such as we have at present.
The report mentions several important aspects for obtaining these increased levels of competitiveness. The development of infrastructures which favour an improved system of production, education and workrelated training, and research and development are key elements to ensure the success of the European economy in the immediate future.
Wider competition is also important.
<P>
Finally, I should like to emphasize that there are still barriers in the European internal market which should be removed. There are inflexibilities and major distortions in basic sectors such as energy and telecommunications, so we must attain greater flexibility and liberalization.
<P>
It is important that, right from this initial point, the proposals made by the Commission and by Parliament in this report are borne in mind. So I think it is important to give prior notice that tomorrow we will present an oral amendment to insist that when Ecofin adopts the broad guidelines for economic policy, they take full account of the proposals made by the European Commission and Parliament.
<P>
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we now have monetary union and the euro.
We do not see them as the end of a process, but as the start of a new stage which should see the participation and coordination of all the powers of the EU. Obviously, it should also lead us achieve a new political and monetary dimension for the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Metten">
<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herman">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we view the recommendations of the Commission as balanced and fair.
They seek a measure of compatibility between the requirements of a balanced budget and monetary stability on the one hand, and the aims of sustainable growth and increased job opportunities on the other.
They contain specific appeals to certain countries and certain operators in the economic world.
All this is fine, but what concerns us and what concerns the entire Parliament, I believe, is the outcome we should expect from these recommendations.
<P>
Some commentators and keen observers of political life have already pointed out that the entire system does not meet expectations, in the form of an economic government or coordination procedures which genuinely ensure that the Member States will adopt these recommendations.
There is therefore considerable room for anxiety.
In fact, this would not be the first time that bold announcements by statesmen at the highest level, at the summit, whether in Amsterdam or Luxembourg, have been gradually and insidiously stripped of their content by concerted action, an unnatural alliance if you wish, between national administrations to retain power and since the recommendations of the Commission must pass before this body, the Monetary Committee, we can be sure that everything they contain that is relevant, with perhaps a few rough edges too, will be peeled away by all those despots who wish to retain their powers and who, between them, assume they have a duty to offend no-one.
In this way, they prevent the Commission applying recommendations that might be misunderstood or ill-received by one or other of the Member States.
<P>
This is a type of conspiracy with which I have been very familiar for some time and which, unfortunately, is unlikely to change even though we have made a further concession.
Article 103 was formulated a long time ago and we might hope that this article, which today should be interpreted in a wholly different way since we now have the Central Bank and we now have a single monetary policy, might make a contribution towards coordinating economic policies.
I believe the device on paper could be good if the recommendations from the Commission were actually Commission proposals.
We are well aware that when a Commission proposal is stripped of its real meaning by the Council, the Commission can withdraw it.
Here, we are talking of a recommendation and it cannot be withdrawn.
The result is that we do not know what the "Ecofin' Council will do, or which document it will be working on.
But we might reasonably fear that this document does not contain any of the more relevant recommendations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Crowley">
Madam President, I would like to welcome the Commissioner to the House and thank him for the communication on the broad guidelines to economic policy.
I would also like to pay particular tribute to our rapporteur who has brought forward a very balanced document which recognizes the new reality in which we now operate.
We are dealing with a global market.
It is important for us as a Union to take account of our competitiveness as well as creating new opportunities for employment and growth.
<P>
On top of that I believe the present Amsterdam Treaty for the first time underlines the importance of employment within the overall European Union development.
It is important for us as a Parliament to recognize our role in bringing to fruition the ideas of what the people of Europe want to see.
They do not want to see broad economic guidelines debated here once a year, having no effects to them on the ground.
They want to see positive developments and I am suggesting tonight that there is a number of positive things that we can do within this Parliament.
<P>
Firstly, we can look at our own role - look at the legislation that we bring forward and make sure that it does not impact negatively on the employment creation and on encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship within our Community.
<P>
Secondly, there is a vast wealth of experience and knowledge of different systems, of different methods of employment and employment policy within this Parliament.
May be instead of dividing ourselves into the left and the right or the free marketeers and the laissez faire or whatever, we should come together and try and bring the best practices from all those ideas into one united policy.
<P>
Thirdly, as the budgetary authority we should be more focused in how we allocate funding in the social fund and the Structural Funds to reward those that are achieving the most with regard to meeting the guidelines as laid down by this House.
Let us not forget that we have within our ambit a raft of powers and a series of measures which we can utilize.
<P>
Our rapporteur has already mentioned a couple of them in his own speech and in his report.
I would like to focus in particular on the SME sector and on the kind of supports that we can put into place at Community, national level and at local level.
The biggest engine of growth and employment in economic terms should be given extra support.
<P>
Finally, could I point very briefly to where we should go in the future.
For the 21st century our motto should be giving our citizens the tools to cooperate and to work within the new Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Madam President, both the broad economic guidelines and the rapporteur's work once again reveal that a number of measures need to be taken by the Member States and by the European Union as a whole after EMU comes into effect.
I would like to follow on from Mr Herman when he said that in fact we already know what has to be done but that we lack the resources to bring about real coordination.
Precisely now that EMU must be helped on its way, it is extremely important that the Member States take the necessary measures, in particular to regulate the labour market in such a way that unemployment is brought down.
<P>
In this connection I would point to a number of developments in the Asian world, where events are governed by factors completely different to those in Europe.
We cannot sit on our hands and look on.
We must be very active indeed in implementing the proposed measures.
However, we have been proposing these measures for a number of years and, in my opinion, things are not moving fast enough. I therefore ask the Commission to urge the Council to implement the proposed measures as soon as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Madam President, this proposal by the European Commission is confirmation and proof positive of the hardline, in our view, single-minded approach which colours all Union policy and which is perfectly illustrated in the Stability Agreement, the application of which is already speeding up apace.
<P>
The new form in which the policy guidelines have been presented is our first confirmation of the official division of the European Union into a union of fast- and slow-track Member States.
This division by the European Commission is wholly unacceptable.
The Commission, in its proposals, insists on even stricter economic policy, on continuing and hardening political austerity, on promoting privatization, on deregulating industrial relations, on reforming the national health system and on reducing state funding for the national health system.
And yet it is precisely this approach which is responsible for the unacceptable social ills and unemployment in the Union.
<P>
The report by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy takes the same approach.
Not only does it heartily accept the findings, conclusions and guidelines of the European Commission; on several points it even outshines the Commission by demanding yet tougher measures to the detriment of the workforce and to the benefit of private-sector profitability.
It demands that individual and collective wage increases be subjugated to monetary stability and profitable investment, it seeks a flexible wage structure which depends on productivity, region and sector, it calls for the abolition of state aid, it suggests that privatization should be speeded up, that private-sector capital should be injected into public-sector investments and that intervention is needed in pension funds and is indifferent as to the consequences which this will have on social protection in the Union.
<P>
Mr President, we intend to vote against this report, which, unfortunately, does not record our "no' vote to the Commission.
We refuse to accept and endorse a policy which sacrifices the rights of the masses to the interests of a handful of bankers and monopolies.
We support the plight of the workers, which is taking on ever-increasing dimensions, and we shall continue to do so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Madam President, this report had to be produced hastily, and that may be the reason for its general nature.
All Parliament can certainly unite in the opinion that the coordination of economic policy is now, with the birth of the euro area, more important than ever.
This will certainly stand us in good stead for continuing cooperation with the Commission.
<P>
The Commission has for the first time taken a genuine step forward in the direction of concrete targets for employment with these broad guidelines which they have laid down for the economy, and our group is very satisfied.
We wish to emphasize that employment must really be the focal point of the coordination of economic policy in the future.
The costs of unemployment are a heavy drain on national economies. We must absolutely ensure that national economic resources are targeted at growth and sustainable action.
<P>
Our group naturally wishes to stress that growth, which is what we are aiming at here, should be more purposefully sought in connection with the preservation of the environment.
It is quite astonishing how hard it has been to move along in this direction, although the formulae are pretty well-known to all.
We should be able to make it more and more costly to pollute the environment by fiscal means, and correspondingly be able to then lower income tax.
Hopefully, the requirements of the Amsterdam Treaty will make this ecological tax reform more likely and more realistic now that we are embracing the euro.
<P>
We are living in a decisive age when the European Central Bank will surely take a part in economic policy that is just as large as we allow it.
My group would like to state that it will be terribly important that a counterweight is created through a truly common economic policy, so that the ECB does not ascend to a position that is too dominant.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Formentini">
Madam President, it is the first time since the decision of 2 May that this Parliament has been asked to give an opinion on the subject of economic policy, in relation not to a decision-making act, but to a recommendation of the Commission to the Member States on their policies.
We know the extent to which these policies are becoming delicate and difficult to manage, precisely because of the decision to complete the third phase of the Treaty and therefore of economic and monetary union.
<P>
Now, the states only have control over taxation, while control over the budget has been taken away.
All of this may create problems for the various areas in the individual states of guaranteeing the competitiveness of all areas.
The French economist and banker, Antoine Michel, said that there have to be three essential conditions for an area to be competitive, since competition will now no longer be between companies but between area-based systems: an area-based system must be able to have efficient administration, fair and if possible light taxation, and infrastructures whose purpose is to be competitive.
<P>
I think that it is the duty of every Member State to ensure that there are no forced transfers of resources from one area to another, because this would constitute waste.
I am referring in particular to Italy, where there are already large-scale programmes for the transfer of resources from productive areas to areas that are at present assisted.
This will create serious difficulties; in my opinion this is not a policy of rebalance but a policy of imbalance.
It would therefore be appropriate if it were in fact the European Parliament which told the Member States that resources should especially remain and be invested where they are produced, since the whole of Europe will grow in accordance with these virtuous policies, whereas there would be serious consequences if this were not to occur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Hendrick">
Madam President, can I start by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Gasòliba i Böhm, for his report on the broad economic guidelines.
I, along with the rapporteur, welcome the Commission's emphasis on achieving a high level and rate of growth of employment.
It is clear from those guidelines that we require a policy mix which is favourable to economic growth.
However, what is also clear is that with inflation averaging 1.6 % in those countries within the European single currency zone, perhaps a slightly more relaxed monetary policy, combined with an increase in internal demand, will increase much needed employment across the European Union.
<P>
The British presidency has promoted the idea of a flexible labour market and this, along with an increased demand for internal products, services and capital, in addition to growth through exports will be, I believe, the catalyst for those essential jobs that we need here in the European Union.
Reference has already been made to the birth of the euro and I believe, along with many other people on this side of the House, that the euro will improve the operation of the single market and in the medium to long term increase jobs in general across the single market.
Many opponents of the euro have claimed in the past that job losses have resulted from Member States meeting the convergence criteria.
I would suggest that in the longer term job increases will be the order of the day as a result of these developments.
<P>
The future and security of Europe will also depend on the ability to get as many as possible of Europe's twenty million people back to work.
The depressions in the early part of century and in particular the 1930s led to mass unemployment and two world wars.
Jobs are being created but not quickly enough because jobs are being lost nearly as quickly.
The unemployment figures today are nearly as high as they were when the Essen summit took place not long after my election to this Parliament in 1994.
I believe that the conditions are right for job creation now and, as we say in my country let's make hay while the sun shines.
With low inflation we can now do that.
I, therefore, suggest that the Member States of the European Union take that course of action.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="von Wogau">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the introduction of the single European currency on 1 January 1999 in eleven Member States of the European Union has been agreed.
From this date onwards, the European Central Bank will be responsible for a single European monetary policy.
That is why it is becoming ever more important to take further the co-ordination of national economic policies.
It is necessary on the one hand in order to secure the long term stability of the European currency, and on the other in order to create the appropriate framework conditions for growth and employment.
Decisions taken by the European Council on economic policy guidelines are a particularly important instrument in this regard.
The European Parliament collaborates intensively in this matter, according to the provisions of the Treaty.
<P>
In this context, on behalf of the Committee for Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, I should like to congratulate my colleague Mr Gasòliba i Böhm on his excellent report.
In its recommendation, the Commission gives guidelines which are directly addressed to the individual Member States in order to arrive at healthy state finances.
I welcome these detailed recommendations which are targeted at the specific situation of the country in question.
In my view, they are more useful than generally formulated proposals which are directed at all countries without taking account of the circumstances of each case.
I expect, and this is no more than the application of the Treaty, that the Council will decide on the basis of the Commission's proposals, because in the first place the Commission has made some very sensible proposals here, and in the second the Treaty itself prescribes that this is the procedure to be followed.
<P>
The stability and growth pact is an important and innovative instrument for the greater co-ordination of national budgetary policies which is essential.
In good times, the objective is to have balanced budgets or surpluses, so that a policy of assisting growth can be pursued in economically difficult phases.
As a Christian Democrat, I would describe this as an economic policy following the rules of the Bible, which always tells us that in the fat years we should put by stores for the lean years.
<P>
In my view, the importance of the stability policy for growth and employment cannot be underlined often enough.
Today's historically low long-term interest rates are the result of the consistent stability policy of recent years.
Low interest rates mean confidence in the stability of economic development.
This is the way in which stability policy creates the environment in which growth and the resultant employment become possible.
<P>
The first steps towards greater co-ordination can also be discerned in tax policy.
The code of conduct for corporate taxation recently adopted by the Council points in this direction.
We are also seeing the first signs of a solution to interest taxation.
A switch from the principle of country of destination to that of country of origin in the case of value added tax remains on the agenda.
<P>
However, the objective of greater co-ordination of national tax policies is not complete harmonization.
The internal market lives on competition.
That also includes competition about which state offers its citizens and businesses the services which are expected from the state on more favourable terms.
That is why this competition between the systems will also be an essential component of European tax policy in the future.
There will also be a greater need for co-ordination in relation to the competition policy of the Community and its member countries, the Community's structural policy and the creation of a European infrastructure.
There is also a need for action in relation to the ecological and social framework conditions of the European market economy, because our objective is to create a European economic policy which is based on the principles of an ecological and social market economy.
The report from my colleague Mr Gasòliba i Böhm is an important contribution towards this!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cars">
Madam President, it is now and in the near future that decisions will be made on all of the questions that will determine the course taken by the European Central Bank, which - if I am correctly informed - starts work this coming Monday.
<P>
This is all very well, but where do my country and its government feature in this picture?
As a European-minded Swedish liberal who belongs to a party that has clearly declared itself to be in favour of European cooperation, I find it sad - distressing, in fact - that my own country&#x02BC;s government has denied itself the opportunity to influence these decisions which are so vital to future employment and prosperity throughout Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Féret">
Madam President, on 2 May last I voted in favour of a single currency with cautious enthusiasm.
I voted for the motion because I believe that the euro is better than a Belgian franc bound indefinitely to the German mark alone and it is better than the mighty American dollar.
<P>
But in this Assembly I have always expressed the opinion that the arrival of the euro will not affect unemployment, which hits more than 20 million Europeans and which is caused partly by relocating companies in countries where manpower is 40 to 50 times cheaper than in Europe and partly, which comes back to the same thing, by the immigration of populations from outside Europe that expands the ranks of job seekers.
Nor can I believe any longer in the dogma of interest rates which remain constantly low.
A euro, as strong as it is, will require, whatever anyone says, gradual increases in interest rates.
<P>
I therefore invite the Commission to assume a more realistic, rather than an optimistic approach and to exhibit greater courage in its decisions on the most pressing matters to protect the jobs we still have and finally to inspire those young people who no longer believe that they have a promising future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Madam President, the submission of the guidelines of economic policy by the Commission does indeed this time bear the hand-writing which was previously inscribed in the family album of European employment and economic policy by the Amsterdam resolutions and by the Luxembourg employment summit. This gives us hope that at long last an appropriate and properly balanced policy mix is emerging for the economy of the European Union.
That is why the EU Finance Ministers are called upon to launch Community strategies for investment and employment, and finally to undertake co-ordination of economic policy in such a way that it merits the name, as it is set out in the Maastricht Treaty.
<P>
The European Union must place economic policy in the service of employment.
Around a third of current mass unemployment is caused by a failure of overall economic co-ordination.
The Maastricht Treaty must at long last be implemented in economic and employment policy as well.
In addition, we need growth which is supported by investment and provides employment.
We need not only an upturn in economic activity which exploits unused capacity, but above all a medium-term process of growth which creates new productive capacity and new jobs.
A decisive role will be played by an increase in the investment quota which continues to be quite scandalously low!
<P>
The pre-conditions for this sort of growth process supported by investment are more favourable now than they have ever been, and the Commission rightly draws attention to this.
Now it is essential to deploy public sector investment as well and to dress the Delors White Paper infrastructure programmes for modernisation and innovation in new clothes.
A European investment pact must lead to public resources flowing into productive uses, into an investment alliance between states and private business.
In the process, thought must be given in particular to the stimulus effect for small and medium-sized businesses.
<P>
Entry into the 21st century cannot be achieved solely with monetary union.
In the interests of our fellow citizens, as I have already said, we need at long last to have a European economic and financial policy and more co-ordination, .
The Commission is called upon to see to it that European economic research institutes draw up an annual report on the state of the economy and of employment in the European Union, as a contribution to steering European policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Velzen, Wim">
Madam President, it is a rather odd situation that, although I am officially the rapporteur for the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, I am the last speaker but one; but that is a formality that I need not dwell on.
<P>
The final report by Mr Gasòliba and the Commission proposal, in my honest opinion, represent clear progress compared with the previous reports.
More balanced attention is devoted throughout to macroeconomic policy, on the one hand, and to structural policy on the other.
That does not mean that I am completely satisfied.
Thus, in my opinion, when analysing stability, employment or unemployment is systematically underestimated as a factor in it or as a hindrance to it.
On the other hand, flexibility, of which the value and necessity are fairly controversial, is systematically overestimated.
<P>
I considered and still consider that the guidelines offer little in the way of a concrete strategy for the stimulation of demand, to which the report itself urges substantial attention to be devoted.
The only thing about which a lot is in fact said is the control of wage development, and I get the impression that this relates mainly to wages governed by collective agreements.
When I look at experience in my own country, the Netherlands, the polder model, I can report that there is extensive control of wage development as far as collective agreement wages are concerned, but that there is a scandalous trend in non-agreement wages, where the top incomes in firms in which wage rises were limited to 2.5 % have gone up by over 30 %.
I would appreciate it if that aspect were also covered in the reports of the Commission, for it is ludicrous to exert constant pressure for low wage rises under collective agreements and to say nothing about the rampant growth in wealth at the top.
<P>
I think it important to ask for a few points of action, and the most important one for me is that an effective form of parallelism should finally be created between the Council and the Commission in preparation and decision-making relating to employment and macroeconomic guidelines.
There is too much evidence of compartmentalization in which people talk in complete isolation from one another at both staff and Council levels.
I once proposed that the decision-making should take place in a Finance, Ecofin and Social Affairs Council, and I happily repeat that request, that advice, here.
Otherwise you will not arrive at a serious, integrated and balanced approach.
<P>
Finally, it surprises me to hear arguments constantly presented for more regional differentiation in the field of wages.
I favour the argument for wage development which takes account of or is based on productivity, but I am against pressing for regional differentiation throughout Europe based on the pattern in Germany.
If you think that can run smoothly and without doing damage, I advise you to look at developments which have taken place in the United Kingdom.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lienemann">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the only question weighing on the minds of Europeans today is whether the major economic guidelines submitted by the Commission will tackle the unemployment problem effectively and substantially.
<P>
My reply to this question is clearly that if all the necessary steps are not taken, it does not add up.
I am pleased to note that the report by Mr Gasòliba and the Commission debates have persuaded our Parliament to insist on the need to revive domestic demand and also to insist on the urgency of revival through investments.
But I am sorry that the question of reducing working hours has not been properly expressed by the Commission.
And I can only view as a provocation the Commission text concerning the implementation of a reduction in working hours across the board, which states that the Commission considers that this raises serious problems and would prefer a more diverse, negotiated solution.
<P>
In my view, this is either too much or too little.
It is too much, because clearly public opinion in France has regarded it as a challenge to the French government.
And that lies outside the jurisdiction of the Commission.
It is too little, because if we were to take a tally of all the issues that raise problems today in terms of employment and the economic future of Europe, much is missing.
I would have liked to see the Commission dispute with equal vehemence, for example, increased flexibility, a drop in wages, the fact that part-time work prevents an increasing number of wage-earners leading a dignified existence, in other words it slows down domestic demand and an upsurge in consumption, which is to say growth.
<P>
Either the Commission draws up a list of all the issues that might threaten growth and the future of Europe, or it should abstain from commenting on national issues; it is also regrettable that the Commission should refer to the texts produced by European employers in this respect.
At all events, I am pleased that Mr Gasòliba and the Commission have reinstated the proposals in Mr Delors' White Paper, which seem to me to be much more relevant than the existing Commission proposals to solve the unemployment problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="de Silguy">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this preparatory year in which we draw up the major economic policy guidelines is of particular importance.
Your House has understood this well.
I would praise the professionalism with which you have contributed to the drafting of those guidelines.
The quality and consistency of the report delivered by Mr Gasòliba must be stressed, I offer him my compliments.
I am also pleased, on behalf of the Commission, to note the support which the European Parliament showed for his recommendations concerning the major guidelines for economic policy in 1998.
<P>
This support is important for two reasons.
Firstly, because it emphasizes the operational nature of these guidelines, the first of their kind following the decision to enter Economic and Monetary Union.
Secondly, because it confirms the consensus in favour of the contents of the European economic policy.
The operational nature of the coordination of economic policies depends both on the framework of that cooperative spirit and the manner in which it is deployed.
<P>
With regard to the coordination framework, following implementation of the Economic and Monetary Union, the major guidelines are designed to serve as a genuine programme of European economic policy.
Hence, the 1998 Broad economic policy guidelines fit in the context of real multilateral controls, whereby the strict coordination of economic policies, which remain subject to national jurisdiction, assumes its true importance.
<P>
This is why the European Councils in Amsterdam in June 1997 and in Luxembourg in December 1997 invited the Commission to formulate recommendations under the terms of Article 103, paragraph 4, in the situation where a Member State might ultimately compromise the successful operation of the Economic and Monetary Union.
Those very European Councils requested that the Broad economic policy guidelines take account of long-term employment programmes and employment guidelines.
The Commission will ensure that these duties are performed consistently and it will assume full responsibility in this respect.
<P>
How do we implement this framework; and how do we monitor this coordination?
Quite rightly, this year the new major guidelines include specific recommendations for individual countries, with regard both to public finance and structural matters.
Similarly, the recommendations proposed by the Commission, with regard to the euro area as a whole, coincide with the arrival of the euro and represent quite a novelty.
These various recommendations, which come in the wake of the resolution of the European Council in Luxembourg are vital.
Amending them, to arrive at a less precise and therefore more restrictive formulation, would not satisfy requirements concerning the coordination and monitoring of economic policy in Europe.
<P>
But in order to render the Broad economic policy guidelines more operational in terms of monitoring and coordination, we need a more accurate definition of the function of all those participating in economic policy in Europe, including the European Central Bank with regard to monetary policy and its contribution to Community goals, Community institutions in terms of balancing the entire economic policy, national governments in terms of budgetary policy and all social partners in terms of fixing wages.
In the light of this, Mr van Velzen, I do not think the Dutch example that you mentioned can be instituted across the board in Europe.
It seems to me more of a local concern.
As to regional differentiation, everybody generally believes this to be necessary.
The example of Italy, especially Southern Italy, provides the proof; we must take due account of productivity.
<P>
You are aware of the Commission proposal regarding the broad guidelines.
This meets the requirements in terms of consistency and comprehensiveness, whilst complying with the principle of subsidiarity associated with the implementation of economic policies in Europe.
I therefore back the resolutions put forward by a number of you, including Mr von Wogau, Mr Herman, Mrs Boogerd-Quaak and Mrs Randzio-Plath, that the Commission, when striving to adopt the new GOPES, should prevent national feelings prevailing over Community interests, or those of the Economic and Monetary Union.
<P>
In the same vein, I would remind you that the Treaty stipulates that decisions concerning the broad economic policy guidelines must be approved by a qualified majority, these are the terms of Article 103.2 of the Treaty.
Hence the Commission recommendations may be adopted by the Council by a qualified majority.
There is no need to seek unanimity at all costs.
To make sense, coordination of economic policies must be the operational instrument that guarantees genuine multilateral monitoring, organized and administered by the Commission, in close liaison with your House.
At all events, this is the aim of the Heads of State and Government, as reflected in the conclusions of the European Council in Luxembourg.
This is the philosophy of the broad guidelines, which is designed to confer on them an operational nature.
<P>
I now come, briefly, to the contents of those broad guidelines, which I have already spoken to you about in detail.
I will therefore confine myself to the basics, from a macroeconomic and structural aspect.
I would remind you that from a macroeconomic point of view, the broad guidelines for 1998 set out two aims at high level: employment and the success of Economic and Monetary Union.
It is for this reason that the Commission is pleased to congratulate your rapporteur unreservedly on the strategies he advocates and I am thinking in particular of item 6 in your draft resolution.
<P>
Similarly, as reflected in its recommendation, the Commission endorses the need expressed to achieve adequate levels of private and public investment, as stated by Mrs Randzio-Plath.
Your House, Mr Hendrick, is also concerned about the subject of domestic demand.
Well, I can assure you, the Broad economic policy guidelines take this dimension of economic policy into account, although demand must not be stimulated artificially.
The aim is to ensure that investment and consumption gradually dispense with exports in order to achieve self-maintaining growth in the medium term.
Incidentally, the latest Commission forecasts confirm that this dynamic is already underway.
<P>
Finally, with regard to structural policies, your rapporteur approves the Commission recommendations, whether they relate to product markets, services, capital or job markets.
As the European Council recommended in Luxembourg, the Commission recommendation establishes broad guidelines and an effective instrument promoting sustained convergence between Member States.
Hence the Broad economic policy guidelines are focussed more than in the past on measures designed to enhance the growth potential of Member States in order to boost employment.
<P>
This is why the Commission attaches such importance to putting forward recommendations to improve competitiveness, the effectiveness of job markets, goods and services, education and information and to render tax and welfare protection schemes more favourable to employment.
With regard to a reduction in working hours, your address, Mrs Lienemann, does not, it seems to me, represent the views of the Commission and I can tell you that the contents of the report and the Commission recommendations reflect not more nor less than the contents of the White Paper of 1993, presented by Jacques Delors.
<P>
In conclusion, I would like to emphasize that these new broad economic policy guidelines define the resources for monitoring and controlling the coordination of economic policies.
This approach, adopted and supported by your rapporteur and your draft resolution is all-encompassing and consistent.
The exercise of this coordination function, and I weigh my words carefully, as concluded by the Heads of State and Government must not tomorrow be abused.
The implementation of the Broad economic policy guidelines, which is vital to the satisfactory operation of Economic and Monetary Union, essential to the deployment of a coordinated strategy to promote employment, will depend on the political will of Community institutions and national governments.
The Commission, for its part, will remain vigilant in the controls it exercises and will keep you closely informed of these.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="President">
Many thanks, Commissioner de Silguy.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 11.00 a.m. tomorrow.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 8.22 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Consultation of the ECB by national authorities
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0195/98) by Mr Herman, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Decision on the consultation of the European Central Bank by national authorities on draft legislative provisions (COM(97)0725 - C4-0147/98-98/0056(CNS)).
<P>
The rapporteur is not yet here.
I shall give him the floor when he arrives.
Mr Giansily, of the Union for Europe Group, is here however, and may have the floor for three minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Mr President, it is true that it would have been preferable, I feel, to have heard my address after Mr Herman had justified his own position but I will gladly tell you of the matters I wish to raise concerning his report.
<P>
Firstly, Mr President, Article 105, paragraph 4 of the Treaty, reflected in Article 4 of the statutes of the European System of Central Banks, stipulates that the European Central Bank is consulted by national authorities on any draft legislative provision within its field of competence, but within the bounds of, and according to the conditions established by the Council, in line with the procedure set out in Article 106, paragraph 6.
<P>
The purpose of the draft decision before us is to specify the conditions, obligations and limits imposed on those national authorities that intend to adopt regulations that fall within the field of competence of the European Central Bank, bearing in mind the overall objective which is to underwrite practical operation of the ESCB and the European Central Bank.
Owing to the diversity among Member States in terms of their organization, the draft decision allows them a free hand with regard to those aspects we have just discussed, provided, it goes without saying, that the principle and rules fixed by that decision are observed.
Let us remember that the European Central Bank is the central body and that all authorities must appeal to that body beforehand whenever they intend to adopt amendments to the prevailing rules in sectors within the field of competence of the ECB.
<P>
We give our consent, Mr President, to this entire development.
However, we do not share the fears nor do we endorse the requirements put forward by the rapporteur which he has included in the amendments.
On reading the proposals by Mr Herman, which I commend, it is clear that the impetus behind his proposals is the will to accelerate the process of a federal Europe by providing the Council, especially in respect of Amendment No 4, with retaliatory powers in order to impose on states special standards which the national bank would be reluctant to accept.
This does not, however, seem to be in keeping with the spirit of the Treaty.
All the debates in recent months prove that the will of the overwhelming majority of this House is to protect the European Central Bank from political pressure and to guarantee its independence.
To seek to place it at the heart of a pressure group seems to me to contradict everything that has been said in recent months.
This is why, in view of the formulation of the excessively restrictive text of the rapporteur, in our opinion, we would prefer the original enacting terms of the text of the Commission, which seems to us most appropriate, more flexible and more open.
Similarly, we do not think it is necessarily a good thing to start out with an attitude of mistrust with regard to national authorities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Giansily.
<P>
Since the rapporteur is now with us, I invite him to take the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="Herman">
Mr President, please accept my apologies.
This building is so huge, especially the furthest extensions, that it took me five minutes simply to get out of the place where I was attending a meeting in order to come here.
<P>
It is an advantage to be able to address you as a rapporteur after the speakers, because this gives me the opportunity to reply to them.
But first of all, I would like to explain the reason why I proposed these amendments.
There is absolutely no intention to give the Central Bank supplementary powers.
There is no desire, as Mr Giansily observed, to enclose the Central Bank in a network of pressure of which it would be the victim, none at all.
What I wanted to do is this.
<P>
The Commission, and the Council too, I might say, allows itself too frequently to be guided by legal experts.
Those experts hit upon a formula that was perfectly valid when they sought to settle matters with the European Monetary Institute.
Why is that so?
Because at that time the Monetary Institute was still not the Central Bank.
Monetary policies and the central banks were to remain active up to 1 January 1999.
Consequently, if the Member States were to take steps that fell within the direct or indirect jurisdiction of the Central Bank, it was quite normal that they should consult the Central Bank.
That was the arrangement.
But since the legal experts and diplomats were not always sufficiently bold or particularly pushy, what did they achieve?
Once the text had been agreed, they incorporated it for the next stage.
They did not revise the text to allow for the fact that there would be a move to a different stage, that the Monetary Institute is not the Central Bank and that the Central Bank, once installed, would apply a single monetary policy.
<P>
From that moment forward, things change.
Once a single currency has been established, why should states still have the authority to solve, for example, the problem of the legal situation regarding the bill of exchange or the cheque?
What sense was there in citizens having a common currency, if they have to be subjected to 15 different legislative procedures when they use a bill of exchange or a cheque?
The system proposed by the Commission does not alter these matters. One simply consults the bank.
For my part, I would like to reaffirm the principle that all matters that come within the jurisdiction of the Central Bank should from now on, and this is the text of the Treaty itself, be subject to European legislation.
But I accept that individual legislations are only remotely linked to currency and that, indirectly, they fall within national jurisdiction.
And there, of course, the consultation terms proposed by the Commission seem to me to be perfectly acceptable and normal.
This is why I have drafted amendments that restate this point.
And I am pleased to note that my convictions were shared unanimously by the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs, including the main Committee itself.
<P>
For this reason, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Giansily's argument does not reflect my intentions nor the spirit of the text, since the text read out by Mr Giansily has twisted the words slightly to make them say what I did not wish to say.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="President">
Mr Herman, I know how punctual you normally are, so when I saw you were not here I knew something important must have happened.
But I should inform you that at the start of his speech Mr Giansily said he wished he could have heard you first.
You made a lot of references to Mr Giansily but, according to the Rules of Procedure, he had the right to listen to you first.
Somebody who has definitely heard you first is Mr Ribeiro, whom I now invite to take the floor for two minutes, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Mr President, I have once again listened to Mr Herman with great pleasure, in spite of our differing views.
Now that the euro has been adopted, it is necessary to speed up everything which has already been in the course of preparation for its practical introduction.
This is what the Commission's proposal does, whether or not it is to the liking of those who have been opposed from the start to this process, which serves a strategic plan.
<P>
It would give expression to Article 105 (4) of the Treaty, which provides that the ECB must be consulted by the national authorities on any bill or draft legislative provision relating to matters within its competence.
Where the Commission says 'weaken them' , Mr Herman says 'finish them off' .
I think the proposal is still too decentralizing, which I admit would have been justified in 1991 to avoid frightening off (effaroucher) some of the Member States involved in the proposal.
Now that it is no longer necessary to say the opposite of what you mean in order not to frighten anyone off, because public opinion is gradually becoming resigned to the coming of the euro and all it implies - which is also in the explanatory preamble, - and, as I say, it is being subjected to a disinformation campaign - for Mr Herman a step, even an accelerated step, is not enough: his report wants a leap forward.
And that leap, quite apart from the amendments, adds a clause to the Commission's proposal which will mean we can no longer speak of national authorities.
There will be little that is national, and nothing authoritative, about those bodies, which will be obliged to consult and comply with the ECB's opinions, even though they are endowed with the democratic legitimacy the ECB patently does not have.
<P>
Mr Herman has exceeded his remit.
And I doubt whether my fellow Members who are going to vote for this proposed resolution have had sufficient information about what they are voting on, because this report has been adopted with such vertiginous speed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="de Silguy">
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Herman">
Thank you, Mr President, for allowing me the right to reply.
I wholly agree with the Commissioner's words.
Unfortunately, the Commissioner interprets the texts in a different way.
When we speak of matters that fall within the field of competence of the Central Bank, we are no longer talking of matters that lie within national competence.
And the Commissioner should know that, before the judges in the Court of Justice today, the texts are not interpreted in terms of the intent of their authors or their interpretation, but formally.
We witnessed this recently and the Commission was its first victim, in the case of external relations problems.
It was said that anything concerning services is not a matter for the Commission, since services are not dealt with in the Treaty.
This is a purely formal interpretation.
So, Commissioner, you should be aware that you have judges who interpret matters formally and when we are speaking of matters that fall within the field of competence of the Central Bank, they are no longer matters that lie within the bounds of national competence.
So, all of the matters you raised and all the examples you quoted lie within the bounds of national competence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="de Silguy">
I do not intend to prolong the debate because you have a lot of reports to examine and your House has been delayed somewhat.
I would simply like to remind you that from a banking point of view, but also in a number of other fields, central banks retain responsibilities and powers.
We cannot extend these powers abruptly without changing the Treaty.
The Treaty does not allow us to espouse the approach advocated by Mr Herman.
I regret this personally, but that is what the texts state.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Estimates of the European Parliament and the Ombudsman
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0175/98) by Mr Viola, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the estimates of revenue and expenditure of Parliament and the estimates of revenue and expenditure of the Ombudsman for the financial year 1999.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="Viola">
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="Tomlinson">
Mr President, it is often said that one of the first signs of madness is to start talking to yourself.
The attendance at this debate this evening shows how close to the edge some of us are in danger of becoming.
My feeling is only somewhat lightened by the very warm welcome I give to the Secretary-General who is here at the debate and Commissioner Liikanen.
<P>
I would like to begin by congratulating Mr Viola on an excellent report.
It is excellent not only because it is good of itself but reflects what over recent years in the Committee on Budgets has become a seamless continuum of budgetary approach to our own Parliament.
The stringency and the strict adherence to the 20 % ceiling of Category 5 appropriations is something which Mr Viola has welcomed and has enforced very strictly in the resolution he puts to us tonight.
<P>
My group would certainly endorse the three principles which reflect that continuum to which I referred: trying to get our estimates more and more based on the principles of zero-based budgeting, taking strong account when fixing the budget of the implementation of the appropriations that have been placed in previous budgets and an insistence that demands for new appropriations should be backed by appropriate supporting documentation.
<P>
Behind those principles there is also a very clear statement of priorities from Mr Viola.
One of those priorities is in relation to our property policy in Parliament, Although we have such a thin attendance, we should perhaps note that part of that property policy renders the tense of Mr Viola's priorities in his explanatory memorandum slightly out of date.
The necessary signatures were undertaken yesterday for us to proceed to the purchase of the Leopold building complex.
That is extremely important as part of Parliament's approach to property policy.
We have exercised the purchase option before the date of 31 May and in so doing we have managed to get the beneficial input to Parliament's budget of the BEF 7.25 billion that has been negotiated between Parliament and the Kingdom of Belgium.
<P>
That ECU 180m that the Belgians are giving by way of indemnifying the land and land development costs is a very important part of our building policy.
But added to Mr Viola's report is Amendment No 2 from the Committee on Budgets, an amendment which I know Mr Viola supports.
It is an amendment which refers to the supplementary and amending budget No 1 of 1998.
In that amendment we are seeking a letter of amendment from the Commission to supplementary and amending budget No 1 of 1998 so that we can continue with the policy of property acquisition.
It is the view of the Bureau and of the Committee on Budgets - and here they are absolutely as one - that in that supplementary and amending budget we should seek to purchase the Belliard I and II buildings so that they can be made available to the Committee of the Regions, to the Economic and Social Committee and to the common structure which, following the Amsterdam Treaty, will be dissolved but which will still have to produce common services to those two committees.
So, I strongly commend Amendment No 2, which has already been carried by the Committee on Budgets, to the House.
<P>
The priorities are also stated as being the new staff management policy, a policy that the Secretary-General has outlined very clearly both to Parliament and to the staff.
A third priority which I particularly welcome is that which we attach to the problems related to the introduction of the euro and the impact of the millennium bug.
I hope we can look to the administration to produce a report to Parliament as to what this priority means in practical terms, not necessarily waiting until next year.
These are serious problems for an information technology department which is already in many ways over-stretched and are probably two of the most important demands that will made of it.
<P>
Finally, I should like to refer to Amendment No 1 which stands in the name of my group.
We have tabled this amendment in Mr Wynn's name in order to leave the matter of staffing for the Ombudsman open until the first reading when one will have a clearer view of the overall need concerning staff.
We have done that, taking into account the views of the Committee on Petitions' rapporteur for the 1999 budget, Barbara Schmidbauer.
I commend that amendment to the House as well.
<P>
On behalf of the Socialist members of the committee, I should like to say how much we identify with what Mr Viola has said about the sad death of Vice-President Lucas Pires.
He was proving to be an extremely good interlocutor between the Bureau and the Committee on Budgets.
We will certainly miss him in that role but, above all else, we will miss him as a good parliamentarian.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fabra Vallés">
Mr President, Mr Tomlinson said we may end up talking to ourselves.
That reminds me of being on electoral campaign, preaching the good news, and sometimes being faced with empty halls.
And of course, conscious of our role as missionaries, we do not give up, but carry on. All we do is say: "Please could everybody move into the front row' .
Well, I think we could at least move into the front row without pushing Mr Liikanen out of his seat, which is rightfully his. That way we would be a bit cosier.
<P>
Mr President, I would like to start by congratulating Mr Viola on the budget he is presenting to us.
It is a difficult budget, and that is the nice thing: to produce a difficult budget.
In times of plenty, the budget is boring.
And this is a difficult budget because of the large investments in property, furnishings and office automation equipment.
<P>
But with regard to Mr Viola's report, I would like to focus mainly on the Ombudsman's budget. The Ombudsman is an institution which was born after the era of budgetary plenty.
Like everybody, it was born with nothing, and therefore without demands. And because there were no demands, it was born with a very highly regulated organization.
<P>
I believe the demands have increased - in fact, we can feel it - so the organization needs to be adjusted to the work rate demanded of it.
And the work rate being demanded corresponds to the institution the citizens want.
They want a flexible institution, with a good cost-efficiency ratio.
So I think the time has also come for us to ask ourselves seriously whether something more really needs to be done with the organization of the Ombudsman.
Not just to provide the posts which have been requested this time, but really to see if the Ombudsman needs a bigger organization.
<P>
It is true that not all the Member States have reacted in the same way.
Some countries, such as Finland and Spain, are responding better, while the others are still some way behind.
But we want an institution which can rise to the occasion, so it also has to be on a par with the other institutions, which means it has to have the necessary staff and means.
And the staff have to be on fixed contracts, whereas temporary staff have to be for precisely that - for work which is only temporary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Virrankoski">
Mr President, I would first like to thank Mr Viola for a balanced and reliable report on the European budget for 1999.
The total amount for the budget is 916 million euros, which is in accordance with the Bureau's proposal.
This represents a rise of 5.2 million euros on this year's figure, or 0.6 %.
This answers the call for austerity that has to be obeyed when expenditure rises, just as the Member States themselves impose the same discipline on themselves.
The proportion of costs in relation to total EU administrative costs is also below 20 %, which falls in with Parliament's previous level of commitment.
Balancing the budget is eased by the reduction of fixed costs by 17 million euros, as a conclusion is reached regarding Strasbourg's and Brussels' structural programmes.
On the other hand, the end of the Parliamentary term and the switch to the euro will cost an extra 16.8 million euros next year.
That is why the budgetary change, and in particular staffing costs, have demanded much restraint.
<P>
I would especially like to bring up one matter, namely the Ombudsman's budget.
The institution of the European Ombudsman was established with the Maastricht Treaty, and it began its work in 1995.
The experience of already two and a half years has shown that it is necessary to have one.
A clear example of this is the soaring number of complaints that have been lodged, which last year showed an increase of 40 %.
One of the main duties of the EU and the European Parliament is, I believe, the defence of the weakest.
As the institution of the Ombudsman has been once and for all established by a unanimous decision by Member States, it should at least be given the modest resources it requires, or else the whole system will turn against its very own aims as matters pile up and decisions take so long to be made.
The proposal by the Ombudsman for six interim posts is modest when we consider the quality of the work done by the institution and the vast area their work covers, as well as the incredibly short period of time they have had to develop.
For this reason, I support Mr Wynn at this stage in his Amendment No 1.
In all other respects I endorse the acceptance of the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I find it difficult to talk about the European Parliament's budget today without referring to the striking confirmation in the most recent report from the Court of Auditors on the reimbursements and allowances which we receive as Members of the European Parliament.
That is why it shows no disrespect towards my colleague, Mr Viola, and his work if I emphasize that my group will support the report and its priorities and naturally the draft amendments as well, particularly as far as the Ombudsman is concerned, and I now devote my speaking time to the special report, especially since the budget of the Parliament will certainly pick up detailed proposals which emerge from the Court of Auditors' report, and Mr Viola will submit appropriate proposals to us, I have no doubt!
<P>
It is extremely regrettable that the President has rejected convening a conference of Presidents this afternoon and has resorted to formalities.
If the public rightly gets worked up about the unacceptable arrangements for reimbursement and insinuates that the Parliament has a self-service mentality, the President of this House should not hide behind provisions in the Rules of Procedure.
The right course of action would have been to go on the offensive, because we did after all request the Court of Auditors' report ourselves and because at bottom we knew of all the procedural gaps which we have now had confirmed.
Going on the offensive would also have meant in this case reducing the contradictory procedure to the minimum.
Why not 24 hours, because it could hardly be simpler to give an answer to the observations of the Court of Auditors.
The answer would be: "Agreed, that is how things are at present' , and "Agreed, that is how we want to change things in future' .
But can we rely on this President and this Bureau as far as a willingness to change is concerned?
I do have my doubts!
<P>
The working group set up by President Hänsch has come to nothing.
The investigation into the pension fund system has come to nothing.
The rationalization of travel costs calculations has more or less, well, actually come to nothing.
It might perhaps be best to entrust the report to the Committee for Budgetary Control.
I can assure you that we would work quickly and speedily!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="President">
Mrs Müller, you have criticized the stance taken by the President of Parliament. He is not here, but I represent him at the moment.
I must remind you that the President told the House that there is no Court of Auditors' report. There are some provisional opinions, which are known to all of Parliament's political groups because they were sent to the chairman of each and every group.
Furthermore, a reply to this provisional opinion is being prepared by the Bureau, which is the competent body to do so.
That is a fairly accurate rendition of the President's words.
<P>
You may have the floor for one minute on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Mr President, my point was not to refute what the President said this morning; my point was that I expected a political reaction.
That is what I am criticising.
Of course it is only a provisional report.
Of course it was distributed to the Chairmen of the groups much too late, and of course as a Member I also received it yesterday evening.
That's not my point!
My point is that I am pressing for a political reaction from our President, given that the press out there which is full of suppositions and insinuations is demanding answers which have to be given by every Member of this House.
My criticism was a political one, it was not aimed at the formalities and the Rules of Procedure!
In that respect, the President is certainly right!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="President">
Thank you for publicly acknowledging that the President has acted correctly.
I respect your opinions on the press, but I must inform you that the President is answerable to this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Faubre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, greater transparency and clarity in this matter would be a boon for Parliament.
I remember suggesting a long time ago that all of these matters should be dealt with by a committee.
<P>
I am surprised that yet again a budgetary debate is under way here, in Brussels, in flagrant violation of the Edinburgh compromise, confirmed both by the Court of Justice and the Amsterdam Treaty.
Dear Mr Tomlinson, there were more of us present during the budgetary guidelines debate which was held this year in Strasbourg.
<P>
That comment aside, I would immediately like to raise again the matter of the chair to invoke the Viola report, which envisages "the appropriations necessary for a parliamentary calendar comprising 11 ordinary sessions and 6 additional sessions' .
Eleven ordinary sessions instead of twelve, we all agree.
This is an electoral year: we have six additional sessions, why is that so, when the calendar adopted by the Conference of Presidents stipulates only five.
<P>
The second main provision of the report sets aside appropriations to conduct a neutral campaign of institutional information amongst citizens of the Union.
What is proposed is that we step up the appropriations allocated for information policy; ECU 2 750 000 have already been released for this purpose in the form of a transfer voted on 28 May last, instituting a special "European elections' action.
So the European Parliament is preparing to vote on a 1999 budget which will only serve finally to augment its propaganda appropriations.
<P>
Is there a single example, in any democracy, where a special information action on the eve of the elections adds four billion already devoted directly or indirectly to propaganda by the Community budget?
But that will not change anything.
The federalist propaganda will continue relentlessly to seek to change the mind of those who, with full knowledge of the facts, are opposed to the process of European integration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="Perry">
Mr President, I find myself totally supportive of the need to exercise very strict restraint over the budget, most importantly over the money we spend on the institutions.
Therefore Mr Viola will have my full backing just as he will have my backing tomorrow in his very important report on the island regions of Europe.
I would, however, say as an aside that I regret that in staffing issues we do not make more use of fixed term contracts.
The businesses and individuals who create the wealth of Europe all have to act with restraint and they do not have jobs for life.
<P>
Having said that, our priority must always be how we can help the people of Europe.
So I too am going to concentrate on the element of the budget dealing with the Ombudsman.
The European Ombudsman is a critical role.
It is important for us that we see that he gets the resources he needs.
As a member of the Committee on Petitions, like you, Mr President, I have worked very closely with Mr Söderman.
He is an extremely conscientious officer.
Nobody could say that he is acting in a flamboyant or extravagant way.
That is not his Finnish style.
His office is the smallest ombudsman's office of any in Europe, save Malta.
So, his initial request for six temporary staff was one that, at the very least, merited full consideration and a meaningful dialogue.
<P>
There are newspapers across Europe that are making a living exposing the errors and flaws of the European administration.
Sadly, there are too many such errors and flaws.
In the Ombudsman we have an officer who can act on behalf of the people of Europe but if he is going to do that job properly he needs the proper resources to do it.
We should make sure he gets those resources.
If we want to look at where that money can come from, I suggest we do a proper cost-benefit analysis on the Economic and Social Committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Piha">
Mr President, first I would like to thank the draftsman of the report for some very painstaking work.
I also wish to draw your attention to the European Ombudsman's budget.
The opportunity to appeal to an ombudsman is one of the most important rights citizens of the Union have.
The Ombudsman's task is to handle complaints about errors made by other institutions of the Community.
The Ombudsman's office has been now running long enough to judge what sorts of staffing levels are necessary for a sufficiently up-to-scratch and speedy service for the citizens of the Union.
The office of the European Ombudsman has been getting an ever-increasing number of enquiries. This shows that our citizens have regarded the work of the Ombudsman as essential in solving the problems that have cropped up in Union administration.
<P>
In his report Mr Viola suggests establishing three new posts to ease the work pressures on the Ombudsman's office.
The problem, however, is not only the number of new posts, but, more particularly, their professional level.
The citizens of Europe have a right to expect the European Ombudsman's office handling their complaints to have at their disposal a legal staff that have at least the same level of experience as those in the institutions of the Community which are being looked into.
Otherwise we create a situation where the European bureaucrats are racing finely-tuned Formula 1 cars against the Ombudsman's Mazda 323 family saloon.
In my opinion that is not fair for the citizen making the complaint.
<P>
I hope we can yet consider the proposal by the Ombudsman on the number of staff he requires, and especially on their professional level, before we finally approve the 1999 budget in the autumn.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, I should also like to congratulate Mr Viola most sincerely on his report and come immediately to budget line 205 concerning the security and surveillance of buildings.
In this case we have a rate of increase of 67 %, we are spending a total of ECU 17 million on our security, and we know that there is certainly a need to improve security in the building.
There has been a great deal of theft in the House.
That is why I launched a campaign on security and fighting crime.
More than 150 Members have added their signature to this issue, and I believe that it should be a matter of concern to us that, if we are spending so much money on security, there should be some recognisable benefit in this area.
<P>
It was the case that special units were made available to guard the Parliament during the session which the Parliament held in Strasbourg.
The Parliament is also guarded by the police and by the military, of course, in Brussels.
I believe that it would be sensible to speed up official discussions in order to guarantee the security of the House and to ensure that costs are incurred in this area in a way which is really efficient.
I believe that this is a matter of concern to the citizens of Brussels, and it is a matter of concern to all employees in the European Parliament and at the European level.
I would argue that we should hold discussions in this area.
The President promised to do so, and I believe that it should be a matter of concern for us all to look after the security of people in Brussels.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Rübig.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Rübig's was the last speech.
The Commissioner, Mr Liikanen - whom I welcome - has told me that he does not wish to speak.
<P>
Before closing the debate, I shall give the floor to Mr Viola, as rapporteur. Perhaps he would like to explain to Mr Perry how big the Maltese Ombudsman's office is, because I know that Mr Viola was in Malta before coming here yesterday.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="Viola">
Mr President, precisely with regard to the Ombudsman, which all the Members have been discussing, there are a few things I would like to say.
No one denies that the Ombudsman has been more and more active these past few years; his initial requests, however, contain elements which conflict with the regulations on the status of officials and with the rules on the rationalization of administrative expenditure laid down by the three institutions.
For example, the Ombudsman cannot ask for posts which are not at the initial levels; he cannot request directly posts of high qualifications, or certain revaluations, like a revaluation of an A3 post to A2 after scarcely three years, meaning an official hired from the outside as A3 becomes A2 after three years.
To me, frankly, these requests seem somewhat excessive.
<P>
So, if we approach this matter with a sense of balance and moderation, I am prepared to discuss it again, provided that - and I repeat - there is balance, moderation and compliance with the rules.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Viola.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Frontier workers
<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0168/98) by Mrs Van Lancker, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the situation of frontier workers in the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 NAME="Van Lancker">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen though few in number, I do not think I am wrong in saying that frontier workers can serve as a barometer for social integration in the European Union.
Although there are only about 380 000 of them in Europe, they perform such an important signal function that they should be high on every agenda: on that of the Monti Group on tax coordination, in the Commission's Action Plan for the free movement of workers and in the plans for a European labour market.
We can read from the situation of frontier workers how low the level of integration of the European labour market still is. How many obstacles there still are to the free movement of persons, how hard we still need to work in order to align social security systems and taxation arrangements of the Member States more closely with one another.
Occasionally the barometer gives a real storm reading.
For example, on 1 January 1994, when a change in the financing of the Dutch national insurance system left 13 000 frontier workers with a loss in pay averaging 3 000 Belgian Francs per month.
Good enough reason for the Belgian trade unions to sound the alarm and use their right of petition, but this is only the tip of the iceberg.
Indeed we have learned enough from our inquiries in committee meetings, from scientific studies, from judgments of the European Court of Justice, from the testimony of the EURES consultants, to convince us that every border area has its problems.
<P>
On top of problems regarding the transferability of social security provisions there is the chaos of tax arrangements which are regulated in some 220 different bilateral treaties and, to make matters worse, are not coordinated with the social security rules, so that in one instance it is the country of residence which is applicable and in another the country of employment.
Because all countries are carrying out reforms of both their social security and their taxation systems, involving modernization, even privatization, the problems will only increase.
In view of all this, frontier workers are rightly calling for a European policy.
<P>
The demands of the frontier workers are very reasonable.
We have incorporated a number of them into this report.
I hope that Parliament will be able to support the report tomorrow.
Anyway I take this opportunity to extend a warm word of thanks to those colleagues who are here for their very intensive cooperation, and of course to the Commission, who assisted us with information of all kinds.
<P>
First demand: as prevention is better than cure, we ask the Commission to draw up a proposal for a Europe test, by which all new legislation on taxation, social protection and employment matters would be subjected to preliminary and mandatory vetting for its effects on frontier workers.
According to Parliament's Legal Service, Commissioner, Article 49 of the Treaty offers a sound legal basis for doing that.
I would therefore very much like to have a concrete reaction from you on this point.
<P>
This report fleshes out the Europe test in more detail.
A national platform of social partners and experts from the social affairs and tax administrations could carry out the assessment in each Member State.
At European level, however, we think that the Advisory Committee on Social Security for Migrant Workers and the Advisory Committee on the Free Movement of Workers would be best placed to consider the problem of frontier workers and could propose solutions for the problems which remain despite the Europe test.
<P>
Second proposal: we ask the Member States to set up compensation funds for the income loss suffered by frontier workers as a result of changes in legislation.
Here I have to say, ladies and gentlemen, there is some misunderstanding about this proposal.
It is definitely not about the creation of a European Fund.
The initiative is left entirely to the Member States.
This is an appeal from Parliament.
Of course, only in those cases in which a Europe test finds that changes in tax and social legislation do lead to income losses and the Member State in question nevertheless decides to go ahead with the changes, and sometimes Member States have good grounds for so doing, only then would a compensation fund come into operation.
I therefore hope that colleagues can drop their last remaining objections to this proposal.
<P>
It is also Parliament's intention with this report to achieve a further step towards European coordination in social security and fiscal legislation in the Member States.
With regard to social security, Commissioner, I will be brief.
The Commission has already presented a number of proposals.
We are also pressing for attention to be given to the new supplementary social security systems, which are not yet covered in the Regulation, but the Commission deserves all credit for the initiatives it has already taken, and we only hope that the Council can now finally take a decision.
<P>
In the field of taxation, on the other hand, there is a proliferation of schemes.
We therefore ask the Commission to screen the bilateral taxation agreements, to work out a European Model Convention to replace the OECD Convention and to prepare a mandatory European directive on non-discrimination against non-residents on the basis of the long-promised Memorandum.
I hope that the Commissioner can also give his opinion on that, although of course it falls within the remit of his colleague, Mr Monti.
<P>
The lack of coordination between taxation and social security is really the cause of most of the problems.
Reason enough to plead for a homogeneous application of the country of residence or country of employment principle for both systems.
I myself felt that the country of employment principle best responded to the existing social security arrangements, on the one hand, and to the general principle of double taxation agreements on the other hand.
This, combined with systematic application of the non-discrimination principle with regard to tax deduction and a compensation scheme between Member States, could have secured the removal of the last remaining objections.
Apparently some minds are not ready for that, Commissioner, so we ask the Commission to make a detailed examination of the advantages and disadvantages of the possible choices of country of employment or residence principle and to present a proposal to Parliament on the basis of that.
<P>
Lastly, the report also urges that service and information facilities for frontier workers be strengthened within the context of the EURES networks, but we think also that the national administrations should do much more to honour their responsibilities towards frontier workers.
The situation in which border areas are literally peripheral regions and frontier workers' problems are marginal problems must not be allowed to continue.
<P>
Finally, we complain so often that Europe is remote from ordinary people.
Here we have brought a Euro-barometer in from the real world, the world of people who have direct experience of European problems on a daily basis.
I hope that the Commission will take the problems of these people to heart and can report to us annually on the situation, and I hope that we can keep these problems permanently on our parliamentary agenda.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Glase">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this report on the situation of frontier workers is one of a series of reports which deal with the problems of people who use or want to use one of the most important basic freedoms in the European Union.
The rapporteur has devoted a good deal of work to drawing up the report in order to demonstrate the diverse problems of workers in frontier regions.
Although in theory and in practice the internal European frontiers are intended to present no obstacles to the free movement of people, there are plenty of difficulties in terms both of tax law and of social security law, so that clarification is urgently necessary in the interests of the workers.
<P>
The first thing to be done is to arrive at an unambiguous definition of the term frontier worker.
It is all too often the case that different interpretations are advanced.
It would be splendid if the Commission could work towards producing some proposals in this area.
In our group, we have looked at these issues in depth, and we are able to agree with many of the rapporteur's ideas.
We would like our draft amendments to contribute to ensuring that the report on the problems of frontier workers sticks with this issue, and that it is not muddled up with other sets of problems.
We shall reject those points dealing with compensation funds.
In this matter, our view is that no genuine solution can be achieved on the basis of this sort of more or less voluntary individualisation between the Member States.
On the contrary, it would simply be a postponement which is the last thing the workers concerned want.
<P>
If there were any result, it would involve a lot of agreements between countries which would simply compound the confusion and no country would consider itself obliged to make any effort to work towards a common and fundamental solution of the problem.
I would like to encourage the Commission to take concrete steps in this regard and to press for the proposals which it has already put forward.
The Council has put a tight leash on itself by virtue of the unanimity procedure.
These are brakeblocks which should at long last be abolished now in the interests of the European cause.
We shall also reject the demand for checks and directions to be introduced into free collective bargaining.
Free collective bargaining is something that we have always strongly defended.
Our Amendment No 10, which relates to point 13, was withdrawn by me, because it was drawn up on the basis of an error in translation in the German version.
That also relates to the term "Europaprüfung' in the German version, but we have already come to an agreement with the rapporteur about ensuring that care is taken to make the appropriate changes in the different versions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to place this report in a somewhat wider context.
This afternoon we talked about the broad economic policy guidelines and then we noted, and that was right across the House, that there is still a lack of coordination in the European Union in countless policy sectors which are absolutely vital.
That is why the Van Lancker report is so urgently needed, because it exposes matters which admittedly affect frontier workers in the first instance, but which also have everything to do with bringing flexibility to the labour market, not only within countries but also in possible employment situations spanning different countries.
<P>
This is a matter that various Commissioners are working on.
Mrs Van Lancker has already pointed this out.
The Monti Group on tax coordination and the Veil Group have done excellent work.
At the present time we are looking at what can be done in the field of pensions.
Nevertheless, frontier workers are often in extraordinarily difficult positions and, in taking the initiative to work across the border, lose quite fundamental rights, including basic entitlements such as the right to a pension.
<P>
I have tabled an amendment following on from the Decker v. Kohl cases, and I hope that the rapporteur will include this amendment in the considerations, because here too a quite fundamental matter is at issue, namely the right to medical care even after the employment relationship ends.
<P>
In short, I am very happy indeed with Mrs Van Lancker's report.
She has done an excellent job and I hope that this report will be a basis for resolving a number of anomalies that still exist.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, I believe that Mrs van Lancker has not only worked hard but also well, which is most important.
I would like to refer again to her thesis of the signal function.
I believe that frontier workers are in some ways like bio- indicators which record the level of free movement and equal rights in this Union.
It has to be said that this level seems to be under a high degree of pressure.
If we take that as our measure, then there is an urgent need for action.
This is not the first time that we have agreed on this matter; we withdrew the report by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, for example, until we could reach a more positive understanding with the Commission.
In this case, it is mainly a matter of social security and taxation, and their interaction.
These are not matters for local authority politics.
We cannot place these questions on the shoulders of frontier local authorities; the Member States have to face up to their responsibilities at long last!
<P>
Moreover, in everyday life it is also a matter of access to healthcare, security for family members, early retirement, supplementary pension systems, access to unemployment insurance and taxation.
All of that is caught up with the problem of unanimity in the Council of Ministers, even though in other areas everything that is needed to implement the internal market is not subject to unanimity but can be decided by majority vote.
It seems to me that there is a systematic problem here.
I think that the proposal of a compensation fund for disadvantages suffered or for an early warning system through the consultation procedure in advance of relevant legislation is a good proposal.
I am not convinced by the tendency of the European People's Party Group to delete essential elements by means of draft amendments, on the pretext that a global solution which might some day be achieved will be prevented by adopting interim solutions.
We should support the proposal as it is.
I think that Mrs van Lancker has elaborated the essential points.
If we adopt it as it is, we shall be taking a step forward.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Striby">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the matter raised in Mrs Van Lancker's report merits our full attention.
When, in this very House, we debate problems that focus on the lack of harmonization, for example, in the sizing of processed peas, the capacity of moped engines or the speed of forestry tractors, we tend to overlook those citizens who, whether nationals or frontier residents in a Member State, are unable to work in the adjoining Member State without coming up against insurmountable administrative, social or tax problems.
<P>
What are we to think in an age when trade, electronic interaction, professional and geographical mobility on a world scale are becoming commonplace, how do we view a European Union that professes lofty principles, in this case the abolition of all domestic borders, yet fails to broach problems of stewardship.
It is a sensitive problem and even the euro, the alleged panacea for all our problems, offers no relief.
Different and frequently complex social regimes exist within our individual Member States.
We therefore need a strong political will and a genuine desire to promote the common good in order to confront the problems posed in this area.
<P>

In the preambles to her report, Mrs Van Lancker quite rightly referred to the many petitions that our committee responsible handles in this respect. Thus, for instance, the many cases of dual taxation in the state of residence and in the state of employment, or non-payment of various allowances because the citizens reside in another Member State.
It is indecent to appeal throughout the report for more resources to assist the mobility of citizens of the Member States or to claim the creation of a citizens' Europe when those very citizens, on a daily or weekly basis, cross domestic borders and face staggering problems.
<P>
We might add to this those situations where Community nationals face difficulties due to the lack of coordination on the position of Member States in their bilateral agreements with other states.
Once again, there is no shortage of examples, especially in Switzerland.
In France, for example, the committee for the defence of frontier workers in the Upper Rhine throws up many examples, such as that of the Italian national who worked and paid his dues for 25 years in France, followed by two years in Switzerland and who, falling victim to a disability, lost his claim for compensation because of the last two years since he is Italian and therefore not covered by the Franco-Swiss bilateral agreement.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, let us not forget that in the first instance, we are the elected members responsible for promoting the common good.
Europe will not be built on large coalitions, declarations of intent and self-congratulation, but by the day-to-day approval of its members, I mean individuals and whole peoples.
This is because we will know, when we acquire the legal and technical jurisdiction, how to listen to them and solve their problems and they, in turn, will be able to listen to us and understand.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, I want to say a sincere thank you to the rapporteur for a good report.
<P>
The report has its origin in the problems of Belgian frontier workers who, through the fiscal treatment of social security in the Netherlands, suffered a loss of purchasing power amounting to a few hundred guilders a month.
The rapporteur has made use of that and has referred to numerous petitions submitted to the Committee on Petitions.
The Committee on Petitions is in fact the last resort for tens of thousands of people who constantly face border problems.
<P>
There are in Europe a good six hundred thousand workers who commute across frontiers and, if we add the number of people who receive benefits from past employment in another Member State, we have a substantial group of people who desire more European coordination in the field of social security, taxation and benefits or allowances for sickness.
Compared with employees or benefit recipients who live and work in the same Member State, they often have an inferior status.
<P>
Europe is trying to coordinate.
However, only social security falls within the Regulation, which moreover shows many other gaps.
A major problem results from taxation not being in step with social security or sickness allowances.
Now that social legislation is being constantly amended in the Member States and more and more tax-related elements are being introduced, it is high time for fiscal coordination to be tackled at European level.
A study of the University of Limburg, carried out in response to the Belgian problem, indicates that it would be possible to put an end to the many instances of unfairness by allowing people to opt for both their social security contribution and their tax assessment to be located in their country of residence or, if they prefer, in their country of employment.
The clear choice that the rapporteur had for that concurrence in the first instance has been invalidated by her subsequent amendment of the original quite categorical formulation.
I think that is a pity.
Now the Commission is being given the task of working something out in the field of taxation too.
I would have preferred to see it formulated in much sharper terms; I support a rapid and constant endeavour on the part of the Commission to reach a solution.
If the Commissioner can now tell us what he intends to do, I shall at least be able to give a little hope to my commuting constituency to whom, if I may say so, the European ideal is of such vital significance.
<P>
Of particular importance, and I hope to get a positive answer on that point too, is an element in this report which I already introduced here about six years ago, but then as "the commuting effect test' , but what's in a name?
The aim of what is referred to in this report as the Europe test is to introduce an obligation to chart the effects of every amendment of social or fiscal legislation at Member State level on commuters and ex-commuters.
The availability of information on the problems will also prompt national parliamentarians to turn their attention to seeking solutions.
<P>
What makes less sense to me is to have a compensation fund by which disadvantages to cross-frontier commuters would be mitigated at Member State level. It was particularly gratifying to me - and I say that to my colleague, Mr Chanterie, as well - to learn that the Belgian government set up an arrangement for Belgian frontier workers when my country, the Netherlands, proved unprepared to agree something on a bilateral basis.
However, I think it would be a tedious business to make provision for such stopgap remedies at European level.
<P>
Thanks to the rapporteur for taking up the idea of setting up an experiment - you might remember the Maas/Rhine EuroRegion, where it makes no difference as regards sickness allowances, at least for cross-frontier commuters and their families and/or ex-commuters, where the entitlements are purchased.
I remember asking for Limburg to be included, but without anything coming of it.
I wonder whether the Commission is prepared to support a new initiative on these lines or to develop it from scratch, since cases of this kind are now making much more headway through the Court of Justice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
I must say, the clock was on your side because it only started counting some way into your speech.
<P>
Mr Chanterie now has the floor for three minutes. Let us hope the clock is working properly now.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Chanterie">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I think we all agree that we have talked about the advantages of the internal market in a great many places over the years.
But those citizens who have most experience of the disadvantages of the existence and working of the internal market are the frontier workers.
They live in one country and work in another, a neighbouring country.
They pay taxes in one country and social security contributions in the other.
<P>
The tax and social security rules of the countries concerned may well be in conformity with the letter and spirit of Community law, but in the way they interact they cause substantial loss of income to frontier workers.
And that is the situation.
That is the situation of many frontier workers in my country who go to work in the Netherlands, or in France, or in Germany.
These frontier workers are victimized by that situation, for various Member States, primarily the Netherlands - and we have to put the Netherlands in the dock over this - but various Member States have developed the habit of penalizing socially people from across the border who come to work in their countries.
<P>
It is a familiar pattern.
It concerns matters that are regulated by bilateral agreements.
Agreements between Member States in which the European Union as such cannot easily intervene.
That is precisely the problem with which our population is confronted.
They expect the European Union to act; on the other hand, the Union has up to now had few instruments which would enable it to intervene.
Hence this initiative report, Commissioner; I congratulate the rapporteur on her work and am pleased that she adopted many of my amendments in committee, so in view of that I will certainly support the report.
<P>
Let me dwell for a moment on the aspect of a test and the aspect of compensation.
Commissioner, I think that a very important element in this report is the Europe test, or a vetting process to determine what disadvantages frontier workers might experience as a result of new legislation passed or new decisions taken in Member States.
We have been arguing about a legal basis, but I think there is a satisfactory solution for that.
<P>
Secondly, the compensation fund.
I agree with the rapporteur that we cannot just sit back and wait until a solution pops up out of the air, while people are suffering substantial income loss through measures of this kind.
Thus I strongly support the demand for a compensation fund and a compensation scheme in order to offer some measure of restitution to these people who are adversely affected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schiedermeier">
Mr President, the rapporteur is right to state that the 380, 000 commuters across frontiers make up a minority by comparison with an estimated 150 million workers in the European labour market.
At the same time, it goes without saying that the free movement of workers is an important right of the internal market.
I am very happy to concede the signal function in relation to the EU's objectives.
That is why I fully support giving equal rights to frontier commuters and mobile workers in terms of the European Commission's action plan which contains five main emphases, namely improving or adjusting the most important legal documents on the free movement of workers, increasing the transparency of the labour market, taking-on of responsibility by the Member States and developing co-operation, better information about the right of free movement and strengthening the external effect as well as assisting innovative projects in the framework of the European Social Fund.
<P>
Under no circumstances can there be any tampering with free collective bargaining - a great good - as is demanded at point 7 by my colleague Mrs van Lancker.
The principle of subsidiarity must also be respected.
Preference should definitely be given to bilateral solutions.
Under no circumstances can I agree to a central compensation fund at an EU level. And I continue to reject any extension of reuniting families, or any expansion of the export of support for the unemployed and for families and payments of money or of the right of residence for family members from third countries until it is has been established who are members of the close family circle.
Under no circumstances can these include children over 21 who are not entitled to maintenance, or relatives in an ascending line who are not entitled to maintenance.
In conclusion, I say to my colleague Chanterie that I would stress one point: the frontier workers do this on an entirely voluntary basis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="Flynn">
Mr President, firstly I should like to thank Mrs Van Lancker for her excellent report on the situation of frontier workers and, in particular, the social and fiscal problems that these workers face.
The Commission fully supports her concerns.
Indeed, the Commission's action plan for free movement of workers adopted on 12 November 1997 highlighted the important role of cross-border mobility in the Union.
In particular, it underlined the need for specific clear provisions to overcome the problems caused for frontier workers by disparities between national, legal systems in fields such as social security, taxation, health care and social advantages.
Besides this statutory action, cross-border cooperation needs to be fostered in order to cover specific issues of interest to frontier workers such as social security and taxation.
<P>
Your draft resolution calls for a range of actions from the different partners involved.
I welcome your proposal to put forward the resolution to the Council, the European social partners, the governments and the parliaments of the Member States, as well as to the Commission.
I fully agree that only a combined action at each of these levels will bring about meaningful resolution of the problems analysed in the explanatory statement.
<P>
Allow me now to set out briefly the Commission's approach to the points raised in the resolution.
With regard to fiscal matters, the Commission has long been aware of the specific tax problems of frontier workers and has sought to contribute to their solution by way of legislative proposals and other initiatives.
As early as 1979 the Commission presented a draft directive to harmonize certain aspects of a tax treatment on non-residents.
Unfortunately the proposal was not adopted since the required unanimity in the Council could not be reached.
Therefore, in 1993 the Commission adopted a recommendation on the tax treatment of residents' income.
The recommendation and the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice following the approach of the recommendation, in particular the Schumacher judgment, significantly benefited the situation of non-resident workers.
Most Member States concerned have now, more or less, adapted their legislation on the taxation of non-residents who earned their main income in a Member State other than that of their residence, in line with the recommendation.
<P>
The Commission has also kept under review the legislation in Member States and initiated infringement proceedings against several Member States for failure to respect the non-discrimination rule.
This report underlines the need for a Community approach to the problem of rules for tax jurisdiction in parallel to that existing in the field of social security.
The Commission can in principle agree with the need for Community action.
It has to take into account the need for unanimity for any adoption of binding Community legislation in the tax field.
In the absence of harmonization of income taxes, the attribution of taxing rights among two Member States is so far governed by their bilateral tax conventions.
<P>
Recently the Court ruled that under the existing provisions of Community law Member States are free to arrange bilaterally the tax jurisdiction for income tax of frontier workers.
Any multilateral approach in the form of a European convention on the avoidance of double taxation of income and capital would also require unanimity.
However, the Commission will pay particular attention to the need for a coherent solution of the tax and social security problems faced by the frontier workers.
<P>
Concerning social policy, I welcome Parliament's support for the Commission's different proposals to amend Regulation 1408/71 on social security for migrant workers.
In this respect, you are probably aware that the Court of Justice has recently made two important judgments.
These judgments means that a person who was insured for medical care in a Member State is entitled to be reimbursed by that state for all medical care he or she receives in another Member State in accordance with the tariffs of the state of insurance.
Since these judgments are directly applicable, the experiments that Mrs Van Lancker suggests in her resolution do not now seem to be necessary.
<P>
I would like to thank Mrs Van Lancker and her colleagues for the encouraging support given to the EURES network.
The EURES cross-border partnerships have been supported by the European Parliament from the very start and we welcome the proposal that EURES and its cross-border partnerships should be stepped up.
However, I should underline that while the number of cross-border partnerships has increased from 11 to 18 over the past two years, our budget has not increased.
In fact, it has slightly decreased over the same period.
These cross-border partnerships provide services to frontier workers such as relevant information about their rights and obligations.
In that sense they support certain requests of this resolution.
<P>
The EURES adviser can help national and European institutions to be informed as quickly as possible about obstacles to mobility.
In the future we intend to gather such information in a more structured manner.
The EURES partners and their advisers will thus be able to contribute to the setting up of an early warning system.
However, it should be made clear that they will not be able to provide a complete coverage in all border areas of the Union or in all aspects mentioned in the resolution.
However, the Commission will shortly present a comprehensive report on the work of the EURES network for the years 1996 and 1997 to Parliament.
This could be a good opportunity to carry out an in-depth dialogue over the future developments of the EURES network.
<P>
As regards the proposal to establish call centres for migrant and frontier workers, I would like to draw Parliament's attention to the Commission's intention to launch a permanent dialogue with citizens.
This will be officially announced at the European Summit in Cardiff.
Call centres will be established in all the Member States on the model of the Citizens First initiative, to advise citizens on their rights as well as on any community-related problems.
<P>
Finally, I would like to comment on the idea of the proposal for a directive on the introduction of a European test, whereby Member States would be required to test their legislation on the effects they have on frontier workers.
I would like to make it clear that it is already the Commission's task to ensure that all provisions of national legislation are compatible with the Treaty and the secondary legislation so far as Community law is concerned.
The Commission will certainly continue to use the powers laid down in Article 169 of the Treaty and to launch infringement proceedings against Member States when they violate EC law.
<P>
However, I understand that the suggested proposal for a directive aims to provide for a more general socio-economic impact assessment of the consequences of national legislation which is in itself compatible with EC law but which might cause detrimental effects to frontier workers.
While I am not sure that it would be appropriate to propose a directive in these circumstances, it seems to me appropriate to stimulate, as it is suggested in the report, cross-border concertation of the partners involved in the different regions and at Community level.
So I can confirm that it is the Commission's intention to stimulate this concertation in order to be able to identify infringements of EC law and the socio-economic consequences of national legislation on frontier workers.
<P>
Finally, I would like to thank the rapporteur for her stimulating report and to stress the Commission's determination to maintain its efforts to overcome the problems faced by frontier workers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="Van Lancker">
Mr President, I would like to thank the Commissioner for his extensive answer, which I find to be largely satisfactory.
But one question regarding the Europe test.
I know that he was not so favourable to the idea of a Europe test before, but I also know that the Commission's Legal Service has been investigating the question of the legal basis in the Treaty.
Can the Commissioner confirm or deny that there is a legal basis for such a test, by which it would be possible to vet the social legislation of Member States not only for its conformity with European law but also for its effects on frontier workers, which is another kind of test?
Our Legal Service had indicated Article 49 as a suitable legal basis.
I would appreciate it if the Commissioner could comment on the findings of the Commission's Legal Service.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 NAME="Flynn">
Mr President, I should like to say to Mrs Van Lancker that it is my opinion that there is a legal base.
The question is of some political choices to be made here and before any of these matters concerning that and other matters concerning taxation are pursued, the taxation policy group should have a look at these matters first.
The only difficulty is that it seems to be overloaded with matters to be dealt with this year.
I know they are obliged to deal with an investigation on pensions and on energy taxation and on electronic commerce.
That is a pretty over-loaded agenda at the moment.
But the answer in short is Yes, it can be established that there is a legal base where this could be undertaken.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="President">
Thank you for your speech, Mr Flynn.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Registration documents for motor vehicles
<SPEAKER ID=147 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0190/98) by Mr Bazin, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Directive on registration documents for motor vehicles and their trailers (COM(97)0248 - C4-0423/97-97/0150(SYN)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 NAME="Bazin">
<SPEAKER ID=149 NAME="Sarlis">
Mr President, I consider that the regulation proposed by the European Commission is most fortuitous for two reasons:
<P>
First, because road cabotage has been deregulated. This means that we need an efficient system for monitoring and controlling freight vehicles moving within the internal market.
<P>
Secondly because, as the committee of inquiry into fraud and smuggling of goods in transit found, most goods, especially cigarettes and alcohol, are smuggled by road.
There are, at a guess, hundreds of instances in which lorries have disappeared together with their freight by changing their number plates and respraying and many of these have been documented in the Commission report in the committee of inquiry into fraud and smuggling of goods in transit.
<P>
The proposal itself, and I would like to congratulate the Commission and its rapporteur, Mr Bazin, on their proposal, is based on two premises:
<P>
First, if a lorry or bus is to be registered in a Member State, the old registration documents must be submitted to the new state in which they are to be registered.
That is fundamental.
<P>
Secondly, the state which registers the vehicle must send the old registration documents to the state which issued them, in order to inform them that the registration number of the vehicle has changed.
<P>
Another extremely important point is that provision has now been made for vehicle checks on all main roads within the European Union.
In some countries, such as the United Kingdom, Denmark and Sweden, where freight vehicles do not need to carry their registration documents while travelling within the country, they are now required to do so when travelling outside the United Kingdom, Sweden or Denmark.
<P>
May I also say that the Group of the European People's Party endorses the report and will endorse the rapporteur's amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this is really a debate among transport policy conspirators.
This is a report which is slightly technical but not really as technical as all that.
Allow me to begin by offering sincere thanks to the Chairman of the Committee for Transport and Tourism.
It is sometimes his duty, which he takes seriously, to assume the role of rapporteur and to push the matter forward, if no group wants to take on a report because of the subject, and I am particularly grateful to him for handling transport policy in our Committee with such commitment.
<P>
As to the matter itself: we support the draft directive from the Commission on the harmonization of the registration documentation for motor vehicles and trailers.
I believe that aligning registration documents will facilitate transport checks in the Union, because in future and irrespective of the issuing country the documents will in each case contain a series of clear and uniform statements; for example, inter alia they will indicate in which Member State the vehicle is registered and which person is the authorised owner of the registration documents.
That will unfortunately still not tell you who is the owner of the vehicle, but we shall at least know who is the authorised owner of the registration documents.
By this means, the draft directive will at the same time assist the fight against car crime.
Moreover, the alignment of registration documents will facilitate reregistration of a motor vehicle from one member country to another.
<P>
However, Commissioner, my group believes that this can be only the first step towards harmonization, because it makes no sense within the European Community for some states to have one-piece registration documents and others two-piece documents, with differing legal consequences in the Member States concerned.
That really makes no sense at all in an internal market.
I think that we need a certain degree of harmonization in an internal market.
It does not have to be taken to the final degree, but there has to be a sensible harmonization of basic data.
That is why I would be happy if you would acknowledge that harmonization will have to go beyond this first step, especially since I believe that the theft and smuggling of vehicles within the Community and also from the Community into adjacent third countries must be more effectively prevented, and it would be helpful in this respect to have sensible registration documents.
That is why, Commissioner, we support your proposal.
We hope that you will support the draft amendments from the Chairman of the Committee on Transport and Tourism - apart from the draft amendment from the Greens, of course, we do not support that one either - and we also hope that it is the first step on the road to a careful but objectively justified harmonization.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 NAME="Kinnock Neil">
Mr President, can I begin by thanking Mr Bazin on his excellent and concise report discharged as a duty but also with some enthusiasm.
As this report notes, and as we have just heard from Mr Bazin, there are considerable differences between procedure and purpose relating to the registration of motor vehicles in the Member States.
There are also varying degrees of endorsement of the 1968 Vienna Convention on Road Traffic, so increasing mobility in the Community and in the single market now makes the harmonization of rules on information contained in registration certificates sensible as Mr Sarlis pointed out.
I am naturally pleased to note that Mr Bazin and his colleagues support the objectives of the proposal.
I have, of course, considered the various amendments carefully and whilst they have my broad sympathy, some purely practical considerations mean that I sadly cannot accept all of them.
<P>
Amendment No 1 calls for an additional statement in the preamble to the effect that this proposal constitutes a first step towards more complete harmonization.
While I agree with the sentiment of the amendment, for the reasons set out very recently by Mr Jarzembowski and whilst I also believe that there will be moves towards greater uniformity in the future, the addition of such a new preamble would serve no strict legislative function and consequently the Commission cannot accept it.
<P>
Amendment No 3 seeks to change the dates of implementation to take into account the actual time frame of the proposal.
While the purpose of the amendment is certainly sensible, the need for a modified proposal and the need also for a second reading, mean that even the new dates suggested are unlikely to be achieved.
I believe it best, therefore, to leave this detail until the actual adoption of the common position and to set appropriate dates at that point.
I hope, therefore, that this amendment can be withdrawn.
<P>
Amendment No 4 calls on the Commission to circulate all copies of all registration documents to all Member States and I can certainly support that amendment as a useful means of spreading relevant information.
<P>
Amendment Nos 2, 5 and 6 relate to anti-fraud measures.
I can accept both the principle and specifically Amendment No 5 which requires the inclusion of the engine identification number on the registration document.
However, the effect of the other two amendments would be to require replacement registration documents when certain new spare parts were installed in the vehicle, including for example a replacement window.
I am sure that this could not have been the intention of those who drafted the amendment, since the results would obviously be extremely bureaucratic.
I hope that on reflection honourable Members will not pursue these amendments.
<P>
Amendment No 7 were to have the effect of making inclusion of a vehicle's environmental characteristics in the registration documents compulsory rather than optional.
Since such details could play a role in taxation regimes at some time in the future and since such features could also be subject to roadside checks, the Commission acknowledges the sense of making such information mandatory and we can therefore support this amendment.
<P>
I am very grateful to Mr Bazin and to his committee for the constructive attitude that they are taking to a proposal which will I am sure prove its worth to vehicle owners and to transport authorities and also be a useful addition to the efforts to combat theft and fraud.
So I, together with Members of this honourable House, look forward to its progress into law.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=13>
Potato starch
<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0163/98) by Mrs Redondo Jiménez, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) amending Regulation (EC) No 1868/94 establishing a quota system in relation to the production of potato starch (COM(97)0576 - C4-0045/98-97/0300(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="Redondo Jiménez">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today we are considering the reform of Council Regulation No 1868/94. Articles 1 and 2 of that regulation say that the Commission is obliged to present a report on the performance of the regulation, as well as proposals to extend the time limit, or change the regulation or the allocation of starch quotas in any way.
The countries affected were Denmark, Germany, France, Holland and Spain.
In January 1995 three more countries joined - Austria, Sweden and Finland. Therefore, a modification was made at that time, with the overall quota being adjusted to 1 869 000 tonnes.
<P>
The present proposal also lists the operational instruments upon which it is based, such as the minimum price of potatoes, the compensation payments to farmers, and the special premiums to industry. There are three reasons for paying industry: because of the structural disadvantages associated with starch manufacture; because of the limited value of by-products; and because of the seasonal nature of production.
<P>
I should like to describe to the House the contradictions I have found in the Commission's proposal.
I think the criteria used in the proposal need to be examined here, by all of us.
Firstly, ladies and gentlemen, I think we need to be sure whether we are talking about starch or about potatoes.
If we are talking about starch, the price of starch should be the same whether it comes from potatoes or from cereals.
In this case, there is discrimination in favour of potato starch, with an overvaluation of approximately 35 %, which needs to be looked at.
If it is a question of potatoes, then I hope the honourable Members will allow me to say this: we are going to study this matter in depth and we are going to move towards a set of rules to cover the potato, not just for starch use, but for all uses, both for industry and for food.
And here I would make a claim on behalf of many EU Member States: we propose a common organization of the market in potatoes.
<P>
As for assistance to the starch industry, it is paid because of seasonal variations, for not using by-products, and for agrienvironmental measures.
I should like the Commission to bear in mind that if it is a question of seasonal variation then the whole of the agri foodstuffs industry should be paid.
Is the Commission prepared to pay the whole of that industry for products which experience problems because of their seasonal nature?
I think that would be a serious mistake.
As for not using the byproducts, the same thing applies. How many industries are there which not only have no useful by-products, but also have to pay to get rid of them?
So we are paying for something which others have to pay for themselves.
<P>
As for environmental measures, we have been paying the starch industry to take such measures for 20 years.
I think they should have been taken by now.
<P>
What am I trying to say, ladies and gentlemen?
Should we get rid of these subsidies?
No: I think we policy-makers and the Commission should be flexible and remember the social, regional and environmental problems we are faced with.
So in this case, I propose a careful study of how to implement a new COM in potatoes.
In the case of potato starch, however, the status quo should be maintained for three years.
When it comes to studying the new COMs, as we shall have to do, I hope the same arguments, which I have stated here as contradictions, will be taken into consideration. We are always being told there are financial problems, so we cannot increase our budgets.
Nevertheless, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission proposal involves a budgetary increase of 26 %, which I think is highly significant.
We are told that by cancelling things we could save ECU 150 million.
With the oil question, we are talking about figures in the region of ECU 200 million, which is causing a big fuss throughout the European Union.
So we are going to be consistent and apply the same criteria to all COMs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="Hardstaff">
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Redondo Jiménez for her report and I have noted with some interest that she has pointed out some of the facts that I pointed to three years ago when I was asked to write a report on potato starch quotas.
Just to go back for a moment, the quotas were introduced because there had been a huge increase in the production of potatoes for starch when starch from potatoes started to be treated, as far as subsidies were concerned, in the same way as cereals.
Potatoes, grown for potatoes, to eat as chips or potatoes do not get a subsidy and it was because of a huge increase in production that these quotas became necessary.
<P>
I repeat again, as I said at that time, that it is a very questionable use of public funds to support people to grow potatoes for starch when there are other sources of starch.
There has been a huge growth in the amount of money being used to support this production.
Potato starch consisted of 48 % of the total starch exports in 1996-1997.
No fewer than 385, 000 tonnes of the stuff!
Why are we using public money to support people to grow potatoes to make into starch that we cannot use in the EU?
We pay the producers to make the starch and then we pay them to export it because nobody wants it.
This is an absolute nonsense and we should not be looking to extend these subsidies, we should be looking to reduce the quotas so that we are at the very least cutting out the export subsidy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schierhuber">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to express my very sincere thanks to Mrs Redondo for her report, and in this case I should like to contradict Mrs Hardstaff quite frankly when she asks: why do not we take maize or corn instead of potatoes?
Neither wheat nor maize can thrive where potatoes thrive, and that is why it is in particular the production of potato starch that is indispensable and an essential factor for certain disadvantaged regions of Europe.
That is why it is also necessary for the future of the starch industry - because it, too, secures jobs - that the producer premium for potato starch is given to farmers.
There is one other point which I want to mention: it is clear to all of us that high technology in starch production is essential for the firms or for the potato starch producers as well, and these processing plants also need reliable partners among the farmers.
But the farmers can only produce the potatoes if these compensatory payments for the starch potatoes continue.
I think that we should support the Commission's proposal in its present form, and also the proposal that the quotas for the next three years should be maintained.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Mulder">
Mr President, it is not always the case, but this time my group can fully support the Commission's proposals in broad outline.
We think that payments for starch from whatever source, including potato starch, should be made on equal terms.
Why do we think that?
<P>
Firstly, the regions of Europe where potatoes for starch production are grown generally have soil that is not very fertile.
Few alternatives are available.
If we did not do this, large areas of Europe would be facing disaster.
I therefore entirely disagree with the spokeswoman from the Socialist group.
I would also have expected arguments of this kind to appeal to her, bearing in mind what it would all cost: at present I think we pay about ECU 200 million for this policy.
Considering regional development in Europe as a whole, that is an extremely small amount.
We get definite value for our money.
What else is attractive about this industry?
It has proved over the years that it can operate in a very environmentally friendly manner - no more environmental pollution.
A further attractive feature of agricultural production for non-food purposes.
These are very important developments.
Recently there was a report in the Dutch newspapers that one of the factories had developed a product which could replace gelatine.
Given the BSE problem, that is very attractive indeed.
Factors of this kind must be encouraging.
In the long run they are probably the salvation of industries like this one.
For these reasons the subsidy we give is very worth while.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Mulder.
But you were the one who allowed yourself to overrun by five seconds. I never cut anybody off.
All I do is tell people, fairly forcefully, when their time is up. The responsibility for keeping to time or otherwise lies with each and every Member of this House.
<P>
It is now the turn of Mr van Dam, on behalf of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations.
He has a minute and a half. We shall see if he allows himself longer than that, in which case I shall forcefully remind him that his time is up.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Dam">
Mr President, the Commission's proposal to extend the quota system for potato starch by three years merits full support.
The arrangement has contributed to a stable development of the market.
The costs of the market organization for potato starch are being kept under control.
In the interests of production planning for the next few years, it is important that the decision-making on the extension of quotas be completed as quickly as possible.
<P>
The rapporteur's amendments aimed at reducing support for potato starch production were rightly rejected by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
A one-sided reduction in support for potato starch would seriously disturb the balance on the market between cereal-based starch on the one hand and starch from potatoes on the other.
Hence any reform of the market organization for potato starch must be coordinated with reforms in the cereal sector.
But I do not think that Agenda 2000 proposals for potato starch, in which compensation for a drop in price is only 44 %, are acceptable.
<P>
Finally, I would point out that starch potatoes cannot be compared with table potatoes.
We are talking about completely different products and markets.
A market organization for starch potatoes is necessary because these producers have to compete with cereal-based starch producers, who are generously supported through the MacSharry premiums, but there is absolutely no need for the market organization for table potatoes called for in Amendment No 3.
The free market in this product works satisfactorily.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Imaz San Miguel">
Mr President, I first wanted to thank Mrs Redondo Jiménez for her report on the quota system for potato starch.
Also, an amendment has been added - Amendment No 3 - which calls for the potato problem to be analysed as a whole, including potatoes for consumption, because we need a COM to regulate the European potato market, in order to protect farmers from the price drops which regularly affect this product.
<P>
The potato market suffers cyclical ups and downs, leading to periodic price drops which seriously affect the production sector. So Europe needs to intervene to regulate this market.
Let us not forget that the potato is the tenth largest agricultural product in Europe in terms of its volume of production. Furthermore, it is the only one of the 25 most important EU agricultural products not to be regulated by the Union itself.
<P>
Other products each cost the Community coffers ECU 2000 million, or ECU 1500 million in some cases. Nevertheless, there is no room for any sort of regulation of the potato, which is the tenth most important agricultural product in Europe.
It is an inflexible market, in which an increase in production and the resulting price drop do not lead to greater consumption.
There are studies which say this market can be regulated by establishing a system of quotas and areas, since it has been demonstrated that there is a correlation between the area under cultivation, the prices and the product.
<P>
As well as protecting the product, the potato, from its ups and downs, a regulatory system of this nature would not be administratively complex, and the budgetary cost to the Community taxpayer would be minimal.
So I am in favour of this report being approved.
But we should also call upon the Council, through Amendment No 3, to have the courage once and for all to find a system to regulate the problem of food potatoes throughout the EU, by means of a COM, now that they have had proposals on the table for 5 or 6 years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Anttila">
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mrs Redondo on her report on potato starch production.
It is to her credit that the rapporteur was prepared in the committee reading to accept proposals of compromise which give the report a much more balanced feel, and pay greater attention to the special circumstances pertaining to starch production in different countries.
<P>
The Commission is proposing to keep the quota system as it stands, in order to make the Community's starch markets more viable.
In Finland domestic potato starch production is enough to meet only half the demand of the country's paper industry, and so Finland has recommended increasing its quota to 70 000 tonnes.
That would satisfy existing production capacity more fully.
<P>
Because of its cold climate, crop rotation in Finland is in much greater evidence than it is in Central Europe.
Because of that, it is difficult to apply the conditions of production to the quota's 5 % flexibility limit.
With reference to the large-scale crop rotation that goes with potatoes, a transfer facility of 10 % from one year to the next seems quite justifiable, and thus I consider Amendment No 6 six to be very welcome. This is the proposal to be able to deviate from the quota by 10 %.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="Cresson">
) Mr President, first of all I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Redondo Jiménez, and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, which drafted the report on the proposed adaptation of the quota restriction scheme for potato starch.
The proposal seeks to renew the existing scheme for a further period of three years.
<P>
The Committee willingly accepts Amendment No 1 which underlines the socio-economic importance of potato starch producers and justifies the steps taken in this sector.
Similarly, the Committee accepts Amendment No 2 which lends support to the aim of maintaining a balance between the root vegetable starch and cereal starch sectors.
With regard to Amendment No 3, relating to potatoes grown for food, the Committee is aware of the need to deploy a common market organization in the potato sector.
This is why it submitted a proposal along these lines to the Parliament and Council in 1992.
With regard to Amendment No 4, which seeks to impose a limit on the premium paid to starch manufacturers during the 1998-1999 campaign, the Committee regrets that it cannot accept this amendment which would be contrary to the interests of this sector due to structural constraints in terms of production.
Similarly, with regard to Amendment No 5, the Committee does not see the need to specify a period of three years, as indicated in Article 1 of the proposal, or the reason why the amount of the premium set in the rules should be changed.
Consequently, the committee is unable to accept this amendment.
With regard to Amendment No 6, which seeks to increase the flexibility of the scheme, the Committee regrets that it cannot accept this amendment either, since it might boost production in a market that is already relatively saturated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Cresson.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=14>
Higher education
<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0191/98), on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a Council Recommendation on European cooperation in quality assurance in higher education (C4-0191/98-97/0121(SYN)) (Rapporteur: Mrs Heinisch).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="Heinisch">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, European co-operation to ensure the quality of higher education. At first glance you might think that we were dealing in this case with a hopeless undertaking.
On the one hand we have the cultural autonomy of the Member States, the variety of educational systems, the independence and individuality of colleges and universities, and these embodiments of the principle of subsidiarity are now at odds with the need to establish European quality standards in higher education, because in the Community there is undoubtedly a consensus view that comparability among European higher education institutions is an indispensable precondition for the promotion of student mobility in the European Union, which is the express wish of us all because we hope that it will lead to the European Union growing together.
<P>
But the comparability among higher education systems which is necessary to this end will be possible only if we succeed in reaching agreement on how to define and ultimately how to measure quality.
Beyond that the question arises of who should appropriately hold responsibility for quality assurance measures.
The positions which have been taken up by the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament in the course of the work on the recommendation with which we are now concerned offer a striking reflection of the difficulties that we come up against so often in the sphere of European educational policy, when it is a matter of achieving objectives which are desirable for the Community while strictly respecting the principle of subsidiarity.
<P>
In its original proposal, the Commission envisaged that it would be solely responsible for the creation of a European network which would take forward quality assurance and evaluation.
Understandably, this was not acceptable to the Member States, and that is why at first reading the Parliament followed my proposal under which the Member States were to play an essential contributory role in the establishment of the networks.
The underlying thought was that the establishment of a network could be successful only on the basis of mutual trust and co-operation, and it would have been very difficult to conceive of a European network without the corresponding national framework conditions.
<P>
The common opinion has picked up Parliament's idea on this decisive point.
Its approach is to recommend the establishment of a network to the Member States, whilst the Commission is to be given the task of supporting co-operation between the competent authorities for quality evaluation and assurance in higher education.
Alongside this essential point, the Council has accepted 13 further amendments from the Parliament either verbatim or in spirit.
What is important to me is that two fundamental considerations on which I constructed my report are now established in the Council's opinion.
Success has thus been achieved in giving clearer emphasis to the principle of the autonomy of colleges and universities and the preservation of their own understanding of their educational purpose.
Equally, the very obligatory tone in which the Member States were called upon to take certain measures has been diluted by comparison with the original Commission proposal.
<P>
However, some of the amendments which the Parliament supported following my report have not been accepted.
The Council has, for example, rejected involving the CEEC states in the quality assurance measures.
Even if a recommendation to these states may at present fail because for legal reasons it cannot be directed at non-Member States, I nonetheless consider it important that we should not lose sight of the importance of their being involved, because it goes without saying that all the quality assurance objectives which we are pursuing apply as well to the states with which we shall be enlarging our Community in the near future.
They, too, should share in the integrating effect at which our measures are targeted, and it will be important for them in particular to profit from Europe's capacity for innovation and to contribute to it.
<P>
A further amendment has not been accepted by the Council. I had supported the creation of evaluation systems for the research sphere as well in this amendment.
In Germany where teaching and research form a single entity, it seemed to me a very obvious thought that the quality of a college or university can be judged only if its research achievements are evaluated at the same time.
However, Article 126 of the Maastricht Treaty, on which our recommendation is based, does not allow any statement in relation to the research sphere.
It is the legal base only for questions of education.
<P>
I attempted a compromise with the draft amendment which I have again introduced at second reading. This draft amendment also includes the sphere of training for research in the quality evaluation measures.
In so doing, it falls within the legal base of Article 126 and can thereby include research evaluation in training.
<P>
I think that this will be of help as regards the dichotomy between the subsidiarity principle and the pursuit of education policy objectives.
We are well aware that there are still some obstacles to overcome before this compromise can be realized, but the compromise should point the way for university education at the start of the 21st century.
As we develop towards globalization, we in the European Union have to face up to international criteria and follow new paths in higher education policy.
These will include inter-disciplinary and European courses of study.
We need to recognise how important it is to base all our educational measures on a holistic concept of education.
Finally we must all endeavour to develop partnerships and establish these in the place of fear of loss of responsibility.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Elchlepp">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we support the common position and consider that it has taken account of our draft amendments.
The guarantee of and progress in the quality of training and its constant critical review by colleges and universities and all of their members ought really to be much more a matter of course, in the interest of the best possible life and career opportunities for young graduates.
Sadly this is not the case, to a greater extent in some of the countries of Europe, to a lesser in others.
It undoubtedly comes as a bitter realization to students when they get to hear, often by way of dubious ranking procedures, that their university is poorly classified in public esteem because it perhaps missed the opportunity to make changes.
It should at long last be common practice that every college undergoes an evaluation of its research and teaching and that international external experts should also take part in the evaluation groups.
<P>
For example, universities should ensure that they face critical questioning about how good and forward-looking the education they are offering is, whether they consciously give a European orientation to their courses of studies in the spirit of ERASMUS, and offer lectures and seminars in other languages, for example, whether they have reached agreements with colleges or sectors of industry in other countries in order to offer students practical experience abroad, or whether the college puts itself forward as a regional training centre for those in work or whether one subject area takes part in distance-learning.
There will be some in research and teaching who will find it hard to re-think along these lines.
That's the only way to overcome ossification.
It is certainly important to ensure that training is assured on the basis of criteria that are as far as possible the same, but it seems to me questionable that new bodies should be set up for this purpose, such as a "network' institution on a European basis, especially since in legal terms it is on thin ice, and this should be rejected.
It will not lead to any progress.
What are important are permanent exchanges of experience about evaluation procedures between colleges and universities themselves.
Individual projects can sensibly be supported by the EU.
<P>
In conclusion: what is wrong with the varied profiles of European colleges and universities?
They are sources of innovation potential.
Why should not architectural studies in Milan, for example, be offered with rather different emphases than in Aachen, for example, if the quality standards are good in both cases?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sichrovsky">
Mr President, many thanks for listening to my important remarks so late in the day.
Guarantees of quality should certainly be welcomed.
We should also welcome efforts to align quality in Europe.
However, what has not been taken into account is the free access that we are addressing.
Free access for students to all of Europe's colleges and universities will result in a hierarchy of higher education institutions, and will generate a competition which leads to efforts being made by all colleges and universities to attract students.
That will be far more important than provisions aimed at aligning them with each other.
However, the concept that has been mentioned of research training is somewhat questionable because research training would mean that special syllabuses would have to be developed for research.
<P>
Secondly, what is missing here is the propagation of co-operation between research and industry, because we know from experience that research only works properly where it is jointly organized with industry.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 NAME="Cresson">
Mr President, first of all I would like to thank Parliament and especially the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media and its rapporteur Mrs Heinisch, for having examined the common position of the Council in such a short space of time.
In its broad outlines, it was in line with the spirit of the Committee's proposal.
It also accepted a large number of the amendments proposed by Parliament on the first reading.
In fact, the Council text contains all your major amendments such as those concerning the definition of an establishment of higher education, the diversity of national education and assessment systems, as well as the independence and individual character of establishments of higher education.
<P>
If we seek to promote an educational and vocational training system that matches up to the challenges before us, as expressed in the Treaty, quality assessment systems are essential tools, they make a positive contribution to policies favouring employment, growth and competitiveness.
As you have seen, the principles on which the evaluation systems are based are clearly highlighted in the recommendations.
Your contributions have added greatly to their further development.
I remember that they are derived from experience in the field, in which many teaching establishments participated and it is on the basis of this experience that we have been able to single out the common features of teaching quality assessment systems across the various countries of the Union.
<P>
I would also like to mention the importance of this cooperative spirit if we wish to achieve a genuine transparency in teaching systems and to foster the exchange of mutual information between educational establishments on the content and quality of their teaching.
This should further the cross-national mobility of students, the recognition of diplomas and qualifications and the free movement of qualified students in Europe.
<P>
With regard to the amendment proposed by the rapporteur, I concur wholeheartedly with the desire to show that higher educational establishments must improve not only the quality of teaching and learning, but also that of training for research.
You will recall that the Commission was unable to accept at the first reading an amendment that referred to research in general, since this does not come within the legal premise underlying the recommendation.
However, the scope of the amendment proposed today is clearly defined and restricted to training in research.
I think we should introduce this amendment to the extent that in the teaching provided by higher educational establishments, training for research is often intimately tied to general education.
<P>
I have frequently stressed the importance of this recommendation towards promoting quality education in Europe.
I can therefore only rejoice at the fact that the inter-institutional decision-making process has reached a very positive agreement.
As soon as the Council has finally adopted the recommendation, the Commission will proceed as soon as possible to set up the network for quality assessment, whose work will be decisive towards creating the European educational space we all desire so earnestly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Cresson.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=15>
Fifth Framework Programme
<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0188/98) by Mr Marset Campos, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposals for Council Decisions concerning:
<P>
I.the rules for the participation of undertakings, research centres and universities and for the dissemination of research results for the implementation of the Fifth Framework Programme of the European Community (1998-2002) (COM(97)0587/2 - C4-0015/98-97/0309 (SYN)); II.the rules for the participation of undertakings, research centres and universities for the Treaty establishing the Fifth Framework Programme of the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) (1998-2002) (COM(97)0587/2 - C4-0016/98-97/0310 (CNS)).
<SPEAKER ID=171 NAME="Marset Campos">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the proposal being presented on the rules for the participation of undertakings, research centres and universities and for the dissemination of research results for the implementation of the Fifth Framework Programme of the European Community and the European Atomic Energy Community performs the essential task of making it possible to implement the objectives and actions stipulated in that framework programme.
Our committee's overall opinion was favourable, and we like the set of measures intended to provide the people concerned with access to Community research.
<P>
Our committee has focused on one or two aspects designed to solve the few remaining problems detected during past experience and previous calls for proposals. These need to be dealt with because the improvements introduced by the current proposal do not go far enough.
Thus we express our concern about the effects of rapid technological innovation on some areas of research - especially in relation to the information society - as regards the composition of the applicant groups, as well as their launch and budgetary obligations.
<P>
Another of the improvements introduced refers to the need to guarantee that information about calls for proposals is accessible through other electronic media, besides the Official Journal, and in all languages.
<P>
We have also received many suggestions aimed at helping the applicants by speeding up the decision-making process, so that it takes no longer than four months to reach a decision.
<P>
We also thought it would be a good thing, when it comes to implementing the grants financially, to take account of the various aspects and different characteristics which come into play in each of the countries where the research groups are based, and to treat them all in the same way for that purpose, so as not to cause resentment.
<P>
One aspect the committee found particularly relevant is the reference to the property rights to knowledge resulting from work carried out under indirect actions, when the Community's contribution is 50 % or more.
We did not think it right or adequate only to stipulate that right to shared property rights when Community funding was 100 %.
<P>
Something of particular interest throughout the Union is the fight against fraud.
Although it seems incredible, we have also received warnings about this disgraceful practice, in some cases.
For that reason, and taking as a legal basis the precedent provided by the judgements of the European Court of Justice, we have introduced specific corrective and preventative mechanisms, which also allow penalties to be imposed, if necessary, on groups which present anomalies or serious irregularities, or fail to fulfil their obligations in this respect.
All of this arises from our concern to protect the financial interests of the European Community, as provided for by Regulation No 2988/95.
<P>
Passing on to other matters, we think it is right to use all the languages in order to provide contractors with the necessary information. Similarly, we think all the current resources of the information society should be used, especially for SMEs, universities and research centres.
<P>
Finally, we think it is quite right that substantive, detailed reasons should always be given, both for acceptance and rejection.
I should point out that our discussions in committee were very full and covered other aspects, such as our concern to involve as many of the smaller SMEs as possible, or how to set priorities. We discussed the relative importance of the competitiveness of associated technological innovation and the satisfaction of the social needs of Europeans.
<P>
In short, by making this contribution, the European Parliament is fulfilling its function of directly representing the concerns and wishes entrusted to it, and is trying to perfect this proposal, which was already good, on this crucial subject.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Velzen (PPE), W.G.">
<SPEAKER ID=173 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Vaz da Silva">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, rapporteur, ladies and gentlemen, the publication and evaluation of results are essential aspects of scientific research policy for countries with under-developed industries.
Although their importance is enshrined in the Commission's text, I have reason to fear that in practice they are still not being dealt with satisfactorily.
<P>
So far as publication is concerned, electronic media are an excellent resource for those who know what they are looking for.
But they are not reaching everybody.
We have to find others for those who have yet to discover the potential that lies in exchanges of information and co-operation in the field of research and technology.
These can be research centres such as universities, or equally they can be small and medium-sized businesses.
I would like to say that it is important to keep the definition of SMBs at the present maximum of five hundred workers and not to reduce it to two hundred and fifty, as proposed in Amendment No 1.
If that is done, a country like Portugal will be prevented from taking part in SMB support schemes, which is undoubtedly the opposite of what Mr Marset Campos intends to achieve by proposing this amendment.
But the fact is that in Portugal only companies of a certain size can conduct research.
<P>
With regard to evaluation, which means the ability to convert research into production, one good way would be to promote liaison with the EUREKA programme.
So I appeal to the conference which will conclude the Portuguese presidency of EUREKA in June to create conditions in which there can be interaction between the Fifth Framework Programme and EUREKA.
And, since I have mentioned the implementation of the Fifth Framework Programme, may I enter a final plea that we do not make the mistake of reducing the marine science and technology budget, especially in this Year of the Oceans.
They are the flagship of Europe.
The world would not understand such a lack of vision and the future would not forgive us for it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Vaz da Silva.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Vaz da Silva's speech brings us to the end of the contributions from Members of this House.
So I now invite Commissioner Cresson to take the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 NAME="Cresson">
Mr President, before all else I would like to thank the members of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, especially the rapporteur, Mr Marset Campos, for the work accomplished.
I entirely share the sentiment of Mr Marset Campos: our rules of participation and dissemination must be comprehensible to all those engaged in research.
They must be deployed with the highest degree of transparency.
<P>
Our proposals on this matter come within the much wider context of the efforts by the Commission to guarantee optimum management of Community research programmes.
In particular, efforts will be made to simplify the procedures as much as possible and reduce delays as soon as possible.
<P>
The proposal under discussion was prepared on the basis of experience gained with the existing rules. These worked satisfactorily overall.
Whilst being most important for the participants, as the rapporteur rightly pointed out, they are still quite technical.
I will summarize the position of the Commission with regard to the two draft recommendations of the Parliament as follows.
The Commission in the main endorses the objectives of Amendments Nos 4 and 8 (EC, Euratom).
The first states that requests for proposals should be made public, rather than simply published in the Official Journal.
The second expands upon the financial contribution methods of the Community.
Pending reformulation, the Commission can partially adopt these amendments.
<P>
It cannot do the same for the other amendments.
Although sharing their underlying concerns, the Commission is actually of the opinion that these amendments are already covered by the measures proposed, for example Amendments Nos 1 (ECEuratom), 5, 11 and 16 (EC), or they are likely to introduce daily management provisions in the theoretical texts invoked to govern research policy in its entirety, for example Amendments Nos 2 and 7 (EC, Euratom) and 14 (EC).
Some are likely to raise problems of a legal nature, for example Amendments Nos 12 and 13 (EC). Others are to be considered within the context of the implementation measures, for example Amendments Nos 3 and 6 (EC, Euratom), and 9 and 15 (EC).
<P>
I am very grateful to the European Parliament for having grasped the urgency of this paper.
The adoption of this recommendation at the first reading should enable the "research' Council of the 22 June to adopt a common position on the proposal. We are all aware that the existing framework programme, its special programmes and the existing contribution and dissemination rules expire at the end of the year.
So we are engaged in a genuine race against time. If we wish to avoid disrupting the European research effort, the Fifth Framework Programme, its special programmes and the new contribution and dissemination rules should be ready in good time to enable us to proceed from the 1 January 1999.
We are on the right track.
However, I do not underestimate the difficulties awaiting us with regard to the adoption of the fifth framework programme under satisfactory conditions.
I am sure that I can count on and continue to enjoy your support in achieving this goal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Cresson.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, we have now completed our agenda.
I wish you a good night's sleep, which I know is well-deserved. May I remind you that our next sitting begins at 9.00 a.m. tomorrow, Thursday 28 May 1998, and is planned to finish at 1.00 p.m.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 11.50 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Madam President, on page 6 of yesterday's Minutes it says that I asked to make a personal statement.
What I said then, Madam President, was proven again by something that happened yesterday.
On Dutch television, in the programme Nova , Mrs Van Dijk again did precisely what I reproached the Greens for yesterday, in other words, she misrepresented the situation for electoral purposes.
She maintained on television that I am against any change in the current statutory arrangements for Members.
Everyone in this House knows that I have said very clearly time after time, orally and in writing, and in reports by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, that I am of the opinion that the same statute must apply to all Members and that there must be no discrimination on grounds of nationality because that is against Article 6 of the Treaty.
At the present time, Madam President, Italians in this House earn five times more than Spaniards. That is a disgrace!
That is discrimination on grounds of nationality.
We are deemed to perform the same work and should therefore receive the same emoluments.
Once there is a statute based on equality, Madam President, the rules for travel and subsistence expenses can also be changed.
I demand that the Greens withdraw their accusation that I am against change.
I am in favour of it.
Madam President, we expect proposals from the Bureau as soon as possible on a single statute.
<P>
I have one final remark, Madam President. Why is there not a service in Brussels which can make reports of sittings available the next day, as in Strasbourg?
It is an odd situation.
No, those are the Minutes, Mr Martens.
I am talking about the Verbatim Report, the so-called "Rainbow' , in all the various languages.
But Mr Martens, he is hardly here, he does not know all about it yet.
Madam President, I hope that Brussels will be treated in the same way as Strasbourg and that there will also be a service here that can handle the Verbatim Report of Proceedings.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Wijsenbeek.
We shall take note of that.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Cohesion Fund - Structural Funds - Island regions
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0159/98 by Mr Arias Cañete, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the Commission's Annual Report on the Cohesion Fund for 1996 (COM(97)0302 - C4-0482/97); -A4-0160/98 by Mrs Klaß, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the Eighth Annual Report on the Structural Funds for 1996 (COM(97)0526 - C4-0582/97); -A4-0118/98 by Mr Viola, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the problems of island regions in the European Union.
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="Arias Cañete">
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Article 130a of the Treaty contains a fundamental provision of Community law.
It establishes that the Community shall develop and pursue actions to strengthen economic and social cohesion, in order to promote its own harmonious development. The article adds that the Community shall aim in particular to reduce disparities between the levels of development of the various regions, and help the least favoured regions, including rural areas, to catch up.
<P>
Of all Community regional development policies, the Cohesion Fund is one of the main instruments of that policy, since its essential aim is to help combat the current disparities within the European Union.
The four countries which receive aid from this Fund are still the most affected by such disparities, as was clearly shown in the Commission's first three-yearly report on cohesion.
<P>
The report before us at the moment reflects the fact that although a lot of progress has been made in the Cohesion Fund's two sectors of activity - transport and environment - the disparities we are talking about are a long way from being resolved. So it is vitally important for the Fund to continue to function within the four beneficiary countries.
<P>
However, it must be stressed that these countries have obligations, not just to make a real effort to ensure that actions implemented at the expense of the Cohesion Fund are really effective, but also to make sure there is a proper balance between actions in the two sectors of the Fund. As the report says, there are imbalances in some of these Member States as regards the funding of projects in certain fields.
Specifically, in the transport sector, we must underline our concern at the fact that road projects are still being given priority, when curiously enough these are the least environmentally friendly compared with other means of transport, such as railways.
This can end up being somewhat contradictory, when we remember that the environment is the other sector which receives aid from the Cohesion Fund, and the most environmentally friendly projects should therefore be given priority.
<P>
From a strictly financial point of view, the 1996 results are highly satisfactory because the budgetary implementation reached 100 % of commitment appropriations and 97.5 % of payment appropriations. Also, progress is being made towards achieving a balance between the intervention sectors.
<P>
The special attention being paid to the ultra-peripheral regions is very positive, Madam Commissioner, because as we know, those are the regions which tend to have the biggest problems, especially where communications are concerned.
<P>
In analysing the importance of the Cohesion Fund as a financial instrument designed to achieve economic and social cohesion, we should once more underline the difference between nominal convergence, which some of the Member States benefiting from this Fund have managed to attain, and real convergence, which is still a long way from being achieved in those countries. It is that real convergence which is the main objective of the Cohesion Fund.
<P>
Some amendments to the report confuse real convergence and nominal convergence. As I see it, to say that those Member States which have reached the third stage of Economic and Monetary Union should be excluded from the Cohesion Fund, despite fulfilling the requirement of having a GNP less than 90 % of the Community average, would be to reward those which failed in their obligations and to punish those which, despite being disadvantaged in relation to Community GNP, have made real efforts to reduce disparities and comply with the established criteria - and to continue to do so - not just in the convergence plans but also in the stability plans.
<P>
Without compromising that view, I shall present the House with an oral amendment to paragraph 14 of my report, designed to ensure that it is fully consistent with the approach taken in Mr Izquierdo Collado's report, in view of the compromise amendments established by Mr Berend, so that we can preserve the consensus achieved in the Izquierdo Collado report.
<P>
We should also welcome the jobs this Fund creates, directly or indirectly, in the beneficiary Member States.
That is an aspect which should be encouraged, because although job creation is not the main objective of the Cohesion Fund, it needs to be taken into account, and priority should be given to measures which can create lasting jobs. That is all the more true at a time when the European Union has to strengthen this policy, in the context of the Treaty of Amsterdam which is waiting in the wings.
<P>
To conclude, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to point out that the Cohesion Fund has shown itself to be an essential instrument for achieving a large, balanced European Union without disparities.
So it is a valid model to inspire the future instrument of pre-accession, which can model itself on this Fund and help to ensure that enlargement is a complete success.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="Klaß">
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission's report on the Structural Funds for 1996, as forwarded to Parliament, is a very comprehensive and yet a very topical document, and for that we wish to express our thanks to the Commission.
We are adopting a position on this report today because we want the experiences of 1996 to be a lesson for the years to come.
Our gaze is already focusing on the challenges which lie ahead, on the reform of the Structural Funds and on the enlargement of the Union.
A number of problems from previous years still beset us and these have already been discussed in previous years by Parliament's rapporteurs.
Nevertheless, I have decided to include these points again in my report, for as the saying goes, "constant dropping wears the stone' .
I hope the Commission may forgive me, but I hope that by adopting such an approach these problems might be overcome.
<P>
With the conclusion of 1996 we reached the midway point in the current programming period.
The two preceding years recorded less than satisfactory results in respect of the take-up of funds.
However, 1996 shows that the backlog in programme planning now seems to have been overcome.
This means that 1996 was really the first effective year of implementation.
We note with satisfaction that the take-up of appropriations from the Structural Funds for 1996 amounts to 98 % of available commitments and 95 % of available payments.
This constitutes a considerable improvement.
It has to be admitted, however, that these payments only give a limited picture of actual implementation in the field.
We therefore call on the Member States to respect the three-month deadline for transferring funds to final beneficiaries.
We ask the Commission to provide data on the transmission of funds to beneficiaries in its next annual report.
Only in this way can we monitor the flow of funds from the Commission to final beneficiaries.
<P>
The rate of take-up for Community initiatives and transitional and innovative measures still gives cause for concern, however.
This category accounts for 70 % of the total funding not taken up.
According to provisional figures, implementation of Community initiatives in 1997 also failed to register the hoped-for improvement.
Reprogramming and transfers of appropriations have therefore become necessary and I would request that Parliament be informed of these developments as early and as fully as possible and that our opinion be duly taken into account.
This applies particularly in the event of problems arising from the exhaustion of funds at the end of the programme planning period.
The activities of the European Investment Bank and the European Investment Fund will considerably strengthen the impact of the Structural Funds.
Greater use should be made of these facilities in future years.
But we also need to have verification of the European Investment Fund by the Court of Auditors.
<P>
We must continue to underline the importance of having a structural policy which is compatible with other Community policies.
While the implementation of the partnership principle has improved over the years, this continues to be episodic and sporadic, particularly with regard to the involvement of economic and social partners at regional and local level.
The Commission's thoughts on new forms of partnership and strengthening of the principle and anchoring it more effectively are of significance in that the imminent Structural Fund reform will in all likelihood make partnership an important issue.
Anchoring partnership more powerfully in the new regulations should mean defining realistically and accurately the scope, allocation of roles and function of partnership.
Monitoring, evaluation and checks are of fundamental importance for the successful achievement of these aims.
However, this sector has now assumed enormous complexity in its criteria and procedures.
The forthcoming reform of the Structural Funds must include an appropriate simplification of the evaluation system.
<P>
There has been an increase in the number of financial irregularities.
More effective controls and closer cooperation between the Commission and the Member States are certainly exposing more cases of this kind.
However, I believe that an increase in fraudulent activity has also played its part in the rise in recorded cases.
The additionality of resources should continue to enjoy priority.
Nonetheless, verification of the observance of this principle is not being carried out satisfactorily.
The Commission has proposed additionality as one of the criteria for a 10 % reserve.
Yet the difficulties with verification, which are still being encountered, are anything but encouraging.
In this respect I ask myself how a criterion which has been verified as inadequate can be considered as an additional key for apportionment.
I would therefore ask the Commission to think again about this project.
<P>
In conclusion I would like to express my thanks to all those who have provided help and support in the drafting of this report.
I hope that it will play a part in our continuing efforts to promote an ever closer European Union through the Structural Funds.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="Viola">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Madam Commissioner, a year ago the Council decided to modify the Treaty on European Union inserting an important clarification into Article 130a, at the heart of the cohesion policy.
The island regions, which are for obvious geographical reasons far from continental Europe and its internal market, were added to the list of the European Union's least favoured regions - regions therefore in need of special, focused help - because of a series of extra costs which nature imposes upon them.
Finally the European Union acknowledged, on that happy occasion, what it had already acknowledged for other regions, such as the ultra-peripheral regions or the regions of the far north: the right to be treated and considered differently, an exception to the principle of uniformity of which it is often a victim.
It acknowledged something that even the Court of Justice had ruled some time ago, that discrimination consists in treating different situations in an identical way.
<P>
A year ago, the Council gave us a huge container to fill with ideas and constructive proposals, a container whose legal basis is the new text of Article 158 of the Treaty of Amsterdam and Declaration No 30 which is attached.
The sides of this container are the common policies: agriculture, cohesion, fishing, energy and so on, but unfortunately it has a rather heavy lid which is delaying the implementation of the Treaty's provisions.
This lid is represented by the Commission, which up to now has closed the door on the ideas of Parliament and its Committee on Regional Policy.
<P>
I hope that as from today it changes course.
I do not want this House to open the controversy on the linguistic translation of Article 158 - the Committee on Regional Policy did not concern itself with this problem - and I leave that task to whoever is competent in this Parliament and possibly the Court of Justice.
I would rather discuss giving concrete expression to Article 158.
In fact, I am fully convinced of the correctness of the Italian translation, but I am not so convinced of the Commission's will to carry it through.
If it is true, as it is true, for example, that Community regulations must comply with their primary legal source - that is, the Treaty -, I do not understand why the proposals for regulations on the reform of the Structural Funds, presented by the Commission on 18 March, do not refer to any insertion of that aspect of insularity which concerns 14 million European citizens.
<P>
In fact, what is required is to apply the principle of equal opportunities to the island regions, through measures of positive discrimination which, in the last analysis, can compensate for the clear disparities in starting points, in agreement with the principle of economic and social cohesion which is at the basis of the construction of Europe.
In my report I describe an integrated policy for the island regions, coordination managed by an 'Interservice Group' within the General Secretariat, inclusion in the new Interreg of a specific chapter for inter-island cooperation, a criterion for eligibility for the Structural Funds concerning the insular geo-economic factor, and an intermediate island tax zone between the continental and ultra-peripheral zones which already exist, allowing the island regions to compete on equal terms with all the other continental regions, if accompanied by valid financial incentive measures.
<P>
In today's vote Parliament wishes to express its own conviction that the Union must make important and innovative decisions.
These decisions will only be the product of Amsterdam if they go in the direction stated in the declaration attached to the Treaty, which recognizes the need for Community legislation to take into account the disadvantages imposed by the island handicap , with a view to adopting specific measures - if justified - in favour of these regions with the ultimate aim of integrating them more in the common market on equal terms.
There are three key expressions. Firstly "justified measures' could dismiss the doubts of those who fear a blind horizontal policy, indifferent to the diversities which exist between one island region and another and therefore for some are unjustified.
Secondly, as regards "equal terms' , if consequential logic exists, this leads to the admission of the existence of the basic unequal conditions which the island regions are subject to.
Finally, the third concerns "integration and the internal market' , a market which the island regions cannot yet fully exploit and from which at times they only suffer losses, caused by the unfair competition which nature imposes upon them.
<P>
It is the Amsterdam Treaty which uses these expressions, not an islander like the rapporteur, who nonetheless obviously fully recognizes himself in this Treaty.
Therefore, I ask for a correct ratification by the national governments, acceptance by the European Commission and speedy implementation, starting with the reform of the Structural Funds, competition policy and the common agricultural policy.
The call from this House is not to isolate the islands, not to create a vacuum around lands which are the historical memory of our continent, but to enforce, in the final instance, the rights that the Treaty recognizes are ours.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Díez de Rivera Icaza">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection had no hesitation in presenting its opinion on such an important question as the social unfairness and lack of ecological sustainability suffered by the islands of the European Union.
<P>
Islands - basically those with a population of 100 000 or less - suffer reduced competitiveness and offer fewer opportunities to their people and their industries. They end up being dependent on the dangerous monoculture of tourism.
The small islands of an archipelago lack infrastructure and depend on imports for basic resources, energy, water, waste management and so on.
In the summer, when their population increases three- or five-fold because of tourism, the scarce natural resources run out. The resulting ecological problems are sometimes beyond repair, as with waste for example.
This means that sustainable development, one of the Union's main priorities, becomes mere fiction.
<P>
Another serious inequality suffered by the small islands of an archipelago, such as Minorca, Ibiza or Formentera, is that they lack specialist medical facilities, to provide radiotherapy or adequate treatment for heart conditions and rheumatism, for example. So their inhabitants suffer a dual insularity, a double discrimination, since these conditions can only be treated on the larger islands.
That means they have to travel, which adds even more suffering.
<P>
Could anything be more unfair than that, Madam President?
<P>
I conclude, Madam President, with a request on behalf of my committee that small islands, where health and education suffer particularly, should be granted compensatory legal measures such as the provision of financial instruments, the application of incentives and fiscal exemptions and the inclusion of small island regions in Objective 1 until a specific programme can be prepared for them.
<P>
In any case, small islands with a population of less than 100 000 should be treated as ultra-peripheral regions.
That, Madam President, is something the Commission and the Council should think about.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="Sisó Cruellas">
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="McCartin">
Madam President, I would like to thank Mrs Klaß for her excellent report and to say that the financial instrument for fisheries guidance, the FIFG, only represents about 1.5 to 2 % of the Structural Funds.
Considering the importance of the fishing industry to the poorest and most peripheral regions of the Union, that is a lot less than adequate to meet its task.
70 % of this money goes to Priority 1 regions which means that the remainder, going to Objective 5a and Objective 6, is a relatively small amount of money.
<P>
In 1995 the position of this instrument was in marked contrast to the rest of the Structural Funds in that commitments reached 100 % but in 1996 the position was reversed with only 75 % of commitments, giving it at face value a much worse performance than the regional, social and agricultural structural fund.
We do not have a clear explanation by the Commission of the position in the various regions but the Court of Auditors' report draws attention to the situation in greater detail.
It seems that some Member States just do not take the fund seriously and I suspect it is because it is too small to meet any serious purpose.
<P>
PESCA is a Community initiative designed to reduce the negative impact of restructuring the industry.
The amount of money is about ECU 40m per year.
The Commission report does not make clear the exact position in 1996.
For the total programme up to 1996, 71 % had been committed and 14 % payments made.
The Court of Auditors tells us that in 1996 91 % of the PESCA Fund had been committed and 43 % in payments.
In relation to the PESCA Fund, I should just like to say that its purpose could be met more adequately in the general provisions of regional policy.
It is too small, the general public is confused about its purpose and this makes it more difficult to administer.
<P>
I do not agree with so much emphasis on the idea of additionality.
Surely, within the framework of EMU, we should have a more balanced public spending programme in each Member State.
The question of additionality in some cases could put pressure on Member States to overspend.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="Hermange">
Madam President, first of all I have a few comments regarding the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
To begin with, 1996 marks a turning point in the use of Structural Fund appropriations since, for the first time, we have recorded a very active year and this reveals a distinct improvement in the use of appropriations for commitments and payments, as compared with the last two years.
This, then, is a good year in which to prepare for the reform of the Structural Funds in the framework of Agenda 2000.
<P>
As draftsman, I would like to make a few remarks concerning the European Social Fund that are wholly encouraging and I would like to say that, with respect to both commitments and payments, we have been able to use up all the appropriations detailed in the budget for the first time.
Nevertheless, in spite of everything, we need to qualify this asset, due to the fact that Objective 4 has proved difficult to apply on the ground and that take-up rates for Community initiatives remain inadequate.
By way of example, we may cite the case of the ADAPT initiative, which does not square up fully with the expectations mentioned above, especially with regard to the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises.
Now we know that there are those in Europe who are, first and foremost, job creators; but, nowadays, we must take account of the competition we face from the United States and we must therefore devote particular attention to such participation.
<P>
These few comments echo the initial proposals for reforming the ESF, whereby future interventions would be combined under a single objective, designed to specifically support the European jobs strategy.
<P>
Finally, I would like to note that the matter of partnership and its operation in practice is openly raised in this eighth report and it forces us to rethink the question of the composition and role of the monitoring committees by linking the place of social partners in a different way, especially bodies that work in the social field, in order to enhance their participation when this forthcoming reform is introduced.
<P>
Madam President, these are the views of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Papayiannakis">
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, we in the Committee on the Environment consider that many of the Commission's commitment appropriations have been honoured, that payment appropriations have been advanced almost in full and that the balance between assistance for transport and for the environment has been maintained.
However, we have a number of comments and one question which we would like to put to the Commissioner.
<P>
First, as regards the payment appropriations for transport, clearly, all environmentally friendly modes of transport - railways, ports etcetera - have, shall we say, suffered an injustice in all the Member States, while tremendous importance has been attached to motorways, and we cannot agree with this.
<P>
Secondly, we note that in terms of payment appropriations for the environment, tremendous importance has been attached to water supply and sewage systems, which is not of course a bad thing per se. However, we remain somewhat dissatisfied as regards the protection of nature and requirements under programmes such as NATURA 2000.
<P>
Thirdly, the evaluation of work under Directive 85/337 and work of a more general nature is unsatisfactory.
Environmental impact studies are carried out merely as a formality and the Commission fails, I think, to get to the heart of the matter.
What do these studies say?
Have these studies been adhered to? And so on.
<P>
Fourthly, we still attach great importance, Madam Commissioner, to the involvement of local authorities and non-governmental organizations in the drafting of studies and in the implementation of work.
No progress has been made on this point and I think that progress here is needed.
<P>
I would like to finish by putting a question to the Commissioner: we would like you to tell us, Madam Commissioner, if the Commission has carried out or is able to carry out a more general overall evaluation of investments and assistance through the Cohesion Fund, if the objectives of cohesion have been achieved, if environmental protection has improved etcetera, if possible, for each country.
That would enable us to make a more general appraisal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="McCarthy">
Madam President, we have two very important reports before us today.
The first, the report by Mrs Klaß, reviews the implementation of the Structural Funds in 1996.
The second, by Mr Arias Cañete, reviews the Cohesion Fund in 1996.
It is important that this Parliament takes its scrutiny and monitoring roles seriously as regard structural fund applications.
It is only by looking backwards and correcting the mistakes of the past, that we can plan for the future, for more effective and targeted use of the EU structural fund resources.
<P>
Today's debate is particularly relevant following on from yesterday's presentation by the British presidency of the forthcoming agenda items on the Cardiff summit where Member States will be asked to bring forward their employment action plans.
They will be asked to address themselves to creating an effective and competitive EU economy where SMEs flourish and there is no place for red tape.
It is precisely at this point that we should emphasize the role which the European Parliament and the structural and cohesion policies play in combating unemployment, protecting the environment, advancing equal opportunities and building a People's Europe while closing the gap between poorer and wealthier regions.
<P>
Therefore, we say to the ministers in Cardiff, these are the objectives which should be at the heart of the reform process.
We have vital tools in structural and cohesion policies.
I would like to endorse Mrs Klaß' recommendations, in particular her call for enhanced monitoring and evaluation, improvement in financial management and the need for a more rapid transfer of funds to financial beneficiaries.
It is simply not credible for EU funds to be paid out in some cases a year after projects have commenced.
Late approvals and blockages in the flow of cash to projects threatens their very viability, creates uncertainty for those implementing projects and does not help the credibility of the European Union.
<P>
Today I have a letter from my own county council in Derbyshire awaiting changes to be made by the Commission to financial tables before they can send out letters for approval for 98 projects on ESF.
I know this is not specifically your area, Madam President, but it is about RECHAR, European Social Fund projects.
It is no good sending out letters to start projects half way through the year and then expect that we can deliver those on time.
We can do better on funds.
We need in future to look at all the options of global grants, intermediary funding bodies, to speed up approvals to spend.
We need to learn the lessons for the 2000-2006 programming period with better forward planning in all our programme areas.
We need a strengthened and solid partnership with strong involvement of local partners which can help in delivery.
<P>
Finally, I agree with the paragraph in Mrs Klaß' report on the Community initiative that Parliament indicated to the Commission its guidelines on the financial envelope of the initiatives and the allocation of the reserve in March 1996, in particular in respect to the RECHAR, RETEX, KONVER and peace initiatives.
It is important that the Commission acknowledges these guidelines in reports.
Otherwise, we will think that the Commission does not intend to apply them.
To Mr Viola, I would say that the we in the Socialist Group take seriously the challenges of the island regions but we simply cannot accept 25 new amendments without prior discussion in committee.
That is an abuse of the committee system.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Madam President, there is a lot of money at stake in the reports presented by Mr Arias Cañete, Mrs Klaß and Mr Viola, and indeed in the countless other reports which we have been working on for months in the Committee on Regional Policy. This money is being redistributed from the pockets of citizens who live in the better-off countries - and I am deliberately not referring to the net contributors - to fund projects in the less wealthy and structurally underdeveloped Member States.
When organizing this redistribution we need to observe a few basic principles, which being few are all the more important for it.
The first is that the purpose of European cohesion, namely the support of the weaker, must be beyond dispute.
This means genuine solidarity, which is one of the fundamental principles of our Community.
The second is that we must be very careful about how we handle money from the Cohesion Fund.
Parliament takes its role as a monitor here very seriously indeed and calls on the Member States to do likewise.
The third is that European solidarity is indivisible.
This means that it is not something to be called upon just by a few, or even monopolized.
We have to retain our solidarity with the southern European nations, while the applicant countries of central and eastern Europe also need our solid support, for this is in all our interests.
<P>
Fourthly, we should not demand too much of the contributors.
At a time when unemployment figures are high, even in the wealthier Member States, and budget funds low, these arrangements have to be handled very carefully.
In this connection I would particularly warn against excessive demands, for these will inevitably produce a backlash.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Vallvé (ELDR).">
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, the subjects of our debate are important for regional policy: Mrs Klaß' report on the Structural Funds and Mr Arias Cañete's report on the Cohesion Fund, both for 1996.
I should like to repeat that when we talk about these aspects of regional policy and cohesion funds, we are talking about 34 % of the EU's budget.
<P>
I shall limit myself to saying that I think the Arias Cañete report is positive, as regards its subject, that is, the funds for 1996.
I shall not consider the future of the Structural Funds, which we shall be talking about in future part-sessions of this Parliament.
<P>
As regards Mr Viola's report, I would like to say that I think it is very important to pay attention to the problems experienced by islands.
The Treaty of Amsterdam now mentions the structural disadvantages of islands, especially with respect to water supplies, energy, education, health and transport.
<P>
Regional policy should take islands' problems into consideration.
In that sense, the Commission should allow special transport aid to make up for the disadvantages suffered by people who live on islands, especially the smaller islands.
<P>
The Member States should also take the principle of insularity into account in their fiscal measures.
Otherwise, if people living on islands continue to suffer these disadvantages because of their special situation it will be impossible to have a Europe which is the same for all its citizens.
<P>
As Mr Viola said, I think this report is about implementing the provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam in relation to island status.
To bring Europe closer to island-dwelling citizens will mean bringing Europe closer to all the citizens of the Union too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Baggioni">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the importance of our debate might be viewed as insular, it is certainly one that stands on its own.
I am personally aware of the expressions of interest that the various political groups in our House have shown in the report by our colleague Mr Viola, to whom I extend my warm and sincere congratulations, not only for the excellent work he has done but also for the spirit of unity he has imbued, in close cooperation, amongst all European partners of island origin.
<P>
The report submitted to you seeks to show that we must not allow the Union to disintegrate at the periphery.
Yet this is the risk run by island regions, given the socio-economic factors that define those areas.
Up until now, only island regions on the outer periphery have elicited a general and natural concern on the part of the European Union with regard to their problems, in recognition of the handicap they face due to their remoteness.
Other regions have benefited from Community interventions when delays in development so obviously justified the allocation of major Structural Funds.
In fact, and this is the main point of our debate, these regions have never been perceived strictly and specifically in terms of their insularity.
<P>
A changes in the Community approach to the problems in those regions has been slow.
I should remind you that by virtue of the concentration principle and in applying rigid, technical guidelines, the Commission plans to exclude islands such as Sardinia and Corsica from the new Objective 1.
We must note how few island regions in Europe will be regarded from 1999 as regions in which development is slow and which therefore require special structural aid.
<P>
There is obviously a paradox between the political will of the European Union, reflected in an amendment to the Maastricht Treaty, leading to a genuine institutional recognition of island regions in the new Amsterdam Treaty and an approach which consists in depriving those regions of the resources they require for development at the earliest opportunity and incorporating them in a European area earmarked for expansion.
<P>
How are we to conceive of Community regional planning from an exclusively continental standpoint?
Island regions, which suffer from a variety of handicaps on the economic, social and human fronts, due to trading difficulties, need us to examine different approaches of a suitable nature within the context of a genuine integrated policy.
Their future depends on it, as does economic and social cohesion, which is a highly cherished principle in the European Union.
I would like to stress, on this occasion, the fundamental importance, in my view, of multilateral cooperation between island regions.
<P>
In conclusion, I believe that island regions clearly illustrate the challenge posed for Europe as a whole, which is to move towards a stronger Community, which is developed more harmoniously and which has greater solidarity.
Over and above the legal and economic aspects, this is a political imperative which I invite you to share and support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Novo">
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in this joint debate I should like to emphasize further - as the Viola report does - the need to take the problems of the island regions into account and to adapt Community policies to their particular characteristics with more flexibility.
However, we must be careful to distinguish island regions from ultra-peripheral islands and regions, as indeed the Treaty revised in Amsterdam very properly does.
<P>
I should also like to associate myself more closely with the conclusions of the Klaß report on Structural Funds in 1996, which makes it clear that the budget has been better implemented generally, achieving around 98 % of its commitments, but which also calls for more and better information on the proper application of the principle of additionality by some Member States.
<P>
For that reason I am obliged to concentrate the House's attention on the Arias Cañete report on the Cohesion Fund for 1996.
I do not so much to the rapporteur's proposals, which I think deserve universal acceptance, although I do not agree with the way in which the question of conditionality is approached at times here, but more especially because of the present political importance of four of the amendments proposed by our German colleague in the PPE.
To propose, as the Member does, that the European Parliament should consider limiting the benefits of the future Cohesion Fund to those Member States which at present are parties to the cohesion agreement but have not joined the euro, that is to say to try to exclude Spain, Ireland and Portugal from the Cohesion Fund in future, is not only an attempt to subvert the legal basis of the Treaty itself, but confirms that in this House there are Members for whom economic and social cohesion are mere figures of rhetoric which must bow to the reigning financial and monetarist interests.
<P>
I sincerely hope this House will reject any such amendments clearly and by a large majority.
The very fact that they have been proposed, however, is a politically unacceptable act which goes against the purposes of solidarity and should therefore be roundly condemned.
If by chance the amendments were to be approved, which of course I do not believe they will, we should have reason to wonder where this European Union of ours is going and what has become of the concepts of cohesion and solidarity between its peoples and its Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, equal living standards for all will not just be achieved by reducing everything to the same level.
We have learned from the reports on both the Cohesion Fund and the Structural Funds that while a great deal of money has been paid out, we are still failing to promote sustainable development in the regions in spite of the level of aid being applied; in fact, quite the reverse, for the balance is showing a deficit.
We now have rising unemployment, the destruction of ecosystems - which for centuries have sustained all our economic activity - and the centralization of market systems which are destroying economic relations at regional level.
It is a matter of great urgency that both the Commission and the Member States should now effectively comply with the requirement contained in the Structural Fund regulation for the sustainable development of the regions.
<P>
We need to remedy this situation now and not wait until the year 2000.
This means that the Commission should not just be filling up its filing cabinets with its latest proposals on job creation, the environment and local employment initiatives, but should be calling for the effective implementation of these measures for the efficient use of European funds in the Member States.
The call for the continuance of the Cohesion Fund cannot be met unless there is a radical change in the way the Fund is managed. We need support for local development structures, the participation of local people, communities and initiatives, the promotion of biodiversity and the protection of the green network Natura 2000.
Every day we read that EU funding is helping to destroy the unique treasures of Europe's natural and cultural landscape; this is not only a disgrace, it is a scandal, particularly as it is taking place under the nose of the Commission which, in spite of everything, is doing nothing about it.
This money must be immediately reclaimed by the Commission.
It is now time to stop turning a blind eye to what is going on.
Sustainable development should mean preserving local potential, not participating in its permanent destruction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Macartney">
Madam President, I would like to make one or two points about islands in particular and also about the significance of the debates we are having on Mr Viola's excellent report for Agenda 2000.
This is the background to the discussion.
As we move towards the end of this year and into next year we will have some very important decisions to take.
They are all about making Europe more acceptable to the citizens, whether they live in the remote islands or the larger islands and whatever their location.
<P>
If you look round Europe you can see Scotland with its hundred islands, you can go through the Åland Archipelago between Finland and Sweden and you will see one island after another.
You can go to the larger islands such as Sardinia.
Each has its own different problems: each is particular.
The map of each island is engraved in the minds of those who live on that particular island.
It would be tempting to say that they do not have common problems but I believe they do.
The common problems are those of remoteness and transport disadvantage.
In many cases this is compounded by smallness of size.
A small island cannot achieve the economies of scale which would allow the prosperity which Europe hopes will spread right across the territory.
So a special compensation has to be built in for island living, for the extra costs of administration, health care and so on.
These are important items to build into our Agenda 2000 discussions.
<P>
I would argue that it is important, if we accept that there are particular problems for islands, that these should not necessarily be measured by vast areas crudely lumped together and measured for unemployment or percentages of GDP.
If we could be a bit more sophisticated I believe we have a chance of making a success of the imminent discussions.
To sum up, I believe that the euro project is going to provide the integration for Europe.
We now need to provide the compensation for the disadvantaged regions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Nicholson">
Madam President, I congratulate the rapporteurs on their reports.
I am extremely pleased that in the area of cohesion funding, in particular structural funding, there has been an improvement in the take-up of funds.
To most people a shortfall in take-up represents problems with bureaucracy in their area, rather than a lack of applications for funding.
It is therefore pleasing that this old problem seems to be in the process of being resolved.
<P>
I fully support Mrs Klaß in her view that the annual report should include information on the transmission of funds to final beneficiaries.
When so much of European Union funds are involved, it is important that we see where it goes and how it is spent.
As a member of Parliament's Regional Affairs Committee, I am always encouraged by the emphasis which the committee, under the chairmanship of Mr Cañete, places on the partnership principle.
This is generally accepted as the way forward for the distribution of European Union funding for its programmes.
It is therefore essential that it is properly implemented in all Member States.
Failure to develop it fully will amount to a failure in the way in which we spend money on the ground.
I want to see the fullest possible involvement of local economic and social partners, including locally elected political representatives.
It is by this means that the general public will be able to identify with the European Union and the work in their constituencies.
<P>
Although the Eighth Annual Report specifically deals with 1996 and the current programming period, it is inevitable that we look at it in the context of the future for structural funding in general.
It would also be remiss of me not to take this opportunity to say to the Commission that, as we move towards the reform and Agenda 2000 in 1999, the rigid criterion of 75 % of GDP is not only unreasonable, it will be difficult for many regions to accept.
Substantial amounts of funding have been going to many areas.
The cohesion funding has given certain areas a particular advantage.
But it has worked to the disadvantage of those areas that are in close proximity to cohesion areas.
They have not had that access or opportunity.
Areas such as my own were dependent to a large extent on European Union funding to stand still, never mind move forward.
I have to say to the Commission that it must revisit my area and look at it again.
It must take up the challenge presented by those areas which have not been able to develop, such as my own, because of circumstances.
Especially after what happened last week, namely the very strong referendum vote by the people in my area to move to a new position, to look for new opportunities, I appeal to the Commission at this time to support us in that area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Cellai">
Madam President, the National Alliance and I in particular are aware of the disadvantages of the island regions, and in accordance with our position in matters of economic and social cohesion, we are very concerned for the future of the islands, if the reform of the Structural Funds is approved without substantial changes.
The islands suffer from structural disadvantages which in the long term end up having a negative effect on their economic and social development.
With the reform of the Structural Funds, whose main points are set out in Agenda 2000, particular importance has been given to the principle of concentration and, please note, among the various territories which will be disqualified from the Objective 1 programme are many islands.
It emerges from this that if the reform is adopted as shown in the Commission's communication, only a few islands will from part of Objective 1: this means that the island territories will be considered to be regions which do not require particular structural assistance.
This is nonsense and it also appears that the experts in the European Commission who have worked on the reform of the Structural Funds have not read the new Amsterdam Treaty, which provides for the specific nature of island regions either through a rewriting of Article 130a or through the attached declaration.
<P>
The Commission is therefore asked to review its position on this point, and provide room for the island regions within Objective 1, apart from their GDP, because a close and conscientious examination of the situation should show that there are not only macroeconomic reasons but above all different reasons which are of a geo-economic nature.
In addition, the Commission should review, for this specific case, its policy for state aid, taking into account for island regions their fragility and their particular geo-strategic importance because they are on the periphery.
In addition to that, a series of fiscal and financial incentives should be introduced to benefit the island regions.
Finally, particular importance should be given to preventing damage to and safeguarding the environment, with appropriate measures to exploit the enormous potential of the regions in question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Collado">
Mr President, we have before us three important and good reports.
As regards Mrs Klaß' report on the Structural Funds, I would just like to say that all the measures aimed at transparency and control in the application of the Funds can count on our full support.
<P>
As regards Mr Viola's report on islands, allow me to pay tribute to that report by associating myself, word for word, with my colleague Carmen Díez de Rivera Icaza's excellent speech.
I do not think I could add any more skilled or positive comments, and that makes me feel very proud.
<P>
As for Mr Arias Cañete's report, I must say I think it is balanced, positive and very good. However, it is accompanied by several amendments which I think make up the political substance we have to clarify in this debate.
I am not going to waste time - which I do not have anyway - by saying how good the Cohesion Fund is, and what important effects it has had.
I just want to say that we are going to support Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 3 by Mr Berend, who is unfortunately not listening to me although he is here. However, we would ask him to withdraw Amendment No 4 because we are talking about the Cohesion Fund for this period.
So we are going to support Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 3 which state that we are talking about the period up to 1999.
But I would earnestly call on him to withdraw his Amendment No 4, since we are not making a decision on a future debate. Agenda 2000 lies ahead of us, and the relevant decision can be made in a peaceful and proper manner.
If we manage to get that amendment withdrawn, I think this report will have all the qualitative and positive ingredients it needs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schiedermeier">
Mr President, in his report Mr Cañete has very carefully evaluated how the Cohesion Fund was implemented for the 1996 financial year.
There is no denying the success of the Cohesion Fund.
Infrastructure has been decisively improved.
As far as the environment is concerned, financing has continued to concentrate on water supply and treatment projects and, to a lesser extent, on waste treatment.
The essential purpose of the Cohesion Fund, namely to promote economic and social cohesion, has so far been achieved, as witnessed by the increase in per capita income over the last ten years.
This is borne out by the fact that Ireland, Portugal and Spain are to join monetary union in the first wave, while Greece is also well on its way to joining.
That is all I have to say regarding the annual report for 1996 and its evaluation.
<P>
In some aspects of the resolution the rapporteur has tried - although in my opinion this was not part of his remit - to keep all four current beneficiary Member States in the Cohesion Fund beyond the year 1999.
Regrettably, I cannot agree to this.
Solidarity also means not demanding or approving any more aid than is absolutely necessary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="Collins, Gerard">
Madam President, I congratulate Mr Viola on his report.
I am particularly pleased that my group, the Union for Europe Group, played an important part in ensuring that this vitally important matter is the subject of a report from the Regional Affairs Committee.
For that I thank my friend and colleague Mr Baggioni.
The fact that the island regions are at last specifically mentioned in the Amsterdam Treaty is a major victory for all those concerned and the Commission must now come up with substantial proposals for these island regions and the current reform of the Structural Funds.
The Commission can be assured that my group and the Regional Affairs Committee and others will be most supportive of the proposals when they come on stream.
<P>
While I recognize that the problems of Corsica, Sardinia and some of the Greek islands are very specific, I would also like the Commission to recognize that there are small islands in my own country that could and should be considered for specific Community action.
The problems encountered on these islands, notably off the south-west and west coast of Ireland are not acceptable by any Community standard.
They too deserve serious consideration in the ongoing reforms.
<P>
On the Cañete report, there is cause for satisfaction.
The budget for 1996 was fully implemented and no case of fraud was reported.
I am extremely pleased that no initiatives were taken on the environment sector and the reference period projects relating to coastal erosion are notable, something I have been advocating for a long time.
In this context, I pay tribute to the Irish Government for a whole series of actions it has taken in this sector.
This has to be a good omen for the future of the Cohesion Fund which has played and will continue to play a vitally important role for the participating countries.
<P>
Finally, I attach the utmost importance to the contribution of the European Parliament to the reform of the Cohesion Fund in the coming months.
At this stage in the procedure it will be up to us, the Members, to ensure that the participating nations get the best possible deal to ensure that they can continue and, in some cases complete, the ongoing good work in the environment and transport infrastructure.
I thank the Commissioner for her work in this area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Virrankoski">
Madam President, Mrs Klaß has produced an excellent and thorough report on the Commission's annual report on Structural Funds, for which I thank her wholeheartedly.
It is clearly evident from both the Commission's report and Mrs Klaß' report that there are problems in how to use Structural Fund resources to best effect.
According to the Commission's preliminary budget for 1999, spending commitments are set to increase by a massive 17.8 %, which bears no relation to the budget's growth in general, a commitment of 6.5 %.
At the same time the difference between committed spending and actual spending has grown to 7.8 billion euros, that is to say, actual spending is more than 20 % below the figure for commitments.
This means that considerable appropriations have to be used the following year for spending commitments from the planning stage.
<P>
Mrs Klaß and the Committee on Regional Policy kindly included in their report points raised by the Committee on Budgets, which stressed - in points 4 and 5 of the report - the need for simplicity in administering Structural Funds, a clarification of the sharing of responsibility, and an appraisal of whether there is a reasonable link between the costs of administering Structural Funds and the money to be spent.
The hallmark of Structural Fund administration is sluggishness and bureaucracy.
In addition, the size of the administrative machine does not always accord with the sum of money to be spent.
Furthermore, comments on the vagueness surrounding the use of Structural Funds testify not only to the complicated nature of the administrative process but to a lack of clarity in the area of who is responsible for what.
Rationalization of the administrative process and clarification on the sharing of responsibility are the most important issues to address as we pass into the new planning stage, and this is one of the greatest changes facing my worthy colleague, Mrs Wulf-Mathies.
<P>
The accumulation of funds in recent years, the so-called snowball effect, has been a continual source of worry for the Committee on Budgets.
There have been serious difficulties in drafting the budget, where one main area grows threefold while other areas suffer.
That was the case, for example, last Autumn, when 550 million euros had to be cut from other areas.
It was this snowball effect that the Committee on Budgets wished to bring to everyone's attention in its report, and it thus proposed Amendments Nos 2 and 3. I would hope that Parliament will approve them, as it did Amendments Nos 3 and 4.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sierra González">
Mr President, the reports being debated this morning are all very important, and to my mind the Viola report on the problems of island regions is especially important.
<P>
When talking about these regions, reference is often made to the need to adopt specific measures to compensate for the disadvantages they suffer compared with mainland regions.
Nevertheless, although recognized as necessary, such measures are far from substantive, except for those agreed for the ultra-peripheral island regions.
There will have to be a change of attitude when the Funds are reformed.
Fourteen million EU citizens live on islands and suffer the constant effects of these disadvantages on their daily lives, in matters of employment, education, health and quality of life.
<P>
The seriousness of these problems demands that geographical and economic factors, such as a region's remote position or island status, be taken into account during the forthcoming reform of the Structural Funds, if we want to see an end to inequality between central and peripheral regions. If that inequality continues, it will confirm the division between first and second class European citizens.
If the reform of the Funds is implemented as it is, that division will be ensured.
The Viola report is an attempt to avoid that.
My group supports all the report's proposals for improving the situation in island regions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindholm">
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Karamanou">
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Bennasar Tous">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, it was recognized at the Amsterdam Summit that the development of the island regions of Europe is affected by differences and problems which they have in common.
Today, Mr Viola is presenting us with a proposal for an integrated policy for the island regions. I congratulate him and thank him for his work.
His proposal incorporates and develops the concept of regaining a balance between regions, and calls on the Commission to include in Agenda 2000 macroeconomic factors and geographical and economic criteria such as a region's remote position or island status.
<P>
The island regions of Europe are different but have problems in common, particularly with regard to the transport of people and goods.
Businesses located on islands, most of them SMEs, have difficulty competing in the single market on equal terms, since ports and airports are their only link to the mainland and other islands.
<P>
We islanders need our regions to grow in qualitative terms and we need to create jobs. So we are asking for support for the development of new technologies and communications.
That is a key sector for our future.
<P>
Tourism is a good source of income for many island regions. However, we islanders do not live in the hotels, but work in them.
The service sector needs to become less dependent on the seasons. We need to develop alternative forms of tourism, and there must be plenty of training to allow us to be competitive.
<P>
I know the Commissioner will remind me that the Balearic Islands, which I represent in this Parliament, have been developed for tourism.
But, Madam Commissioner, our island regions are fragile in terms of sustainable development, the environment and waste treatment.
We have problems with water, and are highly dependent on others for energy.
<P>
Archipelagos also have small islands which are particularly disadvantaged with respect to education and health.
Does the Commission realize how difficult it is and how much the regional administrations have to pay in island regions to give their citizens the same quality of services as people enjoy on the mainland?
<P>
Our problems can be solved if the Commission, with the support of our national governments, implements a plan of action, within the framework of Agenda 2000, to apply Community legislation based on the principle of equal opportunities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="Hyland">
Madam President, Ireland is a good example of the effective use of Structural Funds.
In the present programme Ireland is assessed as a single unit for funding.
There is now, however, a very strong case for regionalization in Ireland for the next round of Structural Fund monies.
Some regions in Ireland are clearly out-performing other regions in terms of economic performance and therefore all regions cannot and must not be put into the same bracket for the next tranche of structural fund money.
<P>
Figures recently produced from the Central Statistics Office clearly show that the midland region was below 75 % of the average EU standard of living.
Therefore, the case for granting Objective 1 status to the midland region for the period 2000 to 2006 is both real and compelling and beyond reproach.
If Objective 1 status was accorded to the midland region, it would develop as a region on the back of the infrastructural improvements such as the Portlaoise bypass, so as to attract more investment and create more jobs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, I would like to say how pleased I am that this report, probably for the first time in the history of the European Parliament, takes special account of our northern Member States&#x02BC; archipelagos, that is to say the archipelagos of south-western Finland, Åland and Sweden.
In particular, I would like to mention recital E in the resolution, in which divided archipelagos and ice conditions are mentioned.
I would like to extend heartfelt thanks to the rapporteur for the understanding that he shows with regard to this archipelago, a region that belongs to our unique heritage, which we have a collective duty to protect, and which can only preserve its character if people are able to work and live there.
<P>
In Finland we have for decades endeavoured to pursue an active policy with regard to the archipelago by allocating responsibilities to special bodies.
Point 7 relating to the "Interservice Group' is therefore important.
It is also important that the Commission should rapidly take steps to guarantee that states are able to extend enterprise and transport aid to the island regions.
Delays, Madam Commissioner, could prove fatal to a living archipelago.
<P>
Moreover, I hope that the special attention which the report pays to small-scale farming activities on the islands, which cannot be expanded, will also be taken into consideration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fernández Martín">
Mr President, I want to draw people's attention to something happening here today which they might find surprising.
Almost all the speakers are talking about the Viola report which, objectively speaking, is much less important than the Arias Cañete report on the Cohesion Fund or the Klaß report on the Structural Funds.
That shows just how important the islands are, and I think Mrs Wulf-Mathies will be taking note.
<P>
The Viola report is an excellent report, as has already been said.
It describes the reality of island life very well, and proposes constructive solutions which I hope the Commission will take into consideration.
<P>
I particularly want to draw attention to recital E, which contains an almost exhaustive description of the realities of island life. I do not think it would be possible to come up with a better description.
I want to point out that some of the European Union's most important achievements hardly operate or do not operate in the islands. I am thinking of the achievements relating to the single market or the free movement of persons, as well as some of the most attractive projects, such as the trans-European networks.
So island regions are marginalized with respect to some of the EU's most important projects.
<P>
Mrs Wulf-Mathies, the only serious objection we have come up with during recent debates on an integral and specific policy for the islands is based on budgetary considerations.
Undoubtedly, that is a very important objection, but many of the measures being demanded involve no cost to the EU budget, for example state aid, such as specific fiscal and economic policies.
<P>
Madam Commissioner, I am sure you are sensitive to these issues and that you will be able to convince your less sensitive Commission colleagues, such as Mr Monti or Mr Van Miert, about these specific measures which the islands demand.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Hatzidakis">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to congratulate the three rapporteurs, Mr Klaß, Mr Arias Cañete and Mr Viola on their reports.
I would like to comment, as an islander, on Mr Viola's report, which is excellent and should be used as a basis for further action.
<P>
Thanks to the question and vote passed by the European Parliament last May and coordinated efforts by Member States and island agencies, we succeeded in including special provision for the specific problems faced by islands in article 130a of the Amsterdam Treaty.
In addition, a protocol was attached to the Treaty.
<P>
These provisions could form the basis for the application of an integrated policy for the islands.
However, the Commission seems unwilling to translate this potential into specific measures and policies.
That is why we, as the European Parliament, must use our position and status to do whatever we can to overcome these obstacles.
I think we can do so by highlighting the following points.
<P>
Firstly, we need to include a new sub-programme in the Interreg Community initiative devoted entirely to island regions and to further promote trans-island cooperation.
<P>
Secondly, we must introduce compensatory measures to offset the additional cost of transporting passengers, freight and energy to and from the islands.
<P>
Thirdly, we should introduce alternative fiscal measures which take account of the special nature of the islands in these regions and encourage local economies by introducing tax incentives.
<P>
Fourthly, we need to support Community action and programmes to develop renewable sources of energy.
<P>
And finally, we need priority cofinancing from the Commission to buy emergency means of transport to provide fast links between islands and other islands or mainland areas in the event of an emergency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="Howitt">
Mr President, in welcoming Mrs Klaß' report, I endorse both the Commission's view that 1996 was the first year in which the current structural fund programme was fully operational and the rapporteur's view that provisional good marks can be awarded for the first time since 1994.
However, in a debate being held in May 1998, surely the benefit of time can allow us to draw a wider conclusion about what happens when the programme in effect starts three years late.
We have long lead times for planning and negotiation followed by rushed decisions concerning spending and implementation, consistently late payments both to Member States, regions and individual projects.
<P>
In Brussels underspends are seen as a lack of need rather than a lack of efficient administration.
Altogether there is a corrosive effect on expectations, breeding cynicism rather than public support for some of Europe's most important work.
Therefore, I hope that this morning we will recommit ourselves to both ensuring that the budget for the current structural fund programme is fully committed in the 1999 budget, fully honouring the Edinburgh Agreement, and that everything possible is done to ensure that the new programming period from 2000 onwards starts on time.
The alternative will be a domino effect in which all the problems of delay continue for seven more years, blighting the achievements of programmes of which we should be justifiably proud.
I hope we will get a clear commitment from the Commissioner this morning in this respect.
<P>
I hope too that she will offer support for the Community initiatives and the innovative projects which, as the report points out, represent 70 % of the total underspends.
We are all aware of her desire to streamline these expenditures but it is right to point out once again that these are some of the most effective, most visible and most direct forms of European aid to our regions and localities.
It is the difficulties of administration in Brussels rather than the lack of effect on the ground which is besetting their progress.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, as Mr Fernández Martín said earlier, most of the speeches this morning have addressed the Viola report, which shows this Parliament's sensitivity to the island regions.
<P>
I should like to point out that certain island regions already have a distinct, special treatment. These are the ultra-peripheral regions, which are already recognized, even in the new text of the Treaty of Amsterdam, in Article 299(2) of the modified text.
So that is a completely different question.
<P>
Apart from these ultra-peripheral regions, the island regions are areas within the European Union which are differentiated and experience certain difficulties.
The new Article 130a of the Treaty of Amsterdam already introduces a legislative point, and a declaration made at the Amsterdam Conference also goes in the same direction.
But I think it is right to have that differentiated treatment.
Such treatment has to compensate these regions for their island situation.
It is a treatment which assumes that these island regions experience difficulties as a result of the lack of a land bridge.
In other words, the image we have of the European Union is of a continent, but that ignores the fact that there is a whole series of island regions which experience difficulties.
<P>
I think Mr Viola's proposals are fairly positive in general. I would like to draw attention to the proposals aimed at promoting communications and transport, and especially the application of all the new communications network technologies which offer a solution to certain problems.
<P>
So I want to congratulate Mr Viola, as well as Mrs Díez de Rivera Icaza and Mr Gallagher for the contributions from their respective committees. I hope the Commission will take these initiatives into account in order to prepare concrete programmes to compensate the island regions for these disadvantages.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Otila">
Mr President, Mr Viola's own-initiative report seeks to underline the particularly sensitive situation the island regions find themselves in.
One outcome of the Amsterdam Summit was the addition to the Treaty of a declaration on the economic and social development of islands, which are in, what is in many ways, an unfavourable position. The island regions are ecologically sensitive areas.
They are subject to all kinds of pressures. A balance has to be struck between the living conditions of their permanent populations and increasing tourism.
Owing to rapidly ageing populations, the traditional island occupations of fishing and farming have declined.
If island youth is not tempted to stay at home, not only will unique island cultures disappear but valuable cultural heritages will be lost.
As the report states, a stimulus to development founded on the unique identity of the island regions themselves is the only way to check the exodus among young people.
<P>
It is unfortunate, however, that Mr Viola's report did not cover all the island regions in need of assistance.
Examples include the vast inhabited archipelago between Finland and Sweden, and the islands in the lake districts of eastern and central Finland.
The island regions are very sparsely populated in cold climates, and in winter they are cut off due to frozen waters.
These regions should definitely be included along with the Union's Structural Fund reforms in the creation of a new objective programme, one in which the island regions would figure in the highest aid bracket, that is, 75 % of the total cost of a project.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bösch">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think that if this morning we review the history of these reports, we should again come back to the question of why we have a structural policy in the first place.
Can we say that the gap between rich and poor, which is probably one of the reasons why we have a structural and regional policy, really closed during the course of 1996?
What about the 18 million unemployed?
What about the dozens of millions of people who are living below the poverty line in this rich continent of Europe?
This is something which we pay too little attention to in our structural and regional policies, and the Commission is one of the main culprits here.
<P>
Secondly, Mrs Klaß established in her report that there has been a considerable increase in fraud in the area of structural funding, a fourfold rise, to be exact.
In the relevant report on fraud prevention for 1996, the Commission stated that 50 % of the irregularities were caused by the failure to submit proper documents and proof of expenditure.
But I have to do that every time I go on a business trip!
We are even being criticized for this at the moment.
It works for us.
And then what about the recovery process?
It is interesting to note that those countries which are complaining loudest at the moment about how their net balance will look in the new Agenda 2000 - in other words, well into the red - are the very ones which do not look too clever when it comes to recovery and to this type of fraud prevention.
Here I am referring in particular to Germany, which has only actually collected ECU 900 000 of the ECU 14m due for recovery.
I would just advise the Finance Ministers of the countries concerned to focus their concerns not just on the size of these contributions but also on how they are being used.
Then we would be getting somewhere.
<P>
Madam Commissioner, I hope that we can include these areas not just by saying that we need a little more control, but by making our structural policies a little more watertight in the coming years as far as fraud is concerned.
These reports, for which I heartily congratulate the rapporteurs, would then take us a step further down the road of European policy-making.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Costa Neves">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Madam Commissioner, we ought not to forget that the purpose of the Cohesion Fund is to contribute to the fight against social and territorial disparities. It was created out of the need to support the efforts of its beneficiary states to meet the convergence criteria defined as conditions for joining the single currency.
<P>
Nor have those social and territorial disparities been eliminated - despite the progress that has been made - nor will the budgetary restrictions we have agreed disappear with the single currency, which is why we must keep the Cohesion Fund after 1999.
In the context of the present Cohesion Fund, however, it is important to prevent adverse effects, particularly those of over-concentration in the most highly-developed regions of the beneficiary Member States.
If we are to overcome territorial disparities, we must fight those which actually exist within each state.
So it is encouraging that the Cohesion Fund has at last reached the ultra-peripheral regions, for example, as a result of this House's repeated efforts to call attention to their needs.
<P>
It has reached some of them, but not all of them.
It has not reached the Azores, in spite of the enormous sums that region needs to invest in the environment and transport, jointly with the Cohesion Fund.
This fact is all the more relevant inasmuch as in Portugal 55 % of the finance from the Fund has up to now been concentrated in its most highly-developed region.
We have got to change this situation.
<P>
I should like to congratulate Mr Arias Cañete on the excellent report he has produced on this subject.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Lage">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Madam Commissioner, we have before us three interesting reports which give us a very illuminating insight into the islands and the position regarding Structural Funds.
<P>
However, one comment needs to be made.
In 1996 the rate of application of Structural Funds increased, but in future it will be necessary to speed up and simplify their allocation and make them easier to use.
Another point is that my own country, Portugal, has the highest rate of absorption and use of Structural Funds.
Thanks to aid from the Structural Funds, the Portuguese economy has grown by 4 % in the last year, and will grow by around 5 % this year. But the territory of Portugal as a whole is below the 75 % level.
For that reason, the proposals contained in Agenda 2000 must not penalize Portugal and take away a slice of the funds it now receives, because that would be unfair and morally wrong.
Virtue should be rewarded, and therefore Portugal should go on receiving Structural Funds at their present level in the next Community aid programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Berend">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today's debate is not a fundamental discussion on whether or not to retain the Cohesion Fund beyond 1999.
Mr Cañete's report, which in itself was a very good piece of work, is the 1996 annual review of the Commission's report for this period.
This means that it should be, and indeed is, an analysis and critical assessment of the latter, combined with relevant conclusions on the efficient use of funds in both qualitative and quantitative terms.
Let us then not anticipate the revision of the Structural Funds and the review of the Cohesion Funds, which will surely go hand in hand with it.
This 1996 report is not the appropriate place for such deliberations.
The amendment which we have proposed, and which was tabled on behalf of my group, can really only be understood from this perspective.
I therefore also reject the comment which Mr Novo made some while ago as completely unjustified.
What now appears in these clauses goes well beyond the limits of a 1996 report and should be presented at some later date, not as part of this report.
I am of the opinion, however, that with the rapporteur we have found acceptable solutions to this problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Perry">
Mr President, I will confine myself to just one island - the Isle of Wight off the south coast of England - the favourite holiday island of Queen Victoria.
It is still a beautiful holiday destination and you are all welcome to visit it.
My constituency of half a million people is approximately three-quarters from the mainland of Hampshire and one-quarter from the Isle of Wight.
Hampshire is prosperous.
GDP is over 100 % of the European average.
Unemployment is 2 %.
It is a great county with great people.
The Isle of Wight similarly has great people but GDP is just 67 % of the European average.
Unemployment is 20 %.
It is the poorest district in England but has no European Objective 1 funding because, statistically, it is measured with Hampshire.
<P>
Why is it so poor?
It is an island separated from the mainland by just five kilometres of water.
We are not ultra-peripheral but being an island makes all the difference.
I welcome the reference to islands in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
I thank Mr Viola for his report.
The British government, the Council of Ministers and the Commission do not want to take any action on Clause 158 of the Treaty.
It is up to Parliament in this report to push for the Treaty to be honoured and for the islands to be helped.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Varela Suanzes-Carpegna">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, very briefly, in the minute I have available, I first want to congratulate the rapporteurs, Mr Arias Cañete, Mr Viola and Mrs Klaß, on their magnificent reports, and reiterate once again that the Cohesion Fund was created to achieve not monetary union, but economic and social cohesion.
So until that has been achieved, the Cohesion Fund will still be needed. In other words, we need to achieve so-called true or real convergence.
In the words of the Treaty, while Member States have a per capita GNP which is lower than 90 % of the Community average, we will need that Fund.
<P>
Unfortunately, the fact that we have achieved monetary union does not mean that regional and social disparities no longer exist in the European Union.
No doubt, as the Arias Cañete report recognizes, the Cohesion Fund has done a lot. It was well implemented during 1996, as the report also says.
But there is still a lot left to do, as the Commission itself admitted in its threeyearly report on cohesion, and in its proposal for Agenda 2000, maintaining the Cohesion Fund after 1999, even within monetary union.
But as has also been said here, we shall have the opportunity to talk about the future in forthcoming debates within the Committee on Regional Policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first let me express my sincerest thanks to the three rapporteurs, Mrs Klaß, Mr Arias Cañete and Mr Viola, for their outstanding reports and for the constructive manner in which they have worked together with the Members of the Committee on Regional Policy.
As has been emphasized several times during the debate, 1996 was also a successful year for the Cohesion Fund and this applies not only to take-up rates but also to the reduction of disparities in development.
Even the relationship between transport and the environment has come closer to the desired balance and you will see in the annual report for 1997 that deficits in the individual Member States have also been progressively reduced, with the result that the Commission expects the target balance to be achieved in all four beneficiary countries by the end of 1999.
<P>
I agree with your criticism of the imbalance between road transport infrastructure and more environmentally friendly forms of transport.
The Commission is involved in intensive discussions with the cohesion countries about the need for progress to be made in the rail sector and in other environmentally friendly areas of transport.
We share your view that greater attention needs to be directed particularly towards rail projects.
I agree with all those who have said that we need better environmental indicators so that we can more effectively assess the sustainability of those projects being funded.
To this effect, Eurostat is carrying out an ambitious programme which one hopes will furnish the Commission with the machinery for assessing environmental improvements and for undertaking comparative studies more effectively in this area.
I refute the unqualified criticism that the Cohesion Fund has tended to destroy the natural environment and that the Commission has not acted against breaches of EU environmental legislation.
I believe we can easily demonstrate to you that, in fact, the very opposite is true.
<P>
Your proposal to create local and regional structures within the context of Cohesion Fund projects does not, unfortunately, comply with the Cohesion Fund regulation.
The Cohesion Fund is not a regional fund and its functions must therefore be assessed in terms of the Cohesion Fund regulation.
Mrs Klaß, I too am pleased to see that the take-up of appropriations from the Structural Funds in 1996 was a clear improvement on previous years.
This positive development has continued in 1997 with payments at a rate of utilization of 99.2 %.
After the delays of the first two years the situation has therefore now stabilized and improved.
I share your concerns in the area of Community initiatives and you will know that I have repeatedly pointed out to the Member States that we need a greater input from them in this area in order to speed up developments.
A certain improvement was visible in 1997, but the general situation is anything but satisfactory.
For this reason public sector talks are currently under way with the Member States on the subject of reprogramming, and after the summer recess the Commission will be submitting to the European Parliament a report on the implementation of Community initiatives, which will of course also take account of Parliament's position in this respect.
Let me just add as an aside that even the Community initiatives which you have proposed for strengthening the cohesion programme leave a great deal to be desired in terms of their take-up rate.
It is therefore well worth discussing together what steps we need to take next.
<P>
The financial plan which was agreed in Edinburgh earmarked 39 % of commitments for the final two years of the programme planning period.
At the time of its implementation on 31 December 1997 this percentage figure had in fact increased to 41 %, that is to say 2 % more than was planned.
In spite of everything, I consider this to be relatively satisfactory.
Between 1996 and the present, Madam rapporteur, we have made considerable progress in monitoring and evaluating Structural Fund actions.
But as you know, we are aspiring to a more effective system of monitoring, evaluation and checks by way of the new Structural Fund regulation.
In this respect, we are building on the experience gained from SEM 2000.
<P>
Let me just correct something which has been said.
There is no evidence that fraud is on the increase, but regrettably there is a continuing problem with formal errors and irregularities, for example regarding funding qualifications and the submission of receipts.
I therefore consider it to be extremely important that the Commission should in future be in possession of instruments for applying sanctions and financial adjustments when it uncovers incidents of this kind.
But I would not be betraying a secret when I tell you that an intensive debate is currently under way as to the best way of simplifying these procedures and that most of the Member States now see the situation quite differently.
Unfortunately, Mrs Klaß, we will not be able to give you a report on the transmission of funds to final beneficiaries, since this information is only available to the Member States at national level, and in some cases only at regional level.
I also believe that it is not our job to do the Member States' homework, but rather we should demand for one thing that the Member States comply with the regulations and for another that they do their work properly.
This is why we need instruments for applying financial sanctions and adjustments.
<P>
As you know, there have in the past been problems with the partnership principle.
We are taking great pains to ensure that this principle is more correctly defined in the new Structural Fund regulation, together with a clearer allocation of responsibilities.
Here too there is certainly greater agreement between the Commission and Parliament than between the Commission and the Member States.
In this respect we shall continue to be very much dependent on your support.
<P>
Mr Viola, I very much appreciate your commitment to the island regions.
It is the view of the Commission, however, that the geographical criterion "island region' is of itself not appropriate for the general application of exceptional provisions, whether this is done within the scope of the Structural Funds or any other Community policy.
This situation is quite different when it comes to the most remote island regions, whose structural handicaps are assessed as being "quite special' in Article 299 of the Amsterdam Treaty.
Nevertheless, the Commission is intensively engaged, within the structural programme, in examining the different problems and specific disadvantages which affect the island regions.
However, if we wish to declare war on these special problems, then we have to make distinctions and cannot treat all islands alike.
<P>
An important indicator of the economic structural problems affecting our island regions is GDP.
For reasons you have frequently stated, we have now introduced, for example, higher co-funding rates for the outermost Greek islands.
But we cannot measure everyone by the same standards.
I could well imagine the Interreg scheme being used at some time in the future for promoting transboundary cooperation between the islands, provided that appropriate proposals are made to this effect.
This is something which we could have done in the past had we received a similar quantity of concrete proposals from the Member States, and from the island regions themselves, for such projects.
But sometimes there is even a shortage of these!
I think that we should establish more coherence here too.
In spite of the general ban on operational assistance, the Commission - as you know - does, under certain conditions, allow operational assistance to be granted on a degressive basis, and for a limited period of time, to the most disadvantaged regions.
However, here too the level of aid approved is quite rightly determined by the degree of handicap.
<P>
I share the rapporteur's view that we need to promote endogenous, environmentally-compatible development in our island regions, to support new forms of tourism which focus more on the natural, cultural and historic heritage of the islands and to encourage the use of alternative energy resources in these regions.
I want to tell you, however, that we are already doing this, for instance through the JOULE Programme, which alone is promoting 26 projects for renewable energies in the island regions.
The Commission is also in agreement with the rapporteur that the new communications technologies can offer the island regions a wonderful opportunity for their development and for reducing the problems associated with their temporal and geographical remoteness.
We have therefore called upon the Member States to make the use of information and communications technologies an integral part of their regional funding policy.
<P>
Let me just make one final comment. As far as I am aware, an astonishingly high number of Members of the European Parliament are themselves island residents.
Their contributions to the debate have shown that those who live in the island regions are very skilful at safeguarding their own interests, not just in the European Parliament but there in particular.
The Commission is prepared to work with you in drawing up a detailed policy.
However, I would re-emphasize that this really has to be thought through in detail, for only then will we be able to help those who are at the greatest disadvantage and to promote the economic and social cohesion of the Union as a whole.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="President">
I thank the Commissioner for her speech.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Díez de Rivera Icaza">
Mr President, the Commissioner employed exclusively geographical criteria in her comments on islands.
We have also been talking about the number of inhabitants as a criterion, Madam Commissioner. Your reply failed to take that into consideration.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 10.55 a.m. while awaiting the votes and resumed at 11.00 a.m.)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="Tomlinson">
Mr President, I would draw your attention and through you the attention of the President and the Bureau to remarks in the Belgian press attributed to one of our Members, Mr Thierry Jean-Pierre.
These remarks are a re-hash of allegations that he has previously made of irregularity and worse.
These are allegations for which he has never produced a shred of evidence, despite being requested to do so.
He has never produced evidence to the press, to the Committee on Budgetary Control, to the Bureau of Parliament or to our President.
He appears to allege parliamentary obstruction to requests for waiver of immunity where no such requests have been made to Parliament.
<P>
Will you therefore ask the President of Parliament to further consider these allegations by Mr Thierry Jean-Pierre and ask that Member either to produce evidence, should any exist, or, if not, to conduct himself in a manner more appropriate to a politician with pretensions to legal objectivity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Tomlinson.
The matter was raised with the Bureau this morning and the President will take note of your comment.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="President">
If I have understood correctly, Mrs André-Léonard wishes to table an oral amendment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="André-Léonard">
Mr President, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, believed it would be useful to add a paragraph.
Unfortunately, we missed the deadline for tabling normal amendments.
We must therefore table an oral amendment, following the nuclear tests carried out by India on 11 and 13 May and the risks which are still very evident in the region.
I would thus like to present you with this oral amendment: "views as most serious the continued presence of nuclear weapons in the Indian subcontinent which poses a threat to international stability, and regrets that the lack of a genuine common EU policy on security prevents the Union from playing a political role in the establishment of a dialogue on the strategic balance between the countries in the region' .
If you are in agreement, and if the House is in agreement, I would like this oral amendment to be put to the vote.
<P>
(The House approved the oral amendment)
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Gasòliba i Böhm">
Mr President, as agreed with the coordinator of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, its chairman and the chairman of the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs, the text of the oral amendment is the following:
<P>
"Demands that the Ecofin Council should accept the recommendation of the European Commission for the broad economic guidelines as supported by the present resolution of the European Parliament.'
<P>
(The House approved the oral amendment)
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Viola">
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="Viola">
Mr President, I repeat my invitation to my colleague, Mr Wynn, to withdraw this amendment, as I shall go into more detail before the first reading.
If he should insist on the amendment, I would ask to table my own additional oral amendment to his amendment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Wynn">
Mr President, it would seem logical just to vote on this amendment.
If it is lost then the rapporteur can do what he wishes after that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="President">
You are therefore refusing to withdraw the amendment and modify it.
That is a double refusal.
I will put Amendment No 1 from the Socialist group to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament rejected the amendment)
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Arias Cañete">
Mr President, I should like to propose an oral amendment to the original text of paragraph 14, to replace the words "...of the Cohesion Fund' with the words "...of a cohesion fund' , and I would request Mr Berend to withdraw his Amendment No 4.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Berend">
Mr President, if that is the case, then we accept this oral amendment and on behalf of my group I withdraw Amendment No 4.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Novo">
Mr President, the oral amendment can only be accepted if there are no objections.
I have objections.
I do not accept the oral amendment.
<P>
(More than 12 Members stood up)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="McCarthy">
Mr President, I would just like to say to the Members who have stood up that if they do not accept the oral amendment, the Socialist Group will not be voting for this report.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Thors">
Mr President, I want to point out that there should be a correction to Amendment No 20, at least in the Swedish version.
It talks about a programme for coastal connections, not ferry services, as it should be.
<P>
On Amendments Nos 21 and 22
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Viola">
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I wish to speak before the final vote and explain my point, because I like to know exactly what I am voting for.
When you moved to vote on the recitals, you combined recitals J and paragraph 1 under the same vote.
But recital J was what we were presented with as a corrigendum, stating the following: "whereas it is necessary to integrate the island regions into the internal market on equal terms' .
We were also told that the existing recital J had become recital K. I have the impression that this corrigendum is more an amendment than a corrigendum.
Clearly, it does not relate to all the language versions, but it does add to the text and you did not put it to the vote.
You put recital J to the vote which was the former recital J, rather than recital K which it became after this corrigendum.
I would be glad if you could clarify this matter for me and proceed to the vote we need to take and the modifications we need to make with regard to the layout of the texts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="President">
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, indeed the niceties of the text have not escaped your keen eye.
There was a mistake in the layout of the text as adopted by the Commission.
This is a purely technical rectification that has no effect on the content which the corrigendum affects and it does not need to be put to the vote.
I will now put the entire motion for a resolution, as amended, to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Deprez">
To say that quality education and training lie at the heart of the struggle for development is indeed a truism.
Each Member State must draw its own consequences and adapt its educational system with a constant view to improving its quality.
And this means not only that higher education establishments should meet the educational and vocational requirements imposed by the global "society of knowledge' , they should also offer a response to social problems and provide standards of education and training that constitute genuine vectors of individual identity, group membership, social advancement and personal development.
<P>
We may rejoice in the fact that in this fundamental matter with regard to the future of our children and our societies, Community programmes, such as Socrates, have contributed to the growing awareness in each Member State that improvements are possible in higher education establishments, as compared with the situation in other Member States.
<P>
In the unified Europe we are building, we must deploy every resource towards achieving a harmonization in terms of an increase in the grades achieved by qualified students graduating from the higher education establishments of different Member States.
<P>
For all these reasons - even if we might actually regret, along with the rapporteur, that the Council did not consider it advisable to assign the Commission the responsibility for getting it off the ground - I am pleased today to see a long process that began in 1991 finally come to fruition.
After years of waiting, this result will allow us to create and implement the "European Quality Assurance Network' in the higher education of Member States of the Union.
<P>
Bazin report (A4-0190/98)
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Cushnahan">
Car thefts throughout the EU are a serious problem.
The highly organized criminal gangs who specialize in this trade have been helped by the abolition of border controls.
I welcome the fact that the Commission has taken an initiative to tackle this problem.
I also appreciate the difficulty of trying to create a universal system affecting fifteen different countries with fifteen different practices.
However, try we must and if it does not work then we can go back to the drawing board.
The Commission proposal for production of two registration documents, if implemented, would be the first positive step in the right direction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Le Rachinel">
The Schengen Agreement sought to dispense with internal frontiers in the European Union.
The result was predictable: since then international crime has continued relentlessly to develop and diversify.
The traffic of vehicles between all the Member States is merely a by-product of the wishes of the Brussels Eurocrats.
Customs and police checks are, in principle, carried out at frontiers outside the Union, according to Schengen.
It is nothing of the kind and the growth of the Mafia and terrorism in all Member States is all the proof we need.
<P>
The National Front, for its part, has continually denounced these agreements and warned us of the dramatic consequences of this European sieve culture, in terms of the development of international crime and money laundering, delinquency, drug trafficking and, indeed, the inability to monitor the migratory flow.
<P>
With this report, Europe is yet again trying to treat the symptoms of the malady rather than its causes.
Certainly, it is important that we should be able to combat this international crimewave that continues to grow dangerously and the report by my colleague, Mr Bazin, makes a very favourable contribution to that cause.
However, the time required to take steps to standardize registration certificates, the techniques associated with the theft and smuggling of vehicles, which are like a virus, will have moved on and will have adapted to the already obsolete methods employed to combat them.
<P>
It is therefore high time we responded and attacked the primary causes of this entire breakdown: the Europe of Maastricht, the Europe of Schengen and now the Europe of Amsterdam.
<P>
Herman report (A4-0195/98)
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, the Council has just presented us with a proposal for a decision defining the application procedures for Article 105(4) of the Treaty which stipulates that from 1 January 1999, the European Central Bank should be consulted by the authorities in each state regarding any proposals for regulations in areas within its jurisdiction.
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This provision, which is apparently a secondary one, has clearly annoyed the European Parliament rapporteur, Mr Fernand Herman, who has told us that it is incomprehensible since, in a unified monetary area, national authorities would no longer have any independent regulatory powers in fields that might affect common monetary policy.
Even worse, he has expressed indignation that Article 105(4) merely allows for simple consultation of the ECB without allowing the minimum right of veto.
The rapporteur sees in this the signs of total inconsistency.
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How has this inconsistency allowed itself to infiltrate the Treaty?
Allow me to quote in full the explanation of Fernand Herman, because it should not be forgotten by those who follow in our wake.
According to the rapporteur, and I quote: "...the proposal submitted to us bears witness to an excessively decentralized conception of Economic and Monetary Union.
Such a conception must still have been prevalent in 1991, at a time when this ambitious project seemed unlikely to appeal to certain Member States.
In order not to antagonize them, they were given to understand that they would retain a maximum of autonomy even in matters where the substance of their sovereignty was being transferred to European level' .
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Thus we are quietly informed that certain provisions were introduced into the instrument for monetary union simply to give an appealing impression at the time of the Maastricht ratification, but that now we must dispense with them to give the system its true meaning.
And it is to this ploy that the European Parliament has just lent itself, by voting in favour of the Herman report.
How do we view such goings-on, other than as manipulation of the rights of universal suffrage?
Those in France who demand a referendum on the single currency should find here new arguments in support of their campaign.
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<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Ahlqvist, Theorin and Wibe">
Since we do not subscribe to the idea of a common currency for the EU Member States, we have chosen to abstain from the vote on this report.
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We emphatically disassociate ourselves from the creation of a European Central Bank that is supposed to control monetary and currency policy in an "expert' fashion, beyond the reach of democratic influence.
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<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Caudron">
The report proposed by our colleague, Mr Herman, addresses the issue of setting up the euro and its "secular' arm, the European Central Bank, a sturdy supporter of this particular currency; I therefore accept the guidelines presented to us today.
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In effect, although we have entered the third phase of economic union, it would be, at the very least, something of a paradox if the Member States were still allowed to legislate freely on monetary matters without regard for the new spheres of jurisdiction conferred upon the European Central Bank.
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Above and beyond the technical aspect of the report, we feel bidden to give our opinion on the federal nature of this monetary "tool' .
And I would say that of those who are most horrified by the notion that the European Union might have a major political role, many would vote for this text, not through a European persuasion, but simply because they subscribe to liberal, monetarist dogma.
That is not my position at all.
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As far as I am concerned, I will vote for this text, not through ideology but through a genuine European commitment.
I would hope too, that many of us realize that the construction of European does not come to an abrupt halt on 1 January 1999 but that, on the contrary, it must be stepped up from 2 May 1998.
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I hope, one year away from a major political deadline, that a genuine debate will be opened up concerning the Europe we seek to offer its citizens, as regards the constitution, the political Europe and the social Europe.
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Already, the face and framework of the economic Europe is changing.
We might gain some satisfaction from this.
But we should now seek to expand upon the grand design of the major precursors of the European concept.
We must, without further delay, assist the progress of the political Europe to guarantee a genuine democracy for what will be, tomorrow, one of the leading economic, financial and monetary powers, if not the ultimate leader.
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<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Iversen and Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted against the Herman Report.
In our opinion, the original Commission proposal was far superior to the Herman report, in light of the Danish derogation with regard to the third stage of EMU.
We do not support Amendments Nos 1, 2 or 4 in the report.
The amendments imply:
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firstly, that the authorities of the Member States should as a general rule refrain from drawing up new rules or regulations; -secondly, that existing regulations in all Member States concerning the ECB's fields of competence should be subject to progressive harmonization; -finally, that a Member State should suspend the implementation of national rules or regulations in the event of a dispute with the ECB until such times as the question is decided by the Council.The wording of the amendments does not take into consideration whether a Member State may have a derogation with regard to the third stage of EMU.
The amendments imply that Articles 2 and 4 of the proposal for a Council decision would go far beyond the provisions of the Treaty as set out in Article 105(4) of the Treaty, where it merely states that the ECB should be consulted in connection with any national draft legislative provision.
Thus, the amendments undermine the derogation provisions of Article 109K of the Treaty and, hence, the derogations that some countries have pursuant to the third stage of EMU.
In our opinion, three of the four amendments to the report contravene the provisions of the Treaty and violate rights laid down in the Treaty with regard to the Danish derogation pursuant to the third stage of EMU.
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<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Lindqvist">
The EU decides.
That is what the Herman report is all about.
The Commission&#x02BC;s proposal for a Council Decision on the consultation of the European Central Bank by national authorities on draft legislative provisions in the monetary sphere is rejected in the Herman report as "an excessively decentralized conception of Economic and Monetary Union' .
This may possibly have been the case in 1991, when the Maastricht Treaty was presented.
In order not to alarm the Member States, the committee&#x02BC;s explanatory statement intimated that they would be permitted to retain the maximum possible autonomy.
According to the committee, the Member States should, as of 1999, refrain from legislating or regulating on "all matters falling within ECB fields of competence' .
In the light of such dictates, Sweden&#x02BC;s decision to remain outside EMU seems increasingly wise.
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<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Randzio-Plath">
The debate and the vote on the Herman report contain important considerations for the legal harmonization of monetary policy matters, but, more significantly, they also prepare the way for the establishment of a workable European Central Bank which will be the basis for a successful common currency.
It is absolutely vital for all preparatory procedures to be brought to an early close, so that the ECB trial run for a successful start-up of EMU on 1 January 1999 can commence at the earliest possible date.
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To this effect the Commission has presented the European Parliament with a proposal for a Council Decision on the "statistical data to be used for the determination of the key for subscription of the capital of the European Central Bank' , which we can approve unreservedly.
The statistical data must be provided by the Commission, or by Eurostat, so that the capital shares held by the Member States in the ECB - respectively 50 % of each Member State's proportion of the total population and GDP of the EU - can be determined.
The capital shares will be revised every five years on the basis of this information.
Such a weighting system ensures that the costs and benefits of the common monetary policy are allocated in a practical and equitable way.
This also applies - regardless of the many debates going on in the Member States - to the distribution of the profits of the ECB, which in principle is to be carried out on the basis of capital shares.
In order to smooth out short-term inconsistencies, there will however be a transitional regulation designed to balance out the different profit levels of the various central banks, which result from the fact that circulation of bank notes is varied in the EU Member States.
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Viewed as a whole, this process, which incorporates both the GDP shares and the population-based shares, constitutes a practical and equitable way of allocating the shares.
The incorporation of both these parameters could quite possibly become a model for other projects and institutions in the European Union.
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The second aspect of the Herman report concerns the regulations for the "consultation of the European Central Bank by national authorities on draft legislative provisions' .
The rapporteur intends, through his amendments to the Commission's proposal, to achieve a more complete harmonization of the legislation pertaining to monetary policy.
The Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy support this intention.
How strong the forces of national inertia continue to be vis-à-vis European integration can be seen right here, where we have managed for the first time effectively to "Europeanize' a political area, as has been achieved with the adoption of a monetary policy for the single European currency.
Those who want to see a common currency must also be prepared to take this into account in their national legislation.
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<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Wolf">
In view of the fact that there is insufficient clarification in the treaties of the relationship between the ECB, the ESCB and the national central banks in respect of their functions outside of monetary policy proper - functions which may be relevant for the development of money supply, for example - we need a pragmatic regulation which will apply in the interim.
This means that the Commission, and not the ECB, can act as guardian of the treaties - and in case of dispute the Council of Ministers can ultimately deliver the necessary political decisions.
Mr Herman's proposals, which we can agree to in this respect, are based on these principles.
It has to be said that, when in doubt, we would advocate diversity and would only plead for harmonization to the point where this can be proved necessary, whereas Mr Herman, under such circumstances, would presumably advocate harmonization.
But that point is not being voted on at this juncture.
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Redondo Jiménez report (A4-0163/98)
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Ahlqvist, Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw, Theorin and Wibe">
We have abstained from the vote on this report because we believe that the common agricultural policy is in need of fundamental reform.
We wish to see a proper reform of agriculture policy in 1999.
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The current report is, to a certain extent, heading in the right direction, since it proposes a reduction of the compensation payments.
However, we still cannot vote for an extension of the quota system for potato starch.
Too much is being spent on this system - ECU 205.4 million plus additional expenditure on production and export refunds - and we question whether this is money well spent.
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<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="des Places">
During our work in the Committee on Agriculture, our rapporteur attempted to sow some confusion with regard to the production of potato starch and the setting up of a potato CMO.
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As I stressed in my statements in committee, the potato for human consumption has absolutely nothing to do with the potato used in the production of starch.
I know that for some time the Spanish government has put pressure on the Commission to set up a potato CMO.
During the vote in the Committee on Agriculture, all amendments which sought to merge these two types of production were rejected.
We must, therefore, be pleased with the result of the vote in committee since it reflects the reality of starch production.
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Historically, aid for starch potato production was established in order to maintain this special sector which is in direct competition with the production of cereal-based starch.
But I do recall three reasons given in favour of the preservation of this special production.
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Firstly, starch potatoes are subject to the imposition of starch production quota restrictions.
Consequently, a drop in prices will not lead to an increase in market share through higher productivity in terms of cost price.
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Secondly, starch potato cultivation requires substantial special investments.
The cost price is set at ECU 2 400 per hectare at least, in other words ECU 60 per tonne based on a yield of 40 tonnes/ha.
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Thirdly, starch potato producers have had to put up with the various changes to the CAP, since this production is linked - in the context of starch products - to the official price of cereals, especially maize.
Consequently, the income of farmers has fallen regularly.
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Given these three reasons, we should therefore maintain the existing situation and continue to aid this type of production within the framework of the Santer package.
In fact, the quota, the competitive balance with cereal prices for starch manufacture and the net operating margin which is higher than that for cereals, justify the legitimate stance in favour of pegging the minimum price of starch potato at 20 % above the basic intervention price for maize, in terms of both the minimum price and for compensatory payment, all within the framework of the Santer package.
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Finally, we must introduce a measure of flexibility in this quota-setting system to take account of climatic fluctuations which affect the volume of production.
This is why our group has tabled a further amendment to enable a starch manufacturer, during a marketing year, to use - either above or below that year - not more than 10 % of his valid quota for the next or the last campaign, as applicable.
This 10 % flexibility with respect to an average campaign allows quotas to be adapted to meet variations in production.
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<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Souchet">
Starch potato production requires expensive special investments, resulting in high cost prices of around FF 15 600/ha.
Therefore, within the framework of the Santer package, we will need to adapt the European regulations to maintain this production which has the advantage of being environmentally friendly and an excellent "crop rotation leader' .
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The starch potato's competitor is maize and not, as the committee rapporteur stressed, the potato for human consumption.
In fact, the finished "starch' product is virtually identical, wherever it came from, be it maize or starch potato.
I would like to remind you that the European Union has a shortage of maize; therefore, we need to maintain our special potato starch production.
If we were forced to abolish it, maize imports would increase and we will have penalized European agriculture yet again.
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Finally, I am glad that the vote in committee prevented our rapporteur from introducing a measure of confusion between starch potato production and the production of potatoes for human consumption.
At present, there is no potato CMO.
Some organizations, especially the Spanish ones, would dearly like to set one up before the accession of Poland.
May I remind you that Poland produces on its own as many potatoes as the fifteen Member States of the European Union.
The problem is not whether we set up a potato CMO, but quite simply we must not "corrupt' the debate concerning the very special starch potato production sector.
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Cardiff European Council
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations would like to issue an appeal to the forthcoming Cardiff European Council.
The Council should be informed of a Franco-German initiative on subsidiarity, decided on at the bilateral meeting in Avignon on 6 and 7 May last.
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In principle, this initiative is welcome, since the European Union has never encroached on the jurisdiction of nations to the extent that it does today.
But, unfortunately, we feel that this is merely window dressing.
In fact, if the governments had really wished to protect subsidiarity in Europe they would have needed simply to have seized on the occasion of the Intergovernmental Conference that drew up the Amsterdam Treaty.
But we have seen nothing of the sort.
On the contrary, the Amsterdam Treaty promotes the concept of a genuine subjugation of nations, especially through its protocol on subsidiarity, which places national jurisdiction at the mercy of the Court of Justice, by virtue of Article 7, which enables the rights of a Member State to be suspended, or by virtue of its indirect recognition of the superiority of Community law over national constitutions.
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Will the heads of state or government who signed such a text now retract it by declaring true subsidiarity?
We would be right to doubt this and our doubts are intensified after hearing Jacques Santer yesterday in this Hemicycle, explain that subsidiarity is already well protected, since the Commission has endeavoured to simplify its regulations, and that we must not go too far.
Yes to subsidiarity, he declared, but no to those who wish to use it to slow down European integration or to alter the institutional balance.
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And there we touch on the heart of the matter precisely because the purpose of true subsidiarity, which proclaims the superiority of national laws over those of Brussels, is to set a limit on integration.
It is not possible to seek both total integration of nations and true subsidiarity, unless we can demonstrate a conception of the nations as being simple administrative districts.
Similarly, true subsidiarity should and must alter the institutional balance of the Union by proclaiming national precedence, re-introducing national parliaments in the European decision-making process and stripping the Commission of its exorbitant privileges.
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<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Cushnahan">
The Cardiff Summit will consider a number of issues.
I would like to refer to two possible areas of policy discussion.
Firstly, I am concerned about the current proposals for CAP reform.
I understand that the Agriculture Council has produced a text on the matter which has been forwarded to the General Affairs Council for discussion at Cardiff.
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If the current proposals were to be adopted they would be disastrous for Irish agriculture.
The proposed price cuts of 30 % in beef, 20 in cereals and 15 % in dairy prices without full compensation would be devastating for Irish farmers.
The Irish beef sector has already suffered a severe crisis.
The current proposals would fix prices below the cost of production. The cuts in the dairy sector would be the equivalent of a 16.5 pence drop in the price of a gallon of milk.
Our dependence on these sectors must be recognized and full compensation should form the cornerstone of CAP Reform II.
Given the grass-based nature of our agriculture, the cuts in cereal prices would also affect our competitivity.
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The second issue I would like to comment on is the problem of debt in developing countries.
Mr Blair tried valiantly to persuade his colleagues at the G8 Summit to take the necessary steps to alleviate the problems of highly indebted countries.
Their discussions did not go far enough and I would hope that in the final days of his presidency Mr Blair will ensure that the European Union steps into the breach.
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Spencer report (A4-0169/98)
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Cushnahan">
Mr Spencer's report is a useful contribution to the debate on the European Union's common foreign and security policy.
I support his conclusions which highlight the deficiencies and shortcomings in the present operation of this policy.
He is also correct to underline the importance of monitoring the situation in the Middle East, the Balkans and the observation of human rights in China.
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Hopefully, when the Amsterdam Treaty is ratified, many of the concerns highlighted by Mr Spencer will have been allayed.
The establishment of a 'policy and planning unit' coupled with the appointment of a High Representative will provide a badly needed coherence to the CFSP.
However, it should also be stressed that it is vitally important that Parliament should be fully involved and informed about developments in the CFSP.
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<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Deprez">
During the cold war, things were simple: there was an adversary against which those from the West, North America and Europe fought together subordinating their entire foreign and defence policy to that cause.
The end of the East-West confrontation has rendered the emergence of a genuine common foreign and security policy for the European Union even more necessary, since it has reduced the need for such integrated alliances in an increasingly multipolar world.
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Like the rapporteur, I am pleased to highlight the progress made, albeit limited, by the CFSP during the past year, but I also temper this with the dilatory approach and the difficulties surrounding each step forward, as well as the distance we still have to travel before the European Union has a genuine common foreign and security policy.
But time is moving on.
The challenges are accumulating and we cannot rely on the good will of the United States for ever.
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In addition, I would stress the democratic need to see Parliament hitch its wagon to the major policy guidelines of the common foreign and security policy.
From this standpoint, it is high time that an interinstitutional agreement defined Parliament's right to information and consultation.
Until then, it is highly desirable that the Council and the Commission totally fulfil the obligations which are now theirs with regard to providing Parliament with information on foreign policy.
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An ambitious and determined application of the potentialities contained in the Amsterdam Treaty would certainly help us make significant steps forward in the area of the CFSP, but I would conclude by saying, in total agreement with the rapporteur, that we will achieve nothing without a profound change of outlook.
That is probably where the problem lies: how do we make the political decision-makers of our fifteen Member States understand that they would better defend the aspirations and interests of their countries if they expressed them with a single European voice?
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<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Gahrton, Holm and Lindholm">
We are unable to support the report, even though it contains certain positive features as regards the need for the EU to seek, through its action, to support the struggle for human rights.
However, the report aims for the most part to create a common, uniform, supranational foreign and security policy with an increasing military element, which we simply cannot support.
Instead, we believe that the EU should abandon the superpower ambitions and concentrate its foreign policy-related intergovernmental cooperation on promoting disarmament and peaceful cooperation.
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<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Lindqvist">
It is good that the report offers proposals on initiatives to avoid conflicts, securing democracy, strengthening respect for human rights, working for increased legal security, introducing social clauses on democracy and human rights into trade agreements and increasing the utilization of recommendations and public hearings, etcetera.
I also agree with the importance of the lack of a political strategy in matters relating to poverty and the environment.
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However, the report concentrates excessively on the realization of the EU&#x02BC;s own foreign and security policy by means of coordinated policies on defence and weapons and by incorporating the WEU into the EU.
There is no intrinsic value in this.
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The report emphasizes the new opportunities that the Amsterdam Treaty offers for the gradual establishment of a common defence policy.
Mention is made here of peacekeeping and peacemaking tasks.
Majority voting is introduced in several areas and a post of "EU Minister for Foreign Affairs' is created.
This enables the EU to intervene in a conflict by force of arms with the aim of making peace.
This is contrary to Sweden&#x02BC;s policy of non-alignment and is not acceptable.
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The right of veto is retained, but is diluted via a system of so-called constructive abstention from voting.
The EU is here undertaking tasks which are enshrined in the statutes of the UN, and which, of course, also belong in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
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<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Rovsing">
The committee's report is an excellent, thorough treatment of the role of the Union on the world scene.
The committee's concerns regarding persistent popular scepticism towards European foreign policy are perfectly understandable.
Citizens expect the Union to be able to take much more effective action in the search for solutions to crises relating to foreign policy.
I am convinced that Parliament can use this thorough report and its recommendations to help advance our foreign and security policies.
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<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Wibe">
Because I believe that the European Union must be a cooperation between sovereign states, I cannot vote for the Spencer report.
This report goes in an entirely different direction by proposing, among other things, that it should be possible for some foreign-policy decisions to be taken by means of a majority vote.
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Viola report (A4-0175/98)
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Rübig">
Line 205 - Security and surveillance of buildings EURO 17 033 000 + 67 %
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1.Costs should be divided on a 1: 1 basis between Strasbourg and Brussels.2.
An inventory of crimes committed against property must be available for inspection.
(Benchmark)3.
Potential cost-saving measures must be examined.- Gasòliba i Böhm report (A4-0193/98)
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Ahlqvist, Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw, Theorin and Wibe">
We consider the wording used in point 35 of the report to be excessive, particularly as far as tax reductions are concerned.
If tax on labour is to be reduced, then tax on capital and environmental impacts must be increased.
Furthermore, we believe that the Member States themselves should decide which taxes and tax reductions they wish to implement.
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<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Berthu">
The Commission's recommendation on the broad economic policy guidelines has one merit: it is consistent with the principles of a single currency and pushes the consequences of monetary unification to their logical end, the harmonization of national policies and the introduction of flexibility in economic structures.
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This text gives us to believe that the necessary harmonization must extend much further than some believe: for EMU to achieve its full potential, we cannot simply introduce the single currency, it is essential that all the public and private partners subsequently coordinate their actions in the direction indicated by the Commission.
The Commission affirms this in careful terms. It states that the overall policy mix will promote growth and employment if all the participants and groups comply with the guidelines it has summarized (p.
4).
The countries of the European Union will soon resemble an army on manoeuvres.
All macroeconomic, fiscal and structural policies will be examined minutely.
Even the wages policy, which we would have thought the most decentralized, will not escape.
In effect, the Commission tells us coldly that, in the future euro area, nominal wage increases must be compatible with price stability, which is the underlying objective of the European Central Bank.
How do we reconcile the centralized nature of this objective and the decentralization of wage negotiations?
According to the Commission, it is essential that governments apply themselves more to promoting a better understanding of the major economic policy guidelines, which were decided in Brussels.
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In conjunction with the centralization of objectives and the harmonization of rules, the flexibility of economic structures should increase.
The text of the Commission is quite clear: it states that if the economies of Member States do not make the stipulated progress in terms of flexibility, the consequences will be serious.
They will be very serious even, since they might lead to the explosion of the euro.
In particular, we are told bluntly that in EMU, salary adjustment must play a more important role in the process of adapting to new economic circumstances, especially when snags specific to certain countries arise.
In effect, as we have said all along, this is the logical counterpart of the abolition of internal currency markets in the euro area.
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Finally, we will not be surprised to note yet again that the Commission concludes by expressing the need to invent a new form of multilateral supervision.
In the wake of the Stability Pact, following the definitions of the common economic policy guidelines and the employment policy monitoring procedures, we are presented with the notion of coordination at Community level of regulatory reforms and close monitoring within the context of regular multilateral supervision, which relies on the establishment of a single currency instrument panel.
So there you have an instrument that was still missing from the spectrum of Commission policing!
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Let us not deceive ourselves: by denouncing this "confinement to barracks' of member countries, the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations does not intend to defend indirectly the rigidity and ponderousness with which a significant number of our economies are afflicted, especially the French economy.
We too deplore these serious shortcomings and we consider that the solution should obviously be sought in terms of greater flexibility and a reduction of mandatory levies.
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But how do we move towards this objective?
Of course, we recognize the responsibility of our successive national governments with regard to their negligence and slackness in facing up to the problems.
But do we still have to give up the very idea of national sovereignty in order to accept on the one hand the infantile disciplines imposed by Brussels and, on the other hand, the merciless law of unrestrained globalization which, incidentally, do not offset each other but actually merge, as the Commission document clearly indicates?
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No!
My group considers that we are in the process of inventing a cure that is worse than the illness itself.
Flexible coordination and the exchange of experiences are undeniably valuable at European level, but the subjugation of peoples and the systematic demolition of their political and social frameworks will yield nothing of value.
That is why we have voted against the Commission recommendations.
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<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Blokland">
The resolution on the broad economic policy guidelines has my vote.
But my feelings are not unreservedly positive.
In the first place, the rhetoric commending the objectives of greater employment, EMU success, sustainable economic growth and expansion of investment is not to my liking.
Paragraph 31 has the most bombastic formulation in this respect.
The rhetoric in the resolution detracts from a serious approach to price stability and a well-defined assessment of the scope of monetary policy.
I think it is of the utmost importance for the credibility of Economic and Monetary Union to guard against the danger of inflation that looms from the overheating of some national economies.
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What I am equally disappointed about is that the predicted effects of a steeply ageing population are not considered.
Under pressure from the Socialist group this reality was deleted from paragraph 12 of the motion for a resolution.
This is all the more surprising as a start still has to be made on a real rationalization of public finances in the major EMU Member States, as can be seen from the introductory sentence of paragraph 14.
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Finally, I think that the objective of investment-led economic growth may do excessive damage to the environment.
Although the environment is mentioned in paragraph 3, it comes off very badly.
There is a Treaty obligation to gear policy to sustainable development, so that the burden of our prosperity is not passed on to subsequent generations.
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I hope that the Council, when it receives this report, will be able to distinguish the good from the bad.
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<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Caudron">
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Fourçans">
The report by our colleague Gasòliba i Böhm emphasizes, as it should, the significant progress that all the Member States of the European Union have made in order to qualify for the third phase of Economic and Monetary Union.
Inflation rates are historically low, as are interest rates.
But this report is not an invitation to relax and look back with admiration at the path we have followed.
We still have a great deal to do and it is precisely this that the rapporteur seeks to highlight.
The structure is fragile.
The success of the undertaking will depend on the commitment of Member States in the euro area to implement coordinated budgetary policies that meet the pricing stability objective pursued by the ECB.
Similarly, it is important that those countries that are not yet members of the euro area regard their exchange policy as a matter of common interest.
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Nor should the efforts to stabilize public finance be relaxed.
We must pursue, or initiate in the case of those countries who have not yet understood it - such as France -, a reduction in public expenditure and prevent tax rises or, even better, reduce taxes.
We must cut deficits to achieve a balance, or even a budget surplus.
This is an important condition for countering the possible shocks of ill-balanced book-keeping with which our economies might be confronted.
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We are left with two overriding concerns. The first relates to the low private investment rate in most countries of the Union, despite the presence of sound economic fundamentals.
It is in our interest to reverse this trend.
An increase in private investment is necessary for growth and employment.
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The second concern relates to the high average European unemployment rate, rising above the 10 % mark of the active population.
Hence, as I have said before in our assembly, Europe will only bring us, say, a quarter of the solutions, whilst the remaining three-quarters will have to be provided through national efforts.
And this will be achieved by implementing profound structural reforms, as our rapporteur clearly indicates.
First of all, we must ensure that wages progress at a moderate rate and we must reduce the overheads that weigh so heavily on labour in order to eliminate the "tax wedges' and lower labour costs.
Next, it would be most useful to promote active policies in the labour market to eliminate as far as possible the factors that discourage people from working.
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Since the report by Mr Gasòliba i Böhm stresses the vast amount of work we have yet to do before EMU can reach total fruition, I shall vote in favour.
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<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Holm">
There are several points in this report that make it impossible for me to support it.
My principal objection is that I do not believe employment policy can be determined at EU level.
This is, in my opinion, a national concern.
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The EU countries currently have very different requirements on the question of employment policy.
There are major differences with regard to such issues as branches of economic activity and language.
There are also other structural barriers.
This does not mean that it should not be possible at EU level to give advice or exchange experiences about different ways of combating high unemployment.
But this proposal goes much further than what I consider to be reasonable.
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The Commission&#x02BC;s objective of realizing "a comprehensive modernization of the Community&#x02BC;s labour markets' can be interpreted in several different ways.
Does it, for example, mean increased pay differentials or measures that make it easier for the citizens to work in different countries?
There is a major difference here, and, if I understand the Commission and the rapporteur correctly, it is the first of these possibilities that they have in mind, which I cannot support.
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Furthermore, it is proposed in point 8 that there is an "absolute need' for those countries not participating in EMU to coordinate their macroeconomic policies with those of the euro countries.
I cannot give my backing to such strong wording.
<P>
Point 25 reflects a continuation of the coordination policy, which appears to be the guiding star in the EU, this time with a view to coordinating "tax systems' .
This goes entirely against the principle of subsidiarity.
I believe that the EU should not try to coordinate tax matters, but that this should continue to be a national concern.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Iversen and Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of the report by Mr Gasòliba i Böhm.
We support the following positions expressed in the report.
<P>
Firstly, a high level of employment is part and parcel of a successful EMU, and strong emphasis needs to be placed on employment pursuant to the Amsterdam Treaty.-Secondly, the low level of employment in the EU is a source of extensive social, economic and budgetary costs.-Thirdly, we need Investment in training, research and development.-Fourthly, measures to promote investment and stimulate internal demand within the EU are needed.-Fifthly, establishing and maintaining a strong social dialogue is essential.However, the report's appeal for increased approximation of budgetary and fiscal policy at Community level reflects a lack of understanding that some Member States are not participating in the third stage of EMU, not because they fail to meet the criteria of convergence, but because they do not wish to participate in the closer coordination of financial and monetary policy, not to mention comprehensive coordination of monetary policy.
We could not endorse the points in the report referring to the harmonization of macroeconomic policies - point 8 -, including budgetary policy - point 7 - and fiscal policy - point 25.
Denmark is choosing to maintain a fixed exchange rate with the euro after 1 January 1999.
Denmark has made its choice to remain outside the third stage of EMU; Danish currency policy with regard to the euro - point 9 - is and remains a matter for Denmark to determine.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Lindqvist">
Many of the general guidelines from the Commission on the economic policy are good, such as the proposal for reducing unemployment and increasing employment.
It also goes without saying that countries outside EMU are seeking low inflation and stable currencies.
This is also the case in Sweden.
<P>
However, the committee&#x02BC;s proposal regarding the coordination of the Member States&#x02BC; budgetary policy goes too far.
And the budgetary policy also has a major bearing on the matter of taxes, economic policy and thus the scope and approach of the public sector, and these are national questions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Ribeiro">
This report is a contribution to an exercise, in which there is no shortage of other contributors, demonstrating an attempt to harmonize two things that are incompatible in real life, inasmuch as social observation proves that in practice they are mutually exclusive.
<P>
These are the introduction of an EMU to serve a strategy based on price stability and single convergent financial instruments and mechanisms, and the alleged priority being given to high levels and rates of employment.
We are actually doing one thing and saying we are giving priority to the other.
<P>
How long will this go on?
<P>
Will it go on until society cannot put up with it any longer?
Because while wealth is being concentrated, inequalities are being aggravated, extremely high levels of unemployment are being institutionalized, poverty and exclusion are spreading, and disproportion is on the increase.
And we are by no means being prophets of doom about this.
<P>
It cannot be said that this situation, and these trends, are not reflected anywhere in Mr Gasòliba i Böhm's report.
They peep through, albeit timorously, when a 2 % limit is suggested to prevent the reduction of inflation from turning into deflation, when he has the necessary ounce of courage(!) to mention the subject of democratic legitimacy and the principle of subsidiarity where the question of taxes is concerned.
But the report stops there, through timidity and lack of courage, which come to the same thing.
<P>
This is not the way to rectify things that urgently need putting right, even from a point of view we do not share.
<P>
Still less is it so when it "urges also - in order to avoid market misperceptions - that all official statements should reiterate the views of the Commission, the EMI, and the European Parliament on the economic strength of the 11 Member Euro ".
That obviously includes the Gasòliba i Böhm report.
We must not cause a disturbance in the holy market...
<P>
We, for our part, would rather have real convergence, which can only come from debate, honesty and the search for truth.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Rovsing">
The need for a tight economic policy is the crux of the Stability Pact intended to ensure that EMU will have a successful, strong currency.
Thus, is it equally crucial for the Commission to prepare a thorough annual analysis of the economic policies not only of Member States, but also of the EU, and to put forward clear recommendations pursuant to this.
I strongly agree with the committee's assessment of the Commission's recommendation; in other words, I fully endorse the view that countries that are not participating in EMU from the outset should consider their currency policy as a matter of joint interest.
This is the only way to ensure rapid assimilation of such countries into the Third Stage of EMU, should they so desire.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Wolf">
We accept the report for two quite different reasons:
<P>
1) It takes a number of important steps in the right direction, particularly in highlighting the macroeconomic role of investments and the need not to set as absolute the objective of inflation control.
Even though in some important respects we hold quite different, and in some ways more practical, views on the necessary transition to a new ecological and social development model, we are nevertheless prepared to acknowledge this.
However, this should not take the edge off our criticism of other elements of the report, particularly of its one-sided emphasis on wage restraint or its similarly one-sided praise of flexibility.
We also regret the inadequate treatment given to the issue of reducing working hours, both in this report and in the Commission's proposal.
<P>
2) In a situation in which, in view of the introduction of the euro, a binding and substantial EU economic policy is indispensable for all those who do not want to surrender the main aspects of economic policy to the bankers of the ECB - and consequently to the dictate of the financial markets -, we are now for the first time actually considering providing the Union with binding directives on economic policy.
While on the one hand we might criticize the Commission's proposals as mistaken, one-sided or over-cautious, we counter this by opposing all attempts to relegate this process to a mere bureaucratic exercise which commits no-one to doing anything.
<P>
In view of the risk, which has been clearly expressed in the debate, that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs in particular might completely drain the Commission's proposal - and the position adopted by the European Parliament - of any specific, and therefore possibly controversial content, our support of Mr Gasòliba i Böhm's report gives expression to our view that a "European economic government' is in fact required for the euro but that binding and substantial directives on economic policy must be adopted as an absolute minimum measure.
<P>
Van Lancker report (A4-0168/98)
<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, I voted against Mrs Van Lancker's report because, unfortunately, the majority in Parliament did not support my group which had tabled amendments to remove from the text the resolution concerning the situation of frontier workers in the European Union, untruths and the most flagrant absurdities and other contradictions that seek to further the belief that all frontier workers are poor victims of discrimination, that they have to put up with wage losses, other disadvantages and so forth.
<P>
My country hosts nearly 20 % of the 380 000 frontier workers employed in the European Union.
Our employment policy still creates between four and five thousand jobs a year, which are nearly all occupied by frontier workers, and we are thus helping to solve the unemployment problem in Lorraine, Belgian Luxembourg, the Saar and the Rhineland-Palatinate. I would point out that, in our country, frontier workers are happy to benefit from wages and employment and social security conditions that are more favourable than those in their country of origin.
<P>
I told you yesterday that Mrs Van Lancker, unfortunately, along with our colleagues on the left, sees only the holes in the cheese.
We export, for the benefit of frontier workers, for example, family allowances and education allowances which, basically, were designed for our own residents, for demographic reasons.
Yesterday, our Parliament approved a good law setting up a dependency insurance scheme for the elderly.
Our frontier workers will also benefit from this, although no such insurance exists either in Belgium or in France.
All allowances are financed by taxation and they are rather more generous than those in neighbouring regions.
<P>
That is why I wish to restate that the principle of levying taxes on the wages of frontier workers in their country of employment must be rigidly enforced.
There is no question of departing from that principle.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Caudron">
It gives me great satisfaction to welcome the report from our colleague Anne Van Lancker.
It is frequently viewed as good form to congratulate a colleague, but I am sincere in wishing to commend the author of a report which, let us hope, should put an end to the ludicrous situations in which some of our fellow citizens live, whereby progress in the construction of Europe results in complicating their situation even further.
<P>
Nine years ago, as a Member of the European Parliament, I came face to face with the problems of the dual taxation of French employees working in Belgium. Consequently, I support unreservedly the rapporteur's proposals, whilst not overlooking the problems of social security and CSG (General Social Contribution).
<P>
Yes, it is high time we created a new status for the frontier worker, in the widest sense, both for tax collection and for social security benefits.
I hope that this status will be understood by all and accepted by all.
We cannot allow this erosion of the quality of the frontier worker to continue much longer and which, on occasion, differs between one person and another in the same location, on the pretext that there is a radical difference between the occupations pursued.
<P>
Finally, I hope that the Commission will be able to persuade the Member States to settle the differences between these administrations.
It is not uncommon to hear contrary interpretations within the same administration, concerning the application of an agreement governing the status of the worker.
<P>
Free movement, the right to live in the place of one's choice and the right to work where one can all call for new European rules and the "modernization' of those that predate the Single European Act.
It is more than urgent! It is vital!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Fayot">
It is a good thing that the frontier worker problem crops up at regular intervals in Parliament, since it helps us assess the situation.
This special and rather limited category of workers - about 630 000, of which more than half work in Switzerland - faces quite different problems, depending on their country of residence and the host country in which they work.
<P>
I am a keen supporter of bilateralism, in other words, I favour a pragmatic approach to the main problems that beset the principal countries concerned.
That was the focus of the report that Elmar Brok and myself drew up during the last Parliamentary session.
<P>
My country, Luxembourg, employs 60 000 frontier workers out of a total of 210 000, that is, around 30 %.
I believe that because of bilateral agreements relating to taxation and social security, the situation of the frontier workers and their families is most satisfactory, indeed more favourable than in their own country of origin.
This is why we stress the need for income tax on employment to continue to be paid in the host country and, of course, the same applies to welfare contributions.
<P>
In this respect, it should be noted that the government of Luxembourg has made significant efforts to eliminate the distortions that worked against the interests of frontier workers.
<P>
The discriminatory regulations that frontier workers might encounter differ widely from one country to another.
For this reason, I find the report by Mrs Van Lancker most interesting in that it proposes that all national legislation affecting frontier workers should be investigated beforehand to determine its effects on the situation of those workers.
<P>
With regard to the compensation fund posited by Mrs Van Lancker, we should say that it is obviously very difficult most of the time to assess the damage sustained by the frontier worker quite as precisely as in the Belgium-Netherlands case, which formed the basis of Mrs Van Lancker's report.
At all events, we must approach this matter of compensation in a pragmatic way, with a spirit of goodwill on both sides.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Müller">
The report on frontier workers encapsulates brilliantly the problems which these pioneers of a united Europe have to face every day.
The potential solutions put forward by Mrs Van Lancker are quite logical and deserve our support.
It is good that Parliament, as the representative of the citizens of Europe, is again taking the initiative in drawing the public's attention to this matter.
<P>
As a Member with responsibility for part of the German-Dutch-Belgian border region, I know that a great deal has to happen before national frontiers cease being an obstacle to those who seek the right to freedom of movement.
Fundamental solutions will probably only be forthcoming when the number of frontier workers, and hence the pressure on national governments, becomes much greater than it is at present.
<P>
However, practical improvements - which would at least provide interim solutions and benefits for those affected - could be introduced right now if such moves were not being blocked in the Council, and here the German government is primarily to blame.
I am counting on it that by the autumn a new German government will give up on this blockade and will provide a clear passage for those amendments to the regulation which have already been in existence for several years, and which have been endorsed by this House.
<P>
Arias Cañete report (A4-0159/98)
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="McCarthy">
Mr President, it is incumbent upon me, on behalf of my group, to explain our voting procedure on this report.
The vote has been a shambles.
The rapporteur himself voted against his own report.
It illustrates the risk, when writing reports on subjects in Agenda 2000, of going too far.
The future of the Cohesion Fund from 2000 to 2006 must be dealt with within the regulation.
I hope that Members have learnt from this exercise and that they will not now table amendments and reports on the future of funding which will be dealt with by a future rapporteur.
<P>
I was deeply disappointed by Mr Novo undermining the consensus agreed with the other groups on this issue.
At the end of the day we have been held to hostage by 12 Members.
These are not the issues which should come to plenary and result in a shambles of a vote.
They should be thrashed out in committee so that we have a smooth vote in plenary.
I am sorry to have to say it but the only option for my group in the circumstances was to abstain on the vote on this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Buffetaut">
The Arias Cañete report dealing with the Cohesion Fund for 1996 offers a very interesting review of the progress concerning the operation of this fund in 1996.
This is a quality report, although not entirely irreproachable and has gained a favourable vote from our group.
<P>
The Cohesion Fund was established mainly to promote single currency membership amongst certain Member States: the Community manna was allocated in order to bolster the budgetary diet imposed by the terms of the Maastricht Treaty.
We might add that it contributed to the sleight of hand that produced a truly miracle cure for certain Member States of the monetary union.
<P>
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, which even opposed the principle of a single currency must maintain a cautious stance with regard to this Fund and the use made of it.
This is especially true since it harbours serious defects: I am thinking of its questionable effectiveness and certain financial irregularities concerning the use of appropriations.
Moreover, it is an instrument of federalist redistribution, the purpose of which is to induct into the ranks of the Commission faithful the beneficiary regions, rather than let them sort out their own problems.
<P>
The birth of the single currency may further disturb the imbalances between states through the accelerating relocations, either to states or regions that are more competitive than others, or from those regions in difficulty towards the more dominant economic powers.
<P>
In this context, the Cohesion Fund, rather than offering a genuine solution to the overwhelming problems of certain regions of Europe, may simply serve as a stop-gap to limit the repercussions.
Like Aesop's tongue, it could equally be the best or the worst of things.
Everything depends on the use made of it.
And from this point of view, I prefer to remain optimistic, having learnt from past experience that this type of institution is too often put forward as a means of promoting the emergence of the large centralized European state of which many dream so unashamedly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Cox">
I voted against this report because of the European People's Party's Amendment No 4 which sought in future to exclude from cohesion funds all Member States participating in EMU.
I disagree with the proposition in itself and in principle since a report on 1996 should not set the agenda for future policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Marinho">
The Portuguese Socialist Members will vote against the Arias Cañete report, because Amendment No 4, which the Socialist group list was committed to voting against, was narrowly approved in the end.
<P>
The principle approved, namely that the Cohesion Fund is only for countries which are not members of EMU, is a new one that bears no relation to the commitments we have accepted and has been rejected by the Commission several times.
<P>
This vote represents a case of retaliation after the event, penalizing the southern European states which have joined EMU. The amendment is an irresponsible act on the part of the PPE, except for its Spanish and Portuguese Members, who will be voting against it.
For that reason we reject the report.
<P>
Klaß report (A4-0160/98)
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Bernardini">
As usual each year, the Commission submitted its annual report on the state of implementation of the Structural Funds.
The document submitted for scrutiny by our Assembly relates to 1996 and, more importantly, the third year of the programming period.
<P>
Like our rapporteur, we must express our delight at the way in which the Structural Funds have been used in 1996.
In fact, we note a 98 % expenditure for available commitments and 95 % for payments.
However, we cannot award full marks overall since some problems remain.
A number of large-scale programmes have been delayed and, because of that, the matter of complementarity has not been resolved.
<P>
Finally, how can we fail to endorse the conclusions of our rapporteur regarding the shortfall in terms of Community initiatives and innovative actions?
It is indeed regrettable that the total represents more than 70 % of unused appropriations.
Given this situation, I feel sure that our Parliament - when it gives its opinion on the reform of Structural Funds - will keep a close eye on events and will introduce specific recommendations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Cushnahan">
This is the eighth annual report on Structural Fund spending.
Mrs Klaß has highlighted a number of problems especially regarding the unsatisfactory take-up in the early part of the current programming period.
This of course has improved in 1996.
My own country has always used Structural Funds well and efficiently.
The successful application of these funds in Ireland has undoubtedly played a significant part in the 'Celtic Tiger' economic performance.
This makes it all the more important that our access to future structural and cohesion funds does not end abruptly.
<P>
I hope that the Commission will be able to deliver on its promise to ensure that Ireland is designated as an 'Objective 1 region in transition' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="Darras">
Mrs Klaß has presented us with a very dense report, examining the improvements, as well as the shortcomings of European structural policy.
1996 was a critical year in the 1994-1999 planning phase since, following two years of delays and difficulties, it proved to be a year of intense activity.
<P>
I agree entirely with the comments concerning the budgetary implementation and, especially, the invitation extended to Member States to comply with the three-month deadline for transferring appropriations to the designated recipients.
<P>
The same applies to the partnership principle, which is crucial in setting up viable, sophisticated projects at regional or departmental level.
I would like to stress this aspect because, as the elected Member for Pas-de-Calais and a member of the monitoring and planning committees, it seems vital to me that we intensify this partnership, which ensures that we avoid mistakes in the future.
Everybody has something to gain from this, from local and regional elected representatives through to territorial officials and social partners and, finally, the Member State itself.
The same applies to the principle of additionality, since it lies at the heart of the construction of Europe.
<P>
I have only one comment or, rather, one request to make: Mrs Klaß is right to state that "the successive adaptations to the financial perspective necessitated by the failure to take up the appropriations available in previous years means that funding will be concentrated at the end of the current programming period.
The correct conclusions must be drawn from this development in order to improve the situation during the next programming period' .
<P>
So therefore we must not lose those appropriations, especially if they are attached to a programme that had been delayed for a particular reason; and might not one of the possible solutions be to ask the European Commission to extend the programme?
I mention this because I have experienced this situation in the Pas-de-Calais region and we ourselves have considered just such a solution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Deprez">
Quite rightly, everybody agrees that the Structural Funds constitute one of the pillars of the construction of Europe, in that they contribute to its economic and social cohesion.
Therefore, I was even more pleased to hear our rapporteur explain that after two years of groping around in the dark, mainly as a result of the delays that have occurred in the programme authorization procedures, the problems have finally been sorted out and 1996 now seems to have been the first year in which the programming period took off in full flight.
<P>
However, as our rapporteur does, we should still be ready for some problems that are waiting in the wings.
So, for instance, the systematic monitoring and evaluation of the steps taken continue to pose practical difficulties that still seem to be far from resolved.
Similarly, the contribution of local authorities and social partners still falls short of the mark, even though it lies at the very heart of the goals set for the current period.
<P>
There is another concern: technological disparities.
The regions covered by Objectives 1 and 6 certainly give precedence to technological research and development, but in a most uneven way: half of the Objective 1 regions scarcely have the infrastructures needed and exhibit a weak innovative impulse, compared with just a quarter that demonstrate a strong potential in that respect.
This observation is confirmed by the fact that 60 % of public expenditure set aside for civilian technological research and development in the Union is concentrated on two Member States of the Union: Germany and France.
<P>
In line with our rapporteur, we believe that the lead given to technological R&D, telecommunications and information technology within the context of the Structural Funds might well contribute to a reduction of the existing disparities.
Yet again, is it really essential that regional managers and practitioners in the field take on the entire decision-making responsibility for research and development in a framework of international competition, which actually belongs to us as a whole?
Moreover, too frequently, they pool their efforts to ensure the continued service life in the immediate future of tools that have no real future, to the detriment of lucrative investments that could stimulate economic revival in their region.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Wibe">
I find the large number of irregularities in the sphere of structural support shocking.
This matter should have been given more attention in the report.
When a support system has cases of fraud amounting to ECU 61 million for 1996, something drastic needs to be done.
The best thing would be to wind up the Structural Funds and restore regional policy for the Member States.
In large systems it is easier to engage in fraud without being discovered.
The logical conclusion should be that the current system cannot continue, even if the Commission says it is getting better at discovering irregularities.
Instead, steps should be taken to abolish the system so that it is simply not possible for irregularities to be perpetrated.
<P>
Viola report (A4-0118/98)
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="Ahlqvist, Andersson, Theorin and Wibe">
We have chosen to vote for Amendment No 6, which emphasizes the fact that winding up duty-free sales will have economic and social consequences.
However, we would like to point out that these consequences will not only affect island regions, but also various Swedish regions, such as the West Coast, Skåne, and the Stockholm and Kvarken Straits areas.
<P>
Ferry traffic is a necessary prerequisite for cooperation and exchange.
In certain cases, duty-free sales finance up to 60 % of the costs of this traffic.
To wind up duty-free sales without providing any form of support for continued ferry traffic would have serious consequences for employment.
Ferry traffic as a means of communication would be adversely affected.
This in turn influences the sense of kinship, corporate collaboration and the positive development of business in the affected regions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Apolinário">
The practical purpose of this report on the problems of island regions is to extend to all island regions those specific measures which up to now have been confined to the ultra-peripheral ones, on the grounds that the Treaty includes a specific section on ultra-peripheral regions and islands.
<P>
The specific position of the ultra-peripheral regions, however, continues to demand special treatment, in recognition of their unique situation, their enormous isolation and distance from mainland Europe and their particular development problems.
<P>
Paradoxically enough, in Agenda 2000 the Commission is withdrawing REGIS from the list of Community initiatives in the proposed framework regulations, and merely re-adopting the 10 % increase in the Community distribution of the Structural Funds.
<P>
In a difficult negotiating context, and in face of a financial outlook that falls short of what is needed to meet the challenges facing the Union, it would not be fair if the unique nature of the island areas had the paradoxical result of reducing the amount of aid to the ultra-peripheral regions as well as the islands.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Bernardini">
In the wake of the new provisions incorporated into the Amsterdam Treaty, recognizing the cultural identity of island regions, our Parliament - aided by the own-initiative report from our colleague - is asked to decide on the measures to be introduced to overcome the handicaps suffered by those regions.
<P>
I myself endorse the recommendations made by our rapporteur, especially with respect to the reform of the Structural Funds.
This provides us with the opportunity to boost those regions by recognizing, for example, their entitlement to special treatment in taxation matters.
The European Commission must understand that an official aid policy is required, one that is perfectly in keeping with European law, but one that pursues the goal of harmonious economic development in those island regions.
<P>
Similarly, we must consolidate the support that already exists in certain sectors and I am thinking here of environmental protection.
This support must be properly balanced.
Finally, a special effort must be devoted to the question of transport.
We all know that the competitiveness and economic development of those islands suffer because of the high cost of transport for goods and people.
We must thus take action at this level by introducing an integrated policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Correia">
Madeira, Porto Santo and the Azores are particularly deprived island regions in the context of the European Union.
<P>
But they are also ultra-peripheral regions sharing common structural characteristics covered by Objective 1, the defining one being that their per capita GDP is less than 75 % of the Community average.
<P>
It is true that some situations apply to all islands.
But it is no less true that some of those islands have a level of economic development equal to that of some of the richest Member States of the European Union.
<P>
And it would not be appropriate in this case for us to treat different situations in the same way; that is to say, such wealthy regions need no special assistance.
<P>
This is why I consider it important to separate the wheat from the tares.
The necessary solidarity between the most highlydeveloped countries of the European Union and the most under-developed regions must be based on pre-defined and easily measurable principles, which must continue to include the per capita GDP.
<P>
Mr Viola has produced a commendable work.
It is a pity that his loyalty to his island has led him to support policies of indiscriminate privilege, which do not conform to the principle of economic and social cohesion.
<P>
I therefore hope that the debate and the vote on the report will make it possible to restore the European Union's responsibility for its island regions to its proper proportions, without prejudice to the provisions of the Treaty on the ultra-peripheral regions, and I would remind the House that these consist only of Madeira, the Azores, the Canaries and the French overseas departments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Cushnahan">
Island communities throughout the European Union are seriously disadvantaged.
Ireland is both an island country and a country with a number of small islands off its coastline.
We therefore fully understand the problems.
I believe that the production of Mr Viola's report is both timely and opportune, particularly as it comes in advance of the forthcoming reform of structural fund regulations.
<P>
I support the proposal that the special needs of islands should be acknowledged in changes to these funds.
This is especially important to Ireland's island population, particularly as we are likely to lose our Objective 1 status.
The proposals to examine transport, alternative energy and tourism as sectors where innovative measures could be applied are worthy of consideration.
The production of 'island quality produce' and the introduction of financial and tax incentives are also interesting ideas which would provide answers to the long-term survival of the island way of life.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="Díez de Rivera Icaza">
Very briefly, I shall be voting in favour of this matter which is so important to the island regions, especially since I drafted an opinion.
<P>
I am sure the Commission will have taken good note of the requests we have made during today's long, emotional debate to establish compensatory measures to address the situation faced by islands. I am sure the Commission will also be able to provide an adequate response to the dual insularity or double discrimination suffered by small islands with a population of less than 100 000, such as Minorca.
Since time is short, I base my position on the speech I made earlier today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="Ephremidis">
We maintain and insist that the Community structural policy provided and continues to provide insufficient funds, has a levelling effect when applied and is unbalanced and unfair in that it fundamentally and deliberately ignores local differences between regions and areas.
<P>
Given this distorting influence, it is only to be expected that there continues to be divergence rather than convergence and cohesion and that the situation in poor areas is getting worse, especially in the mountainous and island regions in the Community covered by the report under discussion.
<P>
The report contains accurate findings and appropriate proposals.
However, within the report, paragraphs 2 and 4 pervert and distort the real aims of cohesion and everything else which has been promised.
<P>
To be specific, we consider that a ceiling of 75 % of GDP, which the rapporteur contests, is already too high and will deny assistance to a large number of areas with serious, fundamental structural problems, including the Greek islands, whose GDP is less than 60 % of the Community average and which account for some 42 % of the inhabited island regions of the Union.
<P>
Secondly, the proposal to classify island regions under the administrative regional divisions set out in NUTS III is an indirect but clear way of ensuring that they are included in financing for less developed regions and that parts of undeveloped regions obtain assistance, thereby reducing the level of assistance to poorer countries. This is proven by the Structural Fund financing percentages for the 1994-1999 period which show funding down approximately 20 % for Greece and Portugal and up 45 % for Germany and 20 % for Spain.
<P>
There is yet another unacceptable aspect to this blatantly unfair treatment, which is becoming increasingly worse: the exclusion of the Greek islands from the operating programmes of the Community support framework for energy, transport and communications which, as we all know, are the most serious problems facing these regions.
<P>
Finally, I would like to draw attention to a very particular and important problem faced solely by the Aegean islands which has never earned the attention it merits, despite repeated reminders.
I refer to Turkish expansionism, which is tolerated in the upper echelons and by insiders at the EU and which, apart from anything else, impedes the development of the islands in these regions and prevents them from acquiring the confidence of investors and any investment activity.
<P>
Our fear is that the regional and structural policy of the Union is being mapped out using measurements made by a very peculiar pair of compasses which shape programmes and regional, that is, island assistance, not in accordance with fundamental problems and real needs but in order to accommodate the interests which prevail at the time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="Girão Pereira">
At a time when a new Community support framework is being set up, with the aim of implementing the principle, or rather the objective, of economic and social cohesion enshrined in the Treaty, we should in my opinion be concerned with three very specific situations.
<P>
Firstly, we should look at rural areas, which have suffered from creeping depopulation and desertification as a result of an unbalanced common agricultural policy.-Secondly, consideration must be given to areas of serious poverty and social marginalization in big cities that are considered to be wealthy when taken as a whole; -And finally, we need to consider island areas, which have very special problems and therefore need special structural aid.While the inclusion in the Amsterdam Treaty of an express reference to those particular needs, even if only in the form of a declaration annexed to it, and therefore of a lesser specific legal weight, is a step in the right direction, it is necessary and even imperative that we should give practical expression to that show of political will.
<P>
The Viola report quite rightly draws attention to the problem of double insularity.
This means that in many archipelagos the development effort is often channelled into the governing island or centre, thus creating further regional disparities.
<P>
I therefore support the Viola report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="Lindqvist">
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="Striby">
The Viola report relating to island regions is a very comprehensive text that highlights the natural handicaps and socio-economic difficulties suffered by those islands.
He quite rightly emphasizes the need to adapt corporate policies to their special needs.
Thus, he proposes in their favour an entire range of measures that are, on occasion, interesting, even if they appear at times to be somewhat overzealous: compensation to cover higher transport costs, preserving and promoting the cultural and natural heritage, sanitary equipment and drainage, the development of new power sources to reduce island dependence on external supplies, waste disposal and so forth.
<P>
Some of these measures, however, run counter to the convictions of our group: for instance, paragraph 35 relating to the common agricultural policy, which calls for the incorporation of "corrective factors for aid on the basis of the size of the farm, the area in which it is situated...' , rather than the size of the active workforce engaged in that operation, as we propose.
<P>
Nevertheless, this report reveals a major defect: it is blatantly federalist in persuasion.
It appeals for an integrated policy in favour of island regions.
It seeks to confer considerable powers upon the Commission, in contempt of the most basic subsidiarity and even asks it to cofinance projects, whereas - let us not forget - those finances do not fall within the purview of the Commission, but the European Union.
It also cherishes the notion of coordinating tax measures in favour of islands, although taxation is one of the pillars of sovereignty.
<P>
Our group, anxious to demonstrate the interest it seeks to convey with regard to the problems of islands, has tabled about ten amendments and several requests for a separate vote to get rid of this federalist leaning and make it wholly acceptable.
That is why the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has been unable to approve the Viola report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I am not totally convinced with the answer you just gave.
I am happy to accept that it was a corrigendum and that we therefore had recitals A to K. What is certain now is that we should have arranged them in the same order in the voting list.
You, Mr President of the sitting, are one of the rare Vice-Presidents, who, in my view, allows the votes to take place in the correct order, that is, firstly the votes on the amendments, then the texts they relate to, and to end with, the final text.
So, in this situation, I think that we should have voted on recital K.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="President">
Thank you for your comment.
Nevertheless, all of the Presidents of the sitting follow the same procedure, which is determined by the President of our Parliament.
We are his humble servants.
<P>
I hereby declare that Parliament has completed its agenda.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="President">
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 1.00 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 28 May 1998.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
The Minutes of Thursday, 28 May 1998 have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="Chichester">
Mr President, last Friday Mr Eric Tabarly, a very distinguished French yachtsman, was knocked overboard in heavy seas off the Welsh coast and is missing, presumed drowned.
My father, Sir Francis Chichester, was a great competitor of Mr Tabarly's.
I would just like to pay my tribute to this very great, French, single-handed yachtsman, and I crave your indulgence, Mr President, for so doing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Perry">
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="Malone">
Mr President, I intended to vote against, instead of for, Amendment No 4 to the Arias Cañete report.
I wish the record to be changed, if possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, I wish to speak about something that does not concern the Minutes, but is a question of procedure.
This week the results of the working party's discussion on MEPs' pay, travel and other expenses will be made known here.
These have been leaked to the public, to the Swedish press for example.
We Finnish parliamentarians, at least some of us, have had to answer questions on this working party's conclusions.
I do not know whether they are right or wrong, but this kind of leak must not be allowed to happen.
We have to be familiar with the contents of a report at least at the same time as the media, to be able to reply to the questions we are asked.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Mrs Matikainen-Kallström, I think Mr Martin wants to speak about the same subject.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Martin, David">
Mr President, the Press Services have just drawn my attention to the coverage in the Swedish press of the Members' Statute.
<P>
I wish to say that, firstly, they are not leaks, because they are entirely inaccurate: they do not reflect the contents of the report.
Mr President, as you know, the report will go to the Bureau tonight and until it has been to the Bureau it is not an official document of this House.
<P>
Secondly, the report does not mention a salary at all.
It simply suggests that, in future, an MEP's salary should be a percentage of a judge at the Court of Justice's salary but does not mention what that percentage should be; and, thirdly, it states that the percentage should be set by common accord between this Parliament and the Council, so Parliament would not be able to act unilaterally to set its own salary.
<P>
The reports and the figures quoted in the Swedish media are entirely inaccurate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
Mr Martin, you have just answered it for me.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, unlike the previous speakers, I would like to make a point about pages 17 and 18 of the Minutes and the vote on the Arias Cañete report.
<P>
An amendment was tabled to this report, Amendment No 1, which was the subject, on the one hand, of a request for a roll-call vote, on the part of the GUE/NGL group, and on the other hand, for a split vote, on the part of our group.
<P>
The results of the roll-call vote are recorded in the Minutes, both for the first and the second part of Amendment No 1. However, in the results of the roll-call vote, in the Annex to the Minutes, we are told that the roll-call list for the first part of Amendment No 1 will not be published for technical reasons.
<P>
I would like to ask you why this is, and if any measures have been taken to ensure that such an incident does not happen again.
In fact, I think that as regards requests for roll-call votes, it is not just a question of having the exact result, but it is also a question of knowing how the votes are divided up for each group.
So, have measures been taken to ensure that such regrettable events do not reoccur?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
Certainly, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
The electronic system broke down.
We have done everything we can to ensure that this problem does not reoccur, and in particular to ensure that the electronic system in the new building is even more advanced and at least provides us with the possibility of an alternative system.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, I am getting a little disoriented, because I am constantly seeing something approaching on my left, on your right, and it says PPE here.
But I no longer know whether that is the right name, and whether since the merging with everything related to the Allianza Nazionale and so on, there will merely be one group here in this Chamber as far as cooperation is concerned.
Could you please establish that the centre will remain here where I stand?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
Mr Wijsenbeek, it is a matter of Members' freedom, which I am sure you recognize.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="Ahern">
Mr President, I wish to draw attention to this magazine called the Parliament magazine which purports to be a record, and to represent the opinions, of this House.
This is a special edition on nuclear safety, for which I was asked to write a piece, which was later censured because of the heavy advertising of the nuclear industry in this magazine.
<P>
Either this does or does not represent the views of Members and if it does represent the views then it should not be censured in this way.
If this happens in future, I would like Parliament to request that this masthead be removed from this magazine.
I will be distributing to Members the article which I was asked to write for the magazine on the nuclear question so that we will not be censured in this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="President">
It is a private magazine.
If they reduce the length of the articles which are given to them, unfortunately we cannot do anything about that, because it is freedom of expression.
It is not an official magazine of the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Ahern">
Mr President, that is my point: it should not purport to be an official magazine and should not carry the masthead or purport to represent the views of this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
We will check that it is not, in any case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Banotti">
Mr President, I just wish to make two points.
Firstly, I wrote to you in connection with the Arias Cañete vote, because there was some confusion there.
Secondly, could the Commission make a statement to the House this week regarding the recent Court of Justice ruling, which effectively means that many of the NGOs and the programmes that most directly affect the people of the Community have been put on hold as a result of this Court of Justice opinion of 12 May.
This is causing considerable alarm and great distress to many NGOs which have had their funding put on hold as a result of this Court case.
If the Commission is not going to make a statement about this week, why not?
And, if not, could it make one at the next part-session at the beginning of July in Brussels?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="President">
That has been raised in the trialogue, and we are seeking clarification of the question you raised.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Ewing">
Mr President, briefly and sadly I wish to inform this House that a fishing boat from Mallaig, a small town in the far north-west of my area, was split in two by a German tanker.
It sank instantly with the total loss of crew.
The saddest thing of all is that they are all from the same very small town, which is devastated.
I wonder if it would not be impertinent to ask if you could perhaps write some kind of letter of condolence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="President">
I can assure you that I will do that immediately.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Hallam">
Mr President, I believe I speak on behalf of the vast majority of the people of England, and I use the term 'England' today advisedly, to say that we are shocked, angered and ashamed at the antics of certain people in a French town who have purported to be English soccer fans!
I wish to say to the people of France that I apologize for their behaviour.
I would particularly like to apologize for the behaviour of those English fans who have been attacking French citizens of North African descent.
They are fascist thugs!
They do not represent the people of England.
<P>
I wish to conclude by saying that if this behaviour continues, then the British Government and the English Football Association should consider withdrawing the English team from the World Cup.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Erika">
Mr President, if we are going to sympathize with every misfortune that occurs in the European Union, or at least many of them - and indeed rightly so - I would like to ask that we also acknowledge the rail accident which occurred in Germany and I would ask you to write a letter of condolence to those involved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="President">
You are absolutely right, Mrs Mann.
In any case, I can inform you that I sent telegrams expressing this Parliament's condolences to the German authorities, the President of the Bundestag and the Chancellor immediately after the accident.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bloch von Blottnitz">
Mr President, I assume that you too will have heard that dioxin levels from the wasteincineration plant in Strasbourg have been as high as 360 nanograms.
In Germany 0.1 nanograms are permitted - I say this to give you an idea of the dimensions, that is those of you who do not work in the environmental field.
We could perhaps say that this is our job, but we must show concern for our colleagues so I would politely ask you to write to the authorities in Strasbourg to ask that this waste-incineration plant be closed down immediately, as we have a responsibility towards our colleagues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="President">
I shall tell the mayor this evening. He is dining with the Bureau.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Fitzsimons">
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="President">
I am sorry, Mr Fitzsimons, there have been quite a lot of resolutions on Sellafield, and I cannot add anything to what this Parliament has already said.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Marinucci">
Mr President, we have changed the subject now, but I cannot help going back to what we were talking about a little earlier.
A short while ago, a British Member very rightly said that people who behaved badly with the French at football matches do not represent the whole of Great Britain but a part that he and many others disown.
I am happy to hear this.
I would nonetheless like to recall here that when the Italian police were put on the alert for a match in Italy, given the fact that the bravado of these fans was no secret and that prevention is the best thing - it is better to prevent problems than to try and solve them afterwards - the British press unfortunately severely attacked Italy and the Italian Government.
So, considering......
<P>
(Interruption by the President)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="President">
Mrs Marinucci, we cannot start telling stories about incidents at football matches. This is not the time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="Falconer">
Mr President, thank you for your letter which I received today in reply to my question to you.
I noticed in your letter that the Bureau will be meeting tonight, 15 June, to discuss the 50 % attendance.
Will they take into consideration the contents of your letter which seems to indicate that the majority of people not able to attend 50 % of the votes have some difficulties in either arriving in Strasbourg or departing from Strasbourg?
I do think that some consideration should be given to these points.
Of course, I expect that Members of the groups will discuss these matters within their own groups and reach a final decision on it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="President">
You can be absolutely certain of that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, I would actually like to endorse what was said by a number of my colleagues, as well as by David Martin, about Members' salaries.
A similar article appeared on the front pages of the Dutch regional press.
I would like to ask you as a matter of urgency, Mr President, whether you could issue a press statement this evening, perhaps jointly with the working party, saying what is true and what is not.
It is absolutely essential that, for once, this is also reported.
<P>
I also have a second comment.
Today is the deadline for tabling amendments to next year's calendar of part-sessions.
We in the Group of the European People's Party would greatly appreciate it if we had a little bit more time to talk about the agenda.
Amendments to this agenda are not terribly labourious.
I would therefore like to ask you if it might be possible for us in the group to have until tomorrow, let us say until 7.30 p.m., to do something about it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="President">
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, you are absolutely right.
If there are no more interruptions, I hope we shall have approved the agenda before 7.30 p.m., and the matter can be discussed in the political groups.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Calendar of part-sessions 1999
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="President">
The Conference of Presidents has decided to propose the following calendar of part-sessions for 1999:
<P>
11 to 15 January27 to 28 January8 to 12 February24 to 25 February8 to 12 March24 to 25 March12 to 16 April3 to 7 May20 to 23 July13 to 17 September4 to 8 October18 to 22 October3 to 4 November15 to 19 November1 to 2 December13 to 17 December
<P>
The deadline for tabling amendments to these dates is 8.30 p.m. this evening, which gives an extra half an hour for the political groups to discuss it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, that was not what I meant.
I have a feeling that we should have a look at the Dutch-Spanish interpretation.
I do not think it is always all that good.
I had asked whether we could have until tomorrow evening to table the amendments, tomorrow evening until 7.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="President">
It would be impossible to set the deadline as 8.30 p.m. tomorrow, but we could make it 12.00 noon tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, if this might lead to problems as far as translating is concerned; they are extremely simple amendments.
That is my first point.
But we could also vote on Thursday.
Why not?
We will also be voting on the Cardiff resolution on Thursday, an important topic, so we could also do this on Thursday.
So I would like to ask you if we could have until 8.00 p.m. tomorrow to table amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="President">
In that case there is no problem.
If the vote takes place on Thursday instead of Wednesday, the deadline for tabling amendments can be 8.00 p.m. tomorrow.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Amendment of Rule 48
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0293/97) by Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on the amendment of Rule 48 of Parliament's Rules of Procedure on written declarations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Fayot">
Mr President, Mr Dell'Alba has been detained and has asked me to take his place as rapporteur, which I am of course happy to do.
<P>
Mr Dell'Alba's report relates to an amendment to Rule 48 of the Rules of Procedure, which concerns written declarations.
This amendment to the rule is based on a proposal for an amendment to the Rules of Procedure submitted by Mrs Aglietta in October 1996, pursuant to Rule 163 which states that any Member may propose an amendment to the Rules of Procedure and have it referred to the committee responsible.
This proposal related to Rule 48 of the Rules of Procedure and was drawn up on the basis of a decision by the enlarged Bureau on 7 July 1989, according to which written declarations (Rule 65 of the previous Rules of Procedure) cannot be signed by more than one Member when being submitted.
<P>
Following this proposal, the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, which appointed Mr Dell'Alba as rapporteur, drew up four amendments to Rule 48, which I would like to summarize briefly.
The first amendment relates to the fact that, up until now, only individual Members have been able to submit written declarations of not more than 200 words.
It aims to allow written declarations to be signed by up to five Members, in order to take account of the fact that within Parliament there are many collective actions and that it must also be possible for written declarations to be submitted by several Members.
<P>
The declaration must then be entered in a register, along with the names of the signatories.
The second proposal is that the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities wants the declaration to be included in a register located in the immediate vicinity of the Chamber.
Until now, Members had to sign written declarations in an office which was not always very easy to find, which explains this reference to the location of the register.
<P>
Other important changes include the fact that when a declaration has been signed by more than one half of the component Members of Parliament, the President will immediately inform Parliament of it, and the declaration will immediately be forwarded to the institutions to which it is addressed.
In addition, it will be included in the Minutes of proceedings of the last sitting of the corresponding part-session.
<P>
Those are the various amendments that have been introduced. They will make it easier for Members to exercise their right to table declarations.
In a way, it is a kind of democratization, an additional step towards a more broadly based democracy, which makes the right to submit such declarations for possible signatories a reality.
<P>
I would like to add that in addition to the four amendments tabled by the Rules Committee, which were in fact approved unanimously, a fifth amendment was tabled by Mrs Crawley and Mr Janssen van Raay, who would like such declarations to be entered in a register.
This is of course already contained in Mr Dell'Alba's report, but this fifth amendment would mean that the names of the signatories would also be recorded.
Personally, I wonder if it would not be rather labourious to enter not only the declaration, with the names of the initial signatories, but also the names of all those who have signed it.
I have not been able to determine the rapporteur's feelings on this matter and I am therefore only giving you my personal opinion: I believe that it would be somewhat tedious.
<P>
Mr President, that is a brief summary of the proposal that has been submitted to you by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
I call upon the House to approve these amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="Ford">
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Evans">
Mr President, Mr Ford has spoken about the history of Rule 48.
The question now is about the opening up of democracy and returning to somewhere nearer Parliament's former position.
It is about allowing Members not only a clearer and more positive way to express their own political points of view on matters of topical and international interest, but also, perhaps more importantly, the chance to put down a motion on behalf of their constituents - those they were elected to represent.
<P>
The rapporteur should be congratulated for his amendments which generally, with the reservations that have been outlined by the previous speaker, seek to simplify these rights and opportunities and also to make the publication of the motions more open and more easily available.
<P>
Mr Dell'Alba, the rapporteur, has also made provision for more than one Member to initiate the process, and five Members collectively may do so.
Once again Mr Ford has outlined the history of this process and I need not go into it any further.
<P>
Many reports are complex and lengthy.
This report and the amendments distinguish themselves by their simplicity and clarity of presentation.
These features are also reflected in the aims and objectives of the report, which are clarity, openness and simplicity and those are objectives which this Parliament should welcome and which we should be supporting.
It is for these reasons that I and my group have no problem supporting this motion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Article 366a of the Fourth ACP-EC Convention
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0194/98) by Mrs Aelvoet, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the draft Council Decision on the procedure for implementing Article 366a of the Fourth ACP-EC Convention (5644/98 - C4-0156/98-96/0050(AVC)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in January last year the Council consulted the European Parliament about the proposal for a Council decision on a framework procedure for implementing Article 366a of the Fourth Lomé Convention, as revised in 1995.
This is the article that stipulates that in the event of an ACP state having failed to fulfil the essential components of the Convention, namely respect for human rights, democratic principles and the rule of law, this can lead to the suspension, either partially or fully, of the Convention.
The Committee on Development and Cooperation subsequently decided to draw up an interim report pursuant to Article 80(3) of Parliament's Rules of Procedure, and also called for the opening of a conciliation procedure with the Council.
The Committee on Development and Cooperation, followed in this by this entire Parliament during the part-session of June 1997, laid down recommendations in the interim report to amend the Commission's text so as to give Parliament the right of assent on each proposal to suspend or resume cooperation.
The Commission's text had proposed that Parliament merely be informed afterwards.
Unfortunately the Council's response on 6 March 1998 completely ignored the opinion of this Parliament, arguing that the assent of the European Parliament is, legally speaking, completely ruled out.
<P>
The situation has not improved because the Treaty of Amsterdam, which will be ratified by the fifteen Member States at the beginning of next year, provides only for information to be given to Parliament subsequently in such matters.
We do not have a legal leg to stand on to enforce this assent from the Council.
It would therefore have been enough for the Council to wait until the beginning of next year to present us with a fait accompli during the implementation procedure.
That is why we responded very quickly in this interim report and developed a fallback position which amounts to the setting up of a consultation procedure instead of an assent procedure.
We are therefore taking a step backwards, but are still asking for a little bit more than has been provided for according to the letter of the Treaty.
<P>
For that matter, this request for consultation is not new.
When we were discussing the Oostlander report on enlargement towards central and eastern Europe Mr Henderson, President-in-Office of the Council, gave us a commitment which goes in the same direction, namely that Parliament would be given a suitable opportunity to express its views to the Council before the Council takes a decision; a perfect description of consultation, in fact.
<P>
That is why, as a result of this decision and Mr Henderson's statement, I immediately contacted the President-in-Office responsible for development cooperation, namely Mrs Clare Short, to ask her whether the British presidency would also grant consultation to the European Parliament.
In the meantime we have had two discussions with text proposals which are aimed in the right direction.
Not everything has been acquired yet, but we are on the road to consultation.
It is essential that we conclude this issue before the end of the British presidency, which is approaching fast.
That is why we have an interim report proposal before us, which received unanimous support from the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
<P>
The essential components are provided for in parliamentary consultation.
Secondly, Council decisions must be made by qualified majority in the case of a partial suspension of the Convention, and unanimously in the case of a full suspension.
To give you a clear idea of this, ladies and gentlemen, even in the case of Nigeria, the full Convention has not been suspended.
It is therefore only in highly exceptional circumstances that unanimity would be called for.
<P>
The third element is obviously the call for conciliation with the Council, in active cooperation with the Commission.
I therefore venture to express the hope that approval of this report may lead to us being able to reach an agreement with the presidency within a few weeks time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasio">
Mr President, Mrs Aelvoet deserves recognition in drawing our attention to a very important issue, in order to stress the role of the European Parliament in such a very remarkable situation as the EU reacting to the fact that human rights are being flouted in a country working in cooperation with ourselves.
I also congratulate her on being so coherent in this matter earlier on.
<P>
It has to be said that it is not just a matter here of the European Parliament getting its opinion across and having the opportunity to discuss it. This is also linked to that big problem the EU has at the moment, namely its approval by the general public.
Its legitimacy for our citizens has perhaps dwindled. The European Parliament is justifiably seen as a public forum, one that represents the people, in those matters to which the people in general turn their attention.
<P>
It is very easy to imagine that Parliament might well have been rebuffed here on judicial grounds, for political reasons.
However, I do not wish to claim that that is the case.
That is why it would be a good idea to approve this report and take it very seriously.
Furthermore, it must be realized that the matter will be taken more seriously in the country in which these human rights violations have occurred if the European Parliament focuses attention on it in its capacity as a public forum.
Mrs Aelvoet's report deserves support and I hope it will be approved with not too much opposition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Günther">
Mr President, I too wish to thank the rapporteur very warmly for her work, and as she described the whole legal background for us with her usual clarity I would now like to go into some political aspects of this procedure in the two minutes I have available.
It has become a tradition in the European Parliament that we ask our partners in development cooperation: "How do you deal with human rights?
How do you manage the running of the state effectively, in terms of good governance?
How do you ensure legal certainty for your citizens in the legal system?'
<P>
I believe we must not limit the discussion to the area of human rights alone. We must always bear in mind the other two areas as well.
Of course, one is not necessarily conceivable without the other, but from that point of view we have actually always adopted this joint approach in discussions.
<P>
With this procedure - if we implement it in the way the rapporteur described - we have clear legal certainty for the ACP partner countries and beyond, as we are in the process of extending our cooperation to include to a greater extent the least developed countries which do not belong to the ACP.
Some parts of this procedure could therefore be applied here.
<P>
It is sometimes noticeable that when human rights violations, bad administration and corrupt government persist for a long time, the stringency with which such sanctions are applied occasionally diminishes to some extent.
I believe we should agree to proceed with equal intensity wherever we observe such shortcomings, and must continue to do so resolutely until the situation improves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, the Union is getting the opportunity to give its human rights policy flesh and blood.
The democracy and human rights clause can be made real by the Commission proposals.
With these proposals, operational agreements are being made about how the democracy clause should be used, and on the basis of which criteria.
The Union has a powerful instrument in its hands with the human rights clause, and should also wish to use it.
Clear criteria and procedures will increase the transparency of EU policy.
The countries concerned will also show more understanding of EU policy, and they will have an impetus to stick to the criteria.
That is why it all started.
<P>
However, the present state of affairs in this debate on procedure is extremely disappointing.
The Council wants to decide on the use of the democracy clause alone.
My group utterly disagrees with this.
Informing Parliament about the suspension of Lomé cooperation, for example, is by no means enough.
In these kinds of situations public pressure from Europe's representative body is needed.
Initiating Lomé cooperation requires assent from the European Parliament.
So it should follow that this same Parliament should also give its assent to the suspension of cooperation.
<P>
The Council's reluctant attitude should not deter us from our principal position, namely that democratic participation and control is a primary requirement.
The Council and Parliament must consult with each other in order to find a solution to this conflict.
We should not surrender something in advance.
The Council has also given the European Parliament a considerable role in the context of the accession partnership, after all.
<P>
For that matter, this also applies to the start of the procedure.
Not only should the Council and the Commission be able to initiate a suspension procedure and dialogue with a country, but the European Parliament should also be able to request this.
The rapporteur rightly asks for this in her report, of which I greatly approve.
This Parliament plays an important role in the human rights policy of the Union, and the ACP Joint Assembly is also an important instrument.
On the basis of this, the European Parliament deserves to be given an important role in the entire suspension procedure.
Incidentally, that is true not only of the suspension of cooperation, but also when cooperation is resumed.
<P>
Precisely now, when the Union wants to make cooperation in the Lomé context more political, the parliamentary dimension must be strengthened, otherwise it does not have a leg to stand on politically.
Which ACP country, for instance, will allow itself to be convinced by a moralistic European Union, which itself also violates democratic principles?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Andrews">
Mr President, I support a strong political dimension for the new cooperation agreements with the ACP countries, especially in the fields of human rights and good government under rule of law.
It is right that we should consistently emphasize the importance we attach to the steady integration of the ACP countries into the world economy and that new trade arrangements should be compatible with those operating within the World Trade Organization.
In fact, remaining tariff barriers must and should be removed to the greatest extent possible so that some element of fairness and equality of market access can be introduced.
<P>
In negotiating new ACP agreements, it is essential to stress the need for simplification and rationalization of aid instruments with a view to gradual evolution towards direct budgetary support for African states.
Due care and attention must be shown so that as trade liberalization takes place no damage is done to the fragile working of the African economies.
I welcome the declarations which were issued by the leaders of the G8 nations, following their meeting in England last month, relating to reducing the debt which African countries may have to pay back to the wealthier countries in the Western world.
As the new millennium approaches, African states will not be able to make that stride to self-sufficiency if they continue to be crippled with debt repayments.
The Western leaders must put in place structures and procedures to ensure that blanket reductions do not apply to all African states across the board.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hory">
Mr President, I, in turn, would like to express my complete agreement with the Group of the European Radical Alliance on the two main proposals contained in the report by Mrs Aelvoet.
<P>
Firstly, in June 1997 we asked that the European Parliament be able to give its assent to the Council in the case of suspension of the Convention.
However, it would seem that such a provision would be contrary to the Amsterdam Treaty.
We accept this, but consider that this is yet another example of the Treaty's inadequacy.
Having said that, we agree with the simple consultation procedure proposed by the rapporteur so that Parliament can at least give its opinion a priori .
<P>
In addition, following the example of the rapporteur, we think that the European Parliament, just like the Commission or any Member State, should have a power of initiative for the suspension of the application of the Convention.
I, for my part, am not certain that in a classic, orthodox view of the separation of powers, a parliamentary initiative of this type is valid.
However, as a militant and firm believer in European federalism, I would say that until the institutions provide Parliament with real legislative power, we will have to encourage similar encroachments by our House on the executive role.
<P>
Nonetheless, with the speed at which the framework procedure for the implementation of Article 366a of the Lomé Convention is being set up, there is a risk that it will really not have enough time to be applied.
That is why I would like once again to draw the attention of the Commission and the Council to one of the provisions contained in the Rocard report on the future of cooperation between the Union and the ACP countries.
Mr Rocard had proposed - and our House had followed his lead - that the criteria relating to democracy and respect for human rights on which aid would depend should be defined by the recipient countries themselves.
<P>
I believe this proposal would improve the political legitimacy of the provision on conditionality and would lead to increased efficiency.
But although we agree on the substance of the proposal, we must realize that its adoption would involve the ACP in the procedure itself.
We cannot ask these countries to define the criteria for aid, and therefore conversely those relating to the suspension of the Convention, without involving them in the decision to suspend aid to their country.
Consequently, we need to use our imagination and work to restore the balance of the entire procedure, so that it becomes an example of a truly fair cooperation policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sichrovsky">
Mr President, we support this request and particularly the idea behind it, although in our opinion it does not go far enough.
A consultation procedure is certainly necessary; an assent procedure would be the better solution.
We wish to announce one thing now: if there should be no solution during the British presidency, we will try to persuade the Austrian Government that this topic should be accorded particular importance after the change of presidency.
<P>
I also have a few general comments on this very important issue. On the basis of its own history, Europe should proceed with great caution in the field of human rights.
If Parliament succeeds in dealing with this problem itself, every care will have to be taken and we will have to ensure that we are not tempted to make generalized premature judgements.
<P>
The fact that we are becoming active in this area is to be welcomed, but each individual case must be examined closely.
The relevant countries, which are grouped together here, are at very different stages of economic development.
A measure may affect one country very severely and another less so.
The list of human rights which are constantly mentioned does not include, for example, the right to food and education, a right which is threatened when cooperation is terminated due to a lack of democratic development.
<P>
One thing we must bear in mind is that our role is not to act as judge, but to promote and support democratic development in the individual countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sauquillo Pérez del Arco">
Mr President, it has never been so important for the European Union to provide itself with a mechanism for suspending cooperation relations when human rights violations take place.
This is shown by the great number of urgent resolutions in this Parliament, which devotes a special heading to human rights, session after session.
<P>
By definition, that mechanism - insofar as it is a legal instrument - has to work, both for the sake of the credibility of the EU's foreign actions, which is now somewhat reduced, and, above all, as an inescapable requirement for the real achievement of the objectives established in the Treaties.
<P>
In order for it to work, the procedure for implementing the human rights clause cannot depend on unanimity in the Council, or pass through Parliament surreptitiously for information only.
The system of unanimity in the Council is unanimously recognized as causing paralysis in the decision making process. We have known that ever since the empty chair crisis of 1966, and we are aware of it now, when one of the challenges of enlargement is to modify a decision making procedure which, being based on unanimity, is not flexible enough.
<P>
So we do not think Parliament is making a revolutionary request in asking for decisions on this important matter to be adopted by majority.
The Council should not view this proposal with suspicion, because it is not an attempt to attack the current interests of the Member States, but to strengthen the policy and interests of the European Union in accordance with the principles established in the Treaties.
<P>
For Parliament to request to be consulted on one of the areas of foreign policy which most affects it - human rights - is not only not revolutionary, as Mrs Aelvoet says in her report's explanatory statement, but is entirely reasonable.
Consulting Parliament would have avoided a lot of the contradictory situations we now find ourselves in. For example, in this very partsession we will be presenting a resolution on Equatorial Guinea, which has just passed 15 death sentences, asking the Commission to think again about resuming cooperation with that country.
<P>
Let us provide ourselves with the necessary mechanism to sanction the violation of human rights, so basic and essential, and let us do it properly, with transparency and, above all, with guarantees.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="Corrie">
Mr President, I apologize to the House for not being in my place when the debate started.
Unfortunately my plane was late.
I congratulate Mrs Aelvoet on this excellent report.
The PPE Group unanimously supports it.
Suspension is a very serious matter and it is important that Parliament's views are heard.
However, it is important to remember that the assent procedure very much ties us in to what happened in Amsterdam.
If we cannot have that, then at least we should be allowed to comment when some situation like this arises.
<P>
We in Parliament also have to accept that there can be various kinds of situations.
For example, there was the horrendous situation in Nigeria when the former president hanged 19 people.
In such cases, where serious violations of human rights have taken place, the Commission may want to suspend a country immediately.
In others a very slow process may be building up where, simply because of what is happening in the country, it may be possible to alleviate the situation before it goes too far.
<P>
For instance, I have just been in the Comoros and was quite horrified by the situation which appears to be building up there.
One island, Anjouan, has declared independence and, at the same time, it expects to continue to get aid from the European Union.
We pointed out to them quite clearly that they could not continue to be in Lomé if they had declared their independence.
It may be that eventually we will have to suspend them.
That is the sort of situation which we should discuss.
<P>
Human rights and democracy are vital to our continued support for developing nations.
Quite honestly, good governance is probably even more important.
I would have thought that Africa was the natural continent to move on to after ASEAN.
Having seen the problems of ASEAN, many industries want to move out.
Unless countries are stable, people are simply not going to invest in those nations.
It is therefore important to work with other African nations to try and keep countries stable so that we do not have to suspend them.
<P>
I hope that, if we cannot have the assent procedure, the Commission will at least keep us very closely in contact with any situation arising where we may have to suspend a nation, and that the Committee on Development and Cooperation in particular would get any reports that were prepared.
Beyond that, the PPE Group will be delighted to support this report when it comes before the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, after years of lip service about compliance with human rights in the ACP countries, Mrs Aelvoet has managed to find a method whereby we have come a step closer to the effective functioning of the European institutions with regard to human rights compliance.
Moreover, the role of this Parliament has been strengthened.
I agree with Mr Bertens: it is not good enough yet, but it is a start.
Bravo, Mrs Aelvoet!
<P>
But how can this proposal be successful if an important country like Angola continues to arm itself heavily?
Angola has sold its oil supply for the coming three years, and with this money it has paid for the weapons in cash , weapons from Brazil and Russia - Russia, a member of the troika which has to supervise the peace process, would you believe?
The fact that Angola, a one-party state, can take this decision without democratic consultation with the legal opposition represents a failure of the democratic Lomé test.
So I urge the Council and the Commission to come up with a concrete proposal and an interim report from the European Parliament for the ACP counties to adhere to the arms percentage laid down in the Treaty. Obviously, they should also adhere to the good governance referred to by Mrs Günther.
Only then will democracy and human rights have a chance in the ACP countries as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
Mr President and Members of the House, it is clear that during the course of the debate a number of issues have been touched on that go beyond the strict terms of the second interim report of Mrs Aelvoet.
<P>
That is understandable because Parliament's interest in the proper implementation of the Fourth Lomé Convention and more particularly its human rights aspects is very great.
For example Mr Corrie has mentioned some examples of horrific conduct that give rise to consideration of what should be done in view of the close relationship that the Lomé Convention gives to the European Union with the countries where such conduct takes place.
Therefore the question of the application of the procedure provided for by Article 366a of the Lomé Convention, which is designed specifically to deal with that kind of situation, is obviously very important.
The Commission has carefully studied Mrs Aelvoet's second interim report and notes the amendments tabled which would envisage Parliament being consulted at the various stages of implementation of the procedure.
<P>
The Commission expressed its opinion when the first interim report was adopted on the desirability of involving Parliament more closely in the implementation of the procedure and it is clear that the current proposal for a Council decision is more explicit in this regard.
It provides for immediately informing Parliament in full on any decision taken in implementing Article 366a.
We do not feel that a process of formally consulting Parliament on the various stages of the procedure is feasible; not because we think Parliament's views are unimportant or insubstantial, but simply because of the specific provisions of the Treaties, in particular Article 300 which in effect sets out a procedure which is envisaged for situations such as this.
What is proposed would run counter to what is provided for in Article 300.
<P>
The Commission wants to be as sympathetic as possible and is certainly prepared to undertake to inform Parliament of any initiatives it takes or any proposal it submits under Article 366a and Parliament of course is in those circumstances more than able to take steps to make its views known.
If they are known then they would immediately be something that would come to the attention of the Commission and would have to be considered.
The Commission will continue to take into account all opinions expressed by Parliament in this regard.
<P>
I regret the fact that there has been a delay in setting up the arrangements under which Article 366a can be invoked where necessary.
I hope that as a result of this debate and what has been said during the course of it, both by Members and by myself, it will be possible to move as quickly as possible into a situation in which Article 366a can be invoked because the necessary procedure for doing so will have been agreed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Genetically modified micro-organisms
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0192/98) on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Council Directive amending Directive 90/219/EEC on the contained use of genetically modified microorganisms (C4-0031/98-95/0340(SYN)) (Rapporteur: Mr Trakatellis).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Trakatellis">
Mr President, one of the most important fields of biotechnology concerns the applications that are carried out with the use of genetically modified micro-organisms.
These applications have a significant effect on issues of health and disease, diet, the protection of the environment, agriculture and other important fields of human life and activity.
<P>
As a result, it is essential that increasing the possibilities of genetically modified micro-organisms goes ahead, since it promises a great deal.
However, since the nature and extent of the risks to humanity and the environment which are associated with these micro-organisms are not fully known, it is imperative that relevant work is carried out in certain areas which are clearly defined for each class of risk.
Work carried out under containment conditions is regulated by Directive 90/219, which aims to ensure on the one hand a common framework for the development of the new technology, and on the other the protection of human health and the environment.
Moreover, since the adoption of this directive, new scientific knowledge and applications have evolved, while, in parallel, since its application, relevant legal experience has been gained.
As a result, it is now right to amend and update the directive.
In these amendments we must aim for the greatest possible legal flexibility which, however, must not prove detrimental to safety.
On this point I sound a note of warning since we must not confuse a flexible and clearly defined framework with safety measures.
The risk of a future accident is increasing since the field is expanding rapidly.
A simple accident would be sufficient to give the biotech industry a bad name and lead to a crisis. We must avoid that by putting the appropriate safety measures in place.
<P>
Although the Council took on board a number of Parliament's amendments, substantive amendments were finally omitted from the Council's common position.
Your rapporteur takes the view that the common position only partly reflects the positions adopted by Parliament at first reading.
As a result, the recommendation for second reading proposes that the amendments which approximate to the position and spirit of the amendments adopted by Parliament in part-session should be reinstated.
<P>
The principal points are as follows:
<P>
Amendment No 2: the term "contained use' must be clarified so as to specify the containment measures in respect of work involving GMMs.
<P>
Amendment No 3: provision must be made for the reexamination of risk assessment where the competent authority has been notified that this assessment is no longer adequate.
This allows the relevant authority to intervene.
<P>
Amendments Nos 4 and 9: provisions must be introduced regarding liability insurance for users, given that despite all the containment measures, a risk exists, even if a very slight one.
It is therefore legitimate that there should be insurance cover and liability in case third persons are injured by the use of GMMs.
<P>
Amendment No 5: the user should have the opportunity to request formal authorization from the competent authority for category 2 uses.
<P>
Amendments Nos 7 and 8: the public must be notified before contained use begins, not only about the emergency plans, but also about relevant safety measures. Provision must also be made for public consultation.
<P>
Amendment No 10: inspections and other control measures must be organized by the relevant authority to ensure the correct application of the directive and the containment measures.
<P>
Amendments Nos 11, 12 and 13: Parliament must be involved in the procedure for drawing up and amending Annex II, Part B concerning the criteria for excluding certain GMMs from the field of application of the directive.
<P>
On the same grounds it is also proposed to amend the risk assessment procedure in Annex III, Part B. We cannot accept the exclusion of Parliament from the process of drawing up such an important part of the directive.
This will allow the Commission better to exercise its executive powers and will also make it easier for Parliament to control the Commission.
On this point, we fully agree with the Commission and expect it to support our positions.
<P>
Amendment No 14: this concerns the risk assessment procedure.
I wish to stress that the precise assessment of the risk is the very "heart' of the directive.
The Council has taken on board only general guidelines. We insist that the risk assessment procedure be clarified.
<P>
Finally, I wish to raise once again the matter of the choice of legal base, which should be Article 100a and not Article 130s(1). In industry, work relating to GMMs is regarded, among other things, as having significant repercussions on the terms of competition.
As a result, I think that Article 100a would be more correct. Also, following the approval of the recommendations concerning BSE, it has become clear, and Mr Santer has committed himself to it, that in issues relating to public health we must have codecision.
<P>
I wish to conclude by saying that the Commission must support our positions, which aim on the one hand to ensure the development of this new technology and, on the other, to protect human health and the environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Bowe">
Mr President, first of all, it is important that we all thank the rapporteur because of the enormous amount of work that he has undertaken in dealing with this extraordinarily technical and very complex directive.
I congratulate him on his grasp of the technical detail and his understanding of the problems associated with it.
<P>
This is a very topical report in the sense that this issue - biotechnology - has attracted a great deal of public interest and concern over the last few years.
This is an extraordinarily important report.
Biotechnology, as a science, has the potential to give us enormous new advances in the next century if it is used properly.
It can bring enormous benefits to the human race in general and increase prosperity for all of us.
But it is important that we build public confidence and trust in this technology.
To do that, it is necessary to have higher levels of protection to ensure that public health is protected and to ensure the environment in general is protected from any dangers that might arise from experimentation.
This directive essentially controls experimentation in contained facilities or the use of GMMs (genetically modified micro-organisms), again in contained facilities.
<P>
The rapporteur's amendments seek to ensure that those requirements are met and that responsible care is exercised by all the practitioners in this field.
<P>
On behalf of the Socialist Group I should like to say that we are certainly in favour of the development of this new science of biotechnology.
But we believe that it is necessary to ensure that ethical public health and general safety concerns are respected and considered fully.
The rapporteur's amendments help us in seeking those reassurances. I would commend them to the Commission and the Council.
<P>
The common position, as it has come back to us, is not a bad common position.
But there are still issues of concern, that the rapporteur's amendments address, and that we would wish to support.
Firstly, there is the whole issue of classification of these micro-organisms.
It is very true to say that the vast majority of micro-organisms that are experimented upon are, by and large, harmless and cause little threat.
But there are some that present enormous dangers, particularly those that are associated with traditional diseases, for example, the micro-organisms associated with things like bubonic plague.
We need to exercise the greatest caution when dealing with those.
Consequently we need to ensure that the containment and safety measures taken are appropriate to the risk of the micro-organism.
The rapporteur's amendments recognize that and certainly construct a system which would ensure that.
<P>
I would also echo the concern of the rapporteur on the issue of comitology.
This is a rather bizarre proposal from the point of view of comitology - two different annexes controlled by two different management systems.
It is thus something which we are not accustomed to, which we do not like and which we are very uncomfortable about.
We recognize that the Commission will be coming forward soon with a new proposal with regard to comitology and the development of the modus vivendi .
We would hope that a more rational approach would be taken by the Commission and that the issues which currently present themselves in this proposal can be resolved in that way.
<P>
Finally, I would also draw attention to the question of the legal base.
This proposal is currently under the cooperation procedure. We do not find that satisfactory.
We would have been delighted to continue the debate with the Council, with the Commission acting as facilitator, through the procedure of conciliation.
We regret that cannot be done.
Consequently we would wish to support the rapporteur's view that the legal base should be 100a.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Liese">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too wish to thank the rapporteur for the work he has done.
There is no doubt that great dangers are associated with genetic engineering and biotechnology.
We have often discussed these dangers here, for example in relation to the cloning of human beings.
As a further example, I am concerned that the application of prenatal diagnosis will lead to the selection of disabled persons.
This is a danger which we must recognize.
<P>
The current proposal for a regulation concerns an application of genetic engineering which, in my view, is associated with great opportunities and regarding which, after twenty years of use, the dangers perhaps envisaged some years ago have not in fact materialized.
So far there have not been any unforeseen incidents.
For this reason, I believe it makes sense to remove this directive from the realm of bureaucracy.
Europe must not fall any further behind in the production of medicines using genetically modified micro-organisms.
We must catch up, and for this we need fewer bureaucratic rules.
<P>
This does not mean any less security as we have a differentiated approach here.
The micro-organisms which are potentially dangerous, as Mr Bowe said, continue to be treated with extreme caution.
Harmless micro-organisms, however, must be treated with less caution as the danger does not lie in the fact that we are dealing with genetic engineering but in the microorganisms themselves.
That is why I have spoken out emphatically against some of the amendments to the report, which did not come from Mr Trakatellis but were voted into the report, that is Amendments Nos 2, 4, 9 and 14.
As far as liability is concerned, I also do not believe we need a particularly strict regulation for biotechnology.
We need a comprehensive regulation, which the Commission is currently preparing.
But we cannot always apply restrictions in the area of biotechnology or we will never be able to catch up in this area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Mr President, this is becoming monotonous, but I am also very grateful to the rapporteur, Mr Trakatellis, for this excellent report.
Biotechnology is a very young sector and has had hardly any practical experience.
Unexpected scientific results will be published over the coming years which will affect the risk assessment of these technologies.
It is therefore best to be very careful.
There must be clear legislation in which the risks are adequately contained.
<P>
That is why the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party thinks that Mr Trakatellis has, as I have said, produced an excellent report.
After the Council's common position a number of amendments are needed to contain the risks as much as possible.
The various explanations, such as the definition of contained use, are very important in this regard.
<P>
The liability of the user of genetically modified organisms has now been clearly provided for in a number of amendments, as long as they are adopted by this Parliament.
The competent authorities will rightly be allowed to intervene when they have indications that the risk assessment is no longer adequate.
<P>
The amendments also mean that the European Parliament is involved in the drawing up and amending of the criteria by which certain GMMs will be excluded from the directive.
Precisely because all risks have to be avoided, it seems right to me that the European Parliament should keep a distant but sharp eye on these criteria.
I understand that the European Commission supports Parliament in this involvement.
I would like to see this reiterated by the Commissioner.
<P>
To conclude, our group is clear about the legal basis, that this must be Article 100a. The directive covers industrial laboratories, after all, and therefore competition in the field of biotechnology.
Moreover, after the BSE crisis it was agreed that the codecision procedure had to apply in these kinds of matters.
I hope that this Parliament will also support Article 100a.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, I find it disgraceful that, as Mr Liese says, we in the House are saying that genetic engineering offers huge opportunities and would pose no danger in contained use, as in the report we are discussing today, yet at the same time we are avoiding liability like the plague!
If we deregulate, and state authorizations are therefore limited, then it is not acceptable that industry need not undertake liability for this.
If it supposedly poses no danger, then it is more than suspicious that liability is so vehemently rejected.
<P>
I know there has been massive lobbying of Members of this House in recent weeks and, as we can see, this has already had an effect on Mr Liese. The result of this is that no-one wants to deal with the issue of liability.
This is completely irresponsible as in fact it should be a case of industry showing more responsibility.
The German Federal Government, in particular, never tires of telling us that industry and science must take more responsibility.
If we want individual responsibility we absolutely have to have liability; it is not acceptable that every driver has to have liability insurance before he drives a car but this is not required of companies which work with pathogenic organisms and research laboratories which work with viruses which could escape into the atmosphere.
<P>
The report does not meet with our approval because it deregulates many areas; authorization simply because a time limit has elapsed no longer has anything to do with the precautionary principle.
In conclusion, I would like to emphasize once again that the question of liability will be extremely important for us.
It is not for nothing that a recent referendum in Austria showed that a liability regulation is required.
There are also Member States who want it.
So if we want industry to take responsibility itself we must not wait until the damage is done; instead, we must take industry at its word...
<P>
(The President cut off the speaker)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, the Trakatellis report deals with one of those subjects which make you wonder to what extent the European Parliament should be discussing it.
It is such a technical matter that you almost have to have worked in a biotechnology laboratory in order to know anything about it. Also, you have not even said whether the regulations from this directive are better as they were or as they are evolving via the common position.
It is all about the question of whether a laboratory must comply with strict safety regulations when it is working with genetic modification techniques.
According to the Commission proposal, laboratories must determine for themselves, by means of risk assessment, what the level of safety measures should be.
This is a curious construction, because what the standards are for a major risk has not been laid down anywhere.
When, as a company, with strict safety standards in force, you have furthermore to follow a heavier administrative procedure for notification than when you reach weaker safety measures via the risk assessment, then that comprises an element of contradiction.
If, as a company, you want to be extremely cautious, you are punished administratively, as it were, and if you asses the risk to be a little less high, you do not have to comply with the heavy notification procedure.
<P>
According to my assessment, this leads to a downward pressure on the containment level.
What we need above all, I think, is a more standardized risk assessment.
The text of Annex III deals with this, but in far too general terms.
I am not sure whether in practice the European Parliament amendments will lead to an improved notification procedure.
To be on the safe side, I will support them, but without much conviction.
<P>
As far as the legal basis is concerned, I cannot make more out of it than 130s. Whether the Member States will reach a high level of protection with this, I venture to doubt.
Thankfully companies are allowed to exceed the prescribed level of protection, insofar as this is clear.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gebhardt">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as the rapporteur so rightly observed, biotechnology and in particular genetic engineering are expanding greatly.
Within the framework of fair and regulated competition in the European Union it is therefore necessary to form an appropriate legal basis.
This is a very important point and one which is imperative, partly because all regulations in the area of biotechnology in the European Union are based on Article 100a.
<P>
This includes the issue of comitology.
It is obvious that the 3b regulatory committee procedure, which the European Parliament completely excludes from the consultations on changing the criteria which allow certain genetically modified micro-organisms to be exempted from the field of application of the directive, is completely unacceptable for us as the European Parliament.
We recently had to abandon a directive on this issue because the Council could not be moved on it.
This is not acceptable to us, however.
If we have cooperation or codecision, the appropriate rights must also be guaranteed for the European Parliament in the committees.
<P>
My second point deals with information for the public.
It is stated in the common position that the Member States can stipulate that the public be allowed to give their opinion on specific issues.
What are specific issues?
Who defines these specific issues?
What can it possibly mean?
It is inexplicable that the European Council insists that such an unclear definition, or nondefinition, should remain.
It is also necessary to clarify the situation, within the context of fair competition, as is intended in the amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schleicher">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to mention briefly why we are dealing with this directive.
According to the Commission's explanation, on the one hand genetic modification procedures must be applied responsibly, and on the other hand the increase in scientific knowledge and findings in the last 10 years must be taken into account.
<P>
Findings have progressed greatly worldwide.
Europe has set a very strict standard and this directive actually aims to reduce this strict standard and the high degree of bureaucracy associated with it, as experience has shown that what was considered to be high-risk has not turned out that way, thus enabling procedures to be simplified.
I am of the opinion that the points made in the common position are responsible, and I would like this directive also to take effect if possible.
I can support what is proposed in the common position.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lannoye">
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Gillis">
Mr President, I welcome this report and the work of the rapporteur, Mr Trakatellis, and the Committee in ensuring that the European Parliament will have a role in supervising developments in this very technical and difficult field.
Recommending that the legal basis be changed to 100a ensures that the codecision procedure will be followed in full.
<P>
It is essential that we learn from past experience and insist on openness and transparency.
It is also necessary to provide the mechanism to guarantee the safety not only of those working in the field of biotechnology but also of the general public.
There is a great need to build public trust and confidence.
This is a new technology and one that offers huge potential in the medical field for the treatment of many diseases for which as yet there are no cures, and for the relief of suffering and pain for millions of people.
<P>
We must push out the frontiers of research but in an open and transparent way.
Within the highest safety standards, we must encourage and support research and ensure that the industry is not bogged down with so many restrictions that laboratories will move their research out of Europe altogether and cause a brain drain and loss of highly trained people and highly skilled jobs.
The message to the public with regard to biotechnology must be balanced and devoid of emotion, unlike much of what has happened so far in the area of biotechnological research.
We have seen many wonderful success stories in the biotech field, the development of genetic insulin for example.
There are many more untapped possibilities.
In the interests of mankind we have a responsibility to keep searching for the right answers.
I hope the outdated mind-set of the past will not stand in the way of the relief of so many in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking the rapporteur and the committee for their report and thorough work on the common position adopted by the Council on this matter.
<P>
The directive was proposed and adopted to ensure that the precautionary principle could be followed with regard to human health and the environment so that the benefits of this technology could develop safely.
What it seeks to do in a single piece of specific horizontal legislation is to cover a highly technical and rapidly evolving area of work that obviously is of enormous importance.
A number of problems are identified with the directive in relation to classification of genetically modified microorganisms, such as insufficient guidance on risk-assessment and containment measures, the absence of a linkage of the notification and administrative measures to the degree of risk of the activities, and so on.
<P>
The common position strengthens and clarifies the original Commission proposal designed to deal with this matter.
The main areas concerned include increased administrative control for Class 3 and 4 work: in cases of doubt in classification of an activity the more stringent safety measures have to be applied; the extension of the requirement for safety plans to all cases where the failure of containment could lead to serious danger; and the strengthening of the containment and control measures by incorporation of the requirement to apply the principles of good occupational safety and hygiene in all cases.
<P>
The Commission was not, however, able to support the common position where it sought to exclude the European Parliament from the procedure to establish and modify Annex II Part B, which affects the scope of the directive, nor Article 21, where the Council would still wish to stick to a 3b regulatory committee procedure instead of the 2a procedure proposed by the Commission following the first opinion of Parliament.
<P>
Of the 36 amendments tabled, including supplementary amendments, the Commission can accept in full Amendments Nos 5, 6, 17, 19, 25, 32 and 36, and can partially accept 8, 12, 13 and 14, and accept in principle 2, 18, 20, 21, 28, 33, 34 and 35, which may need some rewording.


<P>
With respect to Amendment No 13, the Commission can accept a 2a comitology procedure which gives flexibility to the Council to adopt different measures from those proposed by the Commission instead of the 3b procedure contained in the Commission proposal.
<P>
Concerning the requirement in the amendment to present a report on experience with the directive, the Commission considers that the aim of the amendment could be achieved by making available to Parliament the report it is required to produce under Article 18(3).
But the proposal in the amendment that the decisions and minutes of the regulatory committee should be made publicly available is not acceptable since that is not in line with the recent agreement between the Commission and Parliament applicable since December 1996 on transparency and the publicity of committee meetings.
<P>
Then there are 17 amendments which the Commission cannot accept.
Amendment No 1 proposes to change the legal base from Article 130s(1) to Article 100a.
The scope of the directive is not being significantly altered and it does not impact directly on the functioning of the single market.
That is why the Commission considers that there is no legal justification for changing the legal basis of the directive, and that opinion is in line with that given by the Legal Affairs Committee of Parliament.
An additional consideration is that the change of legal base would restrict Member States from having the flexibility to take containment and control measures going beyond those in the directives which at present they can do, because currently Member States can go beyond the standards set out in the directive in their national legislation.
The issue of liability insurance and the provision of financial security in Amendments Nos 4 and 9 are under consideration by the Commission which, as has been said, intends to produce a White Paper on environmental liability, and the Commission would prefer to deal with this matter in a horizontal manner to avoid different liability requirements in different directives.
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Amendment No 11 is not acceptable because the requirement to utilize the full legislative procedure for modifications to the risk-assessment procedure set out in Annex III would prevent the rapid modification of the annex which is purely technical in nature, and it could be that such a restriction would lead to safety problems, for instance, where, as a result of additional scientific information, a rapid change to the annex would be needed.
The Commission considers that the proposed procedure utilizing a committee of representatives to the Member States will give the required flexibility and appropriate rigour for the examination of any proposals to modify the annex.
<P>
Amendments Nos 3, 7, 10, 16, 24 and 31 are not acceptable because they duplicate provisions present in other articles and the technical Amendments Nos 15, 26 and 30 would operate to increase the burden of control measures, seeking to introduce more stringent measures than those of Directive 90/679/EEC, which regulates the protection of workers from risks from exposure to biological agents at work.
This directive also covers work with genetically modified micro-organisms and the Commission wishes to maintain comparable containment requirements for similar work under the two directives.
<P>
Amendments Nos 22, 23, 24 and 27 proposed increased burdens, but we do not think that they make a commensurate contribution to safety.
<P>
Amendment No 29 is technically invalid since the genetically modified micro-organisms are not required to be in a closed system.
<P>
I wish to finish by stressing the added value of the amendments which have been accepted, wholly or partially, which are a considerable number.
An example of this is Amendment No 5 by Mr Trakatellis, which would allow applicants to request a reply from a competent authority within a defined time period and thus clarify the applicant's position and obligations under the directive.
<P>
I believe that the amendments clarify and reinforce the common position and, together with that text, will provide a sound and enforceable framework providing the high level of safety that we are all seeking to achieve.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, I would like to ask the Commission a question because Parliament is continually put off with promises of a White Paper on liability, that is, with a horizontal solution.
We, the European Parliament, have taken an initiative and have been waiting for a regulation of this kind for years.
I would like to ask the Commissioner - he sits in the Commission after all and must know how difficult it is there - when, in his opinion, there will be a regulation.
<P>
My second question is also based on this: Commissioner, do you believe that the fact that the taxpayer - that is, the general public - must now take responsibility for possible damage is compatible with the responsibility of industry and science?
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<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
Mr President, we are consulting at the moment with interested parties and hope to put something forward this year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
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The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Humane trapping
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0197/98) by Mr Pimenta, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning the signing and conclusion of an International Agreement in the form of Agreed Minute between the European Community and the United States of America on humane trapping standards (COM(97)0726 - C4-0014/98-97/0360(CNS)).
<P>
Regrettably, Mr Pimenta cannot be here.
Mrs Banotti is speaking in his place.
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<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Banotti">
Mr President, you might be interested to know why Mr Pimenta invited me to present his report this evening.
I have the doubtful honour of being the original rapporteur on the prohibition of the importation of furs caught with leghold traps.
I have kept a watching brief on the issue ever since.
And very nasty things they are, too.
I received several of them through my mailbox when I was rapporteur.
I hope Mr Pimenta did not have the same problem when he took over the report.
<P>
We have already discussed at length the arrangements between the Canadian and Russian Governments in relation to this.
Mr Pimenta believes that the American authorities are attempting to get round the leghold trap Regulation 3254/91 on the grounds that they have legislation on humane trapping already in existence. He does not believe this is correct.
<P>
The central focus of the regulation is the prohibition of leghold traps.
The Canadian and Russian commitment to ban so-called conventional leghold traps is at least unconditional.
But the same cannot be said for the US which has only offered a six-year phase-in period that is subject to some substantial derogations.
These derogations are specified in sections 423 and 424 of the standards.
Although this text is similar to the text incorporated in the agreement with Canada and Russia, the US commitment on leghold traps is pursuant to the standards, that is, it is conditional.
That is in addition to the fact that it has demanded a longer phase-in period.
<P>
In October the US undertook to phase out the use of conventional leghold traps within four years subject to the existence of 'viable replacement traps' .
This proviso was removed from the December text.
The whole episode has immediate consequences for animal welfare where many millions of animals will continue to be subjected to the indiscriminate cruelty of leghold traps for many years to come, perhaps even resulting in some forms of these traps being inappropriately classified as humane.
It also reveals much of the inadequacy of the present EU strategy on matters relating to the WTO.
In a choice between fulfilling their legal obligation to implement Community legislation and responding to a possible breach of WTO rules, the Commission and Council opted to ignore their statutory EU obligations in favour of WTO considerations.
<P>
The Commission and Council repeatedly chose to ignore the opinion of the European Parliament, including its many constructive proposals to balance the various interests: for example, to ensure the proportionality of trade measures and to take account of the interests of native people.
At the same time, and despite a range of related problems also including cosmetic testing and farm animal husbandry, the Commission has failed to present any formal analysis or proposals on how to approach or resolve the complex issue of trade and animal welfare: for example, with respect to utilization or modification of the existing Article XX exceptions within the WTO rules.
<P>
The Commission has similarly failed to raise these concerns in Geneva or to support the development of a high-level dialogue on the subject, an idea first proposed at the Globe Symposium held in 1996.
<P>
Regrettably the Commission has also shown no willingness to engage in a debate to enable appropriate and legitimate distinctions to be made between products on the basis of their method of production - an issue which is of central importance both to animal welfare and to the progress of the trade and environmental debate.
<P>
That is why Mr Pimenta, as rapporteur, is asking Parliament to reject the proposed agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Ilaskivi">
Mr President, you can beat your head against the wall in many different ways.
This has been evident on a number of occasions when Parliament has expressed its opinion on agreements dealing with painless animal traps.
On the basis of Mr Pimenta's report, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has now recommended the rejection of the agreement, initially drawn up with Canada and Russia, and now with the USA. This is the way Parliament has gone, then.
The Commission has thus listened to Parliament, but has implemented - and may now, on the Council's recommendation, implement - the agreement they negotiated.
<P>
A good thing is not always the best thing.
This old Finnish saying is obviously unknown to Mr Pimenta, the Committee responsible or Parliament generally.
We set our sights on traps inflicting absolutely no pain.
However, no-one has come up with a system that does not cause at least some pain.
The agreements have been a clear step forward.
Their rejection logically signifies the continuation of the present pain-inflicting system of trapping animals.
<P>
The REX Committee has unanimously taken a positive stand on the agreement that is to be discussed.
When, furthermore, the USA is involved, as the latest party to the agreement, this view is well justified.
I hope, ladies and gentlemen, that we will not be beating our heads against the wall yet again.
I hope that Parliament will take a step forward in this matter.
It will not be perfect, but striving for perfection is a good way of achieving nothing at all.
The agreement should thus be approved, contrary to the opinion of the responsible Committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Pollack">
Mr President, this is hopefully the last sad episode in the sorry saga of the leghold trap, where we have seen the strongly held view of the Parliament, elected by the people of Europe, overruled by the Commission in the interests of international trade deals.
The victims are the fur-bearing animals of North America, Canada and Russia who are cruelly killed so that rich women in the West can wear their skins.
There is no justification for this.
<P>
The Socialist Group fully endorses, as before, Mr Pimenta's excellent report calling for a rejection of the agreement on the grounds clearly set out in his report.
The agreements were wrong before, they are still wrong and we see no reason to change our mind.
This agreement with the USA suffers from the same deficiencies as those we previously rejected with Canada and Russia, and it is even weaker as Mr Pimenta shows in his report.
It is also unlikely that it can be monitored and properly implemented because the powers vested in the state governments in the United States, who are not signatory to the agreements, mean that they will not properly implement it.
<P>
We believe that the Commission has taken the wrong path since it refused to implement the regulation of 1991 at its due date of 1996.
We intend to stick to our guns because we believe that we are right and we can only hope that this unsatisfactory situation does not occur again.
We also hope that it will underline the need to strengthen Article 20 of the GATT.
It is outrageous that European legislation is being corrupted in this way.
I do not believe that these weak agreements will prevent one single bit of cruelty to fur-bearing animals, and therefore they defeat the very purpose of their existence.
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<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Mr President, the entire leghold trap affair is becoming increasingly ridiculous.
I might just as well have repeated what I said here two years ago.
It looks like a never-ending story, because this agreement between the Union and the United States is even worse than the agreement we also rejected between the Union and Canada and Russia.
<P>
Whilst Canada and Russia had at least promised to implement the ban on so-called conventional leghold traps, the same can in no way be said of the United States.
They have merely offered to phase out gradually the leghold trap over a period of six years, and in addition have stipulated quite a number of derogations.
This agreement is decidedly insufficient, and must therefore be rejected.
<P>
The entire affair is a serious demonstration of the fact that present EU strategy on issues relating to the WTO is totally unsuitable.
It is a real scandal that the Council and the Commission have laid aside the positions they had taken earlier, and agreed to an even weaker proposal in order to escape a possible conflict with the WTO.
It is extremely alarming to see how easily the Council and the Commission lay aside EU legislation.
The European Parliament has repeatedly pointed out that the 1991 regulation, which totally prohibits the use of the leghold trap, must be implemented.
Unfortunately, the Council and the Commission have completely ignored this Parliament's positions.
The entire affair is a serious undermining of EU legislation, and also undermines European democracy.
But even more serious are the consequences for the well-being of animals, because millions of animals will continue to die a cruel death in these leghold traps.
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<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bloch von Blottnitz">
Mr President, when discussing humane trapping it is important to note first that the whole course of events is a drama in several scandalous acts.
First I would like to remind you of Regulation 3254/91, which goes back to 1991, and which states that from 1 January 1996 the furs of animals caught using leghold traps should no longer be imported into the EU.
The Commission, together with the Council, simply did not enact any implementing rule and thus sacrificed an EU law which now simply does not exist.
If we look more closely, we find that it was sacrificed on the altar of the WTO.
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Secondly, the title: "Humane trapping' .
There is no such thing as humane trapping using any kind of traps!
We are simply deceiving ourselves if we say such a thing.
To the animals which die a wretched death it is completely irrelevant which type of trap is used.
We must finally learn that animals are living creatures and not commodities.
This way of thinking is positively mediaeval.
Yet we are now approaching the year 2000 and still think in this way.
<P>
Thirdly, the critical point: this agreement with the USA.
The agreements with Canada and Russia were very rough, in the true sense of the word.
But this overshadows everything else.
There are long transitional phases, there are no legal norms whatsoever and it is not at all clear when it will no longer be permitted to trap animals with this kind of trap.
In addition, it is contempt of Parliament, since we were elected by millions of citizens and are their representatives.
And the people do not want any more leghold traps.
For this simple reason we will of course approve Mr Pimenta's report, and completely reject all existing agreements and the Commission's entire course of action.
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<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, most of us on the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection agree with Mr Pimenta's report, which again criticizes this proposal because of the lack of participation not just of NGO but also of some of the countries involved in this matter.
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So we completely agree with Mr Pimenta's proposal to reject the proposed agreement as totally inadequate, to ban fur imports without further delay, and above all to encourage the participation of native peoples.
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At no time during the debate on this matter in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection did we forget the rights of native peoples, who have been hunting for many years and do not kill animals in a cruel manner, unlike other countries which tend towards that sort of behaviour.
<P>
I am particularly interested in this subject because I live in Asturias, a region in northern Spain which has perhaps the most important surviving population of brown bears - 80 individuals.
During the last 20 days, three brown bears have died.
The investigation has not yet been completed, but the suspicion is that an adult animal - especially important for the conservation of the species - died because poachers had set a trap for other animals.
And that is what tends to happen when traps are set which can affect animals threatened with extinction.
<P>
So, Mr President, we are going to support Mr Pimenta's report.
We think it is time to make a final decision and pay no more attention to commercial interests.
And we hope it is approved by a large majority in the House, as it was in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Leperre-Verrier">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, will the European Union be able to ensure that the ban on importing fur from animals captured in leghold traps is respected throughout its territory?
Our debate is just one in a long series of debates, and I hope Parliament will be able to show itself to be logical and consistent with the previous positions it has taken.
<P>
I am one of those people who, up until now, have preferred to show understanding and moderation with respect to the Commission's positions, which were in fact often adopted unilaterally.
I accepted, although certainly with some reluctance, that the need to reach an agreement meant prolonging negotiations for a year.
I believed too that the agreements with Canada and Russia were undoubtedly a stopgap measure, but at least they had the advantage of bringing the negotiations out of the deadlock they had reached.
<P>
Having said that, goodwill has its limits and the agreement with the United States which you are proposing to us today, Commissioner, is entirely unacceptable.
I thus share the opinion of our rapporteur, and I congratulate him on the quality of his work.
In fact, this agreement lags far behind in relation to the agreement between the European Union, Canada and Russia, which is itself limited.
The number of derogations and the six-year application period do not augur well.
Moreover, it is not unreasonable to doubt the will and the ability of the American authorities to impose this agreement on its own states.
<P>
These are some of the many questions to which we have no answer.
We must therefore ask, along with Mr Pimenta, that this agreement with the United States be rejected.
Furthermore, the debate must be put into context and we must take account of the fact that as well as the problem of leghold traps, this is a question of the European Union's ability to stand up to pressure from the WTO.
<P>
The Commission should be aware of the consequences of the agreements it plans to approve.
And we must regret once more that it is presenting Parliament with a fait accompli .
In addition, it is forcing Parliament to renounce fundamental principles.
Today, it is the protection of the environment which is at issue; tomorrow, it will be social clauses or our culture which will be harmed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
Mr President, by way of introduction I would like to say that safeguarding animal welfare is indeed paramount.
And that is precisely why I cannot support Mr Pimenta's rejection of the proposal for an agreement with the USA.
I believe we should recommend the agreement and the REX Committee.
Firstly, before the agreement can be rejected, the alternative to the agreement must be assessed realistically.
Secondly, the consequences of the agreement in the USA and, of course, in the EU must be considered.
And thirdly, the ongoing prospects of developing better, more humane traps need to be considered.
<P>
The alternative to the agreement with the USA is not some other agreement with better standards.
So it is not a good idea to revert to the Council decision concerning the banning of leghold traps.
Mrs Pollack used the word 'insulting' , and this is the crux of the matter.
The European Parliament is insulted because it wanted the 1991 resolution to be upheld, even though - as far as I can see - the agreements with Russia, Canada and the USA would serve to improve animal welfare.
Why?
The resolution on banning leghold traps is very limited.
It applies only to 13 species, as opposed to the 19 covered by the new agreement.
It does not ban the use of leghold traps, but only the import of pelts, and in the main, this resolution only covers this one method of trapping.
As I have stated before, it is hypocritical to focus on this one - albeit barbaric - trapping method, while traps that are no less cruel are used within the EU.
That - not more stringent requirements for traps - is the alternative to the agreements with Russia, Canada and now also the USA.
<P>
EU fur exports to the USA are currently twice as much as imports from the USA.
This is an important point, because it shows that we should be focusing more on the standards applicable to trapping in Europe.
The agreement that has just been established will actually raise standards in several EU countries.
Perhaps we should begin there instead of scoring cheap animal welfare points at the expense of hunters in the USA.
Finally - and perhaps most significantly - the agreement makes financial provision for research into better traps.
In other words, what we have is an agreement bringing in concrete standards for traps and a programme for improving the existing traps.
That has to be better than an import ban, a case with the WTO and European hunters failing to live up to the standards.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Blot">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as regards this draft agreement between the United States and the European Union, we all fully share the rapporteur's opinion that it should be rejected.
<P>
In fact, in terms of this question of leghold traps which has already gone on for a long time, the agreements reached with Canada and the United States have never really received the approval of the European Parliament.
They were, however, superior to this one.
Three elements demonstrate the extent to which it is difficult to conduct truly fair diplomatic negotiations with the United States.
<P>
Firstly, the Americans have become accustomed - and it is once again the case in this agreement - to evoking their internal constitutional provisions in accordance with which, in many fields including this one, it is actually the federal states, and not the federal government, which are responsible. This allows them, at the time of the application of the agreement, to challenge to some extent the signature appended at the federal level.
They have already done the same for other unrelated issues, such as the international market in electrical engineering, and this shows that there really is inequality in the agreements we sign with the United States.
<P>
Secondly, the US rejects the dispute settlement procedure and confines itself to a simple consultation mechanism, which is obviously insufficient.
Finally, the periods of time agreed with the United States for the elimination of leghold traps are becoming longer and longer, which means that the very content of the agreement is called into question.
<P>
Therefore, as far as the substance is concerned, we would like to see the disappearance of all of these traps; however, further to the matter under debate here, there is a problem of principle in relation to the agreements approved between the United States and the European Union.
We talked in the past about "unequal' agreements concluded between China and the European powers.
We often have the feeling that it is also a matter of unequal agreements when the United States and the European Union come into conflict.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, naturally no-one can sympathize with the idea or practice of barbarous methods, of cruel methods of torture, in the hunting of fur-bearing animals.
<P>
But I see that several of my colleagues show such excessive sensitivity that, if they continue in this direction, looking for the ideal solution, in other words the abolition of hunting fur-bearing animals, we will arrive at an unacceptable impasse.
From this viewpoint, we feel that the agreements with Russia and Canada, while they do not provide the ideal solution, nevertheless give a positive thrust to the matter by prohibiting leghold traps and any other methods of hunting which are unnecessarily cruel.
As a result, we think that these agreements offer scope and that they can be improved and extended by means of steadfast negotiations with the United States.
<P>
On the other hand, we believe that the more stringent these measures are, the more likely it is that they will be violated.
Past experience shows that no very stringent law has remained inviolate; on the contrary, such laws have invariably given birth to a variety of other ways, some of them criminal, of being violated.
<P>
However, there is another aspect that I wish to talk about: sensitivity towards animals is justified but there must also be sensitivity towards native peoples. Thousands of people earn a living from treating and trading in fur.
As an example I shall take north-eastern Greece, around Kastoria. Hundreds of small businesses exist thanks to the treatment, trade and sale of fur, and thousands of people have satisfactory employment.
As a result, we cannot ignore such vital aspects of the matter.
<P>
Finally, in order to ensure that such species do not disappear, I think that as well as restricting their cruel hunting, it is possible at both a Community and a national level to promote reserves, by means of subsidies and other measures. There could be reserves at a Community level and national parks, which would make it easy to propagate those species which are fur-bearing and, indeed, exceedingly fur-bearing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Pimenta for this excellent new report on this matter.
It has turned into a novel, a thriller, a thriller about leghold traps and 13 animal species.
<P>
Let me remind you what this is all about. Animals are trapped, their bones broken, their tendons torn.
They try to break free.
With their own jaws they break their own bones.
They tear their own flesh.
They eat their own paws to try to get free. They drag themselves through the snow, leaving a trail behind them, which if I may say so, makes them easy to track.
<P>
For years, since the 1991 regulation, we have been trying to ban this monstrosity.
Every year, the European Commission tells us: "another short delay, Mr Torturer, just a little more time' .
We have been told that we should not disturb the Inuit people, as if traditional Inuit fishermen, since the beginning of time, used steel leghold traps.
<P>
We are now being told that we should not disturb the World Trade Organization and that a panel is to be consulted, as for bananas and as for hormone derived meat.
The Geneva panel is now becoming the divine help.
<P>
We concluded an agreement with the United States in December 1997, just as we had concluded an agreement with Canada and Russia in July 1997.
Obviously, no funds are being made available; it is simply a matter of an agreed minute, like with the Blair House agreement, which the Commission representative is very familiar with.
We are in fact reliving the whole Blair House situation and we are being told that the legal scope of the agreement is very limited, due to the federal structure of the United States which means that the states involved disregard what takes place in Washington.
<P>
As regards the substance, the Commission is happy; it obtains a further delay of three to five additional years, with the United States simply proposing to us that they go even further in this unacceptable situation, in this monstrosity.
<P>
The most important thing about this matter is that it is symbolic.
As with bananas, cheese manufactured from raw milk, and hormone derived meat and milk, we are giving in, as we have done every time, to the United States.
I repeat, Mr President, and I will finish with this, that as regards the Helms-Burton or d'Amato acts, the United States did not pay as much attention to our concerns as we are paying to theirs.
As far as we are concerned, we agree with Mr Pimenta's position, which if I may say so, is the only possible position when discussing animals, humanity and dignity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Skinner">
Mr President, I would like to say that I agree with the report.
The thinking behind this report is quite clear because, as everyone knows who has constituents who have written to them and informed them about this barbarous practice and as previous speakers have mentioned, the barbarism which can occur so randomly and leave animals to suffer for so many days is quite clearly unacceptable in a civilized world.
<P>
Many people in the UK put their name down to questionnaires sent to me and it is quite clear from deputations of others in the UK that they feel extremely strongly on this issue as with other issues of animal welfare.
<P>
Europe is one of the major consumers of the fur pelt trade - something like 70 % of which ends up within the European Union.
It is quite clear that as consumers we have a very strong and authoritative voice on this issue.
I believe the Commission has been wrong not to challenge the WTO more strongly on the grounds of the ethicality of the environmental, welfare and social issues.
I think that there can be a stronger voice.
I know that Sir Leon in particular has made strenuous efforts to bring a balance to world trade from the Commission's point of view.
There are some lines which we cannot step over: not just in this instance but also with regard to aspects of asbestos, for example, which threatens hormones in beef.
<P>
It is quite clear to my mind and to others in this Parliament that when we choose to reject what is occurring in terms of the deals which are being struck in Europe's name, when we are speaking for the people, our views should be respected and people should be brought to understand that in that respect, and that respect alone, we cannot renege on the issues which Parliament discusses and puts before you, Sir Leon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Agreement with Guinea on fishing
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0178/98) by Mr Girão Pereira, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on the conclusion of the Protocol establishing the fishing possibilities and the financial compensation provided for in the Agreement between the European Community and the Government of the Republic of Guinea on fishing off the Guinean coast for the period 1 January 1998 to 31 December 1999 (COM(98)0129 - C4-0245/98-98/0086(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Girão Pereira">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, over the last few years the Commission has brought proposals to the Council and Parliament to enter into fishing agreements with non-EU countries, opening up the possibility of keeping Member States' fleets active in the face of a growing shortage of fish stocks in the waters of the Union.
<P>
The agreement with Guinea is thus in line with that policy, which we consider appropriate and obviously support in the light of the importance of fishing to some of our coastal regions, to industry and to the market itself.
Our relations with Guinea in that sector already go back to 1986.
This, therefore, is a matter of renewing a pre-existing agreement for the period from 1 January 1998 to 31 December 1999.
<P>
It is important to highlight some of its most significant aspects.
The financial compensation has been substantially increased, but there is also an increase in fishing opportunities as a result of the greater number of vessels that can operate in those areas.
<P>
Another aspect it is important to emphasize, and an innovative one, is that approximately 50 % of the overall financial compensation is allocated to specific aid to the Guinean fishing industry, particularly in terms of scientific programmes, technical and professional training schemes, support schemes for the bodies responsible for the surveillance and supervision of fishing activities and artisanal fishermen's support schemes.
Furthermore, these financial aid schemes have been extended to include some devices for proper resource management, inasmuch as it is stipulated that any vessel operating in the area must have an observer aboard to keep an eye on her fishing activities and gather statistical information on catches.
<P>
In addition - and this is a major innovation - I have to inform you that the Guinean Ministry of Fisheries is under an obligation to send the Commission an annual report on the scientific and technical actions it is taking to increase its knowledge of fish stocks.
<P>
An even more important aspect is that payment of the financial compensation is dependent on the effective implementation of those actions in connection with the development of local fisheries and the conservation of resources. This is explicitly stipulated in the final part of Article 4 of the protocol.
This is why I am presenting Amendment No 5, which seems more allembracing to me than the one from the Committee on Fisheries, because it invokes that clause of the protocol and the European Parliament's right to inspect the reports referred to in it.
For these reasons, it can be seen that the contents of this report conform to the guidelines laid down by the Council at its meeting of 30 October 1997, according to which approximately half the Community finance ought to be dedicated to objectives specifically aimed at improving the fisheries situation.
<P>
Furthermore, it incorporates and puts into practice many of the Commission's recommendations for development and cooperation. The Commission has always insisted that a development aspect should be included in agreements of this type.
Because of the importance of this agreement to the European Union's fishing industry, and because of its innovative measures, we believe it will receive this House's unanimous support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldarelli">
Mr President, as far as I am concerned, there are some difficulties with this agreement.
First of all, there is the problem with the number of fishing boats: 74 compared with the 43 allowed in the previous agreement.
Furthermore, the agreement was initialled by the Commission without first consulting Parliament for an opinion, which is why I agree with the rapporteur who maintains that Parliament must be informed and that the protocol must be observed.
In addition to these aspects, there are problems especially with monitoring fishing activities within 10 miles.
This fishing would conflict greatly with the interests of the 100 000 or so artisanal fishermen who operate in this country and who have repeatedly protested to the European Union and to the local authorities about this.
<P>
Also, the financial compensation proposed for artisanal fishermen has been greatly reduced in relation to the overall amount of ECU 6.5 million: only ECU 320 000 in assistance for artisanal fishing compared with the ECU 800 000 for the ministry and the ECU 800 000 for monitoring and surveillance.
The fishing vessels, of which there are exactly 74 - and 33 of these have seine nets which are very harmful and also create a lot of difficulties - only pay ECU 20 per tonne, which is practically 40 000 lira per 10 quintal tonnes: a truly insignificant figure.
<P>
However, having said that we realize that this agreement has been initialled, we realize that it has to be submitted for verification, but we undoubtedly hope that in future international agreements will grant at least equal treatment to third country resources.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cunha">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by congratulating Mr Girão Pereira on his report. It follows the European Parliament's traditional line on fishing agreements.
It is a very clear report and I should like to support everything it says, on behalf of my group.
<P>
In essence I think it is an agreement which contains some innovations, because we are basically trying to put into practice an old principle we always follow in this House, according to which money and financial compensation paid by the European Union should benefit the fishing industry in the countries with which we enter into agreements, and I therefore think our argument that at least half the Community financial compensation should benefit local fisheries is correct.
At least, I think, this is a start.
Obviously, it would be nice if the principle were applied to the whole of the compensation, but we are in a delicate area where there is a danger of interfering with the sovereignty of each of the countries in question.
<P>
In the case of the Guinean agreement, there is in fact an increase in cost, but also a corresponding increase in fish, so there is an objective balancing factor.
There are also some other interesting points which deserve our commendation, such as for example an increase in the funds dedicated partly to research and partly to the actual administrative organization of that country's Ministry of Fisheries.
<P>
We support this report and congratulate the rapporteur once again on his work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, as we have seen from the tone of the previous speeches, in general both the rapporteur and the two speakers stress the positive aspects of this agreement, which is in line with the new Community fisheries policy.
<P>
It is not a question of pillaging existing fisheries resources.
It is a question, firstly, of helping these developing countries to conserve their own resources.
The European Community contributes the financial means for that, helping them, for example, to monitor fishing.
Secondly, by means of financial compensation to these countries, we contribute to their actual economic development. In other words, on the one hand the European Community facilitates the action of Community fishermen who, as we know, have problems in a great many sites, and on the other hand it promotes fishing, but conserving resources rather than compromising their continued existence.
<P>
I believe the budgetary increase which has been made is justified within this new Community policy, and will prove to be to the advantage both of the people of the African countries and the people of the EU itself, and of the preservation of fisheries resources in general.
<P>
So from my point of view, like the previous speakers, I think Parliament should approve the text as it stands, with the amendments approved by the Committee on Fisheries, and also Mr Girão Pereira's Amendment No 5. On the other hand, I am completely opposed to Amendment No 6 tabled by Mr Teverson.
This would introduce an excessively negative limitation, which would prove too much of a burden for subsequent fishing agreements.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fraga Estévez">
Mr President, Mr Girão Pereira's report on the fishing agreement with Guinea, on which I congratulate him, very clearly shows that people are wrong to say that fishing agreements are a means for the Community fleet to exploit the resources of third countries in an uncontrolled manner, without contributing any benefit.
<P>
As if the agreements with Argentina, Morocco or Mauritania were not enough to show how Community fishing activities have contributed to the development of this sector in third countries, the new protocol with Guinea clearly shows the benefits a coastal country can gain from a fishing agreement with the Community. These benefits are at least comparable to, if not greater than, the contributions from the specific development policy, despite the fact that, in this case, we are talking about simple trade agreements.
<P>
As has been said, the increase of more than 50 % in the financial compensation is extraordinarily significant, but the way it is to be distributed is even more important.
In fact, practically half of the ECU 6.5 million which will be paid to Guinea is directed towards improving training and stimulating Guinean fishing.
Of particular note are the increases to improve surveillance, which have doubled in relation to the previous protocol, and ECU 320 000 to support artisanal fisheries, representing an increase of a third with respect to the previous protocol.
<P>
Thanks to this sort of help, Guinea has managed to sign fishing agreements with China and Korea, guaranteeing resources in a way which would have been unthinkable without the knowledge of fishing grounds and international conservation regulations to which Guinean society has gained access thanks to the Community's financial compensation.
<P>
Also, as Mr Girão Pereira rightly notes, we need to stress that, as a new feature, the Guinean authorities will have to report to the European Union to show that the funds have been allocated to actions related to the development of local fishing grounds and the conservation of resources. Compliance is strictly linked to the payment of the financial compensation.
<P>
Therefore, like the rest of my group, I shall be supporting Mr Girão Pereira's report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Crampton">
Mr President, it is rather strange that everybody is emphasizing what good developmental aspects these reports have for the fishing industry of Guinea, in this case, and for other countries as well.
I like that: I have always argued that they should have.
There has been a great improvement in these reports, particularly perhaps since the actions of the Dutch presidency and the taking on board by the Commissioner responsible of my report last year.
<P>
So things are getting better, but still there is a problem with regard to consultation with the European Parliament.
The Commission does not consult us early enough.
The Council has some responsibility in this too.
This is pointed out by the Committee on Budgets in no uncertain terms in its opinion on this report.
However, we have had to say it over and over again.
There have been advances: a lot more resources are devoted to the artisanal fisheries, to improving the fisheries of Guinea and so on, in all sorts of ways that have been mentioned before.
I hope the Guineans have the resources to monitor what is happening when the EU fleet is there.
<P>
I also like the proposal - though perhaps it is not enough - that some of the catch should compulsorily be landed in Guinea for the food supply of the Guinean population.
This is very important.
But it is sad that a 10-mile limit was agreed upon when neighbouring states have 12 miles, which seems to be fairly standard.
<P>
Finally, I support the Committee on Development and Cooperation's opinion that it would be useful if the European Commission could negotiate regional agreements to cover areas like Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, and so on.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking the honourable gentleman for his excellent report on the new terms and conditions for fishing by the Community fleet in the waters off Guinea.
We consider that these new terms are likely to ensure a more effective implementation of the agreement in line with the basic principles of the conservation of resources.
<P>
With this protocol, the Commission recognizes the action taken since 1996 by the Guinean Government to ensure overall control of access stocks and to develop the battle against illegal fishing and marine research.
<P>
This new and positive climate, which is recognized by Community shipowners, has led to fishery resources in the area having improved and a renewed interest in Community fishermen in Guinean waters, which provide an important potential for the Community fleet.
The Commission also considers that this new protocol with Guinea contains major innovations aimed in particular at promoting sustainable fishing, while being compatible with both the development policy and the Union's regional approach to fisheries agreements.
<P>
The protocol marks significant progress in our regional approach and that is reflected in a harmonization of the financial terms offered by the Community to the various countries in the subregion.
In addition, the technical provisions on fishing activities have been brought into line with the rules in force in the countries belonging to the Subregional Commission for Fishing in the Gulf of Guinea.
<P>
The protocol allocates 50 % of the overall financial provision - that is to say ECU 3.25 million - over two years to schemes designed to promote marine research, the monitoring of fisheries to support small-scale fishing and training facilities and to contribute to international fisheries organizations.
The scale of this support will give Guinea the means of taking part in the subregional programmes for managing resources.
Guinea attaches great importance to that because this year it holds the chairmanship of two regional fisheries commissions: the Subregional Commission for Fishing off the Gulf of Guinea and the Ministerial Conference of Atlantic Coastal States.
<P>
The protocol provides for close cooperation between the two parties in managing the schemes and gives us the possibility of reviewing payments involved in the light of how it is implemented.
<P>
Turning to the amendments proposed, the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 4 since that goes against established doctrines regarding the nature of our international fisheries agreements and would adversely affect the powers of the Commission to conduct negotiations.
The Commission can accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3 and 5 in principle, if not in their present form.
<P>
I should stress, however, that the Commission already gives regular information to Parliament as to the use made of fisheries agreements in its statements and reports to the Committee on Fisheries.
<P>
The Commission cannot accept Amendment No 6, given that fisheries agreements are concluded on a Community level and therefore it is the Commission that pays the financial compensation and the vessels fishing in these waters that pay the licence fees.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 7.50 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="Ahern">
Mr President, on the question of Sellafield and the contamination of the Irish Sea, I did not say that the article was edited, but completely excised, at the request, I believe of the nuclear industry, specifically British Nuclear Fuels Limited.
I want to draw Members' attention to the fact that I will be distributing that article today for their information.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pinel">
Mr President, my point of order relates to the trunks that are provided by Parliament for Members' use.
They enable Members to move their papers between Brussels and Strasbourg.
In approximately two hours' time, I am due to present the opinion of the Committee on Regional Policy regarding the Cunha report.
But the trunk containing all my papers has been left behind in Brussels, in the corridors of D3.
<P>
I do not wish to bore you with endless complaints about the incompetence of the removal services. I have however noticed that there are a number of other recurring problems at the Brussels offices, relating to the lifts and cloakrooms, etcetera.
And this is the last straw.
<P>
What I should like to know, Mr President, is how Members are expected to fulfil their obligations, without files, papers, or the bare essentials they need in order to carry out their duties?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President">
This is a consequence of having three separate places of work.
I suggest you write to the President raising this matter.
<P>
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Decision on urgency
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fantuzzi">
Mr President, the overwhelming majority of the Socialist Group will vote for this request to apply the urgent procedure.
It was on 17 February 1997 that the Commission's document of options to reform the olive oil sector was presented, and the compromise resolution named after Mr Jové Peres was adopted in December.
The European Parliament has therefore certainly had ample opportunity to give its opinion on this matter!
<P>
Moreover, the Commission's current proposal, Mr President, does no more than take on board most of the points of the resolution by Mr Jové Peres, demonstrating that the Parliament's pressure has served to condition the Commission's basic guidelines.
I should not be the one to say it, considering that I voted against this resolution. Rather, it should be the rapporteur, and it is absurd, in my view, that he did not do it in committee.
The point is that, despite what has been written, there is a country, the leading producer, that does not want to hear about any reform, that has chosen the road of protest from which there is no way out and unconditional and unlimited postponement.
The beginning of the next marketing year has been set at 1 November. Therefore decisions have to be made quickly, and I believe that there are a few absurdities that have to be quickly corrected.
One of these absurdities is a guaranteed maximum quota for the Community as a whole, which results in the absurd situation of a substantial cut in aid for producers of those countries that have not increased production, only because another country has produced excess quantities.
In no organization of the market is there a mechanism this unfair.
<P>
If we do not find a remedy for this, Mr President, I think that we will all be overwhelmed with protests from producers and that we will very quickly be asked to account for our short-sightedness.
In committee, the rapporteur refused to commit himself to any deadline for his report, even when our group made very reasonable proposals.
Urgency is also the only way to enable the President-in-Office, Mr Cunningham, to conclude the commendable inquiry that has been conducted in a difficult climate and to give producers a positive and definite answer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cunha">
I think the President is mistaken.
I asked to speak first because I wished to inform the House, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, that on 19 May the Committee approved the treatment of this issue as an urgency by 27 votes to 17.
That is what I wanted to say at the outset, before other Members are invited to speak for or against the motion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="Colino Salamanca">
Mr President, I have been a Member of this House for 13 years and this is the first time I have come across an urgency of this nature.
A request was made in April for urgent procedure to take place in June on the reform of the olive oil sector due to come into force on 1 November 1998.
In other words, from the procedural point of view, there is no need for us to debate the question of the olive oil sector reform now, in this urgent manner.
<P>
Secondly, the reform being proposed is not just a simple adjustment of a few problematic details, but an extremely farreaching reform of the olive oil sector.
It is not just a question of the maximum guaranteed quantity and how it is shared out between countries - which is undoubtedly debatable - but very important elements are being introduced, without having been debated in Parliament.
For example, the intervention is disappearing, and this is the first sector of the CAP to be affected by that change.
That is not happening with cereals, milk or meat, but it is happening in the case of olive oil.
Aid to consumption is also disappearing, without being debated in this Parliament.
The ban on mixing olive oils is going to disappear, and also the lack of regulation for table olives.
<P>
So we do not think the matter can be dealt with quickly, without discussion in committee, without a rapporteur and without a report.
I think the dignity of this House is at stake, quite apart from any problems a certain country might have with this sector.
What is at stake is a serious, in-depth debate of something that must affect Agenda 2000 and which should therefore be discussed fully in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
<P>
<P>
(Parliament approved urgent procedure)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Robles Piquer">
Mr President, I am speaking because it is my dubious privilege to be the oldest member of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, since the committee chairman, Mr Rocard, and the vice-chairmen cannot be with us at the moment, for various reasons.
And I can inform you that the Committee on Development and Cooperation has studied this request for urgent procedure and has agreed almost unanimously in its favour, with the exception of just one political group.
<P>
So, if the request is approved, the Committee on Development and Cooperation will meet this evening at 5.30 p.m. to vote on Mr Liese's report and the amendments to the Commission text.
<P>
(Parliament approved urgent procedure)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="Colino Salamanca">
Mr President, the reason we requested agreement to approve urgent procedure in this matter, and the Committee adopted it, is that we have to debate agricultural prices in this part-session, and we have always demanded that that debate should include the set-aside requirement.
<P>
(Parliament approved urgent procedure)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Agricultural prices - common organization of the market in raw tobacco
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on two reports on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development:
<P>
A4-0216/98 by Mr des Places, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposals for 18 Council Regulations on the prices for agricultural products and on related measures (1998-1999) (COM(98)0051 - C4-0084 to C4-0101/98-98/0034(CNS) to 98/0049/CNS, 98/0805 (CNS) and 98/0806(CNS)-A4-0218/98 by Mr Rosado Fernandes, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 2075/92 on the common organization of the market in raw tobacco (COM(98)0019 - C4-0185/98-98/0027(CNS))
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="des Places">
Mr President, Commissioner, first of all I should like to thank all the members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development for their proposals and contributions during our various discussions, and for their amendments.
They have in general supported me, and I should therefore like to thank them for this.
<P>
As far as the prices package for the 1998-1999 agricultural year is concerned, the roll-over of prices and compensatory aids will come as a surprise to no one. They are the same, with a few exceptions, as in preceding years, the same as presented by Mr Sturdy, not to mention the same as in 1993, ever since the reform of the common agricultural policy.
The prices package clearly has no great claim to imagination, Commissioner.
But this is perhaps due to the important dates which lie ahead: the reform of the common agricultural policy, with a view to the WTO negotiations in 2003; the reform of the Structural Funds in 1999 envisaged by Agenda 2000; enlargement to include certain Eastern European countries in the year 2000; the changeover by some countries to the euro, and even the exchange rate of the euro against the ECU, which also raises the problem of the "green' ECU; and finally, the euro/dollar parity because, as I would like to point out, world market prices for the large agricultural product areas are set in dollars, on the basis of the Chicago futures market.
Unless of course, Commissioner, it would be possible to set up a European futures market for agricultural products, based near the European Central Bank, that is, in Frankfurt.
All this, as you know, ladies and gentlemen, will take place within a rigorous budgetary framework set until 2006, in which the financial resources of the European Union will never exceed a ceiling of 1.27 % of its GNP. The financial resources available for the common agricultural policy are therefore limited.
<P>
Now I should like to say a few words about the budget situation in 1999.
The provisional estimate for the 1999 agricultural guideline is about ECU 45.2 billion, that is an increase of approximately 1.9 billion, or 4.5 % in comparison with 1998.
The budgetary authority adopted the principle of limiting expenditure, during the 1997 and 1998 budget procedures, by voting budgets significantly lower than the preliminary draft budgets drawn up by its departments.
The Commission considers that this climate of budgetary restraint in the Member States should continue in 1999, the year of the introduction of the euro.
<P>
Within this specific budgetary context, the Commission is proposing a prices package which increases agricultural spending by ECU 9 million under the 1998 budget and ECU 29 million under the 1999 budget.
It should be noted here that this increase at current rates amounts, in real terms and at constant prices, to a reduction of about 2 % in prices and compensatory aids.
On this particular point, I have tabled a series of amendments, which aim to update agricultural prices and compensatory aids in order to redress the effect of monetary erosion.
<P>
With regard to the budget, I understand from the memorandum of 10 June 1998 on the early warning system, that there is a difference of almost ECU 1.1 billion between the implementation of the EAGGF Guarantee appropriations and the indicator of consumption.
This reduction, caused by monetary erosion, will be accompanied by another reduction in prices and compensatory aids of about 2 %, according to estimates, which will be caused by the disappearance of the green ECU with the introduction of the euro.
<P>
The Committee on Agriculture has adopted my amendments regarding the creation of an adjustment coefficient with a view to maintaining equitable levels of income between farmers in all European Union Member States in order to compensate for the possible disappearance of the green rate on 1 January 1999 for the Member States participating in the single currency.
I should like to point out here that some applications show that a 1 % difference in the values of the green ECU and the euro is equivalent to ECU 400 million.
<P>
The Commission's proposal on the prices package has a number of deficiencies.
First of all, the set-aside rate.
Earlier this morning, we voted on a request for urgent procedure with regard to the Commission's proposal on the set-aside requirement.
I am delighted that the Commission has responded to our request to establish a set-aside rate by the end of June 1998, in compliance with an amendment adopted by the Committee on Agriculture.
The proposal, which consists of implementing the principle of an extraordinary set-aside and raising the set-aside rate to 10 %, is totally unacceptable.
Farmers should not have to bear the cost of errors made by the Commission in its management of the markets, which will lead to a 20-25 % increase in stocks carried over.
Since July 1997 the Commission seems to have been adopting a rather risky approach to its management of cereals exports, with the tax on wheat exports when the European price was below the world market price, abandonment to the competitors of the Saudi market for barley and prolonged delays at the start of the agricultural year, all of which has now led to the risk of a very sharp increase in European stocks.
<P>
If the current delay in export commitments, 4.5 million tonnes less than in 1997 at the same period - 8 million tonnes less than the normal pattern -, is not reabsorbed, the European Union could find itself in the position, on 30 June 1998, of having about 30 million tonnes of cereals as opposed to 28 million tonnes on 30 June 1997.
And yet, Commissioner, the volume of our exports is less than 25 million tonnes, although the WTO ceiling allows exports of 30 tonnes, plus the carry-over from previous years.
<P>
Furthermore, producers do not understand why it should be necessary to impose more set-asides, when they are being asked to accept further proposed price reductions for next year, to enable them to sell and produce more.
I should like to reiterate that the set-aside rate affects the budget as well as farmers' incomes.
And under these circumstances, I am delighted that we may be able to adopt both the prices package and the set-aside rate, during the same part-session.
<P>
Now I would like to say something on the subject of wine.
Unlike other major agricultural product areas, the common organization of the market in wine has not been reformed for 15 years.
The reform is in progress and should be presented to us this week.
In any case, it will not be applicable to the marketing year 1998/99.
In its price proposals the Commission provides for an extension of the quota for permanent grubbing up of vines, while failing to create a quota for new plantings.
This provision on new plantings allows the most dynamic wine growing regions to adapt supply to demand and to improve the quality of the vineyards.
I therefore tabled a number of amendments on this point, which were furthermore adopted by the Committee on Agriculture.
<P>
I will now turn to the subject of hemp. At the Council meeting in January 1997 the Commission undertook to propose stronger contractual arrangements with regard to hemp.
In June 1997 the Council asked the Commission to study the possibility of establishing compulsory contracts between hemp producers and processors.
Instead of putting forward such contractual arrangements as part of the prices package the Commission has merely lowered hemp prices by 25 %. The aim is to discourage producers, as the area given over to hemp production has increased from about 10 000 hectares in 1996 to 40 000 hectares in 1998.
I would like to stress that hemp is an agricultural crop, which requires specific investments by both farmers and processors. The fibre produced from hemp is used in the industrial sector, for insulation and so on.
It is therefore an agricultural product for non-food use.
<P>
The Commission's main proposals on beef and veal are as follows: extension of the reduction of national ceilings for premiums for male bovine animals. At Community level?
<P>
(The President cut off the speaker)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Rosado Fernandes">
Mr President, I am going to speak on a hot topic, smoke, or kapnos , as the Greeks say.
Tobacco, we call it.
It is a hot topic, because it has provoked passionate reactions. It is a hot topic, because it has provoked near-irrational reactions.
On the one hand false rationalism aimed at the expense it involves, and on the other pious words about the harm it does.
Health considerations and budgetary considerations have whipped this subject up into a cocktail of passions which the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has tried to modulate, maintaining an attitude in which its first concern is for the people who make their living by growing tobacco.
<P>
Obviously all those of us who have children are concerned that young people should not smoke.
We are all concerned that young people should not drink, but wine has to be produced...
We are all concerned that young people should not eat too much fat, or too much sugar, because all these things can affect our health, but there are pigmeat producers and sugar producers...
We all agree on that aspect of the matter.
<P>
With regard to the financial cost, the funds invested in tobacco growing, we know that around 600 000 people are involved in the industry, not to mention retailers, and we have of course seen the Committee on Budgets adopt a position which I jokingly referred to as 'Pope-like' , condemning the spending of money on tobacco growing as anathema.
<P>
Yet I know that same Committee voted against the purchase of scanners that could control the smuggling of tobacco products throughout the territory of Europe, in lorries and containers.
And I have no doubt, from the information I receive, that if those budgetary measures and controls were put into practice the money we would recover from fraud and organized crime would comfortably outweigh the money we spend on maintaining tobacco producers.
<P>
Then again, there is the Committee on the Environment.
That Committee is entitled to adopt whatever position it sees fit with regard to tobacco and other plants.
Yet in my judgment it often exceeds its powers, inasmuch as it tries to issue diktats on the ways in which agriculture should be reformed, the money that should be spent, the way people ought to behave.
The truth, let me say without wishing to offend anyone, is that at the beginning of the Iranian revolution - and you need only read an article published some time ago in the Economist , 'The Ayatollahs' - one of the first measures taken was to ban smoking throughout Iran.
I do not have to think about anyone else's options, I support individual responsibility and people's ability to choose for themselves, provided they do not inconvenience anyone else and are not a burden on society.
I think we all have that choice to do right or wrong.
And I cannot prevent my neighbour from doing wrong.
<P>
In my report I have tried to prevent, and have proposed that we should prevent, the Committee from intervening by purchasing fixed quotas.
I have tried to defend the argument that tobacco growing, which costs between a thousand and two thousand hours per hectare and is therefore one of the lowest-paid in Europe, should continue in the Greek mountains or the Mediterranean areas.
I have also tried to support the provision of openings for young growers and to prevent modulation from being too heavy a penalty on growers under the pretext of quality control.
These are the aspects I have defended and on this point I will finish, Mr President, so as not to overload this speech.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Cunningham">
Mr President, I wish to begin by saying that it is both an honour and a privilege for me, on behalf of the presidency and the Agriculture Council, which I represent here today, to have the opportunity of addressing you all in Parliament.
<P>
Just over a year ago a new Labour Government in Britain embarked upon a sea change in relations between the United Kingdom and the European Parliament and, for that matter, the other institutions of the European Union too.
We were determined to work constructively and cooperatively with our European partners and with the European Parliament, and we have done so.
Speaking about my own contribution to that development, this is my fourth appearance in Parliament as President of the Agriculture Council and my sixth visit in 12 months in my role as United Kingdom Minister of Agriculture.
<P>
The UK presidency has been an active one and, as for the brief remaining part, June also looks very busy.
Apart from the topics we are here to address today at the June Council, we aim to reach conclusions on other items of business, for example on quotas for the production of potato starch, updating the rules on controlling tuberculosis, brucellosis and EBL in cattle and determining the 1990 set-aside rate for arable crops.
We hope, too, that it will be possible for the June Council to agree a measure which will effectively set general standards on farm-animal welfare, right across the Union.
Moreover, we were grateful for Parliament's rapid consideration of the ornamental plants dossier, where there is now a wide measure of agreement in the Council, and we expect adoption of that dossier shortly.
<P>
Let me deal first with the question of price-fixing.
In view of the proposals for reform of the CAP and many of the major common market organization regimes - about which I will be saying more later - the Commission's proposals for the 1998 price-fixing round are centred on those price decisions which are required for legal or technical reasons.
In most cases the Commission has simply recommended a roll-over of existing provision.
There is broad agreement in the Council in support of this approach.
However, not unexpectedly in the course of the Council discussion of this dossier, Member States have suggested a number of additional elements to the 1998 prices package.
<P>
The presidency and the Commission are working closely together to accommodate as many of these as can be realistically adopted.
I intend to negotiate a compromise on this package at next week's Agriculture Council, having first taken careful note of the views of Parliament.
<P>
Tobacco is an example of a sector where the Union's agriculture needs to be more competitive and open to the market as we prepare for enlargement and the forthcoming WTO negotiations.
With this in mind, the Commission has come forward with some constructive workable ideas which I hope will provide a sound basis for a much improved regime.
<P>
All Member States accept the need for reform and the aim of improving tobacco quality but there is a divergence of views between producer states and non-producer states over the ways and means of proceeding.
Most producer states accept the need for premium modulation as an important tool in improving quality and helping their growers to get closer to the market.
They do, however, favour less modulation, phased in over a longer period.
The main producer states also oppose quota buyback as over time it would result in a progressive reduction in the amount of subsidized production.
They argue it would cause rural depopulation and unemployment unless surrendered quotas are redistributed to existing producers or new entrants.
The Commission takes the line that surrendered quotas must be withdrawn permanently.
<P>
Non-producer Member States continue to draw attention to the high cost of the regime and the disparity between the budget for the Commission's anti-smoking programme and the annual spend on subsidies for tobacco producers.
Indeed, some argue for gradual withdrawal of support from this sector altogether.
<P>
In discussions so far, general agreement has been reached on many issues but some outstanding differences remain to be resolved.
The presidency has been trying to make headway with this dossier, as with all dossiers we have been responsible for dealing with during our presidency, in a fair, open, constructive and impartial manner.
We are making every effort to reach a final agreement later this month and, to that end, will place particular value on the opinion that will be forthcoming from Parliament.
<P>
I wish to pay a warm personal tribute to Commissioner Franz Fischler, on behalf of the United Kingdom presidency, for his excellent help and cooperation and constructive working with us throughout the months of that presidency, and, once again, Mr President, thank you for inviting me to open your first debate.
I now look forward with interest to hearing the views of your colleagues on these important questions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, first I would like to look at the context of the price proposals for the marketing year 1998/99.
The proposals continue the policy of stability of the previous prices packages, providing for existing institutional prices to be maintained in almost all sectors.
That does not, however, in any way imply that there is no need for a fundamental revision of the common agricultural policy.
On the contrary!
Using Agenda 2000, the Commission wants to introduce a reform that will go far beyond the fragmentary annual adjustments made in the context of the prices package, in order to prepare European agriculture for the future and to provide security for the European agricultural model.
Therefore, for the 1998/99 prices, we should restrict ourselves to those measures which are absolutely necessary and not deal prematurely with imminent fundamental reforms.
<P>
I would like to thank the rapporteur and the Members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development for their excellent work of examining the proposals and formulating the amendments.
My thanks also go to the Members of the other Committees that were actively involved in this work: the Committee on Budgets, the Committee on External Economic Relations, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, and the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
<P>
I would like to begin by discussing those amendments which deal with the introduction of the euro.
These propose an adjustment coefficient for prices and subsidies in order to offset the abolition of conversion rates on 1 January 1999 in those countries participating in the single currency.
In the past week the Commission has adopted a proposal addressing this very matter of the effect of the introduction of the euro on the common agricultural policy.
The Commission is of the opinion that possible loss of income due to the introduction of the euro can best be offset by payment of compensatory allowances.
A system of adjustment coefficients would serve only to introduce yet another new type of agricultural conversion rate.
Thus, the amendments based on this cannot be accepted but, like Parliament, the Commission is aware of the underlying economic problem.
<P>
A whole series of amendments are aimed at increasing prices and direct payments by a blanket 1.7 %.
I cannot accept this for three reasons. Firstly, this is diametrically opposed to the need to improve the competitiveness of Community produce, indeed both in the internal market and in the global market.
Secondly, it would result in considerable budget costs - approximately ECU 260 million, which is unacceptable in times of strict budgetary discipline.
Thirdly, it could jeopardize the international obligations of the Union, affecting in particular the level of internal support.
In addition, I would like to note that the minor effects of inflation are more than offset by technological progress and improvements in agricultural structuring.
<P>
In Amendment No 11 the Commission is called upon to submit, as soon as possible, a proposal concerning the rate of setaside for the marketing year 1999/2000.
As you know, this proposal is already in existence and was even accorded urgency.
In two sectors, those of hemp and beef, the majority of amendments are intended to change fundamentally the Commission proposal.
<P>
Firstly, Amendments Nos 18 to 22 concern the hemp sector, and their primary aim is to delete the proposal concerning reduction of subsidies.
The Commission is really concerned about the considerable and constant expansion of arable land, and also about the problem of control in this sector.
On 6 May, the Commission proposed to the Council a clear increase in control, to be linked notably to the introduction of obligatory contracts between producers and processors.
This point is incidentally also contained in Amendment No 77, the content of which I will split in two.
<P>
In the beef sector, Amendments Nos 48 to 53 aim to reverse the Commission's proposal.
These provide for a return to the high levels of 1996 for the maximum premiums for bulls - that is, 20 % more than in the last two years.
In view of the remaining difficulties concerning market situation and in order not to rush the revision of the organization of the single market within the context of Agenda 2000, the status quo must, in the Commission's opinion, be maintained.
However, in the case of Spain and Portugal, an increase in maximum rates can be directly attributed to an obligation of the Council of November 1996, and we therefore made a corresponding proposal.
<P>
Several amendments also provide for considerable changes to market organization which the Commission cannot, however, accept in the context of these price proposals, which are to be kept as simple as possible.
Thus, Amendment No 7 provides for a higher compensatory payment for areas set aside to be used for purposes other than food production.
On this subject, I would like to say that of course we all want to promote the cultivation of renewable primary products with the various instruments available, but to my mind, a specific new subsidy would seem to be far from desirable.
A set-aside rate of 10 % would also comply in principle with this request.
<P>
Now on to Amendment No 25. Breeders of silkworms have already recently profited from currency devaluations in the relevant Member States.
I therefore consider a subsidy increase to be inappropriate.
Approval of renewed planting, premature replanting, the period of validity of planting rights for wine and a subsidy for grape must, as provided for by Amendments Nos 29 to 35 and by Amendment No 37, cannot be dealt with in the context of this prices package.
The Commission recognizes that these are important issues; it will therefore deal with these in its proposal concerning the reform.
This proposal will be submitted to the Commission for a decision tomorrow.
<P>
Amendments Nos 41, 85 and 87 aim to increase the premiums for certain higher quality types of tobacco.
There is no economic reason to favour one kind over another.
On the other hand, one of the main aims of the tobacco reform, which is also being discussed, is to improve the overall quality of tobacco.
<P>
Amendments Nos 55 and 94 aim to neutralize the stabilizing effect in sheepmeat by increasing the basic premium by 7 %.
This would mean having to abandon the premium for rural areas and would reopen the debate on the budget made available for this sector.
Potential supplementary costs would be ECU 85 million.
<P>
I will now look at the amendments which aim to extend or introduce derogations.
These cannot be approved in their current form.
Some of them, however, merit thorough examination.
These are Amendments Nos 2 and 3.
They refer to the moisture content of cereals.
This decision falls within the jurisdiction of the Commission.
The exemption was granted traditionally but this year the higher intervention stocks are also to be considered in global terms.
<P>
Amendments Nos 5 and 9 refer to the suspension of special set-aside.
They should be judged in the context of the proposal concerning the set-aside rate.
Amendments Nos 6, 10, 49 and 54 refer to the new German Länder.
The derogations in question were granted for a limited period in the new Länder because of specific structural problems.
As far as the base area for arable crops is concerned, I would point out that the proposals of the current prices package provide for a certain flexibility in that the deadline for the choice of partial base area regulation is postponed to 15 September.
<P>
According to Amendment No 8, in certain cases it should still be permissible for the area set aside to be greater than its arable acreage.
The Commission is aware of this problem but prefers to deal with it within the framework of Agenda 2000.
<P>
Amendment No 36 provides for the derogation on the minimum acid content of wine to be extended.
Whatever solution is chosen, it must not under any circumstances anticipate the pending reform.
Amendments Nos 38 to 40 allow suspension of wine growing on small plots of land.
We could, in effect, consider taking this problem into account.
In any case, I am pleased to see in the result that the proposals of the Commission largely did justice to its suggestions, as appropriate suggestions have already been submitted for too many amendments - I am thinking here of the euro, the set-aside rate, the tobacco reform, the hemp agreements and others.
<P>
Many of these are considered in Agenda 2000 and we agree that some of these amendments must be examined urgently.
I would ask for your indulgence if I speak a bit longer today because I have another important topic to discuss: the organization of the tobacco market.
I will come to this now.
<P>
Firstly, I would like to thank the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the rapporteur for having dealt so swiftly with the proposal on the reform of the common market organization for raw tobacco, so that we could discuss it today.
After the vote on the report which the Commission submitted to Parliament last year, the Council and the Commission agreed to continue to support tobacco growers.
As you know, the Commission basically proposes to create effective incentives to improve product quality and at the same time to support those who wish to give up tobacco production.
<P>
By shifting the emphasis from quantity to quality, the reform takes into account the business of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and the Committee on Budgets without taking away the possibility of other sources of income from farmers particularly in disadvantaged areas.
For this reason, the Commission rejects Amendments Nos 29, 30, 33, 37, 42, 53 and 59, and Nos 66, 67 and 76 which aim for a compulsory withdrawal of the Community from tobacco production.
<P>
Community production represents only about one-third of Community consumption and could easily be replaced by imports.
I am very much in favour of encouraging voluntary withdrawal from production, however.
I welcome in principle the definition of quality criteria in the marketing of tobacco, as contained in Amendments Nos 4, 7, 15 and 16.
These criteria should nonetheless be incorporated into cultivation contracts and the individual provisions relating to this should be laid down in the Commission's implementing regulation.
<P>
Please rest assured that the Commission will take the European Parliament's amendments into account in this procedure.
The Commission would like to offer farmers the most effective incentives possible to improve quality.
As regards the variable part amounts of the premium in accordance with Amendments Nos 14, 17, 18, 39, 69, 75 and 77, the Commission is of the opinion that at least 35 % of the premium should be graduated accordingly in order to fulfil the aims of quality differentiation and avoidance of social problems to a satisfactory extent.
<P>
By means of the possibility of quota buy-back - the basis for Amendments Nos 8, 9, 27 and 28 - the Commission wishes to provide a safety net for economically weak producers who are not in a position to participate in the campaign for improved quality.
I am prepared to examine additional safety measures which should prevent this system from leading to a complete cessation of production.
But I cannot accept any amendments that would render this system ineffective.
<P>
I would also like to note that within the framework of the Structural Funds, Member States already have the opportunity to submit projects which would facilitate the transition to other economic activities for tobacco growers.
For this reason, I cannot approve Amendments Nos 6, 26, 58 or 63.
With regard to Amendment No 44, I share these aims but it is neither necessary nor obvious for bought-back quotas to be withdrawn from the guarantee fund.
With reference to Amendment No 51 I would like to remind you that quota buy-back should be on a voluntary basis, so minimum targets cannot be accepted.
<P>
The Commission welcomes Amendments Nos 24 and 81 and that part of Amendment No 36 which deals with the expansion of the area of application of the tobacco fund.
However, in my opinion conversion schemes and research into new uses for tobacco should be financed by this fund.
Therefore, it is my view that we should persist in our proposal to increase the amount to be made available to this fund in order to be able to finance these new initiatives as well.
Thus, I cannot accept Amendments Nos 11, 23, 25, 48, 49, 50 or that part of Amendment No 36 which refers to this.
I share the concerns expressed in Amendment No 10. The Commission cannot, however, allow research and investigation to take priority over such measures aimed at improving quality.
<P>
With regard to Amendments Nos 52 and 86, I can readily agree to make the report available to the European Parliament.
However, I cannot accept Amendments Nos 13, 34 or 38, as the additional amount offered to the northern producer states is in accordance with the situation of their producers and thus should also be maintained.
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Amendment No 20 proposes quota compensation at a national level.
However, quotas belong to individual producers, which is why the existing carry-over possibilities are the correct solution to this problem.
I cannot, therefore, accept this amendment any more than I can Amendment No 22, as we must respect the stability of annual expenditure.
<P>
Amendments Nos 41, 45, 47, 51, 78, 79, 82 and 85 are directed towards a change in the commitology procedure.
I, however, am of the opinion that the common market organization regime for tobacco should be subject to the same rules as all other market organization regimes.
I cannot accept Amendments Nos 35, 60, 61 or 68, as it is important to retain structural improvements and freedom of quota transfer.
The evaluation of the new regulation in the year 2000 or 2001, proposed in Amendments Nos 52 and 65, seems somewhat premature but, of course, an evaluation is necessary.
<P>
With regard to Amendments Nos 70, 73 and 74, it is my opinion that the agreements on sale by auction would give the producer better opportunities in terms of market prices.
I would therefore like to keep this option open.
<P>
Amendments Nos 1, 5, 12, 19, 32, 40, 43, 62 and 64 would entail enormous changes to the underlying equilibrium in the respective areas that is intrinsic to our proposal, and this is why I am not in a position to accept them.
Nevertheless, I can accept Amendments Nos 71 and 72, which allow the Member States a transitional period for the transition to direct premium payments to producers.
With regard to Amendments Nos 31 and 86, to accept these would not be to increase the quality of tobacco but to reduce it.
The Commission is prepared, however, to use the national supply of quotas for allocation to young farmers, as provided for by Amendment No 21.
However, this should take place in conjunction with the usual administrative authorities.
<P>
I would like to thank you for dealing with the reform of this sector so swiftly, and I hope this will also be the case with upcoming Agenda 2000 proposals.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Giansily">
Mr President, I am surprised that Commissioner Fischler did not wait to hear the opinions of the committees to which the proposal was referred before giving his response, but I shall nevertheless deliver the opinion of the Committee on Budgets.
<P>
The 1998-1999 agricultural year is unusual because it will be the last year to fall within the scope of the present agricultural policy. I am therefore tempted to ask you, ladies and gentlemen, to endorse these price proposals because they will be the last.
In fact, the raison d'être of the real debate on the forthcoming reform of the CAP can be found in Agenda 2000.
That is why the Committee on Budgets has emphasized, by adopting the opinion I proposed, that the budgetary consequences of the present price proposals with regard to the forthcoming agricultural year are limited.
<P>
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has paid special attention to the introduction of the euro, as the Committee on Budgets asked, and rightly so.
It is important for the budgetary effect of the introduction of the euro on the agricultural sector to be evaluated as accurately as possible, and appropriate measures proposed as soon as possible.
From 1 January 1999 the euro will replace the ECU and therefore also the green ECU, whose value is up to 1.5 % higher than the normal - financial - ECU.
The Commission has not yet made proposals for the transition of the present agri-monetary system to the euro, but intends to forward proposals to Council and Parliament before September this year. It has not been able to do so yet as there has to be certainty about which countries will definitively participate in European monetary union.
The Committee on Budgets will naturally prepare another opinion on the financial consequences of the proposals.
<P>
With regard to the sectoral amendments, I am delighted that the Committee on Agriculture has taken up my proposal with regard to the authorization of "new plantations' for high-quality wines produced in specific regions.
<P>
The Committee on Budgets also protested against the European Commission's proposed approach to the question of aid for hemp producers.
The Commission now wants to discourage the production of hemp as it is of the opinion that hemp is sometimes produced for 'illegal' reasons. But Indian hemp is not the only type of hemp, and not all types can be smoked.
The Commission has chosen the easiest solution: reduction of the premium to discourage a further rise in production.
The agricultural sector has invested in this, and is now being unfairly punished by a savage 25 % reduction in the subsidy.
It is very encouraging to see that the Committee on Agriculture is aware of this problem and has even proposed an increase in the aid per hectare.
<P>
I should like to add a last remark about olive oil and draw to the Commission's attention the tensions and distortions that exist between the amounts of olive oil produced, the amount of financial aid provided, and the uncertainty of current methods of inspection.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Wynn">
Mr President, I will just be referring to the tobacco report.
Firstly, I will be ignoring the comments of Mr Rosado Fernandes on the Committee on Budgets.
Like his report they are flawed.
I am a realist in these matters and I can assume that the Wynn amendments, the Hardstaff amendments and the Environment Committee amendments will not be carried later in the day and therefore I can imagine that the report will be adopted.
<P>
As you may well imagine, I will not be voting for it except probably for the first amendment from Mr Rosado Fernandes which says 'whereas the Commission has taken no account whatsoever of the European Parliament's opinion of 17 July 1997' .
I would change that to say 'welcomes the fact the Commission has taken no notice of our opinion last year because once again it was a flawed opinion' .
There is this ostrich attitude, with its head in the sand: look at the second amendment from the committee, which talks about the raw tobacco market being very competitive.
Where do they get this fiction from?
It beggars understanding.
<P>
The truth is, that without European Union subsidies there would be no tobacco industry in Europe.
Not one gramme can sell on a competitive market without EU subsidies.
There is no reason to give money to farmers in France, Belgium, Germany and Austria.
It is a black hole that we pour money into.
<P>
Having said that, the Commission has come forward with a report that is a good deal better than the system that we have at present.
However, the Budgets Committee opinion is that it is flawed.
Why not go back, Commissioner, and start again?
The consequences are far from perfect.
As you have said yourself, we are not even saving money.
It will actually cost more money than the present system when we take into consideration the monies from the Structural Funds.
This is not a situation that we in the Budgets Committee want to see continuing and quite frankly the best result for everyone would be to take the report back and come forward with something far more bold and dramatic.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Sonneveld">
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we do not wish to play Ayatollah, as Mr Rosado Fernandes is insinuating.
When we drafted our opinion on the common organization of the market in raw tobacco, we, in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, made two basic assumptions.
<P>
Firstly, the massive production aid for tobacco, and we are talking about no less than ECU 1 billion, is completely at odds with the EU's policy on the prevention of cancer.
We are supporting a product which is responsible for the deaths of half a million EU citizens a year.
<P>
Secondly, the subsidies are, in principle, temporary.
We have been supporting tobacco farmers for more than a generation without any prospect of improvement.
That is why we do not agree with the Commission proposal.
We are therefore calling for a complete abolition of subsidized production by the year 2006.
In countries where there are adequate alternative forms of cultivation, such as Belgium and Austria, the subsidies must be abolished sooner.
<P>
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection realizes that the abolition should happen gradually, and has therefore developed a transition scenario with the following main features.
Firstly, half of the premium must depend on the quality of the production.
Those who produce better quality will therefore be able to manage without subsidies at a later date.
Secondly, quotas must be gradually reduced.
Thirdly, the transfer of quotas between producers will no longer be permitted.
Fourthly, 5 % of the premium must go the Tobacco Research and Information Fund.
The Fund must look into possibilities for the cultivation of other crops and into other profitable economic activities.
Finally, we are asking the Commission to again conduct a thorough study into the option which was handed to us by the Court of Auditors in 1994, namely direct income support.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, my proposals are incorporated in Amendments Nos 29 to 53.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection adopted these unanimously.
It was co-signed by thirty Members from all groups.
I therefore hope that a majority in this House will opt for a responsible and healthy use of public funds.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fantuzzi">
Mr President, Commissioner, what more can be said about the prices package?
That it would perhaps be reasonable to no longer present it in these terms and to switch to a different system that involves our House in deciding basic directions, to offer multiannual guidelines to our farmers who have to make production choices.
Our group believes that now is the time to do this, because the contrast has become so great between this procedure, which before involved long marathons, and the Agenda 2000 reforms which are the real package of farm prices on the table.
The only thing to be said is to agree with the rapporteur, Mr des Places, on the urgency of giving a little more impetus to the wine sector.
We cannot just sit around twiddling our thumbs when there is a policy of new large-scale plantings of vines in countries competing with the European Union: since there are no longer surpluses, the market for quality wines is witnessing renewed vigour and the money in the Community budget for this sector is being reduced to virtually nothing.
We must avoid the gradual paralysis of a sector that can continue to be an object of pride for Europeans, anticipating with the prices package certain aspects of the reform of the COM that the Commission should adopt tomorrow.
<P>
As for tobacco, I would like to say to my fellow Members: let us try to have a progressive vision of the sector and not always remain confined to a Manichean and ideological debate - tobacco yes, tobacco no -, let us stop criminalizing a sector of production that can continue to play an economic, social and occupational role, worthy of the utmost importance.
Were people to no longer die from smoking if all aid was cut off, I would be the first to observe this moral command.
But we know that it does not work that way, that it is an illusion: we would just import more products from outside the Community, the amount being already greatly insufficient, as Commissioner Fischler recalled.
What is more, we already discussed the matter at length a few months ago.
We also know that with the billion ECUs of the COM, it is quite difficult to guarantee for other sectors an opening for jobs like the one created by tobacco production, which is the most labour-intensive agricultural product grown in what are usually disadvantaged regions.
<P>
We therefore agree with the strategy proposed by the Commission - significant innovation, emphasis on quality - to make the sector more and more market-oriented and to grant aid also to anyone wanting to leave the sector because of lack of prospects.
We believe that the rapporteur, although he honourably wants to defend producers, in some passages introduces too much resistance to these innovations.
But it is only right that tobacco producers also begin to see clearly what the future of the entire common agricultural policy is: less situation rents, more targeted aid, policies of quality and more international competition; on the other hand, new developments in policies for rural development and agricultural structures.
This is the picture, and it is in the interest of all that it be very clear.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Funk">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the rapporteur, Mr des Places, established in his report that average income from agricultural activities, measured in terms of real net product, has fallen by 3.1 %.
I fully concur with him in this.
In fact, prices for products from livestock farming have fallen; in particular, pig prices have reached their lowest in years.
The profits from cereals have also been very much affected by downward pressure on prices. This is why monthly surcharges must be retained.
<P>
In this agricultural debate, which differs from previous agricultural debates, I would ask you, Commissioner, to intervene in these two areas of cereals and pigmeat and, as you did in the case of beef, to use all possible means to relieve the market.
In the context of the reports on Agenda 2000, the decisions on agricultural prices are, as you said, of a temporary nature and consist mainly of an assessment. I have a positive suggestion for you in terms of the Agenda.
Should you accept our proposals, the Agenda will be able to proceed far faster than hitherto envisaged; otherwise, we must prepare to go through a long rigmarole.
However, we have drawn up excellent proposals which we will be submitting to you in due course.
<P>
I would urge you not to take the path of least resistance in the area of hemp, but to support this environmentally friendly plant so that its introduction to the market can be successful.
With plants, there is no point in beginning with subsidies, then investing in the market, then immediately starting to reduce subsidies before the plants have been fully introduced to the market.
The existence of national hemp processing plants is thus jeopardized as well.
<P>
I welcome the extension of the derogation for the five new German Länder.
In principle, a lasting solution to this problem must be found in agricultural reform, in the beef and veal market organization regime.
I thank you expressly, Commissioner, for having responded so promptly in the area of set-aside.
I would like to commend you very highly on this.
I would like to encourage you to see this 10 % set-aside through to the end.
Otherwise we will never put an end to this desperate state of affairs and the Agenda 2000 negotiations will once again be crippled before the event by heavy investment; this is not good because once again we would be unable to determine how things really ought to be.
<P>
This path is not practicable as it would lead to a new set of problems.
New beef and milk surpluses are being produced and for this reason I think set-aside should be implemented in the same way in which it has already proved its merit.
<P>
I would also point to the early marketing premium for calves.
Mr President, please allow me to make one last comment. I would like to praise the Commissioner for making a sensible proposal regarding how to introduce the euro - not through some complicated mechanism; instead, he wants to even out any losses which individual countries may incur by means of transparent measures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Mulder">
Mr President, I would like to start by thanking the President-in-Office for the warm interest he has shown in the activities of this Parliament over the last six months, and we hope that future Presidents-in-Office will use this as a model.
<P>
First of all, the des Places report is not taking place under the most favourable circumstances, as far as prices for farmers are concerned.
I believe it would be a delusion to think that, both in the light of the budget difficulties and in the light of Agenda 2000 proposals, we might promise farmers higher prices.
My group will therefore support the general terms of the Commission proposals.
A few aspects need to be emphasized, however, and the Commission has already been forthcoming with us about this prior to our vote on the amendments in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
The transition from the green ECU to the euro must happen gradually.
At the moment it appears likely that we will be continuing this discussion.
<P>
Secondly, the Commission must do as much as it can to develop new markets. We will therefore support the amendments proposed by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development on agrification, the use of agricultural products for nonfood purposes, especially those amendments which refer to the production of hemp for industrial purposes.
<P>
As far as the Rosado Fernandes report is concerned, I must say that my group is very divided on this issue.
We will vote in two ways.
The general line is that we support the position of the Commission that the tobacco which is being produced must meet market requirements and therefore must be of high quality.
In areas with low-quality tobacco we will have to try to find alternatives so that the farmers living in these areas can also earn their income from products other than tobacco.
<P>
In conclusion, we would like to point to the need to continue the informational campaigns about the dangers of smoking and the like.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Kaklamanis">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, listening to my colleague from the Socialist Group, Mr Wynn, I have to tell you that I too am a member of the Committee on Budgetary Control of the European Parliament and, naturally, not all the members of the Committee on Budgetary Control share the views that were expressed by Mr Wynn.
Mr Wynn belongs to a group of colleagues within the Committee on Budgetary Control and, whenever the debate turns to matters of European agriculture in general and the products of the south of the European Union in particular, something happens to them and they start to say "no' to everything, as, for example, our very dear Commissioner today.
<P>
In your twenty-five minute speech, Commissioner, although you started off by saying that you would give very serious consideration to the recommendations of the European Parliament, when you referred to the amendments, I counted that you rejected 90 % of the European Parliament amendments. I ask you this: is that what you meant when you said that you would give very serious consideration to the recommendations of the European Parliament?
I wonder whether, if you had rejected them all, that would have been a mark of respect or derision for the European Parliament.
<P>
You also said that you yourself are not against the complete abolition of tobacco production.
You do not wish to throw thousands of European farmers on the dole. You say you are for improvement in tobacco quality, but with all these "nos' you are not moving towards improvement in quality.
<P>
Secondly, could you tell us whether the tobacco that is imported into Europe is of better quality than the tobacco that is produced in Europe?
Have you, the Commission, checked this? And to what extent is it better quality?
<P>
Thirdly and most importantly, I am a doctor and I know very well whether tobacco is harmful or not.
But what I have not heard from the Commission today is how much money you will give to teach our children in school that they must not smoke.
I have not heard you say that, Commissioner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, firstly with regard to tobacco: the campaign against tobacco is a sham, a fraud.
If the Community really wanted to reduce or to put an end to smoking, it should not implement an anti-smoking policy but should, within the context of an anti-smoking policy, reduce and even ban tobacco imports.
It should take measures against the tobacco industry, which produces the final product, cigarettes.
It does not do this and that is why it is a sham.
<P>
Secondly, with regard to the prices package: it is the same as it was before and is getting worse and it will have worse consequences.
The previous regime brought about a significant reduction in real average prices for the producer and a corresponding reduction in his income.
Are those measures for the benefit of producers?
And where is your concern about quality, Commissioner?
You rejected an amendment which said "special subsidies for special varieties of tobacco of special quality' .
Why are you rejecting it?
Are you concerned about quality or are you not?
<P>
As a result, your model, in essence, Commissioner, is the large agricultural enterprise. You are hitting small and medium-sized producers, you are hitting especially those in the south and the products of the Mediterranean region to which my country belongs.
Tobacco growing has been reduced by 30 % and along with it the number of those employed has fallen by 33 %.
Where will these people go?
What will they do? Neither you nor national governments tell them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Mr President, I will limit myself to only a few basic comments.
Commissioner, in the case of prices - whether we fix them now in this prices package or reduce them drastically in Agenda 2000 - the problem remains that an intervention system still exists.
Already, prices are insufficient for 80 % of small and medium-sized farms.
However, it is also a fact that the fixing of intervention prices and the intervention system itself create surpluses in these areas and that the prices - in any case long-term - never rise above the intervention system.
This leads to a situation where most farms cannot live with these prices.
As a result, it is a matter of readjusting the market so that farms can obtain higher prices on the market.
I hope that this is given greater emphasis in Agenda 2000.
<P>
I would like to make a point regarding hemp: Commissioner, please give your support to European money being spent on hemp!
Then you will not need to reduce the 25 % because we will then have a huge market.
In addition, the money rustles so nicely and we would have reasonable ongoing support for a very interesting product.
With regard to tobacco, it is my view that the true scandal lies not in the fact that we are promoting a product which endangers our health, but in the fact that, although only a low level of our production is destined for the world market - premiums are also a form of indirect support - billions are spent here to put pressure on the price in the world market overall.
Thus, we are in fact supporting the tobacco industry.
We should see that our tobacco is also being sold here in Europe and that the industry is accepting it.
Here, too, we need a positive strategy - not so much a strategy of prevention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="Nicholson">
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating the rapporteur on his very good report.
<P>
Since the reform of agriculture a number of years ago, to a large extent the price review process we go through has become an unreal exercise and does not recognize the problems that face farmers on the ground.
This exercise is largely irrelevant and will not solve the many difficult problems that face the industry.
The agriculture industry, certainly in my own part of the United Kingdom in particular, has never faced as many difficulties as it does at this moment in time.
<P>
In the past one sector could perhaps have faced difficulty.
Now we have been racked by BSE in the beef sector and are trying to recover from that.
If you look at agriculture in the United Kingdom at the moment - the pig industry, the poultry industry, the dairy industry, those producing cereals - all these sectors are facing financial difficulties, with farmers wondering which way to go.
Young farmers are just not coming into the industry.
Yes, I know that there has always got to be change; yes, I know that agriculture has to evolve with the times.
Farmers will evolve, but they have to be given the chance to do so.
As things stand at the moment they do not have that chance.
And I have to say to the Minister responsible, who is here in his capacity as President-in-Office, that he cannot stand back and idly watch the agriculture industry disappear and take the hammering it has been taking because of the strong pound and issues over which the farmer has no control.
That is a great difficulty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="Hardstaff">
Mr President, I want to concentrate on the Commission proposals for raw tobacco and welcome those sections concerning diversification and withdrawal of quotas as growers move out of this sector.
<P>
My reservation is that the Commission, whilst encouraging growing for the market rather than for subsidies, does not propose the final logical step, namely the complete phasing-out of tobacco subsidies.
I have tabled amendments accordingly.
Interestingly, yesterday's Süddeutsche Zeitung carried an article about proposals for the abolition of tobacco subsidies in the United States.
The EU should be doing the same.
<P>
Subsidizing production of food and useful non-food agricultural products is justifiable.
Subsidizing - to the tune of ECU 1 billion a year of taxpayers' money - the growing of tobacco, which kills 500, 000 of its consumers every year, usually after years of ill-health, is completely indefensible.
The Commission has partly conceded this case with its proposals to buy back quota, give support to producers to change to other crops and other activities and its encouragement of production of tobacco types which can command a reasonable market price.
<P>
Currently much of Community production is either destroyed or offloaded on poor countries at below production cost, to add to their health problems.
The Commission should take the logical next step, moving toward a situation where tobacco competes in the market with no subsidy, if it is grown at all.
Rich countries like Germany, France, Belgium and Austria cannot possibly claim they are financially dependent on such subsidies.
Those Mediterranean countries where real hardship would be caused must be given ongoing support to enable growers to diversify and assist local and national government to establish alternative job opportunities in the regions currently heavily dependent on tobacco.
<P>
With political will this could be achieved over the next ten years - I offer two years more than the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
By the year 2008 we could do away with the scandal of spending ECU 1 billion of EU taxpayers' money annually supporting a crop which kills our citizens.
<P>
I urge support for the amendment setting out this programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Redondo Jiménez">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, one of the advantages of speaking when most people have already done so is that practically everything has already been said, which means you can add the odd finishing touch to aspects you want to emphasize.
<P>
I want to congratulate the rapporteurs, Mr des Places and Mr Rosado Fernandes, on the effort they have put in, and on their clear and positive approach to their subjects.
I also want to congratulate the Commissioner on his rational proposals regarding prices, tobacco, adapting to the euro and efforts in the area of controls.
I think this is important, and I would be grateful if the Commissioner would take note of what I am saying at the moment, because it seems he is busy with other things.
<P>
Compulsory contracts have been proposed for hemp, and I agree with the Commissioner.
I also agree with premiums to cattle, with the increase of 7.7 % and 7.5 % for Spain and Portugal respectively, which is quite right, since it was approved back in 1996.
It is a bit late, but at least it has arrived.
<P>
On the tobacco question, having listened to the honourable Members, this is opening up the debate again between the people who are wrongly labelled as environmentalists or agri-environmentalists.
But what really worries me, and what I would like to stress to the Commissioner, is that Commissioner Flynn said in this House not long ago, during the last part-session, that he would spare no effort until subsidies to tobacco producers had been suspended.
<P>
It really worries me, Commissioner, that a Commissioner said that on behalf of the European Commission.
I do not know if it was said in a personal capacity, but he cannot say that, or at least it is not acceptable for him to say that in this House on behalf of the European Commission, when the subsidies to European tobacco producers are legal and provided for by the rules of the European Union, as part of the aid given to EU farmers.
So, Commissioner Flynn should be reminded of his obligation to put things right on that score.
<P>
If we want to create jobs at the moment, here we have 400 000 jobs and 130 000 direct producers.
So notwithstanding any comments we may be able to make about improving quality, agri-environmental measures and so on, if we want to improve this crop we cannot be directly opposed to it, when it represents only 5 % of EU tobacco consumption.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Anttila">
Mr President, Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Commissioner, I congratulate Mr des Places on a clear report that depicts excellently the effects of the EU's agricultural pricing and aid policy on farmers' income.
The Commission's pricing package proposal will cut farmers' compensatory prices and aid by 2 %.
The introduction of the euro at the beginning of next year will bring with it a further 2 % cut for agriculture.
Last year income from agriculture fell by 3.1 %.
<P>
I agree with the rapporteur's insistence on maintaining a pricing package to be made yearly under the terms of Agenda 2000.
It must not be taken away under any pretext.
By means of this package we can moderate the losses to farmers in aid and compensatory payments stemming from changes in currency values or other factors.
As we do not yet know how strong the euro will be, there must be systems for reducing the damage it may do.
The rapporteur proposes keeping pricing and compensatory payments in line with inflation. I support this proposal.
<P>
EU agricultural policy presents a sad picture form the point of view of the farmer.
Income from agriculture has declined continuously, and it is still falling with the reforms in the Agenda programme.
How much longer will the farming community tolerate the immense inequalities among population groups which the CAP is increasingly leading to?
While other people are getting income increases, the farmers are losing money.
There are elements of a serious crisis in this policy, and I cannot therefore support it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="des Places">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I shall be brief. We must support the report by Mr Rosado Fernandes, and in particular, the 28 amendments adopted by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
<P>
As I have said many times before in this Chamber, the European Union is a net importer of nearly 70 % of the tobacco it consumes.
That is why we support the principle of production subsidies. May I remind you that tobacco-producing areas are mainly situated in less-favoured regions, and tobacco growing is extremely labour-intensive.
<P>
However, our group has tabled five amendments, as we are opposed to the principles of the cultivation contract auction scheme tying the producer to the first processor and the creation of a quota buy-back system.
<P>
Mr President, the COM in tobacco must continue and must enable the European Union gradually to become self-sufficient.
Tobacco consumption must regularly decrease and production must continue to be limited to a constant tonnage of 351 000 gross tonnes of European tobacco, between the proposed new COM and the present COM.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Rojo">
Mr President, the COM in tobacco should be treated using the same general criteria as govern the rest of CAP production. There is no basis for extremism, or different or unfair treatment compared with the other CAP products.
<P>
Also, at a time when the EU's main priority is employment, it would be very inconsistent to fail to take account of a crop like this, which is very labour intensive and provides jobs for women.
We cannot on the one hand state that we are giving priority to jobs and then, when it comes to making concrete policies, ignore that principle.
So I think it would be a very good thing if all the proposals relating to this COM had to take account of the impact on jobs.
This reform has to favour young farmers in the most depressed areas of the EU.
<P>
I agree that we have to be able to reconcile protection of public health and the environment, but we also have to reconcile the social burden and the social consequences of this product.
<P>
Commissioner, we must also improve the management of the research fund, because it has been doing very badly so far.
Reduced tobacco production in Europe does not result in less consumption, by any means.
The result is simply that the European Union will have to buy this product abroad.
<P>
I also think it is right to make the reform more flexible and progressive, to the benefit of the producers. And I think it is good to be bold when it comes to investigating new uses and varieties of tobacco.
Guarantees of work and income have to take account of the producers. We must prevent their income from falling, otherwise we would be forcing them - not giving them the choice, Commissioner - to abandon the sector.
<P>
I also think it is right that quality should not just be interpreted on the basis of commercial prices.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="McCartin">
Mr President, I agree with the persons who have said that this procedure is now a bit meaningless.
In the MacSharry reform we were offered maintenance of incomes from agriculture and, at the same time, stabilization of the rural population.
As we can see today this has not materialized.
In this decade we have already lost 25 % of people engaged in agriculture and incomes have dropped by around 20 %.
Therefore any improvement in the position of individual farmers has come at the expense of employment in the sector.
<P>
The situation in Ireland is even worse because of our high dependence on beef and sheep meat.
As Jim Nicholson stated, the situation is exaggerated in Northern Ireland and the UK because of the strength of sterling and there is a new and very obvious reluctance by young people to embark on agriculture as a career.
<P>
This procedure is fairly meaningless because, taking into consideration the budget constraints together with the GATT decisions, we have very little capacity to influence the price that farmers can obtain for their produce.
This annual procedure should be looking at the state of the agriculture industry, its long-term viability, recognizing that our share in world production is becoming ever reduced.
While the market is becoming bigger, Agenda 2000 does not give us any more of a strategy than we had in the MacSharry reform to exploit these expanding markets and maintain the long-term viability of European agriculture.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Lambraki">
Mr President, the Commission proposal concerning the tobacco market is governed by the idea of quota buy-back and, naturally, there are no proposals for improving quality, as Mr Fischler has said.
Moreover, that is why he has rejected all our amendments which make provision for and promote improvement in the quality of European tobacco.
The logic of wiping out tobacco growing in less favoured regions will have enormously negative economic, social and political consequences in those regions.
<P>
Mr Fischler, you know as well as I do and as well as all of us here, that in those regions it is not possible to grow alternative crops.
That is why, traditionally, inhabitants have been cultivating tobacco there for hundreds of years.
<P>
There is the argument that tobacco is associated with damage to health.
Indeed, but we still do not know just to what extent smoking plays a part in health issues and, secondly, there are other products that can cause health problems, such as dairy products.
I have not heard you put an end to the buying of dairy products because they raise cholesterol levels.
Do you know how many heart attacks are due to dairy products?
Above all we must understand that even if we put a stop to European tobacco production, smoking will continue in Europe.
And I believe that behind this anti-smoking campaign is hidden the attempt of large companies to import cheap tobacco which is of lower quality than European tobacco.
<P>
I would like to say to you that the latest statistics from the United States show that the way in which the campaign is being conducted - this American hysteria which has now inundated Europe -, instead of reducing smoking, is increasing smoking among young people.
Let us not create conditions like the prohibition in America.
Let us remain Europeans, in other words let us act in moderation.
<P>
I also wish to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Fernandes, because I believe that his report is along the right lines.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Filippi">
Mr President, overall I agree with the direction given by the two rapporteurs, whom I thank for the job that they did, and would like to make two brief comments on the two reports - one on wine and the other on tobacco.
As far as wine is concerned, and specifically regarding the amendments that have been presented - which Commissioner Fischler says will be difficult to accept because tomorrow there will be the organic reform of the wine sector - I would just like to stress the importance of the problem.
In the prices package these past two years, I myself presented a proposal aimed to renew the regulation on replanting and grubbing up.
Generally speaking, a certain balance has been found on the market; now it is time to fine-tune the mechanism.
In my view, management has to be regionalized in such a way that this market balance is found in all the major producing areas.
<P>
On tobacco I only want to say one thing: since I have seen that there are amendments - probably based on good intentions - aimed to cope even with any restructuring and reconversion of production, let us try not to be demagogic in our statements.
There are areas that earn a living by growing tobacco.
Myself, for example, I live in an area, lower Veneto, where people earn their living growing tobacco, and this is the case also of the region of Venezia and the province of Verona.
So, before we start talking about restructuring, let us see what the alternatives are, otherwise we will be acting like demagogues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Iversen">
Mr President, I must say I find the results of Mr Rosado Fernandes' work on this report rather disappointing.
Instead of a progressive report innovatively probing how to improve the reform of the tobacco sector, what we have is a report reflecting old-fashioned thinking, proposing massive support for tobacco cultivation and sustaining farmers in utterly untenable production.
As if that were not bad enough, the rapporteur also strongly emphasizes the need to support young farmers to enable them to take over production.
That is simply laying the groundwork for bringing a whole new generation into the trade so that for many years to come, the EU can continue producing poor-quality tobacco that can only be peddled with the backing of hefty EU subsidies.
I searched the report in vain for any support of the Commission's excellent initiative of buying up quotas from farmers wishing to leave the sector.
I searched in vain for new thinking on how to support and educate farmers in these vulnerable areas in how to switch production to non-hazardous products.
<P>
Further, I find it most regrettable that the rapporteur did not wish to give more financial support to the research fund.
How else is the research fund supposed to function effectively?
Or is it being muzzled intentionally?
Mr President, I must say I am most disappointed with this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fernández Martín">
Mr President, this is the third proposed modification to the COM in raw tobacco in a very short time.
Three reforms in five years are enough to define this situation as an unresolved crisis.
<P>
The measures implemented, especially the subsidies regime, have allowed the maintenance of crops and the survival of the sector, but have not resolved any of the structural problems.
Europe's tobacco-producing regions are among the least developed in the EU, and no new job opportunities have been found as an alternative to the work provided by tobacco growing.
The only alternative to growing raw tobacco is unemployment, in regions which are already suffering the highest unemployment levels in the EU.
<P>
In this context, Commissioner, I think your proposal is the best one possible, although it may not tackle some of the basic problems affecting the sector, as is clear from Mr Rosado Fernandes' report.
<P>
Because of all this, Commissioner, we are going to vote in favour of your proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Virgin">
Mr President, the report on tobacco is an opinion on the Council's proposal for certain changes to the market for raw tobacco.
These changes are aimed, among other things, at certain quality issues.
However, the overriding question of the justification of subsidies is not taken up.
This is quite remarkable considering the debate about the harmful effects of tobacco and the ban on tobacco advertising which Parliament decided on a month ago.
In fact a majority of Parliament's Members considered the problem to be so great that it justified disregarding the requirements of the EU's system of rules.
<P>
The opinion from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection proposes, among other things, that subsidies from the EU budget for tobacco production within the European Union should end no later than the 2006 harvest.
This objective has also been expressed in Amendments Nos 37, 55, 65, 66 and 67. These proposals deserve full support.
There is no doubt that it is irresponsible to spend public money, European taxpayers' money, in order to subsidize the growing of a product which does so much harm.
After all, tobacco is responsible for the deaths of half a million people in the EU every year.
The amount of subsidy has been around ECU 1 billion per year, or ECU 7 500 per grower.
This casts a dark shadow over all other support systems in the EU, a shadow which could be lifted by a decision on abolition - an abolition which must of course take place in a socially acceptable way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldarelli">
Mr President, Commissioner, first of all I agree with the proposal for greater integration between production and processing in farm prices in the case of the hemp sector.
In the case of tobacco, I would like to point out the difference in style between Commissioner Fischler and Commissioner Flynn.
Commissioner Flynn definitely had less style in this House when he became very agitated, even gesticulating - it was not very clear what he wanted to emphasize -, and was extremely wrong in his opposition to the reform of tobacco.
I do not believe it befitting for a Commissioner to behave in this way when the decision has been made by all the Members of the Commission.
<P>
As for tobacco, a lot has already been said on quality and employment.
I would like to raise a few points.
I believe that it is important, Commissioner, that the Commission prepare a specific communication for the Parliament regarding the annual 5 % quota set for research.
We consider it important that the Parliament be informed how the research fund is being used: that means having not only the figures but also an analytical presentation of the results of this fund.
<P>
I agree with the idea of modulating the premium and consider it a useful proposal.
It seems to me that the modulation of the premium should be linked to employment, quality, but I would like more information about environmental constraints.
I consider it a good idea, for example, to increase aid to associations from 2 % to 5 %. They could use it especially to improve quality and particularly to develop environmental themes which are very, very important in this production.
I believe that modulation should also take into account new production techniques, but not to the detriment of the important obligation of keeping people employed, given that if the European Union spends so much on tobacco, it does so especially because it has a major obligation to maintain jobs in the many regions that have very serious problems of employment.
I am referring to the Mediterranean regions and also to some of the regions in Italy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Garriga Polledo">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I rise to justify the position of the Committee on Budgetary Control on the reform of the raw tobacco sector described in the Rosado Fernandes report.
<P>
Our committee thinks the proposed reform presented by the Commission is acceptable, although we want to introduce a series of amendments, mainly aimed at strengthening Parliament's role in the reform procedure for this sector.
<P>
We think the right way to achieve that stronger role is through a procedural change, from Article 23 to Article 43(2) of the Treaty.
This question of comitology, which the Commissioner has said he will not support, would guarantee that the Commission had to listen to and take account of the political positions defended by this Parliament in all aspects of this reform, particularly regarding the maintenance of a quality Community tobacco production.
<P>
We also regret that the Commissioner does not want to accept this procedural change in other reforms either.
<P>
In any case, we think the position adopted by ourselves and the rapporteur, Mr Rosado Fernandes, is rather more realistic and appropriate to the general problem of Community production than the position expressed, for example, by the draftsman of opinion of the Committee on Budgets.
<P>
In any case, the road to reform is open.
I think we should involve the European Parliament in the defence of farmers and tobacco producers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wibe">
Mr President, Parliament has made a decision to ban tobacco advertising.
We have also made a decision to ban indirect tobacco advertising.
We give support to campaigns to encourage people to give up smoking.
We also give support to research to combat the harmful effects of tobacco on health.
However, the biggest support we give is to the growing of tobacco, a crop which claims hundreds of thousands of lives every year in the Union.
<P>
Throughout the world, many more people die from tobacco than from Aids.
That does not make sense.
I know I speak on behalf of all Swedish Members and with the agreement of all the Swedish people when I say that this policy must come to an end.
The subsidies cannot be justified on the grounds of employment or on the grounds that someone else would have produced the tobacco.
By the same logic we could just as easily subsidize the production of nuclear weapons, or of biological and chemical weapons.
The fundamental issue is not an economic, but a moral one.
The Union's citizens do not want to finance the growing of this harmful crop.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place today at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Agenda 2000: Economic and social cohesion
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0219/98) by Mr Cunha, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the reform of the common agricultural policy (Agenda 2000 - Part One, Chapter III) (COM(97)2000 - C4-0522/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="Cunha">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the object of this report is to provide the European Parliament with a set of general principles which can be used as a reference framework for the sectorial reports to be approved later on.
<P>
In that respect, as rapporteur I should like to underline a few fundamental points:
<P>
Firstly, the real world of European agriculture is not limited to the small number of farmers who can export without receiving refunds.
We must be more careful over price reductions and continue our interventions regarding beef and olive oil, notwithstanding the Commission's proposals.
<P>
Secondly, the reform of the CAP cannot be limited to reducing guaranteed prices and offsetting them against productivitylinked direct aid.
The Commission's proposals must be amended in that respect, because they represent a fundamental analytical error.
That error consists of starting from the principle that all farmers are on an equal footing in the face of the external threats arising from the GATT, which is not the true situation.
Now we all know that the less specialized, more peripheral, more extensive, less productive agricultural systems, and in general those in the less favoured mountain, arid or Arctic areas, start at a major disadvantage and will be the first victims of the globalization of agricultural markets if the CAP does not grant them the minimal response they need to survive.
<P>
Thirdly, this justifies our reinforcing our horizontal measures and the aid we base on territorial areas, the environment, forests, the diversification of the productive fabric of the most highly-dependent agricultural regions, animal and vegetable health, and aid related to employment and the less favoured areas.
Now, the proposal on rural development is clear enough but it should nevertheless ensure the achievement of that object and it is, in fact, a long way from doing so, in view of the sparseness of the financial resources provided.
The Commission quite rightly calls that rural development policy a 'second pillar' .
But we shall not have a pillar if we keep quiet; it will be no more than a stem or a cane, unless the Commission substantially alters this aid scheme.
<P>
Fourthly, I think the Commission's proposal for the direct financing of the rural development policy is the right one, because this will make it possible to improve the internal consistency of the CAP and prevent double standards and different responses to different kinds of farmers.
For that reason direct financing should also apply to rural development in the regions mentioned in Objective 1.
<P>
Fifthly, although the question of extension is not in dispute, we must realize that farmers have real fears and apprehensions, in view of the enormous number of reforms and changes they have gone through and the wide present and future implications of GATT.
For that reason, and also for the sake of clarity and openness, I think finance for all pre-accession measures, whether agricultural or not, should appear under a separate heading, distinct from all our common policies, and should only be integrated as each country becomes integrated.
<P>
Sixthly, although every productive sector of agriculture has its own peculiar characteristics, the fact that direct production aid only goes to those sectors which enjoyed high levels of protection in the past is causing more and more problems for social and political cohesion.
The truth is that some cultures, such as Mediterranean culture, for example, have never been protected by the price system in the past and are therefore not getting the benefit of income assistance now.
<P>
In the long term this is an untenable situation which will force the European Union to think about systems based on other factors than just set-off for price reductions in the future.
If this is not put right we shall in future be creating a kind of agricultural apartheid with some cultures entitled to direct aid and others excluded from it.
<P>
Seventhly, it is becoming a fundamental requirement that, in the spirit of the Amsterdam Treaty, the CAP should contribute to the economic and social cohesion of the European Union by creating a basic balance between forms of production, territories and farmers, as indeed has been declared by the Ministers of Agriculture and at the December summit itself.
<P>
Finally, and as my eighth point, it is important to emphasize that the Commission must take the coming negotiations on the future of the GATT very seriously.
It has now been proved that Europe is in a unique situation based on multi-functional agriculture and the family-sized nature of its operations.
Its average farm size of 18 hectares is not in the same league as that of its competitors in the world markets, whose average size runs into hundreds of hectares.
We must not compare two things that are totally disparate, nor must we fall into the trap of following other people's interests.
Apart from that, the rules of fair trading must cover such important matters as consumer sensitivity, environment-friendly practices and respect for human rights and basic freedoms.
<P>
Finally, I would encourage the Commission to take into consideration these guiding principles which I have suggested and which I hope Parliament will approve.
If it does, we shall at last have a balanced common agricultural policy that is capable of treating farmers fairly in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Cunningham">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, CAP reform is a key element of Agenda 2000.
On that subject, may I underline at the outset the essential need to build an open, constructive dialogue between the Council and Parliament on these issues.
Such a dialogue, taking place within the requirements of the Treaties, can only benefit everyone involved.
It can only help the common good.
It will allow each institution to collaborate with the other so as encourage both to play their part fully in the decisions.
<P>
On CAP reform, the Agriculture Council has already made a successful start, with the Commission's proposals having been put to a special Agriculture Council on 31 March.
The Council has acknowledged the need for reform in order to establish a clear direction for the development of European agriculture.
We need this not least in order to take on board the forthcoming enlargement of the Union.
There are also the challenges posed to us by the forthcoming World Trade Organization negotiations.
<P>
Let me be quite clear about this.
We have no alternative but to plan ahead now to meet these challenges which we know will face us.
We have already begun this important process.
The Council has identified several key issues which will need to be addressed in the next phase of the negotiations on the Commission's proposals.
These include the need for and appropriate extent of cuts in support prices and the timescale over which any such cuts should be achieved, the appropriate nature of compensation for such cuts, the conditions under which Member States may exercise discretion with regard to agricultural support, the future role of production constraints such as milk quotas in a reformed CAP and the appropriate balance of support between production sectors, producers and regions within the Union.
<P>
Finally, there is the question of development of the rural economy and protection of the rural environment including multifunctional agriculture.
As well as addressing the need to reform individual commodities, the Council has welcomed the Commission's proposals to address the wider problems experienced in rural areas throughout the Union.
Agriculture is, indeed, an important part of rural Europe but it is only one part and we need to look at what can be done on a European level for rural communities and areas as a whole.
The Council has, therefore, established a clear framework for the next phase of the negotiations on the Commission proposals.
<P>
These key issues are currently being put to Heads of Government in Cardiff as we meet to discuss them here in Parliament.
Detailed work will continue in the remaining weeks of the UK presidency and then continue under the presidency of our Austrian colleagues.
The key to success will be to balance effectively the interests of the Union's consumers and producers and the needs of the environment in promoting a sustainable versatile structure for European agriculture.
That structure needs to be robust enough to meet the challenges I have illustrated and to compete effectively on the world stage.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Colom i Naval">
Madam President, I should like to state straight away that, in general terms, the Committee on Budgets agrees with the report presented by Mr Cunha.
<P>
Obviously, we would have preferred our amendments to have been definitely accepted but, in fact, there are not too many contradictions.
Indeed, I think there is more agreement than anything else.
<P>
However, as far as the Committee on Budgets is concerned, there is a basic question mark over all Mr Cunha's proposals: is there money or not?
<P>
Paragraph 36 asks for increased funding and, frankly, in the Committee on Budgets we have to say we think that request is premature. And when I say premature, I mean what I say.
We are not saying it is not justified.
We are just saying that at the moment it seems premature.
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That is why we asked at the time, in the December resolution, that a clause about the revision of the financial perspectives be included, in order to deal with this additional need should it arise.
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We believe, as Mr Cunha rightly said, that the main aim of the CAP reform - or CARP, including rural policy - is not to make savings, but to improve the policy.
<P>
The fact is that since 1988 there has always been a systematic saving - between the ceiling of the first category and the agricultural budget - of the order of ECU 1000 million to ECU 1500 million per annum.
Furthermore, the budget has always exceeded the implemented spending.
That is why we are cautious.
<P>
But I can assure you, were we to see problems approaching, we would support the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development in seeking to obtain that extra funding.
<P>
In paragraph 57, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development considers that enlargement costs should remain outside the guideline but, in our opinion, that contradicts what we said in December: that the agricultural costs of preaccession and enlargement should be covered by the guideline.
In that way, we think EAGGF and the agricultural policy should really form a fund which is part of cohesion policy and not, as people have started saying, an anti-structural fund.
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<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Pinel">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I wonder whether there is any point in having draftsmen of the Committees' opinions, if the Council speaks before hearing them.
I shall however report to you on the opinion of the Committee on Regional Policy.
<P>
The reform of the common agricultural policy which is proposed in Agenda 2000 raises a large number of questions and some concerns.
There is a fear that rural regions will suffer under this reform.
There is more at stake than just agriculture, important though it is.
The challenge is to achieve a balanced development of the countryside, which manages to avoid large-scale emigration from rural areas, and all its attendant problems: depopulation of whole regions and the growth of already overpopulated conurbations, which are more and more insatiable where Community funds are concerned.
<P>
However, the importance of rural development for balanced management of the countryside and the preservation of both the natural and cultural heritage and the specific characteristics of the fisheries sector and the financing needs of the Common Fisheries Policy require the creation of an independent sub-objective specifically dedicated to 'rural areas' and 'maritime and coastal areas', within the new Objective 2.
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The fact that the new EAGGF regulation brings together all the measures for the development of rural areas is useful, provided that the EAGGF continues to finance only actions directly connected with agriculture, together with coastal and maritime areas, which must not be forgotten.
It is also necessary for the Commission to put forward firm proposals to link agriculture with its local region: local products, labelling, etcetera.
As well as improving quality, this would help us to safeguard against unfair competition from countries with low wages and without welfare protection.
Our ambition should be to enable the harmonious development of agriculture and craft industries, and to promote complementary activities such as rural tourism and direct sales of produce.
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We can thereby provide ourselves with the means to bring the countryside, which is threatened with depopulation, back to life, and to maintain a dynamic rural environment throughout the fifteen Member States of the Union, in accordance with the intention expressed at the recent Luxembourg Summit.
This means that we must continue the actions undertaken under the current Objective 5a, in order to encourage young farmers and fishermen to invest and to set up, and also to facilitate the processing and marketing of agricultural and forestry products, and to facilitate the development of mountain regions.
<P>
These are some of the concerns expressed by the Committee on Regional Policy, which Mr Cunha and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development were kind enough to incorporate into the body of the report.
I should therefore like to thank them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Pinel.
You are asking about the point of the debate. If the Presidency of the Council...
Are you listening?
You are not listening! Then I do not really need to say it, but I wanted to point out that the Commission, Mr Pinel, will speak at the end of the debate.
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<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="Souchet">
Madam President, the Committee on Fisheries unanimously adopted the conclusions I proposed in the opinion intended for the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
The latter also confirmed these conclusions.
However, on behalf of my group, I have tabled two amendments which revise the conclusions of the opinion on the basis of the Commission's latest proposals.
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A horizontal regulation specific to the fisheries and aquaculture sector incorporating all the measures of the former Objective 5a seems indispensable, as in the case of the proposals relating to rural development.
<P>
What is the point of the Common Fisheries Policy if it is no longer applicable throughout all the Member States, and does not include the areas which are not eligible under the new Objectives 1 and 2?
If we implemented the Commission's present proposals, the CFP would amount to no more than a number of technical constraints upon our fishermen and a policy of destruction of fishing vessels.
This would mean moving in the direction of those who see the CFP as a transitional system, a mere prelude to the complete liberalization of the sector, whereas the aim and the justification of the CFP was to support the fishing industry in all the Member States with coastal areas.
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The Committee on Fisheries therefore asks the Commission urgently to propose a horizontal regulation for fisheries which, like rural development, should be financed by the EAGGF and entered in the budget under the agriculture guideline.
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The fisheries sector requires a limited volume of credits, but they are of great importance, whether they are required in coastal or maritime areas, which are vulnerable, or in rural areas engaged in mainland aquaculture.
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We were all deeply shocked by the total absence of the word "fisheries' in the initial version of the Commission's communication Agenda 2000, as if the European Union had no coastline.
Realizing its mistake, the Commission presented to us a draft incorporating the coastal and maritime areas in the new Objective 2.
This is a step in the right direction. It is nevertheless inadequate because all the fishermen in the European Union operate within common areas, and it would be particularly inappropriate if the rates of aid implementing the Common Fisheries Policy were to vary from 0 to 75 % depending on the home port of each vessel.
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<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fantuzzi">
Madam President, I would like to acknowledge the fine work that Mr Cunha did and say how useful it is for the next stages.
However, greater conviction could have perhaps gone into seeking a clearer and more effective compromise, because this resolution has too many points.
This also recalls the need to have stricter rules in Parliament's work so that we do not always end up with interminable documents in which a few good things of substance get lost in a sea of repetition and obviousness.
I cannot see how this gives us a better picture.
<P>
If the aim of this own-initiative report is to condition relations on the sectoral aspects of Agenda 2000, its success will not, however, depend only on the excellent rapporteur, Mr Cunha, but I believe to a great extent on our future work.
We will therefore have to see whether all together we can use this text as a starting point and advance with a coherent plan to reform the CAP.
The first signs of discussion in the Council of Ministers, Mr Cunningham, do not augur well.
At a time when all talk is about the World Cup, we are still passing the ball back and forth and not scoring any goals.
There is agreement on the laudable definitions, like the European agriculture model, multifunctionality, competitiveness, rural development, but as soon as the focus shifts from statements in principle to concrete facts major differences emerge and everything is engulfed in the sea of special interests, with the risk of seeing a very long shopping list.
<P>
We Socialists see two risks.
The first is that the entire debate will be conditioned by the price guarantees of market policy and by their exclusive nature.
In this case, rural policy would still remain the weak pillar of the common agricultural policy, despite the Cork Conference and the commitment of the Commissioners.
Instead, as we stated at a conference in November, structural policy must increasingly become the key policy in agriculture, with emphasis on investments in various sectors, quality and the regions.
If the market is to grow in importance and traditional protections are to decrease in importance, the real market policy sustainable in the future is structural and rural policy.
<P>
The second risk is that all the problems with the horizontal regulation of the CAP - modulation, the definition of a maximum amount, cross compliance - will end up being a lost opportunity.
At a time when subsidiarity is all the rage, we believe that it is a mistake to confer total responsibility for such important matters on the Member States, a choice that some would think too courageous but that in reality shows, I think, the little courage on the part of the Commission to take on decisions at European level that are in keeping with what has been said repeatedly and what public opinion is calling for, a public opinion increasingly attentive to what is happening inside the black box of the common agricultural policy.
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<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Goepel">
Madam President, I have only two comments on the Cunha report.
Firstly, it is a good report.
Why?
Because Mr Cunha has succeeded in achieving a sensible, mutually beneficial co-existence between current position papers by the parliamentary groups and future reports on the production sectors within the framework of Agenda 2000.
Furthermore, the rapporteur has kept to the recommendation by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development not to go into detail in his report, which did not, however, prevent him from - rightly - making the opinion of the Committee quite clear on the focal points of the future Agenda 2000.
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Secondly, the protagonist in the Agenda 2000 discussion is price reductions in exchange for more or less sufficient compensation, Commissioner.
We can debate it as we wish but there has to be some guarantee that farmers do not derive their incomes solely or substantially from compensation but that they can participate in the market more than before.
This is exactly the point that affects our voters, the people who put us in this House and who, not being farmers, increasingly fail to understand this system of financing.
<P>
But have our voters ever asked why production price reductions - undertaken, for example, in the MacSharry reform in 1992 - never filtered through to the consumer? What will be the effect of the future Fischler reform, to give another name to the agriculture part of the Agenda?
Commissioner, will bread prices fall?
Cereal prices are to be reduced by 20 %, after all.
Will beer become cheaper?
A delight to all aficionados of this drink, as the percentage of cereal in this lovely product is by no means insignificant, and the price of cereals is being reduced!
Will meat become cheaper, given the planned 30 % price reduction?
What about the price of butter?
Last but not least, the price of compound feedingstuff in animal feeds should become cheaper.
Will we be able to expect this?
If this were the case, our voters, who are not only concerned with agriculture, would certainly have greater understanding for European agriculture.
But they will have to be able to see it in their wallets when they go shopping.
Then European agriculture would be a great deal more credible!
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<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Mulder">
Madam President, firstly, I would like to offer my congratulations to Mr Cunha, who has worked with a great deal of enthusiasm on this report. To use a Dutch idiom: we had the impression that you 'felt like a fish in water'.
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The Commission is putting three arguments forward for the Agenda 2000 proposals.
Firstly, if we do nothing we will have overproduction once more.
Secondly, we must prepare for the coming WTO negotiations.
Thirdly, we must prepare for the accession of the central and eastern European countries.
As far as I am concerned, and as far as my group is concerned, we think the third point is by far the most convincing.
Maintaining peace and security in Europe is worth paying for, and the agricultural sector will also have to pay for this, just like other sectors in the European economies.
My group therefore supports the Agenda 2000 proposals in principle.
<P>
The prices in Eastern and Western Europe should gradually start to converge, and this means that in our part of Europe the prices will have to fall.
We believe that compensation should be awarded for this price reduction. In contrast to the Cunha report, we believe this compensation should also apply to specific products, such as milk.
In addition, and this concerns a different policy, an active rural policy will have to be pursued.
I believe this policy is not controversial, and we also support it.
<P>
There is another aspect besides compensation for price reduction. In our opinion, the development of new markets is decidedly missing.
Much more could be done about the quality of agricultural products.
How can consumers easily recognize this quality?
I hope to make concrete proposals to Parliament about this later in the year.
<P>
Another omission from the Agenda 2000 proposals concerns proposals in the sphere of agrification.
This can only be effective if the Commission pursues an effective policy by making the use of certain products compulsory.
This does not concern subsidies or excessive subsidies, but simply saying that a certain product originates from agriculture, that it is good for the environment, and that is why we should be required to use it in a major way.
This can be an effective new market for agricultural products.
I should like to recommend this.
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<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Rosado Fernandes">
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, I would like to congratulate Arlindo Cunha on his excellent work, resulting from his experience as the Portuguese Minister of Agriculture and also as the erstwhile President of the Council of Ministers of Agriculture, at the time of the MacSharry reforms.
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We are obviously at the stage where, after its initial pride in the child it has brought up, called the CAP, the European Union has become ashamed of that child and now treats it as though it were illegitimate.
The truth is that attacks on it in the world market, by American criticism, by Fortress Europe, by the Keynes group and by all the groups whose historical situations are very different from ours, including the United Kingdom itself, have naturally made Europe ashamed of the CAP it created and which it now considers to be an illegitimate brainchild.
<P>
That is the situation we are in and it is that situation which my honourable friend Mr Cunha is at least trying to improve.
It attributes importance to young farmers, to territories and territorial differences in fertility and climate throughout Europe, it attributes importance to something no-one has previously thought important; on the other hand, it places great emphasis on the expression 'rural development' , which I would rate less highly, because I know it is almost a utopian vision to aim at rural development based on agriculture.
Rural development has to be effected in competition with services and industry - that is my experience in Portugal - and I, of course, have never seen agriculture bring about any development in any region whatsoever.
Let us be honest about that!
<P>
I also appreciate the fact that Mr Cunha has drawn up the report with one eye on the GATT.
But I would have liked the Commission at least to have thought a little.
When the price reductions come, apart from the green box and the blue box, which black box will the redundant farmers of Europe be put in?
I would like to know the number.
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<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Jové Peres">
Madam President, first of all I should like to thank Mr Cunha for his excellent report.
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This report can be no more than a first approach to the reforms contained within Agenda 2000.
Nevertheless, it has a very important added value because it has done work that the Commission should have done, given that the job of proposing legislative initiatives wrongly belongs to the Commission.
<P>
Before addressing the principles of Agenda 2000, Mr Cunha's report presents an analysis of the defects of the 1992 CAP reform.
In attempting to tackle a new CAP reform, we first need to analyse the faults of the earlier one.
However, the Commission has not done this.
To my mind, that is one of the great merits of the Cunha report.
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In trying to perform an in-depth study of the principles of the 1992 reform, none of the institutions can allow themselves to ignore its effects, which were negative in many cases.
We cannot ignore the huge number of farms which have disappeared, or the effects on the social fabric of the rural environment and land use.
We cannot ignore the enormous destruction of agricultural jobs, especially when our policy formulations make job creation one of the political objectives of the European Union.
<P>
Nor can we ignore the fact that the 1992 reform exacerbated all the imbalances already present in the CAP.
There has been an increase in the extent to which aid is concentrated on a few farmers. The budget has become even more concentrated on a small number of common organizations of the market, while Mediterranean products receive less funding, and are subject to proposals which entail their virtual dismantling.
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If the Cunha report had gone no further than this, that would still have been quite a lot.
It gives a political signal that with Agenda 2000 we are playing with fire.
The European Union must understand that it is on the point of taking a wrong turning.
If we were to add the collateral structural policy proposals, with the new role for the EAGGF Guarantee section in the rich regions, we would be faced with a loss of geographical concentration and a loss of cohesion in the rural zones.
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So we need to thank Mr Cunha once again for all his efforts, and other institutions need to understand that European construction cannot be carried out by means of abstract formulations or experiments.
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The European Union also needs to demonstrate its true weight in settings such as the World Trade Organization, where its stance has most often been one of passivity and renouncing its own position.
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<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Madam President, Mr Cunha has presented a very good report. My group will support him.
He has made it clear that in the past this intervention system led to great disparities and injustices among producers, countries and regions, and that it had a destructive effect on jobs and the quality of food.
As I said before, Mr Fischler, a policy of price reduction within the intervention system leads to farms being excluded, and is fatal for farms and regions which are sensitive in their production and do not belong to the favoured sectors.
Here we must make a radical change.
We must move away from the intervention system and instead move towards an integrated development of rural areas, as is intended in the second pillar of Agenda 2000.
<P>
It is essential here that we offer a structural policy on a horizontal basis as in many areas we cannot sustain a policy of price reduction or a departure from the intervention system without regional markets being strengthened.
This would lead to the destruction of further jobs.
For this reason, we must be able to compete in terms of quality as a matter of urgency, Mr Fischler, and this should also apply to production in the world market.
Those who wish to produce for the world market may do so, but they should do so without state aid!
This would lead to an increase in prices on the world market, giving many farmers in Third World countries a chance once again to secure their livelihood by producing food for their countries and regions.
If we continue to dump to the tune of millions, this development will constantly be destroyed and it will result in social and ecological dumping.
<P>
I would like to mention external protection briefly.
This is, on the whole, confirmed by the parliamentary groups and I hope that the Commission will keep to its plan of also protecting regional development within the EU by protecting against external social and ecological dumping.
This would also help to stabilize the situation in the world market, which in turn would benefit those countries that are weakest in terms of agricultural production.
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<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Barthet-Mayer">
Madam President, Commissioner Fischler, ladies and gentlemen, we all agree that our agricultural sector must be capable of contributing towards the expansion of the world market, whilst preparing for enlargement and the forthcoming WTO negotiations. We all agree that the distribution of subsidies must be improved, taking into account the multifunctional characteristics of agriculture.
We applaud the Commission's stated intentions, but tremble at the proposed solutions, based mainly on the so-called inevitable trend to liberalize trade, resulting in a general decrease in prices, and with the development of raw materials on the world market as our only aim.
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The competitiveness of European agriculture must not depend upon a single parameter.
The quality of products, their processing, their suitability in terms of international demand and dynamic commercial policies, as well as low prices, are capable of increasing our export potential.
We do not need a smaller budget, we need a better budget.
We need a redirected budget to support the European agricultural model which Mr Cunha described so well in his report, a model which reconciles the necessary economic aims of agriculture with the requirements of public health, product quality, the environment, land use, rural development and aid to young people.
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That is the model on which the strengthened CAP should be based, without opening the door to its renationalization. Community preference must be incorporated, and we must not forget that we have a production deficit in some product areas, such as oilseed proteins, citrus fruits, fish and wood.
We should not put the cart before the horse, and we must not give up before we begin.
<P>
We shall be in a much stronger position to negotiate the CAP in the face of the WTO's demands if we reform the CAP beforehand in accordance with our objectives.
Let us not underestimate what is at stake.
The CAP reform and Agenda 2000 represent a choice we have to make for society.
It is we politicians who must take responsibility for this. I should like to thank Mr Cunha for reminding us of this.
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<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="des Places">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as rapporteur on the Commission's communication Agenda 2000, I asked the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development to draft an own-initiative report on the common agricultural policy reform, and I am delighted that the task was entrusted to Mr Cunha.
<P>
Indeed, within the framework of a very limited budget, Agenda 2000 proposes the reform of two of our most important policies: the common agricultural policy and the structural policy.
At the time, I was struck by the Commission's purely budgetary approach in its proposed reforms of the COM for arable crops, cattle and diary products.
The specific features of European agriculture were not taken into consideration, and in its determination to get into line with the international agricultural model, the Commission failed to define a true European agriculture model which took into consideration the specific nature of our rural development and land use.
<P>
The report originally submitted to us by Mr Cunha was a good report.
The many amendments tabled by the Committee on Agriculture have made it much less coherent, and in places it even has a slight bias towards the sort of ideology which disregards the fact that above all else agriculture is an economic activity.
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To conclude, Madam President, let me give an example: if we want European agriculture to continue, young people must enter agriculture. The only real policy which will encourage young people to become farmers is to offer them an economically profitable activity based on an agricultural policy which is visible in the medium term.
What attitude will the European Commission have when the forthcoming WTO negotiations start in June 1999?
A strategy of attack has yet to be defined, and the agricultural policy reform proposed by the Commission does not take that important international deadline into consideration.
On the contrary, it wants to give farmers partial compensatory aid to compensate for price reductions, in the knowledge that such aid is limited within the current framework of GATT regulations and that our fellow citizens do not understand what it is for.
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<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Madam President, this morning we discussed olive oil, agricultural prices, tobacco? this afternoon, we will discuss bananas.
Thanks to Mr Cunha's excellent report, we can respond to this third reform of the CAP proposed by Mr Fischler.
We have had Sicco Mansholt's CAP, based on prices and incomes.
As a result, we have lost 12 million farmers, which makes Sicco Mansholt the Pol Pot of agriculture.
We have had the 1984-1992 CAP, with stabilisers, quotas, maximum guaranteed quantities? which was a failure.
Only yesterday evening, we were informed that stocks of cereals had increased to 14 million tonnes.
And now, we have a third reform, which rather reminds me of "The Leopard' by the Italian novelist Lampedusa: everything must change in order to stay the same.
The reasons are the same: in 1992, we had to prepare for GATT, in 1998, we have to prepare for WTO.
It is estimated that 21 % of the complaints addressed to the WTO are about Europe, and more than one third of the complaints come from the United States.
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The system is also the same: it is still Malthusian and budgetarist.
It is Malthusian because of its price decreases, set-asides, sale of foods on the international market and savage cuts (of vines, for example), and budgetarist, with its petty accounting and rationing, even more stringent now that we have the magic amount of 1.25 % of GDP to finance both pre-accession and accession.
<P>
In reality, the technical questions raised by Mr Cunha, relating to non-food use, the decoupling of production aid, product quality, ceilings on aid and safety, and so on, mask a real choice between two models, American or European, as Mr des Places, Mrs Barthet-Mayer and many others have said.
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The keyword in the American model is "intensive' .
In the United States, agriculture is a combination of chemistry with the added mystique of genetically modified organisms: nitrates, herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, and now GMMs.
The keyword in the European model is harmony.
Harmony between producers and family export businesses. Harmony in production areas, in the south - tobacco, wine, fruits, vegetables, olives - and in the north, resulting in a range of products which gives the consumer harmony in health, thanks to the quality of products, harmony between the mountains and the plains, aesthetic harmony, ecological harmony and mental harmony.
Minister, harmony in agriculture would mean fewer British hooligans in Marseilles.
<P>
Obviously, the consequences of the American model are well known in comparison with our own: soil destruction, ground water pollution, contamination, mad cow disease and alienation. Monsanto and Pioneer, in the name of patent rights, even want to transform American farmers into workers who no longer have the right to re-use seeds.
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So we must first of all protect the European model, if we wish to defend it against the archaic American model.
We must use Community preference, the essential heart of Europe, to protect it. Without Community preference, there is no Europe.
We must protect it by keeping prices high, which will help to maintain high income levels.
We must protect it by improving the quality of our products and by increasing their added value, which justifies high prices and the exportation of our model.
Exporting our model does not mean aligning ourselves with world prices, by decoupling production aid; it means providing export aid as the United States does within the scope of FAIR legislation, which maintains export credits, particularly for the benefit of the Ukraine, Egypt, Russia or South Africa.
Finally, Commissioner Fischler, we must defend the European model during international negotiations.
You are European Commissioner for Agriculture, not Under Secretary of State for Agriculture of the United States.
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<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="Colino Salamanca">
Madam President, I too should like to congratulate Mr Cunha on the work he has done and, especially, on the arguments put forward in his report.
I think his work shows that the Agenda 2000 document is tremendously unbalanced.
It is very clear and very radical in certain approaches, specifically as regards prices. Nevertheless, it is very unclear as regards additional measures.
Specifically, it is very radical on price reductions, which are compensated partially rather than fully, as before.
It is also very radical in giving equal aid to all crops without taking their differences into account, which could mean the end of sunflowers.
<P>
On those subjects, the Commission document is tremendously clear and radical.
However, in other aspects the proposals do not display the same decisiveness.
As has already been said, it gives the impression that the only reason for this new reform is the demands of future WTO negotiations.
<P>
But the document says nothing about the future of European agriculture.
As has also been said several times, we want this agriculture to fill Europe's land and continue to play an environmental and social role.
There is no mention of the need for the CAP to respond to criteria of economic and social cohesion, or the need to guarantee a balance between crops, farmers and land. To give a negative example, we need only remind ourselves that the budgetary imbalance means that southern crops and continental crops receive different protection.
In the same sense, what role do we really want the aid to have?
From this point of view, the horizontal regulation does not clarify things much.
<P>
As regards rural development, I do not think the approach taken in Agenda 2000 comes anywhere near meeting the hopes raised by the Cork Conference.
It seems that in the future we shall not be able to count on a real, properly integrated, truly multisectoral, adequately funded rural policy, which is capable of alleviating the problems presented by Agenda 2000's lack of balance.
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<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Sonneveld">
Madam President, my colleague Mr Cunha had the task of writing a report concerning a number of horizontal problems in the agricultural proposals of Agenda 2000, and of providing a long-term view of these problems.
He succeeded in this, and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development also added important insights on a number of points.
At the same time, this vision of the European agriculture model offers the framework for future policy on the agricultural integration of Eastern Europe.
For the citizens in their capacity as consumers and tax payers, it also justifies why such agricultural and rural policy must be pursued.
But the report is, of course, global.
It does not analyse, for instance, which measures should qualify for EU funding and which for co-funding.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has yet to work out this horizontal problem together with the Committee on Budgets.
<P>
The report tries to create a balance between competitive agriculture and the necessity to support areas and groups which, because they occupy a more or less permanently disadvantaged position, need a larger income.
Yet the notion of profitability for farms has perhaps retreated too much into the background.
If prices are reduced to below the cost price of the most efficient farms, then the compensation for these farms must be in proportion to their productivity.
Otherwise they will also disappear, and this surely cannot be what the common agricultural policy intends.
Therefore, the section of the report on dairy policy has been carelessly formulated, and as such is unacceptable.
<P>
On the issue of linking environmental stipulations to direct payments, the report rejects the Commission proposals for national criteria.
Still, we shall find out that it will never be possible to formulate environmental stipulations at the EU level for all EU regions.
The reality will force us into the direction of greater subsidiarity.
Moreover, this offers a better guarantee that EU farmers will not be saddled with more rules and bureaucracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Madam President, Commissioner, I think that Mr Cunha has managed to move a number of goal posts, which was much needed.
He has broadened and deepened the debate, and this is something we should continue, because I believe that otherwise we will not be able to cope with the next WTO negotiations.
It is my view that at the next WTO negotiations we should not raise the issue of product amounts with linked price support, but rather issues such as food quality, environmental demands and social criteria.
I am therefore pleased with Mr Cunha's proposals that we should ultimately aim for decoupling production aid.
In this context I would like draw the Commissioner's attention, although you are undoubtedly familiar with it, to the Buckwell report, which contains a number of interesting proposals for switching over to decoupled aid.
Perhaps the report requires a little more attention from the Directorate-General of Agriculture than it has been given until now.
<P>
Madam President, I believe that the Americans with their FAIR act will most certainly take over a section of the global market, and that we have not progressed as far with our system.
They also give a certain type of aid.
We will therefore have to think a lot more creatively about this aspect.
<P>
To conclude, Madam President, I would like draw attention to rural development.
The demographic data show that in large areas of Europe, the rural population is continuing to move into the city.
We will not be able to stop this migration with agricultural policy alone; it requires a broader rural policy, as well as the resources to develop this policy.
For this reason I look forward to the actual implementation of the proposals which were developed in Cork.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Hyland">
Madam President, I should like to congratulate Mr Cunha.
He has produced a very objective report.
All of us in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development very much appreciate his work.
<P>
The recent proposals issued by the European Commission to reform the common agricultural policy must indeed be substantially changed, from an Irish perspective.
Unless the proposals are extensively amended many marginalized Irish farms will come under pressure and some may not survive.
Such a development would have serious consequences for the socioeconomic infrastructure of rural communities.
The Commission proposals as they stand now, if implemented in their entirety, would have the following detrimental effects on Irish agriculture.
<P>
Firstly, in relation to the discrimination in the share-out of the milk quota, Ireland has a very legitimate claim in relation to additional quota.
The proposals which do not provide for full compensation would have devastating effects on the Irish beef sector.
In Ireland, as everybody knows, beef and milk represent 71 % of our entire agricultural output.
The proposals, as they stand, would result in income reductions for Irish farmers, destabilize the structure of family farms, dissuade young people from taking up farming as a profession and would lead to continued rural depopulation.
<P>
We must remember that, in comparative terms, agriculture is nearly three times as important to the Irish economy as it is to the EU as a whole.
In 1997 the common agriculture policy was worth £5.1 billion to the Irish economy.
In the context of the Agenda 2000 proposals price reductions can only be supported if they are accompanied by full payment to farmers so as to offset the effects of the proposed price reductions.
The direct payments being proposed by the Commission are not adequate and must be addressed before we can agree.
<P>
In conclusion, the CAP reform proposals are unacceptable to Ireland because they are not balanced, they do not protect the interests of Irish farming and they do not enhance rural development.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Querbes">
Madam President, I hope the European Parliament will adopt Mr Cunha's excellent report. In doing so, it will express an opinion on the reform of the CAP, and will also express the reaction within the agricultural sector against the Commission's proposals.
<P>
Commissioner Fischler, the Commission has not learnt any lessons from the 1992 reform, which has increased job losses in agriculture and rural areas, exacerbated inequalities in the distribution of Community funds, kept agricultural incomes down to 60 % of the average wage, and caused imbalances in land use.
Worse still, the Commission continues to confine itself to a doctrine of price decreases and productivity races, which threaten jobs, social, environmental and regional stability, and the independence and quality of food.
<P>
As the rapporteur emphasized, what agriculture and European society actually need is a CAP reform which offers a real alternative. It must fundamentally redirect a number of measures, consolidate the European agricultural model and enable agriculture to face the new challenges ahead of society, in the areas of employment, food, energy, the environment and water supply.
How can we do this? What tools must we use?
<P>
The rapporteur correctly reminds us that prices and markets policy must be based on the three traditional pillars of CAP, particularly Community preference.
And he makes proposals for the future.
One such proposal relates to the basis of agricultural income, which must be derived essentially from the production and sale of agricultural products.
By prices rather than subsidies.
He raises the question of ceilings and the adjustment of subsidies on the basis of criteria which promote employment, and for the same purpose, a readjustment between northern and Mediterranean production areas.
He proposes that the definition of international commercial relations should be based on clauses relating to production costs and environmental, social and employment standards.
He even refers to the question of the principle of rural exception, which must set down the limits to globalization in the sector.
<P>
This report provides an excellent basis for discussion and suggests alternatives to the Commission's proposals.
It will be of benefit to the farmers and people of Europe, and the Council should take inspiration from it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Nicholson">
Madam President, I would like to add my thanks to Mr Cunha and congratulate him on a very excellent report.
It proves beyond any shadow of doubt that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, which sometimes comes in for tremendous criticism from Members in the Committee on Budgets and elsewhere can, on occasions, come forward with very constructive reports.
<P>
As we are all aware, the report looks towards enlargement of the European Union and the WTO discussions - the whole Agenda 2000 process. It will have a very long-term effect on agriculture and as we have known it within the European Union.
<P>
There are a number of points I wish to make.
It is important that we ensure that the existing family farm structure of the European Union is protected in order for it to survive.
Member States are extremely enthusiastic about enlargement, but at this moment the Council in Cardiff is probably trying to cut back the contributions to the European Union.
On the one hand they want enlargement while, on the other hand, they are not prepared to pay for it.
They cannot have it both ways.
Member States are going to have to face up to that principle no matter what approach they take.
We must have a longer transitional period and extend the time before enlargement.
<P>
One other point I want to make very strongly: we must not allow the renationalization of the common agricultural policy as we have known it.
I am very concerned at the proposal for national envelopes because I believe that will bring inequalities between Member States.
Indeed, there is the whole problem of additionality, which we have seen in the past.
<P>
Personally, I would like to see Parliament and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development fully involved in the whole Agenda 2000 process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Görlach">
Madam President, my honourable friends, our colleague, Mr Cunha, has in fact presented a report which we can approve.
However, we will see that problems will arise when it comes to details.
As you all know, it is easy to agree on general issues but we all have different views when it comes to specific details.
<P>
With regard to the Commission's address I would say that the Commission's proposals in Agenda 2000 are definitely a move in the right direction.
But they are flawed. The proposals rely too heavily on product-related subsidies.
Anyone who now persists in ignoring the pressure for change in the area of agricultural policy and the opportunities of Agenda 2000 by introducing half-hearted reforms or changes, will receive his just deserts from life, the WTO and the enlargement process.
For this reason I believe we must concentrate.
The so-called second strong, sturdy leg or the second pillar, as the Commission says, in policy for rural areas is a very narrow support to which a heck of a lot of flesh has to be added.
What we need in this reform is help to adapt farms to the markets.
This can only be done by means of quality of products or quality of production, and not by means of quantity.
Those who still place too much importance on going to market with huge quantities will discover that we are putting ourselves under pressure.
In the WTO negotiations we, the EU, must set the conditions and not allow them to be dictated to us by the Americans or the Cairns Group.
<P>
We need to promote employment in rural areas.
We need to meet unmet demand in a harmonious and well-balanced system of environmentally sustainable production.
In this area, the Commission's proposal remains inadequate.
And it is not right for the European farmers' associations to be telling the same tales of woe as they did two years ago.
At that time the common agricultural policy was supposedly on its way out, but this was not the case.
Nor will it be in future.
But we can lose out - that is, if we only make a few minor changes instead of carrying out real reform.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="President">
We will now suspend the debate on agriculture.
<P>
The debate will continue at 3.00 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Bonde and Sandbæk">
We cannot support Mr Pimenta's motion to reject the proposed accord with the USA.
This is not because the agreement is the best it could be, but because it is better than the alternative.
The alternative to the accord with the USA is not some other agreement with better standards.
The Council's earlier decision on banning leghold traps implies that an import ban could be introduced, but that is basically all it provides for.
The resolution on banning leghold traps is very limited; it applies to only 13 of the 19 species covered by the new agreement; it does not ban the use of leghold traps, only the import of furs; most significantly, the resolution only covers this one particular trapping method.
In our opinion, it is hypocritical to focus on this one trapping method, however barbaric, while traps in use within the EU are no less cruel.
That - and not more stringent requirements for traps - is the alternative to the agreements with Russia, Canada and now also the United States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Deprez">
I fully endorse the views of our rapporteur and wish to make it plain that I totally disapprove of the agreement between the European Community and the United States on so-called "humane' trapping standards. These do absolutely nothing to prevent cruelty to animals.
I believe that it is high time we put an unconditional end, I repeat, an unconditional end, to the use of leghold traps, which inflict terrible suffering on millions of captured animals indiscriminately.
<P>
Furthermore, this agreement does not go nearly as far as the agreements with Canada and Russia, which many of us considered inadequate when we were consulted.
Indeed, I consider this to be a step in the wrong direction, both from the legal point of view (with regard, for example, to the method of settling possible disputes) and in substance (I refer in particular to the increase in the time period).
<P>
It is unfortunate for animals that our competence in this matter is only consultative. We know that in all likelihood the Council will ignore our opinion and approve this proposal.
<P>
But this should not prevent us, as a Parliament, from loudly and clearly recommending the rejection of this unacceptable agreement!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of the Pimenta report urging the Council to reject the proposed accord with the USA.
<P>
However, we must admit that we find ourselves in a dilemma.
We do want to find alternatives to leghold traps.
Leghold traps are cruel to animals and must be banned.
The difficulty is that political efforts mainly focus on doing away with leghold traps in areas where wild animals are trapped by people who rely heavily on trapping.
Political efforts are even touching on the enormous number of leghold traps used in the EU to keep 'pests' at bay.
The logic appears to be that if a woman wants to wear the animal's pelt as a fur, then it must not be caught using a leghold trap, but if the animal is regarded by humans as not very attractive, then we can do what we like to it.
In the EU, we use thousands of traps to catch animals that are not very highly rated among animal lovers: rats and water voles.
<P>
Moreover - to a positively hideous extent - international negotiations on this matter have been so long-drawn-out, have been manipulated so much and have produced such poor results that the whole exercise ought to be done again.
In weighing up the one factor against the other, we have come down on the side of supporting the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection in its rejection of the motion, even though we do not endorse a hypocritical majority in the House who would like to hit the earning potential of native populations while failing to see the beam in their own eyes (to put it mildly).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Souchet">
Council Regulation 3254/91 laid down provisions whereby third countries wishing to export the furs or associated products derived from 13 species should either have prohibited the use of leghold traps within their jurisdiction or ensure that trapping methods used meet internationally agreed humane trapping standards.
<P>
Although this Regulation was adopted some years ago, it is not always implemented.
There is a simple reason behind this: a threat by Canada and the United States to take the issue to the World Trade Organization, if the ban is enforced.
<P>
The Commission has now presented to us a draft bilateral agreement between the European Community and the United States.
Like the rapporteur, our group rejects this agreement.
Once again, it reflects the tropism of the Commission, bending before the United States and Canada's determination to refuse the introduction of environmental clauses within the framework of the WTO.
<P>
If the agreement were enforced, it would furthermore create a situation verging on the grotesque.
In fact, the European Union could continue to import furs derived from animals captured using leghold traps, whilst at the same time refusing to use the same type of trap to destroy animal pests in its own territory.
<P>
In fact, in wetlands in particular, great damage is done by animal pests with no market value, such as nutria, to dykes and ditches, which have to be repaired at considerable cost by local authorities and marsh associations.
<P>
It would be more logical if we adopted exactly the opposite stance instead of the Commission's proposal: for animals which have a market value, it would be logical to use the most humane traps.
However, in order to eradicate animal pests, which have no market value, it would be preferable to use the cheapest and most effective traps.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Titley">
I have no option but to vote against the agreement drafted with the USA on humane animal trapping standards.
It is simply not tough enough on the cruel leghold traps which so many of my constituents naturally oppose.
<P>
The author of this report has rightly concluded that millions of defenceless animals will suffer the painful death caused by leghold traps for years to come as a result of this agreement not going far enough to ban them.
<P>
The view of our citizens in the EU, not only in nations traditionally known for their love of animals like the British, has been set out in the statutory obligation of the European Commission to ban the import of furs caught in these cruel traps wherever practical.
<P>
I trust that trade considerations with the USA will not be used as a reason for not continuing the push for better standards in animal traps.
We are the largest trading block in the world's history and it is time that the EU's negotiators used our influence to get a better deal for animals in these kind of international agreements.
If the deal is not good enough, then they must go back to the talks table until it is.
<P>
Girão Pereira report (A4-0178/98)
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Novo">
We voted in favour of the Council regulation on the conclusion of the Protocol establishing the fishing possibilities and the financial compensation provided for in the Agreement between the EC and the Government of the Republic of Guinea on fishing off the Guinean coast for the period from 1 January 1998 to 31 December 1999, for the following reasons:
<P>
1.We think there is a very positive improvement on the previous protocol as regards controls on fish stocks and the corresponding allocation of financial resources to local scientific and technical programmes and to methods of supervision and control of fishing activities.2.We think the renewal of the Protocol - maintaining previous catch levels for practical purposes, but significantly increasing the amounts of financial compensation - will make it possible to reach a compromise between the need for Community fleets (Spain, Greece, France, Italy and Portugal) to continue to have access to local resources, supplying their own raw materials, and the obvious need for less developed countries to increase their financial profits.
We only hope Community owners (and particularly Portuguese owners, who will be entitled to catch 200 grt a year of shrimps and send two surface longliners to Guinean waters) will make better use of the opportunities created for them.3.We must, however, express our doubts over the fact that the Community fleet will have access to Guinean waters outside a 10-mile limit when its vessels should only have access outside the usual 12-mile limit.
Similarly, we have doubts about the period specified by this Protocol - only two years, and therefore less than in most EC agreements of this type - which will not provide sufficient operational stability for the Community fleet.
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Souchet">
Our group is speaking today on this report relating to the fisheries agreement between the European Union and the Republic of Guinea, in order to highlight an essential aspect of Common Fisheries Policy.
<P>
At the last Fisheries Council, a ban was adopted on the use of 2.5 km drifting gill nets in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.
I strongly opposed this decision, which was adopted without any scientific basis. It deprives fishermen and coastal areas of an economic activity essential to their survival.
May I remind you that this decision is even more unacceptable because in order to obtain the Council's agreement, the Commission maintained the use of 21 km drifting gill nets in the Baltic, although an international regulation established by the UN recommends a limit of 2.5 km.
<P>
Let us return to the fisheries agreement with Guinea.
What do we have here?
This agreement provides fishing possibilities for 33 freezer-seiners and 13 pole-and-line tuna vessels.
Pursuant to international law, these vessels may if they wish use drifting gill nets.
What is the logic behind this according to the Commission?
<P>
As a defender of the principle of controlled resources, and supporter of professional fishermen, I cannot fail to very strongly condemn these absolutely scandalous contradictions in the Commission's attitude.
The Commission should restrict itself to ensuring compliance with international regulations which permit the use of drifting gill nets. It must stop using false excuses in order to enable fishermen from one specific Member State to snatch the market shares of other Member States, by the artificial means of banning a type of fishing gear.
If a drifting gill net of limited length is environmentally acceptable and not detrimental to resources, it must be acceptable for all fishermen, in every sea and every ocean.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Wibe">
All of the fisheries policy which is based on the Community buying fishing rights from the poor countries of Africa is wrong.
Therefore we cannot support it.
In addition, the proposal before us from the Commission entails an increase in aid compared with before.
Apart from the reservations on principle, you should also ask whether the aid which the EC pays to Guinea really benefits the poor population of the country.
It is worth remembering that Guinea is not a proper democracy, which makes you wonder where the money actually ends up.
<P>
Trakatellis report (A4-0192)
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Bonde and Sandbæk">
In our opinion, it is of course appropriate to revise the provisions on genetically modified micro-organisms on an ongoing basis as new knowledge is acquired in this relatively new area of research.
We believe it is particularly important to safeguard high safety levels, and this is one of the aims of the report.
However, we have been obliged to abstain from voting on a number of amendments.
This is largely because lay people cannot pretend to comprehend the content and consequences of these proposals.
We feel it is questionable to allow such complicated, technical issues to go to the vote when people have no real hope of understanding them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Souchet">
The common position adopted with the Council at the end of the first reading provides a framework for the restricted use of genetically modified micro-organisms, and safeguards the interests of Member States.
<P>
The 35 amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection broadly take up the amendments presented during the discussion of the proposal at first reading. The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations is unable to support either the amendments which aim to prevent Member States from reinforcing minimum environmental protection regulations, or those which are likely to make the proposal unenforceable, by trying to establish too high a level of precision.
<P>
The important amendments include a proposal to change the legal basis from Article 130s to Article 100a.
This proposal is unacceptable as it stands, because the directive does not establish rules relating to the harmonization of the internal market; it establishes minimum environmental and public health protection regulations, which Member States must be able to reinforce if necessary.
<P>
The directive does not, in fact, regulate the movement and marketing of genetically modified micro-organisms, but only the conditions of their use in contained facilities.
<P>
Another important point (Amendments Nos 4 and 9) makes it compulsory for operators to obtain insurance cover for the contained use of GMMs.
This provision is out of place in this document, because operator liability should be governed by general rules at the European level and by specific rules in the Member States.
This document must not be used as an excuse for an indirect attempt to reform insurance legislation.
<P>
The wording of most of the amendments (Amendments Nos 2 to 14) is more accurate and appropriate in the common position than in the initial document.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection seems to have taken great pleasure in amending the document in such a way that it has become too complicated to adapt to technological change and unenforceable as it stands.
<P>
On the other hand, our group supports all the containment provisions proposed in Amendments Nos 15 to 35 because, unlike the preceding amendments, they are more appropriate than the common position.
<P>
Finally, our group supports Amendment No 36 tabled by the Green Group, which provides for a better description, and therefore better knowledge, of the GMMs used.
<P>
des Places report (A4-0216)
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Ahlqvist, Andersson, Hulthén, Theorin, Waidelich and Wibe">
We think the Commission's proposal is better than the draft report from the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
We are voting against the proposal to increase prices and so we cannot vote for this report.
We are particularly opposed to hemp, wine and tobacco.
It is our opinion that there needs to be a proper reform before 1999.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Alavanos">
The Commission proposals for the 1998/1999 prices package rely on the availability of limited funds for the common agricultural policy and, according to the rapporteur's report, will lead to a reduction of approximately 2 % in prices and compensatory payments in real terms. Also, this reduction will in all probability be accompanied by a further 2 % reduction with the disappearance of the green ECU and the introduction of the euro.
<P>
According to the rapporteur, European agricultural income as a whole fell by 16.4 % in real terms during the period 1990/96, and the rural population decreased by more than 2 million people.
<P>
The continuation of price-fixing and compensatory aids for the thirteenth successive year can only be expected to lead to a further reduction in the number of farmers, while incomes in European farming will continue to fall.
<P>
The proposals for the 18 Council Regulations are simply a roll-over of existing provisions, with some exceptions which are necessary for clearly legal reasons or to fulfil Council obligations.
They do not tackle the problem of farmers' incomes and their continued employment.
<P>
They cannot come about through our vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Cushnahan">
This year's proposals are basically a roll-over from last year's prices.
This would superficially imply that the situation in agriculture is fine.
Nothing could be further from the truth in relation to Ireland.
Irish farmers are experiencing major problems, particularly in the beef sector.
The BSE crisis, the reduction in export refunds and licensing and additional problems relating to access to third country markets have all contributed to the problem.
<P>
A roll-over indicates a complete absence of a policy direction on the part of the Commission.
Farmers need to know in what direction the Commission intends to take them over the next decade.
They need a clear indication of a well-thought-out Commission strategy.
<P>
What is needed is the development of proposals which have as their objective the revitalization of rural economies, including the agriculture sector.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Martinez">
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Novo">
We take a negative view of the Commission's adoption of an agricultural prices proposal in line with its policy of maintaining some sectors and reducing others, such as arable crops.
In our view, even for those it maintains, this always represents an actual reduction in agricultural prices, because it fails to take inflation into account.
On the contrary, we would like to see agricultural prices updated to allow for at least a 1.7 % rate of inflation, at the EU level, as a way of guaranteeing the farmers' income.
<P>
We also regard as extremely negative the fact that once again there are no changes or revisions for the common organization of the markets in the Mediterranean countries on the grounds that they have not yet been reformed.
In that context we find it unacceptable that no set prices have been fixed for olive oil, with the clear strategy of prioritizing the need for rapid approval of the new draft regulation under discussion.
<P>
Although we consider the proposal for the extension of new plantations for special-quality vines to be a positive step, we would reject at the outset a strategy that continues to support the abandonment of viticultural land, because of the importance of viticulture to southern countries, especially Portugal.
In the same way, we reject proposals to allow the blending of different musts and viticultural products, because they will encourage the sale of poor-quality wine and cause consumers to be defrauded.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Seppänen, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We voted against the report because, amongst other things, we are opponents of the EU's agricultural policy in general on the grounds of its high costs and, not least, its unfair distribution which favours big farmers.
This policy area should be returned to the Member States as soon as possible.
<P>
In addition we consider it to be particularly inappropriate for Parliament to decide on price levels in a market system for agricultural produce.
However, we voted for the setting up of a vineyard register, which, remarkably enough, there has not been in spite of continuous reports of abuse of Community funds in the wine sector.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Souchet">
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations is extremely satisfied with the quality of the report and the amendments proposed by Edouard des Places.
<P>
However, we regret that the Commission has shown such a lack of imagination and has presented such a predictable prices package.
We are nevertheless pleased that in response to the amendment we tabled asking for the set-aside rate to be set by the end of this month, that is, for a decision on the set-aside rate to be adopted at the same time as the prices package, the Commission has proposed a new regulation applicable to the forthcoming agricultural year.
However, at this stage, the Commission's proposals are totally unrealistic.
That is why my group has tabled two amendments, one asking for the withdrawal of the extraordinary set-aside, that is, the application of a penalty depending on the required set-aside rate, and the other asking for an obligatory set-aside rate of 5 % instead of the 10 % proposed by the Commission.
<P>
As well as supporting all the amendments proposed by the rapporteur and adopted by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, my group has again tabled amendments in the House proposing a 1.7 % increase in institutional prices, which aim to reduce the effects of monetary erosion on farmers' incomes.
It is quite unacceptable for anyone to think that production costs in agriculture are not affected by inflation.
We have already criticized the fact that a constant level of prices and aid has been established in the Commission's proposals on Agenda 2000 for a period of seven years.
Would it be acceptable in any other profession for income to fail to be indexed to price increases?
I personally do not think so.
<P>
Finally, my group was pleased to see that the Committee on Agriculture adopted Mr des Places' proposed amendments regarding the creation of an adjustment coefficient with a view to maintaining equitable levels of income between farmers in all Member States of the European Union in order to compensate for serious drawbacks resulting from the possible disappearance of the green rate on 1 January 1999 for the Member States participating in the single currency.
<P>
Defenders of the euro claim that it will naturally be of benefit to farmers, as it will put an end to competitive devaluation, as well as the budget for agri-monetary measures.
This overlooks the particularly serious consequences for farmers of the disappearance of the green rate entailed in the transition to the euro.
In France, for example, the difference between the green rate and the financial rate is in the region of 2 %: there will therefore in fact be a further 2 % decrease in institutional prices and aid, from 1 January 1999.
Thanks to the rapporteur's amendments, a European Parliament document will highlight an important weakness in the euro.
Should farmers, whose opinion was not sought, have to bear the cost of the transition to the euro, which has been introduced for ideological reasons?
<P>
Thanks to the work of Mr des Places, Parliament will be ready to issue an opinion during this part-session. This will enable the Council, during its meetings on 22 and 23 June, to define the general legal and regulatory framework applicable to our farmers, thus allowing them to adopt decisions in full possession of the facts.
<P>
Rosado Fernandes report (A4-0218/98)
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="McKenna">
Madam President, it is ironic that the European Union heavily subsidizes tobacco while, at the same time, it tries to fight against cancer and also educate people about the danger to health of smoking.
What it should do is get rid of subsidies.
It is an absolute disgrace that the other members of the Commission would not support Commissioner Flynn on this.
It is one of his most positive proposals and it is disgraceful that the Commission will not support his attempts to get rid of tobacco subsidies.
Every year over ECU 1 billion of taxpayers' money is going to subsidize something which is detrimental to public health and which has a detrimental effect in countries around the world where there is no proper regulation to ensure that smokers are aware of the dangers of smoking.
The European Union is extremely wrong in subsidizing something which shortens the lives of its users.
<P>
The tobacco industry and tobacco growers have to realize that they will have to turn to alternative crops.
One ironic aspect of this report is that they are trying to push for alternative types of tobacco.
There is no alternative type of tobacco which is not dangerous to health and it is ridiculous to promote the idea that there is.
The Commission should support Commissioner Flynn on this matter and get rid of tobacco subsidies in the interests of public health and of consumers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Ahlqvist, Andersson, Hulthén, Theorin, Waidelich and Wibe">
As tobacco consumption has harmful effects on the health of users, it is absurd for public subsidies to be given to tobacco production.
In the vote on this report we are supporting the amendments which will phase out tobacco subsidies.
If these amendments are not adopted, we will vote against the report in its entirety at the final vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Alavanos">
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Bébéar">
We have finally started a thorough debate on the vital changes necessary in some specific areas of the COM which face particularly strong competition from other continents.
I therefore share the opinion of the members of Parliament's Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development who have adopted the Rosado Fernandes report on tobacco.
<P>
We have an opportunity today to endorse the need to provide support in this sector according to the quality of the product and to reconsider the problem of subsidies between tobacco-producing countries in the south and north.
We must find a permanent solution to this problem.
Tobacco produced in the north cannot continue indefinitely to be the subject of discrimination in comparison with southern varieties.
<P>
Why do we confine ourselves simplistically to defending the interests of our countries of origin, depending on whether or not they produce tobacco?
Substantial support will be of benefit to the whole of this sector, which has made a consistent effort for many years to improve quality.
<P>
We must remember that tobacco, with 135 000 producers and 400 000 seasonal jobs, is a great rural employer.
Even if tobacco were no longer cultivated in Europe, this would not reduce the consumption of cigarettes, as some Utopians would have us believe.
We must therefore insist upon the enhancement of all high-quality tobacco products, including those produced in northern Europe.
We must acknowledge their value because there is a market demand for them and their production costs are higher.
<P>
As well as this type of encouragement, the results of research, particularly genetic research, need to be more widely distributed.
New plant improvement programmes must also be implemented which reflect the progress achieved in other areas.
It is now possible to produce tobacco which is less harmful to human health.
Let us work positively in that direction.
<P>
By banning tobacco advertising, the European Parliament recently took a balanced decision to protect the health of young people.
We must now continue along the same lines, by approving the provisions of the Rosado Fernandes report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Blot">
The Commission plans to create a quota buy-back system, the stated aim of which is to decrease the volume of tobacco produced in Europe gradually.
However, it is wrong to pursue such an aim when tobacco imports from third countries are so large.
<P>
May I remind you that the European Union is the largest importer of raw tobacco in the world, with a self-sufficiency level of no more than 30 %.
Moreover, the intended system will not help to modernize production methods or enable young farmers to set up.
<P>
This policy is therefore contrary to producers' interests.
However, within the framework currently imposed on French producers, Mr Rosado Fernandes' report defends positions which are the lesser of two evils. We therefore have no hesitation whatsoever in voting for this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Bonde and Sandbæk">
In light of the detrimental effects of tobacco on consumer health, we cannot subscribe to maintaining or increasing EU support for the production of raw tobacco.
We believe all forms of official support for tobacco production should be phased out.
Out of consideration for the tobacco producers, this should be a gradual transition over a short period of time to allow tobacco producers to switch to other crops or trades.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Cars">
In my opinion no subsidies at all should go towards tobacco growing within the EU.
Since none of the proposals before us are aimed at an immediate decision of that kind, I have voted for Amendment No 66 (which means a rejection of the report in its entirety) and against the final adoption of the report.
Otherwise I have voted neither yes nor no.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Cushnahan">
At the May plenary session we agreed to ban tobacco advertising.
This decision was consistent with EU health policy.
<P>
However, the subsidization of tobacco farming is clearly in contradiction of the EU's Treaty obligation to protect the health of our citizens.
I regret that the Commission rejected the proposal to phase out subsidies in 1996 and instead opted for reform proposals.
<P>
The 1994 report from the Court of Auditors on the issue concluded that the abolition of tobacco subsidies would lead to considerable budgetary savings without destroying the livelihoods of tobacco farmers.
<P>
For these reasons and to be consistent on health grounds, I have supported the amendments put forward by Mr Collins and others from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Delcroix">
The tobacco producing sector illustrates all the contradictions and hypocrisies of society.
<P>
Tobacco is a poison and a drug.
<P>
The fight against cancer is dependent upon the prevention of addiction to tobacco.
As medical research has identified one of the causes of one form of cancer, we have a moral obligation to deal with the problem at its source.
We do not have any other alternative.
<P>
But the tobacco industry provides jobs and incomes for many families, and experience has shown us that prohibitions are useless as they only lead to fraud and increased criminality.
<P>
What we must do is to work in gradual stages:
<P>
Europe has without hesitation adopted costly and difficult solutions in order to reduce agricultural surpluses and prevent the depopulation of rural areas.
Europe must also find the courage to solve this problem.
<P>
This does not mean we have to choose between protecting jobs or health; it means we have to protect health and ensure the redeployment of jobs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Holm">
We in the Green Group consider the fact that the EU has a system of tobacco subsidies to be quite wrong and that it sends out the wrong signals to the general public about smoking tobacco.
Not very long ago the European Parliament approved the Council's proposal to ban indirect tobacco advertising.
The European Parliament has also expressed the view that tobacco is a danger to health which must be taken very seriously.
The Green Group shares these points of view and was instrumental in getting the European Parliament to make these decisions.
The risks of smoking are considerable.
We must therefore work to get people either to stop smoking or not to take it up in the first place.
<P>
At the same time it is a fact that the EU gives substantial subsidies to the growing of tobacco within the EU, currently around ECU 1 billion per year.
In our view, this double morality is totally absurd.
We are therefore working towards achieving an end to these subsidies as soon as possible.
It would of course be best if these subsidies were phased out over the next few years. It would be best for those who currently grow tobacco and it would send out the right signal that the EU takes the tobacco issue seriously and is working towards a reduction in smoking.
<P>
The conversion premiums which exist to enable tobacco growers to grow other crops must be encouraged and given a larger budget.
At the same time the budget for subsidies to tobacco growers should be reduced.
Some people claim that these conversion premiums are of no help because tobacco is the only crop which can be grown where tobacco is currently grown.
That is just political rhetoric and not a serious argument because growers get larger subsidies for tobacco than for other crops.
Conversion to other crops must be intensified and made more attractive.
The Green Group's objective is a complete end to subsidies for tobacco growing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Martinez">
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Novo">
When the common organization of the tobacco market is reformed, the emphasis must not be put on the harm tobacco causes to health, because if we do that we shall have to start by prohibiting the importation of tobacco, of which there is a severe shortage for the European curing industry.
Questions of public health should be dealt with elsewhere and in other ways, within the context of education and prevention.
<P>
When the sector is reformed, the emphasis should, on the contrary, be placed on the direct and indirect employment which the sector provides, particularly in the most backward areas of the EU, many of which have no alternative crops to produce. Or, after that, it should be placed on the very important contribution which tobacco growing makes to the struggle against increasing rural desertification.
<P>
When the sector is reformed, priority should be given to measures aimed at improving the quality of the product, and there have been and are clear proposals by the European Parliament in that respect.
<P>
When the tobacco sector is reformed, we cannot deliberately promote and encourage - as the Commission's draft regulation does - the total abandonment of tobacco growing without creating credible alternatives, but quite the opposite. We should be creating conditions in which production can be maintained and new generations can follow the present growers, especially with young growers coming in.
<P>
We are worried that the Commission is ignoring - on an increasingly systematic basis - all the opinions and strategies relating to this reform that have repeatedly won majority votes in the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Querbes">
I am voting in favour of the report that has just been presented to us for three main reasons.
<P>
Firstly, this report makes a clear distinction between the issues of tobacco production and the prevention of smoking, because they are not directly connected with production in the Union, which only covers 30 % of consumption.
<P>
Secondly, the report rejects all the amendments relating to the withdrawal of production aid, thereby defending the principle of Community aid for production, jobs and associated activities. It promotes improved quality, greater coherence between supply and demand and, within that framework, proposes to reinforce professional organization and increase the payments for some varieties.
<P>
Finally, although this report presents voluntary reconversion measures, it does not support quota reduction measures. On the contrary, it proposes to assist young farmers to enter this sector.
<P>
However, I do not support the idea of increasing the amount withheld from the payment allocated to the Community Fund for Tobacco, for the prevention of smoking. It means that tobacco producers would take the blame for, and bear the cost of, an activity for which the whole of society is responsible, despite the fact that the Fund is also used to finance research into cultivation methods.
<P>
Finally, I share the concern expressed in the report on the consequences of enlargement of the Union. I call for appropriate measures to defend the interests of producers, inasmuch as the internal market offers great potential for the development of production and jobs in this sector.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Reding">
Consistent action is imperative in politics.
This is why I cannot accept European provisions on tobacco growing.
<P>
Recently the European Parliament approved a directive banning the advertising of tobacco products.
I endorsed this ban with conviction: tobacco advertisements are directed mainly at young people in the knowledge that nicotine addiction mostly takes hold in youth.
The result is 548 000 tobacco-related deaths per year including 654 in Luxembourg.
<P>
We cannot ban tobacco advertisements while at the same time subsidizing tobacco growing.
Yet this is exactly what the Union is doing by guaranteeing an annual production of 350 600 tonnes of raw tobacco and spending approximately ECU 1 000 million on it.
Admittedly, the system was improved considerably by reducing the quantity (by 24 % over just 4 years) and by means of subsidies for relinquishing arable land.
However, it remains to be seen whether or not control is at an optimum level.
<P>
I welcome the relative reduction in subsidies and the reconversion measures which must not, however, lead to abandoned land being taken over.
Yet I am of the view that there is a significant contradiction between health policy (for which very little EU money is available) and the promotion of tobacco growing, which, moreover, is of very poor quality in Europe.
For these reasons, I cannot approve the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Seppänen, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We voted against the proposal because it will not solve the issue of the tobacco growers' dependence on extensive EU subsidies in either the short or the long term.
The proposal does not contain any reduction in financial support for the tobacco sector. Nor does it take into consideration the serious consequences tobacco growing has for health and environmental protection.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Souchet">
Our group supports all the amendments proposed by the rapporteur and adopted by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, because European tobacco production must be allowed to continue.
<P>
The aim of a large number of amendments tabled by our British colleagues is to withdraw all European aid from tobacco production.
We are naturally opposed to this, because the European Union is a net importer of very large quantities of tobacco.
Tobacco is also mainly produced in disadvantaged regions, and it is therefore necessary for tobacco production, which is very labour-intensive, to continue in order to protect jobs.
<P>
However, my group has tabled five amendments. Their main aim is to reject the Commission's proposal to create a quota buyback system.
This system will not only lead to a reduction in the quantities receiving production aid and, therefore, to a decrease in European tobacco production, it will also do nothing to help modernize production and it will prevent young farmers from setting up in this area.
This system will also have the adverse effect, in the medium term, of giving quotas a financial value, which will create a further financial burden on producers.
It could in fact lead to quotas being considered as assets, whose value would be based on the quota buy-back value.
<P>
On the other hand, we have proposed the creation of national quota reserves to maintain the production capacity of Member States, and to contribute towards the financial stability of existing or new farms.
This would also prevent the appearance of any additional costs created by quota values.
May I remind you that a national reserve system already exists in other production sectors, such as sheep, cattle and milk.
<P>
My group has also tabled other amendments to the Commission's proposal, with regard to the cultivation contract auction scheme between the producer and the first processor.
We consider that this is a very restrictive measure, which forgets that the tobacco production is a specific, very highly organized sector, in which distribution and processing are carried out by a small number of multinational or national companies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Titley">
I cannot back the Commission proposals for the future of the European tobacco sector.
I am amazed and angered that after all the recent progress in getting tobacco giants to admit that their products cause diseases such as cancer, we have a proposal to keep using public money to subsidize tobacco producers!
Is this a crazed method to keep our hospitals busy with new patients?
<P>
What exactly is meant by the idea of subsidizing higher quality tobacco - is this to promote more addictive versions of cigarettes or ones which take longer to kill their smokers?
Even with the fig leaf of more publicity about the dangers of smoking, the taxpayer is still expected under these plans to stump up millions to pay the cigarette makers to make people ill.
<P>
The continued misuse of public money for this kind of tobacco subsidy is no longer acceptable.
Perhaps when it all began it could be excused on grounds of ignorance about the effects of smoking - but not in 1998.
If we must have tobacco production, let it succeed or fail by its own efforts as any other industry has to, not with people's hard-earned money as subsidy.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 1.17 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Reform of the CAP (Agenda 2000)
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the report (A4-0219/98) by Mr Cunha, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the reform of the common agricultural policy (Agenda 2000 - Part One, Chapter III) (COM(97)2000 - C4-0522/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Anttila">
Mr President, Commissioner, I congratulate Arlindo Cunha on an excellent report. It reveals the rapporteur's expertise in the subject.
The report emphasizes the different circumstances surrounding production in the EU.
It is a totally Utopian gesture to try to apply EU regulations uniformly right across the region, from Finnish Lapland to the Canaries.
<P>
The greatest challenge of Agenda 2000 will be the integration of the special needs that exist in northern, southern and mountainous regions into the EU common agricultural policy.
The CAP suits the best agricultural regions in the EU.
Production costs are higher in the northern regions, the mountainous regions and other parts of the EU area.
This fact has to feature far more prominently in Agenda 2000.
<P>
Agenda 2000 weakens competitiveness between the production of crops and that of fodder, to the detriment of the latter.
Maize feed storage aid is improving the competitiveness of milk production in six Member States, and weakening the profitability of fodder-based milk and beef production.
Thus there is a need for fodder storage aid, just as the report explains.
The viability of crop growing also requires equivalent special arrangements in northern EU regions.
<P>
Agenda 2000 extends EU aid to forestry.
Forestry has been and must in the future be within the sphere of the free market economy.
In no case must we make the forestry sector as tightly regulated and aided as agriculture.
The acceptance of Agenda 2000 requires larger regional investment as part of EU agricultural policy.
We have the European model of the family farming based unit, which we have to defend.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="President">
Mrs Anttila, I am sorry that I had to tell you to hurry up, but I am not to blame. Your Group must give you more time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Hardstaff">
Mr President, I wish to congratulate the rapporteur on his report but concentrate my contribution on rural development.
It is inevitable that within the EU and, to an even greater degree, in the EU applicant states the number of jobs in agriculture will fall as a result of mechanization.
Without alternative jobs in rural areas young people will leave for the cities and many more people will commute daily to towns and cities with all the negative implications for the environment of increased car use on inadequate rural roads.
<P>
Food packaging and processing jobs are currently supported by Objective 5a grants.
However, there is an urgent need for additional non-agricultural jobs and small-scale enterprises in rural areas.
LEADER programmes have already demonstrated great success in generating additional finance for investment in such jobs.
If the rural pillar of the CAP is to become a reality we need some continued form of the LEADER programme after 2000 to maintain thriving rural communities, particularly in areas no longer covered either by Objective 1 or Objective 5(b) after 1999.
<P>
Production of wholesome food, protection of the environment and good animal welfare standards must also be key elements of CAP reform.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, Mr Cunha's report is characterised by honesty and courage.
It is an impartial demonstration of the anti-agricultural line taken by the common agricultural policy.
It is quite correct when it says that the continued reduction in prices and other related measures have contributed to a reduction, to extremely low levels, in the number of small and medium-sized farms, and to an increase in the number of large agricultural holdings.
This is the model of the agricultural policy of the European Union that Mr Fischler told us about this morning.
Unfortunately, whatever compensation the Commission has introduced to counteract these negative measures has been outweighed by the exorbitant fines and excessive quota reductions which are imposed on small and medium-sized businesses, especially on Mediterranean agricultural production.
<P>
Agenda 2000 will only make the situation worse. It will serve the mammon of fat profits and work against SMEs, especially those which operate in the south, in the Mediterranean region.
I have a number of recommendations, which I shall not elaborate on as I do not have the time, as you say.
They are formulated as amendments and many of them have been approved by the Commission.
<P>
I just want to say firstly that perhaps Mr Cunha has made an omission: he does not give the reason for this anti-agricultural policy or say what interests it serves.
We must denounce this here.
Secondly, farmers will revolt and take a stand against it, and arbitrary and violent measures, such as those implemented in Greece, with 10 000 farmers taken to court and punished with stringent penalties, will not be enough.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Garot">
Mr President, Commissioner Fischler, ladies and gentlemen, I too would like to emphasize the high quality of the work Mr Cunha has produced on a subject as sensitive as the CAP reform proposed by the Commission. The Commission's proposal needs, moreover, to be thoroughly reworked in order to provide a real future for all the farms in the European Union.
<P>
Various aspects need to be taken into consideration.
First of all, the expectations of our fellow citizens with regard to farmers, in terms of product quality, environmental protection and even the distribution of farming throughout the countryside.
Then there is the international context, particularly the WTO. We have been forced to reduce public export subsidies, and are likely to come under strong pressure to reduce official production aid unless we modify some of our distribution methods.
Finally, the evaluation of the CAP, which has been in force since 1993, and from which there are lessons to be learnt.
<P>
I must be brief, and will simply say this: a decline in raw material prices and a reduction in, perhaps even the withdrawal of, official aid does not add up to an acceptable agricultural policy.
Priority must however be given to two areas: competitiveness and the rational distribution of official aid.
Competitiveness must in fact be increasingly achieved by supplying goods and services which satisfy the expectations of society, which relate to wholesomeness and taste, local know-how which enhances the countryside, the technology of sectors which generate added value, and diversity in increasingly segmented markets.
These are the qualities, within our overall performance, which will enable Europe to show strength and originality by comparison with our competitors.
<P>
Official support for agriculture, although still necessary, will not be permanently acceptable to European taxpayers or to our competitors within the WTO, unless it takes on board legitimate social, environmental, and regional concerns. Hence the idea of ceilings of aid per farm and national adjustments, based on the principle of subsidiarity, within a framework of Community rules, to prevent distortions of competition and the renationalization of the CAP.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Gillis">
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Cunha, for his report.
I welcome in particular the reaffirmation of the need to be especially careful about severe price cuts in any area of agriculture.
I also welcome the report's commitment to compensate fully for any cuts in the institutional price.
This is in marked contrast to the Commission's document, which proposes only a 50 % compensation for one of our major agricultural products.
In the light of already collapsed beef-farmer incomes in Ireland, the Commission proposal is totally unacceptable and must be changed without delay.
<P>
The report also confirms the three cornerstones of the common agricultural policy, but calls on the Commission to revise the Agenda 2000 proposals in many respects, recognizing that the continuing exodus of young people from agriculture is causing huge social and economic difficulties in large tracts of rural areas.
For example, in my own country, a shocking statistic: the suicide rate now exceeds the number of people killed in motoring accidents on our roads.
A high number of these totally unnecessary deaths are due to financial despair in rural areas.
Under present policies, with rural depopulation rife, it is not attractive for young people to make a career in farming.
The system of prices for products which are set below production costs and where income depends solely on the payment of decoupled compensation, which itself falls far short of bridging the gap to price reduction, does not provide the long-term security which well-educated young people see as a necessary requirement to their future.
<P>
This report strongly suggests that the reform proposals in Agenda 2000 should be radically altered, as it is now very clear that cutting prices has not resolved the problems of market balance, nor has it arrested the continuing decline in farm incomes, which are a vital factor in stemming the haemorrhage of young people from rural areas.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Guinebertière">
Mr President, I do not wish to sound even more pessimistic than the previous speaker, but I cannot help noticing that the number of farms is continuing to decrease, and that the number of employees in agriculture has fallen dramatically... so what kind of European agriculture model do we want for the future?
A model based on enlargement, the WTO model, or a distorted European model? This is the most important period in the history of the CAP.
We must understand that a new direction is needed, to enable farmers to live off the land, to produce food for Europe, and also for the world market, and to keep the countryside alive, by protecting the environment and the rural landscape.
Does Agenda 2000 really offer us this?
<P>
Our group is more concerned about safeguarding the livelihoods of farmers and their families than about the international market.
The issue at stake is the continuity of agriculture. Above all, we must enable young people to enter agriculture, by enabling them to purchase land and have the right to cultivate it, and by making them feel confident that in Europe it will always be possible to work on the land.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, I wonder if Commissioner Fischler has considered the fact that the Cunha report is supported on all sides of the House and by all political groups and that, in contrast, intense criticism has been expressed regarding Agenda 2000 and the regulations for a policy on agriculture.
<P>
I think that this is well founded, since, through Agenda 2000, the Commission is doing what we see throughout the societies of the European Union, that is, it is demolishing the social state and introducing models along the lines of the United States.
We see this happening in agriculture too.
We cannot accept a system of agriculture based on compensatory income subsidies, which are temporary in nature and which will transform farmers from productive forces in society into recipients of the temporary charity of the state, as the European Union at present envisages.
It is necessary that we support the European model of agriculture, whereby the farmer is a producer, a custodian of the environment and of cultural traditions, and the family smallholding is a nucleus of employment.
This is what is important in the Cunha report and my colleague opposite described very vividly, I think, the problems resulting from its disintegration.
<P>
In this sense I think that we must support the Cunha report and oppose the Commission proposals for the enlargement 2000 programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Lambraki">
Mr President, I in turn wish to congratulate Mr Cunha.
Indeed, I believe that the primary objective that we must bear in mind in any attempt to reform the CAP is the support of the European model of agricultural development and the promotion of the economic and social cohesion of the European countryside.
<P>
This is described quite rightly in the Cunha report.
I would just like to dwell on a few points.
<P>
The first comment I wish to make is that, with the new structure of the objectives that is envisaged in Agenda 2000, actions belonging to other objectives are being transferred to the EAGGF, which will naturally involve new expenditure.
However, it is not clear where the resources to cover this new expenditure will come from.
There is a danger that we will identify, at a financial level, the policy to develop the countryside with the common agricultural policy, and we are facing the possibility that the CAP will be assimilated and fragmented in the long term within the frameworks of other policies, such as the policy for the regions, for example.
<P>
The second is that we must pay particular attention to the danger of the renationalization of the CAP.
This may come about either through granting Member States too much leeway in the management of existing resources, or through a wider interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity.
The possibility of hidden national subsidies will only increase inequality between developed and less developed regions and will cause a chain reaction of problems in the economically weaker Member States.
<P>
Thirdly, we must look again at the issue of parity when looking both at the different sectors of European agriculture and the different regions of the European agricultural area.
We must look again at the relationships when subsidizing small and large agricultural holdings, less favoured and developed regions, products from the north and products from the south.
We must look again, for example, Mr Fischler, at the advisability of some common organizations of the market having the year 2006 as their horizon and others the year 2001.
And those that have the year 2001 as their horizon happen to be the products of the south.
<P>
Finally, we must look carefully at the source of financing for the area of enlargement which concerns the modernization of the agricultural sector of the applicant countries.
The possibility of financing such measures from the resources of current agricultural guidelines will cause tremendous problems. It will also transfer a large part of the cost of enlargement onto the shoulders of the less developed regions of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Poisson">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner Fischler, the number of farmers in Europe fell continuously from 8 million in 1990 to 6.9 million in 1995.
Small family farms are disappearing.
Since 1990, the number of agricultural employees has decreased by 3.7 % per year.
This is detrimental to the fabric of rural life, and to town and country planning in Europe.
<P>
The Commission has proposed to reduce prices and provide compensatory aid by means of direct income support.
Would any other industry agree to sell its products at less than cost price? Not to mention the lack of job security for farmers, whose incomes would be even more dependent on direct aid, which we all know would not be everlasting.
What does the Commission intend do with all those acres which will remain unsold? It is quite understandable that young people are reluctant to enter agriculture when they hear that Agenda 2000 intends to take 10 % off milk, 20 % off cereals and 30 % off beef and veal.
Farming is an admirable occupation, but you have to really love it to want to become a farmer today, and unfortunately, love does not pay the bills!
What advice can parents responsible for the future of young people interested in agriculture give them?
Nevertheless, young farmers are our only guarantee of a future for European agriculture.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Campos">
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Arlindo Cunha's report is much better than the Commission's draft, although it goes no further than is absolutely necessary.
<P>
If I may explain, Commissioner: you are spending half the budget on about 1 % of the richest people in Europe.
As you know, 80 % of that money is distributed among 20 % of the farmers.
That is a profoundly unfair policy.
And the report does not define a firm ceiling or a firm modulation so as to create a fair basis for the distribution of the Community's funds.
I would remind you that every Community citizen pays around ECU 350 to support this policy, which makes me think the Commission cares little what it does with the taxes citizens pay.
<P>
The second point is that the agricultural policy still militates against the environment and quality, inasmuch as it is still geared to the support of production rather than production methods and the defence of quality in the food chain.
Today, Commissioner, you are confronted with the problem of a growing lack of credibility in the food chain itself.
With this policy, Commissioner, you are going to aggravate all the existing problems in the Community, which have not been capably dealt with.
<P>
In addition, there is no solidarity between the regions.
It is unacceptable that two farmers producing the same product should not be similarly classified and equally compensated because they live in different areas of the same Community.
Aid has not been regionalized.
There is no absolutely obvious need for family farms to receive aid, to the detriment of large-scale producers.
The whole of this policy benefits a mere half-dozen farmers and the result is plain to see: there is total desertification, at present 5 % of the population are farmers, in 2000 this figure will be around 2.5 % and we shall be distributing half the Community budget among 0.5 % of the richest producers, and the richest people, in the entire Community.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Otila">
Mr President, I do not believe Agenda 2000's proposed increase in aid for the forestry sector is in harmony with the principle of market-based forestry, which does not rely on aid.
The present Union aid for afforestation, forest improvements and averting forest fires is enough.
Our money could certainly be invested more productively.
In addition, the proposal would clearly lead to an extension of EU forestry policy, that is, to less authority on the part of Member States in the forestry sector.
This, however, does not mean that the Union does not nor should not have an important role in forestry matters.
For example, the certification of forests, which led to much heated discussion, should hopefully be clarified under some sort of EU umbrella certificate.
<P>
I cannot but consider the proposed price cuts for milk and crop produce, coming as I do from a northern Member State, too harsh. Where is the promise that was made at summit level to preserve the viability of the rural environment by practising agriculture in all regions of the Union?
One very important question has been completely ignored by the Commission, which is the situation young farmers find themselves in, and their future prospects.
We must do something about supporting young farmers when they inherit farms, and their circumstances in respect of sufficient levels of social security.
<P>
On enlargement and Agenda 2000 I finally wish to say that it is not worth prolonging the discussion as long as the institutional problems in the EU today remain unresolved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Hallam">
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Cunha for his report.
I want to repeat some of the concerns I have expressed elsewhere.
One of the problems with the report is that it does not address the issue of falling employment in agriculture.
When we talk about rural areas, it does not necessarily mean that we are talking about agriculture as a form of industry and employment.
<P>
We need to ensure that there is more diversification on the farm but we also need to ensure there is more diversification within the local economy.
We need to look at the role of rural areas in providing dormitory accommodation to large conurbations, second ownership, recreation, tourism and so on.
We also need to look at what sort of jobs are being provided.
We need jobs which are based on technology, in particular the use of the Internet and ISDN technology.
We also need to look at providing small-scale industrial units for starter firms in our rural areas.
We need to look at a new role for the countryside.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Sturdy">
Mr President, I would also like to compliment Mr Cunha on his report.
One of the problems we have had in agriculture - not as a result of Mr Cunha's report but as a result of BSE - is that we have had to see vast changes in our approach to agriculture.
It is not often that I can agree with the opposite side of the House but on this particular occasion I happen to agree with Mr Hallam's position.
<P>
One of the problems with agriculture is that we are not bringing young people back into it and one of the things we must do is move away from the constrictions of quotas.
This is something we have to look at in the future and part of Mr Cunha's report talks about it.
We also must look at getting the returns for agriculture from the marketplace.
It is vital that agriculture understands that it cannot continue to have an open bucket of funding available for it permanently.
<P>
But the most important issues are, firstly, that we have a single market and that single market for agriculture must remain across Europe.
Otherwise we shall see discrimination against Member States.
That is why I am opposed to modulation, because it attacks the large and efficient farms.
Secondly, I am opposed to the national envelope. This allows governments to control spending and hold it up.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Iversen">
Mr President, the Cunha report is a key one, since this report will be indicative of the overall position of the European Parliament on the reform of the common agricultural policy.
In my opinion, the report smacks of a compromise of many diverse positions on how to view the reform.
Personally, I think the report is also deficient of vision.
I looked in vain for any strong pronouncements in specific areas such as the environment and animal welfare.
<P>
Regarding the section in Mr Cunha's report on imminent expansion, I am nevertheless pleased to see that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has adopted the amendment I tabled to include the first applicant countries in arrangements for environmentally friendly production methods from 1999 onwards.
After all, we must not forget that environmental improvements are not purely the domain of the 15 current Member States.
Environmental pollution does not respect boundaries.
The nations of central and eastern Europe applying for admittance to the EU also have significant agricultural production.
Thus, through support and collaboration, we must help ensure good, environmentally sound production for these farmers.
We must avoid a situation whereby these farmers resort to sacrificing the environment as they strive to keep up with the competition of the internal market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Keppelhoff-Wiechert">
Commissioner, Mr Cunha, Mr President - Mr Cunha has been praised so much today that I would like to turn this around slightly with a minor criticism, because, as he knows himself, he did not discuss the role of women in agriculture in his report.
He will certainly reconsider this before the vote and include it in the motion for a resolution, as he is in fact pro-women.
Throughout the EU, approximately 50 % of all those employed in agriculture are women.
They derive a high level of income for farming families by means of field work, shed work, book-keeping, direct marketing and farm holidays, etcetera.
<P>
Farms have now got the message of the European Commission and it does not surprise us very much.
On the whole, it is having a very negative impact, particularly among women farmers, and I believe that the Commissioner for agriculture, Mr Fischler, felt this when he joined us at our meeting in Berlin.
Women farmers are refusing to accept Agenda 2000.
Their criticism is levelled at the increased adjustment of agricultural market policy and price policy to world market levels.
Income policy and price policy are not sufficiently balanced, for example, in the high environmental costs, so that within a short time a considerable number of farming families will find themselves in a situation of extreme hardship.
Farmers - men and women alike - fear the loss of their essential material possessions and their jobs.
We also find the increased pace of gearing European agricultural policy to the world market quite unnecessary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Botz">
Mr President, Commissioner, the report by our honourable friend Mr Cunha includes two particular goals: firstly, the comprehensive approach to farming, and secondly, the ability of farms to survive and adapt, and the strengthening of this ability.
However, these very two aims are under threat in the geographically disadvantaged regions of the new German Länder due to the Commission's proposals on degression and upper limits.
<P>
In terms of the ability to survive and adapt, no one in Europe has anything to teach East German farmers.
Between 1945 and 1992 these farmers had to deal with three periods of short-term radical restructuring.
They managed that.
In the last period of restructuring, however, 80 % of the population involved in agriculture were eliminated from agriculture within two years.
This was necessary.
Commissioner, particularly in these regions, there is simply no alternative to the farm structures which have survived - mainly cooperatives - that is, no alternative which could guarantee comprehensive management, which is what we all wish for.
<P>
An improved, modern agricultural policy, which we all desire, must not further destabilize this form of management, as this would be contrary to the European Union's new employment policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, I should like congratulate Mr Cunha on his excellent report, which does not fall into the trap of using the same tactics as the Commission at the Council of Ministers, that is, it does not divide in order to rule.
It effectively addresses the concerns of the agricultural world.
<P>
Parliament's position is therefore of great importance with regard to the survival of the European agriculture model.
The Luxembourg Presidency's approach, the definition of the identity of European agriculture as a reference point for CAP reform and the position of European agriculture on the world market, was ratified by the European Council of December in Luxembourg.
And the model which is emerging from that approach is that of a multi-functional, long lasting, effective agricultural sector spread right across Europe, including less favoured regions, which respects the natural landscape and open spaces, and is capable of responding to consumers' concerns regarding the quality and safety of food.
<P>
Unfortunately, a number of reform measures tabled by the Commission do not take this approach into consideration.
The proposed price reductions are excessive and unjustified.
The proposed compensatory aid is inadequate, and will make farmers dependent on benefit. It is also likely to affect the forthcoming WTO negotiations.
The future of compensatory aid, on which the survival of most farms depends, particularly in less favoured regions, is uncertain after enlargement, not to mention the fact, Mr President, that the eco-conditionality of the compensatory payments distorts them and is therefore exaggerated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="Thomas">
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate Mr Cunha on his very good and timely report.
I very much welcome the Commission's proposals as a step in the right direction but no one in this Chamber should really be under any illusions.
This is not a substantive reform of the Common Agricultural Policy.
It is, as the Commission has said at the beginning of its document, an evolution and an extension of the MacSharry proposals.
<P>
As long as the basic objectives and mechanisms remain in place with the CAP there will be no significant restructuring of agriculture within the EU.
A significant majority have indicated that a common rural policy rather than a Common Agricultural Policy would bring greater benefits to Europe's rural communities.
I urge the Commission to re-examine its proposals very closely so as to ensure that Europe's rural communities are not disadvantaged when they must compete for structural funding under the changes when rural areas are included in the new Objective 2.
<P>
Furthermore, although Agenda 2000 purports to adopt a more market-led approach, the proposed payments to compensate farmers for a reduction in price are not time-limited and will do nothing to break the cycle of dependence of European farmers on European subsidies; nor will they address the legitimate concerns of the taxpayer.
Compensation for a change in market circumstances should be reduced and eventually stopped after a reasonable period of readjustment.
Given the turmoil of the BSE crisis and the many unresolved issues surrounding food safety and imports from outside the EU, I believe that the Commission should use the opportunity presented by Agenda 2000 to ensure that consumers enjoy the highest level of protection when we enter the next century and that Europe can compete with cheaper non-EU products.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Redondo Jiménez">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I first want to congratulate the rapporteur on his report, and on having moved on very skilfully to set the guidelines for what our future CAP should look like, in view of Agenda 2000, eastwards enlargement and future WTO negotiations.
<P>
My colleagues have already dealt with questions such as price reductions, farmers' participation in the market, getting people to stay in the countryside, and involving young people and women in the sector.
We still have to see how price reductions affect consumers.
However, we must prepare ourselves to be on the offensive in the WTO negotiations, in order to defend our agriculture model, reject foreign models, and make the reality of rural life really matter, by protecting our social and environmental situation.
<P>
It is important to implement integral action in the rural zones, going beyond agricultural activity, although that is the basic focus - the crux, I would say. Additional financial means should be provided for other, distinct activities.
Account also needs to be taken of everything to do with land use, the environment, rural tourism, job creation and the improvement and conservation of our rural and cultural heritage.
<P>
Commissioner, in the spirit of Cork, rural development should be the second pillar of the CAP.
This reform of yours could and should turn into the common agricultural and rural policy - the CARP.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Novo">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a real reform of the CAP would mean abandoning once and for all the guidelines introduced in the 1992 reform.
This has not been done, and for that reason the Commission's proposals in Agenda 2000 can be sure of opposition from farmers and their representative organizations all over Europe.
<P>
A reform of the CAP would in fact have to be comprehensive and cover all forms of agricultural production.
The Agenda 2000 proposals, however, favour the meat, cereals and dairy sectors, and restrict themselves to a little individual fine tuning of sectors such as olive oil, fruit, vegetables and wine, which are fundamental to the agricultural economies of the southern countries.
<P>
Furthermore, to produce a real reform and overturn the 1992 strategy we would have to give unequivocal support to rural development, defend and above all generalize the application of Community priorities, make a special case of rural development in the world context, give decisive support to young farmers and fight rural desertification, maintain and develop market regulation mechanisms and iron out imbalances between regions, forms of production and farmers of different kinds, giving priority to family farms.
<P>
We appreciate the introduction of these aspects into the report, to which we have otherwise contributed certain amendments in the direction we suggested years ago.
At the Plenary session we insisted on amendments in favour of the open and universal award of certificates of quality, support for the production and marketing of regional products, the rejection of productivityrelated criteria and most of all the introduction of a clear concept of modulation.
<P>
With these guidelines, and if our amendments were accepted, we should have created a policy framework which the Commission ought to take into consideration, and ought to amend the proposals published in connection with Agenda 2000 in accordance with that policy framework.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Santini">
Mr President, the report is noteworthy for two reasons that might seem contradictory: first of all, it can go into meticulous detail and at the same time it provides a broad overview of the future of European agriculture.
This occurs when the rapporteur combines the economic dimension of agricultural reform with its natural calling, which is related to the sustainable development of the area, the safeguarding of the living conditions of those working there - therefore farmers' income - but especially to the development of regional productions.
<P>
It might again seem paradoxical, but to guarantee the basic principles of the CAP - which today is suffering from a growth crisis, in the sense that it has grown too much - we must go back to the beginning.
We must move away from the large industrial concerns and return to the old family farm where it all began and where in many areas it is still the best guarantee of continuity.
The future of agriculture in Europe - in the Europe of today and in the Europe of tomorrow, with an additional ten or so CEECs to take into account - depends on its ability to become the driving force and vehicle of economic and social cohesion, especially in disadvantaged areas where farming is still a challenge and an act of faith.
I am thinking of mountain areas which are continually threatened by a plague called exodus, especially the exodus of young people attracted by easier incomes in the lowlands; I am thinking of Arctic areas; I am thinking of areas threatened with desertification, the last front of those who do not want to give in.
<P>
That is why I agree with the rapporteur when he says that support for production can be a double-edged sword that can cut the cord of solidarity with the disadvantaged areas, favouring the growth of two forms of agriculture, one rich and one poor, and create a gap between developed regions and regions lagging behind in development.
In future programming, a series of mechanisms must be guaranteed to regulate interventions and harmonise production in Europe and the Mediterranean. These mechanisms must be based on guaranteed income and forms of integration between complementary professions, definitely treating farming as the main profession.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martin, Philippe-Armand">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let us not forget that the common agricultural policy is the fundamental pillar European construction.
It is, in fact, the only really integrated Community policy.
<P>
What does the Commission propose, in its communication on Agenda 2000?
The Commission proposes a complete reform of the CAP and structural policy limited, for budgetary reasons, to 1.27 % of the GNP of Member States.
With regard to agriculture, its proposals are confined to reducing the prices of arable crops, milk, beef and veal in order to maintain a socalled balance, by providing partial compensation, theoretically enabling farmers to adapt to these price reductions.
<P>
However, at the end of December 1999, the European Union and Member States will meet at the negotiating table of the WTO, and the issues under discussion will, of course, be the reduction of agricultural aid and the almost total withdrawal of Community preference.
<P>
So what proposals has the Commission made with regard to those discussions?
None, or rather an increase in compensatory aid, which as we all know will be unacceptable to our various partners. The GATT agreements set a ceiling for this type of aid, so I do not believe that such a rise would be acceptable.
What strategy is the Commission going to adopt? Will the Commission have enough courage to force our American partners to accept social and environmental clauses, or the ability to do so?
<P>
Commissioner, European agriculture dates back more than 2 500 years.
It cannot be compared with agriculture in countries which have existed only two or three hundred years.
We are going to destroy the rural world by copying them and we will destabilize the regional balance of the whole of the territory of the Member States of the European Union.
<P>
I wish to conclude simply by thanking Mr Cunha, and congratulating him on the excellent draft report he submitted to us, but which unfortunately was amended extensively by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, so that it became slightly less coherent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, my honourable friends, it would of course be a very attractive prospect now to go into detail on the observations made by my honourable friend Mr Cunha, and on his report.
In view of the late hour, however, I will speak only briefly.
I will therefore distribute to you the statement I had prepared and at this juncture I will restrict myself to a few points which I feel to be important.
<P>
First of all, I would like to take the opportunity to thank the rapporteur, Mr Cunha, and the Members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development for this report.
It was with great interest that I read it and I also agreed with many points in the report. However, I would have placed emphasis on quite different areas.
Allow me to illustrate.
One of the main aims of the Commission is of course to consolidate the European agriculture model, but in a changing world consolidation cannot mean limiting oneself to consolidating what already exists.
To do so would be to serve agriculture and our farmers badly.
<P>
The common agricultural policy must be adapted and reformed because in the coming decades our agriculture will be faced with more and more new realities, new conditions and new challenges.
Only thus can we guarantee the continued existence of the European agriculture model. This is exactly what the Commission is aiming to achieve by means of these proposals.
Let us speak openly: I have not yet seen an alternative to the Commission's proposals which is consistent, credible and capable of consensus, at least not where longer-term prospects are concerned.
<P>
A distinguishing feature, if not the distinguishing feature, of European agriculture, is its multi-functionality, as stated in the report.
This involves firstly the economic dimension.
Today we basically have the choice between two different paths: we could return down the path of production using strict volume limits, but the question is whether this is really an attractive programme for the future, especially in view of a comprehensive agricultural system, enlargement towards the East and the new world trade round.
<P>
The strategy which the Commission proposes goes in another direction.
It is based on improving the competitiveness of domestic agricultural products, both internal and external, a task entrusted to the Commission at the Luxembourg Summit.
This brings me to a point in the report, regarding which I must warn against any false impressions.
The price reductions proposed by the Commission are not an end in themselves.
They are the means to improve the competitiveness of our products and thus to create new sales potential.
Reduction of institutional prices must take place in such a way that, even in the case of fluctuating market prices, there is enough scope to maintain a market presence.
From this point of view, I do not believe that the price reductions proposed by the Commission can be regarded as excessive.
In future, intervention should serve only as a safety net in case of significant price collapses.
<P>
In relation to the arrangement of direct payments, I cannot confirm, on the basis of the available analyses, that the proposal for a single form of aid for cereal and oilseed would make the production of oilseed crops uneconomic in most of the EU.
In addition, the relationship between the beef and veal sectors is in our experience not nearly as direct as the report seems to assume.
<P>
What surprised me is that there would be a deviation from the general rule in the milk sector.
It states that the level of compensatory payments should be allocated in accordance with regional or individual productivity.
It must be obvious that such an approach would have not insignificant redistribution effects.
At a later point the report seems to suggest the increased use of direct payments for redistribution.
If this is the wish of Parliament, it must be stated loud and clear.
<P>
I have taken note of the clearly expressed wish to considerably increase area subsidies and subsidies related to service to society in comparison to production-related subsidies.
After all, I see a confirmation of the Commission's view in what the report says about subsidiarity and decentralization.
Subsidiarity - yes; decentralization - yes; renationalization - no!
<P>
I am pleased to discover that the report follows a similar guideline to that of the Commission as regards expanding policy on rural areas and environmental protection in agriculture into a solid, second pillar of agricultural policy.
I note that the direction taken by the report in a series of points actually goes much further than the Commission's proposals and that these points refer explicitly to the conclusions of the Cork conference and support a greater financial contribution for rural development on behalf of the Community.
<P>
This possibility exists under the agricultural guideline, provided that the political will is to hand and that the agricultural guideline remains in its current form, a point on which the rapporteur and I are in agreement.
I also share the opinions expressed in the report in the areas of food quality and food safety.
<P>
I find the report - and I can say this here - very encouraging in many points, but it also opens up many issues which we will disagree on.
I am grateful for both these facts and am already looking forward to further discussions on this and to our continued cooperation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
2000: Economic and social cohesion
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0210/98) by Mrs Schroedter, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on Agenda 2000, Part 1, Chapter II: Economic and Social Cohesion (COM(97)2000 - C4-0523/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President!
Economic and social cohesion in Europe is facing its second test within a short period of time.
Whenever the EU integration project is facing a severe test, an attempt is made to put cohesion policy aside, although this is precisely what has made the European single market a success.
Harmony and uniform development are prerequisites for stability.
For this reason it is imperative that the large export countries, who owe their profits to the single market concept, be involved, at least in some very small way, in realizing the European social model.
We must not allow fate to decide whether people within the European Union are numbered among the winners or the losers.
I would like to say very clearly once again: anyone wishing to terminate the EU's solidarity project is attacking the very heart of the integration process.
We reject outright any net contributor discussions, as these deny the basics.
On the other hand, it should certainly give us food for thought that, despite considerable financial expenditure, we have not succeeded in overcoming the divide between rich and poor regions.
Unemployment in the ten poorest regions is still seven times higher than in the ten richest regions.
This split economic development is now continuing in rich regions, forming islands of prosperity and cutting right across society.
The human tragedy of mass unemployment, poverty and exclusion are affecting increasing numbers of the population.
In view of this desperate situation in terms of economic and social cohesion, enlargement to include the ten countries of central and eastern Europe and Cyprus is an enormous challenge, making the structure of politics the key to the EU's ability to enlarge.
The Commission's revision proposals must not be restricted to concentration.
The goal of efficiency means that we must above all recognize that traditional economic methods cannot be used to meet the challenges of increasing unemployment and the process of transforming the economies of the Eastern European countries.
Jacques Delors stated in the White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment that such methods needed to be adapted for sustainable development.
Essentially, we must achieve development models which are based on low consumption of non-renewable resources and achieve a balance between economy, ecology and social development.
<P>
I would like to emphasise once again to the Member States: "Administrative arrangements are not to be equated with dismantling democracy' .
The European Structural Funds grant the local and regional authorities and the social players extensive rights of participation.
These rights can, however, only be used by the regions in question if the Member States involve them early enough in helping to formulate plans and projects.
Due to the delay in the Structural Funds Regulation by the Council - the first half of 1999 is too late for planning - we find ourselves in a dilemma in that the principle of participation is laid down in the regulation but cannot take effect because the plans have already been drawn up to ensure that the implementation period could begin on time.
If we are to take "Citizens' Europe' seriously, we must succeed in securing the participation of local and regional authorities early enough and to a sufficient degree.
The situation cannot be simplified by putting together different areas to be supported.
Thus, Objective 2 in the Commission's proposal seems to simply pass the problem down.
In my opinion it is the responsibility of the Commission to remove competition at the European level between urban and industrial areas on the one hand and rural areas on the other.
The report's proposal offers the opportunity to develop transparent procedures and guarantees the rights of participation of those affected in the rural areas and the rights of the European Parliament.
In this report, Parliament confirms once again its determination to support the euro region at the borders with its Eastern neighbours by means of a joint fund.
The Agenda provides us with the unique opportunity of setting up this fund in a budget category and under the responsibility of a Directorate-General.
Why does the Commission continue to refuse to make concrete proposals?
<P>
I am very pleased that we have succeeded in achieving broad consensus in this report and in adopting it unanimously in the Committee on Regional Policy.
It is my responsibility, as rapporteur, to ensure that this consensus remains, and it is a unique opportunity for the European Parliament to demonstrate to the Council that we can reach consensus within a very short space of time.
I thank all those colleagues who contributed to this succès d'estime in the Parliament, and I hope that we succeed in it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="Colom i Naval">
Mr President, the rapporteur's consensus extends beyond her own committee because, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, I think we would go along with most of what her report says.
<P>
So I just want to say that although most of our amendments have not been formally incorporated, most of them have been taken on board implicitly. Basically, our amendments only reflect this House's decision of 4 December 1997.
So I do not think there is any problem on our part.
<P>
I do want to make two brief comments.
For one thing, we expected a stronger reaction from the Committee on Regional Policy.
As we see it, the provisional pre-accession instrument, from the structural point of view, is not a structural fund, ladies and gentlemen, but an alternative Cohesion Fund.
And that could cause problems in the future.
It does not have the same mechanisms and aims as the Structural Funds, so we think the candidate countries are still not really being prepared for the Structural Funds. They are going to get used to the idea of a Cohesion Fund, which is a different matter.
<P>
In the general context of the agreement, I should like to mention a point we think is perhaps fundamental.
We in the Committee on Budgets want a revision clause on the financial result of the structural fund reform - and enlargement, of course.
But whereas we accept the Commission's hypotheses and figures at the moment, we must point out that if the costs corresponding to pre-accession and enlargement are added to the current figures for the Structural and Cohesion Funds, there is still room for manoeuvre within the 1.27 % ceiling.
In other words, if the structural appropriations are reduced for the Fifteen, it is not to avoid exceeding the 1.27 % ceiling, but in order to keep it much lower.
This year, we stand at 1.14 %.
And I wonder, how many decimal places of GNP are we talking about?
What we are really talking about at the moment - it was discussed at Cardiff - are mere pittances, in percentage terms.
<P>
Mr President, I would just like to add that we must be really aware of the economic and political importance of Heading 2 for the process of European political construction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="Ettl">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, from the point of view of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, I can but welcome Mrs Schroedter's report.
It shows awareness of the problem and really gets down to the issues of enlargement.
It shows that justice has been done to ideas on achieving economic and social cohesion and it shows a political effort to avoid incoherence.
<P>
Enlargement is of course not only an opportunity for positive development but shows us all today, at this early stage, that not all questions of enlargement can be looked at only from an economic point of view, nor will they be a stroll in the park.
Basically, all motions for a resolution, all resolution issues of 4 December are to be found again in the Schroedter report.
My concern is that we need to strike a balance between the areas of infrastructure, transport, environment and human resources in order to achieve cohesion.
This must be regarded as unilateral. It must be done as a single unit and this must be discussed.
<P>
Of course, the role of the social partners is also important in this context, a topic which was broached here as well.
Without the social partners we cannot achieve ratification in the developing countries, in the countries which will be joining.
We need instruments for this and thus we must reorganize PHARE in order to be of significant assistance.
All of this must be done.
Thus, for me it is still a point for discussion.
<P>
The new definition of Objective 2 is also very important.
I would just like to point out that the combination of industry and rural areas could represent an opportunity for the future.
I would also point out that in the three regulation proposals shortly to be under consideration, dealing with instruments of structural policy for preparation for accession, there is sufficient time for discussion in order to create a plausible framework for the whole area and to do justice to what we want to achieve, which is a homogeneous enlargement to include the countries of the former Eastern bloc.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="McCarthy">
Mr President, I welcome today's debate on the Schroedter report on the Agenda 2000 chapter on economic and social cohesion as a solid basis on which to launch Parliament's more detailed and comprehensive work on the regulations governing the Structural Funds.
As Mrs Schroedter said, there was a unanimous vote in the Committee on Regional Policy but I think she would also admit that was as a result of very substantial amendments tabled by many political groups, and, indeed, we have much more work to do in this area.
<P>
In response to Mr Colom i Naval, I would say that now is not the time to deal with the very detailed regulations in the Structural Funds: we will look at them when we draw up specific detailed reports.
<P>
This is a timely debate, following on from last week's discussions under the British presidency in the Informal Council in Glasgow and the General Affairs Council in Luxembourg, and in the light of today's very topical discussion at the Cardiff Summit on the progress report on Agenda 2000, prepared by the British presidency to identify those areas where a consensus exists in the Council.
<P>
Therefore, in the light of these discussions, I wish to take some time to highlight a potential approach that my group will be taking during the reform process.
There is no doubt that this reform of structural and Cohesion Funds represents the most significant changes in the last ten years with a view to meeting the challenges of enlargement and EMU.
Enlargement will surely offer opportunities to our regions but we will want to ensure that the proposals presented by the Commission match our objectives and priorities as socialists, namely to continue the Delors legacy of promoting jobs, sustainable growth and the competitiveness of our regions and the central objective of economic and social cohesion of the Treaty to enable all citizens, regions and Member States to participate on an equal footing.
The Union's benefits must be at the forefront of our policy process.
This is just as much about creating equality of opportunity as removing the disparities between poorer and wealthier regions.
<P>
We should be clear about the internal challenges we face: one in five of Europe's youth is out of work, unemployment among women is consistently higher than among men, long-term unemployment persists as a scourge of modern society.
<P>
The reform process must, therefore, combine fairness with affordability and durability, with more simplification and efficiency.
It must be fair in order to ensure we give priority to our poor regions without abandoning those problem regions going through the process of economic and social restructuring in wealthier Member States.
Solidarity, if it is to enjoy mass support, must be a two-way, and not a one-way process.
Subsidiarity and decentralization must be the cornerstone of our future policies to ensure that our regional policies are relevant to the needs and interests of local communities.
<P>
I would, therefore, like to welcome the decision that Parliament should be fully associated with the reform process.
We welcome the interinstitutional agreement and wish to see it signed and sealed under this presidency.
We have had a positive letter from Robin Cook, the President-in-Office, but we need to move forward now on the more fundamental items.
<P>
Finally, I wish to raise some areas where we need to consider the Commission's proposals in more detail: efficiency, of course, is fundamental to ensure the better use of funds but if the efficiency reserve leads to more red tape and bureaucracy and an increased monitoring role for Commission staff, then I fear that all we will be doing is employing more private consultants in order to monitor those processes.
So we need to look very carefully at how that reserve would work.
I would be in favour of looking at an innovation reserve with the appropriate procedures of decentralization and subsidiarity.
<P>
We will be judged by our citizens on how we handle the challenge of reform.
Only when the EU is seen to be contributing to the solution of major problems in society, such as poverty and unemployment, can we expect to enjoy their support and ensure the credibility of the Union and its policies and institutions.
<P>
My group will take this challenge seriously and we look forward to cooperating with the Council and the Commission in improving the Agenda 2000 proposals to gain support from the public.
We sincerely hope we will be given the opportunity of sharing in the executive powers - in a spirit of codecision, I might add.
In this way we can only add to the democratic legitimacy of the reform process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schiedermeier">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, firstly I would like to thank the rapporteur for her willingness to cooperate.
She made a significant contribution to the quality of the report.
On behalf of the Group of the European People's Party I would like to note the following: the Structural Funds must adjust their support objectives in accordance with the objectives of the treaty and the tasks of the Community.
This includes inter alia the balanced and sustainable development of economic activities, a high level of employment and of social protection, equality between men and women, and economic and social cohesion and solidarity among Member States.
The principle of subsidiarity must be considered to a high degree in this context, as must the financial framework.
Under no circumstances must enlargement be used to reduce the upper limit of 0.46 % of Community GNP for structural spending or that of 1.27 % for total expenditure.
<P>
In my view, countries participating in monetary union can no longer receive additional support from the Cohesion Fund.
Moreover, solidarity does not mean taking more assistance than necessary.
Thus, for Objective 1 the 75 % threshold of per capita GDP must be adhered to rigidly.
I therefore welcome a transitional period for regions currently eligible for aid within the framework of Objectives 1, 2 or 5b.
The new Objective 2 is, unfortunately, not logical, Madam Commissioner.
It is and remains a scrambled objective.
80 % of EU citizens live in towns, and if rural areas become increasingly disadvantaged in terms of EU support the relationship will deteriorate further.
This means that migration from rural areas to the towns will increase even further.
<P>
There are two possible ways to improve the Commission proposal.
The first is an independent objective for rural areas and the second is a subdivided objective with two separate budget lines.
The criteria must be capable of being extended and weighted by the Member States in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity.
Under no circumstances must the planned concentration of funding hold the Member States back completely from determining the level of assistance they are to receive.
The upper limit of the de minimis rule must therefore be raised considerably.
Aid from Objective 3 must be flexible and easily applicable.
The reduction of Community initiatives to just three is to be welcomed.
But PHARE-CBC funds previously earmarked for cooperation with Interreg cannot under any circumstances be used at the borders between the CEECs.
<P>
SME assistance must be increased but, even more importantly, it must be simplified, Madam Commissioner.
The 10 % level for reserve funds is too much.
In this way, the Commission is attempting to gain greater influence because in the end it also determines the use of these reserve funds.
In my view, this is a clear violation of the principle of subsidiarity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Vallvé">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, I would first like to tell the rapporteur, Mrs Schroedter, that she has produced a good report on Agenda 2000.
<P>
I am not going to go into the details of the future debate on the Structural Funds, but I must repeat that economic and social cohesion is a fundamental aspect of European construction and, in that sense, we should value the role of the Member States and the regions, and the contributions they should make, together with the EU, towards directly applying the principle of subsidiarity.
<P>
I think the desired simplification of the Structural Funds is a good thing, with a large Objective 2. Study is needed to find the best way to include rural areas, industrial areas in decline, urban areas and fishing areas, with a proper application of the principle of subsidiarity in all cases.
Consideration should also be given to the role that regions with a legislative capacity can play in the implementation of these Objective 2 development frameworks.
<P>
In that sense, I do not think a single regulation would be valid without taking account of how each Member State will decide to apply this Objective 2, according to its internal organization.
<P>
I think the suggestion about Objective 3 is very important, especially in view of the EU's biggest problem at the moment - unemployment.
And all the thinking in that area should bear in mind the future eastwards enlargement of the EU.
In that respect, I think it is a good idea for the Interreg Community initiative to also provide funds for the central and eastern European countries, but without compromising the funds which go to the current EU Member States.
<P>
Finally, I would like to say that it is always good for the Structural Funds and the allocated resources to be implemented efficiently, so I hope it will be possible to determine a good approach, to distribute these EU funds as efficiently as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="Collins, Gerard">
Mr President, Commissioner, this is the last opportunity that this House will have to express our positions on the broad principles of the reform of the Structural Funds before we start to examine the detailed legislative proposals in the coming months and it is therefore an extremely important report.
<P>
From the outset I would stress that economic and social cohesion is an enshrined principle now and for the future.
It is not about the very short-term fortunes of any national political party for electoral purposes.
We have an obligation to be serious about our contribution to the future development of the Union and our ambitions for a better way forward have got to meet the expectations of all the citizens of the European Union.
<P>
Broadly speaking, I am in agreement with the Schroedter report.
There are, however, a couple of points that are of particular concern to me.
I am in total agreement with, and strongly support, the Commission's view that there is no link between EMU participation and eligibility under the Cohesion Fund.
I would stress to certain colleagues that there is no basis in the Treaty to support such a link.
Amendment No 25 by Mr Novo Belenguer and others correctly represents this position and I will be glad to support it.
I can accept the principle of a mid-term review for the Cohesion Fund.
However, I would find it unacceptable if there were not to be provision for transition arrangements for any Member State that ceases to qualify under the mid-term review.
<P>
It is essential that adequate transition arrangements be put in place for regions such as my country, Ireland, which cease to meet Objective 1 qualifying criteria.
Transitional arrangements for Ireland must be adequate in terms of the level and duration of funding so as to address our continuing significant developmental needs.
Whereas the level of funding must in particular meet the needs of the less-developed Irish subregions, it is my view that they should cover the whole country during the entire seven-year period of the next financial framework.
Building a solid house is a long term investment.
You do not build a house on foundations that have not been consolidated.
Yes, we in Ireland have made rapid progress towards the EU average in GDP but - yes - we still need new significant levels of funding for the period ahead if we are to consolidate our economic progress achieved to date.
Finally, I do not believe that anyone would seriously contest our aim of reaching a situation in which our higher levels of prosperity are copper-fastened and ensured on a permanent and sustainable basis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Agenda 2000 caused a great commotion but there is, as yet, no coordination to be seen, as the Member States are rejecting the Commission's script.
Heated fights for allocation, owners of assets who make their presence felt - and in the midst of all this, we lose sight of what is actually at stake; the great, great settlement with central and eastern Europe.
But what are the rules of the game?
The first is that enlargement is only possible if the agricultural and structural policies are reformed.
Secondly, some better-off regions are excluded from current aid, and indeed this applies both to Germany and to Sweden or, for example, Spain.
If the German Länder demand that budgetary risks for the Länder be prevented in the finance regulations, it is recommended that they use the interim deadline of four to six years to guarantee this for themselves.
<P>
Thirdly, unlike the previous speaker, I believe the Cohesion Fund should be dissolved following monetary union.
However, if the Spanish government and others wish to cling desperately to it, it should be said honestly - and the rapporteur does allow this opportunity - that we cannot in principle deny Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Estonia access to it; this is the logic of the game.
Those who demand things for themselves also achieve things for others.
<P>
Fourthly, if we are going to haggle about money, then let us do it properly; this would mean clarifying the net contributor debate, particularly as far as Mr Waigel is concerned.
The justice gap can only be closed on the income side and not on the expenditure side.
Those in favour of reform must also be in favour of dismantling agricultural subsidies.
A reduction of the British rebate in agricultural subsidies and a possible move to co-financing would at the same time pave the way for a general corrective mechanism.
If we adhere to these rules, there will be some kind of coordination and we will have a script which will finally allow us to reach the end of negotiations.
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<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Féret">
Mr President, Mrs Schroedter's report calls for a more interdependent Europe, where rich regions give poorer regions more help.
It calls for an enlarged Europe, enlarged to the scale of the continent, where the first fifteen Member States are committed to raising to their own level the central and eastern European countries, whose average per capita purchasing power is up to five times lower than in the Member States. At the same time, in Cardiff, our intrepid Heads of State have agreed upon one thing only: to pay less, and to receive more, so Europe will take a huge step backwards.
<P>
At the same time, my region, Hainault, is now, in the Commission's own words, a "disaster area' , because of forty years of absolute Socialist rule, because European funds are being squandered by the Socialist Party's friends and accomplices, following an old Socialist and Walloon tradition.
At the same time, we are blowing hot and cold on the countries of central and eastern Europe.
We have invited them to join us, but at the same time, we see a mote in their eyes, their lack of democracy, when in it is our western democracies that are moribund. Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this report is a contemporary version of the torture of Tantalus: the harder we try to reach out to Europe and the benefits it could give our fellow citizens, the more it eludes us.
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<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Walter">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have less than a year; by then everything must be in place - everything that we want to have discussed and decided in relation to Agenda 2000.
Less than a year is not much time.
So we really must set about rolling up our sleeves and getting started.
I believe Elisabeth Schroedter's report is a good start.
It provides a great deal of information without anticipating decisions which we have yet to debate intensively.
I believe this is exactly the right approach.
<P>
In past debates - at this juncture, I would remind you of the plenary session in Brussels - we have experienced what happens if we try to lay down measures rashly or in hasty speculation.
These cannot be the terms under which we work; instead, we must discuss matters seriously and thus find useful solutions.
The report provides some guidelines, even if I would not accept in blank everything contained in it.
There are also further amendments. We will vote on it tomorrow.
Then we will finally have a result.
But I believe it is important that this step has been taken.
<P>
What is the aim of all this?
The aim in developing Agenda 2000 is not only to distribute money.
It is to achieve a balanced system.
It is also a question of working together to improve and develop an instrument of aid, and of how we get along together.
There can be no question of our standing here and saying "We have received money from the Member States, ' and the Member States saying, "Give it back to us - we know best how to distribute it.'
No, the aim is not to achieve a European added value. We must work together on this.
I believe that in many places we must point out weaknesses.
In the conflict between globalization and regionalization, it cannot only be a question of bringing as much as possible back and saying to the people at home, "Do what you want with it, ' and sufficing with that.
<P>
Nevertheless, we will have to examine the Commission's proposals carefully.
Here, in many places, it is necessary to introduce simplification and the transparency which has been announced.
We will examine this carefully, as it has been pointed out to us that simplification, for example in partnership or in programming, would, of course, bring with it an increased level of pressure and bureaucracy, which we do not want.
We will consider this very carefully. In my view, our task over the next few weeks and months will be to look at which countries need money and which countries receive it.
Of course, we must also ensure that this Community instrument is developed into a transparent instrument with which we can work together for the future of our regions.
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<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is easy to agree on principles, certainly when the principles in question make sense.
Thus, in principle, we happily agree with the Schroedter report and the proposals for the reform of structural policy within Agenda 2000.
Recognizable areas of concentration instead of spreading funds too thinly, objective criteria for the allocation of EU funds, bottom-up partnership, evaluation, what more could we want?
In the interests of those affected, we must want more!
<P>
Rural areas, which have already been mentioned today, have not yet been given the necessary consideration, at least not in the initial drafts.
Rural areas must at least be worthy of a subgoal within Objective 2, with guaranteed funding.
In order to meet with the wide approval of our citizens, for the next round of enlargement we will need the opportunities offered by Interreg and a guaranteed level of Interreg funding for the Union's border regions.
Indications from Brussels regarding funding constitute better advice than words of concern from various political ultra-peripheral regions.
Moreover, without upper limits on finance, some so-called net contributors will feel that too much is being asked of them.
The Schroedter report will meet with broad approval only when we allow room not only for the principles but also for particular interests, and I use the term advisedly.
Let us work together with the Commission and the Council to achieve a good balance in the coming months, so that we will have a result which meets with broad approval throughout the Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ryynänen">
Mr President, Commissioner, reforms in EU regional and structural policy have to be able to meet the growing challenges that spring from regional inequality.
The development of the global economy, mass unemployment, enlargement and EMU are all factors that require a structural policy that will level out differences and create new opportunities.
EU regional policy must be more adept and flexible in its attention to differing circumstances.
For example, more flexibility is needed in assessing population cover and national funding, according to the circumstances of the country.
<P>
We have to keep rigidly to the Agenda 2000 timetable for debate.
The effective implementation of the programmes and the participation by the different parties involved requires sufficient preparation time.
Large rural areas such as eastern and northern Finand are in a critical situation as far as the future is concerned.
These areas are suffering acutely from population loss.
We are now in urgent need of a policy of reform for these regions that will help to bring opportunities for the development of human capital, entrepreneurship based on the new technology, and a diverse array of incentives.
The focus has to be the creation of permanent jobs locally and the support of local initiative.
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<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, I would like to underline the importance of the partnership principle, especially when defining programmes and their methodology.
I would particularly like to underline the fact that, if the measures for the development of rural regions are not clearly defined and decided, we risk causing great damage to local and regional cooperation.
Meanwhile, there is another concern that should not be underestimated, and that is the danger that in the new view presented in Agenda 2000 economic and social cohesion will tend to blur the competences and control of the European Parliament.
If this were to occur, it would truly be paradoxical that at a time when we are faced with the decisive issue of enlargement, the democratic guarantee of the European Parliament would be weakened.
<P>
At the same time, we are of the view that it is useful to facilitate cooperation with non-EU countries through Interreg and PHARE, creating appropriate legal and financial instruments like, for example, common funds.
We are puzzled as to the actual usefulness of the proposed 10 % reserve mechanism.
Similarly, we would like to highlight the paltry amount of credits made available.
<P>
Enlargement requires a rational and effective structural policy, in spite of the budget restrictions that are imposed.
In general, when we look at the innovations of Agenda 2000, we see that the number of Community initiatives is reduced from 13 to 3, that the budget for the Cohesion Fund is only ECU 3 billion, that the eligibility criteria for aid seems simplified; we also see that no major progress has been made in structural policy, which is even more important today because of the new countries seeking membership.
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<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Lage">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, our financial forecasts for the years 2000 to 2006, upon which our cohesion policy depends, will be decided in March next year, according to the Cardiff Summit, after the effects of the German elections have been put into perspective.
<P>
Thus Mrs Schroedter's report, while it is a good piece of work, is merely a preliminary step, although it is imbued with the best of cohesion philosophy.
But we are bound by circumstances, in the light of the vote a fortnight ago in the European Parliament, which was unexpectedly hostile to the countries that benefit from the Cohesion Fund, to take the matter up again in the form of some amendments to the Schroedter report.
<P>
The vote on these proposals represents a significant test of the present sensitivity of Members of the European Parliament.
It will indelibly mark out the difference between national selfishness and Community solidarity, between the laws of the market and the ethical imperatives of cohesion, in short between words and actions.
And let it not be said that the Cohesion Fund is intended to help its beneficiaries to join the euro, and nothing more.
That is mere sophistry: false reasoning masquerading as sound argument.
The fact is that the need to keep the Cohesion Fund is even further justified with the coming of the euro.
<P>
Economic geography and history show us that when the market is unified, harmonized, extended and supplied with a single currency there are advantages for the whole, but on the other hand there is also a strong tendency for already existing geographical centres and economic groups to be strengthened, to the detriment of the most peripheral and outlying regions.
These are real risks which should not be underestimated; on the contrary, the Fifteen should be working to counteract them.
How?
By giving priority to the principle of balance within our territory and to policies of cohesion.
This is why the Cohesion Fund must be kept and why, in short, it would be a very serious mistake to abolish it.
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The European Parliament, which over the years has championed the principles of solidarity, would seriously compromise its reputation if it did not now unequivocally keep faith with its traditions and the values on which it is built.
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<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Hatzidakis">
Madam Commissioner, the efforts of the European Union to achieve economic and social cohesion within its borders must continue unabated while there remain substantial inequalities at both regional and national level and while such tendencies are, in certain cases, on the increase, despite the significant steps that have been taken towards achieving nominal convergence.
This situation, together with the imminent enlargement towards countries of central and eastern Europe, places increased responsibilities on the European Union, which impose a new way of dealing with social and structural policies in the future.
<P>
Against such a background, the first substantial issue to be raised is that of the structural perspectives, which is an issue which must be clarified as soon as possible so that we know what money we will have at our disposal, in order that we can determine in a responsible way the relevant policies.
This is an issue which, of course, belongs chiefly within the powers of the Council.
<P>
The Community budget, up to 1.27 % of Community GDP, of which 0.46 % is allocated to structural policies, may well prove to be inadequate in the future to cover satisfactorily both existing and new countries and policies.
On no account must enlargement turn out to be at the expense of current Member States, especially the poorest.
That is why the financial perspectives must be re-examined, before the first wave of enlargement, with a view to dealing with the new requirements and developments which will have arisen or which, by then, will have become more apparent.
<P>
The regions of Objective 1, which are those with a per capita GDP lower than 75 % of the Community average, in other words the poorest and those with the greatest needs, must continue in the future to receive two-thirds of Structural Fund resources, as recommended moreover by the Commission.
The share of financing for these regions must remain high, while they must be even higher for island regions due to the special problems they face, as recognised moreover by Article 130a of the Amsterdam Treaty.
The implementation of an integrated policy, based on this provision in the new Treaty, is also necessary for the islands, in order to deal with the special problems that arise because of their island status.
It is also right to reduce the Objectives from six to three as well as the Community initiatives from fifteen to three, for the purposes of simplification and focus.
Finance equivalent to 5 % of resources also seems logical to me but there certainly needs to be a doubling of resources for innovative actions which, precisely because of their pioneering and guiding nature, may prove to be especially advantageous.
<P>
I would like to finish by stressing that in the future there must still be a Cohesion Fund for the financing of large structural projects in the fields of transport and the environment, in which countries with a per capita GDP lower than 90 % of the Community average must once again be able to participate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Collado">
Mr President, I want to congratulate Mrs Schroedter on her report, and tell her that the best thing about the report - and she should not be upset by this - is that it is indebted to the proposals made by the Commission, and specifically the Commissioner here with us today, Mrs Wulf-Mathies.

<P>
This report is in line with the Commission proposals, and that is exactly where its strength and positive nature lie.
It has another positive aspect: it is going to allow us to go back over the incredible events of the last part-session when, because of a series of mistakes, a conclusion was reached on the Cohesion Fund which does not represent the majority view of the House, as we will have the chance to find out in tomorrow's vote.
<P>

I want to ask Mrs Schroedter to please try to educate a certain member of her group a little, because she has certainly taken full account of what the Cohesion Fund is, and what cohesion means. The Cohesion Fund is provided for in the Treaties, should continue to be provided for in the Treaties, and to change it would mean changing the Treaties.
It cannot be presented as an option for some countries which do not want to give up certain subsidies.
We are talking about the Treaties, and those countries with less than 90 % of Community income have a continued right to the Cohesion Fund, because that is what is said by the rules of the Fifteen with which we have provided ourselves.
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Mrs Schroedter certainly has understood what cohesion is.
And cohesion cannot be understood without the fundamental link to the internal market which now, with the single currency, is a full internal market.
<P>
The positions achieved are also the positions achieved by those countries, regions and companies which, in a common market, have enjoyed a situation of privileged competition. That is why cohesion arises: so that this competitive privilege can be borne in mind, and the least favoured regions can be helped.
<P>
Let us be logical when we talk about cohesion, Mr President.
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<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Arias Cañete">
Mr President, I want to start my speech by joining previous speakers in congratulating Mrs Schroedter on her report.
She certainly deserves those congratulations, because of her hard work in preparing her report and, especially, because of the efforts she has made to seek compromises between the various political groups. These compromises have meant that this report was approved almost unanimously in the Committee on Regional Policy.
<P>
Among the report's conclusions, I would like to emphasise - because it is so important for cohesion policy - the express recognition that two-thirds of the total Structural Fund resources should be allocated to the Objective 1 regions. Only by concentrating resources on the least favoured regions can we reduce regional disparities within reasonable timescales.
<P>
I think the reference in recital A to the Cohesion Fund's important role in promoting the harmonious development of the Community is very positive. However, not only do I think the statement in recital L should be incorporated into the conclusions, but I also think it needs to be worded in such a way as to clarify the debate currently underway, in view of the vote on the Berend amendment in the last Brussels part-session.
<P>
So I think the text of Amendments Nos 5, 6 and 14, presented by members of the PPE Group, the ARE Group and the PSE Group, brings the debate back to more reasonable terms, without hasty pronouncements.
These amendments support the maintenance of a Cohesion Fund after the year 2000, without prejudging the final position of the European Parliament, which will be expressed in the context of the legislative procedure on the Cohesion Fund. They allow this House to begin the debate with the necessary composure and respect for the Treaties, in an atmosphere of parliamentary calm, unaffected by electoral stances arising from the important national elections underway.
<P>
I think that, as the report underlines, it is very important to reclaim powers for the bodies responsible for European regional policy, with respect to the programming and monitoring of programmes within the framework of rural development, otherwise the coherence which should characterize all aspects of regional policy will be lost.
<P>
I conclude by thanking our rapporteur again for her excellent work, which will serve as a guideline for the Committee on Regional Policy in its task over the next few months, in analysing the highly reasoned and balanced legislative proposals presented by the Commission.
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<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bösch">
Madam Commissioner, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe we must be careful - in the context of the solidarity always mentioned in connection with economic cohesion of the Union - not to repeat the fairytales told to us by the Council and other powers, sometimes even the Commission.
On the one hand, we cannot plan, with the approval of all Member States, an enlargement of the kind that is obviously planned here - the poorest and most sizeable enlargement which Europe's history of integration has ever known. On the other hand, we cannot believe that we will have to pay less than in the past or indeed that we can maintain existing structural policies and Member States' incomes as they were in the past.
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Our fellow citizens will not accept this and indeed it is also an insult to our own intelligence.
Thus, it will be a question of proper distribution.
In this regard, some colleagues are indeed right.
We not only have a north-south conflict in the area of cohesion but also, to a certain extent, a north-north conflict.
Here I must point out to some of the preceding speakers that there is no point in only considering structural policies as such.
Of course, no later than October, when the Commission adds up the income side of Agenda 2000 and says that this country has to pay so much and that country has to pay so much, we will have a new debate on expenditure in category 2 of the structural policies.
For this reason it is also important that we include, for example, expenditure on agriculture.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development cannot make its own decisions on this and say that none of it is its concern.
I am directing this particularly at our Bavarian representative here.
Of course, this is to be included as, if we have major new tasks ahead of us, and that is a certainty, then it poses a challenge to our solidarity.
Then it will no longer be possible for the second richest country in this Union to be a net beneficiary because of this - crazy - agricultural policy; then our fellow citizens of the Union will no longer accept such a policy.
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<SPEAKER ID=144 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Berend">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, firstly I would like to express my approval of the priorities of this report, which owes its current form not least to the cooperation of the rapporteur and to many changes in committee.
We are in favour of the proposed concentration of funding for development and structural adjustment of underdeveloped regions (Objective 1), as proposed by the report and by the Commission.
We support the strict application of the criterion of a regional per capita GNP, expressed as purchasing power parities of level NUT 2, less than 75 % of the Community average, for the selection of future Objective 1 regions.
<P>
Two-thirds of the structural funds appropriations for Objective 1 do in fact guarantee the necessary concentration of funding for the regions most in need.
In this context, however, I would remind the Commission not to deviate from the strict application of this criterion.
In simple terms this means that all Objective 1 regions are entitled to receive equal funding.
In view of the regional orientation of Objective 1, the criterion relating to national welfare is not suited to equal treatment.
On the contrary, it creates new inequalities and thus, we reject it.
<P>
Like the report and the Commission, we are in favour of financing European structural policy while maintaining the ceiling of 1.27 % for own resources and the percentage of structural funds at 0.46 %, and also of not deviating from these central points in the context of enlargement.
As far as the Cohesion Fund is concerned, we agree with the rapporteur that after the year 2000, we should have a Cohesion Fund as support for reaching the convergence criteria.
However, we do not want the continuation of the existing one, as currently provided for by Agenda 2000.
A translation error relating to this will be corrected tomorrow by means of a corrigendum.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Varela Suanzes-Carpegna">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, economic and social cohesion is an essential objective of European construction, and just as important as monetary union or the single market. If the effort towards cohesion has been important, the economic data show that so far it has not been enough.
<P>
To make sure that people understand what we mean, we are not talking about charity here, or about indefinite, indiscriminate subsidies.
Cohesion is synonymous with solidarity and fairness in the different efforts of the various European regions to achieve competitiveness.
Cohesion is the other face of the single market and monetary union. In that context, and in the context of enlargement, economic and social cohesion will be needed more than ever, and rightly so.
<P>
Monetary union and the single market will mean that investment is centred on the rich countries more than ever.
Enlargement will make solidarity even more necessary, when cohesion has still not been achieved among the Fifteen.
<P>
So the Cohesion Fund is an essential instrument.
The Cohesion Fund is needed by the current Member States which have a per capita GNP of less than 90 % of the Community average, as established by the Treaty, regardless of whether or not they join monetary union.
<P>
Lastly, the opinion of the Committee on Fisheries attached to the Schroedter report mentions an injustice which I want to underline: the inadequate structural attention paid to the fisheries sector in Agenda 2000.
The special nature of coastal regions, which are generally peripheral and highly dependent on fishing, with no easy employment alternatives, means they need the structural support of a horizontal regulation to include the whole European coastline, to give these zones the concrete actions they so badly need and should have, but which do not exist at the moment.
<P>
So I conclude by congratulating the rapporteur and calling for real improvements in economic and social cohesion in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Viola">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur and say that Agenda 2000 puts a brake on the development of cohesion policy with a cut in the percentage of the expenditure objective decided in Edinburgh from 0.46 to 0.39 %, considering that heading 2 of the budget must give up ECU 7 billion to pre-accession.
That is why we are calling first of all for the creation of a new budget heading - heading 7 - a reflection on the 1.27 % that should be revised when the dates and numbers concerning enlargement are known, and a distribution of funds that leaves the cohesion policy the way it was decided, without reducing it to a kind of privilege for a few.
<P>
I actually wonder whether Agenda 2000, in wanting to concentrate the distribution of funds as much as possible, has taken into account the actual needs of regions or whether it has blindly chosen a figure as the maximum criterion.
I also have doubts as to the choice of per capita GDP as an absolute reference.
This figure should be examined thoroughly so that it accurately reflects the socio-economic condition of a region, otherwise, we will find ourselves with obvious distortions of reality like, for example, in the case of the island regions.
How does a Eurostat parameter show the major difference that exists between the 76 % achieved by an island region and the 76 % achieved by a region on the mainland?
<P>
Several items in the chapter on cohesion policy in Agenda 2000 leave me puzzled, beginning with the 10 % reserve.
I will just say here that I would like to see some rethinking of the Cohesion Fund as soon as possible so that in the near future it is not eliminated but regionalized.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to thank you, Mrs Schroedter, for the report and the resolutions which are critical and constructive and offer a further opportunity for discussion of Agenda 2000 in the European Parliament.
I would like to emphasize in particular the broad agreement between the European Parliament and the Commission, which is very positive, especially as regards the significance of economic and social cohesion, but also as regards common goals such as sustainability, combating unemployment, increasing the competitiveness of the regions, the importance of human resources and equality of opportunity.
<P>
We are starting to see some progress in the Council too.
The British Presidency has gone to great lengths in recent weeks, not only in the Council working parties but also in the informal Council in Glasgow, to initiate a first political discussion on the reform of the Structural Funds.
<P>
Perhaps the most important message from Glasgow is, in my view, that there was no fundamental opposition.
The political philosophy of the Commission's proposals was broadly confirmed.
It is also significant that the Ministers accepted the connection between simplification and decentralization on the one hand, and increased accountability on the other.
But on this issue - as several speakers said - considerable discussion is, of course, still required.
<P>
Allow me to clarify the following once again in relation to the balance of the overall package.
Firstly, enlargement will not be at the expense of the poorest regions.
On the contrary, genuine Objective 1 regions will be the beneficiaries of this reform.
I would specifically mention, in this regard, that the existence of the Cohesion Fund and adjustment in line with the Stability Pact are part of the Commission's overall proposal.
<P>
Secondly, concentration efforts are distributed equally and fairly among all Member States and are not at the expense of either rural areas or other problem regions.
<P>
Thirdly, the pre-accession package contains an attractive offer for those states wishing to join and does not place excessive strain on the current Member States.
<P>
Allow me to say, regarding your doubts on the financing of enlargement, that Agenda 2000's overall package is financed cleanly.
However - and I would emphasize what was said here - the proposals on the reform of more important Community policies and on the gradual inclusion of applicant countries form one unit.
One is not possible without the other.
The applicant countries are also required not to allow their efforts to achieve the Community acquis to diminish.
<P>
If all participants proceed rationally, enlargement can be achieved without additional cost to the European taxpayer, even if growth should prove to be lower.
In addition, when discussing finances we should not forget the advantages of enlargement, politically and in terms of security, but above all for democracy and economic progress.
I believe that we are not exactly giving a welcoming impression to those Members who view accession to the Community as a way of belonging to a democratic system which guarantees peace.
<P>
With regard to your request that a single financial instrument be provided for the pre-accession strategy, I would point out that the Commission, in accordance with the instructions of the Luxembourg European Council, has proposed three financial instruments.
Because of the different legal bases, one would not, after all, simplify things for us any more than the attempt which we have now made, which is to try to make the process as uniform as possible by means of the coordination regulation and the functioning of the three regulations.
<P>
You, like many Member States, are in favour of a close interlocking of the pre-accession instrument with Interreg.
I would point out that it is not sufficient, in the area of cross-border activities, to restrict ourselves to ISBA; instead, we should place emphasis on Interreg, PHARE-CBC.
Moreover, PHARE will continue to be responsible for introducing regional policy in the accession countries by means of small projects and institution building.
In continuing PHARE-CBC, the Commission considers it necessary, in the context of cross-border cooperation and in contrast to the decisive "No' of the draft resolution, to devote greater attention to the Eastern borders; this is also linked in with the pre-accession strategy.
However, and here we are in agreement, this must not result in the Western borders being neglected.
Strengthening cross-border cooperation is of particular importance, not only for acceptance of enlargement towards the east but also for purposes of introducing the procedures and substance of regional policy.
<P>
Partnership and an integrated approach are the innovative elements of the new Structural Funds regulation.
I thank you for the support of the European Parliament for the growth of this partnership.
However, it surprises me that after years of discussion about the necessity of integrated regional development strategies, the integrated approach should suddenly be called into question.
And yet all the experiences summarised in the cohesion report show that structural policy was particularly successful in all places where infrastructural measures, support of private investment and the development of human capital were components of a uniform regional policy.
<P>
I would consider it to be dangerous if we were to end up with fragmented activities and a sectoral patchwork, which would be inconsistent with an integrated regional development strategy and thus particularly with efficiency of aid.
Moreover, one programme per region is a considerable simplification which, nonetheless, in no way excludes the possibility of a detailed consideration of various problem areas or an objective examination of rural areas.
<P>
I considered your request for a subdivision of Objective 2 into two subgoals - or indeed the creation of an independent goal - to be counterproductive.
It is precisely this competition between town and country that we wish to overcome by means of a regional development strategy, Mrs Schroedter.
There can be no question, dear Mr Schiedermeier, of the rural areas being disadvantaged.
Looking to the future, that is first of all the application of Objective 2 in line with the principle of subsidiarity, with the opportunity for countries and regions to select a considerable number of the areas, and the horizontal support in Figure 3, goodness knows this cannot in any way be seen as neglect of rural areas.
<P>
I am pleased that the European Parliament's proposal for a performance reserve is approved at least in principle, and hope that we can still dispel your scepticism by means of range and feasibility.
This also applies to the Commission's proposal to create incentives for good financial management of the programmes.
I agree that we must yet discuss this critically but I would ask you not to allow yourselves to be affected by particular ministerial interests.
<P>
The Austrian Presidency is determined to have the main points of the reform ready for judgement before the Council Summit in Vienna so that the whole package can be adopted early in 1999.
Here I hope for the active support of the European Parliament and ask you to focus all your efforts on this and not on an interim regulation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 NAME="McCarthy">
Mr President, on a point of order.
Could you inform Commissioner Fischler's cabinet that mobile phones are not allowed in this House.
It is discourteous to Members and interrupts the debates.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs McCarthy.
We have all noted your remark.
That includes the Commissioner, of course.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m. tomorrow.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Common organization of the market in bananas
<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="President">
The next item on the agenda is Mr Thomas's report (A4-0220/98), on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending (EEC) Regulation No 404/93 on the common organization of the market in bananas (COM(98)0004- C4-0046/98-98/0013(CNS).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 NAME="Thomas">
Mr President, today we are considering a Commission proposal which will bring the European Union banana regime into line with a ruling delivered by the WTO dispute settlement body.
Although many of us would like to, we are not at liberty to alter the judgment and many of us, myself included, would criticize the way that decision was reached and the method by which the original complaint was taken.
<P>
However, that said, the European Union is required to put new arrangements into place by 1 January 1999.
The world trade in bananas is a very complex business with many players and conflicting interests.
I firmly believe that although we must work within the legal framework of our international commitments, our primary objective must be to protect EU producers and those countries to which we have committed our support in the context of the Lomé Convention.
<P>
The provision of quality fruit at a reasonable price is just one aim of the banana regime.
However, world trade should not be driven solely by economic considerations.
We have a duty to contribute to the fight against poverty and towards the protection of acceptable social and environmental standards.
<P>
I broadly support the Commission proposals which make as few changes as possible to the existing regime.
The Commission proposes maintaining the existing tariff quota at its current level of 2.2 million tonnes at the same rate of duty of ECU 75 per tonne with an additional autonomous tariff quota of 353 000 tonnes at a rate of ECU 300 per tonne to take account of an enlarged European Union.
<P>
My main concern with the Commission proposals is that duty-free access to bananas from traditional ACP suppliers up to a ceiling of 857 000 tonnes will continue while at the same time the current licensing system will be abolished and individual countries will no longer be allocated a share of the quota on a country basis.
The licensing system is one element of the banana regime condemned by the WTO which must be replaced.
<P>
The Commission proposal does not detail how licences will be allocated and this gives rise to concern.
I urge the Commission to preserve a balance in the supply of bananas on the EU market and to ensure that in allocating a quota they use the best possible statistics which take account of changes in trade flows in recent years.
It would be totally unacceptable if those ACP countries which have traditionally provided bananas for the EU market and whose economies depend on the revenue they receive from the banana trade lose out when new arrangements come into effect.
<P>
The Lomé Convention refers to individual states and not the ACP as a whole and the WTO ruling recognizes the commitment the EU has made to the ACP states.
Traditional ACP suppliers also risk losing out as a result of the increasing involvement of American multinationals in banana production in some of the non-traditional ACP states.
I trust that the Commission will monitor this situation very carefully and bear this in mind when allocating market access.
<P>
I am pleased that in this context the Commission has brought forward proposals for a financial package of ECU 370m to assist ACP banana producers and bridge the competitive gap between the ACP and Latin American bananas.
Mr Liese is the rapporteur for the Committee on Development and Cooperation for these proposals and they are linked with mine.
They should be treated as an urgency this week.
<P>
It is important to have a mechanism which will enable ACP states to expand their production.
I have suggested that the Commission include an expansion coefficient in their calculations.
It is easy for an Englishman to forget that 17 % of the bananas eaten in Europe are produced domestically.
I would like to thank my Spanish and Portuguese colleagues for the time they have taken to ensure that I was fully instructed on this fact.
<P>
We discussed EU banana production and its importance to the industry in some of the more peripheral areas of the Union at some length.
The Commission proposal does not contain any specific measures to favour our own banana producers who stand to lose as a result of the changes to the regime.
I therefore proposed in my report that the maximum quantity for EU bananas be increased by 15 % from the present level of 854, 000 tonnes to 982, 000 tonnes and that the standard reference income be raised by 20 %.
<P>
In this way we can ensure that EU producers also benefit from the growth in the market.
The ECU 78m which will be saved as a result of higher duties should be redeployed to facilitate banana production in those regions of the EU such as Madeira, the Canaries and Crete whose economies to a large extent depend on this crop.
<P>
Finally, I would like to make a special mention of Somalia.
The civil war and severe flooding have devastated the banana industry.
We have a duty to extend a helping hand to the people of Somalia and ensure that they can rebuild what was a flourishing industry.
I urge the Commission and the Council to be flexible and show some compassion.
There is much more I could say about my report.
I hope colleagues will support it as it was overwhelmingly supported in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 NAME="Cardona">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union consumes approximately four million tonnes of bananas every year.
76 % of these are imported from nonEU, non-ACP countries, most of whose plantations are controlled by American companies.
<P>
So far as we know, this form of production, or this way of producing bananas, has no environmental or social concerns.
Thus, from the point of view of production in the European Union - which, as you know, includes the island of Madeira, which is part of the territory of Portugal - we have been protecting either common production or production in the traditional ACP countries.
That protection has been provided by subsidies and preferential treatment which is expressed in a special system of import certificates and a customary duty-free import quota.
<P>
That system, as you know, has been challenged by the United States and some Latin American banana producers as an alleged breach of Article 13 of the GATT.
As a result, the Union has been requested to change the system by the dispute-settling body of the World Trade Organization.
<P>
The Commission has accordingly put forward a amendment to Regulation 404/93 on the common organization of the market in bananas.
That amendment is the subject of our report.
Having examined and studied all its aspects, particularly its budgetary implications, the Budgetary Committee essentially agrees to the proposals on the legal side of the matter; however, particularly bearing in mind the resulting implications for its own producers and for traditional ACP producers, the Budgetary Committee has drawn up a series of amendments to the law - which it hopes may be included in the report by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development - the purpose of which is, by means of an annual report by the Committee, to control and keep checks on the financial consequences of the new system and examine the proposed aid framework.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="Carlotti">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner Fischler, the establishment of a European market for bananas in 1993 has had largely positive results: a sevenfold increase in intra-Community flow, convergence and stability of prices, renewed confidence in producer countries and, finally, an increase in the market shares of European operators by comparison with American operators.
<P>
More specifically, of the three great multinational companies which control three-quarters of the world market in bananas, only Chiquita's market share is decreasing, which I have to say is the result of strategic and management errors.
Chiquita therefore only has itself to blame. However, this company with its colonialist attitude, which is used to getting its own way, by force if necessary, and which has been convicted several times for abusing its dominant position, blames European regulations, and what is more, the American government and certain other countries have followed its example.
Of course, Chiquita's president has an important political role and great political influence, as he gave over one million dollars to the big political parties during the presidential elections in the United States.
<P>
So, the problem has nothing to do with the principle of liberalization of the European market in bananas.
The COM has apparently expanded the market.
The essential problem has something to do with our view of the economy which is opposed to that of the United States, especially when such an important country allows it decisions to be dictated by an utterly unscrupulous company.
<P>
Faced with the WTO rulings, and after having exhausted all other means of recourse, the Union has in fact decided to bring the COM in bananas into line with the rules of international trade.
The Committee on Development and Cooperation accepts the solution proposed by the Commission and amended by the rapporteur Mr Thomas, whom I must thank for having incorporated many of our proposals.
We accept it because it complies with the 1993 compromises: it respects the interest of the various sources of supply, and takes into consideration the Union's commitments, that is, Community preference and preferential access for ACP countries, pursuant to Protocol 5 of the Lomé Convention.
<P>
In many African, Caribbean and Pacific countries, bananas are the main crop, the only crop to generate exports, the main employer.
They are the "single engine' of fragile economies, trying courageously and obstinately to enter the modern world.
This new regulation will test the Union's political ability to defend its policies and its identity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="Cunningham">
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating David Thomas, the rapporteur, on his excellent work on this crucial issue of our trade in bananas.
I also wish to offer an apology, Mr President, to you, Parliament and Commissioner Fischler, for I have to leave immediately after this speech for a bilateral discussion with my Dutch colleague, Jozias van Aartsen, about this dossier and price-fixing generally, before the Council next week.
<P>
After all the hard work that has gone into this dossier, I am optimistic that the Council will be able to arrive at an agreement at our June meeting.
Today is an opportunity, therefore, for me to express my sincere appreciation to Parliament, David Thomas and all his colleagues for the speed with which this issue, this complex and, as we know, controversial dossier, has been considered.
<P>
Ever since the latest WTO dispute began two years ago, we have accepted that, in the event of an adverse ruling, the Union would have to bring its arrangements into line with those WTO rules.
The Union committed itself to do that immediately, once the ruling was published.
We now have until 1 January next year to get the revised system into place.
That is why we must reach agreement at next week's Council so that there is enough time for the detailed rules to be agreed and implemented before that deadline.
<P>
The revised arrangements will not be as favourable as the present arrangements for the producers in the ACP countries, to whom we have obligations under the Lomé Convention.
Taking my presidency hat off for a moment, we in the United Kingdom are particularly concerned about the situation of the Caribbean producers.
Because of our long-standing relationship with the region we are acutely aware of their current dependence on banana production to sustain their whole economy.
<P>
The Council recognizes the importance of bananas, both in terms of exports and employment, for those Caribbean and, indeed, all ACP countries, and for the ultra-peripheral areas of the Union.
At the same time, we accept that the revisions the Commission is proposing are the best way forward in the very difficult circumstances following the ruling by the WTO.
It is important, therefore, to reach agreement as soon as possible, both inside the European Union and outside it, too, in order to provide the stability in the market that both producers and traders require.
<P>
Regrettably, while we seem to be moving towards an acceptable deal within the European Union, the signs from some of the WTO complainants are less helpful.
These countries have, of course, been following the negotiations on the revised arrangements with close interest.
They claim that what the Commission is proposing is not sufficient to bring the bananas regime into line with the ruling.
<P>
I must say that I find this attitude very disappointing.
I hope that once the United States and others have a chance to look at what the Council agrees, they will accept that we, working together with the Commission, have found a reasonable way of honouring all our international obligations - that is obligations under the Lomé Convention as well as obligations under the WTO.
<P>
I certainly hope that is so, because the uncertainty created by the ongoing threat of further WTO action would be neither conducive to the proper functioning of the market nor to the ability of ACP and EU growers to adjust to the new arrangements.
<P>
I firmly believe that the proposal represents a carefully judged reconciliation of the Union's obligations under the WTO and its commitment to the ACP countries under the Lomé Convention.
I am determined to reach agreement in the June Agriculture Council, and I am most grateful for the European Parliament's helpfulness in making this objective possible.
I once again apologize for having to leave.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to extend my warmest thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Thomas, for his report on the reform of the common market organization in bananas.
The starting point which made it necessary to reform those points of the common market organization in bananas which regulate trade with third countries is well known.
I would like to add at this point that the WTO rules do not affect internal Community rules; for this reason they do not need to be changed.
<P>
Nine major series of questions stand out from among the large number of amendments.
The first problem concerns autonomous tariff quotas and the balance sheet.
In the Commission's view, the relevant amendments do not take into account the supply requirements of the enlarged Community of Fifteen.
We must also ensure that we fulfil the valid expectations of those traders who previously had privileges.
<P>
I would also like to note that each increase in autonomous tariff quotas benefits non-traditional ACP countries and that EU producers always profit from an increase in consumption as their production quantities are not limited.
The Commission cannot, therefore, accept Amendments Nos 11, 15, 23, 27, 28, 30, 31, 46 or 53.
<P>
The second problem concerns the regulation on deficiency payments.
The Commission proposal ensures that the regulation is in line with the WTO provisions, which nonetheless do not affect internal Community rules.
Thus, in the Commission's view, it is neither necessary nor appropriate to change the deficiency payments regulation.
I would like to emphasize, however, that the income guarantee for EU producers is always granted, without full compensation, regardless of the actual market price.
<P>
Amendments Nos 5 to 8, 10, 21, 22, 24 to 26, 48 and 51 therefore constitute a problem for the Commission.
As far as the ACP suppliers are concerned, a subject dealt with in Amendments Nos 3, 6, 9, 36, 48, 55 and 57, the existing preferences are retained in the Commission proposal.
We believe that access is gained to the Community by means of the third preamble in the original regulation.
Special assistance should be laid down in the Commission proposal in the form of a special framework of assistance for the traditional ACP suppliers which, it is to be hoped, will be accepted soon and which was previously the subject of the vote in the urgent procedure.
Thus, the Commission believes that in this context, changes to our proposal will not be necessary.
I should add, in relation to Amendments Nos 48 and 55, that the revision of the WTO mechanisms lies outside the scope of this regulation.
<P>
As regards Amendments Nos 14, 28, 45, 50 and 52 concerning non-traditional ACP bananas, in the Commission's view access of non-traditional bananas to the Community market by means of the ECU 200 preference is already sufficiently guaranteed.
<P>
With regard to Amendment No 50, it should be noted that the allocation of 857 000 tonnes applies only to the traditional ACP suppliers and that this fixed provision guarantees access to the Union's market.
Amendments Nos 16, 17 and 32 refer specifically to Somalia.
If we were to grant Somalia a special quota, this would clearly be an infringement of WTO provisions, as would preferential granting of licences.
In any case, Somalia benefits from the overall ACP quota, although it did not sign the last Lomé Convention.
<P>
The next problem area concerns import licences and the licence system.
A balanced supply is guaranteed by the quotas for third countries and not by the licence system.
Furthermore, the details of the licence system for bananas and the coefficients of expansion to calculate the number of licences to be allocated every year to each group of traders are decided in the course of the management committee procedure.
I cannot, therefore, approve Amendments Nos 12, 13, 33 to 35, 44 or 49.
<P>
I will now turn to the question of proper conditions of competition, which I know is very important to many of the Members of this House.
This question concerns Amendments Nos 1 to 4, 18, 19, 37, 38, 40, 44, 54, 55 and 58 to 60.
I would emphasize that the Commission is very much in favour of proper conditions of competition and organic production methods.
In our opinion, the corresponding measures should be taken across the board and not just for bananas.
This question is currently being discussed by the services concerned in order to clarify the position of the Commission on the issue of proper conditions of competition.
Thus, I do not wish to pre-empt the results of these Commission discussions.
<P>
Amendment No 29 aims to ensure that smaller suppliers, in particular smaller ACP countries, are not disadvantaged by the introduction of tariff quotas.
The WTO provisions, however, already offer smaller suppliers higher protection and we will comply with these provisions.
Thus, in the Commission's view, it is not necessary to change the original wording.
<P>
In the Commission's opinion, there is still sufficient time, before the review at the end of 2005, for the regulation to prove that it is fully workable and for its efficiency to be tested.
For this reason I cannot accept the amendments which suggest different limits for the duration of the regulation or for the review.
<P>
The Commission welcomes the European Parliament's constructive cooperation in this extremely difficult and sometimes emotional subject, which is of the utmost importance both within the EU and from an international point of view.
The Commission's caution regarding the amendments tabled is linked to the fact that we must strive to avoid a second WTO panel in this matter, as this would certainly cause considerable harm to the standing of the European Community and its institutions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Fischler.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m. tomorrow.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Question Time (Commission)
<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="President">
The next item is questions to the Commission (B4-0474/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 NAME="President">
Having welcomed Commissioner Wulf-Mathies, and once she has got settled, I invite her to reply to Question No 45 by Richard Corbett (H-0501/98)
<P>
Subject: Money-laundering and transition to the single currency
<P>
Article 3 of the 1991 Council Directive on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purpose of money-laundering establishes an identification requirement for customers involved in any transaction amounting to ECU 15 000 or more.
Will this be applicable to monies changed from national currencies to the euro?
If not, why not?
If necessary, will the Commission put forward proposals to ensure that the transition to the euro provides a unique opportunity for nullifying the value of large sums of money in the hands of criminal gangs and others?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Mr President, the terms of the Council Directive on prevention of the use of the financial system for the purpose of money laundering also apply fully to the period of transition to the euro in terms of the exchange of national currencies into the single currency.
However, according to the Directive, only the laundering of drugs money is prohibited.
This is why it is planned to extend the ban to a broader spectrum of serious crime.
According to the Directive, anyone wishing to open a bank or savings account must provide identification and the data recorded regarding identification must be kept for at least five years.
Moreover, identification is required of all customers concluding transactions of over ECU 15 000.
This is the case regardless of whether the transaction is carried out in a single operation or whether it spans several operations which are, or appear to be, linked.
<P>
Where there are grounds for believing that customers are not acting on their own behalf, measures must be taken to determine the real identity of the persons on whose behalf those customers are acting.
If there is any suspicion of money laundering, the identity of the customer must be established regardless of the amount of the financial transaction.
All suspicious transactions must be reported to the relevant authorities.
The Commission expects continuous vigilance on the part of credit and financial institutions in the run-up to the changeover to the euro; during this transition, criminals may attempt to channel their cash back into the financial system or to exchange national currencies into other currencies.
This applies equally to the actual changeover period.
<P>
At the same time, the Commission admits that banks could face further difficulties in exposing suspicious transactions, in particular those under the ECU 15 000 threshold, if a large number of unknown customers appear at their tills.
The Commission is continuing its internal consultations on the effects the changeover to the euro may have on the fight against money laundering.
This problem should also be tackled by the money laundering contact committee set up within the framework of this Directive.
In addition, the Commission will soon be adopting its second report on the incorporation of the money laundering Directive into national law, and expects to present it to Parliament before the summer recess.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 NAME="Corbett">
Thank you, Commissioner, for that detailed answer which is quite encouraging.
But I would urge you to go further and ensure that this unique opportunity is seized.
The black economy is largely a cash economy.
Drug dealers and others like dealing in cash rather than through bank accounts because it leaves no trace.
With the transition to the euro, they will at some point have to convert old notes and coins into euros and, at that point, there is an opportunity for control and follow-up of leads that have perhaps been given from other sources.
That is why a full and proper application of this directive and the further measures that you refer to is essential so that we can use this occasion to have an extra bonus in the transition to the single currency, over and above the economic benefits that it is going to bring us.
May I urge you to persevere.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Mr President, I think we are in agreement on the most important points.
We will continue to observe matters carefully and will endeavour to respond to potential problems using the proposed new directive.
However, we must recognise that old banknotes may be exchanged by honest citizens, too, who simply prefer the piggy bank to the High Street bank.
Thus, above all we must exercise great care in ensuring that banks provide the necessary information and precautions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="President">
Question No 46 by Georgios Anastassopoulos (H-0542/98)
<P>
Subject: Commission obligation to monitor the use of Community funds to prevent them being used for Government propaganda
<P>
Given that the Greek Government is using substantive amounts of Community funding (for instance, Drs. 1.5 billion from the CSF) for Government propaganda and television broadcasts, without respecting the balance of political power in Greece and without giving MEPs the opportunity to inform Greek public opinion, will the Commission say:
<P>
What Community funds have been used over the last three years for actions of this kind and why has it failed to carry out controls so as to ensure compliance with the principles agreed on with Parliament? Since prefectural and local elections are taking place in Greece in 1998, does the Commission intend, in the light of the accusations which have been levelled, to change the present system so as to prevent the unilateral use of Community funds for government and ministerial propaganda and to highlight the Community contribution to the development of Greece?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Mr President, under current Community law the Member States provide appropriate publicity for campaigns assisted by the Structural Funds to draw the attention of potential beneficiaries and of trade associations alike to the opportunities offered by these campaigns, and to inform the general public about the work of the European Structural Funds.
<P>
The operational programme "Technical aid within the Community support framework for Greece' provides for the implementation of an action plan for publicity and information, for which ECU 6.2 million was made available.
The national and regional programmes and the Community initiatives also include publicity and information campaigns which are provided with less funding.
In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, the Greek authorities are responsible for proper implementation of the tendering and award procedure for information and publicity campaigns.
<P>
Before the invitation to tender was issued, the Commission was consulted on the corresponding specifications.
The Greek ministry responsible consulted the Commission on the action plan and on the national "Publicity and information' guide, in order to ensure a consistent approach.
All actions taken by the Greek authorities in terms of publicity and information are in accordance with the provisions of relevant Community guidance.
<P>
As far as the Commission is aware, the advertisements on television and radio and in the press are politically neutral.
Also, there have been no complaints so far regarding the campaign introduced in 1997.
Indeed, Mr Vice-President, as we understand it, the person asking the question played an active role in the campaign himself.
Again, in the talkshows held in 1997, participation of Members of the European Parliament to represent the major political groupings was secured.
<P>
The Commission will ask the Greek authorities responsible to guarantee ongoing balanced participation.
As municipal elections are being held in Greece in October 1998, it has been agreed with the Greek government that the publicity and information campaign co-financed by the Structural Funds is to be postponed from August to October in order to forestall any possible criticism.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Anastassopoulos">
I wonder if the Commissioner can be satisfied with the reply she has given me, when there are complaints.
And I am afraid that the neutrality the Commissioner asserted does not exist.
Have the Commission services not informed the Commission that use is being made of Community resources for government propaganda and for the promotion of ministers?
Let us not confuse certain information action plans in which the European Parliament also participates and in which I co-preside over a committee with Commissioner Marcelino Oreja and give guidelines, and in some of which Greek MEPs have also participated.
The one has nothing to do with the other.
Recently Greek MEPs have not been taking part in some of these information programmes and this is one of the aspects of the complaint.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Mr President, I believe I made it abundantly clear that with the exception of one isolated case we were not aware of any complaints and that we have now taken preventive action.
I believe this guarantees sufficient impartiality.
Of course, where such information is concerned, we cannot prevent the relevant Ministers from issuing this information.
In my opinion, this is even necessary in the interests of correctness of information.
<P>
But allow me to emphasize once again that in Greece, in our opinion, not only is party political neutrality guaranteed; some particularly positive steps have also been taken, for example Commission and European Parliament projects in high schools in Greece, which we consider to be exemplary.
I wish that other Member States would make this a subject of study in schools.
In this respect we assume, therefore, that the necessary precautions have been taken to prevent abuse.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Wulf-Mathies.
However, I would ask you to spend a little longer on the subject matter of this question, because I have received two requests for the floor, and according to the Rules of Procedure, I am obliged to grant them.
Mr Hatzidakis has the floor first, for one minute.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Hatzidakis">
Madam Commissioner, what you have told us is of course constructive, that is, that between the end of August and the end of October the transmission of these "politically neutral' advertisement slots will stop because, in my opinion, they are not.
Nevertheless, I thank you personally for this intervention on the part of the Commission, because it really is important, in view of the municipal and prefectural elections in Greece, but over and above that I wish to dwell on two points.
<P>
Balanced participation in these programmes does not exist.
There was a programme, Commissioner, in which there was not a single representative of the New Democracy Party, which is the second largest party in the Greek Parliament, representing 38 % of the electorate, and we did not have a representative.
You must look into that.
It is interesting to note that, as coordinator of the Group of the European People's Party on issues of regional policy, I have never been invited to appear on such a programme.
I do not say this as a personal complaint, but simply so that you can understand the climate and act accordingly.
<P>
I will conclude by asking you this: do you know whether, in the regional business programmes, the regulations concerning the allocation of advertisement slots to advertising companies have been complied with?
I am not referring to the national slot, where the regulations have been observed, but to the regional programmes.
Has the Commission been informed that the regulations have not been complied with there?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
According to our information, the Community Directives and provisions have been adhered to.
I would consider it appropriate if you would pass on to us any specific cases of complaints you may have.
We are not some kind of general remote monitoring organization.
If there are problems, we look into them individually.
But I do not believe that a theoretical debate here in Parliament will serve any useful purpose.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Wulf-Mathies, but as I said, I would like you to stay on the same subject because Mr Seppänen also wants to ask you a supplementary question.
Mr Seppänen has the floor for one minute.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, Commissioner, this problem does not just concern Greece. I maintain that in Finland too Commission money and resources are used for purposes of political propaganda that are biassed and ignore the fact that there are various national groups in our country that view critically the decisions that are taken by the EU.
For this reason, I would turn your attention to the fact that in Finland money is used, for example, for the purpose of bringing the euro into the market, and that money is for the exclusive use of citizens' organizations that have a positive view of the euro.
Commissioner, do you really believe that only the people who said 'yes' should be allowed to use funds for propaganda?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
I will say it once again. It is a question of the principle of subsidiarity.
That means that the Member States are responsible for publicity campaigns within the framework of the general provisions laid down by the Commission.
If there are specific complaints, we should investigate them.
I consider it difficult to pursue this theoretical discourse.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="President">
Question No 47 by Charlotte Cederschiöld (H-0556/98)
<P>
Subject: Excise duties
<P>
The Swedish Government has introduced a bill (Proposition 1998/97: 100) to extend powers to carry out checks on the payment of excise duties, owing to the increase in cross-border trade in alcohol and tobacco.
One firm involved in such trade is the German company, Warendienst OCC GmbH, which arranges deliveries from Germany to individuals in Sweden via the Internet.
It is proposed that the customs service should have the right to seize and, in some cases, confiscate goods if there is a risk that the excise duties will not be paid.
It is also proposed that customs should be given powers to open private consignments where it is suspected that they contain alcohol or tobacco.
<P>
Does the Commission consider this draft law to be compatible with the principles which govern the internal market and those enshrined in the European convention protecting personal correspondence?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Mr President, Mrs Cederschiöld, the provisions of the internal market do not preclude Member States from exercising domestic controls.
Community rules expressly provide for excise duties to be charged in accordance with procedure in the Member State concerned.
Member States can therefore set up their own monitoring systems, provided that these do not give rise to any frontier formalities and are in accordance with the general principles of Community law relating to non-discrimination and proportionality.
<P>
The Commission was not able to examine the proposed amendments in detail but, according to the information available, the provisions in question do not appear to be inconsistent with the principles of the internal market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cederschiöld">
Thank you for your reply.
However, my question was whether this proposal was compatible with the Convention on Human Rights, since the personal import of tobacco products and alcoholic drinks from other EU countries is a civil right under EC law.
<P>
The law which is to become effective on 1 July gives the customs authorities the right to open private mail and parcels from other EU countries.
This is not compatible with Swedish constitutional law or with EC law, according to the learned EU specialists who have expressed an opinion.
Even the Law Council, the Attorney-General and the bar association in Sweden do not think this is allowed.
The proposal is in fact contrary to human rights, which only allow restrictions on mail confidentiality if the country's economic well-being is threatened, which is not happening in this case.
Here people would be able to seize and forfeit 'suspected' lorries through a simple court order without impartial, public legal proceedings.
<P>
I would just like to ask whether Commissioner Wulf-Mathies thinks this is compatible with human rights, and whether crossborder trade is not more important than a Member State's right to charge taxes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Yes, Mrs Cederschiöld, I am afraid I must disappoint you, as the Community is not a party to the European Human Rights Convention.
For this reason it is not appropriate for the Commission to comment on whether national legislation is in agreement with individual provisions of the European Convention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Andersson">
I would like to thank the Commissioner for her reply which clarified matters.
As I see it, the question put by Mrs Cederschiöld was a contribution to the Swedish election debate since we have an election in September.
There is one party in the Swedish Parliament which is opposed to the proposal currently before the Swedish Parliament, namely the Conservative Party.
However, the rest of the parties think the current proposals to maintain the excise duty rules and to maintain the age limits which we have on the sale of alcohol and tobacco are compatible both with the single market and the European Convention on Human Rights.
Besides, these issues can be put to the test.
An overwhelming majority of the parties in Sweden share the Commissioner's view that the proposals we are discussing here do not conflict with the single market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Andersson.
Mrs Wulf-Mathies does not wish to reply to that question.
Mrs Cederschiöld knows that the Rules of Procedure do not allow me to let her take the floor.
So, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I suggest we now move on to Question No 48 by Pedro Marset Campos (H-0573/98)
<P>
Subject: Agreement of 18 May 1998 between the EU and the USA on the extraterritorial sanctions laid down in the Helms-Burton (Cuba) and ILSA (Libya/Iran) laws.
<P>
Since the EU has undertaken to inhibit and discourage future European investment in assets expropriated in Cuba, can the Commission say whether it considers:
<P>
that the agreement gives provisions laid down unilaterally by the USA extraterritorial validity;
<P>
that the agreement will seriously jeopardize the interests of European investors in Cuba;
<P>
that the EU must apply this agreement even if the US Congress refuses to play its part;
<P>
that the agreement undermines the national sovereignty of the Member States and weakens the EU's negotiating position in the MAI and the WTO?
Mrs Wulf-Mathies, I invite you to reply to Pedro Marset Campos' question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Mr President, the agreement reached between the European Union and the USA at the London Summit on 18 May is a package solution with the realistic prospect of a lasting settlement of the disputes with the United States concerning the Helms-Burton Act, the law on sanctions against Iran and Libya and the more general problem of extraterritorial sanctions.
<P>
Despite this agreement, the Commission holds to its position that these laws violate the law of nations.
Thus, at no stage did the Community recognize their legality.
In case measures should be taken against persons or companies from the Community, it has reserved the unlimited right to take the case up again within the framework of the WTO.
The agreement reached is of a purely political nature and does not constitute the legitimization of US laws which continue to be illegal.
<P>
The package solution includes three points. The first is an agreement on certain disciplines which prohibit new investment in illegally expropriated properties.
The second is the USA's promise to eschew future extraterritorial legislation in an agreement on the transatlantic partnership for political cooperation, and, of particular importance for the Community, the assurance of the US government that it will suspend application of the two contentious laws to the Community and to businesses from the Community - that is, the guarantee of the so-called waiver.
The Community has received clear agreement that the US government will immediately try to obtain authority from Congress to issue an unlimited exemption from Title 4 of the Helms-Burton Act, the waiver.
<P>
It is important that the Community does not apply the agreed disciplines before the exemption is actually issued.
The European Union will only fulfil the agreed obligations when the USA complies with its part of the agreement.
There will therefore be no advance concession from the European Union.
A very important factor in the agreed disciplines on the prevention of new investment in illegally expropriated properties is that investments made before 18 May are exempt from this ban.
<P>
These disciplines therefore apply only to future investment in properties which the Member States are convinced have been expropriated illegally.
They state essentially that no aid may be granted either by the state or by businesses for investment in illegally expropriated properties.
Investments which have not received state aid are not affected.
I will repeat this to ensure that it is clear: the disciplines are not applied by the Community before the US Congress has given the President of the United States the authority to issue an exemption from Title 4 of the Helms-Burton Act and this exemption has come into force.
<P>
In addition, the agreement on disciplines for investment in illegally expropriated properties provides that the Community and the USA bring these disciplines up jointly in the negotiations on the multilateral investment agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Marset Campos">
Madam Commissioner, first of all, thank you for your full and thorough reply.
<P>
Nevertheless, I continue to harbour understandable doubts about the behaviour of the European Union in these negotiations of 18 May, for the following reasons.
<P>
Firstly, I should imagine the Commissioner is already aware of the importance to Spain of our relations - economic, social, cultural and everything else - with Cuba, and that any type of sanction would therefore do great harm.
<P>
But the second question I would like to ask, in the light of your reply, is that on the one hand, the text released to the public said that the European Union undertook to inhibit and discourage future investments, and in your reply you said, also directly, that this referred to expropriations which are considered illegal.
<P>
So, my specific question is whether that means acceptance of the US position on these questions and the indirect adoption of the Helms-Burton Act.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Mr President, I would like to emphasize once again that we are in fact dealing only with future investment and state aid for future investment.
It is crucial that, before we actually implement this, the American government should commit itself to waiving extraterritorial legislation and also that it issue this waiver.
This means, therefore, that it is a deal based on mutual interest, if you wish, and first of all the American government must repeal the effect of the HelmsBurton Act for European investment before the European Union reciprocates.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Madam Commissioner.
I still have two supplementary questions on the agreement of 18 May on the Helms-Burton Act. Mr Newens has one minute to ask the first of these.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="Newens">
Mr President, if the waiver on titles 3 and 4 of the Helms-Burton Act goes through - which is unlikely in view of the statements of Senator Jesse Helms - would not efforts to deter future public support for investments in so-called expropriated properties be contrary to agreements made by individual European Union Member States and Cuba?
In that case, which would have the overriding force?
Should not the United States be encouraged to make a settlement with Cuba over compensation for nationalized properties as other states, including those in Europe, have done?
In these circumstances there would be no case whatsoever for the Helms-Burton Act.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Mr President, I really would not like to speculate on what might ensue if Congress did not adopt this regulation as both we and the American government would, of course, stake everything on it being passed.
Furthermore, the agreement is not concerned with a ban on investment in Cuba but only on the part relating to state aid.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="President">
With that reply, we have come to the end of this block of questions.
I thank Mrs Wulf-Mathies for coming here and answering our questions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 NAME="President">
Mrs Cresson, we welcome you, and I invite you to take the floor to reply to Question No 49 by Bernd Posselt (H-0567/98)
<P>
Subject: "Destructive embryonic research'
<P>
What is the Commission's position on "destructive embryonic research' , and are such research projects assisted with EU resources?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="Cresson">
The legitimacy of research using embryos is one the most complex and sensitive ethical questions which can arise in science.
It is also an issue on which there are the widest possible differences in the perceptions, approaches and regulations of the various Member States.
The main problem is to strike a balance between the interests of infertile couples and the sick, and respect for fundamental ethical principles and the moral and religious convictions of various sections of the population.
<P>
Careful attention is generally paid to ethical aspects of research in the field of life sciences and technology during the implementation of the Union's research programmes.
Some types of work are therefore explicitly excluded from the Fourth Framework Programme on biomedicine and health.
This is the case with research on human cloning or research leading to transmissible genetic modifications in particular.
On the other hand, research using foetal and embryonic tissues is not prohibited as such.
This type of research is of great interest in areas such as medically assisted procreation, and the diagnosis and treatment of cancer or genetic diseases.
<P>
Like all proposals presented within the framework of the research programme on biomedicine and health, proposals relating to research involving the use of human embryos or foetuses nevertheless have to comply with regulations and legislative provisions, defining the ethical requirements in force in the countries where the research is carried out.
<P>
Proposals of this type that have been submitted under the Fourth Framework Programme have been examined by a group of experts on the embryo and foetus, set up by the Commission, with particular responsibility for evaluating the ethical aspects of research carried out within the scope of EU programmes.
One of the aspects taken into consideration in this evaluation was the lack of alternatives to the proposed method.
The group's opinions have been forwarded to local or national ethics committees responsible for granting the preliminary authorizations as required by the Commission.
All the provisions in force relating to ethics in the field of life sciences and technology will be maintained in the Fifth Framework Programme.
<P>
Considering the sensitivity of this question, I shall ask the ethics group chaired by Mrs Noëlle Lenoir to issue an opinion, before the specific 'Life Sciences' programme comes into force.
The approach to ethical questions relating to research involving embryos is therefore based on the need for such research in order to increase our scientific knowledge in the interest of patients, whilst at the same time respecting fundamental ethical principles and the diversity of national feelings.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Madam Commissioner, if I understood your reply correctly, exhaustive embryo research projects are assisted.
In any case you have not expressly ruled it out and you pointed to national standards.
<P>
But are there not also EU standards now?
I would remind you of the most recently adopted patents directive for biotechnological inventions; here, with regard to cloning, we said quite clearly that a human being is a human being from the beginning - that is, from the moment of conception, and thus has the right to protection, and in this regard we clarified this considerably in the interinstitutional dossier, the result of which goes far beyond the statements of the advisory body on the ethics of biotechnology.
I am of the opinion that the standards we have developed in connection with the patents directive are the clearest EU standards thus far, and that we must develop our own EU standards on this basis as it cannot be satisfactory in the long term, as we have said, for the Commission to proceed differently in terms of aid depending on the state concerned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cresson">
Yes, Mr Posselt, I agree with you entirely that it would be highly desirable for us to have European standards.
<P>
Apart from a number of basic regulations, to which I referred earlier, such as the prohibition of human cloning, I also said that the regulations are different, perhaps even extremely divergent, in the various Member States of the Union.
I have furthermore had a table drawn up showing the situation as it stands today, country by country.
I do not think this is an ideal situation, and we must do everything we can to draft a general regulation.
But it will also need to be acceptable to the various Member States.
<P>
However, the Commission does not consider that research involving embryos should be excluded as such from the Union's research programmes, and just now I referred to the opportunities that such research can provide in very important sectors.
<P>
Provided compliance is ensured with fundamental ethical principles, such as those I have mentioned, the Commission believes that research of this type may be legitimately carried out, in the interests of scientific progress and in the interests of patients.
<P>
It seems to me that a precedent would be created if we were to align the relevant provisions with the most restrictive national legislative provisions, because, of course, it would be possible to try to adopt common standards on the basis of the most restrictive provisions. That precedent could mean that the same principle would be adopted as a solution whenever there are differences between national legislation.
You will be aware that this is the case in a large number of areas, which could have negative repercussions with regard to research and for citizens.
<P>
We have not yet completed our discussion of this subject and I understand your question perfectly, and agree that it is pertinent.
However, we are in a situation where some Member States have a very restrictive attitude, and others, on the contrary, have a far more lenient attitude.
<P>
Should we authorize the manufacture of embryos for the purpose of experimentation?
Some Member States, one in particular, would go so far as to allow this, whilst other Member States - in fact most other Member States - have a far more restrictive attitude.
<P>
The Commission cannot impose the most restrictive standard as a single standard, nor do I think that would be desirable.
Furthermore, we must be extremely vigilant from the ethical point of view, and we have only just started our discussions.
I therefore consider that we have some very important work ahead of us. With the resources at our disposal today, we have no option but to continue our discussions, and to try to persuade Member States to adopt a common definition, but I repeat, we do not have any means of compelling them to do so.
<P>
This is why we can only adopt a position of principle, the principle of respect for fundamental ethical values, and for the time being all we can do is accept the situation as it stands in the Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 NAME="President">
As the author is not present, Question No 50 lapses.
<P>
That brings us to the end of the set of questions to Mrs Cresson.
I thank her for attending and for her collaboration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 NAME="President">
Question No 51 by Alexandros Alavanos (H-0498/98)
<P>
Subject: Cultural cooperation between the European Union and international organizations
<P>
Article 128 (3) of the Treaty on European Union states: "The Community and the Member States shall foster cooperation with third countries and the competent international organizations in the sphere of culture...'
The UN organization UNESCO is an authoritative and universally recognized world body responsible for cultural, educational and scientific cooperation.
<P>
Will the Commission say whether the European Union cooperates with UNESCO and what action is taken to implement European Parliament resolutions?
Mr Oreja Aguirre, I welcome you and invite you to reply to Mr Alavanos' question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
Mr Alavanos, cooperation between the European institutions and UNESCO goes back many years. It was basically established through an exchange of notes in 1964, followed by another in 1973, and was confirmed by Article 128 (3) of the Treaty.
More recently, a cooperation agreement signed by the Community and UNESCO in 1996 removed certain normative barriers which had considerably hindered cooperation actions in the past.
But project related cooperation problems still exist, caused by the current differences between the financial regulations of the Community and UNESCO, and by their implementation.
<P>
In practice, although relations between that organization and the Community institutions are excellent, cooperation between them has not so far resulted in a significant number of joint activities, for various reasons. In particular, because of its global remit and scant financial means, UNESCO does not consider Europe to be one of its main priorities in regional terms.
From that point of view, I can only stress that the fields of intervention of the European Union and UNESCO complement each other.
<P>
With respect to the cultural sphere, UNESCO and the European Union, within the context of their respective competences, regularly exchange information and data in certain sectors of common interest, such as statistics or goods, often take part in specialist meetings organized by either one, and sometimes finance certain projects jointly.
We also cooperate with UNESCO in the areas of education, information and the fight against the illegal use of drugs.
This collaboration could serve as an example for closer collaboration with UNESCO in the cultural field, in the context of the EU's external action.
<P>
As for the future, cooperation between the EU and UNESCO is mentioned in Article 5 of the proposed Framework Programme for Culture for the period 2000-2004, which I had the honour of presenting to the Commission very recently. That programme has been approved by the Commission, and I have presented it to the European Parliament and the Council.
<P>
Once it has been approved, this programme will constitute the frame of reference within which cooperation on an equal footing can be strengthened, including from a financial point of view.
I hope Parliament will approve this framework programme, and after that we shall have to see how we can operate in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
I very much thank the Commissioner for the comprehensive reply that he has given me and for giving me the opportunity to make the rejoinder which is at the very heart of the debate.
One of the fundamental positions of UNESCO which relates to Europe, which is not totally cut off from Europe, and which was decided upon by the General Assembly in 1982, is the return of the Parthenon marbles from the British Museum to Athens.
This concerns Europe directly and you know that there is tension between the Member States of the European Union on this matter.
<P>
I would like to ask the Commissioner if, in his opinion, a country has the right to place this issue within a European Union context, based precisely on Article 128, paragraph 3 of the Amsterdam Treaty, which provides for cooperation with international cultural organizations.
I would like to take this opportunity to ask the Commissioner how he would comment on the great devastation that has befallen the Parthenon marbles and which was revealed last week in the British press.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
Mr Alavanos, I am aware of what that represents, and I share your concern.
But you know that with the means available to us, with the means provided by the Treaty and, furthermore, within the context of cooperation with UNESCO, that route does not offer any solution.
<P>
I know your sensitivity towards an institution such as UNESCO, and I must tell you that the matter you have raised, like many other matters, demands that we should cooperate more, and not ignore each other.
<P>
And I want to tell you something else.
We are here in a hemicycle which is also used by the Council of Europe.
And in this hemicycle, in other capacities, I have proclaimed the need for greater harmony between three institutions concerned with culture: the European Union, which has a restricted range, the Council of Europe, which has a wider range, and UNESCO.
And I think we are at least going to try to achieve that.
<P>
A few years ago that was not possible, because we did not have the instruments to do it.
This is no longer the case.
Today the Community has such an instrument in Article 128.
So I would like to see how the three institutions concerned with the cultural sphere can progress together in the same direction. In many cases, we turn our backs on each other instead of looking in the same direction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, I must say that the Commissioner has tried to respond to the significance of the issue and the question.
But I would like to ask him not to regard the matter as simply of concern to Greeks.
It is a sensitive issue which must affect every civilized person and this Community as an organization, since much has been declared about respect for our cultural heritage, which in this case is at risk, not only from the event that Mr Alavanos referred to and which was denounced in the English press, but also because of the fact that these marbles do not have independent artistic value.
They of course have autonomy, but they gain their value when they are united with the body they belong to and that is the Acropolis.
The English are dragging their feet in this affair in the most uncivilized way - how can I describe it? - and they are still refusing to return them.
There are similar cases which may concern your own country.
<P>
I would ask you, as the European Parliament, to address the matter more courageously and more realistically, regardless of the cooperation you may ensure with other organizations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
Mr Ephremidis, when we consider Classical Greece and its artistic riches, we are all Greek.
So I sympathize with your wish to identify with something which, of course, goes far beyond its national meaning.
And allow me, as a European, to share that sensitivity with you.
<P>
I also want to say that, at the moment, we have no further legal routes by which to address the matters you raise. You know that very well because you are very knowledgable about the Treaty.
But for that reason, I want to go back to the idea of sensitivity.
I think it is very important because, in the end, sensitivity is also a part of our European cultural tradition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Oreja Aguirre.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, we now come to Question No 52 by Mr Mihail Papayannakis.
He is not with us.
In fact, he cannot be with us because he has just lost his 25-year-old son in a dreadful accident.
Allow me to pass on to him our solidarity and sympathy. In accordance with the Rules of Procedure, Mr Alavanos is taking over the question.
<P>
Question No 52 by Mihail Papayannakis, which has been taken over by Alexandros Alavanos (H-0544/98)
<P>
Subject: Implementation of the "Television without Frontiers' Directive
<P>
TV viewers/consumers in Greece have repeatedly complained that popular TV programmes are interrupted all too frequently by a flood of advertising. Taking into account the Second Commission Report (COM(97) 523 final) on the implementation of Directive 89/552/EEC which confirms that advertising in Greece exceeds the quantitative thresholds, will the Commission say whether Articles 10 to 18 of the Directive in question are being correctly implemented by the Greek authorities and, if this is not the case, whether it intends to take the measures provided for by Article 169 of the EC Treaty?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
Mr Alavanos, the Commission has already started proceedings against Greece, in accordance with Article 169 of the Treaty, because of the incorrect implementation of certain provisions of Directive 89/552.
<P>
At the moment, the Commission is studying that country's reply. I am sure you will appreciate that I cannot give you any further information at this delicate stage of the proceedings.
It would be highly indiscreet of me to go any further.
<P>
However, I repeat that the procedure has been initiated in accordance with the rules laid down in the Treaty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, I would first of all like to thank you for your warm words about the drama that our colleague, Mihail Papayannakis, is going through. I think that you express the feelings of all the Members and of the whole of Parliament.
<P>
I would next like to thank the Commissioner for the reply he gave to my question and to simply say to him that I understand the reply.
I just wish to express my fear, my intense concern, that, with all this bureaucracy, the time-consuming procedures which are in force in relation to Article 169 and the commitology procedure, this blatant violation which is occurring in Greece concerning the advertisement slot will continue for a long time to come.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
I will just say that now the procedure is underway, we are exchanging correspondence with the Greek authorities.
The Commission's services are currently studying the latest reply from those authorities.
<P>
It is a difficult case.
It is not simple because Greece has incorporated the directive properly and has imposed fines on the broadcasting organizations which break the rules.
So what the Commission has to do now is show that these fines may perhaps not be enough to actually dissuade those broadcasters from breaking the rules.
<P>
That is what we are studying at the moment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="President">
Question No 53 by Robin Teverson (H-0568/98)
<P>
Subject: European Cultural Institutes
<P>
I understand that a European institute for cultural itineraries is opening in Luxembourg in addition to a cultural centre funded by UNESCO, the Council of Europe and the European Commission.
Given the importance of Europe's cultural tapestry, I would like to have details of the European Commission's role in these centres, from their inception, and the financial implications.
In addition, what other kinds of organizations which promote Europe's rich heritage does the Commission support?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
Mr Teverson, the Commission is not participating financially in the creation of the European institute for cultural itineraries in Luxembourg.
According to the information we have received from the Luxembourg authorities, the centre has been created within the context of a cooperation agreement between the Council of Europe and the Luxembourg authorities.
<P>
Of course, the Commission takes a favourable view of this initiative because, given the importance of the European cultural network, the centre can make a positive contribution to improving the link between cultural heritage and cultural tourism on a European scale.
<P>
At present, the Commission has the means to provide financial support for European cultural centres in the context of the Raphael programme, which supports joint and cooperation activities, but does not give aid for them to be set up.
It provides aid for the development of joint and cooperative activities, but not for their establishment.
<P>
That is what I wanted to clarify in relation to Mr Teverson's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 NAME="Teverson">
I thank the Commissioner for his reply which is fairly comprehensive.
I do not wish to say much more as a supplementary except that we, in Cornwall - in the south-west of the United Kingdom - which I represent, have been very thankful for the support that some of the Commission and Council of Europe programmes have given to upholding our Celtic cultural identity.
<P>
One statement I would like to make as a British Member of the European Parliament, in response to some of my colleagues' comments earlier on, is that I personally would like to back the campaign to move the Elgin Marbles back to Greece.
That is right and it has my support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 NAME="President">
Perhaps that may be necessary, in any case, because Mr Rübig has requested the floor for a supplementary question.
You have the floor for one minute, Mr Rübig.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, I believe that educational systems are of particular importance in Europe because our culture is based largely on educational values.
It would be a considerable contribution not only towards promoting education but also an essential basis for lifelong learning.
We should therefore investigate the method to see whether best practice models and benchmarks could not be included so that we can see how an opportunity for Europe can be developed in the various educational possibilities offered.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
I want to say to the honourable Member that I think one of the things we must consider when putting the framework programme into operation is precisely the fact that, in cultural matters, we must not get bogged down in what we might think of as high culture. We have to project it towards other areas, such as culture and nature, culture to combat the problems associated with a lack of solidarity - in other words, how culture can help with social inclusion - and also culture and tourism.
<P>
For all those things, I think training is essential.
In that sense, the proposals I will be presenting for the development of the framework programme will be along those lines, if the honourable Members approve it.
<P>
You should not imagine that I am ignorant of the role played by high culture.
It forms part of our heritage, of course, but I do not think we should limit ourselves to high culture.
Two weeks ago I attended a meeting between nine large cities, which addressed the subject of culture as a means to combat exclusion, and I was very encouraged by that meeting.
That is a step in the same direction as the honourable Member was just talking about.
So let us open up the field of culture to new horizons and new frontiers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 NAME="President">
Question No 54 by Ioannis Theonas, which has been taken over by Vassilis Ephremidis (H-0595/98)
<P>
Subject: Preservation of the historic bridge to Monemvassia
<P>
The bridge linking the Pelopponese mainland and the historic fortress of Monemvassia is in imminent danger of collapse.
This sixth century bridge is a monument of great historical value and still carries the only road to the ancient fortress.
It has suffered severe damage from both the action of the sea and the huge amount of motor traffic which crosses it, especially throughout the tourist season.
<P>
Do the Community programmes for preserving the cultural and architectural heritage include shared funding for the repair of the damage to the Monemvassia bridge so that they may make a contribution to the urgent action needed to preserve an important monument from the Byzantine period?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
Mr Ephremidis, the Commission shares your concern about the conservation of the historic Monemvassia bridge, which I have had the good fortune to visit, and which really is part of the heritage of us all.
<P>
As you know, the framework for action to support cooperation initiatives to conserve and improve our architectural heritage is provided by the Raphael programme, which was adopted last year, and has a budgetary provision of ECU 30 million for the four-year period from 1997 to 2000.
<P>
I would like to inform Mr Ephremidis that the Commission's services - the DG X services - will give very careful consideration to any application from the relevant authorities as long as they meet the eligibility requirements for action through Raphael, as published in the Official Journal on 31 March.
I also want to tell you now that the deadline for applications this year is 10 September.
So I would request that the application be made before 10 September, and you can rest assured that, although I do not make the final decision, I will personally ensure that this important matter receives special attention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
I wish to thank the Commissioner and to assure him that, as far as I am concerned, I will do what I have to do, that is, I will convey to the inhabitants of Monemvassia the interest that you have shown.
I will say that, before September, as you have said, they must put forward the proposal in any way they think necessary.
What is more, I will go with you, because I think that they will spontaneously invite you to visit Monemvassia again.
To the extent naturally that you have pushed forward the issue and the damage to the bridge has been repaired, you will be able to go and see the monument, the Castle, and the whole of Monemvassia, because the whole of Monemvassia is a historical place full of monuments, history, reminders of the past and culture.
And in this way you will be helping thousands of tourists who go every now and again to the Peloponnese and want to visit this place, but the destruction and the damage to the bridge prevents them from doing so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 NAME="President">
Mr Ephremidis, I am glad you are so enthusiastic, but I would be grateful if you would wait for me to give you the floor before you speak.
Please do not do my job for me. I have to earn my pay.
<P>
Mr Marcelino Oreja Aguirre, would you like to reply to Mr Ephremidis' supplementary question?
<P>
(Interjection from Mr Ephremidis)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="President">
But I have not given you the floor.
Why are you speaking?
<P>
Mr Marcelino Oreja Aguirre, you do have the floor, granted by this Presidency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
Mr President, I want to tell Mr Ephremidis, whom I have known for many years and respect greatly, that I undertake to do what I have stated here in this House. I hope we will be able to watch the start of the restoration works together.
Of course, the application will have to be presented in the correct manner. Although I am not the one who makes the final decision, I am responsible for making sure that decision is taken properly, and will do so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
You can rely on Mr Ephremidis to accompany you, even if the work does not start for 20 years.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, that is the end of that block of questions.
I would like to thank Commissioner Marcelino Oreja Aguirre.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 NAME="President">
Having welcomed Mr Van Miert, I propose that we now move on to Question No 55 by Felipe Camisón Asensio (H-0500/98)
<P>
Subject: Unfair competition in international trade
<P>
In the Commission's view, what are the common principles which should be established to prevent practices of unfair competition in international trade?
Mr Van Miert, I invite you to reply to Mr Camisón Asensio's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 NAME="Van Miert">
I would be glad to deal with this question, as it is a problem the Commission has recognized for a number of years. That is also the reason why we as a Commission took the initiative as far back as in 1994 to set up a group which we asked to consider a number of measures we might propose if necessary.
This group produced good work, and the Commission subsequently made some suggestions to the Council of Ministers, which accepted these suggestions. This meant that, for the first time, this affair was put on the agenda of the World Trade Organization.
This explains why, in the context of the World Trade Organization, a working party is looking into the problem of competition and trade, with a view to making a number of suggestions.
<P>
I obviously cannot anticipate the result of this work, although the work in itself seems to be progressing very well.
I cannot hide the fact that not everyone is completely happy about this initiative from the European Commission.
In America, for instance, there is some hesitation. However, during my recent visit to Washington I noted that there is also the will and desire to continue thinking with the European Union about how this problem could be dealt with positively in future.
<P>
What kinds of things are we thinking of?
Firstly, we are trying to, as it were, expand a number of basic rules regarding competition policy at the global level, and to see these rules incorporated into the legislation of various countries in the world.
We also want to improve the enforceability of these rules and, if necessary, deal with certain conflicts afterwards in a specific framework, which we believe would ideally be a global framework.
<P>
This is roughly the state of affairs. There is no more I can say about it, unfortunately, but I am pleased to be at the disposal of the European Parliament, and I will return to this issue once the working party has finished its task, in particular with regard to the talks we will be having with our American colleagues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Camisón Asensio">
Commissioner, you recently told the WTO ambassadors - and have confirmed it here today - that there is a lot of unfair competition at international level in the current global economy, and that since it is subject to different jurisdictions, it therefore causes serious problems.
<P>
You even said today - and then as well - that the ideal solution would be a global agreement able to solve the problems which arise at national level, by jumping to a different scale.
<P>
It would indeed be ideal to create competition structures which include basic principles, such as restricting abusive practices and concentrations, common principles to prohibit unfair competition in the international sphere, and the development of a cooperation instrument based on experience gained in this field.
We think that all sounds very good, Commissioner. It would be ideal.
I think it is a good idea to carry on thinking about it, but it is urgent.
When are we really going to see something practical done about this urgent matter?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 NAME="Van Miert">
Unfortunately I cannot predict when there will be concrete results, because as I have just indicated, there is still some hesitation from the side of America, as well as in South-East Asia, where there is a great deal of resistance.
After all, as you know, their markets quite often remain tightly closed, whereas it is competition which allows markets to open.
<P>
At the moment we are trying to get as much support as possible for this initiative from the World Trade Organization in the context of the working group.
Because one thing is clear; the European Union is the most active member of the most active authority actually trying to make progress.
But it is also very important that we reach a certain understanding with our American friends to be able to pursue the objectives with more force.
But having said this, I am not naive, nor is the Commission; it will take a lot of time, but is important that we support this issue, and that we send out a clear signal.
Because globalization is moving forward and because more and more problems are arising globally, it is necessary to have certain rules which can also be enforced worldwide.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="Watson">
As you say, Commissioner, competition policy is a way of opening up markets.
We in this House have urged you to apply it to World Cup tickets, which I see have now become a subject of intercontinental trade.
Could I ask you, Commissioner, what you think about President Chirac's reported attack on President Santer at the European Council for the way the Commission intervened to make more World Cup tickets available to non-French citizens, and what the Commission will do to defend the powers conferred upon it by the Treaties; what you think about the current ticketing arrangements, in the light of recent World Cup matches; and whether you will now take FIFA and the CFO to the European Court of Justice on the basis of the legal opinion that has been obtained by Parliament?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="Van Miert">
This seems to be a slightly different question but I am happy to give an answer or to state my position.
There is no doubt at all that this question goes far beyond the national boundaries: it is a question of common interests.
Therefore, the Commission, which received a considerable number of complaints, as you know, had to do its job, which means it had to investigate these complaints.
Since there was, and is, clear discrimination, the competition rules apply.
Therefore we will continue with this case, and the statement of objection is under preparation.
But, as you know, we have to stick to the rules ourselves, in particular the procedural rules.
If new elements are brought to our attention, obviously we need to have the opinion of the organizing committee as well.
That is the way things have to be tackled.
So we will continue, in spite of some comments which have been made.
<P>
By the way, if we want to be nearer to the public - to the citizens - we have to behave as we are doing. It brings our institutions nearer to the public when they see that we do indeed take their complaints seriously.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
Thank you for interpreting the content of the original question so generously, given that the Rules of Procedure do not oblige you to reply to questions which go beyond the strict scope of the original question.
I know how generous you are, and I thank you, and I hope we can still go back to the real subject of Mr Camisón Asensio's question.
Mr Wibe has requested the floor to ask a supplementary question.
You have the floor for one minute, Mr Wibe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wibe">
I will try to be very brief and to the point.
I was interested when you, Commissioner, spoke of the fact that you discussed urgent measures against unfair competition.
Could you say more precisely what these measures concerned?
Did they concern taxes, capital income or any kind of common treatment for foreign investors?
Could I just have a little clarification on this issue?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="Van Miert">
Mr President, indeed, this is the subject of further discussions and deliberations as to what could be put into what I would call a basket of basic competition rules, which would then be applied worldwide, but by national competition authorities.
<P>
One of the things we are considering, for instance, is that export cartels are carving up the markets worldwide.
That this might happen in some cases should be considered by all competition authorities as flying in the face of one of the most basic principles of sound competition policies.
This is just one example of what may be discussed.
That being said, we should continue to make a distinction between trade issues and competition issues, because trade issues concern attitudes or measures taken by authorities, while competition-related issues are mainly derived from attitudes by companies, so constitute private behaviour.
We should keep this distinction.
<P>
Let me give a concrete example to illustrate what kind of difficulties might occur.
The Americans had a very high-powered case, the Kodak case, where their complaint was that the Japanese market was too close and did not allow American competitors real access to the market.
They took the case to the World Trade Organization but at the end of the day the panel said it was none of their business because these restrictions, or the difficulties put in the way of market access in Japan did not arise because of governmental measures, but were the result of the private behaviour of Japanese competitors.
So it was a competition case and this case showed the Americans that they could not tackle this kind of question through the instruments of the World Trade Organization.
For that, either you would need a bilateral agreement with Japan to ensure that they would also apply competition rules in a normal way to open up the markets; or else we could think what might be done in a broader framework like the World Trade Organization, but specifically designed to tackle competition issues and competition problems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 NAME="President">
Question No 56 by Sören Wibe (H-0511/98)
<P>
Subject: Support for production in peripheral regions
<P>
It recently became clear that the Volvo plant in Umeå is not being allowed to receive assistance towards transport costs from the Swedish government.
The consultants' report on which the Commission's decision was based was secret.
Volvo and the Swedish government believed the report to be flawed, but, because it was classified secret, any errors that had been made could not be corrected.
<P>
The decision has now been taken, but all those involved must learn a lesson for the future, so that events such as these are not repeated.
<P>
Will the Commission operate more openly in future and allow the authorities of the Member State concerned to see the documents on which its decisions are based?
Commissioner, I invite you to carry on your discussion with Mr Wibe and reply to his question on production in peripheral regions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="Van Miert">
Once again this question is being put to me by the honourable Member and I am happy to reply to this question.
Firstly, we have sorted out with the Swedish authorities how this regime has to be phased out.
As you know, it is regarded as operating aid, which is out of the question in the transport sector.
We have an agreement.
It is a fair and balanced one which will phase out this type of aid by 2002.
So we have an agreement.
<P>
The question is related to a report drafted by an expert who is consulted from time to time by DG IV when we have to deal with automotive issues or problems.
But this is only done for internal use by my department.
In this case this report was drafted with the aim of conducting some fact-finding as to whether the Commission should open the procedure: not take a decision but open the procedure. Some of the elements of this report were taken on board.
The facts presented by the Commission when we opened the procedure have been published in all official languages. Everyone who was interested was invited to give their opinion about our fact-finding in relation to the opening of the procedure.
<P>
Therefore, it is an internal business matter and I would like that fact to be understood.
It could happen that some of these reports will be of very little use to our services.
Sometimes they may be of more use.
But it is a strictly internal matter.
<P>
Obviously, the position taken by the Commission when it opens a procedure and the basis on which this is done can be challenged by the governments or by the companies concerned.
The Swedish Government and the Volvo company were in a position, then, to respond to what we put as evidence, according to our findings, at the opening of the procedure.
<P>
There should be no misunderstanding about the aim of such a report.
It is not for taking the final decision.
It is just for opening the procedure which then starts the real investigation.
As I said earlier, fortunately we have now reached an agreement with the Swedish Government and it is a fair one.
That is the general context.
I would ask you to understand one thing.
We have to tackle so many cases - about 600 state-aid cases per year.
Some of them are very complicated.
From time to time we have to call in experts to help our services; not for taking decisions as such but for trying to construe the facts.
I hope you will allow us to continue to do so.
<P>
Take, for example, the Crédit Lyonnais case.
We had to call in some experts.
If every piece of expertise had to be made public, it would be impossible for my services to conduct their business as they should.
By the way, from time to time the information involved is very sensitive and the companies are the first to ask us not to divulge it.
So please understand that we are adamant about being as transparent as we can.
The Commission has been criticized in Cardiff by some people because we explain our policies over and over again, why we take decisions or why we do not.
Some people are not happy with the fact that we explain our policy and try to be as transparent as possible.
Please understand that in order to be able to do our job properly from time to time we have to call in experts in a confidential way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wibe">
I would first like to thank the Commissioner for his very detailed reply.
However, I believe we have somewhat differing views with regard to transparency.
In Sweden it is quite impossible to imagine that something a civil servant does should be kept secret from the elected representatives.
As the Commissioner quite rightly says, the contents of the report concerned have become outdated, but the report itself has become an important issue of principle for us in Sweden as far as transparency is concerned.
<P>
The Ombudsman of the European Parliament, Jacob Söderman, has now intervened on this issue and written a letter to Jacques Santer requesting that this report should be published retrospectively.
My precise question is this: Are you now going to publish this report, and, if so, when?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="Van Miert">
We have already had a meeting with the services of the Ombudsman.
Obviously we allowed them to look into the document.
But, for the reasons I explained earlier, we have to stick to the working method which has been used successfully.
In order to investigate - because it is part of the investigation, not part of the decision-making, that is the difference - from time to time we have to find out some specific things and so we call in experts.
<P>
So we still feel very strongly that this should remain within the limits of the services being able to come up with something substantial.
Accordingly, it does not belong to the part which should be publicized.
It is part of the investigation.
<P>
Once that has been done then you have the next phase which is completely transparent.
What the Commission publicizes is available to everyone.
That is the difference we would like to keep.
Apart from that, we have demonstrated over and over again our eagerness to be as transparent as we possibly can.
By the way, the Commission is now being taken to the Court because some companies and some people find we are too transparent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
I would also like to thank the Commissioner for the detailed reply he gave.
<P>
I have two supplementary questions.
Firstly, has this issue been formally decided by the Commission in that the Ombudsman has made a formal request to the Commission to publish the report?
Has the matter been rejected by the Commission collectively, or is it the Commissioner's own opinion that this report should not be handed over?
<P>
Secondly, does the fact that the company concerned and the Swedish state, that is, the parties concerned, will read the report and have access to the information play any part in the Commission's judgement?
Or is the judgement based solely on the Commission's internal situation?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="Van Miert">
<SPEAKER ID=228 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Van Miert.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, it is now 7.00 p.m.
We have come to the end of the time specified by the agenda for questions to the Commission.
So Questions Nos 57 to 105 will be dealt with in writing.
<P>
That concludes Question Time.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 7.00 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Common organization of the market in bananas (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=229 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the report (A4-0220/98) by Mr Thomas, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 404/93 on the common organization of the market in bananas (COM(98)0004 - C4-0046/98-98/0013(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 NAME="Kinnock, Glenys">
Mr President, many of us in Parliament and in the ACP were rather unhappy with the proposal for a global quota.
With that in mind, last week I secured for my group agreement to an amendment which I believe will help to ameliorate the consequences of the proposed changes.
I very much hope that this House will support that amendment.
<P>
The Commission proposal does not in any way safeguard the access of the smaller and weaker ACP suppliers.
The risk is that they will be displaced because the traditional volumes will be grown and supplied by others.
Therefore, if we are to have a global quota, can we not have a guarantee that all traditional suppliers will be able to sell their traditional volumes?
We should insist that if there is a global quota, we must have enforceable and effective guarantees that ACP traditional bananas will be able to get into our markets on at least the level of access assured by Lomé.
<P>
I would hope that a form of words can be devised in the Council meeting on Monday that will take this issue of guaranteed access into account.
Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire and Belize are expanding their production and export capacity.
They will be able to increase production up to and beyond the point at which the quota will be over-subscribed.
Thus, multinationals in these countries will follow their usual routes of putting profit first and the interests of the ACP will never figure in their calculations.
<P>
Is it fair to give these multinationals still further advantages over our traditional producers?
Should we be persuaded to do their work for them and should we be bullied by the continuing ability of multinational companies and the United States of America to collude so well with the WTO against our interests and the interest of our traditional suppliers?
Indeed, today the President-in-Office of the Council was able to tell us of a very offensive letter he had received from the Secretary of Trade in the United States.
I do not think the European Union should be pushed around in this way by the United States and its friends in the multinational banana-producing countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fraga Estévez">
Mr President, first of all I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Thomas, on his balanced report and his willingness to negotiate, which has fostered dialogue and compromise at all times between the representatives of the various interests involved in the COM in bananas.
<P>
In my opinion, the Commission proposal, which aims to adjust the COM in bananas strictly to the WTO decisions, has to be criticized on a basic point: its unbalanced treatment of Community producers and operators, in neglecting to include alternative mechanisms to compensate them for the loss of category B licences. We have to remember that this mechanism was proposed by the Commission itself in order to guarantee the marketing of the Community banana and now, being one of the main points condemned by the WTO, it is not being replaced by anything else.
<P>
So we think it is essential to implement a mechanism to encourage marketing, since the current compensatory aid is only granted to the marketed product. This means that in order to receive such aid, the Community banana would have to opt for lower prices in order to make its marketing more attractive, thereby upsetting the market and increasing aid costs disproportionately.
<P>
It is also necessary to review the regimen of aid for loss of income, as laid down in Article 12 of Regulation 404/93, through an increase in the overall reference quantity and the flat-rate reference income, as Amendments Nos 22 and 33 to Mr Thomas' report reflect so well.
<P>
As for the licence regime, we fully agree with the views expressed in the report, where it says the reference period should be taken as the shortest and most recent period for which data exist. It also talks about retaining a two year transitional period, justified by the legitimate confidence inspired among category B licence operators by being able to transfer the certificates, as provided by current Community regulations.
<P>
As for the Commission proposal on the autonomous tariff quota, I would just like to recall that we also agree with the Thomas report and with the tradition which has been followed here since the Santini report.
I do not think we should disturb the balance of the Community supply sources.
<P>
Lastly, export certificates should be reinstated into Community regulations and demanded from all the countries which supply the Community, including the ACP countries, since including them in that way would be compatible with GATT regulations.
They should be seen as a way of avoiding fraud with respect to banana origin, and the risks of falsifying the repetition of import quantities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Aldo">
Mr President, having listened to the Commission this afternoon and noted Mr Fischler's numerous and categoric rejections of our amendments, I think it is time we reflected on the usefulness and role of Parliament in this matter, as well as the importance which is accorded to the political wishes we express through our requested opinions.
<P>
I do not want to repeat the reasons for the Union's lack of control over the destiny of this sector, sacrificed as it is on the altar of globalization.
Nevertheless, I would remind you that Community production of bananas is specific in every way, for it is an activity carried out in the ultra-peripheral areas which suffer the difficulties we are all aware of, and that it covers only 20 % of market requirements.
Furthermore, given the aims laid out in Regulation 404/93, and more particularly the assurance of sufficient income for producers, it is difficult for us to understand why the Commission has considered it unnecessary to provide for adjustments to Title III of the regulation, due to the significant amendments which will be made to the trading arrangements with third countries.
<P>
Furthermore, in spite of some reluctance on the part of the rapporteur, I am happy with the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development's proposals and reaffirm that Community production must benefit from the consequences of the most recent enlargement and a possible increase in the market.
The system of support to Community production must be adapted to the new rules, due to the raising of the flat rate reference income and to a development in the measures which opens up the right to compensatory aid.
The reestablishment of Article 16 of the regulation is a necessity for better developments in market prospects.
<P>
Mr President, this is briefly my opinion on the direction which the European Parliament's opinion must take with a view to reconciling our interests with those of other producer countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Querbes">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Parliament is right to denounce the desire of the American multinationals to obtain the dismantling, by the WTO, of the Community system for trade in bananas.
Our determination has enabled the Community preferential arrangements and aid to Union producers, who have long been in line with social and environmental standards, to be respected.
The Commission's attitude has, unfortunately, been a very different one in which their proposals yield to the WTO's injunctions, with a 16 % increase in the tariff quota which takes no account of the risks of job and income losses on the part of Community producers.
<P>
Conversely, the concern of Mr Thomas' report is to propose ways of supporting the incomes of Community banana producers.
It modifies the Commission's proposals by reducing the increase in additional tariff quota from 353 000 to 100 000 tonnes, by increasing by 15 % the Community banana quota eligible for compensatory aid and by increasing this compensatory aid by 20 %.
By adopting these measures and this report, which has my full support, we will be appealing to the Council to reconsider the European Parliament's amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Mr President, this organization of the market in bananas demonstrates that politics can still take precedence over economics.
Protesting before the panel still does nothing to alter the fact that we are taking a political stance, that we are setting up external protectionist measures geared to social and, not least, ecological points of view.
However, it also demonstrates it is not only the interests of the producers that are coming to fruition here.
In considering the position of the Americans, who scarcely have any banana producers of their own - if any at all, or only in Hawaii - then it becomes apparent that they are now making use of the panel to push through their own capital interests, or those of the major fruit companies.
<P>
Germany's position, too, was not carried by banana manufacturers or producers, but by the interests of commercial enterprise.
But it is a very positive sign that, despite this, we are able to talk about a political settlement.
<P>
Commissioner Fischler, this should enable us to take courage in other areas of agricultural production in which we do not produce any surpluses either - we should take courage in disputes with the WTO and take a political stance, not worrying about the possibility of having to face a panel, but instead making use of this or accepting it in the interests of achieving sensible settlements for agricultural production in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Barthet-Mayer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as the most important tropical fruit produced in the world, the banana constitutes a considerable economic concern for producers in the ultra-peripheral areas of the European Union and for the ACP countries.
Produced under unfair conditions often based on non-existent or disregarded social criteria, the dollar banana competes unfairly, and often immorally, with producers working within more regulated production systems which are fairer but of course more expensive.
Naturally the dollar banana is cheaper to produce - for a reason!
Mrs Carlotti this afternoon outlined the Chiquita company's practices to us.
Furthermore, a great deal of well-founded information reveals that some exporting countries practise production methods which are contrary to our own technical and environmental standards.
I am thinking of the numerous health problems, even deaths, caused by pesticides used on banana plantations.
What is worse, social conditions are often unacceptable and this should encourage us to demand a clean up of the rules of international trade at the forthcoming WTO discussions, where the Commission's negotiators would do well to put the social and environmental clauses back on the agenda.
<P>
In the face of the pressure being exerted by the WTO and the exporting countries' multinationals on the European Union to open new quotas, let us not go further than real need dictates. A more reasonable estimate for the autonomous quota is 100 000 tonnes.
Above all, let us make our trade conditional upon the principles which we uphold within the European Union, especially respect for human rights and sustainable agriculture, and let us encourage the actions of those producers who wish to move in this direction, as suggested in a number of the amendments.
Finally, let us apply the principle of Community preference, whilst at the same time respecting the commitments made within the framework of the Lomé Convention.
<P>
I would not wish to end without also congratulating Mr Thomas on his report, which on balance we support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, revision of the organization of the market for bananas is urgently needed.
Under the pretext of development aid, the Union has set up a costly and inefficient organization of the market.
As far back as 1995, the World Bank condemned the European banana policy.
Although the regulation was designed for small producers in the developing countries, according to the World Bank it is hardly benefiting them.
<P>
The European banana policy is based on a system of import licences.
With the introduction of the B-licences, the European traders, who traditionally had been importing bananas from the ACP countries, secured an important share in the market in "dollar' bananas.
While this was in the interest of these importers, the farmers in the ACP countries were none the better for it.
The lively trade in category B licences has pushed up the price of bananas on the European market, which resulted in a reduction in consumption.
So there is every reason to take the WTO complaint about the category B licences seriously.
<P>
But it is precisely in this crucial component of the organization of the market that the Commission has displayed little creativity.
The Commission is simply opting again for an allocation of the licences on the basis of traditional trade flows.
This proposal has also been adopted by Mr Thomas in his report.
Truly a missed opportunity!
<P>
It is high time a change was made.
Instead of the traditional importers, we must give preferential treatment to those who grow bananas in an environmentally and socially responsible way.
This change is lacking in both the Commission proposal and in the Thomas report.
<P>
I support the rapporteur's proposals for a promotion fund and the specific provisions for fair trade bananas.
But as long as the European market remains closed to new initiatives because of a licensing system, I am afraid that the fair trade bananas will not get a fair chance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
<SPEAKER ID=238 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Fischler for being kind enough to join us again this evening because I think it is important for him to follow the debate, although it has to be said that the Chamber is not exactly full.
<P>
I should like to disagree a little with Mr Martinez about how much we knew about the WTO decisions.
The matter was discussed in the European Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, and in that committee we studied both the WTO working group's statement and the Appellate Body's decision.
<P>
And it turns out that the European Community was very badly defended.
We find that the WTO Appellate Body was chaired by a former US senator, and that nobody was present in either the working group or the WTO apart from representatives of what we might call free-trade theories, or the new or dominant theory. So the views of the agricultural sectors of the EU were virtually undefended.
<P>
Furthermore, the Commission's legal advisor told us that, in all, he only had five lawyers to defend the Commission's point of view, against the battery of hundreds of lawyers available to the US Government, assisted moreover by the multinationals.
<P>
I am glad Mr Fischler is here.
At the moment, a group of Canary Island banana farmers is in the public gallery. These people have devoted their whole lives to their work, and at the moment they have no alternative to banana farming.
If the Commission proposal goes ahead as it stands, and the sector does not receive more protection, we are going to find ourselves with a production sector which is now unprotected, whereas prior to the adoption of Regulation 404/93 it was fully protected.
And these people cannot move elsewhere or turn to alternative crops.
<P>
So in my opinion, I think the Commission would do well to support a lot of the amendments presented by this Parliament - those tabled by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development. I hope that next week the Council can finally achieve a good Community regulation which allows a certain level of protection to be retained.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Sonneveld">
Mr President, it would be good if the European Union resisted the temptation to thoroughly revise the present banana regulation.
There are a great many diverging interests in this sector.
That is why there is the risk of creating one problem by solving another.
We therefore have to start by aiming the revision at solving the WTO problems which have arisen.
This apparently has been the Commission's intention.
This is why I support the Commission proposal to set the autonomous tariff quota at 353 000 tonnes in connection with the expansion of the EU.
I also accept the duty of ECU 300 per tonne for this autonomous tariff quota, assuming that this will not give rise to new WTO difficulties.
After all, the present duty is ECU 75 per tonne. In doing so, the European Union is giving a good signal.
The costly, extremely artificial and bureaucratic category B licensing system will be abolished and the ACP countries compensated for lost income. The liberal banana import system of the new Member States will be integrated politically even further into the considerably less liberal EU system.
The burden of this extra bit of protection is borne proportionally by the EU tax payer and the EU consumer, and it does not discriminate between the non-privileged banana-exporting third countries.
<P>
It would be good if the European Union would also give an adequate response to another unmistakable development, namely the EU interest in fair trade bananas.
The problem is not so much the need to support commercialization of fair trade bananas; access to the import quotas is actually the biggest problem.
The Commission must not close its eyes to this.
It should reserve definite space for this category in the daily management of the import licences, while being authorized to do so by Council and Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wibe">
Mr President, with this regulation we will have five different import quotas and customs duties for the import of bananas.
That is absurd.
Moreover, I do not believe that this new system will be approved by the World Trade Organization, so presumably we are going to have a new solution in a few years' time.
<P>
Nor do I think that it is right for us to use trade policy for our aid to developing countries.
The great risk of such a policy is that we lock the countries into an obsolete production structure, in this case into the production of bananas.
Our policy towards the ACP countries resembles what we in Sweden call 'Döbeln's medicine' , that is, it helps for the moment, but in the long term it is harmful.
<P>
Both for European consumers and for the populations of the ACP countries it would be better to have free trade combined with direct aid than the present complex quota and customs duty system.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Liese">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I must voice my opposition to the Thomas report.
I am speaking on behalf of a large segment of the Group of the European People's Party; not the whole party, but a very sizeable segment of it.
The Thomas report calls for increased protectionism, whereas what is really needed is less protectionism.
We find Amendments Nos 11 and 28 particularly unwelcome, as they represent a drastic reduction in quotas for the three new Member States.
A total of 10 % is being cut from Latin American bananas, and still more problems will ensue.
<P>
I very much doubt whether the Commission's proposal is in keeping with WTO ratios.
However, I am quite certain that the demands made by Mr Thomas and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development would in any case lead to enormous problems with the WTO.
We keep hearing - as we have heard in today's debate - that we must protect the small, independent producers in traditional ACP countries and the EU against the 'big bad' multi-nationals in Latin America.
The organization of the market clearly does not do this.
<P>
You are all invited to a talk in the press room tomorrow morning with an independent producer from Costa Rica who produces fair trade bananas and has great difficulty with the way the market is organized.
Small producers in Latin America - of whom there are many, in Ecuador, too, for example - are the hardest hit, and that is why we must give more support to fair trade bananas and vote against the Thomas report on this point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Correia">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, may I begin by congratulating the rapporteur, David Thomas, on an excellent report on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation No 404/93 on the common organization of the market in bananas.
<P>
The rapporteur's proposals are an excellent attempt to reconcile the interests of all the parties involved, that is to say of Community producers, of the ACP countries and other non-EU countries and of consumers, in a fair and balanced way, keeping to the rules of the internal market and the common organization of the market.
<P>
All the same, the question of abolishing the system of allocation of B certificates ignores the consequences this decision will have for Community producers.
As you know, the distribution of import licences has been one of the basic principles of the common organization of the market in bananas, and serves to restrict the quantities of Central American bananas coming in so as to safeguard sales of Community bananas.
<P>
The Commission and the Council will have to define the measures they propose to take to stop this gap, clearly and without time limits.
Among the various measures that should be taken, we think the overall reference income should be adopted and increased by around 20 %, so as to restore the necessary income guarantee to Community producers, and the Community should undertake to reduce the independent quota to prevent a possible glut on the market which would jeopardize sales of Community bananas.
Quite apart, that is, from vital additional aid which will be needed to give Community producers back the necessary resources for disposing of their production, thus offsetting the high cost of transport.
<P>
For all these reasons we unreservedly support Amendment No 25, Article 1 (new), in order to protect the interests of banana producers in the Autonomous Region of Madeira.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fernández Martín">
Mr President, once again we are faced with a debate on the reform of the COM in bananas, and we need to recognize that this time the reform has been forced on us by the result of the dispute within the WTO.
<P>
I must say, Commissioner, that this time, in general terms, we share the views expressed in the Commission proposal, because we need to modify the current import licence regime and make it compatible with WTO rules.
<P>
Our experience of market behaviour during the last few years suggests that we should take this into account when it comes to setting import quotas, in order to avoid flooding the markets and causing prices to drop, as happened last year in the case of France.
<P>
So we think an autonomous tariff quota of 100 000 tonnes, as already requested by Parliament, is better suited to market demands than the 350 000 tonnes proposed by the Commission.
<P>
Furthermore, we need to find a formula to allow continued exempted access for traditional ACP producers with whom we maintain economic, commercial and political obligations which cannot be ignored.
<P>
Maintaining this sector in the banana-producing regions of the EU is the very reason for the existence of this COM. Nobody has been able to call into question the validity and legitimacy of this COM, despite the constant attacks it has been suffering.
<P>
We need to guarantee the survival of Community production, and the EU's banana farmers need their current income levels to be guaranteed.
<P>
The banana sector is one of the most important economic resources of the ultra-peripheral regions of the EU. They cannot do without it, not just for economic reasons, but also for employment reasons.
<P>
Taking it for granted that the Commission shares these objectives, we need to know what mechanisms they are contemplating in order to sort out the import regime for third country production. Also, we do not yet know how the Commission plans to compensate Community producers for losses they suffer as a result of not having a licence regime like the one currently still in force.
<P>
Commissioner, it would be good to clarify and overcome the two uncertainties I have just indicated: guarantees for maintaining production and income levels.
That is what the sector is hoping for from this new reform.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Iversen">
Mr President, I would like to begin by praising the Commissioner's proposal, for it endeavours to strike an admirable balance between the different producers' interests.
Reasonable consideration must be given to EU producers, while we must maintain our Lomé and WTO obligations.
In reality, there is precious little room for manoeuvre.
However, fair trade bananas are one area in which we can improve the Commission's proposal.
The Commission's proposal to support ACP producers paves the way for changes in production, and there must be due regard for the environment, but that is not specific enough.
Thus, it is vital that our amendment should propose arrangements for fair trade bananas.
In this regard, I am not suggesting a particular quota, but rather, support for changes in production, a definition of fair trade bananas, arrangements for labelling and monitoring, and support for publicity and marketing of fair trade bananas.
Arrangements for fair trade bananas would benefit EU producers and ACP producers alike, and I therefore hope these aspects will be worked into this proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendonça">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the problem of the banana market has given us another opportunity to declare in this House that it is the principal obligation of the institutions of the European Union to defend the interests of its Member States and their regions in every situation, and to honour the commitments they assume in agreements with other countries, without submitting to the interests of the World Trade Organization.
<P>
In the case we are now debating, the Commission may be given the benefit of the doubt when it tries to reconcile the interests of Community and ACP banana producers with the requirements of the World Trade Organization's panel of judges.
The Commission must understand that the flooding of the European market with large quotas of cheap bananas from non-EU, nonACP countries will seriously affect the income of Community producers and make it almost impossible for traditional ACP countries to compete with Latin American producers.
<P>
We cannot set aside the fact that some of our ultra-peripheral island regions, which are marked out by their isolation and low levels of economic development, are among the European banana-producing regions.
It is not enough to recognize the existence of ultra-peripheral regions in the Treaty of the Union; it is more important that in all circumstances there should be specific and substantive expression of the support which those regions, which expect a great deal of us, call for and demand from the Community.
<P>
In Madeira, an autonomous region of Portugal, it would cause incalculable economic, social and environmental damage if the European institutions gave in to pressure applied to them for the purpose of defending interests which are not those of European citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 11.30 a.m..
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Freedom of establishment in the transport sector
<SPEAKER ID=247 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0215/98), on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Council Directive amending Directive 96/26/EC on admission to the occupation of road haulage operator and road passenger transport operator and mutual recognition of diplomas, certificates and other evidence of formal qualifications intended to facilitate for these operators the right to freedom of establishment in national and international transport operations (C4-0174/98-97/0029 (SYN)). (Rapporteur: Mrs Maria Berger).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=248 NAME="Berger">
Mr President, Commissioner, even if he is leaving us now, ladies and gentlemen, the Community had conceived regulations as long ago as 1974 with the goal of harmonizing conditions of admission to the occupation of road haulage operator and road passenger transport operator.
However, in recent years, central, basic conditions in the transport industry have undergone major changes.
<P>
The present proposal for a directive comes in response to these changes.
The proposal aims to guarantee that at least somewhat similar statutory terms will apply for all hauliers right across the EU.
The occupation of road haulier is already second to none in terms of being a truly European occupation.
In a matter of days, from 1 July 1998, this will be reinforced still further through the final clearance of cabotage.
This occupation, too, will thus be able to benefit fully from the terms of the internal market, and hauliers will enjoy unrestricted admission to the market throughout the Union.
<P>
In fact, the directive under discussion here today should have been in force by 1 July 1998.
I must therefore emphasize that Parliament has worked extremely fast and that the Council has been responsible for the delays, having spent rather a long time on the common position; that is why this deadline has not been met.
<P>
Regardless of the actual date, however, we must respond to the fact that changes in operating and production processes in industry and retail in line with the just in time strategy have led to faster, more flexible and, at the same time, higher quality transport services, demanding ramified and ingenious systems of logistics.
<P>
Today, we are confronted with a situation whereby smaller and smaller consignments need to be transported with increasing frequency.
There is also a noticeable shift from traditional company transport to professional goods transportation, and larger and larger operators are emerging, offering both haulage and logistics solutions.
On the other hand, we are also seeing increasing numbers of small enterprises entering the market place by virtue of their flexibility and the cost savings they offer, accepting haulage suitable only for smaller vehicles, even for transboundary movement.
<P>
The public is becoming increasingly exacting as regards transport services, especially in terms of environmental protection, technical safety and abiding by social provisions.
The emphasis varies greatly from country to country.
Standards in the applicant countries of central and eastern Europe in particular are, without doubt, decidedly lower.
<P>
Thus, we have to be aware that operators from these countries in particular will be competing more and more with operators within the Union.
Thus, quite apart from the present concrete directive, I would like to pick up where I left off at first reading in my quest to examine the extent to which steps can be taken under the auspices of existing European accords with the nations of central and eastern Europe, prior to their joining, to bring them gradually into line with EU regulations in this area.
<P>
At first reading, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights expressly welcomed all the Commission's proposed harmonization measures.
These concerned greater requirements with regard to financial capacity, personal efficiency and specialized knowledge as well as the enlargement of the area of application of the directive.
<P>
As rapporteur, I also wanted to see stricter regulations adopted to combat fraud in joint transit procedure and to regulate the transit of live animals. I wanted to see regulations adopted setting greater requirements with regard to financial capacity.
I wanted a tighter definition of the concepts of share capital and reserves to be adopted. My proposals at that time were adopted by a very sizeable majority both in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and in the plenary session.
<P>
However, in its common position, the Council has only accepted two of our proposed amendments and these changes are actually more in the nature of legal technicalities.
I am particularly disappointed that in the common position, the Ministers of Transport did not even take up my amendments on combating fraud, when these had the support of the Commission.
Thus, I have resurrected most of my/our demands from first reading, and once again, they have been unanimously adopted by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
As before, I still consider it extremely important to bring anti-fraud provisions into the domain of haulage operators.
I also propose deleting various items added by the Council, as well as introducing supplementary tests for hauliers who have acquired their credentials in a different Member State.
I would ask for your support in the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sindal">
Mr President, the second reading of Mrs Berger's text deserves to do well.
At first reading, I thought we and the Commission had made good progress.
I can understand the Council being a little more cautious in the text we received subsequently.
But what is it all about?
As Mrs Berger said in her introduction, it has something to do with fair competition.
It also has something to do with transportation, environmental considerations, integrity, etcetera.
I am in no doubt that the House agrees on what it is about, but perhaps we are more worried about how to get it through.
Regulations are fine.
That's great.
But in my view, free will can go a long way.
For instance, I am confident that in the trade - within Member States - road haulage is being developed along the lines of sustainability, focusing on quality and service.
There has to be the will to make implementation a reality in all Member States.
<P>
The committee's proposal on Community transit and procedures is sensible and deserves the support of Parliament and, in due course, that of the Commission and Council as well.
I would like to ring a little alarm bell about one proposal, however.
The amendment in question is Amendment No 11, where there is a kind of weighting of offences.
The amendment proposed by the House reads, "... convicted of serious offences against the rules in force concerning road haulage' .
What is "serious' supposed to mean?
Who is going to define how serious something has to be before intervention is necessary?
This is a kind of grey area, giving free reign to spite, so I would prefer us to retain the original text, stating: "... convicted of offences against the rules in force ...'
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mosiek-Urbahn">
<SPEAKER ID=251 NAME="Fitzsimons">
Mr President, I welcome Mrs Berger's report which seeks to bring common standards to road haulage operators in Europe.
However, I must say that it is simply not good enough for British authorities to allow a situation to arise whereby Irish hauliers are denied access to and use of British roads, as happened when ports were blocked last Sunday for 16 hours.
The European Treaties have espoused a need for the freedom of movement of goods, persons and services within the territories of the European Union.
This should be protected and maintained at all times.
This freedom is enshrined in the legal right upon which the basis of the European Union is founded.
In fact, one must welcome the recent position of the Internal Affairs Council of Ministers' meeting, at which it was agreed that the procedural red-tape would be cut, to allow the European Commission to demand reasonable action by Member States to unblock roads or ports within days of blockades being set up as a result of strikes, or face action in the European Court of Justice.
<P>
Finally, I should just like to reiterate my recent call for Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock to intervene once again in the matter of ensuring that the French authorities pay up outstanding claims by national road haulage associations arising as a direct consequence of the blockade of French motorways last year.
There is still £2m outstanding to Irish road hauliers resulting from this strike which must be paid by the French Government immediately.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 NAME="McIntosh">
Mr President, I welcome this common position and I think it will give road hauliers free access under similar conditions of operation and in particular will open up access to cabotage.
I congratulate the rapporteur and welcome this common position.
<P>
It is favourable to small businesses with one exception which I come to in a moment.
In my view it fits in positively with the principle of subsidiarity.
However, I cannot support Amendment No 8.
In my view, this would create a high level of immobilised transport undertakings capital, which would be unacceptable.
It would create a very precarious situation especially for small businesses and I would be very interested to hear the Commissioners' views in this regard.
Like Mr Fitzsimons who wishes to keep all roads open against blockades I invite the Commissioner this evening to make sure that in fact her own country will continue to allow free movement: in fact that principle has been breached twice in the past two years under the nominal excuse of industrial action.
Commissioner Kinnock felt unable to intervene in this regard but it is a breach of free movement and I hope the Commissioner will enter into the spirit of the single market tonight and ensure that it does not happen in future.
<P>
I also hope that the Commissioner will go some way this evening towards expressing some willingness to resolve the situation whether there are huge disparities of tax.
In particular, fuel rates in the UK seem to be astronomically high whereas in many other Member States they are very low and this creates distortion within the single market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 NAME="Cresson">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first of all like to thank you for your work on this initiative, which aims at strengthening current legislation by making the conditions of access to these professions stricter, by harmonizing the application of the three criteria and by widening the scope of the directive.
<P>
I am therefore happy to be able to accept many of the amendments presented by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
Firstly, I would like to say that I am pleased with the amendments which make the text clearer and the proposal more coherent.
Amendments Nos 2, 3, 8 and 11 will therefore be taken into account.
<P>
Secondly, although initially the Council did not consider it necessary to take action with regard to combating fraud, the Commission continues to consider this an important aspect and feels that tough measures should be taken with regard to the dishonesty of some people in this sector.
This is why I accept Amendments Nos 1 and 11, along with the second part of Amendment No 7.
The first part of this amendment is, however, too vague and could lead to control measures out of all proportion.
<P>
Finally, the Commission remains of the opinion that it is desirable to provide for the possibility of flexibility in the control measures, particularly in the case of small and medium-sized enterprises which could face financial difficulties in the short- term at the time when they are evaluated against the criteria for financial standing.
This possibility is especially important due to the emphasis currently placed on employment at European level.
Amendment No 10 can consequently be accepted.
<P>
Mr President, there is one area in which the Commission cannot accept the amendments presented.
Although the Commission is extremely favourable to the principle which underlies these amendments, the aim of which is to remove factors relating to problems known as "diploma tourism' from the common position, it cannot accept that the compromise solution, arrived at with such difficulty, should be rejected.
The Commission remains convinced that the temporary nature of the proposal, combined with the need to consult the Commission in all cases, is a sufficiently restrictive basis for its application.
The Commission is also convinced that the implementation of the new requirements with regard to professional competence will make this measure unnecessary.
This is why the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 4, 5, 6 and 9.
<P>
Mr President, Mrs Berger's report is both realistic and well founded.
She continues to make a constructive contribution to the Commission's initiative and enables us to reexamine certain questions with the Council.
I hope that, on this occasion, the Council will realize the advantages of these amendments.
We all wish to see stricter standards applied in this sector, along with a series of coherent criteria, to ensure that only reputable transport operators remain in the market, providing a high quality service in the interests of their clients and of society as a whole.
<P>
Thank you for your support. I am sure that it will continue to be forthcoming.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=254 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Fifth Framework Programme for RTD
<SPEAKER ID=255 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0226/98), on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Decision concerning the Fifth Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (1998-2002) (C4-0182/98-97/0119(COD)) (Rapporteur: Mrs Godelieve Quisthoudt-Rowohl).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=256 NAME="Quisthoudt-Rowohl">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I can honestly say that this evening you see standing before you a very happy rapporteur.
Once upon a time we began with one proposal by the Commission that we wished to have amended.
I recall that at first reading we dealt with some 750 amendments and - looking over to the other side of the House - they either got through or did not get through, as the case may be, in the midst of much highly controversial debate here.
<P>
Next I would like to thank the Council.
Much to our delight, Parliament, and not least I myself as rapporteur, found the common position of the Council so satisfactory that we would now merely like to improve a few points.
No matter how good a paper is, it is and always will be capable of improvement.
Thus, we have concentrated on a relatively small number of points.
In committee last week, we adopted some 40 amendments, almost all of them unanimously. As always, there was a bit of debate on a few points of detail.
<P>
It will come as no surprise to you that the House wishes to increase the overall budgetary level for the Fifth Framework Programme on Research.
Thus, in committee, we once again unanimously adopted the original sum put forward by the Commission of ECU 16.3 billion.
The Commissioner has assured us all along that this amount was arrived at following thorough research and mature reflection.
We will take her word for it; we are not merely hoping for the support of the Commission, we are absolutely banking on it in conciliation.
<P>
We also unanimously adopted amendments delineating the involvement of the European Parliament during the implementation of the programme.
We no longer wish to take our leave as the legislative body for policy on research after we adopt this framework programme presumably tomorrow and then after conciliation.
<P>
The much-acclaimed flexibility demanded by the Commission is not synonymous with the whim of the Executive.
Hence, we believe the Commission should be required to report to Parliament.
Moreover, in our opinion, there could well be a review in the middle of the implementation of the programme whereby its content would be open to re-definition.
The overall direction of the programme ought perhaps not to be changed, but we could nevertheless consider whether everything we are deciding right now is still relevant.
<P>
Further, we are actually somewhat disappointed that not all the improvements for small and medium-sized enterprises were adopted by the Council.
To be quite honest, I am rather amazed, because support of the middle classes as employers is constantly being lauded, particularly in terms of the creation of new jobs. This is where action on employment will come from.
We have therefore unanimously adopted these proposed amendments and reintroduced them.
<P>
One final comment - which I know will be a sticking point.
The treaty clearly states that research is integral to internal policies and that for such budgetary matters, joint budget authorization by Parliament and the Council applies.
Correspondingly, we have also amended the common position wherever the research budget is mentioned rather than internal policies; this was done, incidentally, with the full agreement of the Committee on Budgets.
We hope this will serve to increase transparency and constitute a qualitative improvement.
The quality of European research is, in fact, its strength.
If the quality is good enough - not merely adequate, but excellent - and if the decision-making processes are transparent, the advancement of European research will also be more readily accepted.
Today, this is a question we hear all too often: Does it have to go through the European Union? Are there not any other ways?
In future, we will have to be able to demonstrate that this is absolutely vital.
<P>
In conclusion, I would like to thank the members of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy and all the members of the advisory committees as - after tough debating, in some cases - we have succeeded in adopting such a consistent paper by a very comfortable majority.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=257 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Tannert">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as Social Democrats, we have never had the least doubt that we would only be giving our partial support to the Council's common position on the Fifth Framework Programme for Research.
We primarily agree with its thematic structure, because this takes account of our most important proposals from the first reading, including initiatives on socio-economic basic research.
However, we have our doubts as to the adequacy of the Council's proposals on the budget, financing arrangements and management.
I would like to make four fundamental comments.
<P>
The first relates to concentration.
There is still no significant reduction in the number of areas.
A reduction in the number of projects and the scope of the specific programmes is, however, essential to serious concentration.
The second concerns modernization of institutions.
In the interests of efficient administration, the Commission must bear the brunt of responsibility for implementing the programmes.
The programme committees must confine themselves to coordinating strategic and normative issues.
Parliament must be actively involved in monitoring the implementation of the programme.
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The third concerns social innovation.
Innovation is one of the key objectives of the programme.
However, innovation is not limited to a technical process; it is also a social process in need of optimization through investment in a qualified workforce and new types of labour organization.
Europe could gain a decisive competitive edge here.
This is one of the reasons why we are calling for an additional initiative in the area of the information society.
The fourth relates to growth.
The concept of growth must once and for all be taken out of the dead end which is a purely quantitative meaning.
Ecological stability must emerge as a locational advantage of the European economy and hence, the overriding credo of the programme.
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I would also like to make just a few comments on the budget.
It is a scandal in the history of Community promotion of research that the Council has no intention of even keeping pace with inflation in the furtherance of research.
In real terms, what the Council has in mind is a 4 % reduction.
My party only agreed to the inter-party compromise of ECU 16.3 billion negotiated in the run-up to this second reading under the constraint of coming up with a qualified majority; otherwise, we would have set the figure far higher.
As we enter the 21st century, more Community efforts will be required in order to make decisive improvements to industrial competitiveness, to avoid large-scale ecological damage and to combat the economic exclusion of entire segments of the population.
Correspondingly, investment in research would need to be calculated in accordance with the principle of saving up to make public provision for the future.
Unfortunately, it was not possible to achieve a consensus on this with the conservative side of the House.
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Let us at least join forces to demand what was agreed as the lowest common denominator in the report by the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy - the Commission's allocation entered in the budget.
Finally, I would like to thank the rapporteur for her efforts, including her successful efforts to bring about a large number of workable compromises and some reasonably consistent parliamentary action.
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<SPEAKER ID=258 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Scapagnini">
Mr President, the vote of the Fifth Framework Programme is an important opportunity for our House to confirm the need to guarantee European research the necessary support to face the great challenge of globalization.
The added value of European research is now a proven reality and, on the eve of the year 2000, the existing connection between research and economic development is clear and obvious.
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People specifically want research and technological development to provide concrete answers to problems like ageing or disability.
And I am also thinking of employment - the major challenge at the end of this century - and in this sense I confirm the need to involve producers in the activities of the Fifth Framework Programme, and I am particularly thinking of the role of small and medium-sized enterprises.
In this respect, I actually believe that two and not three small and medium-sized enterprises - as provided for until now - can, through cooperative research activities, jointly entrust third legal entities with appropriate research capacities with the task of solving their common technological problems.
At the same time, I would like to stress the need for the JRC to strengthen its ties with other research institutes so that it can develop its function as a centre for the transfer of technology, something we have all repeatedly stated in committee.
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Clearly, cuts in funding cannot be made in a sector that is the future of our young people and our economies.
To go without research today means being less efficient and competitive tomorrow.
It is extremely important to assert Europe's role in this way.
In conclusion, I therefore hope that we all play our own role and hope, like those who spoke before me, that the Commission and Council will be able to back Parliament's position on funding.
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<SPEAKER ID=259 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel (ELDR)">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party I would like to congratulate the rapporteur Mrs Quisthoudt on her report and thank her for the work she has carried out, because it is above all thanks to her that the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy has managed to come up with a unanimous proposal for the budget of the Fifth Framework Programme.
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The Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party is delighted with the budget proposal, in terms of both its level and the substantive allocation.
I therefore hope that this Parliament will once again speak with one voice.
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My group does have a problem with Amendment No 31, however; this amendment makes it possible to depart from the generally used definition of small and medium-sized enterprises.
Firms with up to 500 employees (instead of those with up to 250 employees) are entitled to research grants specifically aimed at small and medium-sized enterprises.
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As rapporteur for the specific programme on innovation and SMEs, I do not agree with this.
In my experience it is the small firms, in particular those that promote European innovation, that fall between two stools.
In a definition which classifies companies with up to 500 employees as small and medium-sized enterprises, this means that most research funds will go to the larger companies with 300, 400 and 500 employees.
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In addition, however, the smaller firms especially must be encouraged to take part in the innovation process.
This is the area in which growth is highest and in which jobs are created.
And in the areas of information and communication technology and biotechnology in particular, a great many small, innovative firms are active.
They should benefit to an optimum level from the European research funds.
A restriction of the definition does not exclude larger companies from participating in the Fifth Framework Programme.
A broadening of the definition gives small companies an even smaller chance to claim the already minimal SME budget for the coming four years.
My group will vote against this amendment.
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<SPEAKER ID=260 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pompidou">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy has come to a unanimous agreement regarding the minimum essential budget for the Fifth Framework Programme for Research and Development. This has been largely due to our rapporteur's tact and listening capacity, and I would like to pay tribute to her.
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Parliament concurs with the Commission's opinion, and must send a unanimous message to the Council concerning the issue of financing, in order to approach conciliation - which is proving to be difficult - from a position of strength.
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I would like to draw your attention to a limited number of amendments which touch on the heart of European research.
This heart is made up of men and women, our scientists and engineers.
The European Union must offer them the recognition they deserve, along with the necessary motivation, by each year organizing a European Grand Prix for scientific and technological research, as proposed in Amendment No 34.
This heart is also made up of our research infrastructure.
The European Union must mobilize all possible means to support it.
We must make sure that the Fifth Framework Programme draws equally on the Structural Funds, the European Investment Fund and funds from the European Investment Bank.
This is the aim of Amendment No 18.
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Similarly, the Joint Research Centre must enjoy more autonomy with, naturally, the counterbalance of an independent evaluation procedure as provided for in Amendment No 19.
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Finally, Amendments Nos 20 and 21 restore coherence and concentration to the Fifth Framework Programme by dealing in parallel with health issues linked to our nutrition and environment.
This is where the heart and arteries of every European are at stake.
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Ladies and gentlemen, by adopting these amendments by a strong majority, we will approach the co-decision procedure under the best possible conditions.
It is a matter of building a European science and technology policy which lives up to our ambitions, that is, one which is at the service of all Europeans.
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<SPEAKER ID=261 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Marset Campos">
Mr President, first of all I want to congratulate the rapporteur on her work, which is very careful and very sensitive to all the opinions expressed in committee, which has meant that the report has arrived at this stage with a high degree of unanimity. That backing bears witness to the work done by the rapporteur.
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In the few seconds I have available, I want to focus on what I see as a serious contradiction in the construction of the European Union which is taking place.
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We are aware of and admit the fact that Europe is behind North America, Japan and even some other regions which are increasing the GNP destined for research on these matters. Nevertheless, we are decreasing our investment, and it is also decreasing in every Member State of the European Union.
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I wonder how we can make any progress, with the prospect of reduced research spending.
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<SPEAKER ID=262 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bloch von Blottnitz">
Mr President, please allow me to present my criticism in note form, so to speak, because I only have a short time to speak.
Firstly, I would like to discuss the financial provision. According to the Treaty of Dublin, this should have been 6 %.
That is now out of the question. I would simply like to point out that America has just decided on an 8 % growth rate, or a total of 32 % over four years.
Next, I would like to address the total disparity between nuclear and non-nuclear energy.
We have earmarked ECU 1 260 million for nuclear energy and ECU 1 004 million for non-nuclear energy - including coal and renewable energy.
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I think this is because we are forever chasing the mirage of fusion. Thus, we would not be doing justice to the task if, for example, I only made reference to the Kyoto Convention.
Besides, an even more pressing task is to probe who actually benefits from growth and what form that growth should take.
Does it make people happier, healthier or more contented?
Does it reduce unemployment?
We need to pay far greater attention to this.
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The other matter concerns information technology.
We are entering an era when a segment of the population of the EU - and, not least, citizens of other countries - will in all probability no longer have any part in knowledge because these people are excluded - they cannot participate in the new information technology.
This will lead to a major disparity, not only in the European Union, but also in many other countries with which we do, of course, have to collaborate, for example in Asia or in the developing countries.
I do not know how we will resolve this. We need to spend a lot more money in working with this trend.
It is not just about energy or the environment; it is also - and more pointedly - about the consequences of the rapid growth of information technology.
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<SPEAKER ID=263 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Desama">
Mr President, Commissioner, like everyone else I would naturally like to add to the well-deserved compliments the rapporteur is receiving and perhaps note that when we embarked on the Fifth Framework Programme, Parliament had two clear demands to make.
The first related to the form and structure of the Framework Programme.
We wanted to break with the linear model of research, which belonged to the past, in favour of an interactive model which linked targeted actions to generic technologies.
These demands were satisfied right from the stage of the Commission's proposal.
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Secondly, we wanted the Framework Programme to be responsive not only to the desire to ensure the competitiveness of our industries, but also to be an instrument responsive to social demands.
On this point, too, the Commission moved largely in the direction of our expectations.
And the good news which has come from the Council in the common position is that it has not only confirmed what we have achieved with the Commission but that it has gone further towards Parliament's position than the Commission did.
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The bad news, on the other hand, has been that the Council does not provide, or does not provide us with, the political means with which it is itself in agreement.
Thus, given that we cannot express an opinion on behalf of the Council but that we can at least make ourselves heard, I would like to say three things to the Council.
The first is that we have not decided to make many concessions - and I must stress this point - particularly as we are on exactly the same wavelength as the Commission.
So, we will not change our minds.
The second is that if, in spite of everything, necessity dictates that we must accept a reduction to below the 16.3 billion level, there will be no linear reduction.
It will be hard luck for some of the Council's priorities.
Thirdly and finally, there are some things which we consider to be essential, such as the independence of the Joint Research Centre and, to reply to Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, the essential tasks of the Euratom Treaty, including thermonuclear fusion.
But that is my personal opinion.
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<SPEAKER ID=264 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, I would like to warmly thank Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl for preparing this report.
The Fifth Framework Programme must be got off the EU decision-making treadmill as quickly as possible, so that competitive European research can continue without interruption when the present phase of the programme has ended.
The Commission cannot be allowed to slow down the decision-making process by drawing out the debate until it goes to conciliation.
Stubborn persistence in attitude does not produce results.
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A very important area of research for the future in the Fifth Framework Programme is water.
Clean drinking water, surface water and groundwater is now, and will continue to be, a very important issue for the EU; for example, 2 % of surface water in the EU is being threatened with pollution.
That is why research must help preserve this vanishing natural resource in those areas that still have clean water.
More attention should be paid in research to, for example, the capability of mineral deposits to work as indicators in studies of groundwater.
If ever there happens to be radioactivity in a given area, mineral deposits will reveal this without the need for the time-consuming examination of groundwater.
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It is important for European research and competitiveness that the Framework Programme budget be as large as possible. Only then can we be certain of enjoying high standards in the future in Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=265 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Elmalan">
Mr President, the four previous framework programmes for research largely funded precompetitive research projects halfway between grass roots research and the commercial development of products.
These programmes had the quality of developing cooperation between scientists, universities and business, but they had only a small impact in social and economic terms and did not enable Europe to catch up in many fields, especially the sectors of the future.
These shortcomings were largely due to the inadequacy of appropriations, their dilution amongst too great a number of programmes and a lack of flexibility in the allocation of appropriations to respond to new needs.
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In the Fifth Framework Programme, the Commission has corrected these faults by concentrating appropriations on fewer, more targeted activities, by looking to improve their management and to simplify procedures.
These directions were overall approved by Parliament and the Council, but a disagreement arose regarding the amount of appropriations.
Whilst the Commission and Parliament are demanding a substantial increase in appropriations to bring them to ECU 16.3 billion over five years, the Council has given a figure of 14 billion, which in real terms represents a decrease in comparison with the Fourth Framework Programme.
Given the European Union's backwardness in the field of research in comparison with competitor countries, appropriations should be increased to ECU 16.3 billion and substantial improvements should be brought about in their use and in the implementation of projects.
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<SPEAKER ID=266 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Linkohr">
Mr President, I, too, would like to congratulate the rapporteur.
I know it is a difficult task - a bit like squaring the circle.
Irreconcilable interests often have to be reconciled.
It is critical for Parliament to remain united now.
We have one clear adversary, the Council.
We will only be able to resist the Council if we stay on the course we have just mapped out, and I would also ask the Commission to support the House in this.
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My second comment addresses a problem that we unfortunately will not be able to solve with the Fifth Framework Programme for Research. I would like to draw attention to this now.
It is the increasing north-south conflict of industrial competitiveness.
Unfortunately, the southern states have cut back their research expenditure more severely than has been the case in the north, although the southern states only had a relatively low level of expenditure as it was.
This will lead to an even greater northsouth divide in the future.
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I would like to ask the Commission to devote special attention to this subject, not because I believe the Fifth Framework Programme for Research can solve the problem - there is far too little money for that.
But the political will must come into being in the south - and by that I mean countries with a smaller gross domestic product - as well as in the north.
The latter are not always richer, but as a rule, they spend more on research.
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We need to come up with a solution to this; otherwise, the divide will only get bigger. It will cost us dearly and we will not be able to bridge it by stepping up regional policy.
I am asking you to reflect on this.
In any case, thank you very much, and I do hope we can stand united as we oppose the Council.
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<SPEAKER ID=267 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Velzen, W.G.">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by thanking the rapporteur, Mrs Quisthoudt, for the excellent work she has done.
The main issue in this second reading concerns the disagreement with the Council over the budget for the Fifth Framework Programme.
The Council proposes a maximum amount of ECU 12 740 billion, excluding Euratom, whilst Parliament proposes just over ECU 15 billion. The essential difference therefore concerns this additional 2 billion which this Parliament wishes to allocate to the four research themes, namely the quality of the existing and user-friendly information society, competitive and sustainable growth, energy and the environment.
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Mr President, it is essential that Europe's competitiveness is increased, that the social issues in this area are resolved, and that the Council is persuaded to adopt the position of Parliament.
Research is one effective method of guaranteeing employment in the European Union in the long term.
It now appears that a conciliation round with the Council is unavoidable.
In view of our experience as Parliament with respect to the role of the Commission in the conciliation procedure involving the additional ECU 700 million for the Fourth Framework Programme, I would like to urge the Commission to determine its strategy for the conciliation procedure in close cooperation with the European Parliament.
We can only get the Council on our side if Parliament and Commission act jointly on this issue.
The Commission should avoid giving the Council the impression that the Commission attaches less value to the level of the research budget than the European Parliament does.
I insist on a response from Madam Commissioner to this question, and I would like to know whether she is prepared to jointly develop such a strategy.
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<SPEAKER ID=268 NAME="McNally">
Mr President, I am rather sorry that we are discussing such an important subject late at night.
I do not think it is appropriate.
However, I should like to give my congratulations to the rapporteur.
She is a lady who drives a very hard bargain, I have to say.
But I enjoyed our very interesting discussions and I am very pleased that we achieved a result.
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The theme of the week, as expressed in Cardiff, is 'let's bring Europe to the people' .
What better way of doing that than engaging the best brains in Europe on behalf of the people to tackle the problems which worry the people?
That is what the framework programme is for.
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I am very pleased about the attention that is now being given to the theme of gender balance, of mainstreaming throughout the Community's policies, including the Fifth Framework Programme.
I would sincerely like to thank our Commissioner, Mrs Cresson, for her attention, which will be appreciated by many people in this Parliament.
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Another leitmotif of the Fifth Framework Programme has to be sustainable development.
We have to bear in mind all the time that resources are finite and that we must improve life for everyone in the Community.
Like others I have some doubts about the wisdom in the Euratom part of the Fifth Framework Programme of spending hundreds and hundreds of millions of ECUs on research into nuclear fusion which will not generate electricity in the lifetime of anyone in this Chamber tonight.
But so be it.
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Socio-economic research which tells us how our society is growing and what we could do to make it better is essential.
What I want to see in the Fifth Framework Programme, which did not happen in the Fourth in all areas, is attention to the implications for society of the research which these brains are working on.
That was meant to happen in the Fourth Framework Programme and it did not.
We seriously want the socio-economic implications of every piece of research to be looked at in the Fifth Framework Programme.
That is very important as well as for some specific areas such as information technology and others where there are very clear societal implications.
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I hope that the Council of Ministers is intending to act rationally.
It is not rational to make a cut in real terms in research in 1999 and the beginning of the next century.
That is irrational behaviour.
I hope, therefore, that they are quite clear we will not accept something which cuts the Fifth Framework Programme in real terms in comparison with the Fourth.
That is exactly what this Parliament does not want.
We are bringing Europe to the people.
As I said earlier on, we can only do that with an adequate budget.
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<SPEAKER ID=269 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schierhuber">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as the author of the statement on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, I must congratulate the rapporteur. I welcome the Council's common position, which has taken up the concerns of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, incorporating a separate point on energy, the environment and sustainable development into the topic.
I would particularly like to emphasize the fact that the Council has expressly stressed organic substances in its chapter on ecologically friendly energy systems, including renewable energy sources.
That is a big success, underlining the positive re-thinking process in EU policy.
The facts from Austria, Finland and Sweden show that it is possible to step up the use of renewable energy sources; renewable energy sources account for between 20 and 25 % of energy consumption in these countries.
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EU policy is aimed at sustainable development and the sustainable utilization of natural resources, achievable through increased use of these types of energy sources.
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To me, this is also very important in view of environmental protection, particularly with regard to further developing rural areas.
In this connection, I also welcome the fact that the Council has come out in favour of the sustainable development of agriculture, fisheries and forestry.
At the same time, I would like to emphasize that in a truly integrated rural economy, mountainous regions must also be considered.
I am critical of the low level of funding.
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<SPEAKER ID=270 NAME="Adam">
Mr President, the rapporteur has my congratulations on being able to bring to Parliament this evening a report which is commanding widespread support and which I hope will serve us well in the conciliation that lies ahead.
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The first point I want to make is that, in relation to finance, we must not allow a fall in real terms in the amount we give to research. Let me give a simple example.
The oil price per barrel is now at its lowest level ever.
Yet the United States is quadrupling the amount of support it gives to the supply and service industry in the oil sector.
When we set out the Fourth Framework, the Third Framework, the Second Framework, the First Framework, society was poorer than it is now.
And yet, are we to believe that we are now poorer in our aspirations for what we want in the future?
It cannot be.
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There are two very specific points I want to mention.
Firstly, we must have solid fuel within the purview of this programme.
We may not like coal, but coal use throughout the world is increasing and we should not forget that.
Secondly, we need to add in the work for disability as well as for the ageing population.
They are not always the same thing, but we need to have regard to this problem in our society.
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My final point is that we must realize that we are rich in what we have already achieved in our research programme and we must exploit it more than we have in the past.
If we could achieve that in the Fifth Framework Programme, we would be very happy indeed.
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<SPEAKER ID=271 NAME="Cresson">
<SPEAKER ID=272 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
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The vote will take place on Wednesday at 11.30 a.m.
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<CHAPTER ID=13>
Energy for the future (renewable sources of energy)
<SPEAKER ID=273 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on two reports, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy:
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A4-0207/98 by Mrs Rothe, on a communication from the Commission on energy for the future: Renewable Sources of Energy - White Paper for a Community Strategy and Action Plan (COM(97)0599 - C40047/98); -A4-0199/98 by Mr Linkohr, on network access for renewable energies - creating a European directive on the feeding in of electricity from renewable sources of energy in the European Union.
<SPEAKER ID=274 NAME="Rothe">
Mr President, there is already ample testimony to the European Parliament's positive view of renewable energy in numerous resolutions.
Under the motto of "talk is cheap - we want some action!' , Parliament has already requested a strategy and a concrete plan of action in two reports, also tabling some proposals of its own.
The Commission must have been aware that Parliament had high expectations of the White Paper.
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Commissioner, I can assure you today, you have not disappointed us.
Even though we would have preferred the White Paper to get down to specifics to a greater extent, it does point the right way.
The Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy gives its unmitigated support to the goal of doubling the use of renewable energy by the year 2010 as a minimum goal, as stated in the report.
However, we expect binding commitments between the Commission and Member States as to goals for the individual countries, broken down by type of energy and annual power prognostications.
These very Member States must be prepared to take up their responsibilities.
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The White Paper correctly highlights the major importance of difficult conditions of competition for renewable energy sources.
In this respect I will focus on just one point, the matter of fair access to the electricity network.
The reality of energy policy in the Union demonstrates that countries that do have specific input arrangements for electricity from renewable energy show the highest rates of growth.
Through my report and, in more detail, the report by my colleague Mr Linkohr, we are prompting the Commission immediately to table a motion for a resolution that would organize conditions of access to the electricity network for "green' electricity in such a way that the investment in plant and running costs for the production of electricity from renewable energy sources would become practicable, enabling wide market penetration regardless of the type of system chosen.
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Legislative measures such as those just described, as well as concrete, special policies are needed to support renewable energy.
Therefore, I welcome the Commission's plans for a major breakthrough campaign for renewable energy in fulfilment of one of Parliament's demands.
The only other thing we are now proposing is that this campaign should be complemented with an information campaign on "solar heating and solar heating power stations' .
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The White Paper gives special prominence to organic substances in the question of doubling renewable energy sources.
That is a very positive signal, particularly for rural areas of the European Union.
But, Commissioner, if we are to take these proposals seriously, there surely has to be a corresponding logical step in the proposals for the reform of the common agricultural policy.
There is clearly a lot of catching up to be done; perhaps you could put that to your honourable friend Mr Fischler.
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By and large, promoting renewable energy sources is not the sole domain of energy policy.
This task applies to all Community policy right across the board and must also be given considerably greater consideration in the special financial promotion programmes of the European Union, whether within the Community or in programmes in third countries, since the necessary resources for the breakthrough campaign alone will cost the public coffers an estimated ECU 4 billion.
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If political will is combined with political creativity at Union level and at national and regional political levels and channelled into new energy sources, doubling looks set to be achieved before 2010 - I am sure of that.
New approaches are also needed, notably in construction policy.
For example, we are asking for a "solar architecture' action programme in Member States.
Following the successful example of the blue flag, perhaps golden suns could be awarded to hotels and resorts.
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The policy of helping renewable energy to make a breakthrough is just as much an opportunity as a necessity.
A doubling by 2010 would give an annual reduction of approximately 400 m tonnes of CO2 ; this alone would fulfil two-thirds of the requirements of the Kyoto objective.
Between 500 000 and 900 000 new jobs could be created, new industrial impulses would be unleashed, new export possibilities would open up, and not least, intensified use of renewable energies represents the answer we need to the finite nature of fossil fuels and the problems of atomic energy sources.
Commissioner, this time we really do want to see some action!
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<SPEAKER ID=275 NAME="Linkohr">
Mr President, I am picking up where Mrs Rothe left off.
Oil currently costs approximately USD 13 per barrel.
Electricity and gas prices in the European Union are set to fall between 20 % and 30 % as a result of increased competition.
That is what we wanted, after all.
However, the question arises - what chance does renewable energy have at all, then, since we know that it tends to be rather expensive, in some cases far more expensive than conventional forms of energy?
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The proposal tabled here - and I hope Parliament will agree to it - does provide an answer to this: fair access to the electricity network for electricity from renewable energy sources in return for reimbursement that makes the investment in plant practicable for the operator.
This is, incidentally, a procedure we have used many times before.
Currently, for example, a parliamentary initiative by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights on a period of grace for innovations has been brought before the national bodies for patent legislation.
This procedure is permitted under the Maastricht Treaty.
Parliament can take the initiative; at any rate, it can vote on it. The Commission is then free to take up this initiative.
As a rule, the Commission would be well advised to stand by the decision of Parliament.
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Since I am only too well aware that this is a very complex issue, I do not pretend that what has been penned here is the last word in wisdom.
That can be said of very few of our decisions in the European Parliament, anyway.
It would be presumptuous to say that one's own paper really is the best thing we have for the next hundred years to come.
Nevertheless, it is a contribution.
Therefore, I recommend that Parliament should vote in favour of this motion for a resolution, together with its annex, because the annex only says that the Commission should give due consideration to the enclosed text.
Please consider the content very carefully.
It may well be that you have better ideas.
I will gladly bow to superior wisdom.
Please take that into consideration.
Hence, I would like to ask my colleagues to assist the Commission in this regard through the official channels as we go to the vote.
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Up until now, the European Parliament has shown unity regarding renewable energy.
We have dealt with several reports - the Mombaur report, the report on energy policy by Wim van Velzen, the two Rothe reports on the Green Paper and the White Paper.
Now we have this report bearing my name.
Each time, the House has lent its unified support to renewable energy forms, and results have been forthcoming.
I say that for Parliament in all modesty.
It also helps the Commission to know that Parliament stands united behind renewable energy forms.
Thus, I appeal to my colleagues to remain on the course we have mapped out.
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The content of the proposal - due to shortage of time, I will not read it out, as you can all read it in your mother tongue - the actual message of this proposal is that we should mobilize private capital to promote renewable energy in the European Union.
As we know from the White Paper referred to by Mrs Rothe, the strategy for the promotion of renewable energy will cost some ECU 80 000m - ECU 100 000m over the next decade. I ask you: where is this money coming from?
It is definitely not coming out of national budgets.
It is not coming out of our regional budgets - we have too little room for manoeuvre for that.
Neither is it coming out of the European budget.
We could try, but there is no way we could come up with ECU 80 billion - ECU 100 billion.
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This can only be done through the mobilization of private capital.
That is, in fact, the objective of this paper.
Accordingly, I ask you once again for your support.
The current debate also helps shape public opinion in Europe, for without this unified public opinion in questions of renewable energy, we would not be able to keep the promises we made in Kyoto, the same promises we will, no doubt, be reiterating in Buenos Aires.
Following on from Mrs Rothe's comments, may there be action to accompany our words!
Those who come after us will thank us for it.
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<SPEAKER ID=276 NAME="Schierhuber">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen - we are currently debating the future of European agriculture on all political fronts.
The support of multi-functional rural areas is a key point.
Using replenishable raw materials as renewable energy sources brings this goal within reach, and I therefore wholeheartedly welcome the Commission's White Paper on renewable energy.
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However, at this juncture I have to criticize the inadequate proposals for reform in Agenda 2000.
The Commission's objective, according to which renewable energy sources would reach a proportion of 12 %, is laudable and corresponds to a doubling of the current proportion.
However, a further increase is vital and entirely feasible, as Austria, Finland and Sweden testify.
<P>
Organic substances have tremendous potential for the future development of rural areas as a whole.
Jobs will be created through decentralized production and use, promoting integrated development.
Regional purchasing power will be increased in tandem with value creation, and income and living standards will rise.
The result will be a reduction in demographic migrations and thus, the retention of intact rural areas with their irreplaceable value in terms of leisure and relaxation.
In order to promote renewable energy sources accordingly, uniform tax reductions or tax relief would have to apply throughout Europe.
Likewise, reimbursement for electricity input from renewable energy sources would be needed right across Europe in order to set up a reliable legal framework for its development and use.
In parallel, the Commission should also advocate an increase in duty on fossil fuels.
<P>
Self-regenerating raw materials are of particular significance especially in view of the imminent enlargement of the EU.
The Commission should initiate a pan-European information campaign on the introduction of renewable energy sources, and I urge it to do so.
The success of organic substances is largely dependent upon their acceptance by our citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=277 NAME="Ojala">
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Rothe warmly for the excellent work she has done in preparing this report on future renewable energy sources.
In my opinion, Mrs Rothe has succeeded in presenting the effect of renewable energy sources on employment and regional policy quite well in her report.
The effect on employment is greater than with other energy sources.
There is a good argument both for using renewable energy and for the decentralized production of energy, particularly in the regions of the EU that are remote, sparsely populated and which have high unemployment.
By supporting research and development in renewable energy we can create hi tech jobs for these regions and so improve conditions for sustainable development.
<P>
There are widely differing resources to exploit in different regions; for example, biomasses, solar energy and wind power.
Energy policy development should always take stock of local conditions.
<P>
In my opinion, the Commission's announcement does not give sufficient attention to the importance of wood as a renewable energy source.
Wood as a source of energy production remains largely unexploited in, for example, the northern regions of the EU.
This has not been emphasized sufficiently in Mrs Rothe's report either.
<P>
Supporting renewable energy through taxation will be unavoidable if Member States wish to fulfil the goals set for the Union at the Kyoto climate conference.
With tax controls we will be able to increase both the use of wood-based and other biomassbased energy as well as the combined production of electricity and heating.
In this way the Union's energy policy can be more clearly based on renewable sources and not, for example, on the further building of nuclear power plants with the risks they entail.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=278 NAME="Graenitz">
Mr President, the Commission has called its White Paper "Energy for the Future' .
We truly are speaking of matters pertaining to the future here - human health, the conservation of the natural basis of life, careful use of resources, securing supplies and the independence of supplies from possible crisis areas of the world and lastly - of paramount importance to all the members of my party - jobs.
I believe renewable energy can contribute to achieving all these goals, which are integral to the sustainable, environmentally sound development of the Union.
Thus, I would like to thank the Commission for its White Paper and Mrs Rothe for her report, as well as everyone else who has been working on the report to make it so admirable and meaningful.
We need to increase the proportion of renewable energies in all Member States as rapidly as possible.
To this end, we must implement strategies that promote specific action, because renewable energy is regional energy.
Action is necessary in regional, agricultural and transport policy, and, of course, also in research and economic policy, as well as, ultimately, in fiscal policy.
<P>
We also need to discuss how we can better motivate people to use renewable energy.
In my own region, renewable energy accounts for 30 % of energy consumption and people often say with pride, "I use solar heating in my house!'
We ought to be hearing that from a lot more people in the Union, whether it is solar power, wind power or something else again.
<P>
One final point in closing: if we truly wish to promote renewable energy, a legal basis will have to be drawn up to allow these programmes to be implemented accordingly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=279 NAME="Kronberger">
Mr President, I will begin with Mrs Rothe's report.
The White Paper on renewable energy sources is without doubt one of the most significant - or perhaps even the single most significant - ecological document produced by the Commission in recent years.
The Green Paper was highly acclaimed for its excellent analysis, but it was also loudly criticized for taking too little account of practical considerations for implementation.
This weakness has not been totally surmounted, but it has at least been assuaged by means of a helpful take-off programme.
<P>
Mrs Rothe's report constitutes one more qualitative step towards the acceptance of renewable energy sources.
The 41 points listed represent a decidedly successful combination of competent, well-informed demands for further development of the thinking behind the White Paper.
It is to be hoped that it will be given the most extensive consideration possible.
Mrs McNally's Amendment No 2 recognizes the need to set a minimum level of reimbursement for electricity produced from renewable energy sources in consideration of social and ecological use.
<P>
I would like to add a further two thoughts.
Firstly, changing over to renewable energy sources is not only of importance in terms of the ecology or of socio-economic considerations such as the creation of jobs.
Renewable energy sources are also worth striving for to conserve resources and promote future export business.
Another significant point is that renewable energy sources would also be of consequence to peace policy, above all.
We find ourselves in the thick of struggles over the distribution of the Earth's resources in Africa, the Middle East, the Caucasus area and around the Caspian Sea.
A peace deal for the 21st century can thus only be achieved through the changeover to renewable energy sources.
<P>
The second thought is that renewable energy sources really only have one single enemy.
Not the big multi-national companies or the suppliers of natural gas or traditional energy companies.
Their one and only enemy is ignorance of the fantastic possibilities these energy sources offer humanity.
<P>
Mr Linkohr's report does throw up some very constructive ideas, for example in chapter 2 paragraph 3, which states that there needs to be a right to input electricity produced by renewable energy sources into the grid. However, regrettably, the report restricts itself largely to so-called funding and special funding for the promotion of renewable energy sources.
Accordingly, we cannot really talk about an input directive, but about a directive on input funds.
There is a grave difference here.
Reimbursement along uniform and harmonized lines in all Member States is a prerequisite to the acceptance of renewable energy sources.
This should be calculated in such a way as to make the investment in plant for the production of renewable energy sources worthwhile.
There are plenty of exemplary models for this in Europe; German input legislation and the Danish model spring to mind.
Amendment No 3 proposed by Mrs McNally relates to this requirement and should therefore be embraced without reservation.
<P>
This criticism of the report is in no way a fundamental rejection of the proposed funding model; it is, however, intended as a clear signal that, in its existing form, it simply cannot fulfil its purpose - the practical implementation of the specifications of the White Paper.
The demands of the European Parliament need not be any more reticent than the ideas of the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=280 NAME="McNally">
Mr President, we would not be able to have this debate if Commissioner Papoutsis had not presented us with his White Paper and we thank him very much for it.
The priorities of the current presidency are environment, jobs and crime.
As far as the environment and jobs are concerned, renewable energy is extremely relevant - I am not so sure about crime!
We certainly know that this is an important contribution to both those priorities.
<P>
Mrs Rothe has written an extremely wide-ranging report and I am delighted to see that there are supplementary reports from three other women.
It must be a record that all the reports on this important issue are by women Members.
Mrs Rothe has 41 conclusions and I ask colleagues to read these conclusions carefully.
Each of them is sensible.
We know the barriers for renewable energy.
They are legal, financial, administrative, etcetera.
Her Recital G makes it clear that we will not make much progress without a reliable legal framework of one sort or another.
We could hope for an energy chapter.
We could have hoped for an energy treaty like the Euratom Treaty.
That was my wish, but I accept that a charter is a little more realistic.
So, let us try for that.
Mrs Rothe and Mrs Graenitz are quite right to point out that many other policies are taken up by renewable energy, and there is a whole list: environment, agriculture, regional, transport, etcetera.
<P>
I would like to turn now to Mr Linkohr.
Reproach has been made in my presence that it is not the European Parliament's job to put forward this sort of initiative.
Why on earth, then, were we given the powers to do so?
Were we given powers on condition that we would never use them?
That is absurd.
Of course not.
The intention was that we would use those powers, and I urge you to think very carefully before you reject this constructive measure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=281 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Robles Piquer">
Mr President, Commissioner, the Parliament and Council directive on the internal electricity market - which of course arose out of a Commission initiative, and represents so much work by our colleague Mr Desama - clearly recognizes, in two points, the importance of renewable energy sources. In one of these points, it clearly says that the Member States can demand that network operators give priority to installations which generate electricity using renewable energy sources.
<P>
Mrs Rothe's second, excellent report is along the same lines.
It refers to the Commission White Paper, just as the Green Paper was referred to before. We can only give it our most enthusiastic support.
<P>
Since time is short, allow me just to underline paragraph 40, which calls upon the relevant authorities to prepare what the text refers to as a treaty on renewable energies, EURENEW, which combines the European acronym with the English word "renew' .
<P>
If, as I expect, Mrs McNally's amendment is accepted, I dare say we shall talk not about a treaty, but at least about a charter.
We have the example of the European Energy Charter, which was inspired by special circumstances, in Eastern Europe. Now we have another set of special circumstances: moving from the potential to the actual, and turning the new challenge presented by renewable energy into valid legal documents.
So I have little to say on this.
<P>
I also want to mention Mr Linkohr's initiative, very briefly because time is short.
I think it is an excellent initiative, although I must also admit that it provokes some negative reactions. My colleagues who have yet to speak will not fail to mention that.
Not because of the principle, Mrs McNally, not because we want to relinquish our rights, but because of the content of some of the provisions which, to my mind, suggest that this document should be considered further and subjected to a better analysis within the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy. Otherwise, there is a serious risk that this important document may be rejected and fail to obtain enough votes in this House.
That, Mr President, would be a great pity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=282 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel.">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I would like to congratulate both rapporteurs, Mrs Rothe and Mr Linkohr, for their reports which contain many recommendations for stimulating the use of renewable energy.
<P>
Our future energy supply must be based on renewable sources of energy.
Renewable sources of energy that generate electricity should be given preferential development.
Rules for supplying such energy to the grids are also part of this issue.
<P>
My group welcomes Mr Linkohr's initiative for a directive on the supply of electricity from renewable energy sources to the electricity grid.
But we are facing a classic dilemma.
On the one hand it is an excellent signal to the Commission and the Member States to make proposals in this sphere.
But on the other hand, the proposed regulation in the annex is too detailed and, in my group's opinion, not always in keeping with the principle of subsidiarity.
Overregulation does not belong in a liberalized energy market.
<P>
In conclusion I therefore say to you that we will vote in favour of the legislative resolution, but unfortunately, we are not able to support the proposals in the annex.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=283 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the idea that increasing the use of renewable energy sources is also a security policy.
EU dependence on imported energy is growing.
In twenty years time 94 % of our oil, 80 % of our coal and 75 % of our natural gas will be imported from parts of the world which are very often unstable.
This also speaks in favour of the increased use of renewable energy resources.
<P>
We see, however, a conflict between worthy aims and insufficient means.
It is quite clear that at the present rate the 15 % share for renewable energy is not going to be achieved, and it will not be possible either to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 8 % by the year 2012.
There is a particularly clear contradiction, as has been said here, between the White Paper and Agenda 2000.
That is that the increased use of biomasses is, above all else, a matter of agricultural policy and not energy policy.
I myself would prefer to have the heat from the sun and the heat from the earth.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=284 NAME="Ahern">
Mr President, renewable energy has been something of a lame duck in the Community.
We talk about it but we do not use it.
The practical effects of our past proposals have been rather small.
Even in the buildings of the European Union and the Parliament there is no real attempt to incorporate renewable energies in a serious manner.
The White Paper could become a point of change and I thank the Commission for their initiative in this way and also the excellent reports of Mrs Rothe and Mr Linkohr which make practical proposals for change.
<P>
We could be about to really influence the energy agenda for the year 2000 and Mr Linkohr's proposal for the right of access for renewables to the electricity network is crucial.
For electricity production the introduction of a Community-wide law on inputs to the grid is a most important step.
Throughout Europe, inputting electricity at specific prices is an instrument for gradually dealing with the centralised structure through secure access to the market for decentralised electricity production from renewable sources.
<P>
Mrs Rothe's report also has excellent practical proposals and although the Commission's targets are extremely modest given what is technically feasible it is the actual implementation of even modest targets that must be our first objective if we are to achieve anything real.
Campaigns such as the one million roofs, the one hundred solar communities and the golden sun awards are visionary ways of making renewables real to people on the ground and I know that they will be very interesting if we can actually pursue them in a practical way.
<P>
One of the sectors of the European Union with a high percentage of CO2 emissions is the construction sector, and technological decisions in the construction sector have a long-term effect on the emission rates of all our Member States.
The attention that we must pay to buildings but are not yet paying is a crucial aspect of these reports and I recommend the practical effects of those to all of us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=285 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wéber">
Mr President, as I mentioned during the discussions on the ALTENER II project, Luxembourg already has a supply system, that is, a guarantee on the part of the State regarding the price of electricity from alternative energy sources.
Whilst congratulating Mrs Rothe and Mr Linkohr on their report, I would like to speak about an ongoing technical problem, that is, the fact that access rights to the grid for a guaranteed minimum remuneration is not sufficient.
Often, landowners are not willing to make their land available to the management of a renewable energy system - windmills, for example - to enable the windmills to be hooked up to the nearest distribution station.
<P>
What can be done?
We must base the principle of the public utility of alternative energy production firmly in national legislation, which would enable the expropriation of land from owners opposed to these forms of electricity crossing their lands.
We know very well that the nuclear industry is a strong lobbyist, particularly with regard to the cultural associations, and particularly in my country.
We will put an obstacle in the path of this lobbying in order to offer a true opportunity to wind energy.
<P>
This said, Mr President, I will conclude by insisting on the fact that the Commission should truly establish the principle of public utility.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=286 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Velzen, W.G.">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to thank the rapporteur for this own-initiative report.
The Group of the European People's Party warmly supports the supply of renewable energy to the existing electricity network.
The rapporteur has taken the trouble to delve deeply into the practices of various Member States, and, on the basis of this, has developed a concept directive.
<P>
Nevertheless, Mr President, we unfortunately have some fundamental objections to the way this draft directive was worked out in the annex.
Firstly, it is debatable whether this Parliament should take the place of the Commission by working out a directive in such detail, which in fact has to be drafted by the Commission.
My group would have preferred a report that did no more than formulate general principles, leaving the Commission the space to interpret the directive on the basis of consultation with the Member States. This leaves more scope to take into account subsidiarity and the introduction variants and routes taken by various Member States.
<P>
As an example I would like to mention that the rapporteur is thinking in terms of two main models which exist in Member States.
The Dutch model of 'green certificates', which allows much more space to the energy partners to express their own responsibility, is at loggerheads with this regulation.
Amendment No 1, submitted by Mrs McNally, does not resolve this issue.
This example shows that the draft directive has not quite taken shape.
<P>
Secondly, there is a profusion of regulations.
We believe that this is the wrong signal to give to the increasingly liberal energy market.
We believe another mixture of instruments could be applied, namely mechanisms such as price, the development of an energy stock market, a buy-back obligation, as well as education.
We think it is particularly regrettable that the instrument of regulation was opted for.
<P>
Let there be no misunderstanding: the PPE Group shares the intentions of the rapporteur completely, but disagrees for reasons of principle with the details.
That is why, with much regret, my group will not support the annex to his proposal.
I ask the rapporteur to refer his report back to the Commission so that a better and wider consensus can be achieved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=287 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Desama">
Mr President, the whole debate on energy now centres on two issues.
The first is the notion of guaranteed supplies, which is necessarily undergoing major developments.
The second is clearly the climatic consequences of energy.
<P>
This was the issue at Rio and Kyoto.
Faced with the issue of climate, there are obviously alternatives to fossil fuels.
The two alternatives are, on the one hand, nuclear energy - whether you are in favour or not, it is an essential answer to the problem - and, on the other hand, renewable energy sources whose only handicaps are that they are far from having reached the same degree of maturity as nuclear energy and that they raise a certain number of problems on an economic level for those who invest in the sector.
<P>
Faced with these difficulties, how can the share of renewable energy sources be increased, a share which we know will, in any case, remain a modest one?
On the one hand, we can put our trust in the market, by telling ourselves that the internal market for energy has been liberalized. Yet we know very well that it will take a very long time for the market for renewable energy to truly gain a foothold.
A completely voluntarist action is thus required, and this is what makes Mr Linkohr's initiative interesting, despite the objections which can be raised on one or other aspect of his proposal. Mr Linkohr has in fact put the problem very bluntly and has gone one step further than the previous excellent reports, the most recent of which was the report by Mrs Rothe.

<P>
To hide behind the complexity of the problem as the Group of the European People's Party is doing by not voting for the Linkohr report is quite a puzzling attitude. It amounts to depriving oneself of the right of initiative which is recognized within the Treaties.
Consequently, we cannot accept this view.
I believe we should vote for Mr Linkohr's report.
We must do this in order to give the Commission an effective way of proposing a whole range of actions in favour of renewable energies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=288 NAME="Adam">
Mr President, renewable energy is essentially about producing electricity.
We have a conceptual problem in understanding the demand for electricity in our society and how it is growing; and indeed, how much electricity comes out of a conventional power station.
An extraordinary statistic is that if you took all the wind-farms in the world and put them in the United Kingdom they would still only provide 10 % of the United Kingdom's electricity demand.
That gives you a perception of how far we have to go in promoting renewable energies.
<P>
There are three essential points.
Firstly, we need to clear the way for planning permissions.
In the United Kingdom planning permissions, perhaps more than anything else, are holding back the development of renewables.
We need also, as the Linkohr report says, to have access to the grid and perhaps even to make sure that the grid is near to where we want the renewable energies to be.
There is sometimes a problem in the geographical locations: wind energy, for instance, is very often in areas where there are no grid connections in the first place.
So we have problems in that regard.
<P>
Linking all this together is the need to find a mechanism for giving financial support while these energies grow - a mechanism which is not just open-ended but also has within it an element of competition which will eventually help to drive down costs.
We have seen evidence of that being possible.
I hope that as a result of these debates - and I know that we have all got reservations about the detail - the Commission will come forward with a proposal which will help us to move into an era where renewable energies will provide more of our electricity supply.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=289 NAME="Papoutsis">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first of all like to congratulate both rapporteurs, Mrs Rothe and Mr Linkohr, on their splendid work.
It is true to say that both reports make a substantial contribution to the debate on promoting the use of renewable energy sources.
Their views indeed enrich not only the proposals that have already been put forward, but also those that we are now preparing.
<P>
During the preparation of the White Paper the Commission made every possible effort to take into consideration the 1997 resolution of Parliament concerning the Green Paper on renewable energy sources.
As a result, the White Paper essentially expresses in large measure the positions of the European Parliament.
<P>
We have now set in motion the review of all existing programmes and actions for the promotion of renewable energy sources at the level of the Member States and, of course, at a Community level.
I have to say that, further to the White Paper, we have been briefed on the development of a series of national action programmes for the promotion of renewable energy sources.
It is clear that the considerable effort that we are urging Member States to make over the next decade has already begun to take on a specific shape.
Nevertheless, there is still a great need and much scope for further action.
And, of course, there can no longer be any excuse for inaction, in view of the pledges made at Kyoto.
<P>
In this context, I would also like to express my satisfaction at the endorsement given by the European Parliament to the ALTENER programme.
I also wish to inform you that the ALTENER programme came into force with the recent Council decision of 18 May.
<P>
The Rothe report contains a number of constructive proposals.
First of all I wish to assure you that we are making every effort to complete the examination of existing programmes and measures throughout the whole of the European Union within the current year.
<P>
With regard to the campaign for the take-off of renewable sources, we, in the Commission, are at the stage of planning measures in various sectors and we are also preparing the necessary activities for the purpose of information and dissemination.
More specifically, with regard to buildings, we will examine construction legislation, with a view to incorporating provisions in favour of renewable energy sources, especially solar thermal power.
<P>
In order to promote the reduction of CO2 emissions from coal we will encourage the joint use of renewable energy sources and the conserving of energy in buildings.
We are also studying the way in which we can promote more fundamentally the penetration into the market of the use of solar thermal power and, especially, photovoltaics.
In addition, in order to diffuse good practices, we are studying, inter alia, the inauguration of awards as well as the carrying out of other actions that are proposed in the campaign for take-off.
<P>
With regard to the issue of the promotion of renewable energy sources via other Community policies, we are studying how we can make better use of the continuing reform of the Structural Funds and the common agricultural policy, as well as the policy of energy production.
More especially indeed, within the framework of the European Commission proposal for the regulation of the European Fund for Regional Development, in Article 2, which lays down all the sectors which will be funded as a priority in the next financing round, the growth of renewable energy sources is categorically referred to as one of the basic priorities.
And I believe that this is the basis for the allocation of considerable resources, while at the same time fully abiding by the principle of subsidiarity, as shaped by the Community frameworks to support renewable energy sources.
<P>
In addition, issues related to the financing of actions in the sector of renewable energy sources via various other Community programmes will, I believe, be tackled during negotiations - and also during the budget procedure - which are expected to take place within the next few years.
I hope that the European Parliament will give special priority to renewable energy sources in the context of its own role, in relation, of course, to the budget.
<P>
With the regular progress reports and follow-up reports which are envisaged in the action plan, we hope to ensure that the defined objectives are better realized and that they are suitably adapted as necessary.
Of course there will always be the possibility of discussing the progress of the penetration of renewable energy sources with all the interested bodies and of course with the European Council throughout the entire twelve-year period during which this strategy will be implemented.
Of course the action plan will be amended following recommendations whenever this is expedient.
<P>
Turning now to the Linkohr report, I have to say that the Commission agrees with the conviction of the European Parliament that the right of access of renewable energy sources to the electricity market is of decisive importance, especially with regard to our objective of doubling the share of renewable energy sources in the energy balance by the year 2010.
Last March the Commission submitted its first report on demands for harmonization, which are provided for in the directive for the electricity market.
This report focuses almost exclusively on the matter of renewable energy sources and underlines the fundamental issues which must be examined during the preparatory stage.
The Commission is continuing its analysis of the way in which all possible obstacles can be overcome, in view of the developing situation in the Member States.
<P>
The aim of the Commission is, by the end of the current year, to submit a motion for a resolution for joint rules concerning the electricity produced by renewable energy sources.
This motion for a resolution must, on the one hand, give a powerful boost to the production of electricity from renewable energy sources and, on the other, ensure a harmonized approach within the Community.
<P>
I also wish to thank Mr Linkohr for his detailed and reliable advice.
His report will be of help to us, especially during the phase in which we find ourselves today, that is, the preparatory phase of our proposals on this very issue.
<P>
With the Rothe and Linkohr reports the European Parliament is continuing to provide sustained support and advice for the promotion of renewable energy sources.
Once again I wish to thank you and to assure you that the European Commission regards the promotion of renewable energy sources as one of the chief energy and environmental priorities for the immediate future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=290 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=14>
Counterfeit and pirated goods
<SPEAKER ID=291 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0223/98) by Mr Valdivielso de Cué, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 3295/94 laying down measures to prohibit the release for free circulation, export, re-export or entry for a suspensive procedure of counterfeit and pirated goods (COM(1998)0025 - C4-0159/98-98/0018(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=292 NAME="Valdivielso de Cué">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, bad ways, profit and the human condition in general often lead us down certain dark alleyways, which are easier and more profitable than the legally established routes, in order to satisfy our desires to get rich quick.
<P>
That is the general basis of my report: the establishment of measures designed to prevent certain types of activity, such as the illegal use of trade marks, or the manufacture or marketing of pirated goods. Such practices are very widespread, although that does not make them any less illegal.
<P>
I would like to give a brief definition of counterfeit and pirated goods.
<P>
"Counterfeit goods' means goods, including the packaging thereof, bearing without authorization a trade mark which is identical to the trade mark validly registered in respect of the same type of goods.
<P>
"Pirated goods' means goods which are or embody copies made without the consent of the holder of the copyright or neighbouring rights in relation to a design or model.
<P>
Moving on to the report proper, I should point out that it mentions the importance of the problem, underlining the macroeconomic and sectoral impact and subsequent social consequences of the phenomena of counterfeiting and pirating.
<P>
This impact is very difficult to measure.
Nevertheless, I felt it appropriate to request the Commission to make increased efforts to assess the monitoring and repercussions which may follow the entry into force of this Council regulation, and subsequently to communicate them to the parties concerned.
<P>
The Commission has proposed introducing into the new regulation a series of proposals which substantially modify the earlier regulation currently in force.
<P>
Among the most significant proposals, we underline extending the regulation to a new intellectual property right, such as certain patented inventions, which constitute an essential aspect of intellectual property and occupy a very important place among all the means available to protect innovation. Such protection is essential, given that this coverage provides a suitable framework for the investment in research and development which is so important for the development and competitiveness of European products in the face of international competition.
<P>
Customs services are also being given the chance to intervene in new customs statuses: goods in a free zone or warehouse and goods under customs supervision.
The regulation is also being adjusted to take account of the introduction of the Community trade mark, so that the right holder will be able to lodge a single application for customs protection, instead of the fifteen currently required to cover the whole of the territory of the Union.
<P>
So those are the most important new features included in the modification of the regulation.
In addition, the European Commission - which I would like to congratulate on what I think is a good piece of work - held a series of meetings and discussions with different business and pressure groups who had certain aspirations they wanted the new regulation to meet.
In that respect, the Committee on External Economic Relations has stated its opinion on the following matters. With respect to the controversial question of non-commercial imports in travellers' personal luggage, two amendments aimed at restricting this sort of situation were rejected in that committee.
<P>
The European Commission considers that, within the ECU 175 limit, imports of a non-commercial nature are permitted.
In my opinion, this matter raises a basic problem. It is probably illegal but, nevertheless, is provided for de facto by this regulation.
Even so, the European Commission feels that this relative permissiveness has the effect of favouring small-scale trade and promoting tourism.
<P>
The problem of Community harmonization of the penalties which Member States are obliged to impose has become a very difficult problem, mainly due to the coexistence of different legal systems and traditions in the various Member States.
In any case, the report states that such penalties must be effective and proportionate and constitute an effective deterrent.
<P>
Finally, I should like to mention and stress the importance I have tried to give in the report to the possible non-commercial disposal of confiscated goods.
In a world in which millions of people live in conditions of extreme poverty and need, I hope Parliament will be understanding and give its support.
It is absolutely outrageous to destroy these confiscated goods, rather than try to find a non-commercial way to dispose of them and go some small way towards meeting some of the needs of those people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=293 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I would like to start by congratulating Mr Valdivielso on his report.
The problem of piracy and counterfeit goods is very real and a threat to European industry.
Companies are not only disadvantaged in their sales to the European market, they also do not get a chance to expand their export to developing countries. The market in the developing countries is contaminated, we can safely say flooded, with counterfeit goods.
I saw this once again for myself in Indonesia not so long ago.
The problem is extremely acute for digital products.
Given the state of technology it is almost impossible these days for consumers to judge from the quality of the product whether or not it is authentic.
<P>
Mr President, my group is pleased with the inclusion of patents in the scope of the regulation, but is worried about control. Who should carry out controls and where?
Customs officials?
Will they be trained to do so?
Ladies and gentlemen, trade flows should not start to take a different course on account of differences in customs control.
My group's question to the Commission is therefore: how does the Commission intend to guarantee uniformity of border controls on this issue, in particular in those places where, after enlargement, the European external borders will be monitored by customs officials from a different legal tradition, who are a long way from fully integrating European legislation.
<P>
In conclusion, parallel imports should not and cannot be prohibited.
This is not a solution.
The internal market should not be hindered by protectionism.
The free movement of goods provides healthy competition, and that is good for the consumer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=294 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Linser">
Mr President, the protection of material and intellectual property is immovably enshrined in our legal system.
This control is of immense value not only to the individual, but especially to the economy.
The protection of property includes the protection of patents on inventions, guaranteeing the viability of research and development.
The dismantling of internal borders makes customs points for traffic with third countries the last instance of control to prevent the infringement of property rights by means of the import or export of illegal, counterfeit goods.
<P>
However, for this protection to be effective, water-tight pan-European standards of security need to be in place to prevent illegally produced counterfeits from reaching the European market through weak links in the chain - in other words, countries known to have less rigorous customs arrangements.
Thus, we challenge the Commission to scrutinize the customs points of all such Member States very carefully and ensure that they guarantee a sufficiently high standard of security to do justice to the importance of protecting intellectual and material property.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=295 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Ferrer">
Mr President, there can be no doubt that European companies have had to undergo far-reaching reorganizations in order successfully to meet the challenges of an increasingly competitive and open economy.
<P>
Nevertheless, these efforts alone are not enough.
It is also essential, among other measures, to establish a legal framework which guarantees respect for the rules which govern the world of commerce.
<P>
In this context, we should welcome the Commission's proposal to amend the regulation on trade in counterfeit and pirated goods. The aim of this amendment is to extend the scope of the regulation and adjust it to developments in Community rules on intellectual property rights.
<P>
Faced with competition from third countries - especially emerging economies, whose low labour costs make it very difficult to compete with them - it is essential to combat the falsification of trade marks, designs and models, and to protect intellectual property, given that the main competitive advantages of European industry are product quality and, especially, creative ability.
<P>
That is why the Commission's text represents such an opportunity. It proposes to suspend customs operations in cases where the goods concerned are suspected of being counterfeit or pirated goods covered by an intellectual property right, at the request of the right holder.
And that, in turn, is why the Commission needs to accept the amendments contained in the Valdivielso de Cué report, insofar as those proposals will help to guarantee respect for international trade rules in matters of intellectual property, and will make it possible to combat commercial practices which cause serious harm to European companies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=296 NAME="Papoutsis">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the support of the European Parliament for the Commission proposal clearly demonstrates the desire of all of us to fight hard against fraudulent imports in the context of lawful and balanced competition.
<P>
First of all I would like to thank all of you and especially your rapporteur, Mr Valdivielso de Cué, as well as the Committee on External Economic Relations for the thorough and detailed work which has been completed in a very short space of time.
I am especially delighted with this report, as it is being presented today, because it is necessary to give Parliament the opportunity to express its view on the three basic innovations in this text.
And here I am referring, first of all, to the broadening of the scope of the provision on customs protection to include certain patents.
I am also referring to extending the regulation to include all goods which are held under customs supervision and, finally, I am referring to the institution of a procedure to lodge a single application, which will be valid for all Member States, for the benefit of the validly registered Community trade marks.
<P>
With regard to the question put to me by Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, I would like to say that in fact the Commission is coordinating an effort on the part of Member States to train customs officials in respect of the unified application of control measures.
We believe that, in the future, in the next few years, and with a view of course to enlargement, we will have achieved the widest and best possible training of customs officials.
<P>
The proposed amendments naturally take account of the Commission objective, which consists in strengthening the possibilities of effecting controls along the external borders of the Community.
However, the Commission, more for technical than for political reasons, cannot adopt all of the proposed amendments.
The Commission is able to adopt Amendment No 6 without any reservation whatsoever.
It cannot adopt Amendments Nos 4 and 5 for the simple reason that they go against certain amendments of a structural nature.
Indeed, the position of Amendment No 4 on the text of the regulation should have been different and the Commission could then adopt it because there is such an agreement.
In addition, with regard to Amendment No 5, the exemption from control of medicines whose compatibility with the legislation relating to patents has already been proved, which the European Commission approves, could be framed with greater precision.
However, the Commission cannot adopt Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3 and 7.
It cannot adopt Amendment No 1, as the fee must be proportionate to the cost of the service provided, since by its very nature this cost varies from Member State to Member State according to the size of the means that must be mobilized.
The Commission cannot adopt Amendment No 2, as the security that the customs authorities may require is used to cover their responsibility in the case of goods held unjustifiably.
Given that this is a national responsibility it is not necessary for the security to be obligatory, since the public authorities must at all events always be regarded as reliable.
Nor can the Commission adopt Amendment No 3, as the compensation of the holder of the goods, the details of which fall within the sphere of the law of each Member State, is always considered to be in full.
Finally, the Commission cannot adopt Amendment No 7, since, in practice, experience has shown that the data obtained in the context of the implementation of the regulation do not offer the possibility of an analysis being undertaken of the kind envisaged in the amendment in question.
The results of the operation of such an instrument, which are obtained by the Customs Union, are measurable and the Commission analyses them in detail in the report it has presented to you.
<P>
The phenomenon of the irregular exploitation of intellectual property, the roots of this phenomenon and all of its repercussions are themselves a different issue, which goes well beyond the scope of the present regulation.
<P>
In closing, once again I wish to thank your rapporteur and, of course, all who have contributed to this work today during the presentation and examination of this directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=297 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=15>
Second WTO ministerial conference
<SPEAKER ID=298 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on the Commission announcement on the conclusions reached at the second WTO ministerial conference from 18 to 20 May 1998 in Geneva.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=299 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
Mr President, between 18 and 20 May I led the European Commission delegation to the ministerial conference of the WTO which was held in conjunction with the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of GATT, the WTO's predecessor.
President Santer represented the European Union, together with many Heads of State from around the world.
<P>
Both the ministerial conference and the 50th anniversary commemoration were successful.
There was recognition, rightly, that the GATT system has made a tremendous contribution to the growth of employment and economic stability over the past 50 years and the participation by so many countries in that system and the fact that over 30 additional ones are keenly awaiting membership is a clear reflection of that recognition.
<P>
There was also recognition that in today's global economy further trade liberalization within the rule-based system of the WTO is the surest way to maintain and spread that prosperity.
Those messages in favour of the WTO system were expressed by virtually all countries at the conference, both developed and developing.
<P>
On 20 May the conference adopted a ministerial declaration which encourages and enables us to work to achieve the objective of further trade liberalization as a means to secure greater prosperity and stability.
The conference reiterated the importance of all WTO members fully implementing their obligations under the WTO which all WTO members are clearly committed to.
The European Community, for its part, expressed its view that by and large implementation of the Uruguay Round has been proceeding well but where an individual country is having difficulties, we are ready to provide technical assistance to ensure that implementation proceeds properly.
That pledge was welcomed by some of the lesser developed countries.
<P>
Secondly, the ministerial declaration inaugurates a process to prepare the ground for a decision to be taken at next year's conference in the United States on further multilateral liberalization.
That process, the work programme that has been set up, does not pre-empt next year's decisions but makes it possible to take ambitious decisions next year if, as I hope, we decide to do so.
The process we authorized will respect existing timetables but also allow work where necessary to be intensified so that all the elements are in place for decision-making next year.
<P>
We hope that a decision will be taken next year to launch a comprehensive new round of negotiations - the millennium round - which would cover not only the subjects already agreed to be negotiated, such as agriculture and services, but other areas and sectors of importance to European industry and business, such as industrial tariffs, investment and competition rules, government procurement and so on.
It is the view of the European Union that our economy would greatly benefit from agreements in those fields and I believe that is in the interests not only of our industrialized partners but of developing countries too.
<P>
I took pains to explain during the ministerial conference why a new round would be the right way forward and perhaps it is worth referring to the arguments today.
Firstly, it is only through a comprehensive approach that all sectors and interests can be confident that their particular concerns will be covered in the negotiations.
Without a comprehensive round, there is a risk of certain sectors and legitimate areas for future work being left to one side.
With a round the agenda-setting process is far more wide-ranging and there will be far more options for ultimate decisions than would be the case if a narrower, sectoral approach were pursued.
<P>
Secondly, this comprehensive approach means that the built-in agenda, the Singapore work programme, and new items, too, can be discussed.
A round also involves the so-called single undertaking approach whereby, as in previous rounds, all participants must accept the whole outcome of the negotiations, not just pick-and-choose.
That means that issues which are difficult for some but important for others cannot be blocked in isolation.
That is the key to a successful outcome.
<P>
Finally, a comprehensive round implies a single end date which attracts strong political attention at the highest level within member governments and thereby brings pressures to bear to conclude negotiations in time.
<P>
At the ministerial conference there was considerable support for our approach and it is very significant that President Clinton was careful not to rule out such an approach and Mrs Barshefsky also indicated that work could be done which would enable such an approach to be pursued if a decision was taken next year to that effect.
Of course our ideas do not yet command universal support and I hope that the consensus-building process will continue in such a way to enable an agreement to be reached to that effect next year.
That is what we will be working towards.
<P>
In making the case for further trade expansion and liberalization we must explain clearly to our respective electorates the importance of trade liberalization for promoting growth and creating jobs.
We have to demonstrate to all interested groups the benefits flowing from that and we must show that trade and other legitimate public policy concerns, for example those relating to the environment, are not mutually incompatible but could instead work to mutual advantage.
<P>
At the ministerial meeting I stated my belief that we need to tackle head-on the criticism that trade is necessarily disruptive of the environment.
A determined effort to resolve some of the difficult trade and environment issues would go a long way towards reassuring public opinion.
And this call drew support, notably from President Clinton, for our idea of a high-level meeting as the way to take this forward.
<P>
The Ministerial Declaration reflects the recognition that we have to persuade broader civil society as we carry out our work in the WTO and we have to find new ways to engage representatives of civil society in the process.
We have to demonstrate to them the benefits of the system to ensure that it remains transparent, and we have to listen to their concerns.
The Community has been very much in the vanguard of calls for this kind of approach.
<P>
Before concluding I should refer to the resolution of the European Parliament regarding the outcome of the Ministerial Conference.
I welcome the resolution and can agree with much of it.
It rightly notes the enormous positive contribution of the GATT over the last 50 years and the achievements of the multilateral system in general.
It also reflects the support of Parliament for continued multilateral liberalization, a message which we welcome and intend to take forward as we prepare for the new round.
<P>
Parliament also raises some legitimate concerns about the need to ensure that developing countries fully benefit from the WTO system.
I do not share the view that the WTO has benefited only the industrialized countries, but I am the first to recognize that we should continue to make all possible efforts to ensure that further liberalization continues to benefit the poorer members.
<P>
The resolution also - and I welcome this - stresses the importance of better integrating environmental and other issues in WTO work and increased dialogue on the WTO with our various social partners.
<P>
Parliament has, finally, made some observations on the recent agreement over the Helms-Burton Act reached with the United States.
I do not agree with Members on that.
The settlement was unquestionably a good result for the European Community and in no way detracts from our longer-term objective of seeing those laws repealed.
It is good for Europe because it will permit our countries to invest in Cuba and Iran, but it also includes a strong commitment from the American administration to resist future attempts at extraterritorial measures.
It is entirely consistent with the spirit of the WTO whose rules expressly encourage settlement of differences through bilateral means.
And, of course, if the Americans do not honour their commitments - which I have no reason to believe would be the case - we will reserve the right to return to the WTO dispute settlement, as we can do.
<P>
I should like, finally, to place on record my appreciation of the participation of Members of the European Parliament at the conference.
Their participation was welcome and effective.
I look forward to a similarly close association with Parliament in the coming months as we prepare for the Third Ministerial Conference.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=300 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Elchlepp">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner - the ministerial conference in Geneva could not, of course, answer all the many open questions concerning sensible ongoing development for the WTO.
I am thinking of adherence to social standards and the reduction of adverse impact on the environment due to manufacturing, as well as involvement in the current negotiations on multilateral investment accords of developing countries not actually represented in the OECD.
A corresponding WTO code of conduct for multi-national firms would thus be worth advocating. Such a code would give clarity, providing international terms of reference.
In order to permit the undisputed benefits of world-wide trade to become a tangible reality to as many people as possible - not only shareholders and big companies - we must continue to work intensively, within the framework of the WTO, with the consequences and by-products of world trade as they affect national distribution of prosperity.
If this is not tackled, free trade will be discredited altogether and the advances in prosperity achieved thus far through the WTO will melt away.
<P>
However, one positive outcome of the WTO ministerial conference is that, in the face of increasing uncertainty among international economic players as a result of the crisis in Asia, it confirmed the need to keep the multilateral liberalization of world trade on course.
Nevertheless, this liberalization is not an end in itself.
As the ministerial declaration stated, it must benefit all concerned.
Unfortunately, that is not yet strictly speaking the case, because, at the end of the day, the undertakings made at the Singapore summit and reiterated at the 1997 high level meeting in Geneva - to facilitate market access for the least developed countries - must be put into practice by all WTO members.
The EU has taken a step in the right direction by harmonizing market access conditions to include those non-ACP nations that are among the world's least developed countries.
<P>
Of course, the least developed countries must take action themselves to drive world market integration and internal growth forward step by step through economic diversification.
In many cases, this necessitates new thinking on the part of those in positions of leadership; that has to be stated clearly.
Today, the balance of payments in many developing countries is weighted not only by debt, as addressed in the ministerial declaration, but also by other factors, for example, keeping to traditional energy imports.
<P>
Thus, for example, we need to build up genuine cooperation between the EU and developing countries in the energy sector in order to give developing countries and third countries alike the possibility of developing their own alternative energy production under their own steam.
The House has already addressed this in detail earlier this evening in a different context.
<P>
All in all, I would like to use this report as an opportunity to point out that the European Parliament needs to make its voice heard more audibly regarding the future of world trade policy if it is to follow government cooperation more critically in this area; in terms of employment policy, this is very important.
It is my impression that at the national level, this area tends to get lost in the slipstream of debate on domestic policy.
<P>
Sir Leon Brittan, we really appreciate that you yourself have always been prepared to appear before the Committee on External Economic Relations to report on current development in the WTO.
However, what we need is formal Parliamentary participation in WTO matters; we particularly need written annual reports on the activities of the Commission in this area.
That would be very much appreciated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=301 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kittelmann">
Mr President, first of all I would like to say a belated "good morning' .
I am pleased to see, Sir Leon, that you have taken the opportunity to make a statement when, due to pressure of time, we can neither reply to what you have said nor even really go into it.
I am pleased about the appraisal of the work of the European Parliament, the resolution and your gratitude for our presence in Geneva.
I can guarantee that we will continue to push for collaboration and we are grateful for the small measure of cooperation.
<P>
Naturally, at the start of the round in Geneva, the emphasis was more on celebration and proclamation, because 50 years of GATT was indeed reason enough to celebrate.
It was a look back at a time of success.
We focus on what we have achieved so that criticism of what has not yet been done will be made relative.
<P>
As the European Parliament, we should have had higher expectations; we should have urged the Commission and the Council not to let the USA have precedence alone.
However, we also know that European Parliament criticism of the fact that not much has been achieved in terms of trade, the environment and social norms is largely down to the developing countries themselves quite understandably dragging their heels on these issues.
We should also take care not to overburden ourselves with our own demands so that what we hope to achieve will remain credible.
<P>
The previous speaker said he expected more demands by the European Parliament.
I would say, conversely: in the decisions, the hearing and many other things we have had a part in, our expectations have often gone beyond the realms of possibility for what could be implemented at the time; however, I may be wrong here.
<P>
Sir Leon, I am pleased that we will be having another round in New York. The Commission is assuming that it will have to be a major round.
The Commission must not limit itself.
It must ensure that everything is addressed.
Commissioner, with that as a policy, you can count on the support of the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=302 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Mr President, the WTO ministerial conference in Geneva was no pièce de résistance !
Even a born optimist like Sir Leon Brittan could only describe it as "relatively successful' .
Its reception in the press was even clearer.
The non-event in Geneva got to the heart of the matter: 50 years after the establishment of the GATT system, there is no reason to celebrate.
Global disparities have worsened.
The poor countries have become poorer, in many areas the environment is on the brink of collapse, advances in workers' rights are being dismantled.
<P>
Instead of continuing to carry liberalization to extremes, it should principally be a question of evaluating the years that have gone by.
What has gone wrong when the developing countries are losing even more of their share of trade?
What is wrong when WTO panels routinely rule contrary to the interests of the environment and humans?
We do not need trade in genetically modified food to be liberalized; we need some mechanism to protect us from it!
The WTO is in need of constitutional reform!
Trading in products manufactured under harmful conditions must no longer be forced through by a panel.
In concrete terms, Sir Leon Brittan, are you prepared to press for Article 20 of the GATT to be amended?
<P>
There is another matter of great importance: we need transparency.
Today, the EU requires good government on the part of third countries before development aid can be granted.
We are demanding good government of the WTO.
Very importantly - and also for the Greek government - we demand good government on the part of our own governments before we enter into a new round of negotiations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=303 NAME="Newens">
Mr President, it is always argued that an increase in global trade engendered by the removal of trade barriers is a means of achieving greater prosperity and higher living standards for all.
Labour standards ought therefore to be our concern.
I wish to urge most strongly that the WTO collaborate in full with the International Labour Organization to ensure that core labour standards are observed as was recommended in the final declaration of the 1996 Singapore Summit.
Developing countries should implement the ILO Convention to achieve a level playing field and to carry on the struggle against world poverty.
<P>
The second issue I wish to raise is that of Cuba and the Helms-Burton Act.
I believe, despite the Commissioner's assurance, that it was a mistake for the European Union to have agreed to the winding-up of the WTO panel which was established to deal with the objections to the Helms-Burton Act in return for the agreement of 18 May between the European Union and the USA, as it appears to accept an element of the extraterritorial validity of US law.
As I understand it, provided that there is a waiver of Titles 3 and 4 of the Helms-Burton Act, the European Union will cooperate in establishing a registry of alleged expropriated properties and will withhold public support from, and discourage investment in, such properties in future by its Member States or its citizens.
It seems unlikely, despite the Commissioner's optimism, that the United States Congress will agree to waivers of Titles 3 and 4 without any change of political control, if one takes into account the statements of Jesse Helms.
<P>
I welcome the Commissioner's statement that we shall return to the WTO panel if necessary.
If, however, the waivers were agreed, would it really be compatible with the principles of the WTO for the European Union to accept the idea of withholding public support for investments in Cuba and discouraging companies from investing?
Would an agreement to do this override agreements between Cuba and individual European Union Member States and be enforceable in the European Court?
Is no account taken of the fact that unlike other states the United States has not attempted to reach an agreement on compensation for properties which were nationalized?
And why should the European Union agree in these circumstances to abide by an agreement which in so far as it accepts the idea of withholding support for investment in expropriated properties goes along with an element of the Helms-Burton Act?
<P>
By taking some action to secure a kind of out-of-court settlement, it seems that the European Union has made concessions not compatible with the principle of the WTO.
I would be most grateful if the Commissioner could comment on these issues and clarify the situation, particularly with regard to trade with Cuba.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=304 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Castellina">
Mr President, Commissioner, I certainly do not want to begin a discussion at this time on the fate of the World Trade Organization, but I would like everyone to know my opinion, which is not an enthusiastic opinion on this conference and on the function carried out by this body.
The idea was that by liberalizing trade we would overcome the damage caused by protectionism before the war, and this would bring prosperity and jobs.
It was no coincidence - I always point this out because it seems significant to me - that the title of the first conference in Havana was 'Trade and Employment' : employment was one of the objectives.
Things did not turn out that way.
The Havana Charter never came into force because the United States never ratified it, and all the measures that had been provided for to accompany the liberalization of trade with the necessary measures for development were never adopted.
Today, all we have left is free trade which has produced serious tensions, including in Geneva.
We need only think, for example, of the malaise that pervades UNCTAD.
<P>
The liberalization of trade does not create free markets but often amplifies imbalances because it gives the strongest greater freedom to rule.
I think that we should give considerable thought to all these issues before the third millennium round gets under way.
<P>
I would like to make a final observation regarding the Helms-Burton law which, Commissioner, we have discussed many times.
I do not know whether the Americans will manage to stick to the commitments made, I have my doubts.
Already it seems to me that the Europeans have accepted commitments not to invest in nationalized property in Cuba - and virtually all property is - and these seem to be serious commitments to me.
You yourself, Commissioner, heard, like I did in Geneva, President Cardoso of Brazil complain because non-European countries are naturally excluded from all agreements.
I do not think it a very handsome sight to see Europe play a universal role, protecting its own firms and caring nothing about what happens to the firms of the rest of the world which have less bargaining power than we do.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=305 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
Mr President, first of all, as Mr Elchlepp said, it is right that all issues have not been resolved at the meeting.
There was no possibility or intention to do so: the meeting was designed to provide a plan and a direction for the future and to identify the issues, and that is what it has done.
Many of the issues Mr Elchlepp mentioned will have to be worked on as we develop that way forward.
I much appreciate what he said about the European Union's strong stance on the least-developed countries.
We will continue to press in that direction.
I agree with what he said about cooperation in the energy sector.
<P>
What Mr Kittelmann said about developing countries is also very important.
It is very important for those of us who have strong links with the developing countries to persuade them that it is in their interests to cooperate in discussions on matters such as trade and the environment; to explain that we do not have protectionist intent in that direction and that we understand their feelings about our asking them to do what we can afford to do but which they feel they cannot afford to do.
We have to try to enter into a constructive dialogue on that subject.
<P>
I do not agree, of course, with the fundamental premise of Mr Kreissl-Dörfler.
But with regard to Article 20, I think the possibility of getting some kind of further interpretation of that - if not an amendment - is a very real issue that needs to be discussed at the high-level meeting on trade and the environment - if we have it, as I hope we will.
<P>
I certainly agree with Mr Newens that there should be cooperation between the ILO and the WTO as agreed at Singapore.
But as far as Helms-Burton is concerned, there is absolutely nothing that is agreed which is incompatible with the WTO, which, as I said in my opening observations, positively sets up the system which is not designed to litigate issues to the bitter end and establish points, but to encourage the parties to settle their differences.
Of course, if they are settled, nobody gets everything they want.
But we have made it quite clear, first of all, that if the United States is unable to meet its commitments we have the right to go back to the WTO; and, secondly, that it is not the case, as Mrs Castellina said, that we are committed to not investing in Cuba.
That is just not the case!
There is no restriction whatsoever on investment in Cuba: there is only a statement that, in the circumstances of the Americans' compliance with the agreement, we are not going to give public support for investment, but that only applies to new investment in property that we consider has been expropriated contrary to international law.
So the question of whether that is so is something that would have to be determined on a case-by-case basis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=306 NAME="President">
On this matter I have received the motion for a resolution B4-0666/98, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, pursuant to rule 40, paragraph 5 of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12.00 noon.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 00.35 a.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of the last meeting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schierhuber">
Madam President, may I ask that in the Minutes under the point relating to the Fifth Framework Programme on Research I also be referred to as the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
We shall arrange for that to be done, Mrs Schierhuber.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Apolinário">
Madam President, my name is not on the list of Members present at the 9 a.m. vote, although I have notified the Bureau that I was present and voted in favour of an emergency debate on the Common Organization of the Market for olive oil.
I should therefore be grateful if the Minutes could be amended accordingly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
That will be noted and the Minutes corrected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Collado">
Madam President, looking at yesterday's Minutes, it says that I voted in favour of Mr Berend's Amendment No 4, when I voted against.
Please could it be corrected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
The Minutes will be corrected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Puerta">
Madam President, I should like the fact that I was here yesterday to be recorded.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
That will also be done.
<P>
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wurtz">
Madam President, I would like to ask if the Presidency has been duped, or if it is indeed aware of the content of the display outside Room 100, on the Sudetenland Germans?
<P>
It is a revanchist exhibition which coincides with an ongoing campaign by the German extreme right wing, particularly in Bavaria.
<P>
I think it is utterly intolerable that an exhibition which harks back nostalgically to the 1938 borders should be allowed to exist on these premises.
I therefore request an explanation regarding this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
Mr Wurtz, to my knowledge, a mistake was made in preparing for this exhibition, in that the organizers made use of old brochures in French and German from the 1980s.
You are quite right. It should not have happened.
But, when the matter came to light, it was put right immediately.
I myself was present at the opening of the exhibition yesterday.
Former President Hänsch made the following comment about the exhibition. He said that we look at this exhibition with the idea in mind that in a united Europe Germans and Czechs, too, will become friends again.
And I believe that in the same spirit we should accept the presence of this exhibition in our House.
<P>
I trust that you will accept this explanation and that we can now move on to today's agenda.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Madame President, I also attended the opening of the exhibition yesterday, and I should like to emphasize that Mr Hänsch did not only make the comments which you have just reported. He also quite clearly said something else which I think is far more important in the current discussion, namely that the debate on the Benes Decree cannot be used as some sort of precondition for the accession negotiations we are currently holding with the Czech Republic.
That seems to me to be the most important point in political terms!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Green">
Madam President, as the issue of exhibitions has been raised, perhaps I could ask, through you, that the College of Quaestors and the Bureau look at the whole way in which this Parliament, both here and in Brussels, is used for some of the most ridiculous exhibitions - commercial events which make us look more like a bazaar than a Parliament.
<P>
My group is regularly disrupted, not just by exhibitions right outside Room 100, but by the accompanying noisy receptions.
Yesterday there were trumpets and trombones outside our meeting room.
The place is becoming a circus and it has to stop.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
Although we have strict rules, they do, nevertheless, need to be reviewed.
I will pass your comments on and we will then examine whether new rules need to be introduced.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="de Vries">
Madam President, another issue; I would like to ask for your help, and through you for the help of Mr Gil-Robles.
<P>
In my country there has been a stir in the media about a false report concerning the European Parliament.
In the Dutch media a report is circulating suggesting that the European Parliament has proposed that its members should receive a monthly salary of between ECU 9, 000 and 13, 000.
Last night Dutch television asked a large number of Members of the Lower Chamber for their opinion, and they said it was an absolute scandal that the European Parliament is demanding such a salary.
<P>
Madam President, we all know that our Parliament has made no such proposal and that no proposal whatsoever from any body exists.
I am extremely worried about the negative reporting in my country, which is not always based on adequately checked information.
<P>
I would like to ask you whether you could ask the President to issue an official denial, so that this type of extremely negative and damaging reporting will not occur in future.
I am grateful for your assistance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="President">
Mr de Vries, I will pass your comments on.
Incidentally, you yourself said that they were not contained in the draft.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
Following on from what Mr de Vries has said, a telex issued by the official Belgian press agency Belga mentions remuneration of between ECU 9, 00 and 12, 000, in other words, 33, 600 to 488, 000 BF per month. This might be a possibility, according to a letter from the chairman of the working group to the President of this Parliament, José María GilRobles.
The contents of the letter were leaked before the Bureau was able to discuss the issue.
I call on you, Madam President, to ensure that the Bureau denies this report forthwith, and confirms that no decision whatsoever has been taken yet on this matter, that it merely appears in the report of the working group, and that the Bureau has not made any proposal in this respect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="President">
Mr Martens, this matter appears on the agenda of this afternoon's Bureau meeting.
I shall pass on your comments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Anastassopoulos">
Madam President, you know very well, as do all the Members of the Bureau, that no decision has been taken and that no proposal has been submitted so far.
So these are all just rumours and nothing else.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Madam President, in principle I would like to endorse fully what Mr de Vries and Mr Martens have said.
But I would like to warn you about one thing.
Three days have elapsed between the leaking of this inaccurate report and the reaction of the Presidency.
For three days false reports have been circulating on Dutch television and in the Dutch media which can no longer be repudiated given today's media circus.
This is our big problem.
To my mind Parliament's Information Office should react instantly to such issues, and not let them run their course for a week, with the result that we are being hounded with all sorts of false insinuations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is true that no decision has been taken within any European Parliament body on a statute for Members of the European Parliament, or on the issue of a possible salary.
But it does appear to be true, and in that sense the report from Belga was correct, that a covering letter exists which mentions a possible salary figure of between ECU 9, 000 and 12, 000.
So this figure appears in a covering letter which was apparently leaked.
To that extent we have to make it very clear indeed that not one single decision has been taken.
Nevertheless, proposals have been made, and a covering letter exists which could give rise to this kind of interpretation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Green">
Madam President, reports like that are very damaging to this House.
The figures which Mrs Aelvoet is quoting are certainly not a proposal for a salary and she is absolutely wrong to insinuate that somebody in this House is putting them forward on that basis.
I very much regret that David Martin, who presided over the working group for the Bureau, is not here to explain that situation in public.
That really is a tendentious view that Mrs Aelvoet has just put forward and it is exactly the thing that does such damage in the media across the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Green.
In response, let me say the following. Mrs Aelvoet said that Parliament has not yet reached a decision.
It has not yet reached a decision on the current matter.
There is an old decision of Parliament to draw up a statute and there is also, as you are aware, a commitment in the Treaty of Amsterdam which has not yet been completely ratified.
A working group has been set up within the Bureau involving Members from various committees.
This working group has drafted a document which was submitted to the Bureau this week.
As yet no decisions have been taken and this draft document makes no reference to proposals of the sort mentioned in media reports, by which I mean salary levels.
There is really no reason to give the impression that this is the case.
<P>
The Bureau and, of course, the relevant committees and Parliament itself will take as much time as is required to prepare any new statute for Members of the European Parliament in the appropriate manner, that is to say on a sound basis.
The matter will not be rushed, it will be properly discussed.
I do not believe that there is anyone in the House who does not share the view that a uniform voting system, such as the one we will be agreeing upon in the next part-session in July, should go hand in hand with a uniform statute.
<P>
The leaking of information in advance of a vote, or the alleged quoting of facts from letters which were never in the letters in the first place...
<P>
... unfortunately, that is the sort of thing that happens.
I shall report it at the Bureau meeting this afternoon, and I shall urge that we issue an appropriate statement clarifying the situation and clearing up any misunderstandings.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Calendar of part-sessions 1999
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="President">
With regard to the calendar of 1999 part-sessions, I suggest that the vote should be adjourned until Thursday lunchtime, when as you know, since we discussed the matter yesterday, the Legal Service's opinion on the admissibility of the amendments seeking to bring forward the July part-session will be available.
The plan is to bring forward the sitting by one week, but as it is a constituent meeting, we must first establish whether this is legally permissible.
<P>
Are there any objections to this proposal?
<P>
(Parliament agreed to this proposal)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Middle East peace process
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="President">
The next item is statements by the Council and the Commission on the peace process in the Middle East, followed by a debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="Henderson">
Mr President, thank you for giving me the opportunity to open the debate on the Middle East peace process.
<P>
The European Union remains deeply concerned by the continuing stalemate in the Middle East peace process and by the threat to regional stability such deadlock poses. This is very much reflected in the conclusions of the Cardiff Summit which were finalized yesterday.
The sides must show courage and vision in the search for peace, based on the principles agreed at Madrid and Oslo, especially the essential principle of land for peace enshrined in the United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338.
<P>
The Union remains committed to its positions of principle regarding the peace process, as set out in its previous declarations, particularly the call for peace in the Middle East, issued in Amsterdam in June 1997.
These principles were reaffirmed in Luxembourg in December 1997 as the essential guidelines for a European Union policy aimed at facilitating progress and restoring confidence between the parties.
<P>
The European Union has intensified its efforts to help the sides overcome this stalemate by playing an increasingly substantive role in the peace process.
The British Prime Minister, as President of the European Council, was involved in talks between Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Arafat and Madeleine Albright in London in May.
The European Union participated in negotiations on interim economic issues before and during the Prime Minister's visit to the region from 17 to 21 April.
The British Foreign Secretary, in his presidential capacity, also visited the region from 15 to 18 March.
The European Union has also concluded a joint declaration with the Palestinians on security cooperation and is implementing a counter-terror assistance programme to assist the Palestinians.
Our special envoy, Ambassador Moratinos, has played a key role in these efforts and is continuing efforts to close gaps and move the peace process forward.
<P>
The European Union has deepened its cooperation with the United States on the peace process.
It strongly supports the efforts of the United States to gain the agreement of the parties to a package of ideas which, if accepted, would open the way to the relaunch of final status talks.
The European Union has welcomed Palestinian acceptance of these proposals and called upon the government of Israel to give a clear and positive response.
<P>
The profound commitment of the Union to fostering peace in the region is reflected in the scale of its economic support for the peace process.
From 1993 to 1997 the Union and its Member States provided approximately ECU 1.68 billion in assistance to the Palestinians and to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees.
The Union's Foreign Ministers agreed at the General Affairs Council meeting on 23 February to renew the European Community aid package to the Palestinians beyond its expiry at the end of this year.
<P>
The report on a new Council regulation to extend this assistance programme, drawn up by Mr Tomlinson, reflects an understanding of how important this assistance has been, and will continue to be, to sustaining the peace process.
It clarifies the legal basis for the various facets of the assistance and reflects the need to look at needs beyond the two years for which the assistance has been extended.
<P>
The Union has also worked hard, through its formal dialogue with Israel on the issue, to improve the Palestinian economy, especially freeing up the movement of goods and people.
The presidency and Ambassador Moratinos have taken the initiative to intensify this dialogue.
A recent communication from the European Commission proposing cumulation of origin between Israel and its neighbours, including the West Bank and Gaza, for manufacture exported to the European Union will bring economic benefits to all partners.
<P>
A second Commission communication regarding implementation of the European Union-Israel agreement has also been published.
It raises complex legal, political and technical issues, including the status of products from Israeli settlements.
These issues will be discussed with Israel and considered by the Council in coming weeks.
<P>
While our focus has been to move the Palestinian-Israeli track of the peace process forward, the European Union remains concerned at the lack of progress on the Syrian and Lebanese tracks as well.
There is a need for a continuing effort to reinvigorate them and sufficient flexibility on the part of the parties to allow the talks to resume, and that will be our main objective in the period ahead.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Marín">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, despite the constant efforts of the United States and the European Union at all levels, the Middle East peace process has been in complete stalemate for almost a year and a half.
As Mr Henderson says, it is true that under the British Presidency the European Union has intensified its support for US efforts at mediation.
<P>
Despite sometimes taking different stances on certain important aspects of the peace process, the United States and the European Union agree about one substantial element: at these times of crisis, it is essential to work together in order to break the deadlock.
In this respect, the visit to the region in April by the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, only served to confirm the serious nature of the crisis in the peace process.
One tangible result of that visit was the meeting in London on 4 and 5 May between Americans, Palestinians, Israelis and the EU presidency.
Unfortunately, that meeting did not manage to shift the stalemate as regards the outstanding technical questions: the Gaza airport and port, free movement between the West Bank and Gaza and, in short, the whole joint dialogue agenda with which this Parliament is so familiar.
<P>
As you know, the stalemate still persists, and after the London meeting President Clinton himself even had to call off the three party talks in Washington because of Israel's unwillingness to accept the US compromise proposal.
<P>
In that sense, we fully share the point of view expressed by Mr Henderson.
It is impossible to make real, credible progress without complying with all the agreements which have been freely negotiated and signed by the parties, and without respecting the principles upon which the peace process is based - essentially the "land for peace' principle.
<P>
The latest violent incidents and Israel's recent initiatives, again involving the question of settlements, illustrate how volatile the situation is and how urgent it is for all sides to accept the US proposal, which in itself is a minimum proposal with regard to Israeli redeployment in the West Bank.
<P>
Despite having reservations, the Palestinian Authority has formally expressed agreement in principle with the US proposal.
In the Commission's view, it is now up to Prime Minister Netanyahu to show the necessary flexibility in order to revitalize the peace process as soon as possible, by accepting the US proposal which, I repeat, is a minimum proposal but which, as things stand, is the only realistic proposal for further progress along the road to peace.
<P>
Lastly, the European position on the peace process has not changed. In the conclusions of the European Council in Cardiff, as you will be able to see when Parliament receives a copy of the resolution adopted by the heads of state and government, the Union has once more confirmed, point by point, as it could not fail to do, the position which has been traditional ever since Venice, Luxembourg and Amsterdam, and has now of course also been confirmed at the Cardiff Summit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I should like to outline my group's view on this difficult and delicate issue in 10 points.
One: We are fully in support of the Oslo peace process.
There is no way around it.
It must be respected and - as the President-in-Office of the Council has already mentioned - we would also like to see progress in relation to Syria and Lebanon and peace treaties with both of these countries.
Unfortunately the Israeli government, which had started to embrace a more peaceful attitude, in particular towards Lebanon, now seems to have lost the courage of its convictions.
<P>
Two: the European Union is part of the peace process.
We must not allow ourselves to be squeezed out of it. Our political, moral and economic commitment makes us a part of this peace process.
We do not want to enter into and fulfill this commitment in place of the USA, but rather with the USA as an indispensable partner in the peace process.
<P>
Three: Europe is sometimes reproached for interfering in matters which do not concern it.
But we are not interfering in someone else's business, it is our business.
The breaking off of the peace process by the Israeli government disrupts the good neighbourly relations which exist between Europe and the other countries of the Mediterranean rim.
We are right to fight it, for the Barcelona process is a vitally important process for all the countries of the Mediterranean, including Europe, and must not be derailed.
<P>
Four: We recognize completely and without reservation Israel's right to exist and to maximum security.
But we have no time for terrorism.
Terrorism must simply be fought at its political, economic and social roots and the issue of security must not be used as a pretext for not continuing the peace process.
On the contrary, we urge the Israeli government to do everything in its power to ensure that its attitude does not actually promote terrorist or radical movements in the Middle East.
<P>
Five: The European Union must continue its policy of strengthening the economic infrastructure of Palestinian areas.
The airport is ready and the Palestinian authorities have made an undertaking to involve Israel in their security plans.
It would be possible to plan the port, and it would be possible to start the building work soon.
This is absolutely essential, and Europe's commitment on this point remains unshaken.
<P>
Six: We all want to support - primarily through financial aid, but also by giving political and moral backing - those people who are fighting for human rights in Palestine, those who are fighting to stop financial abuse and corruption, who are also advocating that good relations be forged with the Israeli population.
We want to give them our clear support.
That is a commitment which Europe has and must take on.
<P>
Similarly, and this is my seventh point, we also want to support all those peace-loving forces in Israel who want to build bridges to the Palestinian and Arab population, who recognize the rights of everyone in Israel - including the Arab population - and who, above all, are promoting religious tolerance.
On my last visit, I was particularly impressed by the people who are fighting for peace and making a stand against fanaticism and religious intolerance in their own country for Jewish religious reasons.
<P>
Eight: We know that Jerusalem is a particularly delicate issue.
We understand the emotion felt by many Israelis, but we also understand the emotions of the Arab population.
For this reason we are against any measures designed to change the ownership situation unilaterally prior to negotiations on Jerusalem.
For this reason we oppose all radical groups and the tolerance being shown by the Jerusalem city authorities and the Israeli government towards certain radical groups.
<P>
Nine: We are absolutely against the use of sanctions as a means of managing bilateral relations between the EU and Israel.
We are also absolutely and unequivocally in favour of adherence to binding agreements and support the Commission in its efforts to ensure that they are respected.
<P>
Ten: We recognize the right of the Palestinians to their own state and we hope that Israel will play a role in its founding, so that it can be founded with and not against Israel.
Time and again Simon Peres stressed that the existence of Israel requires the existence of an independent Palestinian state in peaceful co-existence and Europe should and must encourage this peaceful coexistence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
Madam President, the Israeli-Palestinian question, Middle East issues, are exceptionally complicated and therefore call for great care on our part when we discuss them.
They are complicated because of the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians; both are able to claim rights, rights which sometimes stand in each other's way.
Then there is the history of mediation by the United States, a process which in itself requires exceptional caution.
If we become another party to the process as well, we will have to do our best to speak with great wisdom.
Still, it is a good thing that the European Union is also involved, because - and I fully agree with Mr Swoboda - we have great historical as well as current responsibilities in this region.
That is something we cannot get out of.
We cannot say that the others should deal with it, that Europe is neutral.
That is why it is also important that we have someone, Mr Moraltinos, who has been mandated to go to the region to see what the European Union could do to help resolve the problems.
This obviously requires the Council to have a clear position, because the confused foreign policy decision making process in the Council, as we know all too well, merely leads to more grief.
Council decision making will also have to be subject to reasonable control by the people's representatives.
Just on whose behalf are they speaking?
Are they really speaking on behalf of the European citizen, or this unclear?
<P>
Madam President, all too often we witness the governments of Member States taking independent action.
This has been the case in the recent past, and this trend is continuing now.
Of course, this is scarcely helpful when issues need to be resolved.
You cannot visit the region, and one moment speak from a French position, and the next from a French, Dutch or English position.
We will have to replace this with action on behalf of Europe.
Because, as things stand at the moment, each Member State can maintain its own double agenda in its relations with Israel and the Palestinians.
Sometimes it is better to keep your mouth shut, if you cannot really speak on behalf of Europe.
<P>
The complexity of the situation has of course grown out the fact that the political movement around Netanyahu has gained so much influence.
This will not have the desired effect for Israel, either.
The increased radicalism on all sides, both in Israel and amongst the Palestinians, might sometimes even tempt us to express ourselves in radical terms as well.
Prudence is called for at such times.
However, it is a great problem that the political commitments entered into by the previous government are not being honoured.
<P>
Madam President, the Group of the European People's Party therefore supports the resolution wholeheartedly.
It is a good thing that Israel's policy on colonization is being changed, given the frustration of economic development, and that it is being replaced by confidence-building behaviour which leaves room for the construction of a civil society on both sides and for person-to-person meetings in order to promote peace in the region.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, the peace process is at a dead end and every possible pressure is needed to get this process going again.
Tangible results are needed to reinject some dynamism into this peace process.
Further deterioration and lack of prospects for the Palestinians will not increase security for the state of Israel.
That is why it is in Prime Minister Netanyahu's interest finally to enter into agreements about further withdrawal from the occupied territories.
American plans in this direction could break the impasse, and therefore deserve every support, but great vigilance is also required.
<P>
The threat made by Israeli representatives that the European role in the peace process should be conditional upon the solution of trade differences is unacceptable. After all, under international law, the settlements do not belong to the state of Israel.
The Union should not give trade preferences to products from these settlements.
We must not put a premium on the unlawful enlargement of these settlements.
<P>
Netanyahu and Arafat must return to the dialogue.
A great deal has been achieved and we must not throw that away now.
In addition, our entire Barcelona process in relation to the Mediterranean stands or falls with this dialogue.
The Union must support the US in calling for the opening of the Gaza airport, the accumulation of the rules of origin regarding regional trade and promotion of social contacts between the countries.
<P>
I hope that the Austrian Presidency will display more tact than the British President-in-Office, Mr Cook.
Without an agreement about withdrawal from the occupied territories, there will never be a basis for the final status talks due to start in May next year.
I wish Mr Arafat, Mr Netanyahu, the Palestinians and the Israelis wisdom, political courage and vision.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, in recent years I have had the privilege of visiting the Palestinians in the Palestinian territories three times.
I have observed that enormous progress has been made; there is better infrastructure, the general appearance of Gaza has changed and improved.
A rush of building is taking place on the West Bank. Recently, we also spoke with a Palestinian entrepreneur who has started to construct a big warehouse to give shape to the industrial zone on the border with Gaza.
So not everything is negative.
Yet I still sense an undercurrent of tension and dissatisfaction amongst the Palestinians, and rightly so.
For the process is stagnating.
But I am also sensing an increasing dissatisfaction amongst the Palestinians with regard to the judicial process in their own territories.
That is why I would have preferred it if our resolution, under point 4, had not spoken about a joint EU-Palestinian security committee, but rather joint EU-Palestinian legal support.
<P>
The meeting with the Hamas leaders was not very promising.
They were not positive about the existence of Israel in the medium term.
I find that extremely difficult.
Nor has this paragraph been removed from the Palestinian Charter as yet.
<P>
We also visited the airport.
I thought it was encouraging to see that, architecturally, this airport fits well with Arab culture; but there is a lack of equipment.
People are not able to do their work at the airport, and our resolution underlines this point.
But, in all honesty, Israel has a right to security.
The Palestinians have a right to progress.
In my view we need a whole package for the region.
If Israel makes progress with Syria and Lebanon, then this should also be possible with the Palestinians.
Let us insist above all that Lebanon and Syria make peace with Israel, then there might be some movement with the Palestinians.
I hope that the Social-Democrats in Israel will also make a positive contribution, because that is missing somewhat at the moment.
I find this a pity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wurtz">
Madam President, I am convinced that if all Members of the European Parliament had an opportunity to visit the Palestinian territories, if they could see and hear what our delegation has just seen and heard, there would be widespread agreement amongst us that Europe's current timid "wait-and-see' attitude needs to change at a political level with regard to the Middle East peace process.
<P>
In my opinion, one thing is clear: since Madrid and Oslo, the dividing line no longer lies between Israelis and Palestinians, or Arabs in general, but between those who wish to support and those who wish to torpedo the peace process.
There are people who wish to torpedo the peace process on both sides, with one difference: since the tragic death of Yitzhak Rabin, these are the people who now hold power in Israel.
It is thus in the common interest of the peace-making forces on both sides, which are lastingly interdependent, to stop Mr Netanyahu and the extremists he relies on burying the vital principle of land for peace whilst there is still time.
It is in their common interest to rebel against all measures which destroy the atmosphere of trust essential to peaceful cohabitation, and even more essential to long-term cooperation.
I am thinking of the expulsions, the destruction of houses, the blockade of the territories and above all of the extension and multiplication of settlements, including in East Jerusalem.
Calling on Europe to use - as it has successfully done in the past on the initiative of this House - its economic, scientific and technical relations with the State of Israel to push for a revival of the peace process would not amount to sanctioning Israel but to supporting the weakening of Mr Netanyahu by those Israelis in favour of peace.
I might add that, far from embarrassing the United States in their role as sponsor of the process, this determined attitude on the part of Europe would create conditions more favourable to their intervention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino (V).">
Madam President, the recent visit by the European Parliament's delegation for relations with the Palestinian Legislative Council highlighted a truly dramatic situation.
We are faced with a serious deadlock in the peace process, and we were able to see that the settlement of new land was the response to the request put forward by the Oslo Accords, which was 'peace for land' .
Instead of 'peace for land' , we have learned that on 9 June the Israeli government decided on a new settlement of the Mount of Olives in the heart of East Jerusalem.
<P>
Given the context, the living conditions of the Palestinians are obviously dramatic, in particular because of the shortage of work, especially in Gaza.
The situation is characterized, on the one hand, by the Palestinian authorities' preparedness to respect the Oslo Accords and, on the other hand, by the Netanyahu government's intention not to stick to the commitments made.
<P>
In view of this situation, immediate steps must be taken at least to ensure that the systems of communication between the West Bank and Gaza are guaranteed, that the now completed airport is opened, and that work begins to build the port.
Obviously we must understand that a year from now, Arafat will have no choice but to declare Palestinian independence upon expiry of the Oslo Accords, even if he does so unilaterally.
<P>
It is therefore obvious that we must do all we can to make sure that the Palestinian National Authority is able to play its role and is in a position to continue its action, including in economic terms.
This is why it is very important that the Tomlinson report be approved.
I believe that in view of this impasse the extremist and intransigent fringes on both sides will inevitably grow and propose military solutions.
If we want to avoid this catastrophic solution, we must act as soon as possible to relaunch the peace process, using whatever form of pressure and diplomatic effort it takes.
We therefore go along with the statement by Commissioner Marín and with what the Council said, but we are calling for even more decisive action.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pradier">
Madam President, there has been too much moaning about the fate of the people of the Occupied Territories at the hands of the Israeli army.
It is no longer the time for pity or hypocritical snivelling.
Let us now defend justice, the law and, above all, the resolutions voted for by the United Nations, and the documents which have been signed by common agreement by the parties present.
<P>
A code of conduct has been adopted, a timetable fixed.
These decisions, this timetable and this code of conduct must be respected.
Although they are not completely disregarded at the moment, the peace agreements are certainly being damaged and the peace process seems to be on its last legs.
There is clearly a reason for the procrastination, delaying tactics and indirect remarks of the Israeli authorities.
<P>
Extremists on both sides are opposed to the renewal of serious negotiations.
First and foremost amongst these are the religious fundamentalists, whose interpretations of the Koran and the Torah are, to say the least, questionable.
With regard to the pressure these extremists can exert on the authorities, it is clear that the Israeli government is still extremely vulnerable.
The sensational declarations regarding an "eternal capital' and the thundering arrival of armed settlers in the Occupied Territories, the withdrawal of residence permits in Jerusalem, the fact that Arab citizens of that city find even their right to live there challenged, the blockade of Ashdool with regard to equipment which would enable the opening of Gaza airport: these are so many factors which quite seriously compromise any further progress.
<P>
But we also have to consider the problems of security and terrorism.
It is true that in this respect, nobody is safe, neither Israel nor, unfortunately, perhaps in the short-term, Palestine.
In any case, terrorism can come from any quarter and Israel itself lost its Prime Minister in this way.
The fight against terrorism, and against those who incite it, is clearly a necessity.
We must make sure that the American diplomatic effort is supported, for without it nothing will be possible.
To date, and for a number of years, American diplomats have displayed a wealth of inventiveness and ingenuity.
We have an important role to play in ensuring respect for previous agreements and, in relation to this, the Commission's proposal regarding products coming from Israeli settlements outside Israel should be welcomed.
By giving these products - which have clearly come from Arab territories - the advantages reserved for Israel, we are making a gesture which, although it is clearly not going to ruin the Israeli economy, will nevertheless have a precise political significance.
You only have to see the reception given to this proposal in the Israeli press and by Israeli government circles in general to understand that the demand for respect of the agreements, in this case Article 38, is there, which is perhaps an indication of the direction we should be taking in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Madam President, the potential impact of the European Union on the Middle East peace process is primarily indirect, and it could be both positive and negative.
It looks as if it will chiefly be negative.
How can the Union promote peace when it denounces the policy of one party whilst acting anything but diplomatically?
A particularly striking example is the Commission initiative to exclude products from Jewish settlements from the preferential trade conditions applying to Israel.
The Commission's thinking is that the settlements on the West Bank do not belong to Israel.
The Commission also wants to subject the goods imported from Israel to special controls, because the country is alleged to tamper with certificates of origin, and is also exporting goods from Palestinian territory under the description "Made in Israel' .
<P>
I would like to ask the President-in-Office whether he is behind the Commission's stance.
Is this stance not extremely unwise in view of the current negotiations?
If Parliament should conclude that Israel is not respecting the peace agreements, this would be both flawed and premature.
The Oslo accords are also being violated by the Palestinians, thus they are not respecting them either.
In addition it is debatable if we can already pass judgement on whether the accords are being met or not, whilst the term which has been set in them has not yet expired.
<P>
The Oslo Accords and the interim accord request a regrouping in three stages according to unilateral decisions by Israel.
By regrouping its troops somewhat, the government of the country has in any case acted formally in accordance with accords, which make no mention of the relationship between these three phases.
<P>
Pedantic statements will not bring peace any closer.
Instead of wanting to play the leading part in the Middle East, the European Union could follow the example of the United States, which just recognizes the peace process and tries to support it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Muscardini">
Madam President, peace is something which cannot be relinquished and it risks remaining a petitio principii if governments, public opinion and the international community do not make the necessary efforts.
As far as peace in the Middle East is concerned, we must honestly ask ourselves whether the European Union has done all that was essential to help restart the interrupted process.
When an agreement falls apart, when an accord disintegrates, no one side alone is responsible.
There is a series of contributory causes that fuel the political dialectic, which in turn risks radicalizing positions and undoing the efforts of men of goodwill who on both sides are trying to rebalance the situation so that dialogue may resume.
For this is the crucial point of the tension between Israel and Palestine; whatever the direct cause of the interruption of the process, there is no doubt that the resumption of dialogue would bring tension back into the right proportion and make it possible to assess the situation of the opposing sides, with our eyes cast to the future.
<P>
A people decimated by the holocaust cannot continue to live for generations in a permanent state of tension: peace is its foremost interest, a vital interest.
To help Israel find peace again also means helping the Palestinian people and preparing a liveable future for the entire region which is in need of economic and social development.
Many of the European Union's efforts are frustrated by the absence of a political union, of a common foreign policy.
A short while ago we were talking about funds earmarked for the Palestinians.
Well, we would like to know why then we see poor and desperate people on television.
Where has this money gone?
And when we are working in this House on rather bureaucratic and unimportant matters, I would also like us to remember the faces of those Israeli children who sing as they leave school despite the fact that they are being watched over by people armed to defend them against another massacre and another tragedy.
Let's remember that the European Union has a role to play quite apart from just being a bureaucratic or economic union: there is also a moral choice to which we must return.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Colajanni">
Madam President, I must say that, after repeated visits by our delegation these past four years, we have recently found a situation more difficult than in the past.
For the first time since the Oslo process began, there is a general loss of hope: this is very dangerous and we must unfortunately consider negative developments possible.
None of the difficulties has been overcome, from the corridor between Gaza and the West Bank to the blocking of the settlements, from the prisoners that are still in jails to the veto on the Gaza port and now completed airport capable of operating, to the consolidation of the Israeli presence in East Jerusalem, etcetera.
<P>
Regarding the second phase of the Oslo Accords, the proposal by the United States of a partial withdrawal from 13 % of the territory, accepted by the Palestinians - although they do not agree with this - is still, after much delay, awaiting a reply from Israel.
As time passes, all the extreme components of Israeli and Palestinian society are growing stronger.
Arafat especially is in extreme difficulty and whoever thinks that a weaker Arafat would help matters is totally wrong!
What can we do?
There is little time left before the Palestinian side issues a unilateral declaration of independence, according to the timetable of the Oslo Accords, and this dictates a political horizon to all the forces that are pro-peace.
<P>
The Union must step up its political presence in the area with a series of initiatives.
First of all, it must insist so that the United States makes its proposal official in order to obtain an answer from Israel.
We can no longer wait for and avoid this necessary moment, and it is no use skipping it now and proposing a peace conference, as was recently done.
Yes, we must propose a peace conference if the reply to the United States' plan of withdrawal is no, so as not to leave a dangerous political vacuum.
Then the promoter of this conference will have to be the Union, not an individual European state but the Union, and as such it must be the full-fledged promoter with the United States and other partners.
Now is premature!
<P>
Secondly, the Union must ensure funds for Palestine.
We cannot now cut off support which is essential in maintaining Palestinian autonomy.
Thirdly, the Union must endorse - I mean the Council and Parliament, and the latter is doing this with a compromise resolution we are voting on today - the Commission's two initiatives to implement the association agreement with Israel and to introduce mixed origins for the region's products; it is not a technical matter, it is a proposal based on international law and on the association agreements and it is also very important politically.
Fourthly, the Union must encourage and further develop Euro-Mediterranean policy and the MEDA programme.
<P>
In Palermo, the Euro-Mediterranean council gave renewed usefulness and credibility to Barcelona; it was a process in crisis.
There is the will to go forward, the new regional and interregional developments have been defined and the choice has again been made to earmark a global figure for funding equal to the previous figure. All this is to be decided in Stuttgart in April.
This, too, is a fundamental contribution of the Union to maintain hope and ways of finding peace.
<P>
Finally, I must mention the initiative launched by the European Parliament: in Malta. It was decided with the parliaments of the Mediterranean to set up a forum of parliaments of the Mediterranean in Brussels in October.
This, too, I think is useful.
The Euro-Mediterranean council in Palermo considered it positive.
It is part of the work of this Parliament, and the aim is to develop the people-to-people relationship, if we can call it that, at various levels.
We have promoted and will continue to promote meetings and dialogue between Israeli parliamentarians and the elected officials of the Palestinian Legislative Council. We are trying to initiate contact between the mayors of Israeli towns and Palestinian towns and encourage cooperation and collaboration between them.
I believe that this forum of Mediterranean parliaments is useful too.
<P>
This is what Parliament can do, and I believe that it would be a good idea for it, too, to step up its action.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Dimitrakopoulos">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I think that today's debate shows that we all agree that our problem is no longer what is happening in the region. It is not what recommendations have been made and must be made, but it is how existing recommendations, and the initiatives that have already been taken, will be implemented and bring about a result.
I would particularly like to address the Council, which I thank because it has in fact done a great deal, when I say that the key to the affair seems to be for us to change the presence of Europe in the Middle East.
<P>
At present we have a mediator, a great many governments and a Commission office, and that is the first issue we must tackle.
It would be much more effective if, instead of mediators, instead of a multiplicity of opinions, we set about creating one body, in which all the institutions could participate and which would be headed by an individual with a proven knowledge of foreign policy and of the problems of the region.
We would then get far more results.
<P>
The vast majority of economic issues have to a certain extent been tackled.
The Commission has done an excellent job of work though, of course, some additions are necessary, especially concerning the availability and management of resources.
What remains of significance are the prerequisites for a solution.
The prerequisites for a solution and for peace are both political and military and are not simply a question of relations between Israel and Palestine.
They extend much further than that, especially in the wake of the new political realities.
I am referring not only to nuclear tests, but to countries such as Iran, because although we quite rightly talk a lot about Syria and the Lebanon, there are other countries such as Iran which influence or try to influence the situation.
<P>
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, I think we have arrived at a point where we have no room for manoeuvre.
It is therefore important that, over and above the recommendations, the ideas and the initiatives, which are all extremely important, we start out from the institutions.
To achieve a satisfactory outcome, we need a new framework which will secure the continued presence of Europe in the region and which will also ensure actions in concert with the United States, though I would go as far as to say that there may be other powers in the world who will take an interest.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="de Clercq">
Madam President, during the past 16 months, little or no progress has been made in the Middle East peace process.
Fortunately, since last week there appears to be some movement in the negotiations following the latest American proposals.
We must conclude that the European Union has, in the recent past, once again failed to play a leading or convincing role in this issue which is so important to us.
The initiative and the direction of the present talks are entirely in the hands of the Americans.
The European Union's weak political role is out of balance with our major financial contribution, our economic interests and our security.
The balance must be restored as a matter of urgency.
<P>
Europe should no longer be merely a provider of funds, the biggest donor in the world, but more than ever must make a political contribution to a solution involving lasting peace.
This is clearly why the Union must be able to speak with one voice to the outside world and to pursue a single line of European diplomacy.
<P>
And now to the European Parliament.
I believe that the European Parliament can certainly help improve the mutual understanding between the Israelis and Palestinians; not by means of dictates, resolutions or threats, but by supporting so-called people-to-people projects, and especially by making a contribution to the dialogue between the people from both sides.
Real peace starts with the people, the people in the region itself who live amongst each other on a daily basis, including children and students.
Real peace does not start at the top, but at a country's grass roots.
This is where we have to nurture mutual respect and build a strong foundation for a hopeful and peaceful future.
That is where our role as the European Parliament lies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Caccavale">
Madam President, President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we must ensure that this Parliament does not just act like a notary, in other words, that it should not merely record how the situation stands.
<P>
First of all, I dispute the fact that the peace process is stalled; instead, it is my view that the peace process in the Middle East is moving backwards, clearly and extremely dangerously backwards.
Therefore, it is not true that we are stalled: the situation is growing considerably worse.
There is radicalization that can be seen now on both sides - Israeli and Palestinian - and this is making it extremely difficult for those who still believe that peace is the only instrument, the only basis, the only sure way for effectively bringing about development, and therefore cooperation, between Israel and the Palestinians.
It goes without saying that Arafat is the one who risks the most and the responsibility of a definitive collapse of this peace process would inevitably end up benefiting those who believe in religious extremism, fundamentalism; it would thus sweep aside those who have worked for peace, beginning with Arafat himself.
But I see that Netanyahu, on the other hand, also has the same problem: his radical extremists from the religious parties are preventing any progress in the peace process.
It should be said, however, that this is an excuse on the part of the Israelis.
Personally, I consider it unacceptable that Israel has not yet given a reply to the American proposal, which was in itself a compromise, for a partial, a very partial withdrawal - the famous 12 % or 13 % or 11 % - from the Occupied Territories.
<P>
It has also been said in this sitting that Europe has been absent.
I also dispute this.
Unfortunately, Europe has not been absent, in the sense that it has sewn further confusion: the Middle East peace process is the mirror of Europe's impotence and incapacity.
Chirac went along one day and said something; another day Cook went along and said something else; then Kinkel went and said something different again: this is the sign and signal that Europe not only does not have a role, but at this moment has a negative role.
We continue to be 15 political dwarfs unable to have a single voice in any peace process, in any foreign policy process currently under way in the world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Mohamed Alí">
Madam President, once again we are debating the crisis in the Middle East.
<P>
Once again, the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Netanyahu, is failing to comply with the agreements which were freely accepted and ratified by his parliament. Furthermore, he is blocking any attempt at negotiation, as was seen at the meeting of 4 and 5 May in London.
Even the US attempt to initiate new negotiations with a minimum proposal has also been blocked by Israel, as Mr Marín has confirmed.
<P>
Obviously, Israel does not want to comply with the agreements.
Israel is not withdrawing from the territories, but is continuing to occupy them and keep thousands of Palestinians in prison.
The United States has lost its role as mediator, and the European Union should put pressure on Israel by subjecting its agreements with that country to certain conditions.
<P>
Compliance with the international agreements is the only solution, and the European Union and its envoy should play a key role.
<P>
We in the Union should block our existing agreements with Israel and promote all efforts to help the Palestinian National Authority.
The Gaza port and airport and the recovery of the territories are demands which cannot be withdrawn. If Mr Netanyahu wants security, he must understand that security is only possible through the agreements.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gahrton">
Madam President, we all know that the Israelis could not care less whether we speak with one voice, fifteen voices or a hundred voices.
The important thing is whether we talk or whether we act.
The Israelis said right up until Camp David: 'We want nothing but peace.'
Since then they have had peace with Egypt, with the PLO and with Jordan.
They could also have had peace with Syria and Lebanon if they had kept to what they said: 'We want nothing but peace.'
But we know that for 31 years they have built new settlements, have killed children who threw stones, have ignored UN resolutions and ignored treaties they have entered into.
They are building 'Greater Israel' in line with the intentions pronounced by Netanyahu's mentor, Jabotinsky, as long ago as the 1920s.
We all know this.
We know that they ignore talk and resolutions.
So why are we not prepared to move from words to deeds?
<P>
Today there is an interesting article in Libération which asks just that question.
Why act and intervene only in Kosovo?
Do only European massacres get the European Union to move from words to deeds?
I do not mean that we should send troops to Israel - of course not.
However, people say that the EU is an economic giant, but a political dwarf.
Let us make use of the fact that the EU is an economic giant.
Let us use that economic power.
Let us move from words to deeds and actually apply proper economic sanctions.
I am convinced that that would be able to influence Israel.
If we do nothing, I am absolutely sure that the 1990s will see a war in the Middle East, just like every other decade.
On this occasion the EU should at least do something and move from words to deeds through peaceful, non-violent, yet powerful sanctions against Israel, which is in breach of all international laws.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Antony">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the lands of the divine revelation of the Decalogue and the Gospel have rarely known peace, even more rarely have they known respect for dignity and the rights of all communities who have lived together there for centuries.
As the end of the 20th century approaches, it is everybody's wish that a true peace process may be initiated and concluded.
<P>
This will be difficult to achieve.
The conditions are, however, clear.
Israel must once and for all have the right to peace secured via guaranteed borders, whilst the rights, dignity and freedom of the Palestinians must be respected.
It is an abomination to continue to coop them up in unacceptable apartheid-like "townships' and it would be an illusion to believe that this can continue without further conflict of unpredictable extent.
Historically speaking it is the Palestinians' home as much as it is the home of the Jews; they have the right to a free, independent and sovereign State.
<P>
But Syria and Lebanon are also going through a peace process.
Lebanon has suffered from the presence of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians on its soil who were thrown out by Israel and who quickly evolved from welcome refugees into revolutionary conquerors of the host country.
<P>
This is the reality which my movement has been contemplating, for the National Front does not fight immigration through some form of racism but, on the contrary, in order to avoid an irreversible situation similar to that in Lebanon, Bosnia or Kosovo occurring in France in the future.
<P>
Of course Israel must withdraw from Lebanon, but so must Syria, for whilst Israel occupies the south of the so-called security zone, Syria occupies the rest and, what is worse, has the Lebanese State held under some kind of protectorate where political skill combines with military presence and police terror.
Jacques Chirac's most recent comments in Lebanon are regrettable, for they seem to be directed only against the Israeli presence.
<P>
How can it be accepted that the leader of the Lebanese forces in Beirut, Samir Geagea, has been held for more than four years - truly forgotten - in a Ministry of Defence basement, because he neither wanted to leave Lebanon nor accept a ministerial position within a puppet government following the veritable trials of Moscow!
But is there not sometimes a sort of subtle and objective complicity between Hafez el-Assad's Syria and Israel to keep up a war on Lebanese soil, which both regimes perhaps have need of, in order to assure their domestic stability or to request ever more international military aid.
<P>
Jews hold the power, Muslims are in the majority.
But the Christians of the Middle East remain in this state of dhimmi which the great Israeli historian Bat Yeor described in his remarkable work "Christians of the Middle East - between jihad and dhimmitude' .
Lebanese Christians must restore their country's independence, they must be able to find once more the role that was theirs, regain their freedom within their own lands where, according to the expression of Béchir Gémayel, the bells must be able to ring unhindered in the country which guarantees not only their own people the right to government, but also offers other Christian communities of the Middle East assistance, solidarity, and even a safe haven.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, everyone has the same feeling: this morning, as we discuss for the umpteenth time the situation in the Middle East, in the presence of four members of the Knesset whom I would like to welcome, this morning we are at a turning point, a time when anything could happen, for better or worse.
<P>
I have always been a friend of Israel. Like many, I was a friend nearly forty years ago when it was fashionable to be so in Europe and I remain so today, even if it is no longer the fashion.
I was their friend when Israel was composed of only a handful of survivors determined to exist.
I still am today now that Israel has become a great power.
The layman that I am was a friend of Israel when it was establishing its kibbutzim, to the sound of joyous secularism.
I remain so despite what I hear of sometimes violent debates which arise within the very heart of Israeli society.
<P>
I have been president of the Europe-Israel delegation for five years.
Within this delegation, my colleagues and I have worked, and continue to work, for peace and friendship between Israel and Europe.
We have worked in all subject areas: economic, social, cultural and research and technology.
We have woven ties which we mend when they become frayed.
We supported Yitzhak Rabin, we mourned him and, since the last elections, we have worked with the new team in power, which was the product of democratic elections.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, I mention all of this in order to be able to say clearly to you, in the name of my friendship, of our friendship with Israel, that we are very worried at the sight of the dangers and internal and external demons which are threatening Israel and the region.
And if I remind you of all this, it is also in order to say clearly, on a personal level, that I largely approve of the joint resolution which is being proposed to us.
<P>
For once the text is short, clear and readable.
The message is a strong one, without being aggressive.
In certain respects, however, I would have wished greater detail.
In my opinion, in Point 3 of the resolution there is insufficient emphasis on Syria's serious responsibility in the field of security, both towards and from Lebanon.
We have also forgotten the countries of the region which finance fundamentalist terrorism, and we do not place sufficient emphasis on the fundamental role of our envoy, Mr Moratinos.
<P>
With regard to Point 9 of the Interim Agreement, first of all it has to be regretted that the contract of association properly speaking has yet to be ratified, and that this is down to France and Belgium. Above all it must be confirmed that although we can discuss the terms of implementation via the debate on the origin of products, this should not be a roundabout way of influencing the ongoing negotiations, even of sanctioning Israel.
<P>
In conclusion, I understand and approve of Israel's need for security and the Palestinians' desire for recognition.
In order to reconcile the two, a just peace is required. This will be achieved through negotiations assuring the security and coexistence of Israel and the Palestinians.
To mention this today is also a way for me to pay homage to Yitzhak Rabin, the soldier, the pioneer, the builder of Israel, subsequently the initiator of and the first Israeli signatory to the Oslo agreement with the Palestinians.
To remember him is to continue his work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Provan">
Mr President, it is appropriate that we are debating this matter this morning in the presence of the Israeli delegation from the Knesset.
It is probably rather galling for them to hear many of the speakers this morning calling for concessions from the Israeli Government.
<P>
But I rather agree with the President-in-Office when he called for courage and vision.
That is the right approach that we require at the present time and not perhaps the other things that he could have mentioned: confrontation and confusion.
We need to resolve the blockage that we have and the hardening of positions that seem to be adopted on both sides.
The President-in-Office quite correctly said that it was necessary to understand that the presidency had taken initiatives in calling Mr Netanyahu and Mr Arafat together in London.
<P>
But that was necessary - if we are blunt about it - because of the ineptitude of the President-in-Office when he tried to visit Har Homa and created a very definite hardening of positions and opinions within Israel and within Palestine.
<P>
There is a reference in the resolution which I completely support which asks the Council presidency to urge Member States to refrain from individual initiatives and, instead, to work through appropriate European Union mechanisms.
<P>
Surely, colleagues - and I support completely what Mr Caccavale said - it is not helpful for individual ministers to try their own solutions in a situation like this.
We need courage and vision. And I believe we need new initiatives from the European Union, along with the United States, to try to come to some decent solution with the Syrians, the Lebanese, the Israelis, and the Palestinians.
Let us include also in that area the Egyptians, the Jordanians and, hopefully, even the Iranians and the Iraqis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this is a recurring theme which combines cultural, emotional and political elements of relevance to all Europeans. I want to underline here, as was pointed out by both the Council and the Commission, that our involvement in the Middle East peace process was a forerunner to the elaboration of a common foreign policy.
From Venice to Oslo, passing through Madrid, there has been a rare unanimity within the Union, I would say, in spite of everything.
At this moment, during the British Presidency, I should like to acknowledge the efforts of the Prime Minister, Mr Blair, and also the Foreign Secretary, Mr Cook, whom I do not think was treated properly on his visit to Jerusalem.
<P>
But the point at issue is not so much a matter of historical reflection or explaining the situation.
The diagnosis has been dealt with at length today.
The question is how we can help to break the current agonizing and dramatic deadlock in the peace process.
And I think, besides suggesting brilliant or not so brilliant ideas, we have to see to what extent we in Parliament can make a positive contribution.
There is one aspect which has not been mentioned here this morning, and I should like to do so, in the presence of the members of the delegation from the Knesset . It is that Israel has a greater moral responsibility, in that the fiftieth anniversary of the creation of the State of Israel has just been celebrated.
Israel is a strong, vigorous democracy at the heart of the Middle East. That gives Israel a superior strength and responsibility.
<P>
I had the opportunity, in my capacity as President of the European Parliament, to explain our view to the Knesset at a much more promising moment - on the very day of the start of the Madrid process. I am also an old friend of both Jews and Arabs.
In my youth I had the opportunity to work on a kibbutz .
And I believe we must persevere with this dialogue, even with people who can maintain tougher positions.
We have proof of that in the recent visit of the chairman of the Knesset , with whom we held a critical discussion. And we have to recognize that positive experiences in the field of peace, not just those of the late lamented Prime Minister Rabin, but also those of Prime Minister Begin, with the Camp David agreements, show that peace tends to be forged precisely between people who do not agree with each other.
<P>
I believe we must appeal to our Israeli friends and tell them that the Masada syndrome and creating a Bantustan are no solution to the problems of the Middle East.
And I would add two further elements, apart from promoting that critical dialogue: support for the Commission proposal, and joint action with the United States, bearing in mind the key role which should be played by our envoy, Mr Moratinos.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="Henderson">
Mr President, I want to make one or two remarks in response to the debate we have had this morning.
The debate has clearly shown that there is widespread concern about the situation in the Middle East and the failure in the recent past to make further progress.
All of us feel terrible frustration every time we think there is about to be a breakthrough and then something happens which means that the situation does not move much further forward.
<P>
I very much agree with the point made by one of the contributors to our debate that what we need is not more proposals to try to tackle the difficult issues before us, it is implementation of some of the existing proposals based on the Oslo commitments.
The Council's position is that we strongly support the Commission's initiatives to try to 'engineer' steps toward the negotiating table, where possible trying to use economic measures as well as political ones.
<P>
We strongly believe there is a need to follow on from London, where there was a hope that there would be progress, and to get down to dealing with the situation in the way offered by the American proposal.
It has been clear in the debate that this view is supported on many sides of this House.
That is the clear priority in the time ahead of us.
We will also be asking our envoy, Mr Moratinos, to do what he can to try to persuade the various parties to take up the American offer to move the proposals further forward.
That position is enshrined in the conclusions which were agreed at Cardiff yesterday; if they have not already been circulated they will be very shortly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="President">
I have received seven motions for resolutions, pursuant to Rule 37 (2).
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Financial and technical cooperation with the Occupied Territories
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0180/98) by Mr Tomlinson, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Council Regulation (EC) No 1734/94 of 11 July 1994 on financial and technical cooperation with the Occupied Territories (COM(97)0552 - C4-0048/98-97/0316 (SYN)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Tomlinson">
Mr President, first of all I would like to welcome the President-in-Office's remarks on my report in the last debate.
He identified very clearly my intentions and those of the Committee on Budgets, on whose behalf I present this report.
<P>
The peace process is important and needs proper resources.
That is essentially what we are about.
The Commission proposal for a Council Regulation amending the Council Regulation of 11 July 1994 must address two questions: the question of the legal base and the question of the duration of the regulation.
<P>
The present Council Regulation must therefore be amended. There we agree with the Commission but we believe that the current Commission proposal is too modest and is, in a number of respects, therefore inadequate.
The existing problem is that there is no legal base for either the recurrent costs of the Palestinian authority or for the EIB activities.
This is serious in any event but more so in the light of the Court of Justice ruling last week.
The present proposal from the Commission, on which my report is based, overcomes this but only for the remainder of 1998.
It leaves us with identical problems for next year and beyond.
Parliament's amendments, as drafted and approved unanimously by the Committee on Budgets, seek to resolve this and do other things, at least for the years 1999 and 2000. Thus their whole intention is to help the Commission establish a longer-term strategy for what we are all agreed is an imperative - proper involvement and financing of the European Union contribution to the Middle East peace process.
<P>
The amendments of the Committee on Budgetary Control are clear.
I will just go through them very briefly.
Amendments 1, 3 and 4 are proposed to simplify the recitals and to include a mention of the duration of the regulation.
Amendments 5 and 6 cite the Council decision, which expires in the year 2000 and in Amendment 5 gives justification to the subsequent Amendment 6.
That latter amendment proposes a change in terminology to be used in this measure.
We can all agree that the term 'Occupied Territories' is outdated, given the developments since 1994, and West Bank and Gaza Strip would appear a more appropriate phrase to use throughout the regulation.
However, we also have to note that the financial and technical cooperation could be concentrated through the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and so it might be that this more extensive phrase is appropriate.
The Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy has also considered this aspect.
What is clear is that the words 'Occupied Territories' are now outdated.
<P>
Amendments 2, 7 and 8 incorporate fully in the text of the Tomlinson report the amendments that were proposed by the Committee on Foreign Affairs which clarify the objectives and modalities of the action, underlining its contribution to consolidation of the peace process.
<P>
Amendments 9 and 10 deal with areas where we perhaps understand that the Commission might have a marginally different view to Parliament because these concern the requisite level of information from the Commission to the budgetary authority and comitology; the detail is fully explained in the explanatory statement.
<P>
Amendment 11 and the draft amendment to the draft legislative proposal call on the Commission for a new, single, consolidated, legislative proposal for continuation of assistance to the peace process after 2000.
They seek to do two things: clarify the confused legal base in the present proposal and give greater consistency and transparency in future.
<P>
I think that all those amendments are designed to assist the Commission in what it is seeking to do on behalf of the European Union in the Occupied Territories.
I say 'I think' because regrettably communication with the Commission services, excluding the Commissioner, has been less than satisfactory during this process.
In fact I would go so far as to say that they have behaved badly in relation to the European Parliament.
When I was appointed rapporteur on behalf of Parliament, I asked to see the appropriate representative of the Commission.
In response to my request he came to see me on 2 March and I raised specific questions.
At the Committee on Budgets discussions on 17 March, 21 April and 30 April I re-emphasized all the questions that I had raised with the Commission representative and on which I had not received a reply.
I had a very helpful and fruitful meeting with Commissioner Marín on other matters and I mentioned to his Cabinet on 5 May that I was still awaiting replies to questions I had asked on 2 March.
Following that, various people got in touch with me: the first group to ask what the original questions were, despite the fact that they had been published in my draft report that went to the Committee on Budgets weeks earlier.
Finally, I received a reply on 8 June, i.e. Monday of last week.
<P>
I raise this, not because I want to chastise anybody, but to show the difficulties that occur when Parliament is trying to help the Commission.
For example, we wanted to know how the Commission had fulfilled its obligations to report to the budget authority and I quote these two sentences from a reply I received.
'I am aware that the Commission has not reported pursuant to the wording of Article 6(1)' says the Director-General, Mr Cioffi, and then he goes on not to apologize but to say: 'Due to political implications and the sensitivity of the matter, the Commission has considered the above as adequate.'
Neither I nor any Member of this House considers that to be adequate.
We have not had the fruitful dialogue that we would have liked and yet, despite that, we produced amendments which improve your proposal and help the Commission, Council and the whole European Union to do what we all want - to make a meaningful and constructive financial and political contribution to the resolution of the Middle East process.
Therefore I commend all 12 amendments to the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Graziani">
Mr President, it would be difficult not to agree with the Commission's proposals on granting financial assistance to the administration of the Palestinian Territories which we propose calling from now on the West Bank and Gaza.
<P>
It would be difficult, because in the given situation it is natural that a considerable chunk of the financial assistance goes into running the administrative machinery.
That is all that is possible in this situation where the economic development of these territories is being hampered; not even the proposal for the port and the airport which should be the most basic and simple of matters have got off the ground.
Obviously under these circumstances, we must, like in the case with the other proposal on subsidising interest on loans granted by the EIB, give a legal base to a de facto situation like the one we have seen until now, meaning we must grant financial assistance to the administration too.
<P>
Furthermore, the Commission is proposing a few changes to the regulation: that is, it is underlining the fact that financial and technical cooperation is fundamental to the development of the peace process and stressing the importance that civil society has for the democratic development of this area.
Another fundamental point seems to us to be the request that the Commission make an annual report to Parliament on the effects of cooperation.
<P>
Having said this in very brief but rather specific terms, please allow me, Mr President, to add a few observations to the debate that we have had so far, stressing, in particular, how impossible it is for the European Union to do much more with the means that it has at its disposal.
The European Union is unfortunately doing what it can, I would say what it knows how to do, that is, to provide financial assistance, because it would have difficulty doing more, being an economic rather than a political entity.
I say this not to play down the importance of the efforts that the Commissioners and President-in-Office are making in this direction, but to underscore a political and an institutional fact, that of a European Union that does not have a political entity in a position to act.
What is more, even the United States, as important as they may have been thus far in the Middle East, are capable of little more than fumbling around with a peace process that has become bogged down.
<P>
Please allow me therefore, Mr President, to conclude with a remark, with the agonising memory of the political intelligence and the capacities of a Prime Minister like Yitzhak Rabin in Israel.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it had already been said with great clarity and at some considerable length that the Commission's proposals are a step in the right direction and that the amendments on which Mr Tomlinson, in particular, has put in a very great deal of work, have improved and where appropriate modified them.
Mr Tomlinson had made some criticisms, directed in part at those working for the Commission.
I, however, in a sort of positive amendment of my own, would like to single out two representatives of the Commission and their colleagues for praise because they are doing excellent work.
They are the European Commission's representatives in Tel Aviv and in Jerusalem.
<P>
On two visits I have noticed that a huge commitment is being made to represent Europe well.
It is for this very reason that the Tomlinson Report is so important today, because it should provide the appropriate financial and other backing required to ensure that the European Commission really can use the money it is spending and its political and moral commitment to best effect.
Both here and in other areas - as we have already discussed in another context - our representatives are hampered by the fact that many decisions are too cumbersome and too time consuming. Parliament itself is sometimes guilty, that I admit, but we must succeed in making our decision-making process quicker and less bureaucratic, particularly when it comes to financial aid.
<P>
A second point. You, Mr Commissioner, still hold the view - and I and my group support you fully - that we must not allow ourselves to be squeezed out of the peace process or our commitment.
That is quite right.
But perhaps we could see things in a more positive light.
We are a part of the peace process and there is nothing anyone can do to change that!
We are part of it by dint of our political, moral and financial commitment.
Perhaps what we should be doing is improving the visibility of our efforts and activities.
We are doing so much not only for the economic infrastructure, but also for democracy and human rights, that we really should also be increasing the visibility of what we are doing if we want to build bridges, to create the infrastructure. The Commission's representatives have made some appropriate suggestions in this respect.
<P>
If we spent just part of the money on demonstrating what we want to achieve with it, namely that we have a European obligation to peace, not only in the interests of our identity as a group, but also more generally for our public image and our image in Israel and Palestine, then our aid would be much more efficient.
I would urge you, Commissioner, to continue with your policy, but to examine how we can better present the policy we are operating, particularly in critical phases, particularly in countries where the official propaganda perhaps presents our work in a somewhat more critical light than the population at large sees it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Banotti">
Mr President, the point I wish to make follows on from the point just made by Mr Swoboda.
<P>
On Easter Saturday 1997 I had the pleasure of visiting the European Hospital in Gaza on the very last day before the workmen finally left - a hospital that has been under construction since 1990.
As a nurse I have to say I was extremely impressed by the hospital. In fact never have I seen a better-equipped hospital, in a country that desperately needs health care.
I returned again this year on Good Friday, and that hospital has not received one single patient, has not received one single trainee, nurse or medical assistant.
It lies there, a graphic symbol, perhaps, of our sterile role in the Middle East process.
<P>
Mr Swoboda has called for more obvious public perception of our role in the area.
If this is the public perception I think it is outrageous.
There is a situation I remember in Yes Minister , a British television programme which many us have often enjoyed, in which Sir Humphrey announces that although they have the hospital they cannot afford to have any patients.
That, I am afraid, is exactly what is happening in Gaza.
I am grateful to the Commissioner for his long answer to my question, dated 16 March, in which he tells me about the kind of money that has been spent on this hospital: over ECU 50 million, and not a single patient treated in the hospital.
<P>
The construction company that dealt with it is still waiting for quite a considerable amount of money, and since it is a small construction company from Northern Ireland, the long delay in payment is also causing problems there.
Most important of all, are we to see nothing but white elephants as our contribution to the Middle East peace process?
We have excellent ambassadors there but they simply do not have the structures to make the necessary impact on the political situation.
<P>
We are looking at practically the largest concentration of people in the world in the Gaza Strip, where they go for their medical treatment to dusty little clinics, many of which I visited when I was there, where heroic doctors do their best to cope under extremely difficult circumstances, while down the road this hospital is lying completely empty.
The gates were locked.
I believe it is costing about US$100, 000 a month just in security to maintain the hospital; but as I have said, not a single patient has been treated there and it is now fifteen months since the workers left.
I know that we have sent out a tender for an international management team, but we are fiddling while Rome burns.
The standard of health in the Gaza Strip is very low.
The maternity care services are appalling.
I have been to that hospital as well, and when I was there they had to remove a cat from one of the babies' cots when we were doing the tour in the outer part of that hospital.
<P>
Since we are discussing the budget and our contribution, we have to look into our souls, and I very much hope that the Commissioner will give us an adequate response to the concerns I am expressing about this issue.
Many speakers this morning have spoken about their concerns in relation to the desperate situation in the Middle East.
Friends of both Israel and the Palestinians return more and more depressed from that area, as I did myself after my visit there a couple of months ago.
We unfortunately count for virtually nothing there, because we have not put the structures in place in that part of the world to maximize our contribution to the area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Nordmann">
Mr President, I would like to speak in support of both Mr Tomlinson's report and the principle of European Union aid to the peace process, whilst formulating a few critical reflections on the way this aid is received and, I would say, perceived.
<P>
What is its purpose?
It is a question of contributing to the development of peaceful co-existence between Jews and Arabs in the Middle East.
Owing to circumstances, this aid is increasingly concentrated on the development of support structures for the Palestinian Authority which, unfortunately, is interpreted as a sort of anticipation of the peace process and consequent recognition of a still doubtful State whose borders remain, at the very least, to be defined.
The result is that this political anticipation which underlies the aid is perceived, especially in Israel, as unilateral encouragement of one side rather than both.
It is all the more worrying since, although there exists in Israel a group in favour of peace and co-existence, one wonders if a similar group for peace and Jewish-Arab co-existence also exists on the Palestinian side.
<P>
The model for reconciliation which Europe has represented and must continue to represent for the Middle East is an excellent thing.
Franco-German reconciliation worked because there were people in favour of peace on both sides, in both countries.
It would be desirable for European Union aid to place greater emphasis on the establishment of parties for peace on both sides of the dividing line.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Antony">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have listened to Mr Tomlinson's comments with a great deal of interest and on the whole we support his report.
Indeed, I think it is a good idea to stop talking about the Occupied Territories. But why replace this expression with the West Bank and Gaza Strip?
No, I think the role of the European Parliament is precisely to go further than this; to anticipate peace and use the word "Palestine' . I think this would move things on.
We must talk of European Union aid to Palestine.
Palestine must be built and I think that we should not lose faith in the Palestinians.
There are a great number of Palestinians in favour of peace, just as there were a great number of people in favour of peace in the homelands during apartheid in South Africa.
But it is not by maintaining these homelands, by maintaining this apartheid, that peace will be built.
<P>
We have to contribute financially to the construction of Palestine, but we also have to contribute to it politically.
I think this is precisely one of the points on which the countries of the European Union are agreed.
They are all agreed on making things move in the direction of recognition of the fundamental rights of a people.
The United States are currently monopolizing all of the so-called "Western' influence, with a partiality which is constantly in favour of the State of Israel.
This partiality must no longer be accepted.
We have to come to a more balanced vision of things.
This is how peace will be built.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Cellai">
Mr President, Council Regulation EC 1734/94 lays down the terms of financial and technical cooperation between the European Union and the Occupied Territories with a view to promoting the process of development in these areas and creating conditions favourable to a positive outcome of the peace process, which unfortunately is not the case right now.
<P>
We are convinced, as the National Alliance delegation, that financial and technical cooperation between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank makes a fundamental contribution to the consolidation of the peace process.
However, we must admit that the impact of the Union's financial assistance in this area has so far not come up to expectations, despite the tremendous efforts made.
The causes are many: the difficult progression of the peace process that has not created the conditions of stability necessary for development; the blocking of the Occupied Territories on and off by the Israeli authorities in retaliation for terrorist acts; and a certain incapacity to manage on the part of the Palestinian Authority combined with the suspicion of illegal practices.
<P>
Amendments to the proposal for a regulation would therefore be helpful in order to better clarify the objectives and the terms of action, stressing the need to consolidate the peace process and coming up with a more detailed definition of the legal basis of this financial cooperation.
The fundamental role of financial and technical cooperation in developing the peace process and consequently in developing a civil society must be reaffirmed, the democratic development of these territories being hindered if a civil society fails to be created.
<P>
I have one final remark, and that is that we consider it appropriate that the Commission send Parliament a written report each year on the effects of cooperation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, first of all I should like to thank the Committee on Budgets, especially the rapporteur, Mr Tomlinson, for their excellent, meticulous work, and the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy for their valuable opinion.
<P>
The importance which Members attach to the future of the Palestinians and the peace process gives me confidence that the European Union will manage to adopt a common approach to tackle the region's problems.
<P>
To be able to undertake positive work in the future, and for the sake of the credibility of the Union, it is essential for us really to share a common strategy, and I should like briefly to remind you of the context of this Commission proposal.
<P>
As you are well aware, the current regulation on assistance to the Palestinians was adopted on the basis of the declaration of principles signed by Israel and the Palestinians in September 1993, and was followed by the international donors' conference in Washington.
<P>
Unfortunately, the deterioration in the political climate in the Middle East and the successive crises in the peace process have seriously affected our aid programme.
In particular, the difficult political situation has caused serious budgetary problems both for the Palestinian Authority and for other Palestinian public institutions.
<P>
So the international donors - including the European Union, which is the most important - have been obliged to devote a large part of the project funds to recurrent costs and budget support.
<P>
Again and again, and each time at the request of the Council, the Commission has had to adapt to these circumstances in order simply to guarantee the survival of the Palestinian Authority and the peace process itself. We have never denied that during our appearances before this Parliament.
<P>
It is true that the Community cannot help, or does not usually help, to fund the recurrent costs of this sort of institution. That is why the 1994 regulation - the first one presented by the Commission - did not envisage this type of budgetary support.
And in that sense, I can tell you that at the time the regulation for the special Palestinian programme was established not even I, who witnessed the meetings in Washington and Cairo, could have foreseen that with time the peace process would come to experience the difficulties it has suffered, or that it would be necessary, especially at the time of the first border blockades, to begin to pay a series of administrative or recurrent costs which, I repeat, were not included in the programme.
<P>
So the aim of the proposal under discussion today is, if you like, to enable recurrent costs to be financed from Community funds.
And there is no hiding the fact that it is also due to the Court of Auditors having decided, quite rightly, that certain financial payments made to the Palestinian Authority during the peace process do not have an adequate legal base, and furthermore are being used for other objectives of an administrative or recurrent nature which are not covered by the regulation.
<P>
That is absolutely true and cannot be denied but, I repeat, we have had to do it because of the political circumstances.
<P>
As for the proposal to allow interest rate subsidies on lending by the European Investment Bank, that is also aimed at allowing this institution to fulfil its political mandate.
<P>
So these two amendments constitute the main changes the Commission has made to the regulation in question.
In that respect, I am pleased to note that we are in agreement with the amendments which, I repeat, form the essence of this proposal.
<P>
Nevertheless, I have something important to say to Parliament, the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy. The Commission finds itself in a paradoxical situation at the moment.
The Commission fully shares the objectives set out in the amendments tabled by Mr Tomlinson and the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, which refer to the future of assistance to the Palestinians. However, we have a problem with the timing.
The Commission will have no problem accepting these amendments, their essence and their stance at a later date. I say that because the Commission is about to present a new regulation, in accordance with the instructions given by the Council of Ministers in February.
We have to present it before the end of the British Presidency, probably at the Council of 29 June. That new regulation comprehensively addresses all the aspects relating to the overall analysis of the future of the Union, in terms of political and economic conditions.
<P>
So I hope you will understand this paradoxical position.
We would simply ask both Mr Tomlinson and the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy that a decision on these amendments should be deferred until after the Commission has presented the new regulation to the Council of Ministers.
<P>
Once it has been presented there will be a common legal base: Article 130w. There will be a whole set of political conditions, an exercise in globalization and a vision of the future with respect to this regulation.
<P>
So, I repeat, I hope you can understand this paradox. I would point out once again that we will have no difficulty accepting Parliament's suggestions and the suggestions contained in the amendments.
Moreover, we also openly recognize, without any problem, that it is an excellent idea to present a two year deferment in order to conclude the financial perspectives and to extend them by a further five years.
We think it is an excellent idea to have an overall view.
But as things stand, the Commission has a problem of an institutional nature. We have to present a regulation to the Council of Ministers, because that was decided by the Council of Ministers in February.
<P>
Secondly, we have another problem I hope you will understand.
We are also interested in Mr Tomlinson's amendments insofar as they represent a clever way of getting away from that heavy cross we have to bear, known as comitology.
But again, I have to say that following the European Council in Cardiff, the Commission is going to present a communication to try to change the comitology involved not just in the Palestine regulation, but in the whole system as it currently exists, derived from the Maastricht Treaty.
So the Commission thinks it is very important to adopt a comprehensive approach to all the legal bases in the budget.
That is why the Commission has taken the initiative of presenting a plan for overall reform.
And the plan under consideration today is a good example to demonstrate that the current comitology is a heavy burden, which helps neither Parliament, the Council of Ministers nor the Commission.
<P>
I should now like to address the problems raised by Mr Swoboda, for example, on the European Union's participation in the international donors' agreement.
You know that we are making an effort to ensure that the European Union plays an essential role in the donors' conference.
That point is also going to be included in the new regulation, and is a question which Parliament and the Council of Ministers will have to resolve.
That is why we want to base this regulation on Article 130W, so it can have a global vision, and that is why we would ask you to delay all these questions just until October.
Then, in October, when we have the general debate on this new regulation - I hope Parliament and the Council will approve it, because for me that point is essential, Mr Tomlinson - then, with Mr Tomlinson's amendments and the Commission's new regulation, a very simple conundrum will have to be solved. Will the Council accept your amendments?
Will the Council accept my regulation?
That is the political problem, because I am asking for a lot of money, and Mr Tomlinson is asking for a lot of money.
So I would ask that we have that global vision in October, because we are asking for ECU 1.6 billion.
And after what happened in Cardiff, the European Parliament and the Commission have no choice but to implement, with your amendments or my new regulation, what the Council is going to say.
So we are in favour of waiting until October, once the Council gives us the margin for political manoeuvre.
That is what we think.
<P>
I shall now turn to a few other questions.
Mrs Banotti, the European Commission has made an enormous effort with the hospital in Gaza.
The thing is, you have to render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and render unto the Commission what belongs to the Commission.
In other words, we are working with UNRRA and so all I can do is tell you how much we have paid, how much work we have done, what we want to do in the hospital, and the difficulties that exist in knowing whether or not sick people and refugees can be treated.
But is it the Commission's fault if the Gaza hospital is not open?
Go and visit the airport.
It has been completed.
The control tower is there, and all the electronic equipment.
I have spent ECU 15 million on it.
I knew it was useless.
Is it my fault that the airport is not open?
You place me in an impossible situation.
Of course the airport is closed, and of course I have paid many millions of ecus.
But is it my fault that the Israeli authorities do not want to authorize it to open?
Please direct your criticism at the people responsible.
You tell me: "Spend the money' .
I spend the money.
Then it unfortunately turns out that the airport, port, hospital, television station, radio or whatever cannot open.
Then you ask me to explain politically to you why it cannot be done.
Please understand that I am in an impossible situation.
I am not the one who gives permission. That permission is granted by the Israeli authorities.
<P>
In short, I am really sorry.
No doubt my credibility is non-existent but, believe me, the Commission and this Commissioner have spent a year and a half suffering real agonies over this situation, for which we do not feel responsible because, obviously, what the Commission cannot do when faced with this sort of difficulty is decide to stop paying, because that would be a bureaucratic solution.
<P>
If there is no legal base and I do not pay, you would accuse me of being a bureaucrat.
If there is no legal base, but the Council makes political decisions and I pay, you would say: "You are irresponsible because you pay when there is no legal base' .
Thirdly, when work has been done - the hospital, the airport and so on - the Israeli authorities say: "That is not going to open' .
There are questions in Parliament and you ask: "But why did you spend the money on that?'
<P>
Please, show a little solidarity with the Commission.
You have to back us up, otherwise in the end nobody is going to want to be responsible for the situation.
<P>
In short, Mr President, this is a very complicated situation. Mr Henderson knows that because he is on the Council.
Mr Tomlinson knows it, so does Mr Swoboda, and so does Mrs Banotti because she has been there.
I would like nothing better than for the hospital to be working.
But how can we convince the Prime Minister, Mr Netanyahu, that it should also take refugees?
Tell me how to do that.
<P>
Mr President, my conclusion is this. The Commission does not deny the intelligence and the value of Mr Tomlinson's amendments, which are quite right, or Parliament's contribution.
In February the Council asked the Commission to produce a new regulation to combine all the separate decisions which have been made during the last three years.
Some of them have no legal base.
<P>
The Commission's position is that it will present the regulation to the Council on 29 June.
I hope the Council will give us the political and financial margin, and once we have that I shall have no difficulty accepting Mr Tomlinson's amendments, when they are presented in the European Parliament in October, under the Austrian Presidency.
<P>
But at the moment I cannot do so, for legal and institutional reasons, and I beg you, please be as understanding as you can of the Commission's position.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="President">
It is my great pleasure, on behalf of the House, to welcome a delegation from the Israeli Knesset, who are seated in the official gallery, headed by Mr Zeev Boïm, member of the Knesset. They are here for the 23rd interparliamentary meeting with the relevant delegation from this Parliament.
<P>
It is my hope that this 23rd meeting, which is taking place at a difficult moment in the peace process, will mark a further stage in the necessary rapprochement between the countries and peoples we represent, with a view to peaceful and fruitful cohabitation around the Mediterranean which, as in former times, is a privileged and incontestable point of contact.
<P>
May I wish the Israeli delegation fruitful meetings and a very pleasant stay in Strasbourg.
<P>
I would also like to welcome the representative of the Palestinian Authority to the European Union, and a delegation of ambassadors from the Arab States.
<P>
(Applause)
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Financial and technical cooperation with the Occupied Territories (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Tomlinson">
Mr President, I welcome the remarks of Commissioner Marín.
It is very helpful that he has been quite so fulsome towards Parliament's views and quite so welcoming of them. But he said in his remarks that we had to understand the paradoxical problem of Mr Marín.
Well I do. But I hope he understands the paradox that he is posing for Parliament.
What Mr Marín seemed to say was that he agreed with the amendments of the Committee on Budgets.
What he went on to say was that he shares the goals of Mr Tomlinson's report.
He went on to say 'we have no problem with them' - no problem in accepting these amendments or the thrust of them.
And then those fateful four words, 'at a later date' .
<P>
This seems like a kid who is waiting for Christmas. He has been through all the preparation and suddenly somebody comes along and hijacks Father Christmas's bag of toys and says 'but you can have them next year' .
Parliament is not in a great mood for procrastination. So there is a paradoxical problem of Marín, but there is a paradox that you present for Tomlinson.
Perhaps, some time, we should sit down and share paradoxical experiences.
<P>
I merely give you notice, Commissioner Marín, that I really welcome the spirit of what you have said.
I will cut the words out of the Rainbow and make sure we keep them as a reference point for the future.
But equally, when we come to the vote on this report later, I will ask you quite explicitly at the end of the votes on the amendments, whether you can accept them.
Then we will take our decisions based on what you say then.
<P>
At the moment I thank you for your comments but, quite clearly, you will have to understand that Parliament also has its own position to take into account as well as being understanding of the positions of other institutions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Marín">
Mr Tomlinson, I would like to explain the Commission's position now, so that Members are aware of it straight away, without me having to comment at the time of the vote.
<P>
As I said, the Commission will have no problem in accepting the spirit and the content of your amendments once we have presented the regulation to the Council of Ministers.
At the moment we cannot do so.
We are simply asking Parliament to be flexible and wait another three or four months.
Since August is taken up with holidays, I do not think it is asking much to wait until September or October to hold a general debate under the Austrian Presidency, because we have a lot of problems and we would prefer to have a general debate in October.
<P>
That is our opinion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
This exchange thus brings our debate to a close.
<P>
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 11.25 a.m. and resumed at 11.30 a.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Thomas">
Mr President, Amendment No 41 is different to Amendments Nos 42 and 43.
Amendment No 41, with the date 2002, was not supported in committee.
The date 2005 was supported, thereby giving the producers a longer period to settle into a new regime.
The period we should support is 2005, not 2002.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="President">
Mr Thomas, I have made a note of your comment and I will see to it that a check is carried out by the Parliamentary language service to ensure that the rendering is correct, as you request.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="President">
Do you want a separate vote on Amendment No 41?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Thomas">
Yes, Mr President, I want a separate vote for Amendment No 41 as it is different.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Provan">
I wish to ask the rapporteur, just for clarification, whether it would not be easier, in the circumstances, to withdraw the amendment and leave the original Commission text.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Thomas">
I am quite happy to do that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="President">
But it is an amendment by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Thomas">
Yes, there has been a mistake.
I have checked with the services. The committee voted to support 2005 and not 2002.
Therefore, if the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development is agreeable, this amendment should be withdrawn.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Aldo">
Mr President, there is indeed a problem.
I would simply remind the rapporteur that, in the recitals, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development adopted 2005.
But Amendment No 41 was also voted for by the Committee on Agriculture.
On the one hand, in the recital, 2005 was agreed on, whilst in the body of the text, it was considered to be 2002.
I therefore think that there is no reason now to remove the amendment relating to 2002.
This must go to a vote.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="President">
We shall now proceed to the election of a Parliamentary Vice-President.
<P>
We have received nominations for Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz and Mr Gerard Collins.
<P>
Four scrutineers will be appointed for the election.
<P>
(Mr Mohamed Ali, Mr Parodi, Mrs Marinucci and Mr Frischenschlager are chosen by lots as scrutineers)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
Mr President, I would like to clarify our position on this vote.
Our group has always supported the correct application of what we consider a fundamental rule for this Parliament, namely the proportional distribution of members of the Bureau, President, Vice-Presidents and Quaestors.
<P>
During the present legislature there was an agreement between the most important groups, the Group of European Socialists and ours.
This worked well at the beginning, but during the second vote this did not work well as far as the election of Quaestors was concerned.
We see the above rule as a fundamental rule for our Parliament.
The position of our Parliament remains extremely fragile.
Only this morning we were talking about the attacks which are launched almost daily against our Parliament.
We therefore think we should maintain this rule.
According to the calculations of the d'Hondt system, the Union for Europe Group is obviously entitled to a Vice-Presidency.
Since Mr Podestà joined our group, we have the number of VicePresidents that we need.
That is why we withdrew the candidature of Mr Cunha, out of deep respect for what we consider to be a fundamental rule of this Parliament.
<P>
I should like to pay tribute to Mr Cunha for agreeing to the withdrawal of his candidature. I understand that the major groups in this Parliament are prepared to respect this rule, the d'Hondt system.
We were assured that this was the case, and under these circumstances we have therefore withdrawn the candidature of Mr Cunha. It was our intention that the Union for Europe Group, which is entitled to the seat of Vice-President, would obtain it, despite the fact that we were disadvantaged during the previous vote where the Quaestors were concerned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cunha">
Mr President, just a word to underline what Mr Martens has said.
For myself, speaking personally, I had no hesitation in withdrawing my candidature, because I consider that we should follow the rules which have always governed the work of Parliament, that is to say the d'Hondt method.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth">
Mr President, I would like to point out that it is, of course, the right of any Member to present his candidacy for the post of Vice President.
It is also the democratic right of the Groups in this House to propose Vice-Presidents.
Mr Martens has already pointed out that although internal agreements do exist - between the large groups, as you said, but, of course, there are other groups in the House, too - there are also agreements which are not necessarily supported by this House as the election of Mr Killilea as Quaestor has already shown.
<P>
Here the House, in its great wisdom, has made a decision which is different to that which the "arrangement' might have dictated.
For this reason it is our democratic right to present to the House a candidate from the Green Group in the European Parliament, in the belief, incidentally, that it is entirely appropriate to consider whether, in a committee such as the Bureau of the European Parliament, it would not be right, proper and democratic if all groups were to be represented, rather than having the present situation in which three groups have no representation at all.
Three groups in this House are entirely unrepresented in the Bureau, as are the independents.
<P>
For this reason, this candidacy is a candidacy which will bring a little more democracy into this House at a time when the Bureau is holding very important debates.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="President">
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="President">
I would like to inform the House of the presence among us, in the officials' gallery, of the President of the Greek New Democracy Party and leader of the official opposition in Greece, Kostas Karamanlis.
Mr Karamanlis has been visiting the European Parliament since yesterday for talks with the President of the Parliament and the chairmen of the political groups.
We hope he will have a pleasant stay in Strasbourg.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Votes (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Velzen, W.G.">
Mr President, due to the uncertainties which have appeared in my own group as a result of the vote change, I am trying to make it clear to them that we are going to vote on recital B first, and that after that we will return to recital A.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="President">
Mr van Velzen, we will clarify it with an electronic check so that there is no confusion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Green">
We have already voted on A and it has been adopted.
You really cannot go back and check it now that the following vote has been taken.
That is absolutely unacceptable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="President">
Mrs Green, you are right in the following sense: indeed we did vote on A and indeed the majority was for.
An electronic check was requested and there was confusion between A and B and so I repeated both votes.
I can repeat the electronic check.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Green">
Mr President, you had declared that vote and moved on to B. You then took the recorded vote on B. It is absolutely unacceptable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="President">
That is absolutely true, Mrs Green, but I have been asked to make a check on A.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Green">
Mr President, it is against every rule on voting that I have ever heard of to accept a check on a vote that has been declared, after you have taken the next vote.
It is completely unacceptable practice.
<P>
They made a mistake with their votes. It is unacceptable to recall it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, as usual you acted very quickly.
Immediately after recital A we requested a check on the vote, and at that point you moved on to recital B. I believe that this vote is perfectly legitimate; we have now voted on A.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Quisthoudt-Rowohl">
Mr President, even if the other side of the House does have a relative majority for Recital A, in this case a qualified majority is required.
If a large group is against it, we simply need to check whether the others obtain 314 votes.
That is, after all, what we want to know.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Green">
Mr President, I can accept that if one of the majority groups in this House is against something on a qualified majority, then it will be lost. But you declared the vote adopted and moved on.
It is unacceptable for them to realize they made a mistake and to ask you to go back.
We cannot accept that.
Once you begin to do that, anarchy will reign in this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Provan">
Mr President, I can well understand the anxiety which some people have on this issue, and I quite understand Mrs Green's position.
But let there be no doubt that there were clear calls for a check on Recital A immediately the vote was taken. Unfortunately, we moved on rather quickly to take the vote on B, when there were still calls for a check.
Looking around the House, I believe the calls were absolutely justified, and I call on you, Mr President, to make a check on Recital A as you are duty-bound to do.
We can then re-vote on Recital B in due course.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="President">
We will make an electronic check on Recital B, as requested.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Mr President, with respect for your management of proceedings, Mr Provan has described quite clearly exactly what happened during the vote on Recital A. You called for the vote on Recital A, and the first calls of "check' were heard immediately afterwards. However, you proceeded to Recital B immediately.
You then decided, quite rightly in my view, to allow another vote on Recital A by way of a check. As I see it, you then allowed yourself to be dissuaded from holding this vote by the argument put forward very vociferously by the other side of the House.
That cannot be right.
As a result, I did not take part in the subsequent vote and would now request that this matter be cleared up once and for all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Velzen, W.G.">
Most certainly, Mr President, you should have a look at the text.
We just voted on paragraph 1© under your chairmanship. In paragraph 1© the second point which was voted on, there is the phrase: "takes account in this connection of the attached text' .
This text has been rejected.
It is therefore completely absurd to start voting on an annex which we have removed from the legislative resolution.
We have therefore completed the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="President">
Mr van Velzen, the President's officials have explained to me that we are not obliged to put a reference to the vote which says: " Taking into consideration the text which is attached in Annex...' .
It is taken as read that the text in the Annex is also taken into consideration.
It is superfluous and that is why it was not put to a vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Linkohr">
Mr President, as the rapporteur may I perhaps say a few words about this important vote?
We have obviously now removed the phrase which requires the Commission to take into consideration the attached text. But at the same time we also voted to take a decision on the basis of Article 38 b of the Treaty and Rule 50 of the Rules of Procedure - and these make a direct reference to a Parliament initiative and not to any statement.
<P>
If you do not agree to this now, then you yourself will effectively be making your previous decisions, that is Article 38 b and Rule 50, look ridiculous.
What the Commission will make of that is its business, whether or not we agree to this.
The Commission, too, can read, in all 11 languages!
I insist that a vote be taken on this annex now in accordance with procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herman">
Mr President, to save the Chamber's time and in order to take the rapporteur, Mr Linkohr's, wishes into account, I propose a single vote on the annex and we will thus know immediately where we are, for this annex also requires a qualified majority.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="President">
Mr Herman, there are votes in sections. How is it therefore possible for me to take a general vote on the whole Annex?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Robles Piquer">
Mr President, if you will allow me, I will try to inject a bit of common sense into this debate.
And I do so because of my interest in renewable energies, which is well known to Mr Linkohr and others in this House.
<P>
The reason my group wants to reject Recital A is very simple.
By mistake, Recital A says there is "no Community legislation on feeding in electricity from renewable sources of energy' .
I say that is a mistake because the directive on the electricity market published in January 1997 - on which, as I said in the debate yesterday, this Parliament did a great deal of work, mostly thanks to Mr Desama - contains two references to renewable energy, in a recital and an article.
<P>
So it would have been acceptable to say there was inadequate or little legislation, but not that there is none.
As Mr Linkohr said earlier, that is why we cannot accept that text.
<P>
What is going to happen now, Mr President, is very simple.
The majority of our group is going to vote against, and that means there will not be a qualified majority, and the whole document will not be approved.
It would be better for the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy to study it again, because we believe it is possible to improve the text and, at a later date, submit to the House a text which everybody could approve.
<P>
That is what I suggest.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="President">
Mr Robles Piquer, if I have understood correctly, you are requesting referral back to the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
Fair enough, you can request it.
Are there any objections?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Linkohr">
Mr President, we had sufficient time to deal with this in the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
The other side of the House also tabled amendments, which were adopted almost without exception.
Until a moment ago I also had the impression that there was broad agreement on this report, as, incidentally, we have always had broad agreement on renewables in the past.
I cannot understand why the Group of the European People's Party has suddenly had a change of opinion, but everyone has a right to do so.
Anyone can make a mistake, but I do not believe that we will make any progress if we go back to committee now.
We have been in this situation before and we are not learning from our mistakes.
Please, let us vote on it now.
Then we will know where we stand.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="President">
Mr Linkohr, you are opposed.
As a result, we have heard one for and one against.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Velzen, W.G.">
Mr President, I would like to argue in favour particularly because we, in the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, have been trying for a long time to change the aid models found in Mr Linkohr's report, which are extremely dirigiste.
We did not succeed, and I therefore think it would be useful to refer it back for further consideration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bloch von Blottnitz">
Mr President, first of all, two Members have spoken in favour of this report, so at least two might be allowed to speak against it.
Incidentally, I should like to point out that have we never started referring things back to committee in the middle of a vote before.
Strictly speaking, this amendment should have been tabled in advance.
I should also like to point out that we discussed this matter long and hard in the Committee on Research, Technical Development and Energy, and that we have always said quite openly - on this side of the House at least - that we need to find a route towards renewable energies, and this lays the foundations for it.
If you want to destroy those foundations, all well and good, but that is not what you have been saying until now. I will not go as far as to say that you have been lying, but this sort of thing cannot be allowed to go on.
As soon as you realize you are losing, you want to send the whole thing back to the committee stage.
If that is to be the case, then our work here in the future will be like that of a nursery school and we will never make any progress.
Mr President, please let the vote continue in order, as it usually would.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="President">
The proposal for referral back to committee will now be put to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament rejected the proposal)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Collins, Kenneth">
Mr President, I rise to draw the attention of the House and yourself to the fact that an interview has been taking place in the public gallery.
I am not at all sure that conducting television interviews while a vote is taking place is a proper use of the public gallery.
Could you please take action to prevent this happening?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="President">
Mr Collins, instructions have been given.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lataillade">
Mr President, could I support Mr Herman's proposal?
It appears that voting is always carried out in the same way and that every time it is impossible to gain a majority.
Mr Herman's proposal for a general vote seems perfectly reasonable and we would have avoided spending a great deal of time only to arrive at the same result.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="President">
I would like to ask the House to bear in mind that the political groups that have tabled amendments must withdraw their amendments in order to allow this general vote to take place.
I personally have no objection, and if the political groups are in agreement and we can take a general vote, then let us do so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="McNally">
Mr President, we do not agree with that.
There are amendments where we have asked for roll-call votes.
We want the stance of the party opposite to be made public in those roll-call votes and we want them voted on one by one.
<P>
(Applause from the left) - After the vote
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Linkohr">
Mr President, we are, nevertheless, still faced with the problem that we are referring back to committee an annex which we have now rejected.
What we are supposed to do in this situation, I do not know.
But I leave it to your wisdom to decide whether you want to take the vote again or not.
It would certainly be a unique event in the history of Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, in addition to an error in the voting list, I fear you may have committed an error in the voting procedure.
The final vote can clearly not take place before the annex has been voted on.
You first of all put to the vote, at the request of one group, the second part of paragraph 1 c) separately, which required the annex to be considered.
You then proceeded to the final vote, then to the vote on the annex.
And even before proceeding to the vote on the annex, but after the final vote had taken place, you agreed to put to the vote a procedural motion requesting referral back to committee, when in accordance with Article 129 it is clear that referral to committee cannot be requested after the final vote.
<P>
I think that, in reality, the final vote to which you proceeded earlier was not handled correctly.
We cannot proceed to a final vote before having completed the voting on the text, that is, the text and its annex.
I therefore think that you must put the text to a final vote, one which could not take place earlier.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="President">
I am sorry, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, but I do not agree with your interpretation.
The first part of the vote was clearly separate from the vote on the annex.
This has already given rise to some discussion and has been clarified.
We could have two votes, as has been done, one on the motion for a resolution, the other a separate one, on the annex.
We have completed the first, and nothing further needs to be done now with regard to the annex. I am not going to put the annex to a final vote.
That is an end to the matter.
Before suspending voting time, I will announce the explanations of vote and I wish you all a good lunch.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Ahlqvist, Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw, Theorin, Waidelich and Wibe">
It is our view that there is no need for a quota system for bananas, especially not with regard to imports from third countries.
This system is unnecessary.
<P>
We want a free market for the banana trade.
In other respects we are, of course, very positive towards helping ACP countries in various ways to get the chance to develop trade in their own products on the world market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of an amendment on common organization of the market in bananas.
A change in market organization is necessary because the EU has lost a WTO case.
The Commission's proposal is a reasonable attempt to strike a balance between the various considerations.
We must respect our WTO and Lomé obligations, while also assuring consumers of good, inexpensive bananas.
<P>
Many of the amendments by the European Parliament upset this balance.
Thus, we have voted against a reduction in the dollar banana quota because it is at odds with WTO provisions.
We have voted against an increase in duties, because that would make bananas too expensive.
We have also voted against raising duties on non-traditional bananas because it would be obscene to add to duty on bananas from some of the poorest countries in the world.
<P>
We have voted in favour of the report because it contains a proposal for a fair trade banana system.
Supporting a changeover to production of fair trade bananas is an excellent way of helping smaller producers to become competitive in the face of dollar bananas.
<P>
The report paves the way for two different systems - one for fair trade bananas and one for organic bananas.
However, there should only be the one system, meeting both environmental and social requirements.
It is unrealistic to imagine that ACP producers will be able to do without pesticides altogether.
Thus, a definition of fair trade must be worked out between producers and consumers.
The system must include support for a changeover in production, support for consumer information and a system of labelling and monitoring so that consumers can be sure of what they are getting for their money.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Krarup, Bonde and Sandbæk">
It emerged once again last week that the American banana company Chiquita is deliberately flouting employee rights and environmental considerations in its banana plantations in Latin America.
For many countries, ACP or otherwise, banana production is a crucial source of foreign currency, and a large number of people are financially dependent upon these exports.
But as the Chiquita affair reveals, banana production also puts third world plantation workers seriously at risk, both socially and in terms of health.
<P>
We have supported those amendments proposed by the committee and other members of the European Parliament that require the common organization of the market to take account of and actively promote the production and import of so-called fair trade bananas.
We would have preferred to see a special fair trade quota being set up, but that would fly in the face of current WTO regulations.
When the next round of WTO negotiations begins, the EU must have the clear objective of bringing about such a quota.
Until then, we must ensure that fair trade organizations have easy import access.
<P>
We have abstained from voting on the actual report on the common organization of the market because the proposal indiscriminately gives traditional ACP countries an advantage.
There are countries outside this circle equally dependent upon banana production, and we have no guarantee that plantation workers in ACP countries are treated any better than their colleagues in Latin America.
Moreover, the present proposal does nothing to safeguard small-scale banana producers.
The World Bank has calculated that only about 12 % of the additional price European consumers pay for bananas actually goes to the producers - the remainder goes to the importers, and with the existing proposal, there is no guarantee that the future will be any different.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="Lindqvist">
Banana imports to the EU are surrounded by a mass of regulations, duties, quotas and penalty duties.
The EU itself must set a good example and reduce the amount of regulation, follow the WTO ruling and increase the focus on free trade.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="Miranda">
This proposal, which follows a decision of the World Trade Organization, is particularly symbolic and important and, if approved in the form submitted by the Commission, will seriously change the present situation for the worse as regards the common organization of the market in bananas.
<P>
Symbolic because the Commission's proposals would entail an intolerable acceptance of the universal predominance of the WTO - and the interests of the USA - with the inevitable sacrifice of the traditional privileged relations between the EU and the ACP countries, for bananas now, and extended to other areas later.
<P>
Serious changes for the worse, because by substantially increasing the quota of imports from third countries (another 353 million tonnes) - particularly for the benefit of the 'banana-dollar zone' - it would affect levels of imports from the ACP countries and also the amount of room on the market for Community products, especially those from Madeira.
<P>
We therefore consider the amendments by the Committee on Agriculture to be helpful.
They are in fact designed to ensure that Community producers' interests are safeguarded and to maintain the essential aspects of our preferential agreements with the ACP countries.
This is what is happening with the reduction of the extraordinary quota to 100 thousand tonnes.
And it is also happening with the fixing of a quota of 57, 500 tonnes for Portugal, 7, 500 tonnes more than at present.
<P>
There is still one fundamental matter: we must revise some of the WTO's mechanisms.
The EU must not be held prisoner by them.
That is the purpose of our amendment to the Thomas report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="Nicholson">
I welcome this report as an effort to go as far as possible in assisting ACP countries within the constraints of the WTO ruling.
Of course, the WTO ruling means that we cannot help those ACP countries as much as previously but this report, in line with the Commission proposals is the next best option.
<P>
Banana reform is an area where the modern organization of world trade seems to have little regard for traditional ties between countries.
We, in the UK, have long-standing links with Caribbean countries in particular.
It is a shame that the WTO does not seem to recognize such links.
The UK, of course, is not the only Member State which recognizes its obligations to traditional producer countries.
<P>
I share the rapporteur's concern that the abolition of the licences for individual producer countries could undermine the position of some countries in the EU market.
Additional support measures to balance this are clearly necessary.
<P>
In the broader context, the long running controversy makes the point that greater flexibility is needed in the WTO if jobs are to be protected in less well off societies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="Souchet">
The COM in bananas is of particular importance because banana production directly concerns both a number of European regions - particularly the ultra-peripheral areas like the French overseas departments - and a large number of third countries with whom we have longstanding and special links within the framework of the Lomé Convention.
<P>
In the face of this geostrategic and economic issue, both at European and ACP level, we must have a COM which clearly implements the Community preference and which is in accordance with the special agreements which link us to the ACP countries.
<P>
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations supports the Thomas report as amended by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
Nevertheless, we tabled eight amendments aimed at strengthening ACP and Community production, and the marketing of bananas whose production is in line with certain social, environmental and health standards.
<P>
With regard to the ACP agreements, they must be protected as an integral whole.
At the time of the signing of the GATT agreements, we raised the problem of our traditional links with these countries and the reply was that these specific interests would be protected.
The result of the WTO panel shows us that our fears were not in unfounded.
In actual fact, the WTO does not recognize our special agreements with the ACP countries.
The question is now one of knowing if and how the serious error of negotiation committed by the Commission can be corrected, particularly in relation to the next "Clinton Round' .
<P>
With regard to Community production, production quotas must be maintained at a level which permits the protection, even the development, of the ultra-peripheral production zones.
We all know that these areas are particularly sensitive and incur specific costs due to their distance from continental Europe.
This is why we tabled an amendment which protects the guarantee of distribution and sale of Community products on the European market, along with an increase in the collection of customs duties for bananas coming from non-traditional ACP countries and a 20 % readjustment in the amount of the flat-rate reference income which had not been increased since 1991.
<P>
Within the framework of the WTO, it is absolutely necessary to introduce social, environmental and health clauses.
As we have often said, the globalization of trade can only function harmoniously on condition that fair social, environmental and health standards are applied to all.
In this instance, we would like every Member State to be opposed to bananas imported from third countries where such clauses are not respected.
<P>
Our group thus supports Mr Thomas' report as amended by the Committee on Agriculture, which is in the common interest of European producers and producers from the so-called "traditional' ACP countries.
The European Union signed the Lomé agreements, thus taking on international contractual obligations whose legal force is no less than that resulting from the commitments undertaken within the framework of the Marrakech agreements.
It is thus absolutely necessary that the European Union and Member States respect the obligations of the Lomé Convention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="Titley">
Like many people in Britain who are keen to help the Caribbean countries earn a decent living from their principal export crop, I was dismayed when the World Trade Organization ruled that favourable EU trade rules with these island nations were against international trade laws.
So I am glad that the Commission's experts have quickly drawn up proposals which should meet our international agreements but at the same time continue to allow Caribbean farmers to sell their bananas into the European market.
<P>
I understand that these changes to the import licence system will add to the cost of EU aid to the banana-growing countries.
However I feel that this is a small price to pay compared to the risk that poor farmers would be tempted to grow drugs instead of bananas and merely add to the drugs problems our own countries are facing.
Europe profited from its many colonies in such countries in the past, so it is only right that today's Europe give a hand-up to people in the poorest parts of the world who want to earn an honest living.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="Verwaerde">
Since the start of the EU, this House has been concerned with the interests of the traditional banana producers, both Community - 20 % of bananas consumed in the Union come from Martinique, Guadeloupe, Madeira and the Canaries - and ACP.
<P>
Various protocols, especially Protocol 5 of the IVth Lomé Convention, preceded the Common Organization of the Market (COM) which came into force in 1993.
This was the result of a difficult compromise with the aim of enabling the distribution and sale, on the internal market, of bananas produced within the Community and bananas coming from the ACP countries, at prices which were fair both for producers and consumers, without however, undermining imports of bananas from other third countries.
<P>
Following the actions inspired by the Chiquita multinational and brought by the United States, Guatemala, Honduras, Ecuador and Mexico, the World Trade Organization demanded that the EU should modify its COM in bananas as from 1 January 1999.
<P>
I would like to congratulate Mr Thomas on his report, which was adopted virtually unanimously within the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
He has tried hard to find a compromise which is compatible with the WTO rules, by accepting the idea of an global quota which maintains the ACP preferences provided for by Lomé, protects Union producers and guarantees consumers a reasonable price.
<P>
When the COM in bananas was established, the Community committed itself to ensuring that European and ACP producers are never put in a less favourable situation than in the past.
The reform of the COM must be guided by the same principle.
It is for this reason that I support the Committee on Agriculture's position and this is why I voted in favour of its tabled amendments.
<P>
Valdivielso de Cué report (A4-0223/98)
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="Cushnahan">
I believe the proposal to tighten border checks on counterfeit goods will prove to be a positive measure by strengthening the pre-existing 1994 regulation concerning the suspension of customs operations for suspected pirated or counterfeit goods.
<P>
While the original regulation covered trademarks and design rights, the extension of customs protection to patented inventions, as recommended by this proposal, could go a long way in enhancing the security of intellectual property.
Furthermore, the proposed increase in the scope of customs authority to goods in free zones or goods already in customs supervision will extend the sphere of protection given to patents, trademarks and the like.
<P>
Ireland is one of the leading countries in software development in the EU.
Cracking down on piracy and counterfeiting offences, including intellectual property rights violation, is therefore not only in the interests of the EU, but particularly of Ireland, where it will ensure the preservation of jobs in the software industry.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have elected to vote in favour of the report.
The purpose of current EU arrangements is that following an application by the holder of a right, it is possible to suspend customs operations where goods are suspected of being counterfeit or pirated goods covered by an intellectual property right (brand or trade mark, design right, copyright or neighbouring right).
<P>
We support this proposal, which means in practice, inter alia, the seizure and destruction of counterfeit or pirated goods.
<P>
Aelvoet report (A4-0194/98)
<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="Deprez">
To break off trade and relations with a State is always an important decision.
It can never be taken lightly, nor without conclusive and decisive justification.
All the more so when it relates to aid to a country, and thus a population.
<P>
Article 336b of the IVth Lomé Convention, which provides for the possibility of a partial or full suspension of cooperation due to serious human rights abuses is no exception to this rule.
<P>
Any decision to suspend or resume cooperation is obviously a serious matter, in which Parliament should be fully involved.
I therefore think it is clear that Parliament cannot be satisfied with merely being informed.
Like my colleagues in the Committee on Development and Cooperation, I do not consider it desirable for the Council alone to decide on a suspension or resumption, either full or partial, of cooperation.
<P>
In the absence of assent, I consider that Parliament must at the very least be consulted regarding every case, in order to increase public awareness and to put the State in question progressively under pressure.
<P>
I consequently subscribe fully to the demand for the immediate opening of a conciliation procedure with the Council, so that the procedure for consulting Parliament may as rapidly as possible be defined by mutual agreement.
<P>
Berger recommendation (A4-0215/98)
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="Donnay">
The proposal submitted to us is aimed at amending the directive on access to the occupation of road transport operator.
It aims to make the current rules stricter in order to achieve a more thorough harmonization of the transport sector.
<P>
This proposal for amendment, which has the strong support of only a few countries, is aimed at reducing certain disparities between Member States' legislation, which risk causing distortions in competitiveness and unequal access to the road transport market.
<P>
I personally would like to insist on the need to harmonize not only the conditions of access but also the working conditions for road transport operators.
<P>
Some countries of the Union have been experiencing serious strikes by lorry drivers recently.
Everyone can still remember the inconvenience these actions have caused.
But they have also revealed the deep-rooted malaise of the road haulage operators.
These strikes have also brought to light great disparities in working conditions between Member States.
<P>
I therefore think it is necessary to embark upon a serious consideration of the harmonization of social legislation within the Union.
It would put transport operators, whose duties to employees vary substantially from country to country, on an equal footing.
<P>
Quisthoudt-Rowohl recommendation (A4-0226/98)
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="Caudron">
Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl's proposal is a serious and well-founded one.
Indeed, for several months all the institutions of the European Union have been talking at every possible opportunity of the need to have a research programme which lives up to our ambitions.
It is clear that what is being proposed to us falls far short of what is needed.
<P>
Everyone is aware of the eminently strategic role of research and development for the future of our competitiveness on a world scale, but many seem unwilling to accept responsibility for the financial allocations required to innovate and adapt ourselves to world challenges.
<P>
Let me give just one example as an illustration: that of shipbuilding.
The European Council decided to end aid to this industry after the year 2000, recommending efforts at competitiveness through recourse to new technology.
At the same time, the Commission proposed merging "inland transport' projects and "marine technology' projects, this merger being accompanied by a reduction in appropriations.
What are we to think?
<P>
As a Member of the European Parliament, I can no longer content myself with the fine long speeches of some leaders who are completely out of touch with the reality of the decisions.
<P>
We will not be able to hide indefinitely behind Community technocracy.
We will not be able to say "white' one day in Paris, Berlin and London, only to demand "black' in Brussels.
Unfortunately, recent statements from some people do not encourage optimism.
<P>
In the coming months, many of us will have to defend the idea of Europe and also to state a number of home truths, even if this means touching on some sore points.
The coming years will be crucial, the political issues major ones.
It will be up to the European Parliament to make its political and, I hope, its decision-making character prevail.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="Wibe">
Since I have some knowledge of the scientific community, I can say that, unfortunately, the EU's research programme only creates a lot of unnecessary diversions for the scientific community.
<P>
I think research should be based on voluntary international cooperation and not on artificial cooperation rules, such as that there should be scientists from three countries involved or whatever.
I do not think research programmes belong in the area of EU cooperation.
International scientific cooperation can still be arranged - it has been in the past.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="Wolf">
I would like at this point to state my regret and criticism regarding the fact that the Union's research policy (and that of its Member States and of the research association, Eureka) has not yet been discussed seriously as a key factor in the strategy of transition to a new development model.
It is probable that this is simply not possible if we continue with our usual procedure.
I would therefore like to suggest even at this stage that for the Sixth Framework Programme on Research and Development we start a broad dialogue with civil society, both at European level and in the individual Member States, concerning the contribution which research policy can make to a transitional strategy with a view to an ecologically compatible and socially coherent development model in Europe and beyond.
In this way, particular importance will be given to including critical groups and opinions.
<P>
Linkohr report (A4-0199/98)
<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, as this explanation of vote begins, please allow me to point out that the way in which today's voting has been handled is somewhat surprising and I would ask you to pass this observation on to the Bureau: when the President of any Member State visits us, you do not interrupt the session and allow the Members to leave, making him speak to a House which is three quarters empty in comparison with voting time.
<P>
I would like to make two remarks concerning procedure with regard to Mr Linkohr's report.
Indeed, the European Parliament has surrendered to a veritable perversion of procedure, through the vote of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
In fact, we already have a directive.
A report has been proposed to us, which is an own-initiative report on the same subject, and it is proposed to incorporate into this report an annex which, on closer analysis, is in actual fact a legislative proposal on the part of the European Parliament.
This practice naturally seems to us contrary to the texts which govern the functioning of the European Parliament, and contrary to normal practice.
It is not for Parliament to set itself up as a legislator.
<P>
My second comment refers back to the procedural incident earlier.
I regret not having requested submission of the case to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities at the time, but I am sure they would confirm that if a report has an annex, the final vote cannot be taken before the vote on the said annex.
It is absolute nonsense to consider that a final vote can be followed by other votes.
<P>
The first vote we were asked to give an opinion on related to whether the Commission should take into consideration the text given in the annex.
So, it should clearly have been necessary to vote on the annex before proceeding to the final vote, since it formed an integral part of the motion for a resolution.
Above all, Mr President, I believe that if the vote had been better prepared, we could have avoided this incident, because it would immediately have been noted that the annex had not obtained the approval of an absolute majority of Members of Parliament and thus the required qualified majority was not achieved.
It thus clearly follows that the final vote on the report as a whole would probably have been negative.
<P>
By proposing to the Members of this House a vote on the annex after the final vote, by proceeding to a vote on a motion for referral back to committee when the final vote had taken place, I believe that a procedural error has been committed. It would be appropriate for the Committee on the Rules of Procedure once more to give an opinion on this, in order to avoid its happening again in the future.
But basically, I come back to the fact that it is not normal to have implemented such a procedure, which comes down to giving Parliament the possibility of legislative initiative, which it does not possess.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="Lindqvist">
The report contains some good proposals for an increase in the proportion of renewable energy through the use of biomass, solar energy, wind power and geothermal energy.
Community rules on the feed-in model could also contribute to this development.
The implementation of energy policy should in principle be a national issue and be managed by each Member State by applying of its own national rules.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="Pinel">
The Linkohr report has one essential merit, which is that it raises the important question of the promotion of renewable energy sources.
It is clearly the duty of elected representatives and governments, especially in my country, to think about the future of energy in our nations.
A future which takes into consideration environmental protection, diversification of production methods, the needs of consumers, both industrial and individual, and also the security of supplies and a reduced dependence on the outside world.
Renewable energy sources, those we know of and those yet to be invented, have an important role to play in defining this future policy.
<P>
But in spite of this, can we accept an ultra-statist directive, drawn up in an extremely vague legal style - and in particular in flagrant contradiction with the Rothe report - which does not respect the principle of subsidiarity, which completely ignores the specific needs of States and their energy requirements and which considers hydro-electric power as a renewable energy source only worthy of attention below a certain production threshold.
We cannot, and this is why we will abstain.
<P>
It is for the Member States, in collaboration with but independent of Community structures, to set their objectives, to commit themselves to keeping to them and defining, at national level, suitable means of achieving them.
Energy is too serious and strategic a sector to leave in the hands of the Commission's technocrats or in the hands of the obsessive federalists in this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="Seppänen, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
The report proposes that the EU should draw up a new directive on the feeding in of electricity from renewable sources of energy.
We are opposed to this.
We think this type of issue is better dealt with at national level.
We are also opposed to the EU drawing up a detailed common energy policy.
This point of view is based both on democratic reasons and on the fact that national circumstances in this area vary greatly.
<P>
We have therefore voted against the request for a new directive and abstained from all part votes on the shape of the proposed directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="Wibe">
Like Helmut Kohl and Jacques Chirac, I think that too many decisions that could have been taken at national level have been transferred to EU level.
Just like them, I think that the principle of subsidiarity should be given real substance.
<P>
This report calls for the drafting of legislation on the feeding in of electricity from renewable energy sources into the electricity network.
The objective of this proposal may be very good, but if you look sensibly at the debate this leads to about funds, special funds, investors, network operators, autoproducers, independent energy producers and so forth, it is incomprehensible that such matters have to be decided at EU level.
<P>
In think decisions concerning energy policy should be taken at national level.
There is nothing to gain by making energy policy supranational.
I am therefore voting against this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="President">
Since there has been a lot of debate on the subject, I would simply like to say that I too had a few concerns about whether we should split the vote on the proposal and the annex.
I am not personally convinced that it was the most proper way.
I still have my doubts.
But in any case once we adopted this procedure I, at least tried to dissociate the one section from the other.
And so there was no problem with the two votes.
The first section - the proposal, separate from the annex - could remain as a proposal, as it in fact did.
<P>
Furthermore, I must also comment that we were under a great deal of pressure concerning the votes.
We have recently been adopting the procedure of adjourning the voting on Wednesday when an address is given by a head of state.
This has been debated in the Bureau and at the Conference of Presidents.
I can understand the reservations.
It is very difficult for us to start a vote, to adjourn it, to wait until Members reassemble and so on, but I do not think this is the right time for us to revisit this issue.
However, I will pass on Mr Fabre-Aubrespy's comment to the President.
<P>
The third point is of course that when we move on rapidly, Members following the votes have to be quick-witted.
It is no good if they realize ten minutes later that they have voted wrongly on a point.
This leads to the sort of problem that we have experienced.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 1.45 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Situation in Kosovo
<SPEAKER ID=133 NAME="President">
The next item is statements by the Council and the Commission on the situation in Kosovo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="Henderson">
When I last addressed Parliament on the subject of Kosovo in one of our previous debates, news was then emerging of the agreement by President Milosevic to meet the leader of the Kosovo Albanians, Dr Rugova.
As Members of this House will recall, the international community then welcomed the news as an important first step on the road towards a peaceful resolution of the crisis.
We were all therefore dismayed that instead of this resulting in a reduction in the fighting in Kosovo, we witnessed a significant stepping-up of the violence with indisputable evidence of indiscriminate attacks on entire villages by the Serbian security forces and the Yugoslav army causing widespread destruction with all the hallmarks of a new campaign of ethnic cleansing.
Belgrade's insistence that it is simply carrying out legitimate counter-terrorist activity is not credible.
The reports of attacks on innocent civilians and the systematic burning of houses are wholly unacceptable.
<P>
As the European Council made clear on 15 June, no state which uses brutal military repression against its own citizens can expect to find a place in the modern Europe.
The growing stream of refugees into neighbouring Albania and Montenegro speaks for itself and illustrates the serious threat posed to regional security by the continuing conflict.
<P>
It is particularly important that the European Union remains in close touch with the aid agencies who are working in northern Albania.
I welcome assurances from the Commission that its humanitarian office is in regular contact with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
The humanitarian crisis will put a huge strain on Albania, a country which is still struggling to cope with its own grave economic and social problems, as I think we are all aware.
<P>
We must continue to work with the Albanian Government; to encourage them to maintain their constructive line on Kosovo.
And we must think of ways to step up our assistance both to enable them to cope with the immediate crisis of the refugees and to help them to begin to tackle their own wider problems.
<P>
President Milosevic bears a personal responsibility for the actions of his security forces in Kosovo.
He should be left in no doubt that the international community will not be taken in by talk of peace when the reality on the ground is ever greater repression.
<P>
There have been expectations of the dialogue which took place in Moscow earlier this week between President Yeltsin and President Milosevic.
We welcome President Yeltsin's efforts to secure a political settlement.
Some of the commitments on the humanitarian side represent a step forward, provided they are implemented.
But some key aspects of what President Milosevic has offered fall far short of the requirements of the European Union as set out in the Cardiff Declaration.
<P>
In particular, he has given no clear commitment to the withdrawal of security forces which are engaged in repression.
The European Union will now be working further with the Russians, the Americans and others to maintain pressure on President Milosevic to do all that is required of him - and work is continuing in New York on a draft United Nations Security Council resolution.
As we have learned over Bosnia, we cannot afford to rely on President Milosevic's word.
<P>
I hope that the dialogue that took place in Moscow will lead to a changed situation, a better situation, a situation where the repression ends.
I can say to President Milosevic that if that is not the case and if the dialogue results in no major change in the situation then the European Union's view is unchanged - we will continue to seek to put pressure on President Milosevic, ruling out no action in order to try to bring about a peaceful situation and a solution to the problems in Kosovo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, I think the European Union can say that it has assessed the situation in Kosovo rightly to date, and is not, as before, simply awaiting developments without taking the necessary measures and without preparing for the worst, as was the case during the tragedy in Bosnia.
The best way to try to prevent the violence and massacres in Kosovo is to make it unequivocally clear to President Milosevic that the international community is prepared to intervene to rectify such a state of affairs, or to give the necessary protection to innocent citizens -men, women and childrenwho are being shelled in their villages with artillery or other weaponry.
<P>
I feel strongly about this, knowing how many debates have preceded this one, and knowing that, in this regard, the European Union has opted for a straight line policy in close consultation with the other members of the Contact Group. During the past few days, the Cardiff European Summit has in fact confirmed the line being taken.
We now have the first results from the dialogue between President Yeltsin and President Milosevic.
Along with Mr Henderson, I say, of course, that this dialogue is welcome, but at the same time I reiterate what he said, that it has been shown in the past that President Milosevic's word cannot be relied upon.
Actions are what matter, and in that sense it is disturbing that one of the most significant of the four conditions which the international community had dictated to President Milosevic has not been met. I am referring to the withdrawal of security forces from the area.
This means that, day after day, the people in the region are afraid that they will be attacked again, just as we saw in the past in Sarajevo.
At the same time it means that the international community is once again being challenged to make it clear that this all-important demand must be met, and that it would intervene if excessive violence were to break out again.
<P>
As far as that is concerned, this will not be the last debate we are having here about Kosovo.
It will be one of many, and some time will have passed before we will be able to say that peace and stability has returned to the region.
<P>
I also agree with the British Presidency, that we must use our influence to support Dr Rugova and especially those who surround him, so that he is able to maintain his moderate line.
Obviously, some Albanians have become considerably more radical, making it more difficult to have a dialogue without extreme demands.
It should be obvious that the international community has taken a clear political stand in this matter and, for good and well-founded reasons, has opted for a solution within the borders of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
On this point, too, the international community must remain consistent.
<P>
The European Commission has provided the necessary emergency help via its humanitarian organization, ECHO. It recently made ECU 1.5 million available, and is naturally prepared to allocate more where necessary.
In this respect as well, it is crucial that President Milosevic's commitment is verified, that the international aid organizations be given free access to the area. Incidentally, according to his promises to President Yeltsin, this should also apply to accredited diplomats of governments and other international organizations such the OSCE.
<P>
It is of the utmost importance that the number of observers in the region be increased considerably. The Cardiff European Council made a decision to do this, so that we are also continually able to get a good picture of the developments on the ground.
Up to now we have lacked accurate information due to the absence of opportunities for access to the region.
You know that there may be tens of thousands of refugees, or displaced people. President Milosevic's promise that these people can return to their homes will have to be carefully verified too.
<P>
I conclude by saying that there is a gleam of hope that the dialogue may be continued, that serious negotiations can take place. But I should immediately add that we should understand clearly that the greatest possible vigilance is needed to prevent the process from sliding back into in the bloody violence which plagued the region before.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, I should like to make a few remarks expressing my fundamental support, and that of my group, for the current policy, together with a few critical observations.
<P>
One: I think you are absolutely right to make it quite clear that the Kosovo Albanians will not be abandoned, that they have our support and that we will not allow them to become a second Bosnia.
<P>
Two: I also think we are right to maintain a critical or pessimistic view of Milosevic, and that we must therefore support all the available alternatives both within the country itself and in neighbouring countries.
Though there is little hope in Serbia, there is some in Montenegro and in Republica Srpska - even if they are not all angels - but we must support alternatives to Milosevic.
<P>
Three: We must help its neighbours to stand firm in this crisis and stop them from tending towards extreme attitudes. Here I have in mind Albania and Macedonia.
We must also tell the Macedonians that despite, or perhaps even because of the crisis, they must pay greater attention to the minority rights of their Albanian population and make progress in this area.
Despite their effort, it is not enough.
<P>
Four: I think that NATO is right to hold manoeuvres.
Unfortunately, and I have to say this, although I am an anti-militarist, in certain circumstances it is necessary to engage in a little sabre rattling.
<P>
Five: I also believe we are right to prepare for military intervention if Milosevic does not give way, and therefore I also believe that we must do everything possible to ensure that NATO makes all the necessary preparations for such intervention.
<P>
Six: I should like to appeal to Russia - and I assume that both the Council and the Commission are making this clear and unambiguous - to shoulder its responsibilities.
If Russia wants to play a significant and increasing role in overall European security policy - and I think it would be good if Russia were to do so - now is its opportunity to show it.
Because for those who are friendly with Serbia or with Milosevic as the President of Yugoslavia, now is the time to put this friendship to the test, by speaking up for peace.
<P>
My seventh and last point, Commissioner, is the following. You have said that the EU is doing everything it can.
And it may well be true that it is doing everything it can at the moment, but - as we have already mentioned on a number of occasions - this is a crisis which we undoubtedly saw coming. We know that Milosevic needed just such a crisis.
<P>
Looking at the outcome of the Cardiff summit, Mr President-in-Office, and reading Point 47 which states that progress has been made and further resolutions will be passed at the Vienna summit, then in truth I have to say that I find the whole thing rather weak.
Rapid progress is essential on the planning unit in particular, so as to prepare for an active foreign policy.
<P>
We will only be able to prevent a second or a third Bosnia or a second Kosovo if we have a strong foreign and security policy.
So, to conclude, Mr President, I fully support the principle of subsidiarity.
But we should consider where we need a stronger EU.
We need a stronger European Union in foreign and security policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are now experiencing a fatal sense of déjà vu , because the results of the events that took place in Moscow amidst great media excitement are really only minimal, not to say non-existent.
The promises made by Mr Yeltsin were promises he had already made to the Americans. He had even been praised for them.
They were the very reason the sanctions were lifted. I, for one, am not surprised that things have turned out this way.
At the time I found no cause for celebration because I knew all too well that Milosevic had not changed.
Perhaps at that age you just cannot change.
But if that is the case, we must take note, because he behaved the same way in Bosnia, and it is how he is behaving now.
He agrees to hold meetings, but without an international mediator, and at the same time - just as he did in Bosnia - he is sanctioning murder and pillaging.
The fact is that there are once again concentration camps and even mass graves in Kosovo.
<P>
We were all aware of it, we all saw it coming, yet we failed to act.
By we, I mean the European Union.
Unfortunately, Parliament cannot act, we can only suggest possible courses of action.
If Milosevic now refuses to withdraw the Yugoslavian army and his police troops on the grounds that the Albanians must first stop their terrorist attacks, he is confusing cause and effect.
It is really he who is responsible for this whole affair.
For eight years now the Albanians have endured an apartheid regime with great forbearance.
Who then is surprised that after eight years of such an apartheid regime the young men are saying, we just are not going to put up with that any more.
We are not going to let our wives and children be murdered.
We are not going to be driven out.
So we need to exert much greater political and military pressure on Belgrade.
We need UN troops between Serbia and Kosovo, because that is the source of the evil.
<P>
Milosevic is playing with the West.
He is leading us around by the nose.
And we know it.
He knows all too well that the West places far greater importance on the implications in terms of international law of possible NATO intervention than on actually putting an end to the aggression.
The UN Charter was written in 1945, at a very different time, and is now out of date in this respect.
We really must make sure that intra-ethnic conflicts do not have to be played out before the international community in this manner.
If we had acted in Sarajevo as NATO wanted us to, Sarajevo would not have remained surrounded, fewer than those hundreds of thousands of people would have been driven out, fewer would have died, and we would not now be faced with the never-ending costs which we are all having to pay.
<P>
The problem is that Milosevic knows what he wants and is doing exactly what he wants.
And we're letting him do it.
That is our problem.
Now he can see a new Dayton on the horizon, and because he can see this new Dayton, we are seeing ethnic cleansing in north west Kosovo.
He is driving out the Albanians who live there because, allegedly, it is the cradle of the Serbian nation and because it is rich in natural resources.
And when he has driven them all out, and only then will he be forced to look for a solution, which we will propose.
This is why we should act now and not leave the people of Kosovo in the lurch.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Frischenschlager">
Mr President, Commissioner, on this occasion I, too, am unable to share our view that Europe has acted in a timely manner.
This time no one can honestly pretend that we did not know something of this sort would happen.
And it is the case that military terror is being used for ethnic cleansing.
It is a fact.
And we reacted too late. For years Albanian resistance in Kosovo was based on non-violence.
We failed to use this time to exert pressure on Milosevic through sanctions, to find a solution.
Shamefully, this time was squandered.
<P>
Now there is one point which I believe to be particularly important. We must not only exert this pressure, we must maintain it until one basic right has been accepted by everyone, including the Serbian leadership - the right to return.
He cannot drive out as many Albanians as he will have to allow to return.
We must get this through, it is a really crucial point.
<P>
How is it that Milosevic is able to act in this way?
Because he controls the media like a dictator.
It is my view that the European Union should consider what it can do for the Serbs, for the population of Serbia, to show our sympathy and our regret.
Our policy should be directed against the leadership but, of course, not against the Serbian people.
But they have become hostages because they do not know what is going on.
I wonder whether there is not some instrument we could use to tackle the situation, for example by creating an alternative stream of public opinion in Serbia.
I am thinking of a model such as the Radio Free Europe of the past, by which we could give the population of Serbia access to accurate information.
Then I believe that the leadership in Belgrade would not be able to act in the way it is doing now and we would be nearer to achieving our goal of achieving peace, democracy and human rights for everyone in the area - for Albanians and Serbians alike.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Caccavale">
Mr President, President-in-Office, Commissioner van den Broek, ladies and gentlemen, the Commissioner said that Milosevic's words in the past were not enough: a wonderful euphemism for what in Italy is known as a tall story.
Milosevic could be compared to the personality we in Italy call Pinocchio, meaning a liar, an out and out liar, as occurred in the past.
Commissioner, let us call a spade a spade!
<P>
This morning I heard Milosevic himself say in English that civilians had not been harmed, that the special forces only intervened against terrorists.
Here is further proof of how Milosevic is Pinocchio, that is to say, a liar, Commissioner!
It is not just what you said, that Milosevic's words are not enough: Milosevic's words are worthless!
You also told us that there is a condition which has not been observed.
And what condition is that?
Only the most important, the immediate withdrawal of the special forces.
The very fragile compromise reached between Milosevic and Yeltsin does not consider the most important point: the withdrawal of the special forces.
The truth is that Milosevic wants to buy time, with the acquiescence - if not with the approval - of the international community, as has occurred in the past.
We treated him like Bosnia's best negotiator, the torturer and dictator Milosevic; well, now we tell him that it is also alright to keep the special forces to continue the deportation and ethnic cleansing of Albanians, but with all this the poor Albanian community is yearning for the old unforgotten Marshal Tito: need I say more!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, both of the President-in-Office of the Council and the Commissioner made some interesting points.
I think that we must not move away from two fundamental principles: on the Serbian side there is the question of the independence of Kosovo and democratic rights, which goes beyond the national issue, the issue of the borders of Yugoslavia. On the Albanian side there is the question of respect for borders by the European Union, Russia, the United States and by both communities.
<P>
On the basis of these two principles, boundaries can clearly established by the international community and the two sides can be reconciled.
I too believe that the discussions taking place in Russia are sending out a positive message that could be taken on board.
<P>
However, I wish to make three points.
<P>
The first point is that we must pay particular attention to what is happening in the Balkans.
We cannot set up borders in the Balkans which reflect the nationality of each community that lives there. The reasons for this are, firstly, because this very nationality is in doubt and, secondly, because the borders are so short, and the situation so fragmented, that we will turn the Balkans into a sieve.
Are we to set up borders for Kosovo and then erect borders around the Serbian minority living in Kosovo?
That is the first issue.
We must understand the Balkans and their special place within Europe.
<P>
The second issue is that we have heard a lot about Milosevic - with which I agree.
We have heard about Milosevic, and about Tudjman and about Izetbekovic and the International Court.
But tell me one political power in Serbia that holds a different position.
Even Tzuganovic in Montenegro does not put forward an alternative position in Kosovo.
This is important for us to understand the whole issue as a problem for the Serbian people itself and for us to deal with anxieties and problems.
<P>
The third point is that, with the measures against Yugoslavia, there is a danger, and I am addressing this comment to Mr van den Broek, that some of the refugees from Crna and elsewhere, who are now in Yugoslavia, will leave for the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and then we will have more enormous problems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if there is one thing practically everyone in this Parliament agrees on, it is that the behaviour of the regime in Belgrade is so shameless and repressive that effective international action must be taken.
We therefore fully support the international pressure that is being applied to the regime, in as far as diplomatic, political and economic initiatives are concerned. However, if the international community believes that there are situations - and this is most definitely the case here - where military action must be considered, this must take place with the utmost care.
<P>
In this context, ladies and gentlemen, I have two serious difficulties with our joint resolution.
The first problem is that the resolution contains no reference whatsoever to the institutional framework within which a solution, a political solution, has to be found for Kosovo.
In particular, it does not say that a solution must be sought within the existing Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
The arguments which have been developed in the direction of the right to self-determination for nations, or in the direction of "we must leave everything to the negotiations' , are dangerous and not at all convincing. They create the impression towards both sides that almost everything is possible, and that no matter what happens or what solutions are aimed for, we will always be behind the Albanians.
It seems to me beyond dispute that the Albanians should have a right to self-determination, but not in every conceivable context.
<P>
My second major problem is that a possible military intervention is not made subject to a Security Council decision.
Ladies and gentlemen, this creates a dangerous precedent.
If the UN Security Council does not give its assent, and countries start acting autonomously towards others, then this is, first of all, a clear violation of the UN manifesto.
In this situation you would, in fact, have a kind of indirect declaration of war.
Secondly, you should also look at what you would achieve with military intervention.
As far as we are concerned, we absolutely believe that all forms of military action are possible, but only as a conditio sine qua non within the UN framework.
<P>
In conclusion, we welcome the Russian initiative.
However, we are not naive: we are aware of the fact that if the pressure is not maintained, it could easily lead to nothing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pradier">
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wiersma">
Mr President, the situation in Kosovo is untenable and unacceptable.
The so-called willingness of the regime in Belgrade to start talking to the Albanians may sound beautiful in Moscow, but the hard reality is one of brutal repression and ethnic cleansing.
Milosevic is still not prepared to withdraw his troops from Kosovo, and under the pretext of combating violent terrorists, the entire population is being attacked, with streams of refugees as a deliberate result.
Incidentally, this strengthens separatism rather than weakens it.
The regime in Belgrade seems indifferent to international pressure.
Sanctions do not stop it from continuing its violent actions, despite the rhetoric on political settlements.
More pressure is needed whereby, as far as we are concerned, military intervention should not be ruled out.
NATO has rightly sounded a first military warning this week.
We support the preparations for possible further action.
The results from the Moscow dialogue are no reason to abandon this strategy as yet. The objective of this strategy should not only be to ensure the cessation of violence, but also to bring about real negotiations, where, as mentioned before, the special units must be withdrawn from Kosovo as a precondition.
<P>
I also think that the international observers must be allowed into the region to see what has really been happening, and also to make contact with the people.
The European Council - and I think this is an important aspect of our policy on Kosovo - has made clear what the objective of such negotiations and talks should be: the restoration of Kosovo's autonomy, or to put it more precisely, a special status with a large degree of autonomy.
This sends a clear message to the parties concerned, and to the separatists too.
The independence of Kosovo is not on the agenda, as far we are concerned.
This will lead to quite a discussion in Kosovo itself, because I have the impression that many Albanians who live in Kosovo have come much closer to the idea of independence as a result of the hostilities than they were a few months ago.
<P>
There is another important point - and this is the last point I want to raise - and that is the discussion on a mandate for possible military action in the context of NATO.
Some people think that this does not require the involvement of the UN, others believe it to be an absolute precondition.
In any case, my group wants to see the UN involved.
We would prefer it if the UN legitimized a possible military action, and this should therefore be advanced as a matter of urgency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, what is missing so far in this discussion is a clear expression of how admirable the Albanian people in Kosovo have been and still are today.
For years and years - going back to a period far beyond the one we are currently dealing with - they have endured with incredible patience - I would say an almost Ghandi-like patience - whatever their oppressors have thrown at them.
This has been the pattern for years.
Statements are now being made criticizing the fact that young Albanians have quite simply lost their heads and reacted in military fashion, but we really have no grounds for criticism when we consider Albanians' past record.
That is my first important point.
<P>
My second point is the fact that all too little is being said about the most essential aspect of the problem.
The real crimes are being committed by the so-called voluntary units of the Arkan and others which were previously responsible for killings first in Croatia and then in Bosnia and are now all in Kosovo.
This is a second factor which we must stress.
It is simply not enough that Moscow has now said some may be sent back.
In fact, Yeltsin has yet to give his authorization.
We must once and for all call for these so-called guerillas, the Chechniks, to leave.
They are one of the major evils in the whole business.
<P>
Today we are discussing the future of Kosovo.
There is, however, one thing I should like to emphasize. We are democrats and it is time we finally gave the inhabitants of Kosovo the chance to determine their own future.
It is something they have been unable to do for decades and, like other peoples, they are entitled to say how they want to live.
So we must have the courage to speak openly and to demand that dramatic action should be taken at last, for I believe this is a situation which could become just as bad as Bosnia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Caccavale">
Mr President, let me protest once again.
The Commission, Commissioner van den Broek in particular, decides halfway through the debate on a matter as important as Kosovo to walk out and leave the question half-finished.
This is a disgraceful attitude showing great disrespect for this Parliament.
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<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, I do of course understand that the Members are unhappy that the Commissioner responsible cannot remain until the end of the debate.
It is understandable.
On the other hand, we would ask you to understand that the dates of trips made by Commission members have to be set before Parliament's agenda is finalized.
Mr van den Broek accepted an invitation to Slovakia and so he has had to leave now.
He spoke earlier and expressed the Commission's views on this matter.
<P>
I am here, I admit, simply as a representative of the Commission and I do not intend to take part in the discussion.
I would, however, ask you to understand that the Commission also has to work in difficult conditions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Bladel">
Mr President, I also wanted to tell my colleague how, immediately after the vote, Mr van den Broek expressed his regret that the debate was postponed due to his appointment in Bratislava.
I understand what Mr Caccavale is saying, but we must still have some understanding for the work the Commissioner does.
It is not that I, by definition, want to defend him, but the Commissioner has a very real job to do, and was simply unable to cancel the appointment in Bratislava.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, neither the Bureau nor this House is responsible for the way in which the Commission is organized.
That is the Commission's own prerogative.
Let us simply note that fact and continue the debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cars">
Mr President, there is a war going on in Kosovo.
It is based, among other things, on the Serbian national romantic image of Kosovo as some kind of ancient homeland.
On these grounds, Serbia maintains its absolute sovereignty over the area, in spite of the fact that more than 90 % of the population of Kosovo are Kosovo Albanians.
That is why it cannot be ruled out that one of Milosevic's aims is to get the Kosovo people to flee.
But he must not be allowed to succeed.
<P>
To prevent this, the EU and NATO must get Milosevic to realize that continued Serbian aggression will not be tolerated. In this regard I appreciate Mr Henderson's decisiveness.
However, it will not be easy.
Milosevic has shown several times in the past that he carefully watches the other players' hands, and that he does not negotiate until he has lost the military battle.
<P>
After the meeting with President Yeltsin, Milosevic said he was willing to negotiate.
But negotiations have never before prevented Milosevic from stepping up his military efforts.
<P>
Even if a Russian veto blocks the Security Council, the EU and NATO can station troops on the borders of Kosovo.
But what would we gain by that?
With good refugee camps you counteract destabilization, but at the same time you risk encouraging people to leave Kosovo.
Those who flee know that they will get protection, food and shelter in the camps they go to.
<P>
Another task could be to try to prevent the smuggling of weapons to the Kosovo Liberation Army.
That would just be playing into Milosevic's hands and be parallel to the arms blockade which for a long time kept the Bosnian Muslims at a military disadvantage.
My conclusion therefore is that not much of value would be achieved by border controls alone.
<P>
Perhaps Moscow's position on the Security Council is primarily aimed at gaining advantages for Russia in exchange for Russian consent.
But the EU and NATO cannot accept having their hands tied under any circumstances.
The attacks on Kosovo must be stopped.
If Milosevic succeeds in crushing all resistance and opposition there, all negotiations on Kosovo's future status will be meaningless.
<P>
What the citizens of Europe expect of the EU and NATO is that no country in Europe should be allowed to restrict freedom in any area of our part of the world.
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<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="Andrews">
Mr President, as this will be my last opportunity I would like first to congratulate the British presidency. You have run a great presidency.
Well done!
<P>
The fact that it has not been possible to deliver humanitarian aid in any structured manner to people in the Kosovo region does not reflect very well on us in this House.
I am a member of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, which was assured by the Commission that early warning systems had been put in place by the European Union to deal with humanitarian aid missions of this sort.
Clearly this has not been the case and must be viewed as an abject failure for the so-called humanitarian aid programmes the EU is supposed to operate on occasions like this.
<P>
From an Irish perspective, we should assist in humanitarian missions to the region.
We should not have to wait for the United Nations in New York to give us the go-ahead on this issue.
This is a European problem on the borders of the European Union and, if the integrity of the European Union is to remain intact, it must be resolved by the Member States of the Union.
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There can be no neutrality when we are confronted with a brutal genocidal dictator such as Slobodan Milosevic.
He must be forced to observe the Dayton Peace Agreement and international law in practice as well as in theory.
We must not stand on the sidelines in a disjointed and idle fashion and allow Slobodan Milosevic to run rings around the 15 Member States as he has done in the past.
<P>
Ireland must be prepared to play a constructive and positive role within the framework of the European Union to assist in solving the crisis in Kosovo and in guaranteeing that Slobodan Milosevic does not achieve his aim of bringing about the genocide of the native Albanians in Kosovo.
We in this House watched murder and rape in Bosnia.
We appear to be doing the same in Kosovo.
It is a shame on this House that we do so.
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<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
Mr President, the people responsible for the conflict in Kosovo are quite clearly the Yugoslav regime and Milosevic.
It is not particularly surprising that after years of severe oppression people should finally take up arms to fight for their cultural and democratic rights.
<P>
What we now see is a scenario which is disturbingly like the one we witnessed in Bosnia. The civilian population is being driven out, people are being herded together in prison camps in certain places, and gangs of criminal thugs are being let loose to terrorize the civilian population.
That is, of course, why every pressure must be brought to bear on the Yugoslav regime.
<P>
Ultimately, it is impossible to rule out the need also to use military means, although that is, of course, always the last resort.
What I think is important in that case is that there should be a clear UN mandate.
I think taking military action without a mandate from the UN could be a very dangerous development for two reasons.
Firstly, of course, there is the reason of principle, namely that it is doubtful whether it is right to authorize others to take militarily action in other conflicts.
Secondly, the really great risk with this conflict is that it will spread to other areas in the Balkans, to neighbouring countries.
The risk of it spreading would probably be much greater if anyone acted without the support of the UN.
That is why, in spite of all the difficulties, we must now seek a clear UN mandate.
That is our main task.
<P>
Furthermore, I think the preferred option should be the restoration of democratic rights and the rights of the Albanian people within the framework of a Federal Republic of Yugoslavia with restored autonomy for Kosovo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Cohn-Bendit">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, much has been said in this debate, but some of it represents a real challenge.
If it is true that the people of Kosovo cannot easily be afforded the right of self determination because of the overall situation in the region, then a second conclusion also has to be drawn.
As long as Milosevic stays in power it is, of course, extremely difficult to tell the Albanians that they must continue to live under the yoke of Milosevic.
That is the problem.
It means that if we take ourselves seriously we must do everything we can to get rid of Milosevic.
As long as Milosevic stays in power the Albanians will want to leave.
That is only to be expected.
The problem is that our objectives can only be achieved once Milosevic and his terrorism have been removed.
That is my first point.
<P>
My second point, Doris, with all due respect, is that if we do not accept that we are bound by international law we can do nothing.
In other words, we must do everything in our power to show Russia and China that they cannot simply say, "Oh, you know, what is happening in Kosovo is not really so bad. It is what we did in Chechnya.'
Or in the case of China, "It is not so bad, it is what we are doing in Tibet.'
We must tell them quite clearly that there will be no economic cooperation and no support for Russia if they support Milosevic.
In other words, we must secure a UN resolution which permits military intervention and there must be no doubt about it.
We have to do this through the UN because we cannot allow what has happened in Chechnya, in Tibet or in Bosnia to happen in Kosovo.
The only way to proceed is through the UN.
But we must give ourselves the means to be able to say to the Russians and the Chinese, "Enough is enough.'
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, we must not lose sight of the fact that we are not just debating Kosovo here, because, of course, Milosevic has been using these hostilities as an opportunity to tighten his grip at home and to withdraw freedoms from the Serbian people.
Clearly, our approach to Kosovo has to be part of a consistent long-term strategy for dealing with former Yugoslavia. If we allow Milosevic to get away with what he is getting away with in Kosovo, he will also endeavour to do that closer to Belgrade.
Equally, Tudjman will do the same in Croatia.
So it has to be part of a longer-term strategy.
<P>
Having said that, we must be aware that, if there is military intervention in Kosovo, it will mean NATO declaring war on a European state.
We have to avoid that at all costs, if at all possible.
The consequences are too horrific to contemplate.
<P>
So, first of all, our strategy has to be to keep the international community together to ensure that we all speak with one voice.
The experiences of 1914-1918 have shown the folly of trying to divide international opinion and, in particular, we do not want a proxy war between NATO and Russia.
Equally, we must ensure that all the states talk honestly in their approach to Kosovo.
It is not enough to demand military action if you are not prepared to provide the necessary forces, because we will have to have effective burden-sharing in any military action.
Some countries which talk hawkishly are not prepared to support their words with actions.
<P>
Secondly, we must not undermine the message: 'autonomy but not independence' .
Any other talk is irresponsible folly: it will only worsen the situation and cause bloodshed, not stop it.
Equally, as part of that, we must recognize in Kosovo that we have to guarantee the rights of the Serbs as well as the Albanians, because while fear dominates Kosovo, it will be impossible to find a solution.
<P>
In addition to demanding that the KLA withdraw, we must also demand that the security forces withdraw, but it has to be both.
We must talk tough and act tough with the KLA as much as with the security forces.
<P>
We must also give greater support to Albania and Montenegro.
Because their governments have been supporting this we must guarantee their borders.
<P>
Our first objective - and I support the conclusions of the Cardiff Summit - must be a cessation of hostilities to allow international observers into Kosovo to view the situation for themselves.
But we must not lose an even-handed approach, because it will achieve naught if we make the Serbs in Kosovo fear for their future as much as the Albanians.
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<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Graziani">
Mr President, it would be rather easy if Parliament could count on the will of the protagonists to find a solution to the problem.
Unfortunately, we cannot count on the will of the protagonists and we do not even have the adequate means to impose our will on the protagonists.
It is on this basis that we must rationally begin.
And then we are forced to rely on the talks.
It is true that Milosevic is not very trustworthy, it is true that he did not agree to withdraw the security forces, but if it were possible to implement what has been granted, the presence of the international observers and the Red Cross and the existing means would probably be enough to calm the situation and enable a solution to be found.
<P>
This is, in my view, the only attitude possible, the only rational view that we can take: spes contra spem , someone said.
The least we can do, therefore, is to pursue this objective through negotiation.
There is no other way for the European Union than to rely on NATO for military pressure and on the UN for pressure from the international community.
We must keep these two points of reference and try to urge, to pressure the parties so that the negotiations are real, genuine and internationally guaranteed.
<P>
Europe can do no more than that and it cannot go about it in any other way, because it does not have a political lead.
Where is the European mediation?
Where is the initiative taken by Europe, where is González?
I don't mean González as a person, I mean where is Europe through González.
There is not one, it does not exist.
So we must rely on the UN, we must rely on international pressure, we must rely on negotiation, bearing in mind, unfortunately, what is a depressing fact for us: our paltry means to influence this situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Bladel">
Mr President, in less than three month, the sanctions against Serbia have been lifted and reinstated again; this is a sad state of affairs.
The KLA is meanwhile accusing Dr Rugova of being a traitor to the national Albanian cause, and is taking advantage of the resulting confusion.
In Albania, the mafia is raiding arms depots under the patronage of the dubious Berisha, and is supplying weapons to the KLA.
The political wing of the KLA is doing everything it can to undermine the image of the moderate Rugova in order to qualify itself for the negotiating table, at which it will arrive with an extreme demand: independence, or perhaps a Greater Albania.
It should not be allowed to get as far as this because we would then be heading towards a Balkan war.
<P>
I have a number of specific questions for the Council.
Does the Council share the opinion that Serbia will only be prepared to negotiate once it has certainty regarding its borders, including Kosovo, and the elimination of the KLA?
Can the Council confirm that it also intends to weaken the KLA and strengthen the position of Rugova?
Mr van den Broek was very clear about this.
Does the Council believe that the recent NATO actions have contributed to this objective?
In March, in this very place, I asked Mr Henderson to send military observers to the border between Albania and Kosovo.
He did not respond at that time.
Is the Council now prepared to send strict observers to the area into which the KLA is smuggling weapons and provoking conflicts?
A great deal more could be said about this subject, but I will confine myself to these questions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, in a climate of anti-Serbian feeling running at fever pitch, proclaiming the mistakes made by Milosevic - and he has made mistakes, criminal mistakes - it is impossible to deal calmly and prudently, as called for by Mr van den Broek, with the horrific crisis which is smouldering in Kosovo.
We need to look at it with a clear head.
<P>
There are forces inside Kosovo, outside Kosovo, outside Europe, who have threatened military intervention as intimidation and blackmail, or have threatened to carry out military intervention which would dismember present-day Yugoslavia, with repercussions throughout the Balkans, in order to create puppet states that will play their game and serve their interests.
This is not what the people of Europe, the people in the Balkans, or the Albanians in Kosovo, want.
They all want a peaceful settlement, which means respect for the borders that were established as a result of wars and were guaranteed by the map of the UN, just as they are guaranteed by the Helsinki agreements.
They want a peaceful settlement with respect for all minorities' rights, and they want with independence without separation, because otherwise we will never find a lasting settlement in Europe.
<P>
Finally, it strikes me that no-one seems to be aware that conditions are currently being imposed on Serbia, on Milosevic, which, by definition, are unacceptable.
Where is he to withdraw his forces from?
From Kosovo.
But Kosovo is an integral part of the Yugoslavian Federation.
What state, what government would accept not being allowed to have an army in one of its component parts?
This condition cannot, by definition, be complied with.
It has been imposed on purpose to give a pretext for intervention.
We are categorically opposed to any form of military intervention because it would have horrendous consequences.
This Parliament has the power to throw all its political weight behind a peaceful settlement.
Only then will it be fulfilling its mandate...
<P>
(The President makes the speaker stand down)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is the time to send two clear messages.
The first is a message to the Council because, for the first time, in one week there has been a Council of Ministers, on Monday, which adopted a common position; a meeting of the contact group; a meeting of the NATO Council of Defence Ministers; and a meeting of the Council of Europe.
And whereas we have always complained - rightly, I believe - that decisions were never taken quickly enough, on this occasion we can say that everybody was in tune and there is a definite will to say: "Things have got to this stage and they cannot be allowed to go any further' .
I think that fact has to be welcomed because it will help us to develop our common foreign and security policy, which is so important.
<P>
And it is linked with the second message.
I think the second message essentially has to be addressed to Mr Milosevic.
People here have been asking what has happened to our Mr González.
I have to say - not in defence of Felipe González, who has told me of his interest in this resolution - that the problem for the EU and OSCE envoy is that Milosevic does not want to see him.
Why does he not want to see him?
Because when he was in Belgrade, just after the rigged Yugoslav elections, he managed to get a complaint made and Milosevic had to back down.
<P>
Those are the reasons why Milosevic will not accept, but they are not reasons for saying that we do not have a presence.
<P>
I think there is an important difference, apart from our extreme fondness for severe self-criticism.
I think Milosevic needs to be told very clearly that a dictator - who has changed from the previous communist terminology to nationalist terminology - has no authority to kill his own fellow citizens, quite apart from the fact that he is already exploiting them in all sorts of ways. He has no such right either in international law or in human law.
He has to be told that this is his last chance, and that it is not the fault of the Serbian people, but that the political responsibility rests squarely with him.
<P>
I think we have to encourage the Council and the Commission to carry on down the path we have started on.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Sarlis">
Mr President, first of all I must congratulate the British presidency on the very complete and comprehensive Cardiff declaration.
<P>
I think that all those currently involved in Kosovo, especially the Serbs, must realize that this Summit decision has the unanimous backing of the fifteen Member States.
They must also realize that the political will exists to implement the measures decided upon by the fifteen in Cardiff.
The leaders in Belgrade need reflect on their heavy responsibilities towards the muchafflicted Serbian people and to consider where the imprudent policy of armed confrontation, the responsibility for which lies in the political and military regime of present-day Yugoslavia, is leading the Serbian people and the people of Montenegro.
<P>
We all hope that yesterday's Moscow pact will be put into practice.
Both Europe and NATO, however, are determined to take whatever steps may be necessary against anyone undermining the pact.
We have learned the lessons of Bosnia.
<P>
Turning now to the people of Kosovo, I wish to emphasize the importance of the European call for self-restraint and for support for Dr Rugova.
I also wish to give equal prominence to the common and unanimous position of Cardiff, which is that the European Union remains steadfastly opposed to the idea of independence and that it will continue to support a special regime for Kosovo, which will provide for broad autonomy within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
<P>
Finally, we must understand that both Albania and FYROM need substantial support, especially FYROM, as an attempt to get closer to FYROM is being made by Yugoslavia, which is exploiting the problems this state is having with the Albanian minority in the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="Spencer">
Mr President, I accept that the mandate is a problem. But if what is happening today in Kosovo was happening just across the border in Bosnia, we would not be hesitating to use military force.
We have to be absolutely clear in our own minds that what we now call Yugoslavia is a fiction.
What we are really talking about is Serbia and a province, absorbed by Serbia in dubious circumstances, that is 92 % Albanian.
<P>
We have to be clear and find a quick resolution to that mandate problem because otherwise every month we spend debating the nature of our moral right to intervene, there is a blood price paid by the people of Kosovo.
Therefore the key is to regard this, as Mr Titley indicated, as a problem of Serbia and of the regime.
The one thing which has been clear in the whole crisis of former Yugoslavia is that Belgrade has regularly made assessments of Europe's willingness to act and concluded that we would always act late and weakly.
This House should state very clearly to Belgrade: 'Do not believe that we are incapable of learning; do not believe that we cannot tell the difference between a regime and the Serbian people; and do not believe that at the end of the day we will not be prepared to intervene' .
It would be helpful if this House now or on some later occasion cut through the diplomatic language which is necessary for the Council and Commission with a view to action of a qualitatively different kind.
The international community will intervene.
What we mean is that if this goes on Europe will fight and Europe will be right, even if that means the death of our own soldiers in former Yugoslavia.
Mr Milosevic and the Serbs need to understand that and if we fail to make it clear, the blood price for our indecision will be paid in Kosovo by innocent people as it was paid in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
Mr President, I have taken note with great interest of the statement from the Cardiff Council, in particular the four demands. I find the order in which they were put extremely important.
I would like to ask Mr Henderson whether he wants to keep this order, because we will have to ensure, first of all, that Serbia withdraws its troops to Belgrade before we can invite Dr Rugova to resume the negotiations.
If we want to destroy Dr Rugova's reputation completely, we must force him to enter into negotiations now, without conditions and despite the fact that the troops are still there.
Then we will destroy Dr Rugova's reputation completely.
I think we have to be extremely careful that these conditions, as formulated by the Council and rightly mentioned in this order, will be maintained.
<P>
Mr President, dialogue with President Yeltsin was mentioned.
The question is whether this will lead to further Russian cooperation.
The President-in-Office gave the impression that this would be the case.
Is it true that after the failure of Russia to make a real contribution to the talks with Milosevic, they will be willing to agree to military intervention, if necessary? This strikes me as a good thing, but a little more clarity would be in order here.
<P>
In any case, I also agree that assent from the UN Security Council is needed, but not on the backs of hundreds of thousands of victims.
We can say that it is wonderful that we will always respect the Chinese veto, but surely we do not wish to sacrifice huge numbers of human lives to this principle.
This would be a little too theoretical.
I am very interested in what people are thinking when they say that the Kosovo Liberation Army should withdraw.
I think this almost qualifies for the "remark of the month' prize.
Where should these troops withdraw to?
They do not come from Albania; perhaps they come from Western Europe, but mostly they come from the region itself.
Surely you cannot in all seriousness believe that this is consistent? The withdrawal of the Liberation Army and the withdrawal of the troops?
<P>
Mr President, I would like to advise the President-in-Office to consider his predecessor Douglas Hurd as a frightening example. I hope he will not use Realpolitik the way Mr Hurd did.
In this respect, please do not listen to my colleague Mr Titley, who deserves the "Douglas Hurd prize' for Realpolitik .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stenzel">
Mr President, the situation in Kosovo represents a security problem of the first order for Europe.
The tragedy has proceeded according to the familiar pattern of Serbian politics we have already seen played out in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina: targeted displacement of the population and massive streams of refugees shifting the crisis to neighbouring countries in the region.
So far the NATO manoeuvres have been purely symbolic in nature.
The flying ban imposed on the Yugoslavian Airline JAT, and confirmed by the Council of Europe, is a feeble gesture.
The fact that in Cardiff the European Council left open the carefully circumscribed possibility of a military option demonstrates the extent of the international community's paralysis is in relation to the crisis in Kosovo.
<P>
This crisis management is an embarrassing reminder of our reactions to Iraq and Saddam Hussein.
By waiting for the Security Council's green light on military intervention we have effectively provided Russia with a means of preventing NATO's involvement and, at the same time, we have given the Serbian leadership additional time by allowing the meetings between Yeltsin and Milosevic.
The withdrawal of the Serbian Special Police from Kosovo was made conditional upon the actions of the Albanian underground organization, the UCK.
The conflict within the EU on whether military intervention by NATO should take place with or without a mandate from the Security Council has given Milosevic more time in which to continue his policy of expulsions unhindered.
<P>
In these circumstances, the call to the international community to use every means at its disposal to put an end to the attacks against the civilian population is in danger of remaining completely unheeded.
The start of negotiations between Belgrade and representatives of the Kosovo Albanians should be made conditional upon a moratorium on the fighting.
The statements made by the European Parliament are a feeble substitute for the lack of political will being shown by the EU Member States to avoid another tragedy in the Balkans.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I am not pleading for border changes either.
I would like to make it quite clear that much of what has been said here is historically and legally incorrect.
If what Mr Ephremedis has said were true, then today the Ottoman Crescent would still be fluttering over the Acropolis.
We must be quite clear that there have always been changes, throughout history, and that under current international law peaceful changes are quite permissible.
In 1878, exactly 120 years ago, in Prizrem in present day Kosovo the Albanians founded the Prizrem League in a bid to reassert themselves as the oldest civilized nation in Europe in the face of the crimes of the Ottoman Empire.
At the Berlin Congress, which documented the failure of the Europe of the day, they were simply swept under the carpet.
Their right of self determination and their very existence were ignored.
They were not discovered again until the Balkan wars, when they became useful as pawns in a game of chess.
<P>
That is how the borders we are discussing today were fixed, and so Mr Cohn-Bendit is right.
We must make sure that the regime in Serbia changes and that Mr Milosevic disappears, because it is impossible to persuade a family in which several members have been murdered to carry on living under the same roof as the murderer.
It is a quite absurd idea and one which could only have taken shape in the mind of a politician or a bureaucrat.
I must say this quite unequivocally.
We must see things as they really are.
People are being systematically murdered and expelled and it has been happening for eight years.
The situation has indeed deteriorated now, but this campaign against the majority population in Kosovo has been going on for eight years.
<P>
If Mrs van Bladel keeps saying that our first priority must be to counter the resistance movement in Kosovo - and I myself am no supporter of violence either - I must remind her that having turned our backs on Mr Rugova and his peaceful resistance for many years it is now somewhat hypocritical of us to attack people who are simply trying to save their own lives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="President">
I have to inform you that I have received six draft amendments, submitted pursuant to Rule 37 (2) of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 12 noon tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I would just like to ask whether it is now common practice in discussions with the Council for the Council merely to issue a prepared statement at the start, to continue to be present during the debate, which we welcome, but then to leave the Chamber without making a further statement, or any further involvement in the debate?
It is completely pointless!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="President">
Mr Posselt, you know as well as I do that it is for the Council to decide whether or not it wishes to speak at the end of a debate.
If the Council shows no inclination to speak, we can only note that fact.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
In vitro diagnosis
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0225/98), on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive on in vitro diagnostic medical devices (C4-0178/98-95/0013(COD)) (Rapporteur: Mr Pompidou).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 NAME="Giansily">
<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gebhardt">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at the suggestion of the European Parliament the Council has made a whole range of important improvements to the original European Commission text.
This is very welcome, for this is a very important matter.
<P>
However, there are two points I would like to raise which my group believes to be of particular importance and which are still missing from the text, although we introduced them at the first reading.
<P>
The first, Commissioner, relates to an ongoing dispute with you, and that is the issue of labelling in the broadest sense of the term.
It is imperative that the instructions for medical products to be used by individual members of the public be translated into the languages of the various Member States in which the products are to be marketed.
This is absolutely imperative since these products have to be used in a very precise way.
Faulty diagnoses which might result from incorrect use must be prevented at all costs, so it is vital that all possible sources of error are eliminated.
And this naturally includes making sure that the public can read, in their own language, the instructions on how to use these products and the consequences of using them incorrectly.
<P>
The second point I would like to raise here is, in fact, the last point which was discussed in the presence of Mr Pompidou.
In vitro diagnostics use very special materials, tissues, cells and other substances of human origin.
The nature of this material obviously requires that it be handled with particular care and particular precautions.
I am delighted that this option is available.
The amendment tabled by the Greens will provide a guarantee of data protection and guard against the type of discrimination which might result from knowledge which could be gained from these diagnostic methods and tests, in terms of the fundamental genetic characteristics and predispositions of the individuals involved.
For this reason it is very important indeed for us to make this improvement in this area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the current phase of European integration, and particularly now with the Cardiff summit, the talk is once again of much greater subsidiarity.
Subsidiarity means, for example, that general economic conditions should primarily be regulated by individual Member States.
It also means, of course, that although these arrangements are not standardized, they must be mutually recognized by all parties involved.
For if this were not the case, our most important goal, the single market, would quite simply not function.
To this extent, the principle of complete technical harmonization which formed the basis for the corresponding 1985 directive is now obsolete.
This is something which Mr Donnelly from the Socialist Group emphasized quite specifically in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
<P>
In terms of technical legislation, the "new approach' is gaining considerable ground.
All it means is subsidiarity.
The single market should not be hampered, but it should not be over-regulated either.
However, if it proves impossible for a matter to be regulated or to be regulated adequately at Member State level, then we must proceed jointly to regulate in a uniform way at least the essential elements, only the essential elements in fact, at European level.
In vitro diagnostics is one such matter.
<P>
This draft directive represents a further step towards the completion of the single market, in particular for medical products.
But it is proving to be an area fraught with tensions.
On the one hand, we must allow producers free access to the European domestic market, but on the other we have to take into account health protection, particularly with regard to the use of these medical tests by individuals.
Nevertheless, this must not be allowed to become a pretext for setting up market barriers and anticompetitive measures.
<P>
During the very lengthy period it took to formulate this common position in the Council, we had to acknowledge that there was an increasing trend in some Member States towards excluding in vitro diagnostics from the single market.
In our view, that is the main reason for adopting this directive, and thereby creating a single market for these medical products, as quickly as possible.
<P>
We know that the manufacturers are waiting eagerly for free access to the market.
For this reason it is important that the amendments which have been submitted are also accepted by the Council and that the directive should be formally ratified, perhaps even before the summer recess.
The Council has already accommodated us on several points.
At any rate 36 of the 50 amendments submitted following the first reading have been accepted.
Nevertheless, we would like to stress that there is still room for improvement in the basic approach.
For this reason I, too, submitted several amendments to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, designed to dismantle the bureaucratic devices which are so costly to business.
The most important thing is that statistical requirements should not become preconditions for the introduction of the products themselves.
But this addition in Article 10 (2) must also apply in a consistent and logical manner to the provisions of Article 21 (2).
What we are dealing with here, however, is a fundamental phenomenon.
Discussions on disputed single market guidelines often last a very long time.
When the matter comes before Parliament, therefore, we often have to reach our decisions very quickly if we want to make the internal market a reality for the citizens of Europe.
This should also be taken into account in any future reform of the Treaty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Rose">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in his recommendation for second reading, Mr Pompidou proposes that we give an opinion on six amendments, amendments which, I would remind you, were adopted virtually unanimously by the members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on 3 June.
<P>
The measures, which consist mainly of providing specific rules for in vitro diagnostic medical devices, in other words the examination, for medical purposes, of tissues or substances from the human body should, I feel, attract broad approval.
Whilst the Commission's directive seemed extremely technical, we must applaud the rapporteur who has tried hard, on the one hand, to use common sense - a rare quality - and on the other to protect human dignity in an area of utmost importance, that of public health.
<P>
Having sought, and obtained, a wide consensus at first reading, Mr Pompidou contents himself with amending a few details of the common position, with the aim of completing the process so that the directive can be implemented as quickly as possible and this is an aim which we share.
<P>
We thus support the six amendments proposed by the rapporteur, insofar as it seems to us necessary to notify the relevant authorities regarding the introduction of all new products onto the market as this thus enables some form of product monitoring, and also necessary to fight against pirating and copying of products or medical procedures, thus giving a guarantee of quality and safety to the users.
The need for rapid legislation in the area of medical devices manufactured utilizing products derived from human tissues or cells is clear if we want to avoid the risk of misuse.
<P>
With regard to the devices covered by Annex 2 and those designed for self-testing, the possibility for Member States to ask to be informed of the data allowing identification and directions for use should not be a prior condition for a product to be put on the market and/or put into service.
This would cause a doubling up of work and would mean an administrative overload with regard to the decision to conform to the directive.
<P>
It would seem to us wise to leave the decision regarding the translation of instructions to the Member States, except with regard to self-testing.
Although testing is generally the role of doctors, in view of the development of self-testing, it is appropriate to ensure that care is taken by requiring that all users can read the instructions in their own language so that they clearly understand what they are doing, aware that any error could prove to be catastrophic.
In view of the tragedy a baby carrying the trisomy 21 gene represents, it is appropriate to add to the Annex 2 list the procedures enabling the detection of all risk of this illness.
<P>
In conclusion, Mr Pompidou's approach, which consisted in seeking a balance between the objectives of freedom of movement and those of the protection of public health seems to us well-founded and impeccably implemented, which encourages us to give him our unreserved support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, this report has followed a rather arduous course, but it has at long last reached the final straight, thanks amongst other things to the determination of the rapporteur.
The European Parliament introduced a series of amendments to the initial proposal to specify the rules for in vitro diagnostic medical devices to allow their marketing; in the past these devices were excluded.
In Italy, in particular, we have problems with HIV, HAA, and HCV, which are the markers of hepatitis and AIDS.
<P>
In the common position, the Council took on board nearly all of our amendments, which is why we can say that we are partially satisfied.
Now we must rapidly conclude the legislative procedure, because the use of these devices is essential in diagnosing diseases and the predisposition to certain genetic disorders, and in evaluating the patient's state of health.
This equipment is, therefore, very important in avoiding diagnostic errors and in putting into effect the health protection programme in the sector of in vitro diagnostic devices.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Trakatellis">
Madam President, the vastly important contribution of medical devices to the quality of public health service provision has been acknowledged here. Nevertheless, in order to demonstrate the importance of such devices, I would like to mention, for example, the devices we use in blood groups and blood sub-groups for transfusions, the control of drug compatibility, the contribution of laboratory diagnosis, such as for AIDS and hepatitis.
With very few exceptions, there is no system of controls and regulations in the Member States of the European Union. As a result, the directive we are debating covers this field and will without doubt contribute to the needs of those industries which produce these devices.
<P>
To start with, the proposal was considered constructive, not only as it would have been useful for the reasons I have mentioned, but also as it contained many elements which would have contributed to a better qualitative control of in vitro diagnostic devices.
There were weaknesses in the directive which have been significantly improved in the common position both through Mr Pompidou's amendments and through my own amendments and those of others. Today there have been other amendments which make it even better.
<P>
Firstly, some ill-defined aspects of the Directive have been clarified, as has its relation to other related directives.
Next, the devices of human origin which are used in in-vitro diagnostic methods have been clearly defined, and the number of reagents which are classed under Annex 2 has increased, given that the reagents in this Annex are subject to considerable control.
Moreover, special importance has been attached to reagents used in the home, given that their users are not people with special knowledge and that instruction must therefore be clear and in the user's mother tongue.
Finally, safety regulations concerning diagnostic devices have become more stringent, as regards both their preparation and use, in order to safeguard the user against various dangers and against certain reagents.
I foresee that this field will increase significantly in the future.
That is why this Directive is of benefit both to the industries that produce the devices and to users, who will be able to use them with confidence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 NAME="Bangemann">
Madam President, we would have liked to be able to express our thanks to Mr Pompidou in person because working with him was not only a very pleasant, but also a very productive experience, considering the outcome.
But for understandable reasons he cannot be present today.
With an eye on the previous debate, I would wish that Parliament, which in fact laid the foundation stone which prevented Mr Pompidou from presenting this report himself, would sometimes show a little more understanding for members of the Commission who are also subject to these parliamentary vagaries without having a hand in them.
But that is simply a remark which I make with complete confidence in the wisdom of those who set the agenda.
<P>
We have a directive in front of us - and I should like to say this to Mr Rübig to prevent any misunderstanding - which sets out the minimum standards that all parties really must adhere to.
This is not, in essence, the old approach of harmonization but, if you like, the new approach whereby Community legislation is used to lay down minimum requirements after which, in the course of reciprocal recognition, other issues can also play a role.
It is, however, absolutely necessary because, we quite clearly cannot work on reciprocal recognition until at least the general rules for the Community have been laid down.
<P>
But there is still a long way to go in defining subsidiarity.
The Commission was particularly pleased that in the Council discussions at the Cardiff summit we were able to point to several issues where we believe subsidiarity would have produced a different outcome.
For example, we believe, in contrast to Parliament and the Council, that conditions for animals in zoos should be regulated at national level.
It is not a matter which calls for European regulation.
However, subsidiarity allows of some splendid arguments.
<P>
The future directive on in vitro diagnostics, however, will both guarantee the safety and reliability of these products in relation to their application in medicine and strengthen the single market through the standardized requirements which it stipulates.
We welcome the fact that - having already accepted a whole range of amendments submitted by Parliament at first reading which improved the text - we are now also able to accept all the amendments suggested now - although some will still probably have to be improved orally.
These amendments contain clarifications and additions to the directive which are very welcome.
<P>
In applying the directive we must bear in mind the pace of technological development.
In any case, we will start by setting out a series of framework conditions within which the industry can work.
But it is impossible to rule out the possibility that we might have to revisit the matter.
Therefore, in implementing the directive, the monitoring of the market by the Member States will have a very important role to play.
We hope that the setting up of a European database, which also springs from a suggestion made by Parliament, will contribute towards this.
In any case, we shall make every effort, in conjunction with the Member States, to set up this database before the directive comes into force.
<P>
Rather than going into all the amendments in detail, I should like to mention one in particular, namely Amendment No 2, which illustrates particularly well how the manufacture of medical products using substances of human origin has to be harmonized at community level.
<P>
Naturally, like Parliament, we hope - and according to the information we have, we are almost certain - to be able to convince the Council as soon as possible that these latest amendments are justified, so that we can then complete the legislative process as quickly as possible. I say this because the implementation of these directives is not only in the interests of the single market, but, first and foremost, in the interests of health protection.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 NAME="President">
Many thanks, Commissioner Bangemann.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Harmful tax competition
<SPEAKER ID=175 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0228/98) by Mr Secchi, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication from the Commission 'A package to tackle harmful tax competition in the European Union' (COM(97)0564 - C4-0333/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 NAME="Secchi">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, my job is to illustrate a proposal for a resolution on the topic that has been stated, that is, a package of measures aimed at fighting harmful tax competition, a package that has been approved by a large majority of our Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
This committee was able - due, amongst other things, to the work that has been going on for a long time now - to find a solid basis of common ground with regard to the major principles of the new approach that the Commission has proposed in the matter. This has also been possible because of the opportunity that we have had to be in constant touch with Commissioner Monti, and the opportunity of being so involved in defining an extremely delicate matter as it progresses.
Indeed this matter not only closely concerns economic entities but also all citizens and is increasingly gaining in importance as the full effects of Economic and Monetary Union are being felt.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, you will remember that about a year ago Parliament approved by an overwhelming majority the first resolution on the matter in which there was full endorsement of the idea of elaborating a code of conduct on various tax issues and in particular on the taxation of company profits, a code that has since been created and is already operational, as I will explain in a moment.
<P>
Since the proposal of the new approach two years ago by the informal Ecofin Council in Verona in April 1996, tremendous progress has been made.
I think we can say that the problem has now been clearly brought into focus and that there is agreement on all the procedures that are being proposed to tackle the problem with any hope of success.
Even the European Council in Cardiff that has just ended underlined these concepts in the spirit of encouraging the active continuation of work on the matter.
<P>
The package that we are dealing with in today's debate and in tomorrow's vote and that is the subject of this resolution was put together last year and presented to the Ecofin Council of 1 December which approved it and gave the green light for its implementation.
Our committee - and not Parliament unfortunately, because of the limited time - has succeeded in giving a favourable opinion to endorse, encourage and support this package.
Today, we are here to comment on its main content with reference first of all to the approach, to the philosophy followed and, secondly, to one of the three parts that comprise it, that is to say the code of conduct for the taxing of company business, a code that is already operational and that now has all that is needed to begin producing its initial effects.
The other two provisions are the proposal for a directive to avoid double taxation on royalties paid between associated companies in various Member States, a proposal that is already being examined by our Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy; finally, the passage of the third part of the package will begin, the draft directive on the taxation of savings or, better, on a common approach to the taxation of financial income paid to natural persons who do not reside in the various Member States.
<P>
The nature of these three provisions in itself illustrates one of the fundamental aspects of the new approach, which is that of following soft procedures - if I can use that term - adapted to each of the specific matters without claiming to have found the solution to all the problems by way of the harmonizing directives.
Secondly, it is a coordinated approach whereby, through the package technique, it is possible to bring together various interests and find the necessary consensus.
I think that we can but agree on this.
It is one of the reasons why I am not in favour of the amendments that have been presented and that - apart from those that repeat concepts already contained in the report - have a certain tendency to harden the approach proposed, something that I do not consider appropriate at this stage.
<P>
I would now like to turn my attention to a fundamental aspect, that of always clearly making the distinction between harmful tax competition, which calls for Community-wide action in order to eliminate the effects that in the end are negative for everyone, and the opposite concept of positive tax competition which is beneficial and is stimulated by competition within the single market and monetary union, and that we could also say is an answer to the requirements of international competitiveness which the Union is having to face in the globalized economy.
<P>
This report concludes by giving support to the Commission and encouraging it to continue along the same line, taking on other issues that so far have not been tackled for very obvious reasons, like those listed in paragraph 7.
I will conclude, Madam President, by pointing out to the Members of this House that paragraph 28 suffers from the fact that it was written before the draft directive on the taxation of savings was tabled.
This proposal is at our disposal and, as I said, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy will commit itself to proceed quickly with this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Madam President, Commissioner, the report presented by the rapporteur represents a real step forward, just as the package of measures put forward by the Commission has finally succeeded in stirring up the tax debate at European level.
And it is timely, because the internal market will quite simply never be completed unless we put an end to harmful tax competition in the European Union and make further progress in the areas of tax alignment and tax coordination.
<P>
This must therefore be followed, with the start of economic and monetary union, by a real coordination of tax policies which goes beyond the narrow alignment of economic policies.
And this package of measures represents a step in the right direction, as Mr Secchi has underlined in his important report.
<P>
In a world of globalized markets, the international competitiveness of locations is determined by their infrastructure and, therefore, also by their tax systems and tax scales.
Corporate taxation, in particular, is increasingly becoming a factor in competition.
There are certain Member States which are attracting inward investment through tax avoidance and tax exemption measures or tax reductions and thereby taking these resources from other EU Member Sates.
<P>
This constitutes anti-community tax competition in the form of tax dumping and is harmful to all the states in the European Union.
There is a conflict of aims between the wish of Member States to protect their fiscal sovereignty and the wish to structure corporate and capital taxation in such a way that they are neutral rather than restrictive to competition.
It is impossible to solve this problem by free competition and market forces alone.
It is a fact that tax competition in the European Union is unfair, and that income tax payers are making an ever greater contribution to the tax revenue of Member States and mobile resources an ever smaller one.
As the Commission has very rightly outlined, the burden on income tax payers has increased by roughly 10 %, while that on capital factors and corporate taxation has dropped by some 20 %.
This change in the basis of taxation has made the performance of public functions considerably more onerous and could also lead to tax erosion.
<P>
The development is dramatic because in the long run no state can avoid the pressure to reduce taxes and this can benefit only the companies, not the countries involved.
Thus, the community-wide coordination of tax policy, as suggested in the European Commission's package of measures and Mr Secchi's report, in the form of a code of conduct on taxes is a very proper aim and represents a step in the right direction.
However, it is in no way binding and this is something we should be pushing for.
<P>
At a time of European and international competition, the coordination of tax policy does not represent a loss of fiscal sovereignty for Member States, but rather a gain in sovereignty for both the European Union and its Members.
It makes sense to define profits and the way in which tax assessment bases are structured jointly and to introduce a minimum level of taxation.
Whatever happens, the tax oases in the European Union which currently allow transnational companies to transfer profits between countries in order to escape or reduce levels of taxation in their country of registration must be eliminated immediately.
<P>
As a result, I believe that we must place the tax code of conduct within the principles of free but fair competition.
We must not allow a situation to develop in which direct contributions in general are banned, but where there is no limit on subsidies through tax regulations in the European Union.
That is no longer acceptable.
I believe that the package must be expanded to include further intensive measures designed to standardize regulations and tackle new tax regimes, and also to include a comprehensive and modern system for the exchange of information and checks between tax authorities in order to create barriers to tax evasion in the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Peijs">
Mr President, the European Union has little to say about the taxes Member States impose on their citizens.
Only Article 99 grants some power, but with three limitations.
The article only applies to indirect taxes, the measures must serve the completion of the internal market, and the European Parliament has merely a consultative role.
<P>
I certainly understand the reticence of Member States to relinquish control in the sphere of taxation.
Levying taxes is a very serious affair.
Citizens or businesses have to hand over part of their income.
Taxes can exert an upward effect on prices, which means that businesses have less money to invest and citizens have less money to spend.
Of course, taxes are usually applied for the common good, for example, to finance public works or to discourage the consumption of certain items through excise duties.
<P>
My group favours less competition between countries as regards tax levels themselves, and to let them compete instead on what they achieve with the tax money.
Business parks, housing conditions, infrastructure, education; countries make their own choices on how they allocate their money.
But we should not have a situation, Mr President and Commissioner, where inefficient states dictate the level of taxation to efficient states.
<P>
My group can therefore appreciate, to some extent, the extremely limited progress in the sphere of tax harmonization, or as it is being called more modestly now, tax coordination, and the prevention of mutually harmful tax competition which might erode tax proceeds in the long run.
<P>
Yet I am also disappointed.
Many years ago, the former Dutch Minister of Finance, Mr Ruding, wrote down his priorities for European tax harmonization, for VAT and duty harmonization. Apart from the minimum rates, none of these are anywhere near to being harmonized.
The interests of all the countries, the interests between various countries, and the interests within individual countries have turned out to be too divergent.
The time is right to take a step forward.
<P>
At the Cardiff Summit, broad guidelines were adopted to coordinate the economic policies of the Member States to ensure the success of the single currency.
As a result of these guidelines and the euro, the Member States will become very conscious of their mutual dependency. Perhaps this will help to set the affair in motion.
<P>
Carlo Secchi's report is excellent; it is a coherent and well-structured piece of work.
The approach opted for in the report offers the best chances for a step forward.
There is no point in simply shouting loudly from the rooftops, or wanting to take steps that are too large.
I hope that this combination of three routes, the code of conduct, the imminent tax on the savings of those living abroad, and the tax on interest and royalty payments, might lead to the Council reaching agreement more easily.
I do hope that the brilliant discovery of a single package will not lead to the Member States holding each other to ransom. My fear is that one aspect or another will not get off the ground because the entire package could not be accepted.
<P>
Of course, quite a few dossiers remain open.
The pension system dossier is the most important.
The systems vary so much that we can expect great difficulties in this area during the next century.
Commissioner, I hope that we, the European Parliament, can support the attempts to improve this situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gasòliba i Böhm">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I want to express the support of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party for Mr Secchi's report which, once again, makes a very positive contribution to the analysis of fiscal affairs at EU level. We congratulate him most sincerely on his work.
We also welcome the Commission's proposals, not just because of the work the Commission has done, but because of its tenacity in trying to restore balance to the fiscal situation, which is absolutely necessary in the context of the constitution of monetary union and the euro.
<P>
We have made progress in the commercial and economic field, with the European internal market. We have made a lot of progress in the monetary sphere, with monetary union and the euro.
But we are not making any progress in the area of fiscal harmonization, as we need to do, because of a real obstacle: the fact that we need the Member States to be unanimous in order to reach agreement in this area.
<P>
Nevertheless, the Luxembourg conclusions and agreements and the Commission proposals are headed in the right direction.
We think they are good proposals, which will serve to eliminate harmful unfair competition between Member States in fiscal matters, and to make suitable proposals, for example in the field of dual taxation or taxes on cross-border payments.
<P>
Nevertheless, I would like to conclude by repeating that there are still some very important aspects of fiscal harmonization which, unfortunately, have not yet been regulated and lead to an imbalance between these three areas: the economic, the monetary and the fiscal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 NAME="Gallagher">
<SPEAKER ID=181 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Moreau">
Madam President, taxation could be an important tool for the construction of a Europe based on growth and employment and could thus encourage the development of human abilities.
Does fiscal coordination in the fight against unfair competition, as proposed by the Commission, enable Europe to respond to such a challenge?
We know that tax dumping is already at work in the free movement of capital and tax havens.
There is a serious risk of this worsening with the introduction of the single currency.
<P>
The Secchi report essentially tackles the issue of fiscal coordination from the point of view of the increased competitiveness of European financial markets.
In fact, it is a question of harmonization from the bottom.
For years, deductions on income from capital within the European Union have been endlessly reduced, whilst those affecting salaried income have increased, in particular through indirect taxation which, as we know, hits the lower paid hardest.
<P>
As representatives of our people, we should challenge the domination of the financial markets by advocating a tax system which is both fair and effective.
<P>
Firstly, balance must be restored between tax deductions on salaries and those on the holders of capital.
Taxation of speculative movements of capital would enable better control of the financial markets and could provide an additional way of developing growth, training and employment.
Furthermore, the European Parliament has already stated its agreement for such a measure. It could also encourage Member States to increase taxation on large fortunes, in order to finance effective actions to fight against exclusion.
The financial burden must be lowered, especially for SMEs, through a credit policy favouring productive investment and jobs, rather than placing the burden increasingly on payroll taxes, which jeopardizes welfare systems.
Social dumping must be combatted through taxation, the same goes for relocations and tax havens, which are a factor of unfair competition that must be brought to an end.
<P>
In conclusion, it is only possible to respond to the enormous challenges of the technology and information revolution with policies aimed at human development as opposed to a decline in social costs, and a fairer tax system could contribute to this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Madam President, our group supports the general ideas contained in Mr Secchi's report. He has been monitoring the harmonization of taxation for a long time now.
As a Parliament we obviously have good cause to be somewhat impatient, as Member States still view taxation as if it were some diplomatic affair comparable to foreign policy.
An example of this is that the meetings this high-level taxation group holds have an air of being top secret, and it is very hard to get any information on them, which is most certainly no longer the right attitude to take today.
<P>
It is quite obvious that with the advent of the euro such tax differentials between Member States will show up even more clearly, and tax competition will increase.
My group would like to warn against the picture that is being painted that tax competition is a very positive thing.
We see that it may, in some areas, be a useful tool, but we clearly wish it to be known that we want a minimum level of taxation in the EU, for example, for corporation tax.
As for the ideas of the Member from the Union for Europe Group, Ireland may well still compete to some extent with a low rate of corporation tax, if it likes, but we above all want to create fair and equal conditions for competition.
Otherwise, what Mrs Randzio-Plath said here today will happen: Member States will lose their tax base.
How then will we be able to preserve this European model?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Madam President, this debate confronts us with the wholly individual character of the European Union as a closely-knit framework of cooperation between independent Member States.
The exclusive sovereignty on tax issues lies with the Member States, but this does not mean that they can do anything they like.
The sovereignty of national states can never be absolute.
At present, this sovereignty is being eroded by globalization.
This is an important impetus towards coordination or harmonization of taxation at European level.
The European Commission wants to compensate for the loss of national sovereignty by creating a joint sovereignty of the Member States.
<P>
Within the framework of the Commission's proposals, fair tax competition will continue to exist; there will, therefore, be no uniform tax rates.
Taxation remains an exclusive power of the Member States.
It is a mystery to me why the Commission is quoting the subsidiarity principle in point B of the Council's motion for a resolution.
According to the Treaty and the Council 's Edinburgh declaration, this principle is out of place.
Has the Commission overlooked this?
I would like to hear Commissioner Monti's response to this.
<P>
High tax rates encourage harmful competition and tax evasion.
For that reason alone, tax competition is not a bad thing.
Due to high levels of public debt, or inefficiently organized governmental machinery, some Member States have condemned themselves to high tax rates.
We cannot have a situation whereby the Member States who have their affairs properly arranged have to suffer for the indiscretions of others.
<P>
Tax competition becomes harmful when it encourages the market players to relocate their production activities purely to net a tax windfall.
This type of competition is not only engaged in by Member States, but also -and perhaps especially- by regional and local authorities.
In addition, harmful competition not only takes the shape of a reduction or an exemption.
Businesses are sometimes exempted from legal provisions, so that special licences are granted, or environmental or noise standards are loosely applied.
This aspect is left out of the motion for a resolution.
<P>
One positive point is the call to reduce tax on labour, and to shift to a tax on the environmentally damaging use of raw and auxiliary materials.
It would be desirable if the European Member States started to compete with each other on the basis of who has the "greenest' tax system.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Angelilli">
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate Mr Secchi.
The introduction of the single currency certainly raises in no uncertain terms the problem of achieving tax coordination throughout Europe, seeking first of all to avoid harmful tax competition and also guaranteeing fair and equally distributed taxation with no favours.
Like the euro, tax harmonization should be a valuable instrument at the service of economic growth and job creation.
However, it is a delicate matter that demands adequate expertise and legislative clarity.
<P>
The important thing is to provide individual national administrations with the instruments with which to cooperate and share information and experience as provided for, moreover, in the FISCALIS programme.
I would, however, like to emphasise that a genuine European tax policy cannot be limited to the passive role of fighting harmful tax competition.
Our companies and our citizens are urgently calling for a reduction in the excessive burden created by too much taxation, taxation that is stifling household and corporate budgets, and actually jeopardizing the recovery of the European economy.
<P>
I will therefore conclude by saying that the working party that is preparing to set about its task should also set itself the objective of defining the instruments and strategies for a serious European policy of tax moderation, failing which, from our point of view, we will not have the means to rekindle development and there will be neither social justice nor economic democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fayot">
Madam President, in my speech I would like to focus on the taxation of savings.
In Europe it is the area in which there is the most hypocrisy.
My country, Luxembourg, has often born the brunt of this.
It has sometimes been described as a tax haven, when there are as many tax havens for non-residents as there are Member States in the European Union.
For every Member State has endeavoured to develop its financial sector through different methods of taxation and regulations, especially with regard to non-residents.
The financial sector is a thriving service sector which provides hundreds of thousands of high-level jobs in each one of our States.
This needs to be taken into consideration in decisions at a European level.
For many years, global solutions have been advocated here with regard to the taxation of savings, without considering their impact on the European financial sector.
It is thus heartening to note that the attitude of the European Parliament in this report is becoming more qualified, more realistic and more pragmatic.
It concludes for example, and I quote, "that the competitiveness of European financial markets must be protected at a world level' .
<P>
Unfortunately, Mr Secchi's report says nothing about how to achieve this.
I think we are agreed on the development of a financial service sector which is free from tax or social dumping.
The main thing is not to make a mess of the transition.
If the tax measures taken lead to the flight of capital from Europe, we will be permanently weakened.
The current negotiations show that it is not easy to put into practice the Ecofin Council's agreement of 1 December 1997, which was obtained under the Luxembourg Presidency.
Thus the 20 % withholding tax on income from savings is clearly too high.
But certain countries, which require sources of income, consider it too low.
Personally, I think it would be favourable to set a minimum rate such as there is for VAT and leave the possibility of exceeding it to Member States, without thus forcing them into line with the euro.
<P>
I also wonder how the immense possibilities for financial engineering will be taken into account, which will easily develop a way of getting round European agreement via third countries which are not committed.
<P>
Similarly, Madam President, should true tax havens which come under the control of certain Member States be included in the European area?
I am of the opinion that in a field which is so important for jobs and for the economy in general, and in particular investment, every detail must be sorted out and clarified before we can talk of moving on.
If this is not the case, there will be no unanimity within the Council, nor a large majority in the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="von Wogau">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, with the introduction of the euro the completion of the European single market is coming ever closer.
In some important areas we are, however, still faced with major and difficult tasks.
Tax policy is one of these areas.
Increased coordination of tax policy at European level is urgently required if market distortions, double taxation and other similar phenomena are to be avoided and the four basic freedoms of the common market are genuinely to be guaranteed.
<P>
I am not talking about complete harmonization.
On the contrary, competition between national taxation systems remains necessary.
But this competition must offer individuals state services under favourable conditions because by opening up markets and implementing freedom of movement, we have created competition between systems and this very competition will become a significant part of the tax system.
<P>
But, at the same time, Mr Secchi in his excellent report speaks of a "beneficial' degree of competition which we have to accept in order to guarantee competitiveness.
This I fully support.
The package of measures proposed by the Commission is a step in the right direction.
I should particularly like to congratulate Commissioner Monti on the progress he has made over recent years.
With the code of conduct for corporate taxation and the other two elements of the package dealing with capital earnings and taxes and licence fees between companies, he has achieved the first, important advances in taxation policy.
Other areas must now follow.
And here I particularly have in mind value added tax.
The transition to the country of origin principle should be completed as quickly as possible.
The current system, specifically designated a transitional system, is a burden on all companies trading across national borders and in particular on small and medium-sized businesses which are very important in terms of employment.
<P>
We should also look more closely at the possibility of halving tax rates for labour intensive goods and services.
At the moment, labour is overtaxed in relation to its much more mobile counterpart, capital.
This has obvious consequences for the labour market.
But we must also examine carefully how this area, focused on manual work, can be defined and delimited.
Our task is to close the gap between the high burden placed on the labour factor on one hand and the lower burden placed upon consumption, capital and energy on the other.
I look forward to hearing some appropriate proposals from the Commission and hope that in this important area it will prove possible to achieve some concrete measures quickly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
Madam President, there are four things I would like to say in this minute.
The first is that tax policy is and should remain essentially a national concern.
It should remain that way so that we do not construct a superstate or a federal state.
<P>
Secondly, the first thing you think of, and which the general public thinks of, is tax havens.
I would like to stress that we must do something about them in order to have any credibility on the issue at all.
It is simply harmful to the market.
<P>
Thirdly, not all tax competition is harmful.
I would like to stress that there should be healthy competition between companies and countries.
This is natural and simply promotes increased competitiveness and variety.
<P>
Fourthly, it is also quite natural and important for there to be differences in tax systems and rates which are based on social motives, such as the environment, health and consumer protection. And it is natural for these differences not to be regarded as harmful in tax competition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Madam President, the main concern of the Commission's proposed package of tax measures will be to deal with the imbalances in competition that may be caused by the different existing tax rules and regimes.
<P>
Mr Secchi's report takes a similar approach.
In addition, the proposals put forward at this plenary emphasize the way we must go following the creation of the single currency, whose numerous advantages and universal benefits will only thus be revealed, namely tax reforms at community level. We ask that this process be accelerated and synchronized, if only so that the code of conduct for corporation taxation, which is part of the package and has already been approved by the Council, can be taken up with it.
<P>
Let us remember what some would apparently rather forget:
<P>
that the peculiarities of national tax systems arise from the peculiarities of national economies, which cannot be eliminated, despite all efforts to ignore them; -that tax harmonization, if supra-nationally imposed after the adoption of the euro, which now serves as a pretext and justification, would take away yet another instrument of sovereign and (democratic) government, especially as regards savings, from the national authorities; -that the inequalities of the weakest in terms of competitiveness may be seriously aggravated in the name of standardizing competition by means of tax reforms.The tax reform we are fighting for, at Community and national level, is a tax reform, or rather a series of tax reforms, that aims to create fairer tax collection systems with a reduction of the tax burden on working people, and not harmonized rules that lead to fresh and increased exemptions in favour of capital that already circulates too freely.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is clear that there is a ghost creeping through this debate, the ghost of subsidiarity.
It wears several guises: that of Mr Chirac, Mr Kohl, and more recently clearly that of Mr Gallagher.
What is at stake is not providing a clear definition of subsidiarity as a necessary dimension of European integration, but rather using it as a pretext to develop the EU, within the framework of the WTO, as a deregulated community in the face of the single market and the euro, introducing a system of dumping in which we will all be losers.
We all know that the only way out of this dilemma is to achieve common, reliable regulation.
We must put a stop to tax erosion.
And to do this we should take up and support the new convergence introduced by Mr Monti and, perhaps, as it has been increasingly watered down, give it back a little of its original shape.
<P>
We have submitted some amendments which head in this direction.
I believe we must make quite clear exactly what the aim of the whole undertaking is.
The aim of the undertaking is to complete the single market by creating the regulatory conditions for fair competition. Tax competition may be acceptable in terms of the quality, the good design and the proper application of taxation, but not in terms of rates of taxation.
<P>
Secondly, we should put an end to the disproportionate burden which, as Mr Monti has illustrated, is imposed on waged work, by shifting the burden to corporate capital and private assets on one hand and the environment and the consumption of resources on the other.
This means we should ensure that capital and business start paying taxes on environmental impact and resources again and thereby create an important precondition for the transition to a sustainable development model.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Buffetaut">
Madam President, Commissioner, Mr Secchi's report clearly highlights what some of us feared at the time of the Maastricht Treaty.
<P>
This is namely that, following the transfer of monetary sovereignty, the transfer of economic and fiscal sovereignty would be almost inevitable.
Well here we are, we have arrived at the first step in that direction.
In fact, the technique is always the same.
We are given an assertion: the high level of tax competition has reached a clearly harmful level.
It would have been good if this assertion had been supported by concrete examples.
Then we are given another assertion: the Member States are slowly abandoning their fiscal sovereignty, thus the best way of finding that sovereignty once more is to abandon it completely to the European Union.
<P>
This being so, the real question to be raised is whether this tax competition between States within the European Union is desirable and good for the citizens of those States or, on the contrary, harmful.
In reality, this tax competition may be perfectly healthy for both consumers and citizens.
<P>
The States which in the future will be successful in an open market, a market in which there is - and this is a good thing - freedom of movement of people, capital and industry will be those which ensure moderate taxation, flexibility in regulations and legal security.
Thus this competition, far from being bad may, on the contrary, be extremely beneficial for individuals. It will create competitiveness between States and rather than creating some kind of gasworks - excuse me for this rather crude image - a harmonized tax gasworks, it is better to make the States compete with each other.
<P>
This being so, the idea of a code of conduct, especially for business taxation, is an excellent idea which should be adopted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="President">
The debate is now suspended and will be continued after Question Time.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=13>
Question Time (Council)
<SPEAKER ID=192 NAME="President">
The next item is questions to the Council (B4-0474/98).
<P>
Allow me to welcome the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Henderson. I invite him to reply to Question No 1 by Alexandros Alavanos (H-0497/98)
<P>
Subject: Persecution of the Assyrian population by Turkey
<P>
On 14 May 1997 Turkish forces invading Iraq to persecute the Kurds passed through Iraqi Mesopotamia where a majority of the population is Assyrian and destroyed twenty Assyrian villages, killed scores of people and persecuted the population, forcing many of them to flee.
Assyrians in Turkey are forbidden freely to express their political and religious views (they are Christians) and most of them are obliged to live in various European countries and in the USA.
<P>
Will the Council say whether it is aware of the invasion by Turkish forces of Assyrian regions in Iraq and what measures it intends to take to prevail upon Turkey to respect the basic human rights to which the Assyrian community is entitled?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 NAME="Henderson">
I am delighted that we will have our full 90 minutes today.
Some of our previous sessions, for one reason or another to do with timetables, have sometimes been a little curtailed. But maybe in the spirit of the World Cup, we will have our full 90 minutes.
<P>
In response to Question No 1, the Council is aware that the Turkish armed forces launched a cross-border operation into northern Iraq in the spring of 1997.
On 19 May the presidency issued a declaration on behalf of the European Union, noting with concern that fact and, inter alia, called on Turkey to exercise restraint, to respect human rights, not to endanger the lives of innocent civilians and to withdraw its military forces from the Iraqi territory as soon as possible.
<P>
The Council remains deeply concerned at the plight of the Assyrian people of south-east Turkey and northern Iraq.
The proper protection of human rights remains an essential component in the development of relations between Turkey and the Union.
The European Council meeting in Luxembourg on 12 and 13 December 1997 recalled, in line with the Council position expressed at the Association Council with Turkey on 29 April 1997, that strengthening Turkey's links with the European Union also depended on that country's pursuit of political and economic reforms, including the alignment of human rights standards and practices with those in force in the European Union, including protection of minorities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
I thank the President-in-Office of the Council for his reply, which was quite constructive.
I am afraid, however, that it was a bit of officialese in that we are limiting ourselves to a reply which simply confirms past events.
The issue here is that we have a minority which has deep cultural roots going even further back than Ancient Greek civilization.
We are talking about the Assyrian people.
These people, who have carried with them their language, their religion and their traditions, are few in number, and they are being displaced as refugees throughout Europe, in Sweden, in Greece and in other countries.
I wished to ask whether, especially with regard to the Assyrian people, and especially with regard to the Assyrian minority both in Turkey and in Iraq, the Council will express its concern to the authorities of these countries and in particular to the authorities in Ankara.
Especially with regard to the Assyrian minority.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 NAME="Henderson">
I am not sure that I have very much to add to what I have already said to Mr Alavanos.
I understand that he has further outlined the plight of the particular populations that he refers to.
I have already indicated the action of the Council in relation to these matters, and there is not much more I can add.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
There is great ignorance about the fate of the Assyrian people compared with a number of other minority peoples.
When people discuss the past, the Armenians are often mentioned, although historically the Assyrians were also subjected to heavy persecution in Turkey.
When people discuss the present situation, the Kurds are often mentioned, although the Assyrian people are also extremely vulnerable.
That is why special attention should be drawn to this to this particular population group in contacts with the Turkish regime.
<P>
I would like to ask the Council whether it has ever drawn attention to the Assyrian people.
Has it ever drawn attention to this group when discussing these issues with Turkey?
Are there any plans to draw attention to this group?
The Assyrian people in Turkey today is more or less threatened with cultural obliteration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 NAME="Henderson">
Again, there is not much more I can add.
I am grateful to Mr Sjöstedt for drawing to our attention the plight of the Assyrian people he refers to, but I really cannot add anything further to my original response.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 NAME="President">
As the author is not present, Question No 2 lapses.
<P>
Question No 3 by Felipe Camisón Asensio (H-0499/98)
<P>
Subject: Measures to combat fraud in the sphere of excise duties
<P>
In the opinion of the Council, what measures should be taken to combat fraud in the field of excise duties, especially in the tobacco and alcohol sectors?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 NAME="Henderson">
The Council is aware that fraud in the tobacco and alcohol sectors has reached alarming proportions and results in very substantial revenue losses for the Member States and the Community.
Ecofin considered how to combat this type of fraud at its meeting of 19 May and concluded that, subject to a Commission feasibility study, the long-term goal should be a computerized control system.
In the interim an effective early warning system should be put in place so that customs authorities have better information about what goods are being moved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Camisón Asensio">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, we have been told that the European Commission proposed some time ago to the Council that new measures should be adopted to combat fraud in the sphere of excise duties which, as the Council said, particularly affects tobacco and alcohol.
We were also informed at the time that this is not a question of isolated cases - and the Council has confirmed that today - but of organized criminal networks.
Furthermore, we know that the national authorities have the right to inspect goods being transported but, since they are not informed when they are being sent, they have difficulty in implementing effective control.
<P>
Our view is similar to that just expressed by the Council: that the ideal thing would be to set up a computerized system.
But in the meantime, we think it would be a good idea to set up an early warning system, based on governments notifying one another.
Would the Council be prepared to take this first step, before such time as we obtain the computerized system which would really be the best solution?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 NAME="Henderson">
Again there is not a great deal that I can add to my original answer.
It is recognized by the Council that there is a problem and that there is a loss of revenue which results in large measure from crime related to the evasion of duties.
Customs organizations throughout the Union will be taking what action they can in practical terms.
As my original answer indicated, until such time as a computerized control system is set up it will be difficult to completely eliminate the abuses which are currently taking place.
An early warning system will, we hope, help in the short term but if that was the solution then there would be no need for the long-term computerized way of tackling the problem.
There is really no substitute for that in the view of those who are charged with finding technical responses to a political objective which we all share.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 NAME="Miller">
I wish to thank the Minister-in-Office and Mr Camison for recognizing the problems of fraud within the excise duties sector.
I also recognize that in the short term, computerized records are not an immediate goal but obviously a long-term goal.
The proper functioning of Europol has to be part of that goal as well in both the short and the long term.
<P>
I would like to ask the Minister-in-Office whether ultimately the way to tackle this problem is to look at the different excise duty rates in the different Member States and perhaps that should be the long-term goal of the Council of Ministers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 NAME="Henderson">
I wish to say to the honourable Member that I understand the point he is making about the differences in excise duties which create an incentive for criminals to evade such duties.
I am aware of cases in my own country where gangs are involved in bringing back goods bought in another country which they claim is for their own personal consumption but is in many cases for sale.
This is one area where customs have been trying to catch up.
<P>
The question of common excise duties is a matter for Member States to consider.
It is the responsibility of each Member State to decide the level of excise that it levies on any particular product range.
Where there are issues of competition involved, it may be a matter for broader consideration but where it is a question of the regulation of excise duties on particular products, this is a matter for the Member States at present and I foresee no change in that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 NAME="President">
Question No 4 by Susan Waddington (H-0502/98)
<P>
Subject: Employment Guidelines 1998 - women's employability
<P>
Given that the Employment Guidelines agreed at the special Luxembourg Employment Summit last December and the current Council presidency place great emphasis on developing women's employability, what specific measures are being taken by the Member States to increase women's participation in the labour market and encourage lifelong learning, whilst at the same time reconciling these activities with family life?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 NAME="Henderson">
The measures being taken by each Member State are set out in the national employment action plans.
As Members of this House may know, they include: improved child care provision, extension of parental leave, strengthened training opportunities and targeted help to get lone parents back into work.
Members may also be aware, and when they read the Cardiff conclusions they should then be fully aware, that employment was an important topic of discussion at Cardiff and it was agreed that action to mainstream equal opportunities in employment policy should be our priority in future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 NAME="Waddington">
I thank the President-in-Office for his concise and clear answer.
I understand that in some of the national action plans that were presented this year equality of opportunity for women was given a lower priority than the other three pillars.
I wonder if the President-in-Office believes that the Cardiff Summit will enable women's employability and women's employment to gain a higher priority in future years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="Henderson">
I thank the honourable Member for her supplementary question.
I can reassure her that in the discussions at Cardiff and the conclusions which arose out of the discussions, the matter to which she refers - employability of women -was given the highest priority.
There are clearly a number of high priorities in relation to unemployment and I hope that Members would understand that, given the high levels of unemployment that pertain in virtually all of the European Union countries and the need to tackle that problem of unemployment.
One of the ways is to give a particular incentive and pressure to the various Member States to take measures which will raise the employability of women.
That will give women greater opportunity to move into jobs which previously may have been closed to them for all sorts of reasons.
<P>
In general terms if one is serious about 'welfare to work' which has also become an increasing priority of all of the Member States of the Union, as reflected in the conclusions in Section 1 of the Cardiff report in relation to economic reform, it has to be recognised that an important sector of the Community who are currently excluded from work are young women.
Helping to tackle the problem of youth unemployment necessarily involves tackling the problem of unemployment among young women.
That is a priority in the conclusions and I am confident that the Member States will take on board their obligations to take action to assist schemes to raise the employability of women and thereby provide more equal opportunity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
I am also concerned with these issues.
Mrs Waddington and I sit on the same committee.
I would like to ask a more general question in connection with employment for women.
It concerns the following: are you, as a representative of the Council, generally positive about developments in the area of employment since the Luxembourg Summit and up to the current summit in Cardiff?
Do you think that so far the decisions taken in Luxembourg, the general decisions, and the national action plans have satisfied the demands for improvements which we had the right to make?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 NAME="Henderson">
I believe that the important thing is to get job creation into context.
Apart from where the state provides direct employment, the state cannot directly generate jobs.
Companies generate jobs, people generate jobs.
What the state has to do is create the climate - excluding areas of direct employment - where employability within the Community is enhanced.
I believe that the key measure is to raise the education standards of our peoples within the European Union and to raise their training standards so that they are better able to take on the global challenges which every company trying to export beyond the European Union faces.
Most companies within the European Union seek to export beyond that area.
<P>
Therefore the importance of the conclusions at Luxembourg and at Cardiff is to nurture the development of the right state policies, first of all deciding what can best be decided at European level and what can best be left, through subsidiarity, to action at national level or even below national level.
That in itself is a very important decision that must be taken.
<P>
But then, to impose an obligation on all the Member States - and that is what the Cardiff Conclusion does - to take action which is consistent with the thrust of the proposals which originated in Luxembourg, to tackle the various issues of youth unemployment, middle-age male unemployment, equal opportunities for men and women and stimulating entrepreneurship - these are all challenges.
Each Member State within the Union is required under the Cardiff conclusions to come back in six months and show what it has done on those issues.
<P>
If they are wise then they will understand the context of my introductory comments; that, apart from direct employment, where the state is employing people directly, one has to understand that the state cannot require the manufacturing or service industry to take on more workpeople.
That is something that they must decide they need to do because there is a demand for their product or service and they have people who are capable of meeting that demand.
That is where the need for training and education is so crucial, so that there are products that will be world-leading products arising out of the economy of the European Union which is based on high education standards and good training.
That means that there will be more permanent employment creation effects.
<P>
It is in that context that one must view the conclusions from Cardiff.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="President">
Question No 5 by Aline Pailler, which has been taken over by Sylviane Ainardi (H-0503/98/rev. 1)
<P>
Subject: Implementation of the Euro-Mediterranean agreement between the EU and Tunisia
<P>
On 2 March the EU presidency welcomed the entry into force of the Euro-Mediterranean Agreement establishing an Association with the Republic of Tunisia, Article 2 of which lays down that "relations between the Parties...... shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles' .
<P>
Despite the fact that the Government of Tunisia has signed that clause, there has been no halt to human rights violations in that country. Charges have been brought against Ms Nasraoui, a member of the Tunisian Bar Council; Mr Ksila, Vice-President of the Human Rights League, has been sentenced to three years' imprisonment; and many leaders of human rights associations are subjected to harassment, police surveillance, provocation and so forth.
<P>
What measures does the Council intend to take on the basis of Article 2 of the Association Agreement, to help put a stop to human rights violations in Tunisia?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 NAME="Henderson">
As stated by the honourable Member who raised the question, the Council welcomes the entry into force of the Euromed Association Agreement.
Tunisia was, in fact, the first Mediterranean country to sign such an agreement, establishing a political dialogue which allows both parties to discuss openly a range of political issues, including human rights.
<P>
The Council attaches great political importance to the promotion of respect for human rights in Tunisia and closely follows the evolution of the situation in that country.
<P>
The presidency will be working closely with the future Austrian presidency to prepare the first meeting of the European Union/Tunisia Association Council which will take place under the Austrian presidency.
On this occasion the Council will raise the question of human rights and fundamental freedoms, reminding the Tunisian interlocutors of their human rights responsibilities and undertakings in the framework of both the EC/Tunisia Agreement and the Barcelona process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Ainardi">
Mr President, since the resolution which was adopted on 22 May 1996, we have indeed noted an improvement in the human rights situation in Tunisia, with the release of Mr Mouada and Mr Chammari.
But as my colleague Aline Pailler underlines, the situation has once again deteriorated, with the sentencing of the Vice-President of the Human Rights League, Mr Ksila, to three years' imprisonment.
<P>
My question is thus the following: what can be done to guarantee the application of article 2 of the Association Agreement, because making reference to it is not enough.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 NAME="Henderson">
I am grateful to the honourable Member for taking up the question.
One of the key matters that will be discussed at any Association Council meeting would be the question of human rights and the need to uphold the highest standards.
That, in a sense, would be an essential part of the agenda of any meeting before other matters could proceed.
<P>
But the specific point that the honourable Member raised was referred to by my colleague, Mr Fatchett, who is another Foreign Office Minister in the United Kingdom, when he visited Tunisia.
I think that was in a presidential capacity - or it may have been in the run-up to the presidency.
He made that very point on behalf of the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 NAME="von Habsburg">
Does the President-in-Office share my opinion that of all the Arab countries Tunisia is the most democratic - relatively speaking, of course - and that since it is wedged between Algeria on the one side and Libya on the other, we should take a special view of the situation of a country which is, furthermore, very much threatened by Islamic extremism and by other extremist movements?
Would he agree that in this connection it has done a remarkable job in keeping relative freedom for the people and in trying to save the country, so that, rather than giving them too much advice, we should encourage them in the right direction and not give them the feeling that we are criticizing them?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="Henderson">
I thank Mr von Habsburg for his supplementary question.
I have much sympathy with him, and others, in our discussions in this forum.
However, it would be very wrong of me to act as some kind of jury and make assessments as to which of the countries which could be described as Arab countries - although I am not sure that definition would be too easy to make - was most democratic.
What would be right for me, the Council and, I hope, Parliament, is to encourage all countries to build democracy and to guarantee human rights.
In all our dealings with third parties in the European Union, that should be a high priority and we should continue to pursue that.
Where we recognize that there have been big improvements, then we should say that, arising partly out of the discussions and the dialogue we have had, there have been improvements and that has led to a better life for a lot of people in certain countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 NAME="President">
Question No 6 by Mark Watts (H-0504/98)
<P>
Subject: Failure of Member States to transpose EU transport directives
<P>
The Council will be aware that a significant proportion of EU Directives have not been transposed by Member States.
For example, in the transport sector, most Directives have not been transposed.
What action does the Council propose taking to speed up transposition and complete the single market in sectors such as transport?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="Henderson">
The Council has made a commitment to transposing all overdue single-market directives in all sectors by the end of this year.
Each Member State has submitted timetables to the Commission showing how this will be done, with progress monitored through the single market scoreboard.
As a result, the number of overdue directives has halved in the past year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="Watts">
I thank the President-in-Office for what is clearly good news for the European Union.
And that is that, under the UK presidency and, indeed, the preceding presidency and no doubt the one that will follow it, we are making real progress towards completing the single market by ensuring that all Member States who have signed up to European laws comply with them.
<P>
I would ask the President-in-Office whether he can confirm that, if Member States do not honour the undertakings that have been secured, he will continue the practice of naming and shaming those Member States that do not comply with the laws they have freely adopted.
<P>
I thank him for the progress we have made but I believe we need to keep the pressure on so that the remaining half of untransposed legislative acts are brought into Community law at Member State level within the year, as all the Member States have undertaken.
I am sure all of us will be encouraged but we all want to see the pressure continue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="Henderson">
I can say to the honourable Member that I am grateful for his question and the opportunity to raise this very important issue.
I can assure him that the Council is not going to act like some candid camera running round Europe seeking to expose breaches of commitments.
<P>
To the question as to whether countries responsible for breaches will be publicly named and shamed by the Council, the answer is No.
Where the Commission has collated the information and placed it on the scoreboard, the information will name and shame.
It has been done with this purpose, so that we can try to speed up the process of achieving a more effective single market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 NAME="President">
Question No 7 by Freddy Blak (H-0508/98)
<P>
Subject: Council of Ministers as a showcase for lobbyists
<P>
The display of a luxury Jaguar in the entrance hall of the Justus Lipsius building in May was reprehensible.
It purported to be a general advertisement for the British presidency and the Coventry area, but in reality it was a commercial advertisement for a car firm.
<P>
The matter becomes even more serious with the Open Day arrangement on 9 May.
Is the presidency aware what signals the transformation of the Council of Ministers into a bazaar sends to the public?
The whole affair shows the European institutions in a bad light.
<P>
Lastly, which other lobbyists have been allowed to exhibit in the Council of Ministers, and how much does it cost to use Council buildings as a showcase?
Mr Henderson, I invite you to reply to Mr Blak's concerns about that Jaguar.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="Henderson">
It is normal practice, as Members of this House will recognize, for Council presidencies to mount an exhibition of a cultural, social or historical nature in the conference part of the Justus Lipsius building.
The exhibition staged by this presidency was supplemented for a period of two weeks by an exhibition on the history, culture and social and community profile of Coventry.
This was timed to coincide with COREPER's visit to that city.
<P>
The Jaguar car was part of this exhibition, symbolizing the importance that motor vehicle manufacture has played in Coventry.
There was no advertising and no information about the car, its price or where to buy one.
The car was there to give the exhibition popular appeal and succeeded admirably.
I am sure all honourable Members share my satisfaction at Jaguar's success in boosting employment in Coventry.
In many ways that is what the exhibition was all about.
<P>
The Council building is reserved for the use of the Council and its members and no outside commercial interests have access to it or its facilities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
I must say, you have quite a sense of humour, Mr Henderson.
If you can see sex appeal in a car, you definitely will not be pulling any birds.
I must say your answer astonishes me.
To my mind, it is wasteful to pay out £10, 000 to remove a window in order to get a car into a building, followed by another £10, 000 to get it out again.
I find it obscene.
It is downright wasteful of taxpayers' money.
It is all very well advertising for Coventry, but as you are all well aware, Jaguar has been sold; the company is now under American ownership.
I have to say we must be way off track if we are now starting to advertise for the USA.
Mr Henderson, I think we need to exercise care to avoid a situation whereby we have to ask Jesus to come and cast the money-changers out of the temple.
I think we need to stop these propaganda exercises.
It is a disgrace and people are at a loss to understand it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Blak.
I was waiting for that last, biblical sentence in the interpretation.
Now that Mr Freddy Blak's speech is complete, Mr Henderson, I invite you to reply. I should warn you that we cannot leave the Justus Lipsius building just yet, because Mr Ford wants to put a second question.
You have the floor, to reply to Mr Blak first of all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="Henderson">
I thank Mr Blak for his question.
I have to say that he must have a more lateral-thinking mind than I do.
I thought that the exhibition had popular appeal.
If Mr Blak thinks that is sex appeal, he has a more inventive mind than I do and I commend him for it.
<P>
I believe it is important to demonstrate to the whole of the Union the lifestyle of our communities within the Union.
Any attempt to explain life in the community of Coventry in the Midlands of England to the rest of the European Union and beyond without mentioning Jaguar would give a very false impression of the importance of Jaguar to that city and, indeed, to the motor car industry within the European Union.
I believe that the Jaguar is a good product and that it is appropriate that Coventry - not the Council - should feel that was an integral part of their community and one that they would want to show to the rest of the world.
<P>
Generally relating to lobbying, a number of parliaments within the European Union have in recent times drawn up stricter rules on the role of lobbyists and lobbying, how it should take place and in what circumstances it should take place, how it should be regulated, what relationship lobbyists, lobby companies and lobby organizations should have to Members of Parliaments and so on; and it may be that it would be appropriate for the European Parliament to give this matter further consideration.
It is something which the Council would be wise to keep always under review, to see if any changes need to be introduced to current practices.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Henderson.
As I warned you earlier, our thoughts are still on the Justus Lipsius building. More specifically, we are thinking about its interior, near that luxury Jaguar.
Measuring the car's possible sex appeal does not form part of this Parliament's remit. However, to continue on this same subject, Mr Ford has the floor for one minute.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="Ford">
I appreciate Mr Blak's sense of humour. I am not sure whether everybody else does.
We are both members of the Socialist Group.
It was only a few months ago that we actually had racing cars outside the Socialist Group room and, as far as I recall, Mr Blak was not making a protest then.
Obviously racing cars are okay - I think they are probably sexy.
I do not know whether they have popular appeal, but clearly we need to sort out the plank in our own eye before we sort out the mote in the Council's eye.
This is an area that we need to look at as there were complaints this morning about exhibitions currently going on in Parliament.
Common standards are required and perhaps it is time for the European Parliament to take the lead.
<P>
We had a report on the control and registration of lobbyists which already seems to be ineffective, and the Rules Committee, of which I am a member, is doing a follow-up report on that to try to tighten up and strengthen the regulations.
Maybe we can take the lead and the Council can learn something from us.
I hope Mr Henderson can agree with that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="President">
Mr Henderson, I am not sure whether to interpret Mr Ford's comment as a question to you or an argument with Mr Blak.
However, if you wish to reply in any way, you have the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 NAME="Henderson">
If the same question had been asked in the British Parliament, I am sure it would have tried to have established itself as a genuine question, whether it was or was not.
<P>
I am in agreement with the honourable Member that there is a need for a continual review of the lobby system, to take place from time to time as circumstances change, and I can assure him he would have my support for that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Henderson.
I am glad to see that the Council Presidency and the hemicycle are on the same wavelength, at least at the moment.
We shall see if that continues to be the case with Question No 8 by Jaime Valdivielso de Cué, which has been taken over by Felipe Camisón Asensio (H-0512/98)
<P>
Subject: Aid to shipbuilding
<P>
Faced with the new moves to gradually eliminate aid to the shipbuilding industry, could the Council say what sort of criteria were used as a basis for withdrawing it and whether account has been taken of the importance of shipbuilding to certain regions of Europe in general and Spain in particular?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 NAME="Henderson">
The new rules on aid to shipbuilding, which were agreed with widespread support from Member States, including Spain, are designed to improve the competitiveness of the European Union shipbuilding industry.
Whilst the new regime abolishes operating aid, it also refocuses remaining forms of support in order to promote the competitiveness of the industry.
There will be new aid for innovation and the opening up of regional aid.
A strict limit will be placed on restructuring aid, and strengthened monitoring provisions will be introduced.
<P>
We believe this is a very positive outcome for the future of the European Union shipbuilding industry.
The new aid regime certainly takes account of the interests of all Community regions with shipbuilding interests.
Spain stands to benefit particularly from the agreement to open up regional aid.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Camisón Asensio">
First I want to thank the President-in-Office of the Council for the information he has provided in response to the question.
But since the question placed special emphasis on the case of Spain - I do not know what data he has in that regard - I would be grateful if he could be a little more specific about the case of dockyards in the Basque Country.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Camisón Asensio.
I shall invite Mr Henderson to reply.
However, I am sure that if he does not have the information at this moment, you will receive it very shortly.
Mr Henderson, you may reply but, in any case, I have told Mr Camisón Asensio that if you do not have the information at the moment, I am sure you will send it to him in writing very shortly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 NAME="Henderson">
Mr President, I am very grateful to you for suggesting the answer to that question.
I should like to endorse your comments.
The purpose of changing the regulation is to allow more flexibility, to give each country a capacity to do what it thinks is necessary to restructure to help its industry and, of course, that applies to Spain.
<P>
If there are specific points which the honourable Member wishes to raise in relation to the shipbuilding industry - if he was referring to the shipbuilding industry in northern Spain - then I would be happy to answer them in writing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Henderson.
Having worked together for six months, Mr Henderson, it can come as no surprise to you that this Presidency, despite not being held by a member of the Labour Party, is pretty much in tune with your replies and can predict, to a certain extent, the problems you may experience at a given moment with such a specific question.
So we need to be in tune to a certain extent, Mr Henderson.
We have been working together for six months, and I hope we can do so again in the future.
<P>
So, along the same lines, I propose we now move on to Question No 9 by Nikolaos Papakyriazis (H-0514/98)
<P>
Subject: Desecration of a graveyard in Istanbul
<P>
On Wednesday, 1 April 1998, 51 graves in the Agios Eleftherios Greek Orthodox graveyard in Istanbul were desecrated.
This was the worst act perpetrated in a Christian burial ground during the last decade.
In recent months, the Greek Orthodox community in Istanbul has been the victim of a growing number of acts of provocation and aggression, while no official reaction has been forthcoming from the Turkish Government.
<P>
In view of developments concerning relations between the European Union and Turkey and in the framework of the contacts with the Turkish Government and negotiations regarding the Association Agreement, what steps will the Council take in response to this and what explanations, measures and guarantees will it seek to obtain from the Turkish Government regarding the protection of the Greek Orthodox community in Turkey and respect for its rights, given that acts such as those described above are inconceivable and unacceptable for the European Union?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 NAME="Henderson">
The Council regrets the developments concerning the Agios Eleftherios Greek Orthodox graveyard in Istanbul, and is well aware that under the Treaty of Lausanne signed in July 1923 the Turkish Government undertook to grant full protection to churches, synagogues, cemeteries and other religious establishments of nonMuslim minorities.
<P>
The European Council meeting in Luxembourg on 12 and 13 December 1997 recalled, in line with the Council position expressed at the Association Council with Turkey on 29 April 1997, that strengthening Turkey's links with the European Union also depended on that country's pursuit of political and economic reforms, including the alignment of human rights standards and practices with those in force in the European Union, which also encompasses religious minorities.
The situation of democracy and human rights in Turkey remains high on the Council's agenda.
The Commission's report to the Council in March 1998 on developments in relations with Turkey since the entry into force of the customs union, concluded on human rights that no substantial progress had been achieved as regards human rights and the democratic reform process in Turkey.
<P>
These issues are raised regularly with the Turkish authorities.
Cooperation in the field of human rights and humanitarian issues formed part of the Commission's European strategy for Turkey of 4 March 1998.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papakyriazis">
I wish to express my thanks and my satisfaction to the President-in-Office of the Council for the clear answer he has given me on the matter of principle, which is of course the most important political issue.
<P>
This comment applies to the second part of his reply, but I am afraid that the first part, in which he attempts to give respond to my question on the specific unacceptable event which took place in Constantinople, is not an answer.
<P>
My question refers to the specific event which took place there, which should to be condemned, and to the explanations that have been demanded and to those that have given by the Turkish government. It also asks what measures, explanations and guarantees the Council is seeking in the context of the discussions it is holding with Turkey on the conclusion of relations between Turkey and the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 NAME="Henderson">
Desecration of a graveyard is unacceptable and outrageous conduct in any society, and that is as true in Turkey as it is anywhere else.
We have urged the Turkish authorities to do all they can to bring those responsible for this action to justice.
That is a matter which will be reviewed on an ongoing basis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 NAME="President">
Question No 10 by Sören Wibe (H-0518/98)
<P>
Subject: Tax-free sales and international conventions
<P>
The Member States of the EU have signed international conventions stating that the sale of goods in international waters and international airspace shall be free of tax.
No country has the right to impose taxation where journeys are effected between two countries.
<P>
Does the decision to end tax-free sales within the EU from 1999 not constitute a breach of those conventions?
Must the conventions not be renegotiated by all the countries which are party to them?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 NAME="Henderson">
The decision to end intra-European Union duty on tax-free sales from June 1999 was taken by the Council in 1991 and I am not aware that this issue formed part of its deliberations at that time.
However, the Commission has now produced a set of proposals on a duty-paid regime following abolition and Commission-chaired discussions are now under way at official level to work out the practical details of this regime.
The honourable Member may wish to address his question to the Commission to ensure it is aware of the need to consider international conventions in these discussions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wibe">
Should I interpret your reply, Mr Henderson, as meaning that the Council does not know whether the Member States have signed international conventions which they may possibly infringe when tax-free sales end?
<P>
It is, of course, reasonable for the Council to obtain information.
I know that there were multilateral negotiations on which these decisions about international waters and international airspace are based.
It is probable that these negotiations and the agreements which were then entered into also contain a clause about the circumstances in which individual states may cancel these agreements.
<P>
If the Council is unaware of this, I would like to advise the Council to try to obtain information on this point, as it is very important.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 NAME="Henderson">
I have seen the general outlines of the Commission report on this matter.
If it is the view of the honourable Member - and I thank him for his question - that those proposals contravene obligations which have already been entered into by Member States, then I would urge him to submit his views to the Commission and seek its comments.
When the Council considers this matter further, all these issues will be taken into account.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 NAME="Watts">
Given that only the Council can seek action from the Commission in this area, perhaps I could give an example of why there is a problem.
Will the President-in-Office agree with me that ferries sailing from the east-coast ports of the United Kingdom to the continent through international waters will be able to sell goods on those ships at duty-free rates, even when the duty-free regime is abolished on 1 July 1999?
Is that not the case and is it not the reason why my colleague Mr Wibe's point needs to be addressed at Council level?
It is only the Council that can seek action from the Commission to ensure that the postduty-free regime is clear and transparent to the consumer and the enforcement agencies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 NAME="Henderson">
I know that the honourable Member takes a deep interest in these matters, and if I represented his constituency I am sure I would as well.
I also have an airport in my constituency so it is a matter of considerable interest to me back home.
<P>
The Commission proposals are not in line with what the honourable Member suggests.
The Commission proposals require a duty-paid regime to be put in force on intra-EU traffic after 1999.
As I have said to the other honourable Member, if there is a belief that the Commission proposals contravene Member States' other obligations, then I would urge the honourable Members to put their views or the views of their constituents to the Commission, so that the Commission may reassess their proposal.
It would then be up to the Commission to come to the Council with an original proposal or an amended proposal.
At this stage what we are really talking about are the facts of the case, and of any legal opinions that may flow from that.
I think we want to get all that information on the table before any of us jump to conclusions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 NAME="President">
Mr Gallagher, do you wish to put a supplementary on the same question?
I am sorry I did not see you, and I invite you to take the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 NAME="Gallagher">
I indicated to your officials at the initial stage that I had a supplementary.
In view of the Commission's recognition that there would be a negative economic impact from the proposed abolition of duty-free within the EU and the fact that it has promised to present a working document to Ecofin clarifying the Community instruments available to Member States for addressing the consequences of abolition, could I ask the President-in-Office whether the Council agrees with the principle of using taxpayers, money to pay for the abolition of an industry which is currently self-financing and provides employment and economic benefits to regions around Europe?
Could I also ask the President-in-Office if the matter was discussed at the Heads of State meeting in Cardiff?
Does the view expressed outside that meeting by some of the Heads of State reflect the view of the presidency?
In conclusion, could the President-in-Office indicate the number of jobs he believes will be lost as a result of the abolition of duty-free?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 NAME="Henderson">
I was not at the meeting of the Heads of Government in Cardiff, as the honourable Member will understand, but, as far as I am aware, that issue was not discussed.
Certainly there are no conclusions which lead to any change in the situation.
The matter was discussed fully at the Ecofin Council in May and the honourable Member is clearly aware of the conclusions of that Council meeting in May, as can be deduced from his question.
<P>
In response to the general issue, whether public money should be used in some instances to restructure industry, the answer is that in some circumstances that will be appropriate if, in the location, there is a qualification for structural fund aid or regional aid within a country.
That would also apply in relation to any duty-free revenue loss.
If there was a counter-proposal which on its own merit meant that it qualified for public money, then it would qualify.
The whole purpose of the change in the regulation is to increase competitiveness, which should to lead to a gain overall for the public - if not in the immediate period ahead, then in the longer term.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Henderson.
<P>
Mr Gallagher, allow me respectfully to remind you that, in accordance with the way we apply our Rules of Procedure, requests for supplementary questions are made when the main question is announced. In other words, the request cannot be made in advance because that could obviously give some Members an advantage over others.
So we have established, in accordance with our Rules of Procedure, that supplementary questions are accepted chronologically immediately following the announcement of the main question.
<P>
Question No 11 by Angela Billingham (H-0520/98)
<P>
Subject: The case of Els Pins Park, Moraira, Alicante
<P>
Over 13 years ago, two Spanish nationals committed a crime against fifty-four European citizens (non-Spanish) when they sold them property in Els Pins Park, knowing that there was a 63 million peseta loan on the whole property.
<P>
This case took the Spanish judiciary until 28 May 1996, 11 years later, to bring to trial.
In 1996 one of the property developers was found guilty and the other did not receive any sentence.
The owners put forward an appeal against the non-conviction of the property developer two years ago.
<P>
They have still received no final date for the appeal.
Could the Council request information from the Spanish Government as to why this case took so long to be brought to trial and request notification of when the date for appeal will be set?
Mr Henderson, I invite you to reply to Mrs Billingham's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=248 NAME="Henderson">
I thank the honourable Member for her question and recognize the difficulties those involved in the Els Pins Park dispute have faced over their properties, but I regret it is not for the Council to intervene in cases which are pending before national criminal courts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 NAME="Billingham">
I am grateful for the reply, however negative it would appear to be.
This is a really sorry saga.
It has attracted the interest of Members from all sides of this Parliament.
We have sought the intervention of the President of Parliament too. But I can tell you that even with your response matters have got even worse.
When I asked the question it was about an appeal.
We have now subsequently learnt that appeal has been heard.
Nobody was notified of the appeal.
None of the plaintiffs therefore attended.
Nobody has any idea of the outcome of this appeal.
Quite frankly, people are absolutely desperate. Already people have lost their property.
Others are in the process of losing their property.
It seems to me that we have an absolute impasse here.
It seems to me that there is no procedure within Parliament, the Council, the Commission or whatever organization they are turning to that is able to offer them some help.
<P>
So I seek further acknowledgement of the problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 NAME="Henderson">
I thank the honourable Member for her further question.
I acknowledge the seriousness of the situation in the way it affects those who are directly involved.
Indeed I have had constituents who have been involved in difficult situations which are broadly similar.
Ultimately they have had to seek legal redress.
<P>
As those matters are currently before the national criminal courts it would be inappropriate for me to comment further other than acknowledging that there is a serious problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=251 NAME="President">
Question No 12 by Paul Rübig (H-0521/98)
<P>
Subject: Cost of new customs legislation
<P>
As a former member of Parliament's committee of inquiry into fraud, I welcome any initiative aimed at making procedures more effective and more fraud-resistant.
However, I am in favour of a rational and, above all, manageable realignment of EU customs legislation based on the requirements of SLIM and the assessment form.
The other parties - customs services, trading partners, freight companies and banks and insurance houses - should also be involved as far as possible.
<P>
Can the Commission state what costs the new customs system will involve for the European economy?
Mr Henderson, I invite you to reply to Mr Rübig's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 NAME="Henderson">
The Council obviously attaches great importance to the fight against fraud, and reducing customs fraud is one of the main objectives of current work on reform of the transit system.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, the problem with the Commission's current proposal on customs law and transit is that it is, in reality, unworkable.
We are approaching the enlargement of the EU.
We want to trade with these countries and the system is currently structured as if all goods were sensitive goods like cigarettes, meat and alcohol.
The fact is that normal trade accounts for 99 % of the total and the formal proposals currently under examination are completely unworkable in practice.
As a result, if the system were to come into force in the version currently proposed by the Commission, it would prove absolutely catastrophic for economic relations.
I believe that these strict regulations designed for sensitive areas should not be applied to small consignments and basic necessities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=254 NAME="Henderson">
I have very little to add except to say that there is a need for reform.
The precise nature of the reform should be achieved in a balanced and measured way.
Where there are costs involved, they have to be borne.
One would hope that in the long term there would be a saving because a new system would prevent abuses which have cost public revenue in the past.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=255 NAME="Tomlinson">
I was fascinated by Mr Rübig's question, particularly as it refers to the Committee of Inquiry that I chaired.
I would just like to ask the President-in-Office if he will agree with the main conclusions of the Committee of Inquiry, in particular those that relate to the role that computerization can play in preventing the loss by fraud of excise duty to Member States and own resources to the European Union budget?
Is he aware that the transit system as it now operates is so porous that billions of ecus are being lost across the Member States and that serious efforts are by the Member States are needed to inject the necessary urgency and political will into the resolution of this problem?
Will he give us his assurance that the presidency will make sure that this continues?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=256 NAME="Henderson">
I thank the honourable Member for his supplementary.
The answer is that the Council is aware of the report produced by the honourable Member's committee.
It has endorsed the general outlines of the plan and recognizes, as I said in relation to a previous question this afternoon, that computerization is a very important aspect of any changes which will enable a check to be kept on the transit of goods.
Hopefully, this will outlaw abuses and lead in the longer term, once the system is in place, to increases in public revenue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=257 NAME="President">

In accordance with Rule 41 of the Rules of Procedure, Questions Nos 13 and 14, by Olivier Dupuis and Ursula Stenzel respectively, lapse because they refer to the situation in Kosovo and, as you know, a debate on that subject was included in the agenda.
<P>
Question No 15 by Nikitas Kaklamanis (H-0524/98)
<P>
Subject: Autonomy in Northern Epirus
<P>
According to the UN Charter, autonomy is one of the inalienable civil rights of peoples.
In the EU, autonomy is a common form of institution; countries such as Italy, Spain and Finland have granted fundamental rights to autonomous regions on their territory.
Northern Epirus is a region of Albania whose right to autonomy has been established (as long ago as 17 May 1914 by the "Corfu Protocol' ) and provision made for the protection of the population's language and religion.
Moreover, the Protocol was signed at the time by the plenipotentiary countries of the (present-day) EU (Italy, Great Britain, Germany, Austria and France) and by the Special Representative of Albania himself.
<P>
Will the Council state its position on this issue, which concerns the protection of human rights in a country which desires closer relations with the EU but which has refused for years to honour the commitment that it undertook?
Mr Henderson, you have the floor to reply to Mr Kaklamanis' question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=258 NAME="Henderson">
The presidency welcomes the significant progress made by Albania regarding the rights of Greeks living in southern Albania.
It encourages Albania to continue to make improvements in this area.
Albania has repeatedly declared its commitment to observe the rights of the Greek minority in accordance with international standards.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=259 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Kaklamanis">
Mr Henderson, I am very sorry but you have not answered my question.
You have answered another question, which I did not ask you.
I am very clear on the matter.
Does the UK Presidency divide autonomy into good and bad?
Does it give the right of autonomy to some people but not to others?
Your country signed the Corfu Protocol of 1914, which refers to autonomy in northern Epirus.
My question is this: how is it possible, through the use of weapons, for the European Union to want to grant autonomy to the Albanians in Kosovo and for the European Union, through your own presidency, to refuse to implement an instrument which bears the signature of five Member States of the European Union and that of Albania?
I would like you to answer my specific question, and I would also like you to tell me whether, in the discussions which are taking place in the Council on autonomy in Kosovo, the Greek government has raised the issue of the autonomy of northern Epirus.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=260 NAME="Henderson">
I refer to my previous answer, that political encouragement has been given to Albania to recognize the rights of Greeks who live in the southern part of Albania.
The Albanian Government has declared its commitment to meet the necessary international standards in this regard.
The matter has not been specifically raised in the Council by the Greek Government - or, if it has, I am not aware of it.
<P>
In relation to the general point, one cannot say that the solution should be the same in every situation in every region or country in the world where there is an argument about regional devolution in one form or another.
One really must look at the situation that pertains in any country.
Indeed, those who believed they were a persecuted minority might want differing solutions in different countries even though the persecution was of a similar nature, for all sorts of historical, political or economic reasons.
So one must look at particular situations.
But, generally, it is consistent with the Albanian Government's statements of support for a greater say over their own affairs by the people of Kosovo that the Albanian Government recognizes within its own borders that special needs have to be accorded to the Greek minority who live in the southern part of Albania.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=261 NAME="President">
Question No 16 by Hugh McMahon (H-0526/98)
<P>
Subject: Removing obstacles to trade
<P>
Can the Council inform Parliament of the terms of the agreement at the Internal Market Council of Ministers' meeting on 18 May concerning legislation removing obstacles to trade?
<P>
In particular, what powers have been accorded to the Commission to demand that states take the "necessary and proportionate measures' to remove such obstacles to trade?
Mr Henderson, I invite you to reply to Mr McMahon's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=262 NAME="Henderson">
The Council reached unanimous agreement in principle on a regulation and resolution on the functioning of the internal market in relation to the free movement of goods among the Member States.
Parliament will be reconsulted on the text of the regulation since it is substantially different from what the Commission originally proposed.
The regulation requires the Commission to request a Member State to take action within a period which it shall determine.
The Member State then has five days in which either to set out the action it will be taking or to submit reasons why it does not consider that there is an obstacle.
The regulation also sets up an information mechanism to keep all Member States informed of actual or potential obstacles and action being taken against them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=263 NAME="McMahon">
I thank the President-in-Office for his very full answer.
I am pleased that the British presidency has curbed the zeal of the Commission, which really wanted to exercise excessive powers, which could have meant restraints on the right to strike and legitimate trade union practice.
Would the Council not agree with me that we now have a more sensible compromise, and that no doubt there will be successful proposals coming forward from this Parliament when it expresses its opinion?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=264 NAME="Henderson">
I have known Mr McMahon for a number of years and as ever I agree with the point which he has raised.
I gladly accept his congratulations on the Council's view on this matter.
I assure him that in any revised position we will be ensuring that the measures do not affect the right to strike or other fundamental rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=265 NAME="President">
As the author is not present, Question No 17 lapses.
<P>
Question No 18 by Gary Titley (H-0537/98)
<P>
Subject: Problems facing beneficiaries of wills across the EU
<P>
One of my constituents has inherited a legal estate through the will of a relative.
He has been informed that as different parts of the estate are in both Ireland and Britain, he will have to go through the legal processes and costs of securing executor's oaths and powers of attorney in both countries.
What proposals will the Council produce to ensure the harmonization of legal procedures for births, marriages and deaths, so that in future the Single Market will serve the citizens of Europe from the cradle to the grave?
Mr Henderson, I invite you to reply to Mr Titley's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=266 NAME="Henderson">
The Council has no plans to harmonize the present procedures in Member States of the European Union relating to the inheritance of property on death.
In view of the widely differing national laws relating to inheritance - particularly of family property - and the formalities relating to the drawing up of wills and the procedures involved in their administration, the technical difficulties that would be involved in such a project would be formidable.
The honourable Member has also raised the wider issue of the harmonization of legal procedures for births, marriages and deaths in this context.
I would draw his attention to a convention on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in matrimonial matters which was agreed by the Council of Ministers at the end of May.
<P>
An important benefit of this agreement is that it will ensure that orders in Members States in divorce and similar cases, including orders affecting children at the time of divorce, will generally be recognized throughout the European Union with the minimum of procedural requirements.
If this is furthered by regulating the competence of divorce courts, this should help to avoid the present confusion among courts in the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=267 NAME="Titley">
Could I thank the President-in-Office for his very full answer.
Since putting this question down I realize that this problem is much more extensive than I had anticipated.
One of the benefits of the single market is that people can now own property anywhere in the European Union.
A number of people take advantage of those provisions to retire to countries like Spain; clearly that is an ageing population and inevitably people are dying and their families are finding that they are getting entangled in a legal nightmare.
I recognize the impossibility of harmonizing legal systems but as the President-in-Office has said we have just agreed a convention on divorce.
I would have thought that if we can sort out divorce we can sort out deaths.
Could not the principle of the conventional divorce, whereby there is mutual recognition of legal systems in Member States, also be applied in this case?
I would summit this is going to be a bigger problem.
If we are going to build a Europe for the people then we ought to sort out the basics of births, deaths and marriage so that the single market does cater for citizens from cradle to grave.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=268 NAME="Henderson">
I am not sure if everyone will agree that if we can sort out divorce we can sort out death.
It is complicated enough sorting out divorce.
I think that the honourable Member raises an important point.
As Europe becomes a more mobile area and people move from one part of the European Union to another then increasingly there will be problems that arise because of that movement of people, especially when it happens in large numbers - and the numbers are growing.
I think all of us in the United Kingdom know friends who have retired to Spain or to Ireland.
I am sure that all Members from different Member States could quote similar experiences so the honourable Member raises an important point.
In my original answer I explained the current position of the Council but it would be wise for all of us to think further on this.
During this presidency the honourable Member will be aware that justice and home affairs has been a lively area where a lot of change has taken place and a lot of future change has been initiated, and it is an area where those who have been involved in this question will want to give further thought, because it needs practical solutions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=269 NAME="President">
Question No 19 by Marie-Paule Kestelijn-Sierens (H-0540/98)
<P>
Subject: European subsidies on school milk
<P>
Can the Council explain why, under Article 2 of Council Regulation 1842/83 , sterilized full cream milk is the only kind of full cream milk excluded from the European subsidy scheme for school milk, in spite of the fact that it is the only kind of full cream milk sold in glass bottles?
Does it not consider that schools which opt for educational and environmental reasons to supply milk in returnable glass bottles are being unjustifiably penalized for this under the subsidy scheme?
Mr Henderson, I invite you to reply to Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens' question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=270 NAME="Henderson">
Sterilized whole and semi-skimmed milk has been ineligible for European Community school milk subsidy since the introduction of the scheme in 1977.
When the scheme was introduced the list of eligible products took account of the market situation, availability and the type of product actually supplied to schools at the time.
The list has been amended over the years at Member States' request but there has been no request to add sterilized unflavoured milk.
Its inclusion would require amendment of Council Regulation 1842/83 or of the detailed implementing rules in Commission Regulation 3392/93 which provides for a derogation from specified heat treatments.
<P>
I am surprised that sterilized whole milk is the only type of milk supplied in glass bottles in some Member States.
In the United Kingdom pasteurized and UHT milk is available in glass bottles while sterilized milk tends to come in plastic bottles.
There is of course no link between the type of container and eligibility for subsidy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=271 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
I thank the President-in-Office for his reply, but I am left with the problem that between a quarter and half of the schools in Belgium provide milk in glass bottles to their children.
This concerns sterilized whole milk which is only available in glass bottles.
In order to reach a solution, the directive should be modified since it excludes sterilized milk.
This means that environmentally-minded schools receive no subsidies, even though they use glass bottles.
I would like to urge a modification to the directive on this issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=272 NAME="Henderson">
I am so used to answering questions in the British Parliament by saying No that I find it quite difficult to say 'Yes' sometimes.
I say to the honourable Member who raised this question that she has raised a real point.
So far Member States have made no requests for the addition of sterilized milk to the list.
As I understand it, sterilized milk is 5 % of the European Union liquid milk market.
If there is a need for a modification to the regulation, perhaps the Belgian Government could consider making representations to the Commission.
If there is a logic to the case, there will be receptiveness in the answer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=273 NAME="President">
Question No 20 by Maj Theorin (H-0541/98)
<P>
Subject: Relations between India and the EU
<P>
India has conducted five nuclear weapons tests and created instability in its region.
Pakistan has announced that it will conduct its own nuclear weapons tests.
The risk of a new nuclear arms race, global as well as regional, is obvious.
<P>
The EU is an important partner for India as regards cooperation.
It possesses political, economic and diplomatic leverage.
The USA is urging that sanctions be imposed on India, but there are alternatives, such as suspending cooperation agreements, stopping aid and prohibiting all exports of arms or arms parts.
<P>
The EU thus has an opportunity to criticize India not only in word but also in deed.
What action does the Council think the EU should take?
Mr Henderson, I invite you to reply to Mrs Theorin's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=274 NAME="Henderson">
The European Council welcomed the conclusions of the meeting of P5 Foreign Ministers in Geneva on 4 June and G8 Foreign Ministers in London on 12 June as a positive contribution to the process of encouraging India and Pakistan to address constructively the issues which divide them.
It also welcomed the decision by some Foreign Ministers on 12 June to establish a taskforce to promote non-proliferation in South Asia.
<P>
Previously, the Council has called on India and Pakistan to engage urgently in dialogue on regional stability issues and agree confidence-building measures to reduce tension and urged them to sign and move to ratify the comprehensive test ban treaty, join negotiations on a fissile material cut-off Treaty, exercise stringent control over nuclear-related exports, and commit themselves not to assemble or deploy nuclear weapons.
<P>
Member States have already worked for a delay in consideration of loans to India via the World Bank and other international financial institutions and will review the advisability of international financial institution lending to Pakistan in the relevant institutions in the light of the economic and financial circumstances.
The Council has also asked the Commission to review India's and Pakistan's continued eligibility for GSP preferences.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=275 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
That was a good summing up of many proposals we would like to see implemented; above all the condemnation of India and Pakistan.
However, there was one measure which I clearly missed, namely that we were willing to take measures with regard to arms exports or the export of weapon parts to India and Pakistan.
<P>
In percentage terms, India is competing harder in the area of military research than any other country in the world apart from the USA. Their new prime minister has proposed an increase of 100 % over five years.
There is therefore a very dangerous situation with regard to both conventional weapons and nuclear weapons in this region.
It is a serious situation which demands a response and action from the outside world.
But, of course, the five permanent nuclear weapons powers must also accept their responsibility and follow the measures they promised in Article 6 of the non-proliferation treaty, namely to seriously negotiate a real reduction in nuclear weapons.
Otherwise no actions will be credible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=276 NAME="Henderson">
I thank the honourable Member, as ever, for her supplementary question.
I am pleased that she recognized that the original answer covered much of the ground that she would expect to be in the response of the Council.
She was somewhat critical of the lack of an arms embargo.
I say to her that there is no consensus in the Council for this.
But even if there were, it would be doubtful if it would be effective because Russia is a main supplier of arms in this particular situation to India.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=277 NAME="Titley">
I should like to say how much I have enjoyed spending my Wednesday afternoons in the company of Mr Henderson for the last six months.
I look forward to the Austrian presidency.
<P>
Does the President-in-Office not agree that this current situation reinforces the need for Western powers to take seriously the dangerous potential insecurity in this region, particularly in view of the running sore of Kashmir between India and Pakistan and the ongoing problems of disputes between India and China?
We ought therefore to have a fresh political initiative in order to ensure greater stability in the region.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=278 NAME="Henderson">
I wish to say to the honourable Member that it is so pleasant to do business with a man who is so easily satisfied, and I look forward to continuing to try to satisfy him in other forums on other occasions.
<P>
He is absolutely right that the recent events in India and Pakistan highlight the need for the rest of the world to enter into a dialogue with both of those countries and other neighbouring countries to try to build a stability which will ensure that what was a relatively minor problem, which has become a very much greater problem, does not become an even greater problem in the future.
The honourable Member is absolutely right to bring that to the Council's attention.
<P>
Mr President, before I sit down, I just wish to say to you that this is the end of my six months of reporting to Parliament and it has been a pleasure to have operated under such a genial chairmanship as your own and one which has been courteous and fair.
I apologize for the fact that once or twice airlines have not cooperated with either Parliament's timetable or mine and it has led to deviations from our original intentions.
But I hope that we have covered the ground, and I thank you very much for your chairmanship.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=279 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Henderson.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes Question Time.
Questions Nos 21 to 44 will be dealt with in writing.
<P>
As Mr Henderson said, today's sitting marks the end of six months of collaboration in questions to the Council.
I would like to say, Mr Henderson, that Mr Titley is not the only one who is glad to have shared some of his afternoons with you. As President, I have had the honour and pleasure of sharing all my Wednesday afternoons with you, and I would like to express my thanks and satisfaction.
I would also sincerely like to wish you all the best for the future, and I hope we meet again, here or somewhere else. In one of the later questions, it was repeatedly said that many people go to Spain to retire.
Mr Henderson, Spain is a good place to go to even before you retire.
I hope we may be able to meet there, too.
<P>
That concludes questions to the Council.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 7.00 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=14>
Harmful tax competition (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=280 NAME="President">
The next item is a continuation of the debate on the report (A4-0228/98) by Mr Carlo Secchi of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on the Commission's communication to the Council and the European Parliament concerning a package to tackle harmful tax competition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=281 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Svensson">
Mr President, I would like to draw the attention of the Bureau to defects in the text of the report we are now debating.
The German version and the Swedish version contain 22 paragraphs.
However, the English version contains 35 paragraphs.
We are all anxious to know what we are going to be voting for tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=282 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Svensson.
We will take note of this.
Your comments will be given consideration.
I can promise you that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=283 NAME="Vanhecke">
Mr President, after monetary union, it was to be expected that sooner or later the harmonization of the tax systems of the Member States would be raised as part of the project for a federal Europe, which is gradually being imposed on us, whether we like it or not.
I fear that today's debate is only the first act in a long play.
It may be packaged under the heading 'countering harmful tax competition' , but ultimately it boils down to the same thing: the powers of the Member States are being moved in dribs and drabs, but very systematically, to federal level.
<P>
I am not in any way opposed to extensive European consultation and collaboration. Nevertheless, as a Fleming I am wellqualified to be critical of this form of equalization.
As you know, the Flemings find that they now are unable to introduce essential reductions in taxation - at their own expense, would you believe - within the federal state of Belgium - for example, regarding social security taxes or the burden of taxation on labour -, as these reductions have been vetoed by the federal partner in the Walloon provinces.
<P>
The question may therefore justifiably be asked whether the hypothetically harmful tax competition which would be countered, and which nevertheless also has advantages, would ultimately not be a lesser evil than the federal uniformity which threatens to replace it.
May I remind you that large companies and capital are easily moved outside the European Union for tax purposes, an option not available to the average citizen.
<P>
Finally I should mention, albeit not with a totally clear conscience, that a variety of tax advantages are granted to the European institutions that are not available to the common citizen in our Member States either.
Those who wish to harmonize and equalize would do well to start with themselves, if not, they should leave well enough alone.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=284 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Metten">
Mr President, the introduction of the euro has caused the Member States to realize that their direct taxes require some tax harmonization.
The code of conduct relating to harmful tax competition, dated 1 December of last year, was the first writing on the wall, and we hope to see a future agreement regarding tax on interest for non-residents.
The need for such initiatives is obvious.
Since 1980, the burden of tax has been shifting from mobile factors such as capital to the least mobile factor of labour.
Europe will not succeed in drastically reducing unemployment, presently standing at 11 %, without departing from this trend.
<P>
The Secchi report recognizes the above mentioned necessity for some harmonization in the area of direct taxes in order to prevent the race to ruin.
However, a new concept, that is, profitable or healthy tax competition, was introduced in this report, to which my group strongly objects.
This seems to me to be a totally muddled concept which assumes that tax competition exists which has favourable social effects.
Admittedly, variations in taxation will continue to exist, and these variations will always lead to competition.
Tax competition is inevitable in this sense.
But we cannot see how this competition could be beneficial to persons other than those who are subjected to it.
Differences in taxation create a constant pressure on governments to lower their tax rates.
The more mobile the tax source, the harder it is to resist this pressure.
The result, however, is seldom a lower level of tax, but rather a shift of the burden of tax to the least mobile source, namely, labour.
That is what we have seen in recent years. It is one of the reasons for the high unemployment rate in Europe.
<P>
I would advise the right-wing members of this Parliament to think twice before coming up with tangled concepts such as tax competition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=285 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Thyssen">
Mr President, the internal market is now five years old, and, as the rapporteur stated, the arrival of the euro will render it more transparent and efficient.
Everyone knows by now that, besides eliminating the traditional obstacles to free movement, the internal market can only function well with a proper competition policy.
The Commission has considerable powers at its disposal in this respect and is taking firm action in cases of unlawful governmental support or actions by companies that reduce competition.
Unfortunately, a similar range of instruments is not available to the Commission with respect to removing the harmful effects of fiscal competition.
Unless this changes, Member States will continue to steal a march on each other with specific provisions for non-residents; the fiscal shopping around on the part of companies and private citizens will only increase.
<P>
In addition, the risk of erosion of state revenue will become a real threat, which is certainly not a good thing in times of budgetary constraint.
Finally, the trend during the past decade to lighten the burden on mobile factors at the cost of the less mobile labour factor could not be reversed, despite any number of employment debates.
It is therefore laudable that the Commission has presented this package and that the Council has also decided at long last that something must be done.
Cardiff has emphasized this as well.
<P>
It is a cautious beginning.
The question of harmonization has not yet been raised in any of the three selected priority areas, which are therefore limited to coordination here and there.
The package method is a step in the right direction for Europe and the Member States, but the package, which contains no more than three products, would appear to be rather minimal.
Indirect taxation and border labour also suffer badly from the lack of fiscal harmonization.
The package presented by the Commission is admittedly a good move for us politically, but only as a first step, that is, with the condition that further steps must follow, including those relating to the decision-making procedure.
It would not be right for the Member States to maintain the unanimity rule and give the impression to their citizens that they are safeguarding their powers with respect to fiscal matters, when that same unanimity rule prevents the Member States from realizing the harmonization required to counter harmful tax competition and the erosion of tax revenue.
By retaining the unanimity rule the Member States are themselves undermining the formal powers they cling to so eagerly.
<P>
Mr President, I would like to ask the Commissioner three questions before closing.
Firstly, a code of conduct working party has been established which is to implement specific matters. How will this be democratically controlled?
Secondly, does the Commission intend to talk anyone else outside the OECD into taking one or more of these measures?
Thirdly and finally, Mr President, when can retailers in border areas expect the VAT rates to converge?
My congratulations to the rapporteur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=286 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to congratulate the rapporteur on his report.
We agree with the proposal in the Monti package.
Unfair competition in the area of company taxation must be eliminated.
In five years time there should, therefore, be no more fiscal constructions set up by Member States to entice companies from other Member States.
A provision for savings is also required.
All sorts of calculations are being made about how much the new regime will contribute to the national treasuries.
However, we should not be under any illusion, as savings are also deposited outside the Union.
But the Council is correct in its conclusions dated 1 December of last year that we must safeguard the competitiveness of the European financial markets.
In this context, I would imagine that an advance levy on income derived from securities of 20 % or more would be counterproductive.
Large savers will undoubtedly invest their money outside the Union.
<P>
In conclusion, I have one more question for the Commissioner. I know that the text of the directive on the tax regulation for savings has been finalized.
When does he expect this directive to take effect? Many citizens are, of course, interested in this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=287 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Svensson">
Mr President, the positive thing about this report is the criticism of so-called tax havens and demands for minimum standards and for a duty to inform to apply to banks.
However, the idea of more general tax harmonization is unrealistic.
It would be a serious encroachment on the prerogative of national parliaments and the rights of the citizens to shape their country's tax policy through elections.
It could also upset the stability of state finances.
The Member States have such different tax systems that they would be forced at the same time to harmonize all sorts of taxes.
This is politically and practically impossible and an unrealistic idea which we should abandon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=288 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Formentini">
Mr President, I would like to echo the compliments expressed by other speakers to the rapporteur. Allow me to congratulate him on the content of his report which, whilst containing comments on and criticism of the Commission, essentially supports the Commission in what I consider to be its bold intervention in Member States' tax policy.
<P>
Particularly once Economic and Monetary Union has come into force, there is no doubt that Member States, who are being stripped of what margin for manoeuvre they had on budgetary and monetary policy, will not easily relinquish their prerogative on tax matters; there will certainly be resistance.
The Commission therefore needs Parliament's backing on this, and I believe that, in the democratic spirit which drives it, Parliament will support it.
<P>
Let us not forget that nearly all Member States, particularly the larger ones, have created oases within their borders. We are not talking about tax havens, but oases in which taxation is somehow lighter.
These oases spark off competition, and the competition system hampers the healthy and harmonious management of taxation which would create the results we are seeking, including in terms of economic progress and growth.
<P>
I would like to stress, moreover, that we must safeguard the possibility of using the tax lever, applying tax incentives for areas which need to expand; there are some outstanding examples of this in the Community. These should still remain possible because even labour taxation, for example, can allow areas with difficulties to get onto an equal footing with other areas of the Community.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=289 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ettl">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in his report Mr Secchi has shown a great deal of sensitivity, which is very important in dealing with such a delicate issue.
However, we must under no circumstances allow ourselves to close our eyes to the economic reality of the European Union.
It is a fact that the single currency, the euro, amongst all its positive effects, will also have a politically positive side effect in that it will stimulate extra activity in the overall policymaking of the European Union.
And for me this extra activity means that things will, at last, have to get moving in the tax sector.
<P>
It will not stop at coordination.
We will have to move on to harmonization, and there are many reasons why this is the case.
I myself think that we should move away from the principle of unanimity.
Europe needs a certain level of coordination, better coordination in the area of tax policy, precisely because many different levels of tax burden apply in the European Union. Labour is too heavily taxed.
Corporate groups are largely left to deal with their tax matters as they see fit.
Small- and mediumsized businesses don't really get a look in.
In truth, it is only the international tax consultancies who really benefit profit from the situation.
<P>
What we need is better coordination in order to eliminate certain double and multiple taxation problems.
It is quite simply unacceptable that Europe has coordination centres, as is the case in Belgium, which make large loans to groups and subsidiaries of groups with interest payable outside the country in question, where in turn they are subject to very low tax rates and thus in practice manage to avoid the whole taxation process.
This is unacceptable!
These practices exist all over Europe and we must get rid of them.
This is our chance to achieve better harmonization in this sector.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=290 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García-Margallo y Marfil">
Mr President, I will not repeat any of the comments made by Mr Secchi, which I support from start to finish.
I would prefer to concentrate on one point concerning the stage at which we Europeans find ourselves after the coming into force of the euro.
<P>
We Europeans have from now on rejected the possibility of devaluing currencies in order to recover lost competitiveness by way of a short cut.
We have also rejected the use of monetary policies as a national instrument to create employment in the oldest sense of the Phillips curve.
In addition, we have rejected budgetary policies by signing up to the Stability Pact.
<P>
Now it is time for us to tackle the problem of fiscal harmonization, which still remains to be solved.
And here there are two conflicting ideas: one - from the Council - which is timid, narrow-minded and slow; and the other which is the one the Commission wants to opt for.
<P>
I would like to assure the Commissioner of my personal support for the efforts he is making in order to overcome the Council's opposition, and would like to emphasize several points relating to the package being presented to us here today.
<P>
As regards fiscal competition, I completely agree that a single market, with a single currency, is not compatible with fiscal privileges which distort competition.
However, it would be appropriate if, alongside allowances, tax reductions or increases in credit facilities, the Commission tackled the complex problem of state aid.
<P>
One thing that has been talked about during the days in the run-up to the Cardiff Summit is the desire on the part of some Member States for the principle of subsidiarity to be applied in an unequal manner, in such a way that the Commission cannot control, review or examine state aids.
I cannot see any difference between aid granted by means of tax reductions and aid granted from items of public expenditure.
<P>
Secondly, as regards taxation on savings, I share the Commission's view that it is unacceptable to increase taxation on work while decreasing the tax burden on capital. Nevertheless, I believe that the measures which are being implemented, and which we are currently considering, are insufficient.
<P>
I think - and this is not the moment to go into this as I do not have time - that we will need to consider whether the model of calculated added value for consumption is still valid, a model we approved at a time which was very different to that in which we now live.
<P>
In conclusion, Commissioner, I would like to reiterate my support for the efforts being made to overcome the Council's opposition and to move towards the harmonization which we Europeans now need.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=291 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Mr President, Commissioner, the Monti package is a good impetus for further coordination. We must find the right balance between policy coordination and competition.
In my opinion, we should not compete outright in a number of policy areas but rather arrive at cooperation.
In this respect, I believe that the code of conduct regarding corporation tax should be elaborated further.
In its present state, it provides a host of possibilities for tax evasion, and the entire issue of VAT has been disregarded in these proposals, which is regrettable.
I do not consider this to be Commissioner Monti's fault, but rather a matter which the Council is still afraid to tackle.
The same applies to indirect taxation, such as creating environmental and energy taxes to avoid increasing taxation on employment, as has been mentioned often by other Members.
The reduction of double taxation on wages, in particular, should be given a higher priority.
I do not blame Commissioner Monti, but I do blame the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=292 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, the introduction of monetary union will create a previously unknown level of transparency and thus of total comparability of all prices and costs from one Member State to another.
As a result, competition-distorting differences in many areas, including environmental conditions for example, but of course above all the tax sector, will take on a new and greater dimension.
<P>
Our domestic market with its complete liberalization and freedom of movement must have fair competition conditions, otherwise it may produce shifts and changes running counter to economic and social balance.
Harmful tax competition can destroy the economic advantages of the single market in the states in question and runs contrary to the logic of economic and monetary union.
<P>
Strictly speaking, reaching the degree of tax harmonization we are currently labouring to achieve should have been be an important condition for introducing Economic and Monetary Union.
In this respect I welcome Mr Secchi's report with its very clear and logical assessment of the Commission's communication.
I believe it is important for us to agree that tax coordination - in terms of reducing the labour factor - is necessary and can therefore also serve as an important instrument in the fight against unemployment.
The achievement of a compromise between tax sovereignty and stronger voluntary economic coordination is an inescapable necessity for any state which wants the single market and monetary union to work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=293 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Secchi, very sincerely for having successfully handled a particularly difficult task when it comes to encroaching upon national, in some cases even nationalist, prerogatives.
<P>
In my report on European industrial competitiveness, I myself proposed fiscal harmonization in order to avoid anarchic competition between Member States and in order to produce beneficial effects at the level of business competitiveness.
I am also delighted at the adoption of a code of conduct in the area of business taxation by the Ecofin Council.
There is currently concrete progress which points to real hope in this area.
<P>
With regard to the text of Mr Secchi's report, there are however a number of points which raise certain fears and doubts for me.
I consider that the bias in favour of a correlation between lower taxes and lower unemployment is far too optimistic.
If such a simple solution existed, there would no longer be any unemployment in Europe.
Similarly, I do not support the lowest tender fiscal policy which the rapporteur seems to suggest, for it encourages negative competition between Member States.
I would finally like to remind you that tax deductions also result in a redistribution within society as a whole: education, research, security, infrastructure - none of these would be accessible to everyone without a fiscal policy which enables strong public intervention.
<P>
In conclusion, I would like to reaffirm my conviction as a Member of the European Parliament and as a Frenchman, that it is necessary to harmonize the Union's fiscal policy.
However, we must keep in mind that this fiscal policy is a way of constructing a political Europe, and that it is a political Europe alone that can legitimize a fiscal Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=294 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for some excellent work.
The report presents us with a splendid opportunity to discuss the weapons the Union will choose to combat harmful tax competition between Member States.
Divergent national tax systems and the competition they lead to will result in a total failure to achieve the prospects for growth and employment in the internal market.
<P>
In many Member States, the level of tax on labour is the greatest barrier to solving the unemployment problem.
The higher overall labour costs are, the higher the unemployment rate generally is also.
Unfortunately, harmonization has not extended into this particular sector.
What has happened at national level is at best special tax allowances for foreign executives and the use of option and other tax systems, which, in conjunction with a low rate of capital gains tax, results in production becoming capital-intensive, thus exacerbating the unemployment problem.
<P>
The Union has quite rightly intervened in indirect taxation, for example by aiming at harmonization of VAT.
Otherwise tax on tobacco, alcohol and car tax, for example, can differ quite substantially from one country to another.
When the Union fusses over the abolition of the duty-free system, it forgets that this only serves to cause unemployment and preserve different levels of indirect taxation.
<P>
Tax havens can only be created in countries whose national economies are in good shape or with an undeveloped social security system. They are able to compete with low taxation.
Countries with a high rate of taxation, which, in addition, have problems balancing their budget, apply negative tax competition instead: in other words, they burden their own citizens with high special taxes.
Tackling this problem is at least as important as intervening in harmful positive tax competition.
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<SPEAKER ID=295 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wibe">
Mr President, I think that this report contains a lot of good things.
However, I would like to talk about three things that are not included, and which I think should perhaps have been included.
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The first concerns the Ecofin group which is to be set up to monitor the application of this Code of Conduct.
Its meetings are secret.
I think Parliament should have called for the minutes of these meetings to be published as soon as possible.
<P>
The second point which I find lacking comes in part two of the action plan, and concerns the duty to inform which people are considering applying to banks within the Union.
In fact a very common way of avoiding tax today is to place your capital in another country and then withhold information on income from this capital from the tax authorities in your home country.
This is a quite simply criminal tax fiddle which is taking place on a large scale within the Union today.
A very simple way to overcome this, Mr President, is to impose an obligation on banks to report to the authorities in the capital owner's home country that this income exists, so that they can be taxed.
I think Parliament should have said that we welcome such a duty to inform.
<P>
The third point concerns measures against tax havens.
Obviously, like the rapporteur, I too welcome the fact that we are trying to tackle this problem within the Union.
However, I think we should perhaps have pointed out that to get a definitive solution to this problem we need a global agreement, otherwise there is a risk that capital owners will move their capital from one of the Union's tax havens to a tax haven outside the Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=296 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, I did not vote for Mr Secchi's report in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and I will not vote for it in the House, because it proposes a fool's bargain in the sense that, in practice, it advocates non-respect for the demand for simultaneous adoption of the Community directives on business taxation and taxation of savings.
<P>
There is no way we can be satisfied with a code of conduct in the area of business taxation whilst demanding a directive on the taxation of income from savings, especially given that harmful tax competition is far more important in the area of business taxation than that of the taxation of savings.
<P>
In this latter field, my amendment recalling that the competitiveness of European financial markets at world level must be protected was fortunately taken up by the committee, which particularly delighted and reassured my colleague, Mr Fayot, who is no longer here and who, unfortunately, was also absent from the committee when this amendment was voted on.
<P>
Mr Secchi's report goes as far as putting in the rubbish bin the integration of the legislative process with regard to the different components of the package formulated on 1 December last year by the Ecofin Council.
My amendment clarifying that there is no cause for killing fair tax competition within the European Union was rejected, as was my amendment which confirmed that the only objective of harmonization must be the elimination of real distortions which truly interfere with the single market. An example of this, in the area of indirect taxation, is the excessively high rate of excise on wines coming from certain Member States - and Mr Monti will have understood clearly that there is no cause to take initiatives to kill the zero rate in this area.
<P>
Mr Secchi's report calls for the elimination of tax havens in the internal market.
No Member State is a tax haven, quite the contrary, but many territories which have special relations with certain Member States, such as the Isle of Man, the Dutch Antilles and so on, may be considered as tax havens.
In the internal market, there will be a need to eliminate these.
<P>
It is furthermore intellectually dishonest, if not hypocritical, to consider an eminently social model of taxation as a tax haven, such as that in my country which imposes reasonable rates of VAT and excise duties - to the advantage of the low paid - and taxes higher incomes more heavily; which treats non-residents the same as neighbouring countries with regard to taxation of savings but which fortunately refrains from confiscating income from savings, savings made, by honest people, on the basis of income on which the taxpayer has already paid his or her taxes.
<P>
The taxation of border work is held up as one of the areas in which fiscal harmonization is necessary.
On this subject it is sufficient to ensure respect for the principle by which it is appropriate to consolidate, in the country of employment, the payment of social contributions and income tax.
<P>
Mr President, I fear that a number of exaggerations in this report hardly contribute to consolidating the Ecofin Council's decisions of 1 December last year, reached under the Luxembourg Presidency, which deserve credit for unblocking the process of direct fiscal harmonization, but which must not be the victim of a fool's bargain.
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<SPEAKER ID=297 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Torres Couto">
Mr President, I should also like to begin by congratulating the rapporteur, and I would like to say that I understand that a certain degree of competition between national tax systems may in fact stimulate efficiency and benefit consumers.
But it should be emphasized that the present inequalities between tax systems can also contribute to making it impossible for us to reap the profits we might otherwise obtain from the internal market in terms of growth and employment.
<P>
So I think it is becoming a matter of urgency to improve the coordination of these policies, which are a hindrance to the proper working of the internal market.
Particularly in the area of taxation, bearing in mind that tax coordination can be used as an essential instrument for the practical implementation of our employment policy guidelines by reducing the tax burden on employment.
<P>
We must reverse the taxation philosophy we apply to the labour market and other production factors, especially capital.
As the rapporteur quite rightly emphasizes, between 1985 and 1995 taxes on employment increased by 20 % while taxes on capital decreased by 10 %.
We shall only succeed in creating jobs when we have the political ability and the political courage to reverse that trend.
<P>
It is therefore vital that we should adopt a package of measures that deserve the support of Member States and include, for example, a code of conduct for company taxation, and conditions that will make it possible to reduce the tax burden on those who promote employment, with a consequent reduction in non-wages social costs.
<P>
To succeed in our fight against unemployment it is important to counteract the disastrous consequences of harmful tax competition, and I would emphasize that, if it becomes necessary, we must retain beneficial forms of competition in taxation between Member States as an instrument for increasing the competitiveness of the European economy in the face of the present challenges of the global market.
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<SPEAKER ID=298 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sindal">
Mr President, a number of shrewd observations have been made this afternoon and this evening.
I would like to look at this matter more in terms of principle.
Firstly, I must say it is a good thing that we are taking this up, and I would also like to congratulate the Commissioner on his excellent results in Cardiff.
The Council has also followed the recommendations in the document forwarded by the Commission.
To my mind, there is a matter of principle involved in these problem areas.
My premise is that we should deal with trans-border fiscal matters.
That is where the problems lie.
My honourable friend Mr Gallagher from Ireland made a fine contribution this afternoon, amply illustrating the problems of company taxation.
I can well understand our delight at creating jobs in one place, but I do not like the fact that jobs are simply disappearing elsewhere, which means that jobs are not really being created at all and that the Union is not making any progress.
<P>
The second point I would like to mention is environmental taxes or duties.
These traverse borders just as company taxation does.
Here, too, we need to keep in step.
<P>
Once again, we have heard Ms Lulling and also Mr Fayot speaking earlier today about returns on investments, interest, and so forth.
What is the good of agreeing on uniform taxation of interest if we cannot even locate the interest?
That is the real problem: a lack of openness, or banking secrecy.
<P>
Finally, we have what are known as excise duties - as mentioned previously - on spirits, wine, cars, and so on.
That, too, is a trans-border issue that we must examine.
However, I do not think we should touch on personal taxation.
That would not be realistic at present.
Overall, the tax ratio is actually fairly uniform.
Some countries have heavy user fees; other countries, my own included, have little in the way of user fees. However, adding it all up, for more than half the members of the Union, much the same tax ratio goes on welfare and welfare services.
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I strongly recommend that we take a good look at the real world and include a voluntary aspect when implementing changes in taxation within the Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=299 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Porto">
Mr President, may I begin by congratulating Commissioner Monti on the action he has taken on tax harmonization, with all the difficulties that arise from the fact that a unanimous vote in Council is still required in this area.
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From our political point of view, the idea that there should be no harmonization, and that the market should resolve the problems, is an attractive one.
But we have to be realistic and recognize the certainty that, as economies are opened up and all other rules are increasingly harmonized, competition in the field of taxation would have the effect of increasing the already excessive tax burden on employment.
<P>
Thus, while we cannot achieve everything at once, we must pay special attention to the introduction of the euro, which means that we have to harmonize the taxation of savings and interest. When the currency is the same it makes no difference whether, for example, the money is deposited in one country or another, because the countries with the lowest tax rates will naturally benefit and transfers are therefore to be expected.
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But the risks of unfair tax competition do not end at the boundaries of Europe in an increasingly open world.
For that reason the European Union must close the loopholes by demanding that third countries observe minimum tax rules, which would be just as legitimate as our requirements in the social and environmental fields, and would therefore act as a disincentive to countries outside Europe.
<P>
And it is for the same reasons, and even more so, that I wish to voice the strongest agreement with the rapporteur, Mr Secchi, when he says that we should speed up the elimination of tax havens within the internal European Union market - as already mentioned - to put an end to the ruinous tax competition between Member States, which is compatible neither with the single market nor with the spirit of the Community.
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As I have emphasized, these havens are of no help to the products and areas most in need of support, and European citizens cannot understand why they continue to exist; or at least, I am unable to explain this in my own country.
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<SPEAKER ID=300 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the multiplicity of taxation systems and the way they are in competition with one another result in a situation whereby economic growth cannot be competently steered in the direction of employment.
Furthermore, tax competition has a damaging effect on energy and environmental policy, for example.
Unequal corporation tax systems attract big business to those areas where treatment is more favourable, and this distorts open competition.
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The central problem is the ever greater concentration of tax on so-called immobile factors, that is to say the workforce.
For some reason, people imagine that companies that employ human beings are more solvent than, for example, companies that employ robots, since their tax bill is extortionate compared to that of others.
Such distortions will have to be eliminated when working on tax systems.
At the very least, companies that employ people should at least enjoy the same status as firm with a high degree of automation.
The burden of taxation therefore needs to be shifted away from the human labour force and towards activities with a greater ability to pay.
Currency dealing and speculation are regarded as more productive forms of business.
It is quite intolerable that this activity falls outside the bounds of taxation.
Thus, the Union must explore the possibilities of the 'Tobin Tax' as quickly as possible and in the name of better employment policy.
In this way we could lighten the income tax burden considerably.
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Negative tax havens must also obviously be sorted out.
Why do we allow black holes in the taxation system these days here in Europe?
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<SPEAKER ID=301 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Torres Marques">
Mr President, I congratulate Mr Secchi on his report on this important subject.
Sluggishness, lack of political will and incapacity have hitherto been the hallmarks of this highly important tax harmonization dossier.
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This is a very difficult subject technically speaking, and its political sensitivity is an aggravating factor.
The Council's requirement for a unanimous vote is based on the fact that the national parliaments want to have the last word on the matter.
And although I can understand that if we carry on along this road we shall find it hard to make any progress, what is certain is that the national parliaments essentially came into being because taxes had to be fixed, and they are not likely easily to accept a role in which they are merely required to rubber-stamp decisions taken by supra-national authorities.
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But the creation of a single market and the free movement of citizens and capital have already shown that the existing tax policy causes imbalances in the market that are in many cases highly unreasonable, prejudicial and indeed unfair.
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The problem of harmonizing this situation is therefore an extremely difficult one. For that reason the lack of progress and political will I mentioned at the beginning is understandable.
The problem is that the results of that inertia are unacceptably harmful to taxes on employment and are too easy on other production factors, especially capital.
When the euro comes into force and the internal market is suddenly wide open, some major measures will inevitably have to be taken to bring the various tax systems closer together.
<P>
On this point Commissioner Monti has tried to take some positive steps which the Council has unfortunately limited to a few direct taxes.
Only the work and experience of the group of experts appointed by Ecofin will be able to guarantee that we have the political will to achieve something in this field.
But if it is to do so its work must not be kept secret.
One of the effects of the euro will be to make it necessary for tax policies to be approximated.
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<SPEAKER ID=302 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pomés Ruiz">
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Commissioner Monti and wish him the best of luck in his fight for fiscal harmonization and the elimination of harmful barriers.
I would also like to thank my colleague, Mr Secchi, for this excellent report, which will allow us to make better use of the advantages of the single market and monetary union by eliminating fiscal distortions. These distortions exist; they translate today into the relocation of savings and investments - with harmful repercussions on the competitiveness of businesses - and they also mean that there is an increase in the tax burden on workers who cannot relocate.
<P>
However, I want to emphasize that the code of conduct expressly recognizes the possibility that in a given Member State there may be different tax legislation and that all legislation must be equally subjected to this process of eliminating harmful distortions.
This process of eliminating distortions cannot and should not be used to limit the subsidiarity principle. Nor should it limit the fiscal authority that can now be exercised, in the case of Spain, by the Basque Country or the Autonomous Community of Navarre, whose constitutional relationship states that the fiscal laws passed by the Cortes of Navarre can only be challenged in the Spanish Constitutional Court.
Respect for existing levels of authority in the European Union can only strengthen the credibility of the current process of accelerating fiscal harmonization.
This process does not unnecessarily discriminate between fiscal rules according to the state or regional body which approves them, but solely determines whether or not their content is harmful for the entire Union.
Fiscal differences between the various countries can be advantageous for all citizens, in that they can stem from a different level of public spending on the part of the various administrations, from the best or worst management of their expenditure or from the effective use of public resources.
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Therefore, we must take harmonization forward, we must respect the principle of subsidiarity and we must respect the causes which mean that different countries have logical distinctions in their tax burden.
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<SPEAKER ID=303 NAME="Monti">
Mr President, I am most impressed by this rich, flowing discussion. It has touched on some highly technical matters which nevertheless affect political questions at the very heart of the workings of our European Union.
It seems to me that on certain fundamental issues we have very broad agreement across the whole of the political spectrum represented in this Parliament.
<P>
I would like to warmly thank Mr Secchi for his excellent work on this realistic and balanced report, which provides a highly accurate analysis of the package of tax measures and questions related to harmful tax competition.
Let me take this opportunity, Mr President, to say how much I admire the energy and commitment with which Mr Secchi so promptly followed up his report with a proposed report on the draft directive on interest and royalties.
<P>
As I was saying, I was struck by certain points where there is broad consensus: one such point is the question of capital and labour.
Mr Caudron is quite correct in saying that this is a tenuous link, but the basic link does exist all the same, and any employment policy in Europe is not credible if it fails to make use of the taxation coordination lever in order to reverse the trend we have seen towards increasing taxation of labour.
When we talk of capital and labour it should be quite clear that the aim is certainly not to undermine the financial markets.
The financial markets are vitally important to the workings of the European economy, to competition and employment.
This is why the Commission - as I will repeat once again this evening - is against the idea of taxing financial transactions, as was proposed by Mr Moreau and Mr Passilinna.
We believe that we should not discourage financial market operations by taxing transactions, but we feel that within an integrated financial market we need to create a normal system for taxing capital income.
It is nothing drastic, it can be done, and it can be done Mr Lulling, Mr Thyssen, in full awareness of the need to avoid penalising competition on European financial markets.
That is why we are doing our utmost to act in international fora such as the OECD and the Group of 7, and to extend the principles of the code of conduct and tax on savings to the dependent and associated territories.
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Every country - as Mr Fayot said, and I would agree with him - has become a tax haven for the rest.
This is why we have focused our attention on cross-border taxation.
On the other hand we want to avoid a situation to which several of you referred - for example Mr Peijs - in which inefficient states end up imposing the tax burden on efficient ones.
This is the reason behind the fine line drawn in the fight against harmful tax competition - we do not indiscriminately want to tar everything with the same brush and attack every form of tax competition, even fair ones.
<P>
I am pleased to see that the Parliament has understood the value of the package approach both for business and for savings. This is why I must also point out that, as far as business taxation is concerned, we have already set the ball rolling.

Mr Lulling is already hard at work on this one, not with a directive, but rather with a code of conduct, which is starting to work for savings: we hope that in the not-too-distant future we will get the directive.
By the by, Mr Kesteleijn-Sierens was asking when Article 12 of the draft directive on savings should come into force; it says that Member States should adopt legislation on transposition no later than 31 December 1999 which should come into force on 1 January 2001.
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The rapporteur himself, Mr Secchi, and other speakers suggested that we should go further than what is covered by this package.
I would fully go along with what was said by Mr Randzio-Plath, Mr von Wogau and others: this is just the beginning, but I trust that this package, modest as it may be, has radically transformed the climate of tax discussions in Europe.
We can now talk about such matters with some prospect of success.
Two years ago - as you well know - it was seen as something completely unrealistic.
We have to go further, from coordination to far-reaching harmonization, and on that we had different points of view: this is one of the few points on which there were divergent positions, which I find perfectly normal since there are different philosophical and political views.
Some people would see a loss of national tax sovereignty as positive; others fear such loss.
We have been working until now on improving coordination, which allows everyone to better exercise the tax sovereignty they have.
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Mr Angelilli commented that we should take steps from Community level to bring about a gradual drop in tax pressure.
I am convinced that this is the business of the individual Member States; I am also convinced that it would be in the interests of their economies, and I believe that by closing certain loopholes the coordination of taxation puts everyone in a position where they can afford to reduce the gross average rate.
Mr Formentini recalled the requirements of regional policy: the code of conduct recognizes these requirements and submits them to certain checking processes.
<P>

Let me make another point, Mr President: I was very unhappy two months ago when I had to answer a flat "no' to the request of this Parliament, which was supported by a large majority, to reopen discussions on the intra-Community duty free decision on the basis of a study. But those of you who so strongly backed this package against harmful tax competition cannot fail to realize that it would be highly contradictory to be for this approach yet at the same time to want to keep alive these localised tax havens, the duty free sales.
<P>
Finally, many of you pointed out that the euro is driving this harmonization or this tax coordination.
Let me state here and now that this has not been the case thus far.
Let us be frank: until now their preparing for the euro has not allowed the Ministers for Finance to focus all their energy as we would have wished on the coordination of taxation. Consequently we have, in a sense, been swimming against the tide, although I believe that from now on the advent of the euro will encourage this process.
<P>
One closing comment: I rank amongst those who favour getting rid of the unanimity rule on taxation questions because, if I may say so, it would boost this Parliament's decision-making role.
Unfortunately we are not yet at that juncture, but allow me to stress that, through close cooperation between the Parliament, in particular its Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, and the Executive Committee, we were able to get the support of Parliament even under the present institutional system - you are bearing witness to that this evening - and to provide Parliament with the greatest possible amount of transparent information on ongoing work.
So in a certain sense we are creating the conditions which I hope will be institutionalised some day.
<P>
Thank you for your support, and thank you once again to Mr Secchi, the rapporteur; I hope that we will have other opportunities to go into more detail on these difficult but important questions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=304 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
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The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=15>
Tax treatment of private motor vehicles
<SPEAKER ID=305 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0217/98) by Mr Watson on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on the proposal for a Council Directive governing the tax treatment of private motor vehicles moved permanently to another Member State in connection with a transfer of residence or used temporarily in a Member State other than that in which they are registered (COM(98)0030 - C4-0145/98-98/0025(CNS))
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<SPEAKER ID=306 NAME="Watson">
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating you on the excellent spirit with which you are presiding over this evening's proceedings and the calm efficiency of your chairmanship.
<P>
There is not a single question in politics that does not begin or end with taxation.
I am moving tonight a report on the tax treatment of private motor vehicles moved permanently from one Member State to another in connection with a transfer of residence or used temporarily in a Member State other than that in which they are registered.
<P>
This draft directive has two aims.
The first is to update the provisions of earlier directives on tax exemptions for vehicles imported from one Member State to another and tax exemptions applicable to permanent import from one Member State to another of the personal property of individuals.
Secondly, the draft directive extends these provisions to problems which have been encountered in the application of the earlier directives and to comply with the internal market and expectations of freedom of movement.
<P>
We know that there are obstacles to the free movement of privately owned vehicles, often in the form of double taxation.
This is a matter of concern to this House since the free movement of people is a criterion for a successful single currency area.
That free movement is hampered by obstacles to the movement of vehicles.
Hence we welcome the Commission's proposals.
<P>
Generally vehicle taxes are not subject to approximation rules at Community level.
This has led to differences between Member States in terms of tax regimes levied on vehicles.
The draft directive before us defines the basic rules for vehicle taxation in the context of individuals moving between Member States.
<P>
The single market prevents the use of frontier formalities in the collection of taxes, but this has led to some Member States converting excise duties on motor vehicles into registration taxes or introducing new taxes to compensate for VAT rate reductions.
My report aims to ensure that there is no scope for double taxation.
The measures that are proposed cover two broad categories.
First, in the case of transfer of residence, the proposal is that Member States should not impose vehicle registration taxes on cars brought into their territory by individuals who are moving to live there.
<P>
Second, for temporary residence the aim is to safeguard the right of the individual to use a vehicle temporarily in a Member State other than that in which he or she lives.
There would be a right to use the vehicle for up to six months in any twelvemonth period.
Additional elements guarantee or include greater freedom to use rental cars in Member States other than that in which they are registered, and greater flexibility for cross-border workers who use vehicles provided by their employers.
<P>
We seek also to improve bilateral communications between Member States in the case of a dispute about a person's place of residence.
It is surprising and perhaps depressing that there is not already suitable communication between the competent authorities.
<P>
In subsidiarity terms the aim is to provide a common set of rules for the non-imposition of motor vehicle taxes in certain cases in order to help movement of labour and to prevent double taxation.
<P>
I am proposing three amendments to this draft directive.
They serve as no more than tidying-up measures.
They do not change the character or the thrust of the Commission's proposals in any way, but they seek to reinforce the rights of the citizen.
The first is to allow for a vehicle that is being scrapped or destroyed, perhaps after an accident, not to incur liability to taxation.
The second is, in the case of infringements of the rules being encountered, to allow the citizen to have the right to remove the vehicle from a Member State without payment of tax.
The third is simply to bring the whole piece of legislation firmly into accordance with Article 95 of the Treaty.
<P>
The most important message that I have for the House tonight is that we must stop Member States circumventing internal market legislation and abusing the spirit of the internal market by applying new names to old taxes.
This legislation will secure freedom of movement for cars and citizens in the single market, it will help car hire firms whose cross-border rental operations have been penalized by allowing better fleet management, and help the consumer by reducing car rental taxes.
Our colleague Mr Sindal spoke in the last debate of the importance of tackling transfrontier taxes.
This is a small step in that direction.
<P>
In conclusion, there are only two certainties in this world: death and taxes.
The grim reaper strikes only once.
This proposal aims to make sure that the same is true of the tax man.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=307 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, at first glance Mr Watson's report may seem rather technical.
You only have to look at the small number of speakers to be convinced of this.
However, once this first sensation has passed, you very quickly realize that it touches upon an essential issue for the construction of Europe: the free movement of goods and people and the consequences of certain tax restrictions on this.
<P>
Indeed, when border formalities were removed on 1 January 1993, many Member States invented new taxes, particularly for motor cars.
These new deductions institute a de facto double taxation which is completely against our principles.
I therefore welcome with a great deal of satisfaction the proposals in Mr Watson's report.
In fact, it was important to legislate on such a sensitive subject and, similarly, to do all within our power to remove the final restrictions on freedom of movement.
I would like to congratulate the rapporteur warmly.
I would add that it would have been absurd to debate tonight, on the one hand, the need for harmonization of fiscal policy at a Union level whilst on the other to continue to accept taxes which are in contradiction with one of the driving forces and principles of the construction of Europe.
<P>
Nevertheless, although I am pleased with the text, I am forced to wonder once more about the fact that it always seems easier to reach an agreement on material goods than on people and the taxation of people.
In fact, Commissioner, over the last few weeks I have had a number of problems of double taxation affecting employees referred to me, and these employees came to me so that I might intervene to help them get out of absurd and often difficult situations.
Tomorrow, when we vote on the Watson report, these dozens of cases will leave me with a bitter taste in my mouth, in spite of the responses the Commission has given me with regard to these dossiers.
They are far from being solved.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, Europe is progressing and I am pleased at this, but I cannot help thinking that, sometimes, its construction is being achieved the wrong way round.
Although, following this directive and our report, goods transportation will be carried out with increasingly fewer restrictions, the same cannot be said for the movement of people.
In fact it remains difficult, and I wanted to say this this evening, to be able to work freely wherever work can be found - and that, in itself, is not easy - and this is in spite of Treaties signed and ratified, and directives.
It is truly a shame, if not downright upsetting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=308 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Thyssen">
Mr President, this proposal for a directive is another step towards our goal of free movement of persons. In that sense it is surely a link in the further expansion of the European Union.
However, I agree with Mr Caudron that there is still much to be accomplished in that area. Although border formalities when importing cars following a change in residence or for temporary use in another Member State were abolished in January 1993, quite a few Member States have been ingenious enough to replace the border formalities and the accompanying taxes which were dropped with some form of registration tax.
This creativity by the Member States is finally getting a suitable response.
Promoting the mobility of persons in the European Union, while at the same time preventing mobile people, accompanied by their beloved car, from taking up residence elsewhere unless they pay an additional tax levy, can no longer be justified.
The Commission's proposal rightly limits these practices, which often boil down to no more than double taxation.
<P>
My group, Mr President, is fully in agreement with the proposal for a directive, with regard to the basic problem as well as to the solutions found.
We will therefore support the proposal.
We have not tabled any amendments ourselves, but we will support the amendments tabled by the rapporteur on which we unanimously agreed in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
The amendments by the rapporteur render the proposal more explicit in three areas and therefore contribute to clarity and increased legal security. Who could be against that?
<P>
Mr President, I agree with the proposal but I would add this: I hope that the Italians -I do not know if you are a football fan, Commissioner - I hope that the Italians will be just as successful tonight in their match against Cameroon as you have been tonight in the match in this Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=309 NAME="Monti">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am very sensitive to the remark made by Mr Thyssen and believe that we are faced with a case of harmful competition between television programmes and debate in the House, a debate on very important issues like the one dealt with in the report by Mr Watson whom I would like to thank and congratulate for his document and for the conclusions reached.
<P>
Mr Watson welcomed the Commission document as a logical and sensible proposal - it is always nice to hear these words - that should allow the Union's citizens freer movement.
According to the Commission, this proposal is an important step forward towards a single market for the owners and users of private vehicles.
Its adoption will help solve problems that can crop up for people who change their domicile from one Member State to another or who temporarily want to use a vehicle registered in their country of origin in another Member State.
<P>
As far as Amendments Nos 1 and 2 are concerned, I fully agree on the content. The Commission is in fact grateful for these suggestions and will do all it can to get them adopted.
<P>
As for Amendment No 3, which is suggested in Article 11 of the proposal, I would just like to point out that Article 95 of the Treaty is already in itself directly applicable to all national legislation and does not need any additional clarification.
The direct effectiveness of Article 95 of the Treaty is upheld by what are now consolidated rulings by the Court of Justice and therefore, for this reason, I am sorry that the Commission cannot accept the amendment.
Secondly, the content of Article 11 of the proposal would not be amended by the insertion of a reference to Article 95.
For this reason, the point of such an amendment also appears debatable.
<P>
Again I congratulate the rapporteur and thank you, Mr President.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=310 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
You may be pleased to know that our service department has just informed us that Italy is leading 1-0 - as Commissioner Bangemann will now confirm.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=16>
Mobile and wireless communications
<SPEAKER ID=311 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0221/98) by Mr Camisón Asensio on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision on the coordinated introduction of mobile and wireless communications (UMTS) in the Community (COM(98)0058 - C4-0144/98-98/0051(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=312 NAME="Camisón Asensio">
Mr President, in its resolution of 29 January 1998 on the third generation of mobile communications, this Parliament clearly demonstrated its emphatic support for this extremely interesting project, which concerns nothing less than the nervous system of the global village of the 21st century.
<P>
It was undeniably a political impulse and a commitment - which we are hoping will now be renewed - before the proposal for a decision which we are debating today.
Our 11 amendments have the same objective and they were approved almost unanimously in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
It would also seem logical to capitalize on the success of GSM to secure a leading position for Europe in advanced technologies and on the international markets.
<P>
To achieve this, we hoped for mutual collaboration, including the sector of industry involved as well as the public authorities, in a sincere attempt to overcome individual preferences so as to achieve a model of open networks and technologies, getting away from proprietary designs aimed at controlling captive markets which would, in the end, be unable to compete on the world market.
<P>
Given the lack of time, I would like to mention the following aspects. The ETSI has already made substantial progress in the standardization process, and rival equipment technologies have been combined.
Although a great deal still remains to be done, we hope that the speed of technological progress in the industry is such that the first commercial services may be available by 2002.
<P>
It is therefore time to initiate the licensing process, so as to give operators and manufacturers the indispensable legal certainty they need to initiate the sizeable investments that are required.
The draft decision establishes the necessary guidelines in line with the directive on licences as well as in cooperation with the CEPT.
<P>
In short, Commissioner, we are satisfied with this proposal and we believe that it is perfectly legitimate not to reserve access to UMTS licences to present GSM/DCS operators, nor to exclude them in principle.
The proposal does not address selection criteria for licences or the pricing of the licensed frequency spectrum - which is not its purpose anyway - because the freedom of the Member States must be respected in this field.
<P>
We are advocating the need for sufficient coverage in less populated areas. The Commission should be given a higher profile for international negotiations, while respecting the Member States' rights in the field of spectrum management.
<P>
We hope that the Council will take a favourable position, thus allowing this decision to be adopted without delay, since we are involved in a global battle of the utmost urgency, and we must always remember this.
<P>
As regards the amendments tabled, I have only two points to make: firstly, there is no serious scientific study highlighting the danger of using earpieces for mobile communications, and it would thus be inappropriate to raise any unnecessary social alarm; and secondly, we must not forget that we are talking about a sector - European telecommunications - which is completely liberalized.
<P>
I would like to end with a warning.
The next World Radiocommunication Conference - WRC 99 - will take place in the second half of next year.
At global level, many applications from the radiocommunications sector compete to use the scarce resource of the radio spectrum; they are applications which are of paramount importance for the economy, for consumers and even for peoples' security.
At the WRC, legally binding decisions will be adopted which may also affect broadband mobile services, that is, the UMTS sector.
<P>
At the WRC, the Member States of the European Union negotiate on their own behalf by way of coordination with 28 other European countries.
There is an obvious need to establish common European positions in this situation, and it is therefore time to harmonize European positions for the WRC.
I hope, Commissioner, that this has not been forgotten.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=313 NAME="Malerba">
Mr President, Commissioner, the European Commission's proposal to introduce UMTS in Europe concerns an extremely important technological development in mobile telephony, one of the fastest growing markets, a sector in which Europe has been able to gain a competitive edge using the common GSM standard before the United States.
But on the UMTS standard, greater global convergence has been achieved than on GSM and American operators in particular are expected to rapidly adopt this technology, and will therefore be competing in this area from the very start.
<P>
With the arrival of this standard, the European industry could therefore lose the sharp competitive edge that it had with GSM; moreover, the idea of delaying the introduction of UMTS would be entirely detrimental to the European industry, in that it would lag behind in this competition.
<P>
We therefore fully agree with the Commission's proposal and with a rapid timetable to introduce new services and we in the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy encourage investment in the development of terminals that comply with the new standard.
<P>
Two points are of great concern to me, and they are the subject of amendments that the rapporteur has received.
The first point is non-discrimination between competing operators when all the frequencies of the 900, 1800 and 1900 MHz range are being allocated, to allow these operators to offer services via GSM or UMTS, guaranteeing coverage of both urban and rural areas in a situation of fair competition. The second point is political support for the Commission so that it can spur Member States on to reallocate and make available new frequencies for UMTS services.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=314 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Velzen, W.G.">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to express my appreciation to Mr Camisón Asensio and the European Commission for their constructive approach to this subject.
The Commission, and in particular the Commissioner, have set to work energetically and have managed to get the industry as a whole to agree to a European standard for UMTS.
Hopefully, this will enable Europe to lead the world in the area of mobile telephone systems.
The rise of the mobile telephone is impressive.
UMTS offers Europe the opportunity to repeat the success achieved with GSM.
UMTS offers many multimedia adaptations and applications and, in fact, spells the end of the traditional telephone.
In addition, the development of this system may create a large number of jobs.
Success is, however, only possible if the licensing system and the availability of frequencies are clear at an early stage.
In this context, I would like to make two points.
<P>
Mr President, it is very important that great care be exercised with the selection of an allocation mechanism for the scarce frequencies which will be made available for UMTS.
To this effect, I have submitted a written request to the Commission to start an investigation of the best allocation mechanism.
I believe that Commissioner Bangemann has already promised to contribute to such an investigation in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
I would ask the Commissioner whether he can now confirm that he will, in fact, conduct this investigation.
A number of Member States, including the Netherlands, are preparing to set up an auction for UMTS.
I would be grateful if the Commissioner could tell me when we can expect the result of the investigation, because I consider it important that the results are available before Member States decide on their selection of an allocation mechanism.
<P>
Mr President, in addition to the selection of the allocation mechanism - and this is my second point - it is very important, as Mr Malerba has said, that the Member States strictly adhere to the principles of transparency and non-discrimination in the allocation of the UMTS frequencies.
We must avoid a situation where operators who are awarded a UMTS licence at this stage are denied the possibility of using GSM and DCS frequencies for UMTS services.
Such a prohibition only serves to drive up the market price of frequencies and flies in the face of the principle of spectrum efficiency.
An amendment to this effect was approved by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy in this Parliament with a large majority.
I should like to hear from the Commissioner which measures he intends to take against Member States who do not adhere to the principle of non-discrimination and who still impose such a ban.
<P>
Mr President, UMTS will become very important for Europe in the future.
But the emergency number 112 is now also very important for the citizen; the use of the emergency number 112 in the entire European Union should have been introduced a long time ago.
I have pointed this out many times and I submitted a written question on 22 October of last year, a question which was repeated later in the House.
I would be grateful if the Commissioner could throw light on the following three points. Which Member States have not introduced or activated the 112 emergency number and why have they not done so?
Secondly, which steps and actions will be taken by the Commissioner to ensure that the Member States comply with this obligation?
Thirdly, does the Commissioner not think it is useful if at least the staff manning the emergency switchboards can communicate in the three languages which must be spoken for the users of 112 in the respective Member State?
I would appreciate it if the Commissioner could provide an answer to these questions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=315 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, the GSM system has given European producers a world-leading position and made it possible for the EU countries to build a comprehensive mobile telephone network. It has limitations.
For example, it cannot handle the high-speed transfer of multimedia required for the Internet via mobile telephones, as shown here. Hence UMTS.
<P>
It is important for both the EU and the Member States to play an active role in promoting the development of the new system so that it becomes just as big a success for Europe as GSM.
It will certainly take several years before the first of the new services reaches the market, but, as the Commission says, it is quite right for us to lay down the legal framework now so that the enormous investment required for the development - a greater investment than ever before - can be made.
<P>
We know it is important for the Member States to adopt a common standard and to be able to act jointly at the next meeting to be held by International Telecommunications Union this autumn, at which the decision is going to be made.
The Commission does not have a vote there.
The USA may perhaps present four standards which will lead to a split in their market.
We need a single standard to have the same kind of opportunities throughout the Union.
<P>
A fair amount has been said about licensing.
I hope other countries will be able to do the same as the UK, which is setting a good example, and will think about starting to grant licences soon so that we actually achieve the target of bringing the new system into service no later than the year 2002, in accordance with the Commission's timetable.
The granting of licences has also been debated here today.
I think it is important to look at which consortia want to ask for a licence and not accept those who lack credit and opportunities to develop.
Instead we should be able to oversee a royalty system which gradually gives them the ability to pay.
<P>
The open process, which has been highlighted here, is also important.
If we have one standard, we can then share the patent.
We need a competition for the best applications.
In this way the consumers will gain access to new services and new products.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=316 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, Commissioner Bangemann, ladies and gentlemen, how often in the past have we spoken of revolutionary developments in relation to telecommunications? As so often before, this also applies to the changes we can expect in wireless and mobile telecommunications.
UMTS not only provides data rates of up to 2 MB per second and ISDN standard speech quality. It also creates a whole new market for mobile multi-media services.
<P>
However, we must look carefully at the various success factors.
The necessary frequency spectrums must be distributed sensibly amongst the network operators.
The total technical cost of UMTS involves high investment costs, but we all want the end price for the customer to be as attractive as possible.
For this reason we must endeavour to keep the cost of licence fees, regulations and other costs as low as possible.
If we do not, we will be unable to achieve satisfactory market conditions in Europe and will put ourselves at an enormous competitive disadvantage in the medium term.
<P>
However, let us consider competition on a global scale.
In Japan, the first preliminary stages of UMTS will go into operation at the end of 1999.
If these preliminary stages go on to become de facto standards, network operators in the single market will have to adopt them.
We must at all costs counter this threat with our own activities.
<P>
On the other hand, as Mr Camisón Asensio says in his report, Europe is capable of taking both the technological and the strategic lead in this area.
Our advantage lies in our experience of collaboration on matters of standardization, which should serve us as a model for other areas of technical legislation - here I am thinking of the bus directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=317 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, first of all let me express our thanks to the rapporteur.
Working with him we have, in a very short period of time, been able to prepare a very important measure. This has essentially been achieved jointly and on the basis of the same fundamental principles.
I also believe that the discussion today has shown that there is no difference in the positions held by Parliament and the Commission on these fundamental issues.
<P>
I should also like to remind Parliament that a good six months ago, when we last dealt with UMTS, we were still awaiting a decision from the ETSI and the situation was very unclear - to say the least.
It has, however, proved possible to draw up this new standard for the third generation of mobile communications within a relatively short period of time and with the broad consensus of all the parties involved.
This represents a considerable success and one which should not be underestimated.
<P>
During these six months we have arrived at the necessary legal guarantees and I believe that we will now be able to move on to commercialisation very quickly. Of course, this stage is clearly not dependent on measures determined by political authorities.
On the contrary, it is up to commercial operators to play their part. I have absolutely no doubt, however, that European industry will again be able to achieve the lead it has now with GSM, not only in the European market, but worldwide.
<P>
We agree on that.
We have also had the occasion to discuss some individual issues.
For this reason, I want to go into these individual questions in greater detail and to state once again that we are unable to accept all the amendments.
This is partly because certain amendments either repeat or pick up issues, such as health protection, which have already been dealt with in sufficient detail elsewhere and do not need to be revisited in relation to the legal guarantees for UMTS.
<P>
We are, nevertheless, accepting seven amendments unchanged, Nos 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 9 and 11, along with Amendment No 7 in principle and Amendment No 6 in part.
We are unable to accept the other six amendments but, as I have already said, they tend to relate to individual questions.
<P>
So, let us move on to these individual questions which Mr van Velzen has once again asked.
It is always a pleasure to answer these questions.
That is presumably why he likes to ask them several times.
I have already dealt with them in committee and on other occasions.
I am, however, quite happy to go over them again today.
<P>
As far as the increase in frequencies is concerned, as I remarked recently in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, it is simply a matter of method and of course we have already gathered, and will continue to gather, relevant experiences.
There is no need to commission a study and we will soon be suggesting, in a statement to Parliament, how the various options available can be used to develop a sensible frequency policy.
<P>
We are also completely aware, Mr Malerba, that we need to pay great attention to the Radio Conferences.
The last conference was an improvement on its predecessor, and I am sure that next year's conference will produce an even greater consensus between the Member States and the Commission and therefore provide us with access to valuable resources.
<P>
With regard to Amendment No 7, which - to answer another of the points raised by Mr van Velzen - relates to Article 3 Para. 4, we can give our agreement in principle.
It is one of the list I have already given you.
However, we would like add the words "in compliance with the Community legislation in force' in order to point up the link with current legislation, in particular the Directive on authorizations and the Directive on competition in mobile telecommunications.
<P>
In Amendment No 6, which we can accept in part, the same applies to the reference to Community legislation currently in force.
However, we have taken the view that there is no need for a specific reference to the principles of transparency and nondiscrimination as this is clearly an integral part of Community legislation.
Sometimes things can be overstated. It doesn't make things clearer.
<P>
I have also already answered the question on emergency numbers and their implementation, Mr van Velzen.
With one eye on the time, and given the discussion which is to follow, let me suggest the following.
I have already said all this to you before and I hope you will agree that there is no point in my repeating it again here.
Or would you like me to do that?
I can, I do not have a problem with that, but it strikes me as perhaps being a waste of time.
<P>
So, I have dealt with the most important questions which were asked.
Finally, a few closing words on our draft.
It occurs to me, Mr Rübig, that there is no danger that either we or companies working in Europe may be forced to adapt to Japanese standards.
Rather the other way around!
All the Japanese standards we know about at the moment, and the reactions from the MITI Ministry and the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications, indicate that Japan is likely to adopt the standards chosen either by us or by the ETSI.
This is, in part, due to the fact that in drafting these standards we were able to work together with Japanese and US firms, and so in its approach the document is actually far more than a European standard.
<P>
So, as you can see, we have a good chance of not only repeating the success of GSM, but perhaps even of surpassing it.
In further discussions, in particular with US industry and the US administration, we will stress the fact that UMTS is not a mandatory standard proposed by the Commission or by Parliament and the Council but, as ever, an industry-devised standard in our usual tradition.
It is a standard which anyone can adopt, but no-one is forced to adopt.
However, in the interests of consumers and in the interests of creating as uniform a market as possible - and thereby above all reasonable prices -, we must persuade the various political wills that a standard of this kind will achieve the scope of influence it deserves.
That means that everyone is invited to use it and therefore everyone has to be convinced of its advantages in order to use it.
It is this positive policy which has allowed us to make good progress in this area so far and I would like to take this opportunity to thank Parliament for its support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=318 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr Commissioner, can you guarantee that we will be able to start the licensing process next year?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=319 NAME="Bangemann">
That, of course, depends on whether we receive any applications, which will not necessarily be the case.
If we do, and if we have agreed this draft, there are no further legal obstacles.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=320 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=17>
Transport of nuclear waste
<SPEAKER ID=321 NAME="President">
The next item is the statement by the Commission on transport of nuclear waste in the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=322 NAME="Oreja">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on 30 April the Commission received information from the French authorities indicating that a significant number of cases had been registered in which fuel casks being transported to the reprocessing plant at la Hague, France exceeded the limit of 4 becquerels per square centimetre for unfixed beta gamma contamination.
<P>
Given that some of the fuel casks concerned came from German nuclear power plants, more detailed studies were urgently launched, not only in France but also in Germany.
<P>
The Commission has remained in contact with the relevant French and German authorities, in order to monitor the results of these studies which have not yet been competed.
It must be recognized that Member States have primary responsibility for the implementation of Community directives and that the Commission would only consider intervening to fulfill its role as guardian of the Treaties in the hypothetical situation where a Member State failed to take the measures dictated by this responsibility.
<P>
The first measure taken by the relevant authorities when the current situation became known consisted of immediately suspending the transport of irradiated fuel from nuclear plants, whilst awaiting a complete study of the situation and the adoption of additional and appropriate safety measures to guarantee the correct application of European legislation at a national level.
<P>
It clearly emerges from the results which are currently available that neither staff nor the population were subjected to exposure to radiation in excess of the limits set at Community level.
In fact, any exposure resulting from the excess contamination of the flasks corresponded to no more than a fraction of the current limits.
<P>
It can be concluded that the relevant authorities of the Member States acted responsibly in order to rectify the situation as soon as the problems were identified.
The Commission remains in contact with the Member States concerned.
Furthermore, the issue was discussed at a meeting of the Permanent Working Group on the Safety of Transportation of Radioactive Substances, on 18 May and lessons to be drawn from their analysis of the situation have been passed on to the relevant authorities of the Member States.
<P>
At the current stage, the Commission proposes no further immediate measures.
Nevertheless, as has already been noted, measures aimed at assuring the correct application of European Union legislation are still being studied by the Member States concerned.
Furthermore, the Commission is concerned about the circumstances which were at the origin of the situation observed, even if corrective measures seem to have been implemented promptly.
<P>
Consequently, when the full results of the inquiries at national level have been communicated to the Commission, it envisages an impartial overall study of the situation not only in France and Germany but in all the Member States likely to be affected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=323 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lange">
Mr President, Commissioner, the public has in fact just recently learnt that we are not the only ones who sweat working here, but that flasks sweat too.
These sweating flasks actually put people's lives at risk.
You have said that there is no risk.
That is not quite true.
If the hot spots where this sweat concentrates come into contact with the human body, these people are at risk.
Some of them work on these flasks and others watch over them.
Not that they sweat because they are being watched.
So there is a real risk.
<P>
What is remarkable in this whole story, however, is that the public has only just found out about these sweating flasks, while the people who operate the flasks have known about it for a long time and have been measuring the sweating for a long time.
So now let me put the question to you, Mr Commissioner.
You must know something! You have a standing working group.
You discuss transport matters.
It is a close community with its ear to the ground.
I can imagine many scenarios, but it is really possible that no one knew anything about the measurements these operators were taking? Or the fact that COGEMA had additional facilities built to clean the returned material in advance?
Was the Commission really unaware of all this?
No, maybe you do not know anything!
The whole thing is quite inconceivable.
<P>
For this reason I should like to know in greater detail exactly what the Commission knew and when.
Looking at your new statement on the work of this standing working group, it says very vaguely that there was no risk because these incidents and accidents were few in number and limited in consequence.
Please, exactly what accidents and incidents happened with the flasks?
This is where I think the vital security leak lies.
There were obviously some people who knew something but chose not to share this knowledge with the public.
<P>
Then, of course, I have a much more specific question. If such knowledge was available, what did the politicians responsible do with it?
Did they knowingly deny this knowledge?
And what conclusions should they now draw? You cannot simply act as if the Commission suddenly received this knowledge in May like a bolt from the blue!
<P>
As for the industry, it is not just because certain best-sellers are doing big business at the moment that I should quote Lenin, but the motto "confidence is good, control is better' seems very apt in this case with the hushing up of security problems and accidents, particularly in the nuclear industry, so topical.
As far as I can see, at the moment the nuclear industry, which has known about these sweating flasks for years, is no longer a reliable source of information.
I urge the Commission to make sure that if there is to be cross-border transportation of radioactive waste, that checks, uniform standards and a reporting duty should be introduced.
<P>
At the end of the day this is just another example of the fact that there is no absolutely safe final storage for nuclear waste.
It is simply pushed back and forth across borders.
I urge the Commission to act in the interests of the citizens of Europe and not to become an accomplice of the nuclear industry, trying to make energy policy against the will of the majority of the population of Europe.
It makes for a shaky structure, a colossus built on shaky foundations.
This is the reason I simply cannot understand why your statement, from which I have just quoted, states in this important area that the question of security is discussed not from the point of view of risks or the concerns of the population, but simply in terms of how we can gain greater acceptance.
No, the Commission must serve its citizens and not individual industries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=324 NAME="Chichester">
Allow me to try to cool matters down a little bit.
I welcome this statement from the Commissioner.
We are dealing with an industry which is very highly regulated, one of most regulated industries in Europe, and we must take cognizance of the fact that contrary to what my colleague suggested, the containment in these flasks was not breached.
We are talking about a minor degree of surface contamination, and I urge that we do not let this matter get out of proportion.
In stirring up concern, we exacerbate the public's fears about these matters unreasonably and excessively.
It is true that if an industry is highly regulated, it has a duty to inform the public, as well as the authorities, and arguably it should be like Caesar's wife, that is to say, quite beyond reproach, and should take all steps to inform people of the situation.
<P>
My understanding is that there has been some expression of regret and contrition on the part of the utilities in Germany and the transport organization.
Although, as I understand it, they did not breach the disclosure requirements, because the levels of contamination were not that great - and I welcome the Commissioner making that point - nevertheless it would have been better if all information had been made public because more information, not less, is better for restoring and establishing public confidence in the nuclear industry.
<P>
I would like to point to the BNFL establishment at Sellafield in the UK, as an industry which has gone out of its way to take the point of transparency and openness to the degree of turning their facility at Sellafield into a tourist attraction.
That seems to me to be quite an achievement and a step in the right direction.
<P>
The real question here is: was there any danger to the public?
No.
Was there any danger to the operators and the staff involved?
I think not.
Are there lessons to be learned?
Yes - there needs to be more openness.
That is a useful outcome of this exercise.
But above all, let us not go overboard in sounding alarmist about this.
Other industries have far worse instances of difficulty which do not get the same attention as anything to do with the word 'nuclear' .
I think that is regrettable.
So I welcome the statement and hope we will not let matters get out of proportion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=325 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Mr President, I consider Commissioner Oreja's reply to be very unsatisfactory.
He says that we will not take any additional measures at present, while two Member States, France and Germany, have announced a total ban on the transportation of nuclear waste.
The response of the Commission is not to do anything at all, although there are 13 other Member States, some of which face similar problems.
Just look at all the questions we ask in the present joint resolution.
I will not list all our questions to the Commission about improving the situation because this would take more time than I have been allocated.
But you could take a look at paragraphs 4, 7, 8, 11 and so on.
We would really like a response from the Commission on these matters. Could we have some answers please?
These are questions where we ask the Commission in a joint resolution to tackle the problem.
<P>
I must say that it is scandalous that so little information has been released about this transport and the health risks it entails.
I stated above that two Member States have halted the transport.
The Netherlands should do likewise because it has suddenly come to light that the power stations in Borselen and Dodewaard, located in my own country, have also shipped their waste to La Hague and Sellafield, with similar risks.
The containers in which the nuclear waste is shipped have been shown to have excessively high levels of radiation and contamination.
The transport in my own country of the Netherlands should also be halted for as long as this situation remains unclear.
But even this is not enough, Mr President, because it is very frightening that such matters have been concealed.
More openness and control with respect to nuclear transport is therefore of the utmost importance.
The Commission must present a plan and submit it to our committee as soon as possible.
According to German law, the seabed off Sellafield, with its nuclear waste, and even the pigeons around the reprocessing plant, must be classified as "contaminated with radioactive waste' .
This debate seems long overdue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=326 NAME="Fitzsimons">
Mr President, I cannot speak about the transportation of nuclear waste without speaking about Sellafield, which Mr Chichester has mentioned.
The daily discharges from the nuclear plant at Sellafield are now estimated at nine million tonnes of nuclear waste.
The recent application by BNFL to the British Government for increased area discharges is another unpleasant episode in the ongoing saga of Sellafield and Thorp nuclear plants.
<P>
I find comments made this week in Dublin by a scientist Dr Sue Lon - who is BNFL's director of operations and technology - that the UK has a safety record which would bear up to the closest scrutiny rather sickening.
If BNFL had such a blue chip record in the field of public health and public safety why do lobsters along some parts of the east coast have levels of contamination 247 times greater than was the case only in 1993?
May I tell the experts that Mr Chichester has mentioned, who say the industry is highly regulated, that the Titanic was the most highly regulated ship in the world and it sank.
If Sellafield sinks we will all sink with it.
If the British nuclear industry is such a model profession, why do BNFL not agree to allow the European Commission independently to evaluate its operations and the powers which derive under the EURATOM Treaty?
The comments of that BNFL director are verging on the extraordinary.
<P>
In the light of the fact that the Dounreay nuclear plant is now being closed because of the public health risks to the operations being carried out there, the Irish Sea must not be used as a dumping ground for nuclear waste materials from the Sellafield plant.
Undisputed statistics clearly demonstrate, since the setting up of the Thorp plant, wholesale increases in the amount of nuclear materials found in concentrations in seaweed in Ireland.
This was observed by the radiological protection institute in Ireland in 1994, exactly one year after the British granted BNFL the licence, which is responsible for the environmental mess that we now have on our hands.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=327 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, I notice that the previous speaker has learnt to read, but has not learnt to stop reading.
<P>
We have only recently had proof of how Pakistan and India, through smuggling, fraud, theft and bribery have obtained the means to manufacture a nuclear bomb.
I do not claim that a nuclear power plant is an atomic bomb, but the nuclear power lobby in Europe engages in that same secrecy and lying in public that has characterized the behaviour of states with newly-acquired nuclear arsenals.
I would hope that the citizens of Europe can trust those who use nuclear power plants to the extent that nuclear power poses no danger to them.
<P>
The main problem is that nuclear plants produce spent fuel.
That is the end product, and there is nowhere to dump it.
For that reason, it has to be transported to and fro, and it is quite possible that all Europe's nuclear waste has now ended up being dumped in the wrong place and that it will all have to be moved yet again.
That is why urgent measures are required of the Commission to enable the gradual construction of final nuclear waste sites.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=328 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bloch von Blottnitz">
Mr President, the Commission would have done itself a favour if it had read its own papers, in particular the paper dated 3 April 1996, Commission, No 11.
Because it states, word for word, that the outside of the packaging - referred to as a "fuel transport container' causes contamination in water.
You have known this since 1996, and now you stand there in front of us acting dumb and claiming you have only known since April!
Incidentally, there is also a working paper No 4 from Technical Committee 996 6 96 which makes detailed proposals on this subject which have been included in the safety series produced by the AIO with whom you also work closely.
<P>
So, if you're trying to tell us now that the limit values were only slightly exceeded, I have to ask you whether you think we are absolutely stupid.
The limit values are 4 becquerels/cm2 and we are looking at recorded contamination levels of 50, 000 becquerels.
The only reason you have waited so long is that you were hoping the industry would solve the problem.
Except that the contamination has kept on increasing.
It has not dropped, it has increased year on year.
That is my first point.
<P>
Secondly, it has yet to be established whether contamination occurs whilst the water basin is being loaded.
Because the water basin must contain isotopes other than cobalt and caesium.
Until now, however, we have only found cobalt and caesium.
So what has happened to the other isotopes?
The cause may actually be quite different, they just have not yet been established or even researched yet.
<P>
Then, to refresh your memory, I should like to quote you something from the Euratom Directive, namely Article 2 of Directive 92/3/Euratom.
It says quite explicitly, "The transport processes required for delivery must adhere to the provisions laid down by the Community and by the individual Member States and must be in compliance with the international agreements on the transport of radioactive materials.'
If this is so, then the reverse must also be the case: if the authorities in question are unable to control things at national level - and you have been quite aware of that for years - then you too must perform your regulatory duties.
You are the guardians of the law.
As is it, the only reason this whole scandal has been revealed is because of an indiscretion, not because you were looking into it.
That is the real scandal of the matter.
Now to play that down and on top of everything else to say that the transport workers or the convoy staff were not exposed to any risk is just another example of your treating the public as fools.
But everyone knows quite well that even if you are carrying a dosage meter it obviously cannot show anything if it is an alpha emitter!
But if it is swept down through the air from a transport container, for example, and the poor policeman who is driving alongside or the transport worker gets it, then he can obviously suffer from serious radiation damage.
But he can never prove it later!
So my question to you is what conclusions are you drawing from this? Are you finally going to give us access to the minutes of the standing working group and the studies which have been paid for over the years with money from EC coffers?
Are we finally going to get to see these studies?
It is now vital that the reliability of the operators is tested, because authorization to operate nuclear power plants is always linked to this reliability.
And this reliability can no longer be taken for granted.
You should have revoked their authorizations a long time ago.
Those are the facts.
And everything else you are trying to tell us is inaccurate.
You just have to read your own papers!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=329 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, the question of the safety of Europe's citizens in relation to nuclear waste transport is obviously of great importance.
However, the subject can only be dealt with as one detail of a more complex overall issue which deserves our most serious attention.
Until the question of intermediate and final storage has been settled, all matters relating to the commissioning of new nuclear power stations and the re-commissioning of old plants must be rejected out of hand.
As we see it, the European Union should do everything in its power to effect a complete withdrawal from nuclear power and, to this end, should promote alternative sources of energy to a much greater extent.
<P>
The European Union had an opportunity to treat this matter as a model.
The safety or otherwise of nuclear waste transport is nothing more than the treatment of a symptom of unsafe development.
It is important.
But it would be even more important if we could treat the root of the problem and stop all further development of nuclear energy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=330 NAME="Morris">
I would like to say to Mr Chichester that in Britain Caesar's wife has been putting it about a little bit!
Dounreay has been closed by the nuclear inspectorate.
We have in Sellafield a situation I can only describe by saying that we are expecting a spectacular nuclear orgasm any time now because there is in that place a pit which it is suspected may explode at any time.
<P>
However, I think this debate today timely, against the background of the situation in Germany, where rail workers, policemen and even protesters against nuclear issues have been irradiated.
In fact the situation was so serious in Germany that the head of the German police force was threatening to bring charges of causing serious bodily harm against the German Ministry of the Environment as well as the management of the German nuclear power stations.
These workers were exposed to radiation levels three thousand times above the permitted levels.
The flasks were unsafe and inadequately tested.
Last year one quarter of the flasks sent by rail from Germany to France had not been properly cleaned and were thoroughly contaminated.
This has been going on for something like 13 years.
<P>
Of course this is only possible in an industry like the nuclear industry which is protected and shrouded by secrecy.
It is almost impossible to monitor and call to account the movement of radioactive material.
The industry has known about radioactive contamination in transport to the UK and France since 1980.
The industry was aware of the dodgy and unsafe fittings of the casks and I am given to understand that the smaller casks, which were transported to Sellafield had never been tested for their effectiveness, safety and efficiency.
<P>
Can I say something that I hope the Commission will take note of.
This material must be processed and stored, not at the point of delivery far away in Scotland or in England, but stored and processed as near as possible to the point of production.
Can I also say to the Commission that they now need to take on board the seriousness of this issue?
We will get another chance to do that when we debate the transport of nuclear material, when the Commission sees fit to bring their report to the Transport Committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=331 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we must ensure that legislation - both European and international - is implemented correctly.
Objective testing and transparency must be guaranteed immediately and where abuse occurs, legal measures must be taken immediately.
Mr Lange has already mentioned Lenin.
I believe that we must turn our attention to eastern Europe and endeavour to implement safety standards there as quickly as possible.
That is why we must establish joint safety standards in Europe on the broadest possible basis immediately and strengthen our information policy significantly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=332 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graenitz">
Mr President, Commissioner, as I listened to your explanations, I remembered how last year President Santer, full of enthusiasm, stood in this place and shouted out the words, "Let us make this Union a Union of health.'
But the protection of the people of Europe's health has been neglected when it comes to transporting nuclear waste. If this were not the case, transport workers, convoy staff and even people protesting against the transport would not have been exposed to radiation.
It should also be remembered that these consignments are merely in transit; there is still no final place of storage for nuclear waste.
The research goes on, but we have yet to find a solution.
<P>
We do not only need, we must also implement uniform security regulations, Mr Chichester, because when Caesar said that his wife should be beyond reproach, he was in fact announcing his divorce because his wife had hidden from him things that had happened in his own house.
And that is just the point!
It is unacceptable that things should be hidden from people, that the Commission, the companies and the Member States do not have free access to all information so that they can pass it on to the public.
<P>
A number of Member States have refused to use nuclear energy as a source of electricity.
However, the consignments pass through these countries too, because often there is no way round it in Europe for geographical reasons.
I see no reason why people should be exposed to this risk and believe that the funds we so generously spend on Euratom should finally be used to draw up a set of safety regulations which would then apply to all Member States and all new applicants for membership in order to guarantee safety in Europe. For security cannot be parcelled out, and we cannot keep pushing the blame back and forth from one side to the other.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=333 NAME="Bowe">
Mr President, we are really here tonight to comment about the nuclear industry, but having heard the Commission's initial response it is fair to say that it is not adequate and is certainly lacking in seriousness and complacent.
We really need more from the Commission when we get incidents like this.
<P>
These recent revelations of these high levels of radiation found in casks and rolling stock used to ship nuclear waste are unfortunately yet another example of the nuclear industry shooting itself in the foot.
When are they ever going to learn?
Fragile public confidence in the technical competence and responsible care exercised by the industry is once again evaporating into thin air.
When will the industry learn that in order to maintain public confidence and support and to have any hope of operating in future they must operate to the highest safety standards with a diligence and zeal second to none?
<P>
It is my personal opinion that if the industry wants to have a long-term future in a stable legislative and economic environment it must learn the lessons of the past and conduct itself in an open and transparent manner with the highest concern for public safety.
Some of the resolutions, I have to say, are an overreaction to the latest incidents, which, technically I do not think are as serious as some people have made out.
I must admit, though, that I did enjoy Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz's intervention!
<P>
There are some lessons that have to be learned.
The lessons can be found in those resolutions that we see tonight.
First of all there has to be an urgent public investigation: that is absolutely necessary.
There has to a prompt remedy to any problems and abuses identified.
New standards must be established on a European basis for monitoring, evaluating risks during transportation, and subsequently a new set of uniform operating standards across Europe.
<P>
Finally, the Commission and the Member States involved have a responsibility to ensure that action is taken against any guilty parties identified during the investigation.
Let us hope that this small straw is the one that breaks the back of a very stubborn and blinkered camel which is the model of the nuclear industry as we see it to day.
Finally it might just see the light.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=334 NAME="Oreja">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to make an initial comment.
It was an honour for me to be here today to share with you the Commission's position on the contamination of the irradiated fuel casks.
<P>
Mrs Bjerregaard would have very much liked to be here with you - she is the Commissioner responsible for this area - but as you are probably aware, she had an extremely important Council in Luxembourg today, what we call in our idiom a "mega' Transport and Environment Council.
<P>
I will briefly reply to a certain number of the points raised, but you can be sure that I will pass on your questions to her tomorrow morning.
I have taken note of all the questions you have raised and the way in which they have been formulated.
Mrs Bjerregaard will provide you with replies, either written or verbal.
<P>
I would first of all like to say to you that the Commission is very sensitive to this problem and that it is entirely in agreement with the statements which have been made by some of you, in particular the last speech made by Mr Bowe, and others such as that of Mr Chichester on the need for greater public information.
Reference was made to President Santer's sensitivity with regard to health related aspects.
This is indeed one of the Commission's main concerns, and has been since the beginning of its term of office three and a half years ago.
So how could we not be sensitive to a problem such as this?
<P>
To try to reply to Mr Lange and Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, I must first of all say that I am not aware of how many times contamination levels have been exceeded at the time of exposure.
The levels apply to unfixed contamination, that is, one which can be removed by wiping the surface and thus likely to be transmitted to people in contact with the surface.
We have known for some time, however, that contamination which is impossible to remove at the time of shipment can undergo changes through natural processes whilst in transportation, such that on arrival it is no longer fixed.
The fuel casks are thus covered during transit to avoid all contact with people and any leaching effect caused by rain.
<P>
Furthermore, any reappearance of excess unfixed contamination during transportation must be followed by decontamination as soon as possible after detection.
A certain number of cases of this kind are thus to be expected, although I cannot give you an exact figure.
However, in this instance, it seems that there was a lack of communication between the operators who detected the contamination and the competent authorities.
The latter were thus not fully aware of the extent of the problem raised by the contamination, nor of the possibility that these effects concealed the need for stricter procedures.
These aspects must clearly be the subject of further measures, in particular at a national level.
<P>
In response to part of the question raised by Mr Lange, I would also like to tell him that a report drawn up in 1985 by the International Atomic Energy Agency explicitly recognizes the possibility of the reappearance of unfixed contamination on the surface of the fuel casks during transit, even when this contamination had been wiped off before shipment.
Many of the Member States of the European Union, as well as the Commission, contributed to this report.
However, the responsibility for applying Community directives falls primarily on Member States, and the Commission was unaware of the possible extent of the problem of contamination of fuel casks attributable to this phenomenon before being informed of the situation in France by the relevant French authorities on 30 April 1998.
<P>
Finally, in reply to a comment by Mr Eisma, I will say to him, as I have already said moreover, that inquiries are still underway in the different Member States.
When they are completed, the Commission will very rapidly examine the appropriateness of a more thorough collective study of the situation in the many Member States which are potentially affected.
<P>
I will say finally to Mr Fitzsimons that I listened with great interest to his speech, as well as those of Mr Seppänen and others.
There are questions which, if I have understood correctly, do not exactly touch upon the problem of transport.
I will nevertheless pass them on to Mrs Bjerregarrd, along with the others.
With regard to Mr Morris, I will simply say that it clearly emerges from the available results that neither staff nor the population were subjected to radiation exposure above the limits set at Community level and that any exposure resulting from the excess contamination of the fuel casks only corresponds to a small fraction of the current limits.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is what I am able to tell you today.
Allow me finally to insist on the fact that we are particularly sensitive to the problems which have just been raised.
As I said, I will immediately pass on your questions to Mrs Bjerregaard, who will be able to give you full answers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=335 NAME="President">
I can see that four Members have asked to speak on very brief questions.
I would ask the honourable members to consider that Mr Oreja is deputizing for another commissioner and that there will be other opportunities to question the appropriate commissioner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=336 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bloch von Blottnitz">
Mr President, I would just like to ask two questions which I would be grateful if you would pass on to the competent commissioner.
<P>
Firstly, when will we receive the minutes of the standing working group?
Secondly, will a reporting duty for company transporters and transports at long last be introduced now?
This information does not appear in any of the directives.
Thirdly, I would just like to say that contamination reaches this high level on arrival, not departure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=337 NAME="Morris">
Mr President, a year ago last April we sent back from the Committee on Transport and Tourism a report to the Commission, for consideration also by the Council, on the transport of nuclear material by air.
We are still awaiting the return of that report to the Committee.
It is an urgent matter and I would therefore request the Commission to make enquiries as to when that report will be presented to the Transport Committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=338 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lange">
Mr President, when will Parliament have the opportunity of seeing the minutes of the standing working group on nuclear safety if they cannot be delivered to us directly?
I would be pleased to come to the Commission on Monday morning to read the minutes there.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=339 NAME="Oreja">
Yes, certainly.
But I am not in a position to give concrete responses and I do not want to give replies which are vague.
That is not my role here and would have no meaning.
<P>
The respect you deserve as Members of the House prevents me from speaking to you in generalities.
However you, and Mr Lange in particular - who asked if he could go and see the minutes of the meetings on Monday - can be assured that no later than tomorrow morning at 9 a.m., Mrs Bjerregaard will be fully informed of all the issues raised here, regarding the minutes of the Permanent Working Group, regarding a directive and so on, and I hope that within 24 hours you will have a reply from Mrs Bjerregaard, one way or another.
<P>
Personally, I can give no further detail, out of respect for Parliament and parliamentary Members.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=340 NAME="President">
I would like to thank you, Commissioner, for appearing before Parliament at such short notice, and for answering so well, considering this is not your field.
Please convey the best wishes of the House to Mrs Bjerregaard.
On behalf of the Presidency, I would like to add that it is of course important for the management of Parliament to endeavour to arrange the debates in such a way that the appropriate commissioners can be present.
This is a self-directed criticism on the part of the Presidency.
But once again, thank you, Commissioner, for your willingness to step in.
<P>
I have received six motions for resolutions , tabled pursuant to Rule 37 (2), on the agenda.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 11.30 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gutiérrez Díaz">
Mr President, surely due to some fault of my own, I do not appear in the list of Members that attended yesterday's sitting.
For the morning, there is proof that I attended all of the roll-call votes and, for the evening, I had the privilege of chairing part of the sitting.
Therefore, so that the Minutes are accurate, I would like this error to be corrected which - I repeat - I am sure was due to a mistake I made myself.
I did not remember to sign at the correct time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Gutiérrez.
It will be corrected.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President">
Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz has asked for the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bloch von Blottnitz">
Mr President, as you all know, we had a debate last night on the Commission's statement about nuclear transport.
The Commissioner present on this occasion, however, who had obviously made a considerable effort and was very polite - since he is responsible for publicity - had no idea about the subject matter.
We could have saved ourselves the debate.
He was unable to reply to any of the questions.
<P>
As if that were not enough, he read out a statement by the Commission which was clearly false.
It said in the statement that the Commission knew nothing about the contamination from the castor containers until the 23 April of this year.
I could prove without a shadow of a doubt, however, that the Commission had already written about it in its communication of 3 April 1996.
Of course, the Commissioner could say nothing in answer to this - it is obvious; it is not his brief.
<P>
I would therefore ask that care be taken to ensure that someone is present from the Commission who is capable of entering into a real debate. Otherwise we will have to forego debates of this kind, because they would just be a waste of time.
<P>
(Loud applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, I would like to remind you that, in any case, it was decided to add this item to the agenda in the full knowledge that Mrs Bjerregaard had an important Council meeting and that there was no certainty that she would arrive on time.
The Conference of Presidents preferred to run the risk, knowing that this might happen, as unfortunately turned out to be the case.
The Council meeting lasted longer that it should have and the Commissioner responsible was not able to be here.
However, in this case, we knew that we were running that risk.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
European Council in Cardiff - activities during the British presidency
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on:
<P>
the report by the Council and the statement by the Commission on the Cardiff European Council of 15 and 16 June 1998; -the statement by the President-in-Office of the Council on the activities of the British presidency.The President-in-Office of the Council is arriving now and we will give him the floor as soon as he can join us in our work.
<P>
Mrs Malone wishes to speak.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Malone">
Mr President, I wonder whether Members realize that the session is starting at this hour.
There seem to be a lot of vacant seats.
Perhaps we could ring the bells.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
Mrs Malone, I think that the purpose of your speech has just been covered, since the President-in-Office of the Council is already in the Hemicycle.
So, since I am now aware of his presence, I am going to give him the floor immediately so that he can present his statement on the activities of the British presidency and his report on the Cardiff European Council.
<P>
Mr Blair has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="Blair">
Mr President, honourable Members, I am delighted to make my first visit to the European Parliament as British Prime Minister and to report to you on the UK presidency and the Cardiff European Council.
I would like to begin, if I may, by putting on record today our gratitude to you for the cooperation which has marked relations between the Council and Parliament during our presidency.
For our part, we have worked hard to ensure that British Ministers have reported regularly and fully to you on the major dossiers and made every effort to take on board Parliament's views.
I would like to say a special word of thanks to José María Gil-Robles for his kindness, support and cooperation during our time as President of the European Union.
<P>
There are two dimensions to my report: first of all, the practical results and achievements of the presidency; secondly, a description of the mood and direction as we see it in the European Union today.
Our presidency was marked self-evidently by the launch of two historic events: monetary union and enlargement.
A single currency in Europe has the potential to create a force for stability in the world.
But no one should underestimate its challenges to each of us.
<P>
There are some who talk as if the creation of a single currency is enough in itself to bring economic prosperity.
It is not.
To work, a single currency must be accompanied by two things: the European Central Bank policy must be credible; monetary policy must be disciplined, and therefore the euro strong and not weak.
In addition, there must be economic reform in the European Union.
The single currency brings with it huge structural economic changes, change that is sometimes beneficial - necessary, even.
But we must be honest with our citizens that change there will be, and we must prepare for it.
<P>
The European Central Bank now has strong leadership for at least a 12-year period.
The Cardiff Summit has produced an agenda for economic reform.
There are four elements to this programme of economic reform.
First of all, employment.
Jobs must remain the top priority of the European Union over this coming period of time.
<P>
(Applause from the left) Eighteen million unemployed in Europe is far too many.
At the jobs summit last November we agreed guidelines to promote a skilled, trained and adaptable workforce and flexible labour markets responsive to economic change.
All fifteen Member States have submitted national action plans for jobs.
We agreed at Cardiff to take that work further, to put particular stress on further work on lifelong learning, strengthening equal opportunities, revising tax and benefit systems to improve work incentives, and developing a culture of entrepreneurship.
There is now consensus on the need for a flexible, dynamic approach to respond to the challenges of globalization.
<P>
Secondly at Cardiff, we endorsed a firm commitment to pursue structural economic reform in Europe.
As well as sound macro-economic policies we have developed broad economic guidelines.
Member States have agreed to reform labour, product and capital markets and to reduce regulatory burdens on business.
They also agreed to produce annual reports on their progress in doing so.
These changes are vital if Europe is to remain competitive.
<P>
Thirdly, the single market.
With the help of this Parliament the European Union has made good progress in the last six months: new measures on financial services and biotechnology patents, new competition in telecoms markets, a new framework research programme to promote hi-tech research and development, and measures to safeguard the free movement of goods.
I hope that Parliament will give its formal agreement to the last two measures as quickly as possible.
<P>
Since December last year the so-called single market scoreboard shows that the proportion of measures which have been implemented in all Member States has increased from 73 % to 82 %, but we must go further and we must go faster.
We agreed at Cardiff to extend the scoreboard to develop better indicators for effective market integration, and particular priorities for the future were agreed: financial services, improved enforcement of single market law and tackling unwarranted price differences across Europe.
<P>
The fourth element of economic reform was help for small businesses: the small business sector, those who are self-employed.
Many of those people are going to be the engines of growth and jobs in the future in the European Union.
It is our task to give them the support they need in order to develop and grow from small firms into medium-sized and then to large firms.
<P>
(Applause) They need better access to capital, less bureaucracy and a culture that supports them.
New initiatives in all these areas were again endorsed at the Cardiff Summit.
This is the beginning of the reform process. It marks a move away from policies of the past - and rightly so.
<P>
Also, on enlargement, in the space of twenty days in March and again with this Parliament's help, we opened the European Conference, we launched the accession process and we began the accession negotiations for enlargement.
We have finally started a process that will erase the scars of a divided continent and bring huge advances in the prosperity and security of the whole of Europe.
<P>
We have launched those negotiations with six countries.
The screening process is underway.
Seven chapters out of thirty-one have now been completed.
The opening of substantive negotiations will be the next stage.
And we have not neglected those candidates not yet in formal negotiations.
We want them to begin as soon as they are ready.
We will continue to seek closer cooperation with all the candidates.
I particularly hope too that the decisions taken at Cardiff mean that we can open a new and more productive chapter in relations between the EU and Turkey, including a resolution to the impasse over financing.
<P>
Successful enlargement also requires, however, the modernization of the Union's own policies.
During the last few months detailed work has begun on the Commission's Agenda 2000 proposals.
They involve crucial issues for all Member States: the size and distribution of the budget, equitable reform of the Structural Funds, modernizing the common agricultural policy.
But we also have a responsibility to the new Member States, a responsibility to extend to them as soon as possible the benefits of the single market to allow them to join a viable, competitive common agricultural policy, to enable them to have their fair share of Structural Funds.
<P>
The Agenda 2000 negotiations, like the enlargement negotiations themselves, will be tough - such negotiations always are.
But we, the existing Members of the European Union, cannot on the one hand say that we support enlargement and then not will the means to achieve enlargement.
<P>
(Applause from the left) In particular we cannot let individual vested interest stand in the way of our historic obligation to the former communist states of Eastern Europe.
They, after all, with courage, took the path to democracy.
We have to help them on the path to prosperity.
<P>
(Applause) The Council agreed that decisions on Agenda 2000 should be taken during the German presidency in the first half of next year.
It is an ambitious timetable.
We have worked with Parliament to ensure your full participation in this complex and important process, and we are committed to the successful negotiation of a new interinstitutional agreement during the lifetime of this Parliament.
<P>
Meanwhile, too, we have worked very closely with you in the important annual task of preparing the budget for 1999 and improving financial management, drawing on the work of the Court of Auditors.
This kind of cooperation will be vital as we determine the financial framework for the beginning of the next century, and I hope will continue under the next presidencies.
<P>
Let me deal with a point which I know is of very great concern to many of you: the implications of the recent European Court judgment.
The Commission spending on certain programmes did not have satisfactory legal authority.
In the view of the Council it was essential that there should be legal certainty and transparency in a budget process which involves taxpayers' money.
That is in the interests of all institutions.
Let me make it absolutely clear that the judgment is about the law we all have to follow when we agree spending programmes; it is not a judgment on the programmes themselves.
We now need to act together to resolve these difficulties speedily.
The European Court of Justice ruling recognizes that the Commission can still authorize spending without a specific legal base in certain circumstances, and contracts entered into will be respected.
<P>
At my request, however, presidency representatives will now meet Commission and Parliament representatives on 23 June to identify an early and satisfactory solution to this problem so that it can be resolved.
<P>
(Applause) The purpose of this meeting will be to allow the Council and Parliament to ensure the rapid adoption of those programmes where Commission-proposed legal bases are on the table.
<P>
We have worked to develop a more coherent and powerful European voice on issues beyond our borders.
Last month Robin Cook set out to you the practical actions taken by the European Union since January towards this goal.
Our efforts have focused on several key areas, and let me describe them briefly to you.
<P>
The crisis in Kosovo confronts Europe with a dangerous challenge, to establish a just solution for an autonomous Kosovo within the Federal Republic, while avoiding a repetition of Bosnia.
This time at least the European Union has moved fast to put in place measures to dissuade Belgrade from continuing the violence in Kosovo.
I have discussed our resolve to act with each of our Heads of Government colleagues.
No one could be in any doubt after our Cardiff statement of what the Union wants to see in our resolve to act with our allies in the wider international community, if our demands are not met.
<P>
I should say to you - controversial though it is in certain quarters - that military planning is well under way in NATO, with the full support of European Union Member States, in case diplomacy should fail.
But we cannot allow stability to decline and chaos to result in that part of the world: it will affect all of us.
<P>
(Applause) In recent months, too, the European Union has secured a more prominent role in the Middle East peace process.
We support American efforts there but we now have a clear and distinctive position also for the European Union in helping drive the process forward.
The Union and its members have likewise responded quickly and effectively to other international problems, for example the Asian economic crisis, Indonesia, and the Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests.
<P>
Of course Europe cannot resolve all these crises but we have been able, rapidly, to articulate a clear European view, to express a consensus where one exists and to act effectively in concert with our international partners.
We were able to resolve the long-standing EU-US argument about extraterritorial US legislation in a way which fully protects European economic interests and our principled opposition to legislation of this kind.
<P>
We have maintained the European role in other areas of long-standing concern: in Bosnia we acted quickly to sustain the momentum behind the new Dayton-friendly governments in Republika Srpska and Montenegro.
<P>
We have agreed a new European Union code of conduct on arms exports.
I hope that, as a result, Member States will no longer decide to go ahead with an arms sale simply because they believe that if they do not someone else will.
<P>
(Applause from the left) We have actively pursued human rights through positive engagement with those concerned.
For example, there is now a new, more constructive dialogue on human rights with the Chinese, not forsaking our principles, but looking to see how we can make real practical progress; and the first ever EU-China Summit in April showed the benefits of this approach.
<P>
Closer to home, the presidency has given priority to issues close to the hearts of ordinary people.
On the environment, at yesterday's Environment Council the Union has reached agreement on how the European Union will implement the commitments on greenhouse gases agreed at the Kyoto Summit.
That is a major step forward.
We have agreed further measures to cut atmospheric pollution, to improve water quality, and to put an end to driftnet fishing.
We have agreed a new directive on areas of animal welfare, as in zoos.
We have also worked out a programme of work with the next three presidencies to ensure continuity and real action.
Overall I believe the Union has created and accomplished a great deal in making for a cleaner Europe in these last six months.
I would like to pay particular tribute to my colleague, my own deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, for his work both at Kyoto and yesterday in the Environment Council.
<P>
(Applause) In addition, the Union has made good progress in the fight against crime: a new pact with applicant countries on cooperation against organized crime; movement towards closer cooperation between Member States in criminal matters; the core elements of a post-1999 European Union drugs strategy; a package of measures to ensure better coordination between police forces and judicial authorities to tackle cross-border crime; and an agreement to work for mutual recognition of court judgments.
<P>
This Parliament rightly attaches importance to greater openness.
We have worked hard to make the Council more transparent: this year's open debates have been better attended than ever before, and Member States have agreed now to establish a public register of Council documents.
But I am well aware there remains a very long way to go.
<P>
I am grateful for your support.
You backed us in the first ever summit for ordinary people, which brought together to debate our agenda NGOs from across Europe.
<P>
We also welcomed at Cardiff the initiatives of the Commission and the Council to improve their effectiveness.
We agreed that once the Amsterdam Treaty is ratified - a step taken by Britain earlier this week - we will need to tackle the institutional issues not resolved at Amsterdam.
<P>
However, my presidency, and, indeed, any presidency, should not be known just for a catalogue of results but also for the sense of direction and feel about the European Union that it represents.
I hope that Britain has come a long way in the past year in its relations with the rest of the European Union.
The days of the beef war - 14 against 1 - government positions ravaged by warring factions in the governing party are, I am pleased to say, over.
<P>
(Applause from the left) I should like, very diplomatically, simply to say to those British Conservative Members of Parliament here who have organized dissent against the presidency in the European Parliament: thank you for your interest, but we remember when your party was in charge and we do not want those days back again.
<P>
(Applause from the left) We also signed the social chapter with pride; we negotiated the Amsterdam Treaty with ease; and we have worked during our presidency with our colleagues as partners.
<P>
However, in conclusion, I wish to be frank with you and the citizens of Europe.
There are always two strands of opposition to Europe in Britain, and these strands are reflected across the whole of Europe, they are not confined to Britain.
One is utterly opposed to Europe, come what may, on straightforward nationalist grounds.
Here one must simply win the argument for a modern view of how nation states work.
But the second strand is different: it can support the European Union but it worries about its directions and its actions.
This strand of opinion must be engaged with by us.
We must understand its concerns: it fears Europe is too centralized, too remote, and its economic policy too caught up in regulation.
In my view, such concerns do not justify being anti-Europe, but they merit being addressed by us honestly and frankly.
<P>
I am pro-Europe - without any hesitation at all - but I am anti the status quo.
We need economic and political reform.
In economic terms we need an open, competitive Europe that has macro-economic stability and dynamism and innovation in its supply side.
I believe that education, not overburdensome regulation, is the key for our workforce for the future.
The single European market must be driven through.
I reject laissez-faire and state control of industry.
The third way, surely, is to recognize that government has a vital role to play but one that is enabling, empowering our people and business to prosper in a new global market.
<P>
The European social model should not, and will not, be abandoned.
<P>
(Applause) But it should be reformed to provide for solidarity in today's world of international financial markets, industrial change and technological revolution.
<P>
Alongside that economic reform we need political reform.
We need a vision for Europe that allows people to feel safe in their national identity whilst reaching out and embracing European partnership.
In some areas we are going to integrate more, in others much more can be done at national, regional and local level.
We must think boldly about how we connect the European Union with its citizens, about its institutions at a national and European level.
I believe this is the coming debate in Europe.
We began it at Cardiff, we shall carry it forward at the informal summit in Austria in October, and it is a debate in which we must engage the whole of the institutions of Europe, including Parliament.
<P>
Mr President, we still have some decisions to take in Britain about Europe, as you know.
But, at long last, Britain is engaged: it is constructive, we know we have something to give and something to learn.
Pro-Europe, pro-reform - that is where I am, it is where the European Council is and it is where our electorates and our people are.
I believe in the European ideal.
I want it to live again in the hearts of the new generation.
I hope that our presidency will be seen in retrospect to have developed some arguments for the long term that may contribute to the revitalization of that ideal.
<P>
Mr President, it has been an honour to be President of the European Union.
I consider it a privilege.
I have enjoyed working with you and the Members of Parliament, and I thank you for listening to me today.
<P>
(Loud and sustained applause)
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
Thank you, Prime Minister.
This presidency has through its ministers and its officials responded to your own personal wish to develop good relations with Parliament and its President in a cooperative and friendly spirit.
I thank you very much for that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Santer">
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Green">
Mr President, I should like to begin by welcoming Prime Minister Blair to the European Parliament on behalf of the Socialist Group in this House.
It is a great pleasure to be the first MEP to speak in this debate and to warmly welcome the first British Labour Prime Minister to Europe's Parliament.
You are very welcome, Tony.
<P>
It is an added personal pleasure for me to be able to welcome him as my party leader and I very much do so.
<P>
These last six months have been important months in the political life of Britain and its relationship with the European Union.
It is quite impossible to overestimate the significance of the change in attitude which is now manifest in Britain and which has been evidenced by the frequent visits of your ministers to this Parliament during the presidency.
We, here, all remember too well, for instance, the arrogant disregard of the previous Conservative ministers for the European Parliament and notably the refusal of the then Agriculture Minister, Douglas Hogg, to accept the invitation and come and explain his handling of the BSE crisis...
<P>
(Applause from the left ) ...which has had and continues to have such disastrous consequences in Britain and throughout the rest of Europe.
<P>
By contrast, Jack Cunningham, your Minister of Agriculture, made his sixth visit in six months to the European Parliament on Tuesday of this week.
He has done a huge amount to explain, discuss and engender confidence that, despite the complex problems and formidable cost to Britain, your government would act in good faith to eliminate BSE from the British beef industry.
His approach exemplifies the change of mood, tone, attitude and substance of your government to Europe.
That change is clearly having an effect on attitudes in Britain and is instrumental in creating a better-balanced view of the European Union.
<P>
Whilst, of course, this Parliament will inevitably have differences with the European Council, no matter how irreproachable the presidency, no-one is in doubt about the intention and commitment of this British Government to play a full part in the life of the European Union, if sometimes controversially.
For that above all else, Prime Minister, this whole Parliament congratulates and thanks you.
<P>
When looking at the achievements of the British presidency it is impossible to look at the outcome of the Cardiff Summit alone.
This presidency is remarkable because of the two outstanding events which occurred in March and May.
The launching of the enlargement process in March marked the opening of a new era in the evolution of the European Union.
On our side of the House, we support enlargement to ensure peace and stability on our wider continent.
We want a prosperous and dynamic Europe and know that cannot be built on a Europe where intolerance, extreme nationalism and conflict prevail or simmer just below the surface.
The European Union is a superb model of conflict resolution.
And if there were no other reason for enlargement, we in the Socialist Group would support it for that reason above all others.
The successful opening of the European Conference and the bilateral negotiations with six of the eleven applicant states deserve our hearty recognition.
<P>
You will forgive me, Prime Minister, if I say that the launching of the single currency on 2 and 3 May was not quite such a seamless operation, although all of us appreciate that you were seeking to reconcile seemingly irreconcilable positions, something we contend with in this House very often.
<P>
My group has been critical for many years of the way in which the Council deals with the appointments of the most important political and now, economic, positions in the Union.
Whilst we all appreciate that the launch of the single currency was, thankfully, in market terms an unqualified success, there was real dismay at the wrangling between heads of state, which was seen by all.
I suspect, Prime Minister, that as the man in the middle, you share some of that dismay.
We are thankful that you brought that process to a successful conclusion and that the euro has become a reality.
Perhaps, when you engage with other heads of government in your informal discussions in Austria, in October, looking into ways to make the Union more understandable to its people, we could urge you to seek a more satisfactory method of securing senior appointments in the future.
<P>
The euro is launched. I must say that we were rather pleased with the role Parliament played in that process.
My group is now determined that we will make our relationship with the decision-makers on the euro one of great seriousness and rigour.
It is our responsibility to perform this function effectively and to ensure that our national parliaments are kept fully up to speed with the accountability which we shall exercise over the Central Bank, its president and executive board.
<P>
Cardiff saw the first assessment of the national action plans for employment drawn up by each government.
We thank you for driving that agenda forward.
Frankly, over the past five years we, here, have got somewhat fed up with the excess of words spoken about the need to help the 18 million plus unemployed in the European Union.
We have heard many of those words here.
In fact we have generated a lot of them.
<P>
Your election in May last year and that of Mr Jospin in France a month later created the progressive majority in the Council which allowed us to actually move forward from words to action through the creation of the employment chapter in the Amsterdam Treaty, the Luxembourg special summit on employment and the defining of some real shared targets for employment creation.
<P>
Cardiff reinforced the equality criteria of employment policy: support for women, the disabled, ethnic minority citizens and, of course, the long-term unemployed.
While some national action plans are, without question, better than others, at least we have them.
We note that the British Government was the first to produce such a plan and this has acted as a catalyst for the rapid and serious production of others.
<P>
Prime Minister, I want to welcome, on behalf of this whole House, what you have just said about the issue which is causing a major problem for citizens and non-governmental organizations throughout the European Union.
I refer to last month's judgment of the Court of Justice regarding monies being spent by the European Commission without an explicit legal base for such spending.
As a result of that judgment, as you know, the European Commission has taken the decision, as one might expect, to cease all spending on the budget lines concerned.
This means, for example, budget lines for social exclusion, the elderly, sport in Europe, the fight against racism, support for the disabled, public health, anti-personnel mines and, of course, the work of NGOs in the developing world.
We can all see at a glance that these small but significant budget lines are ones which have been having a significant impact on the lives of some of the most needy citizens in our Union and those whom we seek to help beyond our borders.
We all share the view that European Union funding should be properly rooted in law.
That principle has been rightly secured by this judgment.
I am pleased that you have given your commitment to act to secure a legal base for this spending which you have made clear you have no intention of harming.
<P>
In the remaining days of your presidency, we look to you to ensure that the words 'a people's Europe' have some tangible and lasting resonance through this action.
<P>
I want to conclude on the problem raised at Cardiff about the legitimacy of the institutions of the European Union and the desire of the Council participants to bring Europe closer to its people - something which we here very much endorse.
There is still unfinished work to be done to ensure that the Union is ready for enlargement in the coming years.
Amsterdam was unable to conclude this work and in so far as the debate you launched will deal with these items, we very much welcome it.
I understand, however, that the Council intended this debate - indeed you said so - to be much wider-ranging than just that unfinished business.
I also understand the Council wants to look at the nature of the Union's institutions themselves, at subsidiarity and democratic legitimacy.
These are complex and sensitive issues which must be faced.
I have no doubt that the European Parliament will be making its views known to the heads of state before the informal meeting in October.
I must say as well that for the first time in the living memory of anyone in this House, the European Council has actually taken up our entreaties to deal with the general conditions governing the performance of the duties of Members of the European Parliament.
<P>
During this parliamentary term, this House has been dogged by constant allegations of abuses of expenses and allowances of Members.
I note that in the British papers this week you are quoted as saying that whilst you will insist, quite rightly, on sorting these out, you want to acknowledge that the overwhelming number of Members of the European Parliament are honest, hard-working people, abiding by the spirit and the letter of our regulations.
We thank you for that recognition and assure you of our determination on this issue.
According to the Treaty, we need the unanimous agreement of the Council if these issues are to be solved.
We are keen to solve them.
We want the next Parliament to be clear about the shared mandate of its Members, their rights and responsibilities, their privileges and immunities.
It is no easy task to bring together the parliamentary and political cultures of 15 different countries and create a single shared European culture in this respect.
But if we, the 626 Members of the European Parliament, cannot do that, then we had better give up trying to develop a shared vision of the future for the 370 million citizens of the Union.
<P>
(Applause ) We want to ensure that the Parliament which succeeds us here next June can put this issue firmly behind it and we welcome your commitment to work with us to sort this out.
<P>
Prime Minister, I recognize perhaps more than some others here just how much you have supported a pro-European policy in our party at home and a pro-European constructive policy for Britain in the European Union.
I thank you, as my party leader, as the Prime Minister of Britain and as the President-in-Office of the European Union.
<P>
(Applause )
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="de Vries">
Mr President, on behalf of European Liberals let me welcome the United Kingdom's new approach to Europe, as eloquently outlined by the Prime Minister just now: pro-Europe and therefore pro-reform.
In our view, the most important result of the past six months has been the normalization of relations between the United Kingdom and the rest of us.
This is important, for the European Union needs the United Kingdom as much as the United Kingdom needs the Union.
Welcome back United Kingdom!
<P>
I also salute the personal efforts of Prime Minister Blair to bring about a lasting peace in Northern Ireland.
<P>
(Applause) Mr President, I am not worried about the United Kingdom.
I am worried, however, about another important European country, Germany.
The theme at the Cardiff Summit was the imminent advent of the German elections.
Elections bring out the best as well as the worst in people.
As a result the Cardiff Summit has become a populist Summit.
The criticism voiced by Chancellor Kohl and others of the European institutions are as hypocritical as they are misplaced.
What is the main task of the European Commission?
It is to safeguard the Treaty.
Only then does the European Commission act in accordance with the letter and spirit of the Treaty when it also reminds the most powerful Member States of the rules of play. Germany would therefore do better, for example, to reduce its subsidies to the coal industry, which distort competition, instead of criticizing Mr Van Miert's policies.
<P>


The criticisms of the Court of Justice are also false.
The Court of Justice recently decided that two Luxembourg nationals, who had respectively bought a pair of spectacles in Belgium and were seeking orthodontic treatment in Germany, were entitled to reimbursement of the costs.

The Court did emphatically not take the place of the legislator, as the Danish and German Prime Ministers maintain.
The principles of the Treaty apply in cases were no harmonization legislation applies, such as here.
In future, free movement of persons applies not only to healthy Europeans but also to sick ones.
Is that not what is meant by a citizen's Europe?
<P>
(Applause ) We are against a European super state, President Chirac and Chancellor Kohl said.
Well, everyone is against that.
So who do they criticise?
Surely not the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties which they helped to set up?
Such talk in public damages the Unions' image.
The Union can only be brought closer to the citizens if leading national politicians accept responsibility for the Union's actions.
<P>
How can the democratic legitimacy of the Union be increased?
I can see three possibilities.
Firstly the introduction of a uniform election system based on proportional representation for the next European elections.
Secondly, an integral review of all internal reimbursements by the European Parliament, so that only actual expenses are reimbursed, and the introduction of a uniform charter for Members.
Thirdly, the introduction of a form of consultative referendum for the new Chairman of the European Commission, as advocated by Jacques Delors and others.
If Socialists, Christian Democrats, Liberals and Greens each nominate a candidate for the Chairmanship of the European Commission, then this might give the European elections a new dynamic impetus.
It would devolve more power to the European citizens and it would give the Commission more legitimacy.
<P>
Much has been said in Cardiff on a citizens' Europe.
I welcome this.
I hope actions will follow swiftly.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Collins, Gerard">
Mr President, I warmly welcome the British Prime Minister to the European Parliament.
I wish to thank him and his colleagues for a very effective and efficient EU presidency.
I would like to place on record that at all times this Parliament and its Members were extended every courtesy and assistance at political and official level.
I want to say how thankful the Members are for this.
I wish to thank the Prime Minister for his contribution here this morning.
I also wish to thank the President of the Commission for his contribution and to say that my group will strongly support the main thrust of what the Commission President said here today.
<P>
The Cardiff Summit has been more a stocktaking exercise than one in which major decisions have been made.
Nevertheless, an ambitious timetable has been set for reaching major agreements on the reform of the common agricultural policy, the regional and social funds and the budget.
They represent policy areas that are at the very heart of the European Union.
The decisions will have a direct and immediate effect on the citizens of the Union, whether our farming and fishing communities, those in industry - large and small, rural and urban communities and those who live in the less-developed regions and islands.
These decisions must not become part-time hostages in the heat of election campaigns.
<P>
The Europe which we are building must favour an inclusive and caring society in which the interests of all must be respected.
However, with 18 million people in the Union affected by unemployment including the young and the long-term unemployed, this objective is not being met.
Tackling unemployment through a broad range of measures must remain our top social priority.
Failure to do so will result in the retention of a two-tier society of those who are included and those who are excluded.
I regret that there has been no consideration of establishing a new programme to combat social exclusion and actions on behalf of the elderly.
I appeal to the President-in-Office and to the incoming President-in-Office to reassure the House that whatever new initiatives are necessary will be undertaken.
<P>
The conclusions on unemployment which are outlined in part 3 of the presidency's document are more an overview of what is being done at present than a new set of initiatives.
Only time will tell if they will be successful.
If we are to go along with the presidency's conclusions then the fifteen employment action plans submitted by the Member States represent a real effort to enhance the employability of young people, the long-term unemployed and women.
It means that demands that we have been making for the development of skills, life-long learning, improving conditions for SMEs and the self-employed are being put into effect.
This is very much indeed to be welcomed.
What we now need to see is the practical and rapid implementation of these action plans.
A series of orientations for future work and employment are set out in the conclusions.
Regrettably the detail is vague, for example with regard to child-care schemes.
<P>
We attach considerable importance to the successful introduction of the euro.
It is essential that the remaining legislative and practical steps be completed rapidly.
The negotiations which have begun on Agenda 2000 are among the most important ever to be undertaken by the Union.
Choices will have to be made about key policies which will have major long-term consequences for each of our countries.
Agenda 2000 is indeed of fundamental importance for the future development of the Union.
It not only has consequences for present Member States but also for the whole process of enlargement.
Under no circumstances can the cohesion process for existing less-developed regions be jeopardized, nor should there be any link between EMU participation and eligibility under the Cohesion Fund.
The whole question of transition arrangements is of the greatest importance.
They must, for example, in the case of my country, be adequate in terms of the level and duration of funding in order to address our continuing significant development needs.
<P>
The reform of the common agricultural policy is very controversial.
Agriculture is one of our greatest assets.
Agenda 2000 must strengthen and not destroy the common agricultural policy.
It is crucial to the preservation of our family farms and rural life.
I do not believe that the present proposals constitute a reasonable basis for negotiation.
<P>
Mr President, I would like to personally congratulate you on your own efforts and those of my Prime Minister Bertie Ahern with regard to the Northern Ireland peace agreement of 10 April.
I also wish to acknowledge and sincerely thank Members of this House for their support for the peace process.
My group warmly appreciates the further endorsement by the European Council of this historic agreement and its renewed commitment that the Union should continue to play an active part in promoting lasting peace and prosperity in Northern Ireland.
We particularly welcome the Council's invitation to the Commission to make proposals as to how new and creative ways can be found to support the fresh opportunities which the peace agreement will bring.
<P>
Finally, it is my view that it is regrettable that the European Commission has again come under attack in the context of the European Summit.
The Commission has always undertaken the duties and responsibilities it has been given in an even-handed and fair manner.
The Commission has consistently discharged its functions as guarantor of the European Treaties in an exemplary fashion.
President Santer and his team of Commissioners have consistently reported on their activities to this Parliament and have not in my view exceeded the powers which have been given to them by the Council and I hope that the Commission will not be made a scapegoat in national election campaigns in our Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Puerta">
Mr President, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, I would like to congratulate the Labour government, and particularly the Prime Minister, for the intelligence and courage they have shown in order to find a solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland.
<P>
This Parliament and public opinion throughout Europe are following with emotion the efforts being made to achieve peace and democratic normality in that European region.
<P>
We also thank the British presidency for the pro-European climate that it has been able to stamp on its term, a climate which would have been unthinkable among previous governments of the United Kingdom.
<P>
Maybe this is the best contribution of the British presidency because, and I say this very sincerely, the running of the presidency, even with the success of the birth of the euro and, in particular, the results of Cardiff, does not generate enthusiasm or excessive optimism at this extremely decisive stage for the construction of Europe.
<P>
On the one hand, almost all of the important decisions have been postponed until after the elections in Germany and, on the other hand, doubts and risks have appeared for the future of solidarity in the European Union.
<P>
We take a positive view of the incipient coordination of national employment plans, which could involve the first impulse of a Community policy which puts economic and social issues on the same level.
But the European Council has not analysed the viability of those national plans which, in many cases, do not set out clear objectives or set aside financial resources for their implementation.
<P>
We hope that the Vienna European Council is more decisive and takes into account the experiences of France and Italy to reduce weekly working time without loss of salary and other socio-economic measures which should be considered in terms of the European dimension.
<P>
We are very concerned because the debate on Agenda 2000 is not global and balanced and because the Structural Funds and Cohesion Fund are being called into question.
If we want to respect the current internal solidarity and be able to finance enlargement, we will have to exceed the ceiling of 1.27 % of GDP and maintain the level of contributions from the wealthiest countries, which will be those that profit most from enlargement.
<P>
As regards international cooperation, we support the initiatives to relaunch the negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians and we believe that additional pressure must be applied in order to ensure that Netanyahu's government respects the Oslo agreements and the United Nations resolutions.
<P>
We value the efforts made to develop a European identity in international politics, but I am sure Mr Blair will allow me to tell him that, at times, the British presidency has seemed more like the Atlantic partner of the United States than the coordinator of European foreign policy.
<P>
As regards institutional reform, we must learn from the failure of Amsterdam.
The situation is scandalous, in view of its urgency, which is unavoidable because of enlargement, and the need for a reorientation of the construction of Europe with institutions which are capable of responding to their citizens' aspirations.
<P>
To conclude, I must tell you, Mr Blair, that a substantial part of the European left, which represents more than 12 million voters, cannot allow the monetarist ideology, expressed in the convergence criteria and in the Stability Pact which accompany the birth of the euro, to question economic and social cohesion and to put the European social model at risk. This model is a distinguishing characteristic of our democracy, as you have recognized, although you have talked about fine-tuning it and modernizing it.
<P>
But we must tackle all of these problems seriously.
In order to do so and to build a Europe of solidarity we will undoubtedly need the joint effort of the diverse left, as is already the case in certain countries of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, as expected, Mr Blair has with much flair and feeling for public relations drawn attention to Europe at the start of the British Presidency, promising much.
A citizens' Europe, democratic and transparent, a Europe which would credibly promote a healthy environment, which would easily and quickly enter the euro zone - in a manner of speaking - and with a more humane foreign policy, armed with a meaningful code of conduct for the export of arms.
<P>
Many of the promises went up in smoke in a blue skies discussion on the future, with fewer concrete results than hoped for.
However, the positive stance of the British Government in respect of Europe is an important change.
It spells an end to the europhobic attitude of the Conservatives.
But we are disappointed that you have attached so much importance in your press conference to the initiative by President Chirac and Chancellor Kohl, who together put subsidiarity on the European agenda, where the future evolvement of Europe is concerned.
What a present for the Presidency, the British eurosceptism is of the past but now the Continentals back the centralised bureaucratic euro nation which Great Britain has denounced.
<P>
We consider the initiative by Mr Kohl and Mr Chirac to be an attack on a future-oriented European political project.
The concepts of subsidiarity and decentralization are blatantly abused in order to exclude undesirable intervention in their own territory.
Member States who have previously supported a common market with common rules of play should not complain afterwards about the fact that the Commission safeguards its concrete realization.
Mr Hänsch is correct in saying that Mr Kohl's liking for subsidiarity is proportional to his aversion to the ban on the Kirsch and Bertelsmann merger.
I cannot rid myself of the impression that it is not so much Europe which should get closer to the people as we, the national governments, who should get closer to them.
<P>
The Greens have always defended the idea that power should be devolved to a level which is as close as possible to the people but on the other hand that a political counterforce should be ready to oppose internationally organised economic actors.
In fact, a fake battle of powers is induced between the Commission and the Member States, whereas these same Member States think nothing of quietly transferring large powers to multinational organizations such as the World Trade Organization.
The erosion of democracy is not categorized, whereas political decisions by our Union, such as our option for hormone-free meat and the special banana regime for ACP countries, are thrown over, while we stand powerless.
We do therefore want a Europe which is closer to the citizen, which to us means a simple decision-making system and the disappearance of the democratic deficit.
Because the citizens not only harbour a growing rejection of Europe but also an increasing rejection of politics.
We should try and do something about that, both at national and at a European level.
<P>
We welcome the fact that the environment has finally made it to a European Summit again, after seven lean years.
Rightly so, as eight of the twelve essential environmental items show a degradation.
To us this means an important result in the British Presidency.
We are also pleased that Prime Minister Blair has brought up the subject of the reimbursements and the charter of the Members of the European Parliament.
It is about time this was settled and I believe, ladies and gentlemen, that we all have an interest in dealing quickly with this point so that it can be removed from the agenda.
<P>
Finally, I would like to thank Mr Henderson and Mrs Clare Short for their willingness to accord consultative powers to the European Parliament in respect of expansion and the Lomé Convention, amongst other things; support for the strengthening of this Parliament means indeed support for the strengthening of democracy and closer ties with the citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Macartney">
Mr President, these are major occasions in the life of our Parliament and we should not overlook the fact that President Santer is here as well as the President-in-Office and I welcome them both.
I would like to thank the Commission President for his very skilful and diplomatic address.
However, we are mainly here to talk about the UK presidency.
<P>
We have to recognize that it started with a great deal of goodwill.
The change of government was welcomed right across Europe, not least in Scotland where the Conservatives suffered total wipe-out at the general election.
But I would say to the President-in-Office that he should not mistake the sighs of relief for gasps of admiration.
The greatest asset the Labour Government has is that it is not the old Conservative Government.
<P>
In saying this, I do not want to be grudging.
We welcome the change of tone.
This Parliament appreciates the fact that we have had Ministers such as Robin Cook, Clare Short and many others addressing Parliament and attending its committee meetings.
That is very worthwhile.
We all remember that handbag that Mrs Thatcher wielded when she banged the table and said: ' I want my money back' .
Well, the handbag has gone but the rebate and the claim for rebate remain from the UK, and from Germany.
<P>
In trying to appraise the record of the UK presidency we have to match the rhetoric and the achievement and ask ourselves what we will remember the UK presidency for.
It departed, with perhaps unfortunate symbolism, from Waterloo Station six months ago.
There were two big events in the last six months.
The first was on 2 and 3 May when we assembled to welcome the launch of the single currency on behalf of 11 Member States.
It was supremely ironic that the British Finance Minister, Gordon Brown, who presided over that in Brussels could not be the team manager but had to play in the left outside position because he was not part of it.
<P>
We have waited in vain today for an indication of commitment to the cause of the single currency, which I and most of us think is the most important aspect of European integration.
A colleague, Mr Puerta, also mentioned the too-close association with the United States.
On the Iraq crisis the hotline to the White House was operative long before there was any thought of calls to the Elysée Palace or anywhere else.
This Clintonization of policy is regrettable, and I have to mention the disgrace of the secret importation of nuclear waste from Georgia to Scotland.
The citizens of Europe were not even informed until it had arrived.
<P>
There were also some non-decisions.
What happened to quota-hopping which was supposed to be sorted out in the British presidency?
What about the compensation for the farmers who are desperate at the strength of the pound and are looking for compensation?
<P>
But let us look ahead to the vision of Europe.
That is what Prime Minister Blair talks about, and all of us are concerned about it.
What do we make of the phrase 'a Europe of nation states' ?
Was this a major faux pas ?
By that I mean a John Major faux pas .
When John Major talked about the nation states and subsidiarity, he meant that it stopped at Dover.
Nothing that applied below that level was in his mind.
It would be unfair for us to accuse Prime Minister Blair of that.
He has recognized the historic nations of the United Kingdom.
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are all to have their own parliamentary democracy.
That is a transformation which parallels those of Gorbachev in his day.
<P>
I finish by drawing on an analogy with the World Cup which is on all our television screens.
The Scottish football fans have got it about right.
They have been welcomed across Europe for their positive contribution.
These are the same fans that voted for Home Rule for Scotland in the referendum last year.
That was welcomed at the time. Their behaviour is welcome now.
I would urge Prime Minister Blair to turn his back firmly on the equivalent of Les Hooligans - the Fleet Street tabloids with their constant Brussels bashing - and take a leaf out of the book of the Tartan Army whose vision, like mine, is to participate, to be there and to create a true Europe of the peoples.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Nicholson">
Mr President, I too would like to add my words of welcome to the President of the Council to our Parliament.
You are very welcome as our Prime Minister.
I believe the UK presidency will be judged, in the long term, by what has been achieved.
<P>
I feel we are getting ourselves in a position, within the European Union, that every time a new presidency comes in, it tries to out-do the last one; it tries to be more outward looking and come forward with great new ideas.
At the end of the day, unfortunately, on many occasions we do not always achieve what we set out to do.
Six months of a presidency is about as long as a two minute speech in this Parliament.
It is very difficult to say all you want to say or do all you want to do.
<P>
I certainly believe that the creation of jobs and the development of economic growth throughout the European Union must be our number one priority.
Despite the fine words we have heard in this House on many occasions, we have not had any success in this area.
We must succeed if the people of Europe are not to be further alienated from Brussels bureaucracy.
<P>
I believe the most positive way forward to achieve this is to develop, as you said here this morning, our small- and mediumsized enterprises.
There are tremendous opportunities here to develop and allow them to grow.
<P>
I note also your comments on achieving, by next March, an end to the Agenda 2000 negotiations.
I hope the Council and Commission will ensure that this Parliament and its committees are fully involved and informed of the whole situation.
I would also like to take the opportunity to appeal to you to tackle the real problem that agriculture is facing throughout Europe, and certainly within the United Kingdom, and the problem of the strong pound sterling in its relation to the green pound.
<P>
I should also like to take the opportunity to congratulate you very warmly, Mr President, for the time and energy that you invested in achieving the positive outcome of the referendum in my constituency of Northern Ireland.
I want to publicly thank you here today because I do not think it could have been achieved but for that time and energy you gave.
<P>
(Applause ) As the only representative from Northern Ireland here today, I want you to take that back with you.
<P>
I was saddened to read in the press comments made by Mr Brok of the PPE Group when he said that senior UK ministers were so preoccupied with Northern Ireland that they were unable to concentrate on the European Union.
I am sure that you will take the opportunity to reject that here today.
That was a very unfortunate statement by Mr Brok.
<P>
I should like to say, regarding the situation in Northern Ireland, that you made personal promises to the people of Northern Ireland.
I hope that you will be able to deliver on those promises, Prime Minister.
<P>
I also want recorded in this House the important role played by my party leader.
To a large extent his role has been overlooked.
It was extremely important, the very courageous decision that he, too, took in putting his own political future on the line to ensure that my people in Northern Ireland are able to achieve peace.
<P>
Finally, I should like to call on the Council and the Commission to work with us to find ways in which we can support the new assembly that the election next Thursday will hopefully put in place in Northern Ireland.
<P>
(Applause )
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Le Gallou">
Mr President, President Blair, like his predecessors serving as Presidents-in-Office of the Council, told us: "jobs must remain the top priority in Europe: eighteen million unemployed in Europe is far too many' .
These are impressive words that we have heard before and we will hear again.
<P>
The reality is that the European Union has peaked in unemployment in the industrialized world.
We have between 10 and 11 % unemployment in the European Union, compared with less than 5 % in the United States and less than 4 % in Japan.
<P>
Of course, we are talking of different continents.
But within the European continent there are two countries that have much lower unemployment levels, and I am speaking here of Switzerland with less than 4 % and Norway with less than 3 %.
These are two countries, two States whose peoples, through a referendum, have refused to enter the European Union.
<P>
What they are trying to tell us is clear.
The system set up by the European Union is inefficient and bad for the people, especially in terms of jobs.
<P>
We are not ignorant of the reasons.
First of all, it is the frenzied standardization to which the European Union aspires. Then we have the furious economic free-trade ethic which blurs boundaries and eventually leads to their breakdown.
After all is said and done, President Blair, it is the Economic and Monetary Union that has been praised during your presidency. In short, the cause of unemployment in Europe is the yoke imposed by the single market, single standards and the single currency.
<P>
Europe and the European Union could beat the unemployment problem if it changed its basic principles, if it stopped seeking to expand worldwide and if it genuinely embraced the principle of subsidiarity and the diversity of regions and nations, in short, if it legislated less and imposed fewer conditions upon us.
This is how the European Union could regain the path to full employment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="President">
I have received seven motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
The vote will take place at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, the British presidency has stood and continues to stand under the slogan 'The People's Europe' .
Since then more slogans have been added, such as subsidiarity, decentralization and renationalization, which together with this slogan could produce a highly explosive mixture.
We just had an example from Mr Le Gallou of what you can do with good principles when you mix them incorrectly and add a pinch of extreme nationalism.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office, I would like to state plainly and clearly: We need reforms!
To give one example, we have been recently dealing in this House with the question of the colour that signs on buses should have across the Community.
Even if the important question of buses suitable for the disabled were the issue, this is still no central concern of Europe's.
We need reforms, de-bureaucratization, decentralization and transparency.
We also need freedom of movement for the citizens in the truest sense of the word, as you have already said today, and this should include all levels of our national spectrum, in Europe, at national and at regional level.
<P>
I would like to draw attention to one question - perhaps more strongly than we have so far done today: it is in the interest of Europe's citizens to have more jobs.
That is why we need greater coordination of economic policy, more security, fewer wars and fewer crises.
That is why we need a truly common foreign and security policy for Europe and a better and healthier environment.
That is why we need as a minimum a European environmental policy and more democracy.
That is why we need more rights for this Parliament, that is so say more majority decisions at European level.
I hope that the current and the future Austrian presidency will not lose heart if the issue centres on the heads of government making these crucial decisions.
<P>
The slogan is the right one and it should also be pursued under the Austrian presidency.
At the same time I seek a Yes to reforms so that we really have a strong Europe where it is needed, that is to say where the interests of its citizens lie.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="McMillan-Scott">
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="Teverson">
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="Coates">
Mr President, I think this outgoing presidency should be named the Blair presidency in honour of a very great Englishman.
Of course, I refer to Eric Blair, better known as George Orwell.
Orwell described how the Europe of 1984 was governed by a Ministry of Truth in which spin doctors explained how the war being waged by the Ministry of Peace was always going well.
The language of this world was called newspeak.
New Labour speaks this language to perfection.
When they read of new measures against poverty our poor hide their purses.
When we hear of Britain's new leadership of Europe we anticipate a new surge of xenophobia tempered, perhaps, by American advice.
<P>
It is quite fitting that the last achievement of the Blair presidency was the annulment of the Poverty 4 Programme.
I am extremely pleased to hear the Prime Minister announcing that annulment is now to be annulled.
It is clear that there is still some space in our Europe for public opinion to make its weight felt.
Now the President will be free to pursue his own course and I understand he is leading a team in pursuit of the third way.
They seek a way between truth and falsehood, between right and wrong.
If Europe goes along this path it will be widening its fissures both vertically and horizontally and I hope very much that we shall consider carefully before embarking on this road.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Kerr">
Mr President, I am the other ghost at the feast of the British presidency.
<P>
This ghost wants to say a few things about the presidency.
Firstly, the general consensus amongst informed opinion in Brussels is that the British presidency has been a bit of a damp squib: it has promised much but achieved little; and the Cardiff Summit was summed up by the Financial Times as being 'long in words but short on action' .
<P>
I wish to highlight two things.
Firstly, I want to reinforce those comments about the way in which your first failure as President of the European Union was to side automatically with Mr Clinton, without even consulting the European Union, on the question of the threat from Baghdad and the threat to bomb Baghdad.
That was a mistake and caused much consternation in this House.
<P>
Secondly, the fact that we have been bystanders on the question of a single currency is a major error of strategy of your government.
I have to ask you to comment on the words of your Permanent Secretary, Sir Terence Burns, in Brussels last week who, when asked why Britain was not joining the single currency, said two words: ' Rupert Murdoch' .
When will you stand up to the Sun , Mr Blair, and actually say when your government will join the single currency?
<P>
I have to say that your concern about building a people's Europe is something we would all support.
Why, therefore, have you blocked major social programmes, like the extension of the reduction of working time directive, the consultation directive, and why has your government led a considerable weakening of the acquired rights directive, passed overwhelmingly by this House two weeks ago, which seriously threatens many workers across Europe?
If you could reassure us on those things, we might believe your concern about a people's Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="President">
Thanks to Europe's best-fed ghost.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr Presidents, the conclusions of the Cardiff summit remain deliberately vague regarding the future of European institutions after enlargement.
We learn simply that we must, and I quote, "strengthen the democratic legitimacy of the Union and spell out the meaning of the principle of subsidiarity' - a philosophy which, outlined in this way, remains highly ambiguous since it could result either in the enhancement of a super- state, or the emergence of a Europe of nations.
<P>
If strengthening democratic legitimacy means giving pride of place to a more distant European democracy and hence one that is less vibrant than any national democracy, if absorbing the principle of subsidiarity means giving monarchic jurisdiction to the Commission and leaving nations with the crumbs of power, then of course the citizens will be confused.
If, however, reinforcing democratic legitimacy means reassessing the role of national parliaments, submitting the decisions of the Court of Justice to a right of appeal by the people or exercising better control over the Commission, for example by not allowing it to vote on spending decisions without a legal basis, as we spoke about earlier, if applying the principle of subsidiarity means reinstating national control over Europe and making Brussels a complacent service provider, then I believe that the European Union will have reached adulthood.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the Cardiff summit failed to give an official opinion regarding the joint letter from Chancellor Kohl and President Chirac on the matter of subsidiarity.
This was a wise move, since any approach which announces from the outset that in order to apply subsidiarity we must avoid any re-nationalization, will not make a great deal of progress.
<P>
On the other hand, since you have reported on the satisfactory resolutions of the Council with regard to transparency, we are surprised that we have not heard anything of the letter that Chancellor Kohl sent you, Mr Blair, on his interpretation of the new Article 63 of the Amsterdam Treaty relating to the community-wide adoption of the immigration policy.
<P>
What is in this letter?
The partners of Germany would very much like to know this before they ratify the treaty.
Mr President, will Council transparency continue through to the point at which we are informed of the contents of this letter?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, ten days ago in Luxembourg the European Union's Finance Ministers actually rejected the commitments requested by the Commission for a major improvement in the financial situation and substantially watered down and emptied the Waigel Plan of all meaning, a plan approved a month ago at the Summit in Brussels.
<P>
This is a step backwards, or even a false step that could prove very costly for a Europe united by the single currency.
In a word, economic and social policy has been forgotten.
Even the refusal to reduce the working week to 35 hours was sweetened by the very discretionary clause that the 35 hours could be applied as long as unit salaried positions do not increase.
Cardiff is an ambitionless Summit that only seeks to identify the problems without proposing any solutions.
The Kohl and Chirac initiative has reopened old issues on points of discord like the decentralization of Community decisions or even institutional reforms.
<P>
The Chancellor and French President's joint letter in fact reopens the debate on subsidiarity, institutional problems and on the aims of European construction, and your proposal, Mr President-in-Office, of creating a top-level group to study the profile of the future Europe seems consistent with this.
To us it seems paradoxical that, at a time when the euro is an important factor of integration and the European Parliament's role seems to be growing stronger, a lot of Member States want a pause for reflection, warning about excessive decision-making powers.
<P>
The National Alliance wants a Europe that is closer to its citizens, a Europe that is resolute in tackling the problem of reform.
But a Europe of 25 or 30 States requires a very strong political - I repeat, political - mechanism to offset the effect of number and the heterogeneity of its components, because the vaster the territory the more political cohesion will be necessary to give direction.
We have witnessed an unenlightening Presidency, if we consider the goals that it has achieved only for the framework programme for research and development and the liberalisation of the gas and electricity market; it was a Presidency that was downright unilluminating when it decided to step aside at the decisive moment of the advancement of European construction to the single currency, giving of course its endorsement but comfortably preparing itself to adhere only when all the consequences are known.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="David">
Mr President, it was not so long ago that Britain was on the political margins of the European Union, often ignored, frequently seen as irrelevant, always complaining and whingeing, never being constructive.
I am delighted that all of that is firmly behind us.
Now we have a British Government that correctly believes that Britain's future is in Europe.
<P>
Under the British presidency we have seen the government's new approach achieving practical results: mutual respect, genuine partnership, constructive dialogue.
These have all been the hallmarks of the past six months.
<P>
Under the British presidency, as many people have mentioned, two achievements of enormous significance stand out: the agreement to launch the single European currency and the beginning of negotiations to enlarge the European Union.
The single currency has been established on a firm basis.
There is no doubt in my mind that the euro will emerge as a sound and stable currency.
<P>
Equally, enlargement is of tremendous significance.
The European Union has never been inward-looking and short-sighted.
I welcome the recognition that enlargement is essential for the wellbeing, stability and prosperity of all of Europe, both East and West.
Under the British presidency job creation has been, quite rightly, there at the very top of the agenda.
The presidency has recognized that if we are truly serious about achieving greater employment opportunities we have to embrace change. This does not mean undermining the European social model.
It means making sure that the model is relevant to the needs of today.
<P>
The quality of our European workforce will be the single most important factor in determining our future competitiveness and therefore our future prosperity.
<P>
Now that the British presidency is concluding, all of us have a responsibility to ensure that issues such as employability, adaptability, equal opportunities, life-long learning and entrepreneurship are all taken forward and acted upon by all Member States.
<P>
Finally, I was delighted that the Cardiff Summit was a positive conclusion to the British presidency.
The summit confirmed the real progress of the past six months and has pointed a way to a new kind of European partnership.
I was absolutely delighted that such a successful summit should have been held in Cardiff, the capital city of Wales and the city at the very heart of my constituency.
Last weekend the Cardiff Summit was a landmark in Europe's development - important for Europe, important for Britain, important for Wales as well.
<P>
Next year Wales will have its own national assembly.
That assembly will ensure that Wales, like Britain, will play a full part in our people's Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Böge">
Mr President-in-Office, in the light of past experience I would like emphatically to acknowledge the willingness of the Council presidency to enter into intense discussion with the European Parliament.
For me one of the highlights of the British presidency was Mr Gordon Brown's statement to the European Parliament on 2 May.
I might add that given the splendid explanation of the historic decisions, there was only one thing missing: the United Kingdom's immediate declaration of accession to monetary union.
<P>
I wish to point out that I regret the Commission's decisions to lift the export ban for the whole of the United Kingdom.
This is not in keeping with the exact wording of the Florence agreements.
And I just want to add that for two days now I have had in my hands a late report from the EU inspectors.
Here it states, and I quote: ' The level of non-compliance is rather high.
The official authorities do not check in the credible way, contrary to instructions.'
I could go on.
<P>
Against this background and also in view of a visit from the European Parliament, we were treated to a show at the time, but not to the reality of practical implementation.
I would like to state most clearly to Mr de Vries and Mr Santer: the issue the German Chancellor has raised concerning subsidiarity and the need for a more equitable system of income and expenditure, is supported by the large majority of the German population, and more recently by the Ministerial Conference of the Federal States.
And that is why, Mr Santer, it should be noted from the discussion on the agenda that the Commission is not only the engine of integration, but also very much a party in this affair.
If we wish to keep to the timetable in the course of the German presidency, there are two conditions that have to be met.
Firstly, the Commission must submit its agenda proposals in a revised form in autumn in the light of the current discussions also taking place in Parliament. Secondly, we need a Council presidency under the proven leadership of Chancellor Helmut Kohl if this is to be drawn to a successful conclusion, because we should not leave the matter to amateurs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, Cardiff and the British presidency have clearly provided some justification for those who always thought that a Europe wanting to exercise less centralized control and leave more to the sovereign states is a better Europe - a Europe which will be better understood by its citizens and one which will also find greater acceptance.
<P>
If nothing was resolved in Cardiff, at least the European Council should have recognized that the limits of feasibility have been reached when some are paying less, others receiving a lot and all are having to finance enlargement jointly - and all this without increasing the budget ceiling.
<P>
The British presidency has prepared the way for the Austrian presidency to solve a series of problems that it could not solve itself and which the Austrian presidency cannot solve if it continues with the prearranged and present course of action.
Europe needs a new direction which can again give the Member States more weight.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fayot">
Mr President, I would like to focus on the institutional debate that arose suddenly before the Cardiff summit, through the letter from Mr Chirac and Mr Kohl.
<P>
I would like to point out to Mr Böge that whenever domestic policy problems - in this case the German elections - arise within a major Member State, the subsidiarity issue is raised.
This is usually a veiled attempt to re-nationalize elements of European policy and thereby pander to unhappy voters.
So the hunt is on for scapegoats.
It is either the Commission, or the European Parliament, it is never the Council!
If there is one European institution that has missed the mark recently it is the Council, where some ministers and heads of government prefer to busy themselves with the allowances for Members of the European Parliament, rather than genuine European problems.
<P>
We also know that the institutional imagination is boundless.
So old ideas that have been discussed a thousand times resurface.
I learn that some think of the old deus ex machina of a senate of national parliamentarians to offset the democratic deficit.
These institutional digressions are not meant to reassure the citizens, who cannot make sense of it.
I therefore commend the wisdom of the European Council in Cardiff, which stressed that the first priority is to ratify the Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
But, clearly, the European Union has a problem in terms of political visibility.
The citizens fail to grasp European policy, but that is not an institutional problem, it is a political problem, a policy-related problem.
If, for example, the President of the Commission, who holds a distinguished political position in Europe, is appointed by the European Council after a secret conclave, based on a complex alchemy without public debate, how do you imagine the citizens feel involved?
Whence the motion that we have put forward to several people - including Jacques Delors - to open up the debate and allow the European citizens to participate through European elections.
Personalizing the electoral campaign also means politicizing it.
This approach would result in a greater cohesion of political forces, a more serious contemplation of the future political programme of the Commission and a genuine political dimension for Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Hernández Mollar">
Mr President, it is certainly true that we find ourselves at the end of a presidency without spectacular results.
There were no reasons for this.
<P>
The Amsterdam Treaty and the Luxembourg Extraordinary Summit highlighted objectives and guidelines for action for which the debate and the assessment of results require time.
In terms of foreign policy, Mr President, we regret the failure of the troika mission to Algeria, a country which is very close to our southern borders and which deserves special attention, as the entire Mediterranean region does.
And we must welcome the agreement reached in the context of the Transatlantic Summit, particularly the agreement on the legislation on extraterritorial effects which, in the case of the Helms-Burton Act, is subordinate to the amendment by the United States Congress of Title IV of that Act, without the agreement changing, of course, the European Union's perception of the nature and scope of that Act.
<P>
An important issue is that of employment, which received a strong impulse at the Luxembourg Extraordinary Summit chaired by Mr Junker.
Countries such as Spain, Mr President, have presented action plans which have been highlighted by the Commission itself for their toughness and for their objectives.
For the first time, specific measures and specific time limits have been presented.
It is still not time to carry out an evaluation on them and the general character of the Council's study in this respect is understandable, although I would like to draw attention to two questions which have been commented on in this Parliament. The first is the need to bring into line the time limit for the presentation of these plans and the budgetary forecasts that the countries make each year; and the second is the need to have officially approved, reliable socio-economic indicators available which allow for a comprehensive follow-up to their evaluation and results.
<P>
As the President of the Spanish government, José María Aznar, said only yesterday in the Chamber of Deputies, the best cure for the disease of unemployment is price stability, an improvement in public finances and an evolution of salaries in line with inflation and productivity growth.
And if this is complemented by an effort on the part of businesses to reinvest profits and, in a climate of social dialogue, to adapt labour organization and the needs of the market, we will be taking steps to ensure that citizens are aware that political decisions are moving in the right direction.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, there is no real convergence without employment and there is no economic and social cohesion without solidarity and without collective economic and social effort.
We want a European Union which is not in the form of "marketing' but in the form of a free and competitive internal market where our young people, our women and all those who have a desire to work may move with freedom throughout a common economic and social territory.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Görlach">
Mr President, I would like as a German Member of Parliament to thank the President-in-Office in his capacity as the British Prime Minister for his tremendous involvement in the peace process in Northern Ireland.
I do so as a German MEP because I love Ireland and consider it one of my favourite holiday destinations.
Secondly, I would like to thank the Presidency - and especially the British one - for its involvement in the final steps towards monetary union, and I say as a German MEP: We want Britain inside of the currency union!
That is why I am especially grateful for the UK involvement, even if it should continue for a bit longer.
<P>
Thirdly, with the Treaty of Amsterdam a historic epoch has drawn to a close because the European unification process in the past was very heavily characterized by old-style diplomacy.
Progress has been made and now Parliament-controlled policy has the job of making more progress with unification.
At the same time, the European Parliament and the parliaments of the Member States will need to safeguard their rights.
Our rights must be further extended.
Each new step towards integration following the Treaty of Amsterdam needs to improve the contractual arrangements allowing European political parties to continue to develop so that the parliamentary system is also improved.
<P>
My fourth point concerns Agenda 2000.
It will not surprise anyone - and I agree fully with Mr Böge's factual statement - that the agenda is very tight, and the German presidency needs to bring this to a satisfactory conclusion.
The difference is that it will be a social-democratic President - the Chancellor to be precise - who will hold the office. In other respects I share Mr Böge's opinion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herman">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, how could I fail to agree with your speech this morning. I detected more socio-Christian sentiments than socialist, at least if I take as my reference point the words of the dyed-in-thewool socialists whose words we hear throughout the day.
<P>
It is true, the British presidency has done a good job.
More than others before, it has remained attentive to the wishes of this Parliament, thanks to the number of contacts your ministers have maintained with our committees and I can vouch for that personally.
<P>
I would like to come back to the concerns of Parliament and the Commission on the subject of coordinating economic policies.
We cannot, on the one hand, stress - as you did in your conclusions - the importance of this coordination and, on the other hand, allow the Committee on Monetary Affairs to prune away everything that the Commission recommendation contained that was relevant and of operational value in this respect.
<P>
You said - and we support you - let us seek to promote the accession of our citizens to the European fold.
Allow me to offer three very simple pieces of advice that I would just like to add to those of Gijs de Vries.
Stop the double-talk and put your money where your mouth is.
If you say that coordination is necessary, encourage it.
Then, make Europe more effective, this is what the citizens expect of Europe.
How do we make it more effective?
Spread the vote to the majority.
Finally, you want the citizens to have a say in the matter.
This is equally simple: extend the joint decision to everything of a legislative nature.
If you were to do that, you would very quickly gain the support of all European citizens in promoting an open, democratic and integrated Europe, which we all aspire to.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lööw">
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Great Britain on a well carried out Presidency, which should also be seen in the light of having completed a start for EMU and a strong and successful commitment to peace in Northern Ireland.
<P>
I would also like to express my gratitude for the clear answer we were given today on the question of legal grounds for certain expenditures with a strong social dimension.
It is that kind of expenditure, more than any other, which is associated with 'the people's Europe', the theme of the British Presidency.
I am very happy to be able to pass on the answer we have been given today to the various organisations which have contacted me from Sweden, not least the organisations for the disabled - we have had some anxious telephone calls.
I can now tell them that they can look forward to next week with confidence; it is hoped that Mr Tony Blair will see to this.
<P>
As to Cardiff, what I appreciate most of all is the clear willingness and ambition demonstrated also at the meeting to continue forcefully the struggle against unemployment.
We all know that it is not easy to achieve anything at the European level, as this is something which is supposed to be both a national and an 'EU-wide' affair.
There is no absolute truth, there are no clear models for how we are to proceed.
We must, however, ' keep the pot boiling', and must not give up this struggle.
I would like to point out that those who criticise the Union for not achieving anything, for example on the employment front, are often those who are not prepared to create any common instruments towards progress, but who always, with horror in their voices, immediately cry 'Federation!'.
<P>
Allow me also, finally, to express thanks for the promise we have been given that the Council will carry further the issue of public documents.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Nassauer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the President-in-Office began his remarks with the statement that Model 14/1 is no longer practicable.
We should endorse this.
This is no doubt a good thing for Europe.
Yet besides the historic step towards monetary union taken at the start of May there has been progress in other areas too.
For example there are now ratified Europol conventions.
<P>
There are initial steps being made towards collaboration in justice and internal affairs.
The action plan to combat organized crime is gradually being implemented. However, there are deficiencies too.
Why, Mr President-in-Office, is Europol not starting its work by 1 July? Why is it impossible for a German court to make initial contact with a British court in the interests of those seeking justice?
That is to say, we have reached the stage of great cordial declarations.
They stir up our expectations, yet reality is lagging behind.
<P>
The concept of 'national sovereignty' is held up as not approving of all this.
I ask you, Mr President-in-Office, how can national sovereignty be levelled against the requirements of citizens' security? Why is progress not possible in a European area which the people would welcome with open arms, in contrast to other developments where they are more reserved?
Europe's citizens want Europol to commence its work against organized crime.
I think much more progress could have been possible in this area.
<P>
You have expressed your intention, which I welcome, of improving relations with Turkey as well as setting in place the financial framework of the Customs Union agreement.
I would like to point out to you that this would also be a way of combating organized crime and drug-trafficking in Europe.
Because it is via Turkey that a lot of the drugs are entering Europe.
Without improved cooperation successful crime prevention is not possible.
Hence I can only call upon you to continue on this course.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, as many of the previous speakers have remarked, I too am obliged to describe the Cardiff Summit as something of a disappointment.
It squares with the overall image of Britain's presidency, which clearly started well, but then tailed off somewhat.
This means of course that the work involved for the Austrian presidency will be considerable.
Not least the informal special summit to be held in October of this year in Melk on the issues of transparency and subsidiarity must serve to ensure that a much-cited and almost as often misinterpreted concept like subsidiarity is finally given the correct substance.
<P>
Subsidiarity is neither an aid to self-help nor an exclusive relationship between the European Union and the Member States, but rather the political principle that the larger unit should never assume responsibilities which can be successfully dealt with by the smaller unit.
This also means, however, that policy areas such as foreign and security policy need to be established at European level so that they do not lead to inefficient fragmentation, and we now have the clear example of Kosovo, where more or less exactly the same mistakes have been made again as were made at the start of the civil war in Yugoslavia.
<P>
Unfortunately, the British presidency has made less progress on the issue of deregulation and de-bureaucratization, which had been heralded in numerous attractive brochures.
When I read in the President's concluding statements about a Union closer to the citizens, I ask myself why the Cardiff Summit has failed to implement sufficiently the European Parliament's report on information policy from May of this year.
For this called for an open information policy provided by common EU information offices instead of the previously separate offices for Commission and Parliament.
<P>
We need to press in Parliament for the unresolved, but nevertheless important issues to be implemented under the Austrian presidency.
Mr Nassauer has already dealt with security policy - this is a key issue because security policy needs to be one of the major aspects of the Union as a whole.
If security policy is not functioning, if the safety of the individual citizen is not guaranteed, then the other policies cannot really have any impact at economic and social levels.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Moorhouse">
Mr President, I join colleagues in welcoming Mr Blair to Parliament today.
My only regret is that he did not come here at the outset of the presidency because he will know, as I know, the key importance of working closely with colleagues within the European Community and Union and with Member States.
It is only through the closest co-operation that we can really achieve the results that we want.
<P>
I am just going to concentrate in the two minutes I have on a couple of points, one about Turkey and the other about human rights.
To a mild extent I part company from Mr Nassauer but I would wish to draw Mr Blair's attention to the situation in Turkey itself.
Of course Turkey must be quite free to conduct its own policy within Turkey and on a bilateral basis with other countries.
But when we are talking about the possibility of Turkey becoming a Member of the European Union we are obliged to take a much closer interest at the way in which it conducts its affairs.
We do look to Turkey to meet the criteria which we, as the European Union, lay down for Membership.
Mr Blair knows perfectly well that there are many shortcomings within Turkey at the present time and there have been for many years.
<P>
There is the whole question of human rights violations, for instance, and the torture that is going on.
There is a lack of freedom of speech there and indeed Turkey has a government which is there by kind permission of the army.
So there are a lot of things wanting.
I do not think that we should entirely look to the Americans to influence our policy in that regard.
<P>
In regard to human rights, he made brief reference - and there was not much time - to the progress made with China and I salute that.
However, I do regret very much what appears to be the sniping which has been going on, on the part perhaps of the Foreign Secretary, against the European Parliament in respect of the many resolutions we have adopted which we think are soundly based on human rights.
I would like to see a closer understanding between the British Foreign Office and ourselves.
It is all too easy to pay lip service to human rights.
I have an article here from the Financial Times about an Amnesty International report which says that far too little attention is being paid to human rights issues in the 142 countries with which Amnesty is concerned.
I think we really must give this a lift up the agenda.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="Blair">
First of all I offer my congratulations to those who have stayed the course during our debate this morning which I have very greatly enjoyed hearing.
I will respond as briefly and fully as I can in the time that is available to me.
<P>
I thank people for what, in general, have been very kind and positive remarks.
Indeed some of the most negative remarks have actually come from British representatives but then, there are perhaps some British traditions that never change.
<P>
I should also like to say a word of thanks for everyone's comments on Northern Ireland.
I would like to express my thanks to all the political leaders of the main parties in Northern Ireland and indeed to the political leadership in the Republic of Ireland for their work in bringing about at least some hope of future prosperity and peace for people in Northern Ireland.
<P>
(Applause ) I should like to say a personal word of thanks to Jacques Santer, the President of the European Commission.
He will know that one of the strange aspects of our debate in Cardiff about the future of Europe was my insistence that, although I believe strongly in the principle of subsidiarity, as I indicated in my speech, I believe that there are significant changes needed in the European Union to bring it closer to people.
Let us never forget there are good and bad reasons for being in favour of subsidiarity.
The good reason is that decisions that can be taken closer to the people should be taken closer to the people.
The bad reason is when the Commission does the job the Commission is actually supposed to do: in making sure, for example, that the single European market is driven through and there is progress and change in Europe.
<P>
I should like to extend to Jacques Santer my own personal thanks for the cooperation and work of him and his colleagues throughout our six-months presidency.
We have enjoyed close working relations.
I personally have enjoyed a tremendous and good relationship with him.
<P>
I shall deal with the comments that were made on the European Court of Justice.
I have indicated how we intend to take this process forward and resolve the legal base following the European Court of Justice's judgment.
I would also like to welcome the comments that Mrs Green made about the terms and conditions of employment of European Members of Parliament.
That willingness to accept that it is in everyone's interests to get these issues sorted out is something that is good for the European Union as a whole.
<P>
I should like to deal with the comments made by several Members.
There was some criticism here that I shall deal with as diplomatically as I can: the criticism that the British presidency has been too close to the United States in our foreign policy considerations.
I want to say to you very clearly indeed - I know this may not enjoy universal acclaim - that it is important that the European Union enjoys good and strong relations with the United States of America.
That is to our mutual advantage and interest.
<P>
(Applause ) I ask you to realize that there are forces within the United States who want to have an isolationist American policy, who want the US to disengage from its responsibilities in the world.
That is emphatically not in any of our interests.
I would also simply point out - as indeed I said when I addressed the Socialist Group earlier today - that in respect of Iraq it is simply not true to say that we did not contact, either collectively or individually, other European Union Member States.
We did.
We contacted them very fully indeed.
I am afraid, however, it is rather worse than Britain simply following the line of the United States.
We did not really follow it.
We agreed with it and helped put it together.
My own belief is that we would not have seen the progress with the UN inspections in Iraq had it not been for the firm stand of diplomacy backed up, if necessary, by the use of force.
I believe that was the right policy.
<P>
I thank Mr de Vries and others for their kind comments on the normalization of relations between the UK and Europe and say that I agree very much indeed that we should try to complete the programme of reform to make the European Union more competitive and, in particular, to make its single market come about.
<P>
I should also like to deal with a point made by a number of colleagues that the national action plans and the employment guidelines have not yet delivered enough to people.
Let us make one thing quite clear: these national action plans are the first time that governments have actually put together employment programmes - action to tackle social exclusion and unemployment - and agreed a process whereby those are going to be reviewed, evaluated and then further steps taken.
We are at the beginning of that process but it is a long way from the old days when people said that these are not issues that the European Union need concern itself with - this is simply for Member States.
Jobs are one area where we can learn from each other and where action is essential to tackle the fundamental problems of social exclusion and long-term unemployment in our countries today.
<P>
Can I say to our colleague from the Green Party, who made some kind remarks but criticized us on the environment, our achievement in the Environment Council, concluded yesterday, represents a very significant step forward.
Most people thought Kyoto would never happen.
Then most people thought that it would not be possible to agree to implement Kyoto.
The European Union has shown: (a) that it can be constructive in approving Kyoto and (b) it has actually agreed a plan to take it forward.
We never aim for perfection but it is progress.
<P>
(Applause ) Can I say very gently to our colleague from the Scottish Nationalist Party that I support devolution in Scotland and decentralization within the UK very strongly.
From my own political perspective, and I hope he understands where we differ on this, I support devolution but I will always stand out against narrow-minded nationalism.
I do not believe that is the way to go.
<P>
(Applause ) I would also like to thank particularly Mr Edward McMillan-Scott for his contribution.
It is important to remind people what they were missing and I can only say, as kindly as I can to him, I think his problem is that he agrees with my position on Europe rather more than the position of his own party.
<P>
(Applause ) Finally, without making this too introspective a British summing-up, I would like to reply to my former colleagues, Mr Coates and Mr Kerr.
I think that Mr Coates said that the British Government was undemocratic.
I would like to respond by saying that they were elected as Labour Members of Parliament on a Labour ticket.
They left the Labour Party.
They still sit as Members of Parliament without any democratic mandate for doing so at all.
That is not my idea of democracy.
<P>
(Applause ) Finally I would like to deal with the points that were made on Agenda 2000 as well as several of the other specific issues.
On Agenda 2000, let us be very clear and honest with ourselves, there is a very great deal more to do.
We have agreed a timetable.
The Agricultural Council in May agreed on changes to the common agricultural policy.
It is difficult and it will take time.
I will be quite open with you - I would prefer to have made more progress on this issue during the course of our presidency.
By agreeing the timetable, as I think President Santer was saying a moment ago, we have concentrated people's minds and change must now come.
It may be that over the next few months, once certain issues are out of the way, we can get back to dealing with the substance.
<P>
I would like to say - in response to some of those who asked whether there was enough substance in the presidency - that what I find strange about this is that we launched monetary union and the process of enlargement.
Those are probably two of the most significant steps Europe has taken in its recent history.
It is worth pointing out that, though they may be glossed over as achievements we can take for granted, for those who were more closely involved and who were seeing it through, it was often a lot more difficult.
<P>
In relation to the launch of the euro and the presidency of the European Central Bank - yes it was an extremely difficult negotiation but I believe it was important to secure an outcome that was fully consistent with the treaty that people had agreed.
I believe that the ultimate test is that we have launched the euro with tranquillity and calmness, with people understanding there will be stability in the euro-zone.
It would have been a disaster had we launched it without a proper candidate and in circumstances where there was no proper control or authority.
<P>
Finally, can I say to colleagues about the other areas - in relation to the European social model and reform and change within Europe - I hope and believe that ultimately there are three main things that we have tried to do and achieve.
The first is, as I stated, to have launched monetary union and enlargement.
The second is to have begun the process of a new debate on economic and political reform in Europe - very important for Europe's future.
The third achievement of our presidency has been the dramatic transformation in my own country's relations with the European Union.
<P>
I hope that these three achievements mark a significant result for the British presidency.
But I hope more than that: that we can take on the arguments that we have developed during these past few months with confidence for the future.
President Santer said in his address - and I think Mr Martens said the same - that we must be careful of not making people pessimistic about Europe.
I am actually optimistic about Europe.
I am hopeful for the future of the European Union.
It is hope and confidence that give us the ability to take on the case for reform.
We need not be frightened of reform.
We should welcome and embrace it.
It is right and it is the way that we will convince a new generation of people - younger people, who were sitting up there at the beginning of our debate, listening to what was happening in this European Parliament.
<P>
These are the new generation of people, who did not experience the Second World War, who do not know about the Cold War in Europe, and who have grown up in a different set of political and economic and social circumstances.
We have to persuade them that Europe means something to them.
We have to persuade them that Europe offers them a better future.
We have to persuade those young people that the ideals that our ancestors fought for in forming the European Union are alive and well today in the European Union of the 21st Century.
Do that and we will truly leave a legacy of which we can be proud.
<P>
(Loud and sustained applause )
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="McMillan-Scott">
Mr President, just before the President-in-Office leaves the Chamber.
He asked about my position on Europe and whether I agreed with Mr Hague.
Most certainly I do.
Conservatives want to be in Europe but not run by Europe, and especially not run by Socialists.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, I proceed from the assumption that we only need to vote once on the amendment to paragraph 18 and that the House is agreed on an amendment.
All three amendments proposed are identical.
They have been submitted by the Socialist Group, by Mr Arias Cañete with 19 signatures and by the Group of the European Radical Alliance.
I think that only one vote is needed because consensus in this House on this extremely sensitive issue is very important.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="President">
I agree with you.
One vote will suffice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="McCarthy">
Mr President, I just wish to say that I agree with the rapporteur on the necessity of one vote on Amendments Nos 5, 6 and 14.
Could we take the vote on my group's amendments first?
We took the trouble to get an internal consensus in our group - it is a group position - and it is the position of the left in this House; whereas Amendment No 5 (paragraph 18) by Mr Arias Cañete is simply a personal amendment, supported by 29 signatures, and he does not have the backing of his own political group.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="President">
I hear what you say but I cannot do that.
The convention in the House is that the lowest numbered amendment is taken first.
As they are identical I will take Amendment No 5 first and Amendments Nos 6 and 14 will fall.
Their objectives are all the same anyway.
<P>
Paragraph 18:
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, there has been a slight mishap in paragraph 18 due to the vote in the Committee and the drawing together of the various votes, with the result that the sentence has become totally illogical.
To rectify this I propose the following oral amendment, which I shall read out in German: ' Stresses the importance of the monitoring committees not only for balanced monitoring, but also for revision and adaptation, and expects the composition of the monitoring committees to reflect the new requirements of EU regional policy and to safeguard their authority and decision-making powers.'
<P>
The issue is to do with the powers of the monitoring committees.
This is the crucial issue.
All other texts are wrong as well and we have already distributed notice of this for clarification.
It is not the decision-making powers of the EU that are at issue here, but rather the decision-making powers of the monitoring committees.
This is what the oral amendment is concerned with.
<P>
(Parliament approved the oral amendment)
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth">
Mr President, there is actually a procedural problem with the compromise submitted on Cardiff.
I shall explain this as politely as I can.
The following has happened: We were presented with a compromise with the assurance, which was confirmed by the services at 9.00 p.m., that in the Cardiff compromise the issues of Kosovo and the Middle East would not be included because there were separate resolutions on this.
We have separate resolutions both on Kosovo and on the Middle East.
The services told us that these were incompatible and therefore we signed a compromise in which paragraphs 16 and 17 did not appear.
This was confirmed at 9.00 p.m.
This morning we are now being told that a subsequent submission was made after 9.00 p.m., by whom - if I might be allowed to explain - I do not know, but allegedly on behalf of all the parties who had signed the compromise.
No-one asked us!
Therefore I could not have supported this subsequent submission.
Furthermore, we gave no blank signature for use as an endorsement, as some would have you believe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="President">
This is a genuine point of order and I think we should listen to it politely.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth">
Mr President, the submission deadline was 9.00 p.m.
That is why I am asking how it is at all possible for a submission to be made after 9.00 p.m!
Just imagine if we Greens had done that.
We would have been beaten about the head with the Rules of Procedure or some such thing and been summarily told off!
Hence I would ask you to keep to the procedure and remove paragraphs 16 and 17 from this resolution.
I was not consulted and I am not prepared to give my name to something which in reality is different from that which was first presented to me.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="President">
We cannot withdraw these paragraphs.
As a compromise from the Chair I would offer a separate vote on paragraph 16 and 17 if it would be helpful.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Puerta">
Mr President, the clarity and strength of Mrs Roth's point means that I do not have to give the same explanation.
We have the same problem.
I am not asking for the paragraphs in question to be withdrawn if it is not possible, nor for anyone to be blamed, but we cannot support them.
In any case, we want to vote on them separately.
And you should know that we do not support those paragraphs of the resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="Green">
Mr President, I chaired that conciliation meeting which drew up the compromise text.
Let us be clear, at that meeting, where the groups concerned were represented, we had a discussion about whether these two paragraphs on Kosovo and the Middle East would be acceptable.
As you know, we have two separate resolutions on those issues.
The deadlines for the resolutions that are concerned specifically with Kosovo and the Middle East were concluded before we had the conclusions for the Cardiff Summit.
Both those issues were covered at the Cardiff Summit.
We agreed in the meeting together that there should be a specific reference in one short paragraph to anything new from the Cardiff Conclusions on the Middle East and on Kosovo.
On that basis, the text was signed.
It must be said that I was there, and all the groups that were there agreed.
<P>
It was only later that, I have to say with full respect to the services of this House, they thoroughly confused everything by saying that these two paragraphs could not be included, and they removed them against the will of the political groups.
That caused confusion which allowed some groups to believe that they were not in the final text.
That discussion was held, and there were other Members there who will confirm that.
I regret the confusion and the fact that we got engaged in bureaucratic politics when it was clear there are new issues on Kosovo and the Middle East in the Cardiff Conclusions that should have been addressed, and are rightly addressed in this resolution.
<P>
I hope, therefore, that Members will agree to your proposal to take a separate vote on those two items.
I hope Members will see why they were added and the sense of their being added.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="President">
Other colleagues are now indicating that they wish to speak and this is the sort of issue we could spend the next hour debating.
I would suggest that there has clearly been a misunderstanding.
I do not think there has been bad faith.
As a way of trying to rectify the misunderstanding, we will vote separately on paragraphs 16 and 17.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, since I was the one to negotiate the compromise on behalf of our group, I need to make one or two things clear at this point.
It is correct - and we have since verified this - that Mrs Green, the other MEPs and myself were not present for a while, but rather our colleagues discussed among themselves what might be possible, and that is the way things were actually discussed.
When I then saw the resolution, the services assured me it was an alternative.
Either the paragraphs are included or there is a resolution, that is to say it would mean the resolution being deleted.
In response I only stated verbally - and I am being self-critical here - that I would be signing it there and then, proceeding from the assumption that both these paragraphs would not be included.
That is why I have now personally withdrawn my signature.
This does not mean that the group is withdrawing its signature because we still have a third signature involved.
Given my background, in Germany, I cannot support the wording used here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="President">
Since 99 % of us were not present at that meeting, we cannot judge what happened and it is not our purpose to do so.
There has been a misunderstanding.
Let us accept that and move on.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="de Vries">
Mr President, just on a point of clarification.
I take it that the resolution on Kosovo and the resolution on the Middle East still stand and both will be voted on in all their detail subsequently.
They will not fall as a result of the adoption of these two paragraphs.
I want to be sure of that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="President">
That is exactly right.
They will still be voted upon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Killilea">
Mr President, my point of order is on a different matter.
I missed the first roll-call vote simply because I went to the back of the room and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten took my card out.
She is a very busy woman running around whipping her boys into line.
So I missed the vote but I was present.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="President">
I promise not to tell your constituents you were chasing Mrs Oomen-Ruijten round the room.
<P>
Amendment No. 7 :
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, might we possibly consider the two sentences of Amendment No 7 as separate entities?
<P>
The first is an invitation to the Council, relating to the administrative regulations and the second is an invitation to us, since we are seeking to introduce a different set of rules regarding our allowances.
<P>
I know that my request reverts to a call for a split vote, but I would remind you that Article 125 of the regulations stipulates that when there are two separate provisions in a particular amendment, this normally produces two different amendments.
I therefore think it would be logical if you could conduct two consecutive votes.
<P>
I would add that, apparently, it is customary to accept roll-call votes after time.
You might therefore accept this request for a split vote after time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="President">
You have a point, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
I accept your request for a split vote.
<P>
Amendment No 8 :
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Watson">
Mr President, this is about the Commission's power to investigate a breach of the Treaties.
At Cardiff the Commission was criticized for alleging discrimination against football supporters from outside France in the sale of World Cup tickets.
On Tuesday evening Commissioner Van Miert confirmed to this House that he would pursue his action against a violation of European Union law, and this amendment seeks to support him.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the joint resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Tomlinson">
Mr President, I should like to ask the Commission for its position on the amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Cresson">
Mr President, the Commission is obliged, for legal and institutional reasons, to reject all the amendments relating to the Tomlinson report.
However, as Vice-President Marin stated yesterday, the Commission will invoke the spirit of these amendments in its second modification of the regulations, scheduled for October 1998.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Tomlinson">
Mr President, in view of the fact that the Commission accepts our amendments in theory but rejects them in practice, which is an offence to this House, could I move, under Rule 60(2), that this matter be referred back to committee?
<P>
(Parliament decided to refer the matter back to committee)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Striby">
I am pleased to note that this compromise has incorporated the proposals put forward by the Europe of Nations Group, seeking to convene twelve sittings in the year, reduced to eleven on this occasion because of the elections.
<P>
However, in order to comply fully with the Edinburgh agreements, the draft Amsterdam Treaty and the decisions of the Court of Justice, this draft timetable should not have included the organization of mini-sittings in Brussels.
<P>
In truth, it is quite wrong to make allowance for such additional sittings in advance, since they should only be organized if the Strasbourg agenda was found to be a little top-heavy.
<P>
Moreover, I am furious that these additional mini-sittings are to take place in Brussels, when they should normally be held in Strasbourg.
<P>
This is why I have voted against this draft timetable.
<P>
Cunha report (A4-0219/98)
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Ahlqvist, Andersson, Hulthén, Theorin, Waidelich and Wibe">
This report contains many good points of view, but basically, it expresses a disinclination towards reform of the common agricultural policy.
In the proposal to the report from the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development there is, for example, opposition to abolishing the system of intervention for beef and olive oil.
<P>
It is our opinion that a thorough reform and deregulation of the common agricultural policy will have to take place in 1999.
We shall abstain at the final vote on this report, as the willingness to do this is not made sufficiently clear.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Caudron">
The budget for the agricultural policy is the largest in the European Union.
Consequently, it is quite normal and desirable that the European Parliament should contribute to it with respect to its major guidelines.
I would like to congratulate Mr Cunha for his work on this inordinately sensitive and difficult subject.
<P>
It is not a question of bringing to the fore the negative results following the implementation of the reform in 1992, but rather of establishing a consistent and clear framework regarding European policy guidelines for agriculture, within the context of Agenda 2000.
<P>
At the same time, we have every right to be astonished that certain practical provisions of the Commission have been distanced somewhat from the general intent and objectives defined by the Commission.
Yes, we should do our best to ensure that Community agriculture is competitive; however, we have to give up everything for this single quantitative aspect.
Our agriculture is a creature of diversity, it is also a vital trump card, not only when we are confronted with outside competition, but even more to protect and preserve a balanced environment.
<P>
It seems to me to be important to take account of this latter factor in the future system of Community financing.
In the interest of future generations, we must be able to allow two different types of agriculture to co-exist and it is essential that the Commission should make allowance in its regulations for these two aspects of country life.
<P>
I am of the opinion that some of the wrath directed at the European institution is fed not so much by the allegedly inadequate budget allocations but rather by the unilateral imposition of standards.
Following the same reasoning, if we are to effectively ward off health risks, we have to remember that when a crisis occurs, it is most often the result of an increasingly vicious competitiveness in world markets.
<P>
Everyone wishes that we could define a European model for agriculture.
This would please us enormously.
However, we cannot adopt high principles of a generous nature indefinitely and, as has often been the case, leave it at that.
This may seem a pessimistic view but, to enable Europeans to regain confidence in Europe, we come back to the simple policy of saying what we do and doing what we say.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Cushnahan">
I would like to indicate my total opposition to the proposals in Agenda 2000 relating to the reform of the CAP.
<P>
As currently framed they would be disastrous for Irish agriculture and the towns and villages of rural Ireland.
<P>
It was disappointing that Ireland did not receive an appropriate share out of the additional milk quota despite the commitments that were given to Ireland in 1983.
<P>
Furthermore, the proposed price cuts without full compensation would have a devastating impact on Irish farming in particular and the Irish economy in general.
In the case of beef alone, prices would actually fall below the price of production.
<P>
These proposals must be changed substantially before they would be acceptable.
<P>
Nonetheless I welcome the rapporteur's support for the principles of Community preference, financial solidarity and a single market, and his warnings about price cuts.
I hope his views as endorsed by Parliament will be heeded and reflected in the full version of the Agenda 2000 proposals.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Krarup, Bonde and Sandbæk">
We cannot support the Cunha report, since it paves the way for a continuation of the present common agricultural policy, a policy we strongly disagree with in many areas.
Our vote is based on the following principles:
<P>
Agricultural prices in the EU should and must come closer to prices in the world market.
It is artificial to prop up the prices of a particular category of products in order to safeguard one occupation.
We would prefer to secure farmers' income directly.-Organic farming must be given a far better operating framework than has been the case up until now if it is to have a chance of surviving.-Agricultural production must not end up in storage as surplus produce.
Financial support for cereal production, for example, where cereal ends up being stored as surplus, is an absurdity; this must be brought to an end.
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Souchet">
Our group has tabled 25 of the 58 amendments we are now called to vote on in respect of Mr Cunha's report, which is part of the major debate on the vital question of the future of the CAP.
This report, as presented to us today, following the vote by the Committee on Agriculture, is not particularly notable for its consistency.
<P>
An initial raft of amendments tabled by our group therefore raises yet again the fact that the Commission proposal, in its Agenda 2000 report, is inadmissible, not only because of the unacceptable nature of a price reduction across the board, but also because of the risks of a distorted sense of competition that would follow from a rampant re-nationalization of the CAP, fervently sought by many Member States, and from a suicidal anticipation of the results of future WTO negotiations, which begin in December 1999, at the instigation of the United States and the Cairns Group.
<P>
Moreover, whilst the stated aims of the CAP reform as set out by the Commission do not invite any particular criticism, we are surprised to note that the specific proposals put forward totally contradict the explanatory memorandum.
In truth, this memorandum is governed by budgetary restraints and by a willingness to bow to the initial requirements formulated by our WTO partners, especially the United States.
By accepting this approach, the Commission is committing a serious error of judgement, since negotiations can only take place on the matters remaining to be negotiated, excluding the concessions already made on a unilateral basis, which are regarded as already on board and are therefore no longer included in the negotiating field.
Why does the Commission accept this strategy, the main result of which will be to further weaken Community trade preferences?
<P>
The purpose of a common agricultural policy should be to maintain the European agriculture model, which ensures a territorial balance amongst the various Member States of the Union.
In contrast, the proposals of the Commission seem totally inconsistent.
On the one hand, they reduce the income of farmers, thus forcing them to increase productivity by intensifying or expanding their farming activities and, on the other hand, they put a ceiling on aid, thereby limiting their development.
<P>
The other amendments we have tabled remind us of the fact that agriculture has an economic purpose and it is the linchpin around which the rural world is organized.
We must at all cost brush aside the fads and fantasies of those who envisage a rural world in which agriculture plays only a marginal role.
This is why we need to upgrade products in the production areas themselves, so as to support economic activity in our regions.
A general lowering of agricultural production would bring about a de facto drop in business, both upstream and downstream of the agricultural sector.
It must be possible for us to make business in these sectors cost-effective.
But how can they be sustained if we recommend a general reduction in activity?
<P>
Hence, the Cunha report poses a series of valid questions with regard to the necessary re-legitimization of the CAP.
But we should state, unequivocally, that the CAP is not destined to be watered down into a common agricultural and rural policy (CARP), which some would like to see and which would simply marginalize the economic dimension of our agriculture in favour of a lumber-room policy for the rural areas.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Titley">
I am glad to see that the arguments of the British presidency for reform of the common agricultural policy are echoed in these Commission proposals.
<P>
Whilst I am still concerned at the huge amounts of taxpayers' money going into agricultural funding, I welcome the change from subsidies to keep consumer prices artificially high, towards support for farmers who may face particular difficulties.
They are also to be encouraged into environmental management of our countryside, which is another welcome step.
The new rural policy ideas which accompany this proposal are a step in this Green direction.
Both farmers and consumers will welcome the new emphasis on food quality.
This approach is fully in line with that of my own government which has had to grapple with the BSE problem it inherited and which in recent days has begun to see success in having the beef export ban lifted.
<P>
I trust that the governments of the European Union meeting this week in Cardiff will back the moves by the British presidency to get this reform under way.
<P>
The taxpaying public deserves a better agricultural policy from Europe in the future - one which helps keep consumer prices down and targets any subsidies at those farmers who really need help to stay on the land and manage it for future generations to enjoy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Trizza">
I consider it fundamental to implement the strategy to develop and promote the European agricultural sector according to a model capable of reconciling purely economic interests with the requirements of environmental protection, with the social implications of development and with the importance of safeguarding regional agricultural production.
<P>
We must therefore rule out any possibility of European farm aid being granted on the basis of regional productivity, making sure that the relative weight of the agricultural sector in the local economy represents the only criterion for the allocation of funding.
<P>
In other words, I consider it important that the primary sector should benefit from European support as part of the effort to safeguard regional planning and the rural world, rejecting ideas, that are frequent, of abandoning farming in numerous regions.
<P>
The policy of reducing prices with a view to stimulating competitiveness and expanding external outlets in addition to increasing the involvement of European agriculture in the development of the world market must be offset by an increase in direct aid in order to safeguard producers' income.
<P>
The expected growth in world demand for agri-food products, if approached in the right way, could actually mean for European regions that are primarily agricultural - mainly concentrated in the South - an increase in their power to control the internal and external market, with considerable effects on employment.
<P>
In this respect, I consider it fundamental that we develop a more decentralized model that enables Member States and, when necessary, the local authorities, to solve most of their problems independently, in the light of the specific local features that distinguish the European agricultural economy.
This granting of more freedom to the Member States and their local government agencies should be developed in parallel with a strengthening of the respective mechanisms of control.
<P>
The future of European farmers and the safeguarding of their interests will depend on the will of those at the top to develop an agriculture that takes account of differences in production, environment and landscape and that ensures the continuation of living and active rural communities able to generate sustainable employment compatible with their area's needs.
<P>
Schroedter report (A4-0210/98)
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Cushnahan">
Unfortunately the Berend amendment to the Cañete report attempted to establish a link between EMU participation and eligibility under the Cohesion Fund.
The vote on this amendment was surrounded by a fair amount of confusion in part created by the Chair.
As a result the impression was created quite wrongly that I along with others supported this linkage.
<P>
I am therefore glad to have the opportunity to correct this false impression.
I do not believe any country should be denied Cohesion funding simply because it was successful in meeting EMU criteria.
This would be unjust and unfair.
For these reasons I have supported Amendment Nos 5, 6, 14 and 25.
I should also make it clear that in supporting these amendments I am voting for the original Spanish-language amendments which speak of GNP.
The English language text mistranslates this to GDP.
It is the reference to GNP which is the correct one.
<P>
Further, the reference year or years that are used to assess the criteria are critically important.
I believe that an average over a number of years rather than the figure for a single year would be more appropriate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Darras">
The report by Mrs Schroedter affords us a vision of the future concerning the challenges the European Union faces as we approach the end of the century.
It is for this reason that I approve of the rapporteur's implicit wish to incorporate the objectives of the Treaty in the Structural Funds reform (on-going development, jobs, support for SMEs, innovation, the use of new technologies, welfare protection, equal opportunities and the environment).
The Structural Funds must remain a European capital gain for the Member States.
<P>
What I cannot accept however, is her idea of splitting Objective 2 into two sub-categories (industrial/urban regions, rural/fishing regions).
At this stage in the procedure, I am of the opinion that this type of motion should be incorporated in the report on the framework regulation for reform of the funds which our group has been appointed to prepare.
<P>
As regards the rest, I support our rapporteur and the compromise amendments that secured a unanimous vote to adopt the report from the Committee on Regional Policy and I would remind you that Parliament has already expressed its opinion on economic and social cohesion within the context of Agenda 2000 when adopting Mrs Izquierdo's report.
<P>
We are therefore voting in favour of this report (with the provisos mentioned above) and are now awaiting the discussion on the framework regulations before proceeding further.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Decourrière">
I approve the report submitted by Mrs Schroedter which allows us to state our position regarding the major principles underlying the reform of the Structural Funds.
<P>
I fully agree with the report's conclusions on the continuation of priority aid to regions covered by Objective 1, and the splitting of Objective 2 into an urban/industrial and rural/fishing category; the extension of the staging period envisaged for Objectives 1 and 2, Objective 5b and, finally, the reservations expressed regarding the viability of the 10 % reservation system.
<P>
I hope that the Council and the Commission will have taken note of our wish, along with the per capita GDP factor, to make significant allowance for the unemployment level.
<P>
Finally, I am pleased to note that the European Parliament continues to remind us, both during this legislative session and again in the report, of the importance of the role of the regions in generating, managing and implementing the Structural Funds.
As members of the European Parliament, we should also seek to make a more active contribution to the deployment of the Structural Funds in our region (for example, through mandatory participation in the monitoring committees and in future management committees of the members of the European Parliament).
I have voted in favour of the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Delcroix">
The Structural Funds, planned for the period 2000-2006, will be organized around three objectives.
The first two objectives are quite different from the third.
They will concentrate their actions on less-privileged areas where economic and social development is appreciably below the average for other areas of Europe, either because they are disadvantaged, or because they require redevelopment.
<P>
These regions are either behind in development terms, or in industrial decline, or they may even be rural or urban areas faced with severe problems.
Large-scale financial aid will help these regions offset the vicious effects of an open market that is becoming increasingly deregulated.
The size of those regions should be sufficiently small for the effect to be visible.
<P>
Objective 3 is of an entirely different nature.
This no longer requires us to seek specific results, but rather attempts to stimulate a combined movement in society through the development of human resources, investing in manpower rather than infrastructures.
Clearly, Objective 3 supports the actions decided at the summits in Luxembourg and Cardiff (national plans).
<P>
The development of human resources must play a central role in the European and national strategies to promote jobs.
We might rejoice at the juxtaposition of a general, across-the-board objective with vertical objectives which are centred on particular areas, almost as if they were sticking plasters.
However, we should be asking whether we have the means available to achieve such an ambitious goal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Ephremidis">
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Gallagher">
Negotiations between national governments and the European Commission are under way with regard to the breakdown of the next round of EU Structural Funds for the period 2000-2006.
<P>
As a Member of the European Parliament for the constituency of Connacht/Ulster I would like to reiterate my position here today that the border counties in Ireland and the west of Ireland must be accorded Objective 1 status for the purposes of guaranteeing that the maximum amount of EU Structural Funds is directed into these respective regions for the period post1999.
<P>
Ireland as a country will lose its Objective 1 status shortly but this should not mean that the border county region and the west of Ireland should lose such status.
In fact I would go further and say that it would be wholly inequitable if the east coast of Ireland were to be put into the same bracket of classification as the border county region and the west of Ireland for the next allocation of EU monies.
<P>
Figures published from the Central Statistics Office have reinforced the arguments that I am making today as these figures clearly demonstrate that the average standard of living in the border county region and the west of Ireland is below 75 % of the EU average.
<P>
Objective 1 status entitles regions to the maximum amount of EU regional, social, agricultural and fisheries funds and it plays a very constructive and positive role in redressing regional imbalances and ensures that economic performance increases within regions in the EU which are lagging behind the rest of Europe in terms of their standards of living.
<P>
It is a well-known fact that regions within countries secured Objective 1 status for the period 1994-1999 even though their actual Member States were not accorded similar status.
For example, East Germany, Merseyside, the Highlands of Scotland and the Flevolands outside Amsterdam were all categorized as Objective 1 regions even though Germany, England, Scotland and the Netherlands were given a different classification for the purposes of allocating Structural Funds during this time.
There is nothing to stop the border county region and the west of Ireland being accorded Objective 1 status post-1999 and the east coast of Ireland being given a different categorization.
<P>
Tough decisions will have to be taken by the Irish Government and the European Commission on this issue but all the people of the border county region and the west of Ireland are looking for is fair play and equality of access.
If the EU is serious about promoting the principle of economic and social cohesion within the EU then the border county region and the west of Ireland will be given Objective 1 status post-1999.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Gillis">
I welcome the main lines of the Schroedter report on economic and social cohesion in the context of the Agenda 2000 proposals.
<P>
The Structural Funds have been one of the success stories of the European Union.
My own country has benefited substantially from structural fund spending but, of course, we have a huge need to further develop our basic infrastructures such as roads, rail and telecommunications networks.
<P>
I very much welcome the Commissioner's proposal to renew the Cohesion Fund for the four countries - Spain, Portugal, Greece and Ireland - that currently benefit from this facility.
It has been suggested that countries participating in the single currency should not benefit from the Cohesion Fund.
I take the opposite view.
Countries such as my own need every possible help and encouragement to continue their development and convergence economically with the more prosperous Member States.
The continuation of the Cohesion Fund is essential to Ireland and the other cohesion countries in the pursuit of this aim.
<P>
Finally, I hope the Commission will come forward soon with its detailed proposals on the revision of the Structural Funds.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Girão Pereira">
The Schroedter report, which we support, is a first step towards meeting the challenges Europe will be facing in the next ten years, chief among which are those of economic and social cohesion and enlargement.
<P>
These are two fundamental objectives for the European Union, which cannot be mutually contradictory or prejudicial.
Enlargement will bring in nations which are historically European and will strengthen the European Union's position in the world; but failure to achieve economic and social cohesion may cause cracks that will jeopardize the whole process of European construction.
Structural Funds for cohesion countries are not merely a matter of philanthropy, but are also in the interests of the richer countries.
<P>
In Portugal, according to some studies, approximately 60 % of Structural Funds return to the richer countries of Europe in the form of services, technology and equipment.
The unrestricted opening-up of the Portuguese market to the single market has resulted in a deficit in Portugal's balance of trade with Europe that outweighs the total amount Portugal receives.
<P>
Some countries have recently expressed the intention of not granting payments out of the Cohesion Fund to countries that have joined the euro.
In our opinion it would be unfair if Objective 1 countries which meet the convergence criteria can be penalized for the enormous effort they have made.
<P>
It is important to remember that those countries are a long way from achieving the real thing - genuine convergence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Krarup, Bonde and Sandbæk">
We have abstained from voting on the report on Economic and Social Cohesion pursuant to Agenda 2000.
It is our definite opinion that under-developed regions throughout Europe should be supported in their efforts to develop as they see fit.
Why should political riders such as greater integration and safeguarding European added value be prerequisites to being considered for financial support?
We believe support should be given to needy regions, but that it should be given without political undertones and as a block subsidy, where the actual regions have the say.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Lindqvist">
A reform of the Structural Funds is essential.
Reducing the objectives from seven to three is a good thing, as is the reduction of Union initiatives.
Incorporating Objective 6 in Objective 1 and Objective 5b in 2 results in gross obscurity in respect of which rules are to apply to those areas in future.
This will have to be accurately defined without delay.
The phasing out of assistance to parts of these regions is worrying and unclear.
Certain urban areas, suburbs in particular, are in need of assistance.
This must not, however, be at the expense of rural areas.
Assistance to applicant countries is important.
Reform of support to present Member States must not entail a lesser effort on behalf of the applicant countries in central and eastern Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Nicholson">
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Novo">
We think it inconsistent, to say the least, to continue to discuss economic and social cohesion, whether for a 15-nation European Union or for an enlarged Union, without first keeping in mind the need to ensure that the Community budget is provided with the necessary and sufficient funds to satisfy in full the requirements of real convergence, that is to say that it should make a genuine contribution to economic and social cohesion.
<P>
We therefore consider it of fundamental importance that some alternatives should be presented that would give the report on the chapter on economic and social cohesion in Agenda 2000 the consistency required by some of its proposals in favour of cohesion, which, without the necessary clarification and financial framework, are at risk of becoming mere figures of speech.
<P>
Hence the amendment reaffirming the position of the European Union on the need to consolidate the EU's efforts to promote means of cohesion by maintaining (as a minimum), until enlargement, the quotas that should be attained by category 2 of the financial forecasts in 1999 (0.46 % of GDP), an amendment which was rejected, especially by Members of the European Socialist and People's Parties.
<P>
Hence, also, the amendment designed to require the EP to subscribe to the Commission's position for the Cohesion Fund after 1999 as set out in Agenda 2000 (perhaps one of the few positive aspects of that document). That amendment was also rejected by most members of the same political groups and supposedly replaced by wording which really says nothing new or specific about keeping that Fund available for countries that have joined the euro and have a GDP below 90 % of the Community average.
That wording insists on rules that are even more timid than the text of Agenda 2000; once again it imposes rules that postpone decision-making and prevent discussion and clarification (by the complete subordination of the EP to the will of the present and future German Parliament); it imposes rules which, objectively speaking, are only in the interests of those who do not want to renew the Cohesion Fund in its present form but, on the contrary, are trying to relegate economic and social cohesion to a secondary role, totally subordinate to the domination of financial interests.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Novo Belenguer">
The future of economic and social cohesion between the regions and the countries of the European Union may depend on the future we want to provide for the Cohesion Fund.
<P>
We must remember that the real criterion which determines whether or not a region is eligible to benefit from the Cohesion Fund is in fact only that clearly stated in the Treaty itself, in its protocol on economic and social cohesion. To be precise, the region must have a gross national product per capita of less than 90 % of the Community average, as specified in the amendment I have tabled.
<P>
Therefore, like the European Commission, we are in favour of maintaining the Cohesion Fund for those countries which form part of Economic and Monetary Union and which fulfill the requirements demanded in this respect by the Treaty.
<P>
Doing away with the Cohesion Fund from the year 2000 for those countries which form part of the euro group would only serve to harm, cancel or invalidate all the efforts and progress which have been made over the years, for the sake of a convergence which is not only nominal but real, thus endangering the Stability and Growth Pact.
<P>
I believe that these reasons are more than sufficient for us to continue to respect solidarity and the spirit contained in the Treaty and to support the maintenance of a Cohesion Fund which provides nothing more than a common advantage for everyone, and hence an advantage for the entire European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="des Places">
The report by Mrs Schroedter is not without serious shortcomings.
So, on occasion, it lapses into a few unfortunate platitudes on the nature and democratic quality of the Structural Funds and even on the concern to encourage the participation of social partners, especially associations promoting equality between the sexes.
<P>
In addition, the rapporteur exaggerates the "cornerstone' contribution of the structural policy in terms of combatting unemployment.
<P>
Moreover, Mrs Schroedter is unfortunately one of those parliamentarians who consider the financial proposals of Agenda 2000 unrealistic and would like to go beyond the stated figures of 1.27 % and 0.46 % of GNP.
<P>
This, obviously, does not appear in black and white in the report but it does permeate the philosophy of a number of paragraphs.
Mrs Schroedter betrays an invidious penchant for wishing to please everybody: the countryside, regions dependent on fishing, but also towns, States benefitting from the Cohesion Funds, outlying regions, states applying for accession, etc.
<P>
The reality of all this might well prove to be financially painful.
<P>
Our group would like the Community to avoid the wrongful allocation of public funds and to focus its budgetary efforts on those areas that are governed by a common policy: agriculture and fisheries.
<P>
Whilst Mrs Schroedter rightly stresses the faults inherent in the economic and social cohesion policy, emphasizing the scale of the disparities that remain, modesty forbids her to mention the pernicious effects that the single currency will surely have on the balance between regions.
<P>
However, the Europe of Nations Group of independents can only rejoice to see the rapporteur openly adopting such a defensive posture on behalf of the rural and fisheries-dependent areas.
We fear that these may suffer greatly from the reform advocated by Agenda 2000.
Like our group, Mrs Schroedter proposes that the "new Objective 2 should be split into two subcategories - industrial/urban and rural/fishing - with specific eligibility criteria, individual objectives and financial quotas, in order to give the rural areas a real boost...'
<P>
So, although the report has serious shortcomings, our group has chosen to take advantage of the opportunity to further the adoption of so favourable a text for the countryside and fisheries-dependent regions and, therefore, French interests as a whole.
This is why we have accepted Mrs Schroedter's report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Porto">
I support the Schroedter report, in the form in which it was issued by the Regional Policy Committee, because it aims to maintain a framework of European policies that ensure economic and social cohesion between the various regions and Member States.
<P>
The abolition of economic frontiers and the creation of Economic and Monetary Union are incompatible with the preservation of the present inequalities in development, and therefore the inclusion of new political objectives, such as enlargement, cannot be achieved at the cost of reducing our structural policies, as in fact is partially proposed in the Commission's text on Agenda 2000.
<P>
Thus I have to express my reservations and concern at the attempts to reduce the proportion of the budget relating to Structural Funds in the context of the present 15-nation European Union and in the light of the 'innovations' within the scope of the new draft Regulations, the result of which may be to make the Community Support Frameworks more difficult to implement in full.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Seppänen, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We have in the end voted against the Schroedter report.
We do not consider the Commission's judgements on how to reform assistance from the Structural Fund and the Cohesion Fund sufficiently realistic to cope with expansion eastwards.
We regard, for instance, the Commission's prognosis of an anticipated annual increase of approximately 2.5 per cent, as too optimistic.
The risk of Member States being forced to increase their budget expenditure is obvious.
This contrast emerged clearly during the Summit in Cardiff, too.
<P>
The Edinburgh Treaty on the Cohesion Fund was a short term measure to help certain countries manage the EMU convergence criteria.
With these criteria now fulfilled, the assistance should be stopped.
The European Union ought to have realized that present assistance from the Structural Fund alongside EMU and the common agricultural policy is one of the real obstacles for a successful expansion eastwards.
The solution rests primarily in transferring decisions on regional and structural policies to the national level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Titley">
I back the aims of the Commission in their plans for regional funding after the EU takes in new member countries from the East.
Better targeting towards the poorest regions, cuts in red tape faced by local authorities in applying for European money and taking more decisions at national and regional level are all welcome reforms.
<P>
However, I will be looking at this issue closely in the months ahead to ensure that British regions such as my own in the North West of England receive their fair share of future EU funding.
The way we measure which areas deserve funds needs to be fair to all - whilst I welcome the fall in unemployment at home, it is still true that many people could be helped by EU projects.
Why not consider the relative wealth per inhabitant in a region for example?
Regions as such are neither wealthy nor poor - individual people and local areas are and people's needs should be the basis for funding.
<P>
So I welcome the much needed reform of EU regional funding but like the people of my home region I will be watching to ensure that we get a fair deal from Europe in future.
<P>
Cardiff European Council
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Ahlqvist, Theorin and Wibe">
In paragraph 3 the intention is expressed that the Union be brought closer to its citizens.
We agree entirely with this.
According to the resolution, however, this rapprochement is to be achieved by 'strengthening integration' on foreign and security policy and on legal and internal issues.
This is, if we may say so, quite absurd.
It is precisely the excessive integration, the constant transfer of power from Member States to the Union that is the basic reason for the growing distance from the people of the Union.
This and the excessive benefits granted to parliamentarians and officials are the main reasons.
Increased integration will increase the distance from the people, not decrease it.
<P>
We prefer to greet Mr Tony Blair's and Mr Göran Persson's declaration against a federal Europe with satisfaction and Mr Helmut Kohl's and Mr Jacques Chirac's move for the need to return political issues to the level of Member States.
<P>
There is nothing in the proposal on a compromise resolution that brings up the MEPs' salaries and allowances, a question which has been dealt with by the media in several Member States.
There is only one good solution to the question of MEPs' salaries and allowances: transfer these questions in their entirety to be decided by Member States, so that each country can give salaries and allowances according to the regulations and customs in each respective country.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Berthu">
The joint Franco-German letter addressed to the President of the European Council, on the eve of the summit in Cardiff, which was intended to raise the problem of subsidiarity in view of an imminent reform of the European institutions, is often presented by the federalists as a side-effect of the electoral rhetoric of Chancellor Kohl.
If this were the case, we would be even more anxious since, regardless of these circumstances, this document reveals an extreme timidity, which does not augur well in terms of the ability of the parties involved to resolve the real problems that exist in Europe: even when Jacques Chirac and Helmut Kohl seek to attack the European Commission, they do not succeed since they are themselves captive to the grand designs of the federalists.
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What, according to this letter, does subsidiarity mean?
To summarize, it is an organizational principle giving Europe the responsibility for the big decisions and individual nations the responsibility for small decisions.
This principle would sidestep the risk of a "centrally-organized' Europe and allow us to "respect the spirit of local, regional or national needs in decisionmaking' .
The AFP communique of 15 June, reporting on the resolutions of the French delegation to Cardiff, sums up the situation neatly by revealing that subsidiarity is a decentralizing philosophy.
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This is not our position.
We certainly do not want a centralized super-state in Europe, but it would be even better if we did not have a super-state at all.
Similarly, we appreciate the fact that the European institutions are considerate enough, when they make decisions, to allow for our "local, regional or national needs' , but we would be even more delighted if we could make our own decisions, either directly or in our national representative bodies.
To recap, we acknowledge the desire of Heads of State and government to allow us to make the small decisions, but we would also like to make the big ones.
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In other words, subsidiarity in our view is not a simple decentralizing process, shedding some powers in favour of Brussels, whilst according it legitimacy for the most part.
On the contrary, it is a recognition of the fact that the main legitimacy lies in the nation state, since it is the most active circle of representative democracy and closest to the citizen.
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So it is the nation that might delegate powers to Brussels and monitor their execution.
In our view, it is certainly not Brussels that "decentralizes' powers for the benefit of individual nation states.
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Any attempt to have fundamental decisions made at the remotest point, that is, Brussels, actually means removing powers from a near and living democracy in order to transfer them to an artificial, distant democracy.
This is what our Heads of State and government seek to dress up in the pretty name of subsidiarity with the clear intention of inducing us to accept the manoeuvre more easily.
In reality, it is an outrageous attack on democracy.
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<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Blokland">
One thing is clear, and that is that the Cardiff Summit was a Summit without any news.
The Summit came too late because the most important subject, EMU, had been discussed in May.
The Summit was held too early also, because institutional issues are still to be decided on in a future mini-Summit.
Agreements relating to the division of the burden between the Member States must wait until elections have been held in Germany, as there would otherwise be no guarantee that Germany would comply with the agreements.
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The letter from Chancellor Kohl and President Chirac shows that the hard core of Europe wants to mark time: no further steps on the way to a federal Europe.
In addition, the powers of the European Commission must be curbed in order to close the gap between the citizens and the EU.
We are pleased that the further development of Europe will be discussed in October.
But we remain puzzled over the fact that subjects which could not be settled in the Treaty of Amsterdam are again on the agenda, although this Treaty is still to be ratified in many countries.
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Finally a comment on the British Presidency.
The above developments indicate that the efforts by Prime Minister Blair at the start of his Presidency, i.e. to give Europe back to the people, have failed.
Despite these efforts, Europe is still just as far removed from the citizens of Europe as ever.
Nevertheless, we have voted for the joint resolution, as we had no sufficient reason to vote against the little it contained.
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<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Caudron">
I do not wish to conceal, behind lengthy oratorical and diplomatic flights of fancy, my disappointment in this meeting of the Council which I found devoid of interest for the most part.
What happened to the debates that were announced?
Let us face it, not a lot.
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So, the question of unemployment has virtually disappeared, body and soul, and, because the issue was not debated, our leaders failed to reach agreement on all but what had been agreed before.
We are quite right to expect more of these people who are responsible for sketching the contours of Europe in the twenty-first century.
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Unfortunately, we have been treated to nothing but a list of common positions on the euro, the Asian crisis and the fact that Europe must stand as a model in the eyes of the world.
In short, nothing new and, without wishing to point the finger at anyone, I find this most regrettable.
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Happily, there is reason for hope in the proposed institutional reform.
But we should remain on guard since - and let me spell this out - what is proposed cannot be narrowed down simply to the amount of the contributions paid by the Member States.
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Sadly, I have to say that the declarations of some do not give the partisans, such as myself, cause for optimism regarding a strong political Europe capable of speaking for itself.
We might also question the risks inherent in enlargement under existing conditions and the first steps forward which have been made in this direction.
Nobody wants to see future enlargement and its institutional corollary built on shaky compromises which might destabilize the Economic and Monetary Union to a dangerous degree.
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The only moment of emotion came with the announcement by Nelson Mandela concerning his imminent retirement from politics.
This living symbol of the fight for the freedom and the rights of man, who has shaped his own destiny and that of an entire people, cannot be overlooked either by the African continent or by Europe.
Despite the burden of the years, he still inspires hope for reconciliation between peoples, hope for tolerance and humanity.
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Since I am unable to thank our Heads of State and government, allow me therefore, as the Cardiff summit ends, to say thank you, Mr Mandela.
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<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Cushnahan">
In common with all presidencies, the UK presidency has had its successes and its failures.
However, I do not intend to list either.
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For me the most important achievement is the fact that the UK is now back at the heart of Europe playing a positive role in its construction.
The UK needs the European Union and the European Union needs the UK.
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Furthermore, it is vitally important for Anglo-Irish relations that both Ireland and the UK pursue common European objectives.
Many of us had hoped that Europe would provide the framework for reconciling both parts of Ireland.
The current British opt-out of the single currency causes philosophical, political and economic problems for relationships between both parts of Ireland and between the UK and Ireland.
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I trust and hope that the UK Government will pursue its positive European stance and that this problem, too, will be resolved sooner rather than later.
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Finally, I would also like to record my support for Amendment No 7 tabled by the ELDR.
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<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Holm">
Large parts of this adopted resolution are unacceptable to me.
I have, therefore, voted against it in the final vote.
The reason for this is that I do not regard its direction to be the right one.
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The fine words pronounced by several EU leaders at the Cardiff meeting about the EU getting closer to the people have not led to any concrete proposals from the summit, rather the opposite.
If these words are meant seriously, the EU must stop the construction of the 'United States of Europe', and instead work towards restoring power to the national parliaments, so that the EU only deals with clear-cut cross-border questions.
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It is my view that the European Parliament with its democratically elected parliamentarians ought to have adopted these fine words from the EU leaders in their Resolution.
As the Resolution now stands, it points in the opposite direction by once again, among other things, demanding continued harmonisation and coordination of economic policy, defence and security policy and in legal and internal matters.
These are not demands likely to bring the EU closer to the people.
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I have voted against the Amendment on a common statute for Members of the European Parliament.
In parts it might possibly be justified, but at the same time, one of the major driving forces in favour of a common statute is that Members be given a uniform salary, which, to my mind, is not such a good idea, particularly as the corridor gossip is of a salary of up to SEK 100.000 per month.
This proposal amounts to an insult.
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<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Lukas">
The FPÖ is voting against paragraph 1 since rapid enlargement of the Union does not seem expedient given the current state of preparation.
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Hence we are also against paragraph 2 and are therefore abstaining in paragraphs 2 to 4, where there is block voting, since we welcome paragraphs 3 and 4 in principle.
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<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Macartney">
As regards Amendment No 7 (new paragraph 19a), this amendment puts forward the right idea, the essential idea of ending discrimination on the basis of nationality.
That is contained in the first part of the amendment.
I support it fully.
For instance, UK MEPs, unlike those from most other Member States, are not eligible for free travel to, from and within their constituencies.
That is only one example of the anomalies.
The wording of the amendment is, however, deficient in implying that, irrespective of progress on a common statute to remove discrimination, the European Parliament should undertake certain specific measures.
This would not solve the problem of discrimination on the basis of nationality.
Finding an overall solution should be the main task to be undertaken by Parliament and the Council together.
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<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Seppänen, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We have voted in favour of the Liberals' Amendment No 7, as it demands that MEPs' allowances be tightened and only cover actual costs.
We would, however, like to emphasize that we firmly oppose the second part of the Amendment on establishing a common statute for parliamentarians.
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<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Souchet">
If I took the liberty earlier of railing against the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, in the Hemicycle, this is because it is wholly unacceptable that we should hear the President-in-Office of the Council of the European Union claim that a positive decision had been made regarding the removal from our fishermen of one of the tools of their trade, namely the driftnet, whose development the European Community encouraged just a few years ago.
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Is it not particularly scandalous to see such an irresponsible and arbitrary measure, which is plunging entire seaboard populations into a state of despair, being hailed by the presidency as a great event?
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Here to survey the achievements of his six-monthly presidency of the Union for the benefit of the members of the European Parliament, Mr Blair did not fail to point out, amongst the other great deeds of the British presidency in respect of the environment, the ban on driftnets.
Will he therefore turn a blind eye to all the devastating economic and social consequences that such a decision will have on a vast number of maritime, coastal and island regions in Europe?
How can he glory in being the originator of such a disastrous decision?
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But in fact, in the European system as it exists today, the realities are basically of little moment: the prime driving force of this European decision is, once again, purely ideological.
The British government, doubtless believing it was pulling off a "big deal' in media and ecological terms, confined itself to claiming the credit for the half-baked obsessions of the Commission and the conspiratorial strategies of manipulative and highly-organized pseudo-environmental lobbies.
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I say this firmly to the British Prime Minister: your presidency will forever be stained by a black mark.
By changing camp, by reversing the traditional British position, by betraying your own fishermen and those of other Member States, bar one, by aligning yourself as an accomplice in a monopolistic thrust, by flouting the principles of the common fisheries policy, by ridiculing the principle of fair play, you have committed a crime and assumed a historic responsibility.
By placing yourself in the camp of injustice and discrimination, by deriding the scientific foundations of the common fisheries policy, you have given our sea-going populations the image of a distant and cavalier European Union, one that is indifferent and contemptuous.
Believe me, this is something they will not forget.
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Of course, the problem of driftnets is not central in terms of the future of Europe.
But the manner in which it has been dealt with reveals the particular way in which the construction of Europe is conceived: a way that our fellow citizens wholly reject, because it is building a Europe that is hostile to Europeans.
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<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Thyssen">
I have voted with conviction for Amendment No 7. I am pleased to conclude that a majority in Parliament supports it.
In this way, we make it plain that it is not necessary to wait for the long-awaited joint charter of all Members of Parliament in order to make the necessary changes and improvements in the system of reimbursement of expenses.
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All improvements which can be implemented now must be made.
This includes the avoidance of all forms of improper use of reimbursements.
Improper use is close to abuse and this should be prevented with all means available.
I trust that the European Parliament will swiftly deal with this.
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Pompidou report (A4-0225/98)
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Blokland">
The motion for this directive envisages the possibility of a free trade in devices for in vitro diagnostics, within the Member States of the European Union.
This impinges on the issue of public health.
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At the instigation of Mr Pompidou, the rapporteur, the European Parliament has therefore insisted on greater protection of the public health.
The medical risks were rightly considered.
However, I was - and I am again - disappointed with the scant attention paid to the ethical aspects associated with the in vitro diagnostic technique.
This applies firstly to those devices which are made of products produced from tissues or cells of human origin, and secondly to prenatal diagnostics.
The consequences of disregarding the ethical aspects associated with the use of these medical devices and techniques are incalculable.
Certainly when you consider that the interests of commercialization prevail over the interests of the protection of the public health in both a physical and a mental sense.
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I have voted against Amendment No 2 for the above reasons.
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<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Hautala">
It is important that ethical guidelines are drafted on the use of clinical testing equipment which fundamentally seek to protect the tested person's privacy and ensure that the tests do not lead to discrimination based on inherited traits.
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The approved amendment to point 6 is a political signal to the Commission to consider separate legislation to guarantee that the above mentioned points are covered.
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Camisón Asensio report (A4-0221/98)
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="Caudron">
I am pleased to note the speed at which our European institutions have reacted to a dossier of "high strategic value' .
Similarly, I would like to commend the accomplishments of my colleague, Camisón Asensio.
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The GSM network has made unprecedented headway, due to the early recognition of these new methods of communication.
It is therefore consistent and desirable that the Union adopt common standards and rules as of now.
From this point forward, we might reasonably hope that the future UMTS network will be a success.
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Over and above the significant technological support required, it is reasonable to expect that this House will get to grips with the problems of coverage.
Needless to say, I support the amendments which recognize not only the lesser-populated regions but also the total compatibility between the GSM and the UMTS systems.
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Mobile telephony has taken off in the most spectacular way.
Europe is not lagging behind.
However, I believe we still have a long way to go in improving our position in the field of new information technologies, especially with regard to high-speed Internet connections.
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Finally, this text emphasizes the fact that, since the will exists, we can now make rapid progress on the documentation front.
It would be ideal if we could "mobilize' ourselves in the same way on other subjects.
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Today we have reason to feel optimistic.
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<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Cushnahan">
The success of the GSM mobile phone system over the past few years can be partially attributed to the rapid response of Europe in implementing an early policy of standardization.
By acting in a similar fashion with the third generation of mobile phones, the promotion of common rules and standards can once again ensure a speedy deployment of networks and services with the new UMTS system.
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While the UMTS system will not be readily available until the beginning of the next century, prior planning and a Europewide coordination of policies such as licensing procedures can help smooth the transition from the GSM system to this new technology.
In addition to providing the same services as the GSM system, UMTS will offer its users fast Internet access along with other multimedia services.
These kinds of services are currently not available in a mobile format.
However, the rapid development of communication and information technologies in the latter part of this century has contributed to a transformation in the technological needs of individuals within Europe and the rest of the world.
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A fast, efficient and easily accessible mobile network offering services like a reliable Internet connection can help meet the needs of individuals, businesses and other organizations in the coming years.
By acting early and creating a common framework throughout Europe for the eventual utilization of the UMTS system, we can help keep Europe at the forefront of technological advancement into the 21st century.
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<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Lindqvist">
The Commission's proposal and report are in the main good.
Development on the telecommunication front is incredibly fast.
Regulations, therefore, run the risk of fast becoming too old and out-of-date.
EU regulations ought to be kept to a minimum.
The EU should also take the initiative of a global dialogue with other markets to avoid different systems being developed on other continents.
The new system, UMTS, must be given better coverage in rural areas.
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Licences should be allocated in a more serious manner than via 'auctions to the highest bidder'.
We need to satisfy the demands of society and to meet the needs for coverage in rural and ultra-peripheral areas.
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Watson report (A4-0217/98)
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="Cushnahan">
I would like to support the conclusions of the rapporteur.
Double taxation is unjust and unfair.
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I would also hope that in future the Commission would also address the problem of the significant difference in the price of cars throughout the different Member States.
I do appreciate that an annual report is available highlighting this problem and that action has been taken against certain manufacturers for price fixing.
However, more needs to be done.
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If there is a genuine single market the EU consumers should play exactly the same price for the same car (including taxes) irrespective of which country they live in.
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<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted against the Watson report.
The report does nothing to change the central aspects of the Commission's proposal, which in our opinion is riddled with problems.
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We oppose the Commission's proposal for the following reasons:
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The Commission's proposal implies, inter alia, that a citizen of one Member State who resides in another Member State for more than six months may bring a vehicle home without having to pay a registration fee in the home country if he or she has paid the registration fee required for the vehicle in the country in which it was acquired.
The proposal would put a great deal of pressure on EU countries that have a registration fee.
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Further, the proposal fails to set a concrete figure for the number of vehicles an individual is permitted to bring in.
Thus, widespread speculation could be envisaged in bringing in vehicles for re-sale from countries that do not have a registration fee to countries that do have a registration fee.
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The proposal would undermine excise policy in the eleven countries that currently have vehicle registration fees and could open the floodgates to widespread abuse.
The Commission's proposal amounts to interference in national fiscal sovereignty.
The amendments tabled in the Watson report do nothing to change this.
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<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Thors">
Parliament voted today on a proposed Directive on governing the tax treatment of private motor vehicles moved permanently to another Member State in connection with a transfer of residence or used temporarily in a Member State other than that in which they are registered.
This proposal is of particular significance for Finland and Denmark, two countries with high charges before cars are allowed to be brought into use.
On many points the proposal will serve to clarify the rules, although it does not yet solve all the problems.
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Finland forces returnees to pay unreasonable import duties on vehicles when owners return to resettle in their home country.
That is why the Commission has submitted an official complaint to Finland for offending against Article 95 in the Basic Treaty, which ultimately can lead to Finland being brought before the European Court of Justice.
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There is, unfortunately, a risk that Finland will put a stop to this good proposal - possibly together with Denmark.
The question now is which role does Finland want to have?
Do they want to stop a proposal which would be of great practical use to many citizens of Europe, particularly as it would contain ideas on how to introduce a more sensible vehicle taxation system in Finland, which would take into consideration environmental aspects and might also promote traffic safety?
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<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Titley">
Having been appalled by cases of double taxation of cars encountered by my own constituents driving in other EU member countries, I am glad to add my support to this report today.
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It is unacceptable in the single European market that people are free to move country in search of work but that often they are charged extra taxes if they want to take their car with them!
I know that people have in the past been encouraged to get on their bike and look for work, but if you are going to work in another country you should be able to drive your own motor vehicle there without being taxed a second time.
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It is encouraging to see that the Commission proposal for an end to double taxation of cars for people who move around the EU has resulted from a number of petitions to this European Parliament.
This is evidence that the people's elected representatives can have a real influence on problems facing people in their everyday lives.
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(The sitting was suspended at 1.27 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
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<CHAPTER ID=4>
Topical and urgent debate
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
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<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
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B4-0604/98 by Mr Bertens and others, on behalf of the ELDR group, on the nuclear tests in India and Pakistan; -B4-0619/98 by Mr Swoboda and others, on behalf of the PSE group, on the nuclear tests in India and Pakistan; -B4-0638/98 by Ms McKenna and others, on behalf of the V group, on the nuclear tests in India and Pakistan; -B4-0647/98 by Mr Hory, on behalf of the ARE group, on the nuclear tests in India and Pakistan; -B4-0657/98 by Mr Oostlander and others, on behalf of the PPE group, on the nuclear tests in the Indian sub-continent; -B4-0663/98 by Mr Wurtz and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL group, on the nuclear tests in India and Pakistan.
<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, I assume the Commissioner's staff will pass on my message.
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The Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party supports the broad condemnation in this Parliament of the nuclear tests by India and Pakistan.
So much is clear.
Both countries are experiencing a decline in regional stability. This does neither of them any good.
The costs to their national budgets, which are meagre anyway, are enormous.
India has unintentionally placed Kashmir on the international agenda again and the international climate for disarmament has taken a serious turn for the worse.
Our answer must not be in the same Pavlovian vein.
Sanctions are not the answer here
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The enormous political support in both countries for the tests indicate that the popular will is not easily reversed.
We must look deeper into the underlying problems.
The regional security situation and the bilateral problems in the two countries should become the subject of an international conference.
The right mediator must be found.
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The international community must then make a serious effort to arrive at genuine nuclear disarmament.
The NPT and the CTBT must be adhered to, to the letter.
That includes non-proliferation.
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Speaking of sanctions, the Union might well commit itself to a ban on the export of arms to the two countries concerned.
They already possess more weapons than enough.
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<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="Truscott">
Mr President, on behalf of my group I should like to say that the nuclear tests carried out by India and Pakistan in May are a serious threat to regional and global security.
Apart from increasing tensions in the Indian sub-continent, the tests have broadened the nuclear club of nations, breaching the principle of non-proliferation.
Other countries may be inclined to pursue the goal of nuclear weaponization.
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While more needs to be done to implement the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by existing nuclear states, further nuclear tests can only lead to global insecurity and the risk of nuclear war.
This is why India and Pakistan should adhere to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty immediately and unconditionally.
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The European Union and the United States have rightly applied political and limited economic sanctions against India and Pakistan.
Until they become part of the international community's drive to scale down and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons from the globe it is right that these sanctions should stay in place.
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Nor should India and Pakistan export nuclear technology or continue to develop and deploy nuclear weapons.
EU Member States should ensure that neither country's nuclear programme is assisted by European equipment or know-how.
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There is also the question of Jammu and Kashmir.
This problem has persisted for too long and lies at the heart of the hostility and suspicion between New Delhi and Islamabad.
It is time for the EU to support the good offices of an intermediary in the tragic division of Kashmir which has caused two wars between India and Pakistan and cost thousands of lives.
The conflict continues to this day but it is time for it to be solved for the benefit of all the people of Jammu and Kashmir, with their consent.
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There is an urgent need for confidence-building measures between India and Pakistan and for jaw-jaw, not war-war.
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<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, we all have to totally condemn the nuclear testing by both Pakistan and India, but we also have to look to ourselves - the responsibilities that the European Union holds and the fact that France, not so very long ago, carried out its nuclear tests despite opposition from right round the world.
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All of the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council have to accept responsibility for the present situation.
The nuclear five blocked all agreement on even small moves on nuclear disarmament at the NPT Treaty Prepcom meeting in Geneva.
Also, bearing mind that our own Irish Minister, David Andrews, has launched a campaign for a nuclear-weaponsfree world, backed by one other Member State of the European Union, it is also important that other Member States of the European Union back David Andrews on this initiative to get rid of nuclear weapons totally.
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The UN General Assembly meeting back in January 1946, in its first resolution, unanimously called for a commission to make proposals for the elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons and all major weapons of mass destruction.
Atomic weapons are still here.
Not only have they not been got rid of, but there is a massive proliferation.
Two Member States within the European Union - Britain and France - bear a huge amount of the responsibility for that.
They have to accept that.
It is about time that they, along with other countries throughout the world, got rid of their nuclear arsenals.
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<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="President">
I am pleased to welcome Mrs Cresson who has just arrived.
I hope her associates will be kind enough to summarize everything of great interest that has been said in her absence.
Welcome, Madam!
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Mr Dell'Alba, you are in luck, you have a Commissioner!
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<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, I was just about to say the same thing.
But I was slightly embarrassed by the fact that, in truth, there are not many of us either, it has to be said.
Therefore I have not tabled a procedural motion and, like you, I am pleased that we now have someone to address.
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I simply wanted to say that while we are not grudging in our endorsement of this the umpteenth resolution, which does not say a great deal, it is certainly not given with any real sense of joy.
We might have been a bit firmer.
I believe that these nuclear explosions in India and Pakistan are an exceedingly serious matter and that we are taking them rather too lightly, with rather too much diplomacy.
In my opinion, we should have hardened our tone.
Since the CFSP is quite able to prevent members of Parliament taking part in delegations to international conferences, since it is totally ineffective from a foreign and security policy standpoint, let us settle for the wording we have and await with interest the reply the Commission will give regarding this affair.
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<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Elmalan">
Madam Commissioner, Mr President, Pakistan wasted no time in responding to the Indian nuclear tests, thereby reviving the spectre of atomic war.
Of course the risks for Asia are immense, but they are too for the security of the world as a whole.
These tests, which our group immediately condemned, could easily revive the spread and proliferation of nuclear weapons worldwide.
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To prevent other States with a similar capability following the example of these countries, we must take urgent steps to ban tests totally once and for all - including laboratory tests, which some nuclear powers continue to conduct - and to eliminate all nuclear arms and weapons of mass destruction.
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We must put an end to this horrifying threat, as proposed by the "Abolition 2000' international network which embraces over a thousand organizations worldwide.
This network has set itself the goal of reaching an agreement on the elimination of nuclear weapons by the year 2000, which would enable us to use the budget allocations, currently squandered on military spending, for the benefit of the environment, health, education and development.
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In order to promote the success of this campaign, I support the proposal of the Japanese government to create an international forum which, for obvious symbolic reasons, would hold its first meeting in Hiroshima and which would seek to define ways of ridding the planet of all nuclear weapons forever.
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<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="Malone">
Mr President, I want to say to the Commission that, in my view, any talk of imposition of sanctions on the peoples of the Indian sub-continent in response to the recent testing of nuclear weapons would be wrong.
It is a very simplistic response which amounts to little more than punishing the powerless for the seeming sins of the powerful.
Such a development would also make a nonsense of these countries' achievements in providing basic health and education support, which have contributed so much to furthering the well-being of their peoples.
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I of course deplore what has happened, but we in Europe must face up to the reality and continue our development efforts to support the one million poor of the Indian sub-continent.
To this end, I have proposed an oral question to the Commission, to which I hope to get a response at some stage: would it not agree that the arms race is directing resources away from development and the reduction of poverty to the military-industrial complex, and would it not agree that the imposition of sanctions in these circumstances amounts to no more than the punishment of the powerless for the sins of the powerful?
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<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Thomas">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, five underground nuclear tests by the Indians in Rajastan were answered by six nuclear tests by the Pakistanis in Baluchistan.
The reaction in the West: anger and dismay.
In Asia overwhelming enthusiasm.
Who the winners will be in this dreaded arms race is unclear.
The current losers are millions of people.
They do not hunger for power and national prestige, but for opportunities to escape from poverty and to enjoy the training and education that has been denied them.
<P>
India's nuclear tests are the response to China which has been developing its nuclear arsenal for years. Where is the Western protest here?
Even in Tibet atomic weapons are being stockpiled, and China is supplying Pakistan with weapons know-how and rocketry. Will Islamic Pakistan and the largest democracy in the world, India, be prepared to sign an international nuclear agreement if they are recognized by the industrial countries as negotiating partners?
When we can rely on the monitoring committees of the nuclear states and when nuclear safety can be finally guaranteed, then it will be easier to sign both the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Test Ban Treaty, which needs to be finally ratified by the US Congress.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="André-Léonard">
Mr President, during the previous sitting many of us spoke heatedly in the debate in our condemnation of the nuclear tests in India.
And the consequence, as we now know, was that a few days later Islamabad imitated New Delhi, despite the attempts of the Council, the United Nations and the United States to make it think again.
After several decades of difficult relations, the question of Kashmir remains a bone of contention between the two countries.
We are still waiting for India to make a gesture which will stop this problem becoming an international issue and to offer reassurance to the 30 000 people living in permanent terror on either side of the frontier.
<P>
We must put a stop to the furious arms race - generated mainly by intense nationalist fervour on both sides - which will inevitably lead to escalation and regional and international instability.
As the largest democracy in the world, India must demonstrate its wisdom and bring to an end the vicious spiral in the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
But China, too, should adopt a more conciliatory attitude in this particularly vulnerable region.
Every effort must be made to re-establish dialogue and it is for this reason that I commend the initiative of the Council in organizing a regional summit on security in Asia.
The Union earnestly urges India and Pakistan to sign and ratify the nuclear test ban treaty and the non-proliferation treaty unconditionally.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Caligaris">
Mr President, the world reacted to the nuclear testing by India and Pakistan thinking that we had returned to the strategy of dissuasion, with the threat of reciprocal destruction; there was talk of the desire to acquire nuclear power status and of the possibility of a conventional war leading to a nuclear war.
<P>
It seems to me that all these war scenarios are old hat, outdated, congruent with the Cold War.
With this diagnosis, we will certainly not succeed in reducing the risks of proliferation.
The reality is very different and more complicated, more modest but perhaps also riskier: the reality is that nuclear weapons are used to intimidate, to prevent political actions by other countries and to blackmail.
Yesterday, the Herald Tribune reported that Korea was threatening to export missiles if it was not granted substantial economic assistance.
This technique has already been used, and probably can be used again.
There is a problem of national pride - Pakistan's Prime Minister said that he had to give in to public opinion - and there is perhaps also the problem of dissuasion.
<P>
If we understand this and come up with a good diagnosis, then the disease may well be curable. If not, it will simply persist.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
Mr President, the nuclear tests by India and Pakistan have made us realize that we in fact live in a situation in which we cannot just criticize these countries but must also criticize ourselves.
It is, of course, scandalous that the present nuclear powers have not done enough to reduce their own arms manufacture and their own stock of arms.
This leads other countries to believe that the possession of nuclear arms means an important increase in status.
And when one country in the Indian subcontinent successfully conducts nuclear tests and develops arms, then the other country is of course compelled to do the same, as there is no guarantee that they are protected from nuclear attacks by the other side.
<P>
It is therefore of the utmost importance that the Western world and Russia and China understand that they must take the issue of continued disarmament in respect of nuclear arms seriously.
Recently we encountered the impossible problem of France, which itself conducted nuclear tests in Mururoa.
I am therefore in favour of a condemnation of Pakistan and India which is no harsher than the condemnation of France. The fact that France conducted nuclear tests was actually much worse.
I naturally hope that our action will soon lead to the signing of the non-proliferation Treaty by the two new nuclear powers and that in this way the continuing cycle of arming and more arming will be halted before it is too late.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="Cresson">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Members of this House, the nuclear escalation in Southern Asia has major political and geo-strategic consequences which some of you have already outlined.
It revives the question of the non-proliferation policy and the risk of contamination for other countries.
<P>
The objectives of the European Union are, firstly, to restore the credibility of the non-proliferation system, to obtain the ratification by India and Pakistan of the non-proliferation pact and the CTBT, in other words the Complete Test Ban Treaty , in order to re-establish a substantial dialogue between India and Pakistan and especially to find an acceptable solution to the Kashmir problem, which represents an explosive situation in Indo-Pakistan rivalry.
In this regard India, which until today had been on the point of opening up dialogue on the conflict, committed a major error.
We should make the most of this new opportunity.
<P>
We should then support the creation of regional security procedures which, until now, unlike other regions in the world -and I am thinking here of the ASEAN - have been sadly deficient.
We need to set up a positive dynamic enabling not only these countries but also the international community to escape the treadmill.
From this standpoint, given the uncertainty that reigns in India and Pakistan at present, it seems somewhat unwise to follow a path which might lead to a breakdown in the dialogue with these countries - and I say that for a certain number of speakers who would like to go further, indeed who would like to see retaliatory measures introduced.
We think we should continue to maintain a dialogue with these countries.
It is important that we make them understand fully that the nuclear solution can only damage them.
In this context, the European Union has declared its readiness to take the necessary steps by treating India and Pakistan as equals.
This type of approach must not, however, close the avenues to dialogue.
<P>
The European Commission is ready to contribute to the international community's efforts to seek and implement initiatives aimed at increasing regional stability and halting nuclear proliferation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="Malone">
Mr President, can I take it that there is no question of sanctions being imposed at this stage?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cresson">
No, as I just said, there is no question of sanctions, we must simply continue the dialogue with these countries in the most effective way possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>
B4-0605/98, by Mr Fassa and others, on behalf of the ELDR group, on the war betweenEthiopia and Eritrea; -B4-0620/98, Mr Vecchi, on behalf of the PSE group, on the conflict between Ethiopia andEritrea; -B4-0631/98, by Mr Pasty and others, on behalf of the UPE group, on the conflict betweenEthiopia and Eritrea; -B4-0637/98, by Mr Günther and others, on behalf of the PPE group, on the territorial conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea; -B4-0644/98, by Mr Telkämper and others, on behalf of the V group, on the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea; -B4-0649/98, by Mr Hory and Mr Macartney, on behalf of the ARE group, on the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea; -B4-0664/98, by Mr Vinci and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL group, on the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea
<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea for possession of territory measuring 400 km2 is another exceptionally good example of the destructive power of incorrect consultation, of war, of senseless violence, when preventative diplomacy might perhaps have accomplished something.
Unfortunately these destitute countries, which as neighbours got along well until about three months ago, are not themselves able to prevent this mutual destruction.
<P>
Yet all border disputes can be resolved by mediation, with give and take on both sides.
The parties must be encouraged to accept a cease-fire. I therefore welcome the commitment and the willingness of the Rwandan government and the Egyptian President.
<P>
The Union must show itself willing to offer all the help needed and certainly emergency aid for refugees.
These poor countries must be made to understand that a military solution is never the real answer for small and large conflicts of this kind.
A military solution cannot be a durable one.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 NAME="Cunningham">
Mr President, I was in Ethiopia and Eritrea just a few weeks ago, and I met both the Prime Minister of Ethiopia and the President of Eritrea, along with many other politicians and people.
I find it absolutely unbelievable that these two countries could find themselves in this particular border conflict.
History is littered with a whole series of pointless wars but this particular one must be one of the most pointless wars in hundreds of years.
These are two countries, the leadership of which actually fought alongside each other in trying to get rid of the evil regime of the Dergue - the communist regime in Ethiopia.
When you consider that, of the 175 countries in the world on the UN index of human development, both Ethiopia and Eritrea are in the bottom five, and that this conflict will lead not only to much greater poverty in both countries but to far greater instability in the entire region, we have to call on both countries to pull back from the brink of war and engage in talks.
<P>
I shall be putting forward an oral amendment, which tries to bring this resolution up to date, because there is a cease-fire at the moment brokered by Rwanda, the OAU and the United States.
We have to do everything in our power to make sure that this cease-fire lasts.
<P>
I call on both sides - the Ethiopians and the Eritreans - to pull back from the brink of what would be an enormous tragedy and to go forward with mediation.
I call on the European Union to do everything in its power to make sure that we see a peaceful resolution to what I have described as both a tragic and a pointless conflict.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Robles Piquer">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, the President of Eritrea recently replied, when asked about the reasons behind what had happened, with a very simple statement: "It is very difficult to give an easy answer' .
And the President of Ethiopia, referring to the incidents, said: "I was surprised, shaken and disoriented' .
<P>
I am sure you will understand that the most surprised and disoriented people seem to have been we Europeans, because there is not the slightest doubt that, despite having had strong historical relations with that part of the world - particularly some of the Member States of the European Union -, it appears in this case that nobody knew anything.
And one of the points in our motion for a resolution underlines the fact that the Council has limited itself to uttering fine words of condemnation and has not even taken part in the efforts aimed at negotiation which should bring an end to the hostilities.
As we know, it is the United States, Rwanda and the OAU which have intervened.
<P>
The Council's passiveness and lack of action in this matter are a scandalous reflection of the lack of a common foreign policy, as is the fact too that these two countries are neighbours, not only in terms of geography, but also in terms of ideology, history and, more recently, belligerence. They are neighbours, yet a war is taking place between them, although for the moment it seems as if a cease-fire has been achieved.
It is one of those "wars of the end of the world' , to use the expression from an extraordinary book by the Peruvian-Spanish writer Vargas Llosa, which you will surely have read, called "The War of the End of the World' in Brazil; a terrible war which he skilfully described in novel form.
<P>
I believe that we cannot in future, or even at present, limit ourselves to offering fine words and even generous humanitarian aid. Instead, it is essential that from this experience - which, after all, is relatively small in the general scale of things - we understand the consequences which must lead us, Mr President, to put an end to our lack of action and our passiveness.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
Mr President, this conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea has surprised and disturbed us all.
We are worried that the region will be further destabilized.
We are worried that a tragedy is waiting to happen.
Those affected are first and foremost the people in this region.
They are already badly affected by belonging to one of the poorest regions in the world, and now war is to be added to their lot.
Border conflicts of this kind are often the expression of internal political conflicts and differences, in both Ethiopia and Eritrea.
We are of the opinion that this conflict should not be allowed to escalate.
The European Union is called upon to support the diplomatic efforts.
We welcome the efforts of the OAU, the USA and Rwanda.
<P>
The Council said in its last statement on the Cardiff Summit that it condemns the conflict, that it wishes to support the diplomatic solutions and that it is also prepared, should negotiations come about, to lend material assistance. We should support this as a Parliament and you too, Madam Commissioner, should support it on behalf of the Commission.
We must try to find a diplomatic solution and assist the people in the region directly through material aid.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 NAME="Macartney">
Mr President, could I speak partly as the person who chaired the meeting drawing up the composite text?
I would like to support Mr Cunningham's point but we were rather overtaken by the swiftness of events.
We did not make an explicit reference to the efforts made by Rwanda and the United States and the peace plan that was accepted by the Organization of African Unity in Ouagadougou on 4-5 June.
I think it would strengthen this resolution enormously if we could make some reference to that and I would support Mr Cunningham if he is willing to draft something.
<P>
The resolution that we have adopted makes three references which could be taken to apply to it.
We talk about the peace plans in paragraph 1, we talk about the OAU and the Council of this Union in paragraph 3, and in paragraph 5 we ask that the resolution be transmitted to Rwanda and the United States.
The eagle-eyed amongst you might wonder: why these two countries?
I have just explained the reason but I apologize if we were less than explicit.
We should put that right because all of us want to see an end to the conflict.
The parties, too, have accepted the mediation put forward by these two countries and agreed by the OAU and I think that this House would want to support that, to get a speedy end to the conflict.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Speciale">
Mr President, as has already been said, this conflict is serious not only because of the military and civilian victims and the destruction in what are already poor countries but because it has damaged a relationship of collaboration and friendship between two States that seemed strong and weakened a relationship that could have become a model in Africa of stability and cooperation without fanaticism.
<P>
Unfortunately, the habit of going to war and the fragile democracy of the political systems that have emerged from dictatorship and independence probably prevailed in this phase.
It is now important that Eritrea and Ethiopia have agreed - at the initiative of the United States and Italy, to be precise - to stop the shelling.
Now the European Union, together with the international community, must make a strong commitment to lend assistance to the people affected and the refugees, to find a peaceful solution to the conflict and to create the conditions for a genuine peace plan.
The European Union must demonstrate here too that it wants an international role and that it wants a foreign and security policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, along with Tony Cunningham, I recently had the opportunity to visit both of these countries.
I have to say that while I was there, there was some evidence of tension.
Since the war of national liberation which created Eritrea, they have had disputes both with the Yemen over the Hanish Islands and with Ethiopia over the particular area of land we are talking about now.
It seems to me that this particular war was not triggered by the land dispute but more by economics.
The recent separation of the two currencies has created a major disruption to trade and this has led to soaring prices on both sides of the border as commodities that used to be traded between the two countries are now in short supply.
That is one of the reasons for the thrust towards the Assab port by Ethiopian forces towards the end of the war.
<P>
We cannot afford to allow this situation to continue.
We need to use whatever pressures we have to try to make sure that the cease-fire that now exists holds.
I hope that we can amend a resolution orally to bring it up to date and to make sure the Council and Commission continue to exert pressure on the two potential combatants.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="Cresson">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen Members of this House, the Commission is extremely preoccupied by the recent military confrontations which have occurred on the border between Eritrea and Ethiopia.
It deplores these incidents between neighbouring countries and shares the anxiety expressed.
<P>
It strongly urges the two countries not to resort to violence, to cease all hostilities and to resume negotiations.
It stresses the need to resolve the conflict peacefully.
It commends and encourages the efforts of the United States, Rwanda and Italy and, indeed, any other national or regional organization seeking to ease the situation and offering a conciliation procedure with a view to finding a peaceful solution to the current crisis.
It hopes sincerely that these countries and organizations will succeed in their endeavours and is ready to assist them.
<P>
The Commission is prepared to offer humanitarian aid, if required.
It is now investigating the possibility of responding to the Ethiopian request for assistance for the dispossessed populations in northern Tigré.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like first of all to thank all the other groups, without exception, who have supported this resolution - which is not the umpteenth resolution on the question of the death penalty, I think it is important to stress this.
The resolution has a quite precise goal: it urges the Council to assign to the future presidency - the Austrian presidency - the responsibility for coordinating Union initiatives within the United Nations General Assembly to ensure that the question of the moratorium is finally put on the agenda with some chance of success.
<P>
Hence we are extending an invitation to Mr Schüssel, Minister of Foreign Affairs and to Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in the hope that they might already be in a position to give us certain indications on the Wednesday of the next sitting, here in Strasbourg.
We hope that they may be able to tell us whether they have received a mandate from the Council in this respect.
<P>
I think it is important.
It is a specific initiative.
These are not idle words.
The resolution seeks to encompass an objective in international law that many Members of the European Parliament have shared for a long time, in other words the abolition of the death penalty and, at all events, an initial step towards the final abolition of capital punishment.
<P>
I believe this is a positive way of celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the universal charter on human rights.
There is a majority in favour within the international community.
Approximately 90 states have already shown themselves to be in favour of a yes to the moratorium through the votes submitted to the Council, to the Committee on Human Rights last year and again, this year, in Geneva.
We simply have to convert an existing majority into actuality.
<P>
I think that Parliament, by extending a specific invitation to the Council and the Commission to take this cause, might, yet again, provide the finishing touches which could well be decisive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cars">
Mr President, first of all I would like to say that I agree with Mr Dupuis.
While Great Britain was governed by the Tories, there was opposition to capital punishment becoming a joint concern for the European Union.
That has now changed.
Today Europe stands more united than ever in that struggle.
We are, in fact, the strongest force in the world driving the question of capital punishment, which is greatly to our credit.
<P>
As Mr Dupuis precisely said, the Resolution seeks to induce the UN to introduce a worldwide moratorium.
This is important, as there are a number of countries, China, the United States, Iran and Iraq, for example, which still put their citizens to death in great numbers.
It is a disgrace that this happens.
The fact is, Mr President, that Europe's fight against capital punishment is an expression of the humanism and culture which now characterises our continent, much to our own credit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ullmann">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, the European Convention on Human Rights with the protocol abolishing the death penalty belongs to the legal bases of the European Union.
The EU is therefore obliged to raise its voice in the international dialogue calling for this penalty to be abolished.
I endorse what the previous speakers have said, that this House should unanimously support and enact the concrete measures proposed.
We must do everything to ensure that the death penalty, which is an archaic remnant from the times of sacral law, disappears from our legal system, which is based on human rights and hence cannot tolerate a type of punishment which eliminates the human being as a legal entity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, the great Swiss national economist Felix Somari said in his book 'The Crisis and Future of Democracy' the following: ' To apply the death penalty to a multiple murderer means only atoning for the first murder.
All the other murders go unpunished.'
This was one of a whole series of his arguments against the death penalty.
One thing is clear to me from this: the death penalty is, all legitimate moral scruples apart, nothing more than a trivialization of the crime for which this punishment is often given.
A genuine life sentence is in most cases surely the more humane solution, while also the stiffer penalty.
That is why I am very happy that this resolution will hopefully be adopted today by the European Parliament without amendment and without any fuss.
<P>
This is very much in keeping with the activities of our Parliament, even though I would be especially pleased if we could finally address the question of the death penalty on the basis of a clearly defined moratorium without the customary deviousness so often found.
If the State in question is a very minor one, it is quickly condemned.
But if the State is more important, then this is usually more difficult.
I am thinking, for example, of China, where we once tried to deal with the issue of trade in human organs taken from prisoners condemned to death.
<P>
I would like to draw attention to something else too.
Whenever we talk about the actual death penalty, we should focus on the form of execution that is most frequently practised here at home, namely the termination of unborn life.
It is now high time to look at this from a new perspective, since this is carried out in most cases, sadly, without recourse to legal proceedings.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, the European Parliament is once again calling on the Council, the Member States and the new Austrian Presidency to try to ensure that this moratorium on the death penalty is included on the agenda at the next session of the United Nations General Assembly and that it is a universal moratorium.
It is also asking for a resolution to be tabled in this respect.
<P>
Even if only one innocent person had been executed, this universal moratorium and the abolition of the death penalty would still be worth fighting for.
However, dozens of innocent people have been executed and so it is unacceptable that at the end of this century the death penalty has still not been abolished.
<P>
We are going to go on to discuss Guinea and the 15 people there who are condemned to death and who have not had the remotest possibility of having an adequate defence.
<P>
We therefore support the position of our colleague, Mr Manisco, who has resigned from the Delegation for relations with the United States due to the fact that the next meeting will take place in Texas, a state which has the dubious honour of having executed 10 people since March.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Vanhecke">
Mr President, I would like to make it clear that personally speaking, I am against the death penalty on principle, for a number of very different reasons. Like everyone in this Parliament I was shocked by the brutal disposal of human lives in countries such as China and Pakistan, to name but two from a very long list.
Nevertheless, I will not vote in favour of the present resolution: I will abstain.
Because I emphatically do not want to send the wrong signal to my own country, including to my own continent.
The problem in our continent, in Europe, is, of course, not the death penalty, rather the problem is the reverse.
It is the lax and even very lax treatment of hard criminals.
The death penalty for a felony has also been officially abolished in Belgium.
Unfortunately, this was not accompanied by the introduction of sentences with no reduced term, such as real life sentences for the most serious types of offender - in fact, quite the reverse.
<P>
We now have the situation where in Belgium, for example, convicted paedophile sadists, child abusers and child murderers are systematically released into society after only a few years.
Regrettably, this situation does not just exist in my own country, but in many European countries as well. Recent dramatic lawsuits, particularly in Germany and in France, show this to be true.
Moreover, the infamous Dutroux affair has taught us that these child murderers and child abusers are not merely released, they are in addition assured of social benefits.
Marc Dutroux was paid BEF 80 000 net monthly in benefit, an amount which many well-behaved, needy people who have never done anyone any harm can only dream of.
We might say, perhaps controversially - but accurately, that the death penalty for these multiple recidivist monsters might have saved the lives of many children.
<P>
The day that I am able to say, to the best of my knowledge, that in my country - and this applies to all countries in Europe - children and innocent citizens are adequately protected and that the most heinous crimes will be punished appropriately, that will be the day I will vote with conviction in favour of any resolution against the death penalty. Unfortunately, I regret to say that this is not yet the case.
<P>
Equatorial Guinea
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Ferrer">
Mr President, this Parliament must unanimously condemn and reject the events which have taken place in Equatorial Guinea. These include the repression to which the Bubi people have been subjected there as a result of the chaotic events which took place on the island of Bioko last January, the torture of 117 members of the Bubi ethnic minority, accused of terrorism, secession and treason, and the long sentences imposed and the death sentences received by 15 people after a summary trial which did not provide the minimum guarantees required to allow justice to be served.
<P>
But we cannot limit ourselves to a passive condemnation; instead we must adopt an active attitude faced with these facts and faced, in particular, with these death sentences.
<P>
Therefore, we must also use all our authority to request that the death sentences be commuted and that in this connection a fair retrial be staged.
Parliament believes at the same time that the people of Equatorial Guinea have the right to live in a democracy and be guaranteed the respect for human rights; we regret that no progress has been made in the democratization of Equatorial Guinea, despite the fact that President Obiang made a commitment to this effect when he visited President Santer last autumn. Therefore, this Parliament must call on the Commission, and we are doing so with all our might, to suspend the cooperation programmes for this country - except for humanitarian aid, of course - while there is no concrete evidence that advances are being made on the road towards democracy.
<P>
It is only in this way, by responding vigorously to the government of Equatorial Guinea, that we will help the people of that country to regain their freedom and their dignity and the European Union to regain its own credibility in the eyes of the world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Vallvé">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, the events taking place in Equatorial Guinea are part of a long history of absurdities in that former Spanish colony.
At the moment, this issue has reached a particularly serious stage with 15 people having been sentenced to death and a considerable number of people having been given prison sentences of more than 20 years.
<P>
In this connection, an accusation has also been made against the members of the Bubi ethnic minority, who live in one part of the territory of Equatorial Guinea.
This process which has taken place in Equatorial Guinea has not had minimum guarantees, and the proof of this is that certain Western journalists have been expelled from the country because possibly the information they were providing did not satisfy those in power.
<P>
In this respect, I agree with what Mrs Ferrer has said: it is necessary for the European Union to determine the aid which might lead to the democratization of this country and therefore to enhance its reputation in the eyes of the African countries and particularly in the eyes of Equatorial Guinea.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pons Grau">
Mr President, unfortunately this is not the first time that Parliament has had to give its opinion concerning events in Equatorial Guinea.
<P>
Not long ago, this very Parliament also denounced similar situations involving a lack of democracy and respect for human rights, and the European Union's cooperation with this country was suspended.
<P>
However, it is also true that the Malabo regime has always been very good at making false promises and, on many occasions, at convincing Western authorities with its fallacies.
It even managed to convince the French government of its desire for democracy and to convince Commissioner Pinheiro and President Santer himself to show signs of comprehension by lifting the sanctions which this Parliament had promoted.
<P>
Now we see that the actions of the Commissioner and the President of the Commission were somewhat hasty in that they were not supported by this House.
We are now witnessing a Kafkaesque situation where 16 people have been condemned to death; fortunately, the sentences have not been carried out, but the accused are left like hostages of that very regime.
<P>
Our first action must therefore be to provide impetus and to apply pressure so as to ensure that these death sentences are commuted and that this ersatz trial is held again since, according to international organizations, all sorts of attacks have been made on its judicial neutrality.
To return to my starting point, Mr President, we must again call for a further freezing of cooperation aid to this country - except, of course, for emergency and humanitarian aid - until, once and for all, decisive steps are taken towards democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hory">
Mr President, immediately after demanding a moratorium on executions, we are faced with yet another reason to deplore capital punishment, in the form of the 15 death sentences that have just been pronounced in Equatorial Guinea.
<P>
But, on reflection, is it enough simply to protest from a sort of moral standpoint, or even to suspend a meagre allocation of development aid for that country?
For their part, the radicals consider that such barbaric actions should be sanctioned immediately, first by cutting off all international relations.
But in order to resort to this sanction, the EU would again have to deploy a diplomatic service and its relations with Africa would not only have to be the lowest common denominator among the bilateral diplomacies of the old colonial powers.
<P>
If this is so, we must vote for the compromise resolution in order to exert firm pressure on the authorities in Equatorial Guinea to commute the sentences and not to resume the bloody violence of the past and the totalitarianism that this country has experienced for twenty years.
<P>
In other respects EU support for the draft moratorium would, in all other circumstances, be the best backing we could offer the victims of all despots.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Marset Campos">
Mr President, the people of Equatorial Guinea have been suffering under dictatorships for 30 years.
In fact, the European Union has introduced the democratic clause as an important instrument in its relations with all other countries in order to give an example, in comparison to other powers, of our unmistakable desire to help establish a different international order.
<P>
All of the circumstances surrounding the farcical trial which took place are extremely suspicious and it is not clear how the uprising itself began or developed.
Therefore, we believe that the sentences which have been passed are totally unjustified.
<P>
In this respect, the democratic opposition in Equatorial Guinea is placing all its trust in the European Union. This is because the people of Equatorial Guinea have a total lack of confidence in what we would call the democratic paths of pressure and claims for democracy, and we are seeing the appearance of dangerous, yet understandable, temptations to resort to violence if there is not a fundamental change leading to the restoration of democracy in Equatorial Guinea.
<P>
I therefore believe that the European Union now has a unique and important opportunity.
Along with the demand for the democratic clause and for firmness in its relationship with the dictator, it has the opportunity to be able to ensure as soon as possible - and with its sights set precisely on the next elections which will take place after the summer - that, in addition to the sentences being commuted, democracy is restored. In that way, this troubled continent might finally begin to hope for human rights and for democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Imaz San Miguel">
Mr President, we have just talked about the death penalty.
In a farcical trial, 15 people have been sentenced to death in Equatorial Guinea and 117 people have been judged and also given varying sentences, in addition to being tortured.
<P>
This has been the result of a process which has been completed without any form of guarantees and which has taken place in a context in which the Guinean people live with only limited democratic rights, particularly the Bubi people who live on the island of Bioko. This is the ethnic group to which these people belong; it, too, has the right to democracy, its own cultural rights and its own political rights.
<P>
The European Union can still carry out actions and make gestures to save the lives of these people and to help ensure that a regime which provides all democratic guarantees is established in Equatorial Guinea.
We therefore have an instrument at our disposal: the suspension of the European Union's cooperation assistance to Equatorial Guinea, if the democratic clause is not complied with, maintaining only emergency humanitarian aid.
<P>
So, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, I ask that we support this resolution which will help to save these lives and establish democracy in Equatorial Guinea.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Mr President, we all know that Equatorial Guinea is a dictatorship, where human rights are not respected and where 15 death sentences have just been passed. But the question is: how do we prevent this situation from continuing?
<P>
Why did President Santer allow Obiang to visit him last autumn?
Which governments urged him to do so?
Why is Article 5 of the Lomé Convention not applied to the regime in Equatorial Guinea?
These are questions that need immediate and constructive answers.
Cooperation must naturally be suspended.
Equatorial Guinea cannot be considered a normal party to the Lomé Convention.
But there are governments which should adopt a positive attitude to counteract the multinational economic interests present in Equatorial Guinea, which are those that, at the moment, form the foundation of the dictator President Teodor Obiang's position.
<P>
In this respect, we must call for clear responses from two governments, namely those of France and Spain.
<P>
Are those governments prepared to act in accordance with their historic responsibilities in favour of democracy in Guinea?
We are now demanding that they do.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Marinho">
Madam President, for the last ten years or more this House has been monitoring the political situation in Indonesia nearly every month, and more particularly the dramatic situation of the oppressed and brutalized people of East Timor, a country which, we should not forget, is formally under Portuguese administration according to United Nations law.
<P>
There is no denying, therefore, that this House's historical powers include the unquestionable right to draw European politicians' attention once more to what is happening in East Timor, and the vital need to solve this problem.
Because we are convinced that we must continue and persist in making sure that the defence of one of the most enduring and difficult of causes, that of democracy and human rights, is not forgotten, in order to provide an indisputable political basis of international solidarity to find a peaceful solution to the problem of East Timor.
<P>
I would also like to add that, with rare political balance and common sense, the pressure of the popular movement and resistance in Indonesia has wrung from the new Government which succeeded the fall of the dictator Suharto a set of declarations which, although contradictory, offer the prospect of light at the end of the tunnel.
<P>
For that reason, because everything can still be resolved democratically and without further unnecessary violence, the signatories to all the motions acknowledge that the first condition for resolving the problem is the release of the historic Timorean leader, Xanana Gusmão.
We are convinced that no-one can escape the hand of History and that, sooner or later, the new Indonesian authorities will have to free him.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Girão Pereira">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, once more the problem of Timor has come up at this Plenary Session, and now, it seems, in a more open and hopeful context.
The new President of Indonesia has begun to release political prisoners and, for the first time, the Government of Indonesia is prepared to accept a solution for Timor within a framework and laws that respect Timor's interests.
<P>
The international community, and especially the United States, are including Timor in their political agenda, and I am delighted to say that the Cardiff European Council Summit touched on the subject of Timor, taking a position by declaring that a just and internationally acceptable solution must be found.
We are delighted about this and hope that a solution to the problem can thus be found.
<P>
In the meantime, it is important that Xanana Gusmão should be set free.
It would be a political signal and I consider that the European Union could play an important political role in the matter, because Xanana Gusmão is not in prison as a common criminal.
The common criminals are those who continue to kill unarmed and defenceless young people in a graveyard in Dili. The common criminals are those who continue to kill young demonstrators who are fighting for a just cause.
Xanana Gusmão is a political prisoner who must be released, and his release would be an important political signal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="de Melo">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Portugal and the Portuguese Members of the European Parliament are under a political and moral obligation, for both historical and current reasons, to insist that the European Parliament call for full compliance with United Nation resolutions, and the observance of international law and human rights in East Timor.
Up to now, the new Government of Indonesia has made no move to free the people of Timor and their political leader, Xanana Gusmão, and is continuing the violent repression of peaceful and legitimate demonstrations by a people who are fighting for their freedom.
<P>
We are delighted with the position adopted by the Council in Cardiff in relation to the problem of East Timor and we ask the European Parliament to confirm that position of condemnation of the present Indonesian Government.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Madam President, the heroic resistance of the people of East Timor against military occupation has become one with the Indonesian people's fight against dictatorship.
The dictator has fallen.
The dictatorship had to fall and the military occupation must end so that the Timorean people's inalienable right to self-determination may be asserted.
<P>
For our part, we need only maintain that pressure which has forced the European Parliament to exert pressure of its own.
We were on our own, or almost, but the Timorean people's refusal to give up has now made it possible for others to join us.
This includes the European Parliament, the European Council, the United States and others.
We only have to persist until we ensure that the question of Indonesia and East Timor is not reduced to, or submerged in, an economic-financial problem, where the European Union, the IMF and other bodies try to give them aid to enable them to help themselves.
Where we have respect for international law and the right to self-determination which is, and continues to be, the central issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="Newens">
Madam President, probably nowhere else in the world since 1965 has a greater proportion of the population been killed or suffered flagrant human rights violations at the hands of the authorities than in some of the territories under Indonesian rule.
<P>
In East Timor an estimated one-third of the population has died since the Indonesian invasion of 1975.
Now that the economic collapse has forced the resignation of President Suharto, there is at last hope of fundamental change.
President Habibie has promised reforms and the army, low in morale and divided as a result of the crisis, has begun to exercise some restraint in dealing with opposition demonstrations.
Some reports indicate the possibility of serious food shortages which could produce great waves of violence.
It is vital for the President to take immediate action to resolve issues which could trigger off clashes, perhaps directed against the Chinese, who have already been victims.
This means immediately releasing all political prisoners, especially Xanana Gusmão in East Timor, and recognizing the right of the East Timorese people to self-determination.
<P>
Earlier this week, despite restraint shown by troops, tension in Dili was heightened by reports of a shooting of a civilian elsewhere.
In Indonesia itself, the population will demand genuinely free elections and, with so many people under the age of thirty, completely new forces could emerge to participate in a far-reaching transition which we must hope will be peaceful.
<P>
In the dire economic crisis the dangers of an appalling catastrophe are considerable, but without extensive political change they will be much greater.
The European Union must support change and a complete end to all repression.
It must be prepared to ensure that its very considerable economic aid is used to assist the transition.
I call upon the House to support this resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Madam President, finally there is a chance for renewal and democratization in Indonesia.
The apologies by the Indonesian military leadership yesterday for killing a twenty-one year old boy are a characteristic sign of these changes.
The present release of fifteen East Timor political prisoners sends another positive signal.
More is, of course, needed.
<P>
We now have an opportunity to arrive at a durable solution to this lingering conflict in East Timor.
This requires continued international pressure.
The promises of the new President, Mr Habibie, in regard of a special charter for East Timor are welcome but they do not go far enough.
The right to self-determination must be guaranteed, political prisoners must be released and violations of human rights must be investigated.
This can be the only basis for a durable solution of this dispute.
<P>
The Indonesian President must not think himself rich yet: the foundation for trust by the public and investors and a healthy economy and the public interest can only come about as a result of genuinely fundamental reforms.
But not too fast.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Ainardi">
Madam President, the democratic forces in Indonesia have managed to oust the dictator Suharto.
They have forced the new government to implement the first political and economic reforms.
These are breaches which the democratic forces will seek to widen.
The vice that formerly strangled any freedom of expression, information and association is beginning to lose its grip.
Trade unionists and political opponents have been freed.
But this political breakthrough remains limited and the freeing of political prisoners is relative, since it does not include the communist prisoners condemned to death in 1965 by Suharto and those who have been sentenced for their opposition to the occupation of East Timor.
<P>
Our group offers its total support for the democratic forces in their fight for genuine economic and political change, fragmenting the economic and financial power of the Suharto clan and responding to the needs of the people.
We also demand the organization of free, democratic elections and the release of all political prisoners, without exception, especially those who have been in death row for 32 years and who originate from East Timor, such as Gusmão.
<P>
I am pleased to see that this proposal from our group has been incorporated in the joint resolution and by the European Council on 15 and 16 June in Cardiff, calling for the release of all political prisoners.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Madam President, the people of East Timor have had the unreserved support of the European Parliament.
It is now or never that we have to get involved.
Now would be just the right time to send a European Parliamentary delegation to East Timor.
If it still is not appropriate to send an official delegation, it can just as well send an informal one, but it is important that one is sent.
We must resolve to ensure that funds for East Timor in the EU budget are used for the purposes they were intended, whether it be development cooperation or humanitarian aid.
It is also reasonable to insist that the European Union support the democratic movements in Indonesia and East Timor.
Unfortunately, there seems to be some conflict within the Commission as to how the budgeted funds should be spent.
I fear this has been a sign that they would sooner deal with relations with Indonesia, but right now we all have reason to suppose that decisive and courageous action must be taken.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="McKenna">
Madam President, it is clear that the real objective here is the removal of the Indonesians from the occupied territory of East Timor and the East Timorese right to self-determination.
We have to welcome some of the positive things that have happened in recent times.
For example, as Mr Berthu mentioned, it was historic to have an apology for the tragic shooting of a 21-year-old student.
That shows that things are moving to a certain extent.
But the East Timorese resistance leaders are still in prison.
We need to see the unconditional release of Mr Gusmão.
All the political prisoners have to be released.
It is quite clear that they were wrongfully imprisoned in the first place: they were fighting for self-determination, their human rights have been abused over and over again, and they have to be released, because they have spent a long time in prison for no real reason other than asserting the right to self-determination.
<P>
I would also like to draw attention to another point that has to be investigated, that is, the rape of many Chinese women in Jakarta during the uprising.
This has to be investigated as well.
It is an appalling situation.
<P>
Chad:
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Madam President, all is not well in a number of African countries.
A few years ago it was still thought that stability and democracy and respect for human rights and minorities would become widespread in most of Africa. But it is becoming increasingly obvious that we must make critical annotations in respect of a growing number of African countries.
Today they are joined by Chad.
<P>
My Group does not wish to distance itself in advance from the plans being made by the three respective oil companies to construct a pipeline in Chad and Cameroon.
We should not deprive those countries of the economic benefit and advantage of such a project, when all the necessary social and environmental conditions are complied with under the guidance of the World Bank. Many other countries could also profit from oil production.
<P>
But it is clear that considerable problems have been created in certain regions in Chad, as it would seem that whole villages are displaced by this project and people are losing their place of residence.
We also see that politicians such as Mr Yorongar are arrested for defending the interests of these people.
Moreover, the people involved are minority groups, who are already under pressure in Chad in this respect, and repression is increasing. Comparison with the Nigerian problem, namely in Okoni land and the arrest and death of the Ken Saro Wiwa, cannot be avoided.
After Nigeria, history threatens to repeat itself on a lesser scale in Chad.
<P>
This resolution is not intended as a severe condemnation, but rather a strong signal to the Chad government and to the oil companies involved that they should not go the way of Nigeria, but to show respect for democracy and human rights. The Chad government should immediately release Mr Yorongar and consult all other activists who are concerned about the minority groups involved so that they will be able to make their points in parliament and not to go the way of repression, arrests and worse.
That is the objective of this resolution and the reason we demand action by the Commission and the Council.
I sincerely hope that at this early stage we may be able to prevent something which might otherwise threaten to go horribly wrong.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
Madam President, we have often debated human rights violations in Chad.
We had hoped that the situation would change once the President assured us, after the human rights violations in October 1997, that these would not happen any more.
This year, in March, 100 civilians or village elders were massacred by the military.
<P>
The latest case of human rights violations we witnessed in connection with an event of the European Parliament, the 2nd P7 Summit, for the Poorest Seven, which took place in Brussels last week.
A member of the Chad Parliament was supposed to deliver a speech on the oil project in Dobabecken at 9.30 a.m. on the Friday.
The colleague from Chad, Mr Yorongar, had a court appointment at 9.30 a.m. and was given an extended prison sentence.
He has been in custody since 3 June simply because he criticized this project.
The project provides for 300 oil wells in the south of Chad, a 170 km long pipeline in Chad and a 700 km pipeline in Cameroon.
In our opinion analysis of whether this is socially compatible has been insufficient, or rather the population has not been involved.
Likewise where the environment is concerned, not enough precautionary measures have been taken.
We are not against this in principle, but a democratic development, the involvement of the population and the observation of environmental standards, which are required by the World Bank, ought to be assured.
<P>
The World Bank has earmarked some 55 million US dollars for Chad and 58 million for Cameroon and claims it is creating jobs.
4, 000 jobs in a region where 28, 000 live off a subsistence economy cannot be real jobs for the region.
If 8, 000 litres of oil are escaping into the environment each day due to leakage, then the environmental compatibility tests cannot be adequate.
<P>
We ask both the World Bank and the EU, along with Shell, Exxon and Elf, to reconsider this project and only to continue with it once a situation which respects human beings is guaranteed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hory">
Madam President, since independence, Chad has unfortunately been caught up in insurrections, armed uprisings and a civil war that does not merit the name since it opposes only tiny military factions.
It was thought, and it was widely stated, that this drastic situation was due to the extreme poverty of Chad, one of the least developed countries on earth.
And now we have new outbreaks of violence, civilian massacres, the arrest of political opponents, journalists and human rights activists and extortion of all kinds.
<P>
This time there is a different reason.
The convulsions in Chad are due to its potential wealth.
It is said that the Chadian soil reeks of petroleum.
American and European companies together are prospecting for oil and the authorities in Chad prohibit anyone opposing this.
<P>
As Mrs Maij-Weggen said, it is not up to us to condemn these actions categorically, but to deliver a stern warning.
Mr Yorongar, a member of the opposition, who is due to address us concerning the reservations of the population as a whole regarding this project, has been arrested and we cannot tolerate this.
We must use the facilities provided by the Lomé Convention and all the means of pressure that can be exerted by the Commission, and also by our international audience, to demand that the government of Chad release those imprisoned and obtain from the companies involved a commitment to subject their projects to a genuinely democratic inspection.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="André-Léonard">
Madam President, over a year ago I spoke in this House to expose the flagrant disregard for human rights in Chad, a country marked by thirty years of war and aggression.
Despite the promises of the leaders of Chad to respect human rights, the situation has continued to worsen and today it is particularly disturbing.
Journalists are indicted for libel and thrown into prison for denouncing the evils committed by senior politicians.
The opposition member Yorongar has been arrested for the same reasons.
<P>
The government of Chad must realize that it cannot pursue this policy of repression with impunity.
It must also stop military activities in the south.
Moreover, if it wishes to continue with its project to extract oil, it can only do so if human rights are respected and if environmental protection rules are complied with.
Otherwise we must think about sanctions, because the Union cannot close its eyes indefinitely to the atrocities perpetrated in this signatory to the Lomé Convention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Madam President, more than ten years ago I received daily press releases at my paper's editorial office on the titanic battle between Hussein Habré and Mr Debry, with alternate support from Libya and sometimes France, as the minerals in the Auso zone were ready for exploitation.
To some extent the country experiences stability under Debry but unfortunately, Madam President, the country still ranks fifth on the list of the poorest countries; it is understandable that such a country intends to exploit its resources.
Hence the proposal by an international consortium following consultation with relevant organizations, to which the World Bank ultimately must give her approval.
I have been assured that advanced technology will be deployed in the realization of the project, so that events in Nigeria will not be repeated.
However, I cannot help but conclude that opinion on this project is influenced by the negative effects of the Nigerian drama.
In my opinion the involvement of the World Bank guarantees a sound implementation.
<P>
Madam President, I have meanwhile heard from reliable sources that the two imprisoned journalists have been freed.
I naturally plead for the release of our fellow Member also.
Madam President, would it not be a good thing if the relations on this land could be organized through ACP channels?
What is their responsibility, if not conducting the correct dialogue at the right time?
Madam President, I also believe that this resolution is not supported by both sides and I can therefore not vote in favour of it.
<P>
Pakistan:
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Dam">
Madam President, Socrates was given the poisoned cup because he was supposed to have insulted the gods.
Such an accusation was at that time an effective way of condemning someone with whom you were at odds.
Slandering the gods was punished with the death penalty.
Although Socrates lived in ancient Greek times, such legislation would still seem to exist.
In Pakistan, for example, Islamic laws are regularly misused in order to settle personal vendettas.
The death penalty may be imposed on the basis of a single accusation of having slandered Mohammed.
Such a religious law goes, of course, against our sense of justice and ideally we would prefer it to be revoked.
We should in any case condemn the improper use of these laws, which allow innocent citizens to be condemned to death.
<P>
Pakistan would like to be respected as a modern nation, yet seems to ignore elementary rules of law.
A country which wants to participate in the community of people should at the very least show respect for the minority groups living in its territory, including religious minorities.
1991 saw the introduction of religious laws in Pakistan, which in practice pose a serious threat to the country's minority groups.
Many Christians have been imprisoned after being accused of abusing the name of Mohammed.
A number of these were even murdered in prison by fanatical Muslims.
However, this law is not only a threat to Christians.
Other non-Muslims and even Muslims who experience their beliefs in a different fashion to the Ahmadies live in constant fear that they will be entrapped by the religious laws.
<P>
These accusations prove in practice useful for settling personal vendettas, similar to ancient times.
Once people are accused, they have little chance of escaping a conviction.
I refer to the recent example of Ayub-Massih, who was accused by his neighbour of blasphemy.
This neighbour had been having a dispute with him for years over a piece of ground.
He was recently condemned to death by the judge of first instance, following imprisonment.
He has since appealed, but unfortunately judges at higher courts are often also afraid to acquit someone who has been accused of blasphemy.
One judge who did this last year was murdered not long after, probably for just that reason.
<P>
It was announced this week that the Christian Shafik Massih was accused of blasphemy at the end of May, following a row over an electricity connection.
It is true that there is much opposition against these blasphemy laws in Pakistan itself.
But the Muslims who demonstrated in favour of the law were left in peace, while the Christians who protested against the law strangely enough were manhandled by the riot police.
<P>
Through this resolution, which we hope will be carried broadly by the European Parliament, we intend to call on the Pakistan government to revoke the blasphemy law or at least to moderate it.
The Pakistan government should ensure in any case that all citizens in their country are granted a fair judicial process.
<P>
The cooperation agreement between the European Union and Pakistan, which is presently under preparation by the European Commission, speaks of respect for human rights and democratic principles as the basis for the agreement.
We ask the European Commission to emphatically draw attention to this violation of the right when signing the cooperation agreement, and also later to monitor it scrupulously.
<P>
Cooperation between the European Union and Pakistan can continue if Pakistan meets these conditions.
Should Pakistan fail to comply, and let us all hope that it does, then sanctions should be imposed on the trade between the European Union and Pakistan.
The European Commission must not maintain good relations with a country where religious minorities are systematically oppressed and discriminated against.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lenz">
Madam President, I would like to endorse this.
It is not the nuclear tests that preoccupy us, but rather an evil which often likes to creep up slowly, which sometimes begins quietly, but often ends badly, namely discrimination against religious minorities.
The evil is not just caused by state religions, but also by a misunderstood fundamentalism, which for example takes advantage of a blasphemy law that is fiercely applied.
In Pakistan this evil is virulent and has become apparent through the death of the Catholic bishop John Joseph, but the situation in Pakistan was also the subject of a working party at the Conference of the German Catholic Church last week, and without anyone suspecting what would happen.
<P>
Minorities are often characterized by various factors: ethnic differences, varying religions, languages or cultures.
At the same time some aspects always come together.
Religion is misused to suppress freedom of opinion and information, to influence courts and legal judgements and to exercise violence through the police and fanatical groups.
We would like to express to the Pakistan government our grave concern, before the currently postponed, yet still imminent consultation of the European Parliament on the cooperation agreement.
We would like to support all efforts to create the laws in such a way that human rights, democratic endeavour and law and order are guaranteed and religious freedom is provided for all who want to live in peace in their country.
<P>
I have been told that the Pakistan government would be making suitable efforts.
Certainly we see that the death penalty has currently been suspended.
If that is the case, then we would like to know that our resolution is seen as support for those who want to turn Pakistan into a modern state in an admittedly difficult political situation.
But please let this be done without the atom bomb!
Might I also remind you that the founder of Pakistan, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, supported the idea of equality for all religions.
I hope that modern Pakistan will take this to heart.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 NAME="Hallam">
Madam President, on behalf of the Socialist Group, I would like to welcome this resolution.
I know that my colleague Anita Pollack, under the auspices of the South-east Asia Delegation, has raised this issue on a number of occasions during visits and delegation meetings with officials from and in Pakistan.
<P>
Last year I went to see the Pakistan Ambassador to the European Union and raised with him a number of cases.
His reply then was, ' Look, we have this vast population, several million people, and you are only able to bring up six cases' .
But over the last 12 months it has become abundantly clear that Section 295© of the Pakistan penal code, which provides for the death penalty, is being misused: often to settle family feuds; often on very dubious legal bases with just four witnesses; and it is often being used to persecute not just the Christians but the other minority groups in Pakistan.
<P>
Some of the reports of what happens when these cases are brought to court are quite horrifying.
At one court a group of local people turned up and began to build a gallows outside the courtroom to make it absolutely clear that whatever actually happened in the court, the people would subsequently be lynched.
So we face a serious situation.
<P>
I want, though, to bring this right back home.
Next month we will be discussing the Berger report on cults and sects.
Next month we will be looking at the Oostlander report on Muslim fundamentalism.
I would hope that, when this Parliament looks at those two reports, we act in a sensitive manner and make sure that we do not pass any resolution or any proclamation that can be used as evidence that here, in the European Union, we are anything other than an example, a shining beacon to the world of religious tolerance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Thomas">
Madam President, since the blasphemy law of 1986, religious minorities in Pakistan, such as the Christians and Amadi Muslims, have had their civil rights curtailed.
The law provides for the death penalty and life imprisonment for profaning the name of the prophet Mohammed and is mercilessly exploited to persecute religious minorities.
<P>
The Sharia law of 1991 only applies to Muslims and justifies attacks on dissenters, while women - and here it is particularly non-Muslim women who are badly affected by fundamentalist politics - are completely ostracized socially.
A further source of discrimination is the divided electoral system.
I have obtained information on this in my role as vice-president of the SAARC delegation of the European Parliament.
Here Muslims have the chance to vote only for Muslim candidates, while minorities can only vote for representatives from their ranks, and the effect is: Christian villages lack proper roads, electricity and water supply, and access to clean water is totally impossible.
The blasphemy law should not just be toned down, but abolished.
We expect from Pakistan that it finds its way back to the vision of its founding father, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, and finally makes human rights a reality.
<P>
Guinea-Bissau:
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Taubira-Delannon">
Madam President, a conflict has lasted ten days and nobody knows how many deaths have occurred on either side.
<P>
This conflict drags on, with its trail of despairingly foreseeable consequences: epidemics raging through the towns, population movements that frighten neighbouring countries and regional instability that gets more worrying in the course of time.
<P>
Furthermore, this conflict is being acted out in a sadly familiar context, scarred by poverty, limited educational facilities, health care and other public services.
<P>
But, like Janus, poverty is two-faced.
It fosters a culture of ingenuity and solidarity, whilst at the same time it nurtures the soil in which all manner of shady deals find sustenance.
Of course, decent living conditions do not entirely eradicate the traffic of evil - we need only consider the healthy state of drug trafficking in Europe, as well as other black markets - but at least they partially drain the bogs in which they proliferate.
<P>
One of the major difficulties, and also one of the great risks that this conflict poses to stability, is that it bolsters secular ethnic solidarity, whereas the African nations are less than forty years old and those persistent feelings of solidarity grew out of a decolonizing policy introduced at the end the period of European military expansionism which mainly consisted in drawing geo-strategic lines on maps, rather than taking account of human realities.
One of the most recent causes has been the stagnation of joint development policies.
<P>
At all events, the boundaries of these countries are firmly established and recognized internationally and we can only believe that the conflict and the restoration of peace in Guinea-Bissau have taken place under the auspices of the democratically elected Heads of State, the Senegalese head of State and the goodwill of the Gambian head of State.
<P>
Our Parliament must apply its moral authority and political weight to persuade a regional institution such as the Organization of African Unity to intervene in this conflict and bring about a cease-fire and maintain peace.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendes Bota">
Madam President, Guinea-Bissau was already one of the poorest countries on earth, and has therefore sometimes made an ideal subject for documentaries on Third World misery.
For twelve years, against a sound background consisting of the rockets and machine-guns of a military rebellion against the constitutional Government and its allies from neighbouring countries, Senegal and Guinea-Conakry, Guinea-Bissau has been front-page news for the world's media.
<P>
The results could not be more devastating: the country's capital well nigh destroyed, massive flights of refugees into neighbouring countries - we hear of six thousand having fled to Dakar, while Lisbon and Cape Verde are still receiving refugees - the drastic lack of food and medicine, hundreds of civilians and an unknown number of soldiers killed.
<P>
The fact that the armed struggle is still going on also shows that the recapture of Guinea, although making progress, has been difficult, which may indicate a considerable imbalance of strength.
We must obtain a bilateral cease-fire as a matter of urgency as a pre-condition for negotiations, but we must ensure that the current mediation initiatives do not suffer from excess or multiplication.
There is a mission from The Gambia in the country; the Official Organization of Portuguese-Speaking Countries has offered to mediate in the conflict; in this Resolution the European Parliament calls on the European Union and the UN to intervene.
But a conflict between Africans ought to be resolved between Africans, and hence the OAU seems the organization in the best position to do so.
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Guinea-Bissau has been a democracy, albeit a flawed one, for some years.
Stability in West Africa depends on the restoration of the constitutional order, the principal figurehead of which is President Nino Vieira.
But we must at all costs avoid replacing a normal military conflict with the old type of endless guerrilla warfare - a lesson which our colonial history ought to have taught us by now.
The only ones who profit are the arms dealers, and the only losers are the people.
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<SPEAKER ID=175 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Apolinário">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Madam Commissioner, the situation in Guinea-Bissau is complex, fluid and subject to constant political changes.
Hence this resolution had to be read with the prudence appropriate to those who reaffirm principles and above all else appeal for peace.
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Peace is essential if we are to provide practical aid for the thousands of refugees, because it is only today that the first humanitarian aid is expected to arrive via Bafatá, thanks to the endeavours and the generosity of the Portuguese Armed Forces, the Red Cross and the religious and Social Security institutions, with the active support of the European Union. Peace has already been called for by the Council, especially as a result of efforts by Portugal, France, the President and other Member States of the Union; peace has been called for by His Holiness the Pope and a number of international organizations; peace for which the Official Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries mobilized yesterday at its meeting in Lisbon; peace, for the sake of which the Gambian Minister of Foreign Affairs has gone to Bissau to attempt to mediate there.
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The European Parliament calls for the re-establishment of constitutional order, for arms to be laid down and for a peaceful solution to a serious internal and regional conflict, the establishment of democratic constitutional order within the framework of Guinea-Bissau's political institutions and respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of that country.
Hence the reference in the resolution to the role of the OAU and the United Nations.
<P>
Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to mention the immediate willingness of the Commission to provide humanitarian aid and to underline the part played by Portugal, in co-operation with Senegal and Cape Verde, in the repatriation of foreign refugees, most of whom come from Member States of the Union.
Those refugees, and the Guinean people, are after all the main reason for our concern.
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<SPEAKER ID=176 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Madam President, anyone familiar with Guinea-Bissau in the past is aware of the reasons for the present crisis.
A few decades ago the people still lived relatively well. Perhaps they were not rich, there was no great development, but the Portuguese really achieved something to be proud of there.
The country then collapsed through corruption and international intervention.
I think you just have to admit that environmental protection, for instance, is today nothing short of terrible.
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When I was there, a long time ago now, people could really live on islands like Bijagós.
They had enough to eat, whereas now everything has been destroyed by pollution.
That is the price that has been paid for government without conscience - the present one has been much better, but up to now it has had to settle the bill.
We should be doing everything we can to help the extremely likeable people of Guinea-Bissau to get back on the right track.
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<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Girão Pereira">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, may I begin by thanking my honourable friend Otto von Habsberg for his kind words on the work of the Portuguese in Guinea-Bissau.
I would not wish to offer an opinion on the internal political problems of Guinea-Bissau, nor to comment on the participation of the Senegalese and Guinea-Conakry armies in this conflict, their legitimacy or any territorial claims they may have on Guinea-Bissau.
<P>
What is important, as has already been mentioned, is that institutional order should be restored in a country that is growing poorer and poorer, that democracy should be able to survive and that the opposition parties may have practical conditions in which they can exercise their democratic rights on equal terms with the party in power, which has not actually happened.
<P>
But what also matters is that the European Union should be able to help in this crisis.
I would like to remind the House at this point how quickly the European Union has provided aid, releasing funds for refugees, and I would ask the European Union to go on giving attention to this problem, not only from the political but also from the humanitarian point of view.
There are thousands of refugees still fleeing from Guinea-Bissau, settling in neighbouring countries and, in particular, coming to Europe. These people deserve our support and that of the Commission.
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<SPEAKER ID=178 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Novo">
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, although we do not yet have sufficient information to enable us to make a detailed and objective analysis of the recent situation in Guinea-Bissau, nevertheless we would wish at this point to express our sadness at the serious events that have been taking place in that country, and especially the high number of deaths that have resulted from those events.
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We would also like to express our hopes that the Guineans - and not any third parties - will quickly be able to find a lasting democratic solution by political means, without further bloodshed.
<P>
In the meantime, we are delighted that it has been possible to repatriate many foreign citizens at the appropriate time, particularly Portuguese citizens whose lives were in danger.
At the same time we are aware of the very serious situation in which many Guinean citizens find themselves and it is therefore essential and a matter of urgency that the European Union should demonstrate its solidarity with them, by increasing humanitarian aid and particularly by providing more food supplies.
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<SPEAKER ID=179 NAME="Cresson">
Ladies and gentlemen, I will try to reply to the questions you raised.
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Firstly, on the serious matter of the death penalty. During its sitting in 1998, the United Nations Human Rights Commission adopted a new resolution on the death penalty, which was jointly sponsored by all the Member States of the Union.
In particular, this resolution commits all those states that have not yet abolished the death penalty to - and I quote - "gradually limit the number of offences that carry the death penalty, to impose a moratorium on executions with a view to the final abolition of the death penalty and to publicize information about the application of that penalty' .
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Currently, the Union, which deems the abolition of the death penalty to be an integral part of its policy in support of human rights, is continuing its work with a view to adopting guidelines on the procedures to adopt with regard to other countries.
<P>
I now come to the second question, regarding Equatorial Guinea.
The Commission is most concerned about the way the situation has developed in this country.
Following an armed attack against a number of military installations on the island of Bioko in Equatorial Guinea on 21 January 1998, 117 people were detained, accused of rebellion and tried by a military tribunal in session from 25 to 29 May at Malabo.
The military tribunal reached its verdict on 1 June.
It condemned 15 of the accused to death, as you yourself stated, and several others were given prison sentences of between 6 and 26 years.
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The Commission will continue to follow developments closely, in collaboration with the Member States in situ, and will maintain the dialogue with national authorities to prevent violations of human rights and to advance and consolidate the fragile democratic process in the country.
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The Commission is standing by the conditions imposed for the gradual resumption of cooperation with Equatorial Guinea, especially the use of resources from the seventh EDF.
These conditions call for genuine progress with regard to respect for human rights, democratic principles and the de facto State, in accordance with Article 5 of the fourth Lomé Convention.
<P>
I now come to the problem of Indonesia and Timor.
The Commission commends the decisions taken by President Habibie, seeking to reform the political landscape of Indonesia and hold elections in 1999.
It does, however, think it important to speed up the pace of reform, to guarantee rapid recovery of the Indonesian economy.
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I attach particular importance to the openness which the Indonesian government seems to show with regard to the question of East Timor.
I hope that this demonstration of openness will soon result in a just, overall solution that is acceptable internationally.
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The Commission has always participated fully in the work of the CFSP in the search for a solution to the question of East Timor.
In particular, it has supported the endeavours of the Secretary General of the United Nations and his special envoy, Ambassador Marker.
<P>
The Commission has also supported the call from the "General Affairs' Council held on 8 and 9 June, demanding the release of Xanana Gusmão and all other political prisoners, a visit by the troika to East Timor and an immediate resumption of the discussions under the auspices of the United Nations.
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I now come to the question raised about Chad.
The Commission is following with some concern developments in the human rights situation in that country.
The arrests of Mr Yorongar and some journalists, in particular, have been monitored closely.
A delegation adviser is attending the courtroom in which the trials are being held.
According to the latest information, the two accused journalists have been released and the position of Mr Yorongar is now being examined in the light of comments his lawyers have formulated regarding the irregular nature of the waiving of his parliamentary immunity.
More generally, the Commission is investigating the possibility of planning and implementing specific actions to promote respect for human rights in this country.
<P>
In addition, with regard to concerns about security problems in the south of the country, according to our information, following the agreement reached between the parties early last May, there was nothing serious to report.
Hence, military activities seem to have been suspended while negotiations continue.
<P>
I now come to Pakistan.
The Commission is aware of the problems of harassment that the devotees of other faiths impose regularly on Christian religious minorities in particular.
The Commission, through the mediation of its delegation in Islamabad, and the Member States represented in Pakistan are examining these matters close at hand and investigating particular incidents with the responsible authorities in that country.
<P>
Freedom of worship is guaranteed by Article 20 of the Pakistani constitution and by Article 1 of the cooperation agreement between the European Community and Pakistan, which was signed on 22 April 1998 and contains the following statement: "the respect for democratic principles and human rights, as defined in the universal declaration on human rights, underlies the domestic and foreign policies of the Community and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and constitute a vital element of this agreement' .
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The Commission will continue to maintain vigilance regarding all matters relating to human rights.
Through its development aid programmes it will provide aid for the poorest and most underprivileged populations in Pakistan.
<P>
I now come to the last question concerning Guinea Bissau.
The European Commission shares the comments contained in the motions for resolution tabled by the European Parliament.
The Commission is monitoring attentively developments in Guinea Bissau and is aware of the difficulties confronted by the civilian population at the moment, due to the lack of food, medicine and water.
<P>
The Commission and its Humanitarian Office gather information from various humanitarian organizations serving in the field to enable them to offer an efficient and speedy humanitarian response to displaced populations.
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The European Commission supports the mediation efforts initiated by individual Member States and regional leaders and appeals to the parties in conflict to negotiate a final cease-fire.
<P>
The European Commission is ready to resume cooperation with Guinea Bissau as soon as the country returns to the path of democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Cresson.
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The joint debate is closed.
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The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
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<SPEAKER ID=181 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on the following six motions for resolutions:
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B4-0599/98 by Mr Oostlander and Mrs Lenz, on behalf of the EVP Group, on the International Criminal Court; -B4-0606/98 by Mr de Vries, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the International Criminal Court; -B4-0625/98 by Mr Swoboda and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the International Criminal Court; -B4-0639/98 by Mrs Aglietta and others, on behalf of the V Group, on the International Criminal Court; -B4-0648/98 by Mr Dell'Alba and others, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the International Criminal Court; -B4-0673/98 by Mr Puerta and others on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the International Criminal Court.
<SPEAKER ID=182 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
Madam President, each time initiatives such as this are on the agenda, we are reminded of the fact that it all started with a flight from responsibility by certain Member States at the time the issue of Yugoslavia was on the agenda.
An international court of law was then proposed for Yugoslavia - it was pure window dressing. Nobody expected much of it, except the late Member, Alexander Langers, who at that time had compiled an excellent report on the matter.
We have made progress since then, thanks to the serious commitment by judges and public prosecutors who have been involved from the time of the Yugoslav court, and we are now so far that we are even preparing to set up a general international criminal tribunal.
This is more than anyone had expected, in my opinion.
Our progress is a slap in the face for all Realpolitik which believes that morality and justice are irrelevant in foreign policy.
This is basically why the whole area of foreign policy is so far removed from the citizens, who experience justice and morality in their daily lives.
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This court brings to our attention that the borderline between conducting Realpolitik and war crimes is often and easily transgressed.
The establishment of this court is a great preventative measure. It will make government leaders and ministers realize that such a Realpolitik motive does not lead them far and that they may be convicted if they continue on that track.
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It is good that this court will be able to guarantee its independence. This will make it impossible, for example, for veto carriers in the Security Council to get off scot-free per definition.
The Amsterdam Treaty sets a good example in this respect in that it reminds all Member States that the legal order must be safeguarded, otherwise they can expect sanctions.
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The offer by the Dutch government to establish the Criminal Tribunal in The Hague is, of course, admirable.
It is also practical, due to the presence of other international courts of justice.
I hope, however, that this will lead the Dutch government to realize that this offer also commits it not to continue further with the national hobby of navel contemplation, but to become the real standardbearer of the tradition of Hugo de Groot, and thus keep in mind its international responsibilities.
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Our Group is delighted to support the resolution, including both amendments submitted by Mr De Vries.
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<SPEAKER ID=183 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cars">
Madam President, the Liberals in Europe are deeply engaged in trying to get a permanent International Court of Justice for War Crimes established.
We are happy to see that the matter has advanced as far as it has.
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We do not understand why the majority of this House do not share our view on two points.
We think that all war crimes should be judged equally, regardless of whether they have been committed in a civil war or in a conflict between two states.
Why does the Chamber not wish to support that?
We think that the prosecutor should have a natural right to decide whether or not to instigate a prosecution.
If he or she has the same material and knows that he or she faces a criminal, it is then in all normal legal practice the duty of that prosecutor to commence prosecution.
Why does the majority of this House not want to support the Liberals' demand in this respect?
I call upon those who speak after me to give a satisfactory answer to that question.
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<SPEAKER ID=184 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, I have here a card which affords me admission, as a member of the delegation from Senegal, to the FAO buildings where the diplomatic conference is being held concerning the institution of the International Court of Justice.
I am grateful to Mr Jacques Baudin, Minister of Justice and Head of the Senegal delegation, for bestowing such an honour and rendering such a service on my behalf.
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However, neither the Commission nor the Council have allowed observers to attend this conference, other than those from this Parliament.
This is a most serious precedent that I would like to bring to the attention of my colleagues.
Apparently, I am told, the Council of Ministers, at the instigation of the Commission, would not have allowed us to sit for three days in Rome to witness the commitment which this Parliament continually trumpets in favour of the Court: we adopted a resolution three months ago; there is a group known as the Amici Curiae with a fellowship of more than 60 members; we have drawn up budget headings; we have always supported the efforts of the Commission and the Council.
Well, it seems, we cannot go to Rome, the capital of a Member State, because the issue relates to the second and third pillars!
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This is what I judge to be the gravity of the situation.
I hope that this Parliament will be able to take this into account during the three-way discussions and all our negotiations and inter-institutional contacts, because this seems to me to be a very, very serious precedent in which, I believe, the Commission has played no small part.
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On a rhetorical note, then, a matter that seems to me to be important.
With regard to the underlying principles, of course, we must support this resolution.
It is important that the Court be set up in Rome.
We must support the amendments of the liberal group, especially that dealing with the jurisdiction of the Court in internal conflicts which is greatly disputed by the Arab countries and certain Asian countries, who would like to oppose it, whereas those conflicts are an integral part of the Geneva Convention and must be included in the jurisdiction of the Court.
The Court must be independent and effective: this is the task and the commitment of the Union.
Frankly, we might have spared ourselves this blunder.
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<SPEAKER ID=185 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sauquillo Pérez del Arco">
Madam President, the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, approved 50 years ago, stated amongst other things that disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind.
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Now, finally, the Rome Diplomatic Conference is taking place to establish a permanent International Criminal Court.
Given this historic opportunity to provide ourselves with an institution capable of punishing these outrageous acts which are still being carried out, I read with horror in the press that the OSCE suspects that concentration camps are being established in Europe.
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The international community has taken up the challenge of completing its legal system by providing an institutional channel for a universal conscience which revolves around human rights.
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The task is difficult because no text has been agreed on.
There is not even a global agreement on the universal competence of the future Court, and in this respect China's retreat once again into its entrenched arguments of cultural exception is of some concern.
We need the conviction, without any selfishness, of the maximum number of countries; not only of Western countries, but also of those countries whose conviction is certainly not as yet guaranteed.
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It is difficult because the universal history of disgrace has extended the catalogue of crimes over which the Court should have jurisdiction to include sexual crimes against women during times of war, the recruitment of minors, the use of certain types of weapons, ethnic cleansing and so on. And, from the legal point of view, too, it is difficult because the statute will have to be the fruit of an effective combination of the Latin and Anglo-Saxon legal traditions.
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All these difficulties could mean that the debates at the Conference are prolonged endlessly and that the Conference itself is interminable and unproductive, but, faced with these difficulties, there are some positive aspects.
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Firstly, the previous unsuccessful experiences demonstrate the need to make sure that things are done properly this time.
The results of the ad hoc tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia are not satisfactory.
The reality of what has happened in Cambodia, Argentina and Chile for example, and what is happening in Kosovo at the moment, clearly demonstrates for us the need to establish a permanent and effective criminal jurisdiction which will overcome the errors made in the past.
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Secondly, the project can rely on social backing.
The mobilization of non-governmental organizations has translated the International Law Commission's draft statute for a court to street level, and it has been converted into an unavoidable demand.
The 800 NGOs represented in Rome keep the flame of civil society lit; its mere presence serves to make the authorities aware that they are defending, on the basis of populism and demagogy, a concept of national sovereignty which at times is obsolete, one that does not have the support of its people.
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Therefore, we Socialists, who believe that there can be no peace without justice, consider the success of this Rome Conference to be a duty, and we support this resolution and the two amendments that have been tabled.
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<SPEAKER ID=186 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ullmann">
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, since the Nuremberg Tribunal first began its work it has been clear that, as part of the new international legal system which had to be created after the two World Wars, there was also a need for a court where the offences of state criminals could be prosecuted, tried and if need be punished.
However, it is only now that we have taken steps to turn this court from an ad-hoc initiative into a permanent institution.
I am extremely delighted, and it is a great satisfaction to me, to see from the text of the resolutions, especially the joint resolution, that there is unanimity in this Parliament over three central issues.
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Firstly, the prosecutor's independence, both from the Security Council and from the national courts, which finds expression in the definition of the core crimes under the new international penal code and the relationship of this International Criminal Court with the United Nations.
This relationship cannot, of course, mean subordination to the Security Council.
Let us hope that this initiative on the part of this House may help to make this century not just the century of state crime, of the destruction of law organized and executed by organs of the state, but also a century of legal regeneration.
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<SPEAKER ID=187 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Madam President, I believe that from now on we should support primarily the international coalition of more than 800 non-governmental organizations which, in a true exercise of civic diplomacy, has managed to ensure that the governments sit down to negotiate the creation of an International Criminal Court.
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It is an International Criminal Court which will naturally perform an effective role of preventive diplomacy in that firstly, it will be fully independent of the United Nations Security Council, secondly, it will have a prosecutor who can carry out investigations and present indictments on his own initiative and thirdly, it will have inherent, universal jurisdiction.
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It is regrettable that certain countries, such as the United States, are set on spoiling the results of the Diplomatic Conference which is taking place in Rome.
However, it would be even more regrettable if certain Member States of the European Union, ignoring public opinion, were to join with those efforts of the North American government.
We have already had a negative element in the fact that the Union has not held a common position, in accordance with the Treaty, regarding this Diplomatic Conference.
Parliament should have been present at that Conference, as Mr Dell'Alba has said.
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To conclude, I want to say to Mr Cars that he has our support for the amendments he has tabled because they are aimed at ensuring that the International Criminal Court becomes an effective reality.
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<SPEAKER ID=188 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Ferrer">
Madam President, we have already said on many occasions that our planet needs an International Criminal Court capable of putting an end to the impunity of those who turn the civil population into an object to be destroyed and who use torture and mass rape as weapons of war. It should also be capable of promoting forgiveness and reconciliation among peoples through the exercise of justice.
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That is why we have set our hopes on the Rome Conference.
We know, however, that there are still many obstacles which need to be overcome in order to reach agreements, particularly in matters relating to its independence and jurisdiction.
Therefore, it is fitting that this Parliament let its voice be heard once more, calling, on this occasion, on the Member States of the European Union and on the Commission to support the approaches that this Parliament has repeatedly defended.
<P>
However, it is also fitting that Parliament let its voice be heard - it is essential that it let it be heard - in order to protest and express regret, as previous speakers have done, at the fact that Parliament will be the great absentee from this Conference. Indeed, since the beginning, we had asked that we be permitted to consider a formula that would allow us to be represented and to take up the place we deserve due to the determination we have shown over the years in favour of this Court and in favour of international justice for peace.
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<SPEAKER ID=189 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Musumeci">
Mr President, the National Alliance Group will vote in favour of the proposal for a joint resolution to appoint an International Tribunal for War Crimes.
It goes without saying that this is a historic opportunity, but it is a decision that comes late and that is certainly not enough to rehabilitate a Europe whose image has been that of an ostrich with its head in the sand and which so far has refused to take any concrete initiative not only to prevent the occurrence on its own territory of genocides, crimes against humanity and war crimes but also to condemn and punish with an unrelentingly will the authors, direct and indirect, of such crimes.
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Strangely, Europe seems to have wanted to stop the clock of history at Nuremberg, as if since then European soil has not absorbed the innocent blood of hundreds of thousands of victims - women, children, civilians - while many of those responsible continue to run free and unpunished, even receiving honours and respect, including from that official Europe which has so far limited itself to occasional verbal condemnations.
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It is our hope that the diplomatic Conference in Rome, convened with the purpose of appointing an International Tribunal for War Crimes, will be the last step towards this fundamental, albeit late, achievement.
We will have to neutralize and repel any attempts to obstruct this by those who have an interest in maintaining the status quo, even if we object to the absence of the European Parliament which could have had an important, leading role in this conference.
It is also our hope that the appointment of the Criminal Tribunal, while representing an effective integration of national legal systems, can be part of a new political context where Europe finally has its own foreign, defence and security policy.
If this priority objective had been pursued with the same tenacity as with the single currency, Europe certainly would have seen, right here on its doorstep, many fewer victims these past few years.
And I am referring to those same innocent victims who are now asking the European Parliament for justice, not revenge.
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<SPEAKER ID=190 NAME="Cresson">
Ladies and gentlemen Members of this House, the diplomatic conference in Rome is due to close and approve a convention seeking to set up the International Criminal Court.
Since the conference opened just three days ago it is difficult to comment on any of its results.
As you know, the diplomatic conference will continue through to 17 July.
The Member States of the European Union are participating actively in the negotiations to ensure that a convention is adopted that will establish an independent and powerful Court.
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The Commission is represented at the conference in Rome by an observer.
On many occasions, she has declared herself in favour of the institution of an independent and effective International Criminal Court.
In a speech to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights on 17 March, the Commission - through Mrs Bonino - stressed the importance of adopting decisions in Rome rather than settling for procedural approaches.
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I think we can safely say that this first step which has been taken - and which has been insisted on by a large number of NGOs - is a very important one.
Of course, this is a situation which remains fragile and it is one which we should endeavour to consolidate.
I have taken note of the words expressed by Mr Dell'Alba and I shall not fail to pass this on to the Commissioner responsible, but it is true that we could doubtless conceive of procedures in which better information and greater transparency might be brought into play.
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<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Cresson.
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The joint debate is closed.
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The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
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<SPEAKER ID=192 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on the resolution (B4-0609/98) by Mr Bertens and Mrs André-Léonard, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on Cambodia.
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<SPEAKER ID=193 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Goerens">
Madam President, maintaining the status quo in Cambodia is not in the interest of anyone.
The European Parliament demands that Cambodia comply with the Paris agreements, in other words the conditions which that country has itself endorsed: no more, no less.
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These conditions include the holding of free elections this year, the setting up of an electoral register and the ability of political parties to participate in the democratic process, rather than be excluded.
In saying this, I am simply repeating the comments I was able to make before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, which appointed me as draftsman of an opinion, regarding a new generation agreement between the European Union and Cambodia.
We have already suspended work in this direction, until Cambodia is ready to comply with the principle it endorsed itself in the Paris agreements.
We are not asking this country to do anything impossible, we are simply reminding them of the conditions which, just a short time ago, opened up such encouraging prospects.
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It is now the turn of Cambodia to restore the former situation.
The same comment applies with regard to support in the democratic process, in other words the free elections scheduled for this year.
The Commission is urged to block the funds until the conditions for free elections, worthy of the name, are met.
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<SPEAKER ID=194 NAME="Kinnock, Glenys">
Mr President, I have been appointed as the EU's special envoy to the forthcoming Cambodian elections.
This is not only an honour for me but also for the European Parliament.
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I am naturally anxious that these elections should be a constructive step towards democracy in that country and, certainly, they should not be a meaningless gesture on the part of Hun Sen's regime. I am unlikely to be complacent since I will ultimately have the responsibility to give the EU's position on that election.
<P>
But what we must remember is that, whatever the current political situation in Cambodia, this is the first election to be called by Cambodia: it is not an internationally enforced initiative but one that came from Cambodia itself.
It is this factor that we in this House have to recognize; and we, as part of the international community - the European Union - have been asked to lend the essential support that election needs.
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We are there to ensure an effective registration process, to rigorously monitor the vote, and to give all political parties access to the media.
Eighty per cent of voters have already registered and fifteen long-term observers are already in place.
Eighty short-term observers from the EU and eighty-five bilaterally from Member States will be deployed throughout the whole of Cambodia.
Further observers offering technical assistance will come from other states.
The UNDP is coordinating technical assistance and the UN election assistance secretariat is coordinating the observation team.
We have already negotiated access for the media, and EU media experts have been put in position to ensure that takes place.
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These are achievements.
But I am very conscious that we have a long way to go.
The EU is not monitoring these elections for the purpose of rubber-stamping the process: we are there to ensure that it is a free and fair election.
If that is not the case, then it will be our duty to say so, and I will not hesitate to do just that.
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As Derek Fatchett, Minister of State at the Foreign Office, said last week in the UK parliament: it will be a fine judgement we will have to make, and one that the EU must be prepared to make.
I, for one, will be prepared to make that judgement, and I intend to lead a team of observers committed to ensuring that the European Union takes an independent and fair position on these elections.
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<SPEAKER ID=195 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Madam President, Commissioner Cresson, I think that the urgent and topical debate here is possibly our last chance to reconsider exactly the financial investment being made by the European Union in the Cambodian elections, which after all amounts to almost ECU 10 million, and to look at the conditions under which this money is to be used.
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When I read from the list of investments made, for example, that a large part has been used to support and educate journalists in the region of Cambodia and in the country itself, then I have to say - as someone who knows something about the situation - that this is tremendously difficult because the latest news is that in the last state purge the final opposition journalists were murdered and there are currently only journalists there who are loyal to the government.
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I am very glad to hear Mrs Kinnock say that there are experts from our side there, too, trying to sort out the media.
However, I have certain doubts about this, and we should really consider the exact nature of our involvement in this area.
I think another point requires careful consideration too, and that is our collaboration with the United States of America.
The latter have taken a clear stance on their involvement in the Cambodian elections and have adopted a very distanced attitude to them.
They are no doubt interested, like us, in a genuine democratic process, and I think in this case we should collaborate with them and agree a common position.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Madam President, the Union is prepared to make a considerable contribution, not only to the elections but also to democracy in Cambodia, as mentioned by Mr Habsburg.
This also applied to the elections in 1993 when I was part of a delegation of Euros led by Mr Cheysson.
It also applies at present and I would say to Mrs Glenys Kinnock: good luck, see you in the headlines, I hope.
<P>
In return we are entitled to demand something from the Cambodian rulers. Elections are only meaningful when they result in a credible authority.
The Union should only support these elections if, at the very minimum, conditions for holding genuinely democratic elections are met.
To be honest, these conditions are not yet in place in Cambodia. The reason is not the practical difficulties in the country; the impossibility of democratic elections is currently being caused by the unsympathetic attitude of Hun Sen, who does not comply with the Paris agreements.
Mr Goerens has already mentioned this.
<P>
The Union should be quite explicit.
The elections on 26 July can only be recognised if a minimum number of conditions are met.
The Commission must not contribute to fraudulent elections.
Otherwise Hun Sen would wrongly be accorded legitimacy. Sending a delegation of observers and even ECU 10 000 does not mean that we also sanction the policy.
Nevertheless, I hope the result will be a good one.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 NAME="Cresson">
Ladies and gentlemen Members of this House, the European Union has condemned the ousting by force of the Prime Minister, Prince Ranariddh and the violence perpetrated in July 1997.
The action in support of the electoral process, decided by joint agreement between the Commission and Member States and amounting to ECU 10.4m, seeks - subject to strict conditions - to provide the Cambodian government with the resources required to institute successfully an electoral process which, on this occasion, will be implemented under the sole responsibility of the Cambodian people, with the support of the international community.
<P>
If the conditions of freedom and impartiality required are not complied with, the European Commission reserves the right to suspend its aid after formal consultation with the Member States, based on the terms of the financing agreement signed in Phnom Penh on 16 January 1998.
The diplomatic action by the European Union, initiated in conjunction with the initiatives launched by the countries in the "Friends of Cambodia' group, the ANSEA troika and the United Nations, especially with regard to the observance of human rights, will continue to concentrate on the most appropriate methods of bringing about pluralistic participation in the elections.
<P>
In this context, the European Union will remain especially vigilant regarding matters of procedure, the registration of parties, the workings of the constitutional council with regard to the inspection and regular conduct of the elections and the risks of a resurgence of acts of violence against members of the opposition.
Events in recent days, following the trial of Prince Ranariddh, and the granting of a pardon by King Sihanouk, therefore represent crucial stages in the process of assessing the development of the political situation and enabling the international community and European institutions to adopt the appropriate policy guidelines with a view to the forthcoming elections.
<P>
Consequently, the next meeting of the "Friends of Cambodia' , due to take place towards mid-June 1998 in Phnom Penh, must bring to the fore the elements required to enable the international community to determine whether the preparations for elections meet the stipulated conditions, enabling all the political forces involved to express themselves freely in the crucial phase of the electoral campaign.
Mrs Kinnock spoke earlier of the electoral aid device.
I will therefore not raise the matter again.
Long and short-term observation is guaranteed through the provision of 95 observers.
The Member States will appoint, on a bilateral basis, more observers operating under the auspices of the European Union observation device.
Close collaboration with the United Nations at all stages of the organization and progress of the elections is guaranteed in the field by European consultants, operating on the instructions of the departments of the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Cresson.
<P>
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 5.25 p.m. and resumed at 5.30 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Votes (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=199 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the votes from noon.
<P>
Report (A4-0207/98) by Mrs Rothe, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the Communication from the Commission on energy for the future (renewable sources of energy) - White Paper for a Community strategy and action plan (COM(97)0599 - C4-0047/98)
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Madam President, after consulting the various Parliamentary groups - and if it is not inconvenient - I would like to propose orally that Amendment No 3 to paragraph 3 of this joint resolution be voted on firstly as an addition to paragraph 3 and secondly that we only vote on the section from the beginning, which states: "...calls on the governments of Lebanon, Syria and Israel...' up to the first reference to the Middle East. In other words, we should vote on it as an addition and we should vote only on the following part of the amendment: "...calls on the governments of Lebanon, Syria and Israel to revive and resume the peace negotiations at the point they had reached when they were broken off and in accordance with the relevant resolutions of the United Nations Security Council and the principles laid down at the Madrid Conference on the Middle East' .
So we would then leave out the rest of the text.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sakellariou">
Madam President, I would like to ask whether the Rules of Procedure of this Parliament allow us to define new borders in Europe, because this is what this paragraph is about.
Parliament in its infinite wisdom has defined a new border in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 NAME="President">
Mr Sakellariou, that was a speech on the debate and this is now closed.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 NAME="Ahlqvist and Wibe">
We share the opinion of Mr Kohl and Mr Chirac that far too many decisions which could have been reached on a national level have now been transferred to the EU.
Like the two persons mentioned above, we regard it as important that the principle of subsidiarity be given real meaning.
<P>
This report deals with the development of renewable sources of energy in far too detailed a manner.
It becomes somewhat absurd when it suggests that the sign 'golden sun' be handed out to various holiday resorts and such like in order to encourage the use of renewable sources of energy.
Is it really the EU's task to deal with such matters?
<P>
It is our opinion that energy policies are to be dealt with at national level.
There is nothing to be gained from making policy on energy at supranational level.
We therefore vote against this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 NAME="Apolinário">
My vote in favour of the Rothe report on renewable energy is based on a national and regional reference framework, which I take the opportunity to emphasize.
<P>
It will only be possible in practice to achieve the reduction in CO2 emissions fixed at the Rio Summit, and to comply with the obligations we assumed at Kyoto, if every Member State operates a rational energy management scheme and encourages the production of renewable energy, which in the European Union represents only 1.3 % of the total energy produced (5.3 % if we add hydro-electric power) with figures of 6 % and 15.7 % (with hydro-electric power) respectively for Portugal.
<P>
The European Union proposes to increase its overall percentage of renewable energy, including hydro-electric power, from 5.3 % to 15 % by 2010.
This target will only be achieved with new support schemes for renewable solar, wind, bio-mass and photovoltaic energy sources - hence the importance of the support fund called for by the majority of Members of the European Parliament.
<P>
In the Algarve region, with solar radiation between 1782 KwH/m² (Sagres) and 1896 KwH/m² (Tavira) and an annual sunshine total of 2800 to 3100 hours, a privileged area for wind-generated power - between Rogil and Sagres - and enormous potential for biomass production, particularly associated with pig-farming and forestry, in the case of Monchique, renewable energy sources represent a policy option that should be exploited.
Hence the importance of the initiatives in that direction that have been launched by the European Union, the Government, local authorities and the community in general.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 NAME="Caudron">
May I first of all commend my colleague Mechtild Rothe for the quality of her work and her sense of realism.
I also wish to say that I will be voting in favour of the motion.
<P>
I am one of those who openly welcomed the intentions of the Kyoto summit.
Now we have to take steps to make credible the good intentions expressed at this conference.
<P>
Like Mrs Rothe, I am of the opinion that the objective set by the Commission with regard to renewable energy sources is the minimum and that we should seek details of the plans and strategies of the Member States and, in particular, determine their willingness to comply with the Commission requirements.
<P>
I also share the concern of my colleague on the subject of the efforts we need to make in the field of solar energy and agricultural-based alternative energy sources.
With regard to the latter, we must check their ecological effects which, dare we say, has not always been the case.
<P>
So, in view of the urgency of the situation, both in environmental terms and with regard to the increasing scarcity in the medium and long term of renewable energy sources, we need to envisage steps that encourage the participation of public and private operators engaged in this essential and vital sector.
<P>
Finally, I will close my address regarding the political nature of this proposal by saying that in terms of political ecology, the European Union should also establish itself as a model for the rest of the world.
This does not mean setting itself up as a tutor, but rather showing that Europe states its resolve and acts for the benefit of all, and seeks to find solutions for future generations.
<P>
I am coming close to believing that our survival depends on it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 NAME="Cushnahan">
During the past few years, it has become apparent that non-renewable sources of energy cannot alone meet our future needs in a satisfactory manner.
Both Member State governments and other groups within the EU have raised questions concerning the continued availability of fossil fuels and the finite nature of the supply of resources such as oil.
Furthermore, unchecked consumption of non-renewable energy can directly and indirectly contribute to environmental problems like global warming, air pollution and other potentially disastrous scenarios.
<P>
Because of these reasons, I support the development of renewable sources of energy within an EU framework.
The proposal to double the rate of total energy consumption from renewables by the year 2010 can have a considerable impact on the future direction of EU energy policy.
The more our dependence on non-renewable energy sources such as fossil fuels is diminished, the closer we are to creating a sustainable and environmentally friendly energy programme.
Therefore, I welcome this proposal to increase our investment in renewable energy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="Deprez">
The need to steer economic development onto a path that does not endanger future generations is becoming more and more apparent to everyone.
The White Paper we have to discuss today is further proof of this.
<P>
Fossil fuels, the source of the extraordinary economic and industrial development of our societies over the past one hundred and fifty years, now pose an acknowledged risk for mankind, now that their unbridled use and the exponential production of CO2 are likely to alter our climate appreciably in the coming decades.
Whence the importance of promoting renewable energy sources by lending all the support necessary to assist their breakthrough into the market, in the context of what the White Paper calls the "lift-off campaign' .
<P>
From this standpoint, I am pleased to point out that despite its incompatibility with the proposed reforms of the CAP in Agenda 2000, the notion of tripling the use of biomass energy sources is intended to provide some sort of response to those European farmers who are worried about their future and are now thinking about possible reconversion.
With regard to the possible exploitation of the biomass, there is certainly one path we should explore further, since it lies at the crossroads between a number of priority concerns within the European Union: stable development, the common agricultural policy and enlargement.
<P>
That said, our rapporteur has wisely pointed to the need, raised many times in this Chamber, for Community-based taxation on non-renewable energy.
Indeed, there might be a CO2 tax one day, let us hope so!
<P>
To conclude, I would also like to express my conviction that the emergence of renewable energy sources and the unfettered deployment of a genuine programme of stable development together constitute a source for jobs of all types and all grades.
<P>
I therefore unreservedly declare my support for the White Paper, as amended by the motion for resolution as tabled.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 NAME="Hyland">
I am urging the European Commission and the European Council to coordinate their efforts in a structured and streamlined manner so that a long-term energy policy can be formed which enhances Irish and European agricultural and rural development policies.
This should be brought to fruition as negotiations take place between the national Member States and the EU on the future of the common agricultural policy post-2000.
<P>
It is clear that renewable energies continue to play a more direct role in many businesses and industries in our society.
We should recognize that the use of renewable energy as an agricultural development also offers great potential.
If renewable energies are used for agricultural and rural development in an environmentally friendly manner, there is great potential for the creation of sustainable jobs as a direct consequence of maximizing the use of our land resource.
<P>
We cannot deny that alternative energy programmes based on the proper use of renewable energy offer innovative ways for farmers to make money from their land.
This should come about as the inevitable reform of the common agricultural policy highlights the importance of producing non-food crops.
If we are serious about enhancing rural development measures and protecting the maximum number of family farms on our land then we must put in place a coordinated renewable energy policy which will assist in enhancing Irish agriculture and creating employment in rural areas.
<P>
It is stated that a positive impact of introducing comprehensive renewable energy programmes is the reduction of CO2 emissions, which should fall by 402 million tonnes per year.
Within the EU, renewable sources currently account for 6 % of total energy consumption.
This figure is simply too low and substantial investment will be needed if wholesale expansion in this sector is to occur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 NAME="Krarup">
The Rothe report is quite agreeable in many respects.
However, there are several problems embodied in its proposals.
First of all, its lack of realism in relation to the EU internal energy market.
The solution the report outlines with regard to the internal market is an energy-related tax model set by the EU.
I cannot endorse this solution.
Apart from the fact that I am an opponent of EU taxation, an energy-related tax model would have precious little chance of being implemented at EU level, since industry would submit that it cannot afford such escalating expenses.
At best, this factor would mean that the renewable energy sector would be given an increase in its tax-funded EU and national subsidies.
At the same time, major energy users could continue to purchase cheap coal and atomic energy in the liberalized EU energy market.
Thus, there would be little incentive for them to implement energy-saving measures.
<P>
The only prospect of implementing the positive intentions of the Rothe report in the area of energy and the environment is to go the way of allowing Member States to determine and implement national objectives in the area of energy.
It is useless for an EU country to require its energy producers to produce a certain amount of energy by means of renewable energy sources while the largest energy users in that country are free to import cheap energy from abroad - that is tantamount to undermining national producers financially.
<P>
For this reason I cannot support the Rothe report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="Lindqvist">
The report contains a good proposal on an overall plan of action to double the renewable energy share of the energy consumption.
Bio-energy, solar power and wind power must form the backbone of this.
Atomic power will have to be phased out.
<P>
Overall objectives on a European Union level and other levels, such as United Nations, is a good thing, but policies on energy are and should primarily remain national issues.
It is important that Sweden controls its own natural resources and does not sell off energy and natural resources which may govern Swedish development from outside Sweden.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 NAME="Seppänen, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We have voted for the report, as we share its positive attitude to alternative and renewable sources of energy.
There are, however, also parts of the report that we oppose.
They include the demands for a common policy on taxation, a common policy on forestry and the demand that a special chapter in the Treaty be devoted to energy.
<P>
Situation in the Middle East
<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="Díez de Rivera Icaza">
There is no doubt that there are various areas of conflict in the Mediterranean which urgently require a path towards peace, including Algeria, Palestine, Israel and so on.
Supporting, encouraging and being concerned about the development of the peace process in the Middle East is not a sufficient reason to manipulate the facts or to "put one's own interests first' .
Many of us and many others too need to reflect on the road we have travelled, on the reasons for the backward movement and on the apparent incompatibility and autism of those currently in power.
Consideration must also be given to the tangible result of the financial support provided by the European Union, the status of Palestine, and the democratic control of its institutions and of the use made of the economic aid received.
<P>
We must talk to Jordan; we must look for solutions to the European incompetence regarding Algeria; we must understand Islam better; we must promote direct dialogue with the population and, perhaps, initiate processes to follow on from this.
I already declared this when President Rabin came to Brussels.
It is not possible for that tragedy not to have served any purpose; similarly, we cannot allow a situation whereby European funds do not benefit the public.
It would be inexplicable and alarming if the West Bank and Gaza were to continue in the same social and economic situation in which they currently find themselves.
In conclusion, then, all of us must think things over once again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 NAME="Wolf">
<SPEAKER ID=214 NAME="Lukas">
The Austrian Freedom Party is of the opinion that the agreement on agricultural trade needs to be prepared carefully, but enlargement towards the east should be rejected at the present time on the grounds of inadequate planning.
<P>
That is why the FPÖ is abstaining with respect to paragraph 10.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="Souchet">
With regard to the common resolution on the WTO which has just been adopted, I note that Parliament, which was generally and oppressively enthusiastic at the time of the signature of the Marrakech agreement, has gradually become aware of its extremely serious negative consequences for European countries, which a few of us denounced at the time.
<P>
Mr Rocard himself, at the last meeting of the ACP-EU joint assembly, distanced himself from it, speaking of the Marrakech Treaty as a poorly negotiated agreement, signed in haste, with serious shortcomings, which it would be necessary renegotiate at least in part.
<P>
This belated lucidity makes it difficult to improve a treaty adopted by most members of the international community. It is apparent in the text of this resolution which shows a marked change of tone on behalf of Parliament, which appears to have discovered that the WTO is systematically calling into question the main provisions of current external commercial policy.
<P>
How can we protect the European cultural exception against WTO mechanisms?
How can we protect European development aid policies?
How can we prevent unbridled international competition from systematically favouring producers who are the least respectful of indispensable social and environmental standards?
The first arbitration decisions by WTO panels do nothing to reassure us in this respect.
What we see in operation is the crude logic of the system the Commission joined in Marrakech and which it helped to develop.
<P>
My group has supported most of the amendments which emphasized the need to defend regional commercial preferences as instruments of development.
The WTO wants to get rid of these, on the pretext that they represent an unacceptable violation of the principle of commercial non-discrimination and that they introduce distortions of competition.
The evidence of four Lomé Conventions refutes that theory.
<P>
My group has also supported the various amendments which denounce the leniency of the policies adopted by Community institutions within the WTO, making concession after concession without any significant returns.
<P>
Secchi report (A4-0228/98)
<SPEAKER ID=216 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Madam President, as crucial as it is to insist on common principles of taxation in a single market, it is as vital, however, to adopt a clear position against the dominant tendency in the States of the European Union towards creeping tax increases.
For example, the benefit derived from closing tax loopholes, as we so nicely term them, will only be slight if sufficiently attractive financial centres exist simultaneously throughout the world.
<P>
In fact, mobile risk capital will escape from Europe while its honest and hard-working citizens continue to be fleeced of their savings.
The enormous increase in risk capital can be attributed to, among other things, the high taxation of money entering the production process.
It is not the tax oases that have a distorting effect on the internal market, but rather the excessively high corporation taxes and excise duties.
I have spoken out against parts of the report because it skirts around this very real problem.
<P>
We have countries in the present Union where the level of taxation is approaching the 50 % mark.
Our clear aim therefore must be an obvious reduction in this tax burden.
There is the principle here that, within the meaning of subsidiarity, the State does not have the right to increase the tax burden and then to re-distribute gifts to its citizens indirectly by way of an expensive bureaucracy.
<P>
In this context one should recollect the American economist Arthur Laffer, who proved that above a taxation level of 25 % concealment of income increases progressively.
The black economy is a logical consequence of this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="McKenna">
Madam President, I want to point out that this report basically accepts the whole idea of globalization, the internal market, absolute free trade and the free movement of capital.
We are trying to work with the problems that all this creates.
We need to reintroduce some level of capital control and not turn ourselves into a completely open space for multinationals, which is what Europe is being turned into.
<P>
With the creation of the single market it is now basically up to Brussels to control everything: indirect taxation, national budgets, interest rates and corporate tax.
Next it will be income tax and fiscal harmonization.
I have serious problems with all of this, and think we are taking the wrong approach.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="Bonde and Sandbæk">
We cannot support the Secchi report because it paves the way for fiscal harmonization which would divert tax money from Denmark.
Conversely, we believe it is sensible to co-ordinate rates of taxation between Member States, but only by way of minimum regulation and not harmonization.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="Cassidy">
There is no such thing as harmful tax competition in the EU.
The idea behind the single market was to encourage competition by removing barriers to the free movement of goods, services, money and people.
The results have been clearly beneficial.
So if free competition is beneficial in these other fields, why should it be harmful in tax?
<P>
The European Commission's communication 'A package to tackle harmful tax competition in the European Union' is the wrong prescription for a non-existent malady.
Some Member States complain about the low level of Irish Corporation Tax, about the lack of a Withholding Tax in Luxembourg and about the zero social charges (taxes on jobs) in Denmark.
Some even complain about the unfairness of the relatively low level of income tax in the UK (they overlook the increased tax burden on UK citizens since the election of a Labour Government).
You never hear the British complaining about the low level of excise duties in France, Spain, Italy and Portugal though it could be argued that low taxes on alcohol and tobacco are harmful - principally to the health of our fellow citizens.
<P>
For me, the correct analysis of tax competition is not that some countries have too low taxes.
It is that the countries who complain loudest, notably France and Germany, have too high taxes.
As a British Member of the European Parliament, I would like to see the tax burden reduced in those countries to British levels.
High taxes and 'social charges' destroy jobs.
<P>
Much as I appreciate the rapporteur's work, I, with my colleagues in the British section of the EPP Group, will be voting against the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 NAME="Delcroix">
<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="Deprez">
The motion for resolution we now have to discuss raises a fundamental question regarding the future of the single market and, more generally, the European Union as a whole.
Introduction of the euro on 1 January 1999, in eleven of the fifteen Member States, actually calls for greater coordination of policies, including those relating to taxation.
This is actually a mandatory path to follow for all those who, having raised the matter of unemployment and jobs in Europe unambiguously, consider it essential to ease employment taxation.
<P>
Like most of us, I consider that the lack of tax harmonization between the Member States has led them into a tax competition that is potentially harmful for all, to the extent that it has resulted in significant losses of tax revenue for public authorities who are otherwise occupied rebalancing their budgets. And this is at the cost of sacrifices that are sometimes difficult for populations to bear.
<P>
It is therefore with some satisfaction that we note the adoption by the Council of a resolution on a good conduct code in terms of company taxation and we have carefully observed the series of proposals formulated by the Commission in terms of tax harmonization.
<P>
It must be said that the proposal by the Commission and the agreement reached within the Ecofin Council on a community solution governing the matter of taxation on savings income paid by the Member States to individuals living in another State are particularly heartening for a Belgian politician like myself.
<P>
In our opinion, all of these measures should be regarded as the first steps on the path to further progress.
This is especially so in the area of indirect taxation, but also with regard to the taxation of non-renewable energy sources or, indeed, to tax definitions.
<P>
Clearly, tax harmonization should be one of the main objectives for those who wish to proceed on the path towards a federal Europe that is economically prosperous and socially just.
Although as yet far from incomplete, the measures outlined to us today are moving in the right direction.
This is why I support the resolution proposed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 NAME="Fourçans">
The alignment of taxation systems at European level is a key factor towards the enhancement of the single market.
The Commission proposals and the report by Mr Secchi seek to remove the barriers to satisfactory operation of the single market.
<P>
The report states - rightly, in my opinion - that it is important to harmonize certain elements in our taxation systems.
Two arguments militate in favour of improved coordination of our taxation systems: firstly, the distortions that might arise in different taxation systems concerning the optimum allocation of funds and investment, whether from financial or production sources, within the European fold; secondly, the drying up of some tax revenues, which could pose very serious budgetary problems for certain Member States.
<P>
If a degree of tax competition is to be maintained - because this is useful in order to impose certain disciplines on states - it must be conducted within the framework of the tax rules, especially with regard to taxation on savings and cross-border taxation.
This is the view adopted by the Secchi report and I can only approve it.
However, it is perhaps regrettable that the Commission and the Secchi report do not seem to have put forward any proposal regarding certain elements of direct corporate taxation, such as the way the rate for corporate taxation is calculated.
<P>
Apart from this reservation, I am pleased to note the proposals for a good-conduct code and minimum deductions at source with regard to the taxation of savings by European non-residents in a Member State.
However, the rate of deduction at source must not be so high that it discourages saving or results in relocations outside of Europe.
<P>
I am also pleased to note the measures designed to eliminate deductions at source on cross-border payments of interest and dues to companies which create distortions that are harmful to growth and jobs.
In the field of relations within a group of companies, we should also go even further, especially in terms of calculating corporate tax in a consolidated way at European level.
<P>
For all the reasons set out above, I therefore vote for Mr Secchi's report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of the Secchi report on tackling harmful tax competition in the EU.
We have elected to vote in favour of the report because:
<P>
it places positive emphasis on the Council's adoption of a code of conduct for company taxation and establishment of a code of conduct group to evaluate national taxation measures that are harmful to the interests of the Community.-it refers to the fact that differences in systems and levels of taxation based on social or environmental factors and aspects of health and consumer protection are legitimate.-it recognizes a need to achieve a common minimum level of taxation in areas where tax competition results in harmful conduct.-it emphasizes the need for the code of conduct to be carefully adhered to in company taxation.However, the Danish Social Democrats cannot agree with the section of the report dealing with fiscal harmonization.
The fiscal structures of Member States are widely divergent, each having different ways of protecting its citizens.
Thus, bringing taxes more into line is unacceptable.
However, we can endorse common minimum levels, inter alia with regard to company taxation and capital gains tax.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="Reding">
At the recent summit in Luxembourg, the Heads of State and government reached agreement on a code of conduct relating to tax competition which seeks gradually to do away with harmful practices in this area.
On that occasion, Luxembourg stressed the fact that any action relating to taxation on capital income should be offset by a similar action with regard to corporate taxation.
Luxembourg was of the opinion that this should be a binding commitment imposed by a Community directive: tax dumping can only harm European companies and create all types of distortion in the Common Market.
<P>
With regard to the range of tax systems prevailing in individual Member States, there is no reason to change it now.
In truth, tax competition can be an asset when it is practised between tax systems: some are more efficient and lower tax rates can be applied, whereas others must offset a lesser degree of efficiency by imposing higher taxes.
<P>
The Commission proposals regarding corporate taxation signal an initial step forward in the right direction towards better coordination of tax policies.
The procedure is acceptable since it consists of a package of measures rather than isolated proposals.
The scope for action remains huge and there is still a great deal to be done before taxation is no longer a barrier to the four freedoms.
<P>
The Secchi report encourages Member States to work towards the scrapping of the tax havens that exist within the Union.
Luxembourg is not named specifically, but there is no doubt that it is targeted, although all the Member States try to attract business with enticing tax exemptions; although all the Member States attract private investors with tax arrangements that favour non-residents, some Member States harbour genuine sanctuaries that are totally deregulated.
<P>
For this reason it is wrong to target Luxembourg alone, which has a financial centre that is subject to strict regulations (on the laundering of money from drug trafficking, for example) and an efficient tax system that enables it to impose relatively low rates.
Hence any future harmonization of tax policies should encompass all Member States and their dependencies, as well as an immense panoply of tax domains.
<P>
Given these comments, I have voted for the Secchi report, in the knowledge that it is simply a parliamentary recommendation and that the final decisions are to be taken unanimously by the governments of the Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="Seppänen, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We have voted in favour of the sections of the report dealing with banks: their duty to give information, code of conduct, minimum level of business tax and measures against the so called tax havens.
<P>
The report does, however, also include harmonisation of taxes on a grand scale.
This encroaches on the prerogative of the national parliament and on citizens' rights to decide their countries' taxation policy via the ballot box.
Besides, it is a threat against the countries' financial stability.
<P>
We have, therefore, voted against the report in the final ballot.
<P>
This also marks our reservation against the demands, so often recurring in the debate, to abolish consensus in matters of taxation.
<P>
In our opinion, such a measure is contrary to the Treaty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="Trizza">
As the rapporteur, Mr Secchi, said, the process of coordinating the European Union's tax systems according to the commitment made by the Council of Ministers in this regard must be speeded up.
<P>
I am in fact firmly convinced that the current distortions and differences in tax systems could thwart the efforts made to achieve economic and monetary union, eliminating the potential advantages and opportunities that the single market can offer in terms of economic development and the gradual reduction of today's structural unemployment.
<P>
If left intact, the current system may actually lead to a gradual loss in the power and sovereignty of individual Member States to tax.
<P>
Furthermore, I endorse the composition of the package of anti-competition tax measures which is an effective way to first plan and then implement the entire strategy.
I congratulate the rapporteur and therefore give him my full backing for his report.
<P>
Situation in Kosovo
<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="Ahlqvist, Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw, Theorin, Waidelich and Wibe">
It is a matter of the greatest urgency that the European Union not only condemns Serbia's actions in Kosovo, but also employs the economic, political and diplomatic methods the Union has at its disposal.
We do, however, object to preparations for a military intervention.
Military action can only be possible after a decision in the UN Security Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 NAME="Hory">
Yet again this House has adopted a resolution on Kosovo.
<P>
Firstly, we should bear in mind that this build-up of resolutions does not seem to have resulted in any lessening of political tension in the region: quite the reverse.
<P>
We should also point out that this resolution, like its predecessors, is typified by its absurd dualism, by a frenzied attack on the Yugoslav Federation and Serb Republic, by a single lack of historical perspective in its assessment of the situation in Kosovo and by a serious lack of regard for the local, regional and international consequences of the lavish inducements extended to the Kosovan breakaway militia.
<P>
We do not in any way underestimate the democratic shortcomings of the former and existing Yugoslavia, or the excesses of the various nationalist groups confronting each other in this region, or indeed the suffering of the civilian populations taken hostage by these nationalist groups; we feel compelled to deplore the superficiality and partiality of the positions adopted by the European Parliament.
<P>
Guided by the dictates of American diplomacy, under the influence of two EU Member States and under pressure from a powerful parliamentary lobby yearning for the old style of political organization in the Balkans, the European Parliament has, for eight years, declared a sort of political and legal war against one of the signatory States of the United Nations Charter, which should have guaranteed the integrity of its borders.
<P>
In total contradiction to that guarantee, we have encouraged the dismantling of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia; we have urged the "friendly' federated republics to align themselves individually with the European Union; we have begun the accession process with Slovenia, thereby rewarding its leaders for their self-aggrandizing conduct; we have raised all those who crafted the partition of Yugoslavia to the rank of allies of the European Union and "democrats' , sometimes in defiance of the evidence; we have multiplied sanctions, blockades and embargo procedures and military threats against the Srpska Republic, which stands accused of all the evils committed during the events taking place in that region.
<P>
Since that immense destructive effort was apparently not sufficient, it was the territorial integrity - forged by geography and history - of Serbia itself that has been attacked by urging on, even before the end of the war in Bosnia, the Albanian secessionists of Kosovo.
This encouragement has been so excessive and lacking in political intelligence that it has resulted in the marginalization of the moderate leaders of Kosovo who were looking for an even-handed solution in the Yugoslav Federation, for the benefit of the ALK extremists who, weapons in hand, are today struggling for the independence of Kosovo and tomorrow will push for its return to Albania.
<P>
The European Union has encouraged Croatian independence, an independence that all Croatian communities have paid for in Vukovar or Knin.
It "guaranteed' the independence of Bosnia and secured the partition of that region, together with the massacres at Mostar, Ilidza and Srebrenica.
It fuelled the flames in Kosovo and provoked the terrorism of the independenceseekers, resulting in its inevitable and probably disproportionate repression.
Tomorrow, the blindness and partiality of the Union and the United States - let us make no mistake about it - will give rise to widespread frontier disputes in the region - especially those of Albania and Macedonia - as well as serious disorder in Vojvodine and Sandjak.
<P>
The Yugoslav Federation was founded on a conventional subjective view of nationality, the very same as that which led to the European integration process.
Instead of promoting this vision of nationality, we have settled the political problems - unquestionably real problems - that existed in the Yugoslav Federation, by applying another conception of nationality, both romantic and objective, which favours ethnic loyalties and which has already inflamed Europe twice in the course of this century.
<P>
Through its accumulated errors, the European Union has turned its back on its own history, misunderstood its culture and visited an outrage on its future.
We still have time to avoid committing the irredeemable sin and to reintegrate the Serbian people in the European Community to which it belongs because of its great contribution to the freedom of all peoples in its region.
This is why I intend to vote against the resolution.
<P>
Safety of transport of nuclear fuel and waste
<SPEAKER ID=229 NAME="Ewing, Macartney">
We cast our vote for the compromise resolution.
When nuclear waste is transported, all populations of areas affected are put at grave risk.
All local and regional governments of such areas should be entitled to have full details as responsibility for dealing with emergencies would rest upon them.
<P>
We object to risks taken in transport to Dounreay for the following reasons:
<P>
1) the standard of cask carried by the US aircraft was sub-standard;
<P>
2) the Dounreay facility is scheduled to close because of safety faults below international safety norms;
<P>
3) the UK violated requirements for all reprocessing to be returned to the country of origin;
<P>
4) the UK overturned the Nuclear Inspectorate's ban on transport of nuclear material to Dounreay.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 NAME="Pinel">
The transport of dangerous waste is a difficult problem which cannot be lightly dismissed.
In this respect, I am in favour of many of the excellent points contained in the common resolution on which we have expressed an opinion.
It would even have been possible to go much further.
However, these good points must be seen in the light of certain criticisms.
<P>
From an organic point of view, we are against the interference of supranational structures in environmental policy.
Prevention and increased supervision and control are in fact necessary in the Member States.
But national political authorities must first of all shoulder their responsibilities, so that progress can be made in the right direction.
<P>
Furthermore, if certain countries show weaknesses or delays with regard to environmental protection, such shortcomings should be resolved by means of the normal mechanisms of diplomacy and international agreements.
<P>
As for the amendment tabled by the PSE, it is surprising on the part of a group which calls itself left-wing and prides itself on defending the weak.
To refuse to allow nuclear waste to travel though densely populated areas, is tantamount to allowing it to travel through less densely populated areas.
That is a scandalous notion.
All populated areas must be avoided.
That is all.
<P>
Last but not least: we do not accept the imputations against EDF in this proposal for a resolution.
If any such problems exist, they must be resolved by means of national internal mechanisms.
<P>
We have therefore voted against the whole of this resolution.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Herring for industrial purposes - fishery resources in the Baltic, Belts and Sound - industrial fisheries
<SPEAKER ID=231 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0142/98 by Mrs Langenhagen, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation specifying conditions under which herring may be landed for industrial purposes other than direct human consumption (COM(97)0694 - C4-0041/98-97/0353 (CNS)); -A4-013/98 by Mr Kofoed, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending for the seventh time Regulation (EEC) No 1866/86 laying down certain technical measures for the conservation of fishery resources in the waters of the Baltic Sea, the Belts and the Sound (COM(97)0675 - C4-0017/98-97/0354 (CNS)); -A4-0201/98 by Mr Kindermann, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on industrial fisheries.
<SPEAKER ID=232 NAME="Langenhagen">
Madam President, my report concerns an issue that has been the subject of much public controversy.
I hope we can make clear to the public the reasons for our decision today.
Behind the somewhat complicated title is the issue of permitting the industrial fishing of herring in the Baltic.
So far this has been forbidden in Community waters.
<P>
Industrial fishing represents a major line of business.
The industry handles over 30 million tonnes of fish, which corresponds to 30 % of the world catch, at a value of ECU 3 billion.
From this, some 6.5 million tonnes of fish meal and 1.3 million tonnes of fish oil are produced.
Both are high-quality products.
Fish meal is used principally as animal fodder for livestock and fur animals.
Fish oil is used in aquaculture, though you will also find fish oil in margarine and cooking fats.
There do not seem to be any plans to abandon this at the present time since there is no equivalent substitute.
<P>
Industrial fishing has been criticized for a number of several reasons.
On the one hand, there is the basic question of living creatures being used only indirectly for human consumption.
In addition, it is no doubt the case that with the removal of fish for industrial purposes the food source for other predators, such as cod, is reduced.
The same applies to sea birds and marine mammals.
<P>
More serious still is the problem of the by-catch.
This is particularly acute with the industrial landing of sprats, since these are often found with herrings in a shoal.
Despite all misgivings, we in the Committee on Fisheries have come to the view that industrial fishing is nevertheless acceptable, providing it is carried out in moderation, and in a proper and controlled manner, especially since we would not wish to dispense with its products.
We have been constantly reinforced in this view by the scientists.
<P>
What we are concerned with today is a follow-up act from the enlargement of the European Union in 1995.
Under the Acts of Accession, Finland and Sweden were allowed to catch herring in their waters for industrial purposes since this is the traditional activity there, and without today's report these two countries would have to discontinue this activity.
The proposal is a means of allowing industrial fishing in the Baltic to continue, while maintaining the ban on the industrial fishing of herring in all other Community waters.
<P>
I am in agreement with these two basic principles.
This has created a way for the two countries affected to keep going without disadvantage to their traditional fishing activity.
I particularly welcome this.
The ban on herring fishing for industrial purposes in other Community waters, especially in the North Sea, is important because the herring stock there is in a bad state.
This led in mid-1996 to the quota for landing herring being halved, and in 1997 this drastic action - drastic for the fishermen - was continued.
<P>
Since the stocks are already heavily exploited through fishing for human consumption, the herring stock should be not be burdened by the addition of industrial fisheries.
In the Baltic, however, the situation is quite different.
The herring stock here - according to the scientists - is in a very good condition.
In 1997, moreover, the rate of utilization was only 50 %.
Germany, for example, used only 13 % of its quota.
However, to prevent Baltic stocks declining in a similar manner to North Sea herring, and since theoretically Germany and Denmark could now operate industrial fisheries too, certain areas of the legislative proposal need to be tightened up.
This is what I have suggested.
<P>
The regulation should not have unlimited validity, as is being proposed.
By 2003 we will need to review the effects of the regulation and adjust things if need be.
We also want to make a final appeal, in the light of the measures, to industrial fisheries in the Baltic.
The fishing industry here is called upon to be creative and, in the longer term, to enable Baltic herring, for which there is no great market at present, ultimately to be used for human consumption.
I would ask for support for the amendments and the report in its entirety.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 NAME="Kofoed">
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this proposal, which has been adopted by the Commission and is already in effect, is a result of negotiations in the Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission.
In principle, I can say that we agree with the measures taken, but I do have a few comments, mainly for future reference.
We are not altogether happy about the proposal being brought before Parliament for consultation at such a late stage.
We should have been finished by Christmas so that we could have had a debate that would have influenced the final Council decision.
<P>
I would like to touch on the actual administration of resources in the Baltic Sea.
Firstly, there is the matter of salmon fishing.
I cannot understand why salmon fishing should be curbed as severely as it has been, since we know that juvenile salmon are being released corresponding to a catch of 700, 000 salmon; nevertheless, the quota is set at a mere 400, 000.
Our own experience in the Baltic Sea is that the salmon are plentiful, but some underlying political decisions are involved.
One gets the impression that - in order to protect so-called wild salmon - the idea is to restrict the catching of any salmon.
In one particular country, Sweden, there is a tourism factor involved, since it is felt that salmon should be caught in the rivers for the benefit of the tourists.
I believe that approach to be flawed.
The basis of this framework has not been proved scientifically.
That is one point.
<P>
Another point concerns fishing for cod and herring in the Baltic Sea.
I am extremely concerned about trends in both these stocks and I therefore believe the Commission should consider this very carefully and endeavour to place limits on capacity.
We have proposed restricting horsepower per vessel to eliminate the huge trawlers that come down to the Baltic Sea in the cod season, resulting in over-fishing.
Regarding herring fishing in the Baltic, I am not in favour of fishing in the Baltic for herring destined for use in fish meal because herring stocks are not particularly plentiful in the Baltic; thus, fishing there for this purpose should be avoided.
I can understand Sweden and Finland fishing for this purpose in the northern part of the Baltic Sea.
But it is my belief that even this affects herring stocks in the rest of the Baltic, so I recommend to the Commission that more caution should be exercised in future with regard to this type of fishing.
<P>
I must also stress that more attention should be paid to conservation measures.
A direct ban on fishing should apply during breeding seasons and in waters where the fish are breeding, to allow fish stocks to replenish freely.
That is how to cultivate a stock.
My next comment concerns the so-called floating trawl.
This is a highly effective tool which, however, also takes with it types of fish other than those being fished for.
This factor contributes to the problems of fish stocks in the Baltic.
<P>
Finally, I must mention that the ecological balance in the Baltic has not been studied.
I have the feeling that when 1m tonnes of fish are caught in the Baltic and brought ashore, nutrients are too depleted to feed the stocks that are supposed to be building up.
I believe biologists have taken far too little account of the need to nourish fish stocks.
Production is not possible without this.
In agriculture, it is an accepted fact that a quantity of nutrients must be put back into the soil equivalent to the quantity removed through farming.
No-one considers this in terms of fishing policy.
I therefore recommend to the Commission that it should let biologists study the ecological balance in these waters, because we need to "cultivate' the waters, too, if they are to be capable of producing good food for our citizens.
<P>
Otherwise, Madam Commissioner, I can report that we support the motion as it stands, but that new elements will need to be incorporated in next year's negotiations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 NAME="Kindermann">
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, the Committee on Fisheries, on whose behalf I have drawn up the present report, deemed it necessary to address the issue of industrial fishing in an initiative report. Since this involves a hotly debated and also highly important subject, which so far has failed to receive proper attention both in the European Parliament and in the European Union as a whole, we hope to able to remedy the matter with this report.

<P>
We are talking here about fishing with very small-meshed nets, whose catches are meant for industrial processing.
Target species are usually fish which do not serve direct human consumption or are only used to a limited degree for this purpose.
This type of fishery is very important in the North Sea, which is why the report concentrates on this region.
<P>
Industrial fishing's share of the total North Sea catch has stood at almost 60 % over the last few years.
This means that here twice as many fish are being caught for industrial exploitation as they are on average worldwide.
Industrial fishing, however, is not just a regionally significant sector of the economy.
It is also the subject of controversial discussions on ecological justifiability.
<P>
Many will recall the campaign by Greenpeace against sand eel fishing off the Scottish coast in the summer of 1996.
This was to do with the fact that, as a result of the fine meshing of the nets, sexually immature edible fish were being caught as a by-catch.
Owing to the high catch rates with the target species in the sand eel fishery, the annual catch is in the order of one million tonnes.
That is why many people are concerned about the stocks themselves and the maintenance of the food chain.
The Committee on Fisheries has taken the clear view that fishing for industrial purposes is only justifiable if it observes the principle of sustainability and if, in cases of conflict, priority is given to fishing for human consumption.
<P>
The report states that in the past, especially with mixed fishing and sprat fishing, there has been a very serious problem with monitoring compliance with Community law.
This has been reflected in the excessive catches of target species and the permitted by-catch of protected species - especially herring - being fairly regularly exceeded.
The high mortality rate for herring in the North Sea, which caused the Council to introduce emergency measures in the summer of 1996, has no doubt been partly caused by the large by-catch of herring landed through industrial fishing, where the proportion of herring is sometimes predominant.
<P>
However, we also want to acknowledge the positive developments.
The Council has introduced, as one of the emergency measures of July 1996 which have just been mentioned, an absolute upper limit for landing herring for industrial purposes, which - once reached - will lead to the fishery in question being closed.
This measure has proved to be very effective, especially since the Danish fisheries authority, in whose jurisdiction most ports of landing used by industrial fisheries are to be found, introduced in the same year a comprehensive monitoring system with a high degree of intensive sampling.
Initial figures available for 1997 indicate a drastic reduction in the herring by-catch.
<P>
It is our opinion, however, that one should wait and see what experience over several years brings before finally judging the effectiveness of the new system.
Council and Commission have taken the course of setting maximum permissible limits to reduce the by-catches.
The effectiveness of such measures is, of course, dependent on rigorous controls in the ports of landing, constant monitoring and recording of the composition of the catch and prompt closure of the fishery when the by-catch limit is reached.
<P>
The new Danish monitoring system might satisfy these conditions.
However, it needs to be accepted by the fishermen, too.
Otherwise it is not worth very much.
There are signs that suggest this acceptance is not to be found with all fishermen at present.
We therefore advise caution and consider that it is still too early to relax the other conservation measures, as the Council and the Commission are intending to do by raising the permitted share of the herring by-catch in sprat fishing from the current 10 % to 20 %.
<P>
We have therefore come out against increasing the by-catch limit to 20 % both in the motion for a resolution on my report and in the legislative proposal on Mrs Langenhagen's report, which deals especially with herring fishing in the North Sea and the Baltic.
In other areas of fishing there is an urgent need for action.
The report has made this clear.
In particular smelt fishing should be examined.
The problem with this type of fishery is with the large by-catch of protected species, especially young shellfish and whiting.
These are two species of edible fish whose mortality rate is very high.
Worse still, the estimated by-catches of shellfish and whiting in industrial fishing are being explicitly withdrawn from the annual TAC and Quota Regulation.
There are no by-catch limits here, although the industrial fishing by-catches in certain fisheries are higher than the permitted catches in consumption fishing.
<P>
This situation is no longer tenable.
We have therefore proposed as a minimum measure that the by-catches of protected species be taken into account in the annual fixing of the permitted catch rates and in allocating the quotas to the respective Member States.
This would give the Member States engaged in industrial fishing the opportunity to solve within their own fishing industry the conflict between industrial fishing and fishing for consumption, which has seen a shift to Community level.
We consider this proposal the neatest and easiest solution to implement.
Should the Council and the Commission finally prove willing to attend to this problem, they will be assured of Parliamentary support, even for alternative solutions and for the talks with the Norwegians.
<P>
There is also a need for action in the sand eel fishery.
While marine biologists do not estimate the stocks to be endangered due to the eels' reproductive capacity, they nevertheless do not want to rule out local reductions on account of these creatures' territoriality and the great dependence of certain edible fish, sea birds and marine mammals on sand eels as a food resource.
We therefore call upon the Commission, as a result of the large catches involved, to adopt a precautionary approach and to ensure the provision of a management plan, similar to those already found in many other fisheries.
This plan should encompass the setting-up of protection zones in ecologically sensitive areas.
Moreover, it is our opinion that a reduction of the by-catch currently permissible in sand eel fishing at sea is a viable proposition and is something which should therefore be made law.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 NAME="Hardstaff">
Mr President, on behalf of the Socialist Group, I want to congratulate my colleagues in the Committee on Fisheries, Mrs Langenhagan, Mr Kindermann and Mr Kofoed, on their excellent reports which have a common underlying theme, namely sustainable fishing in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea.
I, like them, have a very strong constituency interest in the maintenance of fish stocks, in my case particularly in the North Sea.
<P>
I am especially concerned about the effects on the whole marine eco-system of the North Sea of the intense industrial fishing mainly by Danish boats.
Species like sprat, Norwegian pout and sand eel may not be used for human consumption but if huge numbers are scooped up for use as fish meal to feed pigs and chickens or as fish oil to make margarine and cooking oils and to feed farmed fish, the delicate eco-balance is distorted and food sources for fish like herring and cod, etc. which are eaten by humans are depleted.
Other sea creatures like seals and birds are also threatened by declining sources of food.
<P>
I have particular concerns about the taking of herring for industrial purposes.
The herring is an especially nutritious fish for human beings but sadly one which is no longer to be found in great abundance on the slabs of our fishmongers.
In the past, certainly in the UK, it was a very common, cheap but delicious and healthy part of the diet of many less well-off families.
Now it is far less widely available and costs much more.
Fisherman who catch herring for human consumption are finding fewer and smaller fish.
Fisherman from my constituency believe that industrial fishing is one of the main causes of this state of affairs: both because the smaller fish on which they feed are being taken in huge quantities and because the herring themselves are being caught in the very small mesh nets necessary for industrial fishing, as indeed are undersized immature cod.
<P>
Therefore, Mr Kindermann's report is particularly welcome.
I urge support for his recommendations for stricter controls and limitations to be placed on industrial fishing, particularly those calling for careful ecological monitoring so that spawning and nursery feeding grounds can be protected through the introduction by the Commission of protection zones.
His proposals for tackling the problem of large by-catches in sprat fisheries by rigorous controls of landings and closure of fisheries when the by-catch limit is reached are also positive ways forward to ensure the survival and revival of herring stocks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 NAME="McCartin">
Mr President, I want to thank Mrs Langenhagen for her report, and also Mr Kofoed and Mr Kindermann.
In spite of all the work that has been done, the whole area of industrial fishing remains, certainly to me, a little bit mysterious.
In the European Union we land something like 10 % of the world's industrial catches, and it is sold for approximately 30 % of the value of fish that is caught for human consumption.
<P>
It is also clear that industrial fish catches contain an unknown quantity of edible and even valuable fish.
In circumstances where fish is scarce and expensive, as it is in the European Union, it is very wasteful to use any fish for industrial purposes if it can be processed for human consumption.
It is also disturbing to read in the explanatory statement - and this has been raised by Mr Kindermann - that 100 000 tonnes of herring was caught as a by-catch with sprat in the Baltic up to 1996.
This seems an extraordinary amount of fish.
I do not want to oppose the Commission proposal, referred to in the Langenhagen report, to allow industrial fishing to continue in this particular case.
However, I believe that the Commission is always under pressure to make excessive concessions to industrial fishing interests, and extending the right to fish for herring, even if some of it is of inferior quality, gives rise to serious doubts, even if Germany and Sweden did not catch their full quota in the Baltic.
It is unclear why this was so, but perhaps it is because it requires too much fishing effort because the stocks are in bad condition.
I do not believe that this gives us a case to convert stocks of fish suitable for human consumption to animal and fish feed.
<P>
The explanatory statement also informs us that, because of the way industrial fish is stored, it is impossible to tell exactly what quantity of by-catches there is.
If we catch 3 million tonnes of fish for industrial purposes in the European Union annually, with 7.5 % to 8 % of that being by-catches of edible fish, then that represents a quarter of a million tonnes of a commodity that is scarce in the European Union, when we are only 48 % self-sufficient.
A quarter of a million tonnes of edible fish being used for animal feed is excessive.
It is larger than the entire quota that an island nation like Ireland gets.
<P>
These reports have been useful.
But we need further information on this subject before we can come to a rational policy decision.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 NAME="Teverson">
Mr President, in the United Kingdom when we think of fishing we tend to think of fish that we eat, fish and chips, maybe even fish that we might eat in the restaurants around Strasbourg.
<P>
Reading Mr Kindermann's excellent report - and I do not say that just out of politeness, it is an outstanding report - it came as quite a shock to learn that 30 % of the world catch, some 30 million tonnes, is used for industrial fisheries.
Yet, in the case of the North Sea, which is subject to extreme environmental and ecological pressure, the figure is up to 60 %.
That is a warning signal which we cannot ignore.
What is this fishmeal used for?
Seventy-five per cent is used for animal feed, the other twenty-five per cent for oils.
This could all be replaced by other substances which could be grown rather than harvested from the sea.
<P>
About a year ago I went to one of the few fish processors in my constituency in the city of Plymouth.
There I was confronted head-on by the problem of industrial fisheries.
This organization was catching, landing and processing herring and mackerel for major multiples.
Yet the owner was able to tell me that the problem was not the quotas for these species, but that because of the 10 % legal by-catch the industrial fisheries could take out more of the fish stocks than the people with legitimate quotas.
That is not only a problem to me conceptually, but it drives a coach and horses through the whole idea of a quota system that is there to be respected.
<P>
I was particularly amazed to read in the report that the number of herring taken by by-catch is greater than the quota itself.
There are a number of lessons to be drawn here.
In fisheries we talk about the precautionary approach.
Here is one area where we have to be very precautionary indeed.
It is going to be difficulty to rein back this particular sector of the industry; in Denmark it is an important industrial sector.
However, we have to change our priorities.
We have to be careful.
This is one of the lowest parts of the food chain in an area of sea that is under pressure.
<P>
I would be very interested to hear from the Commission what plans it has for the long-term future to ensure that this fishery is reduced quite substantially, or at least that it will not have a damaging effect on the marine environment in the long term.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 NAME="Macartney">
Mr President, this has been a fascinating debate.
I agree with Mr Teverson that we have had three outstanding reports to contribute towards our understanding of a very difficult problem.
For Denmark in particular there is an historical dependence which was encouraged by the Danish Government, and any measures to change the balance - with which I agree - should be matched by compensatory measures.
That is the kind of challenge which perhaps we should bring out and discuss in greater detail.
<P>
I wish to salute Mr Kofoed's honesty and courage in confronting the problems of the Baltic.
There is a whole series of matters of detail that he mentions, for example the salmon regime appears to him to be a rather crude regime and does not take adequate account of the sophisticated differences between tourists catching wild salmon and people who catch it for a living.
He has made a lot of very important points about engine size and bans on catches during breeding periods.
All these seem to be eminently common-sensical.
<P>
Likewise, Mr Kindermann, with his stress on conservation and reducing the herring by-catches.
This is extremely important, and I hope we will learn a lot from these reports.
<P>
The one lesson I would like to draw from both of these reports, and also from Mrs Langenhagen's report, is this: when you listen to what is happening in the Baltic, for example about driftnets, it is very different to what is happening in other areas, such as the Adriatic or the Bay of Biscay.
I do not see why the European Union should impose one regime on the whole of Europe.
This helps to convince me even more that we have to have a differentiated approach in the future.
<P>
As some colleagues will know, at the moment I am doing some work on regionalization of the common fisheries policy.
This is the kind of ammunition and data which we need to be able to put together, under the umbrella of the common fisheries policy, a regional approach.
I thank the rapporteurs for their contribution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Dam">
Mr President, industrial fishing, not least at its present scale, seriously threatens fish stocks and the ecosystem.
The fact that these ships catch large amounts of fish, which are basically fit for human consumption, for processing into fish meal and fish oil is especially galling.
It is a waste of a valuable source of nutrition and protein.
Also, large amounts of food for other fish species, sea birds and sea mammals are thus lost.
It is therefore high time that the principle of sustainability is realized in the industrial fishing sector.
<P>
Unfortunately, I note that this principle is often demoted when the Council makes decisions.
Council policy is mainly aimed at continuity in respect of the industrial fishing sector.
The distribution of the quota for sand smelt, horse mackerel and blue whiting speaks volumes in this respect.
Two thirds of the total North Sea contingent of horse mackerel has, for example, been allocated to Denmark, which processes this fish into fish meal.
Yet it is eminently fit for consumption.
So there is no question of preferential treatment in the case of fishing for human consumption.
<P>
The attitude of the Council in respect of fishing for sprat shows scant determination.
The establishment of an overall limit on herring catches when fishing for sprat was admittedly a significant step in the process of reducing by-catches.
But at least 10 % of the total herring catch in the North Sea still disappears into fish meal, as a by product of the sprat fishing sector.
This particularly affects herring which are not yet sexually mature, which are caught before they have been able to contribute to the preservation of the species.
I therefore consider an increase in the permitted by-catch percentage for herring in the sprat fishing industry of between 10 and 20 %, as decided by the Council on 24 March, a serious matter.
It removes all incentives to change over to more selective catching methods.
<P>
In conclusion, the treatment of the Commission proposal on the industrial fishing of herring in the Baltic comes too late.
The Council has already achieved a political agreement in regard to this.
The recommendation of this Parliament is only required by the Council to allow it formally to confirm the agreement which has already been concluded.
The Kindermann report deserves a more serious consideration in the Council.
The recommendations it contains for restricting catches, protecting ecologically sensitive areas, limiting by-catches and so forth, ought to be implemented as soon as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 NAME="McMahon">
Mr President, we are dealing with three excellent reports here.
Indeed if you look at the explanatory statement you will see that two of them were adopted unanimously and only one person abstained on the Langenhagen report.
It is an indication of the breadth of support across the committees for the sentiments which the three rapporteurs are presenting.
<P>
They are all on the same theme: the need to look at industrial fishing.
There is a need to carry out research into industrial fishing and the impact of industrial fishing on the fishing industry.
The second theme they all put forward is the most important aspect of the fishing industry: is fish primarily for human consumption?
Industrial fishing really is an extra.
They all make the same point that the important thing is fish for human consumption.
This is what we, as European Parliamentarians are doing for our constituents - we are helping to ensure there are sufficient stocks.
<P>
The third theme which runs through the reports is the need for conservation of stocks.
Mr Kindermann mentions it with the decision of the Council to fix, for the first time in 1998, a quota for sand eels which, up to that time, was a non-quota stock.
There was no limit on the quantity of sand eels which could be extracted from the North Sea or elsewhere.
Indeed this gave us in the West of Scotland a particular problem.
There is an area called 'the wee bankie' , where some Danish and Scottish fishermen almost came to blows at the end of last year over the fishing activities that were going on there.
The Scots alleged that the activities of the Danes were affecting the stocks of cod.
There was a little bit of a problem there, but we got it ironed out.
<P>
It is important that there be adequate research into the effect of industrial fishing on the stocks of cod, but also into the whole marine environment.
Mr Kindermann talked about salmon.
We have a problem with wild salmon.
It is important that we see what the impact of industrial fishing is in this area.
<P>
We also must look at the conservation measures.
Mr Kindermann mentions the size of nets in the technical measures in his report.
It dovetails from Mr Kofoed's earlier report on MGP IV, which was dealing with mainly technical measures.
<P>
So we really have to bring these things together.
I congratulate the three rapporteurs for doing an excellent job.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Piha">
Mr President, the Commission has rightly proposed a ban on industrial fishing outside the Baltic Sea area.
Behind the proposal is the concern for the general decline in herring and Baltic herring stocks as well as the negative effect on the environment caused by fishing.
Marine birds, for example, can get caught up as by-catches in nets with small mesh sizes.
<P>
In the Baltic, however, the situation is different, as there the herring stocks are not under threat and fishing even has a positive effect on the marine environment.
Fishing reduces the amount of fish that would have to be thrown away and even helps increase cod stocks.
In addition, fishing is important for sparsely-populated coastal areas.
The livelihood of the people in these areas is often dependent on this one occupation.
<P>
Finland's and Sweden's herring fishing industry must therefore be allowed to continue.
In the Accession Treaty countries were permitted to fish herring for animal feed until the end of 1997.
The new regulation will, in my opinion, come into force retroactively from the beginning of this year and not merely from 1999 on, as proposed in the amendment tabled by the Committee on Fisheries.
<P>
The total catch quota for the Baltic is high, however.
Although there are no problems as yet, fishing - and especially intensive fishing - must be monitored.
The principle of sustainability in fishing must be observed.
That is why I give my enthusiastic support to Mrs Langenhagen's motion to amend the regulation, in the light of recent scientific evidence.
<P>
With reference to Mr Kofoed's report, I wonder why the Commission gave its international recommendation to the members of the Baltic Fishing Commission so late that the deadline for filing a protest had already passed.
The Commission's proposal in respect of the fishing of flounder and plaice, however, can be readily endorsed this time around.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Mr President, I would like to point to a very important question concerning the Baltic Sea, and that is the ruthless exploitation of wild salmon.
This practice must be stopped, as it seriously threatens the salmon in the Baltic area.
One of the main reasons for this is fishing with driftnets.
Particularly threatened is the very rare natural salmon, which is to be found almost exclusively in Sweden, but which also exists in Finland.
The salmon is born in the Swedish rivers in Norrland - the Northern region. It then leaves the rivers and moves into the Baltic Sea for feeding.
The period the salmon spends in the Baltic Sea is, however, a dangerous time.
The main reason for this is large scale industrial fishing with driftnets measuring up to 21 kilometres.
<P>
Issuing EU approved limits and bans on fishing for sport on certain rivers, as has been done up to now, has merely symbolic value, whilst overfishing with driftnets is allowed at the same time. This must naturally be stopped.
<P>
Another serious threat to the survival of the natural salmon is the disease M-74, which was discovered in 1974, with the M standing for environment related diseases.
This disease constitutes a severe threat to the natural salmon and its survival.
These are, therefore, important questions to bring up at the next meeting of the Baltic Commission and an issue which the environmental groups in Sweden and Finland are pushing for extremely hard.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Mr President, it is clear that sustainable and ecologically-sound fishing poses a challenge for the future.
But we are still far removed from this, particularly when we consider the issue of industrial fishing.
A solution to the problems associated with this in no way implies sustainable fishing.
By-catches, already mentioned, are a problem, but the catch is in general much too large.
Like previous speakers, I would therefore like alternatives to be investigated, such as vegetable sources, for the products which are presently being produced via the industrial fishing industry.
Industrial fishing is not essential for animal feeds and fish meal or oil.
<P>
An ecological approach deserves sound scientific research, of course, but this does not mean that we as politicians can sit back and await the arrival of these reports.
Waiting too long for the increased certainty which scientific research is supposed to offer us, and thereby failing to make decisions, means that we are not equal to our responsibilities.
I support all three reports: they indicate that it is possible to make a start on sustainability in the fishing industry. We now await the actions of the Commission and the Council.
I wonder what measures they will instigate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindholm">
Mr President, many of us feel very hesitant, and with justification, about industrial fisheries.
It is, therefore, a pleasure to be able to congratulate Mrs Langenhagen, Mr Kindermann and Mr Kofoed on their good and well balanced reports, where one of the proposals is that the rules for by-catches of juvenile cod, for example, should be made more stringent, that maximum limits be introduced, that the control mechanism be increased, and so on.
<P>
Bearing in mind the vulnerability of the Baltic Sea, and that the situation there may suddenly be altered, the proposal to review the regulation before the year 2003 is positive.
It is a pleasure to note that the share of industrial fisheries in the Baltic Sea is slowly declining in favour of fisheries for human consumption.
We hope this trend will continue.
<P>
A great deal of the criticism directed at the industrial fisheries in the North Sea has been justified, due to the volumes involved and the risk to the eco systems.
Mr Kindermann suggests that a modicum of industrial fisheries can be accepted, provided this does not conflict with fisheries for human consumption. The latter must always take precedence.
On the whole, the criteria in Mr Kindermann's report ought to be applied to the Baltic Sea, too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, first of all I would like to emphasize once again that Baltic herring in the Baltic Sea in fact is Baltic herring and not the same as the herring we are talking about here in this House.
There seem to have been some problems with the translation.
<P>
As we know, Baltic herring and the fishing of Baltic herring are of extreme importance for the professional fishermen in Finland, for the archipelago and the coastal region.
I welcome, and I have voiced my personal support for the proposal that the exemptions granted to Sweden and Finland in their Membership negotiations be given permanent status, so that the fishermen may know for certain that the fishing can continue.
I know that the Commissioner is very familiar with this matter.
<P>
The far reaching limitations on salmon fishing which have been effected in recent years, and which Mr Kofoed pronounced unfair, have further increased the importance of the fishing of Baltic herring.
The fishing of Baltic herring for purposes other than direct human consumption makes up 80 per cent of the total Finnish catch; the main part of it goes to fodder for fur farms.
So long as there is no set-aside for human consumption, we ought to be able to fish in the manner proposed.
As the price of Baltic herring for direct human consumption is higher, as much as possible goes to direct human consumption.
<P>
This form of regulation is also of fundamental importance for two other reasons.
It may contribute to a reduction of overfeeding in the Baltic Sea.
But the exemption is also important in the long term, as it will enable fish farmers to move increasingly to the use of fishmeal from Baltic herring instead of other nutrients being added to our waters.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Madam President, I would like to thank Mrs Bonino for having successfully concluded a problematic agreement on the banning of drift-net fishing.
I also think that the banning of drift-net fishing should be the subject of debate in the Baltic as soon as possible.
For it is not true to say that other species, especially seals, do not get caught in these nets in the Baltic Sea.
Secondly, it is very important to promote an increase in natural salmon for rivers in Northern Europe.
There have been promising signs of this recently, as there have been restrictions in the use of drift-net fishing.
I have heard that the Finnish government intends to bring up the matter of banning drift-net fishing this Autumn at the Warsaw Conference.
We should give it our support. It is to be hoped that Sweden and Denmark will agree.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 NAME="Bonino">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me first of all to deal with the three reports together - they are directly related to one another - and to tell you how pleased I am that on a topic as controversial as industrial fishing, whose different opinions are echoed in this House and in today's debate, the Parliament, although it has had a few subsequent suggestions, shares the Commission's point of view, especially on the need to give this type of fisheries a rational direction that takes into consideration for each fisheries activity the actual state of stocks, by-catches and the problems of monitoring.
I am referring in particular to the excellent report by Mr Kindermann. The Commission appreciates the fact that in it he highlights the progress made in monitoring and managing resources and the Commission's own desire to make further progress.
<P>
The Commission will closely analyse the suggestions in Mr Kindermann's report, but in this regard and in response to Mr Teverson, I would also like to make three remarks: first of all, the Commission considers the problem of monitoring the absolute priority of industrial fishing, and this is why industrial fishing vessels are included in the first phase of satellite surveillance which, as you know ladies and gentlemen, will begin in July; secondly, the Commission has very closely monitored herring fishing in the North Sea, especially since this was the subject of a special report, which you ladies and gentlemen have surely seen, and which states something that perhaps will not please everyone, and that is that industrial fishing is more controlled, or at any rate the controls are more effective than for other types of fishing; thirdly, as far as the more longer term initiatives are concerned, the Commission is currently financing research to understand exactly what the situation of the ecosystem is - since all the parliamentarians referred to this problem - and is pushing for and, moreover, obtaining a very concise study on the impact of industrial fishing by the International Council for the Exploitation of the Sea.
In fact, more than monitoring, I believe it especially important for everyone to know more about the impact on the ecosystem.
<P>
Regarding the convergence of views on the conditions in which herring fishing for reasons other than human consumption may and should be authorized, Mr Langenhagen proposes approving the general logic, the general system that the Commission has followed, particularly with regard to the distinction between the Baltic Sea and the other areas where current bans should remain in effect.
Indeed, beyond the approaches or values everyone has, I believe it important to say in concrete terms that the situation of the herring stock in the Baltic Sea is good.
We must also take this into account, beyond the approaches, however ideal, that we each may have.
<P>
I believe that a distinction between the two areas is legitimate, not only as far as the situation of the stock is concerned but also for the problems of by-catches.
The concrete problem that we must face therefore concerns the conditions under which herring fishing should be allowed for reasons other than human consumption.
<P>
In this regard, the Commission is trying to strike a balance between the need to create conditions that prevent abuses and the preoccupation - perhaps you ladies and gentlemen can understand me here - with not saddling the Union's fishermen with constraints that would put them at a disadvantage in relation to fishermen from other coastal States along the Baltic Sea.
This is another factor that we must take into consideration.
Currently, only the technical measures decided in the International Baltic Sea Fishery Commission apply to the fishermen of third countries, as Mr Kofoed rightly points out.
Therefore we should try to have the International Baltic Sea Fishery Commission adopt more restrictive rules which will apply equally to all fishing fleets and not just to those of the EU.
<P>
For this reason the Commission cannot accept the amendments, particularly Nos 1 and 4, precisely because they would only impose constraints on Community fishermen.
In Amendment No 4, the Commission certainly accepts the demarcation of zones - this is obvious - but globally speaking, it cannot accept the amendment precisely on account of the rules that govern the composition of the catches, which the Commission considers to be too restrictive.
<P>
As far as Amendment No 3 is concerned, the Commission accepts that part relating to the date of application, whereas the part on the revision procedure is not, in its view, suitably worded.
Finally, the Commission accepts Amendment No 2.
<P>
In conclusion, I would like to make two additional observations regarding technical measures in the Baltic Sea.
The Commission shares the view of the rapporteur, Mr Kofoed, on the shortcomings - also underlined in the speech - of the mechanism proposed by the International Baltic Sea Fishery Commission.
As I already said, the Commission wants to avoid a situation where measures confined to the Community prove detrimental to our fishermen, and for this reason, as Mr Kofoed suggests, the Commission will do all it can to improve the technical measures that are decided at the next meeting of the International Commission I have just referred to.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=248 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Bonino.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Future for the market in fisheries products- fish product canning industry and aquaculture
<SPEAKER ID=249 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0204/98 by Mr McCartin, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the future for the market in fisheries products in the European Union: responsibility, partnership and competitiveness (COM(97)0719 - C4-0029/98); -A4-0137/98 by Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the fish product canning industry and aquaculture in the European Union.I now invite Mr McCartin, the rapporteur, to speak for a maximum of five minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 NAME="McCartin">
Mr President, the Commission Communication on the future for the market in fisheries products implicitly recognizes a number of shortcomings in the present policies.
Very briefly these shortcomings could be described in the following way.
<P>
Firstly, several phenomena on the market in fisheries products run counter to the efforts to conserve fish stocks, on which the future of the whole fishing industry is dependent.
Illegally landed fish, in particular under-sized fish, are being put on the market and, meanwhile, withdrawal of good quality fish from the market and the subsequent turning of this fish into low-value fish-meal and fish-oil occurs.
It even happens that good quality fish is dumped at sea with the support of the Community which, in this way, tries to prevent market prices from falling too low.
I know that in recent years the amount of fish actually destroyed in this way is relatively small but even 10, 0-20, 000 tonnes is too much.
<P>
Secondly, an excessive mismatch between supply and demand can be observed in certain areas, suggesting that the flow of information should be improved and that stronger incentives should be provided to producers to adapt their production to demand, and to buyers to pay more attention to what the producers can actually offer.
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This is closely linked to a third set of problems relating to the competitiveness of Community producers.
Imports represent an increasing challenge and outside competitors may benefit sometimes from better fishing grounds, very low labour costs and sometimes government subsidies and, indeed, a failure to control them properly.
<P>
The Commission Communication favours improving the situation, in particular through first reducing withdrawals.
For its part, the Committee on Fisheries feels that the Community should not support the waste that withdrawals involve.
The temporary withdrawal of fish should be developed since it contributes to stabilizing without causing any waste and the putting on the market of illegally landed fish should be counteracted by strengthening controls in ports, particularly, and also in the subsequent links in the food chain.
<P>
A system of designated ports - ports which are designated for the landing of fish and fish may be landed only at these ports - is an idea that the committee certainly also supports.
<P>
Stimulating producers' organizations to achieve a greater regularity of supply by introducing catch plans is something our committee is also in favour of.
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Encouraging an improvement in the quality of Community products and encouraging consumers to choose such products by means of certification and of labelling - this, too, the committee supports but clear rules must be elaborated so as to avoid uncertainties and distortions of competition between different producers.
<P>
As regards imports, the Committee on Fisheries cannot agree with the Commission that the system of reference prices should be abolished.
The Community should not abandon the possibility of intervening in case of serious disturbance of the market.
Furthermore, the Community should endeavour to counteract the distortions of competition that may follow from very low labour costs or irresponsible fishing by vessels flying flags of convenience.
<P>
In order to increase the supply from Community producers, the potential of aquaculture should be fully exploited.
This can sometimes be a controversial area.
But we have a consensus in the Fisheries Committee that there is tremendous potential there for peripheral regions to supply high-quality food to consumers in the Union while, at the same time, not neglecting environmental considerations, the health of the waters and the health of wild fish stocks, which can sometimes be affected if we go into this industry without having done proper research, as we have sometimes in the past.
<P>
In a Union where we have only 48 % self-sufficiency, it is quite obvious that there are regions - in particular Galicia in the north of Spain - where aquaculture well carried out can make an immense contribution to the viability of the local economy and, indeed, can supply the home market with high-quality food, and be a tourist attraction at the same time, because fresh, high-quality food from aquaculture can attract tourists to a region - people who have a liking for fresh sea food, consumed in its natural environment.
<P>
On a general level, the interdependence between the market and the other strands of the common fisheries policy is allimportant and has to be taken into consideration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=251 NAME="Varela Suanzes-Carpegna">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to thank the rest of my colleagues whose reports are being considered in this joint debate today - Mrs Langenhangen, Mr Kofoed, Mr Kindermann and Mr McCartin - and which I followed with interest in the Committee on Fisheries; indeed, I contributed to some of them with my amendments.
<P>
But I am sure they will understand if I concentrate today on my own report because, among other reasons, it is not often that we have reports relating to the fish product processing industry.
Yet, this industry is a fundamental pillar of the Common Fisheries Policy and an extremely important alternative to a possible reduction in employment in coastal areas dependent on fishing activities.
<P>
Processing, along with marketing and aquaculture, forms a complementary activity and one of diversification for economic activities in the fisheries sector. It creates its own jobs and is capable of absorbing labour surpluses at a time of crisis when we are talking about overcapacity, conversion and adjustment of the Community fleet.
<P>
In the European Union the canning industry alone provides some 50 000 direct jobs with 75 000 indirect jobs.
Given that employment is the focus of all of the Union's policies, these figures are significant; they are even more so if we add the fact that those jobs are located in peripheral coastal regions where there are few alternatives to fisheries activities.
<P>
The own-initiative report for which I am rapporteur is the first to refer exclusively to what we could call the subsector of canning within the processing industry. It has been aimed at drawing the attention of Parliament, the Commission and the Council to the situation of the Community canning industry and the significant potentialities it might have if we continue to support it and do not implement policies which damage its competitiveness and promote unfair competition with products processed in third countries.
<P>
The Community canning industry is involved in an important challenge of modernization and restructuring in order to adapt itself to the globalization of the market and the costly demands of the Community's environmental, technical and health and hygiene standards which act as a guarantee for the European consumer.
<P>
In this respect, it has received substantial Community aid which must continue to promote its ultimate modernization.
However, and in particular, it has been confronted with trade agreements with other countries which have allowed our markets to open up to products which are difficult to compete with in terms of price, due to their low wage and social costs and to lower technical and health and hygiene requirements. This has a negative effect not only on the final price but also, and more seriously, on the quality and guarantees for the health of consumers.
<P>
Given the risk of relocation of European businesses and its negative effect on Community employment levels, we need greater and improved control of extra-Community imports. In addition, the same demands must be made of them as are made of products processed in the European Union.
<P>
As a competitive advantage, we must make the most of the quality of our products and establish anti-fraud units specializing in fisheries as well as a network of specialized laboratories and a reference laboratory at Community level.
We must also promote a policy which supports and encourages quality among companies and campaigns to promote European canned products throughout the Union. In this respect, we should make use of the single market and the diversity of products processed throughout the territory, emphasizing their high nutritional value and the contribution certain canned products make to a healthy, balanced diet, such as blue fish in olive oil.
<P>
The labels must exactly represent the content of the product within and not use generic names, as happens with certain techniques used by third countries. This carries the risk that we may be taken in by the products we eat or, in this specific case - given the different varieties, qualities and prices of tuna - that we are given thunnus obesus , or bigeye tuna, or another variety, instead of expensive thunnus alalunga or long-fin tunny.
<P>
The Community policy on raw material supplies should be implemented in relation to the actual needs of the Community industry and new quotas should be opened only when they are strictly necessary.
<P>
Research and development involving new products, new species and new forms of presentation will have to be promoted just as the new COM in fisheries products will have to be adapted to the needs of the industry in relation to fishing activities.
<P>
In short, the report is asking the Commission for the following things: a serious and thorough study of the reality of the Community canning industry; proposals for a specific and global plan of action; and an analysis of the copious and scattered regulations currently in force. Further, canned products should be considered as sensitive products for which compensatory aid in trade agreements is required.
<P>
In conclusion, Mr President, I would point out that the report does not constitute a goal but is instead a departure point through which Parliament is taking a first step, drawing attention to this sector and promising - and I am doing this personally, as rapporteur - to follow up on its demands. In this way, we will together ensure that the European fish product processing industry takes the position it deserves in the world on the basis of its tradition, prestige, quality and potential, as well as its level of job creation; indeed, job creation is the main challenge for our society and all politicians must contribute to its success.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldarelli">
Mr President, I believe that a plan is beginning to emerge to reform the common fisheries policy even if, as usual, it is a policy that particularly affects Europe, deals with the problems of territorial waters and succeeds with difficulty in defining a different relationship with third countries.
I am in part satisfied that we are beginning to reorganize the international fisheries agreements, but it will do us no good to make progress on European territorial waters if we do not tackle the problem with third countries too.
<P>
Shipowners are currently paying tuna 40 lira a kilo: a ridiculous figure.
A large quantity of this product, 58 per cent, is imported in the European Union.
Of these imports, 65 per cent are not subject to customs duties and there are also hygiene and sanitary problems.
<P>
I say this because I am convinced that we need to harmonise not only the common fisheries policy but also our relationship with third countries.
Market policy can provide answers.
I am pleased with the Commission's proposal and communication and see that some positive choices have been made, including after the debate that this Parliament was able to engage.
I am thinking especially of the way in which Parliament has tackled the problem of organizing producers, the way in which an attempt has been made to monitor the products fished in territorial waters so that they are identifiable and attract the attention of consumers within the framework of market rules, so that their quality is also eco-compatible.
These are very important aspects.
<P>
For this, we must promote all the positive actions that favour the introduction of a designation of origin, the post-GSPs for fishery products - in my opinion these are important choices - but at the same time we must overcome the logic of supporting prices in such a widespread manner that is perhaps not always properly focussed.
We must aim much more specifically at supporting fishermen's income so that it is directly connected with the biological and environmental balance.
From this point of view, I believe that it is very useful to encourage a biological rest period, forms of subsidiarity in the work and possibilities of guaranteeing income - in addition to the work directly related to fishing - which will also enhance some of the anthropological aspects of the fisheries sector, of the relationship between fishermen and the sea which, if the commercial and economic logic prevails, risks being increasingly lost.
We need to transmit this culture too, a culture that involves respect for the sea, a balance between resources that can be caught.
This balance is restored not only by taking action based on our romantic vision of the sea but also by using scientific instruments that can guarantee adequate research which will put a value on the available resources.
From this point of view, we also need to develop a better policy of control that is not dispersive, one that makes optimal use of technological innovations.
I therefore applaud the fact that the satellite system can be used as a fundamental part of monitoring.
<P>
I believe that some important signs are emerging.
We will be able to continue this debate with the documents that will be presented to reform fisheries after 2002.
I believe, Madam Commissioner, that you have taken some steps in this direction, in your work with the Parliament, but I am also convinced that there are a few points on which we must work.
I am referring to a point to which I draw your particular attention and to which I am sure you are sensitive: the use of dolphins in military experiments.
I do not think we can accept this anymore.
Recently, carcasses of dolphins were found in the Gulf of Marseille. These creatures had been used for such purpose and their throats had been ripped open by the explosion of small bombs.
This matter must be put on the agenda so as to prevent it occurring again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fraga Estévez">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, the Community market for fisheries products finds itself in a very strange situation.
The high dependency on imports can undoubtedly justify allowing the tariffs established within the GATT, although they are low.
However, at the same time, the European Union is implementing a policy aimed at the removal of tariff barriers which, in my opinion, is affecting important quotas.
<P>
Whether with regard to agreements such as the generalized system of preferences or in the context of cooperation or other types of agreements, the Commission accepts provisions involving a total or partial withdrawal of tariffs for fisheries products; this leaves the Community industry increasingly vulnerable.
I am not denying that they may be justified in certain cases, however, we must prevent the continuation of situations - which I would even describe as ridiculous - such as those that force, for example, Community producers of tinned tuna to export to the United States with a tariff of 35 % while the United States exports to the European Union with a tariff of 24 %.
I am sure you will realize that this is certainly not a case where poverty or the need to promote the development of a country justifies a tariff preference of 11 %.
<P>
I am therefore particularly concerned - and I think that some of my colleagues have already mentioned this - about the Commission's statement regarding the likely market trend towards lowering tariff protection. We believe, on the contrary, that the Commission is obliged to protect, where possible, its own production by encouraging policies which contribute to an increase in internal supply.
It must also curb the removal of tariff barriers or demand reciprocity, as well as allowing differential treatment for products from joint ventures which do, after all, receive Community capital. In addition, the Commission should maintain reference prices, contrary to what its intention appears to be, and encourage carry-over premiums, particularly as replacements for withdrawal or destruction mechanisms which, in a market lacking high-quality proteins, paradoxically give priority to the conversion of fish into oils or fish meal.
<P>
We have thus been calling for a long time for a reform of the common organization of the market for fisheries.
The Commission has finally presented this document which, we presume, puts forward the guidelines from its imminent legislative proposal, which it has promised to submit before the end of the year.
We hope that the Commission, which has been slow in tackling this reform, will take into consideration the proposals our rapporteur, Mr McCartin, has included finally in his report, so that the forthcoming legislative proposal is capable of helping Community producers as soon as possible.
<P>
We ask that special attention be given to the introduction of measures guaranteeing that imported products meet the same health and hygiene guarantees as are demanded of our own products, with a view to preventing discrimination and unfair competition and encouraging the protection of the health of European consumers.
<P>
Madam Commissioner, these are only some of the rapid responses the market for fisheries products requires.
Mr McCartin's report, as well as the comprehensive and excellent report by Mr Varela on the Community canning industry, contain many others which are fundamental and which cannot be forgotten when tackling the reform of the common organization of the market. This is necessary not to achieve as yet its optimum performance, as the Commission itself hopes, but to provide a minimum balance between imports and the external aspect of its own production and between the different internal productions in terms of the Community market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=254 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="d'Aboville">
Mr President, I would like to speak about the report by Mr McCartin dealing with the vital matter of the future for the market in fishery products in the European Union.
<P>
Of course, there is no question but that the demand from the European market calls for a substantial share of imports from developing countries.
But let us not forget that 80 % of these imports already benefit from a preferential tariff system, many are even duty-free.
So the rapporteur is right - and Mrs Fraga pointed this out before I did - when he states that the Commission has a duty to protect Community producers to the best of its ability and that further measures to abolish customs duty on fishery products from outside the EU are really not what we want.
<P>
First, catches by fishermen of the European Union are governed by a self-evident fact: if there are no resources, there are no more catches.
This is why we must obviously support the efforts designed to control supply on the basis of market demand.
Also, as the rapporteur pointed out, we must encourage producers' organizations to work to catch plans and it seems logical - for the benefit of the fresh goods market - to steer intervention tools in the direction of withdrawals for put-back, rather than withdrawals for dumping.
<P>
We must encourage quality policies.
Of course, the existing joint organization of markets provides support for producers' organizations that commit themselves to quality improvement plans.
Whilst that assistance has not yielded the success we might have expected, this is due neither to its underlying principle nor the lack of forward-planning, but to insufficient amounts.
It is vital therefore that we revitalize the appeal of these incentives by stepping up the amounts involved.
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We must let consumers know about these policies by showing our support, in particular, for those products that can be identified with a specific region, once they have been subjected to rigorous, thoroughly-tested quality control procedures.
<P>
Nevertheless, I would still question the advisability and actual definition of the eco labels we have in mind.
In this respect, the Commission would call upon specialists in the fishing industry and any others involved.
What exactly does that mean?
Does that imply official recognition of quality labels awarded by bodies set up for that specific purpose and funded, for example, by industrial consortia seeking to implant a positive image in the minds of the consumers?
Or, perhaps, by others whose ecological rhetoric often conceals a baser, customer-oriented philosophy?
In which case, we might see the Commission turn against any scientific analysis and leap onto the bandwagon of a public opinion largely ignorant of sea-faring matters, easily deflected and, in some cases, easily manipulated - a particularly loathsome example of which we have just witnessed.
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<SPEAKER ID=255 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, salmon, herring and other sea-foods make the issue very appetizing and appealing.
Unfortunately the same is not true of the Community fishing policy.
This presents serious problems in its internal market, which shows a continuing deficit of approximately 60 %.
This shortfall is made up for by imports from third countries, many of which maintain low prices, due to what is commonly known as "social dumping' .
This policy has had particularly negative effects on coastal and small-scale fisheries, which show reduced levels of production and employment as well as a reduction in their share of the total fish market, to the benefit of large-scale fishing industries.
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Any attempt to organize the market for fisheries products must therefore be aimed at the protection and balanced growth of the fishing industry. It must also be adapted to regional characteristics and it must protect mainly the small and medium-sized and coastal fishing industry, which is an important source of income and an important sector of employment, especially for the coastal regions and the islands.
Stringent measures must also be taken to conserve fish stocks and to maintain the marine eco-system. Measures must be taken to tackle illegal fishing and the landing and trade of fisheries products, as these will have positive repercussions for consumers who will have greater guarantees of product quality and price stability.
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The common fisheries policy must not repeat the tragic mistakes of the common agricultural policy.
The Commission proposals for a reduction in fisheries production and partial compensation for lost income in the form of other subsidies will have the same negative results as in agriculture, that is, a reduction in employment and an increase in imports from third countries, disintegration of the social fabric, and depopulation of coastal and island regions.
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I have other things to say, but I do not wish to monopolize the time available.
I will submit them in a written explanation of the vote, as this matter of the fisheries industry, which really is extremely important for the Community, must be tackled by the Commission with both prudence and gravity.
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<SPEAKER ID=256 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, first of all I would like to congratulate the Commissioner on his successful ban on driftnets, which was long overdue.
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It is very important that the market for fish in the EU is reformed and consolidated.
Fish is caught to be sold on the market and therefore there is great scope, via the markets, to improve the efficiency of the CFP as well as promoting its conservation goals.
In this respect, the role which the market can play is particularly important.
The policy of withdrawing fish from the market and sometimes destroying it simply because the price is too low is totally unacceptable.
It is outrageous in today's world, with so much poverty and hunger, both around the world and right here in the EU, that such a policy should exist.
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We have heard about promoting the consumption of fish as a healthy food to support the fishing industry.
This is fine and good, but it must be conditional and selective.
We must not be involved in promoting the consumption of all fish no matter what species, the area where it was caught or the gear that was used.
It could be argued that some of the stocks in the EU are in such desperate straits that it would be negligent or even worse to promote their consumption.
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Another point which was just raised is the concept of eco-labelling, which is becoming more popular.
The Committee on Fisheries heard an account of this just a few months ago.
The scope for such a concept to be positive is really great.
But there are conditions which must be met to avoid some fairly obvious and serious pitfalls.
The criteria which are used by these ecolabels must be publicly available to all who are interested, and must be detailed and specific.
For instance, to say that a fish was caught in a fishery which is sustainable or responsibly managed is utterly meaningless, because one person's definition of 'responsible' may differ very much from another's.
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Verification of such claims is also crucial if consumers are actually to have confidence in this.
This is where the thorny question is raised of who shall be responsible for ensuring that the claims are valid.
What role does the Commission see for itself in this area, or is it going to be the Member States' responsibility?
We have all seen the vigour with which Member States have pursued the surveillance of fishing activities so far, and I would like to know the Commission's view on this question.
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<SPEAKER ID=257 NAME="Macartney">
Mr President, I congratulate both rapporteurs on the work they have put into these very interesting reports.
Mr Varela's report is as good as the delicious Galician fish we have all consumed.
I have nothing really to add to that.
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Mr McCartin has taken on a rather more thorny series of problems in his report and I congratulate him for addressing them.
We have a whole series of interlocking problems with the whole question of a free market and the idea of protecting the interests of those who are dependent on fisheries in a particular area.
I have already mentioned - and I think the Commission took note of it - the whole question of the possible regionalization of the common fisheries policy.
This is where we have to start looking very seriously at what that means in various contexts.
Obviously one starts from the cornerstone of relative stability.
That sets limits on what is possible.
When you start talking about local boats landing locally you have the problem of quota hopping.
There is no case for discrimination on the ground of nationality but a link with the local ports would clearly have to be part of that philosophy.
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Like many fishermen, I am unhappy with the idea of centralizing the ports of landing.
Certainly in Scotland that has been a bone of contention.
Fishermen do not like being told you can only land in certain ports.
On the contrary, they would like the freedom to land.
But I would recommend to the Commission - and I think this is one idea that would be appreciated by fishermen throughout Europe - that it should centralize information about fish prices electronically.
Fishermen could use radios or other electronic devices to find out where to land their fish.
I think they would go for that kind of centralization.
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Finally, with regard to Mr Baldarelli's points on balancing supply and demand scientifically, that would have support.
The amendments by Mr Souchet of the I-EDN Group are all very sound and we will be voting for most of them.
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<SPEAKER ID=258 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, looking back on the report by Mr McCartin, I would like to say that we are today confronted by two different policy orientations, that is to say fishery or agricultural products.
Some people, like our rapporteur, want us to adopt a totally liberal policy.
Others, including myself, prefer a policy that seeks to devote more attention to the interests of the producers by implementing the principle of Community preference more rigorously, by upgrading the fresh foods market, organizing the sector in a more effective way, maintaining market intervention facilities and incorporating them in some kind of specialist discipline.
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Whilst it is clear that imports from developing countries are necessary nowadays to meet a structural demand from the European market, which falls well short of the requirements we seek in terms of sea-food products, we must nevertheless ensure that such exchanges with the developing countries take place in an atmosphere of fair competition.
This is why a strengthening of import controls seems to me to be very urgent, especially those relating to source and hygiene, which should take priority in the controls procedure, at both Community and national level.
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The importance of the fresh food market for both producers and consumers is such that we must pay greater attention to it.
The 15 amendments tabled by our group relate mainly to this objective of upgrading fresh foods of Community origin, principally through product identification and a suitable quality improvement policy, whilst at the same time enhancing the fisheries product sector by extending the role of producers' organizations and by according greater recognition to inter-trade organizations.
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Finally, with regard to intervention, we have tabled amendments seeking to strengthen the withdrawal mechanism to serve as a safety net, thereby contributing to market stability and the long-term survival of the fisheries product sector, whilst at the same time ensuring that it does not degenerate into a mechanism that merely provides a regular outlet for goods for which there is no market demand.
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These amendments, Mr President, were devised with the special needs of the fisheries sector in mind, consisting mainly of small-scale companies which are obliged, when they feel the need to make up for a drop in the price of fish, to boost productivity by increasing their catches.
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<SPEAKER ID=259 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kindermann">
Mr President, we welcome the Commission initiative to present and, more especially, to discuss its ideas on the future of the market in fisheries products in the European Union.
The chosen form of a report makes for a discussion that is pertinent to the issue.
Three meaningful words are quoted in the Communication heading: responsibility, partnership and competitiveness - the correct sequence, in my opinion.
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Fish is, and will continue to be, a scarce resource both inside and outside the European Union if some 50 % of the fish and fish products supplied in the EU originate from imports.
They are not available in the European Union.
That is why conservation of the fish stocks and market policy are closely connected.
The fisheries activity needs to be oriented globally on the basis of sustainability.
We particularly support restrictive measures for endangered stocks.
The main problem is adapting the fisheries capacity to available stocks, and this is where intervention should be the greatest.
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Merely to regulate via the market is, in my opinion, a symptomatic response to the problem. I am not the only one facing questions such as: How much of the market do we want to regulate?
Where does responsibility, or rather the own initiative of those involved, begin and end? What do we want - a market economy or a planned economy?
Standard management and marketing measures presuppose an effective and, above all, a balanced system of controls. We can do nothing other than support the call that fisheries products should only be landed in those ports which are effectively able to control them, but not, however, the extension of fisheries inspectors's rights to that of the retail trade.
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On the other hand, it will also be vital - not only as part of the next WTO negotiations, but also with bilateral fishing agreements - to make some reference to social standards, which nowadays cause considerable distortion of competition.
In conclusion, I wish to thank the two rapporteurs for their very good reports, and I hope that we can continue to work with these excellent documents in the Committee on Fisheries.
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<SPEAKER ID=260 NAME="Gillis">
Mr President, I welcome the report by my colleague Mr McCartin, which deals with many of the problems of the fishing industry.
It is clear that to date there has been significant over-fishing and in many cases illegal fishing of EU waters.
For example, Irish waters are regularly plundered by large industrial boats from other EU countries, many fishing with illegal nets.
This has led to disastrous effects not only on stocks, but also on the livelihoods of fishing communities who, for the most part, are situated in remote and peripheral regions of the European Union and have few, if any, alternatives.
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Two elements are essential if we are to save the remaining fishing areas from total depletion.
Conservation and rebuilding of stocks - an absolute and urgent priority; and adequate policing, with the introduction and enforcement of severe penalties against those caught fishing illegally.
It is essential to find a balance between the needs of the fishing industry, the management of resources and the needs of the people who make their living from fishing and its associated industries.
We must bear in mind that the European Union imports 52 % of its total fish consumption from third countries.
So there is a very large market to be satisfied.
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I believe that aquaculture can provide part of the solution to restoring the balance between imports and fish produced within the EU.
Aquaculture is a valuable source of employment and can cushion the hardship of the areas affected by the decline in fishing.
We have proved we can farm salmon and shellfish to the highest standards, taking all the necessary precautions to ensure good environmental practices.
It is necessary to maintain and enhance these practices by improving the possibilities for fallowing, to allow the sites used for fish farming to be totally rested and flushed.
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Furthermore we should seek balanced agreements with our partners in developing countries where we are fishing at present and combine this with expansion in aquaculture, thereby protecting their fishing resources and providing new sources of production within the EU.
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The CFP needs to combine all aspects of the fishing industry in order to provide a viable future for our fishing communities.
A combination of conservation and good management on the one hand, and increasing fish farming on the other, will go some way to securing that future.
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<SPEAKER ID=261 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Girão Pereira">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Madam Commissioner, I should like to refer to the report submitted by my honourable friend Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna, whom I congratulate on a notable, I repeat notable, piece of work.
I believe the report covers all the fundamental problems in this sector.
There are, however, a few points which I think should be highlighted.
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Firstly, the absence of a suitable framework of support measures for existing industries could threaten their survival.
It will be difficult, if not impossible, to compete with products from non-EU countries whose final-product costs are much lower than the Union's, either because of lower levels of technical and health requirements, or because of very different labour costs in those countries.
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Secondly, we consider that the European Union should reinforce its quality control policy for its products, stimulate industrial effort by means of quality awards, records and labels, and hold promotional campaigns publicizing the quality and the European origin of the product.
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Thirdly, with particular regard to the sardine-canning industry, to which Portugal is highly sensitive - and which is undoubtedly the industry which is most seriously affected - and following the partnership agreement with Morocco, we think urgent measures should be taken, including the establishment of a compensation fund for the Community canning industry and the maintenance of balanced subsidies for storage and freezing, to prevent market prices from fluctuating with seasonal variations, and here these subsidies should be granted to industries on production of evidence of payment of the minimum price for the product; the launch of a Community campaign to promote canned sardines and their derivatives, bearing in mind the high nutritional value of the product; and finally - as suggested by the rapporteur - we consider that the Commission should immediately conduct a general study of the present situation in the industry, concentrating particularly on the number of companies and the development of the sector over the last ten years in the various countries, so that the consequences of opening the market to non-EU countries become sufficiently clear, and including data on production, sources of raw materials, export and import figures, employment, technical and health regulations, duties payable, and in general the laws that govern the sector and, finally, how they are codified.
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<SPEAKER ID=262 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Novo">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, any review of the Common Organization of the fisheries market must seek, among other things, to conserve stocks, maintain and improve regulatory mechanisms, strengthen partnerships between producers' organizations and industry, protect the quality of products, promote increased contributions by Community production to internal market supplies, and protect Community production and processing against social 'dumping' at world level, which is an unacceptable form of unfair competition.
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Guidelines tending towards greater deregulation and liberalization will lead to even greater reductions in income levels for fishermen and producers, and will certainly damage operating conditions in the processing industry; they will contribute to the progressive deterioration of the whole fishing sector in many regions, with adverse effects on the economic fabric and aggravated unemployment, and may cause over-fishing, to which professional operators will be tempted to turn to prevent the further erosion of their already inadequate standard of living.
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Unfortunately these principles appear to form the basis of the Commission's document, particularly inasmuch as no questions are raised over the derisory budgetary sums currently allocated to its market policy, and because it seeks to encourage the creation of transnational companies, whose devastating effects on small and medium-sized businesses in this sector - producers or processors - are easy to foresee.
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There is no doubt that we have to rethink the present Common Organization of the markets.
For example, we accept that the set-aside system must be reviewed, if necessary by reducing the proportion allocated to the destruction of fish.
Nevertheless, the mechanism itself should be retained by increasing and/or creating other income support schemes for producers, just as we also need to provide subsidies for industrial freezing and storage, as stated in our amendment to Mr McCartin's report.
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With regard to fixed guide-line prices, it is essential that we retain these, and likewise the compensation system for tuna.
In that connection it is unacceptable that there is still no comparable scheme for sardines, and we are therefore re-submitting an amendment to that effect, which we hope will be approved.
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There must be a system of certificates of quality, origin and production and processing conditions.
We must also pay special attention to local markets and their supplies, and particularly to their positive effect on small coastal fishing fleets. But we must also be aware of the fact that the European Union imports almost 60 % of its supplies.
We must protect Community products against producers who have no quality control systems or no regard for social or environmental conditions. We do not have the abolition of customs duties in new international agreements, in which the interests of the industry have been destroyed without even securing mutual guarantees.
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In the report, as now amended - many of our recommendations have been adopted, and we hope it will be further improved as a result of this Plenary debate - the Commission will find, if it so wishes, sufficient ideas for revising the present Common Organization of the fisheries market without endangering the sustainability of the sector.
We await the legislative proposals which you will no doubt be submitting to us this year, Madam Commissioner.
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A word about Mr Daniel Suanzes-Carpegna's report on the canning industry.
I will not take long, because it is in fact a very good report.
Its wording is excellent and, if the proposals are taken up, it will help to improve the operation of the canning industry.
Our two amendments to your report, Mr Suanzes-Carpegna, are intended to reduce the costs of raw materials without jeopardizing operations in other important sectors - such as olive oil - and to help strengthen the Producers' Organization. This is of fundamental importance if we are to set up effective partnerships with operators in the same sector.
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<SPEAKER ID=263 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, this evening's sitting on fisheries presents a gloomy picture.
It seems more like an academic meeting than a parliamentary sitting because we are discussing texts which are study texts and not legislative texts. A group of us, who already knew each other well because we are a group of friends from the Community fisheries sector, met in connection with these texts, which are in fact more academic than anything, and in circumstances which, according to the Commission reports, seem to be heralding the disappearance of the sector.
In other words, I have the impression that this is the type of debate we will look back on in years to come with nostalgia, as a time when we could still talk about the Community fisheries sector.
I am going to refer primarily to the Commission communication on the future for the market in fisheries products in the European Union.
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I think that it is a good report, that is a report drawn up with great sincerity and honesty and one which also fulfils its role.
It is a preliminary report and the Commission has set itself a deadline of 30 June of this year. In other words, it has given itself a week or two to receive reference material and points of view from the sectors involved in production, from the social partners, etcetera, and on the basis of that information, it will undoubtedly draw up legislative proposals.
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I believe that the report is very honest and reveals the problems facing the sector.
The basic problem, which has been highlighted by various speakers before me, is that 60 % of Community consumption of fisheries products comes from imports - the Community only supplies 40 % of its own needs - and that possibly - and this is a trend that can be seen clearly - our entire Community consumption will eventually come from imports.
I believe that that would probably be a line of defence.
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From time to time, as far as fisheries are concerned, the news we receive is generally bad news.
We sometimes receive good news but that good news is usually accompanied by some bad news.
For example, the agreement reached on 8 June by the Fisheries Council establishes the ban on drift gillnets but postpones it until 31 December 2001.
Between now and 31 December 2001 there are six months left of 1998, 12 months in 1999, 12 months in 2000 and 12 months in 2001, which means that by the time drift gillnets are finally banned, there may well be no fish left that have escaped this equipment which is destroying the fisheries sector.
At least the desire is there to do away with this evil.
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But sometimes the news we receive is completely bad. For example, recently there have been statements in the Spanish press by the Moroccan authorities who say that they are not going to renew the fisheries agreement.
Not only are they not going to renew the fisheries agreement with the European Union, but, in addition, a year before that agreement comes to an end - or more than a year in advance - they are going to take away from us a range of fishing licences in a certain zone. By doing this, it seems that they are not fulfilling the commitments made with the Community and, until the actual event, I was unaware if there had been any Community reaction.
And this, without any shadow of a doubt, is bad news.
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In this respect, and to avoid this process, I would like to highlight the references made by the chairman of our Committee on Fisheries, Mr Fraga, and the conclusions of the report by Mr McCartin, which, in my view, was given serious deliberation and careful thought in the Committee on Fisheries.
I would also refer the Commissioner to paragraphs 14, 15, 16, 17 and 21.
In particular, in paragraphs 14 to 17, Mr McCartin's report refers to the need to maintain a system of protection for the Community market.
It is true that we are going to import an increasing number of non-Community products, but if we again lower the protection we have at the same time as we are being expelled from fishing-grounds, then we are asking to be expelled from even more fishing-grounds.
In some way, this Community fisheries market, which is so tempting, is the greatest enemy of the Community producers themselves, because increasingly more is asked of us, more is demanded of us and more limits are imposed on us.
I therefore believe that any concession in the context of the World Trade Organization, which it appears that the Commission is planning, must be thoroughly examined.
Secondly, paragraph 21 talks about joint ventures - joint ventures with Community capital - as a possible solution in cases where fisheries agreements have terminated; this is an issue which could certainly be developed.
However, the great mystery is: what is going to happen with Agenda 2000 and what resources will be available for the fisheries sector during the period 2000 to 2006?
Is the Commission going to have the necessary funds to be able to support, for example, joint ventures, and to support all the types of measures envisaged in the Community report?
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Finally, Mr President, I would like to thank the Commission for the work it has done, I would also like to thank Mr McCartin for his work too and I would say that we are waiting for the second part of this report which will undoubtedly come very soon and will contain concrete proposals or new initiatives on the part of the Commission.
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<SPEAKER ID=264 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Imaz San Miguel">
Mr President, I would firstly like to congratulate the five rapporteurs and I am going to concentrate primarily on Mr McCartin's report on the market for fisheries products.
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I believe, in fact, that the Commission has carried out a valuable analysis and that, in the same way as we have a common agricultural policy which dedicates its efforts to the stability of the agricultural markets and farmers' incomes, we should, as regards the problems of the fisheries sector, think about trying to look for imaginative formulas which are also geared towards a common fisheries policy which guarantees a certain stability for the market and fishermen's incomes.
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We have very scarce resources and the problems continue to grow.
To give you an example, fish such as hake 11 or 12 years ago used to receive a price of just over 400 pesetas per kilo (ECU 2.5 per kilo) at the ports. Twelve years later, the same price is still being paid, while the cost of gas oil and the costs for fishermen have increased enormously.
This leads to a situation which may, in fact, threaten the very survival of the sector.
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In this respect, paragraph 14 of Mr McCartin's report underlines the need to eliminate or reduce the current trend towards doing away with tariffs.
We must search for measures in this connection so that, while fulfilling international commitments, the Commission can protect our sector as far as possible.
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Paragraph 16 is also very important in that, as regards those competing with us, we must demand minimum social guarantees of them within the context of the measures required by the ILO: respect for the environment in fishing for resources and, in addition, minimum conditions in terms of health and quality which can be compared to our products.
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I believe that we are obliged to ensure the maintenance of the Community fisheries sector - and I am aware of the difference that exists between the agricultural sector in that we are talking about a market which needs external fisheries resources to supply its own needs - but we need to find imaginative solutions in this respect.
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I will simply conclude by saying that we must also focus on the need to avoid fraud in the market and I will end by giving two advance warnings regarding "loin' fillets of tuna from countries involved in the generalized system of preferences and the possibility of the Community market for cod being affected by fraud from Russia, for example, through agreements with other countries.
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<SPEAKER ID=265 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Apolinário">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I think the method the Commission has chosen is the right one: by opening this communication to discussion, it allows Parliament, the various sectors and the Council to make their contributions to what will become the subsequent legislation.
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But I should like to emphasize here a point mentioned in Mr McCartin's report, which I think is an excellent contribution to this debate. That point concerns the waters of non-EU countries; it is a subject that has been very well dealt with by Mr Medina Ortega and we should indeed be giving some thought to it, for, as he has quite correctly said, the consumption of fish products in the European Union is also an attraction in market terms and in some ways also a potential cause of greater difficulty in obtaining fishing quotas, which, as we know, is the area in which we are experiencing the greatest problems.
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On reading the Commission document, therefore, I would like to insist on a few measures which I consider to be important.
In the first place, and naturally on the subject of sardines, in the light of my honourable friend's excellent report on the canning industry, I should like to re-emphasize what has already been said here about sardines, namely the need for compensation for the sardine-canning industry. Hence the importance of subsidies for the freezing and storage industries.
We also need a way of regulating the market itself. My view is that the paper drawn up by the Producers' Organizations should have been used as a basis and it would have operated by means of sardines purchased by the Producers' Organizations at above their removal price.
We need an award for quantities delivered by the Producers' Associations to industry under contracts, because we consider it essential that the industry should have strong and active organizations; we need the possibility of developing interprofessional organizations, the use of denominations of origin and quality marks, and particularly promotion campaigns based on denominations of origin; we need to channel the principle of preferential Community treatment into food subsidies; and finally, we need the financial aid to off-set the temporary or permanent closure of industrial units, the only way of preventing some very negative social effects in the already disastrous situation that exists in some regions which are highly dependent on fishing.
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Finally, I should like to underline the following point: this reform is going to cost more money.
This is also something we should be aware of.
It will cost at least ECU 30m per year to implement this reform.
That is a point Parliament will also have to think about.
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<SPEAKER ID=266 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Viola">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the topics covered in the Varela report, which I refer to in particular, are many and on the whole have been dealt with properly, with solutions that I consider positive in most cases.
However, no mention is made of the international agreements on trade and the problems related to the gradual reduction of customs protection.
Well, in my opinion, given the insufficient amount of raw materials produced by the Community, we must now guarantee that the processing industry is supplied at internationally quoted prices and avoid a situation where, in cases of bilateral cooperation agreements, we are forced to barter the total elimination of customs duties on finished products for the signing of fisheries agreements, such as that with Morocco.
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Now, the customs advantages granted to Morocco have really been a major factor in the closure of most of the facilities of the Italian sardine canning industry.
We would like to make sure that the tuna canning industry does not meet with the same fate, as could very well happen if the current system were to be modified with zero customs duties on imported frozen tuna steaks from GSP countries.
That is why I certainly consider it useful to do an in-depth study on the effects of the so-called tariff anomalies, definitely including the anomaly with imported loins which, contrary to the general rule, are imported as a finished product.
<P>
The rapporteur is right in calling for an effective system to control imported canned goods from third countries and the origin of products, a definite policy of quality which should be combined with an adequate promotional campaign. He is also right in requesting that the Community's canned goods be declared sensitive products, with compensatory aid for the tuna and sardine sector: all this in a very labour-intensive sector, which is often located in disadvantaged regions, and therefore one which merits priority consideration in the context of the European Union's employment policy.
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<SPEAKER ID=267 NAME="Bonino">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think the debate we have conducted here underlines yet again the complexity of this sector and the many interconnections between its individual elements.
For example, many of you, during this debate, have told me that it would be beneficial to develop aquaculture not only in our own area, but also in the developing countries and therefore in line with our bilateral agreements.
This is all well and good, except that to produce fish by aquaculture we need fish meal.
If I might hark back to the debate we held scarcely an hour and a half ago on fish products not intended for human consumption, we came face to face with a number of contradictions.
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I say all this simply because during the debate I found that I had detected two of the dominant persuasions prevailing within the Council, but also within the sector itself, which do, however, have a point in common, if I understood your excellent report correctly, Mr Rapporteur.
This common factor relates to the need for a greater commitment on the part of the public authorities in favour not only of the transition to a more responsible fisheries policy, but also with respect to aid for the sector to enable it to adapt to new economic, commercial and health criteria.
So, if I understand you properly, we agree on the fact that it is important to strengthen the organizational base of all the parties involved and help them gain access to innovations.
<P>
We therefore have to support the operators in the sector and the industry as a whole. But I would like to ask you a question that many others have already posed.
What about the quality policy, and indeed other motions which have been tabled, such as the controlled source proposal?
We can and must be able to control it.
And I would inform this House that it is already difficult enough for us to apply the regulations on minimum size in a credible way.
If this is the approach we are to adopt, we must therefore - and this is the matter raised by Ms McKenna - give some thought to the supervision and control conditions required.
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Some Members have urged the Commission to conduct further research, fresh analyses and so forth.
I would simply like to point out that this debate has been running since 1996, that we have held two seminars with Parliament, at Quimper and La Haye, that work with the departments concerned has continued in close concert with Parliament, that we have listened to the opinions of everybody, that there have also been a number of regional meetings with representatives of the sector and that, therefore, the time has arrived for the Commission to draw its own conclusions and to debate a legislative text designed to clarify a significant number of issues.
The time has now come for me to honour the commitment I undertook to submit a proposal which will inevitably be controversial, because it is impossible to please everyone.
<P>
For example, to go back to the debate, several suggestions were put forward which do not bear any relation to the matter in hand.
Because in the fishing industry that is how things always are; as soon as you open a debate on a particular issue, we have to say a little something about everything.
Take the subject of funds, for example.
I have no idea what funds will be allocated, any more than you do.
What will the Community budgetary allocation be for the period 2000-2006?
Like you, I do not have a clue.
As you know, in principle, the budgetary allocation does not come within my domain.
<P>
Moreover, it is quite clear that there are problems with regard to the developing countries, to which several speakers have alluded.
I note, for instance, the statements by Morocco, which no longer wants part of any fishing agreement.
To me, there is nothing new in this.
Incidentally, further contacts are meanwhile being established.
So I would call for a little more order and discipline when the Commission is the sole arbiter in negotiations concerning fishing agreements.
I do not really need help here.
I would rather not be bothered with, for example, the presence of those private European companies - without naming names - which have concluded private agreements with individual States in the developing world, where I hold a negotiating brief.
I would also be glad if the Member States could remember from time to time that the authority to negotiate fishing agreements falls within the jurisdiction of the Community.
<P>
It is a fact that confusion helps nobody.
But I digress - indeed, we have had no shortage of digressions during this debate.
<P>
During the debate, I detected two particular persuasions which are typical and traditional, and two objectives that are occasionally contradictory.
On the one side, there are those who believe that complying with the common trade policy in this sector is a priority and, on the other side, there are those - whose representatives I have met - who wish to boost the importance of domestic policies in market matters.
The Commission has a duty, before the end of the year, to settle any disputes and to submit a proposal which, I am certain, will not please everybody.
<P>
One further word on the own-initiative report of Mr Varela.
There are, nevertheless, degrees of convergence between Mr Varela's report and that of Mr McCartin.
For example, both stress the need to observe strict compliance with health regulations.
This is an important factor, from a commercial standpoint too.
While we are on the subject, I would also remind you that there are only five or six Community health inspectors.
I have said this before and I want to remind you of it again today.
<P>
There are also other points on which the rapporteurs see eye-to-eye.
For example, the creation of mechanisms for strengthening associations and enhancing the position of individual operators in the sector.
But, beyond these points of common interest, there are also analyses and proposals concerning the canning industry that seem to me, Mr Varela, to be overly dramatic or pessimistic.
Because, whilst it is true that some companies - which we know about - have been unable to cope with the competition from the developing countries, we should also point out that some of them were, to some extent, operating obsolete businesses and that imports have merely accelerated a process that was inevitable.
The business people concerned have even admitted as much.
<P>
In addition, I feel obliged to point out that the Commission has already introduced marketing standards for canned sardines and tuna, to guarantee the transparency of commercial transactions in this sector, all for the benefit of the consumer.
Hence, a number of criteria, quite clear in their purpose, have already been defined with regard to sardines and tuna.
The problem is, however, that I am being asked to allocate special aid facilities to help the sector along, virtually to the detriment of other sectors.
I must therefore remind you that this sector has already benefited from significant financial support from the Community as compared with others.
It is also the case that in 1995 the Member States themselves decided not to extend the procedure for awarding carry-over payments in favour of the sardine industry, precisely because the operators and the Member States no longer wished to favour this sector over others, in view of everything that had been done already.
Member States may, at their own level, give precedence to this sector if they consider it to be of prime importance in their own country, by relying, of course, on the Structural Funds which fall within their jurisdiction.
<P>
On the same subject, allow me to point out that such aid awarded by the Member States, whether in the past or in the future, does not excuse the sector from contributing to innovative projects, in order to steer the marketing strategy towards valueadded products, which foster European technology, rather than in the direction of basic products which do not require advanced technology and which therefore suffer badly from the competition of developing countries where labour costs are obviously very much cheaper.
<P>
So, there you have the guidelines.
But with regard to carry-over payments, I would remind Mr Varela that this was rejected by the Member States back in 1995.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=268 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Bonino.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, we have arrived at the end of this debate, which has seriously overrun its allocated time.
Mr Varela wishes to speak as rapporteur and he may do so for a maximum of one minute.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=269 NAME="Varela Suanzes-Carpegna">
Mr President, the Commissioner called on us not to help but, at least, to ensure that we did not put any barriers or obstacles in the way of her work.
And in relation to the competitiveness of the industry to which we are referring, I would like to say to her that it is obvious that certain companies cannot be competitive, but we are asking that they do not put obstacles before them.
I referred to the fact that certain agreements are obstacles, and this is what we are saying.
If there are health measures yet very few inspectors, as you said, we call for the creation of a network of specialized laboratories so that there might be controls.
The Member States can do this themselves but it must take place on the basis of a proposal from the European Union itself.
Madam Commissioner, we are calling for specific measures to be taken.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=270 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Varela.
<P>
I hereby declare the debate closed, having considerably overrun the time allocated, and I am sure that you all join with me in thanking Parliament's services and the interpreters for this extra work which we have burdened them with on a day that was already extremely busy.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 8.55 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's session have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="Kerr">
Madam President, I rise under Rule 108 to make a personal statement because of the attack on myself and Mr Coates by the President-in-Office when he replied to the debate yesterday.
On page 28 of the Rainbow he suggests that we do not have any democratic mandate or legitimacy because we were elected on a Labour ticket and therefore we should not be sitting as Members of the House.
<P>
This is a serious personal attack and under Rule 108 of the Rules of Procedure I am allowed to reply.
I would observe that I was elected under a Labour ticket - not a New Labour ticket - when John Smith and Margaret Beckett were leaders of the party, and elected by two-thirds of my party members locally, unlike the Labour MEPs for next year who will be selected by Mr Blair personally.
So, I would claim to have a far stronger democratic mandate than they will have.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Madam President, I would like to praise the exemplary activity of the French security service during the visit by Tony Blair.
Secondly, I would like to inform you that President Gil-Robles has received a letter from Prime Minister Dehaene promising us that a police station will be established in the vicinity of the Parliament in Brussels.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Wynn">
Madam President, it concerns what has been lacking in the Minutes throughout the week, namely there has been no reference to Mr Falconer telling us whether he is voting or not.
Has there been any rule change by the Bureau with regard to recorded votes?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Wynn, for following the matter so carefully.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="Falconer">
Madam President, I thank my colleague, Mr Wynn, for raising this matter.
Obviously, I would wish to allay Members' concern.
I am glad to see that the Monday to Friday group are still with us.
We are here all week and we vote all week, unlike some Members who are only present part-time and by Thursday afternoon are on the move.
<P>
The answer is quite simple.
I wrote to the President asking him how many Members had been affected as a result of the rule changes.
He advised me that per part-session since February 120 Members have had their allowances adjusted as a result.
<P>
I attend every month from Monday to Friday so I participate for the whole week.
I am opposed to the principle of how the Bureau came to the decision without referring the matter to the House, but I am appalled at the lack of backbone of these 120 Members who have stayed silent on this issue and have raised no protest in this Chamber.
<P>
With that in mind, I have decided to allow them to deal with their own consciences.
I will continue to support my principles and I have no doubt I will argue for those principles within the Socialist Group.
I hope this allays the House's concern.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Falconer, for the explanation. We will record that in the Minutes.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Souchet">
The amendment of Regulation No 1866/86 laying down certain technical measures for the conservation of fishery resources in the waters of the Baltic Sea is based on the latest recommendations adopted in the framework of the International Baltic Sea Fisheries Commission (IBSFC).
<P>
What are these technical measures?
They are merely minor adjustments to already existing prohibition periods for the fishing of flounder and plaice, and minor adjustments to prohibitions on the use of certain gear in fishing for salmon.
As the rapporteur has said, who, may I remind you, is Danish, ' These adjustments, and thus the Commission proposal, can easily be approved' .
<P>
However, I should like to remind you that wild salmon is in the process of disappearing from the Baltic Sea, a sea which receives special treatment from the Commission.
As we have seen in the Kindermann report, intensive industrial fishing is carried out in the Baltic. Industrial fisheries use small-meshed nets and, despite protests made by Greenpeace, such activities are not subject to any particular restrictions.
The use of large-scale drift gillnets is still authorized, although this is an infringement of international legislation, which imposes a 2.5 km limit.
On the other hand, at present, Spanish vessels rarely fish in the Baltic.
Does the latter explain the former?
<P>
Our group supports this report in substance, as well as the proposal for a regulation, but wishes to stress that the Commission must remain impartial with regard to the fishermen of the various Member States.
We are therefore very firmly opposed to the fact that the Commission 'forgot' industrial fisheries when it established new technical measures for fisheries in Europe and that it 'forgot' to ask the users of large-scale drift gillnets to comply with international legislation.
It is inadmissible that the Commission should ignore the scientific considerations which form the basis of the Common Fisheries Policy, should favour some European fishermen undeservedly and should discriminate outrageously against others, in order to gain a large enough majority in the Council.
<P>
Kindermann report (A4-0201/98)
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="Souchet">
My group wishes to congratulate Mr Kindermann on the quality of his report on industrial fisheries.
<P>
As you know, industrial fisheries use small-meshed nets, the catches from which are intended for industrial processing into fish meal and fish oil.
Denmark is the largest producer of fish meal in the European Union, accounting for 80 % of industrial production and 6 % of the world market.
Fish meal is used mainly as animal feed in the poultry and pig-rearing sectors.
<P>
There is a remarkable disparity between the declared objective of the conservation of stocks and the huge quantities of fish caught for industrial purposes.
Our rapporteur quotes a number of particularly impressive statistics relating to industrial fisheries: 30 % of all world catches comes from industrial fisheries.
The proportion may be as high as 60 % in some seas, such as the North Sea, which is extremely vulnerable, as we all know.
By-catches are also large: sometimes they even exceed actual catch quotas.
<P>
There is an even more startling contrast between the Commission's uncompromising attitude towards certain types of fishery and its leniency towards industrial fisheries.
Does this distinction have anything to do with the fact that Spanish vessels are rarely to be found in northern waters?
Such discriminatory treatment by the Commission is not acceptable under any circumstances.
On the one hand, the use of drift gillnets has been prohibited without scientific basis in the Atlantic, where small catches are taken from very large stocks.
On the other hand, a good deal of research has been carried out, but no action has been taken with regard to industrial fisheries, which makes huge demands on resources.
What is the reason for this differential treatment?
If industrial fisheries constituted a significant activity in the Atlantic, they would most certainly be treated differently.
<P>
McCartin report (A4-0204/98)
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="Souchet">
As I said in my speech, our group tabled 15 amendments to Mr McCartin's report.
In fact, in contrast to the rapporteur's initial proposals, we believe it is necessary to have a strong COM for fishery products, particularly for products intended for the fresh fish market.
The approach adopted by the rapporteur is too exclusively liberal, going so far as to call explicitly for a reduction in the principle of Community preference.
<P>
I do, of course, know that the European Union has signed, and has made Member States sign, a number of free trade agreements.
It has made Member States join the generalized system of preferences, particularly with drug-producing countries. We are also restricted by the GATT agreements within the framework of the WTO because, as a result of a major political error, unlike agricultural products, fishery products have always been consolidated under the GATT.
<P>
A COM which strengthens the entire fisheries sector is therefore essential, because of these major constraints, which already significantly limit Community preference.
We have a number of other possibilities, such as the improved organization of the sector, which would enhance the fresh fish market, and the continued use of market interventions.
But what does the rapporteur propose?
In terms of enhancement of the market, very little.
Instead of maintaining withdrawal systems, he proposes to do away with them.
What would be left of the COM?
One can but wonder.
<P>
The COM must not operate to the sole advantage of processors, whose main requirement is regularity of supply at the lowest cost, irrespective of the source of raw materials.
It is therefore essential for the WTO to establish specific measures applicable to the fresh fish market.
<P>
Varela Suanzes-Carpegna report (A4-0137/98)
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="Souchet">
Our group supports the overall approach adopted by Mr Varela in his report.
It is clearly essential to preserve, and therefore if necessary to protect, the fish canning industry and aquaculture in the European Union.
This is why my group tabled 16 amendments to the McCartin report on the COM for fisheries products.
<P>
The fisheries sector must be analyzed as a whole: it needs the processing sector but at the same time, and the Commission must accept this, if production were to cease in Europe, there would no longer be a European fish canning sector.
We therefore only support those of the rapporteur's proposals which aim to strengthen the canning industries and to stop relocations to countries where wages are low.
<P>
In his report, Mr Varela focuses on two important sectors of the canning industry: the sardine sector and the tuna sector.
The sardine sector, which has been virtually allowed to disappear in France, is still very important in the Iberian Peninsula.
The rapporteur proposes protecting this industry from imports of processed products from North African countries, particularly Morocco.
<P>
Although I am aware of the competition faced by the industry in Portugal and Spain, I would however like to point out that these North African countries have fragile economies which require support, unlike a certain number of other countries - especially in Latin America - with whom the European Union has signed preferential agreements to import tinned fish products, in particular within the framework of the so-called 'generalized system of preferences' .
<P>
With regard to the tuna industry, the rapporteur considers it necessary 'to ensure there is a proper supply of the necessary raw material (fresh, frozen and fillets of tuna), giving priority to the Community fleet?' . The Spanish, French, Irish and British tuna fishing fleets in the Atlantic have contributed towards that supply until now.
I note that having worked actively in favour of the prohibition of fishing for tuna by European vessels with drift gillnets, Mr Varela is now asking for specific measures to protect the Community tuna processing industry: is it also destined, like fish stocks, to become a Spanish monopoly?
<P>
Finally, Mr President, I should like to remind the House that the fish product canning industry is highly diversified and not limited to the above two sectors of activity.
Furthermore, fish product processors, like all manufacturers, require regular supplies of raw materials at the lowest possible cost.
We must therefore very carefully ensure that the future of the processing sector is safe, but at the same time we must avoid doing so to the detriment of the fresh fish sector. This is a sector which is likely to expand in response to the current concerns of consumers, who wish to eat fresh, wholesome, unrefined foods.
This is why it is absolutely essential for European fishermen to retain control of the fresh fish sector.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Market in oils and fat
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
The next item is the statement on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 136/66/EEC on the establishment of a common organization of the market in oils and fats (COM(98)0171 - C4-0229/98-98/0098(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Rosado Fernades">
Madam President, I would like to congratulate Mr Giansily, and I am going to read out the text he has left me in French:
<P>
As draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Budgetary Control, I should like to briefly clarify some of the fundamental aspects of this issue, which brings into play various important economic interests.
First of all, as regards committee procedures, the Management Committee for Oils and Fats is frequently consulted, but due to its structure, it operates without the European Parliament playing any part whatsoever, despite the political importance of the production sectors.
<P>
(The President cut off the speaker)
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
One moment!
Quiet please!
We cannot hear if you are all talking at once.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rosado Fernandes">
They should have taken a little olive oil before they came!
<P>
<P>
(FR) I have therefore proposed that the procedure involving the Management Committee for Oils and Fats be replaced by the procedure described in Article 43(2) of the Treaty establishing the European Community.
I have also tabled amendments to make consultation of the European Parliament compulsory.
With regard to the system of national guaranteed quantities, I believe that the need to ensure compliance with the maximum guaranteed quantity must be emphasized, in order to avoid unfortunate divergences such as those which have occurred with regard to the quotas for dairy products.
<P>
Finally, as far as infringements of the aid schemes are concerned, the twelve months proposed by the Commission in which to adopt a decision with regard to further action to be taken following the detection of infringements is too long and will make the decision less effective.
A period of six months would be preferable, as suggested by the Committee on Budgetary Control.
<P>
Finally, I should like to remind you of the urgent need to obtain full, reliable statistics on the production of olive oil in the various producer Member States.
Before the adoption of this regulation, it would be preferable for the Court of Auditors to have completed their verification of these statistics.
<P>
That is, in brief, the reasoning behind the amendments in my report, which the Committee on Budgetary Control has approved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fantuzzi">
Commissioner, we are here to defend a wonderful gift of nature.
The olive tree gives us the world's most noble representative of the food we produce, and at the same time it is the symbol of a unique landscape, a history and an identity of which we should be proud as Europeans.
Allow me, Commissioner Fischler, to say that the Commission certainly gave a poor example and did a horrible job of managing this matter: news leaks, inferences, rebuttals and postponements too often prevailed over the true merit of the official documents and helped poison the atmosphere somewhat.
Although this Commission proposal has its flaws, it does have two merits in my view: the first is that it takes account of the arguments of the majority of this Parliament.
Personally, I was critical of the Jové Peres compromise, but I must acknowledge today that after the stormy debates in 1997 on the fundamental points of the compromise reached in December, the Commission has accepted Parliament's arguments.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, we cannot say: we were only joking!
It makes no sense today to have someone here complaining that it is impossible to have a fit and proper debate.
<P>
The second merit of this proposal is that it puts an end to the uncertainties and indifference that we have been seeing for some time.
We cannot ignore, with the excuse that there are no surpluses lying in the warehouses, the profound signs that the sector has structural difficulties: falling prices, sharp cuts in aid and production forecasts for the leading producer country that foreshadow worrisome scenarios for producers who are not at fault for all this.
<P>
We cannot make it through another year with a COM from 1966, one which is old and outdated, the only common organization of the market that does not have national quotas aimed at making individual Member States and producers responsible for their behaviour.
Those who do not want all this, those who persist in asking for time, facts and postponements, saying that the fault lies with the same old Eurocrats in Brussels, are not defending olive growers but betraying them.
I hope that today we all realize this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Filippi">
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Vallvé">
Mr President, Madam President, Commissioner, we are debating here a particularly important point.
We are all aware of the importance of agriculture for the European Union and the importance of certain agricultural sectors, not for the entire European territory but for very specific areas.
<P>
Last year there was a meeting in Cork where the importance of the countryside was also discussed.
Commissioner, in certain areas, guarantees for the countryside are guarantees for particular crops which are, in fact, monocultures in those areas.
<P>
The Commission drew up a proposal which was debated by the Committee on Agriculture and approved by a wide majority in this Parliament last December.
<P>
The Commission has drawn up a new proposal and I must say that, in many cases, it has not respected the guidelines that this House had approved reflecting the fundamental concern of those regions involved in olive oil production.
<P>
I agree, Commissioner, that fraud is something that has got to be avoided and cannot represent a form of finance for anyone. However, I believe that we cannot legislate or lay down regulations with only the struggle against fraud in mind.
We must think about the needs of the sector and the needs of those areas throughout Europe which depend, primarily, on a specific sector such as, in this case, that of olive oil.
<P>
We have always talked about the need to guarantee high-quality agriculture and high-quality products.
And if we are talking about the quality of a product, the guarantee of a product's origin, we must ban the marketing of mixtures with other products, which represents an adulteration of the guarantee of origin.
<P>
We must draw up a policy based on protection and on promoting consumption aimed at guiding the consumer, provide specific aid to products linked to olive oil, such as table olives, and establish, in this respect, effective systems of control.
<P>
I believe, Commissioner, that this proposal with which we have been presented can be improved and I hope that during this debate, through the vote on the amendments tabled by the various political groups, we can manage to significantly improve the proposal on this issue. Although it may not be an important issue for the whole of European agriculture, it is very important for specific regions and for specific people who do want to believe in a truly European agricultural policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Daskalaki">
Madam President, the Commission has put forward a number of proposals for the reform of the market in olive oil, chiefly because there were doubts concerning the effectiveness and transparency of a double system of aid to producers.
In parallel, Community production increased during the last season, which had unfavourable repercussions on the setting of prices, while the non-allocation of maximum guaranteed quantities at national level punishes all oil producers for the violations of a few.
<P>
This considerable increase in Community production has created huge reserves, while in many cases the difference between the price from the producer and the retail price has created problems of competition.
The reform of the market in olive oil is urgent and it should come about soon and last until 2006, in other words, it should have the same time scale as the other products subsumed under Agenda 2000.
<P>
A transition period will serve only those who invest in overproduction, which runs counter to Community projections, while it will punish the rest and lead to a loss of jobs and environmental damage.
The establishment of national quotas is necessary, therefore, and must take this year's production - 1998/99 - into consideration.
It is also necessary to preserve the intervention mechanism and the intervention price in order to ensure market and price stability in a sector where production varies considerably from year to year.
It is necessary to create a supplementary system of subsidies for smallholdings and small-scale producers, as well as aid for the setting up, before the year 2000, of an oil-production register in countries that do not have one.
<P>
Finally, in my opinion, it is also necessary to create a system of subsidies for the production of table olives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Jové Peres">
Madam President, in its proposal for a reform the Commission has not followed most of the guidelines contained in the report approved in December by this Parliament.
<P>
Unlike with other reforms, the Commission proposes doing away with intervention and maintaining the maximum guaranteed quantity at a level which is much lower than Community consumption. And, ladies and gentlemen, in Parliament we called for an increase in the maximum guaranteed quantity to take account of consumption, exports and a safety margin, and this was the condition, ladies and gentlemen, that was to enable us to subsequently establish national reference quantities.
<P>
From my modest position, I am calling on my colleagues to take serious account of this issue when voting today.
<P>
The Commission does not put forward proposals to ban blends of olive oil with other oils, it does not draw up proposals to establish a reliable and effective system of control, nor proposals on table olives, although Mr Fischler promised us this at the conclusion of the debate which took place in Parliament in December. Moreover, it tackles the control of planting in a way that might create serious problems of legal uncertainty.
<P>
The list could be much longer, as demonstrated by the large number of amendments which have been tabled.
<P>
So, we are talking about a proposal similar to those usually presented by the Commission concerning Mediterranean production. In other words, it is totally discriminatory with respect to continental production, although one other characteristic is evident: the approval of the urgent procedure for a radical reform of a COM, which is an unprecedented event in this Parliament.
<P>
If we wanted the reform to enter into force before next year, we still had some time available to better complete our work.
<P>
Leaving aside the media use which the existence of different presidencies might have, the use of this procedure has a very clear practical significance: the Commission is drawing up proposals for the distribution of the maximum guaranteed quantities between those Member States involved in production using information which the Commission itself says is not very faithful and blocking information - which will appear in the next few days, from the Court of Auditors, etcetera - which could have been very valuable for our work.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, my group's amendments aim, as far as possible, to correct this situation and, of course, have tried to be completely respectful of this Parliament's mandate and of the unitary commitment we established in December.
<P>
I hope that this desire for agreement, which took shape in December, is respected today by all our colleagues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Madam President, olive growing is of great cultural, but also economic, significance and therefore the identity of European olive cultivation must be guaranteed right up to the level of regional allocation.
The stock of olive trees may well be of importance to us - also an important ecological factor - but that is not enough.
It is also a matter of considering olives as a social factor, in other words, in relation to the number of jobs in this sector.
What is more, in the policy of the Commission it must be clear that we are dealing here with an important foodstuff.
<P>
The objective, therefore, must not be to support a type of cultivation that is difficult to market, but instead the marketing, processing and regional allocation must be supported, taking into consideration the demand for olive oil from consumers.
Only if we move in the direction of a regional market will it be possible to resolve the difficulties that we face, despite pumping billions into this sector and still losing jobs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Trizza">
Madam President, Commissioner, the assignment of national quotas, the elimination of consumer aid and the improvement of crops and the quality of the product are some of the best aspects of this document. For this reason, it has our overall support.
Of course, the elimination of the flat-rate scheme for small producers and the uncertainty surrounding the last season lead us to request special measures so that this year too the sharp cuts do not negatively effect the weaker economies, those of southern Europe.
<P>
We must, however, convince ourselves that olive oil, the growing of olives, is an important European resource not only from an economic point of view but also from an environmental viewpoint.
The 'oil' problem cannot be considered just a problem of the countries of southern Europe, it is a European problem: oil is a European resource, and a strong product can be decisive in creating competitive conditions that benefit our economies.
<P>
That is why I am expressing the National Alliance's approval of and support for the work done, and I believe that these observations lead us to reflect on the need to take urgent action to obtain certainties.
For too many years we have been in a situation of uncertainty that has given rise to conditions of speculation.
This document is a first important step so that producers can again have peace of mind in order to improve production and to create conditions of growth for the European economies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Colino Salamanca">
Madam President, I would like to briefly mention, on behalf of the Spanish Socialist Members, the criteria which have led to these amendments.
<P>
Recently, this Parliament approved an opinion on the future of the olive oil COM which seemed to establish a certain consensus.
The response from the European Commission could not have been more frustrating since it presented a proposal which was totally removed from that consensus.
<P>
Despite what has been said, there is no national agenda here: if we ask for an increase in the maximum guaranteed quantity, we do so in the interest of all European producers; if we want to maintain intervention, we want to do so for all European producers; if we want a specific ban on mixtures, we want it on behalf of all European consumers; if we call for a scheme for table olives, we do so for all European producers; and if we call for a special regime for small producers, we do so irrespective of the region where they are located.
<P>
Commissioner, I thank you for being here for this debate.
However, I would like to tell you clearly that the producers of olive oil cannot understand that, while in other sectors of the CAP there do not seem to be any budgetary problems, in this sector, in spite of the contribution the olive sector makes towards combating erosion and desertification and in spite of its contribution to employment and to keeping the population in the countryside, the Commission's proposals go in the opposite sense.
<P>
I am sure that a more detailed consideration of its proposal on the part of the Commission would lead, as has happened in other sectors - such as wine - to a new proposal, a much more realistic one, which maintains the economic and social cohesion which must inspire all of the Community policies of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Arias Cañete">
Madam President, it is not necessary to highlight the enormous economic importance of the olive crop in the European Union.
<P>
More than 4 million hectares and 465 000 jobs depend on this crop.
In my autonomous community alone, Andalusia, 14 000 jobs, almost 50 % of all agricultural jobs, depend on this COM, which is thus established as a basic element of social and territorial cohesion.
<P>
In this context, the Commission has presented us with a proposal which, in its current form, is clearly out of step with Mediterranean agriculture, unbalanced in respect of certain Member States and technically incorrect since it eliminates fundamental elements for the stability of prices and agricultural incomes, such as intervention. Further, it does not protect Community consumers in that it does not consider banning mixtures and totally ignores the situation of table olives.
<P>
The Commission must begin to treat Mediterranean farmers fairly.
It is not possible to always invoke financial neutrality for the more disadvantaged farmers and to be prepared to systematically increase, without restrictions, aid to continental production.
Commissioner, it is perfectly possible to increase the maximum guaranteed quantity with a very limited budgetary effort; it is perfectly possible too, where appropriate, to bring national quotas into line with actual production in the Member States, and the Commission knows that the figures on which it based its proposal are inaccurate and obsolete.
<P>
I am pleased with the fact that we have tabled amendments which have led to important agreements within the political groups and which, if the vote reflects those agreements, will allow us to give a response to the hopes of Community farmers and significantly improve the Commission proposals, establishing, in addition, elements for rigorous control which might reassure European contributors.
<P>
I hope that the Commissioner takes these amendments into account, shows flexibility and modifies his proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Novo">
Madam President, Commissioner, what has happened this week in connection with the reform of the olive oil sector confirms that, by agreeing to urgent procedure, the European Parliament has taken a very serious decision, because it has agreed to deal with a very important reform without drawing up a report, acting on impulse in response to circumstances and when there was no need to observe close time limits.
<P>
With regard to the Commission's proposal for a regulation, contrary to what some Members have said here, it does not follow the guidelines in the Jové Peres report we approved in December. It merely takes a few partial ideas from it, out of context.
We hope the amendments we shall be approving today will restore the spirit and the letter of that document, particularly as regards the increase in maximum guaranteed quantities and their national distribution on the basis of real and reliable data. This will also be my own country's interests, in respect of which the Commission's proposal does not take into account the olive plantation development plan.
I hope the amendments will restore the spirit and letter of the Jové Peres report regarding the reinstatement of intervention mechanisms, subsidies for small-scale producers and consumption, the production of table olives and firm measures to prohibit the mixing of olive oil with other products.
<P>
If the consensus we reached in December is recovered today and this House does not place the interest of olive growers in general second to other national interests which are not very obvious, we may be in a position to amend the Commission's proposal, ensure that the sector remains sustainable and respond positively to the concerns of the olive growers.
I hope that, if so, the Commission will now accept what it actually rejected in December.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Orlando">
Madam President, concreteness is valuable to politics and must be a characteristic of politics.
We are faced with a valuable choice because it is concrete, and it is concrete because it takes account of the quality and quantity of agricultural production with mechanisms to assist production and with mechanisms to determine national quotas; it is concrete because it takes account of the urgency of intervention; last but not least, it is a concrete political choice because it takes into account the Mediterranean dimension and the rural dimension of the European economy.
I believe that these factors must be underlined at this time and hope that the debate serves to make this intervention more, and not less, concrete.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Lambraki">
Madam President, today's debate, which is the result of a procedure that certainly was not the best, concerns a product which is important from every viewpoint.
<P>
Olive growing is a traditional and predominant form of economic activity in large areas of southern Europe, while olive oil as a product is the basis of any healthy diet.
Given the dominant position of European production in the world market it is extremely important that the sector be organized rationally and efficiently within a European Union framework.
It was therefore a pleasant surprise, and, Mr Fischler, I hope you will continue to give us pleasant surprises, to see the Commission abandon some initial proposals which would have caused ructions in the olive oil industry, and put forward a proposal very much in line with European Parliament proposals.
This proposal is one which, with some improvements, can lead to what we are calling for.
And what we are calling for is the rational organization of the olive oil market, the production of a product of a high and stable quality, and the support of incomes and employment in large areas of the European countryside.
<P>
I would like to ask you to look at and adopt the tabled amendments relating to the following.
<P>
The first issue is the abolition of intervention, which creates rather than solves problems.
The system of intervention must be preserved as a safety net for the producer.
<P>
Secondly, the issue of the promotion of olive oil is important and the necessary resources must be allocated to it.
An aggressive policy of promotion will safeguard the dominant position of the European Union and will solve whatever problems of surpluses arise.
<P>
Thirdly, within the framework of Agenda 2000, the changes to the common organization of the markets have a time-scale until 2006.
This same time scale must be implemented for the common organization of the market in olive oil.
<P>
Fourthly, together with the setting up of national guaranteed quantities, the possibility of carrying over quotas into the next trading period must be instituted, given the special nature of olive oil production.
<P>
Finally, the Commission must look separately at the sector of table olives, not simply as a wish in the explanatory statement, but with the instigation, in the very near future, of specific measures of support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Santini">
Madam President, Commissioner, it is with great satisfaction that I am taking part in this debate which our group called for.
We expressed our desire for it in the Committee on Agriculture when we voted for urgent procedure by 25 to a mere 17; we confirmed it on Monday when this Parliament wanted to send a signal and voted 196 to 154 to end this dispute.
It is definitely time that this 32-year old common organization of the markets retire.
It is unthinkable that we prolong any further some of the schemes that the COM has introduced.
I will mention two of these: the system of maximum guaranteed quantities at Community level which means that it is unthinkable to continue setting national quotas that not only no longer correspond to the productive potential of countries that produce olive oil but also no longer correspond to market demand.
<P>
So as not to repeat what other Members speaking before me have already said, why not focus on a measure that is provided for in this COM, that is, product promotion which strangely is always considered in all the COMs as optional, an almost luxury accessory?
We know that product promotion is the best way to highlight quality, and product quality is the best way to win over consumers and in so doing also solve problems of excess quantity.
That is why a few more tonnes of oil do not scare me, provided that it is extra-virgin olive oil and therefore quality oil.
<P>
It is in the common interest today to give the go-ahead to this reform in any case, before the marketing year begins in November.
Therefore, I do not think anyone here - at least I hope not - still wants to carry out initiatives that would stand in the way of what we are trying to accomplish.
Any move to refer the matter back to committee or some similar step would not be in the interest of anyone and would cause serious economic damage. In particular, it would severely damage the image of this Parliament which once again would show itself incapable of deciding.
Granted, the proposal is not perfect, but we also have to leave some detail for the Commission and the Council, otherwise what use are they?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Redondo Jiménez">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, those of us who have been opposed to the fact that this reform is being debated by urgent procedure, have tried to be constructive and be faithful travelling companions since this procedure was approved by our sovereign House.
<P>
All the basic aspects of this reform have already been discussed by the speakers before me.
The maximum guaranteed quantity, intervention, the ban on mixtures, table olives, the distribution among countries, etcetera, have all already been sufficiently discussed in order to try and have them incorporated into this reform.
However, Commissioner, and I am sorry that there is no representative from the Council here today, in a few statements made yesterday evening - which were certainly very unfortunate - the Council confirmed that this reform should take place at no financial cost.
<P>
Commissioner, you know the sector perfectly well - and we know how sensitive you are towards this topic - and on many occasions you have said that there would not be a reform which would be detrimental to producing countries.
Commissioner, you now have a golden opportunity to prove that.
You must be sensitive and accept that a reform does not take place without an increase in the budget, and particularly so when these financial stringencies always affect our southern countries.
You must seriously consider and accept the suggestions which are made by Members of this Parliament. These suggestions are being made with great sacrifices and responsibility and with a constructive spirit in mind on the part of the majority of Members, who give priority to their citizens' advantages - for whom we have all been elected - rather than to their own possible political advantages.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Hadzidakis">
Madam President, when we speak about olive oil producers there are three things we must not forget.
Firstly, we are speaking about producers who live in the poorest regions of the European Union and who, as a result, need support.
Secondly, they produce a product which has been shown to contribute to promoting the good health of consumers. Thirdly, olive growing makes an important contribution to environmental stability.
<P>
The adoption of the new regulation is urgent, not only because the regulation which currently governs olive oil is old, but because there are serious problems which need to be tackled immediately.
Chief among these is the exceeding of average guaranteed quantities at European level, and indeed by a large amount, with the result that subsidies for producers are falling dramatically in all countries, even when production in one country is low.
<P>
The system that is being proposed, that is, the system of national quotas, is without doubt a just system.
However, if the quota of a particular country is not used up, it should be permitted for the difference to be carried over into the next trading period.
<P>
I am puzzled at the fact that, while for products from the north the new regulations remain in force until 2005, for olive oil the intention is for the regulation to remain in force only until 2001, when there will be a new, more stringent, regulation.
Why two measures and two yardsticks?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="Fischler">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, first I would like to express my thanks for the constructive debate that we have all shared today in this discussion on the olive oil sector.
May I remind you that as long ago as December 18 1997, with its decision on the olive oil sector, the European Parliament made a fundamental contribution to the debate on the common organization of this market.
<P>
The Commission has addressed the recommendations expressed in your proposal of March 18 this year in the following way: first, the Commission shares the view of Parliament that an urgent reform is necessary.
It has also accepted the argument for obtaining more details about production before carrying out a final reform.
The proposal for the full reform will, therefore, be presented at a later date once the appropriate actions have been carried out, but early enough for it to be able to come into force on November 1 2001.
<P>
While a more thorough analysis is being made of the market production and certain other aspects during the initial phase, it is, however, also necessary to adapt the current regime for the financial years 1998/99 to 2000/2001 in order to confront the present difficulties of the producers and above all to avoid a worsening of the situation.
By means of this initial step, the Commission wants to do justice to the argument and the dictates of urgency.
<P>
If we now compare the resolution of the European Parliament with the proposal of the Commission, we find the following: the European Parliament wishes to have a single production subsidy in accordance with the actual quantities of oil produced.
The Commission proposes abolishing the double subsidy regulation and likewise retaining only one subsidy for the actual production.
The European Parliament is calling for an increase in the maximum guaranteed quantity, while the Commission proposes raising this maximum guaranteed quantity by 212 000 tonnes to 1 562 400 tonnes.
<P>
The European Parliament wishes to establish national reference quantities.
The Commission proposes dividing the maximum guaranteed quantity into national guaranteed quantities.
The European Parliament wishes to maintain an intervention mechanism by means of private storage.
The Commission proposes a massive strengthening and exclusive use of private storage.
This measure should make an effective contribution to market regulation.
The European Parliament wishes once and for all to abolish the consumption subsidies.
So does the Commission.
Thus, in these five central points of reform, the Commission and Parliament agree in principle.
In view of the time available, I prefer to restrict myself to the most important problem areas in my further work, instead of dealing with each of the 163 proposed amendments.
<P>
Some amendments refer to the principles of the future reform in the year 2001.
I agree that such a reform is necessary.
Initially, however, we must improve our knowledge of this sector.
The results of the new investigations will be available soon enough to be considered in the proposals that will be presented in the year 2000 for the introduction of the reform in 2001.
I do not believe that we should wait much longer after that for the fundamental reform.
As I have already said, the measures that are proposed with effect from the next financial year take into account the urgency of the problem.
For that reason, I cannot approve the amendments that call these measures into question.
<P>
A second group of amendments concerns the maximum guaranteed quantity and its division among the Member States.
I would point out that a sharp increase in the maximum guaranteed quantity would exceed the average capacity of the market, unless extremely low oil prices are accepted.
A division among the Member States seems essential to me.
It has, incidentally, been required by Parliament so that those producers that are producing the surpluses are given greater responsibility.
<P>
The criteria for this division are based on data from the past, using a common formula that we have also applied in other areas.
They will, however, take into account new planting and the task of regulating small producers.
A balance must be maintained here, which is certainly very difficult to do.
<P>
The amendments that concern the use of currently unused maximum guaranteed quantities include some technical options that we will certainly examine in the context of a general balance.
As far as the new cultivated areas are concerned, it is essential to limit these strictly, as experience has shown that the maximum guaranteed quantity is not sufficient to maintain the market equilibrium.
For this reason, the Commission proposes to guarantee subsidies for these new plantings only in a few exceptional cases.
It is not possible to generalize these exceptions, as is demanded in some quarters.
On the other hand, a total ban, as proposed by other amendments, seems to me ultimately more difficult to carry out and more likely to cause conflict.
<P>
Numerous amendments concern the intervention regulation as well as the subsidy for private storage.
In contrast to some amendments, I consider the abolition of the intervention regulation to be absolutely essential, in particular in connection with the request for the increase of the maximum guaranteed quantity.
I do not consider it sensible either to reintroduce a degree of intervention through the back door by the automatic triggering of private storage instead of the flexible instrument that we want to create for ourselves here.
<P>
As for the wish to retain the subsidy to small producers or the consumption subsidy in some form, experience has indeed shown us that this is not possible, since the only economic effect worth mentioning is that it encourages abuse of the subsidy to the detriment of the budget.
<P>
Numerous amendments call for the introduction of a subsidy for table olives.
The Commission has made it clear that it has an open mind on this question.
A ruling must be found, however, whereby sensible, verifiable and economically acceptable support is possible.
I can fully identify with the very many amendments for the improvement and strengthening of controls.
There are, however, already appropriate Council directives and in many cases also Commission directives, for example, for the approval and control of oil mills.
<P>
With the proposed simplifications, the controls should be concentrated on the production subsidy.
During the transitional period, the Commission's provisions will be adapted and, if necessary, tightened so that these controls are more effective.
<P>
I can assure you that we will return to your considerations in implementing the reform.
The question of olive residue oil is related in part to the question of controls already mentioned.
In certain areas or companies it is difficult to carry out controls on oilcake.
In addition, this problem comprises several aspects such as oil quality, environmental protection and market capacity.
My offices are currently examining this question; what is more, in my opinion, the difficult and complex question of the openly labelled and legal blends of olive oil with other oils should be subjected to further inspection.
<P>
Numerous amendments concern the work and obligations of the producer organizations.
I know that intensive discussions are taking place on this question.
The present proposal by the Commission, however, concentrates, as already mentioned, on the measures that are urgently necessary to overcome a crisis in the olive oil industry or rather to prevent an even greater crisis.
<P>
The other problems, too, such as quality improvement, forwarding of statistical data or various control questions are also to be examined during the transitional period.
Naturally I have an open mind about the extent to which such measures can be more fully incorporated into the final proposal for reform in the year 2000. This also applies to the question of producers' organizations.
<P>
Some amendments concern the current financial year.
This appears to be particularly profitable; these amendments propose that the effects of cutting the subsidy are reduced.
I certainly cannot allow us to restrict the reform to this one issue and concentrate on a reduction of subsidies instead of a full reform.
The fixed regulations must be observed and considerable effects on the budget must be prevented.
In addition, we must consider that the draft budget for 1999 currently leaves us no leeway.
Other amendments would like to make the subsidy dependent on producer-independent criteria such as environmental protection.
I am basically in favour of this idea.
However, it is an idea which has already been taken up by the horizontal measures in Agenda 2000.
Further questions, such as the reimbursement for olive oil used in tinned foods, the overall export refund, the collection of statistical data or the promotion of trade, are less urgent and should, therefore, be dealt with in the later proposal for the year 2000.
<P>
Some amendments refer to the legislative procedure and demand that Parliament is listened to at all decision-making levels.
As far as the general legal provisions of the Council are concerned, I agree in principle.
The Commission is not proposing any new regulations of this type either.
In the present case, however, existing technical texts are being changed and here I can accept no amendments, because this would call into question all the texts and further complicate the already complex discussions.
<P>
In the reform to be carried out at a later date these general provisions should be omitted anyway.
As far as the implementing provisions of the Commission are concerned, a fast and flexible procedure in which experts from the sector can be called upon is still required.
The presentation of a report to Parliament prior to the final reform seems a thoroughly sensible idea to me; but I would like to avoid having to present numerous reports.
<P>
Some other amendments concern comments without any concrete legislative proposals or references to existing regulations.
From my point of view, these do not have to be considered.
<P>
In closing, I would like to thank you again very much for your work and your contributions.
I am, as you know, sympathetic towards many of the ideas presented here, I am prepared to examine various questions addressed here and you may rest assured that I will express your concerns in the Council.
Thank you for your attention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Fischler.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal (as amended) )
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="President">
Mr Colino Salamanca has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="Colino Salamanca">
Mr President, we have just voted on the Commission proposal as modified by the amendments which we have just introduced.
We still have not voted on the legislative proposal.
And before that step, I would like to put a question to the Commissioner.
<P>
Very important amendments have been approved: the one which determines that the maximum guaranteed quantity is 1 800 000 tonnes; the one which establishes aid for the production of table olives; and the one which establishes that for the 19981999 season there will be a target price and a representative price.
And, finally, the ban on mixtures within the European Union has also been established.
<P>
I would like to know the Commission's position in relation to these questions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="President">
Would Mr Fischler like to reply to the points raised by Mr Colino Salamanca, on which I will subsequently have to make a regulatory point?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, I am happy to reply to these points.
First may I make it clear that the Commission cannot, of course, take over all the amendments, but that it, too, has its duty to perform.
But I refer to what I said in my earlier contribution.
I would like to remind you of it again.
First, we have addressed five fundamental wishes of Parliament with our proposal.
Second, we have a certain sympathy towards many of your amendments.
Third, we will also examine a series of amendments in our further deliberations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Colino Salamanca">
Mr President, the answer the Commissioner has just given me obliges me to ask that the matter be referred back to committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="President">
Mr Colino has asked that the matter be referred back to committee.
<P>
Are there any objections to this?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Galeote Quecedo">
Mr President, before giving my view with respect to the proposal by Mr Colino, I would like to ask you, in accordance with Rule 129, if this request for referral back to committee is being made on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists or on behalf of 29 Members.
Because, if it is the latter, this would have to be done on a formal basis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="President">
Mr Galeote, allow me to give you the explanation myself and to suggest that you read Rule 60(2).
In this case it is not a matter of a request for referral back to committee on behalf of a group of 29 Members. In fact, in this case the chairman or the rapporteur has the ability to do so, and Mr Colino is chairman of the Committee on Agriculture.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Galeote Quecedo">
Mr President, I respect that personal interpretation, and I would like to say to Mr Colino that on Tuesday he asked this House to vote against the use of urgent procedure.
We supported that, Mr Colino, because your request was based on the argument that the maximum guaranteed quantity was insufficient.
You also said that the text meant the end of intervention.
You, Mr Colino, said that the Commission's proposal would mean that there would not be a ban on blends with olive oil and you ended by saying that the Commission's proposal did not contain a regulation on table olives.
All of this was true and therefore we did support you.
We have had negotiations throughout the week and you participated in many of those negotiations.
Today we have had a very important vote by virtue of which the proposal, which the European Commission has drawn up in due course, has been significantly revised.
It is precisely for that reason that I am calling on this House to vote against referral and on you, Mr Colino, as a Spaniard, not to try to invalidate a vote which is very much for the benefit of our country's farmers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="President">
Mr Cabezón wishes to speak in favour of the request for referral back to committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Cabezón Alonso">
Mr President, at this time, once we have voted - and the result of the vote is known, the representative of the PPE Group has reminded us of it - there are still too many accusations of this kind, urging us to put Spain's interests first in an immediate and cheap manner.
<P>
The reality is that this House has given its opinion on fundamental issues concerning the reform of the olive oil sector.
<P>
The chairman of the Committee on Agriculture asked the Commissioner what he thought about the result of Parliament's vote, and the Commissioner answered that he was sympathetic towards it.
And tomorrow, we are going to tell the producers of olive oil and European farmers that the Commissioner was sympathetic towards this vote by Parliament.
<P>
We have asked the Commissioner for more than sympathy.
There is a difference between this Parliament's opinion and the Commission's position; what we want to know is whether the Commission is going to take over Parliament's opinion, because if it does, it will take it to the Council, but if it does not take it over, it will not go to the Council at all.
<P>
We therefore ask that the proposal be referred back to committee, to see if we are able to convince the Commissioner outright that it is right for the Commission to take over Parliament's opinion.
<P>
So, we are now calling for referral back to committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="President">
Mr Fantuzzi wishes to speak.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fantuzzi">
Mr President, first of all, I would like to say that Mr Colino is not making this request on behalf of the Socialist Group, because the Socialist Group is opposed to referral back to committee.
<P>
Secondly, if we refer to the Rules of Procedure, the chairman of a committee, in my opinion according to the interpretation of Rule 60(2), can request referral to a committee only when the Commission states that it does not intend to accept any - I repeat, any - of Parliament's amendments.
Commissioner Fischler stated at the beginning of the debate that he accepted some of the amendments as they are.
Therefore, the conditions for referral back to committee are not met.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Fantuzzi.
<P>
Mr Dell'Alba wishes to speak.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, I asked to speak only to express my full agreement with what Mr Fantuzzi had to say on this point and to repeat that I do not understand what we are voting on.
We had a vote without a report; we voted on all the amendments.
Please explain to me what we are referring back to committee, given that the resolution does not exist, because we have a procedure without a report.
Frankly, it seems to me that this is a manoeuvre to buy time, and it also goes beyond any Rules of Procedure.
I do not see what you can refer back to committee!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="President">
Mr Dell'Alba, it is the amendments which would be referred back to committee.
<P>
I will now put Mr Colino Salamanca's request to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament rejected the request)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="President">
Mr Pasty wishes to speak.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Mr President, I should like to make a proposal with regard to the next part of our proceedings.
It is very important for us to vote this morning on the second report for which a request for urgent debate has been made, that is, the set-aside requirement. I therefore propose that we do not hold a debate but proceed immediately to the vote which, according to our Rules of Procedure, is possible.
We could also adopt the same approach with regard to the report on bananas, otherwise, we will be unable to get everything done this morning.
I therefore suggest that we proceed to the vote on the setaside requirement, which will be very short, without holding a debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="President">
Mr Pasty is proposing that, for the remainder of the agenda, we proceed directly to the vote, and that we cancel the debates.
<P>
Are there any objections to Mr Pasty's proposal?
<P>
(The President noted that there were no objections to the proposal)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Rojo">
Mr President, we have seen here today a clear example of how the improvements introduced by the European Parliament are cancelled with sympathy.
<P>
Commissioner, please listen to me.
In Andalusia, and throughout Spain, it is incomprehensible that this type of backward movement can take place, and particularly as regards olive oil, a product that is so symbolic and so important.
<P>
We do not have confidence in what the Minister is going to do because, since the beginning of the process, she has mistaken her role and is more involved in making declarations than participating in negotiations, as she should.
<P>
Commissioner, you are surrounded by errors and are committing the serious mistake of discriminating against Mediterranean products; you are surrounded by ignorance, and what we have experienced today is a historical mistake by Europe against Spain and against Andalusia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Novo">
By agreeing to the use of urgent procedure for the reform of the common organization of the market for olive oil, the European Parliament has taken a very serious political decision, and that decision creates an equally serious precedent for the future.
<P>
It is unacceptable that this House should have decided to vote on the proposal for a regulation without waiting for the completion of the Parliamentary report, which, furthermore, could have been ready in time for the debate and vote at the meeting of the Committee on Agriculture this month, and for debate and vote in the House in July.
<P>
It is unacceptable that the European Parliament should have acceded to the Council's request for the use of urgent procedure, the only reason for which must have been the British Presidency's desire to see the olive oil market reform process completed in the first half of the year.
It is unacceptable that the European Parliament itself should have decided to exclude itself from the normal democratic process of discussion of a matter which is not merely incidental; on the contrary, it deals with the reform of an agricultural sector which is fundamental to four of its Member States.
This fact in itself creates a serious precedent the European Parliament will find it difficult not to follow in the future.
It is unacceptable that the European Parliament should have approved a request for the use of urgent procedure when there was no hurry in terms of time limits, since the reform to be approved is due to take effect next November.
<P>
With this decision only a limited debate has been possible in Parliament, since a period has been allowed for amendments to the Commission's proposal for a regulation, of which there are over 160.
<P>
In spite of this procedure, which is in no way open or democratic, the amendments approved have substantially altered the text put forward by the Commission, following the basic guidelines of Mr Jové Peres' report.
The maximum guaranteed quantity is increased for figures representing consumption and exports and its national allocation is provided for on the basis of reliable and verifiable data.
Intervention mechanisms are restored together with the creation of subsidies for storage and also for the production of table olives.
Other measures include additional subsidies for production by small-scale growers, control mechanisms for the stages between production and consumption, a ban on the mixing of olive oil with vegetable oils, and the promotion of consumption.
The planting of new olive trees is also permitted in countries with approved development plans.
<P>
For these reasons, although we disagree with the process, we vote in favour of the regulation as amended by a set of amendments that originated in our group.
The Commission should simply accept the amendments and proceed accordingly.
After requesting the emergency procedure, the Council has no option but to ratify the amendments approved today.
This is what we and European olive growers demand.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Set-aside requirement
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on the proposal for a Council Regulation derogating from Regulation (EEC) No 1765/92 establishing a support system for producers of certain arable crops as regards the set-aside requirement for the marketing year 1999/2000 (COM(98)03661 - C4-0363/98-98/0213(CNS)).
<P>
In accordance with Mr Pasty's proposal, we shall proceed directly to the vote.
<P>
Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf wishes to speak.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Mr President, I would like us to debate this report and I would like the debate to proceed as we have proposed and planned it.
The fact that time is short must not impede the debates on the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="President">
At the time, no objections were raised.
However, so that there is no doubt, I will put to the vote Mr Pasty's proposal that, for the remainder of the agenda, we proceed directly to the votes.
<P>
(Parliament approved the proposal)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="President">
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal (as amended) )
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="President">
Mr Souchet has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, I will make my explanation of vote in writing as I intended, but I also wish to say orally that it is scandalous that Parliament has given its opinion an issue as important as this without holding a debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="President">
We are not debating this matter.
Parliament has approved this method of proceeding.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Funk">
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Kofoed">
The proposal by the Commission concerning the compulsory set-aside of 10 % of arable land for next year is unavoidable.
<P>
Income compensation was fixed for six years in 1993.
With present prospects of production, the increased stocks with limited export prospects would result in an unacceptable fall in cereal prices.
<P>
However, the proposal puts the Commission in a difficult position as Agenda 2000 proposes only voluntary set-aside.
<P>
More efforts should be made by the Commission to find new markets for arable products.
Raw material from the arable sector can be used to make bio diesel, lubricating oil, plastics etcetera, which are all bio degradable and therefore to the benefit of the environment.
The European Commission should investigate whether compulsory use of these products initially in ecologically sensitive areas is economically feasible, especially from an environmental point of view.
If new markets can be created, farmers will become less dependent on public subsidies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Martinez">
We were told in 1992 that it was necessary to reinstate the set-aside, which had been tested since 1988, as stocks were increasing due to over-production.
<P>
From 1992 to 1997, we were told that the set-aside was having a positive effect.
Stocks were declining because of the setaside.
<P>
But now, in 1998, we are being told that it is necessary to establish a set-aside of 10 % because stocks have increased to 14 million tonnes, and may even reach an estimated 30 million tonnes by the year 2000.
<P>
At the same time, the reform of the CAP removes the set-aside requirement.
Whilst in Agenda 2000 the set-aside is being removed, at the same time it has to be urgently re-established.
This is a strange way to behave.
In reality, the set-aside, like the "fine tuning' of a visual flight procedure, has hardly any effect on the world market.
When stocks decline, it is because there is a drop in supply and an increase in demand.
Supply may decrease because of the climate in North America (snow) and in Cairns Group countries (drought in Australia).
El Niño has far more effect on the market than the European Commission and its stabilizers.
Similarly, when the growing Asian economy increases its indirect and direct consumption of cereals, in order to feed chickens and pigs, for example, Western stocks decline.
Conversely, if Asian currencies collapse, purchases of cereals decrease in the West.
<P>
In other words, Brussels' voluntarism, expressed in terms of rationing procedures, such as MGQs, quotas, grubbing and other national guaranteed quantities, is ideological rather than practical and effective.
<P>
This ideology is reprehensible.
It is the Malthusian ideology of the Club of Rome.
According to Brussels, we must stop planting olive trees after 2001, although the consumption of olive oil is increasing and we are world leaders, producing 80 % of the total quantity of olive oil.
<P>
With regard to vineyards, planting is being stopped, vines uprooted, unripe grapes gathered.
Apple trees are being pulled up.
Milk production is being restricted.
Where cereals are concerned, land is laid to waste.
There is constant rationing everywhere.
And meanwhile, at the international negotiating table, from the GATT to the WTO, our interests are not being protected.
We are giving up markets. We are not exporting.
<P>
So, if we really must get rid of something, it is the bugetarist ideology, the pettiness and Malthusianism of the Commission in Brussels that we need to eradicate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Novo">
Our opposition to the grant of subsidies for set-aside is well-known, because this practice has negative effects on production and employment, and also because it benefits large-scale producers who own vast tracts of land they can take out of production while still making financial profits from them.
<P>
We therefore oppose the Commission's proposal to increase the compulsory uncultivated-land tax on cereals from 5 % to 10 %.
This proposal is all the more incomprehensible inasmuch as it comes precisely during the final run-up to the implementation of the Agenda 2000 guidelines, which provide for a 0 % rate of tax on uncultivated land.
We can only conclude that this proposal is a further attempt to save more money, within the general policy of indiscriminate budgetary restraint.
<P>
In that context, and as a means of preventing the approval of the Commission's proposals, we opt to vote in favour of the amendments tabled, the object of which is essentially to maintain the current 5 % rate of tax on uncultivated land.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="des Places">
Although I do not intend to make a habit of it, I should like to thank the Commission for responding to our request for the set-aside requirement to be established at the same time as the 1998/1999 price package.
<P>
My request was upheld by many of my colleagues in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, and I am delighted that this was the case.
<P>
I cannot say the same thing with regard to the proposed 10 % set-aside, although I understand the concern caused by estimated cereals stocks of 30 million tonnes by the end of this agricultural year.
<P>
Commissioner Fischler, you must admit your guilt, and admit that you were wrong to handle the calendar of export certificates so cautiously, when they were favourable to us!
<P>
Admit that by underestimating the specific size of the European wheat crop, you made it difficult for contracts to be signed.
Admit that the size of the harvests of cereals whose export is prohibited, such as fodder-quality wheat and corn, should have compelled you to open the door to exports.
<P>
Be that as it may, we will not reach the ceilings available under the GATT this year, far less take up any unused carryovers.
<P>
This is all extremely harmful to European agriculture and the farmers who have entrusted us with a responsibility will once more be accused of over-production.
<P>
Our group has tabled two amendments to your proposal.
The aim of the first is to renew the suspension of the extraordinary set-aside.
The aim of the second is to ask for the compulsory set-aside requirement to be kept at the same level as in the two preceding years, that is, 5 %.
<P>
European farmers will not accept a rise in the set-aside requirement due to management errors and the situation in the world market, particularly considering the fact that, within the framework of Agenda 2000 and CAP 2000, the Commission has proposed a set-aside of 0 %.
Farmers will not accept such incoherence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Poisson">
As the initiator, in June 1997, of the oral question to the Commission, supported by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the establishment of the set-aside requirement before 30 June of each year, I thank the Commission for requesting an urgent debate on this subject.
<P>
However, if the 'Santer package' anticipates a set-aside of 0 % by the year 2000, I wonder why the Commission is now proposing a set-aside of 10 %.
<P>
What has caused this inconsistency?
What is happening?
Could this be due to mismanagement of stocks?
<P>
In view of the price reductions largely recommended by the Commission, farmers are being encouraged to produce more, despite the set-aside, in order to compensate for the drop in their incomes, thereby causing an imbalance in some crops in comparison with others.
<P>
The problem of oilseeds is an old story, but I would like to remind you of one technical detail. In order to obtain the same yield, twice as much acreage has to be cultivated with oilseeds as with cereals.
<P>
At the time of the Blair House agreements, the Delors Committee, represented by Commissioners McSharry and Brittan, put a noose around our necks by agreeing to limit the production of oilseeds in Europe.
<P>
And yet the rotation of oilseed crops would have been an excellent tool for the control of cereal crops, without having to use the set-aside requirement.
<P>
This would have enabled crops for industrial purposes, which are now almost never mentioned, to be developed more quickly and would, above all, have made it possible to retain some degree of independence with regard to cattle feed.
Perhaps we should consider this in time for the forthcoming WTO negotiations.
<P>
To conclude, and to return to this morning's debate, my group will support the 5 % set-aside requirement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Souchet">
As it stands, the Commission's proposal for the set-aside requirement is unacceptable.
This is why our group has tabled amendments to prevent the application of the extraordinary set-aside and to limit the compulsory set-aside to 5 %, instead of the 10 % proposed by the Commission.
<P>
Although the Commission regrets the existence of European stocks of 30 million tonnes of cereals, it must not forget that it is directly responsible: at the beginning of the agricultural year, that is, during the first three months, the Commission applied an export tax to cereals when global rates were higher than European rates. The Commission also failed to grant the necessary authorizations to supply barley to the Saudi market.
<P>
European farmers must not be penalized for the Commission's mismanagement.
They will not accept the adoption of a high set-aside, and I believe they are right.
<P>
How could the Commission propose to raise both the compulsory set-aside and the extraordinary set-aside at the same time?
A few weeks ago, we received proposals for the reform of the COM for arable crops, in which the Commission proposed a compulsory set-aside of 0 %.
The proposals submitted to us by the Commission are therefore totally lacking in coherence.
<P>
One step in the right direction has, however, been taken and is worth mentioning.
The Commission did respond to our request, in the report by Mr des Places on the price package, for a proposal on the set-aside requirement before the end of this month.
European farmers must know what compulsory set-aside requirement has been established before they start sowing.
Finally, we call on the Commission to accept the two amendments we have tabled. These are perfectly coherent, in terms of the setaside, with the proposals voted within the framework of the report by Mr des Places and the Commission's proposals for the reform of the COM on arable crops.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
ACP suppliers of bananas
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0237/98) by Mr Liese, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the proposal for a Council Regulation establishing a special framework of assistance for traditional ACP suppliers of bananas (COM(98)0005 - C4-0263/98-98/0014(SYN)).
<P>
Before the vote on Amendment No 31
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Liese">
Mr President, I would like to make two points.
Firstly, the wording of Amendment No 31in our documents does not match the wording that was agreed on in the committee.
It was indeed said in committee that this amendment had to be changed and that it had to be introduced as an Article, and not in the financial statement for administrative reasons.
But the wording as presented here was not the resolution of the committee.
You could say that the committee decided on the meaning but not the wording of its resolution.
I am putting this on record and would ask Parliament's services to check how one should proceed in such a case.
<P>
In order that everyone knows what we are voting on: it is a matter here of the financial sum involved.
The committee proposes ECU 500 million.
The procedure in the House, however, - even the Commission sees it in this way, in my view, and perhaps the Commissioner can comment on this - is that financial sums are normally set in the budgetary procedure.
Colleagues in the Committee on Budgets have also asked me to point out once more that this is an unusual procedure and that actually the application ought to be rejected.
The committee, however, is in favour and for that reason, as rapporteur, I must also say that, in accordance with the spirit of the resolution, the committee has agreed to increase this financial amount.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Mr President, on this point, I would also like to mention Amendment No 38.
But was this not retracted, Mr Liese?
Then that will be explicitly recorded.
On the question of setting the sum, it is not a matter of a budgetary procedure or the anticipation of a budgetary procedure but it concerns a political declaration of intent.
For this reason I find it important that we take a vote on this.
Yet another application is contained subsequently in the legislative resolution, which provides for the increase to ECU 500 million.
We can, therefore, take a vote on it without anticipating the budgetary procedure.
But by doing so we give expression to the fact that we want to use financial resources here too.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Aldo">
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Novo">
We vote in favour of the Council's proposal for a regulation, since it aims to make it possible to set subsidized prices for bananas imported in the traditional way from the ACP countries.
<P>
The fact is that the import of bananas from those countries has recently been challenged by a decision by the World Trade Organization - WTO -, as a result of which an amendment of the common organization of the market for bananas is under discussion. This amendment will allow for increased dollar imports of bananas, at lower prices, produced by American transnational countries.
This will obviously be damaging to bananas produced in the European Union - particularly in Madeira - and those imported from the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries, which have long-standing agreements with the European Union under the Lomé Convention.
<P>
In some ways the regulation is intended to provide a minimum amount of compensation to offset reductions in the prices of bananas from the ACP countries - and thus in producers' incomes - in face of increased competition from a large quantity of dollar bananas which will be allowed free entry into the European Union.
<P>
It should be emphasized - as we already have done when stating the reasons for our vote on the Thomas report on the new common organization of the market for bananas - that this situation has become possible only because the decisions of the World Trade Organization, which increasingly panders to American interests, are being imposed on the European Union without any reaction or show of political will by the latter in defence of its producers and those in the poor ACP countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, the traditional trading relationships between Member States of the European Union and a number of third countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific must be protected, and the principle of the Lomé Convention must be upheld.
<P>
We do not want the international political and economic balance to be destroyed in the name of globalization and free trade.
Fair trade must be encouraged, that is, trade which respects the environment, social welfare and health.
<P>
Are we going to watch continual attacks being made against the Lomé system without reacting?
We have every reason to be concerned about the weakness of the Commission's reactions.
The attack being made against us at present with regard to bananas by firms involved in production in Latin America must be examined in conjunction with the difficulties we are meeting in trying to impose an obligation to use 100 % cocoa in the manufacture of chocolate.
The same thing applies to oilseeds.
The use of genetically modified micro-organisms for soya beans will make this area more productive and therefore more profitable, and will compete directly with the production of peanuts, although we do not even know what side effects GMOs will have on the environment and health.
<P>
The European Union must be aware that by signing some international free trade agreements, or by joining the generalized system of preferences, it is likely to help destabilize many countries, especially on the African continent.
<P>
Our group supports almost all the amendments proposed by the Committee on Development and Cooperation, except Amendment No 32. In fact, our group is opposed to the establishment of a reduction coefficient, which would be applied from 2004 to producers who have not done enough to increase their competitiveness.
We would support the principle of a reduction coefficient if it were to be imposed on producers who fail to comply with environmental, social and health requirements.
<P>
The text of this amendment utterly contradicts the principle of so-called fair trade.
Finally, our group is opposed to all the amendments tabled by Mr Liese on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, all of which is aimed at damaging the production of bananas by traditional ACP suppliers.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Instrumentalities and proceeds from crime
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0222/98) by Mr Orlando, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the draft Joint Action adopted by the Council on the basis of Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union concerning arrangements for cooperation between Member States in respect of the identification, tracing, freezing or seizing and confiscation of instrumentalities and the proceeds from crime (6490/98 - C4-0184/98-98/0909(CNS)).
<P>
Mr Nassauer wishes to speak.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Nassauer">
Mr President, on behalf of the PPE Group and pursuant to Rule 131 of the Rules of Procedure, I request that the debate be postponed until the next mini-part-session in Brussels.
We attach great importance to this debate.
It is obvious that it cannot take place in an appropriate form under the existing conditions.
For this reason, we ask the House to vote in favour of our request for postponement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="President">
Are there any objections to Mr Nassauer's request?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Orlando">
Mr President, I only wanted to say that in the committee there was a spirit of harmony between the various political groups and therefore I must carefully follow the request made by the Group of the European People's Party which made an important contribution to solving these problems.
I will let the Presidency decide, but I believe that on such an important issue we should not stifle the debate or prevent any group from contributing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="President">
Mr Schulz wishes to speak in favour of the request.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
Mr President, I would like to give my express support to the request made by Mr Nassauer.
I would also add one comment on the other decisions that we have reached this morning: if this house is not to degenerate into a large gymnasium for building up our biceps, because we spend more time voting on the dotting of "i' s and crossing of "t' s than on political discussion ...
<P>
... and we do this in every week-long part-session, then I ask you finally to consider preventing such incidents as the current one from being repeated.
It is a matter here of consultations within the framework of the third pillar, where the only possibility of democratization is the debate here in Parliament and we have nothing else to offer the Council than an undebated, albeit inexpensively balloted, opinion.
That is not something which contributes to the strengthening and the reputation of the European Parliament.
For this reason we have no other choice, for the sake of our own credibility, than to proceed as Mr Nassauer has proposed.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="President">
I will now put to the vote the request to postpone the debate on the report by Mr Orlando.
<P>
(Parliament approved the request)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
TACIS programme
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0179/98) by Mrs Karamanou, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the Commission Communication to the Council, to the European Parliament and to the Committee of the Regions on cross-border cooperation within the framework of the TACIS Programme (COM(97)0239 - C4-0280/97).
<P>
Mrs Karamanou wishes to speak.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Karamanou">
Mr President, I think that, as the situation has turned out, I too would like to ask that the debate on my report be deferred.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="President">
I will now put to the vote the request to postpone the report by Mrs Karamanou.
<P>
(Parliament approved the request)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Electronic communication
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0189/98) by Mr Ullmann, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on a Communication from the Commission to the Council, to the European Parliament, to the European Economic and Social Committee and to the Committee of the Regions on ensuring security and trust in electronic communication - towards a European framework for digital signatures and encryption (COM(97)0503 - C4-0648/97).
<P>
It has been requested that this report be postponed.
I will put this request to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament approved the request for postponement)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Information society
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions:
<P>
B4-0473/98 by Mr Dupuis and Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, to the Commission, on the information society; -B4-0475/98 by Mr Pasty, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, to the Commission, on the information society, Internet management and democracy; -B4-0476/98 by Mr Martens and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, to the Commission, on the information society, Internet management and democracy; -B4-0477/98 by Mrs Ryynänen and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, to the Commission, on the information society; -B4-0478/98 by Mr Elchlepp, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to the Commission, on the information society; -B4-0479/98 by Mrs Pailler and Mrs Sierra González, on behalf of the Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, to the Commission, on the information society and democracy; -B4-0480/98 by Mr Wolf and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, to the Commission, on the information society.I have received seven motions for resolutions .
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
Joint motion for a resolution on the information society, Internet management and democracy.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the joint resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Myller">
Finland is a pioneer in the construction of the information society.
A part of this work is viable telecommunications links. With these the vast distances in our country are lessened.
They thus make it possible to bring the benefits of the information society to remote areas and people who, owing to disability or some other restriction, could not otherwise access the information sources they need.
<P>
Finland has a scattered network of universities.
The ability of universities a long way from the capital to remain competitive requires real-time contact with central locations.
Because of this, Finnish universities are the first in the world to have linked up to a high-speed telecommunications network.
Our network is actually so fast that many Americans searching for information use it also.
<P>
Healthy competition with America is thus possible in this sector.
The only problem is that links within Europe are not fast enough.
The information society is a lot more than just fast communications links; nevertheless, without fast connections people's patience runs out.
It is also a matter of money, because slow connections put up costs to the consumer.
To improve equality and cohesion it is time for Europe to invest in good, fast communication links within the Union and throughout our continent generally.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, Parliament has completed the agenda.
<P>
The Minutes of the current sitting will be submitted to Parliament for its approval at the beginning of the next sitting.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, at the end of sittings this Presidency usually thanks Parliament's services and the interpreters for their invaluable cooperation.
Today we have provided them with additional work.
Therefore, allow me to thank them even more sincerely.
In addition, ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for the help which you always give me, but which has been even greater and more important today since we have had many complicated votes. And in those cases where my incompetence has shown through, you have been able to overcome it with the generosity you are known for.
Ladies and gentlemen, I wish you the best for this weekend, and I would remind you that we have reached the home straight of this Parliamentary term.
Therefore, I hope that you, who are so hard-working, make use of the time, because we have only 11 months left.
<P>
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 12.43 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 19 June 1998.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="McCarthy">
Mr President, I am sure you will be aware of today's very historic events.
Following the Good Friday Agreement and just five weeks after the referendum the new Northern Ireland Assembly is meeting at the same time as we are.
It is five minutes into its new programme.
This is a historic day for Northern Ireland and given your interest and support for the peace process, would you, on behalf of all Members of Parliament, send a strong message of support for the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, wishing all the elected members well in their work of building peace for the communities of Northern Ireland.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Mrs McCarthy, as you have said, this Parliament has always been supportive and this morning I sent a telegram to Mrs Marjorie Mowlam.
It said: ' On the occasion of this first meeting today, please convey the best wishes of the European Parliament and my own personal best wishes to the new Northern Ireland Assembly.
The European Parliament expresses continued solidarity with the people of Northern Ireland and its new assembly in the on-going process of peace and reconciliation' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Banotti">
Mr President, we all know of your full and warm-hearted support.
Thank you for your good wishes and for sending the telegram this morning.
Let us hope that in the next few days we will not see any breakdown of the current positive actions in Northern Ireland.
<P>
I raised a point at the last session on Parliament's budgetary problems following the judgment of the Court of Justice with the NGO networks working on social cohesion.
There is serious and widespread alarm about this.
I hope we may be able to get a statement from the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Mrs Banotti, if I may say so, you have anticipated the matter by about five minutes.
We are just about to begin a debate on the matter with Mr Liikanen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Günther">
Mr President, I refer to Rule 151 of the Rules of the Procedure, which states that the meetings of the committees are open to the public.
One of my visitors, who is a wheelchair user, experienced great difficulty getting into the D III building.
May I ask you to ensure that disabled people have access to this building?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Günther.
We will look at it immediately.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Elmalan">
Mr President, I would like to pay tribute to the memory of Lunes Matub, vilely assassinated in Algeria last Friday.
Lunes Matub was a singer and spokesman for Kabylia and Berber culture as well as a symbol of the Algeria which is struggling and suffering.
I have every sympathy with the emotion and anger of the Algerian people in the face of this dreadful act and their revulsion at the fundamentalism which has strengthened the hand of the assassins.
Algeria is now suffering and fighting and I hope that the Algerian people and the Algerian government will be able to rapidly find solutions so that his situation can move forward.
<P>
I would like to end with the remark, as his mother declared with great dignity at his funeral, that while Matub may no longer be with us in person, his songs and poems will remain deep in our hearts for ever and his struggle for peace will continue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Galeote Quecedo">
Mr President, during the last mini-part-session here in Brussels we had about twenty councillors from the Basque country with us, and we had the opportunity of expressing our solidarity with them in their constant dedication to the fight for freedom and democracy.
And during the next part-session, in Strasbourg, we shall also be inviting a party of Basque councillors.
But there is one Basque councillor, Mr President, who will not be able to come back this time. I refer to Manuel Zamarreño, a councillor from Rentería.
He was an unemployed workman, his wife earned a living cleaning staircases around their neighbourhood, and he had gone out to buy some bread to have for breakfast with his four children.
He was introduced to politics by another councillor, José Luis Caso, whose death we noted with sorrow in this Parliament only a few months ago.
<P>
Mr President, the only way we democrats have of responding to murder, to bullets in the back of the neck, is with words.
This we do, strong in the knowledge that we are simply crying out for a people, the Basque people, to be given a chance to live in peace, freedom and democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, I would like to add a very brief word to express my solidarity with Mr Galeote.
But I want to emphasize that this case is of particular importance, because Mr Zamarreño was the councillor who specifically represented the People's Party on the Rentería council.
His predecessor had been murdered - between them there had been a councillor who resigned her seat because she was threatened - and it is clear that they are determined to prevent the People's Party from having a representative, duly elected by the people, on that particular council.
This is an attack on democracy and we must use all possible means to prevent it from happening, because the truth is that it is an act of fascism to prevent a representative of the people from sitting on a council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gutiérrez Díaz">
Mr President, as Mr Galeote has said, we shall not tire of raising our voices.
We democrats will always have the weapon of speech.
And, therefore, as long as fascist brutality goes on trying to silence those who have been democratically elected, we will tirelessly go on denouncing it again and again.
But at the same time, Mr President, is it right that we should be wondering whether to offer opportunities for dialogue to those who have no words other than murder and bullets?
Mr President, Europe, which is in favour of dialogue, empathy and comprehension, cannot understand why we should want to offer dialogue to anyone who offers nothing but death.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Imaz San Miguel">
Mr President, on behalf of my party, the Basque Nationalist party, I too want to condemn the brutal murder of Councillor Zamarreño, a representative of the Basque people, who has been murdered by the ETA terrorist organization.
I would like to express my condolences and solidarity with his family and also my total solidarity with the People's Party, which Mr Zamarreño represented. I would assure them of my total solidarity with that other political family of his, out of my conviction that arms and violence cannot silence the People's Party's legitimate defence of its ideas in the Basque country.
I only hope that we Basques, the vast majority of whom want peace, might be able to find the way to rid ourselves of the violence that still goes on in our country and among our people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Vallvé">
Mr President, I too wish to express the strongest condemnation of the murder of the Rentería councillor, as a representative democratically elected by his fellow citizens.
And in that respect, we believe that democracy and peace can only be achieved by listening to the voice of the people and never by taking the lives of their representatives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Robles Piquer">
Mr President, I do not propose to speak on this sad event - which naturally grieves me as well - but I regret that I have to report to my fellow Members in this House, particularly the ladies, the death, in this case from natural causes, of Carmen Llorca Vilaplan, who was a Member of this House for many years and worked hard here, especially in the fields of culture and women's rights. I am sure she will be remembered with affection by many Members.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Nicholson">
Mr President, I should like to take this opportunity to thank you for your message this morning to the new assembly in Northern Ireland which I hope is now getting under way.
For the first time in over 25 years the people of Northern Ireland will soon be able to decide on their own destiny.
I would also like to thank you personally for having come to Northern Ireland and thank this Parliament for its support in many ways down the years.
It is a historic day.
I have no doubt there will be difficult times on the road ahead but I hope and pray that in future when I rise in this Parliament, to speak on behalf of the people of Northern Ireland, it will be about good things and not the dark days we have come through over the last 25 years.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="President">
The Minutes of Friday, 19 June have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Provan">
Mr President, I refer to page 16 of the Minutes.
Under Item 8, the COM on oils and fats, there is a reference to Rule 99.
This is a report taken without debate so it should be Rule 97 which is a matter of urgency requested by the Council.
As far as I am aware, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development agreed to urgency on this and there was a full debate on the Friday morning.
<P>
I now refer to the middle of page 19 in the English version, where it says that Mr Colino Salamanca, the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture, requested that this report be referred back to committee.
There is a matter of principle here.
It is not possible for a chairman of a committee to refer an urgency back to committee when that committee has not been involved in the debate that has taken place.
There were no amendments from the committee and I am not quite sure on what grounds the chairman was asking for referral back when he was representing the committee.
This matter needs to be looked at either by the Bureau or by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
<P>
Mr Colino had every right as an individual to seek referral back to committee if he so wished but to do so he would have needed the support of his own political group or 29 Members.
That was not requested by the President at the time.
I am not criticizing the President who has our complete support every Friday morning that he is in the Chair.
But it is a matter of principle that the Bureau needs to look at.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="President">
Thank you.
I think not only the Bureau but, if necessary, also the Committee on the Rules of Procedure should remedy this omission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Varela Suanzes-Carpegna">
Mr President, I have a comment on the Minutes of Friday, 19 June 1998.
On page 18, in the vote on my report, there are two errors.
One relates to paragraph 10: although I made an oral request for a linguistic correction to the Spanish version, this has not been done, and I wanted to say that in the various paragraphs where the word 'oil' appears this should read 'olive oil' .
And a new paragraph 13 has been wrongly added, when I indicated in my oral amendment that this was an addition to paragraph 12.
I should, therefore, be grateful if what appears as paragraph 13 could instead be added to paragraph 12.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bösch">
Mr President, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak.
I put my name down to do so some time ago, but perhaps you need more staff in the Bureau so that you are aware of all the Members wishing to speak.
<P>
I should like to raise one point.
At the last sitting in Strasbourg at midday on Friday, we agreed at short notice to adjourn a number of agenda items until the next sitting as there were not enough Members in attendance. This is now the next sitting.
The items in question do not appear on the agenda.
When do you intend to deal with these items in the House?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="President">
They will be dealt with in Strasbourg.
This will be put to the Conference of Presidents, which will be meeting today and is the appropriate body to approve the draft agenda.
This, of course, could not have been done earlier.
In any event, my assistants are sufficient for the time being.
<P>
Mr Colino, I assume you are asking to speak regarding some personal remarks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Colino Salamanca">
Mr President, it is just that my name has been mentioned by Mr Provan.
Rule 60 states that once amendments have been voted on, the Commission's opinion on those amendments may be sought, and it expressly states that before proceeding to vote on the draft legislative resolution the chairman of the committee or the rapporteur may, if necessary, request that it be referred back to committee.
Since there was no rapporteur, I made that request as chairman of the committee.
I agree that this is undoubtedly a problem of interpretation of the Rules of Procedure, but in any event I acted in accordance with the Rules of Procedure themselves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="de Vries">
Mr President, we have been discussing points of order for 25 minutes now.
I have no wish to deny any of my colleagues the right to introduce points of order but I feel that we would be better to start with the Commission's communication at 3.00 p.m. as stated in the agenda.
First let us hear the Commission's communication and then, when that ends at about 4.00 p.m., give Members the chance to debate points of order. Both we and the media are here for the real debate.
The Commissioners are entitled to expect us to discuss this important political issue before we regulate our own internal affairs. I would therefore like to propose, Mr President, that in future we start with the Commission's communication at 3.00 p.m. sharp and postpone any points of order until 4.00 p.m. when we start with the normal agenda.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="President">
Mr de Vries, you know as well as I do that points of order must be raised at the appropriate time, and none of us has any option but to be extremely disciplined.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="President">
I would like to inform you that a group of Dutch members of parliament invited by one of our Members are now in the official gallery, and at this point I would like to convey our greetings to our colleagues from the Dutch parliament.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Court's ruling in Case C/106
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="President">
The next item is the Commission's communication on the follow-up to the Court's ruling in Case C/106 (legal bases in the budget).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, a recent ruling of the Court of Justice has raised serious questions about the execution of the Community budget, both in 1998 and beyond.
The Commission is aware of the concerns which these difficulties have created, and I welcome the opportunity to inform you of the state of play on this matter.
I would, however, like to state from the outset that any answer provided today can only be preliminary: the examination by the Commission of the budget lines concerned is going on at this moment.
As agreed at the Budgetary Trialogue of 23 June, the Commission will draw its conclusions on 14 July, in time for the discussions between the European Parliament and the Budget Council of 17 July.
<P>
The judgment of the Court of Justice of 12 May 1998 is the result of a legal action brought by the United Kingdom, later supported by Germany, Denmark and the Council.
The action was brought against a decision of the European Commission in 1995, to finance projects to combat poverty and social exclusion, although the proposal for a legal base for the 'Poverty 4' programme had been blocked in Council.
In its defence, the Commission was supported by the European Parliament which had inscribed credits for such projects to the 1995 budget.
But the Court concluded that the Commission was not competent to fund the projects concerned.
<P>
Furthermore, before the specific case at hand, the Court set out a number of principles of which the Commission must take account as regards the implementation of the budget.
In brief, the Court insists that funds for significant Community action can only be executed if there is both an entry in the budget and a prior adoption of secondary legislation, that is a so-called 'legal base' , authorizing the action itself.
The Court accepts, however, that a legal base is not required for non-significant action.
<P>
The Court does not define 'non-significant' .
But it insists that a small amount or a short duration are not, per se , sufficient criteria.
Instead the Court points towards the right of the Commission to exercise its power of initiative by initiating, on its own responsibility, the studies or projects required to prepare its proposals.
From that it can be derived that pilot projects, preparatory measures and studies to prepare or update legislation can be executed without a legal base.
In addition, autonomous actions of the institutions have not been disputed.
<P>
In this situation, once the ruling of the Court had become available, the Commission had no choice but to suspend temporarily the execution of all budget lines of the 1998 budget without a legal base and to examine as quickly as possible whether they can still be executed in the light of the ruling of the Court.
<P>
The situation of this examination as of today is the following: 90 budget lines have been temporarily suspended.
The total budgetary volume in question was some ECU 870m; for 19 of these budget lines, the Commission has proposed legal bases, some of them already four years ago.
The volume concerned is some ECU 500m; more than 30 of the temporarily suspended budget lines have already been re-opened, as the Commission is satisfied that they meet the criteria of the Court.
Thus execution has resumed of some ECU 240m; for the rest the examination continues and the Commission should take its decision on 14 July 1998.
<P>
In parallel to its internal investigations, the Commission has contacted Parliament and Council to discuss the situation.
The Budgetary Trialogue of 23 June has permitted to agree an action plan with three elements.
Firstly, Council and Parliament will accelerate the adoption of legal bases for which the Commission has already made proposals.
This is very important because it concerns some major budget lines, in particular the 'Community measures for NGOs' (for which a legal base has been proposed in 1995) and the 'Human Rights and Democracy initiative' (proposal one year ago).
Fortunately, the legislation for the European voluntary service has now been concluded (after two years) and the execution of the programme can resume shortly.
<P>
The Commission will have an opportunity tonight and tomorrow to draw the attention of the Austrian presidency to the urgent need to adopt these legal bases.
But it is up to the legislative authority to make a special effort in this respect.
<P>
Secondly, in the Trialogue the Commission committed itself to conclude its examination in time to provide results for the meeting between the Budget Council and the European Parliament of 17 July 1998.
This will be done.
Thirdly, the institutions will make their best efforts to come to a 'code of conduct' for the question of legal bases already on 17 July.
The Commission has been trying for years to secure conclusion of such a code of conduct.
It has made a number of proposals which, unfortunately, have not been agreed between the Council and Parliament.
The most recent proposal has been made in the framework of the Commission proposals of 18 March 1998 for the next interinstitutional agreement.
Discussions at a technical level are going on among the institutions.
We will do everything we can to be able to conclude the discussions at the next Trialogue in two weeks' time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cot">
Commissioner, you have just said that the Commission had no choice but to suspend over 40 budget lines.
But you are fully aware of the consequent effect of the judgement, and especially the fact that this was a very particular situation since the problem was not the lack of any legal basis, but the abolition of a legal basis: the Poverty 3 programme.
<P>
Do you not agree, however, that - like Lucky Luke, the cartoon cowboy - you are firing quicker than your shadow and by sending this catastrophic signal to a group of people directly concerned with programmes which affect the most deprived of our citizens, you have deepened the crisis of confidence between the most deprived section of European society and ourselves?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="Liikanen">
We must remember that the decision of the Court concerned issues which affect the weakest part of our society, namely the budget lines against poverty and social exclusion.
We all think these actions have been extremely important but when the Court announced its decision on the Commission's competence to implement these budget lines, we had no other choice but to seek legal certainty for the implementation of the budget from now on.
Suspension was the only choice we had.
Of course since then we have been working day and night to find solutions as quickly as we can.
But the Commission is not above the law.
We must respect the decision of the Court of Justice even though it gives us many difficulties.
I am sure that in two weeks' time the situation will have become clearer.
I cannot guarantee that everything will have been resolved but the vast majority of the issues will be.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Christodoulou">
Mr President, in spite of what has been said regarding the settlement of the current issue, that is, the suspension of budget lines following the ruling by the Court of Justice, I nevertheless wish to draw the attention of the Commission and the Members of this House to the issue of the institutional solution to the problem.
<P>
This issue has been shuffling around Parliament since 1982 and each year all kinds of problems surface which curtail Parliament's possibilities to exercise its powers.
<P>
In parallel, therefore, to the solution of the short-term problem, that is to say, the specific issue of the current budget, in the debate that will take place on 17 July a solution must be found to the long-term problem. In other words, we need to define an institutional framework which will allow the institutional problem to be solved on a predetermined basis and in a legally acceptable way, so that the problem of legal bases will not arise each time and cause the problems that it does.
<P>
I am of the opinion that, in the event that a solution is found to the short-term problem, we must also have the institutional solution in parallel.
If not, I very much fear that the consequences for the current budget and for subsequent budgets will be considerable and the responsibility for this will lie with everybody.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="Liikanen">
I agree with this statement.
It is very important to try to solve this problem which has been pending since the 1980s.
In the best scenario, by 17 July we could have a clear situation for the 1998 budget and a solution for the long-term which could then be a part of the interinstitutional agreement which must be concluded before the end of this Parliament.
If we can agree on all the basic elements that would be the basis for the action from now on.
There are two questions here which are very important.
The first is: what is non-significant action?
The common opinion is that it essentially helps the work of the Commission in the execution.
The second issue which must be discussed is what is to be done in the case where a legal base has been proposed but not accepted.
There is clearly a difference between these two dates and technically that could lead to a situation where we must cut off the action.
We must find a solution which will make a bridge from the normal preparatory action to the date when the legal base has been accepted so that the legislative procedure will not stop an activity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Mr President, much damage has indeed been done, and it will take years to patch matters up.
The confidence of the public and that of the national organizations has gone, and, though we may find a quick solution, the damage is going to take time to repair.
I maintain that the reputation of the European Union, Parliament, and all EU institutions has been tarnished.
Mr Liikanen, you stated that a quick solution is now being sought.
It is most important and necessary that a quick solution be found and that this code of conduct be implemented. But what if we have no solution on July 17?
Will Parliament, in that case, have to use the only means ultimately available to it, which is that we refuse to discuss the budget if no solution is found?
Can you assure us that the Council will in this case now approve this joint agreement and give it a legal basis?
Can you give us a guarantee of that?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, we need three parties to the agreement: the Commission, Parliament and the Council.
No agreement will emerge unless all three find a way to compromise.
Much work obviously needs to be done here, and we also need a sense of good will as well as an appreciation of just how serious the crisis will be if legislation and the budgetary authority are at loggerheads.
In this respect, I hope this very unpleasant situation has at least raised awareness of how essential a solution to the problem is.
<P>
The Commission cannot give guarantees that the Council will go along with the Commission's position, but at least the former chairman made a commitment to doing everything possible to find a solution.
Today and tomorrow the Commission and representatives from the country holding the presidency, Austria, are staging a conference in Vienna, where this matter is up for crucial discussion.
We hope to see a sufficient degree of coordination in the Council, also, for those nineteen proposals for legal bases which they have there, and many have been around for a long time now, to be dealt with quickly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Commissioner, I think that this matter illustrates the saying donner et retenir ne vaut .
<P>
What kind of a situation do we have here?
Thanks to the Interinstitutional Agreement, we can have the last word on noncompulsory expenditure.
However, this Court ruling has simply led you to freeze some of the credits on the grounds that we must wait for a supplementary regulation.
I think that you are going too far, because we all know perfectly well that a legal base has been missing for a good number of years and that it is essential, as regards decisions taken by this Parliament, that such decisions be implemented.
<P>
Who is affected by your decision?
In the final analysis, it will affect a large number of NGOs, that is, organizations which need these funds in order to exist and which cannot wait until the long drawn-out bargaining processes between the Council and the Commission are over.
So I hope that you will not wait until 17 July, but if you do have to wait until then, that you will be able to provide us with an assurance, on that day, as to the commitment of these funds.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="Liikanen">
We must remember that the Commission cannot behave as if the Court ruling had not taken place.
The Court of Justice is an independent institution in the European Union and we are obliged to follow its ruling.
Whatever we think of the contents of a particular budget line, we are not above the law.
The political adjustment cannot go in a different direction to the clear contents of the Court decision.
The clear message is that according to the Court, significant Community action requires both appropriations in the budget line and a prior legal base.
We must follow that decision now.
There are areas where we have more margin of judgment such as pilot projects, preparatory actions and autonomous actions.
But we must review everything.
<P>
We must remember the poverty programme was blocked in the Council.
We wanted to continue some actions which were very close to many European citizens which we had implemented, supported by the European Parliament, but then the Court of Justice announced this decision.
So we cannot continue as if the decision had not happened.
Of course, we are working as hard as we can towards clarifying the situation by 17 July.
I have told you already that we have been able to clear budget lines which amount to approximately ECU 240m.
For the rest, I hope we will have completed our work in the next two weeks.
<P>
We must treat this very seriously because the Commission has the responsibility for execution thereafter.
We do not want to restart the same problems which led to the Court case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="Malone">
I am not totally convinced that Commissioners Flynn and Bonino would agree with your very restrictive interpretation of this Court ruling.
As you have quite rightly said, the areas and the budget lines affected are those which are closest to the citizens and which, coincidentally, have been put in by the Members themselves.
If you are trying to keep the link between Parliament, Commission, Council and the people, you must try hard to get a quick solution to this.
NGOs are closing down at this very moment because they cannot enter into any new commitments.
No new contracts can be signed and so on.
<P>
When the Treaty of Amsterdam is ratified by all the Member States and comes into being, how do you view the unanimity clause as regards the non-discrimination and social exclusion provisions.
We could fund certain of the poverty lines and the social exclusion lines under the Treaty, but we still need unanimity.
Perhaps you could enlighten us with the legal expertise at your disposal.
We might still be in a legal quagmire unless we have a proper interinstitutional agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="Liikanen">
I am afraid that your target is wrong.
The Council did not accept the legal base but when the Commission decided to execute that legal base, Members of Parliament attack the Commission.
Our decisions have been annulled and we must follow the law.
There are many areas in the budget which are very close to what I would like to do but that under the Treaty and financial regulations we need a prior legal base and appropriations in the budget.
The Court has now clarified that position.
We cannot continue as if Court of Justice decisions had no bearing on how the Commission acts.
<P>
We must be extremely clear about this.
We have some margin of manoeuvre when you talk about pilot projects, preparatory actions and autonomous actions.
We are trying to clarify every case.
I do not want to be in a situation in the future where a new decision of the Commission will be annulled by the Court of Justice and perhaps then the organization will have to pay the money back.
This time that did not happen.
The Court has said we do not have to pay the money back.
However, if the same thing happens intentionally in the future, then the damage to European public opinion will be disastrous.
I agree it is important to be close to the European citizens; it is also important to respect the founding treaties on which the whole Union is based.
<P>
As far as the Treaty of Amsterdam is concerned, it is possible to think along the lines of whether we could do something preparatory for the new Treaty.
This contains new articles on employment and the social field.
We are having intense discussions on that and perhaps that could be a base for preparatory actions.
Thirdly, this legal interpretation has been prepared in the Commission by our legal service and by our budget department and agreed fully in the Commission.
There has been no political difference of opinion in the Commission on that decision.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Of course we accept that the Commission must respect the law.
But the Commissioner has also said there is a margin for interpretation.
I would like to ask the Commission to show some political courage.
The Commission cannot sit silently between the Council and Parliament and say whichever is stronger will win.
Specifically, I should like to ask the Commissioner, in the event of a choice between Article 235 which requires unanimity, and other legal bases, will the Commission always try to use the legal base which gives most powers to co-decision with Parliament?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="Liikanen">
That is a very important question but it does not help in this matter.
The present problem is whether there is or is not a legal base.
As you know, our position has always been to support co-decision within the whole decision-making system as much as possible.
I do not disagree with Mr Brinkhorst on the matter in general.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Commissioner Liikanen, the Commission has been in operation since 1 January 1995 and since that time you have been responsible for the budget.
This Parliament has not given a discharge for the 1996 budget and has reserved the right to do so in September.
The officials went on strike because your proposals, Commissioner, came, shall we say, unexpectedly and were kind of makeshift solutions.
Now we have this matter that the Commission apparently did not discover until 12 June?
Since it has the power of initiative, how do you see the Commission's responsibility in this matter?
It is a matter that certainly puts the European Parliament in very serious difficulty but also greatly damages the European Union's image, considering the problem of the legal basis and the fact that the Commission knew for years that the institutions had to be given one.
Certainly, the Council, in particular, is seriously behind in its work, but the Commission is perhaps somewhat at fault too.
I would like to know what you think about this, Commissioner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Liikanen">
You are right when you say that.
This Commission has been in office since January 1995 and we must remember that these budget lines were executed in 1995.
It was this Commission's decisions which have been annulled.
That is why we must take it seriously.
If it had been otherwise, we would say that it was not our responsibility.
But, it is our responsibility - mine and the whole College.
To say that we interpret this to mean that everything can continue as before would be contrary to the Treaty and the whole spirit of the European Union.
We have given the role of resolving conflicts to the Court of Justice and now we must follow its decisions.
In some areas, there is a margin of manoeuvre, and we will try to use this as much as we can.
<P>
As far as our initiatives are concerned, your colleagues in the Committee on Budgets know that we have made proposals all the time to solve the issue of the legal base.
I have raised this matter every year in every Trialogue since the beginning of this Commission.
Mr Christodoulou, the rapporteur for the European Parliament, has been very active on this matter.
The Council has been extremely hesitant.
Now I am a little worried that we are missing the target in the debate.
We have taken the initiative to seek an agreement between the institutions.
We have made proposals for the legal bases.
The Council has not accepted.
We have not found a solution on an interinstitutional agreement but a lack of initiatives is not the problem.
There are plenty of initiatives.
But now we need a solution.
I am sure that your colleagues in the Committee on Budgets and those who take part in the Trialogue will do everything they can together with us to find a line which could be acceptable for all three institutions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ullmann">
Mr President, Commissioner, thank you for clarifying a number of the points which I had intended to raise.
You are quite right to stress that the Court's ruling must be adhered to, but this is precisely the point of my question, which relates in particular to Paragraphs 39 to 42 of the ruling.
In this respect, the Commission's action differs fundamentally from what the ruling says.
The ruling has exempted a whole range of existing contracts and payments from suspension.
The Commission is proceeding on a very different basis.
It is examining everything and is now giving us a total of everything it has examined, but this does not satisfy the concern felt by the general public.
I would like to ask you to respond now to this public concern by providing a second answer in line with the wording of the ruling, which refers to specific categories.
<P>
Secondly, you have repeatedly told us that you are working towards an interinstitutional agreement.
However, our priority is to find legal bases - and since you have also argued in these terms, I assume it must be your priority too - and an interinstitutional agreement is not a legal basis in terms of the ruling's requirements.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Liikanen">
The Commission policy since 1994 has been to interpret an action which involves less than ECU 5m and of a duration less than two years as not significant.
We have applied this interpretation since 1994.
The problem is that the Court did not accept it.
It said that small amounts or short duration are not good enough arguments.
So, our position has been questioned.
Secondly, on the question of legal bases, as I said in my statement, we have 19 legal bases now pending in the legislative authority.
ECU 500m are dependent on those legal bases.
We need to get them through.
In many areas there is no disagreement on the political contents.
There is very often disagreement on the different procedural issues or comitologies or the article on which to base the legal base.
We need a strong political will and strong coordination in the Council to get them all through.
<P>
The interinstitutional agreement is important for those so-called grey areas.
We must try to have a common opinion on what is 'non-significant' .
The unilateral position of the Commission has not been accepted by the Court.
But if all three can agree on some interpretation, then we will have a new situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Banotti">
The Commissioner is under a lot of pressure today and Parliament has expressed a significant amount of concern.
Could the Commissioner tell us how the full College of Commissioners will respond to his very obvious good will in this situation?
Also, we must note that, unfortunately, Courts of Justice are not elected and their members do not have to feel the citizens' hot breath on the backs of their necks.
Many NGOs, in particular in the area of safety and protection of children, have so far not qualified for any funding under previously existing rules.
I hope that those organizations who do not have the opportunity to avail of Structural Funds will be given priority when the decisions are made in the Commission.
<P>
I would also like to ask the Commissioner what he thinks about the Committee on Budgets' opinion.
It has not been mentioned this afternoon but I believe it is not as sympathetic to us as we might want.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr Christodoulou, the rapporteur for the Committee on Budgets, asked me about the legal base and he has expressed the position of the European Parliament.
On the basis of the Trialogue, my conviction is that we are not very far from a solution but we need a strong effort by the Parliament on the basis of the decision which has been taken and also from the Council.
If we have the basis for an agreement, the Commission will do all the technical preparations necessary.
<P>
As far as the NGOs are concerned, in the future the key matter for them is that we have a basic legal basis for their activities.
That is what we have been proposing since 1995.
If the Council accepts that legal basis it is cleared for external actions.
Internal actions will need the same.
On the political priorities of Parliament, I do not want to interfere in discussions between the Committee on Budgets and the other committees.
<P>
Finally, I have received personally every NGO which has asked for contact.
I have talked to them directly and explained the situation.
We must try to find solutions which support the political priorities of Parliament and the Commission but which are legally solid.
We cannot have it any other way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="Green">
The Commissioner will now have heard the anxiety across the political spectrum in this House about what has happened with these legal bases and budget lines.
This Parliament is deeply committed to those lines for several reasons.
Firstly, they take this institution and the Union closer to the people.
But also we - like the Commissioner - have been on the end of the lobby from NGOs, organizations and people who have been supported by those budget lines and now find they are not available.
The Commissioner has made it clear that the real problem lies with the Council, not with this Parliament and not with the Commission.
Could he perhaps then join with us in saying that what we need now is a concerted Parliament and Commission line which says to the NGOs and the people of the Union that they can continue to write to us but they should direct their anxiety and lobby the Council and the national governments.
We in this House can perhaps provide addresses, telephone numbers and faxes of relevant ministers so they can feel the same heat as us.
Commissioner, we would like your support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="Liikanen">
I fully agree.
It is important that our actions in the Commission and in Parliament are targeted on the areas where the problems are.
Many problems are solved on the day the Council accepts the legal base.
We must try to convince them.
We tried with the previous presidency and we begin tonight with the Austrian presidency.
I am sure that this very unpleasant crisis has transmitted the concern of the citizens to the Council.
We must try to find a solution which will attract popular support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Galeote Quecedo">
I am pleased that the Commission has taken cognizance of the concern which exists regarding this situation.
That concern is quite obviously shared by the European Parliament and civil society is very sensitive about the matter.
I think we must show that we share that concern by introducing transitional measures, once the ruling is known, until there are legal grounds for approving the various regulations that will authorize the actions provided for.
<P>
Mrs Green is right that we should bring pressure to bear on the Council.
But the European Commission must also do its duty and give specific answers to the questions placed before it.
For example, how does the European Commission interpret the scope of the words 'non-significant measures' in the ruling?
<P>
Secondly, what will the European Commission be doing about the programmes approved in the 1998 budget?
<P>
And thirdly, ...
<P>
(The President cut off the speaker since he had exceeded his allotted time)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Liikanen">
We try to analyse all the budget lines now in the spirit of the Court ruling so that we have a right to execute pilot projects and preparatory actions.
All those actions which fulfil these criteria can be executed without a legal base.
We work on this basis.
When the Court does not accept our interpretation about a certain amount of money, we cannot insert a new sum because it says clearly that a small sum is not a sufficient condition to execute a budget line as being not significant.
So that basis does not exist.
But pilot projects can be small and can be larger.
Preparatory action can be small but can be bigger.
The key thing is that we have to try to make a qualitative analysis of the old actions, not quantitatively as was done in the past.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Liikanen.
<P>
This matter is closed.
<P>
Mr Telkämper wishes to speak.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
Mr President, I think that you should give an answer to this question in your capacity as President.
The point is that we cannot ask - or indeed complain about - the Commission because there has been a shift of power: the Commission and Parliament are now in the same boat with regard to the Council.
It is now time for Parliament to make a statement on this issue.
I think that you yourself have recognized that Parliament has become weaker, and it is up to us, as Parliament, to take a political initiative to ensure that this shift of power which has occurred - and I think there has been a shift of power vis-a-vis the Council - is removed by Parliament.
I would ask you to ensure that this item is included on the agenda at the next part-session in Strasbourg and that we, as Parliament, take an initiative to restore Parliament's power in this respect.
It is a question of the Treaty; perhaps, on principle, a codecision procedure should be introduced ...
<P>
(The President cut off the speaker)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="President">
Mr Telkämper, that, as you know, is not within the President's powers.
It is the prerogative of the Conference of Presidents, with which you may raise this issue through your political group, as any other Member may raise an issue through his political group.
The President, however, is not responsible for drawing up the agenda.
That is for the Conference of Presidents to decide, and ultimately the whole House when it approves the agenda.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Colom i Naval">
Mr President, I respect your authority as President to conduct the debates, but perhaps, in a debate of this kind, if the rapporteur asks to speak it ought to be one of the 20 or 30 Members who could put a question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="President">
Mr Colom, this is a debate which is ordered in such a way that all Members can have an opportunity to speak, whether they are rapporteurs, chairmen of groups or anything else.
And, within the limits of the President's powers, and there are many such limits, we try to strike a balance between nationalities, political groups, etcetera.
In your case, unfortunately, you have asked to speak but so have other members of your group, and rightly or wrongly, I had to choose one of them.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Euro-Mediterranean Agreement with Jordan
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0165/98) by Mrs Aelvoet, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council and Commission Decision on the signature and on the conclusion of a Euro-Mediterranean Agreement with Jordan (COM(97)0554 - C4-0171/98-97/029(AVC)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, let us turn our attention to the Euro-Mediterranean Agreement between Jordan and the European Union.
This Agreement forms part of the overall process known as the Barcelona process, a process whose purpose was - and I hope will continue to be - to achieve closer links between the European Union and the countries of the southern Mediterranean, and of course between the European Union and the Palestinian Authority.
<P>
The main objectives were: to help achieve peace and stability in the region; increase economic cooperation, for which a perspective was drawn up on the establishment of a free trade agreement between Jordan and the European Union after a period of twelve years; increase regional cooperation; provide more opportunities for social and cultural cooperation through organized links; and finally, to allow Jordan access to MEDA funding.
<P>
Since the establishment of the Barcelona process, four similar association agreements have been concluded with Israel, Tunisia, Morocco and the Palestinian Authority.
Unfortunately, it looks as though the Middle East peace process has ground to a halt.
There is increasing evidence that this is so. This naturally places a very heavy burden on the original purpose of the Barcelona process whose very aim was to give peace more of a chance.
In June, further efforts were made at Palermo to give new impetus to the peace process by convening a meeting of Foreign Ministers of the European Union and partner countries. Ultimately though, it is events that determine future progress and not just meetings.
A meeting may help but it cannot act as a counterweight if everything else continues to point towards a harsher reality. The situation in Israel is giving more than cause for concern.
<P>
The Agreement with Jordan has been a long time coming. This is largely because Spain expressed opposition after the original agreement had been initialled.
It felt that one particular clause was too prejudicial to the Spanish tomato market given the possible import of Jordanian tomatoes. This finally resulted in the clause being altered and an increase in the quota of tomato concentrate.
Jordan had then to forego an overall review of the quota. This is an embarrassing example of how a project aimed at giving shape to a European Union foreign policy can ultimately stumble over a few cases of tomatoes.
There is not really anything to boast about.
<P>
Turning to Jordan itself, there can be no doubt that its economy is weak. Like the Palestinian economy, the Jordanian economy is suffering a great deal due to the deadlock in the peace process.
There are many in the European Parliament who plead for sympathy for the situation in Israel. They should take a look at the situation elsewhere and see how every economic initiative is grinding to a halt because of the difficulty there is crossing borders.
This is because there are only two bridges that can be used in either direction and because Israeli border checks continue from early in the morning until late at night. The country that summoned the political courage to sign a peace agreement with Israel in 1994 is now paying a very heavy economic price for doing so and not reaping the rewards it had hoped for the political courage it actually showed.
<P>
With regard to democracy, it is clear that Jordan has a long way to go before it meets the main criteria for a well-functioning democracy.
In some respects, the situation is actually deteriorating.
But if you compare the situation in Jordan with the average situation in all of the other countries in the region, then Jordan is doing relatively well.
As I suggested in my report, I think that the European Parliament is doing well to define what problems there actually are and plead for the adoption of the cooperation agreement; at the same time we should monitor the situation with regard to democracy and human rights and use this agreement to demand more progress, because things have got to improve.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="Günther">
Mr President, firstly, I should like to thank the rapporteur for her work, and also for her comments here today.
I can only agree with her that whereas Jordan is not a developing country in the traditional sense, it has not really been the focus of the European Union's attention for some time.
Certainly - and I agree with the rapporteur on this point too - Jordan has a less than perfect record on human rights and democracy, but I am sure we would all be pleased if Jordan's achievements, which Jordan itself is keen to improve, could be repeated in other parts of the world, especially in the 'classic' developing countries.
<P>
Democracy and human rights are always issues which we are increasingly stressing in our cooperation with other countries.
Mrs Aelvoet herself has also undertaken the work necessary in connection with the Amsterdam Treaty and the Lomé Convention to enable us to make democracy and human rights a criterion for cooperation in general.
The Committee on Development and Cooperation is therefore pleased that this, too, has been laid down in Article 2 of the Agreement.
<P>
Another point in the Agreement which we welcome very much is the intention to facilitate cooperation between the Parliaments, which is certainly important within the framework of the parliamentary forum of the Euro-Mediterranean process too.
We are currently preparing the first meeting of this forum, and for this reason too Jordan is thus in an advantageous position to breathe life into this Agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="Sonneveld">
Mr President, although the number of Euro-Mediterranean Agreements is continuing to increase, I have to say that the measures that were proposed at Barcelona far outweigh those that have actually been put into practice, particularly in the eastern Mediterranean.
This is largely due to the deadlock in the peace process.
Good headway in the peace process had to form the basis for greater economic cooperation between the countries in the region. The European Union promised that it would play an important supporting role.
<P>
A new cooperation agreement with Jordan would, of course, have to play a prominent part in this.
Now that things have gone awry, we must welcome the new agreement with Jordan with open arms.
As well as having genuine economic significance, it will play an important symbolic role.
Jordan is a country with a long-term vision.
It knows that its fate will depend on relations between Israel and Palestine.
It wishes to play a positive role in the peace process and will, therefore, be an important participant in any future negotiations.
<P>
By signing this agreement, the EU will indirectly play a similar positive role.
We share Jordan's desire for close links with Israel and the Palestinian Authority and do actually have such links.
The very fact that the European Union is the most important provider of support to the Palestinian territories underlines our commitment to the future of the entire region.
<P>
The agreement is wide-ranging and ambitious.
In twelve years' time, the European Union and Jordan will have established a free trade area.
The agricultural sector will also have to play a prominent role.
There is no sense denying that agreements of this kind will cause problems for the European Union as regards horticultural products.
<P>
In the years to come, we will be willing to strengthen our relations with Mediterranean countries in the area of agriculture, but not if our own EU producers will have to cushion our partners against market developments in the fruit, vegetable and flower sectors.
Plans for these sectors in the Mediterranean region are very ambitious, too ambitious, in fact.
We hope that it will be possible to increase cooperation in the agricultural sector but in a reasonable and sensible manner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Terrón i Cusí">
Mr President, I would like to welcome this Association Agreement with Jordan, which has been a long time in coming, as the rapporteur, Mrs Aelvoet, was saying.
I would like to say that our group, the Socialist group, will be expressing its satisfaction with the Agreement by voting in favour of the rapporteur's proposal that we give our assent to the Association Agreement.
And I would like to take this opportunity to say that we are concerned that the necessary ratification by Member States of the European Union will take another four years from now, and the implementation of this Euro-Mediterranean Agreement will, thus, be delayed even further.
<P>
Jordan is a country that has opted for peace and a country in a difficult region and a difficult situation.
Jordan has to prove to its public that the peace it has opted for will benefit them.
Jordan is a country that has maintained a constructive attitude in the dialogue process signed in Barcelona and has continued along the same road since.
And the financial and economic cooperation that can come out of this Agreement is important to Jordan's political development.
<P>
With regard to agriculture, the sector that has caused the delay in reaching an agreement with Jordan, we have to accept its inclusion in this free trade area and find quicker formulas for achieving cooperation in that respect.
<P>
This Agreement also includes a political dialogue and a parliamentary dialogue which we have called for many times.
In October, in this same House, there will be a multilateral dialogue between the parliaments of the region and the European Parliament.
And I believe it is going to be important to ensure that this Agreement, like the rest, has been signed by then.
<P>
The Agreement also contains provisions for monitoring the observance of human rights and support for democratization.
The situation in that field is not perfect.
We are concerned not so much about the human rights situation - which, as previous speakers here have already said, is comparable to that in other areas of the world - as about a certain tendency for the situation regarding political rights - the right to hold meetings, the right of association, the freedom for elected members to carry out their duties, etcetera - to deteriorate, and we want that situation to improve.
But we want to sign this Agreement precisely in order to be able to do that: to be able to play a proper part in the monitoring of human rights, as has been mentioned, to help in the democratization process.
<P>
I therefore reiterate our intention to vote in favour of the rapporteur's proposal. I only hope the Jordanians will not have to wait for a further generation before this Association Agreement is ratified by all the Member States of the European Union, and that sentiment applies equally to the other agreements that come out of Barcelona.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Konrad">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the conclusion of the Agreement with Jordan is a positive step, since this Agreement is an example of how the European Union can conclude treaties with other countries - in this case with the Mediterranean region, in particular - which are below the threshold for accession.
I think that this can, and must, be a model for the future.
We cannot only intensify cooperation when there is a prospect of accession to the European Union at the end of the process; instead, we must find other ways of proceeding.
This Agreement is an example of how close relations can be achieved on the basis of an accord.
<P>
Agreements of the same type have already been concluded with Tunisia, Israel and Morocco, and this new Agreement thus fits in with the European Union's policy on the Mediterranean.
A Cooperation Agreement with Jordan has existed since 1977. Four supplementary financial protocols have already been signed within the framework of this Cooperation Agreement.
After a transitional period, the aim is to establish an area of free trade which should be achieved on a step-by-step basis.
I believe that this is an important move towards a Euro-Mediterranean free trade area, which is what we are aiming for.
The Christian Democrats in this House, the Group of the European People's Party, has always supported and worked actively towards this goal; I should like to emphasize this point very clearly once more.
<P>
However, there are criticisms which we can make in relation to Jordan, and which we should not gloss over today.
The rapporteur made brief reference to this at the beginning; however, her report does not make these issues as clear as I would have wished.
I think that two points should be made in this connection, and I shall name them: the restrictive press laws in Jordan, and, above all, the ban on all forms of political assembly.
I think that the discussion process with Jordan can be a way of initiating talks about these issues too.
They could thus be dealt with through political dialogue in such a way as to ensure that democratic conditions are achieved as we would wish and in line with the conditions set by the European Union, at least in the final phase, when it concludes agreements of this kind.
<P>
I am pleased that this Agreement has been reached and that solutions were found within the framework of the trade talks too, for I believe that Jordan, in particular, must be given our support. Jordan has always been a reliable partner in the Middle East and also contributes to the stabilization of this region.
I am looking forward to the dialogue between the European Parliament and the Jordanians.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, I regard closer links with Jordan as a natural means of strengthening the agreements that have already been concluded with Israel and the Palestinian Authority. We are clearly leaving out Syria and Lebanon although that is not such a problem.
But what about Egypt?
I have been rapporteur for Egypt for three years now and regret to say that negotiations are still deadlocked over a number of issues: agricultural products and human rights.
Mrs Aelvoet has already mentioned agricultural products.
An agreement should not hang on a case of tomatoes.
I say we should give Egypt a fair export quota.
The situation with regard to human rights is rather more complicated although I will not go into that here.
<P>
The Commission has negotiated very hard with Egypt and has now reached the end of its mandate.
I would therefore like to call upon the Commissioners to come and report on the situation as soon as possible.
On this the first day of the Austrian Presidency, I would call upon Vienna to ask all of the Member States to speed up the agreement with Egypt because we do not want the first country in the Middle East that had the courage to start the peace process with Israel to be one of the last to be able to sign the agreements.
<P>
I hope that in the coming months the Council will not just give its attention to enlargement but will make one of its many tasks to call upon the Member States to bring the agreement with Egypt to a successful conclusion.
<P>
Very positive results have already been achieved with those countries with which we have already signed agreements.
I am referring in particular to Morocco.
I regularly come across Moroccan parliamentarians with whom we can talk business.
I would like to see the same thing happen with Egypt and, of course, Jordan.
I would also like to congratulate Mrs Aelvoet because she has worked hard to keep those cases of tomatoes out.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, the Liberal group welcomes the conclusion of this agreement with Jordan.
The European Union is doing well to pursue this Mediterranean policy under the Barcelona process.
<P>
We should not be put off by complications arising from deadlock in the peace process.
Jordan is important to the peace process.
Jordan was prepared to sign a peace treaty with Israel despite Israel's occupation of part of Jordanian territory in 1967.
This is a sign of great willingness.
King Hussein has quite rightly earned a great deal of respect.
Since the time of the Israeli occupation, Jordan has continued to act as protector of the occupied territory.
Jordan also has very large groups of Palestinian refugees within its borders.
<P>
Despite all these complications, Jordan is one of the few democracies in the region.
We must encourage further democracy because improvements are possible and necessary.
Mr Konrad has already mentioned those involving freedom of the press and the formation of political parties.
If Jordan had been part of Africa, I think things would have been different and there would have been no agreement.
I therefore think that it is right for the agreement between the Union and Jordan to contain a clause on democracy and human rights.
I hope that we can adhere strictly to the clause.
<P>
In the current explosive situation in the Middle East, we must use this agreement to promote the prospects of a lasting peace.
This agreement will hopefully help give the Jordanian people more chance of achieving economic progress. Hopefully, it will also help the country continue to promote peace and reconciliation.
The Liberal group therefore accepts this agreement and joins me in sending compliments to my friend and colleague Magda Aelvoet.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Antony">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we approve the basis of this report and the improvement in relations between the European Union and Jordan.
But I would first of all like to pay tribute to King Hussein, tribute which he so justly deserves for the many long years during which, under the most difficult circumstances, he has shown wisdom and worked for peace, torn as he was - as was his country - by powerful forces. In common with the Lebanon, Jordan has suffered problems due to the creation of the State of Israel, through the presence of many Palestinian refugees in Jordan who have sometimes behaved as a conquered state, forgetting their own difficulties and foisting their problems upon their host country.
<P>
This report is too critical because what we mean to say here is that human rights are far from perfect in Jordan; but what conditions prevail in the region?
There is far less denunciation of things which happen in the neighbouring country.
The daily press reports that huge crowds gather in Jerusalem itself. Mr Netanyahu goes there and up goes the cry, "Death to the Arabs' .
<P>
Curiously, those who appreciate the extremist positions in Israel are those who would sometimes like to teach us a lesson, whilst we only want to ensure that the basic sovereign rights of our people are respected.
This is home to the Arabs; this is home to the Palestinians, and Jerusalem's policy of conquest and expulsion of the Palestinians and Arabs is a real catastrophe.
<P>
Here, people talk about freedom of the press, but if we take a close look at ourselves, we see that it does not exist.
There are laws which a great journalist from our French daily newspaper, "Le Figaro' , a former Stalinist and something of an expert, who has acknowledged the errors of her youth when she was an editorial writer with the Jewish Tribune, called the intolerable Jewish thought police.
We have laws which prohibit freedom of thought, freedom to write, so how dare we pursue in Jordan, living in a state of war, something we are unable to enforce at home, where we have an intolerable thought police.
But, as always, there is truth on the banks of the Jordan, mistakes on the banks of the Seine.
<P>
As regards the free trade policy, we would like to impose some limitations on this concept, which we do not always agree with. But, in general, we would like to welcome the improvement to be made in our relations with Jordan, by voting for this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Speciale">
Mr President, I too consider Mrs Aelvoet's report excellent and the agreement with Jordan positive, also because a solution has been found for some problems with agricultural production that were blocking the agreement.
But you see, in all these agreements a problem occurs: either negotiations are delayed or some obstacle prevents subsequent ratification of the agreement reached.
If it is not one Member State posing problems, it is another: this is the case for Egypt whose agreement still has to be completed or for Morocco whose agreement was concluded two years ago but has not been ratified.
<P>
This is not acceptable!
We, the European Parliament, were right in taking a position a month ago and reminding the Commission and the Council of their responsibilities so that they, in turn, remind the Member States of their responsibilities.
Otherwise, it is too contradictory: we cannot want to relaunch the Mediterranean strategy and then block agreements with individual Mediterranean countries.
This is too contradictory.
<P>
We must, therefore, again recall this aspect.
Jordan is an important country in Middle East affairs; it certainly has a few economic and social problems and also problems with full democracy, but - as Mrs Terrón recalled - in comparison with other countries, fundamental liberties and rights are guaranteed and there is a certain cohabitation between religions.
We must make sure that this situation does not regress but instead gradually progresses.
This aspect is, in my opinion, very important.
<P>
We must rekindle - now is the time to say it - political dialogue between parliaments: it will be very important if we succeed at the end of October in organizing the first interparliamentary forum between the European Parliament and national parliaments and in taking full advantage of this opportunity.
We must, therefore, rekindle interparliamentary dialogue in general, and Euro-Mediterranean dialogue in particular.
The meeting of Foreign Ministers on 3 and 4 June was useful in this sense, and I believe that it can help the third Euro-Mediterranean Conference.
<P>
The most important question relates to the peace process.
As you know, the Palestinians have said that they accept the American plan whereas the Israeli government so far has not said that it does.
This creates a very difficult situation.
Some of today's newspapers carry an interview with President Arafat who expresses his deep concern about a very worrisome situation: he denounces Israel's siege of and stranglehold over the Palestinian Territories, a situation that cannot be accepted over a sustained period of time and that can only generate despair and especially hinder development and prevent the solution of poverty, a situation that is a kind of embargo, so to speak.
The interview ends with a very serious and pressing appeal to the European Union, the only one that can help call off the siege.
This is a very strong reminder of our responsibilities.
We must tell everyone that you cannot play with peace, but especially that this region cannot be kept in a situation of marginalization, poverty and non-development.
I understand that this is in the interest of some who today are stronger and more powerful, but this is not in the interest of all the peoples and not in the interest of the European Union; we must therefore remind everyone of their sense of responsibility in concluding this peace process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Pinheiro">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this agreement follows the signature of two similar association agreements with Tunisia, Morocco, Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the context of the new EuroMediterranean partnership.
This Agreement creates the necessary conditions for establishing the nucleus of a future integrated economic area, as soon as the political situation permits, in the Middle East and North Africa.
By creating this network of agreements based on similar provisions, the Community is attempting to create an economically prosperous EuroMediterranean area and encourage the development of South-South economic relations, which are essential to peace and economic stability in the region.
We hope the new Agreement will lead to a thoroughgoing renewal of our bilateral relations with Jordan.
The Commission is aware that the gradual establishment of free trade with the Community is an enormous challenge to the Jordanian economy and Jordanian society.
<P>
In that respect, although the Community can only act as a catalyst for the efforts of Jordanian society, it will not fail to provide technical and financial assistance, through the existing channels, to support the changes Jordan will have to make.
<P>
The Commission is especially pleased that Jordan fully accepts the provisions relating to respect for human rights and fundamental democratic principles, as well as the need to prevent illegal immigration.
<P>
Finally, the Commission wishes to congratulate the European Parliament, and particularly Mrs Aelvoet, on the excellent work of the committees that studied the Agreement.
We hope that the process of ratification by the Jordanian parliament and those of our Member States will soon be completed so that the Agreement can begin to produce its beneficial effects as quickly as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Urban environment
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Pollack">
Mr President, an analysis of the urban environment in Europe was undertaken in the excellent Commission Green Book of 1990, together with the parameters of a general approach at the European level, and we commented on that in my report in 1991.
Further development from the Commission comes in the form of the urban communication which we are looking at later on in this debate.
<P>
The purpose of my new report is to take stock of what has happened since then and to suggest ways in which we can move forward by strengthening the development of European Union environment policy for urban areas.
A lot of mileage has been made out of the subject of a peoples' Europe and yet our actions are not perceived by the majority of our citizens to touch their lives.
It is my contention that the many factors which make up the urban environment are precisely those where we should be able to connect with people more closely.
Policy development, however, must be from the bottom up, involving NGOs, women, men, old and young people and social partners.
If we are indeed to develop the role of cities as generators of prosperity and economic growth and combat the under use of human resources, then an integral component of our work must be a tangible improvement in urban environments.
I cannot stress strongly enough that social and economic development are partners of a better environment and quality of life in our cities.
<P>
What are our European objectives for our cities?
I do not yet see a clear answer from the Commission.
The main ingredients of quality of life are surely health, a safe and pleasant place to live, work and a variety of cultural experiences.
We in Europe are proud of our cities, large and small, in which our culture, civilization and democracy have flourished and developed for many centuries.
Yet these same cities are the scene of a wide rift between the haves and the have-nots.
Poverty, racism, unemployment, ill-health, crime, traffic congestion, noise and air pollution scar the lives of far too many.
So where is our vision?
<P>
Whilst celebrating the good with our cities of culture and so on, it is our duty to play our part in tackling the bad.
I say play our part, President, because this is not something which the EU can or should tackle on its own.
Clearly, a large part of the task must be for the local, regional and national authorities to deal with.
<P>
First, I would like to pay tribute to the work of the expert group on urban environment and to the sustainable cities campaign.
Each has made enormous contributions to the development of urban environment policy, awareness raising and real actions which have taken place over the last few years.
It is essential that they are guaranteed a continuous existence and do not have to worry about the future with every annual budget.
Also, that proper resources are made available for the development of a partnership approach to urban environment and support is continued for collaborative schemes on best practice.
Environmental degradation in our towns and cities is as widespread as the problem of social dislocation.
We know that the poorest and most socially disadvantaged people tend to live in the most polluted areas.
This in turn affects their health, particularly the weaker members of society such as the elderly and children.
Yet there is a knock-on effect on the whole urban population as poor quality of life, high crime rates and pollution drive out employers and make life, even in the more attractive parts of town, a misery.
Given the new public remit under the Amsterdam Treaty, criteria should be included in the new Structural Funds regulations on combatting levels of health-damaging pollution.
<P>
We have a serious task in front of us and there is still insufficient coordination inside the Commission to deal with urban environment.
Yes, there is an inter-service working group but I believe it needs to be upgraded to a proper cross-departmental unit with a clearly specified reporting mechanism.
We currently have no clearly articulated vision for a sustainable urban future across the range of policy areas.
We also lack any fund whose primary aim is to improve urban environment.
Clearly, some of the tasks for the near future need to be a proper sustainability audit and the development of comparable sustainability indicators.
This must go hand-in-hand with the widespread dissemination of better information on the state of Europe's urban environment and an ongoing programme of pilot schemes.
<P>
One of the most important developments in recent years has been the proliferation of Local Agenda 21 schemes.
Putting sustainability at the forefront of our efforts in urban areas is the key to successful action in the future and we need continued support for the Agenda 21 organizations.
Sustainability is not only about the need to arrest environmental degradation and ecological imbalance and prevent the impoverishment of future generations.
It is also about the need for quality of life and equity between current generations; an urban model which excludes a substantial environmental component is incapable of achieving this.
I welcome the news that an urban environment action programme will be launched in Vienna in November.
Please can we assure that flexibility is built into these action plans so that they can be applied to all areas in cities and not confined to restricted areas.
If we can move forward along these lines, I believe we can begin to develop our cities so that they can be places of creativity and fulfilment for future generations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Napoletano">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that this resolution is a starting point for our Parliament because the European Commission's communication has the merit of initiating a debate and, for the first time, approaching urban problems from a global, comprehensive viewpoint.
I believe that this is important because, to date, we have dealt with cities, but only in the context of sectoral policies.
Furthermore, the Commission's document begins with the observation that 80 % of Europe's citizens live in cities: cities are where the greatest economic and social changes have occurred these past few years, cities have to face the processes of economic globalization that often upset their economies.
Therefore, cities are where the greatest number of contradictions exist: in general, cities are where there is the most wealth - the level of the Community's gross domestic product is actually the highest in cities, but it is also where poverty is the most severe and where there is another, perhaps even more serious phenomenon, that of exclusion.
All this therefore leads the Union to take a careful and concerned look at the development of this situation and these policies.
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However, European policy has not yet drawn all the conclusions from this analysis.
If you will allow me to give a naturally positive judgement of the Commission's communication, it is that this communication identifies and develops the problems in depth but is not very coherent in identifying which instruments should be used to intervene more effectively.
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I will say immediately that this is not a simple matter, because it is obvious that the instruments are disseminated in various policies and, therefore, the policy that is more visible in terms of impact, including impact on citizenship, is cohesion policy.
We must, however, be careful not to burden cohesion policy with the responsibility of assuming what should be the objective of other policies: I am talking about environmental policy and research policy but also agricultural policy, because cities are the place where the relationship between producers and consumers materializes, a relationship which is often rather critical and based on imbalances in the ability to control and participate.
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Nonetheless, I believe that we are at an interesting point in our work, the point where we must link up various instruments with various courses of action; I personally think that we were right in organizing this debate in conjunction with the debate on regional planning in which Mr Novo will speak, because cities are in a region and we cannot, therefore, imagine a policy on cities that is not linked to regional policy.
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Lastly, we will need to take immediate account of the single most important matter, reform of the Structural Funds and Agenda 2000, and with this report we are calling on the Commission to be more coherent in its policies on cities.
It is fine to have introduced an urban dimension into Objective 2, but it is quite inappropriate to propose cancellation of the URBAN programme which does not in any way contradict this objective.
It is also important that in Objective 1, the Interreg programme and Objective 3, which deals specifically with training and employment, greater attention be given to the impact of these policies on cities. And it is especially important that a conscious effort should be made to involve locally-elected representatives, for it is a major policy, an important policy with many challenges which, as a Union, we now want to take on, beginning with the challenge of employment.
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<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Novo Belenguer">
Mr President, this own-initiative report on planning and the European Spatial Development Perspective is part of the work being carried out by the governments of the countries belonging to the Committee on Spatial Development.
On 9 and 10 June 1997 in Noorwijk, during the Dutch presidency, this work produced a first official draft of the European Spatial Development Perspective.
This first draft stated that we have not yet considered, at European or national level, the three principal aspects of regional planning: the spatial aspect, based mainly on the location of people, activities and equipment; the economic, social and cultural aspect, based on employment and the search for work; and the aspect based mainly on the protection of the environment.
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The report we are debating today concentrates on the content of the first four sections of this first draft perspective, the spirit of which is specifically summarized in the first part, defining the purpose of regional planning.
That purpose is based on the principle, which we have constantly and frequently defended in this Parliament, that truly balanced competitiveness throughout the whole territory of the European Union can only be achieved on the basis of social and economic cohesion and the nurturing of sustainable development.
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The second part of the document is the analytical part, which gives some idea of the difficulty of obtaining harmonized comparative data from the different Member States by complete and reliable methods. This demonstrates the need - as I have also specifically mentioned in the report - for the creation of a European Observatory for regional planning, as recommended at the 1994 Leipzig Council, and for a budget heading to make it financially viable.
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The third part of the document is the political message itself, and this defines the European policy we ought to follow to achieve our regional planning objectives.
I believe, Mr President, that that policy is incomplete inasmuch as it does not take sufficient account of cross-border and transnational areas.
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The fourth part of the document refers to the practical application of the perspective, making allowance for the difficulty of an obvious institutional weakness at European level, which makes us incapable of carrying it through.
I have tried to draw special attention to this aspect in my report.
I therefore emphasize that the possibilities of intergovernmental action in that respect are now exhausted, and so it is absolutely essential that the policy on regional planning be officially introduced at Community level.
And on this point I want to remind the House of the continuous calls by the European Parliament to give definitive official status to the Council of Regional Planning Ministers and to make the Committee on Spatial Development a permanent body, seeking, too, ways and means of enabling regional and local authorities to play an active part in the process.
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There are, nevertheless, various existing Community instruments that can be used to implement the perspective, such as the Community policies affecting the spatial balance and the structural policies defined in Article 130a of the Treaty, the reform of which will have to take account of the political principles and options defined in the perspective.
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And finally, I must draw your attention to the question of cross-border and transnational areas, as previously mentioned, especially in view of the future enlargement of the European Union, which is now imminent.
In that respect, there was an interesting meeting of the Council of Regional Policy Ministers in Glasgow on 8 June, which, among other matters, considered the effects of enlargement on the present 15 Member States, which will undoubtedly affect the subsequent definition and content of regional planning in the European Union.
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While on the subject, Mr President, I consider that we ought to add a further chapter to the perspective document to cover enlargement. This is the thinking behind the three amendments I have tabled, apart from wishing to include the Glasgow Council's conclusions in my report.
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With regard to the other 14 amendments tabled, I would like to explain to you, Mr President, the reasons why I am against their inclusion in the document.
It is because their philosophy is profoundly contradictory to that of the report. This report was approved by the Committee on Regional Policy because it emphasizes the need for a Community policy which gives the European Union itself the leading role in regional planning development, which, as I have already mentioned, will encourage social and economic cohesion and competitiveness within the Union itself; this is, of course, subject to the principle of subsidiarity, with the object of dealing more efficiently with the particular practical needs of the regions and thus including all interested sectors.
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I would like to conclude, Mr President, by saying that it is now time for us to leave behind the fears of all Member States that regional planning policies may directly affect the reform of the Structural Funds, although we ought at least to suggest - from now on - that regional planning policies be used to coordinate the implementation of certain Community policies - agricultural, environmental, research and development, etcetera - all, as we have also mentioned, subject to the principal objective of genuine economic and social cohesion.
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Finally, I would like to thank all my colleagues in the Committee on Regional Policy and the whole of the technical team, especially the technical secretariat of the Committee on Regional Policy.
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<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Bennasar Tous">
Mr President, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs agrees with the need for the coordination of Community policies concerning cities and an integrated overall view of them that will lead us to develop an effective urban policy.
We are all agreed that the URBAN, INTEGRA and Interreg initiatives have been successful and that their objectives should be maintained in the future.
European cities have improved greatly, thanks to these initiatives, but the effort must continue.
Our cities still have problems of unemployment, social integration, immigration and safety which call for joint action by citizens and authorities to find solutions.
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Planning must take into account the ageing European population, young people and the difficulty they have in getting their first home, children, whose safety is in doubt in many cities, the disabled, housewives, and the unemployed.
Although all different, they all have one need in common: they want to live with dignity, and there must be a place for them in the city.
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Nurseries, day centres for adults and the disabled, domiciliary care and neighbourhood services must be a priority, both as sources of employment in the service sector and because they are urgently needed to enable women to reconcile jobs with family commitments.
Cities can be innovation laboratories for social and employment policy, turning problems into opportunities.
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We call on the Commission to give priority to local employment initiatives and territorial pacts.
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Urban sustainability will require greater awareness in the use of public transport, saving water and energy, and the management of waste and noise, which very seriously affect industrial and tourist-orientated cities.
Local authorities must reduce property fever and land speculation, which do not bring progress, but rather instability and anarchy, and must provide for all these things without ignoring social conventions, by seeking development models that do not involve destruction and impoverishment.
We urgently need to protect our European natural and historical heritage and develop parks and green spaces in cities. We must learn to make the city a more human place and become more human with it.
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And, to conclude, I would like to remind you that a strict application of the principle of subsidiarity must not prevent the European Union from concerning itself with the weakest members of society by taking actions which, although they may be small and cost little, help to create a European social conscience.
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<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Pollack">
President, may I first congratulate my colleague Mrs Napoletano on her excellent report and the very constructive comments which I also fully support.
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We in the Environment and Public Health Committee welcome the Commission's urban communication but we also want to register some concerns which we have articulated in greater detail in our opinion.
Obviously, the Environment Committee's report, which we are also debating, feeds directly into this particular area.
The environment and public health side of urban issues seems to be submerged in the debate about economic urban regeneration and spatial development.
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We accept, of course, that problems of high unemployment and social exclusion are particularly serious in cities.
Nevertheless, several OECD studies have indicated that improving quality of life in the urban environment not only improves life for its citizens but helps attract and create jobs and investment.
Therefore, by improving the urban environment we can, at the same time, increase economic regeneration.
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The urban communication lacks an overall vision in this respect and it is essential that environmental sustainability is taken on board as an important part of the urban equation.
The eleven suggestions under the heading of environmental aspects in the report are crucial in developing urban environmental action.
I do not really have time to discuss them here, although I would like to go through each and every one of them, but I stress their importance.
I hope the Commission will pay very serious attention to them since they have had the endorsement also of the Regional Affairs Committee.
We need a real cross-departmental urban affairs unit in the Commission to ensure that these matters are more coherently pursued than at the moment and that there is much more integrated development of policy than currently exists.
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One final point, there is now a very strong move in the revision of the Structural Funds to relegate urban actions to areas simply covered by Objective 1 or 2.
This is simply not good enough.
Eighty per cent of the European Union's population is in towns and cities, most of which are outside these areas and the need to tackle social dislocation and urban environment problems refuses to fit neatly into these administrative and budgetary borders.
The disappearance, in particular, of the urban community initiative into Objective 2 means that the flexibility needed to be able to develop environmental sustainability in our cities, where it is so desperately needed, is missing.
Since we have no fund which has as its main aim improving urban environment, I strongly urge the Commission to construct its action plans in such a way that flexibility can be maintained.
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<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Terrón i Cusí">
Mr President, I would firstly like to add my congratulations to the draftsman of this report.
I think it is a report which helps us to understand the problem and makes important proposals.
We welcome both the Commission's communication and its conviction that we need to create a European Union policy that both includes and concentrates on our cities.
I come from Barcelona, a city which is very proud of its status and its local government, and I know how much local government authorities look to Europe and how much the presence of Europe needs to be felt through our cities so that citizens can see and hear how important and how close to them it is.
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The first proof that we have adopted such a policy, as the report says, will be the reform of the Structural Funds, and in that respect it seems to me that some interesting suggestions for reform have been put forward, especially the reform of Objective 2.
But I would also like to express my concern that, at the same time, there is talk of abolishing such a beneficial initiative as URBAN.
I think the retention of URBAN, together with the right sort of financing, is not incompatible with the reform of the Structural Funds, but is consistent with the guidelines we want to lay down for the reform of the Funds.
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The Committee on Civil Liberties, Mr President, is also looking very carefully at what is going on in the cities.
We think the subject of urban safety is highly important, and we also think it highly important that we in the Union should also work to create cities where people not only can, but also believe they can, go out at night. Only then can citizens feel free, and only then can we live in an environment in which violence, whether that of delinquents or that carried out by the private protection systems we see proliferating everywhere, will not go on and on increasing.
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We must work against phenomena such as racism and xenophobia - and there is provision for this - and we must introduce a series of structural and social measures which involve the citizens and which strengthen the social fabric and civil society in order to do so.
But we also need to help the cities to do what they can for themselves, what they have the competence to do, and to strengthen their competence and capacity in certain areas.
And I believe, for example, that it is very important to establish systems of summary justice and community reparation for petty crimes, and support other, little-publicized, types of action, such as the drug and heroin addiction prevention and control plans which are being implemented in many cities, without much fuss, and which are extremely effective.
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I think this series of measures would be important and I hope this report and the Commission's initiative will help to place this subject, too, at the top of our agendas.
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<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="McCarthy">
Mr President, Commissioner, colleagues, I believe today's debate on both the EU's urban agenda and the report on regional planning and European spatial development perspective raises two very important and yet related dimensions of European regional policy.
It is particularly relevant for Parliament to give its opinion on the future development of these policy areas given that under the British presidency the informal meeting of Ministers in Glasgow chose to devote one whole day to discuss both urban policy and the European spatial planning perspective.
I congratulate Parliament's rapporteurs on their work and indeed the quality of both these reports and all of those people who have provided very good opinions to the reports.
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The draft spatial planning document has now made progress, thanks to the push given by both the British ministers and indeed the group of experts.
But this is not just some academic planning exercise; it needs to be supported by real decisions.
We need to agree on how to plan for the future and making sure the results of such an exercise are accessible.
The real audience are our citizens and the countries of the European Union need to bring governments closer to the citizens.
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The key we believe is sharing best practice.
We want real solutions for real issues.
For example, the complexity of transport flows offers some areas new opportunities yet other areas get congestion and pollution.
We also see the pressures on our urban and rural areas and yet we want to see the benefits of new technology spread right across many of our regional areas.
We need to foster cooperation between the Member States and get common approaches to share problems and opportunities and get a better balanced development with an integrated approach across the sectors.
We, in Parliament, want to be involved in translating the Eurospeak into real action and we look forward to the final draft of the European spatial perspective which we hope will be agreed at a future Council meeting.
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One further aspect where the British presidency conclusions agreed that further work was needed was better consideration of the changing role and functions of urban areas.
I welcome the initiatives that were taken at the informal meeting.
Indeed, the Presidency document on urban exchange produced a very good exchange of experience on looking at a comprehensive approach to regeneration, to tackle problems faced by disadvantaged people concentrated in particular areas, to look at town centre management and to address urban quality issues.
Very close to our hearts in the Parliament, was the emphasis on the need for community involvement and good government in order to improve the working of local democracy.
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I would agree with Mrs Pollack that simply to include the urban dimension in Objective 1 and 2 programmes is not sufficient.
We believe that the urban community initiative has, in fact, given very good public recognition to the urban ideas.
We want to see that promoted.
Therefore, it will be no surprise to Members of the House and to the Commission that in our meetings we are asking for a continuation of the urban community initiative.
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At the informal Glasgow Council, children from across the European Union fifteen Member States were asked to design and present to ministers their ideal city of the future.
Children, by providing a high-tech vision of a safe, sustainable city, were laying down the challenges of fulfilling our responsibilities.
I believe that begins now.
We need to create dynamic cities that respect people and the environment and involve community groups in the planning and process and in regeneration processes as such.
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I was pleased to table amendments to Mrs Napoletano's report to look for a much more sustained approach with better funding for our urban areas and I hope the Commission will take these views on board when they produce their Agenda 2000 proposals, following negotiations with ministers in Council.
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<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Varela Suanzes-Carpegna">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Europe needs a planning policy.
Just as Member States have their territorial policies, which include regional and local policies, we now need a European planning policy which incorporates the different national policies.
This is a common objective: we need to combine economy and territory.
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Planning is bound to influence future regional policy, because there will be no economic and social cohesion without territorial cohesion.
We cannot go on designing and implementing isolated common policies, because we are doing something bigger than that, we are building a continent, and we need to do so in a spirit of cohesion and solidarity between the 15 existing Member States and those that are knocking at our door, in order to build the great Europe.
So coordination, cohesion and territorial-based planning are essential.
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Planning is synonymous with balance, or, if you prefer, with restoring balance.
The great Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset once wrote that 'Europe is not a thing, it is a balance' .
There are many bees, but one flight.
And from that swarm of interests, planning should emerge as a policy to restore the balance of European spatial areas and policies.
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I therefore support the ESDP and my compatriot Mr Novo Belenguer's excellent report, and I would only wish to restate here what I added to the report in committee: that the European Spatial Development Perspective should go beyond its obvious terrestrial dimension and include the maritime dimension it lacks at present.
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We plead for the promotion of European ports, especially the small and medium-sized ones, which are a catalyst for local and regional development in backward and peripheral regions, and the development of all forms of maritime transport as an alternative to the congestion of land transport and the deterioration of the environment, with support from the Structural and Cohesion Funds.
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And permit me one last comment.
Speaking for this Parliament, I call for support from the Commission and the Council for the Atlantic side of Europe, an area where 50 million Europeans live, where three of the present four cohesion states are situated, two of them fully within Objective 1, and where there are 32 peripheral and ultra-peripheral maritime regions. These regions, from the Highlands of Scotland to Andalusia in Spain, demand their inclusion in real terms in the European Spatial Development Perspective and support for a trans-European maritime network which will boost European Atlantic and transatlantic communications as a special backbone for their future development.
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<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Vallvé">
Mr President, I would firstly like to express my appreciation of the fact that my group, the Liberal group, has been given a position in the order of speakers which now actually represents fairly the number of Members it has.
We are discussing a regional matter here, as presented in two reports which I think are two sides of the same problem: the one on planning and the European Spatial Development Perspective and the other, Mrs Napoletano's report, on urban policy for the European Union.
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Why do we need planning?
The rapporteur has told us the reasons: to achieve greater economic and social cohesion, sustainable development, and geographically balanced competitiveness.
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Obviously there is something missing from our planning system: the Treaty makes no provision for Community planning powers.
But it is difficult to draw up regional policy unless there are instruments for territorial cooperation at European level, which transcend those artificial lines that constitute boundaries, and the Interreg initiative has already played an important part in cross-border cooperation, but there is still a great deal to do in that field.
I am, therefore, strongly in favour of the creation of a European Spatial Planning Observatory.
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Secondly, there is the problem of the cities.
European policy must have a direct effect on cities as a whole, not only their sectoral aspects, in order to deal with the serious problems they have, as the rapporteur has mentioned, especially those of unemployment, social integration and immigration, which is also normally concentrated in these areas, and to develop citizen participation and improve the quality of life.
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Agenda 2000 provides for the abolition of the URBAN initiative.
This may make it difficult to implement the city schemes contained in that great compendium of measures, the proposed new Objective 2.
In that respect, I consider that we ought not to waste the experience of city development that URBAN has provided for us.
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Finally, I would like to say that this urban policy is not incompatible with regional policy, but rather complementary to it.
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<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Baggioni">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) is a document which, even though it depends simply on intergovernmental cooperation, aims to give a real political framework to Community, national and regional actions as regards regional planning.
At Community level, this framework will help to give coherence to the various Union policies, and in particular to structural policy and transport policy.
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If I restrict myself to discussing the matter which is closest to my heart - namely that of insular regions - and I hope you will forgive me, I note that the framework provided by the ESDP is not consistent with the resources currently included in the Structural Funds.
Must we conclude that some regions, currently considered by the Union as being in great economic and social difficulty, do not warrant being included in Community spatial planning because the document scarcely mentions them?
How is it possible that a document, which is so important, does not promote the new provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty, which quite specifically acknowledges the particular handicaps of insular regions and the urgent need to remedy this situation?
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The ESDP, and the proposals for regulations on the Structural Funds appear to want to bypass these provisions and bring no message of hope to the 14 million people living in insular regions who are still waiting to be integrated into a major European regional planning project.
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I would not like to appear too pessimistic, and so after congratulating the rapporteur on an excellent piece of work, I would very much like to welcome the promise reiterated on 8 June by the European Ministers for Regional Planning, who met in Glasgow, to think more seriously about the territorial development of the Mediterranean basin.
In my opinion, this is one of the main challenges which faces the European Union at the dawn of the 21st century.
I hope that this commitment will not, once again be relegated to a mere declaration of intent and that, here again, we shall not forget to take proper account of the situation of the very many insular regions in the Mediterranean.
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<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, I am going to refer in particular to Mrs Pollack's report, because we are both members of the Committee on the Environment.
80 % of the inhabitants of the European Union live in cities; yet less than 50 % of the European budget is allocated to dealing with their problems.
We know that a very major share of the European budget goes to agriculture.
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The European Environment Agency calculates that between 70 % and 80 % of cities with over 500 000 inhabitants have problems of air pollution, noise pollution and deficiencies in the general quality of life.
It is true that the European Union has taken some sectorial measures relating to air quality - with the Auto-Oil programme, which was debated in the Committee on the Environment -, to water quality, and also to waste management.
There is a campaign for sustainable cities, supported by over 320 local authorities.
But, today, there is still no overall statement of the European Union's position on the quality of life in the cities, even though the Green Paper on quality in the cities was debated and published 7 years ago.
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I would conclude, Mr President, by saying that we need an overall framework programme for air quality and the urban environment, with sufficient and coordinated funds.
And we must allow for the fact that measures to deal with unemployment, poverty and poor health conditions must be inter-related, and finally that citizens need to be educated and their awareness raised to enable them to contribute to improving their quality of life.
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<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Orlando">
Mr President, I would like to make a few remarks regarding the Pollack, Napoletano and Novo Belenguer reports.
The report by Mrs Pollack, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, should be underlined and deserves praise for the sensitivity shown towards the great problems facing us today, including the problems of our cities.
The report by Mrs Napoletano on the Commission's communication 'Towards an urban agenda in the European Union' is commendable because of the extensive work done on the environmental and social aspects of urban problems and on related civil liberties, regional development and structural interventions.
The committee also deserves to be commended for its own amendments which have made a very positive contribution to Mrs Napoletano's work.
However, without a clear direction and a clear mission for Member States regarding urban policy, the current debate is obviously limited to a list of problems and solutions, even if it is an admirable inventory.
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It seems to me that the most relevant aspects and most significant requests in the motion for a resolution are: firstly, the definition of a European strategy for urban policy and the coordination of all Community policies concerning urban areas; and secondly, the need for European support of European strategies on sustainable urban development.
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The report by Mr Novo Belenguer is particularly commendable, because it attempts to solicit and develop a political perspective for the technical proposals for informal work on regional planning: there is a return of the strong relationship between cities and overall regional planning policy, although with some concerns that I believe should be underlined.
First of all, the major trans-European networks risk connecting only the major metropolitan areas, and so are likely to intensify metropolitan concentrations.
I think, therefore, that we must be aware of this risk and avoid a situation where the needs of small and medium-sized cities are totally forgotten.
We must be aware of this, because otherwise we risk making the stronger cities much stronger and the already congested cities much more congested.
The risk is that we will not give priority to taking advantage of areas that are still natural and making use of our environmental heritage.
Instead, priority must go to reducing the process of urbanization in Europe.
We have a point of reference: ' NETWORK AND NATURE 2000' . It should be taken as the point of reference and we must abide by the principles of this document for any intervention in the matter.
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I have two more remarks that I would like to make regarding what has already been said.
First of all, I, or should I say we, see the URBAN project as positive.
I also have the experience of a city like Palermo which is one of the 49 urban areas that has positively implemented this project.
However, maintaining this initiative, which is very positive, must not penalize small and medium-sized cities - again I am back to the same topic - and so provision must be made for forms of cooperation between cities.
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Secondly, as regards the new Objective 2 which covers both urban and rural areas, guarantee clauses should be included so that when individual Member States make their selection, they cannot entirely overlook rural areas and just select strong areas that are inevitably, in all countries, urban areas.
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For this reason we are still awaiting an action plan for cities from the Commission which, before this Parliamentary term is over, will finally give concrete expression to the strategic guidelines that have emerged from today's debate on the problem of cities in Europe.
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Lastly, I have just a couple observations.
Cities are the most complex achievement of the human race.
The entire complexity of life is represented in cities: culture, transport, economy, art, health and sport.
The human race has not achieved anything more complex than the city.
The overwhelming majority of European citizens lives in cities - 80 % - and the greatest wealth is produced and traded there.
Despite this, cities seem to symbolize places of hardship that cannot be enjoyed.
To make our cities enjoyable and suitable to be lived in is, I believe, what our citizens want and the obligation of the current city governments; however, it is still not an organic and strategic objective of the European institutions.
We all want this debate to underscore the need to build enjoyable cities worth living in throughout Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, the Pollack, Napoletano and Novo Belenguer reports have quite rightly been clubbed together on this afternoon's agenda.
They share one thing in common: neither urban policy nor regional planning policy have any foundation in the Amsterdam Treaty.
Both were left out of the Treaty.
Attempts have of course been made in the meantime to incorporate these matters into the European agenda.
We are only partly in favour of this.
Anything that can be done locally should be.
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Fortunately, the Pollack report is short but forceful and not too demanding, unlike the Napoletano report.
When I read the reports, I did wonder why there was such a desire for a Community-wide policy.
One of the reasons given was that there were major problems in towns and cities throughout Europe and that over 80 % of the population lived in towns and cities.
Can this really justify the implementation of a European urban policy?
I think not.
There has to be a real benefit and I have my doubts about this.
Anyone who has spent any time in local or regional politics will know that the problems involved are often very specific and require specific solutions.
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Only in the area of regional planning do I see opportunities for Europe.
But even then, you would need to have a very good idea of what would and would not be possible on a European level.
The European Spatial Development Perspective is a very good way to get discussions going but no more than that.
It is an illusion to think that it would be possible to harmonize regional development policy in the various Member States.
Fortunately, everyone is agreed about this.
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The approach adopted by the ESDP is therefore quite a cautious approach.
It merely raises a number of very general assumptions and perspectives.
Europe itself has a great deal of influence over regional development.
Just think of the internal market, transport systems and agricultural policy.
There is then already some control over regional planning on a European level.
There is, in my view, also a certain amount of potential for ecological development and the preservation of ecological corridors.
I think these are important elements in the ESDP document.
If we are to accept this sort of approach, I think we will need a formal Council of Regional Planning Ministers, although I suspect that this will also be the most we are likely to achieve.
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<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, I would like to rise above all the repetitive talk we have heard these past few years on the urban environment.
It has become fashionable to say: ' the city for the city, the province for the province, the region for the region, ' in a false autonomy that, in substance, creates not progress but regression.
Indeed, without broad and comprehensive planning, we end up making incomplete choices that never solve the problems of citizens or of the businesses that offer jobs.
Do you realize that seven years have passed since the Green Paper on the urban environment was published? Yet, despite many initiatives, virtually nothing has been achieved.
Do you realize that because it does not want to be unjustly accused of interfering in the day-to-day management of European cities, the European Community, which got off to a good start, has never fulfilled its main role which is to define a framework for urban policy?
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We are convinced that Europe's urban environmental policy, launched by the European Parliament's own-initiative report in 1988 and included in the 1990 Green Paper, is today the only instrument capable of promoting an integrated approach to the problem of European urban areas and defining a Community strategy focusing on at least three important and specific problems: first, measures to improve the quality of life and the environment in European urban areas; second, the elaboration of a Community project for sustainable cities; third, the definitive inclusion in the Structural Funds of financing for areas suffering from urban decay.
<P>
In the light of this, how can we not interfere to coordinate and harmonize?
At the second European Conference on Sustainable Cities held in Lisbon in 1996, it was shown that pollution in our cities was deteriorating at an exponential rate and that we are far from making our dream of a clean and healthy environment come true in Europe, because urban pollution does not seem to take account of existing national or Community legislation.
Moreover, the unevenness of Community interventions leaves us puzzled when we see that over half of the Community budget is aimed at rural areas while 80 % of the population actually lives in urban areas.
So, yes, we support the Pollack report and, yes, we give our unconditional support to a stronger Union policy on the urban environment.
Our job is to improve the lives of consumers, certainly not to chase after the autonomous yearnings of some dreamer, or worse, some profiteer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Frutos Gama">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to congratulate Mrs Napoletano on her splendid report and the great determination with which she has taken on the by no means easy task of gathering together all the opinions and ideas on the urban problem that have been expressed in this House in the course of its preparation.
<P>
It seems to me that this report highlights two fundamental issues.
The first is that almost 80 % of European citizens live in urban areas.
The second, which is becoming ever more obvious, is that the European Union needs to unify and coordinate its own policies for those areas.
Both issues should mark a starting point for a Community strategy to achieve the harmonious development of the European geographical area.
<P>
But there is a third element in this report on which I should like to dwell for a moment.
If we want all kinds of citizens to feel at home in the cities - adults, traders, artists, young people, entrepreneurs, immigrants, women -, the European Union, as well as the governments of the Member States, must combat the effects of exclusion and the division into haves and have-nots which is at the root of the serious conflicts we are seeing every day in European urban areas.
<P>
Women, ladies and gentlemen, form a social group whose needs and difficulties in the cities tend to be minimized.
The European Charter for Women in Cities, a discussion paper sponsored by the Equal Opportunities Unit of the European Commission in 1995, contains some of the key ideas that can help us in our general thinking: the opportunity of gaining access to employment; the number and quality of neighbourhood services, especially those relating to child care; access to decisiontaking authorities in cities; and the issue of safety in urban areas.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, European urban policy needs to recognize these specific women's issues, as summarized in Mrs Napoletano's report, because women urgently need to become involved.
We must encourage their participation in decisiontaking authorities and increase exchanges of information and innovative projects. Their point of view needs to be taken into consideration when determining socio-economic and cultural indicators for the cities, and our male colleagues should be made more aware, so that they will take more notice of women's points of view.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Mr President, more and more Europeans live in cities.
As has often been pointed out, four out of five EU citizens are city-dwellers.
Cities are thus also enjoying increasing prosperity and their infrastructure is improving all the time.
In this connection, I am pleased that my city, Graz, was recently selected as the European City of Culture for the year 2003.
However, cities are not only places of beauty and culture; they face growing problems with poverty, unemployment and exclusion.
They have more crime and are less safe, and they suffer environmental damage on a very large scale.
Against this background, it is obvious why urban issues are crucially important within the framework of structural policy and why they must continue to be so, but - and this cannot be emphasized often enough - not everything should be regulated at European level.
We must not get carried away; we must take account of the principle of subsidiarity not only in speeches but also in our very practical political work.
<P>
A second important aspect should be mentioned in this connection, however.
European structural policy, and European urban policy too, cannot be defined from the top down; it must be a bottom-up process and we must take partnership with the cities seriously.
<P>
Thirdly, the principle of divide et impera has often been applied in the past, with much, therefore, being imposed from the top.
We must adopt a different position: we must support networking by those involved, and we must support what has already been discussed here today, namely the sharing - and challenges - of best practice.
Diversity is out there in the European cities.
<P>
The excellent reports before us today - especially the reports from our committee by Mrs Napoletano and Mr Novo Belenguer - take account of all these issues to a substantial degree.
However, in some respects the enthusiasm goes a little too far, and I have thus attempted, with my amendments, to modify one or two points.
This is not directed against the issues themselves; rather, my intention is to ensure that we should also, and above all, respect the reports submitted by the Commission and the aims which they contain, and also take this respect seriously.
<P>
I have nothing against URBAN, but we must take ourselves seriously and thus integrate URBAN and its objectives into general Community policy and structural policy, even if we would prefer to have our own programme.
I have nothing against the initiative for cities, but we must not forget the region around the cities either.
I have one final point: I have nothing against a further extension of the right to vote in local elections for all citizens living in our European Union, but first things first, we should be concentrating on EU citizens above all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Spaak">
Mr President, as Mrs Napoletano's report emphasizes - and I would like to congratulate her on her work -, it is essential that the European Union tackles the issue of urban policy, since a large majority of Europeans live in cities.
As long ago as 1995 I was very concerned by this problem and tabled a motion for a resolution on large conurbations which suffer many of the problems which beset today's society. These include: unemployment and its associated disastrous effects; poverty and the homeless; large-scale and small-scale crime; the lack of social infrastructure; emigration of the welloff to the more pleasant outlying districts with the consequent deterioration of the environment of town centres; lack of funds for the development of public transport; the deterioration of local infrastructure; and very weak support for historical and architectural heritage.
<P>
Even with its limited resources, the URBAN projet has produced good results in the less advantaged parts of our towns.
Should we not be concerned that its initiatives, incorporated within the huge canvass of Objective 2, might lose their effectiveness there.
We need a regional planning policy which respects the balance between habitat and green spaces, meeting and leisure spaces, if European towns are to remain attractive.
The proposal for an urban audit is, therefore, an excellent one and it will be useful for all our towns to think about this.
<P>
Finally, I fully subscribe to the importance which the report gives to the participation of citizens in local democracy, and, therefore, to the compulsory and unrestricted application of the Treaty as regards the voting rights of European nationals in municipal elections.
I hope, therefore, that the Belgian government, which has dragged its feet on this matter, will finally implement this provision as soon as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Querbes">
Mr President, the report by our colleague, Mr Novo Belenguer, expresses its agreement with the main aims of the ESDP project and emphasizes the shortcomings of an overly urban and continental vision of Europe.
It demonstrates the inconsistencies with Community policies and the aims of the ESDP.
But is there not a more basic criticism to be made of this draft plan?
<P>
Is it right that the ESDP should start with the needs of business rather than those of people and propose that the territory should be structured so as to benefit business by achieving a high level of productivity.
With this approach, the plan hardly makes any reference, if at all, to the human dimension, that is, employment, culture and education.
It ignores the role played by public services and local policies in terms of land use.
It does not say anything about local resources, with the exception of water, which lead to human settlements and agricultural, industrial and energy activities.
Last of all, it ignores the strategy of large groups and financial bodies which have a significant influence on the planning of the land.
<P>
The current plan for Community spatial planning responds, in my opinion, to one fact and to one project.
The fact is the land crisis, at the centre of which lies the competition for land.
The price of this crisis is the transfer of the considerable wealth from the population to economic and financial activities.
It is the forging of imbalances in land use and the concomitant urban overdevelopment, rural abandonment, saturation of the main axes of communication and social and environmental destruction.
The project is the result, stressed in the ESDP, of the implications of the introduction of the euro and the pursuit of economic liberalization.
What additional problems will be created with the arrival of the euro and the enlargement of the Union?
And how should we deal with this?
<P>
The rapporteur proposes putting a fence around European policies to encourage the development of social and economic cohesion and lasting development.
He hopes to see, as I do, democratic development of the ESDP and he points out the priorities in the plan as regards the harmonious development of employment and activities in the various regions of the European Union.
But will this be enough?
Should we not be thinking about quite a different process for developing the ESDP based on the needs of the citizens and the territory, an approach which would ensure that economic and financial activities met with and satisfied these needs.
<P>
I hope that the discussions organized within the Member States and at Union level will make it possible to listen to the needs of the people and of the land and that the final plan will be centred around jobs, as well as the social and environmental aspects.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="des Places">
Mr President, the report by our colleague Mr Novo prays that there will be a European regional planning policy.
This is an excellent initiative.
In fact, rural areas represent approximately 80 % of the Community territory, and a balanced regional planning policy depends on their vitality.
The ESDP document notes that European agriculture will continue to play a principal role in the development of the vitality of several rural regions.
Mr President, the Commission must also be well aware of this and take account of this in its proposals for reform of the common agricultural policy.
Our rural areas are currently undergoing profound change which can be seen in the diversification of activities and all too often, unfortunately, in abandonment.
In some regions, agro-tourism will not be enough.
<P>
It is, therefore, essential that we respond to the challenge of this change and avert the dangers so that, by contrast, we derive as much benefit as possible.
Thus, intensive development can encourage investment, provided that quality and the environment is not sacrificed to quantity. Quite the opposite.
Diversification can offer new opportunities for the promotion of our cultural and natural heritage, as well as the development of rural tourism affecting small- and medium-sized firms and craft industries.
Extensification and marginalization can create better conditions for the protection of the environment and reafforestation, always provided that we can prevent a haemorrhage of manpower and the abandonment of agricultural holdings by using land in a different way.
<P>
We must recognize that Community action has sometimes had very damaging consequences on an economic and social cohesion of which we are often voluntarily proud, but it should be restored.
Thus, the abandonment of some of our countryside has been aggravated by the implementation of the 1992 common agricultural policy and the reduction in agricultural prices.
The new reform of the common agricultural policy which, amongst other things, involves a marked reduction in prices, can only further unbalance regional planning through a major reduction in the number of farmers.
<P>
So we hope that, rather than claiming new powers, the European Union will simply consider the effects of its policies, and in particular those of the common agricultural policy, on the balance of the Community territory, in order to avoid negative consequences, and that it will insist that the health and the well-being of animals will be taken into consideration in future WTO negotiations...
<P>
(The President cut off the speaker)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Cellai">
Mr President, considering that there is broad agreement with the report by Mrs Napoletano, the European Commission's document is a basis which can be used to launch a serious and constructive debate to outline the terms of a Europe-wide urban policy.
It is clear that a new strategy is needed to strengthen or restore the important role that European cities must play as regards social and cultural integration, the supply of resources, sustainable development and as a pillar of democracy.
The purpose is not to develop Europe-wide urban policies in areas that can be better dealt with at local or regional level but rather to facilitate solutions and their application at European level, adopting a more targeted approach based on the instruments that exist in Member States and at Community level, with increased cooperation and coordination at all levels.
<P>
Most cities today are a hodgepodge of many realities: business districts and residential neighbourhoods, historical centres and outlying dormitory towns, office areas which are deserted at night, shopping centres, student neighbourhoods, etcetera.
Many neighbourhoods in the outlying areas are host to acts of vandalism and crime arising out of a lack of job opportunities or social and cultural life that keeps them isolated.
To regain control of urban areas there must be better regional planning that revives the true notion of neighbourhood and reintegrates huge peripheral areas into the urban fabric, and this must be accompanied by efficient public and private transport.
<P>
In our opinion, cultural activities must be promoted as a feature of development in cities, regions and throughout Europe, given the wealth of heritage available to us.
This will have two effects: one direct effect, that of encouraging the creation of jobs that are often permanent; and one indirect effect, connected to what is produced and which could offset the loss of jobs in the primary and secondary sectors.
So, promoting the development of cultural activities as a factor of social and economic cohesion must be one of the new directions.
For all this, it is fundamental that we increase the amounts earmarked for the Structural Funds, give more importance to studies on the theme of new services, and give attention to all the possible forms of tax relief, beginning with a reduction in the Value Added Tax on work to restore, recover and preserve cultural assets.
Another area where cities can and must play a fundamental role is in the conservation of the environment, because the most serious environmental problems are concentrated in cities.
<P>
Therefore, when planning and developing future strategies, greater attention must be given to urban development and rehabilitation of the decaying outlying areas, since this will favour synergy between specific actions at both local and regional level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Walter">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first of all like to express my appreciation of the excellent work undertaken by Mrs Napoletano and Mr Novo Belenguer.
Both reports underline the most important issues arising in the closely linked debates on regional and urban development and put forward a number of valuable suggestions in terms of developing these very new European policy areas further.
I should like to make three points.
Firstly, the various European Union policies - such as agricultural policy, structural policy, transport policy or even competition policy - directly affect the spatial structures of the European Union, but have hitherto done so, as regards regional planning, in an uncoordinated and incoherent manner.
Furthermore, in terms of Europe's population structures, its transport, energy and communication structures, the spatial distribution of its economic activity and its environmental links, Europe forms an interconnected network.
We must, therefore, move away from our often very limited viewpoints and develop a European perspective on the impacts of spatial planning, both for the territory covered by the current European Union and also for an EU which is enlarged towards the East.
A European observatory can contribute substantially to this process.
However, clear progress towards collating basic statistical data on these issues is even more important.
<P>
Secondly, developing a European perspective and coordinating it at European level does not mean that we must shift competencies to Europe to a substantial degree.
What is vitally important in this respect is that we adhere to the principle of subsidiarity and respect for established local government traditions, and that we ensure the participation of local actors.
<P>
Thirdly, I would like to make a point about the cities. It would be a grave mistake to view the cities in isolation.
The very complex interaction between urban and rural areas must be taken into account.
It is true that 80 % of Europe's citizens live in urban areas.
More than two-thirds of Europe's wealth is generated in the cities.
Yet this is only possible against the background of the rural areas' ability to balance out economic, social and ecological interests.
It would be a mistake to focus solely on the major urban areas.
It is the smaller and medium-sized towns and cities in the rural regions, in particular, which perform an important bridging function and shape the economic and social landscape of Europe.
We are still at the beginning of spatial planning at European level.
If we take on board the conclusions of the two reports submitted today, we will be taking a major step forward.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fernández Martín">
Mr President, up to now the accent in the regional policies we have been implementing has been on development in the less favoured regions of the Union, as a means of advancing economic and social cohesion.
Yet in recent years more and more people have been calling our attention to the fact that we ought to be placing more emphasis on the citizen as the beneficiary of our environmental and planning policies.
<P>
The Commission has already pointed out this trend in its Europe 2000 communications and, more recently, in its Europe 2000+ document on planning, and Parliament voted in favour of the report, of which I myself was the rapporteur, by an overwhelming majority.
<P>
It is very important that we should not forget the peripheral and ultra-peripheral regions, the subarctic areas and the sparselypopulated mountain regions, so as not to aggravate geographical imbalances.
But Europe, Mr President, is, first and foremost, an urbanized continent.
The most serious cases of poverty, marginalization, unemployment, social exclusion and crime are now found in the urban areas of the Union.
<P>
The bigger the cities, the more serious these problems are.
In the urban agglomerations of London's docks, next door to the City itself, there are the most appalling cases of human misery.
The same applies to Naples, Amsterdam or Madrid.
None of the major cities of Europe is free of this problem today.
That is why I share the Commission's view on Agenda 2000, which does not propose a reduction in urban development funds, as some critics seem to believe regarding the URBAN programme, but does, in fact, seek to restructure those funds to create a greater and more efficient volume of investment to support development in the urban areas of the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Mr President, I have three brief comments to make on these three excellent reports.
Firstly, I am pleased to see that Mr Novo Belenguer, in particular, has recognized how important proper coordination of regional planning policy is to sustainable development - particularly with regard to nature conservation policy - and has included this in one of the points of the resolution.
I myself have tabled an amendment, establishing a link between the habitat and birds directives and the instrument involved in coordinating regional planning.
This is because the Natura 2000 initiative says that every Member State must leave 20 % of its territory to nature in order to protect biodiversity in Europe.
There is, however, scarcely any coordination between the Member States.
Some countries have too few black grouse and others far too many.
Coordination of this kind is a very good way of implementing a nature conservation policy within the European Union.
<P>
My second comment relates, in particular, to that part of Mrs Napoletano's report where she says that we should support Agenda 21 and consider introducing a new budget line.
I can agree with this because I am chairman of a local 21 group in The Hague and can see the importance of promoting a system whereby we can exchange experiences.
<P>
Finally, Mrs Napoletano and Mrs Pollack have pointed out that 80 % of the population live in towns and cities and that the European Commission wants to scrap the URBAN initiative.
We are sorry to learn that the URBAN initiative will also be disappearing from Agenda 2000 because it forms part of Objective 2, although towns and cities in areas not covered by Objective 2 are excluded from the urban system.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Novo">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the draft European Spatial Development Perspective is an approach to planning matters which I consider limited, inasmuch as it places little importance on the problems of the human dimension of the occupation of land, that is to say, on its cultural and educational aspects and the question of social exclusion.
Similarly, it does not enquire as to the role public services, regional policies and specific economic activities should play in rational planning, particularly through giving the attention that is desirable and necessary to the peripheral and ultra-peripheral regions and the islands.
<P>
The report by Mr Novo Belenguer, whom I take this opportunity of congratulating, is in its turn a welcome reminder of the need to pursue a policy of economic and social cohesion with a strategy of sustainable development and balanced competitiveness, although it might have dealt with the gaps and omissions in the European Spatial Development Perspective at greater length.
<P>
In the context of institutional politics, however, we find Mrs Napoletano's report - and I congratulate her as well - more balanced, fairer and more realistic.
It also supports the creation of a European Spatial Planning Observatory, but accepts the present informal framework of a Council of Regional Planning Ministers and recognizes the potential for development of urban and territorial planning policies, based on increased cooperation, dialogue, partnership and subsidiarity.
<P>
Because we consider this vision more appropriate, we have suggested some amendments to try to give the Belenguer report the same political and institutional rationale and render the two texts more consistent with each other. This is because we do not think standardizing planning policies at Community level is the way to find solutions to problems which often are and will continue to be specific and varied, and for that reason will continue to depend essentially on the proper discharge by the national, regional and local government authorities of their responsibilities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Karamanou">
Mr President, the adoption of an integrated European policy and a strategy for the viable development of towns and cities today takes on a certain urgency as, in many towns and cities, the downgrading of the natural environment, the problems of political, cultural and social exclusion, and the problems of crime and traffic chaos have brought about a serious deterioration of the lives of millions of people.
<P>
Moreover, the crisis in our towns and cities places the competitiveness of the European Union, the mechanisms of integration, and the policy of economic and social cohesion in great jeopardy.
The Commission communication and the excellent report by Mrs Napoletano constitute a positive response to the new challenges and a global approach to the problems in the framework of a broader spatial planning policy.
We need to act now in order to secure a minimum quality of life in the towns and cities of the future.
<P>
In my opinion, priority must be given to the following.
<P>
First, we need to consider the creation of a new equilibrium between the large urban centres and the countryside.
<P>
Secondly, the strengthening of ties between small and medium-sized towns is essential.
<P>
Third, we need to create technological and industrial parks and cultural and recreational centres, with the active participation of local self-government and social organizations.
<P>
Fourth, we must give consideration to the needs of children, the elderly and people with special needs, during the planning of towns, buildings, roads and means of transport.
<P>
Fifth, we need the necessary reforms aimed at maintaining a high level of social protection, in view of the projected increase in the number of people over 60 years of age by 37 million over the next 25 years.
<P>
Sixth, we should look at the provision of resources for social infrastructures, day nurseries, and up-to-date homes for the elderly, in the light of the reform of the Structural Funds.
<P>
Seventh, we must provide public transport which is accessible to all and which will respect the environment and reduce the use of private cars.
<P>
Eighth, we need to consider measures aimed at combating racism, xenophobia and at crime prevention, in other words, measures to safeguard the rights of the citizens of Europe to a life that is free from fear and insecurity.
<P>
Last but not least, we must promote the active participation of women in all decision-taking authorities and in the planning of the societies and towns and cities of the future.
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<SPEAKER ID=93 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Hatzidakis">
Mr President, after first congratulating Mrs Napoletano on the very good report she has prepared, I would like, in turn, to dwell on a few points which I consider to be important in the issue of "the urban environment and the European Union' .
<P>
Bearing in mind the significant role played in the economic and social life of the European Union by towns and cities and large urban centres, in which a very large part of the population lives and where more than two thirds of the wealth of the European Union is concentrated, I think that the Commission must promote a European urban strategy that will acknowledge the vital role of towns and cities, as well as the special problems they face, one which is also aimed at coordinating the various Community policies which may affect urban regions either directly or indirectly.
<P>
Of course, a European urban strategy cannot be understood in isolation, but only as an integral part of a broader spatial planning policy, which is mentioned in the other report we are debating jointly today, that of Mr Novo Belenguer. I would also like to support this report wholeheartedly, as it contains some very good points and observations relating to the already ambitious Commission communication on a draft for a European Spatial Development Perspective.
<P>
Be that as it may, what I would like to dwell on at this moment are some more specific issues.
Given that the Community initiative "URBAN' , which for the most part has been extremely successful, is nearing its end without any possibility for its renewal, as with most Community initiatives, greater emphasis must be given to the innovative actions of Objective 10 of the European Regional Development Fund relating to the urban environment.
In this regard, the Commission could examine the idea of strengthening small and medium-sized island towns which face, in addition to the other difficulties, all the particular problems which arise because of their island status, not on the basis of the criterion of an upper limit of 100 000 inhabitants, as provided for in Objective 10 of the ERDF, but of the influence they wield as key towns and cities, that is, as poles of economic, social and cultural development within the broader geographical unity with which they are associated.
<P>
In addition, I consider it useful to point out the following.
<P>
Firstly, incentives must be given, in the context of relevant Community policies, for the restoration and upgrading of historical buildings for cultural, social or economic use.
<P>
Secondly, special emphasis must be given to urban tourism, which could constitute the basis for growth for many regional towns and cities.
<P>
Finally, we must encourage the accession of regional towns and cities to Europe-wide networks and, more generally, strengthen coordination and cooperation at all levels between towns and cities and the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Mr President, I would first of all like to congratulate Mrs Napoletano and Mrs Pollack on their excellent reports and to stress that I think we need something more, something much more, than simple communications from the European Commission, which may indeed be laudable, but which do not have much practical value.
<P>
The urban environment is something akin to a biosphere for the vast majority of European citizens.
The enormous problems of the quality of life they face, even at the level of public health, are being faced additionally by the European Union, with relevant programmes for air quality, for regional regeneration and for cultural interventions.
These programmes are often useful and even pioneering.
However, the Court of Auditors itself has pointed out that they do not have multiplicative outcomes or a global logic and usefulness, simply because they do not have a specific framework for global consideration and a global perspective.
<P>
The citizens of Athens, for example, are very well aware of this.
Of course, ensuring the cohesion and the perspective of such interventions in the city belongs to the national, and chiefly to the municipal, authorities which, in Athens, for example, have not done their job, beyond a short-lived push forward for political reasons.
<P>
Nevertheless, they can and they must do their job. And I think they will be greatly helped by general Community legislation, a programme, a framework directive which will put in place a general framework of principles, guidelines and criteria, so that whatever relevant programmes are debated and adopted will take on significance and perspective.
<P>
It is about making a qualitative change, which I think will reduce arbitrariness and waste and will increase the overall gain of citizens from any Community intervention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Howitt">
Mr President, having had the pleasure of chairing the European Parliament Hearing on the Urban Communication with our rapporteur, Mrs Napoletano, and having chaired an association of ten towns in my own region in the United Kingdom before being elected to this Parliament, I welcome the progress being made towards an urban agenda for the European Union.
Not simply do the vast majority of European citizens live in towns and cities but such urban areas include pockets of deep poverty and incidences of racism and social exclusion and of environmental degradation which demand action at European level.
Yet the action programme, to be proposed by the Commission, is not yet a fully-fledged urban competence for the European Union.
Initiatives to benefit towns and cities still have to be made by diverting powers from other headings.
The next revision of the European Treaty must remedy this deficit.
<P>
The proposals within structural fund reform which will enable European support for housing projects and for the regeneration of derelict sites for the first time, are welcome steps forward in meeting urban needs.
But as other speakers have made clear, the abolition of the urban community initiative would dismantle European support in 110 cities benefiting half a million people across Europe.
Retaining a separate urban community initiative would allow innovative and trans-national urban projects to be maintained as well as aid to the majority of people who live in particular in small and medium-sized towns.
No European-aided town in the Nordic countries or in Austria, currently exceeds the 100 000 population mark; their needs must not be ignored.
<P>
Meanwhile, welcome as the newer urban strand in mainstream Objective 2 structural funding would be, the proposed 2 % population to be aided is a feeble figure.
The 5 % proposal requires far more serious consideration.
<P>
In my own constituency, in Basildon, European ADAPT funding is currently being used to appoint a town centre manager to combat the drain of shopping to out-of-town centres.
Today, in the Parliament, we have a visitor who is working to increase the recycling of waste in London from less than 10 % to 50 % by the year 2005.
These are the exciting urban regeneration initiatives that we should be supporting.
Are we up to the challenge?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="De Esteban Martin">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should firstly like to thank the rapporteur and draftsmen of the opinions for having drawn up this report which opens our dialogue on the future of urban development.
It is essential that we recognize the need to pay more attention to the problems of cities at Community level.
Nevertheless, as you are fully aware, we have no mandate to create a common urban policy.
We do, however, need to try to formulate a coordinated and consistent response to tackle the growing number of problems affecting our cities.
<P>
European cities are having to deal with an ever-increasing number of problems, from unemployment, environmental deterioration and traffic congestion to poverty and social marginalization, housing problems, crime and drug addiction.
A more coherent programme will enable cities to deal with these problems more effectively and make the best possible use of their resources.
<P>
As a member of the Committee on Civil Liberties, I would like to emphasize, in particular, the need to direct our efforts towards the fight against marginalization, racism, xenophobia and drug addiction.
Many immigrants make their homes in the cities and, therefore, one of our objectives is to create appropriate polices for integrating them into the community, making it possible to comprehend the problems and interests of minorities within the urban population, encouraging immigrants to participate in community life and providing them with information on the resources and services available to them.
<P>
In that connection, it is also essential that we train social workers and partners and campaign against xenophobic and racist activities.
<P>
As far as crime is concerned, we all know that urban areas are the most seriously affected.
The growth of crime is a serious threat to the respect of citizens' rights in the Union, and for that reason we must endeavour to go on creating a Europe of safety and justice, encouraging the competent authorities to maintain progress in the exchange of information that will benefit all the citizens of the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gutiérrez Díaz">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Napoletano's report, the contents of which I entirely agree with, highlights and gives due importance to the need to define an urban strategy that is clearly differentiated, as regards both powers and institutions, from our regional strategy, in view of the important roles of two sub-State authorities - the autonomous community and the city council - in the construction of the European Union and the creation and implementation of its policies.
In that context, and from the point of view of the objectives to be achieved at the beginning of the year 2000, we must ensure that local autonomy is protected and municipal authorities are given full responsibility in the partnership.
In my opinion, however, the limited attention given to the municipal authorities in Agenda 2000 gives us cause to fear that the amendment of the regulations, even if we acknowledge that they have some part to play, will in practice be of little effect.
<P>
It is quite obviously insufficient to relegate the urban problem to Objective 2. This clearly means that the structural policies of Objective 1 will have to meet the needs of large and medium-sized and country settlements.
At the same time, we call on the Commission - please do not forget to pass this on to Mrs Wulf-Mathies, Commissioner - to decide in favour of keeping the URBAN initiative - in view of the positive results of its implementation in over 100 European cities -, improving the resources allocated to it and making good use of the information that has resulted in its being applied, as Mr Howitt reminded us earlier, in over 100 European cities.
<P>
If we want to make European citizenship really meaningful, citizens must see it at work in the first institutional layer that represents it: the town hall.
To forget that, Commissioner, would be a serious mistake, which we hope the Commission will avoid.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Imaz San Miguel">
Mr President, I would firstly like to congratulate the rapporteurs, Mrs Pollack, Mrs Napoletano and Alfonso Novo, for the reports they are presenting today.
And I believe they all reach the same conclusion: that the European Union should seek a coordinated urban strategy, since the Union is already having a decisive influence on our cities today.
<P>
Furthermore, they also make it clear that our urban problems need a global approach, as regards both the internal problems of the cities and the relationship of cities to geographical areas.
They then go on to identify the most urgent needs the cities are facing: unemployment, which is a serious problem for social integration; citizens' safety and their participation; and the environment, and specifically the quality of life in our cities.
<P>
They also mention funding.
I share the concern over the abolition of URBAN, which has produced so many successful results within our Community urban policy.
The new Objective 2 covers a different set of issues.
It deals with the problems of industrial decline, rural development, urban areas, and fishing subsidies within a general instrument comprising a total sum which, let us not forget, is reduced by 13 % in constant ecus during the 1999-2006 period in relation to the amount that is allocated to all these Objectives at present.
I must, therefore, express my anxiety about the financial aspect, especially since medium-sized cities may find themselves at a disadvantage when the funds are shared out.
The European Union should, therefore, endeavour to concentrate its attention essentially on those aspects which have a Community dimension.
<P>
And I would end with this thought, Mr President: it is also essential that we should do something about cross-border urban areas, where there is a real problem Europe can do something about.
I would say that I live in a Basque Euro-city, straddling a national frontier, on the main road from San Sebastián to Bayonne.
And there is regrettably no Community legal framework at European level to extend the significant increase in cross-border cooperation to cover planning matters, so as to improve the quality of life of our citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, the reports and the debate that has been going on for so long have provided a sampling of the many serious problems that the urban Community territory is suffering from.
It is clear that there are more problems, and the outlook is that they will get worse and they will multiply.
What is noteworthy and surprising in this?
Nowhere does anybody name the main causes, those guilty of this situation, that is, the jungle of the law of multinational interests and unbridled competition, which has run amok, in the pursuit of profit in the context of the arrant free market.
<P>
We run the risk of being regarded as hypocrites and accomplices in the cover-up of illegal interests, or, of it is not the one or the other, we run the risk of being regarded as political and parliamentary masochists, continually bemoaning the problems, not naming the causes, and consequently not confronting the problems in order to find a solution.
<P>
Let this Parliament at last rise above these syndromes and let it show that it truly represents the tormented people in the urban centres of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Piha">
Mr President, cities are too often seen in terms of black and white, either as places for the rich and privileged, or as problem areas.
Cities have their own, individual problems but cities are, above all, centres for innovation and they are in the forefront of development.
Besides, most new jobs are now being created in urban areas.
<P>
Last year it was emphasized at summit conference level, no less, how Europe's immense unemployment problem needs to be brought under control.
Investment in urban areas and seeing them as places of opportunity rather than as problems must be one of the principles of the European Union too.
Structural funding reform should attend to the targeting of EU regional funding at areas which are more certain of producing the result we want, that is, the improved welfare of citizens, and not squander resources in developing desolate or impoverished areas.
The spill-over effect will mean that prosperity will spread out of the cities to other regions.
By strengthening opportunity in the cities we improve prospects for rural regions.
<P>
At this time, regional policy thinking is still on the wrong track when it comes to funding.
Although 80 % of EU citizens live in urban areas, over half the Union budget still gets spent in rural areas.
It is easy to muse that the EU is one big rural project that ignores urban areas and urban folk alike.
There is no longer any great trend for people to move to cities, but there is a large proportion of people who are staying and who enjoy being in the city.
<P>
Although the details contained in urban policy are ultimately the province of decision-makers in individual countries and regions, as they should be, the European Union has its own important duty to solve in particular problems that are common to all.
Urbanization has brought with it new problems for society, such as exclusion, drugs and environmental problems.
We certainly want everyone in the future to enjoy clean drinking water, fresh air and a safe city environment.
One unfortunately good example of urban environmental problems is the collection of waste and recycling. Brussels, for instance, would seem to have a lot more to learn along these lines.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Mr President, first I would like to congratulate Mrs Napoletano on a very successful report.
I am especially glad the report gives great emphasis to the importance of the opportunities for residents themselves to have a say in urban policy.
There can only be full-blooded development of cities when it leads to city dwellers having an influence on decisions that affect them.
That is why different forms of residents' and local democracy should be investigated and developed, and there should be greater possibilities for keeping residents informed and for them to get involved, for example, by making use of new technology.
<P>
We support with particular warmth the report's proposed insistence on getting women involved in urban development.
Studies have shown that when women are involved in urban planning the results are very different from the plans of men only.
Women consider the smooth flow of the working day more important than the monumental outward appearance of buildings.
Women remember to see to it that children and prams, elderly people and the disabled can move around and live in comfort.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Berend">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to pay tribute to the rapporteur, Mr Novo Belenguer.
I can support the main conclusions of the own-initiative report.
However, in Germany we have found that successful spatial development policy needs a bottom-up approach.
Regionally balanced social and economic development, in other words spatial cohesion, can only be achieved if local communities and regions are equally involved in spatial planning and decision-making from the outset.
A top-down approach to spatial development is wasteful of people's energy, entails the risk of bad planning and our citizens are reluctant to accept it.
<P>
The rapporteur is, therefore, quite right in calling for the principle of subsidiarity to be strictly observed in implementing the ESDP.
I believe that we should reject any attempt in the ESDP to tie EU Structural Funds to spatially relevant programmes.
I am also afraid that they could be used as financing and regulatory instruments of regional planning policy.
I do not think that we have any reservations about generally grouping regions into target areas or about the control and coordinating function which the Commission accordingly has to exercise.
However, a European Spatial Development Perspective is not needed for this.
Instead, the implementation of EU structural assistance should remain the responsibility of Member States, and should not be made more difficult because of additional regional planning criteria, so that it becomes a greater burden for Member States involving increased administrative expenditure.
<P>
We should reject any attempts to make structural and sectoral development policy in the Member States subordinate to key regions and central locations under a European Spatial Development Perspective.
We must not lose sight of that in this debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen GUE/NGL)">
Mr President, in the European Union, theory and practice differ in many matters.
This is particularly true of urban environmental policy.
Let us take Brussels, for example.
Here, all our excrement gets directed untreated into the River Samme, which takes it untreated into the River Schelde, which takes it untreated into the North Sea.
From there we get our excrement back in the form of mussels in those months which, in French, have the letter R in them.
Brussels' first waste water treatment plant, which, therefore, is not a sewage plant, but a water treatment plant, will be completed next year.
According to the reply I got from the Commission to a written question, Brussels is breaking the terms of Directive 91/271/EEC, and Article 17, in particular.
It is going on under the Commission's very own nose.
I propose that we embark on an urban policy by treating our own waste and making Brussels do the same.
Brussels is an environmental disaster when it comes to urban policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Pinheiro">
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Ad hoc procedures for 1999 budget
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0256/98) by Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the "ad hoc' procedures for the 1999 budget, as provided for in the Interinstitutional Agreements of 29 October 1993 on budgetary discipline and improvement of the budgetary procedure, and of 16 July 1997 on provisions regarding financing of the Common Foreign and Security Policy, and in the procedure concerning financing international fisheries agreements, pursuant to the Joint Declaration of 12 December 1996.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Dührkop Dührkop">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this debate opens the ad hoc procedure for the 1999 budget, as provided in the Interinstitutional Agreements of 29 October 1993, which stipulate that at the request of the European Parliament the ad hoc procedure may be opened if either of the two arms of the Budgetary Authority wishes to depart from the preliminary draft budget on agricultural spending submitted by the Commission.
<P>
With the trialogue held on 23 June, Parliament and the Council formally opened the ad hoc procedure for the budgetary year 1999. This procedure will remain open until an agreement is reached; in principle it will be closed in the autumn.
It will, thus, provide a more realistic and appropriate budget estimate.
<P>
The budget procedure has been further improved and the ad hoc procedure now consists of three sections: agriculture, fisheries agreements and the common foreign and security policy.
<P>
Although it may appear to be a routine technical exercise, I should like to underline the political content of this ad hoc procedure, because it represents an extension of the European Parliament's influence over the budgetary procedure.
In recent years its advantages in terms of budgetary rigour have been well and truly proved.
<P>
Before getting down to the contents of the motion for a resolution, I would like to mention the different views of the two institutions, the Council and Parliament, on the classification of certain items of agricultural expenditure, on which progress has been slow. For that reason, the European Parliament's point of view, as we commence our dialogue on the 1999 budget, is contained in Annex I of the resolution.
<P>
With regard to the forecasts for agricultural expenditure in the 1999 preliminary draft budget, the Commission suggests a figure of ECU 40 440 million.
However, we must take into account, firstly, the fact that numerous items of agricultural expenditure have constantly been overestimated by over 10 % since 1994; secondly, that in 1997 the preliminary budget figure was ECU 42 305 million, but in the last review for that year there was a surplus of ECU 2 709 million; and thirdly, that the latest forecast, adjusted on 1 June 1998, predicts a surplus of approximately ECU 1 200 million, to which we have to add an initial reduction of ECU 1 000 million with regard to the Commission's original estimates. We thus arrive at a total of ECU 2 200 million less than the Commission's original estimates in terms of actual expenditure.
<P>
For all these reasons, I myself, as rapporteur, and the Committee on Budgets consider that the European Parliament should insist on a category 1 reserve, precisely because of our experience in previous years and the obvious difficulty of obtaining a more accurate forecast.
<P>
The creation of a reserve does not mean that we have to cut down on essential agricultural expenditure, because our intention is that Member States should only pay out what corresponds to real expenditure, and not have to provide the Commission with resources which will not be used and will have to be repaid to them later on.
<P>
In my original draft report, I suggested three separate reserves, one relating to support measures, in the absence of a truly effective evaluation report from the Commission, and a second on lines for which there is no legal basis. This is because I believe that if the Council insists that all non-compulsory expenditure must have a legal basis, the same should apply to compulsory expenditure, which the Council appears to have overlooked.
There are, in fact, thirteen lines which lack a legal basis; these represent a total sum of ECU 150 million.
<P>
I should like to thank my colleagues in the Committee on Agriculture, with whom we have reached an agreement to provide for a total reserve of ECU 700 million for market uncertainties and support measures, provisionally on a linear basis, until the Commission's Letter of Amendment notifies us of the adjustments to be made according to the requirements and development of the sector.
<P>
I am appealing to the Council to reach an agreement with the European Parliament on a strict budget.
Let us hope that it sets an example.
However, it is worth mentioning that the pressure we have exerted through the ad hoc procedure in recent years has had notable results.
<P>
With regard to the question of international fisheries agreements, we should be very pleased at the confirmation of the principle that no payment should be made unless Parliament is first consulted.
However, the reserve provided for in the preliminary draft budget appears to be overestimated, because there are too many uncertainties over the conclusion of certain agreements.
Thanks to the collaboration of the Committee on Fisheries and the Commission, we are asking for the reserve to be reduced as indicated in Annex II.
<P>
With regard to our common foreign and security policy, this resolution also summarizes the position of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, particularly with respect to the reduction of the reserve allocated to emergency measures in support of other policies, such as democratic transition and electoral processes, and the prevention of conflicts, as well as the issue of the nomenclature proposed in Annex II of the resolution.
<P>
For all these reasons the Committee on Budgets and I, the rapporteur, call on the House to approve this report as a mandate for negotiations between the European Parliament delegation and the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Sonneveld">
Mr President, at this part-session, Parliament will be deciding on the mandate for negotiations with the Council covering, in particular, compulsory agricultural expenditure for 1999 as part of what is known as the ad hoc procedure.
In previous years, we have gained a good deal of positive experience of this procedure, particularly last year with the 1998 budget.
All of the parties involved believe that the ad hoc or Tillich/Mulder procedure must continue.
This means that negotiations between Parliament and the Council should no longer focus on the preparation of a draft budget but on the autumn when the Commission sends the two arms of the Budgetary Authority a Letter of Amendment containing details of the most recent estimates of compulsory expenditure.
<P>
At this moment in time, we need to decide what changes might conceivably be made to the preliminary draft budget both in terms of income and expenditure.
In view of actual expenditure for the financial year 1998, Parliament feels that it might perhaps be possible to make savings in 1999.
It is acting on this assumption by allocating ECU 700 million to a general reserve to cover market uncertainties and related measures.
<P>
There are also tentative proposals for a straight cut in the agricultural budget.
Any reduction will be temporary assuming that the Commission comes up with proposals for a more selective reduction in a number of substantial budget lines.
It is a temporary solution given Parliament's express opposition to a genuine straight cut in compulsory expenditure. This opposition stands.
The procedure must, of course, also work well if on balance we do not achieve savings but merely increase expenditure.
<P>
I would also like to say a few words about related measures arising from the 1992 agricultural reforms.
These measures are becoming more and more important and expenditure is increasing significantly.
What we are lacking is a proper analysis and evaluation of these measures.
Parliament believes that an evaluation of this kind must be carried out very quickly, particularly as these measures will form a substantial part of the new rural policy proposed by the Commission.
Parliament and the Council must be able to make a sensible decision on this.
It is high time that Parliament carried out a thorough examination of the effectiveness of these related measures.
<P>
Parliament will propose increasing the budget item to combat fraud in the agricultural sector.
This is in line with the Commission's intention to embark on new programmes of action.
There must be no slackening in our efforts in this area.
The Commission can embark on new campaigns immediately if funding is guaranteed.
<P>
Finally, the Dührkop Dührkop report contains proposals that involve dividing up the agriculture section of the budget in a different way.
Separating traditional market planning expenditure from direct payments to producers, which have increased significantly, would, in particular, be very useful.
The same goes for structural expenses in the Guarantee section.
This item also demands specific attention given the Agenda 2000 initiative that has already been announced.
Each of these cases involves compulsory agricultural expenditure although this is not to say that they would be able to escape the political will of Parliament.
The way in which Parliament could exercise its authority in a proper manner must form part of an agreement between the various institutions, a new agreement.
The new classification proposed by the rapporteur would be a good start.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Mr President, Mrs Dührkop's report demonstrates that in the Parliament progress can be made without changing the Treaty.
For many years, the Council has refused to subject the budget to proper democratic control.
We have been fighting for years for proper overall budgetary control, both for compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure.
We have been also been fighting for years for democratic control over fisheries and for the budget on common foreign and security policy to be under democratic control.
This proves that without Treaty change, provided Parliament is consistent, efficient and does not spend too much money, we can make progress.
This is what we now have: the ad hoc procedure.
<P>
It has taken the Commission some time to understand that over-estimating budgetary expenditure in the field of agriculture is counter-productive.
Finally, two years ago we made a start and I congratulate my colleague Mr Tillich who last year succeeded in gaining a firm commitment both from the Commission and the Council to accept the principle of the reserve.
Much has been said about the reserve.
It has always been said to be an abuse of power by the Parliament.
But the reserve is not an abuse by the Parliament: it is the proper use of public money by a publicly controlled legislature.
It is against that background that I believe we have the best starting point for the debate which will begin in the next few weeks.
<P>
One comment on the legal basis.
This afternoon, it was again demonstrated in the debate with Commissioner Liikanen that the legal basis is not ultimately about the law, it is about the political willingness to understand the needs of the population.
The fact that 90 budget lines are at present not being executed is shameful for the development of civil society.
We have just passed the Herman report which makes it very clear that we can make progress providing the Council is willing to work with us.
Let there be no misunderstanding: if we do not achieve in a trialogue a political breakthrough on the legal base, relations between the Parliament and the Council, but I would also add relations between the Parliament, Council and the Commission, will suffer: I hope this message will be received by all those who were not present here today.
I see that the Commissioner for Africa is here and I hope that he can pass the message along to the Agricultural Commissioner.
I believe that with what has been achieved so far we have a good starting-point and I am confident that we will come to a good conclusion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the ad hoc procedure born of the provisions of the Interinstitutional Agreement of 29 October 1993 on agricultural expenditure has been extended to include fisheries agreements and the common foreign and security policy.
Undoubtedly, this has enabled progress to be made, both as regards improvement of the budgetary procedure and preparation of the European Union's budget.
The concertation which preceded the second reading of the 1998 budget is the best example of this.
<P>
On the one hand, the European Parliament is allowed to look over the section of agricultural expenditure, whilst on the other hand, by accepting certain positions of Parliament as regards compulsory expenditure, the Council can obtain certain concessions as regards non-compulsory expenditure. In the past, because of the supposedly unreasonable scope of the European Parliament's budgetary decisions, this has often represented a bone of contention, if not a source of conflict, between the two arms of the Budgetary Authority.
Another significant and positive step forward is the agreement concluded between the Council and the Commission, as a result of which the Commission must now submit a Letter of Amendment for agricultural expenditure to its preliminary draft budget, before the first reading of the budget, so that the budget forecasts can be better assessed, this being a difficult exercise as regards agriculture.
<P>
These improvements are wholly acceptable for two reasons: firstly, it becomes possible to put an end to a kind of war over budgetary decisions between Parliament and the Council, which has gone on for far too long in the past; and secondly, they give Parliament a more coherent and unified role in exercising its authority.
The situation of the budgetary hemiplegia of our Parliament, which only gave us power over half of the budget, leaving the Council the second part of the budgetary authority, is now seen as out of date and unrealistic.
We are in favour of the ad hoc procedure as a code of good conduct between the two arms of the Budgetary Authority: budgetary etiquette ensures better results when drawing up the budget.
But we must be careful that this does not engender, by insidious means, a confusion of powers, because as far as Parliament can see, it amounts to no less than a proposal to amend the structure and classification of agricultural expenditure, in other words, the abolition of compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure.
<P>
Without questioning the rationale behind the ad hoc procedure, nonetheless, we cannot support the rapporteur, for the basic reason that since agricultural expenditure is so specific, it could not, in the main, be treated as general, non-compulsory expenditure.
By its very nature, non-compulsory expenditure is subject to the free will of the legislator, depending on the choices made.
It is desirable, for example, to reduce a budgetary allocation in favour of a programme of wind power, depending on the interest and credibility attributed to this energy source.
Most other agricultural expenditure has to be treated very differently, including expenditure concerning market support and that relating to direct aid or structural measures.
This expenditure has to be guaranteed and, because it is so specific, it must be excluded from excessive attempts at classification.
The ad hoc procedure must only be applied within the framework of the Interinstitutional Agreement and must not go beyond this.
Whilst not wishing to swim against the tide, it is a step which my group and myself could not take.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Miranda">
Mr President, I would make a general comment first of all to say that we consider the ad hoc procedure positive inasmuch as it provides a way for Parliament to contribute to the introduction of improvements in the distribution of compulsory expenditure, particularly agricultural expenditure. It guarantees that they are more rigorous and more transparent.
<P>
But we also consider - and this is a point we would like to emphasize - that this procedure neither can nor should be devalued by making it into a mere mechanism for proposing reductions in expenditure.
This applies twice as much to the special reserve proposed in category 1.
We can certainly agree to the creation of this reserve, particularly for the purpose of providing a cushion against market uncertainties.
But we do not think it should be created as a matter of course; it should be consolidated and limited to very well-defined situations.
<P>
In this context, however, there is one idea which has already been raised in a previous report, and which we find controversial, namely, the idea of a dedicated fund.
We understand the intention to lighten the budgetary burden on Member States, but we must draw attention to the dangers of such a trend, either as a precedent which may tend to become generalized, or, more especially, as a way of completely negating the concept of own resources.
<P>
Unless some precautions are taken, we run the risk that this concept of own resources will be transformed into mere routine transfers by Member States.
And that is a situation with which I am sure none of us would agree.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, before I comment on Mrs Dührkop-Dührkop's excellent report, I must make a short additional remark on this afternoon's debate on legal bases, as this seems relevant to me and was not mentioned.
The crucial point is not whether a judgement has to be complied with.
That goes without saying.
The crucial point is how we can get the Council to agree to policies that Parliament wishes to initiate.
Unfortunately, we have not received any institutional reply to this question so far.
As long as the Council refuses to make any concessions on this point, we will have to use the means available to us as the Budgetary Authority and bring pressure to bear.
<P>
At the last meeting of the Committee on Budgets, all the groups were in agreement that if the Council dug its heels in, we should make full use of the margins available to us in categories 3 and 4 of the 1999 budget.
The Council has to realize that we know perfectly well how to get round its blocking tactics. After all, we are talking about at least ECU 1.3 billion.
The Council can be quite sure that we are in a position to spend this money well. It will have to come clean on this in the trialogue.
<P>
Now let me turn to the Dührkop report, which - if we leave the specific estimates to one side for the time being - refers to three important institutional disputes that need to be resolved in the context of the next Interinstitutional Agreement. In addition to the problem of the legal basis, which I have already mentioned, it also refers to the classification of expenditure and also sounds a warning note about using the creation of a reserve to achieve increased flexibility.
To this extent the Dührkop report is an important stage on the difficult road to interinstitutional cooperation.
My group supports the efforts of the rapporteur and of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development to pay more attention to evaluating programmes.
This also applies, of course, to sustainable regional agriculture programmes.
<P>
However, we wish to stress that everything possible must be done to guarantee that these particular programmes, which call for a high level of commitment by Member States, are made relevant to our citizens.
With regard to creating an insurance fund to compensate for damage suffered as a result of animal diseases, I would like to emphasize that for me the key motive is to reduce the burden on the budget.
Checks could accordingly be carried out so as to guarantee the self-insurance principle.
I cannot, therefore, agree to the creation of a budget line at present.
<P>
Finally, I have another point about expenditure under the common foreign and security policy.
We entered into the ad hoc procedures under the Amsterdam Treaty because it seemed important to us to preserve the non-compulsory nature of this expenditure.
Nevertheless, these procedures assume a minimum of responsibility on both sides, which I believe the Council has not fulfilled.
It is particularly regrettable that neither the Council nor the Commission has so far complied with Parliament's wish to establish a European Civil Peace Corps.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, once again we are studying an important report on budgetary procedure here in Brussels, which is different from the texts which our headquarters manages, confirmed by the Court of Justice.
<P>
The report submitted to us is far from being neutral.
In fact, whilst, in theory, the ad hoc concertation procedure consists of formalized discussions between the two arms of the Budgetary Authority as regards the amount and distribution of compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure, in practice, this procedure allows the European Parliament to open a dialogue and to politically blackmail the Council, both as regards the amount of compulsory expenditure as well as the nature of some of this expenditure.
I would like to discuss the two categories which are subject to the opening of an ad hoc procedure in the report, namely, agricultural expenditure and CFSP expenditure.
<P>
As regards agricultural expenditure, the European Parliament justifies its regular recourse to the ad hoc procedure by pointing out the endemic overestimating of the past 10 years.
The Committee on Budgets believes that some lines in the agricultural budget are permanently provided with excessive appropriations. It calls on the Commission to submit a Letter of Amendment so that the budget includes only credits which match real needs as closely as possible.
However, we should not be fooled by the real motives of the Committee on Budgets; their real and only objective is to influence the character, content and amount of compulsory expenditure, which is usually controlled unilaterally by the Council.
I had tabled an amendment which proposed that Parliament should regard the ad hoc procedure as an instrument designed to improve the allocation of credits and not a political method for upsetting the current balance of power between the two arms of the Budgetary Authority.
This amendment was rejected.
<P>
As regards CFSP expenditure, the problem is slightly different.
To start with, the Maastricht Treaty treated this type of expenditure differently.
The Interinstitutional Agreement of 16 July changed things, without respecting the procedure, or waiting for ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty.
There is also a desire, in this respect, to change the texts and influence the Council's proposals.
Contrary to what we are told, the ad hoc procedure is not a way of rationalizing expenditure, but a desire to redefine the classification of this expenditure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fabra Vallés">
Mr President, the budget for 1999 is the last of the present financial perspectives. It is, therefore, a budget which, although it follows the same lines as those of previous years, has already begun to look towards what will be the new financial perspectives, and this is no less true as regards its agricultural aspect.
We are well aware that the purpose of the ad hoc procedure is not to cast doubt on the competence of the budgetary authorities but is, on the contrary, to provide an opportunity for debate between the Council and Parliament on the classification of expenditure.
<P>
The Committee on Budgets approved Mrs Dührkop's report on the ad hoc procedure at the same time as it was confirming the value of the Tillich/Mulder procedure we introduced last year.
We will apply it once again to the Commission's Letter of Amendment, which will be submitted at the end of October, in order to achieve greater harmony between predicted and actual expenditure.
<P>
I would also like to emphasize the fact that we have voted for the creation of a special reserve for market uncertainties and accompanying measures, while waiting for a Letter of Amendment from the Commission. It is allocated ECU 700 million from a linear cut in all B1 lines of the EAGGF - Guarantee Section, without an increase in its total amount, thus preventing an overestimation of agricultural expenditure.
Whether the Council is prepared to accept it is another matter.
<P>
An additional innovation that has our support is the new expenditure nomenclature proposed by Mrs Dührkop, based on the purpose of the expenditure, in order to achieve a better evaluation of the common agricultural policy.
<P>
In addition - in the absence of any agreement with the Council on the legal basis in the trialogue, and to be coherent with the ruling by the Court of Justice -, the rapporteur suggests that funds relating to lines for which the legal basis has yet to be approved should be placed in a special reserve.
In this way, the appropriations will be transferred from the reserve to the line only when the legal basis for it has been adopted.
<P>
The Tillich/Mulder procedure, which has already been mentioned, includes international fisheries agreements; therefore, the Commission's Letter of Amendment enables us to reach a better assessment of the situation as regards current negotiations, and if the agreements are not concluded in time, we can decide to reduce the amounts held in the reserve still further.
<P>
I do not want to finish, Mr President, without mentioning that there are some Members who have some reservations about dedicated reserves, because of the danger of accumulating expenditure at the end of the year and having to pay it all at the same time.
<P>
As far as the financing of the CFSP is concerned, we can accept a reduction in the allocations for emergency measures if this means that loans provided for the prevention of conflicts will be increased.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Virrankoski">
Mr President, Mrs Dührkop has prepared a thorough report, for which I thank her profusely.
I should like to look more closely at points 13 and 14. These tackle the questions of environmental support for agriculture, early retirement and afforestation.
<P>
Firstly, I would like to point out that European Union policy and funding should not extend to forestry as such.
Only afforestation, which concerns reverting arable land to forest or rough pasture, might possibly fall within the European Union's sphere of activity, as might activity that sets out to prevent erosion or desertification.
Point 14, in particular, focuses on the agricultural policy to be applied.
It sees requirements for agriculture as being too vague and non-binding.
At the same time, it calls on the Commission to make special proposals to enhance sustainable agriculture by developing regulations for good agricultural practice as well as functional standards for the environment and production.
<P>
I believe point 14 places too much faith in administration and bureaucracy, indeed in rules that extend to regional policy.
We must remember that the European Union is a community of 370 million inhabitants.
It is impossible to imagine that the Commission would be capable of drafting good agricultural policy for every nook and cranny of Europe.
The same goes for meticulous standards also.
For example, this spring, the Commission changed the final day for sowing for my particular country several times.
Why should the Commission be trying to decide details such as this?
Agriculture has ben practised for centuries in that Member State. They know perfectly well when the land can be sown there and when it cannot.
<P>
The basic prerequisite of the common agricultural policy is a respect for the principle of subsidiarity.
The responsibility for agriculture lies with the Member States as well as the EU.
Up until now the environmental protection of agriculture and associated activities has been dealt with through agreements between the Member State and the European Union, and both sides have contributed to the costs.
Putting these into practice and monitoring the result are mainly the responsibility of the Member State.
This has worked well, as the Member State has had both the functional and economic responsibility.
I hope that these matters of subsidiarity will be resolved positively in conjunction with the CAP reform when the AGENDA 2000 programme is being decided.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Mulder">
Mr President, I would like to turn to an aspect of Mrs Dührkop Dührkop's interesting report on combating animal diseases.
This has cost the European budget a great deal of money over the past few years, on account of BSE, and swine fever, in particular.
Presently, in the event of an outbreak of a contagious disease, 50 % of the costs are borne by the Member State and the remaining 50 % by the European budget.
The present situation is that in certain Member States - for example, in the Netherlands, to name a country which is close to my heart - the 50 % of the costs which are borne nationally are borne by the farmers of that country.
It is clear that this is not yet the case in other countries.
Does the Commission not think that this could be a case of distortion of competition?
Would it be possible for the Commission to evaluate all existing schemes relating to combating animal diseases in the Member States of the European Union in the near future? I already referred to this last May.
<P>

I believe that it is certainly worthwhile to consider Mrs Dührkop Dührkop's proposal to investigate the feasibility of establishing an insurance fund at European level for this. There are, however, many details to be discussed before then.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="Pinheiro">
Mr President, The Commission is pleased that the European Parliament seems to accept the overall amount proposed for EAGGF Guarantee and that there is a large measure of agreement on how it should be allocated between sectors.
The rigour of this budget is evident not only in its 'zero-growth' , but also in the efforts which have been made to reduce the over-budgeting seen in the past on certain budget lines.
<P>
As for the proposed creation of a reserve inside the EAGGF Guarantee, I have to say that the Commission does not see how the creation of a reserve without making any change to the overall amount of the budget contributes to our common aim, namely a rigorous budget.
The Commission is opposed to a linear reduction of all lines in order to fill a reserve.
<P>
However, if this is what the budgetary authority wishes to do, the Commission can accept to treat about 250 million euros as 'provisional appropriations' and place them in the reserve chapter B0-40.
These appropriations can be drawn from five budget lines, which either tended to be consistently under-executed during the period 1994 to 1997, or where expenditure is not certain, such as the fight against outbreaks of animal diseases.
To reduce the appropriations for the actions of control and prevention by 3 million and to inscribe them into the chapter B0-40, seems illogical.
The Commission would not be able to carry out an evaluation of the accompanying measures, as Parliament has requested, and to which it is committed, if Parliament withdraws the appropriations.
<P>
Concerning the transfer of a supplementary 17 million euros to the B0-40, obtained by a linear reduction of the budget lines, the Commission does not see the usefulness of this action.
In its preliminary draft budget the Commission is committed to presenting new actions to control and prevent fraud, if possible in the framework of the Letter of Amendment.
<P>
In the future, the agricultural Letter of Amendment in the autumn will be a crucial step in the EAGGF-Guarantee budgetary procedure As in the past, it will allow the latest developments in production and on markets to be taken into account.
In this regard, developments up to now do not lead us at this stage to expect savings on the amount proposed in the 1999 PDB.
The rectifying letter will also be the right occasion for an update of the PDB in the light of legislative decisions, including those on the price package, market reforms and, probably, the adaptation of the agri-monetary system following the introduction of the euro.
<P>
Concerning fisheries agreements, following the new estimations, the Commission can now endorse two changes to the preliminary draft budget if the budget authority can agree on them.
The first one is the transfer of 0, 5 million euro from the line B7-8000 to the reserve relating to the agreement with the Gambia which will most probably not be signed in 1998 and thus will not be in force at the beginning of 1999.
The second is a reduction of up to 7 million euro of the reserve intended for new agreements, due to the fact that it will most likely not be possible to conclude a new agreement with Russia in the near future, for which such an amount had been foreseen in the reserve.
However, at a later stage the Commission present updated estimates and propose the corresponding changes to the proposals for new agreements.
As agreed during the trialogue of March 1998, the final distribution between the reserve and the budget line should be decided in the Letter of Amendment that the Commission will transmit at the end of October to the budget authority.
<P>
Finally, concerning the financing of the common foreign and security policy, with regard to the line for urgent actions (B8-015), appropriations proposed in the Preliminary Draft Budget for 1999 have been increased in the light of the relatively swift execution in the first months of 1998.
However, the Commission could endorse a certain downward revision of the allocated amount, such as the 2 million euro proposed by the European Parliament and reinforce for example the line for prevention of conflicts and support for peace processes (B8-013).
<P>
Minor modifications in the nomenclature do not pose any problem for the Commission.
But if no agreement can be found for some budget lines, the Commission proposes to revert either to the nomenclature agreed upon in the 1998 budget discussion, or to the nomenclature agreed upon in the Interinstitutional Agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="Dührkop Dührkop">
Commissioner, I would like to make it absolutely clear that this resolution does not propose any reserve for support measures.
I have said quite clearly that I would have liked to ask for much more specific reserves instead of a general reserve.
But the general fund that has finally been decided on has been agreed with the Committee on Agriculture.
And if you read the report carefully, you will see that it says "provisionally linear' .
During all the years of the ad hoc procedure this House has always stated that it is clearly against linear cuts.
For the time being, until we see from the Letter of Amendment where the real needs lie, we prefer to say "provisionally linear' .
<P>
As far as fishing agreements are concerned, Commissioner, I would like to say that, as we both know, not only is there little chance of the agreement with Russia being included in the 1999 budget, but this applies to one or two other agreements as well.
We shall see how things stand around autumn, as we shall with agricultural expenditure, when we look at the amendments to the budget.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="Pinheiro">
Thank you, Mrs Dührkop, for your explanations and clarifications, which I do of course note.
With regard to fisheries agreements, however, and inasmuch as I am involved from time to time, at least collaterally, in negotiating some of these agreements, it is extremely difficult to make a reliable prediction.
I will give you an example: the fisheries agreement with South Africa.
This is an agreement which looked impossible last year, on which negotiations began this year, and which, in spite of everything, we have some hope of being able to conclude by the end of the year.
<P>
We have some hope, but no more than that!
Because it depends much more on the South African authorities than the Community authorities.
For that reason, we have to view these matters with some degree of caution, accepting that there is some uncertainty.
This was the point I wanted to clarify, while assuring you that I do, therefore, understand the difficulty both my colleague and the Member and her colleagues find themselves in, because they would like a strict budget, while at the same time they are confronted with these uncertainties with which they have to grapple.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Pinheiro.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Vendor control systems
<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0230/98) by Mr Riccardo Garosci, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission report on the vendor control systems applied by the Member States (COM(96)0245 - C4-0589/96).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="Garosci">
Mr President, this is my first speech in my new seat in this Parliament, finally in the centre.
<P>
Starting with the bad news, 30 June 1999 could perhaps be the last day on which people who travel between Member States will be able to purchase duty-free goods such as specialty items, crafts, luxury articles, alcohol, and tobacco in tax free shops.
This date will change an important feature that has been with European travellers for 50 years.
Its abolition is, however, the direct consequence of the creation of the single market on 1 January 1993.
Given the sector's socio-economic importance, the Council granted a special extension from 1 January 1993 until 30 June 1999 so that the sectors could gradually phase out the tax-free system.
The Council also authorized duty-free sales during the extension period in the two Channel tunnel terminals and increased the duty-free allowance for third countries to ECU 175 and for Community countries to ECU 90.
Given the lack of border controls, the Council has set minimum standards of control on tax-free sales dealt with in this report.
<P>
The Commission should have presented the Council with a report by 1994 on the functioning of this transitional system and on the related systems of vendor controls.
This report was not produced until 1996, and today, a little more than one year before the end of the extension, the Parliament is called on to give its opinion on this Commission report and, therefore, indirectly on the future of duty-free.
<P>
The first airport with tax-free points of sale was Shannon in Ireland in 1947.
To give you an idea of how this tax-free airport has developed, from the first flight with thirty passengers in 1945, we have reached a turnover of $10 million in 1977.
The Shannon concept spread rapidly to all of Europe and since then all the major airports have adopted the duty-free system.
Following the example of the airlines, the ferries also developed tax-free sales on board, especially the small companies with year-round service, and today these sales still cover a large part of their management costs.
In the European Union, the sector now carries weight in the three fundamental channels - airports, ferries and on board aeroplanes - with a sales turnover of $7 billion in 1996.
<P>
In 1991, the Commission said that it was in favour of producing a study on the socio-economic consequences of eliminating duty-free.
Unfortunately, this report was never produced, and the information available today for understanding the current importance of the sector in question is still the information compiled by the sectors and the information contained in a European Parliament study.
The creation of the internal market on 1 January 1993 and the relative absence of Community borders made it necessary to introduce a system to monitor sales and guarantee compliance with the set duty-free allowances.
The manager of duty-free sales - and here we arrive at the central issue of the report - has to pursue two separate objectives: increasing sales whilst making sure that sales do not exceed the set limits.
<P>
The Commission states that compliance by managers of the guidelines laid down by the Council in 1992 has been far from satisfactory.
In most cases, shop managers have not applied systems that keep track of purchases and have not set up systems that calculate how much duty-free allowance passengers still have.
There has also been no coordination of controls for purchases made on aeroplanes.
The duty-free sales manager does not have all the relevant travel information for the passenger concerned at the time of the individual purchase.
This is due to the shortcomings of the control systems, but is also justifiable because the provision of effective controls coordinated between the various modes of transport and for the various stages of each journey would require huge investment.
<P>
For their part, the controls set up by tax free shop managers are only the same as those carried out by warehouse managers and only guarantee that the goods have not left the store or the tax-free area without having been registered.
The shortcomings observed are probably due to the fact that Member States have not, between themselves, had the time to organize, coordinate and invest in these systems.
<P>
The extension to 30 June 1999 could have been a way of helping the sector make the necessary, gradual adaptations, but since 1991 nothing has been done to convert the duty-free system in preparation for the end of duty-free on 30 June 1999.
There is also another problem of fairness with traditional shops.
Even if sales were to decrease, the development of air traffic would offset any initial drop.
Furthermore, the abolition of duty-free does not mean the physical closure of the points of sale but only the end to duty-free allowances for travel within the Community.
Another important factor is the physical location of duty-free shops and shops in the city, which is difficult to compare.
<P>
So, whether we like it or not, the completion of a real internal market must include the end to duty-free sales within the Community.
The case of duty-free, however, raises socio-economic problems that Parliament cannot ignore.
The sector directly employs about 140 000 people, and the abolition of duty-free allowances will mean that a lot of these jobs will be in jeopardy; in addition to the risk of job losses, there will be negative effects on the tourist industry, particularly in certain peripheral regions.
<P>
Furthermore, the elimination of duty-free sales will jeopardize the process of liberalization of the transport industry, especially for small and medium-sized operators.
The consequent rush by the airlines to save money could also endanger transport safety.
<P>
For that reason we are placing a lot of trust in the amendment that the Commission is sponsoring to use regional funds.
We understand that the decision to eliminate duty-free sales, unless there be some new unanimous political assessments, is final and we agree with the Commission's assessment that the situation is rather unsatisfactory.
The idea of using the duty-free system also for the arrival of the euro is important.
Therefore, without changing the deadline of 30 June 1999, it is our duty to provide the managers with instruments and methods for improving their control and for providing the network of duty-free shops with an opportunity to make a gradual conversion into normal points of sale.
<P>
We therefore consider that the second of the two amendments which I have tabled is fundamental. This amendment enables travellers whose final destination is outside the Community, but who have a stopover, to make duty-free purchases at the point of departure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Metten">
Mr President, those of us who fly regularly know that the control on compliance with the regulations in respect of duty-free sales is absent, or at least it is full of loopholes.
Individuals who have bought their quantity of duty-free alcohol or cigarettes in the airport have no difficulty in obtaining another lot on board the aeroplane.
Those purchasing goods above the permitted duty-fee sum find that they have not paid VAT after all, as the shopkeeper will have paid it.
<P>
These problems are as old as duty-free sales themselves.
The fact that they have not yet been resolved says a great deal.
The duty-free sales within the European Community may disappear in a year's time from today, but they will remain in place for journeys out of the Union.
As a result, the problem of uncontrolled double duty-free sales remains with us and this is the subject of this report.
<P>
The Group of the Party of European Socialists agrees with the rapporteur that it is time effective controls were in place, and we agree with his recommendations, which are astoundingly easy to implement.
My group thinks it is right that the Garosci report only deals with the control of duty-free sales. Indeed, the European Commission's report on the subject is rather out of date.
We did not agree with the way in which the original report tried to table the Ecofin Council resolution dated December 1991, on the subject of ending duty-free sales within the Community, again.
We are, of course, also concerned about jobs in duty-free shops, but firstly, consumer purchases will be moved to other shops where jobs will be created and secondly, governments will be able to lower taxes by raising additional, different tax revenues, or increase their expenditure in order to create new jobs.
After all, attractive as duty-free sales may be to the consumer, they are anything but free.
They are a subsidy on flying from which the better-off traveller in particular benefits, and to which all citizens contribute.
It is, therefore, a socially regressive tax.
It is a subsidy to the most polluting form of transport which discriminates against environmentally-friendly forms of transport which cannot make use of this privilege.
It is a subsidy which discriminates against shops in towns and villages who must pay VAT and excise duties, in favour of shops at airports.
It is a subsidy on alcohol and tobacco, in particular, as these more than any other products are affected by the freedom from tax. Yet these are not the kind of products we would choose to subsidize before all others, given a free choice.
<P>
Research I have conducted showed that consumers benefit from only one-third of the non-paid tax, while the shopkeeper retains two-thirds.
This enormous percentage of profit on sales in duty-free shops explains the enormous campaigns and gigantic pressure put on us as Members of the European Parliament.
But we will not succumb to this pressure, based on the arguments I have submitted.
We will, therefore, support the Garosci report in its present form.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, I cannot, of course, agree with the previous speaker, who like a typical socialist can only see the downside when it comes to tax-free sales.
No, I am one of those people who is passionately committed to keeping duty-free shops at airports and on ships for people travelling inside the European Union, who should keep the right to buy typical products, artefacts and other goods free of tax. However, all this is due to end on 30 June 1999.
I know that there are some people who adhere strictly to principles, and that it can be said that duty-free is incompatible with the internal market.
This principle is a hobbyhorse of the Commission and, in particular, of Commissioner Monti.
The Commissioner has refused to extend the 30 June deadline again, for example until 1 January 2002, as our rapporteur, Mr Garosci, had proposed in a spirit of compromise.
That is, of course, when we will have euro coins and notes in our pockets.
<P>
I am not just an advocate of duty-free because I want to make it easy for executives with money to spend to buy luxury goods on business trips.
But right now I simply cannot ignore the fact that there are 18 million unemployed in the European Union and that tens of thousands of jobs are being put at risk by abolishing duty-free at airports and on ships, not to mention the effect on the cost of flying.
Is it not rather contradictory to organize grandiose employment summits, set up action plans to preserve and create jobs, and then simultaneously, by rigidly adhering to principles, jeopardize more jobs than programmes of this kind could ever preserve or create?
I also know that politics is the art of the possible.
So I can only express my regret that the good intentions of our rapporteur, Mr Garosci, whom I warmly thank and who wanted to save duty-free, have become the victim of a procedure which has swept all his excellent proposals aside by limiting his report strictly to vendor control systems.
<P>
I am the joint author of two amendments, the aim of which is to ensure that we do not at least just lock the stable door after the horse has bolted, in other words, after we have destroyed jobs by abolishing duty-free. Instead, we intend that a system of sectoral and regional aid should be provided for the regions and sectors that will be hardest hit by the abolition of duty-free.
We want to ensure that Community funding is made available for this.
I also hope that Parliament will agree to our amendment, which stipulates that travellers departing from ports and airports in the European Union will be able to make duty-free purchases if their final destination is outside the Union, but they have to change inside the Community.
This is particularly important for Luxembourg, as we can usually only fly to third countries via Frankfurt, Brussels, Paris and Amsterdam, and I hope ...
<P>
(The President cut off the speaker)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Mr President, Mr Garosci's report is, of course, an extremely interesting report.
This is particularly true, as we do not say what we really wanted to say, as the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has decided to stick with the European Commission report.
But the question which arises is whether implementing the measures in the Garosci report will be effective, considering the fact that by the time bureaucracy has processed these recommendations, duty-frees will be abolished.
That is what I think anyway.
<P>
Nevertheless, Parliament has made a wise decision in my view.
Parliament has not been tempted into the trap of giving its opinion on a problem whose future direction is in the hands of the European Commission.
The question remains concerning the stage at which the duty-free zones must be abolished.
<P>
In theory, we are agreed, of course, that these duty-free zones must be abolished, but on the other hand, the European Union and the Council in the vanguard, with the European Commission in the rear, have not been able to resolve a number of tax issues.
Society might have expected that these tax issues would have been resolved by now.
<P>
Another issue relates, for example, to how this system of abolished duty-free allowances is to function in regions such as the European Economic Area.
European citizens travelling from Amsterdam to Switzerland or from Paris to Norway may encounter, for example, different rules than when they travel direct to Sweden.
I fear that we are facing a problem which we are not resolving correctly, as we anticipate events while still leaving issues unresolved.
I would, therefore, urge the European Commission to reconsider carefully all aspects of this issue and, in particular, to review the inevitable effects, rather than just the recommendations in this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="Gallagher">
Mr President, I recognize that the primary thrust of the Garosci report relates to the general need to tighten up the rules governing the purchase of duty-free products at airports within the territories of the European Union.
However, it is difficult at this time to debate such an issue without referring to the broader need to maintain duty-free operations within Europe post-1999.
<P>
I understand that the outgoing President of the Ecofin Council described this debate as the most emotive one on the political agenda and I believe most people would agree with that.
The abolition of duty-free will be a highly regressive step in the light of the fact that it commands such widespread support among the citizens of Europe.
It is a consumer-friendly measure and one which commands widespread public support.
In fact, at a time when many people contend that they feel alienated with the workings of the European Union, they find it virtually incomprehensible that the EU is abolishing what is a very popular mode of social shopping for many people working and travelling to different Member States within the Union.
<P>
The European Commission is not giving an inch on the need to look closely again at the effects of the abolition of duty-free and the effect that this will have in many Member States of the Union, particularly peripheral regions.
We should not forget that the Commission gave an assurance that this study will be carried out and they have failed to have fulfilled this commitment.
The Commission is not endearing itself to the general public by taking such a wholly unsympathetic and forthright position.
<P>
On 3 April, this House overwhelmingly voted for a resolution calling on the European Commission to carry out a social and economic study.
The fact that the European Commission is refusing to do this, once again reinforces the fact that it is unwilling to listen to the wishes of the only democratically elected body within the European Union.
The Council of Ecofin Ministers met on 19 May and contrary to press speculation there was no decision or reaffirmation by the Council that duty-free would be abolished.
The issue will be back on the Ecofin agenda when working documents on the issue are prepared.
I welcome the fact that the Mr Garosci in his report believes and recognizes that an alternative solution must be found to the abolition of duty-free shopping.
He makes the clear and correct observation that the decision would immediately jeopardize a sector which employs 140 000 people in Europe.
<P>
If duty-free operations discontinue, the effects for my country, Ireland, will be very serious.
There would be job losses across all sectors; price rises in both air and sea travel; higher access costs for travel; threats to the viability of year-round ferry services to and from Ireland.
It is a very serious situation and I would hope that the Commission will at last take into consideration the views of the Members of this House and the wishes of the vast majority of the people of this Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, first of all I would like to express my appreciation for the fact that the Garosci report keeps to the subject it deals with: the point-of-sale control systems.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy convened a hearing on this subject which unfortunately proved to be overcrowded by lobbyists who pleaded in favour of duty-free sales.
<P>
The European Commission report is clear.
The controls are slack in many ways.
The main cause is that people are riding roughshod over one of the basic principles of the administrative policing.
The vendors, in whose interest it is to maximize their turnover, are at the same time required to ensure that their customers do not exceed their purchase limits.
The inevitable result is that the improvements proposed by the rapporteur remain stopgaps, which is not to say that they should not be welcomed.
<P>
The duty-free sales on internal European journeys conflict with the single European market.
The distortion of competition is all the greater, due to the defective controls.
The price level is still considerable, despite the duty-free regime.
The consumer hardly benefits, not least because jobs are sucked away artificially from the normal distribution chain stores and smaller shopkeepers.
Duty-free sales frustrate the required internalization of the external effects of transport, due to cross subsidies.
We should not forget the environment.
To conclude, there are more than sufficient reasons to reject all amendments tabled.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García Arias">
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur and point out that, although formally this debate ought to have been limited to the Commission's report on the vendor control systems used by Member States, it is clear that it has been brought up at every Parliamentary committee meeting in which the economic and social repercussions of the abolition of duty-free shops within the boundaries of the European Union have been debated.
Has this been the case, as some speakers have suggested, because the commercial sector affected has taken the opportunity to inform us of its arguments against the abolition of duty-free shops?
Or is it because the Commission's report itself and the debate within the Council has led some of us, as Members of the European Parliament, to consider the possible disadvantages of their abolition in greater detail and with greater interest, and - why not? - with some anxiety?
The fact is that there are valid arguments both for and against this measure.
<P>
I think the Committee on Transport's conclusions have shown us that it would be fitting for the Commission to prepare a more detailed study, particularly on the effects the abolition of this kind of shop might have on the funding and management of transport infrastructures, and the possible threat to consumers of an increase in terms of transport service costs as a result of increased airport charges.
<P>
Mr President, I am not in a position to express such a forthright opinion as some Members have done.
I would like to see a more detailed study of the subject, which is being called for not by the sector but by the representatives of some Member States.
I would also leave out some of the accusations we have heard concerning the sinful attitude of certain Members or Member States.
I should like us to avoid debates of that sort.
I, at least, have had neither the opportunity nor the intention of speaking to any representative of the lobby involved.
<P>
In any event, Mr President, what the Commission's report does say is that there are serious problems regarding controls in terms of the level of sales, especially for airport and in-flight sales.
And I totally agree that we should support all measures to enforce the observance of the laws of the European Union and its Member States and prevent abuses in that sector.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ilaskivi">
Mr President, the question under debate here is how the control of the duty-free system works.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy decided after voting that it cannot, nor, consequently, can Parliament itself, take a position on the main question under debate.
It is the question of the possible continuation of dutyfree sales which interests the ordinary citizen.
<P>
I would like to make two marginal notes.
Firstly, the decision to end dates from 1991.
At that time, Finland and Sweden, for example, were not members of the European Union.
However, duty-free sales were absolutely essential for their shipping traffic, and partly also for their air traffic.
Finland, isolated as she is by the sea, has through them built at reasonable cost a bridge over to mainland Europe.
Ending duty-free will sever this connection.
<P>
Secondly, ending duty-free will create unemployment.
40 000 people in the Union and 13 000 in Finland will lose their job.
This is in direct conflict with the EU pledge to pay serious attention to averting unemployment.
The one hand does not know what the other is doing.
Besides, even if duty-free sales are abolished and there is apparent harmonization, the high and disharmonious levels of tax on alcohol and tobacco in the Nordic countries will continue.
<P>
Who will benefit?
There might be a spurious element of prestige in it for the Commission and Ecofin.
Another beneficiary will be Estonia, which is outside the EU.
Ships plying between Helsinki and Stockholm may preserve the duty-free system by stopping off in the future in Tallinn. But how high will the port costs be that Tallinn will levy in that case?
The matter has not been thought through from all sides thanks to a bullheaded Commission and a toothless Ecofin.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Donnay">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at a time when unemployment remains the main concern in all our countries, I am not at all sure that it is wise to further increase unemployment through changes which some are immediately planning for duty-free trade. This has been properly pointed out in the study prepared by Parliament's Directorate-General for Research.
<P>
With regard to the study, I would also like to point out that the Commission has not fulfilled its commitments or kept its word as given at the time of Mrs Scrivener.
Between the commitment made at the time and today, a lot of time has passed but nothing has been done.
We should also remember that the Commission did not think it worth replying to the request from the Transport Council of 17 March 1998 nor to the European Parliament's resolution of 3 April.
Nor does its proposal, of the Ecofin Council of 19 May, correspond any better to its promise of 1991 or to Parliament's request, reiterated in its resolution of 3 April and adopted by a very large majority.
<P>
Once again, therefore, we have to point out that the scheduled end of duty-free trade within the Union cannot take place unless certain very specific conditions have already been met. Otherwise, we shall run the risk of very serious repercussions in terms of jobs in the regions affected.
So, ladies and gentlemen, whereas paragraph 19 of the Commission's report on vendor controls recognized that duty-free sales make some contribution to the funding of airport infrastructures, help to minimize the effect of airport taxes and thus favour the tourist industry, it would be quite appropriate to provide for aid and appropriate compensation measures, especially in peripheral regions, which will suffer disproportionately from the consequences of the abolition of duty-free trade.
<P>
In this context, particular attention will also have to be paid to transport services in isolated and peripheral regions, and the Commission must look seriously into the possibility of Community funding.
Therefore, Mr President, no-one will be surprised to learn that our group will vote against Mr Garosci's report in its current version, as it represents an accelerated death warrant for duty-free trade without there having been any study or serious actions and will inevitably have disastrous repercussions on employment and on the regions concerned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="Miller">
Mr President, when I was a young boy living in Scotland, at nighttime I used to listen to a children's programme called 'Jackanory' ; it told you fairy tales.
Well, tonight I think I have sat through another episode of it because I have never heard so much disinformation coming across on the question of duty-free.
<P>
I heard Mrs Boogerd-Quaak saying 'duty-free is going' .
Duty-free is not going.
Duty-free will still exist for all those travellers outwith the EU.
Can I say why it is important that we discuss vendor control tonight?
I will give you a prime example.
If you travel via Brussels airport, as most Members here do, you go into the main lobby in terminal B and you can buy a bottle of spirits and 200 cigarettes.
You then go down terminal B to get to your gate and there are another two duty-free shops there where you can buy another bottle of spirits and another 200 cigarettes at each one of these shops.
Therefore, you have three litres of spirits and 600 cigarettes.
While you are flying back to Glasgow they come around asking if you would like to buy duty-free.
You can buy another bottle of spirits and another 200 cigarettes.
Then you have 4 litres of spirits and 800 cigarettes.
The only problem you would have in getting them back is not whether customs stop you, it is actually carrying the bloody stuff.
If we are going to continue to operate properly as a Union, we have to tighten up on the vendor control system.
<P>
Let us drop this whole question of duty-free coming or going.
That argument will be won or lost in the Ecofin Council; it will not be won and lost in this Chamber.
It is high time people recognized that.
Therefore, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy have put down amendments to the Garosci Report showing ways that we can get around the abuse of the system within airports, ports and airlines.
It is important that we take these up and implement them.
If we do not we are allowing fraud to continue within our system and also there is loss of revenue to exchequers in the various Member States.
Therefore, let us concentrate on the issue which is in front of us. It is not duty-free, it is vendor control.
Please stick to the issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="Cassidy">
Mr President, it has been a stimulating debate so far and I particularly appreciated the contribution from Mr Miller who demonstrated very clearly the point made by the rapporteur, in his excellent report, that vendor control is simply not working.
<P>
Mr Miller described graphically what happens at Brussels airport.
Let me tell you what happens on cross-channel ferries.
Some rogues collect up boarding cards from innocent and naive passengers and take them along to the duty-free shop and cash them in for much larger amounts than they are actually permitted by the regulation.
It is a system which is subject to wide-scale abuse.
I agree with those people who have regretted that the whole debate has been hijacked into an entirely irrelevant consideration about duty-free.
<P>
I am a great supporter of lobbies, I believe profoundly in their ability to come here and try to influence us.
I do not agree however that they should tell lies in doing so.
One of the worst of the untruths that they have been telling is about job losses.
There has been an unscrupulous playing on the fears of their employees for their job futures.
Obviously people are going to continue to travel by air.
Indeed, in the United Kingdom airports are expanding their shopping facilities all the time.
<P>
There is, of course, a problem on some ferries, particularly those crossing the Channel.
Those problems are caused by the fact that there are too many ships chasing too few passengers, particularly now that the Channel Tunnel is open. The Channel Tunnel, where incidentally you cannot benefit from duty-free if you travel on the Eurostar.
<P>
So I support what Mr Garosci has done, I entirely agree with the points made by Mr Miller and indeed somewhat exceptionally too, with the points made by Mr Metten.
So I hope we will support the rapporteur and reject most of the amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Guinebertière">
Mr President, the decision to abolish the duty-free sector on 30 June 1999 was confirmed by the refusal of the Ecofin Council on 18 May 1998 to comply with Commissioner Scrivener's promise made to the Members of the European Parliament to carry out a study on the impact throughout the Union.
<P>
Since I only have two minutes, I will simply deal with one single aspect of this problem.
The directive which was passed in 1991 formed part of an overall plan for a harmonized tax system for Europe.
Unfortunately, we are hardly, if anywhere, near that yet.
Europe must not be created at the expense of jobs.
And yet, during the hearing of 29 October 1997, Commissioner Monti recognized that the abolition of duty-free sales would affect employment and the economic activity of certain regions in Europe.
Of all duty-free products sold, 41 % are of French origin and duty-free trade is the best possible shop window and the best possible way of promoting products made for export.
<P>
I come from the Cognac region in France and more than 30 % of its production is sold duty-free on the world market.
It is the main sector in the Cognac region and accounts for a major share of top quality sales.
A specific study has shown that 1 000 jobs are affected by this European decision and that 2 000 hectares of vineyards will be grubbed.
And this comes on top of the Asian crisis.
In some regions, such as the Nord-Pas-de-Calais, which already has 20 % unemployment, 3 500 jobs will be lost.
<P>
Europe will not be able to justify itself to the electorate with such inept and brutal decisions.
Have we thought about a different approach, which would be more in harmony with the economic and social constraints which prevail at the end of the century?
What about, for example, a progressive tax rate which would be more flexible and more pragmatic?
Perhaps there is still time to step back.
Who is going to pay the bill?
Airports?
The airline and shipping companies?
The consumer?
No doubt all of them will to some extent.
But it will cost far more to rehabilitate the credibility of the European institutions and the prime movers within them who deliberately destroy jobs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasio">
Mr President, we must agree with the position of the Committee on Transport and Tourism and others that problems caused by the ending of duty-free sales should have been discussed in connection with this present topic for discussion.
I will take the liberty of wondering out loud how difficult it will be to effect and conduct proper discussions on the subject.
We tend to stick rigidly to legal interpretation without paying sufficient attention, for example, to the EU's massive aim to substantially reduce unemployment.
The EU should not be making decisions that run counter to this aim.
But that is what appears to be happening in this debate.
<P>
It is patently obvious that ending duty-free sales will weaken, for example, Finland's ability to maintain communications with the rest of the European Union.
Finland is an island as seen from Central and Western Europe, and one that needs sufficiently efficient and competitive maritime links.
Duty-free sales have done a great deal to guarantee high-quality Finnish maritime links to Scandinavia and the Baltic.
Because of duty-free sales, fares have been kept so moderate that anyone, including the unemployed, can enjoy these crossings.
This is the main thing that has kept passenger numbers high and traffic busy, thus enabling, furthermore, high freight capacity.
Some have clearly laboured under misconceptions such as the idea that all this has to do with protecting the interests of the wealthy.
But this is really not the case; on the contrary, it is emphatically about the interests of the less well-off, and therefore about equality between citizens.
<P>
Effective and regular car ferry services are a part of Finland's main route connections to Scandinavia, the Baltic and thus to elsewhere in Europe.
Any deterioration in these will mean higher freight costs and bottlenecks regarding capacity, causing problems for economic development for the whole country.
Discontinuing duty-free sales will mean higher fares and the threat that some services will cease altogether.
This would have an immediate and deteriorating effect on maritime employment.
The effects on employment will not, however, be confined to the maritime sector.
Road traffic employment will similarly come under threat.
The rise in costs and transportation difficulties will also mean an increase in costs to the export industry, affecting its competitiveness and, indirectly, employment.
A fall in capacity will also result in fewer orders for the shipbuilding industry with a crushing effect on dockyard employees and subcontractors everywhere in the EU.
<P>
We sincerely hope that the Commission will take seriously the demands expressed in the European Parliament for a thorough clarification of the total effect of discontinuing duty-free sales.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="Gillis">
Mr President, in 1991 by a unanimous vote the Council of Ministers decided to abolish duty-free sales for journeys by air and sea within the European Union from 30 January 1999.
The best estimates we have indicate that up to 140, 000 jobs may be lost as a result of the Council decision.
Despite considerable pressure, the Council of Ministers has refused on a number of occasions to reconsider their decision to abolish duty-free.
It is clear that many air companies and ferries, in particular those operating in peripheral regions such as Ireland, will have difficulty surviving the loss of income the abolition of duty-free will bring.
In addition, the ticket cost to the travelling public will undoubtedly increase.
<P>
I will continue to strive to overturn that Council decision.
However, it is necessary to consider the plight of those whose jobs will be put in jeopardy by the Council decision.
The Commission must urgently examine the situation of people whose jobs will be put at risk by the abolition of duty-free sales and bring forward a proposal in good time to alleviate the adverse consequences for those involved.
A number of ferry companies face severe loss and even bankruptcy as a result of the Council of Ministers' decision.
The Commission must examine in particular the structure of air and ferry companies servicing peripheral regions and bring forward measures to prevent loss of services to those regions concerned and prevent job losses.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, when the Council decided in 1991 to extend the existence of duty-free shopping until 1999, it could certainly not have known that unemployment in the EU in 1998 would be 18 million and rising.
The Council also had no idea that in 1999, despite monetary union becoming a reality, there would still be no question of tax harmonization.
So the internal market has not really been completed.
The Council and Commission's inflexibility on this point borders on irresponsibility!
Abolishing duty-free means killing several birds with one stone, in a negative sense, of course.
A large number of additional unemployed people will come onto the job market.
The EU will voluntarily sacrifice an important shop window for its branded export goods, and the tourist trade will suffer demonstrable damage.
<P>
A cynic might say that the first concrete employment policy measure taken by the Community will be the destruction of over 100 000 jobs by abolishing duty-free.
I find it absolutely incomprehensible that the Council has not reviewed its position given the situation in the job market.
There is a wide and unanimous consensus that the main topic of political debate and the objective of all our actions should be the fight against unemployment.
So why is not possible to reach unanimous agreement to alter this decision, which will clearly create so many additional unemployed?
<P>
The new President of the Council, Austria's Federal Chancellor, yesterday appealed to the EU partners to make the fight against unemployment the focus of their attention.
If he means that seriously, than he should convince his partners that by keeping duty-free, many jobs would be saved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="Pinheiro">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the system that applies to duty-free sales up to 30 June 1999 involves the exercise of controls by the seller over his own sales.
<P>
Two years ago, in July 1996, the Commission drew up a report on the application of these controls by Member States.
The conclusions were somewhat negative, inasmuch as they highlighted, in particular, the diversity of the measures taken at national level and the gaps in their control systems.
At this point I would like to thank Parliament, and especially the rapporteur, Mr Garosci, for his work on this issue, the sensitive nature of which is generally acknowledged.
<P>
I am delighted that Parliament agrees with the Commission's approach regarding the conclusion to be drawn concerning controls.
The Commission fully endorses the recommendations for the improvement of controls, whether by the airline ticket cancellation method or by increased use of computer technology.
Nevertheless, we would draw your attention to the fact that it is less appropriate to introduce measures of this kind now that we are only a year from the deadline of 30 June 1999.
The fact is that the need to introduce additional control measures would require further investment, which might amount to a misleading signal to operators as regards the deadline of 30 June 1999.
<P>
I would also emphasize that since preparing its report the Commission has been informed that operators have tightened up their controls.
They have already started to make the adjustments that will be necessary until these sales are abolished, and will now have to concentrate their efforts on actions at ground level.
<P>
Mr President, I would now like to talk about the proposed changes, most of which are separate from the question of controls and relate to the general problem of duty-free sales.
On this point, my colleague, Mario Monti, has had occasion to explain the Commission's position to you a number of times.
I can confirm that there has been no change in that position, and indeed it has recently been reaffirmed here at the Ecofin Council on 19 May 1998.
I would, therefore, like to restrict myself to the following observations.
<P>
In the first place, we will not in any way entertain the suggestion that the date for abolition of these sales should be postponed.
On 19 May, let me say again, the Ecofin Council gave no indication to that effect, not did it even agree that the debate should be re-opened.
It also seems to me that any association between duty-free sales and the introduction of the euro would be artificial or even dangerous for the image of the Community.
The Commission still considers that Member States are in the best position to examine the consequences of abolishing duty-free sales at national level, and to take the appropriate decisions, if necessary.
<P>
There are also a certain number of changes relating to sectoral and regional support measures. These recommend the use of Community funds to assist in dealing with local difficulties.
Measures proposed by Member States which involve the use of Community mechanisms, such as Structural Funds, will be considered by the Commission on the merits of each case.
In addition, the Commission has promised the Council that it will draw up a working document clarifying which Community instruments can be used by Member States in that connection.
Obviously the European Parliament will be kept informed.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, Community legislation does not contain any provision allowing passengers travelling to third countries to buy duty-free goods at airports within the Community where they first embark.
This is initially an intra-Community flight.
There is nothing, however, to prevent contact between strictly Community passengers and passengers travelling to third countries.
This fact could lead to abuses which would be unacceptable to the Commission and Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="Garosci">
Mr President, I would very briefly like to thank the interpreters for going beyond the maximum time limit and for bearing with me earlier when I forced them to rush during the reading of my speech.
I would also like to thank the draftsmen and remind them that I have only tabled two amendments for tomorrow.
If these two amendments go through - and I also say this to the Commissioner - we will solve a lot of the sector's problems.
The first amendment concerns the possibility of making purchases already at the points of sale of boarding, something that according to our verifications I do not believe is contrary to Community rules; the second amendment is to use regional funds.
I repeat, if these two amendments go through, we will be solving most of the sector's problems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="President">
Thank you for those concluding remarks.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 8.15 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Recognition of professional qualifications
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0232/98) by Mrs Fontaine, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directives 89/48/EEC and 92/51/EEC on the general system for the recognition of professional qualifications and supplementing Directives 77/452/EEC, 77/453/EEC, 78/686/EEC, 78/687/EEC, 78/1026/EEC, 78/1027/EEC, 80/154/EEC, 80/155/EEC, 85/384/EEC, 85/432/EEC, 85/433/EEC and 93/16/EEC concerning the professions of nurse responsible for general care, dental practitioner, veterinary surgeon, midwife, architect, pharmacist and doctor (COM(97)0638 - C4-0657/97-97/0345(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="Fontaine">
<SPEAKER ID=142 NAME="Morris">
Madam President, there is no doubt a great need for mutual recognition of professional qualifications throughout the EU Member States.
We have heard of cases in which a well-qualified professional person from one Member State is denied a job or compelled to accept a lower salary in another Member State because his or her qualifications are not recognized as equivalent.
<P>
Mrs Fontaine's report will extend freedom of movement in actual practice, allowing workers greater mobility and ensuring greater transparency in legislation.
Experience and qualifications meeting minimum standards gained in one Member State should contribute towards the experience required in another Member State.
To ensure equality throughout the Union, if Member States require professionals to undergo further tests, they should firstly inform the Commission.
This proposal is not only a welcome move towards transparency in decision-making we should also see it as a move against unfair discrimination and even xenophobia.
<P>
Xenophobia and racism are already prevalent throughout the Union.
Especially with the onset of enlargement, my fear is that it will increase dramatically unless we can set in place measures which bring about fairness in recognition of qualifications.
This proposal of Mrs Fontaine will give well-qualified migrant workers from countries outside the EU who have worked in one Member State the right to transfer their skills and expertise across the Union.
I therefore propose that a certificate of equivalence be issued by the host state to ensure that these workers from third countries gain equal - no more, no less - rights to their counterparts in other EU states.
I urge Parliament to support the Fontaine report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="Banotti">
Madam President, I would like to congratulate Mrs Fontaine on her excellent report.
She has a very distinguished history in dealing with these issues.
I have to confess to a certain national relief that Mrs Fontaine has accepted the amendments relating to the rather unique position of the Irish architects.
I am most grateful for that.
This has been a difficulty in my own country for as long as I have been in Parliament.
As both previous speakers have said, the Committee on Petitions receives more petitions from people who are experiencing discrimination in relation to the recognition of their professional qualifications than for any other single issue affecting our citizens.
<P>
To give you a bit of history, you may recall that the first directive on architects came at the end of 18 years of trying to decide what an architect was.
The architects' directive became the first under the Fontainebleau Agreement to say finally: Let us get out of the deep water and recognize certain basic qualifications.
At the beginning this was not noticed and in many cases with the first attempt to draft some kind of recognisable harmonization of qualifications, the vast majority of professionals in all areas of life in our countries were simply unaware of the need to feed into that process and to take care of their best interests.
<P>
That is the reason why there is this anomaly in Ireland which Mrs Fontaine has very generously agreed to accept as an amendment to her report.
I look forward to hearing whether Mr Pinheiro is going to accept the amendment.
This significant group containing some of our most eminent architects will receive this recognition.
The practical aspect of it is that without this kind of recognition they are unable to tender for contracts outside their own country.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gebhardt">
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Añoveros Trias de Bes">
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="Oddy">
Madam President, I agree with the previous speakers that Mrs Fontaine has produced an excellent report.
It is an important plank in the free movement of workers which is a basic right in the Treaty of Rome.
If qualifications are not recognized by other Member States, then mobility is extremely difficult for workers to achieve.
Sadly, problems still occur in this area and most MEPs receive case work on this subject. Therefore, the directive is welcome as it addresses an important problem.
<P>
There are two main thrusts to the report.
Firstly, it applies to two general directives on higher education diplomas and on professional education and training.
The second area relates to specific professions such as nurses, veterinary surgeons, midwives, architects, pharmacists and doctors.
In particular, the report seeks to set out clearly the provisions for Member States being allowed to apply aptitude tests.
Although we see the sense of aptitude tests, sometimes Member States have used them to distort the true purpose of the directives.
I reiterate the points made by Mary Banotti.
I too have had correspondence on the specific problems of architects.
I trust these have been successfully resolved.
<P>
I can only stress that in my view the free movement of workers is essential for the proper operation of the Treaty of Rome.
I commend this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 NAME="Malone">
Madam President, I should also like to thank Mrs Fontaine for a very excellent report and also my colleague Mrs Berger who took on board several amendments regarding the architects.

<P>
As you know, in the original directive of 1985 on the recognition of architects' qualifications, certain Member States did not get derogations for what is known as an established right to practice.
These architects were seen by the competent authorities in their Member States as having sufficient acquired experience and ability to be allowed to practice as de facto architects.
This was despite their not having the exact qualifications laid down elsewhere in the directive.
Unfortunately, while countries like Germany, the Netherlands and the UK received the derogations, Ireland did not.
The result was huge discrimination and a large group of practising Irish architects of great ability and experience failed to get their status recognized elsewhere in the Community. This situation continues to this very day.
<P>
The amendments we tabled and which have been taken on board by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights will hopefully help to bring about the free movement of workers, as Ms Oddy mentioned, and these people will be able to practice anywhere in the Community.
I hope I will be able to report back to these architects that the result of what we are doing here today in conjunction with the Council will contribute to the ongoing completion of the single market.
<P>
It is up to Member States to recognize these workers' rights to fair treatment and I hope that Member States and the Commission - especially Commissioner Monti, who has been rather intransigent on this whole issue and I hope the message can be taken back to him - can agree that those countries that did not apply for the 1985 derogation should have the right to do so now.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Berger">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I too wish to express my very warm thanks to Mrs Fontaine for paying special attention in her report to the outstanding proposals regarding the directive on architectural qualifications.
Parliament only recently had occasion to formulate some of these proposals when it considered a report specifically about the architects' directive which I had the honour of drafting. Thanks to Mrs Fontaine's report, these proposals may now be implemented.
This applies in particular to Amendment No 14, which has already been mentioned several times today.
Its aim - and like Mrs Fontaine I wish to stress that this is its only aim - is to give a small group of Irish architects a fresh chance to have their qualifications and attestations of competence recognized, something they were inadvertently deprived of when the directive was implemented in Ireland.
<P>
The architects' directive has a number of peculiarities that set it apart from the other directives, which is why we also wish to keep this as a separate directive.
However, these peculiarities in no way justify the fact that the advisory committee established under the architects' directive is to be excluded from the proposed reform of all the advisory committees.
Just as with all the other directives, a reduction in the number of members on this committee and more effective procedures would also help to improve its workings under the architects' directive.
<P>
I would also like to emphasize that a solution to the problem of recognizing educational qualifications gained in third countries is also of great importance in the architectural world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 NAME="Pinheiro">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to thank Parliament for the interest which it has shown in this proposal and for the important work carried out by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, as well as the rapporteur.
I would like to thank Mrs Fontaine in particular; she has provided an excellent summary of all the proposals, reports and amendments which have been tabled.
<P>
The Commission is delighted to see that the substance of its proposal has been well received.
The main aim of the Commission's proposal, in accordance with the recommendations of the team on recognition of qualifications, is to simplify the updating of the list of qualifications appearing in the sectoral directives, as part of the SLIM initiative: nurses, dental practitioners, veterinary surgeons, midwives, pharmacists and doctors.
This new proposal has been seized upon as an opportunity to implement other recommendations which appear either in the Commission's report on the general system for the recognition of professional qualifications, or in the Commission's report on specific training in general medical practice.
<P>
It is, therefore, in this context that the amendments tabled by your Parliament should be considered.
In this respect, we unfortunately have to note that the majority of amendments would, if accepted, impede the efforts aimed at simplifying laws and administration, since they are likely to impose new procedures which would sometimes be very onerous on Member States and/or on the Commission.
<P>
Examples of this are Amendments Nos 1, 4, 6 to 9 and 11, which seek to oblige Member States to inform the Commission of their intention to introduce compensation measures for each professional sector involved.
It is also true of Amendments Nos 5 and 10, since they tend to afford a great deal of publicity to the deliberations of the Coordinators Group.
It is further true of Amendment No 12, which extends the system for updating the list of qualifications proposed by the Commission, and delays its application.
Amendments Nos 3 and 13 aim to establish automatic recognition of training obtained in a third country, where these have already been recognized by the first host state within the EU.
On this subject, the Commission wishes to reiterate its position expressed during the consideration of the proposal for a directive aimed at inserting comitology rules into Directive 1100.
This is a matter which will be studied further, after the publication of the report which the Commission will present in 1999 on the general system for the recognition of professional qualifications.
<P>
The Commission therefore believes that the proposal contained in Amendments Nos 3 and 13 is premature.
As regards Amendments Nos 2 and 14 concerning the architects' directive, the Commission carefully notes the invitation extended to it via Amendment No 2 to give some thought to the desirability of including in the architects' directive the formula to simplify the updating of the lists of qualifications.
We will consider this matter. As to the message contained in Amendment No 14, which aims to regularize the situation of some architects, the Commission would like to point out that your Parliament rejected a similar proposal when considering the report on the architects' directive on 26 March last.
On that occasion, Parliament suggested that Article 7 of the Directive already offered an adequate opportunity.
Amendments Nos 15 to 21, in the field of general medical practice, will also be looked at in the context of the Commission's report on the system of recognition for professional qualifications, to be presented, as I have said, next year.
<P>
In conclusion, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission cannot support the amendments which contradict the legal and administrative simplification sought by the SLIM initiative, or which are contrary to the letter and spirit of current directives.
It notes the messages contained in other amendments, and will present the result of its deliberations as and when appropriate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner Pinheiro.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Citizenship of the Union
<SPEAKER ID=151 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0205/98) by Mr De Clercq, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the second report from the Commission on citizenship of the Union (COM(97)0230 - C4-0291/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 NAME="De Clercq">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, what is the state of the citizenship of the European Union?
This is the question concerning us in this debate.
A number of rights to which European citizens can lay claim have been incorporated into the Maastricht Treaty under Article 8.
Union citizens comprise all those possessing the nationality of one of the Member States.
Fortunately, the Amsterdam Treaty specifies that Union citizenship is complementary to national citizenship.
<P>
The implementation of rights associated with European citizenship has accomplished much, though there is still room for improvement.
Allow me to put forward some key points.
<P>
As far as the right of persons to move and reside freely in the whole of the European Union is concerned, we are certainly dealing with a right which is possibly the most concrete for citizens.
It is, therefore, unfortunate that these same citizens still experience so many difficulties.
The main cause lies in the fact that this right is regulated through different clauses, depending on the category of citizens.
We would, therefore, call on the Commission to convert all existing legislative instruments to an easy and generally effective instrument.
<P>
Free movement and residence in the Union will not come about until the last barriers are lifted, including: the abolition of all border controls and the comprehensive acceptance of the Schengen acquis; education systems which are geared to each other, aimed at the mobility of employees with children of school-age; a simplified recognition of all diplomas and professional qualifications, in particular for young people; the tracking down of unfair administration practices which are practised by national governments to hinder the policy right; and the protection of rights relating to supplementary pensions.
There is much to be done.
Another important point is the direct functioning of Article 8a. This would mean that each citizen would be able to petition their right to free residence and movement in front of any national judge in the Union.
<P>
As far as the active and passive right to vote in local elections is concerned, I will be brief and to the point.
This means that the right to vote in local elections should be introduced for all EU citizens by all Member States, including Belgium.
France has done so already.
In terms of the active and passive right to vote in the European elections, the implementation of the directive by all Member States should be simpler and more uniform.
EU citizens often are not aware of how they can exercise this right in the Member State in which they reside.
Better information is, therefore, required.
<P>
As far as consular and diplomatic protection is concerned, we are only just at the initial stage.
A common definition must urgently be sought, so that the European citizens realize that this produces added value outside the Union as well.
<P>
As far as the right to petition and the right to apply to the ombudsman is concerned, the first annual report by our European ombudsman shows how these rights are useful and necessary, even if their exact scope is still unknown.
Here, too, better information is required.
<P>
In conclusion, I would say that the Amsterdam Treaty has added something, namely, the right to apply to any European institution in one of the official languages of the Union and the right to reply in this language.
However, this has not yet been implemented and can, therefore, not be evaluated today.
<P>
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the introduction of European citizenship underlines that European integration is also a political project.
The rights associated with this must certainly make an essential contribution to a greater European awareness in the same way the plans relating to jobs, and recently the euro, have undoubtedly brought Europe closer to the citizen
<P>
Our task is to make this permanent and to show the citizens that Europe offers added value, and is there for them.
This is not only done by legislating for a number of citizenship rights through a Treaty.
It is just as important for these rights to become known and for them to have sufficient content and not least their practical implementation is of fundamental importance.
<P>
Free movement, the right to free residence, the right to vote, the right to apply to an ombudsman belong, of course, not just to the European Union.
They belong to any self-respecting democratic constitutional state.
Whatever its importance, it is not sufficient to involve the citizen closer in Europe.
More attention paid to European symbols or to our shared history will certainly help us, but we are in urgent need of restoring the confidence of the citizen in Europe.
This requires a change of mentality amongst not only the citizens, but first and foremost among the European decision-makers, the administration and the media.
<P>
The Europe of the citizen begins with those who are concerned every day with European matters.
They must prove their solidarity with Europe.
The European Parliament has a large role to play in this.
Parliament is one of the main players and we help to determine the strategy.
As European representatives we must ensure that the citizen is involved as much as possible in this game, that the game is an attractive one and, in particular, that we ourselves adhere strictly to the rules.
In short, we must set a good example in Europe.
Good examples always come from the top.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="Ullmann">
Madam President, Commissioner, anyone who has ever worked on the European Parliament's Committee on Petitions knows how much trust citizens' petitions express in the institutions of the Union.
For that reason, citizenship of the Union has to be strengthened, developed and made a separate issue if we want to reduce the present democratic deficit in the Union.
The Commission's report formed a good basis for Parliament's opinion, because it openly addressed the evident shortcomings and weaknesses in the current legal position and practice.
I do not need to repeat the details, so I shall restrict myself to those areas where we need to go beyond the Commission's observations.
<P>
We need to surmount the limited and sectorally circumscribed applicability of the article on freedom of movement, Article 8a.
At the very least, the right to invoke freedom of movement in national courts should be upheld, as called for by the rapporteur.
The most effective way of doing this would be for a charter of fundamental rights to be included in the EU Treaty, which would define citizens of the Union as those entitled to the rights contained in it.
Access to citizenship of the Union should not depend solely on nationality but should also be open to nationals of third countries after five years' residence in the Union.
Moreover, it is a matter of the utmost urgency, in view of the forthcoming elections in 1999, that the obstacles to exercising the right to vote in European Union elections which still exist in some Member States, and which are generally of a simply administrative nature, should be eliminated.
<P>
We are delighted that France's National Assembly has just removed an important obstacle.
This is exactly the kind of thing that will make citizens of the Union feel that we are not just talking about their rights, but actually doing something about them.
My thanks go to everyone involved in this work, to the Commission and, above all, to the rapporteur, who has truly led the way here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gebhardt">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the rapporteur deserves to be congratulated on his thorough and committed work.
I offer these congratulations without any reservations, but at the same time I must admit that I am somewhat envious of Mr De Clercq.
I envy him the auspicious moment at which he is presenting his important report on citizenship of the Union.
The timing could not be better!
With the introduction of the euro, we have laid the last foundation stone for Economic and Monetary Union.
Now we can concentrate on our citizens, on their wishes and dreams.
There is nothing more to stop us going ahead with European political union at full steam.
The De Clercq report points in the right direction, and my group will therefore be voting for it.
<P>
We have tabled a few amendments, but they are not at odds with the report.
They are simply intended to amplify certain areas and make some points even more explicit.
I hope that the rapporteur will see it that way, and that he will find this helpful and recommend acceptance of our amendments.
The recitals include various references to encouraging citizens' European awareness.
What could be more obvious than to demonstrate this awareness with a symbol as delightful as a common European holiday?
<P>
But we must not fool ourselves.
Our citizens will not be satisfied with symbols and fine declarations alone.
They expect citizenship of the Union not just to deliver rights on paper, but also tangible advantages.
Our citizens expect political union in Europe to make their everyday lives easier.
For instance, let us take the example of the citizen's right to freedom of movement, which we love talking about, but which so far has only progressed in Lilliputian stages.
Our citizens cannot see any more than that.
Freedom of movement is not just a question of pulling down barriers: first and foremost, it is about dismantling bureaucratic obstacles.
The Commission must, therefore, immediately bring forward a legislative proposal to eliminate differences in rights of residence as between Member States and to promote genuine freedom of movement for the Union's citizens.
In particular, we need to remove obstacles to mobility for young people and to make it easier for them settle wherever they wish.
We therefore need simple, easily comprehensible and unbureaucratic means of recognizing diplomas and professional qualifications, which we have just been talking about.
<P>
That means that school-leaving qualifications, professional qualifications and diplomas should be equally valid in all Member States.
If we adopt this approach in all areas, we can transform citizens' rights from pieces of paper to a living European reality.
There is a long road ahead of us, and we should never forget one thing: we should be focusing on people and not on profits.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Madam President, it really is reassuring to listen to this report here today.
It is reassuring because the conclusions of the Cardiff European Council are still ringing in our ears, and because we can still hear the echoes of recent statements that people want less from Europe, less integration, declarations that even call for certain policies to be placed back in the hands of the national authorities.
I therefore think it important that the European Parliament is today flying the flag of citizenship in the splendid presentation we have heard from the Chairman of the Committee on Legal Affairs and rapporteur.
<P>

It is a balanced report; balanced between the real world and symbolic values; balanced between practical measures and the poetry, which Mrs Gebhardt mentioned.
We too need a little imagination and poetry.
<P>
Among those practical measures, Mr De Clercq has emphasized the need for the free circulation of persons and choice of country of residence for European citizens to become a reality. Article 8a must also become a reality that can be directly pleaded in our courts of justice.
Publicity must be given to the rights already conferred by this still embryonic European citizenship, such as the right to vote in local elections and the right to vote in European elections. Finally, we must continue to create - and this is where we move from reality to poetry, from reality to the realms of myth - symbols of integration.
We need to make Europe exist as a cultural concept.
<P>
The European People's Party will not only support Mr De Clercq's report, but also the Socialist group's amendments and some of those tabled by the European People's Party, although we have rejected Amendment No 5.
<P>
The fact is, Madam President, that these are bad times for Europe.
Against such scepticism, it may be said - and here I agree with Mrs Gebhardt - that our ally, paradoxically enough, is the market.
Life is full of paradoxes: the Europe of the markets is going to help us to create a real Europe of the citizens, because if the euro is to succeed, if the single market is really going to work, we shall have to shape free circulation in its fullest sense. We shall have to move on to further integration.
<P>
And therefore, Madam President, I believe that here today, at the beginning of the Austrian presidency, we must all congratulate ourselves on this European Parliamentary report which, once more, reaffirms its role as the voice of conscience, as a warning, against certain circumstances which today seem to advocate a hard-nosed, short-sighted Europe.
Now, against that hard-nosed, short-sighted Europe, the European Parliament is raising its voice, and that of its citizens, saying that Europe will come into being only through integration, and that, in contrast to the concept of the Europe of the markets, we have to ensure that the reality of the Amsterdam Treaty translates into a genuine citizens' Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Madam President, I want to congratulate the rapporteur, and I am pleased that Parliament is once again advocating the implementation of the rights enshrined in the Treaty, in the framework of citizenship of the Union.
I would like to suggest that we take a look at the fundamental significance of citizenship of the Union.
What is it all about?
I firmly believe that it means the Union recognizing nothing less than that our citizens are the driving and sovereign forces of the European unification process.
Citizenship of the Union therefore plays a key part in legitimizing the Union.
And it is not just legitimized indirectly via national governments and treaties, but also directly, personally and immediately, by giving all citizens a legal status.
<P>
Citizenship of the Union was, therefore, quite logically introduced in the Treaty on European Union to strengthen the protection of the rights and interests of the nationals of its Member States.
We are, therefore, looking at a statute that covers the fundamental and civil rights of all citizens.
So far, so good, as far as the theory goes.
In practice, however, we are still a very long way from achieving an all-embracing guarantee of fundamental and civil rights, from recognizing the citizen's sovereign role in integration.
Of the four freedoms, surely the most personal, the most existential, the most human is freedom of movement of persons, the implementation of which has been the most protracted, subject to the greatest reluctance and has had the most obstacles put in its way.
Border checks for individuals have not been abolished.
They have not been eliminated by the Schengen Agreement, but rather replaced by barriers that are sometimes even higher than the old ones we pledged to get rid of.
<P>
The right to vote and the right to stand for election to the European Parliament is often undermined, and even more so the right to participate in local elections.
These rights are often sabotaged to some extent, and in some capitals, in Vienna for example, they are limited to taking part in city district elections.
Consular protection is also virtually non-existent in practice.
However, I also believe that we have to look beyond the Treaty texts, and the rights enshrined in the Treaty, to the comprehensive protection of fundamental and civil rights.
I hope that the special summit in Vienna will allow us to progress from mere technocratic institutional reform to genuine democratic reform.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="Oddy">
Mr President, I should like to thank the rapporteur for his learned and thoughtful report and commend his European vision.
<P>
If we are to ensure that the European Union flourishes, the citizens of Europe must feel that we have ownership of this project and that we benefit too, not just the commercial organizations and governments.
The Commission's second report on citizenship is therefore an important plank in building a corps d'esprit and a sense of European belonging.
<P>
I particularly welcome the right to vote and stand as a candidate at municipal elections in the European Parliament, although I would flag up the generous voting rights granted to Commonwealth citizens in the UK and urge there is no reorganization of this and no attempt to water down the rights which exist.
<P>
As draftsperson on the Commission action plan on free movement of workers, I welcome the remarks of Mr De Clercq on obstacles to the free movement of people, such as pension mobility, family responsibilities and the educational needs of children.
I fear that this is a little adventurous for my British group as yet but I believe the Commission could look at promoting the international baccalaureate.
<P>
The creation of the Ombudsman can only be commended but I feel that its office needs greater promotion.
I agree that the key to feelings of closeness with the European Union hinge on information.
I therefore ask the Commission to make even greater efforts to inform the citizens of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Zimmermann">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this evening's debate is concerned with citizenship of the Union.
We all know what that means and what a key role citizenship of the Union occupies for the citizens of Europe, and above all in European integration.
But I wonder if people in Europe actually know about this?
Do the very people whose rights are associated with citizenship of the Union know this?
Do they know to whom they can turn, whom they can ask and where they can obtain information?
In the course of many conversations with ordinary citizens, I have repeatedly had the feeling that people only have a sketchy idea and precious little knowledge about this.
<P>
However, it is not only our citizens who know very little about this.
For example, take a look at the information issued by the European Commission, which often does not deal with certain areas at all.
For instance, we were recently sent a brochure, the Single Market Review, which contains over 38 reports describing how the internal market is being implemented in practice. Yet this brochure contains next to nothing about freedom of movement.
When I see that, I wonder how our citizens are actually supposed to be informed! Another example: when I mention to officials in the Commission or Parliament or even outside that as a citizen of the Union with a Dutch passport I have a seat in the European Parliament for Germany, I always get asked: how is that allowed?
Where does it say that?
How is that possible?
This demonstrates that even the right to vote and to stand for election, to the extent that it must be in the Treaty, is something we have not really grasped. Nor has it really been grasped by the people who decreed it or by our citizens or by my colleagues.
Many of my colleagues have not actually realized this yet either.
<P>
I think it is important that we ourselves should take on board citizenship of the Union, with everything that it implies, and give it serious thought.
We will then be better placed to inform people about it, so that people really understand it too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="Pinheiro">
Madam President, on behalf of the Commission, I am very pleased with Parliament's detailed examination of our second report on citizenship of the Union and, in particular, I would like to highlight the excellent work of an outstanding European called Willy De Clercq.
<P>
I consider this debate on citizenship of the Union as a kind of invitation to all politicians to concentrate on the essentials of the construction of Europe, and a warning regarding the advances and setbacks that are taking place in the construction of Europe, and may detract from our citizens' sense of 'belonging to a political community under the rule of law' , to quote the expression used in your resolution.
As Members are aware, this concern was also expressed at the recent Cardiff European Council, where it was declared that all citizens should be able to benefit from the advantages of Economic and Monetary Union and the single market, and that the Union should be brought even closer to ordinary citizens.
<P>
This second report on citizenship of the Union covers 1994, 1995 and 1996.
It therefore pre-dates the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Conference that led to the adoption of the Amsterdam Treaty.
In this report, the Commission has been at pains to describe and analyse the new rights conferred by the Maastricht Treaty, to investigate what progress has been made since the publication of its first report in 1993 and to indicate a series of objectives to be achieved.
<P>
Your motion for a resolution is rightly addressed to all interested institutions, and likewise to Member States.
The fact is that future progress can only be achieved by means of combined action at all levels, particularly in the field of improving legislation by making it more readable and capable of more efficient application.
I can assure Mr Willy de Clercq and this House that as far as Schengen and the application of Article 8a are concerned, the following issues are on the table before the Commission: infringement procedures, administrative practices, the right to vote, consular and diplomatic protection, permanent dialogue mechanisms, education and the recognition of qualifications, protection against threats to individual safety and freedom and trade.
<P>
Even today, at the Commissioners' meeting, the first part of the meeting was, in fact, dedicated to European citizenship.
And we hope that with the impetus provided by this House and input of the kind we have received through this resolution, we can all achieve real citizenship that much earlier.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner Pinheiro.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Safe use of the Internet
<SPEAKER ID=161 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0234/98) by Mr Schmid, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the Commission proposal for a Council Decision adopting a Multiannual Community Action Plan on promoting safe use of the Internet (COM(97)0582 - C4-0042/98-97/0377(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="Schmid">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, until a few years ago, the Internet was the preserve of specialists.
Today it is so much a part of everyday living that even we as Members have access to the Internet in our offices.
This is clear proof that miracles can still happen!
The Internet offers great potential - more than ever before in human history - to gain rapid access to a large volume of information.
On the other hand, there is also a certain amount of material on the Internet which is harmful to minors or illegal.
Also, like traditional forms of telecommunication such as the telephone or even the post, it can be used for criminal activities.
<P>
The advantages of the Internet largely outweigh its disadvantages.
Nevertheless, action is needed on the problems I have touched upon and we need answers.
But the answer cannot be a stricter yardstick than we apply to other media such as film or television.
Just because there has been a heated debate, especially on the part of people who have never used the Net for a single second, it does not mean that we should treat it differently from other media.
The response should, therefore, reflect the specific characteristics of the Net rather than stipulate stricter standards.
<P>
What is special about the Internet?
First of all, it does not belong to anyone.
No-one is the overall owner of the Internet.
I always say that it is really a fundamentally communist structure.
Second, the Net is global and, therefore, accessible worldwide.
Third, legal action against criminal content is in accordance with the criminal law of the country where computer on which the data is stored is located.
Fourth, material can be transferred from one computer to another easily and quickly, in just a few seconds.
Fifth, access to the Internet is anonymous.
A computer cannot tell who is sitting on the other side of the screen and it is not limited to certain times.
<P>
This has implications for the protection of minors, because on the Internet there is no-one behind the counter or in the ticket office as there is in a cinema or video shop, who can say to a six-year-old 'you cannot come in here' or 'I am not letting you take out that video' .
That is the real problem.
The Action Plan that the Commission has now proposed to us claims to guarantee safe use of the Internet.
I believe that it can perhaps help, but 100 % safety is not possible in this case.
Furthermore, this idea promotes the misconception that parents no longer need to worry about bringing up their children, because they can leave the protection of minors to technical systems and filter software.
We should not be encouraging this misconception.
That is why I am in favour of changing the whole concept to 'safer use of the Internet' .
That would reflect the real world.
<P>
In any case, we need to be aware of the limitations of the measures proposed.
Given that the number of commercial pornography providers is growing every day around the world, it would be rather naïve to expect much from self-regulation.
The fact that Members of the House yesterday received an advertisement for pornography in their e-mail - not a very good one, incidentally, and the price was far too high - shows the direction we are heading in.
The embargo on the Dutch XS-4-All server because the journal Radikal was being disseminated on this server shows how far you get with that approach.
Previously, Radikal was only available on that one server.
After the embargo it became available on 53 servers on the Internet, because mirror sites were immediately set up around the globe.
So the embargo approach has its limitations.
<P>
Because of the multiplicity of languages in the European Union, it is also doubtful whether the use of word recognition programmes for filtering would really help.
Using image filter programmes also involves blocking all pictorial scientific material and all graphics.
I am certainly in favour of this proposal, let there be no misunderstanding.
I am simply pointing out that it has its limitations and that we have to be aware of these limitations.
<P>
Another of these limitations is that in the real world children generally understand more about computers than their parents do.
As regards the idea of installing filter software on PCS, I have put it to journalists like this: filter software is a programme that a 12-year-old can use to prevent his dad accessing porn websites on the Internet, because he has been stopped from watching television.
That is how it really is.
Nevertheless, I am in favour of using filter software; we simply need to be aware of its limitations.
<P>
The proposed action plan is chiefly intended as a tool for combating undesirable content on the Internet, that is to say, pornography, politically extreme sites and so forth.
Because the European Union lacks criminal law and law enforcement powers, the action plan addresses illegal content only in terms of encouraging the preparation of a study on national measures necessary.
<P>
In my view, the real problem is not so much illegal content as undesirable content.
It is truly amazing what you can find if you spend just a few hours on the Net and make a specific search; I was doing that just yesterday while preparing for a press conference.
You can find instructions on making your own bombs, unlocking doors without keys, producing illegal drugs, other terrorist activities, forging credit cards, hacking into computers without permission, and so on; a whole range of things.
<P>
As things stand, combating illegal content is a matter for Member States. I have no intention of questioning that.
In practice, it is made considerably more difficult by the fact that not even in the European Union are there identical or at least comparable legal standards governing important issues.
Prosecution in the case of child pornography is difficult if the age at which 'child' stops and 'adult' begins is defined by differing age limits under different legal systems.
In some Member States it is 14 years, in others it is 16 years.
It is difficult if there is no definition of what illegal pornography is. It is also difficult if an illegal content is subject to prosecution but a pointer from another Internet site to that content, at the click of a mouse, is not itself subject to prosecution.
It is quite a simple matter then.
It is also difficult if - as is the case today - you can connect a computer to the Net without it being possible to establish who the operator is, and if - as is also possible today - an e-mail can be sent without it being traceable to a particular person, in other words, if servers can be operated anonymously and electronic mail sent anonymously.
<P>
We therefore require at least preparatory studies to establish what kind of legislation we need.
I know that there has been some resistance during deliberations in Council.
Home affairs are now the preserve of the nation state, whereas they have lost military policy: NATO does that now.
The only area where there the state has a monopoly on the use of arms is the police.
This is the apple of their eye and is protected accordingly.
I know that there is some resistance to the idea of embarking on such studies, but they are still needed.
The fact is, we can ultimately only solve the problem of illegal content by global agreements.
Global agreements on such things will face the same problems as we have with GATT: if the Community turns up with 15 different opinions, we will not get anywhere!
If the USA, the European Union and Japan all have roughly the same ideas, it will happen relatively quickly.
For that reason, we need to establish common standards, not only because of law enforcement within the European Union, but also because of the need for international agreements.
Without such standards we will not make any further progress on this issue.
I would like to ask the Commissioner to tell me in his summing up what amendments the Commission is willing to accept, because that would help me.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="Argyros">
Madam President, the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on this issue, with the amendments it has tabled, aims to promote the development and the adoption of efficient technical systems, the main aim of which, of course, is the protection of minors and human dignity, but also the strengthening of business and financial activity.
<P>
It also attempts to improve global cooperation on this issue, in order to ensure the dynamic growth of the Internet industry.
More specifically, regarding the field of implementation of the action plan, and taking account of the possibilities offered by the Internet for financial and business activity, and indirectly in the employment sector, it proposes the adoption of a broader approach. Beyond the issues that affect minors or human dignity, the possibilities offered by the action plan for the protection of financial and business activity will be examined.
<P>
The trust of users, both individuals and businesses, of the Internet will create a favourable environment for the growth of business activity in the information society sector.
In this way, the Internet will be, in addition to a secure source of knowledge, a valuable tool for business activity.
<P>
The second important issue in the opinion concerns the principles which must govern the actions to get rid of the harmful and illegal material on the Internet.
Briefly, these principles are as follows.
<P>
First, we must support industry in the development and adoption of desirable and effective systems to control the content of the Internet. In addition, cooperation between interested bodies, above all industry, is the determining factor in the successful institution of self-regulatory systems and filtering and rating mechanisms.
<P>
The second important condition for the effective control of the content of the Internet is the clear separation of the roles and responsibilities of each element involved in the creation and distribution of that content.
<P>
The final point I would like to stress is the demand, due to the transborder nature of the Internet, for substantial cooperation and coordination of the actions of the programme at global level.
Cooperation is the only way to ensure maximum efficiency of the actions undertaken at European level.
For this reason, I think that the European Union must aspire to a leading and active role in the process of instituting principles and technical models that are acceptable at global level.
<P>
In finishing, I wish to congratulate Mr Schmid and my coo-draftsmen on their contribution to the issue of the safe use of the Internet, and to thank them for supporting the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cederschiöld">
Madam President, this is not the first time that we have discussed the Internet, nor will it be the last.
Developments are going in the right direction.
Not only here, but everywhere, there is growing awareness of the value of this revolutionary form of free information.
It is the freedom we should safeguard, not the rules.
<P>
A year ago we discussed the Pradier report on harmful and illegal content on the Internet.
The demands for regulation from various quarters then were extensive, including the registration of Internet users and a ban on digital encryption.
Many were then unfamiliar with the new and thought that old world thinking should also apply to the new world.
<P>
Once upon a time, those who did not see the new age wanted to smash Gutenberg's printing press.
The Reformation started because they did not succeed.
Through the printing press, citizens were given entirely new ways of obtaining new and much more easily accessible information.
That time it led to a decentralization of power.
<P>
Now we are facing the second reformation in that citizens are able to obtain knowledge and information and become more and more independent of authorities and states.
In the long term, this will probably lead to less regulation of the day-to-day lives of individuals and entirely new opportunities for contacts and supply.
<P>
However, illegal material on the Internet must be dealt with, but without affecting the basic premise of freedom.
The Commission wants to set up direct lines for the reporting of illegal material on the Internet, to support filtering and classification systems and education and information.
The report complements the Commission's line by wanting to investigate the legal aspects of harmful and illegal material on the Internet.
These are reasonable proposals, since they take into account the nature of the medium.
<P>
Before, there was a preoccupation with developing separate European systems.
However, we should respect the fact that this is about global and international contacts.
It is a global and international medium.
The solutions must, therefore, be international and global.
Internationally workable systems have already been developed and have won acceptance and popularity.
In this context, I would like to thank the rapporteur for having been so accommodating with regard to my amendments in this area.
<P>
Finally, I would like to welcome the understanding which has been shown with regard to avoiding compulsory systems.
The market has, of course, a direct interest in self-regulation.
In addition, quality marking could lead to a better market position for Internet service providers who want to make use of it.
It is pleasing that the Commission does not regard it as the task of the authorities to regulate the content and use of the Internet.
However, it is the authorities' task to combat and suppress criminality wherever it appears, whether it is with the help of the Internet or out on the streets.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindholm">
Madam President, the explosive development of the Internet is seen by most of us as positive.
However, as we all know, it also has a very dark and unpleasant side.
Through the Internet, everyone, including children and adolescents, can easily find detailed recipes and descriptions of drugs, as well as recipes for explosives, paedophiles can look at child pornography and women can be bought and sold, etcetera.
It is quite clear that we all want to put a stop to this.
<P>
The problem with the Internet's dark side is that it is global and does not recognize any borders.
A complete solution must, therefore, also be global and can only be brought about in cooperation with the industry.
It is something which we all must work towards.
Meanwhile, the Commission's draft action plan is a beginning which could also effectively contribute to a real international debate and hopefully a solution.
<P>
Among the most important points in the action plan are the proposal to work together with the industry for self-regulation and codes of conduct, the development of systems for filtering and classification and a broad information campaign.
Personally, however, I distance myself from all attempts to regulate the Internet problem through directives at EU level.
It is something we have to resolve in a different way and more internationally.
I am, therefore, going to vote against Amendment No 23.
However, the Green group as a whole is going to support the Schmid report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Madam President, when we talk of the safe use of the Internet, the notions of free expression and the dissemination of illegal material often travel along a collision course.
By its nature, the Internet is free and unrestricted, and it must be kept so.
The flip side to the coin is always the knowledge that someone is trying to abuse freedoms.
<P>
The grossest form of abuse is unarguably the spread of child pornography and paedophile material.
The general availability of this material on the Internet is stunning.
According to a study by Interpol, the result of just two months' monitoring of the network revealed over 70 000 sights containing images of child pornography.
The number is so large that ethical selfregulation among those active on the Internet will not be enough in itself to restrict it.
<P>
It would be wrong to charge Internet server providers with transmitting illegal material.
Although their role as guardians of self-regulation is a crucial one, we can only achieve the results we want through tight cooperation between the authorities responsible for the form and content of the computer technology industry and the Internet.
Because the Internet is a worldwide phenomenon, mere action on the part of Europe will not be sufficient in the struggle against child pornography.
What are needed are global publicity and information systems and standards, by means of which those purposely transmitting porn can be caught.
A good example of official initiative in the fight against child pornography is the tip-off phone and web page set up by the Finnish police, which you can contact to give information on paedophile activity you have found on the network.
When international material has been found, the police propose to tip off, in turn, the authorities in the countries concerned.
<P>
Finally, I would like to thank Mr Schmid for some excellent work in tackling this difficult subject on such a large scale.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Madam President, may I begin by congratulating the rapporteur not only on his excellent report but also on his absolutely brilliant speech.
This is a very important subject, which is fundamental to our future as a society that protects both the rights of the individual and industrial development.
But all this should not cause us to forget the fundamental issue that justifies our existence: our decisions must be rooted in the Treaty, the legal basis of our political acts.
<P>
My speech, therefore, will concentrate on the proposal put to us by the Committee on Legal Affairs, that the legal basis of the proposal for a decision be changed and that we use Article 129a relating to consumer protection, instead of Article 130 relating to the competitiveness of industry.
<P>
Madam President, there is no doubt that Article 130 tells us that measures will be taken to encourage an environment favourable to initiative and to the development of undertakings, and it is true that a better and safer environment will encourage industry.
But it is no less true, Madam President, that it is very difficult to apply the objectives of Article 130, for example, that of establishing the necessary conditions to make Community industry competitive, to actions intended to warn consumers about the content, be it sex or violence, on the Internet by creating self-regulation systems and setting up filter mechanisms.
<P>
Having examined this proposal for a decision, therefore, the Committee on Legal Affairs has decided that the appropriate legal basis is Article 129a, which allows us to take this kind of action to encourage and protect a safe environment for consumers in general terms.
<P>
Madam President, I would also mention that this change of legal basis gives this Parliament more of a leading role in the whole of this action, because Article 129a provides for the codecision procedure, whereas Article 130(2) merely provides for consultation.
And I think it is essential that on such a socially relevant and indeed burning issue this House should have a loud and strong voice, and not merely a consultative role.
<P>
Therefore, Madam President, I believe this is a subject that concerns all of us. The Treaty gives us a clear basis to participate with the Council on an equal footing, and we should try to see that this change of legal basis is reflected in the proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Malerba">
Madam President, I would first like to speak as the rapporteur for the document 'Initiative for international coordination of the Internet' in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
I agree with the European Commission's communication on the action plan for the safe use of the Internet, but I am not convinced that all the amendments which the rapporteur suggested making to the Commission's text are appropriate.
Just this Monday, at the invitation of the European Commission, I participated in a panel discussion with the leaders of this world industry and a consensus was reached on three points Firstly, we must avoid setting up complicated rules that create conflicts between states and that are difficult to enforce, but we must also take a political initiative so that the courts do not have to issue rulings and set legal precedents. Secondly, we must promote a legislative framework which allows the Internet to develop, imposing self-discipline within the industry, together with involvement by the political authorities and the competent international organizations in a form of structured dialogue similar to the successful Transatlantic business dialogue.
And finally, we must try to achieve an international consensus on a multilateral basis that includes, therefore, not only the United States and Europe but many other countries, in as global a context as possible.
<P>
While it might be obvious that there are areas where new codes must be written, for example, electronic signature specifically for use on the Internet, it is not obvious that new crimes will be committed on the Internet that have not already been invented and provided for in law.
Rather, the Internet is an extraordinary means of communication that enables each individual to become a publisher, gives companies an instrument for the globalization of electronic trade and - I emphasize - makes it possible, if necessary, to trace all too well the origin and destination of transactions.
I personally believe that we are faced with a young child that is taking its first steps and that we must help it grow in a favourable legislative context.
<P>
I have problems with certain amendments, Amendments Nos 6 and 12, on the authorities responsible for the content of the Internet, and Amendment No 7, on the responsibility of the distributors, but I am sure that we will come back to this debate with other thoughts and experiences.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="Pinheiro">
The Commission wishes to thank the rapporteur Mr Schmid and the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs for a very positive report.
The Internet is growing at a rapid pace and is no longer just used by scientists and researchers.
Now it is part of everyday life in offices, homes and schools.
It has proven to be extremely useful and important for business, education and culture.
The vast majority of content poses absolutely no problem.
<P>
However, the Internet can be used for illegal activities and distribution of illegal contents.
Parents and teachers are concerned at the availability of content which could be harmful for children.
If the consumers and industry of Europe are to take full advantage of the opportunities offered by the information society, these issues must be addressed.
Over the last year the Commission has worked hard with the Council, the European Parliament, Member States, industry and users to propose solutions.
The action plan is the result of the response received when the Commission first addressed the problem and it has been developed in coordination with the Council recommendation on the protection of minors and human dignity.
<P>
The present action plan takes a non-regulatory approach, involves industry and proposes concrete measures to deal with the problems.
It implements a political consensus and ensures the follow-up of actions already undertaken at EU level and in Member States.
This approach has received strong support from the Bonn Conference, the Internet working party and the Council and European Parliament.
The action plan has four action lines: first, creating a safe environment, including the creation of a European network of hotlines and support for self-regulation; second, developing, filtering and rating systems taking account of Europe's cultural and linguistic diversity; third, encouraging awareness actions; fourth, support measures.
<P>
Each of the action lines aims at reaching certain main objectives: to empower the user to protect himself and his family from undesirable harmful material; to strengthen reporting mechanisms for illegal material to be dealt with by existing legislation; to ensure that the specific multicultural and multilingual needs of Europe are addressed adequately; and to build trust in the new environment so that the consumer can benefit from the new services and so that industry can use the opportunities of electronic media.
<P>
The action plan is not the only means for achieving these objectives.
It is a financial instrument that stimulates initiatives that must be addressed by Member States, the industry and users.
It is not a legal instrument for solving the various legal issues connected with the Internet.
However, many of the problems in the new environment do not call for new legislation.
They calls for approaches where existing legislation can be applied to the Internet and how to provide sufficient solutions without legislation.
Therefore, care has been taken to focus on the non-regulatory measures in this action plan.
<P>
Concerning the amendments, the Commission is able to support most amendments tabled by Parliament.
In fact, 20 of 24 amendments tabled are wholly acceptable to the Commission.
Regarding Amendment No 14 on comitology, I must point out that the Commission intends to use the exact wording of the 1987 Council decision on type 1 committees.
There are, however, three amendments - Nos 7, 12 and 17 - which cannot be accepted.
Two of them deal with legal issues and, in particular, liability.
These certainly need to be addressed but the action plan, being a financial instrument, is not the place to do it.
The Commission is, however, working on a legal instrument, a proposal for a directive, to deal with this subject.
<P>
The third amendment proposes the inclusion of labelling systems in industrial codes of conduct.
The need to adopt labelling systems is already stated in the recommendations on protection of minors and human dignity.
We can expect codes of conduct to be developed along the lines suggested in this report.
I can assure you that if a separate European labelling system is needed, the action plan will certainly promote such a system.
Nevertheless, if flexible international systems can be adapted and this proves to be convenient, there will be no need for a separate European system which could be a waste of money.
However, there is no reason to believe that the concerns reflected in the suggested amendment are not already covered by the proposal.
<P>
I again thank Parliament for its work and its response so far.
In line with this, now is the time to follow up on the initiatives of the European Union institutions.
Parliament has already recognized the importance of dealing with these issues and I hope its decision will confirm the need for action by giving the action plan the full support needed to have a substantial effect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Combined goods transport
<SPEAKER ID=171 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0239/98), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a Council Regulation concerning the granting of Community financial assistance for actions of an innovative nature to promote combined transport (C4-0173/98-96/0207(SYN)) (Rapporteur: Mr Ulrich Stockmann).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="Stockmann">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, you have just heard the full title of the regulation.
Intermodality is the key concept of present and future European transport policy.
It aims to create an overall transport system.
By linking together various means of transport to create door-to-door transport chains, the advantages of each one are put to good use.
Combined transport, which we are debating here today, is a tried and tested forerunner of intermodal goods transport.
Combined transport has long been a keynote of our speeches, speeches by politicians concerned with transport, so that the rhetoric has far outstripped the reality. However, last year's statistics may mark a change in the trend here.
<P>
In addition to possible regulatory measures, at European level we have had the pilot actions for combined transport, PACT, since 1992.
Following the success of the first programme, which expired in 1996, we have been working on PACT II since last year.
The combination of the regulation and the increased, although still far from adequate, budget should now result in a proper programme, by which I mean one with a legal basis.
The fact that we have not reached the second reading of the regulation until today very much reflects the birth pangs of the regulation, during which the Council showed itself to be a poor midwife.
<P>
Regarding the content of the regulation, we in the Committee on Transport and Tourism welcome the partial agreement of the Commission and the Council, particularly the inclusion of inland waterways and the reference to trans-European networks as a criterion for project selection.
On the other hand, we consider the rejection, in the Council's common position, of some of the amendments which we originally tabled at first reading to be short-sighted, given that we need a strategic, and as I see it, forward-looking transport policy.
The Committee on Transport has, therefore, confirmed the need for Amendments Nos 1 to 6 before us today.
So what do we consider important here?
Firstly, just as this has now become feasible for certain other programmes, we want PACT to be extended to candidate countries with which negotiations have already started, with a corresponding additional budget of ECU 4 million for the years 2000 and 2001.
<P>
A far higher level of funding for infrastructural measures for the central and eastern European countries was envisaged in Agenda 2000 for this period.
We would like to see a small part of this earmarked now for combined transport.
We are already witnessing an excessive increase in goods transport from the candidate countries.
There is also a marked trend towards shifting goods from rail to road.
This trend is generally irrevocable if it is not resisted early enough; we can tell you a thing or two about that in Germany's new Länder .
<P>
We cannot just stand by and watch changes like this.
That is why we are calling for a strategic policy to be formulated at this point, and not a reactive policy that could cost us much more in ten years' time.
Our second main concern is to establish synergies.
A good programme can always be made better if it both aims at synergies with other programmes and it supports other policy objectives.
<P>
We still believe that synergies with the PHARE programme and projects under the Cohesion Fund should be possible.
We consider that priority should be given to PACT projects in the catchment areas of freight freeways, which are politically desirable even if they are still hard to implement.
Synergistic effects could also be achieved with activities planned under the Fifth Framework Programme on Research.
This is the aim of a further amendment we have tabled.
<P>
At this point I would like to say a few words about Mr Jarzembowski's amendment, even though he is not here today.
We have certainly not made things easy for ourselves with the reference to preventing competition, which initially sounds plausible or even self-evident.
However, we finally decided to reject the amendment because we believe that any support programme inevitably implies positive discrimination, in this case away from transporting goods exclusively by road and towards combined transport, and also in favour of regions and competitors who give priority to combined transport.
I would like to thank all my colleagues, including those who are absent today, who played a part in this report and I urge you to adopt it tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schierhuber">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to thank the rapporteur very sincerely for the excellent work he has done and to congratulate him on it.
The Commission's proposal on support for combined transport takes account of the fact that the European Union needs a reliable trans-European transport system to guarantee efficient trade and also mobility.
I therefore deeply regret that the Council has only accepted a small number of Parliament's proposals.
This would be a perfect opportunity to act instead of just talking for once.
As I have already said, I think it is a matter for regret that in its common position the Council has not seen fit also to give priority to projects which create links with the central and eastern European countries and thus achieve synergies.
<P>
Likewise, in selecting projects the Commission should try to strike a balance between regions and Member States, so as to avoid distortions in competition.
Parliament accepted this point at first reading and it has now been confirmed in the amendment tabled by Mr Jarzembowski on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party.
I urge the House to support this amendment too.
<P>
I would also like to mention that it is essential to integrate trans-European 'rail freight freeways' for the sake of environmentally sound development and to utilize trans-European transport networks.
I see these freeways as a particularly important and innovatory aspect of the transport policy.
Regrettable is not a strong enough word for the budget, which the Council has set at just ECU 35 million.
Appropriations of at least ECU 43 million are required for the period from 1997 to 2001, if, as has already been said, we want action and not just words.
A budget of this level should therefore be approved, even if I still think this is only a drop in the ocean.
<P>
I believe it is vital to develop the European Union's transport system, particularly in view of enlargement and the everincreasing significance of environmental issues.
I therefore support the amendments tabled, as do all the Members of my group, and I hope that they will also enjoy the support of the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Thank you very much, Madam President, particularly for giving me an opportunity not only to congratulate the rapporteur, but also to say that he is an excellent role model for people willing to retrain from being theologians or musicians to real technicians and politicians!
<P>
Let me now change over into my own language and say something on the report itself.
In my opinion, we have here a typical example of how the Council could have shown for once through deeds, rather than just through words, how we, in this Parliament, as a body support the idea of a general shift from road to railways and inland waterways.
We are once again here compelled to accept that we will have a major collapse in traffic before long if we do nothing.
The responsibility for this lies with the Council and the Commission, not with Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 NAME="Pinheiro">
Madam President, let me first of all thank the rapporteur, Mr Stockmann and the House for the work on the proposals to continue our successful experience of pilot actions for combined transport, PACT.
<P>
It is a clear demonstration of Parliament's continuing commitment to promoting combined transport.
While we appreciate the constructive attitude of Parliament in this dossier, I am sorry to say that the Commission will only be able to accept two of the amendments, although this should not detract from the broad agreement that exists between Parliament, Council and the Commission.
<P>
Amendments Nos 1 and 4 seek to introduce, as Parliament proposed in the first reading and the Commission agreed, the notion of the trans-European rail freight freeways into the regulations.
Since the rail freight freeways are an important Commission initiative, I can continue to support their inclusion as an evaluation criterion in the PACT regulation.
<P>
The freeways are a significant step towards the true liberalization of the rail market.
I can assure the House that both the Commission and the Member States will give high priority in the selection of procedures to any project that wants to make use of the freeways.
<P>
Amendments Nos 2, 3, 5 and 6 seek to reintroduce the possibility of funding actions outside the European Union and of allowing non-EC companies to be beneficiaries of PACT funding.
The Commission is quite aware that combined transport policy cannot stop at the EC borders.
Traffic flows and the opportunities for inter-modal transport are too important with our eastern neighbours.
Therefore, the Commission proposal originally foresaw this possibility.
However, discussions on this point in the Council have clearly shown that the regulation as such would not have a chance of being accepted by Council if the Commission insisted on this point.
<P>
Member States agree that the Community must help the candidate countries in their endeavours for a sustainable transport system.
Many Member States thought that other instruments, for instance within the PHARE programme, should be used or further developed to assist combining transport services.
<P>
The Commission will, therefore, examine whether the current programmes can be used for PACT-like projects for inter-modal transport in the candidate countries.
In the same vein, the Commission cannot accept the topping up to ECU 43 million because this sum conflicts with the financial perspectives of the Community for PACT.
<P>
Moreover, certain aspects of Amendments Nos 3 and 5 cannot be accepted; neither can we accept Amendment No 7.
On the one hand, synergies with other funding programmes will be ensured through the necessary inter-service consultation within the Commission.
On the other hand, the Commission continues to believe that the selection criteria, in simple terms, improvement of competitiveness, of combined transport through innovation are clear and limited in the interests of transparency.
Other priorities or considerations could, we believe, only muddy the waters.
<P>
Even if I am not able to convince Parliament of the Commission's position in all respects, I hope I have at least clarified that position.
Let me close by again thanking Parliament, and in particular the rapporteur, for the interest taken in combined transport and for the valuable contribution it has made concerning these regulations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner Pinheiro.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 10.50 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
Mr Rübig wishes to speak in connection with yesterday's Minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, I would just like to ask if the thefts and break-ins in our offices here in the European Parliament could also be recorded in the Minutes?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Mr Rübig, that is not something which should be recorded in the Minutes, but it will be recorded that you have spoken today on this issue.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Transnational trade union rights
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0095/98) by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on transnational trade union rights in the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Social Charter was adopted at the Strasbourg Summit of December 1989 and was seen at the time by many as a great step forwards.
I had my doubts and I remember very well a discussion I had prior to the Summit with a member of the COREPER who tried to bring me to an understanding of the far-reaching consequences of the text to be adopted in 1989.
My lack of understanding at the time was caused by the fact that I come from a country where the rights of employee and employer organisations are well established and so my feeling was that the European Charter would not add anything new.
Now we are ten years on and - the report is the best proof of this - I must say that the Social Charter of that time is not yet firmly anchored in the EC Treaty.
<P>
We have now had two Treaty amendments, Maastricht and Amsterdam.
The Social Protocol is indeed well established, but the limitations that were formulated with regard to pay, the right of association and the right to strike or the right of lock-out have unfortunately not been adopted.
Our European social policy is thus to my mind still not mature.
<P>
With regard to the initial report itself, the history, I am keen to establish for the benefit of historians that the long period needed to get this report to the House cannot be blamed on any unwillingness on the part of the rapporteur or her political party.
Let it be known that the christian democrats were standard bearers of the socially-orientated market economy and I know from experience that allowing social partners responsibilities leads to a successful society.
<P>
I am also keen to mention that the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs' decision to write a report was based on many petitions, namely from the United Kingdom because trade union rights were not settled there and the idea was that if we now have something at European level then it will happen here as well.
<P>
Thirdly, because I must also persuade the free marketeers, it is too crazy for words that Europe has repeatedly pressed for the freedom to form trade unions and the freedom to negotiate to be adopted in international or global agreements, for example within the framework of the WTO, while we have not adopted these guarantees in our own EC Treaty.
<P>
The matter that we have to sort out is trade union rights as such.
What I would like is for the European Commission to come forward with an initiative, I am not asking for a directive, a proposal, but rather an initiative for specific research.
The group of experts that is at present already analysing the Treaty of Amsterdam, looking at what the shortcomings are, could very well report on this point.
<P>
I ask also that the social partners make a first move, because it concerns them.
They must ensure, and the annual report from the reports by the group of experts is possibly a good starting point, that a proposal is provided.
In connection with trade union rights I have also made a number of remarks about the social dialogue and also the rules of that game.
I am sometimes concerned as to whether there is sufficient room for this social dialogue.
<P>
I am well aware that for some Member States we cannot settle very awkward matters from one day to the next.
All the same, I think that in a mature society where it is observed that there are still too few rights, the social and political organizations should be able to tackle the problem quickly.
I thank all those who have contributed to the creation of this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
I must tell you that I am pronouncing your name better, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, because I am receiving lessons from the interpreters and I am taking advantage of these lessons. They enable me to improve more and more and to pronounce your name, if not perfectly, as I would wish, then a little better each time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="Schäfer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Treaty of Amsterdam brought about significant progress in the domain of social policy and employment. In particular, this includes alignment with the European Social Charter of 1961 and the Community Charter on Fundamental Social Rights for Workers of 1989, the complete integration of the Protocol on Social Policy in all 15 EU Member States, the strengthening of the employment policy dimension in a separate chapter of the EC Treaty, the orientation of policy towards issues relating to the employment market and active measures to ensure equality between men and women.
The social model in Europe is based on solidarity, balancing of interests and state involvement.
The essence of this was confirmed and developed at the Intergovernmental Conference.
<P>
Strong, independent trade unions form a key pillar of our social Europe.
As a Social Democrat and trade union member, it is a personal honour for me to represent the Group of the Party of European Socialists here.
I am well aware that historically the unions and social democrats have been at the heart of the international workers' movement.
In this report the European Parliament is staking out an important arena for the continuation of the integration process, and this process must operate on two levels.
On one hand, in our common tradition trade union rights have often been fought through tough negotiations and fierce conflicts.
In their actual form, they ought to develop in tandem with genuine social progress and should no longer be limited by bureaucratic rules.
There is always the danger with regulations that they will result less in the assurance of union rights than in their restriction.
<P>
On the other hand, first and foremost the European Union must set up a framework of guarantees and constitutional standards within which union rights at a European level can blossom fully. This means that there must be some impetus from above, for example through institutional structures such as the European Parliament.
I would highlight the following key issues.
Firstly, we must take pragmatic steps to promote union rights at European level. Secondly, complementary legislative measures must be developed which do not restrict the openness of union developments.
Thirdly, we must block the democratic deficit in the social dialogue, in other words whenever an agreement is made between social partners at Community level, if it is made by means of a Council decision and is legally binding it must be subject to approval by the European Parliament. Fourthly, the further-reaching institutional demands in the Treaty of Amsterdam which have not yet been met must remain on the table for future discussion of reform in the EU.
Before the next Intergovernmental Conference, the European Parliament must advise how they will be raised again in the discussion.
Fifthly, and this is a personal comment after thirty years' membership of the DGB, I would like to see the unions becoming more European. This would have implications for practical work at grass roots level, for organization and for strategic planning.
Sixthly, the unions of Europe are already providing the momentum for global standards in working life.
In terms of globalization, this is a particularly important factor. For example, workers in Korea have indicated that they are no longer prepared to stand for heteronomy.
<P>
The unification of Europe in the 19th century was borne primarily by the workers' movement and parts of the liberal bourgeoisie.
Almost 150 years ago, appropriately here in Brussels, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels drew up their manifesto in which they called for the democratic parties in all countries to join together and to reach agreement.
The 1848 revolution used the slogan of unification for the free peoples of Europe.
Nowadays, the Community is based on peace and cross-border division of labour.
I could phrase this loosely. In the past century, the organized workforce pushed forward the European concept, and in this century multinational concerns have created the European reality.
In any case, the EU must never be just an Economic and Monetary Union. It must move towards a social union at the same time.
We must remember, however, that there will only be a European social union with the involvement of European unions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Schäfer.
You have informed me that you thought you had four minutes and I have accepted this, but, concentrating on Marx and Engels, you took up almost five minutes.
I would ask you, please, although you have such important points to make, to be careful with the time.
I would ask you all to be aware of this in future, particularly those who have yet to speak, including Mr McMahon who is going to speak for two minutes on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="McMahon">
Mr President, I am fascinated by people negotiating their speaking time across the floor of the House, a very interesting departure from our customary procedure.
<P>
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten has produced a very good and interesting report and this is an area where there is very considerable concern within the Union for the whole issue of workers' rights.
There is no doubt that the Social Charter lays down the guarantee for fundamental rights for workers, in particular the right of association for workers and employers.
The interesting thing too is that there were one or two little gaps in the Maastricht Social Protocol which led my country to a lot of misrepresentation about what was actually involved in the Social Protocol.
It did not apply to the right to strike, the right of association and it did not apply to pay or to lock-outs.
Despite that, the UK Government of that time decided that it could not sign up for it and that was regrettable.
<P>
I believe it is important that the rights of free association collective bargaining are regarded as a basic human right and that any attempt in Europe or anywhere else to violate these rights are a violation of fundamental human rights.
<P>
The development of the social dimension in Europe has contributed to a general trend towards the Europeanization of industrial relations and as my colleague, Mr Schäfer, said there is going to be increasing Europeanization of labour relations and organization.
The euro is going to give fillip to this and there will be more collective bargaining on a European basis.
As one example of that, the union of which I am a member, the GMB has reached an agreement with IG BCE, the chemical union in Germany.
They have actually got collective bargaining right across the board.
I believe the model that the GMB and IG BCE have developed will be a good model for the future.
With this and with the development of the social dialogue, which is one of the priorities of the Austrian Presidency, I believe the union movement will go from strength to strength within the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Thyssen">
Mr President, I should like to congratulate my colleague, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on her report, to which she gave an excellent introduction and with the main points of which we are in total agreement.
<P>
Although the subject of this report is transnational trade union rights in the European Union, I maintain that certain lines of argument within it can, by analogy, be applied to the other side of the social dialogue.
Out of respect for the rapporteur I did not want to alter the specific nature of the report and have refrained from tabling any amendments.
<P>
However, I wish to widen the scope of the debate.
The report refers to ILO Conventions Nos 87 and 98 concerning freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining.
It states that these Conventions must also be applied at Community level.
The report also rightly emphasises that the social dialogue is an outstanding aid in continuing to bring together the economic and social aims of the European Union.
<P>
A good dialogue naturally requires an opposite number, who can best represent his group as broadly as possible.
The rapporteur will already have realized that yet again I unfortunately find myself forced to exclude the SME partners from the European collective agreements process.
This House has repeatedly called on the Commission to do something about this, but unfortunately in vain.
Today once again I call for the attention of all democrats to the fact that the right to negotiate is also a fundamental right for SMEs and that this right is a cornerstone of social rights as they have been established by the ILO.
This last sentence is not mine. It is a quote from Professor Blanpain, a labour law professor of international repute.
<P>
Perhaps by firmly rooting trade union rights in the Treaty we can in the end also obtain something for SMEs.
If this report also leads to that then the SMEs, Madam Rapporteur, will be eternally grateful.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Mr President, Madam Rapporteur, our party is naturally also of the opinion that fundamental freedoms to organize and to negotiate are very important in order to promote the social dialogue at European level.
I should also like to underline Mrs Thyssen's point with regard to the right that small and medium-sized enterprises must also have to participate in this sort of negotiations.
<P>
However, I wish to use my brief opportunity to speak to ask you to look at point 10 of Mrs Oomen-Ruijten's report, specifically the second indent where it is asked that free participation in trade union organizations in enterprises be provided for.
I should like the European Commission, when it considers this report, to consider also the right of the individual not to have to join an organization.
Hitherto, in international law, for example both in relation to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to the same declarations in relation to fundamental freedoms granted through the Council of Europe, there has been a refusal to establish a fundamental right not to be organized.
I wish to point here to the fact that in a number of countries there is still a closed shop system or enforced unionization.
I think that, on the one hand, the right to join an organization must include the right not to join.
Also, I did not wish to table any amendments as I did not want to whip up the issue in this sense, but I hope that the European Commission will also establish this right when it works out its proposals.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Mr President, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten's report has an unusually long and colourful history here in Parliament.
This time the report has altered considerably and it is important that the trade union movement managed to have an influence on the final outcome.
<P>
When our committee discussed the report last February, most of the group voted against it.
The basis for that decision then was that the matter was so much one of principle, and a delicate one too, that we could not come to any hasty conclusions.
Time has passed since February, however.
This time, in Finland at least, a debate has arisen on the absolute necessity of transnational trade union rights as a counterweight to transnational markets.
This debate has convinced me of the need for European trade union rights.
Obviously, however, when European trade union rights begin to be formulated, both management and labour must be fully involved in the work from the start.
Under no circumstances can European trade union rights be allowed to have a weakening effect on national and statutory rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Kerr">
Mr President, on behalf of the Green Party I welcome the report by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
As Mrs Ojala said, it had a long history in the committee, an interesting history as well.
I believe at one point the report was pulled from the committee because it was seen to be too pro-union and too pro-European.
Just before the British election it was thought it might be a little embarrassing, particularly for our Labour colleagues, to actually have to vote in favour of this since Mr Blair was not known to favour the kind of trade union rights that Mrs Oomen-Ruijten speaks about in her report.
Indeed he boasts that Britain has the most lightly regulated industry and toughly-regulated trade unions of all the European Union.
The disappointment for us in Britain, of course, is that the new Trade Union Bill, which is before the British Parliament, does not restore the many rights which had been taken away from trade unions in the many years of Tory rule.
So I welcome Mrs Oomen-Ruijten's report and I can only conclude that really she is very old Labour and is welcome to join the independent Labour network, well to the left of new Labour.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
Mr President, Member States have differing traditions with regard to industrial relations, and we should respect this.
Thus, I am glad to see that we have established that the report is dealing with transnational rights rather than national professional rights.
I am also glad that we have established that the question of wages will remain exempt from European legislation.
In my opinion, the report is good because it paves the way for much-needed debate.
It could be said that the parties to the labour market can already enter into European agreements in the social dialogue.
If so desired by the parties concerned, such discussions could be raised to the level of European legislation, so European trade unions already have some collective rights.
<P>
However, there is a problem in that little progress has been made in the social dialogue.
The social partners are not terribly keen to enter into agreements.
That is one of the difficulties in developing a European model where, to a large extent, the social partners have to take the blame for initiatives in industrial relations.
The slow pace of the social dialogue is particularly regrettable for someone like myself, as an ardent fan of the Danish model, where the parties to the labour market settle industrial relations questions jointly.
However, it would be disastrous if this were to mean we would be unable to develop a strong social dimension at European level.
We would risk finishing up with multinational companies pitting national trade unions against each other.
Thus, seen against this backdrop, it may not be so stupid to be discussing a new framework for the social dialogue and giving trade unions more effective instruments with which to force the employers' organizations to the negotiating table.
It may well be that collective action or some kind of European employment legislation should or could resolve any conflicts in industrial relations.
<P>
Finally, I would like to emphasize that the most important players of all the parties to the labour market are those responsible for laying down transnational union rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, I wish to express my deep concern regarding the state of the social and union rights of workers in the European Union.
<P>
Community intervention in fundamental issues of labour legislation tends, especially nowadays, to undermine and overturn the most basic achievements of the labour union movement.
<P>
Unfortunately, the report we are debating does not avoid, to any large extent, going down the same road.
Three references suffice to support this assessment: the recommendation to abolish the provisions of the Treaty which concern freedom of association and the right to strike; the elevation of social dialogue as the fundamental duty of trade unions, instead of the fight for workers' rights; the adaptation of the policy of employment to the objectives of EMU.
The labour movement's rights are currently under attack as never before and the European Parliament should be concerning itself with assisting it in its struggle, instead of taking a hand in the attempt to undermine it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Malone">
Mr President, within the last two weeks the ILO has adopted a new convention on global labour standards which includes the right to join unions and bargain collectively.
Ireland is a member of the ILO and yet the Irish constitution, as interpreted by our courts, gives employers the right to refuse to recognize unions.
The most recent and blatant example of this was the case of an airline company, Ryanair, where the management of that company refused to negotiate with the trade union SIPTU in relation to a group of young, very badly paid baggage handlers.
<P>
It is absolutely essential that we enshrine in European law the right to join trade unions and the right to bargain collectively.
Partnership at work must be based on the firm foundation of union recognition.
I call on Commissioner Flynn to begin work now on drafting a new directive to this effect.
The Amsterdam Treaty was defective in this regard.
It did not give us the trade union rights that we so badly need.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Mr President, Commissioner, no-one can deny that in these days when capital is becoming transnational it is reasonable to give transnational trade union rights their proper effect.
The recognition of the right of association is in line with that argument and should serve as a basis for it.
This own-initiative report therefore appears to be the natural outcome of a process in which the inclusion of the Social Chapter in the Treaty is its main justification.
But this is not just a report that has been produced on its own.
It goes hand in hand with other initiatives and reports making up a package which is worrying to those who think trade unions have other purposes and tasks apart from merely participating in the social dialogue, the sole purpose of which is to protect economic interests in a market in which the workforce is no more than one kind of merchandise.
<P>
Furthermore, the recognition of the freedom to form trade union associations at Community level, while necessary, may have the undesirable result of causing trade unions to lose their character as class organizations, which they also can and should continue to be, particularly at national level.
We consider that the effect of this initiative is not to close, but rather to open a debate or bring it up to date.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Pinheiro">
Mr President, I would firstly like to congratulate Mrs Oomen-Ruijten and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs for the comprehensive work they have just produced on the subject of transnational trade union rights in the European Union.
As you know, the right of association with the object of forming professional or trade union organizations, as guaranteed by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, is recognized in Article 6 (2) of the Treaty of Amsterdam as a general principle of Community law.
<P>
In that context, it is important to emphasize that, for the first time, the Treaty of Amsterdam gives the Court of Justice jurisdiction over matters relating to human rights and fundamental liberties, including the right of association.
Freedom of association and collective bargaining are recognized in the Community Charter on Fundamental Social Rights for Workers and implicitly referred to in Article 136 of the Treaty of Amsterdam as guiding principles of Community social policy.
Nevertheless, I should like to make it absolutely clear that, since the right to associate and the right to strike are not within the scope of Article 137 of the Treaty, the Commission does not intend to draft any legislation on those matters.
<P>
The Commission does, however, consider, Mr President, that the question of fundamental social rights requires more sustained and detailed thought at Union level. In that connection, one of the sessions of the European Forum on social policy held last week touched on the question of how to widen and deepen the debate on fundamental rights.
In addition, a group of experts has been set up to examine the progress that has been achieved in that field by the Treaty of Amsterdam, identifying any omissions and recommending courses of action for the future.
The report is expected to be completed by the end of this year.
I am sure my colleague Padraig Flynn will keep Parliament duly informed of the results of our present deliberations and the courses of action the Commission will be suggesting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Pinheiro.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, the Commissioner's speech brings this debate to a close.
<P>
I would remind you that the report by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on which she has been congratulated many times, will be put to the vote this morning at 11.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Voluntary organizations and foundations
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate (A4-0203/98) by Mrs Ghilardotti, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Communication from the Commission on promoting the role of voluntary organizations and foundations in Europe (COM(97)0241 - C4-0546/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="Ghilardotti">
Mr President, today we are dealing with quite an important Commission communication, and the debate in the House comes at a rather delicate moment, because, as everyone knows, organizations, associations and foundations are faced with the problem of how to finance their activities because of the decision of the Court of Justice. The Court ruled that the Commission had to stop all funding until a Council decision defines a legal basis for this financing.
I will return to this later, but certainly it is strange to talk about promoting associations and foundations, the voluntary world, the third sector - to which we give particular importance in Parliament's communication and work - and at the same time observe that the activity of these organizations is paralysed.
I therefore believe that today's debate can be an incentive for the Council to reach an interinstitutional agreement, as the Parliament has been proposing for some time, that can effectively solve the problem, not just for the 1998 budget but also for the future.
<P>
The communication that we are talking about today is the result of more than ten years of work based on an own-initiative report of the European Parliament in 1987, a report that prompted the European Commission to set up a 'social economy' unit at Directorate-General XXIII. The Commission did a tremendous amount of work, proposing two actions for legislation and the drafting of a White Paper.
However, all these initiatives encountered difficulties in the Council and in the Commission itself and went no further than a few measures. In any event, these problems remain completely unsolved, and we think that today's debate and the approval of this report and the Commission's communication can break the deadlock so that the planned legislative activity can continue.
<P>
Even if the communication is an instrument that is a little weaker than what Parliament wanted and what the unit at DG XXIII planned to do, I believe, as does the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, that it is nonetheless of great importance because it defines two elements in what is broadly speaking the social economy, that is associations and foundations, and it defines the characteristics and recognition at European level.
It is an important operation because it serves to pool the various experiences and realities of the different Member States.
In addition, it recognizes and promotes the various roles that these organizations play, for example in providing employment: Parliament has already worked on this aspect these past few years; a lot of the studies and research work done recognize that the world of the third sector, broadly speaking the voluntary sector, is a sector that these past few years has on the one hand promoted new job opportunities, especially at the local level, and on the other hand has been able to meet a series of needs - relational, social, cultural, environmental - old and new, which today neither the public sector nor the private sector is able to meet.
It therefore has a very important role in providing employment, a very important social role, but also a very important political role.
The possibility of recognizing, promoting, finding various ways for citizens to participate in the collective good - because that is what we are talking about - in relation to the tradition of the organizations of political parties and trade unions plays a major role in involving citizens in Europe's construction.
This civil dialogue, as we have called it, was promoted by the European institutions throughout the Intergovernmental Conference debate and there is no doubt that the voluntary sector is a new way to resume building a legitimate relationship of trust and participation between citizens and the institutions.
<P>
It is for this reason that we greatly appreciate this communication and I would indeed like us to use this debate as well to urge the Council to arrive at an agreement on the legal basis before the first reading on 17 July, otherwise we demonstrate an inability to act for and to have faith in Europe's citizens, in that we make statements and then, by and large, behave quite differently - even if it does not depend on us but on the Council; in short, the European institutions say one thing and then do another.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Cot">
Mr President, I have two observations to make in my two minutes, .
The first, on procedure: I still do not understand the headlong rush of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs in this matter.
The deadlines given to the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights for delivering its opinion has prevented it from paying serious attention to the day-to-day legal problems raised by the communication, and with which the associations are very familiar.
The problems in question include those of definition, mutual recognition, responsibility and taxation.
I fear that such precipitate action by our colleagues might also have prevented Parliament from giving a proper hearing to the voluntary associations and from studying their problems in depth.
<P>
I feel, in this matter, that Parliament has wasted an opportunity to make its contribution to this debate, and I fear that this indifference, coming on top of the catastrophically negative signals given by the Court of Justice, the Commission and by the Council with regard to legal bases, will only serve to create a huge gulf between ourselves and these very important groups, as Mrs Ghilardotti has reminded us.
<P>
The second observation, Mr President, concerns the fundamental issues at stake here.
For my part, I believe that the communication provides an interesting inventory of practices and problems.
I welcome this step which is a kind of tour of Europe carried out by the Commission and its staff to open up discussions with the authorities of the NGOs of various associations: it represents an attempt to create awareness, to provide information, and also to mobilize forces.
I would simply like to draw attention to the danger that all this could end up as some kind of pointless intellectual exercise, if it does not result in any concrete proposals, and we are awaiting these proposals.
<P>
It is my hope that these proposals will be clearly incorporated in the very notion of a large market, of economic activities, and that we shall not treat the voluntary organizations and foundations sector as being simply the place for some kind of voluntary and charitable activity, but that we take account of the real difficulties which will one day have to be tackled.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papakyriazis">
Mr President, I think that this report by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs as this was, and I stress this, drawn up in committee following the marvellous work of Mrs Ghilardotti, is a responsible political position at which the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has arrived and which it is presenting for debate during this sitting.
<P>
The Commission communication is undoubtedly a significant piece of work, which brings to the forefront the important topical issue of the promotion of voluntary organizations and foundations.
However, this work of the European Commission cannot surely be regarded, I am afraid to say, as having provided a bold and effective solution to this big problem.
<P>
So the report, the long preparation, the assessment of experiences, which has resulted from the work in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (and at this juncture I must say that I cannot understand Mr Cot's position), accurately underlines the importance of this issue in the European Union today and gives it the fillip it needs.
Today, in view of overall progress, of the problem of employment and the problem of unemployment, of proof that local initiative and the exploitation of local human potential as well as of natural resources, can pay off in this global society, this report indeed makes a significant contribution.
I believe that it must be regarded in this way, as a point of contact with the society of citizens and an activation, a recognition, of the role that it can play.
<P>
In conclusion, I wish to stress that two topical issues, the promotion of national action programmes against unemployment and the reorganization of the Structural Funds for the regions are, taken together, I believe, an opportunity to link the issue we are debating with these major developments in the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, I believe that the whole question of voluntary organizations and the third system is one whose full significance we have only begun to appreciate in the last few years.
In our modern, differentiated and individualized societies it is necessary to establish a clear social coherence, and in this context the various associations are a key factor.
<P>
The European Union has a rather complicated history in this issue, as the rapporteur for the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has explained.
We have not yet succeeded in creating a common legal basis for associations, mutual societies and foundations, and this is regrettable.
Yet the Commission's communication is to be welcomed.
I do not believe it is an avoidance tactic since it is necessary to develop broad communications and broad advice throughout this sector concerning what we want.
We want strong development in this sector.
We want this sector no longer to be regarded with mistrust by the authorities or by certain sides of industry which consider themselves to be removed from everyone else.
We want to see this sector developing in all its many facets, and I think that to do this we urgently need time for examination, reflection and consultation.
Then we should gradually plan and devise options for sponsorship, for a suitable legal framework and for the development of activities within Europe.
I think that this communication from the Commission is a good first step in all of this and therefore I welcome it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Glase">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have already heard quite a bit about the importance of charitable associations and foundations.
They have important functions in socio-political and employment terms.
The rapporteur has taken this on board, and I can only praise her for her commitment in this area.
Unfortunately, she was less than cooperative during the debate in committee and she did not take into account any ideas which were further-reaching or tried to go into more depth.
I only want to look at the most important of these again: it must be clear that we do not want to create a new network of national agencies to manage and coordinate this sector, but rather that this network should grow from the existing agencies through cooperation.
<P>
I warmly welcome the proposal to improve access to Structural Funds for NGOs, but we must also be realistic about the allocation of these funds.
Often very little is left over for those who really need it, especially in small projects, after the cost of administration in terms of both allocation and sponsorship.
Consultants and the sponsors themselves are financed from it.
And this leads me on to my most important point.
In point 14 of the conclusion, the rapporteur mentions that part of the funds for SMEs should be held back for third system SMEs.
Firstly, there is no such thing as third system SMEs.
It is a case either of the profit or the non-profit sector.
<P>
Secondly, the existing funds for the SME are currently so small that the charitable sector cannot also have a share of it.
Thirdly, notwithstanding the euphoria about the effects on employment of the third system, we must differentiate between two things.
This sector has an important role to play in reintegrating people into employment and in promoting enterprise.
Management in its truest sense is often carried out under the most difficult of conditions.
However, long-term, subsidyindependent jobs are created primarily by private industry, especially the SMEs.
We all agree that the NGOs have an ever more important part to play in the citizen/state relationship, and we must promote this.
Autonomy and solidarity are core principles of this.
For this reason, we in the PPE group are voting for this report despite some points of criticism.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
Mr President, there are many different voluntary organizations throughout Europe, such as in the environmental area, the social area, trade unions, peace movements and women's movements, which often have very active members and a lot of contacts with their members in the respective Member States.
By supporting voluntary organizations you support the many people throughout Europe who have the energy to do something just like us in Parliament.
Supporting voluntary organizations and foundations also creates understanding of our work here in Parliament, and shows that we do more than simply concern ourselves with trade and economics.
<P>
I would like to emphasize three things.
Firstly, increased support for voluntary organizations through the Structural Funds is positive. One per cent of the European Social Funds is good.
Secondly, voluntary organizations can create jobs. It is possible to create jobs in a third sector.
We should not exaggerate the opportunities, but they exist and we should make use of them.
Thirdly, and most importantly, we must make use of the expertise and commitment of voluntary organizations and foundations by including them in our legislative work and other Parliamentary work in a natural way.
In Scandinavia we have a very good system of consultation which means that on important issues voluntary organizations and foundations are regularly given an opportunity to express themselves and their views are gathered.
That is also a good way to improve understanding of the EU and the work of the European Parliament.
<P>
But there are also some things I think we should guard against.
We should not interfere with the internal workings of foundations, such as who should be their representatives.
In my opinion, paragraph 24 is close to the limit.
<P>
Finally, our task is not to regulate and control.
Our task is to encourage and support voluntary organizations and foundations.
So this is a good start.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Hyland">
Mr President, I am very happy to add my voice to those who support the concept of voluntary citizen participation in the work of community development.
We are fortunate to have people who give so freely of their time.
Their role in society is not always sufficiently recognized, in particular at a time when reward for work is generally measured in terms of money.
From an EU perspective and in the context of the application of the principle of subsidiarity we cannot ignore the potential and desire of our citizens to participate in the work of nation-building.
<P>
I give the example of the LEADER programme.
Given the opportunity and a favourable community infrastructure, the citizens of rural Europe are actively participating in enterprise programmes, creating much-needed employment and contributing to the sustainability of rural communities.
It is not, however, good enough just to pay lip service to their work.
All of us must be concerned with the continuing decline of rural populations, the deteriorating age profile of our farmers and the real threat to the traditional family farm.
After all, the European agricultural model is supposed to be about their survival.
<P>
With new technology and the availability of more financially rewarding opportunities for young people, let us not close our eyes to this real threat.
We cannot, however, turn the clock back but through carefully constructed training and educational programmes involving organizations such as CEJA, the European umbrella body for farm organizations and, in my own country, Macra Na Feirme, our young farmers' organization, we can create the economic and social infrastructure necessary to encourage and help more young people to pursue farming as a credible career.
We must take up that challenge in the context of Agenda 2000.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Mr President, voluntary organizations, or the charitable sector, are an important sector of society as the bearer of values which we want to safeguard and which we want to encourage, that is, that citizens actively participate in and thereby also gain influence over the development of society.
<P>
Society's collective responsibility is not going to be replaced. Instead this should be seen as a complement.
This is a growing sector in which many new jobs are being created.
Therefore it is particularly shameful that funds for the support of the charitable sector have now been frozen.
I hope that we reach a swift solution with regard to this.
<P>
I would really like to support Mrs Ghilardotti's proposal to strengthen the charitable sector at the local level as far as the Structural Funds are concerned, so that they can be active partners in the planning and implementation of co-financed measures.
<P>
Furthermore, I would also like us to bear in mind that cooperatives can also be included in voluntary organizations and the charitable sector, even if their charter says they should promote the economic interests of their members.
Those interests are restricted to keeping the activities going, so it is not about making a profit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Garosci">
Mr President, with the euro's arrival a few months from now, the Member States will be talking the same monetary language, and this will help further their growth together.
Similarly, another aspect that we must discuss together and concerning which we must take action, is voluntary and cooperative activities.
Indeed organizations and foundations today play an important role in what the Commission calls the Community scenario, intervening in all areas of social activity.
We must therefore pay greater attention to them and be more and more available, helping them to develop synergies, use a common language and meet the needs of their members, collectively speaking, in order to create an ideal environment in which they can operate to achieve the objectives of representing their own groups.
In addition to protecting social interests, this can create major opportunities for work, cultural growth, vocational training, as clearly recalled by the rapporteur whom we thank.
<P>
Let us therefore hope that the next Intergovernmental Conference finally promotes the role of organizations and foundations, recognizing non-profit organizations and non-governmental organizations as fundamental bodies for common social growth in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Menrad">
Mr President, the PPE group is in favour of the communication and believes that the report by Mrs Ghilardotti complements and improves it.
Congratulations!
Both documents contain interesting remarks on the role of associations and foundations at national, regional and local levels, but a European dimension is also mentioned, inter alia with reference to the proposal for a Statute for a European association in 1992.
Mrs Ghilardotti accepted the PPE group's suggestion made in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, that any regulation on European associations in future must be clearly differentiated from the European public limited company.
A European statute of association must not be viewed unilaterally as a business association, but it must also be compatible with charitable associations and the issues of subsidiarity, the freedom to form articles of association and the freedom of citizens and association.
In this spirit we are in favour of the report by Mrs Ghilardotti.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Filippi">
Mr President, the fact that we have many economic and social experiences and many ways to manage the related activities is typical of the European model of development and a source of wealth that must be protected.
The report by Mrs Ghilardotti on the role of organizations and foundations in Europe rightly recalls the need to develop the entire third sector, the so-called non-profit sector.
Today we are talking about foundations and NGOs, but soon we will have to talk about mutual societies and cooperatives.
The Council must, however, move beyond the attitude that it has had up until now, which has been an attitude of objectively blocking the third sector.
In Europe, there is not just the State and the private sector, but a wider range of experiences that cannot be ignored.
We cannot talk about reform of the welfare state or innovation in international cooperation without the contribution of the private social work of the foundations and NGOs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Angelilli">
Mr President, the report by Mrs Ghilardotti whom I highly commend is an in-depth, comprehensive examination of all the problems related to the promotion of the role of organizations and foundations.
We largely agree with all the assessments made in the report: to begin with, the need for genuine regulation of the non-profit sector at European level, a valuable sector that in this historic period is witnessing extraordinary growth, precisely because it has been the only sector capable of filling the gap left by the crisis of the public welfare systems in providing social services.
For this reason, we can only agree with the recommendations in the report: first, the creation of a European statute that guarantees the voluntary sector recognition of a clearly defined legal status that protects and encourages the activities carried out; second, genuine, clear rules in legislative and fiscal terms, in particular the revision of VAT; finally, adequate financial resources.
Only this way, only if we clearly recognize the right of the non-profit sector to play its role, will it be able to make that precious contribution suggested by the Treaty of Amsterdam of developing solidarity and social participation under the best conditions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="Pinheiro">
Mr President, I would like to begin by saying how gratifying it is for the Commission to see the interest with which the document has been received by the general public, the national bodies, the sectorial organizations and also the European institutions.
I would like to emphasize the opinion of the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, which have expressed their clear intention of supporting the development of organizations and foundations.
I would also like to congratulate Mrs Ghilardotti, Mr Cot and Mr Wolf most heartily on the frankness with which they have approached the subject, showing an interest in all activities undertaken or proposed by socioeconomic organizations.
<P>
Since presenting its communication, the Commission, in collaboration with representatives of the organizations and foundations, has developed a plan of action to implement its conclusions, to exploit the potential of those organizations and foundations, and also to identify the difficulties to be overcome to enable them to play a more effective part in defending the interests of European citizens.
It is a fact that organizations and foundations which participate in all aspects of economic and social life often have considerable economic power and represent an important source of employment.
Most of these socioeconomic organizations are corporations in the broadest sense of the term.
And in many cases they represent alternative forms of corporation related to traditional economic and social models.
That in fact is why we have also included the socioeconomic sector in the Commission's communication under the heading 'Promoting the entrepreneurial spirit in Europe' .
<P>
I will not go over the conclusions and suggestions contained in that communication here.
I would, however, like to mention the actions we have taken since it was adopted and, at the same time, I will try to deal with the questions that have been raised by Members and especially by the rapporteurs.
<P>
One important point, on which many others depend, is undoubtedly that of the status of European associations.
I understand why you are not happy about the fact that little progress has been recorded in that area.
I can, however, assure this House, and especially the rapporteur, Mr Cot, that the Commission has taken various initiatives to achieve the progress we seek.
And, although the matter was referred back to COREPER and the Austrian Presidency at the last Council of 4 June, it should be noted that negotiations within the Council have already reached an advanced stage and a good number of the European Parliament's concerns have been taken into consideration.
So we are confident that some positive progress will be recorded by the end of the year, particularly, may I say again, with regard to the status of associations.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, I would now like to give you an account of the suggestions we have sketched out in our communication.
We are moving forward in three directions.
Firstly, national conferences are being or will be held in Member States, nearly all of them on the subject of this communication.
<P>
In the second place, the Commission is organizing a series of meetings of experts on topics relating to the present and future status of organizations and foundations, among which I would particularly mention relations between the sector and the public authorities, the need for information and better knowledge of the sector, an aspect widely confirmed at the 6th SocioEconomic Congress held a few days ago, and also the potential of organizations and foundations to create jobs.
The Commission agrees that the socio-economic dynamic has not yet fully developed as regards the ongoing preservation and creation of jobs or the creation of appropriate services in response to new needs.
We are asking Member States to pay due attention to the application of the guidelines for the employment sector.
At the same time, we are trying to ensure that the results of the pilot schemes included under the heading 'The third sector and employment' are widely publicised so that everyone can gain some benefit from these experiments.
There are other proposed topics for discussion, including the use of the euro and enlargement, a subject which has been particularly emphasized by Mrs Ghilardotti.
<P>
A third field in which we are working is that of actions that can be taken directly by the Commission.
With the objective of advancing dialogue and cooperation between the Union and the relevant organizations, we have set up a Consultative Committee for Cooperatives, Mutuals, Associations and Foundations.
In addition, the Commission is meeting with a platform of European NGOs twice a year, and has set up a new group of experts in succession to the 'Comité des Sages' with the object of re-examining the code of basic social rights provided in the Treaty in order to present recommendations for action at Community level, including a charter of rights if necessary.
<P>
We agree that there is a great deal to be done.
It is in fact essential that we should re-appraise the situation and find the right way of developing the social dialogue in all European institutions.
We must achieve the right balance between maximum flexibility and participation on the one hand and absolute transparency and consistency on the other, while avoiding excessive bureaucracy and the creation of complicated frameworks.
Mrs Ghilardotti and Mr Wolf place particular emphasis on the difficulties many NGOs have in collaborating with the Structural Funds.
It is a source of particular satisfaction to me that the new proposals on the Social Fund represent a significant step forward in improving and facilitating access to that fund for NGOs.
<P>
I would also like to inform the House that the report by DG V, referred to in points 2 and 3 of the resolution we are discussing, only relates to the various internal departments of that Directorate-General and not to the Commission's relations as a whole with NGOs.
<P>
Finally, when reading this resolution I could not help noticing point 19, ' Enlargement and external relations' , in which the ACP countries are not mentioned.
I would therefore like to remind the House that giving full value to the socio-economic sector is a mainstay of our development policy, and this is clearly expressed in the mandate for the negotiation of future relations between the European Union and the ACP countries which has just been approved by the Council.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are not, therefore, sitting back and doing nothing.
We intend to continue our efforts to see that the organizations and foundations are given the recognition due to them at local, national and Community level.
And, last of all, I would like to thank the rapporteurs once again and also to assure them that we will take their suggestions and comments seriously.
I am sure we shall have the support of the European Parliament for all the actions we undertake for the benefit of socio-economic organizations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Working time directive
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0229/98) by Mr Chanterie, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission White Paper on sectors and activities excluded from the working time directive (COM(97)0334 - C4-0434/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="Chanterie">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, if there is one social issue in which the European Union can play a role and thus carries responsibility, it is the protection of the safety and health of workers at the workplace in accordance with Article 118a of the Treaty.
The fact that the workplace is mobile does not detract from the right of workers to a safe and healthy working environment.
Working times are, as the Court of Justice explicitly established in a judgement of 1996, definitely a matter of health and safety.
<P>
In 1993 the European Union issued a directive which lays down rules on daily and weekly rest periods, weekly working hours, annual leave, breaks, night work and shift work.
The minimum requirements specified in that directive are rather low and the number of exceptions rather high.
In addition, at the instigation of the Council of Ministers a range of sectors and activities were completely excluded from the scope of the directive.
These are doctors in training, activities at sea, both the fisheries and the offshore industry, and the transport sector, namely road, air, sea and rail transport as well as transport on inland waterways.
People who work in these activities or sectors, even in an office or a workshop, are denied the protection of a European working time regulation.
<P>
The European Commission realized at the time that this could not be and announced an initiative, the initiative that we are debating today, namely the White Paper which has finally seen the light of day after four years.
In this White Paper the European Commission has looked at the working time situation in these excluded sectors and activities, which, taken together, concern around six million workers, of whom around five million are in the non-mobile part of these sectors.
<P>
The European Commission proposes to bring the non-mobile workers within the scope of the directive and to include the mobile workers only partially, namely for the following four elements: annual leave, annual working time, appropriate rest periods and health assessment for night work.
The other, let us say more important, aspects such as minimum rest period and maximum working time and suchlike would have to be regulated sector by sector.
<P>
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs for which I appear here as rapporteur wants the Commission first of all to try and bring all the excluded sectors and activities as far as possible within the scope of the directive.
The existing directive has, as I just said, an article, Article 17, which allows a number of exceptions, which in theory offers enough opportunities to consider specific cases and also to take account of the competitiveness of the various sectors and activities.
Should it appear, however, that this is still not sufficient for some sub-sectors, our Committee on Employment and Social Affairs agrees that there should be sectoral regulation, preferably based on agreements between the social partners, but if this is not possible then based on the initiative of the Commission itself.
The Commission does ask the social partners to negotiate the matter effectively in the Joint Sectoral Committees because in this way we believe they can best take account of the specific situations.
I offer one such example, the situation whereby road-haulage drivers, in addition to their driving time, must also carry out other activities such as loading and unloading, which have so far not been included in the working time directive.
<P>
We are aware that a directive alone is not enough.
It is also a question of turning it into national laws, of regulation, controls and sanctions.
But there should be regulation, a European framework, as the problems cross national borders and this issue is also part of the working of the internal market.
<P>
I should also like in particular to go into the situation of doctors in training.
I begin with a quote from one of the many testimonies. The quote is as follows: "From Friday morning to Monday evening I slept five hours, had two night duties in accident and emergency.
During this entire period I did not see a bed and did not earn an extra franc.
I walked around like a zombie but during the day I also performed operations.'
That is all for that quote.
Who among us would want to work under such conditions and, especially, who would let himself be operated on by someone who is in such a state.
This sort of situation still exists and maybe more than we think.
<P>
Doctors in training are in many cases exploited far beyond the bounds of acceptability and this puts human lives in danger.
The lives of patients but also those of the trainee doctors themselves who, due to excessively long working hours, can for example cause accidents with fatal consequences or fall asleep at the wheel.
Over-tiredness, depression, heart attacks and suicides are not fabrications but reality.
<P>
The exclusion of doctors in training from such a working time directive can be considered to be downright criminal.
Allowing or forcing people to operate after dozens of hours of nearly uninterrupted work is playing with people's lives.
That is why we can no longer accept this situation.
There are even two countries which, like Belgium, have no national regulations.
All the people I have listened to in this file call for an extremely urgent initiative.
The existing directive is indicated here as a framework and I call on the doctors' unions, on the High Commission for Medical Professionals and on the Minister of Health to take action.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we expect a legislative initiative from the European Commission soon, so that Parliament can complete this legislation before the end of this legislature.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="Macartney">
Mr President, I congratulate you on your elevation to the Chair.
I have three minutes but it would take a lot longer to go into all the intricacies and difficulties of the fisheries sector.
I would certainly like to congratulate Mr Chanterie on the amount of work he has put into trying to accommodate all the very detailed differences and specificities of the different sectors that are excluded.
<P>
We have to recognize first of all that there was a reason for the exclusion of these sectors.
That was their complexity in the first place.
Secondly, as regards fishing, there is a deep-seated suspicion of Brussels in many respects and a lot of opposition to the whole idea of fishermen being told when to sleep or what to do at sea.
They feel that once they are at sea they have to be masters of their ship and their own destiny.
There is a deep-seated instinctive hostility to any kind of directive coming from Brussels for the fishermen.
The idea of maximum hours at sea has to be matched against the fact that some countries impose maximum days at sea and that constrains the working hours of a fisherman where that is done, for example, by the UK.
So all the ideas relating to days at sea or that you must sleep at certain times have to be taken into account.
<P>
I would like to focus mainly on what exactly will be the scope of such a directive.
This was the cause of vigorous debate within the Committee on Fisheries.
Perhaps I could address the question to Mr Pinheiro who, coming from Portugal, is very familiar with the way in which fishing is organized.
Many fishermen are organized on a family basis, many are share fishermen and many are not employees in the sense that we would understand it.
Is this directive going to affect them or not?
If it is not, then most of the fisheries sector of Europe is excluded, even after the passage of a resolution like this.
These are the key questions: what is the scope and who are the persons employed in fishing?
There is perhaps scope for flexibility in Mr Chanterie's remarks about saying 'as far as possible' but we have to know from the Commission its view.
<P>
There are huge differences between a long-distance fleet where fishermen are employed for months on end by a company and a small boat that goes out based on a family or cooperative from Galicia or the Adriatic, or in the case of the latter, people who go out to fish at night because that is their tradition.
They all worry about being regulated and put into straitjackets.
So, we have to know who are involved.
How do you tell self-employed people to take a holiday?
I would love to hear the answer to that one.
And if the answer is that you do not because they are excluded, then we have to recognize that we are talking about a very small sector of the whole industry.
<P>
My last point is about the idea of partnership.
This is very difficult in some cases where there are no trade unions representing the workers because the workers are self-employed.
It is very difficult to tell a country to come up with an agreement between the unions and the employers when there are no such partners.
There you have a rather bogus situation.
Consultation has to be genuine.
It has to affect those who go to fish at sea and let them be involved thoroughly before we come up with something.
Otherwise, there is a danger that yet again Brussels will be blamed for being more interested in red tape than in red mullet.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Moreau">
Mr President, five years after the adoption of the working time directive, it is extremely urgent that we look again at the problem of the excluded sectors.
It is, moreover, regrettable, that so many salaried workers have been excluded, from the start, from the scope of this directive.
We can see this more especially in the road transport sector, with serious consequences for the health of workers and for road safety.
<P>
Several trade union disputes have shown the growing rejection of inhuman working conditions, particularly in this sector.
The specific issues at stake in the transport sector are real, but no less real are the need for rest, for leisure, for respect of the biological rhythms of salaried workers.
The existing rules in the road transport sector permit a driving time of 56 hours per week, and even this is not properly respected.
There is a social but also an economic need to improve the rules on driving time and introduce more effective controls, as requested by the Committee on Transport and Tourism, in order to combat unfair competition and social dumping, especially with the entry into force of cabotage.
<P>
I am thankful that the two committees are requesting an amendment to regulation 38/20 so as to reduce working time and driving time.
In this regard, loading and unloading time as well as waiting time must be included in the calculation of working time.
<P>
To conclude, I would like to express one regret: namely, that the inclusion of mobile workers in the Directive, with - obviously - limited and negotiated derogations, as I proposed in my capacity as rapporteur, has been rejected.
This could have sent a strong signal in favour of a social Europe which, sadly, is eluding us.
The adoption of the Chanterie report can nevertheless provide some support in the context of the joint negotiations which are taking place in the various sectors that have been excluded.
It is clear that the salaried workers concerned must continue to make their requirements for sufficient rest and living time heard, in the face of liberal dogmas about free competition which deride the most basic rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="Skinner">
Mr President, I too should like to congratulate you on your first session as a Vice-President of Parliament.
Mr Chanterie is also to be congratulated.
He has produced a report which is both fair and balanced It has taken some considerable time to produce because of the differences of opinion within his committee and other committees, which we have just heard about.
It is very difficult to impose ideas on working time across so many different industries.
<P>
The industrial groups affected are offshore workers in the oil and gas industries, the fishing industry, transport workers such as inland waterway workers, airline pilots and their crews, and railway workers.
They are all known as mobile workers for the purposes of this directive.
It also includes training of doctors but not emergency workers.
They are dealt with under the compensatory measures in the original working time directive.
However, inclusion of those people who are not mobile workers but in sedentary employment in offices serving people who are mobile, is to correct what was thought to be a mistake in the previous working time directive when they were excluded.
That has to be welcomed.
<P>
The difficulties faced originally are being overcome because of an arrangement between the social partners.
That has to be recognized and congratulations should go to those people who hitherto have found it difficult to talk to each other.
No arrangements previously existed for this.
So, decent health and safety standards are now for the first time on the table for many of these workers only because of the social dialogue.
Commissioners Flynn and Kinnock are both to be congratulated.
<P>
The important thing to remember is that this is about health and safety and it would perhaps be more appropriate to call it the 'stopping people dropping dead at work act' .
If one looks at the statistics one finds that 20 % of all accidents on the roads involving heavy goods vehicles are, in fact, caused by drivers suffering from fatigue.
It is not only drivers who are killed but the families in the other vehicles they might plough into.
It is very important that we solve this issue.
As Mr Chanterie has also pointed out concerning the training of doctors, if they are to have survivable periods of work and if we are to get the very best out of these professionals, we must all do our best to put pressure on our governments to get a reduction in working time for them so that their judgments and their reactions are not skewed or affected in such a way that we are not gaining the optimum benefits of their training.
<P>
This is about stopping people dropping dead at work.
The consequences of this are recognized in Japan; they are now being recognized in Europe.
We look forward to a directive next year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Pronk">
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Mr President, I also want to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Chanterie, for his report.
Here is an extraordinarily careful report which examines thoroughly what the maximum legal basis would be for a nagging problem which we, as Members of the European Parliament, have all faced in letters and requests for meetings, namely the problem of working times and rest periods.
It has already been said here by a number of Members that in virtually all cases there is also danger for other people involved as well as for those who do not have sufficient rest, for example in the case of those who are responsible for piloting a plane, driving a car or working in health care.
This can have far-reaching consequences for the safety not only of these people themselves but also of other people.
<P>
It is a shame that the Commission still reacted rather slowly to pressure from this House in producing this White Paper, which is now here, and I agree with all speakers who say that the report by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, namely as a result of the work of Mr Chanterie, has been well done.
I think that we must now decide together to convert a number of the proposals into binding legislation.
In this context, I think that the social partners have their own role to play and I would wish to call on them to press ahead with consultations on these policy areas and to complete them as quickly as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Mr President, I support Mr Chanterie's proposal to ask the Commission to submit a proposal to amend the working time directive.
As others have said, it is quite unacceptable that around 6 million workers are excluded from what we call basic rules on the length of working time.
In addition, it relates to workers who work in sectors where it is really essential that they are get their rest and have had holidays in order to be able to do their jobs in a safe way.
It relates, for example, to people working in the transport sector, railways and aviation, and also doctors in training.
<P>
The people who work in these sectors have precisely the same need of rest, sleep and holidays as we 'ordinary people' .
In fact, I think it is a matter of human rights to provide these basic rules on working time and holidays.
<P>
I think paragraph 11 of Mr Chanterie's report is very important.
It states that future legislation must not undermine the regional or local collective employment contracts which apply in the Member States and which offer higher levels of social protection than those now envisaged by the Commission.
I would really like to congratulate Mr Chanterie on his report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Sainjon">
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate Mr Chanterie for his excellent and balanced report.
Other colleagues have already said it - some 6 million workers are currently excluded from the working time directive, of which three and a half million are in the transport sector - how sensible!
One has only to think, for example, of the strikes which paralysed France and parts of Europe last year.
<P>
Once again, the champions of liberalism have well and truly put the cart before the horse.
The total liberalisation of road transport on 1 July 1998, comes into force without any fiscal or social harmonisation having been implemented.
No protection has been anticipated at Union level to avoid a race towards the state which is the lowest social tenderer, in a damaged sector where small firms find it difficult to survive, and for which liberalisation often means death.
I therefore accuse some governments of having deliberately sought this legal vacuum in order finally to do away with certain social rights achieved after a huge battle in this sector.
<P>
I demand therefore that European drivers should benefit, here and now, from paid waiting time and equal annual holidays for all.
I hope that, even if some flexibility is possible, the number of annual hours should be limited, with an average week of 35 hours.
If this is not the case, it is essential that all drivers who travel between two points in any one country of the Union respect all aspects of social legislation in that country.
I think that as regards harmonisation, we must begin at the beginning and first decide the days and dates that long-distance lorries can drive on the roads and motorways of the Union, so that we can emerge from the fog which currently surrounds us.
This is the first essential element in the construction of a Europe for road transport.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Pinheiro">
Mr President, allow me to congratulate you on your election to this very important post.
The Commission very much welcomes Mr Chanterie's report.
We also appreciate the hard work which has been done in three committees, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, Committee on Transport and Tourism and the Committee on Fisheries.
It has been a long story but we are making real progress.
I would just like to remind you of some of the background.
In 1993 when the working time directive was adopted, the Council decided to exclude certain sectors and activities from the scope of the directive.
These were air, rail, road, sea, inland waterway and lake transport sectors, sea fishing, other work at sea and the activities of doctors in training.
<P>
At that time Mr Chanterie was the rapporteur.
The Commission undertook 'to take appropriate initiatives as soon as possible in respect of the different sectors excluded from the scope of the directive.
The preparatory work for the implementation of these initiatives is being undertaken in the context of the joint sectoral committees for the sectors concerned where they exist' .
Accordingly, we asked each of the joint committees in the five transport sectors and the sea fishing sector to give their recommendations on how to adapt the principles of the working time directive with regard to their area of work.
We also arranged for factual studies to be undertaken of the working time arrangements in respect of the so-called 'other work at sea' and doctors in training.
<P>
While some progress had been made in most sectors, it was not sufficient and so last year the Commission decided to publish the White Paper setting out how we intended to take matters forward.
In the White Paper we considered the possible options and came down in favour of what we called the differentiated approach.
We have subsequently confirmed this approach in the second-phase consultation documentation adopted by the Commission on 31 March.
Under the differentiated approach we seek to make the distinction between those activities which can be accommodated under the working time directive and those which require specific measures.
We therefore propose a three-pronged approach.
<P>
Firstly, as your resolution states in paragraph 1, non-mobile workers must enjoy full protection in relation to working hours and must therefore be brought fully within the scope of Directive 93/104.
We propose to do that.
Secondly, as you say in paragraph 2 of your resolution, mobile workers must also enjoy full protection in relation to working hours and must therefore be brought as fully as possible within the scope of Directive 93/104.
In your resolution you agree with the Commission that there is in particular a need to provide for all mobile workers and those engaged in other work at sea a guarantee of adequate rest and for a maximum number of hours to be worked annually, and to extend to them the directive's provisions on four weeks paid annual leave and health assessments for night workers.
Thirdly, the Commission stated that it proposed to introduce or modify specific legislation for each sector or activity concerning the working time and rest periods of mobile workers.
Again this is what we intend to do and again we are pleased to have your support on this matter.
<P>
I am pleased to report that as a result of these initiatives there have been serious discussions in nearly all the main sectors, especially since the second round consultation document was issued.
Consequently, we are very hopeful that agreement will be reached in a number of sectors.
I know that some of you are concerned about the way in which we propose to proceed.
The table after paragraph 1.4 of the explanatory statement to your resolution illustrates very clearly our intentions.
Non-mobile workers will be covered by an amendment to the working time directive.
This will include doctors in training.
Other amendments will provide basic protection for mobile workers and those engaged in other work at sea in respect of annual leave, annual working time, adequate rest and health assessments for night workers.
All this will be done by means of an amendment to the working time directive under Article 118(a) of the EC Treaty.
<P>
Independent fishermen are not covered by this directive.
The Commission nevertheless believes that minimum standards of protection of health and safety with regard to working time should apply to all workers, including share fishermen, that is to say members of the crew of a fishing vessel who are remunerated by a share in the earnings of the vessel.
Such protection should, of course, take account of the special nature of the sea fishing industry.
It will be much easier to draw up such proposals if both sides of industry are fully involved in their preparation.
<P>
Fourthly, the central provisions where an agreement between the social partners is reached before 30 September 1998 and if the parties so request the Commission will make a proposal for a Council decision in accordance with Article 4(2) of the agreement on social policy.
In addition, the Commission will make complementary proposals, for example to make comparable provisions for self-employed drivers.
If the social partners are unable to reach agreement before 30 December 1998 the Commission will prepare a proposal for a directive on the working time of mobile workers in the different sectors.
This would take full account of the result of the negotiations reached so far.
<P>
Finally, my colleagues Padraig Flynn and Neil Kinnock expect to be tabling appropriate proposals later this year.
I would like to thank you on their behalf for your support today.
We very much look forward to your continuing support in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Fair trade
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0198/98) by Mr Fassa, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on fair trade with developing countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, fair trade is without doubt one of the most important ways found these past few years to help development.
Begun somewhat inconspicuously and as purely voluntary initiatives, fair trade has today become a highly respected and ethical way to do business.
For this reason the European Parliament has dealt with the matter on several occasions, first with Mrs van Putten's report and then with the report by the late Alex Langer.
The purpose of the present motion for a resolution and the related report is basically twofold: first, to provide criteria with which to define in clear and precise terms what is actually meant by fairness and solidarity in trade; second, to establish the need for a common label for fair trade and to establish the principle that certification organizations operate independently from organizations which engage in importing or selling products.
<P>
In the first case in particular, paragraph 10 of the report very clearly lays down ten criteria, a set of rules so to speak, for fair trade.
These criteria are: direct buying, fair price, advance payment, no import or sales monopolies, price transparency, stable and long-term relations with producers, conditions of production respecting ILO Conventions, non-discrimination between men and women, no child labour, respect for the environment, respect for development and encouragement for the autonomy of local population groups.
<P>
Thus we have here a series of criteria that are, in the view of the Committee on Development and Cooperation and in the view of the rapporteur, sufficiently precise but in no way rigid, that reflect the existing reality of what is already today fair trade and that offer consumers ample protection.
<P>
For this reason, allow me to say that I do not support the amendment presented by Mrs Maij-Weggen whose commitment and expertise in the sector I nonetheless recognize, for in my view it does not seem to have very acceptable consequences.
I will mention at least two of the consequences here: first, the criteria as proposed in the amendment are vaguer and weaker than the criteria listed in the motion for a resolution that came out of the Committee on Development and Cooperation; second, the amendment states that the criteria only have to be observed when the Commission helps fair trade organizations and producers.
<P>
Instead, it is my view that these criteria should be observed - as stipulated in the original text of the resolution - whatever the case and not just when the Commission provides aid, and this as basic protection not only of the producer but also the consumer; otherwise, any product could arbitrarily be defined as fair by whoever produces, imports or resells it, regardless of whether the Commission provides aid or not.
<P>
Finally, there is no reason to fear that the European Union's support for fairness and solidarity in international trade will, as some have inferred, contravene the rules of the World Trade Organization.
I recall that the Director General of the World Trade Organization informed the Committee on Development and Cooperation that there are instruments which are compatible with the WTO and which governments can use to support fair trade and avoid discriminations between developing countries. The World Trade Organization is also planning additional special measures to be adopted to support developing countries, measures that will be clearly defined in the next round of negotiations.
<P>
It will be precisely by including fairness and solidarity in the great movement of international trade that we will lend greater relevance and credibility to the motto that has always been adhered to in carrying out this commendable activity: Trade, not Aid .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Smith">
Mr President, the growing importance of the fair trade sector emphasizes the need for the European Union now to properly assess its institutional and financial arrangements vis-à-vis this sector.
The Committee on Development and Cooperation report makes a number of important suggestions in this regard.
Equally, however, any assessment of the success of fair trade should take place with a view to including the elements and principles of fair trade into the European Union's own development and trade policies in the future.
In its opinion the REX committee has chosen to focus on these principles.
<P>
Effectively, local producers are given a step up by being included in the fair trade network. That provides them with a chance to become competitive and builds up their capacity to trade in general.
As this is one of the European Union's primary objectives in its trade and development policy, the fair trade experience is of particular relevance.
The following elements are at the basis of the fair trade approach and should equally be the basis of the European Union's own approach to trade with developing countries. The elements are: direct access to European Union markets; a fair price; income stability - the fact that fair trade organizations pay part of the price in advance is crucial for small-scale producers who can then buy inputs and perhaps get through the season without resort to moneylenders; finally, feedback and capacity building, where producers gain confidence to approach a trading system they once saw as too complicated.
<P>
This approach underlying fair trade effectively removes the obstacles to trade that exist for producers in developing countries.
Where the fair trade approach has not succeeded and European Union policies and instruments are floundering is in linking the various mechanisms into an integrated and coherent effort in support of local producers as they face the many obstacles in trying to sell their products in the European market.
<P>
Finally, in short, fair trade makes for good business and is a concept, the objectives and approach of which we should seek to include in our broader European Union policies as well as to promote it in a global world trade arena.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Vecchi">
Mr President, the movement of fair trade and solidarity with developing countries is now a concrete and important reality that is becoming particularly relevant in all European countries.
A lot has been accomplished since the European Parliament's approval of the report by the late Alexander Langer a little over four years ago.
I would like to recall that the general objective of fair trade actions is to correct and begin changing this reality, which is extremely characteristic of international trade and which is profoundly unjust for developing countries.
Fair trade is therefore an essential instrument with which to correct and transform the most perverse dynamics of the world market. It is a way of using the mechanisms of the market itself to promote better awareness of the inequities in the relationship between North and South but also to begin experimenting with innovative practices.
<P>
Fair trade clearly takes into account the objectives of sustainable and participatory development, giving guarantees to producers in poor countries, respecting the environment and promoting more advanced economic and social rights.
The fair trade movement in Europe has grown at an exponential rate these past few years; more and more shops and points of sale are carrying fair trade products which in some cases can now even be found in supermarkets, involving millions of consumers.
Meanwhile, networks have been organized to market and promote fair trade products, and the action to directly support producers has expanded.
<P>
In the report that we are voting on today and on which I would like to congratulate Mr Fassa, we are asking that fair trade principles and practices, far from just being a success story, become an integral part of the European Union's more general policies of development cooperation.
We firmly endorse the criteria listed in paragraph 10 of the report - which is why we think that this part of the report should not be amended by the House's vote - and we are especially asking that the European Commission and the Community institutions in general take a comprehensive approach to questions of fairness and solidarity in trade.
It is for this reason that we are asking the Commission for a specific communication focusing on four essential points: first, the incorporation of the principles of fair trade practices in more general policies of cooperation in international trade; second, the determination of specific instruments that are stronger than the instruments used today to support certain projects involving fair trade; third, the establishment of criteria to define fair trade or the production of specific fair trade products; fourth, the development of political dialogue with operators practising fairness and solidarity in trade.
<P>
This calls for comment.
In the report that we are about to approve there are proposals to increase Community support for fair trade projects, not only to educate people about development, which is certainly an important aspect, but also to provide direct support to producer organizations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, first of all my thanks to Mr Fassa for his sound report on the work of fair trade organizations and fair trade producers.
We think that he has provided a good overview of the situation and has also provided useful insight.
<P>
It is good that the report is being dealt with now as the Commission has already said it wishes to put forward a number of concrete proposals to help fair trade organizations and fair trade producers.
It would however be good if Parliament first made a few comments and recommendations.
<P>
My party thinks fair trade is a good thing.
Whoever has seen fair trade producers at work, and in the past few years I have seen a number of projects in developing countries, knows that the commercial profit is perhaps somewhat lower but that at the same time the producers, many of them poor farmers, are often much better off if there really is a question of higher incomes for the workers involved, many more subsidiary social activities, such as schools and clinics that are set up, and that the population in the region also makes more profit.
And the environmental approach also commands much respect.
In short, these fair trade projects are good for the developing countries, often even better than ordinary investment projects and ordinary trade projects.
It is also no longer a question of a very marginal business. The European Trade Association now works with 800 trading partners in 45 countries with 800 000 producer families and five million people indirectly involved.
So it really is something worth taking into account.
<P>
In my own country the Max Havelaar coffee and the Okee bananas in particular form a very positive shoot on the fair trade stem.
The Okee banana plantation in Ghana, which I visited recently, is a marvellous project. Around 1 000 people work there together as breadwinners for around 10 000 people.
But when you see the little villages in the surrounding area you can see for yourself that the situation is much better than a bit further off in Ghana.
There is really very good visibly positive work going on there.
<P>
Well, Mr Fassa's proposals are very much in line with these types of activity. However, we still have a few problems.
Because we see the report above all as an own-initiative report, we have limited it to a correction to paragraph 10.
This paragraph contains the criteria that fair trade companies, fair trade organizations and fair trade producers should satisfy.
Now, we feel that that is rather detailed and before you know it the Commission will be saddled with an enormous bureaucracy in order to check it all.
That is why we have tabled an amendment to make it all a bit shorter and a bit clearer.
In our opinion it is sufficient that fair trade producers and organizations who want to receive support from the European Union satisfy a limited number of criteria.
There must be an fair price, a price in line with the market with a fair trade supplement, that we can understand, and the consumer must know exactly what is paid to the producer.
Middlemen, import, export and sales monopolies must be avoided as much as possible so as not to obstruct free trade.
There must be an effort to achieve longer and stable relations with producers and all ILO Conventions must of course be respected, as well as trade union rights, equal treatment of men and women must be respected and the use of child labour must also be excluded, but that goes without saying.
Methods of production must be shown to be environmentally friendly.
They must lead to better social and economic development, the promotion of independence and they must be in harmony with local tradition.
<P>
These are the points that we think are the most important.
We will of course give the report as much support as possible, but we would appreciate it if the rapporteur adopted this realistic amendment so that we do not degenerate into bureaucracy and unnecessary administration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, although my country, Spain, was 20 years late in practising fair trade, in the last five years its use has grown by 100 %.
In addition, given that, according to the rapporteur, there are 800 000 producers in the Third World who practice this kind of trade, it is essential to emphasize the importance of such fair trade.
<P>
We are in complete agreement with the rapporteur in that the criteria with which this trade must comply need to include direct buying, fair prices, transparency, respect for labour regulations, exclusion of child labour and respect for environmental regulations.
But we believe that, for the European Union, this can mean a different form of development.
The European Union should support, both economically and politically, initiatives which begin modestly but which might be an alternative to an unjust, unfair and mercantile society.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
Mr President, the fact that the European Parliament is now debating fair trade is largely due to grassroots activities that have been underway over the past 10-15 years.
This is because idealistic organizations have shown that by means of a conscious policy, the market can be used to promote socially and environmentally responsible production, as well as, quite significantly, income for small producers in developing countries, and this is very useful experience.
We must, of course, support sustainable production in developing counties, both for our own sake and for the sake of the developing countries.
But we must not insist, for example, that this requires harmonization of EU labelling.
It is correct that a universal label makes it easier for consumers to find their way through the market, but the situation today is that we have labels such as Max Havelaar, which enjoys huge recognition and confidence among consumers.
Replacing this with an EU label would be a setback to development to the tune of several years.
We must look at the experience gleaned by the labelling organizations.
Despite several years of endeavouring to come up with a joint label, they have not yet succeeded in doing so.
This is not due to a lack of will, but simply to the fact that the existing labels are household names.
I do not believe the advantages of having a common label would go any distance towards offsetting these risks.
<P>
The Fassa report recommends that the EU should strive for social and environmental standards, and that these should be worked into the WTO system.
I can but agree with that.
But it is not enough.
We must require that it will be possible to set special quotas for products that do fulfil the criteria.
Currently, that is not possible today.
Unless definite pressure is applied, neither will it be possible in the future.
The EU must support production in developing countries that is sensitive to the environment and to human welfare, but we must not use this noble intention to centralize the work being done by organizations all over Europe.
The people currently working with fair trade understand the problems.
We need to support them and the producers, but that is a far cry from requiring an EU label, which would take a long time to work its way into the minds of consumers.
We support applying strong pressure to the WTO and making funds available for education and for changing production in developing countries.
Finally, I would just like to say that I support Mrs Maij-Weggen's amendment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the issue of fair trade arose during a long discussion when we were debating neo-liberal free trade ideology, and a number of specific criteria were developed for social and ecological sustainability.
We had a long fight before this demand was even recognized.
Obviously, in the history of these demands, the time comes when their implementation can no longer be prevented, but then someone goes and waters them down.
And that is precisely what the European People's Party is doing with its amendment; the criteria for fair trade are being watered down to such an extent that the demand is hardly recognizable any more.
It is precisely this that we need to stop, for if even here in the European Parliament which calls for fair trade and has established fair trade as a central demand in setting up new fairer and more sustainable relationships between North and South - if this Parliament also sank to watering down these demands, it would indeed be a setback - I will not say a catastrophe - but the European People's Party should be ashamed for the damage they have done!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Carlotti">
Mr President, there are very, very few Europeans who take the trouble to look at the products which they consume, be they coffee, sugar or chocolate.
However, what if two cups of good coffee constituted very different political messages; or if two slabs of chocolate, which look very similar, harboured two different stories?
And what if, at the other far end of the chain, thousands of producers sweated blood and tears to increase the wealth of others, whilst, little by little, some others began to work hard, but for themselves?
Because, little by little, not in theory, but thanks to slow, patient campaigns, where charity work has an important role to play, new practices are beginning to appear.
<P>
Whereas the resolution adopted by the European Parliament in 1994 spoke of niches, of justice and of solidarity as regards these practices, today, Raimondo Fassa's report presents fair trade as another alternative which aims to establish fairer trading relations between rich countries and producers in the South.
Because the first task of fair trade is to free producers from the current conditions of slavery which is the context within which they are struggling. However, we need to adopt more of a marketing strategy, that is to say a strategy which aims to satisfy the consumer.
<P>
So I would like to support the Fassa report, and particularly certain points in it: its definition of fair trade, the creation of a European label in order to avoid complexity and confusion for the consumer, the incorporation of fair trade into the Union's overall policies, and not only as an instrument of development policy, but also in all economic and commercial policies, so that it can be properly promoted.
This implies the instigation of a code of conduct for European transnational firms which operate in the developing countries.
Moreover, the Union must strive to ensure that environmental and social clauses are included in the WTO criteria.
<P>
In conclusion, we are waiting for a communication on fair trade from the Commission at the earliest possible opportunity, which will include both the method for developing fair trade and the means which will be used to achieve this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Castagnetti">
Mr President, I too want to express my appreciation for Mr Fassa's report.
For quite a few years now there has been fairness and solidarity in trade with good results, but this type of trade clearly assumes a whole new relevance at the end of this millennium, characterized by the liberalization and internationalization of economic trade and by the obligation imposed by the WTO to dismantle our systems of preferences with the world's poor countries.
Since Parliament dealt with this matter in 1993, not enough has been done unfortunately to promote this form of cooperation, and the European Commission itself does not have a specific political line in this regard.
And yet, past experience and Community statistics prove that fair trade has developed in the right way and, with adequate awareness campaigns, is successful in large European consumer areas.
<P>
This instrument is important not only because it immediately improves the living standards of the communities concerned, today estimated at five million people in 45 developing countries, but also and especially because in the long term it turns small local producers into autonomous economic operators.
The Commission, the Council, the Member States should make a greater effort to promote the marketing of fair trade products.
In practical terms, fair trade must be recognized in its own right as an instrument of development and promoted without delay by making adequate human and financial resources available, possibly by also creating a specific line in the Union's budget.
Only in this way will the European Union be able to abide by its commitment expressed in Article 103 of the Treaty to promote the integration of developing countries in the world economy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sichrovsky">
Mr President, this report is held up mainly by the issues of consumer protection and the prevention of abuse of trading channels.
What is completely lacking is consumer motivation.
We are also lacking the understanding that this is a form of development aid in which we must reach the consumer so that we may be able to motivate him or her to pay higher prices.
We are not marketing a product, we are marketing an idea.
My only reservation is that the bureaucratization heralded in the report will only prevent this.
We must finally realize that Europe also has a responsibility to help developing countries to sell their products in Europe.
In this form the report is a good idea.
What is missing is the consumer motivation to buy these products.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="Howitt">
Mr President, in welcoming this report I should like to highlight the purpose of my own amendments to the report by the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
It is to urge the Commission to produce its communication on fair trade which can act as a base for new legislation; for global research which can bring direct support to developing fair trade networks in the south as well as fair trade principles in the north; to support in principle a separate budget line ending the necessity of using NGO co-financing monies which are often not appropriate for producer cooperatives within the developing world; to end European discrimination against fair trade in fiscal terms, bringing forward preferential treatment which is compatible with the WTO because of the voluntary nature of the labels; and finally, to recognize the dangers of the proliferation of labels and the need to have a serious dialogue about the link between fair trade and the new ethical trading being promoted through codes of conduct, on which I am drawing up a report for the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
<P>
Fair trade is about the poorest and most marginalized people in developing countries not being lifted out of poverty through aid, important as that is, but lifting themselves out of poverty through selling to the European consumer.
Forty-five thousand outlets in Europe, three thousand different products, a turnover of at least ECU 250m per year. Not great as a proportion of total trade but not charity either.
This is serious commerce and in the European Parliament we have to be serious in giving our support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Günther">
Mr President, the rapporteur has taken a great deal of time and care in preparing this report and we thank him for this.
The committee also contributed over 50 amendments to the document which we have before us.
Please do not be offended if I say that the final result is not quite a success.
There is still a lot of talk about protection and support measures and too little said about the structures which lead to market place competitiveness.
In committee, my group attempted to focus on a few points in pursuit of this aim, and indeed the amendment by Mrs Maij-Weggen does so.
<P>
Above all, we must take care that we do not leave too much room for bureaucracy. Less bureaucracy would seem to be assured if we support the amendment rather than if we use the original formulation which goes into so much detail as to hardly be practicable.
I am also concerned about the proposal to use funds from co-financing to advertise fair trade.
I am unsure that the already overstretched B7-6000 line should feature here.
In addition, this is one of the budget lines whose legal bases are currently under dispute.
Nonetheless, I hope that common trade with third world countries, including the fair trade discussed here, continues to develop in a positive way, and I also hope that the Commission will continue to support us in this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Pinheiro">
Mr President, I think I can deal with this matter very briefly.
Firstly, I should like to thank Mr Fassa for his excellent report; next I would like to emphasize the importance of this instrument to a North/South cooperation policy; and, finally, I would like to say that many of the suggestions put forward will certainly be included in the communication which the Commission intends to present in a few months' time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken at voting time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Madam President, I request that it be noted in today's Minutes that, whereas the vote, according to the order of business, should begin at 11.00 a.m., it is in fact starting at 11.15 a.m.
<P>
You have brought us to a problematic impasse: either we will stay for the vote or, bearing in mind that it should begin at 11.00 a.m., we have arranged a flight for a particular time.
Either we will miss the flight, or we will lose the right and the obligation to stay for the vote.
<P>
I request that it be noted in the Minutes because I will invoke it if by chance they wish to deprive me of certain rights, since I am in no way responsible for this delay.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="President">
Mr Ephremidis, we will note this in the Minutes but, with your cooperation, we will try to make up the lost time.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Madam President, you have forgotten to congratulate the rapporteur!
I would take the opportunity to do this now on behalf of the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Schmid">
Madam President, the original text refers to a justification for the old legal basis.
Since we have changed the legal basis, we need the new text.
If we only add something to the text, it will not make sense.
It is not a problem of content, but one of logic.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Madam President, there is one amendment to this report and it is a crucial amendment.
I understand that Mr Fassa would like the report to be accepted with as much support as possible.
That is possible if our amendment is combined with Mr Fassa's text in the following way. We would take Mr Fassa's introduction to paragraph 10, together with his paragraphs 3 and 6.
From my amendment we then take points 1, 3 and 4. I understand that with this combination Mr Fassa can support the amendment and we can then support his report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Fassa">
Madam President, if I have understood correctly, Mrs Maij-Weggen is proposing that no changes be made to the introduction to paragraph 10, which states: ' Believes that fair trade, in order not to be open to abuse, should as a minimum comply with the following criteria.'
Is it or is it not true that this remains?
In other words, that this remains the way it was in the text of the report?
Is that what her amendment is?
In practice, with the oral amendment she is taking out the first two lines of the amendment that she proposed, plus the combinations between the various paragraphs the way she proposed them?
Is that how it is?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Madam President, together with the combination of the third and sixth paragraphs, plus points 1, 3 and 4 of my amendment.
Then we are in total agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="President">
Mrs Maij-Weggen, I am really very sorry, but it is very confusing and I have to tell you quite frankly that personally I am not at all sure what we are voting on.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Bernardini">
On several occasions, Parliament has called for the development of a transport policy which would respect the environment, a policy which is innovative.
Thus, the PACT programme concerning the granting of Community financial assistance for actions of an innovative nature to promote combined transport has received a great deal of detailed comment by European operators.
<P>
As it is about to expire, the Council regulation which controls this programme has been revamped.
In June 1997, the European Parliament approved the Commission proposal, insisting on clarification of the procedures for selecting projects and on an improvement in the application of the financial procedures.
<P>
Our colleague's report, sent to us for examination, is faced with an obstacle raised by the Council, on a point which I would like to come back to.
<P>
The Commission proposal envisaged a reimbursement of expenditure and costs relating to the implementation of parts of projects outside the Community, in favour of firms in third countries.
This facility was not approved by the Council, which maintained that it was nevertheless possible to finance projects extending to third countries.
I do not think that the Council has been able to justify its decision, in terms of the possible partnership between operators in third countries and from within the Community.
<P>
Our Committee on Transport and Tourism is trying to re-establish a logical approach to this matter, and I dare to hope that Amendment No 2 will receive sufficient votes.
<P>
Fontaine report (A4-0232/98)
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Caudron">
It could be helpful to recall the need to reform the directives on the recognition of diplomas.
In fact who, in this House, has not been called upon to intervene in such an issue, to persuade national authorities to recognize qualifications acquired in another Member State?
<P>
The report by our colleague, Nicole Fontaine, provides important support for the European educational system, and more specifically for people who are training or are students.
I would therefore like to congratulate her on her work, which also represents a further step towards strengthening the idea of European citizenship.
<P>
In fact, with such strong forces trying to hold back the mobility of persons, how can we talk about free movement of goods and persons in Europe?
<P>
Many people use terms like adaptability, reactivity, flexibility, cardinal values for the European salaried worker in the year 2000.
But, very quickly, they come up against the hard realities of bureaucracies, or more exactly laws made by national governments?
<P>
This observation is also true for other fields, and it interferes with the construction of Europe.
So we must legislate on whatever most closely affects the daily concerns of the individual.
In so doing, we will breathe life back into the idea of Europe, and perhaps put it back on the rails.
<P>
Yes, a text which affects the rights and powers of the citizen helps the European Union to come across more clearly.
<P>
Aelvoet recommendation (A4-0165/98)
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Bernardini">
After Tunisia, Israel, Morocco and the PLO, we must today make a decision and give our assent to the Euro-Mediterranean agreement with Jordan.
<P>
Following directly upon the conclusions of the Barcelona Conference of November 1995, the European Union is forging its relationships with its partner countries in the Maghreb and Mashrek by setting up a new contractual framework.
The Association Agreement with Jordan is entirely consistent with this framework, as its first article announces the creation of a free trade area.
<P>
We have to support this objective, as we did for the other countries, because the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is counting on our aid.
The various aspects of cooperation will be reinforced regarding economic and social relations, improvement of living and working conditions and the development of regional cooperation.
It is true that Jordan is currently experiencing a relatively high rate of growth, but this does not seem to be shared by the whole of the population.
The effort must be sustained and it is at this level that aid from the European Union will have its full effect.
<P>
Finally, let us not forget the problem of the political stability of the region.
The fragility of the peace process, the consequences of which are sometimes felt in the implementation of our MEDA partnership, will achieve a measure of stability with the instigation of a political dialogue with Jordan.
<P>
In accordance with the recommendation of our Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, I would like to speak in favour of the agreement by expressing our wishes for its future success.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Deprez">
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Caudron">
The report by our colleague Gerhard Schmid is of great importance both for the communications industry and for Internet users.
I would like, therefore, to support the Community action plan which is put before us today.
<P>
However, we must be aware of some truths about this network and its continuing growth.
First of all, I would like to denounce certain voices which seem to assume that 'Web' necessarily means 'bad'.
It should be remembered that this gigantic worldwide web is above all a tool and that it can in no way be held responsible for the perversions which some seem to find on their computer.
<P>
As with the telephone and the print media, the Internet is being portrayed as the 'mother and father' of all vices and the creator of sins, though several news items reveal that there are people who were not waiting for this network to be created in order to carry out unpleasant acts. Unfortunately, they simply adapted to this new form of communication.
<P>
This preliminary proposal must not be interpreted as a renunciation of any wish to pursue these exploiters of human misery; quite the contrary.
We need to lay the foundations for a complex reality which sometimes escapes us, and these need to be understood before satisfactory solutions can be found.
<P>
In fact, we have to take into consideration a basic fact about information technology.
It evolves and is increasing its power daily; now, from a portable computer, we can access everything and everyone, and all this without any particular risk, even where this is illegal.
<P>
Thus, whilst I support the rapporteur's proposals as regards illegal content and the way such content is dealt with using technological solutions, it is also necessary to reinforce legal and policing policies at Community level.
Such increased cooperation can alone lead to tangible results.
<P>
In order to ensure a safe environment, it is essential that awareness should be developed at international level, and first of all at European level.
It is urgent !
Very urgent !
<P>
Pollack report (A4-0177/98)
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Ahlqvist, Theorin and Wibe">
We note that this report is one of a long line of reports which demand that a new EU unit be set up, in this case a 'cross-departmental urban affairs unit' .
We think this growing mass of EU authorities merely creates bureaucracy.
We can manage without this cross-departmental unit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Deprez">
The European Union is apparently not able to take responsibility for the daily management of the environment in European cities.
This has to be done at local level.
Nevertheless, it is desirable that the Union should continue to specify some guidelines to be followed and aims to be achieved as regards sustainable development in the management of the urban environment, which can apply throughout Europe.
<P>
In fact, many environmental problems which can be attributed to the urbanisation of our countries have consequences throughout the Union.
Therefore, the citizens of Europe need an integrated approach to problems, the day-to-day management of which must be ensured by the local authorities, but which also need to be dealt with in a wider context which sets out the methods and objectives.
<P>
From this point of view, while we welcome the sectoral measures already taken by the Union, particularly as regards reduction of atmospheric pollution, it is regrettable that the Commission has delayed publishing the White Paper on the Urban Environment which we have been waiting for since the appearance, seven years ago now, of a Green Paper on the same subject.
<P>
It would certainly not be true to say that the European Union has been idle.
However, in the absence of a European legal framework, the projects financed by the European Commission which affect the urban environment have not received either sufficient resources or the coordination which the citizen has the right to expect.
<P>
Therefore, the Commission should, in the context of the reform of the Structural Funds which is to take place in 1999, continue its support for these projects, and it should get down to finalising at the earliest possible opportunity a legal basis and an overall action plan for a sustainable urban environment in the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Titley">
I am supporting this report today as a representative of exactly the kind of urban area which it is aiming to help.
It is high time that the debate on green issues went beyond the image of green fields and came home to the cities and towns where most of our citizens live.
Greater Manchester is one of the oldest industrial built-up areas in Europe, having been a centre of the Industrial Revolution.
We thought that with the clean air laws of the postwar years pollution had been confined to pictures of smog-wreathed factories in the history books.
<P>
However, as this report makes clear, people living in urban areas today face traffic congestion and pollution just as worrying as the old chimney smoke, but often invisible to the human eye.
We should take seriously the Court of Auditors' findings that current EU policy to tackle urban problems lacks a coordinated framework.
It is time that our citizens reaped the benefit of a dedicated EU programme to improve our urban environment.
I will be looking to the Commission to respond to our call for such work as soon as possible.
<P>
Napoletano report (A4-0172/98)
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Ahlqvist and Theorin">
We think our party colleague Mrs Napoletano has written a good report.
We would particularly like to agree with Mrs Napoletano's criticism of the Commission's plans to abolish the URBAN initiative. It has provided excellent results with regard to specific urban problems not covered by other EU programmes.
In view of the fact that around 80 % of the EU's citizens live in cities, we think it would be rash to abolish the URBAN initiative.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Caudron">
I have been very concerned about the problem of urban policies for several years, so I congratulate our colleague Mrs Napoletano who has completed this important task with such dedication.
I would also like to express my support for the quality of his report.
<P>
Like the rapporteur, I think it is urgent that we define the bases of a voluntary urban policy on a European scale.
At the present time, the city is at the heart of political discussion in the aftermath of tragic events in what are conventionally called the 'districts at risk'.
In all cases, we have to be firemen and attend to the most urgent things first, waiting for the next conflagration.
<P>
As the report underlines, no-one is proposing to set the world of the town against the world of the countryside, but we must support a development process which limits the rural desertification process which affects most of the Member States.
<P>
Thus I would like to support Mrs Napoletano's request regarding the pursuit of the URBAN programme, a Community tool which is all the more necessary as regards the experience of our citizens living in the large conglomerations, who are too often anonymous and rejected to the outskirts of the town centres.
<P>
In this sense, the work of the Eurocities network can mean a very interesting global approach to urban policies as regards large European conglomerations.
By defining an urban policy we are defining a framework and concrete and realistic objectives.
<P>
The next century will probably see an evolution in the urban environment, both in terms of its form and its size.
It is therefore important to take account of this fact in our discussion and in our political action.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Darras">
I can only enthuse over my colleague Mrs Napoletano's report since this report deals with the urban problem as a whole, including the environmental, social, cultural and regional aspects and the citizens.
<P>
It is precisely from this angle that the European Union should conceive of its urban action, with the aim of improving the quality of life; urban policy should not be assimilated to that of deprived areas.
<P>
We need better coordination between the European institutions, more particularly between the Commission and the Member States.
This can, of course, be done by means of the principle of subsidiarity, but it really has to happen.
<P>
Just as the Commission must integrate the urban dimension with other Community policies and actions, similarly the Member States must develop their urban policy (town contracts, state-region contracts for France) in parallel with policies for the application and use of monies from Structural Funds in their countries.
<P>
We need a global vision of spatial development, which confirms a European urban strategy which our Parliament prays for.
It is a vision which complements that which the respective Member States should have, and the Member States themselves should put pressure on their local and regional authorities to implement it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Deprez">
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, the reports and the debate that has been going on for so long have provided a sampling of the many serious problems that Community urban space is suffering from.
It is clear that there are more problems, and the outlook is that they will get worse and they will multiply.
What is noteworthy and surprising in this? That nowhere does anyone name the main causes or those guilty of causing this situation, namely the jungle of the laws of multinational interests and unbridled competition, which has run amok in the pursuit of profit in the context of the arrant free market.
<P>
Unemployment, social exclusion, the poverty of sections of those residing in cities, racism, xenophobia, crime, unbalanced development - not only between different towns and cities in different countries, but even more so within the same country and within the same towns and cities and between neighbourhoods and sections of neighbourhoods -, the excessive pollution, the tragic degradation of the environment and the overall degeneration of the quality of life are neither coincidental nor unavoidable problems and, of course, they cannot be addressed with cover-ups, embellishing homilies and programmes.
<P>
Nowhere is it mentioned that the unemployment that is spiralling and ravaging urban centres is the result of the free market policy and the supremacy of big business, which, escorted by the European Union itself and with the support of national governments, is unrestrainedly torpedoing balanced development and labour and social rights.
Nor is there any mention by name of those interests that are squeezing dry the rural, regional economy and mining the balanced relationship between the countryside and the town, creating ever greater waves of unemployed who throng to urban centres to add their numbers to the already tremendous number of existing unemployed.
In the same report it is mentioned that "in 49 districts with an EU Urban programme, 15 of those urban areas have an unemployment rate of over 30 %' and not one of those who stand for "social justice and cohesion' asks the vital question "why?'
<P>
It is the law of unbridled profit, the law of the jungle of multinationals, which is overturning any balance in the social fabric and giving rise to conditions in which the phenomena of crime, racism, xenophobia and killing are on the increase.
These phenomena cannot be combatted with measures to police social life and measures of containment, which are proposed in the report.
These are the very same laws that are responsible for the rapid degradation of the environment, which has been placed under the "high-level protection' of industrialists, of motor vehicle manufacturers, of lobbies and of politicians who facilitate their unrestrained activities, who overturn and impede every attempt to propose and implement policies that are environmentally friendly.
The outcomes and the declarations of the Rio and Kyoto Summits are mentioned, but no mention is made of those who rated them as feeble and dead in the water.
The monopolistic networks did not even allow these few measures to be implemented.
<P>
This new attempt at a so-called solution to the urban problem that has been announced, with whatever "European dialogues' there may be and with the squandering of several more million ECU, apart from being a source of enrichment for the "large rodents' of Community funds, will not solve these problems.
It will make them more acute, it will inflate them, it will become a pretext for taking away resources from other actions of a social nature, a means to mislead and assuage public opinion.
We run the risk of being regarded as hypocrites and accomplices in the cover-up of illegal interests, or, it is not the one or the other, we run the risk of being regarded as political and parliamentary masochists, continually bemoaning the problems, not naming the causes, and consequently not confronting the problems in order to find a solution.
<P>
Let this Parliament at last rise above these syndromes and let it show that it truly represents the tormented people in the urban centres of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Holm">
Many of the proposals in this report are well intentioned.
At the same time as emphasizing the similarities of cities and the problems so many cities face, we also have to be aware of the fact that there are large differences between cities in the EU.
I therefore think it is important to point out that the principle of subsidiarity must apply.
Exchanging information is very good, because it is certain that many cities could learn from the actions of other cities on certain issues, but I am very sceptical of the idea that we should develop EU programmes and EU directives in this area.
The physical planning must be decided at a lower level than the EU.
The people who live in the area should decide on spatial planning, not some Brussels-based institution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="des Places">
The Napoletano report on the urban question meets the aim of defining a "European urban strategy' .
<P>
Once again, the Commission is endeavouring to extend the field of responsibility of the European Union.
The challenge is not only a political one, but also a financial one: recognition of an integrated Community urban policy will mean significant budgetary expenditure.
<P>
Given the budgetary constraints of the European Union, this expenditure is only possible on condition that funds are redistributed within the Community budget; the main victims of this redistribution will, of necessity, be the rural regions and the regions dependent on fishing.
<P>
Thus, Mrs Napoletano is the spokeswoman for the URBAN initiative which will be merged into the new Objective 2, under the Agenda 2000 plans, and hopes that it will be maintained with "adequate funding to consolidate its activities ... ".
<P>
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has always thought that the Community should concentrate its financial efforts on existing common policies, namely the CAP and the CFP, and avoid the scattering of futile and client-oriented public funds.
<P>
This wish to "define a European urban strategy' is echoed by the wish to create a "broader spatial planning policy' of which it is "an indispensable part' .
The whiff of federalism also impregnates some suggestions in favour of so-called European citizenship, one element of which is "the recognition of the right for foreign residents to vote and stand in municipal elections' , and supports at the first opportunity "the unrestricted application of the provisions of the Treaty on the right to vote for Community residents' .
<P>
Add to all this the numerous pledges made in this report in favour of a fashionable world ideology, using disquieting platitudes about the cohesiveness of our nations to justify multiculturalism.
It is therefore logical that the report should refer to the 'integration of immigrants' instead of encouraging their assimilation into the civilisation of the host country, in order on the one hand to preserve national cohesiveness, and on the other to help foreigners to become full members of the national community, proud and happy to belong to it.
<P>
Therefore, it was impossible for our group to approve a report so opposed to our own beliefs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Pinel">
Mrs Napoletano's report asks for a "European urban strategy' which forms part of an integrated and therefore federalist policy of spatial planning, a Jacobean step which we can only reject.
<P>
Urban policy is already the responsibility of towns, of urban districts of course, but also of municipalities, regions and states.
The list of those who have a part to play in this matter is sufficiently long without needing to add the European Union to the list.
The more actors there are on the scene, the more complex the files become, and the longer it takes to bring them to fruition.
<P>
Obviously, as Mrs Pollack's report suggested, we must pay full attention to the urban environment (waste management, air pollution, water treatment, employment, precariousness, preservation of our urban architectural heritage, migration ...).
However, in order to deal with these difficulties, we need to act upstream, by preventing ills and not downstream, by managing the crisis.
<P>
Therefore this report appears too often as a catalogue of symptoms the source of which is elsewhere.
Worse still, this catalogue has unfortunately too often the bad taste of sacrificing fashionable globalist ideology, for example by delivering meaningless platitudes on the immigration question.
<P>
We must aim for a better balance in spatial planning.
To achieve this, we have to overcome the urban over-concentration which so harms our societies.
<P>
We must concentrate our efforts in favour of the rural and maritime worlds, in order to deal with excessive urban concentration which is the source of so many problems.
We must encourage both an agricultural system which is capable of preserving quality and the environment but also a diversification of economic activities in rural regions and thus combat the excesses of production-oriented agriculture.
<P>
The Union must concentrate its financial efforts in areas where an integrated policy applies, for example the CAP and the CFP, and avoid scattering public funds around in a futile and client-oriented manner.
The Union must act in such a way that its policies, and in particular the CAP, do not seriously disturb the balance of spatial management.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Reding">
These two reports deal with different problems which will arise in Europe in the future as a result of demographic developments.
Nowadays 80 % of EU citizens live in cities and the majority of business is conducted there too.
This concentration gives rise to a series of difficulties which the European Union can doubtless be helpful in removing, for example by drawing up a European strategy for cities.
<P>
The environment within cities is one of the most acute problems. Air pollution and the gradual disappearance of green spaces and parks to make way for built-up areas have clear consequences in terms of health which can no longer be hidden.
Without intervention throughout Europe, a reversal of this tendency is not foreseeable.
It is rare for environmental problems to be local in nature; the majority of large cities have the same problems.
This is why it makes sense to set up a cross-departmental body in the Commission for matters specifically relating to cities, if it leads Member States to realize more quickly that the environment has a critical role to play in the future development of cities.
<P>
At the same time we also need economic and social initiatives.
Unemployment affects built-up areas particularly badly.
Xenophobia and racism are the unwelcome concomitants of different cultures living together.
So it has been suggested that not only large enterprises and technology parks should be promoted, but rather small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), business centres and leisure and culture centres.
Security in conurbations of several million people is also a problem, and fighting and preventing crime is a priority.
<P>
We have to conclude from these two reports that a Europe-wide strategy for cities and regions would provide a useful framework from which to approach common problems, even if the solutions need to be adapted to suit individual situations.
<P>
In this context, the initiatives of the 'Office International du Coin de Terre Jardins Familiaux' are of great importance.
This organization of European allotment holders represents some three million families (!) across Europe and is making an important contribution by setting up allotments within cities.
First and foremost, allotments contribute to improving the environment in cities.
They also provide a positive leisure pursuit for city-dwellers.
And what is more, these initiatives by the 'Office International' particularly benefit the unemployed and those living on the edge of society, as they find useful occupation working on the allotments as well as a cheap source of fresh fruit and vegetables.
Allotments therefore have an important part to play in improving the environmental and social situations in cities.
<P>
So it is particularly regrettable that non-governmental organizations were not named specifically to become involved in helping define a Europe-wide city development strategy.
These organizations have been making valuable contributions to their cities for a long time now, both in terms of environmental protection and protection of green spaces, as well as in social terms.
For this reason I tabled an amendment in the Committee on Regional Policy (recital R), which at least mentions the NGOs in this context.
I can only hope that these valuable helpers will be regarded and treated by the Commission as essential partners on this issue.
<P>
With this objection, I am in favour of both reports.
<P>
Belenguer report (A4-0206/98)
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Ahlqvist, Theorin and Wibe">
We note that this report is one in a long line of reports which demand the setting up of a new EU unit, in this case a 'permanent structure that will provide analytical support...' (recital K).
We think this growing mass of EU authorities merely creates bureaucracy.
We can manage without this permanent structure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Bébéar">
We all want to see the European Union develop harmoniously.
This is the rationale, notably, of our present action in the field of a single currency.
This wish will only be fully and satisfactorily met if it is accompanied, upstream, by an efficient regional policy and a coherent spatial management policy.
<P>
The driving force behind the document 'Europe 2000' , approved by the Committee of the Regions, is wholly appropriate.
Given the diversity of our European regions, we absolutely must encourage economic cohesion by providing wholly appropriate trans-European transport and communication networks, in spite of the many problems which persist.
<P>
As a representative of the Aquitaine, I would like to talk about the very real difficulties encountered in the implementation of "Europe 2000' .
In common with all other regions in the Atlantic Arc, the Aquitaine is a peripheral region which needs to be accessible, particularly as the Union is about to expand into the East of Europe and some centres of interest of the European Union are being moved to the north and east of the continent.
<P>
So we must first of all take into consideration the local aspects of the development work which we are proposing, without allowing ourselves to be overtaken by an over-generalised view of the plans.
This does not mean that this common balance must not remain our guiding light, but we shall have to make quite an effort in order to recognize the implications at local level.
<P>
The first official project of the plan for Community spatial planning has allowed the local authorities to participate actively and to involve the economic actors in these regions in the debate.
Let us work out a synthesis which takes account of the various local positions in order to establish a true consensus, without going beyond the confines of the current distribution of powers, since the European Union has not granted us strict rights in this area.
<P>
For these reasons, I approve the amended and consensual report prepared by my colleague Mr Novo Belenguer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Souchet">
Mr Novo Belenguer's report aims to integrate spatial planning into the field of competence of the Community.
He "regrets that the Treaty does not at present provide for specific Community powers as regards regional planning' , and 'strongly urges the formalization of the Council of Regional Planning Ministers' .
<P>
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations objects to this federalist urge which rejects the principle of subsidiarity, the letter of the Treaty and the sovereignty of nations.
<P>
In this respect, we think it would be preferable to ensure that Community decisions do not work against the economic and social cohesion of our countries.
<P>
We should also question the possible consequences of the implementation of the single currency as regards spatial planning and in particular the consequent increase in the disparities between regions, because it is absolutely true that the most depopulated and poorest regions are very likely, when the euro comes into force, to suffer from the displacement of activities to the more dynamic economic axes which are more populated and better served.
<P>
Moreover, desertification of some of our rural territories has been aggravated by the coming into effect of the 1992 CAP and by the abandonment of the principle of Community preference, granted during the GATT negotiations.
<P>
The new CAP reform, as proposed in Agenda 2000, together with, inter alia, a significant reduction in agricultural prices, can only give rise to additional imbalances as regards spatial planning.
<P>
The ESDP document points out that European agriculture will continue to play a primordial role in the development and vitality of many rural areas.
In this regard, we cannot fail to note a major contradiction between the detailed analysis carried out by this document and the proposals which the Commission has put forward for reform of the CAP (Agenda 2000), proposals which will have the effect of reducing the number of farm workers in the European Union.
<P>
Do we have to remind the House that rural areas represent approximately 80 % of Community land?
Coherent land planning depends, therefore, upon their vitality being maintained.
Our colleague Edouard des Places was right to insist upon this point yesterday.
<P>
In general, we would prefer the European Union to consider the repercussions of existing Community policies and of decisions taken by it or of negotiations which it conducts on the balance of the European territory - both at WTO level and in international agreements - rather than continually trying to obtain new powers, so as to avoid the possible negative consequences.
It is in that spirit and in order to manifest the interest which he brings to the matter of spatial planning, that our group has tabled some ten amendments to Mr Novo Belenguer's report, which we can only reject as it stands.
<P>
Dührkop Dührkop report (A4-0256/98)
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Berthu">
We would like to protest over the farce played out here yesterday in the Hemicycle, when the Commission came to seek the support of the European Parliament to back its misappropriation of funds.
In fact, it was caught in "flagrante delito' : the Court of Justice of the European Communities - which is generally not severe with the Commission - had no choice but to condemn it, on 12 May last, for having committed budgetary expenditure without any legal basis.
<P>
This affair is a fine example.
The general budget of the European Union for 1995 allocated ECU 20 millions for the prevention of poverty and social exclusion.
But half way through the year, the Council refused to approve the "Poverty 4' programme proposed by the Commission; this programme involved scattering credits in favour of small projects described as the "fight against social exclusion' .
We intervened at the time to support the position of the Council, on the grounds that such subsidies are contrary to the principle of subsidiarity and only serve to maintain the Commission's clientele.
<P>
The Commission, attacked at the very heart of its being, decided to ignore the Council's prohibition and in January 1996 announced that it granting subsidies to 86 projects relating to the "fight against poverty' objective, to a total of ECU 6 million.
This was a flagrant violation of the Treaty. The validity of Community expenditure rests on two successive acts: entry in the budget and the definition of a legal basis, the first granted by Parliament and the Council acting together, the second granted here by the Council alone.
The second stage was quite plainly missing here.
The Court of Justice was forced to recognize this.
<P>
Several lessons must be drawn from this.
<P>
First of all, we note that only the United Kingdom, subsequently supported by Germany and Denmark, had the courage to bring the matter before the Court of Justice.
France stayed safely behind the scenes even though this was a flagrant violation of the Treaties, as well as of the principles of subsidiarity to which we declare ourselves elsewhere to be most firmly committed.
This attitude does not show our country up in a very good light.
Such timidity in the face of the permanent terrorism of the Commission explains in part why so many things are going badly in Europe.
<P>
Secondly, today, the Commission does not consider that it has been beaten.
It has just called on the European Parliament to help it to put pressure on the Council so that an agreement between the three institutions can soon be reached, supporting, in rather broadly defined cases, its habit of committing expenditure without any legal basis.
<P>
We find this manoeuvre totally unacceptable, and call on the Council to stand up to it.
Even if it gave in, this interinstitutional agreement would be illegal, because an agreement between institutions would not suffice to get round the obligations of the Treaty which were ratified by the people and can only be modified by them.
<P>
We do not think that Europe can continue like this: on the one hand, with great proclamations of democracy, respect for the law, subsidiarity; on the other, behaviour on the part of the Commission which is contrary to such principles, and which does not seem to show any remorse even when caught with its hand in the till.
Unfortunately, instead of censuring the Commission, as it should in such a case, the European Parliament congratulates the Commission and commissions it to continue on behalf of their old federalist complicity.
<P>
Not only must the Council reject the new interinstitutional agreement proposed, it must affirm once and for all that this type of agreement must have the explicit approval of national parliaments.
Moreover, the institutional reform to come must include a reform of the Commission, and it must be clearly subordinate to the Council.
<P>
Garosci report (A4-0230/98)
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Bernardini and Darras">
The European Commission, in its report on control systems at the point of sale implemented by Member States, recognizes many anomalies.
In fact, based on the premise that such controls exist in the fifteen Member States, the Commission has found that there are differences in application.
However, how can we coordinate the control of sales at an airport and on board aeroplanes for example, without imposing additional financial costs on the operators for a fixed period.
Let us not forget that the European Commission's report is linked to an estimation of the way the transitional system for duty-free sales will operate before abolition on 30 June 1999.
<P>
For our part, we are worried about this very important question of the abolition of duty-free sales, for both economic and social reasons.
<P>
The economic reason is that the financial support assured by the income from this sector represents a major investment which contributes to the economic health of air and maritime transport.
If this revenue is lost, how will airports finance their infrastructures?
<P>
Then there is the social and very current reason which concerns employment in this sector.
The trade union organizations suggest a loss of some 140 000 jobs!
Can we afford to close our eyes to this fact whilst we are trying to develop policies in favour of employment?
<P>
We would like, therefore, to take advantage of the vote on this report, to remind the European Commission of the commitment of the House, as seen in the vote for a resolution on 3 April last, demanding an urgent study paying particular attention to the consequences of the abolition of duty-free on employment in the single market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Cushnahan">
The stated intention of the Commission to persist with its policy to abolish duty-free sales after 30 June 1999 is totally unacceptable, particularly as the Commission has failed to fulfil the undertaking that it gave this Parliament to carry out a study on the economic and social consequences of abolition.
Not only has it betrayed a promise, the Commission is also demonstrating that its commitment to make the EU more relevant and responsive to its citizens is little more than empty rhetoric.
It is estimated that the abolition of duty-free sales will result in 140, 000 job losses throughout the EU.
Four thousand of these will happen in my own country.
Jobs will be lost in the duty-free, transport and tourism sectors.
Suppliers to duty-free will also suffer.
<P>
It is evident that there will be a major negative impact on some regions.
As stated in one of the amendments tabled in my name, the Commission has a responsibility to bring forward measures to assist those who will be hardest hit if the Commission does in fact implement the decision to abolish duty-free.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Holm">
In my view, the report contains a bit too much detail about how the control of sales should take place for inward and outward journeys.
This applies, for example, to paragraphs 9, 10 and 11 of the resolution, which contain recommendations about where the ticket shall be stamped when a person has bought duty-free goods.
Surely the European Parliament should not concern itself with this.
Such things should be taken care of at a much lower level of decision-making.
<P>
As far as duty-free sales are concerned, I have voted against all the proposals from the UPE group which suggest that these sales should continue after 1 July 1999.
The only proposal I have chosen to support is Amendment No 9, which criticizes the Commission for not having produced an impact assessment on the effects of the ending of duty-free sales.
I still consider that reasonable, even though I think that duty-free sales should end next year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Lindqvist">
When border controls were abolished through the single market the Member States could no longer carry out border controls as before on the border itself.
In my opinion that decision was a mistake.
We should instead have done the same as in Scandinavia and abolished passport controls but maintained other border and goods controls.
<P>
In connection with the decision to abolish duty-free sales, the Commission promised a study of the economic and social consequences of an abolition.
This has not been done, for example, with regard to the effects on employment in Scandinavia etcetera.
As long as this has not been done, there should be no abolition of duty-free sales.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Nicholson">
While everyone in the Community would like to see the creation of laws which support the directives for a common system where it is useful, duty-free sales is not one of the issues which should be consuming the Commission's time and the Community's money.
The pursuance of the common system should be established in a way which aids each state and their citizens.
At this time it can be said that loopholes do exist in the present system concerning tax-free sales, but complete abolition of the system creates more serious problems than its continuance.
<P>
That the effects of this proposal have not been clearly thought through is evident in the lack of facts and concrete statistics which are currently available to the Commission.
Their report was written quite a few years ago and several of their main points for eradication have been greatly improved upon in terms of tightening control of such sales.
<P>
The implementation of this procedure in 1999 will show drastic losses concurrently hitting several viable fronts.
A loss of 140, 000 jobs, increase in airport landing charges, a marked decline in the EU tourist sector due to higher passenger fares, and the devitalization of regional airports are concrete factors which directly injure the Community.
The answer to this problem should not be found in a complete removal of the duty-free system, but in proposals for a more efficient manner in which to carry out such sales.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Reding">
Although this report is primarily technical in nature and deals with the possible improvement in vendor controls in duty-free trade, its political background - the abolition of duty-free goods sales on travel routes within the EU from 1999 onwards - cannot be denied, and I would firmly reject this.
<P>
It may be that controls in ports and airports are insufficient and the customs allowance set by the Council is frequently exceeded without any controls.
If this is so, these regulations must be improved in line with the recommendations of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
For this reason I am in favour of the Garosci report.
<P>
I am also in favour of the amendments tabled by the rapporteur, which include financial support for the people and regions which will be affected by the partial abolition of duty-free.
This clearly spells out the consequences in terms of employment that this useless measure will bring: duty-free sales represent an important proportion of revenue especially for smaller regional airports.
Travellers see duty-free as a welcome pastime when they are waiting for a flight; its abolition would have a negative impact for them, and - with decreased airport revenue - could eventually result in increases in the price of flights.
<P>
The argument that duty-free sales would damage normal trade has been proven to be incorrect. These sales are closely tied up with their location and their environment and they would not be made in the course of normal city shopping.
<P>
The Commission's persistence in not carrying out a study on the effects of the abolition of duty-free sales on employment is nothing short of scandalous.
In 1992 the Ministers for Finance could not predict what the employment market would be like in 1999, or else they certainly would not have willingly endangered thousands of jobs by way of making a small cosmetic improvement in the internal market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Wolf">
The key question here in political terms is the significance and future of duty-free sales within the Union.
The large majority of our group shares the belief that customs and tax loopholes and tax havens cannot be reconciled with a properly functioning internal market, and therefore we support the plans to let duty-free regulations be phased out.
<P>
The structural problems of peripheral regions and areas should be tackled in earnest, for example by defining a practical equivalent to the universal concept for transport and traffic and through an appropriate Community and national grant scheme.
A transitional follow-up grant as set out in Amendment No 30 would certainly be a practical solution for problem regions and areas.
<P>
The artificial prolongation of duty-free regulations as a roundabout way of achieving long term clarification of grey areas, as set out in Amendment No 29, is considered by the large majority of my group to be much too vague and indirect as well as being unfair and inefficient.
<P>
De Clercq report (A4-0205/98)
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Ahlqvist and Theorin">
We do not think that the EU should decide to what extent the Member States should teach a common syllabus of European history.
As Article 126 makes clear, education is the responsibility of the Member States themselves.
Nor do we think that we would 'strengthen European consciousness' by harmonizing teaching aids and school years.
However, we do think that European voluntary service is a very good project which gives young people a chance to experience new cultures and learn languages.
For these reasons it is logical for us to abstain from voting on recital G.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Blokland">
What is citizenship of the Union?
Put the question to the average citizen and he will shrug his shoulders.
It means little to the citizen.
<P>
Today there was a vote on the report by Mr De Clercq, which examines this citizenship.
Citizenship plays the key role in continuing political integration, according to the report.
So the citizen must be encouraged in all kinds of ways to value this European citizenship.
<P>
The citizen must thus be motivated to take an active part in this Parliament's dream of European unity.
Furthermore the citizen must gain a European consciousness, which must be encouraged through instruction in our so-called common history and culture.
<P>
But can and should this citizenship of the Union really play a key role in continuing integration?
Is this not putting the cart before the horse?
The coming into being of a feeling of European citizenship can never be a means, at most it can be the end.
And even as an end we do not consider it worth striving for.
<P>
Citizenship at a national level is made up among other things of language, culture and history.
Citizenship of the Union appears to take shape in matters such as voting rights, right of residence and freedom of movement.
These are issues of a different sort.
Even with the proposed methods of promoting this notion, the citizenship that binds people together at national level cannot arise at European level.
<P>
To think that a uniform citizenship should be imposed on the people of Europe is to misunderstand the real needs and wishes of the citizen.
A citizen becomes involved through such issues as local decision making, openness, sensible legislation and tangible results.
Only when we take note of these needs of citizens and take them seriously will the citizen in turn take the Union seriously.
<P>
Ideas such as lists of candidates for the European Parliament which must include citizens of Member States other than one's own will certainly not contribute to voters taking the Union seriously.
<P>
Those are enough reasons for our party to vote against this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Buffetaut">
The question of European citizenship is essential because it shows the spirit which is meant to guide the development of the European Union.
In fact, the very idea of citizenship cannot be dissociated from that of the State and it is clear that the affirmation of an even wider European citizenship arises out of the wish to achieve a European federal state, or a more centralized Europe.
<P>
The report by the chairman, Mr De Clercq is obviously consistent with this line of thinking.
The recommendation made to the political parties "to accept more Union citizens who are not nationals of the country concerned as partymembers and candidates on the electoral lists, and to encourage them to take part in political life in their country of residence' is significant here.
This is part of the utopian desire to create a European people by force and by legal artifice, against the historical, cultural and linguistic reality.
<P>
Everything can be debated, but it must be done in a spirit of clarity and in front of the citizens of the Member States.
This is precisely what has hardly ever been done in Europe.
The system we know was built away from the eyes of the people.
The Commission is still working towards the realization of a centralized super-state, as is proved by the document 'The Commission of tomorrow ' of 16 April 1998 which states that this latter should concentrate further on the great kingly policies - foreign affairs, the currency, internal security, the single market, economic and social cohesion - and common policies.
<P>
We might ask what will be left for the Member States?
The Commission's answer is: greater delegation in simple administrative tasks.
Has this debate been clearly stated?
No.
And this is where the scandal lies, because the political system which is being built is not subject to any democratic caution.
President Santer stated on 27 May, this year that the Commission must continue to play its political role, forcefully and totally independently.
This is the claim for increasing power without the political responsibility.
This is contrary to the very basis of all democracy.
<P>
The report by the chairman, Mr De Clercq forms part of this logic of a European state.
Has the Directorate-General for Research in the European Parliament not stated that citizenship of the Union constitutes one of the essential structural principles of federalist political systems?
<P>
We cannot accept this logic.
Democracy requires proximity.
The artificial super-state which we want to build has all the characteristics of a power which is both technocratic and distant.
It is radically contrary to our concept of a Europe which respects peoples and nations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Caudron">
While I welcome the work of our colleague Mr De Clercq on a subject which I hold very dear, I would also like to specify the weaknesses, as I see them, in this report.
<P>
First of all, I think that citizenship cannot happen by decree, but is something which comes with practice.
Once this premise has been put forward, the rights and duties of the various players in the democratic process must be specified, because exercising citizenship is that as well.
<P>
Thus, if I express delight at the proposals made by the rapporteur in favour of the Members States, in order to broaden and support the rights of citizens, it is, however, necessary to think about how we might improve the way the various institutions are seen, so that each European can fully exercise his citizenship, in full knowledge of the situation.
<P>
These remarks are not limited to the European institutions alone, but also apply to the Member States.
In fact, how can this citizenship possibly operate properly at two "levels' if the dysfunctionality is already appearing at national level?
Is it necessary to give examples?
<P>
In addition to the need for better understanding, we should add, in this field, that nothing can develop positively if we politicians do not find some real credibility.
In fact, I am silly enough to believe that this citizenship and political decisionmaking cannot be separated from one another.
Given the way that the economy affects our daily life, political action must find the right tools to do this.
We cannot and should not reduce the democratic process to an exercise in bargaining.
It is clear to me that our weak decision-making process in the context of the emerging global economy contributes to the erosion of the citizenship which we all recognize and which lies at the heart of much verbal, written and physical violence.
<P>
Finally, on a more technical note, how can we talk about European citizenship when we are dealing, as I am, with tax scandals which have been dragging on for years.
Someone affected by these problems cannot fail to question whether Europe for the European citizens really exists.
<P>
In this respect, the next few years will be critical if we are finally to achieve something amounting to European citizenship.
This greatly affects the credibility of the European Union and thus its future, if not its survival.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Delcroix">
The construction of Europe has seen an inversion of priorities and the negative effects of this are still being felt, which the European Parliament has undertaken to correct over time.
I would like to mention the four freedoms defined by the Single Act: freedom of movement of persons, goods, services and capital.
We know that, for reasons connected with the primacy afforded to the economy and to the rapid advance of technologies, it is freedom of movement of capital which was achieved first, contrary to the wishes and expectations of the founding fathers, with consequences of which we are already aware.
<P>
That is why I agree with the rapporteur when he reminds the House, in the first point of his proposal for a resolution, of the protocol of Treaty of Amsterdam which aims to integrate the Schengen Agreement into the framework of the European Union and when he invites Member States to start work on this without further delay.
In fact, there is no doubt that the free movement of citizens is linked to the abolition of internal border controls.
Member States have still to amend laws which are sometimes too cosy as regards the conditions for establishment, the mobility of the young and the recognition of diplomas.
Citizens in the Union must feel at home in each of the Member States and must enjoy every freedom for setting up home, living, studying and working in those states.
<P>
As regards voting rights in municipal elections, I am delighted, as a Belgian, that the rapporteur has asked France and Belgium to transpose the directive into national law as soon as possible.
This is a matter which touches upon the very roots of democracy.
Moreover, I am personally in favour of the right to vote to be granted to everyone living in my country for several years and who satisfy a certain number of conditions, whether the people are or are not European.
European citizenship which is implicit in this right to vote in municipal elections goes hand in hand with the respect of minority groups and, more broadly, has to do with the defence of our values which are tolerance, respect for differences and mutual comprehension.
These values are the only real antidote to turning in on one oneself, nationalism, xenophobia and racism.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Deprez">
The public's disillusionment as regards the construction of Europe is patent within several Member States.
Too often, our citizens feel that only economic and financial Europe is working, with its cohort of restructuring and redundancies.
It is essential that we correct this perception, which leads too many Europeans to get hold of the idea that the Europe under construction is not their Europe, if they do not take a complete dislike to it.
<P>
Citizenship of the Union is at the very heart of the link which must unite Europeans and the building of Europe.
Six years after its incorporation into the Maastricht Treaty, citizenship is still far too theoretical for our fellow citizens.
In the collective subconscious of Europeans, one is a citizen of a country in which one can wander around freely in every direction without having to show identity papers.
There are still too many obstacles today which prevent this from becoming a reality in the European Union.
The measures suggested in the proposal for a resolution which has been submitted to us is obviously a step in the right direction.
This is why I support this proposal unreservedly.
<P>
The right to vote is yet one more irreducible expression of citizenship.
We must therefore ask whether one can really be a full European citizen if the Member State in which a person is living as a non-national applies different laws and electoral procedures, as regards participation in European votes, to that person than to its own nationals at the same elections.
<P>
To me, the answer is a clear no.
It seems to me, therefore, that we have to go further than the current resolution.
As regards European elections, we need the laws which apply to nationals to be automatically applicable to citizens of the European Union residing in the national territory.
In the case of my country, this means, inter alia, that voting rights will be obligatory for all nationals of Member States of the Union living in Belgium, unless they can prove that they vote in their own country.
By extension, the same equivalent treatment must apply to local elections.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Hager">
The Liberal Members are able to draw a lot of positive things about Union citizenship from the De Clercq report and confirm the need for the citizens to participate in the construction of Europe.
Without acceptance by the citizens there can be no common Europe.
However we are also aware of the current developments in which politicians, mainly at a European level, talk a lot about proximity to the people, but in actual fact neglect them at every turn.
However, we reject the report as a whole because we reject the institution of Union citizenship in itself because we do not have a European people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR), Seppänen and Svensson (GUE/NGL), Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling (V), Bonde, Krarup and Sandbæk (I-EDN)">
In the opinion of the signatories to this explanation of vote, the De Clercq report is unacceptable on almost all fronts.
Thus, we have chosen to vote against the report.
<P>
For example, we find the De Clercq report's desire to harmonize the school systems of EU countries in terms of their syllabus to be an expression of a dangerous line of thinking, particularly against the backdrop of the proposal in the report to introduce joint teaching of selected subjects to promote a clearly positive view among pupils of the EU.
In our view, teaching pupils about European history and culture is excellent, and voluntary coordination between European countries and their schools and teachers centred around particular subjects is also an excellent idea.
That way, our children and young people will be given a broad, cross-border insight into one another's history and culture.
However, that is not the intention of the De Clercq report.
The purpose here is purely and simply to influence the views of children and young people in a particular political direction, with the ultimate goal of drumming up support for the federal EU state.
<P>
Neither can we support the desire for the Schengen acquis to be enshrined in the Treaty on European Union, because we oppose the Schengen Agreement.
Our opposition is based on the fact that Schengen does not lead to greater freedom for citizens; on the contrary, the Schengen acquis would imply increasingly less transparent, hidden controls on people.
We are also strongly opposed to the EU having any influence whatsoever on pensions and other social benefits.
The nature of these matters is purely national.
Finally, we wish to distance ourselves from EU interference in the matter of candidates to be selected by parties for European Parliament elections.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="Svensson">
The undersigned have voted against the report by Mr De Clercq for the following reasons:
<P>
1.Issues of citizenship should be decided by the individual states without Union interference.
This should continue in future to be the prerogative of the Nation States.2.The right to vote in municipal elections for immigrants can be decided without introducing Union citizenship.
In Sweden all immigrants already have the right to vote in municipal elections after two years of residence.3.A citizenship of the Union automatically creates discrimination against immigrants from countries outside the Union.
The right to vote in municipal elections should apply to all immigrants regardless of their country of origin.4.Freedom of movement without any restrictions is, as experience shows, absolutely undesirable for social reasons.
The States have to be able to guarantee good conditions, rights and integration for the immigrants.5.The idea of teaching a 'common syllabus' of European history is totally bizarre.
Such a standardization of history teaching is equivalent to censorship of critical scholarship and entails the setting up of a fundamentally dubious picture of actual history.
No real European identity will be created by such artificial methods.6.Far more appropriate than the unproductive, mistaken proposals in the report would be to abolish the current semiauthoritarian level of government in the Union and replace it with a simpler system based on national sovereignty and the principle of subsidiarity.
That is the only way Europe will become a Europe of the citizens rather than a Europe of the civil servants, the lawyers and the elites.
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Thyssen">
I have voted with conviction for the resolution of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights on citizenship of the Union, including paragraph 11, in which the Belgian government is called upon to put the directive on Community voting rights for European citizens into operation without delay.
<P>
This should have been settled two years ago.
Perhaps it could be written in large letters that my party, the Flemish Christian People's Party (CVP), have always been in favour of this European voting right.
<P>
I want to use my voting declaration to call on my Belgian colleagues in this House not just to make grandiose statements here in the European Parliament but also to get down to work on it in their own party back home.
The Belgian government has long been wanting to implement the directive but in order for the directive to take effect smoothly the constitution must first be changed.
Such a change requires a two-thirds majority in the Belgian Federal Parliament.
The opposition parties must therefore give their support.
<P>
If the rapporteur, Mr De Clercq, who is an eminent member of one of these opposition parties, can persuade his own party members at home to deliver their votes, then the appeal that he made in the European Parliament will get a rapid response.
His report would then gain in credibility.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Wibe">
I am voting against this report for many reasons.
I do not think, for example, that we should invest more in target-oriented information, that is, propaganda for the Union.
Nor do I think that we would 'strengthen European consciousness' by creating a 'European history' .
Nor do I think that we should harmonize European syllabuses and school years.
I think that most Swedes, parents and children alike, are happy with the Swedish model, which means that we have holidays in June, July and August.
In brief, this report is far too federal for me to vote for it.
<P>
Oomen-Ruijten report (A4-0095/98)
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="Caudron">
On several occasions, the European Parliament has said that the recognition of trade union rights must be effective.
This text by our colleague, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten is essential, and I support this initiative to include them in the Treaty on European Union.
<P>
Because of my political affiliation, I am also delighted by the general spirit of this report, which insists that concertation and consensus is a condition for lasting social and economic development.
<P>
Thus, I note with interest our colleague's wish to see a consolidation of the still embryonic situation between the different partners, and no longer between national organizations, but at European level.
This new approach, if it works out, can only be beneficial for the future of social relations within firms, and is vital if we are to retain our competitive edge.
<P>
This important advance in the recognition of unions might contribute to a better recognition of their role by our fellow citizens.
It is an important factor for equilibrium and progress.
<P>
Finally, beyond the text, I note with 'surprise' that some people will be voting for a text which strengthens union rights, while the same people frequently object to any form of representation for employees in their own country.
<P>
"Truth in Brussels' ... "scandal' in Paris!
You never know!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Delcroix">
The European collective bargaining process will assist the coordinated implementation of the policy on employment and Economic and Monetary Union.
<P>
Sustained social and economic development, the strengthening of economic activity, and the creation of jobs take place through social consensus, concertation and active diplomacy.
<P>
The restoration of fundamental social balances will not take place without the support of the social partners and the development of a European social dialogue.
<P>
Experience tells us that the partial globalization experienced in Europe for the past ten years or more has been accompanied by many perverse effects due to the absence of a European social dialogue.
Much distress and misery could have been avoided with more concertation.
Let us hope at least that this painful experience will serve as a lesson to avoid further dramas as regards the globalization currently taking place.
<P>
I would like to thank the rapporteur and congratulate him on the work he has presented.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Deprez">
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Holm">
In view of the long traditions we have in Sweden concerning the rights and obligations of unions, I have voted against this report today.
Compared with many other countries in the EU, the Swedish trade union movement is very highly developed and, compared with many other countries, it has a special position in the labour market.
There is a clear risk in this proposal that many of the rights which trade unions currently enjoy are under threat, such as with regard to collective bargaining.
<P>
Obviously I have nothing against the demand for fundamental social rights, but should these matters really be centralized in Brussels?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Lindqvist">
It is important to strengthen union rights at all levels, such as freedom of association, the right of collective bargaining and the right to strike.
One way might be to also include these rights in the Treaty at European level.
Another way might be to let unions take care of this without any Treaty provisions.
One risk of regulating at the EU level is that union rights will be mixed up with EU law and that they will be restricted instead of being strengthened.
Obviously we should try to avoid major industrial disputes, but the question is whether this should be regulated at EU level.
<P>
This proposal could be supported on condition that it is the social partners who themselves draw up the negotiating rules and principles at European level within this framework.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="Ojala">
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="Skinner">
The EPLP position is to maintain the current industrial relations culture in the UK, but understands the background to Mrs Oomen-Ruijten's own-initiative report as it affects other countries in the EU.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="Titley">
I am glad to vote for this report today and glad to see that the need to balance the EU's emphasis on trade with a strong social angle is being taken forward at the initiative of this Parliament.
As the report rightly points out, it is to be welcomed that my own country's government has decided to end the opt-out from the Social Chapter which threatened to leave British workers as second-class citizens compared to their counterparts in other EU countries.
It is surely only fair that the trade unions and employers' groups which represent the people who make our economies work should see their rights of association enshrined in the Treaty on European Union in future.
And who better to consult on issues such as trade union rights in multinational businesses than the unions in which millions of our working people participate?
<P>
Thirty years ago my predecessor as MEP for Greater Manchester West, Barbara Castle, was campaigning in Britain for a new approach to employment rights to put cooperation and fairness in place of industrial strife.
I only wish that her efforts had met with more support then.
I am committed, in voting for this report, to see that the kind of cooperation between employers and staff aimed at replacing damaging disputes with a partnership culture takes another step forwards.
Let us get bureaucracy off the backs of entrepreneurs and employees and allow them to draw up proposals for negotiating between themselves.
In this spirit of teamwork in the workplace, Europe can create a culture of fairness at work - as my own government is doing at home.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="Vandemeulebroucke">
The judgement reached on 17 June by the European Court of First Instance, which rejected the request from the UEAPME, the European Union of Crafts and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, to be allowed to take part as a full social partner in the European social policy discussions, is very regrettable.
This judgement confirms the position of power of the existing European social partners UNICE, CEEP and the ETUC.
This judgement leads us once again to ask questions about the procedure agreed in Maastricht whereby the "representative' social partners can reach European collective agreements about work without the intervention of the European Parliament and where the Council only acts as "solicitor' .
<P>
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten's report rightly emphasises that overcoming conflicts of interest through discussion and social consensus contributes to the strengthening of industry and the economy as a whole, and also to the creation of job opportunities, and that such a consensus is an essential condition for sustainable socio-economic development.
<P>
The report also rightly points to the ILO Conventions Nos 87 and 98, drawn up in the 1940s, and the European Social Charter of the Council of Europe, in which the freedom of association and the right of collective bargaining at a national level are enshrined.
The report also rightly states that these ILO Conventions should be applied at Community level.
<P>
I should like to emphasize, however, that the social partners should always be sufficiently representative. Everyone must have a chance.
It is thus unacceptable that the ETUC refuses to include important trade unions, for example the ACVLB from Belgium or the CGT from France.
<P>
The same applies to the employers' side.
I regret the refusal to recognise the UEAPME as a full social partner.
This decision goes against the ILO Conventions mentioned above.
This judgement is an aberration.
Social partners should be sufficiently representative.
In my opinion it is unacceptable to rule that an organization with more than nine million members, which employs some 50 million workers, should be excluded from discussions about European collective labour accords.
I wish to protest very strongly against this.
Social Europe has indeed still a long way to go.
<P>
Ghilardotti report (A4-0203/98)
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="Delcroix">
The contribution made by workers in the voluntary sector is irreplaceable.
It is present in local associations but also at every level of our society, at regional, state, Community or even global level.
<P>
Their contribution sets an excellent example and they play a leading role in allowing us to experiment and invest in new sectors of activity and human solidarity.
<P>
It is also a sector of activity which desperately needs recognition of its usefulness, but while it may sometimes need only a little to encourage it, it can also be all too easily discouraged.
<P>
Public administrations will draw inspiration from this, realizing that the human and financial resources devoted to the support of associations and foundations in Europe are the most efficient, most reasonable and apparently the best market we could implement to meet the social needs of our society.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="Deprez">
Economic and social cohesion in the European Union is and must also be the concern of the citizen.
Throughout Europe, several voluntary organizations work in all sectors of society and instil a real breath of democratic life and acceptance of citizens' responsibility.
They often serve to bridge the gaps in the activity of local and national administrations.
This is true in such essential social areas as training, education and solidarity.
<P>
It has often been said in the House and by the Commission that this type of organization could, moreover, constitute an important source of jobs, so as to respond in a flexible and efficient manner to a number of unmet demands.
For this reason, we must support the proposals to increase European national or regional aid which can help these organizations in promoting jobs in priority sectors such as health or education, provided that the jobs so created are real jobs covered by real work contracts and not just precarious or badly paid jobs which serve only to bring down the unemployment statistics.
<P>
In conclusion, like the rapporteur, I resolutely support the Commission's commitment to promoting the role of voluntary organizations and foundations in Europe.
But I would also like to remind the Council and the Commission of the importance of developing laws which can be applied to organizations, foundations, associations and mutual societies in the voluntary sector.
<P>
Chanterie report (A4-0229/98)
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="Bernardini">
Seven months after the road transport strike in France, the European Union is beginning to be aware of gaps in its legislation on working hours.
<P>
On 15 July 1997, the European Commission presented a White Paper on the sectors and activities excluded from the working time directive.
But, reading this paper, one can only be astonished that no proposals for directives or regulations are contained in it.
<P>
As a member of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, I would like to stress the importance of legislation concerning long-distance drivers.
It is time to amend the regulation which has been effective since 1985 (3820/85) relating to driving time and rest periods.
It is necessary to incorporate new data such as the daily and weekly ceiling, the number of driving hours, unloading and loading time, which is an integral part of the long-distance driver's work.
Mr Chanterie's report deals with these problems in a very thorough manner, and I can only congratulate him on his work.
<P>
As long ago as December 1997, the French government had presented a memorandum demanding European harmonization of social rules in the road transport sector before the full opening of the market, which is planned for 1 July 1998.
The Commission, which is committed to the aims of the memorandum (regulation of working time, including loading and unloading time, compulsory initial and continuing training for professional long-distance drivers, harmonization of controls and sanctions applicable in the case of non-compliance with social legislation), has been very slow to make any proposals.
Now those involved in this sector will not give up the struggle and they will remain vigilant.
There is a very strong risk of strikes and the argument that this will damage the principle of free movement will not cause the barricades to fall.
If the European Union can get involved with this social aspect, it will regain some credibility.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="Caudron">
As we are about to vote on this report, I would like to remind the House of the urgency of harmonization in European road transport.
<P>
At a time when cabotage is permitted, it is unacceptable to see the development of social dumping and the exploitation of long distance drivers.
It is economically unjust, socially unacceptable and, I would add, dangerous for everyone in terms of road safety.
<P>
Therefore, we must act as quickly as possible, at the risk of seeing costly yet understandable conflicts multiply.
It can be done if the political will exists.
It is up to our ministers to speak out on this matter and to act!
<P>
Let us look at just one example which we in the North know very well. In France, long-distance drivers cannot drive on Sunday.
In Belgium they can. The result is that long-distance lorries all gang up at Rekem and at 10 p.m. we have miles and miles of queues of long-distance lorries invading the Lille area and crossing Villeneuve d'Ascq, heading towards Paris.
<P>
As we enter the age of the euro and the single market, it is a shining example of the rickety nature of a lop-sided European construction which is no longer acceptable to European citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="Deprez">
The opening of markets and international competition means that working time has become an important factor in the competitiveness of European firms in home and foreign markets.
<P>
If implemented properly, a different distribution of working time could help to create or to preserve a large number of jobs.
If badly planned, however, it could damage safety, health, family life or the social life of the people concerned.
It would appear that the sectors and activities were excluded from the current Community rules on working time for questionable political and economic motives which had very little to do with scientific or social consequences.
<P>
Thus, I share the viewpoint not only of our rapporteur but also of the Joint Sectoral Committees of several excluded sectors, that working time is an issue that must be discussed fully within the context of European industrial and social relations.
<P>
While it must be clear to everyone that the flexibility which is needed to ensure the competitiveness of our businesses must not in any way become synonymous for workers with a deterioration in their living conditions or a lowering of standards of safety and protection, we should also condemn as unacceptable the fact that workers excluded from the benefits of European legislation should, therefore, be obliged to work in conditions which are potentially harmful to their family life or dangerous for their health and safety or that of others.
<P>
So I fully support the resolution which we are adopting today.
I would like to stress in particular the need for the European Union to adopt the necessary means to improve controls and harmonize sanctions, in order to combat excessive working hours.
In collaboration with the social partners and the Member States, the Commission must be the driving force in this respect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="Delcroix">
We should be pleased that this report deals with the working conditions of sectors and activities excluded from the working time directive, in particular, workers in the transport sector, fishing, doctors in training and the self-employed.
It is clear that the working time directive will be an essential factor in improving the quality of life of all citizens and in particular for the six million workers concerned.
<P>
But we should not forget that for more than a century, the benefits of gains in productivity have always been shared out between economic investments, pay rises and reduction in working time.
This development, approved by strong action in favour of the five-day week, the eight-hour day, paid holidays, the right to continuing professional development, has come at the same time as continuous economic growth and the emergence of a society which shares the fruits of its labour amongst all consumers.
<P>
For almost twenty years, this process first started to slow down, then began to jam up completely, creating more and more exclusion and poverty for those who do not share in the distribution of labour.
It is high time to redress this situation and to manage human resources quite differently.
Everyone must share in the joint effort and must benefit in return from the share of wealth generated in order that their families can benefit from the welfare of all.
<P>
Training work has become very important in our society.
So we must assert the right and duty of every worker to improve his professional qualifications throughout his career and, and that he must be able to spend part of his working time in training as well as in productive time or service delivery.
While this may still seem a Utopian dream, except for white collar and office workers, the social partners must pay close attention to this and there should be specific clauses in each contract of employment and in each regulation.
<P>
Our society will only progress if there is greater investment in people, in their intelligence, in their desire for recognition of their skills, in their ability to progress throughout their life.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Iversen and Sindal">
We have today voted in favour of all EU wage-earners being able to derive maximum benefit from the 1993 directive on working hours.
There are, of course, certain special circumstances in the case of the transport sector.
However, all mobile workers should at the very least be covered by regulations on annual leave, health assessment for night workers, rest periods and annual work time.
It is an excellent solution that regulations on working hours for mobile employees in the excluded sectors are being negotiated on the spot between the parties to the labour market.
Thus, we welcome the agreements entered into so far, for example in the maritime sector.
<P>
It is quite unacceptable for five million non-mobile workers in the EU not to be covered by the directive on working hours.
Thus, we have a situation whereby a sales assistant working for the Danish State Railways has different working conditions than those of a sales assistant in a cinema, even though both of them sell tickets.
Thus, we join in pressing for non-mobile workers in the EU to be fully protected by the directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="Lienemann">
Mr Chanterie's report rightly underscores how urgent and even very urgent it is to put an end to the scandalous exclusion of a large number of salaried workers from the European working time directive.
The European parliament judged this directive to be wholly unsatisfactory back in 1993 when it was adapted.
<P>
Five years later, millions of salaried workers still do not enjoy the most basic protection in Europe!
Five years later, whereas there have been enormous gains in productivity everywhere, the Council and the European Commission are incapable of proposing substantial improvements to the 1993 directive and the specific decisions dealing with excluded sectors.
In fact, Parliament was only consulted on the White Paper.
How long do we need to wait before we get a directive which covers excluded sectors and improves the current directive?
<P>
Road transport is one of the most important sectors.
Today, the road transport market is open, free, deregulated.
At the same time, in spite of the protests of salaried workers, and even strike movements, there are no European rules which harmonize - upwards - their working time and conditions, and which limit social dumping, deterioration of the best social standards, and which protect not only their safety but also the safety of others.
Europe is not working!
<P>
Working time for long-distance drivers must take account of the amount of time which is actually worked (unloading, loading, breaks, etcetera)., it must very quickly come down to the 35-hour week and should never exceed 39 hours.
<P>
Otherwise, how can we possibly talk about a "European social model' ?
Otherwise, how can we establish financial sanctions for Member States whose long-distance drivers block the roads in order to have their legitimate claims heard?
<P>
If an operational directive is not adopted before the end of the year for this profession, liberal Europe will once more have overridden the project of a Union at the service of the people.
<P>
Mr Chanterie's report takes us in the right direction; it could go a lot further but, for the time being, the most urgent thing is to establish a protective framework for the six million salaried workers who are the most vulnerable.
That is the reason why I am voting for this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="Schlechter">
It would not be at all difficult to write an entire novel on the evolution and the discussions on working time in the road transport sector.
<P>
That is why I think that enough has been written and there has been enough blah, blah, blah, as Pauline Green has said, and that now we have to quickly find solutions which attack an iniquity which is less and less acceptable.
<P>
How can we exclude from the working directive this sector which is so vital to our every day life, when social conditions are regulated in all other sectors of employment?
<P>
If we note that Directive 3820/85 authorises a working time of 13 hours in the transport sector, with a daily rest of 11 hours, which can be reduced to 9 hours three times per week, whereas we generally think of a working week of 35 hours, we note that we have a social situation where the social laws are a throwback to another age, in working conditions which were criticised by Emile Zola in "Germinal' .
<P>
We have to move away from this.
Long-distance drivers know very well that they are doing an important job, that their businesses must carry on working, that the European economy needs them, but they do not like being treated like idiots.
<P>
If we do not want to run the risk of new industrial conflicts and unacceptable dumping, we shall have to find a fast solution to these outstanding problems.
<P>
One solution, in my opinion, would be to separate non-mobile jobs from mobile jobs.
<P>
At any rate, it should have long been the case that non-mobile jobs would appear outside the exclusions for the road transport sector, since they are fully employed most of the time, in common with all other salaried workers in the employment sector.
<P>
Then we have to find solutions for people employed in the different transport sectors, such as road transport, sea and river transport, and flight crew.
<P>
These three sectors need suitable working hours and rest periods, acceptable compensations must be arranged with a method for calculating working time over a 28-day period and another for 365 days in order to calculate retirement; thus, in future it will be easy to control this in road transport with the introduction of the new tachograph 1 B.
<P>
This could satisfy a profession which, by its nature, is forced to work differently from all other sectors and for which working time in a given 12-month period could also be taken into consideration in order to achieve a retirement age of 55, as has been negotiated following a strike in France.
<P>
Since we are forced to recognize that negotiations in the different Joint Sectoral Committees are becoming more and more difficult and are very likely to fail altogether, resulting in a significant loss of time, I think that we need legislation on this subject.
<P>
The Commission should take up its responsibilities.
I am certain that the European Parliament will follow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="Theonas">
Five years after the adoption of the battered working time directive, the Commission has come up with its White Paper, which is now under scrutiny and which sets out the problem of the numerous exceptions and exclusions, which the Council of Ministers stubbornly imposed, disregarding the proposals of the European Parliament.
<P>
Indisputably, the six million workers who today are not included in the scope of implementation of the directive must be subsumed under protective provisions, having regard of course to the specificities of the relevant sector.
Beyond legislative fine-tuning, particular attention must be paid to the implementation of the applicable protective legislation and, by extension, to combatting the phenomenon of unfair competition. The manifestations of illegal and unregulated work are observable to a large extent, especially in the sectors of road and sea transport.
The implementation of the guidelines for the opening up of the markets to arrant competition and for the abolition, in any way possible, of national instruments, together with the logic of reducing, at all costs, the operating costs in sectors such as air and rail transport, has led to the violation of collective agreements, not only in respect of working time, but also in respect of the remaining conditions of work.
From this standpoint, any settlement to protect the workers would be a positive step, provided it is the result of genuine representative consultations with their trade union organizations and provided it leads to a reduction in arbitrary decisions taken at their expense.
<P>
However, we wish to point out the inadequate content of Directive 93/104 "on certain details of the organization of working time' .
This is a directive which provides for a maximum permissible working time of 48 hours a week when, at the time of its adoption, the basic working time was 40 hours (with the result that only in England and Ireland did it lead to a reduction in working time). This is a directive which contains a host of exclusions and possibilities for national differences, which permits night work, excessive working time and overtime, instead of promoting the 35-hour working week without a reduction in income, and which does not safeguard, to the necessary extent, the rights of workers.
Unfortunately, the Commission, faithfully following a narrowly-defined economic logic relating to the notion of competitiveness, refuses even today to draw the necessary conclusions from the regression that the Council imposed in the directive in respect of the Social Charter on Fundamental Rights for Workers, and merely points out that "the directive permits work for more hours than is usual in practice in most Member States' .
<P>
The logic which governs the Council and the Commission, that is, the logic of minimum social harmonization (or of minimum specifications), has demonstrated that not only does it not lead to the safeguarding of workers' rights and to the improvement of labour law but, quite the contrary, it is the institutional umbrella which provides cover for the decline in protection, subverts labour relations and calls into question everything that has been gained with so much struggle by the labour movement.
A typical example is the bill that was introduced by the Greek government, which overturns the eight-hour day, the 40-hour week, while giving the green light to the generalized application of part-time work and to the overthrow of sectoral collective bargaining through local employment contracts.
Moreover, it is not by chance that the Council itself asserts the "possibility of flexibility' contained in the directive.
<P>
The rapporteur, while accepting the logic of flexibility, goes on to make several constructive comments on the relationship between working hours and the safety, not only of workers, but of citizens more generally. Inter alia he calls on the Commission to submit urgently a proposal to amend the directive in its entirety.
Of course, the risk of putting forward amendments that offer greater impunity to employers, based on the more general guidelines of the EU, as these are defined in the Delors White Paper and the guidelines on employment and on ensuring "additional flexibility in the context of any new legislative proposals' , is very real, to the extent that no mass movement will evolve to assert the rights of workers to fight against these dictates will evolve.
<P>
We believe that only a robust movement asserting the rights of workers can provide radical and effective solutions to the problem of unemployment, form a protective shield for all workers against any violation of labour legislation and, finally, secure the 35-hour working week with no reduction in income. Only such a movement can promote full employment and restrict part-time and other forms of casual work, reduce overtime, abolish excessive working time, place stringent restrictions on night work and cover all workers, bearing in mind, of course, the specificities of the respective sectors where necessary.
We are fighting for just such a policy, together with workers, at national and European level.
<P>
Fassa report (A4-0198/98)
<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="Kittelmann">
I reject the report by Mr Fassa on fair trade as it now stands because I consider its approach, which favours increased aid for small and medium-sized producers in developing countries, to be mistaken.
In particular, I do not think that the complete regulation and definition of what we call fair trade and the setting up of a comprehensive support mechanism can make much difference in improving the situation for small and medium-sized producers in developing countries.
<P>
Fair trade as a concept represents a niche in world trade.
The proposed elimination of the middle-man across the board is, in my opinion, not only illusionary but also damaging.
Developing countries rely on distributors to transport and sell their products.
I believe that financial support for fair trade by the European Union is wrong, as in effect it can only mean that a proportion of the difference between the world trade price and the so-called "fair price' will be borne by the Community budgets.
The only thing that can lead to a long-term increase in prosperity both in the Member States of the European Union and in developing countries is a broad opening up of markets on both sides.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="Souchet">
<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="Titley">
I am voting for this report today as, like so many consumers in Britain and the EU, I am a keen supporter of fair trade practices with the poorest countries of our world.
EU trade agreements with the rest of the world should have encouragement for small-scale producers in developing countries built in as a central plank of a joined-up trade and development policy, not bolted on as optional extras after major trade deals have already been signed.
We have already put in place special clauses on the environment and social standards into some of our agreements with poorer countries, so there is no reason why fair trade clauses should not now become standard practice too.
<P>
Some of the public money which goes from Europe to the developing world in aid should also be set aside specifically for fair trade incentives.
We of course need to respond to immediate crises such as the conflict and famine in Sudan, but the poorest people of the world's south will only enjoy a long-term future if they can trade fairly with the powerful industrial north.
<P>
I hope the EU negotiators will take on board this Parliament's wishes and as a result I will be looking for more and more labels on supermarket shelves in future telling me that I can buy fair trade goods and help the people of the developing world who make them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="President">
That concludes voting time.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="President">
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 12.10 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 2 July 1998.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Tribute
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
I would now ask the Members of the European Parliament to join me in a minute's silence in memory of the three children, Richard, Mark and Jason Quinn, who lost their lives in the horrendous attack on their home in Northern Ireland on Saturday night.
There are no words strong enough to express our sorrow and condemnation.
We stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of Northern Ireland in resisting terrorism and in showing our solidarity with the spirit of reconciliation and the search for peace.
<P>
(The House rose and observed a minute's silence)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
The Minutes of Thursday, 2 July 1998 have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President">
Now that the Minutes have been approved, I want to mention something rather less formal but which I dare say is on everybody's mind: I have sent a telegram to both Mr Muscovici and Mr Platini congratulating them on the French team's success yesterday, since it is a European team.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Order of business
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
Mr Schulz has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
Mr President, thank you very much for giving me the opportunity, very commendably and notwithstanding the rules, to table a motion pursuant to Rule 129 of the Rules of Procedure, relating to the report by our colleague, Maria Berger; with strong support from our group she produced an excellent report on an extremely sensitive and difficult topic and submitted it for today's sitting.
<P>
However, following all the talks which Mrs Berger and I myself, as coordinator of our group, held in this House on the subject of the report, we do not see how we could achieve a majority vote for this report outside the Socialist Group.
Therefore, pursuant to Rule 129, I request that you hold a vote on whether this report should be referred back to committee so that a discussion can take place there on how to proceed.
I would justify this briefly by saying that for such a sensitive topic every effort should be made to sound out the possibilities of reaching a consensus. That is not possible today.
Perhaps we will have this opportunity once again.
Please ensure that Mrs Berger has this opportunity for her magnificent work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Schulz.
Does anybody wish to speak in favour?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Nassauer">
Mr President, I second the motion tabled by Mr Schulz.
I will not add any justification to this, but further discussion could not harm the report, and for this reason it is appropriate to refer it back to committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
Fine.
Since nobody wishes to speak against, I put Mr Schulz' request to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament agreed to refer the Berger report back to committee)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
Mrs Aelvoet requests to speak.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, no doubt you will remember that there was a problem when discussing voting on Mrs van Dijk's report last Thursday.
Her report was to be tabled on Friday morning but the majority of the group chairmen considered that votes should not be cast on this sensitive report on a Friday.
Everyone knows that Mrs van Dijk leaves Parliament at the end of the month and we would therefore request that her report be dealt with today.
Her report appears on the agenda, so it should not come as a surprise and we would be able to vote on Tuesday.
Furthermore, Mr Gahrton's report cannot be dealt with on Tuesday, due to his illness.
We heard this morning that he has a serious heart problem and that he will certainly be absent for the rest of the week.
This would offer a second opportunity, if required, to place Mrs van Dijk's report on the agenda.
I leave it to you to decide, Mr President.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
Mrs Lulling is asking for the floor.
Do you wish to speak for or against?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
I am against this.
Mr President, it is impossible to consider the van Dijk report today.
It will even be very difficult to deal with the report on Friday, given the number of amendments - that in fact we do not actually have, for they have still not been translated.
It is therefore impossible to consider it, and I would ask you to leave the agenda as it is.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="President">
Mrs Hautala has the floor, to speak in favour.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, I would like to speak in favour of Mrs van Dijk's report being switched, for example, to Tuesday, as it would be most regrettable if it were not discussed until Friday and the voting did not take place until September, when Mrs van Dijk will no longer be a member of this Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">

I have received an official proposal from Mrs Aelvoet: that Mrs van Dijk's report be dealt with tomorrow, Tuesday, in place of Mr Gahrton's report, which was planned for then.
<P>
So I put to the vote the official proposal from the Green Group in the European Parliament, suggesting that Mrs van Dijk's report be dealt with tomorrow.
<P>
(Parliament approved the proposal)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="President">
The Group of the European People's Party requests that Mr Anastassopoulos' report, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on the election of MEPs, be brought forward and taken immediately after Mr Tappin's report on public contracts, keeping the other reports in the same order.
<P>
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten has the floor, to justify the request.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, as we stated last Thursday, we do not consider it sensible for an important report on the uniform electoral procedure to be the last item on the agenda. This report has been discussed extensively in all the groups, in particular as to the method and the reasons why we should offer proposals.
This report is the subject of great interest, not only within the group but also outside Parliament. Mr President, the fact that a number of amendments to the report have been tabled only underlines my argument.
In my opinion, we should offer the rapporteur the opportunity to consult on any compromises, in view of the importance of the report.
It could be fitted in after the Tappin report, at the beginning of the afternoon session or at the end of the morning session.
I would be very grateful to you and the Members if they would agree to this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="President">
Mrs Green has the floor, to speak against.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="Green">
Mr President, this issue has been debated two or three times in the Conference of Presidents and a very clear decision was taken that we wanted this report to be debated on Tuesday in its present position on the draft agenda.
It is an important issue and many of us are sympathetic to some of the arguments in the report.
<P>
However, it was the general view of the Conference of Presidents, on the two occasions at least in the last fortnight when we discussed it, that this is a very sensitive issue.
In many Member States electoral reforms or systems are at present being developed so this is an inopportune moment for this report.
In fact, we would have wished that, despite the good work - and I pay tribute to Mr Anastassopoulos - we could have had this report later.
<P>
I have to say that it was not only my group but many others that took this view.
That is why we had a majority to have it on at that time.
So I would ask that it be retained in its present position which has twice been confirmed by the Conference of Presidents.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="de Vries">
Mrs Green is half right.
She is right that a majority in the Conference of Presidents voted to have the report on during the night sitting; she is wrong to suggest that the majority of groups shared her view that it was somehow inopportune for the subject to be discussed in view of certain changes in Member States.
There is a Treaty and since 1957 that Treaty has said that there is to be a common electoral system and that the European Parliament should make a proposal.
That is our job.
Let us deal with it during this part-session.
That was what the majority of groups also felt.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="President">
Mrs Green, as we are at the end of the debate, you may make a personal statement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="Green">
Mr de Vries came back on what I said, but he should also remember that at one point in a vote taken in the Conference of Presidents, we agreed to remove the report from this part-session.
Out of respect for the work of Mr Anastassopoulos, we then decided to put it back on, but at a late sitting.
It may be that others have different views about why it was taken off, but there was a clear decision: firstly, to take it off, and then we agreed that it should go on but at a late sitting.
To bring it back now is not in the spirit of the decision that was taken and discussed three times in the Conference of Presidents.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="President">
The spirit that prevails in the Conference of Presidents may differ from that of the plenary.
I am going to put the matter to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament approved the proposal)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="President">
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten requests the floor on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, other people are allowed to speak twice in this House, so I am entitled to do so too. However, for the record, I wish to state that what Mrs Green says is not true.
Her report was placed on the draft agenda in May, Mr President; it was moved later.
This should put the record straight.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="President">
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, it was not quite like that.
This report has had various ups and downs in the Conference of Presidents.
That is not what matters now.
The House has made its decision and what we must now do is abide by it.
I do not think we have anything to gain by repeating all the discussions which took place in the Conference of Presidents.
Mr de Vries mentioned Mrs Green by name, which is why I was able to give her the floor.
If anybody else had been mentioned by name I would have given them the floor, but that was not the case.
<P>
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday: no changes
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Mr President, I would ask you to allow the Commission to speak tomorrow on a subject which is not provided for in the agenda, and in this respect to add it to the agenda.
In the coming week we will be travelling to Bosnia with a delegation from this House.
In the meantime, at the weekend, we learned that subsidies for the former Yugoslavia were misappropriated by ECHO and, in addition, the Commission staff involved obviously had the opportunity - as I understand it from the press, as UCLAF was not in a position to provide the Committee on Budgetary Control with sufficient information regarding this - to allow files to disappear, with the result that it is extremely difficult to investigate the case in detail.
<P>
I consider it important - Mrs Gradin is here among us today - that we be allowed at least a brief explanation of this issue from the Commission itself, so that the delegation can travel next week in possession of all the facts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="President">
Mrs Müller, as you know, that sort of request has to be made either to the committee a week in advance and presented to the Conference of Presidents or, at least, one hour before the start of the sitting.
Neither of those requisites has been met. This is the first time you have made this request, which means that neither of the channels for such requests is possible in this instance.
Your group did not make the request last week at the Conference of Presidents.
I am sorry, but that means it will not be put to the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
Mr President, I received a letter from my colleague Nuala Ahern, in which she states that she submitted an article to The Parliament's Magazine.
This article, which is about Sellafield, was not printed in the magazine.
I would like to hear the President's comments as to why it was not printed, and whether it may be printed in the next issue of the magazine.
I have read the article.
It is strictly factual and I, for one, found the information very useful, so I would like to hear why the article in question was not published in the magazine.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="President">
Mrs Sandbæk, this issue was dealt with during the last Strasbourg part-session.
I had the opportunity then to explain to your colleague that this is not an official publication of this Parliament. So since it is a private publication rather than an official one, it publishes as it sees fit, and we cannot tell it whether to publish something or not.
Since your colleague has conveyed her request to you, ask her also to pass on to you the written reply I sent her. Ask her to give you all the relevant information.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Caccavale">
Mr President, as you are aware, an extremely important international conference on the setting up of a permanent international criminal court is currently being held in Rome, as this Parliament sits.
Because this House has several times almost unanimously declared itself in favour of the setting up of this court and because the conference is due to finish about now, I would like to ask you, Mr President, to ensure that the relevant departments keep the Members of this Parliament informed of events at the conference, and if necessary add the backing of this House to the conclusions of the conference in order to help achieve this very important result.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="President">
Any information we may receive - and we shall seek it - will be passed on to the honourable Members.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="Ahern">
Mr President, I have two items of information.
First of all I would like to thank my colleague for her response to my letter about the Parliament magazine and to say that the article was in fact subsequently printed in full: I am satisfied with that.
I am not satisfied with what happened, but I also thank you for your letter, Mr President.
We should be very careful to maintain a balance: the magazine did subsequently print my article, although not in the special nuclear edition.
<P>
I would also like to draw the House's attention to the fact that I asked the Director of the UK Neurofibromatosis Association to provide Members of Parliament with information during the patenting directive debate, and that she was subsequently censured by the Charities Commission for this action.
This is absolutely bizarre and I would like you to inquire into this, Mr President.
I will give you further information about this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="President">
I would ask you to send me a written note and we will find out all the necessary information.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schwaiger">
Mr President, I would ask you to put to the vote the motion tabled by Mrs Müller.
We have only been aware of events in Bosnia-Herzegovina since the end of the week and it would be very important for our delegation to be given official Commission information regarding the course of events before travelling there.
This should be done this week.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="President">
Mr Schwaiger, you can request that the subject be included in the topical and urgent debate.
The precise purpose of urgent procedure is to deal with urgent matters and receive the relevant information.
If the groups think it is really urgent, that is the route to take: the urgencies route, which also allows resolutions to be made.
Urgent procedure should not be used for less urgent matters.
What I cannot do at the moment is allow a vote on something which contravenes the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="Theato">
Mr President, the issue here is that the delegation is going to Bosnia in order to evaluate the situation prior to the discharge which has already been postponed.
We want to see, in September, whether a discharge can then be proposed to the House.
The visit by this delegation was decided by the House, and the composition of the delegation was arranged and approved.
But at the weekend all imaginable information regarding ECHO was in the newspapers.
I believe we should investigate this thoroughly, and I do not believe that an explanation to the House is sufficient.
This would render the investigations invalid.
<P>
For this reason I think we should discuss this issue with Mrs Gradin, the members of the delegation and the members of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
I propose that we appoint a day, if possible this week and that, due to the urgency of the matter, we approve a sitting during this part-session.
However, I will continue to seek a hearing with you, if the House is in agreement, as we require exact documentation and information which we can rely upon.
This certainly cannot be done within two or three days on the basis of articles from the press.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="Andrews">
Mr President, on a point of order.
It is very important that Mrs Müller's request be voted on by the House.
I know there are rules governing such a situation but nonetheless, because of the scandalous reports coming from Bosnia and because of the visit and the fact that Parliament will be in recess for the month of August, it is of vital importance that the Commission give some account of the circumstances which appear to have occurred in Bosnia.
The whole issue of ECHO should be looked at seriously.
<P>
This House will eventually have to take a very hard look at what is happening with ECHO - quite frankly it has got out of control and Bosnia is an example of it.
I would urge you, Mr President, to show some flexibility and to allow the House to vote on the request by Mrs Müller.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="President">
Mr Andrews, I have already explained why it is not a question of flexibility.
The reason is that this could have been presented up to an hour ago, and no group did so - neither yours nor Mrs Müller's.
Mrs Theato has indicated one route to you, and I described another one to Mr Schwaiger, but I cannot do anything else. I have to stick to the Rules of Procedure in these matters.
These questions cannot be brought up at the start of the part-session, when it could have been done up to an hour beforehand. And of course, people knew what had happened at the weekend.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="de Vries">
Mr President, I would like to draw the attention of the European Commission to Article 37(1) of our Rules of Procedure.
According to Article 37(1), members of the Commission are entitled at any time to request the opportunity to ask for a clarification.
I consider it in the interest of the control function of this House, as emphasized by Mrs Müller just now, that the European Commission observes transparency and ensures clarity on the commitment of its public servants in the case of the possible disappearance of aid funds in Bosnia.
The Commissioner is here; it is her portfolio.
She should be able to ask you, Mr President, to be allowed to make a statement on this subject during this part-session.
<P>
That does not conflict with Mrs Theato's view.
Of course, a more extensive investigation may still be undertaken by the Committee on Budgets but we as Parliament, and also public opinion, would benefit from the Commission making a statement during this part-session, and Article 37 entitles the Commission to request this.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="President">
As you know, Mr de Vries, the Commission has that right and can choose whether or not to exercise it.
The moment the question may arise, at any time, the debate will be held.
So it is at the discretion of the Commission whether to do it or not.
<P>
Mr Hallam has the floor on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Hallam">
Mr President, on a point of order.
I would like to support the comments made by Mrs Ahern about the apparent harassment by the genetic engineering lobby of a British charity concerned with medical research.
It seems they are saying that if an organization has charitable status it cannot give evidence to this Parliament or to its Members.
That would mean that British animal charities, children's charities, churches, educational foundations, research foundations and universities would not be able to speak to us as Members of this House.
I regard that as a gross breach of the privileges of this House.
I also believe it is a suppression of democracy.
<P>
I would certainly hope that we take Mrs Ahern's point very seriously and make it clear to the British Charities Commission and the genetic engineering lobby that we in this House will not be bullied in this way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Hallam.
I have already said what we shall do as soon as I am informed of the facts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Mr President, we need to come to a decision on the Bosnia issue for three reasons.
Firstly, we had set appropriations aside and we have released them.
Secondly, none of the three proposals made are mutually exclusive.
Either Mrs Gradin proposes that we ask her a question, or she does not.
If she does not, we then have the possibility of including the issue under the urgent heading.
Thirdly, and in any case, the Committee on Budgetary Control must meet to discuss it.
Consequently, it seems to me, Mr President, that you must ask this House, which has this right, to approve these three possibilities according to the Commission's position.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="President">
Excuse me, Mr Giansily, but this House does not have the authority to approve things that are already contained in the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
Mrs Gradin will tell us whether she wants to reply today.
I will contact her to ask her whether she intends to exercise this right or not.
If the Commission does not want to reply today, it has until tomorrow to do so.
<P>
Secondly, the Committee on Budgetary Control can at any stage, precisely because it is not incompatible, seek authorization for a meeting, and I will grant it.
<P>
Thirdly, it is up to you, the groups, and failing that, the House, to decide, not today, but tomorrow, whether or not you wish to table an amendment.
<P>
(The President asked Mrs Gradin to clarify the Commission's intentions) The Commission does not wish to reply today.
It is fully within its rights.
It will do so when it judges it appropriate and you will make your decisions.
<P>
(The order of business was adopted thus amended)
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Admission of third-country nationals
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0266/98) by Mr Lehne, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on
<P>
I.the proposal for a Council Act establishing the Convention on rules for the admission of third-country nationals to the Member States; II.a draft Convention on rules for the admission of third-country nationals to the Member States of the European Union [COM(97)0387 - C4-0681/97-97/0227(CNS)].
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Lehne">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report which we are discussing today concerns an area which will gain considerable importance for this Parliament in future.
You know that, according to the Treaty of Amsterdam, the issue of policy regarding third-country nationals will in future be subject to Community law, and that this issue was moved from the third pillar to the first pillar.
It is therefore of crucial importance that when we, the European Parliament, have to deliver opinions on draft conventions or, in future, on proper drafts, we deal with these proposals with the necessary respect, and in principle come to decisions in the manner of responsible legislators.
Only by doing this can we really justify our request, in accordance with the Treaty of Amsterdam, to be involved in decision-making within the third pillar after the 5-year transitional period has expired.
<P>
The European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs has proposed a series of amendments on the basis of the text proposed by the Commission.
The Commission proposes that European law relating to foreign nationals, European law on third-country nationals, should be harmonized in accordance with certain minimum standards, certain common requirements.
<P>
The Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs thus made a series of decisions which - and I would like to make this quite clear - are not in accordance with my personal opinion as rapporteur, even if I say this here.
It decided, for example, to authorize admission, for purposes of family reunification, of partners of the same sex, that is to include lesbian and gay relationships, and it also proposed including not only children but also relatives in the ascending line.
<P>
According to what we have heard, this will lead to considerable changes in terms of admission for purposes of family reunification, that is, to a drastic increase in the number of relatives admitted to the Member States of the European Union.
In addition, the committee also decided that all third-country nationals who have settled on a long-term basis should have the right to vote in municipal elections within the European Union.
I would remind you that in the Maastricht Treaty we introduced the right to vote in municipal elections for citizens of the EU.
In my estimation, this law has not been satisfactorily transposed.
There are countries which have not transposed this to a sufficient degree.
Therefore, a proposal by the committee which aims to give third-country nationals more rights than EU citizens is, in my view, unacceptable.
<P>
The committee rejected a motion tabled by myself which would have given the Member States the opportunity to expel thirdcountry nationals who have committed serious offences; that is, those who have received sentences of three years or more.
This was not the opinion of the majority in the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
In addition, a series of motions was tabled by the Group of the Party of European Socialists which I also consider to be problematic, but which, thankfully, were not approved by the majority of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
<P>
Thus it is proposed in Amendment No 49 that even the offer of a job can suffice to justify third-country nationals' legal claim to immigrate.
I do not need to explain what this would mean for our Member States' social insurance systems.
It would lead to the possibility of importing cheap labour for low-paid jobs, thereby undermining all our social insurance systems.
<P>
The same danger exists in Amendment No 48.
This text offers the possibility of employing seasonal workers for a longer period in another area, after the end of the season.
I wonder what will become of the term "seasonal worker' if all seasonal workers have the option of becoming employees with long-term rights.
<P>
I would therefore make a quite specific appeal to my colleagues in the Group of the Party of European Socialists, asking them to consider once again whether these amendments are actually reasonable and do justice to the interests of this House and of the European Union.
<P>
Tomorrow we will have the pleasure of receiving here as our guest the President of the Bundesrat , the second chamber of the German Parliament.
I have here the position of the Bundesrat on this draft legislation.
The Bundesrat is controlled by an SPD majority in Germany, and it has declared itself quite clearly - I could quote it but due to constraints of time I will not do so - against liberalizing further the migration rights of third-country nationals, simply due to the backdrop of huge immigration pressure with which the Member States of the European Union, in particular Germany, are already faced.
<P>
In view of the proposals relating to the authorization of admission for relatives, the Bundesrat says quite simply that the current figure of 200 000 immigrants per year would easily double according to existing proposals.
This shows clearly how problematic these proposals are.
I therefore appeal to this House to make a wise decision tomorrow regarding this issue, to support serious proposals and to conclude by recommending to the Council of Ministers a convention on third-country nationals which does not allow the burden on our states to grow incessantly and which is thus, in my opinion, much more in the interests of third-country nationals than the proposals made by the left side of this House in the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, and again here in this part-session.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Terrón i Cusí">
Mr President, first of all I want to say that I am in favour of harmonization, or a certain degree of harmonization, in immigration and asylum policies.
I also think - and I want to stress this because I would like this House and its Members to be responsible legislators, as Mr Lehne said - that harmonization should have been and must be accompanied by a real European debate, in which the involved parties can participate, as has happened in some of our Member States, because this really is a very important matter.
<P>
In some Member States, as a result of such debates, it has been possible to come up with some imaginative and very worthwhile proposals.
In the case of Italy, for example, an agreement has been reached whereby a guarantee can be given for an immigrant in search of work, something which is not envisaged at all in this draft convention.
<P>
We are not trying to move towards a free-and-easy open door policy; we are trying to help legislate coherently, without going further than what has been established in previous resolutions adopted by this Parliament.
<P>
What are we trying to achieve with this convention?
We should be aiming for a European immigration law which can effectively regulate migratory flows, but also permit the dual objective of necessary control and the regulation of the presence of immigrants in the European Union as far as possible or, in other words, combat illegal immigration, not just by police methods.
<P>
I now want to talk about some of the measures proposed in this convention, because I think they make this objective more difficult to achieve.
Some of the measures would be virtually impossible to comply with and do not help to achieve that objective.
<P>
With respect to residence authorizations and their renewal, for example, I think the effects are counterproductive.
I do not think it would improve matters to ask people to return to their country of origin if they wish to apply for a residence authorization for reasons other than those giving rise to the previous authorization. Quite the contrary!
<P>
As regards the measure to regulate the presence of persons in paid employment, which Mr Lehne mentioned, I detect a sort of Community preference in this convention or - if you will allow me to say so - a demand for the perfect functioning of the single market, to be applied first and foremost to third-country citizens.
These people, or their employer, would have to prove that no Community citizen or legal resident from a third country could do the job being aspired to by a third-country national seeking admission.
I really do not see how that could be achieved.
I cannot see a shopkeeper in my city managing to demonstrate that no Finnish citizen wants to work in his or her shop, in order to be able to employ a Moroccan.
<P>
As the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, I think it is essential to avoid this illegal presence, which is only illegal because we make it so.
I think we should increase cooperation and dialogue with third countries, but we should also send them a clear signal that it is possible to live among us in a legal and perfectly established manner.
If we do not act to ensure that the necessary control of flow is accompanied by this accessibility, with no Utopias or discrimination against the potential presence of a third-country national within the European Union, we are going to make matters worse, with a new outbreak of racism and increasing xenophobia, which is exactly what we want to avoid.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Lancker">
Mr President, the Commission proposal to establish common rules for the admission of thirdcountry nationals to the Member States of the Union is an initiative which in my opinion can only be welcomed by us all, provided two conditions are met.
Firstly, this migration must finally be approached in an open and positive fashion in all its aspects, not as a reflex by the frightened European white man, and indeed new legal openings must be created which do not push people towards the margins.
Secondly, in addition to common conditions for access, sound European minimum standards for fundamental rights of third-country nationals must also be formulated.
<P>
Despite the good intentions of the Commissioner, I have a general problem with this proposal, and my group agrees.
Surely European legislation was not intended to formulate a policy at the most repressive level.
The proposal does not formulate the right to residence, to work or the right to study.
Although it harmonizes the conditions, it does not leave a possibility open for Member States to formulate improved rules.
In this respect we are particularly pleased about Amendment No 80 which our colleagues Mr Nassauer and Mr Pirker have tabled.
<P>
The proposal imposes particularly strict conditions on third-country nationals who wish to work or study in the European Union.
I am seriously worried about the restriction of the right to family reunification, as is my group.
Family reunion, the right to a family life, is a fundamental human right which should be respected in relation to third-country nationals too. Excessively strict conditions should not be imposed here.
<P>
In conclusion, I would state that the agreement, rightly in my view, contains a chapter relating to the rights of long-term, established third-country nationals.
This also raises concerns.
It is increasingly less acceptable to distinguish between Union citizens and nationals of third countries who have been here legally for years.
They should be entitled to the same rights, Mr Lehne - not better rights but at least the same rights - including the right to free movement, the right to work and the right to a family life.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Nassauer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are discussing a proposal for a convention which anticipates regulations which, on the basis of the Treaty of Amsterdam, will apply in the Union in other legal forms, namely in the form of Community law.
For this reason this debate is also considerably more important than it may have been in the past.
The European Parliament is getting ready to formulate legislation relating to one of the most essential areas of domestic policy, that of migration into Europe.
There is no doubt that all Member States will look critically at the way in which Parliament deals with this procedure.
<P>
With respect, Commissioner Gradin, I personally am convinced that your proposal will have considerable difficulty in obtaining a majority in the Council.
I believe that it must also be the task of the Commission to consider whether its proposals are capable of obtaining a majority.
It cannot be the case that Commissioners' own political convictions hold sway.
It is appeal to the majority which is crucial.
This means that we must state clearly to what extent we wish to have migration into Europe and to what extent we do not.
<P>
Europe is not an immigration region in the classical sense, as the United States was in the last century or as New Zealand and Australia are today.
Access must be regulated.
In this respect, the existing proposals offer no grounds for great satisfaction or even approval.
I will give you an example to make this clear. Family reunification is a point of controversy, and I say this because, for example in Germany, the concept of family reunification in particular is used as an argument for immigration, as are asylum and, for example, the admission of refugees from civil war.
<P>
It is not acceptable for someone situated within the European Union to have the right to bring his entire family with him, but it would be appropriate for someone living outside the European Union, in a third country, to apply for entry to the European Union for reasons of family reunification.
Otherwise, all those who are here can bring their entire family, that is any number of relatives, while in the other case decisions are made on a case-by-case basis as to who has the right, on these grounds, to immigrate into the European Union.
This is an essential principle which, in my opinion, is unfortunately not dealt with appropriately in the Commission's proposal.
<P>
For this reason we must ask that we use not only the criterion of maximum conceivable generosity but also the criterion of reality.
We must be able to take responsibility for and justify everything relating to the field of immigration.
In this respect, Europe will have to seek acceptance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wiebenga">
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Kaklamanis">
Mr President, I would like to talk about the crux of the matter, which is neither political refugees nor family reunification.
Let us not bury our heads in the sand.
The crux of the matter is economic immigrants.
<P>
The report attempts to lay down certain rules, but they are inadequate to address the problem of economic immigrants, whose unregulated admission into the European Union has endangered our social fabric.
Of course, the immigrants themselves, who see in the European Union the lost paradise, the paradise that they cannot find in their own countries, are not to blame.
We are to blame, and especially those of us who have made a profession of democracy, for not having as yet instituted uniform binding rules for all Member States.
And in this sense I congratulate the Commission on having the courage to tackle the problem.
We must make rules to allow us to admit as many economic immigrants as we can economically absorb and integrate.
<P>
Let us stop burying our heads in the sand.
Unemployment, which is currently blighting the lives of the citizens of Europe, especially the young of our nations, makes it imperative that measures be taken to halt the flow of illegal immigrants.
If today there is racism in the European Union, it is due to the lack of a European immigration policy.
It is essential, therefore, that we institute rules, having regard first and foremost to the citizens of Europe and then to third-country nationals.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pailler">
Mr President, the only interesting thing about this convention is that it foreshadows the content of a Community policy on immigration and the right of asylum.
Unfortunately, there is no cause for rejoicing, but there may be cause for concern.
That is how I feel as regards this restrictive text. In fact, it is more restrictive than many national laws, which are themselves not exactly outstanding in this field.
<P>
This text is the symbol of a fortress Europe, inward-looking and deaf to the distress calls of the victims of war, repression or misery.
If this convention had been applied a few years ago, there is a strong possibility that Zidane and Djorkaeff, whom you applauded today at the opening of this sitting, would not have been members of the French team.
So I hope you will be as enthusiastic and passionate when building a Europe which promotes solidarity and fraternity.
<P>
Once again, in this convention, immigration is wrongly linked to unemployment. It thus prolongs the scandalous 1994 Council recommendation which advocated Community preference - and I think that must strike a chord with some people, particularly the French - that is, Community preference in the field of employment.
<P>
It must be stated and repeated - because the worst kind of deaf person is someone who does not want to hear - that the OECD has recognized that there is no close correlation between the influxes of foreigners into a country and changes in the level of unemployment.
We must put an end to this scapegoat strategy, for it is dangerous to manipulate immigration.
<P>
This helps to strengthen the credibility of all those people - and there are many of them - who encourage a demagogic policy of exclusion and xenophobia.
But some people have followed the European examples; this is unfortunately the path currently being taken by the French Minister for Home Affairs, Mr Chevènement, who continues to refuse to make provision for the tens of thousands of illegal immigrants whom he has urged to come forward.
He ridicules or threatens the people who support them in their struggle.
I am proud to be one of them; I am not a Trotskyist - if I were, I would also be proud and free to be so - and I am not, as far as I know, manipulated by Great Britain, although I am seated here close to its representatives.
<P>
Tomorrow, 14 July, I will be in Paris to participate in promoting once again the rights of illegal immigrants and to support the action of the hunger strikers.
A film will be previewed there, a film by Jacques Kébadian about a Malian family in St Bernard, despite the lack of authorization from the Minister for Home Affairs who is trying to censor it.
<P>
If I dare to present this French case here, it is because the issue of human rights is universal and because the Commission, in its draft, in anticipation of the Treaty of Amsterdam, already considers it to be a European responsibility.
<P>
Many of us have sat next to members of the French Government who were, at that time, Members here of the European Parliament.
I ask you to show such solidarity.
Today, people are perhaps going to die in France.
This is not a call to your sensitivity, but to your responsibility, in the face of those laws which make illegal citizens.
<P>
So I call on you to reject this text here tomorrow, to vote for all the articles which could, however, improve it, and to show your solidarity - in other words, your responsibility.
The future of Europe and its peoples depends on it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this debate concerns first and foremost an important discovery: the Member States of the European Union are not closed, isolated societies but societies to which people migrate.
This immigration is a completely normal and very desirable occurrence which distinguishes immigration countries.
This is based on a very important right, namely the right to migrate to the Member States of the European Union, for which, under certain circumstances, rules must be laid down.
<P>
The first point is the principle, the second the rules of implementation.
I greatly regret the very restrictive approach taken by the rapporteur, who on almost all points surpassed the Commission as regards restrictions, impediments and conditions which are obviously intended to make the immigration process as difficult as possible.
I would have wished for an approach, Mr Lehne, which gave priority to migration according to democratic criteria and guaranteed rights for migrants, as is imperative for all democracies - for example, the unrestricted rights of the family, which should also be reflected in the regulations on family reunification.
<P>
In these terms - and, unlike you, I am pleased about this - the report was improved considerably by the committee.
A step towards realism and democracy is being taken in that now, for purposes of family reunification, the notion of family has been extended to include partnerships regardless of sex.
This should make us all proud as we are remaining true to ourselves, as Parliament, and ensuring that long-term partnerships and gay and lesbian couples are not the subject of discrimination.
<P>
Migration is not a threat for which we must prepare and arm ourselves.
Migration has made our societies richer, even in the truest sense of the word.
Those who continue to claim the opposite and repeatedly say that, for example, Germany - and particularly Bavaria - is not an immigration country, and accuse our foreigners of not integrating, are doing everything to ensure that this is rendered impossible.
However, it is these very politicians who are not integrated into the society of the 1990s, into the German European society of the 1990s, because they do not grasp the fact that we are no longer living in 1955.
They are living in the past.
But people who live in the past have no hopes for the future.
<P>
Unfortunately, Mr Nassauer is not here now.
However, I will still say it to him: dear Mr Nassauer, without these new residents, democracy, for example in our country, is not democracy but Germanocracy.
I would like to live in a democracy.
That is why it is important, Mr Lehne, that in this report such essential requirements are to be set regarding immigration, and that care is taken to ensure that the status of third-country nationals is adjusted to that of the Union's citizens in terms of freedom of movement, the right of establishment and the right to vote.
<P>
Had Germany had a different law, the German national team would have done better in the World Cup!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pradier">
Mr President, each one of us is of course aware of the major importance of this issue: it is an extremely sensitive issue in many countries of the Union.
<P>
In this text, consideration is given to employment, independent economic activities, study, professional training and family reunification.
Nevertheless, this text does not consider - and it is entirely wrong to ignore this point - the naturalization of immigrant football players, a topic which is in fact very important, particularly for my country.
Regardless of the situation, the Commission is right to call on the Member States of the Union to ratify this convention before 1 January 1999.
We must note, in passing, that it is in no way a question of imposing a constraint on countries and on governments, but is rather a question of establishing minimum rules.
The issue of admission conditions for studies and professional training is looked at carefully and, in any event, the convention would allow us to set up a common reference point which would be extremely useful for candidates and for national authorities.
<P>
The criticisms made against the text voted on by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs blaming it for its laxness are unfounded.
The act of settling down in an EU country still represents a real obstacle course.
Some people dream of much more restrictive attitudes.
Let us say to them clearly that overly restrictive measures have perverse effects, and often have the opposite effect because they encourage illegal behaviour - the source of all sorts of personal dramas and political difficulties.
<P>
Subject to the approval of the most important amendments, the Group of the European Radical Alliance will possibly be able to vote in favour of this text, since it looks at family reunification and, in particular, dependent relatives in the ascending line, and this encourages entirely commendable behaviour.
<P>
Without directing this at anyone here, honouring your father and mother is an element which Christians should hold dear, even if they are democrats.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Buffetaut">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Lehne's report concerns an extremely sensitive subject, as my colleague, Mr Pradier, pointed out: the subject of rules for the admission of third-country nationals to the Member States of the European Union.
<P>
In fact, the demographic situation, the level of unemployment, the problems faced in certain areas of large European cities, and the difficulties involved in the assimilation of people from outside Europe mean that the action taken by national governments is very delicate, and that the consequences can be important for the social balance of the countries involved.
<P>
The criteria proposed by the Commission would actually seem to be relatively lenient.
It is important that the Member States can adapt their policies according to the specific reality of each country involved.
Happily, Article 39 seems to allow for this.
<P>
Having said that, certain amendments approved by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs seem to be characterized by views which are somewhat unrealistic, even demagogic which, far from promoting the situation of thirdcountry nationals, would risk causing rejection by the people of the host nations.
The amendments mentioned by Mr Lehne seem to us, in fact, to be totally unacceptable.
<P>
Thus family reunification cannot be used for a different object to the benefit of types of cohabitation which do not have very much to do with the family.
Similarly, Amendment No 29, which does away with the provisions allowing us to avoid fraud and the false use of family reunification, is irresponsible.
In the same way, a simple offer of a work contract would not be sufficient automatically to authorize the admission of third-country nationals.
<P>
In the field of immigration, as in other fields, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Leniency and irresponsibility in this field can only be extremely harmful for third-country nationals who are properly admitted, as well as for those who would like to come and work in the Member States of the European Union.
<P>
A real immigration policy, which is truly generous, must be based on four pillars: a policy on development aid, to allow nationals from developing countries to live and thrive, at home, and to contribute to the economic and social recovery of their country; voluntarist family policies, to help the countries of Europe get back on the right path in terms of their demography; a law on nationality based not on chance but on the will of those involved; and public order measures which respect people's rights but which are applied resolutely.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Mr President, the point at issue is whether a uniform European law on migration is currently required, whether the time is right for it.
The controversial dispute in committee about this very issue underlines its importance.
We believe that the variation in immigration pressure on the individual Member States is not mainly due to the different national rules but to the economic and also topographic situations of the individual Member States, which determine their attractiveness to potential immigrants.
Therefore, in our opinion, the individual Member States must continue to have the power to adjust their immigration laws according to the situation, and thus respond to the situation with different immigration regulations.
<P>
From this point of view, harmonization would not, in our opinion, be the correct solution.
Thus, for example, in Member States with long external EU borders, such as Austria, the consequences of a common regulation for frontier workers would be very different from those in the other Member States.
What is almost incomprehensible, in view of the increase in crime caused by foreigners and the intensified fight against crime which forms the focal point of a European Union programme, is the request that convicted foreigners should no longer be expelled.
The same applies to the proposal to widen the conditions for family reunification, as the rapporteur explained.
<P>
Bearing in mind that, instead of the planned convention, a directly applicable regulation or at least a directive could come into force in the Member States immediately after the Treaty of Amsterdam has taken effect, we reject the report.
We are also rejecting it because the planned rule makes a regionally adjusted reaction to migratory flows impossible and, in contrast to the rules currently applicable in Austria, would significantly facilitate immigration, without justifying it objectively, and thus lead to a loss of security.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Zimmermann">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Gradin, the Commission has recognized that with the creation of the single market, the removal of border controls and progressive liberalization, common rules must be drawn up relating to migration and the rights of third-country nationals. We are all aware of the difficult nature of this topic, as the Member States of the Union find it difficult to formulate a common policy in the field of law as it relates to foreigners.
We must take account of the reservations of the Member States if we want the voice of the European Parliament to be heard.
<P>
However, in order to avoid injustice, we must also clarify where the weak points of the proposed convention lie.
I will therefore discuss three points.
The first is the right of residence for students.
If we want to help third-country nationals improve their education we should promote this work attitude and remove obstacles.
This is also a type of development aid.
So we must allow them the same freedoms as all other students, and we cannot discriminate against them or treat them as third-class students.
<P>
In the case of family reunification also, we cannot cease in our efforts and set the level of legal protection too low.
Many states grant special protection to the family.
German Basic Law even grants special protection to the family and to family unity, in its Article 6.
We, the European Parliament, must strengthen this protection.
Thus the concept of the family is to be understood in a broad sense.
What counts is the de facto partnership, not the marriage certificate.
The welfare of the children is also important, not the sex of the partner or the marriage relationship.
<P>
What is right is family reunification involving dependent relatives for purposes of their protection and to maintain the family unit, rather than their exclusion or arbitrary admission by the relevant state.
A third-country national will invest in the education of his children, learn the language of the host country and build a secure existence if the countries are really prepared to regard the integration of these people positively and consciously.
Therefore we must ensure that concessions are made to people who come to us as third-country nationals, in terms of the right of residence, the right to vote and social law.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pirker">
Mr President, we now know why large sectors of the population are afraid, are afraid of immigration, of non-existing rules.
What we need is rules relating to employment and also to the immigration of foreign workers into the Union.
Mr Lehne addresses both in his report, and we must consider both together.
<P>
The population expects politicians to tackle such problems and present solutions, that is, to create a system of laws or rules and undertake harmonization.
I am pleased that the Treaty of Amsterdam supports us in this.
We need common rules for the migration of workers, which must be controlled and restricted.
Only when this happens in the interest of the Union will the integration of foreign nationals really be reasonable and possible.
We have experienced problems of this kind in Austria.
We drew up rules, with the result that a quota system currently exists whereby no further immigrants are admitted until those already admitted have become integrated.
I consider this to be an absolutely essential system.
<P>
So the aim must be to draw up Community rules on migration and establishment.
In the Union there is no right of immigration and establishment, and it must also be possible to draw up common rules relating to the asylum procedure.
We do not have that yet either, and this leads to abuse.
<P>
The Social Democrats, the Greens and the Liberals have, to a certain extent, strayed from the path of reason with their amendments, which have made the Lehne report an irrational one. It has now been presented to Parliament, with the regulations you are aware of, which aim for absolute liberalization.
Migration with open borders is certainly not what we want or what the people expect from us, the European Parliament.
<P>
I hope that tomorrow we will return to the path of reason, that is, that the amendments tabled by ourselves and by Mr Lehne obtain a majority in Parliament.
Then we will find a course which will really allow immigration and integration to a limited and controlled extent, as we would wish, and promote a complete system which the public and the people will not be afraid of, but provide a solution for the people who come to Europe, and for us and the Union itself as a whole.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="White">
Mr President, I should just like to take up Mr Hager's point about national rules, as he put it.
When a person is legally resident within the European Union, how, in simple terms, can free movement of citizens of the Union be ensured without infringements of the rights of other EU citizens?
<P>
Let me give a specific example, even though Mr Hager is not listening to me.
A coach party came to visit Parliament in Strasbourg.
Some of the passengers were British passport-holders.
However, there were also two sisters, one of whom held an Indian passport, whereas, for some strange reason, the other, the younger of the two, held a British passport.
The teacher in charge of the group had to decide whether to go to the Black Forest.
She came to see me and said: ' I do not have a visa to go to the Black Forest, what shall I do?
Shall we keep the school trip back because one of the children does not have the necessary visa or shall we take the risk and go anyway?'
Advising that teacher was very difficult for me.
I would probably have taken the risk, but then I have the benefit of diplomatic immunity.
The teacher did not.
Therefore she was placed in the invidious position of saying: ' No, I must comply with what apparently is the law and I will stop the trip going to the Black Forest' .
Is that not wrong?
<P>
When you translate the rights of third-country nationals into a situation like that you can see the iniquity of what is being proposed by those in the PPE.
What we in the PSE, the Liberals and the Greens are proposing makes a great deal of sense and will not cause the kind of heartache that was caused on that coach trip on that particular day.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, a lot of things have already been said during this debate, but I would like to go back to a general observation and make a few other points about certain amendments.
<P>
Undoubtedly, the European Union has an important responsibility towards the phenomenon of immigration.
Various aspects of the issue have been mentioned, from development cooperation to birth rate policies.
I am not going to comment on them, except for two aspects which I think are fundamental: the legal certainty and integration of immigrants.
<P>
From the point of view of legal certainty, we have to bear in mind that legal certainty should apply not just to immigrants but to the citizens of the Member States too, and at the moment the Schengen Agreement is being applied.
So the Commission's initiative is welcome and, in general terms, it is reasonable.
I hope it will be supported, of course.
<P>
From the point of view of the integration of third-country nationals, we need to think about how nationality is acquired, but that does not form part of the competences set out in Article K.3, nor will it be among the matters to be "communitized' after the Treaty of Amsterdam.
It still comes under the sovereignty of the different Member States.
<P>
Nevertheless, we need to think about it, because one of the routes towards the integration of these immigrants into the community receiving them will always remain ineffective if there is not at least a joint reflection about how people can acquire the nationality of one of the Member States.
<P>
Having made that comment, I am going to end by talking about four amendments.
The first is Amendment No 66 by the Group of the European People's Party. Clearly, its only aim is that the procedure being established, in accordance with Article 36, should respect Article 10 of Directive 68/390: that is, that the Member States should retain the possibility, for reasons of public order, public health, public security and so on, of refusing to allow that procedure, or of establishing a derogation to it.
That is already provided for in recital 9, but there is no sense in having a recital which is not reflected in the section containing the legal provisions.
<P>
The second amendment, Amendment No 67, refers to Article 12; that is, to immigrants wishing to establish themselves on their own account.
There is also another directive on that - Directive 90/365 - and it is only right to demand the same conditions from immigrants as from the citizens of another Member State.
<P>
Next we come to family reunification, and bearing in mind the question of legal certainty, I understand the Commission's approach.
On the other hand, I do not understand the approach taken by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, because it goes against legal certainty.
Supposing a Member State's legislation allowed family reunification based on common law relationships, who would be able to verify the existence of such a relationship, and how?
I do not think this is a reasonable solution.
<P>
Finally, as regards Article 34 - voting in municipal elections - let us not lose sight of the fact, ladies and gentlemen, that the European Union project is a political project.
So I agree with the need for integration as regards social rights and the nationality aspect but, in contrast, political rights belong exclusively to the citizens of the Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Elliott">
Mr President, achieving a fair and coordinated approach towards immigration into the European Union is a crucial issue and the Commission's proposals are a worthy attempt to deal with this, as indeed is Mr Lehne's report as amended in committee.
It could be improved by some further amendment.
<P>
We have to avoid the unreasonable fears that seem to be floating around in some people's minds.
Of course, we do not want a totally open door.
There must be some organization, planning and control of the levels of immigration that we can sustain.
However, I equally reject the concept of a fortress Europe.
We do not want to live in a Community which unreasonably restricts the entry of outsiders.
<P>
The countries of Europe have benefited from and been revitalized over the centuries by the waves of immigrants who have come in and stimulated the development of our societies.
Many of them have contributed much to our countries' development and to providing increased wealth and prosperity.
Some people in Britain were worried some years ago by the level of immigration from the Indian sub-continent.
We have overcome those problems to a large degree and last year Indian-owned businesses contributed 5 billion to the British economy.
That is just one way of looking at it though it is not the most important.
<P>
One of the key issues is that of family reunification.
We must be humane, fair and reasonable.
Of course people cannot be allowed to bring in anyone they wish, but reunification of close family is important.
<P>
I represent an area where a third of the population are of non-English origin and many are not UK citizens.
I deal with many of their problems.
One example is an Indian lady who wishes to bring her son from India. He has been taken seriously ill and has no one to care for him.
Another was a family whose elderly father from India was originally refused entry by the Entry Clearance Office on the grounds that he gave contradictory answers to his reasons for entering.
No one thought to make inquiries and discover that he was partially deaf, which was why he gave contradictory answers.
These things need to be dealt with on a fair and humane basis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bontempi">
Mr President, I believe we are all aware of the need to maintain an objective distance from this topic.
We must reconcile a need to impose control with democratic requirements.
For this reason, the proposals we are about to make with a view to the coming Amsterdam Treaty must fulfil certain requirements, which I will run through quickly.
<P>
Firstly, the proposals must all be far-sighted. We must take the near future into account.
Everything is able to circulate in our global world; do we really wish to restrict - sometimes for absurd reasons - only people who are forced into their situation?
This cannot be allowed to happen and we must therefore introduce measures to ensure integration. Voting rights are essential in this context.
<P>
Secondly, we must be strict.
But in order to be strict, to combat lawlessness and secrecy, we must also be able to open up controlled immigration channels. This control over the flow of immigration will be possible only if - and this is my third point - we act efficiently without too much bureaucracy.
On the matter of immigration for work, I cannot understand why the Group of the European People's Party has proposed such a bureaucratic and inefficient mechanism in certain amendments.
<P>
Lastly, we must also be able to work without discrimination.
Our new Treaty rejects discrimination very clearly.
As far as family reunification is concerned, the new convention will have to be extremely consistent if we are to prevent our policies spreading selfish attitudes and national fears throughout the community instead of looking to the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, I think I am going to be repeating a lot of what has been said by colleagues in this debate.
The debate is actually on two separate issues: firstly, the rules on admission of third-country nationals into the European Union and, secondly, the rules on admission of third-country nationals into Member States.
<P>
With respect to the first, what the Commission is trying to do here is to deal with the issues of paid employment, seasonal workers, people who want to come in on the basis of an independent economic activity, study and vocational training, nongainful activities and family reunification.
Of course, we all agree that entry into the European Union needs to be managed in some way and we are not in favour - at least not in the PSE Group or, for that matter, in the British Labour Party - of allowing free entry.
What we need to counter the unreasonable and reasonable fears that exist in our society are reasonable controls.
We need sensible controls to manage admissions.
<P>
Unfortunately, as the legislation stands, the admission requirements are almost impossible to fulfil and lay down conditions which clearly are not going to be met.
For example, under the original proposals, if you wish to reapply, changing your category of entry, you must return to your country of origin in order to apply and must remain there until you get an answer.
There does not seem to be any indication of how long you may have to wait until you receive an answer to your request.
<P>
At the moment, it is also stated that bilateral arrangements may be more favourable than those laid down in the legislation.
But it is also provided that in future, once this proposal is enacted, more favourable arrangements must have the prior approval of the Council of Ministers and that, if a country wants to negotiate bilateral arrangements, it must inform the other Member States and the Commission in advance that it is negotiating more favourable bilateral arrangements.
Many countries in the European Union have special relationships with various parts of the Third World, and it seems to me that aspect of the proposal needs looking at again.
<P>
Secondly, with respect to free movement of citizens inside the European Union, Mr White was very eloquent.
I have similar examples to the one he gave, which I will not repeat.
But to suggest that when school parties travel around the European Union, legally resident third-country nationals who are ten years of age may have to get visas seems to me to be an absurdity.
On many occasions in the past the European Parliament has argued that legally resident third-country nationals residing in the European Union should have the same rights and the same duties as everybody else.
It is very important that we maintain that position, because as the Schengen Agreement and free movement provisions stand at the moment, it is very clear that this is going to happen anyway.
We need to ensure it can happen legally.
<P>
I understand the work Mr Lehne has done on this report: it is very difficult and very controversial.
I have to say to him that I realize it is a difficult subject, but at the moment we are a long way away from something that members of the British Labour Party and the PSE Group are capable of supporting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have heard some points made here today by Mr Pirker and Mr Nassauer which I would have liked to reply to in person, but these gentlemen preferred to move on to other activities, following their vigorous words.
This is often the case, by the way.
<P>
As the previous speaker pointed out, Mr Lehne put a lot of work into this report, and I would like to make two points regarding what he said, as rapporteur.
Mr Lehne, we will certainly give further consideration to your requests in the votes.
In the amendments submitted by the committee, there are two possible versions to which we must indeed give further consideration.
I thank you, as rapporteur, for drawing our attention to this.
<P>
I would like to ask, however, what is actually at issue here.
We must try to distinguish between what we want to achieve and what the current reality is.
Here Mr Nassauer says, in well-chosen words, that the European Union is not an immigration country or an immigration region.
A few weeks ago we all complained about having so much illegal immigration in Europe.
So what is going on?
Of course we have illegal immigration in the European Union.
Why do we have it?
Because we are an immigration zone.
We cannot create a world of our own choosing.
So Mr Nassauer must be honest and say that we do not want to be an immigration area.
That is something else, but that we actually are one is indisputable.
<P>
That we do not want this to happen in a disorganized way, on the other hand, on this point - and on this point only - I concede that Mr Pirker is right.
So, if we want to organize it we must proceed relatively objectively and not in a controversial manner, even if we are in the middle of an election campaign in Germany and it is, of course, fun to stir things up a little.
<P>
However, what are we actually talking about, Mr Lehne?
Amendment No 48 states: ".. may request ... an extension' .
People who can apply for an extension - yes, at least this is still possible - can also be rejected.
So it is by no means a guarantee, but merely a recommendation.
According to Amendment No 49, admission "may be granted ... for the purposes of paid employment in order to fill a job vacancy ".
"Granted' does not mean that it is guaranteed, but that this is at the discretion of the Member State in question.
According to Amendment No 51, the right to exercise family reunification may be exercise subject to application, which in Germany means following detailed examination.
You know this as well as I do from experience at local authority level.
In Amendment No 52 the difference is that you want to admit children below the age of legal majority and we want to admit children in the immediate family.
Well, we can argue whether this concerns only children who have not reached full legal age or the grandmother of the person in question.
The European Union will not fall apart as a result of this.
<P>
Because you know this, Mr Lehne: in your own Amendment No 80 on students and other applications for purposes of taking up employment, you have very nicely written that this chapter, as strict as you would like it to be in your recommendation, does not prevent Member States from having rules which are more favourable to applicants.
On this point we are in agreement again, after you made quite a radical change.
I therefore propose that if we can agree to try to reach agreement tomorrow on what we should allow, and to avoid controversy, then we will be serving the European Union, its citizens and those who wish to come here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Gradin">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I greatly appreciate the time and energy which the rapporteur and other Members have devoted to familiarizing themselves with this proposal.
Today's debate was very worthwhile and showed at least two things.
Firstly, it showed that the immigration issues are and remain priority political issues.
In certain Member States immigration has for many years contributed to political, social and economic development. In other Member States this is relatively new.
What we need to do now is to examine jointly how the challenges in the area of immigration policy should be handled in future.
<P>
Secondly, today's debate shows that the issues are complicated and cover a broad political field.
There are a lot of questions. What can we do to create the conditions for people to remain in their home countries?
How do we control the flows of immigration which arise?
How do we explain to the outside world that we cannot offer room for everyone?
What do we do about the trafficking in people which is taking place?
How do we ensure that immigrants are integrated into society?
How do we justify alienation and social exclusion?
These are controversial questions. The solutions which we propose must therefore be well thought out, clear and consistent.
<P>
Migrants are going to continue to try to come to Europe for the foreseeable future.
The basic reasons are largely the same as in earlier migrations.
People are looking for a better life for themselves or for their children.
Today there are no unpopulated continents, which is why these people are trying to get to places which can be physically reached.
We must accept this as a permanent and normal state of affairs and not see it as something temporary and dramatic.
The solutions we propose must therefore also be long-term and, above all, lasting.
In addition, we have come to a point where the answer must be sought in cooperation with other countries.
The citizens also expect the European Union and its institutions to help.
<P>
Mr President, that is the main reason why I drew up the proposal we are discussing today.
The conditions for immigration are broadly the same in all the Member States of the Union.
But we still have different rules. This creates uncertainty and confusion among the citizens of third countries.
It also undermines the trust which there needs to be between the EU's Member States in order to be able to build up a practical working cooperation on these issues.
<P>
This initiative has already set in motion a debate on how Europe's future immigration policy should be shaped, which is also what I had hoped for.
Not least, today's lively debate here in Parliament shows what strong differences of opinion exist.
I have also closely followed the various rounds of the committee's discussion of the proposal. I recognize many of the arguments, both from the internal discussions in the Commission and from the reactions in our Member States.
A very large number of amendments have been submitted. Some of them concern the more central points of the proposal.
<P>
A very important part of this proposal concerns the rules for family reunification.
This is a fundamental right and all the EU's Member States have both a collective responsibility and collective commitments by virtue of a number of international agreements.
The chances of agreeing on a common policy should therefore be good.
However, the question is how far we should go.
The concept of the family varies from one Member State to another.
The same is true of age limits. On both these points my proposal represents a considerable step forward compared with the current fragmented situation.
Now the discussions in the Council of Ministers will show whether there is further room so that we can move the positions forward.
<P>
Another issue concerns citizens of third countries who have lived legally in our Member States for a long time.
Experience shows that stability and length of stay are a prerequisite for integration.
My view is that a third-country national who has legally lived and resided in Europe for a long time should be able to live on more or less equal terms with EU citizens.
For example, it is reasonable under certain circumstances for immigrants also to be able to look for a job in another Member State.
The alternative is a segregated Europe, with everything that entails in terms of discrimination, social unrest and instability.
<P>
I am sometimes asked if this was really the right time to submit this proposal.
I sometimes hear that it would have been better to wait until the new Amsterdam Treaty had entered into force.
I do not agree with that.
I have submitted the proposal to start a debate both here in Parliament and in the Council of Ministers about the factual issues of immigration policy.
When the proposal was presented there was not a single concrete initiative in the Council in this area.
I see it as the Commission's clear duty in such a situation to use its right of initiative.
It is of course true that the new Treaty will give me the opportunity to use other, more effective tools, but the issues will remain the same nonetheless.
I do not see any reason to delay a debate on the substance of immigration until we can give it another form.
Obviously, the Commission will submit a new initiative once it is able to use the new instruments.
<P>
The negotiations on this proposal will intensify under the Austrian presidency.
I expect the first reading to be ready some time during the autumn.
After that, the work will move on to finding compromise solutions where opinions differ.
<P>
There are already a large number of opinions on the proposal.
I expect the thoughts and ideas put forward in the Lehne report, and the amendments being presented, to be taken into consideration too when the negotiations continue.
Hard work, goodwill and, above all, a lot of patience will doubtless be needed before the efforts bear fruit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Fundamentalism and the European legal order
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0328/97) by Mr Oostlander, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, containing a draft European Parliament recommendation to the Council on fundamentalism and the challenge to the European legal order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Oostlander">
Mr President, the initiative to compile a report on fundamentalism originates from the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
They proposed to speak on the dangers of fundamentalism under the original title.
Fundamentalism which exists in all sorts of religions internationally has been referred to, and rightly so - as Mr Colajanni rightly says, as a sort of misunderstanding.
It shows up in Christian religions, Hindu religion, Jewish religion and Islam.
Generally speaking this does not involve government, as government should be neutral and positive in respect of religions, or in any case neutral.
Problems are only created if there are conflicts with public order or with legislation, in particular systematic problems.
These are not problems concerning religion, but problems concerning an excess of, or - to use Mr Colajanni's expression - a misunderstanding about religion.
<P>
The Presidency of Parliament considered this subject to fall within the competence of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
While working on this I arrived at the conclusion that the word 'dangers' in the title was wrong in any case, and it was better to speak of a 'challenge' .
Because there are many dangerous terrorist or violent movements in Europe and the politically-engaged 'Islamic' fundamentalist orientation is one of the smallest amongst them, as well as one of the least significant.
I think it is important to state that religious fundamentalism and its excesses refer, in fact, to a rather insignificant phenomenon.
It is important to establish this.
Hence my preference for 'challenge' .
<P>
I intend to use my report to refute the alarming coverage this issue currently receives.
It is more attractive to portray someone with an unusual appearance, an unusual mode of dress and an unusual pronunciation in the western European media.
That makes it interesting for the viewer. But it is far from representative of the European Muslim citizen.
In fact, there is a certain danger in this extreme presentation of everything connected with Islam.
<P>
Very recently, the scandal feature of one of the Dutch television stations presented a Dutch Government internal security service report, which in fact is characterized by striking parallels with the resolution I propose, as an indication of how dangerous Islam is in the Netherlands, whereas the report - entitled 'Political Islam in the Netherlands' - does not remotely give cause for that view.
It is therefore important to make the title represent the contents, and to refute any prejudices.
Moreover, it is important to propose a policy which can prevent the creation of any problems or difficult challenges.
That is what my report and my resolution purport to do.
<P>
I advocate that a positive policy be conducted in the whole of Europe, in particular so as to prevent trouble, and to ensure that Muslims know that they are completely integrated and accepted.
A lot remains to be done, as there is discrimination in the religious area in fulfilling Muslim obligations to a certain extent, in particular where the training of their own leaders is concerned.
<P>
I am therefore strongly in favour of the creation of training opportunities for Muslims in Europe, particularly in theology, and I advocate this in the report.
I believe that scientific study centres should become available for them, in order to educate leaders who have full knowledge of the European culture and are not foreign to it, and who will be able to provide the second and third generation Muslims in Europe with appropriate pastoral care.
<P>
So I consider it very important that we make everybody in Europe, including the Dutch Government, understand that comparisons are useful, as regards what we do with the Muslims in our society, and to take stock.
I advocate a comparative study into the different kinds of policies which exist, so that this study can form the basis for tracing the shortcomings in certain countries.
Governments will then be able to modify their policies based on experience from their colleagues in other countries.
<P>
But it is important for Muslims to know European culture well too, as is true for many Europeans.
It is very important to know how the constitutions and legal systems of Europe function.
It is important to know that we in Europe are generally of the opinion that the competencies of various institutions, such as those of religious communities and public authorities, must not be confused.
A religious community which appropriates the competencies and means which really belong to the state is on the wrong track, and vice versa .
I think this is at the heart of the so-called fundamentalist issue.
<P>
In my opinion, people who have a different view in the world of Muslims or in fundamentalist circles are not really a problem for the European Union.
To repeat, a problem only arises if there are gross violations of the law and conflicts with public order.
I appreciate the fact that we speak our mind clearly in this Parliament, including where the media and our own citizens are concerned: that we have a positive policy, and that we give a clear signal that we take the Muslim citizens in Europe - who contribute greatly to our culture and economy - seriously, and that we accept them as citizens too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lindeperg">
Mr President, Mr Oostlander's report contains a number of positive points and proposals, particularly where it calls for tolerance towards different religions and cultures, where it warns us against mixtures of religions and fundamentalist deviations of these religions, and where it recommends measures to deprive religious extremists of favourable ground in Europe.
<P>
However, I regret the fact that Mr Oostlander chose to look solely at Islamic fundamentalism, and the speech he has just given has not convinced me.
Of course, this type of fundamentalism was tragically illustrated by the wave of attacks in France.
However, does this mean to say that no other type of religious extremism constitutes a threat?
In fact, the tragedy which we deplored today shows that in Northern Ireland, where the Orange Order does not accept being deprived of its annual provocations, the fundamentalists are not prepared to mark time.
Certainly, the rapporteur deliberately omitted this problem which, I admit, goes beyond a purely religious problem, but other Christian forms of fundamentalism are at work in Europe.
<P>
Europeans value their security, yet they also value their freedom, particularly their freedom to lead their personal and private lives as they wish.
The anti-abortion commandos, guided by Catholic fundamentalists, have not killed as yet in Europe as their American counterparts have done. However, they clearly demonstrate this movement's determination to impose its objectives and values, even by force: the return to an imposed moral order and the intrusion of religious issues into the public sphere, as well as threats to the status of women, the rights of homosexuals and secularity, and all this accompanied by violently xenophobic and anti-Semitic statements.
This struggle by Catholic fundamentalists for a regression of society, for interference in the private sphere, is laden with threats and violence towards the rule of democratic law and freedoms.
We should have been worrying about this, starting from today.
I know the rapporteur intentionally avoided this aspect of things and I regret that.
<P>
As regards Islamic fundamentalism, it seems to me that the opportunity has been missed to remind certain Member States of their responsibilities - Member States which, for honourable reasons of tolerance, but also for other reasons which are perhaps less worthy, welcome into their territory and tolerate core activities of Islamic terrorism.
The struggle to be carried out must be collective, loyal and free from ulterior motives.
I would have thought it useful to remind the Member States of that with this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, it is a real pleasure for me to take the floor to talk about this report by Mr Oostlander.
I think it is a magnificent report, both in its original drafting and in its present form, rounded off with the amendments we have all signed.
<P>
Obviously, this report confines itself to a limited scope - as Mrs Lindeperg has pointed out - but there can be little doubt that its conclusions can be extrapolated to any form of fundamentalism.
<P>
What is included within the scope of this report?
Well, it points out once again, loud and clear, that we live in an open society based, in the last analysis, on democracy, the rule of law, the defence of human rights and the separation of powers. In particular, as Mr Oostlander underlined very well, it is based on religion being a private matter for each and every one of us, of no significance to the state.
As a result, people can hold any view they like, as long as they keep within the law, the legal framework and the legal order. What this report reveals is how complicated and dangerous it can be when ideas which should remain in that private sphere begin to be used to recruit people to commit violence, and cause real problems for social coexistence.
<P>
Undeniably, Mrs Lindeperg, you said this report has shortcomings, which I do not see as such.
We have said that this report voluntarily restricts itself to these aspects.
There are other very serious forms of fundamentalism, and I come from a country which suffers from them: the fundamentalism of people who set up their political ideas, or any other sort of idea, and constantly kill, commit violence and restrict everybody's freedom.
It is true that all those sorts of fundamentalism are excluded from this report, but Mr Oostlander's conclusions - which I hope will be approved by an ample majority of this Parliament tomorrow - can be fully extrapolated, in order to proclaim once again that we are an open society, that we want to be an open society, and that an open society is a lawful society, governed by the rule of law and not protected on any other basis, in this case religious, mentioned in Mr Oostlander's report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Goerens">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Oostlander report calls for the following remarks from my group. The report entitled "Fundamentalism and the challenge to the European legal order' presupposes, entirely logically, the existence of a commonly accepted definition.
But this is not the case, as is in fact recognized by the rapporteur himself.
This does not mean that the attacks on human rights, the difficulties as regards public order, and even terrorism, mentioned by Mr Oostlander, do not have their place in our debates.
On the contrary, they must be debated within the appropriate framework.
Moreover, concentrating on Islam in the framework of a study on religious fundamentalism, which could irritate the Islamic community, could adversely affect the general balance of the report.
<P>
We must be clear: my group believes that everything that comes under the heading "attacks on human rights, terrorism or other highly reprehensible acts' must be combatted mercilessly.
Several initiatives taken in the context of the third pillar, concerning police and judicial cooperation, have already allowed our Parliament to express its opinion.
It will be the same in future, for the simple reason that the most important work in this field remains to be done.
It stands to reason that we must agree to all the efforts aimed at imposing the rule of law everywhere and in all circumstances.
<P>
The phenomenon of fundamentalism as described by our colleague, Mr Oostlander, raises the question of whether the Member States have at their disposal the necessary means to ensure that our values of tolerance and freedom are triumphant.
If they do, we could do without a Parliamentary resolution.
If they do not, then it is not within the framework of a report on fundamentalism - a notion which is not, in fact, very clear - that we need to find a solution.
Other possibilities are available to us: opinions to be given on Commission or Council initiatives, or own-initiative reports.
Why not?
<P>
These points lead me to conclude that my group will not be able to support the Oostlander report.
Mr President, this is not a matter of any sort of discredit to the rapporteur, but is rather a plea to tackle the threats posed to our rule of law in an appropriate context and manner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Andrews">
Mr President, like the rest of the speakers I have nothing but the highest respect for Mr Oostlander and the work he does in this House, but I have to say I have great difficulty with this report on fundamentalism.
It is not helpful in my view.
It could in fact stir up ill-feeling, resentment and a great deal of trouble quite unnecessarily.
<P>
There is no satisfactory definition of fundamentalism, no adequate basis, no common ground.
In committee, a disgraceful amendment was tabled in an attempt to establish a link between what was called Christian fundamentalism and neo-Nazi groups.
The main subject of criticism is Islamic fundamentalism, and the report seems to concentrate too much on that.
Regardless of the rights or wrongs of these two hardline positions, we do not need a report calling on the European Union to pursue a preventive policy against any form of violent religious fundamentalism.
It is up to the Member States to deal with violence, whatever its origins or intent.
It is up to the Member States to formulate the most appropriate and responsible policies aimed at integrating religious minorities into society.
Why isolate and point a finger at Islamic fundamentalism when we do not truly understand the meaning and the philosophy behind Islam anyway?
What about political fundamentalism, or cultural or environmental fundamentalism?
Why do we not deal with this subject as a whole?
<P>
The report talks about the need not to fuel religious fundamentalism or provoke any unnecessary anti-Western reactions.
Again I say that this report is not helpful.
Indeed, it is guilty of the very thing it is trying to warn about - fundamentalism itself.
Fundamentalists often try to impose acceptance of their views through legislation.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, I feel that I must mention the questions to the Commission and in particular Question 53 by Mr Alf Lomas on racism and fundamentalism in Brussels.
It is very important that we look at this question when it comes up in the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Mohamed Alí">
Mr President, today we are faced with a report which deals with the important, complex subject of fundamentalism.
Because of the time I have available, I would like to mention a few specific points which I do not think are very clear in the report.
<P>
Firstly, I regret the fact that when the report talks about violent religious fundamentalism, it makes particular reference to Islamic fundamentalism, when I do not believe this tendency is the birthright of any one religion or another. They can all suffer from it to a greater or lesser extent, as Mr Oostlander has just recognized.
Nevertheless, his report reveals a clear imbalance in this respect.
<P>
As with all religions, not all the exponents of Islam can be lumped together under the same heading. To do so would be extremely irresponsible.
Bearing in mind the diversity of the different Islamic tendencies, the radical trends must be clearly distinguished from those which do not question the values of freedom and democracy in any way whatsoever.
Based on that distinction, I believe that dialogue with European Muslims should be above any potential intransigence or intolerance from one side or another.
In that sense, I think the European Union should realize that a certain Islamic inspiration is a constant feature of political movements in countries of the Muslim world. We should accept that, as long as respect for human rights and democratic freedoms is considered to be an essential condition which can never be given up.
<P>
Furthermore, I would like to say that the stereotypes about some religions - including Islam - generally correspond to a lack of information and understanding of the subject. That should be put right by means of an education policy which offers the chance to get to know all religions and cultures, especially as regards history and social relations, and which promotes a truly cross-cultural education, in keeping with Europe's multicultural nature.
The media should play a major role in this task, by correcting the sometimes easy and frequent inclination towards the clichés, prejudices and mistaken opinions which people hold about cultures different from their own.
<P>
Consequently, cultural exchanges should be seen as a two-way exercise, rather than being limited to a significant "if possible' or "if necessary' .
It is absolutely essential that we put an end to policies of inequality.
On that basis, with a greater degree of credibility and objectivity, it is likely that we would be able to help stop certain types of fundamentalism.
<P>
Mr President, the basic idea behind democracy - the fundamental freedoms - should not be seen as the birthright of any particular culture or tradition, in excessively clear-cut terms.
All cultures should and do have the ability to adapt to democracy and individual freedoms.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pradier">
Mr President, as regards the challenges which the fundamentalists have presented us with, we must congratulate the rapporteur on the frame of mind which prevailed in the drawing up of this report. It emphasizes, in particular, the importance of preventing violent fundamentalism, seeks to ensure that the elements of trouble do not sow the seeds of disorder and discord within the European Union, and calls for the adoption of a policy of integration, which is particularly dear to the citizens of my country.
<P>
However, this text does demonstrate a very worrying tendency.
We move from fundamentalism to religious fundamentalism and from religious fundamentalism to Islam and Muslim fundamentalism, Islam being specifically mentioned in 19 paragraphs of this text.
This all happens as if Opus Dei Catholic fundamentalism were not at work within this or that government in our very own Union, or as if Jewish fundamentalism were not at work in connection with European policy in the eastern Mediterranean.
<P>
The report thus sticks to a description, or rather an indictment of Islam, the countries where it rages, and those who are accused of supporting it; this means that this text is no longer capable of leading to any serious reflection.
<P>
Until such time as all the elements of ideological or religious fundamentalism which were discarded are one day tackled as they should be, we will not vote for Mr Oostlander's report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, Wittgenstein the philosopher once said: "What cannot be spoken about should be kept quiet' .
You should not pronounce on a subject on which you cannot make any definite comments.
Fundamentalism is a phenomenon which is difficult to put into words, certainly if one tries to give it a political meaning.
The present recommendation creates more confusion than clarity.
<P>
Fundamentalism is clearly distinguishable from religion.
Somebody believes on the basis of a personal conviction in which experience, reason and heart play a role.
Human power and compulsion play no part in this.
Under fundamentalism, fear and compulsion are central.
It is a case of perverted religion.
This also occurs in ideological movements such as Communism under Stalin and Mao.
<P>
Another example is relativism.
A form of this is the unfortunate pronouncement that not a single religion harbours a germ of hatred.
This would allow for tolerance in respect of and by any religion.
But this ignores the pretension to truth on the part of religions.
<P>
I am a convinced Christian; the Bible is for me the Word of God which guides my life.
I know myself saved in Christ, who said: ' I am the Way, the Truth and the Life' .
Other religions are idolatrous religions, according to this belief.
They harbour, as it were, the germ of hatred in their bosom because they do not recognize the God of the Bible as the only One.
<P>
But this conviction cannot be called fundamentalism.
This is created when we compel others to believe the same.
Europe's past shows instances where we went wrong.
We always see that this occurred where government usurped religious powers or the Church usurped secular powers.
The Church and the State must be separate.
However, that does not make the state neutral, as the report states.
No state is neutral: take Europe.
Our legal orders and democracies are based on Westernized, Christian values.
We have therefore made a choice.
People who come and live here can be asked to fit in with this legal order. But they will not experience this demand as neutral.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, firstly I should like to put a question to you.
The report is based on a resolution on the dangers of fundamentalism, yet it appears on our order paper as 'Fundamentalism: the challenge to the European legal order' . I have looked through the report.
I cannot see anywhere where the change of title was agreed.
I hope that you will ask the President, tomorrow morning, to rule whether this change of title is acceptable.
<P>
The resolution on which this report is based talks about the horrors of the war in former Yugoslavia, with Christians oppressing Muslims - at least that is one element of it - the massacres in Rwanda and Burundi, the blind fanaticism of Rabin's assassins - clearly the intention is to include Jewish fundamentalism - and the suicide bombers in Israel - Muslim fundamentalism.
They are all outside the European Union, but the report appears to be about Islamic fundamentalism inside the European Union.
<P>
Two mistakes have been made: firstly, this is not a report which should have been produced by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs; secondly, Mr Oostlander has treated the subject in a particular way which does not coincide with the original wishes of those who tabled the resolution or, for that matter, its nature.
<P>
There are 19 references to Islam, but there are no references to any other religions.
The report presents the stereotypical image of Islam as terrorism.
Five pages out of seven in the explanatory statement are about Islam.
I do not know how Europe's two to three million Muslim citizens actually feel about this.
<P>
There is nothing in the report about churches that style themselves 'Christian' and the racial hatred that they preach.
The report likewise fails to mention the fact that people are trying to import this religious fundamentalism into the European Union from the United States.
It does not mention the anti-abortion terrorists who, in the name of Christianity, have murdered those both offering and seeking legal abortions - again a kind of terrorism that people are trying to import here.
It says nothing about the extreme elements around the Orange Order who burnt three Protestant children to death because their mother was a Catholic.
<P>
I agree we must stand together to fight terrorism.
I am concerned about the situation as regards Europol.
We have a duty to see where the real threat is coming from.
The friends of the Taliban pose less danger to Europe than the friends of the Ku Klux Clan who sit in the far corner of this Chamber.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Nordmann">
Mr President, unlike the previous speaker, I will not incriminate Mr Oostlander for the title he has chosen to give his report. It is a real problem determining whether certain religions, through their imperialism on civil life and private life, are compatible with our constituent principles, our European values - in other words, the free choice of the individual, the way in which he intends, in the context of laws, to organize his life.
<P>
I believe that what we can indeed blame Mr Oostlander for is the fact that he did not give sufficient consideration to this question, which is a fundamental question and one which leads us to what could be a body of principles common to the various countries, and the embryo of a European constitution.
<P>
This body of principles, Mr President, has a name in certain countries: a nice name - "secularism' . That represents the best defence against all forms of fundamentalism and the encroachments of religion on public life and the private lives of us all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Terrón i Cusí">
Mr President, I too think that religion should not form the basis of the consensus to live in society.
But I would like to stress that I was one of the people who signed the draft recommendation to the Council which led to this report.
And when we signed that recommendation, we wanted to underline why we thought it was important to raise our voice now against intolerance, against extremist and fundamentalist trends within any religion, or even against the extremist secular trends which try to prevent people carrying on their way of life if it includes religion. We also wanted to remind people of the horrors we have seen caused by a conflict between two religions in the former Yugoslavia, and also in Ireland, as mentioned by the previous speaker from my group, Mr Ford.
<P>
It was a question of seeing how we could establish a dialogue; how we could talk to religious leaders and promote all those good practices which could help to overcome such conflicts.
And we did it in the aftermath of the Islamic Conference in Iran, because we thought it was important to draw attention to some of the female voices - which I want to mention specifically - within Islam and certain other religions, which are attempting to make progress towards a better life and peaceful coexistence.
I thought that was an interesting initiative.
On the other hand, I think an initiative which can instead be easily misunderstood as a negative sign by the millions of Muslims living in Europe is dangerous.
I do not have time to go into more details, but I am going to vote against this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Gradin">
Mr President, it was with great interest that I read Mr Oostlander's report.
It concerns a topic which is both sensitive and difficult to manage.
The basic issue is what attitude we should take towards various kinds of religious extremism.
The answer we give is closely related to respect for fundamental human rights and freedoms.
However, it is also necessary to set clear boundaries on the kind of behaviour we can never accept, regardless of the justification.
<P>
Tolerance is an obvious starting point.
Within the bounds of religious freedom there is room for quite a number of faiths, even some extreme ones.
However, the boundary has definitely been crossed if there is violence or any kind of compulsion.
Then it is no longer an issue of freedom of expression and freedom of religion.
Our duty then is to protect weak, vulnerable people and to safeguard the basic values of society.
<P>
In the Union we have actively participated for several years in the work of creating a safer and more secure Europe.
A large number of initiatives have also been undertaken. Let me begin with police cooperation.
The Europol Convention has now finally been ratified. The rapporteur complains that Europol will not be able to deal with terrorism for another two years.
However, the Member States and the Commission have both now agreed that the cooperation shall start on 1 January 1999.
In fact, the first stage of the preparation work started last month when a project group was set up.
In his report, the rapporteur also urges the Union to conduct a consistent and unanimous policy towards governments which in various ways encourage, support or tolerate terrorism.
I think that is already happening.
A large number of both political and practical measures show that the EU's Member States actively and continuously work to improve the fight against terrorism in Europe.
This is done both through internal coordination, such as through the liaison officers who are put in place, and through continuous dialogue with countries outside the Union.
<P>
There is also a worthwhile coordination with the help of various working groups which have been established within both the second and third pillars.
This, too, has made it easier for the Member States to conduct a dialogue on how we can combat terrorism with joined forces.
As far as sanctions against countries suspected of supporting or permitting terrorism are concerned, the Member States clearly prefer to act through international fora such as the United Nations.
<P>
Mr President, we also set great store by the work which is being done to prevent the occurrence of various kinds of acts of violence.
A number of initiatives have been undertaken to promote tolerance and increased understanding both inside and outside the Union's borders.
This has been done within the framework of various cooperation agreements, among other things.
One example is the Euro-Mediterranean Agreement and the Barcelona Declaration which is the basis of this agreement.
This stipulates, for example, regular meetings between representatives of various faiths, religious institutions, theologians, academics and other concerned parties.
In addition, these measures have been followed up by a number of efforts which reached their climax at a seminar on dialogue between cultures and civilizations in Stockholm in April 1988.
<P>
The Commission has also encouraged several other initiatives to increase dialogue between various cultures.
An example of this was the informal meeting in Toledo in 1995 between representatives of various religious and philosophical traditions.
The discussions emphasized the importance of deepening the dialogue between the religions.
The Commission also supported a similar initiative in Copenhagen in 1996.
<P>
We should also not forget the role of the media in increasing understanding between cultures and religions.
That is why the Commission supports the training of journalists from the Union and other countries at the European Journalism Centre in Maastricht.
This has courses which deal with, among other things, non-discrimination, tolerance and minority issues.
There is also a special media programme which the Commission has set up to increase cooperation between the media in the Mediterranean area.
<P>
Mr President, a policy of prevention also has to include measures to improve the integration of religious minorities into society.
I fully support Mr Oostlander's view that active measures are needed to strengthen their position in the labour market.
In addition, their active participation in political life must also be facilitated and encouraged.
It is important to avoid segregation and discrimination and the acts of violence which almost always result from this.
<P>
As far as information and research are concerned, the rapporteur would like to see a comparative study of the positions of Islamic and Muslim organizations in the Member States.
A proposal for the formulation of such a study is already being drawn up by the Commission.
A meeting is to be held this autumn at which a decision on the extent and content of this study will be taken together with the Member States.
<P>
There are already a large number of activities, both in the Member States and at the European level, to increase understanding between cultures and to prevent and combat terrorism based on religious arguments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Cross-border cooperation (TACIS programme)
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0179/98) by Mrs Karamanou, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, and the Committee of the Regions on cross-border cooperation within the framework of the TACIS programme (COM(97)0239 - C4-0280/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Karamanou">
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Seppänen">

Mr President, Mrs Karamanou, from a long way away from the Baltic Sea, has produced a well-informed report on the problems of the Baltic region. I should like to thank her for that.
<P>
The biggest problem in the development of the TACIS programme is bureaucracy, and there are two types. There is the EU bureaucracy in the granting of aid and the bureaucracy that exists in the countries receiving the aid.
EU aid programmes on the one hand often lack cohesion, and on the other hand tend to overlap, and fail to coordinate aid between different Community programmes.
There should be coordination and there should be responsible coordinators.
<P>
With TACIS we are talking about very small sums of money.
To a certain extent they are earmarked so that the best projects do not always get selected.
TACIS money is an EU policy buffer against countries receiving aid.
For example, the EU committed itself, via the G7 group, to the construction of the reactor shelter at Chernobyl without the committed parties having legally-based funds in the budget for it.
The policy money required is to be taken out of the TACIS programme. As such, it is a political reserve fund.
<P>
This criticism is not necessarily aimed at cross-border cooperation.
There are often two parties involved, who are known to each other.
Because of that it is possible to spend funds more wisely than, for example, extending them to Siberia, where there are no corresponding parties. Siberia certainly needs the money.
But it is important always to promote those projects we can keep an eye on.
It would seem that TACIS aid is largely monopolized, and funds often go to places where they have an excellent technique in applying for aid.
We should get rid of such favouritism in respect of consultants.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Mr President, I too wish to thank Mrs Karamanou for a report that was both excellent and concrete insofar as content is concerned.
Because I myself am the European Parliament's easternmost Member, from near the Russian border, I cannot help acknowledging the fact that I am very much in touch with problems connected with cross-border cooperation between Finland and Russia.
I therefore think the ideas contained in this report are excellent, that is, that sustainability must be achieved within the framework of the TACIS programmes, and that the TACIS-CBC programmes must, as well as being long-term, be administratively compatible with the INTERREG programme, to ensure the effective usage of funds.
<P>
The report proposes common funding for cross-border cooperation.
That would be an excellent way to solve this problem.
I also think it an excellent and most welcome proposal from the Committee on Regional Policy that coordination between TACIS-CBC and INTERREG should be included in structural fund reforms.
<P>
Another important contention is that we try to prioritize cooperation between regional authorities, and that, in the future, when we have got rid of these administrative problems, funds available for the TACIS-CBC programme must be substantially increased, with environment, the narrowing of social inequality, and concrete solutions for border-crossing points as priorities.
The frontier between Finland and Russia is the frontier between the EU and Russia, and the European Union must also bear the responsibility for smooth and contained operations at border-crossing points.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schröder">
Mr President, my congratulations to the rapporteur, who showed in the Committee on Regional Policy that, with great charm and powers of persuasion, she made a success of this report.
There are a very few points, however, with which I would disagree. The rapporteur requests a single fund for cross-border projects between the EU and third countries.
I think there is a danger here that funds for programmes which are currently separate might get mixed up with these.
At present we know how much the EU Member States receive and how much non-Member States receive.
That should continue to be the case.
<P>
The rapporteur also wants small-scale projects to go ahead without a public tendering procedure, and to make the latter unnecessary.
Although we are all against excessive bureaucracy, it is my opinion that even for small-scale projects the relevant rules of public tendering should be followed.
<P>
Lastly, even if some neighbouring countries consider a specific Baltic Sea Programme to be reasonable, my view is that we would need several separate budget headings in future if we were to introduce this.
We should not proceed with such a specific programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Vallvé">
Mr President, I should first like to congratulate Mrs Karamanou because I think she has produced an excellent report on cross-border cooperation within the framework of the TACIS programme.
Obviously, this is one of the longest borders of the European Union - the 1 300 kilometres separating Russia and Finland. There has been persistent confrontation along that border, which has been completely closed for a long time.
<P>
Along these borders with the countries of the east, cross-border cooperation is more complicated than within the European Union.
There are economic, social, cultural and organizational differences, and cooperation becomes much more difficult.
It is right that regional and local authorities should participate.
Cross-border cooperation often takes place at municipal level, but in order to be effective, there needs to be more coordination and transparency, and local authorities need to be given information and training on what they can do in the field of cross-border cooperation.
Otherwise the programmes get bogged down in bureaucracy and, in that sense, they end up not being effective.
<P>
It is true that infrastructure needs to be built in these projects. It must also be remembered that cross-border projects are not projects in the border zones.
They are projects which pass from one side of the border to the other, and help to bring the people on the two sides closer together.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, the Green Group in the European Parliament is also very satisfied with Mrs Karamanou's report on the TACIS programme.
We warmly support the basic proposals it contains, such as the notion of one integrated funding system, and the idea that all activity should be coordinated very visibly in conjunction with other funding instruments, like INTERREG, for example.
<P>
It is very important for TACIS to become a flexible instrument in this way, because the problems that exist on the other side of the EU's eastern border are immense, and it is surely worth reminding everyone once more of the gulf that still exists in standards of living between Russia and Finland.
It is considered to be greater than that between the USA and Mexico.
<P>
I believe in future we must lay much more emphasis on problems of the environment, and we think it is right that the report separately identifies the problems of nuclear safety.
Right across the border from the European Union and Finland there are dozens of extremely dangerous nuclear reactors: in the Kola peninsula, in St. Petersburg, and right up in the north of the Kola peninsula in Murmansk there are military reactors, which we should also turn our attention to.
Luckily, the European Union has to some extent supported preliminary efforts now to solve these enormous problems.
But we should also aim to actually shut down these nuclear reactors completely and deal with the problems of nuclear waste in a satisfactory manner.
<P>
I would still like to mention that it is terribly important that proper social policy be developed in Russia, exactly because of this huge gap in the standard of living.
If that does not happen, the problems are certain to blow up in our hands.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bösch">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur very warmly on her report.
This report underlines the need for us, the European Parliament, constantly to examine the developments which take place on the periphery of our Union and, particularly, to examine occasionally how the Commission implements policies, particularly in the case of important foreign policy programmes such as MEDA, TACIS and PHARE.
<P>
We know - and several speakers have already referred to this - that in the field of TACIS we are concerned with countries whose policies are based on very different traditions from those we are used to.
For this reason, the Commission deserves understanding if it sometimes does not immediately achieve the desired results.
On the other hand, we can and must expect the Commission to state quite clearly what requirements it thinks it must have in order to be able to implement these policies properly, for example in the field of TACIS.
In the end it is only in this way that policies can be accepted.
After all, Parliament exists for the purposes of examining this.
<P>
An example of an issue which has not yet been mentioned in this discussion is the fact that the Committee on Budgets, in relation to the use of funds for cross-border cooperation - TACIS - discovered that in 1996 and 1997 a total of ECU 58 000 was used from the estimated sum of ECU 60 million.
I hope that in a later report we will be able to note better execution of the project, and that by then the implementation of the projects you mentioned will have been improved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Otila">
Mr President, the TACIS programme is intended to try and ease the switch to democracy and a market economy in certain targeted countries - that is, Russia, other countries once part of the Soviet Union and Mongolia - and promote the integration of these countries into the world economy.
<P>
Finnish consultants have succeeded in establishing good projects through the programme particularly in the border regions of Russia, and obviously elsewhere.
Experiences with the TACIS programme have not always been positive however.
It is typical of projects that the foreign firm brings along experts, and local expertise and resources are not used, although they exist and are of high quality.
This has understandably led to rancour, especially in Russia.
Furthermore, the programme lacks a proper investment component.
Although increased opportunities for investment have already been spoken of, there has been no real change in the situation as yet.
What is the point of making technical and economic analyses if no changes can be implemented, even though the records show them to be beneficial?
Opportunities for funding therefore have to be improved considerably.
<P>
I wish to finish by laying emphasis on the importance of the speedy resolution of environmental and nuclear safety problems that exist in the Russian/EU border regions by using the TACIS programme to its best advantage.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Gradin">
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate the honourable Member, Mrs Karamanou, for the report and resolution on TACIS cross-border cooperation.
Such cooperation will become increasingly important in the future.
An enlarged EU will have extended frontiers with Russia.
It will have frontiers with Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova as well as direct access to the Black Sea.
TACIS cross-border cooperation will contribute to economic development and stability throughout the whole region.
<P>
The report identifies actions in the field of environment and energy efficiency as priorities.
The Commission shares this view. It is reflected in the fact that more than 30 % of the 1996 and 1997 programme budget was allocated to projects in these fields.
Another issue highlighted in the report is the need to support the removal of practical obstacles to border crossing and customs clearance.
A large part of the projects under the TACIS cross-border cooperation programme relates to improvements in these areas.
In the future these activities will not only be concentrated on local transits. Projects will also be directed to border crossings on the main transport corridors linking the newly independent states with central and western Europe.
<P>
There have been delays in the implementation of the programme but, as the rapporteur underlines, this is to a large extent a consequence of the cross-border character of the cooperation.
The implementation of projects relating to infrastructure has been shown to be particularly complex.
They often involve many ministries as well as various authorities.
However, improvements should be made.
A stronger link to existing administrative structures in other EU cross-border cooperation programmes is one example.
<P>
The Commission shares the rapporteur's view that training and development of local administrations must be another priority for cross-border cooperation.
The Commission has allocated ECU 1 million to regional capacity-building initiatives for 1997.
The projects are on the way to being implemented.
<P>
Finally, I should like to emphasize that cross-border cooperation in central and eastern Europe will become increasingly important.
Parliament's report and today's debate have been a useful contribution to the development of the Union's policy in this field.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="President">
The Presidency congratulates the rapporteur, Mrs Karamanou, on the broad acceptance by the House of this important report.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 7.50 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of the previous sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Aid for Bosnia
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="Gradin">
I was asked yesterday at the beginning of the session to make a statement on behalf of the Commission concerning irregularities or possible fraud in connection with a number of contracts in the field of humanitarian aid.
These contracts were signed in 1993 and 1994 to provide humanitarian aid for former Yugoslavia and the Great Lakes region of Africa.
UCLAF has, since the autumn of 1997, been conducting an inquiry into aspects of these contracts.
In the course of the investigations suspicion arose of the existence of serious irregularities.
During the last week the inquiry led to suspicion being cast on a particular official in the Commission.
These suspicions were strong enough to allow legal proceedings to be initiated.
Last week, in the light of these facts, the Commission handed over the findings to the relevant legal authorities in the Member State concerned.
UCLAF will, of course, give its full cooperation.
In accordance with the agreement on the exchange of information, Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control has been informed of these initial findings.
As the President said, I have also agreed with the chairperson to have a meeting on the issue this week.
<P>
At the same time the Commission has started disciplinary proceedings against one official suspected of involvement.
In the meantime the official in question has been suspended.
Since legal proceedings have now been initiated, I am sorry that I am not in a position to give you more details at this stage.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Madam Commissioner, I can hear various interjections from Members.
The announcement was very brief and, because of the sensitivity of the matter, I wonder to what extent it satisfied the justified concerns of Members. But I would ask Members to hold a debate tomorrow during the extraordinary sitting of the Committee on Budgetary Control, in order to avoid having this debate now, in an unorganized way, during the part-session.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Competitiveness of the textile and clothing industry
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0224/98) by Mr Ribeiro, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on a communication from the Commission on a plan of action to increase the competitiveness of the European textile and clothing industry (COM(97)0454 - C40626/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="Ribeiro">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start off by applauding the fact that the Commission has drawn up and sent the European Parliament this document entitled 'Plan of action to increase the competitiveness of the European textile and clothing industry' , which is the reason for my report, quite apart from its contents and guidelines.
<P>
This document follows the setting-up of the Bangemann working parties, one of which is concerned with textiles and clothing, and this reflects the importance of the sector.
Although as rapporteur I have much more time than usual, it is still not long enough to give a proper idea of that importance, which in any case is generally acknowledged, and I will therefore make no attempt to reproduce everything the report contains.
<P>
I would, however, emphasize that textiles represent over 4 % of value added in EU industry and double that for at least one Member State, in which, with 8 % of the EU's industrial jobs, that proportion is over 25 %, a third of its exports being dependent on that sector, whereas another Member State, with a very different industrial structure, is simultaneously the biggest exporter and the biggest importer.
<P>
The total weight and quality of the percentage represented by textiles and clothing therefore varies throughout the EU, according to quotas and Member States, and even more if we take sectoral peculiarities into account.
<P>
It is those very peculiarities, and the possible existence of different attitudes - particularly as regards competitiveness - that create a risk of fragmentation, preventing the industry from being dealt with as a whole, with a minimum of cohesion.
The adoption of a 'production chain' approach seems to be central to that purpose.
The industry has its own inner cohesion through its 'production chain' and, if it to be competitive either at Member State level or at EU level, we have to look at it in a balanced way and as a whole.
<P>
This position has been approved by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
It could nevertheless have gone further, in my opinion, by including in the textile 'production chain' certain activities which, while they are essential to the textile/clothing industry, cannot be considered to be included within the intrinsic industrial definition of the sector.
Thus, without prejudice to the importance of upstream and downstream activities, it seems to me essential that we should define the limits of the spinning, weaving and garment-making 'production chain' .
That is the reason for the two amendments I am tabling, which I hope will be accepted.
<P>
This report, which is the result of collective efforts and numerous visits and consultations, has been unanimously approved by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
I would like to thank my fellow Members for the amendments they have suggested with a view to improving it.
I think in almost every case that has been the result.
I would only wish to oppose those submitted by Mrs de Rose and Mr des Places, not because I disagree with their contents, but because I think those ideas area already contained in the draft resolution, and it would be overloaded if they were included.
The same applies to Amendments Nos 25 and 30.
All the others have my support even though they may somewhat overload the draft resolution.
<P>
I would also like to emphasize that the other Commissions' opinions have been extremely helpful in enriching our perspective.
Particularly that of the REX Committee, with its special interest in competitiveness, whose suggestions are presented by Mrs Ferrer, in the form of additions to the motion for a resolution.
These have my total support.
<P>
I think this has enhanced the thinking in the Commission's document.
Against the backdrop of a global 'production chain' approach, greater importance is attached to labour-intensive activities, rejecting the inevitability of contracting-out or globalization, which will be all the more relevant inasmuch as the sector represents over 2 million jobs, has lost 600 000 jobs in recent years and, unless something is done about it, we can predict that hundreds of thousand more will be lost.
The role of training is highlighted, as is the need to deal with the specific questions of women's jobs and lack of job security, and even clandestine and child labour, which give the sector a special and highly delicate social relevance.
<P>
During the process, this House will have played a decisive role in getting the Commission to confirm that what it had presented as a plan of action was a discussion paper.
The Industry Council of 7 May itself admitted this and, instead of being completed, we might say the process is just beginning in the sense of coming up with a real and necessary plan of action.
It was Parliament's wish to contribute to that Council with its oral question and resolution as then approved, without prejudice to the preparation of this report.
<P>
This is the point of view from which the motion for a resolution has been framed.
Whereas Parliament had been excluded from the process until the Commission's document came before it, from then on it has wanted to play a full part.
And it wants to go on doing so.
If the plan of action has become a discussion paper, this resolution will contribute to that discussion within the framework it defines.
<P>
I would therefore re-emphasize and reinforce point 20 of the motion for a resolution, which calls on the Commission to continue the dialogue launched with the two sides of industry, to coordinate and monitor the measures to be adopted to improve competitiveness in the sector, and to bear in mind that Parliament should participate in that dialogue and that discussion. Fully participate in them.
To make sure there is and will be a real, meaningful and necessary plan of action.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="Ferrer">
Mr President, Commissioner, whether liberalization represents an opportunity or a threat to the European textile and clothing industry does not depend solely on the industry's own efforts.
Therefore, Commissioner, the dialogue you have encouraged between the Commission, the Member States' authorities and the social partners within the sector ought to be greatly welcomed. The aim of that dialogue is to define strategies, bearing in mind the challenges posed by the globalization of the economy.
<P>
As a result of that dialogue, the social partners presented a report in which they specified the measures which, in their view, should be promoted at Community level. That report formed the basis of the Commission communication on measures to increase the competitiveness of this industry that we are now debating.
<P>
Well, that communication concentrates more on describing the problems and assessing the policies the Commission has been implementing than on providing concrete proposals in response to the demands put forward by the social partners with a view to improving companies' competitiveness and profiting from the liberalization of the markets.
At least, that is how we in the Committee on External Economic Relations interpreted the contents of the communication and the impression it gives.
<P>

So we think that over and above the proposed measures in the areas of training, research and development, information technologies or implementation of the internal market, much more emphasis should have been placed on questions of access to third-country markets and respect for the rules and obligations arising out of international agreements.
In particular, the Commission should have proposed specific measures to end fraud and combat dumping practices effectively and within a reasonable time-span; or to get rid of the imbalances caused by the technical and administrative obstacles which continue to hinder the access of European products to foreign markets; or to protect intellectual property, which is so important given that the European industry specializes in design and fashion; and to stimulate exports and promote the image of European products - the famous EXPROM line which, unfortunately, is diminishing all the time, because of a lack of legal base, we are told.
<P>
That is the precise gist of the amendments which were approved unanimously by the Committee on External Economic Relations and which I have tabled, in agreement with Mr Ribeiro, with the intention of getting them incorporated into the text of the resolution which accompanies his excellent report - on which I wish to congratulate you, Mr Ribeiro. I hope the House will vote in favour of these amendments, and the whole Ribeiro report.
There is no doubt that these amendments and the whole text of the resolution will make a clear and full contribution to providing the solutions which the textile and clothing industry, and all the social partners, are asking the European Union for.
<P>
I want to end by calling upon the Commission to accept the amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="Mendonça">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Ribeiro report on a 'Plan of Action for the competitiveness of the textile and clothing industry' , proposed by the Commission, deserves our acceptance to a certain extent.
By stating in the report that the proposal is not specific and lacks cohesion and specific commitments, in terms of both financing and a timetable for implementing it, he gives greater credibility and accuracy both to the conclusions and suggestions contained in the report by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and to those produced by the specialist committees that have been asked to give their opinion on the Plan of Action we are now debating.
<P>
We think it appropriate to place the main emphasis on the social aspects which necessarily underlie the subject under discussion.
We must therefore take prompt measures to slow the galloping job losses in the sector, which has a high proportion of poorly qualified labour and female employees.
<P>
In accordance with the employment policy guidelines, it is important that Member States should reduce indirect labour costs, particularly those arising from poorly qualified labour.
Because of rapid technological advances, professional training schemes never get beyond the experimental stage.
To maintain competitiveness in the sector we shall need to anticipate future developments as early as possible and apply them to training systems immediately.
<P>
Small and medium-sized enterprises merit special attention: their limited capacity makes it extremely difficult for them to invest in innovative professional training projects.
The sectoral framework agreement that the two sides of industry are already in the process of negotiating will be welcome; it is needed to bring renewed and greater hopes of improvement in the employment situation, by concentrating our efforts in the areas of promotion, professional training, competitiveness and quality.
<P>
We endorse the code of conduct signed by the two sides of the industry in Europe and the idea of introducing a certificate of quality to be awarded to textile products produced in socially acceptable conditions, so as to prevent social dumping.
By ensuring the observance of internationally accepted labour regulations, this code of conduct has provided an appropriate instrument for promoting minimum standards in the workplace, even in third countries which use child labour and have extremely low pay levels.
It should be borne in mind that in certain Member States, because of the proportion of jobs it provides, the textiles and clothing industry plays a key role in the balance of trade and the economic fabric of some of its regions which depend on the sector.
Despite this, the European Union should specifically enforce the measures its Member States or their most deprived regions are calling for, thus demonstrating true solidarity, and achieving real economic and social cohesion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Moretti">
Mr President, the Commission has presented a plan of action to increase competitiveness of the European textile industry. Unfortunately, the plan was produced too late, as though this were a marginal or relatively unimportant subject.
Our industry has now been suffering for years from unbridled competition from developing countries - and neither the Member States nor Europe are prepared to come up with an effective political and economic solution.
<P>
As a result of this competition, 600 000 jobs were lost in Europe between 1990 and 1996 and textile production fell by 4.9 %.
In the clothing sector alone, 3.7 % of production was lost.
When consulted for its opinion, the Committee on Regional Policy, Regional Planning and Relations with Regional and Local Authorities stated that it considered the proposal to be very willing to diagnose the problems and that it contained useful points but at the same time it lacked firm foundations, consistency and - above all - strategies in terms of financial investment and time frameworks.
<P>
I fully agree with the opinion of the Committee on Regional Policy and sincerely hope the entire Parliament will endeavour to ensure this sector is no longer neglected.
Today the European Parliament will be discussing the reform of the Structural Funds - and this reform cannot ignore the textile sector.
It is therefore important to ensure that the Commission's plan of action includes actions and programmes that will help, motivate and provide training for all the small and medium-sized enterprises ultimately responsible for spearheading change. This must be carried out throughout all regions dependent on textile manufacture, rich and poor alike.
Proper backing and proper financial support must be made available for this training - and also to fund research and development to continue the good work of the RETEX and EXPROM programmes.
<P>
I therefore ask the Commission to revise its plans in order to fill the gaps and to include the proposals put forward by the European Parliament.
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<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="McCarthy">
Mr President, let me first of all say to the Commissioner, that his action plan is very welcome to me as a Member of this Parliament.
I represent a region which is heavily dependent on the textile industry.
In Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire over 48 000 people are employed in clothing and textiles and in one area alone - Ashfield - it represents 24 % of manufacturing.
However, since Christmas 1997 there have been major job losses of 3 000 people, over 5 % of manufacturing.
In the UK nationally we have lost some 25 000 jobs out of 380 000, partly as a direct result of your decision to impose import duties on grey cotton.
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In my region we have an action plan using Objective 2 funding, the European Social Fund and RETEX funds worth some 1.8 million over the next three years.
Yet regional aid for many of our textile areas is under threat.
The Commission's Agenda 2000 proposal makes no provision to replace the RETEX programme, and Objective 2 areas are to be reduced.
My discussion with local, regional and national companies and organizations representing the textile sector indicates that your action plan is indeed very welcome.
They need access to investment capital for the latest high-tech machinery, support to allow traditional manufacturing to move into specialist niche markets and a branding project to promote EU manufacturing.
And of course there is the other side of the coin, proper labelling of origin.
<P>
I do not need to tell you, Commissioner, that competitiveness is the name of the game and I believe that your plan will help deliver the desired competitive gains.
But such plans need resources in order to be effective.
New money may not be necessary, but existing resources will have to be targeted in a coordinated and cohesive manner to underpin the points in your plan.
We believe it is good to set targets and goals to enable the plan to be implemented.
Any company business plan would be toothless if it did not do this and identify the sources of funding.
I hope, Commissioner, that you will reply to these points when you sum up.
<P>
I have often listened to debates and spoken to industry, the social partners, who I believe know their own business.
I hope that you will continue to work very closely with the industry, Commissioner, to deliver the competitive gains.
It remains imperative to promote access for EU companies to third country markets and we welcome a programme of coordination and proposals in this area.
<P>
Let me finish by saying what the industry does not need.
It does not need old- fashioned protectionism, which you have delivered in the decision on grey cotton imports.
I will be the first to defend Commission anti-dumping duties and quotas where they are justified, but, when they are not in the interests of the industry, I will be the first to defend my textile finishers, not only in my region but also across the EU.
For your bedtime reading, Commissioner - if you would like to look this way - I would therefore recommend that you study this document, in which the finishing industry makes its case for abolition of the provisional duties that you imposed in March.
I hope that you will listen to the industry.
I hope that you will take a decision that respects the common interest of the industry at all levels, including finishers, producers and weavers.
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<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report before us on the competitiveness of the European textile and clothing industry sends a clear message.
This sector has for a number of years been faced with major changes and challenges, and its competitive position and employment policy measures are matters which will continue to be the subject of intense debate.
<P>
In Austria this sector of the economy is the one which pays absolutely the lowest wages.
The industry is a major employer of women and is under increasingly fierce competitive pressure, with the result that many businesses have had to close.
About 2 million people are currently employed in the European textile industry.
Since 1990, as we have already heard, some 600 000 jobs have been lost.
The Commission has now devised a plan of action to counter this trend.
This is a very welcome initiative, and indeed proposals of a more concrete nature could also be drawn up with a view to providing support for small and medium-sized enterprises and increasing the competitive potential of this sector.
Of course attention must also be paid to promoting innovation and the use of new technologies, which in the long run will provide the key to success.
<P>
It seems to me to be particularly important - and my amendments should illustrate this - not to distort competition or to discriminate against businesses operating in the home market.
The textile and clothing industry is in a rapidly changing competitive environment.
This applies especially to third countries, where the circumstances are often quite different.
<P>
I also wish to refer to the amendments proposed by Mrs Ferrer, which seek more effective action against unfair practices by deploying every available means of protection laid down by international agreement.
There should be no discrimination against the exports for these markets.
<P>
I wish to conclude by saying that training measures are of course particularly important for the clothing industry, as in the long run consumers will only buy the goods they want.
This is the key to the unemployment problem.
We simply have to ensure that the products available in this area are those which the consumer wishes to purchase.
<P>
I believe that training is one of the most important instruments here.
We have to provide training not only for the technical staff but also for those on the managerial side.
We must try to introduce the latest business management methods and for this reason we should take every possible action to ensure that a proper training strategy is adopted for this sector.
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<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gasòliba i Böhm">
Mr President, the textile industry occupies a key place amongst the industrial activities of the European Union, since it is a labour-intensive sector.
At a time when employment is the Union's most serious social problem, this industry deserves very special attention from Europe's institutions.
<P>
I have followed closely the work of my own committee, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, and the other committees whose opinions have been expressed here, and I want to express the support of the Group of the European Liberal De Democrat and Reform Party for both the Ribeiro report and the proposals made by Mrs Ferrer and Mr Mendonça.
<P>
I would like to stress particularly that these proposals aim to increase the competitiveness of the textile industry.
It is not a question of protecting it, or sheltering it indefinitely from foreign competition. It is a question of making sure it enjoys a level of competitiveness which allows it to occupy a secure position as regards international competition.
For that reason, I should like to make special mention of paragraphs 5 and 6 of the Ribeiro report.
Paragraph 5 stresses the proposal to promote innovation and the use of new technologies, as well as the interaction of all the chains of the industry.
Not long ago there was an intervention which I think was mistaken, where only one aspect of one subsector of the textile industry was considered. It is a mistake to come up with a plan for the textile industry based only on one specific sector - there has been talk of the finishing sector - rather than considering it in its entirety.
<P>
Lastly, I want to underline the very important point in the Ferrer opinion about respecting the EU's agreements and rules with respect to the textile industry in the area of international trade so as to avoid unfair competition which results in an unfair loss of jobs, all for the lack of an adequate basis to guarantee the necessary continuity in the textile industry in a context of international competitiveness.
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<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Donnay">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, everyone acknowledges the predominant position of the textile and clothing industry in the European Union, which is important in economic and commercial terms, but also, and above all, in terms of jobs.
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European business is faced with fierce international competition.
Companies are most concerned by globalization, above all else.
They are obliged, more than anything, to cope with social dumping, which they find particularly damaging.
From now on, as our rapporteur Mr Ribeiro has stressed, we must seek to introduce a Community strategy to boost the competitive stance of European business, and I believe that the Commission supports this.
<P>
I represent the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region in France, where the textile sector has for some time played a major part in the local economy.
The difficulties experienced by this sector in the past and, indeed, still today have had a profound effect on our entire regional policy.
Even within the Union, we have encountered competitive situations amongst Member States which at the time were highly damaging.
With the introduction of the euro, such situations seem unlikely to occur again.
<P>
I am pleased to note the intention of the Commission to draw up a Community plan of action to increase the competitiveness of the European textile and clothing industry. But, after reading the statement by the Commission, I feel I have to agree with the rapporteur that this report is more like a simple list of good intentions than the genuinely proactive strategy that business expects.
Business needs a more robust expression of support from the European Union and the Member States.
The previous French government implemented a plan of support for the textile industry.
This clearly delineated plan had begun to produce positive results.
Unfortunately, the Commission rejected it as illegal.
<P>
That is why I am taking the opportunity of the debate on this report to ask the Commission to go even further in its proposals, because that way lies the wellbeing of countless businesses, the continuance of a large number of jobs and, ultimately, the survival of individual regions in the Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, I would first of all like to congratulate Mr Ribeiro on his report.
I think that he has vividly described the crisis faced by one of the most important industrial sectors of the European Union.
<P>
During the period 1990-1996 more than 600 000 jobs were lost and it is anticipated that over the coming years a further 800 000 jobs will go.
In particular, the impact on female employment must be stressed, given that the sector is dominated by women doing highly intensive work.
When will the European Union draw the obvious conclusions in terms of policy?
Competition is all very well, but the production base and jobs are being destroyed.
The European Union, as a result of the broader policy that it is pursuing, but more especially as a result of its industrial policy, is fundamentally undermining the sector and is reinforcing the tendency for units or centres of production to relocate to countries with low labour costs.
The European Union bears the gravest of responsibilities, because it has not taken care to protect European production, even at the most elementary level, from unfair competition on the part of countries that practice social dumping.
The plan of action that has been presented by the Commission will not reverse the current unacceptable situation.
<P>
The problems pervading the sector cannot be solved without a more general review not only of competition policy but also of the industrial and commercial policy of the European Union.
The only way to achieve growth in the sector and increased employment is a policy addressing the issue of competitiveness, with a view to supporting production and investments to modernize existing production centres, to promote full and stable employment and a change in policy with regard to cotton, coupled with measures to combat commercial and social dumping,
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<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, what we are dealing with here is not just an Iberian or McCarthy matter, but the question of whether or not to establish a model for European industry policy.
This basically means that we have to do our own homework rather than looking for scapegoats elsewhere.
We have to apply ourselves to the innovative development of high-quality products using considerable mental input, instead of pinning our hopes primarily on anti-dumping measures.
<P>

Competitiveness is not essentially a question of costs but rather a matter of developing a quality strategy, whereby we would focus additionally on regional diversification, on conversion plans and on eliminating child labour, homeworking and undeclared employment, which still typify some parts of this industry, and concentrate on developing specific devices, such as environmental labelling and declarations that proper environmental standards are being adhered to, so that customers can really find the quality products they are looking for.
<P>
Mr Rübig, offering goods for sale and expecting those goods to be purchased by the customer naturally assumes that there will continue to be mass purchasing power.
This does not apply in situations where real wage levels are falling.
<P>
One question which we still need to ask the Commission is this: why do we only develop models of this kind when there are specific sectoral difficulties instead of using them as a basis for European industrial policy as a whole?
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<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Sainjon">
Mr President, first of all I would like to congratulate Mr Ribeiro on his excellent report.
This is such a disaster area that we could very soon weary of referring back to catastrophic figures reflecting the thousands of jobs lost in recent years and the confusion sown in entire regions.
I am thinking of all the families affected, especially the women who were the first to feel the impact and, in most cases, found themselves back at the job centre, who could not offer them the slightest hope.
<P>
Not the slightest hope. In essence, these words sum up the statement from the Commission.
This catalogue of good intentions is undeniably fascinating with regard to certain proposals, but - quite simply - it lacks ambition.
For years now, and national governments have cause to shoulder some of the responsibility, the Union has pursued a defensive strategy: the strategy of despair.
<P>
If we were to highlight the individual checkpoints in the textile sector, we might first consider the drastic relocations that have occurred and their economic and social consequences not only in Europe but also in certain third countries.
Even more to the point, we should press home the advantages to be gained from innovation, quality and training.
But to achieve this we need the right facilities; for example, we need an enhanced ADAPT programme, or a strategic offensive which would enable us not only to back up restructuring programmes, but also to gain market share and to create new jobs.
<P>
Textile companies relocated in Asia just a few years ago are now coming back to Europe, since high-performance machines permit a higher level of competitiveness.
Naturally, these machines require more intensive training and this is one of the problems we have to deal with.
I am not naïve.
I am well aware that some laid-off employees will not necessarily find a job in the textile industry, or might not - once they reach a certain age - benefit from training to a very high level or adapt to information technology.
In any event, we must not leave them standing by the wayside.
I seriously think we should use the European Social Fund to redirect them to the services sector, which is taking off.
All of this is part and parcel of a new more general way of approaching the unemployment problem in Europe, to the extent that after any lay-off, a paid retraining programme should be instituted that does not land the beneficiary in a "parking lot' training course, but results in a genuine job opportunity.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, I would like to say a word about the codes of good conduct established in response to European trade unions for European textile companies investing outside the Union.
That is all very well and good, but the heads of these companies - and not just in the textile sector - are coming to see us and asking the Union to establish such a code, as the American administration did.
<P>
On a number of occasions, the European Parliament has asked the Commission to take its responsibility in this respect seriously.
We have not received any positive reply, apart from long speeches in support of codes of good conduct.
The time is up, I think.
This time, the Parliament should explicitly name those services and departments of the Commission that could take up the cudgels and exert more pressure on Mr Santer to rise to this challenge.
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<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Nicholson">
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating the rapporteur.
I share his concern that a definite plan of action is needed for the European textile industry.
The fact that more than 600 000 jobs were lost in the industry in the first 7 years of the present decade does not bode well for the industry in the next century.
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Textiles, possibly more than any other single manufacturing industry in the European Union, can claim to be our traditional industry.
In my own constituency the textile industry was the foundation of industrial development.
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I share the rapporteur's concern that the Commission communication does not provide a specific plan of action.
It is clear that the industry needs such a plan: we need more definite measures which will encourage and support innovation, design, differentiation of products and processes, through research and development and smarter operating methods.
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I would also advocate making funds available to support the piloting of imaginative, innovative projects.
Making our textile industry more competitive will require such funding to be made available, and it should be made available in a way which is accessible and easy to administer.
Incorporating piloted projects fully into the industry will also require strong support.
The more all those involved in the European textile industry work together, the better the chance for that industry in our individual Member States to become more competitive.
<P>
I fully endorse calls for support for supply-chain initiatives which, amongst other things, would encourage the large retailers in the European Union to develop links with European Union suppliers to facilitate quick response and mass customization of goods.
In line with the same logical pattern of cooperation, assistance for a European textile industry dating service would allow for greater collaboration between businesses in the European Union which share similar ideas but may not always have the means to establish such collaboration.
<P>
I note the rapporteur refers to the issue of anti-dumping measures.
The United Kingdom Members were particularly concerned at the effect the provisional measures regarding unbleached cotton grey cloth will have on the national industry.
The episode has displayed the extent to which the industry needs to be a prime candidate for anti-dumping measures.
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Finally, I wish to say to the Commissioner that this is not a sunset industry: this is an industry which has a future but requires the support of the Commission of the European Union to ensure that its future is fully realized.
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<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, Mr Ribeiro's report presents a very clear picture of the facts, problems and needs of this sector, which is so important for Europe, for our small and medium-sized enterprises and for EU employment policy.
In view of the enormous international competitive pressures I consider it essential that this industry should organize its national production chains more intensively along European lines and should strive to develop a network of transboundary production chains within the integrated economic area.
<P>
There needs to be greater interaction between all the different links in the production chain, from the use of specialized machines through garment making to the retail distributors.
The fact that there are different types of textile sub-sector and that there is a high degree of fragmentation within the industry should not prevent this sector being considered and treated as a heterogeneous whole from both an economic and sociopolitical point of view.
<P>
We should therefore give our full support to the call for the Commission to submit a new plan of action which focuses more on promoting innovation and on using new technologies.
The SMEs, both as producers of finished products and as suppliers, merit particular attention, not least because of the important role they play in ensuring job stability.
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<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Torres Marques">
Mr President, may I first of all congratulate the Commission on this plan of action to increase competitiveness in the textile and clothing industry, my colleague Sérgio Ribeiro on the report he has presented to us today, and the draftsmen of the Committees' opinions.
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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are dealing today with one of the European Union's principal industrial activities, one which on its own accounts for ECU 200 billion worth of trade, but in relation to which the European Union's balance of trade with the rest of the world shows a deficit.
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There are 120 000 businesses, nearly all of them small or medium-sized, involved in all aspects of the textile and clothing industry, and of over 2 million jobs the majority are occupied by women.
The employment situation in this sector is one of those which has most affected the rate of unemployment in Europe: between 1990 and 1996 600 000 jobs were lost, 100 000 of them in 1996 alone, and unemployment is expected to progress for the next few years, affecting 800 000 jobs, unless something is done to halt it.
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Knowing that employment is a decisive issue for the European Union, and that most of the unemployed are women, we therefore demand immediate and far-reaching measures in that area, especially because it affects the least developed countries in the European Union, or those in industrial decline, and the regions that are heavily dependent on the textile and clothing business.
In Portugal, for example, the sector is responsible for over 30 % of industrial production.
<P>
The quality textile sector has a future in Europe, and the need to maintain employment and reverse the trade deficit means that the European Union must give the sector strong support, especially by:
<P>
implementing properly monitored anti-dumping measures and social conditions in relation to third countries, for example by stipulating a 'social label' ; -actively supporting small and medium-sized enterprises, especially in the National Action Plans for employment; -more action on professional training schemes and adaptation to women's domestic needs, since the great majority of workers in the sector are women; -increasing subsidies for the promotion of Community textile and clothing exports, particularly by allocating more funds to budget heading B7-852. In this respect the European Parliament has a special part to play in bringing our financial proposals into line with what we propose to do; -developing the creation of new products by means of the Fifth Framework Programme on Research and Technological Development; -improving the way the internal market works and cooperation within the European Union.This is a set of measures the Commission should extend and elaborate on, and they need to be specifically included in the plan of action to increase competitiveness in the textile and clothing industry presented to us today.
This sector is vital to employment and production in the European Union.
Let us be consistent and give it our unequivocal support.
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<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Carlsson">
Mr President, we are now discussing the competitiveness of the European textiles and clothing industry.
I welcome the Commission's plan of action in this area because I believe it is a very important sector for Europe.
It is important for us to talk about this, particularly in the context of continued liberalization within the WTO.
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Since the 1970s, several Member States have opened their markets to textile imports and abolished old forms of subsidy.
An enormous change took place in these sectors and areas, and that happened because protection would favour neither increased expertise, development activity nor free trade with new competing countries.
Above all, it was imports from the countries of southern Europe, which were then demanding free trade and access to markets, which revolutionized conditions for, amongst others, Sweden's industrial districts.
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Several decades have now passed.
Today we have high-quality production, but without the same number of workers.
A lot of production has been relocated to places like Estonia.
However, the companies I am now talking about in Sweden's industrial districts are not helped by distorting financial subsidy programmes within the EU or by textile quotas.
<P>
When I hear some colleagues demanding in various terms more protection against textile imports, this does not reflect the EU's spirit of free trade or solidarity.
The newly democratic counties of central and eastern Europe, and developing countries in other parts of the world, must have access.
They must be allowed to compete with their conditions, and that often means lower wages than the wages we demand in the EU.
<P>
I fully respect the fact that we need a transition period.
I support the plan of action and joint efforts to bridge this period.
However, there should be no doubt at all about the objective, that is to say free trade and competition on equal terms.
I support this because I believe that this sector, the European textile industry, has very good conditions.
I do not believe that it is an end in itself for us to try to preserve many of the poor jobs which actually exist in the sector today. Instead I have faith in this industry and know that it is actually a world leader in several segments and extremely competitive.
However, if we are to succeed in including the whole sector in this, we need an increased ability to change, specialization and a higher know-how content, so that we can compete in a globalized economy.
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<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am one of those who consider that the Commission's communication can hardly be called a plan of action.
On the other hand, I do think that the industry should not expect too much from Europe, but that the industry itself and the Member States will have to make the necessary adjustments.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, what will have to happen to secure the competitiveness of the industry in a global economy?
Europe has to ensure strict compliance with the rules of the Uruguay round.
Tariff barriers preventing free export have to be lowered and sophisticated techniques to prevent exports from third countries are absolutely forbidden.
European textile producers are, of their own accord, avoiding the need to compete with cheap imported products.
After all, the trumps they hold lie more in quality products, new applications and the use of new technologies.
In this respect, the Fifth European Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development may provide encouragement for many SMEs who are prepared to innovate.
<P>
National governments cannot escape their responsibilities.
At every Council meeting, they promise better training and a reduction of labour costs which, by the way, are part of the reason for the black economy in this sector.
It is high time that these promises were kept.
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<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Ainardi">
Mr President, in its communication, the European Commission acknowledged that the textile sector has, in recent years, sacrificed a considerable number of jobs.
We all know that the crisis in the textile sector is due mainly to delocalization, increased imports, lower consumption due to unemployment and a drop in incomes, but also to significant delays as regards training, research and equipment modernization.
<P>
Nevertheless, the textile industry still represents a promising sector for the future of Europe, as we have seen from the Ribeiro report, which not only criticizes the Commission's approach, but also puts forward proposals to halt the massive loss of jobs and make a positive contribution to the future development of the textile sector.
<P>
In its communication, the European Commission committed itself to an approach that seeks to improve the competitiveness of business which, in itself, is not a bad thing, but it essentially wishes to do this by exerting pressure on labour costs and by encouraging flexibility, solutions which have already unworkable.
Neither pressure on wages, nor a reduction of labour costs has prevented continued job dumping and further aggravation of the trade deficit.
So, whilst offsetting the distortions of competition and combating the ill effects of social dumping, we must seek more positive means of promoting a reduction in working hours, developing research, improving training facilities and modernizing equipment by introducing new technologies; we should also aim to elevate purchasing power to boost consumption in the textile and clothing sector.
Unless it is emasculated, or weakened by the adoption of amendments, the Ribeiro report - which covers all these proposals - should be given our full support.
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<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Mr President, Commissioner Bangemann, ladies and gentlemen, there are certain reports that we have to debate and vote on in our Parliament which capture our attention as a whole and which appeal to me especially.
They are the ones that dwell on industrial policies, policies that sustain and create wealth, business and jobs.
Entire regions depend on them.
They constitute the bedrock, indeed the condition that governs everything else, including the drift of public opinion and the morale of employees everywhere, hope for the future and support for the European cause itself.
I said the very same thing just a month ago when I delivered my report on European industrial competitiveness and its prospects.
<P>
Sérgio Ribeiro's excellent report emphasizes the logic of this approach.
It heads in the same direction and contributes to the creation of a future framework for the textile industry.
As the elected representative of a large, long-established textile region in the north of France, I commend his report and would like to tell him that I support the underlying philosophy of his message.
It is quite legitimate to institute an action programme that would allow this sector to fight on equal terms with the competition from third countries.
Consequently, I believe that the European Union should play a key role in the fight against dumping, by means of social and environmental provisions, together with financial restrictions on imported goods, should this prove necessary.
<P>
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we must reaffirm the special nature of the textile industry, which employs a vast labour force, often with few qualifications and with a significant number of women workers.
Many parliamentary reports have stressed the training aspect.
Now we must find the means to do something about it.
So I am hoping for a strong, specific commitment on the part of the Commission.
<P>
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is quite natural for us to enquire about the repercussions of the Asian crisis, about the growth in the trade gap with those regions and therefore consequences for European textile companies.
I expect a greater degree of transparency.
<P>
And yes, ladies and gentlemen, we must support all initiatives that favour job growth, but not from an ideological standpoint.
We must further the development of new technologies in this sector.
Many of my colleagues have said as much.
We can and must be able to combine new technologies, steps to promote jobs and social development.
To conclude, I simply wish to restate the fundamental importance of the textile chain in European industry.
Textiles are not a mere relic of the past.
This is an industry with a future.
We must consider the consequences and provide the means.
My friends, we in Europe are once again in a cycle of growth, so much to the good; we must now do everything in our power to encourage it with research, training, a strong commercial stance and a proactive, intelligent approach to the social aspects.
The textile industry in Europe is a fertile breeding ground.
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<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Porto">
Mr President, my colleague Sérgio Ribeiro's report, on which I congratulate him, makes a significant contribution to the much-needed promotion of the textile and clothing sector, reinforcing Commissioner Bangemann's welcome initiative.
This is a very important sector for Portugal, where it represents 9 % of production and 13 % of all jobs, and we are particularly concerned that it should have registered a 22 % reduction in employment between 1990 and 1995, higher than for the European Union as a whole.
Yet this does not mean there is no future for the sector, because the loss of jobs - which requires readjustment measures - is largely due to ongoing increases in productivity.
By way of example, productivity in Portugal rose from 1.43 escudos per employee in 1990 to 2.14 in 1995.
<P>
On the positive side, it should be pointed out that even in a world of fierce competition from countries with much cheaper labour, Europe has continued to maintain a strong position.
This is essentially due to high-quality fashion products: all over the world preference is given to our brand names, which is also a kind of recognition of European cultural values, in this case of an aesthetic nature.
It is therefore important that those values are happily married to our economic activities.
<P>
With regard to promoting our exports, there is every justification for increasing the budgetary heading we jointly proposed a few years ago.
This is a heading that has been amply justified by the contribution it has made to sales in major but much more difficult markets, such as those of Japan and other Asian countries.
You will understand, therefore, that we very particularly wish to emphasize the need to support the REX Committee's suggestion - which Mrs Ferrer has also mentioned - that increased funds should be made available for that allocation.
<P>
If we agree or even wish that our markets should be open to third countries, we must also implement some restructuring measures, which are needed in many cases.
This is happening in Portugal, with the programme of assistance for the textile sector agreed at the end of the Uruguay Round, although we naturally cannot now accept any reduction in the funds presently allocated, which are fully justified and to which we are committed. It would be incomprehensible if the politicians were to fail to honour that commitment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Mr President, first I should like to thank Mr Ribeiro for a very thorough and in-depth report.
In Finland too the textile sector has had to undergo radical structural change, and tens of thousands of jobs have been lost.
Nevertheless, the textile industry that has remained with us, after the changes were made, has shown itself to be competitive in world markets.
<P>
In trying to cope with both structural changes in the sector and present uncertainty, the most important factor, alongside technical development, has proved to be social innovation, such as the reorganization of work, greater autonomy of workers, and management methods.
For this reason we should pay close attention to the increase in demand for work skills among company staff, and the change in the type of skills required.
Professional training should be provided for all staffing sectors, taking account of three requirements: increased interaction, negotiation and problem-solving.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García Arias">
Mr President, I first want to congratulate the rapporteur.
Given the importance of this sector from an employment point of view, especially women's employment, and its regional impact, Parliament should permanently monitor developments the sector, and carry on with this work.
<P>
This sector is a touchstone for European economic and social values and our reactions to the globalization which is talked about so much. It is true that analysis of this sector lends itself to conservative, protectionist clichés and attitudes.
It is also true that we are talking in positive terms about a European industrial sector which is complex by virtue of its heterogeneity and diversity, dynamic and, in many cases, competitive. Nevertheless, without wishing to dramatize the situation, it is also true to say that we are faced with problems in this sector - in Europe and the world - due to tough international competition and restructuring.
So we are looking at massive layoffs, unequal pay for men and women, a lack of job security, sexual harassment, low pay, undeclared employment, delocalization, and, in other parts of the world, the exploitation of child and female labour, unhealthy working environments, and examples of dubious industrial ethics - in what is called the necessary international division of labour - such as some 'maquilas' in border areas and free trade zones.
<P>
What are the solutions?
I believe that, as already has been said here, we must first of all respect social dialogue in Europe and support the international promotion of the basic conventions of the International Labour Organization.
Here and in the World Trade Organization we must speed up the processes of defending and promoting European trade.
That is why it is so important to promulgate and apply the code of social conduct which should also be complemented by programmes of economic and social support in third countries.
At the same time, here in Europe, we need wholehearted support for technological innovation, quality, branded products and lifelong learning, as well as implementing regional and social measures.
I say this because the restructuring process will continue, and diversification in the textile regions should guarantee the preservation of jobs in these areas, especially for women.
<P>
Unfortunately, we do not think the plan of action we are discussing is sufficiently ambitious, since it does not specify concrete measures or adequate funding.
So we are faced with an important challenge, which has already been mentioned: that of attaining a balance between growth, competitiveness and employment.
I would add that that applies not just within the European Union, but also in our relations with third parties.
<P>
It is not a question of protectionism, Mr President. It is a question of making sure that all the social criteria we say we stand for are respected in the international division of labour which is affecting this sector.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Otila">
Mr President, in my opinion the proposal by the Commission to enhance competitiveness in the textile and clothing industry does not go far enough.
As we stated in the opinion of the Committee on Regional Policy, the so-called plan of action is more a preliminary, tentative plan than a programme ready for implementation.
<P>
The European textile and clothing industry has been made competitive mainly by an efficient, skilled workforce, high-quality, innovative and up-to-date production methods, and specialization and flexibility in the industry.
Weaknesses in the sector in Europe have long been due to unfair access to markets.
The EU has opened up its own markets without obtaining reciprocal and equal access to third country markets.
An example of this is the latest agreement with Russia.
The EU abandoned its restrictions with hardly any concessions in return.
<P>
European Community regional aid to the textile and clothing industry treats different EU regions unequally.
Large centres of population in Finland do not qualify for this kind of aid.
Nor can the RETEX programme be applied in Finland.
Yet Finnish business has to compete in the single market with companies receiving support.
<P>
I would like to remind everyone that EU aid and action to encourage competitiveness must be such as to avoid distortion of competition and guarantee companies the same opportunities for competition in the market.
Companies' competitiveness is ultimately a question of their ability to be innovative and develop, which should be the main criterion in granting programmes of aid.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Frutos Gama">
Mr President, before getting down to details, I should like to congratulate Mr Ribeiro, because this was not an easy subject to tackle, and he has done so efficiently and accurately.
I would also like to congratulate the three draftsmen of opinions.
I have already congratulated one of them, Mr Moretti, when we examined his work in the Committee on Regional Policy.
My compatriot, Mrs Ferrer, has done a wonderful piece of work for the Committee on External Economic Relations, and the same is true of Mr Mendonça for the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
<P>
The textile and clothing sector in Europe represents a very important source of jobs for women.
They account for as much as 75 % of the workforce in this sector, which makes it the mainstay of women's employment in the industrial sector and means its future will have a decisive impact on the position of women in European industry.
<P>
The various restructuring strategies within the sector - such as the introduction of new technologies, the delocalization of some production, the reorientation of production towards the top end of the range and the rapid response to changes in demand - have a serious and almost exclusive effect on women workers.
<P>
As regards qualifications, women mainly work in semi-skilled or unskilled jobs.
Men are over-represented in more senior positions.
In sectors with a very high concentration of women, such as the one we are dealing with here, the percentage of skilled women is higher than that of skilled men, because skilled men are not attracted by the low wages in the textile sector.
The average wage is lower than the average manufacturing industry wage, and women's average pay is sometimes considerably less than men's, for example in Ireland or the Netherlands, as described in the 1991 study on "the impact of the internal market on the employment of women in the textile and clothing industries' produced by the Directorate-General for Employment.
<P>
At this time of restructuring, companies which cannot anticipate the changes caused by the single market, new technologies and globalization will have to make an extra effort to adapt, which will chiefly affect the workforce, and particularly unskilled workers, who are mainly women.
To avoid this happening, it is imperative for us to provide these unskilled female workers with the means to retrain and obtain the qualifications needed for the new production processes.
<P>
I think this objective and this aspiration have been expressed perfectly in the report by Mr Ribeiro which we have before us today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Chanterie">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, we are all aware of the fact that textiles and clothing have been synonymous with job losses for more than twenty years.
Although It has already been mentioned, I think we do have to keep in mind that a further 600 000 jobs have been lost in the last six or seven years.
We have cohesion and structural policies in the Union.
There are loans from the European Social Fund and the RETEX programme, but these are not real solutions. Hence the importance of the plan of action that the European Commission has drawn up in consultation with the industry and the Member States.
Hence also the importance of the Ribeiro report, and I would like to particularly congratulate the rapporteur on his report.
<P>
I would like to talk in more detail about four points in the context of this plan of action.
First of all, improving competitiveness.
I believe that there have to be three important elements in this. First, reducing labour costs; this involves increased training, because there are a very large number of semi- and unskilled workers in this industry and many semi- or unskilled women working in the ready-made clothing industry.
Greater efforts are also needed in research and development in order to be able to introduce new technologies.
Do not let us forget that we are mainly dealing with typical SMEs here.
There are around 120 000 of them in the European Union.
It is thus a completely different industry from the automotive sector, where in the final analysis we only have ten or twelve large companies.
There are a lot of small companies in this industry, Commissioner, and they have specific needs and have to have specific support, particularly with regard to new technologies.
<P>
Secondly, access to international markets.
It cannot be repeated often enough, Commissioner, that more and more new trade barriers are being raised.
Brazil, for example, introduced an import duty of over 50 % at the beginning of this year.
How can we get access to the international market when there are countries carrying on like that?
We have reached agreement on the abolition of the Multifibre Agreement around the year 2005, but to correct this access to markets has to be available at international level.
In other words, we have to act quickly against those countries that operate dumping practices, such as China, India, and Egypt, and above all we have to protect intellectual property as well.
<P>
The balance of trade with third countries is in the red. Do not let us forget that.
There is a surplus in the textile industry of 5.4 billion but there is a deficit of 22.6 billion in the clothing industry.
Therefore, the European Commission and the Union have to take prompt and efficient action in this area.
<P>
Thirdly, the social dimension.
The European Union must support the basic conventions of the International Labour Organization as far as possible in the international arena.
That is an absolute necessity, it goes without saying that, among other things, there must be a ban on child labour in the European Union, and Mr Ribeiro referred to this.
<P>
Fourthly, the role of management and labour.
Before this action plan is implemented, Commissioner, I believe that it will be necessary to set up a follow-up committee where representatives of management and workers, the "social partners' , will also be able to play a role.
<P>
I will conclude, Mr President, by saying that I, as the chairman of the textile and clothing committee of the Central Economic Council in my own country, would like to express my pleasure about the action plan and about the resolution that was approved by the Council of Ministers.
The most difficult phase, that is to say implementation, is now to come, and there we are counting on you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bangemann">
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
We have all taken note of the Commissioner's wishes. Now we will wait to see what happens and then decide, Mr Bangemann, what drink we should put in the glass you claim we will have to offer you.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Composition of the Economic and Financial Committee
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0264/98) by Mrs Berès, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission communication on detailed provisions concerning the composition of the Economic and Financial Committee accompanied by a proposal for a Council decision on the detailed provisions concerning the composition of the Economic and Financial Committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="Berès">
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="Harrison">
Mr President, I congratulate my colleague, Mrs Berès, for throwing light on one of the more shadowy organizations of the European Union - the Monetary Committee.
Chaired by the distinguished and retiring Sir Nigel Wicks, it has done valuable service in preparing papers for Ecofin.
Some of its confidentiality is justified.
There is a sense in which seminal papers must be allowed to sow the seeds of their ideas before they see the light of day.
<P>
Nevertheless, it is time to be more transparent.
The change of the name to the Economic and Financial Committee is an appropriate juncture at which to prompt reform.
In my own recent meeting with Sir Nigel I was encouraged to hear him support the idea that his successor as Chair - he himself will not continue in that role, as Britain is not a founding member of EMU - should appear regularly before a relevant committee of the European Parliament to make the EFC more open to the public gaze.
This despite the fact that Article 109c of the Treaty only requires Parliament to be informed of the Council's decisions.
<P>
All that would be a good start, but the change of name should also reflect a change of function.
Many of us are concerned that the Treaty emphasizes monetary matters at the expense of economic management.
The renamed Economic and Financial Committee should tilt the balance back to a proper equilibrium.
The rapporteur's suggestion that new links should be formed with the near-moribund Economic Policy Committee set up in 1974 is good, as too is the proposal that dialogue should be encouraged between the EFC and the Employment Committee created under the employment chapter of the Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
The key to what the rapporteur, and the Socialist Group, seek to achieve lies in the composition of the membership of the EFC.
It should of course be as balanced and skilful as France's winning football team on Sunday.
However, at the moment it is banked with bankers, although Article 109c does not specify whether representatives should come from national banks or from economic and finance ministries.
Surely it would be preferable here, in addition to national central bankers, to have representatives from the economic ministries who are themselves responsible for formulating short and medium-term economic policies.
There is even a case for substitution on the 34-person EFC.
Experts in the fields of taxation or budgeting should substitute for regular members from time to time if that leads to better and more informed debate.
<P>
Finally, I support the rapporteur's proposals that the Council's decisions should be amended so they can be reviewed before 1 Jan 2002 and that the Commission, EFC and ECB should report before 1 July 2001 on the state of interinstitutional relations in the context of EMU since the beginning of Stage 3.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Peijs">
Mr President, the Economic and Financial Committee that is to be set up has a large number of important tasks, and they are all in the previously mentioned article 109 C, paragraph 2 of the Maastricht Treaty.
What does the EFC do?
It gives advice upon request or on its own initiative to the Council and to the Commission, studies the economic and financial circumstances of the Community, prepares the work of the Council in a wide range of areas such as exchange rate policy and the coordination of economic policy.
A great deal of attention has been paid in particular to the coordination of economic policy in the last few months.
And this coordination is becoming more and more important.
<P>
Wim Duisenberg wrote in his response to the written questions of the public hearing in May that inflation is not solely determined by monetary policy, but also by budgetary policy.
By both, therefore, Mr President, in contrast to what our rapporteur implies.
Therefore, good cooperation must be brought about between the governments who are responsible for budget policy and the European Central Bank, which ultimately determines interest rates.
The Economic and Financial Committee will play a central role in this, and to my way of thinking it will be the forum for coordination.
<P>
I find Mrs Berès' proposal to remove the monetary specialists or the representatives of the European Central Bank from the Committee unacceptable.
National monetary specialists would therefore no longer be on the Committee, according to her plan.
Like Mrs Berès, I would like to emphasize the need for a coordinated policy, but not in the same way.
This is why my group has tabled three amendments.
I consider that it must be possible to make individual countries aware of their responsibilities.
If some countries relax their budgetary policies, this could mean that the ECB will have to step on the monetary brake at the expense of those countries that have their house in order.
This must not happen.
Wim Duisenberg has already stated that he sees a task reserved for the European Central Bank in rapping the knuckles of countries which go off the European budgetary rails as laid down in the stability pact.
In the Netherlands, too, the Nederlandse Bank has appointed itself the critical and independent judge of government finances, even in the past, and now the new President is taking this line again.
The Nederlandse Bank criticized the negotiations on the financial margins of a new government only three weeks ago.
That is precisely the reason why the national monetary specialists on the Committee cannot be dispensed with as Mrs Berès imagines.
They ensure the necessary impartial knowledge about the state of the economy in the various Member States and will be a critical voice within the Committee.
They must prevent the Committee from echoing "his master's voice' too much.
After all, if there are only civil servants from the Finance Ministries on the Committee, Ecofin will be advising itself.
Developments in German wages are another current indication that the warning voice of the national central banks has to be heard clearly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gasòliba i Böhm">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I agree with the opinions which have been expressed here, both by the rapporteur and by the representatives of the Group of the Party of European Socialists and the Group of the European People's Party, in the sense that the currently proposed composition of this Economic and Financial Committee, which is to replace the Monetary Committee, should be broader and that it should operate more at Community level.
<P>
The Commissioner will recall that during the debate on the content of the annual economic report, in which the Monetary Committee proposed limiting the Commission's ability to assess the economic situation in the various Member States separately, Parliament rejected that restriction.
Maybe that restriction on the Commission's competence will come about after all, if the composition of the Economic and Financial Committee is established as it stands in the current proposal.
<P>
I can see an important defect in this composition, because the Economic and Financial Committee would become a sort of alternative Governing Council of the European Central Bank and an alternative Ecofin, so that the overall situation would be controlled but without there being a forum for debate at the level of the whole European Union, able to analyse the economic and financial situation objectively and thus advise both the ECB and the EU institutions themselves, such as the Commission or Parliament itself.
So I think it would be a good idea to review this composition and provide it with a real Community dimension, at EU level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, what we are dealing with here is a much more general problem than simply the composition of a committee.
What we are dealing with is the risk of diminishing political vigilance in the wake of the decision on the euro, where the old dreams of the technocrats suddenly appear again on the agenda and institutional non-regulation changes to institutionalized non-policy.
<P>
I have a word of warning for the ECB.
Institutional nirvana is not a safe place to be and there is circumstantial evidence for this.
Firstly, the press are saying that Mr Duisenberg's salary is to be regarded as a state secret.
I hope that he will be able to deny this.
Secondly, there is the procedure for establishing the basic principles of economic policy, where the Monetary Committee has practically worked out all the political aspects, that is to say the primacy of employment policy, the embodiment of monetary policy and the relationship between wages policy and productivity trends, on the basis of the Commission's proposal, thereby rendering the latter incapable of action.
What we need here are institutions which can enter into consultation with the European Parliament, and not just feed it information.
We need a political body which is properly qualified to run the Ecofin and Euro-11 meetings in coordination with the Employment Committee - something like a European economic government. This will not be achieved by the proposal as it stands, which does nothing more than revive the nightmares of technocracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Castagnède">
Mr President, Members of this House, we should congratulate Mrs Berès on her perspicacity.
<P>
The Commission proposal concerning the composition of the Economic and Financial Committee due to succeed the Monetary Committee actually conveys an innocent impression of continuity.
But, in reality, it represents a divergence from European economic construction towards a double overindulgence: a surfeit of monetarism and an excess of technocracy.
<P>
Yet the name of the Economic and Financial Committee projected an image of a place of reflection extending beyond mere monetary matters.
Its function in formulating decisions regarding the coordination of economic policies or defining major economic policy guidelines leads it naturally to consider all economic and social data, with reference to all the instruments of economic and social policy.
<P>
But the Commission proposals relating to its membership are exceedingly limiting.
They simply make it an adjunct of banking and monetary policy, which the ESCB could well do without, since its independence and range of measures have a solid basis.
<P>
The rapporteur has good reason to criticize the elevated status some would seek to grant the representatives of the central banks on the Committee and, with respect to the senior officials, the monopoly envisaged for the representatives of financial administrations only.
So, it seems to us that it would be a good idea to increase the membership of the Economic and Financial Committee, to restrict - as Mrs Berès would wish - the role of the representatives of the central banks, but also (and here we are deliberately stepping beyond the wishes of our rapporteur), to ensure that the skills of practitioners in economic and social matters, other than those of the senior officials, are represented.
<P>
Finally, we share the Mrs Berès' desire to see a regular information and consultation procedure set up between the Economic and Financial Committee and the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, the start of the third phase of EMU is prompting a restructuring of the Monetary Committee.
The name will be changed too, unfortunately.
In my opinion, it should have stayed the same. Then the rapporteur would at least have been spared a disappointment.
Now she thinks that the change of name will also lead to a change of substance.
However, cause and effect are being reversed here.
There should have been a much stronger plea for retaining the name Monetary Committee.
<P>
In the explanatory statement of the report, the rapporteur says that the countries of the euro-area have dual representation on the Economic and Financial Committee, namely via their own representatives (directly) and via the representatives of the European Central Bank (indirectly).
I cannot follow this reasoning.
It will not do to regard representatives of the ECB as indirect representatives of the euro-area countries.
That essentially indicates a failure to understand the independence of the ECB.
<P>
This is also demonstrated by the following point.
Because despite the fact that the rapporteur does not think much of the influence of national civil servants within the Economic and Financial Committee, her report is an unmistakable plea for a typical national French hobby-horse: the formation of an economic administration at European level as a counterpart to the ECB, which - in the eyes of the French government - is too much along German lines.
<P>
Given what I have just said, the European Parliament's lack of serious powers in this area is of very little importance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Mr President, the Economic and Financial Committee, which is to supersede the current Monetary Committee, strengthens the position of the Finance Council in relation to the EU's other Councils of Ministers.
It is worrying to me that not enough emphasis was placed on such things at Maastricht, that the role of the European Commission is thereby weakened and that in important processes for the coordination of finance policy the Commission does not propose but rather recommends.
Parliament must support calls for this situation to be changed when the time comes for the Treaty to be revised.
<P>
The EU must adopt a new approach to policy coordination.
The rapporteur is quite right in referring to this and the Economic and Financial Committee - and here I can only share your hopes and indeed your opinions - must also reflect this new approach to coordination.
I very much regret that the twin-track approach to the process of monetary union, as conceived by Giscard d'Estaing and Helmut Schmidt when the European exchange-rate mechanism was being set up, has not yet achieved its crowning moment, as it were.
At that time two committees were set up - the Monetary Committee and the Employment Committee.
The Monetary Committee was institutionalized and enshrined in treaty law, while the Employment Committee continued to live in its shadow.
This is not justified, given the dramatic policy development and the nil return in respect of European added value.
I therefore think that the problems of employment policy, economic policy and financial policy actually have to be seen as a whole.
I should like to recall that this Parliament, when it adopted the broad guidelines for economic policies last year, stressed that these guidelines must also take account of other considerations, particularly since the Ministers' decision on economic and finance policy has to be seen in connection with the budget debates in the national parliaments, which always take place in the autumn of each year.
<P>
The Economic and Financial Committee has an advisory role, yet it has become an institution.
Its function must accordingly be made more transparent and enforceable.
It is therefore correct to say that we need a monetary dialogue over and above the previous dialogue.
You know that for years Parliament has been carrying on a dialogue with the Monetary Committee via the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs.
This must also be extended to the Economic and Financial Committee, so that opinions on stability plans, on the avoidance of excessive deficit and other moves aimed at coordinating economic policy do not remain solely in the hands of monetary authorities and monetary advisory bodies, but that other parties are also included.
<P>
I still think that it is important to have a Jumbo Council every year.
The already paramount role of the Council of Finance Ministers, should not lead to a situation in which economic and employment policy is decided upon without input from the Ministers for Employment and Economic Affairs.
While the institutional structure of Monetary Union is all too clear, the decision-making processes for this Union are, by contrast, underdeveloped.
We need a fresh approach here, and the Berès report gives us renewed hope of this.
We probably even require an additional protocol to Article 103 of the Maastricht Treaty, so that in future we too become part of the real processes of negotiation and decision-making.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herman">
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Christodoulou">
Mr President, the Economic and Financial Committee, which replaces the former Monetary Committee, is something completely different, and its composition and the way in which it will function must reflect that fact.
In other words there is no longer any question of it carrying out some kind of coordination of the monetary policies of the relevant Member States.
This work is carried out by the European Central Bank.
The new committee will be a kind of technical adviser with as broad-based a composition as possible. This technical adviser will attempt to find ways of coordinating the financial policies of the Member States who have signed up to European Economic and Monetary Union and of the states that have not yet joined Economic and Monetary Union yet remain within the exchange rate mechanism.
In other words, it must have the general power to advise on issues relating to the coordination of the financial policy of the Member States of the European Union with more general monetary policy.
This work is new and has not previously been carried out.
<P>
I do not think that much needs to be said and I think that we must not overstate its role.
Naturally it will help, naturally it will assist along these lines, but it is not anything absolute or anything that should give rise to the fears that have been expressed in this House.
Judging by the way in which audiences are arranged between the Parliament's committees and various bodies that are far more important than the one we are debating at the moment - and Mrs Randzio-Plath makes reference to this - and judging by the way in which they respond, I have the impression that this will continue. I would also like to see what committee would refuse to appear before the committees of the European Parliament to give an account of decisions it has taken, even if this is not provided for by the Treaty or by anything else.
I do not think, therefore, that we need be overly concerned about this, and the composition of the Economic and Financial Committee must be as before: it must contain representatives of the central banks of the relevant Member States.
It will be a good compromise between the European Central Bank on the one hand and representatives of the finance ministries on the other.
<P>
Let us then look at the matter coolly and let us not exaggerate either the significance or the role of this committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="De Silguy">

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Berès' report concerns the procedures relating to membership of the Economic and Financial Committee, on which the Economic and Financial Affairs Council must make a decision. This report makes a major and interesting contribution to the overall debate about the process of establishing Economic and Monetary Union.
<P>
Certainly, Article 109C, paragraph 3 of the Treaty on European Union does not formally admit consultation with the European Parliament on this matter, but it is quite legitimate that this House should seize upon an issue of this importance.
Moreover, the Treaty does impose a general obligation on the President of the Council to keep the House informed, so it is natural that this should be given some substance.
<P>
Along with the Commission, I therefore commend the words of your rapporteur on the membership of this new Committee and I also note with interest everything that has been said regarding its status, which should also be adopted before 1 January 1999.
The Commission will also pronounce on this new status and, at the appropriate time, it will take account of your views.
<P>
To reply to the matters raised - especially by the rapporteur this morning - I would like to make two quick comments concerning, firstly, the actual membership of the Economic and Financial Committee and, secondly, its role.
<P>
With regard to the membership, Article 109C, paragraph 2, stipulates that the Member States, the Commission and the European Central Bank shall each appoint not more than two members of the Committee.
Now, at the European Council in Luxembourg, on 12 and 13 December last year, the Heads of State and Government, in their resolution on the coordination of economic policies, stated their intentions and I will quote the conclusions of the European Council: The Economic and Financial Committee, which will bring together senior officials from the national central banks and the ECB as well as from finance ministries, will provide the framework within which the dialogue can be prepared and continued at the level of senior officials.
<P>
So, Mr Castagnède, there is no departure.
I do not accept this criticism since the text from the European Council defines the natural framework in which the Commission is bound to make its proposal even if, as the rapporteur rightly points out, the Commission has not specified the original administration which is to be represented in the Committee.
This, however, was the only room for manoeuvre left to it by the text from the Heads of State and Government.
<P>
From the standpoint of the Commission, there can be no continuity between the Monetary Commission and the Economic and Financial Committee.
As Mr Harrison pointed out, it is not merely a matter of changing the name, it involves changing the nature of the system itself.
This is why the tasks facing the Economic and Financial Committee are no longer the same as those of the Monetary Committee.
<P>
The duties of the Economic and Financial Committee have been specified, they are defined in Article 109, paragraph 2 of the Treaty and they focus exclusively on monitoring the economic and financial situation of Member States and financial relations with third countries and other international institutions but especially, and I think this is important, the Economic and Financial Committee contributes to the preparation of Council work at technical level.
<P>
In reply to Mr Herman, I would say that those appointed are appointed on an intuitu personae basis, rather than as governmental representatives and I believe that Mr Christodoulou is right when he says that this function should not be overestimated.
We are talking about preparing the Council technically with regard to three essential subjects: multilateral surveillance, the broad guidelines for economic policies and decisions to be taken under the excessive deficit procedure.
<P>
So, what we need to make the Economic and Financial Committee work is a base of expertise, it will not override the Council, let me reassure Mr Castagnède that it is not nor ever will be a mere branch office of the national central banks.
<P>
I am of the opinion that the economic dimension of the Committee's duties is of primary importance.
So this should be reflected in its membership.
The European Central Bank should duly appoint its representatives with regard to monetary policy and the Member States should do the same with regard to the various components of economic policy.
Consequently, the suggestion by the rapporteur, Mrs Berès, about alternate members should be given particular attention.
In truth, it is vital that the senior officials present should be technically competent in the subjects dealt with - whether this be taxation -as you pointed out - budgetary matters or economic forecasting.
<P>
As far as the Commission is concerned, the Economic and Financial Committee should be a technical instrument which will help to enhance the coordination of economic policies which, I would remind you, are aimed at promoting growth and jobs.
<P>
This brings me to my second set of comments which, I assure you, will be very much shorter; these concern the role of the Economic and Financial Committee.
<P>
Here, too, the European Council in Luxembourg reached the conclusion that the Economic and Financial Committee should serve as a focus for dialogue - and here I am responding to the wishes of Mrs Randzio-Plath - specifically a dialogue between the Council and the European Central Bank at senior official level.
I believe that there are two sides to the matter of dialogue on coordination: firstly, coordination between economic policy and monetary policy and, secondly, between individual aspects of economic policy.
<P>
While we are on the subject of the link between economic and monetary policy, I think that it is the responsibility of the ECB, the guardian of single monetary policy and the Council, which adopts and implements the broad guidelines for economic policies, to ensure that that link is maintained.
<P>
I also think that the Economic and Financial Committee should prepare and monitor meetings of the Euro Council, now known as the "Euro 11' .
On this matter, I might say - although I hope to address the issue after the recess, that the first two meetings of that new body gave rise to a new impetus.
The Economic and Financial Committee should adapt to that fresh mood in order to back up the introduction of the euro, within the terms of the Treaty and under the best possible conditions, and then to administer it.
<P>
With regard to coordination of the individual components of economic policy, as the rapporteur mentioned so pointedly, the Economic and Financial Committee should also direct its work and proposals as part of a genuine spirit of complementarity with the Employment Committee and, at the same time, with the Economic Policy Committee.
<P>
Allow me at this point, Madam, to diverge slightly from your own analysis.
The Economic Policy Committee is responsible for structural matters; the domestic market, job creation, competitiveness, state funding and so forth.
The European Council in Cardiff stressed the importance of these structural issues by reminding us that the broad guidelines for economic policies should in future also cover the economic reforms needed to guarantee the satisfactory conduct of Economic and Monetary Union.
As far as the Commission is concerned, it is therefore important that the workload be distributed evenly between the specialized committees, including the Economic Policy Committee.
<P>
Nonetheless, let me assure you that the Commission, in line with the wishes of the House, will exercise a coordinating function with regard to the activities of the Economic and Financial Committee, the Employment Committee and the Economic Policy Committee.
<P>
Quite apart from the formal composition of the Economic and Financial Committee and its duties, I feel that the final, determining factor will be how that Committee functions in practice, and, in conclusion, I would like to stress that in this area too, the Commission - which plays a central part in the coordination of economic policies, as the last "Euro 11' meeting demonstrated - will ensure that the work of the Economic and Financial Committee and other committees is correctly coordinated.
<P>
Consequently - and this is where I bring matters to a head - I would say that the Commission has noted with interest your proposal that you should receive a report before 1 January 2001 regarding the operation of the Economic and Financial Committee within the context of inter-institutional relations between Parliament, the Commission and the Council, but also - I believe - relations between the existing committees.
I heartily endorse this proposal and I will, I hope, be able to report to you in person on those conclusions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 12.00.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Participation of EEIGs in public contracts
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="President">
The next items is the report (A4-0196/98) by Mr Tappin, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication from the Commission on the participation of European Economic Interest Groupings (EEIGs) in public contracts and programmes financed by public funds.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Tappin">
Mr President, European economic interest groups: what are they?
They are groups of small or medium-sized companies joining together to get themselves an increased profile, increased chances of winning contracts against larger competitors, increased resources to promote their expertise, a legal personality and, of course, increased chances to expand, employ more staff and thereby reduce the number of unemployed in the European Union.
<P>
Obviously, if successful, such a scheme is a good idea.
This report on the Commission's communication on the participation of European Economic Interest Groupings in public contracts and programmes financed by public funds addresses exactly that issue.
The scheme has been operating since July 1989.
It cannot, as yet, be accounted a success.
Where groupings have been formed - frequently cross-border organizations dealing in goods and services - they have shown that the concept works.
However, insufficient groupings exist, or have existed, to enable the Commission to analyse all the problems or define how best it can help promote the idea, and its application in practice, for the future.
This is recognized and is why the Commission has produced the communication.
<P>
The Commission is to be congratulated on the initiative and thanked for the efforts it is putting into the promotion of the interests of smaller businesses across the European Union.
The public procurement market alone accounts for ECU 720 billion a year, of which very little goes to smaller companies: only about 11.7 %.
<P>
To increase that share, and the share of funds from EU programmes which flow to SMEs, I made several proposals.
I would like the Commission to promote the establishment of voluntary cooperation panels at EU level, consisting of national and sectoral experts, social partners and, of course, Commission representatives, to help disseminate information and to raise awareness about the possibilities available through this scheme.
<P>
Secondly, I would also like to see the Commission positively encouraging Member States to identify or establish centres where good-quality advice and training are available for SMEs wishing to participate in the scheme.
This might add an impetus to the same request which was made in regard to procurement centres in an earlier report I drafted.
<P>
Since one of the aims of this report is to enable SMEs to take a much larger share of the ECU 720 billion procurement market than they currently do, it would be appropriate if the information centres were one and the same.
<P>
Similarly, the diffusion of information through informal centres, such as Euro-Info centres, business information centres - BICs - and local chambers of commerce, is to be encouraged.
Since there is a huge difference between publicity and guidance and the sort of training and legal counselling that a national centre could offer, it becomes clear that these would be complementary systems.
National centres would also greatly assist in the monitoring of results.
This is essential if we are to maximize the effectiveness of measures we take.
<P>
After nearly ten years of operating, there have only been about 800 EEIGs formed under this scheme.
It is clear that the Commission is taking what steps it can to improve this take-up, but our message must also be to the Council, calling on it to support the efforts of the Commission and the SMEs at Member State level.
This will be especially useful when it comes to ironing out some of the difficulties which arise for SMEs during international commerce, especially in dealing with the anomalies created by differing national legislation.
<P>
The Commission is to produce clarifications of the rules governing the establishment of EEIGs and the way they can operate.
In view of the legal complexities, and the fears many SMEs have of extending their activities outside the safe and well-known limits of their existing commitments, such clarifications would be invaluable.
However, I hope that interest groups and SMEs can have the chance to appraise these clarifications and that the substance of those appraisals, plus the conclusions drawn from the monitoring of EEIG activity, can form the basis of a further Commission communication in a couple of years' time.
This should be put before Parliament, the sectoral organizations and Member State representatives.
Then, if there has not been a significant take-up in the procurement market of programmes funded from Community money by EEIGs, we must do something more.
<P>
We are working against a deadline as the GPA is opened up to more countries.
This means big foreign companies squeezing our SMEs out of their existing markets.
If we do not enable them to take up the opportunities offered by global access, then their situation will go from bad to worse.
<P>
Of the amendments, I can support Nos 1, 3 and 4 but am against No 2.
<P>
Finally, I commend the Commission for its initiative, and I hope Members will be able to support my resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Tappin for a splendid report that looks carefully at the status of SMEs and public services.
Both sectors are vital for our societies but, nonetheless, they suffer from unfair treatment.
If Europe is going to be something more than just an internal market and achieve its hope for economic and social cohesion, it must develop services for the benefit of all at European level.
Establishing internal markets thus means having to free up services for the public good, which in turn means great changes in social structure.
<P>
There must be a wide debate on policy guidelines in public services among Member States, the Commission and Parliament.
The debate must involve management and labour, and consumer and social sector organizations.
The European Economic Interest Grouping the rapporteur refers to may bring a precious element of added value to the status of SMEs, which by and large are not yet aware of the opportunities available in the single market.
There are many barriers.
<P>
The European Parliament until last year was the only institution trying to define the European welfare state through the notion of the public sector.
Now, with Cardiff, a step has been taken in the same direction.
In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity Member States will decide whether to use private or public companies for the implementation of public services.
We must - at European level - guarantee opportunities for SMEs to compete for public procurement contracts.
The participation of SMEs in public procurement is vital. They employ most of the workers.
<P>
In addition to openness in competition, we have to invest in the development of the taxation and social security system so that they too support the sort of labour-intensive entrepreneurship that characterize SMEs.
Reduced income tax is the goal and that is of particular concern to labour-intensive service sectors.
I think they have been dealt with wrongly when it comes to taxation.
<P>
Furthermore, more venture capital is needed to establish companies.
In Europe this is particularly required for innovative SMEs, which will then grow into larger companies and, as was stated in the meeting on SMEs and employment held by the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on that hangs the future of employment in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Peijs">
Mr President, when you intervene in a market, you will discover that you have to stay on afterwards and repair the damage.
That is how it was in the European Union when we intervened in the traditional set-up whereby national government contracts were placed nationally: we discovered after a time that the intervention had unintended side effects.
As so often, it was the small and medium-sized enterprises that footed the European bill.
For years, they had carefully built up and nurtured their relationships with local, regional and national governments, relationships based on mutual quality and trust.
Under the anonymous European tendering procedures, these trust-based relationships lost their value in one fell swoop.
Small and medium-sized businesses in particular were the victims and went to the wall.
That was not the intention, so the damage had to be repaired again.
<P>
Hence the creation of this crossborder interest grouping, which is intended to make it possible for smaller companies to combine to take on large projects which are being placed more and more on the basis of stringent qualification procedures.
And we as a Parliament want that too, because, as we have stated in other reports, European government tenders have be simpler, easier and involve less bureaucracy.
<P>
What I cannot find in the Commission communication, Mr President, is an analysis of and a solution to one major problem with EEIGs.
That is the lack of awareness of this instrument in the very sector for which it is actually intended.
Nobody in small and medium-sized enterprises has ever heard of these interest groups, which have after all been in existence since 1989.
That is something that Michael Tappin rightly remarks on in his report.
The Commission communication concentrates on legal possibilities and impossibilities, while the point of lack of awareness remains untouched.
Measured by the yardstick which the Commission itself attaches to the communication, namely publication of the actions that have to be taken, the Commission has fallen short.
It might have been expected that the Commission would put a plan on the table stating what has to be done to deliver information to companies about this instrument: it is the age-old European Union communication problem.
<P>
The Commission writes that 800 interest groups have been set up, 80 per year.
That figure does not mean anything in itself unless we know how successful these interest groups have actually been in obtaining government contracts or subsidies from EU programmes.
The communication does not contain this information.
Nor does it state what opportunities the interest groups encounter in their day-to-day operations.
Perhaps the Commissioner could give me some information about this.
Is it perhaps possible that small and medium-sized enterprises businesses have no need at all for this kind of interest group?
Does it ever happen that we in Parliament or in the European Union dream up things that nobody needs?
In general, my group can support Michael Tappin's report. My only doubts are about paragraph 3 of his motion for a resolution, in which he suggests a special panel at European level.
Socialists always expect good to come of this kind of structure, but I do not.
Fortunately, what he has in mind is a voluntary basis.
I myself think that it would be much more effective to link up with existing networks in order to inform small and medium-sized enterprises, and in order to make it easier for companies to find partners.
The European Commission does already have the facilities here, I am thinking of the Europartnership, the Interprise scheme and the BC-NET network.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Killilea">
Mr President, first of all I want to congratulate Mr Tappin on this report.
I welcome it as a valuable means of promoting small and medium-sized industries throughout the Member States.
Indeed, as Mr Tappin rightly points out, small and medium-sized industries naturally tend to be the norm in smaller countries.
He is right as well to say that a concerted assessment of needs has to be made and that we have to take a more user-friendly approach when delivering information and practical support for the operations of EEIGs.
<P>
One point which I should like to stress from the outset is the gains for small organizations who become partners.
A small operator would not only be able to bid for and win a contract that would normally be beyond its capacity to complete; but would continue to reap certain benefits even after the contract had been completed.
For example, Mr Tappin, I would point out that a small road building contractor in Ireland that wins small-scale contracts from local authorities would find it absolutely impossible to bid for larger-scale construction projects for major roadways or motorways because it could not afford the investment required for the quantity of equipment needed to complete the job.
Even if the investment were made, the outlay would not be justified in the long run, since the equipment would be lying idle for most of the year because not enough work would be available on a constant basis.
If a small operator were part of a consortium, it would have a greater chance of continued work.
New contracts in other Member States will help to bring that prospect about and are therefore to be welcomed.
We must insist that all Member States play by the rules, since capital investment in smaller states will never be forthcoming.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, it is a pity that such little use is made of the only existing Community instrument for transnational cooperation between SMEs.
With just 800 EEIGs having been set up since 1989, it is no surprise that there is little or no participation in public contracts.
This low figure assumes even starker significance when one considers that almost 99 % of European businesses are SMEs and that 52 % of jobs are still to be found in this sector.
<P>
Anyone who has had a lot of personal contact with SMEs and with micro-enterprises will confirm the rapporteur's remarks, namely that SMEs are completely unaware of the good fortune which could come their way.
The EEIG scheme is an extremely valuable instrument for small businesses in that it allows them to participate in transboundary cooperation within the internal market and even to go so far as to tender for public contracts.
<P>
The proposals contained in Mr Tappin's report clearly show what is needed, namely genuinely practical information and concrete measures of support.
The promotion of non-bureaucratic access to public procurement by undertakings engaged in transnational cooperation is very important if the internal market is to have more substance.
An information scheme using every possible means, from personal contact meetings to the use of modern technology, is needed to help overcome the dearth of information and other barriers which exist.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for some considerable time European integration has been endeavouring to bring transnational forms of cooperation under company law.
For it is through transboundary cooperation between enterprises that we shall come nearer to our goal of a European internal market.
The challenge before us today is just as intense as it was 10 years ago.
<P>
At the start of the Austrian presidency we are therefore eager to see whether it will be possible to adopt the European Company Statute before the end of the year.
This would enable firms to avoid the unnecessary and costly procedures associated with national company law.
This new option should be directed not just at multinational companies but more particularly at small and medium-sized enterprises which are keen to participate in Community projects such as transEuropean networks.
<P>
We have already heard in the debate that the European Economic Interest Groupings provide just such a structure, but that there is an obvious need for improvement and that life still has to be breathed into the formal legal framework.
<P>
We should also be considering exactly how many firms can be offered a form of association of this kind or indeed how many there should be, as small businesses, which should benefit in particular from this form of association, should in future also be able to participate to a greater degree in public procurement between Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Crowley">
Mr President, I too would like to join in congratulating Mr Tappin on his report.
It comes at a very critical time when we look at the new measures being introduced to boost employment, because the figures show that the majority of employment within the European Union is created within small- and medium-sized enterprises.
Therefore it is vitally important that we do everything we can to facilitate further growth within that sector.
<P>
However, I have some criticisms.
In particular I have criticisms of the way in which the Commission is so slow in paying people who have been involved in contracts in the PHARE and TACIS programmes, for instance.
I can point to three individual small firms from Ireland that went into liquidation because of the late payment by the Commission for contracts those firms completed in Russia.
It seems to me that to get information on these types of initiatives you need to be a member of the Freemasons.
You simply cannot get public access to the information, and this is something which is essential for small enterprises.
<P>
In Ireland we have established the Small Business Operational Programme. That pointed out five key areas where work needed to be done to allow SMEs to become involved in European economic interest groups: access to finance, access to public procurement documents, access to proper tender support, access to a prompt payment guarantee from the contractor, and access to closer networks of SMEs across the European Union to allow broadly based enterprises to develop.
<P>
Unless we give real information in a very public manner then we cannot benefit from these groupings.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="Monti">
Mr President, on behalf of the Commission I would like to thank the European Parliament, and Mr Tappin in particular, for the support it has given to this communication on the participation of European Economic Interest Groupings (EEIGs) in public contracts and programmes financedby public funds.
<P>
I must say that since this communication was adopted on 9 September 1997 there has been a swift and unprecedented move to set up new EEIGs: the number has risen rapidly from 800 (the figure at that time) to 966 within in a short space of time.
This represents a significant step forward in our efforts to encourage interested parties to familiarize themselves with the EEIGs.
Because the EEIG is the only Community instrument that promotes cooperation between companies, the EEIGs may be considered an important link in European cooperation and a means of speeding up the real achievement of a single market.
<P>
The Commission is planning other initiatives with the aim of offering more extensive and detailed information on the features and possible uses of EEIGs - and particularly their usefulness to small and medium-sized enterprises.
One of these initiatives will be a communication on the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises in public contracts.
I can tell Mr Crowley that this specific communication on the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises in public contracts is due to be made published shortly. It will also deal with problems of payment terms and credit.
<P>
The issue of information has been raised several times, particularly by Mr Peijs.
Insufficient information is available on the EEIGs and the possibilities they offer.
This was evident at the 1996 conference on the EEIGs proposed by the Commission and aimed at economic operators. It is also evident from the number of requests for information on this subject that the Commission receives each day.
<P>
How will we go about providing more and better information?
One way will be to publish a guide containing a sample contract and practical advice for operators on all stages of a an EEIG's life, from setting up to operation to dissolution.
Another way will be to make increasing use of European Information Centres. BC-Net and other operators are already acting as specialized consultants to small and medium-sized enterprises on participation in public contracts.
We also intend to consult the Contact Committee to find out what information could be useful for promoting and developing EEIGs.
<P>
As the topic of trans-European networks has already been mentioned, I would also like to remind you that some EEIGs already participate in trans-European network projects, particularly in the transport field.
Lastly, Mr Tappin, the suggestions you propose in your report and the resolution will be very useful in helping us to achieve the objective that is so important for all of us.
<P>
Finally, I should like to state that I agree with what Mr Rübig said and I hope that the Austrian presidency will manage to make the idea of a European Company Statute a reality. This will be very important for large European enterprises but also for small and medium-sized European enterprises which will, I am sure, make great use of the resource.
<P>
To Mr Paasilinna I should like to say that the Commission is very sensitive to the two topics he raised.
In relation to his first point, that is the need to reduce fiscal pressure on labour-intensive activities - as you know, the Commission presented a communication on employment to the European Council in Luxembourg. With regard to the second point on venture capital, which could be so important to small and medium-sized enterprises, the Commission presented a document that aroused great interest at the Cardiff European Council.
<P>
To conclude, I would like to give my thanks again for the support that the European Parliament has given to this communication and to congratulate Mr Tappin in particular.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Electoral procedure
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0212/98) by Mr Anastassopoulos, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on a proposal for an electoral procedure incorporating common principles for the election of Members of the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Anastassopoulos">
Mr President, after efforts that have lasted forty years and more and that have proved to be exercises in futility, we now find ourselves once again on the starting blocks.
<P>
A uniform electoral procedure for European Parliament elections was provided for in the Treaty of Rome of 1957, through which the European Communities were created.
This is perhaps somewhat paradoxical as at that time there was no European Parliament, but an advisory Assembly, which was, moreover, slow to evolve.
What does this mean?
It is perhaps a sign of the inordinate institutional significance attributed by the founding fathers of Europe to a European Parliament that would reach maturity - and did reach maturity - in democracy, within a united Europe that would be based, and is based, on democracy?
<P>
Forty-one years on, that objective has still not been achieved.
A few steps have been taken.
In 1979 the Members of the European Parliament, on the initiative of the then French president, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, began to be elected by direct universal suffrage, and from 1987, with the Uniform Act of Luxembourg, they began to gain their first fundamental legislative powers.
<P>
But a uniform procedure did not appear on the horizon even then, and has not appeared up to the present time.
Efforts always foundered on two rocks: the unshakeable refusal of the United Kingdom to change its electoral system of first-past-the-post voting with narrow constituencies and to unite with its partners, who had all opted for proportional representation, and, secondly, the operation of different national electoral traditions which did not permit any agreement on a uniform procedure.
The efforts of the European Parliament were futile and were perhaps at times coloured by political romanticism, since it judged that the political map of Europe could be redrawn - albeit for European elections - with Brussels and Strasbourg at the core.
<P>
And so we come to 1997, a year of great changes.
In Britain the new Labour government of Tony Blair, after reaching an understanding with the Liberal Democrats, tabled a bill for the revolutionary - to the British way of thinking - introduction of proportional representation for the European elections and the partition of Britain into 12 electoral constituencies.
And at the Intergovernmental Conference, which led to the Treaty of Amsterdam, government representatives and our own European Parliament representatives, realizing that they were at an impasse, added the alternative solution of common principles to provide an element of flexibility in order to make it easier to reach agreement.
<P>
Against this background, the European Parliament last year launched its sixth and most recent push.
It was preceded by the report of Mr De Gucht, which each of us should hold in great respect.
And I, as rapporteur for the Committee on Institutional Affairs, took it upon myself to learn the lessons of our past mistakes.
I judged it advantageous to take a simple, evolutionary and limited approach in order finally to enable the first great step to be taken, after forty years of continuous failure.
I also considered it necessary, in addition to the long-drawn-out and exhausting debates in the Committee on Institutional Affairs, to visit many of the capitals of the fifteen Member States, to have talks with government representatives and representatives of political parties, to inform and to be informed.
<P>
The outcome of all these exchanges of view, the deliberations and the search for answers, undertaken on such an extensive scale for perhaps the first time in the annals of the European Union, appears in the report and in the proposals which I have the honour of presenting to the House today.
<P>
There are two basic principles: proportionality and the close relationship principle.
Proportionality is without doubt the fairest electoral system.
It permits fair representation of all political tendencies of the peoples of Europe.
And in the case of the European Union, which does not have - at least in the period under consideration - a central European government which needs to rely on majority voting in the European Parliament, the representation of all major political tendencies is necessary.
<P>
Europe can not be constructed on the basis of a single political power, or even two, however great these may be, and however convenient that might be.
A wider political base is necessary.
And the powers that maintain it must be represented in this continually evolving and improving European Parliament.
Hence our preference for proportional representation, which is, during this period of European construction, honourable, honest and constant.
But this does not mean that we are in favour of the fragmentation of political power, which does not help in the evolution of European political life.
For this reason we are allowing Member States to institute, for the allocation of seats, a threshold that does not exceed 5 % of the votes cast, in order not to place the preservation of proportional representation at risk.
<P>
This is not the only way in which we are offering Member States more room for manoeuvre.
Nor is it blind dedication to the famous principle of subsidiarity which is governing our choices.
It is rather our conviction that on to matters such as electoral issues - but not only on those issues - we must bring forward framework laws within which Member States can make their own decisions.
A big YES therefore from us for proportional representation.
And Member States will determine exactly what kind of proportional representation they want.
<P>
We were amazed, at a time when the British government was abandoning first-past-the-post voting, to see political powers in continental Europe, who up till now have not been noted for their love of Great Britain, declare themselves - with much delay it has to be said, and with a kind of necrophilic nostalgia! - in favour of the system the British had liberated themselves from. Of course each system has its advantages and disadvantages.
And it is a fact that the British system brought constituents and those elected closer together. But how acceptable can a system be regarded which, if it had been implemented in France in 1994, would have given the electoral alliance of my friend the Mayor of Toulouse, Dominique Baudis, a total of 87 French seats, with 25.5 % of votes?
The close relationship principle, the principle of proximité , is in fact the second principle in our proposals.
We believe that it is necessary for constituents to be closer to their European Members of Parliament and for this reason, as a first step, we propose that the five largest countries of the present European Union, which have a population of more than 25 million, should be divided into electoral constituencies.
The countries themselves will be the judge of which and how many constituencies.
We do not aspire to lay down ourselves, from Strasbourg, those constituencies which geography, history, economic and cultural conditions have determined.
We are aware of the difficulties of the operation.
But it needs to be done.
The ability of the European Parliament to represent its people must not remain a subject of debate.
<P>
This Parliament, which is moving onwards and upwards, slowly but surely, will be judged by the quality of its work, the awareness of its responsibility in fulfilling its mission, and its ability to reconcile the challenges of constructing Europe with unflagging political activity within the Member States and with its ability to represent its people.
The latter must not be called into question.
With the division of the largest Member States into electoral constituencies for the European elections, the democratic choice of candidates from the political parties, and a declaration by constituents in favour of preferential voting, the close relationship principle will have a firm foundation and will change the entire picture.
<P>
Is it necessary to ask whether, in the current European Parliament, with its already considerable legislative or colegislative powers, there is any room for part-time Members?
<P>
Our proposals contain another element, however, which has most often given rise to debate.
I am referring to transnational constituencies, which are intended to be in place in ten years' time.
The idea has been aired before but it was initially regarded as Utopian.
However, it has stayed the course and may possibly lay claim to a place in the Europe of 2010 or that of 2020.
There is no question that it will be a very different Europe from today.
And the European Parliament needs to look ahead, to have vision, to break new ground, to be in the vanguard of its age in terms of thoughts, proposals and ideas.
It is unacceptable for us to tackle problems with the wretched approach of daily routine, with petty political self-interest, with small-mindedness and in the extremely restricted sense of small-party compatibility. It is intolerable for us to have institutionalized European political parties with the Maastricht Treaty, and not to attempt to give them fundamental political substance.
It is rather foolish to maintain that transnational constituencies disadvantage the small and the medium-sized parties, when there are possibilities of guaranteeing that neither the medium-sized nor the small will be harmed by the implementation of this great European idea.
<P>
These proposals, which the Committee on Institutional Affairs paid me the honour of adopting with an overwhelming majority, are now being placed before you for your verdict. They are restricted to just 10 or 11 points but they have been put together in the ambitious hope that they will finally lead to the first step towards equal opportunities, a more democratic Europe and a more representative Parliament.
We will not cease to fight unrelentingly for these principles.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="Gebhardt">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, now that the euro has completed the process of Economic and Monetary Union, the time has come for Europe to be a "Citizens' Europe' .
An important sign of this is the election of Members of the European Parliament from Member States by universal suffrage, a subject which Mr Anastassopoulos dealt with quite brilliantly in his report.
The right to vote is the most important of all citizens' rights, as it allows people to participate in the most direct way possible in shaping the course of politics.
<P>
This shaping process has to take place in such a way that each citizen feels that the European Union, with all its vicissitudes and values, is his political homeland, a place in which his dreams and aspirations of peaceful coexistence can become a reality.
The opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights is based on this principle.
We need a system of universal suffrage which is clearly intelligible to everyone.
A voting system which brings people and Members of Parliament closer together, which takes account of traditions and which at the same time is flexible enough to absorb new Member States into the European Union.
<P>
We do not need fifteen national systems of electoral law - with more to come - interspersed with one or two common European principles.
This would not be in keeping with either the letter or the spirit of those treaties on the basis of which we are working.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has tabled concrete proposals to this effect, which are also essentially contained in Mr Anastassopoulos's report.
Where there are omissions, or where the wording is not sufficiently binding, it is up to us to rectify the situation.
To this effect there is a whole series of amendments which bear my name, for the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights cannot act as a proposer here.
<P>
I wish that the rapporteur had recommended the acceptance of these amendments. However, I also know that he has to reject a considerable number of amendments, as otherwise the political structure of Europe would be set back a considerable way from its current position.
Looking to the future, we need a system of European electoral law which is formulated in clear and concrete terms.
We have to ensure, for example, that the binding form of wording "shall' cannot be substituted by the nonbinding form "can' .
<P>
In my view such options are only appropriate when they refer to rules existing in individual States or when they open up additional possibilities for others.
Examples of this are the preferential votes and a threshold clause which should not be above 5 %.
Some may well shake their heads in surprise, but parts of the new European suffrage system do need to contain clauses of a self-evident nature if they are to be properly observed.
Just think of the principle of equal rights for men and women. This is a vested right in almost every Member State, yet it is often ignored in everyday life.
<P>
If we want to bring Europe closer to the people by making it their Europe, rather than a Europe run by a political elite, we have to ensure a strict separation of powers and the elimination of duplicate mandates.
One amendment therefore contains an extensive list of incompatible mandates - a list which, in my personal view, still does not go far enough.
I would even like to see all mayors excluded from the European mandate, but the proposals as they stand are still acceptable.
Neither will the citizens of Europe understand us if we fail to put a cap on electoral costs.
And of course it goes without saying that transparent accounts should be provided here.
<P>
Finally a few words on transnational lists and on the mandate given to MEPs.
I know that the rapporteur is very much concerned about transnational candidate lists as a symbol for the unity of Europe.
I am too.
We should therefore adopt this list, without any ifs and buts, in the form proposed by Mr Anastassopoulos.
Amendment No 45 which has been proposed by the rapporteur contains a clarification of the MEP mandate.
I would withdraw this excellent amendment in favour of Amendment No 48 as proposed by the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, which suits our common purpose even better, Mr Anastassopoulos.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="President">
Because it is now time to vote, I declare the sitting suspended. We will resume this afternoon.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 11.55 a.m. and resumed at 12.00 noon)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Janssen van Raay">
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, and after consultation with Mr Lehne, as rapporteur, I wish to table the following amendment: on the basis of Rule 129 of the Rules of Procedure I request that before proceeding to the vote we refer the report and the amendments back to committee.
Some of the amendments are still very controversial.
Mr Lehne has agreed to make a further attempt to reach compromises which will avert the risk which currently exists that we shall ultimately be voting on such a contradictory text that the report will be altered beyond recognition and consequently will be devalued.
We therefore request your approval for the report to be referred back to committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Lehne">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me say first of all that I am very grateful for the proposal which Mr Schulz has just made, because it basically constitutes a positive response on his part to the appeal which I made in last night's debate, where I requested that this House, and particularly those on the Left, should think again about the results of the deliberations of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
I am pleased to see that the House is prepared to do this.
<P>
However, I also wish to make some critical comments on this amendment, plainly and simply because this is now, I believe, the third time this week that a report from the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs is being referred back to committee.
This is apparently because the Socialists have not done their homework on the subject and because they have quite literally pushed through a series of decisions in the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs which in our understanding, and after what I said yesterday in the House, are simply not acceptable in their current form.
To be specific, this concerns the extension of family allowance to partners of the same sex, the possibility of immigration when only one job is on offer and the introduction of electoral rights for third-country nationals in municipal elections which go well beyond the rights currently available to EU citizens.
<P>
With this in mind, and in view of the fact that this House, including the Socialists, has indicated its willingness to discuss these issues once more in committee, I am prepared to agree to the amendment being referred back to committee and would ask my group, and indeed all other Members of the House, to comply with Mr Schulz's proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="d'Ancona">
Mr President, if the rapporteur himself can accede to Mr Schulz's request, I as the Chairman of the Committee accept that.
But I do want to say that this, of course, has nothing to do with the arguments used by the rapporteur.
This is a committee, and it is in the nature of this committee that controversial political topics will be on the agenda.
It is actually a miracle that in most cases we do agree, that we do reach consensus in this committee.
In a number of unusual cases which deal with politically heavy-weight matters, it is sometimes useful to have a further opportunity to discuss them in committee.
But in this case, I just wanted to add that, it would possibly also be very useful to hear from the European Commission what it thinks of amendments which have been tabled by our parliamentary committees.
We were not really told that properly yesterday.
It would be very useful for the continuation of our discussions, and this can naturally also be done actually in committee, for us to hear what the Commission, or the responsible Commissioner, thought of the points of view we have jointly adopted and that have been tabled in the form of amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth">
Mr President, I wish to speak against the amendment and to respond to Mr Lehne by saying that we certainly did do our homework.
We may have - indeed we definitely do have - different opinions on the subject.
The efforts being made to keep families together, which you have criticized, are in keeping with what the European Parliament has readily accepted in other reports, namely in the report on equal rights for gays and lesbians and in the report on human rights - and whether it suits you or not, this was supported by the majority of this House - which stated that there should be no discrimination based on a person's sexual orientation.
It was therefore quite logical that the family in its extended form should be defined in this report.
<P>
You say that the electoral rights of third-country nationals in municipal elections go far beyond the rights of EU citizens.
I am sorry, Mr Lehne, but this is simply not true.
EU citizenship gives European citizens the right to vote and to stand as a candidate at European and municipal elections, and there are now calls to extend this to third-country nationals - which incidentally is fully in keeping with what Commissioner Flynn called for in the Year against Racism.
That was last year, and we should not forget it.
<P>
I am against the motion. I am sure that the major coalition in this House will decide differently.
It would have been nice to be voting today on a report which laid down rules for immigration and the rights of immigrants.
<P>
<P>
(Parliament decided to refer the report back to committee)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Oostlander">
Mr President, whichever way the final vote on this resolution goes, I would like in any case to address a comment to Commissioner Gradin, who yesterday, after the reading of my report, responded with a number of policy plans which boiled down to adopting all the policy proposals I particularly value and which I think that almost everyone supports, except possibly the extreme right of this Parliament.
The work of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs and my own work as rapporteur is thereby richly rewarded, in my opinion.
I thank the Commissioner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Mr President, I would like you to note that none of the members of the Union for Europe Group will take part in the vote on the report by Mr Oostlander, neither by raised hand, nor by electronic verification, nor by roll-call vote. This is because we believe that the status of religions is a matter for national authorities, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, and that, therefore, it should not have been presented before this Parliament.
<P>
Consequently, in accordance with our rules, I call on the sitting's services to note the presence of those of my colleagues who are here, but who will not take place in the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="President">
Thank you, we will make sure your attendance is recorded.
<P>
(Parliament rejected the motion for a resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Ahlqvist, Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw, Theorin, Waidelich and Wibe">
We note that paragraphs 1 to 6 in the explanatory statement amount to a description of how the situation actually appears today.
<P>
However, we cannot agree with the expression of intent in paragraph 7, which advocates protection clauses for tobacco and rice, because, among other reasons, in general we do not think that this amounts to a permanent solution.
Instead we should seek adaptation to the existing WTO rules.
<P>
We are also opposed to specific protection clauses for tobacco since we think it is totally wrong to support this sector because of the very great adverse effects on health which the use of tobacco entails.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Bonde, Lis Jensen and Sandbæk">
We have today voted in favour of the European Parliament's approval of the proposal by the Commission on the arrangements applicable to agricultural products and goods resulting from the processing of agricultural products originating in ACP States.
We support the Commission's proposal because it serves to improve access to the European market for some of the poorest nations in the world.
In many cases, these countries are utterly dependent upon exporting their agricultural produce.
<P>
Nevertheless, we have several reservations with regard to this proposal.
Firstly, it is regrettable that it has taken the EU almost three years to get as far as this reading.
Even though the change will take effect retrospectively, this has caused unnecessary uncertainty in ACP States.
Secondly, we must urge the EU to involve more developing countries in this system.
ACP States are, of course, among the poorest in the world, but there are equally other countries needing to export to Europe.
Thirdly, it is a disgrace for the EU to expend so much energy protecting its own agricultural production.
There is nothing - either in this proposal, in Agenda 2000 or in other actions relating to this area - to indicate that the EU would be prepared to sacrifice its own production in order to come to the aid of other parts of the world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="des Places">
Our group has of course voted in favour of the Commission's proposal which is intended to implement the agreements on preferential treatment for imports into the European Union of agricultural products originating in the ACP States which are covered by Annex XL of the Fourth Lomé Convention, signed on 4 November 1995.
<P>
However, in this explanation of vote, the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations regrets that it has taken the Commission three years to make this proposal, which will come into force retroactively, with effect from 1st January 1996.
This is an unacceptably long administrative delay for such a simple proposal which satisfies two objectives: to make further concessions to ACP countries and to make the technical adjustments called for by the continuation of the GATT agreements, which established customs barriers, that is, by withdrawing the agricultural levy on imports, and replacing it with customs duties.
Consequently, the difference between the old customs duties which have been in force since 1st January 1996, and the new reduced duties will be refunded to ACP exporters.
This is a minimal concession amounting to ECU 10 million per annum in reduced customs duties and ECU 2.7 million in increased costs of export refunds with regard to products originating in ACP countries which the European Union re-exports to third countries.
All this does not justify the three years it has taken the Commission to draft the few pages of this regulation.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, our group would like to remind you that we are extremely anxious about the future of the ACP-EU agreements.
In fact, we in the 'banana' panel have observed that the very principle of preferential agreements with ACP countries, with whom may I remind you the Member States have close and specific traditional relationships, is being damaged, and may even be destroyed by the WTO.
We therefore call on the Commission to take the specific nature of the ACP states into consideration when the negotiations of the WTO are resumed next year, that is, at the end of 1999.
<P>
Dybkjær report (A4-0231/98)
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="des Places">
Our group is in favour of developing a specific Europe-Asia cooperation strategy in the field of the environment and environmental protection.
<P>
In 1997, the United Nations General Assembly confirmed that the pact concluded within the framework of the Rio Conference had been almost totally disregarded.
It is therefore necessary to use this Europe-Asia cooperation strategy to implement a policy which takes into consideration a certain number of the Rio commitments.
<P>
There are many environmental problems in Asia:
<P>
As far as water pollution is concerned, domestic sewage in and around urban centres threatens human health as well as aquatic life, allowing disease to flourish, leading to high sickness and death rates.
In addition, most industries discharge their waste into rivers.-With regard to air pollution, according to the World Health Organization, 12 of the 15 cities with the highest levels of particulate matter and 6 of the15 cities with the highest levels of sulphur dioxide are in Asia.
The region is becoming the major contributor to acid rain and greenhouse effect gases.-Land degradation, which is largely due to efforts aimed at maintaining self-sufficiency in food, using unsuitable technologies given the specific soil and climatic constraints of these regions.Having made these alarmist comments, what else can we do?
Some, like the Commission in its communication, envisage the establishment of an environmental cooperation policy which will of course require separate funding.
<P>
Our group recommends an alternative which may nevertheless be compatible with the first solution, in order to repair the damage caused by the current situation as quickly as possible.
Globalization, as we know it today, must by replaced by the internationalization of trade.
This means implementing specific clauses guaranteeing compliance with social, environmental and health principles within the framework of the COM.
We must put an end to the social and environmental dumping seen today.
What is the point of liberalizing trade by limiting tariff and customs barriers if this leads to ecological disasters?
We are in favour of the free market provided social, environmental and health clauses are established.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, I am voting for this report as we must not lose sight of the need to preserve the environment in Asia despite the preoccupation at present with that region's economic troubles.
Indeed, given the agreement at the Kyoto Earth Summit in Japan last winter, pollution has now been linked to the international trading system in the pollution quota trade arrangement.
<P>
I am glad that my own Deputy Prime Minister was able to play a key role in those negotiations and that this year my own country hosted only the second ever Asia-Europe summit meeting.
<P>
This report is right to argue that any EU taxpayers' money which goes in aid to Asian countries should be linked to the recipients agreeing to respect the environment when spending that aid.
It is no use assisting the Asian economies to work their way out of their current troubles if the world's air and water are to be polluted as a result.
<P>
Having played a major part in the Kyoto Earth Summit agreements aimed at making economic progress environmentally sustainable, we are practising what we preach in asking those whom we assist with our public's money to use it in environmentally friendly ways.
And the recipient countries will themselves reap the benefits of so doing, to stop the dreadful trend of hundreds of thousands of their children losing their lives through water pollution each year.
<P>
Oostlander report (A4-0328/98)
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Newman">
Mr President, I voted against this report by Mr Oostlander, and I am very pleased indeed that Parliament has rejected it by a decisive two to one vote.
It was confused.
I am sure the rapporteur was well-intentioned but this bizarre report came over as though fixated with the Islamic religion.
It focused unnecessarily on the Islamic religion, whereas it was meant to be a report on the problems associated with fundamentalism.
Overall, it was a general insult to Muslim citizens and residents of the European Union.
<P>
One of the paragraphs referred to the stereotyped image of Islam and Muslims in the western media.
This report itself contributed to increasing that poor image.
There are millions of ordinary, decent Muslim people, followers of the Islamic religion in the European Union, who are perfectly respectable and law-abiding and who were quite right to feel insulted by this report.
I am glad it has been rejected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Bonde, Lis Jensen and Sandbæk">
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Buffetaut">
European societies which lack ideals, objectives and clear reference points are totally defenceless against the rise of fundamentalism.
<P>
Bogged down in a deceptive, even desperate materialism, they do not know how to face up to the sometimes violent challenge represented by Islamic fanaticism and which is becoming all the more serious in that it is finding a happy hunting ground amongst uprooted immigrant populations, who are poorly integrated and are victims of unemployment and of the low life that flourishes in the dehumanizing suburbs.
<P>
Mr Oostlander's report might have made a valuable contribution to the debate on this problem.
Unfortunately, this work was misleading in that it was basically ambiguous with a very broad scope.
It was ostensibly a report on religious fundamentalism but the actual report dwelt heavily on Islamic fundamentalism.
This is not by chance, since that is what we are witnessing in such a bloody manner in the European Union, and especially in France.
<P>
The debate held in this House, far from clearing our minds, has simply sown further confusion, since no-one can agree on the definition of fundamentalism, a word that is sometimes used in the sense of fanaticism, sometimes extremism and often applied to areas outside the religious fold.
<P>
More than that, with the understandable desire to avoid pointing an accusing finger in the direction of Islam, some speakers have wallowed in grotesque fusions of ideas, even going so far as to speak of "Catholic terrorism' with reference to groups opposed to abortion who pray in front of hospitals, not to mention the fantasies woven by others around the Opus Dei organization.
Whereas Voltaire regarded the Jesuits as his bête noire , the Voltaire network seems fixated on the Opus Dei group, but as a writer Voltaire at least had talent and style.
<P>
So the entire debate has added nothing new to the subject.
It would probably have been preferable to demarcate the boundaries of the report more clearly; this would have avoided some of the interminable discussions.
<P>
So this is a report on religious fundamentalism that dwells heavily on Islamic fundamentalism.
This is a major problem because it leads us to the question of the integration of Islam in societies that understand the concept of the separation between things spiritual and things temporal; "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God that which is God's' is not a precept that prevails in Islamic societies.
<P>
Hence, the challenge we face is a dual one:
<P>
for our societies, showing respect for Islam as the spiritual expression of increasing numbers of peoples in the European Union-for Muslims, respecting the separation between the spiritual and the temporal, which is a gospel truth in our societies, and accepting that religious law must not be confused with civil law.Consequently, the initial ambiguity about the scope of the report made it incoherent, so that - despite some good points - it provoked such ill-structured debates.
<P>
To conclude, I regret the fact that one form of fundamentalism was not discussed and that is secularism, which preaches a hatred for religion and which, especially in France, is sadly too often exemplified, sustained and propagated by allegedly secret societies that are far more dangerous for the state than Opus Dei.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Caudron">
In setting before you my views on this report dealing with "fundamentalism' , I would like to repeat the fact that I was sorry Parliament last night failed to debate and adopt a harsh report attacking sects that represent fundamentalism at its worst.
Our Parliament lacked courage.
<P>
With regard to the Oostlander report, I would like to say that I too am vigorously opposed to Islamic fundamentalism, as I am to all forms of fundamentalism, whether religious or otherwise.
<P>
Not only do such movements incite violence and war, all of them threaten the bedrock of our democratic structures and hence our individual and collective liberties.
<P>
Therefore we must fight them all without fear or favour.
<P>
To achieve this aim, we have one sure weapon and a set of principles on which we should rely and that is quite simply - secularism.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Deprez">
As defined in the explanatory statement appended to the present proposal for a recommendation, religious fundamentalism here seems to mean the will of a particular group to impose a type of society (which may indeed be eminently democratic, in principle) by violent means, based on the religious convictions held by its members.
<P>
In accepting this, we have to conclude that a group which latches onto the notion of promoting, by peaceful means, a nondemocratic type of society based on the religious convictions of its members, is not fundamentalist.
<P>
The definition we end up with might lead us to believe that it is not so much the ends - the type of society based on religious convictions - as much as the means employed - violence - that is the defining feature of fundamentalism, as envisaged within the context of this motion for a resolution.
<P>
Now, as your rapporteur rightly stressed, religious fundamentalism of a violent nature will not be welcomed in the European Union.
In certain Member States it may find favourable territory in which to set up base for battles to be conducted beyond the frontiers of the Union.
Similarly, it would be beneficial if, in this area as in many others, foreign policy were more consistent; but we should concentrate more assiduously on the ends to be achieved in this respect.
<P>
At the same time, a preventive policy encompassing all the factors underlying a genuine dialogue based on a better mutual understanding is the key to a truly intercultural society.
And this is conditional upon the State guaranteeing and encouraging this preventive policy by law, by making appropriate provisions and continuing to demonstrate its impartiality towards individual religions, whilst at the same time respecting the personal convictions of everyone; yet it should still show that it is adamant in rejecting any social behaviour, even if it is irrevocably bound up with those religious convictions, that runs counter to fundamental rights and liberties.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Ephremidis">
Woe betide us if we adopt the animosity, the prejudice, the ignorance, at times, and, mainly, the fanaticism that the rapporteur directs against fundamentalism.
We will be automatically led to precisely what Mr Oostlander is alleging that he is trying to prevent: tearing apart social cohesion and transforming of our societies into arenas full of racist, fanatical gladiators.
<P>
Using law and order as an alibi, first class arguments are advanced for the close supervision and control of social and political life, which will encourage the further strengthening of supervision mechanisms, the keeping of files, actions taken by companies, including dismissals, all of which will fundamentally increase and deepen racism and xenophobia.
<P>
The rapporteur, who is monolithic and absolute in his approach, inveighs against any kind of anti-European religious fundamentalism that threatens European prosperity and democracy, whilst failing to mention the fanaticism currently steeping Northern Ireland in blood, with continued cruelty and violence, because he avoids "like the plague' tampering with the established order of the European Union, the sway of Catholicism and Protestantism and their own fundamentalist groups, while denouncing fundamental orthodoxy as anathema and blaming it for the slaughter in Bosnia.
<P>
Mr Oostlander's report fanatically calls for new crusades, reducing the "law and order' of the European Union to religious dogma. It calls on its "disciples' to carry out campaigns of religious conversion in every direction.
The modern inquisition is to exploit the modern mechanisms of Schengen and Europol.
It is to turn political cooperation and the common foreign policy into mechanisms of coercion and of the imposition of a "European dogma' .
<P>
No mention is made of the more deep-rooted phenomena that encourage acts of violence and blind confrontation.
No mention is made of the real social, economic and cultural reasons which transform religion into a pretext for the expression, channelling and violent release of deeper class-related and other problems. These are problems which the inquisitorial findings and proposals contained in the report can only reinforce and exacerbate.
<P>
Moreover, the fundamental objective is this: the construction of an apologetic alibi for all the criminal interventions in foreign countries, such as the Gulf War, Bosnia-Herzegovina and so forth. It is also an alibi for everything that the new order is generating, for new interventions, such as in Kosovo or anywhere else for that matter, in its American or European Union guise.
It will still require disorientation and other alibis for military policy plans such as the restructuring of NATO and armament programmes, to provide a market for the military industry.
The Oostlander report cries out "what will become of us without barbarians' , without threats and without dangers. And when they do not exist, we manufacture them.
<P>
For these reasons I will be voting against the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Eriksson, Ojala, Seppänen and Sjöstedt">
We voted against Mr Oostlander's resolution on fundamentalism because of its unbalanced and tendentious nature.
The title of the report, ' on fundamentalism and the challenge to the European legal order, ' gives the impression that all forms of fundamentalism are going to be described objectively.
Unfortunately, the report does not do this.
Islam is picked out yet again as the greatest potential danger for the West.
The way the resolution is written is insidious, in that unobjectionable paragraphs about the protection of, among other things, the rule of law, are mixed together with paragraphs which express a patronizing attitude towards Muslims, such as the idea that Muslims can have difficulty accepting the rules of democracy and the rule of law.
<P>
Groups and parties on the extreme right are attacking refugee camps, murdering people because of the colour of their skin, setting fire to houses and murdering small children because of different religious beliefs.
These authoritarian and in some cases fascist tendencies represent a much greater threat to the legal order in Europe than any possible fundamentalism.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Hager">
For me many of the positive aspects of this recommendation are common to all questions relating to Community foreign policy and the need for a preventive approach to this subject.
But I have no time for policies which state, for example, that the Council 'should compel the Member States to remove the legal and practical obstacles to the performance of religious duties' .
This interference of a supra-national body in national affairs, such as the question of giving equal status to the Muslim faith, must be rejected.
This is one of the reasons why the Members of the Freedom Party voted against this report, both in the final vote and in many of the detailed votes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted against a report that is primarily concerned with Islam as a challenge to the European legal order.
<P>
The report concludes that the problem of violent religious fundamentalism is not particularly serious in Europe.
Nevertheless, it goes to great lengths to describe the challenge from Islam.
Reference is made, for example, to the Islamic religion having certain requirements of a legal order that would conflict with the European legal order in certain areas.
And European Muslims are warned against Islamic manipulation.
<P>
The report does make some positive observations, urging, for example, a firm and consistent policy towards governments that support and permit terrorism.
All countries should be judged on equal terms; hence, no distinction must be made on the grounds of economic or strategic considerations.
We also support calling on Member States to take preventive action against fundamentalism by following a deliberate policy of integration to strengthen the position of Muslim groups in the labour market and in the education system.
<P>
However, we have voted against the report, because we do not believe that it contributes to integrating Muslim groups into the Member States; neither do we believe that Parliament has a negative approach to the Islamic religion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Lindqvist">
Why should a report about measures to combat religious fundamentalism be discussed in the European Parliament at all?
It sets religion against religion and points to religious tendencies as being fundamental and therefore less good than 'European' religions.
Nor is the word fundamentalism defined.
That is the wrong approach. If violence is the main issue, then that is what should be discussed.
<P>
Matters of religious legislation and religious rights should be dealt with at national level.
There is also no reason for the EU to start special media programmes on Islam for journalists or to start up any European research aimed at being able to 'meet the need for spiritual leaders trained in a European context.'
Against this background I have voted against the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Miranda">
We are directly opposed to this report.
<P>
Not because we do not acknowledge the importance and rightness of responding to the phenomena of fundamentalism, but because of the twisted and wrong-headed way in which the report tackles the question, ' pinning it' on the Arab world, confusing it with Islam and disregarding its political, social and cultural causes.
<P>
In particular, it disregards those situations which originated in Europe and have become a hothouse in which it thrives.
<P>
It is, furthermore, symptomatic that this report treats the phenomena of racism and xenophobia, which ought to be of such concern to us, in a biased and equivocal manner; it is like a parody which, in this context, ignores - and encourages us to ignore - the 'fortress Europe' that is being created.
<P>
Thus it is no surprise that the report gives priority and particular emphasis to policy measures.
<P>
These are some of the fundamental reasons why we are voting against this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Teverson">
I have voted against this report because of its implied view that all Muslims in Europe are susceptible to Islamic fundamentalism and that Islamic fundamentalism always manifests itself as violence.
This is not true, and the report has caused extreme offence to many European Muslims.
The report does contain a few sections that could be supported, but unfortunately they are outweighed by the simplistic, intolerant and unbalanced majority of the report.
If people break the criminal law they should be dealt with through their national jurisdictions as appropriate, but this should have nothing to do with their religious convictions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Tindemans">
I, too, am of the opinion that the European Parliament has no authority in the matter of fundamentalism.
I therefore abstained in the final vote on the Oostlander report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Titley">
I will be voting against this report as although it does condemn all forms of racial hatred and fanaticism, it concentrates far too much on the Islamic varieties and seems to forget the many other types of extremism which exist in Europe.
<P>
Of course we must combat violent extremists, as our governments already do.
They do not need reminding by a report such as this, which if taken up by governments would risk turning their attention away from the many non-Islamic extremist groups which threaten or use violence to try and force their views on the rest of us.
<P>
My many law-abiding Muslim fellow citizens in my own constituency would be rightfully upset if such a one-sided report were allowed to pass by without opposition.
I am myself offended by the linking of the words Islamic and fundamentalism - as if these automatically go together.
I believe that people of all faiths represented in Europe add to our civilization.
<P>
Our national governments should be left to counter any terrorist threats from whichever quarters they may come, without being encouraged to focus on any one type of fundamentalism.
This is the only fair and effective way to protect all of us from possible terrorist threats.
<P>
Karamanou report (A4-0179/98)
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Ahlqvist and Theorin">
We would like to congratulate our party colleague Mrs Karamanou on a wellwritten report.
Cooperation with the states of the former Soviet Union is extremely important, especially in view of the fact that creating a free market economy involves problems of an economic, social and political nature.
<P>
We are also pleased about the proposal for a specific Baltic Sea Programme, which has been a Swedish Social Democratic priority for a long time.
However, we would like to stress the importance of setting up a similar programme for the Barents Sea area.
<P>
Ribeiro report (A4-0224/98)
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Ahlqvist, Theorin and Wibe">
Many of the reports we discuss here in Parliament argue for the creation or maintenance of European centres or organizations.
That is also the case here.
You hardly ever see a report which proposes that an organization or centre should be closed.
<P>
We think that the existence of 'European' centres tends, unfortunately, to lead to the production of a lot of documents, but does not have much effect on the ordinary lives of people.
<P>
Even though we are voting for the report, we would like to express our strong reservations as above.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Girão Pereira">
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Lang">
We will be voting in favour of Mr Sérgio Ribeiro's report, because at least it has the merit of highlighting the importance of the textile industry in terms of the economy and jobs in the European Union, especially in the least privileged regions, in view of the challenges they face - dumping, unfair competition, relocations, and so forth - and the blatant inadequacies of the Commission in taking appropriate action.
<P>
But we have some important reservations.
<P>
When will we find a measure of consistency in the European Union?
We cannot seek to protect the textile industry and at the same time approve abandoning the Multifibre Arrangement.
We cannot at the same time condemn dumping and accept Community legislation designed allegedly to protect business, which is derisory, ineffective and deliberately slow.
We cannot, at one and the same time, play the welfare game and continue to trade with countries where children and political prisoners are made to work under conditions of virtual slavery.
We cannot at the same time seek to support a particular sector and forbid France to abandon its textile plan in the name of ultraliberalism.
<P>
In other words, it is high time the European Union gave precedence to jobs and to the prosperity of Europeans before worrying about competitiveness and free trade policy.
It is high time we placed humans at the heart of Europe and finally stopped promoting capital.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Novo Belenguer">
In this written statement, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, I want to express our vote in favour of the Ribeiro report.
<P>
The basis of our support is centred on the rapporteur's criticism of the Commission's plan of action to increase the competitiveness of the European textile and clothing industry.
<P>
It is true that there is a need for such a plan, because of the precarious current situation of this important sector, which employs more than two million workers throughout the Union and involves more than 120 000 companies.
Most obvious is the alarming drop in the production level - about 5 % compared with 1990 - with more than 600 000 jobs lost in the period 1990-1996. In this last year alone, 100 000 jobs have been lost.
<P>
The European Commission's plan of action is well-intentioned, but it is not very specific. It lacks cohesion and precise commitments about funding and a timetable for implementation.
So the Commission should produce a new plan to make good these deficiencies and place the emphasis on training, innovation, technological development and anti-dumping measures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Rübig">
The internal market too is subject to intense competition.
In order to safeguard businesses and jobs, it will in future be even more important fully to guarantee internal market conditions.
The delocalization of economic activities, in whatever sector, is dependent from the very beginning on how attractive the means of production are.
However, this delocalization, particularly in favour of labour-intensive production, should not benefit from additional support in the form of subsidies or even EU funding.
Instead, we need to invest in the training of our workforce and in making people more competitive in the job market.
This will really be an effective way to prevent damaging distortions of competition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Seillier">
The Ribeiro report raises the important issue of competitiveness in the European textile and clothing industry.
<P>
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations wished to table two amendments to this report to underline the particularly damaging effects of business delocalization on our textile and clothing industry.
This industry, especially in the poorest nations of the EU, suffers from unfair competition, more particularly in the low-paid countries with inadequate welfare protection, located outside of Europe, which results in a loss of market share, factory closures, very many job losses, delocalization and a growth in undeclared employment.
<P>
Delocalization is far from enhancing the well-being of poverty-stricken populations in the developing world and emergent nations; quite the contrary, it encourages their exploitation in working conditions that can be compared with slavery.
According to the principle held by our late Chairman, Sir James Goldsmith, delocalization enriches the wealthy in poor countries to the detriment of the poor in both rich and poor countries.
<P>
This is why, yet again, we urge the European Union to go back to the principle of Community preference, a pillar of the Treaty of Rome sacrificed to American interests during the Uruguay Round negotiations.
<P>
Restoring the principle of Community preference is the most valuable and effective support the European Union could give in the battle for jobs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Smith">
In supporting this report I would like to draw attention to the opinion of the REX Committee, the contents of which I fully endorse.
<P>
On the report itself, I would like to support the broad criticism by the rapporteur of the lack of genuine action in the Commission proposal.
At this time the textile industry in my constituency is caught up in a terrible situation caused by a combination of events.
The high value of sterling, the crisis in south-east Asia and high tariff barriers in our major export markets, such as the USA, have all served to bring about severe problems for employers and workers.
<P>
Almost daily we receive yet more reports of further job losses in areas where there is little prospect of alternative employment.
<P>
In these circumstances, therefore, for the Commission to call its proposal a 'plan of action' is an understatement of laughable proportions.
<P>
I listened to Commissioner Bangemann in the House today and I heard nothing that gives us any hope for the future.
We need action now on a coherent and effective strategy, so I would ask the Commission to think again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Titley">
I represent a part of the North-West of England with a proud history of high-quality textile production stretching back hundreds of years.
I am voting for this report today as is puts forward practical ideas to help the industry remain competitive with rivals in other parts of the world - greater use of incentives to encourage new inventions and the use of new technology are key measures the EU should promote.
And as in all industries, the best possible training aimed at improving people's skills for their daily work is needed.
<P>
I also welcome the idea for a code of conduct to be worked out by staff and employers in the textile sector aimed at outlawing the use of child labour.
We should not stay silent on the use of child labour in other parts of the world today in sectors such as textiles, just as our forebears in Europe rightly campaigned to outlaw child labour in our own factories.
<P>
On one issue, however, I must state my disagreement with this report.
<P>
Despite the industry's proud past, many of the people who work in its most advanced companies today face an uncertain future due to the protectionism of some in the Commission and in the European cotton production sector.
<P>
We must see an end to the repeated use of anti-dumping duties against the very raw material - cotton greycloth - which our most progressive companies then use their skills and technology to process into high-quality textile products.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Torres Couto">
In a sector defined, both at national level and throughout the EU, by a production chain including fibres, textiles and clothing and also manufacturers and retailers of equipment, employing 2 million people, 75 % of them women, with 120 000 businesses which within a short space of time -from 1996 to the end of this century - may lose over a million jobs, we cannot go on with economic recovery strategies based on closing down companies and doing away with large numbers of jobs.
<P>
The need for competitiveness in the sector has caused priority to be given to capital-intensive activities, displacing labourintensive activities to countries with lower wage-bills and total social deregulation.
<P>
Its marked concentration at regional level, especially in the least-favoured regions of the EU, mean that the textile industry is of the greatest economic and social importance, in countries such as Portugal.
The pressure of competition from third countries that make extensive use of direct and indirect subsidies, together with the Outward Processing Arrangements (OPA) which has stimulated the displacement of labour-intensive activities to the CEECs and the MEDA countries, with highly damaging effects on the textile industry in southern Europe, means we must adopt a real 'plan of action for increasing competitiveness in the European textile and clothing industry' . We are not doing this under the Commission's present initiative, which lacks both the necessary measures and the necessary finance.
<P>
We do not question the need to include our strategy for the textile industry in our overall industrial policy strategy, nor do we defend protectionist measures, for legal and international policy reasons. However, more aggressive measures and strategies are needed, and they must be properly quantified and timetabled, rather than the 'catalogue of good intentions' the Commission has just presented us with.
<P>
What is needed, therefore, is a new plan to promote innovation and the use of new technology in the sector and to strengthen interaction between all agents in the production chain, supported by a wide, dynamic professional technical and management training scheme, and economic, financial and fiscal support measures for small and medium-sized enterprises, to provide employment incentives in the sector.
<P>
The plan must also give priority to counteracting social dumping and failure to observe the principle of reciprocity by some third countries.
<P>
We must mobilize the Structural Funds, particularly the Social Fund and the ERDF and the SME, ADAPT and EMPLOI initiatives, to ensure that European textiles continue to play an irreplaceable economic and social role on the European scene.
<P>
Berès report (A4-0264/98)
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Ahlqvist, Theorin and Wibe">
Because Sweden is not going to participate in the introduction of the euro in 1999-2002, we have chosen to abstain from the vote on this report.
The report deals with an issue which only concerns the Member States which are going to be in the euro-area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Theonas">
The composition of the Economic and Financial Committee, which will replace the Monetary Committee with the start of the third stage of EMU, is one of many relevant political and technical issues resulting result from the process to adopt the single currency and the operation of the ESCB.
<P>
Several aspects of the report under debate relate to particularly significant issues.
The report appears to champion the further institutional consolidation of a two-speed Europe.
It calls for special rules against exercising the powers of the Committee, which relate to the preparation of the informal Ecofin Council of the 11.
It recommends the institution of "different arrangements for the States belonging to the euro area' in comparison with the States that do not come within the framework of the Economic and Financial Committee.
It thus goes further than the Maastricht Treaty, which provides for the participation of all Member States.
<P>
Once again the complete lack of even fundamental democratic control within the structure of EMU is apparent.
Council decisions with regard to the Economic and Financial Committee are to be taken following consultations with the ECB, while the European Parliament is simply informed.
In other words, the bankers - who one way or another will participate in the Committee - take an active part in the process, while the elected representatives of the people of Europe can not have an opinion on a committee which will play a decisive role in the directions and the decisions taken by the Council in the process of multilateral surveillance, in the event of excessive deficit and, more generally, in the assessment of the economic and financial situation.
And the problem will not be solved by a few meetings, however regular they may be.
<P>
For us, the central issue is the undemocratic and unpopular nature of EMU, which is becoming apparent in each of its relevant aspects and which is reinforcing the predominance of capital interests.
The key point, on the basis of which we define our position, is the deeply unpopular and anti-developmental policy that is being promoted as a result of the European Union's approach to economic policy and other issues, which has already led to a serious decline in the living standards of working people.
For these reasons, which relate in general terms to EMU and more specifically to the role of the EMI and the Economic and Financial Committee which will succeed it, and also on account of the proposals in the report that we regard as leading towards a more reactionary European Union, we will vote against the report.
<P>
Tappin report (A4-0196/98)
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Rübig">
Both the Commission's communication and the report include a number of elements which should lead to a greater participation of SMEs in contract procurement.
Many industrialists know nothing whatsoever about the EEIGs, let alone about the possibilities afforded by such an instrument.
We therefore have to try to find centres, such as local Chambers of Commerce, which can offer expert advice and training.
This transfer of information can also be promoted through the EEIG forum, comprising representatives from the fields of economics and administration.
<P>
Finally, it is also important for us to clarify in quite general terms the practical obstacles to transboundary cooperation between companies.
As long as direct business activities cannot be developed, and as long as our objective is simply to facilitate and enhance the economic activities of the Member States, it is essential that we find ways to use and promote the high-quality help available through the EEIGs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Wolf">
We have no fundamental objections regarding the Tappin report and the communication from the Commission on which it is based. However, there are two fundamental problems which we consider to be indirectly related, and which go beyond the specific problem of the European Economic Interest Groupings (EEIGs).
The first of these is the poor legal infrastructure for crossborder economic trade, in particular with regard to the structure of European undertakings and groups. The second is the creation of appropriate support measures for small and medium-sized enterprises which will actually allow them to participate fully in the potential of the single market and its continued reinforcement as a result of the introduction of the euro.
<P>
If no sustainable progress is achieved in these two reports, in our view the success in real terms of hybrid instruments such as the EEIG should unfortunately be regarded with the greatest of scepticism.
<P>
This does not detract from the efforts made by Mr Tappin and of the Commission. However, it should not be forgotten that these are at best only a stopgap and will remain one.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="President">
That concludes Voting Time.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 1 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Electoral procedure (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report (A4-0212/98) by Mr Anastassopoulos, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on a draft electoral procedure incorporating common principles for the election of Members of the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Corbett">
Mr President, it is my pleasure and honour to speak today on behalf of the Socialist Group on this important subject.
May I begin by congratulating the rapporteur on the work that he has put into this.
<P>
This is of course an old issue.
It is an issue on which the treaties give Parliament the right of initiative, and Parliament has used that right a number of times to put forward proposals for a uniform electoral system.
But, alas, each time it was unable to find the necessary unanimity in the Council for the adoption of such a system.
<P>
We now have a window of opportunity, thanks to two new developments.
The first of these is the election of the Labour Government in the United Kingdom which is introducing a system of proportional representation by regions for European elections.
The UK was the only country not to have a proportional system and this therefore brings the UK into line with all the other Member States at least in that respect.
<P>
Mr Anastassopoulos referred to that as a surprising new development.
It is not really surprising; it has been a long-standing policy commitment of the Labour Party, and was in Labour's manifesto when it won power last year, so it is not surprising that this has come through.
There is a determined government, keen to act on its promises.
<P>
The second development is also important, however.
The issue of proportional representation is far from being the only issue on which it had proved difficult to reach the necessary unanimity in the Council.
That is why the Treaty changes agreed in Amsterdam are equally important: for the first time it will be possible simply to adopt common principles for the European elections, rather than a completely uniform system.
If we can reach agreement, this will allow us to make progress immediately without needing to go all the way to having a fully uniform system straight away.
It is that window of opportunity that we must take advantage of today.
<P>
Mr Anastassopoulos' report points the way.
It contains much that is wise, it leaves a lot to Member States under the principle of subsidiarity, but it determines a number of common principles.
If we can iron out one or two little problems that still remain in his report, then we should be able to get a large majority to support it.
<P>
One of those problems is the proposal for 10 % of seats to be set aside for transnational European lists.
There are, frankly, divergent views, not just within my group but within most groups on this issue.
On a report like this it is necessary to get a very large majority in order for Parliament to speak with authority.
I have therefore put forward a compromise amendment in the name of my group which should give satisfaction to both sides - both those who think that transnational lists are important because they are more European, and those who say you do not need a system like that, and that even federal-type systems do not normally have federal level lists.
If you look at America, Switzerland or Germany, that is not normally the case for elections.
<P>
Both sides can be satisfied if my amendment is adopted because it says that Parliament will 'examine' a proposal for such a system in time for the 2009 elections but would not make it legally obligatory now by inserting it as a requirement in the act.
Those who support the system would gain the satisfaction that the idea is kept alive - it goes forward to the Council and we will have to come back to it.
Those who are opposed to the system would be satisfied that it does not immediately become obligatory and an essential part of the acts to be adopted.
I commend that compromise to the House and I remain convinced that, if it is adopted and if one or two other minor problems are sorted out with this report, we will find it possible to obtain the very broad majority which I am sure we are capable of getting for this report and which we should indeed aim for as a parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Méndez de Vigo">
Mr President, one of the new features of the Treaty of Amsterdam is to establish the possibility of this Parliament incorporating common principles for elections to the European Parliament.
The Treaty of Rome gave us a single mandate: the establishment of a uniform electoral procedure.
For 40 years we have been unable to achieve it, but I believe that with this excellent, meticulous report by Mr Anastassopoulos we will be able to establish common principles for elections to the European Parliament, even before the Treaty of Amsterdam comes into force.
So I think this is an example of work done well, quickly, accurately and with political meaning.
Furthermore, I think it exemplifies something I have been lucky enough to be able to talk about in this House before: from having had a role in providing the impulse, our Parliament has moved on to having a role via codecision.
I think that is extremely important.
<P>
Mr Anastassopoulos' report underlines the essential principles of an electoral system for the European elections.
The first principle is that of proportional representation.
There is no denying that in this House at the moment there is a Socialist parliamentary majority, because of the fact that in certain EU Member State elections are carried out by means of a majority single-vote procedure.
At the moment, that first-past-the-post electoral system has resulted in political misrepresentation.
If this Parliament unanimously approves Article 1 of the Anastassopoulos report, it will mean that the rules of the game will be the same in all the Member States.
So I think we have to congratulate ourselves on the acceptance, by everybody, of proportional representation for the European elections.
<P>
Secondly, the Anastassopoulos report also has the merit of applying the principle of subsidiarity, for example in the power it gives the Member States to determine the constituencies, according to the specific characteristics of each country.
<P>
I want to mention a third point, to which the previous speaker has already referred: the transnational list.
We in the Group of the European People's Party believe we should promote transnational lists because we think we ought to develop that precept, which is included in the Maastricht Treaty, where it talks about European political parties. So I agree with what Mr Corbett said.
We are going to try to find a formula with which all the political groups in this House can feel comfortable. But we must give a clear political signal that we want transnational lists in the future.
<P>
Finally, we also want to mention the incompatibility between a European Parliament mandate and national mandates. The work we do here is important enough.
This Parliament is involved in codecision and has a lot of work to do.
It will have even more work in the future. So we do not think it is possible to be both a national MP and a Member of the European Parliament.
So, Mr President, given these views, my group, the Group of the European People's Party, is going to vote wholeheartedly in favour of this excellent report by Mr Anastassopoulos.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Frischenschlager">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if today, on the strength of Mr Anastassopoulos's excellent report, we finally agree on common principles for an electoral system for the European Parliament, this will be a quite decisive step - and one which has long been overdue - towards greater electoral democracy in the European Union.
It is very encouraging to see that we are in agreement on the basic principles of proportional representation, or rather that we are on the verge of reaching such agreement.
In this connection the political representatives from the UK, who prepared the way for this measure, deserve every respect.
<P>
It is quite vital for us to recognize that proportional representation will provide us with a more vigorous and dynamic parliamentary system.
This will have particular benefits for the European Parliament and for the political union of Europe.
Why?
Because this political union is still unfinished and still has no fixed constitutional structures.
It is therefore very, very important for this Parliament to keep an open mind when it comes to many of the political policies and, as far as I am concerned, to territorial interests and ideologies as well.
This openness is vital, for what we do not want to see is a Parliament made up of two blocks with rigid voting patterns and so on, as tends to be the case with the first-past-the-post electoral system.
As we enter a historic phase in European history it is particularly important that we have a Parliament capable of open debate.
<P>
The rapporteur has adopted just the right approach in attempting merely to define the principles of universal suffrage.
This leaves room for national political traditions and cultures - which is a very important factor.
<P>
Let me now raise a number of points which have an important bearing on this debate.
Firstly the matter of constituencies.
It is right that these should be limited to the larger countries and it should be made quite clear that the principle of proportional representation should not be affected by this in any way.
<P>
Secondly the percentage hurdle.
In my view the 5 % being proposed for the larger nations is simply too high.
It would be deplorable if possibly millions of voters in the larger countries were not to be represented in the European Parliament.
I therefore hope that we will lower the 5 % hurdle.
<P>
Now two more fundamental issues.
The first concerns the compatibility of a seat in the European Parliament with one in the national Parliament.
Let us be honest - if you take your mandate seriously, you cannot perform both roles.
<P>
My final point relates to the common European list. If we are to take European political union seriously, we should be happy to see our citizens organizing themselves on a Europe-wide basis and standing as candidates in democratic elections.
I therefore support the idea of transnational lists in the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cardona">
Mr President, I would first of all like to congratulate Mr Anastassopoulos on the very fine piece of work he has brought us here, especially the part that deals with European electoral rights, which are very important to our work.
In addition to my acknowledgment and thanks, I would like to string together a few thoughts, mainly regarding territorial constituencies and transnational lists.
<P>
This report recognizes that eleven of the present fifteen States have only one electoral constituency.
Even so, it considers it important to make territorial constituencies based on population criteria for the areas in question compulsory.
I wondered why, and found the answer in the report as well: our colleague says his aim and objective is to bring elected Members closer to the electors.
I myself am entirely in favour of that principle.
I do indeed consider that the closer we get to the citizens that elect us, the better Europe will be built.
And I therefore think this principle is to be applauded.
But I have serious doubts as to whether this arrangement or system is the most likely way of achieving those aims.
<P>
There may be other, different ways of achieving them. From my point of view it suffices that we should be attentive to public opinion in the various Member States, which of course is expressed through their national Parliaments.
And, therefore, I myself would give the principle of subsidiarity free rein in that area - a principle which is also recognized and applauded in the report.
<P>
Another aspect I cannot overlook relates to the question of making transnational lists compulsory from 2009.
And I must say I am delighted by the opening Mr Corbett has provided for a possible agreement on the matter.
I have to say that, as this motion is worded, I have the most serious doubts.
Firstly from the legal and institutional point of view: I wonder, and I ask my fellow Members to enquire of themselves as well, whether Article 190 of the Amsterdam Treaty will not perchance be a little cramped by a proposal of this nature...
<P>
But apart from this legal question, with which we should be concerned as a House of specialists in such matters, which we also are, there are questions of a political nature that I cannot help bringing to the House's attention.
I am thinking for example of the question of what role Parliaments should play vis-a-vis public opinion.
I myself have always believed that Parliamentary legislation should follow the demands of public opinion, and not the other way round.
So far as I am aware, public opinion in the various Member States is not calling for transnational lists.
What the public wants most of all is that we here should do our job properly and that those we represent should feel that their interests are genuinely protected here.
I am inclined to quote a well-known Portuguese figure, not even a member of my party, who used to say 'Let Europeans marry one other, let them meet one another, don't run too far ahead of Europeans' .
<P>
For my part, I am open to that understanding for the very reason that I am one of those people who do not believe European public opinion is calling for transnational lists.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Puerta">
Mr President, I too wanted to pay tribute to Mr Anastassopoulos' work and make it clear that it is possible to admire a rapporteur's work, and congratulate him on it, without necessarily agreeing with all the points in the report.
I particularly agree with the way it gathers together all our national experience; proposes a draft electoral procedure based on common principles, developing the Treaty of Amsterdam; presents the principle of proportional representation as the most important; and the incompatibility of mandates, especially those between the European Parliament and the national parliaments.
But although I agree with all that, and also the transnational dimension of the elections - although I know public opinion is against that in some countries - I have to say that I do not agree with the idea of territorial constituencies, and making them compulsory for countries with a population of over 20 million.
<P>
My first argument is that it is an arbitrary figure.
So in countries with a population of 19 million, if any existed, Members of the European Parliament elected in a single constituency would be close to the people, whereas in countries of 21 million inhabitants they are not, and have to be divided up into various constituencies, of approximately 5 or 6 million people.
I do not think such an arithmetical method will resolve the question of the citizens being close to their representatives.
<P>
Secondly, there is an adverse effect on medium-sized political options - not the People's Party, to which Mr Anastassopoulos belongs, or the Party of European Socialists.
Political choices such as the one I represent, which count on approximately 10 % of European voters, and which are not nationalist parties, would really be placed in a very difficult situation.
In other words, the people we represent would be left with virtually no representatives.
That is an attack against the fundamental principle upheld by Mr Anastassopoulos: the principle of proportionality.
I believe we need to study what happens in real political life.
Here, perhaps, the Conference of Presidents could be made up of just four group chairmen.
That is why, every now and then, the report says "without violating the proportional system' , "without generally violating it' , and so on, because the main objective is being compromised.
I must also say that in some countries there are worrying political consequences because not all regions are equal and not all territories have political power.
Of the 200 European regions, only 69 have real regional parliaments. They have a different dimension, and in Member States with historical communities, with a political personality, it is very difficult to set up different constituencies with a very different dimension.
<P>
I will finish, Mr President, by saying that the constituency system in a country I greatly respect - Italy - has not exactly solved the problem of the people being close to their representatives, because political parties can also put forward the same candidates in all the constituencies, which is something this document does not address.
I am not sure that subsidiarity is being fully respected, and for all those reasons, if the rapporteur and Parliament do not accept any amendments then, regretfully, we shall not be able to vote in favour of this report, which contains such interesting elements.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if we want people to regard the European Parliament as their Parliament and to see the Members of this Parliament as their MPs, then we need to have universal European suffrage and a common set of rules and principles.
The same view was expressed 40 years ago and I only hope that we do not have to wait another 40 years to see it happen.
<P>
On behalf of my group I wish to thank the rapporteur, Mr Anastassopoulos, and to congratulate him on his report.
We agree with him.
We agree in particular with the principle of proportional representation as the democratic system of suffrage.
We also support the idea of preferential voting, addressing incompatibilities and the creation and development of European lists, even though this process is fraught with major technical difficulties.
<P>
If we have submitted amendments, these are aimed at speeding up the whole process and at achieving a more democratic arrangement.
We are therefore of the opinion that the obligation to introduce equality for women should apply to the national Parties from 1999.
I hope, Mr Anastassopoulos, that we also have your agreement on this.
We also believe that the proposal for European lists should have a 2004 deadline, not a 2009 one.
If we do not try to get these reforms going, who will?
Others can be relied on to create delays!
<P>
As far as the question of democratization is concerned, I agree with all those who have expressed misgivings about regional constituencies. At least there should be no pressure exerted here.
This could be handled by applying subsidiarity.
There would be two different types of Member in this House - one with European legitimacy and one with national legitimacy.
I am of the opinion that we need to think this through once again, to say nothing about the various possibilities for manipulating proportional representation.
Naturally the smaller groups in this House - and this is something which Mr Frischenschlager referred to - wish to drop this qualifying clause.
The strength of this House also lies in its representation.
A further reduction in the voting age would also be possible, in our view.
<P>
In closing I would like to make a further point.
I believe that current developments also require us to look at the representation of European interests and to bear in mind the development of European political parties.
This is also relevant to the report and is something which is directly associated with it.
If we wish to define and represent European interests, then we need to have European parties.
I believe that here too there are reasons for thinking that the parties present in this House must not just see themselves as European groups but should also align and organize themselves as such, if there is to be any point in having European electoral rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Saint-Pierre">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me first of all, on behalf of my group, to congratulate Mr Anastassopoulos on the important work he has done and for having incorporated in his report the essence of a number of items raised by his colleagues in the Committee on Institutional Affairs.
<P>
It seems almost a miracle that we have been able to tackle a subject of such complexity in a plenary session, in such a short space of time.
Naturally, the most recent amendments introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam, together with new factors concerning British policy, have greatly aided our task.
Nevertheless, defining the individual features common to all Member States in order to secure a uniform electoral procedure for the European elections is a tough one that calls for a particular degree of tact and skill.
<P>
In the opinion of my group, the report before the plenary is a good starting point. it is in fact the responsibility of the European Parliament, in accordance with the provisions of Article 138 of the Treaty, to submit a proposal to the Council.
We would be failing in our duties if, whilst deriving benefit from a favourable political context, we found ourselves unable to accept our own responsibilities in those areas where the Treaty explicitly accords us the right to do so.
<P>
The Group of the European Radical Alliance is especially pleased to find principles outlined in the report focusing on proportional representation, the incompatibility of mandates, derogations in support of special regional characteristics and transnational lists.
<P>
May I make a brief comment on this very matter of transnational lists?
I think it is quite justifiable to commit the European Parliament to the path of Europeanizing the electoral campaign which, incidentally, ties in neatly with Jacques Delors' proposals.
As regards the rest, the report is wise, perhaps too wise, but there is no doubt that we are behind the times in setting a date and a particular threshold that allows us to put the finishing touches to our proposals.
<P>
To those who would criticize the proposals for not establishing a set number of seats for each Member State, I would say that the argument seems a little out of date at this stage in the process of building Europe, insofar as the ability offered to citizens of the Union to put themselves up as candidates in a state other than their own has already diminished the value of that particular principle.
As a matter of interest, one of the members of my group is of Belgian nationality and was elected in Italy.
<P>
Nonetheless, we believe the report by Mr Anastassopolous could be further improved.
This is why my group has put forward a number of amendments which we would bring to the attention of the rapporteur.
Firstly, whilst understanding the arguments of the rapporteur in favour of territorial constituencies, I feel that the decision should be left to each Member State to decide.
In this respect, I share Mr Puerta's opinion.
<P>
Secondly, the list of incompatible mandates should be extended to include any mandate that involves a legislative or executive function.
We are of the opinion that the increasing responsibilities of the European parliamentarian make the notion of holding a dual mandate even more difficult.
<P>
Finally, in view of its strongly regionalist persuasion, my group would appreciate a strengthening of the Article 4 device, in order to establish the legitimacy of the special provisions to allow for regional differences in firmer ground.
<P>
To conclude, I must express a certain regret, Mr President.
I deplore the fact that when we were speaking of European elections, transnational lists and the major challenges facing our continent in the future, no progress was made regarding the European political parties.
It is very sad that the Commission has still not followed up the requests of the European Parliament within the framework of the excellent report by Mr Tsatsos.
I urge all my colleagues to insist that the issue be debated in this Chamber, during one of our forthcoming meetings.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, every Member State is represented in the European Parliament by directly elected individuals.
If the plans of the Anastassopoulos report go through, this will change.
A certain percentage of the seats in the European Parliament will be distributed across "transnational' lists.
Our citizens are already far from the European Parliament, a fact which will only be exaggerated by this change.
<P>
In addition, the rapporteur wishes to take away the right of Member States to organize European elections on a day which fits in with their traditions.
The report suggests electing members of Parliament in all countries simultaneously, possibly over two days.
This is a problem for a country like the Netherlands, in view of the fact that the proposed Saturday and Sunday as election days run totally counter to Dutch tradition.
This not only poses organizational problems, but also problems of principle.
There are many people in the Netherlands who recognize Sunday as a day of rest, for which reason no elections are held on a Sunday.
These two reasons will ensure that the turnout for the European elections will be even lower than the 35 % last time.
A certain class of voters will not show up at all, and will thus not be represented in the European Parliament.
In addition, I am concerned here with the principle that every Member State should have the right to determine itself when it holds elections.
The amendments I have tabled refer to this.
<P>
Finally, if the European Parliament wishes to increase European awareness as stated, it has to respond in these election plans to the customs of the Member States in this regard.
This will be very easy to arrange by allowing the elections to take place within a number of days.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Parigi">
Mr President, the National Alliance also wishes to thank to Mr Anastassopoulos for his valuable work and gives its backing to further efforts by the European Parliament to establish a common electoral procedure for European elections throughout all Member States.
<P>
Our imminent expansion makes this decision particularly urgent and important. But our most pressing task is to ensure that the parties - which represent a link with democracy in Member States - understand that Europe now more than ever needs representatives who are elected by the people and who will devote all their energies and skill to parliamentary work.
Monetary Europe and the new parliamentary Europe - to an even greater extent - pose important problems that cannot be resolved by half-hearted effort.
<P>
The National Alliance still holds to what it said in the last legislature, in other words that proportional representation remains the only real way to involve citizens in electoral choice and thus achieve true democracy.
<P>
To turn to the proposals, we consider that the new uniform law should include the incompatibility of mandates already discussed and also stipulate incompatibility - or rather ineligibility - for those who fill important national posts such as regional councillors, mayors of towns with more than 50 000 inhabitants or deputy mayors in regional capitals.
<P>
The Europe of the year 2000 must be served by parliamentarians able to devote all their time to giving the European parliament all its eagerly awaited and necessary legislative power.
These parliamentarians must represent all the citizens of their own countries and help them achieve true European citizenship.
<P>
For this reason, we ask the rapporteur to consider these comments on incompatibility and ineligibility. We also ask the President of Parliament to send an official invitation to the political forces and governments of all Member States to ask them to adopt measures to be implemented during the next elections - once again due to take place without a common European law - to ensure that the electoral lists, which represent the wishes of our citizens, are made up of people institutionally engaged in acting as Members of the European Parliament and nothing else.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Barros Moura">
<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Piha">
Mr President, I also wish to thank Mr Anastassopoulos for undertaking this very important report.
Although I do not agree with the rapporteur on all the details contained in it, I consider it important that its central concern is to aim for proportional representation in all Member States of the Union.
<P>
The report talks about the significance of the principle of subsidiarity as the connecting thread running through the whole issue of European Parliamentary electoral reform.
That is only right, but it appears that what subsidiarity might consist of in this context turns out to be very different for different people.
As the aim is, as the rapporteur stresses, that Members of Parliament and citizens assume closer ties, I cannot agree with the rapporteur's assessment, for example, of the need for a single European list of candidates for election.
Communications between Parliament and the voters are already very often pretty tenuous.
This being the case, we can only wonder how someone elected from a single European list, say a Portuguese Member of the European Parliament, could actively run things, for example, in the Åland Islands.
<P>
Greater community and representation of the people will not come about through common election lists and dates.
Any debate on whether the Belgians, say, may vote one day before the Finns is trivial and diverts attention away from the real problem of how to arouse interest in citizens in European Parliament elections in general.
<P>
This report does not get its teeth sufficiently into the problems of representation and the involvement of the people.
As for the latter, the main question concerning election dates is the assurance of sufficiently long-term advance voting for all EU citizens.
This is an idea that is unfortunately absent from this report.
<P>
The rapporteur's idea of rejecting dual mandates is one we warmly support.
Simultaneous membership of a national parliament and the European Parliament calls into question the whole credibility of both the Member of Parliament and the institutions.
Dual mandates were not approved in Finland, and I hope that we will be able to do something about them as quickly as possible in Member States where they are still allowed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Spaak">
<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
Mr President, democracy in the EU countries and in the EU is based on and emanates from the national constitutions and the national parliaments.
Therefore that is where rules for elections, including elections to the European Parliament, should be formulated.
That is where you find democratic legitimacy and respect for national conditions.
<P>
For this reason the Swedish Left Party rejects all proposals to regulate the electoral system at EU level on such matters as constituency boundaries and qualifying percentages for small parties.
<P>
In the report, paragraph 4 on additional seats at the EU level appears unrealistic.
Such a system requires functioning EU parties.
Such parties can only be created in theory.
In practice, EU parties will for the foreseeable future lack any democratic legitimacy.
They cannot therefore play a true democratic role.
That is why we are going to vote against the report, with the exception of certain parts, such as the fact that elections should be held in May and that dual mandates will not be allowed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="Macartney">
Mr President, I rise to support in particular Amendment No 46 by Mr Ebner, and my own Amendment No 49, which focus on the rights of historic recognized nationalities within the European Union.
<P>
I am quite convinced that a democratic Europe cannot ignore the rights of its small peoples, whether they are the Friesians, the Sardinians or the Valdostans.
The amendments which I am supporting draw attention to exactly that point.
But I am not persuaded at all by the argument that the big Member States have to subdivide into territorial constituencies and the small ones can be left out.
That seems to be quite irrelevant.
<P>
Portugal is a nation-state, but so is Germany.
What we have to look at is the multinational states such as Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom where we have to recognize the rights of nationality.
This is something which a sensitive and democratic Europe has to take on board.
<P>
Let me conclude by congratulating the rapporteur on his report, which has set us on the right lines.
I would concur with Mr Corbett's point that after a 20-year British veto on a proportional representation system, it is a relief that we are at last within sight of that goal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, the report by the Committee on Institutional Affairs concerning the procedure for selecting European Members of Parliament, contains two dubious innovations.
The first is the general obligation to regionalize the ballot, except in countries with more than 20 million inhabitants.
In this respect, the report neatly reflects the Barnier private member's bill which has been used in France as the basis of a government bill seeking to regionalize the ballot.
But I should inform the House that all of these developments are now out of our hands since the French government, in view of the general opposition it faced, preferred to withdraw the bill.
<P>
Why so?
Over and above the circumstantial arguments put forward by each party, a proportional ballot - within the framework of a single territorial constituency - as currently practised by 11 of the 15 Member States - is the best way European Members of Parliament can represent their entire country.
This therefore seems to us to be most in line with the concept of a Europe of Nations.
Under such conditions, I would find it inconceivable that the European Parliament could now vote for the regionalization proposal which France wishes so firmly to reject.
It would be even more inconceivable given that the proposal put forward by the Committee on Institutional Affairs is clearly discriminatory, since it enables countries with less than 20 million inhabitants to retain a representation that reflects their national unity, but which is forbidden to all others.
Perhaps other large countries would benefit more than France in this matter.
I do not know. At all events, I will tell my French colleagues that this proposal is not in the interest of our country.
<P>
The second questionable innovation in this report - the election of 10 % of Members within the framework of a single European constituency - is really just another aspect of federalist folklore.
It has no chance of being included in any revision of the Treaty and I wonder if its inclusion in the motion for a resolution placed before us is designed simply to divert our attention from the first issue, which is the more dangerous in the immediate future.
<P>
Finally, we note that the European Parliament would gladly accept the election in a regional context, or even a European context, but the only context that terrifies it is the national context.
Anything but the national context seems to be its guiding principle.
How odd.
This is precisely the context that seems to us to be the most robust, the most realistic principle, the closest to a calm democratic expression of popular will, based on national parliaments.
All the others favour the establishment of a confused Europe, deprived of any reference points and opening itself up to all manner of mishandling.
<P>
We absolutely refuse to follow this path, Mr President, and we prefer to pursue the path of a Europe firmly grounded in national democratic procedures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Tsatsos">
Mr President, I too begin by warmly congratulating the rapporteur.
I believe that the Anastassopoulos report will, without doubt, enter into the history of the institutions of the European Union.
<P>
The electoral procedure is - as we all know - the crowning moment of the legitimization of power.
Precisely for this reason the convergence of national systems of electoral law for electing Members of the European Parliament is wholly desirable.
They should converge but not be made identical.
Quite rightly, then, we are going along the road of common principles, which is the cornerstone of the logic of the Anastassopoulos report.
The institutional and political culture of all Member States has from time to time brought to the forefront significant elements and principles such as popular sovereignty, the separation of powers, fundamental rights, and so forth.
Thus, insofar as national political systems both flow from and serve these principles, it is justifiable, productive and in accordance with the philosophy of the European Union that we move towards a common framework for electoral systems.
<P>
If we were to opt for just one electoral system, thereby ignoring specific national features, be they geopolitical, sociological or cultural, such a legislative choice would cease to serve the other great objective of the European Union, which is respect for the national identity of Member States.
In parallel, however, with the convergence of the electoral systems, it is essential that the institution of European political parties should evolve, as Mr Voggenhuber so rightly stressed.
Only through such mechanisms and structures, within which Europe's citizens will carry out, with their active participation, the exciting work of European integration, will the common elements of the common electoral culture be able to evolve and finally become firmly established.
The proposed international list is certainly a good thing in principle, but it must be given time, and this institution can never be understood in isolation from the parallel development of European political parties.
<P>
The rapporteur's proposal for a preferential vote aims to allow constituents to elect specific people.
This proposal, which is on the right lines, has two preconditions: firstly, the acceptance of the regions, which is a precondition that is not without its problems and which must be looked into, and secondly, that we must think carefully about the fashioning of such a system, so that we do not make the election of Members of the European Parliament a matter of personal rivalry.
<P>
We hope this Parliament will support Mr Anastassopoulos's report by an overwhelming majority, since it is important to lend authority to an idea so bound up with the future of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Imaz San Miguel">
Mr President, first of all I should like to thank Mr Anastassopoulos for his excellent work.
We do indeed need to have common principles in the electoral procedure for elections to this House.
One of those should be full respect for proportionality.
But there is also a need for all the peoples who make up the European Union, all the national identities, to have the ability to send their own elected representatives to this Parliament.
And where different nations, different peoples, live together in a single Member State - as in the case of the Spanish state where Basques, Catalans and others are all of us nations comprising a state - that plurality needs to be reflected when it comes to establishing the European Parliament's electoral constituencies.
<P>
For those of us who believe in a federal European project, it is important that the people should feel that Europe is close to them, as something they can identify with.
Establishing territorial constituencies brings Europe closer to its citizens and the reality of their national and cultural lives.
<P>
That is why the report's proposed Article 2 is important, establishing that each Member State shall set up territorial constituencies, with these essentially being compulsory for countries with a population of more than 20 million, the ones where this lack of territorial representation is most apparent.
<P>
Some governments, such as the Spanish Government, are opposed to their country's domestic plurality being reflected in the construction of Europe.
That is an archaic, centralist view, which reflects apprehension about Basque or Catalan actualities, or others, being reflected in European politics.
But they have nothing to fear.
We do not want a presence in Europe in order to destroy anything, but to build a common European space.
We are going to contribute and collaborate with solidarity to the European project, which can be the reflection and multicultural sum of us all - not just French, Spanish and British, but also Catalan, Basque, Scottish, Welsh and so forth.
<P>
So creating territorial constituencies for the European elections can and should be a step towards achieving a Europe for everybody, in which all its peoples can participate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Neyts-Uyttebroeck">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this is an important moment in this session of the European Parliament.
I would like to start by offering the warmest congratulations on behalf of myself and of my whole group to Mr Anastassopoulos for the quality of the work he has delivered.
I said that this was an important moment for the following reasons, ladies and gentlemen.
You will be aware that the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party in particular has been devoted for many years to establishing of a common electoral system for the European Parliament.
I must, however, point to the important reports that were completed in the last Parliament by my fellow party member and fellow countryman Karel De Gucht in connection with a European election system, and which were approved by a large majority.
A very creative idea was put forward in the De Gucht report, namely that a uniform system does not mean that the same electoral system has to be established in all Member States down to the last detail, but that all Members of the European Parliament should be elected on the basis of the same principles, that is to say chiefly in accordance with the principle of proportionality.
The principle of proportionality is very precious to us liberals, and that is truly not just because we are one of the smaller political families in Europe, but is because our basic convictions and ideology mean that we greatly value the pluralism of political democracy, because we believe that a mature democracy is one in which there is room for diversity of ideas and views, because we believe, ladies and gentlemen, that the business of politics has to be something more than the confrontation of power among large blocs, and therefore we are delighted with this report and my group will consequently approve it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Miranda">
Mr President, I also acknowledge the work Mr Anastassopoulos has put into this, even if I think that his report is not entirely appropriate, because Amsterdam is not yet in force and, in particular, because changes are being made to the electoral system of the Member State at which reports of this kind are usually directed.
<P>
We consider, furthermore, that the diversity of electoral cultures in our countries should lead us to be extremely careful in our approach to these matters.
That is to say, when we talk about principles we ought not to talk about anything else.
Any drifting beyond that limit will inevitably be ruled offside.
<P>
The emphasis given by the rapporteur to the principle of proportionality therefore deserves our acceptance.
And we could say the same about the principle of non-accumulation.
But, for the same reasons, we cannot say the same about certain other guidelines it directly or indirectly recommends.
<P>
First and foremost, let me address the matter of electoral constituencies or a single constituency. It seems wrong to us to lay down any guidelines in this area.
In addition, this is an attempt to link electoral constituencies to the population of Member States while disregarding, for example, their political and administrative organization, whilst giving a markedly federal character to the building of Europe by creating a single constituency. This, in particular, would drive a wedge between Members and electors, when our agenda should primarily be to find ways of dealing with the real alienation of the one from the other that we are seeing today.
<P>
The references both to preferential voting and to setting qualifying percentages seem equally inappropriate to us, if only, in the latter case, because it clashes with the principles of proportionality and pluralism.
For these reasons we think this report is in fact inopportune at the present moment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the rapporteur's task has been a difficult one.
It is good that the Treaty of Amsterdam creates a framework for the harmonization of elections in all Member States.
This is equality, but something quite different from organizing the European elections as if Europe were a single electoral constituency.
Regional representation guarantees democracy in national and international policy.
Federal states have also recognized the importance of regions and their division into local constituencies.
Even the USA is divided into electoral districts.
And this is despite the fact that there they have one common language throughout the entire country.
As far as political familiarity and influence are concerned, the main state television networks are likewise the same throughout the whole of the federation of the United States.
<P>
Europe is not the USA, but it is trying to become an even tighter federation than the United States.
In the EU there is not nor will there ever be one single language nor one single television network broadcasting identical TV programmes to one and all.
So if we were to support single European crossborder elections, we would be turning our backs on national representation.
We would be bashing different cultures into the same unfounded shape.
It is diversity that is the very hallmark of Europeanness.
Sameness is not a strength in the information society.
<P>
For example, in my country, Finland, people representing Britain could become well known via the BBC' s channels, which Finns who understand English watch.
Finnish affairs and representatives on the other hand could in no way become well known in Britain.
In practice this would mean a fall in the number of small language groups and also of seats in Parliament held by Members from small nations.
If single lists were to be organized, representatives of the smaller countries would, as a result of their being less well known, be right at the bottom of the list before very long.
This is the sort of "silly' federalism that destroys harmony.
Is it not enough that people have already become alienated from these polls?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="Watson">
Mr President, the history of a civilized society is the story of a succession of battles against repression and discrimination.
This report seeks to lay siege to one such current bastion of injustice.
<P>
Our European Union has 15 Member States; we currently use 16 different electoral systems to choose our Parliament.
We use 16 because one Member State - my own - uses two systems: a fair one in Northern Ireland, where injustice would lead to armed conflict in a province which has seen far too much violence; and an unfair system in Great Britain, where the minority has limited itself to passive protest.
Great Britain is the only country which uses a non-proportional system of voting to elect Members of this House, and that has rightly been condemned: not simply because it is inherently unjust but also because it has skewed the balance of power between the political parties in this House.
<P>
I am the first Liberal Democrat from the United Kingdom ever to be declared elected to this House.
I participated in three election campaigns - in 1979, 1984 and 1989 - which saw not a single Liberal Democrat elected despite, on one occasion, one voter in every five having cast their vote for my party.
The two Liberal Democrats elected from my country in 1994 should, by rights, have 12 colleagues in this House.
<P>
I would like to thank Members of this House, in particular former colleague Karel de Gucht, Gijs de Vries and now Mr Anastassopoulos, for their work to see that such injustice is repaired.
<P>
The United Kingdom Government has introduced a bill in Parliament to right the wrongs that have hitherto persisted.
But so long as procedures for election to this House are a matter for national governments, we cannot guarantee a continuation of the principle of proportionality and that is why this report is so important.
We must cement for the European citizen the right so wisely identified by the governments at Amsterdam to an electoral system based on common principles.
This report does that.
It is a major step forward and I commend it to the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Mr President, Mr Anastassopoulos' report clearly shows that the political unification of Europe requires a Parliament whose members are chosen for the role it has to play along the same institutional and political lines.
The rest will be ironed out by national laws.
<P>
I recall how our Green colleagues protested in July 1989, because the British Greens, having got, if I remember rightly, 12 % of the vote, did not have a single Member in this Parliament.
It was politically unacceptable not only to the Greens, but also to the entire British people and to the European Parliament itself and as a failure to reflect the extent to which the Parliament is representative of Europe.
<P>
However, we Members of the European Parliament are set apart from each other by the way in which each of us was elected to office.
Some were preferred by the constituents themselves, some chiefly by the leadership of their parties, while others were selected by the members of their party and at times by their constituents as well.
This does not strengthen interest in European affairs, nor does it bring Members of Parliament closer to the people.
In this regard we would like to see arrangements which would give citizens greater and more appropriate involvement.
For this reason I support Mr Anastassopoulos' proposals for a system of proportional representation, and also for the ability of the citizen to express a preference among candidates.
<P>
This can be achieved by various national arrangements, technically speaking.
The spirit and the aim, however, must remain the same from country to country.
For the same political reasons the qualifying threshold for being allocated seats must not be prohibitive and, in my view, must not exceed 3 %.
<P>
Finally, the election of a number of Members of the European Parliament on a pan-European basis is a positive idea, as long as there are arrangements to prevent the marginalization of smaller countries and of less widely used languages.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Delcroix">
Mr President, I would like to offer my congratulations to the rapporteur as many others have already done.
<P>
This report might well have passed unnoticed by the public.
But nothing of the kind, and the great merit of the rapporteur is that he had the courage to introduce the proposal for transnational lists, along with other proposals whose importance I do not underestimate, for five specific reasons.
<P>
Firstly, it is an initiative that ties in neatly with a programme for building Europe not strictly focused on national interests.
Next, given transnational lists and the opportunity to be included in those lists, minority groups throughout the Member States could gain representation in the European Parliament.
By way of example, minorities we might consider would be the Romanies and Muslims.
<P>
Thirdly, as a socialist belonging to a party of European socialists that exists alongside the parliamentary group that bears the same name, I further believe that such lists would help to establish genuine European parties.
<P>
Fourthly, it might be interesting to add a little touch of drama to the European elections, in order to distinguish them from national elections.
<P>
Finally, there is the question of whether to build a Europe of nations or a federation, which is once more the issue at stake in this debate.
<P>
There are, of course, a number of practical problems to be ironed out, but that does not detract from the fact that the principle of transnational lists needed to be brought to our attention and that it would help to develop European awareness.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Moreau">
Mr President, drawing up a draft electoral procedure for electing European Members of Parliament is a long-winded process and many reports have pursued that same line without success. Doubtless because a uniform, restrictive procedure is neither acceptable nor desirable.
The Anastassopolous report recommends proportional representation, which is the fairest and I commend it, but it does put the burden of creating territorial constituencies on individual Member States.
Yet, of the Fifteen, eleven have a single constituency.
<P>
By what right does the European Parliament seek to impose a solution that differs from that prevailing and for which most of the States have opted?
The argument about bringing electors closer becomes quite absurd when we are considering constituencies with several million inhabitants.
<P>
In addition, this provision has two major disadvantages.
Firstly, it replaces the national character of the delegations from individual countries and imposes a regional character.
Some States have chosen that path and they are entitled to do so.
But others have not.
Secondly, it infringes the principle of fair representation by raising the eligibility threshold, thereby compromising the representation of small or medium political groupings; it encourages bipolarity and therefore whittles away at the principle of democratic representation.
The French government, which would like to see such reforms in the balloting procedure, has been forced to retreat because there was not a sufficient majority in favour.
This was a wise move, and I would urge the European Parliament to take counsel from that wisdom by allowing Member States a clear choice between adopting a single constituency or the right not to do so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="Spiers">
Mr President, I should like to add my congratulations to Mr Anastassopoulos on his report and the manner of the consultation he carried out in writing it.
The European Parliamentary Labour Party broadly welcomes the report.
As Mr Corbett reminded us earlier, the Labour Party election manifesto in 1997 included a commitment to introduce PR for the European elections.
The Labour government has acted swiftly to fulfil this commitment.
The European Parliament is a representative body, not a parliament from which a government is drawn.
So the objections to proportional representation at a national level do not apply to the European elections.
We also acknowledge that the UK's electoral system skews the balance of forces in this increasingly important Parliament.
<P>
I should say to Mr Watson - who is muttering away there - that the system we have had, and continue to have, in the United Kingdom, and which has preserved our representative democracy fairly effectively for many centuries, simply consists of the candidate who gets the most votes winning the election.
It really is beautifully simple.
He should not complain if he keeps coming second.
<P>
To return to the report, like all reports in the European Parliament, the Anastassopoulos report is a compromise.
I suspect there are few individuals or political groups in this House who would support every part of it.
The European Parliamentary Labour Party has a particular problem and is fundamentally opposed to the proposal that 10 % of the seats be elected in a single constituency comprising the whole of the European Union.
This proposal will, we believe, have virtually no support among the peoples of Europe.
MEPs elected on a transnational list would have no contact with their constituents and would be either independents or the creatures of very remote transnational parties.
<P>
Moreover, as the EU expands, the number of MEPs for each Member State is going to be reduced.
This proposal to set aside 10 % of the seats for a transnational constituency would reduce that still further and consequently further remove the MEPs from the constituents they are supposed to represent.
<P>
With that caveat we would welcome this report, but we cannot support the 10 % proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, the report quite rightly favours the principle of proportional representation.
However, it also advocates the division of Member States into electoral regions.
This means a majority can create such numerous and such narrow constituencies that the system of proportional representation will degenerate into a monstrous majority voting system.
Secondly, this division into regions is intended to bring Members of Parliament closer to their constituents and to their problems.
But this is totally at odds with the proposed provision of supranational Members of the European Parliament.
These Members, who will make up 10 % of the total, will be physically distanced from the people and from their problems.
Moreover, it means that this Chamber will include a second category of Members of the European Parliament, who will be in a superior position.
They were elected at a pan-European level!
And this will happen in the name of some united European nation.
It does not exist!
Will it ever exist?
It has not appeared on the near horizon.
Perhaps in the future, after the Second Coming, there will be such a nation, which will elect supranational Members.
Thirdly, there is the issue of the 5 % threshold.
In other words we must decide who has the right to be represented and who does not.
With this system three million Germans may not be represented, even though they take part in the ballot.
450 000 Greek citizens vote and they will not be represented with the 5 % threshold.
This is unacceptable.
Mr Anastassopoulos says that we are not mature, not "ripe' , but it appears that we have become overripe, that we have putrefied and that we are moving towards an antidemocratic system.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schäfer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the proposal for common principles of electoral law is a truly historic step forwards.
With this text, we are coming to an agreement about what we are, namely representatives of the people in a Community of united states.
Yet we cannot, and do not wish, to create total uniformity.
This would not be in accordance with the EU's current state of development, nor would it take account of different regional and national characteristics.
<P>
We are creating unity with diversity and, at the same time, are taking account of diversity in unity.
This means, firstly, that the legal instrument, which requires a unanimous vote in the Council, should regulate the essential points and not be weighed down with too many details.
Secondly, we are creating the opportunity for European lists which can, and should, be implemented in the elections at the beginning of the 21st century.
That is a job for the parties.
I hope that in the year 2004, each group will jointly put up its key European candidates for election in all Member States.
Thirdly, before enlargement, the candidate countries must be clear about the parameters pertaining to them too.
For Europe, and for the Union, there must proportional representation.
<P>
The Treaty of Amsterdam has conferred on the European Parliament the task of working out a draft for joint principles of electoral law.
Today, we are fulfilling that political responsibility.
As from tomorrow, it is the Council's turn.
I should like to express my thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Anastassopoulos.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, EU federalists aim to increase transnational decision-making.
This will favour big countries, the former colonial powers.
This will be the state of affairs when the entire EU region is one single constituency in the European Parliamentary elections.
To insist on such a thing would be a travesty of democracy.
There is only national democracy.
For that to exist there has to be a nation.
Europe is not a nation.
It is thus not a nation that Members elected from one constituency should represent.
In the EU there is no generally pervading concept of international democracy.
<P>
Insistence on one vast European electoral constituency is at odds with the whole idea of decision-making becoming decentralized.
It means concentrating decision-making.
Voters in the big countries, the former colonial powers, will also be electing representatives from the smaller nations.
These lists will furnish Parliament with only "yes' Members, "ja' and "jawohl' Members, "oui' Members, "sí' Members, but no Members from small countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, I think that our colleague, Mr Anastassopoulos, has approached this difficult area with moderation and discernment. It is an area in which there are divergent national situations and political viewpoints, and he has given us a basis for debate.
I agree with the remarks that were made previously by Mr Papayannakis.
I would just like to make four points.
<P>
The first relates to the importance of proportional representation as a common electoral system. This importance must also filter through to national parliaments on the basis of the Amsterdam Treaty.
It is part of the institutional provision for the whole of the European Union.
It is not a matter for us, but we must draw attention to it.
<P>
The second point relates to the qualifying threshold.
The threshold was launched on the basis of the threshold in the national parliaments, which is aimed at preventing the fragmentation of political powers and at providing viable forms of government.
Is such a logic tenable for the European Parliament?
In any case, I think that 5 % is too high a threshold.
<P>
The third point relates to preferential voting.
I think that our colleague has touched on a very important issue.
Of course there are parties that elect their candidates on the basis of a vote by its members.
However, there are also parties in which the candidates are chosen on the basis of the preference of the leader of the party or his or her entourage.
This is unacceptable and I think we must think very hard about the democratic mandate of Members of the European Parliament, either by means of preferential voting or by means of democratic procedures within the parties.
<P>
The fourth point I would like to make relates to supranational Members of Parliament.
This issue is very important.
However, I wonder whether it would not be more advisable to take an overall view of this matter or to deal with it through the normal procedures of the parties themselves, which would result in greater stability and less opposition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission first wishes to congratulate the rapporteur of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, Mr Anastassopoulos, on the excellent report he is presenting today, and also wishes to express its support for this new attempt by the European Parliament to resolve once and for all the question of the electoral procedure as regards those fundamental aspects where there is a broad consensus among the Member States.
<P>
I believe this attempt is an essential part of a whole set of proposals, the ultimate aim of which is to improve public participation in the election of Members of the European Parliament. The Commission has already pointed out the importance of that in view of the future enlargement of the European Union, in the opinion it presented to the last Intergovernmental Conference.
<P>
I also want to remind you that the procedure provided for in Article 138(3) leaves the legislative initiative in this area in the hands of the European Parliament, and it will be the Council which establishes the relevant provisions, acting unanimously after obtaining the Parliament's assent.
So on behalf of the Commission, I want to acknowledge the importance of the rapporteur's efforts during the last few months to facilitate an agreement in Council as quickly as possible.
<P>
Finally, ladies and gentlemen, I just want to end by thanking you for the opportunity to take part in this debate, and reiterating the Commission's support for the essential objectives set out in Mr Anastassopoulos' report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
European voluntary service action programme
<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0274/98) by Mrs Fontaine, on behalf of Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text, approved by the Conciliation Committee, for a European Parliament and Council Decision establishing the Community action programme "European Voluntary Service for Young People' (C4-0381/98-96/0318(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 NAME="Fontaine">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the plenary is now invited to cast its vote on the conciliation agreement we concluded with the Council, on 23 June, on the subject of the European Voluntary Service action programme.
<P>
As the rapporteur for this conciliation exercise, I have to tell you in all truth that I have suffered, as have many other members of our delegation.
Suffered, Mr President, through witnessing the extent to which the Council has once again demonstrated its shortsightedness by skimping - there is no other word - on the funding required to implement an initiative that, as we saw during the trial phase, very much lived up to young people's expectations.
<P>
But the Council knew this.
We had no choice.
We had no choice because it is an excellent programme, precisely because young people write and tell us how interested they are in being able to extend their horizons beyond national boundaries, learning a new language in a neighbouring country, able to cement their projects through direct action.
<P>
In all conscience, Mr President, we cannot disappoint them.
A lack of agreement on conciliation would have deferred, or even cancelled out the positive effects of European Voluntary Service, particularly by fragmenting the impetus generated so far.
<P>
So, after long hours of debate, we have managed to wrest ECU 47.5 million from the Council for the period 1998-1999.
This financial package is wholly inadequate and I thank Commissioner Cresson for the statement by the Commission in which it undertook to look favourably into the possibility of boosting the credits.
I have no doubt that Mrs Cresson has her heart set on making this intention a reality, and I have no doubt that Commissioner Bangemann, who has been gracious and kind enough to stand in for Mrs Cresson, will confirm this in a few moments.
<P>
With regard to the other items, I am pleased to note that the Council has taken account of our requests concerning the need for cultural and linguistic training among the young, as well as quality hosting projects.
<P>
We note, too, the steps taken, albeit somewhat hesitant but nonetheless significant, towards eliminating the legal and administrative obstacles that hamper young people's access to programmes and towards acknowledging the special needs of the young volunteer.
<P>
Finally, on the ever thorny problem of the comitology procedure, we have at last reached agreement on an honourable solution regarding the basis for a modus vivendi .
<P>
In view of this package - according to the formula adopted - and the vital need for the European Voluntary Service to be operational as soon as possible, your rapporteur proposes that you approve the joint text.
But I fervently hope that the success of the programme in the coming months will prise open the budgetary corset in which the Council has stuffed it, as has been the case with other Community mobility programmes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Vecchi">
Mr President, we have finally arrived at the final stage of the long and laborious process that will result in the adoption of the first multiannual programme for European Voluntary Service for Young People.
<P>
We know that this programme will cover only the years 1998 and 1999, but it will nevertheless be of fundamental importance in determining the nature of the new Youth programme that will continue the same work from 2000.
<P>
Parliament has formulated some amendments to a few essential points in the Commission's original proposal, which was in the main supported by this House.
These amendments specifically related to the following points:
<P>
the age band of the volunteers included in the programme-the legal status of volunteers-the relationship with national civil and voluntary services-finance for the programmes.On the first point, we succeeded in reaching a mutually acceptable compromise with Council after the first reading.
As a result of this, access to the programme was made easier for young people aged over 25. On the other points, however, we found the attitude of the Council - and of certain Member States in particular - deplorable in that it sought to block any progressive actions that aimed to make the most of all the potential offered by the European Voluntary Service.
<P>
We were faced with a really difficult task.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank, on behalf of the Party of European Socialists, parliamentary members of the Conciliation Committee and in particular the rapporteur Mrs Fontaine and the VicePresident, Mr Imbeni, for the patience, tenacity and intelligence with which they conducted the negotiations.
I would also like to thank Commissioner Cresson for the active role played by the Commission throughout the negotiations.
<P>
The results we achieved were only partly satisfactory.
<P>
As far as the legal status of European volunteers is concerned, we obtained an important declaration from the Commission, but no firm commitment by the Council, to try and draw up common legislation governing legal, fiscal, social security and health insurance aspects for European volunteers.
<P>
In terms of the relationship with national services, we succeeded with great difficulty in drawing up a general formula for possible "complementarity between European Voluntary Service activities and similar national activities of various kinds' . This formula still allows room for States to try out joint initiatives between the EVS and national civil and voluntary services.
<P>
With regard to the programme budget, we did not succeed in obtaining more than ECU 47.5 million for two years, a sum that falls far short of our proposals.
<P>
These partial successes are made even more disappointing by the obtuse attitudes of certain governments: they should try explaining to their young people - who demonstrate enthusiasm for the European Voluntary Service - exactly why they are against the development of community youth policies.
<P>
Despite these limitations, the results achieved will allow the EVS to expand during the next two years and to continue with the actions we have set in train during the trial stage.
<P>
Now no-one can question the existence of the EVS - and this is a result we hardly dared hope for just a few months ago.
<P>
For these reasons, our group urges Parliament to adopt the Conciliation Committee's proposals so that we can proceed without delay to help the thousands of youngsters who wish to reinforce their training, their education and their European citizenship through the European Voluntary Service.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Pex">
Mr President, it appears to be a platitude to say that European development depends on the youth of Europe.
The training and education of young people is an essential matter.
In today's world, young people have to be able to operate in an international atmosphere.
Exchange programmes are a suitable means of familiarizing the youth of Europe with the cultural diversity within Europe.
This provides a basis for us to be able to satisfy the demands of the increasingly globalizing labour market, in other words knowledge of different languages and of different cultures.
We have a number of successful exchange programmes for students, and now, with the European Voluntary Service action programme for young people, we finally also have a programme for working and in many cases for unemployed youngsters who are not or are no longer students.
<P>
What I have just said does not represent anything new or startling.
So my disappointment is all the greater that this has met with no or precious little support from the Council of Ministers, and it has certainly not been translated into reality.
The outcome of the conciliation we are discussing today is very disappointing.
The Council of Ministers has demonstrated in two areas that it does not take improving the mobility of young people in Europe seriously.
<P>
In the first place, Council is making too small a budget available.
A budget of ECU 47.5 million will only enable a few thousand young people to use the programme.
The contribution per person is too small to allow everyone access to the programme.
We are therefore creating a programme for the happy few who win the lottery and can pay to participate.
<P>
In the second place, Council was not prepared to guarantee that all obstacles to mobility arising at administrative level would be eliminated.
Recital 13 is a poor apology for what the Parliament proposed and the Commission's statement on the matter is only a sticking-plaster on the wound.
The Council was seeking a compromise, that is a compromise between the Council's proposal and that of the Commission.
Actually, Parliament's proposals have not been taken into account.
I was and am apparently stupid enough to assume that conciliation means a reconciliation of the two standpoints of the Parliament and the Council.
In practice, Parliament has been unable to play much of a role in this matter.
It was a case of "like it or lump it' .
<P>
The Commission, in the person of Mrs Cresson, deserves praise for their persistence in this matter.
But I think that the Commission was too easily satisfied.
As long as a programme is put in place, then that is fine, although the scope of the programme is disappointing.
<P>
I am actually against the outcome of this conciliation.
But I acquiesced in the result.
That did not come from the heart, but only because the youth organizations involved in this work asked me to.
Better half a loaf than none, was their attitude.
Because I do the work for the young people this project concerns, I said yes.
As a result, as far as I am concerned the Council and the Commission have won.
It is a bad outcome.
I fear it will have the effect of setting a precedent for subsequent conciliations in the area of culture and education.
The Council will have to realize how important education and culture are for the future of Europe, especially when it comes to young people.
<P>
My thanks go to Mrs Fontaine, who has made this programme possible through her report, her commitment and her staying power.
The youth of Europe must know that if it had been up to her and the other members of the European Parliament, the programme would have looked a lot better.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Guinebertière">
Mr President, is a voluntary service still a valid proposition in our society?
<P>
When I was a boy scout, we called this a "good deed' .
Nowadays, such words invite ridicule.
Yet, despite that, the need is still felt, since we are creating a voluntary service at European level and the number of young candidates far outweighs the number of opportunities available.
<P>
Because while a service, any service, is originally born from generosity, it is also a training ground, it generates human interchange, shared experiences and mutual enrichment.
Thus, many young people aged between 18 and 26 years can participate in the work of NGOs, they can enter problem areas, they can perform humanitarian services for others once they have acquired the rudiments of the language of their host country.
We are truly in the realm of informal education.
<P>
So, the fifteen Member States of the Union decided to cooperate in offering young Europeans this citizenship opportunity, but Parliament and the Council failed to reach agreement on all the procedures to be implemented.
Whilst each of the partners has reached an agreement on the status of the young volunteer and the complementary nature of European and national activities, the financial package unfortunately remains a sore point.
<P>
Yet, in the Conciliation Committee, we reached agreement thanks to the intervention of the Commission, and Mrs Fontaine earlier emphasized the part played by Mrs Cresson.
But can we really talk about conciliation when the Council always has the last word and it decides on the scale of the programmes, whilst Parliament holds the authority to apportion budgetary funds?
<P>
If I abstained from voting during the conciliation, it was because the ECU 47.5 million allocated for 1998-1999 is totally inadequate to satisfy the expectations of the ever-generous young.
But this programme must go on.
This is the reason why, despite the most disappointing budgetary allocation, the Union for Europe Group will support the report by Mrs Fontaine, whom I commend here for her work and her determination to see the European Voluntary Service dossier through to completion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Mr President, on behalf of The Green Group in the European Parliament I would like to thank the Conciliation Committee, and especially Mrs Fontaine, who has worked very actively for these issues, and for the fact that they have at least succeeded in increasing the Council's original offer of ECU 30 million to ECU 47.5 million.
Of course, we should like to have seen a much larger sum, but the Council clearly does not think that youth projects are particularly important to invest in, which is something we of course regret.
<P>
We in The Green Group are going to support the proposal, since we think the involvement of young people is important, especially in the social area, the environment and cultural work and so forth - areas which we know are priorities for young people.
<P>
I also think it is important for this programme to be open to participants from countries in central and eastern Europe.
It is important for us to bridge the differences which exist. The programme could be a significant first step in that.
<P>
However, from the point of view of the Swedish Green Party, some of the proposals are questionable, although I do welcome the principle of a Europe-wide voluntary service for young people, which must be supported.
We in The Green Group are of course going to vote for the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hawlicek">
Mr President, I agree with the previous speakers that the European Voluntary Service for Young People is a well thought out and important programme, but, as Mrs Fontaine has said, its future is uncertain as a result of the political short-sightedness of the Council.
I, and indeed all my colleagues, especially those from the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, have shared in Mrs Fontaine's suffering throughout this affair.
I support Mr Pex and Mr Vecchi, who have explained that although some of the well-founded proposals put forward by the Parliament have been adopted, it has unfortunately proved impossible to introduce specific regulations in line with our proposals on legal status, social status and, more generally, the elimination of legal and administrative obstacles to access to the programme.
<P>
The question of complementarity between European Voluntary Service activities and similar national activities of various kinds has been solved in part.
A positive point, certainly, is that the programme is open to third countries.
I do not wish to hold back from expressing my regret that it has not been possible to increase the funding available for this programme.
We proposed a budget of ECU 80 million, but in the event the Commission was not even able to push through its proposal of ECU 60 million.
The inadequate funding of the European Voluntary Service for Young People begs the question whether the noble aims of Article 1, which were, after all, voted for by the Council - namely to contribute actively to the ideals of democracy, tolerance and solidarity to promote European integration and strengthen cooperation between the European Community and third countries - can actually be achieved in practice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="Morgan">
Mr President, I would like to speak a little about the European Voluntary Service.
It has taken a long time but at last we have reached a conclusion.
I hope that this will now be a programme which will break down the barriers among young people across the continent, giving an opportunity to help foster European integration and gain some valuable experience.
<P>
The whole point of conciliation is to look for an agreement.
The very fact that we have reached this point means that both sides have had to compromise.
We are still unhappy about the resources available for this programme because funding will in effect be cut in future years.
However, we believe it is a programme worth keeping.
Our only other option was to stop the whole initiative.
So, I should like to apologize to all the young people who might have participated in the programme had we been granted more money.
At least we have something to show for all the hard work that has been put into the pilot actions.
I would like to thank Mrs Fontaine and everyone else who has been involved in this initiative.
<P>
We in Parliament, together with the Commission, attach great importance to eliminating all the legal and administrative obstacles hampering access to any programme.
But this is particularly relevant in the case of the European Voluntary Service.
We will be monitoring the implementation of this programme very carefully.
Congratulations to Mrs Fontaine for getting us through a very difficult time.
I hope we will be able to build on this in future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stenzel">
Mr President, the EU must be there for young people too.
If the EU ignores the needs of young people, the result - at best - will be indifference and, at worst, hostility.
The allocation of ECU 47.5 million to the European Voluntary Service for Young People is, it is true, the minimum required and much less than the European Parliament wanted, but at least it enables the project to continue.
It means that at least a small number of young people without higher education will be able to understand and experience Europe for themselves.
<P>
At a time when youth unemployment has reached 15-20 %, this programme is just a drop in the ocean anyway.
In Austria, it has been implemented especially well. 100 young people have already participated in the programme and many others are on the waiting lists.
The programme is not intended to conflict with the voluntary social service year, but is designed to appeal to young people and encourage them to look beyond their own immediate horizons.
<P>
In order to make the programme attractive, there must not only be a good range of projects but also good pastoral support.
The criticism that this programme undermines collective agreements is unjustified.
The aim is not to provide cheap labour but to promote personal development and offer young people an opportunity to gain international experience and thus have better opportunities in life.
<P>
However, the programme is too limited to have any real weight.
We can of course question the justification of projects such as 'frog conservation in Provence' . If we bear in mind that 10 million young people in Europe leave school without qualifications, it would be more sensible to increase the budget for the Leonardo programme by 100 %.
This money would benefit apprentices and young people in occupational training.
<P>
One cannot help but think that despite all the good intentions, programmes like the European Voluntary Service for Young People smack of tokenism.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as you can imagine, my colleague, Mrs Edith Cresson, would have very much liked to be here to thank the rapporteur and, like her, to recommend the adoption of the result of the conciliation procedure.
Unfortunately, she is unable to attend and has asked me to stand in for her today.
<P>
The Commission welcomes the agreement and, as Mrs Fontaine has already said, participated actively in achieving this result.
Of course we understand the disappointment expressed by all the speakers about the funding of the programme, but as is often the case, the Council is not in a position to fulfil what Parliament and Commission propose.
In the Council, economy measures of this kind are always more popular than the most well-intentioned programme, and the interest of the young people who have already registered as a result of the pilot projects shows that this programme could have had a major impact.
<P>
Nonetheless, as is always the case, we should accept what we can achieve rather than having nothing.
We are sure that this programme will develop an impetus of its own, and by its new approach to bringing young people closer to Europe, and through its results, it will show that Mrs Cresson's intentions, which she shares with Parliament, will be translated smoothly into action.
We will do everything in our power - and I speak for Mrs Cresson here too - to overcome the obstacle, namely lack of funding, which is impeding the programme.
<P>
We will also eliminate the other obstacles which may occur.
A number of other difficult questions undoubtedly also need to be resolved, although the conciliation procedure has settled many of the issues arising in connection with the complementarity between this programme and national community service activities.
This is certainly very complicated, but once it is implemented we will see how we can achieve even better results.
<P>
On behalf of my colleague Mrs Cresson, I would also like to assure Parliament once again at this point that, as with Youth for Europe, no decisions about individual projects will be submitted to the Committee.
<P>
With the proposed funding of ECU 47.5 million, the Commission can ensure programme access and the quality of the measures during the remaining 18 months.
Recent experience has shown, however, that the interest of young people in the European Voluntary Service is already very great and is likely to increase further.
For this reason, when we implement the EU budget, there will be an opportunity to examine whether additional funds should be allocated to the programme, and I can promise now on behalf of the Commission that we will certainly look at this possibility.
<P>
We would like to express our thanks once again to the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, especially its rapporteur, Mrs Fontaine, and also to the delegation of the European Parliament and its chairman.
I should also like to thank Parliament generally for its support and its sympathy for this project, without which we would not have made as much progress as we have.
We have not yet reached the end of the process but we have moved some way in the right direction and I am sure that together with the Parliament, the Commission and perhaps, ultimately, even the Council we will see that more must be done, and that a programme of this kind can do more to develop European identity and understanding than certain other programmes which get bogged down in technical detail and do not really deal with people or reflect their views, ideas and wishes.
In this respect, I should like to thank you all once again personally on behalf of Mrs Cresson too; we hope that this programme will mark a new page in the history of European integration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Food additives
<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0242/98) by Mrs Breyer, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directive 95/2/EC on food additives other than colours and sweeteners (C4-0183/98-96/0166(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to make some general points before I present the amendments of the Committee.
In principle, harmonization of the authorization and use of food additives in the European Union is to be welcomed.
Without a standard regulation on additives, the principle of mutual recognition leads to a great deal of uncertainty amongst consumers and to major shortcomings in the monitoring and labelling of foodstuffs.
<P>
Harmonization of the authorization and use of additives is also designed to achieve, as far as possible, a reduction in the range of additives and areas of use.
Unfortunately, this objective is not achieved in the amendments proposed by the Commission, which seem to pay more attention to the needs of the producer than the consumer.
It has been a long-term policy, in line with the demands of European consumers, as well as a trend in the food industry, to dispense voluntarily with certain food additives.
Experience has shown that this has led, particularly in many EU countries, to reductions in the food additives used in the last twenty years. This is due less to legal provisions than to voluntary restraint exercised by the food industry.
<P>
The Framework Directive defines the general criteria for authorization as follows: a technical need must be demonstrated, they must not mislead the consumer, there must be no health risk, and they must benefit the consumer.
As far as the assessment of technical need is concerned - and here I appeal to you, Mr Bangemann - we really must arrive at some agreement once more as to how this term is defined.
When the report was submitted, you did not provide an adequate definition of what is meant by 'technical need' and where this technical need lies in many points of the amendments.
I therefore fear that the situation will deteriorate into tokenism, especially if the authorization procedure is to rely solely on information provided by producers.
<P>
Examples are the proposed new authorization of flavour enhancers in margarine and the enzyme Invertase, enabling a higher sugar content, which is supposedly justified on the grounds of technical need, even though only one manufacturer in the whole of the European Union has applied for it.
I think that technical need should not be recognized simply because one manufacturer demands it when all the other manufacturers demonstrate that another approach is entirely possible.
Today, it is possible to produce many foodstuffs - such as gourmet salads - with and without preservatives.
<P>
However, I should now like to confine myself to presenting Parliament's amendments.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has adopted 10 amendments; the European Parliament, during its first reading, adopted 26 amendments and thus largely followed the decisions of the Committee.
However, the common position took full account of just 11; it took partial account of 4 and rejected 11 completely.
Admittedly, this is a partial success for the European Parliament, but it is an illustration of the extent to which both the Commission and the Council of Ministers sympathize with producers.
<P>
On such important issues as allergy labelling, in particular, there is obviously little movement in the Commission.
A very important principle for us must be transparency, which means that we must put an end to secrecy, that is the use of additives in food ingredients.
I must emphasize - and I make no secret of this even in my capacity as rapporteur - that I would like to see more comprehensive labelling.
I regret that the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection did not support this, but would like to put a question to Commissioner Bangemann at this point.
The Commission said that it could not agree to the amendments because they were in the wrong place.
I would therefore like to know when, and how, the labelling of genetically modified additives will be regulated.
<P>
Now there is also a proposal from Austria.
Perhaps you could explain to us how the Commission will respond to this Austrian proposal and when you will submit it.
You promised us that the Commission would soon bring forward a proposal on novel food.
The same applies to the labelling of loose foodstuffs.
It is unacceptable that loose foodstuffs need not be labelled.
<P>
Parliament thus does not want any extension in additives in flour-treatment agents as we feel this is unnecessary and there are already enough products.
It also rejects the surface treatment of peaches and pineapples with beeswax, as we want natural products to remain natural.
It is not acceptable for the consumer to be misled and offered an apparent level of freshness which does not exist.
As regards nisin, the House did not call for the introduction of antibiotics in mascarpone, in cheese, at second reading.
<P>
(The President indicated that the speaker should finish) We should allow antibiotics to be available on subscription, but they should not be in foodstuffs.
Those were the amendments put forward by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
I hope, however, that the Commission is still prepared to respond to the unresolved questions, which have been orally supported by colleagues in the Committee, on the labelling of genetically modified additives and also the ...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Jensen, Kirsten">
Mr President, I would like to highlight two points before we proceed to the vote this morning: on the one hand, nisin, and on the other, sulphites.
Nisin is an antibiotic that could, in the long term, lead to resistance to medicines.
Antibiotics are crucial in treating certain illnesses; thus, they are medicinal and should not, in principle, be used either to promote pig growth or as a preservative in foodstuffs.
In my opinion, this has no place in this directive.
Now, mascarpone is not even an effective treatment for sore throats.
<P>
More and more people are affected by food allergies.
Sulphites are among the contributing factors here.
I believe that at the very least a specific limit value should be set for their use, rather than estimating the extent to which they are thought to be necessary.
Sulphites are typically used in processing dried fruits, for example for breakfast products.
And many parents buy dried fruit loose for their children as a healthier alternative to sweets. However, thanks to sulphites, this can lead to allergies.
<P>
I appreciate that to a large extent, climatic and hence cultural differences may give rise to different views of what additives are necessary.
The distance between two refrigerators could be a determining factor in evaluating which is the lesser of two evils - food-poisoning from sausages, or food additives.
But we must understand that there is a difference between whether it is possible to produce and add an additive on the one hand, and whether the additive is really necessary on the other.
Today, we have foods in the European groceries market that would keep long enough to allow us to make a trip around the equator in a rowing boat. We do not really need our food to keep that long.
Please remember that European civilization once lived quite hygienically by smoking, salting, boiling and cooling food, long before all these strange additives came on the scene.
<P>
The Group of the Party of European Socialists will be voting in favour of the amendment by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection to Mrs Breyer's recommendation for second reading - for which I would like to thank Mrs Breyer - and I hope the amendments will receive the required number of votes.
I am in no doubt that they will receive a large number of votes, but what they need is enough votes.
There is no doubt in my mind that the current trend - even discounting ecological foods as such - is towards greater simplicity and more natural foodstuffs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schleicher">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in 1995 we adopted a comprehensive Directive on food additives other than colours and sweeteners in the European Union.
With the common position, we are today debating the first major amendment to this directive.
The amending directive is required firstly because during the many years of deliberations on the 1995 Directive, not all additives or their use had been scientifically tested, and secondly, because technical uses have evolved in the intervening period. Furthermore, particular conditions applying in the Member States, especially in the new Member States of Finland, Sweden and Austria, must be taken into account and, finally, a number of errors have crept into the full text of the 1995 Directive which this amendment is designed to correct.
<P>
It is true that the Parliament has put forward a number of amendments and the Council has now adopted some of them.
On behalf of my group, I can say that we are in agreement with the common position.
The amendments which have been proposed, in the main by the rapporteur in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, were adopted by a majority there; however, we cannot vote for them.
<P>
I should like to come back to the issue which was mentioned by Ms Breyer.
The objective was to ensure that as few food additives as possible were used, and preferably to reduce them further.
I have been involved in these discussions for twenty years and I have changed my political view to some extent.
I think that if we concentrate on very few food additives, these few additives will be used across the board.
I believe that we should not always consume the same additives, because this is the only way to ensure that health considerations are taken into account.
Furthermore, the issue of authorization should not be regulated to such an extent that everyone is compelled to use additives; however, we should ensure that if they are used, they should only be used to a limited extent.
As I said, they need not be used, but if additives are used, then the product must obviously be labelled accordingly, and that is what needs to be regulated here.
Awaking new fears about things which have traditionally been in existence in Member States is, in my view, unnecessary, for after all these additives have not caused any health problems and in any case the Committee was there to monitor this.
For this reason, my group and I are able to vote for the common position in its current form.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Dybkjær">
Once again, I would like to thank the rapporteur for her work on this directive.
I would also like to draw attention to my speech at first reading, in which I pointed out how unintelligible this directive is in its full form, in spite of the fact that many citizens would be extremely interested in its content.
I would also like to remind you of the subsequent questions to the Commission and the Council on the possibility of simplifying the directive without necessarily altering its content, and I would like to remind you of the answers given.
I stand by my opinion that the Commission's answer is a study in arrogance, whereas, by contrast, I am delighted with the much more constructive response from the Council.
I am reminding you of this in the hope that the conciliation procedure can be used in such a way that simplification is addressed alongside the work of finding a compromise.
<P>
The Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party supports the Committee's amendments, but in connection with the first two amendments, I have to say that we are not doing so because we would ultimately want to see flour treatment agents exempted from the directive. Rather, we are doing so because the common position appears to be comprehensive to the point of meaninglessness in this area.
The best approach would have been to introduce flour into Appendix 2 - that is, as the staple commodity it most certainly is - spelling out permitted substances there.
Now we have a situation whereby far too much is permitted, and the argument that the industry would obviously not use all these additives is really rather feeble.
I think the best thing would be to consider flour as an unprocessed commodity and thus take it as a starting point that Annex I substances must not be added to it.
In this regard, I am also referring to Directive 89/107, Annex 2, point 1, where it states that there has to be a "sufficiently great technical need' for approving additives.
I do not believe this to be the case when all of a sudden it is all right to use any substances at all from Annex I in flour. I cannot actually make sense of the common position any other way than this.
<P>
Moreover, the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party opposes sulphites in nuts and maize, and is also opposed to wax treatment of peaches and pineapples.
Pineapples may not in fact matter, because the outer part is not eaten, but it would be quite unreasonable for peaches.
Can we please just have the plain produce here?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lannoye">
Mr President, the three criteria put forward by the Commission for including additives in the list of permitted substances are technical need, benefit for the consumer and no health risk.
I think these three criteria have been bandied about too much, to the extent that - as the rapporteur states - we will actually end up with a considerable extension of the number of authorized additives and especially the use of those additives.
<P>
I believe the choice is a bad one and I will give you two examples which, in my opinion, are glaringly obvious.
Firstly, the extension granted for the use of sulphites as additives points unquestionably to a poor choice: we know very well that they cause a lot of people health problems, especially those prone to allergies.
So, why should we use these sulphites when there are alternative solutions and when, in any case, we can well do without them?
<P>
Secondly, Mrs Jensen was right to speak about the problem of nisin.
This is an antibiotic.
Is it reasonable for the Council and the Commission to use an antibiotic as an additive whilst we are still wondering about the wisdom of using antibiotics in animal feed and whilst the WHO, for example, is producing evidence that many infectious diseases are spreading and that a number of antibiotics are proving ineffective?
Does it make sense to include an antibiotic as an additive?
<P>
I think some Member States have raised the issue and I would here like to draw the attention of Mrs Schleicher to two matters.
First of all, several Member States, including the German government, have voted against the common position.
Next, the fact that a product has been used for a very long time does not make it harmless.
For very many years we used asbestos and now everybody agrees that it should no longer be used.
I do not see how the fact that because no proof of direct ill effects has been produced for a particular additive it should be regarded as harmless.
You know very well that indirect effects are possible and, indeed, quite probable and that in the case of many additives, it is exceedingly difficult to take circumstances into account.
<P>
Therefore, I think that it is vital for us to support the amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and I would urge Mrs Schleicher and her group to reconsider their position on this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, a European Union framework directive has been in force since 1989 on the approximation of the laws of Member States on additives authorized for use in foodstuffs.
The Commission has proposed to amend the directive in the light of recent scientific developments.
A common position was adopted by the Council on 23 March 1998. Of the twenty-six amendments presented by the European Parliament at first reading, eleven were accepted in full while a further four were accepted in part.
<P>
The Commission's proposal also underwent a series of changes specifically designed to safeguard the needs of the food industry, namely the inclusion of flour treatment agents and authorization to treat mascarpone with nisin and to treat peaches and pineapples with wax.
<P>
In our evaluation, we sought to reconcile the interests of the food industry with the - in our view - priority aim of safeguarding the health of our citizens.
This comes at a time when product quality must be safeguarded more than ever, particularly when we consider that the small-scale retail trade with its emphasis on quality is sadly disappearing throughout the Union and giving way to large-scale distribution which is able to put products of increasing sophistication and refinement but questionable wholesomeness on the shelves.
<P>
The need to protect the health of European consumers therefore leads us to authorize only those preservatives that actually safeguard product quality and properties.
We oppose the use of new additives for pasteurized cream and sterilized milk, mainly because no fewer than thirty-eight additives are already available on the market. We also oppose the use of new additives that tend to extend the shelf life of certain vegetable products and sugar additives that serve the sole purpose of appealing to child consumers.
<P>
The existence of a standard community additive authorization system will certainly benefit the consumer.
We also emphasize the need to introduce a form of labelling for food products containing additives: such labels should provide as much information as possible. The main aim of this would be to protect people with allergies, newborns and more vulnerable citizens who are in the greatest need of protection.
<P>
With specific reference to Amendments Nos 1 and 2, we are against the use of additives that are classified as flour treatment agents in Annex 1.
With regard to Amendment No 3 on the use of sulphur dioxide and sulphites, we believe these substances are no longer necessary from a technical viewpoint.
The labelling system should in any case provide information on all relevant indications and contraindications.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="Whitehead">
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Breyer for her hard work during both readings and in the Environment Committee.
She is an admirable member of the committee and will be remembered in that committee for the work she has done, particularly on the protection of infant foods.
<P>
I would like to be able to say that all the amendments now being redebated here will go through to conciliation, though I rather doubt it given the majorities that are needed.
I want to confine myself, therefore, to just three of them: Amendments Nos 4, 5 and 7.
I come to Amendment No 4 first because I tabled it and it was passed in the Environment Committee on reconsideration.
It concerns the use of sucrose esters in canned liquid coffee and tea which are now being sold hot direct to the consumer.
Whether happiness can be found in a warm can of caffeine I do not know - it would not be my favourite tipple.
What I do know is that sucrose esters stabilize milk proteins against the process of destabilization which occurs during storage.
<P>
As a nation of tea drinkers, the British would rather like to know why it is that sucrose esters are not approved of by the Commission.
We are not actually told that in the small print which accompanies its decisions.
It is always the case, and it is one of the problems as we reach the second reading, that one knows a good deal more about what the Commission will approve than what it will not.
<P>
Secondly, I would like to mention Amendment No 5 which Mrs Dybkjær has already discussed briefly, that is, the use of beeswax as a preservative for surface treatment of peaches and pineapples.
I cannot understand any more than she why these two fruits are labelled together.
There are a number of others which are not mentioned.
One thinks of melons as somewhere halfway between the two, but the distinction between them is surely that one does not consume the exterior of a pineapple - unless one is very stupid indeed! - whereas one would usually eat the skin of a peach.
I would therefore agree very much with the rapporteur in saying that it would be dangerous to have this coating on peaches, but I do not see the reason why we have to remove it from pineapples where it is a genuine preservative.
<P>
My last point concerns Amendment No 7.
On balance I support the rapporteur in her amendment to strike out the use of triacetin as a product for chewing gum, but again we do not know very much about why it appeared in the first place.
We owe it to those who argue that this particular emulsifier is not necessary and desirable to ensure that the case is set out as to why it is so essential and so desirable.
I hope the Commission will be able to tell us, because clarity should always be our watchword in these matters.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 NAME="Jackson">
Mr President, I should like to thank Mrs Breyer for her hard work as well, but I must go on to say that I shall be opposing all the amendments, as will quite a number of the Members of the PPE group - as we did in committee - with the exception of Amendment No 4.
<P>
This is a very technical issue to do with food additives and the permitted additives in food throughout the European Union.
It raises the question of how the European Parliament can best deal with such a technical question.
Mrs Breyer has tackled it from an ideological angle, natural to her group.
But there are two questions we have to consider as yardsticks.
One is that we must ensure the continuing health of the European population is safeguarded when adjustments to the permitted additives are discussed.
What guidance do we use?
Do we use our own judgement?
Well, I am a historian, Mrs Schleicher was a harpist.
That may be a useful qualification for the next life, as it were, but it is not necessarily the best qualification for dealing with food additives.
We are, to some extent, amateurs in this field.
We have to be guided by the Scientific Committee for Food.
I would really much rather be guided by that committee than, I am afraid, by Mrs Breyer.
<P>
Secondly, we have to ensure that European Union law is sufficiently flexible within the bounds of safety to allow new products to be developed.
I agree with Mr Whitehead that it may be a godsend for the Scottish Scouts, who are apparently here in the Gallery, if they no longer have to rub two twigs together to boil the kettle because they will be able to buy hot tea in cans - if indeed the European Commission allows that to happen.
I would like to ask Mr Bangemann, when he replies to the debate, to say whether or not he is prepared to allow tea in cans to be sold alongside the British sausage which we already salvaged from the ravages of the European Commission a few months ago.
<P>
So I do not believe that this is an issue where there is any room for extremes.
Green fundamentalism may be useful in triggering questions but it is not a view which should be allowed to prevail.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, I feel the same as Mrs Jackson.
I would first of all like to express my warmest thanks to the rapporteur.
She has obviously not only studied the material in depth but has also adopted very clear positions on the issues.
Even though I do not share these positions - neither personally nor on behalf of the Commission - I nonetheless feel that Ms Breyer has carried out admirable work on this issue.
I do not hesitate to say this to her personally.
I am not sure whether she will be pleased but I would like to tell her nonetheless!
<P>
The views expressed by Mrs Jackson and especially Mrs Schleicher correspond broadly with the Commission's position.
I will therefore be brief.
I am, of course, not an expert in the assessment of health risks or the absence of them, but I am a lawyer by training.
For this reason, I would like to say to Mrs Breyer that there is a clear principle here which has been the constitutional position at least up to now, namely that nothing may be banned if there is no reason to do so.
We cannot say that we want as few additives as possible and ban these additives simply because we feel like it or because we want to adhere to a point of principle.
There must be a reason for us to do so, and this is what we have now defined very clearly.
<P>
It is not true, Ms Breyer, that the issue of technical need is not defined in Annex 2. The three general criteria are listed again.
Firstly, it must be demonstrated that there are reasonable technical grounds and purpose which cannot be achieved through any other technical means; secondly, there must be no risk to health; and thirdly, the consumer must not be misled.
These are the three criteria.
Admittedly, not all of them have to be fulfilled in each case, as they may also apply in part.
That means that if one of these criteria applies, an additive may be banned.
We have thus stated precisely - there is more, but I do not wish to quote at length here - what technical need is and how it must be defined, also using individual criteria.
<P>
We have thus created sufficient certainty for everyone, both for the consumer and the producer.
It is quite in order for a producer to dispense with any sort of additive he chooses.
He can also use this fact in his advertising.
He can say, ' This product is pure and unadulterated!'
This is perfectly possible.
Many producers do indeed take advantage of this opportunity, and it is quite acceptable.
However, if, on the other hand, we do want to ban something, there has to be a legitimate reason for doing so.
<P>
We can therefore not accept the eleven remaining amendments.
Given our time constraints, I do not want to explain our reasons in every case, but my previous comments apply.
<P>
I would like to answer the other questions asked, on labelling for example.
Mrs Breyer, I am constantly surprised that you want to regulate everything at every opportunity, despite the logic that you usually apply.
We simply cannot do this!
We cannot regulate general issues in all the many different directives which have a specific purpose.
Labelling is a general issue.
We regulated it in the labelling directive 79/112.
This is where any possible amendments should be made.
If there is a need to do so in relation to additives, then we must amend that directive accordingly.
We cannot now simply enter into a commitment that we will include all additives here; that would simply be a blank cheque.
We have to examine whether the general principles of labelling require a particular additive to be labelled accordingly.
<P>
The issue of labelling of genetically-modified additives was also raised.
I have already stated - and you have repeated it again - that we are looking into this.
However, it is extremely difficult, for example because the issue of proof, the issue of appropriate threshold values, and the possibility, too, of a negative list are not that easy to deal with, not even for scientific committees.
It is not a lack of goodwill on our part which has prevented us from submitting a response so far, but the issue is very difficult indeed.
<P>
As far as allergies are concerned, all additives should be labelled.
In principle, all additives should be listed on the label.
Those affected thus have access to adequate information.
Incidentally, this also conforms with the view of the Standing Committee on Foodstuffs.
The number of allergies triggered by foodstuffs is to my knowledge actually very low, as Mrs Jensen has said - far lower than one would generally assume.
It is quite inaccurate to state, as you do, that foodstuffs represent a particular danger in this respect.
<P>
We are also working on a directive on 'balanced diets' , in other words, on additives in foodstuffs for sick infants and toddlers.
The general labelling directive will be amended accordingly.
<P>
(Interjection: What about loose foodstuffs?)
This is regulated appropriately in all the Member States.
The Member States have the option of labelling these or not.
We do not therefore see any need to introduce a labelling regulation as one already exists.
In the case of loose foodstuffs, the Member States can introduce an exemption.
But this is something which is already a legal requirement in the Union.
<P>
I think that those were the most important questions, if I am not mistaken.
I do not want to discuss the eleven amendments in detail, Mrs Jensen, as that would take up too much time, but our reasons for not supporting them should be clear from what I have said.
<P>
I hope, then, that Parliament, or at least some of the Members, will support Mrs Schleicher's suggestion, so that we can then conclude the procedure. We will then have established a reasonable basis which is also in the interests of the consumer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, I should like to put two more questions to Mr Bangemann.
I think that there has been broad agreement in the House that we have problems with nisin because antibiotics should not be present in foodstuffs.
Mr Lannoye has once more pointed out the major problems associated with resistance to antibiotics.
Antibiotics threaten to become ineffective as a means of treating disease.
I would like to know why you think that antibiotics, to which many people are allergic - in addition to the problems we have with resistance - should be permitted as a food additive. After all, scientists are rightly concerned that the danger of resistance is becoming increasingly acute.
<P>
Secondly, Mr Bangemann, I cannot agree with your view that the issue of labelling loose foodstuffs should be a matter for regulation in individual Member States.
The point of this directive is, after all, to achieve harmonization throughout Europe.
I do not think it is right that packed foodstuffs must be labelled but loose foodstuffs, which give the consumer the impression that they are purchasing fresh products, do not need to be labelled.
Your representative on the Committee said that the Commission would repeal this provision!
<P>
I am astonished, then, that you are now saying something quite different, that you do not think that there is any need for action.
I would like to know what is actually the case.
Was what your representative said in Committee wrong, when he said that the labelling directive would resolve the situation at some point?
After all, we have already dealt with a range of points which would fall within the labelling directive if we agree on what you say.
My final question, then, is when you intend to put forward a new draft or amendments to the labelling directive so that these loopholes and these requirements which have emerged can then be closed or covered?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, first of all I should like to address the issue of antibiotics.
The Commission has no reason to respond to this question since no relevant amendment has been submitted.
No, it was discussed in Committee but there is no amendment.
I cannot discuss hypothetical questions here.
<P>
Then to the question which you raised once again. I will repeat: we have a regulation on the labelling of packed or loose foodstuffs.
Both must be labelled.
In other words, there is a labelling requirement.
It is just that we have a special provision which means that Member States can exempt themselves from this requirement in the case of loose foodstuffs.
<P>
As far as your third question is concerned, I cannot remember the precise timing but I think that after we commenced the debate about the general directive on foodstuffs, we did not conclude it because various points of principle were raised such as: what is the key principle of labelling?
Unfortunately, there are various different viewpoints in the Commission as well as in the European Parliament, and an extreme viewpoint, which was initially also expressed here in the Parliament - I do not know if it is still upheld now - is that everything must be labelled, whether or not it is sensible or appropriate to do so.
<P>
I have always resisted including a mass of detail on labels since this would make the label useless to the consumer.
You must label what is useful for the consumer.
That way, you will reach your target audience.
If you label everything, you will not reach the consumer and then the label becomes useless as a tool in providing more consumer information.
This has now actually been recognized by a member of your party in Germany, who has publicly praised me for my stance.
I think that this is a signal that the debate is developing in an intelligent way and we would like to proceed on this basis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended until 5.30 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Question Time (Commission)
<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="President">
The next item is questions to the Commission (B4-0481/98).
<P>
Firstly, allow me to welcome Commissioner Liikanen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, the effect of computer piracy on our work has been very slight, because the Commission has been actively engaged in improving security on its information networks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Camisón Asensio">
Commissioner, as things stand, IT piracy is doing great harm not just to the European institutions but to the whole of society in general, both in the form of the installation of illegal software onto the hard disk before a computer is sold, and by means of the production of imitation software or direct copies via the Internet.
<P>
We note that the Council recently approved its common position on the legal position against radio piracy.
In view of this, does the Commission not think it would be of the greatest interest to promote the strengthening of legislation to protect industrial property, for example?
Let us not forget that the United States is ahead of us here too, since the extent of the piracy which Europe suffers is still 43 %.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, this is a very important question.
At the end of the 1980s and the start of the 1990s, as a result of some occurrences of hacking, the Commission's computer system architecture was modified so that internal information systems were centred on what are called closed user groups.
Communications within and outside the building are monitored by the present telecommunications centre in the information technology directorate in accordance with the parameters that exist for security arrangements and technical facilities.
Obviously, owing to rapid developments in information technology this system requires continuous updating, and the Commission is keeping a close watch on it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 NAME="President">
Question No 45 by Philippe De Coene (H-0642/98)
<P>
Subject: European Voluntary Service for Young People and the 1998 World Cup
<P>
I see from a Commission press release that as part of the European Voluntary Service scheme 71 young people have been assigned to the organizing committee of the 1998 World Cup in France.
The cost to the European budget is ECU 5 000 per young person.
<P>
The actual European Voluntary Service scheme is currently acting as a pilot project, assigning young people to organizations.
The texts available show that the young people involved are supposed to take part in non-profit-making and unpaid activities.
<P>
Is it the Commission's opinion that the World Cup and the organizing committee are non-profit-making organizations?
<P>
Can the Commission explain why the organizing committee is favoured by one Commissioner, via the Community budget, while another Commissioner has condemned the organizing committee in plenary because of its discriminatory ticket sales policy - a form of discrimination which was confirmed in the ruling of the Tribunal de Grande Instance of Paris on 5 June?
Mr Liikanen, I invite you to reply to Mr De Coene's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, as Mr De Coene has said, a part of the European Voluntary Service scheme for Young People involved 71 European volunteers participating in projects connected with the World Cup.
The volunteers worked for more than five months in local host organizations in those cities and towns where the matches were staged.
In addition to this, the volunteers for several weeks helped in the organization of the World Cup Games.
This voluntary project was only indirectly connected with the World Cup Organizing Committee, as all host organizations tended to be non-profit making agencies from the cultural, physical education, environmental and social work sectors.
For this reason the pilot project was of no benefit to the Organizing Committee as an organization, but assisted the project's social, cultural and environmental aims through local non-profit making service agencies.
<P>
The business activities of the Organizing Committee are covered by EU sports regulations, which is why the Commission, on the basis of many complaints, are investigating allegations of discrimination in its sales of tickets to the public, The average contribution made by the Commission in connection with these six-month projects was around ECU 5 200, which is the same amount paid out for other voluntary work in pilot projects.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="De Coene">
Commissioner, I know that you received the question very recently, but please do not take it amiss, in Dutch we call that a Jesuit's answer.
It is very clear that young people have participated with the help of Community funds in an initiative which has been condemned twice by a Commissioner, a fellow Commissioner, in this Chamber, firstly because of the violation of the principle of equality of citizens and secondly because of the violation of a number of economic rules, because the Commissioner found that the whole of the organization was purely and simply an economic matter and was therefore subject to the rules on economic activities.
Now we are being told that it was actually for the CFO, and at the same time that it was not for the CFO.
I must say I really am not satisfied with this answer.
I think that it is an improvised answer, and I would actually like you to tell me precisely what the activities carried out by the young people were.
If you say they were socio-cultural activities, then I want you to tell me exactly what they did.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, as with other part-funded pilot projects, local host organizations tended to be connected with the social work sector, culture, physical education or the environment movement.
The organizations were involved, for example, in the youth movement, youth employment and improving the urban environment.
The experience the young people got from taking part in the project has been beyond comparison.
Through the World Cup volunteers from eleven Member States and Norway worked in partnership with thousands of French people. This provided opportunities for cultural learning and increased mutual understanding.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="Watson">
I wish to join with others in this House in congratulating France on their victory in the World Cup.
It is wonderful to see a European team doing so well and particularly such a brilliant performance by France.
<P>
But our joy at that result should not overshadow the fact that there were many serious problems in the organization of the World Cup, some of which one of the Commissioner's colleagues is currently looking at.
I would ask the Commissioner to look very seriously at the question raised by Mr De Coene.
The question hinges around the status of the CFO.
The Commissioner needs to investigate what the status of the CFO is in the Commission's view and whether the use - or abuse, as we believe it to be - of this system in supplying assistance to the CFO merits investigation.
<P>
I would ask the Commissioner to come back to Mr De Coene and myself in writing with a more thorough investigation of this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, I would like to add my congratulations to France.
I was in the Champs Elysées on Sunday night and I had a chance to witness the immense delight of a nation.
As for this question of sports regulations, I am going to report this discussion to my colleague responsible for sports policy.
I know my colleague will investigate the matter thoroughly.
This is a typical case of the Commission approaching the same subject from two angles.
One is voluntary work and the other is sports policy.
I obviously understand the concern among Members that the Commission's position should nevertheless be a coherent, harmonious one.
That we shall endeavour to preserve.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Liikanen.
<P>
It is now the turn of Mr James Nicholson's question on conditions for Objective 1 status for Northern Ireland.
Mrs WulfMathies is with us, but Mr Nicholson is not here.
I dare say the special situation in Northern Ireland at the moment must have demanded Mr Nicholson's presence there.
I am extremely grateful that Mrs Wulf-Mathies is here, which is always valuable, but without the Member who tabled the question we cannot proceed.
I am sure it would have been very interesting to listen to Mrs Wulf-Mathies speak on this question.
Furthermore, ladies and gentlemen, you know that Mr Nicholson takes his responsibilities very seriously, but I should imagine that perhaps the situation in Northern Ireland has detained him at such an important and, if I may say so, dramatic time as this.
<P>
So as the author is not present, Question No 46 lapses.
<P>
Question No 47 by Juan Izquierdo Collado (H-0708/98)
<P>
Subject: LEADER II programme in Spain
<P>
To judge by the answer given to questions H-380/98, H-383/98, H-384/98 and H-385/98 , the Commission is aware of the difficulties currently being experienced by the LEADER II programme, particularly in Spain.
Does the Commission believe these to be caused by the requirement for convergence plans to be adhered to?
Does it consider that the Spanish Government's failure to implement the LEADER II programme's financial framework constitutes a responsible attitude?
What view does the Commission take of the refusal by the Employment, Economic Affairs and Agriculture Ministries to cofinance their share of the ESF, the ERDF and the EAGGF-Guidance Section, as they formerly agreed to?
Ladies and gentlemen, we are awaiting the arrival of Mr Fischler, who is a few minutes late.
It is understandable, because we were hoping to have been able to discuss the question addressed to Mrs Wulf-Mathies first.
The Commission's services say he is on his way.
What we do not know is whether he is coming far or not, or whether there are any problems en route .
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, as its name suggests, this Parliament is for talking, but a few minutes' silence is no bad thing either.
There is a Catalan poet, Joan Brossa, who says that silence is so important that it should only be broken for matters which are even more important.
So while we wait for Mr Fischler, I suggest we respect the extraordinary value of silence.
<P>
We welcome Mr Fischler. We shall let him sit down in peace and open the right file.
Mr Fischler, I invite you to reply to Question No 47 by Mr Juan Izquierdo Collado on the LEADER II programme in Spain.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in its response to Questions No 380, 384 and 385, the Commission has advised you that it is aware of the difficulties associated with the implementation of the LEADER-II programme.
These difficulties are attributed, inter alia , to the need to adhere to the convergence criteria in respect of Economic and Monetary Union.
<P>
It is clear that some difficulties are due to the lack of financial participation by central government, since the envisaged cofinancing by central government of interventions under the ERDF and ESF is not guaranteed.
This problem is delaying the implementation of the programme and should be resolved, bearing in mind the interests of the affected local action groups, within the framework of the partnership between Member State, autonomous community and the Commission.
<P>
The Commission wishes to respect the internal organization of the Member States and therefore will not intervene in structures for financial administration of public funds which are necessary to guarantee cofinancing of the individual LEADER-II initiatives.
<P>
The Commission thus agrees that the funding which was to have been taken on by one local authority may now be replaced by an appropriate contribution from another local authority.
The Commission is also in agreement with the amendment of the financial plans in order to ensure that the reduction in the contribution from the Spanish government can be balanced out by an increase in other contributions under the regulations on cofinancing of Community initiatives.
It is clear that any change in the original decisions may lead to a delay in the implementation of the LEADER initiative.
However, this is no reason to speak of a freeze on the LEADER-II programme in Spain, as Mr Izquierdo Collado has done.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
Mr Izquierdo Collado would like to put a supplementary question.
I shall give him the floor now, and I should also warn you that I have received requests for three more supplementary questions.
Unfortunately, however, the Rules of Procedure only allow me to grant two.
So I will tell you now that after that I shall give the floor to Mr Camisón Asensio and Mrs Redondo Jiménez.
I am very sorry, but I shall not be able to let Mr Rübig take the floor.
<P>
You have the floor, Mr Izquierdo Collado.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Collado">
Commissioner, why are we trying to confuse the issue when it is so clear?
This question contains my express request for your help, and I am extremely grateful for your presence here today.
So let us tackle the subject clearly: there is a splendid programme, lovingly nurtured by the Commission and yourself, called the LEADER programme, for investment in rural areas, specifically for vital aid in fields such as small businesses, tourist accommodation, crafts, the marketing and valuation of agricultural products and, in these contexts, it is being blocked, stopped, paralysed in Spain.
Why?
I am asking you for help. I am asking you to help us unblock it.
But why is it blocked?
It is blocked because the Spanish Government refuses to finance what it has signed up to in the cofinancing agreement.
Mr Rato, the Minister of Economic Affairs, says he will not pay a penny, a peseta or an ECU to this programme through the ERDF; Mr Arenas, the Employment Minister, says he will not give a penny or an ECU through the European Social Fund; and the Minister of Agriculture says she will not cofinance even half of what was agreed.
Will you not help us unblock this dreadful situation? It has left Spanish mayors totally embarrassed, local action groups in a state of depression, and so on.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="President">
Mr Izquierdo Collado, it is not a question of the President's generosity. It is a question of the time you allow yourself, because I informed you when your minute was up.
I must warn you that any extra time you use up means that less is available for the other questions.
So you are the ones who have that responsibility, not me.
<P>
Mr Fischler, you have the floor to reply to Mr Izquierdo Collado's supplementary question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, Mr Izquierdo Collado, I think that there is actually no fundamental discrepancy between us.
You and I, and the Commission generally, are interested in ensuring that the LEADER programmes which have been agreed for Spain can in fact be implemented.
This must be our first concern, for this will help the private initiatives which want to carry out programmes of this kind.
<P>
It is also clear that cofinancing is required and that this cofinancing must be provided in accordance with the regulations governing the LEADER programme.
However, the Commission is flexible in the sense that we do not necessarily demand that these funds be provided exclusively by the Spanish government.
In principle, it is also possible - and this is an internal matter for Spain - for other public bodies to provide this cofinancing.
One thing is clear, however - if no agency is able to provide cofinancing, then the entire LEADER programme is in doubt.
According to the information at our disposal, there is a willingness on the part of other public bodies to provide this cofinancing instead of the Spanish government.
If this takes place, the programmes will then, as I have said, be implemented.
If not, then the programmes cannot be carried out.
That is the situation and the reality, and it lies within the power of the Spanish authorities at various levels to make this decision.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Camisón Asensio">
I must speak on this question, to try to fill in the whole picture.
The local action groups were selected in 1995 - under the previous Spanish Government, by the way - and they were selected badly.
That is shown by the fact that they do not work properly.
LEADER II is not in a state of stalemate in Spain, as can be seen from the fact that in 1997 the utilization rate reached 36 %, and that it has increased in 1998.
Before 1996 it was practically nil.
As regards the central administration's contribution, in 1995 and 1996 the relevant headings were not provided, perhaps because people were mistakenly awaiting the accumulation of aid.
That big mistake was revealed when Mr Legras of DG VI ruled that the accumulation of aid was not acceptable, and that shows that the model lacked the slightest trace of rigour - the model of the previous administration, that is.
<P>
Moreover, the vast majority of the autonomous communities have now reprogrammed their financial frameworks, except for Andalusia, Estremadura and Castile La Mancha - what a coincidence!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, Mr Camisón Asensio, I have heard your comments and your views on this situation, I have not heard a question.
I therefore cannot answer a question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Fischler.
<P>
Mrs Redondo Jiménez, do you wish to put a question to the Commissioner?
I am specifically asking whether you wish to ask the Commissioner a question.
Under no circumstances shall I allow Members to enter into debate among themselves. In any case, the debate should be between the Members and the Commissioner.
<P>
You have the floor, for a question to the Commissioner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Redondo Jiménez">
I am going to address a few comments to the Commissioner, but I am not going to begin any sort of national debate here because I do not think this is the appropriate place. Anyway, my colleague who spoke before me has already given the relevant explanations.
<P>
I am grateful to the Commissioner for saying that these programmes can be cofinanced by any public body. I am repeating it again now, because cofinance is not the sole right of the central government.
Cofinance can also be provided by the competent regional bodies, and private cofinance can also be added, which is also signed by these local action groups.
<P>
I would like to ask the Commissioner whether the initial funding envisaged is going to be increased for these LEADER programmes, which he described to us in his Agenda 2000 presentation as extremely important.
I think the important thing is to open up the budget line but perhaps the funding is a bit low, because it is extremely important for the development of rural areas IN all the Member States of the European Union, of the Europe of the Fifteen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 NAME="Fischler">
As to the question put by Ms Redondo about the intentions of the Commission regarding Agenda 2000 in relation to LEADER, I can say that we are planning a successor programme for LEADER-II.
Because - and I agree with you on this point - the LEADER initiative is so important, the intention is that in the next planning period, more funds will be available for this successor programme as a Community initiative than in the current period.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Fischler, for your presence and your replies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 NAME="President">
Question No 48 by Ursula Stenzel (H-0670/98)
<P>
Subject: Own resources
<P>
At the Cardiff summit the Heads of Government undertook to reach a decision on Agenda 2000 by the end of March 1999.
Austria's objective in this connection is to prevent the net contributors' position from deteriorating by the following means: fair allocation of net burdens, strict compliance with EU budgetary discipline and reserving a clear margin for the new Member States, as well as taking into account the temporary nature of the Cohesion Fund and incorporating it into structural policy.
<P>
Will the Commission be observing these principles in its evaluation of the own resources system?
Mr Liikanen, I invite you to reply to Mrs Stenzel's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, the Commission is fully aware of the issues that Parliament is now raising in its questions.
Austria is not alone in saying that it estimates its budgetary burden is too great.
These questions, which the recent proposal for a corrective mechanism supported by Austria also recently shed light on, will be included in a planned report on the own resources system.
At the same time it must be stressed that the Commission's proposals contained in Agenda 2000 and reforms in EU policy might have a considerable effect on common expenditure among the Member States.
The Commission's proposals are compatible with rigid budget discipline and sufficiently broad margins to allow for the funding of enlargement.
The Commission intends to examine these matters thoroughly in its report on its funds and resources.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stenzel">
Mr President, I am interested simply in an additional aspect of this question. Are you in fact aware that margins should be taken into account in this respect in order to ensure that the figure of 1.27 % is not completely exhausted?
Since you will be drafting a report about own resources during the Austrian presidency and as the Commission has the right of proposal, you can shape your proposal in a way that would perhaps allow us to bridge at least some of the discrepancies between the northern and southern countries even before reporting?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, the Commission has already assumed in its proposed budget for next year that expenditure must be kept below funding limits.
Accordingly, expenditure under next year's budget is 1.11 %, while the own resources ceiling is 1.27 %.
In addition, the Agenda 2000 proposal for the period 2000 to 2006 is so structured that expenditure will not rise to the 1.27 % level, but that the fifteen EU Member State level should even see a downward trend, expenditure reaching 1.13 % by the year 2006.
In this way we will attempt to guarantee a sufficiently broad margin for enlargement.
This will require adaptability and rigid budgetary discipline.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, I already have the answer to what I wanted to ask.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
- My question to the Commissioner is - and I am going to ask four complementary questions - first of all, whether there is now a solution to what own resources are, particularly for transit goods from the ports, and especially Rotterdam.
Secondly, whether the Commissioner is aware that in the Dutch coalition agreement includes a reduction in the contribution of NLG 1.2 billion.
Thirdly, whether the Commission's new plans take account of the contribution per head of population.
Fourthly, whether the fact that the United Kingdom received a reduction is being taken into account, which is in any case a net limiting factor, and that this should also apply to other Member States, and whether it can already be considered that a like-for-like treatment now applies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="Liikanen">
All these issues will be raised in the Commission report which will be produced in the second half of October.
As far as the British rebate is concerned, back in Edinburgh the Council asked the Commission to report on that issue and we will do so in the second half of October.
<P>
Secondly, the report will also provide a basis for the Member States to assess their expenditure.
There are areas where it is easier and areas where it is more difficult.
That is why we should be careful not to talk about the juste retour .
There are areas of common interest but allocation cannot be on a country-by-country basis.
Sufficient information will also be provided on that.
<P>
Thirdly, on the Rotterdam effect, as the honourable Member knows well, this issue has been discussed a lot in Holland and in Belgium recently.
We have asked for a specialist study and that has been produced.
Not all the conclusions have been totally uncontested by the different parties but this report is a basis for further discussion.
<P>
As to the matter of the NLG 1.2 billion in Holland, I am not totally certain if I quite understood what the honourable Member wanted to ask.
At any rate, the Commission report will respond to the debate on the position of net contributors which has been taken up by four countries, in particular - Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Austria.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, I think that Agenda 2000 is a particular challenge for us all, especially in the accession strategies of the candidate countries.
It is certainly the case that the EU Member States and the candidate countries which share a common geographical border will of course have particular challenges to face.
My question is this: does the preaccession strategy actually contain any approaches to finding a solution to the special problems which arise as a result of this geographical proximity and the naturally intense nature of these problems?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="Liikanen">
The whole Commission paid a visit to Austria a while ago when Austria was to take over the presidency and this question was raised then.
Of course, in all these programmes, especially in the programmes which are connected for example to INTERREG and PHARE, it is very important that the border areas get particular attention.
It is usually where the difference in standards of living is highest that political and economic tension is created.
We will discuss the matter in the Commission and I hope that we can act appropriately.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 NAME="President">
Question No 49 by Eva Kjer Hansen (H-0720/98)
<P>
Subject: Implementation of democracy programmes
<P>
How does the Commission intend to implement the planned democracy programmes under Chapter B7-70 of the Budget following the European Court of Justice's decision to freeze appropriations for programmes which have no legal basis?
Mr Liikanen, I invite you to reply to Mrs Kjer Hansen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, regarding those sections of the budget dealing with the funding of action in the interests of human rights and democracy, the Commission proposed to the Council on 24 July 1997 a regulation for the purpose of developing and reinforcing democracy, the principle of the rule of law, human rights and basic liberties.
We must also point out that the Commission appoints itself to the position of legislature when it proposes any legal basis.
The Commission has many times asked the competent institutions, mainly Council, but also the European Parliament, to speed up the process of approving legal bases, which are required to put the vital work of the Community into effect.
In any situation brought about by a court decision the Commission has hoped that the legal process would advance as speedily as possible.
<P>
So that the work of the Community should not stagnate, the Commission, which under the Treaty is responsible for setting the budget, has in today's meeting approved a list of actions it considers itself able to continue funding, and a list of activities which it has not been able to endorse for continued support, for the time being, pending further clarification.
These lists are publicly available and are intended for debate today by the Committee on Budgets.
<P>
As for the sections of the budget devoted to greater democracy and the protection of human rights, regulations on regional programmes of cooperation have been agreed as alternative legal bases for sections of the budget in respect of the following areas: central and eastern European countries, third countries in the Mediterranean region, countries of the former Soviet Union and Mongolia, former Yugoslavia, and developing countries in Latin America and Asia.
<P>
Regarding the budget over the coming years, the Commission has kept in touch with both the institutions which hold budgetary power, Parliament and Council, and is doing everything it can to see that the debate on legal bases progresses quickly so that agreement among the institutions can iron out those differences of opinion that have led to the current situation.
Finally, I wish only to add that we have a trialogue between Parliament, Council and the Commission on Friday 17 July, and we will do everything possible to achieve a long-term solution there.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Kjer Hansen">
I would like to thank the Commissioner for his answer to the question and, at the same time, I would like to follow up by asking how the Commissioner intends to inform the parties concerned about their situation - that is, those on the list of programmes to be continued and those on the list of programmes that cannot be continued.
How will these individuals find out what the position is?
NGOs will in fact be very much affected, because they feel trapped, not knowing what to do from here on.
In other words, has the Commission planned its information strategy?
I am looking forward to following up this debate in the Committee on Budgets, but I would like to ask the Commissioner to clarify whether or not the democracy programmes will be able to proceed unhindered.
And finally, my last question to the Commissioner is this: why did the Council not adopt the motion that the Commission obviously tabled as far back as a year ago?
Could it be that certain countries in the Council are blocking the continuation of the democracy programmes?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 NAME="Liikanen">
I fully agree with the honourable Member that we must be careful to inform all the parties concerned, especially the NGOs.
That is why we are now making public today's decision unfreezing a large number of the budget lines.
The next attempt to find a solution to the legal basis to release further budget lines comes on Friday.
I will do my best along with my services to ensure that all the NGOs concerned are informed in the next few days.
<P>
As far as the legal basis is concerned, the Austrian presidency made a very positive effort yesterday by raising the issue in the General Affairs Council.
The General Affairs Council has mandated the Committee of Permanent Representatives to try and find a solution to the problem this week.
<P>
In the past there have sometimes been political difficulties.
Sometimes the legal basis has not been accepted because of issues of comitology and so forth.
But I hope that the seriousness of the situation, about which many NGOs throughout Europe have expressed their great concern, will also put pressure on the Council to act more rapidly to get the proposed legal basis accepted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Lancker">
I have listened very attentively both to the questions and to the answer given by Commissioner Liikanen.
You are still referring to the necessary legal basis for the payment of loans in the budget of the European Union.
I cannot help thinking that the various small initiatives taken by this Parliament and which relate to the most vulnerable groups which NGOs support with small actions - intended, in actual fact, to stimulate some Community initiative - cannot be successfully accomplished so easily with a legal basis.
At all events, it seems inconceivable to me that a separate legal basis can be created for all these separate initiatives.
Does the Commissioner have any proposal on a more general solution to this kind of problem of non-significant - though I know that this is a controversial term - actions which are nevertheless so important to the image of the Union?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 NAME="Liikanen">
The Court of Justice decided that any significant action required appropriations in the budget and also a prior legal basis.
In the case of significant actions, we have no choice but to follow the decision of the Court.
But there are areas where there is more scope for interpretation.
They are: firstly, autonomous actions of the institutions; secondly, pilot projects; and thirdly, preparatory actions paving the way for further actions.
<P>
We have studied all the budget lines from this angle.
We have tried to unfreeze all those which we find not to be incompatible with the Court decision.
It is important to try to find a solution within the budgetary authority and to arrive at a definition of non-significant actions.
There, the discussions between the services have gone reasonably well.
We just hope that, at political level, the same will happen this week.
<P>
The factor to bear in mind is that, according to the Court decision, these pilot projects must study the possibility of Community action later on.
So they cannot be permanent support schemes.
They must be in preparation for something new.
If they come to the conclusion that something new could be done, then we will take preparatory measures and make real legislative proposals.
If the studies conclude that is not the case, then we will stop them.
But they cannot be a basis for permanent activity funded from the Community budget.
<P>
I hope, however, that we will find a solution on Friday.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I have one more precise question.
I think I understood you correctly, Commissioner, but I would like to ask whether the issue of the Office for Minority Languages which was initiated by the European Parliament in 1982 is thus secure or whether you take the view that such a long-term project still has no legal basis, and how, in your opinion, this legal basis can be created.
Promoting minority cultures is one of the most important democracy programmes within the European Union, especially in view of the forthcoming enlargement, in which context we are constantly demanding minority rights from the candidate countries.
It would be quite scandalous if we were to end a programme which has proved its worth within the European Union over the last 15 or 16 years and cut its budget line.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 NAME="Liikanen">
This budget line is one for which it is difficult to find a solution.
The Commission has not proposed a legal basis, so we cannot blame the Council for the lack of action.
We are continuing to study that issue but there is as yet no solution to this matter even though we have been able to find one in the majority of cases.
<P>
There are many activists in different countries who have contacted us on this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to thank Mr Liikanen once again for being here with us today and answering our questions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 NAME="President">
Question No 50 by Carlos Carnero González (H-0623/98)
<P>
Subject: Dismissal of trade union representatives belonging to the Comisiones Obreras trade union by the company Fábrica de Bisagras, S.A.
(FABISA) in Burgos (Spain)
<P>
On 26 May the company FABISA, which is owned by the German group EDSCHA, dismissed the workers Gilberto Alonso Poza and Segundo Fernández Pardo, members of the works committee and the Comisiones Obreras trade union. As I was able to ascertain during a visit to the protest campaign mounted by these workers outside the factory, this decision has caused widespread unease among the people of Burgos, who feel it is an unwarranted and repressive measure against well-known trade unionists.
<P>
Does the Commission not consider that, as part of a genuine European social policy, the principle that workers' representatives must be able to perform their duties freely and not be subject to coercion in so doing must be fully guaranteed?
Accordingly, does the Commission not consider that, given the failure to abide by this principle, the decision by FABISA to dismiss the trade unionists should be withdrawn?
Mr Flynn, I welcome you and invite you to reply to Mr Carlos Carnero González' question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 NAME="Flynn">
At present there is no Community legislation on individual dismissals of employees in general or trade union representatives in particular.
The issue raised by the honourable Member is primarily a matter for national law and practice.
However, in some situations Community law lays down rules which prohibit the dismissal of an employee on certain grounds, such as nationality, gender, the taking of parental leave, transfer of an undertaking or a worker's refusal to transfer from full-time to part-time work or vice versa.
If a dismissal does not fall within one of these categories, the issue falls entirely within the responsibility of the Member State concerned.
If the company in question has a European Works Council or the dismissed trade union representative is a member of a European Works Council, Article 10 of Directive 94/45 lays down that: ' Members of European Works Councils and employees' representatives exercising their functions under the procedures referred to in Article 6(3), of the Directive shall, in the exercise of their functions, enjoy the same protection and the guarantees provided for employees' representatives by the national legislation and/or practice in force in the country of the employment.'
<P>
So, according to the information available to the Commission at this time, Spanish legislation provides for extensive protection against dismissal on account of activity as a workers' representative.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
I fully understand the answer Mr Flynn has so kindly given us.
We are certainly aware that there is no Community legislation which could serve as a basis for the Commission to intervene and state its opinion on the sort of situation mentioned in my question.
That is the unfortunate thing: that there is no Community legislation in this area, because there is no doubt that the matters we are talking about should be the central focus of a social Europe - the chance to have, alongside the single currency, rules to guarantee workers, for example, the opportunity to exercise all their rights, and even more so in the case of their trade union representatives.
<P>
This matter is assuming great importance in Castile and Leon.
A demonstration is to be held tomorrow to support these workers, and various social and political groups within the city of Burgos have promised to take part.
Debates have taken place within the regional government of the province of Burgos and in the town hall of the provincial capital.
Mr Flynn, despite the fact that the legislation does not exist, my question to you is whether you do not think a broad message could be sent from here to discourage this sort of situation from being repeated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 NAME="Flynn">
I appreciate the fact that the honourable Member recognises the limits imposed on the Commission in this instance.
He is quite right, and it is clear that there is no Community legislation which lays down detailed rules on the protection of workers' representatives against dismissal.
<P>
I have taken his point, and the Commission is considering how to deal with the question when pursuing future Community action as regards information for and consultation of employees in general.
I am studying the matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="President">
Question No 51 by Bernd Posselt (H-0645/98)
<P>
Subject: Family policy studies
<P>
Further to my suggestion at Question Time on 31 March 1998, has the Commission already hired an external consultant to carry out a study on provision for old age for persons who devote their lives solely to bringing up their children? Does it believe that it should conduct or hold, and finance, a survey or specialist conference on the proposed "parenting wage' ?
Mr Flynn, I invite you to reply to Mr Posselt's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 NAME="Flynn">
As I explained in my reply to the honourable Member on 31 March of this year, the Commission is aware of demographic trends and changes in family structures, but the Community has very limited powers in the whole area of family policy.
<P>
The Commission has considered the situation in the Member States as regards enforcement of Directive 79/7 relating to equal treatment between men and women in statutory social security schemes.
The directive applies only to the working population, so people who devote themselves to bringing up their children fall outside its scope.
The Commission proposed an amendment to the directive in 1987 to fill the gaps in equal treatment in the social security field.
The matter is still pending before the Council.
The points covered include old-age benefits granted to persons who have brought up children.
<P>
Within the next couple of months the Commission intends to replace the 1987 proposal with a new proposal to amend Directive 79/7.
I believe that the new proposal should take account of the gender balance and new developments in family structures in general.
I hope that this reply will help the Member.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, thank you, Commissioner, for your very precise reply.
I should like to ask a supplementary question about studies - I know that the Commission has no immediate responsibility, but it does carry out studies - whether, perhaps, a study into the issue of a parenting wage could be planned, as this is being discussed more and more intensively within the European Union at present.
You are aware that in May a conference on this issue took place in Frankfurt, which was attended by the Prime Minister of Saxony, Kurt Biedenkopf, and the Prime Minister of SchleswigHolstein, Mrs Simonis, in other words it was a cross-party event.
I would like to ask whether you feel that it is possible to arrange or fund a conference or a study of this kind at European level too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 NAME="Flynn">
The honourable Member might be interested to know that we have arranged, in cooperation with the Austrian presidency, a major conference on demography and the impact that it will have on the whole social fabric of the Union.
While it is not specifically targeted at the point you made, a wide-ranging general discussion will take place in October at that conference on the whole question as regards its impact on the Union.
<P>
As regards carrying out studies, I am afraid that the point made by my colleague, Commissioner Liikanen, applies specifically here, too, namely the budget line problem, insofar as the family policy project line is currently blocked.
Perhaps if you returned to this matter when these matters referred to by Commissioner Liikanen had been finally agreed, we might be in a better position to give you a more positive response.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 NAME="President">
Question No 52 by Anne Van Lancker (H-0648/98)
<P>
Subject: Transfer of unused ESF appropriations from Objective 4 to Objective 3
<P>
At the beginning of the current programming period, there was a shortage of appropriations for Objective 3, while it was barely possible to allocate the appropriations for Objective 4.
Members of the European Parliament asked the Commission to allow the Flemish Community to transfer Objective 4 appropriations to Objective 3.
The Commission said it could not allow this because the initial problems would ultimately be solved.
It left the possibility open that it might permit such a transfer in connection with the mid-term evaluation.
In its resolution of 4 December 1997 on structural policy in Belgium, the European Parliament observed that Objective 4 appropriations were under-utilized and reiterated its call for unused resources to be transferred from Objective 4 to Objective 3 when undertaking the midterm evaluation.
One year before the end of the current programming period, it has become apparent that the resources available for Objective 4 will not be exhausted, although the situation has improved significantly, while the shortage of resources for Objective 3 persists.
In view of the enormous needs which exist and the approaching end of the programming period, can the Commission allow a transfer of appropriations from Objective 4 to Objective 3?
Mr Flynn, I invite you to reply to Mrs Van Lancker's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 NAME="Flynn">
I should like to say to the honourable Member that Objective 4, as she knows, foresees a preventive approach to maintaining employment, in particular by anticipating labour market and industrial change and also reinforcing stability of employment through vocational training and qualifications.
The programmes for Objective 4 are therefore directly in line with the development of an active and preventive labour market policy in accordance with the European employment strategy which was just recently put in place by the European Council at the Luxembourg employment summit, and subsequently in employment guidelines which have been adopted for 1998.
<P>
The national action plans for employment have now been drawn up by the Member States to put all these guidelines into effect.
The Belgian action plan refers explicitly to the intervention of the European Social Fund Objective 4 with a view to increasing the possibilities for training for workers to promote employability and to develop possibilities for lifelong learning. The plan actually supports that point of view.
Given the importance that the European Council, as well as the Belgian authorities, attach to prevention of unemployment, to lifelong learning and to active labour market policy, the Commission considers a reduction of the available budget to Objective 4 through a transfer to Objective 3 as inappropriate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Lancker">
The Commissioner knows, of course, that I myself am a particularly strong champion of European agreements on employment and also a very keen advocate of prevention.
However, the reason why I am asking the Commissioner this question is as follows: I do not want to claim that the preventive training courses in Flanders are the best in the world.
There are Member States that do it even better. But I would certainly claim that they are better than the average in Europe.
On the other hand, the long-term unemployment situation is particularly bad in Flanders, and I would therefore like to expand my question somewhat and give it a more general scope.
In view of the fact that the Commissioner has no more scope for changes in this programming period and is also putting forward substantive reasons for this, can he assure me that Member States will have somewhat more flexibility and somewhat greater margins within the priorities of the European Union to adjust their own priorities to a specific situation in the forthcoming programming period with the future Structural Funds?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="Flynn">
I have to agree with the honourable Member I am well aware of her particular point of view and her very supportive attitude towards both the employment strategy and the preventive approach.
That has been stated here in the House many times by her and I appreciate it greatly.
I am aware of the difficulties of long-term unemployment in the Flanders area.
<P>
The key thing is how to make best use of the money, to cater for the very problem that the honourable Member mentions.
Expenditure can be accepted until the end of 2001 so there is some time left to cater for the expenditure.
In fact, between 1995 and 1997 we had about ECU 6m of real expenditure in that particular area.
I am satisfied from discussions I had just yesterday that the 1998 out-turn may be even somewhat stronger than that.
Taking that into account together with the possible situation over the next couple of years, I am reasonably satisfied at this time that this expenditure can be applied for the purpose for which it was intended and in support of the very point of view that the honourable Member put forward.
As she says, later on when we come to renegotiate all these things her point of view will be very much taken into account.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 NAME="President">
Question No 53 by Alfred Lomas (H-0653/98)
<P>
Subject: Racism in Brussels
<P>
On 19 April 1998 a constituent of mine, a British citizen, together with her husband, a Tunisian national who lives with her in Britain, and a friend who is a Belgian citizen of Tunisian descent serving in the Belgian army, visited a bar - Au Laboureur, Place de la Constitution 3, Brussels.
Her husband and the friend were refused a drink on the grounds that they were "Arabic' .
They informed the police who took no action and even refused to give their names.
This incident caused great distress.
Will the Commission urge the appropriate authorities in Brussels to take action against this overt racism?
Commissioner, I invite you to reply to Mr Lomas' question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 NAME="Flynn">
The honourable Member refers to a racist incident experienced by one of his constituents and her Tunisian husband.
They were refused service in a bar in Brussels.
The Commission and the House deplores this incident.
At the same time, while deploring it, the Commission is not in a position to take action in this regard.
<P>
The fight against racist incidents is first and foremost the responsibility of Member States and complaints must therefore be addressed to the competent national authorities.
The body responsible for such matters in Belgium, the role of which is very similar to the Commission for Racial Equality in the United Kingdom, is Centre pour l'Egalité de Chances et de Lutte contre le Racisme , that is the Centre for Equality and the fight against Racism.
The honourable Member is advised to take the constituent's complaint to this body and they will be pleased to hear about the complaint.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="Lomas">
I thank the Commissioner for his reply and the very helpful information he has given me.
Of course I will do what he says.
However, the EC has frequently commented on such matters, and the Commission in particular has made some excellent statements.
Since the Commissioner may have a little more influence than me, I wonder if besides me taking the matter up, the Commissioner could advise this body - I know it can do no more, it cannot interfere - that a Member has raised this matter and that the Commission is disturbed about it.
There should be an inquiry into both the bar and the police and it would be very helpful if the Commissioner could assist in this way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 NAME="Flynn">
I appreciate what the honourable Member has said.
We are launching a wide debate on Article 13 as you know.
I would hope that with our Action Plan we can provide ourselves with a legal framework as to how we can combat racism better in Europe.
<P>
The last survey on racist attitudes was very disturbing and it is as well to put this on the record of the House.
When the survey was carried out in Belgium, 22 % of the people interviewed regarded themselves as 'very racist' and 33 % regarded themselves as 'quite racist' .
Therefore, 55 % of the total population of Belgium was quite or very racist.
That says how much support we need for the proposed Action Plan.
The figure for Europe was a whole was 33 %.
So, a third of the total population of Europe - 120 million people - regard themselves as either 'quite racist' or 'very racist' .
It gives some indication of how great the need is to pursue incidents such as this.
<P>
I am rather pleased that one of the successes of last year was the setting up the Observatory.
We will be able to get better data on the whole aspect of these incidents - what brings them about and hopefully some of the causes - so that we can deal with them properly under Article 13 when the Treaty is ratified.
I know that unanimity is required but it is my intention before the end of this Commission's term of office to introduce a proposal dealing with Article 13.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Lancker">
I know that the Commissioner, as a champion of the fight against racism and discrimination, is very well aware that a lot remains to be done at European level as well.
However, I must tell Mr Lomas, for example, that thanks to funding from the European Commission for Belgium itself with its Centre for Equality and the fight against Racism, training projects are being set up by the police.
If it would help Mr Lomas, I would be pleased to help him in filing his complaint, which will then ultimately have to be taken up by the Observatory mentioned by the Commissioner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 NAME="Flynn">
The two honourable Members will be pleased with one particular aspect.
On the matter of the budget, we will be able to have our Action Plan and the question about the budget line for racism cleared.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Flynn.
That comment brings us to the end of the time allocated to the block of questions addressed to Commissioner Flynn.
So Questions Nos 54 to 57 will be dealt with in writing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=216 NAME="Bonino">
It is the Commission's opinion that the amended common fisheries policy for 2002 should retain the current system governing access to the 6/12 mile zone.
According to Articles 6 and 14 of the Council Regulation, the Council must decide whether to keep the current system by 31 December 2002.
<P>
In its 1996 report on the application of the Community system for fisheries and aquaculture, the Commission informed the European Council and Parliament that, as things currently stood, no application had apparently been made to alter this aspect of Community law.
<P>
The response the Commission received to its recent questionnaire on the amendment of the common fisheries policy confirms the Commission's view that current provisions on the 6/12 mile zone should be upheld.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="McIntosh">
I am most grateful to the Commissioner for that decision.
However, it did not say very much.
<P>
Could the Commissioner please confirm that if a request is made to overrule the 6/12 mile limit beyond 2002, that will be decided by qualified majority voting in the Council of Ministers?
That is the first point.
<P>
Could she also reassure my fishermen in north Essex and south Suffolk that they will be free to fish in that zone up to the 12 mile limit beyond 2002, because that was the agreement we had when Britain signed up to a common fisheries policy?
<P>
In her view, what is the legal status of a letter sent by Jacques Santer, as President of the Commission, to Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, guaranteeing the 6/12 mile limit would be kept beyond the year 2002?
Does that have legal status and can our fishermen rely on it before the European Court of Justice?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="Bonino">
I can answer two of those points.
Certainly, any decision by the Council of Ministers to overrule the present system has to be taken by a qualified majority.
<P>
I think what President Santer's letter to Prime Minister Blair means is that the Commission will not make any proposal to the Council to change the current system.
Decision making is in the hands of the Council of Ministers and it can overrule the arrangement by a qualified majority.
But the Commission will not be arguing for this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="Teverson">
I also wish to thank the Commissioner for her reply.
As I understand it, in the questionnaires she refers to, that were sent back by the industry in the various Member States, there was a general feeling that, if anything, the 6/12 mile limit could be extended.
<P>
I wondered whether, given its wish to take notice of consultation with the industry and to work with it, the Commission might bring forward a proposal to extend the limit, say, to 30 nautical miles rather than the 6/12 miles at the present moment?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 NAME="Bonino">
Mr Teverson, you know very well that the current system is already a derogation from the Treaty.
It is true that there is a consultation process with the industry.
We have not yet analysed all the replies, so I do not know its overall reaction.
<P>
As far as the replies we have received so far are concerned, they are very largely, or I would even go so far as to say, entirely in favour of the status quo.
I will not enter into any commitment at this stage.
What I can say is that there will be no proposal from the Commission to overrule the current system. But that is the most I can say.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="Macartney">
I should like to thank the Commissioner for her usual frank and forthright way in dealing with these questions which sometimes prompt alarmist comment.
In addition to the reassurance on the 6- and 12-mile limit, will she also bear in mind the question of relative stability, since these are the fishermen's two biggest causes of concern.
Perhaps she would like to give an assurance, via this House, on both these issues, that the Commission is behind the fishermen and against the scaremongerers?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 NAME="Bonino">
Maybe I can give a personal assurance.
We are entering into consultations and it would be unfair for me to commit myself now.
The overwhelming majority of the answers up to now have all called for relative stability to be maintained.
That is my personal view at this stage.
I do not want to commit myself further today because we are consulting and I do not want to undermine the exercise completely.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="President">
Question No 60 by John McCartin (H-0620/98)
<P>
Subject: Ban on drift-net fishing
<P>
Following the recent decision to ban drift-net fishing in Community waters, has the Commission made any proposals for some form of compensation for the people engaged in tuna fishing and who are about to lose their livelihoods as a result of this decision?
Mrs Bonino, I invite you to reply to Mr McCartin's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="Bonino">
I believe, Mr McCartin, that the best response that the Commission can give is contained in the joint declaration by the Council and the Commission, annexed to the minutes of the Fisheries Council of 8 June this year, which states: "Anxious to promote a switch to techniques which are more reliable, selective and financially appealing for capturing the same stocks, the Council and the Commission agree on the need to introduce in the Community an appropriate range of actions and special supporting measures for fishermen serving on board and the owners of fishing vessels.
<P>
' The measures concerned will have to be exceptional in character, however, and in any event be met from the budget for the affected Member States' existing structural programmes.
<P>
' The measures may include alterations to fishing vessels making it possible for them to convert to techniques that are more reliable and selective, in particular for taking the same same species and avoiding those that are being overexploited; compensation enabling fishermen on board and the owners of vessels to face the economic consequences of having to give up drift-net fishing activities; schemes to retrain fishermen for jobs in areas other than fishing or to provide them with new skills; and decommissioning of vessels involved in drift-net fishery' .
<P>
It is still premature to detail the exact nature of the supporting measures because they are currently the subject of bilateral talks with the competent authorities in the Member States, who are, in turn, consulting professionals in the sector.
<P>
For the time being, it is impossible to predict the outcome of these talks and still less to predict what the Commission will propose to the Council.
It is very likely that the measures will be more or less the same as the measures adopted for swordfish, that is to say they will involve payments for owners of fishing vessels and fishermen who give up fishing altogether or who continue fishing for tuna using other methods.
<P>
Parliament will naturally be consulted on the proposal as required by Article 43 of the Treaty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="McCartin">
I should like to thank the Commissioner for her reply.
Would the Commissioner not agree that there is considerable discontent amongst the fishermen involved who feel that they have been displaced, not because of any scientifically based conservation programme, but simply for political reasons, to enable their catches to be exploited by others who have a different traditional way of exploiting stocks?
I cannot work out whether there is a proposal to provide new moneys to compensate the displaced fishermen or whether the Commissioner is saying that the governments of the States concerned - be it France, the United Kingdom or Ireland - should propose a compensation programme using the resources already provided and no new money and resources are available.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="Bonino">
The answer is yes.
There is no new money, but there is a possibility of using the money currently available in the Member States, of rescheduling the present funds.
We are discussing this with the authorities.
We really feel that for Ireland, the UK, France, etc, taking into account the average of what has been spent up to now, there is room, frankly, to cover this new expenditure.
<P>
Again, the European budget provides 50 % to some Member States, and 75 % to Ireland.
We are looking into this calculation in some detail.
But let me assure you that there is a way to reschedule and reprogramme the present fund.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="Teverson">
There is a great confidence - rightly or wrongly - that the driftnet fleets of the Atlantic will disappear because of this Community regulation that has now been agreed.
<P>
Is the Commissioner confident that the Mediterranean driftnet fleets will also disappear and that we will no longer have driftnet fishing in the Mediterranean, from EU waters, as we will now in the Atlantic.
Will there really be equality of enforcement in European waters?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 NAME="Bonino">
I do not know if all seas will have the same treatment but I am confident that all of the European fleet will have the same treatment.
I cannot prohibit driftnets from being used by Japanese-flag vessels or others.
That is another dynamic that is now under discussion in the CGPM in the Mediterranean where the Commission has just recently become a member.
<P>
But I am confident for many reasons, one being the financial incentives, that before the deadline of 1 January 2001, even in the Mediterranean, the fishermen will finally realize that it is even more convenient for them to take this opportunity.
<P>
I have no reason to doubt the effectiveness of enforcement, though I would stress again that, while the Commission will be very vigilant, enforcement is first and foremost the responsibility of the Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 NAME="President">
Question No 61 by Birgitta Ahlqvist (H-0644/98)
<P>
Subject: Salmon-fishing in the Torne river basin
<P>
The Finno-Swedish Border Rivers Commission has banned salmon-fishing in the River Torne despite the fact that all waters in the area are privately owned.
Fish stocks are plentiful, and there is enough room for everyone, both tourists and fishermen.
Never before have so many salmon swum in our waters.
<P>
Sweden's constitution guarantees the inviolability of ownership rights, although such rights are inexplicably being infringed in this case.
Moreover, fishing is of economic significance for those who fish and it is profitable.
It is an ancient occupation which is dying out as a result of this ban.
<P>
In view of the fact that one of the aims of EU regional policy is to create jobs in sectors which foster sustainable growth (and salmon-fishing in the Torne river basin satisfies both these criteria), what does the Commission think should be done in this case?
Mrs Bonino, I invite you to reply to Mrs Ahlqvist's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 NAME="Bonino">
The Finno-Swedish Border Rivers Commission has banned salmon fishing in river waters as a result of a 1997 resolution, passed by the International Baltic Sea Fisheries Commission, that called on all coastal states to adopt a moratorium on wild salmon fishing in internal waters as part of the strategy to rebuild wild salmon stocks - otherwise known as the salmon action plan.
<P>
I would like to remind you that the European Community embarked on this action plan only after discussion with Member States and that it intends to implement the plan in all areas.
<P>
We must also consider that salmon is a fish that migrates from feeding grounds in the sea to breeding grounds in inland fresh waters.
In order to protect it throughout its life cycle, we must adopt measures that apply to both coastal and internal waters. These measures must be added to measures already adopted for the open sea, where catches have already been halved compared with 1993 figures.
<P>
In rivers where stocks of wild salmon are almost depleted, the moratorium should be fully observed for several years. In other rivers, very prudent catch levels could be gradually reintroduced when experts confirm that the stock situation has improved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Ahlqvist">
I would like to thank Commissioner Bonino for her answer which I had not really expected.
As I understand things, the decision which the Border Rivers Commission has taken is based on the EU's earlier rules.
Therefore this is not a national issue, but a Union issue.
This is a very big problem on the River Torne.
If nothing is done about it, it will grow into a very, very big border dispute.
<P>
I wonder whether the Union could not in some way divide the salmon fishing fairly between Sweden and Finland. The issue concerns both of these countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bonino">
I can assure Mrs Ahlqvist that there is an ongoing process of dialogue and discussion on salmon fishing in rivers between both States involved.
I was referring, in procedural terms, to the decision taken by the International Baltic Sea Fisheries Commission.
Although this Commission is responsible for regulating fishing in international waters, we thought it was appropriate to involve the Baltic Sea Commission because salmon swim into inland river waters to breed.
<P>
Having said this, the Union is naturally negotiating with both Member States to reach a solution, with the agreement of both if possible. The aim is of course to avoid the conflict Mrs Ahlqvist referred to.
<P>
Although the situation is frankly quite difficult, the Commission has not given up hope of reaching a mutually acceptable solution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
I am pleased that Commissioner Bonino quite rightly asserts that wild salmon have recovered in many places in the Baltic Sea, and that she is also well aware of the fact that we have many difficult regional conflicts and conflicts between different types of fish. This means the problem is not so much one of a border conflict between Sweden and Finland, but one of regional conflicts.
<P>
Since we know this is a difficult question, I wonder, firstly, how long the Commissioner thinks the action plan for salmon will have to continue with the tough restrictions which exist?
<P>
Secondly, I understand that there is an idea of marking salmon so that people can distinguish between wild and farmed salmon.
Does the Commission intend to proceed with the question of marked salmon?
<P>
Finally, I wonder whether there are any measures which the Commission could take to promote the position of professional fishing. It is having great problems.
We have hardly any salmon fishing left along the Gulf of Bothnia coast in Finland.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bonino">
The quantity of sea catches has been halved, in other words cut but 50 %, compared to 1993.
The aim of this is to help stocks recover.
There is a total moratorium for the time being. The Commission is naturally willing to adopt a more flexible approach once the scientists tell us that stock levels have recovered.
For the time being, however, the Commission has not yet received any official reports that indicate that stock levels have recovered sufficiently in river waters.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Bonino.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, it is now 7 p.m. We have come to the end of the time specified in the agenda for questions to the Commission.
Therefore Questions Nos 62 to 114 will be dealt with in writing.
<P>
That concludes Question Time.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 7.00 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Towards sustainability
<SPEAKER ID=236 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0275/98) by Mrs Dybkjær, on behalf of Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text, approved by the Conciliation Committee, for a European Parliament and Council Decision on the review of the European Community programme of policy and action in relation to the environment and sustainable development 'Towards sustainability' (C4-0382/98-96/0027(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 NAME="Dybkjær">
Madam President, today we are seeing the fruits of work that has been going on for 2 ½ years, and I would like to begin by thanking the members of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection for their very active efforts.
Allow me briefly to remind you of the background.
In Committee, we were seriously discussing whether to throw the Commission's draft assessment of the Fifth Community Action Programme on the environment back in their teeth.
That is how dissatisfied we were with it.
It was just not good enough.
However, a majority within the Committee felt that this would delay the whole process too much, and we had precious little guarantee that we would get anything better.
Thus, we chose to continue working with the text, but using the influence of Parliament to the maximum.
The result was that some 100 amendments were voted through by the Committee.
Then we did something rather unusual in the plenary.
We agreed to take control of the process and withdrew 50 of the amendments in advance.
That is almost unknown in parliamentary history, but the strategy paid off.
Our prioritized amendments were voted through.
Neither the Council nor the Commission had much time for our amendments.
They could not accept very many of them, and therefore, we had to present virtually all of them again at second reading, whereupon the majority were adopted.
<P>
Then I would like to say a big thank you to the British presidency.
Their will to negotiate, their flexibility and professionalism allowed us to achieve a reasonably positive result together.
It was difficult at the start.
Council only accepted three of our amendments, but things did improve.
Then, finally, my thanks go to the Commission.
It took them a while to get on board, but they did so in the end.
<P>
Naturally, the result is a compromise.
The European Parliament would have preferred to see all its amendments implemented without modification, but we are living in the real world.
So what have we achieved?
Generally, the programme has become more legally binding.
It has been registered that the new Member States - Austria, Sweden and Finland - will not be forced to lower their environmental standards after the end of their transition periods, not even if the EU has not by then managed to raise the EU's present standards, as promised.
It is now quite clearly enshrined in the programme that EU legislation will have to be adjusted so that the high standards of the new Member States can be maintained, and this will be done in full public view.
<P>
However, we will face environmental problems from quite the opposite end of the spectrum with the next enlargement of the Community.
When the countries of central and eastern Europe join, it is important to ensure that the dynamics and perspectives of this do not disappear.
The new Member States will have to respect regulations already in force and those pending, and we have ensured that the Community will assist them in this major task.
They cannot do it alone.
Parliament has always taken the approach that the EU should take the lead in global, sustainable development.
The action programme underlines this; for example, more will be done to get the WTO to start taking the environment seriously.
However, none of this would be of any use at all without monitoring to ensure that legislation is actually adhered to.
Parliament has helped reinforce those provisions of the programme that deal with the implementation and monitoring of EU regulations.
For example, the Commission will be preparing a report on joint minimum standards for environmental inspection in the various countries.
The success or failure of the individual Member States in observing environmental requirements will also be made public.
<P>
I could mention many other things that have also been implemented, but in this summary, I will just say that as an old chemical engineer, I can but rejoice that not only are chemical substances mentioned in the Council's original text, but that there are also details of a specific plan of action to be prepared so that we can quickly evaluate all chemical substances, and greater emphasis is also given to tighter controls on the phasing out of CFCs.
<P>
Overall, I think Parliament should be pleased with its efforts.
Not only have we considerably improved the Fifth Community Action Programme on the Environment, we have also ensured that the entire reevaluation process was an open one in which many different interests came to the fore.
The European Parliament is the green institution of the EU, and the European Parliament does make a difference.
Of course, we have not achieved enough to make the EU sustainable overnight.
What we have is a compromise, as I said, but it is definitely a compromise in the right direction.
The result may not be worth celebrating with champagne, but it is surely worth a glass of good red wine.
And after that we will need a strong black coffee, because now the results must be put into action.
What is the value of an action programme if it is not put into action?
Let us look on the revised Fifth Community Action Programme on the Environment as a step towards sustainability.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graenitz">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the fact that we are today able to discuss the approval, by the Conciliation Committee of Council and Parliament, of a text in relation to the environment and sustainable development in the European Union, is thanks to the persistent efforts - persistent seems to be a much better word than sustained - of the rapporteur, Mrs Lone Dybkjær, and of the chairman of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, Kenneth Collins.
<P>
With this persistence and great wisdom they persuaded the Council to be open to Parliament's ideas and to accept the proposals on a far broader basis than we could have hoped at the beginning of the negotiations, and in particular at the beginning of the first reading.
On behalf of my group, I thank you very sincerely for this.
<P>
It is clear to all those involved with environmental issues that this programme can only be the beginning of sustainable development in the European Union.
For this reason I am particularly pleased that the objectives of this Fifth Action Programme already state that still more progressive priority objectives and measures will be necessary beyond the year 2000, so that the Community action does not lose its momentum and, of course, so that we can succeed in including the applicant countries in this environmental process.
<P>
I would need much more speaking time than I have, if I were to discuss all points on which there was agreement and which could contribute to an improvement in environmental legislation.
Therefore, I can only mention a few key points relating to some of these.
It is particularly important that environmental policy is included in agricultural policy, and I am very grateful to the Commission that this additional statement on the common agricultural policy has been included in the decision by the Conciliation Committee.
I am also very grateful to the Commission for stating that it will make proposals regarding ways in which environmental liability really could be legally regulated.
We talk about this regularly in the House and we will certainly publish a White Paper on it at some stage which we can discuss and which can take into account national differences, to such an extent that we can finally achieve a good pan-European directive on environmental liability.
<P>
I consider it very important that a system of green accounting should be introduced in the individual Member States so that we can carry out a form of environmental accounting - the German term is not very beautiful - once the individual Member States have reported back.
This is particularly important as, in precisely those places where we can integrate environmental protection very well, in operational processes and other processes, this integration of a system of green accounting into general accounting has many advantages and is excellent for transposing environmental provisions into national law.
<P>
Transposal is a very important catchword.
We must also have more effective monitoring, as Mrs Dybkjær has already said, and this will lead to us finally having better health protection; this was also established more firmly in the Conciliation Committee than ever before.
<P>
There is no time to go through everything.
I would like to conclude with one point.
Many of us concerned with globalization and international trade issues see how much more difficult it is if environmental and precautionary aspects are not dealt with adequately within the framework of the WTO.
This text also states that the Commission will continue to do its utmost in the negotiations which are supposed to be concluded the year after next, but which will at least be very advanced by then.
Once again, I thank everyone involved.
Even if it is a compromise, it is a compromise which brings us further forward on environmental issues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Madam President, Commissioner, Mrs Dybkjær, it is of course a little sad, considering how hard, how magnificently Lone Dybkjær fought in her report, that the report was originally much better, but we have to accept that, where environmental issues are concerned, small steps forward must be accepted gratefully here in Europe, in the European Parliament.
But perhaps the Member States will then actually grasp these small steps.
That, also, is Europe.
<P>
The joint text by the Conciliation Committee notes that the new Member States - Sweden, Finland and Austria - are not required to lower their environmental standards.
So far, so good, and I am very much in agreement with this.
Of course, it would be catastrophic if the Union were seen to be even trying to force Member States to lower their environmental standards.
This would certainly not happen.
But we all read it slightly differently before lunch.
Commissioner, is it not true that you discussed the possibility of checking or rather reviewing whether the Union could not adopt the stricter standards of the three new Member States?
And was it not also discussed that you personally - and here I believe you - would make every effort to support this and to present a result to the House?
<P>
I once heard from an official at the Commission that there had not been any really specific discussions with the individual countries.
Nevertheless, it was obvious, the official said, that these countries would not adopt our environmental standards, so there was no point in even trying to discuss it!
A classic case of jumping to conclusions.
I think it is a pity for the Commission. It think it is a pity, Commissioner - I hold you in the highest regard, and I would have expected a little more from you here.
It is also a pity for the Union, and a pity for the citizens of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Madam President, Parliament has once more obtained a marvellous result for the environment and for the European citizen with the outcome of this codecision procedure on the review of the Fifth Environmental Action Programme.
I admit that it has been an extremely painful process, but when we look at the result of the conciliation procedure it has undoubtedly been more than worth the trouble.
<P>
This is the second conciliation procedure under the British presidency in which Parliament has been able to exercise a considerable influence on the end result, with which it can be highly satisfied.
I am referring to the Auto-Oil Programme and now the review of the Fifth Environmental Action Programme.
<P>
My congratulations to the rapporteur, Mrs Dybkjær.
I experienced at first hand how much energy she put into her efforts to achieve a better review of the Fifth Environmental Action Programme for our citizens and the environment.
She deserves every praise for this.
<P>
It is very important for Parliament's monitoring of compliance with Community legislation to be tightened up.
Article 4 on implementation and compliance has been completely rewritten to reflect Parliament's amendments.
I emphasize that it is chiefly the Member States that have to accept responsibility for compliance, but the Commission too must improve compliance monitoring by means of a European network of environmental inspectors.
<P>
I am also very pleased that the Commission, with the support of Parliament, has made its intentions clear with regard to the integration of environmental objectives into the common agricultural policy.
This is of great importance to a sustainable future for Europe.
The much-needed reforms for sustainable agriculture have to be put in place as quickly as possible.
I shall myself be making concrete proposals in the context of the budget to integrate environmental objectives into the common agricultural policy.
<P>
I also need to take a look at my own country, which is making far too little use of the opportunity - I am thinking of agricultural and environmental regulation 2078/92 - to make agriculture much more environmentally friendly through cofinancing.
<P>
Finally, the guarantee given to the states who joined most recently - Austria, Finland and Sweden - that they will be able to maintain their strict environmental standards, is of great importance to them.
I will conclude by asking the Commission what preparations it currently has in hand to give the Environmental Action Programme a fresh start after the year 2000.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Madam President, I agree with what Mrs Flemming said.
At both first and second reading, Mrs Dybkjær, we considered your report to be absolutely first-rate and a real ray of hope for the European Parliament.
But was it not precisely for those reasons that we did not agree with the outcome of the Conciliation Committee?
We believe that it is not even worthy of red wine, but at most a glass of seltzer - what remains, after all, of the ten points submitted by Parliament?
Where is the agreement that the White Paper is finally on its way or, even more importantly, that environmental liability is finally being regulated?
For years the Commission has been putting us off, and so it goes on. I fear it might just happen on twelfth of never.
<P>
As Mrs Flemming already said, where is the very clear statement that we will finally look at the regulations in the three new Member States and take very best points over from them?
There should be a whole series of such achievements.
Or where is the management plan for radioactive waste which we, as Parliament, requested?
None of this is in the outcome.
For this reason I believe that Mrs Bjerregard, who has already described us as a Mickey Mouse Parliament in connection with the Fifth Action Programme, will continue to make a joke of Parliament.
I would have liked to know what, in concrete terms, will become of environmental liability, what new points the Commission is planning.
We fear that in environmental terms this result is much too poor, and for this reason we did not vote for it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Madam President, Parliament received the text on the review of the Fifth Environmental Action Programme in February 1996.
Today, we are discussing the outcome of the conciliation procedure.
More than two years have passed in the meantime, and that is a very long time for an action programme that is to be implemented in the year 2000.
The next time, everything possible must be done to accelerate the process, otherwise the programme will be overtaken by events.
<P>
We are very happy with the contents of the joint draft text.
It proved possible to include many more concrete proposals from the European Parliament in the final text.
As a result, the text has been strengthened.
My congratulations to the rapporteur and the other participants in the conciliation procedure.
<P>
It is a pity that more did not come out of it in the area of agriculture.
Of course, we have Agenda 2000, where a lot of scope has been built in in terms of environmental policy, but we still have to await its implementation.
We are very happy about the priority given to better enforcement of environmental legislation.
This really is an area which needs to be paid more attention in the years to come.
The Commission seems to have been getting more interested in this recently, but things could still be improved.
I thought the additions by Parliament to the joint text about this priority were very good.
In particular, the use of the legal instruments which the Commission possesses to spur on the Member States is important.
It is simply disgraceful to see how the deadlines for implementing environmental legislation are being exceeded.
Just make the Member States come before the Court a bit more often, to explain why it is so difficult to implement laws, and perhaps then they would get a bit more of a move on.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Madam President, I wish to thank the rapporteur Mrs Dybkjær very warmly for her success in explaining so clearly that the three most recent Member States should not be penalized because the European Union has not been able to keep to its agreement.
When the three new Member States joined, it was agreed that the EU would amend its legislation to fit in with that of the new Member States, in which case this transition period would not have caused the new Member States any grief.
At the same time it would have also enabled EU environmental standards to rise.
There is really still a great deal of work to be done in this field.
The European Parliament has done much to put matters on the right track, and a good example of this is this achievement on the part of the Conciliation Committee.
<P>
Agenda 2000 is an important tool, but it is worth bearing in mind that when we quite justifiably insisted, in the context of enlargement, that future Member States must observe the European Union's strict rules, at least strict in the opinion of the newcomers, we also have to see to it that the EU for its own part honours its agreements and commitments.
But it is specifically in the area of enlargement that it is vital to make sure EU environmental legislation is not weakened, but that it is continually improved.
I believe that the important thing about this report is that we have to honour commitments already in existence today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
Madam President, the disappointment is obvious to anyone reading the final report of this conciliation procedure.
After the major inroads made in committee, we now find the document presented by the Commission to be absolutely unacceptable. Although this document talks about sustainable development, it actually suggests a form of development that seeks to adapt environmental needs to the current system of production.
All this is done, naturally, without tackling the indefensible policies that destroy natural resources and without any real moves to carry forward the limited progress made as a consequence of the actions of the European Parliament.
<P>
I can give examples: there is agriculture, but there is also Agenda 2000, which fails to meet these requirements.
Also, the document on agriculture does not mention genetically modified organisms.
My colleague Mrs Breyer has already mentioned the topic of radioactivity.
As far as consumers are concerned, we have already debated labelling as a means of providing safeguards, but nothing at all has been said about labelling genetically modified organisms.
<P>
These were just examples, but what do they tell us?
They tell us that we have switched from a proposal for sustainable development to a proposal aimed mainly at preserving the status quo.
The changes to the original text are simply windowdressing and do not alter the gist.
We cannot therefore say that we appreciate the spirit in which the European Parliament has attempted to give substance to an empty proposal presented by the European Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pinel">
Madam President, without intending to do so, this report raises two problems.
Firstly when talking about harmonization between the Member States, we are also talking about the risk of levelling down.
I do not have any problem at all with the exception which allows Austria, Finland and Sweden to retain their own standards, but the fact remains that this exception was not clear at the outset.
Furthermore, there is no point whatsoever in raising and harmonizing our environmental standards in Europe if, at the same time, we do not keep a critical eye on what is coming in from outside.
<P>
The question of sustainable development is one of those issues which provides the best arena for euro-globalists to be faced with their own contradictions.
Here industry and commerce play a clearly dominant role.
Specifically, how can the Member States develop a policy of sustainable development in a global commercial context in which free trade would like to prohibit our countries from inspecting the quality of imports from third countries?
And I refer here to products manufactured under frequently deplorable social and environmental conditions which, in the absence of compensatory taxation, is slashing prices in Europe and nudging unemployment figures upwards.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, these issues seem irreconcilable to me and lead us to choose between two very different concepts: the best offer and the lowest offer.
If we really want to have an ambitious environmental policy, we must push our thinking as far as it will go and keep control of those precious filters which our borders represent.
If this happens and we permit only those products to enter our Community which respect human beings and the environment, third countries would certainly work more quickly to raise their standards.
However if the opposite happens, and the law of the jungle takes over, unfortunately our efforts towards sustainable development would be worth little.
<P>
The same applies to farming methods. For example, even if it is less expensive in terms of cost price to raise cattle on the ashes of the Amazon rainforest, it would be catastrophic for the environment and for employment to sell beef from this source, which admittedly would be much cheaper, in competition with beef produced on the grasslands of Europe.
In this context, I think that aiming for higher standards seems a particularly difficult objective.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Madam President, I would like to congratulate Parliament on the outcome of the conciliation procedure pursuant to the resolution on reviewing Community policy and action in connection with the environment and sustainable development entitled "Towards Sustainability' .
This result has been made possible thanks to a constructive and realistic approach on the part of Parliament and the Council of Ministers.
My special thanks go to the rapporteur, Mrs Lone Dybkjær, and to Mr Ken Collins, chairman of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, as well as to the British presidency for their energetic approach to tackling this issue.
The Commission is of course delighted to have played a part in the overall compromise by contributing a large number of proposed wordings and communications on the minutes of the meetings.
The Commission will now do its part for the duration of the programme, tabling motions for measures that will be required to implement the result we now have before us.
I trust that the implementation of this resolution will further promote the integration of environmental considerations into other sectors of policy, as required by the Treaty and upheld at the Cardiff Summit.
<P>
In addition, please allow me to make a few individual comments on some of the issues raised in today's debate.

Several speakers, including Mrs Dybkjær, Mrs Flemming and Mrs Myller, touched on the matter of the new Member States.
I can only confirm what I have said many times in response to questions and debates in Parliament: in my view, standards for the three new Member States should not be lowered.
I would also like to say to Mrs Flemming that the entire proposal on pollution strategy and the subsequent proposal on sulphur in petrol have taken direct account of spreading the standards of the new Member States to the rest of the Community, so we have most definitely been inspired by the new Member States.
<P>
I can also confirm that at the Council meeting in Chester in April, I promised we would come up with a plan of action on chemical substances.
As regards agricultural policy, mentioned by Mrs Graenitz, Mr Eisma and Mr Blokland, I must say I share Mr Blokland's view that a stronger statement on agricultural policy would have been good, but we do have the option of coming back to this, because we will be discussing the relationship between agriculture and the environment in the context of Agenda 2000.
The debates we have had on this clearly demonstrate what an important issue it is.
Finally, as regards liability, I would just like to emphasize that I am still hoping for and working towards presenting a White Paper on this before the year is out.
<P>
Madam President, with these few remarks, I would just like to say thank you once again for the result achieved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Bjerregaard.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=13>
Epidemiological surveillance
<SPEAKER ID=248 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0276/98) by Mr Cabrol, on behalf of Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council Decision creating a network for the epidemiological surveillance and control of communicable diseases in the European Community (C4-0383/98-96/0052(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 NAME="Cabrol">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, because of the grave, sometimes mortal threat to the people of the European Union from communicable diseases, in April 1996 the Commission proposed the creation of a Community surveillance network to respond more effectively to recurrences of such serious diseases.
<P>
Parliament had long called for this.
Nevertheless, the Member States' response in the Council to this initiative was very disappointing.
In its common position adopted in July 1997 the Council seemed to be doing its utmost to restrict effective action, that is, action which could be taken at Community level, by retaining as many as possible of individual Member States' prerogatives and by having decisions in every case taken not at Community level but at the discretion of each government.
<P>
In its second reading amendments of January 1998 Parliament sought to restore the effectiveness of action against recurrences of communicable diseases. This triggered a conciliation procedure.
<P>
In a series of official and unofficial negotiations with our delegation and its chairman, Mr Ken Collins, we fought a hard battle in the course of which we secured the essential guarantees.
Firstly, public recognition in each Member State for an officially designated national centre charged with gathering information on the communicable diseases currently evolving and on measures for controlling them.
Secondly, the creation of a Community network linking all the national centres, with the job of assimilating the data gathered and operating in both directions, from the national centres to the network and vice versa.
This is Amendment No 13.
<P>
It was much more difficult to obtain a centre whose job is to classify and analyze the data and also to provide an early warning system in order to push through the required measures.
This was gained only on condition that the European Commission took responsibility for it. This is Amendment No 5.
<P>
In an effort towards Community cohesion, we succeeded in drawing attention in all the stages of data gathering to the need to use consistent definitions and data gathered in accordance with previously established methodology and to encourage the use of appropriate language and technology.
It was an uphill task to obtain the financing for this purpose.
The text only allows for the possibility of Community financing.
This is Amendment No 4.
<P>
In selecting the diseases which might be covered by the network, we have managed to avoid establishing arbitrary criteria and we have raised recognition of the need to record not only the clinical but also the microbiological characteristics of the diseases in question.
In addition, the list of communicable diseases is now real and no longer only indicative.
This list can be modified with the approval of Parliament.
<P>
In terms of the steps to be taken, the concept of guidelines at Community level has been adopted, as opposed to decisionmaking as the exclusive domain of the Member States as called for in the Council's common position.
On the contrary, each Member State must consult the other states before taking any steps, except in cases of extreme urgency.
<P>
Controls will also be permitted at the external frontiers of the European Union.
There will also be a periodical evaluation of the operation of the entire system - national centres, the network and European centres - within a reasonable time scale.
<P>
In conclusion, the joint text we now have may not be perfect, but it would be difficult to achieve more given the current state of the European constitution.
Your parliamentary delegation recommends, therefore, that Parliament adopt the decision in accordance with the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 NAME="Needle">
Madam President, after the daylight drama that we had in Mr Cabrol's last report on the tobacco advertising ban, it is sad to be back to the late shift for health workers in this Parliament tonight.
I find it rather ironic that we have been relegated to this time, given that the Commission rates this network on communicable diseases as one of the most important pieces of the post-Maastricht health framework, and also that the UK presidency gave its successful completion at conciliation a particularly high priority.
<P>
Nevertheless, the work of Mr Cabrol in bringing some complex negotiations to a conclusion deserves a wider audience and our congratulations, as well as the vote of approval which it will undoubtedly achieve tomorrow, with the full support of my group.
<P>
At second reading some formidable obstacles remained to be cleared.
Principally those related to the budget - which seems to be a perennial health risk -, to the questions of external frontier control responsibility and, particularly, to the rapporteur's own initiative, over and above the Commission proposals, concerning a dedicated centre at the heart of the network.
<P>
A recapitulation of previous readings will remind us that I harboured doubts then that this could be achieved in the current political and economic climate, despite the undoubted strength of the rapporteur's argument and the enthusiasm of this House at two readings.
That suspicion has proved well founded.
But if some see that as a cloud, then the annex appended to the final text by the Commission must be seen as a very significant silver lining to that cloud.
To have extracted a commitment that the Commission will take particular care to set up a clearly identified structure, with sufficient staff to ensure application of the decision, is a major achievement of negotiation by all three institutions.
<P>
Tonight we particularly praise Mr Cabrol - and Mr Collins, as the committee Chairman - but the diligent work of Commissioner Flynn and his team in DG V F plus the Chairman-in-Office of the Council of Permanent Representatives, means that another success can be chalked up to add to the growing numbers of welcome conclusions to consultations, particularly those carried out in the manner which Mr Cabrol referred to.
<P>
What will all this mean to our citizens?
We must be vigilant to ensure it is implemented thoroughly and urgently.
But it is a further recognition that the EU is well placed to enact measures to protect the health of its citizens.
Of course the WHO has a role, with its cascades of information; of course national and local health bodies have a clear role in control and surveillance; but now so does the EU, and rightly so, when millions of our citizens choose to move across the continent to work, to study, or, crucially at this time of year, to go on holiday.
<P>
The French people celebrating Bastille Day with fireworks tonight in the centre of this city have a right to expect that they are at not at preventable risk in the crowds of people who will also enjoy the celebrations.
The hundreds of thousands of World Cup fans now heading home have the same rights and responsibilities, on European soil, to the highest standards of health protection, whether they come from Germany, Jamaica or wherever.
It is to those structures, which the decision now puts in place, that those citizens can confidently look for reassurance that the sort of killer diseases re-emerging to sometimes worrying degrees in other continents, as well as here, are less likely to strike them down.
That is good for our citizens; it is good for their health and it is good for their democratic rights too.
Although few will know it as the fireworks explode outside tonight, it is a very good reason for those of us here to enjoy some quiet celebrations for the introduction of what is a modest but important measure, and to thank all those responsible for achieving it, which I now do.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=251 NAME="Flynn">
Our common goal is to promote and protect the health of individuals and our populations.
In this context, today really is a landmark in the development of a Community health policy.
Parliament is poised to adopt the decisions setting up the network for the epidemiological surveillance and control of communicable diseases in the Community.
<P>
The adoption of this decision will be a major step forward in the fight against diseases.
I support both contributors in that regard.
It really is an important evening.
It will enable further concrete initiatives to be undertaken, as well as further surveillance and control.
It will set up a network intended to respond effectively and in a coordinated fashion to epidemics or outbreaks of communicable diseases in a Community without internal frontiers.
<P>
It will not be confined simply to the transmission of surveillance data.
I am pleased to acknowledge the key role that Parliament has played in shaping this decision and the requirements that will accompany it.
Members of Parliament and, in particular, the rapporteur, Mr Cabrol, and the chairman of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, Mr Collins, deserve full credit for their efforts and their success in fashioning a major legal instrument of cardinal importance for Europe's public health.
<P>
I welcome the positive way in which Parliament and the Council approached the conciliation phase and played their respective roles to the full to secure adoption of this decision.
I wholeheartedly support what Mr Needle said in this regard.
The conciliation meeting itself was conducted in a most efficient and cooperative manner and the delegations must be given full credit for a job well done.
<P>
For the record, I would like to reiterate the two statements of the Commission made at that meeting so that they are properly entered in the Minutes because I think they are important for the record.
On Article 1, the Commission will pay particular attention to providing an adequately staffed and appropriately identified structure so as to ensure the implementation of the decision, taking into account the availability of resources.
<P>
On the implementation of the provisions of Article 7 - the point that Mr Needle referred to and that Mr Cabrol is extremely interested in as well - the Commission will pay particular attention to ensuring that expenditure relating to the committee which will assist the Commission is determined in strict application of the rules of financial prudence, in particular as regards the number of experts deemed necessary for the proper implementation of this decision.
I thank you for you support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Flynn.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=14>
Women's health
<SPEAKER ID=253 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0260/98) by Mrs van Dijk, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights, on the report from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on the state of women's health in the European Community (COM(97)0224 - C4-0333/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=254 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Larive">
Madam President, in the name of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party I should like to ask for the Mrs van Dijk's report to be referred back.
I would like to make it very clear that we all know Mrs van Dijk as a hard-working and motivated champion of women's rights, but that this report, which contains 90 proposals to the Commission and the Member States, is not the right report to promote women's health.
An interminable shopping list is being presented.
The European Commission needs a clear and concise signal from Parliament, and we want action to be taken.
There are a large number of proposals included which do not lie within the powers of the European Union, such as national authority concerning abortion.
For all these reasons, my group requests that the report be referred back to the Committee on Women's Rights, so that we can present the Commission with a short, concise report as quickly as possible in September or October.
I regret that it has to be this way, and I would like to state that in person, too, because it is Mrs van Dijk's last sitting.
I would have much preferred it to be otherwise.
She has a lot of good reports to her credit, and I will personally help to ensure that the reports come back to the plenary soon, but in a shorter and more concise form with clear priorities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=255 NAME="President">
You have now tabled a motion pursuant to Rule 129.
We can now have one speaker each to speak for and against the motion.
Who would like to speak in support of it?
Frau Heinisch.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=256 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Heinisch">
Madam President, I would agree with Mrs Larive.
We discussed this at length, tabled many motions and have had some really good discussions with Mrs van Dijk.
But we did not manage to reconcile our positions on many points with those of the other groups in order to achieve a satisfactory outcome.
I personally, as a pharmacist, am interested in the issue of women and health.
There are, however, many amendments which we simply cannot allow in the report because they have nothing to do with the issue of women's health.
For this reason I support the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party in asking that it be referred back to committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=257 NAME="President">
Thank you. Who would like to speak against this motion?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=258 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Madam President, I wish to oppose the request of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party since, firstly, this is Mrs van Dijk's last session and it would be a real pity if we could not see this matter through.
Secondly, if there is quite a lot to cover in this report, it is no doubt due to the fact that women's health is not awfully well charted as a separate issue.
For example, there is a dearth of statistical information, and, given this, I believe the report, in the shape it is in now, will act as a sort of catalogue of those issues that ought to be systematized and considered later on.
I think it is highly regrettable that there should be a desire merely to attribute all this to the wishes of the rapporteur.
The Committee certainly participated as a whole in the drafting of the report, however, as 96 amendments were presented in Committee, if I am not mistaken.
This number has now been whittled down to 34.The matter is clearly being resolved.
Besides, it is quite obvious that there is never unanimous agreement over abortion in this Chamber.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=259 NAME="President">
Before we proceed to the vote, Mrs Roth wishes to speak on a point of order.
Mrs Roth, on which Rule do you wish to speak?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=260 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth">
Madam President, I refer to Rule 112 on the quorum.
I would like to ask that the quorum be established.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=261 NAME="President">
If Mrs Roth makes this request, at least 29 Members must rise to support it.
You cannot request it alone; you need the support of 29 Members of the House.
I ask those Members who support Mrs Roth's request to rise from their seats.
<P>
(8 Members rose from their seats) Thus, the request for the quorum to be established is rejected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=262 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth">
I beg your pardon, Madam President, but Rule 112(5), also says that you, as President, can establish whether there are actually 29 people here in the Chamber.
You yourself can establish whether the quorum is present.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=263 NAME="President">
The request for the quorum to be established was rejected.
<P>
(Protests from Roth) Mrs Roth, I am chairing this sitting and I have said that the request was rejected.
We shall now proceed to the vote on the motion of referral back to the committee.
<P>
(The matter was referred back to the committee responsible)
<SPEAKER ID=264 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth">
I was disregarded earlier.
I do not know whether it would have turned out that way, but you said that I requested that the quorum be established.
However, in my second point of order I referred to Rule 112(5), because I wanted to know whether there were actually 29 people in the Chamber, and that was before the vote, before Mr Posselt and Mr Bourlanges rushed in.
You did not permit this; if you had, you would have been able to establish the quorum.
This is no longer relevant, but I was referring to something else.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=265 NAME="President">
Mrs Roth, I understood perfectly well what you were asking for, but such a request is not possible.
The VicePresident may do it, but he does not have to.
I beg your pardon, but you must read your Rules of Procedure very carefully.
In any case, the vote on referral back to committee was passed successfully.
Thus, this agenda item is closed, as the report was referred back to the committee.
<P>
Mrs García Arias wishes to speak on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=266 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García Arias">
Madam President, I am sorry that Mrs Roth's point of order has not been heeded.
I just want to state that I do not understand why an allusion to abortion under certain conditions - those which apply in all our countries - should have provoked this sort of reaction.
I would remind you all of the conditions which regulate abortion in practically all our countries: rape or incest, serious foetal deformity, and danger to the mother's health.
I do not understand this discussion.
Unfortunately my attitude differs from that of my committee, but for the record, Madam President, I think this situation needs to be brought to people's attention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=267 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="President">
Mrs García Arias, the debate is closed.
The Members have voted, and the vote was very clear.
I deliberately held an electronic vote so that there could be no confusion.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=15>
Environmental taxes and charges
<SPEAKER ID=268 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0200/98) by Mr Olsson, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the Commission communication: Environmental taxes and charges in the Single Market (COM(97)0009 - C4-0179/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=269 NAME="Olsson">
Madam President, this report has given me with a lot of interesting work.
It is based on a communication from the Commission which is in fact only a legal framework for the scope for introducing environmental taxes in the Member States.
<P>
I suspect that Commissioner Bjerregaard, who unfortunately is not present, had initially hoped that there would be a little more policy in this communication.
However, there was no policy, only a 'framework' .
From my side, with great help from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and other committees which have provided opinions, we have tried to 'put a little meat on the bones, ' since this is a very important issue.
<P>
An awful lot of environmental problems are in fact transnational.
That is why joint measures are required to deal with them.
In this context, financial instruments are often effective, but to increase their effectiveness in use, the ability to decide on common environmental taxes in the EU must be improved.
<P>
Our proposal contains a number of measures.
I shall not go into all of them, but, among other things, we would like the Commission to present proposals to use financial instruments to reduce pollution and unsustainable use of natural resources in all the Member States.
We also think that minimum levels of environmental taxes should be set according to the polluter pays principle.
In addition we say that the EU should also help to shift the tax burden from labour to environmental consumption, in other words a restructuring of taxation.
<P>
At present, countries that introduce various environmental taxes are very often criticized by, amongst others, their own business community.
There is a counter-argument that environmental taxes create worse competitive conditions for your own industry or your own agriculture.
The criticism is justified to the extent that an environmental tax involves an additional cost which competitors in other countries do not have.
However, this reasoning means that there are great difficulties in introducing any environmental taxes at all.
<P>
I am very pleased to see Commissioner Bjerregaard return.
I shall quickly repeat what I said initially, that is that I believe the Commissioner had originally wanted there to be a bit more than just a framework for environmental taxes, that there should also be some policy substance.
We have now received only a 'framework' from the Commission.
We have tried to put a little policy meat on this framework, and that is what we are presenting and debating this evening.
<P>
If we are to succeed within the European Union in maintaining a level playing field between countries in a single market, it is necessary to have cross-border cooperation on these issues.
Unfortunately many of the world's international forums are quite toothless.
There are no opportunities to agree on binding rules which have to be followed.
We try to do so in various contexts, such as within the UN and in various groupings all around the world.
In fact, today there is only one organization which might have the power to create such common rules, and that is the European Union.
The EU's need for unanimity for decisions on tax questions represents a political obstacle to this being able to work.
The Committee regrets that no advances were made in the Treaty of Amsterdam with regard to taking decisions at the EU level on the question of introducing environmental taxes.
<P>
Madam President, let me conclude by saying that environmental taxes at EU level would not only improve the environment, but also remedy the current situation in which the best punish themselves.
A restructuring of taxes would increase the competitiveness of European industry and make Europe more competitive in a tougher world market.
A 'green' tax reform could help to bring the structure of European industry closer to sustainable development.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=270 NAME="Holm">
Madam President, the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy was unanimous in its conclusions.
We want to stress how important this issue is.
We recognized that minimum levels should be set at EU level to help speed up the polluter pays principle.
That is a very important first step.
Then we also talked a great deal about how things currently stand in the Member States.
Certain Member States have a lot of environmental taxes and charges, while others do not.
There is, in other words, a large degree of freedom for the Member States.
The important thing in this context is that Member States should be able to share their experiences with other Member States so that they can do the same things.
Research can be a great help here.
Research has to be very advanced in this area for other countries to be able to learn from good examples.
That is also why we on the Committee on Energy stress that we must bear in mind the principle of subsidiarity, so that detailed rules should not be imposed, and it is possible to have different solutions.
<P>
Furthermore, when the EU Treaty was drawn up, environmental taxes and charges were not considered at all.
Because of this, all the legislation in the EU is lagging behind in this area, while consumers and companies are clamouring for change.
That is why it is important that Community legislation should not obstruct the developments taking place in many Member States, including the Scandinavian ones, which are aimed at developing better environmental taxes and charges so that these can spread and be applied and so that the EU's objective of an environmentally sustainable EU and society can be achieved.
At the same time, Community legislation must not be allowed to prevent this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=271 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Madam President, I think this move towards imposing environmental taxes throughout Europe is an important one.
It is important to note, however, that environmental problems will not be resolved merely by using environmental taxes.
We need an effective combination of good environmental legislation backed up by environmental taxation.
Only through such a combination of forces and cooperation will it be at all possible to achieve results.
The fact that a harmonized approach to environmental taxation in different countries is now being considered and must be considered, will mean that those countries that have already voluntarily imposed environmental taxes will no longer have to bear the pressure that presently comes from industry, which claims that they are freely giving away a competitive edge to their competitors.
<P>
I do not think the issue can be looked at in such simple terms.
Besides, the fact that production methods which protect the environment and environmental taxes exist at all can be considered a competitive edge.
In my opinion, the whole of the EU, as a single market area, should aim to achieve a position whereby Europe's competitive edge is the very fact that we have instruments available to us to control production and consumption so as to protect and improve the environment.
<P>
In my opinion environmental taxes offer a sensible way of controlling consumption and production.
It will suit the market economy splendidly, because it fits in with that very principle, although we cannot merely rely on the market economy.
It is essential for political decision-makers to have a genuine desire to acknowledge the importance of environmental matters, and for tax controls to be on the right course in this respect.
<P>
When we say, and I think it has to be said, that by increasing the use of environmental taxation we can reduce other taxes, for example, income tax, it should not then in any way be imagined that environmental taxes and the money they raise should be at all tied just to investment in, and care for, the environment.
Whereas we may see changing the focal point of taxation as a means of achieving better environmental protection, at the same time it is evident that it is also a means of amassing the resources society needs to produce welfare services; in other words, environmental taxes must be seen in the context of the overall tax system.
We should not just aim to create a better environment in concrete terms through environmental taxation. No, by using environmental taxes to achieve better, more sustainable production, we can also deliver better, more sustainable social services, and an improved standard of living for our citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=272 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Liese">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, first of all, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Olsson.
He made every effort with this report in the course of the procedure, and I believe that he has presented a good report.
We need to take action in the environmental field, even if at the moment it is not popular everywhere to talk about the environment.
We have many unsolved problems.
To name just one, there is the issue of how the European Union and the Member States intend to carry out their Rio and Kyoto obligations in terms of CO2 reduction.
There are various possible ways of tackling these problems.
We can use administrative law or we can allocate state subsidies.
These are all necessary, but in my opinion they are not the ultimate pearl of wisdom.
It is better to use the market economy in this area also, because it not only provides the most efficient solution to the problem, but it also allows the polluter pays principle to come into play.
<P>
Of course, we must now ask the general question: why are environmental taxes and duties not much more widespread in Europe and in the world, in our Member States and at Union level?
This is partly due to the fact that if we want to impose environmental taxes we expose ourselves to suspicion that we are doing so to finance new public services.
Unfortunately, the previous speaker was not very precise either about this.
She said that we could do new things which the State could provide for.
We, the Group of the European People's Party, reject this concept.
We want environmental taxes in order to reduce taxes and duties in other areas.
In Europe we need less taxes overall, not more.
<P>
We need a redistribution of taxes and charges, increased taxation on use of the environment and a reduction in the burden on the labour factor.
But I would ask my colleagues to beware of using pushing this instrument too far it is intended to create new income for the State.
That is why we tabled the corresponding amendments.
These instruments should be tax neutral, not a means of increasing the tax burden.
<P>
Otherwise, I consider the report to be very good.
It rightly says that it is better to introduce a charge of this kind, a tax of this kind at European level.
However, as long as this is not done, the Member States must, of course, be encouraged to use such instruments and must not become discouraged.
Unfortunately, we have had cases in the past, for example the introduction of an ecological car tax in Germany, when the Commission hesitated for a long time to promote environmentally friendly technology, and this must be different in future.
States which wish to use such instruments must be supported in this.
<P>
In conclusion, I would like to suggest an amendment to the Value Added Tax Directive, as I believe that some Member States would be very willing to introduce an increased value added tax on energy-related emissions, for example.
Certainly, the European Union's existing VAT Directive allows the application of a lower rate of VAT on energy but not a higher one.
The Commission should consider whether it should not be exactly the opposite.
Energy consumption should be reduced and taxes on labour should also be reduced, and it is for this reason that this should be considered.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=273 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Madam President, my colleague, Mr Olsson, has produced a very good report, and there is not a lot to add to it.
I believe that here in the Chamber too there is broad agreement on this report.
However, I would like to correct what my colleague Mr Liese said just now.
He in fact claimed that Mrs Myller wished to increase the tax burden on the Member States.
I understood quite otherwise.
I understood that Mrs Myller said environmental and energy taxation would provide a way of lowering income tax, which is a very important issue.
This was a principle contained within Mr Monti's energy tax proposal, for example.
<P>
Environmental taxes and charges are really one of the best instruments we have to protect the environment.
But it must be said at the same time that it is one of the most acrimonious examples of how difficult it is at Union level to make any sort of headway.
And the Amsterdam Summit did not made it any easier.
As I understand it, in Amsterdam Germany's Chancellor Kohl right at the last minute rejected attempts to ease the decision-making process on the question of environmental taxation.
Let us now turn our attention to the fact that the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party has produced an excellent draft amendment to Mr Ollson's report. They actually suggest that environmental taxation might be decided on the basis of Article 130 of the Treaty, which would certainly also facilitate the decision-making process.
<P>
I am pleased to say that Austria has indicated that she intends to develop the issue of energy taxation, which has remained in abeyance for so long.
We in Parliament can certainly hope that other Member States will unite in this effort.
The aims of Kyoto are going to remain unachieved unless the EU starts to draft a common energy taxation policy.
Many Member States stressed the importance of this when they themselves approved bases for a combined share of the tax burden at the last meeting of the Environment Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=274 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Virgin">
Madam President, this is a good report.
The free market economy includes elements which lead to a better environment.
It is necessary to be economical with input goods, not least for reasons of cost and competition.
Open debate also makes consumers environmentally aware.
They are choosing products with a low environmental impact and are even willing to pay a higher price for such products.
<P>
However, it may still be appropriate to use financial instruments to correct the market for an environmental impact which consumers find difficult to judge.
Environmental charges which properly reflect the environmental impact of an emission can be an effective method of correcting the market economy.
Nor can it be wrong to use the income to rectify the damage caused by the discharge.
<P>
Another advantage of financial instruments is that they create incentives for technical development and the development of methods which produce a lower environmental impact.
It pays for companies to invest in environmentally friendly technology.
In cases where environmental charges threaten competition between the Member States, tax concessions could be an acceptable alternative.
It is important for environmental charges to be set in a proper way and to be based on solid factual foundations, such as in the form of life-cycle analyses.
<P>
The report takes up environmental taxes on emissions of carbon dioxide.
Such taxes are necessary in order to achieve the Kyoto targets.
Countries which have already introduced this obviously have a great interest in seeing these taxes harmonized within the EU.
<P>
One financial instrument not mentioned in the report is transferable emission rights.
This means you can set a level of emissions which the environment can cope with and then you can have trading in emission rights. This is beneficial for the environment at lower cost.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=275 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Madam President, unfortunately Mr Liese, who advocated environmental taxes so passionately, is no longer here.
I would have liked to ask him why the Federal Republic is not setting an example and why it has been blocking it for 16 years.
<P>
I think that we should not just talk about environmental taxes this evening; we should also ask ourselves what has become of them!
Even before the Rio Summit we had requested that there be a tax on energy, and we are still a long way off it.
We also wonder why we agreed on a zero rate for consumption taxes, which is basically only a zero figure.
After all, if we say zero rate, and the Member States can do with it what they wish, then it is more than a zero figure, it is a joke figure!
We should also ask ourselves why a two-thirds majority is adequate for the introduction of the euro and unanimity is required for environmental tax.
<P>
I would like to know whether environmental taxes are less important to the European Union than the euro!
In view of climate change worldwide and also of the worsening of the European Union's climate, is it not be urgently necessary to follow words with deeds?
<P>
An absolutely essential question is what has become of the combined CO2 energy tax.
Why do we not take up the proposal or the model of the then Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Mr Lubbers?
He talked about introducing an exemplary model which would involve our agreeing to a climate reduction target, that is defining the target but leaving the method open for now.
Those Member States who never tire of claiming that they are in favour of an environmental tax, an energy tax, must commit themselves to it, in particular the so-called friends of the eco-tax, who committed themselves to it informally in the Environment Council.
Then we would say that as from a specific date those Member States who cannot achieve this using other instruments would be included.
<P>
I think that if we were to do this we would achieve something important in that we would finally stop playing hide-and-seek and passing the buck, that is hiding as a nation behind Brussels and thus causing a deadlock.
What we need is to revive the corpse of the CO2 energy tax.
We must finally begin to introduce an environmental tax, and the environment-CO2 -energy tax would be a start.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=276 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pinel">
Madam President, it is essential for us to add an environmental and a social dimension to our fiscal instruments.
It makes no sense to have direct competition between products which are apparently equivalent but may have very different impacts on the environment.
The same argument applies for social impacts, as I said earlier.
It is completely unacceptable that tools manufactured in Chinese prisons, for example, can be sold for a tenth of the price of those manufactured by Europeans who are paying pension contributions, health insurance and unemployment insurance and so on.
<P>
This situation guarantees slavery in China and unemployment here.
We must resolve this situation and, though the solution to it may indeed be fiscal, the proposed concept of an environmental tax is not the correct approach.
This is looking at the problem from the wrong angle.
If we cobble something together which would end up increasing the already excessive tax burden on individuals and companies it would have a negative impact on the economy.
<P>
However, I said that the approach may be a fiscal one.
But wait - not in terms of additional taxes, but by looking at tax in a fresh way through a far-reaching fiscal reform which combines social and environmental dimensions within the very bases of fiscal calculations.
So I say no to extra taxes, but yes to a different form of taxation with a fixed budget which favours employment, local economic activities, the environment and health.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=277 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldi">
Madam President, the Commission communication on environmental taxes and duties in the single market currently before us is extremely interesting.
However, because environmental legislation is very complex, we need to examine the situation clear-headedly in order to see how we can simplify matters.
<P>
It is worth remembering that at the time the Treaty on European Union was drawn up, no-one had thought of this type of fiscal instrument.
The fact that the instrument now needs to be applied in accordance with Community law makes everything extremely complicated.
<P>
It might be useful to treat this communication as a common environmental policy tax incentive, and thus evaluate its components as Community resources.
More extensive use of tax incentives would undoubtedly enable us to increase the efficiency of environmental policy and also improve the cost/benefit balance to prevent renationalization that would certainly not help us achieve the required coordination between the various sectors involved.
<P>
I feel it is fundamentally important for the Commission to tackle the problem of the huge economic impact of environmental taxes and duties, and also their effect on job creation or suppression and international competitiveness.
One of the amendments presented by our group is concerned with this very subject.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=278 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Madam President, Sweden and the Swedish Green Party have a lot of experience of environmental charges. The aim of these is that what is bad for the environment should be expensive and what is good for the environment should be cheap, in order, of course, to guide the consumer in the right direction.
However, this must also be done by introducing minimum rules at EU level rather than by harmonizing rules on environmental charges.
A country must be free to introduce higher environmental charges to demonstrate that it is possible and to show the positive effects this step can have.
<P>
The Scandinavian countries are well placed in the study which has been made.
In this debate, the Scandinavian model of having many environmental charges can serve as a good example of the fact that it is possible for other countries to introduce similar environmental charges, and that it has positive effects not only on the environment, but also on employment and the economy.
<P>
It is interesting to hear certain Members here in Parliament speaking so favourably about environmental charges.
But if you look at their parties in their own counties, both in Germany and in Sweden, they act in precisely the opposite way and refuse to introduce anything going by the name of an environmental charge.
We want to see some positive action for environmental charges, not just empty words here in an empty chamber.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=279 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Madam President, an environmental policy involves pursuing aims.
For human beings the most important aim is to be healthy to an old age.
For this we must see that our environment is in order.
We can achieve this by two methods, either by punishment - and tax is also a punishment, as it were - or by incentives, that is by reducing the burden or achieving tax savings.
It is important within the European Union and worldwide that we achieve common legal bases for tax and uniform labels for fiscal concepts.
<P>
Our aim must be to reduce the burden on our citizens in order to have to take away as little as possible of their wages.
One extremely positive example I would like to cite is efficient transport pricing, where the Commission pointed the direction in which we should go.
We must all hope that this efficient transport pricing will be implemented as soon as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=280 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
Madam President, I would like to begin by saying how pleased I am to see environmental taxes and charges on the EU's agenda.
I believe environmental taxes and charges to be a key way of combating pollution and overexploitation of natural resources.
Hence, I am rather disappointed that the Commission communication does not go further with regard to extending the capacity of Member States to make use of this excellent instrument for protecting the environment.
Instead, the Commission largely just cites current practice in the Court of Justice, where the prime consideration is and remains the free market, not the environment.
The Commission is somewhat lacking in vision in this area, despite many years of discussing with us the need for external aspects to be given consideration in fixing pricing levels.
<P>
Against this backdrop, I find the Olsson report very positive.
It draws attention to the fact that environmental problems often arise from market failures, when the market actually fails to take into account the cost of pollution and exploitation of the environment.
Set at the right level, environmental taxes and charges serve to enforce the extremely important polluter pays principle.
This principle is important because we can only reverse the trend if producers and consumers are aware of the consequences and costs of their choices in terms of production and consumption.
The report is sympathetic to the need to provide scope for political intervention in the market, if we are going to save our environment.
However, I think the Commission should await the findings of studies into the efficacy and effect of environmental taxes and charges before pursuing initiatives to introduce such charges.
I also think the report should focus more on the possibility of coordinating environmental taxes and charges in a broader international context, perhaps under the auspices of the UN.
<P>
Finally, here is my strongest reservation: if we are to pursue the initiative on EU environmental charges, it must be on condition that tax revenues will be ploughed back into the Member States.
One characteristic of a tax is the sovereign right to require taxes from one's citizens.
This right has the indirect support of citizens through the democratic legitimacy of the State, a legitimacy not shared by the EU.
The EU is not, and must not become, a State.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=281 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Madam President, I would like to begin by thanking Mr Olsson for the work he has put into the report on the Commission communication on Environmental taxes and charges in the single market.
The Commission has repeatedly advocated increased use of fiscal instruments to promote an environmental policy that would have greater impact while also being more cost-effective.
Two years ago, we saw clearly that Member States wishing to apply environmental taxes and charges would need further clarification on the legal position.
Many were uncertain as to whether environmental taxes and charges were really compatible with the single market.
The employment aspect has also taken on greater significance, as emerged from the conclusions of the Cardiff Summit.
In debating the situation of the labour market, the need for tax reforms to reduce work-related taxes is often a key issue.
Environmental taxes and charges could become an important source of finance for such reforms.
The communication on environmental taxes and charges addresses the legal framework applicable to Member States, together with the possibilities and limitations on the use of environmental taxes and charges in the single market.
Thus, the communication could serve as a kind of guideline to Member States.
<P>
The reactions to the communication that have come back to us demonstrate that it is a useful instrument for political decisionmakers in Member States and applicant countries alike.
I note with pleasure that all Member States are, in fact, considering increasing the use of environmental taxes and charges.
Mr Olsson argues in favour of the increased use of economic mechanisms.
I would endorse the view that setting the correct pricing levels for goods and services involving environmental costs is an important key to sustainable development.
I share Mr Olsson's conviction that society would benefit from a green tax reform both in terms of employment and in terms of the environment.
<P>
The conclusions of the report focus on the ongoing work of the Commission, with concrete proposals for measures and further details about the situation, tailored to the Member States.
With regard to specific proposals, DG XI has already begun studying the potential for introducing EU-wide levies on pesticides.
In reaching a decision on further measures, the Commission will give consideration to the proposals in the report. However, in the short term, I cannot promise that detailed studies could be carried out in all the sectors cited in point 25.
<P>
As regards drawing up further guidelines, this is more difficult, because Member States have quite extensive powers in this area.
We are also aware that most Member States are somewhat hostile to the idea of their free agency in fiscal matters being restricted by more stipulations over and above those already enshrined in Community legislation and described in this communication.
I fully agree with what the report says regarding the desirability of a more effective EU decision-making process in this area.
However, we are all well aware that fiscal matters require unanimity in the Council.
And as long as the Treaty contains this prerequisite of unanimity, it will remain difficult to speed up the decision-making process.
<P>
With regard to the Council's position on the communication, it is a matter of regret that the Council has not as yet put this forward for consideration, and it does not seem to be on the current presidency agenda either, although I did note that Mrs Hautala seemed to think otherwise.
However, I do not think we should underrate the value of the communication as a manual for Ministries of the Environment and Finance Ministries in Member States.
<P>
I would like to touch on point 2 of the motion for a resolution, because it is alleged here that we failed to take account of the ramifications of the proposal on energy charges.
However, the Commission did undertake a wide-ranging study of the consequences; this is also attached to the proposal and it shows that the proposal would have a positive impact on the environment and on employment.
I do, of course, fully endorse point 27, favouring the adoption of the proposal on energy taxes.
<P>
I would also like to take advantage of this opportunity to emphasize the importance I attach to the Commission's proposal for a framework directive on water, which is already before the House.
Water charges for the purpose of ensuring that costs are fully covered are an essential element of this directive, and I hope I can count on your support in the debate on this subject that we can expect to have with the Council.
<P>
At the same time, I would like to thank Mr Olsson for his very valuable contribution.
His report does not only contain practical proposals for the ongoing work of the Commission, it also gives the Commission - and this is very important - a significant political signal to take concrete steps towards further integration of policy on the environment and on taxes and charges.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=282 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Bjerregaard.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 10.35 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of Tuesday, 14 July 1998 have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Janssen van Raay">
Mr President, I will not delay matters because I am concerned with the Minutes, the unconstitutional compulsion to vote, the unconstitutional imposition of financial obligations and the disastrous fiscal consequences; but you are a renowned lawyer and instead of having my say here I will this morning write you a letter and place it on your desk.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Thank you very much for your cooperation, Mr Janssen van Raay.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President">
On behalf of the European Parliament, I want to welcome to today's sitting the members of the Hungarian Parliament Delegation to the EU-Hungary Joint Parliamentary Committee, led by Dr Jòzsef Szájer, who have taken their seats in the official gallery.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Programme of the Austrian presidency
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
The next item is the statement by the Presidency-in-Office of the Council on the programme of activities of the Austrian presidency.
<P>
I am going to give the floor to Mr Schüssel, who will speak on behalf of the Council.
I want to extend a special welcome to him on the occasion of the opening speech of the first Austrian presidency. I am sure we all wish him the greatest success in the task of exercising, for the first time, the Presidency of the Council of the European Union.
<P>
Mr Schüssel has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="Schüssel">
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Members of the European Parliament, Austria is assuming the Presidency at an exciting and momentous time for Europe.
The Union is in the process of implementing two projects that will have a decisive impact on the face of our continent in the 21st century.
<P>
With the advent of the euro, Europe is taking a great stride towards economic and political unity, and, as the largest integrated economic area in the world, it is simultaneously becoming one of the key players in the world economy.
At the same time, the enlargement of the Union should mean that stability and prosperity will be exported to a greater Europe.
Not long ago, a wise person wrote in one of the major European newspapers that the completion of monetary union will reinforce Europeans' identity, and enlargement will test their limits.
<P>
The founding fathers of the European Community dreamt of a greater Europe that would bridge the deep gap between east and west in our continent.
They dreamt of a Europe that would uphold democracy and human rights on the basis of common values, and which would guarantee lasting peace and freedom.
They dreamt of a Europe that would not need bureaux de change and border posts, and which would thus no longer prevent Europeans living and working together.
We now have a historic chance to turn yesterday's dreams into tomorrow's reality.
<P>
The European Union has not been unsuccessful in these endeavours.
Let us briefly recall what has happened since it was founded: the Community of Six in 1958 had a population of 160 million, now it has 370 million, and with the candidate countries it has 500 million people.
Today's EU has a gross domestic product which in real terms is nearly six times as great as that of the European Community in 1958.
The Union now accounts for one third of world trade.
But at the same time it is the world's greatest donor: 60 % of development cooperation and 80 % of the aid flowing to the countries of the former Soviet Union come from the European Union.
<P>
It is perfectly justifiable to say that we now have a chance to make yesterday's dreams come true.
The euro is Europe's answer to globalization, enabling us successfully to face up to this challenge.
The single currency will improve the functioning of the internal market and help to safeguard jobs, but it will also give an impetus to market-oriented structural reforms, which are urgently needed in order to guarantee our own competitiveness.
<P>
The conditions for the introduction of the euro are better today than most of us expected, including even the most ardent optimists, to whose ranks I normally belong.
This House, the Europeans' parliament, the European Parliament, by taking part in the appointment of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank and by holding hearings whose value has been acknowledged on all sides, has exercised a significant democratic control function.
<P>
In the coming months, under the Austrian presidency, attempts will be made to achieve stronger economic policy coordination and preparations will be made for the final setting of exchange rates.
There is no doubt that one of the most important tasks for the Austrian presidency is to help get the euro off to a good start on 1 January 1999.
<P>
I would like to make another comparison, which I think is even more important than positive economic and monetary indicators.
Since 1945 there have been over 200 armed conflicts around the world, excluding lesser conflicts.
According to international statistics, there has never been a four-week period during which there has not been a major military engagement somewhere in the world, but the territory of the present European Union has been spared such conflicts.
<P>
At this point I would like to quote Baron Friedrich von Gentz, Prince Metternich's Secretary, who was, as it were, the notetaker of the Congress of Vienna.
He believed that any political system that could give Europe a hope of avoiding just three or four wars in a century would deserve the very greatest respect.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have that system!
<P>
We have got a system like that, we do have such a system: it is called the European Union!
If we want to ensure lasting peace, stability and economic prosperity in Europe, then it is my deeply held conviction that in the long term there can be no better way than to integrate our neighbouring countries into the European Union.
<P>
Of course there is a need for very thorough preparations because of the large number of candidate countries - never before have we talked with a total of 11 countries and negotiated at so many different levels - and because of the wide variation in economic development.
In the resolution it adopted last December, the European Parliament rightly recognized that the next round of enlargement would represent a completely new stage in the European integration process, requiring an in-depth examination of all the institutional, political, economic and social consequences for the Union and for the applicant countries.
<P>
You do not need me to tell you that Austria shares almost half its borders with four candidate countries.
I would particularly like to thank the European Parliament for the understanding and sensitivity it showed in its resolution of 18 July on Agenda 2000, which took account of the particular impact on regions with borders adjoining applicant countries, and which addressed the need to give them support, in particular under the Interreg programme.
<P>
However, I should like to add that precisely because of our special position - which was formerly on the periphery and is now at the core - we in Austria have an almost unique interest in the success of enlargement.
We have to be honest with our citizens.
Enlargement has a cost.
But these enlargement costs, set down in the pre-accession strategy and in the pre-accession aid, which were accurately and with every justification addressed in the Commission's proposal, are probably the best investment in our own future.
<P>
Allow me to make a comparison: in the period after the Second World War, the Americans helped us.
At that time they transferred just under 2.5 % of their gross domestic product to Europe, to the countries of their former enemies, for four years.
The interesting thing is that the Commission is now proposing that we should put around 2.7 % of our gross domestic product at the disposal of these countries, and I think this is absolutely right, and I hope that there will be no objection whatsoever to this aspect. I must say that so far I have not heard any real argument against it, even during my tour des capitales .
It is a twofold Marshall Plan, an investment in our own future and in the future of the candidate countries for the 21st century.
<P>
I welcome this, and the Austrian presidency, on the basis of these proposals, will try to ensure that this really is uncontroversial.
The decisions taken at the Luxembourg European Council have laid the ground for the enlargement process, an inclusive process with 11 candidates.
The British presidency was very much marked by the formal opening of this process.
We Austrians now believe that it is up to us to maintain the political momentum, and my Minister of State, Mrs Benita Ferrero-Waldner, and I - you could say that it was our innovation - also included the applicant countries in our tour des capitales . We included all 11 of them, because we wanted to send an important signal to these countries from the outset, the message that they now belong to the European family and that we will treat them and keep them informed on equal terms and as partners.
<P>
They are, of course, affected by all the decisions that we have to make, be it on Agenda 2000, institutional reform or the enlargement strategy, or on other important foreign policy issues.
<P>
We want to initiate substantial negotiations on individual chapters during our presidency.
The Commission is making good progress with 'acquis screening' and we hope that by the end of the year about half of the chapters will have been checked, so that we can really get started with substantial negotiations at a meeting of ministers in November.
<P>
I will say quite openly here that it is very important to support the reform process in the applicant countries as well.
We should not have any illusions about this.
Of course, all the candidate countries - and we visited them together - have Eurosceptic political parties, populists and critics who are opposed to enlargement.
It is our job to help and be a source of strength to those people who advocate moving closer to the European Union in a meaningful way and who are arguing for a bold but sometimes also painful process of preparation for accession.
<P>
(Applause) Enlargement will not just demand great efforts on the part of our future partners; the Union itself is not yet in a fit shape for these accessions.
I am being quite candid with you about this.
The reforms grouped together under the 'Agenda 2000' banner - agricultural reform, structural reform and the Union's financial framework - are of course particularly important.
Despite the criticisms quite rightly levelled at some individual points by many Member States, they are necessary.
But I believe that the Commission's proposals nevertheless provide a good basis for the political discussions due to start this autumn.
<P>
We are certainly aware of the challenges presented by these proposals and by the pressure of time involved.
In Cardiff we essentially decided to bring forward the discussion by nearly nine months.
If we genuinely want to have a package ready by March under the German presidency - and that is also important because we should, if it all possible, have discussed it and reached decisions before the European Parliament elections -, it will really require an incredible effort to get away from nonspecific rhetoric and prepared speeches about principles, and to get really stuck into the grinding work of tough and difficult decisions.
<P>
I know that this is not a simple matter, because the programme for 2000-2006 will after all cost a total of 10 000 billion Austrian schillings, and it covers two full parliamentary legislatures.
If you consider how difficult it can often be in nation states to secure an overall programme just for one legislature, then you will see that this is no easy task.
However, we know that if we want to stick to the timetable, we will have to make considerable progress by the Vienna European Council.
<P>
The task of finally completing the package and securing agreement on it will fall to the German presidency.
However, we agreed upon a very ambitious and precise timetable at the General Affairs Council on Monday.
This Council is responsible for horizontal coordination and it has to be that way, since all the specialized Councils naturally and quite justifiably bring their special concerns to the negotiating table.
We must be prepared to negotiate at every meeting and to find time for this.
The inclusion of the European Parliament in the legislative decision-making process was one of the hallmarks of the British presidency.
<P>
I think it is excellent that over the coming months Parliament will be working intensively on all aspects of Agenda 2000 so as to help ensure completion on time.
I would like to thank you for your willingness to do this and I wish to stress that we in the Council need to be aware that we cannot manage without the support of both our national members of parliament and the directly elected Members of the European Parliament.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, the Amsterdam Treaty will help to make Europe fit to face the future.
Despite its well-known shortcomings, this new legal framework for the Union will nevertheless result in genuine improvements.
Many people say that this Parliament is one of the winners under the Amsterdam Treaty.
It is true that its role in the codecision procedure was reinforced.
I would just like to remind you that during the Intergovernmental Conference, Austria was, from the outset, always in favour of maximizing the role of the European Parliament and the involvement of representatives of the European Parliament in the negotiations.
To sound a critical note, I must add that President Hänsch, who was of course present throughout, was not always sufficiently firm on that.
<P>
I think it is a pity that Amsterdam did not take the final steps needed to round off the institutional reform process.
In Cardiff we decided that as soon as the Treaty was ratified, which I hope will be soon, negotiations would begin on the outstanding institutional issues.
We also have to take some important decisions concerning the common foreign and security policy in Vienna; I will return to that later.
Furthermore, we have to prepare for the integration of the Schengen conventions and the Schengen Secretariat into the European Union.
<P>
The preparatory work on the implementation of the new codecision procedure, on the revision of the comitology procedure and on proper involvement of Parliament is particularly important.
Work has already begun in this House on a common voting procedure for the European Parliament and on a uniform statute for Members.
I am pleased that some of these subjects are on the agenda of the first part-session during the Austrian presidency.
<P>
Seldom in the history of European integration has the European Union faced so many challenges, and for most of them we need our citizens' support.
We therefore welcome the British initiative to institute an in-depth discussion on the future of the Union, and we intend actively to continue this dialogue in the second half of the year.
All too often, we just pay lip service to the concepts of the efficiency of the Union and of its institutions, bringing the Union closer to people, subsidiarity and democratic legitimacy; they are just clichés churned out in soap-box speeches.
<P>
(Applause) However, and I shall be quite frank, we will never fire people's enthusiasm for the European cause if we are half-hearted.
I therefore welcome the fact that a special meeting of the Heads of State or Government on this subject is to be organized under the Austrian presidency.
I should say immediately that is a subject that probably cannot be solved in one debate.
It will remain on the agenda, and I regard that as a good thing.
We should all search our own hearts, and in my capacity as President of the General Affairs Council I intend to take this subject seriously and ask our colleagues to consider how we ourselves can help to increase efficiency and achieve greater European coordination.
Everyone needs to consider how all the structures of the Commission and the Council can be improved.
Do we have too many Councils now?
Is the European cause not sufficiently coordinated at European level?
How can we use the European Council to achieve clearer and more precise decision-making?
What role can the European Parliament play in this very important interinstitutional dialogue?
<P>
Subsidiarity is an interesting subject - and we provided for and prepared a very good protocol on it in the Amsterdam Treaty - as it can clear the decks for true European work.
There are a lot of subjects that clutter our agendas and prevent us from devoting enough time to the really important issues.
But I will also be quite honest with you: subsidiarity cannot be used to undermine the European cause itself.
The institutions must not be weakened.
<P>
(Applause) I also consider that subsidiarity and solidarity should not be set up as opposites. In an ideal world, they should complement each other.
They are both vital elements of tomorrow's civil society.
Without Europe, the nation states can no longer respond to global challenge. I personally am totally convinced of this, and anyone who knows me will tell you that I always say this, no matter where and what I am speaking about, not just in front of the European Parliament; I am always consistent about this.
Without Europe, there is no way of solving the major issues of the future that really interest our citizens: environmental protection, employment policy, respect for human rights and global security.
In those areas we need more Europe and not more nation state or even lower levels, with these clichés about subsidiarity.
<P>
(Applause) The best way of firing European citizens with enthusiasm for Europe is to listen to what is important for them, and to put those priorities at the top of our agenda.
It is very interesting that these priorities are pretty much the same in every country in Europe, with employment at the top of the list, followed by concern about a clean environment and a safe home.
And safety, and once again I will be very frank, needs to be understood in the widest possible sense, including security: safety in the face of organized crime of course, secure protection and even security in the military sense.
So this must include everything from security in the social context of solidarity to nuclear safety in the context of dangerous power stations.
<P>
(Applause) With the average unemployment rate still over 10 %, creating employment is therefore still the Austrian presidency's number one priority in Europe.
It is a priority for us now, it was a priority during the Intergovernmental Conference, and its concrete implementation will be a priority.
Until now, it has just been part of the lyric poetry, as I like to call it, in many European speeches.
What is new is that we now have tools available to us.
For the first time 15 precise employment programmes have been published, which the Commission has examined with a very critical eye, which I welcome. We can and should learn from each other here in terms of what another Member State has done better than ourselves, where one is ahead of another, and we can also learn from adverse experience.
Many good ideas do not quite work out as planned.
Sir Karl Popper once said that the essence of developed humanity was this: ' Our advantage is that we can let our ideas die in our stead' .
It is important to learn and gain just as much from the failure of our ideas as from success stories.
<P>
What is new about the employment guidelines to be agreed in Vienna is that for the first time they will be based on 15 specific and binding national action plans.
Secondly, for the first time this provides a basis for decisions concerning the successful implementation of the single currency.
Eleven countries are taking part in this process, and a further three could participate - as they meet the criteria - if they have the political will and take the necessary political decisions.
<P>
I will go even further.
Europe could also do more for employment in very specific areas: on the world stage, in negotiations with the World Trade Organization - which is extremely important - and as regards research and development.
Although as President I should not really be saying this, I shall not conceal my sympathy for many of the European Parliament's ideas about the Fifth Framework Programme, which is of course the springboard for the job concepts and opportunities of tomorrow.
<P>
The whole issue of trans-European networks, not to mention proper implementation of environmental technology, equality of opportunity for men and women, improved conditions for small and medium-sized enterprises, education and training for workers, are all key points in our programme.
<P>
Regarding the environment, lasting protection of our environment and living conditions are equally important for citizens everywhere.
We therefore quite deliberately intend to implement an active environmental policy, with high environmental standards at home. Above all, we also intend to play a leading role in international negotiations on global environmental problems.
I very much welcome the White Paper on renewable energy.
It is very interesting indeed!
It points to direct and indirect job opportunities for about 800 000 people, such as the Auto-Oil programme, the reduction of the petrol and diesel programme; this is all extremely interesting.
One question that needs to be addressed in the context of enlargement is, of course, nuclear safety standards.
This is highly important and we Austrians are of course particularly affected because of our geographical location.
<P>
I will say this quite openly, because I know that some Members would have liked this point to have been officially addressed already; we do not intend to misinterpret this as a bilateral issue.
It should not prevent anyone from joining the European Union.
We do, however, want newer nuclear power stations that can be rehabilitated to meet the highest Western standards, and we want old power stations that can no longer be rehabilitated - like Bohunice, a few kilometres from Vienna - to be closed as quickly as possible, whatever it takes, in the interests of the people there and in the interests of our own citizens.
<P>
(Applause) A study has been published today on safety standards at Mochovce.
I do not have a copy myself yet, but I undertake to ensure, either this afternoon or tomorrow, that this safety study is forwarded straight away to the groups in this Parliament, because it will probably be of great interest to the European Parliament.
<P>
The Union has to convince its citizens that open borders will not lead to a loss of security.
Internal security will therefore be a real priority for our presidency, in other words, combating organized crime and traffic in human beings.
We are, by the way, preparing an international convention on land and sea at UN level, with all 15 Member States.
We need to strengthen the Union's ability to act on drug trafficking.
I know, from our contacts and visits to central and eastern Europe, that the subject of internal security is also a central issue for the candidate countries.
I would like to make a plea to the Commission in this context: the 11 candidate countries have borders totalling 6 600 km with third countries.
Just imagine that!
These are the external borders of the 11 candidate countries, not borders with the Union, not with our neighbouring countries, where we know exactly what problems exist.
It is so important for us to help these countries as regards the environment, trans-European networks and building up institutions, that we should consider - and these countries are calling for this as a matter or urgency - if we could not do more to help them secure their borders, so that we export security and do not end up importing instability.
<P>
(Applause) The launching of Europol in the second half of 1998 should, of course, provide a major impetus in this area.
We are also proposing a fair distribution of the refugee burden and the elaboration of a common Union strategy on migration policy.
<P>
I would like to touch on another subject that is particularly important to me, namely child protection.
Nothing says more about the standards of a society than how it protects its weakest members.
We have planned some interesting activities.
We want to tackle this issue at UN level.
The subject of child labour is of course extremely significant within the International Labour Organization, and further work on the UN Convention on Children's Rights is equally important.
We must urgently combat the sexual abuse of children - a particularly distressing and painful subject - and the horrifying effects of child pornography on the Internet.
40 % of landmine victims are children, and I believe that the Union can play a major part in this area.
I have followed the action plan proposed by the Commission and approved by the European Parliament with great satisfaction.
<P>
Respect for human rights, in theory and in practice, is particularly important this year, in which we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
We intend to mark this by arranging an appropriate official event.
<P>
There is one subject I would like to mention that is currently highly sensitive and urgent: the financing of NGOs and unblocking finance and budget lines.
At my insistence, we devoted a lot of time to this over lunch at Monday's Council meeting.
560 million ecus or euros are still affected.
200 million of this relates to human rights and this will have devastating consequences if we do not act quickly.
<P>
(Heckling from Mr Samland: Tell the finance ministers that!)
That is why I particularly wanted to point out that we decided in Council - and I would also like to thank the Commission for its proposals, which were agreed yesterday - to bring great pressure to bear tomorrow in COREPER so as to resolve this matter, if at all possible.
The Budget Council is on Friday.
We have asked every individual foreign minister to press his cabinet so as to achieve a positive resolution of this problem.
I am also asking for interinstitutional problems to be put slightly to one side here, particularly with a view to unblocking funding for 1998, as hundreds of NGOs are of course highly anxious about the outcome.
I know that the European Parliament takes a very positive view of this.
<P>
Foreign policy is naturally a very significant challenge for every Council President.
Compared with other major nations, the European Union is certainly the most important world power after America, in terms of potential.
The EU is far more than a regional power.
It is the driving force of the reshaping of our continent in the post-Soviet era.
It is strategically responsible for its own 500 million members, for 250 million people in the Mediterranean area and for 250 million who live in the territory of the former Soviet Union.
<P>
Werner Weidenfeld says that Europe's weakness lies in the current gap between its potential and its political infrastructure, and this combination of potential and weakness make Europe look like a world power in waiting.
To my mind, that is a very fine and significant phrase, and we should forearm ourselves as planned.
During the Austrian presidency I intend to take important measures to ensure that the Planning Cell on foreign policy is really translated into reality.
In Vienna, agreement should be reached on the Secretary-General, who should be a visible personification of foreign policy.
We intend to pursue the foundations laid in the Amsterdam Treaty for closer contact between the EU and the Western European Union; the possibility of an eventual merger has even been touched upon. And internally we need to give some thought, first and foremost, to how we can alleviate conflicts in neighbouring countries.
Just look at the reasons for the various conflicts - Kosovo, which I will return to later if you wish - Bosnia, Transnistria, you find the same pattern everywhere, in other words, unresolved ethnic conflicts, minority disputes, the issue of what degree of autonomy can and will be granted, and the general disintegration of state systems.
The Union must put forward some ideas here.
<P>
Kosovo is a subject in its own right, so I shall say nothing here.
As for the Middle East peace process, we are deeply concerned about the continuing standstill in the process for a considerable time now.
We will support every initiative to strengthen trust and cooperation, and we also intend to increase the visibility of the Union in this area.
We also believe that the economic and social situation in the Palestinian territories demands the greatest attention and concern.
The resumption of the Syrian and Lebanese problem is an important factor.
<P>
With regard to Turkey, the Austrian presidency has a keen interest in this country's stability and pro-European stance.
We will work towards the normalization and continued development of relations, but this will have to cover all areas, including, of course, human rights, the Cyprus question and the Aegean.
It is important for us to implement the European strategy for Cyprus drawn up by the Commission.
On Cyprus, we intend to offer the United Nations every assistance in resuming the peace process, which must in any case remain open to the Turkish-Cypriot linguistic community.
We must continue to seek their participation, because I believe that joint negotiations would give both ethnic groups an enormous impetus for the peace process.
<P>
I know very well that six months is a short time.
You cannot change the world that quickly, and even Europe is slow to move.
We will therefore make a deliberate effort to involve the previous presidency, with which we have maintained very close contact, including contact at a personal level.
I wish to take this opportunity to thank the British presidency, and also the forthcoming Germany presidency, with which we also wish to encourage intensive and harmonious cooperation, so that we can make as much progress as possible in all these important issues.
<P>
We have a good many things to complete that were started by the British.
Likewise, the Germans will take many things over from us, and the more efficient the Austrian presidency is, the easier it will be for them to do so.
This presidency is naturally something rather special for us, as it is our first.
For many of you from founding states it is quite routine.
My friend Jacques Poos calmly told me that he had lived through four presidencies and that he would be glad to offer me advice.
But for us it is, of course, the first time.
We have therefore prepared ourselves well and we need the support of our partners in the Council.
We need and are seeking cooperation with the European Parliament and with the European Commission.
We do not have any historic or dazzling events lined up, but that does not worry us at all.
A lot of people keep referring to the Congress of Vienna, but I shall not, because you know what they said about the Congress of Vienna in 1815: it did not work, it danced.
The Congress danced, but it did not achieve anything.
<P>
It is our ambition to celebrate as little as possible but to work all the harder.
There is one important difference: the Congress of Vienna of 1814-1815 was in fact dominated by the big five, who essentially carved up Europe at the expense of the smaller countries.
Things are very different now.
The new idea of Europe is that there are 15 equal partners, each of which is equally important, even if some are larger and some are smaller, and they have to live with each other.
That is our task.
So we have a working presidency ahead of us, and we hope that you will support us in this work.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Schüssel.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, I would like to begin by congratulating you very warmly, Mr President-in-Office, on the statement you have just made on behalf of Austria, and to support you.
If you believe that you can achieve and adhere to everything that you have promised us here, then you will certainly have my group's support as well.
<P>
There are five points that I would like to single out, on areas where my group will be following the Austrian presidency with a particularly critical eye. Of course there are also many other points that other speakers will raise.
<P>
First, I will look at the issue of security.
You quite rightly said that we find ourselves in an exceptionally difficult situation.
We need an extended security system in Europe, a true common foreign and security policy.
I hope that you will be able to make what you have described here a reality, and that will be able to make a decision about the long overdue institutional reforms in Vienna, so that we can make forward estimates and create an efficient security policy.
I shall return to the subject of Kosovo later.
However, I firmly believe that many things discussed within Austria in recent months - you know what I have in mind - should now be put to one side. The message of the Austrian presidency should now be 'Yes, we must make progress in building a common European security system' .
<P>
I fully support what you said about the Mediterranean area, given that Austria, as a non-colonial power and in view of its friendly relations with that area, is especially well placed to make some headway.
<P>
My second point is enlargement, on which I have only a few words to say.
Here too, I would like to express my clear support for your comments.
We need to adopt a realistic course.
However, we cannot tolerate any interruption in the enlargement process.
I also hope that you can ensure that negotiations with our neighbouring countries will start.
Admittedly, that will be the easiest part, but we need to make some progress and to give a signal that although enlargement is a difficult process, it is one that nevertheless needs to be initiated now in the interests of Austria and all the Member States of the EU.
<P>
Thirdly, as regards Agenda 2000, no major decisions will, of course, be taken during the Austrian presidency.
But it was, after all, the Austrians who said that decisions need to be well prepared for.
The Austrian presidency will be judged by the quality of its preparatory work.
The reason for the rumours buzzing around Parliament over the last few days about a slight delay in the whole process is of course that there are a lot of people who would like to delay all kinds of things, perhaps even until after the election, because Agenda 2000 will have many painful consequences.
I would like to make my own and my group's position on this crystal clear: we want quick decisions! I am assuming that Klaus Hänsch will have a lot more to say about this.
Our citizens need quick decisions.
The key points need to be prepared so well under the Austrian presidency that the relevant decisions can be taken without delay next year.
<P>
My fourth point concerns the citizens' Europe.
I also wish to give my clear support to your comments on this subject.
It is not a matter of weakening Europe.
I know that even some of your colleagues are keen - and I shall say it slowly in good Viennese - to get their own back on the Commission, because it interferes so much!
But the internal market has not been completed yet either, there is still a lot to be done there.
We need a common foreign and security policy, and that can only be a European foreign and security policy.
And of course it goes without saying that we also need to make further progress with employment and economic policy.
<P>
I am very much of the view that this House could delegate a great deal, because we go into too much detail on a lot of things.
I also firmly believe that the Council, right up to head of government level, should consider whether a little more transparency and openness would not be more people-friendly - and the Council is after all a quasi-parliamentary decision-making body.
<P>
My last point relates to employment, which is of course particularly important for us because of the appalling number of people out of work.
This will also be an important yardstick by which we social democrats will judge the Austrian presidency.
Can we expect to hear just platitudes and wishy-washy statements about the employment situation at the end of the year, or will you also address sensitive issues?
Even if you upset some countries, including your own maybe, we need clear statements!
We need to forge ahead with employment policy.
It is not the only way, but we really need to make progress on employment policy now.
Perhaps it would be interesting to check what decisions remain to be taken out of those specified in the Delors White Paper.
<P>
Mr President, I would like to conclude by stressing once again that if only 80 % of what the President-in-Office of the Council has presented to us today can be achieved, then you can certainly count on congratulations from my group at the end of the year, Mr President-in-Office!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President-in-Office, we welcome your presidency.
The priorities of the new presidency are for some a routine question.
The dossiers left by their predecessors or those honourably passed on from one European Council to another are merely taken over.
<P>
I have to say that the response from the public to the Cardiff Summit was probably not more than one thousandth of that for the World Cup football.
However, we must take the issues which you will deal with seriously.
We are convinced that you will not look upon them as continuous and monotonous, but that you will want to make progress.
<P>
You have emphasized that our fellow citizens have shown a growing interest and a growing confidence in the stability of the euro.
We would confirm that and we say that this confidence should be strengthened, as there is a clear link between monetary union, the relaunch of economic growth and the creation of new jobs.
<P>
Three urgent priority issues await you.
Your first task consists of implementing the Amsterdam Treaty.
We expect you to implement the installation of the unit for policy planning and early warning, as you said, and to appoint Mr 'CFSP' .
<P>
Your second urgent priority concerns Agenda 2000.
The common agricultural policy was discussed in Cardiff, but the funding for the years 2000-2006 proved an obstacle.
You will not, of course, be able to find a solution as if by magic for what would seem to be a problem of squaring the circle.
Some Member States want to spend less, others want to retain their profits and everyone agrees that the candidate countries must receive financial support.
We expect considerable powers of imagination and diplomacy from you, in order to resolve this difficult issue and to prevent the election campaign from being poisoned by national selfishness.
<P>
In this connection I would like to ask three questions.
Should we consider the working hypothesis of the Commission to leave the present ceiling of own resources until the year 2000 alone, like a taboo?
Is such a restriction of the resources of the Union in accordance with the dynamics of its internal and external development?
Would it be possible to transfer new resources to the Union without increasing the total tax burden?
The acquis communautaire has proved in any case that it is possible to spend a little less and to spend more carefully by acting in unison.
<P>
Your third urgent task is enlargement.
You have announced that you wish to negotiate with six countries on the chapters which have passed the screening stage.
This must be an encouraging signal for the countries which have made the greatest effort to incorporate the acquis communautaire.
But no ambiguous situations should be created or weak compromises concluded which mortgage the future.
The Commission, as well as the Council, must carefully ensure that the candidates not only have good intentions, but that they are also able to comply fully with all Community achievements.
<P>
Mr President, two further tasks await you which will influence the future in the long term, and the members of the PPE Group are convinced that you will make progress on these.
The first is a matter of great importance to your country, which is situated in the geographic centre of the continent, which sees much transitional traffic and exchanges and which has become very aware of the nuclear risks.
I am referring to global safety and domestic security, the battle against crime, immigration policy, the so-called third pillar which our fellow citizens are so sensitive about.
Free movement of traffic and internal security are two sides of the same coin.
Insufficient progress has been made in the crucial field of integration, due to bureaucratic suspicion on the part of national governments and surpassed misery concerning state sovereignty.
You, as President-in-Office, are in a position to be the moving force with your own initiatives, you are able to see that decisions are taken which immediately increase security and which strengthen the fight against crime.
We are set to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights under your presidency.
Let us send out a signal that it is a fundamental human right to live in a peaceful society, where persons and goods are protected and where children are also defended.
<P>
Your second task which will affect matters in the long term is the restructuring of the European Union.
An informal summit is planned for October; the President of the Commission will be invited. We welcome this.
Would it not be wise and proper to also invite the President of the European Parliament?
Our group has some ideas on this and we will present our suggestions at the appropriate time.
The time for patching up and half measures has gone.
If we do not have a clear comprehensive vision of the main institutional balances, of the ambitions and the role of the Union in the world, with 25 Member States, then we are feeling our way ahead in a fog and we risk colliding with a wall.
No society can develop in a positive fashion without a vision.
<P>
There is not much time left to make a collective statement on the kind of Europe we want.
Your commitment and that of your government, along with your ambition strengthen our conviction that a smaller country can be a good President.
We are convinced of this and we wish you all the best.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Frischenschlager">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, every Council presidency is of course faced with the problem of being both able and required to promise a great deal.
I hope that you will be able to achieve as many as possible of the things that you have presented today.
You are dependent on other people's help.
In most cases, you can count on the support of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party in this House.
<P>
I would like to mention two points in particular.
The first is enlargement.
I would especially like a debate on the issue of the timing of enlargement.
I believe that there should be only one criterion for the admission of these applicant countries: as soon as these countries have implemented their democratic and human rights reforms, and as soon as they have made their economy capable of competing in the internal market, then they should have the right to accession.
They should not be denied this right until the Western Member States, who have a great lead, decide that their own economy is fit to face competition from the economic systems of our eastern neighbours, which have been weakened by decades of planned economy, when they decide that they are willing to be exposed to this competition.
That would be an absolute disgrace for Europe!
I expect the Austrian presidency to make it perfectly clear that these countries have the right of accession as soon as the requirements are met, and not just when it suits us!
<P>
Secondly, institutional reform got short shrift both in your speech today and also in your written programme.
Yes, there is a reference to the, as I see it, rather strange summit in October, which will not perhaps be pointless if the Heads of State or Government hold an exchange of views on subsidiarity and bringing Europe closer to its citizens, or even a quite general discussion on the future of Europe. However, the initial pronouncements, the reasons for having the summit at all, bode ill.
The most powerful Heads of State or Government in the European Union probably intend to cut back the powers of the Commission and, in particular, the Commissioner responsible for competition, who takes his job very seriously.
I think it would be disastrous if that happened!
<P>
Small countries have only legal stability and the Treaty on their side.
The Commission is the guardian of the Treaties' observance.
So everything must be done to prevent this pruning of the Commission's authority in this central role; I hope that you will live up to your remarks today, and that you will succeed in this.
<P>
In any case, I believe that the Intergovernmental Conference or rather the institutional summit in Austria in October will only have one purpose, and that is to continue the work in which the Heads of State or Government so recently failed, by which I mean institutional reform under the Amsterdam Treaty.
The most important task here is to get over the blockade preventing further steps towards integration by abolishing the unanimity rule.
<P>
This is an area where the Council and the European Union in general cannot start thinking soon enough, and they should take advantage of the extraordinary summit in October.
Bringing Europe closer to its citizens means more democracy in the European Union, more Parliament and more democratic structures.
This is what institutional reform should aim to achieve, and I hope that you, too, will accept responsibility in this area.
I hope and expect that you will commit all your goodwill and your good intentions to achieving this, and I am convinced that you will!
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Caccavale">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, it is first of all a pleasure to be able to welcome someone who is presiding over the Council for the first time and who has done so today in such an authoritative way with that very important speech.
However, the tasks that await the Austrian presidency are so ambitious, as the President himself said, that naturally there will be a tremendous amount of work to do.
<P>
There is first of all the question of a political Europe, Mr President-in-Office: the euro's introduction is clearly a major step forward towards the integration of European countries, but it has made Europe look technocratic, with an operation that has started at the top and that has not involved citizens at the bottom.
This, Mr President-in-Office, is the first point that you will be able to tackle: a citizens' Europe is created through the democratic control of the decisions taken, not through a technocratic Europe.
<P>
The second point is the common foreign and security policy.
Too often we have heard in this Parliament that Europe needs to be represented in the world with one strong, uniform voice that carries.
Well, what kind of image has Europe been projecting these past few months, these past years?
A divided Europe, a Europe bordering on ridicule when it intervenes in the crisis areas of the world, a Europe that carries no weight, that is forced to ask its American friends to help it solve the problems in its own back yard.
So, Mr President-in-Office, enough with a Europe of 15 political dwarves; we want a Europe that carries real political weight at European level.
<P>
As for the issue of enlargement, well, we cannot deal with that using accounting methods.
We are not accountants, we should not be pointing our finger at some economic index of the various countries that have asked to join us.
Enlargement means political enlargement, and we must look at the underlying reasons for this.
Europe is a dream of freedom and democracy for these countries that are asking to join what for them has been for so long precisely only a dream of freedom and democracy.
<P>
The last point and the most important concerns unemployment.
Mr President-in-Office, there is too much rhetoric here, but the figures on unemployment in Europe show that Europe is on the wrong road, with a welfare state that is too cumbersome, too rigid, too excessive and unjust; one that takes resources away from investments.
The message we should give is one of flexibility, less taxation, less bureaucracy: we therefore want freer trade, a larger market and more competition.
Only when the consumer citizen is able to choose a service, the best service at the lowest price possible, will Europe become genuinely more social and interdependent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Puerta">
Madam President, our group wishes the Austrian presidency success in its first term at the head of the European Union, but that success will depend on achieving results in the management of the affairs which have been declared priorities: employment, enlargement and the environment.
<P>
As regards employment, we hope that the Vienna European Council in December will verify the effectiveness of the national plans, and that they can be coordinated in order to fulfill the hopes raised in Luxembourg.
Since Austria has the second lowest unemployment rate in the EU, we hope its experience can be used to achieve results, especially to combat youth unemployment and to promote equality between men and women as regards job access.
<P>
In the field of enlargement, the presidency will have to work quickly to study the compatibility between the candidate countries' legislations and that of the EU, so as to be able to initiate discussions during this term of office on some of the 26 chapters of the negotiations, in the knowledge that transition periods will have to be established to avoid causing shocks in such sensitive sectors as agriculture or the free movement of workers.
<P>
We value Austria's role as a bridge between the EU and the countries of central and eastern Europe, but we also want to remind the presidency of the importance of negotiations with the legitimate government of Cyprus, which should include, if possible, a representation from the Turkish Cypriot community, without any interference or blackmail from the Turkish government.
<P>
Before enlargement, we think it is essential to achieve the institutional reform which failed so resoundingly at the Amsterdam European Council.
That means that decisive steps need to be taken in the informal summit planned for October, within the framework of a debate which should be attended by the President of the European Parliament.
We think the public should be aware of the proposal for institutional reform at the time of the 1999 elections, so it can be debated and legitimized.
There would be no sense in talking about public opinion and public participation if, at the same time, at the most important moment of commitment between the citizens and their representatives, we were unable to inform public opinion of the proposals of the Council and the European institutions as regards institutional reform.
<P>
Furthermore, we have to address the difficult subject of simultaneously funding enlargement and the internal solidarity of the Member States.
We could talk about the North-South solidarity of the countries of the EU.
An own resources ceiling of 1.27 % of GNP is totally inadequate to maintain the objective of economic and social cohesion, and that is what defines the current Community budget and its great limitations.
It is essential to exceed 1.3 % of GNP, and in order to do so consideration should be given to the setting up of a fifth resource which takes account of the relative wealth of the Member States.
<P>
With respect to the environment, we are pleased that the Austrian presidency's position supports respect for the Community acquis in the enlargement negotiations, and takes account of the sensitive issues of nuclear plants. It is also necessary for the environmental dimension to be incorporated into all the policies of the EU.
It must be pointed out to the Austrian presidency that there is concern over a possible acceptance of low environmental standards in the candidate countries.
<P>
Finally, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, we hope the Austrian presidency will ensure the presence of the EU for a fair solution to the Kosovo problem.
We also hope it plays an active role in ensuring that the self-determination referendum takes place in Western Sahara, under the auspices of the United Nations, not just because it is important to allow the Saharan people to express their will, after 20 years of war, but also because it guarantees European security from the southern shore of the Mediterranean.
<P>
I especially want to congratulate the presidency on its concept of security, which includes not only defence but also the environment and social cohesion.
That is what many of us believe in, and for that reason we are very happy to support the presidency and wish it success.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Schüssel has presented his menu.
What makes Austrian cuisine world famous?
The way it wraps things up!
Apricots in dumpling, schnitzel in breadcrumbs, mince in stuffed peppers.
I am afraid that today Mr Schüssel has only served us with a delicate outer case.
But it is the filling that matters; Europe will not be satisfied with just an empty case!
Europe is hungry for democracy.
More Europe, but less democracy, that is the recipe the chefs, the Heads of State or Government, have in mind for our special diet.
But we should not be slimming down, but feeding ourselves up, to make Europe strong, powerful, robust, courageous and healthy, to restore its joie de vivre .
There is a great appetite for social justice, for fair distribution and participation, for fundamental and human rights, for equality of opportunity, for ecological restructuring and for a policy of peace.
<P>
So you cannot just open an old can, we want something fresh!
Mr President-in-Office, do not let them fob you off with something ready-cooked.
Kohl, Chirac and Klima's subsidiarity soup may satisfy a lot of people, but not everyone: this rehashed renationalization makes my stomach turn, and so does all this paternalistic talk about being closer to the citizen.
It is not whipped cream we want, it is citizens' rights.
That is the sort of cooking we like!
Make your presidency a culinary high spot and serve up democracy, because people cannot get enough of that, it is the only thing that cures serious deficiency symptoms.
<P>
It is well known that strudel came to Austria via Hungary and Bohemia.
So who, if not Austria, should put enlargement at the top of the menu for the sake of old ties and proximity?
Not as a special offer, mind you, but as the speciality of the house!
But, Mr Schüssel, you cannot stretch it out like strudel pastry until it is ready.
We cannot be indifferent about enlarging Europe, and say we do not give a fig.
<P>
So the key challenges in your menu should include enlargement and freedom of movement of workers; key challenges like pushing ahead a genuine employment policy with initiatives for reducing and redistributing working hours, like a coordinated economic policy with initiatives for fiscal harmonization, like the implementation of a long-term environmental policy with initiatives for environmental impact assessments and for withdrawing from nuclear power, and like a home affairs and legal policy aimed at achieving legal certainty rather than extending authority structures under Europol.
<P>
The people of Europe will thank you, because they will finally remember why they are supposed to want Europe in the first place.
If democracy is on offer, people's appetite grows.
It is well known that the way to the heart is through the stomach, Mr Schüssel, but not every dish is as tasty as it promises to be.
So please dish up something better!
Europe now needs more than a soufflé full of hot air that collapses as soon as you touch it.
Bon appetit!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
Thank you for having whet our appetite in this way, Mrs Roth.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lalumière">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, Austria is taking on the presidency of the Council of Ministers of the Union for the first time and this raises a great deal of interest and also some very pleasing images.
Personally, I feel extremely confident as I have good memories, very good memories, of our collaboration with Austria when I was Secretary-General of the Council of Europe.
Your knowledge of central and eastern Europe, your concern for a balance between East and West, and the broad experience of the Austrian diplomatic services are all qualities which lead us to have high expectations.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office, let me pick up on a number of your priorities.
Firstly, enlargement of the Union may not be the highest priority of the next six months, but it is probably in this field that your geographic situation, your history and your political experience can help us to overcome many obstacles.
More than anyone else, you know why it is essential that central Europe joins us and more than anyone else you also feel anxious in the face of an enlargement which risks both disrupting employment in your country through an excessive influx of workers and competing strongly with your agriculture, to mention but two issues.
<P>
But Austria is also well placed to be a link, a bridge between central Europe and countries such as my own, which are not adjoining the CEECs and which, when all is said and done, know very little about them; yet without them enlargement would be a failure.
This enlargement cannot be reduced to a privileged one-to-one encounter between neighbours even if, culturally and economically, Germany and Austria are in the front line.
<P>
Secondly, although for our citizens it is the major preoccupation, during your presidency you are going to have to continue efforts at encouraging employment.
For pity's sake, Mr President, do something!
If only we could mobilize ourselves around employment as we have done around the euro.
I know full well that we cannot force companies to take people on, but the Union could create a favourable environment and mobilize the means it has at its disposal.
Some progress can be observed, but there remains so, so much to be done.
<P>
Lack of time prevents me from going into detail on the other priorities of your presidency, such as the necessary institutional reforms or the perfecting of Agenda 2000; on this subject I, too, am concerned with regard to the ceiling on expenditure as proposed by the Commission. However, I would like to conclude by mentioning the choice you have made in giving Vienna a special place in the 50th anniversary celebrations for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
This is an excellent choice.
When I think back to the role of Austria within the Council of Europe, I can bear witness to your country's deep commitment to the defence of human rights and I wholeheartedly wish that this role may now be continued to the benefit of the European Union.
<P>
There is one last point which seems to me to augur well: the invitation to the Turkish President, Mr Demirel.
Whatever the difficulties in our relations with that great country, there are gestures which need to be made in order to iron out regrettable mistakes.
I recognize with pleasure the traditional role of Austria in this, just like during Chancellor Kreisky's time, with the hand held out to all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
Madam President, on behalf of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, I would like to congratulate Austria on assuming the presidency.
I hope the statements by Austria and the Foreign Minister on the principle of subsidiarity will turn out to be more than lip service.
Five years down the line after the Maastricht Treaty, we now have 50 % more regulations to keep track of in Brussels.
The Union has reached the Orwellian stage of language covering the opposite of content.
Subsidiarity now means that 20 Commissioners in Brussels have sole rights to propose whether a decision should be made by themselves or by the citizens and their elected legislators.
A proposed legal basis can only be changed if all 15 countries agree.
Can 15 foxes agree to protect a chicken?
One single special interest on the part of one country can prevent power from being handed back to Member States, national and regional parliaments and elected representatives.
I will make a gloomy prognosis that when Austria hands over the reins to Germany, and when Germany in turn - after much talk about the principle of subsidiarity - hands over the reins yet again, the mountain of legislation will be stacked as high as the Alps.
What is said is one thing, but what actually happens is the complete opposite.
<P>
Another example is the recent adoption of the proposed rule governing Members of Parliament, giving us a uniform, higher salary.
The proposal would make us the representatives of Brussels in the Member States.
In the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, we believe it is better for us to represent the Member States in the EU.
Where in the Member States can you find people who would advocate paying ECU 1000 for a ECU 500 trip?
Who has been out demonstrating for us to have higher salaries?
In its present form, the proposed rule would distance us further from the electorate and it would not conform to the principle of subsidiarity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Raschhofer">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, Austria, Sweden and Finland joined the European Union just over three years ago.
Austria is the first of these countries to hold the presidency.
This is a highly responsible job, a difficult job, which, if it is done well, can earn great respect.
<P>
Some of the themes in the presidency's programme are bound to be dictated in advance.
Agenda 2000 represents an enormous project which needs to be negotiated.
President Santer hopes that this project will move forward apace under the Austrian presidency.
It is hoped that during the Austrian presidency we can establish not only options but also specific elements for constructive completion of this project, which will involve the difficult task of reconciling various different interests.
<P>
One specific example of this, because we all know that the devil lies in the detail, is structural reform of the Cohesion Fund.
Three of the four cohesion countries are participating in the third stage of Economic and Monetary Union.
This suggests that the basic requirement for this Fund no longer exists.
What is the presidency's position on this issue, and how does it intend to negotiate an agreement?
<P>
My second example is: how does the presidency intend to achieve a settlement of the so-called net contributor debate?
It is obvious that there is a wide gulf between Germany's demands for fair burden sharing and the Spanish proposal to tap new sources of income.
<P>
My third example is institutional reform.
The future of the Union and its scope for enlargement very much depend on this complex subject, and yet it scarcely features in the written presidency programme at all.
So I am all the more delighted that you have promised today to take on this subject, Mr Schüssel, in contrast to your previous statements.
<P>
My fourth example is this: many of you may not think it all that important that a country like Austria, which immediately borders onto the eastern European countries, is inevitably concerned about high safety standards in nuclear power stations near the border.
This is by no means a minority problem or a peripheral subject in Europe.
I could continue with this list of subjects almost ad infinitum , but my speaking time is limited.
<P>
When Austria assumed the presidency, there was a lot of talk in our country about how much scope the presidency offers to really influence things.
In their initiative at Cardiff, Jacques Chirac and Chancellor Kohl reminded us of the importance of bringing Europe closer to the citizen.
The Austrian President, Dr Klestil, also touched on this subject in this House a few months ago.
Transparency, bringing Europe closer to the people, the question of what powers Brussels should reasonably have: these are vital issues in building the 'House of Europe' .
<P>
Apart from today's solemn declaration of intent, there is also the question of what specific contribution the Austrian presidency will make to it.
Only when we get a concrete answer to this question will we know to what extent Europe's citizens are prepared to carry on building the 'House of Europe' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hänsch">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen. Mr President-in-Office, you said that the Union itself has to become capable of enlargement.
We, the European Parliament, will be doing everything we can to ensure that Agenda 2000 is adopted by the end of this legislature.
<P>
However, let me ask the Council not to forget that there are deadlines to be observed, and that Parliament must have an opportunity to have its say at the end of the whole process.
The final whistle will blow in May!
You said that the German presidency would table the decision in March.
All well and good, but that is the last chance if Parliament is going to decide by May.
After that, time is up.
So, and I am saying this as a German, do not leave too much to the Germans!
<P>
My second comment is that thanks to Kohl and Chirac you now have a extraordinary summit.
It will talk about making the Union more efficient, more able to act, bringing it closer to the people, and demarcating its powers more clearly.
It really reads like a list of jobs not done in Amsterdam.
You should have been able to get all that done in Amsterdam!
<P>
(Applause) But you did not get it done.
Well, it is good that we are talking about it now.
I am reminded of Schiller's Wallenstein , ' The Piccolomini' , Act One, Scene One: ' You have arrived late, but you have arrived!'
Well, that is something at any rate.
If the discussion at the extraordinary summit simply leads to some improvement in the Council's work, that alone would be an excellent outcome of the summit.
<P>
Thirdly, I will mention subsidiarity.
I would like to stress that your own comment means that the European cause has to be taken seriously.
Subsidiarity does not mean less Europe; it means more Europe, with Europe really achieving something.
Let me give you two examples. Our citizens expect that with the introduction of the euro, Europe will now agree on a common fiscal, budgetary and economic policy.
We need a sort of economic government.
But it is not only Bonn that is balking at that, but others too.
<P>
It is not enough and it is wrong to constantly complain about Europe's impotence in the Balkans and at the same time to refuse to give Europe more power.
That applies to the foreign ministers as well.
Nevertheless, I wish that governments would stop talking about what Europe cannot do - especially at the extraordinary summit - and instead talk about what Europe should do!
<P>
Finally, Mr President-in-Office, it is not so much a question of uniting Europe to avoid history repeating itself, but rather a question of making it clear to our citizens and to ourselves that we must unite Europe so that Europe can assert itself in the world of the future!
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stenzel">
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office, people's expectations of any new presidency are great, especially when a young member of the EU is taking on the job for the first time.
As you have heard here today, the confidence we have in Austria is equally great.
As the presidency changes every six months, which many justifiably consider to be an inherent weakness in the EU, we need to keep our feet on the ground and neither exaggerate nor play down these expectations.
<P>
The scope for action is dictated in advance.
At the Cardiff Summit the Union imposed a deadline on itself.
The intention is to deliver the reforms of the common agricultural policy and of the Structural Funds, and to lay the foundations of the future financial framework, by March next year, in other words just before the European Parliament elections.
It will be up to the Austrian presidency to present an overall package with options for a definitive solution.
This is a mammoth political task and you have had a taste here in Parliament of the immense differences of interest within the European Union.
You will have to reconcile the differences between net contributors and net recipients, between those afraid of being milked and those afraid of being short-changed.
<P>
The need to achieve a consensus is therefore the order of the day, together with a conviction on the part of Europe that solidarity in the European Union must clearly offer something in the interest of fair burden sharing.
For this reason alone, Parliament must be involved in making a decision on Agenda 2000 in good time, as Mr Hänsch has just said.
I am delighted that you want to work on the continued development of the interinstitutional dialogue.
I hear the good tidings and I am not lacking in personal faith.
This process started under the British presidency, and it now needs to be consolidated under the Austrian presidency.
There is too much at stake to keep Parliament on the sidelines on the preparation of Agenda 2000, which is supposed, after all, to prepare the European Union for the new millennium and the period beyond.
The fact is that our citizens are directly represented through this body.
It is here that the much-trumpeted subsidiarity can become a reality, and Europe's citizens are expecting it to be given a fresh impetus.
You in particular were influential in calling for the employment title to be included in the Amsterdam Treaty, as a commitment to concern about jobs.
<P>
The EU should not run out of steam now that the euro is to be introduced.
The economic boost expected from the euro must be reflected in fresh growth and new jobs, especially for young people.
But that alone is not enough.
Research with applications in industry must be encouraged.
I urge you as President-in-Office of the Council to work for a high-powered version of the Fifth Framework Programme for Research.
That is no place to make savings, it would be a false economy.
<P>
The European Union, and on this I am totally in agreement with you, needs to be strengthened at all levels, as otherwise it will not be in a position to make the project of the century, the enlargement of the European Union, a reality.
If we look around, at the Kosovo crisis, at the tension in Cyprus, and at the impasse in the Middle East, then we can only draw one conclusion, and that is how important it is to strengthen Europe from the centre, and that means accelerating from the centre and dynamizing the enlargement process.
You have declared your intention to do this.
My colleagues and I in the European Parliament will support you.
This, too, will strengthen the credibility of the European Union, and you will have to play an important part in achieving this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, I welcome the first Austrian presidency.
I sense clearly that Austria wishes to serve between the British and the German presidency.
I welcome that.
Unfortunately, the Austrian presidency will not dance in 1998 but maybe we will be able to play football, because you often find solidarity and unity in this type of innocent but profound human manifestation.
<P>
I agree with the sentiments of promoting efficiency in the Union and implementing subsidiarity, but a number of concrete measures relating to efficiency are missing.
It is and remains necessary for institutional reorganization to take place before enlargement. I have not heard much about this.
<P>
The President-in-Office has held forth extensively on security; this is unfortunately influenced by unemployment, and, of course, by growing crime.
Would it not be marvellous if the Austrian presidency, precisely Austria, would finally bring the mafia, which advances from eastern Europe, to a halt?
We all know that the first assaults took place a few weeks ago in Budapest.
I would welcome clear and concrete measures by the Austrian presidency.
Would a Member State, that is, the Netherlands, please finally call for the battle against crime to be taken seriously and for the arrest of the former dictator of Surinam, an internationally-wanted drugs dealer?
<P>
As far as stability is concerned, enlargement does play an important role, but would the Austrian President not only keep the states in central Europe in mind but also support the Mediterranean policy.
I am concerned, as the negotiations with Egypt have gone on for three years now.
The country which was the first to throw itself into the peace process in the Middle East now risks not participating in the Mediterranean agreements before the end of the mandate of this Parliament.
Austria, I call on you to do something!
<P>
Austria, I see the elderly were not mentioned in your speech.
120 million citizens in Europe are over fifty years old!
The introduction of the euro should not be at their cost.
The have promoted the economic success of Europe.
Please remember the elderly!
I am pleased that you wish to protect children, but you should also protect the elderly.
<P>
In conclusion, Mr President-in-Office, with the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, I would ask you for an initiative: there are 4000 EU citizens in prisons outside the EU.
They are deprived of all legal support and, unfortunately, sometimes of diplomatic support also.
Please take the initiative and start a fund to offer appropriate legal support to these citizens; then they, too, will regain confidence in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Madam President, I wish to point out that the speech of the President-in-Office of the Council was both measured and forward-looking.
We are expecting a great deal from the Austrian presidency.
I noted that he mentioned the subject of the rapprochement of Turkey with Europe together with human rights and the Cyprus issue.
He has perhaps forgotten the Kurdish problem, although he mentioned the importance of promoting the Cyprus issue.
<P>
I wish to put one issue to the President-in-Office and to ask him one question.
<P>
We are entering a critical period in relation to Turkey, Cyprus and the rest.
Turkey is calling into question the right of Cyprus - an independent country - to have its own defence.
Now there are open threats of war and military measures.
Two days ago, Mr Clerides, the President of the Republic of Cyprus, met President Yeltsin and publicly announced his intention that Cyprus will not go ahead with its deployment of S-300s, since Turkey has taken steps towards demilitarization, and that progress would be made towards a solution of the Cyprus issue.
<P>
What will the Austrian presidency contribute and how will it strengthen this initiative?
I would like an answer from the President-in-Office.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, as you have seen, the start of each Council presidency is a time for fine phrases and good wishes.
By the end, the praise is sparing: by the fruits of your labours shall ye be known.
Parliament and the European public will pass judgement come December.
I am convinced that at the end of the year Parliament's palate will be sufficiently discerning to decide whether the delicate outer case that you have served up today contains a substantial filling or just hot air.
<P>
We already know what people in Europe expect and we must say it today - jobs, democracy and a fair distribution of wealth.
Those are the deficiencies that people are suffering from.
Those are the criteria by which your presidency will be judged.
Many people waiting at the gates of Europe expect to be admitted into an area of peace and stability in the Union.
<P>
The programme that you have presented today, Mr President-in-Office, gives rise to a number of concerns.
What you do not sow, you cannot reap!
If you do not recognize the existence of problems, you cannot solve them.
You have not addressed the urgent questions relating to democratic reform in your programme today.
You have not said a word about the programme for the extraordinary summit, which Parliament is pinning certain hopes on, as it is after all the continuation of a protracted debate.
As Mr Hänsch has already said, the Council has put the European Union in this position because of its failure in Amsterdam, and you have not been able to allay our fears today.
<P>
I welcome your critical remarks and reservations about subsidiarity. However, I regret that you have said nothing about the need to overcome the democratic deficit, which lies chiefly in the Council.
Are you prepared to make sure that openness prevails in the Council's law-making?
Are you prepared to subject the area of justice and internal cooperation to constitutional checks, that is judicial and parliamentary checks?
Are you prepared to use this extraordinary summit finally to tackle the institutional reform that the Council has dragged out for so long?
<P>
These questions remain unresolved, as do questions about the future of codecision by Parliament, its budgetary sovereignty, common electoral law, a catalogue of fundamental rights, and so on.
This is no time for transitional presidencies, it is a time for vision!
It is not true that the political dynamism of Europe simply needs to be upheld.
It needs to be recovered.
This presidency needs to be an icebreaker!
<P>
As far as social affairs go, I did not hear a single word about fiscal harmonization, which is one of your own Finance Minister's ambitions.
Not a word about reducing working hours or about a common economic policy!
I hope that these gaps can still be filled, so that we are talking about a real filling.
Unfortunately, up to now it all looks suspiciously like hot air!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Madam President, Prime Minister Blair concluded at the end of the British presidency that his presidency had been successful, because relations between the European Union and Great Britain had improved, amongst other things.
<P>
The start of the Austrian presidency is an opportune moment to formulate our expectations clearly.
The presidency of the European Union is not to be used to build better relations with the other Member States this time.
<P>
The Austrian presidency has made it known that they will devote a lot of time to the issue of work over the next six months. This is a clear policy point, and we will return to this for evaluation.
However, we hope that the presidency will not devote itself to this exclusively.
The next mini-summit in Vienna will deal with institutional reforms.
It is becoming increasingly clear that European citizens do not consider themselves to be represented by the European Parliament amongst others.
The presidency must therefore make improvements in the institutional area also.
<P>
In addition, there is another important matter which Austria should address, the European Union's plans regarding enlargement towards the East.
This can no longer be postponed; effective action is required here.
<P>
The presidency has also announced its priorities with regard to the environment.
The focus is naturally on the CO2 policy, as the next Conference of the Parties in Buenos Aires is imminent.
It would be splendid if the European Union would be in a position there to boast of a fine effective policy in this area.
I refer to the policy for reducing fuel consumption in cars and trucks.
Concluding international agreements with industry as happens presently is not sufficient.
I do not expect these to be effective.
The effects will be minimal in the long term.
What is needed is a range of strict legal requirements for fuel consumption for the different sizes of car engines; in other words, a proposal for a directive.
Technically, a great deal is possible.
Then you would really steal the show in Buenos Aires.
<P>
This is the first time that Austria wields the presidential gavel.
We hope that this first turn will be a successful one and we wish Austria all the best.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Velzen, Wim">
Madam President, one of the main tasks the Austrian presidency faces is the formulation of the employment guidelines.
In this respect, it is nonsense to speak of a transitionary presidency.
It is a very important task.
A great many people are of the opinion that we ought to leave it at the decisions made at the Luxembourg Summit and that they should suffice for the next five years.
That is complete nonsense because one of the tasks allocated there is to ensure that the agreements are transformed into concrete guidelines for the Member States. I hope the presidency will do this with flair and that it will also reflect on the question of whether it is necessary and possible to arrive at new benchmarks.
My priority would be a new benchmark relating to investment by the Member States in training and education which is talked about a lot but which has resulted in little financial commitment.
I am pleased that the subject of the coordination of economic and jobs policy is taken seriously by the presidency.
I am also more than happy about the fact that they are organizing a so-called jumbo-meeting and I hope this will be the impulse for better coordination of these two forms of employment policy in future.
<P>
I would next like to say something about social dialogue.
The Amsterdam Treaty accorded an extremely important role to the social partners, including issues relating to legislation.
Unfortunately, they forgot to assign a role to the European Parliament.
I call on the presidency to develop concrete proposals for this and if it cannot do this, to adopt the proposals by the European Parliament.
<P>
In conclusion, I would like to say something on a subject of which you have spoken quite positively: the lack of a legal basis.
We in Parliament like to speak of the large European projects.
But in my opinion the largest project we are presently engaged in is to bring the European projects closer to the citizen.
Anyone who thinks we can do this by ourselves does not know what he is talking about.
We will have to assign an extremely important role to NGOs as these, in fact, are the cement between what we do and the confidence which must be created for this amongst the citizens.
I consider it incomprehensible that precisely those projects which might achieve this, which could lend Europe a social face, are damaged.
I have seen the proposals by the European Commission in respect of these and I hope that the European Commission will not conduct a strategy of divide and rule, where part of the projects are, as it were, blocked and where they drop some of the projects after blocking them.
I am referring, in particular, to social exclusion projects.
I cannot imagine why, on the one hand, projects such as the Schengen secretariat are started because this has already been provided for in the Treaty and at the same time social exclusion projects, explicitly permitted in the Treaty, are put on ice.
I appeal urgently to the Commission to offer the presidency the opportunity to actually formulate a resolution this week.
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<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Brok">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President-in-Office, at the beginning of your speech you quite rightly said that we need a means of preventing wars and that the enlargement of the European Union was an important component of this, as was a common foreign and security policy.
It is precisely in the area of common foreign and security policy that there is great potential in implementing the Amsterdam Treaty.
This will have to be achieved during your presidency, before the Vienna Summit.
We shall have to see whether the potential of the new troika, the planning and strategy unit, whether the decision-making potential will really lead to a higher level of European added value or whether it will just be a continuation of the classic intergovernmental approach of 'old policies in new bottles' .
I believe that you have a key role to play here.
<P>
Much the same applies to the integration of the Schengen Agreement.
We as a Parliament will watch very closely whether national bureaucrats negotiate to keep more elements of Schengen in the third pillar than necessary, instead of transferring them to the first pillar as envisaged in the Amsterdam Treaty.
There may well be a big row over this, if my information about the present state of negotiations in COREPER and in other bodies is correct.
So I would like specifically to draw your attention to this now.
<P>
Another point I would like to touch upon is this: you are quite right in saying that we have not made sufficient progress with the institutional reforms needed for enlargement, and that at the extraordinary summit, and after it, we will have to put the necessary conditions in a context that still has to be sorted out here.
<P>
I am sure it is evident that the European Parliament must have the last word on the ratification of the enlargement treaties.
Please remember, when work is being done on preparing institutional reforms - which we regard as a condition for enlargement -, to make sure that the agenda and the conduct of the agenda are arranged in such a way that the European Parliament, too, is satisfied with the institutional reforms, so that enlargement is not jeopardized.
That is why I believe it advisable to hold the necessary dialogue with the European Parliament at a very early stage.
This should not just take the form of motions for resolutions that the European Parliament kindly forwards to you; it must also be pursued at other levels and in a constructive manner.
<P>
Similarly, we also need to look at subsidiarity.
If you are going to deal with subsidiarity at the extraordinary summit, you need to realize that this has to be geared towards the present Treaty text.
This means that one of the two parties to the codecision procedure, namely the European Parliament, needs to have a similar view of subsidiarity to that of the summit.
If the summit interprets it differently from the European Parliament, you can forget the summit!
If that were the case, we would not follow that model, and given the possibilities open to us, the policy would continue as before.
That is why it is also important to involve the European Parliament in the preparations for the summit.
We must make it clear that we have to find new instruments, or perhaps rediscover old ones.
For instance, directives could once again be adopted in the form of framework directives, thus creating the necessary frame of reference at European level, but giving national legislatures sufficient latitude.
It is certainly not acceptable for the Council to inform us what we can do, and then cram everything it wants into its own decision-making process, and try to stop us to boot!
This needs to be done through cooperation between the Council and the European Parliament.
We also need to recognize that this will only work if the Council reforms itself properly.
<P>
Lastly, I have to say - and Klaus Hänsch has already referred to this - that the method adopted up to now by the Council in legislating on general matters is one of the biggest jokes in the European Union!
<P>
In this area, the Council, just like Parliament, needs to reorganize itself if it is to fulfil its legislative role.
If this clear division between the Council as executive and legislature is not recognized and this leads to a lack of clear guidelines, then you can decide whatever you want about subsidiarity, but it will not make any difference.
That is your homework!
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, shaping Economic and Monetary Union is not a job that can be left until 1 January; it has to start now.
That means that the form of economic policy cooperation will have to be the central theme of the Austrian presidency because - for the first time - there will be several Euro-11 Councils during this Austrian presidency.
We in the European Parliament cannot emphasize enough how important it is that, on the one hand, the reconciliation process between the countries in the euro area should work, and that, on the other hand, links with the Economic and Financial Affairs Council should be maintained.
Accordingly, it is a matter of particular concern to us that the informal Ecofin Councils and also the Euro-11 Councils should be conducted with more transparency and information for the outside world than has been the case in the past.
After all, we are all affected by the decisions taken here in these vital areas affecting the economy, growth and employment.
<P>
The stability programmes that the Euro-11 countries will have to submit will also be discussed for the first time during the Austrian presidency.
I would like to remind you that it was the European Parliament that specifically succeeded in getting investment trends in both the public and private sectors included in the stability programmes.
I would welcome an undertaking from the Austrian presidency that it will not just be a question of analysing, but also - and above all - of developing, because what the European Union lacks is the organization of growth in the private and public sectors.
We really cannot afford that if we genuinely want to fight mass unemployment.
This is a fatal weakness in the European Union, and the stability programmes are accordingly very important.
However, they should not adopt an excessively rigid approach nor should they frustrate our other political endeavours.
The stability programmes should not lead to a situation whereby the convergence plans of the 'pre-ins' are implemented more strictly than stipulated in the Maastricht Treaty; we do not want to end up with a split.
<P>
I would like to make one more point.
The Austrian presidency has quite rightly pointed out that the last hour of that presidency will mark the end of the 14-currency Europe and the transition to a single currency for the 11 countries in the euro area.
This old continent has actually managed to meet present-day challenges by creating a new and single currency.
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In the field of economic policy coordination I would also like to see us making a start during the Austrian presidency on interinstitutional agreements, on the multilateral surveillance procedure, on the procedure for excessive government deficits and on economic policy orientation.
We need Parliament, the Council and the Commission to act as partners, and it would be good if the Austrian presidency could finally tackle this issue in the interest of democratizing the European Union's decision-making processes.
Despite the experience of the Congress of Vienna, Austria is required to arrange the celebration of the happy event on 31 December, on New Year's Eve, to mark the birth of that beautiful baby, the euro, to the proud parents.
I believe that the euro must be ushered in such a way that everyone in the European Union, and above all its citizens, will know it is welcome.
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<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
Madam President, I should first like to congratulate the Austrian presidency on its ambitious programme, and wish it luck and good results.
<P>
You are right, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, when you say that six months is not long enough for this presidency or any other to be able to resolve each and every one of the problems currently faced by the EU.
But what we can hope for from the Austrian presidency is that, by forging consensus, uniting wills and doing the most difficult thing of all, that is, seeing things from the point of view of the common interest, it will be possible to bring about substantial progress in all the aspects which have been mentioned by the previous speakers.
All of that, obviously, should lay the foundations to strengthen and reform EU policies, so as to be able to produce a favourable impact with enlargement, an improvement in people's living conditions, steady growth and job creation.
<P>
As Mr Brok said, there is an obvious need for institutional reform, and I think something which particularly interests me comes under this heading: subsidiarity.
To this end, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I am glad you have not succumbed to the biased, demagogic, manipulative use of this principle which some people use to try to achieve an emergency stop or a change of direction in the project of political union.
They are the same people who accuse the European Commission of being a bunch of stateless bureaucrats, when the truth is that without their decisive impetus and their will, the project could not have reached the stage of development it is currently at, which is of course plain to see.
<P>
There are three questions which interest me particularly in this respect.
The Austrian presidency has mentioned the importance of the principle of subsidiarity.
I would like to know how that presidency stands as regards the debate on the financial perspectives and, specifically, the recent debate on Community own resources.
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The second question is whether the Austrian presidency plans a prompt follow-up to the agreements reached in May with the United States on extra-territorial legislation.
<P>
Thirdly, how does the Austrian presidency view and plan to approach relations with the countries of Latin America, and what preparations does it intend to make, in agreement with the German presidency, with a view to the forthcoming summit of the Heads of State and Government of the EU and Latin America? What role does it intend to give the European Parliament in that summit, given that Parliament participates in the internal summits of EU Heads of State and Government as everybody knows?
<P>
I am just finishing, Madam President.
As you said, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, time is the measure of all things, and I hope that in six months' time, when we meet here again to take stock of the achievements of the Austrian presidency, the results are as good as the ambitions and objectives of the programme you have presented to us here this morning.
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<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth-Behrendt">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, I have listened to you carefully, and Mr Hänsch and Mr Brok have already said something about your interpretation of subsidiarity.
I must admit that I had to smile when you said that the extraordinary summit of Heads of State or Government also needed to help to fire our citizens with enthusiasm for Europe, and that this could not be done half-heartedly.
I am very keen to see how our Heads of State or Government will achieve this whole-heartedly.
<P>
I listened to your statement about the Austrian presidency, which was very much geared to foreign policy, and I was waiting for you to get to specific points, and you did indeed mention a few.
You even said a few words about environmental policy. I greatly appreciated that.
<P>
I would like you to tell me, given that you are convinced that the European Union should become more effective and closer to the people, a point on which we all agree, what role you intend to play in achieving this as President-in-Office of the Council, as one of the Austrian presidency's priorities is environment policy, as it always has been in Austria.
I have read that it is also to be a priority during these six months.
If that is the case, you must manage to achieve something rather more specific following the Cardiff Summit, which means integrating environmental policy into other policy areas.
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I do not want to bore you and others here with limit values.
I do not want to discuss what should apply to cars and to the air with you today.
However, I would like to ask you if you will succeed in integrating environmental policy into economic policy as a vital factor in legislation relating to economic policy, both here and in individual countries.
Will you manage to make the vital link between the environment and transport?
When I say vital, I mean vital. This is not one of those fine but empty words that you so rightly denounced.
<P>
If you do not succeed in this, we will continue to suffer from a lack of efficiency.
You quite rightly stated that the European Union needs to be efficient.
I very much appreciate that.
But if you cannot manage, for instance, to check whether what we decide here is being implemented in the Member States, in your fellow members' countries, to check efficiency in that way, then you will not succeed.
<P>
If the European Union is really supposed to become closer to people and environmental policy is an important subject, if this is one of your presidency's priorities, and if a presidency is only successful if it achieves its priorities, then your presidency will only be successful if you succeed in doing what I have called upon you to do here.
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<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Castagnetti">
Madam President, I would like to congratulate the current President-in-Office of the Council for this truly political report. I say political because, in my opinion, it is very concrete, very operative, very responsible.
This is how you earn the credibility and regain the trust of European citizens.
<P>
You said, Mr President-in-Office, that it will be a presidency dominated by work and not play.
It is necessary to be at the building site; it is not necessary to be planning new building sites.
The site is already open and has taken a particular turn with the euro; as President Delors said, it is time to get down to work, and in this sense I believe that, if the Austrian presidency is an operative presidency - as you promised, Mr President-in-Office, - it will be a valuable presidency that will be remembered.
<P>
I also thank you, Mr President-in-Office, because everyone knows the importance of this upcoming political period, albeit difficult, that awaits us: we are facing elections in Germany, and even the European Parliament is nearing the end of the legislature.
<P>
I thank you, Mr President-in-Office, because we were afraid that the Austrian presidency's programme would give in to the temptation of becoming a programme at the end of a legislature: this it is not, and we are pleased that it is not the case.
<P>
In this spirit I would like to mention a few practical matters that you indicated.
I am referring in particular to one: trans-European networks.
I believe that this presidency would be a presidency remembered in my country if we could find a solution in this second half of the year to the problem of railway transport through the Brenner pass which in a way is blocking the connection of all of central Europe with the Mediterranean.
In addition to this, there is the problem of breaking the deadlock on the Malpensa 2000 airport which concerns the entire Mediterranean economy and that is, therefore, not just a national problem.
I would like to recall that there are certainly problems to be solved in Italy, but we have the impression - I say this especially to President Santer - that the Commission's attitude also depends on the influence and pressure of a few strong interests in Europe.
<P>
You are right on unemployment: after the euro we have to translate words into action in this area. The national states have to give up some powers, because a few problems like unemployment - and I am thinking about unemployment in the southern areas of various European countries - need a real boost at Community level to be solved.
<P>
I have a last and final question, Mr President-in-Office: you told us that the European Union is not ready to organize accession.
Let us prepare it!
We cannot have new countries join a Europe that is paralysed, that is unable to decide.
So, what we expect from the Vienna Summit is this: the Amsterdam Treaty has to be reexamined, amended and the reforms have to be made before - I repeat, before - the process of accession gets under way.
However, my question is this: how can we make these reforms? Who do we make them with?
Your country being a small one, Mr President-in-Office, it can allow itself to ask the larger countries these two questions that we are all aware of but do not dare raise.
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<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Dührkop Dührkop">
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, thank you for coming here today. In my capacity as general rapporteur for the 1999 budget, I have complete confidence in your spirit of cooperation.
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I would like to thank you for having mentioned one of the most important of today's burning issues: the legal bases, - in other words, the unblocking of the budget lines currently in hand.
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I also note that you have managed to convince the foreign ministers, or they have convinced themselves.
But I can assure you, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, that on Friday, 17 July the finance ministers must be convinced, because they will be the ones in charge, and we will meet face to face on 17 July.
<P>
You are also aware that the European Parliament cannot renounce its political priorities.
Nor are we prepared to accept only a few budget lines being sorted out; the ones the Council likes. We are going to have to come to a general, overall and binding agreement.
Above all, we are not going to accept a patching up which only settles the 1998-99 period. We need something that aims towards Agenda 2000 and is binding on that.
<P>
Furthermore, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, both Parliament and myself would have liked to have had a budgetary procedure consisting of just one reading this year.
One reading would be the result of good cooperation, and would make that fateful game of taking things off and putting things on between the two readings by the Council and Parliament a thing of the past.
In that way, we could produce a real budget of political priorities, not just book-keeping.
<P>
I wish you a fruitful presidency and we in Parliament offer you our cooperation.
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<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, I wish to thank you for mentioning a policy for children, because our children are the future of Europe.
Legal maternity protection, two years' maternity leave, child benefit, a legal ban on hitting children: these are things I would like to see for all children in Europe.
Children need a healthy environment.
I am convinced that the Austrian presidency will push ahead with integrating environmental objectives into all areas of policy, including animal welfare.
Leonardo da Vinci, Francis of Assisi: it was always the truly great who lent their voice to dumb animals.
<P>
The European Union is an immense economic power, and we are proud of that.
Yesterday, the great spirit of Europe blew through this country: liberty, equality and fraternity.
We are proud of that, too.
However, the moral quality of any society can be judged by how it treats its weakest: the old, the sick and the young.
Here we see the soul of Europe, born out of a Christian understanding that every person is unique and inimitable, and I hope that the Austrian presidency will give a hint of the soul of our great continent.
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<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schäfer">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, a subject that was not originally planned for this presidency, institutional reform, has now taken on a new topicality and momentum.
It has been driven forward by the prompt ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty in a number of parliaments and by the clear "yes' vote of the people of Denmark.
However, it has been given a negative flavour from the outset by the joint letter signed by the French President, Mr Chirac, and by Germany's Chancellor Kohl, who have used subsidiarity as a pretext to launch a massive attack on Europe's supposed centralism and on the European institutions' alleged remoteness from the citizen.
<P>
From a German point of view, the background is crystal clear.
The Commission's refusal to approve the Bertelsmann/Kirch television project hit a particularly close friend and political supporter of Helmut Kohl.
It seems to be a quirk of history that the very same German government that worked to achieve a European competition law in the 1980s is no longer prepared to accept EU decisions in the 1990s.
<P>
This reprehensible act is an example of precisely the sort of thing that Kohl and Chirac claim not to have in mind, that is, an attempt to encourage renationalization and populism.
Everyone knows that all the necessary Treaty arrangements have been put in place regarding subsidiarity and that no major action is needed.
Action is needed, however, where the Community is deficient in institutional terms: weighted voting in the Council, extension of the qualified majority and the composition of the Commission.
<P>
As we all know, all these points remained unresolved after the last Intergovernmental Conference.
However, at that time, Austria was one of the countries that worked particularly effectively and closely with the European Parliament.
Against this background, and in view of the tradition of federalism in the Member State currently holding the presidency, we have faith in Austria's creativity and commitment to achieving common European solutions.
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<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, the number one question for this autumn is how to create jobs.
The answer could not be simpler: you just have to produce products and offer services that people want to buy.
How do you achieve that?
You have to invest in education and training, in life-long learning.
In this case I would suggest - and Mrs Flemming has already touched on this - that the Leonardo programme should receive at last 100 % extra funding.
At present we have given this programme 0.1 % of the Community budget.
If we increased this to 0.2 %, we could make an important contribution to making employment interesting and integrating young people into the world of employment.
<P>
What else do we need?
We need fiscal coordination, and we need harmonization of the legal basis for taxes.
We should not worry so much about tax rates, because what we need here is a market, not a finance ministers' cartel, but a reasonably priced service for our citizens.
We need as few taxes as possible, but we need a proper basis: we do not need 163 different value added tax regulations, but rather a definition of tax fraud and many other issues.
<P>
What else do we need?
A social dialogue!
In other words, we need to talk with each other.
We have too many problems just to debate them theoretically, we need to sit down and talk with the practitioners.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Vecchi">
Madam President, on 30 September negotiations between the European Union and ACP countries will formally open with a view to defining the characteristics of the new partnership agreement that will replace the fourth Lomé Convention.
Already these past few months, during the debate held in the Council on what this agreement should look like, certain governments unfortunately expressed some reservations on essential aspects of future cooperation.
<P>
I would like to underline that it is absolutely necessary to strengthen the political content of the Convention, meaning greater emphasis on the promotion of democracy, the rule of law, human rights and the prevention of conflicts, but it is also and especially important to try to develop a common strategy between the European Union and the ACP countries, a strategy aimed at taking on more effectively the challenges of globalization.
<P>
Although the contents of the negotiating brief concluded last month are important, the spirit in which the Union's countries, and especially the Austrian presidency, embark on negotiations with the ACP countries will also be fundamental.
We must be convinced of the fact that in the new Convention a great part of our international protection is at stake.
<P>
The Austrian presidency will also have to tackle the particularly urgent problem of adopting adequate legal bases for all the budget lines on international cooperation that risk being blocked because of the new legal situation that arose a few weeks ago.
<P>
In the case of Non-Governmental Organizations and human rights actions in particular, we really have to move quickly to produce adequate legislation, otherwise the Council will have to assume the heavy responsibility of the end of a substantial part of our development cooperation.
<P>
A last remark: other measures that are at a standstill in the Council have to be adopted, beginning with the regulation on ACP countries which are traditional producers of bananas, and we insist on this so that the amendments adopted by Parliament are also adopted by the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Madam President, I would first like to wish the Austrian presidency all the best for this period.
This period is short but also important and I see that they have started resolutely and quietly.
This augurs well for a successful conclusion.
I wish to highlight two aspects.
<P>
The first aspect is the institutional reforms and improvements of the Amsterdam Treaty, with which the Austrian presidency wishes to start via an informal summit.
As ex-rapporteur, I can only emphasize that the democratization of the European Union is not yet complete.
Even though we are called the victors of the Amsterdam Treaty, there are still things to be done and I would ask you to finalize the fulfilment of the democratic content of the European Union.
<P>
My second appeal relates to human rights.
The chairman of our group has also mentioned this.
The 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights occurs during this period.
We keep having debates on human rights in this Parliament. There remain a number of matters which are never concluded successfully, such as the initiatives by the European Union in relation to Nigeria and Burma.
The situation in both countries has escalated during the past two months.
We appealed to the British presidency to pursue a single course of action and to take firmer action.
That failed, so we appeal again to the Austrian presidency to rise to the challenge and to ensure that legal order and democracy are restored in these two countries, because these matters are always much more important than economic interests, for the European Union too.
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<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Linkohr">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, if you are looking for work, I have two more subjects for you.
One is the Fifth Framework Programme for Research, where we are talking about the derisory sum of ECU 15 or 16 billion.
We must get this work done as quickly as possible or else the Commission will not be able to make the funding available next year.
That means we need to know what is available to us before the decision on the budget.
And that puts both you and us - because we have to work together on this - under pressure for time.
I am assuming that the conciliation procedure will start as soon as possible in September and will then reach an outcome.
<P>
The second job I have for you, or perhaps this is on your agenda anyway, is a tough one: the climate summit in Buenos Aires.
Although Buenos Aires is a long way from Europe, it still concerns us.
We came very well out of the last climate summit in Kyoto.
The Europeans actually demonstrated their lead in this field.
That was recognized and it also made an important contribution to creating a feeling of cohesion and resurgence in Europe.
<P>
The agreements that were signed then, or which were agreed to, have scarcely been observed.
As a physicist I do not just look at such agreements, but I also take measurements or have others take them, and I can see that we are producing more CO2 today than a year ago.
And so it goes on!
That means that we need a strategy, and Buenos Aires is a good opportunity for it. The presidency is also an opportunity for you to demonstrate that you are capable not just of words, but also of deeds.
I wish you luck for your presidency, and I hope that we shall be able to work together.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="Schüssel">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, a plethora of questions have been asked and I cannot, of course, go into each one in detail now.
I also apologise for the fact that, due to my inexperience, I exceeded my time at the beginning, but I will try now to make up the time lost.
<P>
Thank you, first of all, for the kind words regarding Austria - which I accept not for myself, but really on behalf of our country -, for the good wishes, the strength and the energy that you have wished us, because in the long run it should be to the benefit of the entire Union.
I also need this support because the President of the Council - and you as long-serving professionals will know this better than one doing it for the first time - cannot force others to do anything in a dictatorial manner, but has the very difficult task, where possible, of mediating, cooperating, merging and combining often very contradictory individual interests.
That is where I really need your good wishes.
I accept them for what their expression represents: a sign of trust in Austria and in the people, the politicians, the officials and the parliamentarians who will work here.
<P>
You have addressed some important subjects.
First and foremost, let me look at the question of the institutions, and the question of this special meeting, which is not, after all, a summit conference in the classic sense.
May I say quite frankly - as was decided in Cardiff - that the institutional reform will be tackled as soon as the Amsterdam Treaty has been ratified.
We may well begin to talk about it before then, but formal proceedings cannot start until after ratification.
<P>
Moreover, I believe that the question of institutional reform cannot be reduced to the weighting of votes, to the question of the composition of the Commission, although I detect a certain flexibility in this respect, more so today than I did even in Amsterdam.
Those countries, for example, that have drawn attention to the composition of the Commission are beginning to understand today how important it is that each Member State is represented in the Commission, because it also boosts the credibility of the Commission if all are represented there, although it is clear that they are of course no longer national representatives.
<P>
On the other hand, even the smaller and medium-sized countries are beginning to understand that greater flexibility will be required in the question of the weighting of votes.
I do not see that this is any disaster; I think it is good.
I believe that with a greater number of majority votes a way out can in any case be found which goes in the direction of a more efficient Union.
<P>
Now to the question of employment. Together we want to prove that a strong, credible currency that is a rival to the dollar will not conflict with a responsibility for employment, but quite the opposite: it will be a locational advantage for industry, small businesses or the service industry in Europe.
It essential to prove this and it is possible.
I am convinced - without using any high-brow language which does not suit me - that at the end of the year we will have a considerably higher number of jobs - it may well be more than a million - than a year ago.
Economic growth will of course help us, but it also has something to do with the fact that we have coordinated our economic policy better than before, and that coherence and convergence are already beginning to bear fruit.
<P>
On the question of finances and of solidarity, allow me to state quite openly that even the Union of the future will not be able to neglect solidarity within the Union or solidarity with the poorest outside the Union - ACP countries have been mentioned, applicant countries outside the Union.
It is so important that it is actually a basic principle; this solidarity - regardless of how tough the discussion might be - must be rescued.
There must be absolutely no doubt about that.
<P>
We view with interest the report by the Commission on how this fair distribution of burdens within the Union now appears.
Then a discussion will begin within the Union and the Member States.
But I am sure - and I say this quite openly - that these difficult negotiations can ultimately be resolved as everything can that stands between people who have a certain talent for reason, even if they are pursuing different interests.
<P>
On the question of enlargement, I have said we want to start the negotiations.
The main point of the discussion is whether we wait until every word has been checked through by the Commission, or whether we start a parallel process as soon as individual chapters have been proof-read.
I prefer the latter approach and I also really need your support, because I believe that the signal of starting honest, open negotiations right now is very important and will support the process of reform in the individual countries.
<P>
These countries will have to make great sacrifices, let there be no illusions about that.
Those governments, those politicians who support the European Union and integration will get a taste of a very harsh climate, and will fight against strong headwinds.
We should help them in the process - that is solidarity, after all - and not artificially postpone the start of negotiations by a year for administrative reasons.
That is the fact of the matter which I wanted to put in a nutshell.
<P>
Perhaps I should say one more word on the summit, because it, too, is connected with enlargement.
We need a strategy beyond the 11 applicants, for which we have already developed a type of entry philosophy.
What happens with countries such as the Ukraine, Moldova, and the Balkan states?
That is quite an important question which is, of course, not at all easy to answer one way or another.
Such a strategic discussion was: which network of European relationships are we offering, a European conference or whatever?
That is a subject that, in my opinion, can also be discussed at the extraordinary summit, at the informal Council in Gymnich in Salzburg, but perhaps also by the Heads of State or Government.
<P>
We have addressed the subject of Latin America.
Under the Austrian presidency we began the first Joint Council with Mexico yesterday.
And I will tell you quite plainly why.
Sixty years ago, Mexico was the only country to protest at Austria being annexed by Hitler's Germany.
The only country!
This fact has been engraved in our collective memory for 60 years.
It was quite exceptional that we should have created this Joint Council before this interim agreement had even been in force for two weeks.
<P>
We want to convey our thanks in this way.
You see, little things can often be so important and the responsibility of Europe and the ties with Latin America are decisive.
Together, with the Germans of course, we want to do everything to ensure that this summit next year in Rio de Janeiro functions.
<P>
I have a few words to say on the environment: Europe led the way in reaching the Kyoto Agreement.
The 8 % reduction is, in reality, extremely ambitious.
If we convert that into concrete measures, then some painful decisions will have to be made, and national governments will then have to stand by these decisions.
For this reason, we must urge that this question also be supported by concrete measures in reality.
It is no longer the time for fine words.
The major difference from earlier national declarations was that this is an obligation subject to international legal redress.
For this reason, I think that the discussions that we are holding now with the Commission and the Council at last have a new quality.
I also find it very positive that the subject of environmental protection has been addressed by many parliamentarians.
<P>
I would like to give you some clear information on human rights.
We have already prepared a troika meeting with Algeria.
We are now in very close contact with Nigeria and I certainly do not want to conceal certain positive aspects in this respect.
I sincerely hope that the new ruler, General Abubakar, really adheres to the declarations that he has just made.
You may rest assured that the Austrian presidency will pay close attention to these questions that have also been supported today.
<P>
Thank you again for the trust you have put in us.
Thank you even for your sceptical comments.
It goes without saying that Cyprus is on the list of priorities. We want to begin in exactly this way.
I do not deny that there is a right to self defence.
In the question of stationing missiles, I hope that we can find another solution that does not threaten the security of Cyprus.
<P>
Mr Klaus Hänsch quoted Wallenstein.
'You have arrived late, but you have arrived' .
The full quotation reads: ' You have arrived late, but you have arrived.
The long journey excuses your tardiness.'
<P>
We have been journeying for a long time and we intend to reach a good destination.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="President">
This fascinating debate is now closed.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Situation in Kosovo
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="President">
The next item is a statement by the President-in-Office of the Council on the situation in Kosovo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="Schüssel">
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="President">
I have received six motions for resolutions at the conclusion of this debate.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="President">
It is my great pleasure to welcome a delegation from the National Assembly of the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, led by Mr Abdelkader Hadjar, chairman of the Assembly's Committee on Foreign Affairs, Cooperation and Emigration, who have taken their seats in the official gallery.
<P>
The delegation is visiting us on the occasion of the fourth interparliamentary meeting with the relevant European Parliament delegation.
May I add that relations between Algeria and the European Union will soon be based on the principle of a EuroMediterranean partnership and that the contacts we have made at a parliamentary level have demonstrated a common desire to cooperate in a large number of vital sectors.
<P>
May I wish the Algerian delegation fruitful meetings and an excellent stay in Strasbourg.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Situation in Kosovo (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Madam President, I am particularly pleased that the Algerian delegation is here today and, like you, Madam President, I hope that the meeting bears fruit, that we gradually improve the relationship between Europe and Algeria, and that the Austrian presidency will be able to contribute to this progress.
<P>
But first I will turn to the subject of Kosovo: Mr President of the Council, you have spoken of the huge loss of power by Rugova.
This should not surprise us.
That is not your fault personally, but Mrs Pack and many others here have often spoken - and the Commissioner, whom I would particularly like to welcome here, knows this - of the fact that the European Union must do more to support the peace-loving forces.
So far, I must say in all honesty, it has done little to nothing.
We share the blame if the democratic and peace-loving forces are weakened.
We must state this quite clearly in full knowledge of the facts.
I am very glad, on behalf of my group too, that at last - in accordance with the wishes of this Parliament - we are more strongly represented as Europeans and I am also glad that this is happening under the Austrian presidency.
<P>
My second point concerns the political objective, because there are already different opinions on this in this house.
Let us, however, make clear to everyone what our political objective is, even in the case of possible intervention.
Because General Norman has stated this quite clearly recently.
He was also prepared to intervene if necessary on the part of NATO and only wanted to know the political objective.
The political objective must be the autonomy of Kosovo - and I fully admit you are right here - in a democratic Yugoslavia.
If, however, we set ourselves another objective or other objectives, some in favour of autonomy and some for independence, then we know that we will face the next problems with independence. In Macedonia, or, as it is known here in official jargon, in the FYROM and also in Albania itself.
We should not be drawn into this game.
We must stand up for autonomy and indeed also for a corresponding democratic system in Yugoslavia.
<P>
I am very glad about all the efforts, especially through the talks with Russia, to bring the United Nations onto our side or to bring them to the stage of approving the appropriate intervention should it prove necessary, which I hope it never does.
But I will say quite openly in my total solidarity or identification with the aims of the United Nations, that the Albanian population must know that Europe must never tolerate the slaughter of this people, the withdrawal of their basis for life.
Every effort must be made to achieve a peaceful settlement; every effort must be made to persuade the United Nations to issue an approval, if intervention is necessary.
But we must remain perfectly clear that we are not only fighting for the autonomy of the Albanian people, but we are fighting at the moment for the right of the Albanian people to survive.
What happened in Bosnia must not happen to us again, otherwise we will completely lose all credibility.
If we are in favour of a common foreign and security policy, then we must prove now that we are capable of carrying it out to the end.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
Madam President, Mr President of the Council, I thought your speech was excellent, Mr Schüssel, only it has come many, many years too late.
Time is literally running away from us!
As Mr Swoboda said, this is not your fault, but the combined fault of all western governments.
Since 1989 I have visited Kosovo almost every year, so I really know what I am talking about.
Just ten days ago I was in Albania and saw the misery of the refugees.
I think that we simply have to include in the equation the fact that we are dreadfully late to act.
<P>
Everything you say about Rugova is right.
For eight years Rugova tried to motivate people to non-violent resistance, which is what the Albanians (Skipetars) have done.
It is unimaginable that they have managed this!
But the situation now is such that he cannot prove anything.
For eight years he urged the people to show non-violent resistance and the West has not thanked him for it!
Now we have the situation in which Western foreign policy - which has always reacted on an ad hoc basis and had no medium or long-term objectives in this region, as we saw in Bosnia - only reacts when the television shows people in the rest of Europe that the blood is flowing down there.
<P>
The political solution in Kosovo can no longer be the autonomy that was crushed by Milosevic in 1989.
Everyone must know this.
For years I was in favour of having three republics in a new democratic Yugoslavian union: Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo.
But ask people about it: even this solution no longer appears possible today, especially as Yugoslavia is anything but democratic.
The longer the murdering and pillaging and the ethnic cleansing goes on among the Albanians, the stronger the support of the KLA will become, and the more the support of Rugova will decline.
<P>
Indulgence toward Belgrade strengthens the KLA and weakens Rugova.
The sanctions, as you yourself have said, lack any bite.
For this reason, we must discharge our duties more thoroughly and attempt to solve this problem.
My view is that we will only be able to do this in a language that Milosevic understands.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cars">
Madam President, the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party is critical of the Council of Ministers' actions on some points, but we are still grateful for the good speech given by Mr Schüssel.
<P>
Firstly, we think that the Council of Ministers, as the foremost representatives of European democracy, should act swiftly and sternly.
Milosevic is continuing with his attacks, fighting is taking place, villages are being bombed, many people are being killed, people are fleeing.
Mr Schüssel, the Council of Ministers must do more than it has done so far to put an end to the misery. By the misery, I mean Mr Milosevic.
He must be forced to end his attacks and withdraw his troops from Kosovo, under threat and with serious reprisals if necessary.
After that, real negotiations about Kosovo's future can begin.
Or do you think, Mr Schüssel, that you can ask the oppressed to negotiate while the hands of his oppressor are still around his throat?
<P>
Secondly, it is very desirable for the UN's Security Council to agree to military measures from the side of the democracies if there is no other way Milosevic can be persuaded to do the right thing.
Meanwhile, the Council of Ministers should not let its hands be tied by any veto.
We expect the European Union, led by its Council of Ministers, to put a stop to oppression and tyranny in our part of the world.
<P>
Thirdly, we Liberals think that the future status of Kosovo should be decided through negotiations and not before them.
We think that it borders on impudence to ask Kosovo's elected president, Mr Rugova, to abandon his demand for autonomy before actual negotiations have even started.
This demand has been a cornerstone for Mr Rugova in all the years he has led his oppressed countrymen.
In these years he stressed at the same time that the fight should only be fought with peaceful means.
But did he get the support of the democracies then?
No, we failed.
'In Kosovo it was calm.'
<P>
Within the European Union it should not make any difference whether we are Swedes, Greeks, Austrians or Portuguese, or whether we are Protestants, Catholics, Muslims or Jews.
The Union exists for us as individuals.
My inner hope is that those who are now fighting against oppression and for freedom in Kosovo should be driven by the desire not to set group against group, Orthodox against Muslim, Serb against Albanian, that their goal should be to anchor Kosovo into a European community characterized by democracy and respect for every single person.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Caccavale">
Mr President-in-Office, in your speech a moment ago you said that you wanted to collaborate with the European Parliament, and we thank you for this.
Please know, then, that if there is a topic on which the European Parliament has expressed itself many, many times, it is Kosovo, warning about the tragedy that could occur and that has in the end occurred; and all this with the total indifference of the European Council and the Commission.
We had already imagined that sooner or later Milosevic the dictator would turn on the Albanians in his own back yard, taking advantage of the methods he already used during the war and for ethnic cleansing in Bosnia.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office, in my opinion, the essential point is the last one you mentioned: until there is democracy in Yugoslavia, it will be impossible for us to solve even the problem of Kosovo.
I believe that, in the case of Milosevic the dictator, Europe must speak with one strong, far-reaching voice, threatening clear and strong positions before it is too late.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Madam President, the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army has declared that whosoever desires peace in the Balkans must support the independence of Kosovo.
Nevertheless, American diplomacy, expressing its intentions towards Yugoslavia, insists on including the Liberation Army in the process to find a solution.
For its part, the Council appears to be moving towards such a view, arguing that any group that has something to say must take part in the peace process.
<P>
Does the Council not think that exerting unilateral pressure on Belgrade without adopting the tactic of Milosevic fundamentally undermines the moderate forces of the Albanians in Kosovo and strengthens the intransigent forces of the Liberation Army?
The President-in-Office of the Council has told us that they control 40 % of Kosovo and that their stance is one of "independence' .
How will they impose a peaceful solution in the context of the autonomy sought by the Council?
<P>
I think that the time has come for us to draw our own conclusions and to assume our own responsibilities towards the situation that has been created in the Balkans.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Vandemeulebroucke">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Parliament has pointed out the tragedy of Kosovo so many times.
We have numerous resolutions.
Rugova returned to Strasbourg many times.
We awarded Demaçi the Sakharov prize, but the Council remained in deadlock all this time, because no concerted policies were agreed on, not even a policy relating to Kosovo.
All that time the Council knew that the Serbian violence would lead automatically to more violence.
The situation has now become hopeless, and may give rise to mass slaughter.
Basically, the cause of the violence must be taken away: is it Serbian state nationalism or the Serbian state terrorism?
International law must be implemented to the full for Kosovo.
In my opinion, this means a massive diplomatic offensive, in which Kosovo will be directly involved as an equal nation.
<P>
I have much confidence in the Austrian presidency, but I would ask it to propose that the Council awards it a realistic diplomatic charter, such as my country has recently done for the Palestinians.
History should be able to also anticipate events, instead of always arriving late.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Antony">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, when representatives of the communist Serbia of Milosevic were here as a delegation seven years ago, at the time of the heroic liberating rebellion of Slovenia and Croatia, I had made the following three observations.
<P>
Firstly, instead of wanting to maintain its domination over these historically constituted ancient nations, admittedly federated within Yugoslavia but with a constitutionally recognized right to secede - which will also be the case, I hope, for our countries within the European Union -, Serbia would do well to free itself from communism.
<P>
Secondly, by claiming the territories of the Krajina region of Croatia as Serbian, on the pretext that these border regions were largely populated by Serbs, they similarly exposed themselves to one day seeing their province of Kosovo contested, historic cradle of the Serb nation but with a population consisting of 90 % Albanian Muslims.
<P>
Sixty years ago, the Serbs were in the majority in Kosovo.
Now they make up no more than 10 % of the population, for two reasons: the collapse of their birth rate and continuing immigration on the part of Albanians which has strengthened the Muslim minority already present.
<P>
Thirdly, the Serbs would have done better to endeavour to reverse the flow of immigrants and to repopulate their land rather than wanting to reduce the Catholic people of Croatia to living within the area visible from Zaghreb cathedral's bell tower, according to the cynical expression of one of their belligerent leaders.
Remember that at this time the Serbian Bolshevik regime in Belgrade was supported here by Jacques Delors.
<P>
Unfortunately, the people continue to pay for the fecklessness of their leaders and the folly of their ideologies.
But despite all this, these considerations do not justify the interference of the new world order in the domestic affairs of Serbia today, and they justify even less the search for a pretext for military intervention. Such intervention would lead to Serbia's break-up, with all the imaginable consequences this would have for the Balkans and for Greece, a country which is rightly worried, with centuries of dreadful Ottoman domination still fresh in its memory.
<P>
We must reaffirm the principles of international law here. The first is the inviolability of frontiers, which should only be modified in exceptional circumstances and by mutual agreement.
The second is the right of peoples to self-determination, as long as it is expressed in a democratic manner and not through the pressure of terrorist organizations, as was the case in French Algeria and is the case in the Spanish Basque country today. The third is the non-interference in the internal affairs of a state.
<P>
Finally, I have a few comments. How can we accept that the Palestinians, who have always lived in Palestine, should have far less rights than the Albanians, whose presence in Kosovo is far more recent?
How can we accept that Israel's right to a birthplace should be so glorified when it is denied to the Serbs? How can we accept that the condemnations of Israel, which maintains a ferocious policy of apartheid and increasing colonization, are not followed by the application of any sanctions, whilst we prepare to strike Serbia?
Similarly, should we accept, in some areas of France, Belgium or Germany, the proclamation of Muslim republics, on the pretext that this is what new populations would want?
We say no, no and no!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Titley">
Madam President, I thank the President-in-Office for his statement.
It is by far the most positive statement we have heard about Kosovo in the last few months and it is a clear indication that many months of very patient diplomacy are beginning to pay off.
It is important that we have managed to do that while maintaining the cohesion of the Contact Group.
And it is important that we keep the whole of the Contact Group on board, including Russia.
If we do not, we will cease to have any control whatsoever over the situation.
<P>
I have two concerns following the President-in-Office's statement.
Firstly, his remarks about the weakening of Mr Rugova's position must concern us all.
We have to be clear once again - and I am glad the President-in-Office made the point - that we are talking here about autonomy, and now extensive autonomy; we are not talking about independence.
I repeat what I said last month that those who talk loosely about independence are only going to make the situation worse, not better.
If we make that position clear we will be supporting people like Mr Rugova.
<P>
Secondly, however, I was concerned not to hear the President-in-Office say that, as part of resolving this situation, we have to guarantee the rights of Serbs who live in Kosovo.
We must accept that Kosovo is important historically and traditionally to the Serb nation and we must not replace fear of one set of people by fear of another.
That has to be a key element.
<P>
For the Serbs as a whole we must make it clear that, as soon as there is a solution to the problem of Kosovo, we will want to lift sanctions.
We will want to try to rebuild the former Yugoslavia.
We are not making the Serbian people scapegoats for the actions of their leaders.
We must strike a positive note if we are to try to break through the situation.
Constantly trying to grind people down is not a solution.
<P>
Having said that, ultimately it is clear that Milosevic himself will only understand the threat of force.
While we pursue diplomatic solutions, we must not lower our guard but continue the military preparations that are necessary through NATO as well as our pursuit of a UN resolution that will give a legal basis for military action.
We hope that will not be necessary but, nonetheless, we have to take the two-pronged approach of pursuing proper peace-making diplomacy while maintaining the option of force.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President of the Council, first and foremost I would like to thank you for the specific and clear speech you have given on a subject in which the real point has so often been missed.
I see signs in this that it is not in vain that Austrian history has played a significant role in Kosovo.
Because Austria means a great deal to the Albanians.
I ask you, therefore, to use this Austrian prestige to bring peace, where Austria in its time also brought peace.
<P>
But I would also like to say that it is important for us to pursue a much clearer policy for once and I am grateful that you have started this process.
The most important thing, however, is that we support Mr Rugova, as that is the political solution that we must seek.
I am, therefore, very happy that my group has submitted Mr Rugova's name for the next Sakharov Prize.
<P>
We must do everything to strengthen the position of Mr Rugova which, unfortunately, has been betrayed by politics, including those of the European Union, in recent months, even years.
The peace-loving groups have not been supported there.
It is understandable that we have had difficulties.
In this context, I wish you every success in your task.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="La Malfa">
Madam President, it seems to me that the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Schüssel, has clearly illustrated and presented with great dignity a European position that in substance is, nonetheless, very weak.
Naturally, I believe that the Council will have the support of all or most of the political forces of this Parliament for the actions that it has announced and that it has undertaken and that are headed in the right direction.
However, allow me to say that we believe, like Mrs Spaak whose speech I fully endorse, that a peaceful solution is no longer conceivable and that the weakening that you, Mr President-in-Office, have noted of the more moderate part of the Albanian world in Kosovo, that is, Rugova, will have serious consequences.
In a way, what a lot of the Members here have been saying, that Europe and the international community can be in favour of autonomy but never independence, actually means that Milosevic knows that his actions to crush Kosovo will be met with a very weak reply from the international community.
In these conditions, it is very difficult, Mr President-in-Office, to force Yugoslavia to make that little extra effort that is still possible so that the situation in Kosovo does not explode.
<P>
We therefore hope that you are right, but our preoccupation is that once again Europe's diplomacies will be inadequate and come too late.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Sarlis">
Madam President, the efforts of Mr Rugova to find a political solution by means of dialogue must be supported. For this reason, I welcome the public declaration of support for Mr Rugova on the part of the President of the Democratic Party of Albania, Mr Sali Berisa.
This is a significant declaration, which comes from the majority party in the Albanian opposition.
<P>
I would like to remind you that the Cardiff declaration supports the autonomy of Kosovo and rejects its independence. It frees the Serbs and the Montenegrins who are opposed to the policies of the establishment in Belgrade to continue the fight for more freedom and democracy in Yugoslavia and for more autonomy in Kosovo.
<P>
But, above all, I would like to remind colleagues, and the hawks whose voices were heard in this House, of the no , the no not only of the European Union but also of this Parliament to the secessionist movements of the Serbs in Eastern Slavonia and Krajina.
Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina preserve their territorial integrity thanks to the consistent and judicious policy of the European Union and of the whole of the West.
<P>
Finally, it is essential that hostilities cease so that pressure can be exerted on both sides in the conflict, and that military measures be used only as a last resort.
Such measures must be used if there is no other solution, either from NATO or Europe, in order to put an end to the continuing bloodshed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
Madam President, the President-in-Office has this morning shown himself to be a real European with a clear vision on the Kosovo issue.
I am very impressed, in respect, too, of the accurate analysis of this problem he has offered.
The Members of this Parliament have often spoken of the fact that self-determination is only done justice in a democratic constitutional state.
If the Yugoslav Federation could indeed be transformed into a democratic constitutional state, than autonomy is, of course, also completely acceptable, but nothing more than autonomy.
However, we cannot compel anyone to live in an undemocratic violent dictatorship.
That is impossible!
The point is, therefore, how do we get the Serbs to no longer elect criminals to the highest positions.
That will indeed require a clear policy towards Milosevic.
I agree with all those who say that Milosevic only understands firm talk.
We have seen this in Bosnia when a week of NATO actions was required to finally halt Milosevic and his band.
But we also need a different policy aimed at democracy and the promotion of a constitutional state within the Republic of Serbia and within the whole of the Yugoslav Federation.
I would ask the President-in-Office, as well as the Commission, as they are involved in the democratization policy, if this policy can actually be implemented by the Council and the Commission, so that we can indeed take our responsibilities seriously as we should.
Because fleeing our responsibilities is no longer an option.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow.
<P>
As you will have noted, ladies and gentlemen, the debate on the Austrian presidency took a little longer than planned. However, this is no cause for regret and I believe that we are united in wishing great success and much good fortune to the Austrian presidency.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="Macartney">
Mr President, it is a fairly small correction, but there is a problem of translation with Amendment No 49 which is supposed to extend the representation of minorities to those covering more than one state - e.g. the Sámi people of Lapland.
The English version talks about minorities that have 'traditionally settled' .
The version I would like is the same as in Amendment No 46 - i.e. 'minorities traditionally resident' .
We are not talking about settlers, we are talking about people who are traditionally to be found in a territory.
<P>
Amendment No 46 was originally drafted in Italian.
I would just like to ensure we are consistent here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="President">
We will make the necessary amendments, Mr Macartney.
<P>
On Amendment No 8 by the Green Group
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Mr President, in the vote on Article 2 you said that Amendment No 8 by the Green Group was invalid.
In my opinion, this is not the case, because the preceding amendments that we accepted refer to the setting up of regional constituencies.
The amendment by the Greens, however, aims to add something to Article 2, namely to obtain compensation for the system of proportional representation if there are regional constituencies.
For this reason I ask for a vote to be taken again on Amendment No 8.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="President">
Mrs Müller, it is for this very reason that we considered your amendment to be inconsistent.
<P>
But I will consult the rapporteur so that he can enlighten us with his wisdom.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Anastassopoulos">
I agree with you, Mr President.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="President">
We therefore judge the amendment to be inconsistent.
<P>
Before the final vote
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I would like to propose that this report be referred back to committee, pursuant to Rule 129.
In fact, the report seems to me to be incomplete.
Given the current state of affairs, it does not seem to do justice to the legislative power conferred on the European Parliament by the Treaty.
It seems to me that it is an unusual enough matter for Parliament to want to exercise its competence fully.
The report speaks of common principles, of a European electoral system, but it is far from being complete.
A number of aspects are not touched upon, in particular those which the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights had mentioned in its opinion.
For example, you can be elected at the age of 18, or at 25, depending on the Member State.
<P>
The report is also full of contradictions.
We want to bring representatives closer to the electorate; this is the principle of proximity.
But, at the same time, a transnational European list is envisaged.
Reference is made to the French example when, as you know, France abandoned the project, the government having withdrawn it from the National Assembly.
I believe it would not be to the advantage of French sovereignty, only a few days after Sunday, 12 July and after the country's national holiday, if the report's only practical consequence was to be in contradiction with the wishes of the French authorities.
This is why I propose referral back to committee, and I suggest that you put my proposal to a roll-call vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="de Vries">
Madam President, I would like to take this opportunity to express my appreciation and admiration for the work of Mr Anastassopoulos who, as you know, is not a member of my group.
I consider this one of the most important, but also one of the most difficult reports which this Parliament must deal with during this Parliamentary term.
It is one of the most important as it is a step in the direction of the implementation of the 1957 Treaty of Rome, which at that time laid down the establishment of a common European electoral system.
Forty years later, it still has not been realized.
The Anastassopoulos report brings us a step nearer this goal, the goal of the founders of the European Union.
But it is also one of the most difficult reports to be debated by us, due to the large differences between our countries and due to the value which we all put on national traditions.
In my opinion, the rapporteur has succeeded superbly in tabling a realistic proposal which is moderate and takes account of the sensitivities in our countries.
We may conclude from the vote that there is widespread support for this proposal and I would therefore like to start the vote.
<P>
<P>
(Parliament rejected the request for referral back to committee)
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will be brief.
I agree totally with Mr de Vries.
The European Parliament has accomplished a concrete task, laid down by the Treaty of Rome.
This would not have been possible without the competence and the will to negotiate on the part of Mr Anastassopoulos, but also of a great many others who have contributed to the adoption of this report and this resolution.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="President">
I would like to note the presence amongst us of Mr Francesco Cossiga, former Prime Minister and President of Italy.
He is seated in the official gallery, in an unofficial capacity, but I am delighted to acknowledge him and to wish him a warm welcome.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Votes (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Olsson">
It has been proposed that the word energy which appears in the list in paragraph 25 should be replaced by carbon dioxide emissions.
I have discussed this with the proposer and we have agreed that this could be done as an addition, so that the text in the English version would read: energy, for example, emission of carbon dioxide.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="President">
I will consult the House to see if it accepts this oral amendment or if there are 12 Members opposed to it.
<P>
(The President noted that there was no objection to the oral amendment) -On paragraph 27
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Olsson">
The amendment concerns a phrase in the text in paragraph 27 where it says 'tax on carbon dioxide emissions and energy' .
I would like to replace these words with "carbon dioxide energy tax ' .
I think that sounds more natural in the English text because the concept of a carbon dioxide energy tax exists.
That would therefore replace the current text, "tax on carbon dioxide emissions and energy' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="President">
Mr Olsson, I imagine that your proposal applies both to the initial text and to the two amendments which I am going to put to the vote, Amendment No 9 tabled by the Group of the European People's Party and Amendment No 2 tabled by the Green Group.
<P>
Are there any objections to this amendment?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Liese">
Mr President, I have no objections, because that is the wording in normal usage, even by the Commission.
I only ask urgently that a vote be taken on Amendment No 9 in any case, as the term 'revenue-neutral' appears here.
With this amendment, we want to make it very clear that environmental expenditure, regardless of where and how it is spent, must not under any circumstances increase the tax quota; instead, the money must be returned to the citizens.
We must vote on this!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="President">
Please be assured, I will put your amendment to the vote, as well as that of the Green Group, but with the rapporteur's oral amendment applying each time to the text, since it does not concern the text of the amendment, strictly speaking.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Bonde, Lis Jensen, Krarup and Sandbæk">
In Denmark, we have a long and excellent tradition of voluntary work among all age groups, not just among young people, even though the level of activity is substantially higher in that section of the population.
Denmark is often described as 'the nation of organizations' , and on average, every Dane is a member of some organization or other, whether it is a political party, a youth organization, a Scout movement or a residents' association.
All these people are working to improve the situation of the members of the organization in question and others who are sympathetic to their cause.
But only a minority would be prepared to work towards developing the European dimension.
<P>
We question whether there is such a thing as a 'European dimension' .
We distance ourselves from this type of EU propaganda among young people and the rest of the population, for that matter.
Nor do we believe there is any need for a common rule applicable to young volunteers.
On the basis of the considerations outlined above, we are voting against a European voluntary service for young people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Darras">
I fully support the report by our colleague and first Vice-President, Nicole Fontaine.
<P>
European voluntary service for young people is an initiative of the European Commission, and more particularly of Mrs E. Cresson, which the European Parliament enthusiastically supported with regard to its baptismal funding.
<P>
Unanimity is required with regard to its objectives:
<P>
encouraging solidarity through the promotion of a voluntary service for young people aged 18 to 25, -encouraging the participation of young people in the construction of Europe through youth exchanges and, finally, -encouraging a spirit of enterprise and creativity amongst young people.This being so, as a member of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, it is my duty to highlight the deplorable attitude of the Council of Ministers who, once more, are completely out of line with their discourse.
<P>
Indeed, it is not sufficient to come to an agreement on the principles; the practical means for its realization also have to be provided.
On this level it is clear that the sum of ECU 47.5 million granted for the 1998-1999 period in no way does justice to our ambitions and even less still to those of the young people who are waiting impatiently for the time when they will be able to throw themselves into the adventure of solidarity.
<P>
I will therefore vote for this report, but with this reservation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Deprez">
Whilst everyone is now in agreement in recognizing that the training and education of young people in the world today are the fundamental axes of development in our societies, here we are confronted by a joint text which goes right to the heart of these issues, and yet which is extremely disappointing.
<P>
It is disappointing because the results of all this are minor advances forced out of conciliation.
For the least that can be said is that, in spite of the efforts of our Parliament, the Council was by no means the most conciliatory during the procedure, particularly with regard to the question of the programme's financial framework.
<P>
Indeed, what are these measly ECU 47.5 million in relation to the enthusiastic generosity of tens of thousands of young Europeans awaiting such exchanges, which we have constantly told them are synonymous with good citizenship, openness to social and cultural diversity and mutual enrichment and which are essential qualifications for their full development?
<P>
How can we make them understand, when they are hoping to invest emotionally in transnational activities of collective use, that they will come up against a multitude of legal and administrative obstacles? What can we say about the degree of European integration if we are not even capable, at the dawn of the 21st century, to promote this type of initiative intelligently?
<P>
We already know that the programme has enormous potential and can be a brilliant success.
This was the case with the exchange programmes for students.
The many young workers or young unemployed who are no longer studying, and for whom European voluntary service is specifically targeted, want and deserve much more if they are to be supported in their projects for mobility and apprenticeship throughout Europe.
<P>
We must, of course, support this much awaited text, even if it is insufficient, because I think this little something, imperfect as it is, is better than nothing at all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Wibe">
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Deprez">
Sustainable development nowadays enjoys a broad consensus in our countries.
Those who would still dare maintain that the economy and the environment are contradictory are few and far between.
But widely proclaimed good intentions still need to be translated into concrete measures.
<P>
The interinstitutional negotiations on the fifth environmental action programme are exemplary in this regard.
We can, of course, regret the time that has been taken over such an important issue.
In fact, the procedure commenced in February 1996 has only now come to a conclusion.
Almost 30 months were thus necessary to fulfil the new provisions provided for in the Treaty on European Union which came into force in November 1993. Meanwhile, the fifth action programme anticipated a review of its strategy before the end of 1995.
Having said this, the European Parliament can congratulate itself on the results achieved thanks to the implementation of the codecision procedure which can now be applied in this matter.
<P>
The field of environmental issues has broadened and the Council has approved the need for an overall evaluation of the current programme.
It will be accompanied by proposals concerning the priority objectives and the measures to be taken from the year 2000 onwards.
That the Council has already recognized that some will have to be "still more ambitious' makes this acceptance all the more positive.
Another reason for satisfaction in my eyes is the Council's agreement on the possibility of legislative initiatives with regard to the use of fiscal instruments in the environmental field in order to encourage employment, competitiveness and growth.
This relates to an long-standing demand which should be made concrete as soon as possible.
<P>
Whilst awaiting the White Paper announced by the Commission, I therefore give my unreserved support to the results of conciliation as proposed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Holm and Schörling">
As far as the results of conciliation on the EU's action plan for the environment are concerned, we must unfortunately note that not much remains of the demands and measures from the Green group and the combined environmental movement which are necessary to achieve the goal of sustained development.
Not even the proposals from the European Parliament's first reading remain to any great extent.
<P>
At the European Parliament's second reading, 10 important amendments were accepted with an absolute majority.
These included, for example, the fact that the three new Member States of the EU would not be required to reduce their high environmental standards, that the Commission should set up an action plan for what was to be done with nuclear waste and that the Commission should submit a directive on environmental liability.
All these proposals have been negotiated away in the compromise proposal which is now to be adopted.
<P>
The content of the compromise proposal looks largely the same as the proposal the Commission had still intended to submit in the area of the environment.
All the proposals which would really have made the Commission - and the Council - act and take environmental issues seriously have been removed from the text.
The Members of the European Parliament on the Conciliation Committee have not succeeded in defending the demands which the majority of the European Parliament adopted at second reading.
<P>
As far as the transitional arrangements for Sweden, Finland and Austria are concerned, the proposal does not represent any guarantee for these countries that they shall be able to keep a higher level of environmental protection than the rest of the EU.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Pinel">
Harmonizing standards runs the risk of levelling them down to the same common denominator.
After all, this is what almost happened to three of our Member States - Austria, Sweden and Finland - which fortunately seem to have been able to benefit from separate status.
So much the better for them, but what a shame for the rest of us!
<P>
Secondly, why raise environmental standards in Europe if, at the same time, we are not prepared to look critically on what we accept from third countries?
<P>
The Euro-internationalists have to face up to their contradictions in this respect.
Indeed, can Member States engage in a policy of sustainable development within a context of world trade under the dictatorship of the WTO, which strives to prohibit states from having a say in the quality of imported products?
<P>
If we really want an ambitious policy on the environment and health, the argument has to follow its logical path; control must be retained over our borders, which are precious filters.
Thus, if only products which respect human beings and nature are allowed to enter the Community territory, there is no doubt that third countries will work more rapidly towards improving their standards.
<P>
If not, if the law of the jungle prevails, I unfortunately do not rate the chances of our efforts in the area of sustainable development very highly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Rovsing">
Following the rejection by the Council of the lion's share of Parliament's amendments at first and second reading, I am encouraged to see that by working effectively, the Conciliation Committee has managed to come up with a compromise text relatively quickly.
I am convinced that the many initiatives contained in the action plan are necessary if we are to secure a good, clean environment for our descendants.
The rapporteur rightly emphasized making as many as possible of the actions in the programme binding on the Community rather than considering them to be priority political objectives.
I am convinced that the environment can only be secured by means of a clear set of laws with teeth.
<P>
Cabrol report (A4-0276/98)
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Bonde, Lis Jensen, Krarup and Sandbæk">
We cannot support the Cabrol report on creating a network for the epidemiological surveillance and control of communicable diseases in the Community.
We believe it is superfluous to create a permanent network at Community level under the wing of the Commission.
It would be far better to coordinate efforts under the auspices of the WHO, because the diseases in question are not only restricted to the territory of the EU.
Nor can we support comprehensive registration, for which the Parliamentary and Council resolution paves the way.
Based on the above considerations, we are voting against this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Lindqvist">
It is an obvious and natural area of cooperation to monitor, advise and spread information about communicable diseases in the EU and other countries.
Developed cooperation between the Member States can reduce the risk of infection.
This kind of Union function is an important instrument for reducing the risk of infection and preventing disease, but it can never take over ultimate responsibility from the democratic institutions and responsible authorities of the Member States.
A corresponding democratic accountability is lacking at Union level because the legislators cannot be changed at general elections.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Rovsing">
Cross-boundary coordination is crucial for maintaining effective treatment of communicable diseases in the Community.
Thus, it is also important to set up an effective, successful network for epidemiological surveillance and control.
I am convinced that a permanent network of authorities and central epidemiological institutions in the Communities is the only way we can get anywhere near ensuring that effective medical treatment is given for communicable diseases, whilst also stemming the tide of the regrettable development of multi-resistant disease-causing micro-organisms already extant in some parts of the Community.
I am very pleased that the Conciliation Committee has reached a sensible compromise on the proposed network.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Wibe">
I repeat my opinion which I made clear at the second reading of this report in January 1998.
<P>
The cause which is being served here is, of course, good, that is, the creation of a centre for the control of communicable diseases.
I am, however, very sceptical of the value of always creating new institutions at 'Community level' .
Sweden has already developed networks for this purpose, including in cooperation with the WHO.
If a network is to be created in Europe, it should be a pan-European structure.
<P>
These continuous new EU institutions require resources, and these resources have to be taken from somewhere.
The positive choice of an EU institution may therefore require negative decisions at national or global level, especially when we remember the negative attitudes towards taxes in the Union.
<P>
Breyer recommendation (A4-0242/98)
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="des Places">
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations supported both the report and the amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
<P>
The framework directive on the harmonization of Member States' legislation with regard to food additives has been in force since 1989.
<P>
The proposal from the Commission on which we are voting today is aimed at adapting European legislation to bring it up to date with the most recent scientific, technical and technological developments.
<P>
With regard to the use of nisin (an antibiotic) in the production of pasteurized eggs, the Commission proposes withdrawal of its use, whilst permitting it, however, in the manufacture of mascarpone.
Rather than demanding the withdrawal of all antibiotics from livestock feed for reasons of bioresistance, we consider that it is far more important to reduce their use in food for human consumption.
Indeed, bioresistance develops according to the absorption of active antibiotics to be used in food.
This is the reality of the matter.
Yet again, our group does not understand the Commission's position which we denounce as illogical, unless its proposals are in response to some interest or other wishing to destabilize European animal production.
<P>
Be that as it may, it is necessary for European regulations to be regularly adapted to scientific, technical and technological developments, and for this to be done in response to the single objective of consumer health protection.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Rovsing">
The purpose of amending Directive 95/2/EC is to adjust its annex to accommodate the major technological development that has taken place over the last few years, and to enable Member States that have joined the EU since the directive was adopted to continue to use traditional additives.
It is very gratifying that the Commission's monitoring of the trend in the additives market has resulted in a proposal so quickly, thus always keeping EU legislation up to date in this important area.
The Danish government has expressed concern in the Council in the matter of certain substances permitted under the directive.
However, I hope it will be possible to reach a compromise that is acceptable to all Member States.
<P>
Anastassopoulos report (A4-0212/98)
<SPEAKER ID=86 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Anastassopoulos report, as voted for this morning, does Parliament no credit.
Indeed, I insist that it is far from responding to the obligations of the Maastricht Treaty and the future Amsterdam Treaty.
Many significant aspects have not been adopted by, nor are they dealt with in, the report.
<P>
Furthermore, the amendments we had tabled, namely Amendments Nos 35, 29 and 26 have been rejected even though we said that the aspects not touched upon came within the competence of the Member States.
Parliament has thus recognized that it should have discussed them, but it has not come back to the issue.
It has not touched upon either the requisite conditions for inclusion on the electoral roll, the establishment of a system to control and review electoral lists, the conditions for eligibility or ineligibility, or the incompatibilities other than those mentioned in Article 8. Nor has it discussed electoral propaganda, the financing of electoral campaigns, the preparation, holding and monitoring of voting operations, or electoral disputes.
<P>
What is worse, the report that we have adopted inherently contradicts what is being proclaimed.
We want to bring the electorate and its representatives closer together and it is proposed to establish a transnational European list.
Reference is made to the French example when France, given the very strong reserves of the people, has just abandoned the project of regionalisation of its electoral system.
At a time when electors want decisions to be taken as close to them as possible, how can we call for a list which will lead to an abstention rate close to 99 % if it is implemented?
<P>
Now is the time for nations, now is the time to give a voice to the people.
At a recent sporting event, the happiness of the European people at belonging to a nation was clearly expressed.
This is what we should have expressed today and not this report, which is a botched job.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, one of the problems with this report and with the idea that the European Parliament and Members of Parliament and political parties should draw up an electoral system is that they are going to have the interests of the political parties themselves rather than the interests of citizens to the fore.
Basically they will be looking at what is the best kind of system to enable them to make more gains in the next election.
<P>
Also, it ignores the fact that in certain Member States there are very fair electoral systems.
For example, Ireland has one of the fairest electoral systems in the whole of the European Community.
Harmonising electoral systems for the European election could actually be detrimental to the very fair and equitable system that we have in Ireland, and most people in this Parliament are probably totally unaware of that.
<P>
Furthermore, the idea of setting aside a certain percentage of seats for the European Parliament to be elected on a Europe-wide basis assumes that there is a sort of Europe-wide political identity.
There is not.
It would be to the detriment of smaller states, to the detriment of smaller parties and peripheral regions.
To imagine you can force this European political identity on people by adopting some sort of system like this is ludicrous.
What you have done here today is damaging to people at grass-roots level and to the political system and to democracy.
<P>
We really have to look at this again. It is a major mistake.
It will not be in the interests of people, despite what you are trying to say here.
That is why I voted against the report: it is a really bad idea.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Falconer">
Mr President, I agree with everything that Ms McKenna just said, so I will not repeat it.
Instead I will concentrate on the question of whether this report has any basis in fact.
<P>
The factual evidence on PR suggests that, bearing in mind the spoilt ballot papers that remain in each Member State that has PR, large numbers of voters reject it at every election.
The only country in the European Union which has a smaller percentage of spoilt ballot papers is the United Kingdom, in its tried and tested first-past-the-post system.
As far as I can see, after my experience of 14 years in Parliament, PR is fair to one element, and one element alone: the political parties.
On that I agree with Ms McKenna because it unfortunately produces a load of clones, i.e., what is acceptable to the leadership shall come here rather than what is acceptable to the electorate.
Therefore I am in favour of the electorate having the last say as to who they actually send to the European Parliament - or any parliament, for that matter.
<P>
That is why I voted against this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Mr President, every report presents a concept, and a major one at that.
The Gucht report offered the concept of proportional representation and Parliament declared itself in favour of this.
The Anastassopoulos report offered us the concept that large constituencies, in the largest most populated countries, should be divided into a number of constituencies, described as territorial constituencies.
<P>
The question which is now being raised is this: by removing the word "territorial' from Article 2, have we or have we not changed the rapporteur's message?
Well, I would simply like to draw the attention of the House to the fact that we have not actually altered the substance of what the rapporteur had proposed. This is for the simple reason that the last line of Article 2 excludes states with less than 20 million inhabitants from the obligation to create constituencies.
Does this mean that these States are shielded from the obligation to create a national electoral constituency?
Not at all.
The very fact of having this declaration for small States means that the constituencies to which the first sentence of Article 2 relates are infra-national, territorial constituencies.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, we have removed the word but we have not removed the idea.
The spirit of the Anastassopoulos report is indeed the obligation for large states to divide the national constituency into a number of smaller ones.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Ahlqvist, Theorin and Wibe">
Our view is that the Member States should each decide for themselves what kind of electoral system they should have for elections to the European Parliament.
Our view is that a proportional electoral system is fairer than an electoral system with single member constituencies.
But this is a debate which people can have in each individual Member State.
The same applies to the question of opportunities for the electorate to vote for individuals.
<P>
As far as the debate on the idea that a number of seats should be filled through elections in a single constituency for the whole of the EU is concerned, we dissociate ourselves from the idea.
As Europe looks today, with the lack of an EU-wide media debate, differences in language, culture and political traditions, it goes without saying that the EU is not ready to create an EU constituency.
<P>
We would strongly warn against attempts to centralize democracy in this way.
It could lead to the creation of an oligarchy because democracy will become so centralized and large-scale that the citizens will not feel involved in politics.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw and Waidelich">
On the basis of the Amsterdam Treaty, the report gives expression to the European Parliament's vision of an electoral system with common principles for the Members of the European Parliament.
In order to be able to support these principles they have to be based on the fundamental idea of a 'Union of the peoples and of the states.'
<P>
We think that the report should not amount to anything more than what is stated in the Amsterdam Treaty, that is, ' common principles' .
Therefore, we cannot support Article 7 which maintains that a certain percentage of the Members of the European Parliament should be elected through a single constituency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Barros Moura">
I supported and voted in favour of the central objective of this report: the definition of common electoral principles for the European elections based on the principle of proportionality, which is the best way of securing a democratic system.
<P>
I supported a number of other aspects, particularly the incompatibility between the mandate of a Member of the European Parliament and that of a national member of parliament and the creation of infra-national electoral constituencies as a means of bringing Members closer to their electors, without prejudice to proportionality.
<P>
I voted against the proposal for a European electoral constituency for transnational lists, because that extraordinary idea is not intended to correct deviations from the proportionality rule and ensure that minorities are represented, nor is it even really necessary to ensure transnational participation in European elections. Bearing in mind the rules of the Maastricht Treaty on European political citizenship, I voted against the proposal because:
<P>
it is against all the principles of a supra-national democratic power on federal lines, based on a national parliament with a number of members per country in proportion to each country's population; -with good reason, it avoids the really central issue of the development of the Council into a kind of 'Upper House' in which all states would be equally represented; -it raises, but does not resolve, the problem of national weighting in the European list, a political problem similar in all respects to the question of the weighting of votes in the Council; -it distances electors even further from the elected; -finally, it would be a means of perpetuating Members' European mandates, separating them ever further from their electoral bases; some of them might never be elected again otherwise.I therefore reject this proposal on a matter of pro-European principle and not because of any opportunist calculations which may lie behind some of the proposed compromises on the Anastassopoulos report.
<P>
This proposal is an expression of a pro-European elitism which can only alienate further a public already concerned about the esoteric nature of some of the institutions of 'far-off Brussels' .
<P>
Now we do urgently need a pro-European impulse, but it should follow another path, precisely the stony path this report has not been willing to follow. It plumps for the easy option, through fear of impeding the political battle for democracy in Europe.
<P>
For me, the hard way involves enhancing the supra-national role of the Commission, which means proportionately increasing its political responsibility to the elected Parliament.
It involves selecting major pro-European political figures as candidates for the European Parliament, with real input and influence in the political systems from which they come.
It involves the selection of someone with real pro-European political influence and authority as President of the European Parliament.
And finally it means accepting the Delors proposal that the European political parties should put up their own candidates for the Presidency of the Commission, so that the President would then have the democratic legitimacy to deal with national governments.
I find no evidence of any such pro-European political courage in this merely 'politically correct' proposal for transnational European constituencies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Berthu">
The European Parliament has just adopted the Anastassopoulos report which provides - although in a slightly more obscure manner than the initial document - for an obligation to regionalise the European elections in all the Member States where the population is greater than 20 million.
My group has fought, and will continue to fight, this proposal, which is only at the beginning of its legislative course since it will be necessary, in accordance with Article 138 of the Treaty, for the Council to adopt a recommendation unanimously - admittedly under pressure from the European Parliament - and, above all, then be approved by each Member State according to its own constitutional regulations.
<P>
Nevertheless, the process has been set in motion.
It seems to us to contradict the principle of subsidiarity, which should leave to each Member State the choice of number and size of its constituencies.
It is also very dangerous for large states, who would quite quickly risk finding themselves divided into a number of territorial entities, each one with a weight equal to that of a small state.
Some claim that this would not occur if the sub-national constituencies adopted did not coincide with the boundaries of historical regions.
But they are only falsely appeasing their guilty conscience.
In reality, it is clear that a debilitating action would be at work, and you can count on the Commission to nurture this with all possible means.
<P>
I find it enlightening to remember that arguments in favour of the regionalisation of the electoral system were developed in France in a report dated June 1996, prepared under the auspices of the "European Movement - France' , which, as everyone knows or should know, is heavily subsidized by the Commission, and it obligingly relays the Commission's not entirely worthy ideas.
This model of indirect influence is frequently used by the Commission through numerous other intermediary associations, sometimes receives 100 % funding and which should one day be studied to understand better the wheels of the spread of federalism.
<P>
What is more remarkable in this instance is that the European Movement's report had been drawn up by a cross-party committee whose members - or so the foreword on page 11 affirms rather ostentatiously - were "from a cross-section of political formations representative of the broad trends of the democratic sensibilities of the country' .
However, it should be noted that representatives of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations were not included.
<P>
There was what the report calls an "initial contract' between these members and the governing authorities of the European Movement which stated, in particular, that "the essential objective of the new electoral law should be to bring the electorate closer to the elected (an extraordinary slip, incidentally) by breaking up the framework of the single national constituency' (page 13).
Given this "initial contract' it is not surprising to finally learn on page 16 that "the members of the committee were unanimous in recommending a reform of the existing system and, in this perspective, the continuation of proportional representation and the division of the electorate into a number of territorial constituencies' .
<P>
To what extent certain members of this committee were taken in, we do not know.
What is certain, in any case, is that public opinion is constantly manipulated through the effect of Commission subsidies.
We are, therefore, taking this opportunity to demand once more their complete and permanent removal.
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We would also like to remind you that the simplest and most certain way of bringing European representatives closer to the electorate - and not the other way round - is to give national parliaments back a major role in the Community decision-making process, making them more active players on the European scene.
With regard to the European Parliament representatives, who should all be elected, for both theoretical and practical reasons, within the framework of a single national constituency, they might find themselves better controlled by the electorate if they were to apply the proposals contained in the different documents of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations.
Amongst others, Members of the European Parliament should be managed at national level and not by Brussels, their work should be better linked to the work of preparatory reflection on national laws when they are common subjects, and citizens must be enabled to draw up a true balance sheet of the positions taken by their representatives in Brussels, by their different speeches being published in a specific section of the French government gazette.
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<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Caudron">
I support the report by Georgios Anastassopoulos.
The proposals put to us largely move in the direction of a people's Europe and the strengthening of European citizenship, a direction which I support and which takes up all my energy.
<P>
Two measures respond to these necessary demands: the creation of territorial constituencies for states with more than 20 million inhabitants and the election of Members of the European Parliament at European level.
<P>
I regret the overcautiousness of some, on both the right and the left, with regard to these two points.
Whilst I understand, although I do not share, the arguments for refusing such developments under the pretext of a loss of sovereignty, I cannot accept that others should condemn them out of a strategy of politicking.
These latter are often the very same people who regret the lack of representativeness and the distance between our Parliament and our people.
I would try to understand this, if I did not already understand only too well.
<P>
It is, however, regrettable to have to wait until 2009 to be able to elect 10 % of our Members within the single frontier of the Member States; 60 Members elected by Europeans as a whole would have been a strong symbol of the construction of Europe if it had been applied from 2004.
<P>
Secondly, I approve of the desire to make the offices of national member of parliament and Member of the European Parliament incompatible.
These two mandates demand time and effort.
To permit the holding of a dual mandate is de facto to discredit our role in the eyes of the population: to reject it is thus a wise measure.
<P>
I would once more like to congratulate Georgios Anastassopoulos, whilst hoping that his recommendations will be understood by national members of parliament, beyond any strategy of politicking.
I hope so, but unfortunately I cannot say that I am sure this will be the case.
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<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Delcroix">
In Article 7 of his "draft act' , the rapporteur has had the good sense and the courage to introduce a proposal for transnational lists covering 10 % of the total seats available in the European Parliament.
Some will perhaps consider that alongside the other proposals in this text - a list system of proportional representation, minimum thresholds, preferential voting, territorial constituencies in states with more than 20 million inhabitants -, that of transnational lists is of secondary concern.
This is not my opinion.
On the contrary, it is an initiative which is a part of the main theme of the construction of Europe which is less focused around national issues.
<P>
It is the logical continuation of the directive giving Europeans living in another country the right to vote at the time of local elections in their host country.
In both cases, it is a question of developing the realization of a true European citizenship.
And it is furthermore based on this precedent, which goes beyond the boundaries of the framework of the State, that the European Parliament's Legal Service has given an opinion on this proposal which, in its opinion, is not alien to the principles of the Treaty, since elements of transnationality already exist in terms of the European elections.
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As a Socialist who is a member of the a Party of European Socialists (PES) alongside the parliamentary Group of the Party of European Socialists (PSE), I should add that it would give an extremely specific content to the establishment of true European parties as distinct from traditional political groups.
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It may be interesting to add an element of dramatization to the European elections by dissociating them from national elections and removing the risk of confusion between the two levels.
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Thanks to the transnational lists, minority groups spread throughout the Member States may find a way of increasing their standing and even of being represented within the European Parliament.
I am thinking, amongst others, of gypsies and Muslims.
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These are the principles.
What of the concrete realization?
We are not yet there, but everyone knows that there are many practical problems to be resolved: the drawing up of lists; the overall balance of Members between states; the choice of personalities of a European stature who could acceptably figure on a transnational list rather than a national list, and so on.
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This is the problem of a Europe being constructed from amongst nations and federations.
But the fact remains that the principle of transnational lists is likely to develop the spirit of a European conscience.
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<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Deprez">
The regular election of representatives by citizens through free, fair and secret direct universal suffrage is most certainly the characteristic of truly democratic power.
As long as it respects these basic characteristics, the electoral system can, however, vary.
It is, when all is said and done, no more than a method of implementation which can be amended in space and time, without representing any cause for challenge of the democratic nature of a representative regime.
<P>
In the current state of the construction of Europe, it appears that the priority is for all of the Union's citizens to feel fully and truly represented within the European Parliament.
<P>
From this perspective, a harmonization of the essential elements of national electoral procedures - in the sense of the generalized use of proportional representation by constituency for the European elections -, combined with the introduction of a minimum threshold of representativeness - aimed at avoiding too much fragmentation of the political groupings - appears to be the best solution since the British government has put a bill to its parliament establishing proportional and regional voting for the 1999 European elections.
<P>
It is for this reason that I support the draft act which is before us.
<P>
I would, however, like to add that harmonization of the essential elements of the electoral procedures for the European elections is not sufficient to make up for the lack of legitimacy and recognition which the European Parliament suffers from.
It is my deep conviction that this will remain as long as Parliament is not invested with the basic powers devolved to any true parliament. These include being the final authority with regard to voting on taxes and budgets and having the power to appoint and dissolve a European government which is fully accountable to it alone.
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<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Fayot">
This report contains the incompletely drafted proposal of the so-called transnational lists for the European elections, and I cannot accept it in this form.
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In the absence of any further precise details on this in the report, it is difficult to determine what this actually means.
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To the rapporteur, transnational, that is, European, lists appear to mean that 10 % of the Members of the European Parliament will be elected not nationally, but on a Europe-wide basis.
This contradicts other proposals contained in the report.
For example, an attempt is made, through the regionalisation of constituencies for the large countries, to bring the voters closer to politics.
The transnational lists will, on the other hand, turn Europe into one vast constituency, which will in turn distance the Members of the European Parliament, definitively placing them in higher spheres, far away from the voters.
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But perhaps transnational lists mean that in individual regions, such as the Saar-Lor-Lux region, cross-border lists could be made up for the European elections: such an idea per se would not be inappropriate for the promotion of European thinking.
If this is the intention of the report, it should at least indicate so.
<P>
In addition, it is not clear how such lists would be created, nor in particular how countries with very few Members, such as Luxembourg, would be served by this.
<P>
The more I think about it, the more this transnational list appears to me to be a type of 'political gadget' , that stands in direct contrast to the objective that I myself am pursuing in European politics, in other words, keeping European politicians in touch with the citizens, participation of the citizens in the political discussion in Europe and the 'visibility' of the European politics for the citizens.
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<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Ferrer">
The creation of a uniform electoral law for elections to the European Parliament is one of the most difficult aspects of the process of European integration.
That is shown by the fact that the task of producing such a law featured back in the Treaty of Rome, but almost 50 years later we have still not been able to approve it.
First of all, it was the very question of direct elections to the European Parliament which was the subject of debate; more recently, it has been the different traditions in the various Member States which have prevented us reaching an agreement.
So we should congratulate ourselves on having approved the Anastassopoulos report, for which I voted, for that reason.
In fact, this report allows Parliament to take a step which, although not as large as might have been hoped, is still of great political significance and will undoubtedly help to bring the voters and their elected representatives closer together. That is essential for the smooth running of the democratic system and to allow people to participate more directly in the decision making process which affects them, and thereby feel they are taking part in the great adventure of building a Europe of peace and wellbeing.
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<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Gasòliba i Böhm">
I am glad to be able to explain my vote in favour of the Anastassopoulos report on the production of a draft electoral procedure based on common principles for the election of Members of the European Parliament .
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The report and draft act, drawn up in accordance with Article 138(3) of the Treaty establishing the European Community - Article 190(4) of the consolidated Amsterdam Treaty -, fill a gap in the fulfilment of the Treaty of Rome, which envisaged a uniform electoral system throughout what is now the European Union.
<P>
In the much-needed deepening of the democratic aspects of the EU, which is still today suffering from a democratic deficit in some areas, fulfilling the aforementioned mandate will constitute one more very important step in the representation of the citizens of the EU in the European Parliament, which has been repeatedly pointing out the need for this.
It is worth remembering, in this respect, the excellent earlier draft produced by my former Liberal colleague, the Flemish Member Karel De Gucht.
Unfortunately, the lack of will and agreement between the governments of the EU Member States has prevented Parliament's successive proposals from being put into practice.
<P>
I hope and desire that on this occasion the draft produced by our Vice-President, Georgios Anastassopoulos, will become reality.
<P>
It is a good proposal, which contains the essential elements to lay the foundations of the uniform electoral system demanded by the Union's democracy.
I am glad that one of those elements envisages territorial constituencies in Member States with a population of more than 20 million.
Constituencies corresponding to stateless nations and well-defined regions of the EU make a marked contribution to consolidating the reality of the EU and the integration of the peoples who form it.
<P>
Respecting such identities when electing their representatives in the European Parliament will certainly be a big help in improving the degree of representation and the relationship between the people and their Parliamentary representatives.
<P>
Once again the European Parliament is acting as the guarantor of progress and democracy in the construction of a united Europe.
Let us hope that this time the governments of the Member States are conscious of their obligations and do not stand in the way of complying with the wishes expressed in the Anastassopoulos report and the plan it contains.
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<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Grossetête">
Within the development of the institutional context, marked, in particular, by the establishment of direct universal suffrage for the election of Members of the European Parliament and the granting of the codecision procedure through the Maastricht Treaty and more recently through the Amsterdam Treaty, we must congratulate Georgios Anastassopoulos on the work he has carried out.
<P>
I fully share his legitimate ambition to bring European representatives closer to the citizens in general and the electorate in particular.
But I question the choice of method he advocates.
Indeed, the electoral method which truly enables this proximity to be established in practice is the method of voting for a single Member whereby the number of constituencies would correspond with the number of Members to be elected.
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During the French government's recent attempt to regionalise the voting system, I took this same position.
Furthermore, a large majority of the national political class denounced the fact that this proposal for reform was based on a method which did not enable the desired objective to be attained at the grass roots..
<P>
This failure on the part of the Jospin government, which finally withdrew its proposal, demonstrates that a reform of the voting method used for the European elections must, of necessity, take into consideration: the real expectations of our citizens and representatives, the existing geographical and administrative realities and the change in the number of Members of the European Parliament for each Member State, following enlargement.
<P>
Furthermore, it is now particularly important to anticipate which general principles are common to all Member States. The states must, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, retain authority with regard to practicalities concerning the establishment of electoral lists, the organization and financing of electoral campaigns, the preparation and progress of electoral procedure and electoral disputes, as well as the setting of a minimum threshold for the allocation of seats.
<P>
As the amendments which would have contributed to moving the text in this direction have unfortunately not all been adopted, Mr President, I have voted against the final text.
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<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="von Habsburg">
I regret that I must vote against the report by our honourable Vice-President, Mr Anastassopoulos, but it raises questions concerning elements of principle in our politics.
The history of parliamentarianism shows us conclusively that an extremist party has never yet legally gained power in a country in which a system of voting for one member was used.
A study by one of the major German universities has proved that Hitler would never have gained a majority if the system of the proportional list system had not existed in Germany.
<P>
Let us not be under any illusions.
Democracy is under threat today and we cannot allow mistakes to be made.
It must be given a human face; the voters must know whom to trust.
The proportional list system leads us to the kind of 'partitocracy' in which most Members are no longer representatives of the people, but instruments of the party functionaries.
The growing number of people who do not vote should be a serious warning to us.
We need Members who obtain the trust of the people through their own efforts.
The system that is to be expanded today, however, all too easily turns these Members into employees of the party structures.
This leads to the decline of, and consequently the direct threat to, democracy.
<P>
Those of us who have lived through dictatorships and war, can only have the gravest doubts about the path that can be taken by choosing the wrong electoral system.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
According to the new Article 190 in the Amsterdam Treaty, a set of common election regulations for the European Parliament is to be drawn up.
The following points were among those voiced by the rapporteur:
<P>
voting should be based on a system of proportional representation; -a threshold not exceeding 5 % should be introduced; -10 % of the total number of seats should be reserved for lists for a single pan-European constituency beginning with elections to the European Parliament in 2009.The new aspect in Article 190(4) of the Amsterdam Treaty is that "...a uniform procedure in all Member States or in accordance with principles common to all Member States' is to be used.
Thus, direct harmonization - as solicited by the rapporteur - is not required by the Treaty.
The Danish Social Democrats believe the rapporteur has gone too far, since Article 190 does not require harmonization.
The procedures applicable to European Parliament elections - for example, proportional representation and thresholds - would, in fact, even out the differences between the larger and smaller nations, thus giving small countries proportionately more influence.
The Danish Social Democrats support the other amendment tabled by the Group of the Party of European Socialists, endeavouring as it does to deflect the rapporteur's report away from the concept of harmonization.
<P>
Lindqvist (ELDR), Eriksson, Seppänen and Sjöstedt (GUE/NGL), Holm and Schörling (V), Bonde and Lis Jensen (IEDN), in writing.
(SV) The undersigned have voted against the report.
We think it is the duty of the national parliaments and constitutions to regulate the electoral system, even with regard to elections to the European Parliament.
It is the national parliaments which have democratic legitimacy and familiarity with the local conditions.
We think that democracy in the countries of the EU is based on the national parliaments and constitutions.
It is therefore important that it is these authorities which have power over such crucial issues as electoral systems.
<P>
We are particularly opposed to paragraph 4 of the report.
It proposes that 10 % of the seats should be distributed by proportional representation at EU level.
Such an arrangement requires functioning EU parties, something which is hardly likely to be realized within the foreseeable future.
Today the so-called European parties completely lack any legitimacy or basis among the citizens.
The differences between the national parties with the same leanings are substantial, and the political debate is highly national.
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<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Macartney">
In the spirit of pluralistic democracy and a Europe of all the peoples I wish to state my support for Amendments No 46 (tabled by Mr Ebner of the Südtiroler Volkspartei) and No 49 (which I have tabled).
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Both express common concerns for the smaller peoples of Europe.
The South Tyroleans, Valdostans, Sards and Friulians in Italy and the Frisians in the Netherlands, for instance, are covered by Amendment No 46.
<P>
But Amendment No 49 goes further, by extending this to recognised historic nationalities in more than one state.
The particular beneficiary of this approach would be the Sámi people, who inhabit the northern part of two Member States (Sweden and Finland), as well as of the former applicant country Norway.
There is a strong moral case for giving the Sámi people a seat in this Parliament.
Under the current system that does not happen.
But a European Parliament without a Sámi seat is an incomplete Parliament and I appeal to colleagues to eliminate this deficit along with all the others this report seeks to address.
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<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="McMillan-Scott">
Today (15/7) the European Parliament votes on the Anastassopoulos report proposing an EU-wide common electoral system, based on proportional representation, for future European elections.
Much as we respect Mr Anastassopoulos personally, and appreciate the enormous effort he has put into his report, Conservative MEPs will be voting against his conclusions.
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Two of his main conclusions are unacceptable to us.
We are opposed in principle to PR being an obligatory system of election, whether at European or national level.
We cannot support the idea of some MEPs being elected in a single panEuropean constituency, something the report proposes from 2009.
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The British experience proves that single-member constituencies keep MEPs closer to the people than continental systems and encourage them to pay more attention to their constituents than to party bosses.
Large regions or, worse still, single national constituencies, are the enemy of effective representation.
We welcome the fact that the Gaullist RPR in France recently proposed that the single national constituency in that country should be replaced by eighty-seven individual constituencies on the British model.
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Whilst we dislike PR, it is important that, wherever PR is used, governments and parliaments choose the most open and voterfriendly version on offer.
Closed lists are anti-democratic and bad for the civic culture.
My German EPP Group colleague, Mr von Habsburg, has rightly condemned them as the instruments of a party state.
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We will be campaigning for open, rather than closed, lists to be the norm in future Euro-elections.
Mr Anastassopoulos' personal support for open lists is most welcome.
Today, as part of our campaign, we are publishing a paper by Professor Vernon Bogdanor of Oxford University, one of Britain's leading constitutional and electoral experts, setting out the case for open lists to promote voter choice in Europe.
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Today is also the start of voting within the British Labour Party on candidates for next June's European election.
In each existing Euro-constituency, Labour Party members will be able to participate in the nomination of two or three candidates to a central pool of over 200 aspirants.
At that point, the Labour leadership, through the NEC, will decide the order of candidates within each region.
Party members will be excluded from the key decisions on who gets elected.
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Whereas both other main parties in Britain - Conservatives and Liberal Democrats - have allowed their voluntary membership complete control over the order of each regional list, Labour's control-freak tendency is determined to impose identikit slates of Blairite clones from the centre.
The Labour leadership's response to PR confirms all our worst suspicions about how the system can be abused when party apparatchiks refuse to give up control and decide to shut the voters out.
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<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Novo Belenguer">
The electoral procedure for the election of Members of the European Parliament is essential, mainly for those Member States where there is a decentralized system of government, such as Spain which has 17 autonomous communities, the administrative organization of which is closer to the people.
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For that reason, I think the European elections should use the autonomous constituencies, since this method brings the Member closer to the people he represents, and makes him more accessible, thereby achieving one of our objectives: that the European Parliament be more sensitive to the needs and concerns of all European citizens.
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Furthermore, this type of constituency attempts to provide a practical outlet for the situation in the many Member States composed of different historical nationalities, such as Spain, which is shared not just by the Catalans and the Basques, but also by other historical nationalities such as the Valencian Community. That means it is a good idea to introduce autonomous constituencies for the election of Members.
In that sense, I support the Anastassopoulos report.
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<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="Ojala">
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Robles Piquer">
The Vice-President of Parliament and rapporteur of this report will forgive me if I call to mind a famous compatriot of his by the name of Plato, and state that I am a great friend of Mr Anastassopoulos but an even greater friend of Truth.
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And in my humble opinion, the truth is that each Member State should be sovereign to decide how to select or elect the Members who represent it in this Parliament.
As I see it, there is no sense in 10 Member States with a population of less than 10 million forcing the other five Member States to create constituencies which in practice will surely violate the principle that each and every Member represents all the country's voters.
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Furthermore, this system could produce unexpected results, to which we may perhaps not have given enough thought.
I shall give an example: with the current Spanish method, which treats the whole national territory as a single constituency, there are six Spanish Members from the Spanish Basque Country in this legislature.
If the proportional system were applied to the territory and population of that region, it would only have two Members in a future Parliament elected by such a system.
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That would no doubt go against the interests of the Basque Country and against the wish to bring this Parliament closer to a region of Spain which deserves, and gets, special attention from this House, thanks partly to the work of its six current Members.
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What I have just said does not mean I do not admire the report by our colleague Georgios Anastassopoulos, which is good and worthy of admiration.
So I have voted in favour of the text.
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<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Souchet">
The Anastassopoulos report is the perfect illustration of the anti-national method and ideology which drive the current federalist majority in this Parliament.
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It is an own-initiative report founded on a legal basis which figures in a Treaty which has not been ratified by Member States and which is therefore not in force.
But this matters little, for the tactic is always the same: it is a question of creating a fait accompli, regardless of the law, in such a way as to be able to then use the European Parliament's proposals as a lever to put pressure on the Council and to put this latter on the defensive.
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The intended objective of the content is to break up national constituencies.
To achieve this, federalist ideology jointly uses its two favourite channels: the infra-national level and the supra-national level.
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Under pretext of bringing Members of the European Parliament closer to their electorate, the Anastassopoulos report proposes a maximum fragmentation of the electorate by doing away with both the notion of a single national constituency and the Members' status of national representatives elected in the different Member States.
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At the same time, the report recommends the establishment of transnational lists, which would have exactly the opposite effect to the previously stated objective.
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But it matters little that these proposals are often entirely contradictory: the objective is negative - it is a question of destroying the national framework - and not positive: bringing a Member closer to his electorate is no more than a false pretext.
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<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="Thors">
After today's vote it is clear that a proportional electoral system will apply to the whole of the Union in future.
At the same time the electoral proposal respects the principle of subsidiarity and avoids regulating electoral procedures in too much detail, for example, election expenses, voting age etcetera.
It was also important and in keeping with the principle of subsidiarity to establish that the setting of voting thresholds is voluntary.
As a part of creating more uniform conditions for the Members, it was important to establish that having any other parliamentary seat at the same time is incompatible with being a Member of the European Parliament.
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However, on three points I regret the resolution the majority of Members decided on.
Firstly, it was unfortunate that the majority of the House considered that constituencies should be compulsory in Member States with more than 20 million inhabitants.
If a country has fewer inhabitants, it does not have to be divided into constituencies, including Finland.
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Secondly, it was also unfortunate that the majority in Parliament - 349 against 173 - voted in favour of discussing a proposal that a certain proportion of the seats should be distributed within a single constituency which is common to all Member States.
Such a system could only serve to further confuse the electoral procedure.
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Thirdly, it was unfortunate that a majority could not be raised to clearly state that it should be possible to have protection mechanisms for minorities: 190 votes for and 287 against.
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In spite of the above flaws, I considered it important that the work on common provisions could now continue in the Council of Ministers and therefore voted for the report in the final vote.
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<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Verwaerde">
I would like to thank our colleague Georgios Anastassopoulos for the work he has carried out.
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Nevertheless, although I fully share in the ambition, a completely legitimate one, to bring European Members of Parliament closer to their citizens, I am not in agreement with the method advocated.
Resorting to a regionalised system of proportional representation is not the best solution.
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Indeed, only the method of voting for one Member, with a number of constituencies corresponding to the number of Members to be elected, enables this objective to be attained.
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In France, the failure of the Jospin government as regards its recent proposal for reform aimed at regionalising the method of voting in the European elections is largely linked to the discrepancy between the means and the objective.
It would have been desirable for this House to draw lessons from this national experience.
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Mr President, I voted in favour of a large number of amendments which would considerably improve the proposal, taking particular account of the principle of subsidiarity.
As they were not all adopted, I have voted against this text.
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Olsson report (A4-0200/98)
<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pinel">
Mr President, in order to achieve sustainable and lasting development, our society must take up a double challenge: to encourage individuals and businesses to pollute less and to correct the distortions in competition which penalize manufacturers who have invested in the fight against pollution, whilst generally applying the principle of "the polluter pays' .
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Admittedly, it is essential that the environmental dimension, as well as the social dimension, be integrated into fiscal instruments, but the Olsson report is based on the concept of an ecotax, that is, a supplementary tax to be added to an already excessive tax burden.
That can only have a harmful influence on the economy.
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However, what is actually needed is a tax system adapted to the demands of sustainable development.
But this means a real tax revolution, not greater taxation but different taxation, not so heavy but better calculated, encouraging employment rather than more unemployment, in favour of the environment and not the polluter, in favour of health and no longer the sickness of living.
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The Olsson report does not allow us to achieve these objectives.
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<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Mr President, the 20th century dawned with red taxes: taxes on income, inheritance and capital, both in Europe and the West.
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The 20th century must now come to a close with green taxes and we are presented with a new version of fiscal interventionism: taxes on CO2 and against pollution.
It is ineffective in principle and dangerous to the system.
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With regard to the principle, we have 40 French, European and Western tax doctrines.
Fiscal intervention has never been seen to work.
Africa tried it, in the field of economics, with dozens of investment schools.
It did not work!
To achieve justice, it did not work!
To achieve demographic revival, it did not work!
And nor will it work in respect of the environment, because of the system, because it will first of all be necessary to fix the price of, and take into account, different hypotheses, different pollution, different sources of pollution emissions.
This will bring about a new legislative complexity and a prescriptive pollution.
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It is economically dangerous because it will cause distortions between countries which will apply them and countries which will not.
It is the same as the story of the drift gillnets.
Tunisia and Japan do not apply them in the Mediterranean.
Finally, it is morally condemnable because it is not the principle of the polluter pays which is applied, it is the principle of the consumer pays, the principle of the innocent pays, just like the surcharges on meat to tackle pollution, to tackle mad-cow disease.
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And if the aim is to encourage employment, then let us have widespread tax reform, with a European ceiling for tax and social security deductions, and let us finally reflect on the stupidity of maintaining a tax on the creation of wealth, that is, a tax on income.
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<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Ahlqvist, Theorin and Wibe">
We think that environmental taxes and charges are good and help reduce pollution and the wrongful use of natural resources.
But this should be dealt with at the level of the Member States, not at EU level.
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<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="Grossetête">
I am happy with this initiative on the part of the European Commission which, for the first time, examines Member States' use of environmental charges and draws up an inventory of the possibilities and obligations linked to this.
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It is nevertheless disappointing that the Commission has not taken this inventory further.
Indeed, a critical and comparative study of the effectiveness and profitability, both environmental and economic, of these taxes would have been particularly interesting and useful.
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On many points, I do not share the opinion of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, which recommends the promotion of environmental charges without even demanding a prior cost/benefit analysis.
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Personally, I am not in favour of bringing in new taxes.
On the contrary, I advocate firstly the use of tax incentives, whose effect is always more positive, and secondly, the need to make polluting companies responsible for their actions.
Taxes are never the ideal solution, on the contrary!
The principle of "the polluter pays' is a good one if it does not systematically end up by buying the right to pollute.
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For this fundamental reason, I voted against the proposed resolution.
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<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="Lis Jensen and Krarup">
Karl Erik Olsson's report highlights a number of significant environmental problems to which the EU single market and other forms of economic globalization have contributed.
At the same time, the Olsson report also refers to a number of environmental obligations that the respective participating countries entered into at the meetings in Rio and Kyoto.
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We fully support the view that various environmental taxes and charges may constitute one of many effective means of reducing pollution.
However, what makes the Olsson report unacceptable to us is, for example, that it recommends EU environmental taxes and charges and the harmonization of national economic policies at EU level.
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Empowering the EU in terms of taxes and charges is at odds with the promises we have made to our electorate.
We have promised to fight any action that would grant more powers at EU level to the detriment of national democracies.
At the same time, we wholeheartedly support all positive local, national, regional and international actions that may help reduce any kind of pollution.
However, we oppose the far-reaching proposal in the Olsson report that would spell sweeping EU harmonization of vital aspects of economic policy.
<P>
For these reasons, we are voting against the Olsson report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats support initiatives on environmental taxes and charges at EU level.
However, the revenues should go to the individual countries themselves, and the taxes and charges must not be funnelled into other areas.
We support the report in challenging the Commission to come up with common proposals that would at least promote the use of environmental taxes and charges.
<P>
Environmental taxes and charges in individual Member States could conflict with the rules of the single market and, therefore, environmental taxes and charges should be based on the need to solve environmental problems.
We are pleased to see the topic on the agenda of the presidency for this autumn, and it is our hope that this discussion will soon blossom into something tangible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="Lienemann">
I will vote in favour of Mr Olsson's report, for a tax system favouring the environment and based on the principle of "the polluter pays' enables the encouragement of industrial and consumption practices more in favour of supporting sustainable development.
<P>
Nevertheless, indirect taxes on consumption have the enormous inconvenience of not taking income into account and of not being based on the principle of progressive taxation, which is the fairest form of taxation.
<P>
Thus, the multiplication of these taxes, as is the case with VAT, increases social inequalities by penalizing the rich more heavily.
They can thus only be used when we are sure that the tax created truly brings about a change in behaviour and effectively reduces pollution.
<P>
It will be noted, for example, that in spite of significant and increasing taxation on petrol consumption in France, there has been no notable reduction in use.
<P>
In summary, my aim is to call on the European Parliament and the Commission to be mindful of the social consequences of environmental taxes or charges.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="Porto">
The unreserved or scarcely suppressed enthusiasm during the debate on environmental taxes cannot but cause us serious concern.
<P>
Although we acknowledge their merits, it has yet to be proved that they will have the intended effect of making it possible to replace labour taxes - even if they are effective from the environmental point of view, they will not produce much in the way of revenue - or that they will not have the effect of penalizing investment, particularly in a competitive world with open borders.
<P>
In addition, we are shocked at the complete absence of any reference to their retrogressive effects, in that they penalize the poor more than the rich; and the absence of any reference to the fact that the Union's greatest polluters are the richest countries: Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy alone are responsible for 71 % of CO2 emissions, whereas Portugal produces 1.4 %. This is thus an argument for different requirements and timings , or indeed the fact that an energy tax will be a particular burden on transport, and will thus affect the poorest, peripheral countries much more than the others.
<P>
Finally, it is also shocking that the report never says that the only clearly effective optimization policy which involves no retrogressive effects or economic distortions would be a policy of direct support for restructuring equipment.
Could this still be the case because the burden of such a policy would fall principally on the richest countries, which are trying to soothe their consciences and evade their responsibilities by insisting on environmental taxes?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="Souchet">
We must be careful to distinguish between two issues in the Olsson report: that of the harmonization of ecotaxes and that of a possible European tax system.
<P>
For the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, protection of the environment is unquestionably a priority area of common interest, where a high degree of harmonization can and must be sought between the maximum number of Member States.
On the other hand, it is unacceptable that questions of pollution should be used as a pretext to enable the Community to have own resources at its disposal, circumventing any control on the part of Member States, which is what the Commission ceaselessly and untiringly strives for.
<P>
We have seen, with the mad cow affair and the drift gillnets, to what point the Commission is an expert at manipulating health and environmental issues, to which we are particularly sensitive.
So, we will not accept that, under the guise of ecotaxes, an attempt is in actual fact made to create a European tax.
We must seek to preserve the environment, the single market and the fiscal sovereignty of Member States.
<P>
With regard to VAT and excise duties, for example, administrative procedures have been put in place which respect the fiscal independence of Member States, whilst preserving the principle of the single market.
<P>
For ecotaxes, a certain number of Member States have established such taxes for packaging.
In Germany, for example, the dual system enables operators as a whole to participate in the ecotax, whatever the origin, be it a third country or another Member State.
The system of green points in France, with the establishment of Eco-packaging and Adelphe also enables easy intra-Community trade.
<P>
However, in Belgium, the ecotax system in place which obliges operators from another Member State to include the accreditation reference of each of their distributors, is a heavy system, which causes a certain level of protectionism.
<P>
The amendments tabled by our group aim to give the Commission the responsibility for harmonization of administrative procedures with regard to ecotaxes.
In fact, contrary to what has been done in Belgium, the administrative system for the collection of taxes must be simple, fair, effective and must not hinder intra-Community trade.
If the Commission remains set on its current position, hindrances will be such that some will wish for the creation of a European tax, which is absolutely unacceptable.
<P>
Indeed, the European Union budget must remain a budget exclusively financed by Member States and by customs duties on products imported from third countries.
The creation of a European tax would be one more step towards the creation of a European super-state, which is something our people do not want.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="Theonas">
The issue of the imposition of so-called environmental levies and charges, otherwise known as ecotaxes, is not new and has been in abeyance in the Community organs for years.
Now, however, the issue raises its head again with greater intensity, with a series of proposals such as, notably, the proposal for a directive to levy a CO2 energy tax and increased VAT on energy, the proposal for the taxation of energy products, and the Green Paper on pricing in transport, in the context of a more general attempt to broaden the European Union's powers of taxation.
<P>
We believe that the environmental element must constitute a fundamental parameter of all policies and activities, that sustainable and far-reaching development must go hand in hand with the protection of the environment, that environmental policy must be based on prevention, on the imputation of responsibilities to those who are involved in its destruction, and on the taking of measures to repair the damage caused.
<P>
Moreover, a fundamental role is to be played by the completion and enforcement of the existing legal framework at both a national and an international level, and by the taking of coordinated action for the implementation of declarations that are made from time to time, such as the measures announced at Rio and Kyoto, which are being flagrantly ignored for the sake of increased super profits for big business.
<P>
The proposal for environmental levies does not even guarantee that revenues will be used to finance environmental protection actions, to promote activities relating to sustainable production models, and to boost the use and production of environmentally friendly technologies.
<P>
The environmental sector could bring about the creation of new jobs and thereby contribute to increased employment.
However, a guarantee must be given that, whatever measures are taken to protect the environment, they will not lead to new indirect subsidies for employers, as there is a serious risk that resources will be misused or held back and not paid out. (This was demonstrated by the respective problems relating to the payment of VAT or, as in Greece and other countries, the nonpayment of social security contributions.)
Moreover, any financing of actions to protect the environment may lead to unfair subsidies for big business, without there being any guarantee that they will have a positive impact on the creation of steady full-time jobs, as demonstrated by the current unreliability of environmental studies which must accompany large-scale works.
<P>
We disagree with any attempt to link environmental levies with the logic of the White Paper on increasing competitiveness by reducing labour costs and, consequently, employers' social security contributions.
This would lead to the further shrinking of the State social security system and to the support of private insurance.
The reason for this is that the institution of such levies, if linked with the reduction in employers' contributions, will lead to reduced revenues for social security organizations.
Moreover, the current reality shows that a reduction in employers' contributions does not lead to an appreciable increase in employment, but rather to an increase in profits.
<P>
We are especially concerned by the fact that the range of products susceptible to taxation is expanding dangerously, covering a variety of essential goods and goods of wide consumption such as water, transport, construction, chemical pesticides and fertilizers.
We fear that the ulterior purpose is to create an additional generalized tax burden aimed at increasing tax revenues.
<P>
For these reasons we cannot vote for the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="President">
This brings the explanations of vote, and the agenda for the morning, to a close.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 1.20 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
EMI annual report
<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0263/98) by Mr Fourçans, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the European Monetary Institute's annual report (1997)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="Duisenberg">
Mr President, it gives me great pleasure to be able to present the 1997 annual report of the European Monetary Institute to the European Parliament.
It is an irony of history that the last time I appeared before this Parliament it was to present the annual report of an institution in liquidation, namely the annual report of the Committee of Governors of the European Central Bank.
This time I am here to present the report of an institution which is now about to be liquidated - the European Monetary Institute.
<P>
Preparatory work for Stage Three proceeded as planned in 1997.
Since the start of 1994 the EMI, in close collaboration with the national central banks of the European Union, has undertaken the necessary technical preparations to establish the European System of Central Banks, conduct the single monetary policy and create the single currency.
These tasks will be completed by its successor, the ECB.
<P>
The EMI published a report on monetary policy strategy in February 1997 identifying two potential strategies for Stage Three: intermediate monetary targeting and direct inflation targeting.
However, the report also stressed that, irrespective of the final decision, the objective of price stability needed to be clearly defined and specific targets used to measure the performance of the ESCB.
It also maintained that the risk to price stability had to be assessed according to a broad range of indicator variables, with particular reference to monetary aggregates.
<P>
The theoretical preparations relating to monetary policy instruments and procedures were concluded at the end of 1996.
The 'framework report' published in January 1997 set out the single monetary policy in Stage Three and the operational framework.
<P>
In the area of foreign exchange policy, the European Council meeting in Amsterdam in June last year approved a resolution relating to the new exchange rate mechanism to be introduced in Stage 3, ERM2.
The EMI finalised a draft agreement between the ECB and future non-euro area NCBs setting out the operating procedure to be submitted to the ECB for endorsement.
It continued work on the technical infrastructure to enable the system to operate from 1 January 1999.
<P>
Implementation work was conducted to enable the ECB to carry out foreign exchange intervention focusing on the operational framework and information system support.
Work has also been undertaken with a view to transferring foreign reserve assets to the ECB at the start of Stage Three.
<P>
As regards statistical preparations, work has focused on implementing and clarifying the wide-ranging statistical requirements for Stage Three.
For example, in 1997 the EMI published a provisional list - later revised - of constituent bodies of monetary and financial institutions.
It also published documents on money and banking and balance of payments statistics.
Work has likewise begun with Eurostat on quarterly financial accounts.
<P>
In the field of payment systems, in September 1997 the EMI issued a second progress report on TARGET, which is currently being tested and implemented to enable it to be fully operational by late December.
Both static and dynamic testing and multilateral tests have been completed.
Simulation tests are now being conducted under conditions as close to the future live environment as possible.
<P>
Preparations for euro banknotes have continued.
In 1997 final designs were developed based on the draft designs chosen by the EMI Council in December 1996.
Illustrations of the revised designs were published in July 1997 and made into printing plates in the first half of 1998.
To enable euro banknote production to proceed smoothly prototypes were manufactured by eight different paper mills and ten different printing works in 1997.
This project revealed that all the participating printing works should be able to produce all the euro banknote denominations, achieving uniform standard of quality and appearance.
Mass production of euro banknotes will start early in 1999.
<P>
Finally, in 1997 the EMI was actively involved with other aspects of the changeover to the euro.
To cite just a few examples, the EMI met with representatives of European Union-wide banking and financial associations to discuss issues such as the replacement of contract prices that may become meaningless after the start of Stage Three and inter-bank rates.
<P>
After the EMI had urged banking associations and money and foreign exchange markets to agree on collective definitions of euro-area indicators, the banking federation of the European Union and the financial markets association, i.e. the professional association of foreign exchange market dealers announced their intention of calculating and publishing a euro area-wide indicator of inter-bank rates to be called EURIBOR.
<P>
The initial composition of the euro area from 1 January 1999 onwards was decided, as you know, in early May.
The annual report briefly described the main characteristics of the euro area, based on the available information.
<P>
I began today by recalling that the establishment of the ECB and the European System of Central Banks took place barely six weeks' ago, on 1 June 1998.
Since then, we have been busy carrying forward the preparations for Stage Three.
Both the General Council and the Governing Council have met - the Governing Council has already met twice.
In its meeting so far the European Central Bank has been concerned with many organisational issues, such as the allocation by the Executive Board of responsibilities amongst its members and the establishment of a new structure which suits the tasks of the ECB.
It has also already agreed on the Rules of Procedure of the ECB, which will be published shortly in the Official Journal of the European Communities, and it has approved the establishment of 11 ESCB committees to assist in the work of the ECB.
<P>
In terms of the preparatory work, at its first meeting the Governing Council agreed on the method to be applied for determining the NCBs' percentage shares in the key for the ECB's capital and the measures necessary for paying-up the ECB capital.
As a result, the European Central Bank was endowed with an initial capital of slightly under 4 billion euros at the start of July.
The Governing Council also agreed on the framework for the organisation of the overall testing of ESCB-wide systems and procedures, which will be conducted in the remaining six months before 1 January.
<P>
It also dealt with two specific issues relating to preparation for Stage Three: TARGET and euro banknotes.
On TARGET, a pricing policy was agreed.
The main element of that pricing policy is that a degressive tariff will be applied to payment transactions flowing through this system.
On banknotes, it has been agreed that the initial supply of banknotes for the euro area should be produced largely following a decentralised approach, that is each of the 11 participating national central banks will be able to organise the production of the euro banknotes needed to replace their national banknotes, either by producing the relevant banknotes themselves or by entering into bilateral pooling arrangements.
<P>
The second meeting of the Governing Council took place on Tuesday last week.
It decided on the introduction of a minimum reserve system.
Among the functions that such a system can usefully perform, the contribution that it can make to stabilising money market interest rates and increasing the demand for Central Bank money by creating or enlarging a structural liquidity shortage in the market was considered by the Council to be particularly important.
However, the Council also considered very carefully the implications of such a system for the banking sector.
With this in mind, it decided that the minimum reserve holdings would be remunerated at a level corresponding to the rate of its main refinancing operations.
The exact specification of the minimum reserve system, including the reserve ratio, which is currently defined within a range of 1.5 to 2.5 %, will be decided by November 1998 at the latest.
<P>
A decision was also taken on the size and the form of the initial transfer of foreign reserve assets to the ECB from participating national central banks.
Without going into the details, the transfer amounts to around 39.5 billion euros.
<P>
The conditions for the participation of non-euro area European Union central banks and credit institutions in the TARGET system were also decided, taking into account the risk to the conduct of monetary policy that giving unlimited access to intraday credit to credit institutions outside the euro area could bring.
Therefore, non-euro area European Union central banks will be able to provide collateralised intra-day credit in euros to their credit institutions but subject to a ceiling both at the level of the non-euro area European Union central banks and at that of non-euro area credit institutions.
<P>
Finally, the Governing Council has adopted a number of ECB recommendations for European Union Council regulations concerning the collection of statistical information by the ECB, the application of minimum reserves and the powers of the ECB to impose sanctions.
<P>
I would like to draw your attention, Mr President, to the recommendation on statistics.
This is of particular importance to the ECB because it will need to base its decisions on euro-area-wide statistics, particularly, in this context, monetary and balanceof-payments statistics, which will be provided under this framework legislation.
An ECB regulation specifying in detail the actual reporting population and the statistical information which reporting institutions will be required to provide, cannot be issued until the Council regulation is enacted.
These requirements have already been discussed over a considerable period of time, but a legal instrument will provide the necessary certainty for those who must meet them.
There will be an opportunity for the Ecofin Council to adopt the relevant text at its meeting in October, and this means that we would much appreciate it if the European Parliament could deliver an opinion as required in the course of September.
<P>
To conclude, in my view, the thorough technical preparation carried out by the EMI during 1997 and in earlier years enables us to look forward with confidence to the introduction of the single currency at the beginning of next year.
This preparatory work is now being brought to completion by the ECB and the ESCB.
However, the solid foundations which have been laid by the EMI should help the ECB and the European System of Central Banks to develop into a credible and powerful institution which will pursue its primary objective of maintaining price stability in the euro area in a determined manner. This, in turn, will provide the conditions necessary for sustained economic growth.
The improvement in the economic situation in the European Union, seen last year and expected to continue in 1998, may be considered to provide a very satisfactory starting-point for monetary union.
However, Member States' fiscal policies now need to be geared towards achieving the medium-term requirements of the Stability and Growth Pact as soon as possible.
The bench-mark for fiscal policies is clearly to achieve a budget which is in balance or in surplus and a surplus, I might add, is needed especially for those countries that continue to have high debt to GDP ratios.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="Fourçans">
To begin with, Mr Duisenberg, I would like to tell you how much we appreciate your being here to update us on the establishment of the European Central Bank's future monetary policy.
<P>
I believe I reflect the majority of this House when I state that you have filled your role as President of the EMI competently, efficiently and in a spirit of dialogue, as did your predecessor, Mr Lamfalussy.
I think that this augurs well for the relationship of trust which will exist between the European Parliament and the ECB, of course within respect for the independence of the Bank, an independence which we are all in favour of, please be assured.
<P>
To come to the EMI report, which serves as the basis for our discussions today, I will first of all say that it constitutes an excellent source of information on the state of convergence of the different Member States and no less an excellent synthesis of the institutional and technical characteristics relating to the establishment of the future monetary policy of the euro area.
<P>
But we must confess, Mr President, that this report does not contain the innovations that we had become used to in previous reports, which leads to a certain amount of frustration on reading it.
I would thus like to attempt to reduce these frustrations by asking you a number of questions.
<P>
With regard to the economic situation of the Union, as Parliament's rapporteur, I would like to congratulate, as indeed you do in the report, the progress which has been achieved by the vast majority of Member States with regard to economic convergence in general, and the reduction of budget deficits in particular.
In spite of the improvement in the economic situation I, like you, remain somewhat sceptical with regard to the low level of investment and the still unacceptably high level of unemployment in many Member States.
This is why there is a need to continue with strict budgetary policies, controls over public expenditure, reductions in labour costs, especially for the less qualified, and the equally pressing need for structural reforms, especially of the labour market.
<P>
All these measures are essential if we wish to ensure lasting growth, with a high and sustainable level of employment.
I think there is wide agreement on these points.
Nevertheless, it is to be regretted that the report remains so quiet on the necessary coordination of the budgetary and fiscal policies of the euro area countries, a coordination which will prove to be vital within the framework of the single monetary policy.
In the light of the importance of this issue, we would have liked the EMI to tackle this subject, and analyse it thoroughly, .
<P>
With regard to Stage Three of the Maastricht Treaty, it is clear that the EMI has carried out serious preparatory work on monetary policy. However, although the seriousness of this work is undeniable, Mr President, I have to say that we are disappointed with regard to the overall choices of this policy.
Unclear and shady areas remain, even though you have clarified them a little in your opening speech.
I hope that they will be rapidly cleared up for, after all, the new policy will become a reality in less than six months.
<P>
Mr President, when are you going to unveil to us the broad principles of the future monetary policy of the euro area? When are you going to explain your monetary strategy, in other words, the intermediate and long-term objectives of this policy?
In your speech just now you spoke to us of two potential strategies, but when are you going to decide on the final choice of strategy?
We know that, according to the Treaty, the main objective must be price stability but we also know that, still according to the Treaty, the Central Bank must support the overall economic policies of the Community. Within this framework, using what indicators will price stability be defined?
Will it be zero rate inflation or will it be a bracket of inflation rates? If it is to be the latter, what will the range be and over what period will it be calculated?
Will you also choose a monetary aggregate as a long-term target of monetary policy? If so, which aggregate will it be?
Will you aim for a wide or a narrow definition of the money supply? Will you introduce a specific figure for the growth objective of this aggregate, a range of growth rates?
And over what period will this be?
Or will it be a question - as is the current case with some central banks - of an average over an unstated period of time?
<P>
With regard to intermediate targets, depending on the long-term objective decided upon, will this be the money supply, the interest rate, bank credit or a combination of these variables?
Mr President, when are you going to give an opinion on these issues which, as you know, are of extreme importance both for the monetary control of the ECB and for the markets, as well as for the economic policies of Member States and for economic operators as a whole?
And, if I may add, this is important to enable our Parliament to correctly exercise its democratic responsibility in the area of monetary policy.
<P>
Another area which remains vague is the link between the ECB and the national central banks with regard to the implementation of monetary policy.
Could you specify these links, in particular in respect of open market operations?
<P>
There are also two elements of monetary strategy which I would like to emphasize, if you will give me one minute more, Mr President.
Firstly, it is vital that the euro's monetary policy is conducted according to the general conditions in the area and not according to particular conditions in one or other Member State; some countries seem to forget this. And secondly, in order to establish its credibility, the ECB must not bring about increases in interest rates unless they are justified by the basic economic conditions of the area.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, President Duisenberg, these are the major outlines which seem essential to us.
You began to reply to some of these questions in your speech.
Personally, I hope that you expand on this a little later today and, in conclusion, I would like to acknowledge once more the excellent work achieved by the EMI and its management team during the short but intense years of its existence.
And now, may I wish a long and happy life to the European Central Bank!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Mr President, Mr President of the European Central Bank, before the start of the second stage, this European Parliament had already assumed responsibility for organizing a monetary dialogue with the European Monetary Institute, and at the same time it stressed that this must be developed further in the third stage of monetary union with the beginning of the age of the euro.
<P>
We in the European Parliament have been able to see the commitment of this European institution, the European Monetary Institute, at a time in which there was great doubt as to whether monetary union could actually begin on time.
Therefore, the European Monetary Institute, its President and its employees should be thanked for their work which has always been characterized by hope and by the European Community spirit, because we all know that if a matter is not tackled jointly, it cannot be completed.
In this respect, Mr President, I wish you all the best for your work in the European Central Bank, which will be so important to our daily lives.
<P>
In this respect, I would also like to thank the rapporteur, whose position is supported by the PSE group, for his comments on the report by the European Monetary Institute.
Even if this no longer survives, many recommendations by this institute are still of particular importance for the European Central Bank.
I would like to emphasize one point at the beginning of this debate: when the common monetary policy is introduced on 1 January 1999, not only the markets, but also the people, must be convinced of the value of this institution's work, of the credibility of its decisions, in the interests of price stability and also in the interests of the independence of this European monetary authority.
<P>
At the same time, however, it must be possible to develop an information and communications strategy that meets the need of the people who are entering this age of the euro with uncertainty, fear and scepticism.
For that reason, this European Parliament's question concerns what is being done or what should be done beyond the monetary dialogue with this Parliament on the basis of the quarterly report and on the basis of the annual report from the European Central Bank, in order to give concrete shape to democratic accountability and the establishment of European openness for its decisions.
<P>
This raises the very specific question of what a rejection of the publication of records really means.
Is it really not possible for the European Central Bank to publish its monetary decisions, as this European Parliament has repeatedly requested, and at the same time to publish the reasons for a monetary decision on the day of that decision?
We in the European Parliament are not concerned in the least about who puts forward what point of view or who votes which way in the European Central Bank.
We are simply concerned that the public, that we all understand what the background is to these monetary policy decisions, that not only affects price stability but actually helps to determine investments, growth and employment.
<P>
To this is added the fact that this monetary dialogue is not only in the interests of the democratic system, but at the same time is in the interests of the European Central Bank, which can only gain credibility.
For this reason, I also think that it is very important to discuss strategies of monetary policy.
Money supply and inflation targets are in competition, as the rapporteur indicated.
We in the European Parliament considered a double and mixed strategy at a very early stage and are of the opinion that money supply and inflation targets must be linked because we want to avoid any risk, especially in the age of electronic money.
<P>
I must repeat that the more indicators that have to be assessed by the European Central Bank, the simpler it will be to control the development of money supply and thus also inflation, one of the major tasks of the European Central Bank.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herman">
Mr President, I hope that the next time you come before this Parliament, unlike the two previous occasions, it will not be to give a report of an organization about to be liquidated.
<P>
I would like to share with you three concerns, and put to you two questions.
My first concern relates to the external representation of monetary union.
The situation of close interdependence of the financial markets nowadays makes cooperation on the part of the major monetary authorities - of which you are one - more necessary than ever; we recently noted during the Asian crisis, that you were not to be seen, at least, you were not in the front row of those discussing these problems.
I would like you to explain to us what the problem is with regard to your external representation.
<P>
My second concern relates to the coordination of economic policies: the process provided for in the Treaty does not seem to give particularly spectacular results. I am, above all, concerned about continuing efforts with regard to the consolidation of budgetary stabilization.
We have a number of concerns with regard to this matter, as does the Commission, I believe.
It seems that many countries, having achieved the required performance in terms of respecting the convergence criteria have now let themselves go a little and there is a natural tendency to relax efforts which must, however, be continued.
<P>
The third worry concerns the impact of the Asian crisis in conjunction with the Russian crisis, not so much on an economic level - we have been given more or less reassuring statistics in this respect -, but concerning the direct commitment of the European and international banking system in the affected countries.
It appears that the chances of repayment on the part of Russia, in particular, are slim and we know it they must this year repay more than 30 billion dollars, of which it has not one cent.
<P>
I have exhausted my speaking time, but with regard to the establishment of the Central Bank, I would nevertheless like to ask what level of autonomy of action you leave to the Governing Council, for this is an important point.
You have a good team; we know it is united.
This was made clear at the time of the hearings.
How will the Bank establish it and what truth can we give to the rumours which are circulating regarding difficulties relating to the printing of bank notes?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gasòliba i Böhm">
Mr President, this is a moment of transition.
Formally, we are dealing with the EMI report for last year. The president of that institution has become the first president of the European Central Bank.
Obviously, as stated by the previous speakers, starting with the rapporteur, Mr Fourçans, whose report we support, this has been useful for a first exchange of views on the first steps of the European Central Bank, which has been undergoing a process of consolidation since 1 June this year.
<P>
I would like to repeat a few points which have been mentioned which I think would benefit from clarification.
Yesterday, in this same Hemicycle, we approved Mrs Berès' report which deals with the composition of the Economic and Financial Committee. We expressed our dissatisfaction at the way the composition of that committee has been hijacked by representatives of the Member States' central banks and high ranking officials answering to the finance ministers.
They have excluded a wide range of experts in fiscal and budgetary matters, and analysts specializing in the international situation. In fact, it prevents there being a genuine Community dimension.
That lack of a Community dimension can also be seen in, for example, the presence of the European Central Bank itself and the representation of monetary union in the international fora and international bodies relating to monetary matters, from the International Monetary Fund to the groups composed of representatives of the large industrialized economies.
I am also referring, as Mr Herman said, to the question of relations with Ecofin, the Euro 11 and the role these institutions play in their relations with the European Central Bank.
We are deeply concerned about these issues, and we think that between now and the beginning of 1999 they should be resolved as best they can.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="Gallagher">
Mr President, Commissioner and President of the European Central Bank, at the outset I should like to take this opportunity to congratulate the President of the Central Bank on his appointment and wish him well during his term of office.
<P>
This annual report does not provide an adequate point of reference or explanation as to the type of policy to be managed.
In the future the European Central Bank must include important elements, such as more detailed analysis of developments on world financial markets and possible areas where discussions can take place on coordinating fiscal policies.
The summary with regard to the countries of central and eastern Europe is far too brief from the point of view of future enlargement.
If we look at the European situation as a whole, the fight against unemployment must remain a top priority and of course one way of tackling the problem is through increased product investment.
<P>
It is also useful to recall that the monetary policy of the euro zone is inseparable from the introduction of a Union economic policy based on coordination of the economic policies of the Member States.
The European Central Bank will play a key role in creating an economic atmosphere conducive to investment and will therefore play an important role in job creation.
<P>
While the emphasis since 1994 has been on preparing the management framework for the European Central Bank, decisions still have to be made.
The most important concerns the instruments for monetary policy.
Above all an intermediate monetary policy objective must be defined.
It follows that the Central Bank, given a precise objective, must examine a whole range of criteria in order to take decisions.
The European Central Bank Council must disclose its strategy on this matter in September.
<P>
Could I ask the President of the Central Bank what steps are to be taken to ensure that the visually impaired will not be disadvantaged when the new notes come into circulation?
In conclusion I would like to say to the President of the Central Bank how much we appreciate his offer to appear regularly before Parliament's subcommittee.
I can assure him that we will be acting as the euro watch-dog.
We will be looking to him to safeguard the interests of the smaller Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Mr President, these reports by the European Monetary Institute and Mr Fourçans point in the same direction: they are to be identified with those who proclaim the obsessive principle of price stability, and aim for a uniform fiscal and budgetary policy and a centralized economic policy.
These are just two more reports that ignore technical difficulties, disregard uncertainties over democratic control of policy, give priority to theory and convince and want to convince us that everything is fine with the real economy.
<P>
This is Mr Duisenberg's last report before he moves from the European Monetary Institute to the European Central Bank.
And he has taken up and emphasized the preoccupations he had while he was there in his new and continuing duties: the same strategy requires us to go faster and faster along the same road to price stability to the point of deflation, the reduction of budget deficits to the point of surplus.
With his advice and warnings he comes close to threatening Member States, not even allowing them to celebrate their pleasure at being among the Eleven.
If, in common with this Parliament, Mr Duisenberg is worried, like the breathless White Rabbit in 'Alice in Euro-Wonderland' , we are worried because he is worried.
And we want to say so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, Mr President of the European Central Bank, the demise of the old, the EMI, is the birth of the new, the European Central Bank. For this reason, we here are discussing the policy of the European Central Bank.
I assume that Mr Duisenberg will deny press reports that his salary is being treated as a State secret.
I further assume that we will have a great many more discussions about which monetary policy is really suited to guaranteeing the necessary future investments in Europe and the development of employment that we urgently need.
We must also discuss the acceptable margins of inflation, the problem of deflation, the lack of investment and the problem of the asynchronous course of economic activity that exists not just regionally, but now also socially. Will we in a couple of years have to republish "A Tale of Two Cities' , in which the Third World expands throughout Europe?
Monetary policy must play its part here too.
<P>
Secondly, the complex matter that we will discuss is the question of the democratic integration of the European Central Bank and the ESCB.
I just want to help the ECB on its way with this advice: the institutional nirvana is not a safe place.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Lassus Saint Geniès">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we must recognize that the European Monetary Institute's final annual report represents an efficient and substantial piece of work.
However, I have to note, as the speakers before me have noted, that on certain points that I consider to be fundamental, this report restricts itself to generalities.
<P>
Why express these reserves?
Because whilst its mission was to herald the third stage of Economic and Monetary Union, the Institute also had the mission of reflecting, not only on the establishment of the forthcoming common monetary policy but also of shedding light on three basic considerations for the good performance of this monetary policy.
<P>
Firstly, what are the conditions for good coordination between the monetary policy which will from now on be conducted by the European Central Bank, under Parliament's supervision, and the economic policies of the different Member States?
Secondly, what are the conditions for the best possible coordination, both budgetary and fiscal?
Similarly, what analysis has the Institute been able to make with regard to the interdependence of the financial crises shaking Asia and Russia? What analysis has it made of the necessary or desirable speed of globalization?
Thirdly, what is the impact of the principles of longterm growth, prosperity and employment on the monetary projections which have been put forward?
<P>
The Institute's report remains far too general and imprecise on these three points.
The Group of the European Radical Alliance thus shares the critical opinion of Mr Fourçans and will vote in favour of his report.
It is to be hoped that the European Central Bank will support you over the coming months, President Duisenberg, and will be able to learn the lessons of these imperfections which we regret today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Garosci">
Mr President, on 30 June we celebrated the baptism, or shall I say the official creation of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, the common house for the single currency.
Indeed, the euro's arrival modifies the existence of the European Monetary Institute whose annual report we are examining today.
This document reviews the state of preparation of the European monetary institutions on the eve of the euro's introduction and in so doing outlines the monetary policy of the European Central Bank.
<P>
The new bank will be a success early on if, in addition to fulfilling the new functions for which it has been created, it correctly carries out the tasks the EMI were entrusted with.
That is why we commend the official President in his dual function, Mr Duisenberg.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has already expressed its satisfaction with the very informative document.
We therefore thank the rapporteur for taking the time to recall the rights and duties of the newborn monetary institution - which is why we used the word baptism - commenting and analysing the rights and duties of the dying monetary institution, which does not, however, require a funeral.
In the same vein, there is no need to talk about funerals for the national central banks either; their role is still too important for the monetary construction of the euro, and this is demonstrated by the 60 000 people they employ in the Member States in comparison with the 281 people working in the EMI.
However, in the future and in the medium term, the ECB will have to fully assume all the functions provided for in the Treaties.
The final objectives expressed in figures, such as the inflation rate and money supply, will constitute factors of stability and growth and will also show European citizens that if today we are working so intensely on the single currency, it is in order to better achieve the other Community objectives sooner, beginning with employment.
<P>
A final word: let there be no mistake that the European Parliament is the only Community institution directly elected by the citizens to which the EMI had to be accountable; this obligation will also apply to the ECB.
The European Parliament will do all it can to collaborate, but it will be unremitting in its control of the activity and functions that yesterday were the EMI's and that today are those of the European Central Bank.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Mr President, André Fourçans' excellent report enables us to give a final opinion on the European Monetary Institute and to acknowledge the excellent work carried out by this body and by its two successive presidents, Mr Alexandre Lamfalussy and Mr Wim Duisenberg.
It also enables us, through the pen of the rapporteur, to recall a number of principles which have governed the introduction of the single currency and which must direct the actions of Europeans over the coming years.
<P>
The first of these principles is that the European System of Central Banks must enable the single currency to move in the direction of complementarity between a single monetary policy and economic policies. They will of course be coordinated but the strategy remains to be defined at national level.
<P>
Although the key words are price stability and control of inflation, and although the objectives are long-term growth and prosperity, it is clear that the fact that the EMI's report has refused to tackle the general problem of the coordination of budgetary and fiscal policies within the Union must be deplored, in line with the rapporteur's comments.
<P>
With the euro and the European Central Bank, we must have the means for rigorous supervision of these policies, which are essential for the much-needed stabilization of public finances.
Indeed, we cannot want to reform the gigantic redistribution tool of the common agricultural policy, set ambitious objectives with regard to enlargement and commit ourselves to holding two mandates through Agenda 2000 if we are not at the same time preparing to put in place technical instruments which protect against both what has been called possible asymmetric shocks and also a slow drift towards laxity. These would gnaw away at the refound fruits of growth to the sole benefit of category-specific and selfish interests, disregarding the common good.
<P>
The French government's capitulation a few weeks ago at the height of the Air France pilots' strike is a perfect example of what should not be done.
The ECU 200 million lost by the airline during the conflict is a great deal of money which will burden the French taxpayer's purse and, consequently, will prevent a reduction in the national budget deficit.
It is time that national leaders became aware that this is no longer the time for unruly children to be given everything they want and that a serious reform of the labour market is needed, as the rapporteur states, in order to achieve a significant reduction in unemployment.
Naturally, our group will support Mr Fourçans' report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, each time we debate in Parliament economic policy and the economic situation in the European Union, words of self-satisfaction of those who have shaped economic policy are saved for the achievements of the economic policy that the European Union is following.
Much the same is happening now.
But how satisfied can we feel with the level of unemployment in the European Union and the level of investment, which is inadequate to fundamentally combat unemployment?
<P>
I would like to ask the President of the European Central Bank the following questions.
<P>
Firstly, does he think that, with the rigorous implementation of the Stability Pact, which he requested in his speech, it is possible to combat unemployment with the tremendous financial restrictions it imposes?
<P>
Secondly, is it possible for us to go ahead with a policy to support the single currency in the context of a fiscal policy like the one that is currently in force?
<P>
I would like Mr Duisenberg to answer these questions to see whether the people of Europe can feel satisfied with this situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="Harrison">
Mr President, in welcoming Mr Duisenberg here today, I also congratulate Mr Fourçans for his commentary on the EMI's final and historic report.
His assertion that the parliamentary dialogue with the ECB must not be confined to monetary policy is persuasively argued.
To quote Mr Fourçans: ' The success of the euro must be economic as well as monetary.
It is by that yardstick that European citizens will judge the new currency' .
Less congenial are the rapporteur's comments on the supposed necessity of wage moderation and the slashing of public expenditure to meet the stability pact targets.
I thought we were all in agreement that wage rises justified by productivity gains should be deemed normal and acceptable.
<P>
Mr President, let me now turn directly to Mr Duisenberg and ask him to clarify his position on the choice of monetary policy strategy and instruments to maintain price stability.
The 1997 EMI report fails to reflect the interesting and enlightening exchanges Parliament had with the other ECB candidates on 7 and 8 May about the choice of direct inflation targets, with margin or monetary supply objectives - or a combination of both - as a preferred measure of price stability.
Indeed, the President's then indicative bracket of 0 % to 2 % as a reasonable inflation target seems to have been replaced by a yearning and a yen for monetary supply targets, if recent reports and pronouncements from Mr Duisenberg are to be believed.
Could he make plain his predilections in this area, especially as yesterday's FT report on the uncertainty of monetary aggregate statistics cast doubt on whether we need to worry about their sharp growth?
<P>
Finally, does Mr Duisenberg believe that it was a wise decision to have the euro banknotes printed by the eleven separate Member States?
Is this not an expensive method which also has security implications?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Christodoulou">
Mr President, this report in some way constitutes an account of the activity of the EMI in relation to the completion of its mission.
It necessarily remains, therefore, at the level of general frameworks, since many of the relevant issues have been the subject of separate, more specialized reports.
<P>
Nevertheless, it is very useful and, in the simple yet methodical way which always distinguishes the EMI, not only does it give a great deal of useful information but it also highlights certain points and contains advice on how to address the economic problems faced by the European Union and on the effective operation of EMU.
<P>
It must be said that it is a laudable report, despite the fact that many would have expected it to go into greater detail and analysis and, possibly, would have wished for a more concrete approach.
But the nature of the EMI prescribes this form of report and, as our colleague, Mr Fourçans, quite rightly mentioned in his excellent report, this is the way in which it must be approached.
<P>
As a result, our congratulations must go to Mr Duisenberg on the work he has done so far and on the work he will do in the future. Congratulations must also go to Mr Lamfalussy on establishing the EMI and on its subsequent operation.
I recall the first annual report, for which I was the rapporteur, and which stated that we should in some way look carefully at structural issues.
<P>
I fear that now we are going through a crisis of excessive confidence because the euro was established much more easily than we expected.
We may, therefore, have forgotten that many of the structural problems still exist.
The financial problems have been ironed out to a great extent because of increased economic activity in the European Union.
Inflation has been brought under control to a very large extent thanks to a proper monetary policy, and also due to the fact that there have been a lot of boosting factors from outside the European Union.
Let us not get carried away by the fact that the euro has become established. From now on, we must have a policy that is not a continuation of the policy that has been followed so far, in other words, a policy to combat the structural causes of unemployment and the other problems apparent in the European Union.
<P>
I hope that efforts will now be made to solve the problem of ERM II for those states that are outside the system of Economic and Monetary Union, so that, finally, EMU can be a unifying factor, as had been planned, and so that it can fulfil its objective and contribute to the progress of all the Member States of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, the main principle of the European Central bank is neo-liberalist ideology.
In its name, Europe has seen it lead to both deflation and inflation at the same time: deflation in the labour market, and inflation in the capital market.
The labour market has deflated to an average mass unemployment rate of over 20 %, while the capital market has inflated to a 40 to 50 % rise on the stock market.
Stock market prices have risen mainly in Italy, France and Finland.
These countries have both Europe's worst unemployment rates and left-wing led governments in power.
It is spectacular proof of a lack of political alternative and satisfying the multifarious needs of profiteers.
<P>
Mr Duisenberg, you simultaneously manufacture deflation, or mass unemployment, and inflation, or a bubble economy for the capital market.
The cost of labour and that of capital differ in just the right way to set off a recession in Europe of the type we have seen in Asia.
The European Central Bank will not have any money then to bale out the speculators.
<P>
Mr Duisenberg, I have said as much, though in greater detail, in my capacity as member of the administrative council of the central bank in my own country, to Sirkka Hämäläinen, one of the directors, so please ask her for more details on what I mean.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berès">
Mr President, I too would like to thank Mr Duisenberg for the quality of his work at the head of the European Monetary Institute.
The excellent mission he has accomplished leaves us with great hopes for the work he will accomplish at the head of the ECB, which we wish him much success in, and it is certainly a good guarantee of his concept of democratic responsibility.
In any case, from this point of view he can count on Parliament to be very demanding of him.
<P>
I would also like to thank Mr Fourçans for the quality of his work.
I too would like to ask you, Mr Duisenberg, about your concept of the role of the increase in public and private investment in relation to economic growth.
It emerges from the experience of many Member States that an increase in public and private spending can now contribute to economic growth - the only real way of creating jobs - far more than a strategy of strict reform of a labour market; nobody knows yet exactly to what extent that could be successful.
<P>
In this respect, Mr President, I also have a number of questions to put to you which move in the same direction as those of some of my colleagues.
What will be the orientation of the Central Bank's monetary policy?
You will most certainly remember the questions we put to you during your hearing in this Parliament.
As I do not believe these questions have yet been answered, it is appropriate to commence a dialogue, for example, on the definition of a true rate of inflation.
What is a stable rate?
Between 2 % and 0 %, there is a margin of vagueness, a margin of interpretation for which we are awaiting clarification.
Furthermore, we consider, as does the rapporteur, that in order to be in line with the objectives of the Treaty, especially Article 2 of the Treaty, a monetary policy cannot be in the service of only one of the Member States of the Union, but must take into account the overall objectives of the Union's economic policy for the whole of the area.
<P>
Mr President, I cannot resist the pleasure of making of use of your presence to put to you another question on a somewhat similar subject.
What do you think of the presence of 11 representatives from national central banks of the euro area on the Economic and Financial Committee? Do you not think that this is unnecessary given the two members that the European Central Bank will appoint to this committee?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Metten">
Mr President, I would like to ask Mr Duisenberg three questions, one of which links up with the last question from Mrs Berès.
Firstly, the budget figures of the various Member States show that the cyclically adjusted deficits are no longer falling, despite a favourable economic trend, and are even rising somewhat in certain Member States with high growth. I would like to hear the President of the European Central Bank's comments on this.
It seems to me that future developments might be threatened if the Member States are not capable of reducing deficits when the economic situation is favourable.
<P>
My second question concerns the external representation of the Community.
Informal discussions such as G7 Finance are of real importance.
Although representatives of three of the 11 euro Member States have always been included up to now, that is, by political representatives or representatives of their banks, no-one representing the European Commission, no-one representing the European Council, nor anyone representing the European Central Bank is included.
How can economic and monetary discussions at global level be effective when actual representatives of the Euro 11 are not included?
<P>
My last point, which links in with Mrs Berès', is that my own foreign secretary, now standing down, warned Europe against a Europe dominated by finance ministers.
You and I know that these finance ministers operate on the basis of the Monetary Committee.
The Monetary Committee will be succeeded by the Economic and Financial Committee, which comprises 15 national bankers, in addition to two European Central Bank representatives.
That makes 17 representatives of the European System of Central Banks.
Is that not a bit overdone ?
And could this not threaten policy coherence?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pérez Royo">
Mr President, I first want to say that I agree with Mr Fourçans' report, and also that I am pleased to see Mr Duisenberg in the European Parliament.
<P>
This is the moment to congratulate ourselves on the European Monetary Institute's contribution to achieving the objective of Economic and Monetary Union.
In fact, we can feel satisfied with the current scene in which Economic and Monetary Union is beginning.
The Europe of the 11 is in a phase of upward growth, with a level of price stability which we can consider practically absolute.
<P>
However, doubts arise due to some negative points in this scenario.
We refer to the Asian crisis, especially the deflationary crisis in Japan and the risk of bankruptcy in Russia.
But, above all, apart from these uncertainties, the European economy, having corrected its macroeconomic imbalances, continues to suffer from a fundamental imbalance: the difference between people who are looking for work and people who are working, the imbalance of unemployment.
In this situation, monetary union offers opportunities to consolidate growth, to increase the level of investment and to make progress in reducing unemployment, but on the condition that the Union is not limited to monetary aspects, but is also a Union which harbours a fiscal policy on a European scale which can face up to all these problems.
<P>
Therefore, Mr Duisenberg, permit me to say that I was interested to note that your first message to the outside world, to society, stated last week and again here today, constitutes a message of alarm about the rate of deficit reduction, adding that some countries have to be shown the yellow card.
<P>
From our point of view, it is certainly important to take advantage of the current growth phase to reduce budgetary deficits, in contrast to what was done in the second half of the 1980s, which was the last upward phase, although the similarity to that phase is not exact, since today there is much more price stability and much more homogeneity than at that time, when the average growth rate of prices was twice what it is now, and there were enormous differences between countries.
<P>
But above all, and more urgent than that, we think there should be a different message: the message about the Union's muchneeded economic dimension, about the progress which should be achieved along this path, in order to arrive at what Mr Fourçans' report says, which I conclude by quoting: "that the monetary policy of the euro area is indissociable from the introduction of a Union economic policy based on the coordination of the Member States' economic policies' .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="Duisenberg">
Mr President, I would like to thank honourable Members for the attention they have paid to the annual report and to many other issues still surrounding the fledgling ECB.
Some questions have been repeated or have overlapped and I will try to bunch them together as much as I can.
<P>
Firstly, as Mr Fourçans and others have indicated, there is a need to continue with strict budgetary policies.
I cannot say more than that.
I underline, in reply to questions posed by Mr Metten and finally by Mr Pérez Royo, that the current economic upswing would seem to provide every opportunity to proceed further with the process of convergence and, in particular, to steer government deficits in the direction of the targets set by the Stability and Growth Pact.
<P>
Yet, on current indications, at least in some countries, the tendency seems to be that the process may be stalling, to say the least.
That is why, as Mr Pérez Royo said, I last week held up a yellow card and warned some governments to heed the aims of the Stability and Growth Pact.
In that respect I want to emphasize to Mr Herman that we are in full accord with what the Commission is saying in public on this issue.
<P>
Many questioners have urged me to explain the monetary strategy, the instruments to be used, the question of stability of prices, its definition and the aggregates to be monitored.
Many, if not all, decisions taken by the European Monetary Institute over the past three years could, of necessity, be only recommendations to the ECB.
Ultimately the ECB had to take the decisions.
We are in the midst of that process now.
We are aware that many decisions are urgently required by the public, Parliament, market participants and the counterparts of the future European System of Central Banks.
<P>
That is also the reason why even in the first weeks of the existence of the ECB we came to certain decisions.
I refer to the decisions on TARGET and access to TARGET by the 'Outs' ; decisions on the minimum reserve requirement which were made public last week and which, I must emphasize, were the final decisions on the monetary instruments that would be used.
So, on monetary instruments the whole package is now complete.
There will be two standing facilities plus the minimum reserve requirements which will be used as the main three instruments for monetary policy.
There is no longer any uncertainty about that.
<P>
The monetary strategy analysis is available.
Basically, it says that the monetary strategy to be pursued boils down to the choice between direct inflation targeting or money supply targeting as an intermediate target.
In reply to another question, I hope the relevant decisions will be taken in September - and I am sure by October.
The final decisions on those strategies will be published at the latest in October.
It is possible that we could reach the decisions in September.
<P>
A question was asked about how to link the policies of the ECB to the policies of the NCBs.
That monetary policy has to be a euro area-wide policy is certainly true.
The linkage between policies of the ECB and the NCBs provides no problem.
Monetary policy will be decided by the Governing Council of the European System of Central Banks.
So, at a centralised level, the execution of the decisions to be taken will - not entirely, but to a very large extent - be left to the national central banks but under the close and watchful eye and guidance of the ECB.
There coordination seems to me to pose no problem at all.
It is certainly true that the monetary policy has to be a euro-area wide monetary policy.
I always say that regional monetary policy does not exist and that when there are regionally differentiated economic developments this places a heavier burden on other policy instruments like fiscal policy, wage policy and economic financial policies other than monetary policy.
<P>
Various questions were asked about democratic accountability and credibility.
My answer is 'Yes' , we need credibility; we need confidence.
And I say to Mr Donnelly and Mrs Randzio-Plath that we will not get that for nothing.
We will have to earn them and it may take some time.
But it will require as open and as transparently functioning s system of European Central Banks as is responsible and possible.
It means that, as far as we are concerned, there will be an intensive and open dialogue with the European Parliament.
There will be extensive publication of policies and of the considerations underlying policies and decisions.
<P>
In reply to a question by Mr Donnelly, I am sure he understands why we do not want to disclose the precise voting relations inside the Governing Council, for by now very well understood reasons.
But, on the other hand, whenever decisions - either strategic decisions or specific monetary policy decisions - are taken, they will be published and will have to be published as soon as possible after the decision has been taken; they will be accompanied by as extensive an explanation as possible.
Considerations underlying those decisions will be published.
We may even go so far as to give some insight into the pros and cons of the various considerations and an explanation of the ultimate decision taken.
At any rate it will be as extensive as possible.
In short, we are all set to publish and to be open.
<P>
Mr Metten, Mr Herman and others asked about the outside presentation of monetary union.
That is still very much a matter which is under consideration and negotiation.
It is a difficult matter.
We feel that the ECB has to be present at the IMF and the OECD.
The relationship with the European Commission, the G10 and the G7 - that is all in preparation and so far, so good.
In fact I have already been invited and have attended, for the first time, the monthly meetings of the governors of the G10 central banks and in future I will be there every month.
<P>
On the G7, I understand it is the intention to invite me there as well.
With the IMF, we are currently talking to find a form for an adequate representation of the European System of Central Banks at the IMF, which is complicated by the fact that membership of the IMF is restricted to countries, to sovereign governments.
No central bank is a member of the IMF, so we will have to find a way, and we will find a way, to ensure that this important monetary institution is nevertheless heard inside the IMF.
Work on that is making progress.
<P>
On representation in the Economic and Finance Committee: the Economic and Finance Committee is the successor to the present Monetary Committee - a monetary committee which consists of the representatives at the highest level of the 15 ministries of finance and representatives of 15 central banks.
In future the Economic and Finance Committee will, in addition to those representatives, also have two representatives from the ECB.
So, in that respect, we gain and do not lose by being present there.
At the moment we are present in the Monetary Committee as an observer with observer status.
In future we will be a full member of the Economic and Finance Committee and it has been agreed informally that when monetary matters are on the agenda and are being discussed in the Economic and Finance Committee, representatives of the national central banks will, to put it quite bluntly, keep their mouths shut and the representatives of the ECB will be the spokesmen for the common monetary policy as it will develop in the future.
<P>
On analysis of the impact on monetary union of the financial crisis in Asia and Russia, I beg forgiveness but we are not yet operational as a European Central Bank and, therefore, although we have watched and monitored closely the developments there and the impact it has on economic developments in Europe, we do not yet have the authority to do anything about it.
Let me add that so far it has been, to my mind at least, different from all other liquidity crises which have occurred in the past.
I am thinking of the first Mexican debt crisis, the second Latin American debt crisis and other liquidity crises in the past decades.
They always had the impact of creating tension and havoc inside the European exchange rate mechanism.
This time, the crisis has had no impact whatsoever: there has been no tension and no need for interventions inside Europe, which I feel is significant.
<P>
I note with satisfaction that the pre-announcement of the bilateral rates to be used for conversion by the end of this year has indeed been credible, as it was intended to be.
The markets believe it, as can be seen from the fact that the liquidity crises elsewhere in the world have had no impact whatsoever on the internal exchange rate relationships in Europe.
To date, Russia and Asia have had some, but - I am inclined to say - remarkably little impact on economic developments inside Europe.
<P>
I had a few questions on banknotes.
One obvious question is what is being done to cater for the visually impaired.
After we have completed extensive consultations with the European Association of Organisations of the Blind and People with Impaired Vision, a number of decisions will have to be taken specifically for their benefit.
<P>
First of all, the seven euro banknotes will be of different sizes.
That is the first way in which the blind can tell what they have in their hands.
<P>
Secondly, the numerals on the banknotes will be 'feelable' : they will be embossed.
The blind will be able to 'feel' what they have in their hands.
In addition, to help those who are not entirely blind, but visually impaired, it has been decided that the colours of the seven banknotes will be very different indeed and easily recognisable even for those who have only very partial sight.
<P>
Is my salary a State secret?
Some questions have been asked about that.
No, it is not a State secret.
I must confess that I do even exactly know what my salary is.
In general, although the figures are not references, the system is such that the salary of a member of the Executive Board of the ECB is about 10 % higher than the highest Director-General's salary at the European Commission.
The salary of the Vice-President is 20 % higher.
My salary as President is 40 % higher than the salary of an Executive Director.
That is the approximate salary structure.
In addition, contrary to what some in Europe seem to believe, we pay European tax on it, which makes my marginal tax rate - if you want to know the details - 45 %.
My average tax rate is about 33 %.
I cannot say anything more.
I am taxed like all other European officials.
<P>
As far as I can see, I have given exhaustive answers to all those questions.
<P>
Is it a wise decision to have the banknotes printed by ten printing works?
I think it was a wise decision to have it done that way.
It took account of factors like employment in the various countries, with all the existing printing facilities that they have.
If you were to ask me if it was the most efficient decision that could have been taken, then the answer would be 'no' .
To centralise printing would have been more efficient but it would not have been such a wise decision.
So it has been decided to print banknotes in accordance with the subsidiarity principle.
Every national central bank may decide when, where and how much will be produced.
As I indicated in my introductory statement, some central banks might voluntarily enter into pooling arrangements whereby each bank would take a share of the work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Marketing of fertilizers containing cadmium
<SPEAKER ID=145 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0254/98) by Mrs Hautala, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directive 76/116/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to fertilizers, as regards the marketing in Austria, Finland and Sweden of fertilizers containing cadmium (COM(98)0044 - C4-0109/98-98/0026(COD)).
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<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, the time has come to recall the promises the European Union made to its newest Member States, Austria, Finland and Sweden, when they joined the Union almost four years ago.
These countries were promised they could keep to their strict environmental standards for the duration of a transitional period that would be four years in length.
It expires at the end of this year.
During this time, the EU intended to do all it could to raise its own environmental standards to the same level the newest Member States enjoyed.
The idea was that the whole European Union area would acquire a high level of environmental protection.
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This report on cadmium might sound pretty trivial but it has very far-reaching political significance.
Actually, I am convinced that the citizens of Austria, Finland and Sweden will be watching very carefully to see whether the EU is actually capable of keeping to its promise of high standards for the protection of the environment and public health.
By the way, it was finally agreed today in the part-session that the right of Finland, Sweden and Austria to keep to its strict standards would be supported.
So, just what is the position today, when the termination of the transition period is just a few months away?
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One of the most important derogations was the cadmium content limit in fertilizers.
Cadmium is a notoriously poisonous heavy metal that disturbs microorganisms in the earth, making it difficult for plants to grow.
It builds up in animals, but it also accumulates in humans.
There is often a lot of cadmium in the raw material that is used to make phosphate fertilizers, especially if it comes from certain countries in Africa.
The European Commission has given economic support to phosphateproducing countries in Africa to develop a technology for industry to be able to remove cadmium from the raw material in phosphate fertilizers.
Now it is important that this research and development work be speeded up on both sides.
On the other hand, in some regions, the cadmium content of the raw material for phosphate fertilizers is not so great.
Such regions include, for example, Finland and the Kola Peninsula in Russia.
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My conclusion is that the Commission and the Member States have wasted these four years of transition time in dilly-dallying over the production of a risk assessment study which is needed to come to any conclusion on whether regulations should be introduced at Union level on the cadmium content of fertilizers.
In fact, there is reliable data coming from these newest Member States that limits for cadmium are very strongly justified from the point of view of health and the environment, though not enough information has been had from older Member States.
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As rapporteur of the Commission's proposal, I think that the Commission has definitely taken the right step.
It in fact proposes that a new transition period of three years be granted to Finland, Sweden and Austria, so the time for the EU level risk assessment study can be extended accordingly.
However, I am of the opinion that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has accepted the view that the Commission and the Member States should be rather more determined in their purpose.
A derogation being allowed to exist indefinitely in this way is out of the question, and environmental and health factors, on the one hand, and an unhampered single market, on the other, demand that there should be an agreement now that any possible or necessary amendments to legislation be approved during this new three-year term.
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<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, what the rapporteur has said is true, that the cadmium contained in phosphate fertilizers, a poison that destroys microorganisms, has been found in Finland, Sweden and Austria, to be harmful to humans and the environment.
The EU directive on fertilizers does not, however, stipulate limits for cadmium content, and that is the problem.
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We know, in a general sense, that the cadmium content of phosphate fertilizers is harmful.
Cadmium must in future be classified as a harmful substance, and its limit values must be specified precisely in a new directive.
Producer countries, especially Morocco, must renounce their apathy and commit themselves to developing methods of ridding phosphate fertilizers of cadmium.
That is in the interest of producer countries.
Community aid must continue to go particularly to producer countries in the African continent which are vitally important producers of the raw material for the EU internal market, and for whom the EU is the largest market in the world.
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Here in the EU we must press ahead and produce a risk assessment study on cadmium in fertilizers.
Our objectives are foodstuffs as free of impurities as possible in this allergy-troubled Union, and our principle should obviously be that our earth, our timber and our people should all remain toxin-free.
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<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when Austria, Sweden and Finland joined in 1995, the European Union committed itself to a more careful consideration of ecological aspects than before.
This is of enormous importance for the economic framework conditions, because only an even playing field permits equal competitive capability.
Thus, we agreed in general then that the more stringent Austrian environmental standards would provisionally continue to apply generally for four more years.
At the same time, a monitoring process was established at Union level.
The objective was to adapt environmental standards, if necessary, to the higher national standards.
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These agreements were and still are considered a great environmental policy success both for the new Member States and for the environmental situation in the European Union.
Since then, we have achieved the first success with the benzene content of petrol.
The limit value has been drastically reduced.
In the case of the sulphur content of heating oil, the Austrian limit values have likewise been retained and also the development in the cadmium limits in fertilizers is thoroughly positive, because the limit values not only of Austria, but also of Sweden and Finland, have been extended to the year 2002 on the basis that an objective study is to determine whether cadmium from the soil really can be transferred into the human bloodstream.
If this should be proven, the limit value situation in the European Union is clear.
Currently we still do not have sufficient information about the risks posed by cadmium.
We want an objective analysis of the effects in this area.
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<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Anttila">
Mr President, congratulations to my colleague, Mrs Hautala, for her excellent report.
The Commission's proposal is to extend the right of Finland, Sweden and Austria, to be exempt from the requirements of the directive on cadmium in accordance with their Acts of Accession.
The Commission has promised to decide on a risk assessment study for the whole of the EU area.
In addition, the Commission must endeavour to develop methods to rid raw materials for fertilizers imported into the EU of cadmium.
According to information I have received from laboratories, it is already possible to remove cadmium from phosphate fertilizers.
A process has been discovered. Now it just needs to be put into practice.
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Cadmium accumulates in the soil and is dangerous to humans.
According to certain studies in EU Member States, the soil's cadmium content is already very high.
That is why ridding fertilizers of cadmium is especially important.
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In Finland, selenium has been added to fertilizers in greater quantities since 1984: formerly, six grammes per kilo of fertilizer, and, since last April, 10 grammes per kilo.
We have been monitoring the use of selenium for years. According to these studies, the supply of selenium to domestic animals and the general population has declined.
For this reason, 10 grammes of selenium, rather than just six, are now being added to selenium fertilizers.
Studies show that the increase in selenium has had an excellent effect on the state of the health of domestic animals and the population.
The EU as a whole would do well to follow this example.
I urge the Commission, while undertaking its research, to invest also in an appraisal of the effects of selenium added to mixed fertilizers, so that we can improve the health of the whole of the EU population and its livestock.
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Finally, I would like to state that tighter standards to promote human and animal health cannot be allowed to seen as hindrances to business; the EU has to find a place for them.
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<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Barthet-Mayer">
Mr President, at the time of the accession negotiations, Austria, Finland and Sweden obtained permission to retain environmental standards which were more demanding than Community legislation, particularly for the cadmium content of phosphorus fertilizers.
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In fact, through the Commission we finally committed ourselves to an upward harmonization of standards.
Yet to this day, nothing has been done, whilst the harmful nature of the substances in question appears scientifically proven.
The Commission contents itself with granting a derogation to those states which are most advanced in the area.
However, public health and environmental protection are not subsidiary questions; I think that current affairs ensure we are reminded of this every day.
For once, it is for Community legislation to align itself with the most demanding in order to remain credible.
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This issue, which appears to be largely technical, in fact assumes a major political dimension, above all, in the context of enlargement to include the CEECs.
We must not give false political signals to candidate states and whilst derogations admittedly serve as a way of catching up with the most demanding policies, they must not prevent the most ambitious from continuing to progress.
The derogation, the principle of derogation, must not be perpetuated for ever.
We must fulfil our commitments and it is in this spirit that we support the report and the amendment by Mrs Hautala, whom we congratulate most sincerely for her extremely clear work.
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<SPEAKER ID=151 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, those who participated in the discussion have already described the starting position adequately.
We are facing a particular situation, as the three new Member States had special standards which we have continued to maintain with the obligation to check whether there can be a Community regulation that adopts either these or other standards.
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It was clear from the start that the Community regulation was to originate from scientifically founded data.
It is incorrect to say, as the last speaker did, that the Commission has done nothing.
We have carried out a study of this problem, and it produced insufficient data for a Europe-wide raising of standards.
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This means that at the moment we are in a position in which the concerns that we share with Parliament - Mr Rübig is absolutely right in this respect - cannot result in a legislative measure because we do not have sufficient scientific data.
That is the whole problem, as far as the Commission's actions are concerned.
In many other cases it may be perfectly correct to criticize the Commission, but in this case it is completely unjustified.
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What can be done?
In conjunction with the Member States, we have commissioned a new study in order to obtain better data which will then permit us to take the appropriate legislative measures.
This data, however, if it is to be reasonable and reliable, cannot be available before the year 2000 because some of the possible consequences necessitate a certain period of observation.
Because of this, we must wait until 2000, and that obliges us now to propose an extension of these derogations because otherwise the three new Member States would be in an area without rights, which cannot be the intention of the entire process.
At the same time, however, we cannot accept what Mrs Hautala proposes, because if we now - before the expert opinion, so to speak - wanted to introduce common standards, then we would completely undermine this scientific process.
There is no point in commissioning a scientific study in order to obtain grounds for standards, and at the same time saying that we are going to adopt this standard anyway.
That is not a form of legislation that I can justify, Mrs Hautala, and therefore I ask Parliament to accept our proposal, which even the rapporteur does not reject.
If you do not want to extend the derogation, if we cannot resolve this now, then we will, as far as the three new countries are concerned, exist in a very uncertain legal framework which cannot be in the interests of those involved.
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I only mean this part.
We cannot accept the other part - as I have already said - as we cannot commission a scientific study while stating in advance that we will do what we think is right now, regardless of the findings.
That is our situation and that is why I ask Parliament to play its part so that we can extend these derogations, so that we at least have today's legal status.
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<SPEAKER ID=152 NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, I would only like to make it clear that this report fully approves the extra new three-year period.
I wish Mr Bangemann would listen; you obviously have a headphone.
The basic line is approved, but this derogation cannot be allowed to continue to be open-ended in this way; should it not end some time?
As you yourself say, you will have a decision on this risk assessment study by the year 2000, which is absolutely right.
I have to make it clear that the Commission has done its bit, but old Member States have dragged their heels, so this proposal by Parliament is totally realistic and feasible for all parties concerned.
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<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Hautala.
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The debate is closed.
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The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
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<CHAPTER ID=12>
Motor vehicles for the transport of certain animals
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0253/98) by Mrs Hautala, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive relating to motor vehicles and their trailers - transporting certain animals and amending directive 70/156/EEC in respect of the type-approval of motor vehicles and their trailers (COM(97)0336 - C4-0339/97-97/0190(COD)).
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<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, the proposal for a directive that we are now debating, is a certification system for vehicles to be used for the transportation of certain animals.
These standards apply to animal transportation loads of under eight tonnes.
Under this directive it will become possible for the manufacturers of vehicles to choose a certified system in the internal market for the whole of the Union, one that will fulfil certain technical requirements.
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It is a matter of a joint decision, as the aim here is a better internal market for these vehicles.
In fact, many decisions on animal welfare taken in this Parliament are, properly speaking, outside the jurisdiction of Parliament, as the issue is mainly the application of the common agricultural policy.
On that, Parliament mainly gives an opinion and then the Council does whatever it does and often then does a bit of horse trading, because one demands unanimity.
But this time, and I think it may even be the first time, Parliament will have the opportunity to affect the issue of animal welfare to the extent that it will be the legislating party.
Because of that, it is very important for Parliament now to use this opportunity to the best advantage.
Very many Members continually receive communications from constituents who are appalled and enraged at how animals are treated during transportation.
Now we have a chance to improve things.
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It is obviously not a matter of being able to solve problems of animal welfare with technology, but this can have a very important part to play.
Why should we not take advantage of modern techniques and facilities when new vehicles start to be manufactured?
This will mean causing as little suffering to animals as possible while they are being transported.
Actually, it is likely that demands for animal welfare will become more stringent in the future, certainly not slacker.
That is precisely why it is very important that technical factors that improve the protection of animals are taken into full consideration when manufacturing these vehicles in the future.
Apart from anything else, this is also the most economically sound option.
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All the proposals contained in the report are fully capable of being achieved with modern materials and technology, and that goes for gentler sloping ramps too.
There has been some discussion on them in Parliament, but the manufacturers have said that such things are possible and that the strain factor is reasonable.
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I wish, moreover, to say that animal welfare is also a matter of economics, because if animals fare badly while being transported, the result is poor quality meat, whereas the quality of meat can be improved by means of technical features on vehicles, with the consequent economic benefits.
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The issue of the ramps is a vital one.
The Commission suggests that their angle of inclination should be 25 degrees, but animal welfare studies show that it ought not to be more than 20 degrees.
It is obviously a matter of loading/unloading and sawdust at the start and end of transportation.
We should mention as a separate matter that pigs, which in many ways are like people and are very sensitive and intelligent animals, are extremely sensitive to loading arrangements and sawdust.
For that reason, the report contains the proposal by Mrs Anttila, the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, that there should be lift apparatus on vehicles used for the transportation of pigs.
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It is very important that Parliament does not now waste this opportunity to improve future vehicle models for the transportation of animals, to take account of animal welfare.
Better planning as well as the surveillance of transportation are very important and, for this reason, we propose that these vehicles should be checked at three-yearly intervals.
Naturally, the behaviour of drivers also affects the welfare of animals, but the technical factors can by no means be underestimated.
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<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="Anttila">
Mr President, congratulations to my colleague, Mrs Hautala, on a very well-informed report.
I am extremely satisfied with the report's amendments, the implementation of which would mean less stress for animals while being loaded onto vehicles and during transportation.
Stress during transportation has a direct effect on the quality of meat, as Mrs Hautala stated.
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Conditions for transportation differ widely in the EU area, owing, for example, to differences in climate. In the north it is freezing cold, and in the south it is too hot.
Both conditions must be taken into consideration when fitting out vehicles.
I am very glad that the report includes mention of an obligatory loading lift for sheep and pigs, which I had already proposed to the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
When we produce directives in the 21st century, our aims must be progressive.
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There is a clear gap in the directive between the technical and material requirements of equipment for transporting animals, on the one hand, and requirements for use and proper use of equipment, on the other.
Requirements for equipment and its use go hand in hand. A mere requirement for correct use does not guarantee the welfare of the animals.
Nor does high-tech equipment with all mod-cons guarantee the animals' welfare during transportation, if the use of the vehicle and the actions of the driver are inappropriate.
That is why I think it is important that the authorities in Member States are given sufficient powers to monitor transportation.
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The next goal must be to extend these requirements now under discussion to cover equipment already being used over a given period of transition.
When that transitional period has lapsed, the equipment should fulfil the requirements of the directive, at least as far as the important, central issue of animal welfare is concerned.
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The Commission's proposal mentions that the date of the next check due should be displayed on the vehicle's registration plate.
There is no mention, though, of the time that has elapsed between checks.
That has to be put right; ideally, checks should be carried out every three years.
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Animal transportation in the EU has attracted a lot of negative publicity, which does not benefit anyone.
As the regulations for transportation have now been reviewed and when vehicle equipment gets put right, we will have the requirements we need for a much improved system for the transportation of animals.
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<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="van Dijk">
Mr President, road transport of cattle has long been a thorn in the side of many people and the main cause of this is the offence caused by the shocking pictures which all of us have seen of the transport of animals over what are certainly large distances.
Today we debate the type-approval of vehicles designed for animal transport whilst recalling these pictures.
It speaks for itself, therefore, that the European Parliament places great demands on the type-approval, because we no longer wish to see such abuse, where animals being transported not only suffer from temperatures which are much too high, but also from lack of water and food.
We are convinced that civilised society is harmed when animals are not treated civilly, even when this concerns animals for slaughter.
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The Committee on Transport and Tourism agrees with the European Commission that different equipment must be present on board for different types of cattle; but this is not sufficiently detailed in the proposal.
My committee has therefore submitted detailed proposals to ensure that animals cannot fall from trucks or loading bridges and that they are prevented from injuring themselves when they are moved from one level to another.
But the greatest problem is that the Commission omits a number of matters, because it is of the opinion that these must be included in a directive relating to the use of the vehicles, rather than in the type-approval.
But let me tell you that it makes no difference to cattle in which directive it is included.
The distinction between equipment and use is a curious one, because the equipment determines to a large extent how a vehicle can be used.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has adopted a great deal of the Committee on Transport and Tourism's proposals and I would therefore like to thank Mrs Hautala for her efforts.
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I hope, therefore, that they will stand up not only at first reading but also at second reading, and that we will be able to convince the Commission and the Council, if need be, in the very last round.
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<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for an excellent report.
Over recent years Europe has been outraged by this barbarous treatment of animals for slaughter.
Transportation takes place today in Union Member States, and especially outside the Union, in conditions we can at times imagine to be frightful and totally inhumane. And to a large extent it will continue.
I have myself slaughtered animals and been employed in the transportation of animals, so I do know a bit about the subject.
Transporting animals to be slaughtered over long distances to countries outside the Union - if this seems a risible topic, you would do well to listen carefully - is absolutely intolerable both from a humane and economic point of view.
We must give due consideration to inhumane conditions for animals for slaughter, as it goes on with the support of the Union.
We have in this way issued a permanent licence to torture animals.
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This directive on vehicles which is being prepared is an interim measure but it goes in the right direction. We have to give consideration to loading and unloading as has been stated.
Loading is the greatest cause of stress and who would not get furious at the fact that animals are dying while being loaded?
Loading stress can be avoided with simple lifting equipment, as has been mentioned.
While drafting the directive, we have to take into consideration the need, too, to take account of internal differences within the Union, like those that exist between the North and the South.
In Finland, we have done a great deal in this area. But within the Union, we have to have a more active system of monitoring.
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Ladies and gentlemen in the front row, it would be important to put an end to the transportation of live animals for slaughter across the continent.
Meat is not affected by travel.
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<SPEAKER ID=159 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herman">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my group welcomes positively the objectives and provisions in this draft directive which is a considerable improvement on the existing measures.
But an improvement also means an increase in costs, for you never get something for nothing.
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This is why, although we accept the strengthening of certain constraints which the rapporteur proposes, we are far from agreeing with her on all issues, especially when it comes to an important legislative principle, the principle of proportionality.
The images which have given rise to compassion and anger or indignation on the part of many of our citizens correspond to realities which must be abolished, but which have nothing to do with some of the measures proposed, in particular with regard to the problem of loading ramps.
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If Mr Ilaskivi is an expert in the field then I, too, can argue that I am an expert in the area of loading and unloading animals.
When I was younger, I loaded and unloaded hundreds and hundreds of pigs and heads of cattle.
So I know what a ramp is.
The ramps used to date had between a 30- and 40º incline.
I would like to be able to demonstrate for you the difference between a ramp at 25- and a ramp at 20º.
You would be extremely surprised and should not underestimate the animals' skill in surmounting an obstacle of this nature.
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I have experience of this and I can tell you that, in this instance, the cost is excessive.
Mrs Hautala affirms that it is technically feasible.
Admittedly, you could transport all animals in air-conditioned buses with couchettes; it is technically feasible.
It is a question of assessing the relationship between welfare and cost, and in this respect, the rapporteur goes too far.
A ramp at 20º raises considerable problems and should, in particular, be flexible so that it can fold, which is obviously extremely expensive.
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This is why our group cannot support the rapporteur's excessive proposals, but we are the first in line to support, enthusiastically, those which are reasonable.
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<SPEAKER ID=160 NAME="Killilea">
Mr President, my first reaction to Mrs Hautala's report is to ask why the Committee on Economic Affairs and Industrial Policy was given the task of dealing with a subject that belongs more appropriately, in my opinion, to the Committee on Agriculture and to the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
How the subject of the welfare of animals during transport can be seen as more relevant to economic and monetary policy than to agricultural policy or transport policy is beyond me.
I suppose the fact that the opinions of these committees are sought is some consolation, but in a general way this decision needs some sort of explanation.
However, ' inexplicable' is becoming more and more the norm in this House.
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Regarding the subject of the report - the safe and humane transport of animals - we all accept without hesitation that this is a fundamental requirement.
But once again we are going way overboard on this matter which has been adequately dealt with in the Commission's own proposals.
In the Member States there already exist the most stringent systems of checking on animals for transport, particularly those on long-haul journeys, and rightly so.
The modes of transportation are likewise, in my opinion, of the highest quality and standards.
They simply have to be if animals are to arrive at their final destination in good condition - acceptable to the final recipient.
In the agricultural industry, as in any other, farmers and livestock dealers have very large vested interests in presenting their product in prime condition in order to command the best possible price.
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If we are intent on imposing further layers of procedure, if we insist on a whole range of modifications to animal transport, we will stretch the system to breaking point in terms of increased costs and reduced efficiency.
The cost of such procedures will of course be borne only by two groups: farmers and consumers.
We are back on a typical Green agenda, Mr President, the same old story: no matter what you give them they want more and more.
But the high-rise flat occupants of the Greens know very little about the reality of farming today and have learned very little.
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<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
Mr President, the recent incidents of poor treatment of animals during transport, particularly by East European countries, have evoked a strong emotional reaction from the public.
Therefore, the proposal that we are debating must be an answer to this public and not to the Greens.
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Generally speaking, already on 2 October 1997, the European Parliament defined the conditions in which live animals should be transported, emphasizing, in particular, that they should not travel more than eight hours and stating in more general terms that the transport should be limited to the closest place possible for slaughtering.
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It is clearly in this perspective that the general debate on transport should be held.
With this proposal for a directive, we only deal with the characteristics of the vehicles. But from this point of view as well we must say that the proposal has its limits, particularly its optional nature and the fact that only new vehicles are covered, that is, those registered after 1 May 1999.
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Furthermore, there are various aspects already highlighted in previous speeches where improvement is needed, ranging from the slope of the ramps to the need for hydraulic lifting platforms to transport pigs, from the amount of room above the heads of the animals to the problem of temperature and the animals' reaction to it.
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It is therefore clear that we are talking about a proposal for which we are asking that not only the text of the report but also all the amendments be approved. However, we emphasize the fact that in this type of proposal no reference is made whatsoever to poultry, and hens, in particular.
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<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="Ewing">
Mr President, unlike Mr Herman I am not an expert on loading animals on to vehicles but I am expert on watching it happening, because I live in the kind of area where millions of animals are constantly having to travel very long distances.
My area has 90 islands, and one can imagine some of the stress involved in getting the animals from the islands to the mainland, and thence on further long journeys.
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Both Parliament and the Commission have shown concern.
There is the eight-hour rule and the recommendation mentioned by the last speaker that animals be slaughtered as close as possible to their place of origin.
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I would really like to seize this opportunity to ask the Commissioner whether he feels that there is too much laxity about monitoring.
A lot of the criticisms from the public relate to cattle coming from outside the European Union into the European Union.
I wish to know what on earth we can say to satisfy our public critics, because - sadly, perhaps -the fattest file a constituency MP gets is about the welfare of animals.
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I wish to support all the amendments on the ramp and the pigs, because I have watched the horror of trying to get pigs into a lorry.
The poor driver knows he has only eight hours but an hour is taken up with loading the pigs, so we really should look at the matter of the loading lift.
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<SPEAKER ID=163 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="des Places">
Mr President, to consider the welfare of live animals during their transportation is a commendable objective, and there is nothing worthy in this.
Moreover, you get out of it what you put in.
The field of animal production as a whole has every interest in respecting animals during their transportation, for everyone knows that the market value of an animal is greatly reduced if its transportation conditions are poor.
We therefore agree with this respect for transport conditions, provided, however, that they are applied everywhere, and include trade with third countries, both imports - from the point of departure - and exports, and that they can be implemented and are useful.
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By way of example, what is the use of having strict guidelines for the manufacture of new vehicles if the way they are used is not in line with the principles of respect for animal welfare?
We also know that the climate varies substantially between the Mediterranean and the Nordic regions.
Why, then, have the same manufacturing standards?
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Finally, farmers themselves also use specific vehicles for transporting their animals, either to take them to market within a very limited radius or simply to take them to grass elsewhere.
In this respect, too, we must be careful not to create useless additional costs for farmers.
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Consequently, we are opposed to all amendments aimed at increasing the costs for farmers and for companies in this line of business. On the other hand, we ask that, within the WTO agreements, international trade as a whole should take account of international transport standards.
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<SPEAKER ID=164 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sindal">
Mrs Hautala's report is extremely technical, but as with all type-approvals, consideration has to be given to the purpose, which in this case is the transportation of animals.
I think the report does justice to that.
Since 1994, parliamentary chairmen have been receiving petitions bearing millions of signatures regarding animal welfare in general, and transportation in particular.
Regulations and directives have not done much to improve the welfare of animals in transit.
The 1995 directive and the 1998 regulation both indicate that there is a need to establish requirements for the methods of transport used for animals.
That is what we are addressing today.
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Joint decision-making therefore amounts to the most important technical step as regards securing genuine progress.
That is difficult.
Major differences exist between Member States.
But we will get there.
Many decisions and statements have come and gone, but what we have here is something concrete.
This directive gives us the basis for improving animal welfare during transportation, but farmers and abattoirs in Member States will have to ensure and check that future transportation - including the means of transport - will be monitored.
Other committees and Commissioners, and, of course, the Council, will be seeing to that.
What is the good of creating optimum conditions in the abattoirs when the animals are traumatized on the way?
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The transportation of live animals, whether for slaughtering purposes or for further breeding, is not desirable, but it is nevertheless a fact.
That prompts me to mention that even though we are improving animal welfare, the spread of infection is still increasing.
That has nothing to do with today's topic; rather, it has to do with the way vehicles should be cleaned.
There is good reason to contemplate what ought to be done from here on.
There is good reason to put a damper on trans-European animal transportation, but other than that, I support Mrs Hautala's report, and I hope the Commission and the Council will be able to come up with something sensible.
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<SPEAKER ID=165 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Funk">
Mr President, Commissioner, the Hautala report addresses the technical fittings of vehicles for animal transportation.
We have heard repeatedly what a sensitive subject this business of transporting animals for slaughter is, whether we are dealing with horses, pigs, cattle or sheep, because naturally enough, the films record only those aspects that are not alright.
Things that are alright, however, are not shown.
We must not tar everyone with the same brush.
There are decent hauliers as well.
<P>
There must be no repeat of these events.
That would be out of the question.
We have just recently adopted the van Dijk report, and straight away we are astonished to find animal welfare popping up in a different committee every time.
This is not very impressive.
We should leave animal welfare where it belongs, in the areas of agriculture and transport.
Taking the kind of trouble we do with this, we should really know where it will appear next.
<P>
The rapporteur has gone to a lot of trouble, and the committees have done some excellent work.
However, I would like to make it clear - and as a farmer, I know what I am talking about - that the use of hydraulic loading ramps in the transportation of pigs is not the last word in wisdom.
<P>
Mrs van Dijk demanded in her recent report that piglets of up to 30kg should be loaded using a hydraulic loading ramp.
That is fine.
Now Mrs Hautala is saying all pigs should be loaded using hydraulic loading ramps.
Let me tell you this: my farm has a loading ramp the height of the lorry.
That is critical, because then the animals just go into the lorry at ground level.
When we buy animals, they leave the lorry at ground level as well.
Forget your hydraulic loading ramps!
This is the best way because it is what the animals are used to.
<P>
It is about people, not vehicles.
People need to handle the animals in such a way that the animals sense they are being treated properly.
For large numbers of animals, we must demand loading ramps that exactly match the height of the lorries.
There is a standard for them, and it works.
We cannot expect small-scale farmers to fit a hydraulic loading ramp onto their vehicles for driving their animals to the market; they would have to quit altogether rather than go out and buy one of those.
So there is really no point.
<P>
Let me emphasize the following once again: we must improve the implementation and monitoring of animal welfare provisions in Member States.
I am not pointing the finger at the Commission, because it cannot handle this.
It simply does not have the staff.
We have many a time and oft set aside funds in the budget, but the monies have never been paid out because the Council has refused to employ the staff to carry out this monitoring. This is crucial!
The people handling the animals are crucial to animal welfare, and if they treat them properly, it will work fine.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schierhuber">
Mr President, animal welfare is a matter of great importance to me.
In Austria, there is a high level of awareness of the importance of how animals are treated, whether we are talking about utility animals, breeding stock or animals for slaughter.
The Austrian presidency will be taking a greater interest in this topic with a view to improving conditions of transportation of animals throughout Europe.
<P>
On the subject of animal transportation, I would like to emphasize the necessity of pan-European regulation.
The European Parliament should stake out the political way ahead and set basic conditions. However, the European Parliament should not approve any regulations that go into too much technical detail.
<P>
As politicians, we are elected to set policy and not to displace experts in other professional fields, for example, veterinarians, technicians, etcetera.
<P>
Proper transportation of breeding and utility animals is very important for the wellbeing of animals. However, the transportation of live animals for slaughter must also be carried out under good conditions, because the quality of the meat depends on this.
<P>
As producers, we desire good treatment.
However, after the sale has been concluded, the animal no longer belongs to the farmer; the buyer becomes responsible.
It is all very well using modern technology, but please also consider that different types of utility animals have different patterns of behaviour.
In my opinion, it would be virtually impossible to load pigs with a hydraulic loading ramp because they never keep still.
As regards the angle of the ramp, I would like to say that in Austria, we have properly aligned fixed ramps.
To me, it is also crucial for the driver and loading personnel to handle the animal calmly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Keppelhoff-Wiechert">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too have been here almost 10 years and I cannot help thinking about how much we have discussed animal welfare and the amount of paperwork we have created. Sometimes I really feel there is an awful lot of theory here, but precious little practice.
<P>
I would say "yes' to protecting animal welfare, but "no' to Mrs Hautala's proposal on hydraulic loading ramps. We are creating the impression that there is just the one kind of mass production.
Plenty of practical questions have already been posed.
What about the small-scale farmer who simply wants to transport his animals from A to B?
What about the village butcher; are we not always saying "yes' to local produce?
I would like to put that one to the Greens sometime. These are animals from detached houses; they have been sleeping in straw, and now we are asking for them to be transported through the place on silver platters.
That does not quite fit in with what Mrs Hautala is proposing here.
<P>
Commissioner Bangemann, I also have a problem with how this monitoring is supposed to work.
Is there anything we have not made a decision on here?
Eight-hour transportation, loading and unloading, watering: a lot of this is rather far from actual practice, and for that reason, I would like to suggest here that we should advocate practicable solutions, and you really ought to heed the practical experience of our farming colleagues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, getting straight down to your comments, Mrs KeppelhoffWiechert, the whole discussion, or at least two-thirds of it, is neither about the report nor about the problem.
This is not a matter of monitoring the transportation of animals, nor is it about how animals are actually transported; it is quite plainly about type-approval of vehicles that are subsequently used to transport animals.
That is quite different from what many speakers have been debating here.
It is all very well if Mrs Ewing and others have seen these cruel images and then say this has to be stopped, but that is not the subject of this report.
<P>
This report is about our desire to approve vehicles that are suitable in a particular way for a particular type of animal transportation.
That is as far as it goes.
You can put all your comments about monitoring back in your briefcases, because these vehicles will of course be checked to ensure that they are of the appropriate type; otherwise, they would never be approved.
We do not need any new officials to do that, because we already have technical monitoring bodies and suchlike.
So please do not take this the wrong way, but we would have been finished half an hour ago if we had debated what was, in fact, presented here rather than the completely different problem of how to monitor and implement the transportation of animals.
That is not up for debate here.
<P>
Please allow me a further comment.
I always find it somewhat amusing that people who are so interested in animals focus their energies on transport, but the minute an animal is slaughtered, their interest dwindles.
I find this rather odd. An animal has to be treated beautifully, but then it is slaughtered.
I can imagine a stressed-out pig would be able to handle the stress far better if it were not about to be slaughtered at all.
<P>
Now for the report itself.
The rapporteur has tabled 24 amendments.
We are able to accept nine of these: Amendments Nos 3, 4, 6, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20 and 21.
All these amendments are concerned with very desirable editorial improvements.
To some extent, they also give producers more flexibility, and that constitutes our grounds for accepting these amendments.
We cannot accept the others.
I cannot go into much detail here as to why we cannot, but I will select a few examples.
<P>
Firstly, there is type-approval.
I repeat: type-approval has nothing to do with the use of the vehicles or animal welfare as such.
Thus, all the amendments targeted at improved usage or animal welfare as such are out of place in this context.
Naturally, it would be possible - and this would be an example of such an amendment - to change the loading height for one type to something other than what we are proposing here.
However, we have kept to the decisions already made by the Council of Agriculture Ministers, and Directives 91/628 and 95/29 and one regulation stipulated the heights which we have adopted.
There is no sense in the existing directives using different heights from those found in the directive on type-approval.
People would think we were not quite right in the head if we stipulated two different heights.
We must, therefore, abide by what has already been decided.
<P>
Then there is the gradient.
Unlike Fernand Herman, I am not an expert, and I am constantly amazed at all the things he has done in his life so far.
He relates aspects of his own life and experience in every report.
He must have an incredible amount of experience.
We calculated that if the gradient were reduced to 20º, that would mean the loading ramp would have to be too large to allow us to keep the total height of 4 metres.
Mrs Hautala, it is all very well to disagree on a lot of things, but it is very difficult to disagree about mathematics because all it takes is a simple calculation.
Then there can be no differences of opinion.
So, unless we wish to exceed the prescribed limit of 4 metres, we cannot accept this amendment.
<P>
As I said, I cannot go into all these amendments one after another.
I hope - and I have to be a little cautious after what the members of the PPE Group have said - that we will be able to agree on a common position which will now mean that we can adopt one of the last regulations on type-approval.
This is not the end of the story, but it is the beginning of the end, and this should ultimately enable us to have the whole matter nicely sewn up.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, I wish only to tell Mr Bangemann that I have a pretty good knowledge of geometry, and, besides, I studied agriculture at university. But, in any case, have you never heard of the hinge?
The hinge is quite interesting in itself actually, but after all it is a very simple invention, which can solve this problem of the length of the ramp.
This is actually a very simple technique.
As Mrs Anttila said, we are speaking of new vehicles for the 21st century.
If we are not forward-looking enough now, in two years' time animal protection groups will be telling us these vehicles are no good for anyone.
Do you think that will be of any benefit to the manufacturers?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 12.00 noon tomorrow.
<P>
(The session was adjourned for five minutes while awaiting the beginning of 'Question Time' )
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=13>
Question Time (Council)
<SPEAKER ID=171 NAME="President">
The next item is questions to the Council (B4-0481/98).
<P>
First of all, please allow me to welcome Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, President-in-Office of the Council, who is going to be with us for the next six months.
We predict that, as always, there will be an atmosphere of understanding in this Hemicycle, and that our questions are sure to be answered with the accuracy and efficiency of which we know Mrs Ferrero-Waldner is capable.
So let us begin this Question Time in the normal way, peacefully and with the good manners which characterize this Hemicycle.
<P>
Question No 1 by Freddy Blak (H-0607/98)
<P>
Subject: The Staff Regulations and discrimination against homosexuals
<P>
As they stand, the Communities' Staff Regulations discriminate against homosexuals and their registered partners.
Homosexual staff have exactly the same duties and obligations as their heterosexual colleagues but do not have the same entitlements.
<P>
The Council has an opportunity to end this blatant discrimination when the Staff Regulations are revised.
It ought to listen to the European Parliament, which voted by a big majority to amend the Staff Regulations so as to give homosexual staff and staff cohabiting with, though not married to, partners the same rights as their colleagues.
I am therefore very disappointed to learn that the presidency is asking the Council to revise the Staff Regulations without complying with Parliament's wish to see an end to the discrimination against homosexual staff and their partners.
Is it really true that the presidency wishes to perpetuate such discrimination?
Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, I invite you to reply to Mr Blak's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Blak, I would like to answer your question concerning the personal status of, and discrimination against homosexuals.
The matter of equal treatment of homosexuals pursuant to the Staff Regulations of European officials was recently discussed in the relevant Council bodies.
In its examination of the proposal for an amendment of regulations governing officials in respect of equal treatment, as tabled by the Commission, the Council has made the following statement on these two aspects.
<P>
Firstly, by adopting Regulation No 781/98 of 7 April 1998, amending the Staff Regulations of Officials and Conditions of Employment of Other Servants of the European Communities in respect of equal treatment, the Council has confirmed that the principle of non-discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation applies.
From this point on, Article 1a of the regulation states that, and I quote: "Officials shall be entitled to equal treatment under these Staff Regulations without reference, direct or indirect, to race, political, philosophical or religious beliefs, sex or sexual orientation, without prejudice to the relevant provisions requiring a specific marital status' .
<P>
Secondly, with particular reference to legislative developments in some Member States, in adopting this regulation, the Council has asked the Commission to carry out the necessary studies into the recognition of registered non-marital life partnerships and to table proposals to the Council on this matter on the basis of its findings.
The presidency will ensure that any new proposal is examined as soon as it is submitted to the Council by the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
I would like to begin by welcoming the Council representative.
I must say it has been several years since we have had quite such a charming representative here.
Nevertheless, I am not completely happy with the answer I was given.
We are in the process of amending the regulation, but consideration has still not been given to the fact that there are people of the same sex who wish to live together, and that this should be respected.
Such consideration has not been given.
I would like to put the following question to you: the Swedish government has given official support to a Swedish public servant working for the Council who has taken a case of discrimination against him and his registered partner to the Court of Justice.
What is the stance of the presidency on the arguments put forward by this Swedish official?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Blak, thank you very much for your kind welcome.
I would like to comment further on your supplementary question. With regard to the Swedish proposals and ideas, we are awaiting proposals to be tabled by the Commission, for, without this, the Council cannot have any involvement in the matter.
<P>
Perhaps I could just mention briefly once again that the Commission had already tabled a proposal for a regulation to the Council in March 1993, to amend the Staff Regulations of Officials and Conditions of Employment of Other Servants of the European Communities in respect of equal treatment of men and women.
One objective of this amendment was to have the general principle of equality of men and women written into the texts in question, while a second objective was to include provisions which would enable the bodies in question to eliminate the very real inequalities which adversely affect the opportunities available to women in the areas covered by the regulation.
<P>
The Commission gave partial approval to the first amendment of many tabled by the European Parliament in November 1993 allowing for the principle of non-discrimination to be extended to cover sexual orientation.
After extensive consultation, the Commission presented an amended proposal on 3 March 1996, which was again brought before Parliament for a reading.
<P>
The new position of the House reflects the concept that the European Community should take account of the fact that - as you have said - increasing numbers of predominantly young people are now living together without marrying, and that consequently, following the example of the European Monetary Institute, a corresponding change should be made to public service legislation in the Communities.
<P>
When the Commission's proposal was being examined by the relevant Council bodies, the Commission did indicate that it would not be presenting any additional amended proposals to take account of Parliament's amendments.
In this case, unanimity in the Council was required for the Commission's proposal to be amended; the Council is, therefore, waiting for the Commission to table new amendments, which it will then deal with.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
I thank the Council for its reply, but I am not satisfied with it.
If I understood the reply correctly, you have now made an exception and said that a new proposal will be made later on with regard to the new cohabitation relationships or registered partnerships which exist in some Member States.
The question then is when this new proposal will come and how this issue is going to be discussed later on.
<P>
The Staff Regulations are not changed particularly often. In fact, they are changed very seldom.
Even if, in reality, we know that registered partnerships exist in several of the EU's Member States, it means that the Council intends to continue to discriminate against employees who come from these countries.
That is quite simply continued discrimination against homosexuals, despite the fact that this type of cohabitation is permitted in the countries where they originally come from.
I would like to have a reply to this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, please allow me to refer to this yet again; perhaps it was not quite clear, so I will emphasize it again. The Council has asked the Commission to carry out a study of this matter, and as soon as the Commission tables its proposals on this, the Council will become involved once again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, first I should like to congratulate you, as a representative of Austria, on being the first of the new Member States to hold the presidency.
I wish you all success for the presidential term.
<P>
Regarding the matter of homosexual and lesbian discrimination, Article 13 in the Amsterdam Treaty prohibits discrimination in respect of sexual orientation, and in this connection it is important also, in accordance with Article 13, to review the Staff Regulations.
Obviously it would be awfully important for there not to be any discrimination in the Member States either, and in this respect we are looking particularly at Austria's own laws, now that you hold the presidency.
Your laws as they relate to homosexuals are clearly unsatisfactory.
I would like to ask, in particular, how you intend to go about concretely reviewing staffing legislation using Article 13 as a basis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mrs Ojala, allow me to emphasize once again what I have already stated perfectly clearly in response to the main question. By adopting Regulation No 781/98 of 7 April 1998 amending the Staff Regulations of Officials and Conditions of Employment of Other Servants of the European Communities in respect of equal treatment, the Council confirmed the applicability of the principle of non-discrimination to equal treatment on the basis of sexual orientation.
I will quote this once again because this is precisely what is at issue here.
Article 1a of the regulation provides that: "Officials shall be entitled to equal treatment under these Staff Regulations without reference, direct or indirect, to race, political, philosophical or religious beliefs, sex or sexual orientation, without prejudice to the relevant provisions requiring a specific marital status' .
<P>
That corresponds exactly to the wording of the Amsterdam Treaty, and consequently, as I have already said, the Commission was asked to carry out studies into the recognition of registered non-marital life partnerships and to table its proposals to the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 NAME="President">
Question No 2 by Felipe Camisón Asensio (H-0608/98)
<P>
Subject: Overbooking in passenger air transport
<P>
Does the Council intend to undertake any new initiative to deal with the problem of the growing number of passengers who are becoming victims of the practice of overbooking at EU airports?
Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, I invite you to reply to Mr Camisón Asensio's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Camisón Asensio, on 30 January 1998, the Commission tabled a proposal to the Council for a Council Regulation(EC) amending Regulation (EEC) 295/91 establishing common rules for a denied-boarding compensation system in scheduled air transport.
This regulation came into effect in April 1991, and since that time the Commission has been gathering information on its application.
Considering the most recent developments in the air traffic sector, the amendments proposed by the Commission are aimed, in particular, at increasing the number of instances where passengers are entitled to compensation, as well as adjusting the minimum level of compensation upwards to help keep the practice of over-booking within more reasonable limits.
<P>
At that time, the amendments were examined by the relevant Council bodies.
In the meantime, on 18 June this year, the Council concluded that it was necessary to review the present regulation with the objective of raising the minimum payment levels; the Council asked the Commission to examine how air passengers could become better informed of their rights.
The Council bodies will continue to examine the Commission's proposals with a view to reaching agreement in the near future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Camisón Asensio">
I too should like to start by welcoming the President-in-Office of the Council with full Parliamentary courtesy.
It comes as no surprise to me at all that the European institutions are very concerned about the growing problem of overbooking, leading to the relevant regulation having been updated during a recent Council meeting, as the President-in-Office of the Council has just said.
<P>
However, the great paradox of this issue is that, in most cases, passengers who cannot board their plane are not aware of their rights.
In view of this situation, we have a twofold supplementary question.
<P>
When will airlines be forced to display a notice on the desk setting out people's rights to compensation in cases of overbooking?
Will the forthcoming regulation ensure that damage sustained through missing connections with other flights receives fair compensation?
Because, as things stand, that question is up in the air, which is a very appropriate expression when dealing with air transport.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Camisón Asensio, please allow me just to state the following and then to give my response to this question.
Firstly, the amendments to Regulation 295/91 cover an extension of the area of applicability to all flights. Secondly, they cover the airlines' "OK' endorsement on airline tickets, known as the document of passage as well as, thirdly, the level of compensation and, fourthly, compensation in all instances of overbooking.
<P>
Regarding information to passengers, allow me to comment that yesterday, I was reading an in-flight magazine myself and came across a really brilliant article explaining this issue to passengers. Generally speaking, however, we cannot of course set a deadline for this, because the Commission would first have to be called upon to examine the options, and that would probably take some time.
<P>
The Council actually reached its conclusions, based on the proposal I have just outlined, on 18 June 1998.
In its conclusions, the Council firstly recognizes that the practical experience of implementation demonstrates the need for a review of the regulation, and secondly, it welcomes the Commission's proposal to amend the regulation, calls on the Permanent Representatives Committee to continue discussing the Commission's proposals - this would indicate that matters could be resolved within a relatively short space of time - and challenges the Commission to pursue this specific matter of information.
<P>
This process will, therefore, probably not take very long. Competition, too, will make for a better service and will help regulate passenger numbers, because this question is becoming an increasingly important one for all those who travel by air.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="Ewing">
The practice of overbooking is openly admitted - they say to passengers like me that all air transport companies do it - and, as has been said, people do not know their rights.
Could I ask the President-in-Office, whom I very much welcome - she has added a lot of colour to this fairly sombre Chamber - whether she believes that these proposals will come into force during the Austrian presidency?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, let me first thank my colleague Mrs Ewing for her kind words of welcome.
It is difficult to say at this juncture what will happen.
As you know, the Commission has been called upon to act, but we have not as yet seen any proposals.
It would, therefore, be difficult for me to say to you at this point in time that it will be possible in the course of our presidency, but it is most certainly a matter which shall receive our attention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 NAME="President">
Question No 3 by Alexandros Alavanos (H-0609/98)
<P>
Subject: Strict compliance with the Amsterdam Treaty
<P>
The President-in-Office of the Council, the UK Foreign Secretary, Mr Robin Cook, committed multiple infringements of the Amsterdam Treaty during his visit to Ankara in attempting to formulate a common position of the "14' - i.e. with the exception of Greece - on political relations between the Union and Turkey in a bid to alter the decisions taken by the Luxembourg European Council concerning Turkey, which only a Summit Meeting can do.
<P>
As such action is in breach of Articles J.3(3), J.8(2), J.13(1) and J.13(2) of the Treaty of Amsterdam, will the Council say what measures it will take to ensure that every presidency of the Council of the European Union complies strictly with the Treaty on European Union?
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, you have the floor to reply to Mr Alavanos, who is situated behind you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, allow me please to elaborate briefly on the question posed by Mr Alavanos, and I would like to ask the Member to note that the Amsterdam Treaty has not yet come into effect and that, therefore, no contraventions of its provisions can possibly apply.
However, the Council is of the opinion that the stance taken by Mr Robin Cook in Ankara was in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty.
The Council therefore sees no reason to act on the Member's proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, I wish to thank the President-in-Office. My question was addressed to Mr Cook, who wanted the time to answer it.
But he did not have the time because of the change in the presidency.
I do not expect the President-in-Office to criticize her colleague; that would be very difficult.
I would simply like to put a supplementary question to the President-in-Office.
Will the Austrian presidency, in matters of foreign policy, seek the agreement of all 15 Member States, in accordance not only with the Amsterdam Treaty, which will soon be in force, but also with the articles of the previous Treaty, and not the agreement of 13 or 14 Member States?
Will Austria, as a democratic and sensitive country, seek the agreement of all 15 Member States on matters of foreign policy, and especially on the sensitive issue of Turkey?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, allow me to respond to the Member's question by saying that Austria and the Austrian presidency will go to great lengths to obtain a consensus of 15.
I can also state that in the difficult matter of Greece and Turkey, as well as the question of Cyprus/Greece/Turkey, we have initially been sounding things out with both Greece and Turkey, and that this is indeed the direction in which things appear to be moving.
<P>
Obviously, we are well aware that these are difficult political questions and that we will probably only be able to take a few small steps at a time.
However, this matter is of genuine concern to us.
Perhaps a small-scale presidency from a small-scale state will be able to make more happen - because in reality all interests are focused on working for the European Union.
At any rate, we certainly hope to make a little progress with Greece, Turkey and Cyprus on these very difficult political issues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 NAME="President">
Question No 4 by Pedro Marset Campos (H-0610/98)
<P>
Subject: Human rights in Equatorial Guinea
<P>
The people of Equatorial Guinea have suffered for the last thirty years from dictatorial regimes characterized by the most absolute contempt for human rights, perpetuating a situation of violence and repression.
<P>
Does the Council intend to take a firm stand on the matter and unequivocally condemn the violations of human rights, calling on the Government of Equatorial Guinea to commute the death sentences passed on fifteen citizens in a trial without guarantees from which the media were barred, as in the case of the Spanish journalists who were expelled?
Does the Council not consider that real political pressure should be put on the authorities of Equatorial Guinea so as to ensure the right to a fair and objective trial, by suspending all cooperation projects that are not strictly humanitarian in nature?
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, allow me to be a little indiscreet but, in this friendly atmosphere here, I understand that the surname "Campos' strikes a certain chord with you.
Mr Marset Campos is behind you and is all set to listen to you. I invite you to reply to his question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Marset Campos, I would like to mention the following in connection with your question.
I would refer you to the answers to questions Nos H-0135/98 and E-1115 on the situation on the Island of Bioko.
The Council has been following with deep concern the trial of some of the members of the Bubi tribe native to the Island of Bioko. These individuals were accused of belonging to, or supporting, the independence movement, namely the Movimiento de Autodeterminación de la Isla de Bioko , or the MAIB.
<P>
On 24 February 1998, the Council expressed its deep concern to the Ambassador of Equatorial Guinea regarding infringements of human rights following the alleged attack on the town of Luba by the MAIB on 21 January.
Several hundred people were reported to have been arrested and after interrogation at least three people are understood to have died in custody.
<P>
The Commission has called on the authorities to investigate and punish those responsible for such infringements of human rights.
The Ambassador stated that the Ministry of the Interior had set up a special commission to receive and investigate complaints regarding infringements of human rights, and that the President had even intervened personally to ensure that no further such acts of violence would go unpunished.
The Ambassador gave further assurances to the effect that those responsible for the attack on 21 January had been identified and would be tried; all other persons arrested had been released.
<P>
At a meeting between the heads of the EU-accredited mission to Equatorial Guinea and President Obiang, which took place in Cameroon in May 1998, the mission heads expressed the concerns of the European Union with regard to the human rights situation in Equatorial Guinea.
Despite this, on 1 June, a military court passed the death sentence on 15 of the 100 or so accused.
The presidency has recently appealed to the President of Equatorial Guinea on behalf of the Union not to uphold the death sentences.
As far as we are aware, the death sentences have not yet been carried out.
<P>
The Council will continue to observe developments in Equatorial Guinea very closely and will take every opportunity to underline the importance it attaches to upholding human rights and democratic principles in that country.
As regards EU development aid, in August 1996 President Obiang requested consultations with the Commission under Article 366a of the Fourth Lomé Convention with the objective of reaching agreement on the resumption of development cooperation.
On his visit to the Commission on 31 October 1997, President Obiang was received by Commission President Santer and during this meeting he proceeded to explain and defend his programme of democratization.
<P>
The Commission made it clear that a gradual resumption of aid would be dependent upon progress in human rights, democratic principles and the rule of law.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Marset Campos">
I want to thank the Austrian presidency for its kindness and courtesy in answering this question, but I should imagine we have heard the sad news, reported in today's press, of the death in hospital of one of the people who had been sentenced. They were not actually condemned to death, but this event reveals the inhuman conditions suffered by such people and the systematic violation of human rights which Obiang is imposing on the whole country.
I believe this provokes fears of even more dramatic consequences in the near future, and makes it more difficult for the democratic opposition in Equatorial Guinea to bring about the necessary transition.
So the European Union must act firmly with all the available means so that human rights are respected once again in this part of the world and, moreover, so that forces from outside Africa are not allowed to intervene.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too have just received the news that the leader of the Movimiento de Autodeterminación de la Isla de Bioko has died in prison, probably as the result of torture inflicted on him.
Let me now say again that the Council will be observing developments in Equatorial Guinea all the more closely and will take every opportunity to point out the high value that must be attached to human rights and democratic principles in that country.
The Council will do everything in its power to avoid any repetition of this in future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, I too thank you for your kindness, but unfortunately I have to say that you have not by any means satisfied the expectations of this House or the democratic opposition in Equatorial Guinea as regards the situation we are dealing with.
I understand, of course, that your country, Austria, no doubt views the terrible human rights situation in Equatorial Guinea as remote, but I would suggest for example that you request information from the Spanish government, because they were also the ones who, last autumn, urged President Santer to receive the dictator Teodoro Obiang, who subsequently set up a council of war, which was certainly followed by death sentences and the death, probably from torture, of the Equatorial Guinean leader, Martín Puye.
<P>
So, as well as monitoring the situation closely, I would like you to tell me clearly whether you do not think the Council needs to adopt a common position to apply Article 5 of the Lomé Convention to Equatorial Guinea and stop that country participating in that agreement until, of course, it respects minimum democratic principles and human rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me assure you that we are of course following this difficult situation closely.
Up until now, this information has not been available to us in any detail.
I assume, however, that the Council will be dealing with these developments soon, although we will need more detailed information, and I can assure you that we are keeping a very close watch on affairs, and we will of course be doing everything in our power to improve the situation.
At the present time, I cannot say any more than that, because I cannot, of course, pre-empt the Council and its decisions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 NAME="President">
Question no 5 by Allan Macartney (H-0616/98)
<P>
Subject: Commission document on compensatory measures on the abolition of duty-free sales
<P>
Will the Council ensure that the Commission's document outlining possibilities for compensatory measures to the regions most affected by the abolition of Intra-EU duty and tax-free sales after 1999, as agreed at the May Ecofin Council, is presented to and debated at an Ecofin Council this autumn?
Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, I invite you to reply to Mr Macartney's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Macartney, as a result of consultations at the European Ecofin Council on 19 May 1998, it became apparent that there was no consensus on the question of calling for a Community-wide study into the effects of the abolition of intra-EU duty-free sales on 30 June 1999.
In light of the various studies conducted in individual states and comments from the sitting, however, the Commission will - and I would particularly like to draw attention to this - clarify in a working paper exactly what instruments Member States have at their disposal to help absorb the impact of these measures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 NAME="Macartney">
I also welcome the Austrian President-in-Office of the Council.
The Austrian presidency has got off to a very good start.
We appreciate your directness in dealing with our questions.
<P>
The mystery here is that, at the Council meeting in May, Commissioner Monti promised that there would be measures to alleviate the negative impact of the loss of intra-EU duty-free and tax-free sales.
Since then there seems to have been a rearguard action by certain Commissioners who seem opposed to what he undertook.
What I was looking for was an undertaking from the Council that they will do their best to make sure these measures are forthcoming.
<P>
I take it from what the President-in-Office says now that the Council already has this in hand and, in a sense, has taken over the responsibility, in which case I am delighted.
We need to know the impact on areas which are going to suffer, including my own.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Macartney, perhaps I failed to express myself clearly. I did not say that the Council already has a document in hand.
We are awaiting such a document from the Commission, but what we have asked the Commission to clarify is exactly what instruments Member States have at their disposal to help absorb the impact of these measures.
This document is not yet available. It will also address the question of the content of these measures, but I cannot give an answer to this at the present stage.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 NAME="President">
Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, this question of compensatory measures on the abolition of duty-free sales is of great interest to this House, which means I have received requests for four supplementary questions. The Rules of Procedure only allow me to grant two.
So I shall give the floor to Mr Morris and Mr Lindqvist in turn, who made their requests in that order, and I am very sorry but I shall not be able to let either Miss McIntosh or Mr Cushnahan speak, since their requests came later.
<P>
Mr Morris has the floor first, for a supplementary question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="Morris">
I welcome the prospect of compensation, if it is available.
However, in a Community where there are approximately 20 million people unemployed - and since we are faced with the prospect of a further 42 000 people who are employed in the tax-free industry facing unemployment - I should prefer it if the Commission, via the Council, could undertake very serious research to give us the facts as they stand at the present time.
My concern now is that we must know the facts ahead of any action that the Commission and the Council might take in abandoning the tax-free policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Morris, perhaps I should just say once again that the Member must be well aware that the abolition of duty-free at ports and airports, as well as on ferries and aircraft travelling within the Community, is necessary in order to complete the single market.
In this respect, it has to be emphasized that the abolition of duty-free sales is by no means a new measure.
<P>
Those involved in this particular market sector were also granted a five-year transition, which expires in 1999. This was specifically to enable them to make the necessary adjustments to smooth out the social consequences of the abolition of dutyfree.
The Council is, of course, aware of the fact that the abolition of duty-free in intra-EU ferry and air traffic will lead to employment problems.
The Council therefore eagerly anticipates the results of this study which, as I already mentioned, the Commission will be preparing in the form of a working document on the instruments available to Member States to assist them in dealing with this situation.
<P>
Let me stress this again: the Commission is involved and will be presenting this document to us. The latter will of course contain certain facts and figures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
I would like to congratulate Austria on having taken over the Presidency of the Council.
I hope that the question of duty-free is going to have a positive solution.
I come from Sweden where we are very concerned that something should be done; more than has so far been the case on the part of the Commission and perhaps also on the part of the Council.
<P>
In connection with taking the decision on duty-free sales, a promise was made to carry out a proper study of the consequences for the countries which have duty-free and which will suffer a change for the worse, including with regard to employment.
This has not been done.
Now I hear that there is going to be such a working document, which sounds very good.
However, it would be even better if the Council could promise that compensation will be given to the affected countries.
We do not need a study if we can have a good answer on this point.
It would satisfy me.
I am therefore putting this question once again, in order to be able to give a reply to my questioning representatives in Scandinavia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Lindqvist, thank you for your kind words.
On this subject let me repeat that as far as compensatory measures are concerned, I am sure you are aware, Mr Lindqvist, that the Council made this decision unanimously - as I have already explained - and therefore cannot become involved in this matter again.
However, I have also indicated that the Commission has now been asked by the Council to prepare a study on this, that is to say, a working document, and I can only point out that this will make instruments available to Member States, or will advise them as to what instruments are available to them, to help absorb and compensate for the impact of this measure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 NAME="McIntosh">
Mr President, could you clarify how we should put supplementary questions?
I understand it is no longer by catching your eye or by a show of hands but rather that one has to press the button and that the questions are taken strictly in the order in which they are put.
Could you clarify this point?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 NAME="President">
Miss McIntosh, supplementary questions are put at the precise moment the main question is announced.
You can ask to speak by raising your hand or by pressing the button.
The President gives the floor in the order the questions are asked, whether by a show of hands or by pressing the button.
It makes no difference.
It is true that the President has a certain amount of discretion in granting the floor if there are a lot of questions from one side of the Hemicycle or the other.
So far, however, I have not had to use my discretion. Should that need arise, you can rest assured that I would do so with the most absolute - I would even say paranoid - institutional neutrality.
You all know you can ask me for the floor. The Bureau advises me; in other words, it is not just one pair of eyes doing all the work, but three, and I try to keep strictly to the chronological order.
I may make a mistake on the odd occasion, but in that case I assure you it is absolutely unintentional.
<P>
Mr Watts, do you wish to make a point of order?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 NAME="Watts">
I was just trying to catch your eye for the next question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, we are not going to turn this into a competition.
I know the actual starting point is when the next question is announced, and I understand that people get a bit edgy, but please do not be too quick off the mark.
I am going to announce the next question now.
In any case, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to make a little use of the powers invested in me by the Rules of Procedure. In this case, since this question is closely related to the previous one, I am going to take it that Mr Cushnahan and Miss McIntosh have priority.
So I am going to use the authority granted me by the Rules of Procedure in that way, and I hope you will understand.
<P>
So without further ado we move on to Question No 6 by Brian Crowley (H-0714/98)
<P>
Subject: Council's discussions on duty-free
<P>
Can the Austrian presidency indicate what plans, if any, it has to hold discussions in the Council of Ministers on the proposal to abolish duty-free in 1999 and all its impact on employment?
Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, this question is on the same subject.
I do not understand why these two questions were not grouped together.
I was very surprised myself, and asked Parliament's services why the two questions had not been grouped but I have not had any reply.
Therefore, Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, if you feel it has already been answered, I shall give the floor to Mr Crowley for a supplementary question on the basis of the debate which has already taken place, and I shall then let Mr Cushnahan and Miss McIntosh speak.
Are you happy with that or would you prefer to speak first?
<P>
You have the floor, Mr Crowley.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 NAME="Crowley">
I want to have an answer from the President-in-Office before I ask my supplementary.
I am dealing specifically with the employment aspects of the matter as opposed to compensatory aid.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 NAME="President">
Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, you have the floor.
We will take account of that slightly different angle, which must have been why the questions were not grouped together. I invite you to comply with Mr Crowley's request and give him an answer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, allow me to repeat to the Member what I have already stated.
I was assuming that the questions would be grouped together and that I could then answer both of them at once.
May I state once again that we will endeavour to put instruments into the hands of Member States to help them absorb the impact arising from the loss of certain jobs.
<P>
However, I have already said, as Mr Crowley well knows, that provision was made for a five-year transition period expiring in 1999. This was intended to allow for certain adjustments to be made that would be necessary for smoothing out the social consequences of the abolition of duty-free.
I have nothing further to add to this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 NAME="Crowley">
I would like to congratulate the President-in-Office on her first session here in Parliament and thank her for her honesty.
She is the first President-in-Office I have heard say there will inevitably be job losses because of this decision.
I would refer her to the comments of her colleague, the Austrian Foreign Minister, earlier on today in Parliament, when he said that job creation would be the top priority of the presidency and that under the Amsterdam Treaty the EU now had the necessary instruments available via national employment plans in specific and binding areas.
Surely now is the time, under this presidency, to reverse the decision.
The President-in-Office has admitted there will be job losses and also that we can put off this decision until such time as there is harmonisation of taxation - particularly excise duty.
I would like a response on that point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Crowley, thank you for your kind welcome.
In a word, yes.
Our Foreign Minister did address the subject of the job creation programme, which will no doubt figure among the top priorities of the Austrian presidency.
To my mind, it is extremely important for us to enter into the revision process under the auspices of the Vienna European Council and use this to learn from one another.
You are well aware of the great importance attached to best practices.
Just as Austria, for example, can learn about mobility, flexibility and many other specific programmes from other Member States, by the same token, other Member States can learn from us, and here I am thinking of our excellent apprenticeship training scheme, which allows young people of 14 or 15 to start training with a firm or workshop while at the same time continuing to receive school education.
These are just some of the measures available.
I do not want to go on about this, of course, but I would like to put it to you that such measures are important.
Retraining under the umbrella of education would be an important measure, too.
<P>
Returning to the original question: the five-year transition period has basically provided the opportunity of operating such a scheme with people who are currently employed in the duty-free sector.
<P>
Regarding the general question of the harmonization of taxes - which if I have understood correctly you were also asking about - I must say that our Finance Minister is very concerned about driving this issue forward as soon as the proposals of the Commission have been received.
I would hasten to add, however, that as things are at present the Council will not be facing an easy task here, but at least this is what the Austrian presidency will be trying to achieve.
<P>
Naturally, the completion of the single market also means gearing up in terms of employment and competition, and that greatly improves prospects of expanding trade, which is essential if we are to face up to the challenge of globalization.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 NAME="Cushnahan">
President-in-Office, let me also join with my colleagues in wishing you and your colleagues a very successful presidency, bearing in mind that this is an historic moment: your country's first presidency since joining the European Union.
<P>
I intend to continue to fight for the retention of duty-free but I am intrigued by part of the response you gave my colleagues and I should like clarification.
<P>
Firstly, you talk about a working document.
Will we have this working document before this Parliament before 1 July 1999?
Secondly, when you talk about instruments and compensation measures, can I have the assurance of the Austrian presidency that compensation measures will be forthcoming if, unfortunately, this decision does go ahead; that these compensation measures will be additional to money in existing or future Community support frameworks; and that countries will not be forced to poach money from other parts of their Community support framework.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Cushnahan, allow me to express my thanks to you, too, for your words of encouragement and your warm welcome.
In this context, all I can do is reiterate that the Commission has been asked to prepare the working document, but I cannot say when it will be ready.
I think that question should be addressed to the Commission directly.
Nor can I give you an answer as to its content, that is to say, whether additional funding will be available or not.
I think you should ask the Commission about this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="McIntosh">
Mr President, I am doubly grateful to you this evening, for exercising your discretion in this way.
Can I extend a very warm welcome to the Austrian President-in-Office, I am delighted to see her here this evening.
<P>
Could I seek clarification on two issues.
It was generally understood that any ferry travelling through international waters outside the 12-mile limit and any airline travelling in international airspace would continue to benefit from and be able to continue with duty-free sales after 1 July 1999.
I understand that, under the British presidency, a meeting of national customs officials overruled that and that will effectively nullify the effect of a change of route for a ferry operating from my constituency.
This will have very serious commercial and employment ramifications.
That is my first point.
<P>
The second point is that the President-in-Office has mentioned compensatory measures in reply to a number of questions this evening.
I would like to be quite specific: from which part of the European Union budget will these funds be taken?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Miss McIntosh, first of all, thank you for your warm welcome. Secondly, I have to say that your question is rather technical.
I would ask you to allow me to respond to your question in writing, and as regards budget funds, I cannot provide any further information, as I have already explained in answer to the previous question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="Watts">
Mr President, on a point of order.
Very briefly, if the presidency, quite understandably, wants to reply in writing to the honourable Member, would it be possible to ensure that other interested Members get to see that reply?
Obviously, we would all have heard an oral reply, and it is only right and proper for the reply to be made available to the whole House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Member is no doubt aware that the UNESCO recommendation of 1982 initially states that the Elgin marbles should be returned; it went on to specify that they should be returned to Greece so that they could once again be put on display at the Parthenon.
<P>
The matter of the Parthenon Marbles is not something which can be dealt with by the Council, since this goes beyond the jurisdiction of the European Community.
This issue must be resolved solely between the governments of the United Kingdom and Greece.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, I too would naturally like to welcome the President-in-Office on her first appearance in the European Parliament.
However, I also wish to express my disappointment at the Council's response.
<P>
The Parthenon Marbles are a priceless cultural commodity which concerns not only Greece and Britain but the whole of humanity.
I think that the Council, too, should be just as concerned about their fate as all the other interested parties, who are greatly alarmed in the wake of scientifically well-founded facts, according to which the marbles suffered irreparable damage as a result of how they were treated by the British Museum.
I think that, for precisely this reason, the Council should have the sensitivity that is shown by non-governmental organizations and mass movements for the fate of the Parthenon Marbles, and give a more substantial response to this issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Theonas, unfortunately, all I can do is to repeat what I have already stated.
The Council has no jurisdiction in this matter.
The issue is a purely bilateral one.
It should therefore be resolved bilaterally between the governments of the United Kingdom and Greece.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Kokkola">
Mr President, I thank the President-in-Office, who is here today to give us a response.
My question is not a supplementary question.
It is an entirely different one since, after the latest findings and the announcement by the great scientist Ced Claire concerning the damage done to the Parthenon Marbles, I wonder whether a committee of experts might not get together to participate more generally in the scientific investigation into the matter and in the communication of the findings.
The President-in-Office has the opportunity to show her feminine sensitivity.
In addition, she is from a small, democratic and very sensitive country, and it is well-known that small countries have a lot to contribute on many issues.
<P>
More specifically, Madam President-in-Office, will you show this sensitivity and will you convene this committee?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mrs Kokkola, thank you, first of all, for your kind words.
I would like to refer again to something which I mentioned at the beginning of my first answer, but perhaps it did not come across clearly. The most appropriate body for dealing with such matters is not the Council of the European Union, but UNESCO.
I would, therefore, like to suggest that perhaps the committee of experts you have just proposed should operate under the auspices of UNESCO in tackling this issue.
Let me just underline once more that the Council is not the appropriate body because it has no jurisdiction in this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="President">
Question No 9 by John McCartin (H-0619/98)
<P>
Subject: Crisis in Sudan
<P>
Following the meeting of the Development Council, has the Council addressed the issue of the war and famine in the Sudan and can the Minister make a statement on the current situation there?
Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, I invite you to reply to Mr McCartin's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, I would like to make the following comment on the crisis in Sudan.
The Council is watching developments in Sudan with great concern.
Following the debate which took place at the meeting of the Development Council on 18 May, which the Member referred to, the Foreign Ministers of the European Union discussed the situation in Sudan on 25 May and 29 June.
The Council refers to the statement by the presidency on 1 May and confirms that only a lasting political solution will allow the Sudanese people to return to a state of normality.
<P>
The Council affirms its support for the intergovernmental development authority, IGAD, in its efforts to find a way to negotiate a lasting peace.
In this context, the Council welcomes the proposal whereby the IGAD Partner Forum (IPF) would despatch a ministerial-level mission to Khartoum and Nairobi to investigate the possibilities of bringing about a cease-fire in the areas hardest hit by famine in order to allow humanitarian aid to get through.
<P>
The European Union will continue to use all the means at its disposal to urge the parties to resume negotiations and to observe human rights in Sudan.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="McCartin">
I thank the President-in-Office for her reply.
I have seen the newspaper reports that the Irish Minister has requested this ministerial mission and am glad that it has been organised.
<P>
There is immense frustration - I am sure not only in Ireland but throughout the European Union - at the scale of distress.
I think that there is a political will throughout the European Union to devote whatever resources are necessary at least to alleviate the present hunger and suffering.
<P>
Does the President-in-Office believe that the European Union could channel aid to alleviate starvation more effectively than is now the case?
Can the position be improved on as a matter of urgency?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr McCartin, I can at least share with you one communication which I have just received hot off the press.
I am sure you will be pleased to hear this. The Deputy Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom, Derek Thatchet, went to Nairobi and met with representatives of the SPLA on Tuesday specifically to discuss the matter of the security corridor for aid organizations.
Mr Thatchet then flew on to Khartoum to negotiate there with representatives of the Sudanese government.
The Sudanese rebel organization, the SPLA, has called a unilateral cease-fire in certain areas of the country in order to allow more than a million starving people to receive aid.
<P>
The cease-fire in the Federal State of Baralgasal and in parts of the Upper Nile came into effect late on Tuesday evening, according to the SPLA spokesman in Nairobi on Wednesday.
He has since added that the Khartoum government is expected to follow suit.
According to information from the UN World Food Programme (WFP), 1.2 million people in the south of this African state are actually facing starvation.
The people here are suffering primarily as a result of the drought, but also, of course, from the consequences of 15 years of brutal civil war.
<P>
I can also add that, since I am responsible, too, for development cooperation, I have discussed this subject myself with the Irish Secretary of State for Development Cooperation. I know she has gone to great lengths in proposing the sort of solutions for Sudan which helped broker the peace deal in her own country.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, I would like to ask whether the Council is also concerned with religious freedom in Sudan, as well as taking an interest in Southern Sudan and the humanitarian issues.
You are aware, for example, that pressure was brought to bear on the Bishop of Khartoum and that he was threatened that if he resisted this pressure, church development aid projects would be blocked.
My information comes from Missio, which is a Munich-based episcopal welfare relief organization, and I would like to ask you whether the Council is aware of these matters and whether it is involved with religious freedom throughout Sudan and with this attempt to highjack development aid.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Posselt, I can tell you in general terms that all aspects of the question of the crisis in Sudan are under our constant scrutiny.
In the Council of Development Cooperation Ministers and in the various working committees, we have naturally also been very concerned with addressing questions of religious freedom and the matter of fundamentalism.
We will continue to discuss the question you have raised and you can rest assured that it will be a matter of concern for the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 NAME="President">
As the author is not present, Question No 13 lapses.
<P>
As they deal with the same subject, the following questions will be taken together:
<P>
Question No 10 by Michl Ebner (H-0630/98)
<P>
Subject: Protection of minorities
<P>
In its resolution of 8 April 1997 on respect for human rights in the EU (1995), the European Parliament was critical of the fact that the call for a charter for ethnic groups and linguistic minorities in the EU had not been taken up by the Council, the Intergovernmental Conference or the Member States.
It also stressed that the rights of ethnic and linguistic minorities present in many Member States were either not protected or were so only on a regional or national basis.
<P>
Does the Austrian presidency support the drafting of a Charter for linguistic minorities in the EU in accordance with the European Parliament's resolution on human rights?
Question No 11 by Joan Vallvé (H-0631/98)
<P>
Subject: Action programme for minority languages
<P>
It was only at the beginning of 1994 that the Commission submitted a communication on minority languages in the EU, in the form of an activity report (1989-1993).
This was the first ever official communication on the preservation and promotion of minority languages.
<P>
Does the Council propose to ask the Commission once again to prepare a similar action programme for minority languages? What type of decisions will be taken in future on our minorities, languages and cultures?Question No 12 by Bernd Posselt (H-0632/98)
<P>
Subject: Protection of ethnic minorities
<P>
Regrettably, the EU has as yet adopted no special provisions on the protection of ethnic minorities.
In spite of this, it insists that the future Member States in central and eastern Europe adopt such provisions.
<P>
Partly in view of the EU's prospective eastward enlargement, what measures does the presidency propose to take, or what initiatives does it expect from the Commission, in respect of the protection of ethnic minorities?Question No 14 by Karl Habsburg-Lothringen (H-0634/98)
<P>
Subject: Cultural and linguistic diversity in the European Union
<P>
In its resolution of 17 May 1995 on the functioning of the Treaty on European Union with a view to the 1996 Intergovernmental Conference the European Parliament stated that "the value of national and regional cultural and linguistic diversity within the European Union should be explicitly recognized' .
<P>
Could the Council say when the protection of linguistic diversity will appear on its agenda, and what type of decisions will be taken regarding the future of our minority languages and cultures?Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, I invite you to reply jointly to Questions Nos 10, 11, 12 and 14.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to give a joint reply to these questions on the promotion of minority languages and the protection of minorities and their cultures.
What must be stressed, above all, in connection with these issues is that the protection of basic personal freedom and the affirmation of democratic principles constitute two of the fundamental pillars of the European Community.
<P>
Allow me to assure the Members that the Council is highly conscious of the importance attached to the preservation of ethnic, regional and local characteristics. This is what makes our Community a kaleidoscopic entity of many facets, whose diversity is intrinsic to its overall richness.
Moreover, it goes without saying that all citizens of the European Union must be able to enjoy the same rights and freedoms.
In other words, there must be no discrimination of any kind against citizens of the European Union, and certainly not on the basis of their belonging to a national minority.
<P>
It is the opinion of the Council that the governments of the individual Member States are responsible for ensuring that within national communities, xenophobic tendencies do not lead to forms of discrimination which would be at odds with freedom and democracy, which are the very foundation of the European Union.
<P>
The Members must doubtless know that the Council has not examined any specific proposals relating to the protection of minorities, minority languages or similar measures.
Nevertheless, the Council can assure the Members that it will give its full attention to any such proposals that may be presented to it and that such proposals would be more effective at Community level than corresponding measures at national level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ebner">
Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, before I get to the point, allow me to express my delight at appearing here as a representative of an Austrian minority.
I believe that today is the first time in 80 years that an elected representative of part of the former crown land, principality and earldom of Tyrol has been able to stand before a representative of the government of the Republic of Austria, to take part in parliamentary exchanges and to participate in the parliamentary system.
I think that this is the practical manifestation of those major advances which Europe offers us.
<P>
Now to the matter at hand. I believe that it is not enough just to have no discrimination.
What we need is positive discrimination for minorities, that is to say, active protection, and I hope the Council will not only apply itself to this in some detail, but will also seek to obtain appropriate proposals from the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Ebner, I too am delighted to see a representative of an Austrian minority standing before me in my capacity as representative of the presidency.
Let me repeat that the Council can only act on the initiative of the Commission.
Here I must cite Article 128.
Allow me to point out that Article 128 of the Treaty also makes the following provision: the Community shall contribute to the flowering of the cultures of the Member States, while respecting their national and regional diversity and at the same time bringing the common cultural heritage to the fore.
<P>
Through its activities, the Community encourages collaboration between Member States, where necessary supporting and complementing their activities in the following areas: disseminating, and enhancing awareness of, the culture and history of the peoples of Europe; and maintaining and protecting cultural heritage of European significance, non-commercial cultural exchanges and artistic and literary endeavours, including work in the audio-visual field.
<P>
However, should the Member feel that the Commission should approach the Council with a proposal for an action programme to promote minority languages, then I would like to point out to you that provided your draft fulfils the requirement of having the support of a majority of your colleagues, then you yourself have a far more impressive array of arguments to present to the Commission than the Council could possibly assert.
<P>
Perhaps I should also mention the special programmes that exist, notably in the field of languages.
I am thinking in particular of the LINGUA programme which has been set up by the EU.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Vallvé">
Mr President, I am a Catalan, but as you well know, I cannot submit my supplementary question in the Catalan tongue.
In this case, I will therefore submit it in German.
Madam President, you are only too well aware of how important it is for the EU to remain in touch with its citizens.
At this juncture, I would like to ask whether over the next few months, during the Austrian presidency, the Council will be asking the Commission to come up with any new EU programmes for minorities as well as for unofficial languages.
You mentioned the LINGUA programme.
<P>
As you know, we have gained something from the Socrates programme.
However, we must ensure that these official languages, which for the purposes of the European Union are considered to be unofficial, can derive even greater benefit from our efforts in the future.
I wish the Austrian presidency every success.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Vallvé, first of all, thank you for using German, my mother tongue.
I greatly appreciate that.
I do actually understand Valencian Catalan, not every word, but a little, although I speak it very badly.
As to your question, I can only repeat that the Commission has to take the initiative.
The Council can hardly assign the Commission the task of taking the initiative.
<P>
Over the past decade, however - and this is something I wish to elaborate on - considerable changes have been made in a number of areas affecting minority language communities within the European Union.
At national level, decentralization measures, particularly in the fields of teaching and culture, have also led to an increase in activities favourable to a number of minority communities.
In any case, at European level, there is of course a renewed desire to share the benefits of the single market with the less wealthy regions of the Union.
This takes the form of regional aid, such as the financing of infrastructural projects via the Structural Funds, and this aid in turn benefits certain marginal areas and, consequently, communities in prioritized regions. In many cases, these are also minority regions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, I would like to thank you for your advice to the Commission.
However, I have to say quite openly that the Commission sent us to you.
That is one of the reasons why these questions are being put to you.
We have spoken to Mr Santer and from our point of view we would also be happy to seek a resumption of dialogue with the Commission.
<P>
I would like to say quite specifically that in the run-up to the enlargement towards the East, the criteria we are setting for applicant countries as regards minorities are criteria that we often fail to live up to ourselves.
We are therefore of the opinion that something also needs to be done within the EU itself, and it saddens me somewhat to see something of a setback here in that the budget lines for the promotion of minority languages have come under the infamous judgement of the Court.
We have here a list of measures for which new legislation is being created.
Regrettably, the budget line for minority languages is not included here as yet.
I ask you in all sincerity, in your office as presidency of the Council, to take up this matter, because since 1982 the efforts which have been made in this area have been exemplary, and it would be a great pity if these were now to be wasted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Posselt, let me just repeat what I have said: I believe it is quite clear that the Commission must first present proposals; these are the rules of the European Union.
We in the Council can only become involved on the basis of proposals submitted by the Commission.
<P>
However, in general terms, let me say that when it comes to minority rights, particularly in central and eastern European states, the conventions of the Council of Europe naturally have a major role to play, and I believe it is also very important to state that the work of the Council of Europe should not be duplicated.
In my additional capacity as representative of the Council of Europe, I personally think that it is very important to let the Council of Europe get on with its work and to leave the Council to act on initiatives tabled by the Commission.
A tremendous amount has been achieved, and we are delighted that in many central and eastern European countries, where there have been problems with minorities, such problems have now been addressed and in some cases settled.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Madam President-in-Office of the Council.
As I said, Mr Imaz San Miguel is not here, which deprives us of the chance also to hear the opinion of a nationality with such a strong and complex identity as the Basques.
However, Mr Habsburg-Lothringen is with us, and has one minute to put a supplementary question if he wishes to do so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, allow me to begin by saying how enormously satisfying it is for me to have the privilege of addressing you by this title and what great pleasure this gives me.
<P>
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, one question which is naturally of great interest to me in this connection is how you view the situation of the rights of European ethnic minorities.
This matter has arisen time and again in the European Parliament, but has of course never reached the House; it always seems to get stuck, as it were, in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
Given the fact that we are now discussing the enlargement of the European Union, when each of the prospective Member States will also be bringing along its own problems in respect of ethnic groups and minorities, do you not think it is time for the European Union to reach out to the public at large and seek to define a law for European ethnic groups and a proactive system for the protection of minorities?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Habsburg-Lothringen, I too am delighted to be here today giving concise answers to your questions.
As you know, according to the rules of the Union, this would also require an initiative from the Commission.
However, I would like to reiterate what I have just been saying.
I believe that it is really the role of the Council of Europe to be reflecting on the rights of European ethnic minorities, since it has already done a lot of work in that direction.
<P>
Why should we - and this is my own personal view - always repeat the same thing in the European Union as we have already anticipated or conceived in the Council of Europe?
For my part, I would have thought that quite apart from an initiative by the Commission - if an initiative were forthcoming, that would of course be marvellous - we should continue to pursue the matter of a European law for ethnic groups primarily in the Council of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 NAME="President">
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, I still have three further supplementary questions on this issue, which will bring us to the end of Question Time.
However, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, as you will see, when we give the floor to the Habsburgs in this House, we do so in chronological order, that is, to the eldest first and then the youngest.
So Mr von Habsburg now has the floor for a supplementary question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
<SPEAKER ID=243 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr von Habsburg, I too am delighted to be addressing you in your new capacity.
Perhaps in this instance I can make an exception and give a personal answer.
Personally, I think you are quite right.
Of course this matter is something which we should look into further, and we can get our cue from Article 128 - which I cited earlier - namely the first section, which states that the Community shall contribute to the flowering of the cultures of the Member States while respecting their national and regional diversity and at the same time bringing the common cultural heritage to the fore.
As I indicated earlier, however, it is up to the Commission to table a proposal here.
Then the Council can become involved too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 NAME="McCartin">
The President-in-Office has dealt very fully and sympathetically with this question.
I come from a part of the Community where we have an ancient and very rich living language but it is at some risk.
The European Union's efforts to support this minority language are immensely appreciated.
<P>
In the past the European Union has been criticized on the grounds that it is going to be a great melting pot in which small communities and minorities will all be lost.
I would point out that, in the past, the individual states and kingdoms which now compose the European Union persecuted and tried to stamp out these minorities, but the European Union now supports them and gives them practical assistance in the form of a budget and, in the case of Ireland, a minority language office in Dublin.
<P>
Does the President-in-Office agree with me that it is very appropriate that the European Union should engage in this political activity in order to make the point that we do not want to destroy but to support and maintain minority cultures and languages?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr McCartin, allow me to repeat that the European Union naturally seeks to protect all particularist and minority groups and takes an interest in all the various languages.
It is incorrect to say that support is given to groups which seek to exert a negative influence here.
As I have already pointed out, the starting point is the aforesaid Article 128 of the Treaty, which states quite clearly that the Community shall contribute to the flowering of the cultures of the Member States while respecting their national and regional diversity and at the same time bringing the common cultural heritage to the fore.
I believe that is the correct intention and that is how we shall be proceeding in future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, I have been following the line of reasoning of the President-in-Office: rather than the Council going ahead, she calls on the Commission to take the initiative.
What is this about?
It is about the protection of minority rights, and the right to preserve one's linguistic heritage, etcetera.
This is provided for in the Treaties.
The Commission is guardian of the Treaties.
As a result, its first obligation is to respect the Treaties.
Why are they playing this game with us?
Why is it being sent from pillar to post?
This was the game that crucified Christ.
If you tell us the Commission, and the Commission says the Council, you hang minority rights.
Why?
Since the Commission has an obligation to respect the Treaties, the Council should not order it, the Council should request it to put forward a proposal in accordance with such and such an article of the Treaties so that we can move towards protecting these rights.
Why are you avoiding this?
What are you concealing?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Ephremidis, I am sure you are just as familiar with the Treaties as I am.
As you know, I am speaking here of Article 128(5), which quite clearly lays down the right of the Commission to take the initiative.
I believe that all the other procedures are of an informal nature.
Of course, it is possible to approach the Commission informally, but the basic formal right to take the initiative lies with the Commission.
There is nothing I can do about that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=248 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, as Vice-President of the inter-parliamentary delegation for relations with Slovakia, I am constantly involved in intensive discussions as to how minority rights are actually handled within the European Union of 15 and how they will be handled in the applicant countries.
The questions are always the same: is there an evaluation?
How are minority rights developing within the various states?
What model should really be adopted as the best practice?
Are we in a position to produce exemplary projects and say that these really work, that this is the way things should be, and can these models be compared with one another?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Rübig, I would like to add the following: all Member States of the European Union naturally operate on a democratic basis, fully uphold human rights and meet all the criteria that we are imposing on some of the prospective Member States.
You are aware of the Copenhagen criteria.
These include the process of full democratization, that is to say, democracy.
This naturally goes hand in hand with the effective protection of minority rights.
That is the basis of the agreement.
This is also the starting point for renewed political dialogue with Slovakia, for example, a process which I personally am very much involved with in that country.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes Question Time.
Questions Nos 15 to 43 will be dealt with in writing.
<P>
When we started Question Time we welcomed Mrs Ferrero-Waldner.
That welcome has been repeated in a polite and friendly manner throughout the afternoon.
Now that we have finished Question Time, I repeat that welcome but, at the same time, I must express our thanks because, ladies and gentlemen, whether or not we are pleased with the answers, we must recognize that they have all been given with that sense of responsibility, effort and willingness to reply which this House deserves.
Thank you very much, Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, and I predict that we shall have six months of intense but pleasant and fruitful work.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 7.10 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=14>
New codecision procedure after Amsterdam
<SPEAKER ID=251 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0271/98) by Mr Manzella, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on the new codecision procedure after Amsterdam.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 NAME="Manzella">
Mr President, many think that the Amsterdam Treaty, although disappointing in some respects, has achieved a very important institutional result with the new codecision procedure.
Parliament's position in relation to the Council is indeed much more balanced as a result, and Parliament, in particular, as the legislator of first instance on a proposal from the Commission, can offer the Council an immediately adoptable legislative product.
The so-called first reading can in this way also become the only phase of examination by Parliament, substantially shortening the Union's legislative programme and enabling Parliament to be more involved in Community legislation than in the past.
<P>
The motion for a resolution before the House is a document of guidelines that moves in two directions.
The first direction concerns our working procedures which must be adapted, including through the subsequent work of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, to the new political dimension of the Parliamentary stage after the proposal by the European Commission.
The possibility of concluding the procedure after one Parliamentary stage means that this phase has to be structured, with a series of measures that ensure that this procedure is not unnecessarily long, that there is genuine, effective dialogue with the Council, in addition to the dialogue with the Commission, that there is responsibility in the proposals and in the decisions, and that there is transparency.
<P>
All this must be done while making sure that there is no loss of flexibility in the Parliamentary game and in the dialogue with the other institutions. Besides, certain legislative committees have rightly underlined this.
The change in the legal nature of the first stage is naturally reflected in the second stage as well, the so-called conciliation stage.
This stage is actually enhanced by the increased interinstitutional dialogue which takes place at first reading.
<P>
Thus, the second direction taken by the document in question is aimed at a new interinstitutional agreement, and it is absolutely necessary that the opinions of the legislative committees that have accumulated the most experience in this procedure be taken into account when negotiating this agreement.
<P>
Mr President, Commissioner, as you can see, the basis of this motion is the radical change that the Amsterdam Treaty has brought about in the legal nature of the initial Parliamentary stage.
For this reason, all our efforts must go towards the introduction of this initial stage, with as much elasticity as possible.
On the other hand, I would consider it frankly absurd - although with all my respect to the Members who presented two amendments along these lines - if the European Parliament refused the procedure outlined in the Treaty, retaining a second reading nonetheless.
If this were the case, this motion would turn into a counter-reform, unacceptable not only politically but especially in terms of constitutional legitimacy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 NAME="van Velzen, W.G.">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the committee, I express my thanks and appreciation to Mr Manzella for the constructive and balanced fashion with which he has treated this subject that is so important to the European Parliament, namely a new codecision procedure in the Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
Mr President, with regard to the first reading of the new codecision procedure, I would like to briefly discuss several matters.
It is important that we realize, as the rapporteur also stated, that the completion of the codecision procedure made possible by the Amsterdam Treaty can only be implemented in practice following the first reading if the exchange of information and the informal contacts between the Council and Parliament are strengthened at first reading.
In addition, the rapporteur and the chairman of the relevant Parliamentary committee with authority in the field should theoretically be able to begin informal discussions with the Council, or at least with the chairman of the relevant Council working group, following an initial exchange of ideas in the Commission.
<P>
It is also essential that the representative of the Council actually takes part in the committee meeting, is present during the voting and that he is given the opportunity to make his position known before the vote.
<P>
With regard to the second reading and the conciliation procedure, I also have two more remarks.
It is essential that the representative of the relevant Council working group explain to the relevant Parliamentary committee the main issues in the common position adopted by the Council at first reading.
The Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy would welcome a strengthening of the role of the rapporteur in the conciliation procedure.
The Council must also provide Parliament's rapporteur with the opportunity to explain his or her position to the Council.
In this way, I believe that a mutual process of information exchange and persuasion can take place and I therefore hope that these suggestions will be adopted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=254 NAME="Wieland">
Mr President, most of the Members who are involved in the committees dealing with this report, the rapporteur and also the draftsmen of the opinions have discovered, in the course of the past week, that the changes to procedures in this House which arise from the Amsterdam Treaty have much greater effect than could be suspected at first or second glance.
These changes are certainly positive, but partly problematic, and in any case are of a complex nature.
<P>
I thank the rapporteur very warmly for his difficult work in the finely spun web of interactions, of action and reaction, in the network of relationships between the various bodies of the European Union.
I do not want to discuss all the aspects of the written opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights which was approved unanimously in committee.
I will restrict myself to paragraph 3 of the existing resolution, to the question of contacts with the Council and in what form, to what extent and when these should take place, and what the legal quality of the contacts would be.
In our view, this question was answered very inadequately by the rapporteur.
<P>
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has approved such contact, but only informal contact.
The report is questionable in that it authorizes the rapporteur to negotiate at first reading.
This authorization means that Parliament has commitments regarding others and that a situation of trust is created regarding others, without a vote to this effect taking place.
We consider this to be too far-reaching, particularly as there are now amendments which, firstly, no longer grant such a right to the shadow rapporteur, and which also provide for the removal of the obligation to report to the committee.
<P>
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights considers informal contacts to be necessary.
These must be incorporated, but further-reaching negotiating powers must be implemented in transactions and back-to-back transactions.
If the rapporteur is to have such rights, the Council must also be obliged to act independently and without being able to commit itself at an early stage.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=255 NAME="Nassauer">
Mr President, first of all I congratulate Mr Wieland on his first speech before the European Parliament, and I also congratulate Mr Manzella on his report. On behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, I would stress that the main emphasis of the changed procedural rules must lie in the preparation for the first reading.
From this point of view, I share Mr Manzella's opinion.
<P>
The opportunities which the Amsterdam Treaty offers Parliament must be used to the full.
It must be possible to conclude a legislative procedure at first reading without the Council having to draft a common position, which, as we all know, requires a vast amount of time.
Parliament's legislative procedures can be tightened considerably if advantage is taken of the opportunities offered by the Amsterdam Treaty.
The Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs requests this quite expressly.
<P>
I would like to draw your attention to the fact that, with regard to our powers, for the first five years after the Amsterdam Treaty has come into force, many policy areas will be removed from the legislative powers of the national parliaments, will be Communitized and will be made subject to the unanimous decision of the Council and only the consultation of Parliament.
This concerns policy areas which are traditionally Parliamentary policy areas.
It is very difficult to tolerate the fact that, in this respect, Parliament is only consulted.
For this reason, we request that the Council treat us as though we had a right of codecision.
<P>
Thirdly, the codecision procedure, the consultation procedure has also gained in importance.
We propose that there be a permanent Conciliation Committee in the European Parliament which is composed mainly of permanent Members who regularly deal with the policy areas of conciliation and thus, in this function, are dealing with the Council.
It is not acceptable that we diminish our importance in relation to the Council by using this committee only in individual cases.
This puts us at a disadvantage in relation to the Council.
Therefore, at least in the opinion of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, we should consider setting up a permanent committee for conciliation issues to make it clear that Parliament has gained new importance in the area of conciliation also and that we are prepared to exercise our Parliamentary role vigorously.
<P>
On the whole, Parliament is faced with a new challenge.
We must ensure greater quality in our legislative work.
This will be shown in the organization of the procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=256 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schäfer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report by my friend, Andrea Manzella, on the implementation of the Amsterdam Treaty deals with the most important task of the European Parliament, apart from its budgetary powers and appointment of the Commission, that is, joint legislation at European level.
We must be aware of the dimensions of what we have now achieved in terms of codecision: before Maastricht, there was nothing, after Amsterdam, 75 % of all legal acts are decided jointly by the Council and Parliament.
<P>
However, this great success should not distract us from the subject areas which still remain open: agriculture, competition, taxes, Economic and Monetary Union, foreign trade and social dialogue.
If these six areas are not included, the European democratic deficit will not have been eliminated.
<P>
We now find ourselves in a new situation, the Council must first of all get used to the fact that it no longer has the last word.
But the European Parliament must also change its work fundamentally and concentrate greatly on legislation.
For this, a measure of self-criticism is necessary.
We can no longer speak on all topics by means of resolutions and urgencies.
We will now be involved less with ardent appeals than with the concrete work of integration which will determine and, I think, give new impetus to, the everyday work of the European Parliament.
Mr Manzella's proposals therefore point in the right direction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=257 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Neyts-Uyttebroeck">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the extension and simplification of the codecision procedure is indeed the most important institutional change in the Amsterdam Treaty.
This offers our Parliament the chance to become a more fully-fledged legislative body.
In his outstanding report, Mr Manzella has proposed to make maximum use of the new provisions.
My group agrees with him that a new institutional agreement must be entered into, and we call on the Council and the Commission to take action on this matter as soon as possible.
We also share his threefold concern for, first of all, better information exchange between the institutions and better planning of activities; secondly, an improvement in the linguistic and judicial quality of the texts; and thirdly, a transparent procedure in all its stages.
<P>
In view of the new possibilities to complete the entire procedure following the first reading, the rapporteur has investigated how Parliament, the Council and the Commission can capitalize on this situation.
The discussions in our committee have led to a balance between the concern for efficiency on the one hand, and the concern for transparency and broad decision-making on the other.
I am very satisfied that my amendments requiring the committee chairman and the rapporteur to report, too, on their informal contacts have been accepted.
<P>
After all, it would be extremely questionable if the simplified codecision procedure restricted legislative work to a privileged club of only a few Members of the European Parliament.
We therefore do not agree with the proposal by Mr Nassauer. This proposal would not only mean that George Orwell's prediction would come true within this Parliament, but it would also mean, in particular, that the Union would cut itself off even more from the opinions of the European public and of the national parliaments.
The present resolution does not do that; it has taken the proper direction.
My group will approve the resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=258 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Janssen van Raay">
Mr President, I have a very small correction for you, Mr Schäfer, about something that you said which I totally disagree with: happily, since Maastricht the correct wording is no longer "the Council and Parliament' but "the European Parliament and the Council'.
This small correction would enable me to agree completely with you, because I, Mr Manzella, want to limit myself to the role of the European Parliament, because we are not fulfilling our duty.
If we take part in the Conciliation Committee, there is always the chairman - a minister from the presidency -, there are always 14 representatives of the Council, and luckily we always have one of the Vice-Presidents at conciliation, as well as the rapporteur and the chairman. But, unfortunately, I must ascertain, Mrs Neyts - and this comment is directed at you- that a number of us are absent.
I understand your point, and I understand that of Mr Nassauer, but regardless of which of you is correct we must always make sure that 15 Members of Parliament are present.
Whether we do that using a combination, Mr Manzella, of a number of permanent and a number of alternating members, I am prepared to make any compromise, because I do understand what you mean: if we have a fixed group of 15 permanent representatives, we cannot allow those who disagree in the partsession to be present during the conciliation.
My most important point, Mr Manzella, and we will support your outstanding report, is that we, the Members of Parliament, like the Council, must always be present on the committee with 15 members.
If we must have a few more permanent members with a certain alternation, I can live with that.
Let us make a compromise.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=259 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="De Giovanni">
Mr President, I believe that our rapporteur is right: with Amsterdam, the codecision procedure has taken a great step forward, further legitimizing the role of the European Parliament and, especially, providing citizens with new instruments.
<P>
This aspect on representative democracy has often been underlined: the more codecision is extended, the more citizenship grows; these are relationships between extremely important things.
I believe that the report by Mr Manzella highlights this aspect, and I am not letting friendship get in the way when I say that we have been fortunate to have a rapporteur who is a legal expert but who also has great political awareness.
<P>
Parliament is showing that it understands one fundamental thing, that is, that it has become substantially equal in legislation: it is a co-legislator having effects on legislation and effects on control, meaning effects on comitology, with a tremendous simplification of the procedures as well, making them more efficient as a result.
Allow me to say briefly in passing that I confirm and endorse what Andrea Manzella already said with great vigour, rejecting an amendment that would destroy the meaning of the report; indeed, I do not see why the European Parliament has to underestimate the importance of being able to conclude an act of legislation at first reading.
<P>
I have a final observation, Mr President: the codecision procedure is also closely linked to the debate on subsidiarity, which is a debate we all know is still under way, with the letter from Chirac, the Cardiff Summit, and the future informal summit that will be held in Innsbruck.
It is very important because we must bear in mind that the European Parliament, when legislating, must also naturally be respectful of the autonomies and, especially, must ensure that its own legislation is of a general nature, meaning that it concerns laws of a general scope.
<P>
Nothing good comes out of European legislation that is too cumbersome, whereas much good is done with European legislation that can be adapted for acts of a general scope.
I know very well that the issue being debated today does not concern the hierarchy of laws, however, we certainly should mention a criterion regarding the general scope. Besides, in various documents on codecision we have already had an opportunity to mention this.
<P>
This is in favour of European democracy and in favour of a just interpretation of subsidiarity, which of course must not be an excuse to renationalise policy but a democratic coordination of the various levels that contribute to the construction of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=260 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, Commissioner, I must begin by saying that is an honour for me and a stroke of luck that it is I who must speak, on behalf of the PPE, to congratulate Professor Manzella on his report.
I do so with great admiration; admiration which began when I learnt through his book the foundations of what I know about parliamentary law.
<P>
I believe that our colleague, Mr De Giovanni, has already discussed the two great and outstanding essential qualities of this report.
In it, the superior work of a clever politician and a great lawyer are united.
As regards the politician, I would like to highlight his sensitivity towards that concept that involves truly bringing Europe closer to the citizens.
We need to realize that we must begin with these procedural issues.
There is nothing that moves the idea of Europe further away from the citizens than debating a directive which we are not going to hear of again for years - sometimes 10 years or more - and which then reappears without there being a connection between one stage and the other.
Therefore, I believe that we must all support that political objective.
<P>
As regards the undoubtably great lawyer, I would firstly highlight his accuracy and the importance he gives to aspects which, for others in this Hemicycle, would be subsidiary or ancillary, such as the quality of legislation, the quality of standards, the quality of drafting and the translations.
All of the points made by Mr Manzella in that respect are totally relevant.
<P>
But there are also practical aspects, such as appropriate management of time, appropriate management of deadlines and the establishment of interinstitutional agreements in this field.
<P>
Finally, I would like to underline certain aspects which, although I agree with them and I see them as objectives to provide Parliament with a form of self-discipline, perhaps go slightly too far.
I am referring to the explanation of the two amendments and the misunderstanding that may have occurred in connection with them.
Mr Manzella, for example, suggests the institutionalization of informal dialogue, yet he knows better than anyone that, by its very nature, what is informal steers clear of institutionalization, and steers clear of being established within a code.
That would be one example.
<P>
Another example is the need to give explanations in writing.
I share his aim, but maybe it is not totally adjusted to reality.
Why?
Well, in fact, we all know that what is found in a rule can be used against Parliament as an institution, and not against third parties.
We must be cautious and not include in a rule obligations for third parties, which are wishful thinking in the last analysis; nor must we include in a rule issues which would only be binding on us, and which could even cause us problems before the courts of justice.
<P>
Mr President, I would like to conclude by emphasizing that, in my opinion, there is a misunderstanding in those two amendments and that, in any case, we are all aware of the importance of this report and the need for this Parliament - which is already relatively old, which already has some real power of codecision, and which is a co-legislator on equal terms with the Council - to mould all of this into internal rules and interinstitutional agreements.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=261 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schwaiger">
<SPEAKER ID=262 NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that one of the positive contributions of the Amsterdam Treaty has been that it strengthens the role of Parliament as a co-legislator, opposite the other branch of legislative power that is the Council.
And, as is well know, this strengthening of Parliament's role was supported during the Intergovernmental Conference by the Commission.
<P>
The increase in legislative issues submitted for codecision represents, nevertheless, a challenge for all of the institutions and calls on us all to improve our work and coordinate our action in a constructive way in order to guarantee that the new procedure can successfully achieve its result.
<P>
In that respect, the excellent report by Mr Manzella which we are debating today is a particularly timely one and, in my view, contains many well-presented suggestions which are, in fact, especially useful in enabling us to tackle this new extended codecision procedure.
Therefore, I would like to sincerely congratulate the rapporteur on his work.
<P>
The pleasing result that the codecision procedure has had up until now is due, to a large extent, to the coherent way in which Parliament has worked, and it has done so from first reading through to the conclusion.
There are, in addition, some circumstances which favour it in particular, such as the fact that there has been continuity in terms of the rapporteur and the chairman of the Parliamentary committee for each issue.
This evidently contrasts with the situation in the Council where the presidency changes every six months.
There is also continuity in conciliation, with the participation by Parliament, including the three Vice-Presidents who belong to the Parliamentary delegation, which undoubtedly offers an undeniable advantage.
<P>
I believe that this new codecision procedure will be successful if we are able to work together and take advantage of the experience which has already been accumulated in a pragmatic and flexible way in order to tackle the important work which we must carry out from now on.
Certainly, a great deal of work is going to accumulate as a consequence of this increase in Parliament's authority.
And in that respect, I must say that I support, in particular, the various measures contained in the report aimed at increasing transparency, democracy and the very legal quality of Parliament's amendments.
<P>
In my opinion, Mr Manzella is right when he underlines in his report the importance of the first reading stage.
The Treaty offers the possibility of concluding the legislative procedure at first reading. This represents an important change, particularly if we take account, in fact, of this increase in the number of subjects which will be submitted for codecision.
<P>
However, there are other reasons which I would like to point out here.
This first reading is a particularly important stage in the procedure because it is the stage at which each of the institutions carries out an especially detailed analysis of the Commission's proposals. It consequently provides an opportunity for all to clearly demonstrate their concerns, to emphasize their own interests - minority, sectoral or majority interests - and to ensure that they make their voice heard at that stage.
It is thus particularly important, both for Parliament and subsequently for the Council too.
<P>
Furthermore, a detailed political debate at first reading, although it may not be the end of the legislative process, might allow us to reach a conclusion more easily at second reading.
At second reading, more strict requirements enter into play, involving majorities. In that way, we manage to avoid the conciliation phase, which should undoubtedly be avoided as far as possible because we already know how long and complicated it usually turns out to be.
<P>
Moreover, if Parliament takes more care over its amendments at that stage, this would obviously contribute positively to the debate.
Until now, we have seen at times how, due to lack of time, Parliament's amendments at second reading have been a mere reiteration of the amendments which were not accepted at first reading.
And at times, perhaps not even a careful analysis of the Council's common position has been carried out.
For its part, the Council should also adopt a more open attitude in order to find common solutions which take Parliament's amendments into consideration.
<P>
I see that sometimes there is a type of paralysis, that is, that Parliament has a second reading in which the amendments from first reading are reiterated and the Council, for its part, does not want to move away from its first position and practically does not take account of Parliament's amendments.
<P>
With the extension of codecision, I believe that there must be more fluidity, more flexibility. If Parliament has tabled amendments, the Council must take them into consideration, examine them, and determine how formulas can be found to reach agreement, while avoiding conciliation which is usually a particularly rare formula.
Obviously, if no agreement is reached at second reading, there is the possibility of conciliation, but we should try to resolve the problems beforehand.
<P>
Finally, I would like to tell the House that the Commission is prepared to play an active role in all the stages of the legislative procedure, and particularly at first reading, as Mr Manzella's report proposes.
I believe that we can collaborate and contribute ideas on a mutual basis.
On the one hand, we must do so with the Council working group itself; on the other hand, we must do so with the rapporteur and the relevant Parliamentary committee, to try to push the process forward and to facilitate the drawing up of a modified proposal aimed at reconciling as far as possible the positions of both parties.
<P>
I know that Parliament has often asked us to play the role that corresponds to the Commission and that it has reproached us where we have not done so adequately.
We are going to do everything possible to follow those suggestions we have received from Parliament.
<P>
I am also convinced that, if we achieve positive results in the debate on a new decision concerning comitology, on the basis of the proposal recently presented by the Commission, this will facilitate a rapid conclusion of a large number of cases which are submitted for codecision.
According to our calculations, at least 70 % of the cases submitted for codecision have involved some problem concerning comitology. It would be a great relief for all if this matter could be resolved once and for all, giving due recognition to Parliament's rights without decreasing the efficiency of the system when applying the implementing measures.
<P>
I finally want to demonstrate my support for the proposal to review the Interinstitutional Agreement currently in force concerning the codecision procedure.
This should be modified in accordance with the terms of the new Treaty and with current practice.
I have no doubt that that will be a relatively easy task to allow our collaborators who have contributed so effectively up until now to the success of interinstitutional dialogue can achieve it.
<P>
There are some formal interinstitutional procedures provided for in the opinion at first reading which might mean that the procedure becomes slightly complicated.
Therefore, I would recommend to Parliament that it should try to move forward in the most pragmatic and flexible manner possible.
Mr Manzella's report represents the adequate framework to achieve this objective and the Commission wants to show that it is prepared to participate in an active and constructive way in the negotiations, in a spirit of collaboration, in order to ensure the success of Parliament's strengthened role in the legislative procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=263 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Janssen van Raay">
Actually, I never need to teach my old friend Oreja anything, he certainly knows everything better than I do. But it is important for the new Members of Parliament to know that it is only out of wise self-limitation that we carry over amendments to the second reading which were not adopted at first reading because, according to the Treaties, we theoretically have the right to come into the second reading with all new amendments.
But we previously decided not to do that, to prevent eternal discussion.
Therefore, my friend Oreja, the fact that we are bogged down with amendments that were not adopted at first reading testifies to the self-control of Parliament which is essential for a good conclusion to the legislative procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=264 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Janssen.
You do not need to answer, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=15>
Implementation of the Amsterdam Treaty: implications of closer cooperation
<SPEAKER ID=265 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0257/98) by Mr Friedhelm Frischenschlager, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on the implementation of the Amsterdam Treaty: implications of closer cooperation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=266 NAME="Frischenschlager">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this report by the Committee on Institutional Affairs is part of the follow-up work involving the decision regarding the Amsterdam Treaty.
In this case we want to make decisions on how closer cooperation can be evaluated and applied, not least because the European Parliament would like further proposals from the Commission in the foreseeable future on the reform of the institutions; that is what these reports are for.
<P>
The significance of the pressure towards institutional reform following on from Amsterdam can be seen in the example of the work done by the Committee on Institutional Affairs in the area of closer cooperation.
What was the intention of the Amsterdam Treaty?
Obviously, it intended to allow closer cooperation, and the idea behind this was that people acknowledge that there is political heterogeneousness, there are various levels of political development in individual countries and obviously different demands for integration. For this reason, there should be differentiated integration - and this is what is essentially new about the Amsterdam Treaty - within the institutional framework of the European Union.
<P>
The second aim was that, in further-reaching integration measures and demands of a large majority of Member States, the practical veto of a minority of states or perhaps of a single state should not prevent these additional integration measures, except in constitutional areas such as the amendment of the Treaty for purposes of enlargement, etcetera. This was the intention of the Intergovernmental Conference, and the European Parliament's position on this was always very hesitant as it was afraid that it would lead to a Europe à la carte, and this is a very justified reproach.
It was for this reason that the European Parliament, in the form of the Tsatsos/Méndez de Vigo report, incorporated very clear and very, very restrictive conditions to allow closer cooperation, and it also succeeded in this.
<P>
In this area the result of Amsterdam was certainly to allow closer cooperation in principle, but the requirements, the conditions, were made so restrictive that in the final analysis it leaves very little scope for the future: in the first pillar there is practically none but in the third there is a very little scope for legislative measures to implement the action programmes.
But even this very modest scope was restricted in the Treaty by the provision that, for important reasons of national policy, each Member State of the EU can, by requiring unanimity, prevent any far-reaching demand for integration on the part of other Member States or the large majority of Member States.
<P>
So once again a national veto consisting of national interests has been incorporated with the result that, yet again, one of the main purposes of this Treaty provision has been thwarted, in that true, far-reaching integration has de facto been rendered impossible by a majority decision.
It was always Parliament's line that, with all restraint regarding closer cooperation, it should be possible to go over to that side as a last resort, to actually be able to carry out differentiated integration of this kind by means of a veto.
<P>
I will come now to the conclusions. The scope of this closer cooperation is very narrow; it is in no way justifiable to bring back this national veto, and this is why we request that the Commission remove this veto, this blockade, from the Treaty by means of proposals which advocate amendment of the Treaty.
<P>
In general, we have achieved the result that this closer cooperation in no way fulfils the political requirements of the European Union.
For this reason, we have kept to the European Parliament's old wish that it is essential, for the future of the European Union, that the principle of unanimity be replaced, under certain circumstances, by a general majority voting procedure.
This is the main political substance of my report, and I hope that the majority of this House agrees with this opinion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=267 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Delcroix">
Mr President, closer cooperation between Member States is a means of European integration which must allow the obstacles to be overcome; obstacles which are due partly to the often divergent expectations of Member States and partly to the continuation of the rule of unanimity by the Amsterdam Treaty, . Admittedly, this latter provides for closer cooperation to be used as a last resort, that it will be accompanied by strict conditions and that it must involve a majority of Member States.
Nevertheless, even under strict conditions, everyone would prefer not to have to implement the mechanisms of this closer cooperation.
Citizens will still perceive it as an admission of failure, and rightly so, if you remember that the construction of Europe has always had as its main objective the implementation of joint projects as part of a single structure.
<P>
Furthermore, it will be noted that a sort of competition exists between the institutional reforms, which must assure the enlargement and deepening of Europe and closer cooperation, which is a means of pressure aimed at forcing the construction of Europe and thus at avoiding paralysis should the intergovernmental procedure fail.
This procedure is, however, not capable of responding to the major future challenges of the construction of Europe for it contains the seeds of its own destruction.
<P>
I would remind you here of the words used in the Treaty of Rome to outline the European project, "an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe' .
Who does not see that closer cooperation goes in the opposite direction, that is, towards what is known as a two-speed Europe or a Europe à la carte?
<P>
Therefore, whenever possible, institutional reforms must prevail over closer cooperation. This latter will never be an adequate framework or the ideal solution for taking up the main challenges of European Union.
It is a "spare tyre' and must remain so, even if Parliament considers it something that cannot be ignored in order to make progress in certain areas.
The rapporteur is right to call on us to firstly search for politically constructive solutions.
<P>
Finally, it is to be regretted that the Amsterdam Treaty requires only that the Council and the Commission regularly inform the European Parliament of the development of closer cooperation.
<P>
In order to respect the institutional balance, Parliament's involvement should become the rule: this is, moreover, what the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs wishes.
And, as the rapporteur requests, the process of launching any closer cooperation must be submitted to the democratic control of the European Parliament.
Closer cooperation was only adopted at Amsterdam to navigate between two pitfalls: paralysis or fragmentation.
In the current state of affairs, we can unfortunately not do without it. But it should still be limited, moderate and democratically controlled.
I congratulate the rapporteur on how he tackled the difficult task of drawing up this considerate report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=268 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Méndez de Vigo">
Mr President, closer cooperation was, during a certain period of time - before the Intergovernmental Conference -, the star topic.
It seemed as if closer cooperation was resolving all the important and worrying issues regarding the construction of Europe.
Since the Amsterdam Treaty, it must be recognized - and Mr Frischenschlager does so in his excellent report - that closer cooperation has actually turned out to be much less important than it seemed it was going to be.
<P>
Why has this happened?
Why do we have this result?
Surely it is because the problems which, somewhat hypocritically, closer cooperation claimed to solve have been solved in a different way.
Thus, that government which used to block part of the agreements in the Council has been replaced by another, which seems to have a different attitude.
So, in addition, issues such as security and defence, for example, which also cause difficulties in certain Member States, have been in some way resolved through the Petersberg missions.
<P>
Finally, the issue of enlargement, for which some people set the date for the year 2000, as we already know after reading Agenda 2000, is going to take much longer and that, in addition, surely the problems of enlargement will be resolved through transition periods, as has happened with all previous enlargements.
<P>
Therefore, after all, closer cooperation has not served to solve those problems which had a difficult political solution.
I am pleased with that, Mr President, because there was something hypocritical about closer cooperation.
The European Union's true problem is that there are still certain subjects which are subject to unanimity.
This is the only reality, as Mr Frischenschlager states very clearly in his report.
And given that - as we know - it is extremely difficult to achieve unanimity with 15 countries, it is hard to imagine what it will be like with 25 countries.
It will surely be tremendously complicated.
<P>
Thus, closer cooperation, which has been extraordinarily confined to issues which come under the first pillar, will serve little use.
I have had difficulty determining those issues to which closer cooperation can be applied under the first pillar.
It will be possible to apply it to the third pillar, to those issues which involve cooperation, after the five years of the transition period; and certainly, through constructive abstention, it will be possible to apply it to the second pillar.
<P>
But I will return to my principal point, to the point we should worry about in this Parliament: the most important thing, the really important thing - and it is highlighted by Mr Frischenschlager in paragraph 16 of his report - is that we have to try, in future revisions of the Treaty, to replace unanimity with qualified majority.
That is the only way in which we can fulfil our role, the only way in which Europe will be capable of being not only democratic, but, more particularly, effective.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=269 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Mr President, I would like to congratulate our colleague Mr Frischenschlager on his excellent report. The fact that there are only three amendments - two of which come from the Liberal Group - is testimony to that.
<P>
Closer cooperation is one of the major innovations of the Amsterdam Treaty.
At least that was the original intention.
What was written into the Treaty this time was not the right to opt out but the right for Member States to pursue integration within the single institutional framework without being blocked by a veto.
The need to overcome the paralysis imposed by the veto became all the more urgent with the prospect of enlargement.
<P>
A positive, constructive approach to European integration, therefore, underlay the original idea, and therein lies its added value.
Of course guarantees had to be built in.
Closer cooperation could not endanger what had been achieved together so far - the so called acquis communautaire - and could not lead to a permanent rupture between the Member States.
The Treaty specifically provides for a number of safeguards in respect of these and other conditions.
<P>
However, unfortunately during the negotiations a major change was introduced to accommodate British insistence on the veto.
The provisions in the Treaty now allow any Member State to block the majority vote needed to trigger closer cooperation for 'important and stated reasons of national policy' .
For the first time enshrined in the Treaty is the notorious Luxembourg Compromise of 1966.
The rapporteur recognises this by repudiating that specific point.
By introducing the veto into the procedure closer cooperation loses much of its potential and turns it largely into a theoretical exercise.
That is the gist of the amendment submitted by the Liberal Group and which Mrs Spaak would have defended if she had been here today.
<P>
The merit of closer cooperation was that it provided time to convince others of the advantage of cooperating in a particular field.
Now the Treaty does not even provide this temporary solution to a deadlock.
That means that we are left with the basic problem of a worrying lack of consensus about the direction of European integration.
That is the problem with what was finally agreed on closer cooperation.
I hope the Commissioner can comment on that point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=270 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herzog">
Mr President, closer cooperation between states, and also between social actors, is legitimate if it expresses the common values of the Community, if it pursues objectives of social progress and development and if it takes into consideration the necessary solidarity between Europeans.
I would add that it is also a current need if progress is to be made on a whole series of issues.
For example, on the issue of common economic policies, the French government, in its own way, is looking to encourage possibilities for closer cooperation within the group of 11 countries of the euro area.
Certain social issues should also be mentioned, such as the structuring of European networks of services in the general interest.
It is also important to have the possibility of experimentation and cooperation, for example, of an interregional nature.
<P>
The fact remains that closer cooperation must be situated within a legal framework which clearly expresses all of this.
A minority of colleagues think that closer cooperation can do without a legal framework.
This is clearly impossible, for it may prejudice fundamental rights.
<P>
The Amsterdam Treaty is sometimes hesitant, for good reason, regarding concern for Community unity. However, it is also sometimes hesitant for poor reasons, which demonstrate, I believe, that many of us are unfortunately influenced by the idea that Europe remains, above all, a competitive arena.
<P>
Our rapporteur demonstrates very well that there exists a significant obstacle to this process of closer cooperation: it is the national state veto.
I support his report and, in particular, the clause calling for the abolition of this veto.
There are other restrictions, such as the need to avoid causing distortions in competition or the Commission's obligatory initiative in first pillar matters, which we could also discuss.
<P>
I have only one fundamental reserve to express to the rapporteur, which does not prevent us from agreeing on the outcome.
It concerns the idea that a qualified majority vote is sufficient, an idea which others have also expressed here. I am in full agreement with the importance of the qualified majority vote, but I insist on the fact that, besides the law, besides coordination, besides Community programmes, tools for differentiated integration must be provided for, as far as they are positive and constructive.
I think that the issue is thus not a closed one.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=271 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, unlike the rapporteur, I see a clear change in the position of the European Parliament on this issue.
Incidentally, this change of opinion happened, to a certain extent, as soon as the report came into being.
I am very pleased about this, I welcome it and also congratulate the rapporteur on his report.
<P>
When this idea was introduced, there was still a very clear hope in the European Parliament that an instrument had been found which could unblock the process of integration.
I believe that this optimism has since given way to the view that, rather than solving the actual problem, it suppresses it, that is, the issue of the two-thirds majority, the issue of a majority vote on future integration.
<P>
However, I believe that there was also a fundamental error, that is, the view that only the decision on a higher speed of integration was involved.
In actual fact, it is, of course, a question of direction, of decisions on political direction.
What better than the first "wild' cooperation experiment, that of the Schengen Agreement, to prove that Community law in no way intended to draw up the Schengen Agreement in the form in which it was finally drawn up by a few.
I am therefore pleased that we are emphasizing the exceptional nature and strict conditions of institutional unity and that we are concentrating...
<P>
(The President cut off the speaker)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=272 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Krarup">
There is not a great deal to be said, because this report rests on a view of reality that is just so out of touch with what is going on among the citizens of the nations of Europe.
The citizens of these countries should be consulted, but this is not done, because if the citizens of these countries were confronted with the project presently on the table, they would either laugh out loud or go away in tears.
In every facet, what we have here is a totally unrealistic project that, to Danish citizens, at any rate, is almost a farce.
This project is being implemented to the chant of 'an ever closer Union' as its main thrust, together with the wonderful realization that monetary union and economic policy would, of course, force citizens into a political union.
Then it goes on to state that only the Community system is able to give the necessary guarantees with regard to democratic control, judicial control and solidarity.
Thus, the entire basis of national democracies is swept away, and paragraph 10 goes the whole hog in stating that a qualified majority, rather than unanimity, will now be the norm.
I must say that if this proposal were laid before the citizens of Europe, it would be greeted with scorn and a definite thumbs-down.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=273 NAME="Spiers">
Mr President, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on his report, which covers a very difficult area.
The difficulty is perhaps symbolised by the various euphemisms that have been coined to describe closer cooperation, reinforced cooperation or even the forbidden F-word, flexibility.
<P>
The aim of closer cooperation is to allow some States to go faster or further than others provided that this does not lead to a hard-core Europe or override the national interests of other Member States.
The assumption clearly shared by many in this House that the EU is a one-way journey in which closer integration is an end in itself is a very dangerous and unpopular one with most of our citizens.
This danger is made greater by economic and monetary union.
I hope that the fully fledged common economic policy referred to in recital F will involve those countries who choose to, or have to, remain outside economic and monetary union.
<P>
I also welcome the acknowledgment in paragraph 5 that closer cooperation should be a last resort.
However, paragraphs 10 to 12 cause some difficulty.
The agreement at Amsterdam that closer cooperation can be stopped by any one Member State for important reasons of national policy was, I believe, a necessary acknowledgement of the concerns that Member States have about this option.
<P>
It seems strange to me that Mr Frischenschlager's report should call for a reform of this Treaty before it has even been tested.
I am sure that this 'virtual veto' , as it has been described, will only be used as an exceptional option in the last resort.
I therefore do not regard it as the mere theoretical exercise that Mr Brinkhorst described.
The United Kingdom, for instance, has already shown that it is prepared to allow closer cooperation in the third pillar.
I see no reason to think that the United Kingdom or any other government will use this virtual veto in the frivolous sort of way that appears to be envisaged by the rapporteur and others who have spoken.
However, we will have to see.
<P>
With that major reservation my national delegation and myself are happy to support this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=274 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Mr President, miracle weapons have never lived up to their reputation.
This was so in the ancient world, but it is also the case in German mythology.
One or two examples of the many show this clearly.
When tested, the Achilles heel did not really prove to be strong, and even miracle weapons in our century proved to be an illusion, which is fortunate for Europe and for democracy in the European Union.
In this respect, it is good that the supposed miracle weapon of closer cooperation, of which some promised so much prior to the beginning of the last Turin Intergovernmental Conference, was not actually launched in Amsterdam.
<P>
In this respect, it is good that Mr Frischenschlager's very sensible report - and it is for that reason that it is such a good one - shows with great clarity the limited scope and the limited efficiency and desirability of this new form of variable geometry.
Closer cooperation in its European form with a compulsory field of activities for the Commission also, with democratic participation of the European Parliament, and with constitutional control by the Court of Justice is essential.
Anything else would have been detrimental, after all.
<P>
The main point made by the Frischenschlager report, therefore, is that the laborious process of European decision-making in the first pillar, or at least in accordance with the first pillar, cannot be replaced.
Shortened forms of this laborious dialogue, short, simple ways to achieve great new European solutions do not and will not exist.
This is why we should remember that the magic potion only works for the Gauls, for Asterix and Obelix.
We Europeans, on the other hand, are required to recreate our common Europe laboriously each day.
The only formula which leads to success is to never stand still, and we heard in the debate this morning on the Austrian presidency how this formula is used again and again.
We must build our common Europe together.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=275 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
<SPEAKER ID=276 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cederschiöld">
Mr President, closer cooperation is, in my eyes and the eyes of most others, an emergency solution, a last resort.
It is, however, an emergency solution which can open up possibilities.
Correctly used, closer cooperation can strengthen integration in the Union.
Wrongly used, it becomes a dividing force.
<P>
With the help of flexible integration we can get around short-term obstacles.
The history of the EU has several examples of this, including the UK's attitude to the Social Charter and the Schengen Agreement.
In certain situations, temporary flexibility in practice, or increased integration, can strengthen the Union by weakening the requirement for unanimity.
The possibility of flexibility means that the discussion does not always have to be conducted with consideration for a small minority of integration opponents.
EU integration cannot always adjust to fit the weakest link in the chain.
<P>
Even though closer cooperation does not cover the second pillar, there is an interesting idea that the objectives of the Maastricht Treaty could be fulfilled there.
It includes, among other things, the WEU which, according to the Treaty, is an integrated part of the Union's development and has the task of preparing Union decisions relating to defence.
The existence of neutral countries obstructs integration in the second pillar.
Here we could open a discussion which might be able to get further than the Amsterdam Treaty's current solution.
<P>
Obviously the objective is for those Member States who for various reasons choose to remain outside to be included as soon as possible.
However, the path to increased integration has not been and is not always going to be totally straight.
History shows that it is easier to join an existing cooperation.
Correctly used, and in certain very special cases, often security issues, increased cooperation can be in the interest of European integration.
Only then should it be tested by qualified majority voting, which is, of course, the obvious decision-making method.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=277 NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
Mr President, I must say that I agree with Mr Méndez de Vigo when he said that there were many illusions in relation to closer cooperation, a topic that certainly seemed to play a star role at the Intergovernmental Conference; a great deal of time, comments and speeches were dedicated to it.
There was even a sitting in which, in a monographic manner, many hours were spent discussing the scope of closer cooperation.
It was even given other names; variable geometry or differentiated rates of integration were suggested.
Finally, it was decided to give it the name of closer cooperation.
<P>
The reality is, on the one hand, that it was essential to have some discussion on closer cooperation, and on the other hand, that - as other speakers have shown here - it is, in fact, difficult to see how it corresponds to the various pillars.
Closer cooperation cannot be applied to the second pillar, because there are already other instruments within the second pillar for such application.
It is not easy to know within which limits closer cooperation can be applied to the first pillar; perhaps the third pillar presents the greatest possibilities in this respect.
<P>
However, I would like to make one thing clear here.
I was very pleased with Mr Frischenschlager's report.
I believe that he presents a very clear and systematic study, gives a summary of the various provisions to be applied, and puts forward some approaches which deserve to be given particular emphasis. He also does something which is interesting for us as members of the Commission: he asks us a series of questions which oblige us to state our position in relation to each one of them.
Since the debate is already well advanced, I want simply to try to give some replies to the questions that Mr Frischenschlager puts to us as members of the Commission.
<P>
Firstly, as regards the scope in terms of areas of application of closer cooperation, I note his request that we prepare a study on the potential fields of application of this closer cooperation.
We are going to do so.
I want to commit myself here - in front of the House - to carrying out this study, because it also seems to me to be a very sensible request to which we must respond positively.
<P>
In terms of his remarks on the launch of closer cooperation, it seems obvious to me that to proceed to political dialogue with a country which is opposed to such a launch evidently forms part of the Commission's obligations.
The Commission must try to talk to that country, ask it why it objects and set out the Commission's reasons if it believes that the cooperation should go ahead; consequently, the point made that one of the Commission's tasks is to try to convince that country of the reasons which would help seems to me to be perfectly valid.
<P>
On the other hand, as regards the emergency brake provided for in the new Article 40 of the Treaty on European Union and the new Article 11 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, it must be remembered that its inclusion forms part of a balance which was particularly delicate and which was discussed at the end of the last Intergovernmental Conference.
Nevertheless, I note Mr Frischenschlager's comments and I believe that we must consider how we can manage in practice to abolish that quasi-veto.
It is not the only such case provided for in the Treaty.
Remember that there are others in which the use of that quasi-veto appears, for example, everything that comes under the second pillar.
We are not talking already of strategies concerning foreign policy, for example, when we know that the strategy is determined unanimously. We are subsequently very pleased to think that the Council can adopt decisions with a majority, despite the fact that we know that any country can invoke a national interest, thereby breaking that majority principle which had provided us with so much relief.
Here, a similar situation is presented.
These are, so to speak, devices inserted into the Treaty.
We hope that some day, with a new reform - since there will be new reforms of the Treaty - we might be able to free ourselves of these commitments to which we are currently tied.
<P>
With regard to democratic scrutiny, the report calls on the Commission to undertake to withdraw any proposal for closer cooperation where Parliament delivers a negative opinion.
Naturally - and I am sure that Mr Frischenschlager will understand -, I cannot commit the will of the Commission in this matter, particularly since our right of initiative is limited to the first pillar.
But apart from that, from a political point of view, it is obvious that the Commission, when dealing with a topic as sensitive as this one, will always be very careful to take into consideration the position of the different players involved in closer cooperation and, in particular, of course, the European Parliament.
This is totally logical.
Consequently, I am giving you a legal response, but at the same time I am giving you a political response that we will give serious consideration to the points put forward by Parliament at a given time.
<P>
I would like to end by congratulating once again the rapporteur on this initiative which, along with other institutional reports tabled this week, is proof that interinstitutional dialogue has got off to a good start.
It will be followed by other reports currently being prepared by the Committee on Institutional Affairs and which will be presented to this House in October or November.
In short, I think it is up to all of us to do everything in our power to follow this path, to hope for a rapid entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty and to then proceed - once the Treaty is approved - to the necessary institutional changes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=278 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=16>
Action plan for the free movement of workers
<SPEAKER ID=279 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0269/98) by Barbara Weiler, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the communication from the Commission entitled 'An action plan for free movement of workers' (COM(97)0586 - C4-0650/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=280 NAME="Weiler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the free movement of workers is one of the essential foundations of the European Union.
The right to free movement, which is enshrined in Article 8, allows each European citizen to enter the territory of any Member State in order to work or to seek work there.
Yet only approximately 2 % take this opportunity.
Undoubtedly, cultural and language barriers are important reasons for this reluctance.
But there are also many other obstacles which are of a political nature, for example, the fact that overdue regulation reforms are blocked in the Council, the considerable information deficits which exist at all levels, slow transposal into national law in the Member States, and bureaucratic administrative practices, such as a variety of petitions which are available to us and which include rulings of the European Court of Justice.
<P>
The Commission's action plan contains a sound strategy to overcome these problems.
All those concerned are to be involved in developing free movement.
This means the citizens, national, regional and local authorities, the social partners, but of course the European institutions too.
I therefore welcome the Commission's action plan and, in particular, the legislative proposals announced.
<P>
I would also like to thank the Veil High-Level Panel for its comprehensive proposals, some of which are included in the Commission's proposals but also in my report.
I consider them to be brave yet pragmatic.
I would also like to thank the committees which were asked for an opinion and which added some important points to my report.
<P>
In my report I concentrate in particular on 31 requests to the Commission and the Council.
<P>
The first concerns coordination of social security.
Of course, it should not be the case that a person's acquired entitlements in the home Member State lapse when he goes to another Member State.
I have requested, inter alia, that the Commission also draw the necessary consequences from the most recent Court of Justice rulings - Kohll and Decker, for example - and present these to Parliament.
<P>
The second concerns tax treatment.
Naturally, mobile citizens must not be penalized by discriminatory double taxation.
<P>
The third relates to access to employment.
I would not overrate the importance of mobility for the labour market situation, but I consider it right that this aspect was dealt with at the Luxembourg Employment Summit.
It is certainly more important for the future than at present.
<P>
The fourth concerns information and cooperation.
By this I mean in particular that, in future, employment offices should have better facilities with a view to also providing greater transparency for job seekers.
<P>
The fifth involves the freedom of entry and residence, even for third-country nationals.
<P>
The sixth relates to the recognition of educational qualifications, which must be greatly enhanced.
<P>
In conclusion, I would like to come to a rather unpleasant point.
I have heard that the PPE will not approve the report because of political demands for third-country citizens.
Of course I regret this.
I also consider it to be strange behaviour because we in the European Parliament generally work together constructively, particularly in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, because I made an effort to incorporate most of the 40 amendments, but also because I consider Mr Pirker's current amendments to be decidedly destructive and populist.
<P>
I believe that we, on the left of this House, also treat the concerns and needs of our citizens carefully.
We also want to improve slowly and gradually certain requirements and restrictions concerning freedom of movement for citizens from third countries.
However, I cannot support Mr Pirker's amendments.
<P>
Abolishing discrimination against third-country nationals cannot wait until we have a Community migration policy.
Unfortunately, in your amendments you call for a policy of isolation and demarcation.
<P>
Any attempt to prevent free choice of work, for reasons including nationality, must not be allowed to take place.
For this reason, we demand a sensible policy for the necessary integration which will bring Europe forward.
We must finally do away with the contradiction between legal entitlement and legal reality, which has unfortunately been in existence for 40 years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=281 NAME="Oddy">
Mr President, free movement of workers is one of the four freedoms granted in the Treaty of Rome.
In my view it is the least developed of these four basic freedoms.
It is clear that there are barriers to free movement of workers and consequently I congratulate the Commission for producing the action plan to try to resolve this problem.
<P>
However, the Commission must investigate indirect barriers to free movement of the work-force, such as pension portability, housing costs, health care systems and education systems, to see how they can be overcome.
<P>
I thank my colleagues on the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights for their support and sensitive suggestions but I urge the Commission to take this subject seriously as it can only help the profitability of the European Union if people are more ready to move for work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=282 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Lancker">
Mr President, on behalf of my group, I want to sincerely congratulate Barbara Weiler on the great deal of work she has done on a theme that is, of course, very close to all our hearts.
Parliament has always striven to defend this fourth fundamental freedom, which is also a symbol for European citizenship and integration.
Commissioner, we hope that Parliament and the Commission will continue to fight against the tendency in some countries to fall back on oneself, to erect institutional and actual barriers against the free movement of persons.
In contrast to what is thought by some Member States, free movement will not result in a drain on budgets or loss of social security, and it is time that we understand that Europe needs mobility, that mobility gives something to society, it does not take anything away from society.
We in the Socialist group therefore thank the European Commission for this action plan and we hope, Commissioner, that the Commission quickly comes up with concrete legislative proposals, because there is still a great deal of work to be done.
<P>
This is true, for example, for the right to residency, which happily no longer applies only to those who are employed, but also to retired persons, students, the unemployed and family members, as long as you can, of course, prove that you have sufficient income and health insurance.
But, in both Community and national law there are still a great number of hindrances, great heaps of administrative obstacles that bring misery, especially to retired persons, people with temporary contracts and those being posted abroad.
The report is correct when it says that we must tackle this problem.
I honestly do not understand why the PPE does not want to support some of these very legitimate demands which, as a matter of fact, are supported by the Commission.
My group believes strongly that, regardless of the nationality of the family members, the right to family life is a fundamental human right.
I have seen that the European Commission indeed plans to implement this right to family life, and we want to support that 100 %.
<P>
Finally, my group also stands behind the gradual elimination of all forms of discrimination, certainly discrimination between citizens of the Member States and citizens of the European Union, but also the gradual elimination of discrimination between citizens of the Union and citizens of third countries who are residing here permanently.
I know that the latter is a very difficult aspect of the Parliamentary debate and I have noticed, by the way, that the European Commission also wants to do something about this in a gradual fashion.
I have also noticed that the PPE group theoretically supports this standpoint, but still links the right to free movement of subjects of third countries to a common European policy of immigration.
My group cannot support this strict linkage.
It does not seem reasonable to us to make migrants who have lived for years in the Union wait until the Council has completely finished the third pillar, and only then give people the right to travel, to look for work over the border or to transfer their social security rights over the border.
A European integration policy must indeed rest upon the responsibilities and duties of citizens of third countries, but please let us not forget that these citizens still do not have a package of rights which we as Europeans do have.
Commissioner, we support this action plan of the Commission wholeheartedly, and we wish you every success in its realization.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=283 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pirker">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, freedom of movement - and here we share the same opinion - is the focal point of the Treaty on European Union.
Here we created many legal conditions to allow this to take place.
We continue to have many problems in achieving freedom of movement, not only of workers.
I now welcome the action plan presented by the Commission to improve freedom of movement for workers at least.
<P>
I welcome it because the Commission presented very specific proposals here.
In this context, I also welcome Mrs Weiler's supplementary proposals because she believes, quite positively, that bureaucracy should be eliminated, social rights must not fall by the wayside, citizens should be informed, mutual recognition of training is necessary, and a social insurance card should be introduced, perhaps to prevent, too, the abuse of a directive on posted workers.
There are many positive points on which we are in agreement.
<P>
However, you are now being too ambitious, Mrs Weiler.
In the context of immigration and residence of third-country nationals, you have demanded the same rights for third-country nationals as for citizens of the Union.
Looking at it systematically, we can only approve it if Union-wide rules have been drawn up in advance on the migration, admission and residence of workers in the European Union, which apply to all Member States.
You are doing things the wrong way round.
<P>
Your second request is the immediate abolition of visa requirements.
The Commission has now announced that it is a very ambitious goal to consider this.
You want to achieve this immediately, without any pre-conditions.
This is regarded as entirely realistic by others who think that we should introduce a transitional period, wait five years and then the Council decision should be passed.
We must not forget that the third countries must also ensure that they have sufficient border security to prevent problems in terms of people crossing the borders into the Union, and as a result within the Union.
<P>
Thirdly, you insist that the right of residence be extended to all relatives, independently of nationality, and also to all partners.
In this you are clearly taking the same line as Mr Lehne.
In doing so, you are opening the door to abuse.
I believe you have taken on too much.
You have lost all sense of what is feasible.
<P>
I agree with certain passages in the report and would support it if Mrs Weiler would support our demands that Community rules be established concerning migration, residence and asylum, so that we may then realize completely the principle of freedom of movement, including for third-country nationals.
I agree with some of your proposals, but there are some important points with which I do not agree.
Thank you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=284 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Mr President, I think that we are dealing here with some good proposals from the Commission and also with a good report from Mrs Weiler.
Yesterday we heard from Mr Bangemann and the Liberal group who pointed out that the interests of the national states are decreasing and globalization continues to increase.
If we look at Mrs Weiler's report in that context, I think that we should also have the courage to decide amongst ourselves that we must not discriminate against employees from other countries who work here with the necessary permits, because this is what it is actually all about.
I must say that just now I could not believe my ears when I heard Mr Pirker's contribution to this discussion.
This can be absolutely nothing other than a "statement' made in the context of the German elections.
I had always thought that the purpose of the European Parliament was to exist outside of party politics, to rise above this.
I deplore the fact that the Christian-Democratic group, in this instance, does not feel itself capable of doing this.
Still, I would appeal to them to support this report.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, it simply cannot be that, due to these small differences, Mrs Weiler's report must go without the support of the Christian Democrats.
If I had not been able to believe my ears today, I would not be able to believe my eyes if that happened tomorrow.
That being said, Mr President, I would now like to say only that I am quite disappointed with the Commission's answer to the written questions I submitted as part of the Kohll and Decker matter.
The Commission is also being very cautious about this matter, and I think that it is also involved with the German elections, and those elections have to be over some day, after all.
As Europe, we must be able to rise above the national and state interests.
I appeal to the Commission to do that as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=285 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Madam President, first I should like to congratulate Mrs Weiler on her excellent report.
In it, Mrs Weiler consistently defends the principle that free movement in the European Union must involve all those resident in the EU area, and not just workers and their families.
Students, pensioners and citizens of third countries who come to live here must also be free to move within the Union area.
<P>
The EU's four basic freedoms have until now only embraced the free movement of the workforce. Nothing has been said about people.
The workforce is seen as a resource that must be able to move freely within the single market along with other resources.
It is still a question of people, however, people who have human needs and feelings.
The fact that they should want to move can be due to other factors than changing demands in the workforce.
<P>
I was very surprised and disappointed by the PPE amendments that aim to qualify this principle in respect of citizens of third countries that are legally entitled to reside in the Community area.
I fully support Mrs Weiler's proposal that visa requirements should be abolished for family members of migrant workers now living here.
<P>
When we speak of family members, be they Union citizens or citizens of third countries, we should also take into consideration the changes that have taken place when it comes to the notion of the family.
Nowadays, a family may also mean partners living together unmarried of the same or of different sex.
They must be accorded equal status to those in traditional families when determining benefits.
<P>
I definitely hope, Madam President, that the PPE will not overturn this important report.
I think this is such a valuable report that it should be approved unconditionally by Parliament.
It would be very embarrassing if we did not get consensus on it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=286 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Madam President, allow me to go back a little and also to go into greater detail.
My thesis is that as Western Christians, as rationalists, as Europeans, we cannot be in favour of categorizing people into first and second class and shutting them in behind state borders.
I refer to the Bishop of Hippo in today's Tunisia, the spiritual father of the Latin Church, based his treatise on grace on the essential equality of all people, even if we do not have to follow Luther's ideal of equality regardless of what we have achieved and what we owe.
I refer here to the European enlightenment which, since Antiphon and Hippias of Elis, has argued the basic idea of equal freedom.
I also refer to the European Movement of the post-war period and its demonstrations against boundaries.
<P>
Mr Pirker and Mr Pronk, in the year of our Lord, 1998, contrary to Community law, you are putting forward a type of conditionality to which free movement is linked, because you know that the condition will not be established so soon.
You are asking for the removal of all references to groups which are particularly subjected to discrimination today: third-country nationals, relatives of any nationality, common law spouses, workers with precarious contracts who are seeking work, migrant workers, students, pensioners, unemployed persons.
That, Mr Pirker, does not create any so-called logic of classification, although this is in any case only another term for what one wishes.
If we are to use big words here, then we should say that these amendments must be rejected for being unchristian, anti-rationalist and completely and utterly anti-European.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=287 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ettl">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, firstly I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on her excellent and open report on this issue.
Allow me, first of all, to observe that this morning, when the Austrian ViceChancellor presented Austria's programme for the presidency of the European Union, I was proud to be Austrian. Now I am slightly irritated.
In contrast to what was said by Mr Pirker - who today created a Fortress Austria, a Fortress Europe -, this morning we spoke about the enlargement of the European Union, with all the spirit that belongs to it and all the political perspectives associated with it, with certain conditions and transitional arrangements, of course.
In the preliminary phase, however, we are introducing purely discriminatory measures and are not even in a position to integrate workers and their families from third countries.
We are applying a double standard but, apart from that, the proposal concerns a gradual implementation of these measures.
I considered this to be only practical.
<P>
On the one hand, we in the European Union talk about the freedom of movement of goods, we want to strengthen it and implement it.
Where it is a question of the freedom of movement of people, of the social rules and measures involved, we obstruct it.
Where any kind of discriminatory rules are concerned, we disgrace ourselves.
This must not be allowed.
<P>
I assume that tomorrow reason will prevail and we will be able to take the initial steps in this direction, as otherwise in many cases our deepening process will succeed only to a very poor extent and this should not and cannot be the case.
Excuse my rather emotional outburst, but that is how I feel today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=288 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Madam President, obviously the free movement of the workforce is one of the basic rights of citizens in the EU.
This is one of the four basic rights that comprise the cornerstones of European integration.
These freedoms concern, as they must, the citizens of the Union first and foremost.
Barriers that impede free movement, like red tape relating to residence permits, problems of the equivalence of qualifications and questions of social security would only get worse if we tried to alter the status of citizens of third countries before we update Community labour legislation.
<P>
At the moment, legislation makes it impossible to put the citizens of the Union and a workforce originating outside the Union on an equal footing.
Completely equal treatment is not a politically realistic aim, either.
Because the radical action called for by Mrs Weiler to change the status of workers coming here from third countries is without any legal base; the core of the report remains of necessity very vague.
The academic pass system that Mrs Weiler stresses will improve the situation regarding the equivalence of qualifications; it is in itself to be supported, but its introduction must rely very much on cooperation between national authorities in the spirit of subsidiarity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=289 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Pronk">
Mr President, a great deal has been said this evening about our position.
That is, of course, always enjoyable in a debate.
As exemplified by what has just been said, however, I must say that these comments are totally erroneous.
I, and I think my group as well, envision a Europe where everyone can travel freely and can reside freely.
The problem is simply that we do not have a common visa policy.
In the United States there is a common visa policy, and unrestricted travel and residency is therefore possible in that country, not only for the citizens of the United States, but also for citizens of third countries.
Unfortunately, the situation here is different.
There are many socialist governments which resist changing this situation. I cite, for example, the government of Great Britain which refuses to take part in a common visa policy.
It is then very strange, of course, when you hear from that side of the House that we are responsible for delaying this matter.
No, Mr President, we want to do what is possible within the present legal framework, but we cannot go any further than this, because the better choice is the enemy of the right choice.
We must keep this in mind, and this applies to the Commission as well.
<P>
Commissioner, there are a tremendous number of events taking place at this instant.
There are a terrible number of complaints, especially from citizens of the Union who, in one way or another, have found themselves in difficult situations.
A great deal can be done about this.
A great deal can indeed be done about this, but it too easy to simply say: then everyone must come; one broad, enormous family.
I always find it so striking that it is only in this context that one hears from the other side of the House about family politics.
Then it happens all at once.
I cannot believe my ears about what I am hearing.
This is all wonderful but, Mr President, our standpoint would lead to improvement in the long term.
As regards what is proposed by Mrs Weiler, with every good intention, and with every appreciation for what she has said, her proposal would not lead there. It would only mean that we would remain in our present situation, while we really want to move forward.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=290 NAME="Flynn">
Madam President, I would like to take the opportunity to thank all those who have contributed to this very important debate and to thank Mrs Weiler for her contribution.
I discovered recently that this is a highly sensitive subject, irrespective of at what time of year and in what year it is being discussed.
<P>
I agree with Ms Oddy that we have to take the subject seriously and I am not satisfied that this is a freedom that has been developed as quickly as some of the other freedoms that were guaranteed, be they goods, services or capital.
This is a freedom that needs to be addressed and I agree with Mrs Weiler that the whole question of mobility is fundamental.
We cannot talk about a European employment strategy and about adaptability unless we are going to take on board what needs to be done about providing greater mobility in the European labour market.
That does not exist at this time.
<P>
The action plan on free movement of workers was adopted by the Commission in November last year.
It aims essentially at placing the right to free movement of workers in the overall context of other European Union policies and actions, with express emphasis on two key issues that underpin the whole action plan.
<P>
The first is citizenship.
Improving the exercise of the right to free movement is for the benefit of the EU citizen since this right is an essential part of European citizenship.
The second concerns the question of employment policy.
The improvement of free movement of workers is a contribution to the better functioning of the European labour market.
<P>
Since November 1997 the Commission has been actively working on the implementation of the action plan in order to fulfil the commitments that were announced in the plan.
Legislative proposals are being considered by the Commission to amend and update the core legislative text on free movement of workers.
We are talking here about Regulation 1616/68 on the right of free movement and Directive 360/68 on the right of residence of workers and their families.
<P>
These two basic legal texts have not been significantly modified for 30 years.
The time is now opportune and appropriate, given the single market, the single currency, the whole question of enlargement and the need for our employment strategy to be strengthened.
<P>
The new legislative proposals will cover key issues such as the improvement of the right of residence for job seekers and trainees and the reduction of bureaucratic obstacles for all workers.
I agree with Mrs Van Lancker in this regard.
There has to be improvement of the conditions for family reunification of European Union workers and encouragement of a space for professional mobility based on the recognition anywhere in the European Union of comparable professional qualifications of EU workers, irrespective of the Member State where they have been obtained.
<P>
This includes matters such as professional experience, diplomas and qualifications.
The proposals build on the earlier proposals we made back in 1989 and also on the action plan itself, as well as on the recommendations of the high-level panel on the free movement of persons chaired by Mrs Simone Veil.
Last week the Commission adopted a communication to the Council and Parliament on the follow-up of the report from the Veil group.
The communication highlights the importance of concrete proposals to enhance free movement.
<P>
I am pleased to recall that there have been some important legislative advances before the Council in the area of free movement of workers.
The Council has recently adopted two Commission proposals concerning the free movement of workers, these being the directive on supplementary pensions and the regulation on the extension of Regulation 1408/71 concerning the coordination of social security regimes to special schemes for civil servants.
<P>
The Commission proposal to extend Regulation 1408/71 to third country nationals legally residing in one Member State is also on the Council table.
These three proposals were covered by the action plan.
The Commission is also actively working on the simplification of Regulation 1408/71 which is one of the most important pieces of legislation for the effective exercise of the right of free movement.
<P>
Moving away from the legislative developments, the action plan also announced actions aimed at better transparency in the employment market and better information about employment market facilities.
The European Parliament also called for such actions in its resolution.
To this end there are several key actions that have been launched quite recently.
<P>
Within the information initiative 'Citizens First' a new action called 'Permanent Dialogue with the Citizen' was launched at Cardiff just a month ago.
A new route map for job-seekers has been presented with a view to reinforcing, through a practical and user-friendly guide, information for citizens who wish to exercise their right to free movement.
<P>
At the Cardiff Summit also, the EURES database was presented on the Internet so that it is now fully accessible to all citizens who want to consult job offers in all of the Member States that are available through it.
<P>
Various actions to enhance information for scholars, practitioners, judges and citizens on the right of free movement of workers have been launched.
A range of conferences and seminars have now been completed in all of the Member States, including the EEA states.
There is a follow-up to these actions.
A major conference will be held in Brussels in October in order to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the entry into force of Regulation 1612/68 and also to look to the future.
<P>
I am therefore able to confirm that the efforts by the Commission to comply with the commitments set out in the action plan are going forward at a reasonably good pace.
In this context the resolution from the European Parliament is very important.
I must say that I am satisfied by the coincidence of views between both institutions here.
I would like to highlight that the resolution of the European Parliament stresses the importance of free movement of workers in the same way as does the Commission: through citizenship and employment.
It is important to stress that both areas are closely related nowadays in Europe and they correspond to the European citizens' main concerns.
<P>
We know that European citizens are worried about the employment situation in Europe and that they are interested to know the possibilities of finding employment in another Member State.
Furthermore European citizens are more and more aware of the existence of a Europe-wide area of professional mobility. They want to know how they can fully benefit from that.
<P>
The action plan - and the resolution of the European Parliament - fully endeavours to meet these concerns.
So the action plan is essentially focused on free movement of workers.
However we have not overlooked the fact that free movement, as such, includes a range of other concerns that go beyond the situation of the working population.
Such other concerns are referred to in Parliament's resolution and they include: the elimination of border controls, including the insertion of the Schengen acquis in the Treaty; the right of residence for students, retired people and inactive persons, in line with the concept of European citizenship; the creation of an area of mobility for students with respect of academic qualifications obtained in the different Member States; and the problems stemming from the disparities in fiscal legislation in the Member States as well as the interaction between fiscal and social security systems.
<P>
All these concerns are carefully taken into consideration by the Commission and are the object of initiatives under the action plan.
<P>
Finally, despite its relatively limited scope in such a wide context, the action plan on free movement of workers aims to create political momentum in the area of free movement.
The plan emphasizes the strong link between all of these various areas and although more work is certainly needed, it is an important starting point for implementing a coherent approach with the aim of obtaining for the benefit of the citizen a wide area of mobility through a border-free Europe.
<P>
I strongly believe that the European Parliament and the Commission are following the same objective.
I welcome the important contribution from the European Parliament in this respect.
I give you my undertaking that I will pursue the agenda that will lead to greater freedom of movement and to that freedom being enhanced in the better Europe that we look forward to.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=291 NAME="Weiler">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would merely like to clarify two points and answer one question, all of which will surely help to objectify the debate.
Mr Pirker, I would like to quote once again point 7 in my list of requests, that concerning visa requirements, as you unfortunately worded it wrongly.
I call on the Commission, notwithstanding the provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty, to submit without delay proposals for the abolition of visa requirements applicable to third-country nationals moving within the Union, provided that they are members of the families of migrant workers or posted workers.
It is, therefore, a modified request.
<P>
My second point concerns a question from, I believe, a Finnish Member.
Unfortunately, I have now forgotten the very finesounding name.
I suspect she is Finnish.
You observed that the European educational pass is very vague.
I suspect that you mean point 23 of my report, in which I call on the Commission to continue its work on the introduction of a European training passport.
This European training passport was presented by Commissioner Cresson.
We in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs have discussed this European training passport in great detail and I believe that all groups, even the PPE, considered it to be a good idea.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=292 NAME="Pronk">
Madam President, I have a question for the Commissioner.
He gave a good response but it is not clear to me what the Commission's view is concerning the main point of difference between the two sides of the House.
We should know to what extent the Commission wants to incorporate the wishes of Mrs Weiler - the wishes, I would not say of the whole House but maybe the majority of the House - concerning third country nationals?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=293 NAME="Flynn">
Third country nationals are not included in our action plan except as family members.
You must remember that we are talking about reunification regulations.
They apply to family members irrespective of nationality.
They have applied that way for 30 years.
One of the big problems that I have discovered in recent days is that an awful lot of people in very senior positions have not understood that reunification has already existed for 30 years by way of law.
I do not have time to go into the details of it this evening, but it is a very interesting exercise just to look back at exactly what has been in place for 30 years as regards ascendants, descendants and other family members - some provisions are statutory and some require reunification to be facilitated.
<P>
I am trying to deal with this in a proposal before the Commission at this time.
It is important to remember that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=294 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Flynn.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=17>
Insurance against civil liability (Fourth Motor Insurance Directive)
<SPEAKER ID=295 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0267/98) by Mr Rothley, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to insurance against civil liability in respect of the use of motor vehicles and amending Directives 73/239/EEC and 92/49/EEC (Fourth Motor Insurance Directive) (COM(97)0510 - C4-0528/97-97/0264(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=296 NAME="Rothley">
Madam President, this title sounds very technical but in fact it concerns a relatively practical problem.
The aim is to improve protection for victims of traffic accidents in other countries.
The proposal for a directive which we are debating is based on Parliament's first legislative initiative in accordance with the Maastricht Treaty.
I would encourage the Members of this House to avail of this instrument more often.
You have the right to do so after all!
<P>
The aim is to improve protection for victims of accidents outside their country of residence.
This concerns approximately 500 000 accidents per year, at least inside the European Union.
Why in another country?
If an accident occurs in the home country with a vehicle which is registered in another country there is no problem.
That is dealt with by the green card bureaux.
<P>
A French national who has an accident in France involving a Danish national has no problem.
But if he has this accident in Denmark, problems arise because the insurers were not able to agree that these cases could also be dealt with by the green card bureaux.
This is why we need this directive.
<P>
The solution which we propose is not based on the harmonization of the liability law, as was occasionally proposed in the past.
No, we are only simplifying the rules.
We are not changing the substantive law.
We are not changing the jurisdiction of the courts.
We are not weakening the law; we are merely removing boundaries.
I would suggest that the Commission adopt it as a maxim of its legal policy: no weakening of laws, only removal of boundaries.
<P>
What do we propose?
Firstly, the victim must no longer apply to an insurer in the other country; he can apply to a representative of this insurer in his own country, which means that all insurers in the European Union are obliged to have a representative in all other countries of the European Union who can deal with the claims.
<P>
The second is an essential factor. We set a time limit.
This applies both to the representative of the insurer in the victim's country of residence and to the insurer himself.
Normally, the claim must be dealt with within six months.
If this is not done, interest on arrears will be payable; this is probably high enough to accelerate the settlement procedure.
If the Commission and the Council approve the proposal, interest on arrears will be between 11 % and 12 %.
<P>
The Commission added to this mechanism an idea for which I am grateful, an idea for a body providing compensation.
This compensation body, which will also be active in the victim's country of residence, should, however, be restricted to just a few cases, for example, where the insurer in the other country has not named the claims settlement body or representative, or where the representative or the insurer does not reply within this six-month period, or gives an unsubstantiated reply.
Then the victim should be able to call upon this compensation body in his own country.
This idea from the Commission is excellent but we should restrict it to these instances.
<P>
I would like to thank very warmly the insurance undertakings.
They participated energetically in this directive, as did the accident victims' organizations.
I can say today that this proposal, as it currently stands, is supported by all European insurers and by all European accident victims' associations, with the possible exception of some minor changes in wording.
<P>
I assume that the Commission will also accept most of Parliament's proposals.
I am pleased that it has been possible to have an initial exchange of opinions at the preparatory stage under the British presidency.
Already, at first reading, this may be a model for future cooperation between Parliament and the Council.
I am confident that the Austrian presidency will approve the common position.
There is an amendment from Mr Wijsenbeek. Incidentally, everything was approved unanimously in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
Mr Wijsenbeek knows that in theory I am in favour of his amendment.
But I believe that it is not appropriate in this context.
<P>
In conclusion, I would like to encourage the Commission to continue along these lines in terms of policy so that the people of the European Union can feel at home, not only in their own region or in their own country, but throughout Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=297 NAME="Grosch">
Madam President, I would firstly like to thank the rapporteur for his proposal, and also to congratulate him on it.
The Committee on Transport and Tourism has opted to give its opinion with a conclusion and without amendments, in order to lend coherence to the overall proposal.
This directive really does improve considerably the protection of accident victims outside their country of residence.
<P>
The fact that a great many citizens are affected by this proposal is underlined not only by the current holiday period but also by the one million frontier workers.
As the rapporteur said, an estimated 500 000 accidents occur every year outside the victim's country of residence.
These are accidents concerning which the formalities can become difficult, the relevant contact persons are sometimes difficult to locate, and - even worse - in some cases it may take a long time for the compensation to come through.
We hear of delays of up to eight years.
<P>
The current directive introduces a direct right of action for the victim, which applies not only to the person responsible but also to the insurance undertaking.
The information centres will have to provide the victim with all necessary information and the claims settlement body or, if applicable, the compensation body, as designated, will in any case accelerate the procedures.
<P>
In addition, the directive also concerns accidents occurring between EU citizens in third countries - thankfully, this was added - and this also prompted the Committee on Transport and Tourism to recommend that this directive should perhaps also be given greater consideration in negotiations between the EU and third countries.
<P>
However, this directive will only take fully into account the claims to which these victims are entitled if, in our opinion, the proposed minimum figures contained in the Second Motor Insurance Directive are adapted.
The above Directive 84/5 is approximately 15 years old.
Consequently, in certain cases the minimum rates no longer cover the possible costs by any means, particularly in the case of serious injury.
In addition, these minimum rates vary between countries by up to 90 %.
Unfortunately, supplementary insurance is the only guarantee of appropriate compensation.
This is why the Committee on Transport and Tourism is retaining its proposal.
It is very good to reduce delays and provide correct information but, if the minimum rates are no longer enough, this does not help the victim sufficiently.
<P>
I thank the rapporteur once again for his work and I thank you for your attention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=298 NAME="Oddy">
Madam President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on this important report.
It is an important first too for Parliament.
It is the first time that a Parliament resolution has been used as the backdrop for a Commission proposal for legislation.
It is the first time that Article 138b of the EC Treaty has been used as a call for legislation.
<P>
This is an important directive.
It is both a consumer-friendly proposal and also an important plank of the single market.
It will help the victims of motor accidents that occur outside the victim's home country in another Member State.
Each insurance company will have to appoint a designated representative or agent in each Member State and the victim will process the claim directly with that designated representative.
<P>
The advantage of this is that it will speed up claims considerably and ease language problems.
At present the average claim processed abroad can take up to eight years and cost at least 15 % more than a claim processed in one's Member State.
This proposed directive will also ease the situation with - as the rapporteur explained - the deadline requirements and the penalties for non-compliance with the deadline.
<P>
On behalf of the Socialist group, I commend this report to the Commission and Parliament as an important new consumer measure.
Having a road accident is stressful enough without the added inconvenience and strain of having to wait for years while insurance companies in different countries settle the claims.
This proposal is imaginative, creative and I would like to thank the rapporteur both for producing the original resolution and report and now for reporting on the Commission's proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=299 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Casini C.">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is difficult to add something original after the speeches by the Members; this is due to the unanimous consensus expressed on every aspect of the report by Mr Rothley in my committee, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
In substance, we all say the same things. So, only a few aspects should be stressed.
<P>
First of all, even if it has already been said, I would like to point out the degree of transparency that results from this and the gain in transparency.
It is worth noting that this directive marks the first time that the European Commission responds to a request presented by the European Parliament pursuant to Article 138b. But this means a gain in transparency, because there have been times when Parliament, considering itself deprived of the power to initiate legislation, has intervened in proposals presented by the Commission with a series of amendments which have been excessive in relation to the original framework of the proposal itself; a rather inappropriate intervention.
We have the instrument, fully demonstrated in this case, with which to define proposals that convey the will of Parliament in a more organic and rational way.
<P>
Secondly, I would also like to underline that the unanimous consensus expressed by the legal experts of the Committee on Legal Affairs is fully shared by all the European insurance companies and consumer associations; this, too, is a fact that is not insignificant and that should naturally be pointed out.
<P>
I do not think it necessary for me to dwell on the content, also because it has already been abundantly illustrated by my fellow Members.
I truly believe that Mr Rothley's report should be adopted in its entirety, because it represents a top-level compromise.
It is a compromise in the noble sense of the word, that is, it is the synthesis of a series of innovative incentives and concepts that first came from the European Commission and then from the Members of the European Parliament, especially the Committee on Legal Affairs, in collaboration with the insurance companies and consumer organizations that I referred to just now.
I believe that in this perspective this aspect should be underlined.
<P>
In my opinion, the amendments presented by the Committee on Legal Affairs must be approved in their entirety.
The only amendment unrelated to the unanimous work of the Committee on Legal Affairs is the one by Mr Wijsenbeek with which I do not agree, not because I am against the substance, but because the translation in all the languages of the forms used to declare the accident and prepare the notification of claim already exists.
I know this from first-hand experience from an accident in France some 10 years ago.
The forms are written in various languages, but they are the same colour and the questions are presented in the same way, which is why I consider the amendment superfluous and believe that it should be rejected.
<P>
I would also like to emphasize that the idea of creating a compensation body should be understood in a context of subsidiarity and freedom, where Member States will be free to choose within the public or private structures the compensation body they consider most appropriate.
<P>
In addition to these observations, I would finally like to thank Mr Rothley.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=300 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Madam President, I would first like to give my compliments to the rapporteur.
I would also like to express my appreciation for the way in which he has achieved compromises in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights. He is ultimately the initiator of this private Member's legislation.
In that regard, therefore, it is truly a beautiful piece of work that adds something real for citizens of the Union.
The citizen is becoming increasingly mobile and that means that he crosses the border much more frequently. Because the traffic situation is unfortunately still so different there, an accident can sometimes occur.
But the situation can be even more complicated than the average case presented in Mr Rothley's report. Imagine - I have taken an arbitrary situation - a Spaniard and a Greek have an accident in Italy.
In that case, if they should have to initiate legal proceedings, there is still a problem about where they should initiate those proceedings.
This shows the magnitude of the problem of equality of rights in the Union. It is still not true that every citizen can initiate legal proceedings with equal treatment and equal status everywhere in the Union.
To this day, foreigners are often placed at a disadvantage.
<P>
Finally, Madam President, I would like to say something about my amendment.
It has been rejected here by the rapporteur who said that it must be somewhere else, and by Mr Casini who said that it exists already.
That is true, Mr Casini.
I am in favour of integration. But, if citizens come into conflict with each other, they have a sort of basic distrust and they may think that they are being cheated by someone.
If there was a single document, not only in their own language but also in a number of other languages, so that they could mutually determine that it is indeed the same form with the same wording, then we would be working towards the integration of the citizen.
What could be more beautiful than this, and what are we doing here other than promoting this integration?
I have, therefore, re-tabled this amendment at the instigation of the insurers, and I appeal to you once again to adopt it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=301 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Janssen van Raay">
Madam President, in the case of Denise Matthews against the United Kingdom, which was handled by our neighbour, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, a court other than the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg has ruled for the first time that the European Parliament has full legislative authority.
And why?
One of the strongest arguments for the Committee on Citizens' Rights was the right of initiative of Article 138b. Among other things, this article provides the European Parliament, according to the Committee on Citizens' Rights, with full legislative authority.
<P>
This is a historic moment, Madam President and Commissioner.
For the first time we have made use of the right of initiative and I fully support Mr Rothley, not only in his personal appeal to you, Madam President, but also in his appeal to Commissioner Monti to continue in this new direction.
In the interest of the citizens we must make more use of this right of initiative.
I will not go into the content. I support the amendment tabled by Mr Wijsenbeek, because he is correct.
That is another matter. But, the most important point I want to make here is that we are extraordinarily grateful to Mr Rothley for the initiative with which he has supported the legislative role of the European Parliament and he deserves our appreciation and support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=302 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sierra González">
Madam President, the increasingly apparent difficulties concerning the settlement of claims to the detriment of the victims of traffic accidents abroad have for a long time required a regulation to solve the problem.
On the one hand, a growing number of citizens are affected and, on the other hand, the procedures which currently exist are insufficient to provide a fair solution for every case.
<P>
The aspects which need to be solved most urgently are: guaranteeing the victim the direct right of action, and ensuring the payment of compensation. These were issues that needed to be resolved and I believe that the amendments tabled have contributed very successfully in this respect.
I must naturally thank Mr Rothley for the excellent work he has done.
<P>
Nonetheless, although we support in general terms the aim of these amendments, we have some reservations with respect to Amendment No 33 to Article 5. It appears to us that the drafting of this amendment might be more beneficial to the insurers than to the victims themselves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=303 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Buffetaut">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive that we are considering tonight has been keenly awaited both by drivers and by insurance professionals and international automobile associations.
<P>
It must be underlined that this text is due to the initiative of Parliament.
It was in response to a clear expectation and Parliament has proved that it was able to take its legislative responsibilities seriously by providing a work of quality.
We should all be pleased with this.
The stated objective is to simplify the procedure of claims settlements for injured parties by facilitating access to the other party's insurance company.
<P>
In order to achieve this, the proposal for a directive proposes four measures: the introduction of a direct right of action; the appointment of a representative of each insurance company in every Member State who will have responsibility for settling claims; the establishment of information centres; and finally, the creation of compensation bodies.
Admittedly, this legal construction may seem a little heavy, a little complex, what the French familiarly call "a gasworks' .
The amendments tabled by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights aim at complementing the text, even at giving it greater coherence and rigour.
We will therefore support them.
<P>
In conclusion, I would like to acknowledge the remarkable work of the rapporteur, Mr Rothley, who has been able to bring clarity to a complex text and who has proven his great talent as a jurist.
I would like to congratulate all my colleagues in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, in particular two of them who combine both charm and competence, Mrs Palacio and Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=304 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Madam President, it truly may be the time that is almost inviting us to talk in confidence, to talk among friends.
For me, too, the previous speeches have already been sufficiently detailed as regards the technical aspects to allow me to speak of the history of this directive. I can speak of how the European Union today is still a frontier territory where a person, a Member with a good idea, with the Treaty behind him and with a great deal of firmness and a strong ability to negotiate is able to initiate something that is important for all of us at the stage when we feel that we are, I will not say consumers, but, rather, like the man in the street.
<P>
Madam President, this has not been an easy directive.
Thirty-six amendments were tabled by Mr Rothley, but another 36 amendments were tabled by the various members of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, twenty of which were mine. Subsequently, Mr Rothley - with firmness, as I have said, but also with a great ability to negotiate, and a great ability to understand the concerns regarding the issue of subsidiarity - accepted 10 compromise amendments.
This meant that it was possible for those 36 final amendments to be adopted unanimously in committee, and I hope that tomorrow, if not unanimously, that we will approve the report by an overwhelming majority.
<P>
Mr Rothley, I have considered the history, the short history, from Parliament's original resolution where use was made of Article 138b. I have considered it and when I am told that in the European institutions we only do very abstract work, work that is very distant, and that we do not concern ourselves with specific problems, I will show them this work.
And the only thing that I regret is that from this it will not be evident how extremely pleased and honoured all of us have been to work with you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=305 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mosiek-Urbahn">
Madam President, the previous speakers have already discussed in sufficient detail the content and advantages of this report.
I would, therefore, like to discuss only two points which I consider to be particularly noteworthy because they bring us significantly closer to a citizens' Europe.
<P>
The first concerns the citizen-friendly content of the planned directive.
It really is high time for this important area to be dealt with.
As a result of mass tourism and the free movement of goods, services and persons, the volume of traffic moving from one state to another is greater than ever before.
The danger is correspondingly high that citizens are victims of an accident which occurs outside the home country and from which claims could arise against other EU citizens or their insurance.
It is, therefore, particularly welcome that the directive will provide road users in the Union with such comprehensive, fast and effective protection and which will go beyond the mere direct right of action against the insurer, by having an agent of the insurer in the victim's country, by means of mechanisms to locate the latter, if necessary, and by means of a centre in each Member State which can itself deal with compensation should difficulties arise.
<P>
We would never have achieved this multi-faceted protection for citizens, at least not at this time, if Parliament had not taken the initiative itself.
<P>
I now come to the second point which I wish to discuss.
This is the first time the European Parliament has availed of the right of indirect initiative conferred on it by the Maastricht Treaty.
Parliament, as the elected representative of the citizens of Europe, is entitled to have the legislative initiative.
If the European Parliament makes frequent use of its new initiative it must in the long term strengthen its influence on the European Union's legislative system.
This increases, at the same time, the indirect influence of the voters on policy in Europe.
The result can only be to improve the standing of the European Parliament among the people and thus to increase its political authority.
I therefore expressly thank the rapporteur for beginning this initiative here in Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=306 NAME="Monti">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to congratulate the European Parliament and the rapporteur, Mr Rothley, for three reasons: for the content of this directive, for the institutional motive and for the approach taken.
I am pleased with the content because, as Mr Rothley said, this directive is aimed at citizens so that they feel at home not only in their country, but also in the rest of Europe.
This proposal for a directive in fact concerns a large number of citizens and concerns a difficult moment in their life, a difficult experience, when they are victims in a Member State where they do not reside of a road accident caused by a motor vehicle registered and insured in another Member State.
<P>
The second reason is institutional.
It has already been underlined, but, on behalf of the Commission, I want to place particular emphasis on the fact that this is the first time that Parliament has made use of Article 138b. I must say that I am delighted as a Member of the Commission that this institutional 'first' has occurred in an area so relevant to citizens' lives.
<P>
The third reason why I am satisfied and pleased is the way in which this problem was approached, with the positive contribution of consumer citizens and the insurance industry which helped make this proposal for a directive possible.
<P>
None of the motor vehicle insurance directives already in force take into particular consideration the specific problem which is dealt with here of compensating the victims.
From a legal point of view, they are covered by the green card system, but in practice they encounter difficulties in obtaining compensation from the insurer of the party liable.
The purpose of this proposal for a directive is to provide such victims with another legal instrument in order to offset the practical difficulties that they encounter.
<P>
I would like to emphasize that the proposal does not involve excessive costs for the insurance industry and national governments. Another positive aspect of the proposal is its pragmatism, and if the rapporteur will allow me to say so, I believe that he appreciates pragmatism in proposals for legislation.
The new structure does not entail any increased costs, because Member States and the insurance companies can to a large degree avail themselves of existing structures which can be used simultaneously for different purposes.
<P>
In addition, even if the measure we are talking about means some costs for the insurance companies, the benefit for the company is quite substantial, in that the new mechanisms would lower the costs that are usually borne by the victims in the country where the accident occurred.
Such costs include, for example, translation of the police report, and fees paid to lawyers because the victims are not familiar with the procedures in force in the Member State where the accident occurred and because they cannot deal with the insurance company without the assistance of a legal expert.
<P>
I will now turn to the individual amendments.
The Commission is very happy to accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 12, 16, 18, 20, 21, 25 and 31.
These amendments improve the wording of the language and offer useful clarifications in the text.
<P>
The Commission also agrees to accept partially Amendments Nos 15, 17, 19, 28, 29, 30, 33.
Point (a) of Amendment No 15 on extending the right to accidents that occur in a third country cannot be accepted.
This problem needs to be examined more closely in the light of other international agreements.
Amendment No 17 is an excessively simplified version of the Commission's initial proposal.
As for Amendment No 19, we cannot accept in a directive suggestions regarding persons who might assume the role of agent to process the claim.
In Amendment No 28, there has to be a description of the tasks to be performed by the information centre.
In Amendment No 29, reference to the Member State where the insurance company has been authorized to operate is not appropriate.
In Amendment No 30, the deadline could delay compensation of the victim; furthermore, there is an erroneous reference to Directive 84/5/EEC that does not contain any provision referring to the compensation body.
In Amendment No 33, there is no reason to indicate the type of entities that could act as compensation bodies.
In the same point, in cases where the insurer cannot be identified, the Commission could accept the intervention of the compensation body only if the final responsibility lies with the guarantee fund in accordance with paragraph 4 of Article 1, of Directive 84/5.
<P>
For another group of amendments, the Commission can accept them in spirit or with a few adaptations: I am referring to Amendments Nos 5, 10, 13, 26 and 27.
Of these, I would like to very briefly look at No 26 and No 27.
We will not accept the parts that would lead to excessive and harmful harmonization and a procedure to compensate the victim that is burdened with too many time limits and made more complex by procedural details.
<P>
I finally come to the various amendments that the Commission cannot accept because they do not in any way improve the text proposed and might create confusion regarding the meaning of some of the provisions.
I am talking about Amendments Nos 4, 8, 11, 22, 24, 35, 36 and 37.
Moreover, the Commission may not accept Amendments No 14 or No 34, and this in order to guarantee the overall coherence with the three directives already in force for motor vehicle insurance matters.
<P>
The Commission also cannot accept Amendment No 23; it could accept a stronger version of Article 3, paragraph 6, but not the wording proposed in Amendment No 26.
The best solution could be a compromise between the Commission proposal and what is suggested in Amendment No 26.
<P>
Lastly, the Commission also rejects Amendment No 32, because in some Member States the information services are provided free of charge by the public authorities.
There is no reason to introduce additional costs.
<P>
As far as Amendment No 37 is concerned, Mr Wijsenbeek, the use of multilingual forms for collisions could, in our opinion, be introduced through a voluntary agreement between the insurance organizations and not necessarily through a directive.
<P>
I am sorry if I have burdened with a list of amendments something whose great value must nonetheless be emphasized. This proposal is extremely important because of the institutional innovation, the closer involvement of citizens and the fact that it proves that the single market can be achieved on the initiative of Parliament, in addition to the initiative of the Commission, reconciling the interests of consumers and the readiness of the industry to collaborate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=307 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Monti.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=18>
Building a sustainable Europe
<SPEAKER ID=308 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0233/98) by Mrs Hulthén, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the communication from the Commission on environment and employment (Building a sustainable Europe) (COM(97)0592 - C4-0655/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=309 NAME="Hulthén">
Madam President, employment and the environment, which is what the Commission's communication is about, are two areas which for a long time and on many occasions have come into conflict with each other.
But since things have moved forward, not least in the area of the environment, it has been shown how erroneous and out-ofdate that actually is.
The environmental aspect and environmental awareness have become a more integrated part of society.
In spite of the development which has taken place, there is still a lot left to do.
In this report, which I have tried to prepare with valuable contributions from others, not least from the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, I have tried to put forward proposals on how we can go further in building a sustainable Europe.
I would also like to say that in the time that work on the report has been going on, I have discovered that there is enormous inventiveness and development locally and regionally around the Union.
<P>
In order to be able to see at all the development in a sector like 'green jobs' , it is important to have a reasonable definition of what a 'green job' actually is.
The Commission's definition is attractive, almost philosophical, but perhaps not so practical to use for gauging properly what it is actually about.
That is perhaps the first inquiry which should be made when this work is continued.
In order to be able to make comparable statistics and take proper measures it is necessary to have a clear and distinct definition of the subject.
<P>
There are four main areas in which I think the jobs of the future could be, and where a change in the current situation is entirely necessary for the sake of sustainability.
These are the energy sector, construction, waste and, not least, the agricultural sector.
This is perhaps one of the most important areas in which the Union has the power to bring about a change, and where it is important that something happens to change the current path.
<P>
We know that during the last 15 years an increasing number of organic farms have been created in Europe.
Consumer demand for environmentally-correct food has grown constantly.
However, so far, the Union has shown relatively little interest in following this trend and satisfying the consumers' demands.
If we are to make a change and get this stimulus for 'green jobs' , we must also begin in the agricultural sector, where the Union actually has the opportunities and resources to do something.
This is a very bitter pill to swallow.
<P>
The methods to stimulate this development and get the environment and employment to go together can look very different.
The consumers are perhaps one of the most important parts in this; they must be made aware.
It is they who are making demands.
Unfortunately awareness is not genetically determined, but is something which has to come from experience.
Therefore, consumers must have the opportunity to make choices, to get information and to find out what products exist and what demands can be made.
<P>
Aware companies are equally important; aware companies with producer liability.
That does not come of itself either. Both carrots and whips are needed from the political side to drive developments forward.
<P>
It is also about aware authorities which accept their responsibility and which recognize the opportunities they have, such as in relation to public procurement, to stimulate the development of more environmentally friendly companies, a development which goes in the right direction.
It is also a matter of us giving training, and stimulating technical development and cooperation between scientists from NGOs, trades union movements and, not least, authorities.
There is an awful lot to do in this area.
<P>
In order to manage this sustainable development, we must go through sector by sector and perhaps also sometimes cast out this or that old holy cow which has been left over from before.
We have a clear responsibility and a clear task, not least from the citizens of Europe.
We need a better environment, but we also have 20 million people unemployed who need jobs.
That is where the challenge lies.
<P>
Twelve amendments to the report have been submitted.
Of these 12, there are two which I can support.
They are Amendment No 3 and Amendment No 11 from Mr Virgin.
I am not against the others on principle, but I do not think they make the report or the Commission's proposal any clearer; in fact, the opposite is true.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=310 NAME="Sornosa Martínez">
Madam President, Mrs Hulthén, your report is truly very interesting and I thank you for having accepted the conclusions of the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
I congratulate you on your contributions.
<P>
I think that we will all agree that the deterioration of the environment has become one of the greatest problems we are currently faced with due to the type of development of the industrial society.
Dirty, smelly rivers, rubbish and waste all around, and the irritating smoke in the cities are perhaps the most visible signs of a planet - our planet Earth - which is increasingly polluted. And there is also another form of pollution that is less apparent yet closer to us: the illnesses caused by physical and chemical pollutants.
<P>
The Commission's communication on the environment and employment is aimed at establishing the general principles of a strategy to allow for the creation of synergy between environmental policy and employment.
It is a question of creating jobs that decontaminate the air and the water we pollute, that recycle and reuse the waste we produce, and that reforest our felled woods. In addition, research and technology must meanwhile improve the damage to the environment which will, supposedly, also improve our society.
<P>
As I believe that we devote more time to talking about the environment and employment than actually implementing real and quantifiable measures to solve these two serious problems, I would modestly call on the Commission to criticize, within the context of the launch of this European strategy, our current "throwaway society' .
It is only in this way, I believe, that we would realize our objective.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=311 NAME="Schroedter">
Madam President, the environment creates employment.
This slogan has been around here for a long time. It was around as early as 1993, when the decision on a new development model was taken at the suggestion of Commission President Jacques Delors.
The inefficiency caused by over-exploitation of natural resources and insufficient use of labour should be replaced by sustainable development.
<P>
In addition to this change of emphasis, Delors also requested that the field of environmental protection become a new area of employment.
The improvement of our environment and quality of life - which has not yet been discussed - should be used as a means to create new jobs and to thus help reduce unemployment.
For completely inexplicable reasons, the Commission neglected this important approach towards an economic policy which brings together the fields of environment and employment in such a way that they strengthen each other.
<P>
This statement by the Commission was long overdue.
Now, of course, we expect that this paper will not be forgotten again, but that it will be represented actively in the monitoring committees by the Commission representatives and that they will propose using money from the Structural Funds for the environment, precisely in those areas to which funds have not yet been allocated. We also expect that these changes will be approved quite quickly in the Commission so that the good work which we have on paper and which really is a good start, can also be implemented.
It is therefore logical, of course, that the Commission should advocate a new regulation on the Structural Funds, that the use of funds in this innovative area should be set at an appropriately high level, and that environmental authorities and organizations should also be involved in planning, evaluation and implementation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=312 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Apolinário">
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, I asked if I might speak to defend and support the general context of Mrs Hulthén's report, which seems to me to be generally correct, especially when the 'environment' at present employs over 3.5 million people in the European Union and the annual growth forecast that is generally accepted, particularly in studies by the OECD itself, is around 5.5 %.
<P>
And thus, in a Europe in which not only employment but also the progressive and inevitable inclusion of the environment in the European Union's policies is a constant challenge, employment and the environment have become two sides of a single coin, a counterpoint to a now-outworn development model, based on price-investment ratios involving the excessive exploitation of natural resources.
<P>
I would also like to take this opportunity to emphasize that the coming reform of the common agricultural policy basically demands, and reinforces the need for, the attribution of sufficient weight to environmental questions, also in the light of this sustainable development strategy to which we have pledged our support.
We must also underline the role of the Structural and Cohesion Funds in developing environmental policy, particularly this link between the environment and employment.
<P>
There is no doubt, for example, that the rule that 50 % of the Cohesion Fund must be applied to the environment has contributed very positively to improving the quality of life in the Cohesion states, but it has also increased the amount of environmental investment in the Cohesion states, making the link between the role of the environment and job creation more obvious.
<P>
In addition, it is now generally acknowledged that the sectors and companies that are investing in ecological processes, production systems and products will find themselves less and less able to compete within the European Union and in trade between the Union and third countries.
This is why we are declaring our support for Mrs Hulthén's report, and also why we challenge the Commission to submit some practical proposals, after this communication, in line with the report Committee on the Environment of the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=313 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Virgin">
Madam President, we are now discussing a good report which contains a lot of good ideas for the Commission to work on.
I would like to congratulate Mrs Hulthén on this.
<P>
The report raises important questions about how environmental policy can contribute to creating new, meaningful jobs in the EU.
As data from the Commission's communication shows, the environmental sector is expanding strongly with an estimated growth in the coming years of 5.5 %.
This is very pleasing.
The explanation is partly peoples' increasing commitment to environmental issues. This changes their demand towards environmentally friendly goods and thus strengthens employment in the environmental sector.
Political decisions on emission limits, etcetera, have yielded results in the form of investments and therefore jobs.
<P>
Yesterday we had a debate on financial instruments.
If they are used in the right way, they can undeniably contribute to a better environment and increased employment.
However, excessive use or defective environmental charges risk having the opposite effect.
I also believe it is important to stress the fact that growth has an important function in this context.
With increased growth the opportunities for us to invest in a better environment increase.
That is exactly what is happening. Growth in our modern society is coming through new sectors.
The environment is undeniably in the front line.
<P>
The European Council's recommendations on how we can increase employment in Europe are clearly closely linked to the subject we are discussing this evening.
Some of these ideas are expressed in the amendments proposed by the PPE Group.
I hope that the rapporteur will be able to support all these proposals if she is allowed to sleep on it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=314 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, we agree with Mrs Hulthén's report and the opinions of the Committee on Regional Policy and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
In the opinion of the Committee on Regional Policy, in fact, confirmation is given of something that is very clear: "the patterns of production and consumption today are far from sustainable' , as stated clearly in the fifth action programme on the environment.
And naturally, the industrialized countries are essentially responsible today for the environmental situation in the world.
<P>
In the Amsterdam Treaty, employment is linked to the environment, and these two sectors are linked to the remaining policies. Yet we all know that decisions on economic and agricultural issues are adopted that have nothing to do with the protection of the environment.
<P>
Therefore, we are in complete agreement that local and regional authorities should participate where projects related to the Structural Funds and the environment are involved.
We also support the use of those people who, in some regions of the European Union, come from industry and who could receive training to allow them to work, in fact, in jobs treating water, treating waste, treating contaminated land and caring for natural areas.
<P>
As the OECD rightly states, the environment sector is a sector which might experience a growth of 5.5 % in the coming years in terms of generating employment.
We are not used to seeing other sectors with such a level of growth; it is more usual to see a decline.
It is, therefore, essential to link employment and the environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=315 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Madam President, I would like to begin by congratulating Mrs Hulthén on an excellent report on two very important and pressing themes, namely, the environment and employment.
Information from Eurostat shows that we have around 3.5 million environment-related jobs in the EU today.
We also have the modest estimate from the OECD of an annual increase in environment-related jobs of 5.5 %.
This shows quite clearly that the combination of necessary environmental investments and 'green jobs' is not only good economics, but also a way to combine underused human resources and overused natural resources.
<P>
Since Commissioner Bjerregaard is here at this late hour, which I really appreciate, I would like to urge the Commission to approve as soon as possible Sweden's action plan for employment and 'green jobs' which has been waiting for approval from the Commission since November.
Otherwise, the signals from the Commission will be very contradictory.
<P>
Naturally, my group is going to support this report, but we would appreciate it if we also received support for our amendment, which I consider to be an important addition to paragraph 45, that is, that the countries which want to introduce a tax on energy and a carbon dioxide tax should take a lead and show the other countries what can be done to fulfil the commitments which were made in Kyoto.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=316 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Taubira-Delannon">
Madam President, Commissioner, after so many years spent preaching to, and so much energy deployed in convincing, the developing countries that they should abandon the wasteful growth example of the North and commit themselves resolutely to the ascetic path of sustainable development, the European Union has realized that it, too, could do with sweeping its own back yard and admit that persistent unemployment and massive exclusion are not sustainable ways of life.
<P>
Does this mean that we are abandoning our wonder at productivist technologies, so voracious in their use of natural resources and so misanthropic?
Are we now recognizing that the aim of development is an improvement in living conditions, a reduction in inequalities and the mass diffusion of knowledge?
Are we now going to place the people at the heart of this development dynamic?
<P>
The environment is transverse.
Upstream it feeds on policies of growth, education, training, and employment; policies of public health, taxation, promotion and the labelling of public services.
Downstream it expresses the stable emergence of the environmental conditions in the fields of energy, transport, agriculture, industry and tourism.
Cooperation policy should generate policies of co-development.
However, we must not sink into otherworldliness.
We know that, in the short term, there will be no net creation of jobs on a large scale.
<P>
In addition, integrating the environment into economic policies often amounts to incorporating new costs.
Taxing pollution sometimes creates competitiveness differentials, thus destroying jobs.
We must, nevertheless, continue to move forward.
In order to do this, in order to reduce these risks and to control these perverse effects, we must envisage a global environmental and employment policy.
It is the only way of establishing a level of coordination which will make all efforts promoting the environment and employment both just and efficient.
For this, clear objectives are needed, and undoubtedly financial means which are more substantial than the mere mention of Structural Funds.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=317 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graenitz">
Madam President, I would have liked to say that there was once a time when people believed that the environment destroyed employment.
But it was not long ago that this way of thinking prevailed.
Today, everyone has realized that it is only by respecting natural resources and using raw materials and energy economically and carefully that jobs can be secured in the long term and thus sustainable development can be introduced.
<P>
I think it is very important that the Commission has submitted its statement on the environment and employment to Parliament this year, after careful preparation by means of a hearing, and that we are discussing it now, at the beginning of the Austrian presidency, which will deal with ways in which national employment projects can be implemented.
I thank Mrs Hulthén, the rapporteur, for the competent way in which she took on and prepared this report.
<P>
We certainly still have a great deal to do in order to translate into concrete terms the issue of which jobs can be created where, not to create too many jobs by means of repairing the environment, where there is still plenty to be done, but in particular to create jobs where new industries are working on preparing for more environmentally friendly operations and creating the necessary infrastructure.
Even in the Kyoto process, if it is a question of the reduction of emissions, in this area it will also be a question of jobs because due to the thermal insulation alone in buildings which already exist, many states will only be able to achieve half the necessary reduction in emissions.
<P>
Commissioner, I hope that the issue of the environment and employment will play a particularly important role in the debate which will take place in the next six months.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=318 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I totally agree with the view expressed by the rapporteur and the delegates during today's debate: that we are discussing a very important topic, and therefore it is of course a matter of irritation that it has come up so late in the day. But that must not prevent us from studying the importance of the relationship between environmental protection and employment.
<P>
Firstly, allow me to address employment, because employment is now clearly included as an item on the agenda of the European Union.
We know that employment was included in the Amsterdam Treaty as a goal for the Union.
We held a extraordinary summit on employment last year in Luxembourg, and this year, for the first time, all 15 Member States have presented their action plans on employment to the Commission.
The Commission presented an initial evaluation of these plans at the Cardiff Summit, giving us the opportunity to scrutinize these policies from an environmental point of view and to discuss with our colleagues how to promote the existing synergies between the two policies.
<P>
One way of doing so would be to integrate the objective of environmental protection and sustainable development into the new 1999 employment guidelines.
As regards environmental protection, European commitment dates back further, and many have mentioned this, but it was of course given new momentum at the Cardiff Summit, where a reinforced strategy for integrating the environment into all other EU policies was approved.
<P>
Today, we are not only linking economics and the environment.
We are also adding a social dimension to sustainable development.
Balanced economic growth, environmental protection and job creation are not only mutually compatible; they are building blocks of long-term development strategy.
In order to implement this new development model, there are certain principles - as outlined in the declaration - that must be adhered to, and I will briefly mention some of these.
We need environmentally-oriented investment.
We need higher levels of employment, and by that I mean we need a change in fiscal legislation - which, as Mr Virgin mentioned, we have also debated this evening, and almost just as late at that - by shifting taxation away from the workforce.
Finally, we need the involvement of all interested parties.
<P>
In connection with climate problems, I can see a number of possibilities in particular for creating jobs in new industries and services, whether it is a question of expanding the application of renewable energy sources, improving energy efficiency in terms of processes, products and buildings, or increased exports to markets beyond the Union.
All this would save money.
It would improve the environment and create jobs.
I agree with Mrs Graenitz in that it is very gratifying to see that the Austrian presidency will be addressing the declaration on the environment and employment at the Environment Council in October.
I hope the Council will take that opportunity to adopt a resolution that would serve to strengthen the commitment of the Commission and the Member States to take further steps in the areas of the environment and employment.
<P>
Madam President, I will stop here, but before I do so, I would like to express my appreciation to the three committees of the European Parliament for their excellent work on the report and their statements on the Commission's declaration on the environment and employment.
In particular, I would like to thank Mrs Hulthén for the terrific job she has done as rapporteur, and I would also like to thank Mr Ken Collins, chairman of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, for his active participation in the conference on the environment and employment hosted jointly by the European Parliament and the Commission last year.
And finally, I would just also like to express my satisfaction with the productive collaboration I have enjoyed with my colleague Padraig Flynn.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=319 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Bjerregaard.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 00.05 a.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Janssen van Raay">
Madam President, the reason I want to say something about the Minutes is my letter announced to the President yesterday.
I would like to sincerely thank all the Quaestors for the fact that they granted my request to present the legality, not the expediency but the legality, of the system of mandatory voting, financial discipline and the fiscal consequences of this to the legal adviser, in whom I have a great deal of trust.
Many thanks, Quaestors and also a word of thanks to Mr Falconer who set everything in motion on behalf of the 'backbenchers' of this House.
Mr Falconer and the Quaestors, many thanks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Madam President, during Question Time to the Commission I withdrew my question, but this was not noted in the Minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Naturally we will rectify that.
Are there any other comments on the Minutes?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Hardstaff">
Madam President, I notice from the voting record that my vote was not recorded for the first two votes, for which I was present, and which I thought that my machine had registered.
I voted 'no' on the first vote and 'no' on the second vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
We will correct that.
<P>
(Parliament approved the Minutes.)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
Mrs González Álvarez wishes to speak, on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Madam President, I would like to make a request to the Presidency.
At the last partsession we adopted a resolution condemning the situation of the prisoners and those condemned to death in Equatorial Guinea.
<P>
The day before yesterday the Bubi leader Martín Puye died.
Imprisoned under terrible conditions in the jails in Equatorial Guinea, he was not allowed to talk to anyone, his food and water were rationed and he was in a cell measuring 1.5 m by 1.5 m.
<P>
We would ask the Presidency - since there is not enough time to table an urgent resolution - to call on the Malabo authorities to carry out an investigation and we ask that our institution takes the necessary measures to ensure that nothing similar happens again because various other prisoners are in the same situation as this Bubi leader was.
From now on we must ensure that such an event is never repeated.
This man was 58 years old.
It is terrible that he has died in such a way; the other prisoners have not been sentenced to death but they are going to die in the same way due to prison conditions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
Mrs González Álvarez, naturally it is difficult for us to intervene from here.
We have to consider how our protests might be able to help in future.
It think I should perhaps refer this matter to the competent committee or even to the Bureau.
<P>
Mr Morris has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="Morris">
Madam President, on a point of order.
Last night during Question Time we did not come to the question that I intended to pose to the Council.
It is an important one.
<P>
At the present time there are five prisoners in a Saudi prison accused of apostasy and they are facing the penalty of death by beheading.
Two are Europeans and it is highly likely, as a consequence of appeals from seven Member States, that they will have their sentence of death commuted, possibly to a term of imprisonment.
Of the five, three are Filipinos and it is highly likely, as in the past, that the Filipinos - in other words the non-European people who are accused of apostasy in Saudi Arabia - will in fact be beheaded by sword.
<P>
I would appeal to the President and to the Parliament, and certainly to the Council, that we make an urgent appeal to the authorities in Saudi Arabia for mercy and clemency to be shown to all five.
We would be appealing in fact for the fundamental freedom of religious expression in Saudi Arabia.
I would make an urgent appeal, on behalf of these five people, for this action to be taken immediately.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
Mr Morris, the Presidency is here today.
I do not know whether the gentlemen have made a note of that. If not, I would suggest that we resubmit your question in writing so that the Presidency can take up this protest.
<P>
Mrs Ferrer has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Ferrer">
Madam President, I would like to say that I agree fully with what Mrs González said because it is not only a question of there having now been an unfortunate death - that of the leader of the Bubis - but also that there are another 10 or 11 people in danger.
I believe that this Parliament, which has very clearly stated that it is opposed to the death penalty in general and, in particular, to the death sentences of certain prisoners in Equatorial Guinea, should take action, at least through the Presidency of the Council.
We could pass this message on to the Council so that it contacts the authorities in Equatorial Guinea to intervene and, in any case, so that those authorities allow a visit by European Union authorities to monitor the situation of these prisoners and thereby guarantee justice for this people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Ferrer.
We have noted your remarks. That is how we will proceed.
<P>
Mr Smith has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Smith">
Madam President, I have some brief comments which I hope the presidency will take on board.
<P>
I understand that the Government of South Korea, due to the industrial unrest in that country, have issued warrants for the arrest of 55 trade union leaders.
I would ask the presidency to make it quite clear that we do not approve, and fundamentally oppose such conduct.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Deliberations of the Committee on Petitions - Amendment of Rule 156(3) of the Rules of Procedure - Amendment of Rule 156(3) of the Rules of Procedure
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
Report (A4-0250/98) by Mr Fontana, on behalf of the Committee on Petitions, on the deliberations of the Committee on Petitions during the parliamentary year 1997-1998-Report (A4-0209/98) by Mr Evans, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on amendment of Rule 156(3) of Parliament's Rules of Procedure relating to the right of petition-Report (A4-0158/98) by Mr Wibe, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on the amendment of Rule 156 of Parliament's Rules of Procedure (Right of petition)
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Fontana">
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Ford">
Madam President, I apologise on behalf of Mr Evans who is unavoidably absent this morning, although he hopes to be back by lunchtime when we vote on this matter.
<P>
The Evans report is about allowing petitions in the European Parliament to be submitted in languages other than one of the 11 official languages.
There are two groups of what we may term non-official languages.
Firstly there are the languages of some of the regions of the European Union.
For example, from my own country you have Welsh or Gaelic.
Secondly, there are the languages of immigration in the European Union which, again from my own country, would be languages like Gujerati, Urdu, Bengali etc.
<P>
The proposal from Mr Evans is to allow people to petition the European Parliament in either of those groups of languages provided they are accompanied by the appropriate official translation.
This will benefit many millions of people who reside in the European Union, who are citizens of the European Union but whose first language is not one of the 11 official languages.
<P>
I hope that the House will be able to support the report.
Mr Evans' amendment deals with this issue.
There are a number of other amendments which I am afraid we are opposed to on the grounds that they mostly draw a distinction between officially recognised languages and languages that are not officially recognised.
We believe that any of the languages commonly used in the European Union should be admitted, provided they are accompanied by the official translation.
Certainly one or two of the amendments are rather nonsensical, one of them implying that we are going to have to recruit staff who, for example, are capable of dealing with petitions in Welsh.
We are very happy for petitions to be submitted in Welsh, but we do not agree with the amendments which state that it should be permissible for them to be submitted without a translation.
<P>
I urge you to support the Evans amendment, but not to support the other amendments.
I hope that you will make this small but significant change on behalf of the people of Europe when we vote at 12 noon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Wibe">
Madam President, my report is based on a proposal by Mr Dell'Alba to make a small amendment to Rule 156 that would make it possible to submit petitions by electronic mail.
The essence of my proposal is that we approve this amendment by Mr Dell'Alba, and that we thus allow petitions to also be submitted electronically.
My report also contains a second proposal, namely that these petitions should be entered in a public register and thus be available to the general public.
<P>
My report has been discussed a great deal.
However, I would say that the most valuable opinion on it so far is that petitions must be independent of the way in which they are submitted.
It must not matter if they are sent by fax, ordinary letter or by electronic mail.
I would also like to point out that the submission of petitions electronically is permitted in many corresponding bodies in the national parliaments and by our own Ombudsman.
<P>
In principle, three objections have been raised to this.
The first is that it is unfair in some way, because not everyone owns a computer.
It is, firstly, mainly men and, secondly, mainly people with high incomes who have computers.
It is, of course, a valid objection to say that this increases the options for those who have a computer and not for others.
At the same time, it must be said that when the typewriter was invented 50 or 100 years ago, they were not owned by everyone either, but perhaps the more wealthy groups in society.
However, it would be unreasonable to prohibit the submission of petitions by electronic mail just because only a specific group of people would be able to make use of this facility.
<P>
The second objection concerns the possibility of falsification, that is, if a petition is sent in by electronic mail, it is possible to sign it with a false name.
That is quite correct, that could be done.
However, I would like to point out that there is nothing in our current Rules of Procedure to say that the signature on a letter that has been received should be checked.
In my opinion, it is a matter for the administration.
If the administration wants to check the signature, it is possible to do so, irrespective of whether it has been submitted electronically or in the form of an ordinary letter.
<P>
The third criticism is that it will lead to an increase in the number of petitions, which will therefore require more personnel; this, in itself, is also correct.
However, I believe that there are opportunities to streamline the work when making use of electronic means.
The most important point in this context, however, is that democracy has to cost something.
This could mean that we need more personnel in the Committee on Petitions, but democracy costs, so we must also be prepared to pay the small price in question.
<P>
In addition to the above-mentioned core question, my report also contains a proposal to place the petitions in a public register, as long as the person submitting a petition does not want it to be treated in confidence.
This is also a reasonable demand for the sake of transparency.
<P>
I would like to conclude by saying that, happily, this report has achieved unanimity in the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
Extremely small steps are, indeed, being taken here (it is almost a mere trifle) but they are nevertheless small steps towards greater transparency.
Every long journey does, after all, begin with a small step.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Thors">
Madam President, we in the Committee on Petitions welcome this initiative and would very much like to see it adopted as soon as possible.
We believe that a rapid reform is necessary.
At the same time, like the rapporteur, I would like to congratulate the Ombudsman on having opened a home page where you can find a form on how to lodge a complaint.
It is a good model, also for us, when we come to realize in practice the amendment of the Rules of Procedure that this involves.
<P>
It is true that, under our current rules, the identity of the petitioner must be checked.
We must try to speed this up, and, at the same time, we must also perhaps make use of new legislative proposals regarding electronic signatures.
<P>
We share the rapporteur's view that we must do more to develop the databases so that the general public can see what petitions exist.
In addition, we agree that petitions must be treated in the same way, irrespective of the way in which they have been submitted.
<P>
I am also looking forward to the proposal to amend the Rules of Procedure so that the petitions will be public, except in cases where the petitioner has requested that a petition be treated in confidence.
The interesting thing is that this amendment of the Rules of Procedure will conflict with Article 2.3 of the rules governing public access to documents as established by the Bureau.
These rules have a different approach, namely that to obtain access to a document submitted to Parliament, we should not turn to Parliament but to the person who produced the document.
This is an interesting conflict, but we have chosen the more correct line in this document, namely that they should be viewed as Parliament's documents.
<P>
Finally, I would like to say that it is important that in future we also have opportunities to submit mass petitions.
At the same time, it is our responsibility as Members of Parliament to consider the nature of the matter and not the number of petitions when deciding priorities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schmidbauer">
Madam President, I would like to congratulate the three rapporteurs for, as far as I know from the other committee, all three reports were passed unanimously.
Our task, as parliamentarians elected directly by the citizens of Europe, is to represent the interests of these citizens and to look after their concerns.
No institution or administration is infallible.
European regulations can prove unsatisfactory in practice, just as the best-intentioned transposal of European law into national law can be unsatisfactory.
We all know that administrations tend to act bureaucratically and that means at a distance from their citizens.
<P>
Proximity to citizens is one of the favourite expressions heard in the speeches of the Members of this House.
The Committee on Petitions with its practical work provides the guarantee that this proximity exists in practice.
The work of the committee is to provide redress in the case of shortcomings in or breaches of Community law and to protect the rights of its citizens.
Happily, the citizens of Europe are exercising their rights more and more frequently and so the number of complaints and petitions received has increased over recent years.
Unfortunately, the Secretariat's staff resources have not automatically grown in line with the increasing volume of work in the committee, and we are endeavouring to speed up the process by which petitions are dealt with by adapting and tightening up our working practices and systems.
We also hope that the Wibe report decision on the amendment of the Rules of Procedure will win us further possibilities because it should mean that petitions could be submitted via the Internet and would make the administration and processing of the entire system faster.
<P>
It is not merely annoying that as long as several years can elapse before some petitions can be resolved. It also gives a very negative picture of Europe.
There are many reasons for the length of time it can take to process petitions.
Firstly, it takes time for the documents to be translated and for a summary to be made available in the eleven languages.
Secondly, in most cases the Commission is asked for information and the Commission's answer then has to be translated into all the languages before the petitions can be dealt with in committee.
<P>
The greatest problem, however, comes from the Member States whose responses to complaints, particularly where these are obviously justified, are evasive, slow and in some cases non-existent and are only moved to action by the threat of appearing before the European Court of Justice.
The fact that the European Commission report on this EU law lists 17 actions for treaty violation brought at the instigation of the Parliament in 1997 is the result of our work in the Committee on Petitions.
So, despite all the difficulties, it is gratifying that many petitions have nevertheless reached a successful conclusion.
<P>
The annual report describes several cases by way of example and I should like to pick up on one of them here.
It involves the case of a German employee who had worked for part of his career in Belgium and France.
He quite rightly applied for his pension in all three Member States and although the French pension fund granted his claim, it only paid out half of it on the grounds that he had to submit the pension rulings from Germany and Belgium before he could receive the entire amount.
However, as he was simultaneously experiencing difficulties with the German pension fund, where the matter had gone to court, he would have had to wait a considerable time before receiving his French pension.
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At the initiative and intervention of the Commission, the French pension ruling was then changed and he was paid the full pension as the French authorities had acted on the basis of an old directive.
This was a case, therefore, in which national authorities had made an error but the intervention of the Committee on Petitions was successful and a citizen was granted his rights.
<P>
Not all petitions can be resolved so successfully.
Time and again we run up against the limits of jurisdiction imposed by the Treaty.
However, it is important that the citizens of Europe are kept informed and that they know they can turn to the Committee on Petitions for help in enforcing their rights and we will do everything in our power to help them obtain their rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Perry">
Madam President, during the debate on the Anastassopoulos report earlier this week, many Members said that we must make every effort to bring this Parliament closer to the people of Europe.
That is an important objective.
In fact the possibility of petitioning Parliament and the work of the Committee on Petitions are one of the most effective means we have of allowing individual citizens to use Parliament in a clear and a direct way to address their individual concerns.
<P>
I congratulate Mr Fontana on the clarity of his report and also on the commitment he has shown, as Chairman of the Petitions Committee, to the needs of European citizens.
He is ably served by a competent and conscientious staff and, similarly, the reports furnished to us by the Commission are always thorough and well presented.
One could wish, on occasion, that its reports arrived rather more promptly at the Petitions Committee.
<P>
The determined boycott of the committee by any representative of the Council is still, sadly, a great omission.
I see no one here listening to this debate.
We failed to get the British presidency to take the needs of individual citizens seriously.
I hope that the Austrian presidency might address this issue and ensure that, as a matter of course, a Council representative attends every meeting of the Petitions Committee.
The Council would learn far more there about how Europe is really working than at any number of closed Council meetings.
<P>
I would also endorse the points referred to by other Members about the need to use modern methods - e-mail and the Internet - to present petitions.
Whilst I certainly endorse Mr Evans' report, the prime concern is speed of consideration.
This is what Members really want to see.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="President">
Many thanks, Mr Perry.
I just wanted to point out to you that the Council presidency is here today. Its representatives are here at the front and are taking notes industriously.
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<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Vallvé">
Madam President, I believe that the modification of the right to petition the European Parliament, in the sense that those languages which are official in an area of the territory of the Member States will be recognized, is a positive step.
We must remember that this Parliament approved, in December 1990, the report presented by the Member from Luxembourg, Mrs Reding, which highlighted the importance of minority languages in the context of the European Union and the need to ensure that the citizens of all parts of Europe did not see the European Union as a body that was unconnected to their own identity.
<P>
We are not talking about recognizing more working languages or more official languages.
It is purely a matter of these citizens being able to send petitions to the European Parliament, which is the institution that represents all of the citizens of Europe, in their own language, where it is officially recognized in the corresponding Member State.
<P>
I would like to point out that many of these languages were banned in certain countries during very recent dictatorships, but democracy has recognized them and has also granted them their own official status.
<P>
We must also take into account the fact that these citizens have the right to use their mother tongue in the Court of Justice of the European Communities and in other legal bodies.
Therefore, the recognition of the use of the language itself on the part of the European Parliament would be an act of justice as regards the right to petition. It would be a good example, too, in the face of the future enlargement to include the countries of central and eastern Europe, where there are also minority groups with their own languages within each country; these groups would then see that this European institution is open to the plurality of all the peoples of Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="Hyland">
Madam President, it is becoming increasingly evident that one of the more significant innovations of the Maastricht Treaty was enshrining the right to submit a petition.
This is a fundamental right given to each citizen of the European Union.
In the period covered by the report, the Committee on Petitions received 1 300 petitions.
Most of these petitions covered four main areas, namely non-recognition of qualifications, problems relating to free movement in the Member States, the environment and public health.
These are real issues raised by EU citizens themselves, and we ignore them at our peril.
The right to petition helps to break down barriers and creates a vital link between the working of the EU institutions and our citizens.
As a result of petitions submitted by EU citizens, Member States can be found guilty of infringing Community law.
<P>
I wish to refer briefly to Sellafield.
That nuclear installation on the west coast of Britain, far from the cosy seat of power in London, has been and remains a cause of serious concern to Irish citizens.
The only safe Sellafield is a closed Sellafield.
The Commission cannot continue to ignore what citizens are saying.
It is not a question of subsidiarity: trans-frontier pollution is a matter of concern to us all and has prompted numerous petitions.
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Sellafield has an appalling record: it is accident-prone, it pollutes the air and our sea.
There is a long litany of incidents and disputes.
Why was British Nuclear Fuels unwilling to release enough information to the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland to enable it to assess the safety of nuclear storage at Sellafield?
A report by the Irish General Council of County Councils, published in June, warned that a nuclear accident at Sellafield could result in a disaster ten to a hundred times worse than Chernobyl.
Even a small earthquake in the Cumbrian region could breach the storage tanks.
This report, prepared by the Director of the US-based Institute for Research and Security Studies, accuses the United Kingdom nuclear installation inspectors of not taking a serious accident at Sellafield seriously enough and of not having an emergency plan.
It is about time the Commission clipped the wings of British Nuclear Fuels' nuclear ambitions as it expands its empire to the United States.
<P>
In conclusion, as regards the petition by Mr Peter Downs in Ireland on the safety of riding helmets, I want to urge the Commission to come forward now with a progress report on the issues raised.
The proposed EN 1384 standard is a compromise which does not provide the best possible protection available, as required by the personnel protective equipment directive.
Only one out of 17 equestrian federations throughout Europe was consulted.
Why are we being denied safer standards when they exist, given that, for example, American standards provide better protection?
So please come forward with a progress report, because lives are at stake.
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<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gutiérrez Díaz">
Madam President, the amendment of Rule 156(3), proposed in the report by Mr Evans, is not a amendment of the rules governing languages, which are the responsibility of the Council, but the desire to ensure that citizens can use their own language in the complaints or petitions they send to the European Parliament.
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Certainly, Mr Evans has made an effort, and has introduced this form of presenting written documents in the language itself along with a translation.
But this is not satisfactory: it is a formal solution but it is not a real solution.
And this is especially true, Madam President, for certain cases where the languages are official languages in one of the Member States of the Union.
In this case, Madam President, we believe that the petitions and complaints made by citizens in their own language should be accepted.
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<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
Madam President, I think everyone realizes that petitions, together with the right to appeal to the Ombudsman, constitute an important aspect of European citizens' right of citizenship, and therefore I believe that in this sense we must encourage as much as possible this democratic activity and this right of citizens to information.
<P>
Petitions are also an instrument that citizens can use to become acquainted with the European institutions and an important moment for us parliamentarians and for the European institutions to learn about the most significant problems facing citizens and the most relevant aspects that should concern our actions.
<P>
It is worth noting that petitions are on the rise - there were more than 1 300 last year - but also more and more citizens are signing petitions - there are petitions with more than 30 000 signatures - which means that hundreds of thousands of citizens each year are using this important instrument of democracy.
This obviously necessitates improvements in the organization of the work of the Committee on Petitions, but ways must also be found to make it easier for citizens to use this instrument.
We are therefore in favour of the use of new instruments like the Internet and the use of languages other than the official languages, provided that there be a summary and a translation in one of the official languages.
<P>
It should also be noted that nearly half of the petitions are inadmissible: this means that European citizens are not being adequately informed about what they can request and how they have to send petitions.
<P>
Another important aspect is collaboration with the European Union's structures: with the European Ombudsman in particular for limited petitions but also with the European Commission whose collaboration so far has been good but which can be improved in terms of both the time it takes the Commission to reply and the quality of its answers.
<P>
Collaboration between the Committee on Petitions and the European Parliament's other committees should also be improved; furthermore, as already stated, relations with the Member States also need to be improved, given the fact that the answers that we have had so far have been unsatisfactory and slow to come.
<P>
As a representative of the Greens, allow me to say that we are very pleased that European citizens consider the instrument of petitions very important in making known the environmental problems of their own area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Novo Belenguer">
Madam President, I would like to begin by congratulating the three rapporteurs, although in my speech I am going to concentrate on the report by Mr Evans due to its great importance and interest in the languages and cultures of the European Union.
In fact, the languages which enjoy official status in a Member State will, from now on, be able to enjoy the same rights as those enjoyed currently by each of the 11 working languages of the European Union in terms of the right to petition the European Parliament, thereby promoting the development of the different cultures of the peoples of Europe.
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And, Madam President, that is the aim of our amendment: to promote and develop the use of and communication in their own languages, by European citizens, respecting their own cultures and idiosyncrasies, with the Community institutions, in this case with the European Parliament.
<P>
By doing this, we are merely strengthening and developing the feeling of European citizenship in all the peoples of the Union. What we are trying to achieve is a situation whereby, if the case arises, a citizen, for example, from the Autonomous Community of Valencia, has the opportunity to contact the European Parliament both in Spanish and in Valencian, the latter being an officially recognized language in our Statute of autonomy.
<P>
This is a good opportunity to give meaning to the great effort that the European Union itself, through the Commission, has been making for several years to promote and develop the minority languages of the Union. This is, in particular, due to the ARIANE programme which received funding of ECU 3 700 000 in 1997, and thanks, too, to the work carried out by the European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages.
<P>
I will conclude, Madam President, with the hope that this House approves a report whose amendments aim to widen and consolidate the spirit of integration of the peoples and their cultures.
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<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Striby">
Madam President, the purpose of the reports by my colleagues, Mr Evans and Mr Wibe, is to extend further the right of petition provided for in Article 156 of our Rules of Procedure.
But, in these same texts, we find provisions which, anticipating difficulties that might arise from such reforms, turn them into a model of the status quo.
<P>
At a time when the European Commission's translation services are seeking a hierarchy for documents so that, with the coming of enlargement which will bring the number of official languages up to sixteen, it will be possible to decide which texts require full translation, Mr Evans proposes a reform of the Rules of Procedure so that everyone can present petitions in a language other than the eleven official languages of the Union.
This is a fine idea for those who speak one of the minority languages.
But how much time will be saved if the petitioner must attach a translation, or a summary, in an official language of the European Union?
How hypocritical is this proposal which, put at its simplest, suggests that Parliament should receive documents which we all know perfectly well are quite pointless!
<P>
For his part, Mr Wibe suggests that the procedure for presenting petitions be simplified using electronic means, but he specifies that it would be necessary to send petitioners a letter inviting them to confirm the proposal sent by e-mail, as soon as the petition is received via the web.
So where is the simplification that we are promised?
The chairman, Mr Fontana, notes in his report an increase in the number and frequency of petitions, with the corollary of increasing delays and difficulties in processing them.
Under these circumstances, where will be the efficiency and credibility of the Committee on Petitions, if we multiply the number of petitions to Parliament as suggested by the different reports which we are discussing this morning?
<P>
To conclude, Madam President, we shall vote against these reports, not because they are bad, but because they do not solve the problems which are raised, since having noted that the Committee on Petitions is becoming clogged up, the rapporteurs propose yet more bureaucracy as a solution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Madam President, one of the most important results of the Maastricht Treaty has certainly been the institution of European citizenship which has made every citizen of a Member State a citizen of the Union and has implicitly led to greater protection of citizens' rights in the context of European construction.
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Together with the figure of the Ombudsman, instituted by the Treaty, the right of petition, also sanctioned by the Treaty, is part of the logic to make up the democratic deficit that is still penalizing the Community's citizens.
In fact, the right of petition is essential not only for citizens but also for the Union's institutions, in that petitions enable the institutions to become aware of citizens' real expectations.
<P>
We would, however, like to stress the fact that an effective examination of petitions always depends on an adequate presence of human resources, of responsible services, and we insist that the most appropriate means be used to inform European citizens regularly of the right of petition and even more so of the ways to reach the European Parliament, which is the collector of the petitions.
Finally, great importance must be attached to the admissibility of these petitions.
<P>
The President of the Commission, and we also, would like to see the Member States being more active in cases where infringements are reported, and underline the need for the Member States to provide complete and prompt answers to the requests for information and action that they receive from the European Commission and to abide by the obligation to help the Community to fulfil its own tasks, as stipulated in Article 5 of the Treaty.
All this, however, is unfortunately not the case today.
<P>
Mr Fontana, whom I thank for the excellent work that he does as chairman of the Parliament's Committee on Petitions, rightly draws attention to the real powers of the European Parliament which currently only has the power of codecision, without any true legislative power that effectively enables voters to exercise, through those they elect, the democratic control of the measures that are taken.
<P>
The importance therefore of having access to the right of petition, which records the hopes and expectations of citizens and takes in their complaints concerning European legislation that they consider unfair, is a cornerstone of our democratic system.
Thanks to the various petitions sent to the European Parliament, we have certainly succeeded in making protective changes to what has become enforceable legislation, changes that are necessary to promote that European integration which we can no longer put off.
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A final observation concerning the time of reply, which is too long: I do not know how, but we are going to have to study how to be quicker and more punctual.
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<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="Smith">
Madam President, being an active member of the Committee on Petitions is very much an education.
The Committee on Petitions provides a constant source of information, knowledge - and sometimes a bit of bewilderment - as we probe the various complexities of legislation which inspire citizens' complaints.
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But it is here, in direct contact with the citizens of the European Union, that we find the flaws and limitations of European Union legislation.
For example, on the environment, we find that environmental impact assessments do not apply to projects which were planned before the legislation was implemented.
Therefore, a 20-year old plan can be taken off a shelf, dusted down and it does not need an environmental impact assessment for approval.
On mutual recognition of qualifications, the European Union still has a long way to go.
On access to social security benefits, governments collude with each other to deny citizens their rights.
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All these things taken together act as an impediment to the free movement of citizens and the Committee on Petitions has continually drawn attention to this.
<P>
I would like to praise the Commission and thank it for its cooperation during my time in the committee.
However, that praise is qualified.
From time to time it could be more pro-active.
Matters coming before the Committee on Petitions could have been taken a bit further by the Commission before going on to the committee.
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But, like Mr Perry, I reserve my criticism for the Council.
It very seldom cooperates with us, and the key to the resolution of very many citizens' complaints lies in cooperation. Unfortunately, this is not sufficiently forthcoming from the Council.
<P>
So, I am happy to support these reports, with those reservations.
I thank the rapporteurs for their efforts.
Mr Wibe has asked me to point out that his report is a work of historical significance.
I am quite happy to quote that for the record - although I will leave you to judge for yourselves.
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<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="President">
So far in this debate none of the speakers has kept to the allocated speaking times.
If we continue like this, we will be half an hour late starting the voting this afternoon.
I just wanted to say that once, for the benefit of everyone, with a plea that we might perhaps keep an eye on the clock.
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<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="Donnelly, Brendan">
Madam President, I am speaking on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party on the Evans and Wibe reports.
The Wibe report is one small step for man, one giant leap for the European Parliament.
We know that Mr Wibe, coming as he does from a Scandinavian background, is particularly interested in information technology.
This is a new insight, a new aspect of our work which has been particularly emphasized and underlined by his work and that of his Scandinavian colleagues.
We welcome it and it is right that he should be gently leading us into the 21st century in this respect.
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As far as the Evans report is concerned, I am also speaking on behalf of the PPE Group.
I should like to point out that Amendment No 3 has been withdrawn.
It is not an amendment put forward by the PPE Group.
An identical amendment has been put forward by Mrs Ferrer and 28 others and that will be voted on.
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Having made that preliminary remark, I should say that the PPE Group supports the Evans report.
We think it is a very workable and worthwhile compromise between two goals, one of which is to respect the Treaties and the regulations which are in place.
The other is to recognize the right and desirability of people to be able to address their petitions to the European Parliament as far as possible in their mother tongue.
<P>
Mr Evan's report seems to observe both those goals.
It conforms to the legal requirements of the Treaty and of the regulations.
It is an important step towards allowing the speakers of minority languages or the languages of Catalonia, Wales, Ireland, Sardinia etc. to appeal to the European Parliament in their own language.
Immigrant groups will also benefit.
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It would be a pity if the European Parliament got itself too deeply involved in questions of linguistic arrangements that are more properly decided at national level.
We have our official languages.
We should observe their status in the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
I commend the Evans and Wibe reports to the House.
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<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Madam President, the most genuine, direct, live contact that the European Parliament has with the citizens of Europe, individually and collectively, is the procedure within the Committee on Petitions.
This was highlighted by the three reports and I agree with them. It was especially highlighted in the report by Mr Fontana, with which I also agree.
I would just like to comment that, while it renders some kind of account and mentions a number of petitions that have been dealt with, it does not tell us of the outcome.
In these cases did the citizen, the petitioner, get justice in the end or not? This concerns us.
And if they did not get justice, who opposed them? The Council, the Commission, the national authorities?
What will happen after that? Perhaps there is then a celebratory debate, a time-consuming procedure with no outcome.
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I would like to add, firstly, that this report must mention whether the people are satisfied after the petitions have been dealt with; secondly, why, and who is responsible.
I would also suggest that this committee and its procedure be strengthened institutionally and legally so that, when a just petition is not satisfied, there is some kind of sanction.
Finally, I would suggest that the debate take place not once a year but, if possible, during each part-session - if we appreciate the importance of the institution - or even every six months so that Parliament can be brought up-to-date, and so that it can supervise and assist the committee in its task.
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<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kuhn">
Madam President, I could almost repeat my contributions to the discussion last year word for word.
Every year we receive more and more petitions, even though a high percentage of the people of the European Union do not even know that they have the right to submit petitions on Community issues to the European Union.
In addition to leaflets, the use of new media could be used to inform the citizens of Europe of their democratic rights.
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To the disappointment of the petitioners, the processing of petitions to the final outcome takes too long.
The Committee on Petitions has optimised its procedures.
In my view, cooperation with the civil servants in the Commission has improved considerably.
As has already been said, in most cases the problem lies with the Council, that is, with the Member State to be consulted in each case.
It requires real patience to obtain an answer.
It often takes months, frequently there is no answer at all and sometimes it is only the pressure of the Commission instituting proceedings which moves the Member State to act.
<P>
It is impossible to avoid the impression that, contrary to the obligation enshrined in the Maastricht Treaty, individual Member States are not taking the rights of petitioners very seriously.
I personally find it gratifying that the number of petitions taking action against failures to apply or to implement European environmental law has dropped considerably in the period covered by the report.
This could be taken to show that Member States are now taking the environmental directives more seriously.
<P>
A high percentage of the petitions relate to social issues and to migrant workers in particular.
Although the coordinating directive 1408 is positive, it often offers no help in resolving injustices.
In this area, in particular, the Council must show greater understanding to ensure that freedom of movement does not create disadvantages.
Here I should mention Mrs Weiler's report on which we will be voting this afternoon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Ferrer">
Madam President, the European Union, which is defined as and acts as a Community based on respect for human rights, and which has always defended and undertaken to promote the cultural diversity of Europe, cannot ignore the right of a people to have the symbols of their identity recognized and respected.
Therefore, this Parliament, as the representative of the people who form the European Union, has shown itself on many occasions to be in favour of measures which contribute to preserving this identity, of which one of the most obvious symbols is its language.
In this respect, we should recall the Reding report on the situation of the Catalan language or the Killilea report on minority languages.
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Today, Parliament has the opportunity to fulfil one of the agreements adopted in the Killilea report and thereby to reiterate its commitment to the defence of those languages which are part of the rich cultural heritage of Europe.
<P>
Therefore, I call on this House to vote in favour of the amendment that various groups and Members have tabled to the Evans report, asking that the petitions drafted in the official language of a part of the territory of a Member State might also be admitted for consideration.
I ask this to provide coherence with our own approaches and decisions and as proof of this Parliament's commitment to the construction of a Europe which is respectful of the diversity of the peoples and cultures which form it and which constitute one of its most important riches.
<P>
It is not a question of increasing the number of official languages or working languages, it is rather a matter of allowing those citizens who have a language of their own which is recognized as such by the legislation of its Member State, to draw up their petitions in their own language. This is important because this language is one of the examples of the cultural wealth of Europe, its use is one of their rights and, by doing this, we will win many citizens over to the European cause.
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<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Madam President, the collective rights of historic minorities and cultural diversity are assets that we all must protect and the European institutions have spared no efforts in doing so.
However, the right of petition is not a right of the peoples; it is, in fact, quite the opposite. It is an individual right anchored in the protection of human rights, which the Treaty recognizes not only for the citizens of the Union but also for any person, any human being who is in the European Union.
Therefore, nothing is more contrary to that spirit than the discrimination between those who have a minority language which is recognized in a territorial context and those other citizens, who are normally the most needy, whose language is also a minority language but is not officially recognized.
<P>
Madam President, the amendment by Mrs Ferrer is not in line with the Treaties and, in addition, represents a serious attack on an essential element of the European Union: the true protection of human rights.
The person most in need of the opportunity to forward a petition in his own language is not the European citizen belonging to a historic minority whose language is already recognized.
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We must, therefore, be serious.
If we recognize this opportunity, we must recognize it without any limitations.
And it thus seems to me that the amendment by Mr Evans represents a logical solution to this extremely complicated problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="Banotti">
Mr President, I am using my one-and-a-half minutes to give once again a very brief report to Parliament on my work as the President's mediator for transnationally abducted children.
I was honoured to take on this role at the request of the Committee on Petitions.
As soon as we receive notice of any petition relating to the abduction of a child, generally a parental abduction, we telephone the parties concerned so that immediately they are aware that somebody in Parliament is directly responding to their concerns.
<P>
This gets round the difficulties that many speakers have referred to in relation to delays with petitions, although I acknowledge that the situation has considerably improved since the committee was recently reorganized.
<P>
I believe that when dealing with many of the petitions, especially those relating to abduction of children, speed is of the essence.
We make direct contact with the parents concerned, the judges involved and national authorities. This is very much appreciated by those whom we contact.
However, we are still very much at a disadvantage because many European Union countries appear to have a persistent record of failure to implement the Hague Convention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to say that I agree with the excellent Fontana report in terms of its comments on the importance of the right of petition.
Petitions allow the institutions to become aware of the true difficulties and problems encountered by the citizens.
The right of petition is, therefore, situated at what we could call the heart of the relationship of trust between the citizen and the institutions which must take responsibility for the smooth running of the Union.
<P>
By sending a petition to Parliament, the citizen is not only denouncing what seems to be an unsatisfactory application of Community legislation, but is also demonstrating, at the same time, its trust in Parliament and in all of the institutions, with the hope that the error might be rectified.
<P>
I, therefore, welcome the fact that the collaboration between Parliament and the Commission has allowed us this year, too, - as rightly pointed out in the Fontana report - to find specific solutions and improvements in a large number of cases.
<P>
I must also tell you that the Commission, which is doing everything possible to bring Europe closer to the citizens, shares the position adopted by the Committee on Petitions on infringement procedures and appreciates the importance of the action that Parliament is taking in this area.
<P>
We are convinced that an essential task which we must fulfil is to guarantee complete respect for Community legislation and to detect the weaknesses in this legislation in order to improve it and ensure that it is put to more adequate use for the citizens.
<P>
It is precisely because of that concern of looking rapidly and in detail at the petitions that have been submitted to us, that I will only speak briefly about the Evans report.
It is true that the issue of the languages in which petitions are drawn up is essentially a problem which is Parliament's responsibility.
However, it is also true that, through cooperation - which I would even go so far as to call creative - between the Committee on Petitions and the Commission's services, the consideration of a large number of petitions could be resolved.
That is all I wanted to say to you.
I would congratulate once again the rapporteur and all of the members of the Committee on Petitions on the excellent work they have done.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 12.00 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Report on the activities of the European Ombudsman (1997) - Public access to documents (European Ombudsman's special report) - Amendment of Rule 161 of the Rules of Procedure
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
(A4-0258/98) by Mr Newman, on behalf of the Committee on Petitions, on the annual report on the activities of the European Ombudsman in 1997 (C4-0270/98); -(A4-0265/98) by Mrs Thors, on behalf of the Committee on Petitions, on the Special Report by the European Ombudsman to the European Parliament following his own-initiative inquiry into public access to documents (C4-0157/98); -(A4-0416/97) by Mr Crowley, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on the amendment of Rule 161 of Parliament's Rules of Procedure.
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="Söderman">
Mr President, it has now become an established practice that the European Parliament follows the best traditions in the Member States, by inviting the Ombudsman to present his annual report in person.
Copies of the annual report for 1997 should have been distributed to all Members of the European Parliament.
The report is also available on the Ombudsman's Internet website.
The website was recently redesigned so as to make full use of new technologies for communication with citizens.
From the beginning of this month we have begun regular publication on the website of all decisions following an inquiry.
The website also contains the new standard form for making a complaint.
This can be used by the rapidly increasing number of citizens who choose to send their complaints by e-mail.
<P>
The foreword to the 1997 annual report already contains a full introduction to the substantive themes of the report.
I will confine myself here to three questions concerning the future.
<P>
The first question is: what remains to be done before the office of the European Ombudsman is fully operational and able to deal effectively with citizens' complaints?
<P>
The second question is: what is the best way to help improve the quality of European administration from the point view of the citizen?
<P>
The third question is: what can be done to help the many complainants with grievances about the application of Community law in the Member States, particularly when they try to exercise their right of freedom of movement?
<P>
As regards the first question, it is important to recall that 1996 was the first full year of work for the European Ombudsman.
Between 1996 and 1997, the number of complaints rose by 40 %.
In the first half of 1998 there has been a further increase of about 15 %.
As I have also experienced at national level, there is a steady rise in the number of admissible complaints, but the increase in the inadmissible complaints is even higher.
However, the citizen with a well-founded complaint which is inadmissible, does not usually go away empty-handed.
Especially where rights in Community law are concerned, the European Ombudsman always tries to tell the complainant which competent and effective body could deal with the complaint.
We are now able to process 70 % of inadmissible complaints in this way.
<P>
During 1997, the Ombudsman's office handled a total of 1 412 cases.
Of these, 1 181 were new complaints received in 1997.
Four own-initiative inquiries were launched during the year and 101 inquiries were closed with a reasoned decision.
In 40 % of these cases, either the institution settled the matter, a friendly solution was found, or the case was closed with a critical remark.
In 59 % of cases no maladministration was found to have occurred.
A finding of no maladministration is not always negative for the citizen.
The process of complaint and inquiry gives the institution the opportunity to explain to the public what it has done and why.
In some cases, it even succeeds in convincing the complainant that it has acted properly.
<P>
Our goal is to decide on the admissibility of a complaint within one month and to close a case in which an inquiry has been launched within one year.
We have largely met the first target: only a few cases are pending for more than one month.
As for the second target, we have been successful in steadily increasing the number of cases resolved, but there is still a growing backlog.
<P>
I have been rather slow to apply for the resources necessary to establish the office.
Setting up an office, selection and training of personnel and establishing the right working procedures take time and I have insisted that dealing with citizens' complaints must have priority.
However, it is obvious that we now urgently need more resources, to deal efficiently and properly with existing complaints and prepare ourselves for the new work which the Amsterdam Treaty will create when it brings the third pillar (which includes Europol) fully into the Ombudsman's sphere of responsibility.
<P>
In its observations on the annual report for 1996, the Committee on Petitions asked for a more precise definition of the term 'maladministration.'
I undertook this task and included a definition in the 1997 annual report, which Mr Newman welcomed in his report.
The Thors report on the Ombudsman's own-initiative inquiry into public access to documents also demonstrates how the work of the Ombudsman and that of the European Parliament, especially the Committee on Petitions, can be made to interact fruitfully, to the benefit of European citizens.
<P>
In this connection, I wish to stress that the best way significantly to improve the quality of the administrative activities of Community institutions and bodies is to adopt a code of good administrative behaviour, in the same way as rules on public access to documents have been adopted by the Community institutions and bodies.
I have mentioned two important initiatives in this field in my annual report.
The first is the Perry report concerning the activities of the Committee on Petitions in 19961997.
The second was taken by the Secretary-General of the Commission, Mr Carlo Trojan, who informed me in October 1997 that work had begun on drafting a code of good administrative behaviour for Commission officials.
<P>
I really hope that we will adopt the first code at Community level this year.
Adoption and publication of such a code is an important sign of a commitment to create a more service-minded administrative culture in relation to citizens.
It also means that both civil servants and citizens are aware of the standards in this field and know what an administration can be expected to do.
<P>
The last question I would like to raise here is the continuing high number of complaints from European citizens concerning the enforcement of Community law by public authorities in the Member States.
We have increasingly been passing on these complaints or suggesting that they be dealt with either as petitions to the European Parliament, when they include a matter of principle which needs political experience or pressure in order to be resolved, or by the national ombudsmen or similar bodies.
The Commission and especially its Euro-Jus legal advisers assisting citizens in the Commission representations in the Member States, also play a role in this field.
<P>
To my mind, it is important to realise that many of these complaints could be resolved easily and promptly at national level.
Our objective is to create an effective network of redress for these grievances, in cooperation with the national ombudsmen and similar bodies (most often petitions committees of national parliaments).
In the annual report I have given an account of the activities in this field so far.
<P>
I would like to use this opportunity to thank all the Community institutions and bodies for another year of constructive cooperation.
I would especially like to address the Commission and the Commissioner responsible, Anita Gradin, and thank her for her firm and continuing commitment to open and accountable administration.
<P>
I would also like to thank the President of the European Parliament, Mr Gil-Robles, and his colleagues for their supportive and understanding attitude to the work of the Ombudsman.
My thanks are due also to the chairman of the Committee on Petitions, Mr Fontana, and to all the members of the committee for their clearly expressed interest and cooperative attitude in their contacts with the Ombudsman's office.
Special thanks go to Mr Newman and Mrs Thors for their comprehensive and detailed reports now before you.
<P>
Thank you for your attention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="President">
Thank you, Ombudsman.
As you can hear, we are very satisfied indeed with the way in which you have introduced your important work as Parliamentary Ombudsman.
We will now proceed to the debate, and I will begin by calling on Mr Newman, who is the rapporteur of one of the reports, to speak.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="Newman">
Mr President, during 1997 the European Ombudsman continued to investigate possible maladministration in European Community institutions and bodies.
He has done it thoroughly and comprehensively and in my report Parliament is asked to recognise this.
The democratically elected MEPs who serve on the Committee on Petitions have the task of monitoring the work of the European Ombudsman.
In our view, Jacob Söderman is an effective champion of the rights of citizens.
His work acts as a vital safeguard, because without an effective Ombudsman the individual citizen could easily be the helpless victim of maladministration by a powerful and sometimes out-of-touch European bureaucracy.
<P>
In last year's annual report on the work of the European Ombudsman, Parliament asked him to come forward with a clear definition of the term 'maladministration' .
He has responded to this challenge with a satisfactory formula, namely that maladministration occurs when a public body fails to act in accordance with a rule or principle which is binding upon it.
Perhaps more meaningfully, he also reminds us in his report of the examples of maladministration which he gave in his first annual report.
These include administrative irregularities or omissions, abuse of power, negligence, unlawful procedures, unfairness, malfunction or incompetence, discrimination, avoidable delay and lack or refusal of information.
Of course the Ombudsman rightly makes the point that these examples are not exhaustive and that he cannot take up complaints concerning political or judicial decisions or that involve value judgments on legislative acts.
<P>
The Committee on Petitions has previously supported a common code of good administrative behaviour for European Union institutions and bodies and we are pleased that the Ombudsman has also proposed such a code.
As he states in his report, this would surely raise the quality of the institutions' administrative practices and enhance their relations with European citizens.
The administrative behaviour of the Ombudsman's own office perhaps provides a useful example of the kind of practices which should be included in a code.
When the Ombudsman receives a complaint, the complainant receives a letter of acknowledgement which both explains the procedure for handling the complaint and, very importantly, gives the name and telephone number of the civil servant actually dealing with the complaint.
This kind of administrative practice turns the faceless Eurocrat into a real person to whom the complainant can relate and I hope the Commission will take this on board.
<P>
The Ombudsman has looked into the European Commission's administrative practices when it has used the Article 169 procedure to bring infringements of the European Treaty before the Court of Justice.
This is a matter which bothers many of our citizens who, rightly or wrongly, feel that the Commission responds too readily to pressure from Member States, for instance, over possible infringements of environmental protection directives.
The Commission has also been accused of keeping complainants in the dark about the progress of this kind of complaint.
<P>
It is true that the Ombudsman was able to close his inquiries into the Commission's practices in the infringement procedure without making critical remarks.
However, on the basis of our consideration of many relevant petitions, the Committee on Petitions believes that there are many unresolved problems concerning the application of the infringement procedure and we ask the Ombudsman continually to review the Commission's administrative behaviour when it uses the procedure.
Perhaps the code of good administrative behaviour will also help in this matter.
<P>
I welcome the Ombudsman's commitment to conclude his investigations and inform the complainant, normally within one year of receiving the complaint.
In order to help the Ombudsman to keep to this commitment Parliament will need to ensure in the budget procedure that his office receives the necessary additional staff.
<P>
In conclusion, I agree with the Ombudsman's decision to target his latest publicity at citizens and organisations that deal with European Community institutions and bodies, as his powers are limited to investigating maladministration by such European Community institutions and bodies.
Other complaints of a European Union character can be considered through petitioning the European Parliament.
<P>
The Committee on Petitions and the European Ombudsman have complementary but distinct roles.
One of the Petitions Committee's roles is to report on the overall work of the Ombudsman and our report to you today is that we are entirely satisfied with the way in which he has performed his duties.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Thors">
Mr President, the work on increasing public access in the EU has started in earnest.
The Court of First Instance's ruling on the Council of Ministers' documents, the provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam and new methods for the Council of Ministers' work are all examples of this.
A particularly important contribution to increased public access has been made by the Ombudsman through the Special Report which we shall debate, and through several other initiatives.
<P>
Let me first point out that the Special Report is historic.
It is the first time that we in a part-session of Parliament have to make a decision on such a report.
The way in which we treat this Special Report can, in a way, create a model for the future.
<P>
The importance of the report from a legal point of view lies in the fact that the Committee on Petitions thinks and proposes that it should come under the Ombudsman's mandate to undertake own-initiative inquiries.
On the other hand, we share the Ombudsman's opinion that there are no grounds for formal recommendations, with the legal meaning that recommendations have under the Statute of the European Ombudsman.
<P>
On the other hand, as the Ombudsman also proposes, the Special Report gives grounds for political initiatives on the part of Parliament.
At this stage, it is therefore important for us to signal politically what we expect from the Commission in the proposal on openness which the Commission should put forward supported by Article 191a of the Amsterdam Treaty regarding the right of access to documents.
<P>
As we state in the report, what we expect from the Commission is, inter alia, the following:
<P>
We regret that the Amsterdam Treaty's new rule to be adopted regarding openness formally applies only to the Commission, the Council and Parliament.
It was a disappointment to many of us that it was so limited.
Let us state that the new Article A in the Treaty is also obligatory for the other bodies, that is, that decisions should be taken as openly and as closely to the citizens as possible.
<P>
Today, on the basis of Ombudsman Söderman's speech and Mr Newman's report, we have talked a lot about the issue of a code of good administrative praxis , a code of conduct on good administrative practice and the significance thereof.
Such a code means that we adopt minimum standards for good administrative practice.
This means that it may be of significance to the other institutions that are perhaps not formally bound by Article 191a.
<P>
We also emphasize in our report that public access to documents is not worth much if not everyone can find out which documents exist and then request some of them.
If there is no register or journal of the documents that exist, we will have a so-called insider public access.
This report therefore requires rules on a register to be an integral part of the legislative proposals that the Commission should put forward as soon as possible.
<P>
In the debate following the Intergovernmental Conference it has been maintained that the rules to be adopted regarding public access can apply only to documents that are produced within the institutions.
In this regard we refer to the explanation of this which was attached to the Treaty.
There are good grounds for maintaining the opposite.
The declaration attached to the Treaty concerns expressly the correspondence of the Member States.
It is possible, as we are doing, to interpret this so that other incoming correspondence is public.
Only what the Member States have asked to be kept secret shall be.
In addition, I would like to issue a challenge to all the Member States who say they support public access, that they limit as far as possible requests to keep a document confidential.
We ought also to ensure that this is how it actually works.
<P>
I would like to thank the Ombudsman for this initiative.
We can confirm that it has led to practically all institutions and bodies having rules on public access, with the Court of Justice as a regrettable exception.
We can also confirm that, since the report came into being and for as long as we have discussed it here in Parliament, the publication of the rules has improved.
Practically all institutions have rules on access to documents in all languages.
They have published their rules on access to documents in the OJ or on their websites.
Even the Committee of the Regions has done so; this constituted an addendum after the report was completed in committee.
<P>
Allow me also to say something about our voting procedure.
I believe the President is going to propose that recital D is a superfluous recital in the report.
There would have been an error there.
I hope that the President will make a decision on this at the vote.
<P>
When we are able to go further with public access, it is important for us in future to obtain more precise rules for all institutions, in which deviations from the principle of openness are as precise as possible and as small as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Crowley">
Mr President, I should like to welcome the Ombudsman to the House.
I also welcome the Commissioner.
She has been a very active force in bringing forward some of the proposals that are being discussed here today.
<P>
At the outset I would like to point out to Members that my report deals with changes within the Rules to accommodate the operation of the Ombudsman and so on.
In that connection I should like to thank the secretariat of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities for its assistance in drawing up this report, which was a very trouble-ridden one when it first started off in the last Parliament.
<P>
It is essential for us, as a Parliament, to guarantee the independence of the office of the Ombudsman.
In one sense, while we in Parliament are the representatives of the European citizens and while the Commission and the Council have their own distinct roles, the Ombudsman is the person who can interact between all those different institutions in a neutral and unbiased way; who can make comments and decisions that are either favourable or unfavourable, on the basis of the rights of citizens and in support of those rights.
Therefore it is essential for us, as a Parliament, to have our Rules altered to guarantee that independence and also to show the link between Parliament - through its committees - and the Ombudsman.
<P>
From that point of view the Ombudsman and Parliament are the two central points of access for European citizens: because we are elected and because the Ombudsman is there to protect their rights if there is any maladministration or wrongdoing in the operation of the European institutions.
<P>
Originally in our own Rules of Procedure we had Rule 161 in its original format, which could have been interpreted as not guaranteeing the independence of the Ombudsman, particularly on issues such as: when the Ombudsman was due to come before Parliament, whether he could be called before Parliament to make requests for information, and whether a committee of Parliament could bring him before the committee to make requests for information.
Under the Treaties the Ombudsman has the right to adopt his own implementing provisions and regulations.
That occurred on a provisional basis when the office was set up and became fully effective in January of this year when it became fully operational.
Unfortunately it is only now that we in Parliament are coming round to amending our Rules of Procedure to take account of those rules concerning the Ombudsman.
<P>
To that end we have made some changes to Rule 161.
It is important that Members should realise that our own Rules of Procedure are our guiding light with regard to the operation of this Parliament.
I know a lot of Members find them very technical, very boring and indeed at times pedantic.
But the reason that we have rules is to ensure the proper operation of Parliament and also the proper structure of relationships between Parliament and other institutions.
<P>
It is for this reason that changes are being made in Rule 161.
The biggest change that is being made within the Rules is to ensure that the Ombudsman has the initiative with regard to informing Parliament and Parliament's committee.
The one obligation required of the office of the Ombudsman is that an annual report must be submitted.
That annual report allows for debate to take place in this Parliament, which is what we are having at the moment.
Apart from this, Parliament guarantees the Ombudsman its cooperation, whether through access to documents, through giving information or through the Petitions Committee, guaranteeing that requests for information are followed up.
<P>
What we are doing here today in amending the Rules is first and foremost to guarantee the independence of the Ombudsman.
That is a very clear message which we can send from Parliament today to European citizens to show that, despite the changes in personnel within Parliament, despite the alterations in the Commission and despite a different Council presidency every six months, the one remaining certainty at all times is the office of Ombudsman: the final port of call for the protection of rights and fundamental freedoms and the guarantees of proper administration of all of the European institutions.
<P>
I commend this report to the House.
I would also like to thank the Committee on Petitions for their opinion, given by Mr Gutiérrez Díaz, which is very supportive of my own position.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Gutiérrez Díaz">
Mr President, Mr Brian Crowley is presenting us with a proposal to amend Rule 161 of the Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament, after a fruitful exchange of opinions and observations in which the Committee on Petitions participated fully and actively.
As a result of the good work carried out by Brian Crowley, we today have a completely satisfactory proposal for amendment which, in addition, is in line with the opinion already previously given by the European Parliament.
<P>
The rapporteur's proposal is categorical evidence of the complete independence of the European Ombudsman, and of the fact that the normal channel for the relationship between the Ombudsman and the European Parliament is the Committee on Petitions; a relationship which is clearly confirmed in the proposal for amendment which we must vote on.
<P>
Therefore, Mr President, while congratulating Mr Crowley, I would also call on the ladies and gentlemen here to vote in favour of the proposal to amend the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="Ullmann">
Mr President, Ombudsman, Madam Commissioner, what does the Maastricht Treaty mean when it requires the policies and decisions of the Union to be taken as closely to the people as possible?
It means many things. And one of these things is certainly the theme running through the Ombudsman's special report, that is access to EU documents for the citizens of the European Union.
It is my honour and my pleasure, Ombudsman, to thank you on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights not only for having taken an initiative which reflects the legal basis of your role, but also for having done the citizens of the European Union a great service in recognizing their rights.
<P>
In so doing you have admittedly also imposed an obligation upon the bodies and institutions of the European Union to review their practices.
For example, the Council must now ask itself whether it actually has the right to rule on what is and what is not legislation.
Parliament must also ask itself whether its rules of access have really developed in accordance with the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
In this respect, this special report represents an important step towards the fulfilment of the new Article 191a which, although it only actually contains rules on access for the Council, Parliament and the Commission, in light of the new version of Article 2, second paragraph, must also be taken as a criterion for all bodies and institutions of the European Union.
<P>
I will conclude by extending a special word of thanks to Mrs Thors who has not only shed some light on the significance of the Södermann report, but through her work with the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has also given an example which is admittedly not always followed in this House.
<P>
Thank you very much, Mrs Thors.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="Gradin">
Mr President, Ombudsman, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to congratulate the Ombudsman and Mr Newman, Mrs Thors and Mr Crowley for their excellent reports.
These discuss both the Ombudsman's annual report for 1997, the Ombudsman's Special Report on public access to documents, and an amendment to Parliament's internal Rules of Procedure applicable to the Ombudsman.
I have read all of these reports with great interest.
It is, after all, through the Ombudsman that citizens of the EU have been given the chance to know how our administration works.
<P>
In the Ombudsman's annual report for 1997, just as in 1996, most of the Ombudsman's inquiries relate to the Commission.
This is normal, bearing in mind that the Commission is the institution that makes most of the decisions that directly concern the citizens.
<P>
In Mr Newman's report on the Ombudsman's annual report there are four main questions that I would like to comment on briefly.
Firstly, like Mr Newman, I welcome the fact that the meaning of the term 'maladministration' has now clearly been defined.
This clarifies the Ombudsman's mandate.
It also facilitates our work and that of the Ombudsman in identifying how we are to combat this maladministration.
<P>
The second question concerns the importance of the citizens receiving information on their right to submit petitions to the Ombudsman.
I share the opinion that we in the EU institutions must continue this information work.
The information must also be improved with regard to the right to submit petitions to Parliament's Committee on Petitions.
<P>
The third point concerns the Ombudsman's efforts to improve the procedure for proceedings pursuant to Article 169 on the infringement of Community legislation by Member States.
It is a question of increasing the confidence of the citizens in this procedure.
The Commission itself has undertaken to inform the complainant when we intend to leave a complaint without action.
We are also going to communicate the Commission's grounds for deciding that no infringement of Community law has taken place.
<P>
Finally, Mr Newman takes up the question of the drawing up of a code of conduct for the administrations in the Union's institutions and bodies.
Parliament took up this matter in connection with the Perry report on petitions to the Committee on Petitions in 1996-1997.
The matter has also been taken up by the Ombudsman himself.
We in the Commission support this proposal and have produced an initial draft for such a code of conduct.
This has been sent to the Ombudsman who has given us many constructive comments.
At the moment, we are working with a new proposal and revising it with broad internal agreement.
I am convinced that such a code of conduct will lead to us improving our administrative practices, and that we can improve relations between the Commission's services and the citizens.
<P>
During 1997, the Ombudsman also presented a Special Report on the opportunities the public should have to access documents.
The report is also discussed in Mrs Thors' report.
The Commission supports the view of the report that access to documents is an important element if we want to create increased openness in the Union.
It is also a fundamental requirement for citizens to be able to participate in the public debate.
Increased openness will enable us to contribute towards an improved decision procedure, and thereby also to citizens having greater confidence in the Union's institutions.
If we wish to prevent power abuse and corruption, openness is a good means of doing so.
Like the Ombudsman, therefore, I welcome the fact that the EU's institutions and bodies are on the way towards implementing rules for public access to documents.
I concur also with Mrs Thors' demand that every refusal to issue documents be explained with reference to why an exception is being made.
<P>
The question of access to documents is also closely linked to the existence of a properly-functioning register of documents in the institutions.
I consider this to be a very important instrument, both for our daily work and to bring about increased openness.
<P>
Mrs Thors also proposes in her report that there should be specific persons to whom the general public can turn with their inquiries.
For your information, I can tell you that the Commission has appointed such contact persons in all the DirectoratesGeneral.
In addition, there is a unit in the General Secretariat which will have central responsibility for questions of openness and for responding to what access to documents is available.
<P>
Finally, I would like to welcome Mr Crowley's report on an amendment to Rule 161 of Parliament's Rules of Procedure.
These amendments will further improve the Committee on Petitions' already good relations with the Ombudsman.
<P>
Mr President, it has been established in the Amsterdam Treaty that openness in the decision-making process shall be one of the Union's fundamental principles.
The Commission has already begun to prepare the proposal that the Council and the European Parliament will discuss regarding the right of access to documents in all three of the institutions.
We hope that there will be an initial working document as early as the autumn.
<P>
To conclude, I would like to thank Ombudsman Söderman for the good working relationship that we in the Commission have with him.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fayot">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, Ombudsman, I am happy that we can discuss the excellent reports by the European Ombudsman, and by Mr Newman and Mrs Thors, at peak listening time, as we say, because the matter fully deserves it.
We are dealing with the rights of the citizens in terms of the administration and the transparency of that administration.
<P>
Mr President, the difficulty of the role of Ombudsman derives from the fact that he had and still has to create, now and in the years to come, a whole set of rules and procedures.
He must put in place a theoretical and practical procedure for dealing with complaints.
I can say, having followed this matter, that Mr Söderman has applied himself to the problem with a great deal of energy and in a spirit of continuity, and I would like to congratulate him on behalf of the Socialist Group.
<P>
In particular, Mr Söderman has specified the notion of maladministration, which was contained, but not defined, in the Treaty.
The Ombudsman's efforts to clarify the concept are on the right track and should specify the respective duties of the Committee on Petitions and of the Ombudsman.
These two are not rivals but should complement one another.
They are both instruments of a parliamentary democracy to monitor administration.
<P>
In this respect, it is essential that Parliament itself lays down clear procedures to deal with the Ombudsman's reports.
Publicity is an efficient tool for combatting excess bureaucracy.
It is useful, therefore, to give the Ombudsman parliamentary rules on the use of this tool, in the course of this part-session, and I can say that the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities is getting on with this.
<P>
However, the specific cases described in the Ombudsman's report, which are fascinating to read, show clearly that the work on complaints also makes it possible to objectify the debate.
Too often, citizens who are refused a request accuse the national or European administration of discrimination, and, in this respect, I think that the research carried out by the Ombudsman has a pedagogical value since it can be used to help our citizens have a better understanding of how the Community works.
<P>
However, if we consider that in 1997, 1 181 new complaints were received from a population of 370 million, we believe that there is a long way to go, all the more so because only 27 % of complaints received fell within the mandate of the Ombudsman.
<P>
I would also like to comment on the special report on access to documents.
It is an essential principle of transparency, reinforced by the Treaty of Amsterdam, and at the request of the Ombudsman all the institutions are called upon to adopt rules in this area.
The European Parliament did it in 1997, but, to my mind, Mr President, these rules are very restrictive, very formalistic, and above all they have not been the subject of any democratic debate within this institution.
I share the view of all those, including Mrs Thors, who deplore that a decision by Parliament in this context is in fact a decision by the Bureau, which is not empowered to do this, and, to see whether these rules are truly solid, I am waiting for the first case to be referred to the Court of Justice when, for example, a citizen is refused access to documents concerning Parliament's property policy.
<P>
To conclude, Mr President, I would like to express one regret.
Seventeen citizen's complaints have been submitted by Members of the European Parliament.
This is a low number and it proves that we MEPs have to make a personal effort on the ground in order to enlighten our European citizens as to their right to call upon the Ombudsman.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Chanterie">
Mr President, Ombudsman, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the PPE Group I want to take a moment to consider the Newman report. First of all, I want to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Newman, on his report.
Secondly, and more specifically, concerning the work of the European Ombudsman, I want to express the special appreciation of the PPE Group for the work that the Ombudsman and his team have done and for the annual report for 1997.
The 1997 annual report has a remarkably clear structure and focuses, among other things, especially on elements that are indeed of great importance.
Apart from that, Mr Fayot has alluded to the great concern for the judicial context within which the European Ombudsman must function. What is the mandate of the Ombudsman as laid down in the Treaty?
How does one define the concept of maladministration?
And, inversely, how does one set down rules for proper administration?
I believe that these are elements which were requested by our group in 1996, and we are pleased about the work which has been done on this matter in the current annual report.
<P>
We would also like to congratulate the European Ombudsman and his assistants on the openness and rapidity with which they have accounted for their activities, both to the Union and directly to the citizens and the associations in the Member States.
I believe that this is a good example for other European institutions, also concerning the use of new communication technologies.
There are many interesting figures in the annual report, but I will take a moment to reflect on only two of them.
Firstly, only 27 % of the complaints fall within the mandate of the European Ombudsman, 27 % of the complaints lodged, of which approximately two-thirds were declared admissible.
This concerns more than 1 000 new complaints.
Ultimately there are only a very limited number which fall within the activity mandate of the European Ombudsman.
Secondly, only 3 % of all admissible complaints have led to criticism from the Ombudsman or to a settlement with the institution concerned.
<P>
Our group draws three conclusions from this.
Firstly, the citizen has too little knowledge about the specific mandate of the Ombudsman and the role of the Commission in Parliamentary petitions.
<P>
Secondly, the Commission, Parliament and the European Ombudsman all have a joint responsibility for communication, but also, specifically with regard to the Parliament, for providing greater financial means.
<P>
Thirdly, we know that citizens have many questions regarding the institutions. There is a need for the European Parliament to approach them more positively.
Mr President, I have a question for you.
We have thousands of visitors here every week. Why do we not provide the visitors with a booklet or brochure about the task of the European Ombudsman and what the Parliament does in this matter?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="De Clercq">
Mr President, there are two reasons why the post of European Ombudsman is important.
Firstly, the right to consult the Ombudsman is one of the European civil rights which applies to all natural and legal persons who reside legally in the European Union.
This means that this right is a political right and represents a political project.
<P>
Secondly, the high number of complaints shows how essential this function is and that certainly not everything in the European institutions runs smoothly.
Allow me to briefly refer to the conclusions of my report 'Citizenship of the Union' in connection with the operation of the European Ombudsman.
<P>
Firstly, it is of essential importance that the citizen becomes better informed about the role of the Ombudsman.
It is especially the task of Parliament to make sure that the citizen knows his or her European rights and knows how, where and when he or she can exercise these rights.
<P>
Secondly, the institutions must learn from the dossiers about them which have ended up with the Ombudsman.
The complaints submitted give a good picture of what is happening with the citizen and what the citizen finds wrong in European administration.
Every institution must therefore adjust its mode of operation to come as close as possible to the citizen.
<P>
Thirdly, the activities of the Ombudsman can be improved by establishing national agencies in the Member States.
This would strengthen the role of the Ombudsman and these agencies could serve to refer matters which the Ombudsman services in the Member States are authorized to deal with, and vice versa.
<P>
In short, we, as the European Parliament, must ensure that the Ombudsman also contributes to the process of bringing Europe closer to the citizen.
We have complete faith that the present Ombudsman, Mr Söderman, will do this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Mr President, first I wish to congratulate all three rapporteurs on their excellent work.
Above all, I would like to express my thanks to the Ombudsman, Mr Söderman, for the splendidly energetic work he has done in the name of greater transparency, public access and EU credibility.
His contribution has been a major one and, during his short term of office, it may already be said that the institution of Ombudsman has established its position in the European Union.
<P>
It is also important that he should have produced the first special report on public access to documents.
I am in full agreement with the conclusions Mrs Thors expressed in her own report.
Unfortunately, working towards greater transparency often still leaves a bad taste in the mouths of those in some institutions, although I believe that we are making headway in this matter.
<P>
Another important point is that the Ombudsman has produced a definition of maladministration.
But it is by no means enough that we know what maladministration is.
We have to have rules of procedure for good administrative practice, as the Ombudsman has proposed.
I also hope that this Parliament sees to the matter of extra staff so that the Ombudsman gets the added resources needed, which is a vital matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, when we investigate exactly which agencies are at present involved in creating transparency for the European Union, it is with gratitude that we cite the fundamental work of the Ombudsman.
For this the Green Group wishes to thank him warmly.
As a result of this work, nearly all Union institutions have regulations that have to be observed whenever the general public wishes to receive documentation from them.
Now it is up to the public to examine and see how well these regulations serve them, and, if necessary, to use the machinery available to appeal decisions that deny them access to documents.
Through his work and findings, the Ombudsman has also obliged the Council and the Commission to justify more precisely why the institutions have not surrendered documentation to the public.
And the Council cannot hide away, for citizens must have the general right of access to documents from the institutions of the European Union.
<P>
There is, however, still a long way to go before we reach a stage where the refusal to release documents is totally justified and a rare exception.
That is why it is important that the European Parliament bear the responsibility in the drafting of a regulation on transparency.
It was gratifying to hear the Commissioner say that a working document on this matter might appear in the autumn.
The provisions must affect all the institutions, just as Astrid Thors said in her report, because good administrative practice must be observed.
It is very important that exceptions to making documents accessible to the public are strictly limited.
Rather too often such notions as general security and international relations are used as justification for denying access to documents.
Our group hopes that the Ombudsman might help to define these notions more exactly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Leperre-Verrier">
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the Ombudsman on this second annual report, which sheds new light on the work which he carries out at the service of European citizens, now that the various services and infrastructures have become operational and links have been established between Member States and their national Ombudsmen.
The Ombudsman's services have been able to deal with the 1 200 complaints which they have received; this is proof that this institution is beginning to be known but probably still not to a sufficient degree.
<P>
So I share the point of view expressed by Mr Newman in his excellent report.
Independently of the complaints being referred, the initiatives taken by the Ombudsman are therefore very welcome, particularly as regards the definition of this notion of maladministration, which is not always easy to grasp.
<P>
Thus, it should be possible to make a clearer distinction between the responsibility of the Committee on Petitions and that of the Ombudsman.
It is obvious that this relies on closer cooperation between the two institutions and thus supposes that the two bodies have the means - and this includes budgetary means - for their respective tasks.
In this respect, you know, Ombudsman, that my group will support your requests in this matter.
<P>
Finally, it is also necessary to provide the citizens with quality information, particularly thanks to new methods of communication such as the Internet; this is for reasons of the transparency to which all European citizens are entitled.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Striby">
Mr President, all three reports which have been submitted are, like the three preceding reports, full of good intentions.
We must acknowledge that Mr Crowley's report responds to a clear wish for legal clarification of the texts, of our Assembly's Rules of Procedure on the one hand, and the Statute of the European Ombudsman on the other.
It does so to the advantage of the latter, outlining for each their prerogatives and obligations, which is one measure amongst others of good operation.
<P>
On the other hand, the Newman report on the Ombudsman's report returns to the need for cooperation between the Committee on Petitions and the Ombudsman.
How many times have we made this complaint?
And yet, on reading the report one is tempted to conclude that either nothing at all is being done in this area or the Ombudsman is happy to present to us, on principle, declarations of intention which he himself knows carry no weight.
But here again, if there is to be fruitful collaboration, we need partnerships which work well.
<P>
On all sides, in fact, the accumulated delay is considerable. There are 959 petitions waiting before Parliament and 227 referrals by the Ombudsman, carried forward one year to the next.
The Court of Justice has itself pointed out that the Community institutions must, and I quote "ensure the internal operation in the interests of good administration' .
<P>
As regards Mrs Thors' report, Mr President, it echoes the Ombudsman's special report which requests greater access for the public to the documents of the Community institutions
<P>
We can only underwrite this complaint.
In fact, the construction of Europe has always been too far away, or even voluntarily hidden from view, for us not to laud this proposal.
But Mrs Thors also underlines, in her explanatory statement, that transparency is not the only necessary reform and that other structural reforms must be put in place in all the Community institutions in order to improve efficiency and clarity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schmidbauer">
Mr President, first of all I should like to congratulate Mr Söderman on his excellent report, and also the rapporteurs who have given their views on the Ombudsman's annual report and the transparency of the report.
I am delighted that it has been possible for us to discuss these reports this morning in conjunction with the reports on the Rules of Procedure and the annual report on the work of the Committee on Petitions.
<P>
These subjects belong together since the Committee on Petitions is not only responsible for cooperation with the Ombudsman; we see again and again that the work of each complements the other, and in the course of the last year we have been able to build up a solid basis of trust between the members of the Committee on Petitions and the Ombudsman, Mr Söderman, which we can use to the benefit of the citizens of Europe.
<P>
Mr Söderman's reports demonstrate both that complaints about the institutions are justified and that solutions to the problems are possible.
In relation to the initiatives concerning the transparency of the institutions, I can only urge the utmost caution.
Quite unilaterally, Mr Söderman grasped the nettle and was successful.
Precisely because the image of bureaucracy is inherent in the institutions of Europe, it is good and helpful for the citizens of Europe to know that there is an office which is bringing light into the darkness of bureaucracy and thereby opening up ways of presenting their complaints successfully.
<P>
But even the Ombudsman is bound in his work by the restrictions of the Treaty, and many complaints relate to maladministration, not in European, but in national institutions.
The second limit is the staff resources of the office and with the increase in the number of complaints and our policy of closeness to the citizen, we support the demand that the staff of the office be reinforced so that everything can be dealt with.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Camisón Asensio">
Mr President, in general terms, we agree with the rapporteur, Mrs Thors, in supporting the initiative of the Ombudsman to obtain greater transparency as regards all Community activities and to urge all of the institutions to provide information related to their field of activity to the citizens or legal persons who reside or have their home in any Member State and who ask for such information.
This is necessary because we must emphasize that it strengthens the democratic nature of these institutions, and it is appropriate to encourage, in particular, the Commission and the Council to progress towards this aim.
<P>
Perhaps this is the time to recall that positive indications are already being given in that direction.
For example, the Court of First Instance of the European Communities has just judged that a Council decision refusing access to certain documents must be overruled, since the reasons for the refusal were not clearly justified.
The documents had been requested by the Swedish journalists' association; it only received from the Council four of the 20 documents required, yet it had been able to get 18 of the 20 documents through the Swedish authorities.
<P>
Another indication is that the European Court of Justice has just given a ruling for the first time on the directive on the freedom of access to information concerning the environment.
<P>
Given all of this, we agree with this report and, naturally, agree that access should be allowed to documents within the rules of the game involved.
<P>
Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, we support this report and we congratulate both the rapporteur and the Ombudsman.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, I was extremely pleased to hear the chairman of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities share the opinion put forward in the report on access to documents, namely that it is wrong for the Bureau to have adopted the rules on our own openness, and that they contain shortcomings.
I hope that, together with several committees, we can get this corrected quickly, as it is a disgrace to Parliament.
<P>
I am also pleased that the Commissioner has said that the Commission is prepared to adopt the system of having a register of documents.
What is lacking, however, is a response as to whether incoming documents will also be registered there.
<P>
Furthermore, I would like to say that our group cannot support recital G of the report.
It emphasizes confidentiality, which conflicts with the whole report.
The ELDR Group will also vote against paragraph 22, which is quite simply incorrect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
Mr President, it is evident that with his work the Ombudsman has already played an extremely positive role in working towards increased openness within the EU.
I would like to take this opportunity to express my appreciation of Mr Söderman's work.
<P>
The demands Mrs Thors is making on future rules on openness in the report are good, but I would like to draw attention to two points that I think are lacking.
The first concerns the fact that there are several important cases in the Court of Justice, such as the Guardian case and the journalists' case, which have given greater importance to openness.
The court process also has several weaknesses.
It costs a lot of money to go to court and the proceedings take a very long time.
A way of making an appeal which is quick and costs nothing must be introduced in the new rules.
<P>
Secondly, the rights of EU employees to speak to the mass media ought to be strengthened by introducing freedom of communication.
Consequently, I will also be voting against recital G of the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papakyriazis">
Mr President, I believe it is not by chance that today, all day, we have been discussing, firstly the issue of petitions and now the issue of the Ombudsman.
I consider this association to be especially felicitous, because I believe that the citizen's right to submit a petition to the European Parliament and the right to lodge a complaint to the European Ombudsman are two basic rights which are fundamental for the European Union.
They are of course parallel, complementary functions.
They are of course distinctive functions which, in contradistinction, highlight the independence of the European Ombudsman.
However, the right to make a complaint, as well as the right to submit a petition, is an opportunity, a practical test, a continuous sounding instrument in some way of the operation of the European Union: direct, with the citizen, with the active participation of the citizen.
It is therefore an invaluable political tool, a component in the progress of the European Union.
<P>
A year ago exactly, as rapporteur for the annual report of the Ombudsman, I had the honour of presenting the views of the Committee on Petitions.
What I wish to say is that, today, I have the great satisfaction of personally welcoming the tremendous progress that has been made since last year.
This year's report by the Ombudsman truly promotes, reinforces and advances the institution of European Ombudsman.
Mr Newman, our experienced rapporteur from the Committee on Petitions, has analysed the report and also the work of the Ombudsman.
I wish to say briefly that I think the European Parliament has made a good choice and the European Union has a worthy representative in the European Ombudsman, because really and truly Mr Söderman has constructed and is still trying tirelessly to construct this invaluable instrument.
I therefore thank and congratulate the European Ombudsman.
<P>
It was said previously that each year we repeat ourselves in this debate on petitions and complaints.
However, this year is no ordinary year.
We have some breathing space before the next elections, therefore it is necessary today to send a strong message to the people concerning their participation in the developments of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Madam President, the facility that exists for Union citizens to appeal to the Ombudsman is one of the most important rights they have.
The extent of the Ombudsman's efficiency depends largely on the resources he has available to him.
The office of the Ombudsman for Europe has gradually become inundated with petitions.
This is an indication that the public see the work of the Ombudsman as vital in correcting maladministration in the EU.
The common task of the European Parliament and the European Ombudsman is the protection of the rights of citizens and Union democracy.
<P>
The citizens of the Union have the right to require the office of the European Ombudsman who handles their complaints to have a sufficiently large legal staff available to it, one that has at least the same level of legal experience as the Community institutions under investigation.
With growing pressures of work the problem which the struggling Ombudsman has is the number of posts available and their level.
This is a state of affairs that will have to be remedied in the future. Otherwise we will have a situation where the Ombudsman handling a case in respect of a citizen of the Union will have at his disposal only machinery which is inadequate and of inferior quality.
<P>
I hope that we can all give our support to the European Ombudsman in his vital endeavour to create a flexible, efficient and adequately resourced Ombudsman's office. Only in that way can we offer the citizens of the Union a speedy, high level service there.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Banotti">
Madam President, I would like to join the chorus of praise for our Ombudsman.
He has done a splendid job and it has rightly been recognised by Parliament.
<P>
His job has, in many ways, brought the citizens of Europe closer to us, an aspiration we continually speak about here in Parliament.
He has also, for many countries who do not have a tradition of Ombudsman, brought the role closer and explained it to the people - which was very important.
In his first report he pointed out how many people had petitioned, and which petitions were not admissible.
As I pointed out when I spoke earlier in this debate, he has also promptly responded to those who have petitioned Parliament.
This is very important because many people, when they write, feel that their letters disappear into some bottomless pit and nobody ever finds them again.
So that is terribly important.
<P>
I should just like to take this opportunity, while expressing my appreciation of our Ombudsman's work, to raise also the issue of the need for a special children's Ombudsman in Europe.
My work in the area of children and children's rights clearly indicates that this is an important and very vital extension of the role Mr Söderman has been fulfilling so splendidly.
I hope that in the next Parliament we will address that issue and decide on the appointment of a special Ombudsman for children.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place during the next voting time, which is about to begin.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Galeote Quecedo">
Madam President, the Spanish Interior Minister has stated that the assassinations in the Basque country of democratically elected representatives "are unacceptable for the entire European Union because they constitute an attack on the very essence of democracy' .
And since this is the home of democracy in Europe and also the most visible expression of the peace and liberty which the large majority of Europeans enjoy, I would call on you, Madam President, to welcome a group of Basque local councillors whose lives are threatened due to their beliefs and who are here to attend our debates today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="President">
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wibe">
I would just like to add to the Minutes that there is a small problem with the German, Spanish and French translations, which do not make clear that petitions must continue to be in writing, and thus may not be submitted by telephone.
<P>
My report is, of course, not affected by this.
I would just like this to be recorded in the Minutes before the vote.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the decision)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Manzella">
Madam President, I would like simply to draw the House's attention again to the very negative effect of this amendment, which is to introduce two readings in all cases.
Thus, the aim of the amendment is to reject what we worked hard to achieve with the Amsterdam Treaty.
If accepted, the amendment would upset the report and not be a reform but a counter-reform.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Frischenschlager">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, before we vote on paragraphs 10, 11 and 12, I think I should give you the following information. These three points together represent a compromise from the Committee on Institutional Affairs.
The original text was much more strongly against having closer cooperation with majority voting, whilst at the same time giving any Member State not in agreement the opportunity of exercising a veto against this closer cooperation.
<P>
This compromise therefore also includes paragraph 12 which calls upon the Commission to include, in its work on the revision of the Amsterdam Treaty, a paragraph which once again does away with this national veto.
This compromise was accepted with a large majority and I would advise Parliament to adhere to this compromise, not least because the European Parliament has always spoken strongly in favour of replacing the principle of unanimity, except in constitutional matters, by qualified majority voting.
I considered it a mistake once again not to do away with the national veto on a concrete point where a majority vote is concerned, and am therefore asking you to adhere to the compromise.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Killilea">
Madam President, on a point of order.
Is it not right and proper that we should continue?
Yesterday we started almost 30 minutes late.
Today, we have started almost 20 minutes late.
It is only right and proper that we should continue.
In fact, something should be done so that if you say the vote is at 12 o'clock, the vote should be at 12 o'clock!
<P>
<P>
(The President decided to extend the voting time after having checked that a majority of the Assembly were in favour)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Madam President, I voted against the Evans report because I believe that it was a very bad decision on the part of Parliament.
We demand the recognition of minority rights and regional languages at all levels.
We demand it at Council level, as we did in the Maij-Weggen/Dury report.
We demand it from associated states, but we do not demand it of ourselves.
In our Rules of Procedure we have failed to draw the obvious conclusions of what we demand of others.
The Evans report is poor because, on one hand, it fails to distinguish between our recognized regional languages and other languages. Secondly, I do not quite understand the point of the summarised translation for it can only mean that the petition is not read in the original language.
And if it is not read then there is no point in giving anyone the right to submit it.
<P>
I have the feeling that this is an attempt to mislead us and I should therefore like to make it quite clear that I believe we should stick to our official languages, but that between the official languages and all the other languages we also have the regional languages which we must secure and protect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
I voted in favour of the amendment of the Rules of Procedure proposed by the committee, in accordance with which petitions will be admitted even if they are drawn up in a language other than an official language of the European Union. To be considered, a translation or summary in one of the official languages will be included, to be used as the language for subsequent procedures, including the correspondence from the institution to the petitioner.
<P>
As I was able to point out in my speech during the debate, this amendment precisely respects the very essence of the right of petition, which is, by its very nature, an individual right that the Treaty grants to every man or woman among us, without allowing any discrimination and, in particular, without making any distinctions between citizens and non-citizens.
<P>
The complementary - and therefore ancillary - rule is a procedural one which, irrespective of other considerations, respects the Treaties: in general, the procedure in a European institution must be carried out in one of the official languages.
<P>
The amendments tabled and rejected which discriminate, on behalf people's rights, against some people and not against others in terms of drawing up a petition - because their language of use does not have territorial recognition - are, in the last analysis, contrary to the very essence of the right of petition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Titley">
I am happy to back this report which seeks to make the petition system in the European Parliament more accessible to our citizens.
<P>
My Labour colleague Mr Evans's report puts forward a welcome reform to allow people who may be more comfortable using a non-EU language to use their mother tongue when sending us a petition.
Of course for administrative reasons we would still need a summary in an official EU language to enable the petition to proceed.
Since we recognize minority EU languages as valid when they originate in Member States, there is no reason why for example Urdu or Hindi should not also be recognized.
<P>
EU citizens who belong to ethnic minorities often face problems of racism which the majority of us need to be aware of so that they can be tackled.
Anything which makes it easier for such problems to be raised is to be supported - which is why nonEU languages should be as valid for use in citizens' petitions here as any other.
<P>
Hautala report (A4-0253/98)
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Pinel">
Madam President, it is most regrettable to find that neither in the original text of the Hautala report, nor in the amendments, is it specified that these vehicles only concern transport over a fixed distance.
<P>
Like with the rapporteur, we are anxious to prevent animals suffering stress, cold, heat, shocks, etcetera, and we would have voted in favour of most of the amendments as well as the text as a whole, if only the authors had given some consideration to the small livestock farmers who might take just two or three animals to market in a neighbouring village, small farmers who obviously do not have access to an air-conditioned vehicle, nor - most particularly - adequate financial means for such an investment.
<P>
In the absence of any such specifications, it is once again the small farmers who are penalised, perhaps even put out of work altogether, and we simply cannot accept this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Carlsson and Virgin">
We are choosing to vote against certain proposals from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, as they constitute unnecessary detailed regulation and, to a certain extent, contravene the principle of subsidiarity.
We assume that the Commission's technical experts have carried out a correct assessment of the requirements of proper animal transportation, but it is our hope that the Member States will provide supplementary rules taking local conditions into consideration with the aim of maximising the welfare of the animals.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Holm and Schörling">
The transport of animals within the EU covers a very large number of animals.
Every year around 14 million cattle, pigs, horses and sheep, etcetera, are transported between the Member States.
Most of these go to slaughter and some are exported, while at the same time the EU also imports a lot of animals, around 2.3 million.
<P>
In recent years we have again and again seen pictures showing the cruel and shameful way in which this transportation takes place.
The Commission's proposal for improvements to current directives on the design of the motor vehicles and trailers which are used is a good starting point, but is not sufficient.
We therefore support the rapporteur, Mrs Hautala, in her report which aims to improve the Commission's proposal with toughened requirements.
These include the design of the loading ramps and how the ventilation in the trailers could be improved.
The amendment that there should be regular inspections of vehicles to ensure that they fulfil the requirements is of the utmost importance, otherwise there is no point to the directive.
<P>
This is a step in the right direction in order to go some way towards eliminating the odious transportation of animals which currently exists in the EU.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Lindqvist">
The Commission's proposal on common rules for motor vehicles and trailers used for the transportation of animals across land will be considerably improved by Mrs Hautala's excellent report which contains proposals for less steep loading ramps, electrical lifting devices, better ventilation and temperature and continuous monitoring.
That is good.
<P>
With this in mind, I have voted in favour of the report.
However, the key issue must be to reduce the overall volume of animal transportation.
The best way to do this is to offer no support for the transportation of animals within the EU.
I have also backed this in votes in connection with the budget, among other things.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Nicholson">
The concern for the safety of farm animals in transportation procedures is supported, but with reservations as to the success of the Commission's proposals.
As plans will affect 14 million animals, regard must also be given to their owners, who will be paying for any changes in transportation specifications.
<P>
There are three main issues of concern which should be evaluated further before full support is given.
First, incline for loading ramps should not exceed 20º according to the Scientific Veterinary Committee (1992).
This report allows for an increase of this number by an additional 5º.
Secondly, cavity implementations on 'light' metal walls have two potential problems.
They could lead to increased bacteria levels if punctured and would increase costs for transporters.
This seems to be a less effective measure than possible alternatives if the issue of disinfecting the transport area becomes yet another problem (ECOSOC opinion Dec.
1997, ref: CES 1378/97).
Thirdly, changes in roof structure and their purpose of protection from temperature variation and weather conditions are already in place with ventilation control systems.
<P>
With these obvious problems of changing veterinary suggestions for safety and increase in cost for the transporter, full support cannot be given to this report.
It should be considered whether such changes would significantly raise livestock safety or just cost of their transport.
We should consider if plans for safety are better implemented in other ways.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Rübig">
We are aware that the topic of animal transport is a very important one, and that efforts must be made in this field in order to reach political goals and solutions.
The citizens of Europe attach great importance to animal protection.
Studies which show that animals for slaughter are exposed to particular stress during transport and loading/unloading must therefore be taken very seriously and discussed at a political level.
<P>
Political guidelines are one thing, the partial implementation and technical execution of these principles quite another.
Just recently, in relation to the draft directive on bus design, we have on numerous occasions discussed new approaches to technical legislation - both in the Committee on Economic Affairs and here in Parliament.
This report gives us another opportunity to consider the advantages of this "new approach' .
<P>
This procedure enables us to proceed and to make decisions in accordance with the planned allocation of roles.
As the representative body of the citizens of Europe, it is the role of the European Parliament to prevent concerns and anxieties from arising and to develop basic political concepts designed to guarantee the proper health and safety of people and animals.
The technical experts, the practicians, who work in this field every day, are on the other hand responsible for implementing these concepts on the basis of the political guidelines.
This process should also include provision for hearing and involving representatives of any relevant interest groups - manufacturers, consumers and other interested parties.
<P>
In this way we can ensure that rather than passing abstract legislation which is remote from practical issues and excessive, we promote streamlined, efficient and modern regulations and thereby finally help to complete the single market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Souchet">
Overall, our group supports, on principle, measures which favour the well-being of animals.
However, it is quite legitimate to wonder about the validity of imposing uniform standards as regards the construction of vehicles intended for animal transportation, independently of their conditions of use and their operational character.
<P>
In fact, why impose the installation of an air conditioning system for the transport of animals in Finland or Sweden?
Why lay down identical standards for animal transportation which apply to both short distance and long distance transport?
These are some of the questions which we really have to ask.
What is the main purpose here?
The desire to standardize everything or the useful and functional nature of the legislation?
<P>
And there is another question: how can we apply European laws to the import of live animals from third countries?
Unless we want to impose penalties on ourselves, it is essential that we apply our own provisions to all imported products, from the very start of the production chain, and not only from the time these products cross the frontiers of the European Economic Area.
<P>
Rather than wishing to legislate purely at European level, we should try to define these rules worldwide, in the context of the international negotiations of the WTO.
We shall be paying careful attention to this point, and many others, in order to see how the Commission does or does not defend European interests, particularly in terms of the reciprocity of legislative provisions.
<P>
Finally, we must be careful not to impose unacceptable charges on our farmers and, in this specific case, on our livestock farmers, even if the honourable reason is to ensure maximum welfare of animals.
We are at the dawn of a reform of several COMs and the Commission's proposals for regulations worry us a great deal.
In fact, if they are adopted, they will bring about a significant reduction in farmers' income.
If, in addition to these proposals, other Commission services impose draconian standards in all sectors, then the Commission will be penalising and discouraging the whole of the agricultural sector, as well as the whole of rural life.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, although I welcome the fact that British regulations already meet the standards of vehicle design as set out in this report for the transport of animals, this is one case where I would like all of Europe to be required to meet centralised EU-level rules, for the sake of the 14 million animals carried on European roads each year.
<P>
If they could vote, I am sure these animals would choose to travel in lorries or trailers with proper ventilation, adequate room per animal, decent lighting and sufficient loading/unloading facilities.
In particular, the last aspect needs to have proper minimum standards, since the experts - and common sense - suggest that loading and unloading of animals into and from vehicles is an especially stressful time.
<P>
I also share the rapporteur's view that more needs to be done to ensure monitoring of ventilation and proper inspection of vehicles to see that they do in fact meet the letter and spirit of EU rules.
I hope that many countries will choose, as we have done in Britain, to go further than EU rules demand, but we need decent minimum standards of animal transport for the whole EU.
<P>
It is said that a society can be judged by how it treats its weakest members.
Some of Europe's weakest inhabitants are its animals, on which we depend for food, so the least we can do for them is to transport them in civilised conditions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Wibe">
The rapporteur has produced several very good proposals for amendments to the Commission's draft directive.
However, I would like to raise an objection that I usually take up when discussing similar reports.
<P>
I ask myself whether this Parliament should concern itself with such technical matters.
Is this Parliament competent to reach detailed decisions on the internal height of each deck in order to determine the exact size in millimetres for the transport of piglets or lambs etcetera?
<P>
This Parliament should instead set up frameworks and objectives such as, for example, that the transportation of animals shall take place in the best possible way for the animals.
Civil servants can then determine the means to achieve these objectives drawn up by politicians.
<P>
Rothley report (A4-0267/98)
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Cot">
I am delighted that Mr Rothley's report has been adopted at first reading.
The proposed directive sets up the principle of direct action by the victim against the insurers of the person who caused the accident.
It obliges the insurer to propose compensation within a specified period and imposes a financial penalty.
These various measures, which are necessary, will improve the situation of the victims of road accidents throughout the European Union.
<P>
Extension of the scope of the directive to non-Member States of the Union raises difficult questions.
I am not certain that the directive is the proper instrument for this purpose.
No doubt we shall have to return to this problem at second reading.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Deprez">
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Malone">
This Directive will greatly benefit people involved in traffic accidents whilst on holidays in other European countries.
<P>
Tens of thousands of Irish people travel to Britain and the continent by car every year.
If you are involved in an accident in France with a Dutch tourist, it can be extremely difficult to get compensation afterwards.
<P>
Aside from the personal injuries that may occur, there can be terrible problems with paperwork, different procedures and endless delays.
I am contacted on a regular basis by people whose holidays have been ruined as a result.
<P>
While this Directive will not solve all of their problems, it will mean that making a claim against someone in another country for an accident that took place in a third country will not be as difficult as it is at present.
<P>
I also welcome the fact that the Commission has followed through on the European Parliament's 1995 initiative highlighting this problem.
The Commission should retain the sole right to initiate legislation in order to ensure that EU legislation reflects the interests of all Member States.
But it is correct that Parliament should have the right to suggest legislation for problems that the Commission has missed and where a Europe-wide approach is the best solution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Titley">
I am happy to back this report today as I have had to take up several cases involving constituents of mine who have been faced with car insurance problems after suffering the stress of accidents whilst travelling in another EU country.
<P>
To make claims as easy and quick as they can be in such stressful conditions, I am backing this report's practical suggestions - for a system of direct claims, to the offending motorist's insurance company, for each insurance company to appoint a special representative in EU countries to help with speeding up claims and for new compensation bodies which could see more disputes settled outside court and thus save claimants time.
<P>
The image of motoring abroad in the EU can often be one of carefree summer holiday touring as put forward in television holiday programmes.
However, when accidents occur abroad in the real world we need an insurance system that works quickly across borders.
I hope that our suggestions are acted on by the industry and the Commission to help anyone unfortunate enough to suffer a motoring accident in other EU countries.
Whether a road accident abroad is a minor scratch on a car or a tragedy in which loved ones are hurt or lost, the stress should not be compounded or drawn out longer than necessary due to red tape in cross-border insurance claims.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Madam President, I am very pleased that we have finally been able to adopt a clear stance on matters in Kosovo with a very large majority.
Unfortunately, however, it has to be said that this is really something we should have done two or three years ago. Then we might really have been able to achieve an internationally guaranteed, far-reaching solution based on autonomy, just like the one we are calling for today.
For years we ignored Mr Rugova's peaceful line by doing nothing, and now it makes sense that the Kosovo Albanians should be trying to escape with their bare lives.
And that is exactly what is happening.
We have quite simply acted too late.
However, I am pleased that the Austrian presidency seems to represent a turning point in this matter.
Mr Schüssel was the first President of the Council to give a clear and forwardlooking message on Kosovo.
For years we have been pressing for an EU office in Pristina.
We were always told it was not possible.
Within a few days Mr Schüssel had set up a representative office and I am pleased that the image of Europe we are presenting in Kosovo at the present time is Mr Schüssel's image of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Eriksson, Ojala and Sjöstedt">
We have voted for the Greens' first amendment, which means that the UN must give the go-ahead for possible military action to prevent the genocide of the Albanian inhabitants of Kosovo.
The proposed text of the resolution is unclear on this point, and it is possible to interpret it as NATO/the WEU being able to act without a UN mandate.
For us, a UN mandate is necessary in order for any military action to be able to take place.
<P>
However, the main approach to the Kosovo problem must be peaceful international pressure and mediation to bring about a political solution to the conflict in Kosovo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats have voted in favour of a resolution condemning the violation of basic human rights that is taking place in Kosovo, and the violent attacks that Serbian security forces, units from the Yugoslav army and paramilitary forces are carrying out against the population of Kosovo.
We do support one amendment emphasizing that a resolution by the UN Security Council would be needed prior to any military action.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Souchet">
Scarcely one month after the adoption of our last resolution on Kosovo, the European Parliament has voted a new resolution on this same subject.
Is it really necessary?
The deterioration in the situation is of course very worrying but what real help can be provided by a redundant resolution which, to all intents and purposes, merely condemns yet again the crimes committed and their perpetrators?
We must not confuse the issuing of moralising generalities with the adoption of a position or the actions of a foreign policy which has some real effect.
<P>
In addition we must be careful to avoid tripping up here.
We have heard very many irresponsible proposals in this place linking all progress towards peace with the recognition of independence of a so-called Kosovan nation.
To do this, to follow the direction initiated by the recognition of an independent Kosovo by the Tirana authorities, would be the best way to ensure that the present conflicts remain wholly inexpiable.
Let us not forget that, while Kosovo today comprises a population which is 90 % of Albanian origin, it is the historical and spiritual cradle of the Serbian nation, and that the first Albanian colonies were installed at the initiative of the Ottoman Empire.
The oppression of nations instigated by the communists must not be followed by a fury of dismembering and dismantling likely to result in the creation of artificial nations which would in the long run pose considerable problems.
<P>
This calls into question the statute of autonomy of Kosovo in 1989, which was the first destabilising element in the Yugoslav territories.
The contact group is working very hard to help re-establish this statute in the midst of the greatest difficulties, be it the violence of the Milosevic government's actions, or the anarchic state of the Kosovo Liberation Army, a group of resistance fighters who are not represented and are likely to be regarded as valid interlocutors.
The contact group, which brings together the active part of the European Union, is trying very hard to find the right mix of threats and positive incentives to avoid the conflict being stepped up and widened.
<P>
Alongside the contact group, and supporting its actions, the national diplomacies have an important role to play.
The OSCE, currently chaired by Poland, can also make an positive contribution and the proposals made by the Austrian Presidency, which follow the same line, can also be useful.
<P>
Fourçans report (A4-0263/98)
<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Madam President, the annual report of the European Monetary Institute, the last report by this institution before its transformation into the European Central Bank on 1 July, shows, as the rapporteur of our Assembly so nicely puts it, a certain bias towards generalization.
<P>
However, it does open, on the first page, with a photograph of the EMI Council in its entirety, which says more than the rest of it.
The photograph shows all the governors of the national central banks, nicely lined up, standing in the second row, whilst five people are comfortably seated in armchairs in the first row: the EMI President, who has become President of the ECB, Mr Duisenberg, as well as his Vice-President, which is quite normal, surrounded by the two female governors of the Central Bank, which is also understandable.
The fifth person is Mr Hans Tietmeyer, governor of the Bundesbank, who, to my knowledge, does not belong to either of the two preceding categories.
No doubt his presence is intended to illustrate Mr Duisenberg's famous remark, which I quote: "The euro speaks German and we are especially happy about this' .
<P>
We were expecting that, six months before the single currency enters into force, this EMI report would explain something about how we shall manage a unified monetary policy in an area which is economically, socially and politically heterogeneous.
For example, what criteria will be used to determine a single level of interest rates?
How will we manage not to upset everyone at once, and above all, not to end up with economic results which are on the whole poorer than those which would have been achieved by policies finely tuned to each country's individual circumstances?
<P>
But the report remains totally mysterious on all these points, which are nevertheless vital, and very urgent at the stage that we have reached. However, this does not prevent it from proclaiming once more that it recognizes the need for the ESCB to ensure transparency of its objectives and the policies which it will pursue, so that the financial community and the public will understand and support its actions.
<P>
In contrast, the EMI report, either in the body of the text or in the foreword by its President, does not stint on the details concerning the policy to be conducted in this field, yes, the budgetary field.
Mr Duisenberg explains here, for purposes of simplification, that the reduction in public deficits must be accelerated if we do not wish to force the ECB to conduct a restrictive monetary policy.
Moreover, he did the same kind of thing at the time of the last Council meeting on the euro.
Of course, anything can happen but there are nevertheless limits to be respected, especially on the part of the man extraordinarily placed beyond any democratic control.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Blot">
This report provides us with a necessary opportunity to think about the international monetary system.
<P>
As the rapporteur suggests, the EMI report is very vague.
At any rate, our international monetary system is fundamentally in trouble from the moment it is based on the dollar standard: this gives the United States the extraordinary privilege of issuing an international currency and thus of avoiding some of the monetary discipline imposed on other countries.
<P>
The introduction of the euro will not change anything in this inadequate system.
Moreover, the will to link the euro to the Deutschmark is likely to cause deflation in Europe and to endanger the level of employment in the less competitive European states.
<P>
In order to give each state control of its currency within the framework of a discipline which can be imposed on everyone, it is necessary to re-establish a gold standard or at least a gold exchange standard.
Thus, inflationary excesses could be combatted without conferring an unfair position of power on the United States as well as on a future European Central Bank.
<P>
The latter, as the rapporteur clearly recognizes in paragraph 13 of his report, will be indifferent to the situation of each Member State.
We are taking considerable risks by wishing to centralise currency issuing in a Europe which is in all other respects pluralistic and diverse in its economic characteristics.
<P>
In currency matters, it is often very dangerous to put our confidence in governments.
But placing undue confidence in a central bank is also very dangerous.
An automatic system based on gold, as was the case in Europe before 1914, would allow for greatly increased stability with a minimum of choice.
It is regrettable that this possibility was not seriously considered, because of the prejudice in favour of a supranational currency-issuing agency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Caudron">
Once again, this ritual exercise shows its limitations, and I would like to support my colleague André Fourçans and the reservations expressed regarding certain aspects of the current relations between the Monetary Institute and the European Parliament.
<P>
It is, in fact, prejudicial that the tools and analyses supplied are not more detailed.
A more accurate control system for the European economy would enable everyone to have a proper view of this, and would help to back up our own discussions in a more constructive manner.
<P>
In this respect, it would be rather prejudicial for future relations between our Assembly and the European Central Bank to continue in the same way.
We have the right to expect more from such an institution.
I would add that, even quite recently, some of our colleagues expressed this same view during discussions on the ECB; commitments appear to have been made.
I dare to hope that they will be kept.
<P>
Moreover, if it is right to express some reservations as to the substance, it is also permissible to wonder about the politicoeconomic orientation underlying the drafting of this report.
<P>
If the independence of the Central Bank should not be called into question, I feel I should point out that exchanges between the European Parliament and the Bank imply that each should listen to the other.
In these difficult and disturbed times, no one can pretend to be certain of anything ... I will mention only the Asian crisis or the "forecasts' of our learned economists in their turn!
<P>
Yes, the politicians must take into account economists' analyses, but it also seems necessary to me that the latter should take account of our remarks in their discussions.
In all cases, the only ones who will have to explain themselves to the citizens are their elected representatives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Holm and Schörling">
The report on the 1997 annual report of the European Monetary Institute is actually about the introduction of the euro in 1999.
From this perspective, and seen in the context of the Swedish debate on EMU, the report is quite 'revealing' on the question of what EMU is going to involve.
Among other things, it says:
<P>
that the single monetary policy will underpin a change in the economic policies of those Member States which have adopted the euro (recital A); -that it is nevertheless necessary to develop a genuine economic policy at European Union level through the more effective coordination and surveillance of the Member States' economic policies (recital G); -that gradual labour market reforms are needed (paragraph 5); -that it is regretted that the EMI has declined to address the general issue of the coordination of fiscal and taxation policies in the European Union, which will nonetheless be one of the major foreseeable consequences of the process of Economic and Monetary Union (paragraph 7).These examples from the report show plainly that the European Parliament obviously thinks that, in connection with the start of EMU in 1999, the EU will meddle in and begin to take over the economic policies of the Member States to a greater extent than today.
<P>
' Gradual labour market reforms' sounds fine, but usually means worse employment rules and increased wage gaps, which we cannot support.
<P>
Sweden is going to be outside the euro zone from the start in 1999.
We think that this decision is good because we think monetary policy should be conducted by the Member States and not by the EU.
<P>
However, there are, of course, a number of good demands in the report.
These include, amongst others, the demand for transparency in the current EMI and the subsequent ECB.
We do of course support these demands.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of the Fourçans report.
We agree with the rapporteur that the EMI has come a long way in preparing the instruments and procedures required for the implementation of the common monetary policy in the third stage.
We agree that there is a need for more public and private investment to stimulate internal demand, that the EMI's explanation of EMS II is insufficient, and that there is a lack of perspective for the states of central and eastern Europe and their associated membership of EMS II in connection with the strategy of accession.
<P>
However, we do have reservations about the rapporteur's view to the effect that it is necessary to put together actual monetary policy at Union level, but we are in favour of coordinating monetary policy between Member States, for example in promoting employment.
<P>
We do not fully agree with the view that it is regrettable that the annual report does not address the question of the integration of budgetary policy and policy on taxes and charges in the EU.
It is hardly the place of the EMI to demand integration of such policy in its annual report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Trizza">
The annual report of the European Monetary Institute, the last one before its liquidation and the establishment of the European Central Bank, is shorter due to the elimination of a large chapter that until now had been the main part: the analysis of progress in convergence of the individual Member States.
<P>
This report, however, drafted at an important moment in the historic journey that has led to the euro, lacks a detailed analysis of the following points:
<P>
an in-depth study of progress in the process of harmonization of the individual European tax policies: the current distortions and differences in the individual national tax systems, if they are not identified and analysed by a group of independent experts, could thwart the efforts made to achieve Economic and Monetary Union, eliminating the advantages and potential opportunities that the single market can offer in terms of economic development and the gradual reduction of existing structural unemployment; -there is also no specific examination of the candidate countries seeking membership to determine their efforts in the area of economic, monetary and financial policy and to assess the real progress made in these policy areas.Finally, I consider it only right to emphasize the structural weakness of Italy's economy which, together with those of France and Germany, has been analysed in the report: this is an alarm bell that must be met with appropriate remedies in terms of horizontal European actions and the strategies of the individual national governments.
The problem of structural unemployment calls for rapid and targeted solutions: the Central Bank, although it has an important role to play in this area, may not, however, replace the international actions of renewal of individual job markets.
There therefore has to be an employment strategy that, taking into account the population trend in Europe, abandons rigid policies that create - perhaps in perfectly good faith - a sense of social protection that is only temporary and illusory, to adopt new forms of working relations, more flexible and in line with the needs of the market.
In spite of all these reasons and although I appreciate the rapporteur's commitment, on behalf of the National Alliance, I cast a vote of abstention on the report in question.
<P>
Manzella report (A4-0271/98)
<SPEAKER ID=95 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Féret">
Madam President, Mr Manzella is bringing us good news: acceleration and simplification of the legislative procedures in our Parliament.
<P>
Will the democratic deficit which prevails so blatantly in our European institutions be made good for all that?
It would appear that the answer is no.
Doing things more quickly and more briefly will not affect the basic problem.
It will not lighten the crushing weight of the two large dominant groups in our Parliament.
This Parliament will always run the risk of reliving a socialist Presidency which seems to suffer from some kind of 'right' blindness, excluding almost systematically the nonattached Members of Parliament who are regarded as permanently out of the game.
<P>
It is most commendable to wish to increase contacts with national parliaments, but sometimes, as in Belgium, it is particularly so because we know that both the European and national elections in Belgium are ostensibly fixed, be it by subsidized media, taxpayers' money or dirty money from political and financial skulduggery.
<P>
So much for our work upstream of Parliament, and downstream, what point is there in legislating when Belgium once again refuses to be subject to directives which it does not like, such as the right for citizens of the European Union to vote in local elections.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Bébéar">
"Maastricht' has extended our powers and our responsibilities.
The post- "Amsterdam' period will reform current procedures, which are too cumbersome, in order to move towards greater simplicity.
<P>
Daily, we think and we act with a view to bringing the European Union and its citizens closer together.
Today the Manzella report provides us with another opportunity to demonstrate our efforts and above all to convert them into action.
<P>
Given the volume of texts which we study in Parliament's committees and during the part-sessions, we have a double challenge: to simplify once and for all the legislative process and to balance the roles of the European Parliament, the European Commission and the Council.
<P>
It is now legally possible to simplify, rationalize and accelerate the preparation of our legislative work.
We must, within our various committees, encourage the chairmen to do this.
A new structured dialogue structure can be launched.
The majority of our home countries have a two-chamber system.
The efficiency of this system no longer needs to be proven.
It can be transferred to the European level.
All that is needed, in the first instance, is to define new rules to govern the operation of the European Parliament and relations between our different institutions.
<P>
Informal exchanges of opinion, coherent and joint work between our Assembly, the European Commission and the Council will make it possible to reach many agreements on first reading without impeding the transparency of the mechanism and by exchanging more information.
<P>
I therefore approve the Manzella report which hopes to make qualitative improvements in our legal procedure at first reading, second reading and conciliation, and to achieve more comprehensive planning of the annual legislative programme, which would have the advantage of enabling us to concentrate more on our priority objectives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Berthu">
The Manzella report which the European Parliament has just adopted proposes a certain number of technical reforms, which are intended to take an example from the new codecision procedure provided for in Article 251 of the EC Treaty, modified by the Treaty of Amsterdam.
<P>
Our Assembly has the right, admittedly, to begin to think about what will happen after Amsterdam, but all the same it goes a bit far when it cites this Treaty, in the adopted resolution, as if it had already entered into force and as if ratification were already complete.
This is not the case, particularly in France.
It is important that we do not, in this new Europe, think that the approval of the people is something that we obtain automatically.
<P>
We are all the less inclined to give credit to the European Parliament in this matter, since the codecision principle introduced by Maastricht and the extensions provided by the Amsterdam text seem to us to be far from satisfactory.
I also note that the French Constitutional Court, in its decision of 31 December 1997, noted for the first time that codecision, applied to certain fields, could damage the essential conditions for the exercise of national sovereignty.
<P>
In fact, this procedure allows the European Parliament, where French Members only hold 13 % of votes, to have the last word on vital questions for our country, in particular as regards the international movement of persons.
One might even imagine cases where codecision would allow the European Parliament to oppose a decision wished for by all the governments, supported by all the national parliaments.
We have here a case of supranationality which is all the more dangerous because the European Parliament has the authority of a European people which does not exist, and depends on Eurocrats who, alas, exist only too much.
<P>
Now, the Amsterdam Treaty makes this situation even worse: on the pretext of simplifying the procedure, it strengthens the position of the European Parliament, which it turns into a co-legislator together with the Council, thus establishing a balanced situation in which the Manzella report discovers with satisfaction the characteristics of "a two-chamber legislative system' .
At the same time, it increases the number of cases where this strengthened procedure can be applied to twenty-five new fields.
These developments taken together give the European Parliament greater power and this represents one of the great federalist advances in the Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
Thus, before hurriedly moving on to the measures for applying the new procedure and having regard to the debate on ratification of Amsterdam which will take place in France, we would first of all like to ask a fundamental question: is it appropriate to reinforce codecision, is codecision itself appropriate?
We would say no, because codecision gives the European Parliament an essential deciding role, whereas it should only have a secondary role.
It takes away people's control of their destiny, whilst the European mechanisms do not offer a democratic quality or proximity equivalent to those of national parliaments.
In the future, it will be necessary to withdraw from codecision - for example, to start by rejecting the Amsterdam project - or to reintroduce balance by instituting the right of veto in national parliaments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Caudron">
This report presented by our colleague Andrea Manzella is of great importance because the problem is to translate into reality the proposals of the Amsterdam Treaty.
I support the measures which are proposed here today, as I believe in the real and recognized power of the European Parliament.
<P>
This revision of the codecision procedure constitutes a really important step for our institution, as everyone here agrees.
However, it is still important to recall our unanimity as soon as we have to bring additional weight to bear on our work.
<P>
This situation is seen not only in our relations with the Commission, but also, and this is just as important, in our wish to enter into a fruitful dialogue with the European Central Bank.
In both cases, it would seem that our Assembly has realized that it must make people aware of our legislative role.
<P>
This aspiration is all the more legitimate since it is combined with a wish on the part of the large majority of our colleagues to bring the citizen closer to the process of building Europe.
Some worried souls, albeit they are increasingly rare, may argue that particular measures do not go far enough in a particular field.
However, we have to consider all these provisions which have to be taken as a whole in order to evaluate the path travelled.
<P>
Yes, I am firmly convinced that we must continue to progress along this path; the time seems to have returned for political decision, and it is essential to give the legislative power of the European Parliament its full meaning.
I hope that the next few months will be fruitful as regards political debate, so that invective and demagogy are left to the xenophobes and racists.
This can only serve to strengthen our role and increase our credibility.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Deprez">
It often occurs to me to think that the euroscepticism which we deplore all too much on the part of our fellow citizens is fed and maintained by our own disappointments.
Thus, how many Members of the European Parliament have spent more time and devoted more words to deploring the weaknesses of the Amsterdam Treaty rather than emphasizing the progress it brings with it, some of which it essential?
<P>
That is why I am grateful first of all to the rapporteur, Mr Manzella, for the positive and reasoned nature of his report on the changes made by the Amsterdam Treaty to the codecision procedure.
<P>
I would like to join him in saluting the fact that this Treaty will not only extend, but will also reform and simplify the mechanisms of the codecision procedure, so that the European Parliament will be a true co-legislator one day.
<P>
It seems to me also that he is perfectly right to insist on the major changes allowed by the Amsterdam Treaty from the socalled first reading stage.
In fact, the Treaty lays down that this first phase could also be the last - and therefore give birth to a law of the Union - if the Council approves a proposal of the Commission which has not been amended by Parliament, or if the Council adopts all the amendments approved by Parliament.
<P>
I fully share the opinion of the rapporteur who sees, in this possibility, substantial advantages in terms of acceleration, rationalization and simplification of the legislative work.
<P>
Finally, I think he is right to insist on the fact that Parliament must take advantage of this opportunity to make important changes in its attitude at first reading: improvement of the legal quality of the texts, concentration on the main priorities, establishing new inter-institutional reports.
Well done, Mr Manzella.
I approve your work (almost) without reservation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of the Manzella report.
We have done so based on the consideration that the report thoroughly examines the improved codecision procedure adopted in the Amsterdam Treaty.
We clearly support the enhanced influence of the European Parliament; in many areas of policy, we now enjoy the same degree of influence as the Council.
However, the Danish Social Democrats are voting against the point concerned with providing written justification for all instances of the European Parliament adopting legislative amendments.
Our grounds for opposing this point in the report are that it would make the procedure extremely bureaucratic and slow, and that is surely not what is intended by a simplification of the codecision procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Wibe">
I am abstaining from the vote on this report, since my fundamental outlook is that the European Parliament should have not have any codecision procedure with the Council.
I think that EU cooperation should be based on a cooperation between the parliaments of the Member States.
Political debate in the Member States is currently based on elections to the national parliaments.
For the sake of democracy, the power of the European Parliament should be reduced.
<P>
Frischenschlager report (A4-0257/98)
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Ahlqvist and Theorin">
The discussion regarding cooperation and different speeds has been going on for a long time in the EU.
The rapporteur has made an ambitious attempt to shed light on this issue.
However, there are above all 3 paragraphs in the resolution that we cannot vote for, namely paragraphs 10, 12 and 21.
But we are also doubtful about paragraph 11.
<P>
Cooperation is a requirement for all international work, and especially for the EU.
However, the objective which this cooperation aims to achieve can never be achieved by forcing other Member States into something they do not want.
Cooperation must be completely voluntary for it to be meaningful.
For this reason, we cannot vote for paragraphs 10, 11, 12 and 21.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw and Waidelich">
For reasons of democracy, we think that what was decided in the Amsterdam Treaty must apply until a new Intergovernmental Conference amends that Treaty.
This will also promote for the applicant countries the clarity of EU legislation and the opportunity for insight into it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Berthu">
The Group of Independents of a Europe of Nations Group voted against the Frischenschlager report on the implementation of closer cooperation as provided for by the Amsterdam Treaty.
Our group has explained its position in a minority opinion which the Committee on Institutional Affairs has been good enough to append to the report.
<P>
In fact, whereas cooperation between states is completely free in Europe (apart, of course, from matters which are codified by Community texts), the Amsterdam Treaty aims to incorporate everything into the Community mechanism by according a particular status within the Treaties to specific forms of cooperation.
Its ultimate aim is, therefore, to reduce the diversity of forms of cooperation in Europe, by forcing them into the mould of a single institutional framework, itself oriented towards the construction of a super-State.
<P>
This approach seems to us inappropriate: after the collapse of the Soviet regime Europeans can look forward to the possibility of a peaceful continent free of all forms of totalitarianism finally achieving its ideals of respect for individuals and peoples.
A super-State and the various forms of unification which accompany it are of no use in this context.
Worse still, by going against the very nature of Europe, they would weaken rather than strengthen it.
<P>
Furthermore, the forms of closer cooperation, which are also incorporated into the Community mechanism, as envisaged in the Amsterdam Treaty, are also open to criticism technically speaking, since they would be complex and ineffective.
Contrary to the declared intention, the various forms of cooperation incorporated in a single institutional framework entail great administrative complexity, as the new "Schengen' cooperation shows.
Likewise the multiplicity of preconditions and the right of the European Union to examine individual agreements will undoubtedly discourage applicants and halt certain forms of cooperation which would otherwise have been beneficial.
<P>
The debates which took place yesterday evening in this Hemicycle showed, moreover, that even the federalists were getting lost and demonstrated huge uncertainty regarding the legitimacy of these new provisions.
Our colleague, Ole Krarup, rightly highlighted the fact that if our citizens became aware of such complex provisions, they would not know whether to laugh or cry.
<P>
The Group of Independents of a Europe of Nations thinks that the various forms of cooperation in Europe must be left very free, under the control of the national parliaments.
This method would be much simpler and more profitable.
The different forms of cooperation should come under a European Union framework only if this is shown to be more effective in every case, and a dynamic of cooperation in freedom must be created..
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Delcroix">
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="Deprez">
The excellent report by our colleague Friedhelm Frischenschlager is a tiny piece of intellectual bravura.
In fact, it treats with sensitivity and clarity one of the most controversial mechanisms introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam, namely that of closer cooperation.
<P>
In the minds of those who invented it, one might think that closer cooperation - in broad terms, the possibility that a majority of Member States could go further forward towards integration without being held up by others who do not wish to or cannot follow the proposed speed - is intended to help to overcome the blockages within the Council.
<P>
If this is really the intention, ought there to have been a right of virtual veto for each Member State, provided that it cite "important reasons of national policy' , thus obliging the European Council to act unanimously?
<P>
If this was in fact the intention, ought there to have been provision made for the respect of an equal number of guarantees not only on substance - where they are totally justified - but also on procedure, where they are both cumbersome and ambiguous (in particular, how should the notion of "last resort' be defined?).
<P>
In truth, as rapporteur, I cannot ignore the notion that closer cooperation would, above all, have some virtual effectiveness: it would hardly ever be used, but one hopes that the risk of its use would do away with one blockage or another.
<P>
If it only served this purpose, closer cooperation would already be very useful.
It is in this light that I approved Mr Frischenschlager's report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of the Frischenschlager report.
We have done so based on the consideration that the report constitutes an excellent follow-up to the intent of the Amsterdam Treaty.
However, we voted against paragraphs 10 and 12 of the report, since we disagree with the rapporteur's approach to the special option of using a veto.
Unlike the rapporteur, we believe it is sensible for there to be an emergency brake on collaboration.
It should be possible to resort to the right to veto if there are serious national grounds for so doing.
By this, we do not, of course, mean that this option should be exercised indiscriminately whenever there is disagreement; nevertheless, we are convinced that the wording of the 1966 Luxembourg Compromise should be retained.
Thus, in cases where crucial interests are at stake for one or more Member States in connection with decisions that can be made by majority vote following a proposal by the Commission, we are in favour of the members of the Council seeking within a reasonable time to reach solutions that all the members of the Council can endorse, taking into consideration their respective interests as well as Community interests pursuant to Article 2 of the Treaty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Lindqvist">
A 'closer cooperation' between certain countries within a specific area will divide the EU into A and B teams.
The Amsterdam Treaty now provides such a possibility under strict conditions and with a guarantee that the veto will remain as a last resort for individual Member States to stop such proposals.
Parliament cannot and should not amend proposed Treaty texts, even if the Treaty has still not been ratified by all Member States.
<P>
Replacing the principle of unanimity with decisions based on the principle of qualified majority voting will have the same effect in reality as if the veto were abolished; in other words, a country which wants to prevent a 'closer cooperation' for other countries can no longer do so.
Unanimity and veto should be a matter of course in the cooperation between independent states.
I have therefore voted against this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="Spaak">
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Souchet">
Even before the Amsterdam Treaty was ratified by our peoples or their representatives, the European Parliament made use of a provision of the Treaty opening the possibility for Member States who so wished to cooperate more closely than before in some fields.
<P>
The reaction of the European Parliament is consistent with the dominant ideology which prevails there: it only wishes to see in this new provision a threat to the construction of a federal Europe which it wants to promote, and would like to restrict its effects as much as possible.
<P>
Voluntary cooperation between states is, however, the European method which has produced the most positive results so far, from ARIANE to the Airbus.
<P>
The same is true in the field of international relations.
The European Parliament routinely deplores the inefficiency of the CFSP, without wanting to recognize that this stagnation is structural.
But if, instead of wishing to force at all costs all the external actions of the Union into the constraints of a single Community policy, Europe knew how to encourage and support the initiatives of some Member States which have greater expertise, and acknowledge their European dimension when it judges that they meet the interests of the whole of Europe, the Union's foreign policy would be real, understandable and respected.
By deliberately ignoring the relevance and efficiency of national diplomacies, the Union is depriving itself of a major trump card.
By favouring an ideological vision of the CFSP, it is condemning itself to impotence.
<P>
Sticking to an archaic and monolithic vision of a single Europe with a single policies, Parliament is once again turning its back on a promising route to a Europe of voluntary cooperation between sovereign nations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Wibe">
As usual, when discussing institutional matters, the European Parliament goes further than the position reached by the Intergovernmental Conference.
This is underlined very clearly in this report by paragraphs 10, 12 and 21.
<P>
I do not believe in the creation of a federal Europe and am therefore voting against paragraphs 10, 12 and 21.
<P>
Weiler report (A4-0269/98)
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Caudron">
I have nothing against our colleague Barbara Weiler; her text is of high quality and I subscribe without hesitation to its recommendations.
However, for some years now, I have regularly seen reports being passed which are more or less linked to this question.
<P>
Unfortunately, we must recognize that we are making only very slow progress in this field.
Those who wish to or have to work in a Member State other than their own are prey to administrative problems which are completely at odds with the current discourse favouring flexibility, mobility and so on.
<P>
We must admit that, strange as it may seem, it is pretty easy to shift several million Ecus around the world and yet there are all sorts of difficulties if you want to work 50 km from where you live, where this involves crossing a national frontier.
A truly bizarre paradox in the global village!
<P>
Yes, I am concerned by letters from European citizens explaining that they have a tax problem, a residence problem and many more. I am also concerned to realize the huge administrative effort which has to be made in order to achieve a result which is often quite unpredictable.
<P>
Yes, truly, the Europe of the citizen, the everyday Europe is still waiting to be created.
So I am astonished to see some of our colleagues objecting to simple common sense solutions in the name of I know not what fantasy.
Finally, these are the very same people who reject any form of European construction ... so what do we do?
<P>
It is absolutely imperative that we move forward in these matters, because in addition to the individual problems to which they give rise, it is the construction of Europe which is at stake as far as our citizens are concerned.
<P>
We cannot let them down on the big political choices, we cannot allow ourselves to forget the everyday life of the people of Europe!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Eriksson and Sjöstedt">
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="Jensen, Lis">
The Weiler report deserves to be praised for not discriminating between people from EU countries and people who do not originally come from EU countries.
Despite the generally positive tone of the report, I cannot support it.
<P>
The desire to harmonize education systems, social security arrangements, fiscal regulations, etcetera, out of consideration for the free movement of the workforce is tantamount to taking a mallet to crack a peanut.
The problem is minimal.
For those who wish to work abroad, the rule of thumb should be that from day one, they should not be working under any worse conditions than the conditions the workforce of the country concerned work under.
It is the duty of the national authorities to check that this is the case.
As I said, the question of the free movement of the workforce across national boundaries is a very minor issue.
Only 0.2 % of the total workforce of the EU exercise this option.
Even if the EU were to reach the USA's 0.5 % level, for example - and a large number of linguistic and cultural considerations would impede this - this would hardly reduce unemployment, which is at far too high a level, as Mr Weiler also mentioned.
<P>
Under no circumstances can I support the desire to "soften up' directive 1408/71.
I give my full support to the Council's blocking this.
Thus, I challenge the Danish negotiators in the Council to stand firm.
The Danish trade union movement is bitterly opposed to the concept of an EU rule on European "apprentices' .
The EU should not hold any sway over the content of vocational training or, for that matter, any form of training.
The field of education is strictly a national matter.
<P>
These are some of the reasons why I cannot support the Weiler report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats have voted in favour of improving the free movement of the workforce in the EU.
One of the underlying concepts behind European collaboration is to create the potential for the free movement of persons, not just of goods, capital and services.
Europe must not only be a business community.
It must be a Europe of the people.
<P>
Thus, we can support a call to eliminate the many obstacles to freedom of movement.
Only 0.2 % of EU citizens work in a Member State other than their own.
One of the reasons for this is that it is extremely difficult to move to a different country.
Thus, we must secure some clear and readily understandable regulations for arrangements concerning social welfare, health insurance and pensions.
People should not have to encounter so much bureaucracy when trying their hand in another Member State.
<P>
The rapporteur of the report deplores the Danish derogation in the legal field.
At this juncture, we would like to point out that the Danish derogation is a Danish matter that can only be changed by a referendum in Denmark.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR), Holm and Schörling (V)">
We oppose, inter alia, the section on Schengen in the report, and the paragraphs on the abolition of the requirement for unanimity.
<P>
We have, nonetheless, voted in favour of the report in order to strengthen the rights of citizens of third countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="Lulling">
Once again, the report submitted by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs of the European Commission on the promotion of the freedom of movement of workers was used by the left-wing majority in the committee as an opportunity to overload it with ideological ballast on immigration policy and the rights of third country nationals.
<P>
This week we did not vote for the report for submission to the EU Commission for regulation of the admittance of thirdcountry nationals into the sovereign territory of the Member States because it had been peppered with demands from a majority from the same political camp which would have flooded our labour market, already numbering 18 million unemployed, with hundreds of thousands more job seekers, mainly cheap labour.
<P>
This report's stance on family reunification for third-country nationals goes far beyond what is tolerable, and in any case beyond the rights which have until now been granted to applicant countries during the transition period and those we will be able to grant new Member States upon accession.
Extending the scope of those entitled to join migrant workers to include same sex partners, family members regardless of their nationality, family members not living in the migrant worker's household and those who have more than one spouse or partner, would lead to a flood of immigration with which my small country, more than 37 % of whose population is made up of non-Luxembourg citizens, could simply not cope.
<P>
The report also contains hasty demands relating to the taxation of immigrant workers and the statement, somehow pulled out of thin air, that frontier workers would face the threat of a considerable drop in income as a result of the different rules in force in terms of taxation and social security.
<P>
This is certainly not the case for the almost 70, 000 frontier workers employed in Luxembourg.
<P>
Similarly, I cannot agree with the demands to abolish the visa requirement for third-country nationals within the European Union.
<P>
Talleyrand once said that everything which is exaggerated is meaningless.
However, the exaggerations in this report, were they to be taken seriously, would be far from meaningless. Not to mention the fact that they are further grist to the mill of antiEuropean extremists.
<P>
For these reasons I was unable to vote for this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="Theonas">
We must point out at the outset the considerable delay in the regulation of the free movement of persons, in contrast to the complete freedom of movement of goods, services and capital.
In this respect, especially, we underline the enormous problems faced by transient workers with regard to safeguarding their social security and labour rights.
<P>
Especially acute is the problem of free movement faced by third-country nationals who legally reside within the boundaries of a Member State, during their movement within the boundaries of the European Union.
However, we disagree categorically with any attempt to link the issues relating to the free movement of people with the Schengen Agreement. The basic element of this Treaty is not to facilitate the free movement of people within the European Union, but to hold electronic files on and, by means of networked centres, to carry out surveillance on, millions of citizens, and to gradually transform the European Union into an impregnable fortress for third-country nationals, as is clear from the most recent proposals concerning the rights of entry and residence.
<P>
Based on the assumption that transient workers are not second class workers, we call for equality of treatment for them in financial, social and fiscal terms.
In addition, there must be regulation of the gaps that exist in the exercise of the right of residence for all those seeking work and for pensioners who reside permanently in another Member State.
<P>
We think that the Council must go ahead and approve the proposals concerning the amendment of the regulation on the coordination of social security systems for transient workers and extend its field of operation to include social security systems for civil servants and third-country nationals who are covered by the social security system of a Member State.
In addition, there must be regulation to ensure equality of treatment for transient workers and the preservation of their rights if they are posted to another state in respect of their supplementary pension rights and career breaks.
We also wish to highlight the problems created by the varying definitions of "incapacity for work' and the varying assessment of "degree of disability' , as well as by the divergences in the systems used to calculate periods of insurance.
<P>
Hulthén report (A4-0233/98)
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="Deprez">
In our countries, there are very few people today who argue that economic development must, at all costs, take place within the context of respect for the environment so as not to mortgage the destiny of future generations.
Everyone is, in general, agreed that job creation must remain at the forefront of the minds of all political decision-makers.
<P>
All this is so obviously true that the Amsterdam Treaty put "economic and social progress' , a "high level of employment' , and "balanced and sustainable development' as some of the fundamental aims of the Union.
<P>
One of the main concerns of the European institutions must be to integrate the environment into all policies of the Union and of Members States across the board.
This must also be the case for employment policy.
<P>
Far from acting as a brake on investments and growth, a carefully thought-out across-the-board policy for environmental protection will in fact make it possible to increase the competitiveness of our businesses, release new added-value and create many additional jobs, at all skill levels.
This is what makes the Commission communication which we are discussing today so interesting.
<P>
I can only support this strategy and the general principles set out by the Commission and hope that a number of dossiers - such as that on the proposal for a Commission directive introducing a tax on emissions of carbon dioxide and fuel - reach their conclusion as soon as possible.
<P>
With this in mind, I would like to support the resolution tabled here today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="Souchet">
The need to protect the environment introduces significant constraints into our societies but we do not sufficiently highlight the new prospects which it offers in terms of employment.
In Europe, the number of jobs linked to the environment has, today, reached just over 3.5 million (source: Eurostat).
According to the OECD, annual growth in employment in the environment sector should reach 5.5 % in the next few years.
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The creation, and subsequent generalization, of eco-taxes, shows that the sectors and firms which do not invest in processes which integrate environmental concerns into their production run the risk that their competitiveness will be weakened ineluctably, or even threatened with extinction.
<P>
In order to ensure growth which accommodates the problematic issue of the environment, it is necessary to confront both the problem of the scarcity of resources and that of the link between jobs and the environment.
<P>
This supposes that our economies are no longer characterised by the over-use of natural resources and the under-employment of human resources.
We must find the best possible compromise between the use of natural resources and jobs.
A reduction in taxation relieving the obligatory burden on employment taxes and transferring these at least in part to eco-taxes would help to promote such a development.
So we must speed up the transition of our economies to the new and clean technologies which will replace the old, polluting technologies and towards measures for reducing the amount of waste at the end of the production cycle.
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However, because of the internationalization of our economies, the determining factor is that environmental parameters must be taken into account in international rules of trade.
It is within the WTO that this battle must be fought and won.
Such is the purpose of the amendments which the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has tabled, some of which have been adopted by our Assembly.
The gaps in current provisions are, in fact, especially significant.
It is fairly simple to impose ecotaxes on packaging waste on products imported from third countries but, in the context of existing international agreements, it is impossible to tax the effects of production processes on water and environmental pollution.
<P>
Finally, while it is essential to develop specific professional qualifications corresponding to new job profiles which are specific to the environment sectors, let us not forget that it will be necessary to include the environmental approach in all technical, economic and legal training.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 1.30 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, thank you for giving me the opportunity to raise a point of order.
We are now beginning the topical and urgent subjects debate, and I must lodge a slight complaint, perhaps also on behalf of a number of the Members of this House.
Today's agenda has the topical and urgent subjects debate scheduled from 3.00 p.m. to 6.00 p.m. If we look at the agenda, we see subjects such as Nigeria, Belarus, human rights and so forth, followed by a number of figures, a sort of secret code from which absolutely no one can figure out who has submitted the resolutions or why these topical subjects are being discussed.
The topical and urgent subjects debate has already reached a low point.
We know that.
That is why there is currently talk about reorganizing it.
However, I believe that what is happening here is improper, namely that it is not indicated who, which group or which person, is dealing with Belarus or Nigeria and so forth. On top of this, for a long time the press releases have given hardly any attention to the topical and urgent subjects debate, because the staff apparently has to catch the train home at 3.00 p.m.
Mr President, I am very disappointed.
You know, or perhaps you do not know, that for nine years I have been trying to make something of the topical and urgent subjects debate, not a half-hearted attempt, but with my full devotion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="President">
Mr Bertens, I have noted your comment which we shall communicate to those concerned.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Topical and urgent debate
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following seven motions for resolutions:
<P>


B4-0723/98 by Mr Bertens and others, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the situation in Nigeria; -B4-0739/98 by Mr Pasty and Mr Andrews, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the situation in Nigeria; -B4-0741/98 on behalf of Mrs Maij-Weggen and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the situation in Nigeria; -B4-0749/98 by Mr Hory and Mr Macartney, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the situation in Nigeria; -B4-0752/98 by Mr Telkämper and others, on behalf of the Green Group, on the situation in Nigeria; -B4-0767/98 by Mr Vecchi and Mrs Kinnock, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the situation in Nigeria; -B4-0769/98 by Mr Marset Campos and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the situation in Nigeria.
<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the sudden and, for some, mysterious death of General Abacha has opened up a new chapter in the events of this tormented country, Nigeria.
The European Union cannot fail to take note of the fact that the temporary successor of General Abacha, General Abubakar, has released a few political prisoners but it must also see that not all have been freed and that there are no specific guarantees that a democratic process will be rapidly started in Nigeria.
<P>
It is therefore the duty of the European Parliament to ask the Council and the Commission to follow the political situation in this country closely and to encourage the president with resoluteness in this very unstable period of transition to clearly commit himself to a return of the democratic order in this country.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, in only a few weeks the political situation in Nigeria has changed dramatically.
Firstly, the unexpected death of General Abacha, then the naming of a new ruler, General Abubakar, and finally the equally unexpected death of the imprisoned opposition leader, the elected president Abiola.
Of these events it is especially the death of Moshood Abiola which has most shocked the world.
He may well have had a heart attack, but everyone knows how poorly political prisoners in Nigeria are treated.
It was generally known that Abiola, who had heart problems for a long time, was not receiving the proper treatment and medication in prison.
One could actually speak of death by neglect.
<P>
In the mean time, rioting has understandably broken out in Nigeria, and that has led to violent incidents between police, the military and demonstrators who are taking part on behalf of the opposition. The result has been dozens of deaths.
This is a question of escalating events and increased de-stabilization in Nigeria.
<P>
Mr President, what is the European Union doing? A great many refugees from Nigeria who reside in Europe want to help the democratic opposition.
Back in February we requested, by means of oral questions, that the Parliament pay attention during the debate to the worsening situation in Nigeria.
The British presidency at that time was sympathetic to our questions, but not a great deal has happened since then.
Now the situation has escalated further with a dramatic turn of events.
We, as the PPE Group, believe that the Union must exert greater pressure on Nigeria and on the new president Abubakar to immediately cease violation of human rights, release all political prisoners and restore democracy through democratic elections.
<P>
But the Union must also not hesitate to sharpen, if necessary, the actions against Nigeria in order to increase this pressure.
In resolutions I have already asked four times for economic sanctions, but the most important exhortation is this: as a European Union, draw a single line together, face the new Nigerian regime with determination and demand restoration of democracy and human rights.
Then the chance that something good could happen in Nigeria would be greater at this moment than ever before.
Therefore, Commission and Council, do something!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="Macartney">
Mr President, I should like to start by paying tribute to the life of Chief Moshood Abiola.
It is an old African tradition that you wait until somebody has been buried and properly celebrated before you resume normal business.
Unfortunately Nigeria has not allowed us the luxury of doing so, but we should not let this moment pass without giving our tribute to that man who won the election four years ago, against all the odds, uniting north and south, Yoruba and Muslim.
His achievement was of course snatched away by the brutal actions of the late General Sani Abacha.
Nigeria - the great giant of Africa - is now paying the price for it.
<P>
My concern for this giant of Africa is for the people - it is not the governments of Nigeria that have made it the giant, it is the people.
In this resolution we have got it right by asking in paragraphs 1 and 2 for the speedy restoration of power to the people of Nigeria so that they can take their rightful place as a leader in Africa.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, it is normal that one never rejoices about the death of a human being.
In the case of certain dictators, however, I must honestly, say ladies and gentlemen, that I make an exception, and the death of the dictator, Abacha, has indeed led to the removal of some hindrances to political evolution in Nigeria.
On the part of his successor, Abubakar, there have been a few small signs that point in the right direction, but there remains a tremendous amount to be done.
It is especially painful that Chief Moshood Abiola has died at this specific moment, and, as said by others, certainly as a result of neglect and the lack of the right to adequate healthcare and so forth.
<P>
I therefore believe that the pressure must indeed now be increased on the Nigerian authorities to abolish all repressive measures, restore the constitutional state and release all 30 remaining political prisoners.
Only then can one eventually think about a possible perspective of renewing help to Lomé as soon as a civilian government is formed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Vecchi">
Mr President, there are really no longer any excuses to justify the continuation of the situation that unfortunately has characterized Nigeria for many years now.
<P>
Since 1993, when the democratic process that was under way at the time was brutally interrupted by a military coup d'etat, there has been in Nigeria every kind of abuse, every kind of violation, however elementary, of human rights and the consolidation of a regime, linked to the military and business clique in power, that has made widespread corruption and the worse kind of violence prevail.
<P>
Our Parliament has expressed itself repeatedly on the situation in Nigeria as has the ACP-EU Joint Assembly in a very significant way.
<P>
The disappearance of the dictator, General Abacha, which occurred last month, has rekindled some hope of a possible change.
The sudden death of the former president and opposition leader, Mr Abiola, which occurred on the eve of his release, has on the other dealt a great blow to a possible democratic process, because it has meant the disappearance from the scene of a key figure who enjoyed tremendous popular favour and support for the launch of a democratic transition.
<P>
The newly proclaimed president, General Abubakar, has freed a few political prisoners, but it is still not clear what his actual intentions are in terms of opening a new page in the history of Nigeria.
<P>
For these reasons, we call on the authorities in Lagos to immediately open a real democratic process, founded first of all on the opening of political dialogue with all the opposition parties, on the immediate release of all political prisoners, on an end to political and ethnic repression and on the launch of a process that leads to free elections.
<P>
We believe that for the international community and, particularly, for the Community institutions and the governments of the Union's Member States, the time has come to coordinate political action and pressure on the regime in Nigeria, beginning with full compliance with the sanctions in effect, in order to demand the change that we have been hoping for now for too many years but have so far not obtained in any form whatsoever.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Mr President, the dictator Abacha has, in fact, died, but the dictatorship remains; it remains with a new face visible in another soldier: Abubakar.
Some political prisoners have been freed, but the authoritarian structures are still in place there.
Many other political prisoners and prisoners of conscience are still in jail and, at the moment, the promises of democratization are only that: promises and words which have little substance.
<P>
I therefore believe that it is very important to ensure that, at this time, the European Union maintains a firm and demanding position with respect to the authorities in Lagos, and that in no way is any credibility given to the promises made, not even a minimum of credibility.
In this respect, a few of the insinuations made by Heads of State of the Member States of the European Union seem to me to be extremely worrying, such as those made by President Chirac, who appears to be determined to convince Europeans of the kindness of the promises of the new dictator Abubakar.
<P>
In this situation, it is evident that we must maintain the sanctions, we must strengthen them and we must try to ensure that the European Union, and not only the Union, implements a policy with those characteristics, aimed at establishing a civil government, a government based on the participation of the political opposition and the democratic powers in Nigeria, one which can prepare for free elections.
And, before that, we must achieve the release of all the political prisoners and the restoration of minimum fundamental freedoms.
<P>
Of course, we regret the fact that the president-elect, Abiola, has died - obviously due to a lack of medical care - and that he died in jail, days after Abacha.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, the death of Abacha, it has been said, has created, sadly enough but thankfully as well, new possibilities.
Despite all the conflicting reports, the new ruler, Abubakar, has become more willing to undertake democratization.
In addition, the death of Abiola has created a situation that has made the country extremely tense.
The Union must now project clarity and unity - and I realize that is like asking for snow in summer - but at any rate the Council and the Commission must join in the call for a rapid transfer of power to a civilian government.
This is the only way to allow democratic elections to take place.
The sanctions, however simple they may be, can only be removed when actual democracy is restored.
The Union must offer its assistance in terms of dialogue, and it must also strive to make the transition as successful as possible.
<P>
Attempts to exploit ethnic conflict must be dealt with.
The risk of ethnic conflict, however, must not be a reason to oppose democratization.
Democracy, Mr President, respect for human rights, building the constitutional state, these are still the best guarantees for stability and progress.
But let us, the Union, show the Nigerians that we are not only concerned with making gestures, but with truly working together with them in true cooperation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="Moorhouse">
Mr President, Nigeria has been the scene of a long-running saga of unrest and brutality, and the outlook for democracy and human rights remains highly uncertain.
The sudden death of General Abacha may just possibly clear the way for a more hopeful future, but that is by no means certain.
<P>
Our resolution calls on the Council and the Commission to renew pressure on the Nigerian authorities, but unfortunately not all Member States have been wholehearted in their support for previous sanctions.
It is to be hoped that some of them will resist the temptation to sidestep the issue for personal advantage.
<P>
I would be interested to know whether the Commission is attempting to monitor the sanctions situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
Mr President, after a long period of deteriorating political and economic conditions and serious human rights violation in Nigeria, there now appears to be a window of opportunity - albeit a fragile one - for a more positive turn of events.
<P>
The new Head of State, General Abubakar, has released a number of political detainees and clearly stated his intention to steer the country towards civilian rule.
That development is welcome.
The political momentum now started should be encouraged and also used to press for further measures towards democracy and full respect for human rights.
I welcome the statements made in this debate urging us to do so.
<P>
I recall that the on 13 July the Council urged General Abubakar to release all the remaining detainees and to clarify his plans for future elections.
We are in favour of closer dialogue with the Nigerian authorities to promote and if possible assist the transition to democracy.
The European Union has already taken the first steps in such a dialogue through a recent visit by Minister Lloyd representing the EU presidency.
These efforts should continue and it is important that other international bodies such as the UN and the OAU work actively in the same direction.
<P>
The Commission of course deeply regrets the sudden and tragic death of Chief Abiola on 7 July.
The EU had repeatedly called for his release.
His death casts more uncertainty over the Nigerian political landscape and has led to an increased climate of mistrust and to unrest and violence. This has highlighted the need for further confidence-building measures from those now in power, vis-à-vis Nigerian society as a whole.
<P>
I can assure Mr Moorhouse that the Commission will closely monitor events in Nigeria and in the months to come the European Union will keep its policy towards Nigeria under review, including the question of the sanctions.
The aim of our policy will be to support and demand the full restoration of democracy and full respect for human rights.
That requires a process of national reconciliation based on a credible plan for the transition to civilian rule and the release of all political prisoners.
I can assure the House that our efforts will be very much in that direction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following six motions for resolutions:
<P>
B4-0728/98 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the situation in Belarus; -B4-0732/98 by Mr Saint-Pierre, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the situation in Belarus; -B4-0756/98 by Mrs Schroedter, on behalf of the Green Group, on the situation in Belarus; -B4-0758/98 by Mrs Mann, Mrs Hoff and Mr Botz, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the situation in Belarus; -B4-0770/98 by Mr Carnero González and others, on the situation in Belarus; -B4-0784/98 by Mr Habsburg-Lothringen, Mr Ferri and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the situation in Belarus.
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, the liberals are delighted about the unified position taken in this case by the Council, Commission and Parliament and a large number of third countries regarding the regime in Minsk, Belarus.
The so-called embassy incident shows at the same time the delusions of grandeur and otherworldliness of President Lukashenko.
The ease with which he violates international conventions offers little hope for good cooperation.
The reaction of Lukashenko, the fact that he hopes that common sense and realism and not emotions will determine European policy, is a slap in the face for us.
<P>
His international policy is, however, but a shadow of his authoritarian domestic policy.
The era of, dare I say it, Stalinism appears to have returned.
A united international front must take a clear position against this.
The use of the OSCE to promote democracy deserves appreciation, as does the TACIS programme for democracy, at least if the Belarus Government does not block this.
<P>
The Union must be prepared for dialogue.
But first, Lukashenko must satisfy the preconditions.
He understands the democracy and human rights clauses of the agreement which the European Union has with third countries.
It is his fault that Belarus is the pariah of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I think that we have a double problem here: a psychiatric problem - and obviously there we can do very little - and a political problem.
<P>
Just the once will not hurt, I think, and we can congratulate the Council on the strong position which it has taken concerning Belarus.
However, we need to go a lot further.
Given that Russia has, thanks in part to the Union, been granted a loan of 20 billion dollars, we would have grounds for expecting that this country would do more to put an end not to a return, as Mr Martens said, but to the persistence, in the heart of Europe, of a communist, Stalinist glacis .
There are grounds for putting pressure on Russia.
Measures must also be taken at the level of the Council of Europe.
I think that the fifteen Member States should try to ensure that the participation of Belarus in the Council of Europe be suspended.
This is also true for the OSCE and other bodies.
I think that we have to be very firm and we must follow the Council's lead.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, President Lukashenko is taking his self-inflicted isolation of Belarus to excess.
After the elected representatives of the dissolved parliament, the independent media and young people, it is now the western ambassadors which Lukashenko has singled out for bullying as his personal enemy.
The international community did not act until its own people were affected.
It was very slow in realizing that Lukashenko was not prepared to respect international rules in Europe and that the country's only hope of returning to democracy is through support for the opposition, for the opposition is the only thing on which we can pin our hopes.
<P>
The visa ban has been the only significant step taken by the Council.
It was, however, also long overdue.
The effect has been amazing.
Just imagine, the population has now realised who is to blame for the situation in which it finds itself.
It is not the people, not the West, but those in power in the government.
A small instrument with an astounding effect!
Now comes the task of ensuring that this work is continued consistently, in other words that Lukashenko must be made to cooperate with the OSCE monitoring group.
He must be made to give the TACIS programme the green light so that finally there can be an end to the suffering of the civil population.
He must be made to accept that his mandate only runs until next year and that he must make preparations for free and fair elections.
<P>
In this context I as you, Mr Brittan: what is the Commission prepared to do, and what conditions do you intend to propose to the Council for the lifting of the visa ban?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Erika">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Sir Leon Brittan, I am delighted that you are here.
We have reached a critical point in our relations with Belarus and I hope very much that this will be the last resolution we discuss and that we will now finally be able to move along a more positive route.
<P>
The latest decisions taken by the Belarus Government represent a serious breach of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. The Council's decisions merit our full support.
It now appears that new negotiations are on the cards and a settlement to the conflict seems to be in sight.
The Belarus Government has signalled a serious interest in finding a positive solution. Clearly this is something we welcome.
However, we should also see the conflict as an opportunity to consider just what dangerous ground we are on.
A change of direction in our relations is urgently needed.
<P>
Belarus is part of the European family.
Nobody wants it to be isolated.
It will soon be our immediate neighbour.
I therefore particularly support the wording proposed by the Council and would like to suggest that we include the following words under paragraph 1. I would suggest that we take the English text, unfortunately I do not have the original here, just the German version which is more or less the same and states that it fully supports the Council's desire, expressed in the Common Position of 13 July, to develop more constructive relations with Belarus.
<P>
But this must include clear positive signals from Belarus.
The European Parliament has shown right across the political board just how serious is its interest in improving relations.
But naturally this means respecting the democratic rules of the game.
We cannot, and of course we will not, overlook this point.
<P>
The delegation had an extremely positive meeting in Brussels.
Ambassador Wick illustrated clearly and pragmatically the steps he believes should be taken in order to bring about an improvement in relations.
We are planning another meeting in Belarus in November and I would hope that all of us here will have the opportunity to attend and to continue our work on improving relations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, first of all I should also like to say how pleased I am that today we have heard certain signals from Belarus suggesting that the very tense situation of the last few days might perhaps be returning to normal to some extent.
Representatives from Belarus have often reproached us for applying double standards, particularly with regard to human rights.
On each occasion, my only response has been to say that it is only natural that we should regard countries which are our immediate neighbours, countries which we assume might one day wish to become part of our Community, countries which have many cultural similarities with ourselves - as is the case with Belarus - with a particularly critical eye.
<P>
We do not apply double standards, but perhaps we do look at some countries more closely than others, quite simply because we need and want to have a close relationship with these countries.
This is why we sometimes look very critically at Belarus and at what is happening there. Then we are obliged to say that certain things happening there are quite simply unacceptable, as we have done in this case.
Of course, the quasi closure of the embassies is something we find wholly unacceptable, and our reaction to it is therefore, in my view, a very appropriate reaction.
Of course, we also consider the failure to allow various NGOs to enter and to work in the country to be inadmissible.
Here, too, some progress has been made and there has been a certain improvement, but not yet to an extent which we find acceptable.
<P>
Of course, the need for the OSCE to be able to operate there freely and to carry out its tasks, its mandate, is also very important to us.
We shall certainly judge this country on its actions and not only on the words we hear time and time again.
This is very important for us if we are to ensure that this European country reaches the standards expected of it both by us and by the Belorussian population, so that we can negotiate reasonably and can build sound foundations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="Féret">
<SPEAKER ID=142 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
Mr President, Parliament's resolution will not do any of the dangerous things just referred to - quite the reverse.
The Commission welcomes Parliament's proposals for a resolution on Belarus.
For the most part, the debate has been an extremely balanced one, expressing proper criticisms of what has been going on in Belarus as well as a desire not to isolate Belarus, but to help it follow the proper path.
<P>
In response to the last speaker, the fact that a government has been democratically elected does not absolve it from the obligation to obey international norms and respect for human rights.
Alas, it is perfectly possible for a democratic government not to do so and when that happens it is right and, indeed, necessary for the international community to say so and take the appropriate action.
<P>
Therefore, the Commission welcomes Parliament's proposals for a resolution because they demonstrate the deep concern of all European Union institutions about, for example, the repeated violations of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.
Furthermore, they show institutional solidarity with the European Union common position on Belarus, which has been regarded as quite a tough one.
<P>
Nonetheless, the Commission also hopes that the recent promises by Belarus to work towards a solution to the diplomatic crisis will soon materialise into constructive steps.
There would then be no need to take further action that would be undesirable both for Belarus, and obviously, for the European Union.
<P>
One of the speakers mentioned Russia.
On 24 June Foreign Minister Primakov said to the European Union Ministerial Troika that Russia shared the Union's concern about Belarus and would try to use its good offices.
Whenever there is an official bilateral meeting, the Commission repeatedly urges Russia to intervene to bring Belarus back on the right track.
The Commission has taken considerable action already, quite apart from suspending the bulk of the TACIS programme.
It has not so far pursued further discussions on the TACIS civil society development programme with the national coordinator, but we hope that current difficulties in dealing with Belarus will not hamper the resumption of a constructive dialogue with Belarus and counterparts on this programme.
The programme is supported by the OSCE mission in Minsk, since it fully complements the OSCE's own objectives.
<P>
So I hope that the policy we can follow - with Parliament's support, which we deeply appreciate - will continue to be a balanced one, seeking to be very firm and to take such tough action as may be necessary in the face of any violations of international norms by the Belarus Government.
At the same time, the policy must also seek to extend the hand of friendship and show readiness to cooperate with the Belarus Government if it gives effect to its stated promise to work towards a solution to the crisis and proceed in a way which will be acceptable to those who have expressed their concerns in this House and elsewhere about what has gone on in the past.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, I asked the Commissioner a question which he has not answered.
Would he please answer it now?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
Mr President, as I understand it the question is about what further action we will take.
The answer is that we are observing the situation and I do not think it is useful to issue a series of specific threats.
However, in answer to the debate I said that we want to avoid having to take further sanctions against Belarus, which implies that we fully reserve the right to do that if progress is not made.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, the question was: what are the conditions subject to which the visa ban might be lifted?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
I am not in a position to state specific conditions.
The common position speaks for itself and I do not think it is appropriate for me to attempt to add to it today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following 23 motions for resolutions:
<P>

Togo -B4-0725/98 by Mrs André-Léonard and others, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the presidential election in Togo; -B4-0744/98 by Mrs Günther and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the situation in Togo; -B4-0754/98 by Mrs Aelvoet, Mr Telkämper and Mrs Schroedter, on behalf of the Green Group, on the presidential election in Togo; -B4-0761/98 by Mr Vecchi, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the presidential elections in Togo; -B4-0773/98 by Mr Wurtz and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the presidential elections in Togo;
<P>
Guinea-Bissau -B4-0740/98 by Mr Pasty, Mr Girão Pereira and Mr Andrews, on behalf of the UPE Group, on the situation in GuineaBissau; -B4-0743/98 by Mr De Melo and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the situation in Guinea-Bissau; -B4-0748/98 by Mr Hory and others, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the situation in Guinea-Bissau; -B4-0753/98 by Mrs Aelvoet and Mr Telkämper, on behalf of the Green Group, on the humanitarian situation in GuineaBissau; -B4-0759/98, on behalf of Mr Barros Moura and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the situation in Guinea-Bissau; -B4-0772/98 by Mr Miranda and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the situation in Guinea-Bissau;
<P>

Burma -B4-0731/98 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the situation in Myanmar; -B4-0733/98 by Mr Dupuis, Mr Dell'Alba and Mr Hory, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the situation of the Karen people and their persecution in Burma; -B4-0742/98 by Mrs Maij-Weggen and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the situation in Myanmar; -B4-0760/98 by Mr Harrison, Mrs Kinnock and Mrs Junker, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the situation in the Union of Myanmar; -B4-0778/98 by Mr Telkämper, on behalf of the Green Group, on the situation in Myanmar;
<P>

Sudan -B4-0724/98 by Mr Bertens and Mr Fassa, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the situation in Sudan; -B4-0745/98 by Mrs Maij-Weggen, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the situation in Sudan;
<P>


Situation in Georgia and Abkhazia -B4-0729/98 by Mr La Malfa, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the situation in Georgia; -B4-0735/98 by Mr Dupuis and Mr Hory, on behalf of the ARE Group, and by Mrs Carrère d'Encausse, on behalf of the UPE Group, on the situation in Georgia and Abkhazia; -B4-0762/98 by Mrs Jöns, Mrs Hoff and Mr Needle, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the situation in Georgia; -B4-0774/98 by Mr Alavanos, Mr Marset Campos and Mr Vinci, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the situation in Georgia;
<P>

Vietnam -B4-0736/98 by Mr Dupuis, Mr Dell'Alba and Mr Hory, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the situation in Vietnam and on the cases of Mr Doàn Viêt Hoat, Mr Nguyen Dan Que and Mr Thich Khong Tanh.
<P>
Togo
<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="André-Léonard">
Mr President, last October, at the ACP-EU Joint Assembly in Togo, I denounced the human rights violations, arbitrary sanctions, the lack of respect for freedom of expression and freedom of the press.
I denounced the dictatorial power of President Eyadema who has been in power for thirty years.
This did not earn me the congratulations of the powers who tried so hard to show me how wrong I was.
<P>
I would remind you that the Union's cooperation with Togo was suspended in 1992 and that its resumption was conditional upon respect of democratic principles and the organization of fair and open elections in June 1998.
We have to recognize that the Togolese authorities have not respected the essential democratic principles which are necessary to ensure that the elections are valid.
The national electoral commission even resigned on 23 June this year.
The opposition has not been able to speak freely, the press has been muzzled, and President Eyadema's victory was proclaimed even before all the votes had been counted.
<P>
In these circumstances, it is clear that the Union must maintain sanctions on Togo, and not resume cooperation, as long as issue of the electoral process has not been resolved.
Togo must know that democracy comes with a price tag and that impunity will no longer be accepted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Günther">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Togo is a symbol of cooperation between Europe and Africa.
The Lomé Convention always has been and still is a milestone in this kind of cooperation.
This has made it all the more painful for us all that it was only with great difficulty that we were able to hold the last but one meeting of the ACPEU Joint Assembly in Togo and to accept Togo's invitation.
A number of Members of this House had particular problems making the decision to travel to Togo.
<P>
There is a lesson to be drawn from what has happened in Togo and that is that we should not necessary believe empty promises.
For the highly embarrassing personality cult manifested at the last meeting of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly showed all too well the direction in which things were developing.
Although those in power were prepared to hold elections, they had undoubtedly also started looking for the loopholes which, if the result went in a direction they did not like, they could use as a sort of emergency brake.
<P>
In our resolution - as Mrs André-Léonard has already mentioned - we have indicated that the media were also manipulated to a large extent.
May I, however, remind you all that we are not so very far away from such things in Europe. We just have to look at the sort of media manipulation which has been visited upon the electorate in the so-called election campaigns in Serbia and elsewhere.
<P>
I am pleased that cooperation with Togo has not yet been resumed. I believe that recent events show that the resumption of this cooperation should not be hurried.
<P>
Several amendments to this text have been tabled.
I would simply like to explain that I think Amendments Nos 4 and 5 are acceptable, one because it refers back to Article 366a, the Mauritius resolution.
Amendment No 5 is actually superfluous since I believe it goes without saying that we will receive the relevant report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Mr President, it really is a tragedy for Togo's democratic development that the presidential election appears now to have got completely out of hand.
It is not because the population has shown no interest; on the contrary, turnout was extremely high and it also took place very peacefully.
No, the reason is instead that the government and authorities have acted and totally undermined the credibility of the electoral process so that there can no longer be any guarantee of democratic control and insight or of those things associated with a democratic election.
Despite the promise given in connection with the meeting of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly in Lomé, despite the fact that Togo has received all the help that the country requested from the EU, despite the fact that NGOs and other human rights organisations have been very involved in the election, and despite the Togolese population's feeling of responsibility, everyone has been let down and all assurances that democratic principles would be respected have been broken.
<P>
I must say that the Commission, the EU and the ACP-EU Joint Assembly really must be observant and keep an eye on continuing political developments in Togo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Vecchi">
Mr President, Togo is a country that we have had the opportunity to become acquainted with, perhaps more than other countries in Africa, also because, as other Members recalled, at the ACP-EU Joint Assembly in October we more or less negotiated or at any rate obtained assurances from the Togolese authorities and from the leaders of the opposition, insofar as they had the power to do so, regarding the electoral process that was being organized and regarding the possibility of guaranteeing elections that were truly free and correct.
<P>
Obviously, it was also on the basis of these assurances and these commitments that, rightly so, the European Commission undertook to support the electoral process, including from the financial point of view.
<P>
We were able to see how the first round of the presidential elections on 24 June did not at all meet these expectations and those assurances; on a positive note, it should be stressed that there was widespread and correct participation in the vote by the citizens who therefore demonstrated that they had reached full maturity for democratic participation.
<P>
However, there were a number of irregularities in the organization of the elections and the counting of votes; polling stations opened late in the capital Lomé, the counting of votes was blocked, although this did not prevent the results from being announced, and there were resignations from the electoral commission.
<P>
This obviously means that, at least for the moment, under no circumstances does General Eyadema want to give up his power, regardless of the opinion of his country's citizens.
For this reason, the results of this first electoral round are not credible, and this was the judgement of the entire international community, demonstrating that pressure has to continue to be exerted on the Togolese authorities with great force.
Here, too, it is hoped that the Member States will be coherent in their attitude, something that has not always been the case in the past, so that the democratic process in this country can resume without any limitation; I believe that all the conditions are present for this to occur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Robles Piquer">
Mr President, if Nigeria, which we have just debated, with the sudden tragic deaths of General Abacha and Chief Abiola, could have perhaps given rise to a tragedy written by a modern Sophocles, then the case of Togo could be worthy of a vaudeville.
And it could be described like that if it were not offensive to the people of Togo, who have participated with real enthusiasm and with a democratic will in this first round of presidential elections.
<P>
Mr President, the resolution prepared by some of our groups is, in my view, extremely moderate and reasonable and, of course, maintains the criterion of those of us who, even before going to the penultimate meeting of the Joint Assembly, had serious doubts regarding the suitability of holding that event in that country.
<P>
We can only hope now that General Eyadema, satisfied with more than 30 years in power, recognizes that he cannot continue to be a type of "Mobutu the Second' and that he allows a democratic solution whereby the Togolese people can state their opinions with the freedom that they have lacked until now.
Until that time, there is no doubt that we must continue to give our firm and resolute support to the maintenance of the restrictive criteria regarding European aid.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="Nordmann">
This position is not one unanimously held by the liberal group, Mr President.
I believe, and I voted accordingly yesterday, that it would have been better to delay the resolution until we had the Commission's report, so that we could debate the matter in full knowledge of all the facts and more calmly.
<P>
I think it is rare, Mr President, to echo the bold statement of the previous speaker, that a leader is democratically elected with the enthusiasm of all the people, and particularly rare in Africa.
I think that it would have been useful to consider the text of the resolutions more fully, all the more so since controversy seems to be centred on the problem of the transmission of just a few results.
<P>
In any event, we find ourselves in a situation in which it is impossible, for example, to have a debate on Angola, where President Dos Santos does not wish to proceed on to the second round of the presidential election which would legitimize him, and this shows that we have a policy for Togo which we do not apply to Angola.
Our Parliament applies the principle of two weights, two measures to Africa, and that does not strike me as being very healthy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Mr President, several political groups in our Assembly have decided to ask questions about the presidential elections in Togo.
Naturally, not one of the good apostles who signed the resolution went there to see what happened.
I, for my part, was present, as I was sent as an observer by my group and I can confirm that the operation went very smoothly in Lomé, in most of the 617 polling stations, and I was able to visit a large number of these stations, including some in the Bé district.
<P>
I have Decision No E 05/98 of 8 July of the Constitutional Court of Togo, which confirms what I myself observed and explained as early as Monday, 22 June in a communiqué.
This decision says, and I quote, "there were some irregularities because the official opening and closing times for the polling stations were not observed' .
In one polling station which closed at 11.00 p.m., I myself insisted that counting should not start until the last person present had voted.
But officially the stations closed at 6.00 p.m.
<P>
The Constitutional Court also noted that, in three districts in Lomé, counting could not be carried out in the polling stations, and that it could only take place in the central polling station.
But in those polling stations, the outgoing president obtained less than 10 % of the vote.
So, if there had been any fraud, it certainly was not to the benefit of the president.
Finally, the Constitutional Court annexed to its decision all the documents, including the results of the vote counts.
<P>
This is why I have some serious questions to ask about the role played by ERIS and Reporters sans frontières and I would like to ask who chose them.
How has it been possible to spend ECU 2 million, while the final report is still not ready because of continuing disagreement between the observers who ostensibly speak on our behalf?
I give far more credit to the Togolese Constitutional Court, to the African OAU observers, to delegates from the French-speaking world, to Americans from the Center for Contemporary Diplomacy and to the President of the Malian National Assembly, Mr Diello, than to the small team designated by DG VIII, and I hope that the Court of Auditors will be able to study how the money was spent, because I am really very fearful that the money has been wasted for ideological and partisan reasons.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="Scarbonchi">
Mr President, I was in Togo as a representative of the radical left party and I was part of a small group of parliamentarians who were there.
I was an observer for fifty polling stations, together with American and English lawyers.
<P>
I saw that the election took place without violence: of course there were some imperfections as regards voting cards and electoral lists, but overall, if one compares this election with others on the same continent, the voting took place in exemplary conditions.
<P>
In contrast, it was when the counting of results was centralised that a certain number of mistakes and problems appeared, the most important, of course, being the resignation of the electoral commission and the transfer of the counting of results to the Minister for the Interior.
<P>
May I be permitted to say that even if it is the rule of our Assembly and whereas by means of assistance from DG VIII, we have provided fairly unique and exceptional technical support for a presidential election in Africa, it is not normal for an election of this kind that our Parliament did not send a parliamentary team of observers to help with this election.
We would perhaps have had a totally different debate from the one we are holding now in favour of this resolution.
<P>
Nor is it acceptable for firms engaged by the European Union and by the Commission to organize technical support, to entrust students with the task, however excellent such students may be.
<P>
Mr President, I would like to specify that my Amendment No 6 is not intended to replace Article 4, but in fact to complement it.
Why?
Because it seems obvious to us to point out that, since the Commission has raised the matter with the Togolese authorities, we should wait for results from them.
<P>
In conclusion, Mr President, it is the Togolese people who are being penalised in this matter and not Mr Eyadema.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, when we are talking about elections in an African country, a country where voters have not been consulted for a long time, we certainly cannot expect elections to be as orderly and precise as they are in the West, in Europe or in countries where there has been democracy for many years.
It is certain, moreover, that the procedures used to conduct the presidential elections in Togo are extremely suspect in more than one way.
It is difficult to establish what really happened, but we cannot forget that, when we decided to hold the Joint Assembly in Lomé, our decision was based on the return of conditions of substantial democracy and not only formal democracy, and all the Community institutions must focus their attention on this aspect.
<P>
Guinea-Bissau
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Girão Pereira">
Mr President, Commissioner, according to the latest calculations the recent crisis in GuineaBissau has left several hundred people dead and about 400 thousand homeless.
In Bissau, the capital, alone the population has fallen from 300 thousand inhabitants to around 25 thousand.
The shortage of food and, especially, the lack of medical assistance are becoming acute.
<P>
The Commission's action in providing rapid and plentiful humanitarian aid is to be applauded.
It must also be said that Portugal has made a notable effort in that respect.
But it is incomprehensible that Senegal has still not been persuaded to authorize humanitarian corridors from Dakar to provide aid to the people who have been displaced.
<P>
We support the restoration of constitutional order, but we know the root-cause of the crisis is internal political and social decay, and we must be aware that the presence of foreign troops, particularly Senegalese troops, is of special significance in the region and does nothing to restore institutional order. It is more likely to take the country into a new phase of guerrilla war, the duration and consequences of which are unforeseeable.
In this respect, too, the European Union can and must play an important role.
<P>
On the subject of the conflict in Guinea-Bissau, it might be appropriate to give some thought to the constant convulsions that are occurring on the west coast of Africa, particularly along the new oil and raw-materials corridors.
It is vital that the industrialized countries of Europe or other parts of the world should not march into Africa under the flag of economic-interest diplomacy, because this often causes tension, but rather help Africa to find its own way to development, democracy and respect for human rights.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at this point I must mention Angola.
There are increasing quantities of oil in that country, but there are also increasing signs that the peace process is breaking down, young men are being recruited into the Army, troops and military equipment are being moved around, artificial war scenarios are being created, summary executions are held, while for some reason I cannot understand the United Nations have not yet appointed a mediator in succession to the late Maître Beye.
I believe the Commission and the international community can play an important part in preventing this deterioration of the peace process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cunha">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the situation which has existed in Guinea-Bissau for almost four and a half months is reaching alarming proportions, indeed tragic proportions where the future of the country is concerned, with the sacrifice of human lives and fundamental rights and the destruction of major physical and economic infrastructures.
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In that respect I should like to emphasize three basic points, which in fact are in line with my group's motion.
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In the first place, it is absolutely deplorable that up to now all the efforts of various international organizations, including a Portuguese-Angolan mission, have not achieved a definitive cease-fire and a peaceful political solution to the problem, owing to lack of goodwill on the part of those involved in the conflict.
Equally deplorable are the obstacles that have been raised by neighbouring countries to prevent emergency aid from reaching the people affected by the war.
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In the second place, I would like to say that the direct or indirect introduction of foreign troops into an internal conflict in a foreign country is absolutely deplorable and they must be withdrawn from Guinea-Bissau as an urgent and inevitable precondition for any peaceful solution.
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In the third place, I would like to emphasize that it is vital to find a peaceful solution to the conflict by political means that respect the fundamental rights of citizens, preserve their collective future and respect democratically-elected institutions.
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It is in this hope that I support our appeal to the United Nations Security Council, the OAU and the European Union that they actively endeavour to find a political solution to end this deplorable and fratricidal war.
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<SPEAKER ID=159 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Mr President, no effort should, of course, be spared by the international community with regard to getting conflicting parties to the negotiation table and trying to achieve a sustainable, long-term political solution which can create peace in the whole region, and which can also guarantee that Guinea-Bissau's borders are respected and respect for human rights restored.
<P>
Unfortunately, the reports we have received are worrying.
Among other things, there are problems with obtaining humanitarian aid such as medicine, drinking water and food.
I really hope that the Commission will exercise pressure to bring about a corridor for humanitarian aid.
<P>
It is also worrying that people are being held in captivity and as hostages.
They are being treated very badly according to a report from Amnesty International.
In addition, among journalists and those working for human rights there are many who are afraid.
I therefore fully support paragraph 11 of this resolution, which proposes that a delegation from the ACP-EU Joint Assembly be sent to the country to find out both how aid can be provided quickly and how we can help to resolve the conflict.
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<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Scarbonchi">
Mr President, in order to make up for the accumulated delay, I will on this occasion make you very happy by being particularly brief.
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Our group does not wish paragraph 9, demanding the non-intervention and withdrawal of all foreign troops, to feature in the resolution, because we think that the presence of Senegalese troops is still needed in order to combat the rebels and stabilize the situation in the country.
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Put simply, we would like paragraph 9 to be dropped from the resolution.
That is the wish of the ARE Group.
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<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Apolinário">
Madam President, Commissioner, it was originally intended that my colleague Mr Barros Moura should speak at this point.
Mr Barros Moura has been prevented from attending at the last minute, but as one of the signatories to the resolution, I should like to underline one or two points on my own and Mr Barros Moura's behalf.
<P>
Firstly, there can only be peace or mediation for peace if the warring forces, the belligerents, want it to happen.
Secondly, we consider it essential to emphasize the need to withdraw foreign troops and prevent this war from being gradually extended to other countries.
Thirdly, it is important in that respect to accept the possibility of UN or OAU troops intervening if the parties agree.
<P>
We are also concerned about the humanitarian situation of the people of Guinea-Bissau.
The obstacles to humanitarian aid, particularly the Senegalese forces themselves, will worsen the situation.
If we do not act quickly and effectively, the situation will deteriorate day by day in humanitarian terms.
In addition, this House has condemned the military coup, as we have done on previous occasions, and has supported the restoration of constitutional and institutional order, which means respect for institutions, especially the elected Parliament, but also respect for human rights (on this point see in particular the petitions by the NGOs and Amnesty International itself).
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Finally, there must be an immediate cease-fire, saving human lives and enabling the country to start functioning again while searching for a peaceful political solution that guarantees Guinea-Bissau's territorial independence and integrity.
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<SPEAKER ID=162 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Madam President, Commissioner, we have followed the developments in the situation in Guinea-Bissau with great concern.
Being familiar with the country (we were there not long ago), since the outbreak of the war which has been dragging on since 7 June, we are on the side of those who have unequivocally supported a political solution to end the war, and most of all to end the suffering of a people.
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Despite several attempts at mediation, the armed conflicted has dragged on, with the continued direct involvement of foreign military forces which have done nothing to assist the negotiated political settlement we want to see, and this has resulted in the most appalling human consequences in terms of loss of life and material possessions and created hundreds of thousands of refugees.
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This disastrous situation is being prolonged and it is vital that it should be ended. It affects one of the world's poorest countries, which makes it even more deplorable inasmuch as it threatens the future and the real independence of a country, the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, after a heroic struggle by the PAIGC and a man of the political and human stature of Amilcar Cabral.
<P>
Thus we demand that a political solution be sought, leading to and guaranteeing the maintenance of peace and respect for the cultural and territorial integrity of Guinea-Bissau, ending the involvement of other countries in the war, and encouraging foreign military forces to return to their own countries.
In the meantime, practical humanitarian aid must be supplied for the people as a matter of urgency, by opening up corridors by which aid can reach those who need it, and removing anything that might hinder it.
Our position as Members of the European Parliament and Portuguese citizens can only be to affirm and give practical expression to our active and disinterested solidarity in both political and humanitarian terms.
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<SPEAKER ID=163 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendes Bota">
Madam President, 350 thousand homeless, 100 thousand of whom are in danger of starving to death, hundreds of civilians and soldiers dead, atrocities against women and children, fear among the intellectual sectors of the internal political opposition, lack of food, medicines and drinking water - these are the ingredients of this disaster.
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The military forces must not be allowed to go on preventing humanitarian aid from reaching people at risk.
One mediation effort follows another without much success.
There is now talk of bringing in Mozambique or the whole of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries to assist in the Portuguese-Angolan mediation effort.
Or using an intervention force from the OAU or the Economic Community of West African States.
An immediate cease-fire is the key to resolving a conflict with a dangerous tendency to perpetuate itself and become generalized.
Constitutional order must be restored.
The government's mandate ended on 4 June, and therefore Nino Vieira, as President-elect, has the legitimate power - but greater responsibility - to promote a cease-fire, dialogue and negotiation.
Only when all this has been done will the conditions be in place for reconciling the political process with a national government of reconstruction and the holding of legislative and presidential elections which will enable Guinea-Bissau to commence a new stage in its history in 1999.
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<SPEAKER ID=164 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the situation of Guinea-Bissau is nothing more than a specific part of a larger picture in a region of Africa that, like other regions, is continually destabilized politically to the point that there is little real political authority or concrete guarantees for the population.
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There is clearly not much the European Union can do, but there are at least two areas where it has to focus its immediate attention.
Its first objective must be to ensure that humanitarian aid, food and medicine rapidly reach the populations in this very problematic area.
The other objective, in the medium to long term, is to promote a peace process that, although certainly dangerous and difficult, is also the only condition for development of this area.
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Burma
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<SPEAKER ID=165 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Madam President, the Liberal Group is pleased that there is a strong text about Burma.
I also hope that this resolution will open the eyes of the Dutch company IHC Caland to the hard, unacceptable reality in Burma.
Although there is not yet an official economic boycott, because France once again is protecting the trade interests of Total, it is a scandal that this Dutch company is going against the virtually complete consensus for disinvestment and against new investment.
I find it particularly regrettable to have to reprimand Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan, but nonetheless I must express my astonishment concerning his condemnation of the boycott policy of the state of Massachusetts.
We, the Liberals, believe that the European Union must support the appeal of President Clinton of May of this year.
His call for a ban on new investment should be an example for us, Commissioner.
The Union must be prepared to anticipate the UN sanctions.
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Finally, Madam President, the Burmese authorities must be placed under heavy pressure and an end must come to the systematic annihilation of the minorities in that country.
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<SPEAKER ID=166 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Madam President, the situation in Burma is deteriorating rapidly at this time.
This applies both to the economic situation and to the political situation. Economically, Burma is on the edge of the abyss.
The military regime, after all, is surviving on the drugs trade and partly also on forced state labour, and for months has been unable to stop the downward spiral of the economy. The population appears to be suffering more and more.
Politically speaking, repression has also increased in recent months. This applies both to the opposition and to minority groups.
The Karen people and the Shan are suffering, as are the Naga, the Mon, the Karenni and the Kachin peoples.
The systematic killings and ethnic cleansing are resulting in hordes of refugees in neighbouring countries, especially Thailand, India and Malaysia.
These numbers have recently increased dramatically. Like the attacks on the refugee camps, killings and kidnappings have become common.
The opposition is also suffering.
Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested because she wanted to travel to the North, and she was again given severe house arrest with the threat of imprisonment.
Various members of the opposition are being threatened or are already imprisoned, and this in a country where there are already many political prisoners.
It is known that the military government fears that the situation will escalate even further around 8 August, because the remembrance will take place then of the student revolt of a number of years ago which cost so many lives.
Moreover the regime is afraid that the situation in Indonesia will spread to Burma.
Meanwhile the criticism of Burma within the ASEAN region is increasing, because Burma was admitted with the promise that it would do something positive regarding human rights and democracy.
This simply did not happen.
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Madam President, we have previously made requests in this Parliament for a halt to European investment.
An economic boycott is needed.
Against this background it is incomprehensible - I say this to Sir Leon Brittan - that he has lectured Massachusetts because they have simply begun doing this.
Perhaps you are legally correct, but morally speaking, you are not correct.
What we want from the Commission and the Council is in fact to follow the United States and stop investment and put the regime in Burma under more pressure.
This must happen, Madam President, and this is something that the Commission is certainly capable of doing.
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<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Madam President, first of all I would like to point out once again the absence of a colleague who is particularly dear to us - Mr Avgerinos. As we all know, he is responsible for considering the reform of the topical and urgent debate.
As we have not seen him during the past few months, I think it is important to point out that he is not here today either.
Perhaps he finds it more valuable to gather the opinions of all and sundry in the corridors of Parliament, which would perhaps explain the first proposals which he has put to us.
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As regards Burma, I do not think there is a great deal to add to what Mr Bertens and Mrs Maij-Weggen have said: the European Union must not lag behind the United States.
Pressure has already been exerted; it has not achieved the results which we might have expected.
The abolition of preferential tariffs has not brought about any change whatsoever on the part of the Burmese authorities.
I think that we have to go a lot further and opt resolutely for a boycott.
Just as the Americans, for once, have a very clear position on this matter, the European Union could usefully join with the United States and try, once and for all, to put an end to this absurd regime.
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<SPEAKER ID=168 NAME="Harrison">
Madam President, Burma is a mess and it is now becoming a nasty mess.
Fifty elected representatives have been gaoled whilst other MPs suffer the indignity of having to report twice daily to local police stations at the behest of the government.
Three hundred thousand internally displaced Karen people are on the run from the Burmese army.
Systematic destruction of Karen villages is combined with rape of women from all the Burmese minorities.
Destruction of food stores precedes massacres and ethnic cleansing of the Naga, Shan, Mon, Karen and Kachin peoples.
And now the growing numbers of Karen and Shan refugees in Thailand present new problems for the countries of ASEAN.
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The European Union must make a stand.
Rightly, the EU-ASEAN Joint Committee has not met, since to meet would mean allowing Burma full representation.
We can do more.
We should encourage the UN Human Rights Commissioner, Mary Robinson, to install permanent observers in Burma to monitor human rights.
We call upon the Commission to implement full economic sanctions against Burma and to prohibit investment in Rangoon until human rights are properly respected.
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The UN Security Council should also encourage global economic sanctions against the ruthless dictators of Burma.
The Thai Government, too, could help.
Better protection along the Thai-Burmese border can give confidence to refugees fleeing Burma's undemocratic and despotic regime.
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We call on the Burmese Government to permit the UN special rapporteur on Burma to visit the country freely, and to allow him to carry out his mandate by guaranteeing him full access to the regions inhabited by the Karen people.
Moreover we demand that foreign companies investing in Burma, such as Total and Premier Oil, should freeze their investments immediately.
We recognise and support ASEAN's right to choose its own membership, but as the days and months pass it becomes increasingly clear that ASEAN has invited an unwelcome cuckoo into its nest of nations, spoiling its chances of developing modern democracies and respecting human rights whilst encouraging economic development to provide for its people.
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Now is the time for the EU to stand up and be counted.
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<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="McKenna">
The UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Burma has expressed very deep concern about the recent reports that members of the NLD continue to be victims of arbitrary arrests and various forms of restriction.
The NLD has called for Parliament to be convened by 21 August and has also repeatedly called on the military rulers to engage in dialogue.
However, as Mr Harrison has just pointed out, the government has responded by ordering all the elected members not already in jail or exiled to report twice a day to local authorities, basically to stop them convening on their own.
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It is high time that the EU took a moral stand on the situation in Burma.
The Commission and Council have to implement full economic sanctions against Burma and prohibit any investment until the situation as regards human rights violations has been settled.
As Mr Harrison said, the UN High Commissioner, Mary Robinson, should send a permanent observer to investigate the human rights situation and the atrocities committed by the Burmese authorities in the areas inhabited by oppressed minorities.
This has been going on for too long and we have to do something about it.
<P>
Sudan
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<SPEAKER ID=170 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Madam President, today the newspapers have made the happy announcement that the warring parties in southern and northern Sudan have agreed to a cease-fire.
I hope that several hundred thousand people in southern Sudan can now be saved from starvation.
But we have certainly learned our lesson in Sudan.
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This development is indeed the first step in the framework of an active European policy, and hopefully on this basis preparations can begin for a referendum on the independence of southern Sudan.
Both parties have previously committed themselves to this, but now that must be proved.
International supervision will be essential if this referendum is to proceed in an honest fashion.
Both parties must also be involved with organizing the referendum.
In the meantime, the government in Khartoum must prove its credibility as a partner by making a priority of democracy and human rights, by releasing political prisoners and developing the constitutional state.
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<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schiedermeier">
Madam President, I can endorse much of what Mr Bertens has said, for the situation in Sudan really is a sad and never-ending story.
This I know as a rapporteur in the ACP-EU Joint Assembly.
The problem has been the same for many years now. We simply cannot get things moving.
The parties are not prepared to agree on a peaceful solution.
There is a danger that it will become a Thirty Years War.
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I believe that the Council is right in supporting the IGAD and in endeavouring to engineer things so that we can send another ministerial mission to Khartoum and Nairobi and put a stop to the fighting.
As Mr Bertens rightly said, according to newspaper reports the SPLA has declared that it is ready to stop the fighting for three months.
I hope this happens as it is the only chance to help the people.
With the terrible drought it is already very late anyway.
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Then we must work to secure peace as quickly as possible.
If we manage to achieve peace, then all the measures required to help the people there can be carried out calmly.
Even if peace is secured it will not be easy to solve the problems there, as it will not be possible to make good the damage which has been caused there and to restore the structures which have been destroyed over night.
I am afraid that even once the conditions are right there will still be an awful lot of work to do before the families which have been broken up can be reunited and everything else which needs to be done can be done.
Let us do everything we can to ensure that these conditions are created.
Then we can start to rebuild.
That is the first step.
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<SPEAKER ID=172 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Vecchi">
Madam President, unfortunately in the region of the Horn of Africa and neighbouring areas the situation continues to deteriorate and is very serious, and there is no doubt that what has been occurring in Sudan now for many years is today one of the most worrisome and destabilizing factors.
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The dramatic pictures that we have received these past few weeks, like in the past, of famine and the consequences of war, particularly in the regions of southern Sudan, have again drawn our attention to the situation of this country.
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We know that it has always been extremely difficult, even when famine has been at its worst, to get aid from the international community to the populations affected, especially because the warring factions, and the authorities in Khartoum in particular, have always blocked it.
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We must now attempt to take political action with great firmness and also great intelligence to take advantage of every possible opportunity to help definitively change this situation.
Agreement on a cease-fire is something that we have always sought and wanted, and according to the information reaching us, it seems that a situation of this type could very well be developing, something that we obviously hope is true.
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At the same time, however, there must be a political will to take concrete and extremely urgent action so that humanitarian aid - which must be substantial - reaches the populations suffering from famine, and there must also be coherent political action involving first and foremost the regional players and IGAD but also the European Union to arrive at a peaceful and possibly definitive solution to the conflicts in Sudan.
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<SPEAKER ID=173 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Madam President, to improve the humanitarian situation in Sudan this Parliament has adopted five resolutions with the same intent during the past ten months.
Yesterday, in my opinion, the Austrian President-in-Office answered the Members' questions sufficiently.
I can add nothing to this.
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Therefore, I think it wise to ask the Parliament to turn its attention towards a country where conflict is breaking out.
A country that in the year 2000 can provide one million barrels of oil and where 60 % of the population lives below the subsistence level.
A country where the government at this time is recruiting young people in the cities and mobilizing for battle. A country where the elite is corrupt, where generals turn into businessmen and where the fate of human rights activist Sahandu Neto is unclear.
Presidents Kabila, Dos Santos and Nujoma have agreed to allow the Angolan army - and this is the country I am speaking about - to carry out their operations on their territories.
The seriousness of the threat has been shown by the fact that the Portuguese have established an army group to evacuate their citizens from Angola.
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I request that the Commissioner send a signal via our mission in Luanda that this conflict may not be allowed to break out, to call for the second round of elections and especially to say that the profits from oil must not be spent on arms, but on the Angolese.
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<SPEAKER ID=174 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Madam President, when the outcome of a civil war unites with repression, the infringement of human rights and drought, the result is what we have been seeing in the press in recent days: the threat of a terrible ravenous hunger affecting hundreds of thousands of people.
Therefore, the United Nations has called on the Commission and the Member States to provide as much humanitarian aid as possible.
And we must demand that the Sudanese authorities allow that aid to reach the displaced civil population because if it does not, the same thing will happen again as happens so many times due to the causes we are all aware of.
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In any case, we must support the peace process.
And there would be no harm in taking a look at the United Nations Human Development Report, which states clearly that this country and others will not escape their absolute poverty if they do not manage to achieve a fairer distribution of wealth and greater respect for basic human rights: the right to eat, to live, to be educated and to enjoy good health.
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<SPEAKER ID=175 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Castagnède">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, once more our Parliament is called upon to make a statement on the situation in the Sudan, without however being really convinced, either of the effectiveness of its previous interventions, or of the currency and exhaustiveness of its information.
Thus, the joint motion for a resolution submitted for our attention obviously ignores both the few improvements in access to areas hit by food shortages authorized by the Sudanese government as well as the cease-fire decreed by the southern movement, led by John Garang.
It does not highlight the relative progress that has been made towards the setting up of a democratic system, as represented by the adoption of the Sudanese constitution, or the developments in the negotiation progress between the main parties to the conflict.
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In general, it does not appear to be based on a detailed analysis of the causes of the civil conflict in the Sudan, on sufficient understanding of the situation on the ground, or on the influence of external interventions, in a region where political instability is almost all-pervasive.
<P>
While we must of course approve of the interest shown by Europe in re-establishing peace and democracy in the Sudan, it would seem to us that the efforts designed to achieve these objectives require a new type of approach, a method based first of all on better information, in conjunction with arranging a mission on the ground or organizing hearings for representatives of parties to the conflict.
This method would, eventually, replace systematic and sometimes unbalanced condemnation, with the systematic encouragement of all parties to the conflict, to progress towards dialogue and work towards peace and the institution of democracy.
<P>
Situation in Georgia and Abkhazia
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<SPEAKER ID=176 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Madam President, the conflict in Abkhazia in the Caucasus has again flared up.
Many hundreds of people have already been killed, thousands are fleeing.
The cease-fire of 25 May did not last long.
Despite the efforts of the United Nations and the OSCE, the situation is still tense, to use an understatement.
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Everything must be done to limit the destructive force of that conflict.
Both parties in the conflict must be convinced that violence is, of course, not the solution.
It is precisely now - when democratization in Georgia is on the right track, and with the help of our Union the reconstruction of the country has begun to make some progress - that we must make every effort to prevent this process from being derailed.
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We must redouble our efforts to promote sustainable peace and development in the region.
I am therefore also pleased, Commissioner, that your colleague, Mr van den Broek, visited the region last month and, with the extra help that he promised, that the civilian society can make some progress.
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<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Madam President, here again we are witnessing a nasty trick.
We are including a highly political issue under the heading of human rights because natural disasters have occurred in Georgia although they are no longer among our Parliament's priorities. Well, really!
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The Georgian question is a political one - and there again we are averting our gaze, because we are preparing to approve a very reasonable resolution which does not add to the problem.
What is needed is to allow Georgia to join the European Union very quickly, to avoid what happened in Yugoslavia where, for years, the Commission and the Council have watched the situation deteriorate.
It is essential that we propose rapid accession to the EU to the Georgian authorities, who are only waiting for this.
<P>
Georgia is a strategic region for the European Union.
It represents access to central Asia, Marco Polo's famous silk trail, the oil reserves in Azerbaijan where the English, French, Italians and other countries in the Union already have a strong presence.
The only way to ensure stability in the region is to allow Georgia to join the European Union quickly.
As Professor Gerenek said yesterday, one is not born a European, one becomes a European.
The Georgians have demonstrated this.
They have unilaterally undertaken to adapt their laws to those of the Union.
We must therefore encourage them, that is what they are waiting for.
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The entry of Georgia into the Union would also help to make a constructive contribution to the problem of the Abkhazia who, as we know, and so long as there are no clear prospects for accession, will always be subject to the goodwill of the Russians, who have every interest in keeping some kind of influence in this area.
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<SPEAKER ID=178 NAME="Hoff">
) Madam President, in the joint resolution we emphatically condemn the most recent acts of violence against the Georgian people.
The resolution also expresses our full support for the President of Georgia who has set in motion a process of political and economic reforms.
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This process includes the strengthening of internal stability which has already made progress in the past. The peaceful solution of the crisis in Abkhazia is an important prerequisite for further consolidation and an important condition for the stabilization of the country.
We regret that fighting started in the region again in May, bringing with it deaths and hundreds of thousands of refugees.
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In order to continue the policy of reform in Georgia, further peaceful, political solutions to the conflict in Abkhazia must be found.
We therefore urgently advise the parties to take an active role in the UN peace process, and have reiterated this in point 2 of the resolution in which we call for adherence to the 1994 Moscow Agreement on a cease-fire and separation of forces and the 1998 cease-fire protocol, as well as to the obligation to refrain from all use of force.
This plea goes out to both sides, and I very much hope that the resolution will be passed unanimously in this form.
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<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Madam President, reading this resolution and comparing it with the events of the last 48 hours, I have to say that there appears to be some discrepancy.
For only the day before yesterday a Polish woman from the United Nations, Maria Magdalena Wewiorska, 31 years of age, was shot dead in Georgia, probably by Georgian criminals.
<P>
I would just like to say this for the record because it shows once again that certain neat explanations about countries we know little about actually mean very little, and that we should finally admit once and for all that conditions there are terrible.
We should not play this down. Most importantly, we should ask ourselves seriously whether there is really any sense in sending Europeans to support the Russian Army in Georgia now because it has been officially announced.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Madam President, the conflict in Abkhazia is one of those conflicts which always fill us with concern because, after the military debacle, hatred amongst the population is so deep that it splits it, and efforts to secure peace progress very slowly.
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The return of families to Gali was based on the great hope that it would finally be possible to bring the conflict under control.
The fighting has now destroyed this hope.
But what is the EU doing to improve the possibilities of a return to peace?
Sometimes it is necessary to proceed in small steps.
That is why the Council of Europe has endeavoured to implement a programme of confidence-building measures, such as the Ertoba Radio Company project.
To date not one single Member State has offered its support for this measure.
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What is needed is a few small projects to restore understanding amongst the population.
For this reason we are calling upon the Council to finance measures designed to build confidence amongst the population and to devote considerably greater attention to this.
<P>
Vietnam
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Madam President, there is not a lot to say about Vietnam, other than this is the first time that our Parliament is preparing to give its opinion on a matter which, sadly, is still taboo for many Members of our European Parliament.
I would like to thank the colleagues from the PPE and from the Liberal Group for having supported this resolution.
<P>
Unfortunately, the Socialist Group and the Confederal Group of the European United Left do not support it.
I could perhaps remind them that they adopted the same position on North Korea and on China, on Mongolia, and on Eastern Turkestan, and you will quickly see that there is a common denominator underlying this attitude of the Socialist and United Left Groups.
<P>
As soon as old comrades are involved, everything is permitted even if, as in Vietnam, we all know that nothing is changing.
Of course, there is no Pinochet there, but the human rights situation is not getting any better.
It is a dictatorship, a red dictatorship, and therefore a lot more tolerable, but it is a dictatorship nevertheless, and I think that it is important for our Parliament to remember this.
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<SPEAKER ID=182 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Madam President, Commissioner, this resolution contains everything it possibly can about human rights, and the European Parliament has always made its views on human rights very clear.
I believe that we should look at the issue of human rights in a country with some reference to the historical context of that country.
If we look at the whole history of Vietnam, we can see that there is one part of Vietnam where we have become accustomed to seeing human rights infringed and abused and another part where - in our version - this did not happen in the same form at least until the 1970s.
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Since then and since the war in Vietnam, we have more or less blocked this country from our memories, banished it from our consciences and it is time that we shook these consciences awake again, faced up to what is really going on there and made it clear here in the European Parliament that we cannot remain silent if such things, if such crimes are really taking place there.
<P>
This is why this resolution is so important. It is good that it has come here to the Parliament, that it attempts to highlight the situation so that in the future a relationship between the European Union and Vietnam will be possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
Madam President, with regard to Togo, the conditions under which the elections were held there on 21 June prompted the EU to adopt a statement on 26 June expressing our deep concern at the conduct of the election and doubts about the credibility of the result announced by the Minister for the Interior, namely a first-round victory for President Eyadema.
<P>
On a proposal from the Commission, the European Union has invited the Togolese Government to hold consultations in keeping with the procedure set out in Article 366a of the Lomé Convention.
The first phase of the consultations will give the Togolese Government the opportunity to explain the irregularities observed during the process and say what measures have been or are to be adopted to remedy them.
If this preliminary phase does not give satisfactory results for the two sides, our commitment on cooperation could be put into jeopardy.
<P>
The launch of this procedure shows the importance we attach to this electoral process.
Its purpose is to open a dialogue to help find a way to restore the rule of law and respect for democratic principles with a view to normalising relations, including the provision of EU-funded cooperation projects.
<P>
With regard to Guinea-Bissau, the Commission agrees with the comments in the proposed resolution submitted to Parliament for adoption.
We have kept a careful eye on developments in Guinea-Bissau and deplore the fact that internal military conflict has been continuing for the last month and, indeed, as in recent days, increased in violence and intensity.
We appeal for a peaceful solution which would guarantee peace.
<P>
We are aware of the difficulties currently facing the civilian population, in particular the lack of food, medicines and water.
That is why, through ECHO, the Commission has released ECU 1 million in humanitarian aid for the distribution of food, water and medicines to those who have been displaced to the interior of the country.
<P>
The Commission supports the mediation efforts of a number of regional leaders and Member States, including those of Angola and Portugal, and calls on all parties to the conflict to negotiate a definitive cease-fire.
<P>
With regard to Burma, the Commission deplores the widespread human rights abuses there, including executions, arbitrary detention of political prisoners and refugees, the forced relocation of Shan villagers, combined with the systematic destruction of Karen, Shan and Karenni villages, as well as their food supplies, by the Burmese military.
We use every opportunity to urge the government to engage in peace talks and enter into substantive dialogue with the opposition led by Aung San Suu Kyi and the ethnic minorities.
Since Burma is now a member of ASEAN, we are especially urging our ASEAN partners to use their influence on their newest member.
<P>
The Commission has explained to this House on many occasions that it does not have the power to impose sanctions or call on the private sector to refrain from investing.
This issue has to be determined by the various bodies of the Council, which so far have not opted for that route.
<P>
As far as America is concerned, whatever the position of the US Administration may be, it is not appropriate for an individual state - Massachusetts - to seek to coerce European Union businesses to take action of a particular kind.
That is not compatible with international law and we have rightly made a strong protest.
That in no way implies support for anything that is done in Burma, which we have criticised repeatedly and frequently.
But it is a great mistake, to put it mildly, for an individual state in a friendly country to seek to pursue a foreign policy of its own by exerting unacceptable pressure on businesses in the European Union.
We actively support the Burmese democracy movement through our human rights and democracy budget line.
We are co-funding a project of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung , which has set up a Euro-Burma Office in Brussels, aiming to build awareness and disseminate accurate information on the true situation in Burma.
The initiative is also providing training in good governance and democracy for Burmese opposition members and future leaders.
<P>
With regard to Sudan, the European Commission shares the general view that the only means of bringing about a peaceful solution to the conflict is a lasting negotiated settlement based on an all-inclusive political process undertaken by all parties.
Any expression of EU concern should therefore address both sides in the conflict.
We continue to support all attempts at mediation and efforts to seek peace, and particularly the efforts of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development.
We have encouraged and expressed our full support for its diplomatic efforts.
We have held frequent discussions with those leading the talks and have intervened on several occasions to make our views known.
The European Union has also repeatedly urged the parties in the conflict to achieve a negotiated solution in the IGAD peace talks.
We reaffirmed our commitment to support that at the last meeting of the Partners' Forum Committee in The Hague last month.
In the light of the current serious humanitarian crisis, the IGAD partners decided to send a ministerial mission to Khartoum and Nairobi to explore the possibilities of securing a break in the fighting.
I very much hope that the recent news of a cease-fire proves to be true.
We are considering what form of truce or corridors of tranquillity would be of most help to the humanitarian efforts and agreeable to all concerned.
<P>
In the light of their contacts with the representatives of the Sudanese Government and the representatives of the SPLA, the IGAD partners also noted that the parties to the conflict are committed to holding the third round of peace negotiations in August 1998.
In collaboration with other partners and institutions involved we are co-funding several preparatory initiatives on governance and constitutional practice and negotiating skills.
<P>
Meanwhile we will not change our declared position on the suspension of formal development cooperation, but continue to provide humanitarian assistance to the needy population in the south as well as in the north of the country.
<P>
With regard to Georgia and Abkhazia, the Commission fully supports the presidency's declaration of 2 June and salutes the statesmanlike restraint shown by President Shevardnadze, which has prevented a further escalation of violence.
It calls on all parties to honour their commitments, including the cease-fire protocol signed on 25 May.
<P>
We share the sorrow and deplore very deeply the tragic death of a worker in recent days while assisting the people.
As Mr von Habsburg has rightly said, it is extremely difficult to ask people to go to a dangerous area if events of that kind take place.
Nonetheless, we have made available ECU 200 000 through ECHO.
The Commission decided last week to make a further contribution of ECU 1.5 million to supply clean drinking-water, sanitation and medical assistance.
In addition, some money is available from the counterpart funds established by the Commission in 1995/1996 for supplying essential equipment and drinking water.
ECHO is ready to intervene further if epidemics should break out or if the situation does not improve by the winter.
<P>
Finally, with regard to Vietnam, the Vietnamese Government has announced that a general amnesty will be held on 2 September this year.
There have been strong indications that a significant number of political prisoners could be released on that occasion.
That should be the most important amnesty in Vietnam in recent years.
<P>
We must maintain pressure on the Vietnamese leadership to improve respect for human rights, in particular freedom of religion.
We also have to encourage and support moves in the right direction such as the commitment to hold the general amnesty in September.
It is important not to discourage the Vietnamese leadership from releasing significant numbers of prisoners at the time of the amnesty, and we are looking to them to do so.
It is also essential that our efforts and those of other donors in promoting dialogue with Vietnam on good governance should continue and not be thrown into question by wider political developments.
<P>
A clear message was given to the Vietnamese Government by the Head of Delegation in Hanoi at the consultative group's mid-term review in Hue on 15 and 16 June, when it was stated that the EU considers the good governance exercise with Vietnam to be an important element in giving a political dimension to relations between the two sides.
<P>
The Commission hopes that the European Parliament will use the present resolution to send a positive appeal to the present Vietnamese leadership to use the September amnesty as a unique opportunity to respond to the expectations of the international community, drawing particular attention to the individual cases about which the European Union has already expressed serious concern.
<P>
The forthcoming EC-Vietnam Joint Commission in October will provide the occasion to judge the scope of the September amnesty and in particular to see what consideration has been given to the individuals on the EU list of political detainees.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, may I return briefly to Burma, because the Commissioner has not responded to one of my previous points.
He stated that a ban on investment has not yet been implemented in the Council in response to the action of the United States, but my question is: has the Commission actually submitted such a proposal to the Council?
The Parliament has asked for this a number of times but has the Commission actually submitted such a proposal, because before the Council can come to a decision, a proposal for a decision must first be tabled.
I believe that you cannot accuse Massachusetts of anything if we ourselves are too weak to follow the American Congress in this area, certainly when the entire Parliament is of the same opinion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
Mr President, you can blame Massachusetts.
It is not within the powers of Massachusetts and quite contrary to international law for an individual state of the United States to decide to conduct a foreign policy which seeks to coerce European Union companies.
We cannot possibly object to the Helms-Burton legislation or the Ilster legislation and then say what Massachusetts does is all right.
That is contrary to the rule of law and I have to emphasize that it is not acceptable.
<P>
As far as sanctions are concerned, there is no support for them and therefore no reason to put the question to the Council as Mrs Maij-Weggen, given her experience, knows very well.
It is not a question of just tabling a resolution.
Soundings have to be taken to establish whether there is support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Madam President, I have asked the Commissioner if the EU mission in Luanda would send out a signal to prevent a new war in that country.
This is important.
This is urgent.
Please give me an indication.
Perhaps you cannot answer positively now, but would you discuss giving that signal with your colleagues?
That is my question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
I will ensure that you have a response to that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 NAME="President">
Many thanks, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place this afternoon at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>
Earthquake in the Azores -B4-0727/98 by Mr Miranda and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the earthquake on Faial Island (Azores); -B4-0746/98 by Mr Costa Neves and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the Azores; -B4-0747/98 by Mr Rosado Fernandes and others, on behalf of the UPE Group, on the earthquake in the Azores; -B4-0768/98 by Mr Marinho and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the earthquake in the Azores;
<P>
Earthquake in Turkey -B4-0764/98 by Mr Papakyriazis and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the earthquake in Adana (Turkey); -B4-0777/98 by Mr Alavanos and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the earthquake in Adana, Turkey; -B4-0782/98 by Mr McMillanScott and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the most recent earthquake in Turkey;
<P>
Forest fires in Greece -B4-0776/98 by Mr Ephremidis and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the forest fires in Greece.
<SPEAKER ID=190 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Novo">
<SPEAKER ID=191 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Girão Pereira">
Madam President, I will be brief, since my colleague Mr Novo has already clearly identified the problem.
I would only like to say that, dramatically, only a few short months after one natural disaster in the Azores which caused several deaths through floods and landslides, there has now been another disaster.
<P>
On behalf of my group I would like to express full support for this motion, and also to affirm my confidence that the Commission will also help the Portuguese Government and the Regional Government of the Azores to find measures such as those already mentioned here, particularly the reinforcement of the REGIS programme and the Operational Programme for the Azores, to demonstrate our solidarity with this people who have been so severely afflicted, because I believe that unless that solidarity exists and is demonstrated, there will be no true spirit of European construction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Apolinário">
Madam President, there are three points I would like to mention, as one of the signatories.
<P>
Firstly, we know the Community budget includes a financial allocation for disasters, and we therefore ask for an increase in the allocation of Community funds to the Operational Programme for the Azores and the REGIS II initiative so that the Portuguese Government's solidarity with the Azores is not undermined by a web of bureaucracy in Brussels.
Secondly, the fact that these phenomena have repeated themselves clearly proves that the ultra-peripheral regions have special problems and calls for the necessary initiatives to be taken by the Commission to give practical expression to the provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty.
Thirdly and lastly, urban renewal and re-housing - in times of natural disaster - make these measures eligible under the ERDF rules for housing investment subsidies.
The current reform of the Fund regulations is a good opportunity to open that particular door.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Costa Neves">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the earthquake of 9 July, which principally affected the islands of Faial, Pico and São Jorge, has had devastating effects: there are over two thousand homeless people living in tents, and there is enormous damage to public buildings.
<P>
Owing to the scale of the disaster, families that have been victims of the disaster cannot rebuild a normal life for themselves on their own.
In any event, the Azores have no means to give them the kind of support they need in these circumstances.
We therefore have to rely on outside help.
No-one can remain indifferent to the plight of someone who loses the fruit of a lifetime's work in the space of 20 seconds.
<P>
I have been with the homeless families.
They look to us with a mixture of weakness and determination, helplessness and expectation, hoping for help but fearing it will not come.
We cannot leave them to fend for themselves.
Especially at times like this, solidarity must be more than just a concept.
They will now see who they can rely on.
<P>
We shall do our part in the Azores, but special help in reconstruction from the country and the European Union is essential.
We must ensure that, regardless of our efforts to get closer to European Union development parameters, we shall have the necessary means to provide decent living conditions for the victims of this disaster without delay.
<P>
Time is short.
The European Union has the necessary means.
All that is needed is the decision which, in the circumstances, I am sure will be taken.
However, we must define our terms.
I am not only talking about emergency humanitarian aid. That is needed as well, but it is normally so meagre, and the incomprehensible dispute between Parliament and the Commission over the use of these funds is so fierce, that my essential hopes are not placed in that quarter.
What I do hope for, and I think it is reasonable to hope for, is an increase in the funds allocated to the Azores under the Community Support Framework, and those coming from the REGIS Community Initiative, bearing in mind that the calculation of the total damage to date stands at a minimum of ECUS 90 million (18 billion escudos).
<P>
This is the only way we can ensure that we shall proceed with the scheduled investments, which are vital and urgent, and also carry out the reconstruction work which is even more vital and urgent. If we fail to do so, either we shall retard irremediably our progress towards reaching the average development parameters for our country and the European Union, or we shall not carry out any reconstruction work.
Neither of these possibilities is acceptable. The greater our need, the less ready we shall be to forgive those we rely on if they fail us; and the greater our need, the more we shall value the solidarity of those who are willing to stand with us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Correia">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, 9 July 1998 will be just one more tragic date to add to the many others that for the saddest of reasons will remain in the memories of the people of the Azores.
The facts are that at dawn on 9 July the people of the Islands of Faial, Pico and São Jorge were woken by a violent earthquake which left eight people dead, around a hundred injured and over fifteen hundred homeless.
The material damage is estimated at around 20 billion escudos.
<P>
Once again - and in this House - we reaffirm the importance of the introduction of an article in the Treaty of Amsterdam providing for differentiated and specific treatment for the ultra-peripheral regions.
We have also previously stated in this House that in view of the repetition of these situations the REGIS initiative should in future contain an element enabling it to deal with natural disasters.
In these situations, apart from expressions of sympathy, votes of condolence and verbal assurances of solidarity, which are always welcome, we should take practical action in the form of immediate direct support for the Government and citizens affected, so that not only will the public utility infrastructures be rebuilt, but elderly families without financial resources will also have their homes rebuilt.
<P>
We are aware that the Community budget makes no provision for disaster relief funds.
That is why we are suggesting to the Council, in the context of the national solidarity which has already been expressed in the reinforcement of the specific development programme for the Autonomous Region of the Azores, that it should take action to reinforce the REGIS Community initiative with funds from other Community initiatives which are not expected to be used by 1999.
This European solidarity will enable those citizens, who are Europeans like ourselves, to feel, despite all they have suffered, that it is worthwhile continuing to live and believe in the European ideal.
<P>
Earthquake in Turkey
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papakyriazis">
Madam President, on that Sunday, 28 June, the whole world froze in horror at the tragedy that befell Adana in Turkey as a result of an earthquake of biblical proportions.
It was natural for all the countries of the European Union, including my own as a neighbouring country, to hasten to the aid of the suffering populations in that region of Turkey.
<P>
I believe that such disasters, with hundreds of dead and thousands of injured victims, and with incalculable economic and social repercussions, must make the European Union treat them seriously.
<P>
I would like the European Parliament - and I believe that is what we are doing now - to express its sympathy, support and condolences to the families of all the victims, as mentioned in the joint resolution.
I believe we must call on the European Union and the Commission to try to find ways to give financial support to tackle the havoc that has been wreaked on this country.
<P>
Finally, I would like to use the opportunity of this debate on acts of God and earthquakes to mention that the European Union must at last give substantial financial backing to international cooperation for research into systems and methods to forecast, predict and give advance warning of earthquakes.
Finally, I believe that in this matter Turkey must today have the full support of the European Union, regardless of the problems it has or does not have with the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Madam President, I share the emotion and the solidarity for the victims of the recent catastrophic earthquake in Adana and I naturally support any financial and technical aid that the European Union can offer.
<P>
This misfortune may, however, offer opportunities for positive action.
In the region that extends from Italy to Greece, Turkey and the rest of the Middle East earthquakes are observed to have typically many similarities and, unfortunately, similar effects.
It is also well known, and it was confirmed recently at Adana, that prevention, the antiseismic policy in building and the appropriate intervention following an earthquake, are just not good enough and need radical modernization.
And of course more general coordination at all these stages could help significantly to reduce the consequences of the disaster.
In this connection I think that the European Union may play a decisive role.
And I ask this. Could the Commission perhaps give us some initial thoughts on the matter?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langen">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the earthquake in Turkey really is a large-scale natural disaster - 150 dead, 1 500 seriously injured, thousands of buildings damaged -, and it is both good practice and vitally necessary that we express our solidarity not only in words, but also in deeds, in the form of aid.
For this earthquake occurred in the south of Turkey, in a region which is highly dependent on tourism.
The first reports only a few weeks after this devastating earthquake reveal that tourist bookings have dropped drastically.
Turkey has reported a drop of over 40 % in this heartland of European tourism which welcomes almost 5 million European tourists every year.
<P>
So it is a disaster which goes beyond personal damage, beyond family suffering.
It is a disaster which goes beyond the physical damage which has been caused on the ground.
It is a disaster which directly affects the livelihoods of several million Turks, and therefore we need to provide rapid assistance of a practical nature.
Above all the European Union needs not only to express its solidarity as we are doing here in Parliament - and I am delighted that the Greek members have also done this - but to finally fulfil its obligations under the customs cooperation agreement with Turkey.
<P>
It is we - not the European Parliament, but rather the European Union - who have blocked a considerable percentage of the payments due to Turkey to date.
We have failed to act in accordance with the agreement and I should like to take this opportunity, in addition to expressing my solidarity with the victims, to call upon the Commission, together with the Austrian presidency, to put an end once and for all to the blockade on financial aid to Turkey so that we really can provide some practical assistance.
<P>
In the same vein, we also need to make the necessary provisions, of course, and here I agree unreservedly with the two previous speakers who have seen this as their task.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Madam President, Turkey lies on a seismic fault running from east to west. Therefore earthquakes are, unfortunately, fairly common in Turkey.
We cannot prevent earthquakes from happening, but we can, of course, alleviate the effects of them by building houses that are technically more stable and by establishing early warning systems.
<P>
This earthquake was fairly strong, 6.3 on the Richter scale.
In addition to the tragedy that people had to lose their lives, there was also considerable material damage, including damage to the electricity system and to the oil storage tanks in the town of Adana.
<P>
Turkey suffers from earthquakes.
It is therefore incomprehensible that the Turkish government is now planning to construct a nuclear power station, the first one in Turkey, only 100 km from this area.
<P>
I would like to ask the Commissioner what the Commission intends to do to appeal to Turkey and tell the country that it should not construct a nuclear power station in an area that is so vulnerable to earthquakes.
It is bad enough that a nuclear power station is being built, but we must prevent the catastrophe which could occur with a nuclear power station in this precise area.
<P>
Forest fires in Greece
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Madam President, I would ask the Commissioner not to restrict himself to a litany of solidarity and support concerning the enormous damage caused by the fires during the last two months in Greece, but to make a solemn statement that there will be immediate aid to compensate for that damage.
Tens of thousands of hectares of cultivated land and a large number of cattle farms were completely burned. Houses were burned down, infrastructure was burned, there were dead and injured as a result of the fires.
I would ask the Commissioner, therefore, to announce that this immediate aid will be provided.
In addition, I would ask him to exercise the influence that can be exercised, so that governments in Greece, including the current government, will at last create a forest registry and enforce more stringent legislation concerning the trade in land. Existing legislation is so lax that mafia groups avail themselves of arsonists in concert with commercial entrepreneurial construction interests and cause the fires in Greece, beyond what can normally be expected.
<P>
I would like to take this opportunity to point out that the Community has no effective pre-emptive policy for forestry protection.
It does not have a coordinating body or commensurate funds to exploit the modern methods made available by science and technology to prevent Europe from turning into a desert because of the fires, because fires do not occur only in Greece.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papakyriazis">
Madam President, Greece has the painful privilege of being the country where, with each of the many fires that occur, the extent of the damage is greater than anywhere else in Europe.
<P>
Of course Greece does not have a monopoly on these disastrous fires.
Because of their geophysical and climatological conditions, most regions in the countries of southern Europe are ravaged by fires.
At this moment, as we speak new fires are raging in the Peloponnese in southern Greece.
I believe that the European Parliament would like to express its support and solidarity for my compatriots.
There have been victims, human lives have been lost due to the many fires that have occurred in Greece over the last few days.
I believe that the European Commission must give immediate financial and technical assistance to these regions.
I in turn would like to stress that the European Union must deal with the matter in a systematic way, in collaboration with all national bodies, so that the appropriate initiatives can be taken for a system that will prevent and tackle such damage.
<P>
Finally, I wish to highlight in the most unambiguous way that the total prevention of these ravaged regions being turned into plots of land for building must be debated at all costs. In other words we must encourage the regeneration and reforestation of these devastated regions.
<P>
Speaking on behalf of my European Socialist colleagues of PASOK, I wish to announce that we fully endorse the resolution that has been put forward.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Trakatellis">
Madam President, every year in Greece and in other Mediterranean countries of the Community enormous areas of forests are burned.
There is no doubt that some of the fires are the result of criminal activity, the aim of which is to gain financial benefit, while most of them are the result of special climatic conditions.
It is a fact, however, that the non-existence of administrative structures, the inadequacy of coordination and the inability to deal with these fires intensify their catastrophic effect.
Moreover, inadequate prevention and lack of proper surveillance are the result of the delay in the completion of the national land registry and the non-existence of national action plans within the framework of Community Regulation 308/97 for the protection of Community forests against fire.
I call on you, Commissioner, to inform us: firstly whether the action plans were handed over to you by the Greek government in 1997 and what sums of money were pledged for that purpose from the Community budget; secondly, what is happening with the work of the national land registry which is being financed by the second Community Support Framework and for which the Greek government was requested to make cutbacks and to transfer money to other works.
<P>
Last year, on the occasion of the great fire of Thessaloniki, I had already called for overall strategic prevention and the setting up of the European Centre for Protection Against Fire for the systematic study and prevention of disasters and, indeed, relating to areas of high biodiversity, in connection with which the European Union had signed a special convention.
It is therefore essential that it protect these forests and precious regions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Daskalaki">
Madam President, I will not describe the disasters. My colleagues have done that very well.
I would just like to say two words. Firstly, that there is an issue in Parliament, generally, relating to disasters funds.
We ourselves abolished the budget line which corresponded to this issue. What remains for us to do?
With regard to the specific issue in hand, concerning the fires in Greece first of all, I would like to agree with my colleagues and to ask the Commission whether it plans to exert the necessary pressure, which it has the obligation to exert, on the Greek government concerning this famous land registry, which does not exist and which causes Greece to burn every year.
I would also like to ask whether, given its powers, it plans to exert pressure on the Greek government to prevent the extensive fires that burn at the hands of landgrabbers.
In addition, I would like to emphasize that in fact there is a problem, that a way needs to be found to give help, as the extent of the disasters is extremely great, and that we ourselves must try to find this way and not abolish budget lines when we need them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Madam President, clearly there are no possibilities for material help.
Nevertheless, the Commission, given its powers and responsibilities, has a very important role to play in the prevention of fires in the long term.
<P>
Beyond the whims of nature fires are caused by, or facilitated by, the lack of a land registry, because there is always the hope that the burned areas can be appropriated, and by arbitrary building and town planning that lacks infrastructure or suitable access and impedes the extinguishing of fires.
Finally - and I wish to emphasize this in particular to the Commission - fires are caused by the thousands of illegal and uncontrolled rubbish dumps over which there is no guard, which do not have the most basic infrastructure, and which become the source of fires.
<P>
The Commission can help a great deal. Firstly, it can exert pressure to speed up the land registry which, moreover, the Commission itself is financing.
It can also refuse funding which, directly or indirectly, encourages or turns a blind eye to arbitrary building.
And, of course, it can exert greater pressure on authorities, especially local and regional authorities, to build modern, protected areas for rubbish.
To achieve this it can use the threat of recourse to the courts or the cutting off of other funds.
In this way the Commission will make a significant contribution to reducing the dangers from fires in Greece.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
Madam President, beginning with the situation in the Azores and in Greece, may I say that the Commission obviously sympathises very much with the victims of the fires in Greece and the earthquake in the Azores.
First of all I want to present our sincere condolences to the families of those who have lost their lives.
I am not going to be able to answer every question that has been raised.
I will, however, give you the information that I have.
<P>
With regard to aid for the victims of these catastrophes, the Community budget for 1998 does not contain appropriations for emergency aid inside the European Community, but the areas affected by these calamities are recipients of Structural Funds aid under Objective 1.
Within the framework of the appropriations available, the public authorities can reorient their expenditure to take account of the new needs.
<P>
With regard more particularly to the earthquake in the Azores, the Commission has had initial contacts with the regional and national authorities to examine the possibilities, within the Community support framework for Portugal, of financing the necessary rebuilding work following the earthquake.
<P>
The Commission was informed that an official request from the regional authorities concerned might be submitted to the monitoring committee of the Community support framework, which is actually meeting today in Lisbon.
If that happens the Commission will, of course, consider this request in a spirit of openness.
<P>
With regard to Greece, there are operational programmes which could part-finance the restoration of the environment and forestry heritage under the Structural Funds.
Moreover, the specific programme for the prevention of forest fires can also contribute to improving prevention systems, and it should be noted that the appropriations under this programme were reduced from ECU 23 million in 1997 to ECU 17 million in 1998.
Let me finally stress that the Commission is willing to examine quickly any concrete request emanating from the competent authorities of these two countries.
I have no information beyond what I have given as to whether such requests are being made.
<P>
I can also confirm that the Commission will take all the necessary formal decisions concerning possible amendments of the existing programmes to enable us to do what I have outlined.
<P>
With regard to Turkey, as has been said, a very serious earthquake occurred on 27 June leading to considerable numbers of people being killed and injured.
Again, I would like to express our sincere sympathy and condolences to the families and individuals affected in this tragic event.
The latest reports from the Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent say that there are approximately 300 000 people living in tents, but the assessment of the damage continues.
<P>
The Turkish Red Crescent, Kizie Ay, provided immediate relief assistance in the form of tents, blankets, food supplies and mobile kitchens and over 1000 units of blood were also supplied.
The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent issued a request for funds in order to purchase emergency relief items.
A UN assessment mission conducted on 1 and 2 July reported that the government and local authorities had the situation under control and did not need or request any international assistance.
The situation has not changed since then.
<P>
OCHA, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, issued regular situation reports and acted as a channel for contributions.
All contributions received were intended for use in coordination with the relevant UN organisations.
ECHO has made a decision for the release of ECU 500 000 in response to the IFRC request for funding for emergency relief items. That will cover items such as blankets, tents, mobile kitchens and electrical generators.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 NAME="President">
Many thanks, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
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B4-0763/98 by Mr Colajanni and Mr Augias, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the restitution of property of Holocaust victims; -B4-0775/98 by Mr Puerta and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the restitution of property of Holocaust victims; -B4-0780/98 by Mrs Roth and others, on behalf of the Green Group, on the restitution of property of Holocaust victims; -B4-0781/98 by Mrs Muscardini and others, on behalf of the Non-attached Members, on the restitution of property of Holocaust victims; -B4-783/98 by Mr Dimitrakopoulos and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the restitution of property of Holocaust victims.

<SPEAKER ID=207 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="De Giovanni">
<SPEAKER ID=208 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Madam President, we are absolutely, categorically, for the resolution and for the acceptance of all requests, and we ask the Commission to carry out its duty in a responsible way because it would be unacceptable for it to play the Pontius Pilate in such matters.
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I wish to take this opportunity to say that, although the extent and the consequences may not have been the same as those of the Holocaust we are debating today, there were other Holocausts in other countries and in my own country.
And even now the German authorities refuse to pay compensation - and it concerns damages of some billions of dollars - and refuse to return the contractual loan they had signed on the understanding that it would be returned after the war, no matter what the outcome.
They find various excuses that all the money was used up, especially after the reunification of the two German states.
I would therefore ask the Commissioner to speak not only about the consequences of the Holocaust for the European population but also about this unacceptable stance of a Member State of the Community which is portraying the monster of wealth and power.
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<SPEAKER ID=209 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ullmann">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in light of the sensitivity of the subject we are dealing with, it was in my view a wise decision to leave open to the Council and the Commission the detail of the text of the resolution specifying the means by which they intend to exert pressure on the relevant institutions and governments to effect the restitution of property belonging to Holocaust victims to those persons who are legally entitled to it.
However, precisely because that is the case, because this openness was necessary, I should now like to draw attention to and underline what Mr De Giovanni has already said.
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There is in this case both a moral and a legal imperative for action.
The moral imperative consists in the fact that the Holocaust has become a universal example of the flouting of human dignity and human rights.
Such behaviour must be condemned, and we must therefore act accordingly.
The legal obligation consists in the fact that every legal system makes provision for compensation for damage suffered by a victim or restitution of that of which he has been deprived.
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However, I would like to conclude with a reference to a historical imperative for action by the European Union.
I hope that during the next legislative period, as a result of enlargement, Auschwitz will become part of the Union.
It is therefore important that the European Union is quite clear about exactly what this means for it.
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<SPEAKER ID=210 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Madam President, 50 years after the greatest tragedy of this century, the victims have still not received fair treatment, and their possessions and goods have still not been returned to them or their heirs.
Now that the facts have come out about the actual role of the Swiss banks in this tragedy, now is the time for Parliament to justifiably call on Switzerland to do justice to the victims of the Holocaust.
My group has nothing more to add to this, and we support this position completely.
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<SPEAKER ID=211 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Dimitrakopoulos">
Mr President, all of us in this House agree, I think, that, just as the Holocaust is to be condemned, the actions or oversights which are the consequences of the Holocaust are similarly to be condemned.
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It is clear that it is unquestionably incumbent upon us to find the fairest possible way of addressing the issue of some of the assets of Holocaust victims.
It will add to the overall attempt to administer justice on behalf of the victims of this disastrous policy of the past.
Switzerland, the first country in connection with which the issue of assets of Holocaust victims arose, has made a move towards some kind of arrangement, following pressure brought to bear by the international community.
There is no doubt that other corrective action is necessary so that, at least as regards this country, there is an outcome of some substance.
However, other countries that were involved in this matter need to take the same corrective action.
I believe that the European Parliament resolution that is before you today is one more push in this direction.
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<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="Newman">
Mr President, today, 53 years after the military defeat of the Nazi regime, it is shameful that appeals still need to be made to governments and banks for assets stolen from Jewish people during the Holocaust to be returned to the survivors and their heirs.
Self-evidently, living survivors are predominantly elderly, and many are infirm or living their remaining years in poverty.
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Relatives who are the heirs of the murdered victims have been denied compensation for the absurd reason that the Nazi barbarians did not issue death certificates and post them to those Jews who managed to escape the gas chambers and the pits of death which the Nazis planned as the fate for all the Jewish people.
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Where there are definitely no living heirs, assets stolen from these victims of the Holocaust should be used to finance material support for the many now elderly and poverty-stricken survivors who came originally from a background of poverty.
I fully support the European Parliament resolution which demands restitution of stolen assets, and I trust that the Commission and the Council will do everything within their powers in that area.
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However, the Shoah, the mass murder of 6 million Jewish children, women and men in Europe, can never be compensated for.
The memory of the 6 million Jewish martyrs, of their lives and emotions, of their culture and of their potential, needs to be preserved.
And very importantly, the vile racist and anti-Semitic ideas, media and actions of modern-day fascists and neoNazis in Europe need to be combated and suppressed by all necessary means.
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<SPEAKER ID=213 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Nordmann">
Mr President, following on from others, Mr Newman has just said everything and the Liberal Group quite naturally shares the basic feelings and views which have just been expressed here.
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However, we have not signed the joint text because we think that paragraph 1 has been drawn up in a very clumsy way and it is likely to downgrade the essential challenge of this text and turn the matter into a mediocre lobbying issue.
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That is why, borrowing the very words which Mr Newman used in his speech, I would immediately like to table an oral amendment - to be reiterated later - which would replace "bring every pressure to bear on the governments concerned' , with "do everything within their powers' .
The meaning of the text would not be changed as a consequence and it would mean that the text would no longer be subject to mediocre and nauseating exploitation.
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I would like this oral amendment, which I will repeat as necessary, to be accepted by all our colleagues.
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(Loud applause)
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<SPEAKER ID=214 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Mr President, I agree wholeheartedly with the ideas expressed by Mr Newman here.
I believe he has highlighted the fact that we have to continue to fight fascism today.
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This resolution mentions Jews in particular as those who suffered worst from the Nazi atrocities.
Nevertheless, I would like to remind everyone that many other groups, in addition to the Jewish people, were the victims of these horrors and general tyranny.
I would especially like to mention Romanies and homosexuals.
Their honour also must be restored.
Recently foundations have been set up in places such as Switzerland and Germany, where Jews, Romanies and sexual minorities that suffered cruelty under the Nazis may seek compensation.
The kind of compensation on offer is, unfortunately, mainly symbolic, but it is an indication that their former plight is being acknowledged today also.
I hope the Commission and Council will also consider the Romanies and homosexuals, in addition to the Jews, with regard to the restoration of property.
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<SPEAKER ID=215 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the National Alliance endorses the joint resolution of the European Parliament on the restitution of property belonging to Holocaust victims and is very pleased that a motion for a resolution which it originated and whose key signatories are Mr Muscardini and Mr Pasty as well as the President of the National Alliance, Mr Gianfranco Fini, has been included in the House's debate.
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The National Alliance delegation is particularly pleased that this was expressed by our House, considering it a natural conclusion of the passage through Parliament that it precisely sought with its two political initiatives on this topic: the written declaration of 14 January 1998 and the subsequent motion for a resolution of 20 May 1998.
Both initiatives called for the restitution of property belonging to Holocaust victims.
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It is therefore obvious that we are in total agreement on the contents and the requests of the joint resolution that we will be voting on shortly.
The supreme crime perpetrated by the Nazi criminals against those belonging to the Jewish religion, the infamous act that the allies of the Nazis sullied their hands with in various European countries, collaborating in the persecution, denouncement and searches, and not least the tragic racial legislation introduced by the Fascist regime in power in Italy make even more unjustifiable the shameful insult of the requisition of property and the concealment of assets belonging to the victims of such horrendous persecution.
This concealment we consider to be totally illegal appropriation and theft, because it is obvious that the banks and financial institutions concerned knew and know the identity of the holders of the accounts.
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For this reason, the National Alliance is proposing that the assets and property belonging to the Holocaust victims, even when it is impossible to locate the holders or heirs of the holders of such assets, be paid into a single fund managed by the World Jewish Congress or by any other association or body that this Congress may want to indicate and officialise for the purposes deemed most appropriate.
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<SPEAKER ID=216 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
Mr President, I do not think there can be any need for me to say how strongly I respect the feelings and views expressed in this debate by so many Members from all sides of the House.
Speaking personally, not only do I respect those feelings and views but I also have no difficulty in saying that I share most of the sentiments expressed.
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On the other hand, I have to state the position of the Commission and, although I cannot believe that any of my colleagues would not hold the view I have just given voice to, it is a fact that the Nazi gold affair is not one that falls within the Commission's competence.
All that the Commission can do in its contacts with the Swiss side is to express the view that it would seem to me to be very much in the Swiss interest to do the utmost to settle the issue in a satisfactory manner and, indeed, in a way that would satisfy those who have spoken in this House.
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Although it is a fact that the Commission does not have competence here, I can say that I personally warmly welcome the fact that there has been this debate in this House and that the views that have been expressed have been expressed.
I have little doubt that, amongst the welter of activities on the part of individuals and organisations, representative and non-representative, the views expressed so strongly and universally by those in this House will not be the least influential, and, I hope, will have the effect that those who have spoken would wish for.
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<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="President">
Mr Nordmann, I have already recorded your request for an oral amendment.
During your speech I will refer to it myself.
Before proceeding to the vote, I would like to inform you of the request for two oral amendments.
One is being presented by the Liberal Group and aims to replace the first words in paragraph 1, which are: ' calls on the Council and Commission, out of respect for the memory, ' by 'invites the Member States to endeavour with every means in order to respect the memory...' .
What follows remains unchanged.
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Has this been referred to me correctly, Mr Nordmann?
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<SPEAKER ID=219 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Nordmann">
Mr President, we are not asking for the appeal to the Council and the Commission to be deleted, but we want to add "and on the Member States' , and we would like to replace "bring every pressure to bear on the governments concerned' , with "do everything within their powers' , terms which Commissioner Brittan's speech has, were it necessary, justified, and which I take from Mr Newman's own proposals.
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<SPEAKER ID=220 NAME="President">
Mr Nordmann, there has certainly been a misunderstanding between the Liberal Group's request and the text that has been presented to me, because indeed during your speech this wording was very clear.
Now, though, all the Members are able to judge.
I must obviously, however, turn to the House to check whether there are any objections to the request for an oral amendment.
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<SPEAKER ID=221 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, we believe that the existing text is better than the proposed oral amendment, and we therefore object to voting on the oral amendment.
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<SPEAKER ID=222 NAME="President">
As you know, the Rules of Procedure provide that it is not possible to proceed to the vote of an oral amendment if there is opposition from at least 12 Members in the House.
Unfortunately, your statement is not enough.
I ask the Members to please rise.
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(Twelve Members stood up) Mr Dimitrakopoulos asks that in paragraph 2 the words 'World Jewish Congress' be replaced by 'the government of Israel, the Knesset and the organizations that represent Jewish people all over the world' .
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(Parliament adopted the resolution) That concludes the vote on urgent subjects.
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<CHAPTER ID=6>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=223 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Mr President, I would like to comment on the previous vote.
I was very shocked, I have to say, at the way in which the oral amendment was separated from the vote, because the reason given is not satisfactory.
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The procedure for rejecting the oral amendment has the very legitimate objective of protecting Members against the dangers of not understanding an amendment.
But what we were told here was that it was not put to the vote because, of two versions, the other one was preferred.
It was for Parliament to decide that.
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You had no choice, Mr President.
You took the right action, but I think our colleagues abused this procedure, because this means that 12 people have imposed a text wanted by a minority on a House which was, by a very large majority, in favour of a different text.
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<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="President">
Mr Bourlanges, it is a very delicate issue and we are all sensitive to it.
As a result, I will allow you to make this comment.
Let us say that it is a kind of declaration of vote.
Naturally, it is possible to comment on Mrs Aelvoet's explanatory statement, but I have had to abide by the Rules of Procedure and consequently I have obviously not emphasized Mrs Aelvoet's statement, but I have only seen that there were twelve Members who rose.
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<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, the Rules of Procedure are the Rules of Procedure, and the Rules of Procedure do not state what type of explanation must be used.
Therefore our colleague's remark was not totally correct.
He can have a different opinion - that is not a problem for me - but the Rules of Procedure do not say anything about the type of explanation that is required.
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Report by Mr Newman (A4-0258/95), on behalf of the Committee on Petitions, on the annual report on the activities of the European Ombudsman in 1997
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(Parliament adopted the resolution)
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<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="Deprez">
The right of petition is one of the most ancient to which ordinary citizens are entitled.
It is, therefore, quite right that the citizens of the European Union should also have access to this right, which has been enshrined in law since the Maastricht Treaty entered into force.
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It is, however, essential that petitioners, generally motivated by the fact that they believe that their legitimate rights have been abused by the public authorities, should not also feel that the European Parliament, to whom they have turned, fails to examine their request not just carefully, but promptly.
It is important, therefore, that the Committee on Petitions has access to the necessary resources, in terms of both staff and equipment, in order to deal with the many requests which it receives annually with great efficiency and diligence.
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It is, moreover, regrettable that, unlike the Commission, which appears to collaborate gladly with the work of the Committee on Petitions, the Council would clearly appear to be far less willing in this respect.
Parliament has a right to expect that Council officials will also participate in the work of the Committee on Petitions.
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The attitude of the Council and the paucity of means are all the more damaging since a close examination of the petitions is also an excellent way for the institutions to evaluate the extent of the application of and true respect for Community law in the various Member States.
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By voting for this resolution which has been submitted to us, I would, therefore, like to stress, in particular, just how important it is for all our European citizens that all the institutions collaborate closely, including in the framework of the Committee on Petitions.
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Newman report (A4-0258/98)
<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="Deprez">
With the Committee on Petitions, the European Ombudsman is the other pillar of the right of petition through which the citizens and residents of Europe are able to participate personally and directly in the construction of a Union which respects its own principles and its own laws.
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Like the rapporteur, we can really be very happy that the Ombudsman has followed the European Parliament's recommendation and defined what is understood by 'maladministration' .
Similarly, we must also be satisfied with the favourable reception which the Ombudsman has given to our proposal to draw up a common set of general administrative rules applicable to all the institutions and to all bodies of the European Union in the form of an code of good administrative behaviour.
The code, of course, will have to specify the sanctions applicable in the case of proven infringements.
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This very positive evaluation cannot, however, disguise the fact that only 3 % of the 1 412 complaints regarding maladministration registered during the past year have resulted in a comment, a regulation or an amicable solution.
On this point, I cannot but share the scepticism which the rapporteur has expressed regarding the image of the truth behind these figures.
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The purpose of a close study of the complaints sent to the Ombudsman is also, in fact, to contribute to an improvement in the running of the Community institutions and organs and to their credibility.
With this in mind, it would seem to be essential to extend and strengthen cooperation between the Ombudsman and the Committee on Petitions.
It is also desirable that the Commission should have adequate resources for monitoring the proper application of Community law in each Member State.
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In a law-abiding state which respects itself, recourse to the Ombudsman can really only be an additional method of ensuring the good conduct of the institutions.
It cannot under any circumstances be the principal method.
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It is in this spirit that I support the resolution which is before us.
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<SPEAKER ID=228 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, I am happy to support this report which deals with a new and important part of the EU's institutions, the office of the Ombudsman.
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The Ombudsman fills what had been a gap in our way of working, by allowing members of the public to submit a complaint when they suffer from maladministration by the EU's institutions.
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It is good news that, in more than half of the cases completed last year, there was found to be no maladministration.
However, the Ombudsman has still played a useful role for the public by asking the Commission to improve people's rights in the run-up to judicial cases resulting from complaints, which the Commission has now done.
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People could be forgiven for thinking that they are the David taking on the Brussels Goliath when they complain about the European Commission - but now people should know that, if they have a genuine complaint, then David will have a strong ally in the Ombudsman who will face Goliath with them!
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Thors report (A4-0265/98)
<SPEAKER ID=229 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR), Eriksson, Seppänen and Sjöstedt (GUE/NGL), Holm and Schörling (V), Bonde, Lis Jensen, Krarup and Sandbæk (I-EDN)">
The signatories of this explanation of vote fully support the initiatives of the European Ombudsman as regards access to documents and hence also Mrs Thors' report.
It is high time the EU began to act on its fine words and statements of intent on transparency, which is also enshrined in the Treaty.
Openness and transparency are decisive prerequisites for a democratic system if decision-makers are to be held accountable for the decisions they make.
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A lot more can be done to increase openness within the EU; this is in fact the background to the European Ombudsman's report.
In order to make it easier for citizens to seek access to documents and facilitate the processing of cases involving access to documents, the institutions and organs of the EU must have the same general, clear and readily-available administrative rules in this area.
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The Ombudsman's report and recommendations to EU institutions and organs regarding increased transparency are a step in the right direction.
We hope the institutions of the EU will follow up on his report and recommendations and work towards introducing improved rules on access to documents.
In our opinion, the right of access to documents should be the rule in the EU rather than the exception.
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<SPEAKER ID=230 NAME="Ryynänen">
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Denied-boarding compensation system in scheduled air transport
<SPEAKER ID=231 NAME="President">
The next item is the report by Mr González Triviño (A4-0240/98), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) amending Regulation (EEC) No 295/91 establishing common rules for a denied-boarding compensation in scheduled air transport.
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<SPEAKER ID=232 NAME="González Triviño">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the topic we are going to debate is of great importance for European citizens.
Due to the policy of liberalizing air transport in recent years, we have experienced both a considerable reduction in the costs of many flights and a significant rise in the number of passengers.
Nevertheless, at the same time, less desirable consequences have appeared, such as the increase in the number of times when some passengers, with a valid ticket, cannot board because more tickets have been sold than the number of seats available.
This phenomenon, already known by its English name, overbooking, represents a serious inconvenience for those affected.
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The European Commission has taken the decision to review the legislation currently in force, which dates from 1991, with the dual aim of guaranteeing that citizens are precisely aware of their rights and adapting the compensation for the material damage and inconvenience affecting the victims of overbooking.
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The draft presented to this House for consideration is the result of broad consultations carried out with all the parties involved in the sector: users, consumers, unions, airline companies, etcetera.
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The present proposal has the following main aims: to put an end to the distinction between scheduled flights and nonscheduled flights, which has remained obsolete in the liberalization of air transport and the birth of new companies; to guarantee that passengers receive adequate information regarding their rights if they are denied boarding even though they are in possession of a valid ticket; to adapt the monetary amounts for compensation in accordance with the current economic situation; and to avoid a situation whereby passengers whose flights are cancelled for commercial reasons are defenceless and do not receive any compensation.
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In line with the Commission, we propose that the rules concerning the right to compensation for overbooking should be laid out in plain and intelligible language and distributed by the Commission to the main consumer organizations in the European Union.
Similarly, it is our hope that passengers' rights might be displayed for the public at the check-in counters in English or in the local language or languages in letters at least 1 cm high.
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Another aspect which should be highlighted is that the tickets received by passengers as compensation for their loyalty to companies must be equally protected by this regulation, even if they were issued free of charge.
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To conclude, I would like to state that all of the amendments tabled improve the Commission's text.
All of the amendments are acceptable, but I would like to make a clarification as regards Amendment No 10, which calls for the inclusion of the text in question on the ticket.
This has a disadvantage due, firstly, to the fact that the text on tickets is the result of a universal regulation and it would be invalid or would represent an excuse for the companies, and due, secondly, to the fact that there are already many companies which do not issue tickets, but which notify confirmation of the booking by fax.
Therefore, I would substitute "on the ticket' with "with the ticket' .
That would be a nuance which, I believe, would make it more practical to move forward with this process.
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As regards Amendment No 23 by Mrs van Dijk, whom I would like to congratulate, I must say that I accept it in full.
With her addition, she is providing clarification and ensuring that the annual study to be carried out by the Commission identifies the airline companies with most shortcomings.
I therefore congratulate her once again.
I would also like to say that this improves the information provided for consumers and guarantees their rights, and that this regulation is binding on companies.
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And I am sure you will allow me to take this opportunity, as a European citizen and a Member, to sincerely thank Mrs van Dijk for her dedication and work in this Parliament, and I hope she is going to have the same success in the new functions she is going to carry out, because she will continue with tenacity and vigour.
We are losing a great companion, a great worker and also a great woman.
Good luck and many thanks for your contribution to the European Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=233 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Aparicio Sánchez">
Mr President, the Socialist Group is going to support the complete and excellent report by Mr González Triviño which, after being debated in the Committee on Transport and Tourism, puts forward some sensible and enriching amendments which improve the interests of consumers.
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I would like to congratulate the Commission because its proposal to modify this regulation represents a new advance in its policy on consumer protection - which is slow, at times, yet firm - and, in this case, it concerns a very specific and important sector for consumers, that is, the sector concerning passengers on commercial airlines.
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Everything is based on a premise in which we believe or do not believe.
We do believe in it.
Whoever owns or manages an airline must know that he does not own just any kind of company - be it public or private -, a production facility with exclusively lucrative ends, but instead owns a company which provides services in the general interest and which, therefore, has two characteristics that other companies do not have.
Firstly, the protection of those who pay for these services in the general interest is more important, if that is possible, than that of any other customers paying for other less necessary services.
And, secondly, the profit motive and the profit and loss account of the company, legitimate though those concepts may be, are not the supreme interest, but they must coexist with an extraordinary degree of transparency, fairness and commercial security for the customer.
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However, I must mention one fundamental objection, Mr President: in the Commission's proposal and in the report, significant improvements are put forward to favour the customer, but overbooking is not questioned.
Enough years have passed to allow us to consider whether it is fair that the authorized figure for overbooking of seats continues.
I am not now questioning overbooking - which will also at some stage have to be reviewed - but I am questioning the authorized figure.
There is enough information to carry out a statistical study aimed at allowing us to lower the authorized figure and even bring it close to zero.
When this figure was authorized, it was possible to cancel all tickets, so the compensation was fair.
But today, many passengers - more than half of them - travel with tickets that cannot be cancelled, so this issue is more similar to any other commercial transaction.
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But, in conclusion, the reform of this regulation is welcome because airline overbooking is today, due to its frequency and the harm it causes, the main breach of service to which travellers fall victim. This Parliament, on approving an own-initiative report only a few months ago, for which I had the honour of being responsible, considered that the following was necessary: improving the information provided to passengers, the information on their rights; increasing the amount of compensation; extending the system to include charter flights; and regulating the opposite case to overbooking, that is, where companies cancel a flight due to the lack of passengers, camouflaging that cancellation with explanations which, if not false, are ambiguous.
To conclude, almost all of this is raised in the regulation proposed by the Commission, and improved in the report by Mr González Triviño from the Committee on Transport and Tourism; we will approve this tomorrow, and it will receive, of course, the votes of the Socialist Group of this House.
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<SPEAKER ID=234 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we shall meet again later as unfortunately is our lot.
I believe that we can be very happy with the Commission's submission on denied-boarding compensation for scheduled air transport.
We in the PPE Group support most of the improvements proposed by the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
In particular, we think it is right that with effect from next year - I am assuming that it will come into effect next year - passengers who are unable to travel due to overbooking, despite the fact that they have valid and confirmed tickets, will receive increased compensation of ECU 185 on flights up to 3 500 km and ECU 379 on flights over 3 500 km.
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I also believe that it is right that the distinction between charter and scheduled flights has now been removed, though it has not been removed entirely.
In the case of charter flights it applies only where a seat has been booked, not where a package holiday has been booked.
So the old regulation is still applicable for travellers who have booked a package holiday; here nothing has changed.
However, where single tickets are sold for charter flights it is right that the same applies and compensation must be paid.
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It is also important, I believe, that we should inform citizens of their rights.
There are very good airline companies - as most of them are, in fact - which, when they have overbooked, take the initiative to offer compensation themselves.
There are apparently other airline companies, however, who fail to inform their passengers that they have a right to compensation where flights are overbooked.
In this respect the new regulations which we are proposing together with the Commission, that is that appropriate notices should be displayed at departure desks, are right.
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Here we as Christian Democrats, however, do not agree with some of the proposals from the committee.
We do not believe that the size of the letters on the information notices should be decided by Community law.
Firstly there is the principle of subsidiarity, and secondly there are simply differences.
Some countries have one language, others have several languages, and I think it is going to far to try to specify the size of the information notices - down to the last centimetre - for all the countries in Europe from Finland to Portugal.
Parliament should exercise a little restraint. In any case, my group will ask that we vote against this proposal tomorrow.
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We would also like to point out - and here my view differs a little from that of the rapporteur - that it is right that the information be printed on the tickets as well.
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Certainly, international talks will be required in order to clear up all the details.
A passenger who gets his or her secretary to book a flight through a travel agency and receives confirmation that the flight has been booked does not need information about compensation payments.
The normal citizen, however, who books a flight himself should have information concerning his rights provided on the ticket.
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We also reject the view held by the majority of the committee that this compensation regulation should also apply to flights from third countries.
We cannot have two laws, with EU companies having to pay compensation and companies in America and other competitors not having to pay compensation.
This has to be done on a global level for it is unacceptable that our European airlines should be disadvantaged in relation to American and other companies.
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I believe this is a fair compromise between the interests of passengers and the airline companies and I therefore believe that we should all vote for the substance of this report.
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<SPEAKER ID=235 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Elmalan">
Mr President, many users' and consumers' associations have echoed the dissatisfaction of passengers who have fallen victim to overbooking practices.
In terms of the total number of passengers transported in Europe, this problem obviously only affects a very small percentage, but it remains nevertheless true that these practices have tended to become more widespread and to become excessive.
Moreover, some airlines have not hesitated to make this an essential plank of their commercial operation.
Given these circumstances, it is becoming urgent to review the Community regulation on the denied-boarding compensation system, in order to increase the protection and rights of users and to dissuade companies from using such methods, guarding against the legalization of a commercial practice which is unacceptable and reprehensible for users.
<P>
I support the amendments contained in the report by our colleague, Mr González Triviño, which oblige companies to respect stricter rules thanks to a better compensation system for users and to fuller and more accessible information.
The overbooking phenomenon has been accentuated by the deregulation of the air sector and fierce competition between companies.
The increase in the number of flights and the race to fill aircraft have led some companies to abuse these practices.
This strengthens the need to assess all of the social and economic consequences of the liberalization of air transport and to learn from this. This is particularly important in order to reintroduce criteria and public service aims in air transport, based on greater participation of users with new control and intervention rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dijk">
Mr President, I want to begin by congratulating Mr González Triviño with his report.
It is a good report and I would also like to thank him sincerely for his kind words, because this is indeed the final debate in which I will take part in this Parliament.
<P>
I would, however, still like to bring up a few substantive matters.
It is true that on behalf of my group I tabled an amendment in order to obtain greater insight, especially for the benefit of the consumer organizations, about which airlines are most guilty of overbooking and therefore of denying boarding to their passengers.
It is true that if this is made public, an airline will not like it, but it is an extraordinarily effective way to indicate to the public that it is perhaps better to look for another airline where overbooking is not such a common practice.
It is, of course, unacceptable to ultimately deny boarding to passengers after they have booked seats on an airline.
<P>
I would like to make yet another remark.
It is good that the Commissioner has made this proposal, and I agree with Mr González Triviño's amendments.
But I think it would also be good if the other modes of travel were examined in terms of their protection of consumers.
If we travel through Europe by train, it quickly becomes apparent that the industry maintains terms of travel from the previous century which are totally obsolete.
I have never seen a proposal from the Commission to protect consumers who travel by train.
That would actually be an extraordinarily good idea, to ensure that we not only pamper air travellers but also travellers who choose more environmentally-friendly forms of transportation.
I believe this to be an extraordinarily good idea and I would ask the Commissioner to consider it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 NAME="President">
I thank you, and in particular because it is the last time that you will be speaking in this House.
I thank you for the contribution that you have made, in particular for the way in which you chaired the Committee on Women's Rights and which has been appreciated by all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, according to the rapporteur, for every ten thousand travellers who arrive at the airports of the European Union, three to twelve people are not allowed to board an aeroplane.
Denying boarding to passengers therefore does not take place very frequently, at least in terms of percentage.
Due to the enormous number of flights, however, this still amounts to around ten thousand people per year.
<P>
The Commission and the majority of the Committee on Transport and Tourism are justified in wanting reasonable compensation.
This can take place by modifying Regulation No 295/91.
<P>
It is of essential importance that information for the traveller be improved.
Because the traveller is now insufficiently aware of his legal position, he misses out on compensation.
The Commission's proposal, strengthened by the amendments of the rapporteur, improves this situation.
<P>
A great deal has been said about the specification of the proposal. Must decisions about the size of the letters in the text at the check-in counters take place at European level?
We are in favour of strict application of the principle of subsidiarity: that which Member States can do for themselves, they must continue to do for themselves.
However, in this case we have no objection to the specification of the proposal.
It concerns a regulation that will come into force immediately in the Member States, so specification was not only unavoidable, it also guarantees a level playing field for the airlines in the Union.
<P>
The proposal will be significantly improved by adopting Amendment No 20.
This would eliminate the committee proposed by the Commission which would have the task of adapting the amount of compensation to economic developments.
I agree with the rapporteur that yet another new committee carries with it an unnecessarily large bureaucracy.
<P>
Finally, I would like to thank the rapporteur for his clear report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Linser">
<SPEAKER ID=240 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Camisón Asensio">
Mr President, we could reiterate today everything that we said yesterday, during Question Time to the Council, on this same subject. This is especially true as regards the obligation of airlines to publicize our rights concerning damages in the case of overbooking - putting an end to the current ignorance - and as regards the suitability of promoting a regulation aimed at covering the damages caused by missing connections with other flights.
<P>
The report by Mr González Triviño is, in general terms, to be supported.
And we congratulate him on it, particularly since the current regulation - which dates from 1991 - must be amended, and given the adaptation of the regulation to the evolution experienced by the transport industry, meeting the passengers' demands for information and increasing the amount of compensation.
<P>
Similarly, an objective of extreme interest is that whereby the passenger, to have the right to compensation, must have arrived at the check-in desk at least 30 minutes before departure time, but only at the queue for check-in.
Do not forget that recent American experience demonstrates that the percentage of passengers who do not turn up at the check-in desk has fallen from 10 % to 8 % as a consequence of better information.
<P>
However, of less importance is the request to use the local language for the information or the size of the letters on the signs, as Mr Jarzembowski has explained very well.
<P>
But, in conclusion, we are going to support this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Mr President, first of all my congratulations go to the rapporteur.
What he has told us is very interesting.
<P>
We are in an age where globalization and technology tell us that taking the plane will cost about the same as taking the bus.
This means that consumers will be relatively less protected, even if prices are lower.
They will have less proof that they have a right to a seat and they may have fewer possibilities to claim compensation or to protest, especially if they are in another country and are obliged to do all this in another language.
I therefore think that, although the things the rapporteur proposes are very positive, we should reinforce them in some quarters. For example, in the case of third-country carriers, who will find it easier to provide air-transport services in Europe, intervention on the part of the European Union should be much harsher and, if the obligation to compensate is not included in the new structure, it must be possible to appeal against their permit.
In addition, Community carriers returning from third countries must be included.
In this connection there occur the greatest scandals we are aware of, and I have in mind some such scandals from my own country.
And, of course, as was quite rightly mentioned, compensation must be paid out on the spot and in cash, even if it is difficult for the carriers to do so at that precise moment.
<P>
The blacklist of carriers that continually overbook is an excellent idea and the Commission should possibly think of how to push it forward.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, the aim of the proposal that we are examining today is to amend current legislation on compensation for denied boarding, to improve the management of problems stemming from overbooking and to protect, in the final analysis, the citizen from any abuse that might be committed by the airline companies.
Indeed it can be a great inconvenience for the passenger to be denied boarding.
<P>
Although at first glance the figures may seem insignificant, if compared with the high volumes of traffic registered in Europe's leading airports which each serve 5 million passengers a year, the statistics end up revealing numerous cases of denied boarding, about 5 000 to 10 000 cases a year.
<P>
Of course, there can be various reasons for this.
One of the most frequent is that are no seats left.
Overbooking is related to the fact that often passengers, although they have a confirmed reservation, do not check in because of the flexibility that they have when they pay the full fare.
In practice, with this fare they can cancel or change the reservation without paying any penalties, which is not the case, however, for those with restricted tickets.
<P>
In addition, the growth of the air transport sector, which has occurred with the liberalization of the sector and the admission of new operators onto the market, certainly points to an upsurge in the phenomenon.
The parliamentary committee has thus aligned itself with the new proposals presented by the Commission to provide maximum protection of the thousands of passengers who each year are refused a seat on board, even after having booked a long time in advance, and to protect others from the confusion created by the lack of clarity in the rules applicable to cases of reimbursement owed for the cancellation of a flight.
<P>
Lastly, we are pleased with the legislation because it provides for, finally, the protection of the rights of consumers in air transport services.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Stenmarck">
Mr President, let me say first and foremost that I do not believe that what we are discussing here is something which the EU or the European Parliament should be concerned with.
Now that we are working towards having a single market, I think we should be terribly cautious about regulating this in detail.
That said, my principal view is that the airlines can and should in fact deal with this themselves.
It must be possible for one airline to show that it is better than another.
<P>
Paying compensation in the event of overbooking is, in principle, a competitive tool just like all other competitive tools.
There is always someone who says that competition does not work where aviation is concerned.
I am conscious of the fact that there are shortcomings in several areas in this respect.
The best way to get the airlines to treat their passengers in the correct way is, however, to ensure that competition is improved on more routes than is currently the case.
Then people can choose another one if they are displeased.
That is how the system works in all other contexts.
<P>
This is assuming that the Commission will devote time and energy to essential matters instead, such as on producing a proposal on the allocation of slots.
It would be interesting to obtain an answer on this today from the Commissioner responsible.
<P>
I must admit that I think it feels extremely awkward when we as a European Parliament have to take a stand on a proposal from the Commission which states that the information at airports must be on a notice containing letters 'at least two centimetres high' .
Unfortunately, it will be only marginally improved by the rapporteur saying that one centimetre is adequate.
Obviously, both the Commission and the rapporteur think that those outside this building cannot think for themselves how to inform their passengers.
If it is not the case that the Commissioner is having a little joke with us, the best way to treat this particular article is to consign it to the nearest wastepaper basket.
We have substantial, crucial matters to which to devote our time and energy, not least as far as the airlines and the transport sector are concerned.
Let us take the opportunity to concentrate on them!
<P>
Kinnock, Neil, Member of the Commission .
Mr President, fortunately there is no arrangement in this Parliament or any other for having to pay compensation for running over time.
Otherwise we would all be much the poorer.
<P>
Before I respond to the debate on Mr González Triviño's report, I would just like to say, as others have done, how much I regret the fact that Mrs van Dijk is leaving this House.
I know it is by her choice and of course all politicians prefer to make departures only by choice and not because of the will of the electorate.
I hope she will be very happy in her new role.
I must say that in the three and a half years we have worked together, I have come to admire her as a very good parliamentarian and a very dependable and progressive colleague.
I hope she will be happy and fulfilled in the future.
<P>
I should also like to thank the Committee on Transport and Tourism and, specifically, the rapporteur, Mr González Triviño, for an excellent report on denied-boarding compensation.
I hear Mr Stenmarck saying he is embarrassed by it.
He would probably be a lot more embarrassed if he were not provided with accurate information about his consumer rights and, indeed, suffused with embarrassment if he were bumped from a flight and did not have a sufficiently dependable system of regulation to ensure that in these circumstances he could effectively exercise his rights as a consumer.
<P>
It is also a fact that minuscule though the detail appears to be relating to the actual size of a notice, if there were great disparities across the single market I am absolutely certain that there would be consumers who would be aggrieved at their treatment and be induced to undertake litigation which would be time-consuming, expensive and even then not guaranteed properly to defend their rights.
So, footling though it might appear to be to an enlightened and refined intellect like Mr Stenmarck, the rest of us are glad to have dependable rights on which we can rely.
<P>
The practicalities of airline operation mean that some overbooking is unfortunately unavoidable.
But it is our duty to ensure that those passengers who are denied seats, even though they hold a valid and confirmed ticket, or equivalent, are compensated for the inconvenience they suffer which can be extremely severe.
<P>
The rules laid down by the denied-boarding compensation regulation of 1991 have been useful in protecting passenger interests but new developments in the sector and failure properly to apply the regulation by too many airlines certainly justify a number of improvements.
This proposal, therefore, refines and updates the existing rules by providing better information to passengers, by increasing the compensation levels on the basis of economic trends since 1991 and by taking account of relatively recent developments in civil aviation like code-sharing, ticketless travel and the decreasing distinction between scheduled and non-scheduled flights.
<P>
All of that is important in order to demonstrate to passengers that the Community framework for aviation is bringing tangible benefits, not only through lower prices and improved choice on many routes but also quality of service and user protection.
Mr Stenmarck and the rest of this House can be absolutely certain that we will not let matters rest or concentrate only on fares.
The other matters that have been referred to in the course of the debate - like slots and adherence to schedules - are constantly matters of concern in which we, like many parliamentarians, are active.
We hope we will continue to see progress in these spheres too.
We are not in the least distracted from these important activities by pursuing the legislation which is before the House today.
<P>
I am glad to note that the Committee on Transport and Tourism shares the opinion put forward by the Commission since many of its amendments are largely supportive of our approach.
So I am pleased to say that the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 4, 7, 11, 12, 18, 21, 22 and 23.
The Commission can also accept in principle, subject to some redrafting, Amendments Nos 3 and 8, first paragraph, since they clarify the fact that capacity restrictions might be imposed for completely legitimate safety reasons.
<P>
Amendments Nos 5 and 19 which extend application of the regulation to Community carriers returning from third countries are also acceptable in principle, as is Amendment No 6 since it precisely defines the airline's responsibility to identify passengers still in the queue at the time of closing the check-in.
Amendment No 13 is acceptable since it underlines the fact that even the handling agent would be considered as the air carrier for these purposes.
Amendments Nos 15 and 20 simplify the procedures by replacing a new committee with one that already exists.
We find that acceptable too, as is Amendment No 17 which provides the possibility for additional means of payment.
The Commission can also accept in part Amendment No 9 which establishes a better basis for improved customer information.
<P>
However, there are a few amendments that we cannot accept.
I will run through them very quickly giving our basic reasons.
We cannot accept Amendment No 1.
We believe there is greater clarity and transparency in stipulating a minimum 30-minute check-in time in the regulation.
Amendment No 2 on providing the rules to passengers is not acceptable since this obligation already exists in the current regulation.
The third paragraph of Amendment No 8 is not acceptable because even though passengers may agree to accept a seat in a lower class, they are still being denied boarding in the class to which they are entitled according to their ticket.
The passenger therefore deserves proper compensation even in those circumstances.
<P>
Amendment No 10, second and third paragraphs, adds unnecessary bureaucracy and would make the information notices difficult to read, especially for someone like myself who needs the support of glasses on every occasion.
In addition, it suggests a ticket notice which the Commission believes is not practicable.
Finally, I cannot accept Amendments Nos 14 and 16 since they would oblige airlines in some instances to pay higher compensation than the passenger has actually paid for the ticket - the so-called 'bingo' arrangement.
Perhaps we should not legislate for that.
<P>
In conclusion, however, I am pleased to welcome most of the amendments which will enable the Commission to strengthen the proposed regulation and I should like again to thank Mr González Triviño and the Committee on Transport and Tourism for their constructive and enlightened work.
It will undoubtedly contribute positively to the discussions that lie ahead in the Transport Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Structural Funds programmes to the end of 1999
<SPEAKER ID=245 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0214/98) by Mr Howitt, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the Commission guidelines on priorities for the adjustment of Structural Fund programmes to the end of 1999 (C4-0640/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 NAME="Howitt">
Mr President, my report on guidelines for the adjustment of Structural Funds programmes may, at first, appear to concern a dry and technical subject.
But in reality, tonight, we are debating how we can make European funding programmes intended to create jobs and prosperity effective in achieving these aims; how and why they are different, as European programmes, from regional support, which has already been adopted in the Member States; how there can be a genuine dialogue between local people in regions across Europe, which really does exchange best practice and which lifts quality for us all; and perhaps most of all, how the wheels of decision-making can be oiled to make the whole system as easy as possible at every level.
<P>
As the report makes clear, this first attempt at operating Structural Fund guidelines is right in principle, is well intentioned, but is one from which lessons have to be learnt: it was published four years late in Merseyside and elsewhere after the changes which these guidelines had been intended to affect had already been made; it was written in dense and obtuse text; it identified 27 different areas as priorities - far too many for serious consideration; and it was disseminated only via Member State governments and arguably, not even by them.
As a result, a survey that I conducted with 11 European-wide associations of local and regional interest showed that 40 % had never even heard of the guidelines and not one knew of any positive change which they had brought about.
<P>
In all seriousness, I have to say that this is the stuff which fuels Euro-scepticism and an area in which Europe has to improve.
Tonight we are bringing forward a series of practical proposals to do just this and on which I expect, Commissioner, we will have your agreement.
<P>
Now let me concentrate on three questions which will raise a more severe challenge.
First, the legal status of what the Commission proposes.
Local and regional authorities claim this has been a grey area in which the Commission itself has sought to exploit ambiguity.
We have commissioned this legal opinion from Parliament's Legal Service which finds that the Commission, in Article 9(4) of the Draft Structural Fund Regulation, is seeking to agree guidelines which constitute a binding act based on the May 1970 European Court ruling on essential rules and on other case-law.
Quite simply, the Commission is seeking a backdoor route to determine European Structural Fund regulations without obtaining proper agreement from Member State governments through the Council of Ministers and without the full scrutiny of the European Parliament.
<P>
Tonight we ask you to indicate that you are prepared to think again and that advice means advice, not additional rules which are not needed and which only cause difficulty on the ground.
<P>
Secondly, this debate gives us a chance to attack the culture of delay which has become endemic in the operation of these programmes: late agreement of the programme, late agreement of country-by-country single programming documents; late calls for applications; excessively short deadlines; late notification of approvals; and even later payment of the monies - too often, too late for the people who need the money, but never too early for us to act in response.
<P>
That is why tonight we call on the European Commission to publish its proposed new guidelines, nine months - and preferably a minimum of six months - prior to the submission date for programmes.
That means by 31 December 1998 at the latest, for the next Structural Fund programme.
If they do not do so, that programme cannot start on time.
It must.
I hope we will hear a clear commitment from the Commissioner on this point.
<P>
Third, how can we debate adjustments up to the time of the closure of programmes without recognising the shortcomings here?
As we negotiate the next Structural Fund regime from 1999 onwards, there are still 51 programmes in the United Kingdom and 58 in France which are incomplete from the previous Structural Fund period up to 1993.
In the United Kingdom today £120m (ECU 150m) is outstanding in payments to regions for European Regional Development Fund projects actually completed in the years 1994-1996: money to meet claims is running out this very week in my own region, in the east; projects in the Northeast receiving only 45 % of costs; public sector projects are getting just one-third of their costs in the southwest; and similar stories are being repeated across other European Union countries.
<P>
Tonight Parliament will reaffirm our commitment to end this stop-start approach to Europe's regional aid, to ensure continuity where possible and smooth transition where it is not.
This can only be achieved by planning in advance.
We call on the Commission to ensure that the new guidelines do precisely that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, firstly, I would like to say that I agree with the report by the rapporteur from the Committee on Regional Policy, Mr Howitt.
However, I would like, in particular, to emphasize that the Commission's guidelines on priorities for the adjustment of Structural Fund programmes must be clear, concise and easily read.
They must also appear in one document, if possible, and be sufficiently widely distributed, because Mr Howitt has demonstrated in his report, based on consultations held in various regions of the European Union, that when the guidelines reach the regions themselves they are confused, late and at times do not have any effect on the projects under way.
I therefore believe that this issue is a priority.
<P>
I also agree with the emphasis he has put on three horizontal issues: employment, the environment and equal opportunities.
In the Amsterdam Treaty, those three topics were clearly linked to the other policies of the European Union.
<P>
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs puts forward a series of proposals. It regrets, firstly, that since it does not have at its disposal the results of the mid-term review of the Funds, it know little about the real application of Objective 4, and secondly, that there are no statistics on the effect of the Funds on equal opportunities or on the integration of people with disabilities, nor on the effect of the new "sources' of employment.
Yesterday, in fact, we were debating the report by Mrs Hulthén and we saw that the environment is fundamental within the topic of employment.
Indeed, the OECD believes that, in the next few years, the number of jobs related to the environment will probably increase by 5.5 %.
If we take account of how slowly other sectors are growing or that they are even declining, it is clear that this issue is quintessential.
<P>
We also call for transparency and participation and we must always take account of equal opportunities as well as those projects related to the environment; we desire a balance between job creation and the economic policies which tend to reduce it.
It is not the first time that regions such as my own - Asturias - receive Objective 1 funds, at times from other objectives and at times from certain Community initiatives; and yet, it is a region in decline where decisions are taken on economic policies which lead to reductions in employment.
<P>
A balance must also be found between the budget for infrastructure - which usually creates temporary employment - and the aid for small and medium-sized enterprises, the new "sources' of employment and the LDEIs (local development and employment initiatives), etcetera, which create more permanent jobs.
<P>
The Funds must provide services for children and the elderly, in other words, consideration must be given to projects which might promote equal opportunities in terms of women's access to jobs in comparison to that of men.
<P>
In conclusion, Mr President, we need to increase the budget in the field of the environment - Objective 2 only dedicates 5.2 % - and the participation of local and regional authorities in those projects concerning the environment, because it is essential that they ensure that environmental principles are not violated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=248 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Botz">
Mr President, Commissioner, the rapporteur had made a very valuable contribution to the discussion and - although of course technically he should not - also to the arguments for the reform of the Structural Funds.
If it is the case that these guidelines are intended to reflect the objectives and the European dimension of structural fund policy, and therefore if they really do specify programming priorities, then quite clearly they should not be too numerous.
Guidelines should not, after all, be a source of confusion.
<P>
Paragraph 7 of the motion for a resolution can give the impression that these guidelines are taken as very specific quantitative indicators, in other words, concrete figures and quotas.
I should like to warn against this, for I believe that it is possible to meet European guidelines even where specific targets may be missed by a short distance, .
Concealed behind this argument - as we are all aware - is the problem of this Commission proposal, the 10 % reserve.
The specific question we have to answer is how in the future - if we take the decision on this line next year, for example - the Commission will decide whether a Member State would have such a sum deducted and whether these funds would then be distributed to other regions.
This should only be the case, if at all, where a Member State has genuinely failed to meet guidelines, not simply failed to achieve a set of figures.
It must be a genuine case of failure to meet a small number of important European guidelines.
<P>
If - as is currently envisaged and as we in this House would also wish - in the future Member States really are to be given greater leeway in the national implementation of European programming, then these guidelines must neither be too detailed, nor too numerous.
Otherwise, although we would technically be giving the Member States and the regions greater leeway, we would not be doing so in detail.
<P>
Finally, and even though we are rather depleted in number, I should specifically like to thank Mr Howitt for what he has achieved.
Anyone reading this report in detail - something I would recommend to all my fellow MEPs - will see that he has not only given formal consideration to the issues, but that he really has spoken to everyone, from senior Commission officials to the project agencies in the various Member States, and recorded many suggestions. I would recommend anyone taking part in the forthcoming discussion to read it thoroughly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bianco">
Mr President, Commissioner, the Structural Funds have been a very important chapter of Community policy and have without doubt achieved substantial results for the recovery of certain regions suffering from depression due to historical and traditional factors.
<P>
We are now facing a year of transition, and there is the risk that if we adopt lines that are too rigid we may, so to speak, block the process instead of creating further momentum.
I, too, am convinced of the fact that Mr Howitt's report contains some particularly relevant points and sets a course that is certainly useful to follow.
The problem I see, however, is that of the directions and guidelines that will have to be followed to conclude the programme at the end of 1999, and that of tying them in with the guidelines for the new programme from 2000 to 2006.
<P>
There are criteria that have to be laid down with extreme clarity from the start.
I believe that we must stick to a course of dialogue from the bottom up, precisely because of the role that both the regions and the states have had; the idea of providing direction can certainly be useful in defining common guidelines within the European Union in order to achieve fixed common objectives, but we cannot underestimate the vitality of the regions, vitality that is precisely due to the capacity of each state to identify the problems that have to be tackled and the programmes that have to be elaborated.
<P>
The fundamental criterion of the Treaty, which concerns social issues, attributes this key role to the states and the regions. Besides, they are currently demonstrating their great vitality.
It is an aspect that must under no circumstances be forgotten and that must be borne in mind.
<P>
The report also raises other points that I believe are very important: the need for clarity, speed, the conveyance of information, conciseness and at the same time the ability to incorporate the many suggestions in extremely specific aspects.
The guidelines are undoubtedly positive but must also take into account these requirements.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ryynänen">
Mr President, the Commission's goal to promote a pan-European regional policy by means of common guidelines is obviously a very worthy one.
In the way of Mr Howitt's excellent report, however, we have to ask what these guidelines are being used for and whether they are going to be able to realize the goals in the proposed manner.
It is a question, in a sense, of a common framework of reference for the adjustment of programmes.
<P>
I think it is very important that the guidelines are explored expressly for the improvement of the nature of regional policy.
At best they will comprise an advisory tool in the sharing of information on the best ways of going about things, thus improving programme efficiency.
However, this will in practice require improvements, especially from the point of view of regional players.
<P>
The present situation and the profusion of different guidelines is unquestionably very confusing.
The Commission must set down primary goals clearly in one document.
Similarly, we have to reject the Commission's call for adjustments, which have been proposed at such a late stage that it will only lead to delays and frustration.
The guidelines must be published in good time if we want them to have a real effect on the planning of programmes.
Regarding the next term for new programmes, this will mean agreement by the end of this year.
In addition, publicity and training at regional level must be increased if we want to promote the effectiveness of the guidelines in question.
<P>
Just as the rapporteur has proposed, primary goals should include a strategy for continued support, transitional measures, or the termination of a programme in a given region.
A decent transitional strategy could prevent many problems, such as delays, lack of responsibility regarding income and waste of resources, all of which today constitute a lamentable realty.
<P>
Because circumstances in Member States and in the regions vary greatly, these common guidelines and goals must have incorporated within them a certain degree of flexibility.
Nevertheless, the most important priority areas, such as employment, the environment and equal opportunities, would certainly benefit from clear, common indicators.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=251 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, my thanks to Mr Howitt for this report.
There was really nothing more he could have made of it, given that the European Parliament was consulted at such a late stage.
I must say quite honestly that I am very disappointed that Mrs Wulf-Mathies is not here.
Could it be that she is avoiding this discussion?
<P>
The point of contention is whether or not the guidelines are binding.
This point of contention is being carried forward into the new regulation.
Most revealing in this respect is the rapporteur's question in the explanatory statement.
The guidelines are basically nothing more than a paper tiger.
They are ignored by the Member States.
The Commission is not pressing for them to be used as guidelines for adherence to European objectives or European cohesion policy.
This must be seen as particularly critical given that it is intended that in the future the guidelines should form the centrepiece of European structural policy and that they should then almost become the core of a Structural Fund regulation to ensure that it remains focussed on the issue of European cohesion policy.
<P>
In the new regulation the Commission has indeed reallocated certain tasks.
That was a very sensible move, but if it restricts itself to setting a framework and to monitoring, it needs the guidelines for support.
If these guidelines have no central significance, there will be no European cohesion policy.
This represents a very, very dangerous threat capable of undermining its very foundations.
<P>
We can only achieve sustainable development, equal opportunities and employment if they are a joint aim.
This joint aim also needs common paths, even if they are travelled differently in the various regions.
<P>
For this reason it is most important that we continue to discuss this matter intensively.
We know that many Member States do not want guidelines.
That is responsibility enough to make us develop them into a central instrument here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Taubira-Delannon">
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to concentrate in my speech on one of the aspects of Mr Howitt's excellent report and, in particular, on the Commission guidelines which could, it has been said, be of a somewhat restrictive character whereas the legal basis for this restrictive law does not appear very obvious.
<P>
First of all, I would like to point out that this Structural Funds system is an original and practical device and this is due to a number of reasons: its classification into objective areas which takes account of regional differences; the sometimes exemplary way in which Structural Funds have served regional policies, because these Structural Funds have in fact structured; the infrastructures which have made areas less isolated; the aid and support for economic activities, particularly in rural areas, and primarily in the area of agricultural diversification; and the aid to training and retraining which have very much supported employment.
The way it was conceived is interesting: the consultation procedure is based on regional development plans and the "docups' , the single programming documents, the length and periodicity of which have now been established and are well broken in.
<P>
The principles which governed its preparation are all also very interesting: I would like to refer in particular to the principle of additionality which creates synergy between the actions of Member States, regional authorities and the European Union; the principle of compatibility with texts, that is to say, Treaties, the regulations, but also with the great principles of the Union, for example the priorities in terms of the environment, jobs and equal opportunities for men and women; and finally, the principle of subsidiarity in regional policy which illustrates admirably its necessity and effectiveness.
<P>
Let us now look at the instruments and I am thinking here of the Community support framework which ensures synthesis and coherence in the programme as well as in the operational programmes which specify the implementing rules.
It is clear that much progress remains to be done in terms of evaluation, not only as regards the preparation of Treaties, but also as regards delays in the publication of these evaluations, if they are to be useful.
<P>
It is altogether logical and even reassuring that the Commission is concerned, at this level of intervention, that the European Union should not lose its ability to influence the guidelines relating to regional policies and the use of Structural Funds.
This obviously raises the question of the legitimacy to which I referred earlier regarding the legal basis, but also the question of the participation and active contribution of the European Parliament - which is, incidentally, a political authority - and, therefore, its contribution to the establishment of these guidelines.
<P>
In any event, the most important thing is to find the right balance, which is undoubtedly delicate, between a principle, namely, the principle of subsidiarity which cannot be called into question, and an objective, that of cohesion, which naturally calls for coordinated intervention, perhaps even readjustments.
<P>
The task is important because we need to create a link and find some compatibility between the necessary coordination and the wish that economies have to escape from dependency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 NAME="Nicholson">
Mr President, in welcoming the report, may I congratulate the rapporteur on his work and efforts to consult as widely as possible in order to ascertain in general terms how the structural fund guidelines operate?
<P>
I trust the Commission will take careful account of Mr Howitt's report from this House this evening, for he has not only identified problem areas, but offered constructive criticism as to how the problems can be addressed in order to make application of the guidelines more effective, thereby contributing to greater transparency and efficiency.
<P>
I have sympathy with the view that, because of the differing circumstances within Member States, some flexibility should be offered.
If there are too many guidelines, the problem should be addressed without obliging Member States to accept what might prove to be counter-productive uniformity.
Simplification must mean more than a neat and tidy system in Brussels which cannot be feasibly applied at Member State level.
<P>
The rapporteur assures you that current programmes need to be completed effectively and future programmes clarified in greater detail.
It is unacceptable that rules were issued without a proper legal basis and remained largely unread.
Of course the Commission might argue that it was entering uncharted waters and some allowance should be made for the experimental nature of the guidelines.
That is an inadequate answer to give to European citizens, to whom we are all ultimately accountable.
The Commission has vast experience and expertise in similar fields and so we should not allow it to bleat to us that there is a job to be done and we must get on with it.
I would ask the Commission to take that point into consideration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=254 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
Mr President, I wish to thank Parliament and, in particular, Mr Howitt for this important draft report and resolution.
Despite some critical comments in the report, mainly on the timing and format of the Commission's guidelines, there is much within the draft resolution with which we can fully agree.
For example, it recalls the overall purpose of the guidelines, which was to provide a general policy and priority framework within which to make adjustments to current programmes.
It was never the intention to touch projects which were already under way and being satisfactorily implemented.
<P>
The resolution recognizes that, although the guidelines provide a means of setting out priorities for the Union as a whole, local circumstances also need to be taken into account in deciding on adjustments to programmes, and the guidelines confirm that view.
<P>
Similarly, we would fully endorse the resolution's suggestion that the guidelines should be seen as a mechanism for the exchange of best practice between all partners at regional, national and European level, and that is an aspect that might be usefully reinforced in future Commission guidelines for the next programming period.
<P>
As regards the advisory nature of the guidelines, I want to reiterate that it was always intended that the guidelines should provide a general framework only.
As regards their legal status, the Commission has always stressed its view of the advisory nature of the guidelines, and the role of monitoring committees and other relevant authorities in adjusting programmes.
Indeed, the guidelines were a response to a request from the Member States themselves that the Commission should formulate policy orientations, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, to facilitate the adjustment exercise at the mid-point of the programmes.
Therefore, the guidelines do not have either the sinister intention or the sinister effect that some have feared or claimed.
<P>
Indeed, it was stressed in particular that any changes in the current Objective 1 and 6 programmes should aim to increase job creation.
It is clear that is what the guidelines have sought to do.
So, the Commission could not share the view that the social economy and new sources of employment are insufficiently emphasized in the guidelines.
<P>
A significant section of the document is devoted to the promotion of local potential by means of local development and employment initiatives.
The guidelines highlight, for example, the scope for businesses to gain economic benefit from the niche marketing of quality local products and services, and they also emphasize the potential of cooperatives, mutuals, associations and foundations.
<P>
Whilst actions in the field of equal opportunities may have been financed more often than not under the European Social Fund, the Commission agrees with the rapporteur that such horizontal aspects should be given consideration in all areas financed by the funds.
The same goes, for example, for the environment and sustainable development.
But this is more an issue for the Member States themselves to handle when putting their programmes together, since the guidelines were intended to be applicable to all the funds.
<P>
Many of the remaining points of the resolution refer not to the guidelines for adjusting the current programmes but to the Commission's proposals for future guidelines under Article 9(4) of its proposed general regulation for the Structural Funds after 1999.
As the rapporteur stated in his report, it is not his intention in this exercise to pre-empt discussions of the reform taking place elsewhere.
But I am sure the Commission will be taking to heart the points made about the need for more timely and reader-friendly guidelines in the future, although I could not agree that the mid-term review had almost been completed by the time that the guidelines were issued in the present case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=255 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Security of electronic communications
<SPEAKER ID=256 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0189/98), by Mr Ullmann, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on ensuring security and trust in electronic telecommunication - towards a European framework for digital signatures and encryption (COM(97)0503 - C4-0648/97)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=257 NAME="Ullmann">
Mr President, the core issue of this report is equality of legal status between digital signatures and conventional signatures, and it should be around this issue that the Parliament's answer to the Commission's communication on electronic telecommunication and a European framework for digital signatures and encryption is framed.
<P>
On close study of this central theme, the possible consequences become apparent immediately.
It all comes down to rules, such as the legal reliability of digital certification - the legality of contracts, for example -, or the integrity of texts exchanged via electronic telecommunication.
They must be admissible as evidence in legal proceedings if they are to be recognized as being equivalent to the conventional written form in this regard, too.
<P>
The purpose of my presentation of this report here is not to go into individual details such as how the authentication of signatures, the integrity of text and the confidentiality of transmitted data can be guaranteed using digital techniques.
Rather, I wish to underline the fact that the Commission's communication represents the preparations for and part of a whole series of legal initiatives, some of which it is in the process of preparing, others of which have already been drawn up, and all of which are directed towards the use of new technologies to develop the single market, in particular in the area of the free movement of goods, services and capital.
<P>
The report suggests that Parliament should encourage and support these initiatives energetically.
In terms of digital signatures and encryption, for example, we should back the Commission in following up at least two of the directions outlined in its communication.
In addition, when dealing with the certificates which are already widespread in electronic commerce, the principle of mutual recognition at EU level should be given precedence over any attempts to create a uniform certification process.
<P>
It is equally important for Parliament to follow the Commission's line in allowing the protection of the private sphere to take precedence over tendencies in certain Member States to make state access to digital communications the rule on the grounds of security.
Digital postal services, too, must continue to maintain something akin to the privacy of correspondence in the traditional sense of the term.
<P>
I am pleased that the committees which have been involved in the consultation process are voting in the same way.
And although I cannot agree with one of the amendments put forward by the Economic and Social Committee, it is on a point of form rather than one of content.
It deals with the subject of liability which, as I said at the outset, goes beyond the scope of this report.
The Commission will address the subject of liability in the framework directive on electronic commerce.
<P>
I shall conclude with the hope that the draft directive on electronic signatures announced by the Commission will be dealt with and adopted as soon as possible in the same spirit of cooperation so that, together with the single currency, the new regulations on electronic commerce can lend extra impetus to the single market.
<P>
From the identification marks on imperial mediaeval documents to equal status in law for digital signatures!
In the current climate of globalization is that not a prospect that it is essential to strive for?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=258 NAME="van Velzen, W.G.">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the communication from the Commission which is now before us is an important step in strengthening the trust of citizens and businesses in making electronic transactions.
I would like to thank Mr Ullmann for his report and I would like to thank the Commission for its very constructive cooperation.
<P>
In view of the time I will limit myself to a few points.
First of all, the PPE Group welcomes the decision of the European Commission to make a clear distinction between electronic signatures and encryption, and to clearly decouple these from each other.
The PPE Group applauds this because the heated discussion surrounding access regulations for encryption keys will undoubtedly slow down legislation regarding electronic trade, even though we in Europe must actually increase our pace to keep up with the United States.
<P>
This does not take away from the fact that the standpoint of the PPE Group regarding the introduction of legal access regulations for encryption is very clear.
The question of whether you, for reasons of security, must establish central registration of keys has been answered by the PPE Group with a firm no.
The most important argument against the registration of keys is the lack of effectiveness.
In addition to the high costs that accompany the access regulations and the erosion of privacy among users, the measure that criminal investigation and security services have in mind is naive.
After all, an honest citizen would conscientiously submit a copy of his or her key, but a criminal would, of course, never do this.
<P>
In short, the registration of keys is not effective and can also seriously harm the trust in electronic communication.
I am happy that the government of the United States has also come to this conclusion.
This does not take away from the fact that the criminal investigation services must have the right to require suspects to submit their key, following authorization from judicial authorities.
<P>
This brings me to my second point.
It is of vital importance to win the trust of citizens and companies in making electronic transactions by means of a complete agreement regarding liability.
The agreement must be legally authorized, otherwise citizens and businesses would be left empty-handed following claims for compensation.
Of course, the development of such an agreement is initially a matter for the Member States, but it is also important that the Commission, due to cross-border transactions and the rules of the internal market, keep close track of events and, where necessary, propose harmonizing measures.
I am also happy that in the present directive the Commission also shares this opinion.
<P>
I refer to these two points which were approved by an overwhelming majority of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, because they were rejected by the Committee on Legal Affairs. I therefore hope that this House will, to be honest, correct what went wrong in the Committee on Legal Affairs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=259 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Berger">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too should like to thank the rapporteur very warmly for his report.
We are, I think, agreed that electronic means of communication are developing at such lightning speed that we too must act very quickly in setting up the legal framework for this new type of communication.
We should also welcome the Commission's decision to set out a European policy for a common framework for digital signatures and encryption, not least because electronic commerce, like all the other possible uses of new technologies, is no longer restricted by national frontiers.
We in the European Union have the possibility of developing just such a joint legal framework.
<P>
Given the absolute urgency of the issue, we should welcome the fact that the concrete draft directive is already available as we discuss the preparatory document here today.
However, electronic commerce reaches far beyond the Union, in fact it is already boundless.
This is why we are calling upon the Commission and the Member States to press ahead energetically for agreements at international level.
<P>
As has already been mentioned, in dealing with the issue of security and trust in electronic communication there are two core areas for discussion: security and cryptography.
As far as the security of transmitted information is concerned, firstly we must be able to ascertain where a message is coming from, and secondly we must be able to ensure that a message reaches its recipient without having been modified en route.
<P>
These questions are of vital importance both for the consumer and in terms of guaranteeing public trust in this method of communication.
This development means an enormous adjustment and an enormous challenge for both the general public and the economy.
People will only use these facilities if the confidentiality of the data they are exchanging is guaranteed and above all, where payment is concerned, if adequate legal security for contracts concluded and money changing hands electronically are guaranteed.
<P>
On this point, I should like to make a call for the bodies of the European Union, including the Commission, to take on a pioneering role in the use of electronic signatures, both for internal communication and when exchanging data with third parties.
I believe this would represent an important step towards strengthening people's trust in digital signatures in particular and in electronic communication in general.
<P>
Following on from the last consideration, I should also like to say that we need clear legislation in all Member States giving electronic signatures the same status as conventional signatures.
In any support for a joint policy and the development of electronic commerce in general, however, there will be certain problems which will have to be examined in detail and for which there are various possible solutions.
This is particularly true in the case of liability.
However, I believe that we will be able to solve this problem soon, thereby creating a great potential for new jobs in Europe and for support of the economy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=260 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Malerba">
Mr President, Commissioner, the document presented by the European Commission is a good one, but it is still a document for debate and reflection.
The first observation I would like to make is the urgent need I see for the European Commission to provide momentum and take legislative action in this sector, considering that major legislative initiatives are being taken regarding digital signatures in the world and also in the Union's Member States themselves.
<P>
As Mr van Velzen has already noted, it is in my view important to make a clear distinction between authentication services and confidentiality services.
The need for action is particularly urgent in the case of authentication services and digital signatures.
Common rules or a set of common rules, with legal value, are needed for digital signatures which are at the basis of building up consumer trust and are the foundation of electronic commerce and contracts.
<P>
The challenge is great, especially from a cultural point of view: there has to be reeducation of the public and private sectors and a review of certain aspects of administrative law and the law of contracts in order to give substance to the principle that conventional and digital signatures have the same status in law.
The benefit reaped will be a gain in productivity in terms of quantity and quality, especially in processes outside businesses.
This course is necessary to cope with the growing complexity of the wealth-creating process of our society and, if I may say so, to free us from a certain amount of inefficient bureaucracy.
<P>
Industry must be behind this process of updating the rules of commerce for the electronic dimension, but governments must also be involved and legislative and political bodies must provide impetus and legitimacy.
In my opinion, the transformation brought about by electronic commerce contains the germ of revolution, and I wonder whether we should not also move beyond the tradition of defining the law through rules and regulations and favour legislation comprising principles and procedures that are therefore more flexible, evolutive and acceptable at global level.
<P>
I believe that Commissioner Bangemann's initiative for the globalization of the information society and international cooperation, sometimes defined as an initiative for a map of the Internet, moves in this direction.
I would like to add that it would be appropriate if we Members of the European Parliament were also to set up a working unit in the Parliament, transversal in relation to the parties and committees, taking advantage of the existing expertise and strengthening coordination with the parliaments of the Member States and, especially with the American and Japanese parliaments.
<P>
Today's debate is without doubt just one chapter, one stage of this process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=261 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, since he has been detained at a meeting, Professor Pompidou has asked me to speak on his behalf and asks you to accept his apologies.
<P>
The Ullmann report thrusts us into the centre of the information society and some of its setbacks which we, as Members of the European Parliament, must learn to master.
We have to ensure security and trust in electronic telecommunication, particularly for electronic commerce and economic information.
<P>
In both cases, use is made of so-called open networks whose authentication, integrity and confidentiality must be assured.
A report carried out by the STOA at the request of the Committee on Civil Liberties deals with the evaluation of political control techniques.
<P>
As regards electronic control, it is important to ensure the validity of contracts and the legal security of the citizen.
At a time when digital signatures now require biometrics, it is important to avoid all attacks on individual liberties, and, in particular, to avoid linking the behaviour of consumers with these physical or even psychological characteristics.
Biometrics makes it possible, in fact, to identity the user thanks to characteristics of the individual's iris or by simple electronic registration of the user's signature, and we know how interesting this is for graphologists.
<P>
Our aim is to protect civil liberties and to avoid aggressive marketing based on the study of the behaviour of individuals who suffer defamation by electronic means.
Cryptography, that is, the electronic coding of data, has advantages in terms of confidentiality, but it also offers a refuge for organized crime.
The global challenges for society mean that we must reject the all-too-easy recourse to the dissemination of information by means of cryptology.
<P>
If we have access to open information, then we must ensure there are no physical or mental constraints on citizens who are weakened and made vulnerable by their ignorance of the complex management systems of electronic information.
<P>
The same is true for the risks of unfair competition linked to electronic telecommunication between firms in the face of international competition.
Their electronic telecommunication can be easily handled, that is to say analysed, then synthesised by external observers.
<P>
This leads to three questions for the Commission.
Firstly, what role does the Commission give to open electronic information in the context of current world competition?
Secondly, does it think that European industry suffers a disadvantage because of the existence of observations systems outside the European Union and, therefore, in the service of third countries?
Thirdly, what steps does the Commission plan to recommend, in particular, as regards suppliers of identified services, in order to further provide security for the telecommunication of European firms, as well as for the electronic commerce for use by individuals?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=262 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Mr President, each day every European citizen becomes more aware that electronic commerce is the commerce of the future.
Solving the associated problems in the field of legal security will be a determining factor in the acceptance of electronic communication by the citizens, but it will also be a precondition for the equality of legal status of digital and conventional signatures.
The rapporteur has given us a comprehensive account of these problems and pointed us in the right direction.
<P>
Solutions appear to be possible for both the problems of authentication and integrity.
In my view it is, in fact, the question of confidentiality which will prove difficult to resolve.
However, the speed of technical development in the field of electronics suggests that satisfactory methods will soon be available.
On one hand these will have to meet the requirements of day-to-day use and of data protection, on the other they must not hinder the fight against crime.
It is my view, however, that we should dispense with legal access rules.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=263 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
Mr President, may I firstly thank the rapporteur for his admirable report and say how encouraging and supportive we find it.
<P>
The aim of the communication was to stress the importance of the free availability of cryptographic products and services for consumers and the European industry.
The general answer to Mr Giansily is that we regard it as an important contribution - only one contribution but an important one - to enable European industry to take full advantage internationally of the developments that are currently taking place.
<P>
Europe is not at the moment at a disadvantage but the situation is moving rapidly.
It will therefore be at a disadvantage unless we take the kind of action that this requires, as well as other actions going beyond this as far as the information society is concerned, whether in international fora or through our own legislation.
If we do that we will not be at a disadvantage.
Indeed, there is need for action.
Other international organisations are very active.
<P>
I turn now to the specific field covered by this debate in the field of cryptography.
I agree with the report that because of the global character of the Internet, the international dialogue is of the highest importance.
Within the EU there are several Member States that have engaged in activities in this area and it is undoubtedly the case that if you had divergent legal and technical approaches, that could constitute a serious obstacle to the free circulation of goods and services within the internal market.
That is why a Community policy framework for cryptography is urgently needed.
<P>
The report goes along with the view that we have stated very strongly, namely the importance of making a distinction between authentication and integrity services on the one hand and confidentiality services on the other.
That is explicitly stated in our report.
<P>
With regard to authentication and integrity services, the first important step is the directive on electronic signatures.
The proposal was sent to Parliament on 1 July.
It is of course in the hands of the Council as well.
The aim is to create a harmonised and appropriate legal framework to facilitate the use of electronic signatures within the Community.
The proposal is in line with the requirements laid down in the report of the European Parliament.
It is an approach which stresses technology neutrality.
A variety of authentication mechanisms is expected to develop and the scope of the directive has to be broad enough to cover the whole spectrum of electronic signatures including digital signatures.
<P>
There is also stress on the importance of legal recognition.
The directive should contribute to a harmonised legal framework within the Community by ensuring that electronic signatures are legally recognised in the same way as hand-written signatures.
Importance is also attached to common requirements for certification service providers and certificates and also to the provision of mutual recognition, the introduction of liability rules and cross-border provisions.
In all these aspects the proposal is in line with what is suggested by the report of the European Parliament.
<P>
Turning to the question of confidentiality services, here we are talking about the amendment of the dual-use regulation, and that proposal for a Council regulation was adopted by the Commission on 15 May.
The main change was the proposal for notification instead of licensing procedures for intra-Community trade.
At the moment no regulatory activities are foreseen but the Commission will continue examining the proportionality of national restrictions with a view to seeing whether any of them have become obstacles to the proper working of the internal market.
<P>
I would like once again to thank Parliament for this supportive report.
I hope we will get the same support for the proposal for a directive and, given the importance of initiative in terms of its impact on growth and employment, I hope Parliament will quickly endorse the proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=264 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 7.45 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of the last sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="Falconer">
Madam President, I notice from the Minutes that Mr Janssen van Raay has very kindly complimented me on my activities on behalf of the back-benchers in this Chamber.
<P>
I would like to thank him for his kind words but I would also like to stress that my difference of view with the Bureau was not on a legal point but on a democratic point.
I believe that discipline is a matter for the political groups.
I do not believe it is the responsibility of Parliament as an institution. I also believe that any changes to the allowances payable to Members of this House from the time they were elected in July 1994 be put to the House, rather than imposed by any Bureau of 15 to 16 people.
<P>
So my point was different.
I do not believe in pursuing these matters through legal channels.
It is a democratic course which I am intent upon.
But I would like to thank Mr Janssen van Raay for his kind comments yesterday.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Madam President, I should just like to point out that my name is not on yesterday's attendance register, although I took part in all the votes.
<P>
I should be grateful if this could be rectified.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Grossetête">
Madam President, my name is not on yesterday's attendance register, although I was present, and took part in all of yesterday's roll-call votes.
<P>
May I ask that this be rectified?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="Hardstaff">
Madam President, item 1 of yesterday's Minutes states that I made clear that I had intended to vote against in most votes.
I should like to make it clear that I actually did vote in both of those votes and voted against.
But this was not registered in the Minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Madam President, I would also like to refer to the Minutes regarding what my friend, Mr Janssen van Raay, said about mandatory attendance at votes and the relevant sanctions.
It is very unpleasant when you arrive here on Monday and see several Members being rebuked at the Members' cash office, embarrassed by the officials telling them that they will be penalized for several days of this part-session because they did not attend the vote.
I believe this is an erosion of individuality and of our integrity as Members of European Parliament. Can you think of a means, as long as this measure still exists, where the punishment - and that is what it is - does not take place en plein public by officials at the Member's cash office?
That is my question to you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Madam President, I have just one comment to make on the subject of punishing officials: the poor people in the cash office are not to blame.
If anyone should be punished it is those at the top, whose faces are never seen.
That is what we should be demanding.
And a number of other elected officials should be punished; I do not mean you, but someone else.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Madam President, I would like to inform the House that another Commission official was mugged in Leopold Park, probably by the same group which mugged Mr Macartney.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
I have taken note of that.
Today is the last part-session.
I hope that emotions will stop running quite so high, that there will be no more red faces and that we can now move to the vote.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Votes
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="González Triviño">
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="Kellett-Bowman">
Madam President, a few minutes ago you reported that there were corrections to all languages.
I am a bit puzzled by that because, if the original language has been changed, at what stage in the procedure was it changed?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
We shall ask for that to be checked and you will receive a written answer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Collins">
I enthusiastically support this report.
For the last few years as a frequent traveller with Sabena, I and my fellow passengers have endured lost luggage, delayed flights, tremendously over-booked planes, rude staff - especially in Brussels - incompatible computer systems (even within one company) and a level of inconvenience which, if associated with a major retailer, would have produced consumer resistance and bankruptcy a long time ago.
It is therefore about time that consumers were able to exercise some control over the activities of such rogue companies.
This report, though not perfect, goes some way to achieving that and that is why I support it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="Lindqvist">
The question of compensation in the event of overbooking flights is not a matter for the EU or the European Parliament.
It is a matter that should be resolved by the airlines and the airline organizations.
I have therefore voted against the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Miller">
I welcome this report, though I doubt if the airline that I fly with regularly, Sabena, does.
If overbooking was the only fault then I suppose the airline could improve.
But when you add lost luggage, delayed flights and poor service, then there is a serious problem.
While this report goes some way to rectifying one problem, there has to be action to tackle the others.
<P>
Howitt report (A4-0214/98)
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Souchet">
Mr Howitt's report gives an outline of the priorities which should form a basis for the adjustment of Structural Funds programmes to the end of 1999, in response to the chronic under-utilization of the Structural Funds.
But once again, instead of investigating the causes of under-consumption, and particularly the incredibly high degree of bureaucracy, mismanagement, wastage and fraud, all we are proposing to do is to redirect the use of the Structural Funds.
<P>
The role of the Structural Funds is paradoxical. Their aim is to promote social and economic cohesion, which has been impaired by some Community decisions, such as the reform of the CAP, the reduction in agricultural prices, and the prohibition of the use of drift nets by our fishermen in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.
<P>
Structural aid for the rural economy, which was developed in 1992-1993, was also intended to provide compensation for the agricultural interests which were sacrificed within the framework of the GATT negotiations.
<P>
One of the most important priorities adopted should have been the evaluation of the consequences of Economic and Monetary Union on regional disparities.
The euro is, in fact, likely to worsen appreciably the imbalances between the least populated, poorest, most rural and peripheral regions, on the one hand, and the regions situated along the main lines of communication, where economic activities are concentrated, particularly those through the centre of Europe, on the other hand.
<P>
In order to maintain a balance between our territories, it is indispensable to preserve the vitality of rural regions and regions dependent on fishing, which, need I remind you, cover 80 % of the area of the European Union.
If we want to ensure that land use is balanced, to prevent the drift from the land, to preserve our rich and fragile cultural and natural heritage which is the main source of tourism, we must pay more attention to certain more vulnerable and less accessible under-privileged areas, such as mountain areas and wetlands, which are particularly numerous in Europe.
<P>
In our opinion, the Community should not try to cover innumerable areas, in a customer-based rather than a development perspective. Its efforts should be concentrated on tightening things up and giving priority to the only two real common policies: the CAP and the CFP, by giving them the resources and instruments they need to operate efficiently.
<P>
Orlando report (A4-0222/98)
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Caudron">
I should like to declare my wholehearted support for a report which aims to step up the fight against organized crime in all its forms.
<P>
Europe needs common rules and increased cooperation in the areas of law and the police, but, above all, Europe needs shared convictions.
<P>
Of course, we need to protect individual freedom and increase legal protection, but it is also necessary to ensure that criminals do not have better protection than their victims.
<P>
There is already awareness of this in Europe. But the Council still has a long way to go.
<P>
Practical legislative and technical measures must be adopted and, in order to do so, we need a more political Europe, a citizens' Europe, in order to prevent crime which is often camouflaged behind companies and by financial and economic channels.
<P>
The Orlando report is taking us in the right direction, and I support it.
We must now go further, and do more, more quickly!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Souchet">
The Council has proposed a joint action with regard to the methods of cooperation between Member States in the fight against organized crime.
We are delighted that this type of cooperation is being established at intergovernmental level, as it cannot fail to have a positive effect on the fight against international crime and will increase the efficiency of the police and the law in Member States.
<P>
On the other hand, the treatment of the Council's proposals by this Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs is extremely worrying.
<P>
The committee has disfigured the Council's proposal, by systematically amending the provisions which ensure respect for national legislation and, therefore, the sovereignty of Member States.
<P>
It is certainly not the business of this Parliament to give an opinion on this type of issue, nor is it Parliament's business to recognize the competency of the European Court of Justice by means of Amendment No 13 to Article 4.
<P>
The Court of Justice cannot be considered competent on this subject in any capacity. The Council's proposal adopts the principle of an intergovernmental procedure, which implies that Member States themselves are competent, by means of their respective legal systems, with regard to the interpretation of the joint action and the settlement of any disputes concerning its implementation.
It is impossible to envisage that, due to this joint action, persons under the Member States' jurisdiction with whom they are understandably unlikely to agree, should be able to bring the Member States before the Court of Justice!
<P>
We are, therefore, totally opposed to the proposals of the Orlando report on principle and for practical reasons.
<P>
Elchlepp report (A4-0227/98)
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Rübig">
Exchanges and joint projects in the area of vocational training are especially important during the period of difficult economic adjustment.
<P>
As we have said, cooperation programmes must be organized in a balanced way in both directions.
For educational exchanges with the Czech Republic, this means not only encouraging mobility from the Czech Republic, but motivating and supporting teachers, pupils and students wishing to experience the Czech Republic at first hand.
<P>
It goes without saying that central and eastern European countries can secure places on these exchanges by making their own financial contribution.
However, we must take care here, as we did with the long-term SME programme, to ensure that the Community can provide additional finance from PHARE programme funds.
And even if we ensure in general terms that partner countries are able to make their own contributions, we must react efficiently in exceptional circumstances.
I can still see the floods in the Czech Republic in my mind's eye a year later.
The economic effects were devastating.
In this respect, I fully and wholeheartedly welcome the present proposal to use additional PHARE funds to guarantee further cooperation.
It is an active step in the direction of the Europeanization of the EU.
<P>
Macartney report (A4-0249/98)
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Souchet">
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations supports the fisheries agreement between the European Union and the Islamic Federal Republic of the Comoros.
France is directly involved in this agreement as it relates to 21 French tuna seiners.
<P>
However, we wish to point out that we are opposed to Amendment No 5 because it asks the Commission to submit a comprehensive report on the state of fish stocks, on the application and conditions of implementation of the agreement, and on its impact on vocational training. However, in reality, the fisheries agreement confers a right for a given number of boats to fish for a specific tonnage.
The measures accompanying the fisheries agreement are political and technical guidelines and European institutions should not unilaterally assume the right to regulate measures which fall exclusively within the national competency of the Islamic Federal Republic of the Comoros.
To conclude, the fisheries agreement should, therefore, not undermine the national sovereignty of one of the European Union's partners.
<P>
Amendment No 6 states that the Council authorizes the Commission to start negotiations with a view to the adoption of protocols implementing the agreement.
We are of course in favour of the Commission being authorized to negotiate the agreement, but we are against the extension of its mandate to cover implementing protocols.
The Council must remain in charge.
Once against, the federalist majority of the European Parliament is trying to strip the Council of its powers and transfer them to the Commission, a bureaucratic body, which is not democratically controlled.
<P>
Finally, this fisheries agreement highlights the problem of the supply of tuna to the European Union, since it focuses on a reference tonnage of 45 000 tonnes per annum for our domestic market only.
I should therefore like to reiterate that I am totally opposed to the decision to prohibit the use of drift gillnets inasmuch as they are mainly used to fish tuna in Atlantic, where fish stocks are healthy. The arguments relating to the protection of marine mammals are groundless because the drift gillnet is a selective type of fishing gear, as has been demonstrated by scientific studies, based on recognized reliable methodologies.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Fight against crime
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0222/98) by Mr Orlando, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the draft Joint Action adopted by the Council on the basis of Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union concerning arrangements for cooperation between Member States in respect of the identification, tracing, freezing or seizing and confiscation of instrumentalities and the proceeds from crime (6490/98 -C4-0184/98-98/0909(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Orlando">
Madam President, this draft joint action aims to strengthen cooperation in the identification, tracing, freezing, seizing and confiscation of instrumentalities and the proceeds from crime.
It is another step forward along the road traced in Dublin in 1996 and continued at the Amsterdam Summit in 1997.
The European institutions are becoming more and more aware of organized crime and the need for coordination to fight it.
<P>
I consider it only right to mention the contributions from the general report by Mrs Cederschiöld and the report by Mr Schulz and Mr Bontempi.
I also feel obliged to recall the previous joint action programmes for which I had the opportunity to be rapporteur.
First, I must mention the mechanism to evaluate the application and implementation at national level of international undertakings in the fight against organized crime, a joint action programme already approved by the Council of Ministers on 4 November 1997.
<P>

I also believe it right and proper to recall the Falcone programme, which provides for the updating and sharing of experiences and information between judges, law enforcement officials, the institutions and Member States as well as the candidate states seeking membership.
This programme was approved by the Council of Ministers on 19 March 1998.
<P>
This is a joint action programme that provides the first definition, accepted internationally, of a mafia association and participation in it, approved by the Council on 28 May 1998.
This programme, which is being examined today by the European Parliament, provides for forms of cooperation between Member States and the extension of legislation that has had positive results in certain European countries, including Italy.
It develops the suggestion by the Amsterdam Council that recalled how important it was for each Member State to have well-developed and wide-ranging legislation on the confiscation of the proceeds from crime and related money laundering.
<P>
The proposed text, with the related amendments, aims to deal with criminal organizations by getting hold of their assets.
The fight against organized crime certainly involves the use of weapons and the participation of institutions, but it also and especially has to be dealt with from a financial approach.
The mafia, like all forms of organized crime, enter the legal sphere through financial channels.
<P>
The draft provides for the seizing, freezing and subsequent legal confiscation of both material and immaterial, movable and immovable assets obtained through illegal activities.
For this reason, the action plan ends by explaining its precautionary and purely repressive effects, and it concerns not only immovable assets but also and especially movable assets, current bank accounts, stocks and bonds, stakes in companies and financial transactions. The aim is to disrupt criminal organizations by getting at their assets, because striking a blow to their assets certainly means developing an effective strategy in the fight against organized crime.
<P>
Indeed, it has already been fully demonstrated that a godfather or mafia boss in prison but with access to his assets was far more dangerous than one who was out of prison but who could not continue his illegal activities through lack of a solid economic and financial basis.
<P>


In other words, the strong arm of criminal organizations can be effectively weakened by merely cutting off the financial arm that, precisely because it is usually the most hidden, is in general dangerously underestimated and in any case not known to investigators.
<P>
In this joint action programme, a series of rational measures are proposed to speed up and facilitate actions of collaboration between the legal authorities and police forces of the various countries, taking into account the need to reduce the amount of time between legal practices and the transfer of illegal assets.
Such action is particularly topical in view of monetary integration; with the euro, Europe has a great opportunity before it.
Like with all great actions, this one has its risks: in this case, the risk is that Europe will become a great washing machine to launder money. This situation can be avoided through serious international cooperation and can certainly be overcome through cooperation and the creation of a common judicial and legal area.
<P>
The illusion that money has no smell vanishes when the origin is crime and violence, meaning illegal funds, and when illegal money clearly disrupts a market economy and prevents financial markets and banks from operating in an orderly fashion. Illegal money costs too much and at the same time too little; too much in ethical and criminal terms and too little in economic terms, thus contrasting sharply with the principle of competition.
<P>
I conclude by expressing my appreciation for the constructive contribution offered to the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs in relation to the text originally proposed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cederschiöld">
Madam President, in the action plan on organized crime, it was decided that the search for and seizure of proceeds from criminal operations should be strengthened.
The European Parliament supported the proposal, and the same trend is found in other parts of the world.
The net is now being pulled tighter around drug dealers and international organized crime.
A series of legislative acts will contribute to this.
The piece of legislation in this case is not particularly detailed, but the committee has attempted to clarify and strengthen it with the good help of the rapporteur, and not least with Palacio Vallelersundi's well-known legal expertise.
<P>
There may still be reason for the Council to return to the issue, namely, to the question of how the seized money should be handled.
Here the Council is proposing measures relating to handling, procedure and possibilities of emergency measures, as well as a network of contact points to prevent the disappearance of the assets of serious organized crime, such as drug dealing.
There will be investment in training.
However, we must have understanding for the fact that the Council is hastening slowly in this area, as there are fundamental integrity aspects that must be respected and human rights to be considered.
The balance must be maintained between the protection of integrity and the effectiveness of the fight against crime.
<P>
It is also important for the citizens of each country to have a sense of legal certainty, that is, that they know their law is respected.
This requires the protection of the individual.
Irrespective of the political objectives, confusion in the principles of law and order can never be justified by political objectives.
<P>
When my report on organized crime concerning the action plan was debated, Parliament voted almost unanimously for the victims of crime funds proposed there in the case of assets that could not be returned to their rightful owner, or when so many countries have been involved in the action and seizure that it is impossible to divide the proceeds in a reasonable manner.
The Council has still not given its opinion on this proposal.
There is reason to come back to this, and the victims of crime should be involved in this context.
In this matter, there are good examples within the Union on which to base the construction of a network.
Some specification of what should happen to the assets must be initiated in any case.
<P>
Because the Council has waited for the Parliamentary reading to reach a decision on this matter, it will also have a more complete basis on which to make a decision, as Parliament has developed its reasoning.
In the same way, it could be advantageous to issue a slim piece of legislation which functioned as a political barometer, picking up important ideas in the area of victims of crime which might be worth using.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Frischenschlager">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this report has a political significance which transcends the actual content.
Why?
Because the rapporteur has understood exactly how to highlight where the difficulties lie.
He points out how uncommonly difficult the Member States and the Council find it to take a truly political stance on questions of judicial cooperation, especially in the criminal sector.
This is a central point which the rapporteur makes clear in his critique and for that we are grateful to him.
I really have trouble believing that the draft actually states and I quote, "no concrete proposals for improving legal provisions in this area' and that it does nothing to further the action plan.
It is a declaration of political bankruptcy by the Council and the Member States in an uncommonly sensitive political area because, as we all know, cooperation and integration are not needed just for the internal market and it is perfectly clear that the criminals are several jumps ahead of the political institutions when it comes to making decisions and solving problems.
<P>
This is the background against which the Council has submitted this ridiculous proposal to us.
This needs to be said, because it is the Council which is the legislator, not us.
Judicial questions and criminal law are normally the bread and butter of parliamentarianism and yet we only make a moderate consultative contribution.
<P>
I would, therefore, like to thank the rapporteur for his extremely critical comments in the report on the involvement of Parliament, especially in the explanatory statement.
<P>
It is extremely important in this context, I feel, for the committee and the rapporteur and, I hope, the full House, to respond to this uncommonly meagre Council proposal with proper legislative, substantive work.
I think it is important for the European Parliament to get things moving on the content side.
It is most welcome that the rapporteur and the committee have made up their minds to do so.
<P>
I think we should take this opportunity to stress how strikingly inadequate the powers of the European Parliament are under the third pillar and how they need to be strengthened.
This is clear from this example and we must ensure that political decisions are taken and institutional conclusions are drawn in this area in line with social developments.
The report proves this and the rapporteur has my wholehearted thanks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Marset Campos">
Madam President, firstly may I add my congratulations for the rapporteur, Mr Leoluca Orlando, because he has produced a very good piece of work - as everyone acknowledges - and has highlighted - as has also previously been mentioned - the need to go ahead with a form of European construction that covers all necessary dimensions, that is to say, one which places emphasis not only on the economic side but also, and more particularly, on the social and legal side and the financial aspects, which are also important.
Mr Orlando has tried to correct that imbalance and for that reason our group will vote in favour of all his amendments to this proposal.
<P>
We are concerned because, to be precise, we perceive a kind of difference between the treatment of certain acts of minor significance and that of major problems such as organized crime and its disastrous consequences for society, culture, young people, etcetera. That difference in treatment shows that the Council has not risen to the occasion.
And it is important to act against these organized groups of criminals, characterized, among other things, by their financial strength and also by the fact that they have firms of legal advisers who are highly skilled in exploiting the byways, cracks and loopholes that exist in national and international law.
For that reason, the European Union needs to be more precise and more forceful where these groups are concerned.
<P>
We also find some of the practical amendments - Amendments Nos 6, 7, 10, 15 and 16, which seem to us to be aimed at the central issue - very positive.
In that respect, Amendment No 6 - on free and direct access by Member States to information held by another state - seems important to us because it will speed up the work of prosecuting this type of crime.
The same is true for Amendment No 7, on the court decisions that shall be required during the process of identifying illegal assets, in order to be able to infringe the protected rights of persons or institutions that have committed this type of crime, and for Amendment No 10, on the preparation of a catalogue of data which legal requests for confiscating instrumentalities and freezing the proceeds from crime must contain.
Another important amendment is Amendment No 16, on the need for states to take the necessary measures to be able to act in coordination with one another.
<P>
We do not, however, agree with Amendments Nos 20, 21 and 22, because we feel Mr Orlando's text is more precise.
<P>
For that reason, as we have said, we fully agree with the rapporteur, and we congratulate him.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Madam President, I shall be brief. We, the Greens, have always criticized the concept of organized crime as a hotch-potch of mafia structures, terrorism and whatnot on to which government authorities project their particular form of government, whereas in reality it is an irregular variation on the capitalistic enrichment process.
<P>
The question of civil liberties must carry more weight than the question of property rights.
We therefore take the opposite approach to that of the present regulation, which is why we have already refused once in the past to endorse an Orlando report which we felt went too far on this point.
On this question, that is, the question of infringing property rights in connection with irregular capitalistic enrichment processes, we are of the firm opinion that Mr Orlando has simply expressed the common sense view and we support the report on all points.
We also find the proposals of the Group of the European People's Party sensible and worthy of support.
<P>
In the final analysis, a "godfather' who is in prison but is managing his criminal assets from prison is far more dangerous than a godfather running around free but with no assets.
That is the decisive factor and in this respect the proper start has been made.
It is amazing just how hesitant the Commission is on the whole question, which is why we again have the wrong emphasis in the regulation.
<P>
We need to regulate a fair exchange on the extended internal market because that is the only way of preventing the growth of the criminal cancer produced by the normal capitalist enrichment process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Madam President, the Orlando report deals with a joint action of the Council in the framework of the detailed action plan to fight organized crime as adopted in June 1997 by the European Council.
The Orlando report was quite negative about this proposal concerning the cooperation of Member States in the area of identification, tracing, freezing or seizing and confiscation of the instrumentalities and proceeds from crime.
<P>
According to this report, the Council has not satisfied a single demand of the detailed action plan: the requirement from Policy Guideline 11 - including the improvement of the legal regulations of Member States and the implementation of special procedures - and Recommendation 26(c) - confiscation regardless of the physical presence of the violator - are not incorporated in this action.
<P>
I believe these allegations are too strong.
The action is based on Article K.3 of the Treaty of European Union, intended to implement the action plan, specifically concerning Recommendation 26(b).
Briefly summarized, this states that a study must be carried out to speed up the tracing and seizure of illegal assets and the implementation of decisions concerning confiscation.
In fact, the joint action provides a sizable impulse for this.
Expectations that a European system would be immediately established go much too far and would not even be compatible with the political objectives of the action plan.
They would perhaps be compatible with the political objectives of Parliament, but in that case we could not base our argument on the action plan to show that the Council is wrong.
Cooperation in the area of the administration of justice does not proceed very easily at European level; that is true.
But this also concerns the heart of the national Member States.
With such measures, one strikes very close to the sovereignty of the states.
<P>
The action is based on Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union.
Parliament has therefore advisory authority.
It is unclear to me why the proposal is being handled as if Parliament had approval authority.
<P>
In terms of their content, I can agree with many of the amendments, but in view of the intention of this action of the Council, the amendments to Article 4 actually go much too far and are too detailed.
I have real difficulty with Amendment No 13, which provides for the European Court of Justice to be given the competence, among other things, to interpret this action and the disputes surrounding its application.
This concerns an action in the framework of the third pillar.
The Court has no jurisdiction here unless the Member States themselves come to an agreement and approve this limitation of their freedom of policy.
<P>
Although I do not disapprove of the content of many of the amendments, I still cannot support this report, because I believe it does not belong here.
However, I fully endorse the proposal for a joint action from the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Blot">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, there is no doubt that with this report we are moving in the direction of cooperation between Member States in the fight against crime and, fortunately, we have a certain consensus on this subject.
<P>
We must not forget that crime has increased significantly in Europe over the last 50 years.
In France, for example, the number of crimes and offences has increased from 500 000 in 1950 to over 4.5 million at the present time.
This is an increase which is out of all proportion with the demographic development of the country.
I have used this example because it is one I know well, but I am sure that in most European countries, there has been a similar increase. This is extremely worrying.
<P>
Quite obviously, the aim of most crimes is to take possession of property illegally. We therefore need to fight against crime by hitting out against it economically, against the proceeds of crime and the assets of criminals.
That is therefore the aim of this report.
European cooperation in the fight against the crime, in this particular area, is thus very important.
<P>
One of the defects of our crime prevention procedures is their slowness, and the aim of several articles and amendments included in this report is, specifically, to accelerate the procedures relating to the identification, tracing, freezing or seizing and confiscation of the proceeds from crime.
All these measures have our full support.
<P>
However, we believe that the initial text of Article 4 should be maintained, because European cooperation should, of course, comply with national legislation, and also with the principle of subsidiarity enshrined in the Treaty on European Union.
Some amendments, such as Amendment No 4, make some very useful specific changes to a legislative proposal which nevertheless remains extremely general in scope.
<P>
With this report, we are therefore moving in the right direction. We shall vote in favour of it, but without a doubt, the action taken by Member States is still very ineffective due to the sheer scale of economic activities linked with crime.
European policy mirrors the policies of the Member States or of most Member States, and at the moment, it is hopelessly adequate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, I congratulate Mr Orlando on his courage and his report. It is a timely one.
European criminals, like European industry, have cottoned on to the advantages of the free movement of goods, services, capital and people.
Drugs, prostitution, dirty money and those smuggling illegal immigrants all benefit from the single market.
The forces of law and order must cooperate as do Europe's criminals and harmonise their procedures.
<P>
Mr Orlando's report helps us to start this process.
We can only hope that the Council of Ministers pays some attention.
I should also like to suggest a couple of other very simple practical steps we could take to deal with organized crime.
Mr Oostlander and I recently attended an international police conference in Holland.
The issue raised there with the two of us was the idea of using the transition to the euro as an opportunity for detecting and intercepting dirty money coming from organized crime.
Those with their ill-gotten gains in francs, Deutschmarks or pesetas in safe deposit boxes - or even under the bed! - will have at some time during the transition to the euro to change this money and that is when we will have our opportunity to identify it.
<P>
The police at the conference suggested the establishment of a European-wide special unit to detect such transactions - maybe based on Europol which is responsible now for dealing with the trans-European problems of drugs and terrorism.
Along with this, the requirement to report to the authorities the conversion of large amounts of cash from one currency to another needs to be harmonised.
<P>
At the moment in many countries only suspicious transactions have to be reported, and it may be sensible to harmonise this procedure and make it tougher.
The people of Europe would welcome such a step and we should seize this opportunity. Not to do so would be a mistake.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldi">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I consider it fundamental to support with determination the fight against mafia organizations and fully agree with the draft joint action adopted by the Council. But I am personally against the approach taken in the Orlando legislative proposal, in that this proposal is extremely prejudicial to the liberty and institutional guarantees of any citizen under investigation and is a step backward in time and history.
I am very concerned about this.
<P>
To promote this position would have one immediate effect: citizens would only need to be accused of involvement in mafia activities to have their assets and property confiscated and be ruined economically before any sentence of condemnation.
I remind you that we are talking about precautionary measures here.
And Italy has already been censured on several occasions by the Court of Justice for the extreme length of its trials.
<P>
The definition of a few basic principles aimed to improve international cooperation - but which also has major consequences at judicial level - must be in keeping with the preventive opinion of our Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs, even if the amendments tabled by Mrs Palacio seek to deal with this shortcoming.
To approve this proposal, ladies and gentlemen, means returning to the Middle Ages and the Inquisition, wiping out once and for all the social gains concerning freedom and the guarantee of defence of accused citizens who, for all the courts of civil states, are presumed innocent until a final sentence of condemnation.
<P>
I therefore appeal to your wisdom, ladies and gentlemen, and propose that the text be referred back to the Committee on Legal Affairs, which was unable to express its own opinion, so that guarantees for European citizens can be incorporated into the proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
Madam President, Commissioner, the fight against crime comes high up, sometimes at the top, of most opinion polls about what people think the EU should, among other things, concern itself with.
This is a report of the kind which discusses how crime and criminal activity should be prevented through effective cooperation between the Member States.
<P>
Firstly, I would like to say that it relates to intergovernmental cooperation.
It is about tracing and seizing financial assets arising from such crime.
It also relates to getting Member States to ratify conventions and the resolution on the laundering of drugs money, etcetera.
<P>
Some keywords I see in this include access to information between the Member States, high priority in the form of rapid processing of applications for the seizure, rapid action, personal contacts between investigators, judges, etcetera and simple procedures whilst upholding legal certainty.
This is an issue which is extremely sensitive for many Member States.
Issues of crime, punishment, police and prosecutors are the foundation of the legislation of many nation states.
It is, therefore, important to do nothing that is viewed as an infringement of national sovereignty.
In my opinion, this includes Amendment No 13, which proposes that Member States should recognize the Court of Justice as the competent authority on the interpretation of Article 4.
Article 4 concerns questions regarding appeals, damages and suchlike that are often purely matters for the civil court, particularly questions of damages.
There is no reason to involve the Court of Justice in this cooperation.
This is therefore something that I am against. Aside from this, the report is excellent.
We in the ELDR Group support it, on my part with the exception of Amendment No 13.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, in my view, organized crime stems first and foremost from the unaccountable free market, the so-called free, and henceforth, global economy.
This form of crime flourishes, organizes itself, expands and takes on giant proportions in direct proportion to the increasing unaccountability of the free market and in direct proportion to the extent to which the free market spreads and gains in stature.
They are two parallel phenomena and one affects the other.
<P>
Despite that, we are not radically opposed to the measures recommended by the Council and in Mr Orlando's report.
We feel that they represent a step; we consider that this form of coordination and cooperation between Member States is needed if we are to deal with what is, subjectively and objectively, a united front on the part of a form of organized crime which acts with the means at its disposal and is based on huge quantities of dirty money.
<P>
So these measures are all well and good and are improved by Mr Orlando's amendments and the amendments tabled by a number of other Members.
However, we consider, first, that a great deal of care is needed.
One Member said earlier, and I agree with her, that these procedural, criminal and other administrative measures may have the opposite of the intended effect and could strangle civil liberties and the rights of the individual.
We must be careful not to go too far.
And we would vote for them if the vote, if the council resolution could provide an absolute, categorical guarantee that there no mistakes will be made to the detriment of civil liberties.
<P>
Lastly, I would like to say, Mr President, that we are fighting a form of organized crime which acts, as I said, within the framework of the free market and which has allies in the banking system, in the police and in the courts.
It has penetrated and corrupted all these institutions.
So if we want to fight it, we have to stop treating the symptoms. We have to deal with the underlying causes.
We have to cauterize the points at which dirty money feeds and where the process is initiated.
We cannot fight organized crime while the sources of corruption, I repeat, from the top of the political leadership of parties sometimes, the courts, the police, the administrative authorities are involved in organized crime.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bianco">
Mr President, I consider Mr Orlando's report excellent, and the direction that he gave it is a very positive framework with which to move forward in the effective fight against organized crime.
I see absolutely no threats to individual liberties, I only see the request for effective collaboration that must be pursued with adequate instruments.
These suggestions exist in the amendments and in the direction given by Mr Orlando.
<P>
I would not like a kind of obsessive focus on the problems of personal liberty to cover up and protect certain distinct positions that should instead be pursued with great determination.
In conclusion, I fully support the report and the amendments by Mr Orlando.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, it is clear that this draft joint action is good.
The report which has been produced is good.
However, I believe the moment of truth will come fairly soon when we look at the implementation of the action plan to combat organized crime, etcetera.
<P>
The Internal Affairs Council adopts joint action after joint action without this necessarily involving a great deal.
If we look at the situation regarding the application of conventions in the same area, we see that the situation is pitiful.
Conventions have been approved, but very few of them have come into force.
What is the situation with these joint actions which are almost rhetorical?
I believe we are approaching a situation where there is a very large difference between the words that are uttered about cooperation and what actually takes place.
That is what I mean by the moment of truth in these important areas: legal cooperation and the fight against organized crime.
<P>
We repeat situations where Member States do not in fact comply with what has been said in the convention areas which already exist.
How is it with this then?
I do, however, believe in the power of example, and hope that people will in fact succeed in cooperating.
<P>
Furthermore, I would like to say that I, unlike my colleague Mr Lindqvist, support the proposal that the Court of Justice should have authority in this area.
Without wishing to refer the matter back to committee, I do, however, regret that the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights was not consulted on this area, that we have not had the opportunity to express ourselves.
However, it is now too late, and I am not demanding that it be referred back.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Mr President, first I would like to thank the rapporteur for his consistent action in the fight against crime.
The adversary, however, is "organized crime' and should not be underestimated. It is an adversary which a priori has the upper hand due to a lack of legal constraints and against which the Union must arm itself with the best legal weapons.
That is why we must join the rapporteur in ruing the lack of concrete proposals in the measure submitted for improving legal provisions in the Member States.
<P>
Given the rising crime rates, I find the reservations shown difficult to understand.
Even in Austria, where the matter is regulated more or less along the lines advocated by the rapporteur, I have for this very reason criticized provisions which I felt went too far in dispensing with what we refer to as levies on enrichment and forfeiture, as counter-productive and mafiafriendly, precisely because it is swift action against the financial proceeds of criminal organizations which is effective.
That is why we welcome the proposed improvements.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, continuing training for officials is important.
Permanent training and continuing training are at the root of efficient action.
We urgently need to improve infrastructures, especially that of the investigation authorities.
But research into investigation methods and information on groups of persons and organizations are equally important.
However, are we a good example in our own field?
What is our track record on fighting crime in and around our Parliament.
People are constantly being mugged, our offices are broken into and things are stolen from our desks.
I think we need to review the ECU 16.7 million spent on security for Parliament.
What is our track record on cooperation with the French, Belgian and Luxembourg authorities as far as our own security is concerned?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
Mr President, we in the Commission welcome today's debate on the means of seizing and confiscating the proceeds of crime.
We are grateful to the rapporteur, Mr Orlando, for the work that he has done and particularly his suggestions for improving the draft joint action which is still being considered by the Council.
<P>
When the Council considers the matter, it might do well to bear clearly in mind that, according to the opinion polls, there are huge majorities of people in every single Member State who support maximum coordination, legal action and cooperation against international crime.
In this respect at least, the public demonstrates that it is rather ahead of politicians' thinking on the issue, though sadly not quite as far ahead as the criminals.
<P>
The Commission very much agrees with the general thrust of Mr Orlando's report, which aims to strengthen the commitments to combat money laundering and confiscate the proceeds of crime.
Clearly, to fight organized crime effectively, it is important to have international instruments that are not merely based on 'best endeavour' undertakings but are authentic and welldefined legal obligations that can protect society and deter or, indeed, punish the villains.
<P>
I particularly agree with Mr Orlando when he stresses that Member States which have not already done so should ratify the Council of Europe's 1990 Convention on laundering, search, seizure and confiscation of the proceeds of crime.
In fact Member States should endeavour to ratify all the conventions to which they have agreed, within the promised deadlines.
The conventions and protocols on the fight against fraud and corruption have, for instance, been awaiting ratification for more than two years.
My Commission colleagues and I hope that governments will now live up to their commitments and national parliaments will press for ratification.
<P>
In their own interests, Member States should also comply fully with the requirements of the Community directive on combating money laundering and implement the recommendations produced by the task-force on money laundering in 1996.
<P>
The Commission also endorses the amendments which improve the way in which direct cooperation in legal assistance is offered.
We also support the introduction of deadlines in the procedures and a better definition of the requirements to be fulfilled in order to offer judicial assistance between the Member States.
<P>
The Commission is aware of the need to balance effective measures against money laundering with protection of individuals' genuine rights.
We therefore welcome Mr Orlando's proposals to ensure that those who wrongly suffer loss as a result of such measures will be entitled to claim compensation.
Criminals would not observe individual civil rights so scrupulously, but, as democrats, we naturally have to demonstrate superiority in this respect.
<P>
We are also sympathetic to the idea of including a review clause with a date for checking whether the joint action could be further strengthened.
We suggest the end of 1999 or perhaps the end of the year 2000 so that there is a specific date, rather than a relatively vague open-ended commitment.
<P>
As the House will know, the issue of efforts to combat organized crime was carefully considered at the open debate of the Council of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers last May, and the Cardiff Summit also made a clear statement on the subject.
Mindful of these activities and of our own strong feelings, the Commission will do its utmost to include forceful references to the matter in the action plan on freedom, security and justice which has to be submitted to the European Council in Vienna next December.
Naturally, we continue to count on the support of this Parliament in shaping further progress in this important area now covered by the Treaty of Amsterdam.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Kinnock.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to vote.
<P>
Before the vote on Amendment No 13
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, may I ask the rapporteur a question on this point?
Mr Blokland maintains that this would be overstepping the contractual mark.
If you look closely at the amendment, it contains a proposal to the effect that the Member States agree between themselves to cooperate in this way.
Perhaps the rapporteur could give an opinion on this?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="President">
Mr Wolf, if the rapporteur had asked to speak as rapporteur, I would immediately have allowed him to speak.
There is no doubt about that.
But it is my view that Mr Orlando is not obliged to give an opinion at the request of another Member if he does not wish to do so.
And, since he does not wish to do so, we shall continue with the vote.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I truly welcome the fact that we have been giving the subject of money laundering increasing attention over recent months, but I feel that we should include this matter more intensively in the accession strategy, in the structured dialogue and in accession negotiations.
There has been a return to a proper rule of law in the countries of central and eastern Europe following decades of socialist enrichment, but this process is being massively abused by powers in the EU and by the old and new structures in the countries of central and eastern Europe in order to launder money.
We need to tackle this matter, which is why I welcome the fact that the Austrian President-in-Office of the Council will be coming to Brussels next week with his Minister for Justice, Mr Michalek, and his Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Schlögl.
We can only hope that they do not walk through Leopold Park; but otherwise we welcome the fact that we will be able to refocus on the matter.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Participation of the Czech Republic in Community programmes (training, youth and education)
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0227/98) by Mr Elchlepp, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning the Community position within the Association Council on the participation of the Czech Republic in Community programmes in the fields of training, youth and education (COM(98)0093 - C4-0161/98-98/0067(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Elchlepp">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it truly is wonderful that young people from the countries of central and eastern Europe can now take part in European exchange and training programmes even before their countries become full members.
I personally witnessed the huge expectations of and commitment to the programmes in the Czech Republic during recent talks with members of parliament and the government in Prague.
I really must stress here that educational exchanges with central and eastern European countries will not be a one-way street and exchanges will work in both directions.
Young people from Prague, Budapest and Warsaw are prevented by the division of Europe from taking advantage of training possibilities in London, Paris, Bologna and elsewhere, while young people from the EU are deterred from spending a year in Poland, Romania or the Czech Republic.
This should become a matter of course and we should motivate young people to do it.
<P>
I hope that even more study courses will be set up which offer this as an integral part of the course.
I would also like to stress that the inclusion of these countries in the training programme is, first and foremost, an important component in supporting the enlargement process.
Enlargement towards the east is not merely an economic process; it is a gigantic learning curve for us all.
It involves building trust and breaking down the prejudices which have failed to disappear now that the borders are open and which are, unfortunately, harboured by forces both here and in these countries which are basically opposed to European integration.
<P>
Nor should the significance of the transfer of know-how be underestimated.
Personal exchanges of experience in teaching, science, vocational training and teacher training are an excellent driving force during the difficult adjustment process on the path towards full membership and are usually more important than investing in material assets.
For the rest, they also help to prepare young people for the mobility needed on a larger European job market.
We must make sure as a matter of priority that participation in the programmes increases steadily over coming years.
<P>
There is another point which I would like to stress. During our talks in Prague, it was suggested that representatives of the central and eastern European countries should be offered the opportunity to attend the EU training programme accompanying committees.
I would like expressly to support this move and to ask the Commission to support it, because personal cooperation in committees represents an important step towards integration and offers our partners in these countries an excellent opportunity to become acquainted with the complex EU administration and programme structures at a specialist level.
<P>
The financial resources available to candidate countries are limited.
As I have said, we must ensure that the numbers of people involved in exchanges increase still further over coming years.
More the pity that, now of all times, the Council of Finance Ministers has tabled a proposal to reduce the funds for Leonardo by two-thirds from ECU 140 million to ECU 40 million next year.
It is downright scandalous.
<P>
This is especially true given all the full-blown announcements at the Cardiff Summit as to how we want to pursue an active employment policy, focus on European qualifications, facilitate mobility on the European job market and push on with the integration of central and eastern European countries.
As we heard from the President-in-Office of the Council in this House just two days ago, all this is to become reality.
<P>
This reduction applies yet again to training policy to be exact, to vocational training more precisely, money is being refused to the weakest on the job market but not to industry-related media programmes.
Surely the public must get the impression that this is a dishonest policy.
I am outraged and ashamed when I think of the multitude of good, cross-border projects set up by companies, training institutes and technical colleges which will now have to be cancelled and of the dashed hopes of young people who, perhaps for the first time in their lives, might have been able to finish part of their vocational training in another country.
<P>
Given the imminent enlargement of the EU towards the East and the increase in the number of candidates, the question of funding for EU programmes is already becoming even more urgent.
Now there is a risk that de facto training projects and candidates from central and eastern European countries will have to compete with projects and candidates from the EU for even less funding.
It does not create a very good impression.
I therefore urge the Council to renounce this short-sighted and antisocial policy and to increase rather than reduce the funds.
This is also a piece of European credibility.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Heinisch">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we can all still picture the catastrophic floods which struck the Czech Republic exactly one year ago.
Huge misfortune swept over man, beast and countryside and the horror of the people of central Europe was all the greater because they lived in a region which had suffered hardly any natural disasters.
<P>
My country and Poland were also affected by the misfortune. However, the seriousness of the situation was matched only by the solidarity shown to the victims in the form of active and financial assistance.
It is estimated that the floods in the east of the Czech Republic cost 3.5 % of the gross domestic product. If we approve the proposal to help the Czech Republic with the cost of youth programmes from EU funds then this is, in my opinion, a continuation of the solidarity which was the silver lining in the horrendous events last year.
<P>
Besides, and I have no intention of hiding the fact, this solidarity is not completely altruistic.
After all, it is vitally important to the community of states of the European Union that the youth and training programmes continue to attract our Czech neighbours, who are instrumental in the process of enlargement towards the East.
The participation of Czech citizens in the training programmes calls for partnerships, mobility, exchanges and the preparation of information in which the EU Member States and our associates have an equal interest.
<P>
This indivisible link in this instance between the interests of the European Union and those of the Czech Republic is yet again positive proof of the fact that the process of fusion with the countries of central and eastern Europe has already begun.
We should remember this.
That is why I would like to thank Mr Elchlepp for his excellent report and subscribe to his conviction that we must intervene jointly to ensure that funds are maintained and increased, as we shall otherwise be unable to help these young people. This is something which we shall tackle together.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="Kerr">
Mr President, I also wish to congratulate Mr Elchlepp on his report.
As a member of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, I know his work in the committee, and he is one of the most knowledgeable members in this area, having worked in it before he became an MEP.
It is quite rare to find rapporteurs who know more than the officials about the programmes concerned.
<P>
On the face of it, this is a technical measure to readjust funding.
But it raises a very symbolic and important financial point - which Mr Elchlepp made very well - that if we are serious about taking the applicant countries from central and eastern Europe into the European Union, and we in the Green Group certainly are, then we really have to talk about funding the process properly.
We had a long battle in the Culture Committee and in Parliament overall over the funding of Socrates, and we made it very clear that we will not vote in favour of any more members joining on an associate basis unless the Council provides the funding.
I am glad to say that, after a battle, we got an increase in funding.
I have to note, with Mr Kinnock here to respond, that the British government was initially opposed to that increase in funding.
But we got it.
The message which we have to underline here this morning is that to make these programmes work they need funding and, as Mr Elchlepp said, they are vitally important in terms of training, educational and youth exchanges to bind the people of the central and eastern European countries to the people of the Union.
Therefore, that is why we should emphasize this.
<P>
The exchange programmes which have already begun have started to build a basis for this growth in the Community.
No European Union worthy of its name can be complete unless we take these countries in, and these programmes are a very good way to go forward.
<P>
Finally, since Commissioner Kinnock is here, I just wish to say that it is nice to see what a splendid job he is doing this morning.
I might have had some criticisms of him in the past as Labour leader but, after the recent visit of the current leader, I have to say: all is forgiven and please come back, Neil; if not as leader of the Labour Party then I hope as President of the Commission next time.
Though having said that, this will probably finish him off if it gets back to Tony.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Kerr.
I have to inform you that we have not yet amended the Rules of Procedure in accordance with the Amsterdam Treaty and, therefore, Parliament cannot put proposals to the Council regarding Presidents of the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldi">
Mr President, like the other Members, I, too, congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Elchlepp, on the excellent work he did.
The European Community's enlargement towards central and eastern Europe certainly has to take into account aspects like the exchange of experiences and cultural projects, particularly those for young people.
Only if there is constructive dialogue between students and teachers can an important result be obtained in innovative teaching and training projects; for this reason it is fundamental that we accelerate the process of structural adjustment of these countries which will join the European Union.
It is important to ensure that programmes are open to all young people, including those from socially disadvantaged families, that they succeed, therefore, in working towards a joint project which enables these young people to learn about their own history, their own values, their own identity.
<P>
The Czech Republic needs our support, particularly for the three education, training and youth programmes, completing the action of integration with specific agreements.
It is worth recalling that, following the disastrous floods in July 1997 - as Mr Elchlepp clearly indicated - the country's finances have been in a difficult state; therefore, so that the Czech Republic can participate in the Socrates, Leonardo and 'Youth for Europe' programmes as soon as possible, a solution has to be found to this technical problem of funding, also because in this region of the world, lasting cooperation between young people becomes fundamental, given the difficult historical relationship.
<P>
Teacher, pupil and student mobility from the European Union to the Czech Republic must be encouraged but guaranteed in a balanced way and with a genuine exchange of cultures and languages.
European cultural integration, which is at the basis of the Treaty on European Union, is only possible if we devote special attention to these countries that are socially and culturally close to us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, as a member of the Czech-German coordination council set up in Pilsen a fortnight ago and as rapporteur on the additional protocol to the association agreement on which the Elchlepp report is based, I would like to congratulate Mr Elchlepp most warmly on his report and give him my full support.
I think, in fact, that you can only make political headway by changing the way people think and people will only change the way they think by coming together. This only works from the bottom up, not from the top down, from officials and politicians.
<P>
It is precisely here that young people are a special and important factor, which is why I believe that we must promote projects such as the Ronsperg youth clubs in Westböhmen or the student exchange programme between Bavaria and the Czech Republic set up by the Prague journalist Milan Kubes as well as numerous other projects, because it is only though such concrete action that we can mutually prepare for enlargement.
<P>
I think that this is the crux of the matter: mutually preparing for enlargement, which is why I welcomed the fact that Mr Elchlepp stressed that we should make it possible for large numbers of people from the EU to go to the Czech Republic, so that we can learn their language and culture.
I truly believe that these exchanges should not be a one-way street and that we have just as much to learn as people in the applicant countries of central and eastern Europe.
That is why the Elchlepp report is particularly welcome, because it removes the paternalistic biased attitude which often reigns and advocates genuine cooperation between partners.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, the Pope recently visited Vienna and said that we should be talking of Europeanization rather than enlargement towards the East.
I think that these cross-border training exchanges could be used as a model.
Cooperation in training is extremely important, because people in the profession, teachers, pupils and students, have the opportunity to get to know each other and to learn from each other.
<P>
I, too, asked the Council for an increase in Leonardo funds on Wednesday during the presidency debate.
As Mr Elchlepp rightly pointed out, we have no sympathy with reductions because funds within the European Union are already so stretched.
We need a 100 % increase in these funds if we are to be able to do justice to these tasks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
For me this has been an interesting debate, not least because of one of a contribution from a Green Member - he was kind enough to offer me an invitation to return.
It is one that I sincerely decline.
Although he offered me that invitation to come back because all is forgiven, I regret to say that I cannot reciprocate.
<P>
I am grateful to Mr Elchlepp for his report on a proposal for a decision by the European Union-Czech Association Council which would allow the Czech Republic to use PHARE funds to pay part of its financial contribution to three education related Community programmes - Leonardo, Socrates, and Youth for Europe.
As the House will recall, the participation of candidate countries in Community programmes fulfils an objective that was recognised by the 1993 Copenhagen Council and has been confirmed at subsequent European Councils.
I share the hope expressed in the course of this debate that those declarations of intent and good purpose will be assiduously copied by finance ministers in their approach to various Community programmes.
<P>
This whole approach is a significant element of the pre-accession strategy since participation in such programmes contributes to the implementation of the economic and cultural cooperation provisions of the Europe Agreement.
It also enables candidate countries to familiarize themselves with an important part of the cooperation practices of the European Union and with the procedures and methods used in Community programmes.
Clearly, it also contributes to helping those countries to respond to internal policy needs and to find solutions to common problems.
<P>
It is no accident that the first programmes opened for candidate countries' participation were Leonardo, Socrates and Youth for Europe.
Education and training are obviously essential for bringing countries closer together.
The creation of a learning society is at least as important to the efforts to promote growth, competitiveness and employment in the candidate countries as it is in the Member States.
The Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania were the first countries to participate in Community programmes in October 1997.
In the months since, it has been obvious that those nations pursued the programmes with great enthusiasm after the lengthy and thorough preparations undertaken with the technical and financial assistance of the Community.
The successful information campaign and the expectations raised during the period preceding the entry into force of the decision have led to a large number of applications, with the Czech participants being particularly active and successful in their applications.
<P>
Early last year the Czech Republic announced that it would bear the full cost of participation in the education-related programmes from its own budget in 1997, 1998 and 1999, rather than using PHARE support.
However, as we have been reminded in the course of the debate, at the end of last year the Czechs advised us that the massive financial burdens resulting from the devastating floods of July 1997 have made it impossible to fulfil that original ambition.
The Republic now wants to make full use of possible Community support through the PHARE programme.
As the House will know, such support was reaffirmed by the Member States at the Luxembourg Council last December.
I hope that Parliament will follow the recommendations in Mr Elchlepp's very good report, and respond positively to the Czech request to use PHARE funds for this purpose, as in the case of other applicant countries such as Hungary, Romania, Poland and the Slovak Republic.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Kinnock.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to vote.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Fishing off the Comoros
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0249/98) by Mr Macartney, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) relating to the conclusion of the Protocol setting out the fishing opportunities and financial contribution provided for in the Agreement between the European Economic Community and the Islamic Federal Republic of the Comoros on fishing off the Comoros for the period from 28 February 1998 to 27 February 2001(COM(98)0264 - C4-0344/98-98/0144(CNS)).
<P>
The rapporteur, Mr Macartney, will speak first for five minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="Macartney">
Mr President, this is not a controversial report but it is an extremely important agreement for one of the most impoverished countries in the world, namely the Comoro islands.
Not only have they had many problems with their economy but of course they have had problems with rebellion and they have been a war-torn zone for quite a long time.
<P>
However, the needs of the fishermen of the Comoros and of the Comoran government, are all still present and it is very important that the EU has this agreement with the Comoro islands.
<P>
One question to ask for the future, and perhaps the Commission will not want to respond immediately, but if it wishes to do so I am delighted, is how the Comoros fisheries agreement will in future fit in with the Indian Ocean as a whole.
I know from the Seychelles that they are much more interested in an Indian Ocean-wide series of agreements, rather than individual agreements.
Perhaps we should be told whether the agreement is likely to continue for the Comoros in this way or whether it will be subsumed in a larger series of negotiations.
Nevertheless, the issue is very important for the people of the Comoros.
<P>
Perhaps this agreement is again typical of the way in which agreements between the EU and third countries have evolved, in that the development component has steadily increased.
Instead of just a lump sum going to the government of the country concerned, there is increasing concern for scientific and technical measures.
On page 9 of my report we see a series of six headings, including support for the ministry of fisheries, study grants, practical training courses, financing of scientific and technical programmes and even participation in international meetings.
One of the problems of the Comorans is that they cannot afford the fares to go to some of the meetings they should be represented at.
<P>
This is a good model of the way in which these agreements are continuing.
However, at one point it looks slightly more generous than it really is in several language versions.
I have to report one slight mistake, which I am grateful to Mr McCartin for pointing out with his eagle eye: at one point when it talks about 45 000 tonnes this is actually 4 500 tonnes, so we were not getting quite the bargain we thought in the purchase of tuna!
So I regret to inform the language services that this applies to eight language versions, but not to the Dutch, French or Swedish versions - the Dutch, French and Swedes need not worry but the others should, perhaps, be concerned.
That is just for the record.
<P>
The final point I should like to make is that the European Parliament, and its Committee on Fisheries, have increasingly requested reports from the Commission at the end of the agreements with the country concerned, so that we can make an informed judgment about the future of these agreements.
I would emphasize that this is important and is the reason for the amendments which were tabled in the Fisheries Committee.
I look for the support of the House for those amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Hardstaff">
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I should like to thank and congratulate Mr Macartney on his very useful report on the fishing agreement with Comoros.
<P>
The amendments agreed unanimously in committee strengthen the commitment of this Parliament to ensure that European fishing agreements such as the one we are discussing today contain a strong element of development assistance and that this will be reviewed regularly.
It is important that such agreements are not just a means by which rich countries exploit one of the few natural resources of an extremely poor country like the Comoros.
<P>
The PSE therefore welcomes the fact that, on top of the payment of ECU 540 000 to the government of Comoros for fishing rights, there is a commitment of an additional ECU 540 000 for direct support for the Comoros' own fishing industry to support the programmes mentioned already by Mr Macartney.
We hope that when this agreement is again reviewed, the Commission will consider still more assistance to contribute to the development of added value projects, such as processing and canning, which will make a real contribution to the local economy and local living standards.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="McCartin">
Mr President, I want to thank Mr Macartney for his report which is well done and represents the views and concerns of the Committee on Fisheries.
I have one or two concerns that perhaps represent my own views rather than those of my political group.
<P>
First of all we should remember that we are dealing with an extremely poor part of the world: half a million people with a GDP per capita of something like ECU 600 annually or 3 % of the European Union average.
These are very poor people. Theirs is an unsettled political situation as well.
That raises the question, for me, of how we can expect these people to have any idea of what is happening in their coastal areas or waters.
We cannot expect a country like the Comoros to know what fish has been taken out.
I would not trust any information that I get from an area with such meagre resources about what is happening in their waters.
<P>
Secondly, we did a deal on the basis of 6 000 tonnes of tuna.
We only caught, apparently, an average of 3 000 tonnes, and yet we are increasing the number of vessels being sent there.
The revised figure that Mr Macartney gives us is 4 500.
But there are 44 seine vessels and 16 longliners.
I have to ask why all these ships are going such a great distance to catch 3 000 tonnes of tunafish.
I would like to see some kind of balance sheet presented to us.
How many days did all this tonnage of vessels fish in these waters, what did they catch and where did they land it? Who tells us what amount of fish is involved?
Some kind of balance sheet that would bring this into some sort of reasonable focus is needed.
I do not begrudge the fishermen of Spain and France the subsidies we are giving them but I think we should give them in a different way.
We should not mix up development aid with an economic policy that the Community is pursuing in relation to fishing.
I have serious doubts about this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Piha">
Mr President, the Islamic Federal Republic of the Comoros is one of the world's poorest economies.
That is why it is very important that funds in the fishing agreement between the EU and this region are in future targeted mainly at the development of the fishing sector in the Comoros and the monitoring of fishing.
That is the best way of enhancing sustainable development in the region from the point of view of both the environment and society.
<P>
The working methods of the Commission and the Council in extending the fishing agreement leaves a lot to be desired, however.
How, for example, has the decision on the provisionary application of the protocol on fishing, which will have effects on funding and budgets, been taken once again without reference to the other budgetary authority, that is to say, the European Parliament?
In addition, the Commission has pledged to pay a part of the compensation in the absence of a Parliamentary opinion.
In my opinion, this can no longer be due to a shortage of time.
Can the negotiators of new fishing agreements not start work well before the former contract has expired so that the Union's ponderous regulations for procedure, such as they are, might be observed?
<P>
I thus agree with the rapporteur that the flow of information between Parliament, the Council and the Commission must be improved upon.
In this connection, the assessment reports requested by Parliament on the implementation of the agreement hitherto must be submitted before negotiations on the new agreement start.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="von Habsburg">




Thank you, Mr President, I shall continue in German.



<P>
It is well worth dealing with these so-called smaller reports on a Friday, because a great deal is said which we never get to hear with the larger reports.
I would like to refer to one point in particular.
If you read the report, especially its explanatory statement, you will see the scandalous manner in which the powers that be here in Parliament and, more importantly, in the European Union, run roughshod over Parliament's rights. Times are manipulated in order to score points over us and this report on the Comoros is being used for precisely this purpose.
I want this on the record because it will be of even greater importance in the future. Every effort is being made on a systematic basis to dismiss Parliament's rights because they always say nobody reads anything at the end of a sitting.
Do the top officials and their acolytes think that we have not noticed what they are up to? Mr President, if this report on the Comoros is important, then it is important not only because it illustrates the shenanigans at the top, but also because it teaches us something, in other words, how important fishing is to us.
A few days ago, I was again asked why I keep reverting to fishing matters, despite the fact that my constituency has nothing to do with the sea. But, may I say in passing, we do have large quantities of the best trout in the world.
They are far better than the farmed variety. In any case, Mr Frischenschlager, the water comes from Austria.
<P>
(Laughter) This is a matter of crucial importance to mankind.
<P>
You simply have to compare menus in the restaurants of 20 years ago with those of today.
Twenty years ago, fish was the cheapest dish on the menu.
Today, fish is the most expensive.
We are beginning to apply to fish what was generally applied solely to bait fish in the past because there is not enough, which is why we need to keep the focus on this matter.
Our seas everywhere are being destroyed and, as we destroy them, we are ruining the poorest among us who still have to make a living from fishing, such as the inhabitants of the Comoros.
It is the huge fish factories in America, Russian and Japan which are destroying what needs to be maintained for future generations and we should take a decidedly more serious approach to this than is nowadays often the case.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="President">
Danke schön, Herr von Habsburg, and I will now switch to Spanish ...
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr von Habsburg's speech completes the list of contributions by Members of the House.
I therefore call on the Commissioner, Mr Kinnock, to speak.
Mr Kinnock, you have the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
Mr President, I enjoyed this debate, as I enjoyed reading Mr Macartney's report, but, certainly, attendance here was worthwhile to hear the appeal made by Mr von Habsburg and the response of the House.
It demonstrates that Friday mornings in the European Parliament are truly worthwhile.
<P>
Well, you get la crème de la crème , do you not on Friday morning!
<P>
I wish to thank Mr Macartney for his excellent report on the new terms and conditions for fishing by the Community fleet in the waters off the Comoros.
I would respond to the question he put by saying that, obviously, currently we are still dealing with bilateral agreements but these could evolve over the years into regional agreements if that were the expressed desire of the third countries.
To a great extent, the initiative lies with them. But I am certain that Mr Macartney will continue to follow this issue to see whether that evolution takes place.
<P>
So far as Mr McCartin's question is concerned, we provide annual reports in the form of the report on the budget outturn and also a report on the outlook for agreements.
But I understand that what he wanted was rather more comprehensive than that.
So I invite him to put down a written question listing the issues, that he very fairly raised, and I am certain that my colleagues in the Commission will happily respond in detail.
<P>
As the House will know, the Commission considers that these new terms are likely to ensure more effective implementation of the agreement in a way that is consistent with the basic principles of the conservation of resources - the importance of which was brought to our attention again in the course of this debate.
We also believe that this new protocol with the Comoros contains major innovations to promote sustainable fishing that are compatible with development policy.
<P>
The details of the agreement and protocol are obviously very familiar to the House so, rather than repeat them, I shall come directly to our response to the amendments by the Committee on Fisheries.
The Commission cannot accept Amendment No 1, because we consider that the expenditure relating to the agreement is compulsory.
We accept the spirit of Amendments Nos 2, 3, 4 and 5, but we stress that we already give regular information to Parliament, as I mentioned earlier, on the use made of fisheries agreements in the statements and reports that are made to the Fisheries Committee.
The Commission does not entirely agree with the objectives of Amendment No 6 and, in particular, the reference to small local fishing enterprises, since these fisheries agreements, which are, obviously, commercial in nature, seek to provide fishing opportunities for Community shipowners, while taking into account compatibility with other Community policies and especially development policy.
Since fisheries agreements are concluded on a Community level and the Commission, therefore, pays the financial compensation, while the vessels fishing in those waters pay the licence fees, the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 7.
<P>
I hope that the House will, on reflection, accept the considered view of the Commission.
I thank Mr Macartney for his characteristically thorough and positive efforts in producing this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
Before proceeding to the vote, may I thank you, Commissioner, for your kind remarks to the House.
I agree with you that we have the very cream of Parliament here on Friday mornings, but might I add that on some Friday mornings - and today, for example - we also have the very cream of the Commission.
<P>
(Laughter and applause) We shall now proceed to the vote on Mr Macartney's report.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, Mr von Habsburg is quite right.
Fishing, like all primary forms of production, is a central aspect of the ecologically destructive and unfair world order in which we unfortunately live.
However, I would like to add straight away that, if we are to overturn this unfair world order, we must constantly ask ourselves if we are part of the problem.
The European Union and its fishing policy are part of the problem, despite the scraps from the table which fall to the poor countries.
A step could have been made towards overcoming the situation by accepting Amendment No 7 proposed by the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, because even the best fishing agreement cannot function without controls, which is why I regret that this amendment was not accepted and wish to explain why our group agreed to it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Hallam">
Mr President, I would like to make a point I have made before on a Friday.
We have the pick of Parliament, the pick of the Commission and the pick of the public here on a Friday and I very much regret that our business is not televised within the building.
I have asked before why the proceedings are not televised on a Friday.
Can you tell me when we will show that we take this Parliament seriously on a Friday and record the sitting so that it is there for the archives and available to the television companies if they wish to broadcast it?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="President">
Mr Hallam, once again I find this an interesting point.
But I would say that being here is such a privilege that it is really of no concern to us that our sittings are not televised, because we came here to work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, on behalf of members of the Committee on Women's Rights and the PPE Group, I should also like to wish Mrs van Dijk, who is leaving us to take up other functions, great success and satisfaction in her new profession.
<P>
I am sorry we had to refer her last report back to committee. However, we did so in her own interest because, unfortunately, the majority of the Committee on Women's Rights had overloaded the report with many claims; claims which I dare call contradictory and incomprehensible.
That is why the report was referred back to committee and, in fact, we did it for her own good, in her own interests.
I, for one, would not have wanted her last report to Parliament to be so incomprehensible.
We did not intend to give her a poisoned apple as a leaving present.
That is what I wanted to her to know.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Larive">
Mr President, I would also like to wish Mrs van Dijk all the best for her future, both in her professional and private life. And on behalf of my group, I also want to say that we regret that her report was not of such a nature that we were able to debate it and vote on it this week.
My group has, therefore, requested that the report be referred back on Tuesday evening, because we believe the subject is so important that it deserves a second chance.
As I also stated in the House, we will make sure that a good report about the important subject of women and health comes back to the House as soon as possible, and I assume that Mrs van Dijk will follow these events closely.
Once again, we wish her all the best, and I regret that she has been unable to separate her private life from her political life in the press and on the radio.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dijk">
Mr President, I would especially like to thank my colleagues and you for all the praise you have given me this morning.
I feel extraordinarily honoured to be able to receive all this at the end of this sitting on Friday morning.
<P>
I will not go further into the report that is on the agenda.
Politics is receiving, politics is, therefore, accepting good things, and it is also accepting bad things.
I want to absolutely emphasize that I, together with other members of the Committee on Women's Rights, and before that in the Committee on Transport and Tourism and in all the other committees in which I have been active, have worked extraordinarily hard to get things done.
During this process you sometimes meet each other as allies and sometimes as something less than allies.
This is all part of politics and it belongs in this Parliament.
Therefore, I have absolutely no hard feelings against anyone.
<P>
I would to thank my colleagues most sincerely for all the cooperation and support I have received while chairing two different committees.
I always did this with a great deal of pleasure.
Coming from such a small group, this was not always very easy, but once again, many thanks, ladies and gentlemen, for this.
Also many thanks to you, Mr President, for the fact that I have been able to work for so long and with such pleasure in this Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs van Dijk.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, Parliament has now completed the agenda.
The Minutes of this sitting will be submitted to the House for approval at the beginning of the next session.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, the time has come to thank everyone in the House once again for their cooperation, starting with our colleagues, the interpreters, the translators, those who draft the verbatim report of proceedings, our ushers and the secretariat's services.
I know I do this every Friday before I put the lights out, but this Friday has a special significance: it is the final July part-session of this legislature.
The next July meeting will be one for welcomes and farewells, but, at the same time, we are coming up to a very long weekend, the recess is here and, therefore, may I wish you all a very good holiday. I hope you enjoy the sea, the mountains, or the city, for those who prefer the city.
And, ladies and gentlemen, in this intimate atmosphere we enjoy on Fridays let me tell you in confidence that when the Friday when we normally hold our part-session comes in August I may find myself suffering from withdrawal symptoms, a touch of what we call 'cold turkey' . But I promise you, ladies and gentlemen, that I shall get over it and that I shall be here with you in September.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="President">
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 11.15 a.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 17 July 1998.
<P>
I trust that everyone had an enjoyable holiday, and I hope your work in this final year of our term will meet with success.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Tribute
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
I would like to pay tribute to Dr Allan Macartney who died suddenly at his home in Aberdeen on 25 August.
We have lost a colleague who was respected right across the political spectrum, both at home in Scotland and here in the European Parliament.
<P>
Elected to the European Parliament for the North-East Scotland constituency in 1994, Allan Macartney was a very active Member of Parliament.
As vice-chairman of the Committee on Fisheries, he fought tirelessly for the interests of the fishing industry.
To the Committee on Development and Cooperation, of which he was also a member, he was able to bring his great experience and commitment in Africa.
<P>
Allan Macartney was a member of the Scottish National Party for some 40 years, being the founder president of the student wing of the party.
He held various posts in the party before becoming deputy leader in 1992.
He was the party spokesman on Europe and external affairs.
He was deeply involved in his party's preparation for the new Scottish Parliament.
His last public engagement was on the day before he died, when he detailed his proposals for developing links between the new Scottish Parliament and Europe.
<P>
Allan's wife, Anne, and other members of his family are with us in the gallery today.
I would ask you to stand with them in observing a minute's silence in remembrance of our colleague.
<P>
(The House rose and observed a minute's silence)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Order of business
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
The next item is the order of business.
<P>
The final version of the draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents pursuant to Rule 95 of the Rules of Procedure has been distributed.
<P>
Mrs Theato has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Theato">
Mr President, Mr Bösch's report on the independence of UCLAF has been taken off the agenda.
I have more or less found that out from unofficial sources.
I was told a letter from you to me as chairman of the committee was on its way.
I find it somewhat strange that I heard so late about the report being withdrawn.
DG I had in fact indicated, following the majority vote in favour of this report in the Committee on Budgetary Control on 4 September, that it would be put on the agenda.
It was then not released, however, and is still unavailable today, with the result that it is not possible to table amendments.
<P>
I know from administrative documents the reasons why the report was withdrawn, although our committee has not yet received a political explanation.
I should like to point out that this report is based on Article 206 of the EC Treaty, since it has been drawn up on the basis of the Court of Auditors' Special Report No 8/98. That is a sufficient legal basis and, in my view, Rule 50 is therefore not applicable.
<P>
There is a political issue here, since the media are currently highlighting a suspicious case regarding humanitarian aid and irregularities in that field.
It would have been a very good political move if we could have adopted Mr Bösch's report this week, in order to clearly show how Parliament reacts to improve the prevention of fraud as well as to make it punishable.
I would therefore ask you to accept this objection which I am making today as chairman of the committee. Unfortunately, this report does not appear on the agenda as planned, even though a full vote was taken on it in committee.
I object to that and would ask to be informed when it is made available.
<P>
(Applause from the right)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Actually, Mrs Theato, I did reply to you in writing on 11 September. I said that I had read your letter and that my duty was to ensure that reports comply with the Treaties and the Rules.
I am very sorry you did not get more detailed information and I will take the appropriate steps to arrange that as soon as possible.
As you rightly say, the problem is that the report does not indicate the legal basis - and we need that to take the vote with the right majority to make it effective - and nor does it contain a financial statement.
<P>
I think your committee will be able to meet those two requirements of Rule 50 in time for the first October part-session.
Therefore, and in view of the political reasons which you have just explained, the Conference of Presidents has arranged for the report to be debated during the first October part-session.
The legal basis simply needs to be stated in the report; as you know better than I do, Article 138b should be invoked and the vote should be taken by an absolute majority, so that the Commission is forced to consider the legislative proposal you are requesting.
You know that if you do not invoke that article, the proposal will not have the same binding force on the Commission.
It is your committee's decision which route to take, but you must state one or the other.
And under Rule 50 a financial statement is also required.
I assume it must be relatively straightforward for the Committee on Budgetary Control to determine the cost of an organization with 300 posts.
I do not think there will be any problem about including this for the first October part-session.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I wish to address the same subject, with reference to Rule 96(1).
I would also like to point out that Mrs Theato's request, made in her capacity as chairman of the Budgetary Control Committee, should give rise to a vote on the request for the Bösch report to be re-entered on the agenda.
Under Rule 96(1), on behalf of my group, I request that the report be placed back on the agenda.
<P>
Mr President, you have been wrongly informed.
What you have just told us has no legal basis.
Neither Rule 50 of our Rules of Procedure nor Article 138b of the Treaty applies here, and all the Members present will bear me out.
There has been no own-initiative report, and the Conference of Presidents has not authorised this report.
The report falls under the discharge procedure.
It follows a special report by the Court of Auditors on the manner in which UCLAF operates, and is a damning account of the fraud practised in connection with the Community budget.
<P>
Hence Article 50 does not apply and we do not need either a legal basis or financial statements.
Indeed, this is not the first occasion on which the Committee on Budgetary Control has made similar suggestions in its reports, and I know what I am talking about because there have been times, as you may have noticed, when I have not voted for them.
The Committee on Budgetary Control is asking the Commission to take action.
This is certainly not a legislative proposal as you have inaccurately stated.
<P>
This report must therefore be placed on our agenda, because the measures that must be taken are urgent and are related to budgetary matters; if we wait until the first October part-session we will have missed the meeting of the Committee on Budgets on 28 September.
Therefore, I request that this report be re-entered on the agenda, pursuant to Rule 96.
<P>
(Applause from the right)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, you are a legal expert and a member of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, and you will know that Article 138b of the Treaty does not restrict legislative proposals of this kind to those made on the basis of owninitiative reports.
You will also be aware that when the Commission is requested to submit a legislative proposal - and that is the purpose of paragraphs 2 and 3 of the resolution - Article 138b of the Treaty has to be applied, unless the committee in question states that it does not wish its request to fall within the scope of that article.
<P>
That is why it is unfortunate that the Committee on Budgetary Control did not specify the legal basis, because this has implications for the majority that is required.
If it is the majority under Article 138b, it must be an absolute majority.
Otherwise, the committee responsible is not bound by Article 138b and a simple majority will suffice.
It is for this reason that our Rules of Procedure, under Rule 50, require the text of the resolution in question to indicate the legal basis.
Unfortunately, all I can do is to ensure that our Rules are properly applied.
<P>
The problem can quite easily be resolved.
I also think it will be quite easy to give Parliament the chance to vote on a proposal to create 300 new posts on the basis of the financial statement.
That is what is required by Rule 50, and it is as simple as that.
I cannot be held responsible for the fact that the Committee on Budgetary Control, which should have all the figures at its disposal, failed to indicate them.
Parliament's services have made me aware of the problem, and I have no option but to ask for the report to be revised as quickly as possible.
<P>
If you have any doubts, I should be very glad to refer this interpretation to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Mr President, before I comment on the Rules of Procedure, I should like to say thank you for something which my group has been pressing for since I have been a Member of the House.
Finally, I have discovered that the waste in my office is being separated.
There are new waste baskets, and I am very grateful that it has at last been possible to take this measure.
<P>
Now to the more serious matter.
In connection with investigations concerning ECHO, I have personally asked for the Commission to make a statement during the week.
My group has also presented this request to you in writing.
I and other members of the Committee on Budgetary Control have now received, about an hour ago, a detailed dossier from Mr Trojan with opinions on the relevant questions, which were raised in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
For this reason, I assume that we can come to an agreement on this with the Commissioners this week or next, if their offer of dialogue is to be taken seriously. I would therefore no longer support the request for this matter to be discussed in plenary.
<P>
I should like to make one point, however. The coinciding of our researches into ECHO with the Bösch report would have meant that a proper, thorough debate could have taken place in the House at 5 p.m. today on the question of how we deal with irregularities and suspicious factors concerning fraud in our own ranks.
I am sorry to have to say, Mr President, that with or without all your legal arguments, this political manoeuvre appears all too obvious to me, and whilst on the matter, I would tell you that your reference to Rule 50 is completely unfounded in my view!
<P>
It was clear from the start that the Bösch report is one that has been drawn up under Article 206.
If the President believed this not to be the case, then he could at the very least have consulted Mrs Theato or the rapporteur.
Instead, our DirectoratesGeneral are endlessly having to clarify references, remarks and legal eventualities, about which there is full agreement amongst the majority who voted through this report in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
It is not in order, Mr President, that you should undermine the political debate here with your legal arguments. Incidentally, in addition to what Mr FabreAubrespy has requested, I would ask for the report which the competent parliamentary committee has adopted to be made available tomorrow by 12 noon to all Members of the House in all languages!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
I shall not comment on your insinuations, Mrs Müller.
My duty is simply to apply the Rules of Procedure.
And as this Parliament steadily gains greater powers, it also has a greater obligation to be aware of the rules governing the exercise of those powers and to respect them.
That is all, Mrs Müller.
This is not about what each committee would like to do, but what it can do under the rules.
That is my responsibility, and anyone who interprets the position otherwise can make a submission to the Rules Committee. I say that with all due respect for everyone's opinion.
<P>
Mr Crowley has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Crowley">
Mr President, regarding the order of business I should like to put on the official record my congratulations to my constituency colleague and good friend, Mr Cox, on his election as president of the ELDR group.
It is a great honour for him and his family and, in particular, a great honour for Ireland to have a president of a group from Ireland.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Crowley.
I have already had occasion to congratulate Mr Cox personally, but now that has been signed and sealed by Parliament.
<P>
(The order of business was adopted)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Third country aircraft safety
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0295/98), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0338/98-97/0039(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Directive establishing a safety assessment of third-country aircraft using Community airports (Rapporteur: Mr González Triviño).
<P>
I call Mr Dary, who is deputising for the rapporteur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Dary">
Mr President, this proposal stems from a directive establishing a safety assessment for third-country aircraft using Community airports.
It is the first of a series of measures recommended by a highlevel working group with a remit to draw up a Community aviation safety improvement strategy.
<P>
Since January 1992, the European Community has had a harmonised set of safety requirements for its operators, consequently making European carriers among the safest in the world.
<P>
However, the safety record of a number of third countries' aircraft is less reassuring.
This obviously affects both European citizens and carriers when they use Community airports.
The problem was highlighted by the February 1996 crash of a Turkish aircraft chartered by a tour operator in which all 176 passengers died.
Unfortunately, this was not an isolated incident.
<P>
Recent safety concerns have focused attention on the older models of Boeing 737 and 747 aircraft, with the result that in the United States 150 of these aircraft were recalled for inspection.
It is hoped that similar inspections are being undertaken by all European carriers, and indeed all operators of this type of aircraft.
<P>
During the short period since the end of August, one aircraft which had been in service for 20 years crashed in Quito, Ecuador, while another, newer aircraft belonging to Swissair crashed into the sea near Halifax for reasons as yet unknown.
<P>
The proposal before us aims to collate information from pilots, passengers, maintenance engineers and others and, where there is reason to suspect non-compliance with international safety standards, to carry out checks on the aircraft involved and, where necessary, impose corrective measures.
As a last resort, where rules are not observed, the aircraft would be grounded or the carrier banned from using European airports.
<P>
The following are the main elements of the draft directive proposed by the Commission.
Firstly, aviation authorities are to collate and share all information pertaining to ramp checks.
Secondly, conditions are laid down which should give rise to ramp checks and ultimately to groundings. Thirdly, collective Community action is envisaged, ranging from the definition of content and procedures for ramp inspections to imposing bans on specific operators.
<P>
It is this last feature which lies at the heart of the directive and which has caused the most disagreement with the Council.
Essentially, the Commission was proposing that it should be able to recommend whether or not to institute specific surveillance of a third-party operator or to ban a specific country's carrier from using Community airports.
Recent experience of third-country operators evading a ban in one Member State by simply landing across the border in a neighbouring country at an airport of convenience would seem adequate justification for this collective Community action.
<P>
At first reading, Parliament fully endorsed the Commission's proposal to improve the safety of foreign carriers, taking the view that safety cannot and should not be compromised.
Nevertheless, 14 amendments were adopted, aimed at strengthening collective action, extending the sources of information and introducing a degree of transparency by providing for the publication of groundings in cases where there is an immediate safety hazard.
This was an essential amendment, since Parliament has always considered the release of information on aviation safety to the public to be an essential part of a Community aviation safety policy.
<P>
The Commission accepted practically all of these amendments and presented an amended proposal.
Yet the Council, in its common position, only accepted half and removed all the most important and progressive elements, particularly those relating to flight bans.
<P>
Your rapporteur, whom I represent today, takes a firm stand against the text of the Council's common position.
When compared to the statements of the British Presidency concerning the need for safety to be a priority for the common transport policy, this text adds nothing whatsoever: all it does is recognise rights already exercised by Member States, without conferring power on the Commission to determine any general sanctions valid throughout the Union which would apply to Member States, aircraft and operators failing to meet the international safety standards.
<P>
The amendment simply reiterates Parliament's view that all third-country aircraft landing at Community airports and suspected of not complying with international air safety standards should be subject to ramp inspections.
Adopting anything less is to compromise on safety.
In addition, the rapporteur considers that this must apply to all airports open to international passenger and freight traffic and not just the main ones, since many of the accidents reported concern foreign freight or charter companies using smaller regional airports to save on landing fees.
<P>
Amendments Nos 3 and 4 address the matter of the Commission's power to decide on penalties.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schmidbauer">
Mr President, Mr González Triviño's report on safety assessments of third countries' aircraft has now also been unanimously adopted at second reading, as it was at the first.
The report is of particular importance because it involves the safety and lives of both crew and passengers.
If the European Union guarantees the free movement of people, then it must also assume responsibility for the safe movement of people.
<P>
The passengers who take advantage of cheap flight offers are, in particular, more often than not unaware of the dangers of the journey they are undertaking, especially as they do not receive any reliable information on whether safety problems have been detected and with which companies.
We have made good progress with the draft directive on the way towards achieving the complete safety of all passengers travelling by air in Europe.
Parliament and the Commission quickly agreed during their discussion of the directive that effective protection for passengers is only guaranteed when ramp inspections are carried out on all aircraft everywhere in accordance with a common inspection list.
<P>
At the same time, the Member States and the Commission must fully inform one another about the inspection results and measures taken against third-country aircraft.
The Member States must finally take common measures against aircraft which have safety problems.
We will only achieve the greatest possible safety at airports in the European Union when the system of carrying out inspections is standardised and third-country aircraft can no longer avoid the system when flying from one Member State to another or from one airport to another.
<P>
The safety net which we are tightening must not be so broad-meshed that it is possible to slip through unnoticed.
Against this background, I cannot understand - and nor can nearly all my colleagues here in the House - why the Council has cut back the original proposals of the Commission and Parliament quite considerably in its common position.
Nor can I understand why the Commission should not be able to declare an EU-wide grounding of aircraft of its own accord.
Naturally, we respect the freedom of decision-making of the Member States.
But in what area, if not safety in Europe, would it be appropriate for the Commission to take central decisions on sanctions?
<P>
In this case, if we leave the Member States too much scope to make independent decisions, we run the risk of not achieving the purpose of this directive - safety - once again.
The freedom of decision-making of the Member States and the concept of subsidiarity must not be confused with national egoism.
I am therefore very grateful to the rapporteur for the solid and fair compromise which he has proposed in his amendments and which we have adopted unanimously.
My group supports the compromise unconditionally.
The first link between what is a matter of concern for the Parliament and the Commission, and the reservations of the Member States has therefore, I think, been successfully forged.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferber">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I will be very brief and thus hope to make up some of the extra time which my colleagues have previously taken.
<P>
First of all, I should like to warmly congratulate the rapporteur, who unfortunately is not with us here today, on his excellent report.
He has really done a very good job.
I should merely like to endorse his criticism of the Council.
We do not want anything impossible, but we do want safe aircraft, even if they come from non-EU Member States.
This has after all been regulated since 1992 for the Member States.
We do not want excessive bureaucracy, but we do want information to be exchanged and the general public to be able to access information.
None of this is going too far - our concern is to achieve something useful for Europe's citizens, namely the highest possible standard of safety.
<P>
The Group of the European People's Party therefore supports all the amendments from the Committee on Transport, as we have already done in the committee.
We think that a sensible compromise has been found here.
At the same time, we expect the Commission to vigorously support these amendments, which express the continued will of the House, in the talks with the Council at second reading.
The Council would also be well advised to adopt our amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Kaklamanis">
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate the absent rapporteur for his insistence upon some very correct views.
At the same time, I must declare my group's full support for the report in question and for Commissioner Kinnock's efforts, and denounce the Council's policy.
<P>
The Council must understand that political expediency or political compromise may have their place in dealing with some other issues, but when we are talking about issues that affect our lives and those of our families and children, then the Council has no right, absolutely no right at all, to make decisions which represent a compromise policy.
It grieves me particularly, because the information we all have is that the Council is not even disposed to accept the agreed text, the agreed amendments from second reading.
<P>
In such a case, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we must back Commissioner Kinnock with our authority and stand by him, and if the Council persists in its refusal, we must denounce this publicly. The citizens of Europe should know who bears moral responsibility in the event of a fatal air accident caused either by lack of information or by inadequate safety regulations.
Where the lives of Europe's citizens are concerned, no Minister and no Council has the right to make high-handed decisions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Dam">
Mr President, this directive came as a direct response to the plane crash in the Dominican Republic in February 1996 in which 176 people died.
Two and a half years on and with the terrible disaster in Canada fresh in our minds, little has improved in practice.
We may not be able to prevent all accidents from happening, unfortunately, but we must do everything we can to prevent avoidable accidents.
Human life is priceless, and the Member States must do everything in their power to protect it.
<P>
Community legislation is an important tool here.
Operators in the Community are rightly subject to strict technical rules, most of them based on the Chicago Convention which all the Member States signed up to.
The Community cannot impose these rules on other countries, but by applying conditions for landing at Community airports we may well encourage third countries to comply with them.
Passenger safety could be improved if the legislation applied both to Community operators and to operators from third countries landing at Community airports.
<P>
I agree with Mr González Triviño that we need improvements in both active and passive passenger safety.
Active safety could be improved by carrying out ramp inspections at airports to check whether aircraft are airworthy, and we must ensure that there is a sound basis for the inspections and any consequences they might have for operators.
Checks must be carried out wherever there is justifiable doubt as to whether certain aircraft are airworthy.
If the results are negative, other Member States must be informed in order to prevent operators from trying to avoid sanctions.
Passive safety could be improved by ensuring that full and accurate information is provided on the various operators, so that consumers have all the information they need to decide whether they wish to risk flying with a certain operator before they book.
This means, as the rapporteur proposes, that the relevant information must be published.
<P>
In conclusion, I would just say that I hope the Council does not disregard Parliament's opinion for a second time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sindal">
Mr President, Commissioner, we are now in the final stages of the work on this proposed directive, and I hope we can agree on a sensible recommendation.
Safety in transport is of concern to us all.
Unfortunately we are occasionally reminded that it is necessary to think about safety in transport.
Human and technical errors should be prevented by proper procedures and training.
I have some misgivings as to whether we are actually achieving what we want through this proposal.
<P>
We can draw a parallel with shipping, where we have port state control, which means that ships are monitored, and we can say that some success has been achieved in singling out the really bad ships.
In Amendment No 1, where the text reads 'Each Member State shall put in place the appropriate means to ensure that third-country aircraft suspected of non-compliance...', 'appropriate means' and 'suspected' are somewhat vague formulations.
Suspicion is not enough for me.
There should be a better reason for detaining an aircraft than mere suspicion.
But neither commercial considerations nor kindness should play a role in these judgments at airports.
I very much hope that Mr Kinnock, together with the committee and the Council, can devise some methods of verification on the basis of which the directive will serve the intended purposes.
There is no point in adopting a directive if it does not work.
<P>
The next point I would mention is that European airlines are currently phasing out large parts of their fleets.
New resources are being deployed and energy-saving aeroplanes are being introduced, and indeed that is a good thing.
Unfortunately, many of these pensioned-off aircraft - often 20 years old - are to be seen dressed up in new clothes and operating in the European area under different flags.
That shows how greatly this directive is needed.
It shows that we cannot be guided by commercial considerations or kindness alone; we must really have a system that works.
I very much hope that we can agree on something that works.
We must get something adopted which does not merely look good on paper, but which can really be implemented in the Member States and which the Member States are able to enforce.
This is in fact my greatest concern.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Andrews">
Mr President, it seems to me that it is very sad that we are discussing the issue of aircraft safety so shortly after the tragic Swissair disaster off the coast of Nova Scotia 10 days ago.
<P>
I join my fellow parliamentarians here collectively in sending our condolences to the friends and families of the victims of that crash.
<P>
I feel that not enough has been done at a political level, either by the European Union or the Member States, to deal with the issue of congestion in our skies.
The Association of European Airlines has gone so far as to intimate that a certain sense of complacency exists in some governments, particularly the British Government, about seriously tackling the problem of air congestion.
The statistics are rather frightening.
<P>
Air delays in Europe have reached the worse level in nine years.
30 % of all scheduled flights in Europe take off late 45 % of the time.
Charter flights are subject to great delays.
The most crowded airspace in Europe is over South-East England where, this year alone, air traffic controllers are filing a record number of overload reports.
Near-misses are being reported more frequently.
The opening of a new air traffic control centre in England is four years behind.
Two-thirds of flight hold-ups are due to congestion in the skies.
I feel that the time has now come for the Commission and the EU Member States' governments to come together and collectively do something urgently about this.
In the past three years I have not been on a plane that left on time or arrived on time.
There is something wrong somewhere, Mr President.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
Mr President, I will begin by echoing the views expressed by the President of Parliament earlier on lamenting the sudden and tragic death of Dr Allan Macartney.
<P>
He was, as everyone here will know, someone regarded with universal respect and affection that crossed the political divide.
And as we send our sympathy to his loved ones we record the fact that he will be sadly missed by everyone, including of course his constituents.
<P>
We also join Mr Andrews in sending our condolences to those who are bereaved and suffering as a consequence of the appalling and tragic Swissair disaster just 10 days ago off the coast of Nova Scotia.
<P>
I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr González Triviño, on his excellent work for the second reading of this Commission proposal before the House today and also to thank Mr David for taking his colleague's place today because of Mr González Triviño's unavoidable absence.
<P>
As in the first reading, the rapporteur has adopted a very supportive stance in his recommendation and I am glad to say that his four proposed amendments provide the basis for an acceptable compromise between the common position of the Council and the Commission's proposal.
As the House will recall, the initial proposal suggested that third country aircraft suspected of not complying with internationally accepted safety standards should be checked at Community airports.
As Mr Sindal says, this is a relatively modest proposition beginning, we hope, with even more comprehensive developments, but one that is certainly necessary.
<P>
Of course national authorities are already free to exercise that right of checking, of supervision and of detention but the added value of the Commission's proposal is that it introduces the facility for taking common action against unsafe aircraft or operators of those aircraft or their countries of origin that tolerate those standards.
Regrettably, that feature was not recognised in the common position, nor was account taken of the legitimate interests of the public in being informed about the safety of the air transport they use.
That, to say the least, is somewhat inconsistent, especially in those Member States where the law already obliges governmental organisations to release all the information that they receive.
<P>
The House knows that in safety matters we in the Commission always seek to achieve the delicate balance between providing legitimate information for the general public and securing publication of information that might be harmful to individuals or enterprises and have the effect of silencing information sources that we consider to be vital for the improvement of safety and safety standards.
<P>
None of our proposals would have departed from that convention of sensible and responsible balance.
I am pleased therefore that the amendments proposed by the rapporteur will allow the Commission to propose common action against dangerous operators and will also achieve the correct balance between the dissemination and the protection of safety-related information.
<P>
For this reason the Commission supports all four of the amendments in Mr González Trivino's recommendation, subject to slight rewording of Amendment No 2 relating to the release of information to passengers' organisations.
We would make that change simply because we believe that the issue is already well provided for in an earlier part of the same amendment.
<P>
In conclusion, I am particularly glad to see that the way is now open for the rapid adoption and implementation of European legislation that should contribute to improving the safety of people who travel by air and also of others, particularly of course those who live near airports.
<P>
Naturally, I am grateful to Mr González Trivino and his colleagues for their effective work and for their continuing cooperation in trying to advance the levels of safety for the travelling public.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Legal protection of designs
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0315/98) by Mr Medina Ortega, on behalf of Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the legal protection of designs (C4-0467/98-00/0464(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, the proposal we are presenting today - the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee - is the result of a great deal of work in Parliament, the Council and, of course, the Commission.
<P>
The Commission first presented a proposal in this area five years ago, in 1993, involving both a directive and a regulation.
The directive was to harmonise the relevant law in Member States, but ultimately of course there will be a regulation establishing a Community law, with the Community's own register and set of standards.
<P>
But there has been a problem from day one - a fly in the ointment, one might say - arising from the so-called 'repairs clause', because in practice, and even by law in some Member States, property rights in a motor vehicle model or design are contradicted by manufacturers having the right to reproduce visible and external vehicle parts for replacement without needing authorisation from the vehicle manufacturer.
<P>
This issue has major economic implications, because there are thousands of road accidents every day.
Mr Kinnock was talking about aircraft accidents just now but, as we all know, far more people die on our roads in car accidents and, of course, the material damage caused each day in our Community amounts to truly astronomical figures.
We are talking about thousands of millions of ECU, about vast amounts of work, and about something affecting intellectual property.
<P>
So this is not a trivial matter.
It is an important issue because of its impact on employment in certain Community countries and regions where this is an important sector. It is also in the interests of the motor manufacturers to push for some kind of law, given the legislative diversity.
<P>
Five years have gone by and all we have been able to achieve is a kind of armistice.
Parliament came out in favour of a formula involving the right to manufacture spare parts against payment of compensation to the vehicle manufacturers, but the Council was unable to reach agreement.
In the end, the final text maintains a sort of armistice - as I have just said - because Article 14, the 'repairs clause', was turned into a transitional provision, and under Article 18 the Commission must make an analysis of the situation and present proposals to complete the directive within three years.
So we are currently at a standstill, with each state keeping its legislation in force and everyone doing their best not to interfere with the single market. If states change their legislation, they undertake not to make the internal market in these products even more difficult by doing so, but to use the opportunity to facilitate the liberalisation of the internal market.
<P>
We may not be very proud of the work that has been done, but this armistice does mean we have prevented a war.
<P>
However, the directive is more than just the repairs clause; a whole series of sectors were waiting for this directive to be able to consolidate their legal position, and the text includes useful provisions giving a definition of a design or model.
Reference is made, for example, to the fundamental characteristic which a utility design or model must have in order to be recognized as such. This is the characteristic of innovation, and this innovation is primarily defined in terms of a certain visibility, so that an informed user can distinguish it from another earlier product by that innovation.
<P>
Obviously all this directive does is get things moving.
The directive must be incorporated into the legislation of the various Member States.
<P>
There will doubtless be Community legislation and Court of Justice decisions to help us disentangle this matter.
I hope the directive will achieve a final formula and also that, in the meantime, Parliament and the Council will progress with the approval of the regulation on the utility design and model, so that we end up having Community arrangements permitting free movement of all these products.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gebhardt">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the design directive which we are talking about today has a path of trial and tribulation behind it, but it is not yet out of the woods.
The result of conciliation between Parliament and the Council has left open some important questions.
Against this background, I should like to thank my colleague, Mr Medina Ortega, on behalf of my group for the steadfastness with which he has represented the concerns of Parliament before the Council and the Commission.
<P>
His steadfastness was particularly evident during the struggle for the so-called repairs clause.
We only have to look at the motor vehicles sector to recognise the importance of this detail.
The European Parliament has found a balance between the interests of the car industry, spare parts manufacturers and consumers.
It would have proved the benefit of the European Union to its citizens if the Council had agreed to our proposal.
It failed because of the egoism of individual Member States, which is not good evidence of Europe's ability to solve problems.
<P>
The result of conciliation which we agree to with bad grace is no solution.
It merely postpones a solution.
We shall therefore only agree to this legislative standstill because nothing will become worse through it, and because we assume that it will still be possible to achieve a satisfactory ruling on spare parts.
This must prevent monopolisation - which restricts competition - and at the same time secure inexpensive repairs for consumers with spare parts of their choice.
<P>
The Commission has the job of making this objective achievable in the next seven years.
Commissioner, we in Parliament and my group in particular will keep a close watch on how and whether this is happening.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fontaine">
Mr President, this is perhaps one of the most difficult conciliation procedures we have yet had to conduct.
<P>
On this occasion, the dispute did not involve an institutional or budgetary matter.
We had a fundamental divergence with the Council on an important point in the directive.
Parliament obviously defended the so-called repairs clause that we had voted for in second reading by an overwhelming majority.
The Council, for its part, rejected it unanimously.
<P>
After long weeks of informal negotiations which were, unfortunately, unsuccessful - Mr Medina reminded us earlier that this dossier has been pending since 1993 - we are now faced by a most uncomfortable alternative. Either we should seek a compromise with the Council on the controversial issue of spare parts, or we must accept that conciliation cannot be achieved, with the attendant risk that numerous sectors of activity which held high hopes regarding this directive would be seriously affected.
<P>
I am grateful to our delegation - and particularly to our rapporteur, Mr Medina Ortega, whose work has been outstanding and who has been angelically patient, if I may say so - for being so clear-sighted.
It was concluded, upon mature reflection and after a discussion that was not always easy, that harmonisation of the legal protection of designs and models in all sectors of European industry was truly essential, and that we could not take the responsibility of deferring it any longer.
Consequently, we had to find the best, or certainly the least bad compromise regarding the protection and use of spare parts for the repair of motor vehicles.
<P>
I have been struck by two things throughout this labourious process.
I would like to mention them because they reveal, it seems to me, a positive development in the conciliation procedure.
During the committee's first meeting, we entered into a very wide-ranging substantive debate, during which members of the delegation and members of the Council alike were able to fully express their differing points of view.
<P>
This might seem natural but, in some ways, it was unprecedented.
We owe it to Lord Simon's determination to bring this matter to a successful conclusion and to his finely-honed political sense - and I would like to pay tribute to him here - as well as to the spirit of dialogue which is gradually developing between the two arms of the legislative authority.
<P>
The second point that I would like to raise relates to the active support we have received from Commissioner Monti personally in this matter.
It is sometimes said that the Commission might be uncomfortable in this conciliation procedure because it would have an unobtrusive role, to which it must be said it is not accustomed.
But I consider that the Commission cannot but give the fullest effect to the final sentence of Article 189b(4) of the Treaty.
Commissioner Monti understood this perfectly, as did Commissioner Kinnock, in connection with the Transeuropean transport networks.
I would like to thank him most sincerely for his effective contribution to lifting the dossier out of the rut into which it had sunk.
<P>
Our rapporteur and other Members have already spoken on the substance of the compromise proposal and so I will say only that, in my opinion, the 'standstill plus' solution, in conjunction with the Commission's very firm commitment, may well bring about the desired agreement between the parties involved.
I think that we should vote for the joint text that is before us, emphasising that it is absolutely essential that the letter and the spirit should be fully respected.
Commissioner Kinnock will without doubt restate the Commission's commitment to it later today.
Meanwhile, Parliament will keep a watchful eye on developments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, I wish to extend my warmest thanks to the leader of our delegation, Mrs Fontaine.
Other speakers have described the work involved.
Mrs Fontaine referred to developments in the conciliation process itself.
These will, I believe, prove significant at subsequent stages, and I would congratulate Mrs Fontaine on the key role that she played.
<P>
As has been said, the repairs clause was a focal point in the discussion.
We must not forget that this directive will lengthen the period of legal protection of designs in many Member States. It will also encourage the interest in safeguarding the right of design holders to protect the content of their work.
<P>
One aspect worries me, however. I have been observing the situation in my own country and looking to the future.
How are we going to handle goods coming into the EU without such levels of protection? Our customs authorities would be well advised to address this.
<P>
My group accepts that we shall have to live with the outcome on the repairs clause, although it is far from ideal.
We expect the Commission to honour its published undertaking to submit proposals for amendments.
The internal market is still not operating perfectly and Parliament's text contains a clause to that effect.
We hope that the Commission will be vigilant, ensuring that no unjustified steps are taken to block the workings of the free market. All sides need to work together in preempting legislative changes or new practices which would violate the standstill clause.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sierra González">
Mr President, the framework directive dealt with in this report was intended to guarantee fair competition, to benefit consumers in particular.
Has this been achieved?
After nearly a year of conciliation, not only have Parliament's initial proposals not been taken up, but the agreement does not contain the repairs clause, and the inclusion of that clause was fundamental to being able to establish a framework for fair competition between spare parts manufacturers and motor vehicle manufacturers.
<P>
The agreement expressing the wish to prevent the legal position of the spare parts manufacturers worsening does not resolve the basic problem.
Nor does leaving the solution of this conflict of interests to voluntary self-regulation by the spare parts and vehicle manufacturers, because they are not all in the same position and they do not all have the same influence.
This attitude goes against the interests of consumers, and the approval of Article 10 of the directive, providing up to 25 years' protection for designs and models, does little to help.
<P>
All I can do from here is express our disagreement with a stance which benefits the great motor industry, but does not take account of the interests of the Community's citizens, whom we were elected to defend them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Oddy">
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur and Mrs Fontaine in particular for their hard work in concluding this difficult negotiation, and also my colleagues on the Conciliation Committee, who adopted a very pragmatic approach.
<P>
It is a particular pleasure for me that the agreement was reached during the first UK Labour presidency.
A member of the House of Lords, Lord Simon, could see at first hand how hard and diligently we work in the European Parliament.
<P>
This agreement is a victory for common sense.
I represent a very large car manufacturing area in my constituency.
This covers companies like Peugeot, Rover and Jaguar, to name just some.
I also have even more components firms.
So I was particularly anxious that a compromise would be reached which saved jobs and this compromise does exactly that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Casini, C.">
Mr President, all the previous speakers have stressed the torment that has accompanied this directive.
That torment has been caused primarily by the problem of taking a balanced decision on the so-called repairs clause for spare parts for complex products, such as motor cars.
The proof of that torment is provided not just by the length of time which has elapsed between the Commission's proposal, which dates from 1993, and the first common position in 1997; not just by the delay in bringing it to the Conciliation Committee; not just by the contrast between Parliament's amendments and the Council's position; but also by the simple fact that a proposal for a regulation was presented jointly with the directive.
That regulation still has to be considered, but the Committee on Legal Affairs specifically decided to wait until the directive relating to harmonisation was concluded. The regulation to decide on a Community design and model would then be examined.
<P>
There is nothing surprising about these difficulties, because the economic and legal problems have not been simple.
There were legal problems of establishing the criteria, the conditions for assessing innovation or originality in the design or model and defining its visibility, but over and above all that, there is the problem of determining whether, in legal terms, it is right to evaluate the aesthetic aspect in relation to an individual element or only as part of a unit.
This is a legal question which has wearied courts of appeal in the Member States and the Court of Justice itself, in a ruling from 1995.
I leave aside the seriousness of the economic issues, involving the risk of closure for some companies, or the link between accident studies and the choice of which parts should or should not be covered by legal protection, and so on.
Ultimately, we have reached a compromise which I consider acceptable because it does actually lead to greater cooperation and hence greater commercial freedom, even if, for the time being, things can stay as they are, without any harmonisation, and each state can do what as it pleases.
<P>
So I think we should vote in favour, in the hope that the Commission will bring forward valid proposals as regards the regulation.
We can also take that path, and that is why, as rapporteur on that regulation, I take a particular interest in the matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gasòliba i Böhm">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first - like my colleague, Mrs Thors - I wish to express our support for this report and our agreement with the position taken in the Conciliation Committee by both Mr Medina Ortega and Mrs Fontaine.

<P>
I had the opportunity to analyse this issue in some depth as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, and I should like to point out that, from an economic angle, the directive sought to respond to two objectives: on the one hand, completion of the internal market and facilitating the free movement of goods with equal protection for products in the area concerned; and, on the other hand, protection against copies or products which might arrive from third countries and damage our industry.
<P>
Five years have gone by, and we cannot feel particularly satisfied at our failure, in all that time, to resolve two issues which have a considerable effect on European industry, in terms of both the internal market and international competition.
And what we have achieved, as has already been said, is not at all satisfactory either.
We have stopped things getting worse, and we have reached agreement on a minimum, but we have clearly not succeeded in fulfilling the initial aims of the directive.
<P>
It does give me some satisfaction that it was possible to take up one of the points proposed by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy in my own document: the commitment to analyse the position and review it within a fixed period.
Although the slow pace of progress is quite inappropriate to protecting our industry in a highly competitive international context, we hope the matter can finally be brought to a conclusion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sindal">
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate Mr Medina and Mrs Fontaine on a good result.
As Mr Medina tells us in his report, it is certainly not the best conceivable result, but perhaps it is the best that could be achieved in the circumstances.
I think the standstill decision is a good thing.
The conflict between spare parts manufacturers and motor vehicle manufacturers will certainly continue for a long time to come.
The consultation exercise and voluntary agreements may perhaps lead to a new and final directive and put an end to the antagonism.
In my opinion, we should not be as disappointed at the outcome as the previous speaker suggested.
Especially not when we consider the scope of the directive and the multiplicity of industries to be covered.
I think it may prove to be a sensible way forward, covering the internal market and the many divergent views the Member States may take.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Cassidy">
Mr President, I should like to add my voice to the chorus of praise that there has been for the efforts of the rapporteur, Mr Medina Ortega, and the chairman of our Conciliation Committee, Mrs Fontaine.
I congratulate both of them on their patience over a very long time in dealing with this; after all, it is not a new proposal.
It has been on our agenda since as long ago as 1993.
A lot of people outside this House have been expecting us to arrive at a decision long before this, particularly representatives of consumer groups, of the replacement spare part manufacturers; even, indeed, of people like motorcycle enthusiasts.
<P>
Of course no compromise - and this is a compromise - ever succeeds in satisfying all the interested parties one hundred per cent.
But then the European Parliament is about compromise and the European Community operates on compromise.
I have no difficulty at all in supporting this particular compromise because it allows the development of the single market in such things as vehicle spare parts but at the same time it does not inhibit the development of design protection in those areas which need it.
<P>
One of the things that has rather worried me about the long delay in bringing this particular directive into force has been the harmful effects it might have had on other industries which depend on design: the fashion industry, the textile industry and so on, whose interests at some stage appeared to be subordinated to that of the car industry.
I hope that everyone outside will be pleased with the work that has been done.
I hope that we will be able to depend upon the House tomorrow to endorse the Conciliation Committee's recommendations overwhelmingly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pirker">
Mr President, Commissioner, I have not understood the negative undertone which has come from the far left wing.
We have achieved progress and something positive here.
The fact is that 180 million car drivers and motorbike riders can breathe a sigh of relief, since the Conciliation Committee of the European Parliament has been able to prevent expensive times for them for the immediate future.
Thanks are due above all to the negotiators in this Conciliation Committee.
All independent garages and the market in spare parts with all its employees, the many small and medium-sized enterprises, can also breathe a sigh of relief, however.
<P>
Through the clear position it has adopted - not least in our plenary discussions - the European Parliament has prevented big car companies from dictating prices, which would have been the consequence if we had agreed to this proposal.
The monopoly which would have been created indirectly will therefore not come about, so the high insurance premiums which would also have arisen will not take effect.
Businesses will not go bankrupt and jobs will not be destroyed.
<P>
I sympathise with producers, because design costs money.
We must therefore find a solution which also takes into account the protection of designs and a commensurate payment for the designer.
In future there must be a free market, however, with replication under specific conditions. Three years now remain in which to find a suitable solution.
I believe that what we have achieved is a success for our citizens, consumers and the many small and medium-sized enterprises, because in future there will be original and after-market parts and independent garages and dealerships side by side, in the interest of consumers, employees and many ordinary people.
This is a successful outcome, due to the persistence of Parliament's representatives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Medina Ortega, the chairman of the Conciliation Committee, Mrs Fontaine, and everyone else involved for all their dedication and hard work on this extremely difficult and intractable dossier.
<P>
The second point I should like to make is this: if you listen to the debate on this issue and read what has been written about it, you would almost think that there was nothing else in the designs directive apart from the repairs clause.
This has certainly been its most striking feature, because of all the important groups involved - the motor industry, the entire repairs sector and consumer groups - but there is more to the directive than that, which was also why the final conclusions of the conciliation procedure turned out as they did.
<P>
Parliament had already delivered a most carefully considered opinion on this infamous repairs clause, which was that there should be liberalisation but also compensation for the design holders, but unfortunately these proposals were not accepted.
Following the theory that 'half a loaf is better than no bread', I think we would be wise to try to find a compromise here.
<P>
I have every confidence that if the European Commission brought all the relevant parties to the table and tried to reach some sort of agreement on self-regulation with them, we could achieve the compromise we are looking for.
I think that it is up to us as Members of the European Parliament to make it clear to any critics in the Member States that it was the Council, not Parliament, which blocked the solution that we proposed.
<P>
If we work with the organisations involved to bring pressure to bear, I think a successful agreement can be reached.
Now is the time to give the issue as much publicity as possible.
My thanks once again to all those who worked on this difficult dossier.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
Mr President, the Commission is very pleased that, after five years of intensive and complex discussions, agreement has been reached on the design directive within the context of the conciliation procedure.
I am sure that honourable Members will share that pleasure, particularly Mrs Fontaine and Mr Medina Ortega who, in different capacities, have been deeply involved in the issue.
Indeed, I heard Mrs Fontaine describing Mr Medina's patience as angelic, and I could only reflect as I listened to the debate that between Lord Simon and the angel Medina the conciliation procedure must have been a particularly ethereal experience on this occasion.
I am almost jealous that I was not present.
But I then reflect on my own experience in conciliation and surrender the experience to everybody else.
<P>
The agreement on the design directive obviously marks an important step towards the completion of the internal market in industrial design, and we can be confident that it is likely to encourage investment in the manufacturing industries and, consequently, to help to strengthen competitiveness and, I hope, employment.
<P>
As honourable Members will know, during the five-year discussions on the directive proposal the repairs clause has, as several Members said in the debate, been the subject of extensive debate between all the institutions involved, and during the conciliation procedure it became clear that, in spite of all efforts, agreement on that clause is still, for the moment, beyond reach.
All the parties involved, however, recognised that the importance of the directive overall for European industrial design meant that adoption should not be prevented because of the problems relating to that single repairs clause.
<P>
The Commission, therefore, welcomes the reaching of agreement to freeze the existing legal provisions relating to the protection of the design and the use of spare parts and, meanwhile, to review the consequences of the directive in the foreseeable future.
The so-called 'freeze plus' clause ensures that each Member State must maintain in force the provisions of its design law in relation to both the criteria for the protection of the design of spare parts and the free use of spare parts for repair purposes.
Furthermore, Member States may only introduce new provisions on the use of spare parts insofar as their objective is to liberalise the market in spare parts.
In addition, the Commission will fulfil its undertaking to launch a consultation, particularly with car manufacturers and spare-part producers in order to examine the possibilities of finding a voluntary agreement on the spare-parts issue.
<P>
Finally, in accordance with the agreement, three years after the implementation of the directive, the Commission will submit an analysis of the consequences of the directive for the motor vehicles sector in particular.
We will uphold those undertakings, and those honourable Members who have sought reassurance on that point, I am certain, will accept what I say on behalf of my colleague, Mario Monti, and my other colleagues in the Commission.
This is a necessarily pragmatic approach which allows significant progress.
<P>
I conclude, therefore, by thanking the rapporteur on the design directive, Mr Medina Ortega, who has grown older through the experience or, at least, through the years, although his appearance belies the advance of those years, and the chairman of the Conciliation Committee, about whom it can be said in the words of Shakespeare: 'Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety' - in the manner of Cleopatra, of course - for the decisive role that both have played, together with their colleagues, in achieving a workable agreement on this important directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
Perhaps for once the President of the sitting could add his congratulations to all those who have enabled this difficult report to come to fruition, in particular Lord Simon, Commissioner Monti and our rapporteur Mr Medina Ortega, as well as Mrs Fontaine, who chaired our delegation.
It did indeed require a whole company of angels and archangels to work this minor miracle.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Coffee and chicory extracts
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0278/98), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0306/98-96/0117(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive relating to coffee extracts and chicory extracts (Rapporteur: Mr Lannoye).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Lannoye">
Mr President, we are dealing here with a breakfast product and perhaps this is not the best time of day to talk about it, especially since the political ramifications are not particularly significant.
I doubt if I shall use all my five minutes of speaking time.
<P>
I would like to remind the House, however, that this involves one of the seven vertical directives relating to food products, and that the question of coffee and chicory extracts has been dealt with on a par with that of chocolate, which has proved more controversial for other reasons.
<P>
The overall purpose of the proposal is to achieve a simplification so as to facilitate the free movement of products.
The concern of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection is that such a simplification should not be achieved at the expense of the consumer and of the quality of products.
That is why we submitted three amendments in first reading, which were rejected by the Commission and the Council.
<P>
One amendment is a very technical one and I do not think it is worth discussing here.
The other two, however, involve a matter that may be important for the consumer, since they relate to the restriction of the range of weights which can be offered by the retailer to the consumer.
When the range is entirely open, and particularly when it involves weights that are relatively close to one another, the risk of confusion for the consumer is not inconsiderable.
And it is for this reason that we wish to maintain what was in the original directive, where a range of weights was laid down which were sufficiently different from each other to avoid confusion.
<P>
We consider, therefore, following the discussion in second reading, that it is appropriate to retable these three amendments, including the technical one.
This the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has done, by an overwhelming majority.
Indeed, I think I am correct in saying that it was unanimous, which is not something that occurs very often.
<P>
I should like to add a brief comment regarding two amendments which I have tabled, on behalf of the Green Group, without a prior debate in the Committee on the Environment, because our time there was severely limited by a number of other matters which we considered to be of greater relative importance.
I have retabled two comitology amendments seeking to restore the powers conferred on the Commission in the area of adaptation to technical progress and not, as unfortunately appears in the text of the amendments, to confer powers on the Commission in the area of adaptation to Community legislation and to general Community provisions applicable to food products, since this was rejected by Parliament in first reading.
I would therefore request that this be clarified when we vote, in order to correct a mistake for which I am entirely responsible, and for which I apologise to the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Thyssen">
Mr President, the common position with a view to the adoption of a directive on coffee and chicory may appear to be a purely technical issue, but if you scrutinise the dossier in conjunction with others on foodstuffs, you will see that there are also many political aspects involved.
<P>
The rapporteur has already discussed a number of points that we still hope to settle through amendments.
We maintain the position adopted by our group in the Committee on the Environment, and we therefore wholeheartedly support the views expressed by the rapporteur here.
<P>
However, one point that I would just like to raise is the use of the comitology procedure.
At first reading, Parliament voted to accept the comitology procedure for adaptations to technical progress, but not for adaptations to the general horizontal foodstuffs directives, and we think we should keep to this line here.
We tabled an amendment to this effect which was adopted at the time, but the system adopted in the common position is the exact opposite.
The common position says no to comitology for adaptations to technical progress, but yes for adaptations to horizontal foodstuffs legislation.
We still think that we should insist on this point.
<P>
We have seen with a number of dossiers including chocolate that adaptations to general rules often involve political aspects which can trigger quite violent discussions.
We think it is important for Parliament to be involved in settling such political issues and for the codecision procedure to be used to the full.
This is the line we think we should take.
<P>
I had a few words with the rapporteur about this, and I am pleased to say that he has just told me that the amendments on the subject that were tabled very late are to be put to the vote.
I assume that we may have a split vote on them.
I would urge the other groups to support this line, to read through the amendments again very closely and to ensure that the position we adopt is a unanimous one.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, we should also like to thank Mr Lannoye.
Like Balzac, the Commission drinks coffee from the morning until late at night, in order to be able to fulfil its duties.
It is therefore not unusual for us to be discussing coffee at this time.
<P>
Three of the five amendments were not adopted by the Commission at first reading.
These have now been retabled as Nos 1, 2 and 3, together with two new ones, Nos 4 and 5, which we can adopt because they correspond to our original thinking.
<P>
I should like to explain briefly now why Amendments Nos 1 and 2 are not acceptable to us.
According to the amendments, the provisions on the ranges of prepackaged products are to be reintroduced as they exist in the present directive.
We cannot adopt them because the proposal for a directive, at least for the most part, deals only with questions of composition and labelling. Ranges are therefore not included here because they do not come under this proposal for a directive.
These ranges should be dealt with under the directives on ranges of prepackaged products.
When the common position was adopted, we included a declaration which states that we are prepared to examine, in agreement with those affected, whether ranges of prepackaged products in connection with coffee and chicory extracts should be incorporated into the relevant legislation.
So that is our intention.
I hope that Parliament understands that we cannot do that here today when dealing with this proposal for a directive, because of the constraints imposed by the timetable.
<P>
Amendment No 3 tries to establish ISO standard 11292 as binding for the determination of the free and total carbohydrate content in soluble coffees.
That corresponds neither to our policy nor to the significance of ISO standards, which are by definition not compulsory, and which can of course be brought into play accordingly in announcements, advertising and so on.
They are in any event not compulsory or binding, however.
<P>
As far as the adaptation of Community analysis procedures is concerned, we have already committed ourselves to bringing the existing analysis procedures for coffee into line.
We have also referred to this commitment again in our declaration attached to the common position.
<P>
As far as Amendments Nos 4 and 5 are concerned, we should like to express our thanks.
They correspond to our positions, and so we can naturally adopt them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Transatlantic relations/Echelon system
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="President">
The next item is the statement by the Commission on transatlantic relations following the 18 May 1998 EU-US summit and the use of monitoring techniques in the field of communications (Echelon system).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, with your permission, I should like to deliver two separate statements.
The first is the one which my colleague, Sir Leon Brittan, would have liked to make.
Unfortunately, this item was only placed on today's agenda on Friday. I therefore apologise for any inconvenience caused by his asking me to take his place for this item.
However, since we do work very closely together on issues of economic policy arising between the USA and ourselves, I hope that I can also account to you for our position.
<P>
I should then like - with your consent - to deliver the second statement after we have discussed the state of relations with the USA, because I think that would be more appropriate.
First of all, then, the Commission's statement on EU-USA relations.
<P>
We are very pleased to be able to hold an exchange of views on this important issue here with Parliament, especially as there has been a whole string of positive developments since Sir Leon spoke about the matter in plenary in November last year.
In particular, the EU-US summit of 18 May in London should be mentioned, which led to an agreement to create the Transatlantic Economic Partnership and at which agreements were also reached on the Helms-Burton Act and other issues associated with it.
<P>
The significance of the economic relations between the USA and the EU is well known.
We are both the largest investors in our respective markets.
One in every 12 factory workers in America works for a European company, and American companies employ 3 million staff in Europe.
The traditional economic relations naturally also reflect the interdependence of our economic systems, which is becoming greater every year.
<P>
Of course, this also shows that our fundamental values are in harmony.
In joining forces, we are endeavouring to promote these common interests and values in the world, by standing up for political stability, democracy, free trade, and the protection and defence of human rights.
<P>
It is repeatedly said that this is an unequal partnership, that the USA considers the European Union the junior partner in the relationship.
That is not so.
We are making our external relations increasingly coherent.
We are appearing more and more as a player on the international stage, and even when differences arise between the USA and ourselves - and they can arise without being serious - it still remains a lasting relationship between two equal partners.
<P>
Perhaps that is precisely one of the reasons why we speak openly about any differences of opinion when we have them.
We are able to do so because our relationship is based on sound foundations.
Naturally, that also means commitments for both partners.
We undoubtedly bear a great responsibility in the international community, but the USA perhaps has an even greater one at present.
We are increasingly sharing this responsibility between us, however.
The European Union and the USA have therefore been in the public eye since the beginning of the crises in Asia and Russia.
Our reactions are keenly followed, and those affected both look for and receive our support and advice.
We therefore clearly share with the USA a great responsibility for strong and coherent leadership.
That is expected of us, and it is our duty to do provide it.
<P>
In this sense, the New Transatlantic Agenda is of great importance.
We have a framework for the development of our joint role.
When we agreed the New Transatlantic Agenda barely three years ago, both sides were already of the opinion that a comprehensive framework would be needed to promote cooperation between us in many areas.
Four major areas of priority for our cooperation were established in the New Transatlantic Agenda: promoting peace, stability, democracy and development; responding to global challenges; expanding world trade and intensifying economic relations; and forging links between nations.
<P>
The progress we have achieved in the past three years in all these areas is perhaps not what we might have hoped for, but it is nevertheless quite considerable.
We are continuing to extend our cooperation.
We are making progress in combating global problems, such as drugs, organised crime and trafficking in women.
We have been able to give our businesses and citizens real advantages through our cooperation in international organisations such as the WTO, as well as within the framework of our bilateral agreements.
<P>
I was here in the House last year to discuss the report which Mrs Mann presented on the New Transatlantic Agenda, together with the report by Mr Souchet on relations between the USA and the EU, and we agreed that the future potential for this cooperation is considerable.
Of course, the Transatlantic Economic Partnership will also play a decisive role in this context.
We have already achieved some tangible and satisfactory initial results here - perhaps even unexpected ones on occasion.
In January this year, the European Parliament itself called for a general blueprint - a framework, timetable, schedule and time limit - for the completion of the New Transatlantic Market.
Following this, we drew up a proposal which was discussed at length within the Council, and also with the US Government. The first result of this was that an ambitious joint declaration on the Transatlantic Economic Partnership was issued at the summit meeting in London.
<P>
We are pursuing two basic objectives: firstly, the dismantling of trade barriers which still adversely affect transatlantic trade, the removal of which means considerable new opportunities for our businesses and consumers, as well as for businesses and consumers in the USA.
Secondly, we have sought to promote multilateral liberalisation whilst improving our cooperation with the USA in multilateral trade forums, particularly the WTO, because I know that both these forms of cooperation are often also treated in Parliament as controversial and mutually exclusive options.
We are of the opinion that they can be pursued together.
Progress can be made at bilateral level, and multilateral cooperation can also be promoted at the same time.
<P>
We have therefore made it clear in the summit declaration on the Transatlantic Economic Partnership that pursuing the aims of EU and US trade policy within the framework of the WTO and together with other members of the WTO is a high priority.
Multilateral cooperation has a number of key elements: firstly, the joint commitment of the EU and the USA to negotiating broad-based liberalisation; secondly, close cooperation so that ambitious aims can be achieved at the forthcoming GATT 2000 negotiations; and, thirdly, reinforcing the agreement on future WTO negotiations on the reform in agriculture.
<P>
The essential element in bilateral cooperation is the large-scale removal of regulatory barriers and, as a result, opening up our markets more for both goods and services.
This also includes areas such as invitations to tender and intellectual property.
Of course, we are absolutely determined to listen to and include those involved in the dialogue when carrying out these tasks.
The success of the transatlantic business dialogue is obvious.
It has essentially ensured greater transparency in the decisionmaking process.
The immediate problems can also be better dealt with, and it is now resulting in a series of other initiatives as well, such as the global business dialogue.
So we shall naturally continue to pursue this possibility of transatlantic dialogue, so as to ensure that we can achieve our objectives with the agreement of those involved.
This week, the Commission is expected to adopt a recommendation to the Council on the Transatlantic Economic Partnership with the accompanying draft negotiating directives and an action plan.
We hope that we can finally achieve agreement on the plan and begin the process of implementation before the EU-US summit in December.
This economic cooperation is important for the whole world and is essential to strengthening the multilateral system.
<P>
Other important progress concerning the differences of opinion over the Helms-Burton and d'Amato legislation was also achieved at the London summit.
You will be aware of the disputes.
The agreements reached in London are advantageous for Europe and European businesses, as they open up real prospects of neutralising the extraterritorial effects of the Helms-Burton Act and the Act on sanctions against Iran and Libya.
<P>
Let me be quite clear on this point: the EU has not given anything away here!
The agreements represent a package. We shall only fulfil our part when the USA has done likewise.
The EU will not implement the Understanding on disciplines for the strengthening of investment protection until waivers are made possible under Title 4 of the Helms-Burton Act.
The HelmsBurton issue is not being raised to multilateral level with this agreement.
As you know, the USA was seeking to limit trade with Cuba and investment there to a large extent through this Act, but in reality, legal investment is made easier for EU businesses through the agreement.
<P>
Only a small proportion of future investment in Cuba is affected, and only in so far as it depends on state support.
The disciplines agreed do not include a ban on investment in expropriated property, and investments already made remain completely unaffected.
<P>
In addition, the agreement represents an important step forward in investment protection policy which goes far beyond the issue of possible illegal expropriations in Cuba.
The disciplines for the strengthening of investment protection ensure unimpaired national sovereignty for the Member States, since they can both determine which expropriations were illegal and apply most of the disciplines agreed themselves.
<P>
In the declaration on the transatlantic partnership in the area of political cooperation, the US Government commits itself neither to strive for nor propose, but to counteract economic sanctions prompted by foreign policy considerations which are designed to lead European businesses to behave in a similar way to those in their own economy.
I am quoting from the agreements here.
<P>
This should largely rule out in future the adoption of legislation with extraterritorial effects, such as the Helms-Burton Act and the Act on sanctions against Iran and Libya.
As regards the d'Amato Act or the Act on sanctions against Iran and Libya, our investors are being given legal security by the lifting of the sanctions imposed on the Total company under Section 9© and the prospect of similar decisions for EU businesses in comparable cases.
As a result, the Act on sanctions against Iran and Libya is losing some of its terror, at any rate.
The agreement reached in London opens up great opportunities and even great advantages in competition to EU businesses in these countries.
<P>
As far as the implementation of these agreements is concerned, Mrs Albright is trying at present to convince the Congress of the need to amend Title 4, so that waivers are possible.
It is now up to the American Government to secure the adoption of the agreements by Congress.
We shall naturally support it in this, so far as that is within our power.
Sir Leon Brittan is visiting Washington on 24 and 25 September in this connection.
<P>
Apart from all the other areas of transatlantic cooperation which I cannot go into in more detail here for reasons of time, the agreements on the Transatlantic Economic Partnership and the Helms-Burton Act show that our cooperation is intensive and constructive.
The bonds and the common values which unite our citizens and governments on both sides of the Atlantic are much stronger than any passing differences.
The Members of this House, and naturally of the Congress too, will play a central role in making these relations more intense.
<P>
At the last meeting of EU and US ministers on 3 September in Vienna, both the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Schüssel, and Sir Leon Brittan emphasised to Mrs Albright the importance of continuing to develop interparliamentary relations between the EU and the USA.
We welcome all the efforts which have been made on your side in this area, in which many Members of the European Parliament have been particularly active: Mr Donnelly, Mr Elles, Mrs Mann and Mr Brok, to mention but a few.
<P>
Let me end with a final remark on the Transatlantic Economic Partnership.
Just four months have passed since the summit in London at which this initiative was brought into being.
During this period, the European side has worked intensively and with commitment to get the Transatlantic Economic Partnership off the ground.
I am certain that the American side is likewise trying to play its part.
These common efforts justify our expectation that the next EU-US summit will produce important and concrete results both in the interests of the EU and the USA before the end of this year, and that these will be helpful above all to those whom our daily work should concern first and foremost, in other words our citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Erika">
Mr President, I am very pleased that Mr Bangemann has covered the essential points in his brief statement.
I have to say quite honestly that I had hoped that we would not be debating this until November or December, when we shall be discussing the report on the Transatlantic Economic Partnership once again.
The decision would also have been taken by then in the Committee on External Economic Relations.
The die is sometimes cast differently from how one plans, however.
<P>
We know how difficult it is to have a balanced transatlantic relationship.
Our basis is a good one, reliable and stable, and we can see how important this is in view of the worldwide turmoil around us.
Europe's citizens above all hope for stability and reliability from transatlantic relations.
We can lead the way together with the Americans on human rights and democracy, and introducing labour and social standards in the multilateral negotiated package.
The European model fits well with the American model in this respect.
<P>
Nevertheless, we are certainly experiencing some considerable differences and losses due to friction on sensitive issues, particularly in the area of trade.
An important point which you have already addressed is naturally the Helms-Burton Act.
Unilateral sanctions, as the Helms-Burton, d'Amato and ILSA cases have made clear, have not exactly shown the best side of American economic policy and have raised the question time and again of whether economic policy is not being confused with foreign policy here.
Certainly, those who caused these conflicts were our colleagues in Congress and the Senate.
I am sure that we can only avoid this absurd dispute if we succeed in formalising parliamentary relations.
The euro will also have its part to play.
<P>
The delegation for relations with the United States, led by Mr Donnelly, has made some excellent proposals in this respect which we should then discuss in November and December in the context of the report on the Transatlantic Economic Partnership.
I welcome the proposals and the progress which you have described in this area, and I hope that we can agree with both the Commission and the Member States on this.
<P>
Many differences can be explained by the tensions between existing common interests and values and global economic competition between the EU and the USA. This became particularly clear in the GATT negotiations and will certainly also come to light again when the new round is opened.
Besides, the Americans have a preference for negotiating unilaterally.
However, many differences also result from the very emotional competition to claim leadership in managing international conflicts.
Europe's weakness certainly also becomes particularly apparent here.
<P>
I want us to succeed in introducing parliamentary control and establishing democratic relations between the Congress and the European Parliament in the ensuing discussions.
Then we shall be able to remove many of the difficulties.
Otherwise, I think we shall be running into the same dead end again and again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
Mr President, I am particularly pleased that Commissioner Bangemann is here for this debate and also that it has been possible to hold it.
<P>
Further to what my colleague Mrs Mann has said, I think it would indeed be desirable and appropriate if the Commissioner responsible, Sir Leon Brittan, could attend the relevant committees - the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy and the Committee on External Economic Relations - and give us some impressions of his travels on his return from the United States.
<P>
I think we can broadly agree with Commissioner Bangemann's account of the objectives of transatlantic relations, particularly at this time of world crisis.
<P>
But there is one point about which the Commission has not been sufficiently explicit, and I should like to explore it further.
I am referring to laws with extraterritorial effect, in particular the unilateral interpretation of the agreement on the HelmsBurton Act made by the US Secretary of State, Mrs Albright, in a letter of 7 August to Mr Helms, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the United States Senate.
<P>
Mrs Albright's letter would seem to suggest that this agreement - reached at the transatlantic summit - assumes recognition by Europe of the Helms-Burton Act.
Certainly the agreements of 18 May are, by their very nature, complicated to read and very difficult to interpret.
But it is equally true that, both in the context of those May agreements and in repeated statements by President Santer and Commissioner Brittan himself to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, the European Union has made it clear that this is an illegitimate law, especially in terms of its extraterritorial effects.
<P>
And I wonder, Mr President - and I should like to put this to Commissioner Bangemann - whether the interpretation in the Secretary of State's letter is a logical response to the European Union's goodwill in dropping its claim before the World Trade Organisation, whereas in other disputes, like bananas and hormones, our North American colleagues, friends and partners have been implacable.
<P>
Mr Bangemann mentioned this just now.
The European Union ratified that agreement through the General Affairs Council, while the Clinton administration has not yet finished asking the United States Congress to amend Title 4.
<P>
So I find it very satisfactory that Commissioner Bangemann has said that as long as it does not fulfil those requirements, the European Union will not fulfil its commitments either.
<P>
I wonder, Mr President - and I would like to ask the Commission - whether the European Union is going to continue demonstrating unilateral magnanimity as it has done up to now, when the United States is not fulfilling the commitments it has made as well.
<P>
I know this is a politically sensitive and economically important issue and I believe the European Commission should take a position on the way these agreements are interpreted in the Secretary of State's letter to the chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, so that any doubt on the matter is entirely dispelled.
<P>
I believe that we need to be loyal friends and partners of the United States because of the great political challenges facing the world at this time, but as I always say, when it comes to economic and commercial matters, the European Union needs to move on from the Beatitudes to the account books.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner Bangemann, I am very pleased that you are standing in for Sir Leon Brittan this afternoon, since it gives me the opportunity to ask you a few questions.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, the Liberal Group attaches great importance to the liberalisation of multilateral trade, and eliminating trade barriers between the EU and the United States is an important part of this.
The transatlantic market is the biggest in the world, not just in terms of the volume of trade and investment, but especially in terms of employment.
My group is therefore delighted at the proposals for a new Transatlantic Economic Partnership and very much welcomes the undertaking to remove trade and investment barriers in a number of areas.
A great deal of good work in this field has already been done in recent years through the Transatlantic Business Dialogue.
However, the Liberal Group would also stress the importance of having a democratic input in the development of the transatlantic market, and it therefore expects the European Parliament and the American Congress to be kept fully informed and involved in the forthcoming negotiations on the Transatlantic Economic Partnership.
I should like to ask the Commission how it intends to involve Parliament in future negotiations in order to guarantee adequate democratic controls.
Encouraging public support on both sides of the Atlantic is very important in transatlantic relations, and the 'people to people' aspect is a significant factor here.
The Liberal Group therefore wholeheartedly supports the Commission's budget proposals in this field, which will enable projects launched last year such as the Transatlantic Information Exchange Service (TIES), the ten European institutes at American universities, scientific and technical cooperation and other social initiatives to be continued and expanded.
This was what I wanted to say about transatlantic economic relations.
<P>
My second point - and this is why I am so pleased that Commissioner Bangemann is here today - concerns the report on the Echelon network and the study carried out by the STOA group in this field.
I asked the Council on behalf of my group in February this year about the existence and impact of this American monitoring system, but the Council claimed to know nothing about it.
Perhaps the Commissioner could make a statement to the Council.
I should like to ask Mr Bangemann today whether he is aware that the United States systematically taps all telephone calls, faxes, e-mails and telexes sent in the Member States of the European Union?
If so, is this done with the knowledge and agreement of other Member States?
Was there widespread monitoring of communications during the GATT negotiations?
<P>
Commissioner, I asked whether the Commission was aware of the existence of widespread monitoring between the Member States in the European Union, and I would ask you specifically what the Commission intends to do to ensure the confidentiality of Europe's telecommunications and that the Echelon loophole is closed?
As I see it, a high level of security in the telecommunications sector is absolutely essential if new systems are to be made acceptable to society.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pompidou">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner Bangemann has dealt with transatlantic relations remarkably thoroughly, but he has not really discussed the Echelon system item on the agenda.
No doubt he will do so later.
<P>
The statement that was unanimously adopted by Member States during the London summit on 18 May strengthens the Transatlantic Economic Partnership and turns it into a key instrument.
The objective is to develop a genuine transatlantic partnership, based on true reciprocity in relations of cooperation between the European Union and the United States.
This will allow us to achieve our shared objectives of democracy, peace and economic development.
<P>
In this context, the rapid advance of information and communications technologies offers access to new tools of economic monitoring and information. These have been identified in a STOA Unit study for the Committee on Civil Liberties on the protection of citizens in connection with new control technologies, prompting me on several occasions to put a question to the Commission which we shall be able to discuss this evening.
<P>
More specifically, this report confirms the establishment and recent strengthening of world telecommunications surveillance.
We are dealing here with a network for intercepting and monitoring satellite communications which, moreover, operates entirely legally.
The Echelon network falls within the scope of a bilateral agreement between the United Kingdom and the United States, which was strengthened after the end of the Cold War and subsequently devoted to information of an economic nature.
The point here is not to call into question bilateral agreements between a Member State and the United States of America, but rather to alert the economic actors of the European Union and to provide the Union with an effective economic information system.
<P>
How does the Commission intend to counter potential abuse in connection with the use of new information control tools?
Is the Commission taking the necessary steps to establish an economic information policy for the European Union, employing all the legal means at its disposal?
Does the Commission intend to establish the means to protect its economic policy, to counter the disadvantages to which European industry is exposed by the Echelon system?
Does it intend to provide better protection of confidential information in the civil sector by enhancing the access of European companies to reliable electronic encryption?
<P>
Finally, in so doing, I believe that the Commission will thereby avoid the risk of distortion of competition, which is certainly a matter which falls within its competence.
A code of good conduct must be drawn up for electronic information, as part of the partnership between the European Union and the United States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Moreau">
Mr President, last March our group opposed the draft transatlantic agreement on the deregulation of trade between the European Union and the United States.
Trade unions and associations were widely mobilised.
The French Government successfully petitioned the Council to reject the draft.
However, when we read the conclusions of the EU-US summit of 18 May, there are grounds for wondering whether the principles rejected at that time are not now back on the table.
I note from its programme that the Austrian Presidency is preparing the way for the establishment of a Transatlantic Economic Partnership, particularly in connection with the liberalisation of services, agriculture and dismantling of tariff barriers.
This would dangerously predate the signature of the MAI, discussion of which, I would point out, was postponed by the European Parliament for resumption in a few weeks' time.
<P>
The Council, like the Commission, has strongly opposed the way in which extraterritorial legislation such as the Helms-Burton Act is applied to Europe.
Nonetheless, the principle of these laws has been approved, which is a serious matter.
We take the view that the European Union should reject any extraterritorial application of US legislation and proceed with its complaint to the WTO.
<P>
In response to questions in the National Assembly, the French Government stated that Member States are not bound by the decisions of the London summit.
That is curious, to say the least, and I should like some further information on this point.
What commitments were entered into by the Council Presidency?
What implications do they have at national and Community level?
I think that we should learn from experience, and firmly resist the hegemonic aspirations of the United States, in order effectively to defend and promote the interests and assets of the countries of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Mr President, I intend to concentrate solely on the Echelon system; my party colleagues will be addressing other aspects of the Transatlantic Economic Partnership and elements in the STOA working document.
Commissioner Bangemann had not a word to say about Echelon, although it is on the agenda for discussion this evening.
<P>
My group, the Greens, finds the very idea of a global surveillance system of this kind, designed to monitor telephone, fax and e-mail communications, totally unacceptable.
<P>
Equally intolerable is the secretive behaviour of the EU. Without so much as convening Council, the 15 Member States apparently agreed, following a series of fax exchanges, to set up a similar system in cooperation with the FBI.
National parliaments and the European Parliament were kept well away from the discussion process, which has clearly been under way for many years.
<P>
I have been reading the resolutions tabled by the other political groups, some of which are rather tame in their expressions of disquiet in the face of such an interception system.
Where are the calls for open debate with the citizens of Europe?
Or for parliamentary oversight?
Or for proper democratic decisions and the safeguarding of civil liberties?
It should go without saying in societies based on the rule of law that such all-embracing surveillance technologies require broad and open discussion.
<P>
Echelon is built upon the notion that all telecommunications activities should be able to be intercepted. Surely this cannot be compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, which states that interception is justified only where a crime is suspected.
There are bound to be problems with national legislation here.
Straight implementation would be out of the question in Sweden, since a public prosecutor must specifically authorise interception.
<P>
How are the limits for Echelon to be set, and who is going to take responsibility? We seem to be on the way towards the kind of society described by Orwell.
I would like to hear an answer from Commissioner Bangemann.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="President">
Mrs Schörling, since both you and Mr Pompidou have referred to the Commissioner's introductory speech, let me make it clear that the Commissioner said he would be making a special statement at the end.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Sainjon">
Mr President, during this period of financial crisis in both Asia and Russia, we can see the extent to which the United States and Europe are bastions of economic and commercial stability.
We might dwell for a moment on what Europe's position might have been regarding an American president experiencing difficulties if we had a genuine common foreign policy based on a powerful single currency.
<P>
But let us return to the matter of trade and the transatlantic partnership.
My group inclines towards the utmost caution with respect to these negotiations which, it seems to me, fall outside any genuine parliamentary control and are frequently conducted in informal meetings.
<P>
A return of the political dimension is called for, not only in connection with this economic partnership, but also where the OECD, the WTO and the IMF are concerned.
Some form of supervision of each of these organisations should be exercised by democratically elected parliaments.
We shall be particularly vigilant to ensure that this partnership does not extend to agriculture or audiovisual and cultural services.
We will not allow social and environmental acquis to be brought once more into question through a common investment strategy.
<P>
Where individual liberties are concerned, we are all aware that technological developments in the communications sector provide a means of allowing the flow of information and knowledge.
Such fantastic developments raise great hopes for bringing the human beings of the world closer together and strengthening friendship and solidarity across the divides of culture, religion or moral codes.
<P>
That is certainly how I see things, and my endeavour is to ensure that all scientific and technical progress is placed at the service of mankind.
However, we can only be concerned when it becomes clear that certain ill-intentioned people are seeking to use the most advanced technologies in such a way as to make our societies less and not more free.
<P>
The investigation, which has subsequently been made public, into a spy network under the control of the CIA, and hence of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, brings us all face to face with the threat hanging over the private lives of several millions of our citizens, our major industries and our very security.
<P>
We cannot tolerate this practice of compiling files on individuals, this blatant violation of individual liberty which, if we allow it to become commonplace, will inevitably lead to a form of dictatorship.
<P>
How is it that these methods have only now been made public, when the UK-USA or Echelon agreement has been operating for years without prompting a reaction by any government in any Member State?
I personally find it most distressing that a Member State of the Union, a Trojan horse indeed, should be among the countries involved.
<P>
In my opinion, this is perhaps the greatest scandal of these closing years of the century, and therefore this matter cannot be allowed to pass unnoticed.
Here again, the political dimension should resume its due place on the international stage.
<P>
Ultimately, there are two problems here.
Firstly, this partnership puts us on the wrong footing with the WTO.
Its DirectorGeneral, Mr Ruggieri, has said himself that there cannot be several overlapping modes of dispute settlement.
Secondly, whatever anyone says, the agreement recently concluded between the European Union and the United States of America to settle their disputes in connection with the Helms-Burton Act legitimises the extraterritorial effects of the Act which are totally illegal under international law.
We cannot accept this, despite the fact that a number of European firms have won cases relating to this issue.
<P>
At this moment in time, when the Europe of monetary union is about to take its place in the world of the 21st century, let us prepare the way for the construction of a politically strong Europe which stands firm against the legal manoeuvring of the United States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, Mr Bangemann has drawn us a very positive picture of the state of transatlantic relations, but we all know that the progress of the transatlantic dialogue to which we are all committed is being hampered to no small extent by the major disagreement as regards the extraterritorial scope of the Helms-Burton Act and the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act.
Ambiguity appears to be the hallmark of the Commission's attitude to this matter.
<P>
Indeed, is it wise, in the name of practicality, to try to negotiate waivers to the extraterritorial implications of unilateral laws, particularly when the principle itself has not been questioned before the appropriate international bodies?
Do the concessions obtained justify giving up the judicial remedies which are available to Europeans to assert their rights?
Is to negotiate in this manner not to offer de facto recognition of the legitimacy of extraterritorial laws?
<P>
Is the development of trade really to be based on inevitably fragile and readily contested waivers granted to the few, or on a clear and universal rule which is in principle to be laid down by the WTO?
<P>
Moreover, is the negotiation process really effective?
The progress made in relation to Cuba, as described to us, appears extremely tenuous.
And has any progress been made regarding the non-enforcement of extraterritorial provisions, not only by the federal authorities, but also by the individual states and local authorities?
Mr Bangemann made no mention of this.
Japan has recently submitted a complaint against the state of Massachusetts regarding its extraterritorial legislation with respect to Burma.
Will the European Commission follow Japan's example?
<P>
These are a number of questions which occur to us and which prompt us to ask how the Commission is dealing with this issue of extraterritorial legislation, which is absolutely crucial for the future of transatlantic relations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Blot">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as I listened earlier to Mr Bangemann's statement, I was reminded of the words of Georgias, the man who conducted dialogues with Plato, when he was defining rhetoric.
Rhetoric, he said, is an special oratorical skill which makes it possible to build up what is small and to play down what is great.
Today we have listened to a speech which, with consummate skill, built up the advantages which the European Union might gain from the transatlantic partnership between Europe and the United States, and played down the disadvantages of this partnership between partners who are fundamentally unequal.
Where transatlantic relations are concerned, it is impossible to ignore the historical fact that one country has won three major world conflicts, the First World War, the Second World War and the Cold War.
Consequently, this country naturally occupies a position of undisputed dominance on the economic, cultural and political fronts.
It is obvious that, after these three military victories, in a world which revolves around the sword, the United States is the world's only superpower, with all the accompanying scope for abuse in the world of today.
There used of course to be another superpower, the Soviet Union, and we were witness to the drawbacks of such a situation.
We always fought it, in the name of the freedom and human dignity which we hold so dear.
But it served to provide a balance.
However, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, we were handed over, bound and gagged as it were, to our American friends.
<P>
You say that this transatlantic agreement is feasible because it is based on a fundamental agreement between parties with common values.
You listed the four principles of free trade, democracy, freedom and human rights.
But what might one actually say about them?
Does free trade consist of applying laws like the D'Amato-Kennedy Act or the Helms-Burton Act, and all kinds of embargo measures that the United States imposes on countries it does not like?
I know you said that these laws would not be enforced across the board and that Europe's position in this respect had been strengthened by the London agreements, but I fail to see where the spirit of free trade lies in all this.
Nonetheless, the initiative behind such waivers has certainly come from the United States.
<P>
And what of democracy?
Democracy is very relative.
Even within the United States, questions might be asked about the conditions in which it operates, and about the influence exerted by certain powerful lobbies on the American Government, quite openly and publicly.
As for the countries of Europe, it is argued that the regimes we have today are more in the nature of oligarchies than democracies.
So there is a great deal that could be said on this subject.
<P>
And what of freedom?
It seems odd to talk of freedom when, according to the agenda, the first item for discussion should have been the question of the Echelon system.
The Echelon system, as some colleagues have clearly explained, particularly Mr Sainjon, is a system for intercepting computer and telephone communications which covers the entire world, and which allows the Americans to carry out global surveillance.
Freedom, certainly, for those who are listening to us on the Echelon system.
But our own freedoms are diminished as a result.
And to this might be added the formation of cartels by the United States on the world's markets - not to mention other phenomena imported from that country, such as rampant crime, which has increased fivefold over the last 30 years.
For the people who live in the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods of our countries, it means that freedom today is but a vestige of what they had a few decades ago.
<P>
And I think that it is somewhat insensitive to refer to human rights when the international community, at the instigation of the United States, is imposing an absurd and inhuman embargo on a country like Iraq, where thousands of children are dying for want of medicines, and nobody really dares to speak out against this outrage because it would be politically incorrect.
Indeed, in France for instance, only Jean-Marie Le Pen has had the courage to take on this taboo subject.
<P>
Democracy, freedom, human rights, free trade - not everything is bad in our Western system.
But there are many negative elements.
And where these are concerned, Commissioner, you excelled in your rhetoric, building up what was small and playing down what was great.
We could look at a number of more technical issues at some length.
You mentioned, very briefly I must say, the agricultural sector.
Well, I think our farmers know what to expect from the successive diktats of the Americans, the aim of which is to destroy or virtually destroy European agriculture.
<P>
There is talk of partnership.
Could we not be a little more frank, for once?
Let us rather talk about a neocolonial system.
Which is not to say that the neocolonial system does not benefit both sides.
The colonial systems that were established during the 19th century benefited the home country, of course, but they also benefited the colonies.
There is no doubt about it, even if today no one wishes to acknowledge it.
So Europe could be seen as benefiting from a neocolonial system, its market shares being the crumbs falling from the American table, so to speak.
And why not?
Such a situation is defensible.
But it must be openly acknowledged, just as the political inequality of the system which we are now sanctioning has to be exposed.
Because you are indeed sanctioning this political inequality between the United States and Europe.
In fact, it is only logical; the two great political powers that were built up in Europe after the Second World War were themselves built with American money, for the purpose of defending American interests.
I am talking about the Christian Democrats and Socialists.
There is no shortage of examples.
Of course, it is only to be expected that the Commission, which is committed to these two major currents, should likewise be committed to American interests.
For our part, we wish to recover our sovereignty and rekindle the flame of European resistance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, the chairman of the STOA panel, Mr Pompidou, has to his credit referred here to the study carried out mainly in connection with the Echelon monitoring system.
I am astonished that Mr Bangemann made no reference at all to this matter, which is now in hand, in his opening speech.
In my view, the Commissioner would have done well to listen to the other speeches made here, so that he could comment on the Echelon system, which so far he has not done.
I do not understand how you could pass comment on us, Commissioner, when we should have been commenting on your speech on the matter.
You also appear to be keeping things from us.
I tabled a written question on this subject several months ago, to which I have still not received a reply.
It was a priority question. The European Commission wishes to remain silent on the subject of the Echelon system and the mystery that surrounds it.
I should be grateful if you would ensure that written questions are answered within a reasonable period of time.
<P>
In this context, the issue of secretive collaboration with the USA, the French magazine Marianne has also claimed that France and Germany are engaged in similar forms of collaboration in Europe.
This is something that should be investigated.
<P>
It has now come to our attention that an agreement may have been concluded in the European Union in 1995 whereby the secret services of EU Member States would acquire the use of the Echelon system via the FBI - the American intelligence service - and the NSA.
It is now for you to tell us, Commissioner, the Members of the European Parliament, whether or not such an agreement was concluded in 1995 and, if so, what was actually agreed.
It is a requirement and the responsibility of a democratic system such as ours to get an answer to this question.
It is our duty to discover whether conversations in the European Parliament and the European Union are being listened to using ISDN digital systems.
It is only right that the Commission should answer these questions.
This is not an issue which you, Mr Bangemann, may keep quiet about, as the Commission has done up till now.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lannoye">
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Mr President, I am extremely surprised, Mr Bangemann, that you are exploiting this joint debate so as to put the statement on Echelon at the end, thereby actually avoiding a debate on it.
The House is holding a joint debate, and I should like to hear two statements from you.
I am quite staggered that you do not find all this alarming.
You do not seem particularly concerned about the existence of a system of electronic surveillance which allows eavesdropping on telephone conversations - in fact the whole network of telecommunications between the citizens of Europe - without any protection of fundamental rights, any courts of law, parliamentary control or data protection.
<P>
This is a massive intrusion upon people's privacy which bears the hallmark of totalitarianism.
I am quite amazed by your restraint. After all, you come from a country in one part of which a system of injustice has just been overcome and where general spying on citizens was the most significant feature.
Five English-speaking countries, including an EU Member State, are now helping to support and operate this system which originated in the USA.
Apparently, it has now been secretly decided under the third pillar, outside the Council meeting, to set up a similar system in the EU in cooperation with the FBI.
<P>
The EU sees itself as a system of values based on fundamental rights and human rights.
We believe that spying on its citizens and putting them at the mercy of spies is totally incompatible with this perception.
It may be that the American system of justice is no longer even able or willing to protect the human dignity and basic rights of its own President, according to the latest developments.
However, such an attack on the privacy of our citizens should be firmly resisted by this Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, the last thing which Mr Voggenhuber just said gives me the opportunity to explain once more what I explained at the beginning of the debate. I am grateful to Mr Lannoye for having taken that on board, since he was obviously one of the few to do so.
I said at the start that I would make two statements, the first on general relations with the USA, which could then be discussed.
Then I would make a second statement on Echelon and that too could be discussed.
I do not believe, Mr Voggenhuber, that the Echelon affair, if that is what it is, should take up the whole debate on relations with the USA. That would be more or less what you were just criticising with regard to the American President, namely that the leading world power is currently dealing with problems which are probably not the greatest ones facing the international community.
So much for that point.
Hopefully you have now also taken it on board.
I said it at the beginning, but perhaps not everyone was here at the start.
<P>
(Heckling from Mr Voggenhuber) I made it absolutely clear!
You can read what I said afterwards.
<P>
I should now like to answer a number of questions which have been raised concerning general relations with the USA. The letter which the American Secretary of State wrote to Mr Helms, the chairman of the committee, is naturally not an official interpretation of what we have agreed with the USA.
It is a letter to Mr Helms, as chairman of the committee, setting out her own views.
We do not need to concern ourselves with that. I have told you how we understand what we have agreed with the Americans.
I have also said that, as matters take their course, we shall wait for the USA to take its commitments through the Congress first before we do anything at all.
And of course, when we undertake a legal measure, it must go through the legal decision-making process, and not least through Parliament.
Moreover, we have not abandoned our legal positions or the rights of European citizens or companies.
Nor have we abandoned or contravened the principle that there should be no extraterritorial effect.
That was our purpose from the outset.
We shall also naturally be involving Parliament in future.
We shall pass on the request to Sir Leon that he should provide a report on his visit, and he will certainly be able to do that.
<P>
Furthermore, like the Japanese, we have invoked the WTO panel procedure regarding both these issues, namely the Foreign Sales Corporations Act and the Burma-Massachusetts Act.
In other words, we have done exactly the same as Japan.
I do not wish to go into the details - not least because of the time - and you may still have questions on my statement on Echelon as well.
I should just like to say to Mr Souchet, no, the Member who quoted the Georgias dialogue: I do not wish to be the judge of that - it may be that you feel I stressed the positive aspects somewhat more than the negative ones.
I did at least have a basis for my assessment, however, whereas when you talk about free trade, you have to try very hard to find a few words of support for free trade from within the ideology of your group and party.
At least, I cannot recall hearing any.
<P>
Incidentally, you have a representative of the Commission here before you who belongs neither to the Christian Democrats nor the Socialists.
You have therefore missed the mark in your attack on these two great movements - I am not in the firing line!
<P>
Let us now turn to Echelon.
I must ask you to distinguish between two things: what we know officially as the Commission or have learnt from the Member States, and what it says in your interim report or a book by a former colleague from New Zealand or newspaper reports.
You will appreciate that the Commission cannot act on the basis of assumptions, suspicions or some book or article, but we have the responsibility to do something when we are sure that something needs to be done.
We have no indication either from the Member States, Mr Lannoye, or from anyone whose rights could be violated - a citizen, a business or anyone else - that this system exists in the form in which it has been described here.
It does not mean that such a system may exist because there was one in the past, when it may have been set up for entirely different reasons.
We know nothing about this.
So I cannot tell you definitely now whether this system exists or not.
What we do know is that the Member States have given us no indications on the matter.
A question to the Council from one Member of the House - I am not sure who - was answered as follows: ' The Council has no knowledge of the matter'.
The Council would have to know if such a system existed, because when a Member State is affected by it, as is being claimed here, the Council would have to receive the relevant information.
That is the first point.
<P>
The second point is that we know - and this is something we encourage, not least in the interest of, and following the calls from Parliament - that there is cooperation in fighting crime, in other words organised crime and other international forms of criminality.
This is something that is agreed between the Member States and with us.
That does not concern this system, however, as it has been described here; it concerns official cooperation, and not the violation of any rights.
If the system existed in such a form, that would naturally represent a blatant violation of rights, the individual rights of citizens, and of course an attack on the security of the Member States.
That is absolutely clear.
The Council, and naturally the Commission and the Parliament as well, would have to respond the instant something of that kind was officially confirmed.
<P>
Thirdly, what we are doing now is addressing the general issue, because the problem arose through the development of technology.
We now have far greater possibilities than five, ten or twenty years ago.
That is why we have a directive on the protection of the privacy of our citizens.
That is why we have pressed for the authorisation of encryption systems - not least with the Americans - and for only allowing them to be deciphered when there are legal grounds for doing so.
We still believe, like the rest of the world, that such encryption will for the most part remove a number of the problems which we already have to deal with in normal traffic carried on modern communications systems.
So to repeat it again, to make it absolutely clear: firstly, we have no official knowledge of this system, such as it is described in the interim report.
<P>
Secondly: there is international legal cooperation in fighting crime, and the EU and its Member States are naturally also involved in this.
Thirdly: we are doing everything possible to ensure that such information or other communications cannot be misused in this new infrastructure.
I cannot say anything more to you on the matter.
The Commission will certainly give its detailed opinion on it when the report is finally delivered.
You can gladly put questions to the Council too.
If I knew that the system existed, then the Commission would be using all its powers to persuade the Member States not to obtain information illegally in this way.
I cannot say that to the House, however.
<P>
I think there is a difference between someone who writes a book - if I may just make this point -or a Member of Parliament who is also able to say what he or she may think, and a representative of an institution which can only act in a democratic system when it knows something for certain.
We do not have that knowledge.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="President">
I have received eight motions for resolutions on this subject pursuant to Rule 40(5) of the Rules of Procedure .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Erika">
Mr President, I think we should address this subject again quite calmly, Mr Bangemann.
It makes no sense at all to discuss this in a state of panic.
I would also ask my colleagues to proceed with due caution and not to react with too much excitement to comments made in the media, however important or relevant they may be.
We could certainly accept one point as a proposal, Mr Bangemann, namely that we - meaning you, of course, rather than ourselves in Parliament - should consider with the Council whether some kind of code of conduct could not be signed, not only between the individual Member States, but also between the Member States and the United States, so that when information is received through whatever channels - and this involves above all economic information, industrial espionage - it is handled with the appropriate care.
<P>
I realise that such words or statements are a little naive.
However, such codes do also have a persuasive effect when they have been signed, and this could well be a proposal for dealing with the matter sensibly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
Mr President, because I recognise that Commissioner Bangemann treats the European Parliament with particular respect, care and consideration, I should like to have these points made absolutely clear.
One, did the Commission know about Mrs Albright's letter unilaterally interpreting the agreements between the European Union and the Clinton Administration?
Two, does the Commission share Mrs Albright's interpretation of the agreements in this letter, especially when she says that these agreements constitute - and I quote - ' an extraordinary vindication of the principles underlying the Libertad Act'? Three, does the European Commission propose to make a public statement on its approval or disapproval of the terms of this letter?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Bangemann">
I must refer the honourable Member to Parliament's own Rules of Procedure.
These state that the Commission can make a statement at any time, and I have used this privilege granted to the Commission today - and it does involve a privilege - for the reason I have given you.
I am not hiding in any way.
I believe that it would not have been appropriate to the progress achieved or to our good relations with the United States if we had debated this together with these other problems.
<P>
There is a second aspect, which was entirely in your hands.
I pointed out to the President from the outset that, with his agreement, I would first make the statement on the USA and then - you really must listen to what I say - the other statement, and this second statement can of course be debated in exactly the same way.
<P>
So to the questions: on the question of the global business dialogue, Mrs Mann, we are trying to agree on all these issues, encryption and privacy as well, in such a way that everyone, not just the United States, but all the other members of this global information society too, can come to an agreement on what needs to happen politically.
With that, Mr Salafranca, I have gone into your question, but I will not repeat it again.
Firstly, I even have the letter here with me.
Secondly, we do not share the view which was conveyed in this letter.
It is an interpretation which we do not endorse, and I have explained our own interpretation to the House just now.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 8 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, there is a clear error in the Minutes relating to Commissioner Bangemann's speech here.
Mr Bangemann was to deliver two statements: on the Commission's position on transatlantic relations and on the Echelon system.
Mr Bangemann did not mention the Echelon system in his speech and did not even say he intended to speak about it later.
This can be checked from the verbatim report of the sitting.
Consequently, it must be said that Mr Bangemann was in breach of parliamentary procedures when he failed to speak on the Echelon system, and only delivered one of the Commission's statements.
Mr Bangemann was not at all prepared to speak about Echelon.
He had nothing to say on the subject. He did not know anything about it.
For this reason, I do not think that Parliament should accept that the Commissioner made a statement on Echelon.
I propose that the Commission should be obliged to make a statement on Echelon once again, so that the issue is discussed properly and Members of Parliament can make speeches on the subject.
I would like the Minutes to be changed regarding the matter of Mr Bangemann's speech, and the matter to be sent back to the Commission so that it can be settled.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Thank you for your statement, Mr Seppänen.
I do not actually think we are talking about violation of our Rules of Procedure, but there was a problem of communication between our services and those of the Commission, and as a result yesterday's debate did not take place according to the agreed procedure.
So it is understandable that you and Members who were present during the debate you referred to were disappointed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Mr President, unfortunately what Mr Seppänen said is true - there was no misunderstanding.
Reference was made three times to the necessity of having an overall debate, and then we were told that it would be split into two parts, although we all knew that this would not work.
It was only at the end that we were told that questions could be asked, and then only the two big political groups were able to have their say.
This is simply unacceptable.
We strongly protest against this procedure.
The way in which Mr Bangemann dealt with this issue yesterday was inadmissible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Thank you.
Are there any other comments?
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Amendment of Financial Regulation
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0308/98) by Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC, ECSC, Euratom) amending the Financial Regulation of 21 December 1977 applicable to the general budget of the European Communities (COM(98)0206 - C4-0290/98-98/0130(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I realise interest in this report is not exactly lively, but it is an important document for our Parliament, for the life of the European Union and for the full incorporation of the instruments of economic and monetary union into the Union's legislation.
The Financial Regulation forms part of the basic provisions, and serves to govern relations between the institutions and the way in which, starting with the Commission, they implement the budget of the European Union.
The introduction of the euro into the EU context calls for a series of measures, on this occasion amending the Financial Regulation.
<P>
In this report, Parliament expresses its opinion on the amendments the Commission is proposing and which we approve in substance, with a series of amendments which I shall try to illustrate briefly. The context of this report is limited, which is why the Committee on Budgets decided to go right to the end of the road signposted by the Commission.
This means limiting the specific amendments to the Financial Regulation to the most urgent aspects, in other words those which allow us to implement these measures on 1 January 1999 - specifically to adapt the Financial Regulation to the euro. It means postponing other amendments until the next, and imminent, new proposal for amendment.
And I have to say, as rapporteur and on behalf of the committee, that while we may well support them entirely, we decided not to uphold those other amendments on principle. That also applies to the amendments from colleagues who proposed broadening the scope of the amendments.
<P>
Let us look at the details.
Firstly, the euro has to be introduced into the Financial Regulation and the debit/credit mechanisms in the Union budget adapted for those countries belonging to the euro area.
Secondly, the Financial Regulation needs to be adapted to a very important provision of economic and monetary union: the system of fines.
Countries which do not respect the standards and rules for applying the common economic policy on schedule will be subject to fines.
Parliament's amendments are not intended to record these fines in the budget, but to transfer them in accordance with the Treaty of Maastricht - using a derogation from the general provisions - to the countries belonging to the euro area.
Finally, many of these amendments relate to the implementation powers of the other institutions.
The Treaty of Amsterdam abolishes the common organisational structure between the Committee of the Regions and the Economic and Social Committee.
The amendment we are tabling seeks to adapt the text to that provision.
We are asking for the Ombudsman to be included among the institutions recognised as having powers of implementation, along with the Committee of the Regions and the Economic and Social Committee.
We think that is possible and we are proposing that amendment in my report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Sarlis">
Mr President, I would like to stress that the Committee on Budgetary Control unanimously approved four amendments tabled by the group to which I belong, the European People's Party, to make it possible to produce an opinion by the Committee on Budgetary Control, because what happened was this: we made our decision after Mr Dell'Alba's report had been approved by the Committee on Budgets.
<P>
I would like to focus Parliament's and the Commission's attention on an amendment we are tabling, which relates to extending the powers of UCLAF to the control of other institutional bodies of the Community as well.
This is an addition to Article 22(2), enabling UCLAF to check the way parts of the budget which relate to other institutional bodies are dealt with, and I would be very grateful if that amendment were to be approved.
<P>
The other three amendments concern administrative matters related to certain programmes involving third countries, particularly candidates for membership. They concern the ability of those countries to manage Community funds on their own.
<P>
In conclusion, Mr President, I repeat that it is important for these amendments to be passed, especially the one which I told you concerned extending the powers of UCLAF so that it can check other institutional bodies and services of the European Union.
On that point, moreover, I should like to hear the Commissioner's views, in other words whether the Commission accepts those four amendments by the Committee on Budgetary Control
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="Rübig">
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Colom i Naval">
Mr President, what can I add to the words of our rapporteur and draftsmen?
Very little, I believe, and I therefore hope to be brief.
However, I would first like to congratulate them and particularly Mr Dell'Alba who has done some excellent work on a routine yet fundamental issue.
Legislative work is perhaps normally less interesting than own-initiative reports but it is just as, if not more, important.
<P>
I have no wish to argue with Mr Sarlis, who used part of his speaking time as draftsman to claim certain amendments for his own political group.
I would, however, like to remind this House that the amendment he highlighted is, in fact, a compromise amendment between the Group of the European People's Party and the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
<P>
Moving straight on to the subject - and if there is any time left, I will look at other questions later - the PSE Group would like to emphasise two points: the updating of the regulation and the Ombudsman.
<P>
As Mr Dell'Alba rightly said, we are now faced with updating once again the 1977 Financial Regulation.
This update includes the new elements contained in the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty of Amsterdam, or at least introduces the regulatory instruments to be used when the latter enters into force.
There is no objection to this; the opposite is, in fact, true.
However, this is the umpteenth update.
No one knows any longer whether it is the seventh, eighth or ninth.
No one really knows.
<P>
Indeed, if the new Financial Regulation is to be formally correct, perhaps what we really need is a new Financial Regulation, with a new basis.
<P>
The European Union that is preparing to enlarge towards the East is very different from the European Economic Community of the 1970s, when the foundations of this Financial Regulation under debate were laid down.
It was a Community that did not even have a European Parliament elected through universal suffrage, and which was beginning the negotiations on the accession of the southern countries: Greece, Spain and Portugal.
We are very far from that situation.
<P>
I therefore believe that the Commission, which has told us so often that it is in favour of drawing up a new Financial Regulation, should give fresh impetus to that idea.
We understand that there are even working documents on this matter. Incidentally, we have not been sent any of these documents but we have, of course, managed to obtain some of them.
These working documents should be forwarded to Parliament and should be debated. In addition, we need to establish a dialogue on this revision of the new Financial Regulation and to do so as soon as possible.
It is absolutely urgent.
<P>
The other major political point involves giving appropriate consideration to the Ombudsman.
The European Parliament could certainly lay claim to the creation of this post, since it came about as a result of a parliamentary initiative taken up in Maastricht. However, we believe that the political and institutional body that is the office of the Ombudsman requires the specific treatment afforded it by the amendments to the proposal for a regulation.
The very independence of the Ombudsman demands that it be excluded from the European Parliament's budget.
If the Committee of the Regions and the Economic and Social Committee are consultative bodies of the Council and are given their own section, why was the Ombudsman going to be included in Parliament's section of the budget?
There is no political logic here.
We therefore support the move to designate it a specific section of its own.
<P>
Perhaps half the amendments to the proposal for a regulation relate to this issue.
The remaining amendments, ladies and gentlemen, relate to other aspects of this update with which we are in total agreement: the euro, the payment of fines in connection with the stability and growth pact, the decentralised bodies, and the necessary and logical dissolution of the common organisational structure of the two committees, since it has been clearly demonstrated that the Maastricht 'invention' was not efficient.
We agree with all of this and the amendments reflect what we could call the House's doctrine on the issue.
I am therefore not going to go into detail in that respect.
However, I would like to say once again that we hope that the European Commission will very soon present us with a Financial Regulation already conceived for a Europe that will embrace a great deal more than its current responsibilities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Kjer Hansen">
The Liberal Group also thinks that some important amendments have been proposed here. I want to thank especially Mr Sarlis from the PPE Group for ensuring that the amendments tabled by the Committee on Budgetary Control were put forward.
As one who is very active in the PHARE area, I am of course very keen to promote amendments concerned with decentralisation, which may facilitate better management of PHARE resources and at the same time help to expedite the process of enlargement to take in the Eastern and Central European countries.
I must say how surprised I am that the Commission has not contributed any input of its own on decentralisation.
We already started this discussion last autumn, when the Commission took a very positive stance on decentralisation, which it said it wanted and was prepared to implement.
The question was also taken up in the Agenda 2000 papers. Even so, the Commission has not taken the opportunity to put forward concrete proposals in this area.
It is odd when people say one thing and do another.
Hence it is for us in the European Parliament to hold the Commission to the things it has promised and the commitments it has stated.
<P>
What is important about decentralisation is that it serves to convey a clear political will to help Eastern and Central European countries qualify for EU membership.
It is, so to speak, the precursor to the Structural Funds, and at the same time it provides a means by which the new Member States can put their administrative structures in order, gain some experience and be well prepared for accession to the EU.
In addition these are recommendations which will find favour with the Court of Auditors, because they involve changes which may help us overcome some of the problems currently experienced in the management of the PHARE programme.
<P>
I am thus happy to recommend these amendments to my colleagues and hope for their sympathetic support.
They serve to give a clear signal that we want to promote enlargement.
They may pave the way for membership and may ensure that we get a more effective PHARE programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, the Commission welcomes the generally favourable view which the Committee on Budgets suggests you adopt on the proposal for the eighth set of amendments to the Financial Regulation.
<P>
This is the last specific amendment proposal before the Financial Regulation is redrafted, on the subject of which, on 22 July, the Commission presented a working document intended to open up a wide-ranging interinstitutional consultation.
Mr Colom I Naval wanted the Commission to present this formally and officially to the European Parliament.
There is no problem, I will do so.
<P>
This eighth set of amendments does not seek to substantively modify the Financial Regulation.
The proposal simply seeks to bring the urgent and limited amendments required by the launch of the euro and the stability pact and the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam whose sole effect on the Financial Regulation - given the removal of Protocol No 16 on the common organisational structure of the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions - is to introduce a specific section for each of these two bodies.
<P>
The Commission can undertake to adopt several of the amendments proposed by the Committee on Budgets.
These are Amendments Nos 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11, 14, 16, 19 and 20, designed to introduce a specific budget section for the European mediator, and Amendment No 22 which provides a different date for the entry into force of provisions relating to the euro and the stability pact, that is 1 January 1999, and for provisions relating to the Treaty of Amsterdam, that is following ratification.
<P>
The Commission is not, however, inclined to adopt certain amendments, which I advise against both for the technical reasons which I will explain and for the essential reason that these are substantive amendments which will make it impossible to respect the tight deadline imposed by the launch of the euro on January 1 next.
<P>
In connection with Amendment No 21, contrary to what this suggests, the amount of fines for excessive deficits, as at present the amount of fines for violating the rights of free competition, are not very clear at the time of drawing up the budget.
The budget is not able to include any more than an outline framework.
In connection with Amendments Nos 1, 8, 9, 12, 13 and 15 on the agencies, these have their own budget and financial regulation.
They are not to be covered by the Financial Regulation, which relates solely to the general budget, but rather by the specific regulation which applies to these agencies.
In connection with Amendments Nos 5 and 17 on interinstitutional cooperation, the Commission considers that this cooperation can be organised, as is the case at present for open competitions and purchases, by means of the administrative arrangements between the institutions.
In connection with Amendment No 18 on the Commission's powers of inquiry, this is not a matter for the Financial Regulation but for arrangements between the institutions.
The Commission is not opposed in principle to widening the powers of the UCLAF, but this can be done through an arrangement between the institutions.
<P>
As regards the redrafting of the Financial Regulation, the corresponding amendments could, if necessary, be included at the appropriate time.
The question concerning Amendments Nos 1, 3 and 4 by the Committee on Budgetary Control on the decentralised management of PHARE was put by Mrs Kjer Hansen.
During this month of September, the Commission will be adopting an amended proposal for a regulation on the coordination of assistance to candidate countries as part of the preadhesion strategy, in order to permit the decentralised management of PHARE.
This point will also be dealt with at the time of redrafting the Financial Regulation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Draft budget for 1999
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
The next item is the presentation by the Council of the draft general budget for 1999.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Ruttenstorfer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is an honour for me to be here today, to inform Parliament of the results of the Council meeting on the budget, which took place on 17 July in Brussels.
Before entering into the details of the successful conclusion of our discussions, however, I should like to highlight the consistently improving level of cooperation between our institutions - Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
This was already plain to see last year, and I am very pleased that it seems to be continuing this year.
The two trilogues of 31 March and 23 June were, despite differences of opinion on the substance, characterised by a spirit of mutual understanding for each party's respective views, concerns and priorities.
The same can probably also be said of our discussions at the Council meeting of 17 July, when the main issue was that of legal bases.
We shall be debating this under the next item on the agenda.
<P>
I should now like to turn to the draft budget for 1999 and, firstly, describe to you the principles by which the Council was guided in its deliberations.
On agricultural expenditure, we agreed to examine a letter of amendment in the autumn, in order to take account of the decisions of the June 1998 Agriculture Council and the updated estimates of requirements.
We decided to honour the commitments made in Edinburgh to guarantee the future funding of the Structural Funds.
<P>
For the remaining policy areas, we established clear priorities for the financial resources available, and set amounts for them in the budget which are realistic and yet do not hinder important Community policies.
We took account of both the criteria in the Interinstitutional Agreement of 29 October 1993 and the Court ruling of 12 May 1998 on the provision of legal bases.
In addition, we took into account minor items of expenditure, and the fact that the financial perspective ceilings leave considerable room for manoeuvre.
<P>
We approved a limited increase in all administrative expenditure, and agreed that unavoidable expenditure should not be ruled out from the very outset.
We decided against creating any new posts, apart from those needed in connection with the last enlargement or the implementation of the Amsterdam Treaty.
Furthermore, we decided not to create any additional posts in the context of the career policy, either by converting posts or increasing them in number. In so doing, we were of the opinion that the response to practical needs must, as a general rule, be to improve specialist skills, modernise equipment and working methods, and restructure existing posts, and that this principle should only be disregarded where it can be proved that to do so is unavoidable.
<P>
Observing the principles we felt underlay the adoption of an appropriate budget led to the following results in practice. In the case of agricultural expenditure - Category 1 in the financial perspective - the Council has retained the total amount proposed by the Commission in its preliminary draft budget.
Similarly, for the Structural Funds, the Council has kept the amounts proposed by the Commission in its preliminary draft budget, so as to comply with the Edinburgh decisions.
<P>
The Council has decided to reduce both the commitment appropriations and payment appropriations for internal policies.
In the case of external policies, the Council has decided to increase the commitment appropriations and reduce the payment appropriations, so as to take account of the decisions made at Cannes.
<P>
Finally, the Council accepted a limited increase of 1 % in overall administrative expenditure.
As I have already stated, the work involved in implementing the Amsterdam Treaty - in particular, incorporating the Schengen secretariat and the analysis, early-warning and policy-planning centre under the second pillar - have made some exceptions to this rule necessary.
<P>
For the small bodies, the Council has again applied the method established last year, of granting a flat-rate total amount for routine administrative expenditure.
<P>
The effect of the Council's decisions on the appropriations in the draft budget can be summarised as follows: commitment appropriations total EUR 96 500 million, an increase of EUR 5500 million, or 6.05 %, on the 1998 budget; payment appropriations total EUR 85 900 million, an increase of EUR 2300 million, or 2.81 %, on the 1998 budget.
The payment appropriations thus correspond to 1.10 % of Community GNP.
<P>
For internal and external policies, there are still margins of EUR 937 million and EUR 878 million respectively beneath the financial perspective ceilings.
<P>
Finally, I should like to thank all the members of the European Parliament delegation who actively participated in our discussions at the Budget Council on 17 July.
I look forward to continuing to work in cooperation with this Parliament, and in particular with both the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, Mr Samland, and the two rapporteurs for the 1999 budget, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop and Mr Viola.
I hope that our two institutions will be able to bring the 1999 budget procedure to a successful conclusion, just as they did for the 1998 budget.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, the draft budget for 1999 resembles the preliminary draft budget closely.
A difference of only 0.5 % confirms that there is a broad convergence of views with regard to the 1999 Community budget.
The Commission and the Council have had to reconcile rigour with the obligations of the Union, in particular with regard to the decisions of the European Councils of Edinburgh and Cannes.
<P>
As far as compulsory spending is concerned, the Commission will submit an amending letter at the end of October to take account of the last available information for the finalization of the 1999 budget.
This will be the second application of the procedure successfully established in 1997.
Contrary to last year, however, there may well be spending requirements if current developments on some markets are confirmed.
<P>
On structural actions, the draft budget establishes the payment credits at the level proposed by the Commission. This should assure the correct financing of the requirements for 1999 in the light of the Edinburgh decisions.
<P>
Category 3, internal policies, is the only category where the Commission proposals have been seriously cut, even below the 1998 level.
This is sometimes difficult to understand as some of these cuts concern Council priorities, notably Leonardo and small and medium-sized enterprises.
These cuts are explained in relation to the reference amounts of regulations but it is not in the spirit of of the common declaration of 1995 to consider these reference amounts as if they were maximum amounts.
<P>
Finally, on external policies, for the first time I can remember the draft budget exceeds the preliminary draft budget.
This is logical on the assumption that the requested reinforcement of PHARE in 1998 is not taking place and the Council was to complete the financing of the external cooperation programmes as they were decided by the European Council at Cannes.
<P>
It is commendable that the Council provides this financing mainly through additional spending and thus limits the cuts in other important areas of external cooperation.
Above all, the draft Community budget for 1999 is a constructive step in the 1999 budget procedure.
It augurs well not only for next year's budget but also for the more far-reaching decisions which will soon have taken place on the next financial framework.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Samland">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, before addressing the Council's presentation of the draft budget after its first reading, I should like to say that the cooperation between the Council, Parliament and the Commission over the conciliation on legal bases, which we will be debating shortly, has been exemplary.
<P>
In the first place, in the nine years I have been doing this job, I have never before experienced a conciliation which started at 11 a.m. and finished at 7 or 7.30 p.m. with Parliament cooperating.
Afterwards, they even took it upon themselves to decide the budget as well.
Secondly, they can be proud, not only of a long meeting, but also of the result.
The Austrian Presidency has contributed to this and I wish it just as much skill and success in further deliberations on the budget and on Agenda 2000.
<P>
That was the praise - and it is rare coming from me, so make the most of it - but now comes the criticism.
What does this budget tell us?
We have stressed from the outset - and Mrs Dührkop Dührkop will also say this in her report in a moment or two - that this budget is a bridge between the expiring financial perspective, on the one hand, and the new financial perspective, which will begin in the year 2000, on the other. We view it as such.
<P>
That is why I should like to make the following general statement on behalf of the Committee on Budgets: we will make every effort to place the 1999 budget procedure in the context of the discussions on Agenda 2000, and the recommendations in Mr Colom I Naval's report relating to the fundamental issue of flexibility.
We want to see progress on these aspects of Agenda 2000, if we are to conform to a budget procedure based on achieving lowest possible expenditure, i.e. on keeping to Member States' average expenditure at Community level.
I am only announcing this here, because it will, of course, have implications for the discussions on the budget in first and second reading in this House.
<P>
I should like to make a few comments on the results of the Council's deliberations.
Firstly, on agriculture.
We were a little disappointed that it has not been possible to send out a clear signal on agricultural policy as early as the first reading in the Council.
But we are relying on the fact that we will all take the agreed ad hoc procedure seriously and that on the basis of a Commission letter of amendment we will achieve some results in the conciliation procedure in November.
By results, I mean that we must limit expenditure in this sector and identify procedures to allow these resources to be put to optimal use.
We tabled a proposal for a reserve last year with this in mind, and we will be doing so again.
Indeed, we have already made technical proposals.
<P>
I might remind you once again that expenditure on agriculture is ECU 1300 million in excess at present.
Had we not, in the face of bitter resistance from your 15 agriculture colleagues, cancelled ECU 1000 million of spending last year, we would now be ECU 2300 million over budget in the agricultural sector.
The experiences of this year and the last 15 years show, therefore, that we can take this step, and can do so without putting the legal provisions laid down in directives or regulations in the agricultural sector at risk.
<P>
Secondly - and this comment is also directed towards the Commission - I am yet again hearing calls from some Member States for export refunds on pigmeat, butter and milk to be increased, to rejuvenate the Russian export market, which is currently in a state of collapse.
Community policy cannot aim to control currency fluctuations outside the Community by raising export refunds.
So do not let them persuade you otherwise, Mr Liikanen, but retain the position you had in 1997; prevail against the six, and take the same line when it comes to securing savings in the agricultural sector for the 1999 budget.
<P>
The contents of Categories 2, 3 and 4 are interlinked.
We have already discussed the growth of Category 2 with you many times here in this House.
The reason for this is not that the money is needed, but that this is the last year of the financial perspective; the Structural Funds change on 31 December 1999, and any unutilised appropriations are carried over to this year.
We have absolutely terrific rates of increase here - between 17 % and 18 % in commitment appropriations and around 10 % in payment appropriations.
There is actually an incredible amount of money to be dealt with here.
<P>
As a result of this increase, because you did not have the courage to take action on this issue - despite the fact that several Member States, such as France, actually made proposals during discussions in the Council - you are now having to cut Categories 3 and 4 by the same amount by which you have increased Category 2.
You will see, for example, that in Category 3 you have cut funding for the Leonardo programme. That stands in direct contradiction to your own work programme, where you state that you wish to strengthen educational programmes as a means of making Europe more attractive to business.
The EUR 100 million you are cutting there is not going because it has been proved surplus to this programme's requirements - in that case perhaps EUR 86.45 million would have been the sum withdrawn.
No, you are cutting EUR 100 million to make your sums add up, to bring the rates of increase in Category 3 down so that they compensate for the high rates of increase in Category 2.
<P>
The second area I wish to address is external policy.
The situation here is far worse.
In Council, you did not secure the adoption of a supplementary and amending budget for 1998, containing an additional ECU 150 million for PHARE.
If we are honest, we have to admit that PHARE will not need the ECU 150 million, either in 1998 or in 1999, because the interim accounts for the 1998 budget year, which were released by the Commission on 30 June 1998, reveal that in the first six months of the year, ECU 1000 million of the appropriations available under PHARE had still not been committed and, even worse, that more than ECU 2500 million had not been awarded and spent in contracts.
That means that there is ECU 2500 million on the table, ECU 1000 million of which is completely free and ECU 1500 million of which might be spent in contracts, if the contracts materialise.
And then we are supposed to increase this by a further ECU 150 million, while at the same time making cutbacks in, for instance, spending on non-governmental organisations.
<P>
This has nothing whatsoever to do with sound financial policy, but it does have something to do with ideology.
A decision was made once upon a time in Cannes and now it has to be applied at all costs.
Parliament had no hand in this, and will not, therefore, be accepting either the proposal contained in the Council draft, or the Commission proposal to achieve this through early procedures.
Neither approach is appropriate, and we need to tell the applicant countries, aspiring to become members of the Community, that if together we are not able to commit the appropriations in the time allowed - reminding them once again of the annuality of budget appropriations - then these appropriations cannot be used.
And you will see that this House will not agree to a ECU 150 million top-up in Category 4 at the expense of non-governmental organisations throughout the world.
<P>
Finally, there is the question of how research, a very important area, is going to be dealt with.
You are aware, Mr President-inOffice, that in parallel to our 1999 budget negotiations, discussions will be taking place on the total appropriation for the fifth framework programme for research, which accounts for a considerable part of Category 3 expenditure in the budget.
You will also be aware that there is a discrepancy between Parliament's proposal, for ECU 16 300 million over five years, and the Council's position hitherto.
I can hear the voice of your colleague now, announcing that we will certainly reach a compromise on 29 September.
I would be glad if this were so.
It is up to the Council, and certainly not Parliament, to come forward with a compromise formula. And a figure of ECU 14 000 million is not an acceptable compromise; the figure will instead lie between ECU 14 000 million and ECU 16 300 million.
You know that this is an important decision, because it will have a major impact on the 1999 budget - over 60 % of Category 3 appropriations are allocated to research.
<P>
If we consider the issue of funding for networks, for example, it is clear that it will be possible to strike a balance between networks, on the one hand, and research, on the other, if the outcome of the agreement on the fifth framework programme for research is known.
That is why I can only repeat my request to you - and your colleagues, the Finance Ministers - to please ensure that sufficient pressure is exerted on your side, so that we reach an agreement on the budget allocation of the fifth framework programme for research for the next five years in good time, before the first reading of the 1999 budget, or at the latest before the second reading.
In the same spirit, may I venture to hope that our further discussions on the 1999 budget are productive, interesting and exciting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Dührkop Dührkop">
I would also like to add to the praise for the Council presidency for its cooperation, which we believe has been exemplary up until now.
My speech will, in fact, be brief since the chairman of the Committee on Budgets has given a very comprehensive demonstration of the gaps that, in spite of the praise for the presidency, can still be seen in the 1999 draft budget procedure.
<P>
However, I would like to highlight several points.
First, I would like to reiterate the fact - as has already been mentioned - that the 1999 budget must represent a bridge. That bridge should not be thought of purely in terms of accounts, but should represent a crucial step forward towards an agreement for Agenda 2000 and the new financial perspectives.
I believe that, as part of that bridge, we have together forged an important element: the agreement we reached on the legal bases.
I would, nevertheless, like to emphasise that it is only one element, and I believe that we should be pleased that we have settled a dispute that had already been going on for many years.
<P>
During conciliation, the European Parliament had the chance to set out its political priorities.
I am going to refer here to one category in particular.
The chairman of the Committee on Budgets has already stated exactly what Parliament believes in relation to Category 1 and Category 2.
We do not think that the presidency has initiated an appropriate analysis of the financial resources that would be in the interests of a healthy Community budget.
<P>
As for Category 3, I would like to say as rapporteur that Parliament cannot agree with how it reads.
Category 3 is a true scapegoat, to use a common expression.
In this category, to ensure that its accounts are balanced within the 1999 budget, the Council has made cuts in policies that are fundamental for the European Parliament.
I call on the Council - and Mr Samland also mentioned this - to recognise its own lack of consistency.
It is strange that its priorities, as set out in Cardiff, match those of the European Parliament, yet the same Council states with regard to the Leonardo programme that - and I quote the exact English text - ' while bearing in mind the considerable success achieved by these programmes', it is cutting ECU 100 million.
<P>
Another interesting move relates to the global package agreed at the beginning of this year on employment policies. The importance of this agreement was highlighted by the Council itself in Luxembourg at its first reading, yet ECU 14 million are being cut from the support for SMEs, despite this being a priority, according to the Council.
<P>
Another paragraph from the Cardiff European Council, paragraph 12, states that we are going to pay particular attention to disadvantaged groups, to ethnic minorities and to people with disabilities.
However, at the same time, the Council, as well as the presidency, which had presented these policies to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, are removing these programmes from the budget due to a lack of legal base.
<P>
Finally, I would like to say with regard to Category 4 that I fully agree with the approach put forward by the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, which has also been set out by Parliament in its guidelines.
We are not going to allow the PHARE programme to be implemented at the expense of other obligations the European Union has towards third countries.
<P>
As for Category 5, Mr Ruttenstorfer, I would like to remind you that, apart from the fifth framework programme on research and development, before Parliament's first reading we have another issue that remains to be settled: the question of pensions.
The worker has done his part; now the employer must do his.
<P>
I would like to repeat my willingness and Parliament's willingness to cooperate in the future in order to reach a satisfactory conclusion in terms of this bridging budget, bearing in mind, as far as possible, both your and Parliament's priorities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Viola">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would endorse what the chairman of our committee said about close collaboration with the Council and the Commission in the trilogue and at first reading of the budget for 1999, which was brought forward by the Council this year to 17 July to give us adequate time in view of the tasks and places of work imposed on us by the Treaties.
In this financial statement, the sum earmarked for administration amounts to EUR 4.4 billion, with a total margin of EUR 300 million as compared with 1998.
As last year, the Council has deemed it appropriate to fix an inclusive total amount to be assigned to the other institutions for ordinary operating costs with an increase of 1 % over 1998 levels, with provision, however, for a significant margin to adjust the increase for exceptional and often justifiable cases.
This margin has been interpreted rather generously by the Council for itself, with a rise of 5.14 %, the increase for the Commission being 1.63 %, while for all the other institutions, Parliament included, it was 1.52 %.
In this context, it is worth underlining that our institution is the only one below the 1 % threshold, with a rate of increase of 0.88 %.
<P>
As regards staff, the Council has accepted the creation of new posts only if they are connected with enlargement and the implementation of the Treaty of Amsterdam, and has rejected the conversions or upgradings requested by the other institutions.
In more detail, the first reading provides for the creation of 109 posts and only 10 conversions, modification of the establishment plans of the institutions by converting some permanent posts into temporary ones, and transfer to the Commission of five posts taken from the other institutions for the medical insurance service.
In fact I am doubtful about two aspects of the staff policy adopted by the Council at first reading, and I will explain these while taking care not to go into the merits of the Council's independent choices.
<P>
The first point is that since the Council has seized the opportunity to allow its own staff to increase by 71 to handle the implementation of the Treaty of Amsterdam and enlargement, it might have been appropriate to establish a common approach to this from the outset, given that this problem is common to so many other institutions, from Parliament itself to the Commission and the Committee of the Regions.
The second point is that frankly it is difficult for me to understand why, if the Council thought it right to award itself 71 new posts, it refused very modest demands from the other institutions, for example the Committee of the Regions, which has undoubtedly seen significant increases in its own responsibilities since the Treaty of Amsterdam.
As regards the Committee of the Regions and the Economic and Social Committee, and the consequences of the Treaty of Amsterdam, mention should also be made of the abolition of Protocol 16, that is the common organisational structure which linked the two committees.
I believe that interinstitutional collaboration and avoiding duplication of costs wherever possible - as I have frequently stated - should be the criteria to apply in dealing with all aspects of the division imposed by Amsterdam, so that moving to full reciprocal autonomy for these two committees does not become a cause of dysfunction, jeopardising cooperation and escalating costs.
<P>
Turning to the Courts, the 1 % criterion is exceeded for the Court of Justice, resulting in the creation of 10 new posts, but the Council did not accept the Court of Auditors' request for allocations for its building projects, where the Commission has provided for such expenditure in the financial perspective.
Here Parliament must outline the approach required for the most consistent possible attempt to limit expenditure on new buildings in Luxembourg.
<P>
Finally, as regards the European Parliament, the Council accepted our preliminary draft estimates in line with the gentlemen's agreement.
By the same token, it also accepted the estimates for the Ombudsman, through a broad interpretation of the agreement which has essentially created a distortion between the criteria for examining the Ombudsman's estimates and those applicable to the other institutions and associated bodies.
In this context, I wish to stress that the Ombudsman is an autonomous institution: our earlier debate on amending the Financial Regulation confirmed that.
This means there must be a specific section in the budget, and it lies outside the percentage of 20 % of the administrative costs which relates only to the European Parliament; it means there should be a dual reading of the budget.
Moreover, the approach taken by the Council does not take account of what has already been decided here about the increase in the Ombudsman's staff.
This decision remains our point of departure for assessing whether a further increase is needed - respecting the procedures always adopted by the budgetary authority and certainly not equal to the increase proposed by the Council at first reading.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Ruttenstorfer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have listened with great attention to the views expressed by previous speakers and, in my capacity as chairman of the Budget Council, I have also taken note of what has been said.
I can assure you that I will endeavour to bring your suggestions to bear in the Council's further deliberations.
I noted, in particular, that you agree with me that in the case of agriculture we should wait for the letter of amendment.
I also noted that you consider it appropriate to provide a reserve in the agricultural budget.
<P>
Obviously, I have also taken note of your misgivings about funds being withdrawn from the Leonardo programme.
It should be said that with the funds allocated for 1999, the Council has actually utilised all of the budget for the whole period.
But I willingly admit that there has indeed been a sharp reduction on the previous year and that Leonardo is a successful programme.
<P>
In this context, I can tell you that the Council is currently examining a draft decision to set up a second phase of the Leonardo programme to run from 2000 to 2004, with a considerable increase in funding.
As regards PHARE, the Council recognises the difficulties involved in implementing the PHARE programme and is, like Parliament, keen to see it managed efficiently.
Hence the Council's wish to see a speedy conclusion to the seventh series of amendments to the Financial Regulation, since they contain, in particular, new rules on the utilisation of commitment appropriations, namely that a deadline will be set for the use of these appropriations.
We would expect to see improvements in the PHARE programme as a result.
<P>
I have also noted the importance you attach to resolving the research funding issue.
I can only assure you that the Austrian Presidency is making every effort to settle the issue of the fifth framework programme in good time, first and foremost for the sake of research, but of course also in time to draw up the 1999 budget.
Finally, I have noted the calls for a staffing policy not only for the Council, but also in more general terms, and I will try to bring these considerations to bear in further Council discussions.
<P>
I should like to conclude by once more highlighting the very good level of cooperation that we have enjoyed with the European Parliament thus far in the budget procedure, and at the same time express the wish that this will be continued in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Legal bases and implementation of the budget
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0296/98) by Mr Christodoulou, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the proposal for an interinstitutional agreement between the European Parliament, Council and Commission on legal bases and implementation of the budget.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="Christodoulou">
Mr President, this is not the first time the issue of legal bases has preoccupied the European Parliament and the European Union's institutions more generally.
If I remember rightly, we have been in a state of relative disagreement since 1981, and now at last, after so many years, we have reached a conclusion for which congratulations are due to all those who have collaborated to achieve it.
<P>
Let me remind you that in a resolution we adopted on 12 December 1995, we called for a provisional solution to the issue of legal bases and an end to the impression being conveyed that the European Parliament and the Council, very often with the Commission's intervention too, are constantly at odds over issues about which Europe's citizens are often not very aware, so that they thought we were continually debating in an atmosphere of confrontation.
<P>
Fortunately, that has now ended and we can therefore say that we will be able to make normal progress towards establishing a very serious and important procedure, which concerns the European Union's ability to undertake new and pioneering activities that bring it much closer to Europe's people.
Because we must not forget that the Erasmus and Konver programmes, efforts to promote the peace process in Ireland, and so on all started within a framework which we are now trying to adjust by the procedure of legal bases for pilot, preparatory and other similar actions undertaken in the context of the European Union.
<P>
We must not underestimate the importance of those actions.
The impression was often given that such activities, which had no legal base and were initiated at an experimental level, were rather exotic, in other words they involved elements of waste, they were unnecessary, and so forth.
I do not deny that perhaps some of them could be put into that category, but most by far of those actions were very fundamental and important for the promotion of the European Union's aims.
It is very fortunate that we are now in a position which allows us to establish in law the way in which the matter is to be dealt with, and to settle for conclusions, methods and procedures which will put an end to the constant conflict that has existed between us for so many years.
<P>
The agreement as a rule makes the implementation of appropriations entered in the budget for any Community action dependent on prior adoption of a basic act, in other words a legal base, except in the case of actions relating to pilot, preparatory and autonomous actions by the Commission, and appropriations intended for the operation of each institution under its own administrative autonomy.
That possibility is not unlimited, and of course, if it is to be credible and able to hold its own and be implemented correctly, it has limitations with regard to both time and quantity.
And it is very much up to us, ladies and gentlemen, in other words to the European Parliament's committees, through the Commission and then the Council, to promote the establishment of a legal base of that type as soon as possible so that we can achieve two things: firstly, the prompt implementation of really worthwhile programmes and actions and, secondly, the release of resources for pilot, preparatory and other actions from the time and quantity limits to which they are still subject, so that new actions of that type can be included without those appropriations being permanently committed for a very long time, as used to happen in the past.
In other words, this new agreement imposes on us a sense of absolute responsibility, and that is very important for us and we should respond in the best possible way.
<P>
Mr President, I would like to add something to what I said earlier about the basic value for the European Union's aims of all the initiatives being undertaken and which, I repeat, result in programmes which are worthwhile and bring the European Union closer to its real aims and to Europe's citizens.
I want to remind us that probably, in the future when this agreement becomes absolutely permanent, in other words when practical application has demonstrated that it is essential and that it operates correctly - which depends on us - that will be the time to consider adapting it.
In other words, if the future shows that there is a need for this agreement to be modified, for instance by adapting the appropriations and perhaps the time limits so as to enable the European Union to do its job more effectively in the very important areas which these initiatives deal with, I am sure that since the system has worked well, everyone will agree to adopt any decisions which will make those actions even more effective.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="Ruttenstorfer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, our views on the issue of legal bases have diverged for many years.
Following the judgment handed down by the Court of Justice on 12 May this year, however, a solution had to be found as a matter of urgency, all the more so because the Commission was deferring the implementation of a large number of budget lines which did not have a legal basis.
At the trilogue of 23 June, new impetus was given, making it possible to bring the parties' positions closer together.
The institutions remained in close contact up until the meeting of the Budget Council, where the majority of the discussions were devoted to this important matter.
<P>
All these efforts - and not least your own delegation's perseverance - led to a draft interinstitutional agreement being concluded on 17 July, which should be signed shortly.
This open-ended agreement will make it possible for appropriations under budget lines which do not have a legal basis to be utilised in a way which is satisfactory to the three institutions involved.
The agreement establishes a framework for our institutions to work together in a spirit of mutual trust, something which the Court of Justice has consistently called for in cases of this kind, and which, in my opinion, should be regarded increasingly as common practice.
<P>
On 17 July, the Council also took note of the work the Commission had done - in connection with the aforementioned Court judgment - to analyse the status of the budget lines which, though entered in the 1998 budget, clearly lacked a legal basis.
The Council further agreed that the Commission might, by virtue of its powers under Article 205 of the Treaty, immediately implement a series of measures, including some of recognised political sensitivity, such as the following: measures for combating violence against children, young people and women; measures to prevent illegal and harmful content on the Internet; support for, and supervision of, electoral processes; and measures in the field of human rights and democracy.
<P>
For those budget lines for which a legal basis has been proposed but not yet adopted, Parliament and the Council have undertaken to speed up ongoing legislative procedures, so that a decision on a basic instrument can be taken soon.
I can assure you that this presidency has already taken the necessary steps to bring these procedures to a speedy and successful conclusion.
<P>
As for the budget lines for which a legal basis has neither been adopted nor even proposed, the Council has taken note of the Commission's undertaking to honour commitments entered into before 10 June 1998, and to examine applications which have not yet led to the formal conclusion of a contract. This is being done in an effort to avoid any discrimination which might result from dossiers having to be dealt with by particular deadlines.
<P>
On the basis of this procedure, we should assume that funding will have to be guaranteed, since the selection procedures were completed and the beneficiaries formally identified before 10 June 1998.
<P>
Finally, as far as combating exclusion is concerned, the Council believes that the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty will make it possible for the necessary legal bases to be adopted.
<P>
I should like to thank Parliament, but also the Commission, for its cooperation in this matter.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Wynn">
Mr President, in Mr Christodoulou's report - in the explanatory statement - there is a wonderful line that says this 'provides a long-term solution, since it has not been unilaterally denounced by any of the three institutions concerned' - yet.
'Yet' is my word, because Parliament has not yet voted on this report.
<P>
I am going to speak with two tongues in this debate: one - as an individual who has been involved in the debate in the negotiations, and then, as it is my responsibility to speak, in my role as coordinator for the Socialist Group.
<P>
On a personal level I welcome the report.
I think it is the best that we could achieve, and a culmination of many years of work and attempts by Parliament to get this problem resolved.
So, knowing what we have gone through in the past, I am extremely pleased with what we have got for the future.
<P>
I also have to say that when we were coming to this conclusion on 17 July, there was cooperation between ourselves, the Commission and, dare I say, the majority of the Council.
The previous presidency had given its commitment to resolving the matter.
<P>
As the British Prime Minister said from where the President-in-Office now sits, the Austrian Presidency has been committed to it, but I have to say that the length of time taken, which the chairman, Mr Samland, referred to, was because of indecision by at least one Nordic Member State.
Quite frankly, it was a pathetic performance on that trialogue to get a conclusion to this decision, which really involved a small amount of money.
I hope I never have to go through that again because it was a waste of time if nothing else.
That is my personal view.
<P>
When we were coming to these conclusions, all three institutions were of a mind that the deal on the legal basis would be fine for the future, but we still have the problem of this year 1998.
That is why I advised caution at the beginning of my remarks.
I, and Mr Samland, Mr Colom i Naval, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop and Mr Tomlinson - those who were involved in the negotiations - have to convince our group tonight, when we discuss the issue, that this report is worthy of a yes vote.
<P>
We need some clarification, certainly from the Commission, on those lines which were considered to be problematic.
There were four areas.
Last night I received a document chart showing the lines where the problems were, and hopefully the Commission has come forward with solutions.
<P>
This will be taken to our group tonight and we will do our best to convince.
But I seek the help of the Commission now to clarify those areas of doubt which will arise when Members see this, especially over lines B5-321 - action for the economic and social areas like cooperative mutuals, etc, - where a large proportion of the money has not yet been utilised and there does not seem to be a way of utilising it.
<P>
On lines B7-611, 851 and 852, where sums in the region of ECU 11.5 million remain unused, what will happen to those amounts of money?
<P>
In the areas which we did have problems with such as sport and minority languages, the bulk of the money has been used.
There will be small amounts left and it is fair to say that even without the problems we have had we could still have had those small amounts of money left.
I am therefore quite prepared to argue the case for them.
But there are those few lines which still give us concern, and I would seek help from the Commission to give us an assurance that those areas will not be left untouched - that the money will be utilised.
With that information I hope we can go forward to our group tonight and then vote positively.
<P>
One final point - we went to a lot of trouble to get this report put together and there was consensus on its content.
There are some amendments put forward - three or four by the Greens - which, while nice, are not necessary.
My recommendation to our group would be that we do not support the amendments but we stick by the report unamended.
I do not want anyone to assume that we do not sympathise with the contents of those amendments by the Greens, but we really want the report to be concise rather than elaborate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Tillich">
Mr President, I should like to express the hope that we have found an eternal solution to an eternal problem, and that none of the three institutions will unravel the agreement which has been negotiated.
In resolving the legal bases issue, I believe that Parliament has proved - at least in recent years - through its work on the budget that it is not only consistent in terms of its political commitments, but also in terms of the way in which it funds these political objectives.
I should certainly like to congratulate the Austrian Presidency, therefore, on the skilful way in which it conducted the negotiations on 17 July. Like Mr Wynn, however, I was present at the discussions, and at times I had the impression that there was no political objective at stake there, but that these were petty negotiations reminiscent of the bourgeois, about a couple of million ecus or so, and the next six months or year or so.
In parts it was indeed embarrassing, and one could not help thinking that at least some of those present were not concerned with finding a political solution, but more of an administrative, technical one.
<P>
I am inclined to believe, Mr President-in-Office, that you should not be given all the credit; the time was, quite simply, ripe.
Parliament kept stepping up the pressure, and in the end the Council either had to, or wanted to, give in.
Admittedly, both you and we in Parliament can be happy with the result.
There is certainly no doubt about that.
We - all three partners - now know where we stand for the future and, as Mr Wynn said, we still need to convince our colleagues in the House.
Under current circumstances, however, that should not be too difficult.
<P>
As rapporteur for the 1998 budget, I thought it was particularly important that on 17 July - to comply with the Court of Justice judgment - the Commission also tabled a proposal for the 1998 budget, a workable proposal in our view.
As a Parliament, we have also indicated - and in fact this is another significant agreement - that we are prepared to comply with the Court of Justice judgment, and that we are not able to increase the political pressure in this matter.
But some services seem to be taking advantage of the present unclear situation for their own ends.
Commissioner Liikanen, I would ask you to make it clear to all your services once again that, now that a solution has been found and agreed, they should apply it for 1998 as well.
This is because we need the 1998 appropriations to be implemented as soon as possible, so that the NGOs affected receive the money they were promised.
<P>
Once again, I should like to warmly congratulate Mr Christodoulou, who is, of course, an old hand, and has worked on this issue for several years.
<P>
In Germany, we say that we sit problems out.
We have someone sitting at the head of the government there who sits problems out.
Mr Christodoulou has also sat this problem out and has succeeded!
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Brinkhorst">
Mr President, in a way one might say this issue represents much ado about nothing.
In financial terms, it is 60 million for pilot projects and 30 million for preparatory actions - less than 1 %.
<P>
The political issue, of course, is much more important: it is a sign that the relationship between Parliament and the Council has finally matured and a recognition that Parliament and the Commission, as Mr Christodoulou rightly mentioned, are putting forward initiatives.
Unfortunately - with all due respect - the Council has become an impotent body.
It can do nothing if it is not put under external pressure.
It was external pressure, via your decision, Mr President, to block a couple of hundred budget lines which finally made the Council aware that it could no longer delay this issue.
This is part of the budget debate in general and we are only talking about a few hundred million here and there.
But the political significance is that the Council and Parliament are finally regarding each other as equals.
That is the final element of this institutional agreement and it confirms the fact that both the Council and the Commission recognise that Parliament has taken useful initiatives which, as Mr Christodoulou rightly said, bring Europe closer to its citizens.
<P>
I have one specific question to the Commission, a question which I put two months ago in the debate in the plenary.
If this institutional agreement is going to work in future, a lot will depend on the political imagination of the Commission.
Now that we are close to a result, can the Commissioner confirm that the Commission will always try in the future to propose a legal basis which is as useful as possible, to ensure that the codecision of Parliament is guaranteed?
Can it say that it will only use Article 235 in exceptional cases, because that article is a negation of parliamentary democracy?
I cannot believe that the Commission - and especially this Commissioner, who is very much a democrat at heart - will ever use Article 235 to emasculate the powers of Parliament vis-à-vis the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Moreau">
Mr President, the legal dogmatism of the Court of Justice resulted in the Commission blocking a hundred budget lines for a total amount of more than ECU 900 million.
This has led to the abandoning of many projects run by associations and NGOs in such sensitive areas as combating poverty and exclusion, development aid, the fight against racism, democracy and human rights.
The widespread mobilisation of the associations and NGOs, which our group brought to the attention of Parliament, made a considerable contribution to the interinstitutional agreement of 17 July which resolves the issue of the legal bases.
I welcome this agreement which, moreover, is of immediate application.
I regret, however, that projects for the benefit of elderly people and certain measures to combat poverty remain blocked, and would like to repeat the request already made so many times to the Council for it to adopt a new programme to combat poverty, in cooperation with humanitarian organisations.
<P>
The argument has been put to me in this House that, as the fight against poverty is a continuing one, it is not useful to grant appropriations in this field.
I find this argument unacceptable and invalid, as many associations are selflessly engaged in fighting this scourge.
I believe that this position should be reviewed and a new plan proposed in the fight against poverty.
<P>
To conclude, I would point out that the involvement of citizens in European mechanisms makes it possible to overcome obstacles and to arrive at solutions and that Parliament plays its role to the full when it sets aside specialist discussions and becomes the vehicle for the intervention and aspirations of our citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Mr President, I too should like to endorse previous speakers' words of thanks.
I believe that this is a good agreement both for Mr Christodoulou and this House, and for the Commission and the Council.
Above all, I am pleased that Parliament was steadfast in its efforts to have the judgment of the Court of Justice recognised.
We were under extreme pressure from some non-governmental organisations to act as if this judgement did not exist.
I believe that the negotiations we had with the NGOs - the outside world in this case - on safeguarding the judgment contributed greatly to raising awareness of how we manage our money, and the fact that we do need legal bases for this.
All in all, I consider this to have been a success.
<P>
It still remains to be seen how far the agreement on legal bases will take us.
We in Parliament must now establish legal bases with the Council, and this makes us dependent, completely and utterly - as the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties intend - on the Commission's right of initiative.
That is why, Commissioner and Mr Christodoulou, I have tabled amendments pointing out that this interinstitutional agreement vests the Commission, as the initiator of legislation, with a huge responsibility, and that in the future this will force us to seek maximum powers of codecision for the Council and Parliament.
I look forward to working in cooperation with the Commission on this matter.
<P>
But let me now return to concerns related to the 1998 budget, which is quite rightly not covered by the future arrangements in the agreement, but does form part of the overall compromise. Both before, but mainly after, the summer recess, I received a substantial number of telephone calls from people saying that their money had not arrived, even though the appropriations had been released.
In addition, there is still uncertainty about some areas, for example in my case about line B3-1000 and the European Youth Parliament.
I would be grateful, Commissioner, if you could give us some reassurance today that everything in your power is being done, and that by this evening, when we discuss this with our groups, we will, as Mr Wynn requested, have precise information about the parts of the budget which you do not envisage implementing, because the judgment simply makes it impossible to do so.
I believe that we need this clarity to be able to vote in favour of the agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Ewing">
Mr President, as the longest-serving Member of this Parliament I remember a time when even before direct elections Commissioners assured us, and through us the citizens of Europe, that the Community institutions had a human face.
That will not be the case if these budget lines are blocked - it is as simple as that.
Think of it: the Foundation for Human Rights closed, NGO funding, abuse of children, the supervision of election procedures and the protection of minority languages, a subject dear to the heart of myself and John Hume who founded the budget line.
<P>
I am embarrassed to belong to a state that put this to the Court and caused it to happen.
I am amazed when Mr Wynn talks about speaking with two tongues.
Indeed, that is what he has done, because I was looking to a new government in Britain to change this and it has not!
It seems to be a government of much the same colour and speaking with two tongues.
There are over 30 minority languages that are a precious part of our common heritage, with their own literatures.
We have two in Scotland.
Blocking this is not going to give this Community a human face.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Pronk">
Mr President, I always like it when Terry Wynn speaks in tongues but I do not think it is Pentecost yet.
<P>
Mr President, I think we still have some difficulties with this first part.
Firstly the question of the legal basis.
I agree with all those speakers who say that this is really an attack on the people's Europe.
There is no way the taxpayer is going to understand that a further 150 million guilders are being earmarked for PHARE, money which cannot be spent, whilst at the same time here we are rabbiting on about a few million in relation to the legal basis.
Mr President, I think we have to accept this agreement now, although I have serious doubts as to whether we can implement it easily, since the sums it contains are smaller than those which Parliament thinks are necessary.
We shall have to see how that can be resolved.
We have to take a decision on the matter and we must not make too much it one way or another.
We must simply share the damage out fairly.
The problem, as I see it, is this.
As it happens, you are one of the leading lawyers in this House, but the fact is that the Treaty did not allow for this whole problem of legal bases.
The legal basis crept in via the Financial Regulation and the Council's efforts to blackmail Parliament.
That is how it entered the equation.
The lawyers then set to and in effect made a real dog's breakfast of it.
The matter could have been resolved in other ways which would have been perfectly acceptable from a legal point of view.
We now find ourselves in problematic situations of having to give a legal basis, on which in fact only the Council can rule, when we as Parliament have full budgetary powers, at any rate as regards non-compulsory expenditure.
That is an unacceptable state of affairs but we have to live with it for the sake of the people's Europe, in order to salvage something at least.
I accept this with a heavy heart, both as an MEP and a lawyer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Mr President, the confidence our citizens have in the European Union ultimately depends on how well the EU can address the real, everyday problems people have.
Unfortunately, this trust has never been great.
The decision of the Court of Justice last spring, which was followed by the Commission's decision to freeze funds, caused this trust to slump even further.
While a legal base makes it possible to pour millions of ecus into the EMU campaign, funds for the national organisations were frozen.
Our citizens cannot understand why a legal base allows money to be spent on campaigns such as this, but does not make it possible to spend money on national organisations, the prevention of poverty, on organisations for the disabled, or for example on the promotion of minority languages, which is a very important issue.
<P>
I think it is extremely important that an interinstitutional agreement is realised soon.
I also hope that Council will listen to Parliament this time more closely than it has done hitherto.
Unfortunately, the situation has often been that it has been easier for Parliament to get agreement with the Commission than with the Council on matters that have to be dealt with.
Hopefully the Austrian Presidency will now find a solution to this difficult problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lenz">
Mr President, I too should like to echo those who have complimented Mr Christodoulou on his report. He has, I believe, addressed one of the most complex issues we have had to deal with for a long time, and one which is very difficult to explain to the outside world.
This is something we have also felt during discussions in committee.
I would just like to comment briefly on some of the agreement's implications, which I would ask the Council and the Commission not to overlook, as they could affect our work in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, in particular our work in the field of democracy and human rights, but also our relations with Asia and Latin America.
<P>
Democracy and human rights - already referred to this morning - are, more than anything else, of central importance to the Commission's future policies - and I am addressing the Commission directly here - precisely because this is an area where the European Union really does come into direct contact with people.
Through NGOs, it deploys citizens from a wide variety of fields, on the one hand, as it were, to work for the EU and, on the other, to help those in need, or - and this is at least as important - to raise awareness of democracy and the rule of law throughout the world.
<P>
We hope that the legal bases established will be clear enough for these programmes to continue, and when they do - this is my request of the Commission, Mr Liikanen - there should be less bureaucracy, and hence lower administrative costs; more expertise on some individual issues; and perhaps also less cost to the EU - in short, there should be greater transparency.
We support the Committee on Budgets' non-selective approach in this matter, but we would like to ask you not to disregard these problems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="Ruttenstorfer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased that you welcome this agreement.
I should like to make one remark, however, in response to some of the opinions you have expressed.
I do not agree that the Council can only come to decisions - and in this case did come to a decision - when it is under pressure.
I really must refute this; I can tell you that the judgment of the Court of Justice put the Council in a very good position, and that the judgment was not the reason for the Council making a particular effort to resolve this issue very quickly together with Parliament and the Commission.
<P>
We felt compelled to do this for two quite different reasons.
The first was raised by many of you, namely the fact that this decision was important to many people in Europe, because the implementation of budget lines was at stake.
That is why it was a matter of concern for the Council to find a solution.
The second reason is that this has already remained an open question between Parliament, the Council and the Commission for around 15 years, and has hindered cooperation between the institutions.
It was also for these reasons, I believe, that it was high time to find a solution.
That is why I am very glad that one has been found, and I hope it will meet with your definitive agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, the draft agreement on legal bases which the institutions reached on 17 July 1998 is a remarkable achievement, and not merely because it is the first agreement since the 1982 Joint Declaration, which turned out to be unworkable.
This is not because large sums of money are involved - those Members who mentioned this point were quite right.
The amounts concerned have always been a small proportion of the Community budget.
It is remarkable because progress has for once been made across the minefield of institutional competences.
<P>
The agreement strengthens interinstitutional confidence at the outset of the negotiations for the next interinstitutional agreement.
I must also congratulate the Austrian presidency for the great efforts it made on this issue.
At the same time, in this context, it is greatly to be welcomed that the British Government has decided to withdraw all pending court cases against the implementation of the Community budget.
<P>
The winners from the agreement are not only the institutions but, above all, the programmes and the hundreds of organizations concerned.
We have seen a particularly active period of non-governmental pressure groups around the Commission and the institutions.That clearly showed the importance of the actions concerned.
In the future these organisations can be sure that once an amount is entered in the budget the implementation of the budget line will not be challenged.
<P>
Some of the actions have to be redefined and not all may be continued for ever.
Such decisions in the future will be taken on the basis of clear budgetary and legislative procedures.
Our partners will be able to rely on the outcome.
<P>
The Commission is ready to sign the agreement.
The list of specific powers of the Commission annexed to the agreement is correct.
It can always be augmented in future preliminary draft budgets.
I want to emphasise this.
The autonomy of the Commission is not affected by the agreement.
<P>
As far as the budget for 1999 is concerned, the preliminary draft budget is compatible with the agreed ceilings.
With regard to the 1998 budget, the remaining budget lines have been unblocked over the last few weeks.
We have given you information on these particular budget lines.
An ad hoc agreement on 17 July permitted in addition an immediate re-opening of several particularly sensitive budget lines, e.g. the fight against violence towards women and children, actions against illegal content on the Internet and actions for human rights and democracy.
<P>
The conclusion of the legislative procedures for a voluntary youth service and for NGOs in third countries has cleared the way for the implementation of these programmes.
Adoption of further legal bases appear imminent.
<P>
With regard to the budget lines to combat social exclusion, which were at the heart of the conflict, the Commission is dealing with this issue at its meeting tomorrow.
It will decide on a communication which proposes to re-orient the lines towards preparatory actions for programmes on the basis of the Amsterdam Treaty.
With this re-orientation, which I hope will be decided tomorrow, they can be re-launched immediately.
<P>
If, after all this, an action remains blocked or partially blocked, the Commission will fully respect legitimate expectations and will also protect existing investments.
The indications from its services are that out of ECU 870m originally blocked for lack of a legal basis, only some ECU 30m may not be implemented by the end of the year for that reason.
<P>
Obviously some problems remain in the transition to the new regime. Some are inevitable, as the ruling of the Court prevents the Commission from pretending that nothing has happened.
But joint efforts have succeeded in limiting the problems to the minimum, and from next year the implementation of the budget will be on firm ground.
<P>
I will now reply to the questions put by honourable Members. Mr Wynn and Mrs Müller asked about budget line B-5321 on the social economy.
There is no current legal basis, but we are now considering the possibility of a transfer of these funds to budget line B-5512 (employment initiative) which makes possible a similar type of action.
<P>
Mr Wynn's other two questions are not connected with budget lines B 7851 and B 7852.
It is very easy to understand for someone who does not follow the budget.
Anyhow, these proposals for legal bases are with the Council, and I hope the presidency will make a major effort to accelerate the procedure, especially for the budget line concerning export promotion and Japan, which has turned out to be very useful.
<P>
Thirdly, in reply to Mr Tillich, our services must work on the basis of the decisions which have been taken.
I would say to honourable Members who have been contacted by organisations, etc; please get in touch directly with the services concerned.
That is the best way to guarantee rapid action.
The basic framework concerning the Commission has now been solved.
<P>
I have good news for Mrs Ewing on the matter of minority languages and she can have some warm words for the Commission.
Today we have been able to implement the budget line for minority languages practically in full.
A sum of ECU 400 000 is still in the reserve thanks to the European Parliament.
I am ready to propose that the Commission should very soon transfer it and if Mrs Ewing can convince her colleagues in Parliament to accept that transfer the problem will no longer be there.
<P>
I would conclude by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Christodoulou, the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, Mr Samland, and the President-in-Office, Mr Ruttenstorfer, for the extraordinary efforts they have made to achieve this historic agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="President">
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Motor vehicle emissions - Quality of petrol and diesel fuels
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Lange">
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="President">
Thank you for that piece of good news, Mr Lange.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, I can confirm everything the other rapporteur, Mr Lange, has just said.
The conciliation was very constructive, and to some extent we even enjoyed it.
Now and then I, at least, could not help identifying with our opposing side, that is to say the Council.
So I can confirm that we worked in real partnership and both sides argued in favour of the proposals, and the discussion was at times at an intelligently high level.
I would sincerely like to thank all my colleagues for their cooperation and the spirit in which they worked to make it possible to carry forward this proposal in Parliament.
<P>
Its basis was the fact that the Commission two years ago proposed binding conditions for the quality of fuels only for the year 2000.
Parliament has improved on the Commission's original proposals quite considerably in cooperation with the Council.
We wanted binding conditions for quality for the year 2005 too, so that the consumer would be reassured that the air would really become cleaner, and so that industry would be able to invest with confidence.
In the end we got the proposal through.
<P>
The Conciliation Committee pushed through the proposal for binding conditions for fuel quality for the year 2005 as well.
We think this is very important because this really means that industry can concentrate on producing cleaner industrial technology.
This is vital for the car industry, as the car industry needs cleaner fuels to be able to keep up with the ever more stringent calls for cleaner exhaust emissions, but it is also important for the oil industry.
The legislative authority has now said what is expected of the oil industry by the year 2005.
<P>
At times we had the distinct impression during the process that the oil industry wished to blame Parliament for the structural problems there might consequently be in this sector of industry.
But we succeeded in showing that in fact it was high time the oil industry was also called upon to invest in cleaner technologies.
If there was overcapacity, at least more stringent environmental demands could not be blamed for everything.
<P>
During the conciliation process, we also managed to change the Commission's approach to the Auto-Oil programme.
Originally, we thought we would be starting with a very narrow cost-effectiveness analysis, but Parliament and various other national players brought other economic arguments to the discussion.
We were also able to show that costs sustained out of human illness have to be taken into account in the figures.
In this way we were widening the whole approach, as it were.
We believe that if the Auto-Oil programme continues in the Commission, the approach will now be crucially different from what it was at the outset.
<P>
The effects of this decision will be visible very early on, because cleaner fuels will be coming onto the market by the beginning of the year 2000.
This is a very clear signal to the market that these cleaner fuels are actually being awaited.
During the conciliation process, we also established that the Commission should in future turn its attention more positively to the question of tax incentives, which Member States will possibly wish to employ to encourage the use of cleaner fuels.
In this way, we hope that the quality of the air will start to improve very soon after this decision has come into force.
It will also obviously affect older vehicles.
I would strongly urge the European Parliament to approve this fuels package.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Bowe">
Mr President, firstly I should like to congratulate the two rapporteurs and the other people who have been involved in the conciliation.
They have produced an excellent result which I hope will have the full support of Parliament today.
<P>
The proposal will ensure that this programme will make all European towns and cities better places to live and work and healthier places to bring up our children and go about our daily lives.
Towns from Aberdeen to Athens will be cleaner and healthier places to live.
<P>
In ten years' time there will be fewer people - children and older people - suffering from asthma caused by car fumes if the targets of this Auto-Oil programme are met.
<P>
At the same time, we are going to see a significant contribution made to reducing the damage caused to crops by pollution.
This is indeed a very useful package protecting the environment and public health.
<P>
We were very ambitious right from the beginning, wanting to be sure that the motor companies made cleaner, more efficient engines and obliging the oil companies to make cleaner petrol and diesel, whilst at the same time getting rid of leaded fuel.
This proposal has many beneficial effects and, although concern has been expressed about the cost, it is not great.
We have seen various studies.
But we can best explain it if we say that for the average motorist driving the average car in Europe it will cost only Ecu 5 to Ecu 8 more every year to realise the full benefits of this package.
Surely that is a price every motorist - and we are all motorists - believes is worth paying.
<P>
From the very beginning we have been determined to ensure that the burden is fairly divided between the oil industry and the car industry.
That has been difficult to determine at times, with all the different lobbying and conflicting information.
But I am now convinced that we have reached an equitable balance.
The car industry will have to change; it will have to bring in new models that are more efficient, cleaner and burn less fuel.
At the same time, the oil industry will produce cleaner fuels; indeed some of them are waiting for the deadlines.
I understand some of them are already putting cleaner fuels on the market now that comply with the specification we have demanded.
It is quite clear they are able to do that.
<P>
There may be restructuring in the oil industry in the next few years, but that will take place not as a consequence of the AutoOil programme but as a consequence of more general changes in the European economy.
<P>
Finally, this is an excellent example of how, when the Council, the Commission and Parliament all work together and reach a consensus through conciliation we can make a serious legislative impact that affects the lives of all the people of Europe.
We should be proud that we have managed to achieve this in this package.
I would urge all of my colleagues to support it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Florenz">
Mr President. I should like to congratulate Mr Lange and Mrs Hautala on their reports.
I am not at all surprised to see so many Members jumping for joy today, but I do not wish to mark my agreement in such unqualified terms, because from an institutional point of view, I do not believe that this procedure was such a breakthrough.
<P>
Mr Bowe has just given me a cue, which means that I will have to restructure my whole speech.
You just said that the oil industry has announced today that it has had the fuels we are demanding for the years 2000 and 2005 for a long time.
This is the whole point.
Unfortunately, people forget all too often that, if a car is to produce clean exhaust emissions, it has to run on high-quality fuel. That is exactly what we did not manage to achieve in the Conciliation Committee, because the committee was under pressure of time.
It should all have come under consideration on 28 June; it had something to do with the Council presidency, and of course we were happy to do our bit to bolster a Council presidency.
It was a shame, because it would have allowed us to show those responsible for fuels in the Commission that we were prepared to take them on.
We would have been able to show the lobbyists that something which they had thought was completely impossible at the time - I put that on record at the reading here - was actually possible.
You admitted as much as soon as the meeting of the Conciliation Committee was over.
We in Parliament all showed weakness in this regard.
That should not happen again.
<P>
The oil industry is experiencing difficulties, not because of European standards, but because of structural problems and many other factors.
<P>
I do believe, however, that we have taken a step forward.
There are 200 million motor vehicles in Europe, and my group is firmly in favour of mobility, in contrast to the Green Members.
They would prefer to abolish mobility.
That is the prerequisite of this single market: mobility of persons, goods, products and services.
And because this is what we want, we need highquality fuels, so that we have clean engines and clean exhaust emissions.
<P>
There have been some improvements.
On-board diagnostic systems have in no way resulted in car bonnets being locked electronically, as we had feared. This would have prevented medium-sized businesses from carrying out repairs.
I am glad that the testing procedures have been improved.
I am glad that medium-sized businesses will, in many cases, have access to this market.
All in all, the battle is won, but in the future we must show a greater willingness to take on those who are working with us on this European project, so that we can be even more successful for the sake of our children, because they need a healthy environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Mr President, I too must start by congratulating Mrs Hautala and Mr Lange most sincerely on this result.
It is largely thanks to them that we have achieved these results, this progress towards better air quality in Europe.
<P>
For my part, I believe this is the best thing the European Parliament has done in this area over the last four years.
We have achieved quite a lot in the last four years.
We have of course had to compromise, but the compromises reached have been more in our favour than that of the automobile and oil industry.
In other words, we have won.
<P>
Mr Lange has already outlined what has been achieved.
I shall not repeat him.
But when I look at the response of the automobile and petroleum industry to what the Council, Commission and Parliament have achieved by their joint endeavour and compare that with the attitude the industry was taking a year ago, there is a very marked difference.
The loud protest we were hearing a year ago has died down in the face of our shared determination to bring about an improvement in air quality.
That is what happens when the European Parliament speaks clearly and unequivocally.
We were able to approve the amendments by an overwhelming majority.
<P>
I shall not go into the results in detail but I would like to say just one thing: the best result of all, I think, is that we have managed to make the limit values for both fuel content and vehicle emissions mandatory for the year 2005.
That will be a good basis for further agreements.
<P>
So we shall be more than happy to vote in favour.
Just one remark to end with, Mr President: I am less happy with the Commission, but we shall doubtless come back to that when we talk about the agreement with the motor vehicle industry concerning CO2 emissions.
That is part of the Auto/Oil programme with which I as an individual member and my group are less pleased, but as I say we shall come back to that.
<P>
Lastly, a word to my fellow members of Parliament.
I noted that a good many MEPs were absent from the conciliation procedure.
I found it humiliating to be facing a Council of 15 ambassadors, with just four, five or six people on Parliament's side.
So this is a word of exhortation to the House.
Since we have this power of codecision, we should put in an appearance and use it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cabrol">
Mr President, the Hautala dossier contains three directives, on the quality of fuels and the reduction of exhaust gas emissions from motor vehicles and light commercial vehicles.
The compromise proposed in this joint proposal was achieved following a conciliation procedure and reached after two months of negotiations.
The agreement is based on the levels adopted by the Council for the years 2000 and 2005, but the European Parliament has managed to make them mandatory for 2005 rather than guide levels.
<P>
With regard to the Hautala report, the principal issue was the compulsory reduction in sulphur content.
The levels for the year 2000 for unleaded petrol and diesel remain the same as in the Council's common position, which nevertheless includes a European Parliament amendment designed to increase the maximum oxygen content of unleaded petrol.
The specifications for 2005 make the Council's levels obligatory.
For diesel, the sulphur content will be reduced to 5 ppm, a reduction which will be rendered mandatory in the year 2005, whereas the Council simply wanted to start reducing the sulphur content from the year 2005.
For unleaded petrol, the European Parliament has accepted the levels proposed by the Council while making them obligatory.
<P>
In addition, for these two fuels, the Council has accepted the principle proposed by the European Parliament to authorise the early introduction, in the year 2000, of petrol and diesel fuels which satisfy the specifications which will be binding from 2005.
In a statement appended to the text, the Commission also indicates its intention to speed up procedures authorising tax incentives for clean fuels.
On this occasion, exemptions are only authorised for sulphur content, until 2003, by way of derogation from the specifications which otherwise apply from the year 2000, and until 2007 by way of derogation from the specifications which otherwise apply for 2005, while therefore respecting the minimum levels stipulated for the year 2000.
<P>
Finally, the Commission has also issued a statement indicating that it would consider whether clean fuel is available in sufficient quantities before granting exemptions.
The joint proposal can therefore be seen as acceptable to the extent that it guarantees the presence of superior quality fuel from the year 2005, or even from the year 2000.
<P>
Turning to the Lange reports, the text concerns both motor vehicles and light commercial vehicles.
The maximum levels are those proposed by the Council and obligatory from 2005.
Instruments for checking anti-pollution equipment, with which all diesel and petrol vehicles must be fitted, will be available to all garage owners, while the car industry wanted to limit access to authorised dealers.
The same applies to cold starting tests.
As we know that cold starting produces more pollution, we must remain particularly firm on this point.
<P>
To conclude, this joint proposal is acceptable to our group.
It has also been approved by all the Member States and the car industry.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Sainjon">
Mr President, I naturally welcome this compromise text which resulted from many conciliation meetings and of course congratulate the two rapporteurs on their excellent work.
The European Parliament has shown real determination in the way it has handled this sensitive issue by pushing its environmental demands to the limit while always remaining within the realms of the possible and the realistic.
<P>
Negotiations between Parliament, the Commission and the Council, and all those involved in and concerned by this issue, should serve as a lesson to us all.
For myself, and I am by no means a newcomer to Parliament, they have served as a lesson on the conciliation procedure.
<P>
My hope is that the discussions which are now to begin on CO2 will go equally well.
I therefore propose that the House should give its full support to this text which, in itself, represents considerable progress.
Progress in reducing the sulphur content of fuels, progress in banning leaded petrol and progress in introducing engine technologies which permit the use of fuels with a low sulphur content.
<P>
All of this will bring a concrete change to the everyday lives of the Union's citizens.
The task now is to make known these decisions which provide the beginnings of an answer to the air pollution which has become the major challenge for this turn of the century.
<P>
In our countries and our constituencies we must lay to rest certain accepted ideas.
I am thinking in particular of the poor image of diesel.
Although this image was justified in the past, we must now acknowledge the huge progress made by car manufacturers to comply with European standards.
We must consider how to make the people and the media understand that, in future, clean diesel will cause less pollution than unleaded petrol. We must do so in cooperation with the car and oil indutries.
The response to this technological challenge does credit to our engineers.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, we will not have brought any real solutions to the problem of car pollution until we have dealt with the problem of rejuvenating the fleet.
We all know that this is a major challenge as 20 % of cars are responsible for about 80 % of all car pollution.
We must therefore find new and original measures which do not repeat the mistakes made in France.
It is not a question of making aid dependent upon the purchase of a new vehicle but upon getting rid of the old one, the funding principally coming from Europe.
I am thinking of the LIFE programme for example.
This measure will boost Europe's popularity.
Of that I am sure, being aware of its cost. But rather than constantly depleting our resources by providing a sprinkling here and there, I am convinced that it is politically important to be able, on occasion, to make a big gesture.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, sincere congratulations to Mrs Hautala and Mr Lange, the rapporteurs, who together with Mr Kenneth Collins have secured an excellent result.
Air pollution is a particularly intractable problem which needs to be tackled using an integrated, systematic and multidisciplinary approach.
It has direct implications for the health of humans, plants and animals.
In the longer term, the threat to the environment will be worldwide, as a result of acidification and climate change.
Consequently, the importance of legislation aimed at cleaner fuels and cleaner vehicles cannot be underestimated.
The outcome of the negotiations which we now have is a resounding success for a European Parliament which has singlemindedly succeeded in setting limit values for vehicle emissions and the quality of petrol and diesel fuels for the year 2005 and beyond.
<P>
The Council too, and specifically the UK Presidency, are to be congratulated on this result.
Proper arguments were brought to bear and swift progress was made.
But pleased as we are by this result, it is only one part of the problem, namely air pollution from traffic and transport; rapidly increasing mobility will quickly cancel out the benefit gained.
That calls for a policy on mobility which is geared to sustainable development.
The automobile and petroleum industries now face the major challenge of giving further thought, together with environmental and consumer organisations, to a sustainable technology which can responsibly accommodate the need for mobility.
It is my hope and my expectation that the Council, the Commission and Parliament will be ready to stimulate the debate on this and provide funding for the research that is needed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kronberger">
Mr President, introducing mandatory limit values for fuels and vehicle emissions throughout Europe will certainly make an essential contribution to keeping our air clean.
The rapporteurs are to be congratulated, above all for their persistence in gaining acceptance of their views.
<P>
Of course, the derogation clauses hurt.
In the future, we will have to press for these derogations to be as limited as possible.
Such caution is well advised, as any member of this House knows who was besieged by lobbyists in the run-up to our debates on this directive.
The agreement on the use of on-board diagnostic systems is also gratifying; it constitutes a workable compromise between consumer interests and control systems.
The right of individual Member States to grant preferential tax treatment for earlier improvements should become a major pillar of European environment policy; at some point in the future, this should be taken as a matter of course and no longer have to be negotiated separately.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graenitz">
Mr President, I too should like to congratulate the rapporteurs, and thank all those who served on the Conciliation Committee.
Their task has not been easy, and they have completed it quickly and successfully.
<P>
I would, however, like to introduce one further point into the debate.
The Auto-Oil package has, I believe, allowed us to prove for the first time that modern industrial policy is really environment policy. Only by taking account of the environment and recognising the need both to preserve the natural foundations of human life and to protect human health from possible damage can an industrial policy be formulated which will be valid for ten, twenty or fifty years, rather than just one or two.
<P>
I believe that we should take this as an example and examine the possibility of putting together similar packages in other sectors.
I think the chemical industry would be very much in favour of a one-off comprehensive regulation, which would allow it to initiate and plan its long-term development - again, not just for the next few years, but for the next ten, twenty or thirty years. It would thus develop in a way consistent with the principle of sustainability, something we have already discussed on many occasions and enshrined in all the Treaties.
<P>
A package of this kind makes it possible to balance out interests; it makes it possible to show clearly how the various industries involved in production interact, and to weigh them up against each other; it makes it possible to initiate developments which must, as in the case of Auto-Oil, be undertaken by the motor industry and the fuel industry together.
These are the methods we should adopt, and we should apply them to several sectors. I believe that this is the real policy of the future, industrial policy coupled with environment policy, or rather environment policy which determines industrial policy.
<P>
I should not, of course, like to miss this opportunity to note that one of the derogations granted to Austria in the negotiations was extended as part of this package. It means that we will not contravene Union legislation next year either, because we may continue to use fuels with a low benzene content.
One final comment: this was a first step; further steps - also in the field of development and mobility - will follow. They must, for the future of our industry and, above all, for the future of our people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Collins, Gerard">
Mr President, the European Union and the Member States must work closely together and liaise with Europe's motor and oil industries at all times so as to guarantee that pollution is defeated once and for all in the near future.
<P>
If the overall social, human and environmental benefits of clean air are to be achieved then strict standards for reducing air pollution must be an imperative.
It is only right and proper that changes be introduced in a structured and coherent manner.
<P>
Europe's motor and oil industries must be able to comply with clearly defined targets in any new legislation, to ensure that they can plan in confidence for the next generation of motor vehicles and invest in better refineries.
<P>
On reducing exhaust emissions from passenger cars, I support the proposal that systems be installed in new cars from the year 2000 onward to monitor the durability of anti-pollution equipment in passenger vehicles.
Anti-pollution devices must remain effective for at least 80 000 km or five years from the year 2000 onwards, and for at least 100 000 km from 2005.
Tax incentives must be used to encourage the early introduction of vehicles containing advanced anti-pollution equipment.
<P>
I also support the proposed directive to improve the quality of petrol and diesel fuels in Europe.
By means of this directive no leaded petrol will be sold anywhere in Europe after January 2000, except where severe socio-economic problems would arise.
Moreover, unleaded petrol and diesel sold after 1 January 2000 will also have to comply with the new environmental specifications.
<P>
As a result of this new directive there will be a threefold reduction in the sulphur content of petrol in cars and a seven-fold reduction in the sulphur content of diesel by 2005.
<P>
I would like to congratulate the decision of the European Automobile Manufacturers Association to accept a timetable to cut CO2 emissions in new cars by 25 % by the year 2000.
The fact that the Commission does not have to bring forward legislation to push this issue through is an indication that the way forward is by consultation between all the interested parties.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schnellhardt">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, thanks are due to both our rapporteurs.
I have drafted quite a few reports in my time, but I have never before experienced such a good level of cooperation, producing work with such solid technical foundations, which has been presented in such a comradely spirit!
<P>
For more than two years, since the Commission tabled its draft directive, the introduction of clean fuels has been under discussion in Europe.
Parliament has given its views on two occasions, clearly stating what is at stake.
Clean fuels directly contribute to reducing air pollution.
Clean fuels allow modern technology to be used in car engines, which will likewise lead to a substantial reduction in fuel consumption.
<P>
It will be remembered that several people were rather unwilling to accept this, and obstinately declared during the course of the negotiations that Parliament's aspirations were unfeasible and far too expensive.
Today, it gives us great satisfaction to hear that several oil companies want to put new fuels on the market as early as the year 2000, fuels which meet the specifications of the 2005 standard as they stand following conciliation.
Obviously, the positive outcome of the conciliation is already bearing fruit, even before entering into force.
<P>
The result of the conciliation is a good one.
Above all, the Parliament delegation has managed to gain acceptance of two important proposals.
The specifications for the year 2005 are not mere indicative values; they are mandatory.
In addition, it is also possible to phase in more stringent specifications earlier and, as we have just heard, there are already plans to do so.
<P>
The fact that the Council presidencies vied with each other to announce the result of the conciliation can certainly be regarded in a positive light, but even so, this sort of thing should not happen again: if we run short of time, we should not allow some issues to be dropped from the agenda just for the sake of producing a result.
A proportion of 30 ppm of lubricant film in fuel is still a target we should be aiming for, and our specifying 50 ppm at this stage will certainly not delay the development of modern technologies.
That is the upper limit value, after all, and there is nothing to stop people providing better fuels.
<P>
The motor vehicle industry is now being asked to lead the way in reducing CO2 emissions in Europe.
That it should do so by means of a voluntary agreement is something which Parliament has already criticised on several occasions.
This is not so much because we are questioning whether the 120 g CO2 /km now on the table is sufficient - I think we can live with that - but because the whole procedure seems to me to be rather lacking in transparency.
We should be aware that such an agreement is replacing a proper legislative procedure, i.e. the adoption of a directive by codecision.
I am rather sceptical about whether this Europe-wide test of voluntary agreements will be successful in terms of CO2 reductions.
All those involved should realise what is at stake here.
If it became necessary to take fiscal measures to reach the targets we have agreed, then I would consider this method to have failed.
<P>
Even though we have the possibility of cooperating by adopting legislation on monitoring, we should make it clear that voluntary agreements of this kind should be the exception where the environment is concerned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Virgin">
Mr President, we are now witnessing the culmination of a long process, the results of which will have a major impact on human health and the environment.
What Parliament did in tightening up the provisions of the Commission's Auto/Oil proposal will, I am sure, be vindicated as wise and balanced. Stricter requirements are to be applied to vehicle specifications and fuel quality by the years 2000 and 2005.
Member States will also be able to introduce economic incentives to speed progress towards a better environment.
<P>
Higher quality fuels automatically lead to lower toxic emissions and encourage the development of catalytic converters for larger diesel engines.
Huge reductions in nitrogen emissions can then be achieved.
<P>
Let me use this opportunity to congratulate the rapporteurs on their sterling work.
Mrs Hautala perhaps had the toughest task, but the outcome of her endeavours demonstrates that the EU institutions can work together in the interest of the environment. The overall result is greater than the sum of individual efforts could ever be.
<P>
Yet we cannot afford to rest on our laurels. We must build on our success and push ahead along the road towards safer and more environmentally friendly motor cars.
A pro-active approach to the question of fuel consumption can pay dividends.
It should be possible to bring about a 25 % reduction in fuel use by as early as 2005.
In the longer term we are certain to see breakthroughs for the electric and the hybrid car - the latter running on a combination of electric power and internal combustion.
The challenge here is how to produce more electricity without creating greenhouse and other gases.
We should be looking to hydroelectric, wind and nuclear sources.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, in ten years' time, pollution from the Community's motor vehicles will have been reduced by a total of 70 % compared to what it was in 1990.
That will be the outcome when the package of the Conciliation Committee, covering cars, light commercial vehicles and fuels, is adopted.
It is a major victory, first and foremost for the environment and for the citizens of Europe.
It is a legislative package which, by improving air quality in Europe, will contribute significantly to raising the quality of life of our citizens.
The package is a shining example of how the Community can achieve decisive results for the benefit of the population of Europe.
And, make no mistake, they are results which the Member States could never have achieved on their own.
The package is also a unique example of how we can succeed - if only the will is there - in combining ambitious legislation with the concern to safeguard a competitive European industry.
The package will ensure that not only will industry be able to maintain its position on the European domestic market, it will also hold its own with the best in the world.
<P>
I therefore think that it is appropriate today to congratulate Parliament's negotiators, and that applies especially to the two rapporteurs, Mr Lange and Mrs Hautala, who have done an excellent job, but there is also good reason to thank Mrs Fontaine and Mr Collins for their efforts in the conciliation negotiations.
Such a result could - as you all know - only have been achieved thanks to a major, well targeted and competent effort on the part of all concerned, including of course the Council under the British Presidency.
<P>
Parliament has obtained quite significant concessions from the Council of Ministers in a range of important areas, such as comitology, mandatory standards for 2005 covering the main parameters, bringing forward the requirement for on-board diagnostic systems in diesel and light commercial vehicles, the early and gradual phasing-in of cleaner fuels and many other things.
In addition, it is a package which is secured for the future, a point that many speakers mentioned in the debate.
It contains provisions which will ensure that emission and fuel requirements beyond the year 2005 will be reviewed in the light of developments in air quality standards and technological possibilities offered by new fuels and propulsion systems in the future.
<P>
I must confess that, when I put forward the Auto-Oil package on behalf of the Commission two years ago, I did not think that we would make such progress in such a short time, and I have to thank Parliament for that.
The package is of course a compromise and it was therefore only to be expected that not everyone would achieve what they wanted in every detail.
Viewed as a whole, however, there is no doubt in my mind that the package represents such significant progress that it cannot but be adopted.
It is a particular pleasure for me therefore, on behalf of the Commission, to be able to recommend this ambitious package for adoption.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
<P>
The sitting will be suspended until voting time, since there would be little point in starting the next debate and then interrupting it after a quarter of an hour.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 11.40 a.m. and resumed at 12 noon)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="President">
I would remind the House that the vote on the recommendation for second reading (A4-0278/98) on coffee extracts and chicory extracts, drawn up by Mr Lannoye on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, has been postponed to voting time on Wednesday to enable the rapporteur to reach a compromise with the political groups.
<P>
Mr Christodoulou's report (A4-0296/98) will also be put to the vote tomorrow, since the deadline for tabling amendments was only yesterday evening.
<P>
Report (A4-0293/98) by Mr Monfils, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning the conclusion of a bilateral agreement between the Community and the Republic of Cyprus on the Republic of Cyprus' participation in a Community programme within the framework of Community audiovisual policy (COM(98)0242 - C4-0428/98-98/0138(CNS))
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Buffetaut">
There is nothing new about attempts to legislate on the legal protection of designs and models, the first proposal for Community legislation dating back to 1993.
<P>
As legal traditions in this field are very different, if not divergent, it has been very difficult to arrive at a common position of the Council.
The major practical problem was that of protecting designs of spare parts used in repairs, which created difficulties for many industrial sectors.
<P>
The questions raised were so sensitive that the Council finally gave up trying to harmonise the rules.
Whereas some saw this as the antithesis of the single market, I believe it is more reasonable to view it as indicative of the limits to harmonisation.
It is impossible to harmonise all the legislation of 15 countries with their different legal traditions, and it will become even more impossible when the European Union is enlarged to include Eastern European countries which, until recently, were governed by totalitarian communist regimes.
<P>
We must not be frightened by this.
Competition can support legislative differences and it is pure fancy to seek a total uniformity which virtually amounts to a fossilising of the law.
Remember that the United States has very different legislation in its various states, and that does not seem to have caused any particular economic weakness!
<P>
However, Parliament had wished to include in the directive a 'compensation clause' which would have applied a system which my group and myself judged to be too complex and above all extremely difficult to implement.
This remains our position, and we considered at the time that the Council had been right to oppose this clause.
As no agreement was reached, a conciliation procedure was opened.
<P>
At the end of the day, the compensation clause was not adopted, which seems perfectly reasonable to us as it created great legal uncertainty for designers.
<P>
The solution adopted was to 'freeze' the legal situation of the Member States while allowing them to evolve in the direction of more flexible protection.
<P>
Once the directive is amended, spare parts manufacturers and constructors will be invited to conclude a voluntary agreement on the protection of drawings and spare parts, which we believe is a better solution than compulsory uniformity.
<P>
In fact, although we did not vote for this report, this was solely because we were opposed to the compensation clause as it had been formulated. We had not in any way lost faith in what is a successful outcome to the conciliation procedure.
<P>
In any event, and although I disagree with the rapporteur on this question, I would like to pay tribute to his work and to the conviction he has shown, even if this has not convinced us that the compensation clause is well founded.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="Hager">
Like my colleagues, I voted in favour of the Conciliation Committee's report on the draft directive concerning the legal protection of designs.
I would like to make it clear, however, that I regret that Parliament's discussion was confined to the economic and financial interests of the car spare parts industry, while existing legal problems were not considered.
Although I welcome the material effect of Parliament's proposed 'repairs clause' as being in the interests of the consumer, introducing it would have thrown all the principles of intellectual property protection overboard.
This compromise also gives us grounds to hope for a legally sound solution in the long term.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="Rovsing">
I am in full support of effective protection of designs in the EU Member States.
It is a positive development that the legal obstacles to the free exchange of designs are now being removed.
This initiative is absolutely essential to the maintenance of free competition on the internal market.
The fact that there was nevertheless substantial opposition to the directive is due to the disagreement over freedom to protect designs for spare parts.
I myself consistently advocated the view that there should be unimpeded freedom without remuneration to produce and use nonoriginal spare parts with no time-lag for the spare-part manufacturers.
The compromise represented by the text of the Conciliation Committee does not entirely accommodate this view, but I hope that in the longer term it will be possible to achieve improved rules in the spare-part sector with a view to incorporating them into the directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="Titley">
I am relieved that agreement on this important legislation has at last been reached between our negotiators from the European Parliament and the Member State governments.
<P>
It is of course the question of a 'repairs clause' which has proved the most thorny aspect of the new design directive.
I am glad to see that no obstacle will be allowed to hinder the free movement of the vehicle spare parts which in Britain many repair businesses use every day.
Whilst I recognise that the 'standstill plus' formula of this compromise agreement means that other countries could stick to their practices of forcing vehicle owners to go to the manufacturer when they need spare parts, I would recommend that they consider opening up the market in spare parts to garages and the like.
<P>
The customer in Britain benefits from the competition between manufacturers and repair companies when it comes to buying vehicle spare parts.
I believe that all European drivers should be able to choose their spare part supplier in the interests of fair competition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Ullmann">
From Parliament's point of view, neither the conciliation procedure itself nor its result can be said to be satisfactory.
At first, the Council was dilatory in dealing with this important bill, the Luxembourg Presidency passing it on to the British Presidency.
In the course of the negotiations, it became clear that it would not be possible to reach agreement on the contentious 'repairs clause'.
<P>
In the light of the obvious lack of political will to find a common solution to an issue which is so important for the single market, we have to agree with the rapporteur that, on the one hand, the current proposal will allow a common EU-wide legal basis for design protection to be made available to all the sectors concerned, but that on the other hand, it will not allow the legal situation of the repairs industry to deteriorate.
My group therefore voted in favour of the Conciliation Committee's draft decision.
<P>
Lange report (A4-0314/98)
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Nicholson">
I welcome this report and agree with the rapporteur that the importance of this legislation cannot be underestimated.
Reductions in vehicle emission are an absolute necessity and the report reflects sensible proposals which will achieve that.
<P>
I fully agree with the introduction of on-board diagnostic systems for all vehicles including diesel vehicles and light commercial vehicles.
This is exactly the sort of preventive measures which we need to put in place if we are to minimise environmental pollution.
It is also reasonable to phase in the application of on-board diagnostics.
<P>
The rapporteur has shown due regard to public concern in pushing the case for more environmentally friendly vehicles.
While we need to address the problem of how to address pollution from vehicles currently on the road, most of us would agree that the best way forward is the development of a culture of environmentally friendly vehicles.
In this regard I support the proposal for tax incentives to be introduced for the early production of vehicles which have advanced anti-pollution equipment.
<P>
Hautala report (A4-0313/98)
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Amadeo">
The Conciliation Committee is presenting a package of anti-pollution measures today which involves a series of important economic consequences.
<P>
Thanks to Parliament's efforts, three texts have been adopted.
From these is derived a directive which is directly descended from the recent Auto-Oil programme, an operation which involved the Commission and the motor and oil industries as well as our Parliament.
<P>
The priority objective today is to improve the quality of the air that we breathe, and that includes defining a European strategy for the reduction of vehicle emissions, through the launching, at long last, of absolutely clear Community legislation, which will consequently allow industry - especially the motor industry - to plan its sectoral investment with a view to the conversion needed to produce future generations of motor vehicles.
<P>
The oil industry, with a kind of self-protective attitude, appears to exaggerate the cost of the investment it considers necessary to prepare the construction of new refineries, which it claims will be a direct burden on motorists. However, we believe that the establishment of rules which actually provide tax reductions for motorists - the main consumers in the sector - may in the end make the necessary investment possible.
<P>
The agreement between the Council and Parliament will make it technically possible to improve the quality of the air, thanks to the compulsory provision for adding oxygen to diesel fuel, reducing the content of sulphur, benzene and aromatic substances in normal fuel and reducing emissions of anhydrous carbon.
<P>
Under the terms of the directive, leaded fuel will no longer be on sale after the year 2000, except where climatic conditions are favourable to its use or where very serious economic damage might be caused.
<P>
Furthermore, unleaded petrol and environmental diesel will have to obey stricter criteria as from January 2000.
The terms envisaged are reasonably binding, especially as application will have to be made to the Commission, which will be very sparing in granting derogations and will only do so after duly justified requests and for a very limited period.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Buffetaut">
The Auto-Oil directives had been the subject of considerable discussion and aroused some agitation in the world of industry.
While nobody disputes the need to protect the environment, it must be admitted that this also has a cost which it would be unreasonable to ignore.
<P>
After two readings in Parliament, the common position was sent to the Conciliation Committee.
It is this proposal, unanimously adopted by Parliament's delegation, which has been submitted to us.
<P>
The compromise achieved lies between the positions of the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament.
An extreme ecologist position, unreasonable in economic terms, has thus been avoided.
<P>
Nevertheless, it must be pointed out that the specifications adopted are significantly more severe that those initially adopted by the European Commission.
The standards adopted by the Council of Ministers for implementation from 2005 were originally for guidance purposes only. They are now to be made binding.
<P>
Most fiercely debated were the specifications for sulphur and aromatics.
It must be admitted that a major effort is being demanded of the oil and car industries.
For this reason, the European legislators must give these industries a guarantee that these standards will be stable and not embark on a race towards ever stricter standards, especially as technological innovations do not make it any easier. We must avoid creating industrial costs which are disproportionate to the benefits in terms of improvements to the environment.
<P>
As this common position represents an acceptable compromise, in terms of industrial constraints and protection of the environment, my group had no hesitation in approving it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Díez de Rivera Icaza">
As I demonstrated during the debate in Parliament on 17 February this year, I am in favour of the Hautala report.
I am practically the only one who supports it among the Members from my Member State, and today I am again reiterating my support for the agreement reached between the Council and Parliament in the Conciliation Committee on the quality of fuels from the year 2000 and the year 2005. This is because, as I have already said here in the House and am going to repeat today, cleaner fuels, that is, fuels that cause less pollution, are a crucial step forward in defending the health of European citizens.
<P>
Today, as before, my vote is going in the same direction: giving priority to health and to the quality of the air we breathe, and not to the private interests of certain oil companies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Lis Jensen">
We choose to support the common position because more stringent requirements for the reduction of vehicle emissions will lead to a reduction in air pollutants and hence will benefit human health and the environment.
The identification of the need for a strategy to reduce emissions causing air pollution, with special reference to urban areas, we think reflects a responsible environmental policy because it is in urbanised areas that these problems are particularly acute.
<P>
We also think it is a step in the right direction that individual Member States should in special cases be able to require that fuels may only be marketed if they conform to more stringent environmental specifications than those laid down in the directive.
This upholds the right of the Member States to adopt environmental measures that go further than those adopted by the Community.
The encouragement of Member States to make more active use of fiscal incentives, in the form of differentiated excise duties, we think opens up attractive possibilities for the heavier taxation of substances which are especially polluting.
<P>
We would, however, point out that there is a problem in that individual Member States cannot act to differentiate excise duties without reference to Council decisions.
The concern for a better environment must not be used as a pretext for increased harmonisation of excise duties.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Lindqvist">
This is a very positive report. It promotes the two-phase introduction of stricter mandatory emission standards by the years 2000-2005.
Tax incentives may be used in individual member states to encourage the refitting or scrapping of older vehicles.
More stringent monitoring will be carried out of emission levels.
<P>
The ban on lead from 1 January 2000, as proposed in the Hautala report, will improve petrol and diesel quality.
Member States will be free to introduce tougher requirements, plus a differentiated system of excise duties.
<P>
So far, so good.
I also voted in favour of the reports, but what we really need is a strategy for getting petrol- and diesel-driven vehicles off our roads.
As an alternative, we should be looking to new clean fuels such as ethanol and methanol, and to means of transport which are powered in an environmentally friendly way. Examples would be the electric car and various types of hybrid vehicle capable of running off electricity in cities and built-up areas.
<P>
González Triviño recommendation (A4-0295/98)
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Caudron">
The report by our colleague Mr Triviño comes at a particularly painful time, and we can only express our condolences to the families affected by the Swissair tragedy.
<P>
This recent tragic event makes the report even more pertinent, and we must acknowledge that the risks of air transport apply to all airlines, without exception.
<P>
Also, although there is no such thing as zero risk, our sole objective must nevertheless be to strive towards this result, and I welcome the amendments which the rapporteur is seeking to introduce to the Council's text.
In this respect, I share the Commission's desire for transparency which enables the consumer to choose in full knowledge of the facts.
We must also combat deregulation and the law of the jungle on prices which lower safety thresholds.
<P>
Finally, I would like to repeat that air travel is one of the safest means of transport, if not the safest of all, and I believe the European Parliament must not lose sight of the need to legislate in other sectors, in particular road transport, in order to significantly reduce the carnage we see on our roads every year.
<P>
Remember that there are fewer than 2000 deaths a year worldwide in aircraft accidents. In France alone, there are 8000 deaths a year on the roads.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Mendes Bota">
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Titley">
I am happy to lend my support to the efforts of both our national governments and the author of this report to make our skies safer for the travelling public, airline staff and all of us who live under the flightpaths of Europe's busy airports.
<P>
It is only reasonable to demand that non-European aircraft using our airspace meet the highest safety standards.
This report is right to ask for swift inspections of such aircraft where the authorities have concerns that they may not meet international safety standards.
<P>
Just as important though is the call in this report for the public to be informed about those aircraft operators whose planes are grounded, as well as being told what corrective steps have been taken to put problems with these aircraft right.
<P>
Perhaps all MEPs speaking on this subject should declare an interest, as we need to use air travel to carry out our parliamentary duties at home and here in Strasbourg - but in truth all of us, whether we use air travel or not, have a vital interest in the safety of the aircraft that we see flying above our homes.
I know that the people I represent in the area around the busy Manchester Airport will want these safety proposals to be adopted as soon as possible.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 12.25 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Climate change
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="President">
The next item is the Commission statement on its strategy following the Kyoto Conference on climate change.
<P>
I give the floor to Mrs Bjerregaard, for the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the context of preparations for the ministerial meeting in Buenos Aires, I am happy to be able to speak to you today on climate change.
Of course I hope that a few more Members will be here in due course.
Both in Rio and in Kyoto the EU showed that, by taking a lead, we can secure agreement on a problem of such global complexity as climate change, even though the positions of the main participants at the start were far apart.
The EU can also deliver results when it comes to its internal obligations.
The most recent data show that the Community is well on the way to stabilising CO2 emissions in the year 2000 at the 1990 level.
Since Kyoto, the EU has dealt with the matter at the highest political level.
We have continued our lead and sought to ensure that the Kyoto Protocol will take effect.
Let me just mention four milestones.
<P>
To begin with, the EU and its Member States signed the Protocol in April this year.
Now everything is being done to persuade the other parties to sign as well.
It is of crucial significance that the American Government and the Russian Federation are showing the political will to stand by their commitments and are signing the Protocol.
That should happen as far as possible before Buenos Aires.
When I meet the American and, I hope also, the Russian ministers in a few days, therefore, I shall be pressing for an informal ministerial meeting in Tokyo.
In that connection, I was pleased at the efforts made by Parliament to persuade Members of the American Congress to ratify the Protocol.
That is an important point, and we should all work to achieve a result.
<P>
Secondly, we succeeded at the Council meeting on the environment in June in reaching agreement on sharing the burden of the EU target among the Member States.
That is also an important message to the rest of the world.
Thirdly, I published a communication on climate change in June which lays down the first steps in an outline strategy on climate change for the EU.
Fourthly and finally, I held a meeting yesterday with all the ten applicant countries in which the very subject of climate and the meeting in Buenos Aires were high on the agenda.
I am happy to report to Parliament that there is full backing for the EU's line and that there is the political will to support it.
Many of the countries will also be ensuring that the Protocol is signed before Buenos Aires.
<P>
These four concrete actions have of course increased the EU's credibility, and that makes it possible to continue our lead.
It is our intention to get Kyoto put into effect, so now we can concentrate on those questions which must be resolved in Buenos Aires.
What do we want from Buenos Aires?
Well, in my opinion the meeting is of the utmost importance in securing a common action plan which will map out the basic principles for the implementation of the Protocol.
The EU must again take the strain in ensuring that we make substantial progress in Buenos Aires, even in some of the difficult areas.
I hope to return from Buenos Aires with a comprehensive and ambitious action plan, together with a timetable for solving the remaining problems from Kyoto.
<P>
In any such action plan, we must be open to those which may help us to achieve our environmental objectives over a longer timescale, including the flexibility mechanisms.
In this context, the set of principles indicated in the resolution is also particularly interesting and merits further consideration.
However, we should not foster any illusions that it will be easy to find solutions when we have the so-called umbrella group, on the one hand, headed by the USA, which is calling for unrestricted application of the flexibility mechanisms, and G77 and China, on the other hand, which are committed to a more cautious and controlled application.
We must also not forget the other controversy influencing the negotiations, which has to do with a meaningful involvement of the developing countries as a condition for ratification by the USA.
Here, as in Kyoto, it may be EU leadership that secures a result.
And here I agree with Parliament that we must grasp every available opportunity for a dialogue.
<P>
However, let me take this opportunity to stress that early action on the home front remains one of the cornerstones of the Kyoto Protocol and one of the most important contributions to the fulfilment of the parties' obligations.
An important element in the national endeavours, not least in the EU, will therefore be joint and coordinated measures.
For that reason, I am particularly pleased that Parliament in its resolution refers to the need for economic and fiscal instruments.
<P>
In many areas, the EU is in the lead as regards energy and carbon taxes, environmental agreements with industry and the promotion of renewable energy sources.
We have already made progress in this way in combating emissions, and call on other countries to follow our example.
I am aiming to secure further progress on these issues in Buenos Aires, also on the principles we have worked out, and get them reflected in the action plan that we hope will be adopted.
<P>
In its communication on climate change, the Commission has defined a number of key principles regarding the flexibility mechanisms.
I am convinced that they can play a major role in fulfilling our commitments at least cost.
I therefore endorse the emphasis in the resolution on the need to use this flexibility.
I would, however, stress that flexibility which covers trade and other activities presupposes that the participants are able to monitor their own emissions - in other words, no trade without tracking.
It is crucial that we make progress in Buenos Aires on laying down the rules which are the precondition for flexibility mechanisms.
<P>
Let me further stress that strict supervision, hence also the possibility of imposing sanctions, must go hand in hand with the implementation of the Protocol.
If there is any relaxation in the enforcement of the Protocol, so that some get a free ride on the strength of other countries' efforts, we shall never be able to combat the effects of climate change.
I therefore urge the participants in Buenos Aires to agree on the rules for the implementation of the agreement.
<P>
Finally, it is my firm conviction that it is incumbent on the industrialised countries first and foremost to present proposals for the solution of the climate problem in practice.
Wecreated it after all.
Once we have worked out clear rules and secured strict enforcement of the flexibility mechanisms, it will make much more sense to talk to the developing countries about their obligations.
Until then, we must work more closely with them on the questions that preoccupy them most, such as mechanisms for sustainable development and technology transfer.
<P>
In order to follow up the meeting in Buenos Aires, and taking into account the national strategies which the Member States adopt, the Commission intends to present a wider-ranging implementation strategy for climate change in the first half of 1999.
An important step in the meantime will be for the Council to adopt as quickly as possible those proposals which are already on the table, for example the Commission's proposal for energy taxes or the proposals for a more effective transport policy.
I also expect that the climate change question will be gradually integrated into policies in other sectors, as requested by the European Council at its meeting in Vienna.
<P>
Mr President, I will close by thanking Parliament once again for the constructive efforts it has made to disseminate knowledge of the climate change problem, and for the support it has given to the Commission with a view to implementation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graenitz">
Mr President, I should like to thank you for your statement, Commissioner and, before the beginning of the debate, recall once more the five principles on which the actual rules on climate protection, agreed in Rio, are based: the principle of common but differentiated responsibility; the principle of taking account of the special needs of developing countries; the precautionary principle; the principle of sustainable development; and the principle that measures taken to combat climate change have to comply with WTO rules on avoiding unjustified discrimination.
It is this last point in particular that I wish to recall, because if we are going to talk about solidarity and fairness in this debate, and if we are going to say - and here I can only reinforce what you said, Commissioner - that it is necessary for industrialised countries who, after all, have produced and still do produce high emissions of climate-damaging gases, to work harder at reducing them and set a good example - as we are trying to do in the European Union with the 'bubble', where we are also taking common but differentiated responsibility - then we also have to be fair when we are dealing with the various flexibility mechanisms.
<P>
We must state clearly here, as already stated in the Kyoto Protocol, that these must be additional and not exclusive measures. We also need clear indications of how emissions trading will be monitored and measured.
The same method of measurement must be used throughout the world, to avoid the developing countries thinking that the industrialised countries want to save themselves work, at their expense as it were, for a second time.
<P>
Technology transfer is a particularly important issue, and I eagerly await the action plan, because I believe that we in the Union can only assume the role of leader here if we ourselves forge ahead with measures, which in the end not only serve to protect the climate, but in actual fact also serve to modernise our economy.
<P>
Political will is presumably the most decisive factor, and I believe - as Mrs Brundtland said many years ago - that if the politicians making today's decisions will not be alive when the consequences of their decisions are known, then we politicians who are alive today have a duty to act differently, so that the climate does not change as much as it is feared it would do, if it was simply business as usual.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Pimenta">
Thank you for your statement, Commissioner.
The Group Chief Executive of British Petroleum (BP) said yesterday that the oil companies would suffer if they continued to dismiss the evidence of climate change.
It is high time that Exxon and the other oil companies in the Global Climate Coalition realised that, if they do not change their attitude, they will have to face retaliatory measures by European consumers.
We have not acted in this way so far, but we may have to start down this road, because this group of companies is the main obstacle to the implementation of the Kyoto decisions.
<P>
Turning now to the text of the resolution which Parliament is going to adopt, it is plain that this is a very different animal from previous resolutions.
This text aims to establish a strategy for Buenos Aires, particularly with regard to the flexibility mechanisms, and does not just reaffirm our completely unaltered position on climate change.
<P>
We accept the full implementation of the Kyoto decisions, including the flexibility mechanisms or emissions trading.
However, these mechanisms must obey certain principles.
<P>
Firstly, they must be complementary and not absolute, which means that they must not under any circumstances replace domestic measures for reducing emissions.
<P>
Secondly, the overall objective of all the efforts of Kyoto and Buenos Aires is to obtain, in time, the progressive convergence of emission rights on a per capita basis among all the countries of the world.
It is right for this to be included, because the United States and Europe have a per capita share of emissions which is much higher than the per capita emissions of many of the countries of the world.
<P>
Thirdly - and this is important for Buenos Aires - it is essential to clarify the emissions trading, joint implementation and clean development mechanisms.
<P>
What is open for negotiation?
This is not clear at the moment.
Who will do the negotiating?
By what amount should each emission right be reduced over the years?
Who controls the emission rights and the way in which companies comply with the obligations of the trading mechanism?
None of this is clear to me at the moment and, so far, I have not seen any European Union positions which enlighten me as to the stance which will be taken in Buenos Aires.
It must also be made clear that the emissions trading mechanisms cannot just be full of hot air.
<P>
Commissioner, we are behind you. We support your attempts to ensure that a policy reversing climate change is adopted by the Members of the Commission.
So far this has not occurred.
The ecotaxes are at a standstill in the Council, but the Commission could already have done more.
The policy in favour of renewable energy and energy efficiency continues to exist only in statements and communications and has not yet been transformed into a mechanism, into an operational policy of the European Union.
We are behind you, Commissioner, but we are watching carefully.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Mr President, Kyoto was a great success, partly due to the powerful input of Commissioner Bjerregaard.
But now it is all to do again in Buenos Aires.
These flexible mechanisms have to be worked out.
We have to look at 'joint implementation', at the 'clean development mechanism', at 'emissions trading' and all these flexible mechanisms, and if they can be sorted out satisfactorily this will hopefully persuade the United States to come into line on Kyoto and actually do something about the CO2 problem.
<P>
We have looked here at all manner of important questions - sinks, trading, hot air - all of which need to be resolved in Buenos Aires.
But above all, and here I agree with Mr Pimenta, something has to be done about caps.
We must ensure that countries do not use emissions trading as a way of getting round the domestic measures which they ought to take.
So this emissions trading must be subject to a ceiling.
I should like to ask the Commissioner if she will clarify her intentions in this regard.
<P>
Lastly, I note that the transport sector accounts for some 25 % of greenhouse gases and that this percentage is set to rise further.
By the year 2010 it will be 40 %.
Looking at the voluntary agreement with the automobile industry, it just is not good enough.
I should like to hear what the Commissioner has to say about the voluntary agreement she has secured here with the automobile industry concerning CO2 .
<P>
In conclusion, I would urge the Commissioner to make Buenos Aires as big a success as Kyoto was.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I do not expect you to contribute to the increase in hot air, Commissioner, but to give us clear information.
Like a number of other colleagues, I would have liked to know what the guidelines actually say.
On the one hand, you spoke about 'milestones' and 'taking action at home', but on the other, you repeatedly emphasised the flexibility mechanisms.
How extensive should domestic measures be, compared with flexibility mechanisms?
In Kyoto you talked about a ratio of 50/50, and the Greens have tabled an amendment to that effect which will be put to the vote on Thursday.
I would be grateful if you could tell us clearly what the ratio is and what your position is on the amendment tabled by the Greens.
<P>
I actually believe that the Environment Committee's motion for a resolution does not go far enough.
To us it is tantamount to an act of political bankruptcy as far as climate protection is concerned, because it means that we are bowing to the interests of industry and the United States.
Reference is in fact made here to a quantitative ceiling on flexibility, but unfortunately, Mr Pimenta, the motion never once mentions the tax on energy and CO2 emissions.
We made a proposal for specific measures and for a demonstration model.
Unfortunately, it was not supported by a majority of the committee.
<P>
On the subject of emissions trading, the motion reads as though it had been dictated by the USA.
It states that unlimited emissions trading should be possible.
That is a complete reversal of policy on climate protection in this House.
This is shameful, because to fail to set limits on emissions trading is to undermine the Kyoto Protocol.
We all know that it is cheaper for industrialised countries to buy hot air, than to implement even the simplest energy-saving measures at home.
We are opposing this about-turn on climate protection policy, because we know that giving up a consistent climate policy with its associated measures also means losing our leading role.
Without action on climate both at national and European level, emissions will have increased by at least 8 % by the year 2010, rather than, as promised at Kyoto, being reduced by 8 %.
<P>
I too should like to endorse what Mr Eisma said, and ask the Commissioner to say a few words about the voluntary commitment made by the motor vehicle industry.
I find the current proposal absurd.
I do not believe that we can talk of success, when we are giving the industry 22 years to reduce petrol consumption by just one single litre.
That is, I believe, a failure for climate policy.
It really is high time to take action!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Weber">
Mr President, let me remind you that we went to Kyoto with the goal of reducing DEU emissions by 15 %.
Let me also remind you that the IPCC says that we need a 60 % reduction of emissions by the year 2100.
Let me also remind you that we all agreed that in the long term the emission rights all over this planet should be measured on a per capita basis.
<P>
Article 3(3) suggests that afforestation and reafforestation measures could be taken into account in order not to reduce our quota of emissions.
On the other hand we have the clear development mechanism which allows non-Annex I countries to become partners and allows us to finance projects which are targeted to reduce emissions in non-Annex I countries - developing countries, etc.
<P>
There is a big risk: the threat to biodiversity.
Plantations in non-Annex I countries could be financed by industrialised countries. We have seen what that has led to in Indonesia.
<P>
I should like to refer to the excellent paper of the Austrian presidency concerning forestry - the paper which was submitted to the subsidiary body for scientific and technical advice.
The Austrian presidency says that we have always to consider the biodiversity issue.
It also says that forest management should not be taken into account to meet commitments for Article 3(3).
This is a guarantee that no country can continue to convert forests into fast-growing plantations.
We should stick to that line and congratulate the Austrians for making this proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Gollnisch">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, 15 000 US scientists recently signed a petition categorically refuting the concept of the greenhouse effect as purveyed by the media.
<P>
They claim, with the evidence to back them up, that the increase in carbon dioxide during the 20th century has had no negative impact on global meteorology, on climate and temperature, and that the predictions of catastrophe are not borne out by experience.
On the contrary, there has been a distinct acceleration in the growth rate of plants and thus in agricultural production.
<P>
However, nobody has been able to escape the global propaganda on the greenhouse effect.
The official thesis is that carbon dioxide emissions are warming the planet.
A series of misfortunes will befall us if we do not quickly close the Pandora's box of industry.
The polar icecaps and glaciers will melt, sea levels rise, low-lying ground and many islands will be submerged, tornadoes will increase in number and in violence, tropical storms will penetrate to our own regions, rainfall patterns will be disturbed, droughts will increase and render entire countries barren, etc., etc.
<P>
It remains to be seen, Mr President, what are in fact, behind this catastrophic vision, the true interests of the internationalist lobby which has created this global threat.
I am not speaking about the greenhouse effect, but the global socialisation of the economy, by means of ecological standards which will apply to some countries and not to others.
The developing countries which will soon be producing 50 % of greenhouse gases have been exempted, which one can understand, from any need to reduce their emissions.
<P>
Is this not, and I ask the question seriously, a new type of threat?
The US scientists have organised a response, under the authority of Frederick Seitz, a former President of the US Academy of Sciences.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Linkohr">
Mr President, even if your criticisms were correct, Mr Gollnisch, it would still make sense to save energy.
By so doing, we save our resources and reduce our dependence on imports.
At the end of the day, whether the climatologists are right or not is a scientific issue, and not something that can be decided in a parliament.
Here, it is more a question of taking precautionary measures.
For the first time, we politicians are faced with a very plausible-sounding hypothesis, to which we have to react, and if we do not react, then we might make the biggest mistake ever made by humanity.
That is why I think it is good that there is, after all, a relatively broad consensus in Europe in favour of reducing greenhouse gases.
<P>
Now I should like to address a few remarks to the Commission.
It was a good speech, Commissioner, congratulations, and I also believe that you meant what you said.
However, in the end, it is not the success of our speeches that will be measured, but that of our policy instruments.
We will measure to see whether we really have emitted fewer greenhouse gases or not.
And that is where I have my doubts.
Because what we are trying to do in Europe is to stabilise in an unstable situation. Take the transport sector, for example: cars are improving, but there are more cars, and in a few years' time, CO2 emissions from cars will presumably be much higher than they are today, even though each car is consuming a little less.
Households have not seen any change at all.
Household appliances are certainly improving, that is true, but households are increasing, both in size and number, because families are becoming smaller.
You can check up on all of this.
The Commission has carried out its own investigations and has described all this itself.
I am only referring to your own data.
<P>
This means that we have to go much further than the commitments made in our papers at present.
We have to translate them into practical policy.
That quickly brings us to the question - not of recognising the issues, we are all agreed on those - but of funding.
How do we finance technology, which is of course often available, in such a way that it will be used to reduce greenhouse gas emissions?
In my experience, at least, this raises just one question: how to fund long- or medium-term programmes.
We are in a position to finance the Channel Tunnel, in such a way that those putting in the money only see a return on it in umpteen years' time.
Why are we not able to prefinance improvements to our buildings in Europe, thus saving huge amounts of energy?
It would be worth it!
Even with low energy prices, we are obviously not in a position to do this.
<P>
We have often made lofty declarations on renewable sources of energy too, but I still do not know how that is supposed to work.
You have my support on this, but how can it be done, given the low energy prices we have at present and the rightly criticised lack of an energy tax?
Ecological tax reform is a sine qua non for changing the course of energy policy.
<P>
Finally, a piece of advice for Buenos Aires.
In Kyoto, the fact that the American representatives presented a united front proved to work very much to their advantage.
Would it not be possible for the Europeans to form a single team, comprising national and European members of Parliament and the Commission, and to present a united front in Buenos Aires?
After all, our views are, to a large extent, the same.
But we could play a much greater role there if we were more organised.
That is a plea to Parliament, but also to the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
Mr President, unless the Kyoto Protocol is ratified and comes into force within the next few years, we shall in all probability never see the reduction targets achieved in practice.
The reason for that is that a race against time has been built into the Protocol.
For every year that passes with emissions of greenhouse gases still rising, the need for action becomes greater and the time to take that action shorter.
In the USA, for example, the postponement of ratification by three years will mean that the annual reduction effort almost doubles.
It is thus very worrying to hear reports that the Clinton Administration is considering deferment of ratification until after the next presidential elections.
Such a decision will only serve the interests of those who want to see the Kyoto Protocol overturned.
It will not be many years before proposals for a renegotiation of the commitments can be expected to find favour.
<P>
This Parliament should not just give its formal support to the work on climate, but should also make an especially concrete contribution to seeing that the results attained are converted into progress in the real world.
I have therefore tabled an amendment with the actual wording of the Kyoto Protocol to the joint resolution, and I hope that Parliament will vote for my amendment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Virgin">
Mr President, Commissioner, the EU undeniably played a decisive role at Kyoto.
Without Europe's constructive input, the conference might well have been a failure.
We have nurtured a delicate plant; let us now ensure that we tend it in Buenos Aires in December.
<P>
In its communication 'Climate Change - Towards an EU Post-Kyoto Strategy', the Commission outlines what will be required to meet the Union's ambitious target of an 8 % reduction in CO2 emissions by 2008-2012.
This will not be feasible in my view without some kind of economic leverage, for example in the shape of a carbon tax.
Sweden already taxes CO2 quite heavily, but the Kyoto package accorded us a 4 % increase in emissions.
The need for this demonstrates the downside of having opted to decommission two nuclear power plants - a decision I personally deplore.
<P>
Maximum efforts should be made to meet the Kyoto targets, but we still need to keep a sense of proportion.
By way of illustration, the Swedish reactors earmarked for closure produce more or less the same quantity of electricity as all the world's wind power facilities put together.
<P>
People are rightly calling for motorists to moderate their fuel consumption, but consider the following scenario.
If Sweden switches to electricity from Danish coal-fired plants as an alternative to nuclear energy from the decommissioned reactors in the south, the CO2 emitted will match the output of half of all the cars on the country's roads. Not to mention the fact that, according to WHO, sulphur emissions in Europe alone are responsible for around ten thousand premature deaths per year.
<P>
Recently the idea of carbon sinks has been put forward. Combustion gases would be fed into underground rock formations capable of binding the CO2 permanently.
Has the Commission any plans to investigate and cost this technology in the run-up to Buenos Aires?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I have three observations to make in the debate.
First of all, it is important to make the point that responsibility for achieving the objectives set in Kyoto rests primarily with the Member States.
They must say how and by what measures they propose to achieve them.
The Union for its part must establish the framework within which measures can be implemented and its role is primarily to coordinate and support.
<P>
Secondly, the flexible mechanisms, including the emissions trading introduced into the Protocol by the United States, must be regarded as an additional means of fulfilling the pledges on greenhouse gas reduction.
Indeed, one of the main objectives at November's Buenos Aires meeting will be to agree on the balance between measures which the countries must take themselves and the proportion of their emissions they can trade, for example whether the ratio should be three to four or one to four.
<P>
Flexible mechanisms can play a significant part in helping Europe keep her promises on lower costs in order to ensure the competitiveness of European industry.
From this point of view, we have to favour the use of these mechanisms, subject to certain restrictions and following the step-by-step approach proposed by the Commission.
<P>
Thirdly, climate change has to be anchored more firmly in sectoral policy.
Policy on the prevention of climate change necessitates a redefining of a whole range of European policies on energy management, and possibly of sectoral objectives too.
<P>
Lastly, as you have already indicated, Commissioner, we must press the United States to ratify the Protocol as swiftly as possible.
According to some sources the US Congress is now reluctant to ratify the Protocol because it is unwilling to cut emissions in the USA. We must urge it to ratify as quickly as possible, without making any concessions which would turn this Protocol into an instrument which allowed the emission of greenhouses gases to continue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Taubira-Delannon">
Mr President, Commissioner, this debate gives us the opportunity to recall that summits often serve to enunciate major principles and to conclude major agreements, while the most arduous work remains to be done.
Often, moreover, the timetable proves extremely frustrating.
We know that New York 1997 did not fulfil the promise of Rio 1992. This is not only because we are dealing with often wavering political commitment, but also because of objective difficulties, related in particular to different - if not opposing - perceptions on the part of the industrialised nations of the North and the industrialising nations of the South, and also because within the same major blocs there can be significantly different levels of productivity and thus of competition between individual countries.
<P>
These difficulties fuel the tendency towards pragmatism, and when you consider what can become of international negotiations on authorised CO2 emissions, there is reason to wonder if we are indeed dealing with major principles and ambitions or whether we are not moving towards progress in pragmatism and effectiveness.
Personally, I am not so sure that it is essential to decide one way or the other.
<P>
The important thing is for the debate to move forward and become richer.
We now know that standards must be imposed, but also that this is not enough.
National laws and regulations must also be passed and their application monitored. But that still is not enough.
They must be enacted at European level and their application monitored. Yet still there is a long way to go.
There is an increasing need for a pro-active and inventive European diplomacy which makes it possible both to standardise and to encourage, with the means both to penalise and to motivate.
<P>
The important thing is to understand that all economic activity has an impact on the environment and that the sooner we include the environment in international economic policy, the more we will be able to reduce its cost and preserve its capacity to create jobs.
<P>
In other words, we must on the one hand continue to enunciate our major principles, because we have no reason to give up making demands at such a level. Yet on the other hand, we must also become aware of what is at stake in terms of quality of life, our living environment, food, water and air quality, as well as in terms of public health and, quite simply, the psychological comfort of being able to live in restabilised climates.
We must also take into account the constraints, realising that production costs can include social dumping and also environmental dumping, but above all take into account the pressure which the consumerism of the North places on this level of the production cost.
It is a question of highlighting the benefits by demonstrating how the environment can bring new jobs.
<P>
The environment must therefore be included as an organic component of sustainable development, which means including it in the WTO negotiations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kronberger">
Mr President. I should like to make three points on Kyoto and Buenos Aires, obviously without in any way claiming to be exhaustive.
The reduction targets are already a step backwards compared with the earlier targets set in Toronto, those set by the climate alliance and the Rio targets.
So we only have a basic level of agreement.
Secondly, we should be aware that the amount of CO2 we are emitting each day is the same as that previously emitted over 3000 years put together.
I do not need 1000 American scientists to tell me that this cannot be sensible, or that it cannot be a good thing.
I do not need experts to tell me; common sense is quite enough.
<P>
If we now recognise this, then we should also recognise that the greenhouse problem is not just any old problem, but probably one of the greatest that mankind has ever had to face.
Traditional energy policy is on a crash course.
I think most of its pilots did their training on the Titanic.
The icebergs are clearly visible, and they are all saying: ' Full steam ahead'.
<P>
As regards the costs, when we debate energy policy and climate problems, we talk almost exclusively about funding.
I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, what chance a society has, which is prepared to invest in all kinds of things, but obviously is not prepared to invest in its own future and thus in the survival of its own species.
From an ethical point of view, I believe that it is only natural that this investment should begin with us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Pollack">
Mr President, Buenos Aires is about working out the rules and implementing what was agreed at Kyoto.
The biggest political problem we still face is the lack of political will by the United States of America, as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, to ratify.
If the US does not ratify the whole thing will fall apart.
<P>
So once again it seems to me that the burden falls on the European Union to work on this political problem and to take a lead in the negotiations.
We need to remember that none of the joint implementation mechanisms can begin to work until the majority of the parties have ratified the Kyoto Protocol.
There are still enormous amounts of detail to be worked out on joint implementation and the clean development mechanisms.
We have whole rafts of questions still to be resolved such as: will there be bi-liability in emissions trading; how will the clean technology transfer mechanism actually work; what price would the south be paid for its emissions units; how will carbon sinks be measured; and how can we avoid trading super-heated air?
One could go on for half an hour with these unresolved questions.
<P>
There are fears that emissions trading could be used by the West to avoid real cuts domestically.
That will simply not solve the problem of climate destabilisation.
If we simply go round the world trading what we already have, we will get nowhere.
I would ask any Bangaladeshi whether they are interested in the climate change problem just at the moment with two-thirds of their country under water.
<P>
It is very important that, despite the risk of annoying the US negotiators, we demand some sort of quantitative ceiling on the use of the flexibility mechanisms to ensure the majority of reductions are made domestically.
<P>
The current US thinking on trading prices is far too low and assumes that the United States will only seek to reduce its home emissions by about 3 % from the trend line.
If that is the case we have to ask if there is the political will to sustain a free market in permits.
Emissions trading must be built on the principle of equal per capita entitlements; this is very important to bear in mind as we go to Kyoto.
<P>
To come back briefly to what Rolf Linkohr said, it seems to me that the European Union does not present itself as a team.
I do not simply mean the gap between Parliament and Commission, which meant that MEPs last time felt they were trailing around the edges and not being treated in any kind of inclusive way.
The Commission also has a responsibility to bind in the Member States so that we speak with a much more coherent voice.
<P>
In conclusion, emissions trading should be arranged in such a way as to encourage developing countries, as well as our own, to move away from fossil fuels.
We have to go with the principle of contraction and convergence over a longer period than set down in Kyoto.
Clearly, Buenos Aires will not be the end of the story.
Climate change must remain high on our agenda in the European Union and we need to return to it on a daily basis, since we are certainly not about to implement our own promises with the mechanisms we have here on our home ground at the moment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldi">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, after ten long days of negotiations, a protocol was agreed in Kyoto to reduce the gas emissions responsible for global warming. The Protocol was signed by 38 countries out of the 160 represented at the world summit.
For nearly all the countries, it means cutting the trend in emissions by between 20 % and 40 %.
This is a very modest step, but a positive one considering the background, and it is a first practical commitment which will have considerable repercussions at many levels.
But there are still some problems to be resolved in order to make the agreement operative: implementation of targets, definition of negotiable emission licences, application of the participation agreement between industrialised countries and developing countries, and not least, as other colleagues have said, ratification by the signatory countries.
<P>
There are various causes of emissions into the atmosphere: not just road traffic and industry, but also enteric fermentation of animals, various types of agricultural crops, the use of solvents and the destruction of the forests.
According to the forecasts, if the world continues on the current path, average global temperature and sea level will rise more rapidly than it ever has in the whole history of human civilisation.
The areas particularly at risk are those where sea level is critical: countless Pacific islands and all the small island states of the Caribbean and Africa, as we have shown in the basic report of the working group which I chair in the ACP-EU Joint Assembly, which will meet next week in Brussels. All the most vulnerable states facing the greatest difficulties are involved and contributing.
<P>
It is vital to have a serious action programme, with the essential contribution of farmers and industry, and to publish a green paper on economic and fiscal instruments - including fiscal incentives - capable of reversing the trend of this climate change which is causing serious damage to the terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem, seasonal disturbance, erosion of coastlines and hence major problems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lange">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, any discussion of Kyoto and Buenos Aires should of course also take account of the measures we are adopting.
There is one sector in the European Union in which CO2 emissions are increasing out of all proportion, and that is the transport sector.
Since 1990, they have increased by 11 %.
In the first quarter of 1998 in the European Union, transport alone was responsible for pumping 179 million tonnes of CO2 into the air, which means that each of us - whether a Commissioner, MEP, baby or pensioner - consumes around 150 kilograms of petrol every three months.
We have to make a start here; we have to do something!
<P>
We have a commitment from the European motor vehicle industry, which wants to tackle the problem.
I was even somewhat surprised by the scale of the industry's undertaking.
To that extent, my assessment is rather different from that of Mrs Breyer.
The motor vehicle industry is offering to cut average consumption by 25 %, purely by taking technical measures.
If, in addition, we take political measures - whether it be tax incentives or car labelling - the impact could be even greater.
The approach itself is very sensible, but as so often, the devil is in the detail.
A look at the agreement and how it is to be implemented prompts a number of questions.
<P>
It states that a revision will only be possible from 2003 and that, at that time, checks will be made to see whether these technical measures are proving effective.
Unfortunately, the procedure to be applied here is not clear.
In the agreement, it states that the details will be settled in an exchange of letters between the industry and the Commission.
In spite of the high degree of confidence that we have in the Commission, we cannot regard simply having a future exchange of letters as satisfactory.
<P>
Secondly, the motor vehicle industry makes several assumptions, about fuels and about various other things, which have to hold true.
The Commission says, ' the assumptions will definitely hold true', but what happens if they do not?
That is left completely unresolved.
We need clear rules to cover this eventuality.
Nor is it clear what happens if individual firms, or the motor vehicle industry as a whole, fail to comply with the agreement.
That raises the question of sanctions, namely how we can punish somebody for implementing technical measures which prove to be insufficient.
We need to improve the situation and establish rules.
<P>
A third point: how do we actually deal with non-European manufacturers, who after all also sell their cars here?
There would certainly be a distortion of competition if the German, French or Italian manufacturers were to make reductions and others not.
They should, therefore, also be covered by the agreement.
Only when these three outstanding issues are clarified, will Parliament be able to endorse this agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="McNally">
Mr President, as we have already heard, there are many actors involved in what we have to do in order to meet our responsibilities.
I am quite convinced that some of these actors think we do not mean what we say.
Therefore, we have to make it quite clear that if there have to be changes in behaviour and technology they must be made or else there will be penalties.
<P>
We know that at least one third of emissions come from the transport sector.
I agree with what my colleague, Bernd Lange, has said.
It is not simply a question of car manufacturers and the technology they employ; the governments have been particularly timid in bringing forward incentives, shall we say, for people to use vehicles other than their cars so they are not persuading people to do so.
<P>
As far as energy is concerned, we have not seen any improvement in the sort of measures which should be taken: the rational use of energy, for example, and the concentration on cleaner energy sources.
<P>
I should like to know what has happened to the thinking behind the rational planning in the gas and electricity distribution sectors draft directive.
The Commission states in its communication on energy efficiency that it feels this directive is still needed.
This shows that there has to be coordination.
Even in this Parliament, if we are honest, we do not coordinate our efforts: the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy and the Committee on Transport and Tourism are not making a cohesive policy move which would help us to meet the obligations we entered into at Kyoto.
If we cannot even do it in our own Parliament, we should not preach to others.
<P>
I would ask the Commissioner to make sure that, in her work as the lead Commissioner on this subject, she forms a team with Commissioner Papoutsis, Commissioner Kinnock and Commissioner Fischler, the Commissioners most closely concerned.
I am asking for cohesive action and for it to be made much clearer to the citizens how exactly these targets will be met - even if it is the hard way.
We could adopt the easy way.
We have been criticised on some parts of our resolution which make it look as though we favour the easy way, in other words bribing other people to take the measures.
We must take some of them ourselves.
<P>
We do not have a great deal of time.
We have seen appalling weather incidents this summer which have cost lives and caused devastation right across the world.
There is a link between that instability and our failure to take the necessary measures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, thank you for the debate, which shows clearly that there is strong commitment on these problems in Parliament too.
Let me comment on some of the crucial questions which have been raised.
Firstly I have to say to those - Mrs Graenitz and others - who said how much they looked forward to the adoption of an action plan, so that it would be possible to see progress in connection with the Buenos Aires meeting: we are doing what we can in our preparations, and it is quite definitely also my view that it should end with an action plan staking out clear guidelines for the problems that remain.
<P>
In that connection, I do not entirely understand Mrs Pollack's remarks on the Member States and the Commission.
One of the main reasons why the European Union was successful in achieving a result in Kyoto was that there was very close cooperation between the Member States and the Commission.
This close cooperation continues.
In my introductory presentation, I pointed out that we succeeded in securing a result on the sharing of burdens arising from the new targets set in Kyoto at the Council meeting in June, and I referred to the communication the Commission has presented which will be discussed at the Council meeting in October.
I also stressed the support from the applicant countries in Eastern and Central Europe, which I consider crucial and which may also help strengthen our position in the impending negotiations, for I share the view expressed by many that we should of course do what we can to bring the Americans on side.
This is important to achieving any result at all in this area.
<P>
It must not mean, however, that we are departing from the principle - and this is an important point that Mr Pimenta also mentioned in his contribution - that these flexible mechanisms must be supplementary.
That is emphasised very clearly in the Kyoto text, and it has been the basis of our approach in all the preparatory work.
It also means that we think it necessary to have supervision.
It is necessary to have rules governing such action, and that was why I used the phrase 'no trading without tracking'.
<P>
Many speakers made the point that transport is one of the greatest problems and that transport accounts for a substantial proportion of total CO2 emissions.
I think Mr Eisma was the first to raise this issue, but Mr Linkohr, Mr Lange and several others followed with points to make on transport.
That was one of the reasons why we presented the communication on CO2 emissions from cars, which was based on three lines of action.
One was an attempt to get a voluntary agreement with the car industry.
We have such an agreement with the car industry, which means a reduction of 15 %.
Not 35 %, but still a significant contribution.
In addition, the communication proposed that there should be a monitoring mechanism, on which we have also presented a proposal, and that there should be a directive which would directly require fuel consumption labelling in vehicles.
Such a directive has been adopted in the Commission and will soon be before Parliament for consideration.
So we share Parliament's view that transport is one of the areas which we must take very seriously and in which there is much to be gained, but also one of course in which there are great difficulties.
<P>
Several speakers - not least Mr Linkohr - raised the question of financing.
We have proposals on the table covering this aspect too.
I earnestly appeal to Parliament to help get some measures adopted in the Council.
We all know the sad story of the CO2 tax and of the many other proposals that have been presented along the way. I have to say that I think the Commission has shown great creativity in this area, constantly putting new proposals on the table.
What we have not had are a few more decisions in this field.
<P>
I can say to Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens that, as regards the Member States' responsibility for implementation in this area, we are in complete agreement.
For the same reason, I wrote to the Member States at the end of July to request information on the measures they were planning to put in hand, because that would help us in drawing up the follow-up to our communication on climate change.
I said in my introductory presentation that we were planning a follow-up at the start of 1999, and for that we clearly need knowledge on what is happening in the Member States.
I share the view expressed by Mrs Taubira-Delannon that sanctions are also needed in this area.
<P>
Finally, let me say that I also share the view expressed by Mrs McNally that it is necessary to involve other Commissioners in the consideration of ways to deal with the climate issue.
That was indeed one of the reasons why the climate problem formed part of the integration strategy which was agreed in Cardiff and which now goes ahead in the preparations for the Vienna meeting.
In point of fact it was decided that Commissioners Kinnock, Papoutsis and Fischler would all be involved in the process.
I can say that the work in the Commission is well underway in this area. I think we have excellent cooperation, and all agree that the environmental policy cannot solve these problems alone.
Cooperation with other Commissioners is needed.
<P>
Let me close by expressing my satisfaction with the debate here today.
I do not think we have an easy task ahead of us.
I think we are endeavouring to prepare ourselves as best we can, and I very much hope that we can continue to provide the same leadership in Buenos Aires as we did in Kyoto, particularly in view of the fact that I find it difficult to see who else would take on this task.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, I asked a question earlier, which I consider to be very important.
Commissioner, I do not think you need to tell us what we already know. We are familiar with your communication.
I have even read it.
The only problem is that it does not tell us anything.
The question - posed not only by myself, but also by Mr Pimenta and Mr Eisma, amongst others - was very specific: what proposal will you be making to the Environment Council?
What are the views around the table in the Environment Council about the ratio of flexible mechanisms to domestic measures?
In Kyoto you proposed a ratio of 50/50.
I would be interested to know whether this figure still stands.
Do you think the amendments along these lines are appropriate?
What will the position of the Environment Council be on this?
Are we correctly informed that 12 Environment Ministers have already jumped ship on this issue and that only three are still on board?
Please give us straight answers to these questions.
<P>
The second question, asked by Mr Lange, Mr Eisma and others, was related to the voluntary agreements.
Labelling is all well and good, but what we were all concerned about here was the question of whether it might be appropriate, in this case, also to make legislative proposals, which would force the motor vehicle industry not merely to make a one-litre reduction over 22 years, but actually to show what it has achieved when the voluntary agreements expire.
These are fundamental questions, and I would ask you to give us some clear answers!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, I have already answered some of the questions Mrs Breyer has raised again regarding the proposals put forward.
Apart from the proposal on voluntary agreements, I mentioned quite specifically that there was a proposal on a monitoring mechanism for this area, and I mentioned that I had secured the adoption of a directive in the Commission concerned with labelling in vehicles, so that consumers would be in a position to know what the consequences would be of purchasing one car or another.
Among the preparations for both the Council meeting and the meeting in Tokyo, to which I am travelling tomorrow, there have been some discussions in the Council on how we are to use the term 'supplementary'.
There is no doubt as to the line we are pursuing in the EU, namely that flexible mechanisms cannot be used unless something is also done on home ground.
<P>
For the moment, the discussion is centred on whether it would be best to propose what could be called a quantitative ceiling or a quantitative target or whether it would be wiser to proceed in the direction of what has been described as a quality target or quality ceiling, whereby efforts would be concentrated on setting limits to the use of flexible mechanisms.
I naturally intend to take an active part in the current deliberations, which are also an extension to those that took place in Bonn, where the Commission presented a whole series of papers detailing the use of flexible mechanisms.
So it can be said that our line in this area is, on the one hand, to say that we uphold the principle that it is first and foremost a question of what one can do internally but, on the other hand, we do not intend to leave the flexible mechanisms to other countries but wish to take an active part in this debate ourselves, and we also intend to apply them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
I have received a motion for a resolution to wind up the debate.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Effects of plans and programmes on the environment
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0245/98) by Mr Gahrton, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Directive on the assessment of the effects of certain plans and programmes on the environment (COM(96)0511 - C4-0191/97-96/0304(SYN)).
<P>
I call Mr Lannoye, who is deputising for the rapporteur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Lannoye">
Mr President, Mr Gahrton is indeed unable to be present, and I am all the more pleased to stand in for him as I totally share his point of view on the subject, together with that of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
<P>
This proposal for a directive, commonly known as the 'strategic environmental impact study', was favourably received by our Committee on the Environment insofar as it quite simply meets a need in regard to the European Union's environment policy.
Since 1985, we have had a directive on the assessment of the impact of certain public and private projects, a directive which was just recently amended. This amendment is to be transposed into national legislation by March of next year.
<P>
This represents an improvement in the situation, especially by means of an important extension in Annex I. But there is also a deficiency to the extent that there is a limit on the assessment of the project's impact.
As a result of this, decisions which could have a considerable impact on the nature of projects and which should, in principle, take into account environmental constraints, are taken too late in the decision-making process.
This is, moreover, what the Commission says to justify its position, namely that the impact study is carried out at too late a stage in the process of planning and decision-making.
<P>
This proposal aims to ensure that the environmental impact is assessed and the results taken into account when preparing and adopting town and country plans and programmes.
It therefore usefully supplements the present legislation.
Does this mean that we find the proposal sufficient?
Certainly we believe - and when I say we, I mean the Committee on the Environment, the rapporteur and myself, deputising for the rapporteur - that it goes in the right direction. But we also find it too restrictive.
The Committee on the Environment has adopted 33 amendments which I hope the Commission will also accept. I would now like to explain to you their principal effect.
<P>
First of all, as regards the scope of the directive, as defined in Article 2, the Committee on the Environment is proposing that it should not be limited to town and country plans and programmes, but that it should extend to all plans and programmes with an impact on the land and marine environment.
Furthermore, we also adopted an amendment in the form of an addition which proposes a positive and non-restrictive list of plans and programmes for which a strategic impact study would be obligatory.
I believe that this usefully clarifies the situation.
<P>
I also believe that we have brought in a number of additional details and improvements.
First of all, the objective of sustainable development is more clearly explained. Secondly, the situation is clarified, since the strategic impact study must be carried out at the initial stage of the decision-making process.
We also specify that agriculture, forestry and fishing are covered by the directive.
Details are also given regarding the access and involvement of citizens.
The reasons justifying the possible absence of a strategic impact study must be made public.
Finally, the alternatives must be analysed, including the zero option.
So much for the essentials.
<P>
Four amendments have been tabled for the part-session, which is not a great many.
I should like to just briefly comment on them.
First of all, there is an amendment tabled by Mrs Jackson and Mr Florenz which proposes in the preamble to refer to Article 130, paragraph 2 rather than paragraph 1.
I find that this is unacceptable, since referring to paragraph 2 implies the unanimity of the Council.
I am therefore against this amendment.
A second amendment by Mrs Estevan Bolea is certainly justified in principle.
This involves imposing a limit on the time allowed to consult citizens, but I continue to believe that three months is much too short.
The very nature of the proposal therefore leads me to conclude that it is not acceptable to the Committee on the Environment.
That is my personal opinion, as the committee has not yet been able to reach a decision.
In any event, I am opposed to it.
Finally, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, I myself and Mr Papayannakis have tabled two amendments, which I believe are extremely reasonable, for policies related to the environment to be included in the strategic impact assessment procedure at the time of the directive's first revision.
These are amendments of intent, nothing more, but which I believe bring an improvement to the directive.
<P>
Thank you, Mr President.
I also thank all the political groups which will be supporting this report and I hope that the Commissioner will view these amendments positively.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, strategic environmental impact assessment is an instrument used by governments to judge whether policy intentions, plans and projects are consistent with the concept of sustainable development. It is an administrative policy instrument which can work well if government is convinced that it makes sense to use it.
So it must not be viewed as a bureaucratic nuisance. It helps to combine economic and environmental considerations effectively.
This avoids situations whereby certain plans and programmes are subsequently found to cause unnecessary environmental damage.Unfortunately, there is still some reluctance to allow sufficient breadth of scope to strategic environmental assessment.
The European Commission wants to restrict the directive to town and country plans and programmes.
Like the rapporteur, I am in favour of having a strategic environmental impact assessment conducted at an earlier stage, rather than waiting until the local or regional impact is assessed.
<P>
Should not policy intentions, as well as plans and programmes, be subjected to an SEA? Some policymakers in the Member States are extraordinarily inventive in avoiding the terms plan and programme.
All of a sudden, sectoral plans or structural plans are called sectoral visions or structural visions; a programme becomes an outline. Such practices must naturally be stopped.
This requires the European Commission to be vigilant, and the option of expanding the scope of the directive to include policy intentions as well as plans and programmes must be kept open for the future.
<P>

I would refer the House to Mr Lannoye's amendments, Nos 34 and 35.



<P>
An essential part of the SEA lies in studying alternatives such as the zero option, which describes what the consequences will be if nothing is done, and the most environmentally friendly option.
Fundamental to the SEA is the principle of compensation.
The primary objective is to prevent damage to the environment.
Where possible, measures must be taken to preclude such damage.
But if they prove inadequate, recompense must be made as fully as possible for any damage to the environment which remains.
This is our concrete endorsement of the principle that the polluter pays.
<P>
Lastly, Mr President, I trust that the excellent piece of work which Mr Gahrton has produced, and on which I compliment him, will not be left by the Council to gather dust.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Estevan Bolea">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for many years all our countries have been carrying out environmental impact studies, even before the 1985 directive was adopted.
The 1997 amendment has meant that the obligation to carry out environmental impact assessments has been extended to encompass many other projects.
<P>
However, perhaps we need to take another step forward, assessing not projects, but plans and programmes.
This is a very difficult issue.
I know, Commissioner, that it is particularly difficult for you because all our countries, without exception, are opposed to it.
Perhaps, then, ladies and gentlemen, we should ask ourselves why all our countries oppose this plan.
They oppose it because they are, in fact, afraid that the principle of subsidiarity might be violated, that the responsibilities of local and regional authorities, or those of autonomous regions, might be taken over by other institutions.
They are afraid, too, of the delays in the consultation procedures.
Mr Lannoye, you know perfectly well that in many countries, the consultation procedure and the completion of the final environmental impact report - known as the statement of environmental impact - take two years, 18 months, 16 months or 12 months.
I wonder whether we can allow building work, a project or an urban planning, energy, hydraulic or waste plan, or any other sort of plan for that matter, to be brought to a standstill for 12 months, 18 months or two years.
We therefore understand why our countries are so afraid of increased regulation in the environment sector.
<P>
I believe that a consultation procedure of three months is more than sufficient.
In any event, the Committee on the Environment has approved a series of proposals by the Committee on Research and I am very grateful for this.
One of these, in particular, is extremely important.
For years, construction has been taking place in areas close to rivers, areas that are prone to flooding.
This, Mr President, has led to real catastrophes.
<P>
The Committee on Research proposes that before authorizing construction work in urban development plans, an analysis should be carried out to determine whether or not the areas are prone to flooding. This would help prevent many deaths and many accidents; it would prevent serious economic losses, but, more particularly, would prevent many human losses.
<P>
Moreover, if the work is done properly, we need not fear that the drawing-up of these statements of environmental impact means that building work might have to be brought to a halt.
It seems to me that this timid step that the Commission is taking whereby governments - be they national, regional or local - take account of the environmental aspects of their problems is already very important.
<P>
The directive now before the House is a very superficial one, Commissioner.
Nonetheless, you are having difficulties with the governments.
We are not going to support the majority of the amendments tabled by Mr Gahrton, because they add confusion to a directive that is already confused itself.
However, we do believe that it is very important to move forward in this area; we are therefore going to abstain.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="White">
Mr President, the PSE Group will oppose Amendment No 35 tabled by my friends, Mr Lannoye and Mr Papayannakis.
Emotionally, I am very much in favour of it but in real terms and as I perceive environmental impact, we have to take this line because it sets the picture too widely.
<P>
It might help if I explained to those tabling Amendment No 35 the detailed reason why I have difficulty with it.
Mr Gahrton, in his otherwise excellent report, refers to the definition of an SEA as an environmental assessment of a strategic action - a policy plan or programme; a formalised, systematic and comprehensive process of evaluating the environmental effects of that policy programme or its alternatives.
That I understand.
The difficulty is the question over policy.
I have always seen environmental impact as something which would be used as a precise tool by which those wishing to support a development could say it was a good thing and those wishing to oppose it could say it was a bad thing and pray in aid the environmental impact assessment which was part of the inquiry into that proposal.
We know, because Mr Gahrton rightly says so in his explanatory statement, that conventional project-orientated environmental impact assessments have not been entirely successful.
He mentions in that same statement the difficulties of assessing the sum of many small activities and the indirect effects of the impact of traffic routes on transport behaviour, etc.
<P>
So we all acknowledge - certainly in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and the PSE Group - that environmental impact assessments, as such, need attention.
The question is whether the proposal on policy would not be too wide.
I contend that it is.
The proper place for the discussion of policy is not so much in a planning inquiry about a shopping development or an airport development or any of the other items listed in the Environmental Impact Assessment Report prepared by Mr Lannoye.
The proper place for the discussion of policy, in my submission, is in a forum like the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, in Parliament or a Commission meeting room.
That is where policies are formulated on the basis that people have been elected to discuss them.
Therefore what they need when they go to a planning inquiry, in my view, is to have recourse to a strategic environmental impact assessment as a planning tool.
<P>
Therefore, in my contention, Amendment No 35 is something that should be rejected.
We should discuss policies in the proper forum.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Jackson">
Mr President, the European People's Party is in favour of the environmental impact assessment directive process which was established under the directive of 1985.
<P>
We have problems with the directive we are now discussing.
I am not quite sure what Mr White's conclusions were.
I imagine, from what he said, that the Socialists will be voting against this directive.
Maybe they have changed their minds since the debate in committee.
<P>
But the starting point of the directive, as given in the explanatory statement, is as follows: the Commission says it is clear that evaluation of the environmental impact of certain projects is taking place too late in the development, planning and decisionmaking process.
In effect, this has the result of removing from consideration the possible adoption of alternatives, both to the individual project under consideration as well as to its particular location or route.
Its conclusion is that the present proposal is intended to address this inherent limitation by supplementing the 1985 directive with this directive requiring the assessment of town and country planning, plans and programmes.
<P>
Why then has the Commission based the directive on the wrong part of the Treaty?
To quote the Treaty (Article 130s, paragraph 2), by way of derogation from the decision-making procedure provided for in paragraph 1 (qualified majority voting), the Council acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission shall adopt amongst other things 'measures concerning town and country planning'.
That is the point of the amendment that Mr Florenz and I have put forward.
This must surely come under the unanimity rule.
<P>
What about subsidiarity?
We are very unhappy with this directive because we recognise that the Member States all have their own methods of town and country planning.
In some cases, the consideration of the environmental impact is already very complex.
<P>
In others it may be lacking, but the answer is surely to make the 1985 directive universally applicable.
<P>
Mr Gahrton takes us a long way.
He says, among other things, that strategic environmental impact assessment should apply to agricultural and livestock development programmes.
That will be music to the ears of many farmers in the European Union.
<P>
We find the text is confused and badly drafted and consequently it looks as if a European Union directive may suddenly apply from on high to quite minor plans and programmes.
The European People's Party have proposed a fundamental amendment which must mean that this is now going to be referred to the Legal Affairs Committee.
<P>
In conclusion, I would like to extend my congratulations to the absent Mr Gahrton.
Mr Gahrton is renowned for his opposition to the European Union.
I imagine that he is now back in Sweden receiving some sort of European movement medal for proposing the acceptance of this very intrusive directive.
Perhaps he does not dare show his face here but he has certainly given the impression - through Mr Lannoye - that he is in favour of a directive which we find defies subsidiarity and will not do what it is intended to do.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Dybkjær">
Mr President, I can safely say that, on the whole, I entirely disagree with what Mrs Jackson has just said.
I think it is a directive which moves in the right direction, and it also moves in the right direction at a more primary level.
I personally cannot understand Mrs Jackson when she says that we must use the article on unanimity where this directive is concerned.
This directive relates to matters which have to be tackled in the individual countries; it does not concern itself with any particular action to be taken at Community level.
The plans covered by the article in question must affect the Community in a different way to that referred to here.
So I think this is a good step.
I think it entirely natural that we have this directive as a follow-up to the 1985 directive, which after all has clear limitations in relation to everyday life, where planning for various installations is concerned.
It is important that we include environmental considerations at an early stage, and that is just not happening at present.
<P>
I also think that the proposals of the Environment Committee are right, and I can support them, and I think that different politicians should be involved in the deliberations, which goes somewhat further than what the Commission is saying.
I always think that, when we discuss the environmental policy, we demand incredibly little - this applies on occasion to the PPE Group - in respect of investigations to be undertaken as regards the effects of plans on the environment, compared with what we demand when the effect of plans on the economy is at issue.
Mr Florenz, I did not say that it was always the case, but it certainly is occasionally.
In this instance, I have to say that I disagree with what Mrs Jackson said.
I think that equally stringent requirements should be imposed in respect of both investigations into environmental effects and the investigation of economic consequences.
They are in fact two sides of the same question, if we really want to establish sustainable development.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Mr President, assessments of the environmental impact of various specific projects have one way or another not been very satisfactory, as Mr Gahrton points out, and I think rightly so. We agree with most of his proposals.
<P>
Let me add that in Greece, for example, such assessments are often made after a project has begun and not before.
In other cases they are drawn up by the contractors themselves, and quite often the recommendations in the studies which relate to making good the damage to the environment are never implemented.
<P>
At any rate, until now no attention has been given to the overall and wider impact of integrated projects, groups of projects or interventions involving several individual projects.
In such cases, Mr President, we have a multiplied environmental impact, something more than the simple sum of the effects of each respective project.
That alone demands a different approach. In place of our approach so far, which I would call 'tactical', we should adopt a 'strategic' approach.
<P>
Let me give an example, which concerns the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004.
The Games will require separate sports facilities and many other related projects, each of which poses its own threat, for example to the Schinia wetland, to the suburban green belt around Athens, and to much of the coastline near the city.
However, no overall assessment has been made of all the consequences of the planning and environmental aspects on the urban complex as a whole.
The result is that, after facing facts for the first time, changes of the siting of many facilities are already being considered. Amendments and revisions of the initial programme are being debated, which will cost a great deal, while the real effect on the environment remains unexplored and public information is non-existent.
The responsibility borne by the Greek Government, the local government authority and above all the Municipality of Athens is substantial.
However, Commissioner, the Commission has not so far played its part satisfactorily.
It has offered us no guarantees that Community standards under environmental legislation are truly being complied with for the Olympic Games.
<P>
Following the new directive, might it be possible for the Commission, even retrospectively, to carry out a strategic assessment of the Olympiad's environmental impact, now while work on the projects has not yet commenced?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for the Green Group, strategic assessment is a milestone on the road to greater sustainability.
The proposal for a directive aims at improving environmental protection. It is also an instrument which would allow us to take environmental matters into consideration, comprehensively and early on, before the project stage.
For us - and here I would have to completely contradict Mrs Estevan Bolea - it is very important for many criteria to be reflected here.
One of these is doubtless the involvement of the environmental authorities and the members of the public concerned.
Making progress on projects in public is impossible without involving the public.
I would have thought that, as a Spaniard, this concept would be familiar to you, Mrs Estevan Bolea, since the disaster with the landfills in La Coruña could have been prevented if we had listened to the public, the environmental associations and the scientists involved.
<P>
It is regrettable that the German Government in particular, which usually leads the way, has been so negative in this process and has failed to make any constructive suggestions. It has effectively been left on the sidelines at European level.
Another important point which Mr Lannoye has also touched upon is that unfortunately we have not succeeded in including policy sectors that receive subsidies, such as agriculture, coal and shipyards. Here, public money is spent without ever once examining the effects of the plans involved on the environment.
We hope that strategic environmental assessment is not pushed to one side, and we would like to appeal to those Member States like Germany...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kronberger">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Europe's environment policy is characterized by two weaknesses.
Firstly, an excess of lengthy, theoretical declarations of intent and an attendant lack of practical implementing provisions.
<P>
Secondly, environment policy in Europe is known for the priority it gives to patching up the effects of damage to the environment, rather than actively preventing it from occurring.
This is a policy which, by its very nature, must always lag behind events.
Environment policy can only be successful if it moves beyond this stage.
The rapporteur has done an excellent job of recognising this and, in the amendments, at least improves upon these defects.
<P>
If structures are actually created that lay down strategic environmental assessment in advance, then a quantum leap in the whole of environment policy would have been accomplished.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Florenz">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the discussion in this House on environmental impact assessment has been an astonishing display of self-congratulation.
It was just last year that we decided upon environmental impact assessment for industrial plants, and in this directive we have defined a large number of other areas where the law is going to apply in the future.
But when it came to a Europe-wide definition of environmental impact assessment, we all backed out. We called for subsidiarity.
The result is that the problems we have now are the biggest ever, and not only for us in Germany, Mrs Breyer, where we have been practising this system for five years now.
That just shows that you are not being realistic.
<P>
The rules are just being interpreted in completely different ways.
In Germany, an assessment is carried out and if you have not passed, then you have simply failed, and the building project is not implemented.
In all other countries this is handled more flexibly, sometimes better, sometimes worse.
I do not in any way wish to judge.
I would only say to you that we have created a single market and the aim is that rules within this single market should be comparable.
They do not have to be completely identical, because geographical differences also exist.
<P>
The issue here is not doing away with the EIA, rather it is a question of doing something sensible and comparable with the EIA, something where the rules are the same.
Then we would all agree with it and, what is more, agree quite willingly.
That has been taken up in many of the speeches here.
I believe that the legal basis of this directive is wrong.
<P>
The point here is whether we concern ourselves with town and country planning, not whether this can be rejected unanimously here or not.
This question of the environmental impact assessment of land-use plans is one that quite simply has to do with town and country planning.
We need only consult the relevant articles.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights is in a much better position to do this than ourselves. We should quietly wait for them to do this.
<P>
This report basically contains some good ideas, but it is not ripe.
At the moment, not a single Member State supports it.
Helmut Kohl and the French President were right to say that the Commission is meddling in too many things.
Member States are clever enough and wise enough to carry out such assessments according to their own criteria.
In due course, we should take up this report once again.
I think at best now we should abstain, although we should actually be coming out against this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schleicher">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Commission's proposal for the extension of environmental impact assessment to plans and programmes is a typical route one approach, from the green table in Brussels to the offside position of practical implementation in the Member States.
Mr Florenz has already given us some indications as to how the present EIA has been faring there. The new proposal seeks to add some much more detailed elements.
It is many times more difficult than what we have had up to now, and even that was not adequately implemented.
Another attempt is being made solely to harmonise procedure and, in doing so, to interfere in the legislation and administrative authority of the Member States.
Moreover, the Commission in no way draws the obvious conclusions from the problems that have already arisen as a result of the EIA project.
<P>
I would suggest the following: before the Commission pursues this proposal any further, it should, in line with this proposal for a directive, apply the EIA to plans and programmes in its own area of responsibility, in order to gain experience with this instrument and prove that it is suitable for use.
I too am of the opinion that the legal basis is not an appropriate one.
It is the other legal basis that we need, because according to Articles 3 and 3a of the EC Treaty as amended by the Union Treaty, the EU has no legal competence for urban development, land-use plans and outline urban developments.
Since many areas of this proposal for a directive are clearly concerned with town and country planning regulations, such a proposal for a directive should, if anything, be based on Article 130s, paragraph 2.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, I would like to start by thanking the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, in particular the rapporteur, Per Gahrton, and now also Mr Lannoye, deputising for the rapporteur, for their contribution and their thorough treatment of this proposal.
Environmental assessments are a fundamental instrument in environmental protection, ensuring the early integration of environmental considerations into the decision-making.
The Commission's aim through this proposal is to supplement the existing environmental assessment system at project level by introducing measures at the planning and programming stage in the decision-making process.
The proposal introduces what is in our opinion a minimal and, in reality, quite simple procedure, which consists of internationally recognised principles of strategic environmental assessment, or SEA.
But it emerges clearly from the debate here today that opinion is really divided on this proposal, as was also the case in the course of its preparation.
<P>
For that reason, a large number of amendments have been tabled, and the Commission is happy to accept almost half of them, because we think they clarify or improve the wording of the proposal, not least by adding some definitions.
Obviously we are happy to accept improvements that make the proposal clearer.
The fact that we cannot accept some of the amendments may be due to technical reasons, but it may also be due to our adoption of a different approach for the proposal.
I will now indicate what we can accept and what we cannot.
Of the 39 amendments, the Commission can accept 18 in whole, in part or in principle.
Those we can accept in their entirety are Nos 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 11, 16 and 31.
We can accept Amendment No 25 in principle, and we can accept Amendments Nos 14, 17, 19, 22, 27, 32, 33, 34 and 37 in part.
It is clear from this that we cannot accept a large number of the amendments.
<P>
I should perhaps make a few comments - several speakers raised this matter - on Amendment No 39, which concerns the legal basis for the directive.
It has been said here today that it should be Article 130s, paragraph 2, which requires unanimity, rather than Article 130s, paragraph 1, which requires a qualified majority.
We did of course ask the Commission's legal service before deciding on the legal basis.
The reasons why we opted for Article 130s, paragraph 1, are that it concerns procedures and that its main purpose is environmental protection.
In addition, it is our view that all the EU instruments covering environmental impact assessments should have the same legal basis.
As the environmental impact assessment directive, Directive 97/11/EC on projects, is based on Article 130s, paragraph 1, the same legal basis has been chosen for this proposal.
<P>
It has been pointed out in this debate that the plans and programmes we are talking about fall under the heading of town and country planning, and that Article 130s, paragraph 2, refers to 'measures concerning town and country planning'.
For that reason, some here have argued that this would be the correct legal basis.
That is not our view.
We regard Article 130s, paragraph 2, as an exception to the general rule in Article 130s, paragraph 1, which is to be interpreted restrictively.
According to the Court of Justice, it is the main aim of a directive that determines the choice of legal basis.
As has already been stated, the main purpose of this directive is to protect the environment.
It is not the intention of the proposal to intervene in town and country planning, but to give the planning authorities an instrument which they can integrate into their decisionmaking process with a view to improving it by providing a means of identifying, assessing and taking account of environmental effects.
I wanted to take a little time on this question because I have the impression that it has played quite a major role in the debate today.
<P>
I would like to comment on some other amendments which we cannot accept.
These are Amendments Nos 8 and 9 and to some extent 17, which propose an extension to the scope of the proposal.
They are amendments which propose specific sectors, such as agriculture, forestry, fisheries or leisure activities.
We think that the first area for the introduction of an environmental impact assessment system at the planning and programming stage in the decision-making process is that of town and country planning and associated sectors.
This is because we have carried out various investigations, and we have also done some fairly thorough screening in the Member States, and have formed the impression from this that it would be best to integrate these areas first.
To add sectors such as agriculture, forestry, fisheries or leisure activities explicitly cannot be accepted because these investigations have shown that there are, generally speaking, no separate land-use plans or programmes for these sectors of the type to be covered by the proposal.
<P>
Then there was a brief discussion - and I will not go into detail on it - of including the political level.
Mr White directly opposed the amendment put forward, and Mrs Jackson also presented arguments relating to it.
I think Mrs Dybkjær said that in her opinion it was natural that it should be included.
I can perhaps go so far as to say that my own personal view - which is perhaps not so surprising - lies closer to Mrs Dybkjær's view, but it is not taken up in the proposal as it stands.
<P>
Then there are amendments, Nos 22 and 25, in which it is proposed that means should be stipulated to ensure the quality of the information provided in the environmental assessment.
The intention was to avoid unnecessary delays in the procedure or further costs arising from the poor quality or lack of information in the environmental assessment.
We can accept these amendments either in principle or in part.
Finally, there is the question of Amendments Nos 3, 30 and 33, which concern a monitoring requirement.
Here too we have looked at the provisions of the environmental impact assessment directive, and we have followed the guidelines arising from it.
<P>
In conclusion, let me say that we regard the accepted amendments as an improvement of the proposal under consideration.
I believe that this directive will enhance the protection of both man and the environment and that in practice it may also assist industry, because it will give it a more consistent framework within which to work.
I naturally hope therefore that Parliament will adopt the proposal, but also that Parliament will help us to ensure that it is placed on the agenda for a Council meeting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="White">
Mr President, I am sure Mrs Jackson did not intend to be mischievous - that would not be in her nature - but there was a suggestion that the Group of the Party of European Socialists might vote against this in plenary, whereas we have supported it in committee.
That is not the position.
We will support this in plenary, with the exception of the reference to policy - exactly as we did in committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Jackson">
Mr President, I am even more confused because as far as I can see the whole thing refers to policy.
My question is to Mrs Bjerregaard.
She said that according to the Commission all European Union instruments which deal with the environment should have the same legal base.
<P>
Does she not accept that is impossible because the Treaty says that where measures concern town and country planning and land use, they must be subject to adoption by the Council of Ministers by unanimity?
Does she not further accept that this directive, which is the one we are debating, says: 'Whereas the plans and programmes which should be assessed under this directive are those plans and programmes which are adopted as part of the town and country planning decision-making process' ?
Does she not see a contradiction between what she says and what the Treaty says?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Estevan Bolea">
Mr President, thank you for allowing me to speak on a personal note.
I would like to say to Mrs Breyer that she is reading the speech she has prepared and is not listening.
Mrs Breyer, I did not say that we do not hold consultations; in fact, in Spain, the consultations are very extensive.
What I said was that the length of these consultations should be limited to three months. What we cannot do is to continue to hold consultations over a two-year period.
Nevertheless, please be assured that we do hold those consultations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, I was referred to personally by Mr Florenz.
He is not here at the moment, otherwise I would have been very glad to give him a lesson on how environmental impact assessment works.
It simply is not the case that we wait for the result and then take the decision.
We all know what such an assessment is supposed to look like.
What is contained in the assessment is irrelevant afterwards.
Basically, the exercise is very successful for those who carry out the studies.
Finally, and this point has already been mentioned by Mr Lannoye, the zero options are missing. Let us consider for a moment what would happen if the project were not implemented.
<P>
I was also referred to by Mrs Estevan Bola. I do not think that three months are enough to bring about any serious participation by the public.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="President">
I have to stop you there, Mrs Breyer, because we are not going to have another debate.
I am very sorry.
I shall ask the Commissioner if she will respond.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, there have been several comments which have more to do with the debate itself.
I will not go into those.
In fact, I answered both Mr Florenz and Mrs Jackson quite clearly in my first response, in which I stressed that it was our clear understanding that the legal basis was Article 130s, paragraph 1, that the matter had been examined by the Commission's legal service and that we took the view that it was the correct legal basis, that Article 130s, paragraph 2, constituted an exception to the general rule and that it was not the intention of the proposal to intervene in town and country planning, but to give the planning authorities an instrument which they can integrate into their decision-making process.
Hence I feel that I have made it quite clear that the legal basis should be Article 130s, paragraph 1.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be postponed until the Legal Affairs Committee has delivered its opinion on the legal basis, which has just been discussed.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Civil subsonic jet aeroplanes
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0279/98) by Mr Valverde López, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Directive on the registration and use within the Community of certain types of civil subsonic jet aeroplanes which have been modified and recertified as meeting the standards of Volume I, Part II, Chapter 3 of Annex 16 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation, third edition (July 1993) (COM(98)0098 - C4-0212/98-98/0070(SYN)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Valverde López">
Mr President, the Community action programme on the environment and sustainable development explicitly calls for a further reduction in noise emissions from aeroplanes by the year 2000.
Therefore, the measure that we are debating today comes under this general objective.
<P>
In this respect, the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation is one of the main documents where the regulation of noise emissions from aeroplanes is concerned.
<P>
The Convention divides aeroplanes into three categories or chapters.
<P>
The first chapter covers aeroplanes that were among the noisiest at the time and may now no longer be used.
<P>
As regards the aeroplanes included in the second chapter, the 1992 European Union directive states that such planes can no longer be used in the European Union from 1 April 2002.
These Chapter 2 aeroplanes may, however, be equipped with socalled 'hushkits' so that they produce less noise and can be included in Category 3.
<P>
Chapter 2 aeroplanes equipped with hushkits do not yet pose a serious problem in the European Community.
The situation in the USA, however, is very different.
There, the number of these aeroplanes will rise to about 1500 by the year 2000.
<P>
The US Noise Act 1990 requires all large Chapter 2 aeroplanes to be taken out of service by 31 December 1999.
<P>
It may be that, after this date, hushkitted Chapter 2 aeroplanes will be transferred from the USA to the European Community's aeroplane registers. This should be prevented through the regulation we are debating here.
<P>
The aim of this regulation is to prevent a further increase in noise pollution in the Community due to recertificated subsonic jet aeroplanes, as I have just mentioned.
<P>
A further objective is to limit the environmental damage caused by gas emissions from aeroplanes.
Provision has been made for exemptions where aeroplanes are used for emergencies or to assist with humanitarian aid.
<P>
With regard to the amendments, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection tabled six amendments that were adopted almost unanimously and it has tabled a new amendment for the plenary.
Following detailed study and serious reflection on my part, I am unable to accept this amendment, since it would break the political agreement we reached in the Committee on the Environment between the various groups. Moreover, it is not consistent with internal market measures nor with the urgency which this legislative measure requires.
<P>
Therefore, Mr President, I believe that we should be satisfied with this Commission proposal. We support it overall and sincerely believe that the amendments approved in the Committee on the Environment go along the same lines; therefore, both the proposal and the amendments have our full support.
<P>
In any case, we should remember that, in coming years, it will be necessary to introduce further measures aimed at reducing noise in the air transport sector, as already provided for in the Community programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Lagendijk">
Mr President, I welcome this chance to continue the work of my predecessor, Mrs van Dijk, so soon and to serve as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Transport and Tourism on the Commission's proposal.
I am happy too to be able to say that the Commission's proposal on reducing the nuisance of aircraft noise, presented to us by Mr Valverde López, has the full support of the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
I should add that this is a small step which will, I hope, become part of a rather more comprehensive plan to reduce noise pollution from aircraft at European level.
<P>
I have three further comments.
Firstly, I would point out once again that whilst this proposal is well-intentioned, the benefit which this kind of positive development brings will regrettably be cancelled out by the ever-increasing number of aircraft movements.
In other words, there is an increased need, in respect of the number of aircraft movements as well, to take structural measures for the longer term to reduce the nuisance of aircraft noise.
<P>
Secondly I would stress that the matter is urgent.
Mr Valverde López has made that point already, and this prompts me to reiterate the importance of Amendments Nos 1 and 2.
Not a directive, but a regulation and in time stricter, newer standards on aircraft noise.
<P>
Thirdly, we also set great store by the rapporteur's Amendment No 6, the adding of a ban on night flights.
One way or another, this has to feature in the report - as soon as possible, as far as we are concerned, and it must be mandatory.
Maybe not before the year 2000, but it has to be included.
<P>
Lastly, Mr President, I would say that I and my committee believe that the future of aviation in Europe is one of the major concerns of the future and I am glad that we are able to take this small step forward.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Bowe">
<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
May I begin, Mr President, by complimenting Mr Valverde López on his excellent report.
<P>
Secondly, I must congratulate Mr Lagendijk on his maiden speech.
It was a fine one and I am confident that he will be an asset to the House.
Mr President, noise near airports is a major problem which causes us an incredible amount of trouble, certainly in densely populated areas.
In the case of the Netherlands, one has only to look at the problems surrounding the main airport of Schipol, but smaller-scale civil aviation as well.
It is fitting that we in the European Parliament should all be keen to address the problem of noise pollution and other environmental nuisance factors caused by flying.
<P>
Two strategies are possible.
One is quiet aircraft.
We are taking a step in that direction today.
The other is restricting aircraft movements, but zoning too.
In the Netherlands, Mr President, we all too often believe, and wrongly, that by zoning we can control the environment and aircraft noise ourselves.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Let me give you an example.
I live in Limburg.
We have an airport in Maastricht, and in Maastricht we tried the following strategy: one, redeveloping the facility; two, limiting the number of night flights; and three, denying landing rights to noisy aircraft.
And what happens? Barely 20 kilometres away, again with financial help from the European Union, a new airport gets built in Bierset, with no restrictions on night flights and access allowed to noisy aircraft.
So people living in that area are still stuck with the problem. So what do we have to do?
We have to seek solutions primarily at European level.
<P>
This is why I welcome today's proposal against noisy aircraft, and I think that this tightening of the rules is a good thing.
I agree with the rapporteur that the 'hushkitting' now envisaged for Chapter 2 aircraft must be curtailed as much as possible.
So I am happy to support his amendments.
But I wonder what we are going to do on 1 April when, as in the USA, we have a lot of aircraft which are registered here and can thus be operated too.
I wonder if the solution proposed by the rapporteur in his amendment to Article 6 will offer adequate solace?
<P>
Lastly, Mr President, I shall certainly not support any amendments which weaken the rapporteur's proposal.
I think that we must do our utmost in this European market to harmonise things, to achieve the highest level of environmental protection possible.
It really is crazy to compete at the expense of the environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, the Commission joins with others who have spoken here today in welcoming the report by Mr Valverde López.
We also very much appreciate how quickly the report was presented, because that makes it possible to get the proposal adopted within the time limits set. So we very much wish to thank Mr Valverde López and his colleagues in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
In considering the amendments proposed by the committee, the Commission feels that it is important to maintain a balance between the environmental improvements desired and the economic burdens which may be imposed on certain developing countries.
It is also important to send the right signals to ICAO, which is currently investigating the possibility of introducing more stringent standards for aircraft noise thresholds which would apply throughout the world.
I am therefore happy to say that the Commission can accept Amendment No 1 and that we can accept Amendments Nos 2, 3 and 4 in part.
We cannot accept Amendment No 5, because the use of aircraft with noise attenuation equipment outside the territory of the Community is explicitly covered in Article 4, paragraph 2.
We also cannot accept Amendments Nos 6 and 7, because harmonised rules for the prohibition of night flights by certain aircraft are not in conformity with either the subsidiarity principle or the international obligations of the Member States.
There is also the fact that the Member States already have a procedure under Regulation No 2408/92 for the introduction of restrictions on aviation with a view to improving noise conditions around airports.
<P>
It is clear that there is broad agreement on this proposal, and the work done by Mr Valverde López and his colleagues means that this agreement can be translated into proper legislation at an early date.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Waste management
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0235/98) by Mr Campoy Zueco, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the Commission communication to the European Parliament and to the Council concerning the application of Directives 75/439/EEC, 75/442/EEC, 78/319/EEC and 86/278/EEC on waste management (COM(97)0023 - C4-0368/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="Campoy Zueco">
Mr President, the report we are submitting to Parliament comes under the Community policy on waste management.
The Commission's proposal is the first attempt on its part to present an assessment of the application by the Member States of the legislative framework for waste management. It covers the first generation of European law in this area, that is, the period up to 1995.
<P>
In accordance with this legislation, the Member States are obliged to submit regular reports on the application of this framework.
It is surprising that the Commission has taken so long to carry out this task.
It is assessing the situation after 20 years.
The scenario presented by this assessment is quite dreadful, due to the lack of enthusiasm shown by the Member States in applying the current rules.
No Member State has so far incorporated the European Waste Catalogue.
<P>
Many differences exist in terms of the interpretation of the rules, due to the lack of universal agreement on concepts such as industrial waste and hazardous waste.
It is essential for uniform terminology to be adopted.
There are serious omissions on the part of the Member States concerning their obligation to keep the Commission regularly informed.
In one particular case, not a single report has been submitted in 22 years.
<P>
The application of this legislative framework leaves much to be desired. This seriously endangers public health, the operation of the internal market, sustainable development and - what is worse - the Union's credibility, particularly as far as the applicant countries are concerned.
<P>
In December 1991, the Commission submitted a new directive standardising and rationalising reports in order to ensure that Member States fulfilled their responsibilities for the 1995-1997 period.
The Commission will present the results of this in the middle of 1999.
Since October 1997, it has begun infringement proceedings.
These infringement proceedings should be initiated in a more systematic fashion.
Similarly, Community legislation on the environment must be consolidated.
Existing legislation is very fragmented; up to 20 legal acts would need to be combined in order to improve its consistency and transparency.
<P>
We would call on the Council, when Regulation (EEC) No 1210/90 is next revised, to adopt the European Parliament's amendments. This would enable the European Environment Agency to provide reports on the application of waste management legislation in the Member States, while increasing its cooperation with national governments.
<P>

I would like to thank Mrs Jackson, Mr Bowe and Mr Eisma for having contributed relevant points of view that undoubtedly improve the report.
<P>
As regards the three amendments tabled, I agree with the first by Mr Eisma to paragraph 7, adding a new point.
However, while I thank Mr des Places and Mr Souchet for their interest, I unfortunately cannot accept the amendments they have tabled, Nos 2 and 3, because they are out of place in this more general report.
<P>
Mr President, the issue we are considering is important enough to warrant a wide range of changes: firstly, a change of attitude on the part of the Member States, and, more generally, changes ranging from industrial processes to living habits and from product design to new visions of the world.
<P>
I hope that the report will be approved by Parliament and that the Commission will take up our suggestions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Bowe">
Mr President, I welcome this long overdue report.
Mr Campoy Zueco has done a great deal of work on this and has been very honest, very fair and very just.
I certainly would agree with everything he has said so far.
<P>
However, we need to continue to highlight the problems of non-implementation of waste legislation throughout the Union.
There is certainly confusion about definitions within the directives and there is a need for clarification of the texts to make them more coherent.
Equally, there is a clear failure by Member States to implement a whole range of directives, whether it is waste oil, sewage sludge or toxic and dangerous waste.
There are many areas where action really needs to be taken by Member States.
<P>
We also need firmer action from the Commission, which, after all, is the guardian of the Treaty and protector of the directives.
I therefore welcome the Commission's infringement action against some of the Member States which have not properly implemented the waste oils directive.
But more action is needed and it must be more systematic and automatic after a reasonable time period, not decades.
We also have to recognise that the Environment Agency set up in Copenhagen has a role in identifying problems and informing the Commission so that it can take rapid action.
But I feel the main responsibility lies with the Commission.
<P>
The enlargement process is going to face us with a whole series of new problems with regard to implementation and enforcement of legislation.
It seems to me that we must steel ourselves to take firmer action in this regard.
We are going to have to draw attention to the sinners who are not implementing European legislation and take fiscal action against those who are not implementing legislation.
The European Parliament is prepared to bring other elected representatives - ministers of Member States - to account and demand their presence here to explain the failure to implement legislation.
We are prepared to take action and we call upon others to do so too.
The European Union must be coherent and respect the legislation that we pass through this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Jackson">
<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Mr President, much has been achieved in recent years on the environment, yet this first-rate report by Mr Campoy Zueco shows just how limited European policy on the environment actually is.
A good environmental policy will work only if the Member States are one hundred per cent committed to it.
Sadly, the Commission's communication reveals that the adoption, implementation and enforcement of our directives on waste leaves much to be desired.
This poor level of compliance on the part of Member States is not only lamentable; the prospect of enlargement makes it downright alarming.
<P>
After all, we expect new Member States to respect our existing acquis .
I put down an amendment to this end which requires the granting of financial aid to applicant countries for waste management activities to be tied to acceptance of the present-day standards of the European Union.
I hope Commissioner Bjerregaard will accept the Liberal Group's Amendment No 1.
But it is hardly credible for us to insist that the applicant countries meet those standards if the 15 existing Member States cannot do so.
So I urge Member States to discharge their responsibilities and I expect the Commission to be more vigilant in making sure that they do.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Fitzsimons">
Mr President, I support the resolution before us today.
It calls on the Commission to provide the European Parliament with a quarterly list of cases listing Member States taken to the Court of Justice in the field of waste management.
Moreover, it expresses the intention, in cases of a flagrant violation of European Union waste legislation, of inviting the responsible ministers of the relevant Member States to attend a committee meeting of the European Parliament to explain their policies.
<P>
From an Irish perspective the future of waste disposal does not lie in the continued search for more landfill sites nationwide. This invariably has the contentious effect of arousing considerable local objections.
Local authorities the length and breadth of Ireland are still engaging in the process of finding new landfill sites for the future waste disposal programmes.
<P>
There is growing public concern about the long-term environmental impact in general of landfill sites.
Ireland is presently experiencing strong economic growth and part of our resources must be invested in alternative waste management schemes.
Investment in a clean environment in Ireland will, in the medium to long-term, justify the additional expenditure.
<P>
I strongly welcome the initiative taken by my government which has commissioned a study into the possible use of new and alternative forms of waste generation and disposal.
The implementation of the Waste Management Act (1995) is certainly a step in the right direction.
Under this legislation local authorities are required to prepare waste management plans either individually or jointly and the Environment Protection Agency is also required to prepare a national hazardous waste management plan.
<P>
However, when one considers that there was over 42 million tonnes of waste in Ireland in 1995 I am confident that the innovative proposals to deal with waste management in Ireland will receive a very favourable response from the Commission during the next round of European Union structural funding for the years 2000 to 2006.
I compliment the rapporteur on his excellent report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, there is no doubt as to the opportunity this Commission communication represents, nor as to how apt the report by my fellow countryman Mr Campoy Zueco is, since the communication relates to the extent to which four directives have been applied.
It could refer to many other things, and I believe that we would also come to the same conclusion: that the majority of the Member States are blatantly breaching these as well as other directives.
<P>
I believe we must welcome the infringement proceedings begun against 13 Member States that have failed to adopt waste disposal plans.
In my opinion, this is a good idea.
What is happening means that perhaps these infringement proceedings should be faster and more automatic, because they continue over a period of time and that leads to an increase in waste, something that is particularly alarming when the waste is hazardous.
<P>
The information Mr Campoy provided was very clear: more than 20 often complex legal acts are making it difficult for governments to apply the directives more clearly, transparently and quickly.
I believe that our priorities should be to consolidate the Community law on waste management, as the rapporteur proposes, to support the work of the IMPEL network and, of course, to support the European Environment Agency with sufficient resources so that it can monitor and control the application of Community legislation in this area.
<P>
When we talk here about waste management, it is as if we are talking about something vague and ethereal.
However, Commissioner Bjerregaard, knows very well, because we sometimes send her information, that the increase in waste means a disaster for health and for the environment.
This is true for waste that is toxic and hazardous, such as the five million tonnes of phosphorus containers in Huelva, and is evident from what happened in Doñana. Similarly, we have seen it clearly this very week in León when visiting dumps connected with the exploitation of slate that are threatening the very lives of 700 people in a nearby town.
In other words, health and the environment are at risk because Community law is not being upheld.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, as the rapporteur has pointed out, one of the most obvious things about this Commission communication has been the lack of information from Member States.
Only scant information has been received.
It is clear that EU governments are failing in their obligation to provide information to the Commission.
<P>
In almost all cases Ireland, my own country, has failed to file the reports on transposition, application and the implementation of EU waste management directives which they are required to submit.
It is impossible to determine whether Member States have fulfilled their obligations under the legislation because of their failure to file reports.
This situation cannot continue.
The Commission must take immediate legal action against Member States who default on their obligations.
<P>
The Commission appears to have an extremely weak attitude towards enforcing legislation on waste management and, as a result, irresponsible countries like my own are allowed to continue with dangerous approaches to waste with the unsustainable option of landfill.
Ireland has one of lowest rates of recycling in the EU and one of the highest rates of landfill disposal.
<P>
In Ireland many dumps are on the periphery of large residential areas and, according to a recent study, are a serious threat to pregnant women.
Thousands of pregnant women living near landfill sites are running an increased risk of producing children with birth defects.
According to a study that was published recently in the medical journal The Lancet , spina bifida, holes in the heart, malformations of major blood vessels and a host of other defects are 33 % more likely in babies born to mothers living within 1.8 miles of landfill sites.
Many of these contain highly dangerous chemicals.
<P>
The Irish Government's failure to enforce EU legislation and the failure of Member States throughout the European Union to enforce the waste management regulations is unacceptable.
Their failure to enforce it and to comply with it should not be allowed to continue.
<P>
It is clear that waste is one of the most obvious problems facing the EU in the future.
It is about time that Member States lived up to their obligation to protect the public from dangerous and toxic dumps and irresponsible waste disposal.
We need to see an inventory of what has been dumped throughout the EU.
The people have a right to know and the people responsible should be taxed.
There must be taxes on industry to ensure that toxic waste is no longer produced.
There has to be a reasoned approach to waste.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="President">
Time is very short, and I would ask Members not to go beyond their speaking time.
I am now obliged to interrupt the debate for Question Time, and there are still four speakers left.
If there are no objections and the House wishes me to continue the debate so that we can take these speakers and conclude the matter, I could be persuaded to do so.
I assume that there is quite a large majority in favour of continuing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herman">
Mr President, if you authorise the extension of the debate, please at least restrict each speaker to about one minute.
<P>
The last three speakers exceeded their speaking time by 45 seconds.
With a firm President who wields the necessary powers, we should be able to respect our timetable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="President">
You are quite right, Mr Herman.
I have been much too generous, and that is why we are running late.
I would now ask the last few speakers to be very brief.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Trakatellis">
Mr President, the Commission's statement is the first step in drawing attention to the seriously deficient policy concerning waste management.
It is the first effort to record and assess the woeful situation so far.
For the first time, an attempt is being made to shed light on the situation prevailing in the Member States as regards the implementation of Community law.
The report also highlights the ineffectual application of the regulatory frameworks and Community rules worked out at European Union level.
There is a huge gulf: the European Union's bodies vote for one thing, but what is implemented and takes place in the Member States is quite another.
<P>
It is typical that not a single Member State has properly transposed Directive 75/442/EEC, and each applies it in a different way. It should be noted that no Member State has incorporated the European listing of waste products in accordance with Directive 4/94.
In each Member State, different definitions apply for the limits of hazardous substances and the maximum acceptable concentrations.
The checking procedures are also different.
Moreover, there are serious problems connected with the directives on mineral oils and sewage treatment.
<P>
However, I would like to dwell on what is happening as a result of the directives on solid wastes. The situation here is truly dramatic.
The Commission has tried to secure compliance from the Member States by bringing an action before the European Court of Justice and through the fines which Article 171 empowers it to propose.
Unfortunately, one of the transgressor countries is my own, in cases such as the Pagasitikos Gulf, the pollution of Lake Vegorritis and the River Soulos and, worst of all, the case of Kouroupito near Hania.
<P>
Consequently, despite bombastic declarations by the Member States about a Europe close to its citizens, it is the Union's own bodies which ultimately not only stand aloof from their concerns, but even strive to protect their own rights.
<P>
We believe that the Commission should begin preparing an overall record of the situation in all the waste management sectors, with the aim of formulating a uniform Community policy.
Accordingly, the Member States must realise that the proper management of all types of waste is at the core of the Treaties and of our concerns about the quality of life.
I would like to thank our rapporteur, who has really done an excellent job.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Querbes">
Mr President, I share the concerns and criticisms of the rapporteur, Mr Campoy Zueco, on the subject of the considerable delays in implementing the directives on waste.
<P>
Our commitment to sustainable development and the protection of the environment obliges us to advocate a completely different form of waste management.
We must reduce waste production at source, develop upgrading and recycling methods and neutralise the final waste.
But how are we to achieve this?
<P>
I would only go some way with our rapporteur when he stresses the need for infringement procedures.
We must take the full measure of the real obstacles to implementing waste legislation, not in order to justify present shortcomings, but in order for the legislation to be effective and workable.
Because this legislation has considerable financial implications.
We could of course reduce its costs and the Commission must submit proposals to this effect, in particular by means of tax incentives as the rapporteur proposes for waste oils.
But generally, should we not reduce VAT on waste treatment to the lowest possible level, or even create the conditions for a sufficient upgrading of recycled products which would then be able to compete with new products which are often cheaper?
<P>
That said, given the financial costs which remain considerable, how will it be possible to mobilise the necessary resources when the public authorities are compelled to reduce their budget, when companies are facing global competition and when people have inadequate purchasing power?
<P>
I believe there is a contradiction between the Union's economic and monetary policies, which are backed up by strict obligations and criteria, and environment policy, where laissez-faire and laxness can dominate, as witnessed by the report which we are now discussing.
<P>
Finally, I believe that the only way out of the present situation is to combine infringement procedures with the financial measures which will make it possible to remove fundamental obstacles and, above all, allow democracy to make a greater contribution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to congratulate the rapporteur and also express my dissatisfaction at the delay of the Member States in implementing coherent waste management policies.
<P>
Everybody knows that the way to protect an often abused environment, to reduce land, air and water pollution and to save on raw materials is to adopt better waste management - or quite simply any waste management at all - and to limit and recycle waste.
<P>
Admittedly, this initially brings additional costs, sometimes considerable, as wasting and polluting is cheaper in the short term. But in the medium term a rigorous and more economic management is essential, especially for human health.
We must therefore show greater firmness in dealing with those who fail to apply the legislation, whoever they may be. Of course they must be punished in fiscal terms, while at the same time we must certainly help those who make every effort to implement the legislation, in particular the local authorities.
<P>
Finally, like other Members, I also note that our debate has once again raised the problem of implementing the decisions taken.
We spend a good deal of time defining standards and agreeing measures, especially in the environment sector. Yet often we then forget to take stock of what is happening and when we do so, as today, the result is so utterly distressing.
<P>
Here too, the question of the political authority of Europe and its institutions is at stake more than ever before. It is an authority which must be strengthened.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, I will not prolong the debate unduly.
I greatly welcome the report presented by Mr Campoy Zueco today.
I have understood from the debate that there is general agreement on the urgent need for the legislation to be implemented, and that there is annoyance and disappointment over the fact that the Member States do not seem more able or do not have the political will to implement the legislation.
I hope that the resolution, which I assume will be adopted, will help to step up the debate. I am also grateful for the various pieces of good advice which have been given in the course of the debate today.
Some of that advice has, in my opinion, already been taken up to improve the situation, and I hasten to assure Parliament that we have no intention of letting the Member States off the hook as regards implementing legislation which we - it can be said - have made strenuous efforts to put into effect within the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Question Time (Commission)
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="President">
The next item is questions to the Commission (B4-0482/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="President">
Question No 44 by Charlotte Cederschiöld (H-0763/98)
<P>
Subject: Social security in the event of moving abroad
<P>
Swedish courts have ruled on several occasions that Swedish legislation on social insurance is contrary to fundamental Community rules in requiring that a person must be resident in Sweden to receive benefits.
Despite these rulings, citizens entitled to benefit continue to be refused social security in the event of moving abroad.
<P>
Does the Commission consider that this situation is consistent with the principles concerning the freedom of movement of individuals?
I should like to welcome Mr Monti and apologise to him for starting Question Time ten minutes late.
I would now ask him to reply to Mrs Cederschiöld's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 NAME="Monti">
The honourable Member raises the problem of assimilation of Community law on social security in Sweden.
Council Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71 established detailed rules for coordinating Member States' social security systems applying to European Union workers and their families resident in the Community.
The question implies that Sweden has not implemented these rules correctly, but does not actually provide enough information for the Commission to establish whether Community law has or has not been respected in a specific case.
So the Commission invites the honourable Member to describe the case in more detail to the services of my colleague, Mr Flynn, who is responsible for this matter, so that they can examine the matter in the light of Community law.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cederschiöld">
Thank you for your reply, Commissioner Monti.
This case concerns a women who, because she was working in England, was unable to draw her parental allowance.
I am pleased to hear that the Commission would like more information and I will certainly provide it.
<P>
I see a parallel here with another issue which is topical at the moment: the right to health care. The Court of Justice refers in this regard to the Treaty of Rome.
When it comes to freedom of movement, I do not believe that the status of people with social benefit entitlements differs substantially from that of patients, whose claims are judged on an individual basis.
There is no question of arbitrary assessment, nor can reimbursement be denied. Prior authorisation is not necessary either.
<P>
If Union citizens, be they patients or social benefit recipients, find themselves denied free movement, will the Commission undertake to support them in any proceedings they may initiate against the Member States concerned?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Monti">
In this case too, I would ask Mrs Cederschiöld to be good enough to let us have further details.
I can only say - but on very general lines - that the Commission is trying to support the citizens of the European Union in the exercise of their rights, primarily with an information programme about the exact nature of those rights.
And, as the honourable Member is aware, this framework encompasses the Citizens First programme which the Commission has been carrying out with the resolute support of the European Parliament.
On the specific health care case you raise, again I invite you to provide the Commission with further details so that we can do something more specific to help.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="President">
Question No 45 by Robert Evans (H-0764/98)
<P>
Subject: Voting rights for EU citizens
<P>
Is the Commission aware that some EU citizens, living outside their own Member State are effectively disenfranchise, unable to vote in European or local elections as they should expect to do as EU citizens?
<P>
The Belgian Government has once again shown that whilst being, 'at the heart of Europe', it is unable to provide nonBelgian nationals with their full voting rights, but it is not the only offender.
<P>
The case has come to my attention of EU citizens, employed for many years with the Council of Europe, who are now denied the right to vote both by their home country and by the French Government due to their 'quasi-diplomatic' status.
<P>
What action is the Commission taking to rid the European Union of these anomalies and ensure that all EU citizens can vote, at least in local and European elections?
I give the floor to Mr Monti to answer Mr Evans's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="Monti">
Any Union citizen resident in a Member State who does not have citizenship there can exercise the right to vote and is eligible to stand in local and European Parliament elections under the rules laid down by the directive and incorporated into national law by all the Member States, with one exception.
Only Belgium has not yet implemented Directive 94/80/EC which establishes the method of exercising the right to vote and eligibility for local elections.
<P>
Following the European Court of Justice decision of 9 July 1998, finding against Belgium for failing to incorporate the said directive, the Commission will certainly take action under Article 171 of the EC Treaty if the defaulting Member State does not take steps to comply with the Court's ruling within a reasonable period of time.
<P>
As regards officials of the Council of Europe, the Commission is not aware of the facts reported by the honourable Member.
As far as the Commission knows, all citizens of the European Union resident in France can participate in local and European Parliament elections if they wish to, regardless of their personal status.
The French law transposing Directive 94/80/EC, which establishes the procedures for exercising the right to vote and stand for election at municipal elections, states that Union citizens are considered as resident in France if their actual domicile is there or if their residence in the country is continuous.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Evans">
There are a huge number of anomalies in this legislation.
The Commissioner is quite right in what he says about the Belgian authorities.
Belgium seems to be making its own exceptions or its own regulations regarding this.
In certain communes, if 20 % of residents are not Belgians but other Europeans, they seem to waive the law and the legislation.
I hope very much that the Commissioner will do what he said in his answer to the previous question: enforce the enjoyment of their rights by EU citizens.
<P>
This raises a question: in the European elections next year, if the Commissioner was living in London he would get a vote.
It seems to me that EU Commissioners living in Brussels will not be able to vote in the European elections next summer even though they are working for Europe.
<P>
I must also draw the Commissioner's attention to the point that I raised about people working at the Council of Europe who are - in my understanding - not eligible to vote as they are not paying full tax in France because of their status as working for the Council of Europe.
I wonder if he could give me any further information on that?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Monti">
Concerning the officials of the Council of Europe I can only refer to what I said in my initial remarks.
The French law transposing Directive 94/80, which establishes the modalities for the exercise of the right to vote and stand for election at municipal elections, states that Union citizens are considered as resident in France if they have their real domicile there or if their residence in that country is of a continuous nature.
<P>
I should like to add a few words concerning Belgium, a point raised by Mr Evans in his supplementary question.
The Commission is aware that there has been some progress on this matter in recent days in Belgium.
At its first meeting in September, the Belgian Council of Ministers adopted a preliminary draft which aims to amend the legislation in force to provide for the transposition of the directive.
This draft has now been submitted for examination in the Chamber of Representatives and the parliamentary committees responsible have resumed their discussions on the reform of Article 8 of the Constitution, which is also required to extend political rights to non-national EU citizens.
<P>
Although these are indeed complex matters, the Commission hopes that on the basis of work now under way, the necessary measures will be in place in sufficient time to allow Union citizens to vote and stand as candidates in the next municipal elections in Belgium, which are scheduled for the year 2000.
With this in view the Commission services are monitoring developments and pursuing contacts about this matter with the Belgian authorities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="President">
Question No 46 by Willy De Clercq (H-0793/98)
<P>
Subject: Voting rights for the European elections which must be granted, pursuant to the Treaty, to all EU subjects
<P>
The resolution in the report on citizenship of the Union, adopted by the European Parliament at its sitting of 2 July 1998, requests 'the Member States and the Community institutions particularly to ensure that the rights to vote and stand as a candidate in elections to the European Parliament are recognized and can be exercised by all citizens who in accordance with Article 8 hold the nationality of a Member State and reside in the Union'.
The Government of the United Kingdom has declared that it recognizes as its nationals 'British Dependent Territories citizens who acquire their citizenship from a connection with Gibraltar' (OJ C 23, 28.1.1983, p. 1).
Why are residents of Gibraltar still excluded from participation in the European elections, and will the Council take any action in this respect before the June 1999 elections?
I give the floor to Mr Monti to answer Mr De Clercq's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="Monti">
Pending the adoption of a uniform electoral procedure, the elections to the European Parliament are governed by the provisions of the Act concerning the election of representatives of the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage of 20 September 1976, annexed to Council Decision 76/787/ECSC, EC, EURATOM, by the provisions of the Treaty on European Union and by national legislation.
The act in question contains an annex, constituting an integral part of the act, whereby the United Kingdom undertakes to apply these provisions solely to the United Kingdom.
In effect, this means that Gibraltar is excluded from voting in elections to the European Parliament.
The annex was formally endorsed by the representatives of the Member States, sent to the Member States for their approval, and ratified according to the provisions of their respective constitutions.
<P>
The Treaty on European Union, in particular Article 8b, does not change this legal situation in that it is limited to granting the right to vote to citizens of the European Union residing in a Member State of which they are not nationals, under the same conditions as nationals of that state.
The definition of the area of application contained in Directive 93/109/EC on the method of exercising that right is linked to the 1976 act, under which Gibraltar does not hold elections to the European Parliament.
<P>
It is significant that the provisions of Article 8b(2) expressly state that the political rights covered by it are without prejudice to Article 138(3) and the provisions adopted for its implementation.
In any event, Article 138(3) of the EC Treaty establishes that the Act of 1976 can be amended only by unanimous decision of the Council, after approval by Parliament and subject to ratification by the Member States.
<P>
As Mr De Clercq is aware, of course, the Treaty expressly urges the European Parliament to draw up proposals for elections by direct universal suffrage in accordance with a uniform procedure.
In view of the current legal situation, the Commission cannot take any initiative to grant citizens of the European Union resident in Gibraltar the right to vote, as sought by the honourable Member.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="De Clercq">
My question is very simple.
I understand from the Commissioner's reply that he is not all that happy with the situation created here by the United Kingdom.
Whilst I would stress that the British Government did at the time recognise citizens of Gibraltar as British subjects, and since the European Parliament's resolution says that all citizens of the European Union must be free to take part in European elections, it seems to me that the position of this Member State is in clear conflict with that resolution.
You say the Commission cannot take any action.
I agree with you, but I should have liked to hear your reaction.
My question is this: although you cannot take any action, can you not bring pressure to bear on the Member State in question to treat all its citizens equally, irrespective of where they happen to be?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Monti">
Indeed, Mr De Clercq, the final words of my brief reply can be seen in the context of the law we are talking about, but I mentioned that the Treaty expressly urges the European Parliament to draw up proposals for elections by direct universal suffrage in accordance with a uniform procedure, because this Parliament, and not just the Commission, has a very important role in stimulating the Member States, and that applies here.
Certainly, if we are asking what chance the citizens of Gibraltar have of securing the right to vote in the European Parliament elections, the obligatory first step is to amend the United Kingdom statement annexed to the Act of 1976, and Council Decision 76/787/ECSC, EC, EURATOM, which requires a unanimous vote in the Council.
After that, the British Government would be responsible for the way the citizens of Gibraltar exercise their right to vote, and that lies outside the Commission's competence.
<P>
I might say for the sake of completeness that, in addition to Gibraltar, elections to the European Parliament are not held in the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man either.
The EC Treaty does not apply to the United Kingdom sovereignty zones in Cyprus, where the question of participation in the European Parliament elections does not arise.
As regards Denmark, the autonomous region of the Faroe Islands, to which the EC Treaty does not apply, and Greenland, which does not form part of European Union territory, are excluded from the elections.
<P>
Finally, I would note that Council Directive 93/109/EEC is applicable to the French Overseas Territories, to Ceuta and Melilla, to Aruba and the Dutch Antilles. I mention that to give you the full picture.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 NAME="President">
As the author is not present, Question No 47 lapses.
<P>
Question No 48 by María Izquierdo Rojo (H-0746/98)
<P>
Subject: Implementation of Euro-Mediterranean policies in Algeria
<P>
What are the immediate prospects facing the Commission with regard to programmes and projects for cooperation with Algeria?
What results can it point to in the last three years?
I should like to welcome Mr Marín and ask him to reply to Mrs Izquierdo Rojo's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 NAME="Marín">
As you know, Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, the Commission has agreed with the Algerian Government, as well as with the other Mediterranean partner countries, a multiannual programme for bilateral financial cooperation within the framework of the MEDA programme.
<P>
Due to the difficult social situation - according to official figures, unemployment affects around 30 % of the working population, and probably affects more in reality - efforts in this multiannual programme have been focused for the most part on this question of support for policies aimed at reducing unemployment.
<P>
And what we are trying to do, through the programme on micro-enterprises, is to help create and consolidate open-ended jobs, and to use those projects aimed at completing infrastructures and public works to develop a network of temporary jobs.
That is the objective.
<P>
The Commission is also encouraging and supporting, under difficult circumstances, community development through socalled 'local initiatives'.
This is an area affected by questions of security and we have so far received no response from the Algerian Government, for reasons that are clearly understandable, on how to implement these local development initiatives.
<P>
The remaining issues in the current programme include aid for structural adjustment mechanisms, privatisation and modernisation of the financial sector.
We are having difficulties in developing these projects due to the problems involved in trying to employ qualified experts who are prepared to move to Algeria. However, for the moment, and with the necessary protection, we have managed to keep three teams of experts who are preparing the programmes for the privatisation of small and medium-sized enterprises and the modernisation of the financial sector.
The aim, which is under negotiation, is to be able to dedicate around ECU 100 million to these three programmes, since they are connected with the completion of the multiannual programme.
<P>
In terms of the negotiations on the association agreement, the Algerian Government, as you probably know, decided to take some time to analyse the Commission's proposal, primarily the section relating to the period of industrial restructuring, and in principle, the Algerian Government has still not told us when it would like to recommence formal negotiations.
<P>
In exchange, we have been asked to hold a series of explanatory seminars on the Euro-Mediterranean free trade area, the problems related to the establishment of a Euro-Mediterranean internal market, with its industrial restructuring and the possible impacts on the industrial fabric of Algeria, since they believe that this is a very sensitive issue. In addition, before resuming negotiations, they would like to have as much information as we can provide.
<P>
We are naturally willing to provide such information and when the Algerian Government informs us that it wishes to continue with formal negotiations, we will thus continue with them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Rojo">
Thank you very much, Mr Marín, for that response; it satisfies my concerns over the current situation in Algeria.
<P>
However, I would like to ask you more specifically if it has already been possible to open a Commission delegation in Algeria.
I understand that there are three teams of experts, but I do not know if that point has been clarified sufficiently for me.
<P>
It is true that the situation in Algeria calls for a specific project for that country at the moment.
I believe that the Commission should ensure that provision is made within the Euro-Mediterranean process to allow us to initiate now - and especially now since early elections have been called - a specific programme for Algeria that can be implemented with a certain degree of flexibility.
<P>
In conclusion, I would like to know if the Commission is going to support policies that ensure democratic guarantees for the next elections, which President Zeroual announced would take place in February. And I would like to know, too, in what way we will be able to combat corruption and provide young people with opportunities and choices for progress.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Marín">
As regards the delegation, the delegate has been appointed, as has the assistant delegate.
A building has been chosen which provides the appropriate guarantees of safety.
The security system has been negotiated with the Algerian authorities.
<P>
The only problem we have is that we have turned down, for purely legal reasons, the form of contract which the owner was offering us.
And this is the problem that, at a legal level, we are currently trying to solve.
<P>
However, the most important part of the decision has already been taken. As for international observing of the elections, you will know that in the last elections Algeria did not allow the participation of European election observers.
Observation of the elections was organised within the framework of the United Nations. And it was through the United Nations that we were able to participate, not as European observers but as observers from that international organisation.
<P>
What is the government's decision going to be with respect to the next presidential elections?
Will they allow this observation to take place?
At this stage, I do not know.
<P>
As for the programme, what I have told you already clearly shows the efforts we are making to be flexible, within certain limits of course, since I have already said that we have employed three groups of experts who are working in very complicated situations.
This is basically because our problem is quite simply, as you know, that there are no employees - and unfortunately I have to say this - who are willing to do the work, particularly in certain programmes that involve security risks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 NAME="President">
Question No 49 by Maj Theorin (H-0747/98)
<P>
Subject: Burma
<P>
The people of Burma have for several years had to live in extremely difficult circumstances.
Under the military regime, the people have suffered violent repression and forced labour, women have been systematically raped; the Karen people has been a particular target, but not the only one.
The situation has now lasted for several years.
Since 1990 SLORC, the military regime, has been brutally and ruthlessly exploiting the country.
<P>
Parliament has adopted a number of resolutions condemning violations of human rights, and a report which recommended the removal of general customs preferences in industry and for agricultural products from Burma.
Unfortunately there seems to be no prospect of any change for the better for the Opposition and the Burmese people; on the contrary, reports of fresh excesses and violations of human rights are continually coming in.
<P>
The permanent International Criminal Court in Rome, which the EU played an active part in setting up, gives the international community a new instrument against genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and aggression perpetrated during international conflicts or civil war.
Does the Commission plan to use this new instrument to start proceedings against the Burmese military government?
I give the floor to Mr Marín to answer Mrs Theorin's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 NAME="Marín">
Thank you, Mrs Theorin, for your continued presence on issues concerning Burma, because I think that we need to show a political presence in the difficult situation which that country is experiencing.
Relations with Burma went through an extremely difficult period during the last meeting we had with the ASEAN group in Manila, in the Philippines.
At that time, as you will know, a serious incident had taken place concerning the leader of the opposition, Aung San Suu Kyi, and certain ethnic minorities. I was a witness to the political dialogue with the Burmese Government, and I can assure you that it was a very difficult situation.
<P>
We are monitoring the development of the situation and are negotiating with the ASEAN group to ensure that the European Commission's position on the situation in Burma is very clearly defined.
<P>
In terms of the situation that has been created in the wake of the International Criminal Court being approved, I must point out to you that it is still not possible to use this as an additional instrument.
You know that the Commission was present as an observer and actively supported the European Union's position in favour of establishing this Court.
As you are aware, for the International Criminal Court to become operational, the provisions require ratification by a minimum of 60 countries so that it can be established.
This has still not happened.
<P>
In addition, the modus operandi defined at the meeting in Rome means that the right to refer matters to this Court belongs to the member countries, the Security Council and the national prosecuting authorities.
However, the system of jurisdiction concerning non-member countries - as will presumably be the case for Burma, since I do not believe that Burma is going to sign the protocol on the International Criminal Court becoming operational - is a mechanism which, as the Convention states, will normally have to be set in motion by the Security Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
My question has to do with the establishment of the new international court.
Like Mrs Maij-Weggen, I too would be interested to hear what steps the Commission has already undertaken, or intends to undertake.
I appreciate that a minimum number of countries must ratify before the Court can become operational.
The question was, however, whether there were any plans to utilise this new instrument to initiate proceedings against Burma's military government.
The case would clearly fall within the Court's remit, since this encompasses genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and acts of aggression committed during international conflict or civil war.
With this new institution, we have one more instrument available to us.
<P>
I believe that very strong pressure has to be kept up on Burma's military government.
Restricting investment would be one way in which the European Union could exercise influence in its own right.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Marín">
As I already said, to make use of the International Criminal Court, the protocol on it becoming operational must be ratified by 60 countries.
When those 60 countries ratify the protocol, it will be possible to include the Burmese case.
But, as I said in my response, the right of initiative to request the intervention of the International Criminal Court, as stated in the protocol, belongs only to the member countries, the Security Council and national prosecuting authorities, and that was an integral part of the protocol.
As such, the European Commission will have no authority to initiate any proceedings in the International Criminal Court.
Those who will be able to do so when it becomes operational - and that is the issue here - are the Member States meeting in the framework of the Council of Ministers.
So this is an issue that both Parliament and the Commission will have to consider, firstly when the protocol enters into force and, secondly, when a decision has been taken by the countries themselves because - and I repeat - the Commission has no authority in this respect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="President">
As the author is not present, Question No 50 lapses.
<P>
Question No 51 by Bernd Posselt (H-0772/98)
<P>
Subject: Christians in East Timor
<P>
What measures does the Commission intend to take to support the oppressed Christians in East Timor following the political changes in Indonesia?
I give the floor to Mr Marín to answer Mr Posselt's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="Marín">
The Commission has often expressed its concern over the situation in East Timor in the meetings held with the Indonesian Government, and we are urging that government to find a peaceful and lasting solution for the area. In addition, at the last meeting held within the ASEAN group, statements were made by the Indonesians which could be described as innovative; we shall soon see what results they bring.
They related to an offer made to the other European country that feels it is directly affected - Portugal - concerning an avenue currently being explored in the United Nations under the responsibility of Kofi Annan, the Portuguese Government and the Indonesian Government. Their aim is to reach a decision that could be accepted at international level, while clearly taking into account, of course, the interests of the people of Timor.
<P>
Moreover, a visit has been made by the troika, while the European Union heads of mission in Jakarta have also visited East Timor.
And the General Affairs Council of 13 September adopted certain conclusions on the region's future.
<P>
In terms of aid, the European Commission, as you know, is providing a specific programme for East Timor.
In May of this year, an assessment mission took place and the relevant organisations are currently trying to determine the best method of implementing this specific programme for humanitarian, food and development aid that was presented by the Commission to the Council of Ministers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Commissioner, I just wanted to ask exactly what this idea of the EU actually involves, and I wished to come back on two points in particular.
The first is a proposal from Bishop Belo on the demilitarisation of East Timor. Is that being discussed?
<P>
The second relates to our programme for democracy.
Completely new parties are forming there and the danger exists that fanatical tendencies are also developing.
Is this newly emerging political spectrum also being monitored by ourselves in the context of the programme for democracy?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Marín">
That debate is, in fact, still open.
During the meeting in the Philippines, the Indonesian Minister for Foreign Affairs very surprisingly, in my opinion, presented an offer to the ASEAN group relating to the East Timor problem.
One of the elements contained in this offer was, in fact, the withdrawal of the Indonesian military presence in East Timor and an offer to negotiate a status of autonomy.
This offer has been discussed among the Secretary-General, Mr Annan, the Portuguese Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Jaime Gama, and Indonesia's own Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ali Alatas.
As far as I remember, this meeting took place in New York at the end of August.
<P>
I do not have any information from either of the two parties involved, so I do not know what conclusions this meeting produced.
This is logical to a certain degree, since I imagine that they will be very delicate and difficult bilateral negotiations.
In any case, this is the first time that the Indonesian Government has publicly demonstrated its willingness to proceed to the withdrawal of its military presence and to negotiate a status of autonomy. This must be looked on as a step forward towards finding a possible solution to the conflict.
However, I myself, on behalf of the Commission, do not have any information on these bilateral negotiations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="President">
Question No 52 by Glenys Kinnock (H-0781/98)
<P>
Subject: Cambodia
<P>
What does the Commission consider the appropriate response to be on the elections held in Cambodia on 26 July this year?
What will be the criteria which will have to be met by the Cambodian authorities if any future cooperation agreements are to be discussed?
I give the floor to the Commissioner to answer Mrs Kinnock's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 NAME="Marín">
First of all, I should like to thank Mrs Kinnock for her work as a special representative of the European Union at the Cambodian elections on 26 July.
I thank you, in particular, because I could tell that it was not exactly an easy task and that you performed it - in my opinion and in that of international observers - effectively and extremely well.
You thus allowed us to consolidate the European Union's credibility and its participation in the electoral process, despite working in a political framework marked by the distrust of Cambodian politicians. You also helped to assert Europe's presence within the joint group of election observers.
<P>
As you know, the assessment carried out by the Commission is still in keeping with the declaration issued on 27 July by the joint group of international election observers. This stated that the elections had been free and fair, and that they were a credible reflection of the will of the Cambodian people.
We believe that the overall process has been acceptable, although it is true that - as you could see - certain problems relating to both the voting and the counting were identified during the electoral campaign.
And, in principle, those problems are being investigated and resolved.
<P>
The problem of the elections as such does not worry me, Mrs Kinnock, as I think they can be justified.
What does worry me, and I am sure it concerns you too, is the situation that has been created since the elections when something happened that everyone, including yourself, believed to be the greatest risk: that the losers might not accept the result of the elections, since it is presumed that the winners always accept the result because they have won.
Unfortunately, that is what has happened and it is creating a difficult situation that does not allow for political arbitration.
<P>
I must inform you - although you are probably already aware of this - of the request that has been forwarded to us by the head of the observation group. It asks that we withdraw the European Union representatives on the ground from Cambodia for reasons of security and stability, that is, if we had decided to maintain the European Union presence in the region for a period so that an international presence might be guaranteed.
We are going to assess this week whether or not the situation in the area does, in fact, warrant the withdrawal of our observers because the security conditions are not being met.
<P>
Secondly, I must tell you that the President-in-Office of the Council has confirmed that the European Union agrees with the decision taken by ASEAN to send the Thai Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs to Phnom Penh to meet the King. He is currently working over there, and we hope that he will be able to determine whether it is possible to send international mediators back to the country to try to restore governability.
<P>
Consequently, and in conclusion, I would first like to thank you for your excellent and very difficult work.
Secondly, with the exception of some imperfections that must be corrected, the elections and their result can be justified at an international level.
Thirdly, we must currently look at what we are doing to ensure that a government can quickly be formed and that we do not return to a situation often experienced in that country, a country that has already suffered enough because certain political leaders can never come to an agreement.
<P>
This issue is a very important one, Mrs Kinnock, because we must not forget a fundamental point: this is the second time that the international community has been involved in organising free elections.
Elections were previously organised that led to the establishment of a government and sparked off a coup.
To correct this situation, the international community has returned in order to organise new elections.
The risk as far as Cambodia is concerned is that the international community might believe that it is a lost cause and that, as such, there is no point in putting any more effort into it.
I therefore emphasised to the Council of Ministers the importance of avoiding this situation of international fatigue that occurs when things are not working out.
Cambodia cannot be considered a lost cause.
That would be a terrible situation, and that is our opinion on the matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Kinnock, Glenys">
I thank the Commissioner for his kind words and the personal support that he gave me in what he acknowledged was a quite difficult task in Cambodia.
<P>
As he says, the protests continue and Prince Ranariddh said only yesterday that he feared the whole thing could shortly spin out of control.
I am very worried to hear you say that there is a likelihood that our observers will pull out because that will send a very serious message to the people of Cambodia who are clearly going through very difficult times.
<P>
There is a likelihood of a summit between Mr Hun Sen and Prince Ranariddh and Sam Rainsy.
I wonder how much you believe that this is a serious prospect?
I also wonder how likely it is that the hardliners in the government will call for a severe crackdown on dissent in order to stamp it out once and for all.
<P>
Thirdly, it is interesting that Thailand is involved in trying to broker peace.
I would like to ask where is the European Union?
It has invested resources and interest in Cambodia.
Is the Council likely to invest a little more at this time in terms of presence on the ground in Cambodia?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Marín">
Mrs Kinnock, I have formally received the request from the head of observation to order the withdrawal of the observers, due to the security conditions.
Naturally, I shall first consult all of the Member States and this is something that we want to do on Friday.
We wish to take the final decision on Friday morning.
<P>
In this situation we are faced with something that often occurs: we have to assess the safety of the observers, the situation on the ground and the political damage that might be caused by withdrawing the observers.
But you have worked with them yourself, and you will understand that not even I can ask our observers to be heroes.
And if their head believes that at any stage the observers could find themselves in a serious situation, then it is very difficult to ask them - particularly those in the northern provinces whom you visited with me - to remain in an area where they could be killed or kidnapped, or where anything might happen to them.
<P>
In any event, I have told my services to prepare a draft decision for Friday, which we are going to submit to the Member States.
And I can tell you that the European Union has accepted the leadership of the ASEAN troika to try, in fact, to initiate this meeting on political cooperation among themselves. The aim of this is to see if the King finally takes the initiative, since that is the only possibility that remains, and to see if some kind of formula can be found.
Because what I truly fear is that, after the efforts the European Union has made in terms of representatives, observers and hard work, and after having spent USD 12 million, the situation might repeat itself.
I have already experienced other situations that have ended in fatigue, in fatalism, in 'there is nothing we can do'.
And when that happens in places such as Cambodia, then we can fear the worst.
Consequently, on Friday, I am going to take on my responsibility to make a decision one way or the other, and we shall see if the Council of Ministers provides us with a solution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, Commissioner, in Cambodia, the genuine efforts to bring about peace have failed.
My question to you is the following: was the observation really as good as is being claimed today?
The problem supposedly lay in the fact that it began too late, and that particularly as far as the media over there were concerned and the political developments in the run-up to the elections, fair conditions were not in place.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Marín">
I believe that your colleague, Mrs Kinnock, could answer that much better than I could.
I think that the circumstances were very risky.
It was very difficult to work, and the work that was done was, in my opinion, quite extraordinary.
There were obviously flaws in terms of access to the media and, in that difficult context, there were certain circumstances that prove to be unacceptable when analysed from a European point of view of what elections mean in Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain or France.
Were those elements sufficiently extreme to mean that the elections could not be justified?
I do not believe that they were.
<P>
Given the difficulties, these elections produced some reasonable results.
And what is happening now is something we discussed many times with Mrs Kinnock, with the ambassadors and with all the observers.
The problem with these elections is not organising them, which is difficult in itself.
The problem with them is ensuring that whoever wins is generous enough to find a solution that involves national consensus, while those who lose the elections must accept that they have lost.
And the problem is that those who have won have not been generous enough to look for national consensus and those who have lost say, on the basis of those arguments, that the elections are not valid.
In other words, it is a situation that, unfortunately, is a repeat of previous situations in Cambodia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="President">
We have now come to the end of the time set aside for questions to Commissioner Marín, whom I would thank for his replies.
Questions Nos 53 and 54 will receive written answers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="President">
Question No 55 by Astrid Thors (H-0739/98)
<P>
Subject: Commission communication on pan-European geographic information
<P>
EU ministers asked the Commission to investigate the status and role of pan-European geographic information (GI) in 1994.
DG XIII of the Commission initiated a wide consultation process which should lead to a communication to the Council and Parliament called GI 2000: Towards a European Policy Framework for Geographic Information.
<P>
The Commission first promised to deliver this important Communication in November 1996 and that date has been followed by several subsequent promises as to delivery dates, but to date the Communication has not been presented.
<P>
What is the Commission going to do to ensure that the Communication is presented as soon as possible?
I give the floor to Mr Bangemann to answer Mrs Thors's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, the Commission had intended to adopt this communication in autumn 1998 and then to pass it on to the Council of Ministers, the European Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee.
Over the last few years, we have received a number of letters from Member States supporting GI 2000 and requesting the Commission to take a pan-European initiative.
We therefore discussed this with the different players and at last a consensus has emerged as to pan-European activity.
It was for that reason that we set out the preparatory measures and projects within the INFO 2000 programme.
<P>
Some years ago, we made sure that industry banded together to set up a European umbrella organisation, and that happened, but in the past we have often been forced to the conclusion that, in spite of the importance of the subject and our efforts to support it in the research programme, European industry was not sufficiently interested.
That now seems to be changing, so we shall be presenting this communication very soon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Thank you for that information, Commissioner.
I trust it was a language problem when you said the Commission thought that the communication would be forthcoming in the autumn.
I hope it still thinks so.
<P>
This is indeed an important sector and the communication would be a logical follow-on to the standardisation work already done to assist job creation in Europe.
But I am concerned that so much time has passed since the first plans were put forward in 1994. Perhaps we do not need a communication.
Why not set up a high level working group directly? That would seem a more practical way forward.
<P>
I also wonder whether any appropriations have been earmarked in the Commission's budget for promoting this unified approach to boosting European competitiveness.
The Commission's own work would certainly gain from a more uniform starting-point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="Bangemann">
We shall be presenting this communication. I believe it is necessary to do so, as we must now recapitulate our position.
Of course we will not stop conducting our other activities; they will be continued.
I have already said that we have taken a series of steps in the INFO 2000 programme to construct European databases and directories.
Those are, if you like, the first building blocks for a geographical information infrastructure.
We have a website at any rate, in which over 300 players are involved.
We have introduced the concept of GI 2000 time and again at conferences, and these programmes will be continued in the context of the fifth framework programme of research, as part of the new projects aimed at creating a user-friendly information society.
That therefore means that we have a whole series of activities that will, of course, be going on.
But ultimately these are all incentives. Industry must itself take over and show greater interest than it has done hitherto.
That is why I believe that a communication of this type certainly does have a role to play.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="President">
As the author is not present, Question No 56 lapses.
<P>
Question No 57 by Mark Watts (H-0791/98)
<P>
Subject: Safer car fronts
<P>
When does the Commission expect to come forward with the proposal for a Directive requiring safer car fronts for pedestrians and cyclists which is anticipated for introduction in 1998 in the Commission's Second Action Programme for Road Safety?
I give the floor to Mr Bangemann to answer Mr Watts's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, together with Parliament, the Commission pointed out at a very early stage that when it comes to head-on collisions, especially those involving cars and pedestrians but also those involving cars and other road-users, we need to take better precautions, and that technical regulations reduce the dangers associated with car fronts in an accident.
We presented a first proposal for a directive in 1996 to experts from the Member States, industry, consumer organisations and to those bodies responsible for traffic safety. In this document, we followed the testing specifications and performance requirements of the European Enhanced Vehicle Committee.
<P>
The consultations have shown that the opinions of those who participated are very diverse.
There are also many Member States which find that the costs are disproportionate when compared to the benefits.
Others are of the opinion that something should nevertheless be done.
That is why we have commissioned an independent expert with the task of examining the issue, particularly this contentious question of the cost-benefit ratio.
As soon as these results are available - and also, by the way, the final report which is expected in December - the Commission services will agree on a final version of the proposal for a directive, so that we should be able to discuss it in Council and Parliament at the beginning of next year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Watts">
Thank you Commissioner for that very comprehensive and helpful answer.
<P>
Obviously I would urge you to expedite that research but I also draw your attention to three independent studies already conducted by the UK's Transport Research Laboratories, the German Federal Highway Research Agency and the Dutch Institute for Road Safety Research.
All conclude that up to 2 000 lives a year could be saved and 20 000 serious injury accidents could also be prevented if this new directive to make cars safer when involved in collisions with pedestrians and pedal cyclists becomes law.
<P>
I believe that the burden of proof really does exist, that this measure is required and every month, every week and every day that we delay allows people to be unnecessarily injured on our roads.
<P>
I hope the Commissioner can confirm that we shall see this directive on the table within this Parliament so that we can expedite the matter early in the New Year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Bangemann">
I can confirm what I said as to the dates: we will try our best - provided we get the study in December - to propose to you early next year the necessary amendments to our original draft.
But the two or three studies you mentioned were exactly the reason why we have asked the EEVC again to incorporate them into their own studies so that we are at the level of the latest scientific findings.
That is the reason why we want to wait until December - so that the position can be given to us and we can then act accordingly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 NAME="President">
Question No 58 by Niall Andrews (H-0830/98)
<P>
Subject: Malicious telephone calls
<P>
According to available figures, malicious telephone calls are on the increase across Europe.
Telecom Eireann last year dealt with some 30 000 formal complaints from customers.
In Ireland such calls are considered as a criminal offence with fines and/or prison sentences available for malicious calls.
<P>
Can the Commission indicate to what extent this matter has been considered at EU level and, if so, how does the Commission consider this type of crime can be effectively dealt with?
I give the floor to Mr Bangemann to answer Mr Andrews's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, we have a legal basis to prevent such telephone calls in so far as is possible.
This is Directive 97/66/EC of 15 December 1997, on the processing of personal data and protection of privacy in telecommunications.
This directive stipulates that telephone users who are disturbed by malicious or annoying telephone calls are entitled to help from their telephone companies to trace the calls back to their source.
<P>
Member States are required in the directive to provide a means of legal redress and sanctions in cases where the rights of subscribers to and users of telephone services are not respected.
While we are on the subject, in the recently adopted directive on voice telephony, Member States are asked for the dates on which calling line identification will be introduced. This will enable users, before they pick up the receiver, to see from the number displayed whether the caller is someone they know, and whether they wish to take the call.
<P>
Experiments with this system in the USA have shown that malicious or annoying telephone calls can be reduced by 25 %.
We can of course go further, because such a display could lead to the telephone user never wanting to take any calls if they did not know the caller.
If the caller were to withhold their telephone number, then in accordance with the directive, it should be possible for the subscriber to decline the call automatically.
This means that if a telephone call were to come in and the number of the caller were not passed on, then it could automatically be refused, if that is what the subscriber wished to do.
I think that essentially that should be sufficient protection against such calls.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Bangemann.
Mr Andrews is indicating to me that he appreciates the information which you have given him.
That brings us to the end of the questions to Mr Bangemann, whom I should like to thank for his replies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 NAME="President">
Question No 59 by Jonas Sjöstedt (H-0734/98)
<P>
Subject: EU membership and EMU
<P>
In an interview in the Swedish media the head of the Swedish National Bank, Urban Bäckström, recently discussed possible Swedish membership of the third stage of EMU.
According to him, Sweden could in future be obliged to choose between full participation in EMU and leaving the EU.
<P>
Does the Commission believe this to be a correct assessment of the situation?
Has the EU any means of forcing out a country which does not wish to use the common currency?
If Sweden chooses to stay outside EU exchange rate cooperation, would it still be able to join in the single currency?
I should like to welcome Mr de Silguy and ask him to reply to Mr Sjöstedt's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 NAME="de Silguy">
Sweden, like any Member State, has undertaken to satisfy the conditions for entry to economic and monetary union.
The Treaty states that a Member State which fails to fulfil the conditions for entry to the third stage of economic and monetary union will be granted exemption.
That is the situation of Sweden.
It nevertheless remains a member of the European Union. On this point there is no doubt.
<P>
In its report on convergence of 25 March 1998, the Commission recalled that the Swedish currency has never participated in the exchange rate mechanism. In the course of the two years under review, the Danish krone fluctuated against the currencies participating in the exchange rate mechanism, reflecting, among other things, the non-existence of a target exchange rate.
<P>
The Commission therefore rightly concluded that Sweden did not satisfy the convergence criteria referred to in the third indent of Article 109j(1) of the Treaty.
On 2 May last, the European Council accepted this Commission recommendation.
<P>
This conclusion remains pertinent and the Commission repeats that the conditions for entry to economic and monetary union will be strictly the same for the second-wave countries as for countries which adopt the euro on 1 January 1999.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
I am deputising for Jonas Sjöstedt in putting his question. I wish him luck in the Swedish elections, and the same to all good anti-Union candidates in Sweden.
I want to ask whether it is not right that Sweden, regardless of the terms of the Treaty, should enjoy the same status as Germany following the Karlsruhe judgment, under which Germany acquired the right through a decision of the Bundestag to decide for itself whether it wanted to participate in the third stage of monetary union or not.
That right, enjoyed by Germany, should surely also apply to Sweden on the grounds of equal treatment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Silguy">
No, I would very clearly point out that the Treaty is extremely explicit.
For two countries, namely Denmark and the United Kingdom, there is what is known as an opt-out clause, which means that even if the conditions for switching to the euro are fulfilled, these countries can and must state whether or not they wish to participate in economic and monetary union.
For all other European Union countries, the criteria apply as from the moment when the conditions are fulfilled.
Participation in economic and monetary union is automatic and there is no discrimination between Member States.
The Treaty is clear on this point. It was strictly and unanimously applied by all the Heads of State and Government on 2 May last.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 NAME="President">
Question No 60 by Esko Seppänen (H-0735/98)
<P>
Subject: Coordination of EU countries' economic policies
<P>
The monetary policy of the countries signing up to EMU is the preserve of the European Central Bank (ECB) which is subject to no political supervision and has no political responsibility.
It has a monopoly of monetary policy.
The stability pact drawn up at Dublin and confirmed at Brussels is monitored by the Council, which has a monopoly of the coordination of the EU countries' finance policies.
Thus the EU's economic policy appears to fall outside the area of the Commission's responsibility.
What is the Commission's role in decision-making on EU economic policy, and what does it think could be done to rectify the democratic deficit in monetary policy?
I give the floor to the Commissioner to answer Mr Seppänen's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="de Silguy">
I thank Mr Seppänen for his question, which allows me to explain that, as in the case of the switch to the euro, the Commission's role in the management device for economic and monetary union is central.
The particular responsibilities of each institution, including those of the Commission, are defined in the Treaty.
<P>
First of all, the Commission plays a major role in coordinating economic policy, and will continue to do so as from 1 January next year.
The Commission fully assumes its power to submit proposals when deciding the principal direction of Member States' economic policy, pursuant to Article 103 of the Treaty.
I would remind you that this document constitutes the framework instrument for coordinating economic policy in the Union.
Subsequently, the Commission is responsible for multilateral follow-up and monitoring, whether of the developing budgetary situation or the debt of Member States.
In this respect, the procedure in the event of excessive deficits, as laid down in Article 104c of the Treaty, cannot be implemented without a specific recommendation from the Commission.
I would also draw your attention to the stability and growth pact, which clearly confirms this essential Treaty provision.
<P>
Finally, the Commission has the power of recommendation in the field of exchange rate policy, pursuant to Article 109 of the Treaty.
I can assure you that on all these points the Commission will continue to fully discharge its tasks, as required by the Treaty.
At the same time, the Treaty confers responsibility for deciding and implementing monetary policy on the European Central Bank, and guarantees its independence.
I would remind you that, in order to ensure maximum coordination of economic and monetary policy, the responsible Member of the Commission, in this case the Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, can attend meetings of the Central Bank's Governing Council, even if he is not entitled to vote.
I can assure you that I for one will be attending all these meetings.
The President of the Council of Finance Ministers, ECOFIN, can also attend the Governing Council on the same basis and, as is the case for the Commission, the General Council of the ECB.
<P>
On the more specific subject of democratic control of economic and monetary union, a subject which has been frequently debated in this House - and rightly so - the Commission has always considered that independence and dialogue not only can but must go together, and that an ongoing dialogue between the institutions, which respects their individual competences and tasks, is the only way to develop a mix of balanced, flourishing policies which are favourable to growth and employment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, I would like to thank the Commissioner for a theoretical answer that was, to my mind, extremely comprehensive.
I would propose, as a follow-up question, a practical problem: how to determine the exchange rate between the euro and the US dollar under this decision-making procedure, and what the Commission's role would be in the matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Silguy">
I do not know if the Commission is very competent in the matter, but if there is one field in which neither the Commission nor the Council nor governments can impose their will or desires, it is that of exchange rates, since it is by definition the markets which determine the relative value of currencies the one against the other.
So we are ultimately unable to say at the outset whether the euro will be strong or weak compared to the dollar, as nobody in the world today is able to guarantee the stability of exchange rates.
It is simply the markets which make an assessment on the basis of an economic situation.
What is a country's budgetary policy?
What is its monetary policy?
What are the wage trends?
Once these data are known, they are compared to those for other countries, the currencies are compared and a relative idea obtained.
That is how markets operate.
<P>
The important thing for the Commission is to ensure that the euro is a stable currency which can be used for most of our trading and which will therefore protect us against exchange rate fluctuations and make us less dependent on movements in the dollar.
For the rest, pursuant to Article 109 of the Treaty, the Commission will assume its full responsibilities, especially when it comes to defining Europe's joint positions and its representation on international bodies. In accordance with the Treaty, it will make the necessary recommendations to ensure that the Council can take decisions and to ensure that, during major international negotiations, whether monetary or otherwise, the European Union is represented and able to defend its interests as well and effectively as it would wish.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 NAME="President">
Question No 61 by Paul Rübig (H-0737/98)
<P>
Subject: Denominating EURO banknotes
<P>
Now that all the basic decisions for the introduction of the common currency have successfully been taken, it is now more important than ever to make sure that these decisions are properly implemented.
<P>
The issue of EURO coin denominations was thoroughly debated at Parliament's part-sessions of November and December.
However, many users are now faced with the problem of the new banknote denominations.
Almost half of all Austrian banknotes currently in circulation are 20-and 50-schilling notes.
On the other hand, the smallest EURO banknote (5 EURO) is roughly equivalent in value to 70 schillings.
What is more, the stamping of 'EURO-Cent' on the smaller currency units could lead to confusion with the EURO coins.
<P>
If, as experts fear, there is a fourfold increase in the present coinage, should consideration should not be given to the subsequent introduction of 1 and/or 2-EURO banknotes, and how might citizens be prepared for this situation?
How does the Commission feel about these matters?
I give the floor to Mr de Silguy to answer Mr Rübig's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="de Silguy">
Here is a very practical question, of direct concern to our citizens.
In reply to Mr Rübig's question, I should first like to remind you that the denominations of the euro coins and notes were decided in 1995 by common agreement between the Council of Ministers and the central banks.
At the time, that is three years ago, this agreement took into account likely developments up until the date when the notes and coins would be effectively introduced.
This agreement was officially approved by the Board of the European Monetary Institute and the Council of Ministers and has never been called into question since.
<P>
In certain countries there are notes which have a value of less than five euro.
In other countries there are also coins in circulation worth substantially more than two euro.
That said, following an in-depth study, the Commission concluded that these notes and coins I have just mentioned have a relatively limited circulation.
As low value notes are not distributed in large quantities and high value coins are not generally accepted by vending machines, their practical use is limited.
<P>
It has also been decided not to have notes and coins with the same face value so as not to burden the management of the money supply.
As you know, the Commission does not intend to speak for the European Central Bank and the Council, which must assess the situation.
However, it does consider the 1995 agreement to be fair, for the reasons I have just mentioned.
<P>
On the basis of the initial estimates of the Member States, a summary of which I requested in order to be able to answer your question, it seems that there should be no increase in the number of coins in circulation in the euro zone compared to the present time.
I would even say that, on the contrary, the development of modern alternative forms of payment, such as electronic payment - and especially for small amounts - should help reduce the number of coins in circulation in Europe.
<P>
Generally speaking and to conclude, it is the responsibility of the Member States to instruct European citizens in the use of euro coins and notes, even if the Commission does make recommendations and even if, with the support of the European Parliament, we have launched information campaigns in order to increase public awareness.
But given the national competence in this area, the Commission has recommended the creation of local observatories which will be able to respond to consumer concerns on the ground and to monitor the introduction of notes and coins during the transitional period.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, at the moment I am giving a great many lectures on the euro, and I see that it is above all the small companies which are afraid that the circulation of coins is going to increase dramatically.
It is not only that we in Austria are going up from six coins to eight, but also that in the EU at present there are only two countries which have banknotes of a higher denomination.
The other countries are used to dealing in banknotes and do not have so much hard cash in day-to-day circulation.
That is why the question arises of whether we should not consider introducing a one euro note in future. If one looks at America for instance, there they have a one dollar note without which life could not be imagined.
This needs to be discussed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Silguy">
I should like to answer honourable Members very frankly.
We are not here to conceal the truth.
I believe that we are engaged in a process in which decisions have been taken and in which we now have a considerable technological and industrial mechanism to implement.
For example, there must be around 75 billion coins to be minted in the European Union and some 10 billion notes to be printed.
That must represent 300 000 tonnes of metal - a considerable task.
The decisions have been taken, and today we are at the stage of implementation.
Some countries have already started minting the coins and are to start printing the notes at the beginning of next year.
<P>
I do not believe it is either realistic or reasonable to call into question at this point the decisions taken by common agreement by governments three years ago and which, in technical terms, are designed to meet a real industrial challenge.
All coins, whether minted in Austria, France or Germany, must be the same, be accepted everywhere, have the same security and be accepted by all vending machines.
This is therefore a major technical undertaking and the priority now must be to successfully complete it.
<P>
On the other hand, the honourable Member is right in saying that we have a great deal of information to provide and a lot of explaining to do.
A compromise was obtained between the different positions of the Member States.
It is now up to us, in each of our Member States, to explain the changes.
I believe that European citizens are sufficiently intelligent, developed and cultivated to understand and to adapt.
I also believe it is true that there is a need for a great deal of information in order to overcome the resistance of which you spoke and to resolve the real problems which that could pose.
We have three years in which to do it and I believe that this is a task for each and every one of us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 NAME="President">
Question No 62 by Hans Lindqvist (H-0740/98)
<P>
Subject: EMU - 'A new Berlin Wall'
<P>
The single currency, the euro, is likely to create problems in Europe as the countries involved do not constitute an optimum currency area.
The bias of EMU towards price stability is therefore likely to increase unemployment and regional disparities in the EMU countries.
<P>
EMU will create a political and economic Union, just as many applicant countries in Eastern and Central Europe see their hopes dashed of becoming members of the EU/EMU in the foreseeable future.
Does this not entail the risk that the EMU project will result in the erection of new walls in Europe?
What is the Commission's strategy for averting such an undesirable turn of events?
I give the floor to the Commissioner to answer Mr Lindqvist's question on the erection of walls in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 NAME="de Silguy">
I must say I was a little surprised here.
Almost ten years after the Berlin Wall came down, I find Mr Lindqvist's question rather surprising.
Why?
First of all, because the euro has already had positive effects.
The efforts made to improve our economies and finances in preparation for the euro are beginning to bear fruit.
I would remind you that public deficits fell from a European average of 6.1 % of GDP in 1993 to 2.4 % in 1997 and that growth, which was negative in 1993, at minus 1 %, stood at 2.6 % last year and is set to increase to 2.8 % this year.
The employment situation is also improving.
Two and a half million jobs should be created in Europe by 1999, and this is the result of the economic policies being pursued.
<P>
Another positive effect is that the euro, even before it is created, before its real legal birth, is already fully assuming its role of protecting Europe against the financial crisis in Asia and Russia.
I believe we will have the opportunity to discuss this during tomorrow's sitting.
<P>
Finally, I note that it is the countries in the euro zone which have the healthiest economies in Europe today.
The confidence of manufacturers and consumers is at present stronger in the euro zone than in the rest of Europe. Growth in the euro zone is also 0.2 % higher.
So rather than erecting a new wall, I believe that the euro will facilitate the integration of the candidate countries.
They all wish to participate in the euro, and the European Council in Copenhagen established the principle that the candidate countries will adopt the acquis communautaire of EMU, even if they do not participate in the euro immediately they join the European Union.
<P>
Also, at the time of joining, the candidate countries will enter stage two of EMU and thus by adopting the acquis they will also acquire the means to progressively meet the conditions required for their participation in the euro.
I believe that far from erecting a wall, economic and monetary union is participating in this inclusive process of bringing together the countries and peoples of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
Thank you very much, Commissioner de Silguy, for your answer to my question.
I concede that it was phrased rather provocatively, but that was really the idea.
<P>
What I was driving at with this question was the following. Those of us who are in favour of broader European cooperation - and I take it that Commissioner de Silguy counts within our ranks - fear that it could take a very long time before the countries of Central and Eastern Europe are ready to join up to closer cooperation in the shape of EMU - partly because the demands on new EMU members will be high, and partly because years of communism have left the CEEC economies so far behind.
Incorporating them into a system of broader European cooperation might therefore be a lengthy process; they could find themselves waiting on the doorstep for a good while.
If we seriously want wider European cooperation, this issue just has to be addressed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Silguy">
Very briefly, since I do not want to prolong your sitting, I would say that Mr Lindqvist made a comment rather than asked a question.
<P>
It is a way of looking at things, a way perhaps of drawing attention to the dangers of a situation.
But it is the same as with every coin, which has its other side.
That does not mean that the other side cannot be dynamic.
<P>
The Maastricht Treaty lays down the principles of economic policy, the implementation of which has proved positive for the European Union, and I believe that the candidate countries, that is the Central and Eastern European countries and Malta, will ultimately reap the rewards of applying the formulas which have produced good results for us.
<P>
For the rest, I believe we should not confuse the exercises. There is accession to the European Union and there is the switch to the euro.
I believe it was wise not to require these countries to fulfil the conditions for switching to the euro when joining the European Union.
The distinction between the two is a factor of progress and will have a revitalising effect on the continuing process of European integration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 NAME="President">
Question No 63 by Wayne David (H-0757/98)
<P>
Subject: Future of the British Royal Mint
<P>
Recently, the British Government announced that a new public/private partnership would be introduced at the Royal Mint, based in Llantrisant, South Wales.
Given the importance of the Royal Mint to actual and potential customers throughout the European Union, would the Commission like to express any views about future developments regarding the Royal Mint?
As we enter the final straight, Commissioner, I would ask you to reply to this last question and allay Mr David's fears regarding the future of the Royal Mint.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 NAME="de Silguy">
I do not know if I can allay Mr David's fears.
What I can say is that I would make the following observations in reply to his question.
<P>
First of all, even with the introduction of the euro, the minting of coins will remain largely a national matter, that is within the competence of the Member States.
Community competence relates solely to defining, and possibly modifying, the technical characteristics and the European side of the coins.
We have debated these two subjects and you delivered an opinion.
<P>
It was decided to keep the present principle for the minting of euro coins: each Member State will mint the coins it issues and, failing a sovereign decision by a Member State in the euro zone to have its coins minted by the Royal Mint, the latter will not be directly concerned by the launch of the euro.
<P>
The Commission is not therefore competent to comment on the possible future status of the Royal Mint, or indeed of any other national monetary institute.
However, it may be observed that while the issuing of coins is a prerogative of the public authorities, their manufacture is a traditional industrial activity, as is the production of notes.
In some countries this production is entrusted to the public sector, while in others it is entrusted to the private sector. It is for each Member State to decide.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="David">
I was rather hoping too that the Commissioner would allay my fears, but I am afraid he has not.
There is a very real concern here, not just in terms of the local economy in South Wales but also, I would suggest, in terms of the European Union as a whole.
At the moment we have an indication that five of the eleven Member States who are joining the first wave of EMU will have at least some of their coin blanks minted in Llantrisant, South Wales.
One of the reasons they have decided to go to South Wales is because of the certainty of production and the very competitive price which is available there.
If there is a change of ownership, whether it is privatisation or some kind of public/private partnership, there must, I would argue, be a question mark over the costing arrangements and the certainty of supply which currently exists.
<P>
I suggest, therefore, that it is not simply a domestic issue, there is also a European dimension to it as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Silguy">
I can perhaps try to allay the honourable Member's fears.
You are right to say that there may be problems comparing costs between various issuing bodies or between different companies which manufacture coins and notes.
<P>
Having said that, the decision which has been taken is that each Member State will manufacture the stock of notes or coins which it needs for its country.
For example, let us just at random say that a given country has three billion coins and 200 000 notes in circulation. That country will then manufacture the three billion coins and 200 000 notes in euros.
It will be its sovereign decision how to mint these coins and print these notes.
So, at least when launching the euro and when manufacturing the first stock of notes and coins, everyone remains free to proceed as they wish, and it is true that in strictly economic terms we have not taken into account comparative advantages or competitiveness.
While this may be regrettable from a strictly economic point of view, politically, given the present situation, I believe that your fears should be allayed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr de Silguy, for attending and for your responses.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of Question Time. We have run over our allotted time by 13 minutes, and that means that we have provided more work for our colleagues, in particular the interpreters.
I would like to thank them all and ask them to excuse this lack of timing in our work.
<P>
Since the time allotted for questions to the Commission has come to an end, Questions Nos 69 to 107 will receive written answers.
<P>
That concludes Question Time.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 7.15 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Comitology
<SPEAKER ID=198 NAME="President">
The next item is the statement by the Commission on comitology.
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<SPEAKER ID=199 NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
If ever there was a controversial issue within the Community's system, and one which gives rise to a great deal of debate in interinstitutional relations, it has to be comitology, although from a strictly technical point of view the system has worked well.
<P>
Only in a small number of cases have difficulties arisen over the adoption of a decision, thus requiring it to be referred back to the Council - for regulatory procedures, only in 32 of the 3000 legal acts over the last five years.
The number of decisions finally approved by the Council and not by the Commission is well below 5 %.
<P>
In quoting these figures, I do not wish to suggest that I am satisfied with the situation.
Please do not assume that is the case, I am simply relaying data.
<P>
Nevertheless, it is fair to say that two aspects have not always been taken sufficiently into account.
<P>
Firstly, transparency.
This has been lacking, due essentially to the complexity of the system, the variants of each type of committee and the uncertainty surrounding the choice of committee to be used for different areas.
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Next, democratic control.
In particular, control by this Parliament of the decisions adopted, a problem which has become much more serious following the introduction of the codecision procedure.
<P>
Nevertheless, the shortcomings of the system - and clearly these do exist - should not lead us to overlook the role of comitology, which is crucial to the operation of the Union.
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The aim is to ensure better preparation for the many important executive decisions entrusted to the Commission, through consultation with representatives from the national administrations.
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Historically, comitology was devised to ensure that executive decisions adopted by the Commission could be integrated efficiently into the national systems.
After all, in most cases, it is the national administrations who eventually implement such decisions on the ground.
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These close links between administrations are now even more important following the enlargements and the granting of new powers.
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Committee meetings have therefore become forums for the exchange of ideas, which has doubtless proved most useful to both the Commission's services and those of the Member States.
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Secondly, in accordance with the Treaty, the Council - and I should remind you that until 1993 it was, for all practical purposes, the only genuinely legislative body - delegated powers to the Commission, and was therefore entitled to regulate the activity of the latter.
The only significant issue arising was how far this called into question the political control exercised by the European Parliament under the Treaty.
<P>
The first function, integration into national systems, is still essential, because at present, the acceptability of Union regulations calls for even greater transparency and for much wider consultation.
The Commission makes every effort to respond to these requirements to the best of its ability, within the limits imposed by the procedure, which is - I would stress - extremely complex.
<P>
On the other hand, the achievement of greater transparency has been the key issue in the exchange of notes between the Commission and the Parliament since 1988, and also in the modus vivendi of 20 December 1994.
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As regards the second function, a change has taken place, due in part to the increase in the competences of the Union and in the powers of the European Parliament. Currently, in addition to relations with the Member States, we are confronted with the crucial issue of democratic control of executive decisions at European level.
This is the fundamental problem arising, particularly in the area of codecision, because any procedure from which such democratic control was excluded would obviously be unacceptable.
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Indeed, this is one of the key problems raised by this Parliament.
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I should remind you too that at present, in many instances where technical advances and rapid changes in the markets call for adjustment, the Commission has the power, within the framework of comitology procedures, to adapt or implement important aspects of Community legislation.
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I am well aware of the confusion which sometimes arises in the Parliament as a result of such decisions, but I believe that this flexibility of regulation is a great advantage in a rapidly changing world, preventing the legislative paralysis which can set in all too easily nowadays.
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I shall now proceed to present the Commission's proposal.
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In accordance with the decisions taken at the Amsterdam European Council and the agreements entered into with the European Parliament and the Council during the drafting of the modus vivendi , the Commission has just submitted a proposal for reform of the Council's decision of 1987.
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Essentially, we have attempted to deal with three problems.
First, the structure of comitology procedures has been simplified, reducing them to three as against the five variants which exist at the moment.
Secondly, the use of these procedures has been streamlined, and the type of committee to be used for each type of decision will be determined in the decision on comitology. Lastly, information and democratic control of the decisions adopted is guaranteed, taking into account the Parliament's new powers whilst allowing for the distinction between executive and legislative power.
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The first point is simplification.
Any simplification will necessarily involve problems for the Commission, which has agreed to question practices to which it had become very accustomed, but which are now so complex and so difficult to understand that radical change is called for.
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The procedures are therefore to be reduced to three main types, without the current variants.
The same applies to the safeguard procedures of which - as you know - there is currently one only.
<P>
I should like to stress the radical nature of the reform which the regulatory procedure is undergoing.
If the committee and the Commission cannot reach agreement, the measure at issue may only be approved by the legislative authority, that is to say, under the codecision procedure of the European Parliament and the Council.
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I should also like to comment briefly on the streamlining.
We feel that this has been achieved because, for the first time, it is proposed to relate the choice of procedure to the nature of the decisions to be adopted.
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Procedures in the management committee will guarantee a speedy decision on matters of financial and agricultural management, whilst granting the committee a significant right of investigation.
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It is anticipated that the regulatory committee will deal with general issues relating to key aspects of legislation, and it will be much stricter with the Commission.
The issue of adapting to technical progress is a good example.
The procedure should, obviously, be much stricter for the Commission, and should allow the legislative authority plenty of scope to intervene.
<P>
Lastly, the advisory committee will deal with all other issues which the legislative authority considers straightforward.
<P>
We do believe that the proposed arrangements will result in greater transparency and will confirm and enhance the information available to the European Parliament, particularly in the area of codecision.
In this context, I feel it will be necessary to review the transmission and reception of information on the issue. There is a good deal of it, and it is certainly often of little use to the European Parliament.
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I shall conclude with what I consider to be a key consideration.
This proposal requires the Commission and other institutions to adapt the current procedures to those outlined in the new decision, from the time it comes into effect.
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The question we must ask ourselves - and which I am certainly asking myself - is this: how is the role of Parliament to be affected? Leaving aside, of course, the consultative role it plays in the approval of the proposal for a decision.
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In its proposal, the Commission has sought to maintain and enhance the information procedures contained in the modus vivendi .
The Commission awaits Parliament's proposals, in the hope that an agreement can be reached which would be part of the decision itself. Alternatively, it would form part of the agreement between Parliament, the Commission and the Council or, if appropriate, of an agreement between the European Parliament and the Commission.
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In an attempt to launch negotiations towards such an agreement, the Commission has circulated the draft declaration, which recognises that the European Parliament has an important part to play.
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It is clear to us that the role of the European Parliament should be greater in those areas where the basic legal act has been adopted under the codecision procedure.
At no stage in the procedure should the European Parliament's control be excluded.
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It is also clear to me that the Parliament must not assume an executive role.
I am sure it has no intention of becoming some kind of alternative power, or of taking part in an activity which must remain entirely within the Commission's competence if it is to be useful and efficient.
<P>
It is for the Commission to use its initiative and fulfil its responsibilities, studying each individual case and ruling on the legitimacy and appropriateness of adopting an executive decision.
It follows from these principles that it is for the Commission to rule whether, on the contrary, a new legislative procedure should be initiated.
<P>
As regards the relationship between the European Parliament and the Commission, no long-term clash is anticipated, except for a potential motion of censure. I am therefore of the opinion that any failure to agree with the Commission's proposals should only be expressed through strict procedures guaranteeing the involvement of the whole Parliament.
<P>
In my view, we should ideally establish procedures aimed at strengthening the relationship of trust between Parliament and the Commission, instead of carrying out such detailed and, in extreme cases, bureaucratic control of the Commission's action.
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Written and public practice of this nature will promote transparency, as public opinion or, where appropriate, expert opinion will be able to make its voice heard.
<P>
I shall conclude there, Madam President.
It is the Commission's earnest wish that the debate and negotiations to be conducted prior to the approval of the new decision on comitology, proposed in July, should have three aims in mind, within the context of the measures to implement the Amsterdam Treaty. Interinstitutional relations need to be strengthened and improved, and our system of adopting decisions must become more transparent to the citizens of the Union and to national institutions, and also more acceptable to the latter.
We need to be seen to operate a more democratic and efficient system of implementing regulations and to be capable of adapting it to the current situation.
<P>
I trust you will be guided by these aims as you make decisions and proposals, and also in the discussions leading to an agreement. We shall then be able to rid ourselves of the long-standing difficulties we have experienced in establishing a clearly defined relationship between the institutions in this complicated area of the implementation of Community legislation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="Aglietta">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it seems to me that, in the introduction given by Commissioner Oreja, there may perhaps be an excess of optimism as regards the proposal presented by the Commission.
I believe that we too have it at heart to improve the legislative mechanism and the mechanism of executive proposal, but it appears to me that even if a few steps forward have been taken with this proposal, the main concerns and requests from the European Parliament have been somewhat sidestepped.
<P>
The European Parliament's initiative on comitology stems from problems of transparency and respect for legislative procedures raised by the current system, all the more unacceptable today with a Treaty of Amsterdam which has redefined the role of the European Parliament in the codecision procedure, bringing it up to parity with the Council.
It is therefore evident, not least in the absence of a modification to Article 202, formerly Article 145 - which refers to the acts adopted by the Council and not the acts adopted jointly by the European Parliament and the Council - that comitology is a grey area, with virtually no rules.
In the framing of new rules, it is necessary to bear in mind the increased responsibility of the European Parliament, which has indeed been recognised by the Commissioner.
In particular, I believe that responsibility for the delegation of executive power to the Commission and the controls on executive activity should be shared equally by the legislative authority, in other words by the European Parliament and the Council in the area of codecision.
<P>
When the Commissioner says that all will be improved by parliamentary control and information, I think that perhaps he is restricting the control function a little.
The European Parliament has decided to act at two points: to begin negotiations with the Council and the Commission as soon as possible on the basis of the resolution we are discussing today and - with the negotiations started or indeed swiftly completed - to express its final opinion on the Commission's proposal.
<P>
A satisfactory conclusion of the negotiations also depends on the willingness of the Commission and, above all, the Council to discuss Parliament's requests openly and without hindrance, as well as the willingness of Parliament to understand the reasoning of the Commission and the Council.
But it seems to me that there are fundamental principles lacking from the Commission's proposal and which the Committee on Institutional Affairs intends to raise in the negotiations.
<P>
The first principle is to guarantee full respect for the legislative procedure, in order to avoid a legislative act being adopted outside the regular codecision procedure.
This is something which all those who want the process to be transparent and democratic have at heart.
From this point of view, the definition of an executive act which is given in the Commission proposal is worrying, because it goes in the opposite direction to respect for the need for a more precise determination of the respective roles: the executive role of the Commission, on the one hand, and the legislative role of the Council and the European Parliament on the other.
In contrast to the Commission, we believe that an implementing rule cannot be amended, adapted or updated, these being the key elements of the basic legislative acts, including the annexes, and when we talk about 'technical adaptations', we know perfectly well that, very often, key elements of the legislation are dealt with in the annexes.
I think that if confusion remains in the executive sphere which is codified in the new decision, it will be inevitable that the basic acts become increasingly general rules - and this is a risk for everyone, not just the European Parliament - and that the committees see their role in the defining of key elements of legislation increasingly strengthened, which is what we are seeking to overcome.
<P>
The other essential principle for a correct and democratic balance between the different institutions is that the European Parliament should have the possibility of exercising real control over the implementing rules, in other words of intervening within a limited period to possibly contest the legitimacy or the procedural substance of the rule.
This would obviously mean that the Commission may have to revoke or change that rule, but it will be able to discuss the most appropriate way of achieving control by the European Parliament without this involving any interference in the executive role of the Commission or a slowing-down of the executive process in such a way as to prejudice citizens' rights.
We are very aware that these two points are essential in the framing of the new decision and the procedure for implementing legal acts.
<P>
Finally, as regards the principle of genuine control by the European Parliament, I believe that this is very strong and must remain so.
We hope that the Commission and the Council are ready to engage in dialogue and do not undervalue the role and the responsibility acquired by the European Parliament, whose legitimacy derives from the direct vote of the European people.
I hope that the dialogue will have a positive outcome, and I believe the European Parliament has every intention of asserting its position.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="De Giovanni">
<SPEAKER ID=202 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herman">
Madam President, behind the technical aspects this is actually a question of power.
When the draftsmen - this is my term for those responsible for preparing treaties - decided to introduce codecision into the Maastricht Treaty, Articles 145 and 155 should have immediately been amended, technically speaking, but this did not occur.
<P>
Parliament remained silent on the matter, which was negotiated between the Commission and the Council.
When I made enquiries, I was told that it was too late, that the subject was too technical and that there was no opinion to be given on this.
We referred this matter to the Court of Justice and something quite astonishing happened there.
Disregarding 30 years of tradition whereby it had always tried to interpret texts according to the intention of the draftsmen, or legislators, the Court of Justice for the first time - actually not strictly for the first time, but almost - based its judgment on a purely formalistic interpretation.
This, incidentally, is another of the consequences of enlargement.
A major error was therefore made because, in all the constitutional systems all over the world, those responsible for deciding the rules and for laying down the laws are also responsible for specifying the implementing measures for these rules and laws.
This is not so in this case, as Parliament and the Council lay down the law together, but the Council decides the implementing measures on its own.
<P>
When the intended aims of the Maastricht Treaty were brought under the spotlight, the citizens of Europe were led to believe that, henceforth, the European Parliament would be given more power and would be placed on a proper equal footing with the Council.
This is not what has happened at all.
We are not, by any stretch of the imagination, on an equal footing with the Council because, in terms of implementation, Parliament does not participate and the Council makes the decisions on its own.
The Commission is quite happy with this situation.
There is no mention of this anywhere in its text, except to say that, as the Council did not want to change Article 147, the Commission is quite satisfied.
It is therefore allowing a right to be denied which is actually being asserted everywhere else.
This is tantamount to saying 'in principle you are equal, but in practice you are not, and we do not want to change Article 147' and herein lies the root of the problem.
<P>
Why are we protesting so vigorously?
Not just on the basis of the equality of rights.
If this situation were restricted to consultation or even management as you suggest, there would be no problem, but you are keeping the rules.
And what do the rules say?
They say that if the Commission's proposals do not comply with the committee's opinion, they cannot be accepted.
And who takes the decision not to accept these proposals?
Answer: the officials of the national authorities, who are not answerable for anything, not to their national parliaments nor to the European Parliament.
Not for anything.
This is what is so worrying and what justifies our indignation.
<P>
At first sight, you have not been open to this argument, which is why we find it so difficult to accept the situation, while objectively recognising that this is actually progress on the current situation.
However, you are happy to remain within the framework established by the decision of the Court of Justice and by the refusal of the negotiators of the Amsterdam Treaty to amend Article 145.
So you have indicated your satisfaction with this situation.
Although it is true that you have done your utmost within this framework, I am sorry to say that, if you are hoping to put an end to the problems in this way, this will not happen, because Parliament will rightly demand that it be allowed to exercise all the rights which it has formally been granted but which, in practice, it is being refused.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Spaak">
Madam President, Commissioner, the excellent report from the Committee on Institutional Affairs prepared by Mrs Aglietta states that the Amsterdam Treaty, by extending the field of application of the codecision procedure of the European Parliament and by eliminating the third reading, has unambiguously expressed the equality between the European Parliament and the Council in the adoption of Community acts.
<P>
The Amsterdam Treaty could have been taken to its logical conclusion by reinforcing the control over the implementing rules so that the legislative procedure could be fully respected.
This was not the case and the Treaty entrusted the Commission with the responsibility of presenting proposals on comitology.
The Commission has responded to this request in the time required, for which it should be thanked.
Its primary objective was to strive for simplification and transparency and to introduce a more democratic system, giving Parliament a right to scrutinise the implementing powers for acts adopted under codecision.
<P>
However, and this is to be regretted, the retention of the regulatory committees in the Commission's proposal - underlined just now by Mr Herman - is extremely worrying, given that this removes the European Parliament's option of challenging an executive act. This is contrary to the Amsterdam Treaty, which stipulates that control over the executive activity of the Commission must be shared equally by the legislative authority, namely the European Parliament and the Council.
<P>
There is therefore a risk of undermining the codecision procedure, which would be restricted to acts with a very general content. This is why the report from the Committee on Institutional Affairs very logically establishes, as one of its priorities, the guarantee of full respect for the legislative procedure in order to prevent a legislative act, including the updating of acts adopted under the codecision procedure and the amending of annexes, from being adopted as an implementing measure outside the scope of the codecision procedure.
<P>
Commissioner, all these speeches have the same theme.
You have tried to make an improvement and to a certain extent you have succeeded but, in our opinion, you have not gone as far as we would have hoped.
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<SPEAKER ID=204 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Crowley">
Madam President, I should like to thank the Commissioner and the rapporteur for their involvement in this issue.
<P>
In every democracy there is the idea of the separation of powers so that no one institution has outright power over another.
There is a system of checks and balances.
Parliament has always therefore been somewhat fearful of the ideology of comitology.
<P>
I was somewhat amused to hear the Commissioner, in his opening statement, setting out the importance he would place on Parliament's role in ensuring that its power as a codecision maker, co-legislator, is respected and guaranteed.
There is a saying: 'You know me by my actions, not by my words' .
The actions of the Commission are somewhat disingenuous.
<P>
Tomorrow in Parliament we will be discussing the Miller report on excise duties.
In light of the fact that everybody knows that the Amsterdam Treaty is coming into operation, in light of the fact that everybody knows the opposition there is in Parliament to certain acts and decisions that were taken at Council level, a dispute has arisen with regard to duty-free sales and what excise duty laws would apply.
What did the Commission decide to do when this problem arose?
The Commission decided to refer it to the Committee on Excise Duty, thereby totally precluding Parliament from any involvement in the decision-making process.
<P>
Therefore we, in Parliament, have to be very careful with regard to any olive branches held out to us by the Commission.
We have to be certain in our own minds that we, as the only directly elected, democratically accountable body within the European Union should stand up for our right to be the final arbitrators and decision-makers.
We should move away from this idea of regulatory committees and executive committees which are nothing more than glorified quangos - unelected, unrepresentative and unaccountable.
Let us bring power back to the people, back to Parliament, where it should be; to censure commissions; to criticise decisions.
Give us the power now to change and make better law.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Saint-Pierre">
Madam President, Commissioner, I should firstly like to congratulate Mrs Aglietta on the work which she has accomplished on a subject which is a very complex and technical one, which is difficult for the general public to understand.
However, behind this technical façade, comitology has clearly political implications.
<P>
In fact, just when everyone has accepted the need for transparency in the European institutions, it is clear that the comitology system is anything but transparent.
This system of control exercised by the Council over the implementing powers of the Commission is actually opaque, complex and subject to paralysis, particularly in the regulatory committees.
<P>
It is not a question of us being given identical powers to those held by the Council today, but rather of us having a power of recall where two institutions share the legislative power.
<P>
The hostility of the Council to any re-examination of the problem is becoming annoying, but what is worrying and serious is that the Commission, in its proposal of July, seems to be edging towards positions which are far removed from those of the European Parliament.
This proposal actually provides for the retention of the regulatory committees and does not allow Parliament the option to challenge an executive act.
<P>
It is therefore with the utmost urgency that serious negotiations should be started in order to conclude an interinstitutional agreement in this respect, with this agreement clearly going further than the current modus vivendi which, it must be said, leaves all the comitology procedures as they are.
<P>
Before ending, I must say that the comitology case is closely linked to one of the major problems pending in the European Union: the hierarchy of rules.
<P>
I remain convinced that it will be very difficult to find lasting solutions to this problem without the proper classification of European legal acts.
This subject was on the agenda of the intergovernmental conference, but was not resolved.
This is the purpose of the amendment tabled on behalf of my group and I hope that it will be supported by the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
Madam President, there must be around a thousand committees in the EU.
We know the list from the budget, but we do not know every committee.
My group demands that not a penny should be paid in travel expenses to committees we do not know or cannot find out about.
We demand that all funds for meetings should be placed in budget reserves and the money released once we have been given sufficient information.
The committees should serve the voters; their agendas, working documents and reports should therefore also be available to the voters.
If legitimate interests call for confidentiality, those interests can be stated and access can be limited, for example, to the chairman of the committee, rapporteurs and an individual spokesman from each group.
But the principle must be that every document is also accessible to the democratically elected representatives when the document is outside the Commission, and I would like Mr Oreja to confirm that it is also his principle and that when a document has left the Commission it is also available to any democratically elected representative in this House.
<P>
It should also be a principle that matters from a committee can be put onto the agenda of the Council of Ministers. The Commission and a committee must not be able to obstruct the legislative work of democratically elected representatives.
The essence of democracy is that we can vote in elections and get new laws. We cannot do that when power is switched to either the Commission or a committee.
Then only the Commission can put a matter back on the agenda of the Council of Ministers.
It is crucial therefore that the Council of Ministers and Parliament have a general right at all times to have a matter put on the agenda.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schäfer">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, comitology is neither about an esoteric lore nor a new religion.
In essence, it concerns rather democratic legitimation and the supranational nature of integration.
I wish to make this clear with regard to two points: firstly, the European Parliament is a co-legislator and budgetary authority with equal rights.
In the comitology procedure which was organised before the Treaty of Maastricht, the representatives of the Member States take a number of decisions in the expert committees which affect the legislative and budgetary powers of the European Parliament.
This has to be amended, because there was no codecision in 1987 and the codecision procedure has become the norm in Community legislation through the Treaty of Amsterdam.
It is therefore provided for in the protocol statement that the Council will present an amendment by the end of 1998, Parliament's only involvement in which will be to deliver an opinion.
That is not sufficient for us.
We now therefore wish to begin talks with the Council, in order to assert our position strongly.
That is also the purpose of the resolution with which our debate today will end.
<P>
Secondly, the supranational nature of the integration process is a constant area of conflict between the interests of the individual Member States and the supranational perception of Community interests.
Legislative and budgetary procedures have until now largely done justice to this area of conflict.
At the level of implementing decisions, however, this balance has not yet been achieved.
Naturally, the interests of the Member States must be represented in doing this because the implementation of Community acts is mostly a matter for the Member States.
However, when implementing decisions of a general nature do not generally reflect the supranational level, what we have is back-door renationalisation.
The whole debate on subsidiarity demonstrates this problem.
<P>
In order to counteract this risk, the European Parliament is demanding a right of political control parallel to that of the Council of Ministers.
Certainly, the perception of common interests at supranational level is first and foremost your business, Commissioner, and is thus a matter for the Commission.
Since the management committee procedures often give the Council of Ministers the opportunity to outvote the Commission's position, however, the creation of a political counterbalance at parliamentary level is a sensible move.
We wish to have and we must obtain an interinstitutional agreement precisely on this basis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lenz">
Madam President, Commissioner, you yourself are also responsible for information, amongst other things.
You will therefore not be surprised when I tell you that I have not found the thread running through the labyrinth of comitology in the statements - which have indeed been produced with some effort - but that this term still, in my view, represents a kind of magic square for our citizens, who are unable to see through it.
When numbers are mentioned here, it must be said that the practice currently followed in what are estimated to be several hundred management and regulatory committees, consisting of representatives of the Member States and placed alongside the Commission to implement legal acts, has led to an unjustifiable mixture of legislative and executive functions and removed the classic separation of powers in the EU's system, and indeed done so in an unreliable way.
This does not just involve codecision, but also programmes in the field of external relations, for example, which are also controlled above a certain ceiling by these management committees.
<P>
We are not so concerned about Parliament intervening in the executive, but rather that the Council is intervening much more strongly in the executive authority of the Commission, and in an unacceptable way.
I think the Commission and Parliament really must try to obtain a form of control, as you have just pointed out, but for which the information available to us is actually insufficient.
<P>
Our citizens will be questioning us on transparency, clear responsibilities and democratisation in the next few months before the European elections.
Then we shall have to answer for you, rather than for your officials or indeed those of the Council.
This is where the root of the matter lies.
We are therefore very interested in the conclusion of a sensible interinstitutional agreement which sets out these elements with much greater force.
In this respect, we fully support the line taken in Mrs Aglietta's report, in all its complexity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Corbett">
Madam President, all legislative systems have a procedure for conferring implementing powers on the executive.
This often means that the executive is empowered to enact detailed technical legislation, sometimes going further and under strict conditions modifying the basic legislative text within certain limits.
That is not unusual.
What is unusual in the European system is that the Commission as our executive is obliged to work in conjunction with committees of national civil servants.
One might think that is logical.
It is, after all, the Member States which have to apply European legislation once it is adopted.
It is perhaps sensible to involve them in the adoption of detailed implementing measures.
<P>
Why then does Parliament object to the comitology system?
There are three or four main reasons.
Firstly, it is because these committees of national civil servants - and only these committees - have the right to block the Commission implementing measure and refer it back to the legislature or part of the legislature.
Parliament has no equivalent right.
We are not able to scrutinize the executive and blow the whistle.
<P>
Secondly, if something is referred back in this way, it is only to one branch of the Legislative authority - the Council - not to both branches - Council and Parliament - as it should be in the equal system of co-decision we now have in the European Union.
<P>
Thirdly, the whole system is so complex with so many committees, and agendas and procedures that are difficult to get hold of, that it is opaque and not transparent for the wider public.
Fourthly, we do not like procedure 3 and especially procedure 3b which can lead to blockages.
All procedures 3 can lead to a system whereby it is almost the same as the legislative procedure.
The Commission makes a proposal, it needs a qualified majority of national representatives to approve it, sitting in one of these committees but Parliament is cut out of the system entirely.
It is a way of excluding Parliament, often from very important decisions.
That is why we cannot accept this system.
<P>
The Commission proposal goes some way to rectifying this but it does not give us total satisfaction on all those four points.
It is not quite good enough.
We will now have interinstitutional negotiations and the resolution we will adopt will serve as a mandate to our negotiators.
Let the other institutions understand. Parliament is serious and will be very tough in these negotiations.
We have already seen co-decision procedures fall down on the issue of comitology, and of implementing measures.
That may well happen again.
<P>
We have seen many hours wasted in conciliation committees arguing over this one issue whereas the legislation of substance could have been settled easily and earlier.
That will happen again and again until this issue is settled.
That means all institutions - Council, Commission and Parliament - have to work on a compromise.
But we will take this opportunity to sort out the system once and for all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Donnelly, Alan">
<SPEAKER ID=211 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Barton">
Madam President, I should like to sympathise with the Commission.
I feel genuinely sorry that it has been put in a situation where it has had to make a proposal on this matter.
We actually thought at the time of the modus vivendi that the situation had been put to one side and at the next revision of the Treaty the people who are to blame failed to come up with a proposal that put this matter to bed in spite of giving an assurance, at the time of the modus vivendi , that this was the only technical way of bridging the gap until the matter could be resolved.
<P>
At the next revision of the Treaty the matter could have been resolved entirely by the Council accepting the principle that colegislators could not only co-legislate on primary legislation but could be the co-legislators on other areas.
Our colleague's report on that matter addresses and makes the very best of a very bad situation.
I hope we can get away from blaming the Commission and put the blame where it lies.
The Council did not address its responsibilities at the last revision of the Treaty and it must do so either by an inter-institutional agreement or at the next revision of the Treaty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Barton.
<P>
I would inform the House that I have received a motion for a resolution tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2).
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=13>
Supervision of insurance undertakings
<SPEAKER ID=213 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0286/98), on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0308/98-95/0245(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive on the supplementary supervision of insurance undertakings in an insurance group (Rapporteur: Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 NAME="Mosiek-Urbahn">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the legislative procedure hitherto has shown that the basic objective of the proposal for the directive is widely approved by all those involved.
The supervisory authorities of the European Union are to be able to determine more effectively in future the actual degree of solvency possessed by insurance undertakings belonging to an insurance group.
This is a question of guaranteeing consumers - the insured parties - the highest possible level of protection.
They are to be protected in the event of the insolvency of their insurance company.
<P>
There is some dispute as to which precautions are necessary and appropriate in order to achieve this aim.
The Council's common position and the European Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights take clearly differing positions on some important points, aimed at limiting the financial burden to an appropriate amount.
<P>
In particular, the European Parliament welcomes the fact that the Council has adopted most of the amendments which aided clarification.
We are also particularly pleased that the Council has at least come closer in its common position to Parliament's call for all the aspects of solvency that apply to the supervision of individual insurance undertakings to be applied to the supervision of group undertakings too.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has said that it does not agree with the common position where this provides that the financing of insurance participations for insurance holding companies is now to be dealt with through other aspects of the provisions governing the solvency of individual insurance undertakings as well.
In practice, these are essentially subordinated loans and dividend rights capital, but not other financial instruments, such as loans, convertible loans and other outside funds.
<P>
This reduction of financing approaches at any rate seems inappropriate in holding companies.
Their shareholders are not insurance undertakings.
The target group of the increased protection is the insured parties and not the shareholders, who are not subject to individual supervision.
Amendment No 5, adopted in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, is aimed at reducing this excessive protection to an appropriate level.
<P>
The scope of the group supervision provided for in this directive remains the main point of contention.
The common position now includes any participation of an insurance undertaking in other insurance or reinsurance undertakings, whereas at first reading, the Parliament provided for its application only above a threshold of 20 % and where the influence was dominant.
This represents an increase against the first reading and the Commission proposal.
<P>
If the directive were adopted in the present version, it would have clearly negative effects on the capital structure in Europe and the European insurance industry.
The existing insurance groups would have to raise considerable funds on the money market to finance their increased own funds requirements.
Capital is expensive, and the insurance undertakings would try or would be forced to balance out the costs incurred either by increasing premiums or rationalisation measures.
Increases in premiums would be charged to the insured parties themselves, and the rationalisation measures would threaten jobs.
<P>
The directive would cause additional problems in raising capital for insurance undertakings such as mutual insurance organisations which do not have access to the money markets because of their legal form.
This problem may well be relevant in terms of competition.
There would be the danger that this would permanently undermine areas of insurance which have developed traditionally in individual Member States.
<P>
A compromise as regards the scope might be to modify the threshold values according to the respective regulatory areas.
This would fully meet the requirements of supervision in terms of transparency and transaction monitoring.
At the same time, however, Parliament's demands from the first reading would also be taken into account. These provide for limiting additional solvency requirements resulting from belonging to a group to cases in which risk-enhancing influences between undertakings may actually be possible as well, particularly where a dominant influence is being exercised.
Amendments Nos 3 and 4 were tabled for this reason.
<P>
The main reason for not continuing to include minority participations is that the holding of such participations without a dominant influence does not provide any opportunity for unfavourable intra-group transactions.
They do not produce any risk factors.
However, risks may well result from supervision being carried out inadequately on the basis of the existing rules.
<P>
Another point in this context is that, unlike the European rules on the solvency of individual insurance undertakings, the directive and the common position only harmonise the supervisory intervention criteria and not the supervisory measures themselves, to say nothing of the various methods permitted for calculating adjusted solvency which are only said to be equal to each other anyway.
This may result in the supervisory authorities of a Member State demanding increased capital when a deficit is established in calculating adjusted solvency as provided for by the directive, whilst the supervisory authorities of another Member State demand at most a report.
This inevitably leads to distortions of competition, which are specifically to be avoided through the directive.
<P>
Finally, another objection is that the responsibility for assessing the presence of a dominant influence is to lie with the competent authorities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Oddy">
Madam President, I speak on behalf of the Socialist Group.
<P>
Firstly I should like to thank the rapporteur for all her hard work on this issue.
Secondly I would like to place on record the apologies of our shadow-rapporteur, Mr Rothley, who is unfortunately engaged on other important business.
He has as usual, been conscientious and assiduous in his work.
<P>
Insurance supervision is an important issue.
The sustainability and solvency of insurance companies is a crucial issue for the reassurance of consumers on a whole range of matters.
<P>
My group welcomes this report.
In the first draft from the Commission there were considerable problems.
We believe the common position is a considerable improvement on that initial proposal.
Although my group is not unanimous in its view, we feel that overall, given the improvement in the common position from the original draft, the common position should be adopted unopposed.
Therefore the majority view of the Socialist Group is that the common position should be adopted unamended.
<P>
Regretfully, therefore, we cannot accept the amendments that have been tabled for this reading.
However we still thank the rapporteur for her hard work, recognise the importance of this subject and trust that the Commission will expedite the successful conclusion of this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ullmann">
Madam President, the rapporteur is quite right when she refers to the difference between insurance undertakings and banks or credit institutions with regard to the risks to be taken by them.
On the other hand, everyone knows what is happening on the financial markets, and in this context we do not need to explain now how important such a directive and a commitment on this matter are, for which I naturally thank the rapporteur.
<P>
However, I want to use the rest of my speaking time, Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn, to explain the reasons why I am unfortunately unable to agree with your amendments.
It is for a quite simple reason, and that is the experience I have had with the mismanagement of holdings in the former GDR.
That is why, in this respect, I am for more rather than less monitoring.
This mismanagement of holdings has by no means come to an end and, unfortunately, it is not just happening in the former GDR.
I am afraid that what you have said in Amendment No 5 and now repeated once again shows me that there is quite a considerable need for monitoring here.
<P>
So once again, thank you very much for the work that has been done.
It is a pity that I cannot agree with your suggestions and that I am consequently proposing, on behalf of my group, the same decision as my colleague Ms Oddy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Buffetaut">
Madam President, Commissioner and colleagues, my law professors, who were guided by the thinking of St Thomas Aquinas, used to say that, in order to assess a text, you first had to determine its aim and then examine the means used to achieve this aim.
So what is the aim of this text?
To give better protection to the insured and to remove distortions in competition.
What means are used?
The prevention of the multiple use of own capital, known as double gearing, the imposition of an obligation for major intra-group transactions to be declared to the supervisory authorities and, finally, the organisation of access for supervisory authorities to the information needed.
<P>
On examining these aims, the common position as presented to us seems satisfactory.
As underlined by the rapporteur, it contains numerous amendments made by Parliament and is therefore a fairly balanced text.
This is why, Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn, we unfortunately cannot vote for your amendments.
Amendment No 4 in particular seems to me to reduce the scope of supervision too far.
As for Amendment No 1, this could be considered acceptable in terms of its intention, as it might be thought that the assessment of the dominant influence should not be left to the competent authority but should be defined more objectively.
However, in its current wording, we cannot vote for this, since it is too restrictive and limits supervision to the parent company alone.
<P>
We shall therefore vote in favour of the common position as it stands.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=218 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should also like to start my speech by thanking our colleague, Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn, for her important work.
<P>
She has gone to great lengths to achieve a broad agreement and this is why the Council's common position, which was adopted by the vast majority of countries - 14 of the 15 as I recall - contains in full or in part, either word for word or in terms of their intention, 18 out of the 24 amendments adopted by the House at first reading.
We therefore consider that the French Socialists are supporting a good compromise.
<P>
This evening our rapporteur is proposing amendments at second reading and I must inform her that we do not feel it is necessary to go down this road.
If these amendments were accepted, the balance of the common position would be severely undermined, to the detriment of the protection of the insured and of the mutual insurance association sector, remembering that this sector is particularly important to us.
<P>
I would add that currently, in France, the mutual insurance associations are already reeling from an action brought by the European Commission against France before the European Court of Justice.
As a result, the French Socialists, like the majority of the Socialist Group, will accept the common position without amendments.
They have asked me to inform you of this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="Monti">
Madam President, as Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn has emphasised in her important report, the insurance groups directive is highly relevant to the purpose of completing the single insurance market.
As everyone knows, insurance firms must hold a certain level of reserves to ensure their solvency and the solvency margin is a guarantee of security for policyholders.
This directive is intended to prevent avoidance of this obligation by groups of insurance companies in contexts where it would otherwise be possible to use the same funds more than once in calculating solvency.
<P>
The Council's common position on the directive confirms the key elements of the Commission's proposal and accepts, with or without adaptation, 19 of the 24 amendments adopted by the European Parliament at first reading.
It is a balanced and consistent text, which has been approved in the Council by all the Member States but one.
I am afraid any changes to the common position would weaken the text, would reduce consumer protection in particular and might call into question the compromise achieved in the Council on a very complex text.
So I strongly recommend that Parliament accept the common position in its current version.
<P>
We now come to the amendments.
All the amendments proposed, with the exception of Amendment No 5, do seem to pursue the same objective: restricting the scope of the directive or making its application more discretionary.
The common position provides for the directive to be applied in cases where the holding amounts to at least 20 %.
Amendment No 4 explicitly limits the scope to parent companies and subsidiaries - with a participation of at least 50 % - so any insurance company which has a holding of between 20 and 50 % will be able to dilute the reserves it needs, which everyone considers necessary for an individual company not forming part of a group.
<P>
Amendments Nos 1 and 2 have an analogous effect, in that they would make it optional and non-obligatory for Member States to include companies which exercise a de facto dominant influence on other insurance companies.
This optional character, which is acceptable in the context of a set of accounting rules such as the Seventh Directive on company law, becomes inappropriate in a precautionary set of rules like this, understood as guaranteeing that solvency requirements are respected at group level.
Amendments Nos 1 and 2 would make it easier to elude the directive and would make the application more discretionary.
<P>
Finally, Amendment No 3 is understood as transforming automatic application, above the threshold of 20 %, into mere presumption.
The insurance companies and the supervisory authorities would then have the opportunity to exclude holdings greater than 20 % from the scope of the directive.
So I have to inform Parliament that the Commission could not accept Amendments Nos 1 to 4.
The Commission considers Amendment No 5 superfluous, since its aim is already achieved in the common position.
The common position already makes it clear in the recitals that any reference to the first directive on insurances must be understood as a reference to the amended version of the third directive and any other subsequent directive.
<P>
In debating the amendments, it is perhaps easy to forget the reasons why this directive is essential, reasons which make these amendments unacceptable.
In the last analysis, the directive fills a gap in the supervisory rules for insurance firms, banking and investment groups being already covered by Community legislation.
The directive protects consumers and here I am afraid I cannot say I agree with Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn, because the directive does not contain additional capital requirements.
It is simply intended to eliminate double counting so it does not involve additional costs to consumers because it does not involve additional capital requirements, while it will mean advantages for consumers in terms of greater security.
The directive will bring companies belonging to insurance groups into line with individual insurance companies without saddling the groups with additional burdens, and it creates conditions of parity with the insurance mutuals which, by definition, cannot have holdings in each other.
<P>
Finally, a point which is often given insufficient prominence: if the directive is not adopted in an unweakened form, the Community's work on financial conglomerates in line with the recommendations of the G7 Joint Forum will be seriously compromised.
As everyone knows, the growth of these financial conglomerates at international level constitutes one of the main challenges we must confront if we wish to ensure financial stability in a global economy and, Madam President, I need not remind you today of the importance of financial stability and the financial operators in the light of the latest international developments.
Weakening the content of this directive would definitely send out the wrong signals, particularly at the moment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Monti.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=14>
Islam and Averroës European Day
<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0167/98) by Mr Mohamed Alí, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on Islam and Averroës European Day.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 NAME="Mohamed Alí">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the celebration of Averroës European Day certainly provides the ideal opportunity for reflection on the relevance of the life and work of this great philosopher and commentator on Aristotle to contemporary society.
<P>
Averroës stated that the search for truth is an essential process in the development of every human being.
It proved particularly necessary for us as, when preparing this report, Averroës provided the opportunity of dealing with contemporary Islam and its role in Europe. This became a complex and difficult task particularly because - regrettably, but all too often - Islam tends to be identified with Islamic fundamentalism and the violence and intransigence associated with the latter.
<P>
There is no better example of this identification than the present political situation, dominated by the terrifying campaigns of the Taliban and by the horrific news of the continuing bloodbath in Algeria.
These latest events overshadow other atrocities currently being perpetrated in Kosovo as they were previously in Bosnia.
<P>
It is against this background that we attempt to reflect and to search for the truth. We find ourselves greatly influenced too by the ongoing tensions generated by the social crisis afflicting Europe, which can take the form of the insoluble human tragedy caused by unemployment or of exclusion and urban violence.
For these reasons, amongst others, debate on the presence of Muslims in Europe is particularly fraught and, in addition, Islam is all too easily linked to immigration.
<P>
This is neither the time nor the place to comment on the interesting content and conclusions of the report prepared by the Runnymede Commission, charged with studying the phenomenon of Islamophobia in Great Britain. Islamophobia results in the demonising of Muslims, thus preventing a calm and realistic analysis of the situation.
Reflex reactions such as that of Huntington, obsessed with the need to find an opponent to fight against in place of the former Communist threat are determined to prove the inevitability of a clash of civilizations.
<P>
However, the timely plan to pay tribute to the memory of Averroës is aimed specifically at highlighting the importance of his ideals of tolerance, progress and human development.
It may also provide an opportunity for more detailed consideration of the social, political and economic factors which foster ignorance, prejudice and obscurantism. These in turn result in exclusion and the break-up of society.
Only culture and education can raise our awareness of these risks and encourage us to work towards solutions.
<P>
From time to time, we meet people from a range of backgrounds and cultures whose world is structured in a different way from ours, and who have other values and other ways of investigating and making sense of the world around them.
We must display both tolerance and modesty because these are people who, although they come from another cultural background, do nevertheless belong to a different culture we could come to understand and appreciate if we made a minimal effort to listen and to engage in a sincere and respectful dialogue.
<P>
No one can ignore his neighbour when the latter seeks recognition of his human dignity, because as Javier de Lucas maintains, one should play down one's own way of life to allow for the demands of other forms of existence. One's own identity should never be put forward as universal, nor should any alternative to it be marginalised.
In short, we must strive for a continual increase in tolerance, reasoning things out in a sincere, rigorous and consistent manner. Islam should be seen as a culture, a civilisation and a religion, not just as one more facet of our multicultural society, but as a force inspired by those same values which are at the heart of a democratic, tolerant Europe.
<P>
The Swiss theologian Hans Kung stated that any religion must phenomenologically fulfil three essential functions, namely making sense of life, laying down rules and building a community.
Hence this theologian calls for Islam to be given the opportunity of integrating into the modern world whilst retaining those three functions, and on the same terms as Christianity or any other creed.
<P>
It is probably not for me to confirm or disprove Malraux's prediction, some time ago, that either the coming century would be religious or it would never come about.
In fact, as a Muslim, I should remind you that the 15th century after the Hegira has barely begun.
I can but make an appeal - hinted at in the report's resolution - naturally, the majority view prevailed - that the authorities in the Member States, and all men and women of good will should take into account the implications of the fact that Islam is now clearly the second religion in our societies.
<P>
However, on the one hand, Mr Chevènement - whom, incidentally, we wish a swift and complete recovery - assures us that couscous is a French dish, and on the other, we see that in Brussels, Muslims sometimes stuff tomatoes with prawns and serve them with chips to break the Ramadan fast.
<P>
Is all this a sign of cultural impoverishment, a sign of change or of the forging of new identities?
In my humble opinion, these are certainly new experiences for Muslims, and changing times and circumstances will subject them to more.
It is more likely that we are on the brink of a process of integration in which, understandably, no one wishes their own identity to be unduly neglected.
<P>
It is therefore reasonable to suppose that we are witnessing the first expressions of European Islam. Perhaps those experts like Olivier Carré who claim that in Europe, Muslims and non-Muslims are moving towards the same practices are not too far off the mark.
<P>
And so, ladies and gentlemen, it is my earnest desire that Mohammed, Fatima or any other Muslim who serves us our daily coffee in Brussels or here in Strasbourg, absorbed in his or her work, should become again, for all of us in Europe, men and women to whom we can relate, neighbours whom we respect and accept because we have come to appreciate them as equals.
In short, we should consider them our partners in everyday life, link hands with them and work together towards a fairer future.
<P>
We European Muslims, or those of us who live in Europe, are resolved to give of our best in the building of that Europe which, as Jacques Delors said, is in need of a soul we must all help to provide.
I am quite certain, Madam President, that the Muslim presence in the patchwork of European society will enrich it in many ways, but especially as it provokes thought on the place of spirituality in today's secular societies, ever more intent on unbridled and destructive consumption.
<P>
I have no wish to appear pretentious, Madam President, but I too have a dream.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="Hautala">
Madam President, I would like to thank my colleague Mr Mohamed Alí for a very profound report, and its explanatory statement was particularly interesting to read.
I think you should appear as opening speaker at the symposium that you and Parliament probably also wishes to organise in honour of Averroës Day.
You really are to be thanked for having produced such an unusual report.
<P>
The Committee on Women's Rights have taken a position on this matter, as migrant women are often Muslim.
We have stressed the fact that they often have a disproportionate number of problems fully participating in our society.
We would urge the Commission and Council to improve the situation for female migrants who profess the Muslim religion.
<P>
I am glad to see how the rapporteur has taken on board remarks made by the Committee on Women's Rights.
The report emphasises the fact that gender equality must be taken into consideration in EU relations with Islamic states.
It calls for an end to discrimination against women and condemns their oppression in the family, for example the fact that genital mutilation is still being practised, although in many countries this is an illegal act.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Tongue">
Madam President, I should also like to thank Mr Mohamed Ali for all the work and patience he has put into this report.
I do not speak only on behalf of the Socialist Group but also on behalf of the many Muslims in East London whom I represent and who so enrich my constituency.
<P>
The report is timely given the recent unfortunate events which risk creating further conflict between Islamic and Western culture.
Given the multicultural nature of our societies, we have to try and encourage their peaceful co-existence.
<P>
This is where we can learn from the great philosopher Averroes.
Firstly, if you have not done soalready I recommend that you see the film Le Destin .
It is a brilliant exposé of Averroes's life and work.
If only it could be shown in every school and in every community across Community, it would do so much to help understanding.
<P>
It is unbelievable that I had to come here to the European Parliament before I heard the name of Averroes.
Our children should be introduced to Averroes as a role model.
He was a courageous and radical philosopher with a wide knowledge of science, sincere in his speech, consistent in his arguments and a promoter of the co-existence different religious faiths.
<P>
Not surprisingly he was persecuted.
His works were often banned.
And nothing has changed over the centuries; Salman Rushdie's books are still burned.
We have to use Averroes' legacy to promote pluralism of thought, free speech and respect for human rights.
These are the essential pillars upon which democracy rests.
<P>
We should insist that this is best achieved by the separation of church and state, which has not been completely achieved in all our Member States; the establishment of laws which outlaw religious discrimination, something we will take action on in the United Kingdom; and minimal censorship, with the emphasis always on freedom of expression.
I particularly like paragraph 10 which calls for the principle of secularism in education.
However, we have to work for more than just tolerance of other cultures; we have to appreciate and celebrate diversity in our society.
We have to condemn the violation of women's rights connected with extremist Islamic movements and make sure women are aware of their rights, including our policies in Europe.
We must make it easier for people to learn Arabic as a living language and promote the study of Islamic culture, history and politics.
The Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies is a very good example.
<P>
I ask the Commission and Member States to study the recommendations and propose action on the basis of this report.
Once again I thank the rapporteur.
We look forward to celebrating Averroes Day for many years to come.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Monfils">
Madam President, this own-initiative report, whose initial aim was the examination of cultural links between Islam and Europe on the occasion of the 800th anniversary of the death of Averroës, has experienced many problems and has taken nearly two years to be produced.
<P>
The problem is that this report, in its current form, seems to have several objectives.
A number of points condemn any discrimination - it restates in this respect the contents of the resolutions on human rights adopted on every month, on a Thursday, by the European Parliament.
Other passages deal with the problem of religions, which is outside the European Union's field of competence.
In fact, this is what recently led to the rejection of the report by our colleague Mr Oostlander, which dealt with similar problems.
<P>
Furthermore, several proposals do not respect the principle of subsidiarity, in particular the proposal stressing the need to allow Islamic communities to express their views on the same terms as other religions.
<P>
We realise that these questions are very delicate and that they are answered with specific solutions in each country, depending in particular on the level of representation of the Islamic communities and the place given to each religion by each state, according to the constitutional rights.
<P>
Finally, as I have already said, this report, which has moved away from its original objective of dealing with cultural questions, does not tackle the essential political problems, such as the integration of immigrants, voting rights, social problems and the concept of citizenship, all of which are elements which are currently being examined in depth in the various states.
<P>
Europe has responsibilities in the Mediterranean countries and must assume these while still respecting other countries and other peoples.
It must also establish suitable measures for integrating immigrants from third countries.
We feel that this report does not indicate specific courses of action for immigration problems and that it is restricted to a superficial examination of various options.
<P>
For all these fundamental reasons, and on the grounds of competence, the ELDR Group will abstain.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Guinebertière">
Madam President, this own-initiative report has moved away from its cultural objectives, as my colleague Mr Monfils has just said.
<P>
We are perfectly happy to recommend an Averroës Day, but dealing with religious problems is no longer within Parliament's field of competence.
<P>
I regret even more having to make these remarks as the rapporteur's explanatory statement contained an interesting analysis of the influence which Averroës could have through his work, for example: ' A lesson in how to use our intelligences by showing us just whence intolerance springs'.
Unfortunately, the lesson in how to use our intelligences quickly turned into a lesson in Islam, telling us what we should do to be tolerant.
<P>
I have absolutely no intention of condemning this report. I only wish to say to its author that, although a fervent believer in the insertion and integration of a large population within European society, I regrettably have no intention of actively promoting the foundation of a Euro-Islamic university within the territory of the European Union, nor of encouraging the vocational training of imams, nor of implementing many other actions to suit religious rites.
<P>
I deeply regret the wayward direction taken by this report, although I do share the idea that intercultural dialogue is a source of enrichment and must be developed, and that we must be actively involved in this.
<P>
Finally, despite certain recommendations with which I agree, I also do not feel that this resolution can change the position of women, no more so than the application of the principle of secularism in education, even though I support the intention behind this.
<P>
I therefore believe that our group will abstain from voting on this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ullmann">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the name Averroës stands for the Islamic interest in the traditions of enlightenment and emancipation in Europe.
Whenever Thomas Aquinas wished to quote the most important authority for him when commenting on Aristotle, he only needed two words: commentator dicit .
His contemporaries knew that Averroës was meant by that.
I learned in school that European culture is based on antiquity, Christianity and Teutonicism.
<P>
The important report which has been presented to us, and on which I can only congratulate its author, reminds us that there is a gap in both our memory and our history.
I therefore regard it as particularly important - unlike the previous speaker - that the idea of a Euro-Islamic university is taken forward.
Admittedly, this is also a reminder that the proposed programme can only become effective when the constitutional position of Islam and its believers in the European Union has been established beyond that of a merely tolerated marginal existence, and towards a publicly recognised and guaranteed position.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Seillier">
Madam President, this report, as presented to us today by our colleague Mr Mohamed Alí, is the result of many exchanges and debates which have taken place since it was first presented to us last year.
<P>
It has been clarified and important explanations have been provided.
I must, however, point out to my colleagues - as have several previous speakers - that it still contains ambiguities, particularly from the point of view of democracy.
I am not at all suspicious of your intentions to respect the freedoms as enshrined in our democracies, but I must nevertheless ask you this question.
Can the Koran, as it stands - and quite literally so, since the distinctive feature of the Koran for many centuries has been not to allow explanation and theological debate - imply anything other than a theocracy?
<P>
We must ask ourselves this fundamental question.
As I say, I do not suspect your intentions, but I do feel that we must be consistent.
If the celebration of the memory of Averroës causes us to ask all these questions, then we must ask them very frankly.
As for a university, instead of your proposal I would much prefer a European university in which, at the highest level and in all sincerity, in the search for truth and with mutual esteem, we could study the problems of the relationship between religion and politics, between faith and reason, in Islam, Judaism and Christianity in all its forms.
<P>
You will appreciate that this task is enormous.
I must pay tribute to the work which we have done together within this committee, but I cannot endorse your proposals without reservation unless certain ambiguities are eliminated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldi">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this report definitely had a difficult birth: we spent several months discussing it in committee and there were a great many complications.
<P>
I think the celebration of the 800th anniversary of the death of Averroës is an important occasion for presenting wide-ranging cultural programmes, strengthening dialogue and highlighting knowledge of the civilisation and culture of the Mediterranean basin.
Reciprocal knowledge between peoples is the basis of all human coexistence, and what better form of knowledge is there than literature itself?
In Europe, much has been translated from Arabic and other Islamic languages, generally with excellent results.
There is a need to continue making the Arabic and Islamic classics available to the European reader.
It is also necessary to take care with the translations.
In particular, I have here the Italian translation of Averroës' work 'The Harmony between Divine Law and Philosophy', which can be interpreted in various ways because some sentences in it can have another literal meaning if presented in isolation.
<P>
So from a symbolic standpoint, this celebration could provide the right opportunity to highlight the modernity of Averroës' thinking, in seminars and public events, and take up the challenge of fighting against exclusion and xenophobia - the fruit of obscurantism, ignorance and prejudice - on the eve of the third millennium, within the European Community itself, for all that it is imbued with democracy, pluralism and human rights.
<P>
So we need to strengthen dialogue with the Islamic world, which means relations with the Euro-Mediterranean countries, through the MEDA programme and others, not only in socio-economic terms but principally in terms of culture and education, which form the basis of any civilisation and democracy.
Only a knowledge of our actual origins, history and traditions will enable us to understand the values of peace, solidarity and tolerance which constitute the pillars for the construction of Europe.
Fundamental rights and individual dignity, for both men and women in equal measure, must be respected and examined through calm dealings with the Islamic world, without any condemnation and discrimination, particularly as regards women.
Finally, I think calm dialogue is really necessary in this whole sector, but it is equally necessary for nothing to be imposed, because our culture, our education and our experience can only be enriched if we achieve what we consider important and what we have always asserted: a clear, calm period of information and face-to-face dialogue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Féret">
Madam President, 40 years after the death of the prophet Muhammad in 632, Islam attacked Constantinople five times, marking the start of a war with Europe which has lasted over a thousand years given that, on the eve of the 21st century, the conflict is still continuing.
<P>
Taking as a pretext the 800th anniversary of the death of Averroës, a Spanish philosopher from the Middle Ages whose questionable theories led to him being much disputed at the time and who still is today, our colleague Mr Mohamed Ali would like to instigate an era of peace between Islam and the European nations.
I respect the Muslim religion, which is the personal business of its believers.
However, how can we talk of peace when our honourable colleague obtained an invitation onto the European Parliament's Committee on Culture for the former director of the centre for Arabic philosophies at the Catholic University of Louvain who was, at the same time, publishing in Beirut a minor work in which he applauded the massacre of seven Christian monks in Tibehirine?
<P>
How can we talk of peace when, in 1995 in Rome, in the heart of the city of popes and Caesars, the largest mosque in Europe was inaugurated? How better to deride our God while His priests are being savagely murdered on the other side of the Mediterranean?
How can we talk of peace when the island of Cyprus, which is part of Europe, and Constantinople, an imperial city of Europe, are yet to be liberated?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
Madam President, this report by Mr Mohamed Alí puts me in mind of the most interesting philosophy lectures I attended at my protestant university.
Lectures highlighting the parallels between European and Arab theology and thought.
How is that?
It is thanks to people like Averroës who interpreted and commentated on Aristotle and introduced him to Europe, because that is the route by which he came to us.
<P>
I think it is most important that a report like this should also pay tribute to the contribution which Islam and the Arab world, but Islam in particular, has made to European culture.
I think that we must acknowledge that, because in both science and philosophy, culture and latterly of course in our social and economic life too, Muslims have made an enormous contribution to European society.
<P>
Islam is of course blamed for all manner of deeds done by just a few Muslims.
The same is true of course for acts perpetrated by Christians, socialists and liberals; Christendom, socialism and liberalism cannot be held accountable for all of those either.
I find it right and proper that the rapporteur should take the lead in stating the case here.
<P>
There are two serious points in the report to which we are opposed, both of which have to do with the separation of powers between religion and state.
One point is obvious, paragraph 11(f), which refers to a Euro-Islamic university.
I have been a fervent advocate of this for years and happily moves are now afoot in the Netherlands to set up something of that kind.
It sits well with the Dutch constitution, too, since religious beliefs enjoy equal rights under it.
That is a very good thing, as the Muslim communities can involve their imams who have a role to play in our own social and cultural life.
But we cannot dictate policy on what kind of theology must be taught there.
We can only hope that it will be a modern, liberal or European one, but we absolutely cannot stipulate that in a document of this kind.
That would be a serious breach of the separation of powers.
<P>
The second objection is in paragraph 10, which introduces an anti-personal element which does not accord either with the position of present-day Muslims.
Even the Dutch Government, which has no Christian Democrats in it, has acknowledged that Dutch education based on a foundation of Islam is often an excellent system for promoting the emancipation of Muslims, up to secondary level.
The university I mentioned just now is also a part of that system.
I would regard it as quite wrong and very harmful to Muslims to have their freedom of choice restricted by this report.
We must not do that and we must not create suspicion by making a fuss over the kind of ideas which should be taught at their institutions, because we shall not succeed in that.
So I urge Mr Mohamed Ali to get rid of these two points along the lines we have suggested, otherwise he will not secure our votes.
And that would be a great pity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Antony">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I fear that we are doing Averroës a great wrong here this evening.
Indeed I fear that, in reality, he is far from the concerns which seem to be prompting all these speakers.
Averroës' journey within Islam is mysterious to say the least and, in any case, does not conform to the orthodox religion of Islam.
In a way, Averroës is to Islam the opposite of what Maimonides is to the Jewish religion.
For my part, I must urge Mr Mohamed Alí not to be concerned.
Whether you like it or not, I cannot support exclusion and xenophobia, and I have studied Averroës extensively.
But does Mr Mohamed Alí know, for instance, that we do not have the original Arabic translation of ' De Anima' - which is Averroës' main work - but only a very mediocre Latin translation produced by Michael Scot at the Court of Palermo for Frederick II?
Furthermore, much of Averroës' work in its original Greek has been irretrievably lost.
<P>
I must also say that Averroës is the man of an era, but of an era which should be considered, not with ideological blinkers, but with all the requisite objectivity.
The great historian, Jean Dumont, director of Amiot-Dumont publications, dealt with this in his magnificent work ' L'Église au risque de l'histoire' , as did the great Jewish historian from Israel, Bat Ye'Or.
This is the history of the colonisation of Spain by Islam, and it is not idyllic like those who tell us stories on the subject would like us to believe.
The status of the Jews bears witness to that.
This is irrefutable, just like the massacres of the Christians.
This was the history of a colonisation and the Spanish Reconquista was the history of a decolonisation.
Could we be opposed in this House to decolonisation?
<P>
Mr Mohamed Alí regrets that more mosques are not being built in Europe. Would he be interested in a reciprocal situation?
Where are the churches in Saudi Arabia?
There are 1500 mosques in France - are there 1500 churches in Saudi Arabia?
Are there 100 or 10, is there even one?
Wahhabi Islam persecutes Christians and does not allow them anywhere to worship.
And what about in Algeria and in the lands of St Augustine?
What Christianity is there currently in the Islamic world?
Of course, there are men of intelligence in Islam who would like to see an end to the Islamic law which, as noted by my excellent colleague Mrs Seillier, currently represents a theocracy which, at the very least, is unsuited to the modern world.
<P>
We can therefore accept the thinking of Averroës, but not Averroës in all his aspects!
And if we want to organise an Averroës Day in Europe, let us do that, but let us also organise one at the al-Azhar university in Cairo.
Let us organise an Averroës Day in Tunis and another one in Saudi Arabia.
But I can tell you that this will not be allowed because Averroës is a devil in an Islam which does not allow Christians any freedom in the countries over which it rules, except in the case of a man as open as Saddam Hussein who allows cathedrals to be built in Iraq which the American planes then unfortunately bombard!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen: I have to say, Mr Mohamed Alí, that I was genuinely moved when I heard the name of Averroës mentioned in the House. We learnt about the life and thought of this great figure at school, and I offer you my sincere congratulations on your initiative.
<P>
Your initiative was certainly timely.
I do not intend to open a debate on historical issues at this juncture, but I would venture to say - indeed I must - that the presence of Islam in Spain was not simply colonisation.
It was much more.
It was a process of mutual enrichment which continues to benefit us in the present day. Indeed, any contemporary Spaniard is bound to feel indebted - as I do - to the legacy of Islam, to that of the Christian world and to that of the Jewish world.
I believe that the three cultures have combined to create the cultural identity of all true Spaniards.
<P>
I congratulate you on your report, Mr Mohamed Alí.
In particular, I congratulate you on proposing the celebration of an Averroës European Day. Not only will such an occasion provide an opportunity to honour a great thinker, a defender of tolerance, learning and rationalism, it will also, as your report suggests, encourage cross-cultural dialogue to prevent exclusion and do away with outbreaks of intolerance and xenophobia.
This became clear to me as I read your report.
<P>
The Commission is aware of the contribution made by Islam to European culture and also of the problems concerning the social and cultural integration of groups within European Islam. We must welcome them into our society whilst respecting their identity.
On this issue, the Commission is convinced of the value and importance of promoting free and open dialogue, particularly amongst the younger generations.
<P>
I would like to remind Members of the many initiatives which have been taken to stimulate such debate.
Under the Euro-Med programmes, collaboration between the Youth for Europe programmes and Mediterranean programmes is being developed.
In the area of vocational training, the Turin Foundation plans to broaden its programmes and open them to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
On the occasion of the Stockholm Conference held last April, a debate on culture and civilisation was held, as part of the follow-up to the Barcelona Declaration. In a few days' time - and I very much regret being unable to attend - a Euro-Mediterranean conference of Ministers of Culture and the Audio-Visual is to take place in Rhodes, on 25 and 26 September.
As for the cultural sector, the Commission has presented a new framework programme to Parliament and to the Council.
This programme is currently under discussion within our institutions, and it is worth noting that it places particular emphasis on the importance of cross-cultural dialogue as a prerequisite for peace and social cohesion.
<P>
I should like to say, Mr Mohamed Alí, that the Commission feels this report has probably arrived rather too late for the event you suggest to be held before the end of the year.
Specific measures must be taken, concerning both the organisation and financing of the event, and we do not really have the time and resources available.
Nevertheless, the Commission does believe - as Mrs Baldi so brilliantly put it - that study of the work and values of great Islamic thinkers like Averroës would provide an excellent basis for interaction between cultures and foster the spirit of tolerance and understanding which must underpin genuine dialogue between civilisations as rich and as varied as ours.
I can therefore assure you that your report will be borne very much in mind, and that we will do all we can to ensure that in the very near future, we do honour the life and work of Averroës, and give due recognition to the relevance of his thought to contemporary society.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Oreja.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 11 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
Before moving on to deal with the order of business for today, I should like to welcome the delegation from the Duma and the Federal Council to the official gallery.
In view of the significant role played by the Duma in recent developments in Russia, it is particularly appropriate that the European Union-Russia Joint Parliamentary Committee should be meeting here in Strasbourg today and tomorrow.
<P>
I would urge members of that delegation to make every effort to ensure the success of the working session, which is particularly necessary in the light of the present situation.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
International financial crisis and political developments in Russia
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the international financial crisis and political developments in Russia.
<P>
I give the floor to Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, President-in-Office of the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Santer">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, you expressed a wish for me to take part in your debate on the Russian situation, and I should like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak today, here in Strasbourg.
<P>
As you know, the Commission is holding its ordinary meeting this morning.
I will therefore be unable to stay as long as I would have hoped, but my colleagues Hans van den Broek and Yves de Silguy will be available until the end of this debate.
<P>
Mr President, please allow me first of all to draw your attention to the need for caution when making our analyses and comments.
The whole international community is trying to understand the current situation and to help Russia.
The European Union is particularly keen to be active, just as it has been since the end of the Soviet system. However, in a situation where the political and economic factors are so closely linked, I feel it is essential to listen to Russia itself, to its leaders and to its people.
In this respect, you must certainly take full advantage of your discussions with the members of the Duma during the third meeting of the European Union-Russia Joint Parliamentary Committee which is being held at the moment.
<P>
One indisputable fact must be stressed immediately: the stability of Russia is crucial to the stability of our continent.
This is particularly true given that the Asian crisis, although more worrying for Europe on a strictly financial level, remains less important than the situation in Russia, according to European opinion.
The frontiers of Russia are already the frontiers of Europe, and this will apply even more after enlargement. Although our trade with Russia is limited, the European Union is Russia's main economic and commercial partner.
<P>
The increase in our exports to Russia in recent years has been spectacular and this trend should continue as the provisions of the partnership and cooperation agreement concluded with Russia in 1994 are implemented.
This agreement, which entered into force last year, must allow our relations with Russia to be organised coherently around two key principles: democracy and the market economy.
Europe has not imposed these principles on Russia.
Russia itself has made this choice and we have solely provided European technical aid, designed from the outset to help Russia manage this transition.
<P>
The European Union is undoubtedly a pole of stability on the continent.
This is true in general terms and in more specific financial terms.
You must all have noticed that the prospect of the euro is already providing a very firm element of stability.
We only need to make a comparison with the Mexican crisis of 1995 and its impact on the European monetary systems to measure this protective effect.
I sincerely believe that the euro is providing decisive assistance in containing the threat of general financial instability.
<P>
Europe can and must export its stability and prosperity.
To do this, it needs a partner which is reliable from both the economic and political points of view.
I firmly hope, as do we all, that the appointment of Yevgeny Primakov as Prime Minister and his confirmation by the Duma last Friday mark a turning-point which will allow Russia to restore confidence at home and abroad.
I also hope that the government team which will be formed will be capable of undertaking the structural reforms which have been put off for too long and of achieving, based on a programme to address the crisis, the political consensus which is essential to the Parliament and for which the Russian population is hoping.
<P>
I will now turn, Mr President, to our analysis of the Russian crisis.
I must start by regretting, by the way, that the many commentators who are now proving to be so clear-sighted did not make their voices heard before the crisis was declared.
Europe itself could take part of the blame for this, since after all, the weaknesses of the Russian system did not go unnoticed either by our businesses or our banks, or all the European experts in Russia.
The fear of provoking a crisis of confidence, the legitimate hope that a credible reform process would finally be undertaken or even the personal relations which we had with the Russian leaders prompted the international community to remain silent.
Now and in the future, I therefore believe that we all have a duty of vigilance.
Even though this is hard to say, Russia must be judged on its choices, on what it is and on what it wants to be, without excessive alarm but also without complacency.
<P>
The current crisis is mainly due to the absence of certain crucial structural reforms.
The lack of these reforms has contributed significantly to the emergence of the budgetary crisis since the spring and includes: structural weakness of the tax collection system in an economy partly based on barter trade, the absence of tax reforms, tax evasion and lack of an effective control of State expenditure.
All these problems have led to the proliferation of short-term borrowing to balance the Russian budget.
If we add to this the inefficiency of the Russian financial sector and the absence of adequate regulation to manage its operation, the lack of restructuring of Russian industry and a privatisation process lacking in transparency, we can see the full extent of the current economic and financial difficulties.
<P>
In short, reform has been too slow and inadequate.
It would be a tragedy for the future of Russia if the current situation were to discredit the very principle of reform.
The reason that the reforms are now so vital to the economy and the institutions is because the managed economy has been abandoned in a sometimes debatable manner, due to reforms which have been insufficient or inadequately aware of the needs of the Russian people.
Now, in order to turn around the Russian economy, social cohesion is absolutely essential, and yet this now seems to be lacking.
<P>
In other words, the coming weeks will be crucial.
The appointment of the new Prime Minister, a man of experience and a builder of consensus, is in itself a very positive factor.
Mr Primakov without doubt has the respect and esteem of the international community.
I therefore hope that a plan to address the crisis and a coherent economic and social programme will soon be presented.
<P>
According to our analysis, emergency measures to restore the budgetary situation must be established together with more longterm measures, particularly on tax reform, the operation of the financial markets and the strengthening of the institutions which manage the economy.
In terms of the supervision of financial organisations and the operation of the Central Bank and customs, it is clear that the current failures cannot continue.
Finally, and this is perhaps most important, the operation of the rule of law and the legal system must be ensured.
<P>
The new government must be courageous and imaginative, even though there is a real risk of making the wrong choices.
I am thinking in particular of certain proposals which are circulating in Moscow relating to the issue of money and the adoption of protectionist commercial measures.
Surely the need is more urgent to check the inflation which is making the poorest poorer and to encourage the restructuring of domestic Russian industry, but not by protecting imports, however useful these are for balancing public finances?
I mention these two examples because the old solutions, whatever their inherent dangers, are sometimes favoured by the man in the street.
<P>
How can we assess the effects of the Russian crisis on the European Union and on the applicant countries?
Firstly, I would point out that the direct effects on trade are limited, as our bilateral trade, although of increasing importance, still represents only 3.5 % of our exports and 4 % of our imports.
The same situation applies overall for the applicant states in Central Europe, due to the reorientation of the bulk of their trade towards the European Union.
However, some Member States, some applicant countries and some sectors may feel the effects of the crisis more than others, for example the agricultural sector.
Agricultural and food exports from the European Union to Russia represented around 20 % of our total exports in 1997 - over ECU 5000 million out of a total of ECU 25 000 million.
The meat sector, beef in particular, may be sensitive to a reduction in exports to Russia.
<P>
As for the direct financial effects, even though European banks are more exposed than American and Asian banks, their lending in Russia represents only 8 % of their international lending.
<P>
The indirect effects of the financial crisis are more marked but are compensated for in a way.
The fall in the prices of raw materials and in long-term interest rates is actually advantageous for Europe.
We are even witnessing a phenomenon of capital returning to the bond markets of the euro zone.
This is one of the effects of the euro which I mentioned previously.
However, the knock-on effects have caused a downward correction in the stock markets which has wiped out part of the gains recorded since the start of the year.
<P>
As for the applicant states, we do not currently foresee lasting negative consequences since their basic macro-economic situations remain fundamentally sound.
<P>
Since the beginning of September, the Commission has been considering the aid which the European Union could give Russia to overcome the crisis.
The Foreign Ministers, during their informal meeting in Salzburg, also worked out some guidelines which are contained in the declaration which they adopted on 6 September.
Senior officials from the states participating in the group of leading industrialised countries met the day before yesterday in London.
The European Commission and Austria - which currently holds the presidency of the Union - participated in this meeting.
<P>
I have a few initial comments to make on these discussions.
The European Union cannot do anything without Russia, as Russia is too important and too complex.
Its difficulties are too deep-rooted to be resolved by instructions from abroad which would not have the support of the Russian people.
Everyone is concerned about the social consequences which this crisis could have.
However, I must stress that it would be absurd to oppose economic reform and social measures.
The first social measure is to prevent inflation and a slowdown in economic activity which would dramatically heighten the poverty of the Russian population.
Poor economic decisions are also poor social decisions.
<P>
The only way forward, therefore, is through economic reforms.
Simply injecting fresh money into the Russian economy would not be enough, as this only makes sense if the structural problems confronting Russia are tackled head-on: tax reforms, tax collection, the operation of the financial markets and the restructuring of business.
Russia must strengthen its institutions and operate according to the rule of law.
<P>
This is a huge task which will not be completed in a few months.
The transition in Russia over the last ten years has been a complex process which must be assessed over its whole term.
For the Commission, this means that the political and social viability of the reforms must never be forgotten.
<P>
In this high-risk situation, the dialogue with Russia must be constant.
This is confirmed by the declaration which we produced last Sunday in Salzburg.
The political leaders of the troika are now returning from Moscow and the troika of Foreign Ministers will meet this Thursday, 17 September, in Moscow, to continue the dialogue and confirm our desire to cooperate.
I intend shortly to respond to the invitation from Mr Primakov and I hope that Hans van den Broek and myself may soon meet with the Prime Minister.
At the end of October, the European Union will hold the planned summit in Vienna with the Russian President.
<P>
On the financial level, the Commission will try to ensure that any subsequent G7 discussions are preceded by appropriate Community coordination.
<P>
You can see that there are plenty of opportunities for dialogue.
However, the adoption of a coherent economic and social programme is actually a prior condition for the reorientation of our aid to Russia.
When we know what the Russians want, we can act at their side.
In the meantime, here are a few pointers.
<P>
Firstly, you know that the TACIS programme has provided Russia with nearly ECU 2000 million since 1991.
We are now seeking to prioritise projects to accompany the reforms, which involves a certain amount of adaptation of our working methods.
The TACIS programme is still relatively dependent on the bureaucratic systems of the recipient countries.
In other words, as specifically intended by the European legislators, the TACIS programme is not totally suited to emergency situations.
Every effort must therefore be made to reduce the implementation deadlines and to rapidly mobilise European aid.
This means that the Russian authorities must commit themselves just as we are doing.
<P>
For our part, we are preparing a range of actions to deal with the structural causes of the crisis, for example the sending in the near future of European experts in public finance, tax reform, debt management and control of public spending.
Assistance with supervision and reform of the financial sector also seems to me to be necessary.
In both the short and the long term, the reinforcement of the capabilities and efficiency of the Russian administration will remain the focal point of our action.
<P>
Secondly, in addition to the technical aid, certain cooperation actions may provide very significant results.
I am thinking in particular of customs cooperation.
We have already started this programme but we are faced with, it must be said, real inertia on the part of the Russian administration.
I hope that we can make progress in this sector, as customs fraud is calculated at the exorbitant amount of USD 6000 million, in terms of the annual tax revenue not collected by the Russian Treasury.
<P>
The campaign against money laundering is also one of the priorities of our cooperation and we are preparing a project which may receive TACIS financing.
The joint work programme which we adopted in January with Yevgeny Primakov, then Foreign Minister, involves a number of other joint initiatives, particularly in the areas of space, scientific, transport and energy cooperation.
<P>
You can therefore see, ladies and gentlemen, that we are not short of projects.
What is sometimes lacking, from our Russian partner, is vigorous coordination, capable of providing the political impetus needed to prepare and implement these projects.
The appointment of a member of the government responsible for coordination is absolutely essential.
This is a point which the Commission has stressed on several occasions, and the political involvement of the Russian authorities is even more essential now.
The Commission will also seek, by whatever means, to exploit all the opportunities in our programmes which could make the work more decentralised and more closely linked to the local authorities.
<P>
Thirdly, it is obvious that the return to growth requires, as a first step, the return of private investors to Russia.
For this reason, the legal, legislative and regulatory system, which provides the framework for economic activity, must without question be reformed.
We are therefore continuing to encourage contacts between European and Russian industrialists in order to facilitate direct dialogue between businesses.
In addition, the TACIS programme for training young Russian managers in European companies should next year allow approximately two thousand young Russian business people to learn European business practices.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have given you a few ideas to start your debate.
There is no doubt that the future of Russia will come to your attention again during the coming months.
The Commission will keep the European Parliament regularly informed of the development of the situation and of the actions which the Commission may propose, as soon as the programme of the new Russian Government is known.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, quite some time ago, when we discussed the forest fires in Indonesia and I pointed out that there were other reasons for the situation, some of them social, I received a written reply from the Commission, stating that the European Union was already trying to obtain more money to assist the fire services in Indonesia.
The President of the Commission is just leaving, but I should still like to remind him that this was the position of the European Commission on a serious economic, political and financial crisis.
The President-in-Office has told us today that the crisis is far more profound than was originally thought.
<P>
Much of what Mrs Ferrero-Waldner has said can be fully endorsed.
But without laying claim to omniscience, I should like to emphasise clearly here and now that at least some of this could have been avoided by careful examination, Commissioners, without the blinkers of liberal or indeed ultraliberal economic ideology.
It was and remains unacceptable that we have hidden for so long behind an American position that is high on rhetoric about human rights and democracy but sometimes turns a blind eye, or even two, in the case of so-called allies.
<P>
What are the causes?
I can only subscribe to what Mrs Ferrero-Waldner has said.
First of all, there was the direct trigger of speculative capital movements, then the failure, deliberate or otherwise, to create all the necessary institutions and conditions.
The future President of the European Bank in London recently stated that we in the West were pleased about many of the spectacular privatisations in Russia and did not see that the essential economic and political institutions were not being created.
We must also be openly critical of regimes that are partly corrupt, of combinations of economic, political and military power in the hands of certain elements within the administration and of inattention to social needs and human distress in some countries.
Many of these patterns were identical from Indonesia to Russia without our really having noticed.
<P>
The answers that I have received, especially from the Commission, are not entirely satisfactory.
What are we to do about speculative movements of capital?
I am a supporter of free trade, and I support the principle of freedom, which includes the free movement of capital.
But we in Europe have taken decades to achieve such freedom.
We cannot force it on other countries overnight, especially not developing countries.
Are we prepared to take specific action against speculative, shortterm capital movements and to create a framework of global rules governing such movements?
I have not received a reply to that question.
<P>
The second point concerns institutions.
Let me reiterate what has been said here, namely that appropriate national institutions - a central bank, commercial banks, banking authorities, etc. have to be created.
But something has to be done internationally too.
We in the PSE Group find it intolerable that there should be a free economy and free movement of capital without even any elements of an international regulatory structure.
We ought to strengthen the IMF and the World Bank, but they would have to be reformed at the same time.
It is illogical that all speculators, whether they be banks or individuals, should receive immediate aid from the international banking system when they incur losses, which encourages them, as it were, to carry on speculating.
They have nothing to lose.
<P>
Many unemployed people in the world and in Europe do not receive the support that speculators enjoy worldwide when they speculate against weaker currencies.
<P>
What does the European Union say to that?
Will it press for these institutions to be strengthened in this way, but in conjunction with reforms designed to ensure that we do not rush to lend a hand wherever currencies collapse under the combined weight of corrupt regimes and speculators?
That, of course, is unacceptable.
<P>
My third point relates to the separation of politics, business and the armed forces.
I have heard a thing or two in this connection.
Let me stress emphatically that it is absolutely imperative to ensure that reforms take place.
<P>
The fourth point concerns social measures.
The administration and the economy of those countries must be geared to reducing the alienation that has developed between the government and the people and to supporting the socially deprived; we cannot tolerate any visible vestiges of alienation and marginalisation.
<P>
There is a delegation from the Duma here today, to which I should like to extend my own personal welcome and that of my group.
You bear a great responsibility, not only for your country and not only for Europe, but also on a global scale.
I would ask the representatives of the Duma to support the newly appointed government in a spirit of constructive cooperation and to ensure that the aims we have referred to today are actually achieved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Brok">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when I look at the many political and financial crises in the world, I have to conclude that Euroland is a land of stability.
I am pleased that we did not follow the advice of those who, in the spring of this year, were still speaking of the euro as a premature birth.
Many of those who have held up the Asian model as an example to us are nowhere to be seen now, presumably because they are busy burning their speeches!
<P>
In my speech I should like to concentrate on the situation in Russia.
A united, democratic and stable Russia is of paramount interest to us Europeans.
That sort of Russia, as an equal partner of the European Union and of NATO, can make a decisive contribution to stability and constructive development in Europe.
For that reason, it is essential that the appropriate reforms are enacted in Russia, reforms which are the responsibility of Russia and Russia alone.
We can lend support, and we can help the Russians to help themselves, so that they will be able to clear away the ballast of the Soviet regime and the planned economy.
At the same time, we must get round to talking about the basics, by which I mean such fundamental elements as a functioning administration, which is the key to the implementation of social, environmental and, above all, economic improvements, as well as to a rational and balanced interactive relationship between central government and the regional authorities.
This is the only way to guarantee the rule of law and to establish the social market economy which will bring about the progress that is so urgently needed. Such a market economy must be embedded in a framework of social justice and environmental responsibility as we understand them.
<P>
I agree with Mr Swoboda that we Europeans undoubtedly made a great mistake in the past, for although we gave money, we left the provision of advice to a host of Harvard professors who preached pure free-market capitalism.
I believe in a social market economy which takes account of all the national structures and is designed to strengthen small and medium-sized businesses, which are the basis of economic development in Russia.
These structures are absolutely essential if the public finances are to be put in order, if taxes are to be properly collected and if corruption and organised crime are to be curbed.
We must also seek ways and means of recovering the 150 billion dollars which has found its way into private hands within and outside Russia, so that it can be used for the nation's economic development.
<P>
We consider it essential that democratic structures and national political parties should develop.
I hope, Mr van den Broek, that the aid from the European Union, such as that provided through the TACIS programme, will be tailored to these requirements, but we shall surely have the opportunity to discuss this in greater detail.
If our position is to prevail during the preparations for the G7 meeting, the European G7 participants must coordinate their approach.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Goerens">
Mr President, the Russian crisis cannot be cured in the way that you would cure someone with a cold.
<P>
Many have underestimated the extent of the political, economic and social gauntlet thrown down to the Russians following the collapse of the communist regime and the end of the Soviet Union.
However, it would be as mistaken to predict a return to communism in Russia as it would be foolish to gloss over the bitter failure to implement reforms, which particularly reduces the alternatives in the current situation.
<P>
Also, simply pointing the finger at those responsible - or those supposedly responsible - for the current Russian crisis, whether this involves the IMF or other agreements, will not help Russia to escape the impasse.
<P>
I can only heartily applaud the analysis of the current situation in Russia presented a few moments ago by the President of the Commission.
However, I would add that, whatever the reforms possibly undertaken in Russia - which should target first and foremost better operation of the institutions and re-establishment of the main budgetary and macro-economic balances - the Russians, with the best will in the world, cannot resolve the situation on their own.
They are, in the short term at least, essentially dependent on the assistance of their European partners, with whom they are already forming an inevitable community, if only on the security level.
This assistance must not just involve the injection of another several thousand million ecus into the system.
Basically, as loans need to be granted, we should improve the system for granting these, with the nonchalance and thoughtlessness with which they were granted in the 1970s to middle-income countries being an example, par excellence , of what must be avoided.
<P>
It also seems essential to me, in the long term, to increase cooperation in all areas: political, economic, administrative and, I would add, between the citizens of the European Union and the citizens of the Russian Federation, so that progress can also be made on the local, micro-economic and humanitarian level.
Basically, we must make a personal investment in all these areas.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Carrère d'Encausse">
Mr President, a storm struck Russia this summer, which immediately led to the conclusion that the democratic transition had failed and that Communism was returning.
Before proposing any solutions, we must understand what happened.
<P>
The backdrop to the crisis is an indisputable economic disaster.
The rouble collapsed and was devalued by the government which also froze its external and internal debt.
Prices went through the roof, the savings of the poor disappeared and the population feared, with the onset of another bleak winter, that they would have no food or heating.
A frightened population may look for order in the chaos.
<P>
Is this crisis due to the reform policy?
No, because its causes are primarily political.
This summer's crisis is first and foremost a political crisis, even though its manifestations have been economic.
Russia is not suffering from too much reform, but from reforms which have not been implemented because those in power were opposed to them.
Since 1992, power in Russia has been in the hands of two opposing legal rulers: the President and the Duma, both of which are elected by universal suffrage.
<P>
To resolve this, the 1993 constitution gave the President considerable powers and left the Duma with the power to block all decisions and all reforms.
This systematic blocking of reforms, in particular tax reform and land ownership reform, has had dramatic consequences.
By refusing tax reform, the Duma has deprived the State of the means to levy taxes and therefore to function, and a State without financial resources cannot exist.
Russia has a powerful president governing a phantom State.
How can you have democracy without a State?
<P>
The second reform involving land ownership has constantly been refused.
This has blocked the development of private agriculture in Russia and as a result the government has had to import food for its people, which is absurd in a country with considerable agricultural resources.
Russia is now stopping payments as it can no longer make these.
If there is a famine in Russia, this will not be because of the reforms but because reforms were not implemented.
<P>
The political crisis, resulting from the impotence of the executive, does not therefore date from last summer.
It was predictable and nothing was done to prevent it.
It was simply precipitated by the Asian crisis and the fall in the prices of raw materials, the sale of which provided Russia with the bulk of its resources.
However, political crises, although dangerous, can be beneficial when they do not turn into a catastrophe.
This is perhaps what is happening in Russia today.
<P>
Despite the dual dangers of a population which no longer has confidence in its political leaders or in politics, despite the country breaking up as the regions turn in on themselves due to the lack of an effective State and the possibility of division, despite all this, Russia has not sunk into civil unrest, anarchy or a political adventure led by an apprentice dictator.
<P>
The agreement between Mr Yeltsin and the Duma on the appointment of Mr Primakov has halted the crisis, at least for the moment.
A new balance of power is emerging.
For the first time, the head of government has legitimacy and the Duma which gave him this can only support him, even though the Communists have not rushed to take part.
The President must necessarily abandon part of his power, which will therefore lead to a more balanced and more democratic political system.
This must be enshrined in the constitution, which will put an end to the unproductive infighting which has set each centre of power against the other, resulting in paralysis.
The Communists are going to participate in the government, which does not mean that they will take it over, only that they can no longer just criticise and block.
<P>
Also, the appointment yesterday of a reforming Deputy Prime Minister, Alexander Shokhin, is clear evidence that Primakov is not simply, as has been said, a head of the KGB, but a man of authority who is not a hostage of the Duma.
Nobody in Russia, not even Zyuganov, wants to turn back the clock. However, all Russians know that, in the current crisis, everyone, including the Communists, must participate in the democratic change.
This must be understood so that Russia can be helped in a sensible manner, and not just by pouring in limitless amounts of aid.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, there are two aspects of the world economy: the economy in practice and the economy on paper.
That on paper is the bubble economy. John Maynard Keynes called it casino capitalism.
The world is an electronic casino, where the stakes are the various products of the stock exchange.
Every day, sixty times more currency moves around the world than is needed to pay the world trade bill.
That is why the world economy is unstable.
The banks and the other world casino players invested electronic money into the Far East, Russia and Latin America in the hope of high profits.
The money was used for the wrong purposes. The capital market inflated.
When the bubble bursts, the consequence may be world deflation.
The Asian collapse has been paid for out of IMF funds.
Now there is not enough money for elsewhere.
We have all had to pay out via the IMF.
The IMF is asking its member countries to increase their subscriptions and for a special NAB system.
<P>
I would like to ask who we are really bailing out with IMF funds?
My reply would be that it is a great many speculators, casino players and thieves.
Western banks, under the leadership of Germany, invested perhaps ECU 100 billion in Russia, money which the Russian mafia have recycled back to the West for themselves.
The debts remained in Russia, and the money came back to the West.
Should the West, by assuming the burden of Russian debt supranationally, keep those in power who enslave their people with money and television?
Must the West rescue a president in the name of a reform policy which has already received the verdict of the Russian people?
Poverty, despair and starvation are the judges of history.
Now we need a resurrection of leftist thinking in Europe.
The right have destroyed the alternative they offered, and any prospect of a rescue from the crisis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, Commissioner, Madam President-in-Office, the example of Russia teaches us that a process of economic transformation must follow directly from successes in the development of democracy.
Democracy sustained such damage when the parliament building in Moscow was shelled in 1993 that it has not yet regained the necessary credibility in the eyes of the Russian people.
The West has ignored this fact and has continued to back Boris Yeltsin as the guarantor of democracy.
<P>
Reality in Russia, however, looks quite different.
The reality is that 80 % of economic activity is unofficial and that the West's neoliberal schemes have come to grief when confronted with the hard facts of Russian life.
It is an illusion to think that Russia need only hasten to implement the reforms that the IMF and the World Bank have wanted for the past seven years, and everything will then be all right.
But how can it do that when the system of government has collapsed?
The percentage of the population who live below the subsistence level has long included some of the middle classes, and as winter draws in, the people in Russia only have themselves to rely on, for they will not put any faith in the grand words of politicians at home or abroad.
This profound crisis of confidence has currently blocked all the political roads to democracy.
And yet I have the impression that Western politicians are less interested in this situation than in the fact that suppliers of yoghurt and cheese from the West have lost a market and that containers are piling up in Rotterdam.
Western economic relations, however, must be modelled in such a way that they foster stability within an economic system that is subject to ecological and social conditions rather than undermining the reform efforts in Russia.
The purpose of Western support must therefore be to help overcome this profound crisis of confidence; the West must recognise that the reconstruction of the social security system and the reinforcement of democracy are every bit as important as its economic priorities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lalumière">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I will be speaking about Russia and my colleague, Henri de Lassus, will deal with the Asian financial crisis.
<P>
No one can deny that Russia is going through an extremely difficult period.
The economic, financial and social crisis is so severe that it could be viewed in terms of bankruptcy.
There is also a political crisis, with President Yeltsin having lost authority, the problem of choosing a prime minister, paralysing opposition between the Duma and the executive, and so on.
<P>
However, we should note that, despite the seriousness of this crisis, it has so far occurred within the institutional framework and in accordance with the constitutional rules.
In a country whose democratic traditions are still shaky, this is a not insignificant point which we must underline and encourage.
<P>
Faced with this multi-faceted crisis, we must re-examine, or revise, our policy towards Russia.
Any hesitation by the Union could have disastrous consequences in the Russian Federation, even though the future of Russia is clearly, in the main, in the hands of the Russians themselves. So saying, I would like to welcome the delegation of members of the Duma who are in the official gallery.
<P>
Firstly, I am happy to note that no one here is considering abandoning our great neighbour and major partner.
I firmly believe that we need to continue our cooperation and our aid, using every possible means imaginable.
The Russian people need to feel that the European family understands and supports them.
It would be very easy for Russian nationalist extremists to depict the European Union as an organisation of rich egoists, untroubled by the misfortunes of Russia. This would be very dangerous!
We must ensure that our attitude can never be interpreted in this way as this could lead to the very worst xenophobic reactions in Russia.
<P>
Having said this, our cooperation and aid must themselves be reformed.
President Santer has just acknowledged this, as have several colleagues.
This is not the first time that Members of the European Parliament have expressed their reservations, indeed their criticisms, not only about the policy followed by the IMF, the World Bank and the West in general, but also about the policy followed by the Union, for example with the TACIS programme.
<P>
I must be brief, due to lack of time, and would say that we have on numerous occasions encouraged the establishment of a market economy. This is good, but we have assumed that the foundations of Russian society were firm enough to implement and operate this free market economy.
This assumption has been shown to be false.
Russia is not Poland or Hungary or Czechoslovakia, for example.
For historical reasons which should never be forgotten, Russia did not have in 1991 either the foundations of a true rule of law or the attitude and public-spiritedness to prevent the free market from turning into a wild jungle where anything goes, including large-scale organised crime.
<P>
Fundamental reforms - for example, the correct operation of a proper tax system, land-sharing, respect for undertakings and contracts, at least some social law and social welfare - are not the firm supports on which the subtle reforms requested by the West can be developed. These fundamental reforms and a transformation of attitudes are still to be achieved.
This is where we must target the bulk of our advice and aid, Mr President, while hoping that the Primakov government can rise to the enormous challenge weighing on its shoulders.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, in January Mr de Silguy announced in this House that the Asian crisis would have only a marginal effect on our economies.
The shield provided by the forthcoming euro would be sufficient to protect us, as if by magic, from any fallout.
We had to face up to reality then, and once again we are confronted by an extremely tough challenge.
<P>
The same shining shield is now being held up for us by Mr Santer with regard to the Russian crisis.
Still thanks to the forthcoming euro, we will be protected to some extent.
Surely it is rather presumptuous to predict that the Russian crash, which we were unable to foresee, will not have profound effects on our economic and monetary development?
On the contrary, we must not disguise the extent of the crisis. Furthermore, its immediate causes must be correctly identified, in particular the singular responsibility of a parliament, dominated by the Communists, which blocked the development of the legislative framework essential to the establishment of the rule of law.
<P>
It is true that the Russian banks, which are weak and fragmented, have been careless.
With debts in dollars and deposits in roubles, they can no longer honour their internal and external obligations.
They have lost the confidence of savers and investors alike.
As victims of excessive monetary restrictions, they have been the channel for a colossal flight of capital and have fed international corruption rings, into which a large part of the Western aid seems to have disappeared.
Who is to blame, if not first and foremost the Duma which refused to give the banking system the legislative framework it needed to operate?
And who can pretend that the implosion of the Russian banking system will not have a serious effect on ours?
<P>
If the State is now powerless and unable to regularly pay its officials, this is surely primarily because the Duma refused to adopt the tax code and buried the proposed tax system under a mountain of amendments.
Deprived of tax revenue and therefore of the means to act, the State is involuntarily contributing to the fragmentation of the country, leaving regional feudal systems and mafia networks to capture the real power.
Mr Primakov is facing two major challenges: to restore the authority of the State and the unity of the country.
<P>
If a European population, namely the Russian people, is threatened by the prospect of a real famine this winter, on the eve of the third millennium, surely this is primarily because its agricultural sector could not develop due to the complete blockage imposed by the Duma on the land ownership legislation.
In order to feed a population which lives on the best land in the world, Russia must therefore import massive amounts of foodstuffs, which we produce, but for which it is now virtually unable to pay.
Are you trying to tell me that this will not have serious consequences, particularly on our agri-foodstuffs industry?
<P>
It is therefore high time that we completely reviewed the mistaken approach which we have taken up to now.
We must stop incessantly calling for reform, we must stop wasting our taxpayers' money on aid programmes whose assessment we have not received, but we must help Russia, genuinely and en masse , to train the new, competent and honest managers which the country urgently needs to restore the authority of the State, to operate the administration and to restart the economy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Muscardini">
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Krehl">
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valdivielso de Cué">
Mr. President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioners, at the beginning of the summer we were still enjoying excellent economic health, and yet in a very short space of time, an ill wind from the Pacific brought us Asian flu, spread it to North America, struck South America and left the whole planet trembling.
Russia had already shown signs of weakness, so I shall leave it aside for the moment.
<P>
Now, what is the cause of this global collapse?
Detailed explanations of the causes are already being put forward - rather like having a patient's disease diagnosed at the post mortem.
<P>
It appears to be a recurring problem.
Despite all the recent technological advances, predictions in this area are still far from accurate. In fact, there is a tendency for them to be made after the event, while we are facing the consequences.
The economic outlook for Europe remains quite good at the moment, so it would seem, except for businesses with close ties to Latin America, Japan or Russia.
<P>
It was only yesterday that the representatives of the Duma gave an assessment of the current situation within the framework of the Delegation for relations with Russia. I would like to welcome the representatives here today and wish them every success as they deal with the difficult situation before them.
It is not exactly a financial crisis, but a crisis resulting from the total lack of order, structure, the absence of a fiscal system and from a long list of other shortcomings.
It hard to imagine how a country so rich in natural resources could have become so utterly bankrupt.
We must make our methods and systems available as a matter of urgency, to help with rebuilding, but we should not send financial aid - you never know whose pocket it will end up in.
I would draw your attention also to the need for humanitarian aid to relieve hunger. Indeed, as a Finnish colleague mentioned at the meeting I referred to earlier, it could well be that the border between Finland and Russia will be besieged by Russians driven from their homes by hunger.
<P>
In times of distress, the best advice is always to avoid knee-jerk reactions.
We must continue to follow the best way forward for the economy, namely free trade and a world investment system under the aegis of international institutions such as the World Trade Organisation, The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
We must persevere, and continue to work within this framework.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Watson">
Mr President, when speculative bubbles burst national economies can go into recession.
Invariably this leads to calls for controls on capital movements and speculative investments.
But exchange controls inevitably back-fire on the countries composing them.
This financial crisis can probably be averted by coordinated cuts in Western interest rates, by collective action to help third countries financially where they can use it, and by better international regulation and prudential supervision in the banking sector.
But it cannot be done if there is policy paralysis in Western Europe.
<P>
Frankly, it is time the Commission got its act together.
Last month Commissioner de Silguy was sounding like Cliff Richard: 'We're all going on a summer holiday' .
Last night Commissioner van den Broek sounded as if he was suffering from Beatlemania: 'You don't know how lucky you are to be back in the USSR' .
<P>
Was the Commission serious a fortnight ago when it described the consequences of the crisis for the EU and its candidate members as 'limited' ?
We are in a grave situation.
We may be seeing a return to a command economy in Europe. We need decisive action.
Speed up the timetable for accession. Fight the advocates of protectionism and push on with the launch of the euro.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wurtz">
Mr President, I should firstly like to welcome the delegation from the Duma.
I have heard plenty of good advice given to the Parliament and to the new government of Russia.
Surely there are lessons which Europe itself can draw from the financial crisis which has continued to grow since May 1997?
We should not be so easily reassured.
The economic and social situations in our own countries would not emerge unscathed from a long-term fall in world growth.
We must therefore react - and this is the sticking point for adherents of orthodox monetary policy.
To restart growth involves partly letting go of the obsession with the alleged inflationary danger and with ultra-restrictive monetary and budgetary policies.
The world order has changed, and to ignore this would be irresponsible.
<P>
Even the G7 nations are for the first time taking this into consideration, as demonstrated by their communiqué the day before yesterday which stated that the nature of the risks to the world economy has changed.
It also underlined that inflation is low and drew attention to the fall in demand.
The financial press regarded these declarations as a surprise and as a spectacular initiative which they claimed reinforces the theory of a concerted easing of the monetary situation.
Among the seven members of the G7, there are four countries which belong to the European Union, of which three, and important ones at that, will be in the future euro zone.
It would be logical for Europe in turn to take one of these spectacular initiatives, by reorientating its priorities towards boosting real growth.
However, this has not been the attitude to date of the European Central Bank.
Although its President, Mr Duisenberg, recently acknowledged that the global economic and financial environment of the future euro zone has clearly been damaged and that the current crisis will definitely restrict growth, he immediately repeated the Bank's sole creed: budgetary discipline.
<P>
Faced with such a contradiction and due to the exceptional gravity of the challenges, I propose, Mr President, that Parliament should invite the President of the ECB to explain himself to us.
The European Parliament would be within its rights to exercise democratic control over this institution and to develop, during a debate, its own vision of the situation on behalf of the citizens who elected us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, Mr Santer is undoubtedly correct on one point.
There is indeed no turning back.
What we are looking for are new forms of global governance, a reformed and regulated market economy in which the adjectives 'social' and 'ecological' do not merely reflect wishful thinking, for that is the only way of avoiding the situation in which the weakest national economies are required to serve as a safety valve whenever the world economy undergoes a global structural crisis.
<P>
Bill Clinton, who, as you know, is still politically active, is pinning his hopes on the strengths of the international financial system.
Even senior representatives of the IMF speak of the need for control of capital movements as a key element in a new international financial edifice.
As Mr Wurtz has just said, the G7 have been talking again about boosting real demand.
In short, the issue today is about social and ecological regulation of the world economy as the common denominator in the enlightened self-interest of a Europe strengthened by the proper implementation of a single currency, and in the interests, which are forever being violated, of the peoples of this world, who are not prepared to be the pawns that are sacrificed in pursuit of capital accumulation.
<P>
To this end we need tailor-made transitional programmes, embedded in the necessary broad social and political consensus that only a historic compromise can achieve, to take the place of an economically and socially destructive policy of structural adjustment.
<P>
What is at stake today is the opportunity at long last to bring the sad chapter of neoliberal casino capitalism to a painless end for the great majority of mankind, to release the air from the balloon in a controlled way, instead of letting it explode.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Lassus Saint Geniès">
Mr President, the Group of the European Radical Alliance does not wish to be associated with the joint motion for a resolution on the global economic and financial crisis which will be voted on tomorrow morning.
This motion seems to have little significance in relation to the capabilities and current responsibilities of the European Union.
<P>
Faced with a crisis which is affecting the whole of Asia, Russia and Latin America, we are entitled to expect broader and more precise proposals to be adopted by our Parliament.
We welcome the solidity of the euro, which has been developed to give coherence and stability to the monetary environment of the European countries.
The euro is based on powerful, organised and controlled economies.
The administrations of the Member States, whatever the criticisms which we sometimes lay at their doors, are proven administrations which take into account almost all business movements.
Our institutions were formed slowly. They are supported clearly and democratically by all the people in the Union.
This is why the euro is basically stable and solid.
<P>
On the other hand, Russia and the majority of the emerging economies have institutions which are unfortunately fragile, newly created and lacking in deep-rooted democratic support.
Their administrations seem to be widely afflicted by corruption.
They control only part of economic activity, with the rest having been taken over by parallel or mafia-controlled economies which profit from the financial aid given to their countries by the international financial community.
However, institutions such as the International Monetary Fund continue to lend to these states, demanding that the latter put their economies or their institutions in order. And yet institutions like the IMF do not have the means to really make themselves heard, and they allow themselves to be pushed into a defensive position from which they continue to lend without any hope of return for fear of even more damaging chaos.
<P>
Faced with these problems, the motion for a resolution is restricted to calling for reform of the international financial institutions, without saying from where these institutions should draw their authority and allowing the assumption that they can simply remain technocratic.
We would have preferred a clear indication that the continued globalisation of trade would involve the establishment of a worldwide financial regulatory and supervisory organisation, with real democratic support.
We would have preferred, as indicated by the text of our amendment, the acknowledgement of the relative failure of the International Monetary Fund whenever it addresses governments and administrations ill-prepared for market economy mechanisms. This failure is due to the IMF not taking account of the devastating effect of parallel economies and not assessing the social consequences of the measures which it proposes.
We would have preferred, as indicated by another amendment, consideration to be given to a credible procedure for regulating capital movements, particularly through the establishment of an international tax on this trade.
<P>
The force of the observations made this morning by President Santer specifically on the situation of the institutions and the Russian economy shows the acuteness of the problems which we are facing.
Only a very firm political stance taken by the European Union can transform the current crisis into a useful step towards world progress.
We hope that the move towards a social market economy is assessed in each country concerned according to the institutional capacity of these countries to manage and regulate this.
The role of the Union should be to help accelerate the potential increase in the rule of law and democratic institutions which is essential to the vitality of the nascent market economies.
We believe that this is the role which the people of the world expect us to play.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Blot">
Mr President, I should first of all like to welcome the delegation from the Russian Duma which is here in Strasbourg, and I must immediately denounce the hypocrisy of the West in its relationship with Russia.
<P>
Officially, of course, this is one of friendship as we have heard this morning, but in reality I fear this is not the case.
The great Greek historian, Thucydides, said that political power generally has three motivations: interest, fear and vanity.
The vanity of the West is evident.
For us in the West, it is too often wealth and human rights which concern us and we are encouraging our Russian friends to imitate us, as if we were a superior being.
<P>
The Western fear of Russia, even though it is often hidden, is perfectly real.
The aim is clearly to weaken Russia's military force and to gradually dismember this vast territory.
Interest is the basic motivation.
This involves economically colonising Russia by using Western resources.
Powerful interests in the West are clearly pressing in this direction.
These interests are the same as those which are pushing for transatlantic integration, which would result in Europe accepting a situation of permanent subordination to the American superpower.
<P>
This is the real situation.
And yet, cooperation and friendship between Europe and Russia are needed more now than ever.
We are firmly convinced of this.
However, this cooperation cannot take the form of costly and ineffective financial operations such as we have seen in the past.
The Russian economy must find solutions within Russia itself and the economic crisis cannot, under any circumstances, be resolved without the prior political condition of the end of anarchy.
It is this anarchy which is preventing the establishment of a true rule of law based on respect for the right of property.
Russia is primarily experiencing a crisis of authority, particularly because the political leaders have ignored the people too much.
The Kremlin can no longer ignore the patriotic majority in the Duma, because the State will keep its authority only while it heeds the interests of the Russian people as represented by their parliamentary assembly.
Reform in Russia is not a technical problem: it is a political problem.
Russia needs a strong State, and I repeat, a strong State, because the country is rooted in the traditions of its people. These traditions are obviously national ones, but they are also spiritual traditions resulting from the Orthodox Church.
<P>
The emergence of this strong Russia is also in our interest, if only to balance the domination of the American superpower which has won, we should remember, three world wars: the first, the second and also the cold war.
Everything else is really just peripheral and unconnected with the real situation in Russia, and reflects the egoistic interests of the Western multinationals.
This is why I hope that Russia can find its own way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wiersma">
Mr President, it is very tempting to blame the problems in Russia on the world financial crisis.
That would be a good excuse for the new Russian Government which comprises elements of a past with which it has manifestly not yet come to terms.
But old solutions are no answer to new economic problems.
The Russian crisis, for it remains unresolved, is primarily political in nature and is the result of a political sham in which the genuine reforms which are needed have been neglected.
The Russian people are now paying the price for that omission.
<P>
Regrettably the aid we have given in recent years has not contributed to real progress.
The outlook and debate on what is currently happening in Russia prompt a measure of gloom in me too.
The same goes for the Russian Government's warning that it may be necessary to keep on printing money so that people have the financial resources they need.
As we know, that will lead to a situation in which the economic difficulties get worse and worse, in the shape of hyperinflation, for example.
<P>
Our influence on developments is somewhat limited, but our interest is considerable.
Not so much our economic interest, as many speakers have already said, but rather our political interest.
But we must not back the wrong horse again but stick to our substantive position vis-à-vis economic reform in Russia.
It is on this that the new government will be judged and the aim is stability, creating greater confidence and working to build a properly functioning social market economy as part of a government structure which can be relied on.
Russia still has to put her house in order.
That was the purpose of our aid, and it will continue to be.
Russia has yet to find her place in the world economic order.
<P>
I think it is important to agree that we want to go on helping, using the instruments available to the European Union, but the answer to the question of whether we actually can help lies in Russian hands.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stenzel">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, ten and a half years ago, the Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster signalled the end of Communism and the beginning of perestroika .
Today we are witnessing a return to perestroika in Moscow, which is reflected to some extent in personnel policy.
The Soviet Union responded to that disaster by entombing and isolating Chernobyl.
Today in Russia we are experiencing an economic and also political Chernobyl, but we cannot respond this time by entombing and isolating the problem.
<P>
What we need is an open, stable and democratic Russia with a social market economy.
The wheel of history cannot be turned back in Russia; new mistakes cannot be corrected by resorting to the old mistakes.
The goodwill of the European Union is there. However, we must be realistic in assessing our scope for influencing the course of events.
Representatives of the Duma are here today, and we were told yesterday by the Vice-President of the Duma that the forces of reform were still present and intended to continue the pursuit of their goals; that is all very reassuring, but what has not happened so far in this crisis could yet happen, namely a fresh outbreak of money-printing.
The question is not only about the composition of this government; it is also about the influence its members will have and retain over the reform process in Russia.
<P>
The cause of our concern is clear.
The Russian Communist Party remains strong.
Unlike the Communist parties in Central and Eastern Europe, it has not gone down the road of democratic socialism.
We do not want to see the centre of power in the Russian State disintegrate and split up into a host of regional power bases.
But nor do we wish for a return or a seizure of power by military despots.
Not even that danger can be ruled out.
What we therefore need is a strengthening of the democratic institutions in Russia, particularly those whose mission is to guarantee the rule of law.
If we merely pump money into Russia, the wrong people will benefit.
<P>
However, one point of particular importance in this situation, a point that has yet to be addressed, is that developments in Russia make it absolutely imperative to press on with the enlargement of the European Union in order to stabilise the heart of Central Europe, so that this stabilisation can also have an impact on the situation in Russia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, Mr Santer is right.
The main message emerging from today's debate is that Europe and Russia are mutually dependent. Cooperation between them means stability for the whole continent.
We cannot afford to turn our backs. Instead, our priority should be to support Russia in the ways we can: promoting sound administrative practices; fostering local government; strengthening civil society; helping the customs authorities.
All of these are important from the point of view of any future Union policy on the 'northern dimension'.
<P>
Today's debate is about Russia, but let us not forget that Ukraine too has been badly hit by the collapse of the international market.
Ladies and gentlemen, suffering human beings suffer in the same way, wherever they happen to live.
We must be ready to intervene if food shortages become acute.
And we need assurances that aid will get through, without customs duties.
<P>
There has been a lot of talk about the IMF, but I would refer you at this juncture to what Grigori Yavlinsky said about having put too much faith in Boris Yeltsin.
It was Yavlinsky who gave us advance warning of the crisis we are now in. The euro has also been much discussed - and I wish to highlight its particular importance for a country like Finland.
Without the prospect of the euro, the Finnish economy and Finnish markka would not look as good as they do now.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Marset Campos">
Mr. President, I welcome the speeches by the President-in-Office of the Council and the President of the Commission.
<P>
There are some really worrying facts which should have been taken into account earlier.
<P>
I live in a region of Spain known as Murcia y Alicante. In recent years, it has become well known for the influx of Russian mafias who smuggle dollars into the area for laundering, thus proving the failure of the reform of Russian institutions undertaken by Mr Yeltsin.
<P>
Nevertheless, the West, the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and G7 continued to support to the so-called 'reform' which showed signs of inefficiency for years, though these went undetected by the West, blinded by neoliberal fundamentalism.
<P>
Some statistics on health also give cause for concern: the increased death rate and child mortality rate, the spread of disease, epidemics, the lack of funding for hospitals, all of which suggest a dangerous social decline in Russia.
<P>
We in Murcia are also suffering the consequences of the crisis caused by the collapse of the pork sector, which incidentally should be receiving aid from the European Union.
<P>
And yet, when the democratically elected representatives of the people, the Duma, challenge Mr Yeltsin, the West - the European Union - backs him against the voice of democracy.
It is incredible how the West can apply these double standards and be so two-faced, supporting authoritarianism and stifling democracy.
It has to be said that along with other movements in Russia, the Russian Communist Party has made great efforts to guarantee the reforms and to guarantee democracy.
<P>
That is why I believe it is important for the European Union to support this Russian democratic channel, whilst also providing the necessary humanitarian aid which will be so crucial in the coming months.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasio">
Mr President, I would like to focus on the way the European Union and the international community have approached the situation in Russia.
It has been said that Russia must continue the process of freeing up markets and privatisation.
As if to say, as a word of warning, that there is no other path for them to take other than the one that has been chosen for them.
What, then, should they do now?
Should they continue with the approach that led to the present catastrophe?
<P>
The problem with freeing up the market in Russia's case is that she has insufficient productive industry - if in practice she has any - taking into consideration her size, to serve as a basis for economic growth.
There are only speculative movements of money and capital based on quick profits, which do not achieve the objectives which the EU, among others, considers important.
Furthermore, privatisation in itself cannot be a cure for a situation where the private sector does not function rationally as a whole, but in a way that does not make it possible to include the social dimension, amongst other things, in the market economy.
The conclusion is, therefore, that we should permit and approve a certain degree of manipulation, where the State is concerned, in a situation which is about much more than whether the economy is collapsing. The issue is that the entire structure of the country is being put to the test and is in danger of falling apart, which would mean a far more disastrous situation than we the one we have now, from our point of view as well.
I am not saying that the EU should dictate, but there has to be cooperation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herman">
Mr President, nearly everything has been covered, but not quite.
Mrs Lalumière, although we must help the Russians - and no one is denying this - we also need the Russians.
Kosovo and the Balkans are a thorn in our side.
Grave dangers threaten us.
And what are the Russians doing to help us in this area?
What?
Do you think for an instant that Mr Milosevic could continue to flout the whole of the West, the European Union, the WEU and even NATO if he were not assured of the tacit and more or less secret support of Russia?
We were flabbergasted yesterday when Mr van den Broek told us that we should not expect the Russians to change tack on this point.
<P>
That is the last straw.
I have no idea how he can justify that attitude.
Perhaps it is masochism.
You are telling us that we will help Russia, we will continue to demand considerable efforts from our taxpayers in order to help Russia, and in return Russia will continue to take a different line from us in a matter in which we are involved?
You must be joking!
I sincerely apologise, but Milosevic must laugh when he hears us making our speeches.
And I would appeal at this point to the Duma: if you do not change, be assured that we will not continue to support you!
This is the message which I have not yet heard today, among all the speeches which I otherwise support wholeheartedly.
<P>
As for the international financial crisis, it is time to forget Russia.
We must now concern ourselves with Latin America, as this is where the problem lies.
It is too late for Russia: it has committed irreversible acts; it has used up its international credit; it has literally refused to pay its debts.
It is now to the countries which can still use our money that we must turn our attention, and it is a pity that it is Mr Clinton, despite his embarrassing situation, who has taken the initiative which we should have taken.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Miranda">
Mr President, the gravity of the financial crisis, with its especially serious repercussions in Asia and Russia, but also in Latin America, demands our closest attention.
And it calls in particular for Europe to assume its own position regarding the crisis, rather than simply echoing the ideas aired during the meetings of the G7 and between President Clinton and President Yeltsin.
<P>
This is no passing malaise; it is a crisis rooted in the ultra-liberal approaches that are prevailing throughout the world; consequently, its impact will become apparent, and indeed already has, in a downturn of growth, demand and employment in our national economies.
<P>
If the situation is to be resolved, a change must be made in the ultra-liberal approaches that are conducive to speculative activity, and this inevitably calls at the same time for a closer focus on social problems and on the reviving of domestic demand in order to achieve sufficient growth to bring about the recovery of productive investment.
It also calls for effective regulation of the movement of capital, with proper taxation in a context of appropriate international cooperation.
<P>
In Russia, the simultaneous crises on the economic, financial and social fronts cannot be viewed in isolation from the global crisis.
It does of course have its own particular features and assumes a prominence of its own.
The domestic factors responsible may be readily identified, as President Yeltsin has said.
But the external pressures and constraints cannot be ignored, particularly those exerted by the IMF, and indeed the European Union, which have systematically neglected social concerns.
<P>
We have followed recent political developments and the declared intentions for the future with the closest attention.
And we consider that the European Union can and should pursue a positive line of action based on treating Russia as a privileged discussion partner, not exerting pressure to implement economic measures that have proved to be inappropriate, but concentrating instead on achieving stability at home and in Europe.
Let us learn from the past and consider other alternatives for the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Mr. President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, I am much more inclined to agree with the global analysis made by the President-in-Office than with the speech by the President of the Commission, which dealt solely with Russia.
We are indeed facing a crisis of capitalism on a global scale, and I am not referring now to what someone might have said in the Duma, but to what Mr Soros, a philanthropic speculator, said yesterday in the Banking Committee of the United States House of Representatives.
<P>
Given that we are confronted by a global crisis, we Europeans should not be asking ourselves what advice we need to give our Russian friends - whom I welcome here - but rather what our responsibility is and what role we have to play. We can make a significant contribution in two ways: we have the experience of building a civilised common market area over the last 50 years, and we also have the euro, a significant asset even before it is born.
<P>
I believe that, in the first place, we must take the lead alongside the United States and Japan, whom no one has mentioned and on whom everything depends at present.
Secondly, we must also act jointly.
I am concerned that Europe is currently making its voice heard through the G7 - no longer the G8 - rather than through ECOFIN and the Commission.
Thirdly, I believe we should call for a summit on globalisation, bearing in mind, as Mr Herman so rightly pointed out, that rather than being wise after the event, we should concentrate on current problems, and Brazil, not Russia, is the problem now.
The difficulty is that the Latin American economies, which had strengthened their foundations in recent years, have suffered a major setback.
<P>
What we need to do is decide what action to take.
In this respect, I should like to be informed of the opinions of the Council and the Commission on our policy towards the International Monetary Fund.
Are we in favour of urgent action?
Should the Fund be reformed?
Should we contribute more funds?
I believe these are very important issues and if we do not address them, we will just end up subsidising the speculators, both those who created predatory capitalism in Russia and those who operate on an international scale.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lehne">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I share the view of the President of the Commission that any assessment of the situation in Russia will certainly also have to take account of the fact that the European Union has perhaps failed on occasion to manage the provision of assistance as efficiently as it might have done, but there again we are only human and are not infallible.
<P>
On the other hand, from my experience as a member of the joint delegation of the European Parliament and the Russian State Duma and Federal Council, I can tell you that on many questions of Russian reform policy, we have effectively been conducting the same talks with our Russian colleagues since 1994.
These talks relate to the very areas in which there has been an absence of reforms which would make Russia an attractive business location and investment target.
<P>
The first of these areas is the tax system, then come the facts that there is no code of real-estate law and that the system of banks and finance markets does not work, not to mention numerous other important shortcomings.
I have the impression that this discussion has been going on for years and has not really produced any results.
For a long time now in Russia, the executive and legislature have been blocking each other, and I can only wish and hope that the new Russian Government does not have to work in a political vacuum, but that there is a realistic prospect of it obtaining parliamentary support for its work.
<P>
It is and will remain one of our main tasks, especially for the Delegation of the European Parliament for relations with the Russian Federation, to be absolutely specific in our talks with colleagues from the State Duma as to where reforms are needed and to voice any criticisms of developments and political processes in Russia, not in a carping way but constructively, with a view to exerting influence that will promote the continuation and success of reform policies.
I believe that this will be the key task confronting the members of our Parliament over the next few days when we sit down with the Russian delegation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Speciale">
Mr President, in my view we need an in-depth analysis of Russia and a search for fundamental remedies for the situation.
We must not do this behind closed doors, but through closer dialogue with our Russian partners.
We must not repeat the mistakes that have already been made, by exporting prescriptions.
<P>
I wish to make two points, which seem to me fundamental.
Firstly, we are also responsible, as a Parliament, as a European Commission, as an International Monetary Fund, as international organisations, both for underestimating the factors in the crisis and for having accepted, or directly sought, processes which could hardly fail to result in this situation.
<P>
Secondly, we put unlimited trust in the political leadership and in economic processes which have already been rightly described by Mr Swoboda and Mr Barón Crespo as savage liberalism and speculation dressed up as the construction of a market economy.
This is not creating a real market economy - which would be a proper objective - in this country, and the State, which used to be everything, indeed too much, is being dismantled.
Of course it needed to be changed and reformed, but now it seems to have been reduced to nothing.
We know that public impoverishment is often linked to private enrichment of the few, and it seems to me that this is what is currently happening in the country: public impoverishment is plain to see, and so is private enrichment of the few.
We often see evidence of this in our own countries: in recent years there has been an increased flow of Russian tourists - and I am pleased about that - spending more than the Americans spent in the 1950s and 1960s.
But there is one small difference: the Americans had the United States behind them, a solid economy and a strong country, and the Russians do not.
I do not know if it is true that only 8 % of Russian citizens pay taxes, but this would imply the dismantling of a whole political system: there is no going back, obviously.
<P>
So we need to rediscover a serious and lasting economic and political approach, and our work together with our Russian partners must be geared to making a concrete contribution which will improve the current situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="Elles">
Mr President, of course I share the view of those in this debate today who have said that the global economic system is in danger.
In this House and elsewhere in the Western world we have every interest in ensuring its maintenance and its strength.
<P>
But what we are talking about in this debate is what we should be doing about Russia.
We have seen this morning that the view of the majority in this House, apart from the fringe groups, is that we should follow a coordinated Western approach, so that Russia can implement its own economic reforms combined with specific well-targeted assistance.
Secondly we must show our willingness to ensure that Russia remains an active player in the global economic system, but without any big aid programmes which will go into unknown pockets.
<P>
Recognising that this is a long-term strategy, I agree with President Santer that we must coordinate our position before the next G7.
But there are three important points to consider.
Firstly, we must ensure that all our programmes - TACIS and others - are properly adapted to an emergency system if necessary, including food aid.
I would like an assurance that this is being done.
Secondly, our aid should be targeted on local and regional entities across the Russian Republic so that we actually know that the money is going into specific programmes. Last, but not least, is democracy.
<P>
President Santer said democracy is very important.
When I visited a Moscow school for political studies bringing young elected officials from all over the former Soviet Union to learn about democracy, I learned that their funding is being cut off at the end of this year.
It appears that under our Rules we are not allowed to finance anybody for more than three years, however important they are.
I would like the Commission's assurance that this funding will continue on a regular and multiannual basis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Hendrick">
Mr President, on behalf of the Socialists on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy I should like to welcome the Members of the Duma.
<P>
Today we are not merely discussing the collapse of emerging markets.
As my colleague, Hannes Swoboda, recognised in his excellent speech, there is a financial and economic crisis in parts of Asia as well as Russia.
The situation in several Latin American countries is also precarious.
Developed countries need to contribute to a rapid and lasting recovery in these countries and the EU has a key role to play in this respect.
<P>
However today's debate needs to look beyond the effects of the crisis and the immediate remedies and consider the phenomenon of globalisation.
In this week's Economist Jeffrey Sachs, professor of international trade at Harvard, talks about the end of an era (and I was surprised to hear Mr Brok blaming Harvard professors for what has happened).
Yes, we all need to grasp the full consequences of current events and to acknowledge the failure of development concepts based purely on the free market, with the invisible hand bringing emerging economies into global capitalism at very little cost to rich countries.
We therefore need a sounder basis for globalisation.
If we could go beyond ideology and all agree on this objective, the present crisis will have at least had one beneficial outcome.
<P>
I believe Parliament's resolution to be adopted tomorrow will contribute to this objective.
We ask for a reform of international financial institutions, greater transparency of markets with more financial information, better supervision and regulation of the financial sector and controls over short-term lending and speculation.
In this reform process, Europe should play the leading role.
The so-called Washington consensus needs to be reviewed.
Europe, not least with the euro among the world currencies, can improve the international approach towards globalisation.
There is a need for better dialogue between richer and poorer countries.
Reform packages should not simply be imposed by IMF officials on the basis of purely technocratic standards.
There is a need for greater acknowledgement of social objectives in the development and reform process, be it in Russia, Indonesia or elsewhere.
The social and human costs have been and still are enormous and unacceptable.
It is right to help such countries as they strive towards economic development but not on the basis of purely economic standards and objectives.
Otherwise we face the risk that public opinion in such countries will force their governments back into protectionism and nationalism.
<P>
I therefore urge the Council and the Commission to engage in a close dialogue with the European Parliament as well as our international partners, in order to establish a sounder basis for globalisation.
Otherwise world prosperity will be seriously threatened in the longer term.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
Mr President, Madam President of the Council, representatives of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, as the PPE Group coordinator for Asian affairs, I should like to confine my remarks to the financial crisis in Asia.
Let me emphasise that the reasons for the Asian financial crisis are indeed manifold and that each country's problem therefore has to be addressed in a different way.
In Japan, the main issue is still whether the Japanese can overcome the banking crisis.
Only if they manage to do that will they stand any real chance of pulling out of recession.
All parties in Japan are now called upon to get to serious grips with this legislation and not to be mutually obstructive, which will only serve to plunge Japan and all of us into serious difficulties.
<P>
In other countries such as Indonesia it is not just a matter of banking systems but of the entire economic order.
But without social and political reforms, countries like Indonesia cannot succeed in solving either of these problems.
Moreover, we also have the urgent task now of saving sections of the population from undernourishment and famine.
We welcome the fact that the People's Republic of China has not devalued its currency, but we must also ensure that this situation does not lead to upheavals in trade relations.
In China too, economic and political reforms are needed.
All in all, we must look at each individual country in order to assess how progress can best be made.
<P>
We Europeans can and must help to overcome the crisis, but what some speakers have said about Russia I should like to extend to Asia, namely that the key to the resolution of the crisis lies in these countries.
It is up to the government and parliament of each country to overcome the crisis.
We can only help.
The critical pressure for reform must develop in these countries.
They must not seek salvation in the short-term solution of protectionist measures against trade and the movement of capital - quite the contrary.
The uncontrolled banking system, the intransigent web of economic collusion, the corruption, the absence of a market economy embedded in social justice and the lack of democratic pluralism in these countries must be overcome, and that has to be done by these nations themselves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Katiforis">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the crisis in Russia is part of a wider economic and social crisis, and it is on the latter that I wish to comment.
<P>
The worldwide economic crisis is like the falling of a row of dominoes.
Irresponsible borrowing and profiteering short-term investments by the Western banks, combined with irresponsible borrowing by the local banks and companies in South-East Asia, gave the first push which set the whole process in motion.
There is no doubt that in the medium term, the rules of the international money markets will have to be tightened because of this crisis. The danger that a crisis in the system can be triggered by short-term capital movements is too great for us to allow those short-term movements to continue in the same unimpeded and uncontrolled way as in the past.
<P>
International supervisory bodies will have to reorganise themselves to respond to the new demands of our times, but the main focus of our effort just now must be reorientated away from the dominoes that have fallen - and I fear that Russia's economy is one of them - and towards those which are now under threat.
The threat has now shifted from Russia to Latin America, especially Brazil. And of course, after Latin America and Brazil, the threat looms over the large domino of Wall Street, which would lead to a recession of America's economy whose effects would be disastrous all over the world.
<P>
Consequently, we cannot focus our efforts just on the deadlock of Russia's economy where, as Mr Herman very rightly said, the battle has already been lost and it will take a very long time for the economy to recover.
We must turn our efforts towards Brazil, and we must do something to adapt economic policy in Europe away from this mania of anti-inflation that has gripped us all, and towards some other urgent policy. Because an anti-inflation policy in Europe where inflation ranges from zero to 2 % under conditions of recession does not make sense, I would point out to the Commissioner and the rapporteur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Christodoulou">
Mr President, I cannot disagree with much of what Mr Katiforis said, but I would like to say that at this time it would be wrong to let Russia remain in a state of decline and continual disaster and 'wash our hands', saying that the issue has been played out.
<P>
Russia is an enormous country and a great people, it is part of Europe, and I do not think we ourselves are blameless for what has happened.
At first, we tried to implement prescriptions which bore little relationship to the society and system in place there.
So we produced a misprint of a Western European or American economic situation there, which in the end did not last, as might have been expected.
We must not be surprised, for example, that the Russian banking system has collapsed.
As for the hundreds of banks there, the only thing most of them had in common in the banking sense was the name, and nothing else. They were not banks, they were organisations whose preoccupation was how best to milk the economy.
And they did that very effectively, with very good results for them and bad ones for the economy.
<P>
So we must not abdicate responsibility.
We still have a responsibility and that is the framework within which we should intervene.
It is very difficult, Mr President, to continue believing that we can impose economic systems which suit us on a society not prepared for them, ones appropriate for traditional and true democracies, but which are not suitable for a country and society which somehow has never had such experiences.
<P>
When we say that we must stay out of it and let Russia solve its own problems, we ought therefore to think again.
Of course, our interventions will have to be much better - better thought out, aimed in the right direction, with the right kind of monitoring and directed at Russia, not at European organisations, as most European interventions have unfortunately been.
Only in this way will we be able to avoid what now looms as a great risk, the risk that the Russian people will come to think that its difficulties stem from the striving towards democracy.
That would be very dangerous for us all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fayot">
Mr President, our debate this morning is rather curious.
It consists of two closely related aspects: the Russian crisis on one hand and the global economic and financial crisis on the other.
Mr Santer, under the pretext that it is the Russian crisis which is of greatest interest to European public opinion, spoke only of Russia.
It is a pity that the Commission did not comment on the world crisis of recent weeks and that it did not outline any courses of action.
<P>
Faced with globalisation and the resultant risk of a general crisis, everyone, including economists, bankers and politicians, is moving towards more voluntarism and more regulation.
Politicians of all persuasions are finally realising that we cannot talk in abstract terms about people, their misery and unemployment and that we cannot leave the market to look after these.
It also seems that, although this wonderful globalisation can quickly create wealth, it can also totally destroy it, and even more quickly if it is not managed and disciplined.
The European model in this respect is telling.
As one French minister has said, for example, the euro is a formidable pole of stability in the world financial chaos.
<P>
I should like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the Socialist government of Lionel Jospin which has played a leading role in encouraging political voluntarism.
In this respect, I shall refer to what the French Prime Minister said in his analysis of the economic crisis, which was that crises create an illusion that the economic sector is independent, separate from the political system and from social organisation.
<P>
Mr President, the European model must be a compromise between market economy, openness, liberalisation and the political will to manage and organise the market.
This is a compromise between profit and concern for people.
That is why the European Union and in particular the euro zone must assume their responsibilities faced with this worldwide chaos.
How much easier this approach would be if the whole of the European Union were in the euro zone!
How much greater the influence of this zone would be in the world!
However, as things stand, the very least that can be expected is that the large and small countries in this euro zone are united with regard to the crisis.
As a minimum, efficient and effective coordination is required between the four large European countries which are members of the G7 and the other Member States in the euro zone, not only due to the Russian situation, as Mr Santer said earlier, but also due to the world crisis.
I should like Commissioner de Silguy to inform us of the Commission's proposals in this respect.
<P>
Mr President, the internal cohesion of the euro zone is an important political factor faced with the rest of the world.
If we want to work together and deal on an equal footing with the United States, Europe must prove itself to be truly united in this respect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Cushnahan">
Mr President, the current Russian crisis has profound economic and political implications for the country itself, the region and wider geopolitics.
<P>
However, it has to be acknowledged from the outset that there is little the EU can do to resolve the situation.
It is up to Russia to sort out its own political mess which has directly led to the country's economic collapse.
<P>
All the EU can do at this point is to address the consequences of the situation.
Some EU countries are more exposed than others - Germany probably more than anyone else; but even we in Ireland are not unaffected.
The market for more than half of our autumn beef exports has been lost and the collapse of pig prices in Ireland is partly due to the fall in demand from Russia.
We must monitor the economic consequences of the problem and ensure the effects are minimal.
<P>
However, whatever the consequences for existing EU members, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe must view current developments with growing alarm.
The Russian crisis could roll the clock back in spite of the great historic changes that have taken place.
<P>
Those who have had reservations on enlargement in the past should realise that not only have their particular concerns been misplaced but the current crisis is in fact an argument for accelerating the agenda for enlargement.
That is the only way to guarantee permanent peace and security in the region.
<P>
As far as helping Russia itself is concerned, there can be no more financial aid without a genuine commitment to economic and political reform.
There is absolutely no point in throwing further funds into the bottomless pit of economic collapse in Russia, especially when there is continued political maladministration and corruption.
<P>
However, it must also be acknowledged that the harsh Russian winter is not far away and we must therefore prepare for it.
The Commission has an opportunity to plan for a programme of substantial food aid and it should do so without delay.
The Commission can also provide badly needed technical aid and expertise to help Russia restructure its economy.
Providing expertise is one thing, taking advice is another.
But if Mr Primakov and his administration do that we can help each other out of the present crisis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ettl">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, one of the Union's major goals is greater stability in Europe.
European stability should serve to enhance the security of the world economic system as a whole.
For precisely that reason, it would be entirely inappropriate to talk the world into even more crises and disasters.
Nevertheless, one thing is necessary: we must do a certain amount of stocktaking.
Although we are talking about Russia today, the fact is that one third of the world economy is in the depths of recession, that living standards in the countries concerned are plummeting while unemployment rises.
In relation to Russia, this has meant that about one in four employees throughout the country has virtually received no pay for six months.
That is the social situation in a nutshell.
The additional slump in trade resulting from this delicate situation has assumed threatening proportions and has led to a further loss of confidence.
<P>
What is the issue?
Russia needs some restoration work on its governmental administration systems and it needs structural aid.
The structural aid has to be approached in a sensitive manner.
The TACIS system must be developed and expanded. That cannot by done by simply controlling capital movements.
Confidence is imperative.
Without loans the world would grind to a complete standstill.
Under no circumstances must the present crisis culminate in a credit crunch, for that would be disastrous for these parts of the world and especially for Russia.
But one other thing is certain, namely that it is desirable and essential that the ability of Russia, of all countries, to repay its loans should be re-established as quickly as possible if confidence is to be restored.
<P>
Perhaps, to take up a point that was touched upon today by our State Secretary, we should also adopt a more resolute approach on the international stage.
We should form an international commission, perhaps on the model of the Brundtland Commission.
It is a matter of putting the financial structure in order again and restoring confidence.
That is all.
We shall do it with the greatest of sensitivity, as the present situation demands.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Graziani">
Mr President, out of the many possible reasons - a government threatening to fall apart, a context of socio-economic underdevelopment, rich minorities, poor majorities - I wish to mention one, because it relates to the prevailing political culture which also flows in Europe's veins and has certainly not done Russia any good. I am talking about abstract ideology which does not bend to reality, but expects reality to bend to it.
In fact, when Communism fell, people thought that if an ideology was not left-wing it would not be rigid.
Narrow liberal thought applied as a miracle cure to the most disparate realities is another prison where policy is understood as a lay art of government and a result of the force of ideas.
<P>
Under dogmatic liberalism, and also under culpable pressure from the west, Russia was expected to make the leap, without a safety net, from 70 years of command economy to its opposite. No one asked if such a thing had ever happened before, or whether there was a proliferation of entrepreneurial capacity, or whether, after all, there might not be a danger of seeing the old oligarchy return, disguised as managers.
Instead of being renewed, the productive system is completely collapsing in upon itself and the government is in deep crisis.
<P>
The strange thing is, Mr President - and this has been echoed here in the House - that today Japan and the Asian tigers are indeed looking a little mangy alongside the fact that China is supporting its own currency and not devaluing.
That is curious, and it suggests that narrow thought does not help us understand reality, even less control it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berès">
Mr President, the good thing about this first globalisation crisis which we are experiencing is that it is making us face facts: we need to manage the market and we need economic regulation, otherwise the market economy will turn against its own logic.
<P>
In these troubled times, the crisis has another virtue which is to show the validity of the European approach in terms of the euro adventure.
This is clearly no longer an adventure, but proof of great wisdom, which gives us a certain responsibility in the analysis which we will make of the crisis today.
<P>
With regard to the international regulatory authorities, we must ask ourselves about the operation of the IMF.
How can this major organisation be made to function without the financial participation of one of its main contributors?
How can we not consider transforming the interim committee of the IMF into a real decision-making body in the near future?
How can we not base the question of a world tax on capital movements, as proposed to us several years ago by Mr Tobin?
How can we not consider taking into account, in our perception of how to implement market economy reforms, the social and environmental dimensions of these reforms?
How can we not accept that, under certain conditions, exchange controls must be re-established?
How can we not imagine that the current situation will perhaps require, here or there, renationalisations in the banking sector, because without a structured and organised banking sector there can be no market economy?
<P>
All this implies State and regulatory power, and for us as Europeans, this also implies rapidly and urgently deciding on the question of the external representation of the euro.
We need this.
In these troubled times, Europe is the source of all that is new and creative as a result of the instrument which we have established - the euro.
We must make this an instrument of growth and stability.
This gives us a collective responsibility and we must not shrink from that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kittelmann">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, now that we have discussed all these things here, one question remains: if Russia takes all the action we recommend, will it then be saved?
Or are some of our words born of our despair in trying to comprehend something so totally unfamiliar?
'Russia is great, and the Tsar is far away' is what they used to say.
Everything we have been talking about is concentrated on Moscow.
Russia is so great and so vast that it is also in our interest to find out what is happening in the provinces.
What structural measures are being implemented there?
Is there a concentration of powers in the provinces too?
<P>
One lesson we must take to heart is that, whatever more stringent measures we think we can introduce against Russia, events in that country have a huge bearing on our own development.
Our direct aid, to be honest, is only a drop in the ocean of problems that are being experienced in Russia, and yet we talk about cutting TACIS or amending it and much else besides.
We must try to restore confidence through human contacts and by supporting the present government.
I believe this government deserves our trust, if only because the head of the government has said that there will be no change to the reforms and that the loans will be repaid.
We should not doubt his word but should encourage him to redeem these pledges, and for our part we must seek ways in which we can help to smooth his path towards these objectives.
<P>
I have heard from the presidency of the Council that it too has adopted a detached and clinical approach to the analysis of this situation and is responding to the task list with a slight shrug of the shoulders.
We have no patent solution, said Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, but we hope that whatever is done will be for the best.
However things may appear, external trade policy is synonymous with foreign policy at the moment.
We must put our trust in Russia and help it in this difficult situation.
Any attempt to turn back the clock would result in a collapse that would affect every one of us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Metten">
Mr President, I have just three questions concerning the current financial crisis. Who or what is to blame for it?
Who will have to pay the cost of solving it?
How is the discrepancy to be addressed between whoever is to blame and whoever is to pick up the bill for it?
<P>
Consensus is gradually emerging about the cause of the financial crisis which is becoming increasingly international.
The most important factor was the excessively careless lending of money by private banks.
Banks took great risks in emerging markets, attracted by the prospect of large profits.
These profits were as high as they were because they included a risk premium to cover the eventuality of creditors defaulting.
Against this background it is of course baffling that the costs of the crisis have to be borne primarily by governments and are passed on by governments to the ordinary taxpayer.
I find it unacceptable that banks should make large profits by taking big risks, but that when things go wrong they should not foot the bill.
It is suspiciously reminiscent of the old saying 'private profit and public risk'.
<P>
So what can be done to ensure that the general public does not have to pay for the excessive risks taken by private banks?
To start with evidently existing banking rules on equity capital and risk are still fundamentally inadequate.
The problems are still the same as they were at the time of the Mexican peso crisis of 1994, the Northern European banks crisis in the late 1980s and early 1990s and the American savings banks crisis of the 1980s.
The rules thus need to be drastically changed and supervision tightened.
The question is, though, whether it is actually possible entirely to prevent a funding crisis under the current system where banks are obsessed with making maximum profits?
If it is not possible, then it is essential to tackle the discrepancy between those who cause a crisis and those who have to pick up the bill for it.
In financial crises too, it is ultimately the polluter who must pay.
To my mind that can only happen if a world crisis fund is set up, fed from levies on the private banks.
This could be done in one of two ways. By a specific levy on high-risk loans or by a levy on all capital transactions, the so-called 'Tobin Tax'.
The question is, who should administer such a fund and how it could be subjected to democratic spot checks?
I can see two candidates: a reformed IMF with more democratic voting or the Bank for International Settlements, which would first need to have a democratic supervisory board.
<P>
Some people talk about this crisis in terms of casino capitalism.
I think the situation is worse than that.
Casinos have strict rules, but financial markets do not even have those.
Let this be the last crisis in which all that elected governments can do is pick up the pieces after the disaster has occurred.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ilaskivi">
Mr President, if there is anything certain today in Russia, it is uncertainty.
The crisis is both a political and an economic one.
Learning what real democracy is has not been easy against the background of tsarist rule or the Soviet system.
A philosophy of social welfare and exploitation have produced, on the one hand, vast wealth concentrated in just a few places and, on the other, widespread poverty.
Money pouring in from the West has not helped. It has got into the wrong hands.
Russia's politicians must themselves acknowledge the facts and act accordingly.
Work and real enterprise must be accorded their true value.
People must be encouraged to stand on their own two feet while adhering to the rules of democracy.
<P>
The EU now has to focus on humanitarian aid for its neighbouring regions.
We have to take care that food supplies do not run out.
Famine has before now been the cause of revolutions, unrest and uncontrollable floods of refugees.
For Finland, with its long, eastern border with Russia, the only EU country to have a border with Russia, it is important to underline the importance of this.
It is also important to see that aid reaches its proper destination without border or customs officials hampering operations or the goods ending up on the black market.
<P>
Political leaders in EU countries must support the new government, especially by improving the basis for commerce.
In this way, Russia can acquire the foreign currency she needs to discharge her obligations.
It also has to be emphasised that the idea of the regional redeployment of armed forces, which some in Russia have proposed, must be given up. It would only increase distrust in the West and weaken our citizens' desire to deliver voluntary humanitarian aid to the people of Russia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Donnelly, Alan">
Mr President, it was significant that when the President of the Commission spoke to us this morning he talked about the Russian crisis and not the overall problem that we face in the global economy.
That is a very worrying sign for the European Union.
While we talk about the fact that the Union intends to be a partner with the United States in managing the global economy, the Commission and the Council have to show confidence that with the coming of the euro we are actually going to exercise that responsibility.
What I would like the Commission to do, if it intends to reply today, is to say what it means to propose in terms of intervening in this global crisis; not just about the Russian crisis, which is partly institutional and political and partially due to the immaturity of Russia's market economy, but about the global operation of the world's economy.
What role will we play in the global summit meeting that President Clinton has proposed?
Will we speak with one voice when we go to events in the future since we now have our single currency about to be born?
Will we propose major reforms of the IMF and for the future role of the Bank for International Settlements? Are we going to try and ensure a return to stability and confidence by having greater supervision?
<P>
Frankly it is not acceptable for the President of the Commission to come here and only talk about the situation in Russia.
Unless we can try to intervene as the European Union in the global economy, then the Russian situation will not improve.
<P>
I would like to see Parliament, the Commission and the Council take an initiative early in the new year to press for reform of the Bretton Woods institutions.
We have got to use institutions like the Bank for International Settlements to bring about greater supervision of cross-border lending, which would also help to bring stability and transparency in the system.
<P>
Commissioner de Silguy, if you intend to reply this morning, we would be very grateful for facts and firm commitments rather than simply an analysis of the crisis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Burenstam Linder">
Mr President, Europe has gained in stability owing to the fact that many former Communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe have been trying harder than Russia to put their dismal past behind them.
Their systems are therefore not in the same state of collapse as the Russian economy. They are however affected indirectly - just like the EU countries - by disruption to trade and investment.
One key reason why reform has been taken more seriously in the CEECs is that they have applied for membership of the European Union and know what this entails.
<P>
No one would dispute that the Russian situation is extremely dangerous, but matters would be many times worse if Europe had not minimised the risk of a domino effect by preparing for enlargement to the east.
Equally, cooperation on EMU has helped us steer clear of much of the currency turmoil triggered by the crisis in Russia and south east Asia.
<P>
Confidence building is an issue for the EU, particularly when it comes to Eurosceptic countries like the United Kingdom, Denmark and Sweden.
In our future efforts to promote European cooperation, we need to stress the positive spin-off of the two major European projects: EMU and enlargement to the east.
<P>
If the EU countries can emerge relatively unscathed from the current crisis, they will be better placed to assist Russia financially.
A healthy economy at home should enable us to resume trade and investment. And, provided Russia gets back on its feet, we will be there to provide constructive support.
<P>
In its desperation, Russia might be tempted to return to centralised control. All the more important that there should be onetime Communist countries nearby with a track record of reasonably successful economic reform.
Communist nostalgia in Russia will soon fade once people see how well things are going across the border.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Mr President, Madam President-inOffice, Commissioners, the world is not yet on fire.
Flames are flickering, but there is no sign of a fire brigade or even of any firefighting plans.
The Asian crisis, the financial collapse in Russia and the difficulties in many Latin American countries demonstrate the fragility of the finance markets and of many national economies. Prosperity, growth and employment are in the stranglehold of these finance markets.
Reform of the international finance system is needed more than ever before.
Let us not be fooled by the calm in Europe.
The finance markets, after all, are entirely globalised and are independent of any political control.
Although only 3 to 4 % of the capital flow of USD 1300 billion has anything to do with trade in goods and services, these money movements have a huge adverse - or sometimes actually beneficial - effect on national economies, disrupt growth and investment trends and thereby destroy jobs.
<P>
The liberalisation and deregulation of financial markets, as well as progress in communications technology and the complete withdrawal of the State from financing have allowed the national finance markets to become intertwined.
International free trade undoubtedly requires an open global finance system.
However, the benefits of globalisation - better allocation of capital, cost-cutting, new means of hedging risks - must be weighed against the potential for instability in the finance markets.
Increasing monetary assets and leverage ratios lead to problems with volumes, prices and derivative instruments, and these problems vent themselves in the form of speculation, volatility and crashes.
The real economy cannot cope with that.
The exclusive growth of trade in derivatives - amounting to a volume of some USD 40 billion in 1994 - and the separation of this sector from the realm of economic policy have contributed to the malfunctioning of the financial markets.
Since national economic policies can no longer be pursued, it is high time that we had international cooperation and coordination in the domain of economic policy as a means of preventing crises.
Harmonisation is essential!
For that reason, I explicitly welcome the Clinton initiative and call on the Council presidency to endorse this initiative wholeheartedly and to become involved in it and help shape it.
The crisis-torn nations of this world must sit down at the bargaining table with the G7.
The development of the world economy is no longer determined by G7 meetings.
<P>
Perhaps we even need an international security council.
Such ideas must be discussed on a global scale by those who are now responsible for monetary, financial and economic policy decisions.
We need to find ways out of this crisis, as well as a new financial order which brings stability to monetary and financial relations through transparency and through supervisory, earlywarning and support systems.
The calls of some speculators for international credit-insurance systems must, however, be rejected.
Tolerating speculation is one thing, but using tax revenues to reward it is out of the question.
<P>
A common international economic policy would admittedly be difficult - of that there is no doubt - but it is necessary and must involve appraising the roles of the International Monetary Fund, the Bank for International Settlements and the World Trade Organisation, without calling the institutions themselves into question.
We must organise an efficient new international regulatory and supervisory framework, as well as actually reforming the institutions and improving the ways in which they work together.
<P>
Above all, a regulatory system must include measures for the compulsory disclosure of financial data of a comparable standard, for transparency in all finance market transactions, for more efficient financial markets, for better supervision by creditors and borrowers, for measures to reduce the volume of short-term borrowing and to curb speculation, as well as incentives for long-term cross-border loan agreements.
In democracies, all economic data must be disclosed by governments, so the finance markets cannot be permitted to conceal such information.
Moreover, prosperity, growth and jobs are becoming increasingly dependent on these markets - that is undeniable.
<P>
Exchange rate stability will also be important in these globalised markets.
The euro will be able to contribute to this within a multipolar world currency system, even though I believe that target-area agreements are still a long way off.
But one thing can certainly be achieved, namely close cooperation between the European Central Bank and the US Federal Reserve, which is in the interests of all of us and will serve to promote stability.
This would also help Russia, since I believe that the Russians have reason to be disappointed with the G7 proposals.
Even if Russia does its homework, we cannot go on assuming that IMF policy will automatically put things right.
Manchester-style capitalism has been too much for Russia to bear. Every possible step must be taken to ensure that a social market economy is finally established in Russia and that a socially acceptable transformation is effected.
I believe that even temporary controls on capital movements for Russia are tolerable and necessary from our point of view as a means of ensuring that the development process in Russia can be guided in a way which will benefit the Russian people too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="van den Broek">
We have heard many wise words today about the world economic crisis, but especially about the situation in Russia, which the presidency and the Commission President have also covered in detail.
Let me round off this debate with a few observations, and my colleague Mr de Silguy will add a few more words on the economic and monetary aspects of the world crisis.
<P>
I would say to begin with that all today's speakers have expressed great concern, but also great solidarity with Russia in her time of trouble.
The interest of this enormous country on our own continent of Europe is that the situation should stabilise as swiftly as possible.
That is not only in Russia's interest, but certainly in our interest too.
At the same time I should add, and a number of honourable Members have made the point in a number of different ways, that of course the impetus for real change, for real reform, has to come from Russia herself.
It cannot be imposed from outside. All the international community can do, all we can do, is to give aid if Russia does indeed pursue a further policy of reform.
Consequently the top priority at present is to overcome the political crisis and to reach and develop a consensus between the government and the Duma, because without that, further reform can never be possible.
That political process is showing a few hopeful signs at the moment, at least.
We hope things will be clearer towards the end of the week.
<P>
Once more I would stress that reform in Russia is not a concession to the West but is in Russia's own interest.
And that those, like President Santer, who have pointed out that sound economic policy in itself clears the way for social policy must bring that point to the attention of members of the Duma - not for the first time either.
<P>
We can hold ideological debates, and that is very interesting and worthwhile, about what kind of market economy would be best for Russia, but a number of basic facts must on no account be neglected.
This means that the total lack of any regulatory system in Russia, of any legal framework, makes all forms of economy and economic policy vulnerable to excess.
And this is precisely what we have seen.
If business profits disappear abroad, if taxes are not paid, if banks are not supervised, and so on and so forth, the whole system collapses.
Liberalisation is no bad thing in itself, but completely uncontrolled liberalisation or liberalisation solely for the benefit of a small oligarchy is a very bad thing indeed.
That too is a phenomenon we are clearly witnessing in Russia.
<P>
Much has been said about what specific action the European Union itself might take at this stage.
When preparing for this debate, I looked again at what exactly was contained in our TACIS programmes with Russia. As Mr Santer told you, some ECU 2 billion have been earmarked under these in recent years since 1991.
These were mainly programmes designed to restructure the Russian economy, plans for economic but also political reform to which we gave our support.
Specific examples include programmes intended to revamp the tax system, banking supervision, investment safeguards which would also give foreign investors more confidence to put more capital into Russia.
There are plenty of other examples: training programmes for young managers and so on.
<P>
A start has been made on many of these programmes, but the fact is and remains that on the Russian side their transposition into new legislation, checks on implementation or actual programmes which actually convert the reforms into real deeds, real practice, has been only fragmentary.
The best thing we can do just now is to see how far existing programmes need to be adapted further or to focus more closely on the most acute needs of the moment.
We have already put ideas on this to the Russian authorities, even before this crisis broke in mid-August, and we shall have to see to what extent further changes are needed to the programme being prepared for 1999, work on which has already started.
<P>
It has been said here, and President Santer has frankly admitted, that in implementing these programmes we are often held up by our own red tape.
With many of these programmes, once the management committee, which represents the Member States, has given its approval to certain programmes it then takes about ten months before a contract is actually signed.
<P>
Just as we did in consultation with Parliament over reconstruction in Bosnia, where the same complaints were heard, we are more than willing to try to speed up these procedures, whether or not this involves changing the regulation, though that would seem inevitable.
But to do that we shall need to have the Council on board as well.
But where we are able to speed up our procedures in-house, you can be sure that we shall do so.
We may perhaps need to deploy more people here and there in order to be more effective in the current crisis.
But I wish to avoid giving the impression that our aid programmes or even those of other international organisations, including the IMF, or insufficiently effective action on the part of the international community are in fact responsible for the crisis.
No, Mr President, the solutions have to be sought in the first place from within Russia herself.
This remark needs some qualification.
<P>
It is not really all that surprising, given all that had gone before, that after only seven years of the reform process in Russia, one cannot as yet point to any truly spectacular results.
Too little has been done.
There are countries which have had far more success with their reforms, but these are also countries with a different history, a different culture from Russia's.
I say that not as an excuse.
I am saying, by way of encouragement to Russia, that the present situation as such has to change if the political leadership and parliament in Russia are genuinely and jointly dedicated to pursuing true reform.
I am convinced that the international community too will be prepared, taking account of the present situation, taking account of the very difficult social situation, to adapt its aid as far as possible, provided there is some prospect of progress - and provided a number of basic rules are complied with, particularly that the establishment of all kinds of legal frameworks is not shelved.
Because that would mean just throwing good money after bad.
<P>
This is the basis on which we are currently negotiating with Russia.
I am particularly glad that the EU-Russia Joint Parliamentary Committee is sitting this afternoon.
I am glad to have the opportunity of addressing it at the invitation of both chairmen.
A summit is planned with the President of Russia in October.
Meantime there is an invitation from the Prime Minister to Mr Santer and myself to discuss the situation.
The G7 are particularly busy and are getting ready for possible new measures.
One thing is certain and I repeat it: it is Russia herself who is anxious to be part of the G7/G8.
It is Russia herself who wants to join the World Trade Organisation.
So Russia herself must take the measures which will allow her to play an effective part in these bodies and show results.
She will then be able to count on the full support of the international community.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to welcome the delegation from the National Assembly of the Republic of Tunisia, headed by Mrs Shadlia Boukchina, Vice-President of the House of Representatives, which has joined us in the official gallery.
The delegation is doing us the honour of visiting us on the occasion of its ninth interparliamentary meeting with the corresponding delegation of the European Parliament.
<P>
Relations between Tunisia and the European Union are based on the principle of European Mediterranean cooperation, and our contacts at parliamentary level have demonstrated our common wish to cooperate as widely as possible in vital areas.
I hope this ninth meeting will be another step towards the necessary approach between the countries and peoples we represent, with the prospect of peaceful and fruitful coexistence around the Mediterranean, which today as indeed in the past is a privileged area of contact.
<P>
I should like to wish the Tunisian delegation a fruitful meeting and a pleasant stay in Strasbourg.
Welcome to the House.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
International financial crisis and political developments in Russia(continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="de Silguy">
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="President">
I have received seven motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2) concerning the international economic crisis.
<P>
I have also received six motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2) concerning political developments in Russia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, since the vote is about to be taken, allow me to avail myself of the customary prerogative of the presidency to say a few words in conclusion.
First of all, may I thank you for this very interesting debate on absolutely crucial aspects of the Asian crisis, the crisis in Russia and the impending crisis in Latin America.
So what is the most important thing for the European Union to do?
Let me summarise that again very briefly.
On the one hand the Council is naturally aware of the role that Europe is called to play on the world stage by virtue of its economic and financial strength.
I should like to place particular emphasis on that point, because it was raised in the discussion.
Of course the Council, like the Commission, will make its proper contribution to this effort.
<P>
On the other hand, the Council and Commission are to cooperate closely in formulating the proposals that we can present to the Russian side at the forthcoming meeting.
Optimum coordination within the European Union is of the essence.
This applies especially to the provision of European know-how in the areas of banking and finance, in administration, in the establishment of structures that will guarantee the rule of law and in the fight against organised crime.
The Commission will naturally also develop more proposals for ways of helping Russia to overcome these complex transitional problems, especially through TACIS but through other programmes too.
However, I should like to re-emphasise what has frequently been stated in the discussion and has also been referred to by the Commission, namely that the reforms must of course be initiated in Russia and that we can only provide assistance.
<P>
I consider it very important that the mechanism of the partnership and cooperation agreement should be used to intensify our dialogue with Russia.
The reflections of the EU Finance Ministers should naturally take full account of the human and social dimensions of the situation in Russia - another point that has been raised time and again in this debate.
Through our joint monitoring of developments in Russia and through their assessment by the Foreign and Finance Ministers of the EU as well as by the Commission, the coherence of the EU's actions can be guaranteed.
I believe that to be hugely important too.
<P>
Allow me to address a few key points that surfaced, so to speak, in the debate.
Both sides should continue to conduct their relations on the basis of cooperation, partnership and of a dialogue between equals.
There has, of course, been enormous solidarity on that point in today's discussion.
<P>
Secondly, I should also like to endorse what Mr Silguy said, namely that the situation should not be overdramatised.
It is a crisis, but we are certainly not starting from scratch, and much has already been achieved.
Early signals indicating the course that is to be pursued and prompt measures are especially important.
It is absolutely vital to stress, as I do once more on behalf of the presidency, that the current situation will not lead to a retreat by Russia's partners, but to an intensified dialogue.
<P>
What shape will this dialogue take?
As you know, the troika of Foreign Ministers is to be received tomorrow by the Prime Minister, Mr Primakov, and on 27 October the EU-Russia summit will take place in Vienna; thorough preparations are already under way for the summit, at which we shall discuss all the matters that have been raised in the debate here today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the votes.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="President">
I should like to begin by informing the House that I have received a formal letter of opposition to the simplified procedure applicable to the sale of genetically modified maize in Austria, Doc.
C4-0373/98.
This motion was tabled in accordance with Rule 99 of the Rules of Procedure by Mrs Flemming and others.
The proposal is therefore referred back to committee pursuant to Rule 99(2).
<P>
I should also like to inform the House that I have received a formal letter of opposition to the simplified procedure applicable to the sale of genetically modified maize in Luxembourg, Doc.
C4-0374/98.
This motion was tabled in accordance with Rule 99 of the Rules of Procedure by Mrs Roth-Behrendt and others.
The proposal is therefore referred back to committee pursuant to Rule 99(2).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fayot">
Mr President, I signed the request calling for these proposals to be referred back to the Committee on the Environment, but I would like to have some assurance from the committee that it will examine them properly.
On 24 June, the coordinators of the Committee on the Environment did in fact discuss the Commission's decision on the sale of genetically modified maize, but the proposal has not been examined in committee.
As a result, I would like to make sure that it is properly examined this time round.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="President">
Let me be clear.
We have no choice but to refer the matter to them under the Rules.
How they handle it will be a matter for the Environment Committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, we also naturally support the referral motion.
But I cannot help pointing out that the Green Group in the European Parliament tabled the selfsame motion before the summer recess, and those very Members who have now tabled the motion refused to discuss it at that time in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
However, my concern is this...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="President">
Colleagues, we are not having a debate on this matter.
The Rules are very clear.
It has to go back to committee.
There is no room for explanations or justifications.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="Tomlinson, The Lord">
Mr President, this is a very complicated report and it would be to the benefit of the House if I briefly explained that the European Parliament is to vote now on two Commission proposals to modify the same regulation on financial and technical cooperation with the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
<P>
The first proposal was presented at the beginning of the year and the second in July.
The Commission, however, insists on maintaining the two proposals separately.
They are therefore being treated together.
They constitute the basis of the compromise between Parliament and the Commission, being sought after Parliament's vote on 18 June to send the first report back to the Commission under Rule 60(2).
On that occasion, Parliament approved 12 amendments to the first proposal.
These 12 amendments were all rejected by the Commission.
Some of the amendments on the first proposal have now been taken up in the second Commission proposal.
Following negotiation with the Commission for a global compromise on the two proposals, I, as rapporteur, managed to persuade the Commission to accept almost all the amendments, except those concerning comitology.
Here Parliament is examining the new Commission proposal on comitology and requires that what is decided in that context be applied here.
<P>
Therefore, before proceeding to the vote, the Commission should here in plenary first of all confirm that the Amendments Nos 1, 2, 7 and 8 to A4-180/98 voted by the Group of the European People's Party last June to the first Commission proposal have been incorporated already in their second proposal.
If the Commission can so do, they can be considered as withdrawn.
<P>
Secondly, it should commit itself to modify rapidly its second proposal to take in Amendments Nos 5 and 12, already voted last June, as well as the compromise Amendment No 1 to the first proposal, which is in the batch of 6 new amendments tabled for voting today, and also Amendment No 6 to the second proposal.
If the Commission can both confirm the first and commit itself to the second, I would recommend to the European Parliament that of the new amendments in Document A4-300/98 it should vote in favour of compromise Amendment No 1 and Amendments Nos 4, 5 and 6, and Amendments Nos 2 and 3 can then be withdrawn in favour of Amendment No 6.
The success of this agreement will depend on the rapid presentation by the Commission of a modified text of its second proposal respecting the political position of this Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="President">
Thank you, I am glad you said that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Marín">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I must first express my gratitude to the Committee on Budgets, and especially to the rapporteur, Lord Tomlinson, for their painstaking work.
On 25 June, the Commission presented a second proposal for the amendment of the Financial Regulation to Parliament and to the Council. In line with the promise I made at the plenary sitting of 17 June, this included various modifications suggested by Parliament to our initial proposal, namely Amendments Nos 1, 2, 7 and 8 to the first proposal.
I can therefore confirm that the Commission accepts them.
<P>
Thanks to the Parliament's determination to reach a pragmatic solution, you presented a single report which did indeed deal with the two proposals in two separate parts, and this has enabled us to resolve a large number of queries raised between the two institutions. Essentially, these concerned comitology, which as you are aware, is an area where the Commission would like to see change.
<P>
However, some issues requiring further consideration remained outstanding, and I can present our position on those today.
Firstly, the matter of the duration of the Financial Regulation.
The Commission had proposed an eight-year programme, from 1999 to 2006; but we can now agree to the five-year period, from 1999 to 2003, in the second proposal.
Secondly, the Commission also agrees to accept the other three modifications to its second proposal suggested by the House.
I am referring to Amendments Nos 5 and 12, to compromise Amendment No 1 suggested by Parliament for the first proposal, and to Amendment No 6 to the second proposal.
I can confirm this.
<P>
As a result of this compromise, from 1 January 1999 the Commission will have at its disposal, thanks to the European Parliament's help, a much more flexible and pragmatic method of maintaining the European Union's support for the Palestinian people and the peace process.
<P>
I have to point out, however, Lord Tomlinson, that unfortunately the success or failure of this ambitious programme for the peace process will depend on how that peace process develops, and we should be very much aware that at present, the situation is critical.
<P>
The Commission will therefore propose these instruments immediately, but it has to be quite clear that the implementation of these instruments on Palestinian territory will depend essentially on the peace process.
If the peace process moves forward, we shall be able to undertake a major programme of economic cooperation; if it remains stalled, we shall be faced with the kind of difficulties which I do not need to spell out to you.
<P>
(In successive votes Parliament adopted both legislative resolutions)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pirker">
Mr President, I am not entirely clear about the substance of the matter on which we are voting.
May I ask someone from the Party of European Socialists to explain it?
Amendment No 4 calls on the Commission to submit proposals extending the right of family reunification to children and relatives in ascending line who are not entitled to maintenance.
<P>
Is that intended for citizens of the Union, or is it supposed to apply to nationals of third countries?
That would trigger a wave of immigration, which is why I am asking for an explanation as to what is meant here.
Does it only apply to citizens of the Union, or are third country nationals included?
The answer will naturally have a decisive influence on the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Zimmermann">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe the wording is clear as it stands.
It refers to those who live in the Union and to the reunification of families there.
That actually emerges clearly from the text.
It applies to all those who are already legally resident in the Union.
<P>
Amendment No 8:
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lindeperg">
Mr President, I would like to raise a procedural motion and ask the House to authorise a separate vote on one word.
I realise that this request is being made rather late in the day and I do apologise for this.
The word at issue here is 'political' in the last sentence which, and I quote, ' urges that such nationals...' - the nationals being discussed here are legally residing in the Union - ' that such nationals be treated in the same way as EU citizens with regard to their political, social and economic rights'.
<P>
On behalf of the French members of this group, I would like to call for a separate vote on the word 'political' since, whilst we are in favour of their right to vote at local elections, we are not in favour of the right to vote in national elections.
In this case, the idea of equal political rights encompasses both local and national elections.
So in short, if a separate vote is authorised and the word 'political' is deleted, then we will vote in favour of this amendment.
If this word is not deleted, then we will vote to reject the amendment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="President">
I would like to be helpful but we have strict deadlines for informing the services of intention to request split votes.
I can tell by the mood of the House that if we take this as a split vote we will have a long debate on it.
<P>
(Parliament rejected the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Falconer">
Mr President, as you know I take an interest in roll call votes. Could you tell me whether we have just had five roll call votes or one roll call vote?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="President">
How many times did you press the button?
I will leave you to work it out.
<P>
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Killilea">
Mr President, on a point of order.
On the subject of roll call votes, on a personal basis and on behalf of a few other Members of this House, I wish to make the following statement to you and have the matter checked.
<P>
For almost all of the first half of this year - I do not have the dates on me now - I was accredited with not voting, despite the fact that I knew that I was here and voted.
I raised myself afterwards the question of the soundness of my voting card.
In fact, Mr President, you yourself on one occasion asked for the machine to be changed. But I still continued to question my voting card.
<P>
Today I arrived without the new card which I received in June and I went to the offices at the back of this building to obtain a spare card.
I was given back my old card.
I then went to the technicians' office to have it tested, to find out that my old card, which I was dependent on in this House for the four or five months of this year, was not functioning correctly.
I knew it all through that period of time myself.
I paid the price financially but that is not really what is at issue.
I was accredited with not being present in this House to record my vote when, in actual fact, I was here but my card was faulty.
I want to raise that matter with you now for the benefit of the other Members of this House who felt exactly the same way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="President">
Thank you very much.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I would like to ask that this report be referred back to the committee responsible.
At the opening of this part-session, the President of the Parliament made his wish to respect the Treaty clear, as well as his hope that texts which contravene the Treaty would not be submitted to the House.
As you will recall, this discussion was in relation to the Bösch report.
<P>
It would appear that we must show the same legal vigilance today with the Christodoulou report.
Articles 4 and 209 of the Treaty state that, for any expenditure, there must be a dual legal basis, both financial and legislative.
The Court of Justice made this very clear in paragraph 26 of its judgment of 26 May and only excluded non-significant Community actions that do not require this basis.
<P>
There are two main criticisms of the draft interinstitutional agreement we have received.
The first criticism is that it provides for appropriations entered in the 1998 budget to be implemented without a legal basis, whereas the Court only allowed this for appropriations which had already been committed.
The second criticism is that it expands the concept of pilot schemes, preparatory actions and specific measures, whilst putting a ceiling on the overall amount.
<P>
This concept of action limited in time was condemned by the Court, which specifically stated that there is nothing to stop significant Community action incurring limited expenses, or taking effect for only a limited period of time.
Therefore, nonsignificant actions were excluded by the Court, and consequently this is a highly irregular legal situation.
To check this, I suggest that this text be referred back to the committee responsible, as happened with the Bösch report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Samland">
Mr President, the judgment to which the last speaker referred, and which was delivered by the Court at the request of the United Kingdom, relates to the legal bases of European Union expenditure. In its statement of grounds, the Court makes it clear that insignificant amounts of expenditure do not require a legal basis.
The statement of grounds explicitly indicates that insignificance is not determined by the amount and duration of the expenditure, but depends on a decision that must be taken by both branches of the budgetary authority.
This is precisely the principle we followed when the Interinstitutional Agreement that is now being put to the vote was concluded by the 15 Member States, the Commission and the European Parliament.
This agreement is therefore the means by which the Council and Parliament have performed the task of interpreting and implementing this principle as the Court enjoined them to do at that point in its judgment.
Accordingly, there are no grounds for not dealing with Mr Christodoulou's report.
I move that the vote be taken now.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Christodoulou">
Mr President, I quite agree with what Mr Samland has said.
<P>
(Parliament decided not to refer the report back to committee)
<P>
Amendments Nos 1 to 4:
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Christodoulou">
Mr President, these four amendments embody very sound principles.
However, I am compelled to ask for a vote against them, because they do not belong in the text we are referring to.
We have agreed about a plain text, and through the principles, I say again, are good ones, they are superfluous.
The same applies to Amendment No 5 by Mrs Ewing.
After the answer given by Commissioner Liikanen about the issue of less widely spoken languages, that amendment is superfluous.
I am therefore opposed to all the amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Mr President, I thank the rapporteur, the content of whose report is consistent with the position of our group.
The amendments address the substantive points on which we sought clarification in the framework of the Interinstitutional Agreement.
Since Mr Liikanen signalled clearly in yesterday's debate that every effort will be made to create these legal bases together with Parliament in future, as well as to guarantee maximum implementation of the budget in 1998, I am prepared to withdraw the amendment on behalf of my group.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, we appear to have a problem here as the text is entitled 'Transatlantic relations/Echelon system'.
Seeing as a few of our colleagues - and not just one or two of them either - have gone to great lengths to ensure that the word 'Echelon' does not appear anywhere in the text, I suggest that we delete the word 'Echelon' from the title itself, if the text remains unchanged.
If this happens, then our colleagues will have been 100 % successful in their task.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pompidou">
Mr President, the motions for resolutions discuss problems linked to economic information and these are directly related to the Echelon system.
In view of this, we must keep the term 'Echelon' in the title of the motion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth">
Mr President, I should like to ask you not to take a block vote but to take separate votes, certainly on Amendments Nos 4, 12 and 13.
Moreover, there was an unfortunate mistake in the vote on the Schaffner report.
The motion requested a vote by roll call at the end of the debate, and I should like you to tell us why you did not allow a roll-call vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="President">
The services have just told me that it was their fault.
It was an administrative problem. We apologise for that.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the joint resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth">
Mr President, may I come back to your statement in reply to my previous question.
You said it was an oversight by the services in not passing on the motion for a roll-call vote on Mrs Schaffner's report.
That is just one of those things that can happen to anyone.
But you, as the President of the sitting, are able to have the vote taken again as a roll-call vote.
That is what I am now asking you to do.
The fact that a mistake was made is no reason for not repeating the vote.
I therefore request a roll-call vote on the Schaffner report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="President">
It is on the suface a perfectly reasonable request.
However, the problem is that people leave and enter the Chamber and we will not have the same presence now as had when we took the vote.
It is an error on my part and I can only apologise for it.
I do not think we are in a position to repeat the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Mr President, I refer again to Mrs Schaffner's report.
You have said that it is not possible to vote again now because the composition of the House may have changed.
But it is possible for you to defer this vote until voting time tomorrow, and that the groups themselves, knowing that the vote is taking place, can ensure that they are duly represented.
Then we can vote by roll call.
It does make a difference whether we vote by roll call or in secret; it even sways Members' voting decisions.
That, in fact, is why this request is being made.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="President">
I have admitted and apologised for an error.
But it is quite clear that once a vote is declared in this House you cannot at a subsequent date go back on that vote.
The result of the vote has been announced.
That is the end of the matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Green">
Mr President, I just wish to respond to the comments made by Mr Killilea. It is a shame he is not here to hear them.
As a Quaestor of this House I am surprised that he had to raise something like that on the floor of the House.
He, more than anyone else, should know how best to deal with that.
One has to wonder at his motives for raising it on the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted for the annual report of the Europol Drugs Unit.
In view of the increase in international organised crime in fields such as drugs, it is very important that the Europol Drugs Unit should operate effectively.
The fight against organised crime will be most effective if Europe's police forces work together.
<P>
Europol is there to facilitate police inquiries in the individual Member States by providing a framework for the rapid exchange of information between police authorities.
Secondly, Europol can carry out overarching analyses of trends in crime which benefit the national police forces.
<P>
We cannot endorse any call for actual investigative powers to be assigned to Europol.
Europol must not acquire the character of a European police authority; the investigation of criminal matters must be carried out, as hitherto, by the police in the Member States.
Europol must instead prioritise the very important tasks it already has, for example exchange of information and expertise, support for investigations, analysis and training.
<P>
COM in rice (C4-0276/98)
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
As we give our opinion on the Council regulation on establishing an integrated management system and control system for certain regimes of Community aid and in particular for rice growers, I would like to ask my colleagues, the Commission and the Council to bear in mind the tragic situation of French rice producers who are mainly based in the Camargue region and in French Guiana.
<P>
Indeed, we have had lengthy debates here in the House highlighting the Commission's failings in its management of the cereals market.
Last year at the beginning of our campaign, when world prices were at their highest, the Commission did not issue any export certificates and, as a result, the EU lost the large Arab markets.
<P>
I must remind the House that a similar situation developed in the rice markets, if only because European production is on too small a scale to cater for our internal market.
The Commission agreed to import rice from third countries - albeit under pressure from the WTO - whilst 'forgetting' to manage our internal market.
<P>
Today, the producers' and cooperatives' silos are full and there is no longer any storage capacity specifically set aside for rice, such as ventilated silos.
Soon we will have to harvest our 1998 production, and what is the Commission suggesting we do to address this problem?
Nothing.
<P>
Therefore, I am formally asking the Commission to take urgent action to allow our rice producers to continue with the 1998 harvest and to allow our cooperatives to stockpile our production.
<P>
Having progressively reduced aid to rice producers and having caused the bottlenecks in our silos, it would appear that the Commission does not want us to maintain any rice production in Europe?
Or has it simply decided that the European Union should be dependent on rice produced in third countries for its entire rice supply?
<P>
Schaffner report (A4-0108/98)
<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, we have rejected the Schaffner report, although it deals with a very important subject, and all because of a number of unacceptable amendments, not least those tabled by Mrs Zimmermann, which explains why her Social Democratic Party is freefalling towards the 20 % mark in Bavaria.
Amendment No 4, for example, sought uncontrolled immigration of grandparents, unmarried and homosexual live-in partners and the like.
I believe that if Parliament continues to treat such important matters so flippantly under pressure from the Socialists and Greens, it will trigger protests among broad sections of the population.
Given these important responsibilities that are now being entrusted to us, we have a duty to return to constructive cooperation and to stop playing this sort of demagogic game behind the backs of our citizens and taxpayers.
<P>
It is indeed striking that a similar paper was referred back by the Socialists themselves when Mr Schröder was here in Strasbourg, because they were embarrassed by it.
But no sooner has Mr Schröder left than they are at it again.
<P>
(Heckling from Mr Schulz)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Berthu">
The Schaffner report on the free movement of persons has just been rejected in this House by a coalition formed out of contradictory reasons.
Nonetheless, we must point out that, before the report was rejected, Amendment No 8 had been adopted by a clear majority - 276 votes to 250 - and this should not be forgotten.
This amendment stated that 'the free movement of persons pursuant to Article 7a of the Treaty on European Union (Article 14 of the consolidated version) must also apply to third country nationals residing legally in the European Union' and then went on to ask 'that these members be treated in the same way as EU citizens with regard to their political, social and economic rights'.
<P>
The first part of the quote comes from the draft Amsterdam text, which sets a deadline of five years for the abolition of all border controls within the EU for citizens of Member States and for third country nationals.
The Europe of Nations Group is opposed to this measure as it would lead to us losing control of our territory - a fundamental basis for our sovereignty.
How can territorial integrity be preserved if we no longer have the right to control our own borders? How can we defend a territory, which the French constitution states must be defended and even, in Article 16, goes as far as allowing exceptional powers to be invoked for the defence of this territory?
<P>
Yet what follows Amendment No 8 goes even further than this.
It calls for equality amongst nationals and citizens of third countries as regards their economic, social and political rights. These political rights, for example, include the right to vote in all elections, ranging from council to presidential elections.
This text did not come about by accident.
It is indeed an expression of this House's lasting philosophy; namely the desire to erase any difference between citizens and foreigners in all areas. In our opinion, such a philosophy will not lead to the construction of Europe, but rather to its destruction.
<P>
French citizens must be on their guard: the Amsterdam Treaty allows for decisions on the international movement of persons to be taken by qualified majority voting in the Council, in codecision with Parliament.
If we grant such powers to Parliament, then they will be used as has been made clear today, and this will not change in the future.
This House will always remain a Parliament too far removed from its citizens and manipulated by pressure groups who only want to go over the heads of the different countries in order to destroy Europe.
I would ask French citizens to remember this when ratifying the Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Lis Jensen and Krarup">
We cannot support the Schaffner report under any circumstances.
The report is in our opinion completely out of step with reality and, at its worst, is an expression of EU federalism.
The Schaffner report shows a contempt for national democracies that is inadmissible - for example in paragraph 1, where it proposes that the Council implement Article 7a, which covers the removal of internal frontiers and the strengthening of controls at the Union's external frontiers, without any noticeable concern for national law.
At the same time we can only call on the Danish Government to stand firm in the Council and continue to block the Commission's proposal to extend Regulation 1408/71.
<P>
We do not merely oppose the élitist view of how political decisions can be implemented, we will also at all times fight to uphold the exclusive right of national parliaments to determine national border policy, visa policy, social policy, etc.
At the same time, having regard to the electoral process by which we have been elected, we will also affirm the obligation of democratic states to observe the international conventions that have been adopted under the auspices, for example, of the Council of Europe and the United Nations and will actively defend their principles.
In that context we energetically reject the proposal of the Austrian Presidency for a common EU policy on immigrants and refugees, which is in clear conflict with, among other things, the UN Convention on Refugees and common humanity.
Unfortunately, the Austrian initiative is not the only EU-related ploy in the refugee field which conveys a 'Fortress Europe' mentality.
The Danish Prime Minister even stated, in the context of the referendum on the Amsterdam Treaty, that a vote for the Amsterdam Treaty would mean fewer refugees in Denmark.
<P>
We are in no doubt that the Schaffner report is to be seen as yet another brick in the construction not just of the United States of Europe but also of a 'Fortress Europe'.
We are therefore voting against the Schaffner report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Thors">
Along with other members of the Liberal Group, I note with dismay that the European Parliament was unable to deliver an opinion on the reports from the High Level Group on Free Movement, chaired by a respected European and former Member of this House, Mrs Simone Weil.
<P>
The voting behaviour of the conservative side demonstrated a lack of any desire to create a level playing field for third country citizens legally resident within the Union.
Can we really speak of free movement if the rules apply to EU citizens only?
The operation of such a system beggars belief.
<P>
Those British Labour Members who clearly abstained also bear responsibility for the fact that Parliament cannot fulfil one of its primary missions, namely to create a citizens' Europe.
The report charts the day-to-day difficulties dogging the lives of many people in Europe.
One of our main concerns should be to remedy this state of affairs.
<P>
Lannoye recommendation (A4-0278/98)
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Bonde and Sandbæk">
We are voting for the Lannoye report and particularly welcome the fact that Amendment No 4 has been withdrawn, since we do not want to see simplifications of existing standards enacted by committees.
We have indeed noted with satisfaction that the Commission has not included in its presentation - although this is what it originally wanted - formulations which would provide possibilities for future simplifications of existing standards to be carried out through the committee procedure, of which clearly we strongly disapprove because of the closed and undemocratic nature of committees.
<P>
Mosiek-Urbahn recommendation (A4-0279/98)
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Caudron">
I would like to congratulate our rapporteur, Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn, on her work and on all the effort she has put into reaching an agreement on this important directive on supplementary supervision of insurance undertakings.
<P>
Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn has succeeded almost completely in getting different points of view to agree.
The Council has in fact adopted the amendments voted through at first reading.
The common position, adopted by 14 votes to one, seems to us to be a good compromise.
<P>
Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn does, however, suggest a number of amendments at second reading.
We regret to say that we do not agree with these amendments.
We believe that the balance struck by the common position is the right one and we are concerned that the proposed amendments will alter the directive and thereby jeopardize the protection offered to policyholders and the insurance groups sector - something which is very important in our eyes.
<P>
The French Socialists will therefore accept the common position without amendments, as will the majority of the Socialist Group.
I would personally like to ask the European Commission to defer its critical stance on the French mutual insurance associations and to reopen talks on this question with the French Government.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Rovsing">
It is essential that both citizens and firms in the internal market can have full confidence in the insurance industry.
It is thus a very positive development that the European Union is now effectively seeking to prevent insurance companies from resorting to the very serious practice of circumventing the solvency requirements of the EU's insurance directives, which consists in counting the same capital twice in order to cover risks for which insurance has been issued by different companies.
<P>
After the first reading, the Council showed a very cooperative attitude in that it accepted the great majority of Parliament's amendments in its common position.
I also feel justified in expressing satisfaction at this spirit of cooperation.
<P>
Valverde López report (A4-0279/98)
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Bonde and Sandbæk">
We are voting for the report because it is necessary to prevent Chapter 2 aircraft, which generate more pollution and noise, from the USA ending up in EU countries when they are no longer permitted in the USA.
Even 'hushkitted' Chapter 2 aircraft cause more pollution and noise than 'proper' Chapter 3 aircraft.
In order to reduce noise pollution, we also support the ban on recertified aircraft taking off and landing at night.
There is a general need for a further tightening-up of noise reduction measures in the air transport sector in Europe and the world as a whole.
<P>
However, we strongly oppose Amendment No 1.
This area must continue to be regulated by a directive rather than a regulation.
Regulations enable further powers to be taken away from the national parliaments, and we cannot support such a transfer of legislative power from democratically elected bodies to the EU Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Díez de Rivera Icaza">
It is regrettable that despite Parliament's almost unanimous approval of the amendments to the Green Paper on combating noise proposed by myself as rapporteur for the Committee on the Environment, we should now be presented with these modifications which are far from adequate for achieving noise reduction in the air transport sector.
<P>
It is unbelievable that aircraft fitted with hushkits should still be allowed within the EuropeanUnion, and that the exemptions granted in Article 4(1) should be abused.
<P>
Amendment No 5 to the Commission's text does seem reasonable. It guarantees citizens' sleep, banning night flights.
I come from the Balearic Islands and have personal experience of the torture caused by Minorca airport, where there is no regulation of noise pollution during the busy tourist season.
<P>
It appears that the Parliament's unanimous position against noise on the occasion of the debate on the Green Paper went unnoticed. The Environment Commissioner did not even deign to attend, despite sending out splendid 'soundproofed' messages during the recent Copenhagen conference on noise.
<P>
Christodoulou report (A4-0396/98)
<SPEAKER ID=94 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, last July the Europe of Nations Group spoke out against the actions of the Commission which, having been condemned by the Court of Justice for implementing expenditure without the appropriate legal basis, then came to Parliament and asked for its support.
The Commission was backed up by a host of letters from associations which were benefiting from these illegal appropriations. All these associations did of course claim that they were on the verge of collapse and that the most impoverished of them would suffer terribly if the European Union did not continue to pay subsidies to them.
<P>
We refuse to take part in this game.
We believe that aid for socially oriented projects will be more carefully and efficiently distributed if it remains under the control of governments and local authorities.
<P>
Today there is absolutely no reason to deviate from this principle, other than the Commission's wish to intervene in all areas and to build up a grateful client base.
Also, as the current Treaty requires a legal basis for expenditure, we find the Commission's proposed solution - an agreement between the institutions which interprets the Treaty rather liberally - completely unacceptable, since it would allow the Commission to continue behaving as it has been doing.
The Treaty was adopted by the people of Europe, and the Brussels institutions do not have the power to change its meaning without consulting the people once again.
<P>
Our position of principle was made clear in July and was strengthened today when we read the text of the draft agreement.
The text endorses all the Commission's requests to implement expenditure on its own initiative for hypothetical pilot schemes or preparatory actions or even for specific or indefinite measures resulting from its institutional prerogatives, and this last category does not even have an established maximum limit.
<P>
We consider this draft agreement to be unacceptable and we call on the Council to reject it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I voted against this report both for legal reasons and on a matter of principle.
<P>
I explained the legal reason for voting against this report during the final vote.
I would like to reiterate the fact that the Treaty calls for a dual legal basis before implementing any Community expenditure. There must be a financial basis, so it must be entered in the Community budget, and there must be a legal basis, so a secondary act must have been adopted.
<P>
In its judgment of 12 May, the Court of Justice highlighted these requirements.
Such bases were only not required for actions described as non-significant.
The Court held that actions limited in time or with a restricted budget could be other than nonsignificant.
The draft interinstitutional agreement does not comply with the Court's decision.
It allows expenditure to be implemented for pilot projects of an experimental nature, for preparatory actions and for specific measures.
As my colleague Mr Berthu pointed out, specific measures with a considerable budget can easily be drawn up in this way without a legal basis.
<P>
And then there is the matter of principle, which is very simple.
We cannot continue to have a European Union that is as devoted to interinstitutional agreements as this one currently is.
We demand that Treaties be drawn up and that they be ratified by Parliament, yet we deny the people the right to comment on the Treaties by using these interinstitutional agreements which do not go to the people or to national parliaments for comment.
Through such agreements, we add things, we amend things, we change the Treaties.
<P>
- Echelon system
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Crampton">
The excellent STOA working document - An appraisal of Technologies of Political Control - does not appear to have received the attention it deserves: certainly not from the Commission, which denies knowledge of any agreements when it is known that a memorandum of understanding was signed by the EU states in 1995 but remains classified.
Also, it seems to me that only the Green Group exhibits any real understanding of the problem.
<P>
The main gatherer of information in the EU for the United States is the spy base at Menwick Hill in North Yorkshire, England.
This is a spy base set up by agreement between the British Government and the USA in 1948 among other purposes to monitor communications between the West and East and within the East in the cold war.
<P>
While many US bases in Europe have closed since the end of the cold war, Menwick Hill has expanded considerably and is currently having new security precautions installed.
With its powerful surveillance systems there is considerable evidence that while military-type spying continues, much of the surveillance is of private and business conversations.
Much commercial advantage is believed to be obtained and used to aid US firms in gaining an advantage over European firms in global competition.
<P>
There is no democratic accountability of the activities of Menwick Hill base and in view of all the evidence I believe it should be closed immediately.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Rübig">
An explanation by UCLAF is urgently required.
Transparency first and last.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Theonas">
It is self-evident that the two largest trade and economic powers in the world can and should develop a dialogue.
The question is, under what conditions, with what aims, and for whose benefit.
<P>
It should not be possible for the draft of an agreement to be rejected by the Council, indeed with some countries seeming to have imposed a veto banning its adoption, because it comes into radical conflict with the interests of European countries, and then, after just a few months, and in essence after changing just the title of the agreement, for that draft to be accepted under pressure from the United States and major capital.
<P>
It should not be possible for organisations financed by the Community itself to find that the economic and private lives of the EU's citizens and the telecommunications and electronic systems of its bodies are subject to monitoring and espionage on an extensive scale, via the Echelon system which penetrates worldwide telecommunications systems, and for the information it gathers to be used to the benefit of the United States, as for example in the case of the GATT negotiations, and for the Commission to allege that nothing of the kind has been reported to it.
<P>
It should not be possible for the EU to be a co-signatory to an agreement with the United States, which supposedly safeguards the interests of European companies against extraterritorial US legislation, such as the Helms-Burton Act on sanctions against companies which violate the economic embargo imposed by the United States on Cuba, and for Mrs Albright then to announce exactly the opposite to Congress, in other words that Europe is subject to US legislation.
<P>
In the face of this continual pressure from the United States and major interests, the European Union responds with continual concessions, in obedience to exactly the same monopolistic interests.
<P>
According to our information, the European Union's response to unacceptable monitoring by the United States of electronic and telecommunications systems and more generally the media of the digital combined services network, is to decide to set up an analogous system in collaboration with the FBI, quite beyond any democratic control and in clear contravention of the directive on the protection of natural persons in relation to the processing of personal data.
<P>
The aim of this dialogue should be to achieve developments which benefit working people, which safeguard and extend their democratic and labour rights both in the European Union and in the United States, and indeed which take into account that one is the other's largest partner in both trade and investment.
<P>
Unfortunately, however, that is not possible, because both sides are protagonists of the worldwide capitalist system and the attack it has mounted against working people, and seen in that light, the agreement being promoted supplements the mechanisms which serve their aims and ambitions.
A characteristic example is provided by demands for the more effective protection of investments by the adoption of basic principles such as expropriation and compensation, through the related Understanding between the European Union and the USA, which attempts to forestall even the Multipartite Agreement on Investments in the context of the OECD, which has not yet been accepted because of the enormous reactions to which it gave rise.
<P>
Campoy Zueco report (A4-0235/98)
<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pinel">
Mr President, waste management is an extremely important matter for public health.
A country which is unable or unwilling to manage its waste in an ecological manner will have polluted waters and air filled with toxic elements churned out by bad incineration methods. On top of all this, that country's population will feel the full force of this pollution through its food supply.
So, as well as spongiform encephalopathy, hormones and genetic manipulation, we must now also reckon with the accumulation of dioxins and organochlorates in our food chains.
<P>
In this context, the use of sewage sludge in agriculture - although this may be stating the obvious - should be controlled by extremely stringent public health standards, since sewage sludge often contains high levels of heavy metals and other active substances.
<P>
The rapporteur is therefore right to be concerned over a certain degree of laxity being shown by the Member States.
However, how does he hope to initiate infringement proceedings against Member States when, as he himself freely admits, Community legislation is neither transparent nor coherent?
The Commission's role should be to advise and to provide the necessary tools for a certain degree of convergence between Member States, not to intervene in a policing or fiscal capacity.
<P>
It is a shame that this idea slightly taints the overall tone of this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Malone">
Mr President, I just wish to say that there is very little point in spending time debating and adopting environmental legislation if it is not going to be implemented.
We know there is a very low level of harmonisation in this field, which is of vital importance for the single market.
Is it not absolutely amazing that you see the manic determination to complete the single market with regard to duty free and nothing being done here?
It makes you stop and wonder.
<P>
In the short time available to me I wish to correct a remark made yesterday in plenary by my constituency colleague, Ms McKenna, and reported in the Irish Times today.
My understanding is that the study in the Lancet magazine referring to dangers for pregnant women living near landfill sites refers to sites where hazardous and toxic waste - not normal waste - is being dumped.
In this regard the Irish Government and authorities are not at fault.
Indeed, many references to Ireland in the report are out of date.
<P>
The only two legal cases pending against the Irish Government include one with regard to the provision of waste management plans (similar cases are being taken out against several Member States).
Plans are now being rewritten for Ireland and are practically ready for resubmission and so it is likely that this case will be dropped.
<P>
The second case pending against the Irish Government concerns the failure to supply the Commission with information on hazardous waste installations.
Again, I am assured by the Commission that this matter is now being addressed, and it is likely that legal proceedings will be discontinued.
<P>
Finally, I would urge the Irish authorities to address, without further delay, the deficiency we have with regard to recycling facilities and also the fact that in Ireland agricultural waste is not considered waste, and so we have the spectacle of beautiful lakes - like the lakes of Killarney - being full of phosphates and so on and fish being killed because agricultural effluent is going into these lakes.
I wish the authorities could do something about the fact that we still have a landfill site in Rogerstown estuary in north County Dublin, in an area which is a natural habitat for wild birds and so on.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Ahern">
I am deeply concerned about the festering waste crisis in Ireland.
At present the EU is taking action against Ireland for failure to implement a proper national waste management plan and in particular for failing to deal with hazardous waste.
Ireland has not been measuring up.
The EU is now demanding a major overhaul and a national hazardous waste plan with individual local authority plans.
Once more Ireland has been seen to be dragging its feet.
<P>
Toxic and hazardous waste have been the subject of studies in the UK which show that pregnant mothers are still at risk if living within two miles of a hazardous waste facility.
Babies born within two miles of landfill sites where hazardous waste is dumped are at serious risk of birth defects.
Deformities and illnesses such as spina bifida, hole in the heart and faulty blood systems have been noted in children born to mothers who live near industrial landfill sites.
Ireland has officially been exporting hazardous waste.
However waste has been found illegally dumped around the country and the Commission will be investigating complaints.
<P>
The key question is, who is going to pay for the increase in cost of waste disposal as the EU noose tightens on Ireland?
If the polluter pays, this means a revolution with waste reduction and recycling playing the primary role and decreasing the need for landfill to 20 %.
<P>
This is an indictment of the lax attitude in this country to the enforcement of waste laws.
Our green image is being undermined.
Agriculture is the biggest cause of river and lake pollution in Ireland and yet agricultural waste has been ignored in previous waste management plans.
The Commission is specifically aware of this.
A recent plan for County Waterford failed to provide for the management of approximately 1 million tonnes of agricultural waste per annum.
While the Irish Government is pussy-footing around legislation, the waste builds up and destroys our environment.
<P>
The Commission has called for a deadline for reports in September 1998.
Will Ireland meet the deadline or will fines be imposed?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Bonde and Sandbæk">
It is very disheartening to note that no Member States have incorporated the European Waste Catalogue into national legislation and that the definition of waste therefore differs from one country to another, leaving large loopholes in the implementation of sustainable environmental legislation.
It is also particularly regrettable that the Member States do not implement the common policy on waste adopted through the four directives in question more effectively, let alone honour their obligations on reporting to the Commission.
<P>
Thus the individual Member States are failing to apply key environmental principles and, generally, to promote and apply a waste policy which meets the needs of human health and welfare.
We therefore favour giving the European Environment Agency powers to collect the necessary data on the implementation by individual Member States of the common policy on waste management, if these comparative analyses can promote the codification of European waste policy.
<P>
Nevertheless we are very critical of this report.
On the one hand, we do not feel that waste should be regarded as a commodity that can be traded across frontiers and hence be regulated as part of the internal market.
Waste policy is really an environmental matter and should therefore only be dealt with in the context of environmental policy.
On the other hand, the report recommends in paragraph 3 that the question be covered by a regulation rather than, as now, by a directive.
This is not the way to improve implementation of the common environmental policy, let alone to pursue more effective, committed and democratic Community policy in general.
<P>
Through regulations, which have direct legal force in the individual Member States, power is taken away from the national parliaments.
They are deprived of influence on decisions affecting the concrete national implementation of Community law.
We cannot endorse this transfer of legislative power from democratically elected bodies to the EU Commission.
A genuine and responsible environmental policy cannot be forced through by legislation - otherwise many more Member States would have honoured their obligations - but requires a fundamental change of attitude.
The common environmental policy is indeed necessary, but not sufficient in itself.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Caudron">
I would first like to congratulate our colleague on the clarity and openness of his report.
Such openness is relatively rare and so is worth highlighting.
Also, I would like to show my support for the requests made by Mr Campoy Zueco and point out a few environmental truths.
<P>
Unfortunately, the Member States' reluctance to apply the directives on waste management is not limited to environmental matters alone.
I would also like to express my frustration at the repeated statements of good intent made by our governments, when their actions are so far removed from these declarations.
<P>
There is no point in drawing up a list of such breaches of regulations.
It is of the utmost importance that those in power fully assess the importance of the environment issue as the new millennium approaches.
At the risk of repeating myself, we cannot offload our problems onto future generations indefinitely.
The threats hanging over us are real and very worrying.
<P>
I would also like to show my support for the rapporteur's suggestions, both on a conclusive definition of waste and on taking all the necessary steps against recalcitrant governments. I agree with most of the analyses and proposals made by our colleague.
<P>
Lastly, although I am in favour of some tax incentives, there is a considerable risk of finding ourselves hemmed in by tightening budgets.
It is very likely that the next few years will be particularly rich in terms of environment policy, and we will have to show our strength, in this field as in others.
Of course we must help, but we must first punish those who do not respect the law.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Lis Jensen and Krarup">
Despite the good intentions of the Campoy Zueco report and despite the critical matters the report deals with, we cannot support it.
We think that the Campoy Zueco report touches on the fundamental problem of the EU, which is that the EU does not have legislative legitimacy.
This means that the Member States often choose to set aside EU legislation, despite the fact that they themselves joined in adopting it.
<P>
The Campoy Zueco report addresses breaches of the EU rules on waste management.
Let there be no doubt that we find it reprehensible that EU countries - and moreover other countries too - resort to sloppy practices in their management of waste, to the detriment of their own citizens, the national environment and the global environment.
Thus we can only call on all countries, not least the industrialised countries, to take their global environmental responsibilities seriously, also where waste management is concerned.
<P>
Our position is that the proposals of the Campoy Zueco report on an increased role for the Commission and the EC Court of Justice with respect to the Member States are unlikely to help all that much.
They are not proposals that will strengthen the EU's legitimacy in the eyes of the citizens of the EU Member States.
The best means of strengthening the will of the countries to take their environmental responsibility seriously is to strengthen national and local democracy, so that the citizens themselves can ensure that the elected authorities are aware of their responsibilities.
What we need is not more EU government from the top, but more democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Souchet">
Waste management is such an important economic and environmental issue that we must step up our efforts in this field.
<P>
Firstly, on behalf of the Europe of Nations Group, I wish to protest at the fact that, at Commission level, the definition of 'waste' in the European Union was deliberately omitted, even before the single market was established and therefore before customs checks were abolished on commercial transactions.
As a result, different interpretations of the definition of 'waste' in Member States have meant that hazardous waste has been channelled through some of the less diligent countries, and this is the main reason why we have seen a certain level of hazardous waste traffic develop.
<P>
Our group has tabled two amendments on ecotaxes.
For several years, we have seen ecotaxes becoming more common on packaging, and in this particular field, all measures introduced by the Member States must be coordinated at Community level.
All too often, these ecotaxes are established to hinder the internal market, and this is not acceptable.
In Germany and France, we have developed a common logo - a green dot - which means that all packagers marketing finished products in these two states must make a contribution and help solve waste-related environmental problems.
This sort of easy, clean and efficient measure must become more common and must be used to counter measures introduced by other Member States such as Belgium, which is trying to promote its national production by imposing particularly heavy and discouraging procedures.
<P>
Finally, on a more general note, the Europe of Nations Group can only regret the fact that European legislation is so cumbersome in the field of waste management.
There are in fact 20 different legal acts on this matter, undermining the principle of transparency, and this is further compounded since the concept of waste is not defined in the same way in the different Member States.
Consequently, we would like to ask the Commission to fulfil its proper role, rather than constantly creating a role of political initiative on all matters for itself, which it is not meant to do.
Its role is to coordinate and simplify legislation on waste management and related issues.
It is perhaps worth the House reminding the Commission of this.
<P>
Mohamed Alí report (A4-0167/98)
<SPEAKER ID=106 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Mr President, we all agree with our colleague Mr Mohammed Alí in that Averroës is an important figure, just as the Arabian Montesquieu, Ibn Khaldun, was an important figure.
But if we are to believe Maimonides and the Catalan philosopher Raymond Lulle, Averroës could be the man who wrote the booklet 'The Three Impostors' about the Hebrew, Christian and Muslim religions.
<P>
So, to use this strong and free spirit to represent the new dogma of multi-ethnic society or the sentimental defence of human rights is an affront to his memory.
We all agree that a university should be set up, with Mediterranean sponsorship, to celebrate the 800th anniversary of Averroës's death, but to use this man to symbolise violent and arrogant immigrants is a rather odd thing to do with such a refined spirit.
Can you imagine Averroës going to a rap concert in Córdoba, or selling drugs on back streets, behind the wheel of a BMW, all made up and deceiving tourists on the street?
<P>
Are we, in fact, talking about two Muslim worlds?
The world of Al Mansur dominated the West through its intellectual superiority, but today's Muslim world dominates us through its barbarity.
<P>
So we should not make Averroës the godfather of the Taliban, nor of the jihad, since if he were alive today, there would be a fatwa out against him and his throat would have been cut by Muslims, by the same Muslims that we want to use his memory to represent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Mr President, I voted against the Mohamed Alí report, but not because I could not wholeheartedly endorse its underlying intentions.
I merely believe that a report which is so short that it only scratches the surface of its subject simply cannot do justice to this highly complex issue with which we are confronted.
<P>
There is much in the report that I can wholeheartedly support, for example its representation of the situation of women in Islam, but there are also parts with which I cannot agree.
I just believe it does not make sense to try and cover such a sensitive, complex, broad and important subject with a report of this kind.
It is the wrong approach.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Berthu">
The European Parliament has just adopted Mr Mohamed Alí's report which calls for Europe to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the death of Ibn Rushd - Averroës - a twelfth century philosopher with a liberal interpretation of Islam.
<P>
This report is accompanied by a rather unusual explanatory statement which describes Averroës: ' Averroës was born in the year 520/1126 and was called Abu-l Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad Ibn Rushd, which perhaps explains why we have since the Middle Ages preferred the much shorter name Averroës, just as we prefer to say Avicenna when referring to the other great Islamic philosopher Ibn Sina... Your rapporteur will first seek to familiarize you with Averroës, asking you to take an imaginary trip to the. cinema, to see 'Le Destin' by Youssef Chabine.
The splendid images, the music and the dancing tell the story of Al Mansur, vizir of Córdoba, the sheik Riad and Averroës. And the fact is that few of us were acquainted with the life of the cadi of Córdoba before we saw this film.
Averroës was the doctor of the emirs Yusuf and Al-Mansur, and a philosopher. He was attacked by the advocates of strict religious orthodoxy, fell into disgrace, was exiled and latterly rehabilitated.
Averroës, who died on 10 December 1198, ended his days as the premier doctor of the Court of Marakesh. Of all Spaniards, he is the one which has left the deepest imprint on human thought.'
<P>
The text which Parliament has adopted does not conceal its aims, since in the first recital, it announces that 'European society has multicultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious roots which are vital features of its heritage and its multifaceted identity ...'
I am sorry to say that I do not agree with these claims.
The various societies of European countries are indeed different, but they have some very deep-rooted common references which come from their Christian identity and, if we go further back in time, from their Celtic, Gallic, Roman, Greek or Germanic roots.
Even if several religions have contributed to a common European background, their contributions cannot be regarded as having equal weight.
Islam in particular has helped forge our identity as much through contrast with it as through the positive contributions it has made.
<P>
In view of this, I am sorry to say that the Mohamed Alí report misjudges our identity.
Also, it concludes with some absurd proposals, such as calling on Member States of the EU to 'promote the vocational and academic training of imams and other religious leaders in Europe'.
We must admire the rapporteur's attempt to keep a balance, as he did write 'and other religious leaders' after mentioning imams.
Nonetheless, we would like to make our disapproval felt, as we do not believe that Member States should have to make compulsory payments to finance religions when some of the fundamental aspects of these religions go against the principles of our democracies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="Blot">
Averroës was a brilliant scholar but, at the same time, he was a symbol of failure - the result of trying to combine Greek philosophy with Islam.
This is a lesson for all those who dream of seeing a distorted and secularised Islam which incorporates a human rights ideology.
I do not think that Islam will betray its own nature in this way.
<P>
I also believe that the nature of Europe is rather different, as it is Graeco-Christian.
Aristotle was more successful in the West than Averroës was in the Islamic world.
In his work 'Politics', Aristotle explains that all democratic cities are culturally uniform and that uncontrolled immigration can destroy the city.
We should therefore heed this example.
As regards Muslims resident in Europe, they should be able to practise their religion with dignity and in private.
<P>
Yet on a public level, Islam has no place in Europe both for its sake - so that it can maintain its purity - and for our own.
Other schools of thought, with the best of intentions, may wish to see a demagogic mix of people, yet history has shown that such hopes are in vain.
This is why Averroës was more successful in the West than in the Islamic world.
We should face up to this and learn from this clear lesson.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Féret">
Our colleague Mr Mohamed Alí has single-handedly delivered this report.
His own-initiative report was conceived two years ago and has just been born.
In my home town, on the border between the French and Belgian Hainaut regions, when a mother-to-be is late giving birth, we say she will give birth to a donkey.
<P>
In spite of the two-year pregnancy, I find the new-born report we have just seen to be rather underhand.
By introducing us to Abu-l Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad Ibn Rushd as Averroës, the rapporteur portrays him as a link between Islam and the Graeco-Roman civilisations. He is using a deceit to make a bitter pill easier to swallow.
<P>
I would like to emphasise three truths; firstly, religious matters do not come under the competences of this Parliament and so this report should never have been born.
Secondly, Averroës was rejected by Islam and severely criticised by Christian theologians.
And lastly, we cannot talk of tolerance when mosques are springing up at a rate of knots in Europe, but the same cannot be said of Christian churches in Islamic countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Leperre-Verrier">
The 800th anniversary of the death of the visionary and philosopher Averroës would be an excellent chance to review links between the European Union, Islam and its Muslims, a subject often viewed with suspicion and incomprehension by both sides.
<P>
Averroës's modern and humanist thinking should lead us to question the place of Muslims in Europe, without any prior ideological misconceptions.
The sensible proposals put forward by our Committee on Culture should be carried out in each of the Member States.
These proposals will be much more efficient than the security-based obsession with fighting a small minority that refuses to combine religion and modernity.
<P>
However, I think it is a shame that such a small amount of space was given over to the concept of secularity in the report, as this would help us to overcome divisive feelings and would be a true exercise in tolerance.
<P>
I also hope that more relevant future actions will be undertaken which will allow us not only to avoid social deprivation becoming the territory of a few fundamentalist movements, but also to make it easier for non-practising Muslims and all those who practise Islam privately to become a full part of society. I would like to point out that more than half of these people are nationals of one of our Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Lindqvist">
I agree with many of the proposals, but this is not a matter for the EU or the European Parliament.
The problems described must be dealt with in alternative ways. And this applies to other religions too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Seillier">
We voted against the report drawn up by our colleague Mr Mohamed Alí on 'Islam and European Averroës Day'. This was mainly out of respect for the principle of subsidiarity - it is up to each of our different Member States to consider the questions posed by the presence of Muslims in their particular country.
We also voted against the report because history is different from one country to another and there are different understandings of integration and secularity. Also, as regards paragraph 12, point C, it is not up to Member States to provide training for imams, even if the author of the report does describe this as 'vocational and academic scientific and professional training'.
This is a rather odd and simplistic way of viewing it, and could even be deemed outrageous from an Islamic point of view. The Muslim community itself is responsible for training imams and it must therefore distance itself from, and even turn down, imams sent by Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries.
<P>
After some heated discussions in the Committee on Culture on the distinction between secularism and secularity, our colleague did claim to respect secularity.
At the root of secularity are Christ's words from the gospel: ' Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's'.
I do not doubt the sincerity of this report, but I am sorry to point out that this only represents the author himself, who does not claim to represent other members of his faith in any way.
<P>
There is also a certain ambiguity in the explanatory statement, as the rapporteur sometimes makes claims for Islam on a purely cultural level and sometimes for Islam as a religion.
But is such a distinction possible when seen from the Koran's holistic perspective, a perspective which states that the Islamic faith is inseparable from a religious way of life? It is indeed a culture but it is also a body of political legislation, a family code and so on, and it is the duty of the faithful to live by these rules as soon as they have the means to do so.
<P>
We therefore cannot agree to several of the demands made by Mr Mohamed Alí. Nonetheless, there is one point in paragraph 11, point F which, if amended, does seem very interesting.
Averroës day would be the ideal opportunity to set up a 'Euro-Islamic' university in one of our European countries to address matters such as the relationship between faith, religion and politics, from the point of view of Judaism, Islam, Catholicism and other Christian faiths in comparison with, for example, secularity and freemasonry.
What is the relationship between philosophy and theology according to all these different points of view?
<P>
Such an initiative would be a way of honouring Averroës's memory, whose thinking was undeniably important for European philosophers but - and this does not bode well - his thinking was not as important for the Muslim world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="Vaz da Silva">
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="Wolf">
The 'Euro-Mediterranean partnership' is not only a fervent wish.
It is based on a historical reality which, regrettably, is still largely ignored.
The European West would still be a nonentity today if it had not been able to develop over many centuries as the protégé and 'poor relation' of the rich and civilised Orient.
This applies quite specifically to Islam too, without the culture, literature and philosophy of which neither the modern 'enlightened' Europe nor the Latin Middle Ages, in which some of the main social and intellectual seeds of the Enlightenment were sown, would never have come about.
Without the Jewish and Arab, Talmudic and Islamic reception of Aristotelian and other Antique philosophy, from which the leading Arab and Islamic philosophers developed key concepts such as the univocity of being (Avicenna/Ibn Sina) and the differentiation of truth (Averroës/Ibn Rashid), the world would never have experienced either the flowering of Scholasticism, the Renaissance, or the modern sciences with the sense of mission that was shaped for them by Bacon and Descartes.
<P>
The historically conditioned suppression within Western Europe in the early modern age of the decisive contribution made by the Islamic East to the constitution of both the Christian and the humanist West has now become, if it was not already so, an ideological shackle in the quest to understand reality and in cross-cultural dialogue.
We can therefore only support emphatically anything that will help to create the conditions for our overdue broad dialogue with the Islamic world: colloquia, universities, educational curricula, religious equality, commemoration days, etc.
<P>
Instead of continuing to pursue a mythical Christian definition of the European identity, we should finally open our eyes to reality - to the multi-religious and philosophically pluralist reality of our common history, the multicultural reality of our societies and the multi-centred reality of the vast Mediterranean region, the peaceful common development of which demands, among other things, robust and mutual cross-cultural understanding.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 1.35 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Customs Union with Turkey
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0251/98) by Mr McMillan-Scott, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on developments in relations with Turkey since the entry into force of the Customs Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="McMillan-Scott">
Madam President, during the debate in the European Parliament in the autumn of 1995 on Parliament's assent to the Customs Union with Turkey, the Commission undertook to submit an annual report to Parliament on the evolution of relations with Turkey.
That was to include consideration of the economic and political aspects - among them the democratic process and the human rights situation in Turkey.
<P>
The Commission forwarded its first report to Parliament on 30 October 1996, followed by a second report on 3 March 1998 and then the European strategy for Turkey in July of this year.
<P>
The Commission's reports were divided into five sections: functioning of the Customs Union; other aspects of implementation of the agreements; economic situation in Turkey; the political situation; and human rights.
<P>
In both reports the Commission gives a favourable assessment of the functioning of the Customs Union, remarking on positive aspects such as the setting up of a competition authority, the signing of free trade agreements with a number of Central and Eastern European countries, progress in harmonising tariffs, and so on.
Mention of course is made of the political difficulties within the EU in making operational the financial instruments agreed by the Council.
<P>
As far as the economic situation in Turkey is concerned, the Commission notes the strong growth achieved but, at the same time, points to the difficulties in sustaining that growth - Turkey's ability to control inflation, currently at about 100 %, its public deficit and other structural problems.
Some may consider the Commission's report unduly pessimistic.
In the political, diplomatic and human rights fields the Commission sees few signs of encouragement and little in the way of progress.
<P>
With regard to human rights, the public recognition by the authorities at the highest level of the need to tackle this serious issue is seen as a positive development.
<P>
The European Parliament voted in favour of the Customs Union in December 1995 despite considerable reservations in the light of the political situation in Turkey.
In so doing, Parliament wanted to stress the importance of this partner in the geopolitical context (Turkey is a NATO member, a WEU observer and a participant in the new Euro-Mediterranean partnership), and, at the same time, to register a gesture of confidence in the Turkish Government, to encourage it to pursue the anchorage of Turkey in the democratic values of Europe.
<P>
Parliament has also reached an agreement with the Commission that a joint working party of the two institutions will examine whether the MEDA programmes with Turkey are in accordance with its resolutions, particularly that of 15 September 1996.
Myself - along with Piet Dankert, who is co-chairman of the EC-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee - are members of this working party.
<P>
The economic effects of the Customs Union appear so far to have been substantially beneficial for the EU.
I am very grateful to the REX Committee and its rapporteur, Mr Schweiger, for its examination of this particular point.
<P>
It should also be remembered that the Luxembourg European Council, on 12 and 13 December, confirmed Turkey's eligibility for EU accession and stipulated that it would be judged on the same criteria as the other applicant states.
<P>
Turkey was also invited to take part at the European Conference on 12 March - confirmation that it would in future figure in the enlargement process.
However, we are disappointed at Turkey's failure to appear at that meeting.
<P>
The entry into force of the Customs Union is an essential stage on the road to Turkish accession.
Although Turkey does not at present meet the accession criteria, its eligibility to join the EU at some stage has never been in doubt.
It has been confirmed on various occasions.
The Union's general objective must be to help Turkey overcome its problems and continue its integration into the EU.
The Association Agreement and the Customs Union Agreement form the basis for the establishment of ever closer political and economic ties.
As part of this process the EU must give special emphasis to the following points: firstly, moving Turkey towards full democratisation and safeguarding human rights; secondly, establishing good neighbourly relations between Greece and Turkey; thirdly, observing the principles of international law; and lastly, finding a solution to the Cyprus question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="Giansily">
Madam President, the excellent report by our colleague Mr McMillan-Scott on the development of relations with Turkey has aroused a great deal of interest in the Committee on Budgets. The committee has tried to improve the report slightly by proposing six amendments which we hope will be considered favourably by the House in the final vote.
<P>
I believe that the European Union has a duty to offer a helping hand to Turkey.
Does not the word 'Europe' come from the banks of the Bosporus, a place of magical exchange between East and West and also the birthplace, over twenty centuries ago, of modern day Athens and scene of the Trojan war?
I would like to be able to say today, as Jean Giraudoux said, that 'the Trojan war will not take place' and that the efforts made over recent years by the Turkish authorities are enough for us to open the doors of the EU to Turkey.
<P>
However, there are still a few remaining obstacles which are included as amendments.
The Committee on Budgets first asks that we examine in more detail the budgetary impact of the implementation and strengthening of the Customs Union in relation to the EU's revenue.
We would then ask that, as part of the MEDA programme, the work of the working party on democracy and the protection of human rights should be taken into account, since Parliament attaches particular importance to it.
<P>
In the third amendment, the Committee on Budgets calls on the Council to notify Parliament of initiatives jointly undertaken with the Turkish authorities to unblock the adoption of the financial regulation on special aid for Turkey.
Amendment No 4 highlights Parliament's interest in Turkey's participation in the Youth for Europe, Leonardo and Socrates programmes.
Lastly, Amendments Nos 5 and 6 note the need to use the European Union's budget to consolidate the Customs Union, which was also highlighted by the Commission.
But the Committee on Budgets would like to take this opportunity to remind the House of the role of codecision in the annual budgetary procedure and therefore of the need for the committee's approval if funds are to be made available.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="Schwaiger">
Madam President, Commissioner van den Broek, ladies and gentlemen, in all its reports and opinions concerning Turkey, the position of the Committee on External Economic Relations has been based on practice and actual problems.
Its motto has been 'Out with all-or-nothing postures and in with a gradual deepening of relations'.
What we are discussing today is not the question of Turkish membership but the consolidation of the achievements of the Customs Union and the implementation of the accompanying policies that have not yet been put into effect; these things need to be done in a spirit of partnership and equality between the two sides.
<P>
Every step taken by the European Union and Turkey, separately or together, to solve the problems relating to the Customs Union and to develop accompanying policies injects fresh impetus into political cooperation and brings eventual Turkish membership a little closer.
It is therefore particularly gratifying that, in its memorandum of 23 July 1998, the Turkish Government responds to the proposals of the Commission and Parliament, abandons the path of confrontation with the European Union and returns to the step-by-step approach as formulated in Cardiff by our side, by the European Council.
<P>
We in the Committee on External Economic Relations support most of these proposals, such as the intensification of dialogue on the liberalisation of capital movements and the coordination of economic policies in general, as well as closer cooperation in the agricultural sector.
We are also gratified to note that the Turkish side is favourably disposed to our proposals on the opening-up of the market in services and calls for a relatively high consistent level of integration in the framework of the association agreement.
Initial steps towards this goal are a technical study and negotiations on the mutual recognition of diplomas and certificates.
<P>
The flexibility of the Turkish side on freedom of movement for Turkish workers in the European Union must also be welcomed.
However, the Committee on External Economic Relations also calls on the European Union and Parliament to remove obstacles and prior conditions where they still exist and to ensure that the accompanying measures provided for in the agreement on customs union are adopted at long last.
As Mr Giansily said, and as was also expressed in Mr McMillanScott's excellent report, we should let Turkey enjoy the benefits of the Leonardo, Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes as soon as possible so that it can work with us on these programmes, since they help to strengthen pluralist society and consolidate democracy.
<P>
The regulation on special financial aid for Turkey should also be released from the Greek veto as soon as possible and enter into force.
Here too the Commission bears particular responsibility in the search for a means of finally ending this blockage.
The same applies to Turkish participation in the tourist-related Interreg, Leader and Philoxena programmes, the specific conditions of which remain to be negotiated.
There is also a need for small and medium-sized businesses to be promoted through the extension to Turkey of the third multiannual programme.
The same applies to the Euro-Info Centres, PC Net, Europartenariat and Enterprise.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="Schulz">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in contrast to the previous speaker, whose task on behalf of his committee was to highlight the economic aspects of cooperation within the Customs Union, the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs has to examine the Customs Union from a different perspective, namely in terms of the human rights situation and the development of democracy in Turkey.
In his extremely interesting report, Mr McMillan-Scott addressed a number of such points, on which I should like to reiterate three fundamental observations that played a significant part in the debate on the Customs Union back in 1995.
In a two-stage process, the European Parliament held two debates in the spring and in the winter of that year to pave the way for its decision.
These debates were invariably dominated by three points.
<P>
Firstly, the intensification and advancement of democracy in Turkey is an indispensable condition for the development of the Customs Union into an instrument of ever closer cooperation.
Secondly, as a regional power, Turkey also has an obligation to proceed on the principle of peaceful resolution of external and internal conflicts and to be active in search of solutions.
Thirdly, as a partner of the European Union, Turkey must ensure that human rights are fully protected and defended by the Turkish State within its territory.
<P>
How do things look in practice?
In practice, it looks as though some progress towards democratisation may have been made here and there.
The external and internal military conflicts remain unresolved.
On the human rights issue, although the freely elected government is trying hard - I certainly will not dispute that - it cannot be said that human rights are fully protected by the authorities in Turkey.
On the contrary, in some cases the authorities are still the instigators of human rights abuses.
That is why our committee does not believe that the circumstances we criticised in 1995 have altered very much in the intervening period, a view I can substantiate by reference to the Kurdistan conflict, the situation in the Aegean and the cases of torture that still persist.
Nevertheless, I do not wish to deny that Turkey has made progress, and we can only appeal to the politicians in Turkey to keep trying to achieve still higher levels of compliance with the criteria I have enumerated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="Deprez">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as draftsman for the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, I would like to join Mr Schulz in expressing my general satisfaction with the excellent report drawn up by our colleague Mr McMillanScott.
<P>
As far as general principles are concerned, there are three elements in this report which we believe should form the basis for relations between the European Union and Turkey.
The first guiding principle should be that of non-discrimination.
Mr McMillan Scott quite rightly reminds us that Turkey should not be treated any more harshly than any other candidate country.
Any request for membership should be examined solely on the basis of respect for the Copenhagen criteria.
<P>
The second principle is not being too lenient.
We must not turn a blind eye to serious violations of human rights because Turkey is an ally, or because it is in a strategically important position, or because the majority of Turkish leaders are constantly announcing their desire to join the EU. Nor should we turn a blind eye to the lack of respect shown for minorities, the constant use of violence, or the temptation to resort to violence to solve problems with neighbouring countries.
This application for accession is a demand for quality.
It should not be considered as a safe conduct to do as they please, and nor is it a passport for impunity.
<P>
The third principle is to reject a policy of isolation.
The European Union will not make a worthwhile contribution to development and democracy by isolating Turkey. It is in the interests of development and democracy that Mr McMillanScott's report suggests holding planned ministerial meetings, fully honouring all aspects of the Customs Union and developing aid for Turkish civil society.
<P>
On behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties in particular, I would like to express my pleasure at finding two requests in this report which match our priorities and which have already been pointed out by other speakers: the enlargement of the Socrates, Leonardo and Youth for Europe programmes and the need for the Turkish Government to cooperate fully and actively with the European Union in the fight against organised crime and drug trafficking.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="President">
Before giving the floor to Mr van den Broek, I would inform the House that he unfortunately has to leave us after his speech for pressing reasons connected with the situation in Russia.
I would make it clear that Mr Monti will take over from him immediately.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="van den Broek">
My thanks to Mr McMillan-Scott and his colleagues Messrs Giansily, Schwaiger, Schulz and Deprez for their contributions to the debate and for Mr McMillan-Scott's report which I read with great interest.
More generally, I am grateful to him for his efforts to move forward our often rather complicated relations with Turkey, both as rapporteur and above all as a member of the European Parliament's contact group or Joint Working Party.
The conclusions of this report of Mr McMillan-Scott's broadly square with the Commission's own findings.
We share your view that generally speaking the Customs Union is working satisfactorily, despite a very considerable trade surplus in the European Union's favour.
At the same time, we note that progress has not been good enough in the areas of democratic reform and human rights, though I am happy to agree with Mr Schulz that there are signs of improvement here and there.
<P>
You rightly pointed to the importance of not isolating Turkey.
I think we have a duty to remain actively involved in developments in Turkey.
Using the means open to us and the MEDA programme on democracy, we must cooperate with nongovernmental organisations and give support wherever possible to positive and democratic forces in Turkey, with a view to consolidating civil society as a basis for stable, democratic developments in that country in future.
Turkish participation in student and teacher exchanges under the Socrates, Leonardo and 'Youth for Europe' programmes can make a very positive contribution here.
I am happy to echo Mr Schwaiger in saying that.
And I hope Parliament will be quick to support the Commission's proposal on that.
The European Parliament has always followed the progress of relations with Turkey very attentively and has played a very prominent part in them.
Through the Joint Working Party you are kept informed of what the Commission is doing under the MEDA programme.
Cooperation in this group is certainly working satisfactorily at present, we believe.
So far the Commission has accepted virtually all the European Parliament's opinions on project proposals.
So I honestly see no virtue in proposals to change the operation of this group even though in essence it is, I have to agree, an institutional anomaly.
<P>
Your report urges the Commission to submit an annual report on the functioning of the Customs Union to the European Parliament in advance of the budgetary procedure, before the end of October.
I promise you that the Commission will make every effort to get the report out as swiftly as possible.
But I should add that there may always be reasons for delaying publication, as you will recall from last year when the intensive discussions with the Turkish authorities, prior to the European Council in Luxembourg, warranted delaying the publication of that report.
<P>
And this discussion continued in Cardiff, as you will remember, where the conclusions of the European summit expressly reaffirmed Turkey's eligibility for membership of the Union.
As you know Turkey did not - much to our regret - take part in the first European Conference in March 1998 and also decided at the very last moment not to attend the proposed Association Council meeting in May.
And Turkey's decision following the European Council meeting in Luxembourg to break off political dialogue with the European Union in areas we regard as very important, namely Cyprus, Greek-Turkish relations and issues of human rights and democracy, naturally did little to move forward our relations in general.
<P>
I am convinced, Madam President, that the European strategy for Turkey which the Commission adopted in March and which received the blessing of the Heads of State and Government in Cardiff points the way towards a deepening of ties between the European Union and Turkey.
Turkey herself reacted positively to this document and the two sides will shortly be consulting on a programme and timetable for implementation of this strategy.
I hope that Turkey, in tandem with the deepening of the relations between us based on the Ankara Agreement of 1963, the Customs Union and the European strategy, will come to the realisation that she has everything to gain from reopening the political dialogue.
Cardiff reaffirmed that Turkey's future lies in Europe.
It was also decided that an annual progress report would be compiled for Turkey and for the ten countries in Central and Eastern Europe, plus Cyprus.
It was stated in Cardiff that this report had to be based on Article 28 of the 1963 Ankara Agreement and on the conclusions of the European Council meeting in Luxembourg.
This report is no different, in terms of its approach, from the reports for the other countries.
<P>
I think it is in Turkey's interest to take part in the second European Conference scheduled for 5 October, given that issues of mutual concern will be discussed there.
But I understand, if the rumours are correct, that Turkey is not at present intending to take part in this meeting on 5 October.
<P>
As you know, the Commission made it clear in its document on a European strategy for Turkey that certain proposals could not be implemented without appropriate financial aid.
The Member States also acknowledged that in Cardiff.
Thus the Commission is currently, also at the request of the Heads of Government, studying the various ways and means of putting a proposal to the Council accordingly and it goes without saying that the European Parliament too will play an important part in that process.
<P>
To conclude, Madam President, I believe the European Union has made considerable efforts to get relations with Turkey back on track.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Titley">
Madam President, we are delighted that at long last we have received the McMillan-Scott report in plenary.
It is a very important report that gives us the opportunity not only to look at the operation of the Customs Union but to give some preliminary reflections on the future direction of relations with Turkey, in anticipation of Mr Swodoba's report which hopefully we will have before the end of the year.
<P>
It also gives us a very important opportunity to stress once again in public to Turkey that as far as we are concerned: they are a strategically important country; we recognise their European vocation; and they will be treated exactly the same as other countries which seek to join in the European Union in terms of applying the Copenhagen criteria.
It is clearly important that we keep stating and restating that case.
<P>
Having said that, we should always bear in mind that Turkey is essentially an agrarian society rapidly transforming itself into an industrial society.
Many of the economic, political and social problems that we identify stem from that single fact.
Clearly part of our job is to aid that transformation to an industrial society and aid the transformation to a modern democratic, pluralistic society.
<P>
The Customs Union is part of the strategy which, as Commissioner van den Broek has indicated, the European Community has been pursuing since 1963.
Notwithstanding what Mr McMillan-Scott said about the asymmetrical nature of the Customs Union benefitting us more than it has benefitted Turkey, that position is definitely beginning to change gradually.
<P>
One of the effects of Customs Union is to encourage the business community and greater entrepreneurial activity.
That is the area we should be concentrating on in the development of the Customs Union; encouraging more entrepreneurial activity, more activity with the business community, more activity with the free and democratic trade unions.
<P>
We also need to improve administrative and professional standards in Turkey which are frequently woefully inadequate.
We must focus on that and indeed encourage the development of better academic and professional standards through exchanges and interrelations with academia in the European Union.
<P>
I am also told that one of the problems we have in Turkey is that there is often very poor quality of translation into Turkish from European Union languages, which leads to misunderstandings about standards. Again, we could be working on those areas.
<P>
That is not to say we should ignore the areas which have been outlined by Commissioner van den Broek and Mr McMillanScott.
We still have to state constantly and categorically our concern for human rights and democracy in Turkey.
We also have to make it clear that Turkey has to recognise the right of Cyprus to negotiate to join the European Union if we are to develop relations.
<P>
Finally, I urge us to work with the media, work with politicians who are looking to liberalise Turkey and work with lawyers and members of the judiciary to improve standards in Turkey as a means of developing greater political dialogue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Lambrias">
Madam President, it is most unfortunate for the European Union and for the Turkish people that the leadership in Ankara and their lackeys in the occupied parts of Cyprus have no intention of complying with the basic principles of international law, or indeed with the rationale of pragmatism.
<P>
It will soon be a year since the Luxembourg decision which defined very clearly the conditions that would allow Turkey to extend its association with Europe and improve its prospects of accession.
Ankara's reactions during that time have been through every manifestation of unreasonableness: anger to begin with, indignation, abuse, threats, and an astonishing disregard for Europe's fundamental principles.
<P>
More particularly, against its neighbour Greece which, let it be noted, out of all 15 of our countries would be the one which stood to gain most satisfaction and benefit from Turkey's approach to the European family, Turkey escalated its harassments in the Aegean, which could have led to the outbreak of war, escalated its disputes affecting Greece's territorial integrity, and sabotaged every attempt to begin a constructive dialogue.
And top Turkish leaders were brought into the part of Cyprus still under military occupation, to direct its incorporation into Turkey if Europe's declared policy on the accession of that independent republic were brought to a successful conclusion.
<P>
Now, in the face of the impasse brought about by this intransigence, which has been confirmed by every envoy sent by Europe and America, Mr Denktash has set off like a firework the idea that he is disposed to negotiate a confederal solution, believing that some people might be naive enough to think that he has softened his attitude.
In reality, he is proposing to consign the successive UNO decisions to the dustbin, to reward the Turkish invasion and to perpetuate the 24-year tragedy of Cyprus.
Only if the European Union stands firm will any Turkish leadership see reason and open the way towards the closest and most effective possible cooperation, to the benefit of both Europe and the Turkish people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Madam President, my thanks to the Commission for its reports on the operation of the Customs Union and, it goes without saying, to Mr McMillan-Scott too for his very readable and interesting document.
I expected nothing less from him.
<P>
The Commission's reports give us every opportunity to trace the pattern of developments in Turkey.
There is every reason why we should, because after all these years relations between the Union and Turkey have got considerably worse.
The Turkish Government's refusal to take part in the European Conference and Turkey's action in breaking off the political dialogue with the Union are bad and regrettable developments.
Commissioner van den Broek was right in identifying them as such.
<P>
The Union's position is plain.
Turkey is treated just like all other applicants, very simply, on the basis of criteria, the Copenhagen criteria.
Turkey is and remains a candidate for membership.
But she does not meet the criteria which have been set. It is entirely up to her: if she changes things, the situation can be reviewed.
<P>
Meanwhile we have to work with the instruments we have to keep relations with Turkey on a good footing.
Happily, the Customs Union is working well.
The Commission is quite properly looking to see if ties can be consolidated in other areas too.
The impasse over the MEDA funds and the financial protocols is a cause for concern, but we hope that creative thinking on Europe's part and moves towards democracy on Turkey's part will lead us out of the impasse.
<P>
The Customs Union was not only about free markets, but also about European aid to Turkey.
Europe is willing to help.
All the Turkish Government has to do now is to act on its word - its word of March 1995.
<P>
We are still waiting for an improvement on human rights.
We are still waiting for a change in Turkey's position on the Kurds.
We are still waiting for a breakthrough on Cyprus.
Instead of a willingness to compromise, Turkey is showing rather the opposite, with a process of gradual but at least verbal annexation.
<P>
I urge the Turkish Government to resume its dialogue with the Union.
Only through talking can we find common ground.
Only then can we survive together.
Only then can we find solutions to the problems we share.
Only then can we make progress along the road to Turkey's accession.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Daskalaki">
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Madam President, I feel that at this stage, we need to ask ourselves two basic questions.
<P>
Firstly, how has the situation in Turkey developed since December 1995? Secondly, how far has the entry into force of the Customs Union, approved by this Parliament at that time, influenced developments?
<P>
I believe that the answers to both questions are fairly obvious, but also disheartening.
<P>
No positive developments have taken place in Turkish political life.
There has been no progress concerning democratic principles nor in respect for human rights.
Turkey is failing to observe international law and to control its dirty war against the Kurdish people.
<P>
In this sense, we did not send out the right message when we approved the Customs Union in December 1995.
The authorities in Ankara were not encouraged to move forward, to restructure and modernise the State, and start to transform Turkey into a fully democratic state, subject to the rule of law.
On the contrary, the effects of the message were patently harmful.
<P>
However, a few months ago, in Luxemburg, the European Council returned to the position of requiring exactly the same from Turkey as it does from all other countries, exactly the same as is required from any individual.
We have to be in favour of a relationship on equal terms between the European Union and Turkey. This relationship must be shown to be open and of mutual benefit, whilst contributing to the development of the country.
Anything else would be a mistake.
<P>
There is a great deal of truth in Mr McMillan-Scott's report, although it is, in my view, too weak.
Perhaps, on the occasion of the award of this year's Sakharov Prize - I understand that Mr Birdal has been nominated - Parliament will be able to send out the right message.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Madam President, I am especially pleased to see Commissioner Monti here with us today, but no national parliament would tolerate the minister responsible leaving the chamber during the debate.
Anyway, now to the matter in hand.
<P>
It is somewhat surprising to hear from the Commission or read in the Commission's dossier that more than two years on from the introduction of the Customs Union between the European Union and Turkey, that Customs Union is working satisfactorily.
Particularly of late, relations between the Union and Turkey have never been more tense.
We have been on the very brink of a crisis.
<P>
I think we should be worried, ladies and gentlemen, that since the introduction of the Customs Union the economic benefits have been so unilaterally in the Union's favour, with so little benefit to Turkey.
I know there has been a slight improvement, but unless the balance is redressed properly in the near future this will naturally be perceived in Turkey as a very bad thing.
I well recall hearing a majority view during the debate here in the European Parliament that this Customs Union ought to benefit to both sides.
<P>
In economic terms at least, our finding is that this is not yet altogether the case.
Nor has this Union brought much by way of the hoped-for improvements in human rights, protection of minorities and so on.
But I very much feel that the prospect of membership should remain open, though that does not mean we can scale down the demands we have to impose by way of political criteria.
But I would like to make the point that the argument of non-discrimination, so clearly adduced here by everybody, would have carried greater weight if the European Union had taken a tougher line on Slovakia, since the Commission document clearly states that Slovakia does not meet the political criteria either.
<P>
Lastly, I hope that in the interests of the Union and the Turkish people, relations within the framework of the Customs Union will help to foster prosperity and democracy in both areas.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Mégret">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, if the European Union was as it should be, we would not be here today debating the Customs Union with Turkey.
And the reason for this is very simple; Europe should be European and Turkey is not European.
Whatever the advantages, respect or friendship we can offer to this large country, the truth is that it does not share our common European civilisation.
Turkey is not similar to Europe, neither geographically, historically, culturally nor religiously.
And although for geopolitical reasons, stronger relations between the Europe and Turkey may seem an attractive prospect, to bring these relations into the EU's structures and to talk of possible membership is preposterous.
<P>
Yet the fact that we are indeed doing this shows how dangerous the current idea of Europe is, since it misjudges our identity completely in order to concentrate on purely commercial needs.
Worse still, on a purely economic level, all the indications are that bringing Turkey further into the EU will damage our productive apparatus because of major structural differences between Turkey and Europe, in particular the low labour costs in Turkey.
And this is without mentioning the fact that Turkish immigration in western Europe is destabilising the social balance of our nations.
Consequently, it is rather surprising to see the European Union consistently easing the conditions it claims to impose before granting aid. It is an appalling situation for the Union to be in, almost begging for greater cooperation with Turkey.
<P>
For our part, the National Front does not approve of the Customs Union and we refuse to accept Turkey's membership of the Union, whilst maintaining friendly relations, as such a policy is against the essence and the interests of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today we are examining the success or failure of the Customs Union with Turkey.
I should like to congratulate Mr McMillan-Scott on his report and to thank him for our close cooperation.
Since I am to present the next report to the House, this cooperation was very important to me.
<P>
As far as economic success is concerned, there is every reason to conclude today that, as Mr Titley has already said, after an initial phase of disequilibrium, a balance is gradually being established in economic relations between Turkey and the European Union.
To that extent the Customs Union can certainly be termed a success.
<P>
In social terms it is also possible to speak of success, in so far as those elements in Turkish society with an interest in a Western-style democratic republic have been strengthened.
I refer primarily to the entrepreneurs, employers' associations and trade unions, who can now cite the benefits of Customs Union to back up their call for a modern Turkey, for a country organised in accordance with the rule of law.
<P>
From a political point of view, however, I sadly have to note that progress on the way to parliamentary democracy, respect for human rights and the will to resolve the internal and external political problems and conflicts in a peaceful manner are not as much in evidence as we would wish.
For that reason, let me appeal most earnestly to the Turkish Government to remember that it not only needs good economic relations with the European Union, that it not only needs to develop democracy in Turkey but that it also needs to live in a peaceful environment if it is serious about joining the European Union.
<P>
I should like to stress once again that Turkey certainly has the potential to accede to the European Union and must be equipped to do so.
We shall assess Turkey against the same criteria, the Copenhagen criteria, which we apply to all the other candidate countries.
But Turkey should also make greater use of the existing Customs Union in order to carve out its own path towards the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langen">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is a fact that relations between the European Union and Turkey have deteriorated over the past few months.
There are many different reasons for that, and we need not discuss them all today.
What is clear, however, is that Turkey has contributed to this worsening of relations through the defiant attitude it adopted after the Luxembourg summit.
Our concern - and the purpose of Mr McMillan-Scott's report, to which I add my support - is to find a new beginning.
<P>
Now that our colleagues have given us all these economic data on the Customs Union, it is time to make political progress, and there are some questions here for the European Union to answer.
For example, there is the question why we have not yet put the financial part of the Customs Union into effect after all this time.
Why have we failed to provide ECU 30 million to train customs personnel and to equip the customs services when there are Turkish customs posts at the external border of the European Union?
Is this the proper way to proceed?
<P>
We have this coordination between the Commission and Parliament under the MEDA programme, and rightly so, but if we want to put our relations with Turkey on a sound footing again, we must face up to our own responsibilities.
That is why our group seeks a new beginning.
Despite the lack of progress on human rights and democracy, we want the Customs Union to be implemented in a balanced manner and we do not want to block its financial resources any longer.
<P>
We have tabled some amendments to this end, and I hope that the amendments proposed by the Committee on Budgets pursue the same objective, because at the end of the day how can we make it clear that Turkish accession is possible in the distant future if we cannot honour our own obligations pursuant to a valid international agreement?
That is why I argue that, despite all the problems we have with Turkey on human rights problems, the issue of the Kurds or relations with Greece, it is high time we fulfilled our obligations and thereby created a new basis for EU-Turkish relations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Madam President, the McMillan-Scott report provides a basis, it contains a few ambiguities, but I believe that with the amendments it will turn out to be a good resolution.
<P>
As for Turkey, the issue must be made clear.
The problem is not that Turkey is an Islamic country, nor that much of it extends into Asia, nor that it has a large population, nor that it has underdeveloped zones.
Like any other European country, Turkey indeed has a right to become a member of the European Union, but it also has corresponding obligations.
Those obligations have been clearly stated with a view to justifying the Customs Union: the Cyprus and Kurdish problems, human rights, and relations with its neighbours.
But it has taken not a single step towards meeting those obligations, and that is why both the Turkish Government itself and the European Union's bodies are in an exposed position.
<P>
I think we must insist, we must say that the doors are open and that the ball is now in Turkey's court.
Especially today, we must lend weight to two issues and I call on the Commission and the Council to mobilise their efforts towards them and abandon their inertia.
One concerns the fact that with the presence of Turkey's Minister for Foreign Affairs the Denktash regime has rejected the UN basis for a solution to the Cyprus problem, in other words a federal two-zone entity, and is talking about a confederation and separate states.
The other is that Turkey must take steps to withdraw its forces so that more general demilitarisation can take place on the island.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Cellai">
Madam President, we expressed the view on 15 December 1995 that the vote on the Customs Union with Turkey could be nothing other than an act of political flexibility in recognition of that country's key strategic role, given the upsurge in intolerable and highly dangerous religious extremism affecting a number of Turkey's neighbouring states.
At the same time, we demanded a strong reminder of the need to respect human and political rights, above all those of ethnic minorities, first and foremost the Kurdish people.
<P>
Since then we have kept a careful eye on the delicate shifts in Turkey's domestic political situation: the formation of the 55th government and the Constitutional Court's decision to dissolve the Islamic party; the constitutional situation, including most recently the new law on police custody, while the irregular role of the army in society remains a cause for concern; the human rights situation - the Commission has provided a good deal of useful assistance to NGOs in this field - in particular the Kurdish question, the deterioration of which has caused the exodus that has brought thousands of Kurds to EU countries, Italy in particular, in search of refuge and a future.
Here we would reiterate the advisability of an exclusively political solution, in parallel with the one for Cyprus, as was agreed at the Edinburgh summit which - in point of fact - dissociated the start of accession negotiations from the peace process.
<P>
On 29 April 1997, the Union confirmed to the Association Council that Turkey was eligible to join the EU, stipulating that it would be judged on the same criteria as the other applicant states.
The same view emerged at the Luxembourg European Council.
Therefore, although the Commission's report points out that there has been little progress concerning human rights and democratisation in Turkey, Europe is still of the opinion that Turkish accession is a useful and sensible aim; the Customs Union was a significant step in this direction.
<P>
The Alleanza Nazionale intends to vote in favour of the McMillan-Scott report. We share in particular its assessment of the importance of the democratisation process and the safeguarding of human rights - including those of the Kurds - as well as the aim of establishing good neighbourly relations between Turkey and Greece, partly through a settlement of the Cyprus question.
Finally, Alleanza Nazionale endorses the proposal to open up Community programmes to Turkish youngsters, and calls on the Commission to appeal strongly to the Turkish authorities to step up their efforts to combat drug trafficking.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Katiforis">
Madam President, I am speaking on behalf of Mr Roubatis, who is a member of the Committee on External Relations and cannot be here today.
<P>
I read Mr McMillan-Scott's report very carefully and I must say I find it very good.
I would like to congratulate the rapporteur and assure him of my support.
I also noted the amendments tabled by the Committee on Budgets, and I hope they will be adopted because I believe they correctly express the call for a closer analysis of the financial consequences of Customs Union and for Parliament to be informed about any political initiatives undertaken by the Council together with the Turkish authorities.
<P>
I would also like to remind the House that when it approved the Customs Union on 13 December 1995, it specified a series of conditions such as compliance with international law, democratic functioning and the protection of human rights.
The consequence of non-compliance with those conditions is that Parliament should not be disposed to approve the items necessary for operation of the parallel financing protocol, as Mr McMillan-Scott rightly stresses in paragraph 8 of the resolution.
In many of its resolutions since 13 December 1995, the European Parliament has expressed its dissatisfaction with the meeting of those conditions.
There is no need to go into all that again.
The facts are known.
There is aggressiveness towards my country, the Cyprus problem is worse, there are violations of religious freedom in Turkey itself and, of course, the decision by the European Court of Human Rights on compensation for those who lost their fortunes and on their reestablishment in northern Cyprus was rejected.
That is a slap in the face for Europe's bodies and of course makes it impossible to see Turkey in a good light.
<P>
Madam President, I will end by saying that I both know what Turkey must do to become a member of the European Union, and assure you that I wish for it.
What it must do is what was done by a former province of the Turkish State, namely Greece.
It achieved a substantive change-over to democracy, which Turkey has not accomplished.
And until it does, I fear that it cannot possibly become a member of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berès">
Madam President, when we discuss the question of the Customs Union with Turkey, we are dealing with an extremely sensitive subject.
The strategic aspects of this will be discussed in relation to Mr Swoboda's report later on, so I would simply like to make three comments.
<P>
The first observation is that when discussing relations with Turkey - beyond the question of the help we are now providing - we should ask what more we could do to reinforce democratic structures in Turkey, particularly by developing sectors such as energy, the environment, vocational education and administrative reform.
This is indeed what our rapporteur said, and he is quite right.
<P>
In order to do this, it is perhaps worth considering how financial aid to Turkey is managed and possibly unblocking certain budget lines.
<P>
My second comment is related to the MEDA programme. I believe that this should be fully implemented, as the rapporteur suggests, including those aspects of the MEDA programme which enhance democracy.
<P>
The third comment concerns our working party.
It is a unique institution that was set up for cooperation with the Commission.
But I do wonder what the future of this party ought to be. I believe that an interim assessment of how the working party operates should be carried out and the possibility of it being institutionalised should also be discussed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
Madam President, when the European Parliament voted for the agreement on a Customs Union with Turkey, it was with great misgivings.
Parliament nevertheless voted in favour, in order to show confidence in Turkey.
What has Turkey given in return for this confidence?
The answer is ready to hand.
Very little.
Let me give a few examples: arbitrary arrests, critics of the system who suddenly disappear, prisoners dying in political detention, laws which set aside the personal rights of ordinary people for up to three years, 6000 Kurds murdered in 1997 alone, prisoners of conscience like former Member of Parliament Leyla Zana, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison without evidence.
Until critics of the system like Leyla Zana and Celim Sadak are released, Turkey will fall far short of the EU's standards for a state governed by the rule of law.
If Turkey is still serious about membership, it needs to make many and radical changes, and it must do so right away.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sakellariou">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, almost three years ago this Parliament assented to the Customs Union with Turkey.
Before I deal with that, may I thank Mr McMillan-Scott for the excellent work he has done in producing his report.
I can fully endorse its contents.
Let me take you back to the time when we took that difficult decision.
We took it because we wanted to give Turkey a tangible token of our trust.
At the same time as we gave our assent, we expressed four expectations.
Some Members have already referred to these, but I should like to list them again: progress on human rights, progress in democratisation, a constructive contribution to the solution of the Cyprus problem and a peaceful resolution of the conflict with the Kurds.
<P>
I can see today that our 1995 decision was based on a twofold error of judgement. We made the mistake of putting faith in the promises made by Mrs Çiller, and the Turkish Grand National Assembly made the mistake of doubting the seriousness of our intent.
I also note that the situation in Turkey has not improved in any of those four respects and indeed has deteriorated dramatically in some areas, for example in relation to Cyprus and the Kurds.
Let me categorically express my regret that relations between the EU and Turkey have reached this new low, because I was one of those who consented to the Customs Union at that time in the hope of bringing Turkey closer to the EU and offering her a chance of future accession.
<P>
Every day the policies pursued by the Turkish Government erode our hopes and undermine our quest for rapprochement.
There is little point in our trying - perhaps slowly but none the less steadily - to draw closer to Turkey if she is going to drift faster in the opposite direction towards an uncharted and risky future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Situation in Kosovo
<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="President">
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the situation in Kosovo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">

Madam President, very briefly: we have the statements by the Council and the Commission about Kosovo, but because a coup is under way - things in Albania have not quite been settled - and because Albanian issues are related to those in Kosovo, I think this would be a suitable opportunity - today, and not tomorrow when it might be too late - for the Council and the Commission to express their position on events in Albania and their support for the legitimate democratic government of Albania.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="President">
Indeed so, Mr Alavanos.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
- Madam President, I would like to say that the coup d'état took place over one and a half years ago, cloaked in the scandal which we are now aware of, and so it is not linked to last week's events.
<P>
What took place last week is the logical outcome of what has happened in the past.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, you will be dealing with all this when you come to speak, and I do not think that these are points of order.
<P>
I should like to welcome Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, President-in-Office of the Council.
I shall give her the floor in a moment.
Mr van den Broek is still detained elsewhere, but I would remind you that the Commission is a collegiate body and that Mr Monti is here with us.
He is perfectly competent to listen to our debate and Mr van den Broek will be rejoining us as soon as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
) Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Kosovo conflict still constitutes an extremely long-term threat to European security and stability interests.
This conflict had been smouldering for years.
Again and again it was pointed out that it could explode.
Unfortunately, as it turns out, the international community's efforts here have proved inadequate.
<P>
After President Milosevic failed to respond to the peaceful policy of the Kosovo Albanians under Ibrahim Rugova for seven years, the province found itself in a kind of apartheid situation with the abolition of its autonomy and the Kosovars turned radical.
The assassinations by the KLA, the Kosovo Liberation Army, provoked violent retribution on the part of the Serb security forces.
<P>
The situation today is alarming. There are now between 250 000 and 300 000 refugees and displaced persons.
Fifty to seventy thousand of them sleep out in the open in the forests and hills.
New refugees join them almost daily. Some people have cautiously returned to their villages and towns in recent days and weeks, but they are heavily outnumbered by those forced to abandon their houses and villages by Serb police and military action.
<P>
As I am sure you know, the approach of winter will unleash a humanitarian disaster unless the situation improves soon.
Those most at risk are of course the most vulnerable population groups, babies, children, women, the old and the sick.
It is quite plain that the Yugoslav Government is chiefly to blame for the large number of refugees and displaced persons.
<P>
The Serb and Yugoslav authorities keep repeating that they are merely defending themselves against terrorists and separatists, and that the military offensive, which has in fact continued unabated since late July, is simply a response to KLA raids and attacks.
That may be so, but anyone who has been to Kosovo recently knows that the military and police actions against the civilian population can only be described as disproportionate.
<P>
When you see the shelled houses, destroyed villages, burnt-down farms and schools, when you see the wheat fields casually set alight and the slaughtered cattle, it becomes clear that the reaction of the Serb police and the Yugoslav army to KLA attacks is excessive and indefensible.
Of course the KLA also bears heavy responsibility for the deteriorating security situation.
But we must keep a sense of proportion.
There are now 35 000 Yugoslav soldiers in Kosovo, supported by 20 000 Serb police and the notorious paramilitary troops of Seselj and Arkan.
<P>
These troops have heavy-calibre machine guns, tanks and artillery, which they indeed use.
The KLA, on the other hand, seems to consist of a core group of between 500 and 800 regular troops, plus several thousand, perhaps even tens of thousands of volunteers.
They may not always be fully organised but they are certainly prepared to use their weapons to defend what they consider worth defending, be it the ideal of an independent Kosovo or simply the safety of their village or family.
<P>
These figures show that neither side can achieve a military victory in this conflict.
That is a fact that the EU presidency is constantly trying to impress on both sides.
But unfortunately they both seem to be convinced that they can achieve their aims on the battlefield, the Serbs by the military destruction of the KLA, the Kosovo Albanians by waging a lengthy guerrilla war.
<P>
This bloodshed must be brought to a stop as soon as possible!
Clearly, a political solution is the only viable way.
There are three priority aims here. First, the Serb-Yugoslav offensive must stop and a ceasefire must be observed, informally at least.
Secondly, the humanitarian situation must be improved rapidly and radically.
Only when these two conditions have been satisfied can the third priority be achieved, namely the start of meaningful negotiations.
<P>
The EU presidency has taken a number of measures to bring the military action to a halt, ranging from calls for moderation to various economic sanctions.
But since both sides still seem to believe in a military solution, these endeavours have not so far proved successful.
Of course, military intervention by the international community could change the situation.
But that is not within the European Union's remit.
<P>
Moreover, most EU states are convinced that any military intervention would have to be authorised by the UN Security Council, and this is not the case, for the time being at least.
It would not be realistic to count on a UN resolution to this effect in the foreseeable future because of the balance of powers and interests in the Security Council.
<P>
I turn now to the second priority, the humanitarian situation. Given the increasingly intolerable state of affairs here, the European Union is trying to step up its humanitarian activity.
Following an initiative by foreign ministers Mr Kinkel and Mr Védrine, the presidency has set up working parties in Belgrade and in Geneva made up of interested EU states, Russia, the UNHCR, the IRCC and the ECMM and KDOM observer missions.
<P>
Their aim is to take concerted and locally determined action to identify villages and areas to which the refugees now living in the open can return, in safety and dignity.
That would make it much easier to provide humanitarian aid.
The main obstacle to their return, apart from the mass destruction of housing as a result of Serb military action, is their fear of further persecution.
Incidents such as those in Orahovac, where the police took away returning Kosovars - especially males fit for national service - for so-called interviews and searched the houses to which they had returned, do not exactly encourage the inhabitants to come back.
<P>
The first priority, therefore, is for returning Kosovars to feel it is safe to come back; but only the Serb security forces themselves can ensure that.
The European Union and its partners can play a part here, if their observer missions carry out frequent patrols in the areas concerned, to convey the sense that there is some form of international monitoring.
The purpose of the Geneva and Belgrade working parties is, therefore, to identify localities suitable for projects of this kind that will encourage the inhabitants to return.
<P>
At present we have four such local projects: in Klina, Urosevac, Orahovac and Djakovica.
But this initiative is hindered by the constant clashes in these areas too.
If, as I said, the fighting comes to an end at some point and a substantial number of refugees can return, then political negotiations could begin between the conflicting parties on the future status of Kosovo.
<P>
The European Union has joined in the efforts of the international community from the outset.
Via a number of Member States and the current presidency, the EU is closely involved in the contact group that has drawn up a document setting out the options for the future status of Kosovo, which it has transmitted to the warring parties.
This document discusses possible means of reaching an acceptable solution to the question of autonomy.
Furthermore, the EU presidency is in close contact with what is known as the Council of Europe's Venice Commission, which is looking the constitutional aspects of the problem and trying to identify possible solutions.
<P>
The EU is also supporting the efforts of Christopher Hill, the US special envoy, who is currently examining the possibility of a three to five-year interim agreement, after which negotiations would begin on the final status of Kosovo.
At the informal Salzburg Council meeting of 5 and 6 September, the Foreign Ministers cautiously welcomed Milosevic's acceptance in principle of an interim agreement of this nature.
<P>
With regard to Kosovo's status, we support the following. We support neither Kosovar independence nor the continuation of the unacceptable status quo.
In realistic terms, the only possible lasting solution is for Kosovo to have a large degree of self-determination.
It is not so important whether this self-determination is called autonomy or by another name.
What will be more important is for the people of Kosovo to be able to decide and arrange their own affairs themselves, without interference, to have an adequate say in federal matters and for the rights of all population groups and minorities to be guaranteed in line with European standards.
<P>
Whether this self-determination is to be achieved in the framework of Serbia or of the Yugoslav federal state is up to the conflicting parties.
The EU sets no priorities here, but nor does it want either of these options to be excluded a priori .
<P>
The contact group's option paper sets out various European models of autonomy that Kosovo could adopt, ranging from South Tyrol via the Finnish Aland islands to Tatarstan in Russia.
Obviously none of these models could be taken over in its entirety, but perhaps various components of some of them could be singled out, put together and usefully adapted for Kosovo.
<P>
Each side has appointed a negotiating team, most recently Kosovo on 13 August this year.
Although this negotiating team includes only representatives of the self-styled President Ibrahim Rugova's KDL party and its coalition partners, the political parties opposing Rugova have not objected to it.
That is encouraging and means that the months of attempts by the EU presidency to persuade the parties in Kosovo to form a united political platform have succeeded to a degree that should not be underestimated.
<P>
International representatives will observe the negotiations, and they must be conducted without any preconditions.
Each side must have the right, at least at the beginning, to set out all its major demands.
<P>
What other initiatives is the EU presidency pursuing?
In relation to the returnee project which I mentioned earlier, we are also endeavouring to bolster the ECMM EU observer mission.
The ECMM and the diplomatic observers from EU states working with it form the European contingent of what is known as the KDOM, the Kosovo Diplomatic Observer Mission, which also has an American and a Russian contingent.
<P>
In order to implement these returnee projects, the current European presence of 28 observers will be stepped up to 44.
But we must not forget that simply increasing the number of international observers will not in itself improve the situation of the civilian population.
It could even prove a mistake visibly to increase the number of observers while the humanitarian situation and safety of the civilian population in Kosovo worsened, since then these civilians might well complain of the inefficiency of the international community.
<P>
With each side constantly accusing the other of appalling war crimes, of mass shootings and even humanitarian crimes against women and children, the EU presidency has mounted an initiative to send a team of experienced international forensic medical experts to Kosovo.
In the past, Belgrade has in principle accepted the idea of international forensic tests, so we hope it will approve our recent request for visas and for the graves to be opened.
<P>
The European Union has imposed a variety of sanctions as a means of exerting pressure on Belgrade, including the refusal to issue visas to members of the security forces, freezing the foreign assets of the Serb and Yugoslav governments, a ban on new investment in Serbia and, most recently, the boycott on Yugoslav airline flights and landings.
<P>
The presidency is aware that so far the sanctions have not had any real impact on Yugoslavia's attitude.
But more incisive measures can be taken only if a qualified majority of EU states so decides, which is not the case at present.
Moreover, there is an EU-wide consensus that the sanctions must not harm the civilian population or the neighbouring states which have close economic ties with Yugoslavia and would find themselves in serious difficulties in the event of an embargo on Belgrade.
<P>
At the informal Council of Foreign Ministers' meeting in Salzburg, the European Commission agreed to investigate any loopholes in the current sanctions by the time of the October Council summit and to propose improvements.
<P>
The neighbouring states of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia are already suffering severely from the Kosovo crisis, especially Albania and FYROM.
Given the highly unstable environment, it is most gratifying that in spite of the difficulties, Skopje has managed to retain a high level of stability.
We hope that the elections on 18 October will produce positive results.
<P>
In view of the current situation, I must add a few words on Albania.
After the disturbances at the beginning of the week, the situation is now a little calmer.
Yesterday's demonstrations in Tirana only tempted a few hundred people onto the streets and there have been no more acts of violence.
Yet the situation remains extremely tense, not least because Fatos Nano's government, which has gained strength again, is threatening ex-president Sali Berisha with arrest and proceedings for high treason, which is punishable by death.
<P>
Whether the unrest on Sunday and Monday really represented an attempted coup by Berisha, as the government alleges, or simply an uncontrollable outburst of popular anger at the murder of the much-loved opposition politician Azem Hajdari, as Berisha believes, can be discussed in due course.
The fact remains that Albania is still not really stabilised, that there is still a high risk of violence and uprising, so that unrest may erupt again at any time, and that neither Nano's government nor Berisha's opposition have behaved openly.
At any rate, Berisha was certainly largely responsible for the deterioration in the situation.
<P>
Ultimatums and threats from both sides will not help stabilise the country.
And the EU presidency is trying to impress that on the Albanian politicians.
Furthermore, we support the efforts of President Mejdani to organise all-party talks with a view to resolving the crisis.
<P>
Yesterday the presidency appointed a special emissary, who left for Tirana today.
Moreover, the EU presidency is taking part in a joint mission of the presidencies of the OSCE, the Council of Europe and the EU, which will be travelling to Tirana on Friday.
<P>
It is particularly important at this moment for the international community not to leave Albania in the lurch but to make even greater efforts on its behalf.
The international Tirana conference scheduled for late October will represent a suitable forum, provided of course that it can take place under present conditions.
We will continue to work towards regional stability, not just for abstract political reasons but primarily in order to protect the people against violence, expulsion and oppression.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 NAME="President">
Thank you, Madam President-in-Office, for that very full and informative statement. I shall now give the floor without further delay to Mr van den Broek, on behalf of the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 NAME="van den Broek">
Madam President, the presidency has made a comprehensive statement, so for the moment I need only add just a few brief remarks.
Firstly, the Commission is liaising very closely with the presidency to coordinate everything we can do by way of humanitarian aid as effectively as possible, not only with the presidency but also of course with a wide range of international organisations with which we routinely cooperate in this area.
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My second comment is that the Commission is of course undertaking an important task in putting forward proposals for a package of sanctions and the like; as the presidency intimated just now, we shall be examining the feasibility of a joint front on that.
I think it is only right to say that the Commission initially suggested a number of tougher measures and that the end result was a package which we hope will be adequate, but which we for our part would have liked to be rather more robust.
I hope that a solution can be found to the problems which two Member States had with earlier decisions on the boycotting of flights by Yugoslav carriers, because it is naturally not credible first of all to have a joint decision to impose that boycott and then to have a number of Member States unable to take part in enforcing it.
But again, I have reason to hope from latest reports that the problems which seemed likely to arise in this connection can be overcome.
We are waiting for news from the capitals concerned.
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My third point is this.
Since March of this year we have had the problem of what is going on in Kosovo.
We now have between 250 000 and 300 000 refugees and displaced persons whose predicament is increasingly serious as the onset of winter approaches - one more reason why we should not simply give humanitarian aid and merely treat the symptoms, because that is what we are doing, but should focus more directly on the causes of the conflict.
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Consequently I am somewhat encouraged, as I imagine the presidency is too, by the apparent initiative of the French President, who spoke to the Russian President with a view to a meeting of the Contact Group next week in New York to discuss the possibility of a Security Council resolution on the situation in Kosovo. The aim of this is doubtless to look again at whether tougher measures can be taken to force a cessation of hostilities.
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It is extremely frustrating for the Commission, and I think for all of us, to be trying out of a sense of great involvement to ease the human suffering in one part of Kosovo, whilst in the other part the aggression and the fighting continue, with new flows of refugees and more and more people being driven from their homes.
We are in the middle of this vicious circle.
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The Commission believes, and we have discussed this with the Council of Ministers too, that it is vital to bring greater pressure to bear on President Milosevic.
There are lessons to be learned from Bosnia and we are currently seeing the emergence of scenarios suspiciously reminiscent of what we saw in Bosnia, when the international community reacted too late.
The Commission feels that cannot be allowed to happen.
The Commission feels it must not be allowed to happen.
And the Commission feels that the European Union should push for a firm, clear position in favour of a tough Security Council resolution with chapter seven paragraphs.
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Lastly, I should say that developments in Albania, which the President-in-Office also commented on, make it a matter of even greater urgency to seek an end to the fighting in Kosovo.
The destabilisation in Albania is extremely serious.
There is still a very great risk that the fighting may spill over in one direction or another.
So the European Union too must make a big effort here.
We very much welcome initiatives which have been taken, among others by the presidency, in consultation with the Italians, I gather, to see how measures might be taken, and perhaps to ask the Western European Union to consider a stabilising police force or something of the kind to try to restore order.
I would remind you that we had this selfsame debate about a year ago when the collapse of the financial pyramid schemes was followed by popular unrest, and there too we were too slow off the mark with our decisions.
Three months after the intensive debate, which produced no consensus, we then had a 'coalition of the willing' led by the Italians and a stabilisation force was sent to Albania.
I hope that decisions can be taken here promptly this time.
We say that, I repeat, out of a deep sense of duty that we must remain constant in tackling the consequences of these conflicts.
We are more than willing to help ease the lot of the persecuted, the displaced and the refugees, but the citizens of Europe will not be impressed if we address only the effects of the suffering and not its causes.
So I trust that forceful action will be taken both on Albania and Kosovo.
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<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, Commissioner, in principle I quite agree with the basic points you made.
But the Commissioner's words suggest a certain dissatisfaction that more stringent measures were not taken.
I would like to know what these measures or proposals were and why the Council did not take them.
I am in favour of stronger measures.
I was appalled at the difficulties that arose when it came to imposing the ban on flights.
What can Milosevic think of a Europe that finds it so difficult to take even such a minor measure?
In that respect, I endorse what the Commissioner said.
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One thing I wish to make clear. We must openly oppose all - and I mean all - the forces of nationalism, no matter how large, medium or small their responsibility for the current crisis.
This certainly applies first and foremost to the Yugoslav forces.
There is no doubt whatsoever that most of the blame lies at their door.
But it also applies to the KLA, which must realise that it too bears its share of responsibility and that its activities are certainly making it difficult for Europe to intervene.
The peaceloving forces, especially those around Rugova, must be supported.
Unfortunately, as I have said on several occasions, they were not supported at the right time.
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Secondly, the situation is Macedonia is very precarious.
We are well aware that Kosovar independence or a greater Albania would create serious internal difficulties for this country.
But at the same time we must ensure that the policy Macedonia is adopting in principle, namely respect for the Albanian minority, is pursued consistently and, where possible, developed further.
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Thirdly, Madam President, let me add a small footnote in regard to your approach to Albania.
As you indicated, Berisha is exploiting the situation in Kosovo to the hilt in order to destabilise the situation in Albania too.
Of course I too believe that Fatos Nano and his government must observe the rule of law in their pursuit of accusations, crimes, and so forth, and must not fan the flames.
But it must be made clear who is chiefly to blame for the current conditions.
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In the final analysis, the pursuit of full independence would create the same difficulties and problems that arose in Bosnia.
This could further boost the growing power of the nationalist forces as reflected in the elections.
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My final point concerns the refugee question.
Here we must offer our full support and oppose any tendency in Europe to say that because we did much for Bosnia, we cannot do as much for Kosovo.
We must do everything in our power to help the Kosovar refugees.
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<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, for some months now - and in some cases for the past eight years - we have literally been begging the Community to do something!
But the Council talks and talks, with very little too show for it.
It can never find its way to actually act.
We have just heard again today that working parties have been set up in Belgrade.
Nobody is quite sure what their purpose is, or who indeed their members are.
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As you said, the situation down there has to improve.
That sounds all well and good, but how is it to improve?
What are we Europeans actually doing?
Just think back to the flight ban that two colleagues and the Commissioner just mentioned, which was decided in Cardiff in July. It is now September!
It has not been implemented yet.
That is ridiculous! It is quite inexplicable to anyone.
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Madam President, I believe it was your boss who said that our foreign policy is like a bus with 15 drivers!
Each wants to drive at a different speed. Some even want to change direction, while Milosevic sits there looking on and laughing at our antics.
For this not only harms the suffering people of Kosovo; it also damages the reputation of our Union among its citizens.
How long can a criminal head of state go on unscrupulously and with impunity even denying his citizens humanitarian aid?
Sixty per cent of the 50 000 or 70 000 refugees trying to subsist in the open in the forests of Kosovo are children!
They need food, drinking water and blankets.
They are beginning to die of typhoid, while we look on and say the situation has to improve!
This cannot be true!
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The Serbian Government and the West are calling on the refugees to return to their villages.
But what does that mean?
It means they go back to the villages that Mr Milosevic has razed to the ground.
Is that where they are supposed to go back to?
Where are they supposed to go in these villages?
Who is to keep them safe?
The situation has to improve!
Madam Presidentin-Office, this is not your fault, but we only have you to talk to here.
So I believe we must realise that Milosevic planned this attack on civilians.
The KLA is a by-product that suits him well because it allows him to say that he is dealing with terrorists.
He planned this attack on civilians, children and women and indeed carried it out.
We cannot send these people back home without guaranteeing their safety.
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Let us finally turn to deeds; appeals will get us nowhere!
You too have made many appeals today. And you know a great deal about the situation; but that does not interest Milosevic at all.
He has not kept a single promise in Kosovo.
Do you believe he will keep this promise?
Mr Milosevic's language is the language of force!
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So let us finally address him in his own language.
Only then is there a chance of finding a negotiated political solution.
Unfortunately I have no time to discuss Albania now, but perhaps one of my colleagues will do so and perhaps you can tell me the name of this nice special envoy who is perhaps now to achieve something in Albania.
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<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Cox">
Mr President, as we have heard yet again today the Cardiff Summit has reiterated the foundations of EU foreign policy in Kosovo, which calls for the cessation of violence, a return to the negotiating table and engagement in a vigorous political process as the only solution to the Kosovo crisis.
These are good, decent, nice ideas but they are simply not working.
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In the past few months the political process in Kosovo has suffered serious reversals and has not progressed.
The situation has altered substantially.
The time has come now to countenance a qualitatively different policy response.
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The sad truth is that Mr Slobodan Milosevic is the only leader in Europe today with a clear vision for Kosovo and the political will and military means to see it through.
By his own standards, Mr Milosevic has learned the lessons of Bosnia and is applying them.
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In the past, high profile genocidal outrages like Srebrenica provoked sufficient anger to galvanise the international community into action.
But by lowering the intensity without changing the objective, Milosevic knows that a village a day is keeping the West away.
He has learned to play the international community like an old violin, instinctively knowing how much pressure he can put on the strings without causing them to break.
It is clear from the ethnic subjugation in the past few months that Milosevic has nothing but contempt for our studied, nuanced and impotent words of diplomacy.
He is a regional bully and unless he is stopped he will go on bullying.
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Several months ago, in a useless bout of sabre-rattling that might even have further radicalised Albanian Kosovars by sending false signals, NATO launched Operation Determined Falcon.
This proved to be nothing more than an expensive dead duck and was seen and treated as such from the outset by Milosevic.
Gestures will not halt his aggression any more than our words or resolutions.
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We have to learn the lessons of Bosnia and apply them as well.
A cessation of violence was the fundamental precondition for the creation of a climate for political dialogue at Dayton.
It took determined international action to open the way for politics to reassert its primacy.
Ten days of limited, focused, proportionate bombardment stopped the aggression then.
That could have been any ten days in those sorry four years.
If we fail to act quickly we can anticipate humanitarian disaster in the Balkans next winter.
We have the moral, ethical and political duty to act.
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As far as my group is concerned, the purpose of the European process is to ensure that this kind of horror never happens again.
For ten years Kosovo has beckoned us.
If we fail these defenceless people, then our foreign policy aspirations are a failure.
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<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Caccavale">
Madam President-in-Office, I listened to your report with interest but noted your use of a euphemism: you said that a battle is under way between the KLA and the regular Yugoslav troops to settle the Kosovo problem by force.
That is not the case.
Let us establish the true facts: firstly, the population of Kosovo is under attack from a criminal known as Slobodan Milosevic; ethnic cleansing is being perpetrated by a criminal who goes by the name of Milosevic and wishes to rid Kosovo of its Albanian population, which - as is well known - holds 90 % of the area.
So much for the true facts.
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Secondly, I have heard it said, even by distinguished colleagues, that we cannot discuss the refugee question because we have already discussed the Albanians; rather, we should send them back to the villages razed to the ground by Milosevic.
I should like you, Madam President-in-Office, and the Commissioner to tell me how we can think of sending the refugees back to those villages which have been destroyed and occupied by Milosevic's troops.
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Thirdly, I heard Mr van den Broek refer to a firm Europe: he said that our response must be a firm one.
Until now Europe has been inactive, impotent and cowardly; we have made ourselves a laughing-stock for the umpteenth time, as happened over Bosnia.
Our foot-dragging is allowing Milosevic to pursue his belligerence in the face of total impotence from the international community and Europe.
Parliament has outspokenly drawn attention time and again to the danger for Kosovo, but neither the Commission, nor the Council, nor the international community has listened to us.
The tragedy is worsening.
I now hear talk of working groups and special envoys: I hope that this will not amount to the usual comitology, useful only for counting the dead and displaced persons.
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<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Mr President, the situation in Kosovo has become more complicated since July.
Obviously, those most affected are the refugees, the people who are dying.
The situation has also become more complicated politically, not only there but in all the countries surrounding the region.
Take the situation in Albania, for example where Berisha is again attempting to subvert the democratic order and put the government against the ropes. It may not have been a very effective government, but it was the government the majority of Albanians wanted.
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The fact is that, once again, the European Union has been shown to be lacking in muscle.
It has not been in the right place, it has been weak, it has failed to act as a body.
Initiatives have sprung up all over the place, a whole range of appointments have been made, boycotts set up but not applied - I am not referring to the country which is forever being condemned, it is the United Kingdom which claims that international contractual obligations prevent it from applying the boycott of air transport.
What must be done?
Pressure on those responsible has be increased.
Those responsible are Milosevic and his government, for whom things are not complicated in the least, as they are on their way to getting what they want by fire and the sword.
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Kosovo must certainly be granted self-determination within a democratic Serbia.
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<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
Mr President, I have listened to what the Council and Commission representatives have said, but in my opinion, the events in Kosovo call in addition for a short digression into history.
For over a decade, the Albanian community in Kosovo has been attempting politically and culturally to alter a state of oppression through non-violent means.
Moreover, throughout these ten years, the appeals for help to the international community from the Albanian political leaders in Kosovo have fallen on deaf ears, and non-violence has been taken for impotence or slavish acceptance of Serbian oppression.
It is, unfortunately, not surprising that now, in the face of such culpable inertia on the part of the EU institutions among others, the situation has degenerated and those involved have taken up arms.
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The result has been many deaths, villages destroyed and 300 000 refugees; a peaceful solution now appears less and less likely.
All of this compounds the already grave situation in Bosnia and the earlier, similar policy of ethnic cleansing pursued by the leaders in Belgrade. They clearly take succour from the passivity of the European Union, which regrettably is devoid of a real common foreign and security policy.
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Decisive policing by the international community is required in such a dire situation, exacerbated by the crisis under way in Albania, so as to bring about an immediate cessation of all armed activity within the context of a United Nations mandate, under the auspices of the OSCE, with active participation of the EU Member States.
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A ceasefire is vital, both to prevent the conflict spreading to neighbouring countries and to initiate a dialogue leading to a real peace process, one which cannot overlook the legitimate aspirations of the Kosovo population for real autonomy in their own lands.
But peace will not be possible unless the displaced persons are allowed to return to their homes under international protection - partly because of the enormous difficulties which they would face in the winter - and unless homes are provided for those refugees whose villages have been destroyed.
This calls for full support for the humanitarian organisations, which must have complete freedom of movement in Kosovo.
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One first symbolic act from the Commission could be the student housing project in Pristina, by way of demonstrable support for reconciliation among university students.
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In conclusion, Mr President, the Green Group hopes that the Council and Commission will become more active in promoting a peaceful settlement of this conflict within the very near future.
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<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="Dupuis">
Madam President-in-Office, Commissioner, I think that we have all felt and heard the indignation expressed over this unbelievable situation we are seeing develop.
It is beyond belief that, after Croatia and Bosnia, almost exactly the same scenario is developing - a policy of aggression, more than a police operation, and a policy which is creating 250 000 refugees.
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Here we are looking at the third phase of a war started in Croatia by Mr Milosevic nearly eight years ago.
It is a war he has planned, a war he is organising and implementing little by little and which he will see through to the end, so that 50 or 60 % of Kosovo is completely free of any Albanian presence. He will see this through so that he can then stand before you, before the Council, and say 'I am the man who has brought peace.
Let us reach an agreement as we did with Bosnia, let us make a nice little partition which will not be called one at first, but which will be a de facto partition with de facto ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.'
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We are not talking about a future plan here, but rather a plan that is being put into practice day after day.
Madam President-inOffice, Mr van den Broek, 250 000 refugees is a sufficiently high number to warrant intervention beyond fact-finding missions or beyond the 'plastic surgery' type of operation we have seen in the past few years.
We must go straight to the heart of the matter.
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The root of the problem is Mr Milosevic and he must answer directly to The Hague for his crimes over the past eight years in Bosnia, Croatia and now in Kosovo.
There is no time to lose.
We do not need to send in assault tanks, nor do we need to send planes.
All we need to do is send a summons for him to appear before the court in The Hague. This can be done tomorrow morning and would put a stop to this man.
We are talking here about a man who has killed 200 000 people and who is responsible for two million refugees.
Currently, there are already 250 000 Kosovar refugees.
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Of course, we could carry on discussing the CFSP, or the majority decisions to be made, we could talk about the European corps we should send, but it would take two months for the first feasibility plans to be drafted.
We must look to something other than the Amsterdam Treaty which is now showing its true worth - nothing at all.
We must take action, we must create a European Union which is not powerless, as it has been for the past ten years.
It is not only the Members here today who have had enough, but our citizens too who no longer have any faith.
These are our citizens and yet we are surprised at the way they vote.
They will stop voting soon because they no longer have any faith in this European Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wiersma">
Mr President, this debate is really a kind of sad exercise in repetition.
This is the umpteenth time we are discussing the situation in Kosovo and nothing much has changed for the better.
There is no prospect of a real solution and the situation has, if anything, become more rather than less complicated.
We are not quite up to date with the reality here, a reality which is primarily shaped by the Serbs and their brutal aggression; the President-in-Office has just brought us up to date on the facts.
There is constant talk elsewhere, as here, about tougher action by the international community.
But so far there have been only half-measures, for example the boycott on Yugoslav flights and the difficulties in enforcing it.
There are plenty of ideas, but how are they to be implemented?
I am glad to hear the Commissioner say that as far as he and the Commission are concerned, tougher measures of this kind should be taken against the regime in Belgrade.
This House too is discussing ways in which the international community might actively intervene.
The resolution drafted for this debate more or less intimates that the European Union might on its own initiative have to consider military intervention. My group is opposed to that.
I am more inclined towards forcing the UN Security Council to pass a resolution which will open the way to possible military intervention, and both the President-in-Office and the Commissioner have hinted at that.
Let us go down that road first, and there is nothing to stop the European Union from taking that initiative and making it clear to Milosevic that there are limits.
It will also give an answer to Milosevic's insidious tactics which the Commissioner described when he compared present events with what happened in Bosnia.
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We think there has to be a ceasefire, not only so that talks can begin, but also so that the necessary emergency aid can be given.
What we want, and this remains the starting position of the Socialist Group, is to keep trying for a political solution, because we do not believe the situation can be resolved by military means alone and we think that military intervention must always be part of a political approach.
So we reject this resolution because it baldly suggests that the EU must impose independence for Kosovo by military intervention.
We are against that independence, because we think this would open up a Pandora's box and lead to borders in Europe being challenged, in this particular region but elsewhere too.
In the case of Kosovo this not only goes too far because it makes a political settlement that much harder; we also think that solution is totally unrealistic, as witness what the President-in-Office of the Council has said on the subject.
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<SPEAKER ID=157 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Madam President-in-Office, Mr President, I believe that a new strategy is currently being tested in Kosovo.
Last week I had a chance to see it in action out there.
The new strategy is a scorched earth and ethnic cleansing strategy.
That is a method we simply cannot tolerate.
We cannot allow the militant Serb forces to roam freely three kilometres left and right of the main traffic routes and create a firing range there, destroy every tree and every house and leave scorched earth behind.
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Nor can we check the flows of refugees into our countries, since we have no means of access there.
Apparently some 60 000 refugees are now living in the open in the forests or in inadequate shelter.
We do not know the exact numbers because we have no access.
But we should demand access by all possible means and under all possible circumstances.
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We must be more specific in our statements.
When we refer to autonomy, whatever form it is to take, we must also set certain basic, minimum conditions, such as very clear control of the police, the administration and the judiciary by democratically elected Kosovar forces.
That is one minimum condition we must set in our demands.
We must also use plain words to Mr Milosevic.
Let me say one thing quite clearly: the experience of the past eight years has shown that one cannot negotiate with him; at best one can negotiate about him, and that must be in The Hague.
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Let me now also make a few comments on Albania. After all, this is not the first attack on Mr Hajdari.
He was murdered on the third attempt. We must not forget that on the first attempt he was shot at in parliament by a representative of the government party.
On the third attempt he was murdered.
We must not forget that it was a representative of the government party who fired at him in parliament the first time round.
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I am very glad that Mr Swoboda has spoken up again; hearing him say that Fatos Nano is acting in accordance with the rule of law really makes me doubt his understanding of the law.
Fatos Nano is not observing the principles of the rule of law.
Think of the blockade of the Democratic Party headquarters yesterday evening - which does not say much about his understanding of the law.
We must use plain words and we must act!
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<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Frischenschlager">
Madam President-in-Office, Commissioner, all we can do here is talk.
But we should not use euphemisms and must speak plainly to those responsible.
First of all, I am fed up with hearing that we should learn lessons.
The tragedy has been going on for eight years, and everyone who saw and heard about the situation in Bosnia knew that Kosovo would be the next time-bomb waiting to explode, the next disaster.
Yet nothing was done for years.
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Secondly, the civilian population is quite deliberately being driven out by military terror and deliberately being decimated.
That is quite clearly a war crime.
And it needs to be said.
Next: who is responsible?
Milosevic of course!
That too has been said often enough.
But we should also say quite plainly that the national governments of our Member States meeting in the Council bear their share of responsibility after failing for years to find the appropriate political measures to tackle the situation.
These governments share the responsibility.
But two governments, those of Greece and the United Kingdom, bear special responsibility today, because they were not even prepared to endorse the Cardiff decisions on airline sanctions.
They are primarily responsible for the situation.
Let no one try to talk his way out of this: the lives of 300 000 people are at risk.
Anyone who is partly responsible but does nothing and does not apply sanctions bears a share of the blame.
That needs to be said quite clearly!
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<SPEAKER ID=159 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Daskalaki">
Mr President, I did not intend to speak about Greece, but I think that Greece has very many problems which we do not always grasp very clearly, and crises of this kind can arise very easily.
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I refer to Kosovo.
It has been mentioned that there are over 250 000 refugees and as winter approaches, some of them are expected to face greater problems.
There is information - the Commissioner already said as much - that the turmoil which has continued for months has had serious consequences for crops, which may result in a shortage of wheat during the winter.
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So far, the international community has rather confined itself to the role of an observer, while a new danger is now on the horizon, namely the recent and very worrying events in Albania, which affect Greece a great deal; Greece, which has a lot of very strange neighbours, though we often forget that here. If these events continue, they may trigger chain reactions.
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In that context, the safe return of the refugees is essential, as also is any mediation to normalise the situation.
The Kosovo problem is centuries old.
With things as they have become today, however, we must intervene with all the means at our disposal - the Commissioner mentioned them, as did the presidency of the Council - to put a stop to extremes and back the moderate forces in the area.
The absolutely unacceptable and foolish violence exercised by Belgrade and the atrocities by the Liberation Army must be stopped by any possible means, and a satisfactory solution must be sought for Kosovo without the right to break away, as the President-in-Office said.
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That solution must be acceptable to all the interested parties, so that any other unpleasant developments can be averted.
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<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, each time we in the European Parliament speak about the situation in former Yugoslavia, or in the Balkans more generally after the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, for which the European Union bears a heavy responsibility, militaristic voices abound in the European Parliament, with calls for military solutions to the problems.
There is one thing we must all realise: there is no military solution to the problems faced by the Balkans and Kosovo, the only chances lie in the direction of a peaceful political solution.
The question is: does the European Union support such a prospect?
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Recently, Milosevic made a proposal which was accepted by Rugova.
The Council's response was to ban flights by the Yugoslav airline to the European Union.
Whom is the European Union supporting with that attitude?
Is it not backing the intransigence of the Liberation Army?
And did not precisely such support for intransigent forces lead to the encouragement of those forces in Albania which has brought the danger of destabilisation in Albania itself today?
Madam President-in-Office, let us ponder these responsibilities.
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<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Sarlis">
Mr President, I must say that the greatest humanitarian aid which the European Union could offer would be to bring an end to hostilities in Kosovo, because the continuation of the unsettled situation in Kosovo has direct and very unfavourable consequences for events in Albania.
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The continuing situation or unrest, call it what you will, in the Kosovo area has a destabilising effect in Albania, where there is a very delicate balance, because Albanians in Albania have various beliefs and religions and it would consequently not take much to produce an uncontrolled situation.
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In view of all that, I wish to put some specific questions to the Council. There is an initiative by Mr Hill who, according to the press, has brought the Milosevic and Rugova sides very close together, and we should support him.
But I have heard no support for him here, no support for this hero, so that a dialogue could begin.
But dialogue is not enough.
Dialogue, or an agreement in principle about dialogue should go hand in hand with the presence of a military policing force in Kosovo.
What was done after the Dayton agreement should happen again.
There is a precedent. Dayton succeeded, and since it did I do not see why, within the scope of a more general agreement between the regime in Belgrade and Rugova, that agreement's implementation should not be safeguarded by the presence of a military force with a policing mandate.
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<SPEAKER ID=162 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Haarder">
Mr President, if the mass murderers Arkan and Milosevic were sitting here in the gallery and listening to us, they could rub their bloody hands with glee.
Our shameful policy of cowardice has given them victory time and again over the past several years.
Winter will soon be upon the refugees in the mountains of Kosovo.
They are without food, medicines and protection from the cold.
Milosevic wants to make them hostages by only allowing aid in special reservations, which he himself controls.
But as Emma Bonino has said: it is like letting Dracula stand guard over a blood bank.
No, Mr President, we must not permit a repetition of the mass murders in Srebrenica, where 7000 men were sacrificed to our policy of cowardice.
It is bad enough that our own governments are timid and indifferent to our ideals.
If we do not even dare help people in need, then the policy of cowardice has gone too far.
Emergency aid must be sent in convoys by land or by air, with or without authorisation from the UN, and the aid must be protected.
If the convoys are fired on, they must be permitted to defend themselves, and they must be armed to do so.
It was the democracies' fear that made Hitler smell blood.
NATO and the EU were set up to prevent a repetition of those events.
We must now show a minimum of courage, we must at least insist on aid to the victims without turning them and ourselves into hostages.
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<SPEAKER ID=163 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bianco">
Mr President, it did not take much political acumen to realise that the desperate situation in Kosovo would have a negative and destabilising effect, as has happened in the entire area and in Albania.
It is an age-old story: Kosovo is the spark for a fire which is spreading throughout the Balkans.
What can be done?
Words are powerless. Milosevic was extremely cunning in the timing of his clamp-down - July and August, when Europe's politicians go on their holidays.
And we duly went on our holidays!
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The statements made, the policy of containment and the sanctions announced by Mr van den Broek have failed; as has been recalled in this House, not even the Cardiff agreement has held.
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Madam President-in-Office, you said that armed intervention is unthinkable.
One might agree, but how in practice can pressure be exerted?
At the same time, the German Minister of Defence has stated that NATO is to intervene within three to five weeks, once Milosevic has been notified.
Which line is Europe following?
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I wonder whether it would be possible to step in with a policy of stabilisation, deploying troops along the Kosovo border, putting on pressure and, above all, achieving stabilisation in Albania, where the wrongs and rights are not so clear-cut - although Berisha has wrong on his side, so too does the Nano government.
We must not come out on one side or the other.
We must intervene to ensure respect for the rules of democracy, but those rules also entail the right of opposition.
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If we fail to intervene, our policy will yet again have been a disappointment, and I should not wish the Austrian Presidency to be held responsible.
What is more, I fear that the cost for Europe could rise further still, as happened in Bosnia.
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<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Ladies and gentlemen, clearly this debate is not just about Kosovo but also about the common foreign and security policy and what we can do in institutional terms.
I am sorry to say that we have simply not made any progress on the institutional aspects.
But as you know, the principle of unanimity applies in the Council and regrettably there are always some states that do not wish to take certain measures.
Unfortunately I have to say the same of the Security Council.
There too some permanent members, but perhaps others too, do not accept certain decisions that some of us would certainly like to implement.
So we are still in a situation where military threats are empty words.
That is not to say that they might not succeed in future.
But as I said earlier, at present there is little prospect of that.
I am glad to hear, which I did not know before, that unlike in the past the French might after all be interested in drafting a new Security Council resolution, for that could of course bring about at least some change in the situation.
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Let me briefly address the question of stronger measures - measures other than military intervention - being discussed but not accepted in the end.
The measures we took to halt investment and also to freeze bank assets are fairly weak.
But here again it is because this was the lowest common denominator we managed to agree unanimously.
I must say that as President of the Council I have to defend this position for the moment; but that does not mean I necessarily support it.
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Then I wish to turn to the question of who our special emissary in Albania actually is.
It is Ambassador Grobmeyer, who worked in Albania last year as representative of former Chancellor Vranitzky.
He is very familiar with the situation, can immediately open a new dialogue with all the parties concerned on the spot and will of course also coordinate with the OSCE and the other institutions.
I agree with the Commission that of course we must look at other options too, but unfortunately we did not manage to send a WEU mission to Albania in the past either.
In the final analysis, the OSCE did very good work there for a brief time, but as we can see, it was of course not in a position to build up the institutions in Albania again.
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The question of safe havens was raised.
Of course we know the events that led to disaster in Bosnia cannot happen again in Kosovo in the same form.
I myself have discussed the refugee problem at length with Emma Bonino and, believe me, we too realise that what has been proposed so far is little.
But it is very difficult to take further-reaching measures at this point and try to achieve the maximum.
There was a dialogue between the European Union and the United States.
And in that framework we considered whether we could create a multi-ethnic police force to monitor the return of the refugees in situ and guarantee them a degree of safety.
But for the time being - I must say for the time being - that is not feasible either.
So the least we could do was to combine the ECMM and the KDOM, in other words to strengthen the two missions I referred to in my opening statement, for I believe one thing always worries Milosevic: monitoring and information being passed on.
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I wish to address one further point. It was said that there is no means of contacting the refugees.
That is not entirely true.
The UNHCR and the International Red Cross Committee certainly have means of access.
Sometimes obstacles are put in their way, it is true; but by and large they have quite good access.
Emma Bonino, who was there herself recently, confirmed this to me.
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Mr President, I still believe that there was a degree of consensus that the absolute priorities must be to achieve a ceasefire in Kosovo and to improve the disastrous humanitarian situation.
I believe we also more or less agreed that only when these two preconditions have been achieved will it be possible to engage in meaningful negotiations on the future status of Kosovo.
We will certainly continue to devote all our energies towards that end.
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<SPEAKER ID=165 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bianco">
Mr President, I regard this debate as extremely important.
We cannot expect all the Members of this House to listen to the reports of the Austrian Presidency and the Commissioner, but I would ask the presidency of the sitting to invite at least those who speak to be here for their replies.
That is surely a necessary mark of respect to Parliament.
I appeal to your good judgement, which is well known to me!
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<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="President">
Mr Bianco, this is a particularly important debate, it is true, but that rule should apply to all our discussions.
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<SPEAKER ID=167 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, let me first announce the good news that the presidency and the Commission have just received a note from Robin Cook stating that the United Kingdom has ordered all flights by Yugoslav carriers to the UK to be banned with immediate effect.
So our optimism that we would make headway there was not misplaced.
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My final remark is that, on the basis of the experience and information that we all have - the experience of Bosnia and the information about Kosovo - it is quite clear that as long as there is no ceasefire, as long as the violence does not stop, there will be no meaningful political negotiations and there will be a continuous flow of refugees and displaced persons.
That misery will continue.
That is our experience and there is no indication that in this case it might be different.
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To all those who have difficulty, as we had in Bosnia at the time, in making a clear distinction as to who should be considered the aggressor, who should be addressed as the main cause of the misery, I would say that the 250 000 people we are speaking about are not Serbs.
They are Albanians in Kosovo.
That does not mean that the UCK does not use violence as such, but the one who carries the main responsibility should be addressed first.
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In conclusion - and here the presidency has been very frank in depicting the situation within the Union - it is nevertheless extremely important for Parliament to speak as far as possible with one voice and encourage the Union to take responsibility.
That is why I repeat that I am very pleased to hear that, if the press information is correct, the French President has said this situation is intolerable and has told the Russian President that we need a meeting of the Contact Group and we need to speak about the Security Council.
I know that France and the vast majority of our Member States believe that the use of any type of force to end the violence should be covered by a Security Council resolution.
That is a legitimate point of view.
But I hope it will not take too long to pass such a resolution and bring about the peace that is needed before negotiations can be started to find the ultimate political solution, because for Milosevic and the UCK there is no military solution.
But I fear that outside pressures will be necessary to stop the violence and get the political process running.
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<SPEAKER ID=168 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
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The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
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<CHAPTER ID=8>
Associated companies
<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A-0299/98) by Mr Secchi, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Directive on a common system of taxation applicable to interest and royalty payments made between associated companies of different Member States (COM(98)0067 - C4-0195/98-98/0087(CNS)).
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Since it is essential to adjourn our debate at 5.30 p.m. for Question Time with the Council, I would call on Mr Secchi to present his introductory remarks as rapporteur, but I would inform him that we shall be obliged to continue the debate this evening after 9 p.m.
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<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="Secchi">
Mr President, I shall begin by protesting at what you have just said.
I find it rather odd to embark on a discussion of such a major topic and then adjourn it for several hours, during which time colleagues might quite naturally lose sight of the issues at stake and the various opinions expressed.
Surely the efficiency of Parliament's work would not be impaired if we were to run a few minutes behind schedule - especially as there has already been a good deal of slippage today.
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<SPEAKER ID=171 NAME="President">
Mr Secchi, in that case we could postpone your introduction until 9 p.m. this evening.
But we simply cannot hold up Question Time with the Council.
So it is as you please: either now or at 9 p.m.
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<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="Secchi">
Mr President, I am presenting the report adopted by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on the proposal for a Council directive on a common system of taxation applicable to interest and royalty payments made between associated companies of different Member States.
This proposal was put forward by the Commission as part of the so-called 'Monti package' which, as colleagues will recall, is designed to implement the approach to fiscal coordination proposed by the Commission, and fully backed by Parliament. It is an attempt to steer the Member States' taxation systems in directions that are compatible with the smooth functioning of the internal market, averting the adverse effects of so-called harmful tax competition.
On 18 June, the House adopted an initial report on the first element of the package, namely the Code of Conduct for business taxation; today we are examining the second element, and the Committee on Economic Affairs has already begun its consideration of the third: the proposal for a directive on the taxation of nonresidents' income from savings.
This brings me to Amendment No 3, which has been adopted by the Committee on Economic Affairs and argues that the phased adoption of the various elements of the package should not be used as a tool by Member States to delay its implementation.
Ideally these provisions should be simultaneous, but they will inevitably be implemented as the legislative process advances.
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The purpose of the measure before us is to eliminate double taxation between associated companies of different Member States in the single market.
The Committee on Economic Affairs also proposes, in Amendment No 2, that this system should gradually be extended to all companies operating in the single market so as to avoid double taxation.
In Amendment No 1, we stress the importance of this measure, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, which are less well equipped to face such problems.
We therefore believe that the rapid adoption of this directive will speed up the process of Europeanisation and allow full advantage to be taken of the internal market.
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In Amendment No 4 we propose restricting the Member States' discretion in the implementation of the directive.
I realise that this is a very sensitive area, but I do think it was right and proper for us to make the suggestion.
In our fifth amendment, we propose that the adoption of this directive should be an incentive for Member States to undertake a general review of their company taxation systems, in keeping with the spirit of this directive and of the whole package, in particular the Code of Conduct, in order to promote the process underlying this entire set of measures.
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Finally, our sixth amendment asks that at the end of the three years, when the Commission has to report on the operation of the directive, there should also be a review to ensure consistency with the other elements of the new approach to taxation.
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Mr President, I should like here and now to express my opposition to four amendments tabled by the Green Group: No 7 is superfluous and open to misinterpretation, No 8 repeats ideas already contained in Amendment Nos 1 and 3 by the Committee on Economic Affairs, No 9 is better worded in our Amendment No 4 and, finally, No 10 seems to me contradictory, in that it grants the Member States two additional years to implement the directive.
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I shall end there, Mr President, but it is unfortunate that the debate has to be adjourned.
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<SPEAKER ID=173 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Secchi.
I appreciate that the fact that we have to interrupt the debate now is causing you some inconvenience, but you will know that our Rules of Procedure state that the order of business is adopted at the start of each of our part-sessions, and we have agreed that Question Time is to begin at 5.30 p.m.
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<CHAPTER ID=9>
Question Time (Council)
<SPEAKER ID=174 NAME="President">
The next item is questions to the Council (B4-0482/98).
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Question No 1 by John McCartin (H-0724/98)
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Subject: Schengen Agreement
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Can the President-in-Office state whether any negotiations have been undertaken at Council level with the British and Irish Governments with a view to incorporating these two States into the Schengen Agreement, thereby extending the possibilities for passport-free travel to citizens of these States?
I should like to welcome Mrs Ferrero-Waldner and ask her to reply to Mr McCartin's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=175 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the United Kingdom and Ireland are fully involved in all Council negotiations and take part in all Council working parties, especially in regard to incorporating the Schengen Agreement in the acquis of the European Union and to the negotiations with Iceland and Norway.
At present Ireland and the United Kingdom are not bound by the Schengen Agreement, nor, pursuant to Article 4 of the Schengen Protocol, will they be so after the Amsterdam Treaty enters into force.
However, they can request the full or partial application of that agreement at any time.
But there is no such request at present.
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<SPEAKER ID=176 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="McCartin">
I thank the President-in-Office for her reply.
The difficulty with Ireland is that it already has freedom of movement between Ireland, Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.
Therefore, if Ireland were to ratify the Schengen Agreement without the United Kingdom, we would impose new restrictions on the movement of Irish people which would create great difficulties.
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My concern is that the Single European Act, which both countries have ratified, obliged all members who ratified it to eliminate all borders by 1 January 1992.
In the intervening period we have observed that other countries of the European Union, by going their separate ways, have in a rather roundabout way put the Single European Act into effect.
But the United Kingdom and Ireland have stayed out.
Can we oblige those countries to live up to their obligations under the Single European Act?
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<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr McCartin, Article 7 of the Single Act was never really accepted, which is why I must repeat that so long as Ireland and the United Kingdom have not submitted a request for the incorporation of some or all of the provisions, there can be no negotiations in this regard.
If the United Kingdom or Ireland or both countries make such a request, the Council will discuss it and take a decision.
Under Article 4 of the Schengen Protocol, this requires a unanimous decision on the part of the 13 Schengen members and the applicant or applicants.
That is what I have to say on the subject.
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<SPEAKER ID=178 NAME="President">
As the author is not present, Question No 2 lapses.
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Question No 3 by Alan Gillis (H-0727/98)
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Subject: Algeria
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Given the current appalling situation in Algeria where hundreds of innocent men, women and children are being massacred by militant Islamic extremists, and given the apparent lack of will on the part of the Algerian Government to take action to protect their own citizens, what steps does the Council envisage in order to impose on the Algerian Government the need to take radical steps to end these gruesome murders of innocent citizens?
I give the floor to the President-in-Office to answer Mr Gillis's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=179 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Gillis">
I should like to thank the President-in-Office for her answer.
I am encouraged that there are some developments and possibly we will get some breakthrough.
Obviously, serious reforms are needed and will have to be pursued.
I am wondering if there is any further action.
We need to try to get the maximum amount of action to encourage an end to this bloodshed and violence.
If we can do that I think we have moved very far.
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<SPEAKER ID=181 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr Gillis, there is no further action at this time.
However, we hope that further political dialogue will be possible during the troika visit, which has been scheduled in principle, and that we can then review all the questions raised during the earlier troika mission.
Of course they included the question whether the European Union could provide humanitarian aid, which Algeria rejected out of hand at the time.
As you know, Algeria kept returning to the question of aid to combat terrorism, to which the European Union replied that the Union as such is not competent here, although the individual states could of course assist Algeria in this respect.
Naturally, there are ongoing contacts here.
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<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="President">
Question No 4 by Alexandros Alavanos (H-0728/98)
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Subject: Inspection of vessels in the Dardanelles, in violation of the Montreux Convention
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The rules governing the passage of vessels through the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits are set out in the international Montreux Convention.
Major economic and political interests of the Community and its Member States, together with the interest of countries on the Black Sea are immediately bound up with the correct implementation of the provisions in the above convention.
Since Turkey has in the past and more recently been carrying out inspections on such vessels and preventing their passage through the straits, justifying its action with reference to their freight, can the Council say whether, under the Montreux Convention, Turkey is entitled to carry out inspections if no legal proceedings are pending regarding the vessels concerned? Is it entitled to carry out inspections and prevent passage on the assumption that a vessel may be carrying arms?
I give the floor to the President-in-Office to answer Mr Alavanos's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Alavanos, I am sorry to have to tell you that it is not the Council's business to give its views on the interpretation of an international agreement and, in particular, on the scope of the contracting parties' rights and obligations.
This is a very brief answer, but there is little I can add.
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<SPEAKER ID=184 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, I must say that the President-in-Office quite disarmed me with her answer, with which I do not at all agree.
I think that transport through the Straits is of concern to all the European Union's countries, especially those in the south, and in that sense I think she should comment on the fact that, despite the Treaty of Montreux, Turkey is trying to control it.
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My question, then, is: does the Council not care that Turkey is infringing the Treaty of Montreux by illegally trying to control the shipping going through?
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Secondly, is the Council considering the possibility of discussing with Turkey the subject of the International Convention on Maritime Rights, which the European Union has signed but which Turkey rejects?
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<SPEAKER ID=185 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Alavanos, the freedom of vessels to sail through the straits governed by the Montreux Convention applies to all states and not just to the small group of contracting states.
Article 7 of EC-Turkey Association Council Decision No 1/95 of 22 December 1995 on implementing the final phase of customs union provides that import, export and transit bans or restrictions are admissible for, among other things, reasons of public law and order and security.
These bans or restrictions may not, however, be applied either as a means of arbitrary discrimination or as a disguised means of restricting trade between the contracting parties.
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With regard to the possibility of settling this dispute, let me point out that Turkey has accepted neither the binding jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice nor the dispute settlement procedure under the Convention on the Law of the Sea, since it is not a contracting party to that convention.
So let me repeat: unfortunately the Council is not competent to decide the interpretation of the provisions of an international - and I emphasise the word international - agreement to which Turkey is clearly not a contracting party.
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<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="President">
Question No 5 by Friedhelm Frischenschlager (H-0731/98)
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Subject: Road-use charges
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Traffic within the EU has increased sharply in recent years.
The situation has worsened dramatically, particularly in the case of north-south transit traffic through the Alps.
France and above all Austria are suffering the effects not only of the general increase in traffic but also of the diversion in transit traffic caused by the special regulations in Switzerland.
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What measures will the Austrian Presidency introduce in the direction of EU-wide, generally applicable road-use charges, which would permit the internalization of the external costs of road transport while at the same time providing an opportunity, on the basis of the revenue thus collected, for European rail (freight) transport to be subsidized by the more environmentally damaging road transport?
I give the floor to the President-in-Office to answer Mr Frischenschlager's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=187 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Frischenschlager, this question is broadly covered by the proposal for a directive on levying charges for the use of certain transport routes by heavy goods vehicles.
The Commission presented this proposal, commonly known as the 'Euro-Vignette' directive, in July 1996.
The Council is still deliberating on it and the Austrian Presidency will do all it can to reach a conclusion as soon as possible.
The discussion of this dossier will, therefore, continue apace during this six-month term, and this item was thus put on the agenda of the Council of Transport Ministers.
It was not debated at the informal Council meeting in Feldkirch.
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<SPEAKER ID=188 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Frischenschlager">
Madam President-in-Office, following on from what you said about the Feldkirch meeting of the Council of Transport Ministers, the problem, after all, is that because the negotiations with Switzerland were not completed, Austria and France are suffering severely from the diversion in transit traffic.
Since we keep being told the negotiations are nearing their end, although in fact no headway is being made, the following problem also arises: could the European Union not allow France, Switzerland and Austria to harmonise their road-use charges so as to put a stop, for the time being at least, to the transit traffic diversion?
I am putting this supplementary question because of what the French Transport Minister said at the Feldkirch meeting, where he openly supported an ecological transport policy for the Alps, which after all are not just Austrian, but indeed European.
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<SPEAKER ID=189 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Frischenschlager, let me go a little further into this question.
Transit transport within the Community can really only be resolved by certain new provisions in the road cost directive, the Euro-Vignette.
The suspension of the transit traffic diversion caused by the Swiss regulations would also ease the situation. But this can only be done in the framework of the negotiations between the EU and Switzerland.
Austria wants to keep the Brenner toll at the existing level and to put an end to the traffic diversion resulting from the restrictions applied in Switzerland.
At present, as we know, Switzerland restricts heavy goods vehicles to 28 tonnes.
Austria believes it is crucial to have a comparable charge level and structure in Austria and Switzerland.
Higher charges in Switzerland should result in equally high toll rates for the Brenner Pass.
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At the Council of Transport Ministers on 10 and 11 December 1997, the ministers called on the Commission actively to pursue the negotiations with Switzerland, while strictly observing the principle that Swiss charges, like Community charges, must be geared to infrastructure costs.
A breakthrough came in the EU-Switzerland talks at the meeting between Mr Kinnock and Mr Leuenburger, the Swiss minister of state, on 23 January, in the form of what is called the Kloten compromise.
It brought political agreement on an average charge of ECU 200 for the longest transit route through Switzerland, namely Basle to Chiasso.
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Other points agreed were: the 40 tonne quota for transit through Switzerland, 120 000 journeys a year for the time being, then 300 000 from the year 2003, and no restrictions from the year 2005.
The ban on night driving ban was to remain in force in Switzerland.
That too was part of the settlement.
Moreover, in case train use declined, Switzerland was to be granted a protective clause.
In March this year, the Commission believed there was little room for manoeuvre left in the talks with Switzerland and that the ECU 200 road toll was now a fixed rate.
It regarded the calculations submitted by Switzerland as by and large plausible.
The Commission also pointed to the advantages of concluding an agreement with Switzerland, especially because if the talks failed, Switzerland could autonomously levy a road toll, that it could then also take account of the external costs and that this would put any further tunnel building in Switzerland at risk.
On the other hand, the conclusion of an agreement with Switzerland would mean that as from the year 2005, 40-tonne HGVs could drive through Switzerland quite freely and the road-use charge system would be fair.
So the Commission regarded the transport negotiations with Switzerland as concluded, although Austria and most of the other Member States do not agree.
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During the discussion, several Member States called for further improvements in the draft agreement and, in the event that this was not possible, for it to be rejected; these states were the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, Greece and Italy.
The others were in favour of accepting it.
We too believe that there is little margin for improvement.
That means that our acceptance or rejection of it depends on whether a satisfactory solution can be found to the question of the Euro-Vignette.
I must say that the matter you have just raised again is more or less what we have already discussed.
It is now up to the Commission to see whether there is a chance of achieving a uniform rate acceptable to all parties concerned.
As I said, there was only a short, informal debate on the subject and the next step envisaged is the initial consideration of overland transport under the Austrian Presidency in the Council of Transport Ministers on 1 October, although again merely as a policy debate, since presumably the question of charges will not be debated formally before the German elections.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 NAME="President">
As the author is not present, Question No 6 lapses.
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Question No 7 by Jonas Sjöstedt (H-0738/98), deputised for by Mrs Eriksson
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Subject: Leaving the EU
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There is great dissatisfaction in Sweden with membership of the EU, and a series of opinion polls has shown that the majority of the population is against membership.
At the same time there is a debate on the consequences if Sweden voted against the third stage of EMU in a referendum, and whether this could put the country on a course to leave the Union.
For example, there is talk of the possibility of organizing a referendum on withdrawal after the people rejected EMU.
<P>
The matter is complicated by the fact that the Treaty contains no clear provisions on withdrawal from the Union.
What is the Council's view?
What are the requirements if a country is to leave the EU?
What actual procedure would be involved?
I give the floor to the President-in-Office to reply to Mrs Eriksson.
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<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mrs Eriksson, pursuant to Article 240 of the EC Treaty, that Treaty is concluded for an unlimited period.
No provision is made in the Treaty for a Member State to withdraw unilaterally from the European Communities.
The Council has never been faced with this question to date and nor has it ever discussed it.
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<SPEAKER ID=192 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Eriksson">
I know that the Council has not discussed this issue, but I would put the following consideration to the President-in-Office. Joining the EU is an act of free will.
Surely it is not unreasonable to call for discussion on what should happen if people, of their own free will, decide that they no longer wish to belong. It is high time we addressed this eventuality - and not just because of disaffection in my own country, Sweden.
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<SPEAKER ID=193 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mrs Eriksson, I can only add a few theoretical comments on what the doctrine is in principle, but it has in fact never been applied and no provision is made for it in the Treaty.
Neither the EU Treaty nor the three Treaties establishing the Communities provide for the right for an individual state to withdraw.
It follows that, in principle, it is out of the question for a Member State to withdraw or resign.
The Member States are the masters of the Treaties and their commitment to these Treaties is founded on their resolve to accept long-term membership; of course in the final analysis - according to doctrine at least - they can suspend this by an act to the contrary, an actus contrarius .
<P>
But the withdrawal of one Member State would require the agreement of all the others and would probably require amending the Treaty and observance of all the general requirements set out in the Vienna Convention on treaty law.
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<SPEAKER ID=194 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
Thank you for the answer, Madam President-in-Office.
Does that mean that membership of the EU bears no relation to international law and the Vienna Convention?
Is it not possible under the Vienna Convention to terminate membership of a body, if the preconditions are no longer present or for other reasons?
That was one point.
The other matter is that a question was put to Mr de Silguy yesterday, to which he replied that Sweden was obliged to participate in economic and monetary union and did not have the same freedom to decide for itself as Germany acquired under the Karlsruhe judgment.
Is it really also the view of the presidency of the Council that Sweden is obliged to participate in economic and monetary union and does not have the freedom that the German Bundestag enjoys?
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<SPEAKER ID=195 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Bonde, I already said quite clearly in my initial reply that, firstly, the Treaty does not make provision for this matter and, secondly, it has never come up; I have also explained the prevailing doctrine.
To consider a theoretical, hypothetical case is one thing; the real situation is another, and in general terms, as I indicated, there is the Vienna Convention on treaty law.
That means I can only repeat what I just said.
If you like I will repeat it again.
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<SPEAKER ID=196 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Ferrero-Waldner.
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Mr Krarup, do you not feel that the explanation has already been repeated and that the President-in-Office made it clear that she had no further explanations to offer?
If you insist, I can give you the floor for one minute, but I must remind you that subjects cannot be prolonged when no further discussion is possible.
You have the floor for one minute.
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<SPEAKER ID=197 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Krarup">
I agree entirely with you, Mr President, in that the President-in-Office has given an answer to the effect that, if all the other Member States agree, a Member State can terminate its membership, and that is, I suppose, selfevident in law.
At the same time, the President-in-Office referred to Article 240, which states that the Treaty is concluded for an unlimited period.
I therefore understand the statement of the President-in-Office to mean that the EU Council of Ministers takes the view that a Member State cannot withdraw from the European Union unless all Member States agree. In view of the prevailing uncertainty, I would like to ask the President-in-Office to confirm this understanding.
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<SPEAKER ID=198 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Krarup, I did not say that.
I said that I am speaking on behalf of the Council and that pursuant to Article 240 of the EC Treaty, this Treaty is concluded for an unlimited period and that there is no provision made for unilateral withdrawal.
But I also said that the question has been discussed in theoretical terms, and that is all I have to say on the matter.
I believe if you want to go into this question in more detail, you will have to consult an expert in international law, not the Council whom I represent here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 NAME="President">
Question No 8 by Maj Theorin (H-0742/98), deputised for by Mrs Lööw
<P>
Subject: The white-slave trade
<P>
Trafficking in women is a serious problem which does not get a great deal of attention.
Thousands of young women are working as prostitutes in the Member States of the EU.
Many of them were lured or abducted from poverty and unemployment in the East to be exploited as prostitutes in the West.
Their lives are spent held captive by pimps in complete isolation from the outside world.
Their passports and identity papers are taken from them and, deprived of any rights, they are forced to earn the money the pimps paid for them.
This is a modern slave trade and it is beyond belief that it should be happening in Europe today.
<P>
What steps does the Council intend to take to prevent this abuse of human beings?
I give the floor to the President-in-Office to reply to Mrs Lööw.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mrs Lööw, the Council is well aware of the serious problems raised by the increasingly worrying phenomenon described by the honourable Member and has taken a number of initiatives aimed at putting a stop to it, both in the general context of trafficking in human beings and with specific reference to trafficking in women for the purpose of sexual exploitation.
<P>
As regards trafficking in human beings in general, given the various dimensions of this phenomenon, the Council has taken action at different levels, covering aspects of migration policy and judicial and police cooperation.
On 29 November 1996 the Council adopted a joint action on the basis of Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union, establishing an incentive and exchange programme for persons responsible for combating trade in human beings and the sexual exploitation of children, what is known as the STOP programme.
<P>
On 16 December 1996, the Council adopted a further joint action, also on the basis of Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union, extending the mandate given to the Europol Drugs Unit to cover, inter alia , the exchange of information and intelligence in relation to crimes involving clandestine immigration networks and traffic in human beings.
<P>
On 24 February 1997, the Council adopted a joint action on the basis of Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union, concerning action to combat trafficking in human beings and sexual exploitation of children.
These joint actions require the Member States to take specific action at national level to make trafficking a punishable offence under national law.
It also establishes forms of judicial cooperation in the investigations and judicial processes relating to trafficking in human beings.
<P>
From 24 to 26 April, an EU ministerial conference was held in The Hague with the aim of drawing up a list of measures in line with the UN General Assembly's Resolution No 5/66 on combating traffic in women.
These measures are summarised in the final declaration of the High Ministerial Declaration and European Guidelines for Effective Measures to prevent and combat Trafficking in Women for the Purpose of Sexual Exploitation.
<P>
In addition, the Council is following with great attention the developments taking place in this matter within the United Nations, specifically the initiatives aiming at the conclusion of universal instruments against trafficking in children or trafficking in illegal immigrants.
The Council is coordinating the positions of the Member States with a view to a rapid successful outcome of these initiatives.
Concerning trafficking in women for the purpose of sexual exploitation, in particular, in April 1998 the European Union launched two information campaigns in Poland and Ukraine, together with the United States - and in the framework of the new transatlantic agenda - to combat such trafficking.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lööw">
All I really wish to do is to thank the President-in-Office for a very thorough answer.
The purpose of Mrs Theorin's question was to obtain an assurance that the Council agrees with the Commission and Parliament on the need to address this matter.
<P>
We are all aware of the difficulties involved.
It is a hidden problem and therefore not easily located.
An efficient system of police cooperation is required, and I am pleased to see that Europol has now had its mandate broadened accordingly.
<P>
The whole issue also needs to be raised in the context of enlargement.
We have an ideal forum here for real dialogue with the Central and Eastern European countries.
In Sweden at any rate, it tends to be women from the CEECs that are exploited the worst.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mrs Lööw, I certainly have a few more comments to make on this particular question.
In autumn last year, the federal minister presented a draft convention on trafficking to the UN General Assembly.
In his statement to the 52nd General Assembly, he said that this draft would probably be submitted to the next meeting of the UN Commission on crime prevention. That has now been done.
<P>
After the very positive feedback from this initiative, it was agreed with Italy to pursue this initiative jointly, with the Italians concentrating mainly on the question of trafficking on the high seas.
At its meeting in April, the UN Commission on crime prevention decided to further pursue the project of an international framework convention against organised crime, although restricting its scope to general legal assistance and extradition provisions.
<P>
Specific crimes were to be dealt with in protocols to the framework convention.
It was agreed to draw up a protocol against trafficking as such.
It was also agreed to draw up protocols on traffic in women and children and on handguns.
With a view to formalising the negotiations on this framework convention and the protocols, the UN General Assembly's Commission on crime prevention recommended the adoption of a resolution providing for the creation of an ad hoc committee to draft a framework convention.
<P>
This committee was tasked immediately to start negotiations on a trafficking protocol on the basis of this Austro-Italian initiative.
At the first informal meeting of the ad hoc committee in Buenos Aires from 31 August to 4 September this year, Austria and Italy submitted a draft protocol on trafficking supported by the EU, which was endorsed by the 60 or so delegations who attended it.
Formal negotiations on the protocol will begin in Vienna in January and it is expected that we shall conclude them by March.
The convention is scheduled for completion in the year 2000.
<P>
On the question of traffic in women and children, it was emphasised that it is particularly important carefully to observe the procedure under the human rights convention for drafting an additional protocol to the convention on children's rights.
But since we do not yet have a draft text for that protocol on traffic in women and children, the USA agreed to submit one no later than March; so this too is an ongoing process.
<P>
In addition to specific provisions on police cooperation and combating trafficking on the high seas, the protocol provides in particular that the traffickers must either be punished or extradited to other treaty partners, aut dedere aut iudicare .
However, the illegal immigrants must not be punished as accessories.
They can only be accused of infringing immigration provisions but not of having committed a crime.
That is what I wished to add.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 NAME="President">
Question No 9 by Nuala Ahern (H-0744/98)
<P>
Subject: Proposed measures by the Council on the unacceptable risks to citizens and the environment posed by nuclear plants
<P>
What steps will the Council take during Austria's Presidency to intervene in cases such as Mochovce in Slovakia and Sellafield in the UK, where nuclear plants pose unacceptable risks to citizens and the environment of neighbouring states?
I give the floor to the President-in-Office to answer Mrs Ahern's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mrs Ahern, as I pointed out in my reply to you and Mr Rübig during Question Time at the July part-session, the Council attaches enormous importance to protecting the population from the risks of ionising radiation and to the question of nuclear safety both within and outside the borders of the European Union.
So it is closely monitoring the observance of the internationally recognised principles of nuclear safety.
It pays special attention to this question in external relations and in particular in its relations with the Central European countries that wish to join the European Union.
<P>
The principles, priorities and aims of Slovakia's accession, of which the House has been informed, provide specifically that Slovakia must apply the internationally recognised principles of nuclear safety when the Mochovce nuclear power station comes into operation.
<P>
Furthermore, accession involves carrying out a realistic programme to shut down Bohunice.
The corresponding measures must form part of a long-term overall energy strategy, geared to efficiency and diversification.
The Council has regularly monitored the progress of work on the Mochovce nuclear power station and taken every opportunity to draw Slovakia's attention to the importance of nuclear safety.
<P>
After the Austrian Government informed the Council at its meeting of 25 May of the imminent entry into operation of the Mochovce nuclear power station, the President of the Council wrote to the Slovak foreign ministry to repeat his concern and at the same time to express his confidence in the competence of the Slovak nuclear supervisory authority and his conviction that the Slovak authorities would cooperate closely with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
It is worth noting that Mr van den Broek has made a similar approach to the Slovak authorities.
<P>
In adopting Euratom Directive 96/29 fixing the basic safety standards to protect the health of workers and the general public against the dangers of ionising radiation, the Council also tightened up most of the existing Community provisions in this field, by making the relevant standards more binding.
In this respect, it should also be noted that this directive applies in all Member States, so that it covers the Sellafield nuclear plant to which Mrs Ahern refers in her question.
<P>
Your attention is also drawn to the provisions of Chapter III of the Euratom Treaty concerning health and safety and Chapter VII on safeguards for nuclear plants within the European Community.
<P>
As I said in July, the Council will examine any proposals submitted by the Commission on improving the health protection of the population and the safety of nuclear power stations with all due care.
Let me assure Mrs Ahern that these questions really are of central concern to the European Union and our presidency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Ahern">
I have to say that, expressions of concern apart, there do not appear to be any concrete proposals.
It is quite contrary to what I heard from a government minister when I visited Austria with the Green Group in July for the commencement of the presidency.
We had assurances that Austria would act and be proactive and make proposals.
<P>
Has the Austrian presidency made any efforts to make proposals in relation to transfrontier contamination or emissions or accidents from radiation?
Has it considered tabling any amendments or made proposals to do so to the Euratom Treaty to allow for peer review from another Member State for a neighbouring nuclear power station?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mrs Ahern, let me emphasise yet again that we take very seriously any possible threats to the safety of the people of Europe arising out of possible defects in nuclear power stations both inside and outside the Community.
<P>
The Austrian Presidency takes the view that any reasonable policy of protection against nuclear radiation must involve full observance of the EU and international provisions in force, if not of more stringent rules.
By applying these principles, the presidency seeks to give new impetus to its examination of the Commission's proposals on the accession of the Community to the nuclear safety convention and the joint international convention on the safe management of irradiated fuel and radioactive waste.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="President">
Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, please stay with us on this subject, since I have another supplementary question from Mr Smith.
However, before I give him the floor, I must say that I have been intrigued to see that Mr Smith has moved towards the right of the House, along with Mr Falconer, and I wonder if this has any political significance.
It is just a case of presidential curiosity on my part.
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Smith to put his supplementary question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Smith">
Of course, I have moved to my left and Mr Falconer has moved even further left.
That may give you some cause for concern.
<P>
I would like to thank the President-in-Office for having replied to Mrs Ahern and for her well-expressed concerns about safety.
<P>
I would therefore draw to her attention a report by the British Health and Safety Executive about the safety of the Dounreay nuclear installation where it says that the team (Health and Safety Executive) found many chronic safety problems and, in the fuel cycle area, conditions ranged from the good to the very bad.
<P>
It is my understanding that the directive applies to the United Kingdom.
The Euratom Treaty too applies to the UK.
Why has it taken so long to find out this serious state of affairs at Dounreay?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Smith.
I am not at all clear as to what you consider to be the right and the left of the House.
I ought to warn you, however, that if you continue to move towards what you term the left, you will find yourself in the Group of the European People's Party.
It is up to you.
<P>
Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, you now have the floor to answer Mr Smith's supplementary question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Smith, I would ask you to put this question about the Dounreay nuclear installation to the Commission, because it is up to the Commission to ensure observance of the Treaty and specifically of the provisions laid down by the Treaty.
So it has all the necessary information to give you a reliable answer.
But in general terms, let me tell you once again that of course the Council will always check to ensure very stringent compliance with the Community standards and international principles that are in force in the nuclear sector, especially with regard to accession negotiations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 NAME="President">
Question No 10 by Sören Wibe (H-0749/98), deputised for by Mr Falconer
<P>
Subject: Relations with Israel and Palestine
<P>
It is most important that the outside world should put pressure on Israel to perform its part in the peace process.
What action does the Austrian Presidency intend to take to bring the collective pressure of the EU Member States to bear on Israel to persuade it for example to hand back the land it confiscated from the Palestinians and to repatriate Palestinian refugees?
I give the floor to the President-in-Office to reply to Mr Falconer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Falconer, the European Union is extremely concerned at the continued deadlock in the Middle East peace process, which is a constant threat to stability in the region.
The Union regards the peace process as the only means to achieve peace and security for Israel, the Palestinians and the neighbouring Arab states.
The Union is taking an active part in the endeavours to promote the peace process. It will apply all its political influence to finding a solution.
<P>
In this context, the Austrian Presidency is seeking a dialogue with all the conflicting parties.
The visit to Vienna of President Arafat on 30 July, during which the Austrian Presidency gathered up-to-date information on the Palestinian point of view, forms part of that endeavour.
In spite of our attempts to enhance the European Union's role in the region, we are aware that for the time being the USA will remain the main mediator in the peace process.
<P>
The EU will therefore continue to give strong support to the US mediation efforts in every way and to coordinate its own approach closely with that of the United States. A few months ago, the USA launched a determined mediation effort to secure a further Israeli troop withdrawal from the West Bank in accordance with the Interim Agreement and the 1997 Hebron accords.
The European Union believes that the American efforts, which have been followed by the resumption of direct bilateral negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians, offer good prospects for getting the peace process started again.
<P>
With the appointment of an EU special envoy for the peace process in 1996, the Union considerably enhanced its commitment and presence in the region.
Ambassador Moratinos is in constant contact with all the parties.
He is putting forward the European Union's point of view and advancing specific EU initiatives, for example to overcome the effects of the Israeli policy of closures.
Another area of EU activities is the strengthening of the anti-terrorism capabilities of the Palestinians.
<P>
The EU is also preparing input into the final status talks on the autonomous area.
One area on which the EU is concentrating is precisely the question of refugees, which will be a central and very difficult point of the final status negotiations.
<P>
Since early 1997, the EU, through its heads of mission in Tel Aviv, has been monitoring Israeli settlement activities, the situation in Jerusalem and the human rights situation in the West Bank and Gaza.
The Union has made public the information it gathered in extremely summary form.
As you know, the European Union is by far the largest donor to the Palestinians and will without any doubt continue this supportive role in the forthcoming pledging period, beginning in 1999.
<P>
Supporting the Palestinian people economically and in the humanitarian field is in itself giving a strong political signal to Israel to break the deadlock in the peace process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Falconer">
Mr President, I thank the President-in-Office for her answer to the question.
Israel is an island of pluralist democracy in that part of the world and obviously we all wish it well.
But we cannot stand idly by whilst it occupies land which belongs to others illegally in the face of United Nation resolutions calling for the land to be handed back, which was the crux of the agreement you referred to earlier.
<P>
May I draw the Council's attention to its remarks about its role in certain matters.
This Chamber is empty because you are the Council, you are the cornerstone of democratic accountability, and it is not good enough to pass it over to the Commission.
Therefore, I ask you to coordinate a response with the Commission by examining our trade agreements in order to expedite this matter and perhaps assist in resolving this whole tawdry mess we have got ourselves into.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Falconer, the further Israeli troop withdrawal from the West Bank provided for in the Interim Agreement between Israel and the Palestinians is long overdue.
For several months now, the USA has been trying to mediate with a view to persuading the Israelis to withdraw from a further 13 % of the West Bank.
An agreement to that effect would enable the parties to resume the negotiations on the final status of the Palestinian autonomous area, which are due to be completed by 4 March 1999 according to the original timetable.
<P>
Although the US proposals do not match up to the Palestinian wishes, Mr Arafat accepted them.
The Israelis reject them on the grounds of security interests, but have proposed a 10 + 3 % formula, which provides that 3 % of the land around Israeli settlements would be a nature conservation area over which Israel would retain final responsibility for security.
Of course I know that the Security Council resolutions to which you referred are most important here.
And we are endeavouring to make the European Union's role in the peace process more visible too, because the foundation stones for resolving the conflict remain - and I agree with you here - the principles of Madrid and Oslo, in particular 'land for peace', full implementation of the existing contractual provisions of the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement and the relevant UN Security Council decisions.
<P>
We strongly support continued EU economic assistance to the Palestinian people.
Palestinian economic growth is a prerequisite for political stability.
Your other point, namely the question of trade agreements, does in fact primarily concern the Commission. So I would ask you to put that question to the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="President">
Question No 11 by Jens-Peter Bonde (H-0751/98)
<P>
Subject: Right of access to documents and plea of confidentiality of Council discussions
<P>
The plea was concern for the confidentiality of Council discussions when access to documents was refused in 6890 instances in 1996/97 compared with 4490 in 1994/95.
Why has confidentiality apparently increased so much when the desire for transparency has been trumpeted to such an extent?
I give the floor to the President-in-Office to answer Mr Bonde's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Bonde, the information the Council has on this matter does not seem to tally with the questioner's.
For the second report on the implementation of Council Decision 731/93/EC on public access to Council documents suggests that the proportion of documents transmitted rose from 58.7 % in 1994/95 to 78.3 % in 1996/97, although the number of documents requested had increased substantially.
That means that of the 3325 documents concerned in the period 1996/97, 2605 were made available.
Over the period 1994/95 only 378 documents were requested, of which the applicants were granted access to 222.
This trend reflects the experience the Council and its General Secretariat have gleaned in the practical implementation of this policy and proves - as indeed the Council noted in the conclusions it adopted on 29 June 1998 - that Decision 731/93/EC on openness and transparency has been effective.
<P>
The Council will continue its efforts to make its activities more transparent.
In this context, in its conclusions of 29 July this year, the Council expressed its resolve to ensure as wide as possible access to documents relating to acts that it issues as legislator and only to apply Article 4(2) of Decision 731/93/EC where absolutely necessary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
We have all noticed that many more documents are being supplied in both the Commission and the Council than before, and it is good that Parliament's campaign for greater openness has hit home.
We are glad of that.
But in the latest report there is a tiresome tendency for the argument, which we really hate in Parliament, invoking the confidentiality of discussions to crop up more and more often as a reason for making refusals, which are - it is quite true - relatively fewer, but that justification - the secrecy of discussions - does crop up increasingly often, and I find it difficult to see what valid arguments support this view.
The public interest must weigh more heavily in almost all cases than concern for the confidentiality of past discussions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=218 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Bonde, I have just given you detailed figures that show that confidentiality is in fact being applied less and less.
At the forthcoming extraordinary meeting of Heads of State and Government in Pörtschach in Austria, we will raise the questions of bringing Europe closer to the people, transparency, subsidiarity, and so forth.
This will certainly offer another opportunity to call for even greater transparency.
But by and large, I believe that these Council figures - and I am only speaking for the Council here - show that we are taking a quite different approach now from in the past.
<P>
Let me add that on 19 March 1998 it was decided to make a data register available to the public as soon as possible to supplement the existing system of electronic data transmission.
This multilingual data register will be available on the Internet so that every citizen can access Council documents by title, date and number.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="President">
Question No 12 by Olivier Dupuis (H-0752/98)
<P>
Subject: Georgia
<P>
Georgia is about to become a full member of the Council of Europe.
It has to contend with a bitter civil war in Abkhazia, brought about largely by forces and interests outside its control. It has taken a unilateral decision to bring its legislation into line with Union law.
It stands at the crossroads of communications with Central Asia, a matter of strategic importance to the Union.
It holds a decisive key to the vast Central Asian oil reserves.
However, notwithstanding all these considerations, it does not appear on any 'list' of applicant countries.
<P>
Given that Georgia plainly has a crucial role to play on the European stage and the region in which it lies is of paramount economic and political significance for the EU, does not the Council believe that it would be in the Union's best interests and highly desirable and essential from the political point of view to send a message to the Georgian authorities that any Georgian application to join the Union would receive the utmost attention?
What moves, if any, has the Council already made in that direction?
I give the floor to the President-in-Office to answer Mr Dupuis's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Dupuis, when signing the partnership and cooperation agreement with Georgia on 22 April 1996, the EU stressed the common values it shares with Georgia and recognised that both sides wished to strengthen existing links and widen established relations.
<P>
The EU further recognised in this context that support for the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia would contribute to the safeguarding of peace and stability in Europe.
The partnership and cooperation agreement established regular political dialogue on bilateral, regional and international issues of mutual interest and supported the wish of Georgia to establish closer cooperation with European institutions.
<P>
Pending the ratification and entry into force of the partnership and cooperation agreement, the European Community, wishing to ensure the rapid development of trade relations with Georgia, concluded on 29 April 1997 an interim agreement with Georgia, which entered into force on 1 September 1997.
This agreement aims to provide for the speedy implementation of the trade and trade-related provisions of the partnership and cooperation agreement.
The Council considers that the full potential of the partnership and cooperation agreement should be implemented as a priority before considering new initiatives or agreements between the Community and Georgia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
I should like to thank the Minister for the long answer which she gave, but I fear that once again, although a great deal has been done, we have not done what is really necessary.
<P>
Georgia is in a strategic position, since it has common borders with Russia, which is currently not in a very good situation.
It is in a strategic position for the EU and for some countries within the EU, particularly the Minister's own country.
I believe that we could do a great deal more, but we need a political signal, a political signal that has never reached the ears of the Georgian authorities. It is a signal which never reached the ears of the Yugoslav authorities either and led to the tragedy which we are all too familiar with, even though we were aware of the situation in the early 1980s.
<P>
There is also the parallel problem of Abkhazia in Georgia, or the problems in Ossetia - in fact there are many problems, but there are also some positive aspects.
Azerbaijan is very close to us and we could conceivably draw up a far-reaching plan which, using Georgia as a platform, would create an area of stability in this region.
<P>
Does the Minister think that we could go a little further and work towards a political approach to the situation?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Dupuis, let me point out first of all that an application for accession represents a statement of political will on the part of a third country to become part of a wider community of states such as the EU.
But to date Georgia has not applied for accession to the EU.
For the rest, as you know, the European Union's normal practice in its relations with third countries consists first of exhausting all the opportunities offered by existing agreements, such as the partnership agreement; which has not yet been done to the full.
<P>
Prior to taking any other steps, the EU must first act within that framework and develop its economic relations and extend its cooperation with Georgia.
Let me also tell you that the Austrian Presidency of the Council did indeed initiate a new discussion of principle, at the informal Salzburg Council, where we considered how we could involve states that do not at present have any prospect of accession in a special partnership system, for instance a partnership for Europe, similar to the NATO partnership for peace.
We discussed that informally in the Council at the time, but many states still felt the time was not yet ripe and rejected the idea.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="President">
Question No 13 by Alex Smith (H-0753/98)
<P>
Subject: Radioactive and toxic waste
<P>
Following the ministerial agreement at the meeting of the Ospar Convention controlling the discharge to sea of radioactive and toxic wastes, held at Sintra in Portugal in July, what monitoring of policy commitments by EU Member States not to radioactively pollute neighbouring states is planned by the Presidency?
I give the floor to the President-in-Office to answer Mr Smith's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Smith, no proposal to this effect has been presented to the Council since the conference of Ospar contracting parties in July, and as the honourable Member surely knows, the presidency does not have the power to introduce an instrument or mechanism for monitoring whether the Member States have fulfilled their obligations in relation to environmental pollution.
<P>
The Council notes that Articles 21 and 23 in particular of that agreement contain provisions for monitoring whether the contracting parties are fulfilling their obligations and ensuring that they do so.
That means the contracting parties can do so, but not the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Smith">
President-in-Office, it is a pretty sad state of affairs if we have no instrument to ensure some monitoring of commitments freely entered into at ministerial conferences.
Could I ask the Council, before the end of the current presidency, to give us a progress report on how these commitments have been carried out during the presidency?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Smith, I am sorry but unfortunately I have to deny your request, since it is not within the Council's power to introduce environmental monitoring instruments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Madam President-in-Office, we are all concerned about nuclear safety.
Can you envisage a new legal basis for settling nuclear safety questions on a Europe-wide basis in future?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Rübig, this is a question the Council has not considered so far.
I believe we ought to discuss it in the appropriate working parties.
I am quite happy to do so.
But we do not have a proposal from the Commission, which is usually the first step.
And we must have a Commission proposal before we can discuss any options at all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pirker">
Madam President, Slovenia is operating a nuclear power station near the Austrian border.
We have been informed that irradiated waste is being stored in a surface storage facility, but that final storage has not yet been decided.
We find this unacceptable and unsafe. If accession talks are held with Slovenia, will the question of nuclear safety and final storage also be raised in those negotiations?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Pirker, in general let me say that this and similar questions are of course raised during accession negotiations, in particular the question of nuclear safety.
The Council will always ensure during accession negotiations that the Community norms in force, and in particular all the international principles in the nuclear sector, are stringently observed.
For the rest, the Austrian Presidency holds regular bilateral talks with Slovenia.
That is a subject I do not want to go into here, but the talks do also cover these specific matters.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 NAME="President">
As the author is not present, Question No 14 lapses.
<P>
Question No 15 by Wayne David (H-0756/98)
<P>
Subject: Human rights in Iraq
<P>
Is the Council aware that the Muslim spiritual leader, Al-Shaik Mohammed Al-Ghorawi and three of his aides were killed in Najaf, Iraq on 18 June, possibly by Saddam Hussein's agents.
<P>
What pressure is the Council bringing to bear on the Iraqi regime in order to end abuses of human rights of this kind?
I give the floor to the President-in-Office to answer Mr David's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr David, the Council is deeply concerned about the massive and systematic violation of human rights in Iraq.
However, the fact that Iraq is under a severe UN sanctions regime, and the very limited EU diplomatic presence in Baghdad, limits the Union's possibilities for monitoring and taking steps in reaction to specific cases of human rights violations in Iraq.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="David">
I thank the President-in-Office for her reply.
I am encouraged to hear of the Council's concern over the situation in Iraq and in particular the death of these four clerics.
I should like to emphasise the gravity of the situation.
Bad as these four murders are, there is a strong suspicion that Saddam Hussein's government is seeking to eliminate the entire leadership of the Shiite Muslims in that country.
This is completely intolerable.
I would urge the Council in the strongest possible terms to do whatever it can to make sure there is at least some modicum of respect for human rights in Iraq.
I therefore call on the President-in-Office, as a matter of urgency, to make sure that all efforts are made to put the greatest possible pressure on the regime in Iraq to improve the situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr David, let me reply as follows. In its resolution submitted at the 54th meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission in March/April 1998, the European Union set out its position on the situation in Iraq and condemned the widespread and systematic violation of human rights and the use of terrorist measures.
The Union will do the same in a resolution to be submitted at the next UN General Assembly and will once again urgently call on Iraq to cooperate with the UN human rights agencies, and in particular with Mr Max van der Stoel, the special rapporteur for Iraq, whose mandate was extended for another year at the 54th meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission.
<P>
Unfortunately the European Union's presence in sovereign Iraqi territory is extremely limited, which makes it impossible for the EU to denounce the human rights violations by Saddam Hussein's regime and effectively monitor the respect for human rights.
But the presidency will not fail to seek detailed information about the case you have raised here and will then discuss this question again with the UN General Assembly and with Mr van der Stoel.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 NAME="President">
Question No 16 by José Apolinário (H-0758/98)
<P>
Subject: Political situation in East Timor
<P>
In view of the latest developments concerning East Timor, and, in particular, the positions taken by the Council, can the Presidency state what initiatives it intends to take over the political situation in East Timor?
I give the floor to the President-in-Office to answer Mr Apolinário's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Apolinário, in pursuance of the objectives set out in its common position of 25 June 1996, the European Union continues to support the initiatives undertaken in the UN framework; these may contribute to resolving the question of East Timor through a fair, comprehensive and internationally acceptable solution which fully respects the rights of the East Timorese people, in accordance with the relevant resolutions of the UN General Assembly and in conformity with the principles enshrined in the UN Charter.
<P>
The European Union sent a troika mission to East Timor, which was there from 26 to 30 June.
Following a Council decision, the troika mission report was published on 24 July.
The main outcome of this mission is as follows. Firstly, according to its members, any long-term solution to the East Timor issue must respect the wishes of the East Timorese people.
<P>
Secondly, a dialogue should be opened without delay, which should include the representatives of the East Timorese people.
Thirdly, all partners must show flexibility in the negotiations.
Fourthly, visible confidence-building measures should be implemented immediately.
<P>
Let me also emphasise that the all-inclusive intra-Timorese dialogue has now been held three times, with Austria acting as host on all three occasions.
The next round of talks is scheduled for October, again in Austria.
On 3 and 4 August, tripartite talks were held in New York between the UN Secretary-General and the foreign ministers of Indonesia and Portugal. The European Union noted the results with satisfaction.
These include closer involvement of the East Timorese people in the search for a solution.
The members of the troika mission also supported this.
<P>
I believe it is enormously important that we make further progress in confidence building among the various East Timorese groups, and I believe that in future we must play an even greater role in seeking a satisfactory solution acceptable to all parties.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Apolinário">
Mr President, I would like to begin by acknowledging and thanking the Austrian Presidency for its comprehensive, exhaustive and diligent answer to my question; I would also like to emphasise that, since Austria hosted the Timorese discussions, we naturally have the highest expectations as regards the Austrian Presidency's endeavours concerning East Timor and would urge it to pursue an active policy in order to advance the situation there.
<P>
I should also like to raise the matter of the steps the presidency intends to taken in the light of Parliament's insistence on the unconditional release of all political prisoners, particularly Xanana Gusmão, and given that, in the context of relations between the European Union and the ASEAN countries, it is becoming necessary and desirable to enhance the protection of human rights and respect for fundamental freedoms and, finally, to secure the right of the Timorese people to self-determination through consultation.
<P>
I would like to acknowledge the presidency's response and restate my confidence that the Austrian Presidency will persevere with the efforts begun by the Austrian Government in hosting and promoting intra-Timorese dialogue, thereby contributing to the advancement of this issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Apolinário, thank you for your words of encouragement.
Let me add a few comments.
On 22 July, shortly before the summer recess, I myself spoke with Ramos Horta in Lisbon; he told me he was prepared to support the proposed autonomy provided this was only an interim solution, and that a referendum would be held on East Timor's final status in a few years' time.
<P>
Let me also say a few words about the matter of the prisoners that has been raised.
We too are monitoring the health of the prisoners being held in Dili jail with great concern.
Last week this matter was discussed in the Asia-Oceania working party.
The presidency's representative in Djakarta is in constant contact with the Red Cross, which keeps him up to date on the health of all the prisoners on hunger strike.
He has also urged the Indonesian authorities to provide the necessary medicines and medical care.
According to the Austrian embassy in Djakarta, which represents the presidency, a doctor visits the hunger strikers regularly and has confirmed that the health situation is under control.
<P>
On Xanana Gusmão, let me point out that of course the question of the prisoners and the release of Xanana Gusmão was also raised during the talks with Ramos Horta, but clearly there will have to be further talks under the aegis of the United Nations in New York.
As you know, a few of the East Timorese who took refuge in the Austrian embassy in Djakarta are still there.
Here too, we are seeking a solution acceptable both to the East Timorese and to the two conflicting parties.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Madam President-in-Office, I have two quite specific questions.
The first concerns the proposal to demilitarise East Timor that keeps coming up in the discussions.
The second concerns the emergence of new parties in Indonesia, where a new phenomenon is arising, namely that some of them are Islamist.
We know that East Timor has a largely Christian population.
There are fears that this could create tensions, and I wish to ask whether it might not be possible to involve the newly emerging parties in Indonesia in the democracy programmes on a partnership basis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Posselt, on the first question, demilitarisation, I can tell you that the talks held under the aegis of the United Nations in New York are quite certainly aimed at the withdrawal of the Indonesian troops so that the first stage of demilitarisation can commence.
The freedom fighters are pursuing the same end.
<P>
On the question of political parties, all I can say is that the Austrian Presidency is seeking to invite as many future parties as possible to the dialogue in East Timor in an attempt to move forward here too, as there is little chance of a future peaceful settlement without political parties.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 NAME="President">
As the author is not present, Question No 17 lapses.
<P>
Question No 18 by Jan Andersson (H-0765/98)
<P>
Subject: Structural aid to larger countries
<P>
Aid to particularly deprived areas of major cities is a completely new feature of European structural policy.
The application of the rules on aid to urban areas contained in the Commission's proposal for a programme for cities in the European Union is, therefore, a somewhat inappropriate instrument in countries with a small, sparsely distributed population since the rules are geared to regions and not parts of cities.
The Commission should, therefore, exempt certain areas with low population density from the nominal criterion of 100 000 inhabitants.
<P>
What action does the Council intend to take on this matter to avoid the somewhat inconsistent treatment ensuing from the present proposal?
I give the floor to the President-in-Office to answer Mr Andersson's question, which will be the last in this Question Time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, the Commission has submitted no proposal to the Council for a programme for cities in the European Union.
As the honourable Member is aware, certain general Community aid measures are provided for cities of more than 100 000 inhabitants under the URBAN Community initiative for the period 1994 to 1999.
By its nature, this initiative falls solely within the remit of the Commission.
<P>
Furthermore, on 18 March 1998 the Commission submitted a proposal for a Council regulation laying down general structural fund provisions, which include structural aids for deprived urban areas.
The Council has not yet completed its examination of this proposal.
Nor has it determined the selection criteria for deprived urban areas. So the Council is unable to answer the honourable Member's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Andersson">
I am grateful to the Council for its answer.
I can appreciate that it has not yet adopted its position, but I would nevertheless like to draw attention to a problem arising from the proposal submitted by the Commission.
<P>
I can point to my own country, Sweden, as an example - although the problem undoubtedly also arises in Austria and several other countries - since only two per cent of the population can benefit from this aid, which in my country means 185 000 people.
We have no areas with 100 000 inhabitants, but some with perhaps between 30 000 and 50 000 inhabitants which are fictitiously depicted as having 100 000.
In my country, this means that just one area is likely to be able to receive assistance, so that very little of this aid can be put to use.
I therefore hope that you will bear this in mind when considering this matter in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Andersson, all I can say is this. There are two articles that provide for exemptions regarding the size of the target area.
Article 9 provides that, in exceptional cases, urban areas in fairly small cities - i.e. cities with fewer than 100 000 inhabitants - can also be included.
Article 10 of that European Commission communication defines this rule more precisely and provides that, in duly justified cases, support can also be given for actions in small and mediumsized cities suffering from general economic decline.
So this means that smaller cities can also be supported under the URBAN programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Ferrero-Waldner.
<P>
Since the time allotted for Question Time has now come to an end, Questions Nos 19 to 43 will receive written answers.
<P>
I should like to thank the President-in-Office of the Council once again for attending, and for the high quality of her answers.
<P>
That concludes Question Time.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 7.05 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Associated companies (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=246 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report (A4-0299/98) by Mr Secchi, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Directive on a common system of taxation applicable to interest and royalty payments made between associated companies of different Member States (COM(98)0067 - C4-0195/98-98/0087(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cardona">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I have closely examined Mr Secchi's report, together with the opinions and the Council directive on a common system of taxation applicable to interest and royalty payments made between associated companies of different Member States.
<P>
The first point I would like to make is that it seems to me that we should be discussing this directive in conjunction with another draft directive relating to savings in general, about which we have already been informed but which has not yet been submitted to the European Parliament.
I therefore feel that attention should be drawn to a certain inadequacy in the coordination and discussion of such important matters as income tax harmonisation.
<P>
We could, indeed perhaps should, have drawn up a multilateral agreement on harmonisation which the different countries could have used as a basis for bilaterally regulating their interests in the area of investments, economic affairs and taxation.
However, an alternative approach was adopted and I should certainly say a few words about that too.
<P>
The directive still contains a number of discrepancies regarding particular definitions, such as the concept of the establishment of a company for tax purposes.
As we all know, traditionally the location of the registered office or effective administration has been the relevant factor in international tax relations.
Here, a different criterion has been adopted.
The concept of interest, for example, and that of permanent establishment will no doubt give rise to a number of problems, particularly between those Member States which enter into agreements to eliminate double taxation of income.
In my view, this topic needs to be examined in greater detail.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=248 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, the question which is before us for discussion here is certainly a difficult one, and one and a half minutes is really only long enough to examine one aspect of it.
I think that the point about reducing VAT on labourintensive jobs is the most far-reaching.
Here, of course, the extremely difficult question of delimitation arises.
If we include broad areas, it undoubtedly leads to endless debate.
We would have to establish very clear social and ecological criteria, including first and foremost the employment requirement, and we would have to define a limited list on which to negotiate.
Basic principles, then, will enable us to make headway along the right lines.
There is a willingness to tackle this issue, and individual Member States have generally had very positive experiences here.
If the Commission were able to make progress along these lines, then we could actually achieve political success in this otherwise very technical sector.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pomés Ruiz">
Mr President, we are beginning to make progress with the agreement to monitor fiscal differences, which are so counterproductive for the economic future of the single market.
I welcome this first directive, which sets us on the path we need to take, and my only comment is on the timetable for its development.
<P>
I think that this report by my colleague Mr Secchi, whom we should thank for his work, should give a certain impetus and specify dates and undertakings.
Progress on fiscal matters may have to be made 'slowly but surely', as we say in Spain, but we should not allow the fact that the directive is to be revised in three years' time to create doubt as to whether what we approve will also apply to other companies.
<P>
I think that we should consider a three-year period long enough, and we should announce now that this measure that is being established today for associated companies will definitely be applied to all companies.
This would prevent associations from relocating and would give legal security to this process, which is what I think it needs most.
Fiscal harmonization requires maximum political support - which this Parliament is giving - and maximum legal security.
<P>
Congratulations Commissioner Monti, my dear colleague.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ettl">
<SPEAKER ID=251 NAME="Monti">
I should like to begin by thanking Mr Secchi not only for his excellent report on the proposed directive on interest and royalty payments, but also more generally for the guidance and support on taxation matters which he provides in this House.
I should like furthermore to thank the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and, indeed, Parliament as a whole for your support for the Commission's initiatives. Your speed of response is tangible evidence of your supportive attitude.
<P>
As you know, this proposal is one of three measures contained in a package adopted last December by the Ecofin Council, and I shall say a few words at the end on the state of play concerning the other two measures.
Like you, I too regard this instrument of Community law relating to interest and royalty payments as very important because, at present, neither unilateral measures introduced by the Member States nor bilateral agreements outlawing double taxation have succeeded in eliminating completely the phenomenon of double taxation on such payments.
I am delighted that the honourable Members are supporting this proposal.
<P>
I have taken careful note of the amendments put forward by Mr Secchi and, in particular, Amendments Nos 1 and 2 stressing the importance of the directive for SMEs and the advisability of extending the scope of the directive to non-associated companies in the future.
The Commission shares the spirit of these two amendments, Mr Secchi, and will endeavour to ensure that it is reflected in the wording adopted by the Council.
<P>
The other amendments from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, Nos 3 to 6, stress that the approach designed to produce a package of measures should not be used as a means of destroying the various elements making up that package.
These amendments also seek to restrict the Member States' autonomy to deny companies the benefit of this directive, and to ensure that this proposal is in keeping with the Code of Conduct and the other elements of the taxation package.
The Commission endorses the thinking behind Amendments Nos 3 to 6.
<P>
The Commission nevertheless thinks that it would be inopportune to accept them at the moment and in their current form.
Indeed, the proposal for a directive was submitted in its present form after much thought, with the intention of balancing the interests of the various Member States: those wishing the directive to apply to all types of companies and those standing to lose a considerable amount of tax revenue following the abolition of withholding tax; those wishing this directive to be closely linked with the other elements of the package and those wishing it to be taken in isolation.
You will appreciate that, in an area still governed by the rule of unanimity, it is not easy to find an ideal solution.
In any event, the amendments have been carefully noted and will all be taken into account during discussion in the Council, once the Member States' positions have become clearer.
The same applies to Amendments Nos 7 to 9 from Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer, Mrs Hautala and Mr Wolf.
As to Amendment No 10, I agree with Mr Secchi that it would be inadvisable to delay the entry into force of the directive.
<P>
Once again, Mr President, I am extremely grateful to the Members of this House for their assistance. I shall conclude with a few words concerning recent developments on the other two measures included in the taxation package, because we are all convinced of the need to preserve a close linkage - both logical and political - between these measures.
<P>
With regard to the Code of Conduct, all the Member States have emphasised their commitment to the principles of the Code drawn up last December, and have agreed a work programme and timetable ensuring that an initial report will reach the Ecofin Council by next December.
In order to conduct an initial assessment of the measures relating to inter-group services, financial services and off-shore companies, two sub-groups have been established under the Code of Conduct Group, which is, as you know, chaired by Mr Primarolo. One sub-group is likewise chaired by the Minister, Mr Primarolo, the other by Dr Noltz.
Several meetings of these sub-groups and the main group are scheduled for the autumn.
<P>
The proposal to ensure a minimum of effective taxation on income from savings is currently before the European Parliament.
The rapporteur has been appointed, and I am confident that this House will see fit to express its opinion within a few months.
In general terms, the Commission is to report on progress made with the various elements of the package in time for the Ecofin Council on 1 December 1998.
<P>
We therefore have a ship that is not easy to steer, charting an ambitious course.
We are all convinced that its route will be followed with the greatest attention.
There will be no lack of opportunities to report back to this House, but let me take this opportunity to thank Parliament once again for its support on this difficult voyage which is in all of our interests.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=253 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, you will see in the gallery a group of young Italians who have won a competition organised by the Italian organisation 'Movimento per la vita' to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I welcome these young people to the European Parliament.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Common system of VAT - Products subject to excise duty
<SPEAKER ID=254 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0084/98 by Mr Langen, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 77/388/EEC on the common system of Value Added Tax (the Value Added Tax Committee) (COM(97)0325 - C4-0365/97-97/0186(CNS)); -A4-0064/98 by Mr Miller, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 92/12/EEC on the general arrangements for products subject to excise duty and on the holding, movement and monitoring of such products (COM(97)0326 - C4-0394/97-97/0181(CNS)).
<SPEAKER ID=255 NAME="Langen">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Professor Monti has just explained that tax policy in Europe is an example of how not to take the easy way out.
The matter we are dealing with here today - amending the VAT directive - also falls into this category.
This subject has been on our agenda once before, in March, and at that time we postponed the report because the Council had failed to reach unanimity.
We decided by agreement with Commissioner Monti to allow more room for manoeuvre so that a majority could be obtained in favour of an amended proposal, even if this were under the new Austrian Presidency.
In March this majority could not be obtained.
Professor Monti has now worked out a compromise proposal, which is going to be dealt with on 12 October at the ECOFIN Meeting.
It is not the full proposal from March, but an amended one, which should at least make a Commission committee responsible for dealing with the main problems arising from cross-border treatment of VAT issues.
<P>
Professor Monti, Parliament welcomes the fact that there has been progress.
I would particularly like to thank you on behalf of all my colleagues here, because you belong to that group of Commissioners who set such a good example in fostering cooperation with Parliament.
You are always telling us about the Commission's latest initiatives, you involve us.
Although we unfortunately only have the right to be consulted and unanimity in the Council is required for tax harmonisation, I would nevertheless like to emphasise our gratitude - the Parliament compliments you for your exemplary attitude.
When we need to criticise, then of course we do so - but in this case we can only praise.
<P>
The Member States have been very selfish in this field, which is why we have not been able to reach agreement hitherto.
But I believe that, once we have a single European currency, the Member States will be no longer be able to maintain their delaying tactics on harmonisation of VAT and other excise duties (Mr Miller's report follows a similar line to my own).
The single currency is a fact.
It will come into force on 1 January 1999 and by 1 July 2002 at the latest it will be the only currency, the only means of payment in the participating countries.
If we have not resolved the interpretation question by then, we should not be surprised at the huge extent of VAT and excise duty fraud in Europe.
<P>
According to recent estimates from the European Court of Auditors, the volume of fraud is now on a par with the European Union budget.
The President of the Court of Auditors, during a hearing of the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs four months ago, estimated the amount at about DM 150 billion - the sum total of the European budget.
If we fail to resolve these issues, we no longer deserve to be taken seriously in the fight against fraud.
<P>
Professor Monti has proposed that the existing VAT Committee, which up to now has had only an advisory capacity and could only present and discuss proposals, should in future have regulatory powers on matters of interpretation.
<P>
In Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs there was widespread support for this proposal.
I also believe that the fact that it is part of the overall Commission programme shows that we are thinking along the right lines.
<P>
Up to now the VAT Committee could only recommend non-compulsory guidelines, but in future, at least in the implementing provisions, it is to have wider powers to prevent double taxation and, conversely, to prevent non-taxation, in other words to excluding possible ways of legally avoiding tax.
<P>
I must admit that the Member States are being very reluctant about this.
The Federal Republic of Germany has said, with reference to Article 99 of the Treaty on European Union and Article 23(2) to (5) of the German Basic Law, that the unanimity principle could be circumvented and the co-decision powers of the German Bundesrat no longer observed.
I consider that to be a superficial argument, because all the fundamental decisions will in future still have to be taken by a unanimous vote in the ECOFIN Council.
<P>
Professor, we have tabled two amendments.
If this Committee is to have greater powers, then we would like the Commission to draw up annual reports on its work.
Furthermore, we would like to see the administrative and legal provisions transposed by 1 January 1999, in other words when the single European currency comes into force.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=256 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Miller">
Mr President, I agree with a lot of what my colleague, Mr Langen, has said tonight, and he has covered a lot of the ground I was going to touch upon.
As Members will remember, we had to take this item off the agenda in March to allow the Commission and the Council more room to manoeuvre.
I understand that, as Mr Langen has pointed out, there is a compromise position going to the ECOFIN Council in October.
It might not have been 'the Full Monty' that we would ask for in the UK but at least it is something.
<P>
Turning to the report on excise duty which is in front of us, one of the problems that a report like this highlights is that much of the decision-making within the EU is surrounded by secrecy, which, I am sure, a lot of citizens are very worried about.
<P>
At the moment there are about 43 comitology committees dealing with indirect taxation.
To me, that is 43 too many.
We have to accept that they are there, but what we have to do is make them far more open and transparent.
That is why I and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy have submitted a number of amendments.
<P>
I shall begin by going through the amendments.
The first one I found to be somewhat ironic.
It corrects a statement made in the directive.
The directive states that: 'it should be borne in mind that the finishing line for Community harmonisation of excise duty was crossed only a few months before the entry into force of the single market.'
I do not know who wrote that or whether that person had actually been sampling some of the products of excise duty prior to writing it.
But if you go to places like Dover or Malmö and see the goods that have been brought in from other areas, you realise that there is no harmonisation within the field of excise duty.
For somebody to write that the finishing line has been crossed is a total falsehood.
Obviously we have to correct that. I was gentle on him; instead of putting 'finishing line' I just said we have crossed a 'starting line' , because I realise that Commissioner Monti is moving towards harmonisation in the field of indirect taxation, and I wish him all the best.
<P>
The other amendment I have tabled concerns the Plumb/Delors agreement, which, if my memory serves me right, was six or seven years ago.
It was an initial agreement in an exchange of letters between the President of the Commission at that time, Jaques Delors, and the President of Parliament, Lord Plumb.
That was supposed to have been implemented in order to highlight and open up the whole question of these comitology committees.
It has never been implemented fully.
We are asking the Commission to go back and look it.
We are not asking to have power over the committees, we just want to have a look at the work they are doing.
<P>
The third amendment by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy concerns the computerised monitoring system.
We ask for that to be introduced when the computerised monitoring system for Community transit comes into place.
Again, a technical amendment, which I would have thought very acceptable to both the Commission and business.
<P>
We would also be prepared to accept the fourth amendment by Mr des Places.
It does not say a lot but in effect it says that the administration procedure should be improved, and nobody really could argue against that.
<P>
I wish to finish on the plea that these comitology committees are operating in secret. We are not doing anything to remedy this.
We ask the Commission to please let us have more information, so that the public in the EU can see what it is doing.
Maybe that will dispel some of the mistrust that surrounds us today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=257 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Thyssen">
Mr President, the Commission's proposal to change the status of the VAT Committee from an advisory to a regulatory committee and the two amendments in the Langen report certainly represent progress.
The current transitional system of VAT has done a great deal to help the development of the single market, but administrative procedures in the Member States and the different interpretations they have given to the basic directives affect the operation of the single market and the legal certainty that should be guaranteed.
<P>
Until there is a uniform interpretation and the VAT rules are applied uniformly the neutrality of the VAT system cannot really be guaranteed and we shall continue to have a problem.
The discrepancies in the way the legislation is applied in practice undoubtedly have something do so with the Commission's lack of executive power.
The proposal to give the Commission the executive power it needs and to make the VAT Committee a regulatory committee will put both in a stronger position and should certainly mean that the implementation of the VAT regulations is brought into line in all Member States.
<P>
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy was right to agree to this, but of course we also need to ensure that we in the House can continue in our role as political watchdog over the executive arm, which is why the amendment proposing an annual report from the VAT Committee deserves support from all groups.
We shall certainly be voting for it.
Thank you, Mr President, and my congratulations to the rapporteur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=258 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gasòliba i Böhm">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by supporting the speech I have just heard from Mrs Thyssen, which highlights two important aspects.
One is that unfortunately for years we have been using a provisional scheme for applying Value Added Tax, not for want of hard work and effort from the Commissioner responsible for the matter, Mr Monti, but because, as you know, in order to arrive at a definitive VAT system we need unanimity between the Member States, and this is unfortunately not possible.
<P>
We therefore welcome and approve the proposals to amend the relevant directives that we are examining this evening in these two reports on taxation. We support the main points proposed by the Commission and especially those aspects which refer to making progress, although in our opinion, and I suppose also in Commissioner Monti's opinion, the rate is too slow.
However, we have to continue to make these efforts if we are to arrive at a system which we hope will be definitive.
<P>
I would particularly like to highlight one of the proposals put forward, because I feel it is especially relevant for the sector of business which is most important for economic development and employment in the European Union: small and mediumsized undertakings.
We understand that under the Commission's proposal, the regulatory powers given to the committee - as highlighted by Mrs Thyssen - and the scope which this would then give the Commission itself, would obviously improve the way things work, simplifying the system, giving more security to all businesses and especially offering a greater guarantee for small and medium-sized firms, which form the basis of Europe's economy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=259 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Crowley">
Mr President, I should also like to welcome the comments from the Commissioner and, in particular, from the two rapporteurs.
The points that they touch on are very important.
<P>
The sixth VAT Directive, which was originally designed to allow the abolition of tax frontiers and the creation of a common tax system, is a very important political message, particularly now when we speak about a market of 340 million people.
It is essential that we simplify and modify the VAT collection system to guarantee that success.
However, as those speakers have mentioned, very little progress has been made on this, partially because of the unanimity requirement under Article 99 but also because of a lack of action on behalf of the Commission and other institutions to force out the boat with regard to giving proper representation to the true ideals of the single market.
<P>
Members have mentioned the question of comitology.
Last night in Parliament we had a discussion with Commissioner Oreja on comitology, the proposal coming from the Commission.
I highlighted to him last night, in the context of our discussion on Mr Miller's report tonight, that when the issue of abolition of duty- and tax-free sales arose an excise question arose, namely where excise would be paid on sales etc.
<P>
The Commission, instead of submitting a proposal to Parliament and discussing with Parliament how to overcome this problem, referred the matter to the quango of unelected, unrepresentative officials from Member State governments, to make a decision in secret and not refer it back to Parliament.
What we are looking for is more consultation, more interaction.
The euro coming into operation provides an opportunity to simplify the bureaucratic procedures.
<P>
Finally, as my Liberal colleague said, we need to have a differential VAT regime to allow for employment creation and employment growth, in particular for small and medium-sized enterprises.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=260 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, I should like to start by apologising, as I have just opened up the wrong file in my head.
I have a belated comment to make on the Secchi report.
This is rather unusual, I know, but it is a practical point.
We tabled our amendments because we do not want the necessary changes that Mr Secchi has suggested to lead to new opportunities for tax evasion and tax avoidance being created.
We would like the Member States themselves and Community legislation to take steps to ensure this does not happen.
<P>
Moving on to the issue of the VAT system, I have already made some comments on this.
What has basically happened - and here for once I really am of the same opinion as Mr Langen - is that the single currency has made the Member States prisoners of their own selfishness. If there is a way to break out of the prison then it is through binding Community regulations.
For that reason the Green Party also welcomes the regulatory powers that are being envisaged for the VAT Committee.
Like Mr Langen, we also believe that the report to the European Parliament, which will provide transparency and also facilitate dialogue, constitutes a type of precondition. We agree, too, that the provisions must be transposed by 1 January 1999 if the system as a whole is to be efficient.
<P>
We also regard Mr Miller's comments as useful.
We need to look at comitology once again, going back to its origins in the Plumb/Delors Agreement, and we need to be sure that we are indeed creating a logical and coherent system, one that guarantees transparency and efficiency.
That, however, is another matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=261 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Garosci">
Mr President, we are discussing the proposals for Council directives amending the Community's taxation system.
In such a fast-changing world as that of the new market which is taking shape, as little as five years can render a directive obsolete, causing it to need updating in the light of a Community framework that is constantly moving closer to companies - especially small ones - on the one hand and, on the other, to consumers.
The current difficulties and limitations of the system of excise duty and VAT, necessarily geared towards harmonisation among the Member States, must be overcome so that a real single market can be launched.
The advent of the euro should accelerate fiscal harmonisation.
<P>
To this end - as rightly recalled by Mr Langen in his report, for which we thank him - it is essential to ensure neutrality of taxation and to eliminate the remaining obstacles to the free movement of goods and services between Member States.
The fiscal requirements of certain economic and social sectors, especially in respect of VAT, must be taken into account and paid greater attention in this and the forthcoming proposals for directives.
I am thinking here of the non-profit and voluntary sectors as well as, in the production sector, the hotel and restaurant trade, and, finally, in the tertiary sector, commerce and tourism above all.
<P>
A more efficient VAT system, not to pay fewer taxes but to pay them more effectively, should ultimately help these sectors to create growth and investment, and hence new jobs. After all, unemployment regrettably remains the European Union's number one problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=262 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pomés Ruiz">
Mr President, Commissioner, all of the groups in this Parliament are unanimous in criticising how slowly the VAT process is moving.
What could we do in order to move a little more quickly?
Would we be able to explain to society just how much the inefficiency of not having fiscal neutrality costs?
<P>
Perhaps we should mention those countries which, instead of thinking about the justice and fairness of the system, are thinking about how much more or less they would collect depending on the form of the Commission's proposals?
<P>
You are right, Commissioner Monti, to appreciate the political impetus which this unanimity between the groups gives Parliament.
And you should also take advantage of the impetus, the élan vital that is going to permeate so many areas of the economic life of the European Union once we have the euro, in order to try and speed this process up a little.
<P>
Once you have identified which countries do not want to overcome the cost of inefficiency, then, Commissioner, you will have - as you know - the complete support of this Parliament.
<P>
I think that we need to find a way to encourage the Council to see that adopting the definitive VAT system involves more than just calculating exactly what each Member State collects, and to bear in mind that the Member States have a lot to gain from the establishment of a definitive system.
<P>
I think that, in this era of the euro, if the single market is to be efficient, VAT needs to have a definitive procedure.
We will all support it, Commissioner.
<P>
I would like to thank the rapporteurs for the other reports that they have drawn up, and to encourage them, because we need to adopt a different tack if we are to speed up this inefficient process, the cost of which, I would suggest, Commissioner, should be assessed quantitively.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=263 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, it is doubtless a wonderful advertisement for the closer integration of Parliament into the law-making process when we do not only discuss abstract political subjects here in the plenary, but also talk about actual examples of implementation.
This morning, for example, we talked generally about comitology and debated the need for this House to be included in the process of formulating objectives, and now with the Miller report from the Committee on Excise Duties, we have the possibility of putting this into practice.
This Committee is a very important instrument.
It has more than an advisory role, it also ensures the uniform interpretation and application of provisions on excise duty.
<P>
Our concern is with preserving transparency and the rules of democracy, particularly because Parliament deals with common legislation.
We need to know about developments in the various committees and we have to implement parliamentary guidelines.
This also applies to the Committee on Excise Duties.
In this respect, then, I find the proposal from DirectorateGeneral XXI that the Committee should not apply certain procedures in Directive 97/12 and particularly Article 7 interesting.
That would automatically mean amending the law without involving Parliament.
<P>
That is why I would ask the Commissioner how this proposal ties in with the general wish for Parliament to have more say and with the policy being pursued by the Commission in its reform of comitology?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=264 NAME="Monti">
I should like to begin by thanking the rapporteurs, Mr Langen and Mr Miller, and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy for the support which they are giving, through these reports and resolutions, to the Commission's general aim of applying the legislation on VAT and excise duty in a more uniform manner.
I am particularly pleased that the draft resolution calls on the Council to notify Parliament, should it intend to depart from the Commission proposal.
In this respect and in general terms, I deplore the fact that the existing legal base does not allow for greater intervention in matters of such importance for the functioning of the single market.
<P>
As concerns the report by Mr Langen, whom I thank for his kindness, the purpose of this proposed directive is that the Council should confer on the Commission the power to adopt implementing rules in the field of VAT.
The Commission will be assisted in this specific task by the VAT Committee, which needs to be endowed with regulatory powers to this end.
The procedure envisaged for the committee is that of Article 2(III)(a) of Council Decision 87/373/EEC, the so-called 'comitology' decision.
<P>
The proposal is a response to the demands put forward unanimously by all economic sectors.
Indeed, operators wishing to transact business in other Member States find themselves facing difficulties caused by divergent application of Community legislation on VAT.
This prevents them from enjoying all the potentially considerable advantages of the single market.
In other words, operators find themselves without legal certainty and, often, exposed to the risk of double taxation.
This is one of the unnecessary costs which our operators have to bear when carrying out commercial activity in another Member State.
<P>
For some operators, especially those whose turnover is on the small side - and, as has been recalled, future economic growth and employment in Europe depends very much on these firms - the lack of uniform application of Community rules on VAT is an insurmountable barrier to the European market.
Such barriers can and must be removed.
The remedy consists in adopting the right measures to ensure uniform application of the Community rules on VAT throughout the European Union.
The proposed procedure allows the Commission, together with the VAT Committee, to address and overcome these difficulties.
<P>
The Commission welcomes Parliament's favourable response, as demonstrated by Mr Langen's report.
I fully share the spirit of the amendments tabled, and it is for purely formal reasons that I am obliged to reject them.
The Commission acknowledges Parliament's desire to be informed about the work of the committees assisting it; this aspect, however, is dealt with in a Commission proposal relating to a new decision of the committee.
<P>
In relation to the matter in hand, the proposal makes it possible, by way of an across-the-board approach, to avoid specific predictions in the individual legislative measures.
<P>
With regard to the second amendment, I fully agree that the date appearing in the proposal is unrealistic, in that it has already elapsed.
I am nevertheless rather uncomfortable about replacing it with 1 January 1999.
That would in fact mean that we are very optimistic concerning the timetable for adoption and implementation.
Given that the proposed new procedure does not require transposition by the Member States, the Commission would prefer to remain free to set a new date once the proposal is on the point of being adopted by the Council.
To conclude on the Langen report, allow me to thank you once again for your valuable support which, I believe, will enhance the likelihood of early adoption by the Council.
<P>
I should now like to touch briefly on the report drawn up by Mr Miller - to whom I am also most grateful - on the proposal for a directive, presented by the Commission in July of last year, seeking to expand the regulatory powers of the Commission, assisted by the Committee on Excise Duties, in respect of the implementing rules for the Community provisions on excise duty.
This proposal became necessary because, once the (limited) existing regulatory powers have been exhausted, all the Commission and the committee can do to tackle new problems is to exercise their advisory role.
<P>
The major challenge of combating fraud and contraband calls for joint action by national administrations, for which common rules are indispensable.
Furthermore, the legitimate expectations of operators to be able to enjoy, here too, all the advantages of a single market are sometimes hampered in practice by the burden of bureaucracy which varies from one Member State to another.
There are, therefore, two reasons to call for increased regulatory powers.
<P>
So much for the proposed directive in general.
Turning now to the content of the report by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, the Commission has to express some reservations concerning Amendment No 2, adding two new sub-paragraphs to Article 24(2).
The first of these additions basically seeks to confer legal status on the informal agreement of 1988 on transparency in the activities of committees, known as the Plumb/Delors accord; the second aims to implement the Commission decision setting up the Advisory Committee on Customs and Indirect Taxation.
<P>
As far as the first addition is concerned, I would point out that last June the Commission submitted a proposal for a decision to the Council, amending Decision 87/373/EEC which governs the activities of committees.
This proposal stipulates in particular that the European Parliament should be informed on a regular basis about the work of committees.
It will accordingly receive meeting agendas, draft regulations and the results of votes.
It will also be kept informed of all measures, or draft measures, sent by the Commission to the Council for adoption.
For this reason, a reference to the Plumb/Delors accord within the directive would appear superfluous.
<P>
Concerning the other matter, the Advisory Committee on Customs and Indirect Taxation is already operational.
Nevertheless, the Commission would prefer not to mention this committee in the proposal for a directive now before us, the purpose of which is to increase regulatory powers in respect of excise duty.
The joint Committee on Customs and Indirect Taxation, by contrast, is a purely advisory committee.
<P>
Finally, the Commission agrees in principle with the last amendment.
Computerisation of excise duty monitoring is one of the Commission's priorities in this sector.
Certain initiatives have already been taken to this end, on the basis of existing provisions, namely Articles 18 and 19 of Directive 92/12/EEC, and under the Fiscalis programme.
In this context the Commission has issued a call for tenders for a feasibility study to be carried out next year.
I would however point out that the establishment of a computerised system is not the responsibility of the Commission: excise duties, unlike customs duties, are national resources, and consequently subject to supervision by the Member States.
In other words, the Commission cannot conduct monitoring instead of the Member States, nor can it fully fund such a computerisation project.
<P>
I would conclude by thanking the European Parliament once again for its support, on which we are counting for the negotiations.
There are so many linkages between the different taxation initiatives under review this evening, Mr Wolf, that I can well understand how easy it is to confuse them.
I would also recall that, over and above the individual technical aspects of the efforts which - with Parliament's support - we are making to better coordinate taxation, the ultimate object of the exercise is growth and, in particular, employment.
Without improved coordination of taxation it will be extremely difficult to create new jobs in Europe, especially for young people, who are so much in need of these job opportunities.
Young people, then, are our main concern, and how well represented they are in this House this evening. If I may, Mr President, I should like to add my voice to yours, and on behalf of the Commission welcome the large group of youngsters here this evening.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=265 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The votes will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=13>
Tax harmonisation
<SPEAKER ID=266 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0252/98) by Mr Castagnède, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the report from the Commission to the Council and to the European Parliament in accordance with Article 12(4) of the Sixth Council Directive of 17 May 1977 on the harmonisation of the laws of the Member States relating to turnover taxes - Common system of Value Added Tax: uniform basis of assessment (COM(97)0559 - C4-0119/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=267 NAME="Castagnède">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, contrary to what the ambiguous title may lead us to believe, the report we will be debating today deals with the harmonisation of VAT rates in Europe and, more specifically, with areas eligible for reduced VAT.
<P>
As you know, current Community legislation on harmonising VAT rates provides for a minimum standard rate of 15 %.
It also authorises Member States to apply one or two reduced rates which may not be lower than 5 % and which may apply solely to the provision of goods and services described in the categories referred to in Annex H to the Sixth VAT Directive.
<P>
Every two years, the Council reviews the scope of reduced rates on the basis of a report from the Commission.
The last report, drawn up in 1997, has been submitted to us for consideration.
Before getting to the essence of the report, we would like to highlight the importance of Parliament's role in this matter, which is in effect to give its consent to tax in a field which is already widely communitised.
Also, given that we are discussing VAT rates within the EU, Parliament should properly fulfil its role as representative of the EU's citizens.
<P>
Having analysed the current situation with the reduced rates, the Commission has confirmed that there are indeed considerable disparities. Only one country, Denmark, does not apply any reduced rates.
Four countries apply two reduced rates but many states which are meant to apply only one rate do in fact apply several special derogation rates such as zero rates, superreduced rates and the so-called parking rates, as they are allowed to do during the transitional period.
<P>
The Commission does not believe that the current disparity between rates causes significant harm to competition, even if certain distortions to trade have been observed.
The Commission is also not in favour of changing the list of goods and services eligible for reduced rates.
<P>
For our part, we strongly believe that the current situation of reduced VAT rates within the EU is unsatisfactory.
It is not in accordance with the demands of the single currency in the single market, nor with the attempt to introduce a new common system of VAT based on taxation in the country of origin.
It is not even in accordance with the changes to fiscal policies required in order to keep pace with developments in economic and social needs.
<P>
Next year, when VAT-inclusive prices are displayed in euros, at least in participating countries, the lack of neutrality of VAT rates in intra-community transactions will become apparent and will cause distortions in competition and increased deflection of trade.
These problems will almost certainly be amplified by developments in electronic trading.
<P>
Consequently, it is easy to understand that, for political and financial reasons, governments prefer to maintain the status quo.
As soon as this proves impossible it would, in our opinion, be much better to prepare for change.
<P>
As regards the introduction of a new common VAT system, bringing rates closer together has, until now, been seen as the last stage or as the icing on the cake.
However, we believe that the excessive disparity in rates and the conservative attitude demonstrated by Member States on this matter have considerably hindered the transition to the final system.
<P>
In view of this, although full harmonisation of these rates may be an unrealistic objective in the short term, we do believe that efforts must be made to streamline the rates structure immediately on the basis of a progressive and realistic method.
This type of method should be based on adopting precise definitions of categories of goods and services eligible for reduced rates. It should include a time-frame for eliminating derogations which would give countries a certain amount of leeway on fixing one, or better still, two reduced rates.
We are relying on the Commission to implement a mechanism to streamline the structure of rates and this mechanism will have to be subtle. The most important thing is that this process is started.
<P>
We also feel that the categories of goods and services eligible for reduced rates should not remained fixed.
Technologies develop, as do economic and social needs, and VAT is, by nature, a regressive tax.
The aim of applying the reduced rate is to make it applicable to a wider range of essential goods and services.
Certain categories in Annex H should be adapted in this way and this is why we are in favour of certain amendments along these lines.
<P>
Generally speaking, the structure of the EU's tax systems is detrimental to one production factor - employees.
Commissioner Monti's proposals are extremely interesting as they apply, albeit on a trial basis, to some labour-intensive activities.
This type of proposal could benefit employment and could lead to a decrease in the underground economy.
Above all, these proposals are a sign of the EU's commitment to fighting unemployment and to encouraging full employment.
It is for this reason, above all others, that we will support this proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=268 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Metten">
Mr President, the operation of the VAT system in the European Union is not something we can be proud of.
It is in fact not one system but 15 variations on a system, which makes it extremely complicated.
We all know that the reason for this is the requirement in the Treaty that changes must be approved unanimously, which means in effect that national exceptions to the general rules are never going to be eliminated.
<P>
It may be that giving the VAT Committee regulatory powers, as we have just been discussing, could indeed promote harmonisation here, but the Castagnède report is a good opportunity to look in detail at the proposed changes to the system.
<P>
The Commission proposal is still to replace the country of destination principle in VAT with the country of origin principle.
In other words goods and services will no longer be zero-rated if they are being sent to other Member States, but will be taxed at the national rate applicable for those goods and services.
This country of origin principle already applies for consumer purchases, of course, unless exceptions are made such as for mail order purchases and new cars.
It also now seems likely that the country of destination principle will continue to apply for telecom services and purchases via the Internet, which is clearly an enormous growth sector.
<P>
In the face of this growing list of exceptions we might begin to wonder whether the original idea of switching to the country of origin principle should not be reviewed, particularly as a number of conditions for ensuring that the country of origin system operates without distorting competition seem to be unrealistic and undesirable.
Although different rates can easily continue to apply for goods or services in which there is little cross-border trade, such discrepancies will largely have to disappear for products in competitive sectors.
This means that the standard rates in the Member States are going to have to converge very drastically, and the Member States will then effectively no longer be free to change the rate at their own discretion.
<P>
In short, VAT will cease to be an economic instrument or a means of increasing tax revenue.
This is a major drawback given that budget expenditure is also restricted by the stability pact and that taxes on labour, which is the easiest factor to tax, are to be reduced rather than increased.
<P>
I myself have raised these problems on a number of occasions, and I take it as a sign of weakness that the Commission has failed to come up with any solutions yet.
Perhaps the Commissioner could finally take his head out of the sand this evening, or at least promise to give us a reasoned reply.
<P>
Finally, a completely different point.
What sort of progress is being made on reducing VAT on labour-intensive services, a subject we are both interested in?
Can the Commissioner give us a firm promise that this problem will be on the agenda for the European Council in Vienna, and is there any chance of progress being made or not?
Both I and my group regard this as a high priority, and we also intend to bring pressure to bear on the Austrian Presidency on the subject.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=269 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Thyssen">
Mr President, the harmonisation of VAT rates is an ongoing saga.
The introduction of the transitional system was certainly a step forward, but the discrepancies are still too wide.
The Commission communication appears to show that the different rates are not producing distortions of competition or deflections of trade.
It may all be working from a macro-economic point of view, but in micro-economic terms there is a real problem, as businesses in frontier areas are constantly pointing out.
<P>
I gathered from discussions in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs that the Council and the Commission have no plans to change Annex H while the transitional system is in force, and it seems that we can look forward to uniform definitions of the categories listed in this annex.
I would like to hear from the Commissioner what the timetable is for these plans and whether this will be one of the first jobs for the VAT Committee in its new capacity.
<P>
The euro is just around the corner and the definitive VAT system based on the country of origin principle is in the pipeline.
All of us here in the House realise that both of these will mean that the price differences resulting from the different VAT rates will affect the competitive position of market operators more directly than is currently the case.
<P>
Commissioner, businesses are seriously worried about all this.
They are not afraid of competition, but they want a level playing field.
They accept and understand that the rates cannot be standardised immediately, but they will not accept that we are not pushing for greater harmonisation.
The discrepancies need to be reduced as quickly as possible.
<P>
If the rate categories are being considered for the definitive system, we expect the signals we send out in today's debate and tomorrow's vote to be clearly understood.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=270 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gasòliba i Böhm">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Castagnède's report has a few points in common with the observations that I made in my previous speech.
Firstly, because it agrees with the observations and the position expressed by Mrs Thyssen, and also because we are trying to move forward in certain areas which will allow us to improve the current system. We know this system is not ideal, but we have to make do with it for the moment, given the lack of agreement between member states on having a definitive VAT system that is applied at European Union level.
<P>
With regard to the Castagnède report, the basic idea, as the rapporteur explained very well, is to try to harmonise reduced VAT rates.
Obviously this implies that there is, in some cases, a serious distortion of the basic principle of the single market, and there is discrimination which we would like to see eliminated.
I would point out that I had the experience of being a rapporteur in the Spanish Parliament when VAT was introduced as a result of Spain joining the European Union, and I know of the enormous pressure that comes from every sector to be included in the reduced tax rate band.
There are always reasons to be in the reduced rate band, but obviously there are some sectors for which it is justified and some for which it is more debatable.
<P>
This puts us in an uncomfortable position when we come to debate certain amendments, such as those which propose incorporating some specific points into certain articles.
<P>
We in the Liberal Group, despite the fact that it is a rather unhelpful political position to take, will not support this, but we will support all the amendments and the rapporteur's suggestion that the Commission should draw up a proposal for genuine harmonisation of the reduced rate at European Union level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=271 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, I would like to voice my disagreement with the first paragraph of Mr Castagnède's report, which blames the current problems existing in cross-border zones on the lack of VAT harmonisation in different countries.
We believe this is the wrong interpretation of the situation.
<P>
As shown in the amendment tabled with my colleague Mr Edouard des Places, our group believes that the lack of VAT neutrality in cross-border transactions is the result of inadequate administrative procedures which cause problems in applying and controlling the rates.
I realise that some people here would like to see VAT rates harmonised and they see this as the next stage in the development of a federal super state as such a step would restrict national governments' decision-making powers in both financial and fiscal matters.
<P>
The question being asked about cross-border zones is: how can economic operators be on an equal footing on opposite sides of the border and yet not commit VAT fraud?
The solution suggested here - harmonisation of VAT rates - does not solve this problem at all, and is irrelevant.
The real solution to the fraud problem lies in developing better administrative follow-up, in improving control procedures and in developing a harmonised system of sanctions.
<P>
The administrative procedure established as part of the single market has serious shortcomings which have already been highlighted by national administrations in different meetings held with the Commission.
And I am sorry to note that the Commission, instead of trying to find a lasting solution to its own operational shortcomings, prefers its tried and tested method of running away and using technical problems as an opportunity to promote a political project which is not mentioned in the Treaties: VAT harmonisation.
<P>
The Commission would use its time more wisely if it were to provide a technical answer to a technical problem, to present a report on the problems with existing procedures and to draw up a draft regulation transposing the requested improvements as soon as possible.
Mr President, it is important for Parliament to remind the Commission of its duties.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=272 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Castagnède's report brings us back to the ongoing saga of harmonisation.
Apparently, it is only a technical matter, with perhaps some rather more exciting elements such as reduced rates for records and CD-ROMs.
The former mayor of Strasbourg is an expert on all this.
There was also talk of harmonising VAT on catering, depending on whether the sandwich was eaten in a fast food restaurant or in a bar.
And then there are the super reduced rates.
The French government, for example, wants to apply a rate of 2.10 % on refunded medications.
<P>
The main point made by the Castagnède report, which is well-observed, is that, six years after the arrival of the single market, VAT rates have still not been harmonised.
The standard rate varies between 15 or 25 % for Denmark and there are ten or even twelve points difference in the reduced rate.
Yet in spite of all this, the single market still functions.
At the end of the 1980s, however, we were told it would be the end of the world.
The Cookfield report advocated a two-band rate and the European Commission wanted a kind of clearing-house.
A single way of thinking prevailed and today we have realised that it was all a lie, and an extremely costly one at that.
<P>
Between 1990 and 1993 the Socialist government reduced VAT on caviar, diamonds, Porsches and fur coats by 15 percentage points - in other words on socialist goods.
We lost billions which could have been used to cut taxation on employment.
We were also told that VAT should be charged in the country of origin.
But charging VAT in destination countries also works well.
We were told that the euro would change things.
Yet the single currency of the dollar does not stop New Jersey and the State of New York having different local tax rates.
We were told that electronic trading will lead to distortion but electronic trading represents such a marginal amount, not even 1 %.
<P>
The truth is that behind these debates lies a huge amount of waste.
In a European Union with 20 million unemployed, we should have thought more carefully about it.
For example, how big a part does European overtaxation play in unemployment?
In a large transatlantic market, can the pressure on taxation allow there to be ten points difference in compulsory payments?
And I would like to end there, with the ultimate question: should we have included a fifth criteria for the transition to the euro - a ceiling for compulsory payments of, for example, 40 %?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=273 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lienemann">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, it must be pointed out that VAT is an unfair tax which weighs most heavily on those with low incomes and who have less purchasing power. This is because it is an indirect tax and is also not linked to income.
Also, the European Union's objective should be to lower VAT, not to harmonize it. This is vital for social justice.
It is also vital if we are to increase internal consumption and, therefore, growth. Lowering VAT can contribute to job creation by regenerating consumption and also through the selective effect this can have on jobcreating employment sectors.
Therefore, it seems to me that harmonising VAT should be looked at with a view to decreasing it.
This is why I personally am in favour of creating a zero rate or at least of keeping it in place where it has already been introduced and even, eventually, of the EU considering a super-reduced rate.
<P>
I am also in favour of a broader scope for reduced rate VAT and, in this respect, I believe that the Castagnède report opens up several options and a certain number of amendments help to widen this scope.
Therefore, we will support them.
I am mainly referring to cultural products such as CD-ROMs.
We could also consider including the press, particularly the written press which should be supported and encouraged.
VAT must also be reduced and the scope for reduced rate eligibility broadened in labour-intensive sectors.
The Commission and Commissioner Monti suggest we experiment in this area.
I would hope that Parliament will be slightly more radical and include categories such as housing, social housing, catering in all its forms and, in short, extend reduced rate eligibility to include all labour-intensive sectors.
<P>
I know the argument usually put forward for restricting reduced rate eligibility - it is invariably the loss of revenue.
But it is precisely here that this House and its Members have to choose.
There are ways of obtaining tax revenue, even harmonised revenue, within the European Union.
I would like to remind the House that the Commission is meant to make proposals on at-source taxation on savings revenue. This is a much fairer option.
Taxation systems could also be introduced for capital movements, and I believe that the recent crisis has shown how appropriate this would be.
Taxation systems could also be devised for the main money-making sectors of our societies such as financial speculation, savings and accumulated wealth. This would lighten the VAT burden on a large sector of society and could contribute to increased employment.
<P>
I therefore hope that the harmonisation suggested in Mr Castagnède's report will be approved by Parliament and that the Commission will be strong enough, in the balance of power with the Council, to continue along these lines.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=274 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pomés Ruiz">
Mr President, each time we talk about VAT we end up having a repetitive debate that would not bear serious analysis.
We say that VAT is regressive, and so the groups argue with each other about the amendments needed to prevent this regressive tax from hitting those taxpayers who are least able to pay.
<P>
But VAT, like other indirect taxes, is neither regressive nor progressive.
It is direct taxes that should be progressive.
If we want to increase progressiveness, let us change direct taxation.
Nor should we forget spending policy, which is the element in every budget that tries to compensate for the lack of progressiveness in indirect taxation.
<P>
Let us be quite clear about this: we all want to protect the weak and it is not the exclusive domain of any party or of any political stance. Some of the amendments being debated, which I hope will be approved, aim to use VAT - and I stress, VAT rather than many other measures that could be taken - to reduce contributions and social burdens.
<P>
The intention is that labour-intensive products should be relieved of some of the tax burden through direct taxation.
This is extremely complicated to implement.
I have been involved in tax administration in Navarra, and I know how difficult it is to decide which products should be included in each of the tax categories.
<P>
These are good intentions, but perhaps they might not stand up to technical analysis, and I will be pleased to hear what Professor Monti has to say.
<P>
There are some other amendments such as, for example, one from my colleague, Mr Cassidy, which perhaps could be developed, such as making it possible for NGOs that do humanitarian work in the Third World to reclaim VAT.
This could ensure a certain level of social justice, also through VAT, for non-profit-making organisations.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the fourth time Parliament has produced a report supporting the necessary tax harmonisation.
We have all expressed our opinions already and I do not want to reiterate them.
<P>
I would like to encourage you Commissioner.
As my colleague Mr Langen said, you have to break through the steel defences.
Forza , Commissioner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=275 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pérez Royo">
Mr President, I would like to express our support for this report on the harmonisation of VAT in the specific area of reduced rates, and also to commend the Commission's report on which this present Parliament report is based.
<P>
Along with many of my colleagues who have spoken this evening, I would like to draw attention to the problems which are always encountered when harmonising tax, even in a sector such as indirect taxation and particularly VAT, where the tradition of tax harmonisation is so lengthy that, as everyone knows, VAT has become known as 'the European tax'.
<P>
However, this European tax has not managed to keep pace with developments in the economic structure of the Union.
The Member States and the European institutions, which have succeeded in completing the single market - as will become even more apparent with the advent of the euro - have not been able to agree on a definitive VAT system which corresponds to the demands and the philosophy of the single market, and so, unfortunately, we still have the transitional system.
<P>
With regard to this generally acknowledged problem, I would briefly like to mention the Commission's strategy, which I think is a good one, led, in this particular case, by Mr Monti.
It is a cautious strategy, taking small steps forward and gradually establishing what we could call the climate of opinion necessary to make the progress that everyone knows is needed, but which tends not to happen when the political decisions are taken.
This report on the conditions for applying reduced rates forms part of this strategy.
<P>
I would briefly like to make the following points: firstly, we support the unification or at least the substantial harmonisation of the levels of reduced rates.
Secondly, we support making Annex H non-optional for the application of the reduced rate. Finally, we strongly support a point which has already been raised, that when deciding on reduced-rate operations, special consideration should be given to those which relate to labour-intensive products or services.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=276 NAME="Monti">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me first of all to compliment Mr Castagnède on his excellent report, on which the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs based its work.
I find it extremely useful that the House has taken the initiative of producing this report, which gives the Commission a full understanding of the European Parliament's opinion on the need for further harmonisation of VAT rates.
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In the Commission's view, the resolution before Parliament today shows an understanding of the position outlined in its report of 13 November 1997 on reduced rates of VAT.
Clearly the subject of VAT rates cannot be dissociated from the general issue of the new common system of VAT, and I believe that this House has fully understood this link.
The Commission takes on board your message concerning the need to push ahead with the harmonisation of VAT rates.
<P>
The Commission has begun drawing up a legislative proposal relating to VAT rates, and will present it as soon as possible.
Buoyed by the active cooperation of this House, which is so well reflected in Mr Castagnède's report and in the draft resolution, the Commission has high hopes that Parliament will be equally supportive when the time comes to examine our proposal.
<P>
I should like now to turn to two matters that have been raised during the debate: first of all, the possibility of a reduced rate of VAT on highly labour-intensive services.
I can confirm that the Commission, which last year aired this hypothesis in its communication to the Luxembourg European Council on Employment, hopes that the idea will not remain a dead letter.
The Member States have not yet managed to agree on the scope of this measure.
<P>
I have been pondering of late on a question which is relevant to this evening's topic.
On the one hand, we would like more harmonisation of VAT rates; on the other, we are tempted by the idea of allowing the Member States to experiment with reduced VAT rates for highly labour-intensive services, even though this would admittedly establish a basis for less, not more, harmonisation of VAT rates, should some Member States but not others avail themselves of this opportunity.
So, I wonder, is there a contradiction between these two approaches to taxation policy?
I think not, given the nature of the idea floated by the Commission regarding reduced VAT rates on highly labour-intensive services: this concession to Member States would by definition affect services with very little or no cross-border content, and so would not distort competition between Member States.
I therefore believe that, in a limited field such as this, a reduced rate of VAT could be granted on an experimental basis in support - we hope - of employment, without it conflicting with the general approach of seeking greater harmonisation in VAT rates.
<P>
My final comment relates to Mrs Lienemann's observations concerning the taxation of capital.
Mrs Lienemann raised two points: the Commission is against one of them; on the other, which the honourable Member deems desirable for the future, I can say that the Commission has already acted.
The hypothesis which you mention, Mrs Lienemann, and which the Commission is against, relates to a tax on the buying and selling of foreign currency, the so-called 'Tobin tax'.
We consider that this would be very difficult to apply; indeed, it would infringe the fundamental principle of free movement for capital.
As to the other point, namely your call for a proposal for a directive on the taxation of savings - in other words taxation not on capital movements but on income from capital - I can tell you that such a proposal was adopted within the Commission on 20 May of this year and forwarded to the Ecofin Council on 5 June.
Moreover, this House has already appointed a rapporteur on this proposal for a directive.
We are therefore moving, at least in part, in the direction you desire.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=277 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=14>
Late payment in commercial transactions -CEECs/programme for SMEs - European capital market -European Observatory for SMEs
<SPEAKER ID=278 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0303/98 by Mr Harrison, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive combating late payment in commercial transactions (COM(98)0126 - C4-0251/98-98/0099(COD)); -A4-0309/98 by Mr Rübig, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposals for Council Decisions concerning the Community position within the Association Council on the participation of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Romania and the Slovak Republic in the Community programme in the field of small and medium-sized enterprises (COM(98)0113 - C4-0203/98 to C4-0209/98-98/0078(CNS) to 98/0084(CNS)); -A4-0202/98 by Mr Hendrick, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission Communication on a European capital market for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises: prospects and potential obstacles to progress (COM(97)0187 - C4-0433/97); -A4-0255/98 by Mr Scarbonchi, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the fifth annual report of the European Observatory for SMEs (1997) (C4-0115/98).
<SPEAKER ID=279 NAME="Harrison">
Mr President, 'cheat early by paying late' has been the by-word of big businesses and public authorities for too long in their dealings with Europe's small businesses.
It is time to outlaw these cheating practices and give SMEs the confidence to boldly go into the single European market knowing that they will be paid on time in full and without fuss for their goods and services.
That is why Parliament supports the Commission's directive entitled 'Late Payment on Commercial Debt' , for which the legal basis is Article 100a, on the single market.
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Unless we do something, more and more small businesses will be killed off by late payment.
We know that one in four insolvencies are attributable to late payment; one in five businesses would export more if this problem were solved.
SMEs' cash flows are disrupted and the problem is worse when trading across borders in the single market.
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In the United Kingdom SMEs are owed £20 000 million in late payments at any one time.
The situation in the UK is one of the worst in the European Union.
The average EU delay is 13 days, but in the UK it is 23 days after the due date.
In the European Union one in three cases of late payment is deliberate, in the UK it is one in two.
But across borders the deliberate delays rise to two out of five for the European Union as a whole and three out of five for the UK.
Incidentally, the New Labour Government has introduced new legislation which outlaws late payment by introducing a statutory right to interest.
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The main purpose of this directive is to introduce a statutory right of interest on late payment, calculated at 8 % above the European Central Bank repo rate of say, 3 %, ie 11 %, plus the recovery of all reasonable costs - administrative, legal and financial - associated with pursuing the debt.
The total could be 20 %.
<P>
The total penalty must be higher than the debtor borrowing money from banks or other financial institutions.
We must make sure that SMEs are not being used as sources of cheap money.
<P>
But there are other flanking measures which the Commissioner brought forward: accelerated recovery procedures for undisputed debts (nine out of ten of the debts are not disputed by the debtor), simplified legal procedures for the small number of disputed debts, new quick procedures for debts below ECU 20 000.
We are also introducing payment periods into public procurement contracts.
Why?
Public institutions, e.g. local and national governments, and the European institutions themselves are amongst the worst late and slow payers.
They can lead by example by getting government departments to pay on time.
But a warning is in order - late pay and slow pay are not the same thing.
Late pay is paying late after the agreed payment and slow pay is widening the payment period between the invoice or delivery date and the agreed payment date.
Slow pay is a terrible problem afflicting SMEs especially in the southern Union states like Spain.
<P>
Examples of 300 days payment periods are demonstrated, for example, in supermarkets in Spain and they are amongst the biggest culprits.
But the late pay directive does not tackle slow payers as opposed to late payers except in respect of public procurement and public authorities, although it does introduce a 21-day payment period in the absence of contracts or where contracts are silent on the point for ordinary contracts.
Will it work?
<P>
Sweden and other Nordic countries have had a statutory right of interest since the 1970s.
What is the view of the European Parliament? - broadly supportive!
We also believe in adding the licensing of debt collecting companies who are an important and cheaper alternative to lawyers as a means of recovering debt.
We need to license these companies.
Some of them are cowboys.
Here is an example of one of these debt-collecting agencies who put this note through my office door in Chester in the United Kingdom: 'Do you owe money?
Do you feel robbed?
Are you angry enough to send my team of collectors around to the debtor's premises?
Don't worry, we don't break the law but we get results and we can prove it.
We operate world-wide.' These are the cowboys that we need to train and get into line by registering them.
<P>
In conclusion, this directive, if implemented, could be the Viagra of the single European market, allowing SMEs to grow and expand to the satisfaction of all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=280 NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, the night sitting makes me feel very positive and confident.
Positive, because the debate to come will focus mainly on SME policy and its implementation in Europe.
The situation of SMEs does indeed deserve this emphasis.
They are quite rightly described as the backbone of the European economy, and more specifically as the driving force for creating extra jobs.
And I feel confident, because the individual reports take stock of the current situation in practice and describe the main trends for Europe's SMEs.
<P>
Firstly, my own report, which deals with the ambitious goal of enlargement of the EU.
Speaking recently in Vienna, the Pope called for the process of Europeanisation to be driven forward with even more energy.
I can only agree with him on that.
But we all know that this process cannot occur overnight in the applicant countries.
We also, and indeed above all, need preaccession strategies for the SME sector, with particular emphasis on personal contact between people.
That is why it is sensible to enable these countries to participate in the Third Multiannual Programme for SMEs and thus to familiarize them with the working methods and policies of the Union.
That is also true for each of the priority objectives that the Commission has defined.
The environment for companies, be it administrative or financial, should be simplified or improved.
Their activities abroad should be supported and their competitiveness in general enhanced.
Along with that goes easier access to research, innovation and training.
The applicant countries are, in large part, financing their own participation, and this is being topped up by PHARE funding.
In implementing these objectives, I am particularly concerned - and this is an idea that we have incorporated in the report - that successful participation is guaranteed, calling for competent management and a well-prepared administration on both sides.
I would also mention the new public management instrument, which can be used during the required evaluation.
<P>
The project is not reserved only for the seven countries currently included: other applicant countries could also be brought into the programme very soon, once the administrative and financial requirements have been fulfilled.
I am, however, also convinced that participation in the Multiannual Programme will be mainly political.
In view of the anticipated expense, it is better for us to adopt a specific rather than a general approach.
In the light of the recently renewed debate on subsidiarity, we should finally consider how far a pre-accession strategy of this kind can be transferred to the national level.
<P>
I should now like to move on to this evening's other topics.
The planned enlargement of the EU, and the pre-accession strategies that go with it, are not ends in themselves.
Rather, we will be endeavouring to produce a win-win situation from which both sides should benefit.
We can see just how important this is for the SME sector from the problems it faces today, such as the situation of SMEs on the capital markets or the effects of late payment on SMEs.
New ways of capital procurement are currently a top priority for the SME sector.
The figures for Austria alone, which I believe are similar to the European average, confirm the need for action.
If we look for instance at the proportion of equity capital in small-scale trades and businesses - in SMEs in other words - we find figures of only around 10 %.
What particularly stands out here is that the smaller the size of the company, the worse the figures are.
Sufficient equity capital, however, is essential for the long-term success of a company.
The lack of it is an important if not decisive reason for insolvency.
That is why the attitude to shares has to change and share-ownership must be encouraged as an additional source of equity capital.
Accounting rules need to be standardised where exchanges of experience are being hindered.
<P>
Finally I am grateful for the speed with which the Directive on late payment has been handled.
I particularly welcome the fact that it is not only large companies, but also governments and therefore also the EU that are to lead the way.
That is why I would also agree with Mr Harrison - if we introduce this directive quickly, we will be giving priority to providing greater equity capital for SMEs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=281 NAME="Hendrick">
Mr President, employment is top of Europe's agenda and SMEs form a crucial part of this job-creation strategy.
We have seen today how various regions in the EU Member States are approaching the issue of SME capital markets as a catalyst for SME growth.
As the author of the European parliamentary report on the issue of capital market SMEs, I wish to outline what European institutions and, in particular, the European Parliament are doing to improve the environment for growing small firms.
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In 1994 the visionary Delors White Paper on growth, competitiveness and employment placed SMEs at the heart of the Community's policy for generating employment.
This has been reasserted almost continuously since then, in particular at the Luxembourg Summit.
SMEs are equally valuable in pushing forward cutting-edge research.
This is an area where Europe is most competitive in creating high-quality, high-tech jobs.
Software, telecommunications, biotechnology and microelectronics are all areas led by innovative technology-based small firms.
<P>
The United States has proved itself far more effective than Europe in backing new ideas with ready cash.
Perhaps the clearest example of this is in the computer business which, since 1980, has seen the fastest accumulation of wealth in history.
Investors are earning returns of over 50 % a year for the average firm and more than 100 % for the most successful.
Many believe that the Internet market will be three times as big.
<P>
Why has Europe been unable to match this?
To get some answers to this and other questions I visited the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq at the end of last year.
It is recognized here that the US has a more entrepreneurial culture but I believe there are three more concrete reasons. Part of the reason for America's success is the size of its domestic market.
If a company is successful in a home market of 250 million customers, who speak the same language and use the same currency, this can finance several years of expansion.
More importantly though, Americans are much more prepared to accept risk, for example by investing in small companies.
Europe's big institutional investors are more wary of involvement in SMEs than their American counterparts.
Finally, stemming from this, the US has Nasdaq, a stock market for SMEs that makes it easy to invest in small firms to fund their expansion and development.
We have a great deal more to do in that area.
<P>
But the EU is fighting back!
The European single market now allows companies the run of the whole European marketplace.
This offers a marketplace and internal market of 380 million people, the largest economic integration project ever undertaken.
Moreover, final preparations are now being made for the launch of the euro, a logical conclusion to the single market.
The single currency will, at a stroke, let Europe benefit from the same advantages as the US, with one market and one currency.
On top of this there is some evidence that attitudes to investment in Europe are changing.
We have seen massive demands for shares during the privatisation of state utilities, such as telecom companies, but now we must extend this demand to the high-gain but higher risk stocks on SME capital markets.
<P>
A long term perspective needs to be encouraged amongst investors.
Indeed, I am floating the idea of running campaigns to show that shares in small firms are a worthwhile investment.
<P>
Another obstacle to the expansion of SME markets is restrictions on pension funds.
The liquidity that comes with institutional trading is essential to small capital markets.
Pension reform is under way in most Member States and with the publication of the Green Paper from the Commission this will put funds under greater pressure to invest in equities.
<P>
Above all I believe that Europe must take note of the lead that the US enjoys in these matters.
The simplicity with which American private investors can buy shares and the new opportunities offered by electronic commerce are trends that Europe has to follow.
<P>
The individual is important: private investors rather than institutions make up nearly half the transactions of the Nasdaq.
Employee share ownership in the US is exploring new forms of worker participation in firms and is opening up share ownership to a new public.
Again, information campaigns should be considered in order to raise awareness of the opportunities which exist.
Europe should take those opportunities and Europe will take those opportunities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=282 NAME="Scarbonchi">
Mr President, Commissioner, I would first like to thank the European Observatory for SMEs for the consistently high quality of its work which makes it such an important reference point in both economic and scientific circles.
<P>
The considerable work it does regularly produces a wealth of information, essential for everyone; political, economic and financial decision-makers alike.
It allows us to analyse issues relevant to 19 million active businesses in Europe in very different sectors and conditions.
These SMEs, which employed nearly 78 million people in 1997, face the same challenges as larger businesses: globalization and its effects on competitiveness and fair competition, adapting to rapid technological development - an essential element in competitiveness - and practical preparation for the new size and conditions of the European market following the transition to the euro and the enlargement of the Union.
<P>
Faced with these new challenges, SMEs must be able to mobilise the necessary human and financial resources rapidly.
They therefore need a long-term strategic vision, but must not sacrifice the key to their dynamism, namely their rapid reaction.
In fact, the apparent vulnerability of SMEs is often a considerable bonus in terms of ability to adapt rapidly, internal communication and mobility.
<P>
It is Europe's responsibility to develop a plan of action which will help SMEs make the most of these qualities.
Firstly, Europe must monitor the markets in order to prevent unfair practices, in particular international dumping. The Union has a clear responsibility within the WTO on this matter.
The EU must also contribute to the development of these markets.
It is therefore indisputable that the euro, and more generally, economic and monetary union, can act as a powerful stimulant for the dynamism of SMEs, as long as they are fully informed and prepared for the new reality of EMU.
<P>
We must also adapt the administrative rules to the specific constraints faced by SMEs.
Starting up a business should no longer be such a long and painful process, and it is now vital that we establish a new harmonised classification of SMEs at European level.
Viewing very small enterprises with one or two workers in the same way as an enterprise which employs five hundred people is an unacceptable way of thinking.
I therefore call on the Commission to submit proposals on these matters.
We are also in favour of implementing voluntary policies which enhance SMEs' human resources, especially by providing help with training.
<P>
We also paid particular attention to the chapter in the Observatory's report on SMEs and the environment.
This highlights the fact that there is potential for creating jobs and a possible chance of improving competitiveness.
It is true that deciding to invest in environmental technologies may sometimes seem a luxury for SMEs.
Nonetheless, in several cases such investments have reduced costs through putting resources and raw materials to better use, and they have allowed SMEs to anticipate the general trend towards stronger environmental legislation.
The majority of these observations are equally valid for tourism - another sector rich in potential for SMEs.
<P>
The quality of the analyses underlying this report and the relevance of its remarks has led us to ask the Observatory to extend its work and we would like to suggest some concrete proposals for further analysis.
Firstly, a new harmonised classification for SMEs needs to be established in the EU, as we have already mentioned.
Secondly, the situation of social security systems and the impact of their welcome forthcoming harmonisation with regard to SMEs must be examined in order to draw conclusions at an operational level.
Finally, the possible impact of home working and teleworking and the possibilities that these can offer must also be considered.
It is important that we combat isolation among people who have opted for teleworking.
<P>
Detailed consideration should be given to facilitating the integration of SMEs in areas which are difficult to access, such as run-down districts, difficult rural areas and peripheral regions.
The development of SMEs in these areas can often lead to important joint local initiatives.
<P>
Eight amendments have been tabled, seven of which have my full support.
The eighth is a repetition which seems rather pointless.
Ladies and gentlemen, SMEs are difficult economic subjects for legislators to address in Europe due to their diversity and large numbers.
The Observatory's report allows us to fully grasp the complexity of this issue and should help to improve the necessary Community instruments to make them more flexible and more accessible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=283 NAME="Berger">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by thanking Mr Harrison very warmly for his report on which I congratulate him.
I would also like to thank the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs for having asked the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights to give an opinion on this proposal for a directive, and also for ultimately accepting the majority of the amendments that we proposed.
<P>
Nevertheless, I would like to express my regret that because this proposal was rushed through its first reading so quickly it did not receive the discussion time it deserved.
It is the first time that the Union has delved so deeply into the institutions and procedures of civil law, the codes of civil procedure and the judicial and legal systems of our Member States.
In my opinion it does not have an adequate legal basis to do so, and judging by the Commission proposal it has demonstrated a legal superficiality which does not show due appreciation for the subtle differences of civil law and the need for a European legal system of high standing and quality.
Both of the committees dealing with this genuinely tried to iron out at least the worst inconsistencies in the Commission's proposal, but even if our proposed amendments are approved tomorrow, it will still be impossible for us to be truly proud of this item of European legislation.
Too many inconsistencies remain and others will emerge in the course of transposition and application.
<P>
The Committee fully supports the aim of the Directive, but we cannot agree with all aspects of the proposed measures.
There are two points in particular on which we take a different view from that of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights does not agree that Member States should in future be obliged to have three different types of debt-recovery procedures.
It is going to be complicated and expensive and it will also bring about less legal certainty.
We therefore suggest that of one of these, the one in Article 5, be omitted.
<P>
We are equally opposed to debt-collection agencies being granted additional rights in future, and being in a better position than lawyers when it comes to cross-border services.
We also have to take account of a judgment by the European Court of Justice which ruled that the requirement to employ a lawyer was solely a matter for the Member States.
As the representative of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, and of my party within that Committee, I would therefore recommend voting against Amendments Nos 8, 12 and 25 and in favour of the rest, especially No 25.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=284 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García Arias">
Mr President, first of all I have a point of order, which I consider to be important.
In the list of MEPs who took part in the vote on the Harrison report, neither Mr García Margallo or I are included, despite the fact that we took part in the vote and tabled amendments.
<P>
Secondly, I would like to congratulate Mr Linkohr and the Commission on this initiative.
It is an important proposal for SMEs, which are so vulnerable to delayed payments from their customers, whether they are supplying public authorities or large companies, or subcontracting for them.
SMEs, as has been said, are faced with the high financial costs of short term bank loans, high interest on overdrafts and administrative costs due to late payments.
They often find themselves with their hands tied, specially in public sector contracts, by large companies who impose disproportionate payment periods on them in their contracts - which they can 'take or leave' - despite the fact that the authorities are generally already obliged to pay the large companies within a certain period.
If this occurs on a national level, we can imagine the reluctance and fear that many SMEs must feel about venturing into cross-border operations in the single market.
<P>
We therefore welcome the fact that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has approved three specific amendments which propose improvements to the Council and the Commission such as banning the main companies in a public contract from asking or demanding that their subcontractors waive their legal rights, and requiring that the obligation of transparency demanded from public authorities should also apply to the relationship between the main contractor and the subcontractor in public procurement contracts.
<P>
Finally, I think it is important to highlight the amendment which proposes that subcontracting or supplying companies should be given conditions which are at least as favourable as those granted to the main company by the public authority, by guaranteeing that all the fees due are paid within a determined period.
<P>
In our opinion, more specifically in the opinion of the Spanish socialists, these three proposals from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy deserve the support of the Commission and the Council if we really want to guarantee the survival of these companies in the public contracts sector.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=285 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Thyssen">
Mr President, all of the subjects covered in this debate on SMEs are important, but I shall confine myself to talking on behalf of the PPE group about the proposal to combat late payments.
<P>
Excessive payment periods and late payments have become a nightmare for businesses.
The statistics beggar belief.
Add to that the fact that the time and money involved in taking cases to court puts SMEs off trying to seek legal redress, and that the situation is ten times worse in cross-border trade, and we can see that it is high time for us to flex our muscles and take action.
<P>
The PPE finds the Commission proposal quite good, but we think it could be better.
At this point I would just like to thank the rapporteur, Lyndon Harrison, for his extremely knowledgeable and responsible approach.
I enjoyed working with him and it is a pity that he is not here to hear me say so.
<P>
I shall focus on the points which my group feels should be given particular attention at the vote or by the Commission.
First of all, there are three amendments on debt collection agencies, which are still encountering obstacles despite the single market.
A majority of the Committee on Economic Affairs obviously want this problem to be dealt with in this directive, and the PPE group agrees that Europe should take a close interest in the organisation of this work and ensuring the free provision of services.
We can also see that there is common ground with the proposal before us, but we do not think that rules on the free provision of services by debt collection agencies can simply be introduced just like that by amending this directive.
Better solutions, both politically and legally, can be found, and Mrs Berger is dealing with your concerns.
I would like to hear from the Commissioner what the Commission thinks about this and whether it is prepared or is planning to come up with separate proposals on debt collection agencies.
<P>
There is another problem with paragraphs D and E in Amendment No 14, which propose that a contractual due date of more than 45 days should be accepted only where payment on the due date is guaranteed by a bill of exchange.
We are quite happy to consider the question of additional guarantees with excessively long payment periods, but 45 days is really not all that long and a bill of exchange is not an appropriate instrument.
Either some arrangement should be reached with the groups now so that we can discuss the matter again at second reading, or else my group will be forced to vote against paragraphs D and E of Amendment No 14.
<P>
My group would also like to do something to improve payment periods for public contracts.
The shorter the better, that is our motto, but distinguishing according to price is for various reasons neither as useful nor as relevant as distinguishing according to the nature of the contract.
This would bring immediate benefits with goods and services contracts.
<P>
Fourth, we regret that subcontractors have been ignored in the proposal.
We have rectified this and we hope that the Commission will agree with our amendments.
<P>
Fifth, there is unfortunately a comitology problem, and after yesterday evening's debate this is not something we can afford to ignore.
The PPE Group can accept the procedure provided for in Article 9 for charging interest for late payment and it can accept the level of interest, but not the change to the ceiling that determines the scope of the simplified procedures for taking legal action for the settlement of debts, a figure which is vital for the way in which the Member States organise these special procedures.
<P>
Sixth and last, my group wishes to stress the following.
We are convinced that the credibility of the European Institutions will be undermined if they do everything they can to encourage others to pay up on time while shirking their own responsibilities.
The European Institutions are hardly the promptest payers themselves and, like other public authorities, need a little encouragement.
So for goodness' sake let us include ourselves in the scope of this directive.
<P>
This is all I wanted to say.
I hope that the Commission will support our views, and for my colleagues in the House and the vote tomorrow I should like to hear what the Commissioner thinks about the debt collection agencies, the bill of exchange, Amendment No 33 on the payment period for public contracts, and sub-contractors.
I would also like to know why the European Institutions are not included.
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<SPEAKER ID=286 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
Mr President, Commissioner, I should like to begin by congratulating the four rapporteurs on their excellent work.
I should like to talk today about the subject of capital markets for SMEs.
It is difficult to overestimate the importance of these capital markets.
SMEs are the hardest hit by the administrative burden and find it most difficult to gain access to capital, yet they account for the majority of all jobs created.
This was why the EASDAQ was so urgently needed when it came into operation at the end of 1996.
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Since then, according to the rapporteur, there has been a total of over ECU 170 million in capital investment which has helped to create more than 10 000 jobs.
The completion of the single market and the arrival of the euro are certain to increase the liquidity of the pan-European stock exchange, which in turn will benefit employment.
So we are on the right path.
<P>
But that is not the end of the matter.
We also need to encourage venture capital.
Some of the enormous potential which the pension funds have at their disposal, estimated at ECU 10 000 billion by the year 2020, must be directed towards venture capital funds, which in turn will help rapid growth businesses with funding and know-how.
As the rapporteur, Mr Hendrick, has already said, the requirement which some Member States impose on pension funds to invest part of their capital solely in government bonds is discriminatory and is thus contrary to the spirit of the principle of free movement of capital enshrined in the Treaty.
<P>
Individuals also need to be encouraged to invest capital in small, rapidly expanding businesses, and such venture capital should be subject to favourable tax conditions throughout the Union.
Some Member States already have special tax arrangements, but these should be extended to investments in other European capital markets.
We think that these measures could bring about substantial improvements in the undercapitalisation of SMEs.
<P>
Finally, I should like to ask the Commissioner whether the Commission has already investigated other innovative financial instruments which it mentions in the multi-annual programme and the on the final page of its communication?
I would be interested to know what creative ideas the Commission can come up with here.
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<SPEAKER ID=287 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Gallagher">
Mr President, our group will be voting in favour of the Hendrick and Scarbonchi reports on smalland medium-sized companies.
A comprehensive policy must be put in place for SMEs, which are increasingly the backbone of our economies.
SMEs are the main creators of employment in Europe because they are situated locally.
They inject life into a country and into the Union as a whole.
<P>
The red-tape environment in which SMEs operate must be simplified.
The setting up of new firms must be encouraged.
They must be helped to modernise where necessary.
We need to see that new initiatives can be put forward to lighten that burden.
They must be prepared for the euro.
Their small size must not discriminate against them in the euro area.
It must be made possible for SMEs to compete for public contracts across the Union.
There must be positive discrimination in favour of SMEs.
Everything possible must be done to encourage the emergence of new entrepreneurs, new sources of financing and access for SMEs to the new technologies and innovation.
<P>
Ireland is a nation of small businesses.
Up to 98 % of our non-farm businesses employ under 50 employees.
Some 90 % of small businesses employ fewer than 10.
The importance of creating an environment in which existing small businesses can flourish and new ones can be created is therefore self-evident.
In Ireland 35 county enterprise boards have been set up with the objective of promoting the development of micro-businesses at local level.
Under the development programme a target of 4 600 enterprises was established.
By the end of 1997 about 7 000 people had set up their own business with partnership help.
<P>
Overloading the employer and employee with heavy taxes and heavy social insurance contributions is anti-jobs.
My country is competitive in European terms in relation to indirect labour cost.
There is a clear lesson: an over-burdened tax wedge spells disaster for job creation and job maintenance.
Small is beautiful.
Governments must not tax SMEs out of existence.
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<SPEAKER ID=288 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Mr President, I will begin by saying that I have been eagerly awaiting a report which would promote discussion on giving SMEs access to capital.
However, the Hendrick report is not that report.
Instead, it approaches the capital market for SMEs from the point of view of potential savings as part of the financial and monetary speculation manipulated by transnationals.
Given the manner in which they operate, capital markets are of no use to SMEs, particularly the small and micro-enterprises which make up some 99 % of European businesses and account for over 50 % of employment, and they therefore do not serve to strengthen the economic fabric of the Member States of which SMEs are the backbone.
<P>
In addition, I consider it essential that associations of SMEs should be created at both national and European levels, and I therefore welcome the fact that Mr Hendrick has accepted my proposal to this effect.
Such associations could provide excellent financial services and centralise the credit needs of its members, thereby reducing the cost of obtaining capital.
<P>
It is incomprehensible that in the current climate of financial crisis, capital and financial instruments should be permitted and encouraged to move totally freely and unchecked, leading to a casino economy.
Paragraph 13 of the motion for a resolution, which rejects the Tobin tax, appears out of place in a report on SMEs and access to markets.
<P>
This was why I supported the proposed amendment to paragraph 13 of the motion.
I would also like to say a few words on the Scarbonchi report, since the Annual Report of the European Observatory for SMEs contains information and analyses of their situation in the European Union from which an assessment can be made of the situation and dynamics in the European Union, and also of the effectiveness of the instruments which it has available.
<P>
It is regrettable, however, that the report does not dwell in greater depth on certain basic issues relating to the importance of SMEs in strengthening the economic fabric, and I regard it as excessively conformist at a time when change is needed.
This is reflected in the proposed amendments I supported.
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<SPEAKER ID=289 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, perhaps it was, as they say, revealing that Viagra was wrongly categorised here as having something to do with a satisfied sexuality.
But if you believe that, you may also think that the broad distribution of shares and pension funds through the whole of the SME sector could in any way be a step towards democratising the economy or decentralising economic power.
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We have to face up to the fact that support for SMEs is an unequal race, one between Achilles and the tortoise, or between the hare and the hedgehog in the German fable, but unfortunately without the help of mistakenly thinking that movement involves small, intermittent steps and without the help of the hedgehog's loving wife and companion.
In other words, the concentration and centralisation of capital is marching inexorably on, and the new niches created along the way are only of minor importance.
The situation of SMEs is not improving, but worsening.
<P>
We cannot therefore think that unleashing market forces while at the same time developing SMEs would work.
That is why, in the reports, there is also what I would call the 'fallacy of misplaced concreteness'.
Of course we should do something to combat late payment but we should not exaggerate.
The entrenched economic downturn expresses itself in different ways, including late payment.
Of course, what Mrs Thyssen said was true, the EU institutions cannot exempt themselves from rules applicable to public bodies.
<P>
As far as raising venture capital is concerned, it is certainly true that this is difficult in Europe. But one should not believe that making it easier to set up a business would also mean improved chances of survival.
Until we reform the bankruptcy law, people will not be very quick to start a business.
Mr Hendrick, simply believing that readiness to take risks has something to do with people's psychological make-up really does not provide the level of analysis that we require.
And anyone who believes that pension funds are the only way to reform pensions has simply not looked at how social security systems have developed on the European continent.
<P>
What we need is not simply deregulation, but better regulation.
People need advice, information and favourable local and regional conditions.
These are the things we should be tackling, but unfortunately, they are missing from these reports.
I could continue at length, but I shall finish now, as my speaking time has run out.
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<SPEAKER ID=290 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, in this joint debate on small and medium-sized businesses I should like to talk about the report by Mr Scarbonchi.
As a substitute member of the Committee on Economic Affairs I followed the progress of this report at one remove, which is why I should now like to comment on its contents here in the plenary.
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The section I am referring to is recital B in the motion for a resolution.
If you add up the figures it mentions you can see that the number of jobs in Europe is supposed to have increased by almost twelve million in just one year, which would mean that unemployment had fallen by 65 %!
I only wish this were true, but in fact the opposite was the case between 1995 and 1996, when unemployment actually went up slightly.
This fact is clearly stated on page 14 of the annual report.
I would therefore recommend that Mr Scarbonchi withdraw recital B. The figures he quotes from the 1996 and 1997 annual reports are based on different definitions of the size of SMEs.
<P>
The fifth annual report gives a useful overview of SMEs in Europe.
One worrying point is the fact that labour costs are rising too rapidly in SMEs, indicating that greater wage restraint and flexibility are needed on the labour market.
The worst thing we could suggest is to have further reductions in working hours for the same pay (see Amendment No 3), which in my view would mean the downfall of SMEs in Europe.
<P>
I am particularly grateful for the study on SMEs and the environment.
At the informal Environment Council in Amsterdam last year it was concluded that SMEs are a major source of environmental pollution, and the annual report goes into this in more detail.
Fortunately it appears that more and more small firms are taking action to combat pollution.
The growth of the 'eco-industry' also offers a positive outlook, particularly in terms of employment.
In order to promote this further we shall have to do more to shift labour taxes onto raw materials and energy, thus also fulfilling our Treaty obligation to integrate environment policy into all other aspects of public policy.
What does the Commissioner think of the proposal that environmental legislation should be better tailored to what SMEs want?
<P>
In the five years that it has been produced the annual report seems to have assumed a very clear role not just as an important reference work, but also as a useful source of guidance.
Member States can identify policy differences and similarities and copy good practice from each other.
These benefits could be further improved if the report compared specific legislation and the associated administrative burden.
Perhaps a special study could focus on this in future.
<P>
Finally I have a question for the Commissioner.
It is now September 1998 and we are discussing the 1997 annual report which contains figures mostly relating to the situation in 1996.
When will the report on 1998 be ready?
I understand that the tendering procedure is not even finished yet.
Does this mean that the report is going to have to be rushed through?
The quality is bound to suffer.
Would you explain how you think we can make up the delay?
The last annual report was already out by October 1997.
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<SPEAKER ID=291 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, I would like to focus on one particular aspect which appears to me to be important and which is dealt with for the first time in the report by Mr Scarbonchi, namely the need to concentrate aid on SMEs in tourism.
The lack of a European policy on tourism means that large sums from EU aid coffers are not being deployed in the right way, with huge concentrations of rather dubious tourist accommodation as the result.
Over-capacities are being created that are distorting competition.
But SMEs, which are the typical European tourist business both in terms of quality and quantity, are being left out in the cold.
<P>
In future, European aid policy in tourism must set clear priorities geared towards improving the quality, competitiveness and marketing capacity of SMEs.
It is especially the SMEs in tourism that have shown they are in a position to safeguard jobs and to create extra employment.
An extremely significant question about the future is handled in paragraphs 6 and 7.
Programmes to link up agriculture, tourism and commerce are needed to stop people and companies from leaving rural areas with difficult conditions, such as Alpine areas.
They must prevent whole valleys and regions from becoming deserted and turning into disaster areas.
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<SPEAKER ID=292 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pérez Royo">
Mr President, I have asked for the floor in order to speak about the Harrison report on late payments.
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There are two basic points to make about this problem of late payments: firstly, that there is definitely a general delay in payments in both public and private contracts, and secondly, that the situation varies considerably from country to country within the EU single market.
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Southern countries, among them Spain, are always cited as bad examples of this, and rightly so.
In our country, Spain, it is commonplace to talk about the lengthy period of time that it takes for the authorities to pay companies, particularly those awarded public works contracts.
What is not said so often is that these companies treat their suppliers, small and mediumsized enterprises, in an even more draconian manner.
The figures are as follows: public administrations wait an average of four months in Spain - which is long enough - before paying their creditors, but the companies awarded the contracts wait twice as long - eight months - before paying their suppliers and subcontractors, which must make life very difficult for them.
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There are plenty of reasons for tackling this problem at European level and we welcome the fact that this directive has been proposed in addition to the various recommendations that have proved so ineffective in the past.
<P>
We strongly support this draft directive and we also support the amendments made to it in the Harrison report.
With regard to the amendments, I would like to focus on two points: firstly, we are strongly in favour of the amendment that introduces a new article on the use of debt-collection agencies or services in the single market. Secondly, we feel it is important to mention the various amendments that take into account the problem of small and medium-sized enterprises.
<P>
With regard to the situation of SMEs, the fact that the rules laid down in the directive are binding is very important.
Take the discretion allowed in Article 3, which states that the maximum payment period will be of three weeks - 21 days - unless otherwise provided for in the contract of the general conditions of sale of the vendor.
Certain limits need to be imposed here, because otherwise small businesses will be unprotected and faced with large companies which practically have a buyer's monopoly or are in the position to impose their own conditions on small businesses.
Therefore we strongly agree with certain amendments that have been introduced by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy which try to limit this potential abuse of discretion by large companies.
I am referring, for example, to Amendment No 24 to Article 7(d), and Amendment No 28 and others which tackle this problem - in my opinion - in the right way, correcting certain defects in this draft directive.
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<SPEAKER ID=293 NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, when assessing any draft regulations, we first have to establish what objectives we are pursuing and what aspect of life in society we are trying to put in order.
There is no doubt that the draft directive on late payments is responding to the needs felt - suffered, we could say fairly - by small and medium-sized enterprises, and especially by those that are suppliers to powerful economic bodies.
It is an incontestable fact that postponing or delaying payments is being used for purposes far removed from that of financing the commercial cycle.
There are undoubtedly other problems too, for example slowness and disparity in legal proceedings.
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For these reasons, we should welcome a European initiative in this field, and particularly this draft directive.
However, I must point out, like other speakers before me, that it contains legal problems that have to be tackled and I trust that these will be resolved in the dialogue between the Commission, the Council and Parliament.
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I could begin and end by saying that I completely agree with the excellent speeches by Mrs Berger, Mrs García Arias and Mrs Thyssen.
There are, however, a few points I should like to make.
Firstly, I wanted to stress the need to tackle head on the problem of delays in contract payments in general, not just in public procurement contracts.
It is strange that the person saying this should be a lawyer who always takes the legal point of view, unlike all the economists, because actually, it is in business practice where the distinction between contractual period and lateness or slowness in paying is not always clear.
On many occasions the manager of a small business hears the 'big store' saying: ' Don't send me the bill now, send it to me in two months time.'
And what does this amount to?
Disguised delayed payment, as the 'big store' is exploiting its capacity and power to force the small supplier to accept its conditions.
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We therefore have to take care that regulatory measures do not end up having a very limited effect, because in applying the theoretical principle of contractual freedom, which, as Mr Pérez Royo highlighted very well, can only be a theoretical principle when the two contracting parties are not in equal positions, in practice large companies are allowed to continue to impose their will on small and medium-sized enterprises.
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If the proposal came into force as the Commission has proposed it, we could predict that the only limiting effects would be on the public sector and on cases where the creditors are large companies that can defend their interests against SMEs, whether in commercial or other sectors.
I therefore think that it is essential to approve section d) of Amendment No 14 with the idea that, between the first and second readings, we will have to try to reformulate this amendment in a way which is reasonable and acceptable to the different Member States and their national legislations.
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Secondly, I would like to stress that, from a legal point of view, it is essential to overcome the problems posed by the retention of title as established in Article 4, if only because it confers different rights and powers in the different Member States.
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Thirdly, I hope that the amendments tabled by the Committee for Economic Affairs are not approved, as they aim to regulate the setting up of debt collection companies, and this should be the subject of a separate directive as the subject matter involved is substantial enough to warrant one.
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Another aspect which requires serious thought is the question of the debt recovery procedures in Article 5.
They are too rigid and they could paralyse the legal system, but more importantly, we are entering territory which is comes under the competence of the Member States.
The same goes for the issue of lawyers.
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Finally, I endorse what Mrs Berger said about the Commission's powers.
The Commission should tackle other areas, for example publicity and transparency on late payments, or setting up a European register of slow payers.
<P>
I will finish by saying that we also need a change of culture, as was apparent yesterday when, debating this directive, a colleague rolled his eyes and said 'Oh dear, I haven't given my son his pocket money for four weeks.'
We need to change our mentality too.
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<SPEAKER ID=294 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Hyland">
Mr President, the introduction of the single currency on 1 January is a positive step on the road to European integration.
The elimination of transaction costs and the lowering of interest rates is good news.
Small and mediumsized enterprises must be able to reap the benefits from the new climate created by the single currency in the immediate future and they must be helped to do so by national governments and state agencies.
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On a broader front, I cannot emphasise strongly enough the importance of SMEs to both the Irish and the European economies.
I deplore the proposed cutbacks by the European Council in funding for SMEs at a time when this is supposed to be a central plank in the EU's action to combat unemployment.
The Council's decision in this matter must be overturned.
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We need a positive operational environment for SMEs.
In Ireland we are developing a nationalist strategy to ease administrative burdens and small businesses, relieve burdens on small businesses and improve access to finance, as well as support business start-ups.
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Ways of strengthening the entrepreneurial, technical and vocational dimensions of second level curriculum must also receive particular attention in the context of assisting SMEs in the future.
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<SPEAKER ID=295 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Musumeci">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Alleanza Nazionale can endorse the positive opinion of the rapporteur, Mr Scarbonchi, on the fifth annual report of the European Observatory for SMEs.
However, I believe that we should highlight certain matters which have not been adequately covered by the Observatory.
I refer in particular to small businesses operating in disadvantaged zones and rural areas, where they must work under extremely difficult conditions because of the lack of infrastructure, the remoteness from markets, the almost total absence of new technology and computer systems, and a shortage of vocational training.
Added to this is the difficulty of obtaining loans.
In some Italian regions falling under Objective 1, for example, banks lend money to SMEs at a rate 3 or 4 % above the rate offered in other more economically sound regions of Italy.
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Criminal organisations are often the ones to gain from these circumstances: they step in and offer loans at exorbitant rates when the banks refuse to support small businesses whose assets are not a sufficient guarantee.
We therefore appeal to the Commission to strive to eliminate such impediments to the growth of SMEs in some parts of the European Union.
We will enthusiastically support all amendments highlighting these aspects.
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<SPEAKER ID=296 NAME="Harrison">
Mr President, on a point of order.
There is no point in you talking about Members speaking for a short time or speaking within their limits when you have allowed that last speaker to go 60 % over the time accorded and, indeed, other speakers as well.
You are the President.
You have to make sure that Members speak for the time that is given to them.
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<SPEAKER ID=297 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Areitio Toledo">
Mr President, this evening we are talking about small and medium-sized enterprises.
We all recognize that small and medium-sized enterprises are major job creators.
Unfortunately, we do not treat them as such.
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One of the major problems for small and medium-sized enterprises is that they have been forced to bankroll large companies in two ways: through long payment periods in contracts, and through non-payments.
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Fortunately, the Commission has put forward a directive which aims to solve the second problem, and I welcome this as a step in the right direction.
I think that Mr Harrison's magnificent report, with its amendments, also makes a major contribution to solving the problem, and I hope that the comments that have been made here by Mrs Palacio and the representatives of the Committee on Legal Affairs will help to make certain improvements on the legal front.
I think that we are going in the right direction.
<P>
However, we need to remind the Commission that we expect something to be done about payment periods, because, as some speakers have already said, contractual freedom is sacred but it also has its limits and, in practice, what are officially free contracts are in fact commitments, like the contract that I sign for electricity from an electricity supplier.
The same, or something similar, is true of the contracts that small and medium-sized enterprises sign with large distribution companies.
<P>
There are amendments tabled in Mr Harrison's report that are worth considering.
Perhaps a certain amount of adjustment and modification is also needed, because the impact on a small or medium-sized enterprise that is not paid after an agreed payment period of 120 days is not the same as after only a 30-day period.
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Obviously, this is another matter to be dealt with in this directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=298 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Garosci">
<SPEAKER ID=299 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ilaskivi">
Mr President, the EU has quite correctly focused on the role of small and medium-sized companies both generally and more especially as creators of job opportunities.
Today we are discussing four reports which set out to create opportunities and remove obstacles.
Mr Hendrick's report discusses the key to solving Europe's employment problem.
It talks of small and medium-sized companies and the biggest problem they have for their development and success, namely being able to acquire the venture capital for the vital investments they have to make.
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The United States has managed substantially better than Europe in creating an active venture capital market for SMEs.
This is very clearly visible from the difference in the figures for unemployment in the world's two largest economic areas.
The European Union and its Member States, however, have, over the last decade, begun moves to get a lead over the USA.
A capital market aimed at European SMEs has been developed. Obstacles to that development have been removed.
The problem has arisen, however, of this market's ability to function.
<P>
General rules, according to Mr Hendrick, do not solve everything.
It is especially important for the smaller countries that special financial institutions are also created to allow credit to SMEs and to provide substitute capital when it is otherwise unavailable.
The EU should establish a better framework for European investment banks to provide funding for the SME sector on a broad scale and to create various loan security schemes for collective funding arrangements for that sector.
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<SPEAKER ID=300 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Porto">
Mr President, the European Observatory for SMEs continues to prove its usefulness in recognising and promoting these businesses which make such a vital contribution to our development.
I do not have time now to go through all the benefits I have listed on previous occasions, so I will confine myself to pointing out that SMEs continue to make an unmatched contribution to job creation, with 7 million new jobs created between 1995 and 1996, as compared to 4.8 million created by large firms.
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In the report before us, whose rapporteur I congratulate, we welcome the inclusion of two specific studies on SMEs and tourism and SMEs and the environment, both of which are of particular importance to Portugal.
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Tourism is a prime sector of activity in which small and medium-sized enterprises and a large number of people all over the country are engaged, and which offers the added advantage of serving to promote cultural values and bringing the citizens of different countries together.
The measures proposed therefore deserve our support, particularly those intended to ensure that the most disadvantaged areas are not neglected.
<P>
Regarding environmental protection, we welcome the acknowledgement of the fact that public support, particularly within the European Union, must be given to small and medium-sized enterprises, which might otherwise be placed at a disadvantage compared to enterprises which benefit from economies of scale and wealthier countries with established demand patterns.
<P>
We also welcome the reference to concrete measures in such different areas as social security, reducing bureaucracy, access to the capital market or adapting to the launch of the euro.
These are all appropriate measures which will not distort competition but will, on the contrary, allow better use to be made of the opportunities offered by the market.
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<SPEAKER ID=301 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Konrad">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Third Multiannual Programme of the European Union is a cornerstone of our policy for SMEs and that is why Mr Rübig's report is terribly important.
The fact that now, in the context of EU enlargement, we are opening up this programme to include Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Romania and the Slovak Republic, is more than welcome.
It would also have been nice if Slovenia, Latvia and Lithuania could have been alongside them.
I cannot accept that these countries are being singled out for non-participation for formal reasons.
I hope that this will change in future.
<P>
Looking at this massive project, it appears to me important that we see this Community programme as a part of the preaccession strategy, and for that reason we should be looking at the economic structures in these countries at the same time.
But no amount of money is going to produce what we need for SMEs at this point, which is vision.
This SME policy can guide companies towards it, but it can also, and this is especially important to me, strengthen the spirit of SMEs.
It is all about having a certain attitude to certain things at this point.
We need own-initiative, entrepreneurial commitment - i.e. alongside money, we need advice, training and incentives.
Therefore I believe it is important to try to do something about bureaucracy in these countries, to promote legal certainty and to provide support.
We must, in other words, improve the overall package with accompanying measures.
<P>
The problem here has something to do with the fact that in these countries too, less government is what is needed and not more. With our programme we should be contributing to increasing own-initiative.
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<SPEAKER ID=302 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Todini">
Mr President, I shall speak briefly concerning the report by Mr Harrison, to whom I am grateful for his work and for having raised the profile of such an important issue, the running sore of Europe's economy, in other words late payments to SMEs.
<P>
I would merely stress what has already been made abundantly clear by my colleagues, and in particular by Mrs Thyssen.
I too would draw attention to the content of Amendment No 14, paragraph d).
We have said that freedom of contract, where it is explicit, should be left intact; it is the basis and the life-blood of trade.
It is therefore important to try and eliminate all constraints liable to undermine express contractual freedom in any way.
I hope that tomorrow we shall be able to vote along these lines.
<P>
I should also like to emphasise the most important problem raised in the report, namely payments by public institutions.
Amendment No 26 states that in public authority contracts the main contractor has to grant conditions to the subcontractor and suppliers which are at least as favourable as those granted to the main contractor by the public authority.
That is right and proper, but let us not forget that it is all too often the public authorities' contracts themselves that cause the main contractor to have difficulty in paying the subcontractor and suppliers.
<P>
The focus should therefore be placed on the public institutions: contractors should receive guarantees covering onerous contracts with the public authorities, so that they in turn can provide guarantees to subcontractors.
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<SPEAKER ID=303 NAME="Papoutsis">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today the European Parliament is considering four reports concerning SMEs.
Let me deal with each of those reports in turn.
<P>
I will begin with Mr Harrison's report on late payment.
That phenomenon has serious consequences for all European companies.
As was stressed a short while ago, one in four bankruptcies is caused by late payments.
33 % of companies in Europe regard late payment as one of the most serious problems they face and one which, in many cases, threatens their survival.
Late payments impede the correct development of trade within the Community and also impede the smooth operation of the single market.
Though it is a general problem all over the European Union, it is true that there are great differences in the payment practices between the Member States.
21 % of European companies could export more if they could ensure prompt payment from their customers abroad.
<P>
The Commission proposal for a directive on late payment comprises a package of measures to combat this problem in trade operations within the European Community.
The measures relate to late payments between all companies and between companies and the public sector.
They also fully respect the principle of the freedom of contract.
The proposal's general aim is to encourage compliance with contractual payment deadlines, to the benefit of all companies.
It also provides a legal basis for discouraging debtors from delaying payment.
It will entitle creditors to adequate compensation when they are not paid promptly, and will provide or improve procedures for the recovery of the sums due, ensuring that those procedures are effective, cheap and quick.
The proposal also contains special measures to improve the payment practices of public authorities.
On that point, let me assure Mrs Thyssen that the Commission has taken the necessary measures to improve its own compliance with the 60-day payment deadline and, in cases where Commission departments delay payment without good reason, they will have to pay interest for the period of delay.
<P>
The Commission believes that this proposal will secure substantial benefits for companies, especially SMEs.
It will also have a positive impact on employment, precisely because there will be fewer bankruptcies in Europe due to late payment.
<P>
Mr President, I should like to thank the European Parliament for its continual support here.
I should also particularly like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Lyndon Harrison, for all his hard work, not just on his report on the directive, but for all his efforts in recent years on behalf of SMEs, always sounding the alarm bell and most of all in connection with the late payment issue.
Let me also thank the Legal Affairs Committee and especially its draftsman, Mrs Berger, for her contribution during the process of Parliament's scrutiny of the directive.
<P>
Many of the amendments tabled clarify and supplement the Commission proposal and I can tell you straight away that we accept them.
In particular, the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 10, 19, 20, 22 and 31 as they stand.
There are also some other amendments which the Commission mostly agrees with in substance, but we would like to reserve the possibility of rewording them to make them compatible with the rest of the directive from the legal standpoint.
I refer to Amendments Nos 7, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 21, 24, 26, 28 and 32.
In contrast, the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 5, 6, 8, 12, 17, 23, 25, 27, 29, 30, 33, 34 and 35.
<P>
Mr President, I should like now to move on to the Rübig report on the participation of a group of seven applicant Central and Eastern European countries in the Third Multiannual Programme for SMEs.
First of all I want to thank the rapporteur for his excellent work.
We can accept the amendments tabled and approved by the relevant parliamentary committee on 3 September.
Indeed, in recent years the number of SMEs has increased in all those countries and today account for over 90 % of all companies.
We know, however, that many efforts will still have to be made in the coming years to improve and simplify the administrative and legal environment within which those companies are active, and of course we would like to see still more of them become active in the future.
In past years the PHARE programme has played an important part in supporting the development of SMEs in those countries and I am sure that this will continue.
Today, in most cases, the policy on promoting the development of SMEs needs to be made more clear and, in my opinion, more specific.
<P>
I am particularly pleased that today sees the opening of the Third Multiannual Programme to a first group of seven countries for the period 1998-2000, namely Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Romania and the Slovak Republic.
Later the programme will be opened to Slovenia, Lithuania and Latvia, when they too are ready, and it is now being opened to the Republic of Cyprus.
Now that those countries are getting ready to join the Union, I sincerely believe that the time has come for them to participate creatively in the Third Multiannual Programme for SMEs.
I would again like to thank you for your support here.
<P>
Mr President, I now come to the Hendrick report on European capital markets for SMEs.
First of all, let me thank Mr Hendrick for his excellent report and his positive assessment of the Commission's 1997 statement.
Developments in that area since then have been particularly positive, though I believe there is still much to be done.
<P>
As you know, both the EASDAQ market and the Euro-Nouveau Marché have continued to expand and they now deal in the shares of around 200 companies.
Though EASDAQ's figures fall far short of those of NASDAQ, the corresponding American market, it remains true that it represents a very important achievement, especially bearing in mind that it is still less than two years since EASDAQ opened, while if we look at the American experience we see that NASDAQ took about five years to become established.
The 200 companies involved today account for capital of ECU 2.7 billion, i.e. on average ECU 14 million each.
That is a sum which could not have been obtained from traditional banking sources.
In parallel, it has enabled the companies to gain access to the bank finance they need, since their balance sheets have been strengthened by share capital.
Those companies are just the kind of active, high-tech enterprises which the European Commission wishes to encourage.
<P>
The result of their incorporation in a stock market has been to increase their working capital over these two years by an average of about 30 %.
Moreover, the successful expansion of those two markets has contributed generally towards stimulating increasing cooperation between stock markets and towards encouraging the creation of capital markets for SMEs in other Member States as well.
However, their development needs to be stimulated still further, and I believe that it will certainly be boosted by the arrival of the euro, since they will benefit greatly from the added transparency that will result from the adoption, implementation and use of the single currency.
<P>
Now, as for future action, we will focus our efforts on implementing the plan of action which was part of our statement at the Cardiff European Council in June 1998.
In that context let me mention six specific initiatives which are either under way already, or will begin very soon.
<P>
First, the Round Table concerning the fragmentation of venture capital markets, aiming to remove barriers and facilitate the access of SMEs to that type of finance.
<P>
Second, the review of all national and cross-border share issuing procedures, aiming to make the initial sale of shares to the public simple, standardised and cost-effective.
<P>
Third, the Third Round Table for bankers and SMEs.
Within the scope of this Third Round Table's work, best practices will be defined for the financing, creation and start-up of enterprises, especially ones with a high development potential which could become candidates for flotation on a European stock market.
<P>
Fourth, new measures on seat capital, which will be called CREA.
<P>
Fifth, a self-assessment guide to the markets for SMEs, which will help entrepreneurs decide for themselves whether their companies have the potential for stock market flotation.
<P>
Sixth, a study on the techniques used to assess both risk and the credit rating of companies, with special reference to SMEs.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, I come to the Scarbonchi report on the fifth annual report by the European Observatory for SMEs.
<P>
Let me first thank the European Parliament for its continual interest in the Observatory, and sincerely congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Scarbonchi, on his work.
<P>
I made a careful note of all your views about the Observatory's future work.
A call was made for a study of how the various European programmes for SMEs are coordinated, but I imagine that is already largely covered by the publication you all have at your disposal, on action on behalf of SMEs and the small trades sector.
<P>
As for the other views expressed, let me assure you that they will be taken into account when preparing future reports on the Observatory, which will need to contain more up-to-date, ready- processed facts and figures. Since the reports have previously been published on an annual basis, perhaps we need to allow more time than just one year, so that new and better processed data can be included.
<P>
Finally, I should like to say how glad I am that the Observatory's importance has been recognised as a point of reference, a centre which prepares a major report giving very important information not only about the European institutions, but mainly about the governments of the Member States and the various agencies working in the SME sector.
<P>
I also want to assure you that the Commission intends to continue the Observatory's work in the future and to contribute by supporting its activities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=304 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The votes will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 0.10 a.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pompidou">
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Your comment concerned a linguistic correction, Mr Pompidou, and we must clearly do all we can to improve the text and make it more accurate.
We shall proceed accordingly.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Madam President, I was told that yesterday Mrs Schierhuber's assistant was attacked and robbed in Brussels, and Mr Schiedermeier's flat was broken into.
When will the request signed by over 150 Members for improved safety measures in Brussels be acted upon?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Rosado Fernandes">
Madam President, I would just like to make a brief statement to inform the Parliament and my fellow Members that, although the Portuguese Government subscribes to Christian principles, we have seen the current demonstrations by farmers who have been brought to the verge of bankruptcy following several years of bad harvests met with armoured vehicles, helicopters, storm troops and dogs.
If this really is the humanism of my Government, I must protest.
I have always been involved with agriculture; I have myself participated in lawful, peaceful demonstrations.
I would like to draw attention to the fact that, even in a democracy, it is difficult to shrug off some of the habits of dictatorship.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
As you will appreciate, Mr Rosado Fernandes, I let you speak even though that was not a point of order.
<P>
I would ask Members only to raise genuine points of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Madam President, my comment possibly has more to do with the world's agenda rather than Parliament's, but I would ask you to give me just a minute of the House's time.
This morning it was announced that the country of Burkina Faso has ratified the Ottawa Treaty on anti-personnel mines.
This brings the number of countries which have ratified the Treaty to 40, which means that it came into force on 1 March 1998 and the process of ridding the world of landmines can now begin on 1 March 1999.
Parliament worked very hard to promote this Treaty, so as well as congratulating the government of Canada and the government of Burkina Faso for becoming the 40th ratifying country, I think we also deserve to feel quietly proud of ourselves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Bertens.
While that was not a point of order, everyone will realize the interest and the importance of what you told the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Madam President, this may not be a point of order, but I have a question I should like to put to you. Five months ago, on 7 April this year, I sent a written question to the President of the European Parliament about contracts for the supply of furniture for Parliament's bar and restaurants.
I have yet to receive a reply, despite making a number of telephone calls to the President's office.
What I would like to ask you is this: how am I to obtain a reply?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
I cannot give you an immediate answer, Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, because I was not aware of this letter.
However, I will ask the President to reply to the question which you put to him in April, if - as you say - he has not already done so.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Integrating gender issues in development cooperation
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0291/98), on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0307/98-97/0151(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Regulation on integrating gender issues in development cooperation (Rapporteur: Mrs Junker).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Junker">
Madam President, strengthening the situation of women is a fundamental objective in itself.
Human prosperity generally would increase if women enjoyed the same status as men and had the same opportunities and the same social, economic and legal rights as men, including the right to reproductive health and protection against genderspecific violence.
<P>
This creed does not stem from some feminist manifesto, but a fact-filled United Nations publication on the situation of women in the world in 1995, which was published on the occasion of the fourth World Women's Conference in Beijing.
The lessons which can be learnt from it correspond with the European Commission's mainstreaming approach for integrating gender issues in all areas of policy, including development cooperation.
<P>
In Beijing the European Union, I am glad to say, having been there myself to witness it, played a positive and constructive role.
Through the Action Platform and the Final Declaration approved in Beijing, all the participants committed themselves, in their respective areas of responsibility, to introducing targeted measures to contribute to the elimination of discrimination and to the genuinely equal treatment of women in all fields of life - upbringing, education, training, work and family, society, politics, the economy, science, justice, culture, the media, etc.
<P>
The proposal for a regulation which you have before you is a welcome attempt to increase awareness of the fact that improving women's rights is the very key to the sustainable development we hear so much about.
The aim of earmarking the funding allocated, which is unfortunately fairly modest, for awareness-raising measures rather than operational projects, certainly deserves our support.
<P>
Hitherto, women and their interests have not been adequately integrated into important spheres of development cooperation such as agriculture and livestock farming, the fishing industry, forestry, drinking water supplies, emergency and disaster aid, and also trade, food processing and light industry. This is due not least to stubborn prejudices and cultural and religious barriers that go hand in glove with ignorance.
<P>
I will not go through the whole list of disadvantages that women face in all cultural areas.
The problems are well-known.
We can say that the proposal for a regulation is a step in the right direction.
It is nevertheless a small step that must be followed by others.
<P>
I recognise the fact that many amendments from the first reading were accepted, but there is a crucial shortcoming as far as the Council's common position is concerned - it has limited the period of validity.
I think it is right for us to review how the programme has fared in five years' time, but the problem will certainly not have been dealt with by then and further efforts will still be required.
In this regard, I would suggest that the time limit be taken out, and I am counting on broad agreement from the House.
<P>
This further supports the idea that the integration of gender issues in development cooperation must be regarded as a horizontal task, as something to be practised across the board in development cooperation.
It depends on achieving a substantial multiplier effect, as the programme intends to do.
Coordinated action is needed with the Member States, because awareness must be raised not only in the developing countries but also at home.
All decision-makers, both male and female, must be appropriately trained at Community level, not only as far as the 'hard factors' are concerned, but also in the new areas of development cooperation which are becoming increasingly important: human rights, democratisation, the rule of law, participation of the civil society, good governance, trade, macroeconomic analyses, satisfying basic human needs, combating poverty, reproductive health.
In all of these areas, the priority is to use existing structures and local capacity in the developing countries.
<P>
However, the best of intentions and the finest regulations will come to nothing if there are not enough people to put them into practice, and this is particularly true here.
For a long time the European Parliament and its committees have complained there are not enough staff working on 'women and development' at the Commission.
Now the low point has been reached.
The Agrade official who was responsible for gender issues in the directorate-general has left the post and there is no sign of a successor.
I hear that the original job vacancy notice has apparently been blocked.
Now, there is just one expert from Sweden holding the fort.
I would very much like to hear what the Commission has to say about this, as it does cast doubt on its credibility.
The Commission has an obligation to Parliament here, but it has even more of an obligation towards women in the developing countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gröner">
Madam President, we also looked very closely at the subject of development cooperation and genderspecific aspects of it in the Committee on Women's Rights.
I went to Beijing as the rapporteur, and all I can say is that what was decided there was right.
The Action Platform provides us with a framework for action.
If we fail to implement what was undertaken there, then the most vehement statements of continued support will not help in the least.
If we have already recognised that women are the key to development, then the Regulation must come into force as quickly as possible.
<P>
We heard from Mrs Junker that the Commission is having a lot of problems with implementation here.
We also have two budget lines that are currently being blocked.
With the regulation, we will obtain the legal basis that we urgently need in order to translate gender concerns into reality.
<P>
The good work done in the past by the units in DG Ib and DG VIII was also mentioned.
They not only supervised pilot projects on mainstreaming, but also developed procedures which made it possible to evaluate the gender impact of the individual projects.
The effects of the various projects on girls and women in the countries with which we cooperate were closely examined.
Measures were also taken to raise awareness among staff in the Commission and other services of gender issues in development cooperation.
We cannot stop now, we must keep going.
If the few posts in the Commission are now to remain unfilled, then all our efforts will be frustrated.
<P>
That is why I believe that we must continue our attempts to release the appropriations for both the budget lines concerned, B7-611 and B7-631, as soon as possible.
The utilisation rate of the resources in these two lines was very high at 93 %.
<P>
The measures for areas such as crisis prevention, human rights, democratisation and basic education must be implemented as soon as possible in the cooperation countries.
I would emphasise once again that, as Mrs Junker has already said, a time limit does, of course, very much curtail the effects of the regulation.
If we agree - and I am assuming that we will have a majority here in the House - that the time limit should be removed, then that is a very important decision.
Constant evaluation of the effects of this policy would nevertheless still remain necessary.
Removing the time limit is, however, a central issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Günther">
Madam President, with subjects such as these we are used to seeing just the women of the House here.
I especially welcome the fact that a few gentlemen are present, particularly on our side of the House, and indeed more here than on the side which in general appears to be so sensitive to these kinds of issues.
The fact that Lord Plumb has just chosen the wrong moment to leave is another matter!
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, time and time again people complain about the fact that development cooperation does not adequately deal with or take into consideration the cultural conditions in the respective countries.
Even when we try to take account of gender issues in development policy we are still faced with the fact that societies in other countries have a traditional division of responsibilities, and we all know that trying to make radical changes never works.
<P>
So our first concern should be to identify the areas which especially affect women and then to step up our support for them.
Projects that are put forward for instance in the field of food provision or health are particularly successful.
For the same reason, in a whole series of countries, projects involving personal loans to women are also working. Their repayment ethic is well documented in all the reports.
<P>
In my opinion however, education should still be our top priority, not only because the proportion of illiterate women is especially high, but also because a higher level of education and training brings greater awareness of the issues of demographic development, and educated women would be more open to birth control.
<P>
We must, though, remember one thing - whenever broadening the scope for women affects the scope for men, there are two possibilities: the outcome is either conflict or consensus. The latter is certainly always better for families.
We should also not allow women to be encumbered with the entire responsibility for demographic development, particularly with regard to family planning.
This is an unusual approach, where the gender aspect means that both sides, men and women, have responsibility.
<P>
This report, like those on other subjects, calls on the Member States to cooperate.
This is a subject that crops up again and again at every opportunity in the field of development.
I would be very grateful if the Commission could give us feedback on successful examples of cooperation, so that we can at least cross off one area and say that it actually works there.
My thanks to the rapporteur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Kerr">
Madam President, Mrs Günther will be glad to know that the Greens are so advanced that we have a man speaking on this issue.
In fact, I presented the report by Nel van Dijk in the Women's Rights Committee when Nel was absent, so it is a subject I know about.
I think it is a very important area.
<P>
I have just returned from India, from visiting the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala.
If we look at village life in India and the central role which women play in the community, and the need to target women to act as the motors of development within the village, it should be clear that this is an area the EU needs to highlight more.
<P>
I think Mrs Junker's report is excellent because it stresses the key issue, namely that we should be using our money to train, develop and promote women within the developing countries and not necessarily spending all the money on training women within the Commission in Brussels.
<P>
That may be important - the sensitisation and feminisation of policies within the Commission and within the rest of the Union - but the key should be to spend money from these budget lines on women's projects in the developing countries themselves.
That is an important part of her report and I hope the Commission will respond positively.
<P>
We talked on the Women's Rights Committee about how we should feminise the policies more: to have effective standing committees with more women on them, to make sure there is better representation of women from the developing countries on ACP delegations, to make sure that we monitor and evaluate all development projects from the EU in terms of the impact on women within the developing countries, and to make sure the reports are fed back, not only to the Commission but to Parliament too, so that we can see that there is a true feminisation of EU development aid.
If we did this it would be a considerable advance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Scarbonchi">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I must first thank the rapporteur and all the members of the Committee on Development and Cooperation for their work on integrating gender equality in the European Union's development cooperation.
<P>
In the words of the Jean Ferrat song, women are men's future.
That is especially true in development issues.
Anyone who has been to Africa, for example, will have seen the major role played by women in the development process.
They make a vital contribution both to the economy - especially its informal or popular sector - and agriculture.
<P>
Similarly, their contribution to the rehabilitation and reconstruction process cannot be too highly praised.
<P>
Do we even need to mention their role in preventing conflicts or in building peace?
Yet, although they are the vehicles of development, in developing countries women are the victims of serious inequalities, social, family, economic and political discrimination, and their contribution to development is made despite considerable obstacles to their achieving equal treatment.
<P>
The European Union should now go beyond declarations of intent, develop the positive resolutions that it has adopted by subscribing to the platform of measures and the declaration of the 1995 Beijing Conference, and put them into practice, especially in its development aid policy.
<P>
We can therefore only welcome the proposal for a Council Regulation, which aims to give women the role they deserve as the vital element in development by ensuring that all development operations and strategies systematically include an analysis of gender issues.
It is, after all, vital that European Union development measures should respond to women's needs and priorities locally.
They must be able to play a full part in designing and implementing development projects.
<P>
I therefore wish to tell you, on behalf of my group, the European Radical Alliance, that I am fully behind the recommendation of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, especially since for us taking gender issues into account in Community development activities is a vital element in their success.
I should add that I do not think it is appropriate to fix a period of validity for this regulation, given the ambitious scale of its programme.
That is why, along with all my committee colleagues, I opposed the time limits suggested by the Council and I hope that it will heed the European Parliament on this point.
<P>
The concept of equality between men and women must always be kept in mind.
It must also be taken into account in all European Union development aid measures in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendes Bota">
Madam President, as a man and as a Member of Parliament, I cannot but acknowledge that we live in a society, be it in the north or south, in which women find it very difficult to enter decision-making positions in social, political and economic spheres.
This inequality of opportunity between men and women represents a huge waste of potential and ability, which is particularly flagrant in the less developed countries.
I disagree with a regulatory system based on quotas or rules.
I believe we should concentrate on raising awareness of this problem, and the European Parliament has played an exemplary pioneering role here.
<P>
We have a saying in Portugal that the softest water will eventually wear away the hardest stone.
I agree with the retabling of the proposed amendments to the regulation since we must ensure that small-scale operational projects are not neglected, that it is made clear that the European Union has only one policy on cooperation, and that we identify priority areas where the participation of women may be increased, such as emergency and crisis-prevention operations, human rights and democratisation, economic analysis, trade and sexual and reproductive health matters.
<P>
Special conditions must be removed and normality restored in the award of contracts on the basis of tenders from recipient countries and from developing countries in the same region.
The European Union cannot take away with one hand what it has given with the other.
<P>
And lastly, why decree the end of a programme which seeks to strengthen the presence of women in the European Union's development agencies and policies, writing its death certificate five years in advance?
We should know better than to expect miracles when we see the slow pace at which the major social changes of the last 15 years have taken place in the developing countries, the slow-but-sure improvement in life expectancy, infant mortality, literacy, birth rate and per capita GNP.
Unfortunately, it would seem from the Council's position that we will see Mrs Junker clamouring for woman power in the Commission services and bodies for a good many years yet.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Flynn">
Madam President, firstly I should like to welcome Parliament's recommendation and express the Commission's appreciation of the support given by Parliament both for the creation of this budget line in 1990 and also for the Community's policy on mainstream and gender issues in development cooperation since the Beijing Conference on Women in 1995.
<P>
I am very pleased to have the opportunity to thank Parliament for the excellent work done in particular by the rapporteur Mrs Juncker on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation and Mrs Gröner on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights.
It is recognized that the high level of experience and commitment is fostering good cooperation between the European Parliament and the Commission in this area.
<P>
This proposed recommendation aims to provide a coherent and stable legal basis for measures which are of key importance to the quality and effectiveness of our development cooperation as well as for social justice and equality.
It is absolutely essential that we get the regulation through as quickly as possible so that we can use the money for the intended purpose.
<P>
In the past development interventions have often neglected two important considerations. Firstly, they have often failed to take proper account of the various economic and social roles carried out by women in the project areas.
Consequently projects could be designed on the basis of an incomplete picture and without the participation of those most concerned.
That is exactly the point made by Mr Kerr.
Such an approach of course reduces their chances of success.
<P>
Secondly, they have given insufficient weight at policy and programming level to the persistent and severe differentials between women and men in developing countries.
That is the point made very forcefully by Mrs Günther.
These differentials reduce the possibilities for women to make a significant economic and social contribution and they act as a brake on the development of society as a whole.
They also keep women in subordinate roles.
So we are trying to get on with exactly what Mrs Gröner said, namely implementing the platform agreed worldwide at Beijing.
<P>
It is for these reasons that a strategic and catalytic approach is so important.
Simply to fund additional projects in favour of women would risk marginalising the importance of the issue.
It would not have sufficient effect and its impact on the quality and long-term effectiveness of mainstream development activities would be minimal.
Instead the proposed regulation provides measures to support the comprehensive inclusion of gender issues within the mainstream of the Community's development cooperation policies and programmes.
That is the point which was made in Beijing so far as the platform is concerned.
<P>
At the same time, it will encourage special interventions to reduce differentials between women and men, financed from existing allocations, and on an appropriately large scale.
We think that is the right approach.
This accords with the mainstreaming approach favoured by the recent Council conclusions and earlier resolution and in particular by the Beijing Conference.
The broad mainstreaming approach is what we are trying to promote.
<P>
The task involves a thorough, imaginative and ongoing re-thinking of traditional approaches and working methods.
International experience suggests that this is not an easy or rapid task.
However, the first progress report of integrating gender in development shows that considerable work has already been done and a good start has been made.
Mrs Juncker made a very strong point regarding personnel and we recognize the importance of her observation.
We are trying to maintain existing staffing levels but I have to say that this is not easy.
<P>
The present difficult staffing climate leaves us very little room for manoeuvre in this respect.
Specialized expertise is not always readily available and cannot be transferred easily within the directorate.
The point Mrs Juncker and Mr Kerr made is being taken on board.
It is important to develop training both in-house and for those in the developing countries.
<P>
The Commission's position on the 20 amendments submitted for consideration and voting is as follows: We can fully support six amendments, Nos 1, 7, 9, 10, 14 and 20, and also parts of Nos 11, 17 and 18.
We can also partially embrace Amendments Nos 2 and 4, although we consider that some rewording is needed to retain a clear focus on the mainstreaming approach of the budget line.
We are talking about one budget line here, which incorporates two previous budget lines.
<P>
We are unable to accept the following amendments: Nos 3, 5, 6, 8, 12, 13, 15, 16 and 19, together with parts of Nos 11, 17 and 18.
Let me outline very briefly the main reasons for the Commission's position.
Some amendments, for example Nos 12 and 13 and part of 18, would cause new procedural constraints, particularly related to interinstitutional requirements.
These would jeopardise the proper administration of the budget, given the limited human resources that are available in the Commission.
In the case of Amendment No 8, although we agree with the intention, the activities proposed are too ambitious for our staffing resources.
<P>
Finally, several amendments - Nos 16, 19 and part of 11 - would be inconsistent with the existing interinstitutional agreements or would involve changing existing committee procedures.
Others - Amendment No 15 and part of No 18 - would affect the Commission's existing competences.
As you know, there is some urgency about the passing of the regulation.
The budget line for integrating gender and development is currently blocked until the legal base can be established.
So we are grateful for Parliament's support in our efforts to try to progress this measure as quickly as possible.
Three years after the World Conference on Women at Beijing a lot has been achieved.
That is agreed.
<P>
A considerable and growing proportion of Community aid resources are being targeted at the Beijing priority areas.
Important steps are being taken to improve the gender sensitivity of Community aid programmes so the adoption of this regulation on integrating gender issues in development cooperation will provide a stable basis for this work and enable us to intensify our efforts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Flynn.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Women: impact of unemployment
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0272/98) by Mrs Marinucci, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights, on the impact of unemployment on the situation of women.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Marinucci">
Madam President, unemployment is the European Union's number one problem.
It manifests itself to varying degrees in the different regions of Europe, but it represents a serious threat to family peace and institutional stability everywhere.
There has been a succession of studies, research projects, national and Community measures over the years, plus the Delors White Paper, Councils of Ministers and summits, all of them suggesting more or less feasible remedies - implemented to a greater or lesser extent - but the problem remains and is likely to worsen.
There is just one positive aspect to this picture of gloom: for the first time in history it has not occurred to anyone to suggest the traditional expedient of reducing male unemployment by sending women back home.
<P>
This undoubtedly signals a victory for present-day feminism, which has also revolutionised approaches to employment issues.
It signals the victory of all those women in every corner of Europe who are joining the labour market in increasingly large numbers, thus indicating their unshakable desire to play a full part in work outside the home.
But it goes further than that!
Not only has no one seen fit to dust off the old recipe, tried and tested time and again - since the dawn of the industrial revolution - in the post-war periods and at times of crisis, but, what is more, since the Essen Summit the European Union has fully integrated women's issues into the debate and proposals on employment in Europe, with major repercussions in all the Member States.
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Why then, some might ask, was there a need for this own-initiative resolution?
Because appearances conceal certain ambiguities which could bring back in through the window what has gone out through the door, because many measures are still not being applied, many measures are inadequate, and because there is a need to point up the numerous contradictions pervading the whole issue of female employment and unemployment.
<P>
The first contradiction is that there have never before been so many women in paid employment outside of the home; at the same time, neither have there ever been so many women out of work.
The reason is that the growing supply of female labour is offset by an accelerating decline in the demand for both male and female workers in private firms and public institutions.
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The second contradiction is that, whereas female employment is increasing, the increase is primarily in part-time, insecure and fixed-term jobs.
Part-time work is on the increase, but this does not always mean that it becomes easier to reconcile domestic activities with work outside the home, because this work might take place at weekends, on public holidays, in the evenings or at night.
Jobs lasting a few hours and a few days a year boost female employment, but social protection is reduced.
What is more, social protection provided on a non-individual basis prevents women from taking paid employment, and - in some countries - even the transition from passive to so-called active labour market policies deprives women of welfare benefits which are not readily replaced by income from employment, for instance in the case of single mothers.
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The third contradiction is that although girls are performing better at school, female employment is not increasing proportionately.
This is undoubtedly because of the segregation of girls in school, which results in women being segregated in traditionally female jobs. What is more, there are female graduates out of work in traditionally male sectors, often with better qualifications than their employed male counterparts.
The same can be said of vocational training, which does not lead to significant levels of female employment when it is targeted at sectors already dominated by women, nor even, sometimes, when targeted at sectors dominated by men, if these sectors are themselves contracting.
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All these contradictions - at a time when women are furthermore suffering, as mothers and wives, the effects of the substantial difficulties being encountered by young people trying to enter the world of work, or the tragedy of husbands losing their jobs - convinced us of the need to bring this issue back into the spotlight.
<P>
We women are disappointed, firstly, both by the approach of the Employment Guidelines adopted at the Luxembourg Summit - which failed to incorporate the subject of women's employment into the first three pillars, marginalising and compartmentalising it in the fourth - and by the national action plans, some of which have glaring shortcomings and are devoid of any quantified targets.
We are disappointed, secondly, in the outcome of the meeting of EU Ministers for Women in Belfast which ended without any concrete decisions. Therefore this resolution, the fruit of cooperation and valuable additions in the form of amendments from female and male colleagues from all the groups, urges the Commission, Council and Member States to include in the next Employment Guidelines - and, Mr Flynn, in the guidelines for the Structural Funds - benchmark targets with quantified objectives and clear timetables and budgetary resources for implementation.
These benchmarks should be based on the average of the three most successful Member States.
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We call for a more precise definition of unemployment and a clear definition of part-time work, and we call on the social partners to conclude a framework agreement on all forms of atypical work.
We should also like the Commission to issue a framework directive on childcare services - I would be delighted if the Commissioner were to announce it today - and we hope that this House will back our proposals.
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<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gröner">
Madam President, today, we in the European Parliament have once again shown ourselves to be a genuine lobby for women's rights with this wide-ranging debate on the subject.
I think that equal rights and opportunities for men and women in education, training and the labour market are one of the cornerstones of the construction of Europe.
Gainful employment is, as we all know, more than just earning one's living.
The talents, qualifications and creativity of the female sex, in the EU and beyond, are all valuable assets upon which we must build.
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Nevertheless, as the Marinucci report clearly shows, to this day, women are remarkably disadvantaged.
Der Spiegel's survey of the labour market shows that on average women are 30 % more affected by unemployment, not to mention the fact that in some regions of the Union female unemployment is twice as high as the overall rate, more women are being pushed out of the labour market, women are forced into insecure, unprotected jobs (so-called atypical work) and, in spite of their qualifications, they are disadvantaged when it comes to career advancement.
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We in the Group of the Party of European Socialists see an increasingly dangerous risk that, in the long-term, major disadvantages affecting women are going to become worse, such as differences in income (women earn one third less), serious discrimination in career advancement and the danger of increasing unemployment.
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The Marinucci report contains a whole series of very specific suggestions to make it easier for women to reconcile family and work.
Basically, however, a rethink is urgently needed, as is coordinated action between the Member States and the EU institutions.
The Employment Summit has started the ball rolling, but the proposals in the national employment plans for ensuring equal treatment for men and women are completely inadequate.
We must underline the fact that measures to promote employment will have to do much more to include women.
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I am very much in favour of adopting benchmarking and laying down guidelines, with time-limits, on how to eliminate discrimination.
In the motion for a resolution, and especially in paragraph 23, the report makes tangible proposals as to how the disadvantages and the gender gap could be reduced and on how we should take the lead from the three most successful Member States here.
The Marinucci report makes a number of good suggestions.
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I should like to thank my colleague for her work, and I think that the Member States do have to be made more aware of this problem.
At the last informal Council of Ministers in Austria, three Member States were not represented at all: Germany, the UK and France. They had not even sent ministers to the informal meeting.
Member States' awareness of the problem does have to be increased.
We expect the Council of Social Affairs Ministers in October to implement the reports that are approved here today.
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<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Thomas">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have made further progress in the fight against unemployment.
In Essen, in 1994, under the German Presidency, we laid the foundations for a comprehensive strategy on cooperation between Member States.
In the five spheres that have been identified, there are actions in favour of those groups particularly affected by unemployment, of which a disproportionately high ratio are women.
At the Employment Summit in Luxembourg in 1997, action plans were decided upon to combat long-term and youth unemployment, and to move from passive to active measures. These concern women especially.
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What is known as atypical work has long since become typical - voluntary work, fixed-term contract work, and help from family members.
Part-time work is sensible if it allows the demands of work and family life to be better reconciled, including through homeworking and teleworking.
It is not sensible if working by the hour is extended so much that it more or less becomes a full-time job, and an underpaid one at that.
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Part-time work without social cover, opportunities for further training and career advancement is merely something for companies to fall back on when they have a lot of orders.
Here, as the PPE Group has pointed out in its amendments, the danger of dismissal is ever-present.
The social security section of the 1997 Directive on Part-Time Work needs to be fleshed out.
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In order to make it easier for women to enter into their preferred career, skilled child-care is also needed. It should be affordable, appropriate and with flexible and extended opening hours.
Germany's Law on nurseries, which lays down the right to a nursery place, is a good beginning which other countries should copy.
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We in the PPE Group support Mrs Marinucci when, in her committed report, she calls for it to be made easier for women to return to professional life.
A person who interrupts their career to bring up children, look after elderly dependants, in the service of someone else in other words, should not be held back.
They must be supported, even by taking this into account when it comes to pension entitlements.
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I cannot however share one of the assessments made by the rapporteur, of the value of education and training.
Of course it is unacceptable that women, who happily by now make up the majority at universities, should suffer more from unemployment than their male counterparts and should be over-qualified for many jobs.
Nevertheless, higher education qualifications are always worth having, even if they are no guarantee of a job.
They increase the chances of securing a job and increase selfconfidence.
There are still considerable difficulties in climbing up the career ladder.
Companies headed or founded by women are still in an all too obvious minority.
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That is why promoting the enterprise culture, or easier access for women to financing and loans, are top priorities for the PPE Group.
At the suggestion of our Committee on Women's Rights, let us do what we can to ensure that these ideas are adopted by the economy and society.
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<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Larive">

Madam President, the rapporteur, Mrs Marinucci, has explained very clearly why women still need to be given special consideration on the labour market, yet in the Committee on Women's Rights I abstained.
Why?
We in the Liberal Group feel that the general approach adopted in the report is too defensive, too concerned about the need for flexibility on the labour market and, in places, unrealistic.
Take flexibility.
According to the rapporteur this is a terrible headache, yet young men and women are increasingly coming to realise that inflexibility will not help them to find work.
They are not looking for jobs for life, they are happy to diversify, they operate through agencies and work flexible hours.
Of course, Mrs Marinucci, the social partners need to introduce some rules here, preferably at European level, but rigid legislation is the kiss of death.
The same goes for childcare.
We do not need European legislation, we simply need the European recommendation to be implemented. All the Member States signed up to it, so we should keep on at them until they apply it.
But how can childcare be free?
Someone has to pay for it.
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Here is another great idea.
Are you suggesting, as I think you are in paragraph 19, that European funding should be used to set up centres for the elderly? I sincerely hope not.
This is surely the responsibility of the Member States.
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Next, mainstreaming.
Mrs Marinucci is quite right, this is something we simply have to hold out for.
There is still a long way to go and Parliament must do everything it can to help. We need quantified targets and timetables, we need experts on gender issues, the National Action Plans must be evaluated and responsibility must be taken for the way in which the money from the Structural Funds is spent.
However, my group feels that it is too soon to break away from mainstreaming by demanding a quota for women in the Structural Funds, and this is why we want to have a number of paragraphs removed from the text and a number of amendments adopted.
We would then be perfectly happy to vote for the resolution.
If not we will be forced to abstain, which would be a pity, because we think the report also contains a number of very good proposals.
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The truth is that women still need a helping hand, particularly in the form of active encouragement for women entrepreneurs.
We have to create opportunities so that people can take advantage of them, and I hope that the current trend for women to become increasingly well trained - often better than men - continues, so that by 2005 we find ourselves having to set up a Committee for Men's Rights.
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<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Daskalaki">
Madam President, let me begin by congratulating Mrs Marinucci on this report.
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As she stresses, official statistics underestimate the problem of women's unemployment relative to men's unemployment, since they do not reflect the diversity of economic activity by women, while the definition of unemployment as a concept takes no account of the various categories in which a female presence is particularly important.
She also stresses the contrast between the level of education among women, which is generally superior to that of men, and the proportion of reduced or qualitatively inferior employment, since women are in the majority where informal work is concerned, as everyone has been saying.
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The latest Eurostat figures show that unemployment affects women more, with an average throughout the European Union of 12.3 % compared with 8.9 % for men.
There are countries in which that difference is even larger, for example in Spain the corresponding figures are 27.8 % and 15 %, while the 1996 labour force survey showed that women account for 63.5 % of the officially unemployed population.
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The rapporteur presents a series of very important proposals designed to facilitate a more accurate evaluation of economic activity by women, and measures to be implemented by the Commission and the Member States in order to give women easier access to the workplace and improve the quality of their jobs.
Part-time or occasional work may allow women to care for their children, but it must be recognised that such jobs are very often an enforced and necessary choice to which women object.
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Mrs Marinucci's proposals provide answers to these very complex issues, since new initiatives must clearly be adopted to reduce the inequality which continues to exist between women and men, even in here.
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<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Madam President, we agree with Mrs Marinucci's report and the concerns it expresses.
In the short amount of time available, I would like to refer to three or four of the central issues arising from this report.
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Firstly, women's unemployment.
Mr Mann said that education was necessary and that it needed to be continued.
But it is not only a matter of education, given that in countries of the South, such as Greece, Spain and Italy, women that have attained university-level education occupy half as many jobs as men with the same level of education.
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Unequal pay must also be highlighted.
These days, in spite of the 1975 directive - with which Mr Flynn is very familiar - on equal pay for men and women, there continues to be a 25 or 30 % gender gap in earnings for the same type of work.
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Also, the participation of women in part-time work merits attention.
It is true that some are in favour of part-time work for women as it enables them to reconcile professional and family life.
However, this means that they receive fewer social benefits during unemployment and on retirement.
It would of course be highly desirable if, as well as sharing work outside the home, we were able to share domestic chores equally with men inside the home.
This would be good for women, men and families in general.
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There are no statistics available to show how the Structural Funds were previously used to attain equality between men and women, or how this famous mainstreaming was achieved, although I prefer to talk in terms of using all the mechanisms at our disposal through European policies to eradicate inequality.
I think that the proposals put forward by Mrs Marinucci are highly appropriate given that they are aimed at eradicating inequalities in pay, jobs and life in general.
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<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="Hautala">
Madam President, I am delighted to hear that the European Commission understands that women are needed on the labour market.
Social development demands it and, of course, women too have the right to be in the job market just as much as men have.
Earlier speeches have given an accurate picture of the obstacles women face in finding employment outside the home.
We are impatiently awaiting solutions to the social security problems that come with atypical work, and we are also impatiently waiting for the Member States to get to grips with the issue of childcare.
It appears that nothing much has happened in this area since the Council, a few years ago, approved the recommendation which called for a guarantee of high-quality childcare services.
I would be interested to hear whether the Commission has good news for us on this matter.
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Mrs Marinucci's report proposes the notion of 'caring years'.
I support that idea strongly.
It would mean that anyone interrupting their career to bring up their children or look after their parents should be compensated so that they do not have to suffer in terms of work or social security, simply because they have attended to their family obligations.
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Mr Flynn, you were at the conference on Structural Funds that was held in Oporto, Portugal, a few days ago.
According to the newspapers you criticised Parliament for not having paid enough attention to equal opportunities in its position on the Structural Funds.
I imagine you have been quoted wrongly.
Perhaps you would like to tell us if you were, once we have finished discussing your proposals on equal opportunities in the Structural Funds.
We will certainly listen with considerable interest.
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<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Leperre-Verrier">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to congratulate Mrs Marinucci and thank her for her work.
Her report and the other reports being debated here today offer us a further opportunity to look at the situation of women.
But they also lead me to ask certain questions.
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Will the fight for equality between men and women one day become obsolete, particularly in the field of employment?
Since the 1980s, the level of female unemployment has remained stubbornly high and is still on the increase.
Female unemployment is far higher than male unemployment in the 15 Member States of the Union, with the exception of the United Kingdom and Sweden.
Discrimination in the labour market remains very strong and little change has been registered in wage inequality.
In a country like Spain, where the rate of unemployment is very high, women are finding it extremely difficult to find a job.
France and Finland are also experiencing record levels of female unemployment.
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To put it clearly, the gap between women and men is still wide.
Yet the action taken by the international community as a whole has had some effect on the fight for equality, not to mention everything that went before it.
It was 20 years ago that the first conference was held, 20 years in which a real and beneficial improvement has been made to the status of women throughout the world.
It has been a laudable effort and the results have been encouraging, if inadequate and disappointing.
Not only are women hardest hit by unemployment but the family constraints by which they are bound still have a negative impact on the level of unemployment benefits that they receive.
They often work part-time or at home, interrupt their careers, and drift into the services sector, doing temporary or poorly paid work.
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As our rapporteur points out, since unemployment benefits are calculated on the basis of income in most Member States, it is clear that women are hit harder by unemployment in such cases.
It is also clear that where legal protection exists, such as minimum wages, wage discrimination between men and women tends to be less marked.
Why therefore do we not apply this rule more widely in the 15 Member States?
The rapporteur proposes a raft of measures likely to offer women a chance to benefit considerably from protection against unemployment.
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My group fully supports this report and in particular paragraph 20 of the motion for a resolution, which is a practical expression of the desire to guarantee women a place on the labour market.
The Commission has produced a large number of strategies, recommendations and studies aimed at contributing to the achievement of this aim.
It is now for the Member States to put them into practice.
A good many are endeavouring to do so but others are still at the stage of wishful thinking, although a few have made efforts in certain sectors.
Bringing about sexual equality and guaranteeing a new partnership between the sexes based on equality and shared responsibilities are subjects which have always been at the heart of the European Union's policies.
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These are the points that the rapporteur has underlined; the rest is up to the Member States.
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<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Seillier">
Mr President, Mrs Marinucci's report is very thorough.
It takes into account our discussions in committee and I must thank the rapporteur, in particular, for paragraphs 2, 3 and 4 on page 14 of the explanatory statement.
However, you will not be surprised to hear that my amendments go beyond the recommendations contained in those paragraphs.
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Pertinent though it is, the issue of equality does not accommodate those women who want to balance the special time of motherhood, not only pregnancy but also the time when they bring up their children, with their working lives.
That is the difference between women and men.
You cannot therefore speak of equality without taking account of that special aspect.
I think we have to go further.
Your response is that we need very extensive childcare systems which are both affordable and high quality.
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However, we should not just consider the socialist option - which may be yours, but which does not necessarily and automatically take care of all children.
If a mother is paid a sum of money to care for her own children for a period of time of her own choice, is she not herself offering a high-quality, low-cost childcare service which benefits children, women and society as a whole?
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I wish to thank Mr Flynn for organising the conference to be held in Rome on the ...
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(The President cut the speaker off)
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<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Angelilli">

Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating Mrs Marinucci on a report which sums up clearly and simply all the aspects of female unemployment, emphasising how often this problem is underestimated as compared with male unemployment, owing to a number of cultural prejudices.
We broadly share the views expressed, especially as they are borne out by recent studies and statistical data: eliminating obstacles to employment, promoting the participation of women in vocational training, improving access to social protection for the unemployed and, furthermore, drawing up more detailed legislation on all forms of atypical work, which affects a huge number of women.
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I should like to highlight one point in particular: women must be allowed and entitled to choose part-time work, so as to be able to reconcile working life with their domestic and family responsibilities.
I nevertheless share all the rapporteur's concerns about part-time work, and would add that women must equally have the right, for economic or career reasons, to choose fulltime work: for example single women with dependent children.
Thus there is a need to create proper social structures to assist working women: approved childcare facilities, but also proper services to care for the elderly and handicapped.
All too often, as we well know, women have sole responsibility for looking after the handicapped and elderly as well as children.
All these facilities are of course costly for the Member States, especially at a time of recession, but we must safeguard the right of women to have a job, without this standing in the way of their right to have children, because in a society where the birth-rate is falling children benefit us all.
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Finally, let me stress that it is absolutely scandalous that, on the threshold of the millennium, despite national regulations and laws, and despite clear provisions in the Treaty, there still exists an enormous pay differential in women's disfavour.
Special efforts are required to monitor and eliminate this unacceptable form of discrimination: removing it is part and parcel of true democracy in Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Delcroix">
Mr President, Mrs Marinucci's report is an excellent synthesis of Parliament's demands.
I wish to draw your attention to one point, namely part-time work, which has played a vital part in the development of the female workforce in the 1990s.
Women now occupy the majority of part-time jobs: 83 %.
This is an extraordinary figure.
Part-time work is often presented, traditionally at least, as a positive element enabling women to reconcile work and family life.
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However, Eurostat statistics show that this is not the case and that preference would go to full-time work if possible, mainly because factors such as the working hours, weekend work, the lack of promotion prospects or training for qualifications all give the lie to the idyllic picture painted of part-time work.
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Contrary to what tends to be claimed, part-time work is not chosen by women but, in most cases, by employers; in any case, it is a real problem inherent to our way of life.
It is seldom found in industry or in jobs with responsibility; it is often limited to low-skilled jobs or particular sectors.
The rapporteur feels that, whereas part-time working should be encouraged in the current labour market, it should be extended to skilled work, men should be encouraged to practise it, and all part-time workers should be guaranteed training and promotion opportunities.
These ideas may well remain a dead letter, since there is no evidence of any political will to turn them into reality.
It seems to me that the most radical proposal is that of promoting female employment by drastically cutting back on part-time work and changing everyone's working hours, women and men alike.
Since this will never be achieved without a fight and without carrying out gradual reforms over time, the European Union must begin by examining all the discriminatory effects that any employment policy is likely to entail.
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<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, during the economic crisis in the 1930s, certain countries, including mine, passed legislation or regulations forbidding access by women to the civil service, for example.
After the Second World War, when I began work - for a trade union, I would point out - I was warned that I would be sacked if I got married.
In the 1950s, it was still common practice in my country to sack women when they married.
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Even today, some men and women think, and even dare to say, that with unemployment as it is, women should stay at home, look after the family and not compete with men on the labour market.
It is obvious that our laws and, in particular, European directives on equal treatment and equal opportunities for men and women prohibit the direct forms of discrimination that I have just described.
But, alas, although the laws have changed, you still find people who tend to blame women for wanting to take advantage of their right to work and they continue to influence certain policy-makers.
The Committee on Women's Rights was therefore right to draft an own-initiative report on the special impact of unemployment on women.
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I think it was Talleyrand who said that all that is exaggerated is insignificant.
Some passages in this report contain exaggerations or over-generalisations, and unrealistic claims are made.
This runs the risk not of being insignificant but nonetheless of harming women. If we try to overprotect them or treat them as a special case, we could turn them into a workforce that is too costly or too difficult to manage, and therefore too difficult to be successfully integrated into firms.
That is why we have tabled a certain number of amendments to remedy these exaggerations, which Mrs Larive also referred to.
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Let us not forget that the greatest service we can offer women, young or old, who are looking for jobs or hoping to play a part in the economy, is if we diversify their job options and offer them sound training; we can also help them to face competition on the labour market by eliminating all direct and indirect discrimination and by taking positive action, as and when required, in order to guarantee them equal opportunities.
I hope that by November, we shall be able to debate my report on the matter in the House.
We shall help women more, and above all, by guaranteeing them and their partners a free choice between a career and family life.
<P>
Since Mr Flynn is here today, I should also like to remind him that we should not forget the invisible workers, women working for their self-employed husbands, who have work but no status.
I should like to ask Mr Flynn what progress has been made on his proposal to amend the 1986 'decaffeinated' directive on which Parliament unanimously adopted a report. It has been the subject of round-table discussions but still has not produced anything in practice.
I should like to take this opportunity, Mr Flynn, to ask you to give us further information on this subject.
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<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ryynänen">
Mr President, Commissioner, Mrs Marinucci's report quite rightly stresses the fact that greater unemployment among women calls for special action to be taken.
For me the big question in the future for both men and women is how prepared we will be to share the workload between humans and machines.
Are we going to accept the global model where only 20 % of human beings will be really needed and the other 80 %, the majority of them women, will be a sort of surplus population?
I believe that we wish to see a more balanced future for Europe.
<P>
Any improvement in the employment situation, particularly for women, requires a change in attitude to one that is more flexible.
We need a much more holistic approach to life when it comes to making changes in the area of work.
The various stages of a woman's life call for different solutions in the link between her job and her family.
She should be able to enjoy flexibility in returning from part-time to full-time work, if this is what she wants to do.
Time off work for family reasons and part-time work must also be options for men, those who are highly trained and those who are highly valued.
'Caring years' must be put on the agenda.
Otherwise this sort of time off can easily become a trap that discriminates against women in matters of work.
<P>
Female entrepreneurship is a resource that is still very rarely tapped.
That is why we need special projects to encourage and train women to make use of their many entrepreneurial skills and abilities.
Training, financing and networking lie at the heart of the support needed.
<P>
In addition, women in regional development schemes have up till now been the victims of discrimination in spite of all the equality targets, although we underline the importance of these in Structural Fund reform programmes.
I hope that we can make better use of funds than we do now for programmes to promote equal opportunities.
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<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Madam President, if ever there was a topic where shortage of time was worrying, this is it.
The matter of women and employment raises endless theoretical and practical issues.
I will concentrate on two.
The first is that of the new profile given to employment.
Without going into notions and concepts of social class - although this certainly does not mean that these have not changed - we are witnessing an expansion of the services sector which, for historical and other reasons, has resulted in an increase in the number of women in employment. In objective terms this promotes and speeds women's access to the 'world of work', although this may be reversed at certain times, and it highlights the problem of organising time and the use of the labour force, what I would call the 'organisation of living time' .
<P>
The second point relates to the matter of training.
The quality of the labour force is becoming increasingly important, reflecting the fact that work is becoming more human and social.
More training and qualifications are particularly essential for women who, as a social group, are still the victims of the sexist, discriminatory social division of labour.
<P>
In a recent report on the competitiveness of the textile industry I took the opportunity to propose this approach, which was accepted.
I mention this simply to support the considerations raised in the report by Mrs Marinucci, whom I congratulate on her work.
For that reason alone, it would have proved extremely useful.
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<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Stirbois">
Mr President, Mrs Marinucci's report is a good one, since it makes a very eloquent point: the unemployment rate among women is higher than that among men.
Of course, like her, I am in favour of equality between women and men at work, in favour of equal pay for the same work, in favour of equal opportunities for men and women seeking employment, and for reducing the gap between men and women in terms of unemployment.
All of these inequalities are quite shameful since our laws are very clear in each of our countries on this subject.
<P>
Like you, Mrs Marinucci, I think that we should be more flexible with women's working hours and mothers should be offered appropriate childcare and crèche facilities.
In fact I agree with you on a number of points.
Only, it has to be said, your report may be paved with good intentions but many of them are utopian and impossible to achieve.
For example, one of my colleagues earlier spoke of crèches. It is true that in a recession it would be difficult to make them free of charge.
<P>
On the other hand, while we agree on the principle of integrating women in the world of work, we do not agree with you on certain ways of bringing that about.
We are resolutely against the system of quotas that you propose, for example in paragraph 17 of your motion for a resolution, since being a woman should not be regarded as a disability.
This policy will not help to create new jobs but, on the contrary, will be another step backwards for women and the effect will be to reduce the role of women to that of an assisted person and saddle them with an inferior status.
We are also against compulsorily penalising countries for failing to respect equal opportunities between men and women as you see them.
Offering women opportunities to succeed in the world of work while, in certain cases, tending to their children and family life, does not mean that they should be forced to do this at all costs.
<P>
It is also a shame not to propose a parental income in order to facilitate free choice for everyone.
For these reasons and depending on the votes on the amendments, we shall take our final decision when the time comes.
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<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Torres Marques">
Mr President, may I congratulate Mrs Marinucci on the excellent report now before us.
This report, for the Committee on Women's Rights, clearly reflects the interest that these subjects deserve and we hope that they will soon be further developed by the Commission and incorporated into national employment plans.
<P>
Commissioner Flynn, in his inspiring address last Tuesday during the seminar organised in Portugal by the Commission entitled 'The Integration of Equality between Women and Men in the Structural Funds' , which I also attended, he not only refrained from criticizing the European Parliament but he actively supported it, showing himself to be entirely open and committed to advancing along the road that we are discussing here today.
<P>
I would like to draw attention to four points that I consider to be of the utmost importance.
<P>
Firstly, female employment is essential both for economic growth and for maintaining the European social model that we wish to preserve.
Indeed, in the light of expected demographic trends, were it not for female employment and the corresponding social security contributions, the system would not be able to meet its responsibilities in ensuring a decent living for pensioners.
<P>
Men are now discovering that, if women do not work, revenues will not be sufficient to meet social security obligations.
I hope that the appropriate conclusions will be drawn in terms of education policy, vocational training, regulation of nonstandard employment, support for new working time systems and new forms of work and, in particular, the social economy.
<P>
But do not think, gentlemen, that we are prepared yet again to serve merely as a labour pool, to be set aside when our services are no longer required.
This time women are on the labour market to stay.
<P>
Secondly, far-reaching changes are required within the family, to allow both men and women to reconcile their private and working lives.
Funding from the Structural Funds should be allocated to companies which offer facilities to care for children, dependents and the elderly, and support should be offered to companies created by women to enable them to resolve such problems.
<P>
It is also essential that the good practices identified within the European Union in this sphere should become more widely publicised and imitated.
These might include, for instance, the decision by the Finnish Prime Minister to take a week's parental leave in order to devote himself exclusively to being a father.
This example deserved to be much more widely publicised, particularly on the Internet, instead of reports which are inappropriate and are swallowed wholesale by the world media.
<P>
Thirdly, the recognition of women and men as individuals with their own rights within the family.
In many countries, existing policies in the areas of taxation or benefits to couples serve as a disincentive and exacerbate the difficulties faced by women who wish to work.
<P>
Lastly, I would suggest that the definition of 'unemployment' should be refined and that, once and for all, the shameful statistical classification of 'non-active' for women who work tirelessly in the home, in the family or on the land and receive no remuneration whatsoever for that work should be reviewed.
Commissioner Flynn, who has promised us more accurate statistics broken down by gender, could do much to end this indignity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldi">
Mr President, first of all I wish to compliment Mrs Marinucci on her excellent work, and to thank her for giving such careful consideration to the amendments tabled by the political groups.
Thank you, Mrs Marinucci, for your commitment and your excellent work.
<P>
Disparities between men and women have of course always existed, although some societies have demonstrated greater civility than others.
<P>
The latest official Eurostat data, based on the International Labour Organisation's definition of unemployment, do not properly reflect the current social situation.
This analysis indicates that female rates of unemployment are higher than male ones, but does not probe the real reasons or explain the true significance of part-time work.
If it were governed by legislation and extended to the professions, part-time work could solve the problem of unemployment as long as it was offered on a voluntary basis.
<P>
Given the current state of the labour market and the income differentials between men and women, the latter receive less unemployment benefit on average. This is in spite of the policy of equal opportunities, providing for equal pay for male and female workers, as sanctioned by Article 119 of the Maastricht Treaty, an article with which we are very familiar and have discussed several times in this House.
The Commissioner, Mr Flynn, is also well aware of it.
<P>
Furthermore, women are often left in the dark as to the few opportunities offered by the labour market, nearly always finding out belatedly and only after an initial selection has been made.
Well-qualified job-seekers and early, precise information are therefore crucial elements in a fair share-out between men and women of part-time and other work, as well as in eliminating pay discrimination between the two sexes.
<P>
It is true that we have discussed equality between men and women many times in this House.
The steps to be taken are tangible ones, but until a true culture of equality has been established, beginning in schools, it will be very difficult to implement anything decided here, however thoroughly we discuss it.
<P>
Therefore it is necessary above all else to start working with young children so that they are imbued with this culture of equality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Frischenschlager">
Mr President, I should like to start by making a fairly basic comment. In this debate, the term women's lobby was mentioned, or lobby for women's issues.
This gives the impression that what we are discussing here is the concern of one section of society, which I very much doubt.
We will have immense problems in our society if we do not resolve the difficult issue of the unequal treatment of men and women on the labour market, which is only going to get worse as problems on the work front become more pressing.
It is therefore a problem for society as a whole.
<P>
One point in the report particularly interested and even alarmed me. Although women have more than caught up with men when it comes to education, and even partly overtaken them, their problems in the world of work remain.
Women with a higher qualifications are especially affected.
The main problem for women lies in working and having children.
This must be our central starting point in future - we have to set up approved, all-day child care in our countries.
It is not only women, but also fathers raising children alone who face the problem that work and bringing up children are incompatible, which can only be resolved if there are competent institutions for looking after and educating children.
Society, the public authorities and private initiatives should tackle this.
That is the central point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Vanhecke">
Mr President, it really is a great pity that, I suspect for ideological reasons, this excellent report by Mrs Marinucci, which makes a number of very interesting points, takes no account of the fact that in many families one of the couple - usually the woman - leaves the regular labour market entirely voluntarily in order to stay at home and look after the children.
I personally think that this is not just a perfectly legitimate choice to make, but that the work that these women do at home deserves to be fundamentally re-evaluated both financially and morally after decades of feminist indoctrination.
<P>
Do not misunderstand me, I have nothing against this report, which is very good for the most part, and I have no objection to most of the recommendations it makes, which are ultimately designed to give men and women greater equality of opportunity.
But I find it completely incomprehensible that this report on unemployment does not call first and foremost for a full parental wage for the homeworking parent.
It would offer an alternative which hundreds of thousands of people in Europe would certainly be delighted to take advantage of, and it would for the first time offer people a genuine choice between working at or outside the home.
<P>
I have the impression that this freedom of choice is being boycotted for purely ideological, feminist reasons which do not serve women's best interests.
Moreover, the report, which deals with a great many different subjects, could easily devote a paragraph to the issue of tax discrimination against married couples.
In my country at least married couples pay far more tax than couples who are living together, with all that this implies.
<P>
Finally, I must point out to Mrs Marinucci that ideas such as, and I quote, having 'to provide a place in schools where young people can discuss equal opportunities' is the sort of ridiculous nonsense that has no place in a parliamentary report, and that even the European Parliament needs to have some sort of minimum standards.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
Mr President, how can we use the EU to bring more women into work, and how can the EU play a part in ensuring that help is given to women working in casual and precarious forms of employment, under the constant threat of becoming unemployed?
Through the Amsterdam Treaty - thanks to an initiative by the Danish Social Democrats - we ensured that employment was put on the agenda.
And at the special summit on employment in Luxembourg, the heads of government committed themselves to taking coordinated action to combat unemployment.
<P>
One of the aims was to improve equal treatment on the labour market.
In the new objectives, we must therefore insist on setting more ambitious goals for equal treatment of this kind.
We need clear goals and clear timetables, and the financial resources for achieving them must be made available.
The new objectives must include the following: a drastic reduction in the gender gap in unemployment; the labour market has to be made less gender-oriented, with affordable childcare schemes; the training opportunities for women must be improved, and leave arrangements need to be framed in such a way that they also appeal to men; the differences in pay between men and women must be eliminated.
However, it is not the EU alone which must ensure equal treatment on the labour market in the Member States.
The bulk of the work is needed in the Member States themselves, but the common objectives should ensure that the Member States have to live up to their promises.
When the Member States have to present their action plans to one another and to their citizens, it will be possible to expose those countries which are failing to meet the common objectives - a kind of EU competition in equal treatment on the labour market.
<P>
In other words, we should be thinking about equal treatment in relation to all political initiatives at both national and European level.
I am therefore extremely pleased that we in Denmark have introduced the requirement for an assessment of the implications of all proposed legislation for both men and women, and that through the Amsterdam Treaty we have succeeded in establishing the principle that equal treatment cannot be seen as an isolated policy, but must be included as part of all the EU's initiatives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stenzel">
Mr President, this report from Mrs Marinucci touches on the sore points that women still have.
Firstly, they still do not receive the same pay for the same work.
Secondly, women are still more affected by unemployment than men.
This does not only have something to do with education, but most importantly with the fact that women who have children are disadvantaged on the labour market.
That is bad for women and bad for children, who very often also suffer as a result of the misconception that people have of equal opportunities for women.
<P>
So what needs to happen?
An environment has to be created as quickly as possible which makes it easier to reconcile work and family.
That means greater flexibility in organising working time, and also of course better childcare facilities.
But these should not become children's homes, which simply lead to children being isolated.
We need both: childcare facilities and greater freedom of choice.
Our Ministry for Families has come up with one idea here, for example, that parental paid leave should be introduced for all mothers and fathers, regardless of whether or not they have worked or still are working, in order to make the choice easier for both men and women.
I believe that this idea should be considered at a European level too.
There has to be more choice, not just an alternative between work or child.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="d'Ancona">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if you only have three minutes to change the world it is a pretty hopeless task.
I shall therefore confine myself to just three comments on the excellent and interesting report by my colleague Mrs Marinucci.
<P>
First, if you look back over the last forty years there is no doubt that the European Union and European integration have been very important for women, indeed the creation of the Union went hand in hand with the declaration of the principle of equality.
This has since been developed in a number of directives, we have had various action programmes and the Amsterdam Treaty has given us ways to fight discrimination and to use positive action where possible.
Interestingly enough, the Union actually means something to women: survey results indicate that women generally have a more positive view of the Union than men, and that they feel more in sympathy with it, particularly when they expect to get more out of it.
Italian women, as I hardly need to point out to the rapporteur, are particularly in favour: 43 % of them expect to benefit from the Union.

In Sweden the figure is 11 %, which is only natural since Swedish women are already in a better position.
<P>
We now need to take advantage of this pragmatic, logical approach by women.
There are three steps we need to take.
First, as people have already said today and as the report points out, we should practise what we preach.
Nowhere in the Union do women receive the same pay for the same work.
Even in my country, the Netherlands, the difference is about 30 %.
We must put a stop to this.
We cannot preach equality for 40 years without putting it into practice.
<P>
Secondly, ' mainstreaming' is an empty expression which needs to be firmed up.
We should insist that all the employment programmes clearly state, not in a separate paragraph but as a standard part of the text, just what mainstreaming means for women.
<P>
Third and last, and this is a question for the Commissioner, should we not carry out a major 'State of the Union' survey as we did in 1980, focusing on the situation of women, in order to draw attention to a problem on which a great deal of progress has been made, I admit, but to which we are still unfortunately a long way from finding an ideal solution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, many of the long-term unemployed and those in part-time work in almost all EU countries are women.
The increase in fixed-term employment contracts has created an air of insecurity in the lives of women.
Differences in pay for men and women compound the problems women have regarding unemployment protection and pension allowances, which are far greater than those men experience.
It seems incredible that in the late 1990s we should still be having to think about how to solve problems such as these.
It should be patently obvious that people should be paid the same for doing the same work, regardless of gender.
This should also apply, by the way, to the salaries of the Members of the European Parliament.
<P>
There should be more investment in retraining, and particularly vocational training, for the unemployed.
Campaigns are under way in Finland to increase women's interest in the natural sciences and technical subjects.
We nevertheless have not been able to draw women to these traditionally male sectors to the extent we hoped we would.
What is the reason for this?
Are the old attitudes learnt at home still firmly rooted in us?
There is still room for improvement in our own attitudes.
We are still terribly wary.
We do not dare to take on demanding jobs or try something new.
I do not understand why we are trying to patch up the problem by means of quotas.
We need other kinds of measures.
I believe the Commission should carry out more detailed research into the cause of the problem and prevailing attitudes throughout the EU.
Automation has developed many of the so-called male sectors in such a way that physical strength is no longer a prerequisite for being able to do the work.
<P>
However, it is not a question of women being less well trained than men.
On the contrary, girls outperform boys at school, and there are more women than men at college or university.
This again causes all sorts of problems.
Nevertheless, women miss out, to some extent, in those countries that have a military reserve system or N.C.O. training courses, which provide training in leadership.
There is no equivalent for women.
<P>
As I said, there is room for improvement in the attitudes of women.
We must believe in our own abilities and have confidence in ourselves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Flynn">
I certainly welcome the Marinucci report. It focuses on the specific characteristics of women's unemployment in the European Union.
I thank all those who have contributed to the constructive debate this morning.
<P>
In its first part the report highlights the gender gap in unemployment since, in almost all the Member States, women's unemployment is higher than men's.
It also focuses on the obstacles women are facing if they want to work.
The report has rightly stated that care facilities are not sufficiently developed in all the Member States.
I was quite taken by the number of people who referred to that, exactly in accordance with my thinking on the matter.
<P>
It also makes the important point that parental leave and extended career breaks can, paradoxically, hamper women for the rest of their working lives in terms of career advancement, social protection and access to the labour market, if such leave is taken almost solely by women.
<P>
The report is even more interesting as it goes much beyond the unemployment situation of women as such.
It also discusses the position of women on the labour market generally, the efficiency of education and training, and the European employment strategy from Essen to Luxembourg and Cardiff.
<P>
It stresses the need to mainstream equality in the employment guidelines alongside the promotion of positive action in favour of women.
That is the two-track approach which was stressed during the joint conference which was organised in January this year by Parliament and the Commission on the employment guidelines.
I fully support what happened there.
<P>
Can mainstreaming be realised without gender-segregated statistics?
The Commission will, in cooperation with Eurostat, continue to work to improve the provision of statistics on the labour market situation for women.
The annual report on equal opportunities for women and men in the Union contains a lot of gender-segregated statistics on several issues related to equality.
It is our intention to continue this publication with its great wealth of statistical data.
You cannot evaluate without the basic statistics for comparative purposes.
I accept that fully.
<P>
On the issue of mainstreaming, progress was achieved during the British Council presidency.
The conclusions of the Cardiff European Council in June 1998 call on all the Member States to ensure that equality between women and men will be mainstreamed in all aspects of their employment policies.
That is an important step forward.
We are going to hear a lot more about that in our 1999 guidelines, which will be discussed here before too long.
<P>
The issue of care, which was highlighted in the political agenda, during the British Council presidency, is also discussed in your report.
This issue looms large in the 1998 employment guidelines.
I am very pleased at the number of people who made remarks concerning care services, the great need there is for them and also the need for high standards; the need for nonselective availability insofar as care and its provision are concerned; and, particularly, the need for training.
That is going to be highlighted.
It is not well done in the Member States. I am going to pay particular attention to that insofar as the 1999 guidelines are concerned.
<P>
The fourth pillar of the employment guidelines on strengthening equal opportunities policies states that the Member States should strive to raise levels of access to care services where needs are not met.
Our concept of caring has been enlarged and now refers not only to child care but also to the care of all dependent persons, including the disabled and the elderly.
Progress has been made on this important issue.
Mrs Seillier makes that point.
This was confirmed at the Belfast meeting of the ministers for women and equality in May.
There was a very clear agreement that affordable, accessible and high-quality child care, parental leave and other schemes in family-friendly working policies are essential to enable women and men to combine work and family responsibilities.
I believe that unless you get the care thing right you are never going to effectively increase the level of participation of women in the labour market.
<P>
There is a huge amount of work still to be done if we are to meet the objectives for care provision.
We will be looking closely at how the Member States address this issue, the policies they develop, and the resources they apply in their employment action plans for 1999 and subsequent years.
<P>
The European employment strategy has already shown its value in the way it has placed equal opportunities firmly at the heart of all the national employment plans.
From now on we will be looking at strong action to give effect to the commitments set out in the guidelines.
Member States are clear about what they must do.
The challenge for 1998 was to get the process up and running.
That has been achieved.
For 1999 it will be to develop the actions to match the objectives and to show action on the ground as against all of the guidelines.
That is the point as regards equal opportunities.
<P>
Mrs Lulling makes the point about the 1986 directive of helping spouses.
We have had two round table discussions with experts on this, resulting in no consensus, even amongst the experts, about amending that directive.
The report is quite detailed and has been published, Mrs Lulling, and I shall take the opportunity to send you a copy of it - you might find it interesting.
<P>
Mr Delcroix, Mrs Angelilli, Mr Schäfer and other Members made a very good point about part-time work and the part-time directive.
The vision there was that women and men can move from part-time to full-time and vice versa without any discrimination and without losing their employability.
That was one of the key issues in the part-time directive, which, as you know, was the response to a collective agreement between the social partners.
<P>
I am grateful to Mrs Hautala for raising the point about the speech in Portugal.
I am better pleased that Mrs Torres Marques said I did not criticise Parliament and she is quite right.
She was very gracious in her remarks about the speech on Tuesday in Portugal.
I did not criticise Parliament, but what I said - and I very much want to say it again here - was that I wanted to encourage Parliament to do exactly what it is doing today: to focus on the very broad picture in relation to the employment strategy and equal opportunities and to the reform of the structural funds.
<P>
Finally, in that speech I went out of my way to encourage Parliament to press the Member States to adapt their policies to make it easier to combine family and working life and for women to retrain when they re-enter the labour market after an absence spent caring for children or other dependents.
We must also focus on the artificial barriers in all parts of the labour market that cause segregation and discrimination.
These have to be dismantled.
That was the message I was giving in Portugal, and I should like to have Parliament's support in pursuing that policy.
Thank you very much for raising the issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken today at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Role of cooperatives in women's employment
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0270/98) by Mrs Colombo Svevo, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights, on the role of cooperatives in the growth of women's employment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Colombo Svevo">
Mr President, allow me to begin with a word of thanks to Mrs Marinucci.
Her report identifies the structural problems of the market and their links with female unemployment, paving the way for me to examine in detail one aspect of the context outlined in that report.
<P>
My own report investigates one specific aspect of employment, namely the linkage between cooperatives and women's employment.
It does so because we realised that experiments are under way throughout the cooperative sector - or, rather, throughout the social economy of the 'third system'. We have sought to highlight these, and the Committee on Women's Rights saw for itself what is being done in Italy when it visited some cooperatives.
Mrs Ghilardotti has moreover recently lent strong support to this phenomenon within the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
I myself believe that the European Union is duty-bound to spread these new ideas, and that the conference to be held next week in Brussels is a significant move, certain to raise the profile of what is going on in this sector.
<P>
What have we learnt from this investigation?
Firstly, that cooperatives have generated employment, just like SMEs, and that small cooperatives in particular have played a positive role in women's employment. Secondly, cooperatives have the potential to generate employment, as has often been identified by the European Union, both in traditional sectors such as personal services and in innovative sectors.
On this point I would say that even cooperatives working in traditional sectors, such as social welfare, have been innovative, in that they have been firmly rooted in the local community and have responded to local needs.
Thirdly, cooperatives have helped to insert into the world of work not only people who have been out of work for some time, like so many women, but also persons who may just have left the labour market for a certain period; at the same time, I would stress, they provide on-the-job training.
Indeed, many women are now chairing cooperatives and even consortia of cooperatives.
Thus the development of entrepreneurship among women is an additional benefit.
<P>
Furthermore, cooperatives have been flexible in their work organisation, in respect of both working hours and personal time: such flexibility, importantly, is not a factor of marginalisation because, generally speaking, cooperatives are organised with full involvement of their members.
<P>
In hearing me list the elements brought to light in our investigation, you will realise that many of these characteristics - adaptability, reconciliation of duties, reinsertion - are fundamental to women's aspirations to enter the labour market.
Indeed, recent studies conducted in Italy have demonstrated women's interest in this particular type of firm.
I therefore believe - and here I am addressing the Commissioner, Mr Flynn, as I know that he is sensitive to these issues - that the European Union should play a truly active role in the social economy as a whole.
Research is needed into the scale and nature of the cooperative sector and, in particular, its development in the various countries.
A communication has been drawn up on voluntary organisations and foundations; we should like to see a White Paper on cooperatives, so as to highlight the changes under way and make it possible to compare different experiences.
<P>
A legislative framework is required, not to set in stone the present state of affairs - that cannot be done, because by their very nature these organisations evolve in response to needs - but to clarify the legal situation so as to avoid the very spirit and purpose of the cooperative movement being undermined.
Also needed are specific rules, for instance on contract work, the introduction of reduced rates of VAT and, finally, economic support for the social economy, including through the measures designed to benefit SMEs.
As far as training is concerned, the Social Fund should consider providing appropriate training in this field, geared to the acquisition not only of technical skills but also project management skill and team spirit.
<P>
We have kindled a hope with this report, Mr President: we sincerely hope that we have brought home the need for further consideration of this issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Ghilardotti">
Mr President, I should like first of all to compliment the rapporteur, Mrs Colombo Svevo, on her comprehensive report, to which there is really nothing to add.
It touches on all the relevant points and draws attention to the potential of this sector, underscoring the need for regulation and intervention, and highlighting the role that the European Union and Member States can play in boosting a sector which is without doubt important for women's employment.
<P>
I do nevertheless have a few general remarks to make.
As Mrs Colombo Svevo said, her report cannot be discussed in isolation from the excellent one by Mrs Marinucci and the debate relating to it.
I think it can readily be said that - at least over the past twenty years - the European Union's equal opportunities policy has been one of its very few successful policies in the social field.
The many current problems have moreover already been raised in the debate and are well known to the Commission and Parliament, to women (those directly concerned) and also to the Council.
<P>
Some progress is being made - the Treaty of Amsterdam has opened the door.
The directives issued, despite a very flimsy legal basis - Article 119 - have enabled progress to be made in this direction.
I nevertheless believe that more courage and more consistency are needed, and I say so especially in relation to the points emphasised by Mrs Colombo Svevo.
The social economy cannot solve all employment problems; it is one solution among others, such as the policy of mainstreaming, investment, and the consideration of employment as a priority issue, in funding terms among others.
Among the forms taken by the social economy, the cooperative movement is an important one.
It already is so today - as shown by Mrs Colombo Svevo - and it still has further potential.
More courage and more consistency are needed because, although we recognise this fact - and the Council and Commission have done so too, at the Luxembourg and Cardiff Summits - we are failing to act accordingly.
<P>
I would refer, for example, to a specific problem which we shall be discussing in a few weeks' time: the budget.
The budget line for the social economy, B5-321 - not a line falling under Mr Flynn's responsibility - has no legal basis.
As we all know, in the light of the Court of Justice ruling and the interinstitutional agreement, resources can be earmarked from within the budget only where legal bases exist. That can be done if the Commission has a firm intention to set up programmes which can define legal bases.
<P>
One successful legislative initiative, proposed by the Commission and on which Parliament expressed its opinion, provided for a programme for the social economy sector.
I think that, following today's report and debate, it is now time for the Commission to take up that programme once more. Then, next year, it will provide real support, disseminating good practice and ensuring that this sector contributes demonstrably - in quantitative and qualitative fashion - to tackling the problem of women's unemployment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="President">
This debate now stands adjourned until 6 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Dührkop Dührkop">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for giving me the floor to make a personal statement.
<P>
Last night the organisation ETA announced an indefinite and unconditional truce.
<P>
I would like to say that I cautiously welcome this announcement in the hope that it is sincere, but above all I welcome it with satisfaction because it gives hope to the Basque Country that peace will finally be secured there.
If only we could all be united in the cause of achieving this much-desired peace.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Areitio Toledo">
Mr President, I would also like to talk about this issue.
Yesterday, as Mrs Dührkop Dührkop said, the terrorist group ETA announced a truce.
This declaration must indeed be welcomed but cautiously so.
It is not the first time the terrorist group has declared a truce and it will evidently remain to be seen if it has anything to do with the forthcoming elections in the Basque Country.
<P>
In any case it gives us hope.
We continue to have confidence and hope for a definitive end to the violence and we believe that this step forward comes as a result of the spirit of dialogue and harmony that prevailed and encouraged those who formulated and drew up the Spanish Constitution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Puerta">
Mr President, you will all have to listen to several speakers from Spain saying that they have confidence in the peace process.
We must be cautious, but at the same time have faith in the democratic values that we have been fostering in Spain since democracy returned.
On many occasions we have come here to condemn terrible crimes, indiscriminate assassinations as well as those directed against the nation's elected representatives.
This announcement fills us with hope but also with caution.
<P>
I think that I am speaking here for myself and on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Imaz San Miguel">
Mr President, the Basque people and the Basque nation have endured many years of violent conflict that have ravaged our society.
Tonight we received the welcome news that the Basque separatist organization ETA has declared a unilateral, indefinite and unconditional truce.
This is the first time that ETA has declared a truce of this kind.
I hope that all of our political forces - and here I also call on Europe's political forces and European society for their support - will rise to the occasion and be capable of advancing a negotiated peace process which meets the expectations that the vast majority of Basque people have for peace and hope.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="President">
I think we are all ready to share the hopes of our Spanish colleagues.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="Harrison">
On Paragraph 1d I wish to change the '45 calendar days' to '60 calendar days'.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="President">
May I accept the rapporteur's oral amendment?
<P>
I see that there is no objection, so I will put it to the vote.
<P>
Amendment No 33
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="Harrison">
May I just explain that what I am doing here is accepting Amendment No 33 as a whole, this would replace the paragraph up to 'the maximum payment period' in my Amendment No 26.
After that, the rest of Amendment No 26 would remain.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Weber">
Mr President, according to my sitting notes, if Amendment No 14 is adopted, Amendments Nos 4 and 18 lapse.
<P>
I should like to say that if Amendment No 14 is adopted, No 4 does not lapse.
It can be voted on as an addition and I would ask you to put it to the vote as such.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="President">
You have set me a problem, Mr Weber, because Parliament's services inform me that the content has been deemed incompatible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Roth-Behrendt">
Mr President, I agree with you, since both amendments refer to the same paragraph of the resolution, and if my group's Amendment No 14 is adopted, Amendment No 4 by the Group of the European Radical Alliance should lapse, unless my group adopts Amendment No 4 as an addition, which we refuse to do.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Weber">
Mr President, contrary to what Mrs Roth said, our amendment concerns the preservation of biodiversity which her group's does not.
I therefore insist that our amendment be put to the vote as an addition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, we do not need to waste time on unimportant issues.
In the context of the Socialists' amendment we discussed whether there should be a reduction.
Our Amendment No 18 specifies the form which this reduction should take.
If we had followed the correct voting procedure, our amendment would have come first, and then we would have had the correct sequence.
I insist that our Amendment No 18 be put to the vote, and anyone who can read will see that it is different.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="President">
Mrs Breyer, I respect your view, but there are other views and other opinions in the House.
There was no problem about putting your amendment to the vote, but in our opinion that was not the right thing to do.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Sainjon">
Mr President, thank you for giving me the floor, as I think you were a little quick on the draw over the ARE Group's proposal.
I am slightly taken aback because at other times you take your time. That is all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="President">
You are right, Mr Sainjon.
I did go quickly, that is true, but we have a very long series of votes.
I should not like to keep Members here until three o'clock this afternoon.
The result was so clear that there was really no room for any doubt.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution) Joint motion for a resolution on the situation in Russia
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Titley">
Mr President, I should like to propose an oral amendment which takes the last part of this amendment - and the spirit of it - and says: '... points to the importance of the cease-fire declared by the PKK on 28 August 1998 and calls on the Turkish authorities to seize the opportunity thus created to seek a peaceful and negotiated political solution to the Kurdish question' .
We would like that oral amendment to be accepted and then added to paragraph 16, which deals with the Kurdish issue.
<P>
I should add that there is a report in the German press that the PKK cease-fire is over.
I am assured that report is wrong.
The cease-fire is still in effect.
So the words: 'point to the importance of the cease-fire declared by the PKK on 28 August 1998 and calls on the Turkish authorities to seize the opportunity thus created to seek a peaceful and negotiated political solution to the Kurdish question' , are to be placed at the end of paragraph 16.
<P>
I understand that this amendment has Mr McMillan-Scott's approval.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr McMillan-Scott informed me this morning that other political commitments would prevent him from being present during the mid-day voting.
He has asked Mr Schwaiger to deputise for him, and I think Mr Schwaiger can speak on Mr McMillan-Scott's behalf on the amendment Mr Titley is now proposing.
If Parliament has no objection, I will put it to the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schwaiger">
Mr President, I would point out that the media have reported that the PKK cease-fire has ended, so it is now very difficult to approve this amendment, the object of which was actually very good.
However, if an oral amendment is possible, I would propose that we emphasise the need for a cease-fire and leave the remaining text unchanged, without mentioning the PKK.
In this case, we could approve the following: 'points to the need for a cease-fire and calls on the Turkish authorities to seek a peaceful negotiated political solution to the Kurdish question.'
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="President">
Mr Schwaiger, these very sensitive political issues always bring out very fine distinctions, like the one you have just made.
Since you are amending an oral amendment, I fear there may be some confusion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Titley">
Mr President, if, on that basis the PPE will vote 'for' , then I will accept it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="President">
Is there any objection to my putting Mr Titley's amendment to the vote, as amended?
<P>
Since there is none, I put it to the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schwaiger">
Mr President, I have the impression that Mr Titley's amendment seeks to delete the first part of Amendment No 25 and vote only on the second part, which he drafted and which was changed to my wording, but not on the first part, which has been withdrawn, unless the Green Group wishes to retain this first part.
We would then have to vote on this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="President">
Mr Schwaiger, I think there may be some confusion. The first part is not covered by the Titley amendment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Titley">
Mr President, my amendment, which has now been accepted, was to be added to paragraph 16.
We still need to vote on paragraph 17.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Bonde and Sandbæk">
The Commission's proposal is rightly aimed at including the gender aspect as an important factor in all areas of development cooperation.
Giving conscious attention to the gender aspect - and we should even be talking here about 'affirmative action' in favour of women - is a necessary precondition for effective and sustainable development in the developing countries.
The aid will simply be disorganised and not benefit the right people unless women are taken properly into account in development cooperation.
Our strategy should be a consistent one which applies mainstreaming across all measures.
Otherwise, there is a risk that they will be hit-or-miss affairs which do not have the desired effect.
<P>
Mrs Junker must be congratulated on her report, which strengthens the common position in a number of areas.
This applies to Amendments Nos 15 and 16, for example, whereby the developing countries will be given priority in the award of contracts.
However, we are obliged to oppose the amendments which concern the committee procedure and the timescale.
As regards the committee procedure, Mrs Junker and the Commission are in favour of having an advisory committee.
Given a choice between two evils, we would rather see a Type IIB management committee being used, as the Council is proposing.
We are also voting against Amendments Nos 6 and 11, which concern the timescale.
Although we do not usually support time limits, they are necessary in this case as a means of bringing pressure to bear on the Commission.
We also approve of having a financial reference amount in this situation.
The Commission should not be able to ask for more money to employ consultants and so on.
The gender aspect should be included as a natural part of an effective and rational development policy.
<P>
In addition, we should like to highlight and endorse the initiative in the common position which makes it possible for the Commission to hold meetings with representatives of the Member States and the recipient countries with a view to increasing awareness of the gender aspect in new areas of development cooperation.
<P>
Harrison report (A4-0303/98)
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Oddy">
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mr Harrison on his excellent, pragmatic report on late payments.
This is an important subject, which brings practical benefits to small- and medium-sized companies.
Late payments can cripple companies with their cash-flow situation.
One in four bankruptcies are caused by cash-flow problems.
In the UK in particular, British banks have not been particularly sympathetic to small- and medium-sized companies.
<P>
I welcome this report as a positive improvement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Hager">
I voted in favour of several amendments, and in the final vote I voted for the Harrison report, because I believe that it considerably improves the text proposed by the Commission.
<P>
It has not changed my mind, however, and I am therefore rejecting the text proposed by the Commission because it contains provisions which clearly go further than we actually want and which do not fall within the remit of Europe's legislative powers.
Although my amendment to the legislative resolution did not obtain a majority, I believe that my opinion has been confirmed, not least by what people have written on the subject.
Large-scale intervention in national civil law and civil procedure is not warranted by the measures to combat late payments, although they are, in principle, to be welcomed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Titley">
I am glad that we are acting today to put right the costly scandal of late payments facing our entrepreneurs in small- and medium-sized companies.
<P>
SMEs are the engines of our economic growth, as well as employers of most of our fellow citizens who work in the private sector.
<P>
As such they deserve more respect from big business and the public sector, to which they provide services and goods on which we all rely.
<P>
The most important recognition of the work SMEs do would be for them to be paid on time for their hard work.
This goes above all for the larger companies and public sector organisations which can afford to settle their bills but who perhaps like the idea of deferring payment to net more interest on the money in their bank accounts.
No doubt such bad practices have been encouraged by the failure of past rules to demand prompt payment to smaller firms.
Big business has had the clout and the lawyers to force SMEs to wait for their money.
<P>
Setting some minimum standards for the time allowed for payments to be made to SMEs and to allow debt collection agencies to do their job across the EU as the author of this report calls for are a sign that we as politicians are prepared to help the 'Davids' of the business world to get fair treatment from the 'Goliaths' .
<P>
I might add that the European Commission needs to set a good example by making certain that all of its own bills are paid on time to SMEs!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Trizza">
SMEs represent an ever growing percentage of Europe's fabric of production, particularly in less developed European regions.
Therefore all moves or initiatives in support of small businesses promote Europe's economic growth in general and are certain to help in achieving regional economic cohesion.
<P>
I therefore welcome the Commission's interest in initiatives to open up European capital markets for small and medium-sized enterprises, and I fully agree with the rapporteur, Mr Hendrick, about the need to carry out information campaigns for individuals and organisations so as to encourage greater investment in SMEs, funding their expansion and development.
<P>
I also back Mr Scarbonchi's view that it is necessary to improve European programmes and initiatives to promote SMEs: those concentrated in rural areas above all owe their survival and future potential to better coordination between industry, agriculture and tourism.
<P>
Finally, I can endorse the thrust of the Commission's proposed directive establishing a fair payment term for the settlement of sales invoices: cash-flow difficulties and liquidity crises are in fact among the main reasons for bankruptcy among SMEs.
<P>
Secchi report (A4-0299/98)
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Andersson, Lööw and Wibe">
We cannot accept the way in which Amendment No 4 to Article 6(2) undermines the fight against tax evasion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Fourçans">
A number of obstacles are still preventing the single market from operating to its full potential.
Direct and indirect taxation can be counted among those obstacles.
Obviously it is neither possible nor would it be healthy to make the 15 tax systems of the Union's Member States uniform.
On the other hand, any distortions which harm the operation of the single European market ought to be removed.
<P>
In March of this year, the European Commission presented a proposal on the payment of interest and fees between associated companies in different Member States.
The aim was to eliminate double taxation of these payments and avoid situations where cross-border companies might be penalised by discriminatory tax regimes.
<P>
I welcome both the directive and Mr Secchi's report, which proposes extending the directive's provisions to tax on interest and fees between non-associated companies, in the context of the consolidation of the single market.
<P>
It seems fair to propose that these payments should be taxed in the Member State where the companies being paid interest or fees are established.
On the other hand, the question arises as to whether it is desirable to complicate the system by allowing derogations to this principle, as the directive proposes.
In the long term any derogations should disappear and these payments should only be taxed in the country into which they are being paid.
<P>
Langen report (A4-0084/98)
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have voted in favour of the report by Mr Langen on a common system of VAT and the report by Mr Miller on products subject to excise duty.
We did so because we wish to see an internal market in which goods can be transported between Member States without barriers to trade.
One such barrier is the difference in the VAT systems between Member States.
<P>
The different systems of VAT have nothing to do with VAT rates, but concern the way in which a product is taxed when it crosses a national frontier.
Where different VAT systems exist between two countries, businesses may risk having their products taxed twice, while in other cases they may not be taxed at all.
The Commission's proposal is designed to produce uniform systems of VAT, but the powers which it is proposed to transfer to the Commission give it almost a free hand to lay down VAT rates in the individual Member States, and that is something we cannot accept.
<P>
The Commission is proposing to extend the powers of the advisory VAT Committee and to convert it into a regulatory committee which would take decisions by a qualified majority on the basis of Commission proposals.
The new Committee on Excise Duties makes the 'Plumb-Delors accord' redundant, and in addition Parliament would no longer have the right to be informed of the committee's work, which would mean the House losing some of its influence.
<P>
Since the harmonisation of such things as VAT rates will have extremely far-reaching consequences for the Member States, this should be carried out by cooperation between the countries.
It is therefore important to insist that areas which involve politically sensitive subjects, such as the harmonisation of VAT rates, are not dealt with by the Commission, but by the Council acting on the basis of Commission proposals.
This will ensure that the principle of subsidiarity is upheld in the area of taxation.
The Danish Social Democrats are therefore strongly opposed to the idea of extending the Commission's powers in the field of tax and excise duty policy.
<P>
Miller report (A4-0064/98)
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="de Rose">
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Souchet">
When the single market was created, four directives were introduced to enable the application of this specific type of tax to alcohol, tobacco, oil products and gold, as part of the free movement of goods.
These directives concern the rates of excise duties, the structure of the categories of products subject to excise duties and their movement.
<P>
In 1992, a special committee, the Committee on Excise Duties, was created.
It comprises experts from the Member States and has only an advisory role.
On several occasions, it has already been called upon to deal with urgent problems that were impossible to solve given the existing provisions.
<P>
The advisory role of the Committee on Excise Duties presents a certain legal problem, particularly since its opinions do not oblige the Commission to propose improvements to its regulations either on the structure of the taxation or on the movement of products.
In other words, even if a Member State abides by the guidelines adopted by this Committee, those same guidelines may be contested in court, including the EU Court of Justice.
Furthermore, new Member States after any future enlargement of the European Union would not be obliged to agree to these guidelines.
<P>
We are all aware that products subject to excise duties, especially tobacco, wine and other alcoholic beverages, have always been involved in illegal activities.
Until procedures are harmonised among the Member States, the possibility of fraud and smuggling will remain.
The Commission must introduce new computerised controls on the intra-Community movement of goods subject to excise duties, linked to the computerised system for Community transit.
At the same time, this new procedure will undoubtedly make it possible to limit VAT fraud in transfrontier areas: in order to bring this about, there is no use whatsoever in harmonising VAT rates, regardless of the proposal set out in the Castagnède report.
<P>
I must also point out an important flaw in the Commission's rules on the movement of products subject to excise duties.
Is it right that wine-growers wishing to sell their wine to a private consumer in Germany should be obliged to have their product transported by an 'approved' operator who will charge them a hefty fee, just so that they can claim back the excise duty, which is zero?
This is an utterly ludicrous situation and is a genuine obstacle to the single market.
<P>
Another example to show how far removed the Commission is from economic reality: a private customer in a Member State can come and buy up to 90 litres of wine on the wine-grower's property (with four in the car they could take away 360 litres of wine) without having to pay any excise duties, while a wine-grower cannot go and deliver a single litre of wine unless it is transported by an 'approved' operator.
<P>
Once again the Commission is applying regulations of benefit to large companies and to the detriment of small operators.
All of us here know that the only companies creating jobs are small and medium-sized undertakings, yet the Commission penalises their development and as a result penalises the creation and development of employment.
<P>
To conclude, we call on the Commission to incorporate the recommendations by the Committee on Excise Duties in its proposal to the Council in order to avoid bureaucratic problems in the procedures that it imposes on all European Union operators.
<P>
Resolution on climate change (B4-0802/98)
<SPEAKER ID=87 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Mr President, in the year 1000 people were afraid of comets.
Now they are scared of the hole in the ozone layer and the greenhouse effect.
McCarthy basically saw communists everywhere.
Our colleagues here see racists and fascists everywhere.
<P>
And now the latest neurotic obsession is seeing CO2 and greenhouse gases everywhere.
According to them, methane and carbon dioxide are going to heat up the planet and melt the poles and glaciers.
The sea is going to rise and we are all going to drown except, of course, for our centrist colleagues who know how to swim.
<P>
That said, you would have thought that Buenos Aires and Kyoto might have tackled the causes of the problem, such as by banning Pinatubo from emitting gases and banning human beings and the like from breathing so that we do not exhale CO2 .
Another solution would be to illuminate the earth 24 hours a day so that chlorophyll can play its part.
<P>
But, of course, that was too difficult so we have found the magic answer: taxation.
After family taxes, investment tax and cinema tax we now have taxes to cool down the climate and purify the atmosphere.
It is even stronger than Viagra.
Instead of taxing taxpayers now we are going to tax gas.
Buenos Aires and Kyoto started out as an obsession and have now turned into a knockabout comedy.
There is only one serious thing in this story: we now know that mad cow disease is transmissible to man.
The proof is that there are Greens and ecologists.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Bloch von Blottnitz">
While the EU Commissioner for the Environment, Ritt Bjerregaard, gives yet another pious speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg about the pioneering role of the European Union in the field of climatic protection, two-thirds of the surface area of Bangladesh lies under water.
The unfortunate consequences of natural disasters have been affecting human beings for a long time, yet neither the Commission nor the Council of Ministers takes the omens of natural disaster as seriously as they should.
And even the European Parliament, in this case its Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, is failing to come up to the mark with its statements on climate protection.
Far from it.
Its once extremely advanced efforts have now been watered down to the point where we have to say, sadly, that its policy on climate protection has changed.
<P>
The USA's persistent refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol, with its completely inadequate reduction targets, has obviously set the ball rolling again, but in the wrong direction.
Under the guise of supposedly making political instruments more flexible, we in Europe are also now backing international trade in emission licences, without having the least idea of how they can work and be monitored.
The Commission's most recent publications do not provide any information on this subject.
<P>
Ritt Bjerregaard also has obviously no idea who could organise, monitor and, in the event of abuse, decide on punishment in future wrangles over polluted air.
Her claims that flexible climate protection measures of this kind should only be used in addition to national reduction targets are not convincing.
She refuses to comment on the Commission's recommendation that national CO2 reductions should be separate from reductions achieved by 'flexible' methods.
Her silence on this issue before the European Parliament certainly does not bode well for the environment.
She no longer even mentions the proposal put forward in Kyoto that at least 50 % of reduction requirements must be met domestically in the relevant polluting countries themselves.
<P>
In the run-up to the Buenos Aires Conference this is a worrying development, but one which unfortunately seems to fit the picture of a European policy which is becoming increasingly dependent on deregulation and in which weak, voluntary undertakings from industrial associations are obviously more important than clear political goals.
<P>
Green climate policy has always warned against developments like this because, as well as all the problems concerning controls and sanctions, international trade in pollution licences is not producing any short or medium term improvement in the world's CO2 levels.
Bartering between those who do not (yet) emit particularly high levels of CO2 and those who in recent decades have grown rich at the expense of the environment, only continue to heat our climate.
Global reduction targets cannot be met in this way, not even the ridiculous Kyoto targets and certainly not the reductions of at least 60 % in greenhouse gases which experts consider necessary by the middle of the next century at the latest.
<P>
Even the stereotype pioneering role which Ritt Bjerregaard claims the EU has played in the area of climatic protection is not worth much.
The reality is different: emissions are increasing.
More and more cars mean that, despite fuel-saving technologies, CO2 emissions are increasing.
There is a similar situation in Europe's homes: the success of more efficient technologies is completely cancelled out by the increasing number of single households and micro-families.
Energy prices continue to be too low.
And the only promising programme, that of introducing environmental tax reforms as quickly as possible, continues to be debated again and again in the relevant committees.
Even European energy-saving programmes such as ALTENER II and SAVE II are merely paid lip-service by the Commission and the Council, but are not given adequate funding.
It is pathetic.
<P>
To make matters worse, in the wake of the CO2 discussion, nuclear energy is also threatening to make a comeback.
Contrary to all dictates of common sense, its advocates acclaim it as the last hope of preventing climate change; in so doing, they are simply replacing one evil with another.
After all, promoting this kind of outdated technology takes away urgently needed resources from renewable energies.
<P>
If Europe really wants to play a pioneering role in world climate policy, a great deal must first be done in Europe itself.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
We did not support the amendment seeking to introduce a tax on aviation fuel, even though we are against the exemption enjoyed by air transport in this respect.
It would have been out of place in this resolution on the current worldwide negotiations on CO2 emissions.
<P>
Resolution on the international financial crisis
<SPEAKER ID=90 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, during this debate on the international financial crisis we heard Jacques Santer tell us that the prospect of the euro is protecting us from the threat of widespread financial instability.
<P>
First of all, I should like to thank the President of the Commission for remaining relatively modest and not having claimed, like some others and even some members of the Commission, that the euro is protecting us from the Asian crisis as a whole.
That obviously would be a far-fetched claim.
The Asian crisis is the result of the transitional problems facing emerging countries, due to their excessively fast growth.
These problems obviously do not exist in Europe and there is no danger of seeing, here, a crisis similar to that hitting Korea or Indonesia.
<P>
Nonetheless, I disagree with the claim made by Mr Santer, albeit a more limited one, that the euro is protecting us from financial instability.
There has been no significant reason up to now for instability to spread in Europe and any coordination, with a little discipline, among the central banks would equally have resulted in relative stability.
<P>
The rest is nothing but propaganda.
In particular, the current situation has nothing in common with the situation in 1992-1993 which led to major fluctuations among European currencies.
At that time, the problem was peculiar to Europe - the reunification of Germany obviously involved the realignment of internal monetary parities.
Today the problem lies outside Europe but it is affecting us all, to some extent.
<P>
The euro per se is barely protecting us now but it might, on the other hand, become a severe handicap in the months to come.
If the crisis deepens different European countries may need to find different solutions.
Yet the harmonisation of exchange and interest rate policies will prevent that.
There is in other words a risk of a growing conflict between the euro and Europe's interests.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Lienemann">
The text of the motion for a resolution on the international financial crisis is very disappointing.
<P>
In its analysis, to begin with, it fails to criticise the foundations on which the world economic and financial system is based (the discrepancy between the financial bubble and the real economy, speculative and accumulative mechanisms, the absence of political, social and environmental regulation, growing irregularities within and between countries, transnational companies getting richer while the ordinary people are getting poorer), and we should not think that recognising the market economy and accepting this financial and transnational form of capitalism are the same thing.
<P>
The text is inadequate since it proposes no possible ways of reforming the world monetary system in depth: the need for a new Bretton Woods, the organisation of large regional groups to define coherent monetary areas.
<P>
Similarly, the resolution does not suggest any ways of bringing about fiscal regulation such as might be launched with the introduction of a tax on capital movements (Tobin tax).
<P>
As far as advisory and decision-making bodies are concerned, the text recommends that we simply fall into line with the position adopted by President Clinton, ie the institutionalisation of the Group of 22.
It would be better to give the IMF's Interim Committee (which at least brings together developed, emerging and developing countries) genuine political decisionmaking powers.
<P>
The text says nothing at all about the risks which this crisis might pose for certain industrial or banking sectors in Europe and therefore fails to consider the necessary support and adjustment measures which could be useful for protecting jobs in different sectors.
<P>
More generally speaking, it recommends nothing in particular for the European Union even though the G7 itself has stressed the need for measures to promote recovery and growth.
<P>
Unfortunately, it is the workers of the European Union who are likely to pay the price for the current inaction of our institutions.
<P>
Resolution on political developments in Russia
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Martinez">
The IMF hands out credit.
The gurus of the Anglo-Saxon style liberal economy give lessons in privatisation, market laws, free competition and other liturgical instruments of the religion of the 'invisible hand'.
<P>
After five years of this magic formula, the disastrous results are there for all to see: an economy in ruins, society devastated, life expectancy plummeting to under 60, poverty, destitution, violence, empty public coffers and a government entrenched behind the walls of the Kremlin.
This is what liberalism has done for Russia.
<P>
The current situation was the inevitable result of the sudden removal of economic barriers and the brutal changeover from a protected economy to the fierce competition of speculatory world capitalism.
<P>
It should have been tackled progressively, in gentle stages.
Instead we have seen nothing but excessive, dogmatic and brutal behaviour.
<P>
Russia has turned from the Communist ideology to embrace liberal ideology with no transitional period in between.
Instead of the dictatorship of the Communist nomenklatura, the country is now in the grip of by mafias and oligarchies.
<P>
To make matters worse, the institutions that were set up have turned out to be a hindrance, given that the President is able to govern against the will of the majority in the Duma.
<P>
The risks for Europe are alarming, with nuclear arms practically being handed over to what remains of the army and the danger of Russia falling apart on the Caucasian-Muslim front and in the far east.
<P>
So what can be done?
Firstly we must learn our lesson from the failure of dogmatic free trade and free Europe from this trap while there is still time.
<P>
Then realistic choices must be made in terms of Russia's institutional needs. In other words, it needs a real government which can cope with the enormous size of this country-continent, and which is in step with its deep-rooted sociological and historical reality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Souchet">
The motion for a resolution that Parliament has just adopted considerably increases the aid given to the new Russian government.
I regret the fact that it does not, at the same time, mention any of the errors of analysis or the serious failings that the Russian crisis has revealed in the European Union.
<P>
It was an error of analysis to have so seriously underestimated the long term effects that seven decades of Soviet rule, seven decades of the welfare state and hardship would have on people. And also to have underestimated the effects of the absence of any liberal traditions that could have taken over once the Communist system had collapsed.
<P>
It was a serious error to have given a free hand to the most dogmatic economists, Western liberal experts and those who are least familiar with Russian reality, who mainly came from across the Atlantic.
We have let them transform Russia into a laboratory experiment, encourage blind imitation, prescribe shock therapy that they would never have dared recommend to their own governments, and apply pressure to obtain quick deregulation and uncoordinated privatisation.
The result is that today 'market economy' for the Russian people has become synonymous with unemployment and destitution.
Let us therefore start by ceasing to act like imperious advisors and dictating the rhythm and nature of Russia's reforms.
<P>
We note that what Russia is most in need of today is clearly a strong, competent and honest government, a State that we have been unable to help build.
We have squandered European taxpayers' money on programmes and aid which have yet to be evaluated - despite our demands - and which the Emerson affair has shown to be subject to few or no controls and often the source of fraudulent activity, just like those of the European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO).
<P>
Our first duty was to do everything we could to help train this new political, economic and administrative elite that Russia so urgently needed in the European Union.
Only the Communists had a network of trained administrators, but we have been unable to help the new Russia overcome this situation and create its own alternative networks.
Yet our traditions of stateintervention, our post-war experience, our progressive conversion from economies that were largely administered to the common market put us in a better position than others to help to train a new Russian elite capable of handling the progressive changeover from a planned economy to a real economy.
The speed with which Russia embraced the techniques of democracy proves that if we had provided this training early enough and on a large enough scale it would certainly have been successful and would have helped Russia become part of a rediscovered greater Europe.
<P>
One might also wonder what purpose the CFSP serves, since it has proved incapable of providing the basis for any joint action to speak of in this area, which is so import for the future of the European Union.
<P>
The European Union was unable - failed even - to identify or recognize the new priorities that emerged as a result of the end of the two-superpower world and the collapse of the Soviet system.
Due to their shortsightedness and lack of foresight, Community leaders did not see the Russian crisis coming, neither were they able to predict the scale of it or what the consequences would be. And what is worse, they failed to provide aid which met people's real needs.
This shameful lack of foresight may indeed have fearful consequences for our own growth.
The European system, as it currently operates, has proved incapable of adequately helping our Russian neighbour to tackle the transition period or the enormous challenges it faced when conditions were favourable, and it has therefore failed to deal with a key issue for the future of our countries.
We would perhaps be better advised to put as much energy into actually achieving far-reaching reforms as into preaching about them.
It is therefore up to the Member States, whose role is pivotal, to once again seize the initiative.
<P>
McMillan-Scott report (A4-0251/98)
<SPEAKER ID=94 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I shall be brief in view of the time.
Almost three years ago in December 1995, we were required to deliver our opinion, for a second time, on a Customs Union with Turkey.
<P>
I decided not to vote in favour of a Customs Union with Turkey, for four reasons.
Customs Union was presented, and accepted in Turkey, as a simple step towards full accession to the European Union.
Given its geographical location, its culture and religion, I cannot ever imagine this country forming an integral part of the European Community with its Judaeo-Christian tradition.
<P>
The second reason I gave was that, although Turkey had made progress in the area of human rights, much remains to be done.
Voting in favour of a Customs Union would have meant accepting a situation that is clearly unacceptable.
My third reason was the situation with Cyprus since 1974, and my fourth, which is by no means the least important in my opinion, is the fact that Turkey has still not acknowledged the Armenian genocide in 1915, and even goes so far as to deny it ever happened.
<P>
I was not - as I said - unaware of the trade benefits of this agreement.
But in my heart and soul I could not endorse it for the reasons given and my opinion has not changed.
I can see that, several years on, Parliament continues to be guided by the same philosophy of hoping that Turkey will change if we help it.
This is not the answer.
It will only change because of its people and how they vote.
Neither the Customs Union nor economic factors will change the Turkish people or the nature of their leaders.
This is why I was unable to endorse Mr McMillan-Scott's report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Bébéar">
Three years ago a few MEPs visited Turkey to prepare for a Customs Union and to assess the Kurdish problem and the human rights situation there.
I returned from this rewarding visit feeling optimistic about longterm progress.
<P>
Since then, the political situation has become much more complicated, economic growth has been hard to sustain and progress on democracy has not met our expectations.
In spite of all of this, the Customs Union has developed positively.
<P>
However, we remain concerned about the future: will the Turkish government be able to sustain growth and control inflation? How does it intend to improve respect for the principles of international law, human rights and democracy?
Will it find a peaceful solution to the Kurdish and Cypriot problems?
<P>
At the present time we do not have answers to these questions, but I am convinced we should not give up.
The report by our colleague Mr McMillan-Scott is absolutely clear: we have to push ahead in the interests of both Turkey and the European Union.
Our relations must become deeper.
<P>
Isolating Turkey would do nothing to improve the living conditions of its people or the human rights situation.
Young people in Turkey should have the chance to participate in the Socrates, Leonardo and Youth Exchange schemes and programmes.
The economy needs help to adapt and restructure.
Administrative reform cannot be achieved without cooperation.
<P>
I therefore endorse the McMillan-Scott report, but I should like to highlight in particular the progress to be made in the field of human rights, democracy and the intensive cooperation needed to combat the international drugs trade.
<P>
The European Union has made considerable efforts here.
Now it is Turkey's turn.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Blokland">
Little seems to have improved in Turkey's domestic situation since the Customs Union between Turkey and the EU came into force.
It was Turkey's internal affairs which led many Members of the EP to vote against its accession during the negotiations with applicant countries.
There is as yet no sign whatsoever of the political reforms demanded as part of the Customs Union, and the army still has far too much influence in Turkish society.
The McMillan Scott report gives a clear picture of the situation, but although it looks in detail all sorts of areas which have not improved, with the poor human rights situation at the top of the list, the general drift of the report is that Turkey should be allowed to join the EU.
Yet Turkey shows no sign of trying to find a peaceful solution to the Kurdish problem or of trying to be sensitive in its dealings with religious minorities and respecting their basic rights.
<P>

I agree with most of what the report says, but I voted against it because of its suggestion that if Turkey meets certain criteria it can 'automatically' join the EU.
I simply cannot go along with this.
As far as we are concerned Turkey is not a European country either geographically or culturally and it therefore cannot become a member of the EU.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Buffetaut">
Relations between Turkey and the European Union have always been marked by the unsaid, or even hypocrisy.
The most fundamental question has never been addressed: is Turkey a European country? Does it really have the right to join the European Union?
<P>
Turkey does indeed have a very small part of its territory in Europe.
But is this enough for it to constitute a European nation, in other words one which is akin to European culture and civilization?
<P>
Let us be clear, Turkey's history has been taken up with the Ottoman Empire's struggle against the nations of Europe.
Neither its history nor its civilization link this great Asian and Middle Eastern country to Europe.
<P>
Would it therefore not be more realistic and honest to put forward ways of cooperating which are consistent, strong, even close, but which do not form part of an accession process, a prospect that we are continually offering, but continually putting off?
<P>
Having said that, Mr McMillan-Scott's report highlights some of the obstacles to Turkey's accession over and above the fundamental objection that I mentioned earlier.
Is it acceptable that one of the applicants for accession to the European Union is at the crossroads of the international drugs trade and, in another criminal area, of organised counterfeiting on an industrial scale?
In the human rights field, we must also remember that, for example in the legal domain, all states need to observe fair procedures that guarantee the right of defence.
The fight against terrorism, which must be unrelenting, can only be strengthened if there are clear laws and penalties.
Can we also accept the fact that, in contempt of UN resolutions, Turkey continues to illegally occupy part of the island of Cyprus?
<P>
Mr McMillan-Scott's report also stresses the need to make the armed forces answerable to the political authorities.
This point illustrates the difficulties in applying our ways of thinking and our cultural habits to an historic reality that is very different from our own.
Since Kemal Ataturk, the army has always been regarded as the guardian of the Turkish Constitution and the secular nature of the State.
In practice, the army today acts as a buffer against Islam.
So we can clearly see the care needed in addressing the situation in Turkey.
<P>
In short, it seems clear that for reasons of history and civilisation and because of the human rights and economic situation, Turkey cannot form part of the European Union.
<P>
Therefore, we must endeavour to establish open, clear and close relations between the European Union and Turkey that take account of the specific characteristics of this great Middle Eastern nation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="President">
That concludes voting time.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 1.45 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Situation in the Great Lakes region
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="President">
The next item is the statement by the Commission on the situation in the Great Lakes region.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Pinheiro">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the crisis in the Great Lakes region, today at the centre of our concerns, broke out more than four years ago and has now once again entered an acute phase, with the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo which broke out in August.
<P>
Unfortunately, our frequent predictions, our fears that this crisis might spread to neighbouring countries have been confirmed in recent days.
A total of six eastern, central and southern African countries are now militarily involved, and there is also a risk that other countries might be drawn into this conflict in Congo-Kinshasa.
Of special concern at the moment is the possibility of Sudanese forces intervening in the Democratic Republic of Congo, on the government side, which would probably lead to an escalation of the conflict involving Sudan's own neighbours.
<P>
In Congo-Kinshasa, as we all know, the fall of the Mobutu regime and the coming to power of the new regime did not put an end to the structural, political, economic and social crisis which started a long time ago. They turned Congo, the former Zaire, into a focus of constant destabilisation in the heart of central Africa.
The Members of the European Parliament are all aware of the analysis of the current conflict and its link to the situation in the Great Lakes and ethnic problems - not only in Rwanda and Burundi but also in the province of Kivu and Lower Congo - and know that we believe that no solution can be found by military means or, in other words, by armed intervention.
We have said time and time again that it is vital to hold political negotiations in order to find a solution to the far-reaching political, economic and social problems besetting this region of Africa.
<P>
Furthermore, we are extremely frustrated not only that it is impossible to pursue a development policy but also that the infrastructures and institutions to which the European Union and its Member States have contributed in the past, not without some difficulty, have now been destroyed.
<P>
The European Union has taken a clear stance on this, especially in recent times, and its statement of 27 August is clear as to the conditions to be met in any attempt to solve this crisis.
We have lent our support to Africa's own attempts at mediation, which have unfortunately not yet been successful, namely the talks begun by President Mandela at Victoria Falls and the Organisation of African Unity meeting in Addis Ababa, as well as the more recent SADCC meeting in Mauritius, all of which have so far met with little success.
<P>
An immediate visit by the Special Envoy to the region, where he still is, in order to try and find ways of facilitating dialogue and pinpointing solutions to the conflict, was fully justified.
We think that it might be worthwhile to explore the possibility of an African peacekeeping force, in which the European Union might participate.
<P>
One thing is certain. It will not be possible to create conditions for dialogue as long as foreign troops remain inside Congo and until an end is put to the racist and populist talk which only encourages inter-ethnic violence.
Nor will it be possible to reach peace without solutions based on respect for Congo's territorial integrity and the security of its neighbours.
<P>
The regional conference we have spoken about so much is due to be held under the aegis of the Organisation for African Unity and the United Nations, though this does not, of course, preclude any contribution that the international community, in particular the European Union and its Member States, could make to its success.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, at the present time the situation between the armed forces suggests two different scenarios.
One would be the consolidation of the current spheres of interest on both sides, albeit with a continuation of the war between the Congolese army (and its allies) and the rebel militia (and their allies). This might just, in the medium term, lead to a solution, with a gradual retreat by the other countries in the region and an internalisation of the conflict to involve only Congolese forces.
<P>
The other scenario, which is more likely, includes a large-scale counter-offensive by the group close to Kabila, which would result, quite understandably, in a supra-regional conflict on an even wider scale.
Either of these two scenarios would be extremely worrying because, even in the first case, with the internalisation of the problem within Congo, instability in Congo vis-à-vis all of the neighbouring countries and the well-known situations of insecurity in those neighbouring countries would make it impossible ever to bring about stability in that part of the African continent.
<P>
It is for this reason that the European Union insists, as it has insisted in the past, on the need to look at the region as a whole rather than just the individual crisis points.
I would also add, ladies and gentlemen, that one of the tasks for our Special Envoy will be to meet the Secretary-General of the United Nations and other senior United Nations officials currently monitoring the situation in the Great Lakes and in Congo.
We hope that our envoy will be able to report back to us in early October, when we shall once again assess the situation and any political proposals that have been made.
<P>
I should also like to inform you that we are in close contact with the United Nations Development Programme and with the World Bank, in order to see whether it might be possible to take joint action on the overall rehabilitation of the whole area, which obviously would be an important contribution to any global conference on the region.
<P>
As for the humanitarian situation, the military conflict is obviously having a serious impact here.
There have been reports of violations of human rights by both sides in the conflict, and the authorities on both sides are using ethnic confrontation as a means of uniting the population around their political or military platforms.
There is no access to the rural areas of Kivu and the province of Lower Congo, where the greatest human suffering is concentrated.
Information on the humanitarian needs of thousands and thousands of displaced persons is still very scarce and patchy.
Apart from that, the knock-on effect into the neighbouring countries, especially Rwanda and Burundi, could destabilise still further the fragile rebuilding of ethnic cohabitation in those countries.
<P>
The cities of Kinshasa and Kisangani are currently facing severe food shortages and water supply problems since all supplies have been cut.
Our main worry - apart from these difficulties in Kinshasa and Kisangani - continues to be focused, however, on the humanitarian situation in the province of Kivu. We might be about to witness a mass exodus of Congolese people either within the Democratic Republic of Congo or into Tanzania, Burundi or other countries, and that could transform the humanitarian situation into a full-blown disaster.
<P>
To deal with this new crisis the Commission has earmarked a new budget of ECU 55 million for the Great Lakes region, of which around 10 million are destined for the Democratic Republic of Congo immediately.
However, I should like to say that it is extremely difficult for organisations providing humanitarian aid to gain access since security conditions are virtually nonexistent, and therefore we are trying to negotiate a code of conduct with the authorities on both sides to see whether it is possible for humanitarian action to take place with at least minimum guarantees for those involved.
<P>
I would like once again to raise a question which I have already raised before the Commission and the Council and which calls for discussion in this Parliament: it is the question of whether we can justify continuing sending aid on the same terms - ' business as usual' - to countries involved in armed conflicts which waste up to 30 % of their budgets on arms and military equipment, and whether we should not take a thorough look and ask ourselves whether the aid we are paying to their social and other budgets might not actually be being used, indirectly, to finance their wars.
<P>
This is not an easy question, but I think that the European institutions - since Europe is Africa's biggest donor - might have trouble with our taxpayers and with our own consciences if we do not look into this issue more closely.
I hope that we can come back to this question in a few weeks' time and that we will have had further thoughts on the matter. All the Community institutions should consider jointly what measures need to be taken and what guidelines adopted.
That is all for now, Mr President.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Delcroix">
Mr President, Commissioner, my group broadly agrees with your analysis and thanks you for it.
<P>
For decades, Zaire has experienced political dictatorship, corruption, poor economic management and human rights violations.
Although the Mobutu regime was clearly condemned and progressively isolated by the international community from 1982 onwards, the wealth of the country offset the economic isolation that should have resulted.
<P>
The triumphant arrival of the Alliance troops under Laurent Kabila appeared to have put an end to dictatorship once and for all.
The military situation appeared to be under the control of the Alliance leadership and we were convinced that Congo now had the chance to start rebuilding itself, with all of these active democratic and progressive forces working together.
<P>
We have to admit that the situation did not develop as originally hoped.
The new leaders withdrew into themselves, proving intransigent and so depriving themselves of the support of a large part of the population that did not accept the authoritarian procedures of the Alliance.
One of the few points in its favour is that it has given towns more security.
<P>
Recovery here is probably impossible without international aid, which has not been forthcoming, mainly due to a lack of confidence.
It is a vicious circle.
A lack of confidence on the part of Western governments in the political will of the Alliance to democratise the country, and a lack of confidence on the part of potential investors and private companies in security, particularly legal security, and fear that their investments will not be profitable.
<P>
Congo has once again plunged into a war which is involving armies from several countries in the region. The tragic pictures that we receive daily show massacres and the suffering of the people.
Statements made by some of the country's most senior officials inciting ethnic hatred are completely unacceptable and do not bode well for the future.
The rebellion is made up of a group of heterogeneous forces who are all pursuing diverse interests, but are united in their opposition to the present regime.
It is being politically and financially supported by former leaders of the previous regime.
<P>
The threat of a fresh outbreak of violence in Congo is very real and, as always, would be very damaging for the poorest regions of this country, affecting the most vulnerable members of the population.
What is more, it is setting a very dangerous precedent for other countries in Africa.
In this context, we hope that the European Union will call for an immediate ceasefire and support African initiatives, in particular those of Nelson Mandela, to try to prevent unrest in the region and find a negotiated settlement to the Congo crisis.
The European Union and the Member States must speak with one voice, carry out an active diplomatic effort and coordinate their action in order to guarantee peace and security in this part of the world.
<P>
This is the reason why my group supports the European Parliament's joint resolution, since it is a joint resolution, .
Let the European Parliament speak with one voice because we, like the other democratic groups in this House, want to guarantee peace in this part of the world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Tindemans">
Mr President, Commissioner, I was particularly interested to hear what the Commissioner had to say about what is happening at the moment in the Great Lakes area of Africa.
I can summarise it in a few sentences.
The Commissioner is undoubtedly an expert on Africa, he listed a number of problems, quite rightly pointed to the need to find solutions to them and described a number of possibilities.
But, as the previous speaker said, what Parliament wants to know is what the international community and Europe are doing to bring about peace in Africa and to stop the killing?
This region has seen some appalling events in its recent history.
The conflict between the Hutus and the Tutsis has been going on for years and the actions of the FDR in Rwanda led to civil war.
Attempts were made to reach agreement at Arusha, but for some unknown reason the talks were held without first demanding a ceasefire.
The Rwandan president's plane was shot down, but it is still not yet officially clear who was responsible.
The genocide which ensued was horrific.
The country fell into the hands of the rebels and became a virtual dictatorship.
In Burundi too a colonel seized power.
Does anyone here in the House believe that lasting peace between the ethnic groups in countries like Rwanda and Burundi can be achieved without international intervention?
There were one-and-a-half million refugees, most of them women and children, on the border between Rwanda and Congo-Zaire, but no solution was found to the problem, nor did anyone even try to find one.
When the refugees were forced on the move again only Emma Bonino was brave enough to point out that more than 300 000 of them had slipped away.
They have all now disappeared.
The dead cannot talk.
<P>
Have we forgotten that the Security Council decided that there should be military intervention, but a week later President Clinton announced that he would not be involved in the operation?
Meanwhile it had emerged that there had been massacres in eastern Congo-Zaire and the UN decided to try to locate the mass graves in order to find out exactly what had happened in the area.
The new authorities would not agree to this and there was a stand-off with the United Nations.
Then Laurent Désiré Kabila, heading an army of mainly Ugandans and Rwandans, took control of the whole of Congo-Zaire.
Ministers in the West made encouraging statements about having confidence in the new regime, and the conquerors set about expanding their empire.
After a while it became clear that the expected new, more democratic policies respecting human rights on the basis of a constitutional state were unlikely to materialise.
The attitude towards the organised opposition was even less conciliatory than it had been under the Mobutu regime, in fact it was actually banned.
There was growing unrest again among the population and now what do we see?
The forces from Uganda and Rwanda that supported Kabila have resurfaced to fight him.
At the same time troops from Angola are trying to take control of Lower Congo.
There are also rumours that the Katangan police are planning an operation from Angola to expel Kabila, who now symbolises the state of Congo, from Katanga.
More and more foreign troops from Zimbabwe and other countries are becoming involved in the fighting, supplying aircraft and mercenaries.
There are probably eight countries involved in the troubles.
If it was happening in Europe people would be talking about the risk of a world war.
<P>
Even the media are avoiding talking about what is behind all this: economic powers interested mainly in diamonds, oil, cobalt and copper.
Some commentators have written that it is all reminiscent of the precolonial days when western companies set up trading posts in order to gain control of supplies of raw materials.
It seems that the killing in Central Africa cannot be stopped and that the recent hopes of finally rooting out one-party systems and dictatorships have been dashed for many years to come.
Stability at any price seems to have become the new political ideal.
How many tens of thousands of people have been killed?
How many more will there be?
No-one is coming forward to help Africa.
The international community is invisible, the United Nations refuses to act.
No-one even mentions the Western European Union any more, and the European Union, it has now become very clear, sadly has no policy on Africa.
The Member States of the EU are divided: not only is there no common policy, there is no policy at all.
Humanitarian aid helps both the aggressors and their victims but does not concern itself with solutions to political problems.
I cannot make this point strongly enough: we have no policy.
<P>
We should ban the expression 'common foreign policy' for Europe from our vocabulary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, I agree with my friend Mr Tindemans that there is indeed no European policy on Africa.
But, as today, this has never stopped us from talking about it.
<P>
The people of the Democratic Republic of Congo are having to watch themselves becoming the victims of yet more violence in this endless conflict.
Thirty years of dictatorship and Kabila's military takeover have not been enough.
Civil war is raging again, and Kabila has only himself to blame.
The country is still drifting out of control.
The people are still facing deepening poverty, death, destruction and suffering.
Human rights are still regularly being violated on an enormous scale and democracy is, of course, nothing more than a pretence.
<P>
Yes, the rebel attack was on a legitimate and recognised authority, and yes, action must be taken against it.
But Kabila has yet to prove that he deserves support in the longer term.
Up to now he has certainly not deserved it.
He will also have to accept international mediation which has to involve the rebels, otherwise there can be no mediation.
<P>
I appreciate the efforts that South Africa has made here, and as Mr Tindemans said, finding an African solution to a problem in an African country by means of African intervention using African weapons is a return to how Africa used to be before colonial times.
It may be a hopeful sign that the African countries want, and perhaps are able, to help to resolve conflicts in their own continent themselves, since Europe has no policy on the subject.
The Union could perhaps act as a facilitator, creating the right conditions to enable the Africans themselves to resolve their own conflicts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, Mr Tindemans was quite right: Europe is fiddling while the heart of Africa burns.
The genocide of the Tutsis and the fall of Mobutu have opened Pandora's box and war is now raging from Brazzaville to Addis Ababa.
Traditional labels such as colonialism and ideological differences between East and West are no longer relevant.
The individual African rulers are only concerned with protecting their own positions of power.
Political opposition groups are not given any opportunity to function democratically, and this often leads them to seek support from related tribes over the borders, which in turn gives the dictators an excuse to take cross-border military action.
This tangled web results in terrible suffering for the people and the squandering of money and humanitarian aid.
<P>
I think the Commissioner uses UN agreements as a convenient shield to hide behind, but I would like a clear answer.
Do the Commission and the Commissioner not feel that it is now high time that we started raising our voices in protest, for example to the government in Luanda which simply sacked seventy opposition MPs, replacing them with unelected members and threatening them in their homes?
Is this not likely to exacerbate the conflict in the region?
Will you tell me, Commissioner, why we as democrats have not already sent the signal that we as Members of Parliament must now give?
Members belong in Parliament and must not be threatened.
If you fail to do so, Commissioner, the Angolan government will think that it can get away with its current practice of using profits from oil and diamonds to buy weapons, and humanitarian aid, no matter how well-intentioned, will be pointless.
<P>
If we feel for Africa, we should be critical of all those involved in the fighting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Mr President, a number of specific issues have emerged from the crisis that we have been witnessing over the past few weeks, such as the fact that President Kabila has not kept his main electoral promises and the fact that the opposition parties are still unable to carry out their normal activities.
What is more, opponents are being imprisoned and, it appears, summarily executed.
The Congo is therefore clearly not a democratic country and appears a long way from holding free elections.
<P>
It can also be said that other neighbouring countries are involved in this conflict, such as the barely disguised presence of Uganda and Rwanda, which possibly still harbour plans to divide up the Congo and de facto seize control of some parts of the country.
<P>
But although these issues are important, I believe that they are not the most important.
There are more general issues to be addressed, given that we are faced with the first regional war in Africa in recent times.
There are many questions we should be asking.
For example, why is it that organizations such as the Organization for African Unity are not capable of crisis management or conflict prevention? Why have the United Nations also been unable to intervene in this situation?
And why have even relatively powerless movements like the Non-Aligned not tried to intervene in this crisis?
As a consequence there are no opportunities for mediation, nor are there any conflict prevention or crisis management mechanisms, making political solutions difficult to achieve.
<P>
We could insist that a regional conference is needed to put an end to what is happening.
We could also strongly urge that a neutral African military force be set up. But who would organise it and what would be its policies and objectives?
What is more, who would support it given that EU support alone would not suffice?
<P>
We would also have to find out where, for example, the United States stands on this conflict, because the United States has always claimed to have one position and then adopted a different one on Africa.
<P>
There is a clear lack of regional management structures, of structures that facilitate genuine cooperation in Africa between African countries themselves and which go beyond the existing structures between these countries and other regions such as the European Union.
We have in fact reached a point where a crisis of this nature could erupt again if Europe, as well as taking specific measures now, does not look further ahead and try to establish a policy on Africa that provides for the creation of these kinds of structures.
<P>
Of course, if I had to answer the Commissioner's question as to whether it is possible to continue to cooperate with countries at war or that arm themselves for war, I think the answer would be no.
We have no right to favour this type of policy, and still less to misuse the resources of European citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, I have to say that I am torn between anger and despair when I read that the EU should play an active role in promoting peace, security and stability in the Great Lakes region.
In view of the absence of the UN in recent weeks, in view of the passive attitude of the European Union and the withdrawal of humanitarian aid, all talk of responsibility or even the claim, Mrs van Bladel, that it is now the Africans who are to blame for everything, is enough to make me sick.
<P>
We cannot so quickly rid ourselves of the responsibility for the monsters we created as colonial powers in Africa.
Of course, it is a positive development that the Africans have begun to recognise that they have to find joint solutions for their major regional problems.
Despite its failure, the Victoria Falls meeting was a useful start.
<P>
They have joint responsibility for ensuring respect for human and civil rights, which at least means that borders become less important.
Mr Bertens is absolutely right: the European Union has the opportunity to begin a new chapter and to help the Africans to find their own solutions.
In addition, we should not behave as if friendly relations with Bill Clinton give us the right to take unilateral military action.
Of course, Uganda and Rwanda do not have the right to introduce a unilateral military solution as they see fit, and we cannot now push Angola into the background because it has resisted this.
Nor can we simply declare Unita to be a political opposition party after 30 years of civil war and the sabotage of the peace process.
Unita must at last fit in with the constitution of the second Angolan Republic and assume a constructive role as an opposition party.
This is what almost all Angolans want.
<P>
The forces of democracy in Congo have made a series of demands which we should actively support: defence of unity and self-determination, opening up the government for democratic forces, precise arrangements for future elections, clear dissociation from xenophobic tendencies, mobilisation of the interministerial commission for the protection of Tutsis and expansion of this to the whole territory, establishment of a ceasefire, withdrawal of all foreign troops and return of Congolese refugees to their home territory, the need to establish clearly who attacked whom, use of the media to promote peace propaganda rather than the propaganda of war and hatred, and, not least, provision of a peace-keeping force to ensure peace between the Democratic Republic of Congo and its neighbours in the Great Lakes region.
<P>
This is a programme that we can really do something about, and if the Union would commit itself to achieving it with all the diplomatic measures at its disposal, we could really give the people of this region fresh hope.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hory">
Mr President, the European Union is finding it extremely difficult to define and implement a policy in the Great Lakes Region in line with its fundamental principles.
What is more, is it a matter of European Union foreign policy or that of one or two of its Member States?
In fact, judging by the list of signatories to the various motions for resolutions, one has the strange impression - strange but by no means new - that the Great Lakes situation is only of interest to Belgium and France, two countries that are dictating Europe's position because of the interests they have inherited from colonial history.
<P>
But let us come back to the fundamental principles that are so dear to Europeans.
First, as has so often been said, we must ensure the territorial integrity of our former colonies, which is almost all the OAU is concerned about.
In fact, one and a half years ago, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs said that he believed Mobutu was the only one who could guarantee Zaire's territorial integrity.
We have since seen what his opinion was worth, and today, in fact, nobody any longer believes that territorial integrity is possible in a country whose government authorities long ago lost control over it.
However, there are many who were in favour of Katanga seceding but at the same time continued to affirm the inviolability of the frontiers, whereas eastern Congo has been placed under the sovereignty of Uganda and Rwanda, both of which are anxious to guarantee their own security by legitimate methods.
<P>
Another more important fundamental principle is the passion we demonstrate for the democratisation of Africa.
Just a few months ago, in our own resolutions, Mr Kabila was described as the self-proclaimed president, his government as provisional, and his political practice as cracking down on freedom.
Has Mr Kabila become a democrat? Is he ever likely to hold elections or do away with corruption?
Not at all.
The only change that has taken place is easy to identify: Mr Kabila has broken off relations with his former Rwandan and Ugandan allies and because of this alone the European Union can establish relations with him.
<P>
Are we concerned about the principle of humanitarian solidarity and the fate of the refugees?
We have been deeply and rightly moved by the fate of the Rwandan refugees over the past few years.
But no-one has ever seen, and I have certainly never seen, Parliament show concern for the millions of Rwandans that were condemned to live outside the borders of their countries until 1994.
It does indeed appear that the genocide, which Mr Tindemans so modestly referred to as a wave of violence, perpetrated in Rwanda in 1994 has failed to stir the consciences of European politicians.
Those who, yesterday, helped Habyarimana or Mobutu are, today, the first to recognise Mr Kabila as the legitimate president, unlikely as this seems.
<P>
The fact is that Europe needs to concentrate its efforts on three objectives: security in eastern Zaire must be achieved, wherever the national border may be; we must help the real refugees to return to their countries, particularly Rwanda; and the would-be refugees who have been living in Congo and Europe for four years must be brought to trial for their part in the genocide in 1994.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, Europe remains an onlooker, searching for words, as concerns the recent tragic events in the Great Lakes region.
It is clear once again that the Africans must consolidate the still very fragile regional balance within the region through the widest possible consultations and, for instance, the establishment of a strong, powerful stabilisation force.
<P>
Thus the main theme of the forthcoming major WEO Conference in Lisbon could be the safeguarding of peace and security throughout the African continent.
<P>
During 1996 the domino theory, so popular with Soviet-trained African dictators, affected 14 of the 53 African states, causing internal conflicts and the exodus of thousands of people: UN figures speak of 8 million refugees.
<P>
Rivalries that could have been settled by discussion not only still persist but have degenerated into serious strife sparked by ethnic or religious claims.
Africa is made up of young nations which are consolidating their democratic systems with every day that goes by.
The regional and national equilibrium is very precarious, making for a very unstable peace.
But the Africans themselves must take action in this area.
A pan-African intervention force, along the lines of the so-called Kompiega 98 Cohesion Force, could demonstrate the Africans' desire to equip themselves with a conflict prevention mechanism, a kind of surveillance system, and avoid producing one Kabila after another. Worse still, Kabila enjoys support from people like Dos Santos in Angola, who is capable of quashing hard-won popular representation in Parliament by forcing out the UNITA democratic opposition.
<P>
Participation and responsibilities shared among several countries could usher in a new era of peace and well-being, with the now indispensable help of Africa's European partners.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Junker">
Mr President, Mr Hory, it is by no means only Members from Belgium and France who are interested in this conflict, as can be seen from my speech.
But there are always only a few who can support these resolutions.
One should not conclude from this, however, that others are not interested.
Quite the contrary.
We all wish for peace in Africa, a peace that leads to prosperity and stability.
However, the situation in reality does not make this easy.
<P>
But despair should not lead to resignation, Mr Wolf.
I know that you do not want that either.
Of course, it is sometimes depressing when we try again and again to make progress, to provide support and assistance, and yet things do not turn out as well as we would have wished.
But we must persist in our efforts to find ways to settle the conflict, and particularly to strengthen and include all political forces in Africa which can, and above all wish to, contribute to bringing about stability and a solution to the conflict.
<P>
The ACP-EU Joint Assembly is meeting in Brussels next week and we hope that all the parties involved will sit round one table with us there.
We have been dealing with the conflict in the Great Lakes region for years, and now it is on the agenda once again.
It has become a constant history of suffering.
However, I think that these meetings help us - and there are positive signs here - to talk to each other and to sound out possible ways of solving the conflict.
Firstly, we must, together with all the African representatives who will sit at the table with us, put all our energies into overcoming ethnic hatred, one of the main causes of this conflict.
<P>
I will not list all the atrocities, human rights violations and acts of violence here.
A great deal has already been said about this.
However, it is particularly sad that those who have themselves been victims of discrimination and hatred in the past, today show the same hatred and discrimination towards each other.
This is something which we cannot tolerate.
Yet neither can we approve of military intervention - regardless of which side it comes from - rather than efforts to choose the path of peace and to urge neighbouring countries to seek a peaceful solution to the conflict, while upholding the principles of democracy.
<P>
Conflict prevention is often on the agenda.
We have used up a great deal of paper on this issue.
I think that, in practice, we must attach even greater importance to preventive methods of conflict avoidance than we have up to now.
We must give particular emphasis to the fact that peace talks can only be successful if all parties to the conflict sit at the same table.
This is what we must try to achieve.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendes Bota">
Mr President, the water of the Great Lakes of Africa is troubled and bloody, sullied with death and suffering caused by human blindness, madness and ambition.
Scarcely had the guns fallen silent in Guinea-Bissau than a new focus of instability had flared up in the Democratic Republic of Congo, spreading its conflict into a series of neighbouring countries, from Angola to Zimbabwe, from Namibia to Rwanda, from Uganda to Burundi and Tanzania.
<P>
Through the smokescreen of the many interests at stake it is difficult to see any rationality behind what is happening in Congo at the present time.
We are witnessing the clashes of age-old ethnic hatred, stoking never-ending wars of extermination and retaliation, the reasons for which are lost in the mists of time.
We are also witnessing the consequences of ill-defined borders, some of which were drawn on colonial maps in the last century.
International economic interests are far from innocent parties, hovering like vultures ready to share out the vast natural wealth hidden in that part of Africa.
Added to that is an uncontrolled profusion of armies from several countries, mercenaries of all kinds, on the payrolls of many bosses, bandits roaming at large or just ruthlessly bloodthirsty fighters.
If they were only wallowing in desert sand and dust, we would not be here discussing a conflict that is threatening to turn into a massive regional tragedy.
<P>
President Laurent Kabila did not take the opportunity to install a genuine democracy in his country and dashed the hopes both of his own people and of the international community.
He is now the bogus ruler of an enormous area where nobody respects anybody, where the law is based on summary execution and rifle butt justice, where the civilian population makes the biggest sacrifices, with more than two million refugees and countless dead.
<P>
Every attempt at bringing about a cease-fire has failed, from the Victoria Falls meeting to the recent meeting in Addis Ababa of the defence ministers of the countries involved.
Since they cannot come to an understanding, I think we should question the Council about its political inaction and whether it might not be time for the European Union to make a fresh analysis, as Commissioner Joäo de Deus Pinheiro said, of the entire framework for cooperation with the countries involved in the civil and international conflicts in the Great Lakes region.
Although the Commission - rightly so - has just stepped up its humanitarian aid to Congo, other European cooperation measures cannot be allowed to continue to feed other leaders' warmongering instead of benefiting the ordinary people involved.
All of this needs to be re-examined, and we should look into the possibility of taking measures to suspend certain cooperation budgets unless the warring countries show that they have come to their senses.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Congo crisis, the crisis in the Great Lakes region, faces us with a new political and geo-political problem in some respects.
Until now, in fact, two principles had been virtually sacrosanct when discussing Africa's problems.
One was that local conflicts and wars were in a sense proxy wars, behind which lay the Western powers; the other was that Africa's borders were set in stone.
<P>
The Great Lakes crisis now teaches us, first of all, that the Western powers with traditional interests in the region - Belgium, France and latterly the United States - have largely abdicated their responsibilities, and, secondly, that a regional conflict seems to be casting doubt on the status quo of borders which, in many cases, were drawn not by Africans but by the European nations at the time of decolonisation.
<P>
Political judgements must therefore be made prior to any intervention on our part.
Are these borders really inviolable?
And, while reflecting on this matter, should the European Union not cast aside platitudes such as the maintenance of peace or respect for human rights?
Not because they are unimportant, but because we should begin by setting ourselves a political goal: namely to help re-establish the balance and find what positive elements exist amidst so much human tragedy, by encouraging the African countries to become more self-aware and more autonomous.
The European Union must ensure that this process is a peaceful one, that reason prevails and not force, as happens in the total absence of a strong foreign policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Girão Pereira">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, we know that the recent conflicts in Africa, initially triggered by local ethnic issues, are now rapidly turning into all-out regional conflicts, affecting several countries and leading to thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, a progressive domino effect.
<P>
It is against that background that I wish to remind you of the situation in Angola.
Although the presence of Angolan troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo is significant in itself, even more worrying is the decision of the Angolan Government unilaterally to suspend members of UNITA from their government functions and also to suspend members of that party from the Angolan National Assembly, even though they were democratically elected.
<P>
Those members of parliament are now being held in Luanda, unable to leave the city, subjected to all kinds of pressure and in many cases deprived of food and drink.
This is a clear violation of the Lusaka Agreements, and now it looks and sounds as though the country is preparing for war.
I think that the Council and the Commission should have something to say about the situation since it is a clear violation of democratic principles.
We also feel that systematically denigrating and isolating UNITA, which is currently prevented from gaining access to Angolan or international communications, is doing nothing to help the Angolan peace process.
<P>
We still think it is possible, with the new mediator and support from the European Union, to avoid a new war whose scale, effects and duration cannot be predicted, apart from the fact that it could also result in a further escalation of existing regional conflicts.
That is why we maintain that the European Union must do all it can to support the initiative of a regional conference, under the aegis of the United Nations, to bring about a final and lasting peace in the region.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Antony">
Mr President, I had intended to participate in this debate by forgetting my personal opinions and telling myself that perhaps I would hear something new that would enable the problems in Africa to be solved.
I decided to put all my convictions temporarily on hold.
<P>
I have therefore been listening very closely to all of the speakers.
I heard them admit to having been taken in by Kabila, in the same way that tomorrow we shall be forced to admit to having been taken in by Mandela, though we know his good intentions are genuine; but all the news that we are receiving from South Africa speaks only of the ever worsening situation there.
I listened to Mr Tindemans go through the usual arguments laying the blame on colonisation.
But decolonisation took place a long time ago now.
<P>
It is true that colonisation did have its darker side, but the fact remains that, even if we contest the borders which the colonial powers established, we still have to admit that they often brought an end to wars that pitted African nations one against the other.
Colonisation was by no means perfect, but when I visit the countries of the former French Union, I am not ashamed of what my country did there.
They were not banana republics.
There were ports, airports, roads, schools, health centres.
<P>
Today, the reality is that barbarism has engulfed many of these countries. However, when I hear people here saying that we need to help the Africans - although what does that really mean, if not advising them and arming them, which is tantamount to neocolonialism? - I am afraid that what people really want, in a very hypocritical fashion, is to impose a new colonialism that will cause more deaths than the old.
Giscard d'Estaing used to talk about Africa for the Africans; he perhaps was not wrong, but I think we now should leave them alone.
We cannot do anything more for them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="President">
I would inform the House that I have received eight motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2).
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Vecchi">
Mr President, the by now multiple and widespread crises and conflicts in the Great Lakes region, in the Democratic Republic of Congo and also in other nearby regions, are probably the most striking and far-reaching shake-up in the national and regional status quo since the era of decolonisation.
Crises are no longer occurring within states, as in the past, but between states, calling into question a regional order which prevailed for almost forty years, albeit with many problems and severe injustices.
This seems to me to be what is new about the current situation.
<P>
I believe that it is vital to try and prevent the status quo from disintegrating completely in this fashion. Not because the situation to date was inherently the most equitable, but because there is now a very real risk that new powers will gain control - powers based on ethnic oppression, in some cases genocide, on trafficking in arms, in some cases in drugs and in many cases in important natural resources.
Therefore, respect for national integrity and a refusal of any drastic changes to national borders would prevent the situation deteriorating further and an even more unfair balance of power replacing the previous one.
<P>
My second point is this, Mr President.
Until three or four months ago, it appeared - especially across central Africa, from Eritrea to Angola - that a new African order had taken shape, with new leaders, based on the geo-political premise of strong relations with the United States.
That order has crumbled very rapidly: it was probably false and illusory, and in fact has probably now disappeared for good.
This shows that it is not enough merely to seek out certain faithful or powerful - sometimes violent - allies in Africa; rather, it is necessary to construct and consolidate genuine processes for transforming and repositioning international alliances and relations.
<P>
Europe's role, in my opinion, is to intervene in such processes and launch new forms of cooperation to motivate, strengthen and render more useful our commitment to cooperation.
Negotiations on the future of the Lomé Convention are to begin - with some difficulty, I believe - in a few weeks' time. Our commitment at these, Commissioner, must be to help design a new order, the protagonists in which must be the Africans themselves and their countries' democratic representatives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lehideux">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the remarks that we have just heard from Commissioner Pinheiro showed a great deal of prudence, which to me seems absolutely essential when faced with a problem on such a scale and of such complexity.
But such prudence must be accompanied by a great sense of humility on the part of the European Union, two things which, to my mind, go hand in hand.
Last April Mr Ajello, the European Union's special envoy in the Great Lakes region, when speaking about events that were taking place there, said that there was no military solution to be found.
But neither, as everyone is well aware, is there a political solution that could be imposed on the states of the region.
<P>
It is firstly up to them to find a solution to the problem through dialogue and negotiations.
Our role is to support initiatives aimed at establishing such dialogue and not to change potential participants or try and impose our point of view.
We must show humility, as I said.
Even though we want to secure peace as quickly as possible, we must remember that, in other regions at other times, the dialogue established to resolve such conflicts was long and drawn out.
We should tirelessly encourage the heads of state concerned, but we cannot blame them for not finding an immediate solution, neither do we wish to impose one on them.
<P>
I would like to make two more remarks, ladies and gentlemen.
We should not, unfortunately, expect too much - and I am the first person to regret this - from the Arusha Tribunal.
We should, of course, give it our support, as the Port-Louis ACP-EU Joint Assembly resolution reminded us in April, but let us not forget the very accurate, if sceptical remarks made by the Union's special envoy in the region.
One only has to visit Arusha and listen to a few comments to understand that, locally, they do not expect much except - and this is the heart of the matter - the assurance that such tragedies will never happen again.
<P>
My second remark: the Commission must, as called for in the Port-Louis resolution, maintain the supply of humanitarian aid and this issue alone requires as much attention and more resources than all the others.
This was also reflected in the decisions you referred to earlier, Commissioner.
You told us you were going to study this matter in greater detail before offering us any answers.
I shall be very interested to hear what you have to say to us. Until then I am still in favour of continuing this aid.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, everyone will have understood that, whilst my group supports the joint text, I personally do not think that the Union can guarantee peace, security or stability in this part of the world.
As one of the recitals in this texts says, I believe we need to help secure peace and not simply to ensure peace.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Happart">
Mr President, Commissioner, as I wrote to you, I visited Kinshasa at the beginning of August, at the time of the first curfew.
I walked about the streets alone with no problems whatsoever.
At no time did I feel threatened.
I had the opportunity to talk to young and elderly citizens alike, all of whom told me of their sympathy and support for Mr Kabila.
They also told me how they did not understand why Europe had abandoned a Congo that had finally been liberated from the dictator Mobutu.
They especially did not understand why European and American embassy officials had, as they saw it, fled.
<P>
We need to intervene on a large scale in order to help the people of Congo out of this poverty and suffering by means of emergency medical and food supplies.
We also must control the arms build-up in certain regions and ask ourselves who is selling these arms and who is profiting from the sales.
Belgium and other European states owe a large part of their current wealth to the exploitation of former colonies in the Great Lakes region.
<P>
We therefore have a moral duty to these people, whatever their ethnic background or religion.
Africa is a natural complement to Europe; they have the resources we lack; we have the technology they need.
Let us use this complementarity to benefit these stricken people.
<P>
I will end, Commissioner, by asking you why we are not taking the political initiative to confiscate, on behalf of Congo, the personal fortunes in property and liquid assets that Mobutu and his henchmen have amassed in Europe, including Switzerland?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="Pinheiro">
Mr President, I shall be very brief and make just three comments.
The first refers to a matter raised by two speakers here about the UNITA members of parliament who have been unilaterally suspended from the Angolan parliament.
This is a question of principle: under no circumstances can the European Union allow members of parliament, freely elected in elections regarded as free by the local population, to be unilaterally prevented from exercising their function.
This is a matter of principle on which I believe the European Union has already directly or, at least, bilaterally made its opinion known to the Angolan Government.
<P>
The second question concerns humanitarian aid: under no circumstances have we proposed or do we propose suspending humanitarian aid.
This is a matter which supersedes ideology because it concerns human beings.
As far as humanitarian aid is concerned, I must tell you that the men and women working for non-governmental organisations who dare to go inside the Democratic Republic of Congo are genuine heroes, I repeat genuine heroes. They are going to places where some countries did not even want to send their armed forces because they were considered too dangerous.
<P>
Finally I should like to say, with regard to the Democratic Republic of Congo, that a number of promises were made after Mr Kabila came to power, in particular by our partners on the other side of the Atlantic.
I should like the European Parliament to know that what was promised - and I do not even know whether this has been paid yet - was up to 20 million dollars, in addition to the 90 million dollars which the European Union donated through the Commission just for rebuilding the roads leading to Kinshasa and for health measures (separate from other humanitarian aspects).
You will, therefore, understand that when people call for consultation and concerted action with other partners who are not even willing to make funds available, I am very reluctant because it seems that sometimes other people want to spend our money for us.
They will not be able to count on my support for that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="President">
That concludes the debate.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
TOPICAL AND URGENT DEBATE
<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="President">
The first item is the joint debate on the following three motions for resolutions on Albania :
<P>
B4-0831/98 by the ELDR Group-B4-0836/98 by the PSE Group-B4-0843/98 by the PPE Group
<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Frischenschlager">
Mr President, I believe it is very important that the European Parliament deals with the issue of Albania.
I agree fully with the content of the resolution and would like to add only one point: it is absolutely clear that in a country such as Albania, where events are influenced so strongly by nationalism and violence, an opposition which takes advantage of the situation will inevitably bring the country to its knees.
In this situation, it is important that we make it very clear that the European Union will not under any circumstances recognise border changes which are brought about by means of violence, regardless of which side this comes from, as this is obviously one of the fundamental causes of the dispute between the opposition and the government in Albania.
We should make it very clear to all sides that the European Union will never recognise border changes brought about by violence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I would like to point out that I was present at the elections in Albania as an election observer.
On the day before the vote, President Berisha received both myself and a fellow Member of this House as guests and pleaded with us to urge the socialists to recognise the election result.
The election result, which many representatives of this House considered to be absolutely just and fair, despite all the problems which arose, gave the socialists an absolute majority.
However, the situation which then arose was one in which President Berisha and his Democratic Party did not recognise the elections in Albania.
This is one of the main causes.
<P>
Mr Karl Habsburg yesterday accused me of disregarding the law.
I reject this accusation.
I am not excusing anyone for the current situation in Albania.
The assassination, like any assassination, is to be condemned completely.
Parliament did so at the time, and we have also condemned it.
Yet the fact is that today the former president and some of his party do not wish to recognise the results of the last election.
Therefore, I fully agree with Mr Frischenschlager that the European Union must not recognise any border changes brought about by violence, and not in Kosovo either, given all the problems that I dealt with yesterday.
To begin to do so would be to trigger a conflagration in the Balkans on a scale bigger than any we have seen in recent years.
<P>
Similarly, however, this House must recognise election results which have been achieved democratically.
I would therefore ask our conservative colleagues to suggest to President Berisha and his supporters that they put an end to violence, recognise the election results and work in the Albanian parliament in a peaceful and cooperative way towards a better future for their country!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, I must say quite honestly that the resolution that we hope to adopt today, and that we drafted in a joint initiative, makes me sad as my group has tried constantly in the course of the last few months to implement a resolution on Albania and on the crisis in Albania, but unfortunately this failed in Parliament because of certain other groups.
It is alarming that it required the assassination of Mr Azem Hajdari, a charismatic opposition leader, before a resolution on the actual crisis situation was drafted, particularly if we consider that this was the third attempt on Mr Hajdari's life.
One assassination attempt took place in the Albanian parliament and another in his own home, where an attempted shooting took place.
<P>
Many people try to place the full blame on the opposition alone. The fact that the resolution was tabled here only after the assassination of an opposition leader shows that this is not quite true.
<P>
I would also like to discuss the fact that we only ever mention the Democratic Party in Albania.
It is not the only opposition party.
There are seven opposition parties in total, who usually speak with one voice and who have confirmed unanimously that the situation is not as clean and as legal as the government would often have us believe.
Of course, Mr Swoboda, we in the House recognised the elections by a majority vote, despite the difficulties which you mentioned.
However, we must also acknowledge that these opposition parties are all of the view that, where the law is concerned, there is a considerable state of confusion, not only in the opposition but also in the government, and that the most unfortunate methods are being used by all concerned, which undoubtedly aggravates the situation.
<P>
We must clearly do everything we can, particularly considering Albania's circumstances, to bring about stability.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Lambraki">
Mr President, as Mr Swoboda said, the European Union helped Albania to acquire a democratically elected government in order to create and establish democratic institutions after the crisis a year earlier.
<P>
Today we have a new crisis, and we are again called upon to play a role which I think must be decisive.
It is right to condemn violence, whatever its source, but we cannot pursue a policy of keeping our distance equally from both sides, because we are then doing nothing to help the development of the democratic institutions, and the problem in Albania is that one party - Mr Berisha's party - does not accept the election results, a thing which we would consider totally undemocratic if it happened in one of our countries.
<P>
I believe that today we should support democratic constitutional normality in Albania, because as Mr Swoboda correctly said, and I too would like to stress the same thing because I come from a country which borders Albania, any crisis there affects us all and any change of the political scenario brought about by an escalation of political violence will increase the political uncertainty in Albania, and not only increase it but create dramatic developments all over the area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, when I hear certain people going on about democracy, I would like to remind them that Fatos Nano himself came from a totalitarian party, that he was a long-time dictator and that he was removed from power and convicted of criminal activities.
I mention this because this no one else has!
Similarly, much too little has been made of the fact that events are happening very quickly due to the assassination of one of the opposition leaders, following two attempts on his life.
It is simply wrong and hypocritical to place all the blame on one side, as certain people are trying to do here.
<P>
We must work towards finally restoring law and order in Albania.
The government has broken the law just as much as the opposition.
It is obvious that this will, of course, be a very difficult task, as Albania is currently in a very dangerous situation.
We must be very clear that there is a danger that the situation will assume epidemic proportions, but this is likely to begin in Kosovo rather than in Albania.
<P>
We have not yet done anything decisive about Kosovo.
We only threaten again and again to take action, one example being the various air manoeuvres which in any case came to nothing.
Our credibility has suffered greatly, and we should at long last present a more resolute front to the dictator, Milosevic, and commit ourselves more strongly to finding a solution in Kosovo.
We hope that the situation in Albania will then soon ease.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the murder of any politician, whichever side he belongs to, is repugnant to every true democrat. In this particular case it throws into sharp focus Albania's pressing need for political, institutional, cultural and economic - but above all ethical and moral - reconstruction.
Those who, like myself, have had the opportunity to speak with Albanian refugees in Italy know that what they need more than anything else is a government, that government which it is so difficult to rebuild in such tormented circumstances.
But the main reason for EU intervention is that, otherwise, the welcome being given to the Albanians by certain countries including Italy could turn to indifference, to general paternalism, the source of further problems and not a solution to the existing ones.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Mr President, after the events of last year there were high hopes when at last democratic solutions were found and elections and parliamentary alliances finally produced a new government under Fatos Nano, who had been illegitimately imprisoned.
That government has achieved some important steps.
It imposed relative calm in the country, restored a number of basic functions in the fields of public economy and administration, and pursued a moderate and realistic foreign policy, mainly thanks to the assistance and encouragement of the international community and the European Union.
<P>
It has not completed certain basic constitutional and administrative reforms, and has recently been facing a complex crisis in Kosovo.
Some people in Albania have grasped that opportunity to try and create unrest and reclaim the power they recently lost, by exploiting the national sentiments of the Albanian people and pushing them into an impasse, in a nationalistic and irredeemable direction, taking advantage of the country's social and economic conditions and of the government's dispassionate attitude towards the illegal possession of thousands of hidden weapons.
That is the opportunistic and irresponsible way in which Mr Berisha is behaving, with his inflammatory statements and actions.
Such behaviour is dangerous for Albania and for the whole of south-east Europe.
It destabilizes the fragile political order in Albania and increases the risk of dangerous interventions in the Kosovo crisis - and let us not forget that.
It could lead to new waves of refugees, which we are already seeing in Greece and Italy.
We cannot undermine the legitimacy of the elected Albanian government by keeping equal distance from it and from the armed factions which dispute it, calling for new governments in which the armed groups too participate.
It is a different thing for us to ask the Albanian government to show prudence and moderation in consolidating the democratic regime and legitimacy.
So far it has shown signs of doing so, and it merits our assistance in every way in the economic and political sectors.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Lagendijk">
Mr President, anyone who knows anything about the situation in Albania knows that it is extremely serious both socially and economically and from a humanitarian point of view, and they know that what is needed from both government and opposition now and in the future is restraint.
Restraint in overcoming political differences, and willingness to talk.
What this means now, in my view, is that the Fatos Nano government must do everything it can to find out who was responsible for the murder of Azem Hajdari, and also, first and foremost, that Mr Berisha and the democratic party must stop the provocation of the last week and their polarisation strategy of recent months.
What happened last week was just the latest in a long line of incidents triggered by Mr Berisha over the last few months and we need to put a stop to them.
I would therefore - and I hope the resolution will be adopted - urge everyone in the House who has supported Mr Berisha in the past to pass on the message that restraint and dialogue are the only solution to the situation in Albania.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, in the opinion of Alleanza Nazionale, the terrible crisis afflicting Albania - amply demonstrated by the events of the past few days - not only derives from institutional, economic and social shortcomings, but finds its roots and apparently inexhaustible succour in the loss of civic and moral values by most of the Albanian population.
A few pathetic, incorrigible hard-liners, nostalgic for five-year plans and massed crowds marching towards bright futures, venture to blame evil capitalists and the market economy, but clearly this disaster is the consequence of decades of Communist collectivism, where no initiative could be taken unless it was authorised by the party nomenklatura, and where individual enterprise was crushed by the worst of the East European Communist dictatorships.
So, present-day events are showing us that the only defence left to the Albanian population has been to resort to pre-industrial, pre-democratic values based on clans and tribes. Meanwhile the flight of illegal immigrants to Italy seems unstoppable.
Vast areas of the countryside have been transformed into drug plantations, and prostitution and trafficking in stolen cars flourish under the direction of various Albanian bosses.
<P>
The first political judgement we can make is that the international mission led by Italy has been a failure, and the reasons are probably the self-imposed limits to its intervention and the lack of coordination between its different components.
In conclusion, the European Union cannot but take a joint approach both to crises occurring on its borders and to those in the Mediterranean basin.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="Pinheiro">
Mr President, obviously the Commission is also extremely concerned at the recent events in Albania.
The assassination of Mr Hajdari, a leading politician in the Democratic Party, and the unrest which followed, if it was indeed a result of that, reveal the considerable instability within the country.
<P>
Increased violence obviously makes national reconciliation more difficult, even more difficult than it has been until recently.
It is therefore fundamental, we agree, to establish calm and public order, and to carry out an investigation into the assassination and the mayhem which followed it.
<P>
At the same time, all interested parties should try to contain the situation, both in their statements and actions.
We welcome the fact that Mr Berisha has already called for moderation although the calls for Prime Minister Nano to resign will not help to resolve the situation.
We also think that it is inappropriate and disproportionate to request the waiving of Mr Berisha's parliamentary immunity and that of other members of parliament belonging to the Democratic Party with the aim of arresting them. That obviously would suggest that the aim of the unrest was a coup d'état, which is not what we think.
<P>
It is important to restore a climate for political dialogue and, from this point of view, we should support all mediation efforts, both those by the President, Mr Meidani, and by Ambassador Everts on behalf of the OSCE.
Obviously we hope that the Democratic Party will take an active part in these talks.
The main aim of the European Union's strategy must be to continue to help Albania work towards political stability, recovery and democratisation.
Obviously, issues of public order and security are some of the most vital political priorities.
<P>
We are waiting for the WEU to propose a document containing options on strengthening public order and security, so that we can decide which actions we could support apart from those that we are already supporting.
One thing is for sure: Albania is part of Europe and insecurity in Albania does not help to stabilise the Balkans.
What is currently happening in the former Yugoslavia and in Kosovo is more than enough for us to deal with.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, this is the third time this year that we have had to have an urgent debate on the deteriorating situation in Burma, and the third time that we have had to ask the Council and the Commission to take stronger measures against one of the most malignant regimes in the world.
Let me give you some examples of what they do.
<P>
Members of the opposition are systematically arrested, imprisoned, disappear, are tortured and killed.
In the last two weeks alone 187 members of the NLD, Aung San Suu Kyi's party, were arrested and imprisoned.
This brings the total number of MPs and party leaders imprisoned since the beginning of the year to 783, 196 of them elected members of parliament.
<P>
Aung San Suu Kyi herself is under permanent restraint.
This summer we have seen her twice detained on a bridge outside Rangoon, and prevented from talking to her supporters.
Just yesterday she was again threatened by the military authorities, who warned her that if she continues to speak out against the government she will be imprisoned.
<P>
What is the European Union doing about all this?
Burma's minorities are still suffering repression.
They are used as forced labour on a huge scale and treated so badly that 130 000 have fled across the border and are now in refugee camps in Thailand, Malaysia and Bangladesh.
<P>
I spent two weeks visiting those camps and I was shocked at the terrible stories I heard.
What is the European Union doing about the refugees who are sent back from Bangladesh simply to be used for forced labour again?
What is the European Union doing about this?
<P>
Then there are the enormous quantities of drugs that Burmese farmers produce, often under duress, making Burma the largest exporter of drugs in the world, bigger even than Columbia, for example.
What is the European Union doing about this?
We have taken certain steps, but I have to say that they have done nothing to change the situation.
What we urgently want to see, and I am speaking here for the whole House, are measures such as those backed by the United States, in other words a ban on investment and a total economic boycott.
That seems to be the only thing likely to make this terrible regime think again.
Commissioner, do something, put proposals to the Council and make it take action.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, Commissioner, for ten years now Aung San Suu Kyi has been calling for democracy in Burma.
We have become used to it.
For ten years now life has been made impossible for her party and for her herself.
Fortunately their activities have drawn the attention of the world press, but she is occasionally forced to take the rare step of appearing or going into hiding in unusual places in order to keep that attention focused.
<P>
Fortunately the students have now taken up the gauntlet and thousands of them demonstrated to commemorate the violent clampdown of August 1988.
It was the biggest demonstration since 1996.
<P>
The international community must not forget Burma, which is rightly one of only five countries which does not have relations with the Union.
But, as Mrs Maij-Weggen said, we need to go further.
The fact that democracy and human rights are being repressed justifies an economic boycott.
It is quite simple.
Foreign investors are the lifeline of this military regime, and half of the profit that the Burmese junta makes from investment goes to the army.
We must go through with the boycott, otherwise the pressure on the regime will achieve nothing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Scarbonchi">
Mr President, Commissioner, I shall not look in detail at our motion for a resolution which, of course, condemns the Burmese military junta and calls for political prisoners to be freed, including the many members of parliament elected in 1990 and arrested a few days ago, and which refuses to accept Burma's participation in the EU-ASEAN and ASEM meetings and, through Amendment No 7 bis, calls on the European Union not to contribute to the controversial UNDCP project in Burma.
<P>
I would like to take this opportunity to say that, within the framework of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, and on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on 2 September I put forward a proposal - which was accepted by the Committee - that we should launch the operation 'One thousand Members of Parliament for Burma' .
One thousand members of parliament, as Michel Rocard proposed, including MEPs and MPs from the 15 European Union countries represented in this House - and I call on all my colleagues to sign up for this operation that we intend to launch - and from the Interparliamentary Union, so that this junta, which is both deaf and blind and only survives thanks to the drugs it trafficks, finally understands that it is faced with a large majority of elected representatives from the world's democratic systems.
What is more, this is the best support we can give to this wonderful woman Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Kerr">
Mr President, the three things we have to have an impact on in Burma to make the regime change are drugs, oil and tourism.
All three were highlighted in a recent film by John Pilger on British television when he took secret cameras into Burma and filmed the slave labour from the prison camps under armed guard being used to build new tourist projects - a re-enactment of the building of the bridge under the Japanese terror in the Second World War.
We must put a stop and try to boycott - and encourage everybody else to boycott - any tourist developments within Burma.
<P>
The European Union has a special responsibility because the major investors are in Europe.
Premier Oil from the UK and Total from France are the major investors in oil.
If the US Government was rather more active in stopping the drugs trade emanating from Burma than it is compared to South America, that would also be more effective.
So if we deal with these three things, we might convince the SLORC that it is time to change and to restore democracy to Burma.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Erika">
Mr President, I would merely like, on behalf of my group, to draw attention to the fact that in paragraph 2 they have criticised the Commission on one point, which is something that we have never done before in this House. Until now, we have always supported the Council and the Commission, of course, when they have made a statement against extra-territorial actions.
You will surely remember the lively Helms-Burton and d'Amato debates which we had here in the House.
We have held many debates, and the Commission and the Council have always had our full support.
<P>
I would like to ask you to change 'criticises' in paragraph 2 to 'notes' .
This is a neutral observation. It would be in line with our overall policy.
<P>
If you cannot approve this, we will be in danger of no longer being able to explain our policy in future to the United States, which has always taken the same line on this (it is also the only one the State of Massachusetts follows).
It will make our policy illogical, which will lead to a situation where the Americans laugh at us and we make ourselves look ridiculous.
I would ask you to amend this point.
I would be very pleased if the Greens and also the conservatives in this House could support this.
<P>
I believe that this was probably simply a small mistake.
I do not believe that the House has suddenly changed its political beliefs from those it had in all the other resolutions and decisions that we have drafted thus far.
<P>
Afghanistan
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, the tragic death of Colonel Calò, a United Nations officer, is the ninth in Afghanistan since the beginning of the year.
The treatment meted out to women and, more generally, the lack of respect for human rights are there for everyone to see.
The West, and the European Union in particular, could find themselves caught unawares by the Afghan question, out of a misguided sense of respect for cultures different from our own.
Human rights are fundamental, the rule of law is fundamental, and both transcend cultures.
We must have the courage to assert this with determination, so that the Taliban regime, recognised by only a very few States, soon has to either change course or step aside.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I do not think we need to dwell too much on descriptions of the regime installed by the Taliban.
We are well aware of what it means in terms of fundamental human rights violations.
I would particularly like to draw the attention of the Commissioner and the Council, which is notable by its absence, to a problem that concerns not only Afghanistan, but also - as Mrs Maij-Weggen mentioned earlier in relation to Burma - the huge programmes aimed at wiping out drug cultivation.
<P>
Mrs Maij-Weggen said that in Burma drug cultivation was on the increase.
The same is true of Afghanistan.
And this occurs in spite of our very costly programmes which have been implemented by a special kind of taliban, by Mr Harlaki, of the UNDCP.
Consequently, our motion for a resolution calls on the Council and the Commission to intervene so that, at least in countries where there is a dictatorial regime such as Afghanistan and Burma, these inefficient and very costly programmes are withdrawn at the earliest possible moment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Newens">
Mr President, the conquest of the whole of Afghanistan by the Taliban is a disaster for all its people.
A regime has now been installed throughout the country which holds international standards of human rights in contempt, which degrades women and denies them education.
It has destroyed much of the country's cultural heritage and has cruelly slaughtered fellow-Muslims who are Shi'ites, both from the Hazar minority in Mazar-I-Sharif, and Iranian nationals.
It promotes terrorism both at home and abroad, causing threats and deaths, even among UN personnel seeking to relieve the misery there.While we must deplore the recognition and support given by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the Arab emirates - all who sought to intervene in the past, including not only the former Soviet Union but the United States and other Western countries, share responsibility for what has occurred in this unfortunate land.
<P>
In this age it is vital to condemn the atrocities committed and the large-scale infringements of human rights, and to demand that recognition of the regime be withheld until there is a complete change of attitude.
<P>
Countries which have recognised the Taliban should be pressed to break off relations to increase the pressure.
<P>
Such humanitarian aid as can be supplied to those who are suffering must continue, provided that the safety of those involved in delivery and distribution can be guaranteed.
<P>
The aim must be to seek a peaceful solution through the United Nations and not by military intervention by Iran.
However, there can be no compromise whatsoever with the brutal inhumanity of the Taliban regime.
<P>
Our objective must be to maintain, without wavering, our demands for full recognition of human rights in Afghanistan.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lenz">
Mr President, here we are talking about Afghanistan again, and there is no end in sight!
If the Taliban in Afghanistan did not already have a reputation for disregarding all rights, we would have to remind one another of it daily.
Who, apart from those in power - that is, those in possession of weapons - still has rights in this country once known as the land of the free?
Contempt for human beings, in particular contempt for the rights of women and for political rights, is bad enough, but terrorism and massacres for ethnic reasons and murder are even worse.
However, refusing one's own people humanitarian aid is among the worst.
Drugs cultivation has also been mentioned.
<P>
We fully support this resolution's request to the European Union, the UN and the UNDP to revise their programmes and introduce new measures to ensure that the money which we really urgently need in other areas does not fall into the wrong hands.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the violence of the Taliban regime, the widespread suppression, the violation of fundamental human rights, the international impact and the danger of an escalation of the conflict beyond Afghanistan, are all increasing daily.
The European Parliament must, therefore, call upon the international community finally to take coherent action.
<P>
Priority must be given to affording the international aid organisations the necessary diplomatic protection to allow them to continue their work to help the impoverished Afghan population.
This requires decisive and coherent action from the international community.
It means that an attempt must be made to put an end to any form of support for the Taliban regime.
The EU must bring pressure to bear on those states which, on the grounds of cynical political calculation, will still not stop at using the Taliban to further their own interests.
<P>
Death penalty
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lenz">
Mr President, we have here three resolutions on the death penalty in the Philippines, in Gaza and in El Salvador.
Three death penalties in three different continents.
The death penalty cannot be changed once it has been carried out, but the reasons for which it is imposed are varied and some of these certainly can be changed.
From the point of view of human rights, therefore, the death penalty should not exist
<P>
We in the House have opposed the death penalty for a long time, and for this reason we call upon all three countries not only to refrain from executing the death sentences imposed, but also to amend their laws so as to abolish the death penalty or prevent its introduction.
The death penalty has not been applied in the Philippines since 1976.
In Gaza, human rights organisations have criticised both the procedure and its enforcement.
In El Salvador, circumstances are somewhat different.
It is planned to introduce it there, but a three-quarters majority is required to do so, which is why it is not even being put to the vote.
<P>
So we should not really even be voting on this issue, but if a vote is taken we would like to ask the other groups to adopt our amendment, in the interests of cooperation and equal treatment.
However, our main demand is still that the death penalty should be abolished or not introduced.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, human dignity is inviolable, and the motives for the death penalty are contrary to human dignity.
I believe that the House is in agreement on this.
The right to life, contempt for state murder under the pretext of punishment, the risk of miscarriage of justice, the disproportionate number of victims among the poor, and violations of human rights by the criminal prosecution authorities are, at least in the Philippines, where 600 are currently under sentence of death, arguments for upholding the moratorium and appealing to the newly elected president to exercise his authority and adhere to the aim of abolishing the death penalty.
<P>
Leo Echegaray's repulsive crime must not be used as a pretext for getting round this policy.
I think that we should be in agreement on taking joint action on this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, the Liberal Group is vehemently opposed to the death penalty.
There is no crime that can justify murder.
It is also certainly not an effective instrument of criminal justice, either in Europe or anywhere else in the world, and this is why my group is very concerned at the recent developments in the Palestinian territories.
Two people have been executed there recently and President Arafat refused to exercise his prerogative to commute the sentence despite appeals for him to do so.
<P>
At a time when the movement against the death penalty is gaining support throughout the world, the Palestinians are going in the opposite direction.
Fortunately a great deal of criticism has been voiced within the Palestinian community, and it is to be hoped that criticism at home and abroad will persuade Mr Arafat and his supporters not to allow any more executions to take place and to make appropriate changes to legislation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gasòliba i Böhm">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to make particular reference to the motion for a resolution tabled by the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party on a matter which concerns us: the possible extension of the death penalty in El Salvador.
On the one hand, El Salvador will be in breach of the American Convention on Human Rights which it ratified on 23 June 1978 and, on the other hand - as my colleagues Mr Bertens and Mrs Lenz have pointed out - it will also go against the position of the European institutions and of this Parliament itself.
<P>
I believe it is time to voice our concerns following the introduction of the proposal in the El Salvador Legislative Assembly by President Armando Calderón on 27 July.
We hope that the motion will not be ratified, but think it is necessary to inform the El Salvador Parliament of our opposition to this matter and also to show that we intend to support the amendment tabled by the Group of the European People's Party.
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<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
Mr President, our group has for a long time rejected and fought against the death penalty.
This is because we believe that with such a fundamental right, moderation becomes a vice when compromise is rejected.
This is why we reject the death penalty, not only in El Salvador, but in China and the United States too, because we believe that if there is one thing that should be advocated in relation to human rights, it is their global and universal character.
<P>
This is why I believe it is important that this Parliament, in developing its international initiatives, should not apply double standards.
For example, this week we have been discussing transatlantic relations and it has not occurred to anyone to question our relations with the United States, where the death penalty is still used quite frequently. Neither has anyone imposed any conditions for relations with the United States.
This is why we condemn the death penalty with the same vehemence that we condemn the terms used in paragraph two of the motion for a resolution, which makes cooperation with a sovereign country like El Salvador - a positive and active partner of the European Union - subject to certain conditions.
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<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, I should like to make the following point in reply to what Mrs Lenz, Mr Salafranca and of course Mr Gasóliba said: what is happening in El Salvador is a dangerous development and the president is sending out the wrong signal in seeking to extend the scope of the death penalty.
I do not think that it was really the intention of President Calderon and the El Salvador Assembly to breach the 1978 American Convention on Human Rights, under which capital punishment is banned.
I can reassure our colleagues in the PPE Group that the Liberal Group will of course be voting for the amendment linking European aid and relations with the non-adoption of this law.
In other words we will do as Mrs Lenz asked.
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<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Mr President, in discussing these three motions for resolutions, we are in fact talking about specific situations which are clearly unacceptable, namely, the executions that have taken place on territories under President Arafat's administration and the proposals that are being debated and discussed in El Salvador and the Philippines.
<P>
In this last case, Amnesty International has just condemned the fact that, if the moratorium on executions is lifted, one of the first victims could be a deaf-mute who has not even been able to hear the accusations levelled against him during his trial and of course has not had the opportunity to express his point of view.
<P>
Lastly, the key issue here is that on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights we could find ourselves taking a huge step backwards if, out of these three countries, the moratorium is lifted in two of them; in one the scope of the death penalty is extended; and in another more capital punishments are carried out.
<P>
My outright rejection of the death penalty was reflected in the words used by my colleague Mr Salafranca.
<P>
Cambodia
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Mr President, our group tabled an urgent motion for a resolution on Cambodia to put forward three main points.
Firstly, if the conditions in which the elections took place on 26 July were not entirely satisfactory - and they were far from it - it seems clear to everyone that we will not be able to build a democratic and peaceful future in Cambodia if this vote is disallowed.
It is necessary therefore for everyone to accept it, even though, I repeat, voting conditions were not satisfactory.
<P>
Secondly, no political party, following these elections, is in a position to claim power on its own constitutionally and so a moral, political and constitutional obligation was created for the three main parties to cooperate.
What is more, since we tabled this motion for a resolution - and perhaps this is a sign of the efficiency of this Parliament - these three parties have made unquestionable progress in terms of collaboration.
<P>
Thirdly, over the past few weeks, the Khmer government authorities have behaved in a worrying manner and they need to be aware that the European Union will not accept any measures to undermine either the spirit of the Paris agreements or the fundamental right of the opposition to express its views and hold demonstrations.
We will not tolerate the threats opposition leaders have received to their freedom and lives.
To counter this we have an important lever in the form of European and international aid.
This is, to our minds - and this needs to be stressed - inextricably linked to respect for the Paris agreements and to the reestablishment by all the parties involved, and in particular the party that controls the armed forces, of an attitude based on compromise and interpartisan agreement which will help to restore peace.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Junker">
Mr President, as I am sure you know, I was present in Cambodia as an election observer on behalf of this Parliament.
I must say that the elections were, on the whole, fair and just, and 96 % of the European observers and 93 % of other international observers agreed on this.
What is very unfortunate, as in the case of Albania, is that those who lost are not prepared to recognise the result of this election.
However, there has been a welcome turn of events, in that the second largest party, the royalist FUNCINPEC, has given up its parliamentary boycott and will take part in parliamentary work.
<P>
This does not yet mean that they are prepared to take joint parliamentary responsibility, but a considerable force in the country has nevertheless given up its boycott, which may contribute greatly to bringing peace to this country.
This is what the country needs most urgently and what we must support.
I regret that I cannot comment more specifically on this.
We can endorse the resolution, but I would ask for an addition to take account of this latest development, which is, after all, a positive one.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, I really wonder whether the elections that were held in Cambodia could possibly have been free and above board.
I myself was an observer at the elections organised by the United Nations four years ago, the largest peace operation which the United Nations has ever carried out in the area.
In a country shunned by political leaders for years and where they were not even welcome, you can hardly expect the political climate to be neutral.
The way in which the media were refused access to a number of political parties which were not in power was highly significant.
<P>
The results are clear.
Whoever the winner was, one thing is clear: democracy and the people of Cambodia are still the losers.
Political demonstrations are the logical follow-up.
We have already seen this and heard it, and for now all we can do is to call, quite simply but sincerely, for dialogue and for restraint from all parties.
Hun Sen must be made to realise that he can forget about international support if he continues down the path he has chosen of ruling on his own instead of by coalition.
<P>
I have to say that I agree with Mrs Junker's amendment, which was tabled too late.
<P>
Equal rights for homosexuals
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Frischenschlager">
Mr President, for many years the European Parliament has tried to eliminate criminal legislation discriminating against gay and lesbian relationships, and it has done so successfully, as the Member States of the European Union have gradually abolished all such provisions, with the exception of Austria. I very much regret this and, therefore, hope that a large majority will vote in favour of the resolution being debated here today.
<P>
I would add that the European Union is constantly described as a community of values, and this includes human rights.
Therefore, I consider it to be really reprehensible, particularly in the case of human rights issues, that an objection on the grounds of interference in internal affairs should be raised in a debate of this kind.
That is what has happened in this case, and I think it is important that the European Parliament remains consistent and makes itself heard on human rights issues, even if this is unpleasant for my own country.
Human rights represent a significant part of the European Union and, particularly in view of the forthcoming enlargement of the EU, it is important that the current Members have a clean record in the area of human rights.
That is what this resolution is for.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, while we are here debating in the European Parliament, those who drafted this resolution are in Austria being publicly accused by the Christian Democrats of fouling their own nests.
Regardless of this slander, we believe that human rights are indivisible.
This Parliament is a reliable voice for human rights, but sometimes we have the impression that this voice grows louder with distance and quieter the closer we are to a place where human rights are being violated; if it happens within our own ranks, this voice often becomes almost inaudible.
<P>
Parliament, the European Commission of Human Rights and the Council of Europe have in numerous resolutions and declarations described the difference in the minimum age of consent for heterosexual and homosexual activities as a violation of human rights.
It is not acceptable for countries to distance themselves from these human rights and to continue to practise their traditional antipathy, moralising arrogance and hubris on innocent people and violate people's privacy in order to indulge their own feelings of resentment.
<P>
I believe that it is time to treat these parties here in the European Parliament with the same intolerance as we treat other human rights violators throughout the world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Berger">
Mr President, on behalf of my group I would like to welcome the fact that we are today discussing the discrimination that continues to exist on the grounds of sexual orientation, both in our Member States and in applicant countries.
As an Austrian Member of Parliament I, like the previous speaker, regret that our country has not yet succeeded in eliminating from the penal code one of the main forms of discrimination, the different age of consent for heterosexuals and homosexuals.
<P>
Mrs Flemming, the protection of girls should be as important a concern for us as the protection of boys.
Repeated attempts in Parliament have failed due to the opposition of the conservative parties.
It is because of this that in Austria alone we have approximately 20 convictions every year under this discriminatory offence.
This does not set a good example to those countries wishing to join the Union and which we expect to maintain the highest of standards in this as in other areas.
<P>
In discussion, certain political groups always deny that non-discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation is a human right.
It was only after the decision of the European Commission of Human Rights in the Sutherland case that this issue received a very positive response, and it was made clear that a different age of consent contravened Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
I find it equally difficult to understand the argument that the EU bodies and in particular the European Parliament do not have the power to deal with this issue.
As a Union we were already obliged to respect human rights, and since the Amsterdam Treaty came into force we are even more so.
This will give us the chance - however inadequate - to achieve something.
<P>
It is well known that, in future, the Council - even if only by unanimous vote - could take the necessary steps to combat discrimination on grounds of sex, race, ethnic origin, religion, ideology, disability, age or sexual orientation.
The Commission will have the right of initiative for this.
In conclusion, therefore, I would like to ask the Commission whether it has any plans to make use of this right of initiative.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stenzel">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, firstly I would like to clarify what is at issue for us in the PPE and ÖVP Groups in this Parliament.
It is not a question of discriminating against homosexuals.
It is not a question of violating basic rights and human rights.
The question of the age of consent is a national and not a European legal issue, and that is undisputed.
Politicians must fulfil their responsibility towards young people.
This is why, only this summer in the reform of our criminal laws, the Austrian People's Party voted in the Austrian Parliament to retain the current age of consent as set out in Article 209.
<P>
What is happening here and the reason for which we are rejecting this urgent debate have nothing to do with any desire to discriminate against homosexuals; rather, we do not wish to depart from our own legal precedents.
However, we also want to take a stand against Austrian domestic policy being brought into the European Parliament by liberals, Greens and social democrats in order to discriminate against Austria, which currently holds the Presidency.
Here, it is not homosexuals but the Austrian Presidency which is the victim of discrimination.
I am also angry to see how my social democrat colleagues have changed their tune, as they abstained from voting when the law was going through the Austrian Parliament and here they are doing the opposite.
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For this reason I would ask that this request for an urgent debate be rejected, and I stand by this.
Not because we wish to discriminate against homosexuals but because we insist on maintaining our legal position and are acting no differently here than we would in Austria, although this is an incidental consideration.
We have full support in the PPE Group for this position, although we all know that opinions vary widely in the individual Member States on the sensitive issue of discrimination against homosexuals.
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Once again, I would say that the European Parliament is not the appropriate forum for making one's mark on a national issue for Austria.
I consider it wholly inappropriate to bring this debate into the European Parliament, and I reject this most emphatically.
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<SPEAKER ID=159 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pailler">
Mr President, I am not Austrian, but I would at last like to say to Mrs Stenzel that homophobia is not an opinion or a peccadillo, it is a violation of human rights.
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Non-discrimination is now enshrined in the Amsterdam Treaty and all the same, I think that it will one day be necessary for us to implement it even if it goes against the grain.
According my group, the Confederal Group of the European Left, nondiscrimination is unfortunately all too often not applied to economic and social issues, and I do not see why Parliament suddenly has to consider subsidiarity in relation to human rights.
I would like to have a number of things explained to me because I agree with practically everything that has been said and I do not wish to repeat it all, but we are not making ourselves credible in the eyes of those countries wishing to join the European Union, which we expect to reach certain standards in relation to human rights and respect for them.
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I would like someone to explain to me why a woman and a man have the right to have sexual relations at a certain age, why two women also have this right at the same age, but when it comes to two men, suddenly it is not the same thing.
But what does this mean?
Are Austrian men totally childish compared to women?
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Are you not confusing - and perhaps this is the heart of the matter - homosexuality with paedophilia?
If this is the case, you need to have some basic psychological or psychiatric training.
You must understand that girls are also the targets of paedophiles and that women can be paedophiles too.
So I wonder if we should organise a hearing one day, since we go in for that sort of thing, and for example invite the Austrian Presidency, the Czech government and other people who share this same homophobia.
For this refusal, this 'subsidiarity' excuse boils down to just one thing: homophobia, and homophobia unfortunately hides many other forms of discrimination and human rights violations which in the past and in Europe's recent history have been widely condemned.
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<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Vanhecke">
Mr President, let me first make it quite clear, though this is not meant to be an apology in advance for what I am about to say, that I do not make the mistake of lumping all homosexuals in the same category as those that display such bad taste in the 'pink parades' we sometimes see in my country.
I respect everyone's right to privacy and no-one can accuse me of homophobia.
But I have to say that I find it completely indefensible that this resolution should be classified as a particularly urgent and important issue and even worse that it should be dealt with under the heading of human rights.
In my opinion this is positively insulting to those facing genuinely serious and urgent problems, and I think we can safely say that the problems confronting people in Tibet, Iran, Cambodia and elsewhere are far more serious than what we are discussing today.
I also think that we tend to be extremely offhand in the way we deal with the protection of minors these days.
I applaud responsible politicians for not systematically lowering the age of consent, and I also think that we must respect the different traditions which the Member States have here, even where the minimum ages for heterosexual and homosexual relations are different.
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I think that anyone like myself who has children of 13 or 14 should really consider whether they want to see their children involved in sexual experiments with 17- or 18-year-olds, for example.
As far as I am concerned - and this may sound oldfashioned but I am not ashamed to say so - I cannot approve of it and I believe that the vast majority of those who elected the Members of this Parliament would not approve of it either.
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Sudan
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<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, Sudan is the sort of country that Mr Vanhecke was talking about.
350 000 people are facing death for the umpteenth time and the Sudanese government is refusing to allow humanitarian aid through or to help it to be distributed.
It is an unpardonable crime against humanity, and we have said time and time again that we must do something to stop it.
The international community must be prepared to make sure that its humanitarian aid reaches those hundreds of thousands of people instead of being used as a pawn in a political power game.
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We have tabled this motion for a resolution now because the ACP Assembly is due to meet next week in Brussels, and the Sudanese delegation is bound to complain again about the US bombardment and missile attacks and the suffering they caused.
I could tell you now, word for word, exactly what the representative of the Sudanese parliament, if we can call it that, will say.
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I do not want to say anything about the American attack, of course, but I would like to point out that Sudan has now found yet another reason to suspend talks with the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, the countries surrounding Sudan which are trying to broker peace between Sudan and the south.
As you know, there has been civil war there since 1956 but nothing was known about it until CNN began its broadcasts, because nothing exists without CNN.
I hope that if this motion is adopted the European representatives at the ACP Assembly will make the point to the Sudanese that this is not just another resolution, but a resolution supported by the delegation and the whole of Parliament.
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<SPEAKER ID=162 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Kerr">
Mr President, when I spoke on the threatened war against Iraq in January and February of this year, I called it 'the war of Mr Clinton's penis' . I have to say that the bombing of Khartoum in Sudan - for which we have an amendment from the Greens - could be described as 'the war of Monica Lewinsky's dress' .
You will remember it was three days into the hearings and was clearly a device to distract the world's attention from the Starr report and to reinforce Mr Clinton's image.
That is why we have put this amendment down.
We do not like the Sudanese regime, but we certainly do not approve of the American bombing of Sudan - or indeed Afghanistan.
It is quite clear that there was no evidence at all that this was a weapons factory.
It was a pharmaceutical plant, as lots of technicians testify, producing drugs to help people in Africa.
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So whilst the resolution rightly condemns the Sudanese regime, we also want to condemn the United States Government.
We hope we will get support from all Socialists, including new Labour Members.
I am sure the President himself will be voting for this amendment.
I look forward to his support.
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<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="President">
Thank you for warning me.
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<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="Pinheiro">
Mr President, I shall try to be as brief as possible.
As far as the situation in Burma is concerned I should like to tell the European Parliament that in July the Vice-President of the Commission, Mr Manuel Marín, and the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Wolfgang Schüssel, met the Burmese Minister of Foreign Affairs in order to express the European Union's condemnation of the country's treatment of Aung San Sun Kyi and other opposition politicians.
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Later, on 9 September, the Presidency of the European Union issued a statement on behalf of the European Union condemning the detention of opposition activists, a statement that obviously deserves the Commission's full support.
I should also like to say that the Commission is still loath to support the United Nations Programme for the International Control of Drugs, designed to cut opium production in Burma, since under the present regime this project is unlikely to make any progress.
The European Union's position on Burma will be reassessed in October to decide how the current position might be changed, if at all, as of 19 October.
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I should now like to make three brief comments.
As far as sanctions are concerned I should like to stress what was said by Mrs Erika Mann on extra-territoriality.
You will recall that the European Union was and is involved in a battle with the United States in the World Trade Organisation, because we fully reject the idea of the extra-territoriality of laws.
In this particular case, it seems that Massachusetts intended to apply sanctions to companies which entertained any form of economic relations with Burma, be they American or foreign, in particular European.
Under no circumstances, as a matter of principle, can we accept this approach.
That does not mean that we cannot regard the use of sanctions as something positive but those sanctions have to be applied in the context of the international community and according to rules accepted by everyone.
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I should also like to say that the ASEAN forum will definitely be used by the European Union once again to raise the question of political rights in Burma.
Finally, we have decided to fund jointly with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation the opening in Brussels of a Euro-Burma Office to publicise the situation and put pressure on the Burmese authorities.
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As far as Afghanistan is concerned, I think that everything has been said.
I should like simply to emphasise that, apart from our concern over the massacres in Mazar-I-Sharif and other equally dreadful situations, we are convinced that in no way can Afghanistan be considered as applying the law correctly.
Similarly, we feel that human rights, in particular those of minorities or women, are afforded no protection whatsoever in the country.
We have experienced certain difficulties with the Afghan authorities in conveying the idea that humanitarian aid has to be linked to certain basic principles of human dignity.
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We are trying to negotiate with the Afghan authorities ways and means of being able, once again, to support those very minorities which are most vulnerable and least protected.
You already know, and I confirm, that we continue to think that we should not formally recognise the Taliban movement and that we should continue the ban on all forms of trade links with the Taliban regime. We also still think that the problem of Afghanistan cannot be solved by military means or interference by neighbouring countries.
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On that score, that I should like to say that my colleague, Emma Bonino, who has had first-hand experience of the Afghan situation, is still extremely active, both as Commissioner and as a woman who defends women's rights and human rights in general, in her attempts to change the state of affairs there.
I think that we should pay a great tribute to her for her efforts which are so difficult and sometimes so little understood.
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As far as the death penalty is concerned I should like once again to emphasise the fact that the Commission can take no other position than to support its general abolition, since from our point of view it does nothing to promote human dignity or develop human rights, nor has it been demonstrated to reduce crime.
We recently made this clear to President Arafat of the Palestinian Authority, we have high hopes regarding El Salvador and, in the case of the Philippines, we hope that the moratorium will continue to be applied.
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As far as the situation in Cambodia is concerned, I should like to say that I fully agree with what Mr Bourlanges said. He very clearly indicated the various factors involved in Cambodia.
I repeat that, regardless of what has been traditional practice, we support this resolution without any reservation.
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As far as homosexuals' rights are concerned, I would draw your attention to the following: all Member States of the European Union are signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights; the recent Amsterdam Treaty, in particular Article 6A, stipulates that we must fight all forms of discrimination based on sex, race, ethnic origin, religion, conviction, disability, age or sexual orientation.
As a result the Commission can act in any of these areas to combat any discrimination that might take place.
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Similarly, in respect of the accession of future Member States, it is obvious that these rules will also be applicable to applicant countries.
I am referring in particular to a provision in the Romanian Criminal Code, Section 200, which we hope will be amended as quickly as possible.
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Finally, concerning Sudan, I must say that the problem of Sudan is an old one, a serious one, and one which led to the suspension of cooperation relations between the European Union and that country. There have been various attempts to bring about constructive talks with the Sudanese government and to support mediation attempts.
We welcome the recently agreed cease-fire, for a period of three months, and we hope that it will be extended, not only in time but also geographically, so that humanitarian aid can reach the people there.
This is something of an encouraging sign.
It is also encouraging that the parties in the conflict, as a result of mediation by IGADD, have also decided to meet once again in Nairobi in six months' time.
This is positive since the round of talks which took place recently was unfortunately marred by an incident due to a lack of consensus on the solutions found.
The European Union actively supports IGADD mediation and the efforts being made by IGADD's forum of partners but we repeat that in no way can we consider at present resuming cooperation with Sudan, because sadly the principles that led us to suspend that cooperation still apply.
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<SPEAKER ID=165 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, Mr Bertens and I have not quite gathered - our Portuguese is not very good - whether the Commission is now prepared to consider a proposal for a ban on investment in Burma to be submitted to the Council.
We did not hear the Commissioner's answer on this specific point - could he repeat what he said?
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For the third time this year we have asked the same crucial question in our motion for a resolution on Burma: is the Commission is prepared to follow the United States' lead by submitting a proposal to the Council for a ban on investment in Burma?
That is the central issue, and since neither Mr Bertens nor I were able to understand the first part of the Commissioner's speech in Portuguese, I would ask him to give us a clear reply to our question.
It is the focal point of the motion.
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<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="Pinheiro">
I can answer some of the questions on sanctions.
The Commission is not empowered to impose sanctions.
It is up to the Council, and on the basis of respect for our international commitments.
You cannot impose sanctions that go against some of the things to which we subscribe.
That does not mean that sanctions are altogether excluded but we will have to watch it carefully, in order, for instance, not to put into question the GPA, the agreement made on government procurement, in the WTO.
That is one example.
Sanctions are not excluded, but first we have to have a political decision by the Council, and then we have to study technically how we can introduce them without putting in danger some other signatories to some international agreements.
Have you followed me now?
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<SPEAKER ID=167 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
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The vote will be taken at 5.30 p.m.
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<SPEAKER ID=168 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following 14 motions for resolutions :
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Floods in China -B4-0826/98 by the PPE Group-B4-0848/98 by the V Group-B4-0854/98 by the GUE/NGL Group-B4-0859/98 by the ELDR Group
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Floods in Bangladesh -B4-0837/98 by the PSE Group-B4-0844/98 by the PPE Group-B4-0846/98 by the V Group-B4-0853/98 by the GUE/NGL Group
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Forest fires in Spain -B4-0815/98 by the PPE Group-B4-0839/98 by the PSE Group-B4-0857/98 by the GUE/NGL Group
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Forest fires in the Union -B4-0827/98 by the PPE Group
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Forest fires in Portugal -B4-0855/98 by the GUE/NGL Group
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Forest fires in Greece -B4-0856/98 by the GUE/NGL Group
<SPEAKER ID=169 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="McCartin">
Mr President, the sheer scale of the unprecedented flooding in China has prompted me to put down this motion for resolution expressing sympathy with the people and Government of China.
The entire Yangtze valley and its tributaries have been flooded - a region in which 380 million people live, as many people as live in the European Union.
Thirteen million hectares of crops have been destroyed which would be, I imagine, sufficient food to feed 80 to 100 million people.
Three thousand people have lost their lives.
I suspect that many more lives will be lost.
Five million homes have been swept away and $20 billion worth of economic damage has been done to the country, 4-5 % of GNP.
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I want to impress on the Commission and the Community the importance of showing sympathy and solidarity with China in this horrific disaster and urgently extending what help they can.
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<SPEAKER ID=170 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Kerr">
Mr President, I am sympathetic to the people of China, who have made enormous efforts to combat the floods. But I have to say that one reason for the floods was that the Chinese regime has systematically deforested and destroyed the environment in many areas, not only in China, but in Tibet, which they are still illegally occupying.
They are now suffering the consequences.
That is what I told the Chinese Consul when he came to see me this week.
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I think the Chinese have now learned a lesson: they are going to have to reafforest, take care of the hydraulic system which coped with the floods for hundreds of years and try to protect the environment instead of raping it, as the Chinese regime has done over the past 40 years.
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<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Mr President, in my country, the Netherlands, we too have suffered floods on a number of occasions.
There is certainly no comparison in terms of the scale of the disaster, but there are similarities.
In both cases environmental damage was the main cause.
In the Netherlands it was high density development on the river banks and the lack of water storage capacity that caused the floods.
In China it is widespread deforestation and the construction of a dam on the Yangtse river that have been largely responsible for the flooding.
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I welcome the fact that the Chinese authorities have now become aware of the ecological problems that have caused this disaster, and I am delighted that the Chinese government has banned tree-felling along the Yangtse river.
But I hope it will not stop there.
I would urge the Chinese government to continue its policy of discouraging deforestation, and I rely on the Commission to support this policy in order to prevent such disasters from happening in the future.
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Floods in Bangladesh
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<SPEAKER ID=172 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Ford">
Mr President, I am talking about the floods in Bangladesh and China.
The situation is almost unprecedented.
I realise that in both countries a contribution has been made by a lack of attention to the environment, but nevertheless, the major cause is clearly climatic rather than anything else - partly precipitated by changes to the global climate regime.
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In China it is the worst floods in 40 years, affecting 240 million people - one-fifth of the population.
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In Bangladesh 30 million people are directly affected and 10 million need urgent financial aid.
The Bangladesh Government appealed for $576 million of assistance and many people in the European Union - tens of thousands - have been moved by the graphic pictures they have seen of the devastation in both these countries.
Of course we welcome the fact that ECHO has put in ECU 1 million but it seems less than fully adequate.
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Last week-end I was at Holy Trinity church in Ashton-under-Lyne in my constituency at a function and it was decided that the traditional collection there, which normally goes to church funds, would be made available to alleviate the suffering caused by the flooding.
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The Commission can take note of this and find other ways to give short-term humanitarian aid to both these countries.
At the same time, as it says in the resolution, in Bangladesh and China it will be useful for us to give long-term technical assistance to help them alleviate some of these problems that may be caused by a lack of attention to the environment but it is in everybody's interest to ensure that both in China and Bangladesh these issues are solved in the longer term and do not reoccur.
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<SPEAKER ID=173 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Kerr">
Mr President, on Bangladesh - Glyn Ford is quite right - this is a major disaster.
I was watching BBC World this afternoon and they had a major report on the situation in Bangladesh.
These are the worst floods in their history and 25 to 35 million people are currently still relatively homeless and without economic sustenance.
There is a major urgent need for short-term aid, and the Union has not given enough to meet the short-term food needs of the population or its medical needs.
There is a major spread of dysentery and diarrhoea right across Bangladesh because of the impure water.
We must give short-term aid as well as longer-term help - both in terms of trying to cope with the situation of flooding - which may mean major relocation for the population, and assistance and development in that direction as well.
If we combine both those things then we can make a contribution in this area.
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Forest fires in Spain
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<SPEAKER ID=174 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Burtone">
Mr President, the presentation of the resolution on forest fires in southern Europe is not intended as a ritual act: as in every other year, once the summer is over we come back and talk about fires.
Certainly not!
Unfortunately fires have become a veritable scourge for Europe: many lives are lost and irreparable damage is done to flora and fauna.
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Sadly, this year's toll has again been a severe one.
But whereas the environmental, economic and social consequences are serious, the reasons for the fires remain an equally serious cause for concern.
Climatic conditions have undoubtedly played their part, but it has to be noted with regret that criminal action has much to do with the spread of this phenomenon in southern Europe.
The response of the various EU countries' governments to arson, which could be described as eco-terrorism, has proved inadequate.
The problem must therefore be raised once again at Community level, not merely to ask the Commission for a detailed report on the damaged areas, and not merely to request special aid for the stricken areas, but to pose a broader problem.
We ask that more attention be devoted to forestry under the reform of the common agricultural policy; further, it is increasingly necessary to relaunch the environmental policies with a view to prevention, including education and training work to improve man's respect for the environment, but harsher punishment for arsonists is also needed.
To take up one point from my resolution, I believe that governments should institute a 'crime against the environment' and, above all, create a register of the areas destroyed with a view to establishing an absolute ban on building there.
The fact is, speculation remains central to the interests of criminal organisations.
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<SPEAKER ID=175 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, if I could begin with what our colleague Mr Burtone has just said, perhaps it would be better if fires were not categorised as 'natural disasters' because they are not natural disasters.
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They are disasters caused by man, mostly for base economic reasons, and we find them on the agenda again and again.
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Farmers' interests and especially the environment are hardest hit.
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This morning we approved a resolution on climate change and one of the sources of CO2 emissions are fires like those that this year occurred not only in Spain and Greece, not only in the south of Europe, but also in Indonesia, Brazil and in many other parts of the world.
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I therefore think that measures need to be taken in Europe and in the Member States to improve the Community's forestry policy, and we also need to work on ways of preventing and punishing those who cause disasters of this kind.
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<SPEAKER ID=176 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García Arias">
Mr President, to be honest, as a colleague pointed out before, the thought of discussing a resolution every September that simply reiterates that tens of thousands of hectares have been devastated in some Mediterranean countries fills me with sadness and even feelings of collective responsibility.
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This is because - as Mrs González Álvarez said - we are not talking about natural disasters but very often the irresponsible acts of individuals.
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And, sometimes, of institutions.
We must always ask ourselves if we or our national governments are doing enough to prevent this phenomenon from happening every summer.
There are 'base' reasons as was said before, but the lack of coordination in government activities is even more depressing, because we are talking about the protection of nature.
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Mr President, all I want to say is that it is highly regrettable that this situation occurs year after year.
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<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, if it were not so sad, it would be laughable.
Every year, in September or October, we have massive forest fires in southern Europe, and we have had a great many fires, more than 5000 this summer in Greece, sometimes more than 200 a day.
And this year, of course, we want to debate the issue again.
As is clear from the resolutions, this is partly due to the fact that we do not really discuss the underlying causes.
These are, firstly, controversial development and, secondly, unsustainable forestry.
We need to do more than discuss a few methods of prevention, airborne firefighting teams, insurance issues and claim settlements.
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First of all, we need adequate legislation, full implementation, qualified personnel and effective administration, and rather than lifting controls on development, we need to introduce compulsory reforestation.
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Secondly, we need a form of forest management which makes proper use of biodiversity, spatial organisation and the separation of cultivated areas and natural vegetation in order to create forests in the Mediterranean region as they were in 500 BC.
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I would now like only to mention one crucial point, which is the danger represented by eucalyptus.
This burns extremely quickly and, in addition, destroys water reserves.
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<SPEAKER ID=178 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dary">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the context of the joint motion for a resolution supported by our group, the Group of the European Radical Alliance, we have tabled three amendments on the methods of combating these scourges, particularly through the establishment of a European fleet of water bombers.
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The study we carried out and the statistics published show that an average of 400 000 hectares every year fall prey to forest fires in Spain, Italy, Portugal, Greece and France.
These fires have many different causes and they play a role in upsetting the ecological balance.
They lead to flooding, landslides, climate change and the destruction of flora and fauna.
To fight them, each country has set up airborne teams, and has a system of operating that is difficult to change during the summer period.
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As a result, bringing together national resources and making them available to help other countries is becoming a very appealing proposition.
Bilateral agreements have been concluded for land-based civil defence operations, but these do not apply to the airborne fight against fires inside the countries since they only cover the border areas.
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Our motion involves providing the relevant countries with the resources they need to fight the fires.
In order to this, we would have to lease five Hercule C 130 type aircraft; this is a very effective land-based aeroplane with delayed dropping and a capacity of 12 tonnes.
The base of this fleet would be established at the most central point of those areas at risk.
This would result in more rapid, decisive intervention, since we know that the power of the resources used, along with the speed of their deployment, together represent the most important factor in the effectiveness of the fight against forest fires.
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The cost of this operation for one summer period of three months and for five aircraft, with an approximate one-hour flight, would be approximately ECU 6 million, which could be assumed by the Union and by the countries making use of the facilities.
It is not an exaggeration to say that it is financially viable.
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Your agreement on these amendments, ladies and gentlemen, could lead to an own-initiative report, which is likely to confirm the viability of the European fleet of water bombers and allow it to become operational as soon as possible.
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Forest fires in Portugal
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<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Apolinário">
Mr President, rather than speak about Portugal, where measures, including material means, have been coordinated and there has been a political effort, I should like to take this opportunity to emphasise the overall context of the joint resolution on which we are to vote, a context which underlines the importance of adopting a Community forestry policy along the lines suggested in the Thomas report, taking account of the specific requirements of the Mediterranean region.
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I should like to emphasise the need to adapt the forestry policy aspects of the common agricultural policy in future, and also to highlight the importance of regional and local planning for forest areas.
These are regional planning issues and questions of protecting environmental wildlife in southern Europe and in the Mediterranean countries because, when it comes down to it, these September resolutions have resulted from the fact that other measures were not adopted in time.
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<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Coelho">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, once again this summer a large number of huge forest fires hit various southern European countries including Portugal.
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First of all, of course, we should think of the victims and call for Community aid.
Apart from the call in the resolution for the Commission to earmark the necessary budgetary amounts, the European Parliament ought also to look into the advantages of creating its own budgetary line for assistance in cases of disasters.
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We are aware that some of these fires are of criminal origin while others are the result of climatic changes leading to lengthy droughts and heatwaves.
It is therefore vital to pay more attention to prevention, and greater support will be needed from the European institutions to help increase efficiency in fighting forest fires.
For example, the common agricultural policy could help to prevent these disasters, and a European forestry strategy is also something we should look at. It was supported by the European Parliament when it approved the Thomas report.
For all of these reasons, along with other colleagues we back this motion for a resolution and seek the support of the European Parliament as a whole.
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<SPEAKER ID=181 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Rosado Fernandes">
Mr President, I will not take all my speaking time but I cannot speak with all the voices I have around me, so please ask Members to be a little quieter.
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<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="President">
It is a fair point, you are quite right.
Would Members please take their seats.
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<SPEAKER ID=183 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Rosado Fernandes">
Mr President, Commissioner, I should like to say that, contrary to the opinion of all those who have claimed that we must set up a complete 'fire industry' to combat fires in the summer, I should like to say that when it comes to Mediterranean forests it is a common mistake to think that fires can be fought in the summer or that fleets of planes or hundreds of firemen are needed.
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Mediterranean forest fires must be fought in the winter, in the autumn, in the spring, when there is no heat - in other words, by cleaning and preparing forests, by monitoring them, by sending workers into the forests to clean them up, since generally forests are owned by all kinds of different people and bodies and nowadays they are not populated as they were a hundred years ago.
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The only way of protecting forests is by cleaning them up, the only way of protecting forests is by building roads and paths which block fires and prevent them from crossing from one side to the other.
We therefore need to pay forestry workers to create fire-breaks or fire-lanes, 50 to 60 metres wide.
There are areas in Portugal where there are no fires.
Why?
They are huge areas but they are guarded and kept clean and they are protected by fire-breaks and fire-lanes.
Otherwise it is not possible.
Here I am speaking of fire disasters because European policy on Mediterranean forests has been a disaster - mainly because of systematic opposition from countries with well-kept forests but also with more temperate, cooler climates than ours.
We have to counteract the idea that fires are fought with the help of planes in the summer.
Fires are fought in the winter by preparing forests so that they do not catch fire.
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<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="President">
Colleague, let me interrupt you.
Mr Willockx, it really is very rude to have a series of conversations round the Chamber when someone is trying to speak.
Would the colleagues around Mrs Mann please take their seats.
The speaker is finding himself disturbed by the noise.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Rosado Fernandes">
Mr President, let us set them on fire!
<P>
Forest fires in Greece
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Mr President, the facts and results of the forest fires in Greece are well known, and are mentioned in the resolution we are debating, which I of course support.
<P>
The consequences for the future are more dramatic: flooding, micro-climatic changes, and the deterioration of the environment and the ecosystem.
Mr President, even at the risk of becoming monotonous, let me repeat the causes: the absence of a land register, which encourages people who presume they are free to encroach upon the land, complete anarchy in the disposal of waste, which leads to illegal landfills that the local authorities cannot or do not wish to control, and unclear laws and shortsighted draft legislation in Greece concerning the reforestation of the areas devastated by fire.
<P>
Let me however say a word about the Commission too.
It is not acting as it should.
Since July, following an urgent question of mine, Mr Fischler should to have informed me of the number and efficiency of plans for fire-prevention in Greece.
He did not do so.
That is not just an irregularity, it is a sign of indifference about what happens in Greece, and that neither reflects credit on the Commission nor helps us.
<P>
I would also like to thank all those who, from Italy, Germany, France and Russia, by sending pilots and aircraft, helped us this summer to keep the vast damage due to forest fires in our country down to the minimum possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 NAME="Pinheiro">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I shall try to be brief.
On the subject of the floods in China, apart from confirming the numbers already quoted during the debate, I should like to say that ECHO is already present in China although, as you can imagine, the scale of the disaster is such that ECHO is having to concentrate on certain more priority areas and in particular food and medical assistance to the least favoured.
In any case, ECHO has sent its expert to China to identify and assess the needs so that ECHO's actions can also be coordinated on the ground.
<P>
I should also add that, as part of the relations between the European Union and China and as suggested in the European Parliament's draft resolution, we can clearly cooperate on offering assistance and co-financing studies aimed at identifying the environmental and other causes and finding possible solutions to these disasters.
<P>
As far as Bangladesh is concerned, this is another catastrophe of huge proportions - after all, it has affected 60 % of the country's territory and around 30 million people - and there, too, ECHO is involved with humanitarian assistance, in particular in terms of food and public health.
I can also now announce that a task force has been set up by the Commission, involving ECHO, DG I-B and DG VIII, with the task of ensuring the coordination of the European Union's response or, at least, that of the Commission to the disaster in Bangladesh.
ECU 1 million has already been sent but it is obvious that more will have to be sent since the estimated needs are far greater than that.
<P>
As far as the fires are concerned, I should like to say that Community action on forestry, the protection of risk areas and protection measures have always been carried out in close cooperation with the Member States.
I can also say that between 1992 and 1998 around 700 of the fire prevention projects presented by the Member States were approved and received Community co-funding to the order of ECU 84 million.
This cooperation is carried out within the Standing Committee on Forests and, in particular, thanks to the Community system of information on forest fires, a very useful assessment and monitoring instrument which could be more effective had not the budget authority reduced its budget from ECU 23.5 million in 1996 to ECU 16 million in 1998.
<P>
I should also like to say that the current regional development programmes include a number of fire prevention measures such as reforestation but, as you know, the Commission does not have the extra funding to assist affected regions.
Any action will have to be part of a reprogramming of the Community support frameworks or of single programming documents negotiated with the Member States.
In response to one Member, I should also say that, as part of Agenda 2000, the Commission is still proposing forest protection and reforestation measures.
<P>
Last of all, I should like to inform the European Parliament that the Commission is preparing, on the basis of the Thomas report, a proposal for a European forestry strategy which will obviously be presented to the European Parliament and to the Council - at least we hope - by the end of this legislative period.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Pinheiro.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the votes.
<P>
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy first wishes to raise a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Madam President, I would like to make a brief reference to Rule 19 of the Rules of Procedure, before we start debating the reports on the agenda.
<P>
I have seen a report by Agence France Presse that quotes a source close to the Presidency of Parliament. It states that the new Hemicycle could be provisionally opened by Parliament between the middle and end of November 1998, and officially opened in December.
But it still has to be equipped, in particular with the electronic voting system.
Some people are wondering, in that case, whether it might be better to wait for the next Parliamentary term, that is, July 1999, before beginning to hold partsessions in the new building.
<P>
Also, according to the report, hundreds of workers are still at work on the enormous building site.
Stunned by the beauty of the new building, all in glass, which stands elegantly on the banks of the Ill, it - the source - estimates that the cost of maintaining the building will be enormous.
<P>
I would therefore like to know how the President can allow people close to him to speak on behalf of him in this manner - a manner that implies a source close to the President - and to state that Members are wondering whether or not they are going to have to move into the new buildings.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 NAME="President">
This is not Question Time, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, and we cannot respond to every report that appears in the press.
I note what you say, and we shall see what comes of this report.
<P>
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten has a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Madam President, I should like to make a personal statement under Rule 108.
A motion for a resolution has been tabled on capital punishment in the Philippines, and we naturally read through all the texts very carefully.
We in the PPE Group are opposed to capital punishment.
Now, I realise that in the nine years or so that I have been here I have made a few enemies, because I have not always been able to please everyone all of the time.
I also realise, and some of you know more about this than I do, that the Philippines may also have a little score to settle with me, but looking at the text of the motion on the Philippines, the words 'whereas the newly elected President, according to a Reuters report, has said on radio that he would not grant clemency to Oomen-Ruijten, one of those under sentence of death' really seem to be going a little too far.
I would therefore ask you to change the text.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
VOTES (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=193 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Madam President, I should like to ask you something.
The person in seat number 85 has taken a number of photographs of this side of the Chamber today.
Mr Seppänen regularly takes photos of this side of the Chamber.
I know that Hans-Gert Poettering is very attractive, but I would really prefer people not to take photos in the Chamber.
I wonder what they are for?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 NAME="President">
Taking photographs in the Chamber is not allowed without permission.
I would ask you to stop doing so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Madam President, I would simply like to know what is going to be done with this film.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 NAME="President">
I hope you have been reassured and that we can continue with the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
No, Madam President, since we have rules in this House I would ask you to ask the gentleman in question, or perhaps he can explain himself, what he is doing with his camera.
Perhaps there is no film in it, in which case I would be perfectly happy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 NAME="President">
Taking photographs in the Chamber is not allowed without permission.
We shall look at this incident, since this particular matter is not covered, and it will be considered in the Bureau.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Madam President, we are all quite open with each other here in the House, and I would like to ask Mr Seppänen through you why he is taking photographs and whether he would be prepared to hand over the film, if there is a film in it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="President">
I would prefer not to have a detailed discussion here.
A Member is entitled to be here in the Chamber, but this incident is a rather unusual one and so we shall look at it in the Bureau. I do not wish us to discuss the matter any further now.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Madam President, I have made a personal statement on behalf of this side of the Chamber.
I gather that Mr Seppänen would like to reply, and I would like to ask him exactly what he is doing.
It is not the first time that I have seen him do it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 NAME="President">
Do you wish to make a statement on this now, Mr Seppänen?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Madam President, I have taken photographs of the European Parliament sitting, to keep as mementoes.
I cannot go up there to take photographs as I am a Member of Parliament, and, obviously, I am entitled to take home mementoes for my own use.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Madam President, rules are rules and I think Mr Seppänen should hand over his film.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 NAME="President">
Mr Cox wishes to raise a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Cox">
Madam President, I wonder why the honourable Member did not find the Liberal Group photogenic.
We are so upset we were not included.
<P>
(Laughter and applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="President">
I would say that that resolves the matter. We can now continue with our work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 NAME="President">
That concludes the votes for today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gröner">
Madam President, I would ask for the attention of the House for a moment.
We concluded our discussion of the Marinucci report this morning.
There is no need to postpone it as we can certainly vote on it.
It should not take long, given your very capable chairmanship.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="President">
Today's sitting lasts until 8 p.m. and we cannot simply go on beyond then.
Tomorrow we have a whole series of votes on women's issues, and so it would have made sense to group them all together.
I shall now ask the House if it wishes to vote on the report now.
Your wish is my command!
<P>
(Parliament decided to continue voting)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Happart">
Madam President, could you tell me whether or not the roll-call votes that took place during the votes this evening will be taken into consideration for Parliamentary allowances. If they are, all those who left straight after the votes at midday will be surprised next week.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="President">
The rule is, Mr Happart, that all the votes on a Thursday are taken into account.
Each and every Member is aware of the implications of that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Madam President, we agree with the rapporteur.
I would like to propose an oral amendment because we have been misunderstood.
We are not calling for legislation to establish the right to part-time work, but for legislation to regulate voluntary part-time work.
<P>
Therefore, the text would read as follows: ' Calls urgently on the Member States to provide legislation on voluntary part-time work and calls on the Commission to encourage and coordinate action in this field'.
<P>
We cannot, in fact, ask that everyone everywhere has the right to part-time work.
Companies would no longer function.
It is unrealistic.
But the House must understand what we mean, as I think the rapporteur does.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 NAME="President">
The rapporteur has signalled to me that she agrees to that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
I do not believe that is the same.
The question is whether firms should be forced by a specific individual right to take the relevant organisational measures.
That is something quite different from what Mrs Lulling has proposed.
Mrs Lulling is only calling for provision of legislation on the issue.
But here it is a question of a clear individual right.
That is something different.
We really must not confuse the two.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 NAME="President">
A request was made to which the rapporteur agrees.
But if this is to be approved, I also need the agreement of the House, in other words if there are objections, they must be respected.
If 12 Members object, I cannot put this to the vote, since because an objection has been raised and must be respected, the text must be put to the vote in its original form.
<P>
(More than 11 Members rose to object and the amendment was thus not approved)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Madam President, my colleague in seat 10 A is speaking into a mobile phone.
In my opinion it is inappropriate from the point of view of other MEPs here to use a mobile phone in this Chamber, and I would hope the President takes note of the matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="President">
The use of mobile telephones is not allowed here.
I hope that no one is now going to ask for a recording to be made.
I really would ask Members to stop behaving in this way, which is becoming quite ridiculous.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Madam President, I think I should tell Mr Seppänen that I have just used my mobile phone, because this telephone is out of order, to warn the secretary-general of my group to find out what has happened to Mr Seppänen's film.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="Marinucci">
Madam President, thank you for having taken the vote, and I thank my colleagues for having adopted the report.
I would however say that the vote against the possibility of earmarking a part of the Structural Funds to tackle women's unemployment is highly regrettable.
I know it is not true that Mr Flynn said as much in Porto, but if he had done so he would have been right, because now it is Parliament which chooses not to request these funds.
You did not say so in Porto, Commissioner, and you told us as much this morning.
The press said it but you denied it - and I believe that - but now you could say it: regrettably, this House has told you today - and I do not know why - that it is not right to earmark a part of the Structural Funds to tackle women's unemployment.
I do not know who voted that way, or why, but I believe that it was a mistake.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Madam President, it is an incredible disgrace for this House that, due to the intransigence of some parliamentary groups, we were not in a position to adopt a text on Kosovo, and this in the dramatic situation of unutterable misery which currently exists there.
In my opinion, we must in the near future concentrate vigorously on two points.
The first is to demilitarise Kosovo and to replace the mercenaries and groups of soldiers marauding there with an international peacekeeping force, and the second is to put police, administration and jurisdiction back into the hands of the elected authorities in Kosovo.
We should be able to reach agreement on this minimal programme.
We should concentrate on this, and then we can avoid disgraces such as we have seen today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Madam President, I agree with Mr Posselt that it is a disgrace that we cannot reach agreement.
However, I would like to request that Mr Posselt and his friends look for the common ground in this difficult issue.
If you think that a majority can only be achieved by taking a tough line, you have seen today that this is not possible.
Please seek the common ground with the social democrats in the House on this important issue, and then we will be able to reach agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="Väyrynen, Olsson, Anttila, Virrankoski, Ryynänen">
<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="Andersson and Lööw">
A review of the VAT system is to be welcomed.
The Commission also proposes application on a trial basis of a reduced rate to certain labour-intensive activities.
There is no need, however, for any immediate approximation of rates.
Several countries with high levels of value added tax put the accruing revenue towards public sector expenditure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="Berès">
The French socialists, as they said during their election campaign a year and a half ago, are in favour of a general reduction in VAT.
It is an indirect tax and affects people regardless of their income; I would even go so far as to say that it damages the most disadvantaged social categories, since they represent the group that spends the highest proportion of its income on consumption.
At the same time, we know all too well that we must do everything in our power to ensure that the launch of the euro takes place under conditions that inspire confidence, particularly as regards budget balance.
So what should we do?
<P>
In my opinion, we must find pragmatic and prudent responses to the problem that are also effective, in other words, implement reductions in VAT targeted at certain goods or services which we believe are essential, as Annex H of the Sixth Directive on VAT provides.
<P>
I am thinking firstly of a reduction in the rates applied to CD-ROMs, with a view to both ensuring that this product receives the same treatment as books, and promoting a technology of the future, in which it is essential for the European Union to be competitive.
That is why we voted in favour of Amendment No 4 tabled by the Group of the European Radical Alliance.
<P>
We also believe that lower rates should be envisaged for the construction and refurbishment of local authority housing, collective refurbishment, and access to justice for the most disadvantaged.
Such provisions already exist - or, in the case of low cost housing, are about to be completed - in France, but we believe that we need to go even further.
We need to go further in lowering rates, and further in coordination with our European partners.
To guarantee the single market and fiscal harmonisation, and to prevent unfair competition, we must move forward together and with consensus on these issues.
We are also in favour of the ideas behind Amendments Nos 3, 5 and 6 by the ARE Group that stress the desirability of such a coordinated reduction.
<P>
Finally, I would like to say that I support, in particular, the request from the European Parliament to the Commission in paragraph 6 of the resolution of the report by Bernard Castagnède for a directive that would allow reduced VAT rate to be applied to certain labour-intensive services 'on a trial basis'.
I am thinking particularly of the provision of home-based services, a category which forms part of the French National Plan for Employment drawn up in the wake of the Luxembourg European Council. The Commission stated that it was prepared to support this category in its communication of 12 November 1997 on labour-intensive services.
<P>
But I must add that, in this field, we cannot be satisfied with experiments.
We must move as quickly as possible to a binding legislative text.
The Commission and the Council must be aware of our determination to move forward on this issue.
It is of extreme importance and reflects a long-standing concern of French socialists, who are convinced that such a measure would not only benefit consumption but also employment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="Bonde, Krarup and Sandbæk">
This report contains a comprehensive proposal to harmonise VAT rates in the individual Member States and for a new common VAT system based on taxation in the country of origin, something we are unable to support.
In our opinion, tax and excise duty policy is a purely national matter, and the Union therefore should not interfere in the Member States' ability to pursue an independent economic policy.
<P>
The report emphasises that reduced rates of VAT may be desirable on social grounds, with a view to avoiding the regressive consequences of VAT.
It is also indicated that lower VAT may have beneficial effects on employment and limit the extent of 'black' working.
We agree with these points, not least because the rates of VAT on food, for example, impose the same burden on high and low income groups and thus have an unequal financial impact on different groups in society.
However, we believe that it must be left to the individual Member States to decide what kind of social and labour market policy they wish to follow.
Social policy considerations should not be used as a pretext for further integration within what are separate areas of cooperation.
<P>
The report also states that rationalisation and updating of the scope of the reduced rates of VAT must not have any significant impact on the level of public revenues.
This is an important point.
In Denmark, we have a standard rate of VAT of 25 %, which is substantially higher than that in other Member States.
The proceeds from this source of revenue provide a major part of the financing for the Danish welfare state.
<P>
It is therefore important to point out in this context that it appears from a background note from the Danish Tax Ministry to the European Committee of the Folketing on the proposal for a Council directive amending the Sixth VAT Directive that a change in the rules on allowances and the establishment of a system of rebates, with reimbursement of VAT on purchases made in other Member States, 'would involve a loss of yield to the Treasury of between DKR 1 and 2 billion' (Tax Ministry ref.
5.98-221-29).
<P>
Implementing the proposals in the report would inevitably have considerable economic consequences for Danish society and thus affect the level of public revenues.
We regard these economic consequences as unacceptable.
We also believe that it is the people and the elected Members of Parliament in the individual Member States who should take the sovereign decision on economic targets and the resources for developing their societies.
Such measures should not be dictated by the EU.
This report is therefore a step in the wrong direction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 NAME="Wibe">
I cannot vote in favour of this report since I do not share the view that value added taxes should be approximated (paragraph 8).
Neither do I believe that our VAT system should be based on the principle of country of origin (paragraph 1).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 NAME="Wolf">
<SPEAKER ID=230 NAME="Ebner">
It is by now undisputed that small and medium-sized enterprises, or SMEs, play a key role in the European Union.
They play a leading role in economic growth in Europe and are one of the main sources of job creation, which is highly significant in view of the current situation in the Union where we have 20 million unemployed.
And we should not forget that at the 1997 Luxembourg jobs summit the heads of state or government set themselves the task of improving this intolerable situation.
I should mention that SMEs currently make up 99.8 % of companies currently in existence in the EU - with small and medium-sized enterprises making up over 80 % - in which 66 % of Europe's working population are employed; their turnover accounts for 65 % of the EU total.
<P>
The importance of these companies in the EU is also highlighted by the fact that, firstly, they react quickly to market developments and are thus particularly useful in promoting new technologies, and, secondly, they can concentrate on economic niches and thus increase Europe's competitiveness by creating highly-skilled technology-related jobs.
They also play a considerable role in supporting regional development.
I can say this as a native of South Tyrol, as I come from a small region which has a healthy economy based exclusively on the performance of small and medium-sized enterprises.
<P>
In my opinion, support from the EU should concentrate in particular on standardisation and training networks, environmental management and access to sources of finance.
It is in these particular areas that SMEs come up against hurdles and obstacles.
For this reason, the Commission should develop specific programmes for young entrepreneurs which promote and support training in administration, the use of new technologies and above all the creation of networks between companies.
<P>
What I hope to highlight in this speech is that the creation of several capital markets in the EU in favour of SMEs is highly desirable, partly because SMEs often find it very difficult to obtain capital for start-up and investment.
In brief, I fully agree with the comments made by the rapporteur, Mr Hendrick.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 NAME="Verwaerde">
I must congratulate our colleagues on these two reports on the fifth annual report of the European Observatory for SMEs and the communication from the Commission on European capital markets for SMEs: prospects and potential obstacles.
<P>
SMEs have, in fact, represented this year the greatest source of job creation.
However, unfortunately, the large European institutional investors and the banks are all too often cautious towards small and medium-sized companies that, for them, represent a risk.
Nevertheless, the European market has certain capital markets for certain categories of SMEs, often the most innovative and the most competitive.
The fact remains that the number of European SMEs quoted on the markets is very low in relation to their potential to generate wealth and employment.
<P>
The communication from the European Commission is therefore a step in the right direction.
Nonetheless, the points highlighted by our rapporteur are fundamental and I hope that the Commission will be able to give them greater consideration.
I would emphasise, in particular, the importance of completing the single market as soon as possible; it must form the basis of the new European capital market for SMEs.
<P>
Moreover, we welcome the fact that the fifth annual report of the European Observatory for SMEs for 1997 concentrates mainly on assessing the effects on SMEs of the completion of the internal market.
<P>
The report also proposes new and interesting ideas that should be explored, particularly in the fields of the environment and tourism.
These two specific areas are the subject of a very interesting analysis that highlights the issues that are unavoidable for our SMEs from now on: taking account of the competitiveness of companies when establishing environmental legislation, new markets for ecological products, etcetera.
<P>
Mr President, I voted for both of these reports and I am happy that the House has adopted them with such a large majority.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 NAME="Wibe">
<SPEAKER ID=233 NAME="de Rose">
On reading the fifth report of the European Observatory for SMEs, we are pleased with the structured overall view of SMEs and craft enterprises in the European Economic Area provided by the European Network for SME Research.
<P>
In fact, although the report is quite general and includes many topics, we welcome its independent character.
<P>
We also support the report since it once again views the Commission's activity in the context of combating unemployment; we must remember that SMEs are still a source of growth and employment.
<P>
In this respect, we agree with the Committee on Economic Affairs: there is still a great deal to be done to improve and simplify the administrative environment of SMEs, and to effectively target Community aid, with a view to avoiding 'waste'.
<P>
We have paid particular attention to the issues highlighted in the report: general reduction in bureaucracy; improvements to the fiscal environment; professional training; and the development of research and technological innovation.
<P>
However, in our opinion, it is essential to state our commitment to respecting the principle of subsidiarity, particularly since the companies involved are, in general, intrinsically private companies.
It is important to ensure that they do not come to expect and passively accept Community aid, for that would encourage 'easy charity'.
The managers of SMEs must retain their spirit of enterprise.
They must be capable of coming up with innovative ideas: we must avoid turning them into civil servicelike 'administrative machines'.
<P>
It is essential, too, to lighten the administrative, legislative and regulatory burdens that enterprises are subjected to on a daily basis and that are becoming more and more difficult for them to handle.
<P>
As regards fiscal measures, which vary from country to country, we must not forget, in the light of recent debates in the House, that the power to modify these still lies with the Member States.
<P>
To conclude, Mr President, I must say that I am surprised that the report remains silent on the euro, while it devotes a detailed section to the tourism sector.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 NAME="Wibe">
<SPEAKER ID=235 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Seillier">
Thank you, Madam President.
Despite certain positive elements, my group has not been able to vote for your report, Mrs Marinucci.
Our first amendment states, on behalf of freedom of choice, that women must be able to choose between immediately finding a job or delaying entering the labour market in order to devote a number of years to having children and bringing them up. This amendment was, in fact, rejected.
The report does contain certain positive points, particularly where you recognise that we need to discuss whether family dependant care should be given recognition in national accounts. However, in spite of such points, I cannot support the general philosophy of your text, which represents a collectivist socialist option for the care of children.
<P>
Mrs Marinucci, children do not only need to be looked after; they are not only a problem for the organisation of their parents' professional life. They also need to be educated, more than they ever did before, and there are men and women who wish to educate them.
<P>
I met many young women during the run-up to the Beijing Conference.
You say that you are sorry that women in Europe are forced to give up their careers.
That is all very well, but I would also point out that, at the moment, many young women in Europe are saying that they regret having to give up having more children because there is no genuine family policy worthy of the name in Europe.
This has negative repercussions on demography, which is currently a structural cause of Europe's unemployment.
But that is currently a taboo subject in Europe's institutions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Madam President, I would have preferred not to have to give an explanation of vote and I understand Mrs Marinucci's disappointment after having made such efforts to find some common ground with me as far as the amendments are concerned.
<P>
She agreed with our amendment to paragraph 4. But, unfortunately, Mr Wolf got the wrong end of the stick and succeeded in misleading many of our colleagues.
Neither Mrs Marinucci nor I want that, any more than those who voted in favour of it without knowing why they were voting.
They voted to ensure that Member States are from now on forced to regulate the right to a voluntary job, anywhere and at any time.
If someone wants a voluntary job, an employer must provide him with one.
You are calling for such legislation within the Community.
But this is totally absurd.
We want part-time voluntary work to be regulated, and to be well regulated, as is the case in my own country.
Other countries also have rights concerning voluntary work, under certain conditions.
But if everyone can just demand the right to part-time work, anywhere and at any time, as I said, companies will no longer function.
But we want companies to function.
<P>
Mrs Marinucci had understood this very well; she said that that was not what she wanted to see.
I am very sorry, but this was why we had to abstain because, quite honestly, people can ask us to do many things, but we cannot be expected to vote for such absurdities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
I hold Mrs Marinucci in very high regard, but I have had to reject this motion because it was ideological, it infringed completely the principle of subsidiarity and more or less stated that all young women in the European Union should pursue a career after their education.
This is completely absurd!
Mrs Seillier proposed that we should leave it up to the women themselves to decide whether they devote themselves to their family and the home or to professional life.
This was rejected.
This is an ideological delusion and I really must say that we in the European Parliament are making complete fools of ourselves with reports of this kind.
In my opinion, we should approach such important issues as women and the family with much greater care.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 NAME="Delcroix">
The motion for a resolution drawn up by Elene Marinucci is an excellent summary of the demands the House should be making in the present context.
I would like to draw your attention to the points concerning parttime work, which, in my opinion, are at the heart of the problem.
<P>
Part-time work has represented the most important element of the development of the female workforce in the 1990s.
Today, women hold the majority - 83 % - of these jobs.
Part-time work is traditionally presented as a positive element that allows women to reconcile their professional and family lives.
However, Eurostat statistics show that many women with part-time jobs would prefer to have a full-time job, and that the benefits often mean they have to work late hours or during weekends. This penalises women in their attempt to reconcile their job and their family and contradicts this idyllic view.
<P>
The reorganisation of working time has led to a considerable increase in the number of precarious or atypical forms of employment: part-time jobs, temporary work or agency work. It has also led to a reduction in social protection and to a deterioration in the quality of life of many women.
Contrary to a hackneyed cliché, part-time work is not the choice of women, but most often represents the choice of employers; and for the women who hold such posts, it is a real constraint.
There are very few part-time jobs in industry and very few posts with responsibility; in addition, part-time work is limited to low-skilled jobs and is linked to very specific sectors.
Moreover, part-time workers can only rarely invest in training due to the demands of the working hours involved in part-time jobs.
<P>
Danièle Meulders, a lecturer from the Université libre de Bruxelles , has demonstrated the difficulties part-time workers experience in terms of social benefits.
Almost half of them do not receive any protection if they become unemployed.
Mrs Marinucci rightly points out that the 1997 Directive on part-time work does not cover social security and expressly authorises the Member States to maintain national thresholds that exclude so many part-time workers from the scope of the directive.
<P>
The rapporteur believes that if we have to encourage part-time work in today's labour market, it is essential that it be extended to skilled jobs, that men be encouraged to take up part-time work, and that training and social security cover be made available to all part-time workers.
<P>
I would, however, like to point out that these wishes risk going unheeded, for nowhere do I see the political will to turn them into a reality.
The most radical proposal for the promotion of female employment in Europe would be the drastic reduction of part-time work and an overall reduction in working time for everyone, women and men, with full employment for all, without exception.
<P>
We will not arrive at such a situation without a struggle and without progressive reforms. Therefore, if the European Union wants to convince public opinion of its determination to truly progress towards equality between men and women on the labour market and to reduce the differences in the levels of unemployment between the sexes, it must first look systematically at the discriminatory effects that each employment policy might produce.
<P>
For the next European summit on employment, we should ask each Member State to provide the following information:
<P>







1.breakdown of part-time jobs by sex and age; 2. reasons why part-time work is chosen by companies and in national policies; 3. hourly pay for part-time work; 4. levels of segregation by profession for part-time work in comparison with full-time work; 5. skills required for part-time jobs; 6. relation between part-time work and poverty; 7. effects of part-time work on pensions and other replacement incomes; 8. effect on income throughout working life; 9. access to early retirement.This information would provide us with accurate statistics on the extent to which part-time work discriminates against women.
But we could go even further and question each of the Member States presenting their action plan on the following points:
<P>
1.What are the potential effects of each of the policies proposed on the situation of women in terms of volume and quality of work?2.
What measures are taken in relation to training policies to ensure that women receive equal treatment to men and, in particular, what proposals are put forward for part-time work?3.
How do countries that believe that part-time work is the best solution to sharing employment? Do they plan to extend this part-time work to include men and to skilled, well-paid jobs, and what measures are taken to ensure that part-time workers receive adequate pensions and unemployment benefits?In conclusion, I would like to make a general comment.
Commissioner Monti has shown that the Member States that wanted to keep capital on their territory were subject to market forces and had to reduce taxation on capital by 10 % in 12 years.
And since they had to find revenue to offset this, they increased labour taxes by 20 % during the same period.
These labour taxes, also according to Commissioner Monti, are responsible for a third of Europe's unemployment.
I will leave you to contemplate this statistic, linked as it is to the development of information technologies and to the fact that of the four freedoms set out in the Single Act, the free movement of capital, contrary to the wishes of the founders of Europe, was the first to be achieved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 NAME="Hawlicek">
In view of the increase in unemployment among women in Europe, this own-initiative report by Mrs Marinucci is particularly important.
In February 1998, the rate of unemployment was 12.3 % among women and 8.9 % among men.
The unemployment rate is higher among women in all European countries except Sweden.
Therefore, in its resolution, the Committee requests that the Commission provide more precise statistics on employment figures, which are broken down according to sex.
<P>
The Committee calls on the Member States to provide legislation on the right to part-time work; the social partners are to conclude a framework agreement on all forms of atypical work and the Commission is to submit a proposal for a framework directive on childcare services in the Member States.
Women who are not registered unemployed are also to be entitled to participate in the training programmes.
<P>
I am pleased that, in implementing the EU's Employment Guidelines, Austria has included, in its National Action Plan for employment, special measures to create equality, measures which are taken into account not only in Chapter IV of the NAP but, in the spirit of the gender mainstreaming programme, also in the other chapters.
We will try, therefore, to give greater consideration to this aspect in the discussion on developing the Employment Guidelines and measures relating to structural policy, and to force it to be included in all policy areas of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 NAME="President">
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy has a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Madam President, I had asked to speak during the votes.
I did not insist on doing so because you did not allow me. However, just now, during the vote on the resolution on Sudan, and more particularly on Amendment No 1 to paragraph 6, I wanted to speak, since someone had at least to point this out for the Minutes, because there is a striking contradiction.
<P>
You held a separate vote on the original text and on the amendment.
You put the original text to the vote, then the amendment, and finally returned to the original text.
You therefore held three roll-call votes instead of two, which is very expensive for us since one roll-call vote costs FF 8 000.
In addition, you contradicted yourself in that you led the House to vote against the first part of what you called Amendment No 1, that is, the original text of paragraph 6, before holding another vote on this paragraph 6 and allowing it to be adopted.
Therefore, in terms of the roll-call votes, the Minutes will contain two contradictions, two contradictory votes, and I just thought that someone should point this out. We need to understand that an amendment is not the original text.
When we ask for a separate vote on the amendment, that means that we vote first on the amendment alone and then on the original text.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 NAME="President">
That is a misunderstanding, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
We voted first on the amendment.
That was rejected, one part after the other - the two parts were each put to the vote separately and rejected, and then the amendment in its original form was put to the vote, since some people wanted just the one part and some people just the other.
But then - if that is rejected - there must be another vote on the original text.
Only the parts were rejected, and not the whole text.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Role of cooperatives in women's employment (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=243 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report (A4-0270/98) by Mrs Colombo Svevo, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights, on the role of cooperatives in the growth of women's employment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Bennasar Tous">
Madam President, Commissioner, I would like to thank Mrs Colombo Svevo for her contribution to the joint effort that the whole of the European Union is making to promote and create employment.
Such an effort implies the search for new types of employment as well as new forms of employment organization, and orients social protection towards employment.
<P>
This report rigorously researches and sets out in a socio-economic and innovative spirit how cooperatives and firms in the social economy can help integrate women into the labour market, in particular those that have no professional experience or who have been absent from the labour market for family reasons for a number of years.
These firms enable women to reconcile work and family life and, at the same time, provide high quality, affordable services which are largely aimed at lessfavoured groups.
<P>
Because of their flexible and intangible nature - and because of the urgent demands of the service sector, in particular social and public health services - the cooperatives can convert jobs that were traditionally done by women alone and which afforded them no social status or financial remuneration, into paid business ventures.
Our society has set itself specific demographic and social targets which focus on the elderly, handicapped children and the lack of financial independence for women, with the subsequent feminization of poverty.
<P>
The rapporteur calls on the Committee to produce a White Paper which draws on both the very positive experiences observed in several European countries and the role of gender in these experiences.
She also calls for support from the European Social Fund in order to channel female business potential towards this new system of cooperatives and encourage the creation of consortia, networks and social economy agencies that provide advice and offer training and organizational support as well as legal help, access to credit and financial and fiscal incentives.
<P>
Commissioner, the Amsterdam Treaty gives the European Union a new remit to combat social exclusion with innovative measures.
This report puts forward measures which we support.
We hope that you will too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stenzel">
Thank you.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, demographic surveys show that the population is ageing and that, as a result, the need for certain social services is increasing.
This applies in particular to women who have not had a good education and who are probably those most affected by conditions on the labour market.
However, there are often very high non-wage labour costs involved in employing these women in the service sector, thus the danger arises that these women may drift into the black economy.
For this reason, any models which differ from this, such as cooperatives, associations and relief organizations, should be used to counteract these problems.
<P>
In its 1993 White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment, the European Union defined a job creation strategy and recommended an active labour market policy.
A new White Paper is a welcome development.
The European Commission considers domestic services to be an area in which a high number of jobs could be created.
One possibility would be service contracts which facilitate work in private households, where the employee would automatically have social insurance as a result of the contract, even where a low number of hours are worked.
This model offers an opportunity to many women, particularly in social economy services.
The disadvantage in this is certainly that wages are low.
However, it should not be overlooked that these social services constitute a good start for unemployed women who are less qualified.
I hope, therefore, that the models described represent a significant step towards fairer integration of women into the labour market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 NAME="Flynn">
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating Mrs Colombo Svevo on the quality of the report.
She has stressed the important role that cooperatives and the social economy in general play and will continue to play in job creation and in promoting equal opportunities.
<P>
The social economy will enable us to tackle a number of tomorrow's economic and social challenges and will create new jobs that are very often more secure and longer lasting, with better social and working conditions, whilst generating profits that are redistributed and reinvested.
<P>
This report points out that the social economy can respond to unmet needs that should be viewed as potential new sources of employment, in particular for women.
<P>
It should be noted that the 1998 employment guidelines contains a separate pillar which deals with equal opportunities for women and men.
Strengthening the equal opportunities policy is a full but completely new component of policy, aiming at creating employment and fighting unemployment.
The approach outlined in this report fits in very well with our employment strategy and, in particular, with the equal opportunities aspect of the strategy.
It is a very good example of the mainstreaming that we have been talking about here in the House.
<P>
I should like to deal with a few of the main points raised.
The report raises the need to adapt European statutes for these sectors.
European statutes remain a priority for the Commission, even though the proposals for directives and regulations have been on the table with the Council since 1993.
I agree that this sector needs a clear-cut legal and fiscal framework in order to evolve within the single market.
The Commission will look very closely at the proposal for a study to be carried out on the size and impact of the social economy, the impact it has on employment and, in particular, on female employment.
<P>
The Commission is going to draw on the work of the Consultative Committee for cooperatives, mutual societies, associations and foundations established by the Commission on 13 March this year.
The Consultative Committee is, and will remain, one of the Commission's main sources of advice and information on the situation on the ground.
We can also draw on the experience gained from NOW, Horizon, Integra and other such programmes.
<P>
We will present a full report on voluntary organisations and foundations next year.
The report will contain recommendations on how to enhance the social and economic role of voluntary organisations and foundations.
<P>
A European conference on cooperative entrepreneurship in the year 2000 is going to be held in Bologna on 30 November and 1 December.
It will be very useful because the conclusions of that conference will enable us to decide on the best way to respond to your demand for the White Paper on cooperatives and social enterprises.
<P>
The Commission will also look at possible ways of allocating funding, specifically to help women set up their own businesses, particularly in the social economy area.
I take Mrs Bennasar Tous' point there that the Social Fund has a role and perhaps could be used more effectively in that area.
<P>
Within the third multiannual programme for small and medium-sized enterprises this year, we launched one call for proposals for pilot actions concerning training for spouses' partners.
We also launched a call for tenders concerning, amongst others, women entrepreneurs and aiming to determine the requirements they have when creating and running enterprises.
<P>
At the same time, together with the Swedish National Board for Industrial and Technical Development, we are preparing a conference on women entrepreneurs to be held in Stockholm from 30 November to 2 December next.
So the Commission would lend its support to the establishment of a European network on social economy agencies and it could be managed jointly by the public authorities and by the social economy sector.
They could provide information, documentation, training and assistance in project development and in the establishment in particular of partnerships for funding and financial guarantees.
<P>
The Commission intends to pursue its efforts to promote the development of the social economy in the various policies and initiatives undertaken by the Union.
It will strive to ensure that equal opportunities for women and men become a reality and that entities in the social economy, particularly those managed by women, get the maximum support to enable them to play a full part in the social and economic life of the Union.
There is considerable potential and we will give full support to the efforts to achieve it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Single mothers and one-parent families
<SPEAKER ID=248 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0273/98) by Mrs García Arias, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights, on the situation of single mothers and one-parent families.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 NAME="García Arias">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to point out two amendments to the text.
When we voted for this report in the Committee we removed references to two countries, the United Kingdom in recital F and the 'United States model' in paragraph 12.
I ask you bear this in mind when it comes to the vote.
<P>
We are talking here about a sizeable group of families within the European Union.
Demographic changes together with changing trends in cultural and social patterns have given rise - albeit in some countries more than others - to the phenomenon of the single-parent family.
<P>
Although there are also men who, for various reasons, are solely responsible for the care of their children, this report mainly focuses on women who are alone, single, separated, divorced, widowed or who have been abandoned and face life on their own, endeavouring, in the face of a great many difficulties, to give their children a good start in life and in some cases help other family members.
<P>
This debate is particularly relevant because, at a time of economic growth and - somewhat contradictorily - of budget cuts and cuts in social expenditure, a lot of talk about concepts such as competitiveness and employability and work ethics in societies where there are high rates of female unemployment and insecure jobs, some models are beginning to make an impact. These models - obviously imported from across the Atlantic - appear to call into question the social benefits which protect these women and their families, and in some cases label them as social parasites who deliberately abuse the social welfare system.
Strangely enough, some of these accusing voices - as we have heard this morning - are those who sing the praises of motherhood, who defend the family as the nucleus of society and on some occasions champion the cause of a wage and social security for housewives, naturally at the expense of social welfare budgets.
<P>
This debate follows on from the excellent reports by our colleagues Mrs Marinucci and Mrs Colombo Svevo, who have clearly outlined the situation of women in relation to employment, the difficulties they face in terms of training, the lack of an affordable childcare infrastructure, discrimination in gaining access to jobs and the need for partners to fulfil their responsibilities as regards childcare and housework.
If this is indeed the situation for the majority of women, we cannot begin to imagine the additional difficulties faced by those families that do not receive either an extra income from another partner, or have this person present to share the burden of housework.
<P>
I do not think I would be exaggerating if I said that we are referring to one of those socially vulnerable groups that are exposed to poverty, failure at school in the case of the children, and social exclusion.
For this reason single-parent families need specific help and attention as well as the support of governments in general, even though some of these women might have found jobs.
Unfortunately, more often than not, the jobs are poorly paid and insecure.
<P>
This report calls on the Commission and the Member States to consider in detail the obstacles that many women come up against and to develop political and economic measures that contribute to the social integration and economic independence of women, including the use of Structural Funds. It also specifically calls on the Commission to look into the reluctance and discrimination that many employers display when faced with an applicant who has children.
If this is already happening, Commissioner, we should also bear in mind the particular difficulty some of these women must face in looking for employment when the employer knows that they are the head of the family.
<P>
But the report - and this is my last point - also calls on absentee fathers and, to a lesser extent mothers, to take on their responsibilities, and urges that divorce arrangements and other legal practices and systems be improved to ensure that both parents fulfil their parental obligations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gröner">

Mr President, the report by Mrs García Arias must be seen in an overall context, like the report by Mrs Marinucci, which we have already voted on today.
I hope that the Council of Ministers for Social Affairs, which is meeting on 5 October, will incorporate the conclusions of the House in its decisions, as the single mothers on whom this report concentrates need action to be taken urgently.
We realise, of course, that it is primarily up to the Member States to fulfil their responsibility; the social partners must also do more for single mothers.
However, the European Union also has a great deal of responsibility in this area.
<P>
The risk of poverty is increased in the Union when men and women divorce, as can be seen from statistics, particularly in Germany.
Those who then become single parents drift very quickly into a situation where they survive on social benefits and find it very difficult to escape from this.
This is why the measures proposed here, particularly regarding good and affordable childcare facilities, are indispensable.
There are still large gaps in this area in the European Union.
<P>
I would like to make a further comment.
Paragraphs 16 and 18 propose working towards joint custody for parents in the case of divorce.
However, I fear that, in issues on which the parents disagree, this may be to the detriment of the children.
I would urge that clear regulations be drawn up to ensure that children are not treated unfairly.
<P>
On the issue of reform of the Structural Funds, it has become quite clear that we must include gender mainstreaming.
The Marinucci report did not stipulate a percentage figure for the inclusion of women, but in accordance with the Employment Guidelines it is not just equal opportunities that need to be considered: specific emphasis is required for single parents.
We must be open to new models, for example the introduction of reduced working hours into wage agreements for single parents.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=251 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Colombo Svevo">
Mr President, I wish to thank the rapporteur for her work and for having taken account of the various positions put forward in the committee.
We are dealing here with a phenomenon which is already significant and is increasing constantly: 10 % of families with children are in this situation.
<P>
Their circumstances vary considerably: divorces, separations and the birth of children outside marriage.
All such circumstances reveal a weakness of family structures, which should be the subject of careful thought, unless we wish to reduce ourselves to a sort of neutral observatory of change. We wish, on the contrary, to understand the causes, the tensions that exist within the family - still a cherished institution in Europe - and the conduct which often weakens it.
<P>
Although well aware of the deep differences between ourselves and the rapporteur on this issue, I believe that we must back her ultimate objective, namely to ensure support - be it social security, welfare or economic - for single-parent families, whose weaknesses are all the greater given that 85 % of them are headed by women.
They experience psychological, economic and social difficulties, which call for a well-focused mix of policies as different as the situations concerned.
<P>
The report lists such possible measures, and I shall not repeat them.
I would nevertheless stress the wisdom of rejecting benefits as a solution, as the report does, providing instead for parents to shoulder their personal responsibilities. Yet, at the same time, the report rejects the preconceived view that anyone in need of an income is merely a parasite, who should simply be forced to work and get by on their own.
Often people simply cannot get by on their own; hence the need for these measures.
<P>
Europe has standards of civility in this field: I believe that this strong, commonly held sense of responsibility and solidarity forms an integral part of its identity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Larive">
Mr President, being a single-parent family does not have to be miserable.
You and I know many loving, happy households where the mother goes out to work.
But single-parent families, the subject of this excellent report by Mrs García Arias, make up a large and vulnerable group in which, as has already been pointed out, 80 to 90 % of the single parents are women.
<P>
A minimum income might appear to be the best solution in the short term both for the government and for the parents, but in the longer term it helps no-one.
It simply creates financial and social dependence which benefits neither the parents nor the children.
This is why we, and I think all the groups feel the same, are calling not for paternalism but for active support, good childcare facilities, encouraging parents to attend training courses with childcare provided and helping them to find work.
This is the only way that these families are going to recover their financial and social independence in the long run and the only way to prevent them from being marginalised in society.
We will also be helping the children to grow up in an environment that gives them the security they need and sets an example for their own lives, so that they do not end up in a vicious circle.
<P>
My group takes the view that social security must be individualised.
I would recommend Amendment No 1 tabled by my colleague Mimi Kestelijn to paragraph 19.
We feel, however, that paragraph 20 is dangerous in calling for improving the situation of single-parent families to have priority over public budget deficit considerations.
Reducing budget deficits and applying the EMU criteria in full is in everyone's interests, including those of single families.
<P>
We too reject the United States model.
The British model at least gives us a starting point for a structural approach, because we must stop thinking of mothers of single-parent families as helpless victims.
We need to use structural measures to ensure that they can play an active role in society.
This is the way we need to go, in the European Structural Funds too.
Commissioner Flynn, do not fix any quotas, we do not need them at the moment because we want to give mainstreaming a chance first.
But we are counting on you to ensure that many single mothers are given opportunities through the Structural Funds.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sornosa Martínez">
Mr President, Mrs García Arias' report sets out demographic changes and changes in social structure in Europe today and the need to adapt services and resources to this new reality.
<P>
In discussing this report we are in fact talking about the increasingly insecure nature of female employment, the lack of services to facilitate women's integration into the labour market and the failure of both national and Community policies to promote equality through concrete and effective measures.
<P>
The amendments to this report represent two different approaches: the first, which could be termed conservative or traditional, that protects the family and considers the single-parent as something to be tolerated but not accepted as the norm; and the second, that I would term 'progressive' , which accepts this new family model as a result of the development of society and the economy, and as such, one that should be protected and respected.
<P>
The amendments that we and other progressive groups have tabled, in my opinion, adequately address the vulnerable situation of single-parent families and force public authorities to acknowledge their problems and offer solutions.
<P>
They also take into account the fact that single-parent families could be the result of personal choice and in the same way need a strong support structure.
<P>
I would like to congratulate Mrs García Arias on her report and for the progressive vision she has demonstrated. She has also managed to accommodate other views, which I believe will encourage the majority of the House to vote in favour.
I too, of course, should like to offer our support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=254 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Kerr">
Mr President, firstly I should like to compliment Mrs García Arias on an excellent report.
It is very comprehensive and has a vision about how Member States and the European Union could help the position of single parents, who are one of the most vulnerable groups in our society.
<P>
However, I want to pick up on her reference to the United Kingdom, which, interestingly, she wants to remove from the text.
I understand the embarrassment of my Labour ex-comrades and can see that they would like this removed.
The truth is that it is absolutely accurate.
The UK has cut benefits for single parents as part of its budgetary saving procedures but also because of its ideological commitment to a workfare model.
That is to say there is an element of compulsion in the UK now: you either accept training, education or work or you may have your benefits cut off or reduced.
<P>
That is moving towards the other alteration that Mrs García Arias made, which is to remove the United States.
I have taught and researched in the United States.
I have seen workfare at first hand.
I have seen women getting up at 5 o'clock in the morning to take their children to day care facilities in order then to go on to work or to education or training. because the alternative is to be cut off from benefits altogether.
<P>
The United States President, Mr Clinton, is in trouble over a little sexual problem, but the real complaint I would have against him is that he is the most reactionary American president when it comes to welfare and single parents.
He has cut the AFDC programme and limited it to two years.
This has had a crucial impact on single parents, most of whom are women, and force them into low-paid, slave labour employment, or sometimes into training schemes which are very inadequate.
So I think you should leave these references in.
They are both very relevant.
<P>
Finally, this is the sixth report I have spoken on today on behalf of the Green Group.
Perhaps you could ask you services to check whether this is a record.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=255 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Seillier">
Mr President, the situation of many widows and widowers in Europe with young children in their care calls for a necessary progression in our legislation in order to help them.
For divorced women or men caring for children, the situation is also very difficult and must be looked at; the law must be changed to take account of the different situations.
<P>
But I cannot allow it to be said that there is no longer a family model and that all family models are equally valid.
This is an irresponsible adult concept; for children, it is always preferable to have a father and a mother and for the two to take on the responsibility not only of their material needs, but also of their education.
Yes, single-parent situations do result from accidents of life: death of a spouse, divorce, etcetera. But I cannot accept as an alternative model elective single-parenthood - often involving women - or that the sort of life someone chooses should require society to reorganise itself as a consequence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=256 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Mr President, Mrs García Arias, I am very pleased to approve your report, but in discussions on family policy we almost always make the mistake of discussing the rights of mothers and even the rights of fathers, but not the rights of children.
I believe that children brought up by single mothers have exactly the same right as children who have two parents - and they must have this right - to be brought up, looked after and cared for by their mother.
What I find lacking in this report, therefore, is any reference to the fact that single mothers must have the right to stay at home with their small children if they wish to do so.
They should have just the same rights as mothers who are in a happy marriage and have no financial worries.
<P>
I am very proud of the fact that Austria offers single mothers a real choice.
Married mothers in Austria receive a maternity allowance for 18 months of ATS 5 700, the equivalent of over BEF 17 000.
Single mothers receive approximately BEF 24 600 per month.
I would recommend that all Member States do the same.
<P>
However, the current report also shows, Mrs García Arias, that single mothers are often unemployed, poorly educated or perhaps are not even entitled to maternity allowance because they may not have worked.
I would like to point to the example of the current Presidency on family policy.
We in Austria are currently trying to introduce maternity allowance entitlement for all mothers, including students, farming women, entrepreneurs and women who are too poorly educated or too young to have worked.
These women should also receive the necessary financial support, should also have the right to stay at home with their young children, as do prosperous women who are happily married.
<P>
I call upon all Member States to stop talking big and, instead, to follow suit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=257 NAME="Eriksson">
Mr President, I am delightedly to have the opportunity to speak on this subject at this particular time. The election campaign in Sweden is on its final lap; the country goes to the polls on Sunday.
And, lo and behold, people are belatedly waking up to the fact that single mothers have a vote!
<P>
First of all though, let me say how much I appreciate this report.
I particularly like the emphasis on preventing single mothers from becoming Aunt Sallies in these days of savings and cutbacks. The rapporteur rightly calls for policies based on a spirit of solidarity rather than recrimination.
<P>
My time is short, so I have chosen to concentrate on one issue only: childcare. Admittedly a much discussed topic, but I hope to broach it from a slightly new angle.
When we talk about combating unemployment, there is a tendency to focus on investment in infrastructure.
We build railways, roads, bridges and airports: big, capital-intensive projects, funded by the taxpayer and involving more machines than human beings.
Meanwhile, putting money into health and welfare is seen as burdensome.
How misguided we are!
Each pound spent from the public purse has a veritable multiplier effect.
People are free to work; job opportunities are created; parents and children find their social horizons widened; better parenting skills across the board enhance society as a whole.
I very much regret not having more speaking time, Mr President.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=258 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Flynn">
I should like to thank all those who have contributed to this debate.
European society is changing and the interest in the situation of families and its implications for employment and social policy has been expressed in different forums.
<P>
There appears to be a growing conviction of the need for increased international cooperation on family issues as part of the global effort to advance social progress and development.
Although the Community has no direct competence in the area of family policy, it has increasingly turned its attention to social and economic trends in society as they affect families.
<P>
Member States have different ways of looking at the role of the state in economic and social life, the family's place in society and its rights and duties, the roles of men and women in the family and children's rights.
I thank Mrs García Arias very much for her report on all these matters.
<P>
The family is and always has been of essential value for European citizens, although its form varies and is changing.
New models are developing.
Single parent families represent one form and raise the entire range of equal opportunities issues.
The report makes clear something that we all know: that the vast majority of single parents are women.
<P>
Community policy on equal treatment for women and men does not contain a specific component for single parents but it has a crucial impact on their situation, especially with regard to the reconciliation of work and family life, a challenge central to the whole range of social issues.
Changes in the composition of the labour force, new forms of work organisation, the restructuring of social protection, changes in the distribution of caring work between women and men, all have a very important bearing on the lives of single parent families and, in particular, single mothers.
<P>
The Maternity Directive, the Parental Leave Directive and the Part-Time Work Directive are all good examples of the European Union's commitment to supporting both women and men in their role as parents.
The recommendation on child care, suggests that action should be taken to provide child care for parents in employment or training, to make the workplace more responsive to the needs of workers with children and to involve men more as carers.
We paid particular attention to that when ministers and interested groups came together, particularly in Belfast and then in Innsbrück.
<P>
The 1998 employment guidelines are important here because they give a very important impetus to the objective of reconciling work and family life which should benefit all parents.
<P>
A further important aspect of the lives of single parents, also dealt with in your report, Mrs García Arias, is the fact that twice as many single parent families fall into poverty and social exclusion as two-parent families.
This is a very disturbing statistic which has also been referred to by other speakers.
Thus I would see them as one of the groups who will be very much in our minds as we prepare to take action against exclusion.
I intend to be doing something positive about that when the Treaty is ratified under the new Article 137.
That will happen as soon as we have the ratification process cleared.
<P>
I am happy to report that our plans took a very important step forward just yesterday.
I was able to secure the agreement of my colleagues in the college to a relaunch of spending under three of the 1998 budget lines which had been blocked following the Court's judgment in May, so that we can have preparatory actions leading to programmes under Article 137 later on when the ratification process is complete.
But I would like to start doing something in preparation this year.
<P>
I hope that in 1999 we can use our new Treaty powers to put the fight against exclusion where it deserves to be - right at the heart of Community policy.
Interestingly enough the Treaty has given us the authority to do that without fear of being challenged later on, which can only be to the benefit of lone parents.
<P>
The social and political situation has undergone profound changes in the past decade or so.
New family patterns, new concepts of the role of men and women have emerged.
The European Union has an important role to play in identifying the similarities and the differences in the way the Member States react to these changes.
We can also stimulate Union-wide debate on the family by encouraging the Member States to share information and pool their experiences whilst at the same time respecting the principle of subsidiarity.
<P>
Poverty is the real threat here.
Good child care, as Mrs Gröner says, is absolutely essential and is being highlighted now as a key issue for attention by the Member States.
They are all committed to it.
Let us put them to the test now.
<P>
Finally, Mrs Larive summarised what we have to do when she said that we should give mainstreaming a chance.
That will be the focus of the 1999 guidelines: to give mainstreaming a real chance by utilising the European employment strategy to the full, making the funds more receptive to that concept and using the Treaty support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=259 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Fisheries monitoring
<SPEAKER ID=260 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0277/98) by Mr Provan, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on fisheries monitoring under the common fisheries policy (COM(98)0092 - C4-0134/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=261 NAME="Provan">
Mr President, first of all I welcome this report we are discussing from the Commission.
It is helpful in the debate we are always involved with in the European Parliament's Fisheries Committee.
<P>
I had a telephone call from Commissioner Bonino this afternoon apologising for not being able to be here.
She has a number of portfolios to deal with, and I quite understand the difficulty she found herself in with having to be recalled to Brussels.
We have no complaints about that and we welcome you, Commissioner Flynn, instead.
<P>
This report will be followed by Mr Teverson's report, implementing some of the ideas that we in Parliament want to discuss regarding fishing control.
<P>
We believe, as the Parliament, that we are at the forefront of driving the Commission forward in trying to achieve better control of the Common Fisheries Policy.
We recognise that control needs industry support, and that, at present, we do not have that support from the fishermen themselves.
They see control as excessive and bureaucratic and they do not really accept it.
We therefore believe that extraordinary measures are required and we find it amazing that the Commission does not have the power of direct on-line and instant access to databases within the Member States regarding fisheries policy.
This must be put right.
We do not believe the data should be generally available inter-Member State but that the Commission certainly should have access to those files and those bits of information which are necessary if we are to have proper implementation of control of the Common Fisheries Policy.
<P>
Common penalties for common offences are another thing Parliament feels strongly about.
I hope the Commission can start taking some action to ensure that the jurisdiction of the individual member courts are coordinated to such an extent that we get common practice for common offences.
<P>
The main problem with control mechanisms within European Community waters is driven by the fact that we have excess fishing capacity in our fleets.
This creates pressure on fish stocks and is an incentive for fishermen to break the rules.
That cannot be a good thing. That is the main problem we have to combat.
<P>
The Commission argues quite correctly that effective monitoring is only part of the overall picture and that the excess capacity in the Community fleets results in the problem I have just described.
<P>
There are a number of failures in the present situation which the Commission recognises and which we recognise in Parliament.
We do not have real common standards within the individual Member States so that we know what is what.
For instance, no standardised measurement of engine power, no common definition of what constitutes a proper inspection at sea or what are fraudulent trans-shipments of catches and how they should be monitored, no common definition of what constitutes proper inspection in port. We have inequalities in the checking system between Member States, and that does not bring respect to the Common Fisheries Policy.
We have inadequate controls to enforce and recognise the proper landing of fish once it is caught at sea and following it through to the marketplace and therefore to the consumer.
We have a wide divergence of penalties in the individual Member States.
<P>
What has the Commission done to enforce control mechanisms within the Member States - what has it done where a Member State does not comply with the existing regulations?
I am not aware - and the Fisheries Committee is not aware - of how the Commission is actually trying to enforce the regulation that we currently have.
If we could start getting some answers to those questions, we can actually achieve something together.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=262 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kindermann">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank Mr Provan for his comprehensive report on fisheries monitoring under the Common Fisheries Policy.
In my opinion, and in the opinion of our group, it is a very good report.
It is a pity, therefore, that we are discussing it before an almost empty House.
<P>
I am sure that today will not be the last time we will discuss the problems which arise concerning effective monitoring of the Common Fisheries Policy.
The importance of comprehensive controls can be seen in the communication of the Commission.
Those who have read it carefully will recognise how great the difficulties actually are, particularly in the critical areas.
<P>
One weakness of the monitoring system lies in the fact that not all Member States apply it in the same way.
This is not only our point of view; in this, we agree fully with the rapporteur.
<P>
Direct responsibility for monitoring lies with the Member States, while the problems arise at Community level.
The Commission assessment shows clearly the main source of the problems.
<P>
There is no doubt that the Commission plays an important role in coordination at Community level.
In our opinion, its powers should not only extend to supervising national monitoring and to guaranteeing transparency and fairness, but should also require Member States to impose penalties for similar infringements.
<P>
Factors which are important in ensuring the effectiveness and acceptance of the monitoring system include: involvement of fishermen's associations, access to national data in suspicious cases, effective networking of monitoring agencies in the various Member States, and, in particular, equal treatment.
<P>
A particularly explosive issue is the monitoring of third country vessels.
There are also specific problems in this area.
We know that the monitoring that takes place is not watertight and will not be so in future.
The current system could be improved if instruments currently available were used effectively and improved.
<P>
We are very much in support of the rapporteur's demands but see a great need for further action, despite the considerable progress already made.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=263 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langenhagen">
Mr President, today's fisheries debate is the first we have had in the House without our friend Allan Macartney.
We extend our deepest sympathy to his family.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my congratulations to you, Mr Provan, on your excellent report.
It is analytical, critical and positive.
Our main problem in fisheries policy is the inefficient management of fish as a resource.
Despite all our efforts over the years, we have not succeeded in striking a sustainable balance between resource and allowable catch.
With some exceptions, practically all types of fish are subject to overfishing.
<P>
We have identified excess capacity in fishing fleets as the greatest obstacle to proper management of our waters.
We will have to wait and see whether MAP IV, the last multiannual guidance programme for the period 1997-2000, has solved this problem.
In the meantime, we must use other methods.
The European Community's control policy, for which Member States still have primary responsibility, plays a crucial role in the management of our waters, and for a long time this was the focus of our criticism.
<P>
In its report the European Commission identified existing weaknesses.
For example, there are problems in standardising the measurement of engine power between the Member States.
There is wide divergence between Member States in the way in which inspections at sea are implemented.
Member States do not comply with requirements concerning registration of landings.
The list is very much longer and would require more than the three minutes I have available, but what it boils down to is that we sometimes have the impression that the Member States do not comply with the requirements of a strict and consistent control policy.
<P>
From our delegation visits on the ground and from talks with the fishermen concerned in the Committee on Fisheries, we know that the fishermen feel they are treated extremely unfairly because they are treated differently from each other.
This is not a good basis.
We have always been of the opinion that a good control policy can exist only with the help of the producer, and Mr Provan emphasises this in his report.
I therefore support the proposals in the report to allow greater involvement of the fishing industry and producer organisations in control policy.
<P>
The report includes positive elements and also calls for the use of positive experiences from the past, for example experience which international fishing organisations such as NAFO recently had with controls.
In addition, the report provides further constructive ideas for an even more effective monitoring of the fisheries policy.
I would therefore ask you, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, to approve this inspired report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=264 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Teverson">
Mr President, I also wish to congratulate Mr Provan on his very important report.
The common fisheries policy is one of the few common policies we have in the European Union and so the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council of Ministers have a very important role in terms of legislation.
<P>
It seems to me that the requirements for good legislation are that we can measure what needs to be measured (which is not often the case), that the law should be applied equally throughout the Union (which it is not in the common fisheries policy), that there is the same chance of contraventions being identified wherever they occur and that the penalties for contravention are roughly the same throughout the Union.
That does not occur in the common fisheries policy and this document and the legislation that I hope will follow are all about making that happen.
<P>
At the beginning of the year the British presidency stressed that things have to change.
The Commission document is slightly less strong but still says 'yes, let us make things better' .
In a couple of months we will be moving to the Commission proposal which is even slightly weaker.
<P>
I call upon the Council of Ministers - who, of course, are not here - and also the Commission to remain strong and determined and tackle the problem.
There are two key areas: the first is equal enforcement right through the supply chain to the market.
Secondly we must make sure that our own inspectors have real powers equivalent to those of national inspectors and can enforce the uniformity that we all want.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=265 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Novo">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in my opinion, measures to monitor the application of fisheries policy will only have tangible effects in ensuring the exercise of responsible fishing which duly respects stocks if they are incorporated in a much broader series of practical measures for the sector.
<P>
Monitoring alone will not suffice.
All the interested parties must participate in the discussion, dissemination and implementation of monitoring measures.
In addition to policing compliance, the stability of the sector must be guaranteed by introducing social and financial measures to compensate for the reduction in fishing, the current status quo must be maintained regarding access to stocks and greater transparency and fairness must be introduced into the system as regards landing, import, first point of sale, transportation and marketing of fish.
<P>
In this connection, and to demonstrate that a global rather than an isolated approach to monitoring is essential, I would point out that a highly regrettable incident occurred two days ago in my home town in Portugal, which culminated in the destruction of a Spanish fish lorry.
<P>
In my view, what happened can only be explained - of course, it cannot be justified - by the mistrust that exists regarding the effectiveness and transparency of monitoring measures.
Because, not only are incomes declining, but there is growing suspicion about where fish really comes from; people do not understand, for example, nor do they readily accept that it is legal to catch 12 cm horse mackerel in the Mediterranean, but not in the Atlantic where they must measure 15 cm.
Therefore, the outrage of the Portuguese fishermen was triggered by mistrust.
<P>
If the controls between landing and the point of sale were reliable and efficient, if the minimum size of fish were harmonised, such mistrust would not exist and this highly regrettable incident would not have occurred.
We must therefore give further consideration to monitoring measures, with a view to making them transparent, effective and fair, without forgetting that we must simultaneously implement other practical measures to guarantee the stability of the sector and the income of those who work in it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=266 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, we should not forget that the problem of the fishing industry worldwide is overfishing and overcapacity.
I remind you of Patricia McKenna's report last year which concluded: 'Fishermen are forced to cheat in order to meet their financial obligations.'
Mr Provan said it in more diplomatic language by talking of incentives for fishermen to break the rules.
<P>
The concept of inspection has been rightly mentioned.
There is unequal implementation by Member States, inadequate controls of proper landing, and grossly unequal, I would say iniquitous, sanctions for breaking the rules.
Therefore, consequently, effective surveillance and control is one of the fundamental pillars of the CFP.
Both the annual report and control have shown there are many changes which need to be made before control is adequate.
<P>
We welcome in particular the Commission's discussion paper which is the subject of Mr Provan's report.
It clearly points out the ways in which control has improved over the past several years and also note the milliard failures.
<P>
We broadly support what the Commission says in this paper, as well as the specific proposals for amending the control regulation which it has put forward recently.
<P>
We will support the Provan report.
We further agree with Mr Provan that effective control will continue to be problematic as long as there is such an excess of capacity in the EU fleets for boats are built to go fishing and not to sit at the dockside.
<P>
However, this discussion has tended to focus too much on control in EU waters, with insufficient attention paid to control of EU activities in international waters and in the waters of third countries.
For instance we should exert fully and consistently our flagstate responsibility.
The FAO code of conduct for responsible fishing requires states authorising fishing and fishing support vessels to fly their flags to exercise effective control over those vessels so as to ensure the proper application of this code.
We should also help coastal states to exert their rights of control.
We should not just give them money and paper but give them real capacities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=267 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, as the rapporteur rightly points out, the European Parliament has for a long time stressed that the effectiveness of the common fisheries policy depended to a large extent on improved monitoring.
However, I would point out that the best form of monitoring is a system that is reliable, fair and inexpensive, and one that entails only minimum additional constraints for fishermen, since the constraints with which they are currently burdened are already extremely heavy.
<P>
In the comments he makes at the end of his explanatory statement, the rapporteur makes another relevant observation that in its communication, the Commission forgets what is perhaps the key point.
For a monitoring policy to function, it must win and maintain the support of fishermen.
They must be convinced of the validity of the monitoring measures that apply to them and that these measures are implemented fairly and justly.
<P>
In the report I presented, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on satellite monitoring, I stressed how such monitoring was needed, how reliable it was and the improvements it would bring, but I also pointed out that fishermen needed to be given genuine guarantees that such monitoring would be applied fairly if they were to be convinced of its relevance.
<P>
It is also important to involve the fishermen as much as possible in the drawing up and definition of monitoring measures, which, as far as possible, should not just be thrust upon them.
<P>
The first amendment I tabled to this report with my colleague, James Nicholson, is aimed at underlining the importance of ensuring that monitoring is fair.
Many fishermen in the Member States are regularly forced to fish in the same waters, drawing from the same resources.
The fishermen of one Member State must not be allowed to have any doubts or suspicions as to the effectiveness of checks carried out on fishermen belonging to another Member State; if this happens, uncertainty feeds fears which are not always well-founded.
<P>
It is therefore essential to perfect the monitoring arrangements, but I do not believe, unlike the rapporteur, that in order to do this we need to recruit an army of Community monitors.
I think that the Member States should continue to carry out the checks and that the strengthening of Community monitoring must relate to the actual system of national controls and the methods used.
It is essential to fine tune and harmonise the monitoring arrangements.
Some fishing grounds are actually overmonitored, whilst others certainly are not.
<P>
Some essential readjustments must be made.
That is the reason for the second amendment that I tabled to a report that is, in general, satisfactory.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=268 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="McCartin">
Mr President, I welcome the Commission's document.
As a representative of Irish fishermen I have no difficulty with it at all.
I thank Mr Provan for his report, which is a fair representation of the almost unanimous opinion of the Fisheries Committee.
<P>
Regarding the problems he raises such as the different standards of horse power, I have heard complaints by our own fishermen.
This leads to serious misunderstanding and mistrust.
The necessity to follow up the catch into the marketplace to make sure that we know exactly where the fish that are marketed in a given market are coming from is extremely important.
That is good for the market, good for prices and will lead to a more orderly situation in which prices will be easier to maintain.
We know about the problem of black-market fish and what they can do to a market situation at a given time.
<P>
The big difficulty is, as always, the trust of the fishermen.
I imagine it is the same in Scotland as it is on the west coast of Ireland - a serious mistrust exists.
That mistrust is to some degree - and maybe unintentionally - fostered by the national authorities and departments who represent the Commission as the oppressive force which is responsible for all the regulation.
They do not own up to the fact that it is mainly unanimous agreements in the Council of Ministers that lead to the making of the regulations that the Commission tries to supervise and enforce.
Often that is not made very clear.
Very often when there is bad news and restrictions it comes from the Commission. But when you have a situation like we had in Ireland recently where a ECU 60 million package is announced for the development of the white fish fleet we have national ministers in the limelight, not people from the Commission or Parliament who provide the money and design the plans.
That is part of the problem that exists.
<P>
Finally, since we would like to have a sort of regionalisation, a 30-mile limit would be immensely helpful to employ the goodwill of fishermen in the business of reorganising.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=269 NAME="Flynn">
Mr President, I should like to say that my colleague Emma Bonino sends her apologies.
She would like to have been here. I am pleased to take the report.
I have a personal interest and I know just a little about it coming as I do from the fishing coast on the west of Ireland.
<P>
The Commission welcomes Mr Provan's positive response to our communication.
With regard to fishing monitoring, the Commission's main concern is to avoid any new amendments to the existing regulations which might not be strictly necessary and would not fit in well with the overall strategy.
<P>
A strategy for improving fisheries monitoring firstly requires strong political will and then adequate human and material resources.
It requires an efficient organization and increased awareness on all sides as to what is at stake.
The Commission's objective was, therefore, to carry out a detailed examination that went beyond the limits of the annual monitoring reports, which do not allow us to take a step back and take a good hard look at things.
That is the aim of the communication we are discussing here today.
<P>
The Commission would therefore like firstly to highlight the significant progress that has been made.
The implementation of recent decisions, notably in the use of satellites would speed up that progress quite a lot.
However, if we look at the implementation of the different parts of the common fisheries policy, from the fleet monitoring which is mentioned, to the markets, which were also mentioned, it all shows that some major improvements are still needed in various areas.
It will not be enough simply to implement what has already been decided on.
<P>
So technical details aside, two main problems are emerging.
They have been referred to but it is as well that I should mention them.
They are: a lack of transparency between the Member States, and a lack of cooperation often within the individual Member States themselves. With these thoughts in mind the Commission has already proposed two documents to try to bring together and shape up an overall strategy and policy.
<P>
The proposal for an amendment of the regulation establishing a control system and, secondly, the action plan to improve application of the common fisheries policy cover the main points that have been mentioned in this communication.
The Commission is extremely appreciative of the positive reception that Parliament has given to the communication. We take note of the new suggestions that have emerged during the course of the debate and they help give us a key to a constructive form of support.
<P>
I noticed what Mr Provan said about action against the Member States.
We need legally unassailable evidence here and we lack good powers to get it.
The powers of inspection are poor, and the Commission's work will be much more effective if, in addition to their recognized right to dispense with giving advance notice, Community inspectors could gather information more freely with a view to establishing any shortcomings in the national control systems.
That would greatly advance the situation.
Secondly, you make the point of access to information and to the databases.
<P>
In the proposal which has followed on from this present one, we are taking that on board and I think it would be very useful.
I feel Mr Teversen has a very good handle on this in that we are not acting in an even-handed way across all the parameters.
That is where the problem arises.
Personally, I very much like the whole question about following the chain of events right to the market.
That is not done well.
Mr McCartin also mentioned that point.
That would be a good way of checking back in the whole system.
We would like to think we could do something about that.
<P>
Finally, there are some initiatives over and above this which have been considered.
We should take full account of the great potential available with the use of new technologies.
Data processing and satellites are not yet fully utilised.
Something could be done there.
Perhaps we might consider finance of research in that area and some studies.
In the future fifth programme we could put controls in as a bigger priority.
I would like to see that happen.
Finally, there is the possibility of having an international conference on this next year and that could lead on to a lot of good conclusions and recommendations that would fill out the strategy for what everybody seeks, namely creating the level playing field that Mr Teversen refers to.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=270 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 8.45 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Avgerinos">
Madam President, in yesterday's Minutes I am not registered as having been present.
Please could that be corrected, because I was here all day.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
You did indeed chair the sitting.
I think we can all testify to that.
Are there any other comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Madam President, I should like to congratulate the House on the completely unfathomable decision it took yesterday evening on the Scarbonchi report to increase the number of jobs by 12 million from 1995 to 1996.
I am now curious to see whether the European Parliament decides to put the millennium back a year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Provan">
Madam President, a photograph was taken in this House yesterday.
I do not wish to make an issue of this, but could we have an assurance that the photograph will not be used for any public purpose and, if it is, could the Bureau make certain not only that it does not happen again but also that the Member is punished because he has given an assurance to this House that the photograph was only for personal use.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
Our colleague told us yesterday that it was a private photograph.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Collins, Kenneth">
Madam President, in the light of that, could we also have an assurance that no private telephone calls made from mobile telephones in this Chamber will be used for any purpose like that either?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
I have taken note of your suggestions.
Mr Kerr wishes to speak on the Minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Kerr">
Madam President, you will notice from yesterday's Minutes that I spoke six times on behalf of the Green Group on six different reports.
I asked whether this was a record.
Have the services had time to count yet?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
It is very good of you to help us with something that is not always done automatically.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
The rapporteur has informed me that the words 'such as the United Kingdom' have been mistakenly included in recital F and should be deleted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Kerr">
Madam President, I am a member of the Committee on Women's Rights and coordinator of the Greens.
It is my recollection that this alteration was not made at the meeting.
I would request that it is not removed from the report and that we take the report with the words 'the United Kingdom' and 'the United States' in it.
This is an attempt by my New Labour colleagues to save the British Government embarrassment.
We should leave the report as it is and vote on it as it is.
If not, I will request that full tapes of the committee proeedings are heard and I will prove that this amendment was not made at the committee.
I suggest we leave the report as it is and vote on it as it is.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
What is the rapporteur's opinion?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="García Arias">
Madam President, I am extremely surprised at Mr Kerr's reaction because he should clearly recall the day when we agreed, and subsequently voted, in the committee to remove references to countries.
The text of the original proposal, not only of these two paragraphs but also of other paragraphs, had been agreed, but the agreement to which I referred was reached in the committee and should have been included in the minutes.
This is why I call on Mr Kerr to think back to the day of the vote.
I remember it perfectly well, Madam President.
So recital F and paragraph 12 should be corrected to show that we are criticising 'models' and not 'the model' and as a consequence the reference to the United States should be removed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs García Arias.
This deletion therefore has nothing to do with the United Kingdom, Mr Kerr, since no references to any countries are being made.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Kerr">
Madam President, I suggest the best way to deal with this is to treat it as an oral amendment from the rapporteur.
If the House accepts the oral amendment it can be voted on in that way.
If twelve Members object it is not accepted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
No, that suggestion is not appropriate.
As the rapporteur has explained, the committee found a clear solution which is in accordance with what has been said here, and no further amendments can be accepted.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Seillier">
It seems that in order to respond better to the real needs of our societies, we need to clarify certain concepts, such as that of the single-parent family: are we talking about a widow or widower responsible for children, a divorced man or woman with children, a single mother with a child or children ...?
<P>
Whether it is the result of the hardships of life or of a woman's personal choice, being a single parent family is always difficult to cope with, both from a financial point of view and for the children's education, as the rapporteur points out several times.
This is why I do not understand why our amendments have been rejected, when they are acting in the financial and moral interests of children in calling for a policy to prevent single parent families as much as possible, by educating people to be responsible.
<P>
Indeed, thirty years on from 1968, the disastrous consequences of 'sexual liberation' are becoming ever clearer.
<P>
Provan report (A4-0277/98)
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Nicholson">
I congratulate Mr Provan on an excellent report which reflects the commonly held view that fisheries monitoring must be improved if we are to conserve fishing stocks and provide a livelihood for future generations of fishermen.
<P>
In this report, Mr Provan has underlined an important point of strategy which too often seems to be lacking from Commission thinking, that point being the need to get the fishermen themselves on side.
In doing so we will be making the fishermen equal partners in the monitoring process rather than what can sometimes seem to be the subject of a spying operation.
Fisheries monitoring will only become fully successful once the fishermen themselves can feel fully confident in the process.
<P>
I have to say that it is difficult to deal in one's mind with this subject without also giving thought to the political direction of EU fisheries policy.
Those of us who represent areas in which the fisheries industry has suffered from decision making at political level cannot help but wonder whether clever monitoring cannot make up for the damage caused by opening our fishing waters to all and sundry.
Having said that I certainly welcome the proposals to tighten monitoring of third country vessels operating in EU waters.
<P>
This is a useful report which gives further substance to Parliament's continued insistence that the Commission does more to address weaknesses in the CFP.
I hope that we are seeing the beginning of a Commission attitude of listening to Parliament in this subject.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Wibe">
This report contains many good ideas and suggestions.
Yet I would like to see a more critical stance taken on the EU's fisheries policy as such.
It is, after all, this policy that has led to the exhaustion of fish stocks in the waters off the coast of Africa, a state of affairs that cannot be remedied by improved monitoring, but only by a different set of policies.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
EC-Madagascar fishing agreement
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0282/98) by Mr Gallagher, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on the conclusion of a Protociol setting out the fishing opportunities and financial contribution provided for in the agreement between the European Community and the Republic of Madagascar on fishing off Madagascar for the period from 21 May 1998 to 20 May 2001 (COM(98)0390 - C4-0456/98-98/0217(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Gallagher">
Madam President, at the outset I wish to say how extremely grateful I am to all those who have assisted me in the preparation of my report and, in particular, the secretariat of the committee, the members of the Committee on Fisheries who actively participated in the debates in committee, the personnel from the Commission and, of course, those who prepared the opinions on behalf of the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
<P>
This report is based on the Commission's proposal to renew the protocol attached to the fisheries agreement between the EU and the Republic of Madagascar for the three-year period from May 1998 to May 2001.
The first protocol with Madagascar was concluded in 1986 and this protocol is the fifth.
It deals exclusively with tuna and it will involve 45 freezer vessels and 30 longliners.
The authorised catch will be 9 500 tonnes.
The overall cost of the agreement to the Community will be ECU 2.28 over a three-year period.
The financial compensation will be ECU 912 000, which is 40 % of the overall cost.
The remainder will be used to finance measures to aid the Malagasy fishery sector by funding scientific research programmes and monitoring programmes such as inspection and surveillance operations.
It is vitally important that funding is provided to assist in the development of small-scale coastal fisheries.
This will also involve training grants to assist the fishermen in the coastal states of Madagascar.
<P>
It is important to note that, for the first time ever, the funding is linked to a legal obligation on the part of the Malagasy authorities. They must provide a detailed annual report to the Commission on the funds allocated to the scientific programmes, the monitoring programmes and technical assistance.
The payment of the funds is tied to the implementation of these measures, which is a welcome development.
Additional information may be requested by the Commission and payments may be blocked by the Union if it is not satisfied with the further information.
This is very much in line with Parliament's thinking and will also ensure total transparency, which is absolutely essential.
To ensure that the Malagasy authorities and the people of Madagascar benefit from this, Community vessels must obtain the services and supplies they need from the Malagasy authorities.
<P>
This protocol provides that the agreement may be extended to other fishery activities. These are not specified, but there is a very clear reference to shrimp, which have considerable economic value and are at the moment governed by private agreements.
<P>
This international fisheries agreement provides some of the Union's vessels with opportunities to explore for fish outside the Union zone, giving our vessels a right to fish stocks in third-country waters and alleviating the pressure on many of our stocks within the Union.
<P>
The opportunity to fish in third-country exclusion zones should not be confined to the vessels of only some Member States.
It should be open to vessels from any Member State which are capable of steaming long distances and fishing the stocks concerned.
Countries without traditional rights must have the same opportunities and should not be prevented from exploring the fishing grounds for tuna and migratory species that move in the waters off several coastal states between March and June each year.
Only a cooperative regional management system will ensure proper conservation.
I do not have to remind this House of the importance of conserving renewable resources.
We are the custodians and we must ensure those resources are available to future generations.
Indeed, those who understand this most are our fishermen who want to ensure that stocks are there for their generation and future generations.
<P>
In conclusion, I have tabled a number of amendments.
This is in line with Parliament's thinking, calling for detailed, coherent information to be supplied to Parliament.
I commend the report to the House and ask the House to give serious consideration to my amendments, which I believe, will make it a better report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="Jöns">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets I should like to congratulate Mr Gallagher on his report, and I should also - which is not often the case - like to congratulate the Commission.
It is always good to see civil servants who are willing to learn, and with Madagascar the Commission has for the first time succeeded in concluding negotiations two months before the protocol expires instead of at the eleventh hour.
Of course, it would have been nice if they had been concluded 4-6 months in advance to allow time for the entire legislative process to be completed, but two months is a step in the right direction, certainly as far as the code of conduct is concerned.
<P>
However, we would have preferred to avoid having to apply the protocol provisionally, since we would then have avoided a situation where we are once again simply rubber stamping what has already been decided, which, as we all know, considerably limits our rights as part of the budget authority.
<P>
One further point.
We in the Committee on Budgets naturally have a different view on the matter of classification.
We continue to regard the expenditure on international fishing agreements as non-compulsory, even if some of our colleagues in the Committee on Fisheries think otherwise.
I just wanted to make this clear.
It also applies to the agreement with Gabon, of course, but we are to debate this later.
We will certainly not be able to clear up this dispute later in the legislative process, so it is really a question of waiting for the next Interinstitutional Agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Hardstaff">
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Varela Suanzes-Carpegna">
Madam President, I would firstly like to congratulate rapporteurs Mr Gallagher and Mr Girão Pereira who presented their reports to the House this morning, for the excellent work they have done on the fisheries agreements with the Republic of Madagascar and the Gabonese Republic.
<P>
I should like to point out that both agreements provide for the continuation of the European Union's Common Fisheries Policy as regards international fishing agreements, and they help to consolidate these agreements as one of the fundamental pillars of the Common Fisheries Policy which, as was pointed out in the Crampton own-initiative report, continues to be a fundamental condition for attempting to reduce the European Union's trade deficit as well as both directly and indirectly safeguarding jobs in fishing and in the Community fisheries sector. This is something that chiefly affects peripheral regions that are both economically backward and heavily dependent on the fishing industry.
<P>
As regards Mr Girão Pereira's report, I wanted to mention that the fisheries agreement with the Republic of Gabon is a new agreement that exclusively applies to tuna fishing over a five-year period and which will mean the funding of 9 000 negotiated tonnes.
But it should also be pointed out that, for the first time, the financial contributions that shipowners have to make are being increased - which is quite incomprehensible and worrying - from ECU 20 to ECU 25 per tonne and, as a consequence, Community contributions are being reduced from ECU 80 to ECU 75 per tonne.
<P>
I do not see how this can be justified and if it were, I think that such an increase should always be accompanied by a similar increase in both the fishing opportunities and the participation of the vessel owners in negotiations, in view of their larger contribution.
<P>
On the Gallagher report on the conclusion of a new Protocol on relations with the Republic of Madagascar, attention must be drawn to the fact that this is also a new agreement that exclusively applies to tuna fishing, in which the number of tuna seiners remains the same and the number of surface longliners has been increased along with the size of the annual catch from 9 000 tonnes to 9 500 tonnes.
The total cost of the agreement has slightly increased, but it is worth noting that, unlike the observations we made in relation to the Gabon agreement, the Commission has kept the same level of contributions for vessel owners that have been applied in agreements of this type up to now.
This means that vessel owners will contribute ECU 20 to the cost of each tonne and the Commission will contribute ECU 80 per tonne.
<P>
Lastly, I would like to say that the amendments to Mr Gallagher's report approved by the Committee on Fisheries were very positive, particularly because they call for the Commission to submit a general assessment report to Parliament in the final year of the Protocol, on the application of the agreement and on the progress of negotiations with a view to its possible renewal. On the basis of this report, Parliament can then adopt recommendations to be taken into account before the negotiations are concluded.
<P>
Despite improvements in interinstitutional communication since the previous Protocol, thanks to the implementation of the Interinstitutional Agreement on improving the provision of information to the budget authority on the 1996 fisheries agreements, much more needs to be done.
Mr Gallagher's report sets out new ways of collaborating which would strengthen the European Parliament's contribution and potentially lead to substantial improvements in the procedure for applying and implementing international fisheries agreements.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Olsson">
, Madam President, I wish to begin by thanking the rapporteur for a fine report.
It is very gratifying to witness the conclusion of such an agreement between the EU and a number of developing countries.
<P>
With this type of agreement, the key is to find a balance between various interests. From a business perspective, the terms have to make economic sense.
Environmentally, it is all about sustainable management of a particular resource, ensuring that it will still be there for a long time to come.
From the development point of view, we are seeking to help countries in theThird World.
It is not particularly easy to reconcile all these elements. I would not claim that we have succeeded yet, but we are at any rate on the right track.
<P>
I note that the Committee on Development and Cooperation is dissatisfied with the level of attention being paid to the regional aspects of administration and research.
The Commission should bear this in mind when embarking on future activities.
<P>
The Liberal Group has proposed that no subsidies be given to fishermen in the context of these agreements. I should like to comment briefly on that.
Of course assistance is needed in a situation where agriculture and fisheries lack the wherewithal to keep pace with international competition.
Subsidies must however be phased out in the long term.
Madam President, with your indulgence, I will return to this subject when we come to the next report. An identical amendment has been tabled there.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Madam President, when the House discussed the last fisheries agreement with Madagascar more than two years ago, the European Parliament heavily criticised both the content and the procedure because we had not been given any chance to have our say.
The rapporteur called for the agreement to be rejected, but the majority in the House did not agree with him.
Mr Baldarelli, on behalf of the socialists, said that this was the last agreement that they would approve.
They have supported every single agreement since then.
<P>
What is actually happening in practice?
If we compare the two agreements we can see that there is still no appropriate regional management structure, that there are still no effective control measures and that Parliament is still only being consulted.
We welcome the fact that the zone where fishing is permitted has finally been extended from two to twelve miles, and high time too, since this was included in many other agreements long ago.
<P>
As this is yet another agreement which mainly concerns tuna fishing, we need to focus attention on the fact that the use of a particular type of net - bag nets - presents a considerable problem with by-catch, though not in this case dolphins, which are not found in the area.
A very recent study by French scientists has shown that many other species are caught, such as bream, mackerel and skipjack, to name but a few.
There is also the problem of very young tuna being caught far too early.
As a number of these species are also caught by non-industrial vessels, this means that our fishing concerns have a considerable impact on the livelihoods of local fishermen.
It is also noticeable that whereas most of the other tuna agreements require two local fishermen to be employed on each vessel, this agreement provides for only two for the entire fleet.
So in our view the whole question of controls needs to be tightened up.
We therefore support the liberal amendment which is heading in the right direction in calling for the vessel owners to be more involved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Madam President, the debate we are having today on two European Union fishing agreements, one with Madagascar, the other with Gabon, is concerned, exclusively in the case of Gabon, and mainly in the case of Madagascar, with tuna-fishing agreements.
This discussion comes two days after the meeting of the intergroup on conservation and sustainable development which highlighted the beneficial effects of our fishing agreements both for the European-ACP tuna network and for the signatory developing countries, especially those which have ports used by licensed vessels.
This is particularly the case with Diego-Suarez in Madagascar where, as in Abidjan, Dakar, Mahé, Ghana and Mauritius, the fishing agreements have made it possible to set up major industrial activities on the ground and to create a significant number of jobs.
The tropical tuna network in the ACP countries of landing has therefore come to play a central role in local economic development.
<P>
The smooth functioning of this whole economy depends on the fishing agreements section of the Common Fisheries Policy and the tariff provisions of the Lomé Convention, which allow duty-free imports of tinned tuna produced in ACP countries into the Community.
The development of this tuna network in the Indian and Atlantic oceans also depends on the moderate fishing of deep sea resources, which are particularly abundant and are closely scientifically monitored, notably by France's Orstom and Spain's IEO.
This type of fishing is therefore not going to compete with the food-producing activities of local small-scale fisherman, who can continue to use their driftnets freely and legitimately.
<P>
The European-ACP tuna network is one of the great successes both of our fisheries policy and of our cooperation policy.
Everyone in the industry and all the contracting national authorities are pleased with the way these agreements have worked and have asked that the current economic balance of the tuna network should not be upset or weakened in the new Lomé Convention.
They quite rightly want to see special rules introduced during the transitional period for the new convention, to maintain the preferential Lomé market for processed tuna, especially with regard to the GSP, as this is what has allowed our network to develop in competition with the Asian giants of Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia, which is Asia's main tuna producer.
<P>
Parliament will therefore have to keep a close eye on things here, and on the Commission's tendency to agree to exemptions willy-nilly without thinking about the consequences for the fishing sector: GSP is addictive, and annual quotas and trade agreements with various regions such as Mercosur are in danger of creating direct competition that our ACP partners in the Lomé Convention cannot withstand.
We need to prevent such initiatives from destroying what we have achieved through the CFP and the Lomé agreements.
It is essential that we carry out detailed studies of the impact on both the interests of the European economy and those of the Lomé signatory countries before each of these negotiations, especially for the fisheries sector.
<P>
Finally, like the rapporteurs I too am extremely interested in the provisions of the new agreements with Madagascar and Gabon on monitoring, training and scientific studies, which account for 60 % of the total financial compensation and are increasing.
I also think it is a very positive step that a section for the development of small-scale fishing has appeared for the first time in a fishing agreement.
<P>
All in all, Madam President, these are two excellent reports which should be approved by the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="McCartin">
Madam President, I should like to thank Mr Gallagher for his report.
He certainly gives a lot of very detailed information which enables us to evaluate the situation.
It is normally argued that these fisheries agreements are a favour to a particular region of the Community.
I agree with Mr Gallagher that it is mainly the Spanish, French and Portuguese that exploit the possibilities, but I do not think people in the more northerly Member States are in a position to exploit them, even if they had full information and the opportunity to do so.
<P>
I note from the figures that the cost per tonne seems to have gone down.
I wonder why we are paying less in this agreement than in the earlier one and why we have increased the number of ships by something like 30 longliners, in addition to the freezer ships that were part of the first agreement.
<P>
Nevertheless we welcome the improvements that have been made to this agreement in order to conserve fish in the area and move from a 2-mile limit, which we never should have allowed, to a 12-mile limit.
This gives greater protection to local fishermen, who are quite capable of exploiting every resource within that limit.
If we did not have this agreement this migratory species would not be conserved for the benefit of the local fishermen and would probably be exploited in any case.
Madagascar makes a profit out of this that it would not otherwise receive, so its economy does benefit to some extent.
It is a relatively small amount of money when you consider it as regional aid to fishing ports in any part of the Community.
This agreement gives us approximately ECU 10 million worth of fish.
When you deduct the cost of catching them, it is obviously not an immense amount of regional aid but all these little agreements have to be taken in the context of the whole.
<P>
I would prefer the number of vessels going into these waters to be more transparent.
It is very hard to know what is happening when licences are granted to 70 or 80 vessels to catch such a small amount of fish.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Gillis">
Madam President, I should like to thank Mr Gallagher, the rapporteur, for this report on the Commission proposal for the renewal of the tuna agreement with Madagascar for a further three years.
<P>
Whilst the Republic of Madagascar should be entitled to use the proceeds of this agreement as it sees fit, I am pleased to see that the major part - 60 % - of the total remunerative package of ECU 2.28 million is to be used for scientific research, conservation and training and therefore will be of direct benefit to the coastal regions and the people who live there.
<P>
Direct financial aid and the transfer of technology and expertise to developing countries are the hallmarks of the European Union's development policy.
I am glad to see that our fishing agreements with developing countries combine some financial aid with a commitment to improving structures and training facilities and providing better opportunities for local fishermen.
However we can and should do more, as part of both the fisheries agreements and our overall development policy.
<P>
Very often third countries such as Madagascar are not able to monitor or police the fishing activities of the EU fishing fleets.
Indeed many Member States' authorities are not able to control their activities either.
However we must find a system that will allow the countries concerned and the Commission to monitor fishing agreements effectively and ensure that there is no over-exploitation of the limited resources.
Over-fishing or over-exploitation of any limited resource will damage that resource to the detriment of all and therefore is absolutely unsustainable.
<P>
There is one area where we could help third countries more.
We should give local fishing boats a larger exclusive zone in which to fish.
The current practice of providing a 10-mile zone could and should be extended to 15 miles without serious disadvantage to the EU deep-sea fleets.
This would give the local fishing interests a wider scope and a more solid basis on which to plan their investments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="Flynn">
Madam President, the Commission would like to thank the Mr Gallagher, for this excellent report on the new terms for fishing agreed by the Community fleet in the waters off Madagascar.
I also thank the Members who have complimented to the staff on their hard work on these agreements and the success they are having.
<P>
The Commission considers that these measures will permit a more efficient exploitation of the agreement in line with the fundamental principles of resource conservation.
The Commission also considers that the new protocol with Madagascar contains significant innovative features aimed at promoting sustainable fishing in coherence with the Union's development policy.
<P>
The new procotol to the agreement opens up fishing in Madagascar's exclusive zone to Portuguese and Italian tuna boats for the very first time.
It assigns 60 % of the financial compensation, i.e. about ECU 1.368m over the three years, to targeted actions, namely scientific research, fisheries monitoring, training and the development of traditional fisheries.
It also allows the Malagasy authorities to monitor the movements of Community vessels in the zone, thanks to new provisions in the protocol annex on control procedures, including notification of entry to and exit from the exclusive zone.
<P>
The Commission accepts the substance of the amendments proposed by the Committee on Fisheries, but not the form in which they are put.
It would point out that Parliament is already regularly informed about take-up levels for fishery agreements through statements and reports to the committee.
So the Commission cannot accept Mr Teverson's amendment.
Fishery agreements are concluded at Community level and it is up to the Community to pay the financial compensation, and to vessels fishing in the waters concerned to pay the fees.
<P>
We thank the House for its consideration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Flynn.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="Wibe">
I cannot vote in favour of this report.
It effectively endorses the EU's fisheries policy, which has led to the exhaustion of fish stocks in the waters off the coast of Africa. Madagascar is the country affected here.
What is more, the EU's policies are impoverishing local fishing communities.
A thoroughgoing review of the whole system is needed.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
EC-Gabon fishing agreement
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="Rosado Fernandes">
Mr President, I am deputising for Mr Girão Pereira, who was to present his report yesterday.
Since it was postponed until today and it is impossible for him to be with us, I will replace him as best I can.
<P>
Before us we have the first agreement with Gabon to reach the implementation stage.
An earlier and broader agreement was concluded in 1988 relating to tuna and demersal species but was never ratified on account of political developments in Gabon at that time.
<P>
In 1995, Gabon approached the European Union, as did Madagascar, about concluding an agreement on tuna.
Other agreements are in force in that region, specifically with São Tomé and Principe, Cote d'Ivoire and Equitorial Guinea, where Community vessel owners, particularly French, Spanish and Portuguese, now operate.
<P>
Given that tuna are a migratory species, it is of particular interest that this agreement should be concluded so that vessel owners can operate throughout the entire region, thereby maximizing their effectiveness.
<P>
It should be emphasised that, unlike some agreements, in this instance there is no particular clash with the local fishermen, since the activities of these vessels are conducted on the open sea, 12 miles off-shore, while the small-scale fishing fleet of Gabon comprises vessels with which we are all familiar, particularly the Portuguese.
<P>
This agreement has a relatively long time frame of five years, with financial compensation of ECU 810 000 for the first three years for a total catch volume of 9 000 tonnes per annum.
The Community will also pay ECU 1 215 000 in respect of measures relating to resource conservation in the area, and to scientific and technical aid for the fishing sector in Gabon, particularly scientific and technical programmes intended to promote better understanding of resources, programmes for the protection and monitoring of the fishing zones and, finally, study grants and practical training courses.
<P>
Allow me here to add, as a comment of my own, that frequently these programmes do not work because the European Union does not always have the courage to draw up reports which carefully and accurately reflect what is happening on the ground or, in this case, in the sea.
Much of the problem of money ill-spent may be attributed to the Community's lack of care and courage in this regard.
<P>
The government of the Gabonese Republic undertakes to submit an annual report to the Commission on the application of these measures and the results achieved, with failure to comply resulting in discontinuation of payments.
Substantial funding (some 60 % of the financial compensation) is allocated to the management and conservation of resources and to scientific and technical training in the Gabonese fishing sector.
<P>
Another significant aspect of the agreement is the increase in the financial contributions of vessel owners, from ECU 20 to ECU 25, representing a rise of over 25 % per tonne, with a simultaneous reduction from ECU 80 to ECU 75 per tonne in payments from the Community budget.
<P>
Finally, I would also like to say that the new agreement is in line with the Council's conclusions of 30 October 1997, for which reason we support it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fraga Estévez">
Mr President, I would firstly like to congratulate the rapporteur Mr Girão Pereira for his magnificent report and also, on this occasion, the Commission, for having negotiated a thoroughly satisfactory new fisheries agreement.
I would like to draw your attention to a matter which I believe is of great interest, and one that we are following with the utmost concern - it is indeed a shame that our colleagues from the Committee on Budgets have already left the room, Mr President - since the agreement with Gabon marks a turning point in our policy on agreements.
This Protocol is the first in which the Commission carries out its intention of sharing out the costs of these agreements, with the result that vessel owners will pay more and the Community budget less.
<P>
The background to this initiative is highly debatable given that we believed the Common Fisheries Policy was inextricably linked to international relations.
<P>
Although this is an exceptional step to take, I perfectly understand why part of the cost should fall to the direct beneficiary of a common policy.
However, I fail to understand why a high proportion of the financial cost of the agreements remains the responsibility of the vessel owners when they receive no compensation, since - as we are well aware - the Commission continues to have sole responsibility for the negotiations.
If this is the path we choose to follow, and if they do indeed rebalance payments - to use Commission terminology - all other initiatives should receive the same treatment, giving Community vessel owners responsibilities in negotiating agreements, especially bearing in mind that the Commission does not always negotiate with the sector's interests at heart.
This is a sector, let us remember, which in the agreements to which we are referring here - access to resources in return for financial compensation - is already paying approximately one third of the total cost of the agreements.
<P>
Neither should we forget the discrimination that exists between vessel owners in the different Member States, and on this point I should like to contradict what some of my colleagues said earlier.
This is not discrimination in the sense that we have spoken about, but quite the opposite, since whereas vessel owners in certain fleets - as in this case - are paying increasingly more, in other kinds of agreement they benefit from fishing possibilities at no cost to themselves whatsoever - and here I am referring to agreements with Nordic countries in which southern fleets are not involved.
These are agreements which are the exclusive preserve of certain fleets, preventing the rest of the Community's fleets from having any access whatsoever, for example in the case of Greenland. Yet the new Protocol with Mauritius - and the Commission will correct me if I am wrong - provides for pelagic fishing possibilities for countries such as Germany or the Netherlands.
<P>
This is why, at its meeting in October 1997, the Council asked the Commission to carry out a study - a cost-benefit analysis - on fisheries agreements.
And while it waits - in accordance with Council guidelines - for the Council to deliberate on the basis of this study, it has asked the Commission to study how and with what means vessel owners benefitting from fisheries agreements with third countries could share the financial costs of these agreements with the Community in a fair and nondiscriminatory manner, taking account of the interests of the Community and its vessel owners as well as of the third countries affected.
<P>
I therefore think, Mr President, that the Commission has gone too far too quickly in this matter and so we ask it to make the same careful considerations to which the Council also refers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Olsson">
Mr President, when I spoke previously, I discussed the need to balance economic, environmental and development interests.
This time I wish to focus on the issue of subsidies - and, of course, to congratulate the rapporteur for producing a good report.
<P>
It behoves us to remember the role played by fishing and agriculture in times gone by. These traditional activities financed the beginnings of industrialisation.
The yield from their labour fed and educated the people who went on to work in manufacturing and the service trades.
Subsidies actually went from agriculture and fisheries to the other sectors.
We are now still living through the intervening period of interregnum which followed. Increased efficiency has led to increased production.
Fear of food shortages drives us to maintain production at levels slightly above the optimum. As a result, the world market goes into surplus and prices fall.
If we are to avoid massive structural transformation of a senseless and unnatural kind, the less affected sectors of society must contribute towards keeping the best parts of these traditional activities alive. And I refer here to both agriculture and fisheries, since the two are comparable, as are our policies for them.
<P>
In the long term, we should of course be aiming to eliminate the differences between world and national markets. We need to create a new equilibrium, with involvement of more than just a few countries.
Once this has happened, subsidies can go.
Mr Teverson somewhat jumps the gun. In his amendment, he says that the fisheries sector should bear the costs itself.
I confess to being too close to the realities of the situation to be able to support this ELDR proposal - although I understand the thinking behind it.
I will therefore abstain when it comes to the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="President">
Thank you very much Mr Olsson.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, in its other capacity as paediatrician the Presidency of the House would like to welcome to Parliament a young child, a young European of just a few months old, and we hope that our speeches do not make him cry, but instead dream sweet European dreams.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, a study carried out in April this year by the World Bank describes the effects of subsidising the fisheries sector very clearly.
According to the World Bank subsidies mean considerable reductions in fishing opportunities for local fishermen, and in most cases the compensation paid does not reflect the full economic value of the fish.
<P>
Second, the study draws attention to the fact that local food requirements may be affected, and that long distance fleets now tend to fish the most profitable species.
<P>
Third, trade is also affected, since trading opportunities that should be open to the developing countries with all their raw materials are almost certainly reduced.
It therefore remains a dubious practice and one that we should deal with very cautiously.
<P>
As Mrs Fraga Estévez said, the Council issued a number of guidelines in October, but if we look at them more closely they appear extremely vague.
There are no clear criteria which agreements have to meet.
Something is said about the need for a fairer distribution of costs between the vessel owners and the Community, but as we can see from the Gabon Agreement, the owners' contribution is to increase from ECU 20 to ECU 25 per tonne, while the Community is to continue to pay ECU 75.
So in our view we still need more specific details, a more cautious approach and better monitoring in line with sustainability.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="McCartin">
Mr President, I want to thank Mr Girão Pereira for his report and to say that I support this deal made on behalf of European fishermen.
Firstly, we are dealing with a country that is not exactly the same as the other countries in sub-tropical Africa.
It has oil and forest resources and a GDP per capita double that of the average African country.
So its representatives are in a better position to stand up for themselves and make their own deal.
<P>
Nevertheless, I am still concerned about the limited means at the disposal of the European Union to police such deals.
There 9 000 tonnes are a relatively small amount of fish.
Nevertheless, we are talking about licences for 70 boats - 120 tonnes per vessel, if all of them go in.
We do not know whether they catch 120 tonnes or double that figure.
<P>
Nevertheless, I agree with Mrs Fraga on the whole matter of whether or not it is right to charge the fishermen for the privilege of fishing.
The European Union has a resource which we hand out without cost or charge to our fishermen, and we extend that resource through these agreements.
As long as the agreements are designed in such a way as to do minimum damage to stocks which would not be utilised by the local fishermen in any case, it is reasonable for the Union to pass on the benefit of that, just as we pass the benefits of our own stocks in our own waters to the fishermen that get the licences to exploit them.
<P>
So I accept the principle as reasonable, but when fishermen from a particular region go to exploit these resources, in some instances we should consider whether we should rebalance the resources within our own waters.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Flynn">
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Flynn.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Wibe">
I cannot vote in favour of this report.
It effectively endorses the EU's fisheries policy, which has led to the exhaustion fish stocks in the waters off the coast of Africa. Gabon is the country affected here.
What is more, the EU's policies are impoverishing local fishing communities.
A thoroughgoing review of the whole system is needed.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
EC-Azerbaijan trade agreement
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Schwaiger">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in spring 1997 the European Parliament gave its assent to the partnership and cooperation agreement with the Republic of Azerbaijan by a large majority.
The procedure for ratifying this agreement, which governs all the European Union's relations with Azerbaijan, is likely to take some time.
As is usual with such agreements, therefore, an interim agreement will be used to bring into force those sections of the agreement which do not require ratification, such as the democracy clause, the provisions relating to trade in goods and competition and various institutional provisions.
<P>
On behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations I am today proposing that the European Parliament give its assent to this interim agreement.
In the 1997 own-initiative report on economic cooperation with Azerbaijan the House approved the following guidelines which I proposed: first, the need for closer economic and political cooperation between the European Union and Azerbaijan; second, the strategic importance of Azerbaijan as an oil-rich country and as a link in the European Union's economic relations with the central Asian republics; third, the need for the European Union to support closer regional cooperation between the transcaucasian republics, in other words between Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia; and finally, support for the process to find a peaceful solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
<P>
The Azerbaijan economy is now looking very encouraging.
Inflation is under control, with prices increasing by only 3 % a year.
Trade figures and the budget are almost in balance, and for a number of years the gross domestic product has been increasing by some 5 % a year.
The only economic weak link is agriculture, where attempts at modernisation have yet to bear fruit.
<P>
In the field of political cooperation technical aid from the European Union for the development of a modern administration and an independent judiciary should be stepped up.
Azerbaijan's framework legislation on the freedom of the press and freedom of expression needs to be fleshed out and greater media plurality ensured in practice.
European aid through ECHO and from the Member States, which accounts for more than 75 % of the world's total aid to Azerbaijan, must continue.
More than 20 % of the territory of Azerbaijan is still occupied by foreign troops, and over a million refugees are being cared for under the most difficult conditions.
Azerbaijan is potentially a wealthy country, but until its oil resources can be fully exploited in a few years' time it certainly cannot afford to support a million refugees.
<P>
The interim agreement therefore marks an important stage in the development of our cooperation with the transcaucasian republics, and we also see it as an incentive for a speedy resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
It will certainly stimulate improvements to the transcaucasian transport and energy networks, in which Azerbaijan is heavily involved.
The opening of the pipeline across Georgia which is scheduled for October 1998 will give Azerbaijan greater economic independence and also greater independence from its neighbours to the north and south.
<P>
The road and rail project to open up the whole of the central Asian region via the transcaucasian republics, project Racika, which is co-funded by the European Union, will further boost Azerbaijan's economy.
Closer cooperation between Moldavia, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan and the central Asian republics on establishing further economic links with Europe will also play a part here.
<P>
The interim agreement and the special financial aid for Azerbaijan are also vital if we are to ensure that Azerbaijan receives a similar level of support to that provided by the European Union for Armenia and Georgia.
We hope that the further steady development of democracy will form a basis for close, trusting and lasting cooperation between Azerbaijan and the European Union in the interests of both.
We are hoping to see the development of close regional ties in Transcaucasia and we are helping the region to help itself now that it has begun the process of building closer political, economic, cultural and social links with Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Thank you, Mr President.
Mr Schwaiger, I should like to congratulate you on the excellent sauce and accompaniments you have served up, and the care you have taken with your preparations.
Unfortunately, carrying on this morning's theme, the fish itself is not very fresh and leaves a rather bitter taste in the mouth.
<P>
The interim agreement is designed to implement the trade elements of the partnership and cooperation agreement first.
Given the history of the last 500 years it is simply hypocritical to claim that free trade somehow automatically generates democracy and human rights, or else it shows a cynical disregard for the problems of the people involved - not on your part, I hasten to add, but by those who have negotiated the agreement and who use the safety clause so one-sidedly.
<P>
There are sure to be misgivings about this in the Member States too, which this interim agreement is designed to circumvent.
The human rights situation is disastrous.
Despite the OECD's insistence that a peace agreement had to be reached the war with Armenia is still continuing.
I do not wish to go into detail here and would simply mention a few salient facts. On 12 September the police assaulted 34 journalists on the fringes of a demonstration organised by the opposition and confiscated their equipment.
On 1 September the journalist Tai Hamid was dragged from his car and assaulted.
In such a situation we should use the existing CIS agreements to provide aid and to develop relations, instead of allowing trade to monopolise our attention.
We therefore intend to abstain in the vote on your report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, if we look at the map we can see just how important Azerbaijan is to us.
You would sometimes think that our political leaders had no maps in their offices, only paintings, yet they should really be looking at the geographical details over and over again.
<P>
A glance at the map should give us serious cause for concern: the risk of war is mounting around the world.
Think of what is still going on in Africa, and the tension between Iran and Afghanistan that could so easily spill over the borders.
In Azerbaijan there is still the problem with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh and the Armenian-occupied areas of the country, a problem which needs to be resolved before it is too late.
<P>
All too often problems have been put off and put off until they become completely intractable, as could well soon be the case in Bosnia.
You only have to watch what is happening in Kosovo.
Azerbaijan is also important to us for other reasons.
It is a country with enormous economic potential, and even if its problems have meant that its economy has not developed as it should - the farming sector in particular leaves a lot to be desired - it still remains of considerable importance to us in the long term.
<P>
There is another reason why Azerbaijan is of interest to us: its close relations with Turkey.
When I visited Atatürk's mausoleum there was a book in which visiting heads of state could write their thoughts, and Azerbaijan's president had written 'Atatürk, your Turks are back'.
This was when the Soviet system collapsed, and it shows how important Turkey is in the region and how vital it is to cooperate with Turkey, yet we keep doing all sorts of things that prevent us from cooperating, which is politically very short-sighted.
<P>
The tension between Iran and Afghanistan shows the sort of long-term risks that we need to prevent from arising in the first place, because once things have started it is too late to turn the clock back.
This is why I believe we need to recognise the importance of Azerbaijan.
The negotiations that we have allowed to drag on and all these little details that may help to solve small issues fail to get to grips with the main problem.
Our overall relations with this whole area are symptomatic of enormous weakness, are causing major irritation and are simply further proof of the need to make rapid progress in this field.
Although it is only one small step, I should nevertheless like to offer my warmest thanks to Mr Schwaiger for his report, and I can only hope that his dynamism will help to ensure that considerable further progress is made in relations with Azerbaijan.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Flynn">
I too should like to join with the Members in thanking Mr Schwaiger for his report on the interim agreement with Azerbaijan.
We especially welcome the positive view of the need to deepen our relations with that country.
<P>
The interim agreement is the first overall agreement between the European Union and Azerbaijan.
It will provide us with an important platform to regulate and consult with Azerbaijan on all trade and trade-related matters.
Azerbaijan is an important strategic partner for us due to its geographical location and its significant petroleum resources.
Mr von Habsburg's point is well-taken here.
<P>
Azerbaijan is expected in the coming years to realise its potential as a major energy producer and as a transit point for trade passing between Europe and Central Asia.
Our bilateral trade last year rose by 59 %, albeit from a low base, with a significant surplus in the EC's favour.
<P>
The interim agreement will help to set the right conditions for EC companies to compete in Azerbaijan.
European companies need to work hard in order to maintain their economic presence there given the keen competition from the United States, Turkey, and Far Eastern and other Asian countries.
This competition will increase even further once oil exports increase to their full potential.
<P>
The EC is also a major donor to Azerbaijan.
At the end of last year we had allocated more than ECU 220 million to Azerbaijan, not including important TACIS regional cooperation projects, for which Azerbaijan is a key player.
<P>
The Commission is proposing to provide Azerbaijan with financial assistance to help with social reconstruction.
As you are aware, the proposal is currently under discussion in the European Parliament.
This report is of great importance to Azerbaijan.
Currently the country is facing a very difficult economic situation, with 70 % of the population on or below the poverty line.
As a result of low oil prices, revenue from the oil sector has been reduced.
The country is unlikely to become a major oil exporter for at least another five years.
<P>
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has been referred to and it has made the economic situation in Azerbaijan even more difficult.
About 20 % of the country is occupied by Nagorno-Karabakh Armenian forces.
Furthermore, the country has to support nearly one million refugees and internally displaced persons.
However, the governments of both Armenia and Azerbaijan have recently made some conciliatory statements, in particular in the margins of the Baku Transport Conference, to which Armenia was specifically invited at the Commission's request.
<P>
The European Union supports the resumption of negotiations in the OSCE Minsk Group.
An essential part of the Union's policy towards Azerbaijan is the promotion of human rights, which was referred to by Mr Wolf.
We are also concerned about democratisation and securing peace and political stability in this region.
<P>
The Azeri authorities are well aware that we consider democratisation to be an essential element of our partnership.
Commissioner van den Broek made this very clear to President Aliyev when they met in Baku last June.
Though the interim agreement is, formally speaking, a trade agreement, it has become standard practice to discuss human rights issues at joint committee meetings.
Furthermore, the agreement contains a clause which allows for its suspension in case of significant deterioration of democracy and of human rights.
<P>
The partnership and cooperation agreement - the PCA - formally provides for dialogue on these issues and includes certain commitments to democracy.
The Commission is monitoring progress on these issues and has offered to assist Azerbaijan's transition towards democracy through the democracy programme and the TACIS action programmes.
We are liaising with the OSCE and the Council of Europe on these issues.
I thank the House for its indulgence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Flynn.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Ford">
Mr President, on a point of order.
I thank Parliament's staff for their contribution towards Members' fitness.
On the basis of the length of time between ringing the bell and voting I think we all need the gym.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Ford.
I will pass that comment on.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, after the votes we are always shown how Members have voted.
It is extremely important for us to be able to tell journalists and members of the public what the majority was.
However, the results of the votes are usually shown so quickly that there is no time to write them down.
I would therefore ask you to show the results for longer so that people have time to write them down.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="President">
Thank you Mr Rübig.
We will bear your comments in mind and endeavour to proceed at a pace you feel is appropriate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, I have another technical question.
My office is in IPE I and it was fortunate that I was keeping an eye on the monitor because the bell is not working there at the moment.
It would be a good idea if all the parts of the building where Members have their offices could be checked in the two weeks before the next sitting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Van Dam.
I have noted that and will ensure that this occurs.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="President">
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 10.44 a.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 18 September 1998.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Order of business
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
The next item is the order of business.
<P>
The final version of the draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents pursuant to Rule 95 of the Rules of Procedure has been distributed.
<P>
(The order of business was adopted without amendment)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Mrs van Bladel has the floor on a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, my point of order relates to Rule 42(5).
On 3 August, I put a priority written question to the Commission on the threat of war in Angola.
Officially, one has to allow three weeks for a reply.
Now 70 members of the opposition have been suspended and last Friday there was an armed attack on the leader of the opposition, Chivu Kuvuku, who survived this attack as he survived the earlier one in 1992.
Now that members of parliament are under attack in Luanda, I think it is time this House made its voice heard in protest.
I read in the Portuguese press that the Mayor of Lisbon is doing everything possible to protect the lives of these opposition leaders.
<P>
On behalf of us as Members of Parliament, Mr President, I would urge you to register a protest with the government and above all to ask the Commission for a reply to my question.
Thank you for giving me the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
I have made a note of your priority question.
We will look into the matter and try to answer it as soon as possible.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Waiver of Mr Le Pen's immunity
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0317/98) by Mr Wibe, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on the request for the waiver of Mr Jean-Marie Le Pen's immunity.
<P>
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Forgive me, Mr President, but Mr Wibe's report makes no mention of the result of the vote held in the Committee on the Rules of Procedure.
Even though a roll-call vote was requested, I believe unanimously, by the committee members present.
I would like to ask why there is no mention of this in the report.
Why does this roll-call vote which, by definition, shows how each individual has voted, not feature in Mr Wibe's report?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
I shall give the floor to the chairman of the committee in a moment.
I would remind you that, on issues of immunity, the decisions of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, Verification of Credentials and Immunities are taken in camera, so there is no question of anything being revealed until the report is published.
<P>
Mr Fayot has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="Fayot">
Mr President, a roll-call vote was indeed requested on Mr Wibe's report, and the vote was held in camera.
This request was backed by the requisite number of committee members as specified in the Rules of Procedure.
So a roll-call vote was held, the result of which is shown in the report, that is to say the exact number of honourable Members voting for, against or abstaining.
I do not see that it is necessary to give the names of those who took part in this roll-call vote.
What matters is publishing the result, and I do not see anything in the Rules of Procedure which says we are obliged to include in the report the names of those who voted.
That is how I see it, and I think we can move on now to the debate on Mr Wibe's report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
Yes indeed.
I would also say to Mr Fabre-Aubrespy that the result of the roll-call vote is given in the minutes of the Rules Committee meeting.
Any member of the committee can consult these minutes and find out the result.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="Wibe">
Mr President, this report was drawn up after the Munich Public Prosecutor's Office requested the waiver of the immunity of Mr Jean-Marie Le Pen.
The request related to a statement allegedly made by Mr Le Pen at a press conference in December 1997.
<P>
Parliament has two sets of provisions to consider when deciding on whether to waive a Member's immunity.
Firstly, its Rules of Procedure, which lay down the formal steps we should follow.
Secondly, the 1965 Protocol on the Privileges and Immunitites of the European Communities, which covers the substantive issue, i.e. the scope of immunity.
<P>
The committee put a great deal of work into ensuring proper application of procedures.
We checked that the Munich Public Prosecutor' Office did indeed enjoy competence under German law to make the application and that its request had been correctly handled by the Ministry of Justice.
Mr Le Pen was allowed to put his case before the committee and the matter was then discussed and voted upon.
I can assure Members of this House that the correct formalities were observed.
<P>
As to the substance of the case, the key point is that it is not for us to take a position on Mr Le Pen's guilt or innocence.
Whether or not he said what he is alleged to have said, using the actual words claimed, is irrelevant to our decision.
Neither does it matter that the provision in German law under which he is charged has no counterpart in other countries; nor whether such legislation is unreasonable.
We are not concerned with the harshness or otherwise of the sentence that could be handed down.
All that we are being asked to do is to say whether our immunity provisions offer protection in respect of the count on which the charge is made.
There is one exception only to this general rule, Mr President: if one of our Members is patently the subject of political persecution.
Had Mr Le Pen been in Argentina and not where it is alleged he was at the time claimed, then we could justifiably speak of persecution - and we would not pursue the application.
Yet it is quite clear that we have reasonable grounds to suspect that Mr Le Pen did in fact make the statement attributed to him.
<P>
There is one special circumstance, however. Mr Le Pen is alleged to have uttered the incriminating words in Germany, whereas he is a French citizen.
Article 10 of the Protocol on the Privileges and Immunities of the European Communities does indeed say that, during the sessions of the European Parliament, Members shall enjoy immunity in the territory of other Member States.
Yet this clearly cannot be intended to mean that Members of this House shall benefit from blanket immunity if they commit criminal offences in another EU country.
Consider the extreme-case scenario of one of our colleagues being charged with murder in another Member State.
Of course we would waive immunity under those circumstances.
<P>
The real essence of our immunity provisions is expressed by Article 9 of the Protocol, which reads: 'Members of the European Parliament shall not be subject to any form of inquiry, detention or legal proceedings in respect of opinions expressed or votes cast by them ...' - and now comes the decisive part - ' ... in the performance of their duties'.
Immunity is not a special privilege granted to us MEPs as individuals; it exists to protect the work we do in the exercise of our parliamentary mandate.
<P>
Mr President, the final question is whether Mr Le Pen was in fact performing his duties as a Member of this House when he made this alleged statement at a press conference.
My view, and that of the committee as a whole, is that the press conference was in effect a commercial book launch.
Therefore it had nothing to do with Mr Le Pen's mandate as a Member of the European Parliament.
And for that straightforward reason, we should vote here today to waive his immunity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rothley">
Mr President, the Group of the Party of European Socialists recommends adopting the report and waiving Mr Le Pen's immunity.
He called the gas chambers a detail of history. That is a crime under German law.
If Parliament lifts his immunity he will be charged.
He will be summoned before the court and if he does not obey this summons he will be arrested if he ever enters the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany again.
<P>
Under German law it is a crime to deny Auschwitz or to minimise it.
The purpose of German law is to protect the truth, including the truth about the most terrible epoch of our history!
We must look this horror in the eye.
That is the only way to make sure it never happens again.
That is why German criminal law makes this a punishable crime.
The truth alone can free us, and when we fight against people like Mr Le Pen we are fighting for our own future.
<P>
It is not true that this criminal law restricts freedom of expression.
This historical truth is a legally established right that must be protected and it is a universal law.
Nor is it true that it restricts freedom of research.
Over recent years - and I do not want to comment further on this - we have witnessed a long-standing dispute between historians.
This law does not curtail freedom of research either.
What we are most concerned with is protecting young people against the falsifiers of history and the political rabble-rousers.
I am very glad that the far right failed to get in at the recent Bundestag elections in the Federal Republic of Germany.
<P>
That is a sign of the maturity of our democracy and it makes me proud of our country!
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Donnelly, Brendan">
Mr President, I should like to begin by repeating a distinction made by Mr Wibe which is quite crucial.
There are two questions.
Firstly, is Mr Le Pen guilty under German law of the crime of which he is accused?
Secondly, should his immunity be lifted in such a way that he can face a German court.
<P>
The Rules of Procedure rightly make clear that it is not up to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities to come to a view on the first question.
I myself think that Mr Le Pen has a number of factual and legal arguments which no doubt he will wish to deploy before the German court.
On the other hand, I do not see here any fumus persecutionis .
I am persuaded that any German citizen - or come to that any French or Venezuelan citizen - would have been called upon to answer before the German courts in the same way as Mr Le Pen.
<P>
The second question, which is the one we have to decide here, is whether we should prevent Mr Le Pen being able, and indeed being forced under German law, to give an account of what he said and what he did before a German court.
Here it is important to bear in mind the reasoning behind the existence of the immunity.
I agree with Mr Wibe that this case falls within the cases where the European Parliament has a margin of discretion.
<P>
It is not obligatory to maintain Mr Le Pen's immunity.
We must look at the facts and situation that presents itself to us.
Here we have to bear in mind as a crucial component in our reasoning that a democratic society has decided that there will be a law that makes the public denial or minimization of the holocaust a crime.
That is something we might have different opinions as to the desirability of.
<P>
I would remark in passing that there is no country in the world where freedom of expression is absolute.
Questions of confidentiality, slander or libel are always relevant.
But, democratically, Germany, learning from its history, has decided that there should be a law about the denial of the holocaust.
If we are to say that the fact that someone is a Member of the European Parliament exempts him from this particular law in Germany, to which everyone else in Germany will be subject, we would be doing the European Parliament no service at all.
<P>
It is for that reason and not because of any sympathy or lack of sympathy towards Mr Le Pen that we in the EPP accept the Wibe report in its technical and legal analysis and we will be voting for it tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Nordmann">
Mr President, on behalf of the Liberal Group I endorse Mr Wibe's report for a number of reasons.
<P>
Firstly, why should we be surprised that the Federal Republic of Germany should want to take action on things which French justice has already condemned?
It is not as if Mr Le Pen has said anything new.
His mantra-like insistence on the word 'detail', his persistent use of it à propos of the Holocaust, reflect an obvious desire to provoke, even though that desire is glossed over with half-hearted expressions of token regret.
<P>
Secondly, we regard it as particularly healthy for Germany to have this law which makes it a crime to deny and play down the importance of the Holocaust.
We are very keen that German justice should deal with all manifestations of this kind, and specifically the scandalous statements made recently by the doctor who survived Auschwitz.
<P>
Lastly, I should say that we were particularly angered to see Mr Le Pen being defended in the Rules Committee by a Member close to him who repeated, insistently, the revisionist insinuations around which today's debate revolves.
<P>
The debate within the Committee on the Rules of Procedure shows that this is no accidental turn of phrase but a campaign which has been pursued over many years already in an attempt, by quibbling over words and figures, to minimise what is still the most appalling crime of the twentieth century.
<P>
It is for this reason, over and above the fact that Mr Wibe's legal analysis is excellent, that the Liberals are in favour of waiving Mr Le Pen's immunity - and they are not alone in this - given that such a step is not a prejudgment but will allow the case to be heard, and heard in the right place.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities decided by a large majority to waive Mr Le Pen's immunity, as I think we in Parliament are also about to do.
It neither judged him nor condemned him.
In reaching its decision it concluded after prolonged debate, in the presence of Mr Le Pen and colleagues of his who were there to support him, that the legitimate procedure had been complied with in every respect and that no breach of the basic rule establishing parliamentary immunity had taken place, so that the Member was free to carry out his duties while at the same time the institution of Parliament was not being undermined.
It merely gave the green light to enable disciplinary proceedings to take place, and that is when it will be ascertained whether or not he is guilty of the injustice for which he is being denounced.
<P>
Mr President, the action of which he is accused is rather similar to money laundering.
It is an attempt to whitewash Nazi-like crimes, and not just the holocaust of the Jews but holocausts all over Europe; in my own country, many places, many villages have suffered that holocaust.
Great care must therefore be devoted to ensuring that these crimes are not whitewashed and that there is no repetition of appalling deeds such as those which took place under the rule of Nazism.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my group has always advocated great caution in regard to waiving the immunity of Members because of the need to protect this Parliament's freedom of expression and powers of control.
The reason I will be voting for the waiver of Mr Le Pen's immunity tomorrow is not because his statements may not be compatible with the exercise of his office.
I am sorry the committee had to resort to that kind of formal decision which, in any case, seems very far-fetched.
<P>
The reason I will vote in favour of lifting his immunity is because I would find it intolerable and shameful if this European Parliament protected a Member from being prosecuted for minimising the Holocaust, mocking the surviving victims and insulting the dead, and because I do not believe that this Parliament has any right to allow one of its Members to mock and insult the millions of people who died as a result of this ultimate crime.
If the phrase 'nip it in the bud!' is not to become mere empty words, we cannot grant this kind of Member immunity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I wish first and foremost to point out that the majority of my colleagues in the Group of the European Radical Alliance will be voting tomorrow in favour of lifting Jean-Marie Le Pen's immunity.
<P>
Personally, however, I am not convinced that this is the best way of opposing Jean-Marie Le Pen's views, and I am therefore expressing the minority view of my group.
It should not come as a surprise that the leader of a party founded on intolerance should seek confrontation over the freedom of expression enshrined in our democratic system.
He practises intolerance, and he wishes us to respond with equal intolerance, so that he can go to court in Germany and carry on hitting the headlines for weeks if not months with those remarks, those appalling words which he uttered repeatedly last year.
This, however, is dangerous ground.
Years ago, the Committee on the Rules of Procedure refrained from voting in a similar case concerning the waiver of Mr Le Pen's immunity, for the very reason that it thought such a vote might not only be manipulated by him but would also infringe that very principle of freedom of expression which Mr Le Pen - through his intolerant views - would have us remove, resulting in a head-on clash between two opposing forms of intolerance.
So all eyes will be on tomorrow's vote.
This - I repeat - is the minority position of my group, but I did wish to voice it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="President">
I give the floor to Mr Le Pen for three minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Le Pen">
Five minutes, Mr President!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="President">
No, Mr Le Pen, you have three minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Le Pen">
You could just shoot me without a hearing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="President">
You have the floor, Mr Le Pen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Le Pen">
Ladies and gentlemen, in considering this request for the waiving of my parliamentary immunity, which the German public prosecutor's office in Munich has initiated and which the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities is asking you by a majority to grant, you should ask yourselves just one question, irrespective of all other partisan considerations: was our colleague Le Pen entitled to express an opinion on the gas chambers, and not on the Holocaust as you said?
<P>
As a citizen he, like any other citizen, is guaranteed this freedom of thought and expression by our democratic constitutions.
Implicit in that is the refusal to impose truths born of dogma, the refusal to accept just one way of thinking and the rejection of ready-made ideas.
In the case of a Member of Parliament this applies even more forcefully, and for this reason you should overwhelmingly reject this request for a waiver because immunity is there not to protect the person of the Member of Parliament but to protect freedom, his freedom to think, his freedom to have his own views.
Parliaments are only legitimate if their members are free, and this political freedom is indivisible.
It is not my parliamentary immunity which I am defending, but the immunity of my function, and thus of yours too.
<P>
But if you want to push this and prejudge, you must ask yourselves one simple question.
In what way can this statement 'the gas chambers were a detail in the history of the Second World War', which I made at a press conference in reply to a journalist's question, constitute a crime of denial?
The phrase in question does not deny anything.
I did not deny the existence of the gas chambers, nor did I play down their significance.
And the word 'detail', in French at least, carries no such connotation.
A detail can be anodyne, but it can also be essential.
In the event the text was falsified by the Munich public prosecutor who added the word 'anodyne' and the word 'mere'.
That prosecutor lied!
<P>
No one can deny that a whole is made up of details.
To illustrate that formula I said 'In a thousand-page history of World War Two there are on average two pages on the deportation of the Jews and a few lines on the gas chambers'.
That is a detail.
There is nothing dismissive in a statement of that kind.
I added that if my words had been construed in ways which caused distress to people of sincere beliefs, then I was sorry, because I respect the dead and the sufferings of the living.
<P>
There is no mention of the subject, even in the war memoirs of Churchill, De Gaulle and Eisenhower.
Millions were killed in the great battles of the war.
And civilians were killed in the aerial bombardments too.
These events are details of World War Two.
Like so many millions of Europeans, I too am a victim of that war.
It ruined my family and my father died, blown up by a German mine.
The first real ordeal of my life was when, at the age of fourteen, I had to go with my mother to identify his body on the beach where he fell, with no eyes, no nose, his mouth full of sand and his shapeless corpse knotted in a tarpaulin.
So I find it personally shocking and hurtful, 55 years after the war, to be summoned before a German court which falsified my words in order to make them part of its charges against me.
This mendacious procedure is a scandal.
<P>
Mr President, I would ask you to quote from the judgment of the Court of Human Rights.
I would add...
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="President">
Mr Le Pen, I gave you three minutes.
You have now spoken for four minutes and thirty-five seconds.
<P>
(Protests from Mr Le Pen) The Group of Non-attached Members could have given you whatever time it wished.
It chose instead to give its time to Mr Gollnisch.
That was their decision.
Mr Gollnisch will have...
<P>
(Interruption from Mr Le Pen: 'What about the judgment by the Court of Human Rights!') We are not dealing with the judgment by the Court of Human Rights here today.
You were able to state your case freely before the committee responsible.
<P>
I gave you three minutes which were not ...
<P>
(Protests from Mr Le Pen) Please listen to what I am saying.
<P>
I was asked to give you some speaking time so that you could state your case in the House.
With the agreement of your group, I gave you three minutes.
It has happened, in other similar cases, that Members have been given time by their group.
The non-attached Members chose instead to give their time, all six minutes of it, to Mr Gollnisch.
That is their decision.
I gave you three minutes.
When Mr Gollnisch comes to speak, I shall give him the six minutes which he could have given you before, but which he cannot give you now.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Duhamel">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it goes against the grain for a democrat to request the waiving of a Member of Parliament's immunity, particularly when the request is motivated by things that have been said, by a speech.
Because freedom of expression is one of the fundamental principles of democracy and restriction of that freedom really must be the exception to the rule.
<P>
The European Parliament has twice upheld the immunity of our friend Mr Le Pen, despite the antipathy he arouses here, in anyone who is a democrat.
This is particularly disagreeable since one might have hoped, nearly 60 years after the Shoah, that no popularly elected representative could possibly question the barbarity of the acts committed at that time.
<P>
But friend Le Pen cannot help himself.
Anti-Semitism is his passion, denial of the Holocaust his joy.
To his inhuman way of thinking the death of a Jewish child, gassed for being born a Jew, is comparable to the death of a soldier in battle.
And he cannot even see that the arithmetic is against him.
This House was obliged to waive his immunity first on 11 December 1989, for his reference to 'Durafour crématoire ' - a nasty pun in French - and for a second time on 12 March 1990, for his attacks on world Jewry.
<P>
The French courts have on several occasions censured friend Le Pen for his vicious and racist statements.
Freedom of expression does not include the freedom to make racist remarks.
For this reason a French socialist and democrat takes comfort today in responding to the request of a German judge.
The National Front's claim that Mr Le Pen is a victim of political opprobrium, of political manipulation on the part of French justice in an attempt to wreck his electoral chances, does not hold water.
There was something particularly despicable in repeating the word 'detail' in Munich, surrounded by former Waffen-SS.
There is something particularly pleasing in acceding to the German judge's request so that a case can be brought.
I see in this a clear sign of this European conscience which we are developing, born of the European democracy which we are working to build.
<P>
To conclude, the European Socialists will take great pleasure ...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off.)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Gollnisch">
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, Mr Gollnisch made a fair impression of synthetic indignation in implying that, as it were, this Parliament is engaged in persecuting Mr Le Pen.
<P>
I should like to recall the facts: the waiver of Mr Le Pen's immunity has been requested on five or six occasions in this session of Parliament and, in fact, on several occasions Parliament has decided that the case did not merit his immunity being waived.
If we were engaged in a programme of persecution against Mr Le Pen, this seems to suggest that we are doing it rather ineffectively.
<P>
The issue is not one of whether Mr Le Pen is guilty or innocent, it is really whether there is a well-founded case for which a German MP would have faced prosecution.
Certainly, there are plenty of indications that Mr Le Pen holds a view very close to the one he is accused of repeating in Germany.
He said in France on a number of occasions that the holocaust is a point of detail of history, as he admits himself.
He has on at least one occasion ...
<P>
(Heckling from the French non-attached Members: 'Vous mentez! c'est faux!') said that the Americans built the gas chambers in the Buchenwald concentration camp after the War.
His statement was printed in Globe magazine in France.
He has not sued the magazine, so one can only presume that he accepts that their portrayal is accurate.
<P>
On that basis it is a well-founded case; it is one where a German would have faced prosecution.
So it seems to us that it is fair and proper to allow Mr Le Pen to face the people making the allegations.
<P>
As Mr Donnelly said, Mr Le Pen claimed in the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities that it was not an accurate report.
That is not a matter for Parliament or the Rules Committee to judge, it is for the Court in Munich to judge.
I look forward to the case being held.
<P>
Mr Gollnisch talks about the massacre in Katyn forest.
As far as I am aware, German legislation does not cover that particular area.
If it did, he is right, this would be a matter for the German courts to decide and not us.
<P>
I am delighted that Mr Le Pen is now in favour of freedom of speech.
He has certainly made progress over the last couple of years.
When I went to Marseilles with a Committee on Racism, in order to hold a press conference I needed French riot police, barricades and teargas because the Front national decided it did not want me to speak to the press in Marseilles.
So I welcome Mr Le Pen's change of heart.
I look forward on a future occasion to going to Marseilles without the accompaniment of the French riot police and the Front national !
<P>
(Heckling from the French non-attached Members: 'Vous mentez! c'est faux!')
My question is: why is such legislation not more common across the European Union?
I hope that some of the Member States recognise that maybe they could do with holocaust denial legislation as well.
<P>
Finally, I welcome the fact that the extreme right has requested a roll call vote.
It will certainly keep Mr Bruno Mégret in line, supporting his leader in a way he does not normally do.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Drugs
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="President">
The next item is the second report (A4-0211/98) by Mrs d'Ancona, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament with a view to establishing a common European Union platform for the special session of the UN General Assembly on international cooperation in the fight against drugs (COM(97)0670 - C4-0113/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="D'Ancona">
Mr President, the report on European cooperation on drugs policy was placed on the agenda for this plenary some months ago.
We asked you then to refer it back to the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs because I as the rapporteur hoped that a reopening of the debate might enable the differing views on the matter to be reconciled.
To a large extent, Mr President, they have been.
The report has been reworked in such a way that it provides a balance between the two approaches to the drugs problem which exist in our Member States, notably the moral-legal approach and the so-called medical approach.
The moral-legal approach wants to achieve a society free of drugs, while the medical approach acknowledges that there has always been drug abuse but seeks solutions which will minimise the risks, for example prescribing methadone or handing out fresh needles to prevent infection with HIV.
<P>
A balance between these two points of view means that harmonised measures are not possible because each Member State believes in its own policy, but you can combine the positive results of both approaches.
Consequently, as rapporteur for the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, I recommend among other things that more and better research should be done into the effects of different policies on drugs by the Monitoring Centre for Drugs in Lisbon.
We are very pleased that this Centre is gaining more and more expertise and that the search for indicators has produced positive results.
<P>
But the report calls not only for research results, but also for the pooling of practical experience by those who work with problem drug users and for cooperation, especially in border areas.
We are sympathetic to the idea of important initiatives at local and regional level because it is here that there is often the best understanding of how one should respond to specific problems.
For this reason, Parliament and the Commission too have already organised a number of successful conferences on this matter.
I would ask the Commissioner to think about how we can follow this up, because it really was extremely useful.
<P>
Mr President, my efforts to strike a balance between differing points of view inevitably meant that once again a large number of amendments were put down.
It goes without saying that those who believe in one way only are disappointed by a middle way which tries to combine the positive effects of a range of policies on drugs.
If you really think that 'this is the only way', a middle way seems weak.
So there are many amendments, some of them from those who want a far more liberal approach, and others from those who see every drug user as a problem user necessitating legislative and other measures.
<P>
I oppose these amendments, Mr President, because they upset the hard-won balance in the resolution.
Only a few, two from the Socialists and three from the Christian Democrats, do not do that, and I thus commend them to the House.
<P>
The report seeks to make it clear that it must be possible to transcend existing differences and work together where it is helpful and necessary to do so, because if we want to put an end to the drugs problem and the crime which goes with it, we must be prepared to acknowledge that no one, no single Member State, has all the answers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Andersson">
I in turn would like to thank the rapporteur for her report.
It is no secret that she and I have highly diverging opinions when it comes to how to tackle the drugs problem.
But comparing the text we have in front of us today with the one tabled in January, I too must concede that it looks very different - and the changes are certainly for the better from my point of view.
<P>
Let me cite two of these improvements.
The report now states expressly that we must endeavour to honour the international conventions we have signed - and so we should.
Secondly, the difficult - but patently necessary - policy goal of a drug-free society is acknowledged.
<P>
Some minor flaws do nonetheless remain and I have put down a few amendments, two of which I should like to mention here.
One is to recommendation 12, which deals with harm reduction projects.
I am not against evaluating these; on the contrary, the results need to be assessed. What I would like to see, however, are some comparative studies.
We need to know how a strategy such as that followed in Switzerland actually fares when the results are set alongside those of different policies implemented in other countries. We can then form an opinion as to where the strong points of the various approaches lie.
<P>
As for harm reduction, I have no objections per se - although I would like to see some of the references to it removed from the report.
What I do not want to see is harm reduction elevated to the status of our paramount objective.
That must never be allowed to happen.
The paramount objective of drugs policy must be to stop people in general, and the young in particular, from ever starting to use drugs.
That is what narcotics policy is all about.
<P>
A sound anti-drugs strategy should be based on an approach comprising preventive action, control measures, provision of proper care and treatment, plus coordinated work at international level.
Of these four integral elements, preventive action is the most important.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="Stewart-Clark, Sir Jack">
Mr President, Mrs d'Ancona's new report is a compromise document but nonetheless puts forward many sensible, pragmatic suggestions which the great majority can support and which I recommend to the Commission and Council to heed.
<P>
Our main objective has to be to keep as many young people as possible from becoming slaves to drugs.
This means practical cooperation and the ability to learn from one another.
In many respects we have come a long way compared to ten years ago.
The drugs monitoring centre in Lisbon has been set up and Europol, official this week, is now up and running but has a long way to go.
<P>
The monitoring centre can only work effectively if national information gathering and supplying agencies are properly funded and if statistics are supplied on a common basis.
Europol can only do a proper job if it is able to analyse, as well as exchange information, on drug trafficking.
<P>
In both cases the aim must be to establish what methods in countering drugs are working and what are not; what monies are well spent and what are wasted.
The Dutch and the Swedish have very different drug policies but surely no one should query that both would be in a much stronger position if they had objective information available which shows what parts of their policies are successful and what can be bettered.
<P>
There are many common questions: which youngsters are most at risk from drugs?
How best do we get to them?
How best do we educate them not to take drugs or rehabilitate them if they are taking drugs?
These questions must be answered.
<P>
We are also in need of imaginative new schemes for keeping young people out of trouble and helping addicts back to a normal life.
This requires, in many cases, both a national and local approach.
My good friend, Hubert Pirker will no doubt talk about drug-free schools.
I believe that we should be embarking upon a concerted TV advertising campaign across the whole of the European Community.
We need to think about a network of youth clubs across the Community to help keep young people out of trouble and to stop that gap between the time they leave school and their parents come home.
<P>
We need to do much more with therapeutic rehabilitation.
We need the help of local communities working together to give leverage to what is being done at top level and that is why this report gives so much emphasis to work at urban and local level.
<P>
To conclude, the main objective must be to provide a balanced and objective anti-drug policy backed up by sufficient funding to make these worthwhile.
I hope the Commissioner will agree with what I have said and that we can expect a positive response from her.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wiebenga">
Mr President, Mrs d'Ancona's report is of course a bit like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted, and that is just as well.
To start with the plan was that we should take part in the United Nations conference on drugs in June, and happily we did not do so.
The initial thrust, after all, was that the criminalisation of drug use should no longer be a central issue.
A kind of legalisation was mooted together, with the possibility of obtaining heroin on a doctor's prescription.
This approach was far too controversial and would only have been counterproductive, so referral back was the safest course for us to adopt here in the January part-session.
<P>
The second version of this report, which we have before us now, is more balanced.
There is less to object to in it.
It is disappointing, as Mrs d'Ancona says, that the time is not yet ripe for policy on drugs in Europe to be properly harmonised, because there is much to be said for that.
As long as differences in approach persist, Member States will suffer as a result.
The Netherlands has had a great deal of trouble with drugs tourism as a result of its excessively tolerant policy and other countries in turn have suffered as a result of the Dutch policy.
So cooperation has to be the name of the game.
<P>
What form should it take?
Action in three areas.
Briefly these are prevention, treatment andcontrol.
<P>
Lastly, European cooperation is essential for those who advocate legalising soft drugs, cannabis too, because if we legalise them we have to opt out of the existing UN conventions and that can only be done at a European level.
That is for the long term.
For the short term, I think we have to work towards a low level of drug use in society.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="Andrews">
Mr President, this report, by my good friend Mrs d'Ancona, has both positive and negative aspects.
The positive is the clear objective stated in Recommendation 11 that the aim of anti-drug efforts is a drug-free society.
This is fully in line with point 12 of the political declaration adopted by the UN General Assembly last June, which also calls for the active promotion of a society free of drug abuse.
We would view any change in this objective as a reason for voting against the report.
Nowhere in the UN political declaration is there a reference to support for 'harm reduction' policies.
Such policies leave the addicts addicted.
Harm reduction is the thin edge of the wedge leading to legalisation.
<P>
The United States report suggests that legalisation there would lead to around a 100 % increase in heroin consumption and around a 50 % increase in that of cocaine.
<P>
Last June 150 countries adopted a global UN strategy to tackle the worldwide drug problem.
The political declaration they adopted requires governments to implement new strategies and programmes to reduce drug demand, and new laws to counter money laundering by 2003.
The report commissioned for the June conference warned that the international financial system has become a money launderer's dream, processing a large part of the estimated $200 billion worth of drugs money every year.
Every means possible, including confiscation of assets, which we introduced in Ireland, must be part and parcel of an internationally agreed strategy.
We fully endorse the concerns expressed by the UN declaration.
In particular we highlight the view that drugs destroy lives and communities.
<P>
Our group will have to decide tomorrow on this report, on the basis of what amendments are passed by the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pailler">
Mr President, drug addiction is a real challenge to civilisation today.
More specifically, it is increasingly the young who are becoming addicted, at an ever earlier age, and the more precarious their lifestyle the greater their dependency.
And the free movement of goods and capital is a veritable gift to the drug traffickers.
So far, fine words by the UN or Europe on the war against drugs and all policies based on outright suppression of drugs at all costs have proved ineffective.
<P>
Faced with so vast and so complex a problem we cannot simply chant slogans or recommend middle ways.
On the contrary, we must not shrink from opening up scope for further debate, experience and proposals which will point us down new and realistic roads.
<P>
Mrs d'Ancona's first report was consistent with this approach, but it was too much for some in this House, who preferred to hide behind the walls of their conviction.
The second attempt has smoothed off the rough edges and simply gone along with the US conventions.
The consensus rule, a veritable disease of old age in this House, has once again prevailed and we end up with the noble objective that 'the aim of anti-drugs efforts is a drug-free society.'
You don't say!
<P>
Extend this theory to all areas of society and we shall have this, for example: 'the aim of the fight against violence is a non-violent society', or 'the aim of the fight against stupidity is a society without imbeciles'.
Brilliant!
You will agree with me that there is still a long way to go.
<P>
But the report acknowledges the need for an independent, scientific, objective and rigorous study of the US conventions on drugs, to update and complete them.
A study of this kind must draw on the views and suggestions of people on the ground; it must be conducted with no holds barred and with a political courage which is all too often lacking.
<P>
For my part, I have three specific suggestions.
First and foremost, we must abandon laws which punish the user as severely as the trafficker and we must move resolutely towards decriminalising drug use.
We must give priority to preventing the risks, by strengthening structures for counselling and treatment and not forgetting the related social issues.
<P>
And we must step up the fight against the big international traffickers by greater international cooperation and by doing away with tax havens, which only serve as centres for laundering the proceeds of drug and other illegal trafficking or allow speculators to avoid taxation.
<P>
Finally, if the objective truly is to combat drugs, public health and education budgets must be increased to meet the challenge.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Lagendijk">
Mr President, I can be brief in commenting on Mrs d'Ancona's recommendations.
In some respects these are very good, for example the wide-angled approach and the fact that there is scope for local and regional experiments.
In a number of other respects, and regrettably there are many of them, it is very obviously a compromise compared with the draft recommendation of 1996, as Mrs d'Ancona herself admits.
<P>
I hope that this debate and subsequent debates will persuade both those for and against to abandon their ideologically entrenched positions, because otherwise this debate in Parliament is likely to become an exercise in repetition.
We believe the debate is important with a view to local and regional experiments.
I am convinced that the answers to future policy on drugs will be found in all those towns and villages, not only in the Netherlands but in Europe as a whole, where people are looking for careful and controlled solutions to the problems which we all acknowledge.
The solution will come from the bottom up, not at European level and not at national level, but as a result of these local and regional experiments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, my apologies to our rapporteur, who is a well-loved member of the House.
There are some interesting things in her report, but also things which are unacceptable.
As Mrs Pailler said, there are references to a 'drug-free society', which is absurd.
There is also the fact that these interesting things tackle a marginal facet of the drugs problem but not the root of the problem, namely the reality that this huge trade accounts for 8 % of world GDP; there is the power of this international mafia which is corrupting our police forces, our magistrates, our journalists, our economies, by pouring dirty money into sectors of the economy which are healthy.
There is all that, and on all that the report says nothing.
<P>
This House is not prepared to face up to reality.
The international conventions of the United Nations have been in existence for thirty years and for thirty years, year on year, we have seen a rise in the consumption of drugs. Mr Andrews made the point that this year alone there has been a recorded increase of 50 % in heroin use, and so it goes on.
The European Parliament does not want to know about all that.
We are hiding behind an absurdity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, an attempt to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted, that is how Mr Wiebenga described the proposal for a recommendation we are debating today, and he is right.
The UNGASS Special Session took place last spring, so one wonders at whom the recommendations of this report are in fact targeted.
<P>
More important still: what exactly is the recommendation recommending?
It seems to me to be pretty neutral stuff.
To my mind a few changes are needed here and there, as proposed by Mrs Lindholm and the PPE Group.
But even so I wonder what the point of the report is.
No new views are put forward.
The recommendations are not actually directed at anyone in particular.
It is apparent, from the large number of amendments which have been put down, that other people are dissatisfied too.
<P>
In short, all this report does is cause irritation, and I think it was pointless putting it before the House again.
<P>
Another point of irritation is part B, the explanatory statement contained in the d'Ancona report.
Now that the recommendations have been drastically altered, the explanatory statement makes no sense.
It seems to me obvious that it has to be revised.
The majority of Parliament seems not to share Mrs d'Ancona's political view.
It seems to me that she can draw her conclusions from that.
<P>
What Mrs d'Ancona said just now about the legal-moral approach as opposed to the medical approach seems to me to be a false comparison which clouds the issue.
The experience of delinquents who instead of serving out their time are forced to kick their habit tells a different story.
Serious addicts previously at death's door are brought back to life and can contemplate a future.
We cannot and must not give up on these people.
So 'harm reduction' is not the answer, any more than free heroin is.
Just take a look at last Saturday's Nieuwe Rotterdamse Courant .
<P>
I was against including this report on the agenda.
Including it when there is nothing much of substance in it does nothing to enhance our image as a serious parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lindeperg">
Mr President, first of all I must pay tribute to the spirit of consultation and dialogue shown by the rapporteur.
Throughout the slow process culminating in this report we are discussing today, she has shown herself to be very much open to dialogue.
<P>
Knowing where she herself stands, we can appreciate the effort she has had to make in putting together a text for us which pulls together the threads of so many and so passionately held controversial views, which have to be considered in the drafting of a policy on drugs.
<P>
Conscious of the wide differences which separate us, she opted for a policy of a little at a time, gambling that despite our differences in thinking we would manage to agree on a number of moves forward which would enable the damage done by certain drugs to be reduced: reduction of the risks and of demand, social measures to support this, entitlement to medical support and, above all, support for a number of pilot experiments.
<P>
Speaking for myself, I approved of her approach even though, obviously, I am far from happy with the result.
But I think it is unfortunate that the concessions have been all in one direction and that some of the amendments tabled and voted on in committee upset the balance which Hedy d'Ancona was seeking.
I am not referring here to the numerous amendments tabled in the plenary.
<P>
So what exactly is the position?
On the one hand the advocates of a restrictive policy argue in favour of a drug-free society, but offer no new suggestions on how to achieve it, other than following unflinchingly the policy we have at present even though everyone acknowledges that it has failed.
And to prevent any departure from this line, to block any form of new experiment, they endlessly hold forth about compliance with the UN conventions which are so ill-adapted to present-day society that very few countries are able to apply them.
That leads to a truly surreal and unhealthy mismatch between what the laws of the Member States say and the way in which they are implemented.
<P>
Ah, the utopian dream of a drug-free society!
I had it in mind to make a few ironic comments, but Mrs Pailler took the words out of my mouth in exactly the terms I would have used.
So I will let that pass, but if this slogan had merely been unrealistic, utopian, it would be less of a problem; in the event, I regard it as frankly dangerous.
Nurturing false hopes in the public mind, foisting on them false remedies which will resolve nothing, will further fuel scepticism about the impotence of political action and promises which are not kept.
<P>
What are we asking for, in the face of these people who so confidently argue in favour of retaining the status quo?
We want it to be possible to explore other avenues which have produced encouraging results, where these have been tried.
And the UN conventions must not impede and prevent such exploration.
Mrs d'Ancona said again that harmonisation is not possible at present.
So there is no question of imposing rules on a state which does not wish to implement them.
And if our Swedish colleagues are happy with their policy, let them continue with it.
No one wants to stop them.
We just want them to accept that we may not all think the same way.
All we want is a calm debate based on impartial considerations, without arbitrary edicts and without anathema.
Surely that is not too much to ask?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cederschiöld">
I agree with Mr Blokland that, in terms of principle, it was a mistake to refer this report back to committee.
Hedy d'Ancona's earlier rallying cries for the legalisation of cannabis and the authorisation of heroin maintenance treatment have, however, been silenced, and we have before us a set of recommendations which are in line with the PPE Group's fundamental approach to narcotics.
Our group's coordinated stance has contributed towards this acceptable result.
Combating drugs is unequivocally the issue. The question is how we do it.
<P>
I am not too happy about centralising the management of rehabilitation and therapy for addicts.
We do not need a supranational approach to matters which can equally well be handled at the local level. The EU should restrict itself to things that it alone can do effectively: working with Europol, coordinating policy on border checks, etc.
European cooperation is a unique instrument when it comes to fighting international crime.
I am not so sure about its place on our city streets, in drugs ghettos and treatment centres.
<P>
We all deplore the damage done by drugs and wish to limit the suffering caused.
The details of how this should be done remain to be defined.
The concept of harm reduction has been marred by the failures of some programmes to break addicts' dependency.
The PPE Group and I have therefore tabled a number of amendments designed to tighten the supervision of harm reduction programmes and introduce stricter regulatory provisions.
Drug abusers need therapy, education, and social back-up if they are to overcome their misery and appreciate that there is more to life than drugs.
The UN's Convention on the Rights of the Child grants children the right to a drug-free life and we in the EU would be well advised to adopt as our own the drugs policy objectives outlined by the UN in June.
<P>
Mrs d'Ancona's report is not perfect, but I would nonetheless congratulate her and commend her stamina. It is in our mutual interest to find out more about one another's methods.
We can then select those that are working and set about solving the problems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Mr President, it is useless to take the moral high ground when debating about drugs.
The drugs scourge has many sides to it but it is, above all, about wasted lives and human suffering.
It requires more than an ideological straight- jacket; it requires policies that achieve results.
<P>
The d'Ancona report was written in this spirit.
It calls on the Member States to make it possible for authorities at different levels to engage in new, innovative, results-oriented approaches.
We support this message because we feel that no policy should simply be ruled out.
The drugs problems requires pragmatism and an open mind.
I therefore prefer the approach of Sir Jack Stewart-Clark to that of Mr Blokland.
<P>
Of course across the new Member States the approaches to drugs are different.
This creates problems of its own, not least in the form of drug tourism.
In an ideal world we would have harmonisation of legislation.
The d'Ancona report is realistic in this regard - we only have to listen to this debate here.
It recognises that harmonisation is premature and instead calls for concrete and enhanced cooperation between the authorities at national, regional and urban levels.
This is necessary to settle contention between the Member States as a result of different policies.
It will also help to promote a better understanding of which policies are effective and under which conditions.
This surely will be one of the founding blocks of an effective European drugs policy.
<P>
In practice we might find that our experiences of which policies work are not so different from one another.
I was in Sweden and I do not see that in practice the police in Sweden are doing things much differently from what is done in Holland.
<P>
Here the d'Ancona report touches another sore point: it calls for an end to the gap that exists between the policy that is preached and the one that is implemented.
Let us end the hypocrisy between the law and practice.
The legal instruments that are at our disposal must be adapted to the new reality.
The UN General Assembly on Drugs held in July 1998 could have been an opportunity to address the most severe discrepancies between legislation and implementation, as well as incorporating in the Convention the recent developments on the drug scene.
That is why I prefer the human approach of Mrs d'Ancona's report to the ideological approach which I still hear too much in this Hemicycle.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="Crowley">
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate Mrs d'Ancona on her attempt to try and bring about a consensus in the House with regard to what is a very difficult subject, on which there are many divergent viewpoints and opinions in this Parliament.
<P>
However, Parliament is acting a bit like a political eunuch, because we are talking and making recommendations about a UN extraordinary session on drugs that has already occurred.
Bearing that in mind, as well as the comments made by other Members, it is important that a certain number of key factors are laid down so that the public can understand what we are about within this Parliament.
<P>
Firstly, we are in favour of protection of the people of the European Union.
Secondly, we are in favour of helping the people around the world who are dependent on growing drug crops because of the economic conditions in their own countries.
Thirdly, we are in favour of ensuring that we can give the best education and the best tools of knowledge to our young people to guarantee that they can make informed decisions about their own personal lifestyle.
Fourthly, we are in favour of getting rid of useless and wasted ideologies and, in particular, we are there to take a political stance and a visionary outlook with regard to how best we can help everybody to live within a drug-free society.
<P>
It is not a perfect solution, it may not be totally achievable.
But if we allow ourselves to be complacent and say that we can accept a certain percentage of drug addiction, then we have already lost the battle.
We should strive for the best possible Utopian ideal and work towards that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Eriksson">
Mr President, I found the climate in this House fascinating last time this report came up.
One thing was blatantly clear, namely that we were miles away from any serious commitment to harmonisation.
The drugs debate generated more heat and talk than any other I can remember - bar the discussion on our own allowances and benefits.
<P>
A lot has been said about Sweden's attitude to the whole issue, so perhaps I might pass on one interesting result from a survey published last week of young people in their early teens.
The numbers experimenting with drugs turned out to be on the decrease.
That this was so had nothing to do with moralising crusades, but was rather the result of massive investment in outreach work in the areas of our towns and cities where marginalisation is at its worst.
What better demonstration could there be of the need to proceed with pragmatism, particularly when dealing with our young people - who primarily crave a helping hand.
<P>
We should also be looking at how to give shape to a restrictive, as opposed to a repressive policy approach.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindholm">
Mr President, the world community has given out a clear signal as to what it expects of drugs policy. We now have the three UN drugs conventions, plus the political position taken at the New York meeting from 8 to 11 June this year.
Under the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the community of nations - including the EU and its Member States - undertook, in Article 33, to protect children from illegal drugs and involvement in unlawful production and distribution
<P>
Today, 5 October, is International Children's Day.
We all share responsibility for ensuring compliance with the conventions our Member States have ratified.
I therefore urge the House to vote against any amendments and recommendations which violate the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Otherwise we will be running counter to the goal of a drug-free society.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the debate we have been engaged in for months and, so far as I have followed it, in today's debate too, Members seem less concerned with how to tackle prevention and rehabilitation most effectively than with trying to show that their opinion or the strategy being pursued in their country is better than that in another country.
<P>
What does this endless debate teach us?
Firstly, there is no royal road to combating the drugs problem.
At any rate, there is nobody either in the House or outside it who can say: I have found a way to tackle both the prevention and rehabilitation problem.
I do not know anybody who can do that.
<P>
Secondly, that means that whatever the different approaches we take to combating drugs, one thing remains certain: that we are helpless and at a loss here because none of the many different attempts that have been made has managed effectively to combat this phenomenon.
We really have to take that on board and then, in my view, we must draw the same conclusion as Mrs d'Ancona.
Basically it goes like this: taking account of the historical background of the various societies in the various countries, taking account of their special cultural features, taking account of the different national structures - because the medical system can differ widely from country to country - we must, to put it in simple terms, obtain results that are country-specific.
I am not suggesting that the Netherlands is doing anything dishonourable, or Sweden either.
There are two opposite poles in the debate and the two countries take very different approaches.
Both have the same problems.
<P>
We should respect both approaches because both countries are trying just as hard.
Yet we should also stop pretending there can be any meaning in a debate in which one country tries to convince the other that its approach is the better one.
That is why Mrs d'Ancona endeavoured, after a lengthy debate, to put forward a compromise proposal in which she says: I have my own position - and she has described it better than I could - but within the framework of my position there is room for all sorts of different approaches, each of which should be regarded as of equal value, rather than pretending one is better or worse than another.
I regard that as an excellent means of attempting to reach at least a minimum consensus.
On behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I therefore thank Mrs d'Ancona for her report, in which she at least attempts to bring about a consensus, even if it represents the lowest common denominator.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pirker">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the consumption of drugs, not just in Europe but everywhere, is rising sharply.
I believe we all share the same aim: to protect young people and society as a whole as best we can against drugs and drug consumption.
We are also agreed that we can only combat drugs with a package of measures and that we need to establish a balance between prevention, repression, treatment and rehabilitation.
Anyone who disregards this balance - as Mrs d'Ancona did in her first report in which she called for the decriminalisation of drug consumption and the free sale of cannabis products and heroin on production of a medical certificate, must accept the consequences.
That report was rightly referred back to committee.
<P>
Today's report reflects a different approach.
It tries to establish this balance.
It incorporates much of what our drugs expert, Sir Jack Stewart-Clark, proposed and lays great emphasis on the social aspect.
This report can therefore be supported.
<P>
But what I find most striking is that amendments have once again been tabled that attempt seriously to disturb that balance and to talk this Parliament into legalising drugs.
That is quite unacceptable!
What we need for the future is for people to realise that prevention will protect.
So let me ask you to support prevention: drugs-free schools for children, for society, but severe punishment for dealers, and aid to help dependent youngsters to get off drugs.
Our only chance to achieve a drugs-free society, a drugs-free life, is by establishing a balance between these three measures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, Parliament's image will have been enhanced by the decision, supported by my group, to refer this report back to committee.
Our proclaimed goal is now a drug-free society.
I cannot, however, endorse all the recommendations.
Some of the points I would wish to make have been covered by Jan Andersson.
<P>
This debate is highly polarised.
It is being claimed that those who back my kind of policy cannot simultaneously advocate harm reduction.
I disagree; there must be some misunderstanding here.
I too want to mitigate suffering, and references to Trojan Horses are misplaced in my view.
<P>
People say that our prisons are in the state they are in because of our narcotics policies.
I maintain that it is our policy on crime that is wrong.
Finland has proportionately fewer prisons than many other countries, yet it takes a tough approach to crime.
It is possible to reconcile the two objectives.
The Council of Europe would be well advised to address the whole area of crime and punishment in an effort to rectify the situation.
A much better option is to provide people with improved social and health care facilities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
Mr President, I would ask for your understanding.
I do not want to delay the proceedings, but both Mr Pirker and Mrs Thors got the facts wrong in their statements.
The report was not referred back by the plenary; instead I asked, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, for it to be taken back from plenary to the committee.
That is a rather different matter.
Members keep implying that the House said: we don't want this rubbish.
The fact is that Mrs d'Ancona requested me to withdraw the report so as to give us an opportunity to negotiate compromises.
That is a considerable difference!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Thors">
Let us not split hairs, Mr President.
<P>
You should not argue in this way.
I used a word that covers both the situations you referred to.
Återremiss in Swedish means cases where it is asked that something is taken back and it is then taken back to the preparatory body.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Kerr">
Mr President, the real truth is that the report was sent back to committee because the British Labour Group - the single biggest part of the Socialist Group - was going to vote against it.
It was under instructions from the British Home Secretary whose son had just been done for drug dealing and it was embarrassing for it to support the report.
Mrs d'Ancona's original report was a very good report.
This, unfortunately, is not so good although there are some good things in it.
<P>
There is a sweet smell of hypocrisy in this Chamber tonight which mingles with the smell of a drug outside - a drug called tobacco which kills half a million Europeans each year.
This Parliament cannot even stop people smoking in areas where they are not meant to smoke, such as right outside this Chamber.
Instead it tries to water down a sensible policy which Mrs d'Ancona put forward on drugs.
I know that many British Labour Members have in the past smoked dope and some of them still do.
But they will all vote against it because of the hypocrisy that is prevalent in this Chamber.
<P>
We need a sensible policy on the decriminalization of cannabis, as they have in Holland, in Australia and in many parts of the world.
Then we could deal much more effectively with the real problem of hard drugs and the young might take us seriously.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
Mr President, I think the fact that we have Mrs d'Ancona's report here in its present form is a major step forward.
In any event, the fact that it states a few clear principles will attract interest in my country.
For example, the principle of a drug-free society, 'life without drugs', is one of the principles stated: limiting demand, greater emphasis on implementing laws and international agreements.
In other words, this means abandoning the policy of tolerance.
I have the feeling that ideas like 'the tolerant society', which I used to read of in liberal party manifestos, have quietly died the death as far as drugs policy is concerned.
And I think this is most important because drugs are a major nuisance both to the user and to the people around him, especially, as we all know, amongst those who are at the bottom of the social pile.
And I think it goes without saying that, at a given point, Social Democrats and Christian Democrats should agree on an issue such as this, because it is surely our first guiding principle to combat suffering amongst those who are the most vulnerable.
<P>
And I find it quite proper that a drug-free society should be held up as an ideal.
I am very surprised that this ideal is rejected by some, as if the ambition of full employment, the ambition to eliminate poverty, the ambition of a society where right prevails and imbeciles are kept out of Parliament, are not also ideals which we should pursue with vigour.
So I think it is splendid to have this report.
It is a compromise, but fortunately it does outline a policy, and that is what matters.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, Mrs d'Ancona has produced a thorough report on this subject.
This second report is clearly a more rational, more composed and, above all, more constructive one than its predecessor.
I believe that the long and stormy parliamentary debate on Mrs d'Ancona's reports has strengthened the view of most that the battle against drugs cannot be won by proposing that the harmonisation of EU Member States' drug laws should be achieved merely in terms of a liberal approach to the drugs problem.
We are all, in our own way, victims of drug abuse.
<P>
The fight against drugs in the Member States of the Community must be an active, not a reactive, one.
Simply focusing on the control of problems that are the result of drug abuse is not the right approach.
The debate on synthetic drugs has shown that the EU should be giving special attention to educational programmes for children and young people.
The fight against the various designer drugs used by young people, such as ecstasy, is the only way to make it difficult for people to get hold of drugs.
We urgently need to develop and enhance systems for sharing information among the relevant authorities and setting up joint databases for the registration of new narcotic substances, with the help of EU funding.
<P>
I would finally like to point out that the opinions being expressed in the gallery are, to my mind, out of order, Mr President.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Burtone">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I welcome our return to the subject of drug addiction this evening, especially since no miracle solutions are being put forward: drug addiction cannot be overcome with a magic wand!
No solution can be found that transports us immediately, overnight, into a drug-free society.
We have a good deal of hard work ahead of us: not just the European Parliament, but all the Member States too must commit themselves to a global strategy - as was stressed at the last UN General Assembly - a strategy which calls on us to opt above all for the prevention route and attempt to reduce the demand for drugs in our Community, providing information and education, in the knowledge that synthetic drugs are a major risk.
<P>
Prevention is not enough. Young people who are travelling through the tunnel of death, the tunnel of drugs, need above all to be cured, not only with a view to damage limitation, but in the knowledge that the voluntary sector has a wealth of experience of working in a spirit of solidarity.
Therapeutic communities have brought many youngsters back to life. Prevention and cure go hand-in-hand with rehabilitation, reintegration and finally repressive policies, not just against small-scale trafficking but primarily against large-scale trafficking in hard drugs.
In attempting to lance this boil, priority must be given to the issue of banking secrecy, because enormous and lethal flows of money are passing through the legal economy.
The European Parliament should turn its attention to this problem in the first instance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="Gradin">
Mr President, I read Mrs d'Ancona's revised report with interest. Today's debate has been very stimulating.
Drugs policy is an area where the European Parliament, the Council of Ministers and the Commission have been cooperating closely and fruitfully for several years now.
We have organised some important conferences together and the exchange of information between us has been good.
Last summer, representatives from the European Parliament were included in the Commission's delegation to the United Nations General Assembly special session on drugs.
Like Mrs d'Ancona, I look forward to more of this effective cooperation in the future.
<P>
As I have said many times before, and cannot repeat enough, cooperation is the bedrock upon which to pursue a constructive and focused dialogue on the central issues of drugs policy.
Past evidence of this is the way in which we collaborated to get synthetic drugs onto the political agenda.
Europe emerges strengthened from such exercises, for we are seen as standing shoulder to shoulder in the battle to halt the spread of drugs.
The EU's political priorities undergo adjustment, bringing them more into line with the concerns and fears of ordinary citizens.
<P>
Thanks also to our cooperative efforts, we now have a situation in which legislation and regulatory practices are similar across the EU.
This is partly because the UN conventions offer a shared basis from which we all start.
The Union's common rules on money laundering and chemical precursors have also had an important part to play, but we cannot afford to close our eyes to the major discrepancies still in existence as regards narcotics.
Penalties for possession, dealing and trafficking vary, as do attitudes to possession for personal consumption.
Views differ on whether to classify some substances as less dangerous than others.
Furthermore, there are major variations in the way existing laws and regulations are applied.
These differences are not irrelevant; they reflect a fundamental disagreement over the future design of drug strategies.
More work needs to be done before we have a coherent European approach to narcotics policy.
But let us not exaggerate the discrepancies.
Otherwise we will end up devoting valuable time and energy to relatively minor issues, losing sight of the really significant ones.
The problems are out there, and to resolve them we need consensus and a pooling of joint resources.
<P>
Mrs d'Ancona's report also states clearly and unequivocally that our common goal now and in the future is, and must remain, a drug-free society.
I welcome that, for there is no place for ambiguity here.
<P>
Mr President, the combination of preventive and restrictive policies we see across Europe is the result of efforts extending over almost 30 years.
Various methods have been tried out by different Member States at different times, but the overall conclusion certainly seems to be that preventive action and social measures are just as important as bans and restrictions.
<P>
Three things are necessary when it comes to the practical shaping of a policy for drugs: demand-reduction, access-limitation and international cooperation.
These formed the foundation for the EU's five-year action plan, adopted in 1994.
It is that plan which is currently being updated.
The key elements are continuity and sustainability - an assessment borne out by the conclusions of the final text adopted by the UN at its special session in the summer.
I am particularly pleased, therefore, to see such unequivocal commitment to the UN conventions in one of the recommendations in the d'Ancona report.
A clear statement of this kind is salutary and sets the parameters for our future policy to combat drugs.
We now need to fine-tune and adjust our methods of cooperation, so that we are better equipped to meet the current challenges.
There is no place, however, for revolutionary change or high-risk experimentation.
<P>
Mr President, most people here today appear to agree that the emphasis should be on preventive action.
The way forward is not to call for more policemen and customs officials, or to mete out harsher punishments, or to launch a merciless crackdown on drugs-linked crop production.
What we need is an established framework within which to work, coupled with a willingness to shoulder social responsibility.
I appreciate the fact that the rapporteur devotes space in her text to the Community's financial programme, under which funds would be made available for preventive measures to combat drug abuse.
The Union has earmarked ECU 27 million over a five-year period to support preventive work in the Member States.
The programme offers a unique opportunity for cooperation between government bodies and voluntary organisations.
There will be scope for methodological work - devising new ways of evaluating the results of prevention strategies in the Member States, for example.
The idea is to pinpoint strategies which foster a broader exchange of information and experience.
I wish to say loud and clear, however, that the Community programme cannot be viewed as a source of support for experimental work in the field of drugs.
Unfortunately there are occasionally some misunderstandings on this front.
<P>
By way of conclusion, let me make it clear that the task of updating the Union's action programme has only just begun.
I am responsible for coordinating the Commission's contribution.
A first draft should be ready around the beginning of next year.
Between now and then, I will be working alongside others in the Commission on evaluating the range of measures taken over recent years in this area.
As coordinating Commissioner, I am sure that there will be plenty of opportunities for me to discuss matters with Parliament, both here in the House and in committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Combating corruption
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0285/98) by Mr Bontempi, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the Commission communication to the Council and the European Parliament on a Union policy against corruption (COM(97)0192 - C4-0273/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="Bontempi">
Mr President, the report which I am presenting to the House today for debate and vote relates in particular to the Commission's communication of last year setting out its proposed approach.
Furthermore, in view of the many interesting developments taking place internationally to thrash out a strategy to combat corruption, the report outlines and assesses priorities, as well as identifying some urgently needed initiatives.
In actual fact there are many proposals and ideas before various international bodies: concrete steps are now needed to bring them to fruition.
<P>
I should like to give a brief overall assessment of the Commission's communication, reserving the right to return later to certain aspects.
The document is a good one, but it has two glaring omissions: the first relates to the lack of action even in fields for which the right of initiative lies with the Commission and is not delegated to other agents; the second - politically even more significant - lies in the fact that there is no hint of the problems, risks and possible measures relating to internal corruption in the EU institutions.
Certain very high-profile cases have arisen recently - the latest being that of ECHO - and these show how necessary it is to put one's own house in order, at least in terms of rules and priorities, before giving lessons to others.
The report outlines various proposals in this area, and I sense that the Commission is willing to carry this further.
This very matter is, moreover, dealt with in Mr Bösch's report, which we shall be discussing tomorrow.
<P>
As far as the general picture is concerned, I would recall that alarm has grown considerably over the past three or four years.
This is clear from the sensational cases which have occurred in various parts of the world - Kenya, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, the Czech Republic, Italy, Spain and France - where leaders or entire leaderships have been caught up in corruption cases.
Further, it is estimated that 5 % of all direct foreign investment into the most exposed countries disappears through corruption, without counting internal corruption.
We had in fact noticed the growing alarm, because even bodies which until a short while ago were afraid to utter the word corruption are now placing it at the top of their agendas.
I am referring, not to be controversial but to emphasise this aspect, to the Monetary Institute, the World Bank, the OECD: all bodies which - as I said - have never previously adopted a stance, despite witnessing many and widespread cases of corruption, for example in international trade.
I am very pleased that now, faced with the latest dangerous upsurge, the business community and these institutions have acknowledged the situation.
In this connection, on 14 and 15 April we - the Council, Commission and Parliament - held a very interesting joint seminar on corruption in the business community, and the latter made some very important undertakings on that occasion.
We are now awaiting confirmation and a follow-up.
<P>
One very important new element that I would mention here is the emergence of an NGO - Transparency International - which has been active in Berlin since 1993, fighting corruption from the perspective of the business community.
I would merely list the new elements to which it has led: a European Union convention, recently approved by the Council along with the Protocol on the protection of financial interests and, above all, in December, a heavyweight OECD convention, which is perhaps the first joint act by such a large-scale forum with the express intention of combating corruption.
I would also recall that the new legal base established at Amsterdam has strengthened the mechanisms available for fighting corruption. All of which shows that mechanisms do exist.
I should like now to touch on a few points from the conclusion to my report, which sets out to identify the main approaches and priorities for action in this area, assuming that action will be far-reaching.
It draws attention to the need to ratify these conventions, and in particular the need for the Member States and Commission to take measures against the tax deductibility of bribes - a scandalous practice still going on in our countries - and lists a whole series of measures to prevent corruption, such as transparency and the reduction of red tape, ensuring that politicians too commit themselves to fighting corruption.
Judicial independence is vital but, if corruption is to be combated effectively, a moral commitment is required from citizens and - if I may say so - from institutions and politicians likewise.
<P>
Personally I believe that many Members of this House wish to be respected and not merely tolerated as politicians, and the fight against corruption is the ultimate test here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="McIntosh">
Mr President, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has highlighted five measures which either already existed or are to be introduced to tackle and remove corruption.
In particular, the Legal Affairs Committee would like the Commission to bring forward legislation to extend the scope of the existing money laundering directive to cover criminal activities such as corruption.
<P>
We would also like the Commission to name explicitly those Member States which permit tax deductions for the bribery of foreign officials, so that the tax-deductibility of bribes paid to such officials can be abolished.
<P>
We would also like the Commission to bring forward legislation to clarify the conditions of access for tenderers to public procurement procedures, with the aim of eliminating any person convicted of corruption from participating in these procedures in future.
<P>
We would also like the Commission to study the criteria which would enable steps to be taken to establish a comprehensive system to blacklist rogue undertakings and exclude them from competing for or being awarded future contracts and subsidies, and to alert third parties to possible risks in conducting business with such undertakings.
Clear criteria for inclusion on such a blacklist, and appropriate appeal procedures should be established by the Commission.
<P>
Finally, the Legal Affairs Committee believes that all competitors for specific projects should give a written undertaking that they will not use bribery to obtain a contract for public procurement.
We believe this is worthy of further attention.
While we understand that the Member States have the remit in terms of criminal law, these are five measures we would like to see the Commission introduce at European Union level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Bösch">
Mr President, first let me thank Mr Bontempi for his good report and for incorporating many of our suggestions in it.
On the question of corruption the Commission might be well advised to put its own house in order first, before lecturing others.
That was the main point we made when the Committee on Budgetary Control adopted its opinion on the Bontempi report on 21 October 1997, i.e. nearly a year ago.
<P>
We noted at the time that the Commission's communication on an EU policy to fight corruption does indeed contain much that is true and worth considering, but that it does not address the question of corruption within the Commission and the other EU institutions.
To be quite frank, this aspect of the matter was simply suppressed.
<P>
Now it has been under intense discussion for days if not weeks.
That confirms how right Parliament was to defer the discharge to the Commission this spring.
At the time we made two crucial demands: firstly, that Parliament be kept regularly informed of all ongoing internal investigations into cases where EU officials might be involved in fraud and corruption and, secondly, that the appropriate judicial authorities be informed rapidly and fully of any suspected cases.
<P>
Regrettably we note that these conditions have still not been satisfied.
People are getting worked up about particular cases just now, but what is far more serious is that we do not have a reliable overview of the scale, nature and results of the suspected internal cases investigated by the Commission.
All we have is a number: 27 cases which may well also involve Commission officials are currently under investigation.
Yet the Commission almost systematically denies us any access to the relevant reports.
We have not even been given a list of the cases.
<P>
Unless this situation changes rapidly and radically, the Commission will not just be jeopardising its own political future, but also doing serious damage to the reputation of the European Union as a whole.
And in that case it has no right at all to lecture others about the right way to fight corruption!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Bösch has very sensibly stated his position today in anticipation of tomorrow's debate.
So I will not add any further comments to what Herbert Bösch said, given his personal commitment.
We will be dealing with the matter in depth tomorrow.
<P>
But there is one fact that is quite undisputed: corruption is a phenomenon that represents a huge danger to the rule of law.
We must be fully aware that corruptible representatives always pave the way towards the destabilisation of a constitutional state.
Be they freely elected Members, be they officials, anyone who carries government responsibility, anyone who assumes de facto government responsibility in the free economy and is susceptible or open to corruption helps destroy the cornerstone of democracy, which is transparency, the visibility of government action.
This goes hand in hand with the destruction of trust in democracy, and the moment the public loses its trust in democracy, democracy is finished. That is to say that the fight against corruption is not just a fight against crime, but also a fight for the stability of the democratic institutions.
We must bear that in mind when we discuss Mr Bontempi's report.
<P>
To return to what Mr Bösch said, that is why we must realise that with the European Union in its present form we have built up an organisation in which huge economic powers are amassed, in which huge financial opportunities are being created, but all within a structure that is becoming ever less transparent.
It is not that I am blaming anyone here, let me make that quite clear.
I would remind Mr Bösch that it was very often the Commission that supported our Parliament's calls for more transparency.
The fault lies far more with the Member State governments, with the Council of the Union, which is responsible for what I have just described, i.e. the accumulation of more economic power, more financial power, without a corresponding build-up of powers of control, in particular of Parliament's powers of control.
<P>
So I say that if such an important structure as the European Union, in the form in which it now exists, transfers the powers of economic and financial action to an executive which cannot be adequately controlled, that will obviously open the door to corruption.
To return therefore to what I said at the beginning, we are facing the internationalisation of economic power in Europe while national structures are still being used to combat the abuse of this economic power - which is precisely Mr Bontempi's point of departure.
We need to standardise anti-corruption systems internationally with the aim - which I believe we share with the Commissioner - of eventually incorporating them in EU legislative structures.
That would mean giving the EU its own margin of power and discretion in the fight against corruption, which brings us back to the Bösch report which is on tomorrow's agenda.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Chanterie">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all my compliments to the rapporteur, Mr Bontempi, on his report which the PPE Group will be endorsing without reservation.
I think that I can seamlessly agree with Mr Schulz, who made the point that many forms of corruption which have come to light in the last ten years in various Member States of the Union have caused great alarm in public opinion and in the population in general.
So without exaggeration one can speak of a crisis of values of the kind we like to evoke when we talk about democracy in Europe.
A series of scandals has raised grave doubts as to the integrity of persons in high positions of responsibility in industry, government and political life.
In addition to the example already quoted by Mr Bösch and Mr Schulz on the fraud surrounding the ECU 700 000 intended for humanitarian aid to former Yugoslavia, I would point to the notorious case currently going on before Belgium's Court of Cassation in connection with hundreds of millions allegedly spent by Agusta and Dassault on helicopters and aeroplanes for the Belgian armed forces.
So work is needed to arrive at a final definition which will distinguish active and passive corruption from other criminal or non-criminal deals.
This definition must be applicable in all Member States of the Union, jointly and severally.
I do not think that this practicable definition will be enough.
It is of course a necessary precondition, but more is needed.
We have to have preventive and punitive measures as well.
Prevention can be assured by making public tendering procedures, government procurement, trade agreements and other policy measures as transparent as possible.
That is the main thing; transparency, the ability to check, the ability to measure against standards and criteria, and these supervisory mechanisms are an essential part of democracy.
We should learn from the experience of Europol and UCLAF, Commissioner.
So we need a Community window to look through in addition to all these conventions, international agreements, OECD codes of conduct and so on, and we are counting on the European Commission to provide us with that window.
<P>
Mr President, corruption undermines the legally constituted state and corruption threatens our democracy.
On that I fully agree with Mr Schulz.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Caccavale">
Mr President, I should like to begin by complimenting the rapporteur, Mr Bontempi, on his excellent work.
One point on which I think we must all agree is that corruption is a highly destabilising factor, not only of our democratic structures but, in a more obvious way, of the free market and free competition.
It seriously disrupts free competition, so that the winner is not the best bidder, the one offering the most efficient service, but the craftiest, most dishonest and most corrupt.
This phenomenon deserves our attention.
<P>
In the light of this increase in corruption - clearly, corruption has existed since public institutions and government bodies were first created, in other words virtually since the world began - we must all consider whether a greater use of penalties and repression is the right response.
I believe on the contrary, as the last few speakers have said, that corruption comes from within.
Surely it is often the mechanisms themselves that provoke criminal behaviour and generate corruption: it is the barriers placed between commercial or economic operators and the pursuit of their business that opens the door to corruption.
<P>
I therefore welcome the acknowledgment by the rapporteur - and the Committee on Civil Liberties - that in combating corruption we must begin by reducing bureaucracy, simplifying procedures and making contracting arrangements more transparent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
Mr President, I am in favour of very firm and effective action to combat corruption and fraud.
We must strengthen our common efforts by ensuring that UCLAF and Europol function optimally, we must demand that the Commission work out a common strategy for the fight against fraud, and we must ensure that this common strategy is translated into concrete initiatives.
But we do not want a common prosecution service or a common criminal justice system.
On the other hand, we must coordinate our action and strengthen the practical cooperation that exists between our countries.
Furthermore we must be ruthless in dealing with corruption in the EU institutions.
Unfortunately we are discussing an all too topical subject here.
The Commission has some troublesome matters on its conscience at the moment, and that is something that does not exactly enhance the Commission's already rather tarnished image in the eyes of so many EU citizens - the image of a closed and élitist institution that looks after its own.
<P>
In this connection, I would ask the Commission to give an account of a very scandalous affair.
I am thinking here of the cancellation of the Commission's selection test.
One point is the general disorder that prevailed during the tests, with a lack of supervision of toilet visits and use of mobile phones.
We would be right to call it corruption, when Commission staff supply the answers to selected persons taking part in the tests.
I think it is disgraceful. We have a problem when we come to explain to European taxpayers that this selection test had been planned for three years and had cost ECU 12 million to hold.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendes Bota">
Mr President, an atmosphere of outright scandal reigned when I left Portugal this weekend, after the former president of a State entity which has extensive influence in matters relating to public works had revealed practices of the most blatant corruption (so he claimed) in connection with the financing of political parties.
I travelled by way of Belgium, where the news has been dominated for several weeks by the corruption scandal relating to the 'Agusta' case involving former members of government and political parties.
And we go higher yet, to the portals of the European Union, and we learn that a competition involving tens of thousands of 'Eurocrat' candidates was cancelled on account of serious irregularities. We even know of rather dubious situations in connection with humanitarian aid.
<P>
There are two factors which appear inevitably to be present in the underworld of corruption: bureaucracy and an absence of transparency in decision-making.
We agree overall with the rapporteur's assessment and proposals.
However, in tackling the matter of contributions to political parties in the context of combating corruption, we must have the courage to call a spade a spade, to recognise that the democratic contest for power fought by political parties and politicians, given over as it is to the dictates of marketing, advertising and the use of information to manipulate voters, takes vast sums of money which are obtained, for the most part, from generous donations by powerful economic interests.
These obviously do not loosen their purse strings simply out of sympathy to a particular politician, but because they expect advantages in return, what in Portugal we call 'giving a sausage in exchange for a fat pig'.
<P>
Unfortunately, we are undergoing a red- and pink-tinted phase, in which public opinion polls have become more important than beliefs for those who are supposed to govern or to offer alternatives in power. This is the so-called third version of democratic socialism which, backed by enormous funding, is sweeping through the western world, and which obviously has no interest in taking the courageous step, for instance, of banning private financing of political parties.
It is as simple as that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Gradin">
Member of the Commission. I have read Mr Bontempi's report on corruption with great interest.
It gives us a very useful overview of the various initiatives in this area.
As you know, the Union has been increasingly active in fighting corruption during the last years.
In 1996 the Convention on protection of the financial interests of the Community was enlarged with the first protocol.
This protocol criminalised bribery by or against national or Community officials which affects the EU budget.
A further protocol adopted in 1997 criminalised laundering of the proceeds of corruption.
The same year the Council also agreed on the Convention criminalising corruption affecting official duties of national or Community officials.
Unfortunately, none of the instruments that I have just mentioned has as yet been ratified by any national government.
<P>
This sends a conflicting message.
We all agree on the need to fight corruption, but when it comes to passing Union legislation through national parliaments the process grinds to a halt.
<P>
The Commission's communication on the fight against corruption from last year covers many areas: tax deductibility, public procurement, financial transactions, blacklisting of shady operators, civil remedies and the fight against corruption in development assistance and in the pre-accession strategy.
<P>
I will briefly review the progress achieved.
The OECD Convention signed in December 1997 criminalises the bribery of foreign officials in the context of international business transactions.
The Convention will probably enter into force in 1999.
Most Member States have either already changed their laws or are committed to doing so.
Member States should obviously change their tax laws to ensure that such kickbacks are not tax-deductible.
A questionnaire has now been sent to Member States.
The Commission and the Council will review progress in November.
<P>
To give you an example, disallowing tax deductibility only where there has been a conviction of a foreign official for bribery is not enough.
It must be clear in tax law that only lawful expenses may offset taxable income.
So it is possible that EU legislation is required, as suggested by Mr Bontempi.
<P>
As regards public procurement, it is common knowledge that transparency in the marketplace acts as a powerful brake on corruption.
The Commission has pushed for more transparency concerning prices and tender conditions.
We have also advocated the inclusion of specific anti-corruption measures in public procurement procedures.
Tomorrow the Advisory Committee on Public Procurement will discuss how Member States may exclude companies or persons who are being investigated for involvement in organised crime.
The Commission is also suggesting that Member States cooperate on these aspects.
<P>
The Vade Mecum on grant management will enter into force on 1 January 1999.
The Vade Mecum provides for minimum standards for the award and monitoring of certain subsidies.
The aim is to ensure more transparency, publicity and efficiency in the proceedings.
<P>
In May, the Commission launched a discussion on reform of the statutory auditing.
Better audits must become a deterrent against fraud and corruption.
A new committee on auditing is going to check the auditors' approach to fraud.
Fraud risks must be reported by auditors and company boards.
<P>
The Commission has also looked at professional risk.
Certain professions such as accountants, notaries, lawyers and auditors may be vulnerable to corruption and influence by organised crime.
The Commission is currently gathering information from their representatives to gain a full picture of the risk and to pursue the reflection on the need and feasibility of establishing at Union level some basic ethical requirements.
<P>
As regards money laundering, Mr Monti intends at the beginning of 1999 to propose a stronger directive to cover several professions beyond the financial sector.
Mr Bontempi sees combating corruption inside the EU institutions as an important issue.
The Commission and I myself share his concern, and as you know the Council has asked all institutions to help UCLAF to conduct internal inquiries.
We will come back to this tomorrow in the context of Mr Bösch's report.
<P>
However, the Commission has already been quite active on the preventive side.
The sound and efficient management programme for the year 2000 aims at streamlining administration, simplifying procedures, improving transparency and reducing red tape throughout our administration.
A number of supplementary steps are now being taken by my colleague, Mr Liikanen, to make sure that all decisions and management principles are carried out properly.
<P>
The Commission's own fraud fighting service, UCLAF, is also active.
Its efforts are beginning to bear fruit.
I have recently strengthened its independence and its organisation, and a dedicated anti-corruption cell and a legal unit have been set up.
An early-warning system was put into place last year.
It identifies dubious beneficiaries of Community funds who may be involved in corruption.
The Commission is at present checking whether such grey- or black- listing systems could be introduced in all EU policy areas where EU funds are spent.
<P>
As regards the candidate countries, the fight against corruption is a priority in the pre-accession strategy.
The accession partnerships outline the programmes and their financing.
They all require progress in the fight against corruption.
The Commission is currently developing two new anti-corruption actions.
Within the horizontal programme for justice and home affairs, all ten candidate countries will be involved in a two-year joint project with the Council of Europe, Octopus 2, with ECU 1.5 million against corruption and organised crime.
It will focus on improving investigative means, inter-agency cooperation, protection of vulnerable targets and criminalisation of corruption.
Also, a new facility called a pre-ins or catch-up facility, which concerns ECU 100 million for 1998/1999, has been launched to help Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia.
Among the three priority areas is the fight against corruption.
Obviously, all the candidate countries must improve their record on corruption in order to fully live up to the first Copenhagen criteria.
The fight against corruption is also high on the agenda for development assistance.
It now constitutes an essential principle for good governance.
<P>
Concerning the ACP states, the communication on democratization, the rule of law, respect for human rights and good governance highlights the good governance concept to be followed.
It proposes an action plan aimed at the protection of the financial interests of the Union.
It also suggests that this be used in other areas of external assistance and cooperation.
<P>
On all these points, I am prepared to regularly brief Parliament on progress made, as requested by the rapporteur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Gradin.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Common fisheries policy: control system
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0331/98) by Mr Teverson, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 2847/93 establishing a control system applicable to the common fisheries policy (COM(98)0303 - C4-0357/98-98/0170(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Teverson">
Mr President, it is always a great thrill to speak to such a full Chamber, in particular at this time of the evening.
I congratulate colleagues who have turned up for what is a very serious issue.
<P>
I would like to make clear to the Commissioner that control and monitoring of the common fisheries policy has attracted a great deal of unanimity, going beyond almost any other issue which has come before the committee.
It is one which we feel particularly strongly about as was shown in Mr Provan's excellent report which we debated at the last part-session.
<P>
It is clear to us as legislators involved in the fishing industry and the fishermen themselves that this is a common policy.
And if we say it is a common policy then there is an expectation that we will have the same rules throughout Community seas, equal enforcement across those seas and similar penalties for wrongdoers throughout the European Union.
That would be a just and acceptable common policy.
<P>
It is, however, equally clear that we do not have that at the present moment.
So as a committee we very much welcome the Commission proposals to tighten up control and monitoring of this particular policy.
Having welcomed that report, I would say that we still found areas that were wanting and areas that could still be strengthened.
These are areas which the Council of Ministers should strengthen when it makes its decisions later this month.
<P>
What are these?
Firstly, there is the issue of Community inspectors.
We are very aware that much of their time recently has been taken up with the tuna fleet, with NAFO and with many other areas of Community involvement in the fishing industry.
But their core task is making sure that the common fisheries policy is working properly.
Clearly that is not happening.
So we are saying to the Commission that not only are we asking it to implement its own proposals to strengthen those EU inspectors but also to increase their powers to those of national inspectors.
They should not be mere observers but should be able to take initiatives so that all EU fishermen can be assured that rules are being enforced equally.
<P>
The report also says that the way to enforce the fisheries policy must be primarily through landings and what happens subsequently through the supply chain.
That is the way to bring pressure to ensure that these rules work and are enforced.
We are saying in this report that there should be a legal liability - not just paperwork as in the Commission proposal - that flows down through the supply chain so that people who knowingly sell or transport illegal fish - whether they are undersized or out of quota - also take legal responsibility.
At that point we will start to have a real tightening up of this policy.
<P>
What else do we need?
We need better information.
When cooperation between Member States increases we must have a proper exchange of information so that prosecutions can take place in a straightforward manner by national jurisdictions with information supplied by the Member States.
This will expand and increase the powers asked for by the Commission.
<P>
Mrs Fraga has brought forward the idea that we must make sure that third countries dealing with fish products in Community waters and landing in Community waters are treated in exactly the same way as our own fleets.
It is a matter of justice and equity.
<P>
We have a great opportunity here.
I know that the Commission is very much in favour of strengthening control and monitoring.
We have an annual report that needs to compare like with like and make sure that we can assess what is going on.
We are fully behind you and ask you to strengthen the proposals through amendments and make sure that the Council of Ministers later this month passes a regulation that has backbone to ensure that there is equity so that everyone can at last have confidence in this common policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldarelli">
Mr President, Commissioner, there has been a sharp increase in deep-sea fishing capacity of late.
The trend towards the consumption of frozen fish has had a bearing here; probably it has not been possible to keep pace with the equivalent increase in aquaculture, although aquaculture is responding satisfactorily to a certain growth in the market.
Demand for fish is high.
There is no doubt that the proposals contained in Regulation No 2847/93 go a long way: simplifying the procedures, conducting more meticulous checks before and after landing, and using electronic devices.
We endorse these proposals, and are likewise convinced that those being made by the Committee on Fisheries, involving inspectors, will lead to a more responsible attitude on the part of governments.
<P>
There is however a broader issue here, which is beyond our control, namely that of international conventions and how to ensure that the fishing industry really does act responsibly.
Regarding international conventions, we are concerned that the agreement on deep-sea species to which we ourselves signed up - both the committee and the European Union - has been ratified by only 18 countries.
This is a major political weakness: we have done our best, but many countries reject such agreements.
We are likewise convinced that the protocol on responsible fisheries, proposed by the WWF, would be a solution, but not all countries accept it. The FAO code of conduct could be an extremely useful measure in respect of surplus capacity - and in the long term, surplus capacity is a very serious problem for shipowners.
In short, what is needed is an international framework of reference, enabling us to do our job properly and extend our activities to international level. Moreover, this argument applies not only to fishing effort but also to broader issues concerning fisheries.
Thus I agree on the need to go the extra mile to comply in full with Directives 96/61 and 91/676, the latter on nitrates, the former on preventing and combating pollution.
After all, both of these aspects have a direct impact on the environmental balance. Without a doubt, however, a good deal of innovative research is required to devise new and more selective types of fishing gear.
In this context, satellite monitoring has an important role to play, and we are all in favour of it, but selective gear is also important.
<P>
Although the multiannual guidance programme sets out certain important aims, the Member States must abide by these aims whilst at the same time carrying forward research. For example, experiments performed with netting, square mesh and other selective gear have led to significant findings.
So have experiments carried out in the English Channel with technical gear for catching shellfish. In short, the fisheries policy is operating in a range of areas, and control and monitoring are crucial.
This draft regulation is welcome, but clearly everything possible must be done to make fishermen themselves adopt a responsible attitude, since they are the main players in an environmentally friendly fisheries policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Provan">
Mr President, I think the Commissioner recognises the fact, and in the Commission's proposals it is very clear, that along with common regulation we need common control, and that really ultimately means common penalties.
Robin Teverson and I have been working very closely together on this issue over the last months.
It is significant that Parliament is discussing control measures two months running and it shows the importance attached to this issue by the Committee on Fisheries and by Parliament.
<P>
Last month the report went through unanimously.
That was a very important issue too.
This report is really putting flesh on the bones of what we discussed last month.
<P>
It is important, when we make regulations, that we make sure that they are applied properly.
Regulations need to follow through not only the catching industry, as Robin Teverson stated in this report, but right through to the retailers: right through the processors and right through to the retailers.
<P>
A number of us were very impressed when we visited Norway a couple of years ago and saw their regulatory system: simple, unbureaucratic and supported by the fishermen.
That is what we have to try to achieve within the European Union.
We do not want too much bureaucracy.
<P>
I have to say that there are a couple of amendments in this report, supported by the Green Group, which we in the EPP Group will probably not support when it comes to the vote tomorrow.
That is not to say we are against control, it is only that we are against an extra layer of bureaucracy.
We would rather see the control mechanisms from the bottom up, rather than from the top down.
We need the fishermen's support, we need to ensure that the programmes work properly, and that means local control with the fishermen's involvement rather than too much heavy bureaucracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Gallagher">
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating Mr Teverson on the presentation of a very fine report, which I welcome.
It is a comprehensive and thorough report, containing many innovative proposals and, indeed, amendments.
<P>
I agree that there should be, as a matter of priority, intensified inspection and surveillance of vessels against which regional or international fisheries organisations have taken measures of any kind.
This will put pressure, in particular, on those who repeatedly offend with impunity.
<P>
The standardisation of engine-house power and tonnage across the Community is long overdue.
There are too many grey areas.
In order for control systems to be fully effective, monitoring effort must be measurable, comparable and transparent between the Commission and Member States, and between the Member States themselves.
There has to be harmonisation and it must come as quickly as possible.
<P>
I also agree that procedures must be adopted to ensure that comparable penalties are imposed for comparable infringements across the Community.
It is essential to ensure accurate verification and recording of trans-shipments and landings.
<P>
However laudable all of these proposals of the European Union are, they will come to nothing unless there are adequate national inspectors on the ground.
Irish and UK fishermen claim to be the most controlled fleet sectors in the Union, and that need for evidence of inspectors on the ground applies to all of us.
However, when we look to the antics of quota-hoppers and see the hostility of fishermen and other companies challenging TV crews, we can hardly be surprised if both Irish and British fishermen have serious questions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Novo">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this proposal attempts to improve the control system for the common fisheries policy, with a view to making it more responsible and to conserving stocks.
This is apparent in the amendments relating to the more reliable measurement and comparison of vessels' engine power and tonnage and to harmonising penalties and inspection procedures.
However, it is equally apparent that these more onerous requirements and procedures are not accompanied by increased funding which, bearing mind that this relates to a common policy, can no longer continue to be borne almost entirely by the Member States.
<P>
It is also clear that the control exercised over Community vessels may well continue to be much more stringent than over third-country vessels.
It is quite possible that even in Community waters and/or ports a balance may not exist, while quite considerable differences could well exist in other places.
The lack of funding and absence of equal treatment between vessels of different origin could give rise to suspicion and cause the regulation to be less efficiently and transparently implemented than is desirable and possible.
<P>
I would like to take advantage of Commissioner Gradin's presence here to request her to clarify her own position and that of the Commission regarding the amendments proposed in the Teverson report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
Mr President, all the speakers before me seem to agree on the need to improve, through this regulation, the control and monitoring of the common fisheries policy, and hence the fisheries situation in general.
I wish to say, on behalf of the Green Group, that we endorse the spirit of the Commission's amending regulation, but we also agree with the amendments put forward by Parliament's Committee on Fisheries.
We believe that all the amendments should be adopted, obviously including those - and I turn here to Mr Provan - tabled by our group, which we think are especially relevant in terms of improving controls and monitoring.
It is true to say that Amendment No 8 refers to a convention so far signed by only 18 countries, but it is a good thing for the Community to be in the vanguard of such developments, in the hope that they may spread throughout the world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Ewing">
Mr President, my interest in fish goes back a long time - longer than anyone in this Parliament - to 1975.
<P>
I remember when we had no common fisheries policy.
When we got it we all thought that we would have inspectors who would have the powers of national inspectors in any port, any place in the whole of our association, before it was called the European Union.
At last , in Mr Teverson's report, we have this very proposal that was envisaged from the word 'go', namely that inspectors will have the right to make observation visits without notice to vessels, sites, documents, to every aspect.
For that reason I really welcome this report from the Commission and from Mr Teverson.
<P>
We must have a system that is seen to be fair.
I liked the word in the explanatory statement about trust.
Fishermen are always suspicious and trust is important.
Unless the system is seen to be fair to all they will never have trust and it will never really work.
<P>
The UK has many faults, failure to support decommissioning and many other things, but Spain has faults too.
For many years some of the fishery inspectors of Spain lived in Madrid.
We have seen films on television showing under-sized fish on sale in supermarkets in Spain.
To be fair to Spain, Britain does nothing about it; it just lets the situation continue.
<P>
At last we have a proposal to try and be even-handed on penalties and inspection.
I really welcome that and the linking of landings, and all the difficulties with trans-shipment.
<P>
There is a proposal to amalgamate fish and agriculture.
All fishing interests oppose this, the chairmen of the Committee on Fisheries and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development are against it.
We have taken 10 years to get a common policy.
How dare anybody suggest that farmers are the best people to decide about this vital industry!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
At the last part-session we discussed ways of improving the implementation of the common fisheries policy and, in approving the Provan report, stressed the essential part which monitoring had to play in it. Today we are debating the amendment of the regulation on the control system.
<P>
As amended in the Committee on Fisheries, Mr Teverson's report contains conflicting provisions.
Amendment No 1, tabled by the Committee on Fisheries, conflicts with Amendments Nos 8, 9 and 10 adopted in committee with the backing of the rapporteur.
Amendment No 1 says that if a system of monitoring is to be fully effective, fishing effort and results must be measurable and verifiable.
Amendments Nos 8, 9 and 10 require skippers to record in their logbook the species and quantities of fish discarded, something which is not only an additional constraint but also totally unworkable.
<P>
How can one check that this logbook is correct?
It is quite simply impossible. If this measure were to be adopted, fishermen might well reject the whole of the inspection process.
Efforts to introduce measures which are unrealistic, uncheckable and which carry penalties can only undermine the credibility of the inspection system.
For this reason, our group will oppose the adoption of these amendments.
<P>
Admittedly, the problem of discards is a very real one and we are all aware of it, since the Committee on Fisheries is currently drafting an own-initiative report on the matter to be presented to the House shortly.
Other, truly effective ways must be found of limiting discards, which have been blamed for the decline in stocks of certain fish species and which rob us of a valuable source of protein.
<P>
We are, however, fully behind the rapporteur in her proposals to harmonise penalties.
Fishermen are in no way hostile to inspections, quite the contrary, provided they know they are fair - fair between Member States, and fair between themselves and non-Union countries.
A good system of inspection must also be simple, easily implemented and not cumbersome, and it must discourage fraudsters.
<P>
So it should be possible, Mr President, to make a marked improvement in the monitoring process without adding to Community bureaucracy, but by encouraging exchanges between national inspectors, stepping up checks on non-Union countries and making use of professional expertise.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langenhagen">
Mr President, Commissioner, this new proposal for a regulation represents the practical implementation of the European Commission's communication amending the regulation establishing a control system applicable to the common fisheries policy, which we discussed here in the House in September.
We must finally remove some of the weaknesses of the current policy for monitoring fisheries.
That means simplifying the keeping of logbooks in which catches are recorded, more stringent monitoring of landings of catches, careful registration of fisheries products from the catch to the final marketing stage, Commission access to Member State databases, more careful monitoring of fishing vessels flying the flag of a third country and the possibility of inspections without prior notice by Community inspectors in the Member States.
<P>
This is a whole package of measures, which we have long called for in the European Parliament.
Now they are to be implemented.
That is why we note today's proposal for a regulation from the Commission with satisfaction. However, in my view a wide range of problems remains unresolved.
This includes, in particular, the question of a uniform list of penalties for the entire Community.
The penalties applied for infringing the control rules differ from country to country - indeed too much so.
The question of how to measure engine power has not been finally resolved either.
<P>
So today's proposal will not be the last amendment of the original proposal, particularly since some very important suggestions were not incorporated, such as involving the fishermen themselves more closely in the monitoring policy - which should, after all, be a matter of course.
Yet we have made quite good headway.
So I thank the rapporteur for his constructive and important report and ask you to endorse it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fraga Estévez">
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Teverson for the effort he has made in his report to again identify the main weak spots in the Community control policy and, in particular, the lack of harmonised standards on infringements, inspections and penalties in the various Member States.
<P>
Very little action can in fact be taken against fleets which fail to meet these standards if each Member State continues to apply different rules for the same infringements and also if the data sent to the Commission is so varied that no useful analysis can be made.
<P>
Although control is a national competence, we believe that the Commission can do a great deal more to force Member States to harmonize their legislation.
Even so, it is clear that the Community sector is subject to much stricter standards than that of third countries, at least on paper.
We therefore welcome the new article in the regulation controlling the activities of third country vessels. However, we also note that there is a lack of forceful measures relating to vessels with flags of convenience and the activities of such vessels are becoming an increasingly serious problem.
These vessels do not respect any standards whatsoever, be it in terms of conservation, safety or on how they work. This is what allows them to fish in any circumstances and to lower prices to the point where they are jeopardizing the future of many businesses that do respect international standards.
<P>
For this reason, we would like to ask the Commission to immediately adopt the control measures put forward by the regional and international fisheries organisations. We would also like to ask that, within the framework of the regulations to be applied to vessels from third countries, priority be given in Community ports to inspecting and monitoring vessels that have been the subject of any infringement proceedings initiated by these organisations.
<P>

Given that Mrs Ewing mentioned my country, I have to say, Mrs Ewing, that for quite a while you have had very little to do with matters relating to fisheries. And I would simply ask you to examine now how many inspectors there are in the various autonomous communities in my country.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Bonino">
Mr President, first of all may I thank Parliament and the rapporteur for this report which will be helpful to the Commission, especially in our debate with the Council scheduled for the end of this month.
<P>
I have three things to say in the interests of having a frank debate with you.
I fully acknowledge the importance - I see it every day - when one has a common policy, of giving fair consideration to other aspects, namely controls and penalties.
I am pleased to see Parliament becoming more and more federalist - even though, at present, this word has very unhappy connotations.
I am also grateful to Mrs Ewing for at least mentioning the effort we have put in to improve the system of control and monitoring, though some responsibilities still remain with the Member States.
<P>
Secondly, Mr Teverson, we may step up our controls but we cannot make a special case of fisheries.
Even in agriculture, the common agricultural policy has inspectors and penalties which are far from being harmonised, and the inspectors, who also come under my area of responsibility, really are far from having all the powers you would like, even if they ought to.
Quite simply, we have not got that far yet.
<P>
Personally, I am not even sure the Council will agree to inspectors carrying out observation visits without prior notice, even though this is something we would very much welcome, not in an attempt to displace existing inspectors but simply to have some additional tools.
In any case, Parliament is going further than the Commission's proposal.
I am grateful, even if I cannot accept all the amendments, for legal reasons.
<P>
As regards the substance, there are no points of disagreement between us but, since you asked me to be specific, the Commission thinks that Amendments Nos 1, 5, 7, 10 and 12 - we are happy with the substance of these - are already covered in the action plan.
I could perhaps do more, Mrs Fraga Estévez, and the Commission is trying its best, even considering an action plan for monitoring, which is a unilateral measure.
In any case, I welcome Parliament's support, and I can tell you that your councils and your governments do not show quite the same willing spirit.
As always, each minister thinks that his own Member State does things right and that it is the others who are the culprits.
<P>
I can tell you, since you have seen the latest monitoring assessment report, that the Commission considers monitoring to be mediocre everywhere in Europe, and even in non-Union countries.
A propos of the latter, the international rules are very clear, namely the coastal state has responsibility within its own waters and the flag state is responsible for vessels.
The international rules of maritime law cannot suddenly be overturned.
This is why the Commission has to reject certain amendments, not because it does not acknowledge the problem, but quite simply because international law has not yet developed to a stage where we can cope with them.
But that does not mean that considerably greater progress cannot be achieved already through regional conferences.
I suggest that Parliament does a few sums one day to work out how much fisheries monitoring costs us.
We may find that if we go on as we are doing, the fish we eat will become disproportionately expensive.
That is why we are endeavouring to use new technologies.
We are trying to give fishermen more and more of a say in all this, but without overburdening them unnecessarily.
For example, the amendments on logbook offences, exceeding the 50 kg limit on discards, are frankly unacceptable.
These things are hard to check.
We are in danger of setting rules which, in the case of discards, cannot be policed.
<P>
But I agree with you that we ought increasingly to have uniform penalties, which is not the case in all sectors of common policy.
This is something we are currently thinking about: until such time as we can achieve a little more harmonisation, let us at least introduce greater transparency.
Let us make it possible for the sector to know what the penalties are in the various Member States so that interested parties can compare them.
It is far from possible at present.
<P>
As regards access to records, I agree, it is just a question of finding the right wording.
It is not legally possible to give the right of access to all records because there is after all a measure of confidentiality to be observed in respect of trade secrets.
Nevertheless, access can already be quite extensive, provided confidentiality is maintained in respect of commercially sensitive information.
<P>
As for research, Mr Baldarelli, the problem again is that research is the province of the Member States.
We for our part carry out pilot studies, for which provision is made in our fisheries budget.
We are trying more and more to get Member States to do research and I have to say that, with a few very specific exceptions, generally speaking they are not interested.
We put in a great deal of effort for very little result.
<P>
So I hope you will appreciate that we cannot accept the amendments on penalties or inspectors' powers.
Nor can we accept amendments which are already covered by Article 26 of the action plan.
We agree with the principle of them, but we think they would be better included in other legislative instruments.
<P>
As regards personal liability, Mr Teverson, and this will be my final point, since we have opted for monitoring of the whole supply chain, the legal liability will, in our view, flow from Articles 9 and 28 as stipulated in the regulation, in the sense that once you have the papers, any infringement means that the individual is legally liable.
This is how our Legal Service construes it.
<P>
Lastly, ladies and gentlemen, I await your own-initiative report on fisheries monitoring.
But I wanted to assure you that this is one of the fisheries dossiers with which we are most keenly concerned.
We are using every instrument we can, including codes of conduct.
I know these are not perfect, but that is the way we have to go when we cannot use regulations.
Thank you again for your support and at the end of the month, in the Council, I hope to achieve some of the success which has not been forthcoming so far.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Provan">
Mr President, I do not wish to infringe upon the procedures of the House or the interpreters' time, but the Commissioner made an important point when she said that she thought Parliament was becoming very federalist.
<P>
I say to her that probably everybody would agree that the Committee on Fisheries of this Parliament is very anxious to make sure that we get to the stage of more regionalisation of the management of the common fisheries policy and the economic zones.
That is an important point.
She should recognise that this is the background to the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="President">
<CHAPTER ID=0>
<SPEAKER ID=1 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
On a point of order, Mr President.
The television sets in our offices can, I believe, receive 36 channels.
One of them was a Dutch channel carrying the Dutch morning, midday and evening news.
Well, it is no secret that since the start of the week that channel has vanished from our screen.
Can you please ask the authorities responsible to reinstate it so that we can once again receive the news from the Netherlands in the morning, at midday and in the evening?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
Certainly, Mrs Maij-Weggen, we will see to that.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Díez de Rivera Icaza">
Mr President, I see that my name does not appear in yesterday's Minutes.
I do not know whether this is due to an oversight on my part but I would be grateful if it could be rectified since I was present.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
We will try to do that, Mrs Díez de Rivera Icaza.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="Coates">
Mr President, I wanted to draw your attention to an article which has appeared in the European Parliament magazine. It is entitled: 'The EPLP's selection controversy'.
<P>
Much of this article is political commentary which is of no interest to Parliament as an institution.
However, it contains some allegations which are worrying, including one to the effect that persons who wished to become Members of the panel for the forthcoming elections were compelled to sign a memorandum making over some of their staff allowances to the Labour Party.
It is claimed - perhaps justly - that this may be a breach of European Parliament Rules.
<P>
Is it possible for the presidency to examine this question and give us a ruling?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Mr Coates, let me say for a start that the magazine you are referring to is not a European Parliament publication and Parliament is therefore not responsible for it.
It is a magazine which receives support from the European Parliament so that it can give information about Parliament, but the Bureau and our services are not responsible for the content of articles published in it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Donnelly, Alan">
Mr President, you are going to have a number of these incidents over the next months.
It is pure politics on Mr Coates' part.
He is one of the disappointed in this Chamber.
He is someone who is no longer a member of the Labour Party but who was elected as a Member of the Labour Party.
And if he had any decency he would resign his seat now and let us hold a by-election.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
I would not like this discussion to become a personal confrontation between Mr Coates and yourself.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="Tomlinson, The Lord">
Mr President, would you be prepared to agree with me that anonymous articles quoted in evidence are about as useless as statements by Mr Coates?
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
ECB: minimum reserves - ECB: sanctions - ECB: statistical information
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0332/98 by Mr Hoppenstedt, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the recommendation of the European Central Bank for a Council Regulation concerning the application of minimum reserves by the European Central Bank (ECB0002/98 - C4-0451/98-98/0808(CNS)); -A4-0329/98 by Mr Katiforis, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the recommendation of the European Central Bank for a Council Regulation concerning the powers of the European Central Bank to impose sanctions (ECB0003/98 - C4-0452/98-98/0809(CNS)); -A4-0327/98 by Mr Hendrick, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the recommendation of the European Central Bank for a Council Regulation concerning the collection of statistical information by the European Central Bank (ECB0001/98 - C4-0450/98-98/0807(CNS)).
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Hoppenstedt">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report on minimum reserves is one of the many building blocks in the intensive dialogue conducted between the European Parliament and the European Central Bank for the purpose of formulating a set of basic conditions for monetary measures.
In his address to the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs on 22 September 1998, Wim Duisenberg re-emphasised the importance of a minimum reserve requirement as a potential instrument of monetary policy.
As the parliamentary rapporteur on this topic, I am pleased to be able to assist in fleshing out the concept of this monetary instrument.
<P>
In the discussion on minimum reserves over the past few months, three key functions of this instrument have taken shape.
First of all, a system of minimum reserves could contribute to the stabilisation of short-term interest rates.
Secondly, such a system could help to increase demand for central bank money, thereby creating and increasing a structural liquidity shortage in the money market.
The ECB considers this helpful, because it gives the Bank greater leverage to operate efficiently as a provider of liquidity and to respond effectively in the longer term to the development of new payment procedures, such as electronic money.
<P>
Thirdly, the minimum reserve system of the ECB could also serve as an instrument for controlling the supply of money, since it is able to influence demand for money by means of interest-rate elasticity.
Nevertheless, the use of minimum reserves an instrument of monetary policy is not universally accepted, since it can result in distortions of competition with countries outside the economic and monetary union.
Against this background, I welcome the ECB decision to fix the minimum reserves at a fairly low level on the one hand and to set the interest on these minimum reserves close to market rates on the other.
<P>
Both of these measures reduce the risk of transactions being shifted to financial centres outside the euro zone.
In this context I should like to highlight two other important elements of this report.
The first is that the ECB should submit a study dealing with the inclusion of off-balance-sheet items in the basis of assessment for the minimum reserves.
In view of the explosive growth in off-balance-sheet transactions, especially in derivatives, the stability of the entire financial system would benefit from the inclusion of off-balance-sheet items.
<P>
The second point I wish to make is that, in view of the increasing importance of electronic money, which the ECB itself has also recognised and studied, something it had not yet done a short time ago - at the hearing there was talk of a 10 % ratio, but a good deal more thought has been given to the matter since then - the policy on minimum reserves should be devised in such a way that it can respond flexibly to such future developments.
<P>
The inclusion of electronic transactions in the basis for the calculation of reserve requirements could prove to be an important aspect of the control of money supply.
Let me stress that the purpose of the present report is to provide the ECB with an effective instrument and to enable the Bank to make flexible decisions on how to use the instrument to respond to present and future developments.
That is why I assume that the Council will adopt this recommendation at the next ECOFIN meeting on 12 October 1998 in order to support the ECB in the implementation of its monetary strategies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Katiforis">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, despite the technical character of this debate, we can say that it is of historic significance because this is the first time that our Parliament has been called upon to legislate on issues relating to the European Central Bank, and I think we should take note of that.
The special draft legislative resolution I am bringing before the House concerns the adoption of a Council regulation on the powers of the European Central Bank to impose sanctions.
Under Article 34(3) of the ECB's Statutes, the ECB is entitled to impose sanctions in connection with its rules and decisions concerning the carrying out of its duties in the area of formulating monetary policy and, in a more limited way, in the area of monitoring the banking system.
<P>
Mr President, I think it must be seldom that circumstances can have made a debate on a rather technical subject as topical and important as this one.
The events of the last few weeks in the money markets have revealed three things: firstly, that the scope of speculation is virtually uncontrolled; secondly, that it has brought us to the brink of economic ruin and, thirdly and most importantly of all, in relation to what we are debating here today, that the people responsible for those events and dangers are not only private speculators, but that those who are supposed to be monitoring them are also involved, i.e. the central banks, which not only cover up their speculative activities but also, when the markets happen to impose sanctions, hasten to redeem the losses they would have sustained.
I am referring to the well-known affair, the notorious scandal of the Merriweather hedge fund in the United States.
You may say that such things only take place in the United States, but the ethos and dogma of the central banks are the same everywhere, and we in Europe have no guarantee that things would have been better over here.
Because what is happening is this: we have the phenomenon of the Central Bank of Italy, which itself speculated with public money in the hedge fund that was speculating in Italy with Italian government bonds, which the Central Bank of Italy is supposedly committed to protecting so as to maintain some discipline in the market.
<P>
Now, Mr President, who is to keep tabs on the Central Bank of Italy is an interesting question, because the Treaty is quite incomplete as regards the subject of controls on credit institutions.
Who is to keep tabs on the Central Bank of Italy?
The Italian authorities? The bank can retort that it is independent.
We have made central bankers independent. The European System of Central Banks?
The bank can respond by invoking the principle of subsidiarity.
So what with independence and subsidiarity, central bankers have managed to acquire rights and powers unmatched even by the divine right of kings. And they are supposed to be serving democratic regimes.
It is a dangerous situation - how dangerous is clear from what has happened in the last few days - and of course it is unacceptable.
The weapon we will be putting into the hands of the Central Bank to enable it to exercise control and impose discipline is quite inadequate, because we are dealing with a procedural decision - which we must of course adopt, which is certainly excellent from the technical standpoint, as shown by the fact that not a single amendment has been tabled - and your rapporteur's opinion is that we should approve it and commend the quality of the work.
But we should be aware that what we are doing is quite inadequate, because the checks must become much more substantial if the public is to be protected against the situations that are developing in the international money markets.
Because, with the powers we are conferring upon them, the central bankers should understand that their job is to make sacrifices on behalf of the public and not on behalf of speculators, as they have unfortunately been doing until now.
<P>
Of course, central bankers point to their triumph in relation to inflation.
But where inflation is concerned, many factors have played a part: not just the policy of the central banks, but the financial policy and the policies of governments in the area of prices and incomes.
But in the very place where the central banks should have achieved their greatest success against inflation, i.e. in their own back yards, they have completely lost control because the inflation of shares and bonds resulting from speculation - which they did nothing to control, but covered up as we are now finding out - has reached a peak and has created an enormous danger for European stock markets, American stock markets and for the worldwide economy.
We are giving them a weapon today, as indeed we ought to, but at the same time we must warn them that weapons they receive from democratic regimes are intended to serve Europe's peoples and not its speculators.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="Hendrick">
Mr President, Article 5.1 of the Statute of European System of Central Banks requires the European Central Bank, assisted by the national central banks, to collect statistical information for carrying out the tasks of the European System of Central Banks.
The information is to be collected either from the competent national authorities or directly from economic agents.
<P>
The draft recommendation for a regulation is quite straightforward in a number of respects.
However, I am concerned about certain matters relating to the confidentiality of statistical information supplied to the ECB.
It appears to me that the ECB, in its drive to be as independent as possible, would like all the benefits of this statistical regime but without the responsibility that Eurostat are placed under by Community law.
The good faith of the NCBs in collecting the information on behalf of the ECB should not be prejudiced by the ECB failing to respect the confidentiality of the information in its possession.
In this respect, I have tried in my amendments to tighten up these aspects.
<P>
In order to collect the information necessary for carrying out the tasks of the ECB, particular attention must be paid to 'the reference reporting population'.
A number of issues were raised.
Firstly, on sanctions: if no information is received by the ECB or NCB by the established deadline, a daily penalty payment not exceeding 10 000 euros may be imposed.
Secondly, if the information supplied is incorrect or incomplete, in a form not complying with the requirements, a fine not exceeding 200 000 euros may be imposed.
If the reporting agent obstructs the verification of the accuracy of the information, again a fine not exceeding 200 000 euros may be imposed.
<P>
Confidentiality is a big issue and, in order to gain and maintain the confidence of the reporting agents, I consider it a prerequisite for high quality statistical data.
Such data should remain confidential wherever possible.
<P>
Looking at the regime itself, recital 22 argues that the confidentiality regime in this Regulation 'must differ to some extent from the general Community and international principles on statistical confidentiality'.
This is the argument about it conflicting with the Eurostat provisions.
The justification for this is unclear and the use of information should therefore be made to conform with the provisions on confidentiality in the Council Regulation itself.
<P>
Concerning the imposition of sanctions, there is no 'get-out' clause to allow for circumstances where reporting agents are themselves unable to provide statistical information, i.e. there is no provision for a fax machine that does not work.
There should be provisions for this and my report makes provision for that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in exactly 87 days' time European economic and monetary union will begin.
The preparations for the introduction of the euro by the European System of Central Banks are well under way and are keeping to schedule.
Today's adoption by Parliament of the secondary legislation permitting the imposition of sanctions for failure to comply with the monetary element of minimum reserves and on the collection of statistical information represents a very important step in this direction.
We should take this occasion to remind ourselves that monetary union is a project without historical parallel.
<P>
For the first time in history, nations are ceding sovereign rights to a federal European institution.
In so doing, however, they are gaining in sovereignty over monetary policy.
This point has just been proved once again by the current turbulent state of the finance markets, in the midst of which the euro zone has emerged as a haven of stability.
<P>
In this situation, every effort must be made to create the technical and legal basis on which the European Central Bank can best perform the tasks assigned to it in the Treaty.
It is a matter of ensuring that the secondary legislation is implemented as soon as possible.
The European Parliament has arranged its timetable with this objective in mind.
This means that the ECOFIN Council can now complete the adoption of this legislation on 12 October.
The involvement of the European Parliament in this legislative process is only one element in establishing the democratic legitimacy of European monetary policy through monetary dialogue between the European Central Bank and the European Parliament.
<P>
It is not only a question of guaranteeing the democratic accountability of an institution which enjoys a historically unprecedented degree of autonomy; conversely, it is also about the fact that only a policy backed by the public acceptance and credibility that comes from democratic legitimacy can achieve the goals imposed upon it by the Treaty.
That is why a monetary dialogue with the European Parliament is in the best interests of the European Central Bank, enabling it to acquire credibility and acceptance in the marketplace and among the population at large.
<P>
The Hoppenstedt report rightly draws attention to an important instrument of monetary policy.
If the European Central Bank is to achieve the aims set for it in the Treaty and if monetary union is to succeed, care must be taken to ensure that the ECB has a set of differentiated and efficient monetary instruments at its disposal.
The minimum reserve is one such key monetary instrument; it is able to steady the banks' demand for central bank money and thus to prevent highly volatile short-term interest rates.
Active use of this instrument to prevent speculative flows of capital, as happened in Germany, for example, in the early 1970s after the abandonment of the Bretton Woods system, does not feature in the armoury of European monetary policies at the present time.
<P>
In view of the worldwide financial crises and the speculative movements of 'hot money', minimum reserves will serve even more purposes in the future.
Potential developments in the domain of electronic money, which could supplant cash and thus reduce demand for central bank money, it is important that the ECB should have this instrument in its monetary toolkit.
Minimum reserves do, however, create problems, in that their use acts like a tax on the banking sector and could result in competitive disadvantages for financial markets in the euro zone.
<P>
Now that the ECB Council has decided in favour of moderate reserve ratios and the payment of interest on money deposited with the ECB by way of minimum reserves, the way is clear for the introduction of a compulsory minimum reserve.
The European Parliament can assent to this proposal, as the Katiforis report has also spelled out very clearly in connection with the right to impose sanctions.
So the European Parliament rightly has no objections to the draft regulation.
Similarly, the collection of statistical data is a necessity in the European Union, especially when the money supply has to be controlled in this way; since the development of money-management and saving patterns in the European monetary union is an unknown factor, a broad database will be vitally important.
<P>
As Mr Hendrick and also the draft regulation rightly state, the European Central Bank must be given the legal authority to assemble an adequate database.
<P>
It goes without saying that the European Central Bank cannot act in a legal vacuum in this area.
The general precepts of the law must be the yardstick against which its actions are judged.
That is why the Hendrick report is right to draw attention to the problems of confidentiality and protection.
It is important, in other words, that proper provisions are adopted, as the European Parliament has underlined in the compromises proposed in its amendments.
<P>
As has been the case over the past few months, European monetary union is still on schedule and undergoing thorough preparation so that it can begin 87 days from now, on 1 January 1999, and can do so with an European Central Bank which is equipped with an efficient set of instruments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gasòliba i Böhm">
Mr President, a few days ago, Mr Duisenberg, the President of the European Central Bank, addressed the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs, which is chaired by our colleague, Mrs Randzio-Plath.
He assured the subcommittee that the relevant deadlines and provisions were being met as required to ensure that the operational mechanisms of the European Central Bank run smoothly when the euro comes into effect on 1 January next year.
However, he did suggest that there were still some important aspects that needed to be clarified sufficiently before the euro came into effect.
<P>
These three reports, which were approved by a large majority in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, refer to some basic points of those issues that are essential to ensure the smooth running of the European Central Bank.
And, as the various rapporteurs have demonstrated, there are still some fundamental questions that must be taken into account. Similarly, any observations that have been made in this respect must be included, for example on issues such as the reserves, the relations between Member States and the European Central Bank, the level of sanctions, the application of these sanctions, etcetera.
<P>
As Mrs Randzio-Plath said, there are less than 90 days left before the euro is introduced and, in these times of economic and financial upheaval, it has been shown that the euro will provide extremely important security and stability for the euro area.
But the euro must be consolidated for this to happen.
And I believe that - from Mr Duisenberg's speech and the comments that have been made here in committee debates on these basic issues - there is still an excessive imbalance between the running of the European Central Bank and the application of economic and monetary policies by Member States and their own central banks.
This is a matter that we should resolve as soon as possible, and we must take all the necessary precautions to ensure that the euro runs smoothly from 1 January next year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Gallagher">
Mr President, today we are dealing with three regulations pursuant to Article 106(6) of the Treaty, covering the application of minimum reserves, the power to impose sanctions and the collection of statistical information by the European Central Bank, which have been drawn up according to a special procedure laid down by the Treaty.
In this case the European Central Bank and the Commission are agreed that the bank itself prepare the projects for recommendation to avoid duplication.
<P>
With regard to the regulation on the collection of statistical information, our group, for its part, considers that the amendments adopted by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy define yet again the area and the methods of collecting statistical information by the bank.
The text before us seems to be satisfactory.
<P>
With regard to the regulation on sanctions, I note that the bank has been granted powers in a wider area of responsibility than most national central banks on the subject of statistics.
It is not unusual that the armoury of sanctions foreseen by the regulation is vast.
In Article 2 the regulation specifies that the sanctions must be proportionate to the faults committed and provides, before their implementation, for a detailed procedure to be followed which guarantees that the establishments threatened by sanction can evaluate their position before the competent authorities.
That appears to be a good idea.
<P>
I come now to the regulation on obligatory reserves.
We must remember that in July the European Central Bank announced the constitution of obligatory reserves from 1 January 1999, which would be paid at the rate of their principal operation of refinancing of the European Central Bank; this would guarantee a remuneration at the level close to the rate of the monetary market.
We must remember, nevertheless, that this point does not appear explicitly in the draft regulation.
The legal base on which this is based is Article 19(2) of the European Central Bank statutes. This does not allow it.
<P>
On the other hand, certain Parliament amendments propose to include more explicitly in the assessment of obligatory reserves a due date which is linked to posts outside the estimate and particularly to derivatives 'to support a monetary policy aimed at stability' and contribute 'to the stability of the whole financial system'.
<P>
Some here question the merits of these amendments in the sense that the request is already covered by Article 3 of the draft regulation.
On the other hand it belongs to the ECB to determine, according to the objective criteria, the coefficients which should apply to each category of requirement.
In any case the inclusion of derivatives in the assessment of obligatory reserves could not be justified for precautionary reasons, as seems to be suggested in one of the amendments.
<P>
Finally, the obligatory reserves are an instrument of monetary policy aimed at stabilising the rate of interest of the monetary market and at mastering the growth of money supply.
From this point of view, in our opinion, the inclusion of certain derivatives in the assessment is justified.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Ainardi">
Mr President, the reports of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy unreservedly approve the three draft regulations concerning the powers of the European Central Bank to impose sanctions, apply minimum reserves and collect statistical information.
<P>
These regulations demonstrate the excessive power of the Central Bank.
The direct management of the measures involved would effectively be handed over to the ECB without any intervention by national governments or even national central banks.
No political control would be exercised over the ECB at Community level because the 'euro' Council is, at the moment, a powerless structure.
Yet I am hearing that the euro zone will be a zone of stability. I would say my colleagues are being rather optimistic.
If the global financial crisis weakens the economies of the emerging countries, everyone knows that the industrialised countries will also be affected. This is actually already happening, and it is also clear to everyone that this will have serious economic and social consequences.
<P>
Obviously, it is therefore imperative that we begin considering this matter and that we put forward proposals on the objectives and operating procedures of the European Central Bank.
We cannot allow the Central Bank to become the censor of national budgets by imposing policies, in the name of the fight against inflation, which are restrictive in social and employment terms.
It is a matter of urgency that we change the priorities and redefine the objectives of the Central Bank so that it can help by boosting appropriations for employment and growth and so that it can act to limit the free movement of capital and to curb the power of the financial markets.
<P>
Our citizens and their elected bodies must have the means to control this Central Bank.
It is therefore essential to establish the transparency and democratic control of its activity, particularly through control by the European Parliament and the national parliaments and by opening up the major economic and monetary challenges to public debate.
Beginning work to redefine the objectives and activity of the Central Bank is essential if we wish to start gradually redirecting European integration so that it really can respond to the needs and aspirations of the people of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, here we are in the last furlong of a trotting race that is suddenly being taken at a gallop.
Suddenly there is an unholy rush to complete in a matter of months the work that has lain undone over the years.
We should at least admit that the whole thing is making us somewhat breathless.
It is indeed true that minimum reserves are a key dimension of monetary policy.
Mrs Randzio-Plath has already explained why.
However, we should also perhaps go on to ask whether we ought not to envisage minimum reserves as a means of stabilising the euro in the global context and to create a broader basis for the reserve requirement.
I can encapsulate the reasons for this in the words 'derivatives' and 'casino capitalism'.
<P>
As far as sanctions, supervision and control are concerned, Mr Katiforis has already said that these are not enough.
When irresponsible traders operate with enormously potent hedge funds, the guarantees set out here will be insufficient, and as far as the statistics are concerned, not even a broad database will give us any genuine influence on real economic developments.
<P>
For all we may be on schedule, it is still worrying, I must say, that the present level of technical preparation for the introduction of the euro offers no guarantee against the eventuality of our being confronted with major problems.
As far as political support, adjustment and preparation are concerned, however, I do hope that the essential last-minute adjustments will indeed be effected.
Oskar Lafontaine certainly shows a clear understanding of the problem when he enumerates the main economic goals as follows: reducing interest rates as the key monetary task, putting economic governance into effect, incorporating equal rights as an employment target and contributing actively to the stabilisation of the international financial edifice.
Mr Katiforis rightly said that it is simply not enough to keep closer tabs on the situation.
More supervisory control is essential.
We cannot only protect the rights of those who own monetary assets; it is high time we also closed the open wound resulting from the lack of democratic legitimacy and control of the European Central Bank.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Torres Marques">
Mr President, we are in the final stages of launching the euro, which will come into force in under 90 days.
And, as promised by its President Wim Duisenberg, the European Central Bank is sending Parliament its recommendations in connection with the Council's approval of the necessary regulations to ensure the smooth operation of the ECB and the achievement of the stated goals. The first of these is price stability, but economic and monetary measures are also needed to maintain Europe's present economic expansion which is jeopardised by the monetary crisis in Russia, Asia and Latin America.
<P>
The three regulations in question relate to the application of minimum reserves by the European Central Bank, the power to impose sanctions and the statistical information to be provided by the Member States.
The rapporteurs were respectively Messrs Hoppenstedt, Katiforis and Hendrick, whom I congratulate.
<P>
These are essential measures in ensuring the smooth operation of the third phase of monetary union, and they are no doubt consistent with the way in which the money supply in the 11 euro countries will be controlled with a view to making the markets not only more attractive but also safe, which is no simple task or foregone conclusion.
The requisite measures are covered by these three regulations which, overall, deserve our approval.
<P>
In respect of Mr Hoppenstedt's report on the application of minimum reserves, there is a clear need to balance the advantages and security offered by this measure against the need for flexibility to ensure that there is no distortion of competition.
As we know, a system for the application of minimum reserves has three fundamental functions: first, to stabilise interest rates on the money market; second, to create the conditions to deal with a structural liquidity shortage and third, to control monetary expansion.
The 10 % level proposed by the ECB, on which interest is payable and including electronic money which is increasingly widely used, and the broader scope of its application merit our approval, as do the remaining proposals.
<P>
With regard to Mr Katiforis' report on the ECB's power to impose sanctions, I agree with his sound and sensible conclusions.
The balance between the ECB and the national central banks under the regulation is particularly appropriate: while both the ECB and national central banks can initiate a sanctions procedure, decisions can only be handed down by the competent bodies of the ECB.
It is thereby simultaneously ensured that the central banks remain vigilant and that the sanctions procedure is uniform at all levels of the system of European central banks.
<P>
Lastly, let us consider Mr Hendrick's report on the collection of the ECB's statistical information.
Everybody knows that exchange rate and monetary decisions should and can be taken on the basis of the most accurate statistical data possible.
This explains the precautions contained in this regulation and all the provisions that it includes.
I share the rapporteur's belief in the absolute need for confidentiality of the information that is made available by national central banks to the ECB.
The proposed amendments are more stringent in this regard.
<P>
We are living through an extremely important, difficult and interesting period: the birth of a new euro currency which is designed to be stable and is shared by countries whose economies are pursuing rigorous budgetary control policies, but where growth remains strong, in a climate of widespread monetary crisis and instability.
We hope that this new currency will become a factor of stability, not only in Europe, but throughout the world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Carlsson">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have less than three months to go before the euro is with us and the European Parliament is being been asked to give its view on a number of technical points.
Let me use this opportunity to say that the Union should be proud of what is happening.
A new process has been launched - promising stability and growth - and I once again lament the fact that Sweden is stuck with a government committed to remaining outside.
<P>
The right monetary policy instruments must be deployed if the European Central Bank is to enjoy credibility. Equally important, however, is the collection of sound information upon which to base policy decisions.
I think that Mr Hoppenstedt has produced a very good report.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy was invited to comment on the ECB's recommendation for a Council regulation concerning the application of minimum reserves.
In his excellent explanatory statement, Mr Hoppenstedt notes that the importance of minimum reserves is waning.
If monetary policy objectives can be achieved using the other instruments available to the ECB, he argues, the possibility of a 0 % lower limit could be envisaged.
I believe that the scope for adjusting liquidity via open market operations is probably adequate and agree with what the rapporteur said earlier about incorrect use of minimum reserves leading to distortions of competition.
The reserve requirement is also a temptation for itchy-fingered bureaucrats who are eager to tax the banking system.
We can therefore support the proposal for a regulation, since it gives the ECB plenty of leeway to assess whether minimum reserves are necessary and, if so, how high they should be.
The PPE Group has no doubts as to the ability of the Central Bank's management to make the right judgements and decisions.
<P>
If the European Central Bank is to act credibly and effectively, its decisions must be based on correct information.
Monetary policy has to be underpinned by reliable statistics, verifiable by outside parties.
The Hendrick and Katiforis reports cover the provisions for imposing sanctions on institutions which fail to meet their responsibilities and honour their commitments.
I congratulate the two rapporteurs on their good work.
<P>
Forwarding statistics to the ECB is a sensitive matter and presupposes a climate of trust between the national and European levels.
Data must be of high quality and based on common standards. We cannot afford any lack of clarity, although the reporting burden should not be too heavy.
<P>
Provided it has the right foundation upon which to work, I am confident that the ECB will be capable of taking the necessary monetary policy decisions.
If it is open in its dealings with the markets and transparent in its decision-making, the foundations for a successful European Central Bank will have been laid.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, over the last few months it has become commonly accepted that the IMF has failed in its task of rescuing the world's organisation of its finances.
We are on the brink of worldwide deflation.
The IMF has prescribed policy cures for different countries that have not improved, but only served to make worse, the disease brought about by the virus of speculation.
In all its operations the IMF has been guided by an invisible hand: liberalist logic.
The IMF, with our money, has baled out supranational banks, instead of individual countries.
<P>
The ECB is now being given the means to prevent a financial crisis in Europe caused by speculation.
For that reason, according to Mr Hoppenstedt's report, we have good grounds to include all the financial institutions in the minimum reserves base as well as many of their off-balance-sheet items.
The securitisation of credits and speculation in the derivatives market could generate a bank crisis.
<P>
However, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy is mistaken in its second recommendation.
The banks should not be paid market rates of interest on their minimum reserves.
In that way the ECB will be able to more effectively protect the banking system from overheating, which has recently been the case in Asia, Russia and Latin America.
The job of the ECB is not to rescue banks, but societies.
<P>
The ideology of the European Central Bank is the logic of free capital markets.
The ECB faces the impossible task of overseeing the same monetary policies for different countries.
It should take heed that Europe does not fall under the control of the logic of capital market inflation and deflation of the real economy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, I would mainly like to speak about Mr Hendrick's report, which concerns the powers of the European Central Bank to collect statistical information.
The European Central Bank creates a source of information from these statistics as a basis for practising a common monetary policy.
This information is in principle collected from various agents in confidence, but as the rapporteur and the committee state, this proposal for a regulation is not absolutely clear from the point of view of confidentiality.
That is why the committee is proposing that this notion of confidentiality should be made more precise and that another Community regulation should be observed in so doing, one that concerns the confidentiality of statistical information.
Information can in principle be very sensitive.
It can even contain industrial secrets, and it may be that inner-circle problems will be caused if this information, surrendered as it is to the Central Bank, does not main entirely confidential.
Information that is not directly identifiable can be deduced, just as the rapporteur says, so this really must be clarified.
<P>
All this makes for continued tension when it comes to the demand for openness on the part of the ECB.
The ECB should therefore draft general rules on the public's right to access documents in its possession without delay and to acquaint themselves with the open regulations on restrictions and exceptions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the euro must be strong and dependable.
In the present economic turmoil of Asia and Russia, we can see that money and monetary policy are inevitably tied to the economy, social relations and politics itself.
<P>
Confidence in the market is not enough.
It is the confidence of our citizens that is needed for the euro.
That means the need for more democracy, supervision of the Central Bank and responsibility to democratic bodies.
A central bank for democratic states cannot shut itself away merely to execute monetary policy. It has to realise it is part of a broad economic policy that takes the social dimension into account, with the emphasis, as we have pointed out here, on employment.
For that reason, I am in favour of the idea of creating a secretariat in contact with ECOFIN, for example, to prepare questions relating to finance and economics.
<P>
Supervision of the ECB must be in accordance with today's standards - standards that acknowledge social responsibility.
With the ECB, money appears to be getting further and further away from democratic systems of decision-making, circulating as it is in electronic form and in worldwide networks.
We seem to have given up the monitoring and control of money, which has resulted in money controlling us and currency speculators controlling entire states.
The decisions of the ECB affect the economy and thus have an impact on employment.
Consequently, the degree of unaccountability hitherto granted to the Bank and its jealously guarded secrecy are no longer acceptable.
Changes have to be made.
The ECB must be accountable and that is because neo-liberalism, which has wrought havoc in the lives of ordinary people, has come crashing down in all major recent elections.
Is the message not clear enough?
We have to address the big issues like the control and regulation of speculative money and the global giants.
<P>
Income tax has risen tremendously in the last few decades, while tax on capital has fallen.
Most lucrative of all business occupations is thought to be that of international currency speculator.
It falls entirely outside the scope of taxation. At the same time SMEs, which actually employ people, complain that they are taxed too highly.
We have to remember that we have 18 million SMEs and 17 million unemployed.
This is the wrong sort of ratio.
The wrong people are paying excessive amounts of tax.
The euro must be in competition with the dollar, but more is required of the euro than the dollar in the ethical sense.
Ruthless speculation on the stock market causes a great deal of damage.
The speculators are the ones who enjoy the fruits of human labour.
As my colleague Mr Katiforis said, instead of trying to penalise the speculators, we are helping them.
And there can be no good grounds for this.
<P>
Many particularly large companies are prepared for the third stage of the euro, the figure being 64 % of them in my own country, Finland.
This is hardly true of the SME sector. Only 7 % have started to prepare themselves in this way.
The situation is even worse in companies in the service sector.
The SME sector, however, as I said, is the main employer in Europe.
This being the case, I hope that the Commission will produce a guidance package for the SME sector as we move towards the single currency.
<P>
Mr Hoppenstedt mentions in his report that minimum reserves act like a tax on the deposits of the banks' clients.
As a result, there may be a shift from domestic activities subject to minimum reserves requirements to foreign activities free from such requirements.
The banks in the euro area will thus be placed at a major competitive disadvantage compared with non-member countries.
The worst situation of all will be the one that bank employees will face here in Europe before long. It has already happened in Finland.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">

Mr President, Commissioner, with regard to the Hendrick report, in my opinion the independence of the European Central Bank and its role of ensuring that the euro is a strong currency fully justify this regulation. This will allow the ECB to collect the statistical information needed for carrying out its tasks.
<P>
Unlike our rapporteur, I am not worried about the confidentiality of statistical information supplied to the ECB.
We have entrusted the European Central Bank with the task of independently managing our European currency - the euro - whether or not this suits some of my colleagues sitting opposite me who are clearly nostalgic for systems which have failed where they have been applied, for example in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
<P>
I therefore believe that it would be absurd to try and impose obstacles which would block the production of carefully interconnected statistics within the European Union.
Confidential statistical information on, for example, cross-border financial transactions may prove to be necessary.
Preventing confidential statistical information collected in this way from being used to respond to additional requirements would be as overprotective as trying to labour the point using the provisions of such a regulation. This would just be in vain and would involve, for example, the need to limit the constraints imposed on people subject to the reporting obligation.
Everyone is agreed on this.
<P>
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy voted for some of my amendments, including those which specify that the statistical information may be used to carry out basic tasks, in accordance with Article 5(2) of the Treaty.
These safeguards, I would say, are quite adequate.
<P>
With regard to sanctions, we should refrain from proposing texts such as Amendment No 4 which would only benefit lawyers, by giving them plenty of work, without really limiting the burden inherent in the preparation of declarations by undertakings, however these are affected.
There can be no question, in an area as delicate as the management of the single currency, of allowing reporting agents to gamble on the payment of fines instead of supplying information which the ECB would certainly not collect if this was not essential to its task.
<P>
We should not forget, Mr President, that a central bank, as with any other political or other type of decision-maker, will make poor judgements and decisions if it is poorly informed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Mr President, these three reports on the European Central Bank obviously emanate from the need to regulate the activities of the new institution. Which, it may be said, is not only necessary but positive.
<P>
Regarding the first regulation on the application of minimum reserves, there is clearly some concern about the possible distortion of competition if such reserves are seen as a tax on deposits, and also about the broad margin of manoeuvre that is permitted.
This might be a good time to reflect on the role of reserves in the banking system.
<P>
But what we would like to emphasise in this brief statement is that the approach and philosophy adopted in the other two regulations give the ECB substantial power to impose sanctions.
We have already sharply criticised the ECB for not being sufficiently democratic and for having disproportionate powers which are not subject to political control, in the name of unrestricted independence, and our criticisms and concerns can only be exacerbated by this power to regulate and impose sanctions.
We do not question the need for reliable and timely statistical information, but the power to impose sanctions, particularly in connection with statistical information, could create a series of obligations and pressures whereby the ECB acquires new and more broad-ranging power without the necessary political and democratic constraints and limitations.
<P>
These regulations, as proposed and as supported by the House, serve to strengthen the powers of an institution which is beyond all form of control. We therefore feel that these powers have become excessive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ettl">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the three reports before us, dealing with minimum reserves, sanctions and the collection of statistical information, were unanimously adopted at the committee stage - to all appearances, three more or less routine reports, but in view of the latest developments in the international finance markets they are anything but insignificant.
<P>
Allow me, therefore, to make a few basic remarks about these developments.
The background, briefly, is as follows: in the early summer of 1997, the failure of a building loan triggered mass hysteria among creditors in the South-East Asian finance markets and plunged the 'little tigers' into a gigantic economic and social crisis.
This crisis of confidence then spread to Japan, South Africa, Latin America and finally, for political reasons, to Russia as well.
The results are sufficiently well known: growth forecasts had to be scaled down, and plummeting share prices led to worldwide losses in the order of four trillion dollars - equivalent to Japan's entire GDP.
Many of these crisis-torn countries are caught in a liquidity trap from which only an injection of funds can extricate them.
<P>
The G7 decision to set up an emergency fund must be seen in this light and is naturally a welcome step.
One of the crucial factors in this whole crisis, however, has been the failure of the IMF to perform its supervisory function properly.
The real economic impact of the speculative movements and the loss of growth that has resulted from this crisis of confidence, which actually has nothing at all to do with purely economic developments, cry out for a change of system.
The present system simply costs the general public too much.
The opinion that finance markets should be subject to control and regulation is gaining ground, even among major owners of capital.
<P>
Europe, with its converging economies and stable currencies, has largely succeeded in keeping clear of this crisis.
This stability has had to be bought time and again with high interest rates.
That affects growth rates in turn, but - and this is a decisive point - the use of interest-rate policy as a means of currency stabilisation, especially through the minimum reserve ratio, is an object lesson to European banks on how to behave in a deregulated supranational economic system.
It provides the Central Bank with the means with which to restrict the commercial banks' lending activities and to control the money supply.
This national instrument, as it has hitherto been, must now become a European instrument of supervision and control.
This is the line of thought that has to be pursued.
<P>
One reason for this is that up to 1.8 trillion dollars is moved around daily on the international finance market in the form of speculative transactions - that represents about 10 % of global GNP.
In the case of Thailand, for example, the lowering of the minimum reserve ratio generated a rash of high-risk short-term transactions.
This naturally provided greater scope for the hedge funds, which operate not only in the money market but also in the commodity market and which, because they can be quickly liquidated, lead to a doubling of costs for entire industries.
If, for instance, commodity prices soar because of poor cotton harvests, buyers can already expect to be charged an additional hedge-fund supplement, as it were.
Surely that is not the name of the game!
It certainly has nothing to do with work or with innovations in the finance market.
<P>
The general public have to foot the bill, which is precisely why I really do believe that it makes more sense to base a minimum reserve policy to a greater extent on the true-cost principle than on remuneration for so-called competitive reasons, which is somewhat contrary to what Wim Duisenberg has been saying.
But Mr Duisenberg, of course, need not always be right.
Excessive deregulation makes expectation the main determinant of the finance markets, which stop using economic development as their yardstick and allow their actions be governed by competitors' performance patterns.
Growth and employment must have priority, and that must be reflected in political decisions.
This means that the open market must be governed by recognised international rules.
The minimum reserve is one such rule. The discussion is not about abolishing it but about making it into an effective instrument.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, with the present reports we are consolidating the strength and independence of the European Central Bank.
May I congratulate Mr Hendrick on his report.
I believe that he has grasped the main thrust of the case.
It is very important that we give the ECB the greatest possible degree of independence, but at the same time its activities must be governed by the legal principles that apply in the European Community.
<P>
I am especially pleased to see that, with regard to the collection of statistical information, we intend to take special account of the interests of small and medium-sized businesses.
We know from many surveys that the administrative effort required for the collection of data, which is often badly structured, tends to get out of hand and to hamper companies in the performance of their actual work.
We intend to combat this problem by means of Amendment No 7, which seeks to establish thresholds in order to ensure that compulsory reporting does not apply to all small businesses - and even, in extreme cases, to households - as soon as they engage in cross-border transactions.
<P>
The European Central Bank itself is to set these thresholds and is to set them quite liberally.
This preserves its independence and the efficiency of the system.
Lastly, it is perfectly natural that the sanctions provided for in the regulation should be governed by the general principles of criminal law and statistics.
For that reason, penalties must be determined in accordance with the proportionality principle and with the degree of culpability.
In the case of force majeure , in other words if failure to transmit data is caused by factors beyond the control of the reporting agent, sanctions are not to be imposed at all.
<P>
The present proposals strike a reasonable balance between the need to collect data and the aim of avoiding additional burdens on businesses and households.
The key role played by small and medium-sized businesses in job-creation within the internal market shows why these specific refinements are necessary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, we are debating three Council regulations which confer enormous powers on the European Central Bank and which should be considered very carefully indeed by the European Parliament, especially at this time.
<P>
I sometimes wonder whether the current financial crisis is happening on some other planet.
The scope of speculation is uncontrolled.
The vast worldwide economic crisis, which is still very much alive and shows no sign of coming to an end, is most evident in the stock markets and the financial credit system, but it will soon have a direct impact on working people, with higher unemployment, lower disposable incomes, drastic cut-backs of consumption and international trade, and a significant fall in production all over the world.
<P>
Can it really be that the central banks have no responsibility for the tragedy being experienced by millions of people all over the world?
Authoritative international economic organisations are already sounding alarm bells in connection with the creation of the euro.
<P>
The reports we are debating today concerning the European Central Bank express a historic irony.
At a time when the world's economic leaders, under the aegis of the International Monetary Fund, are debating how to deal with the impact of the crisis, even to some extent, the European Parliament and the European Union persist in applying old and outdated prescriptions.
These reports place the low cost of banks and freedom of competition above exchange-rate security and protection of the public, and entrust to the central bankers the task of monitoring speculators, a control which should be exercised by politically and democratically elected organisations and bodies.
<P>
An agonising question is emerging. Who is to guard us from the guardians?
Who is to impose political and democratic control on the uncontrolled European Central Bank?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wibe">
Mr President, as we know, Sweden will not be taking part in monetary union.
The explanation lies not with the Swedish Government's attitude - as stated by a previous speaker - but with the climate of public opinion. Swedes in general are highly critical of EMU and they have the support of an overwhelming majority of academic economists, who see a threat to monetary stability if control over exchange rates is lost.
Yet I did not take the floor to talk about Sweden, but rather to comment on these three excellent reports we have before us.
My main focus will be the provisions governing minimum reserves.
<P>
Minimum reserves constitute an extraordinarily important monetary policy instrument - one which we deployed with great success in Sweden until 1985.
Minimum reserve requirements were then abolished in the wave of banking deregulation which followed.
The result was financial mayhem, with annual increases in borrowing of 25 %.
The main lesson for us is that minimum reserves do matter in terms of monetary stability.
<P>
Admittedly any such system has its shortcomings. l have three particular areas of concern.
For a start, new liquidity is constantly being created.
Mr Hoppenstedt refers in his report to the recent rise in the number of promissory notes circulating 'off-balance-sheet'. The effect of this is to boost monetary demand.
Secondly, we have trading in derivatives - which also swells liquidity.
And I can readily imagine that once people have got used to trading in derivatives, they will soon move on to derivatives of derivatives. This will alter the price of derivatives and trigger further rises in liquidity.
Reference has already been made to my third worry: electronic money.
<P>
All these elements make it very difficult to come up with precise rules on minimum reserves - and, over time, there will anyway be a loss in effectiveness.
It is not easy to draw a line between institutions which should be subject to minimum reserve requirements and those which should not. Do we focus solely on the banks, or should we take in other financial institutions?
Swedish experience suggests that it is wise to have as broad a base as possible.
The constant risk is that peripheral companies will be created, whose very position will enable them to circumvent the regulatory structure.
Another point touched upon was the competitive disadvantage that could arise from the introduction of a minimum reserve requirement throughout the euro area.
Capital is a volatile thing and there will always be a strong tendency to move business to parts of the world where there are no rules on reserves.
<P>
My conclusion is that we must have minimum reserves, but these are not enough in themselves to create monetary stability. Other regulatory measures are needed.
In a global world we have to look to global agreements - primarily in order to pre-empt the kind of unhealthy competition just described.
<P>
I have just one further point concerning the Hendrick report on the collection of statistical information by the ECB.
My concern is not so much confidentiality as the quality of inflation statistics.
International research has frequently highlighted how easy it is to overestimate inflation by not taking account of improvements in the quality of products.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="Donnelly, Alan">
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Telecommunications equipment
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0337/98), on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0342/98-97/0149(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive on radio equipment and telecommunications terminal equipment and the mutual recognition of their conformity (Rapporteur: Mrs Read).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="Read">
Mr President, colleagues on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy will know that this is the second attempt we have made to reach a working directive on this matter.
The previous proposal from the Commission in 1990 relied on the 'test house' method of ensuring conformity before terminal equipment could be placed on the market.
For a variety of reasons which are now, I think, shrouded in history, that directive did not work particularly well.
The Commission has quite properly brought a second proposal here which is shifting the emphasis away from a 'test house' method of certification to a method involving a manufacturer's declaration.
I, as the rapporteur, think that is the right approach and have no quarrel at all with the Commission's ideology on this matter.
<P>
The Commission has also properly included radio equipment as part of the remit of this directive.
Again, I think that is perfectly proper.
I was lobbied in the early stages of the first reading on behalf of radio amateurs who were fearful that their own activities could be affected by this, but they are now well on the way to being reassured about that.
<P>
I have spent a considerable amount of time - perhaps the Commissioner could comment on this - on the vexed question of harm to the network and the likelihood of harm to the network.
I have tried to ensure that my recommendations on this matter, both in the first and second readings, are in proportion to any likely damage.
Many people concerned with implementation of the directive were naturally interested in this matter.
<P>
The proposal, and Parliament's response to it, also recognise there have been very major technological changes between the first and second proposals.
We have tried to take account of that, as indeed we have tried to take account of the question of consumer interests and liability and, particularly, to take into account the needs of disabled consumers, particularly blind and deaf consumers.
<P>
There has been an enormous amount of work, for which I thank colleagues in Parliament, the Commission and the Council, to arrive at a workable text which satisfies all of those reservations.
There was considerable pressure to avoid a conciliation on this. It is right to say it openly.
I am sure that the Commissioner will appreciate Parliament's sensitivities about this.
We know that there is to be a major review of all of the legislation next year.
I am sure that if there are any points about this that prove not to be workable in practice, they can be reviewed at that time.
<P>
I want to be able to explain at the time of the vote why the compromise text in the name of my colleague, Mr Hendrick, is particularly to be commended.
This is Amendment No 18.
This is the best option. I hope Parliament will support it, not just to avoid a conciliation - although that has been a goal - but more importantly to make sure that we come up with a directive that can help the industry, help consumers and particularly help the most vulnerable consumers.
<P>
I commend the text to you.
I very much hope it is going to get widespread support across the groups when it comes to the vote later this morning.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Velzen, W.G.">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the rapid pace at which new telecommunications equipment is developed these days, the liberalisation of telecom markets and the fiercer competition which this creates all mean that swift procedures are needed to introduce telecom equipment such as phones and faxes onto the market.
<P>
The directive we are discussing today, the RTTE Directive, relieves the manufacturers of these products of the burden of difficult and protracted national approval procedures.
Our thanks are due to Mrs Read for her help with the broad lines of this highly technical directive and also for the excellent cooperation we have received from her in recent weeks and months.
I must thank the Commission too for the constructive manner in which it has worked with the European Parliament and the Council to improve this proposal, which was very unclear to begin with.
<P>
The focus of the directive is the essential requirements which telecommunications equipment has to meet in Europe.
It is very important to telecom companies with their own networks to keep inferior products out of them, because otherwise consumers may get the impression that the network is not efficient.
So the Economic Affairs Committee, on the basis of a proposal from the European People's Party, accepted an amendment to the effect that competent national authorities may exclude inferior equipment from the network if it is apparent that there are problems and that these are documented.
Why is it so important that they should be documented?
In the Netherlands if a telephone company, such as Telfort, for instance, can show that an item of equipment seriously harms or abuses the network, the national radio communications authority in Groningen can decide to remove that equipment from the market.
But imposing the condition that documented problems must have arisen before equipment is taken off the market will stop operators from possibly abusing this directive in order to keep new competitors out of the market.
At the same time, this proposal by the European Parliament will provide an incentive for network operators to spend money on expanding and improving the quality of their networks.
<P>
Better innovative products do, after all, place more demands on the network.
Operators cannot resist these products on the grounds that their networks are not up to it.
So I believe that this balance safeguards the interests of both operators and the manufacturers of terminal equipment.
<P>
Regrettably, Mr President, the industry was not involved to a sufficient degree in the preparation of the Commission proposal.
Happily, the common position adopts my suggestion that the Commission must regularly consult the representatives of network operators, consumers and manufacturers.
This guarantees that these market players will have a say in future developments.
This directive takes account of the needs of the 50 million or so handicapped people in Europe and all praise to Mrs Read for that.
Parliament has made it a part of the directive that disabled people must be able to use telecom equipment either without or with only minimal adaptation.
The directive assumes that manufacturers will operate self-certification but that ultimately each Member States will have a body to oversee compliance with the directive.
So I think this flexible approval procedure will allow the fast-growing telecom market to work better.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sichrovsky">
Mr President, any scheme that simplifies the European system of telecommunications terminal equipment is surely to be welcomed, as is the special emphasis on the need to ensure that such equipment can be used by people with disabilities.
In actual fact we are faced with another problem, to which too little attention has perhaps been paid.
<P>
There is an enormous disparity between the prices of the equipment which consumers can buy in Europe at the present time and equipment prices in other continents.
More and more inhabitants of the European Community are returning from holidays in the United States or Asia with equipment that is considerably cheaper than in Europe.
A method must be found to enable the Member States to exclude substandard equipment from the market without affecting competitiveness.
<P>
We have one more wish to add to the list of outstanding tasks, namely simplification of market transactions between the United States and Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, as always, it has been a real pleasure to work with the rapporteur, and the outcome we are discussing today is a considerable improvement on the common position.
This is reflected in the fact that we are able to accept all the amendments apart from Nos 1 and 13, and our objections to these are purely formal, as the rapporteur knows.
We also support the proposal she has presented again here on merging Amendments Nos 15 and 18 into a compromise to avoid the need for conciliation with the Council.
<P>
The very fact that this directive replaces two directives that we previously adopted, as well as about 1500 national instruments, is proof of its importance.
This means that our change of approach will eliminate a great deal of red tape, and I believe that this alone will enable us to achieve an improvement in telecommunications markets.
<P>
The new instrument takes very good account of many special needs, and may I say to Mrs Read, as Mr van Velzen has already indicated, that the provisions which have now been formulated also seem to guarantee compatibility with the networks, so that no unduly serious problems ought to occur in this respect.
<P>
It is true that, come what may, we shall have the opportunity next year to review this entire matter if necessary, and I should like to express my gratitude for this opportunity to continue our cooperation.
I believe that the position we have now adopted on the information society in the widest sense is the envy of our main competitors.
We have become leaders in this field, primarily through our technological development, but also through the way in which we have monitored and promoted this development on the political side.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Changeover to euro
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0304/98) by Mr Langen, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission communication on the impact of the changeover to the euro on Community policies, institutions and legislation (COM(97)0560 - C4-0591/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="Langen">
Mr President, we are dealing today with a report on the impact of the changeover to the euro on Community legislation and policies, a report that dates from the end of 1997.
It was tabled by the Commission before the decisions on the 11-country euro area were taken, and we are able to affirm today that some of the tasks referred to in the report have already been completed.
<P>
Quite a substantial amount remains to be done, particularly in terms of implementation by the Member States, but progress has been made in the intervening period with the homework assigned to the Commission itself.
<P>
The decisions in favour of the euro, I believe it can be said at the start of a debate on this subject, were highly gratifying, and the stability of the European economic and financial area throughout the Asian, Russian and Latin American crises has shown that a large euro area will benefit the people of Europe and the world economy in general.
We can therefore see clearly now that the decisions on the euro may be unreservedly reaffirmed and that this European monetary union can enter into force on the appointed date of 1 January 1999.
<P>
One of the subjects addressed in the report is the agrimonetary regime, a matter we have discussed in connection with Mrs Schierhuber's report, which is on the agenda for Friday; this relates to the new scheme that must at all events be ready for entry into force on 1 January 1999.
The Commission has tabled two draft regulations on this point; these will be discussed on Friday and are also dealt with in the present report.
<P>
The Commission communication covers three sectors in all: the Community budget, agricultural policy and administrative expenditure.
You can judge the intensity of our parliamentary discussions from the fact that a total of five committees were asked to deliver an opinion, and we have finally reached agreement on a report that incorporates the arguments from the budgetary, agricultural, regional, external economic relations and legal perspectives.
<P>
The second field is the amendment of Community legislation to provide the legal framework for the euro and the main implications of the euro for Community legislation.
<P>
The third field covers the operational aspects of the changeover, which relate to statistics, treasury and financial management, information systems and communication issues.
<P>
Let me refer briefly to the main sectors covered by the communication.
First of all, there is the Community budget.
The problem of exchange-rate crises and the cost of the financial management these entail have been a considerable burden on the Community budget.
On the expenditure side, about 44 % of payments have been made in ECU and just under 56 % in national currencies, while the vast majority of the EU membership contributions are paid in national currencies.
In the past this has necessitated an enormous input in terms of financial management and resources, since all payments were based on national exchange rates and currencies, but this will not be required in future for the 11 participating states.
<P>
As for the agrimonetary regime, in addition to the variable official ECU rate, there has also been a so-called green rate, the purpose of which was to counteract exchange-rate fluctuations, thereby guaranteeing comparable incomes for farmers in all countries of the European Union.
Agricultural conversion rates were used for this purpose, and in recent years these rates have deviated more and more from the actual market conversion rates and thus from the value of the ECU.
When exchange rates shift, the fixed prices and payments in national currencies change in value; according to the Commission, the old form of the compensatory system, which had to be abolished in 1995, was costing ECU 8 billion per annum.
Even today, the reformed system can still cost ECU 1000 to 1500 million every year; in other words, an allocation of almost three billion marks is required in extreme cases.
Only a new agrimonetary regime will be able to prevent these expenses, subject to a five-year transition period, and will only apply to non-participating countries, but we shall discuss that on Friday, especially the question whether a country such as the United Kingdom which has chosen not to sign up for monetary union should receive the same compensatory payments in future as it has received in the past.
<P>
The third sector is administrative expenditure, which amounts to about ECU 2.7 billion.
There are 30 000 EU officials; 90 % of them live in Belgium or Luxembourg, and since both countries have signed up for EMU, some of the problems are surmountable.
But it will no doubt be quite a task to encourage the Member States in which EU officials live to complete the conversion as quickly as possible and to ensure that the European Commission does likewise.
<P>
I should like to express my sincere thanks to all the committees which have delivered their opinions.
The report, I hope, will secure the support of a broad majority.
The two amendments tabled by the Group of the European Radical Alliance are misguided, in my opinion. Particularly in the light of last week's discussion with the President of the ECB, Wim Duisenberg, in the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs, I firmly believe that the House will not feel able to approve these amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Arias Cañete">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, I would like to congratulate Mr Langen on his excellent report and on the goodwill and generosity he has shown in including the modest contributions from our committee in the report.
<P>
The Committee on Regional Policy agrees with the warm welcome the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has given to the communication from the European Commission on the impact of the changeover to the euro on Community policies, institutions and legislation.
As the rapporteur points out, this Communication is the result of a wide-ranging dialogue within the European Commission and with other Community institutions.
<P>
It is clear that, within the framework of the Structural Funds, the fact that contributions and payments are already expressed in ecus will make the changeover smoother and, at the same time, the exchange risk will be eliminated for participating countries in the euro area.
<P>
The situation of the 'pre-in' countries is indeed very different and we must ensure that these countries are not penalized in terms of their structural measures by the fluctuations of their national currencies against the euro.
<P>
The changeover to the euro will have a significant impact on Community statistics and, therefore, we support Eurostat's intention to re-scale the time-series for primary statistics to guarantee the continuity of this series.
We also welcome the fact that in his report our rapporteur has asked that priority be given to a common conversion policy for the entire European statistical system.
Our committee asks, too, that we use this opportunity to create a cooperation network for administration in the fields of informatics and statistics in order to guarantee coherent systems, not only for routine follow-up financial information but also, and above all, for the general information needed in decision-making.
<P>
The Committee on Regional Policy believes that in its information campaigns the Commission should do its utmost to ensure that regional authorities and beneficiaries of Structural Funds are well informed of the impact of the changeover to the euro.
<P>
Finally, we would like to point out that there is still a need for a more efficient and detailed study of the impact of monetary union on existing disparities between regions in light of the principle of cohesion.
And we are therefore anxiously awaiting the findings of the general study that the Commission is currently preparing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Mr President, in what is undoubtedly a good report, the rapporteur has made it very clear how much work awaits the European institutions and how important a prompt changeover to the euro will be to the future of the Community, not only because some 4000 legislative acts will be affected by the changeover, but also because the coming of the euro age will manifest itself in substantive changes to the positions adopted by the European institutions.
<P>
The brunt of this effort will naturally be borne by the national administrative bodies, from the tax offices to those responsible for the conversion of parking meters and the levying of public charges, but what we are concerned with here is that the budget of the European Union, agricultural conversion rates, emoluments and pensions should be converted into euros and converted in good time.
In adopting the Green Paper on the introduction of the euro, we in the European Parliament made it very clear that we believe the public sector must lead the way in the introduction of the euro.
<P>
Sadly, we could not fail to observe that this has not been the case in the Member States or within the Commission, for it must be remembered that the communication has been in circulation since 1997.
We see no signs of further progress in the domain of secondary legislation, even though the Commission has rightly agreed that there will be further legislative acts.
<P>
For the private sector too, I consider it very important that clarity should prevail and that numerous provisions of 'winmark' legislation in the realms of statistics and accounting should be regulated as soon as possible.
One reason why this is so important is that it will enable even more businesses to make arrangements for the timely introduction of the euro, since the statistics still tell us that only about 24 % of European businesses actually intend to conduct their non-cash transactions in euros in the new year when the euro age has dawned.
It will therefore not only be important that the budget is changed over to euros, for although the budget is currently drawn up in ECU, most payments into it are made in national currencies, while disbursements are made in both ECU and national currencies.
We can make truly enormous savings in terms of exchange-rate risks and the cost of financial management, and - as the rapporteur has expressly indicated - the agrimonetary system will benefit when prices and subsidies are fixed in euros, since the old regime with its distortions and pressures will be swept away.
<P>
The regulation on the introduction of the euro and the other European monetary legislation have created legal certainty and guaranteed the continuity of the Treaty.
No one may be compelled to use the euro, nor may anyone be prevented from using it; the European institutions are called upon to prove by their involvement in the euro changeover that the euro age has indeed dawned, but that fact must not turn out to be the Achilles' heel of the changeover process.
I am relying here on fresh dynamism and a new wave of activity from the European Commission and the other European institutions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Porto">
Mr President, I congratulate the Commission and Mr Werner Langen on their reports which deal, in some cases in great detail, with very important aspects of the implications of the changeover to the euro in such diverse spheres as the Community budget, including agri-monetary payments and operational spending, customs tariffs and contracts, as well as statistics and financial management.
Their analysis confirms the anticipated positive micro-economic impact of the euro in all these spheres, as a result of the elimination of transaction costs, uncertainty and the current calculations required by the existence of different national currencies.
Indeed, the Commission itself concludes in its report that the overall assessment is clearly positive.
<P>
However, we surely cannot expect to cover every last detail in all these different areas.
For instance, it should be accepted that the communication proposed in conclusion No 27 detailing all the monetary references in the 4, 000 Community acts in which the monetary denomination will change to euros is of secondary importance.
<P>
Judging by the manner in which the process is currently proceeding, both economic operators and citizens in general will immediately identify with the new currency.
I believe, therefore, that every effort should be made to continue the successful information campaign regarding the euro and, with possibly greater implications, to continue to make the necessary adaptations, ranging from equipment to commercial management, particularly in small and medium enterprises. Also, although it is not a subject of this report, we should continue with the dissemination of the euro abroad, given the interrelationship between all world markets.
<P>
The expectations generated by the euro are prompting companies to publicise their choice as a sign of efficiency and modernity, as is occurring for instance in my country.
This represents a form of widespread promotion, and is of benefit simultaneously to companies and to the new currency that we are launching.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Mr President, the report now before us shows, from the point of view of the Commission and of the rapporteur Mr Langen, how many complex procedures we shall have to complete together before the introduction of the euro.
So I think it is most important to be properly informed.
<P>
The Commission's and Mr Langen's reports tell us that the change will bring considerable savings because in agriculture alone, for example, there will be no more monetary compensation between Member States and abolition of the green rates will save about one to one-and-a-half million.
This prompts me to ask what will happen to the money saved?
Is there a chance here of extra aid to industry or for information purposes?
I should like to know a little more about that.
<P>
I should also like to say that our group will be supporting the ARE Group's amendments.
We believe that the euro countries must speak with a single voice vis-à-vis the outside world and that the ECB is the body which must speak for our monetary authorities in international summit gatherings such as the G7.
Our group has drafted some oral questions on this point for the next part-session.
We shall certainly be voting in favour.
<P>
Lastly, Mr President, there is the possibility of new distortion or discrimination between countries which are and countries which are not adopting the euro.
We face wide-ranging reforms as part of Agenda 2000, and we saw with the MacSharry plans that some countries handled the reforms neatly by devaluing their currencies.
Similar things may happen here.
My question is this: how are the two regulations to coexist in the longer term and are we not going to have new forms of discrimination here?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Hyland">
Mr President, it is imperative, when the new euro currency and the euro rate come into existence in January 1999 and when the green pound is abolished, that farmers do not lose out in terms of the value of their income supports under the common agricultural policy.
<P>
In Ireland at present there are two green rates: the first is for CAP support, such as the payment of export refunds and intervention stocks and has varied substantially over the last eighteen months.
The second green rate is for direct income support for farmers such as premium payments.
The green rate for these payments has been frozen at a favourable level since 1995 and therefore has not been subject to currency fluctuations.
<P>
I support Mr Langen when he states that he is concerned to see that European farmers do not lose out as the new euro currency comes into play.
His draft resolution recognizes that agricultural compensation will need to be put into place so that all sectors of society can benefit from the EMU regime.
Those close to our farming sector will be aware of the growing concern about the future viability of our traditional family farm structure.
The continuing decline in the number engaged in farming and the deteriorating age profile of farmers are social indicators which we ignore at our peril.
<P>
The Commission has brought forward proposals to the Agriculture Council on this issue outlining possible courses of action.
A working group has been set up in Europe to bring forward conclusive proposals on the basis of draft regulations which have been drawn up, so that a level playing field can be reached on this issue.
Compensation measures for beef price reductions are included in the new draft regulations, but more work needs to be carried out to guarantee that Irish and European farmers are fully protected when the new euro changeover takes place.
<P>
The present agrimonetary system in Europe is a very complex regime mainly as a result of the dual rate, whereby expenditures increase due to CAP conversion rates which are higher at times than market values.
There is currently a need for simplification to be brought into any new arrangement, with the minimum of red tape.
This would serve a very positive function for all farmers in receipt of CAP payments in future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Soltwedel-Schäfer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Langen report deals with the impact of the changeover to the euro in three sectors, namely national and local authority budgets, agriculture and administration.
As far as agriculture is concerned, it is not enough to limit the changeover to the euro to purely administrative action.
The euro will gain in stability if we adopt a completely new agricultural policy, as this House has so often advocated and demanded, and if the new Commission proposals for this domain are recognised internationally, i.e. throughout Europe.
<P>
Let me make one point on the information campaign. It has emerged time and again in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy that the information campaign is a very important central element in the changeover to the euro.
However, let me express this earnest plea quite clearly here and now to the responsible Commissioner in particular: in the domain of consultancy, please do not portray women, for example, as disabled persons, but rather adopt a different approach to the issue.
<P>
Allow me to add a few words on the SMEs.
It is not enough for us to launch an information campaign in this area.
The consultancy service offered to SMEs must include the free conversion of computer software and of other facilities.
We must press vigorously for such provision.
We can thus bring the euro closer to the people and remove the hurdle that the euro still has to overcome in this respect.
<P>
A brief comment on the preceding debate regarding the European Central Bank: I have the feeling that the previous speakers have been asking too much of the European Central Bank and have been weighing it down with a great amount of unnecessary baggage.
Transparency and control are what the European Central Bank lacks.
That, indeed, must be the core policy on the euro.
Even at this early stage, when I look at the example of Italy and see how little transparency the European Central Bank can operate with, it becomes crystal-clear that transparency is precisely what it will take to prevent future weaknesses and instability.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I did not quite understand the reference made by our colleague from the Green Group to Italy and the lack of transparency in the handling of Italian monetary policy; she can explain it to me later.
<P>
I should now like to turn to the Langen report, naturally to announce that our group will be voting in favour, but also to ask colleagues and the rapporteur to consider the two amendments put forward by Mr Castagnède and myself.
It seems to me - and current events and the latest meeting of the ECOFIN Council have made this abundantly clear - that, over and above the many and varied important points made in the report - not only technical ones, but political ones too, of course - one of the key problems in the changeover to the euro is the external representation of the euro. This is missing from the report, despite being at the very heart of the debate over the past few weeks.
It is no accident that the ECOFIN Council has still not managed to give a clear indication as to who will represent, in international forums, the monetary and economic policy, the economic and monetary union of the euro zone members.
<P>
I think that it is important for this issue to be pointed up in the Langen report, so that we can come back to it later and be involved in the overall debate.
To my mind, the President of the European Central Bank, and he alone, would be the person to participate in international meetings on behalf of the euro zone members, in the name of EMU.
Parliament must, I believe, make it absolutely plain that this issue can no longer be fudged - first all three are to participate, then they are to take turns, then it is to be someone else - because all of this only adds to the confusion, puts us in a poor light and prevents the euro from obtaining the confidence which is crucial to its success.
<P>
In conclusion, I hope that you will accept these two amendments from the Group of the European Radical Alliance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, I have often heard two one-sided opinions expressed in the debate on the euro.
One says that the euro will bring nothing but benefits, and the other that it will bring nothing but drawbacks.
I have little time for either view.
The financial benefits of the euro for the Community budget are obvious.
It is only logical, when the number of currencies involved is ten fewer.
<P>
Great savings are also expected in the agrimonetary system.
The so-called 'dual rate effect' will disappear because there will no longer be a green rate.
But the new agrimonetary system is still open-ended in that compensation will be paid for revaluations but no action will be taken for devaluations, even though the income of the farmers concerned will temporarily have improved.
There is something of a distortion of competition in that.
<P>
The financial risk to four Member States is far less great.
The saving of 1.3 billion guilders seems to me to be a cautious estimate. But if the European Union is to be enlarged by new Member States which do not take part in EMU, the Commission will have to do something about the open-ended nature of the system if it wants uncontrolled excesses to be a thing of the past.
<P>
Finally, I cannot understand the political and symbolic significance of wanting to express the salary payments of Community staff in euro as of 1 January 1999 - certainly not when the money concerned is still largely spent in Belgian or Luxembourg francs.
For the staff's sake I think it is most important to proceed with clarity and care here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the economic and monetary turmoil in the world, as I said before, is so great that it is producing shockwaves in the lives of ordinary people far and wide, including people in countries other than those it which it began.
The issue in Russia is more of a political crisis which has economic consequences.
For that reason, I think that the next EU summit should have on its agenda the question of currency speculation, its taxation, and its control in general.
We would have more than enough to discuss on that subject.
<P>
We also have to ensure in particular that, at the start of stage three, structural funds are used for currency reforms, so that Union policy may be fully applied in the transition stage too.
There are examples of many types of operation, such as the administration of TACIS funds, that must be properly in place.
Obviously, the EU's own institutions have to lead the way here.
<P>
I agree with my colleague Mr Langen that reforms to the agrimonetary regime are a sensible idea and very necessary.
The changeover to the euro will reduce losses of income for those who practise agriculture, at least in the respect that exchange rates will become stable.
The position of those Member States remaining outside monetary union will become a problem.
We have to bear in mind that the notion of the single market should hold true in those areas too.
<P>
The prospect for the currency of the euro area would appear to be one of stability.
But our citizens need to have faith in this currency, and questions of responsibility have once again to be considered.
I am worried about the position of SMEs in this respect.
In Finland they are barely prepared for the change. There is a lack of know-how.
For this reason I would like to refer back to the suggestion that the Commission should produce an information pack with SMEs employing staff in mind, in particular for the service sector, which seems to be the furthest behind in preparation for the changeover to the euro.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Garosci">
Mr President, there are now roughly one hundred days to go until the launch of the single currency, and the Commission intends with this communication to assess in full the effects which the changeover to the euro will have at Community level, as well as its repercussions on the Member States.
There will be both risks and opportunities; obviously the latter will outweigh the former.
We must use these three years, when technically speaking nothing will be compulsory and nothing forbidden, to prepare as best we can, involving the private and public sectors, companies and institutions, and conducting targeted information campaigns for the public as well as training within companies.
<P>
Mr Langen's report quite rightly details all these moves, and says in essence that a number of positive elements should be borne in mind.
The first is the disappearance of exchange-rate risks and the elimination of banking and foreign currency charges; the second is peace of mind for a whole series of people, be they public servants, for example Community officials, or pensioners; and the third is certainty for firms that - from 1 January 1999 onwards - at least 75 % of their turnover will no longer be subject to exchange-rate risks, whereby they stand to gain one year or month and lose the next, because all their buying and selling will be done in a strong currency, one which will be a match for those other two strong currencies, the dollar and the yen.
<P>
So there will be risks and opportunities, but we must above all assess the risks - even though at present they are outweighed by the opportunities - so as to be ready technically and psychologically for the advent of the single currency.
<P>
On this subject, let me end with one minor point.
I would ask the Commission to defer by one year the printing and issuing of the 500 euro banknote.
This denomination is too high, given that we will also be getting to grips with six other notes with new denominations.
In my country, for example, 500 euro are equivalent to a million lire, and the highest value note in Europe corresponds to half a million lire, or 250 euro.
What is more, all of this should be linked to the well-known fact that counterfeit euro designs are already in circulation. One print plate has already been stolen.
Hence the need for psychological and also practical assurances for the single currency, which will usher in more opportunities than risks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, the report presented to us is an excellent catalogue of all the financial implications that the introduction of the euro will have for the European Union.
Permit me, nevertheless, to observe that the report perhaps has one weakness in so far as it does not indicate that the abolition of the present agrimonetary system will release a large sum of money from which the Member States ought to benefit.
<P>
The stringent savings packages adopted by the EU Member States in preparation for the euro have drastically reduced the volume of public investments in Europe, thereby contributing to a rise in unemployment.
As we all know, public investment in Europe is at a very low level.
In order to strengthen public confidence and thus to achieve increased consumption in Europe, every effort must be made to ensure that the Member States can benefit from the funds released by the introduction of the euro to finance measures designed to combat unemployment.
<P>
The total savings should therefore be specifically used to fund a practical reduction in the Member States' contributions to enable them to take special measures to combat unemployment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wibe">
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, in expressing my thanks to the rapporteur, may I also ask him and the Members who have been taking part in this debate to accept the apologies of my colleague Mr de Silguy, who is unable to be here this morning.
He is on his way back from Washington and has asked me to state the case for the Commission on his behalf in this discussion.
<P>
It is true that a considerable time has now elapsed since the communication was adopted, and so it might be appropriate for me to give you a brief résumé of the present situation.
<P>
I shall begin with the adaptation of Community law.
In cooperation with the interinstitutional working party, we examined the body of Community law systematically to identify where changes would be required. Up to the present time, all deadlines for the formulation and implementation of amended provisions have been met.
<P>
We have presented the following proposals: amended financial regulations, on which Parliament is currently deliberating and which, if my information is correct, can be in place by the end of the year, amendment of the regulation on staff retirement pensions and emoluments, which will be fixed and paid in euros from 1 January 1999 - this proposal can probably be adopted in November - and the much-discussed amendment to the agrimonetary regime, which is designed to phase out the difference between the green exchange rates and the fixed exchange rates; this process can be completed for the countries in the euro zone by the end of 2001 and for the countries that have not signed up in the first wave in the year 2004.
This proposal can also be adopted before the end of the year.
<P>
The amendment of customs and fiscal legislation is also running to plan.
For that reason, we do not consider it necessary to take up the rapporteur's suggestion and publish a list of the legislative provisions affected by the introduction of the euro.
<P>
Incidentally, in accordance with your wishes, we have decided, in agreement with the participating Member States, to establish a new uniform system of commercial interest reference rates for the euro.
The new system will shortly be presented to the members of the OECD; responsibility for its implementation will lie with Eurostat.
<P>
As far as the practical aspects of the changeover are concerned, as your rapporteur has recommended, we are preparing for the changeover of all internal information systems to the euro.
The most urgent changes relate to the switchover to euros for the drafting of the budget from January of next year.
Here too, Eurostat is continuing its work on the conversion of the statistical systems and data files.
<P>
Mr Langen has rightly drawn attention to the importance of the information campaigns directed at the staff of all European bodies.
The first phase of this campaign was launched at the start of this year, and a second phase is now being prepared.
Before the end of the year we intend to distribute to the entire staff of the Community bodies, including superannuation recipients, a brochure explaining the effects of the introduction of the euro on pay and pensions.
<P>
I therefore believe we can say that the targets set out by the Commission in its communication have been achieved on time, so far at least.
In response to the wish expressed by the rapporteur, we can certainly also submit a report on the entire process that is taking place to prepare the Community for the euro, and we shall probably manage that by the end of November, which I hope will ensure that Parliament is not only informed about the present situation but is aware of the action that remains to be taken.
Thank you for your comments and suggestions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="Langen">
Mr President, may I express my thanks to the Commissioner for his review of the situation.
On behalf of Parliament and in my own name too, I should like to commend the Commission for its timely and focused performance of all these tasks and to thank you especially, Commissioner, for acceding to our request for the presentation of a general report to the House at the end of November.
We shall then be able to use the report as the basis for another discussion of the various specific measures that we in Parliament can take to ensure that this process is successfully completed.
<P>
However, I should like to put one question to you, and I do not know whether you are willing or indeed able to answer it, because this is not your own area of responsibility.
Following on from the request made by Mr Dell'Alba, I should like to ask whether the issue of external representation of the euro area and the role of the European Central Bank in international conferences could also be included in the report.
<P>
As I mentioned briefly before, ECB President Wim Duisenberg said last week that there will be considerable problems with the legal status of the ECB in international organisations because the ECB is not a state, and only states have hitherto been actively represented on these bodies - the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the G7.
The question is whether the ECB needs to have itself drawn into the political realm in this way at all or whether its role is purely advisory.
In any event, Article 105 of the EU Treaty gives it a quite clearly defined responsibility for the maintenance of stable exchange rates and prices.
Should political decisions run contrary to this objective, the ECB might be required to implement them, even though that could cause problems.
<P>
One question, Commissioner, which I am aware may be unreasonable: could you provide us with any information about the Commission's thoughts, and perhaps even those of the Council too, on the subject of external representation?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, may I thank Mr Langen for asking that question, because there is nothing I like better than wandering outside the confines of my own portfolio.
However, I must point out to him that there is quite a considerable difference between the subject of the report we have been dealing with today and the issues he has raised, very important though they undoubtedly are.
The report deals with the practical problems that occur in connection with the implementation of our decision to create a common currency.
I think we have reached agreement about the fact that we have done what had to be done and have observed all the deadlines, so far at least.
<P>
At the last ECOFIN meeting, when these problems were also discussed, the Commission was entrusted with the task of making proposals in a report of its own.
These are complex and difficult issues, which naturally have to do with the legal character of the Union and with international organisations that are perhaps a little helpless in the face of the dynamism we have been developing here.
We plan to submit that report before the end of this month, so that you can then enter into the discussion, and together with the Council and yourselves we can adopt a position which will ensure that the European Union is duly and properly represented in the global institutions where monetary and economic decisions are made.
<P>
There are no grounds, of course, for assuming that, having given an entirely new dimension to global monetary policy by introducing the euro, we should then retire to the sidelines.
That must not happen.
I presume that in this report we shall not only emphasise the need for our involvement but shall also make sound proposals to that end.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 11.25 a.m. and resumed at 12 noon)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats voted for the report extending Regulation No 1408/71.
The regulation currently only applies to EU citizens and to stateless persons and refugees.
This amounts to discrimination against the 13 million citizens from third countries in the Union, who pay their taxes and social contributions in a Member State but lose their entitlement to social security if they move to another Member State.
<P>
The problem is, however, that to be covered by Regulation No 1408 presupposes that the persons concerned already have the right to freedom of movement.
As things stand at present, citizens of third countries do not enjoy freedom of movement within the Union.
We therefore think that a solution should first be found to the problem of freedom of movement for third country citizens.
Once that has been settled, the question of extending Regulation No 1408 can be addressed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Oddy">
I welcome this proposal from the European Commission because it will remove an anomaly in current social security rules for third country nationals.
This anomaly was flagged up by the European Parliament and I am pleased that the European Commission has taken up this issue and produced this sensible proposal.
<P>
Third country nationals who are legally resident in one EU country working and paying tax will be able to transfer their social security contributions to another EU country if they move for work.
<P>
This is particularly important in the UK where the national health service has about 40 000 overseas doctors working for it.
Many are very well qualified and are offered consulting positions in other EU countries.
It is completely unjust that at present social security contributions cannot be transferred.
I commend this proposal to Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Waddington">
We support the principles behind this report which extend the same rights to legally resident third-country nationals who are workers and their families (as a means of extending equal treatment) that apply to EU citizens.
We wish to await further consideration of the implications of the details contained in the proposal as they affect the UK, which will take place on 4 November by the Select Committee, before determining our final position, in view of the possible effect upon the non-contributory benefits system.
<P>
Leperre-Verrier report (A4-0342/98)
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Trizza">
I am fully in favour of Bulgaria participating in the Youth for Europe programme.
It is important, under the pre-accession strategy for such countries, to provide instruments like this which help to educate people about Europe and give them an understanding of Community policies and their operation.
<P>
The urgency of this measure is linked above all to the punctuality and precision with which Bulgaria has provided all the information requested for its inclusion in the programme, particularly in respect of the purely financial aspects.
<P>
Wibe report (A4-0317/98)
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Antony">
Madam President, future historians, if any have the courage to study the role of this Parliament, will consider today's vote against Jean-Marie Le Pen as an abject detail in a long list of even more abject details. The only freedoms which the majority in this House is prepared to defend are the freedoms of division, decadence and now even drugs, in defiance of the morals of the Decalogue and natural law.
This Parliament refuses to defend the freedom of thought or the freedom of expression.
<P>
Nowadays, the great French Jewish historian, Robert Aron, would be condemned for having written on page 178 of his memoirs that he and others took for granted the horrors of the Hitlerian regime of the Gestapo and its work and that, for the rest, they did not go into this in detail.
Similarly, the immunity of the great aircraft manufacturer and Gaullist deputy, Marcel Dassault, who was deported to Buchenwald, would be waived given that he described in length in his memoirs the role of the Communist 'capos', led by the Communist, Marcel Paul, and given that, in particular, he described the reality of this camp in a manner far removed from the legend which some are trying to impose here.
<P>
Shame on this Parliament which is behaving like a reserve of the Stalinist thought police; this is a Parliament where no inquiry, no evocations, no condemnation have ever occurred about the endless depiction ...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Madam President, since 1989 the European Parliament has received 50 requests for the waiver of parliamentary immunity. It has approved only five, rejected 32, and the other 13 were inadmissible or incomplete.
No request has been approved since 1994.
<P>
The case law of our Parliament actually takes the view that, in any case where the offence which a Member of the European Parliament is alleged to have committed forms part of a political activity, immunity is not waived, and the freedom of expression must prevail.
This is specifically the position which we took recently with regard to our colleague Mr Campos.
<P>
Our case law would therefore indisputably advocate the rejection of the request for the waiver of Mr Le Pen's parliamentary immunity.
To approve this request would be to take a decision based on who Mr Le Pen is, on the specific nature of the offence committed and on the words spoken.
However, when using its power to waive or not to waive parliamentary immunity, the European Parliament must not take any account of the person involved.
It must not establish a hierarchy for the offences committed, it must not consider the merits of the case, as pointed out in Article 5 ...
<P>
(The President interrupted the speaker) Madam President, you allowed the previous speaker 30 seconds more; please allow me to have my say.
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Blot">
Madam President, I note that the majority of the Members of this Parliament claim to be rationalists and are proud of it.
Whether they are Liberals, Socialists, Christian Democrats or of other political persuasions, they all claim to be supporters of the 18th century rationalism of Voltaire, Rousseau or even Kant or Goethe.
And yet here we have all these rationalists yielding to a totally archaic ideological taboo which is a real insult to the freedom of thought, because Mr Jean-Marie Le Pen clearly stands accused on the grounds of freedom of thought.
<P>
To say, as Mr Rothley does, that the German law aims to protect the truth is the very essence of totalitarianism.
The purpose of the law is not to protect dogmas, but rather to protect freedom of thought, because no one holds a monopoly on the truth.
Consequently, this German law whose defence is being claimed in this case is based in the tradition of the Third Reich.
This is no cause for celebration.
I consider that immorality rules in this Parliament, since the freedom of speech, which is an essential human right, is not being respected.
Gutenberg, who lived in Strasbourg, and Goethe, must be turning in their graves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lang">
Madam President, I should like to address the German members of this Parliament who voted to waive the parliamentary immunity of Jean-Marie Le Pen, by reminding them that German bullets, bombs, shells and mines killed tens of millions of men and women in Europe and caused infinitely more deaths than the gas chambers.
However, as you seem keen to reopen 50-year-old wounds, we will remind you of your duty of remembrance.
<P>
Jean-Marie Le Pen remembers the German mine that killed his father, but he has forgiven the German people.
Now, 55 years on, a German public prosecutor has the arrogance to ask for an explanation from Jean-Marie Le Pen, a war victim and a war orphan, relating to a comment on events for which Germany is solely responsible.
Do you have so much to be forgiven for that you must look for the guilty among your victims?
It is not Jean-Marie Le Pen who built the concentration camps.
These camps were yours, not ours.
<P>
If you want to settle accounts among yourselves, as Germans, that is your problem, but the time has passed when you could impose your laws on France and the French.
The Occupation is over, the French people are free, and we are too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Le Gallou">
Madam President, in waiving the parliamentary immunity of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the European Parliament has committed an error. It has deliberately forgotten that parliamentary immunities were rightly established to guarantee the freedom of speech of elected Members.
Obviously, the freedom of speech only comes into its own in the case of words which risk causing offence, which may even be shocking, even if this was not the intention of their author.
<P>
This is an example of witch hunting.
In France, the definition given in dictionaries for the word 'detail' has been changed to allow more room to condemn Jean-Marie Le Pen.
In the European Parliament, the last speaker from the Socialist Group, Mr Ford, lied to justify the unjustifiable.
He lied by stating that Jean-Marie Le Pen had described the Holocaust as a 'point of detail', which is false.
He lied by attributing revisionist opinions to Jean-Marie Le Pen, because the latter, in a weekly paper, denied the existence of the gas chambers at Buchenwald. However, official historians acknowledge that there actually were no gas chambers in Buchenwald, and this is since the statements made by Doctor ...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Madam President, Article 9, on legal matters, of the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities limits immunity, if I may say so, to the performance of duties.
What does the performance of duties mean?
Should it be interpreted in a broader or a narrower sense?
Since this is a guarantee, it should be interpreted in a broader sense.
In fact, the Court of Justice of the European Communities has widened the interpretation of this so far that it covers a Member's whole term of office and not just the session.
And what is the criterion for interpreting the performance of duties?
For the rapporteur, it is a geographical criterion.
A Member is performing his duties when he is in the European Parliament building.
If Jean-Marie Le Pen had said these words in the building of the European Parliament delegation in Germany, then depending on which side of the door he was standing, he would or would not have enjoyed immunity. That is quite absurd.
<P>
The interpretation must in fact be teleological, relating to the intended purpose.
This is so true that the accounting rules for the reimbursement of travel expenses are not based on the official nature of the building to which we travel, but on the political purpose which we are pursuing.
And this is also so true that, on 23 June 1789, when the Revolutionary Assembly considered immunity for the first time, it decided that those who attacked the State were to be regarded as traitors and criminals acting against the State.
However, it is true that for you, the State ...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Soltwedel-Schäfer">
Madam President, I would ask you to examine, as a matter of urgency, whether this European Parliament is a platform for speeches that repeat the same thing time and again, the selfsame thing for which Mr Le Pen has been cited.
My blood boils, my stomach turns and I am deeply saddened to think that anyone here can desecrate the memory of the Holocaust victims by conducting a debate of this kind.
May I ask you to consider urgently whether we cannot restrict this platform to one such speaker rather than permitting all of them to speak.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="President">
Everyone has the right to speak here, Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer, and everyone speaks for themselves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Mégret">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this Parliament has just taken a vote which goes totally against what it claims to defend and embody.
Your vote represents a very serious blow for democracy in Europe, because one of the essential principles of democracy is the separation of powers.
It was precisely to protect the legislative power from the judicial power that parliamentary immunity was established.
<P>
Now, the judges themselves intend to define what politicians can or cannot say.
This is what the Munich judge is trying to do, and this represents the total negation of the independence of the elected members.
And you, through a petty hatred for politics, are denying these essential principles. By waiving the parliamentary immunity of Jean-Marie Le Pen, it is not just his rights which you are denying but also the parliamentary institution which you are calling into question.
Now, because of you, democracy in Europe is moving closer to that of Stalin ...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Florio">
Madam President, I deliberately refrained from participating in the vote on the waiver of Mr Le Pen's immunity. I took it for granted that this House would vote in favour of the waiver, whereas personally I believe that Voltaire's famous maxim should apply even to the odious politician from beyond the Alps: 'I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it'.
<P>
I would point out that I am deputy chairman of the parliamentary delegation for relations with Israel.
In my view, Mr Le Pen represents the worst that politics has to offer: racism, intolerance, incitement to hatred and bigotry.
The German judiciary wishes to try him for having said that the gas chambers are a detail of history: a ludicrous assertion, but still only an assertion.
Democracies must not use against their enemies the same intolerant methods as those used by Mr Le Pen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Ford">
Madam President, I voted in favour of waiving Mr Le Pen's immunity.
From the contributions that we have heard from the right of the House, there seems to be some confusion about what parliamentary immunity actually is.
We have parliamentary immunity in our Member States, which includes immunity for Germans in Germany and for the British in the United Kingdom.
<P>
In the United Kingdom we have the right to say anything we wish in the parliamentary chamber.
We have full parliamentary immunity, as Mr Le Pen has here.
Despite my abhorrence of his views I fully support that.
But you do not have that right outside Parliament, not in Germany either.
Mr Le Pen, either by commission or omission, overstepped that mark.
Whether he is guilty or innocent is an entirely different matter.
That is something that the courts will decide.
The contributions from the extreme right in the House seem to indicate that it is not on the same planet as the rest of us.
If the aliens ever do take over they may have the same view of history as it does.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pinel">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen: 'I do not agree with what you say, but I will do my utmost to ensure that you can continue to say it'.
This is a concept which is at the very heart of democracy, and from which we are a long way removed today.
<P>
Conversely, two centuries ago, the bloodthirsty Saint-Just invented an expression which gained a following among all those in favour of totalitarianism. He said that there can be no freedom for the enemies of freedom.
That says it all.
When those in power become both judge and judged, when they lay the foundation for a single line of thought, when the majority imposes silence on the minorities, when the freedom of speech is challenged, then it is clear that democracy no longer exists.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, we are no longer in a democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Madam President, I have to say that this is the first time I have voted to waive the immunity of Mr Le Pen.
Hitherto, my stance has been dictated by the arguments put forward which, according to Parliament's case law, reject the waiver of a Member's immunity when the accusations against the latter are clearly political in nature. This is the case with the statements of Mr Le Pen, with these statements as with others.
<P>
And yet I have changed my mind, for a simple reason: the fact is that the relationships between the executive, legislative and judicial powers, and particularly the reinforced independence of the judiciary, now mean that it is unjustified for a Member to benefit from any exemption over and above the exemptions that our citizens may enjoy. What Mr Le Pen would call a privilege of establishment is also therefore unjustified.
<P>
Mr Le Pen yesterday asked to be treated like a citizen.
That is precisely what I wish to see.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Le Pen">
Madam President, although I demonstrated yesterday the perfidy of the Munich public prosecutor, 420 Members have voted to waive my immunity.
I would say to them: 'Many enemies, much honour'.
I noticed yesterday the spokesmen for the political groups in Parliament giving their voting instructions, which resoundingly proves that this is basically a political matter conducted on the orders of those who wish to censor individual thought.
<P>
The 'Europeanists' and 'Euro-internationalists' of this Parliament have seized this opportunity to oppose the President of the National Front, a patriotic Member who prefers his native country, France, to the Europe of lobbies, unemployment, immigration, insecurity, taxation, corruption ... and even cowardice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Gollnisch">
Madam President, as expected, this Parliament has once again brought disgrace on itself.
Faced with the diktat imposed on it, nearly all its members have bowed.
Why this fear?
Why are the words of Mr Le Pen regarded as blasphemy when they would have raised no objection if they had referred to any other comparable drama of the twentieth century?
<P>
What is the still uncertain truth of this history, discussion of which is forbidden?
Why this strict ban?
This senseless taboo is primarily down to the Communists, their Socialist allies, the Conservatives and the Liberals who have been so accommodating towards each other because they want to ensure that their own long lists of crimes are forgotten.
<P>
However, the involvement of Israeli extremism and its international connections must also be considered.
The precarious situation of the Israeli extremists and their desire for power requires the burden of guilt to be generally and perpetually imposed on everyone else so that they can assert their moral superiority.
The absence of any critical capacity is a prerequisite for the extravagant financial demands which they arrogantly claim should follow on from the reparations which Germany has stopped paying.
If certain Germans, Socialist internationals ...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Le Rachinel">
Madam President, as a printer by profession, I am therefore particularly attached to the freedom of thought, which is also the first freedom acquired thanks to Gutenberg, who is well known to Strasbourg.
<P>
I am therefore horrified that Parliament could vote to waive the parliamentary immunity of Mr Le Pen for a crime of thought.
This House brings disgrace on itself with such actions and lowers itself to the level of a Supreme Soviet.
The fact that everyone is voting according to group instructions and not according to their consciences is particularly shocking.
This waiver of parliamentary immunity today concerns our colleague Mr Le Pen. Tomorrow it will be someone else's turn.
So today is a day of mourning for freedom and particularly for Strasbourg.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Stirbois">
Madam President, it is incredible and scandalous that this Parliament is today waiving the parliamentary immunity of a man whose father was killed by the Germans.
I myself am the daughter of Resistance fighters. I just missed being born in a concentration camp and I find it difficult to accept these lessons and these actions.
Yes, we have suffered at the hands of the Germans. It is true that, today, in order to forget an extremely troubling past, we are prepared to do anything.
Immorality rules in this Parliament.
Drugs are allowed, but Jean-Marie Le Pen is refused the freedom of expression.
Shame on this Parliament which is disgracing itself!
Shame on those Members who have not had the courage to be independent, as the great philosopher Voltaire was!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Andrews">
The lifting of parliamentary immunity of a public elected Member of the European Parliament is a very serious matter.
However, the European Parliament has had to look at this issue following a request made on 17 April 1998 by the Public Prosecutor's office in Munich relating to statements which Jean-Marie Le Pen had made at a press conference in December 1997.
Mr Le Pen stated that 'the gas chambers are detail in the history of the Second World War' and 'the extermination of those who were killed in the gas chambers is to be considered as merely an insignificant part of the history of the Second World War'.
<P>
The Public Prosecutor's office in Munich has asked the European Parliament to lift the parliamentary immunity of Jean-Marie Le Pen on the basis of Articles 130 and 220 of the German Criminal Code, which provides for a maximum prison sentence of five years or a fine to be imposed on anyone who publicly approves, denies or presents as inoffensive any act committed under Nazi rule.
<P>
Mr Le Pen uttered similar statements in France which subsequently led to him being fined substantially.
<P>
Censorship is always a very difficult issue to address and the European Union and national Member State governments of the EU must strike a balance between freedom of expression and the protection of public policy.
The right of free speech is enshrined in the Irish Constitution but there comes a time when the State must be given the necessary power to tackle naked hatred which can result in breaches of national public policy or national public security.
<P>
I support free speech but not in an unfettered manner.
In Ireland we have the incitement to hatred act, which is a legislative device giving the State power to prosecute those who seek to promote naked hatred in society as well as enshrining freedom of expression as a fundamental right in our constitution.
<P>
Mr Le Pen's comments were made in Munich in December 1997 during the presentation of a book 'Le Pen, the Rebel' written by the former MEP Franz Schönhuber, the leader of the German Republikaner Party.
His comments were wholly inflammatory and an incitement to hatred and if the German criminal legal system wishes to pursue the matter, the European Parliament should not stand in its way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Berthu">
I condemn the statements made by Jean-Marie Le Pen in Munich, with regard to both their basis and their form. The gas chambers are not a 'detail in the history of the Second World War'; on the contrary, they are an essential aspect and it is indecent to choose such a serious and painful subject on which to cause a political controversy.
I believe that the French and among them, I am sure, the majority of the electors or members of the National Front, share this opinion.
<P>
However, today, the Members of the European Parliament are not being asked about the merits of the case.
They are being asked only if, in response to the request of the Munich public prosecutor, the parliamentary immunity of Jean-Marie Le Pen should be waived.
<P>
In this respect, it could be asked whether, in countries such as ours which support the freedom of expression, it is really the State's role to bring proceedings against the author of certain words, even if we believe that these words are false and reprehensible.
These proceedings would contradict the very idea of the freedom of thought, which contributes to the strength of democracy.
Where would the abandonment of this principle lead us?
<P>
The error must be eliminated by exposing the truth. However, we are not setting a precedent which could be used in the future by public authorities to intervene in an authoritarian manner in other, as yet unknown, debates.
In order to combat a risk which, in my opinion, is non-existent - namely the risk of a revisionist contagion on the question of the gas chambers - we should not risk committing an abuse which is much more palpable, much more immediate and much more menacing in many ways - the abuse of muzzling the freedom of expression by an official line of thought.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Carlotti">
Once again Jean-Marie Le Pen is trying to pass himself off as a victim, the scapegoat of a vast European political plot.
<P>
He likes this situation, because each time it helps to raise him to the rank of martyr.
<P>
By describing the gas chambers as a 'detail of history', Jean-Marie Le Pen is defiling the memory of those who lost their lives, or their loved ones, during this period.
<P>
By saying these words on German soil, he is consciously seeking to provoke the European democrats!
He has outraged the German people with his pardon for the victims of the Shoah!
<P>
Jean-Marie Le Pen intended to open Pandora's box, in an attempt to let out the old demons of our common past; but he has made an error which could cost him dear.
<P>
Whereas he tried to obtain a favourable electoral situation from the first two waivers of immunity, the third is likely to prove fatal to him!
<P>
This is why he has offered us a new set of words, in an attempt at pathos ...
But he has not moved me.
<P>
For the peace and solidarity of our people in Europe, I will therefore vote to waive his parliamentary immunity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Grossetête">
I voted today in favour of waiving the immunity of Mr Jean-Marie Le Pen, just as I voted some time ago in favour of waiving the immunity of Mr Bernard Tapie. This is because I am personally in favour of abolishing parliamentary immunity, which is no longer justified.
The fact that I politically and morally condemn the theories and points of view expressed and defended by Mr Jean-Marie Le Pen does not enter into the equation.
<P>
Therefore, ignoring any political-media context, I would always vote in favour of a request to waive immunity, whatever the circumstances, the legal arguments and the Members concerned.
<P>
The principle of parliamentary immunity is nowadays outrageous.
It seems to me to be a privilege which is no longer justified.
The judiciary is now independent and the states making up the European Union all apply the rule of law and are all democratic, and within these states all citizens without exception must be equal before the law.
<P>
By this, I am defending a real equality, not a biased equality suited to the political or media circumstances. Crimes and judged offences must not be subject to the vagaries of fashion.
The vote to waive immunity must never prejudge the decision delivered in due course by the competent court on the merits of the case.
Since immunity will not be abolished, I hope that this can always be the case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Hory">
Nothing is more alien to the radical beliefs which I hold than the anti-Semitism and racism which are the very basis of the ideology of the extreme right.
<P>
All those involved in politics must understand the feelings of the survivors, of the families of victims and of all men free to listen to the despicable words of Mr Le Pen.
<P>
However, I will not vote to waive the immunity as requested, and my reasons for this are as follows.
<P>
In strictly legal terms, this request poses serious questions.
Together with Alain, the Radicals believe that democracy is not the power of the majority but the rule of law, and that even the most guilty have the right to the protection of the law.
In this case, the aim of parliamentary immunity is not to shelter the Members, but is one of the guarantees of the freedoms of our citizens.
It may be assumed that legal proceedings are always based on punishable offences. We should therefore, on this basis alone, grant all the waivers of immunity which are requested.
This is not the practice of our Parliament, and I believe that we have been right in the past to more often than not refuse the waivers requested, including those involving Mr Le Pen.
Our opinion must not therefore be based on the legal argument of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the weakness of which reveals other motivations.
<P>
Might these be political?
There are several political methods of opposing the extreme right and its ideas.
If it were thought that these ideas constituted a real danger to democracy, it would not be necessary to fight tactically against the parties of the extreme right: they would simply be banned.
As this has not occurred, we must not pretend to be shocked when their leaders say obnoxious things inspired by the anti-Semitism and racism which are part and parcel of these parties.
However, would a ban on the extreme right not be an extraordinary acknowledgement of political weakness, in view of the ambiguous fascinations which it exerts over part of public opinion?
For my part, I believe that an unsound idea is best combated by ideas, reasoning and confidence in the intelligence of our citizens.
I believe that the obnoxious words of Mr Le Pen do him much more harm than they do to democracy.
I also believe that, particularly in France, the extreme right profits from the intellectual and political bans which it provokes and which feed the paranoia of its leaders and its misled electors.
<P>
Is this a case of political morals?
It is pointless to insist on a web of complicity between the extreme right and a large part of the right which today is assuming a position of condemnation.
There is no need to underline the objective use which a number of the parties of the left make of the neo-fascists in their respective national arenas.
Morals do not come into these choices.
Is morality really profiting when an assembly elected by universal suffrage is asked to pursue one of its own who is also elected?
I do not think so, and I would invite my colleagues to reflect on the use which could be, which may be or which might be made, in another context, of this fearsome weapon.
<P>
In the end, talking about political philosophy with regard to Mr Le Pen honours him greatly.
I wish to do this, however, in order to remind you that the Radicals have a method - that of reason.
In this humanist and secular philosophy, there can be no revealed truths, carved in stone or catechised.
There is no truth with a capital letter, indisputable and revered without the help of critical reasoning.
Truth is humble, non-majestic and republican to a certain extent.
It constantly fights against lies and falsification and keeps away from acts of faith.
Are Mr Le Pen and his cronies denying the Holocaust?
Are they quibbling about the total horror of this?
Do they view the gas chambers as a 'detail'?
Let them speak so that the contemptible poverty of their thinking can be confounded, unmasked and revealed to everyone.
This is the best fighting option open to the truth.
This is also the only homage which politics can now pay to the victims of this barbarism.
<P>
Read recommendation (A4-0337/98)
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Eriksson and Svensson">
We voted in favour of the report, since the telecommunications market requires a regime of the kind described.
<P>
We would stress, however, that the commercialisation of the telecommunications sector has brought severe administrative problems. There is now a danger that regions and consumers alike will receive differential treatment.
Difficulties will also be caused by the complex fiscal problems remaining to be solved.
<P>
It would have been far better to maintain the national monopolies, with proper structures for public supervision and mutual cooperation.
<P>
Hoppenstedt report (A4-0332/98)
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Berthu">
The European Central Bank has just made a proposal to the Council for a regulation allowing the ECB to impose a system of minimum reserves on banks, which may help to regulate the liquidity of the market.
There can have been no doubt that the 15 governors of our central banks, meeting around a table, would end up producing this purely technical text.
However, we would actually be interested to know how this is all going to work, not from the point of view of the technical relations between the banks - we know that the bankers can sort this out themselves - but from the point of view of the economic, budgetary and social balances which must be preserved, even within the single currency.
<P>
Firstly, an important question must be asked between now and the end of 1998 relating to the convergence of the short-term interest rates which will be unified on 1 January 1999.
The gaps are currently very wide, ranging from 3.2 % in Austria to 6.4 % in Ireland.
These reflect the different positions of the Member States in the stages of the economic cycle.
Should these gaps not now be gradually reduced?
The end of December is only three months away, and it seems unthinkable to unify everything suddenly.
However, Mr Duisenberg, who is very proud of having finalised the rules on minimum reserves, is incapable of answering this basic question.
<P>
Similarly, nobody seems able to answer the question about the new mistrust of the markets which, in view of the varying impact of the Russian crisis, have reintroduced increasing gaps in the long-term debt ratios of the Member States.
Is it not the case that Austria has just withdrawn from issuing a government loan due to the fear of having to pay more for it than Belgium?
<P>
Finally, also, nobody wishes to answer the question about the increase in budgetary deficits which is starting to be predicted for 1999, the first year of the euro, and which is becoming very worrying in the case of Italy.
The Italian Prime Minister, Mr Prodi, has just proposed using the central bank reserves not transferred to the ECB in order to carry out a policy of major infrastructure projects which could revive the economy.
He seems to be ignoring the fact that these reserves are already, in the main, invested in the economy.
Germany will not be reassured by proposals of this kind.
<P>
All these unresolved questions simply underline the great lie of the single currency. There has been an attempt to ignore the real differences between countries so as to improve the success of the monetary unification project, which is the springboard to federalism.
In other words, ideology has made governments blind, and reality will soon have its revenge.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats today voted for the reports on minimum reserves (Hoppenstedt), powers of sanction (Katiforis) and collection of statistical information (Hendrick) for the European Central Bank.
<P>
This should not be taken as a change of signal in the Social Democrats' policy on Denmark's reservation with regard to the third stage of EMU, but as a statement of our keen interest in what happens in this area.
The content of the Hoppenstedt and Katiforis reports will have no direct consequences for Denmark of any kind, since it only concerns countries which participate fully in EMU.
The Hendrick report will to a limited extent have implications for Denmark too.
<P>
The application of minimum reserves means that credit and financial institutions are required to maintain a certain liquidity reserve, which is sensible for a variety of monetary policy reasons, for example the money market interest rate is stabilised, and better control of the country's money supply is achieved by restraining the creation of money by private banks.
The proposal for sanctions is to ensure a uniform procedure within the areas covered by the European Central Bank when fines are imposed on the individual Member States, on institutions and on firms.
<P>
The aim of the Hendrick proposal is to give the ECB the right, in cooperation with the national central banks, to collect relevant statistical information so that the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) can carry out its work.
The information collected will of course be treated as strictly confidential, in the same way as statistical information from Danmarks Statistik , the Danish Central Statistical Office.
Furthermore the proposal provides the possibility of imposing sanctions on countries or institutions which do not report on time, which is also wholly in line with the practice of Danmarks Statistik .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Lindqvist">
The Swedish Parliament decided that Sweden would not participate in the third phase of EMU, which will see the introduction of the euro as of 1 January 1999.
The Centre Party is against Swedish membership of EMU and I therefore abstained in the vote on the three ECB reports: Mr Hoppenstedt's on the application of minimum reserves, Mr Katiforis's on powers to impose sanctions and Mr Hendrick's on the collection of statistical information.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Trizza">
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Berthu">
The draft Council regulation concerning the powers of the European Central Bank to impose sanctions will perhaps surprise even well-informed citizens who did not realise that, in 1992, they gave such supranational powers to the new institution managing monetary union. There is, however, a legal basis for this regulation even though it is not particularly obvious: the sixth paragraph of Article 106 of the Maastricht Treaty effectively gives the Council the right to 'adopt the provisions referred to in ...
Article 34-3 of the Statute of the ESCB.' Article 34-3 of this Statute, which is not contained within the Treaty but in an annexed protocol, discretely states that 'the ECB shall be entitled to impose fines or periodic penalty payments on undertakings for failure to comply with obligations under its regulations and decisions.'
<P>
At the end of this legal trail, the ECB gains quite extraordinary powers. It will itself be able to decide on the sanctions to be imposed on undertakings which do not apply its own rules, and these sanctions will be directly applicable, without passing through the filter of national governments, national central banks or Community courts.
In order to properly appreciate the excessive nature of this, it should be remembered that the Commission - a largely supranational body - does not as a general rule have such an independent power of sanction. It should also be stressed that the ECB is not subject to any democratic control.
In other words, the powers granted to the ECB constitute, in their principle, a very worrying supranational and antidemocratic precedent.
<P>
What is more, the Bank is clearly determined to use these powers to the full. It is quite revealing that the draft regulation deals only with sanctions and does not mention the obligations which these sanctions are supposed to guarantee.
Therefore, Article 2 fixes the ceilings for the fines and periodic penalty payments without any mention of the infringements to which these ceilings will apply.
This quite farcical situation at least has the merit of showing that the ECB is primarily concerned with the repressive side of its action.
<P>
The European Parliament's rapporteur, Mr Katiforis, is enchanted by these provisions which he considers to be real finds, satisfying 'all the fundamental principles of the rule of law' and avoiding 'any dictatorial tendency'.
That is not our opinion.
<P>
We do not know what association of ideas led the rapporteur to the expression 'dictatorial tendency' but, in any case, the question deserves to be asked.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Christodoulou">
The ECB recommendation we are debating, concerning a Council regulation on the powers of the ECB to impose sanctions, provides in Article 3(8) that revenues derived from the imposition of fines belong to the ECB.
This proposal is justified by the ECB on the grounds that it is an expression of the ECB's economic independence.
No amendments were tabled on this point, even though the destination of the product of the fines as income for the ECB might be questioned, given that it is not a direct but an indirect result of the ECB's monetary function.
For my part, I voted for the proposal as it stood, considering that revenues from the imposition of fines represent only one aspect of the issue.
On this question, I would point to the European Parliament's resolution before the Intergovernmental Conference - document A-0102/95, paragraph 34(v) - in which, amongst other things, we called for 'the ECB's income (income from seniorage) to be considered as an own resource of the Community'.
Subject to the constraints of what is provided for by the Treaty, it would be appropriate for the whole issue of ECB revenues to be more generally debated at some stage.
<P>
Hendrick report (A4-0327/98)
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Berthu">
The proposal before us today would allow the European Central Bank to adopt rules for organising the collection of statistical information useful to its work, based on an arsenal of sanctions which it would be alone in deciding.
The aim is to provide comprehensive indicators of monetary development in the Member States 'which are viewed as one economic territory'.
These provisions result logically from the principle of a single supranational currency, as adopted at Maastricht.
<P>
Leaving aside the question of the principle of the single currency, this text poses three major problems relating to confidentiality of information, equality of treatment and uncertainty as to its limits of application.
<P>
With regard to confidentiality, the ECB, which prepared the draft, seems to want to take its quest for independence to the extreme, even to the extent of absolving itself from Community rules on the preparation of statistics, as observed by Eurostat.
This behaviour is even more open to criticism as the Bank would like to be granted extensive discretionary powers. These would allow it to send its own agents directly into reporting undertakings and to examine the books and files of these, in order to verify the information reported or to carry out the compulsory collection of this.
We would ask that the ECB be subject to all the standard rules of confidentiality, in particular the Council Regulation of 17 February 1997 on Community statistics.
<P>
The second problem is that all the members of the Union would be subject to the statistical rules of the ECB, but only those participating in the euro zone would be subject to the sanctions.
This curious lack of symmetry may lead to doubts about the reliability of the future statistics. If the threat of sanctions is really essential to the quality of the statistics, what point is there in introducing obligations which are not backed up by sanctions for some members?
'We are preparing for their future integration into the euro zone' say ECB officials.
The citizens of the countries concerned, who so far have refused the euro, will appreciate that.
<P>
Thirdly, how can the text be applied to national official authorities which themselves produce statistics or which define the conditions for the production of these statistics by other bodies?
The draft regulation prudently avoids the problem, but leaves options open which could pave the way in the future to recalcitrant states having sanctions imposed on them by the ECB.
But this will be dealt with at a later stage.
It is obvious that, in the eyes of the Eurocrats, a draft as delicate as this one cannot be immediately put at risk.
<P>
d'Ancona report (A4-0211/98)
<SPEAKER ID=92 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Caccavale">
Madam President, I voted against Mrs d'Ancona's final text because, although based on the best of intentions, it has been ruined through fear and hypocrisy.
Yet again this House is guilty of distasteful hypocrisy.
No one is prepared to admit that prohibition has been an utter failure, that 95 % of drugs are moving around freely, that 80 % of crime in our cities and towns is drug-related, and that over 50 % of our prison population is made up of drug addicts.
Once more, Parliament has chosen to close its eyes and believe that the response to all of this is empty words, the idle chatter of hypocritical prohibition.
<P>
It is an unpleasant episode for this House, which I hope will soon change its mind.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Andersson, Lööw, Theorin and Wibe">
We have now reached the final stage in this report's lengthy passage through the House.
The strongly liberalising stance taken in the original version has now been substantially altered after meeting a great deal of resistance in committee. I highlight this because of the fears expressed when the report was referred back to committee.
These fears have proved unfounded; the referral decision was not a way of giving a pro-liberalisation report a second chance.
<P>
We have maintained our commitment to say 'no' to any European-level harmonisation of narcotics policy.
We undertook from the outset to combat every single pro-drugs statement in the European Parliament and to press the case for an approach to drugs based on human respect and social concern. We argued for preventive action, rehabilitation for those who had fallen prey to addiction and compliance with international conventions.
<P>
This is an area where the Union has no competence to act. That should especially be borne in mind given the controversial nature of the subject, with dissension cutting across party lines and national frontiers.
<P>
Now the whole exercise has become somewhat irrelevant in any case. The idea was to take recommendations to the UN General Assembly's extraordinary session on coordinating the international fight against drugs.
That session was held last June and the report is therefore being discussed three months after the event.
<P>
The amendments which we jointly tabled have met with a positive reception across party and national boundaries. We are calling for a drugs policy based on prevention, rehabilitation and respect for international conventions.
The European Parliament's position on these amendments and its attitude towards the undermining of the wording of recommendations 10 and 11 were the criteria guiding our voting behaviour.
<P>
Whenever Parliament has been poised to send out what could be interpreted as a pro-drugs message, we have refused to play along. And we intend to maintain that stance in future.
The fact that this report and its predecessor have taken so long to produce surely demonstrates that the European Parliament is not a forum for the promotion of liberal drugs policies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Angelilli">
It is without doubt crucial that EU measures to combat drugs should not be restricted exclusively to repression, given that drug addiction is not merely a judicial or police matter.
<P>
For these very reasons, it would appear illogical to adopt the proposed attitude of damage limitation, including the decriminalisation of soft drugs such as cannabis and controlled administration of hard drugs.
A drug-free society, such as the one described by the UN General Assembly, cannot be built on a so-called 'pragmatic' anti-prohibition policy.
<P>
Furthermore, delegating anti-drugs measures to local and regional authorities could create 'islands' in Europe which depart from national regulations and, hence, from the democratic will of citizens in the Member States.
<P>
The reference in the explanatory statement of the d'Ancona report to Article 129 of the Amsterdam Treaty would appear quite inappropriate to the report itself: that article confirms the Member States' commitment to take action against drugs-related health damage, including through information and prevention.
This is in no way consistent with damage limitation, which consists in the possible - but far from proven - reduction of the damage, and not in fighting drugs as an escape route out of social difficulties.
<P>
Experiments conducted to date, for example in Switzerland, prove better than any report the negative effects of such experimentation, which has always led to huge upsurges in the consumption of drugs. The proponents of legalisation have then calculated that a smaller percentage of deaths from AIDS and overdoses has occurred.
<P>
Nor would an anti-prohibition policy solve the problem of new synthetic drugs, which would exert constant pressure for the legalisation and controlled administration of new substances.
<P>
The European Union must not adopt a policy which amounts to resigning itself to a society compelled to live with drugs, and merely trying to limit the damage they do.
On the contrary, it must step up its action and boost its resources, targeting them at prevention and assistance for welfare and health bodies, the rehabilitation of drug addicts, exchanges of information between Member States and the harmonisation of statistical and scientific reporting systems. Positive action should above all be focused on young people, so as to reduce the demand for drugs, improve social conditions, and combat marginalisation and unemployment.
<P>
For these reasons we ask you to vote against the d'Ancona report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Bébéar">
Since the start of our parliamentary year, we have on many occasions considered the problems linked to the use of drugs.
<P>
Today we are dealing with an essential point: cooperation in the fight against drugs.
Experiments have been carried out for over 30 years, the results of which are well known.
These results must be widely circulated whenever possible or they must lead to additional experiments.
<P>
Currently, this cannot be sufficiently achieved or is not being sufficiently achieved.
The cooperation needed in this respect must be better planned.
We have an instrument for this in the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.
It is up to us to intensify its research and monitoring work.
<P>
I can therefore approve the d'Ancona report, given that it develops these aspects.
I must, however, indicate my disagreement with two other subjects contained in this report.
<P>
The d'Ancona report cannot be blamed for wishing to link drug problems to poverty and unemployment.
However, a failure to take this analysis further would be rather simplistic.
Everyone knows that the levels of drug use do not necessarily go hand in hand with those of unemployment.
<P>
The other criticism I have of this report is the weakness of its arguments when repeating that we are overwhelmingly in favour of a drug-free society.
<P>
With the exception of the two reservations just mentioned, I consider that the d'Ancona report is heading in the right direction: that of cooperation in order to solve one of the most crucial problems facing us at the end of this century.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Blot">
There is a clear contradiction between parts A and B of the report.
<P>
The proposal for a recommendation B4-1238/96 is extremely dangerous.
It might have been written by a clever lobby of drug traffickers if it had not been different.
<P>
It is based on recital C, which indicates the failure of repressive policies.
This is not true.
The policy against drug trafficking, as conducted in Singapore, is apparently producing excellent results.
<P>
The report complains that the current policies restrict individual freedoms - on page 17 - although it is obvious that the repression of illegal trade is always going to restrict freedoms.
There must therefore be a balance between freedoms and the authority responsible for protecting human beings.
To forbid the freedom to kill someone by drugs is perfectly legal!
<P>
The policy of decriminalising and demarginalising the use of drugs and the 'controlled distribution of heroin' would profit only the traffickers, as indicated by the former head of Interpol, Car Persson.
<P>
It is a disgrace to this Parliament that this report could have been put on the agenda of a plenary session.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Buffetaut">
Is there any point to Mrs d'Ancona's report on European cooperation in the framework of the UN General Assembly special session on drugs?
This question may be asked on two counts, firstly because this text is an ambiguous compromise and secondly because the UN General Assembly special session on drugs took place last June and the idea, therefore, of adopting this report in October makes little sense.
<P>
The text before us actually says very little because attitudes on this subject are basically irreconcilable. This, incidentally, is what caused the first draft report to be returned to the committee.
While it is positive that the report asks the Member States to 'acknowledge that the aim of anti-drugs efforts is a drug-free society', it is to be regretted that the explanatory statement has little coherence with the actual text of the recommendation.
In fact, this explanatory statement is marked by the spirit of the first d'Ancona report and is couched in terms which are definitely not neutral.
Thus it talks of a more restrictive or more repressive approach, involving policies which ban the sale and use of narcotic drugs, and of more pragmatic approaches, with policies of liberalising narcotic drugs.
<P>
The whole explanatory statement therefore tries, without saying as much, to push forward the idea that the future, imagination and realism recommend the liberalisation of the so-called soft drugs, whereas prohibition measures would be repressive and archaic.
These are the reasons why we cannot vote for this report, the ambiguity of which clearly has an ulterior motive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Carlotti">
Drugs are one of the main scourges which our societies must face today as they represent approximately 8 % of world trade.
<P>
The drugs problem must be tackled with a comprehensive approach, guaranteeing our efforts both in the context of prevention and also through medical treatment and social measures.
<P>
Mrs d'Ancona stresses in her report that the decriminalisation of cannabis and the supply of drugs on medical prescription must not be identified, as the Council is doing, as the opposite of the repression of the illegal traffic in narcotic drugs.
<P>
The two approaches are not mutually exclusive!
<P>
Moreover, in this respect, the European Parliament approved a resolution three years ago which underlined that a policy of complete repression had not produced any tangible results.
<P>
Next June, during the UN General Assembly special session on drugs, we must be united.
<P>
Despite the rather different approaches of the European Union countries, the various national laws are gradually moving towards each other.
<P>
As underlined by the rapporteur, I am convinced that we must base our European drugs policy on the success of local experiments and that we must develop strategies of cooperation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Cars, Olsson and Thors">
Having been referred back to committee, the d'Ancona report on European drugs policy has emerged looking considerably more balanced.
We now have a set of recommendations on how to prevent drug abuse and the calls for liberalisation have gone.
<P>
The adoption of two of the rapporteur's own amendments, however, means that there is no longer any reference to the aim of creating a drug-free society, nor are the Member States expressly called upon to comply with the UN conventions.
Two important elements from our point of view have been dropped and we therefore find ourselves obliged to vote against the report. Policy goals are not clearly stated and the wording in places lends itself to ambiguity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Darras">
I am pleased that this report by our colleague can finally be discussed in plenary sitting.
It has taken five months of patience and relentless consultations on the part of our rapporteur to arrive at this consensus resolution, which will hopefully gain the approval of the House.
<P>
I am unreservedly in favour of establishing and recognising experiments carried out locally, as in my commune we have been supporting for years the associations fighting against drug addiction and tackling the drugs phenomenon from the medical and social perspectives.
<P>
It is now accepted that a purely repressive policy has not brought any progress in the fight against drug addiction.
Let us therefore allow the people 'on the ground' to put their ideas into practice, according to the local situations. And we should surely help them, in successful cases, to disseminate their methods.
This is the role which the European Union ought to play.
<P>
This is what our Member States should agree to support, at international level, by granting the European Commission a Community negotiating mandate for the United Nations Conference - with this mandate based on a pragmatic approach to the drugs problem - and, at national level, by implementing an urban policy able to assist the anti-drugs policies developed locally.
<P>
This is what Mrs d'Ancona's report demands, and that is why I voted for it without any qualms.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Deprez">
Illegal drugs are one of the scourges afflicting our societies and also one of the most tempting sources of illegal profits.
As stated by our rapporteur, this problem has many causes: pursuit of profit, social impoverishment and marginalisation, and also curiosity, prosperity and fashionable trends.
The fight against illegal drugs must therefore be undertaken within a comprehensive approach which combines sectors of action as diverse as the information and education of young people, the transformation of objective socio-economic conditions which contribute to the development of drug addiction in all its forms, assistance for drug addicts, the fight against traffickers and money laundering, and the economic and social development of the producing countries.
<P>
Everyone knows how crucial and burning this issue is, with the partisans of prohibition and the tenants of an 'alternative policy' often poles apart.
We must now advance beyond this fruitless debate and concentrate on how to implement, as effectively as possible, the conclusions of the UN General Assembly special session on international cooperation in the fight against drugs which was held in June.
<P>
This is even more important now as it is clear to everyone that the eradication of illegal drugs - which must be our common aim - requires, more than anything else, close international cooperation, particularly in the areas which are wanting, highlighted by the UN special session: reduction of production and demand by 2003 and international legal cooperation in its various forms.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Ephremidis">
If we are at long last to talk meaningfully and realistically about one of our century's worst scourges, drugs, we must first decide to remove the narcotic gag of hypocrisy, wishful thinking, embellishment and cover-up from the mouth of tragic truth.
<P>
Dilemmas such as whether or not to legalise hard and soft drugs are disorienting, dangerous and false, because reality is always harsh, both for drug users and for society, which always ends up paying the high price.
Thousands of people, most of them young, are dying each year as the result of drug abuse.
Every day, tens of thousands of people lose their dignity, personality and basic identity and fall victims to the cure-all 'fix' that shields them from the problems they face.
<P>


It is those problems which are the first and greatest cause of drug dealing, and the ones to blame are those who bear a heavy responsibility for creating them, those who then shed crocodile tears about the extent of the problem and how difficult it is to deal with it; the policies which create conditions of occupational, social and emotional insecurity and marginalisation, which have corrupted values and created decadent societies; the modern capitalist societies you are so proud about that you amplify their main characteristics every day - the pursuit of profit, the prevalence of the laws of the jungle in the markets, the devaluation of man and the deification of money; a system incapable of creating real and earthly paradises which leads to wretchedness, personal and social isolation and the quest for false avenues of escape and paradises via drugs.
<P>
The capitalist system will never solve the drugs problem, not just because it is the inherent cause of its existence, but mainly because it is both served and nourished by the problem.
It numbs the conscience, reactions and resistance, it absorbs the emotional, existential shocks and dreams of certain specific social groups, mainly the young.
'Escape' gives life to the establishment and is the best possible safety valve for the smooth and untroubled operation of its markets.
Let us not deceive ourselves: apart from anything else, the drug market deals in vast sums of money, supports governments and 'adjusts' markets.
<P>
We cannot, however, remain indifferent and inactive to this gangrene, nor to the ineffectiveness of our policies so far.
Large-scale organised crime must be attacked, and we must expose the links between the various forms of authority which provide what is drug trafficking in name alone with all the protection it needs for the transfer and 'laundering' of the huge sums of dirty money it deals in.
<P>
The most substantive approach to preventing and dealing with the problem is the struggle to create a different society, one centred upon man, in which man's values and dreams will not be subject to the fluctuations and crises of the money markets - a society to which people have access and in which they can participate, and one which respects personalities and creativity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Elliott">
I voted for this report as did most Labour MEPs because I feel that in this highly charged and controversial area, the rapporteur has achieved in her resolution a good, balanced approach.
It proposes greater coordination and cooperation between Member States in dealing with the serious problem of the escalating use of illegal drugs, whilst recognizing that - with the current divergences of view in the policies adopted by different countries - full harmonization is not practicable at the present time.
<P>
There are many good, sensible proposals contained in the resolution for expanding education about and awareness of the dangers of drug taking - especially amongst young people - and on the health treatment and care of addicts.
Also practical suggestions for improving EU cooperation in apprehending and prosecuting drug dealers and for seeking support from the authorities and people of those countries which are the main sources of illegal drugs.
<P>
This resolution is certainly not soft on drugs. It embodies tough - but practical and realistic - proposals for tackling this worrying problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Eriksson, Seppänen and Svensson">
The tenor of the drugs debate in the European Parliament clearly demonstrates that harmonised legislation is not feasible.
Nor do we consider it desirable.
<P>
Amendment No 3, which calls upon the Council to confirm that drugs legislation should be handled at national level, therefore determined our decision on the final vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Gallagher">
I welcome this report from the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs of the European Parliament which highlights the dangers of synthetic drugs in society and the need to fight organised crime in drug trafficking.
<P>
Synthetic drugs such as ecstasy, LSD and amphetamines are dangers to the public health of the people of the EU and I am happy to see that the vast majority of Members in the European Parliament recognises this fact.
<P>
Our young people simply do not know the long-term physical and psychological effects of the use of these dangerous and addictive drugs and more research is required into the effects of the use of such substances.
Some members of the Green group of the European Parliament had previously tabled draft amendments defining users of synthetic drugs as only consumers and endeavouring to have the use of synthetic drugs regulated and legalised.
<P>
We must remember that the UN Convention against illicit traffic in narcotic drugs prohibits the use, manufacture and distribution of ecstasy, LSD and amphetamines and that is the way it should remain.
<P>
While most European governments including the Irish Government are trying to implement policies which have the objective of reducing drug use, some members of the Green group of the European Parliament are promoting policies which clearly have the effect of increasing drug use with its resulting social problems.
<P>
I would like to welcome the fact that the Irish Government has set up a young people's facilities and services fund at a cost of £30 million which was put in place earlier this year.
The purpose of this fund is to develop youth facilities including sport and recreational facilities and services in disadvantaged areas where significant drug problems exist.
<P>
The Irish Government is also correct to take a tough line with those people who try to sell drugs in Ireland.
I fully support the provisions of the Criminal Justice Bill 1997 which introduces mandatory prison sentences for those caught in possession of controlled drugs valued at £10 000 or more.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling">
We find it rather strange that Parliament should reject Amendment No 4, which argues that the development of new strategies to combat drugs should be in line with the UN's drugs conventions of 1961, 1971 and 1988.
<P>
The European Parliament has also said no to cooperating with UNDCP and the Member States in establishing evaluation indicators. The view seems to be that EMCDDA and other European bodies are sufficient.
We have sadly come to doubt the European Parliament's willingness to cooperate within the spirit of the UN and to work with its institutions.
<P>
It is both shocking and distressing that a sizeable majority should have voted against Amendment No 3, which sought assurances that no Treaty provisions would be used to force Member States to harmonise their drugs legislation.
Given the way it voted on Amendment No 10, it is also clear that Parliament has no interest in learning from those countries that have been implementing restrictive policies. Priority is instead given to preventive action.
<P>
For some inexplicable reason, the principle that the goal of treatment and care should be to promote a drug-free life was also rejected.
This is particularly lamentable and we look ahead with concern and trepidation to Mrs d'Ancona's next report, which will deal with the EU's drugs policy for the years 2000-2006.
<P>
For these reasons we voted against the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Hyland">
I would like to begin my comments by commending the Irish police and all the Irish state agencies involved in their unenviable task of defeating illegal drug circulation in Ireland as well as assisting drug users in rehabilitation programmes.
<P>
There is a drugs problem in Ireland.
While the main drug circulated in Ireland is cannabis, the most serious problems relating to drug abuse are associated with heroin, ecstasy and other drugs such as LSD.
In fact the use of ecstasy is very much on the increase.
In Ireland, in 1991, there were 429 ecstasy tablets seized compared to 17 516 tablets in 1997.
<P>
The 1997 Annual Report on the state of the drugs problem in the European Union, published by the European Monitoring Centre for drugs and drug addiction, points out that the upward trend in the number of drug-related deaths has continued in Ireland.
In fact, the report indicates that 4 out of 10 Irish school-going teenagers admit that they have used cannabis, which is twice the average in most EU states.
<P>
I would like to briefly turn to comment on a few of the measures which the Irish Government is taking to address the rising drug problem in Ireland.
<P>
A multi-agency approach, involving the Department of Health and Children, Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Environment and Local Government and Education and Science and their respective agencies have been identified by the government as providing the best possible framework to deal with the drugs problem in Ireland.
I fully agree with this strategy because the need for a coordinated approach is especially apparent to those charged with law enforcement.
The connection between drug dealing, drug addiction and crime is well established.
<P>
Measures to improve the EU response to the drugs problem have continued through the activities of the Horizontal Drugs Group.
A key part of this work has been the development of a post-1999 EU drugs strategy and the elaboration of priorities for the period 1998/1999.
<P>
The Treaty of Amsterdam is another important element in the EU's fight against drug trafficking and organised crime.
It sets out a more specific mandate for closer cooperation between police forces, customs authorities and other law enforcement agencies within the European Union, which is also to be welcomed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats today voted for the d'Ancona report on European cooperation in the framework of the UN General Assembly special session on drugs.
<P>
Legislation on drugs varies considerably from one Member State to another.
We should therefore not under any circumstances try to harmonise the Member States' legislation in this field.
At Community level we must have practical cooperation under which effective action can be taken against organised crime, which is smuggling and selling drugs across frontiers on a grand scale.
<P>
Beyond that it is up to the Member States to lay down national policy on drugs.
That should of course not prevent us learning from each other's experiences, both good and bad.
Common drugs legislation at EU level is neither appropriate nor desirable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="Lis Jensen, Bonde and Sandbæk">
The report on drugs contains many positive and good elements.
It is important in gaining an understanding of and in any work on drug addiction to focus on the individual's social conditions and marginalisation in society.
To believe that it is possible to achieve a completely drug-free society is utopian.
It is therefore crucial to focus efforts on prevention and treatment.
However, we think that drugs legislation is a national matter; it is thus not desirable, let alone possible, to force the Member States to harmonise their drugs policies.
We cannot therefore vote for the final report, since it does not accommodate this view.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Malone">
The d'Ancona report makes a large number of positive recommendations which would be of enormous use in the fight against drugs.
<P>
I strongly support the emphasis on prevention and on providing better treatment facilities for addicts.
<P>
I also welcome the fact that a recommendation in an earlier draft, suggesting that more consideration be given to legalisation of some drugs, has been dropped.
<P>
The main thrust of the recommendations has received qualified support from organisations in Dublin working on the drugs problem.
<P>
Europe must work towards trying to achieve a drug-free society.
Too many people are consigned to a lifetime of drug use - even if prescribed and under supervision.
Methadone, according to recent research, is not the panacea for controlling or treating the problem.
A higher profile should be given to drug-free lifestyles and to treatments and rehabilitation programmes that work towards this aim.
<P>
I also want to see the EU acknowledging and directly supporting the role of local communities in combating the drugs problem, particularly in relation to community and family support systems to cope with the consequences of drug addiction on the health of the family as well as on the individual.
Europe must also actively support treatment and rehabilitation programmes relevant to community needs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Mendes Bota">
This is a unequal struggle.
In comparison to the astronomical profits of drug traffickers, the funds available to those who seek to oppose them are laughable.
The uncontrolled expansion of synthetic drugs, which are manufactured close to consumers, has further complicated the task.
<P>
Police and judicial resources may be increased; Legislation may be harmonised; People may have illusions about the liberalisation of consumption; Any number of conventions may be signed; Money laundering may be more heavily sanctioned; Drug plantations may be bombed; Armies may be mobilised; All this may be done!
<P>
But the frontline of the fight against drug trafficking and drug addiction is called PREVENTION, and the FAMILY, SCHOOLS and LOCAL COMMUNITIES are the ones who implement it.
<P>
Education within the family and at school are essential.
A family that is well-informed and a school that provides information are half the battle in preparing young people for their first inevitable contact with drugs and in helping them to resist the attraction of instant pleasure and easy profit.
<P>
For this reason we strongly support recommendations 15 and 17 of this proposal.
But we also believe that, where prevention is concerned, the strategic field of battle lies in each municipality, in each local community.
Who is more familiar with the tragic dimension of the problems caused by drug addiction than family and neighbours?
Who is better placed to notice the sudden affluence of some and the physical and moral degeneration of others?
<P>
The local COUNCILS, in direct partnership with FAMILIES and SCHOOLS, have a decisive role and should receive ample financial and technical support from the European Union and the Member States.
MUNICIPAL PLANS TO PREVENT DRUG ADDICTION must be drawn up. Information must be disseminated; help must be provided for those who need it; the phenomenon must be studied in the context of each community; young people must be given leisure and activity facilities; rehabilitation and social and professional reintegration centres must be built for drug addicts.
<P>
Another aspect that should be dealt with in this proposal relates to cooperation with the management of night entertainment centres to implement joint prevention and suppression measures. They have no interest in a low-income clientele of drug addicts who spend their money on drugs and merely parade the effects of their addiction.
<P>
Drug dependence is the direct cause of much of the unhappiness which torments our families, feeding insecurity and violence, dragging human dignity down to unimaginable depths.
It is our duty as citizens and as people with political responsibility to take an active part in this struggle.
The danger is upon us.
We hope that the Council is equal to assuming its responsibility because, as the Portuguese anti-drug campaign states, 'drugs are the end'.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Novo">
The series of recommendations contained in the d'Ancona report certainly demonstrate a very positive endeavour to seek consensus on the issue of combating drugs.
<P>
Indeed, the connection between the drug addiction phenomenon and the social causes which are largely to blame, be they unemployment, poverty or social exclusion, is an important aspect of this report.
So is the need to tackle dependence as a public health issue and to deal with the whole question of prevention, treatment and recovery, while simultaneously warning of the need to increase the budget of the Community and of Member States to deal with these matters.
<P>
Other positive recommendations are those which warn against concentrating on the role of the police in combating drug addiction, and those which advocate a greater focus on the aspects of education and prevention, on awareness-raising and information campaigns and on the need to enhance cooperation between the Member States and within international organisation s with a view to coordinating activities, carrying out research, harmonizing statistics and making them compatible.
<P>
However, the report falls far short of what would be desirable and possible in the area of combating drug trafficking and money laundering.
<P>
Only one of the 27 recommendations deals with this important (and decisive) dimension of the fight against drugs.
No explicit mention whatsoever is made of tax havens; no explicit mention is made of financial havens; no mention is made of the need to consider, therefore, the possibility of lifting banking secrecy; nothing is said about the ramifications of the euro in facilitating money laundering.
<P>
It was because of these fundamental shortcomings, which mean that the report fails to deal with a decisive element in the fight against drugs, that we abstained.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Seillier">
However useful the repressive, therapeutic, economic and social approaches adopted by my colleagues may be in the fight against the drugs problem, they are inadequate and do not tackle the crux of the matter.
Indeed, for several decades - hence the crisis of 1968, 30 years ago - the adult generation, parents primarily, but also teachers, journalists and members of parliament, has not been passing on the intellectual and spiritual elements needed by young people to dynamically and courageously face the various tests in life, or to take on family or political responsibilities, for example.
The search for artificial havens demonstrates their need for absolutes; however, neither work, nor science, art, sport, ecology or politics, whether at national or European level, are such absolutes.
<P>
It is as if you have forgotten that human beings, particularly when young and therefore not yet hardened by conformism and compromise, need their parents and adults in general to talk to them about the reasons for living and not just the means of living.
The belittling of literary culture and culture in general can be seen in our various countries, and yet the works of literature consider the main questions about the human condition - love, suffering, death and God - which are essential for spiritual maturity.
<P>
Young people are no longer nourished by the extremely rich sources of European humanism which for over 2000 years have fed the extraordinary cultural and spiritual heritage of our continent.
The repeated but purely abstract allusions to the 'European social model' in the Amsterdam Treaty cannot fill the gap, intellectually and morally, faced with the terrible confusion of youth.
Fortunately, the World Youth Days which took place in Paris last year brought a real ray of hope for many European youngsters.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="Stewart-Clark, Sir Jack">
Yesterday's debate and today's vote on Mrs d'Ancona's report on drugs is a victory for common sense.
United, this House can achieve a very great deal; divided, it is without influence.
On a subject as sensitive as drugs abuse, where very different points of view exist, not everybody could have their way.
What has resulted is a sensible, human and positive report.
We have emphasised the importance of cooperation at all levels.
We have stressed the need to learn from one another.
We have asked that both the European Drugs Monitoring Centre in Lisbon and Europol should be made full use of, and that Member States must fully cooperate in providing adequate and meaningful information.
<P>
We are happy that Parliament has been able to vote clearly for helping youngsters to lead a drug-free life and that we have supported the upholding of the United Nations drugs conventions.
Both are essential if we are to have effective policies for helping young people to stay off drugs and for tackling drugs traffickers and their accomplices.
<P>
In conclusion, I am glad that my Group has been able to support this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="Vaz da Silva">
The erratic course of the Ancona report which is once more before the House, in a more coherent but much weaker version, reveals the disorientation in the minds of politicians which in turn accounts for the disparities between national drugs policies.
And the problem is that as long as the battle to achieve harmonisation of national legislation based on common indicators is not won within the European Union, traffickers will continue to grow rich and the toll of young victims will continue to increase.
<P>
Combating drugs relies, primarily, on three types of positive measures: information/prevention (for the general public), reduction of risks and recovery (for drug addicts) and support for producer countries (to grow alternative crops).
Police clampdowns are just a marginal aspect in comparison to the main issue and, have hitherto served merely as an 'aspirin' which relieves the problem but does not solve it.
Such clampdowns attack traffickers but do not eliminate them, and indeed goad them to outdo themselves, as is apparent in the growing volume of business, the low prices of products and the appearance of new drugs that are now produced on our doorstep.
<P>
Unfortunately, we now have sufficient evidence that implementing United Nations conventions is actually counterproductive.
And sufficient experience exists in a number of Member States to show that the only course is to change priorities in combating drugs.
The need now is to change policy and to boost or, rather, to rechannel and concentrate resources.
<P>
It would appear that fairer winds are now blowing in Portugal, judging by the report that was submitted this week to the government.
On a number of previous occasions, Portugal has pioneered new legislation, having been the first to abolish capital punishment and, more recently, with its 'family laws'. It is my hope now that my government will heed these winds and set a course in the right direction.
<P>
I regret that I must abstain from voting on this very important topic, but I consider that the Parliament has not succeeded in reflecting the urgency of the situation in its text.
<P>
What will it take to wake Europe up?
<P>
Bontempi report (A4-0285/98)
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="Bonde and Sandbæk">
Corruption must be fought tooth and nail, but there are limits to how far one should go when it comes to choosing the way to do it, for we run the risk of giving the EU more tools to extend its powers than it already has at present.
<P>
The Bontempi report on corruption has some good things to say on such aspects as openness and the damage corruption does to the public.
At the same time it talks of 'centralised registers' and 'specialised units' to be set up in the Commission's Directorates-General, and it calls on the Commission '... once the Treaty of Amsterdam enters into force - to make immediate use of its right of initiative in the field of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters...'.
The Danish June Movement will not be party to the writing of such a blank cheque for centralisation.
<P>
Among the good things in the report, Parliament draws attention to the need for the EU to combat corruption within its own system.
It refers in particular to the Commission and points out that the rules which are there to ensure openness are insufficient.
The report rightly points out that there is a problem for the individual citizen when corruption takes place.
Every time, for example in a tendering procedure to decide which firm should get a contract, that a firm is selected on the basis of corruption rather than on a factual assessment of the firm's tender, our citizens are damaged.
In such cases, taxpayers' money is not used to obtain the best quality, safeguard environmental interests in the best possible way and get the work done at least cost, instead it disappears into the pocket of the staff member who has been bribed by a firm to ensure that the order is placed with that firm.
<P>
It is a situation which should be avoided.
But it is also a situation that can arise more easily when the office authorised to place contracts or select firms submitting tenders is part of a large, impenetrable and bureaucratic system.
The EU is just such a system.
Rather than react to the problems by introducing further centralisation, some of these contracting and selection procedures should revert to the countries themselves.
A single language and press and the fact that each country in isolation makes up a smaller unit than the EU will make it easier to maintain democratic control over money that is used on the citizen's behalf.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="Buffetaut">
Our colleague Rinaldo Bontempi has undisputedly become an expert on the fight against organised crime and the anti-corruption policy of the European Union.
Current events have unfortunately just reminded us that the problem of corruption and unacceptable behaviour reaches even into the European institutions, particularly the Commission.
This is why Mr Bontempi's report has appeared at exactly the right time to invite the Commission 'to devise a comprehensive anti-corruption plan' and to call for 'specific proposals aimed at combating more effectively corruption within the EU institutions'.
<P>
It is right and proper that this report insists on the need for more transparency in decision-making processes, for more clarity in the rules on tenders and for more effectiveness in internal controls.
It also raises the difficult problem of the policy of cooperation with third countries.
It is to be welcomed that the rapporteur says in the explanatory statement that it 'would be wrong to take a fatalistic view of corruption' because it has always happened; his reminder that 'the word 'corruption' originally meant physical or moral disintegration' is also positive.
<P>
The fight against organised crime and corruption, the latter being one of the manifestations of the former, is a typical area in which European cooperation is helpful and should make national policies more effective.
The European Union is 'an asset' in this case, since it reinforces the action of the Member States.
Emphasis must be placed on the fact that it would be advisable, when a scandal affects the Commission's services, for the Commission to practise the transparency it so often recommends to others and not to block our parliamentary fact-finding with delaying tactics.
<P>
To conclude, Mr Bontempi's report contains sound principles and advocates realistic cooperation.
That is the reason why our group voted for it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="Delcroix">
If there is an area where the sensitivity of European citizens is particularly acute, it is corruption.
Together with expectations which are never met of social Europe, tax harmonisation and democratisation of the Union, the revelation of cases of corruption - with those occurring within the European institutions being at the top of the list - causes feelings of rejection which are extremely damaging to European integration and from which the extreme right profits.
The Bontempi report has the merit of establishing the broad outlines of a comprehensive anti-corruption policy, and I congratulate its author for having attempted this integrated and coherent approach which is the only one likely to succeed.
<P>
However, at the same time as implementing measures aimed at reducing corruption at international level, both inside and outside the frontiers of the Union, I feel it is both useful and imperative that, as a priority, Europe reinforces the fight against corruption within its own institutions by using firm and visible measures encompassing prevention, detection through increased controls and sanctions for all forms of corruption committed by natural or legal persons.
This is of prime importance.
On the one hand, how can we give lessons to others and be credible without first washing our own dirty linen in public?
And on the other, for about ten years, too many allegations have been repeatedly made without the Commission reacting in a convincing way.
<P>
In this area of the fight against corruption, citizens keen on democracy demand transparency.
Setting up a central office for fighting corruption, as the report requests, is not enough; it should also be insisted that cases of corruption are brought out into the open - for example by means of communications to the European Parliament - as well as the administrative, civil and disciplinary sanctions arising from these cases.
<P>
As with all European texts, this transparency must apply to the decision-making processes, to the simplification of the law and also to the financial situation of anyone - including MEPs - who occupies a post open to corruption.
It is also essential for these people, officials in particular, to undertake special training enabling them to be fully informed about the different types of corruption and the means to effectively combat these.
<P>
Furthermore, a close link must be established between the report before us and the Bösch report which we are also considering at this part-session.
The latter concerns the independence, role and status of the Unit for the Coordination of Fraud Prevention, UCLAF.
This report requests the replacement of UCLAF with an anti-fraud office - OLAF - whose jurisdiction would extend to all the European institutions and which would be supervised by a supervisory body appointed by the European Parliament in agreement with the other institutions.
These two reports closely complement each other even though certain points should be dealt with in more depth, such as what is meant by the 'independence' of OLAF.
In my opinion, this body cannot become a new Community institution, which would involve a revision of the Treaties.
While remaining within the Commission, OLAF should enjoy broader independence, guaranteed initially by the choice of its supervisory body.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="Deprez">
Tax fraud, money laundering, organised crime and international crime have found extraordinary scope for development in the liberalisation of trade and the globalisation of economic activity.
For those engaging in these activities, which are as lucrative as they are criminal, corruption is clearly one of the favoured means of action, both in the public and the private sector.
<P>
Recent events have shown how our countries and our institutions are also to a greater or lesser extent affected by this world phenomenon.
The need is clear for the Commission to follow a decisive initiative, within its terms of reference, in the fight against corruption.
The challenge is a fundamental one.
We should make no mistake about it: democracy, the rule of law and corruption are incompatible.
The development of one necessarily leads to the perversion and then the destruction of the others.
The fight against corruption must therefore be one of the priorities of the European institutions and of our states.
<P>
Legal and cultural differences are clearly so important in this respect that it would for the moment be unrealistic to set the objective of achieving legislation which is identical in all points in all the Member States.
It is therefore right that the Commission is proposing to proceed gradually and to concentrate for now on simplifying the concepts and approximating the laws of the Member States.
<P>
In making this joint effort, it is also the responsibility of the Member States to eliminate, as quickly as possible, the most shocking aspects of their laws, particularly those which tolerate or encourage corrupt acts in other states, and to rapidly formalise the undertakings to which they have already agreed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="Holm">
The Commission cannot wage the battle against corruption on its own, or assisted by an internal structure such as UCLAF.
If we are to prevent corruption and fight fraud, one necessary condition is that every citizen and every journalist should be in a position to find out what is going on within the Commission and the other EU institutions.
We therefore need a fully-fledged system of open government in order to halt corruption.
The risk of internal fraud will be drastically reduced once EU officials know that their activities can be investigated by anyone, and not just by a handful of colleagues from their own institutions.
<P>
The ECHO case illustrates the need for measures to combat the kind of fraudulent practices that are patently rife inside the EU system.
The manner in which the Commission has tried to put a lid on the issue, refusing to come forward with information on what has been happening, demonstrates that it has confidence neither in the competent supervisory authorities, i.e. the European Parliament and its Committee on Budgetary Control, nor in the public at large.
A sorry pass has been reached when an organisation indulges in self-protection of this kind.
<P>
The report talks about 'debureaucratisation', but it is not clear what is meant by this.
If we are truly to cut red tape, we must set about it in the right way.
There has to be a proper system of record-keeping in place when taxpayers' money is at stake, or when public calls for tender are launched, so as to avoid the 'disappearance' of sensitive documents.
On the other hand, in-house monitoring - checking to whom officials say what - is indeed unnecessary bureaucracy.
<P>
Employer-employee solidarity is not achieved by means of submission and obedience, but through an open debate about what needs to be changed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="Lis Jensen">
The Bontempi report covers a very relevant and serious subject which is a scourge the world over, namely corruption.
The problem of corruption is, as the Bontempi report points out, one that also affects the EU's Member States and, not least, the EU's institutions.
The question is then how that scourge is to be combated.
There is no doubt that, with the globalisation of economies, the problem is spreading its tentacles across national frontiers.
But the view taken by the Bontempi report that the first duty of the individual Member States and the individual EU institutions is to put their own house in order when it comes to combating corruption in their own ranks is entirely correct.
<P>
If the EU Member States and the EU's institutions do not take their responsibility absolutely seriously and honour the range of initiatives and conventions that have been adopted in the field internationally over the years, even the best declarations at EU level have no value.
<P>
A combined strategy for the EU to combat corruption is not relevant in my view as long as the Member States fail to honour the commitments they have already entered into.
The arguments of the Bontempi report for more centralised arrangements at EU level to combat corruption, including a central body for the purpose, mean that I cannot support the report, despite the good elements it contains.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="Lindqvist">
The political and technical anti-fraud measures proposed here are sound, and I therefore voted in favour of the report.
The introduction of a system of open government, with protection for those providing information, would however constitute the single most significant step towards combating fraud.
If all EU documents were to be made public as a matter of principle, and the right to inform the media were properly enshrined, then instances of corruption and deception would be more easily uncovered and we would have less of a problem.
<P>
Langen report (A4-0304/98)
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="Berthu">
The European Commission has just published a communication pompously entitled 'Impact of the changeover to the euro on Community policies, institutions and legislation'.
Contrary to the impression given by the title, the communication contains no comprehensive analysis of the impact of the euro on the development of European integration, but only a list of the legal amendments required in various technical areas such as the budget, agricultural policy or administrative expenditure.
<P>
The Commission and the European Parliament are taking this opportunity to congratulate themselves on the 'considerable simplification' which the euro should bring.
Certainly, everyone is firmly persuaded that monetary union may make the management of Community finances, or subsidies, simpler than with 15 national currencies.
However, the real question is not whether the euro will facilitate the life of European officials, but whether this will facilitate the life of the citizens of the Member States.
<P>
Viewed from this essential angle, we have extremely serious misgivings.
Leaving aside the question of the transition and adaptation problems, I would simply point out that the imposition of a single currency on countries in different situations will cause major lasting problems of conciliation, generating incessant conflicts and likely in the end to divide Europe.
The President of the European Central Bank, Mr Wim Duisenberg, confessed to us, at the meeting of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy of 22 September, that the establishment of a monetary strategy was proving to be more complex than he had previously anticipated.
<P>
And this is the real crux of the matter: in simplifying internal exchanges, the euro will complicate all other exchanges and even make them matters of conflict.
In the end, Europe will have been the victim of an optical illusion which will have led it down the road to ruin.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="Fourçans">
The introduction of the euro will have overall positive effects for the whole zone.
Nevertheless, it is interesting to look in more detail at more specific sectors in order to assess its effects.
The Langen report, therefore, following the example of the communication from the Commission, targets three sectors in particular: the Community budget, the agrimonetary arrangements and administrative expenditure.
<P>
With regard to the Community budget, the introduction of the euro will result in considerable simplification. In fact, the Member States' contributions are currently paid in national currency and then have to be converted into ECU.
Part of the Community expenditure uses national currency, in particular agricultural expenditure which constitutes the largest part of the expenditure of the European Union.
The rest of the expenditure is in ECU.
The departments responsible for finance must therefore buy ECU on the free market, with all the inherent exchange-rate risks.
It is clear that, with the euro, the exchange-rate risk will be eliminated as expenditure and income will be in a single currency without any conversion being necessary.
<P>
In respect of the CAP, agricultural prices are set in a unit of account which is based on the ECU.
This means that, in the event of a devaluation or revaluation, agricultural prices are directly affected, leading to considerable variations in the agricultural income of the Member States affected by these exchange-rate fluctuations.
In order to cancel out these effects, agricultural prices must be converted through the EAGGF.
With the introduction of the euro, these problems will disappear as prices and amounts will no longer have to be converted, and the fear of trade distortion will automatically disappear.
On the other hand, the problem will remain for the four Member States outside the euro zone, which will then be obliged to convert prices and amounts into the euro, under the scheme established by the CAP.
<P>
The introduction of the euro will also positively affect the sector of administrative expenditure.
This expenditure is at present incurred in national currency.
The salaries of officials, calculated in ECU but paid in national currency, obviously must remain constant.
This involves adjustments and sometimes greater costs due to the exchange-rate variations.
In fact, the budget expenditure in ECU varies every month.
With the euro, these variations will disappear.
<P>
Since Mr Langen's report gives a good assessment of the impact of the introduction of the euro on these various sectors, I have voted in favour of it today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats voted for the Langen report today.
This should not be taken as signal indicating a change in the Social Democrats' policy of reserving our position with regard to the third stage of EMU, but as a statement of our keen interest in what happens in this area, despite the fact that we are not participating in the third stage.
It should of course be borne in mind that the countries which are not participating in the third stage of EMU will still need exchange rates.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="Martinez">
The euro will have consequences, primarily on Community legislation: 4 000 Community acts will have to be amended to take account of the change in unit.
When you consider that, in the laws of the Member States, all the monetary references in tax, criminal, commercial, social and other codes will also have to be altered, the extent of the administrative and other costs involved in carrying out these simple legislative adjustments can be appreciated.
<P>
Certainly, for the European institutions, the euro may lead to a reduction of the costs of budget management, since 56 % of Community payments which are currently converted into national currency will remain in the euro, hence the disappearance of the exchange-rate risk.
<P>
The euro may also give an advantage in the agricultural sector by allowing the agrimonetary conversion arrangements to be abolished. These each year cost between ECU 1 000 and 1 500 million.
<P>
We also believe that the payment of the salaries of 30 000 officials, of which 90 % work in Brussels and Luxembourg, will be simplified.
There will be no more payments in the national currency of the country of employment, which is currently the case for 76 % of the ECU 2 700 million in administrative expenditure.
In respect of salaries and pensions, the administrative burden will be partly lifted.
<P>
But this is not the most important point.
In addition to the IT and administrative costs, the euro will accelerate competition between the 11 participating economies.
In order to adapt to this, undertakings must therefore cut their costs, leading to a reduction in pay, social protection and jobs.
<P>
This will lead to euro-unemployment, euro-rationing of investments and welfare and also euro-inflation, because traders will round prices upwards.
<P>
But there is even worse to come. In a Europe with a large population of senior citizens spread over several generations, everyone over 65 years of age will have their internal money clocks disrupted.
The oldest and weakest in our societies will fall victim to increased fraud, due to pensions, for example, being paid in a currency unit which the majority of the elderly may no longer be able to take on board.
<P>
It would have been so much simpler to have an intelligent euro by making this a reasonable common currency instead of this single dogmatic currency.
<P>
It is not even certain that, at the end of day, the euro will be as effective as expected in a globalised market whose finances are destabilised.
Even before being introduced, the euro has been shown not to be up to the basic problem: the limitations of the IMF, the international financial chaos and the money dumping carried out by the dollar.
<P>
As with federal Europe itself, the single European currency is perhaps the light of a star which has already faded, given that globalisation and internationalisation have happened so quickly - more quickly anyway than the construction of a federal Europe.
<P>
So much so that, in the final analysis, the nation states themselves are revealed to be the only ones able to protect the people and their freedoms as required.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="Trizza">
I share the optimism concerning the introduction of the euro as a single currency in Europe: its entry into the marketplace will facilitate the implementation of Community policies and help the European institutions to operate more efficiently and effectively.
<P>
The advantages of the euro for agricultural policy are also obvious: its introduction from 1 January 1999 will facilitate trade in all products, including agricultural ones.
Indeed, the advent of the euro will coincide in that sector with a new, radically simplified agrimonetary regime, whereby the 'green rates' - used to convert agricultural aid and prices established in ECU into national currency - will disappear altogether.
Here, however, transitional measures are required to soften the adverse impact of the new agro-monetary system, in that farmers will no longer be compensated for the negative effects of exchange rates.
<P>
Finally, I too am optimistic that the euro will have a positive effect on the drawing-up of the Community budget, as well as on Community staff management. Salaries and pensions will be calculated on a constant basis, no longer subject to the vagaries of exchange rates.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="President">
That concludes the votes.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 1.28 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
UCLAF
<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0297/98) by Mr Bösch, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on UCLAF's independence; sound financial management and administration; opposing irregularities, fraud, corruption (Court of Auditors' Special Report 8/98) (C4-0483/98).
<P>
I should like to welcome the President of the Commission, Mr Santer, together with Commissioners Liikanen and Gradin, and first give the floor to the rapporteur, Mr Bösch.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="Bösch">
<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="Santer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I wished to speak today, during the debate on the Bösch report, because this raises questions which are very important to the Commission.
I wanted to do this so that there could be a calm and constructive debate on reinforcing the fight against fraud and corruption.
I believe that the lack of calmness in the current debate is in fact leading to certain generalisations.
This worries me, and this is why I want us to have this discussion today.
<P>
Since I came into office, my aim has been to ensure sound and efficient management. I have always made this a priority.
That is why, at the beginning of my term of office, together with Erkki Liikanen and Anita Gradin, I launched the SEM 2000 initiative to considerably reinforce the management and supervision of the use of public funds.
SEM 2000 is the embodiment of a real political will among all the Members of the Commission, and its implementation is progressing successfully.
This is an ambitious reform which should result in more efficient and more transparent management.
Today, before the House, I should first of all like to clarify the situation and then to make some constructive proposals, with an eye to the future, which take up many of the points made in the Bösch report.
However, I propose to go further with the conclusions which must be drawn.
<P>
Before considering the heart of the matter, I know that there is one point which concerns you in particular: the forwarding of information on investigations in cases of internal fraud.
I am aware of this, and I agree with the wider and more complete forwarding of information in order to ensure that Parliament is fully able to carry out its task of budgetary control.
However, you will agree with me that this improvement of the forwarding of information must take place in accordance with the law and must take account of the presumption of innocence and the secrecy of the inquiry.
To this end, I will very shortly make some specific proposals to the President of Parliament.
<P>
I shall now turn to the Bösch report and will firstly make some comments on this.
My first comment is that a sweeping criticism of the results obtained by the Commission hitherto in combating internal fraud committed against the Community budget leads to inaccuracies which thus result in generalisations.
The first of these inaccuracies relates to what UCLAF actually does.
Firstly, UCLAF coordinates the work of combating fraud in the Member States.
In this respect, approximately 5 000 cases were dealt with in 1997 involving ECU 1 400 million.
Secondly, UCLAF conducts direct investigations using its own resources. This was not its main task on its creation, but there are currently 950 cases subject to this type of investigation.
Thirdly, among these investigations, there are some which may obviously implicate officials.
This applies to about 20 cases.
UCLAF must be judged on its work in its three areas of competence.
The function of coordination with the Member States has been proven and is appreciated.
As for the investigation function using its own resources, significant results have been achieved, to which I will return.
I am prepared to consider with you the best ways of further enhancing this area of activity of UCLAF.
<P>
My second comment relates to the internal investigations.
If I may be frank, your report contains an intolerable insinuation to the effect that the Commission '... in cases of corruption within its own ranks ... has a tendency to cover up such cases ...'
You must realise that I take this as a personal attack which I vigorously reject and which the facts prove to be unjustified.
<P>
What are the facts?
It was this Commission which, thanks to the work of UCLAF, itself revealed the case of fraud detected in the context of ECHO and which, after an in-depth investigation by UCLAF, forwarded the file to the judicial authority.
It was this Commission which, last November, approved the guidelines for improving the action against incompetence, financial irregularities, fraud and corruption.
This Commission also sought to reinforce the independence of UCLAF by upgrading its status to that of a task force.
We also adopted a new internal structure which was actually welcomed by the Committee on Budgetary Control.
It was this Commission which, on 14 July, laid down the principles applicable to the conduct of internal investigations, in order to give UCLAF inspectors a clear and solid basis for their work while fully respecting the guarantees of personal rights.
It is this Commission which, since 1995, has referred nine matters to the judicial authorities in cases where officials have been under suspicion.
Since 1995, this Commission has dealt with 49 disciplinary procedures, not all involving cases of fraud but also reprehensible behaviour.
As a result of these procedures, the Commission has decided on eight dismissals, two demotions, four downgradings in step, 11 reprimands and four warnings.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let us now turn to the concept of 'zero tolerance'.
The European Parliament denounces the absence of a clear policy on the part of the Commission with regard to corruption.
I totally, steadfastly and resolutely reject this attitude.
No one can say that the President of this Commission has ever tolerated or covered up any corruption.
However, I do agree with you that, in all the institutions, the grey area of favouritism and conflict of interests must also be tackled.
Let us therefore jointly agree on an action to comprehensively raise moral standards in all the institutions, so as to remove any ambiguity.
The only way to achieve this is through transparency.
However, I would stress that I am not prepared, under the pressure of more or less orchestrated leaks to the public and quotations taken out of context, to take part in an indiscriminate and unfounded witch hunt.
Nor am I prepared to disregard the most basic personal rights, primarily the respect for the presumption of innocence.
Finally, I am not prepared to sit back and allow the sullying of the image of excellence which the humanitarian work of the Union has acquired throughout the world, through the daily work of ECHO on the ground, in very difficult conditions and in collaboration with the United Nations, the Red Cross and a large number of non-governmental organisations.
<P>
This brings me to my third comment.
Fraud and administrative irregularities should not be regarded as being on the same footing.
The latter relate to non-compliance with the Financial Regulation and the budget as approved by the budget authority, which must not be confused with fraud, which is a concept under criminal law involving the wrongful collection or retention or embezzlement of public funds.
And I will be very clear about this: I obviously do not approve of administrative irregularities, but you should consider the reasons why departments have been forced to look for a certain administrative flexibility, sometimes resulting, it is true, in real acrobatics.
New and heavy responsibilities were entrusted to the Commission by the Council and by yourselves at the beginning of the 1990s.
The urgency of these often external tasks and the inadequacy of the resources immediately available were at the root of these administrative acrobatics which had to be eliminated.
<P>
It would not be proper to impose individual sanctions on officials who committed these irregularities for the sole purpose of keeping departments going.
It is precisely for this reason that the Commission, with the agreement of the budgetary authority, decided in 1992 to end these administrative irregularities.
The European Parliament helped to eliminate the irregular mini-budgets by converting appropriations into over 1 800 posts.
Parliament should be congratulated for this.
I therefore understand the irritation on the part of some of you who, having made a personal effort in this respect, see that certain practices continued for some time and are now wondering whether these practices have in fact totally disappeared.
I would say to you very clearly: we must achieve total transparency.
<P>
With regard to ECHO, the practice of mini-budgets ended in June 1995.
For all the other departments, I have asked that a check be carried out by each Director-General, under their responsibility, so that any similar practices which may remain are fully identified.
I will inform Parliament, in all transparency, of the results of this check.
If problems do remain for the Commission, the budgetary authority will be clearly told of this so that we can find solutions together.
<P>
I now come to my fourth comment.
I cannot accept the connection made, in the Bösch report, between the alleged lack of independence of UCLAF and its subordination to the Secretariat-General of the Commission.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I know of no case where the hierarchy might have prevented UCLAF from carrying out its investigations.
I would also point out that, according to our rules, UCLAF can open internal investigations at any time on its own initiative.
<P>
Having set the record straint on these points, I will now turn to the proposals made in the Bösch report.
First of all, I said at the beginning of my speech that there are many elements in this report with which I agree: the concern to standardise and clarify the rules according to which investigations are conducted; the demand for a clearer and more uniform definition of the rules for handling confidential information, and an identical and consistent handling of files.
We started this work last July and this is still currently ongoing.
<P>
As for staff numbers, this question must be reviewed in the light of the future structure and objectives. But I will go further.
I believe that, in the light of the experience gained, the external and internal inquiry function of UCLAF would profit from being reviewed and reinforced.
Why?
As I said previously, I very firmly reject the statement that UCLAF is not functioning independently at the moment, but I will say quite honestly that if, due to the presence of UCLAF in our structure, the fraud prevention efforts of the Commission are being called into question or denigrated, I would prefer the externalisation of the inquiry function.
<P>
I therefore propose that we move towards the creation of an external and internal Anti-Fraud Office which is totally independent and not subordinated in any way to the Commission.
This would provide another advantage: it would allow this future Office to more easily extend its inquiries to all the institutions and to all the other Community bodies.
<P>
The other functions performed by UCLAF - the proposing of legislation and coordination with the Member States in combating fraud against the interests of the Union - will continue to be performed, in accordance with the Treaty, by the Commission in close liaison with the Office.
<P>
It would currently be premature to say exactly what the structure and working method of such an Office should be.
However, it is clear that there must be independent supervision of the work of this future Office.
I do not believe that the three-tier structure of director, board of directors and, supervisory body proposed by the Bösch report is a suitable one.
It is too complex and cumbersome.
The responsibilities must therefore be clarified and the Office given well-defined rules, in order to guarantee maximum efficiency in accordance with respect for and protection of individual rights.
<P>
This new structure must be based on mutual confidence between the institutions.
This implies that these institutions must have the same rights and obligations when participating in a supervisory body, in proposals for appointments and in relations with the Office.
<P>
With regard to the steps which the Commission is ready to take towards creating the Office, I can specifically tell you that I would be prepared to entrust a senior Commission official very shortly - if this is what the other institutions want - with the task of preparing a proposal for a joint decision on the basis of the principles which I have just indicated.
<P>
Furthermore, a joint report of the institutions involved should be prepared as soon as possible.
This report should list the measures to be taken, before and after the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty, together with a timetable for their implementation and, in particular, proposals for amending the relevant Council regulations.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, those are my thoughts.
I hope that the confidence between our institutions can be restored, that tempers can be calmed and that the necessary clarifications can occur without the pressure of leaks and a general climate of suspicion.
It in this spirit that Mrs Gradin, Mr Liikanen and I myself will reply to the specific questions which you may wish to ask us during the debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Dankert">
Mr President, we must not lose sight of the fact that we are concerned today not specifically with the Commission's position on ECHO, on tourism, on instances of corruption inside the Commission or other European institutions in general.
The purpose of this debate is to consider the report of the Court of Auditors which highlights a number of serious shortcomings in the functioning of UCLAF.
But at the same time, the Court of Auditors' report makes the point that over 80 % of European Union money is spent in the Member States and that scrutiny of that spending depends very largely on the willingness of Member States to cooperate with UCLAF.
So far it has gone well, so we must not throw out things which are working well just because we have no better alternatives.
<P>
Mr Bösch has just presented his report and I think we are totally in agreement on a number of essential points.
The Socialist Group too is resolutely opposed to fraud and corruption both in general and in the institutions - where there is much room for improvement.
We agree too that for a number of reasons UCLAF is not adequately equipped to do its work, that one of the shortcomings is that it is not sufficiently autonomous.
UCLAF must be given greater independence.
But there are differing views on that, namely on how this should be achieved.
<P>
My group applies a number of principles in considering how we can counter fraud more effectively and make UCLAF more independent.
I think it is a pity that the Commission President skated round this a little.
First of all the Commission is the guardian of the Treaties.
That task is conferred on it by the Treaties and it has a duty to fulfil it.
The Commission also has responsibility for implementing the budget.
The European Parliament's role is nothing less than to exercise scrutiny of the Commission and it can rap the Commission over the knuckles, as we are doing now, if it fails to discharge its responsibilities.
I believe that a new institution, separate from the Commission, requires a Treaty amendment, the procedures for which are set out in the Treaties themselves.
<P>
Also, there are a number of institutional issues which arise over the combating of fraud and corruption.
The combating of fraud and corruption is only partly a Community matter.
Most of the law-making and action in this area is decided on in intergovernmental cooperation under the third pillar.
And in the short term it is unlikely that Member States will be willing - I find it regrettable, but they are not - to set up a European Public Prosecution Service or a European criminal law area.
So we cannot expect an institution or unit responsible at European level for anti-fraud measures - to the extent that such powers exist at that level - to be able to do much more than collect and analyse information and cooperate with national authorities in the detection of fraud.
<P>
Because of these principles and the complications I must, on behalf of my group, reject Mr Bösch's proposed solution of a new institution, separate from the Commission or semi-linked to the Commission, because any new institution of this kind will necessitate a Treaty amendment or a treaty under the third pillar.
Amending the Treaties is not an option, Mr President.
A treaty under the third pillar invites the question, to whom is that institution to be politically accountable?
Even after Amsterdam, the European Parliament has no powers in this area.
A treaty under the third pillar would also have the drawback of inadequate legal safeguards for individuals, given that the powers of the Court are limited.
In short, there would be the danger of a legal and/or a political vacuum.
<P>
But a fully independent OLAF or Anti-Fraud Office, semi-linked to the Commission, is not the answer either.
It is a contradiction in terms, or at any rate would be a total abrogation by the Commission of its responsibilities in this field, responsibilities which the Commission as guardian of the Treaties cannot delegate.
Could the Commission be held liable in such a case for the functioning of OLAF?
Or who should be?
All Parliament can do is make the Commission mindful of its responsibilities and grant the Commission a discharge - or not, as the case may be - or in the last analysis dismiss the Commission.
As President Santer rightly said, a board of directors is not the answer.
It means that the Commission would be subject to direct scrutiny of its internal workings, which is contrary to the Treaties, and it would mean a total intertwining of the responsibilities and powers which are separately defined in the Treaties.
So it is not possible, Mr President.
<P>
So, ultimately, I have to reject the solutions which Mr Bösch offers and I hope the Commission will come up with a meaningful proposal which will give real and considerably greater independence to UCLAF.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Sarlis">
Mr President, I must point out that the Bösch report is being presented to the plenary at the behest of Parliament's resolution of 22 October 1997, which required Parliament and the Committee on Budgetary Control to submit the report.
<P>
I must also say that I am very pleased about the proposals we have heard from the President of the Commission, Mr Santer, which largely adopt the thinking and general lines of approach which Mr Bösch has set out in his report, and I must tell you that the Group of the European People's Party will support Mr Bösch's report, because we think it is correctly based.
I gather that the Commission feels the same, in other words that there is an element of deceit in relation to the management of the Community's budget and the Union's Member States, while on the other hand there is an internal issue regarding what is going on in the Community's various institutions and whether those Community institutions and their services are functioning as they should do.
I think we are quite right to go ahead with the creation of OLAF, and I personally agree that it should be clearly separate and that UCLAF will have to remain in place to scrutinise relations between the Member States and the Community's bodies.
<P>
On that subject you must know, Mr President of the Commission, and the Commissioners too, that in recent times we have been bombarded by reports from the Court of Auditors.
But nothing has happened to change us into detectives.
We are obliged to respond to and verify what the Court of Auditors says.
And you will agree with us that we cannot cover up anything, but on the contrary, we must respond to the Court of Auditors' indications with the greatest transparency and sincerity.
<P>
The issues of ECHO, tourism and MEDA have their origins in initiatives and special reports by the Court of Auditors.
The same has happened concerning many other subjects which you will be hearing about as the days go by and which perhaps will also influence Parliament's attitude towards the Commission's discharge in respect of the implementation of the 1996/97 budget.
<P>
At this point, I should also like to say that in our cooperation with UCLAF over the past two years, there were occasions when UCLAF came along, we asked for information, and we were told that the information could not be given because the upper echelons of UCLAF would not allow UCLAF to give us information.
That is one of the things you too pointed out, and I hope that it will be cleared up soon.
You will understand that the issue is a very serious one, and I am glad that this evening you have told us you are looking into it, and that you will be coming back with specific proposals.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Kjer Hansen">
Mr President, I will start by congratulating Mr Bösch on this report.
I am glad that it has finally been put on the agenda so that we can have a debate on this important subject.
I very much agree that there is a need to strengthen UCLAF.
The many cases convey an unmistakable message but, most important, the investigation of the Court of Auditors contains clear criticism of the present situation and gives concrete indications of what can be done.
The situation is quite unacceptable, and that is why it is so important for us to strengthen the role of UCLAF and give it more powers and better tools to get to grips with fraud and corruption.
<P>
As regards Mr Santer's answer today, I have to say that it is no use chiding us for criticising the Commission and complaining that things are moving at a very slow pace.
If Mr Santer had sat with us hour after hour in the Committee on Budgetary Control just trying to get the key information out of the Commission, he would understand our urgent desire to see real action and to see a change in the present procedures. There is quite simply a need for a more independent office.
After all we have received a clear answer from the Commission to the effect that the proposal Mr Bösch has brought before us does not require a Treaty amendment, which means in other words that it is a viable way forward.
So, Mr Santer, what we need is something more concrete from the Commission on what the Commission really intends to do in this area.
But is the true position not that an external office will in fact require a Treaty amendment and that the Commission has in this convenient way again secured a postponement of the decisions long into the future?
<P>
It is so crucial to people's confidence in the EU system that more decisive action be taken on corruption and fraud.
And once again it is the European Parliament that comes up with a concrete initiative on what should happen and on how we can get better procedures.
It may well be that it is not a final or a complete proposal, but at least the debate has got underway.
I am glad that Mr Bösch's report on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control has enabled us finally to get a reaction and initiate a discussion on what additional arrangements are really needed in order to make it possible to combat fraud and corruption more effectively.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Rosado Fernandes">
Mr President, President of the Commission, I still think that controls mean controls and that they actually serve a useful purpose.
You gave us a list of reasons why such controls are absent, which I accept.
But I also know that fraud and corruption are combated both upstream and downstream of where they occur.
The fact is that the whole system of projects and programmes in the Commission functions in such a way as to give officials responsibility for very substantial sums of money which they frequently cannot themselves control adequately.
Hence, what is missing is a prevention policy which, as in firefighting, is the best way to combat such occurrences.
Fight the fire in the winter and not in the summer, when it is already raging.
Consequently, the whole system must be changed, in such a way as to make Commission officials and Commissioners themselves more responsible for the programmes they administer within the Community and indeed beyond.
<P>
We know that the ECHO issue is extremely disagreeable: a billion ecus are at stake.
We also know that today, in 'Le Monde', UCLAF said that the control carried out was of a metaphysical nature.
Making allowance for UCLAF's irony, it is obvious that it feels in considerable difficulties.
<P>
So, we know that controls are necessary.
But controls are not just to catch prevaricators.
To control is to prevent, and that is why I stress that prevention is essential.
But if prevention is to exist, the will must also exist on the part of Parliament and the Member States. We all know that although the Committee on Budgetary Control has issued this report, the Committee on Budgets vetoed it and voted against the purchase of scanners which would make it possible to take preventive action against fraud in European ports.
And the fact is that there are certain European ports which are genuine havens for those who wish to smuggle contraband or to avoid paying taxes, be it VAT or consumer taxes.
<P>
We also know that criminal legislation has not been harmonised.
And we know that the Member States themselves hamper UCLAF's work by frequently failing to make available material which could be provided if they really wanted to combat fraud in their territory.
Of course, I am not blaming the Commission for all this.
Let nobody think so for a moment, since it is in fact the Member States that are largely responsible for what is happening.
It is up to the Commission to make people aware of this, it is up to the Commission not to condone, by its silence, what is happening in the Member States.
Without giving up their individual powers they must join forces to combat organised crime, to ensure that the Community is not somewhere where crime pays and where people get rich quickly by breaking the law and engaging in every manner of cheating at the expense of Community funds.
<P>
It would also be advisable to persuade the Member States that Community money is not national money, it is Community money, and they have an obligation to defend it.
My group will vote for prevention, and for increased resources and protection for UCLAF.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Moreau">
Mr President, there are hundreds of cases of fraud against the Community budget every year, involving large amounts. And yet these are only the declared or detected offences.
The real figures are no doubt much higher.
<P>
The Bösch report indicates that UCLAF has only a limited capacity for action.
The feelings aroused by certain current events therefore demand greater vigilance.
The Commission frequently cites the responsibility of the Member States which manage 80 % of the expenditure.
It is demanding of them, so it should also be demanding of itself.
Parliament is rightly asking for explanations and measures to put an end to the current cases of embezzlement and to impose sanctions on the guilty parties.
<P>
The transparency mentioned by the President of the Commission must become a permanent reality.
In this respect, I would highlight the importance of the proposal aimed at creating a body to combat fraud which is independent of the Commission and which has resources allowing it to successfully carry out its task.
The fact that it is not possible to be both judge and judged is a basic principle.
<P>
A colleague has asked that UCLAF should be a little more independent.
Surely it can be either independent or not independent - degrees of independence are impossible.
However, the fight against fraud cannot be discussed without noting that total freedom in the circulation of goods and capital - that is, the absence of any controls - favours fraud and trafficking on a large scale.
<P>
Commissioner Gradin therefore underlined last May that fraud against the Community budget is increasingly due to international criminal groups, namely the Mafia.
This situation definitely requires attention and measures at the highest level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, what we are discussing here today is not only the question of the independence of UCLAF but the question of the independent investigation of fraud, corruption, nepotism and mismanagement in the Commission itself.
We are not discussing specific cases such as ECHO, MED, BSE, tourism or the security service, affairs which have accumulated into an almighty crisis among the European institutions.
What we are discussing here today is how the Commission can escape the threat of non-discharge as well as - and this, ladies and gentlemen, is the key issue - the question of political responsibility.
The ECHO case is only a symptom of a deeper malaise.
<P>
I should like to emphasise that we are not talking about normal minibudgets.
Falsified contracts, imaginary reports and disappearing documents are apparently regarded by the Commission as high-spirited pranks.
But I have now learned a new expression from you, Mr Santer.
From now on we shall call these things 'administrative acrobatics'.
<P>
The bottom line is that this attitude has prevented the adoption of any disciplinary measures.
Anyone who believes, like Mrs Bonino, that it is possible to gloss over the whole thing quietly by simply saying, 'Oh yes, the Commission will naturally assume responsibility' has, if you will forgive my saying so, failed to understand what political responsibility really means.
Responsibility is not just an empty word that can be used at will to terminate a debate and hasten on to the next item.
<P>
Responsibility means being prepared to answer for those things for which one is individually accountable.
The ECHO case, I believe, is a prime example.
When Commissioner Marín found out in February 1994 about the illegal practices that were taking place in his sphere of responsibility and was unable, for whatever good reason, to put an immediate stop to it, who but he should have accepted responsibility for it and therefore tendered his resignation?
The collegiate nature of his institution does not enter into the equation.
<P>
This, Mr Santer, comes right back to you.
What does the President of the Commission do in such a case?
Regrettably, you have kept silent thus far.
The people of Europe must see responsibility being borne; that applies to ECHO and to all other cases.
If there are no consequences other than the punishment of the actual fraudsters - and I am certainly capable of distinguishing between frauds and irregularities - that would only enshrine the principle of the end justifying the means.
<P>
That, however, is untenable, not only in this case, in which, after all, aid funds amounting to ECU 2.4 million were misappropriated - not embezzled in the legal sense, but nevertheless channelled into other directions.
What is far worse is that it discredits all the good work done by the administration - and the great bulk of their work, I may say, is good.
That, Mr Santer, cannot be what you want either.
The Staff Regulations provide for various disciplinary measures, but the powers that be within the Commission are apparently reluctant to apply them.
<P>
What exactly has to happen before the flagrant circumvention - that is what Commissioner Van Miert called it - before the flagrant circumvention of rules is punished?
In the talks I have attended, I have even had the impression that people were afraid to take action.
If things have come to that pass, something has to change drastically!
Do you not agree, Mr Santer?
You are accountable for a huge conflict of loyalties among the staff of the Commission.
How many of them long for certain abuses to be rooted out and for some straight talking to be done at long last!
It is time you took action, not least for the sake of your honest and committed employees.
<P>
The Commission lives in an ivory tower.
The lack of communication between Parliament and the Commission is primarily due to the fact that our quest for information and supervisory powers is systematically interpreted as distrust, because the principle that good administration must, with few exceptions, be publicly accessible has been inverted by the Commission, at least in those areas in which criticism is voiced and in which Parliament exercises its supervisory powers.
<P>
My speaking time is up.
I also intended to speak about the culture of distrust, about the right to apply Article 206 and about the fact that the Commission must expect discharge to be refused if it does not give a clear and appropriate signal.
Those who wish can read the full text of my speech, including you, Mr Santer.
I shall have a copy sent to you shortly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Vandemeulebroucke">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Bösch's report deserves our full support.
Parliament pressed 14 years ago for a flying squad to carry out random checks in the Member States and act against fraud and corruption.
UCLAF was not set up until 1989 and went through many teething troubles.
In the meantime, I have had occasion to observe a number of cross-border scandals at very close quarters.
I am thinking of the Transnuklear affair and the scam over the smuggling of nuclear waste.
There was the matter of illegal growth-promoter hormones in stock breeding. In my own country that led to intimidation, threats and even the murder of a veterinary inspector.
There were all the dirty tricks over meat, organised by mafia-type groups, entailing fraud to the tune of millions over VAT, import duties and export refunds.
Parliament set up a Committee of Inquiry into the Community Transit System which looked particularly at the illicit trade in cigarettes.
Just recently there were corruption scandals and cases in the tourism sector and an investigation is currently under way into ECHO.
<P>
The European Court of Auditors has audited the work of UCLAF and the findings are rather discouraging.
I see that electronic databases are still at an early stage, that there is no uniform system for opening, pursuing and concluding dossiers, that there are numerous shortcomings in coordination and transparency of cooperation with Member States, and that even where obvious misdemeanours are detected, in many cases no disciplinary proceedings are initiated.
The rapporteur is right in suggesting that UCLAF should be revamped as an Anti-Fraud Office, 'OLAF', operating independently of the Commission and having responsibility for all the European institutions, moreover.
The staff would naturally have to be increased to 300 specialists able to work effectively with the national judicial authorities.
Magistrates who have to deal with international fraud and corruption inquiries on a daily basis are on a hiding to nothing. They waste an incredible amount of time, energy and money coping with the obstacles created by 15 national borders, and the report does not make enough of this fact in our Europe without frontiers.
<P>
UCLAF or OLAF should be a unit with quasi-legal powers, enabling international corruption and fraud dossiers to be tackled properly by the national courts.
It is precisely this approach which has achieved visible results.
As far as we are concerned, the proposal is very important in seeking to regulate cooperation between OLAF and the national judicial authorities via legislation in the shape of new regulations.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is my last address to a plenary.
On 15 October I shall be leaving the European Parliament of which I have been a member since February 1981.
Then we had just 434 members.
I have seen six new Member States join the Community and I have seen a systematic and welcome increase in Parliament's powers.
I am very much a European and at the same time I am a regionalist because our democracy means living in small circles. This Parliament is the biggest of those circles.
All of us have a duty to ensure that our citizens continue to believe in Europe as manifestly a good thing.
A Europe which needs to be more transparent, more open and less controversial. I think that in approving this report we can do a lot to further that aspiration.
<P>
May I end by expressly thanking the people I have dealt with here over so many years; I am grateful, irrespective of party political affiliations, for the comradely cooperation, the openness and manifest correctness of behaviour which all of you have shown.
Lastly, my sincere thanks to the administration and also to the interpreters and translators.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="President">
Thank you very much for that speech, Mr Vandemeulebroucke, and thank you also for your many years of hard work here in Parliament.
The House has shown its gratitude to you by its applause, and I should like to thank you once again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
Mr President, I should like to thank our colleague Jaak Vandemeulebroucke for 17 years of acquaintance and friendship.
I hope we shall meet on numerous occasions when you have left Parliament.
You have done a great deal to combat hormone fraud in Belgium.
You have always had a great social heart.
I hope we shall meet again.
<P>
In the municipality I live in, no taxpayer would accept that 10 % of the local authority's budget should be lost in fraud.
Nor would it be accepted in my country as a whole.
I think it is the same for everyone in this Chamber.
How can we allow 10 % of the budget to be lost in fraud, just because the money is sent via Brussels?
In my view the explanation lies in the distance from the voters, the distance from those who have to pay.
The decision-making processes in the EU make it possible to adopt support arrangements that no country would adopt if it had to foot the bill itself.
The solution therefore is no more Brussels, with more staff, more grants, common criminal justice and police.
The solution is to do away with most of the support arrangements, to focus on something less in cross-frontier matters, and to do the work better.
The cheapest and best way of dealing with fraud is to ensure complete openness on appropriations.
Anyone who receives support from the EU must accept that the voters and taxpayers should be able to see what has been appropriated and what has been spent on what.
That way journalists and a critical public would enforce the necessary self-accountability.
Post the budget records on the Internet, and the rest follows of itself.
We prefer full openness to a new bureaucracy in Brussels, a leaner and more transparent EU instead of fat times for yet more fraudsters.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, the persistent increase in fraud perpetrated at the expense of the Community budget requires an immediate solution, especially since the phenomenon appears to have spread to the institutions themselves in recent months.
We do not need to recall here the ugly episode concerning ECHO and irregularities in the former Yugoslavia and in the Great Lakes region - still to be proved - nor the much-discussed anomalies in the research sector, on which the Committee on Budgetary Control is awaiting clarification. However, we certainly cannot say that we are satisfied with the results we have been able to obtain regarding either the detection of irregularities and fraud or - above all - the lack of effective judicial action at EU level.
<P>
I would recall that some time ago the Committee on Budgetary Control, thanks in particular to the efforts of its chairman, Mrs Theato, called for the insertion into the Treaty of a legal base making it possible to introduce anti-fraud regulations, perhaps under the codecision procedure, and to draw up legislation obliging Member States to protect Community funds as they do their own.
<P>
The rules must be harmonised at administrative level, by centralising sanctions and controls, but also in legislative terms through the ratification of the 1995 Convention on the protection of the Union's financial interests, which has remained a dead letter until now. This convention is accompanied by two protocols, which are without doubt important but have aroused the suspicions of the Member States and made it unlikely that they will ratify it directly.
<P>
We too are of the opinion that the judicial authorities, and not UCLAF, should be empowered to intervene in the private affairs of suspects. However we wonder why, even when UCLAF or Financial Control amasses sufficient proof of serious violations, the Commission only very rarely institutes disciplinary proceedings.
<P>
The creation of an anti-corruption unit, responsible for fighting corruption and fraud within the EU institutions, should be backed by assistance from the institutions concerned. I would refer for example to the possibility of securing rapid access to documents and where appropriate seizing such documents, but leaving the task of verifying and punishing corruption to the judicial authorities, which possess judicial and police powers that the anti-fraud unit cannot and should not have.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Theato">
Mr President, may I thank President Santer for his words to us. Allow me, however, to confess to a certain doubt and to express it in the following words: 'I hear the words, but I lack faith'.
In a similar vein, I should like to say to you, 'Help us to believe', so that we can make up these deficits together.
<P>
I should like to come back now to the Bösch report on today's agenda and to begin by expressing my thanks and appreciation to Mr Bösch for having overcome a good many difficulties to put the report on the table today.
As is clear from the title and substance of the report, it is based on special report No 8/98 of the Court of Auditors and hence on Article 206 of the Treaty.
Our Committee on Budgetary Control has never subscribed to the misinterpretation of this legal basis.
Such misinterpretations, however, have delayed the presentation of the report to a plenary sitting of Parliament.
This is regrettable because, in view of the revelations of alleged abuses in the European Community Humanitarian Office, a rapid response by Parliament in the form of proposed remedies would have been useful.
<P>
The ECHO case has subsequently received exhaustive coverage in the media.
We could certainly have done with quicker and more comprehensive information from the Commission.
Once again, this case illustrates the way in which the EU still has to struggle to win the fight against the misuse of its resources with one hand tied behind its back.
Long-familiar cases, such as the MED, transit and tobacco frauds - I could name more - still await full investigation and prosecutions.
The special report by the Court of Auditors proves that Parliament is right to be dissatisfied with the present structural competence of UCLAF, especially when it comes to internal Commission investigations.
This is not the fault of UCLAF's officials or its excessive reliance on temporary employees, but rather on the unsystematic manner in which it processes its cases.
The Court of Auditors mentions more than 1300 pending cases, not including those opened after April 1997, a point to which Mr Bösch also referred.
<P>
An inadequate flow of information and poor coordination are another point.
In the event of suspected corruption within the Commission, the Court of Auditors notes, powers and procedures are not clearly regulated, nor is there even a requirement to inform the prosecuting authorities.
It is to be feared that the introduction of the euro and the enlargement of the EU will create further scope for fraudulent operations.
These are only some of the reasons for the demand that the function, structure and powers of UCLAF be given more incisive and independent shape in the form of a Fraud Prevention Office.
That is what Mr Bösch has put on the table.
<P>
Today, however, we are not taking the ultimate step by approving OLAF.
But this Parliament, as a controlling authority, has to do something that will enable us to devise jointly a means of tackling the new challenges that confront us.
For that reason, we are not making a legally based proposal but are marking out the basic shape of our ideas.
We beg the Commission earnestly to take serious note of these markers and to include them in its deliberations.
Otherwise, I fear, we shall have a rather lengthy discussion ahead of us before we find another efficient way to combat fraud.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Mr President, it is clear it is an urgent problem.
Let me begin by declaring a personal interest: as a former Director-General at the Commission I know the difficulties of a staff situation and of new tasks. But we must make swift decisions.
<P>
The Bösch report gives a clear political signal and we must heed it.
Personally, I am still doubtful about what we should do in concrete situations.
I wish to exemplify this by a few specific points.
Mr Bösch rightly said that the present situation cannot continue.
Institutionally, I have doubts as to whether his position of having a structure which is half inside and half outside the Commission is the right one.
A board of directors from five institutions means that the director of UCLAF or OLAF will have five bosses, and someone who has five bosses has no boss.
That point must be addressed.
<P>
In view of the very short time available, I wish to address myself to the President of the Commission.
The President of the Commission said that we must have an external inquiry function, and I understand that. But my question to the President is: does that not mean that the Commission ultimately will lose its own final responsibility in the whole fight against fraud?
That is a very important point.
This Parliament only has the institution responsible for the budget as the institution with which it dialogues.
If that situation is lost, to whom is this external inquiry office responsible?
To begin with I would like to see a strengthened UCLAF within the Commission, but with full independence.
Perhaps the director should be nominated by the Court of Auditors or the Court of Justice and with an institutional agreement to work together with other institutions.
But I wonder whether an external inquiry at this stage is the right solution if we do not know to whom that external inquiry will be responsible.
Are we then not in a worse situation?
I hope we can come to a positive reply.
There should be something happening so that Mr Bösch will not be voted down but I do not think that this is the end of the debate.
As Mrs Theato said, it is the beginning of the debate, but there is great urgency to respond.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Miranda">
Mr President, the investigation by the Court of Auditors into the issue under discussion certainly went to the heart of the matter.
Neither the minimum necessary resources nor the basic conditions exist to combat fraud and corruption which, for their part, certainly do exist and are proliferating.
<P>
UCLAF does not have enough staff and they are not all available to operate on the ground. UCLAF's structural dependence also prevents it from acting horizontally in an effective manner at institutional level.
Therefore, if we are to combat fraud, a lot must change not only in the area of external action but also, and most importantly, as regards internal action.
Without going into specialised analyses, I would venture to say that such a change should be undertaken in two principle directions: by strengthening the scope of Community action, particularly by strengthening UCLAF, freeing it from constraints imposed by supervisory bodies which restrict its action and guaranteeing adequate resources, and, at the same time, by ensuring satisfactory cooperation with equivalent departments in the Member States.
<P>
Transparency, independence for the body responsible for fighting fraud and more widespread action by all the institutions, including the Commission, seem to me to be essential and of priority importance.
The ECHO case and the dubious manner, to say the least, in which it has been dealt with by the Commission, particularly in its relations with Parliament, have guided us to this inevitable conclusion and we therefore welcome the proposal to turn UCLAF into an independent body.
<P>
Obviously, there are limits on our expectations.
On the subject of external action, I would stress that little progress will be made if there is no cooperation between the Member States, as I referred to earlier, and if they do not show a genuine political desire to act.
And I also consider that a certain degree of caution is necessary, particularly in the areas relating to crime and external action.
<P>
But none of this detracts from the significant step forward proposed by the rapporteur, which is essential as a minimum response to certain situations of which we are all aware.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Over recent years we have seen various ways in which the Commission's way of operating has proved conducive to fraud.
This is simply not acceptable. The Court of Auditors' latest reports have contributed evidence of the need for an external unit to fight the internal corruption and fraud that are clearly occurring within the EU institutions.
But I do not believe we can leave it there.
Mr Jacques Santer once announced eloquently 'We need openness and transparency.'
Fine words are not enough, Mr Santer, action is also required.
<P>
Applying the principles of open government is one of the better ways of preventing internal corruption, as the Commission ought to know.
Mr Santer, please do not use the pretext of employees' rights to avoid talking about what is actually going on in the Commission.
We are dealing here with taxpayers' money.
We demand to know what is happening.
And please do not deny the Committee on Budgetary Control the information it needs to pass on to us if we are to be able to grant the Commission discharge.
That would be no way to behave towards a parliament.
<P>
Finally, I wish to make it clear that I am not calling for the new body called OLAF to be given the status of a judicial authority.
The results of its inquiries should be passed on to the national judicial authorities.
I am not interested in seeing some kind of EU-level public prosecution service set up.
All I want is an external unit capable of monitoring what the Commission is doing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, Mr President and Members of the Commission, there can be no doubt that measures to combat fraud within the European institutions need considerable improvement.
The Court of Auditors' report has brought a number of serious shortcomings to light.
One of them is the fact that UCLAF has hitherto been able to conduct investigations only within the Commission, not in other EU institutions.
<P>
The rapporteur rightly makes the point that all the institutions need effective safeguards against fraud.
He advocates the setting up of an Anti-Fraud Office, with an interinstitutional remit.
Like other honourable Members, Mr Dankert and Mrs Wemheuer, I would prefer to see that broader remit given to the UCLAF we already have.
<P>
I would also stress that this body must concern itself only with in-house detective work, the identifying of fraud within the EU institutions.
The responsibility for investigating outside the institutions, for example cases in Member States of frauds against the Community budget, remains with the Member States.
And that will not change after the Treaty of Amsterdam is ratified.
<P>
Investigation outside the institutions is not reconcilable with the laws of Member States or their criminal justice systems. I thus reject outright recitals L and M, in which the rapporteur calls for a European criminal law area and a European Public Prosecution Service.
<P>
Action against fraud outside the EU institutions can best be improved by ensuring that the national investigation services are as efficient as possible and cooperate well with each other.
The anti-fraud units of the Commission have an important coordinating role to play here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, Mr Bösch's report is clear in its assessment of the situation and explicit in its demands.
However, I do not consider it helpful to vest the Commission with the power to appoint the staff of OLAF.
The proposal that OLAF should be overseen by an independent five-strong inspectorate, on the other hand, is to be welcomed.
But OLAF would not possess real autonomy as long as the Commission enjoys even indirect authority over OLAF personnel.
Only an independent OLAF, cooperating with the Court of Auditors and, of course, with the Commission and answerable to the European Parliament, will develop into an incisive instrument in the fight against fraud and cooperation.
<P>
I believe that an inspectorate operating in a vacuum, as Mr Bösch called it, can indeed be successful if it is endowed with a sufficient number of first-class personnel.
That investment would surely pay dividends.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 NAME="Elles">
Mr President, I rise as the parliamentarian responsible for recommending discharge for the 1996 budget.
I have listened to this debate with great interest as this is one of the main subjects, within the granting of the 1996 budget discharge, that we must decide upon before the end of the year.
<P>
I would like to make a couple of personal comments on this debate.
Firstly, I very much welcome the fact that the President of the Commission came to our Chamber this afternoon to tell us how he felt about the conduct of matters and to look to the future.
<P>
On the first point, the conduct of matters, I very much welcome his wish to give us further information so that we can better understand what is happening within the Commission.
What has driven some of us to put the 1999 ECHO budget for humanitarian aid in reserve is precisely this lack of information and inability to be able to judge for ourselves.
I hope this will be done as soon as possible.
<P>
In his remarks he made a comment which seemed a little strange, saying it would not be proper to impose individual sanctions on officials who committed these irregularities for the sole purpose of keeping departments going.
One wonders where responsibility begins and ends.
Edith Müller was absolutely right to say that, in certain instances, without of course conducting a witch hunt, where there is responsibility then that responsibility must be taken up.
<P>
Secondly, as the Court of Auditors report said, on the broader point of improving the system, we want to strengthen the UCLAF operation rather than weaken it.
The EPP would like to support the Bösch report even it is not supported by his own colleagues because we believe that progress must be made.
No doubt once we have had this debate and voted, we can also take into account the remarks made by the President of the Commission, so that we can have a really efficient procedure for anti-fraud to take us into the 21st century.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Mr President, there is method in madness, but if madness is the only source of our method, a new type of method is needed.
The Bösch report contains sound proposals that should be fully endorsed.
The circumstances surrounding the report were anything other than satisfactory.
The Bösch report has been held up, and what has subsequently hit the headlines has been disastrous.
It is reminiscent of the time of the BSE crisis and of many other problem cases that have been mentioned today.
Documents disappear; the information is not there, and we cannot check anything.
The guilty parties have gone too, either promoted or sent away with a golden handshake.
The responsible Commissioner is no longer there either.
Even today, and I particularly regret this in view of the latest ECHO revelations, neither Commissioner Marín nor Commissioner Bonino is here, and the same thing happened last time for part of the hearing.
<P>
Mr President, we welcome your proposals that the ideas put forward by Mr Bösch be further developed.
We believe it is right and important to do that.
Entering into contact with the President of Parliament is a first step, but many more steps must follow, and above all must follow quickly.
We cannot seek protracted or long-term solutions, because we need to send out credible signals now.
<P>
You, Mr President, have assumed political responsibility.
When will the two main defendants, Commissioners Marín and Bonino, do likewise?
How quickly will the promised disciplinary law become fully operative?
How long do we really have to wait until each of the relevant documents is available?
<P>
I believe there is one thing that really would be a problem, namely if the debate we are holding on this report today were to be shelved until next year when the new Commission is appointed, and we should then have to sanction all the mistakes that have been made during the present five-year term.
<P>
And one final word: the fact that the Group of the Party of European Socialists has left its rapporteur out in the cold makes me think and should make us all think.
Would it do the same if the incriminated Commissioners had different affinities?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fabra Vallés">
Mr President, as we will shortly be reaching the end of this debate, I would like to put all conflicting points to one side so that we can come to some agreements.
And, in order to do this, I am going to discuss the crux of the problem, and the points in the Bösch report on which I am sure we agree.
I believe that we all agree that UCLAF has gone through a stage that has involved more positive than negative points, but also that it has reached a point where it is in need of more economic and human resources. It is at a point where its powers need to be extended to include all Community institutions and, above all, it has reached a point where it must be transparent in order to be credible.
I hope that no-one will throw up their hands in horror if I say that whilst examining the report on ECHO, Parliament lost faith in the anti-fraud unit.
<P>
Therefore, the time has come not only to provide UCLAF with all it requires but to create a truly new version of UCLAF so that its credibility can be salvaged.
UCLAF must ensure that it leads the way in the transition from the current system to becoming a true officer of the court with an enhanced group of criminal experts.
And there is no better way to redefine its organisation and legal framework than to make use of this key moment in relations between Parliament and the Commission.
We can face up to the challenge before us: the Council, the Commission and Parliament are responsible for doing everything that is necessary to establish an anti-fraud office. It must have real experts and professionals whose code of conduct will be based on respect for the law, and, although it is a body that will be dependent on the Commission, it will have full political independence.
In short, it will be an office with the necessary equilibrium to ensure that its work is in the interest of the Community and not any particular Member State.
<P>
Mr President, when voting on the Bösch report, there can only be one way to vote: either we are for or we are against change.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 NAME="Gradin">
Mr President, many thanks for a diverse and constructive debate.
Parliament and the Commission need to work together on the basis of mutual trust, and I am therefore in favour of plenty of discussion of this proposal in the House.
<P>
UCLAF is still young - not yet ten years old - and of course it has experienced growing pains.
Over time, though, it has developed into a very good organisation, in my opinion.
Three years ago UCLAF's staff were scattered throughout the Commission. Today the whole operation is under one roof.
It is capable of coming to grips with cigarette smuggling; it has recently turned its attention to the Central and Eastern European countries, and to the PHARE and TACIS programmes, among others.
<P>
I should however like to iron out one or two misunderstandings.
Several speakers stated that the Court of Auditors has uncovered cases of irregularity and fraud, yet it was UCLAF, not the Court, which did the uncovering.
The Court of Auditors' report dealt with the organisational side of UCLAF.
Its data system was felt to need modernising; there was a call for improved record-keeping.
And this call was heeded by both the Commission and UCLAF.
We have now made changes in working methods. In July a new programme was adopted, laying down how UCLAF's investigations should be organised and, importantly, providing for protection for individuals supplying information.
<P>
I believe that UCLAF is on the way to becoming what Mr Bösch and many others in the European Parliament want it to be: namely an even better organisation, ready to perform the tasks expected of it by taxpayers in the Member States.
As a parallel exercise, we have launched SEM 2000, the aim of which is to overhaul our general administrative culture and turn ourselves into a fitter and more modern institution.
<P>
I should like to conclude by saying that my personal experience has taught me that openness and transparency are of great value in pre-empting fraud and corruption in an organisation.
That is why we in the Commission, with the help of the Amsterdam Treaty, are working alongside our partners to foster more open and transparent practices for the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Gradin.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
1996 discharge
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0289/98) by Mr Miranda, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the discharge procedure for the 1996 budget:
<P>
Section I, European Parliament-Section IV, Court of Justice-Section V, Court of Auditors-Section VI, Economic and Social Committee and Committee of the Regions.
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="Miranda">
Mr President, allow me to begin by saying that this report is far more than just my own.
First and foremost, it is a report by the Committee on Budgetary Control which was the subject of long and transparent reflection and thought and was finally approved almost unanimously.
<P>
I would also like to say that the differences that may exist between the report we are discussing today and the version I would have preferred do not prevent me from approving it in its entirety.
I am making these apparently unnecessary statements for two simple reasons: first, because I cannot but be surprised by the comments that have been made about it, particularly in various Parliament bodies, but never in the Commission on Budgetary Control and without any involvement by any of its members and certainly not its rapporteur. Second, and no less important, because I fear that if a disagreement arises on a particular point, however important, the fundamental problems which most urgently need a response will be neglected.
<P>
Having said that, let us move on to the substance of the report.
There are two factors that have had a particularly marked effect on the discharge procedure for 1996.
First, Parliament lost an excellent opportunity to reduce the final cost of the D3 building in Brussels by some ECU 30 million, which had been our priority for this financial year; second, the administrative irregularities revealed by the audits carried out by the Economic and Social Committee itself and by the Court of Auditors cannot be overlooked.
<P>
It is important that these two particularly serious factors should not, however, lead us to ignore other matters relating to the implementation of the budget which also deserve attention and appropriate action to correct them.
<P>
Let us consider the matter of the ECU 30 million.
Without wishing to take the place of the Parliament's Bureau which decided to institute an inquiry that has now been completed, the particular responsibilities of certain services are clear, namely the authorizing officers, firstly, but also other services involved, and the absence of cooperation between them is patently obvious.
My particular concern in the report, from the outset, was to examine these two issues in a balanced manner, as this is the only way to show people the various errors which led to the loss of the sum in question and, consequently, the opportunity to pay for D3 in advance.
<P>
Indeed, the errors were legion. Use was not made - in this, as in other earlier processes of a similar nature - of the option unilaterally to establish the sum to be paid in advance.
It was argued that this was established practice. The situation was further complicated to the point of absurdity when it came to the wording of the additional agreement, and particularly the amount to be specified, to the extent that what had been done on previous occasions appeared to be forgotten, with everything meanwhile growing increasingly complicated, as though there were no deadlines to be met whereas they were in fact about to expire.
Opinions were given and comments were made, some of them contradictory, others too late and irrelevant, contributing nothing to the satisfactory and timely solution of the matter but only complicating things still further.
<P>
Not even the main priority was observed, no attempt was even made to keep the losses to a minimum, as would have occurred if at least the advance payment of ECU 29.5 million had been made.
Some lessons should at least be learned to prevent any recurrence of such situations.
Everything must be done to ascertain not only the professional qualifications but also the solid professional experience of the institutions' main administrators.
Maximum transparency and stringency are essential in filling such posts, and all possible steps should be taken to ensure efficient and continuous cooperation between the various services of the House.
<P>
I would like to end this point on a positive note by mentioning the measures subsequently taken by the Secretary-General to remedy such administrative errors and to ensure the success of recruitment competitions.
<P>
Still on the subject of Parliament, I would like to draw attention to a few other points, including the increase in cancellations of appropriations, the various refusals of approval, particularly regarding interpretation, and the need to regularise the discrepancy of some ECU 4 million between the cash situation and accounts, which has been outstanding for several years.
<P>
On the subject now of the Economic and Social Committee, as I said before, the audits carried out both internally and by the Court of Auditors reveal obvious irregularities and manifest administrative negligence in connection with the travel expenses of members.
It should be remembered that the Council itself, when it learned of the results of the audits, stated its opinion on the matter in the clearest terms.
However, certain measures have subsequently been instituted and remedial action taken but, if discharge is to be granted, it is essential that the Court of Auditors and UCLAF take note of the conclusions, particularly as regards responsibilities, the reliability of the new system of reimbursement and the conditions for recovering sums overpaid.
It is obvious that until these matters have been settled, we cannot grant the discharge.
<P>
We likewise regret the irregularities revealed by the Court of Auditors regarding the Committee of the Regions, and we take due note of the interim report which brings us back to the matter of recovering sums incorrectly paid and the administrative measures taken.
Meanwhile, we consider that the Court of Auditors should also verify that the measures taken are appropriate.
<P>
Two brief points regarding the Court of Justice and the Court of Auditors.
First of all, we need to improve financial forecasts for the amounts and the justifications given for the various budget headings.
Secondly, we need to include the Court of Auditors systematically in the horizontal audits carried out.
<P>
Lastly, I would emphasise that Parliament's particular responsibilities in the discharge procedure mean that the Commission needs to draft amendments to the Financial Regulation promptly.
And they make it essential that Parliament should be consulted prior to the appointment of the treasurer and financial auditor of each of the decentralised institutions and agencies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="Wynn">
Mr President, I am speaking on behalf of the Socialist Group in the absence of Mrs Wemheuer, the coordinator and Mr Tomlinson who is our spokesman on this issue.
In my five minutes I cannot really say a lot but I know there were four points that Mr Tomlinson wanted to be highlighted and these are as follows.
<P>
Firstly, the 'mopping-up' transfer, which the rapporteur has described quite eloquently.
This was nothing short of a disaster for Parliament.
Many of us considered that to be the case.
We have gone through the implications of it, we have gone through the reasons that it occurred and whatever else.
One can only hope that it is now in the past, and there is a statement in the report which welcomes the actions taken by the Secretary-General to make sure that this type of thing will never happen again.
It should not have happened and the fact that it did did not help Parliament's budget one iota.
That is one item that the rapporteur has already dwelt on.
<P>
The second item concerns qualified staff as outlined in Paragraph 14.
Mr Tomlinson would say that there is a lack of qualified staff, certainly when it comes to accounting and financial control within Parliament.
Here again we welcome the action being taken by the Secretary-General.
We should not forget that this report is based on the 1996 budget and we would hope that the staff who will manage the resources within Parliament will be as the Secretary-General expects and certainly as we expect.
<P>
Another item was the inventories.
Paragraph 19 says: 'Regrets the 1994 triennial inventory check has not been completed by the end of 1996'.
In other words, we do not know what Parliament owns.
We do not know what Parliament's total resources are.
Not long ago I received in my office a piece of paper which was in effect an inventory check.
It asked me to fill in what I had.
Quite frankly that was an open invitation to nick half the stuff in my office.
I could fill in the desk and chair and take everything else.
That is not the way to do an inventory and it is one of the points I know Mr Tomlinson and our group have been commenting on for quite some time.
One would hope it can be rectified.
<P>
The main item Mr Tomlinson would want to emphasize is in paragraph 15. It is the comment about the legal services.
I know that there will be amendments to this paragraph and therefore I intend reading it out so at least it is on record before it is amended.
It says: 'Parliament...reaffirms its support for the drawing up of quality opinions by the Legal Service which should enable decision makers to protect Parliament's interests swiftly and effectively'.
The part which seems to give offence is as follows: 'Notes the shortcomings in the quality of legal advice provided by the internal legal service of this institution, as identified by its rapporteur and as reflected in cases lost in national courts, in the European Court of Justice and in the Court of First Instance; asks its Secretary-General to commission a study into the effectiveness of the results of the legal service's advice over the past ten years. Calls on its Secretary-General to provide the Committee on Budgetary Control with comprehensive job descriptions for the A-grade officials in the legal service'.
That is paragraph 15 in its entirety.
<P>
If, at the end of the day that is amended significantly, at least that now is on the record and I would hope that the services can take cognizance of what has been said there and can act upon it.
It is not a condemnation of individuals within that service but it is a hope that we can have a better legal service for the future for Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Theato">
Mr President, Mr Miranda's report, for which I thank him, contains two proposals for decisions giving discharge and one motion for a resolution postponing the discharge decision.
I should like to highlight the discharge given to the Committee of the Regions and to inform the Committee that we are very concerned about its staff policy and that the latest exchanging of posts approved by the budgetary authority with the Economic and Social Committee cannot exactly be regarded as progress.
<P>
As far as Parliament is concerned, we are closely monitoring the measures that were adopted on the basis of the Court of Auditors' report in relation to Members' expenses.
We had to delay by several months the discharge that can now be given to the Secretary-General, because our committee wished to await the findings of the inquiry conducted by the Bureau into the cancellation of funds amounting to about ECU 30 million.
<P>
The Bureau has decided on the question of personal responsibilities, and we respect that decision.
However, we are duty-bound to state that the decisions of the budgetary authority could not be implemented and that this was due to procedural errors and inadequate administrative structures.
We note the reforms and decisions adopted by the Secretary-General and we hope that these will eliminate the defects.
<P>
The administration of the parliamentary budget is fraught with many more difficulties, which are enumerated in Mr Miranda's report.
I only wish to point out that the problems dealt with by the Court of Auditors in its report on Members' allowances will have to be considered in our discharge for the 1997 financial year, since we only received this report two weeks ago.
I should also like to stress that we are not satisfied with the present arrangement whereby we grant discharge to the Secretary-General while responsibility for overruling a decision to withhold approval rests with the Bureau.
The 1996 budget was not affected by this anomaly, but it would be useful if we could reach an agreement with the Bureau as quickly as possible.
<P>
What concerns me most in Mr Miranda's report is the postponement of the discharge decision in respect of the Economic and Social Committee.
The situation described by the Court of Auditors is so serious that the Council, in its recommendation on discharge, asked the Court of Auditors and UCLAF to conduct an inquiry in order to establish the precise scale and implications of the irregularities..
<P>
This is also one of the reasons why we have been calling for the Bösch report on the independence of UCLAF and demanding that UCLAF be permitted to conduct its investigations in the other institutions too.
What we have discovered to date tends to suggest that the Economic and Social Committee is not taking our demands seriously.
It evidently considers the matter closed, but there is nothing to suggest that such irregularities cannot recur at a future date within the Economic and Social Committee.
A Financial Controller was appointed without our being given the necessary assurances concerning his independence.
For these reasons, we cannot guarantee at the present time that we shall grant discharge.
Everything will depend on how the Economic and Social Committee responds to our requests.
I hope we shall have the opportunity to apprise the new Secretary-General of the situation at our next meeting.
<P>
It seems to me that a separate vote is necessary on each of these three proposals.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 NAME="Kellett-Bowman">
<SPEAKER ID=159 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Garriga Polledo">
Mr President, we live in difficult times where any lack of control can lead to irregularities or to fraud, and I am making a clear distinction between the two as Mr Santer previously requested.
<P>
Every day the media sound the alarm bells to report that certain things are not running smoothly within the European Union.
They report that the apparently efficient Community machinery is not as efficient, as honest or as incorruptible as we used to believe.
This did not begin yesterday as there have been signs of a deterioration for some years now, and this has given rise to books, press articles, television programmes and individual and collective accusations.
<P>
When this parliamentary term began we, the new Members, were surprised with Parliament's building policy at that stage.
It is possible that many of the problems that are still hanging over us today date back to this time, when inadequate property management made the Members of the European Parliament seem like the main characters in a play when we were only really spectators, and passive spectators at that.
In politics, the sin of omission or passivity is doubly serious: it is a blow to the legitimacy of the system and it abuses the goodwill of the citizens who vote for us.
We should never, and particularly from now on, allow inaction or omission in this House to lead to situations being overlooked, situations that may later become deadly weapons aimed at the heart of the European Union, that is, its credibility and its honest image.
It is for this reason that the discharge procedure is so important.
If Parliament does not discharge the budget that this Parliament voted for, then the honesty of the discharge procedure is called into question and we will have to immediately take action to restore freedom, honesty and trust.
<P>
The rapporteur, Mr Miranda, suggests that we discharge specific sections of the budget.
This House has complete faith in Mr Miranda and we therefore support his conclusions.
However, I would like to clarify two specific points.
The first is that my colleague Mr Edward Kellett-Brown is right: we are a Parliament and we have a duty to report any irregularities, giving first and last names.
Transparency does not hurt anybody and it often helps to provide an honest environment.
And secondly, we must not harm Parliament's bodies that are responsible for legal certainty.
The legal services of this House may have their limits, and their operation must certainly be improved, but to cast doubt on them does not help our work.
The amendment we are tabling reflects this and we hope that it will be adopted by the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products
<SPEAKER ID=161 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0338/98) by Mr Tappin, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Council Regulation (EC) 297/95 on fees payable to the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products (COM(98)0021 - C4-0284/98-98/0135(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="Tappin">
Mr President, firstly I should like to thank the Commission and colleagues from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and the Committee on Budgetary Control for their support for this report.
Part of my thanks goes to the Council and the Commission, which recognise that as part of the budgetary authority Parliament has a role in deciding the future of the fee structures for this agency.
<P>
The basic regulation only requires consultation of the industry before the Commission presents its proposals to Council.
Getting that inclusion has come after a considerable delay and a great many problems have been created for the Agency in London as a result of that delay.
This year alone the agency finds itself ECU 4m overspent and the Director risks finding himself operating from an illegal position.
The Commission has started proceedings for a transfer, but the lateness of the transfer will mean there will still be some difficulties.
<P>
This situation must not be repeated in the future.
We have an obligation to make sure that Community bodies operate legally, efficiently and to the ultimate benefit of the Community.
So the first two points which need to be stressed as far as this report is concerned are: firstly, Parliament must automatically be involved in future decisions affecting fee levels without delay; secondly, as and when fees are revised in the future that must be done within a budgetary deadline so as to allow the agency to manage its affairs in a proper and efficient manner.
Failure to achieve agreement within that deadline puts an automatic obligation on the Commission to ensure the agency's ability to carry out its function is not adversely affected.
<P>
This particular agency has always been most accommodating of Parliament's requirements concerning budgets of the Community's decentralized bodies and is to be congratulated on the excellent report it received from the Court of Auditors.
We have always insisted: firstly, that an agency's resources should be budgetised; secondly, that as an instrument of European policy, agencies should be accountable and transparent to the budgetary authority; thirdly, that all surpluses should be returned to the budget.
These are outlined in the Kellett-Bowman report.
This agency has always supported those principles inasmuch as it could.
However, it was unable to give me all the necessary information on the costs involved in processing applications, etc., simply because it does not have that information.
<P>
It does not even have a breakdown of how the Member States use the money they receive from an agency to pay for the action study of an individual product.
The actual evaluations are carried out by the Member State rapporteurs, who receive 50 % of the agency fee to cover the costs of producing the report.
The agency did not decide on this fee any more than it decides on what the pharmaceutical companies should pay for the evaluations as a whole.
<P>
The Commission claims that the fee levels do not cover the costs incurred either by the Member States or the agency and that they should therefore be increased.
Parliament may remember that it was the Council that reduced the fees the last time.
In general we would agree with the Commission and Mr Valverde López, who has produced an excellent opinion on behalf of the Environment Committee, an opinion which I have happily endorsed and for which I thank him.
But, since the figures given by the Commission can only be guesstimates we feel that future evaluations should be made on the basis of real information provided by both the agency and the Member States.
<P>
So our next recommendations are that: firstly, with the assistance of the Commission - for which we thank Mr Mingasson and his staff - the agency should complete its installation of a complete automated financial system, which will provide a breakdown and facilitate a cost analysis of the work of the agency; secondly, the Commission should require member State agencies to make similar information on their costs available to us as the budgetary authority; thirdly, in two years' time we come back to a full review of fees based on an evaluation of real data.
This will tell us if it takes longer, for example, to evaluate an application for a veterinary product which would end up in the food chain as opposed to one which does not, or whether a variation of an original application takes the same amount of work or only half or quarter as much.
<P>
Such an analysis will also resolve the question of how much time is spent by the agency on evaluating commercial products or carrying out public health related tasks on behalf of the Community as a whole.
The pharmaceutical companies feel it is unjust that they should have to underwrite these costs.
They warn that if the fees are set too high or at levels which undermine their profitability, they will cut back on research and development.
They are obviously determined to protect their vested interests as we all are.
<P>
Members may be aware that the European Union has just taken a series of decisions on the desirability of maintaining work on orphan drugs, on pre-accession technical cooperation, on mutual recognition agreements with third countries and so on.
It is in all our interests that this important Union business is carried out effectively and efficiently.
<P>
It is in everybody's interests, including the Member States', to reduce the costs of medicines since much of that cost is eventually subsidised by the state through public health programmes and medical care.
Although it was envisaged that the agency will become self-funding, we have to recognize that it is not going to happen in the immediate future even though we have continued to diminish the EU contribution as a proportion of the agency's total budget year on year.
It is also clear that the future financing of this agency will rely on the structural mechanisms we put in place to guarantee the stability it needs to do its work properly.
<P>
These principles will apply to all agencies, not just London.
Although the starting premise has to be that each agency is different and must be treated as such, the sort of framework I am referring to is designed to ensure that the levels of accountability, transparency and financial efficiency, once assured, can be relied on.
<P>
Firstly, Parliament requires a mechanism to be introduced to adjust the budgets of the agencies automatically up or down, to compensate for the effect of exchange-rate fluctuations or changes to the institutional weighting allowances.
It is ridiculous that bodies such as the agencies, which are tied to institutional statutes and which have their budget levels decided after much debate and consultation by the budgetary authority, should have all that consideration thrown out of the window in mid-year by an institutional decision, which must be obeyed, on the weighting adjustments to their Title 1, or by a decision of Mr Soros or one of his financial speculator friends to raise or wreck a particular currency.
<P>
The EMEA has suffered huge losses as a result of the strength of the British pound.
The point is not whether they lose or gain money, but that an agreed budget should be a budget which is executed.
<P>
We have also introduced a new line this year which would hold additional funds in reserve for all the agencies, except Torino which is in category 4 and, therefore, cannot draw down the line from category 3 to cover the operational costs of activities and programmes relating to Union policies which the agencies may implement.
This is not to be used as a slush fund.
We will require that the agencies show the greatest attention to cost management.
This is not instead of the Council and the Commission agreeing to increase funding for the agencies when they wish to increase their workloads - and this is important.
<P>
As we squeeze the budgets generally, some people might imagine they could transfer activities out to agencies without transferring the matching fundings, and thereby shift their budgetary problems to someone else.
<P>
This new line is to allow additional activities to be incorporated into the agencies' work programme, as long as doing so does not involve increases in staffing or capital expenditure beyond the limits of existing budgets.
<P>
To make sure that London and all the other agencies maintain their support in the future of the principle, we have established and drawn up a code of conduct.
This involves, for example, agreements on reporting and transparency such as, firstly, asking agencies to report on any changes to their budgets to the budgetary authority; secondly, reporting of their organigrammes and work programmes for consideration in the drawing up of their budgets.
Just to make sure there is no delay in getting this agreement through, we are putting 10 % of all agency budgets in reserve, subject to their signing and returning the agreements.
This could be done before the second reading.
<P>
I must stress that the vast majority of agencies have been totally supportive of the code and, indeed, it has been drawn up in consultation with those involved.
<P>
We have also had agreement, in the main, on the harmonisation of the founding regulations.
Although this passed through Parliament, it remains with the Council awaiting agreement.
It has been there far too long and we should be putting every pressure on the Council through the budget procedure to urge it to deal with this as a matter of urgency.
<P>
We have also included a section in the general budget which will cover the agencies' buildings.
It seems ridiculous that the EU has assets or liabilities in the Member States of which we have no details.
<P>
What conclusions can we draw?
Over the three years in which I have been standing rapporteur for the agencies for the Committee on Budgets, I have been fortunate to have the very positive support of people like Edward Kellett-Bowman - my colleague across the way - Mr Mingasson, and the agency directors.
We have tried to demystify the satellite agencies: to bring them down to earth as it were.
We want to make sure that, although they operate at a distance from the central places of work, they are still part of Community bodies, still accountable to the democratically elected Members of Parliament, controlled but not overwhelmed either by lots of different groups which have dropped in to check up on them and their work, or by the bureaucratic demands of people trying to assess what is going on from a distance.
We wanted to strike a balance.
Many of the agencies are still in their start-up phases.
Many were frozen in mid-growth by the standstill budgets of the past two years.
Some may never achieve the format originally set out in their establishment plan, and there are still ideas for more agencies in the pipeline.
Once there is a code of conduct and the harmonisation of regulation is achieved, we have all the transparency necessary to enable the budgetary authority or the standing committees to ask the questions they need.
<P>
The automated financial systems, which not just London but almost all the agencies will have up and running in the near future, will help.
This project, which has been developed in a spirit of cross-agency cooperation, is typical of what has been achieved in requiring the agencies to avoid duplication of effort in activities and to make themselves more aware of how they can increase their own efficiency.
It will also permit electronic financial control.
Our satellite links will never have been better.
<P>
The next agency budgets will take place in the new parliamentary term.
By then all the mechanisms and structures should be in place to make arguments about budget levels much more informed.
<P>
The budgetary authority should be able to make its assessments on the basis of real evidence of need and performance, surely the best basis for judgement.
<P>
To conclude, I commend my recommendations specifically on the fee structure for the EMEA but, in general, for those which will impact on this and other agencies' abilities to produce the work we require of them in the most efficient and effective way.
I hope the House will support my amendments and the amendments of the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="Kellett-Bowman">
Mr President, I want to congratulate Mr Tappin. Clearly he has become an acknowledged expert on the workings of the decentralised bodies and agencies.
<P>
The conclusions of the Budgetary Control Committee are brief, and read as follows: 'The Committee on Budgetary Control welcomes the proposal of the Commission whereby the EMEA charges its customers fees that are more commensurate with the costs it incurs, and also takes this opportunity to congratulate the agency on operational progress made.'
<P>
I wish to make four points.
Firstly, the agency is a splendid example of subsidiarity.
Here pharmaceutical manufacturers around Europe can get registration at one place which works in all the Member States.
This is far more efficient and certainly cheaper.
The fees problem has been well outlined by Mr Tappin.
The agency is squeezed by the way we go about it.
However, I am puzzled by one point - why veterinary products should attract a much lower fee than human products.
So many of the former products will ultimately be getting into the human chain and I wonder whether they should not actually incur a higher cost, but that has not happened.
Some months ago the House passed amendments to Statutes, as mentioned by Mr Tappin.
I am assured by the Council that those amendments are not blocked in the Council, but are merely behind schedule.
I hope the conciliation meetings will find an opportunity to raise this matter with the Council.
<P>
The fourth point is that the European Court of Auditors' initial report on this agency for the past year gives them a clean sheet.
This is highly creditable.
It looks as if they might even be the first body to get the certificate of assurance within the European Community.
This certificate has eluded the Commission and all other bodies over the years since the Maastricht Treaty brought it into being but I see this agency as being a candidate for taking the blue ribbon very soon.
<P>
Mr Tappin has produced a good report. I encourage the House to support the amendments and his report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="Valverde López">
Mr President, I would firstly like to add my congratulations to those for the rapporteur, Mr Tappin, as he has drawn up an excellent report. In this case, the report was based on the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products but it also affects the overall structure of the running and financial control of the rest of the Agency.
The agencies are proving to be an excellent working instrument within the Commission.
And, in fact, although the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products only came into operation in 1995, it has already received international recognition. The entire sector and all those involved are very pleased with the exemplary running of this Agency.
Therefore, the three committees that have drawn up reports all express their support for the Agency and its excellent work.
<P>
It was necessary for fee levels to be updated - as provided for in the regulations establishing the Agency - and I therefore believe that it is appropriate for this Parliament to support the change in these fee levels.
Above all, I believe that the annual fee proposed by the Commission is extremely important as it will help meet the costs of post-authorization surveillance and maintenance activities, which are very important in this sector.
But perhaps we must also remember that these fees are not taxes and should only be paid for services rendered. That is the basis of some of the amendments I have tabled - and I would like to take this opportunity to thank the rapporteur, Mr Tappin, for having taken over the seven amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection - and these amendments aim to graduate fees in accordance with the work carried out.
<P>
However, Mr President, whilst I support an increase in fees, I would like to highlight the pressing need to maintain the Agency's independence.
The contribution from the EU budget must be safeguarded - in other words, it should be maintained and reductions be avoided - as the Agency is working for the pharmaceutical sector in Europe but it also has the interests of millions of patients, health professionals and consumers at stake.
We must remember that Parliament has always supported this fundamental question of the Agency's independence.
<P>
The European Union and its pharmaceutical industry - the largest in the world - need a strong Agency that has the necessary scientific resources.
And this will only be achieved through transparent and adequate funding.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Only recently, Mr President, in connection with the marketing of the Viagra pill, we saw how useful the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products is, because it was on the strength of the Agency's opinion that the Commission decided to license it.
It is just one example of how important this body is.
It can only grow in importance, bearing in mind that it has only been operational for three years.
<P>
We too regard the EMEA as to some extent a government body.
I quite agree with the rapporteur because this Agency is to some extent concerned with implementing the policy of the single market and safeguarding public health.
So I think that most of the EMEA's revenue should come from fees, but that some of it should continue to come from the EU budget.
But as the rapporteur points out, it is rather unsatisfactory to know that there has still been no in-depth study of the costs of processing applications.
Like the rapporteur, I find that regrettable. It would give us a better idea in future of what proportion of the Agency's work is taken up by the public health responsibilities laid on it by the institutions.
I hope we may quickly have a result on that.
<P>
The rapporteur also says that the Agency made a loss of 20 % due to currency fluctuations and the effect of the corrective coefficient or weighting.
Will the Commissioner tell us what she thinks about that?
How does the Commission deal with this question of currency movements and the weighting in the Agency's case?
<P>
Lastly, we think it is important, and this must be clear, to guarantee the payment of a certain sum from our budget.
As rapporteur on the budget for the Environment Committee I argued in favour of an extra ECU 2 million over and above the present figure of twelve million.
The Committee on Budgets decided last week to give one million more, or half of what we had asked for.
But as you see, we in the Environment Committee are doing our best to safeguard the budget for this Agency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="Gradin">
I am very pleased that it has been possible to have this item on the agenda of the plenary session so quickly. I would therefore like to thank all those who invested a considerable amount of work on this draft proposal.
<P>
The current level and structure of fees payable by the pharmaceutical industry to the European Agency for the evaluation of medical products was set out in the 1995 Council regulation.
In accordance with Article 10 of this regulation the Commission submitted a report on its implementation.
In the light of that exercise we proposed the definitive regulation in January 1998.
<P>
In preparing this report the Commission has sought to ensure two aims: first, not to place undue burden on applicants; second, not to endanger the achievement of the EMEA's primary task which is to provide scientific advice of the highest possible quality in relation to the authorisation and supervision of medical products.
<P>
The proposed increase in fee levels is clearly demonstrated and supported by a cost survey of the national competent authorities and the EMEA.
Particular attention was given to the fact that fees should normally be lower than the total of fees charged by 15 Member States.
The Commission's proposals also foresee some major new orientations: the introduction of an annual fee; the introduction of a fee for scientific advice and protocol assistance; a reduced fee for certain variations which do not involve detailed scientific evaluation; fees for the establishment of maximum residue limits for clinical trials; administrative charges; the introduction of differentiated fees for the initiation of Community referral procedures.
<P>
I am pleased to announce that the Commission will take up several of the amendments proposed by the European Parliament.
We will therefore shortly produce an amended proposal.
It will take on board the following issues: the suggestion that future amendments to the fees regulation will be based on a complete evaluation of all costs of the Agency - Amendment No 16; clarification that the fee for evaluation covers all strengths and pharmaceutical forms of a product - Amendments Nos 10 and 11; increase of the additional arbitration fee for veterinary medical products - Amendment No 12; increase of the fees for changes to a maximum residue limit of a veterinary medical product - Amendment No 13; the introduction of a flexible fee for scientific advice; Amendment No 14.
<P>
Unfortunately we will not be able to take on board all amendments.
This is for several reasons.
Some issues cannot be taken up for legal reasons.
For instance, it is not possible to change the legal basis for the regulation.
<P>
Article 10 of the 1995 regulation already gives a precise and specific legal basis which has to be respected.
In other cases we think that the suggested amendments might bring about a possible risk for public health.
For example, by encouraging an inflation in different presentations of one medical product.
<P>
The proposal to make the first fixation of a maximum residue limit for several animal species more expensive cannot be accepted.
This would be contrary to the Commission's policy to encourage and stimulate applications for fixations of new MRLs.
<P>
Other issues will be laid down in horizontal legal texts and not in the fees regulation.
This includes, for example, the mentioning of the euro and budgetary details.
Thank you once again for your quick and fruitful cooperation on this issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Mr President, I asked the Commissioner how she proposed to deal with the question of currency movements and the effect of the corrective coefficient.
The Agency has lost 20 % because of these.
What is the Commission going to do about it?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 NAME="Gradin">
Mr President, I am representing Mr Bangemann and I will ask him to give you a written answer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="Tappin">
Mr President, I think that as Mr Kellett-Bowman might well attest, in the budget arrangements for 1999 we put in a series of amendments to ensure that the Commission actually tops up on the third or fourth payments every year the losses made by any agency through exchange rate fluctuations or the weighting arrangements.
If the budget goes through the first reading in early December, that will actually be operational.
Similarly, if agencies win out, they will lose their grant the next year, so there will not be a win-win but rather a win-lose situation.
I hope that clarifies the position.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended until 5.30 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Question Time (Commission)
<SPEAKER ID=171 NAME="President">
The next item is questions to the Commission (B4-0483/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="President">
Mr Liikanen has just arrived and is probably running on Finnish time, which is not exactly the same as our own.
Nonetheless, we would like to welcome him and ask that he answers Question No 30 by Marjo Matikainen-Kallström (H-0885/98)
<P>
Subject: The impact of the crisis in Russia on the country's energy production and nuclear safety
<P>
The deepening economic, social and political crisis in Russia has given rise to fears that the coming winter may cause major energy management problems there.
It has also been suggested that serious economic problems, as well as unpaid wages and the possible neglect of maintenance operations, may adversely affect the country's capacity to produce nuclear energy safely.
Russia has nuclear power stations, inter alia near the Finnish border, whose technical condition and safety are not entirely certain even under stable conditions.
Because of this, the impact of the crisis, which is now rapidly becoming more acute, on Russia's energy management and nuclear safety should be investigated as thoroughly as possible and above all quickly.
<P>
In view of the above, how probable and how serious does the Commission consider the adverse consequences of the growing crisis in Russia for the country's energy management and nuclear safety to be?
What will the Commission do to help the Russian authorities to avert and eliminate any safety hazards arising from the above energy problems?
I give the floor to Mr Liikanen to answer Mrs Matikainen-Kallström's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, there is nothing to indicate that the present situation in Russia is having a negative impact on the energy sector and nuclear safety.
There have been signs that the government intends to pay employees in the industries concerned the salaries that have remained outstanding.
In this way there could be a positive effect on the present difficult situation.
The Commission is monitoring the situation and makes a daily assessment of developments, mainly through its delegation in Moscow.
At the same time the implementation of the TACIS programme which is currently under way, particularly in the energy sector, will enable us to acquire the information that we need.
In this way, the situation with regard to nuclear power plants can be monitored continuously.
It is with this programme very much in mind that the Commission and the Russian authorities are developing fresh strategies.
Since the start of the programme around ECU 300 million has been made available to improve nuclear safety in Russia.
Safety standards have improved mainly through cooperation between the European Union and most of the Russian nuclear power plants.
It is hoped that the strategy will be fully in place before Viktor Kliman, Jacques Santer and Boris Yeltsin meet in Vienna on 27 October.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, I wish to thank the Commissioner for his reply.
I would still like to have it clarified what guarantees the Russian authorities have given to the employees that their salaries will be paid, since it is an absolute requirement for the employees concerned to stay on in these plants, as well as for the safety of the plants to be ensured.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, I am not aware of any legal guarantees on the subject, but only of a political commitment.
Let us hope that the matter can be resolved.
Obviously, our problem is that Russia's economic difficulties cannot be overcome with the support of the international community alone.
Ultimately, it is Russia herself that must solve these structural problems, which include paying the outstanding salaries.
I shall pass the question on to the Commissioner responsible.
If we learn any more, we shall glad to forward the information to the honourable Member.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Liikanen.
I would like to stay with this matter as, pursuant to the Rules of Procedure, I have received two supplementary questions.
The first is from Mr Rübig, who has the floor for one minute.
You have the floor, Mr Rübig.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, we know that we spend a great deal of money on the safety of nuclear power stations; that is done under Euratom.
But what is the situation regarding minimum standards?
Are there not even any plans to introduce minimum safety standards for nuclear power stations in the European Union, particularly with the enlargement of the EU in mind?
I believe it is time we all sat down to develop a common programme of safety standards for Europe, one reason being that it could serve as a basis for the applicant states to raise their own standards.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, I will gladly convey this suggestion to Mr Papoutsis.
He will be here tomorrow at the Commission meeting, and I will ask him to reply separately to you on that point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Mr President, does the Commission really have any idea at all just how dangerous the Russian nuclear plants are and what condition they are in?
We know that any nuclear accident there would pose a truly grave danger to the population of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, as I stated at the beginning, there has been a good deal of cooperation with the Russian authorities to improve nuclear safety through the TACIS programmes.
ECU 300 million has been spent on this, and there has been an immense amount of cooperation among experts.
I believe the Commission has a very good overall picture of the situation, but I am prepared to ask our experts in the field to provide the honourable Member with detailed information if she so wishes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 NAME="President">
Question No 31 by Pedro Aparicio Sánchez (H-0896/98)
<P>
Subject: Spanish nationality requirement for Spanish airline captains
<P>
Despite the fact that Article 48 of the Treaty bans discrimination between workers in the EC on grounds of nationality, the Spanish Government does not authorise Spanish airlines to appoint persons of non-Spanish nationality as aeroplane captains.
The government justifies this restriction (laid down by law in 1960) on the grounds that, inter alia, 'the job of the captain of an aeroplane includes duties of a kind that would normally be carried out by a civil servant'.
This restrictive interpretation is upheld in the face of requests for its abolition from various bodies and individuals, and in particular the Spanish Airlines Association, which represents 26 Spanish private companies.
<P>
Does the Commission believe that the Spanish nationality requirement for Spanish airline captains constitutes an infringement of Article 48 of the EC Treaty?
<P>
If so, does the Commission intend to force the Spanish Government to rectify the situation?
I give the floor to Mr Liikanen to answer Mr Aparicio Sánchez's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, only posts having judicial powers or involving the public interests of the State are reserved for citizens of the country in question.
These would include such jobs as police officer, judge or state minister, together with certain top executive posts in the public administration.
The crew of a commercial airliner clearly does not fall within this category.
According to international law and practice, however, the captain of an aircraft is a representative of authority on that aircraft, since he or she is responsible for the safety of the plane and for public order and, ultimately, for the lives of the passengers.
On this basis, it could be said in a general way that the captain of an aircraft wields judicial power, or at least may wield it if called upon to do so.
This is the practice adopted by most Member States and that approved by the Commission.
<P>
Any condition of nationality for certain kinds of employment is, however, an exception to the basic principle of Community law that all European citizens should be treated equally in matters of employment.
This exception must therefore be interpreted within certain limitations.
It is possible that, in certain cases, the captain will not normally be called upon to exert his or her judicial powers because of the nature of the aircraft itself or other circumstances.
In such cases, the condition concerning nationality is without foundation.
However, such a case would be an exception to the general rules concerning the typical work of the captain of an aircraft, so the burden of proof should remain with the party invoking this exception.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Aparicio Sánchez">
Commissioner, thank you for your kind response that, personally speaking, gives me great pleasure.
The Spanish Government argues that the captain of an aeroplane performs duties such as authorising marriages on board, registering a new-born child or guarding diplomatic bags. Although the government does not class them as civil servants, they do hold a position of authority.
Therefore, in my opinion, this is a rather out-dated and old-fashioned interpretation of the role of a captain of an aeroplane. But I fear that the extremely powerful Spanish pilots' trade union is behind this oversight by the Spanish Government and that it is exerting considerable pressure to keep the labour market restricted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="President">
Question No 32 by Frode Kristoffersen (H-0910/98)
<P>
Subject: Preselection tests in connection with the Commission's open competitions COM/A/8/98, COM/A/9/98, COM/A/10/98, COM/A/11/98 and COM/A/12/98
<P>
What measures does the Commission propose to take to ensure that preselection tests for Commission posts are conducted in future in such a way that it is not necessary to discard candidates' papers?
What penalties will the Commission impose on the persons in the Commission who are responsible for these irregularities, and on the candidates in the tests who broke the rules for the conduct of such tests?
I give the floor to Mr Liikanen to answer Mr Kristoffersen's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, the Commission decided on 23 September 1998 to annul the preselection tests for competitions COM/A/8/98 to COM/A/12/98 held on 14 September this year, since there are sufficient grounds to believe that there has been a leak of information regarding at least one of the tests and at least one of the competition languages.
To ensure equal treatment for all candidates, the Commission will be organising new preselection tests as soon as possible for the start of 1999.
<P>
An investigation was begun immediately to discover who was responsible for the leak.
The legal authorities are being contacted with a view to bringing possible proceedings.
Those found responsible will also be liable for damages in respect of the Commission.
<P>
The Commission is aware of problems at two of the test venues on 14 September, including a mobile phone being used and certain candidates not following the instructions of the invigilators.
For this reason, the Commission intends to tighten up considerably the rules on competitions and their supervision, so that all candidates can take part in them on an equal footing.
The Commission deeply regrets the inconvenience which this situation has caused to those candidates who participated in the competitions honestly and in good faith.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Kristoffersen">
Commissioner, I would like to ask whether consideration has already been given as things stand to ways of tightening up the rules and improving them for the purposes of future tests.
Do you not agree with me, Commissioner, that this is a very serious and unhappy affair, since in reality it concerns a large number of young people in Europe who have applied for jobs in the EU?
Indeed it has implications for the EU's reputation too. Do you not also agree with me, Commissioner, that it is really necessary to get a grip on this affair, in the interests of improving the image of Europe?
I can promise you, Commissioner, that we will be given a hard time in the election campaign that is due to get underway soon now.
All these negative developments currently hanging over the European institutions are no help to us whatsoever in advancing the European cause.
Do you share these concerns with me, Commissioner?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, I agree completely.
I personally organised three meetings on this issue, and we had to conclude, among other things, that the rules on entry to the competitions, which were the same as usual, were not strict enough for candidates.
We must clearly tighten them up, for example as regards what the candidates are allowed to bring in with them when they sit the competition.
<P>
The second area in which I think the rules are lax concerns the invigilators' right to intervene in disturbances, or when someone is cheating, for example.
In my opinion, the invigilators must have the right to intervene directly and not, as has hitherto been the case, only at a later stage through the system of appeals.
<P>
I agree with the honourable Member that this has been a very unfortunate and disagreeable affair.
That is why it is important that the Commission's decision to annul the competition was taken quickly, and that a whole new competition should be organised carefully and thoroughly.
<P>
The third point is something that will obviously have to be discussed, and that is whether in future it will still be appropriate to hold these large-scale competitions, or whether it would be preferable to try and restrict the number of candidates so that the competitions can be better controlled.
You will appreciate that organising a competition for 30 000 candidates in 11 languages at 40 different sites is an enormous logistical task.
This is not a defence of the misconduct that has taken place, but it does oblige us to consider whether or not the competitions should in future be made more controllable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Liikanen.
This question has certainly aroused a great deal of interest in the House to the point of four supplementary questions being tabled.
The Rules of Procedure only allow me to admit two.
Therefore, I will first give the floor to Mr De Coene and then to Mr Rack.
<P>
Mr De Coene, you have the floor for one minute.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="De Coene">
Commissioner, your principled reaction does you credit and you have done what was necessary.
Nevertheless, I would appreciate some clarification of the notion of 'penalties' here.
As the questioner rightly said and you confirmed, a moral as well as a financial loss has been sustained here.
So my question is this: do you indeed believe that those responsible for this loss, whether it be the organisers or invigilators, or those sitting the examination, must bear the cost of the loss which the institution has sustained?
<P>
Secondly, can you tell me the exact cost of these preselection tests which had to be declared invalid thanks to the behaviour of these people?
I specifically want to know if you will tell me what the cost was, because I cannot imagine that any employer would stand for the good name of the Union being besmirched in such a way by these members of its staff.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, there have obviously been problems in three areas here, and in these there are two guilty parties.
Firstly, the candidates are obviously guilty who entered the competition fraudulently.
If necessary, this will have to be pursued under the law.
Secondly, the officials are also guilty - if they are officials - who are responsible for the apparent leak, since this has done enormous damage to the administration.
Thirdly, we have to judge separately the responsibility of the administrative staff in this case, in the light of how feasible the present rules governing supervision are.
This is also a judgement that we shall clearly have to make. But the main responsibility lies with the perpetrators of the deception and with those parties who assisted in it.
<P>
As for costs, the total costs of the competition were high, amounting to ECU 1.2 million.
It is unlikely that we shall be able to spend anything less the next time round either.
As for the question of financial responsibility, we shall obviously return to that when the investigations are over.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Mr President, Commissioner, will all those who were admitted to the test this time be admitted next time?
Is there any means of excluding from the next test those who have been unmistakably caught circumventing the rules, because we surely do not want that kind of official in the Commission in future?
Thirdly, is there also scope for reimbursing those candidates who have expended material resources in order to be able to sit this test, who have taken a day off and may therefore have been expected to pay their own travel expenses?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, it is difficult for me to anticipate any future legal decisions. But I agree entirely with the questioner: neither the Commission nor any other institution of the Community needs in its service people who flout all the Community rules in the selection tests.
This has to be viewed very seriously, and action must be taken accordingly.
<P>
As for the problems arising from the reorganisation of the competition, they are being addressed at this very moment.
I cannot yet reply in any more detail.
Unfortunately, I am afraid that most of the candidates will have to make the sacrifice once again.
That is why the deception that has occurred is so deplorable.
It is important in terms of people's rights that no one should profit from the deception, but that everyone is genuinely in the same situation in the new competition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 NAME="President">
Question No 33 by Angela Sierra González (H-0912/98)
<P>
Subject: Death of Semira Adamu in Belgium
<P>
The death by suffocation at the hands of the Belgian police of a young Nigerian woman who was to be deported to Togo, after she was smothered under two pillows in the aeroplane which was to take her from Brussels to Lomé, has caused widespread concern among Europe's citizens.
<P>
Semira Adamu asked for asylum in Belgium to escape an arranged marriage with a polygamous 65-year-old.
Does the Commission not consider that Community policy on asylum should include sexual abuse among the criteria to be taken into account?
I should like to welcome Mrs Gradin and ask her to answer Mrs Sierra González's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 NAME="Gradin">
Mr President, I share the sadness and indignation felt by so many over the circumstances surrounding the death of Semira Adamu.
Exactly what happened is currently being looked into by the Belgian authorities.
Regardless of eventual explanations, this kind of thing simply should not occur.
The Commission is not in a position to comment on the procedural handling of the Semira Adamu dossier.
We do not know all the facts and are not empowered to speak out on individual cases.
<P>
Mrs Sierra González asked about the possibility of granting refugee status to a person who has suffered sexual abuse, or who might risk such abuse if deported.
The basic principles are enshrined in the 1951 Geneva Convention.
This states that a person shall be deemed to be a refugee if he or she has well-founded fear of persecution on account of his or her race, religion, nationality or affiliation to a particular social group, or of his or her political beliefs.
The individual concerned must be outside his or her country of citizenship and be unable, or not want, to benefit from the protection of that country.
<P>
For many years now it has been my view that rape as an act of war should be treated as torture.
A woman subjected to rape in such circumstances would therefore be entitled to refugee status, according to my criterion.
The EU Member States have endeavoured to achieve a common interpretation of the Geneva Convention.
On 4 April 1996, a common position was adopted on the definition of refugee in Article 1 of the Geneva Convention.
This interpretation does not, however, cover the issue of gender-related persecution or sexual abuse - which is a great pity.
We should certainly be seeking an updated definition.
<P>
In addition to refugee status, the EU Member States often offer alternative options to individuals in need of international protection.
Compassionate leave to remain may be accorded on purely humanitarian grounds if there are strong reasons for allowing someone to stay.
At the moment it is up to each Member State to decide, and practice differs considerably from country to country.
Discussion has already begun on introducing certain minimum standards for this type of protection.
The question is included in the Council of Ministers' work programme.
A survey of the various national rules and practices was carried out during the spring.
An initial analysis has been produced and will form the basis for future work.
Parallel discussions are under way in Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
I imagine that this committee will also address the difficult issue of what our attitude should be towards people seeking protection on the grounds of various forms of sexual persecution and I look forward to being informed of the results of that work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sierra González">
There are two shocking facts concerning the death of Semira Adamu.
The first is that it involves the violent death of a young person who had come to the European Union seeking protection against the moral injustice being forced on her in her own country in the name of tradition. The second - that is equally important - is the fact that the methods used by the police were perfectly legal, even though they were not only violent but also degrading.
<P>
In view of these facts and other deaths which have occurred during expulsions from other European Union countries, does the Commission believe that the severity of such procedures, which hide behind the Schengen Agreement, needs to be reviewed?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gradin">
As I said in my reply, I agree with the questioner that these things should not occur, but we must remember that it is the national authorities who bear responsibility for ensuring that their police forces and government departments behave in a decent fashion when deporting individuals from their territory.
I assume that countries are capable of handling these matters themselves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 NAME="McKenna">
This is not just to do with the fact of people being denied the right to asylum, but it has to do with how they are treated afterwards.
It is completely unacceptable that a person, even if denied asylum, should be treated worse than an animal would be treated.
The EU has a responsibility.
People here praise the Amsterdam Treaty for the fact that now human rights will be brought into the treaties.
Countries - particularly Belgium - are in breach of human rights standards.
Surely some measures have to be taken against those countries that do this.
It is not just Belgium.
The treatment of people seeking asylum in all EU Member States is absolutely appalling.
They are not treated like human beings; they are not treated like ordinary people. They are treated in some sort of inferior way that completely denies them any basic right or dignity whatsoever.
The Commission and the EU as a whole have to deal with this.
There should be proper codes of conduct and proper measures brought in to ensure that this kind of thing cannot happen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 NAME="Gradin">
As I said, I am as sorry as you are that this girl has been handled as she has.
But it is the responsibility of Belgium to look after their policemen's behaviour when they send a person out of the country.
This is something I expect every country to be able to take care of.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sornosa Martínez">
Commissioner, in relation to your speech on the Status of Refugees and the Geneva Convention, I would like to ask if the Commission is considering recommending to the European Union countries that, in all matters relating to political asylum for women, and in matters that exclusively affect women, such as abuse and other gender-linked issues, this political asylum be extended.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="Gradin">
As you know, there have been many years of debate as to whether we could widen the definition of political refugee status.
This has not been successful.
Nobody wants to change the Geneva Convention but we can complement the Convention.
We could do this as we have proposed in other areas in the Union such as when we are talking about persecution of third parties, or about refugees staying for a shorter time.
My personal wish would be that, with Parliament's support - and particularly the support of the women - we should take up the question of rape and sexual abuse of women.
That could be a humanitarian angle.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 NAME="President">
Question No 34 by Mark Watts (H-0864/98)
<P>
Subject: Registration of EU citizens visiting another Member State
<P>
Are EU Member States entitled to require hotels and guest houses to demand that visiting EU citizens provide exhaustive details of their travel documentation (including type of travel document, when and where issued, expiry date and document number) as a condition of their stay?
Are the authorities in Member States permitted to fine proprietors of establishments who fail to record such information from guests?
Does the Commission agree that this practice, which I understand exists in Austria, makes a mockery of the principle of free movement, and what action will the Commission take to end this procedure?
As well as welcoming Mr Oreja, I would like to thank him for battling against the elements to get here.
We knew that he was having a rather difficult journey getting to this sitting.
So, thank you for coming, and I would like to ask you to answer Mr Watts' question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
Current Community law on the free movement of the Union's citizens allows Member States to request that they are informed of the presence of nationals of other Member States in their country.
In some countries, EU citizens staying only for a short while have to declare their arrival to the administrative authorities or the local police.
In order to make this easier, some Member States allow citizens of other countries to declare their arrival through forms completed in hotels, campsites or guest houses and a copy of this is sent to the local authorities.
In this way, citizens do not have to go through any additional procedures and these pre-printed forms contain all the information needed to identify a person, as they include the number, place and date of issue of the passport or identity card.
<P>
The Court of Justice has accepted that these systems for declaring arrivals are compatible with Community law.
Indeed, according to the Court, this type of system cannot be contrary to the principle of the free movement of persons if the imposed time limits for declaring an arrival are unreasonable or when the penalties for not fulfilling this obligation are disproportionate to the seriousness of the infringement, for example, if they lead to a prison sentence or to expulsion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 NAME="Watts">
Thank you Commissioner for your answer.
The trouble is that it highlight dual or treble standards operating throughout the Community.
After all, one of the benefits of the Community is supposedly free movement and if, for example, one takes a day trip to another Member State or stays in private accommodation, there is no such requirement to provide details of identification documents or passports.
It just so happens that when a business person or holidaymaker goes to a hotel these rather ludicrous and petty-minded bureaucratic restrictions are imposed.
The citizens of Europe demand an answer from the Commission as to why these dual standards are applied.
If it is in the interests of security or information on visitors, why is the information not required from every visitor?
It is clearly not.
Therefore the information is not effective and, as the Commissioner implied, there should be an agreement between Member States to try to remove this artificial barrier to free movement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
As Mr Watts well knows, the same system does not exist in all Member States. That is to say that, in practice, situations vary considerably.
In some Member States, such as Denmark, Greece, Portugal, Sweden and the United Kingdom, there is no system for declaring the arrivals of EU citizens only staying for a short while. Nor is there a police-controlled registration system operating in hotels.
Such systems do exist in the other Member States.
And, in the group of countries with no such system, there are certain countries that have a general system for declaring arrivals that is equally applied to EU citizens. Other countries, if they have not devised a system for the declaration of arrivals for EU citizens, have instead established a specific registration system in hotels and public accommodation that comes under the general duties of the police.
<P>
Consequently, there is no single system.
What I do believe to be important is that which the Court of Justice has maintained until now, in other words, that such arrival declaration systems are compatible with Community law.
Perhaps what Mr Watt is asking is if these systems should be harmonised in the future, that is, if the free movement of persons encourages us to establish an identical system in all the Member States.
This is a matter that has yet to be resolved and at the moment there are two main ideas being discussed.
The first is that there are certain standards, those that the Court of Justice has applied; the second is that different systems are acceptable, as long as there are limits. In other words, these limits cannot be disproportionate to the seriousness of the infringement if, as I said earlier, they lead, for example, to a prison sentence or expulsion.
This is the rule as it stands at the moment but I have made a note of Mr Watts's comments on the possible harmonisation of the different Member States' positions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 NAME="President">
Question No 35 by Joan Vallvé (H-0865/98)
<P>
Subject: Inclusion of the Misteri d'Elx on the World Heritage List
<P>
The Misteri o Festa d'Elx (Mystery Play or Feast of Elche) has been put forward for inclusion on UNESCO's World Heritage List.
The Festa, whose origins date back to the late 14th century, is staged in the city of Elx (Elche) on 14 and 15 August each year to commemorate the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary.
It is the sole theatrical representation of mediaeval origin of its kind to have survived in Europe.
<P>
Does the Commission intend to support this initiative to gain explicit recognition for this centuries-old tradition of such great artistic and cultural importance?
I give the floor to Mr Oreja to answer Mr Vallvé's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
The European Commission is aware of the importance and significance of the Elche Mystery Play (Misteri d'Elx ) in the history of European religious and musical theatre.
And, as the procedure for inclusion on the World Heritage list dictates, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee is the body that has statutory responsibility for taking decisions on these matters.
As Mr Vallvé is aware, it is the responsibility of local and national authorities to initiate the UNESCO procedure and these authorities must support any project which they wish to see recognised as a World Heritage project.
<P>
Within the framework of its powers, the Community does not have any formal or material possibilities, as far as Article 128 of the Treaty is concerned, that allow it to intervene in the procedure of naming World Heritage events.
Nonetheless, the Commission hopes that the authorities in Elche are successful in their bid, as this would give an extremely important European cultural event the world-wide status it deserves.
<P>
Of course, I am fully aware of Mr Vallvé's sensitivity in this area and I completely agree with him as I have been privileged enough to witness the Elche Mystery Play. It is indeed a spectacular event and is proof of something I believe to be very important: the cultural identity of a people.
<P>
I believe that we should try to see the distinctive elements that exist in the varied cultures of the people and, undoubtedly, one of them is this Elche Mystery Play, which also has a universal dimension.
In other words, it is a locally acclaimed event but, at the same time, it has world-wide significance and it is for this reason that we believe it deserves to be recognised as a World Heritage event.
<P>
Mr Vallvé can rest assured that, if consulted, the Commission will stress the importance the Elche Mystery Play deserves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Vallvé">
I would simply like to thank the Commissioner for his response.
I did not doubt his sensitivity in recognising these cultural events, which have old traditions - the Misteri d'Elx dates back to the end of the 14th century - and which have continued up until today. This is, in some way, proof of the multi-culturalism inherent to Europe.
For example, the Misteri d'Elx is a play in Catalan which takes place every year during these holidays.
What is more, they are known throughout Europe and acknowledged internationally. Therefore, I would like to thank the Commissioner for his kind words and I am sure that the local authorities in Elche will take the necessary steps to ensure that this play receives the recognition it deserves from UNESCO, as European heritage to be shown to the whole world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sornosa Martínez">
Commissioner, if you know the Misteri d'Elx or if you have seen it, then you know how spectacular and unusual it is to see the Assumption of the Virgin Mary portrayed in this work of European art and culture.
In any case, I, too, wanted to say this to the House today as I am a devoted fan of this play.
<P>
Yet, whilst acknowledging how important it is that this celebration be included on the World Heritage list by UNESCO, and as you are here today, I wanted to take this opportunity to put a request to you. Is there any possibility, apart from this recognition, which is extraordinary in itself, and within the Commission's powers - although I know that the Commission cannot do anything -, that there might be a budget heading that could be used to help this group of artists, not as part of the World Heritage procedure but as a different category, if possible?
These people do not of course do this exclusively, but they dedicate their free time to keeping this marvellous European cultural display alive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
Mrs Sornosa, I obviously share your interest in the issue you have raised and there is one possible option.
As you know, the new framework programme for culture is currently with the two branches of the legislative authorities - the Council and Parliament - and will come into force as of the year 2000.
It provides for three types of action: promoting networks; special actions; and high-profile projects.
If anything can be called a high-profile project, then it is the Misteri d'Elx .
Therefore, why not initiate the procedure?
I call on you, and all those interested in this matter, to take the appropriate steps to take this to the Commission.
And I assure you that I will follow this matter very closely.
But I would point out that I do not make the final decision; a committee decides.
Nonetheless, the word from the Commission, through me - if my colleagues permit it - is that I think that the Elche Mystery Play will be recognised as a high-profile project.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, Commissioner, I am a great admirer of the Elche festivals myself, but in this context I should like to ask you something else, because this issue shows how important culture is to our future.
My question is whether it is not time for the Commission to develop a system of its own, not only to catalogue these manifestations of popular culture but also to lend them effective support, so that a new attitude can gradually develop among us.
Since in spirit we are now in Elche, I should also like to refer to the moros y cristianos , in the Provincia de Alicante for example, which are a wonderful piece of popular culture; it might be useful in places like that to encourage people to take more of these initiatives, and the Commission should support them.
<P>
Would you be prepared to involve yourselves in that sort of undertaking?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Oreja Aguirre">
I am aware of Doctor von Habsburg's great sensitivity in this area and I must add that, scarcely a week ago, I passed through one of the villages in that area where I saw that one of them has, in fact, a street dedicated to Otto von Habsburg.
And in that street you can see the moros y cristianos festival being prepared. I therefore believe that all this points to one thing - and it is important to highlight it -, namely, that Europe's wealth stems from the differences in the varied cultures which exist in Europe.
The Commission's role will probably be to basically determine what the different European cultures have in common, but beginning with the distinguishing features of each of the cultures.
<P>
Consequently, I believe that these aspects should either come under the heading of high-profile projects or under special actions.
Therefore, I am making a special note of all these initiatives, and I hope I can continue to rely on them. And now that we have, in fact, reached the legislative stage, I would like to ask that this stage be speeded up as much as possible in Parliament, and that it progresses quickly at first reading, so that on 17 November, if possible, the Council can adopt a common position, and so that we might already have this framework agreement before the end of the year.
Initiatives such as those we have been discussing this afternoon will, of course, come under this framework agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Oreja.
Your respect for speed and rapidity has been fully noted and we thank you for being here with us today.
We have reached the end of the questions for Mr Oreja and so we wish him farewell and a safe but not too speedy journey back. We hope you arrive as safely at that end as you did here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 NAME="President">
Question No 36 by Patricia McKenna (H-0833/98)
<P>
Subject: The Ilois people of the Chagos Archipelago
<P>
Is the Commission aware that, when it was negotiating its accession to the then EEC, the UK was forcibly removing approximately 2000 indigenous Ilois people from the Chagos Archipelago, which is now an overseas territory of the EU called the British Indian Ocean Territory, and that the unstated purpose of the clearance was to lease one of the islands, Diego Garcia, to the USA as a military base?
Has the Commission previously considered the matter, and in any case does it regard these people as citizens of the European Union, even though they are living in forced exile in Mauritius, many living in very poor conditions there - many, indeed, having committed suicide - and despite the fact that a financial settlement was reached with the UK Government some years ago?
Whether citizens or not, does the Commission believe that these people would have legal rights within the Union, sa displaced occupants of what is Union territory, or, in a sense, as EU refugees?
What does the Commission intend to do to uphold the Treaties in relation to these unfortunate people?
I give the floor to Mr Pinheiro to answer Mrs McKenna's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 NAME="Pinheiro">
The European Commission is aware of the Chagos issue but has never taken part in official discussions on the matter.
The question of whether the Ilois people of the Chagos Archipelago would be entitled to British citizenship is a matter between the UK Government and the concerned persons.
The European Community is a major donor in Mauritius and finances, through the European Development Fund, a number of projects and programmes which aim at reducing poverty among the most fragile elements of the country's population, whatever their origin.
The Commission has recently launched a detailed study of poverty issues in Mauritius in order to establish a clear picture of this problem.
Although general poverty has been eradicated in Mauritius, due to impressive economic development in the last two decades, there still exist pockets of poverty among marginalised elements of the population.
The focused poverty alleviation programme will be set up early 1999, financed by the EDF, from which associations or NGOs of Ilois people might of course benefit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="McKenna">
I do not think the Commission is actually addressing the issue.
The issue here is that basically these are overseas territories of the EU.
The people of Diego Garcia have been denied the right to live in their own homeland.
Surely they must have some rights under EU law as EU citizens.
They have been forced off their islands to live in exile in other places.
It is not acceptable.
The EU has to look at this.
<P>
I should also like to know if the Commission has any legal advice on this matter.
I would be very grateful if you could supply me with the legal advice you have on it. But I do not think it is just an issue for the Member State, because if that is the case, could not any government in the EU decide that minority groups in some part of its country can be shipped off somewhere else?
Have they no rights under EU law?
It does not make any sense.
<P>
By virtue of the fact that they were actually living on an island that was a British island, they should have rights as EU citizens.
They have been living in exile now for almost 30 years.
That is not acceptable.
There is an onus on the EU to recognise the plight of these people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 NAME="Pinheiro">
Although the European Commission is aware of the problem, this is the first time it has been raised, be it by the Mauritian Government, the UK Government or the Ilois people concerned.
We therefore have no legal advice except to say that it is a complex issue.
We know that the governments and the people concerned are discussing this issue but apart from that I cannot go any further.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="President">
Question No 37 by Glenys Kinnock (H-0845/98)
<P>
Subject: Commission studies on trade with ACP regions
<P>
Would the Commission please indicate the current status of the studies undertaken on trade relations with ACP regions?
Is it true that they have been completed but are now being revised by the authors at the Commission's instigation?
<P>
When will MEPs be given the access to the information contained in these documents that they were promised in order to enable them to formulate their response to the Lomé negotiating mandate?
I give the floor to Mr Pinheiro to answer Mrs Kinnock's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="Pinheiro">
I am pleased to inform Mrs Kinnock that the studies on the economic impact of introducing reciprocity into the trade relations between the European Union and groupings of ACP countries are now in their final phase.
During the summer, the Commission received draft final reports for five of these studies.
The last one should be sent, we hope, very soon.
According to the terms of reference and normal Commission practice, the services gave their comments to ensure that all the reports were clear and complete.
<P>
We have now just received three final reports on the Caribbean, the Pacific and the SAADAC region.
As I have already explained during the ACP-EU Joint Assembly, I can assure you that it has always been my intention to share the results with you and everybody else as soon as it is possible, in order for everybody to have a comprehensive view of the issues at stake during the forthcoming negotiations.
Thus, you and other interested Members will receive copies of all the final reports, via the Secretariat of the European Parliament, by the beginning of November.
The Commission is also preparing a synthesis of all the studies, which you will also receive together with the reports.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="Kinnock, Glenys">
I thank the Commissioner for that very helpful answer.
Presumably, Commissioner Pinheiro, you will want those studies to support the Commission's view that FTAs would actually help ACP countries to be integrated into the global economy.
Therefore, I would like to ask you whether you heard - as I know you did - the clear warning we had last week at the opening of the negotiations given by Minister Billie Miller from Barbados, maintaining that ACP economies are far too fragile to withstand any kind of asymmetrical deal with the European Union?
In the light of the recent breakdown of the negotiations with South Africa, are you prepared to say that Minister Billie Miller is wrong?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 NAME="Pinheiro">
<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="President">
Question No 38 by Ulla Sandbæk (H-0847/98)
<P>
Subject: Supreme Court injunction on financing any new projects because of the EU's legal basis for granting aid
<P>
In the light of the suspension of all grants from a number of budget lines involving the Commission's DG VIII (possibly including the one relating to the 'Gender action on the WTO' project), which puts all projects on hold until the spring of 1999 at the very earliest, what has the Commission decided to do about projects that are directed towards development education and advocacy work concerning the preparations for the WTO's Third Ministerial Conference due to take place in the US in the autumn of 1999?
The preparatory work on issues relevant to the WTO's agreed agenda and possible new issues is already under way after the summer recess at national level and will continue at EU-level from the winter of 1998/9 and spring of 1999.
(The Supreme Court's injunction has stopped a number of projects relating to the WTO that were on the verge of being approved).
I give the floor to Mr Pinheiro to answer Mrs Sandbæk's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 NAME="Pinheiro">
The Commission fully realises the importance of integrating developing countries - the ACP states in particular - into the world economy. This is why the Commission supports the full participation of ACP states in the WTO and has taken several initiatives to promote this.
At the same time the WTO can only play its proper role if the concerns of all participating states are met.
That is the reason why I insist that trade and development have to be firmly on the WTO agenda and that the particular constraints of developing countries must be adequately assessed and taken into account during all multilateral trade negotiations.
This is truly essential.
<P>
I am personally committed to this, and I use all opportunities I have in our relations with trading partners to build support for our position.
By the way, I have just come from Washington where I participated in a G8 meeting on development, and it was thanks precisely to my intervention that it was possible to ensure that the next G7/G8 meeting on development will include trade and development and the concerns of developing countries as one of the main topics of the agenda.
<P>
As for the initiatives on WTO which the Commission has taken for the ACP states, and which I referred to above, I would like to mention the following.
In spring 1998 an informal working group was set up with the ACP secretariat for exchanging information, discussing and possibly coordinating positions for the next WTO negotiating round.
From January 1999 - and this is extremely important - an antenna of the ACP secretariat will be set up in Geneva for coordinating ACP positions within the WTO.
The Commission is financing this.
<P>
Also we financed a preparatory seminar before the second WTO ministerial conference held in May 1998.
We have also financed seven forthcoming regional seminars regarding the WTO agreement and its implementation.
The Commission also confirms that it has a received a proposal for gender action on the WTO presented by the International Coalition for Development Action, for financing under budget line B7-611.
As a result of the ruling of the Court of Justice, the implementation of this budget line remains suspended.
It is not therefore possible at the moment to give a favourable response to the above request.
<P>
The Commission is, however, ready to examine project proposals for eligibility under other existing budget lines which are open to development education and advocacy projects and which already possess a legal basis and can therefore accept projects for financing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
Mr President, it is the last part of the Commissioner's answer regarding the other budget lines that I am interested in.
If other budget lines are found, is word then sent back to the NGOs that these budget lines are available, or are they simply told that money has already been appropriated via these budget lines?
There is, for example, NGO cofinancing.
It is normally very large amounts that are appropriated via that budget line, but many of the amounts that are currently being sought for seminars or other forms of training in the ACP countries with a view to participation in the WTO negotiations are very small.
Is it possible, for example, to take money from the NGO cofinancing budget, where it currently is, and in certain cases make transfers, even if the amounts are very small, so that money can be made available for this very, very important area?
We are after all in complete agreement that it is essential for the developing countries themselves to be included in the WTO negotiations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="Pinheiro">
There are different issues at stake here.
The first is WTO as a whole.
The second is about gender issues and the promotion of these issues as regards not just WTO but all concerns of development.
This has already been approved and it is mainstreamed.
So in my opinion it is fully justified that WTO - trade and development and trade-related issues - should also be mainstreamed as regards gender.
<P>
What I suggested - I could be a bit more specific - is that for some of those actions we could appeal to the B7-6000 budget line, which is for cofinancing with NGOs, which offer possibilities for the scope of the project concerned.
If it is proposed under that aegis it stands a good chance of being eligible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="President">
Question No 39 by Marie-Arlette Carlotti (H-0907/98)
<P>
Subject: EU support for the presidential elections in Gabon
<P>
In the framework of the support traditionally given by the European Union to the ACP countries in organising democratic and transparent elections, could the Commission tell us what technical and financial arrangements it intends to make for the presidential election due to take place in December 1998 in Gabon?
I give the floor to the Commissioner to answer Mrs Carlotti's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="Pinheiro">
In a letter dated 23 July 1998, the Gabonese Prime Minister asked the Commission to send an observer mission for the whole electoral process.
<P>
In its reply of 3 September, the Commission confirmed what it had already indicated during previous contacts, namely that it was prepared, in the context of a coordinated effort with the government and interested outside partners, to help Gabon to prepare and organise the presidential election.
In this respect, the contribution of the Commission might involve training, particularly for election agents and Gabonese observers.
<P>
Such an approach, conducted with the assistance of all the political forces, would allow the necessary conditions to be created in Gabon to ensure the essential transparency of the future elections.
The Commission is waiting at the moment for a reaction from the Gabonese authorities to this offer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Carlotti">
Thank you, Commissioner, for such a precise answer. However, I am concerned because the Gabonese authorities are spreading the rumour that they have not received any answer from the Commission; this answer of 3 September to which you have just referred is not being mentioned.
<P>
What can we therefore do to let everyone in Gabon, the ruling majority and the opposition alike, know that the ball is in their court?
What can we do, in addition, to indicate publicly that we are not losing interest in the democratic process in Gabon?
What can we do as a matter of urgency?
You mentioned training, yet the longer this situation goes on, the more difficult it will be to train observers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pinheiro">
I share your concerns about the time which is passing, particularly since Gabon is currently an extremely important country in this region of Africa.
We all know that President Omar Bongo is the most senior of the African leaders.
He has tried to play a peace-making role here and there, and it is absolutely essential that the presidential election in Gabon is totally transparent.
<P>
It is not appropriate to offer financial assistance since Gabon does not need this. However, training - and good training at that - is absolutely essential.
Our letter of 3 September deserves a response and I believe that it will get one.
And I can assure you that, following this question, I shall personally look into what is happening and insist on having a response as soon as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
We have now come to the end of the questions to Mr Pinheiro, whom I would thank for his replies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 NAME="President">
Question No 40 by Eryl McNally (H-0844/98)
<P>
Subject: Rational Planning Directive
<P>
What progress has been made on re-introducing the Rational Planning Directive or equivalent legislation?
I should like to welcome Mr Papoutsis and ask him to answer Mrs McNally's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 NAME="Papoutsis">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission approved the proposal for a directive on rational planning techniques in September 1995.
As you will remember, the proposal's purpose is to contribute towards the Community's aim of reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
The European Parliament gave substantial backing to that directive through Mrs McNally's report which, as I had the opportunity to say then too, was an excellent report which Parliament adopted on 12 November 1996.
Many of Parliament's amendments were incorporated in the amended proposal and served to clarify the directive.
Unfortunately, during the Council's working group discussions, the proposal received only limited support and some Member States declared that they would prefer the proposed directive to be changed to a recommendation.
In the Commission's recent statement on energy efficiency, we reiterated our position on rational planning techniques and stressed that the Commission still regards this directive as important, particularly in the light of the development of energy services that will stem from the liberalisation of the market.
And we also said that we will try to find the best possible way to carry the matter forward.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 NAME="McNally">
I thank Mr Papoutsis for his continuing work in this area.
Does he agree with me that a directive of this sort would be an excellent contribution towards giving us credibility in the negotiations at Buenos Aires, which will be coordinated - from the European Union's point of view - by Commissioner Bjerregaard, with whom, I understand, he is working closely?
Energy efficiency really is the key to meeting the promises that we made at Kyoto, particularly in the domestic sector.
It is in the domestic sector where we need to find ways to encourage firms to supply not simply electricity or gas, but electricity or gas as a means to have cool or warm houses, fridges, the electricity that is needed.
Many people cannot make those investments of their own accord.
They need encouragement and those firms need help.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papoutsis">
I quite agree with you, Mrs McNally, that this is a particularly important and topical objective, especially since we are operating in the context of negotiations based on the commitments we entered into in Kyoto.
I too genuinely believe that carbon dioxide emissions from electric power generation account for over a third of the total carbon dioxide emissions in the European Union.
That is why we must find new ways and methods to restrict those emissions.
I sincerely believe, and that is why both I and the Commission insist, that a directive would be a very important contribution towards the efforts by Member States to achieve that target.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 NAME="President">
Question No 41 by Ludivina García Arias (H-0852/98)
<P>
Subject: Approved state aid to the HUNOSA mining company
<P>
The European Commission has finally given its approval to the Spanish plan for providing assistance to the mining sector but has again demanded cuts in coal production by the HUNOSA mining company, which means that for the second time it has failed to recognize the agreement between the Spanish Government and the social partners.
Does the Commission not think that in future it should sit at the same negotiating table so that any intervention on its part is rendered more transparent and is not seen by the Asturian public as the result of an agreement between the Spanish Government and the Commission to demand greater cuts?
I give the floor to Mr Papoutsis to answer Mrs García Arias's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 NAME="Papoutsis">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission applauds the fact that the restructuring of enterprises to which Mrs García Arias refers was decided on the basis of agreement in the context of the social dialogue.
And it is a positive element that attention was paid to the future of the working people affected and the future of their families, and that measures are also envisaged for the economic conversion of coal-mining areas with a view to finding alternative ways and means of economic development.
<P>
Yet when the Commission expresses its opinion about that restructuring, it has a duty to ensure that the decisions taken are compatible with the provisions of the Treaties.
The Commission's decision on aid for the Spanish coal-mining industry is indeed an important one.
For the HUNOSA company alone, aid was approved to the tune of almost PTA 262 400 million, i.e. ECU 1 590 million.
The Commission made very great efforts to reach a decision which helps the industry and which it considers compatible with Community law and can therefore now defend, if necessary, before the European Court of Justice.
<P>
Throughout the process of negotiating the Spanish agreements, the Commission showed the greatest possible respect towards all the parties involved in the dialogue, naturally making it clear that it was willing to cooperate at any time and also to express its opinion if asked to do so.
The Commission notes, however, that the social partners taking part in the negotiations made no approach to it, even though they were perfectly aware of their rights in the matter.
<P>
As for the amendments which Mrs García Arias says were made to the text prepared by the Spanish authorities, the Commission never asked for additional production cuts by HUNOSA.
The Commission's comments concerning that company's production in 2001 are based on a substantial and transparent analysis of developments over the last few years.
And that analysis showed that, because of the theoretical basis of certain calculations put before it, the production from underground seams envisaged in the said agreements for 2001 would not in reality be reduced by the amount estimated.
The Commission could therefore not accept that method of calculating the cut-back of activity, and it consequently asked for the agreement to be kept on the basis of the real figures.
<P>
Mr President, let me emphasise that Mrs García Arias was able to experience the openness and receptiveness of the Commission in person when she took an interest in discussing the problems of the HUNOSA company.
<P>
We are always at Mrs García Arias's disposal to inform her about everything which was drawn to our attention and which we knew about at that time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García Arias">
Perhaps the question should have been: how vigorously has the Spanish Government defended or explained the contents of the Hunosa plan?
According to rumours and comments in circulation, the government and Mr Benavides agreed a document relating to the second stage of cuts.
<P>
However, Commissioner, I have my doubts.
When Decision 3632 was discussed here in Parliament, I was the rapporteur.
You know that it does, in fact, regulate Community interventions.
And, in both the Council and Parliament, the concept of European reference costs was explicitly rejected and the text therefore talks of social and regional reasons and of working towards reducing costs.
Although it is true that I have spoken to your representatives from the Commission on various occasions, I have never obtained a clear grasp of what those specific scales are, since there is no regulation governing this decision. I am not even convinced that the Commission has business criteria that it uses so that it might, in fact, say whether or not staff levels should be reduced by so much or production should be reduced by so much.
I also believe that the directive is being interpreted in a rather limited manner as we are talking about reducing costs here and that does not necessarily mean reducing production.
Any company can increase production and reduce the costs of that product.
I still do not understand those business criteria.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papoutsis">
Mr President, I say again that the Commission is always ready to cooperate with the Member States concerning problems of a sensitive nature at national level, especially problems with particularly sensitive social and regional dimensions.
In this particular case, the Commission has done all it could to deal consistently with the problem facing it.
<P>
The Commission also respected the agreements signed between Spanish companies concerning cuts in production.
The difference of opinion between the Commission and the Spanish companies concerns the fact that the Commission, with a view to ensuring transparency, took into account the true level of production, while Spain took account of a theoretical approach to production.
From the analysis carried out by the Commission's services, it emerged that the production of 2 100 000 tonnes in 2001 from underground seams proposed by Spain for the HUNOSA company corresponded almost exactly to production in 1997 from the underground seams.
This means that no cut-back at all of deep-seam production would be taking place, and consequently no reduction of activity either.
So the Commission took into account the aim of the net cut-back in annual production mentioned precisely in the agreements which had been signed, and held to this rigorously.
We did not call for additional cut-backs, and I repeat that we will continue to deal with this issue with the greatest possible degree of social sensitivity, recognising the special problems which exist in the Asturias region.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
I believe that it will be no surprise to Mr Papoutsis that Mrs García Arias and I are the Members who speak when discussing Hunosa, as we are Asturians.
I understand what he is saying about the aid from the Commission and I understand when he talks of the need for reductions.
I would also like to thank him for suggesting negotiations between the social partners.
But, Mr Papoutsis, what happens is that the Spanish Government reaches an agreement with the social partners on cutting jobs and cutting production.
The problem appears to be solved but then, very soon after, the regional press reports - and there is a newspaper archive there that we can consult on this - that the European Commission is putting pressure on stating that the agreement reached is not being completely fulfilled and that it is putting pressure on to cut production and jobs. And you know that Asturias is a region that suffers a great deal.
Therefore, our concern is: why does the Commission not join forces with the Spanish Government and the trade unions to draw up a definitive plan, one which does not vary depending on the government's or the Commission's situation at that particular time?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papoutsis">
Mr President, yet again I wish to repeat that the Commission was at the disposal of the Spanish authorities and the social partners at any time during the agreement's negotiation.
Since the finalisation of the agreement, the Commission has respected it absolutely, deeming that the cut-back already agreed should be implemented, but always with reference to the true level of production.
From then on, the Commission's only intervention was to assess whether the agreement is compatible with the Treaty.
Beyond that, since the conclusion of the agreement, the Commission has never come back to ask for additional production cuts, as I explained earlier in response to Mrs García Arias's supplementary question, apart from a return to the correct way of estimating the production level in 2001.
That is all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 NAME="President">
Question No 42 by Esko Seppänen (H-0858/98)
<P>
Subject: Use of appropriations for energy programmes
<P>
The EU has adopted the objective of doubling the use of renewable energy resources by 2010.
At present they account for 6 %, and the aim is therefore to attain 12 %.
<P>
The bulk of renewable energy now in use is hydroelectric. For practical reasons it will be difficult to increase the use of this type of energy.
This being so, the objective of achieving a six percentage point increase is highly ambitious and is unlikely to be attained with the resources currently allocated.
<P>
Will the EU increase the funding of programmes to promote the attainment of the objectives?
I give the floor to Mr Papoutsis to answer Mr Seppänen's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 NAME="Papoutsis">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission agrees that the objective set by the White Paper's plan of action for renewable energy sources, i.e. to double the contribution of those sources to the Union's energy supply from 6 % to 12 % by 2001, is an ambitious but at the same time a realistic objective.
The White Paper analyses in some detail the way in which that overall target can be achieved, on the basis of the most reliable estimates available of the probable contribution from each renewable source.
<P>
The proposal presented on the strategy for increasing renewable energy sources in each sector is based on the best combination of technologies and makes it possible for the Union to achieve its aim within the framework of existing technical, practical and economic limitations.
Estimates of the future share of the various renewable sources are certainly indicative, and will help in the monitoring of progress and to ensure that each technology is utilised within a clear policy framework.
<P>
It is true that most renewable energy technologies are in the phase of technical maturation.
This also means that the cost of producing energy from renewable sources is continually falling, steadily decreasing.
So we are at a stage when great efforts are needed to promote them in the market and to apply the policy of promoting renewable energy sources in practice, in all the Member States.
It is clear that, in addition to financing basic research and demonstrations, at the stage we have reached today it is still necessary to continue providing economic support for renewable energy sources.
<P>
As for the level of finance, the Commission agrees that it is important to secure the necessary appropriations for the promotion of renewable sources.
The Altener programme aims precisely to promote the use of renewable energy sources in the Community and is part of the Commission's proposal for a framework programme on energy, which Parliament will debate on Thursday.
The Commission's proposal goes together with an indicative financial allocation covering the period 1998 to 2002.
<P>
The allocation refers to an increase in the budget for Altener from ECU 14.4 million in 1998 to ECU 17.1 million in 2002.
I think it is clear that this represents a substantial increase compared with the present funding for Altener.
However, as you know, it is you in the European Parliament together with the Council who have the final say in budgetary matters.
The Commission awaits your decisions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, Commissioner, the technological possibilities of renewable energy are infinite and they have been analysed in a white paper.
But in addition we need political decisions.
There have not been any political decisions taken in the EU that might lend support to the exploitation of renewable energy sources.
What does the Commission think? Could electricity produced from renewable energy sources be introduced into the grid at a price that is different from electricity that has been produced by traditional means, so that electricity generated from renewable sources could be subsidised by means of authorised price fixing?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papoutsis">
Mr President, the Commission has done everything possible to present all the proposals that could be put forward in the context of agreements within the Commission and in the Member States, to give a powerful impetus to the use of renewable energy sources.
That is why we first produced the Green Paper on renewable energy sources and later the White Paper with a specific plan of action, which we believe can really move things along.
<P>
I would remind you that in the plan of action we chose four specific initiatives: firstly, a million photovoltaic installations, about a million roofs; large wind farms generating 10 000 MW; biomass installations generating 10 000 MW; and the introduction of renewable energy sources in 100 local communities.
This is the action programme in which we have invited industry, the Member States and all the other relevant agencies to take initiatives with a view to collaborating in the promotion of renewable sources.
<P>
In addition, however, I would remind you that in the directive on the internal electricity market, the Commission proposed that there should be privileged access for renewable sources to the network.
That is something we hope all the Member States will follow up and make use of.
<P>
Beyond that, though, the Commission has no powers as such to do anything else.
So it is up to the Member States to make the most of all these possibilities provided by the European Union's legal framework and, at the same time, to utilise the Community finance available from various Community programmes to help industry produce cheaper technology, while at the same time making it possible for the regions and large cities of the Member States to exploit the new technologies for making use of renewable energy sources.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 NAME="President">
As the author is not present, Question No 43 lapses.
<P>
Question No 44 by Mihail Papayannakis, which has been taken over by Mr Alavanos (H-0916/98)
<P>
Subject: Sex tourism involving children
<P>
According to the results of research undertaken by Eurobarometer (April-May 1998), European citizens condemn the practice of sex tourism involving children and 88 % of them believe that it is vital for the European Union to take action to combat this phenomenon.
The Commissioner responsible for tourism has said that the initial response by European public opinion will prompt the EU to take practical measures aimed at combating tourism based on the sexual exploitation of children, a practice particularly widespread in the countries of Asia, Latin America, and Central and Eastern Europe and closely linked to poverty, social exclusion and international trade in minors.
<P>
Will the Commission say whether there is a common approach to combating this scourge, whether the action taken so far has proved successful and what firm measures it intends to take to tackle this problem effectively?
I give the floor to Mr Papoutsis to answer this question by Mr Papayannakis, for whom Mr Alavanos is deputising.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 NAME="Papoutsis">
Mr President, the results of a survey carried out by Eurobarometer at the request of the Commission contain some particularly useful facts and figures for everyone involved in the fight against sex tourism which victimises children.
<P>
As far as we are concerned, combating that phenomenon is a matter to which we attach particular priority.
I therefore agree with the finding of the survey that intervention by the European Union is now seen not just as desirable but indeed as essential by a vast majority of Europe's citizens.
As the survey shows, 88 % of those questioned considered that Community intervention was important and essential.
All the activities envisaged in the Commission's statement of November 1996 have been implemented as a matter of urgency.
At the end of 1998, the Commission now intends to submit to the European Parliament, the Council, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions a report on the implementation of all these measures and on the progress that has been achieved.
However, the fact that Europe's citizens already recognise that the Commission is active in this area provides real encouragement for us to continue our efforts.
<P>
Let me refer briefly to an initiative concerning support for the coordination at European level of national information and awareness campaigns against sex tourism which victimises children.
The information activities currently being carried out, which are supported by the Commission, are based on the development in various Member States of two complementary programmes.
<P>
The first aims to design, produce and distribute a video on flights to destinations noted for the phenomenon, and to inform and raise the awareness of the staff of various airlines.
<P>
The second aims to design, produce and distribute first of all information leaflets for travellers and, secondly, files with data concerning sex tourism intended to increase the awareness of those in the tourist trade.
In addition to these information activities, another important event is being staged: the first European meetings of agencies involved in the fight against child sex tourism, due to take place in Brussels from 24 to 26 November as part of the Brussels Travel Fair 1998.
Within this tourism exhibition, the Commission will have at its disposal a substantial area in which it will present all the initiatives it has taken to combat child sex tourism.
We shall also organise meetings of specialists and personalities, and six round-table discussions will be held to consider in detail all the issues and all the joint action we can take at European level in the future, both with non-governmental organisations and with the tourist industry and the governments of the Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, let me thank Commissioner Papoutsis, because I think he has taken some important initiatives which go beyond mere words and extend to the promotion of practical measures, no matter how difficult they may be and how many obstacles have to be overcome.
<P>
I wish to ask two brief questions: firstly, as regards the countries of Eastern Asia, for example, where sex tourism is rife, very often with children as its victims, has the Commission made any approaches to Member State governments at a political level? Secondly, in the Commission's opinion, have all 15 Member States taken action with equal sensitivity and practicality concerning these issues?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papoutsis">
<SPEAKER ID=248 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Papoutsis.
We have overrun our allotted time for questions to the Commission by ten minutes.
I am not sure whether to call on Mr Papoutsis's generosity and that of Parliament's services, but Mr Titley is here.
What do you think?
Can we answer Mr Titley's question?
Many thanks, both to you and to Parliament's services.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 NAME="President">
Question No 45 by Gary Titley (H-0900/98)
<P>
Subject: Follow-up to Parliament's support for the Harrison Report on late payments
<P>
What action is the Commission taking to ensure that it complies with the spirit and letter of the Harrison Report on late payments adopted in September, to make sure that small and medium-sized businesses which carry out work for the Commission are not the victims of late payment by the Commission?
I give the floor to Mr Papoutsis to answer Mr Titley's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 NAME="Papoutsis">
Mr President, the Commission did indeed have occasion to express its satisfaction with Mr Harrison's report on this proposal for a directive on late payment, and it will take into account most of the amendments proposed in the report.
According to the Commission's proposal, the payments made by Community bodies are not covered by the directive.
However, the Commission will submit appropriate proposals for these payments too, aimed at establishing rules equivalent to those envisaged in the directive with regard to public authorities.
In accordance with the working document on the amendment of the Financial Regulation of 22 July 1998, the Commission intends to harmonise the current provisions concerning payments, so that all the Community's bodies will work to the same standards laid down in the proposed directive.
In parallel, the Commission has undertaken to carry out a study on its own delayed payments, the conclusions and proposals of which will be announced before the end of the year.
In the meantime, however, the relevant Commission services will make every effort to respect in practice the guidelines of the directive we have proposed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=251 NAME="Titley">
Will the Commission not admit to the embarrassment that is caused by the Commission on the one hand saying it wants to develop a directive on late payment while it is frequently guilty of leaving companies waiting for a long time for money?
Companies are constantly complaining to me and I know they complained to the Commissioner when he was kind enough to come to my constituency.
Will he not accept that this is politically undeliverable unless the Commission takes action?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papoutsis">
Mr President, I accept that the Commission has indeed been slow in some cases, and I understand that there are some justified complaints from some companies, and possibly some in Mr Titley's constituency.
Yet I must say, and I must insist on this, that the Commission makes every possible effort in procedural terms, because sometimes we receive erroneous invoices and it takes time to establish if the invoices are correct or not.
In any event, the Commission makes every effort to respect the framework proposed by the directive and to comply with it in practice.
Beyond that, however, and I wish to stress this point, in July 1997 the Commission approved the principle of paying interest in cases of late payment, to compensate the beneficiary for the delay.
So far as we know, no other international organisation pays interest in cases of late payment.
I do wish to emphasise this, because it really proves that in practice the Commission has taken on board both the framework and the spirit of the directive we have already proposed concerning late payments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Papoutsis.
<P>
Questions Nos 46 to 86 will receive written answers.
<P>
That concludes Question Time to the Commission.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 7.18 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Ro-Ro ferry and high speed passenger craft services
<SPEAKER ID=254 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0310/98) by Mr Watts, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Directive on conditions for the operation of regular ro-ro ferry and high speed passenger craft services in the Community (COM(98)0071 - C4-0162/98-98/0064(SYN)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=255 NAME="Watts">
Mr President, just over four years ago in September 1994 the roll-on/roll-off passenger ferry Estonia sank in the Baltic with a loss of over 900 lives.
This Parliament resolved then that such an incident must never happen again.
The Estonia tragedy was only one of many ferry disasters in the past decade.
I can name others, including The Herald of Free Enterprise , back in 1987, or, indeed, the more recent Scandinavian Star .
<P>
Parliament then asked the question: why were the lessons not learned?
Why were the lessons of the loss of The Herald not learned?
Why was next to nothing then done?
Never again is this Parliament's aim.
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As Parliament's rapporteur on ferry safety, I am very pleased that we are making real improvements now today in ferry safety.
Indeed, thanks to the determination of Commissioner Neil Kinnock, we have witnessed a series of measures to learn and apply the lessons.
Firstly, the International Safety Maritime Code has been made compulsory to ensure that management, master, officers and crew put safety first.
Secondly, passengers will in future be counted, and data vital in the event of an emergency will be collected.
Thirdly, the stability problems of roll-on/roll-off vessels are being tackled as a result of the Stockholm agreement as it comes into effect.
<P>
Today we are considering the latest and the most ambitious measure so far.
In future, Member States will authorise the operation of each ferry and high-speed craft operating in the EU regardless of the country of registration.
In other words, operators will no longer be able to evade international safety laws by opting for a flag of convenience.
<P>
In addition, in future, black box voyage data recorders will become compulsory.
In future, Member States will no longer be denied the right to investigate maritime incidents.
<P>
As rapporteur, I fully endorse these measures, not least because many ferries are still, despite recent tragic events, simply not safe enough.
A recent Commission-funded survey found that almost one in three of the ferries checked had serious safety defects.
These included fire hydrants rusted shut, faulty life jackets, faulty lifeboat engines and locked emergency exits.
We must, therefore, secure the speedy adoption of this proposal and ensure that it is fully enforced throughout the Community.
<P>
Although we fully support this measure, we wish to see it simplified and strengthened in a number of important ways.
Firstly, we believe all ferries - old and new - should be fitted with black boxes within five years, closing the loophole in Article 5 which would allow exemptions from compliance in perpetuity.
Secondly, we believe that the results of the safety surveys communicated to the Commission under the terms of this directive, should be made publicly available.
Thirdly, within 12 months of the entry into force of this proposal, a thorough assessment should be made to determine whether enough has been done or whether further measures are required.
<P>
As a further guarantee of ferry safety, we believe an annual safety report should be produced.
All this information must be made publicly available.
These three amendments reflect our determination to make ferries safer, to guarantee that ferry safety remains at the top of our agenda and, indeed, to enlist the support of the citizen and passenger in ensuring that these high safety standards are met.
I hope that the Commission tonight can agree with these measures.
<P>
I also have a number of questions for the Commissioner.
Firstly, given the reliance on Member States to enforce the new safety regime, what resources will be made available to ensure compliance throughout the Community?
Secondly, when does the Commission plan to review the Stockholm agreement to ensure ferry stability standards keep pace with the latest technological developments?
Thirdly, given the reported failure of both black boxes in the final minutes of the Swiss air flight that recently crashed off the coast of Canada, will the Commission ensure that the black boxes in all ferries are fitted with auxiliary power supplies?
<P>
Finally, I wish to thank all my colleagues and our staff.
Together, we are determined to prevent another ferry disaster.
Never again!
This proposal, together with our amendments and if properly enforced, will ensure that the 141 million passengers who travel on a ferry in European waters each year will get safely to their destination.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=256 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sindal">
Mr President, in an election year such as this, people often ask us: what do you actually do in the European Parliament?
I am always happy to tell them that we in Parliament's Committee on Transport and Tourism have worked unremittingly, in Strasbourg and Brussels, to improve safety in all forms of transport.
Transnational, cross-frontier traffic must be made safe through obligations imposed on a common basis.
Our commitment to ferry safety, in particular, is well known, which is reflected in the report we are discussing today.
The figures - over 140 million passengers spread over 500 ferries - speak for themselves.
I do not mind saying that I myself make 200 sea crossings a year, so I know the ferries.
It is quite funny when you think of it that, when international rules drawn up by the IMO are to be enforced, we have to transpose them into a directive.
After all, they should apply throughout the world.
But that is the way it is.
Given the profusion of flag states and different legislation, it is necessary to have directives which ensure that trained seafarers are employed, port state control is applied and so on.
<P>
Critics of this directive will no doubt try to find new ways.
Ferries will be moved outside the EU and so forth.
But, as I have said, one might wish that this approach based on the Watts report and the Commission proposal could be the beginning of a global initiative which will ensure safety at sea everywhere.
Again and again we come up against the need to incorporate IMO measures into Community law.
It would be better if we had something that was enforceable throughout the world.
<P>
At this time - unfortunately, it might be said - a book is coming out in Denmark which deals with the Estonia accident.
So some of us will be reliving that disaster all over again.
I hope that this directive, but not least the implementation of the directive, will help to strengthen the common legislation and guarantee safety in the future.
<P>
Finally, I have to mention one or two Danish problems in connection with this directive.
They relate to Amendments Nos 2, 15, 16 and 17, since it is debatable to what extent the Commission should have the power to act.
It could be the next question to investigate, when we have all the statistical information.
But leave that to one side for the moment.
I support the report as it has been adopted in committee, but have particular misgivings with regard to Amendments Nos 16 and 17.
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<SPEAKER ID=257 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the PPE Group supports Mr Watts' report wholeheartedly, with two small exceptions, namely Amendments Nos 9 and 14.
I think they go a little too far, but then Mr Watts is after all a perfectionist!
On the matter itself, however, we entirely agree with him.
More than 2000 of our fellow men have lost their life in ferry accidents in the past years.
<P>
Unfortunately, Mr Watts, the ADAC study this year showed up considerable safety defects even in countries flying Member State flags.
I think the Commissioner knows what I mean.
We must ensure that all Community ferries flying a European flag fulfil the safety requirements.
Like Mr Watts and his colleagues, we maintain that the Commission proposals for ro-ro ferry operating conditions must be tightened up further.
<P>
We agree with the view that it is no longer sufficient to rely on the flag state's safety checks.
We have fallen into that trap too often.
We must ensure that the host state, i.e. the state to or from whose ports a ship operates a regular service used by its citizens, applies an effective, mandatory survey system.
<P>
We entirely agree that passenger ferries must be fitted with a voyage data recorder, which must also be equipped with its own battery, as also on the need for strict compliance with the transitional provisions that have applied hitherto.
Passenger safety must be the same for everybody, as must accident investigation, regardless of the age of the vessel or the Member State in which it is registered.
<P>
We also agree with the rapporteur that the Commission's database of incidents on or relating to ferries must be accessible not only to the Member States, but also to the public who want to travel on them, so that everyone can find out which shipping lines and which ships are safe and draw their own conclusions.
If shipping companies look at their bookings and find they have fallen, that might lead them to consider bringing their vessels up to the latest standards in order not to lose passengers.
<P>
It is certainly also right to accept safety standards in the form that applies during the checks and not as they apply when this directive is adopted, since I believe we will still have to tighten up some areas.
In conclusion, let me draw your attention to a point we keep raising, and I am keen to hear the Commission's reply to the other questions put by Mr Watts.
Our main problem is always that even if we adopt the right directives and hope the Member States will implement them properly, the key question is still this: do the Member States actually apply them, and if so how?
Do they all carry out equally careful checks; in the event of defects do they all draw equally stringent conclusions?
I believe quite a lot remains to be done here and I am eager to know whether the Commissioner can say a few words on this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=258 NAME="Teverson">
Mr President, we certainly welcome this further legislation, which is absolutely essential for the safety of passengers for whom this is one of the main forms of travel between Member States.
There are a number of areas that are important about this particular report such as the fact that we have included high-speed passenger craft.
Now there is increasing competition between ro-ro ferries and this type of transport we need to make sure that there is an equal emphasis on both these forms.
<P>
I want to comment, in particular on enforcement.
This has been mentioned by the EPP group and concerns me in a number of areas of legislation.
Europe is moving ahead quite rightly with its legislation for safety on ro-ro ferries which is a form of transport that is both theoretically and, as we have seen, practically potentially a very unstable form of craft.
<P>
What I should particularly like to know from the Commission is how an enforcement system will be successfully implemented for the public good.
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This is a key area for the European Parliament to be involved in.
Citizens regularly travel on ferries. We need to ensure their safety.
<P>
I should like to thank Mr Watts for his report which is an extremely good one.
Enforcement is an absolutely key area.
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<SPEAKER ID=259 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, we too believe that Mr Watts' report on checking the safety of ro-ro ferries and high-speed passenger craft services in the Community is a very important one, and after the many accidents that have happened we must include it in the framework of legislative initiatives on safety.
<P>
The presence of a voyage data recorder, and the Transport Committee's proposals such as those for an annual report on the safety of ships and for a data bank open to the public, are in my view important steps, although still not sufficient.
We think that ship safety issues should be covered more broadly still, and in particular that their implementation should be monitored, because from a practical standpoint we can see that the situation is a long way both from what we are calling for here today, and from the measures enacted in the European Union.
<P>
Implementation must take place in ways which the European Union itself sometimes does not allow to proceed.
Given this opportunity, perhaps I ought to mention that we were very concerned indeed about the fact that, in another directive on the safety of passenger craft, which requires the refitting of vessels which will be 27 years old in October 2000, Greek vessels are being exempted.
As a Greek MEP, I would like to say that we cannot in any way accept this exemption, which might have been acceptable for economic or social reasons in other sectors such as textile factories or shoe manufacturing, for example, but which is not acceptable when it comes to the safety of passenger vessels, when Greek ships can be temporarily exempted from refitting, but at the same time the ships thus exempted will not be allowed to sail into European ports, thereby in effect making our country a banana republic.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=260 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
<SPEAKER ID=261 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Stenmarck">
<SPEAKER ID=262 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, this directive is indeed an important link in our strategy to increase marine safety.
It forms part of a series of measures decided by the Council in the wake of the Estonia disaster in December 1994.
No one will be surprised to find me supporting this proposal, since the Finnish Minister of Transport at the time of that disaster was Ole Norrback, the former chairman and leader of my party.
<P>
Importantly for marine safety, the directive stipulates binding survey requirements, establishes clear rules for the investigation of accidents at sea and calls for the fitting of voyage data recorders or 'black boxes'.
Although this will entail higher costs for maritime transport, I still support the proposal.
We need a level playing field, because the provisions governing EMU tend to be interpreted in different ways and this creates uncertainty.
<P>
Privatisation of public administrations is not feasible where the economic interests involved are too great; this emerged clearly from the background studies carried out in preparation for this directive.
Yet I am sure everyone would agree that a system of quality control and best practice will be essential to ensure that the public bodies are doing their job.
<P>
It is good to see that countries other than traditional maritime nations like the United Kingdom, Ireland and Finland are now supporting this proposal.
I am fully behind Amendment No 3, which calls for the provisions to apply to traffic to and from the same port. This is precisely the kind of operation we have in my area of the world.
<P>
Amendment No 12, on the other hand, runs counter to the subsidiarity principle, in my view.
The question of cost allocation should be dealt with by the Member States themselves.
<P>
I am not one to heap thanks on rapporteurs, but this time I really would like to say thank you to Mr Watts for the good work he has done.
On behalf of all of us in this House, I wish him every success with his evaluation of the ADAC report he refers to in his explanatory statement.
His report is certainly an excellent memorial to the victims of the Estonia disaster.
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<SPEAKER ID=263 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Sarlis">
Mr President, I too - together with the rest of the House as we have seen - can only welcome the report by Mr Watts and applaud his work, as well as the amendments he has tabled and which I believe Parliament will approve tomorrow by a large majority.
<P>
I must say, however, that the Commission has made a great deal of progress in this area and has proposed a substantial number of directives and regulations on the safety of ships.
And, quite rightly, those directives are adopted and pass into law.
But it has largely neglected measures to assist European shipping.
Let me remind you that, until the end of the 1980s, the Commission was literally bombarding Parliament with proposals for measures to support European shipping.
Then, all of a sudden, there were no further proposals or discussions about positive measures to preserve European shipping, and the only issues which now concern the Commission are ones involving safety.
That is not blameworthy in itself, but there is an imbalance.
At this time, the people who have to run these shipping lines see a ship's operating costs increasing, since it must be modern and properly equipped with all that Mr Watts' report quite rightly says it should be.
<P>
However, there are no positive measures on behalf of shipping.
Shipping has been forgotten as an industry.
There is no interest in shipping, and so we have Hapag Lloyd leaving Germany, P & O leaving Great Britain, Stena Line leaving the Scandinavian countries, all of them going to well-known tax havens because only by avoiding taxes can they cope with the increased costs of operating their vessels.
I am saying all this because I want an answer from the Commission on what it intends to do about measures to support European shipping, even at this eleventh hour.
Because without European shipping there will be no European seamen.
A sure way of making the European seaman disappear as a species is for there to be no ships under European flags.
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<SPEAKER ID=264 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Donnay">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, maritime safety, the object of this proposal for a directive, is something of vital importance.
Things had reached a point where the European Union just had to do something about it.
So I congratulate the Commission and the Council on completing the legislative architecture they have gradually been putting into place in recent years after the tragedies we saw at the start of the decade.
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The proposal for a directive now before us follows on from a number of initiatives designed to deal with the safety of ro-ro ferries.
It is the third text which the Commission has presented in response to the Council's wishes in respect of maritime passenger transport safety.
<P>
And so, following the regulation imposing compliance, ahead of time, with the International Safety Management Code and the directive requiring the compulsory registration of persons on board passenger ships, the proposal for a directive covered in Mr Watts' report seeks to set up a system for compulsory monitoring of all passenger ro-ro ferries leaving or entering European Union ports, and to allow Member States to inspect all such vessels for safety, including the right to conduct inquiries into any accidents at sea.
<P>
These legislative texts are all the result of a Council resolution of 22 December 1994 on the safety of ro-ro passenger ferries, adopted after a number of tragic accidents to ferries operating between European ports.
We all remember the Herald of Free Enterprise , Scandinavian Star and Estonia disasters, to name but few of the more recent ones.
These disasters, let us not forget, took the lives of close on 2 000 people.
The Union had to act.
<P>
The proposal for a directive will cover nearly 550 vessels and high-speed passenger craft and 277 European ports. The rapporteur tells us that 141 818 786 passengers were carried in 1996.
That shows how timely it is to consider the issue.
<P>
In this respect standardisation, the harmonisation of safety regulations at Union level is altogether paramount if passengers are to travel in optimum safety.
<P>
In conclusion, may I compliment the rapporteur on the quality of the arguments outlined in his report.
I know that maritime safety is a subject dear to his heart.
He has done an outstanding job and put in a great deal of hard work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=265 NAME="Papoutsis">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to say that I am speaking for the European Commission on behalf of my colleague Mr Kinnock, who is very sorry that he cannot be here at today's sitting, since he is in Luxembourg at the Council of Environment Ministers, deputising for my colleague Mrs Ritt Bjerregaard, who has had a slight accident and is unfortunately out of action.
<P>
I am particularly pleased that Mr Watts' report is in favour of introducing into the Community an extensive and mandatory survey regime, with routine investigations in the event of any incidents on regular passenger vessel routes.
I am glad to be able to tell you that the Commission will support a substantial number of the amendments proposed in the report.
To be specific, with reservations about a few changes to the wording, the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 4, 5, 10 and 11, and can also accept in principle Amendments Nos 9, 12 and 15.
Many of these amendments seek to ensure and maintain consistency with other directives and regulations concerning maritime safety.
However, the same concern about consistency prevents us from accepting Amendments Nos 3, 7 and 14.
Amendment No 6 proposes that the IMO guidelines, the International Maritime Organisation's Resolution No A.746, should apply as they stand during the surveys, in accordance with Article 13.
While we appreciate the wish to apply the most up-to-date rules, as legislators we cannot contemplate the automatic application of future amendments to official IMO acts.
However, the Commission's services are working on a proposal to deal with that situation, and I am confident that it will satisfy Parliament.
<P>
One of the most important measures proposed for the system of investigations after incidents is the obligatory presence on the vessel of an instrument to record data related to the journey, the voyage data recorder, or VDR.
<P>
The Commission has taken due note of the technical difficulties that could arise during the fitting of such instruments to existing vessels.
For that reason, our proposal allows the Commission to make exceptions regarding certain technical demands which must be satisfied by VDRs.
We think this possibility of allowing exceptions is fundamental, and consequently we cannot accept that it should be limited to five years as in Amendment No 8.
As regards the information on the particulars of ro-ro ferries, Amendment No 13 proposes firstly that these should be made publicly available and, secondly, that they should form the basis of an annual report to be drawn up by the Commission.
While we echo the demand for transparency, I must draw Parliament's attention to the risks that could stem from the publication of these data, particularly in relation to trustworthiness, security and commercial fraud.
The Commission's interest in precisely this area led it to propose a comitology procedure to determine the prerequisites for access to such data.
The issue of transparency brings us to Amendment No 15, which requires the Commission to assess progress in the area of ro-ro ferry safety in the light of the 1994 Council resolution.
The Commission obviously agrees with the need for regular assessments relating to measures adopted by the Community, provided such assessments are carried out at the right time and at reasonable intervals so as to be effective.
For that reason, I propose that the assessment called for should take place three years after the directive comes into force, and the related submission of the annual report should take place within the already existing framework for submitting reports on the implementation of Community law.
Amendments Nos 16 and 17 propose that Member States should provide additional information on the customer services facilities and about the number of crew members employed on a regular service and the number employed on a temporary basis.
Given that these matters are not included in the requirements of international conventions or in Community laws on the safety of shipping, I see no need to add that information, nor any value in doing so.
I should like to thank the rapporteur Mr Watts, and the European Parliament too, for facilitating the early approval of the common position on this important measure, one which I sincerely believe will open the way towards improving the safety of European citizens travelling on the Community's waters.
Turning to the questions put by Mr Watts, Mr Jarzembowski and Mr Teverson, I would like to say that as regards the possibility of the directive being implemented by the Member States, of course the Member States are responsible for implementing Community law.
The Commission encourages the implementation of these decisions, takes care to see that the national legislation is adapted promptly, and of course takes action if there are protests.
Precisely because the subject is a serious issue, we believe the Member States ought to respond quickly.
As for Mr Watts' next question, I should like to say that the Commission is monitoring the application of the Stockholm review and the implementation of the directive on specifications for passenger vessels.
I assure you that if we see a need to act in that context, we will do so at once.
<P>
Turning now to Mr Watts' third question, let me say that as regards the reliability of black boxes on ships, we must be quite clear: there is no guarantee of 100 % reliability even in air transport, and nobody can guarantee 100 % reliability in the use of black boxes, especially after many years.
However, the Commission will certainly continue trying to ensure the highest possible specifications in accordance with the IMO rules, in other words the specifications relating to equipment and operation.
<P>
And finally, on the question put by Mr Stenmarck, I would like to say that to improve the safety of ro-ro ferries, we must fully implement the Community laws that we have adopted over all these years.
That indeed is the challenge and the duty of us all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=266 NAME="Watts">
Mr President, very briefly, on some of those points, most of us would welcome the comments in relation to Amendment 15 regarding the safety assessment.
But we still need to receive a clear explanation from the Commission why these voyage data recorders cannot be fitted within what seems to us to be a very generous period of five years from the date of implementation of this directive.
Secondly, why can we not trust the public to decide for itself whether or not ferry travel is safe?
If we can make the data available to the operators, we should have the courage of our convictions and make the data available to the public and indeed to the passengers themselves.
<P>
I welcome the answers regarding enforcement of the Stockholm review but I note that the Commissioner failed to answer my specific point regarding auxiliary power for black box voyage data recorders.
Without such power, in an emergency these black boxes are potentially worthless.
While I appreciate that a response may not be forthcoming tonight, I would appreciate a response in writing to that particular point of detail.
I would like to thank the Commissioner nonetheless.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=267 NAME="Papoutsis">
Mr President, first of all, I think that my answer to the questions concerning Amendment No 8 was complete and I do not think it could be made any more so, particularly in relation to the technical specifications we use to record the data.
As for the other technical questions raised by Mr Watts, I sincerely promise on behalf of the Commission that he will be answered in writing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=268 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Pan-European transport network
<SPEAKER ID=269 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0241/98) by Mr Sisó Cruellas, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the Commission communication to the Council and the European Parliament 'Connecting the Union's transport infrastructure network to its neighbours - towards a cooperative pan-European transport network policy' (COM(97)0172 - C4-0206/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=270 NAME="Sisó Cruellas">
Mr President, the cooperative pan-European transport network policy must be seen as part of a dynamic process that has already found expression in different procedures and in the previous pan-European conferences that were held in Prague and Crete and that certainly did not end in Helsinki.
<P>
However, what we are discussing now is bringing the results of these conferences to fruition by putting the ideas developed into practice.
One of the priorities should be to establish and consolidate a global strategy that will finally lead to the creation of an integrated and multimodal pan-European transport infrastructure network.
Such an ambitious objective may only be attained through a complex and sustained process of coordination of the different participants and complementarity of the available resources. It also requires the harmonisation of the principles and criteria that should govern the actions required if the Union is to play its key role of stimulating and guiding the overall pattern, bearing in mind that the various starting points are very different.
And, above all, we need to have the cooperation of the governments, the international financial institutions and the private sector.
But if we are to achieve the desired results from this process, it must be carried out in a transparent manner.
It is vital that information be made available so that we can assess progress to date and determine what still has to be done at any given moment.
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The role of the TINA group is to analyse the existing transport infrastructures, to calculate the estimated growth in the volume of traffic, to assess infrastructure needs and to determine the future trans-European transport networks in an enlarged Union.
The careful completion of this work is extremely important as only in that way can we ensure that Community resources and activities are being used appropriately.
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The fundamental issues which, in my mind, must be highlighted when trying to overcome obstacles to the establishment of the transport infrastructure networks that Europe needs are: interoperability, funding, the availability of mature projects, and any uncertainties that exist.
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The actions aimed at guaranteeing the interoperability of these networks require, and will continue to require, a considerable technical effort and considerable investment.
This is all the more important since the modern transport infrastructure networks of the Member States have been developed according to a vision that is completely different to that of the possibility of a market without borders and the role the infrastructures must play in the development of this market.
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The interoperability of networks is therefore a matter that should be resolved beforehand, because if there is no interoperability, there will be no free movement.
But I believe that if obstacles to interoperability are to be removed, then creating objective conditions that will eliminate any positions and interests that are objectively contrary to interoperability will be just as, if not more, important than developing agreed Community standards on every aspect involved.
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As always, the main problem is how to finance the construction of the transport infrastructures.
When public debates on financing transport infrastructures use the word 'finance' with no other clarification, they usually overlook or misunderstand the difference between financing in the strict sense and paying.
Therefore, the fact that the resources allocated and the participating agents in each of these operations can be - and often are - totally separate is overlooked.
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From this standpoint, financing transport infrastructures, in the strictest sense of the word, implies an intermediary operation which involves obtaining and providing the immediate resources required to allow investment to be made and objectives to be met.
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However, paying for transport infrastructures is a more final operation which involves providing final resources that will allow the economic cycle of investment to be brought to a close.
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In the present economic circumstances in the European Union, with deficit amounts and public debt being severely limited, it is very difficult to find the levels of investment needed for the pan-European transport infrastructure networks.
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The variety of theoretically valid formulas for the intermediate financing of the transport infrastructures springs from the wide variety of possible responses to the identification and assessment of economic flows, which may become a source of finance and be allocated to a private agent.
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The Community's obvious concern over the problem of private funding for transport infrastructures has led the Commission to present a communication on public-private partnerships in the trans-European transport network projects.
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A careful reading of the communication and an evaluation of the real problems that, in the last analysis, gave rise to such partnerships suggest that the key issues are those I mentioned earlier.
One of these issues is the inadequacy of European long-term capital markets: these markets are vital in managing the risks involved in an investment that matures over a long period of time. Other key issues are the absence of mature projects and the distrust and uncertainty of the private sector as regards the current and future activities of the public sector, particularly in terms of the cooperative pan-European transport networks proposed by the Commission that encompass the Union, the governments of the Member States and of the other countries involved, the international financial institutions and the private sector.
We must offer potential investors, construction enterprises, transport service providers and the capital goods sector a stable framework for their financial transactions.
If stability is to prevail, the governments of the partner countries will, of course, have to take on their responsibilities and create a clear political and legal framework. This will allow investors to be fully aware of the political and administrative risks involved in the projects and, at the same time, to respect EU legislation on competition, the environment and public contracts.
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<SPEAKER ID=271 NAME="Leperre-Verrier">
Mr President, better connections between European transport networks and those of our neighbours is an objective which the European Union has been pursuing for many years.
That said, the process has for a long time been fragmentary, not to say chaotic, resulting in a whole mosaic of provisions.
The Commission communication on connecting the Union's infrastructures is a coherent and rational response and is altogether consistent with the implementation of the findings of the third Pan-European Transport Conference in Helsinki.
So we should welcome this desire to coordinate and bring some order into the situation, because the action plan is undeniably a step forward.
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The concept of interoperability, with all it implies by way of adapting standards and legislative measures, is especially interesting because it will allow the combination of very different technologies and partnerships between public and private structures.
Clearly, the prospect of enlargement makes this multi-directional approach all the more essential.
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That being so, this strategy applies equally to the newly independent states and to the Euro-Mediterranean countries.
But the countries of Central and Eastern Europe are concerned primarily with the creation of these nine corridors, which have now become ten.
This requires these applicant countries to modernise their infrastructures and find the funds to do it.
They will receive money from PHARE for the purpose, but they will also need loans from the EIB, EBRD or World Bank.
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The REX Committee congratulates the Commission on the general structure of this communication, but has raised a number of questions in its opinion.
I am grateful to the rapporteur for taking our comments on board in his excellent report.
Whilst we see improved transport infrastructures as a factor for development and thus for growth and believe that this will ultimately bring the CEECs closer to the countries of the Union, financing these networks may prove difficult.
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Nor must we underestimate the environmental and social problems which a growth in transport, especially road transport, will bring.
So answers have to be found to pressing problems: the development of piggy-back transport, definition of anti-pollution standards, and so on.
These observations apply to all aspects of communications in and around the Mediterranean basin; the same problem arises in our relations with Switzerland, and this is something I should like to touch on, ladies and gentlemen, both on my own account and on behalf of my group.
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I refer to the progress of negotiations between the European Community and Switzerland on transport and towards a settlement of the dispute between ourselves and that country over the Swiss concern that transit traffic through Switzerland should not cause congestion in the Alpine valleys.
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So we can only welcome the result of the Swiss referendum of 27 September last, even though the negotiations are not yet completed.
Believe me, ladies and gentlemen, in our debate this evening this matter is far from insignificant.
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<SPEAKER ID=272 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to congratulate Mr Sisó Cruellas on this report.
If European transport policy were as comprehensive and well-structured as his report, we would be living in a very happy Europe in terms of transport.
Unfortunately, that is not the case and I must say at the outset that this report - which, like the Commission's communication, concerns connecting the Union's transport infrastructure with that in Eastern Europe, i.e. in the applicant countries, and with that in certain countries to the north and south - shows that we have not done our homework properly.
When we look at what has happened to the trans-European transport networks, it strikes me that we have definitely not done enough.
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The Commission has drawn up a report for the Cardiff Council.
I hold Commissioner Kinnock in very high regard and I also value his optimism.
He sees the glass as a quarter full rather than three quarters empty.
But the plain fact is that we have not managed to fulfil the requirements of the Delors white paper in this area even to a slight extent or to keep within the time frame.
The funding is inadequate.
Nor have we defined the political objectives clearly enough.
With its referendum, Switzerland recently sent out a signal that is important for Europe too, namely that it is quite prepared to make financial resources available in the form of a performance-related freight transport charge, in order to develop rail transport.
For when we talk about a transport infrastructure we are of course talking about a common infrastructure.
We are looking at roads, but most of all at the railways and at the fact that we need the financial resources to develop them.
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Mr Jarzembowski will surely agree with me that the German elections have brought about a decisive change in this respect too, perhaps not to his satisfaction, but certainly to mine.
Precisely in regard to developing the railways and reorienting transport policy, I hope and expect quite a few changes and new initiatives so that we can put more emphasis on developing public transport, in particular the railway infrastructure, to ensure intermodal transport and interoperability in future too.
That is absolutely essential, for we can only approach our neighbours with a good conscience if we ourselves do what we tell them to do.
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So we are facing major challenges here; the rapporteur has mentioned TINA, the secretariat in Vienna that is to evaluate infrastructure requirements and has already begun to do so.
How much actually needs doing, and can it even be financed?
According to TINA, some 18 000 km of roads and 20 000 km of railways are to be incorporated in this network.
To that must of course be added airports and maritime and inland waterway transport.
The estimated development costs up to the year 2015 come to about ECU 87 billion.
Some ECU 65 billion will be needed for the core network.
Can that be funded?
Yes it can, it accounts for about 1.5 % of our neighbouring countries' GNP.
That is a little more than the 1.2 % that the European Union spends on developing the transport system.
Yet we must remember that some of these countries are very poor and that, not surprisingly, it is in some of the poorest countries that the need is greatest.
In Romania, Bulgaria and Lithuania the investment need is far higher than 1.5 %, which means they will need European Union support if they are to have any chance of developing their infrastructure, adapting it to the Western European level or even exceeding that level.
Of course both sides must engage on this adaptation process.
<P>
In this connection, since I attach great value to developing the railways, although without forgetting road transport, I believe the European railways will also have to assume more responsibility for development not just in Western but also in Eastern Europe, which means the railways will have to cooperate.
So let me say at this point that the railways should stop waiting for initiatives from Brussels or elsewhere but do more themselves to develop the railway system in a client-based and client-friendly manner.
By that I do not just mean passenger transport but, of course, public transport too.
Agence Europe reported today that a certain unease had emerged in the discussions about eastward enlargement.
That may be so and I have no intention of disputing it.
We cannot just talk it away but must realise that the people of Europe will only accept and fully support enlargement if they see that both east and west are making greater efforts to help them master the challenges of their everyday life - which includes transport - than we have done in the past.
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<SPEAKER ID=273 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, my colleague Mr Sisó Cruellas's report is so excellent that I really have nothing to add, for it has all been said.
I just want to address one point which the Socialists smuggled into the committee discussions but that really has no direct bearing on the report, namely paragraph 25, which we must reject.
The proposed agreement between the European Union and Switzerland on overland transport negotiated by Mr Kinnock and supported by the Group of the Party of European Socialists contains what we regard as unacceptably sharp rises in transit charges for HGVs, which would fall on the transport industry, the economy and, in the end, the consumer.
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It is unacceptable that a lorry should be made to fork out a charge of 325 Swiss francs for a one-way trip from Basel to Chiasso from the year 2001 instead of 25 Swiss francs, even if it is one of the 40-tonne lorries that will then be authorised.
It is unacceptable!
Even if, as Mr Swoboda and the previous speaker said, 57 % of Swiss people agreed to the introduction of this kind of performance-related freight charge in the referendum of 27 September, all I can say is that this may be an endorsement of the Swiss Government's position but surely it cannot dictate the negotiations with the European Union!
Then we might as well do the same and hold a European Union referendum that Switzerland would have to accept.
This cannot be true!
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So I would call on the Commission to perhaps regard this referendum result as an endorsement of the Swiss Government's position, but certainly not to allow or accept it.
In the interests of our hauliers, our industry, our consumers, we must have reasonable transit charges.
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At any rate, let me say to my colleagues in the Group of the Party of European Socialists that we cannot accept the proposed agreement with Switzerland, if only because we do not even know whether Switzerland will approve the construction of the two new railway tunnels and the necessary funding in a month's time.
If the Swiss people reject the construction of the railway tunnels and the funding required, there would be no commercial reason left for having the agreement with Switzerland.
We are making overland transport more expensive and telling people to use the railway tunnels; and then we reject railway tunnels too!
That is pointless!
That is why we must tell the Swiss that we insist on a mutual rapprochement and expect an approach based on partnership.
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Let me briefly reply to Mr Swoboda's questions.
We are in favour of rail.
We are glad the German railways, like the Dutch and Swedish railways, are implementing Directive 91/440.
Other Member States have not even begun to implement the 1991 directive, as they should have done by 1995.
But since Mr Swoboda pleaded so strongly for the railways, let me make a brief comment.
I entirely agree with him, we should not preach something to Eastern Europe that we are not doing ourselves.
But in that case we really should tackle the special project decided in Essen in 1994 and make a start on building the Brenner tunnel; perhaps you should discuss this with your government some time.
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<SPEAKER ID=274 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, may I begin by complimenting the rapporteur, who is becoming a real expert on infrastructure and how to improve it.
But we have to agree that we are in effect getting further and further away from the original purpose of the trans-European networks and their extension to non-Union countries, because the initial idea was to link up our own national networks.
What we are embarking on now is a gigantic undertaking.
The bill for it will be gigantic too, and we do not have the money, certainly not for Eastern Europe, where infrastructure is virtually non-existent.
So we now face the problem that the people in Eastern Europe want more road transport, they want us to pay for it, and such infrastructure as they have, namely railways and inland waterways, is being sorely neglected.
So I think we have to hold fast to the objective of multimodal transport.
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This brings me to the point we are considering to some extent this evening, the debate on Switzerland - though that is not the main issue here.
Let us be very clear.
Mr Swoboda has gone, but Austria has yet to turn a single sod towards building its own rail tunnel under the Brenner.
So it is all very well me holding forth about Switzerland, but we should first take a look in the mirror.
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The second point is that we want to avoid road transit traffic through Austria, but that means that the Swiss are themselves busy improving their infrastructure and so we need to be sure of agreeing a fair solution with them.
So the current paragraph 25, which Mr Jarzembowski does not like, is very much appropriate here, and my group will be supporting it.
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<SPEAKER ID=275 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Lagendijk">
Regrettably, Mr President, I have to say that while there is much that is good in Mr Sisó's report, it is guilty of the same shortcoming of which he himself accuses the Commission, namely it is a very general proposal containing little by way of specifics.
I am very keen that Parliament should take prompt action to follow through the proposals made by the Commission and by Mr Sisó too.
But the problem arises of which way we should now go, because the opening-up of Central Europe, for example by connecting it to the trans-European networks, will lead to an enormous growth in freight and passenger traffic and thus to environmental degradation.
So I am glad to see that Mr Sisó's report several times raises the question of environmental pollution and suggests how it might be controlled in future if Central Europe joins the European Union.
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I think it is likely, in my view, that it is not so much the law of the inhibitory head's start which will obtain, but rather what I would call the law of the innovation lag.
What do I mean by that?
I believe it is possible, or should be possible in future, to make use in Central Europe of the latest sustainable and environmentally friendly technologies which we have only been to apply in Western Europe very recently, in a way which will avoid the mistakes we have made for too long in Western Europe, namely paying too little heed to public transport and continuing to build far too many roads for far too long.
The danger of the same thing happening in Eastern Europe is a real one, and we must all work to stop it.
My group sees two priorities here.
I agree with those who say that because money is tight we must rein ourselves in and refrain from grand designs - we should confine ourselves to a few plans which meet the criteria of sustainability and transparency, and we should not lose sight either of the fact that things are happening in Eastern Europe which hint at the imminent collapse of forms of public transport which in fact work perfectly well, whilst more and more people are travelling to work under their own steam.
I am very anxious that the Union should spend time and money on reversing this trend and clearing the way for sustainable transport systems in Eastern Europe too.
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<SPEAKER ID=276 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sindal">
Mr President, there is nothing more satisfying than to sit in front of a computer drawing infrastructure, roads and railways, then doing some calculations, thumping the desk and saying 'that is how it will be'.
Mr Swoboda also said something on those lines.
Many of us feel the same way about all these traffic planners.
We suspect them of making it a little too simple.
But let me warn them: it is a long way from theory to practice.
We must be clear that the aim of this communication from the Commission is to secure the strategy.
Let there be no doubt about my support for that.
But the strategy only works if one is able to ensure that neighbouring countries and Member States are serious and will honour their commitments.
I have three comments of a general nature to make on this.
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To begin with, the partnership which is to create a transport network extending into the next century will also, in the context of an enlarged internal market, help to secure growth possibilities and have a decisive influence on the sustainability of the pan-European project.
That has something to do with prioritisation and realistic economics.
I cannot associate myself with Mr Wijsenbeek's remarks regarding the new applicant countries.
They are currently spending more of their gross national product on their transport networks than we are.
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Secondly, the communication represents a huge leap forward, without subsidiary aims or description of methods.
That has also been mentioned.
Perhaps they are not appropriate at the present stage, but we ourselves know the situation when neighbouring countries disagree over strategy and method.
It is even more difficult when the Union takes one view and the neighbouring country takes another.
I could conceive of a process of step-by-step agreements, so that a common way forward is assured.
Now the Commissioner will perhaps say shortly that that is how it is done.
Yes, but I know of both good and bad examples.
I know of a good example as regards shipping in the Baltic area, but I also know only too well of a bad example in connection with the development of motorways.
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A third comment relates to ambitious technological projects, such as satellites, telematics, traffic service, etc.
These are good advances, but they can only be exploited if the transport carrier has the equipment for them and they can only be exploited if the law provides for their use.
We talked earlier about black boxes.
Now, for the fourth year, I am rapporteur on what is called 'vessel traffic service', which means that, by analogy with air traffic control, ships can be assigned sailing routes via satellite.
That would indeed be a way forward, which could prevent many accidents, but unfortunately we cannot implement these proposals.
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I am certain that we are on the right road, but I am also convinced that, if we do not follow up what we decide on operationally, we shall have some problems.
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<SPEAKER ID=277 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Stenmarck">
Mr President, one of the most worthwhile projects we can pursue is providing the physical infrastructure to link the EU candidate countries with the existing Member States.
A bird's eye look at Europe reveals the dividing line drawn after World War Two between those countries which received Marshall aid and those that did not.
This is the division we now need to bridge as part of the current reunification and integration process.
There are those who say that the enterprise will cost a great deal of money.
Quite true - and it will inevitably take a number of years, but we should remember that spreading prosperity is in our mutual interest.
Improvements in road and rail networks on the other side of the old Iron Curtain directly benefit the countries concerned, but all of us will gain from the improved situation.
Any such investment has a positive spin-off for everyone.
Increased growth and new job opportunities can be expected, not only in the candidate countries, but within the whole area of what I hope will one day become a much larger European Union.
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The rapporteur has indicated one major problem: access to private capital.
Perhaps I might ask the Commissioner responsible what further steps the Commission intends to take to boost private investment in roads and railways in the former Communist countries.
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<SPEAKER ID=278 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Schifone">
Mr President, there can be no doubt as to the need for a global transport strategy.
The transport sector is vital to socio-economic growth in the Community, and so a long-term, across-the-board strategy is needed for the development of social relations within the European Union.
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A pan-European, multimodal transport infrastructure network is therefore needed, one which is well balanced and encompasses the entire continent, including the Mediterranean basin.
In this context, the Commission has drawn up an impressive communication setting out its five themes for action: development of the concept of nine pan-European corridors, plus the latest one for the former Yugoslavia; extension of the Union's trans-European networks to the applicant countries; a joint approach to the use of interoperable technologies; intelligent network use; and cooperation in research and development.
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Nevertheless, all of this could remain hypothetical unless attention is paid to the sources of funding to be used.
Therefore our request to the Commission is that it provide more precise information, both on the progress and timetabling of these actions and on the relevant sources of finance.
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I should like to end by reminding the Commission that a fresh commitment to improving links with the East European countries should not divert the EU from the equally vital task of improving transport links with the Mediterranean basin. These too are without doubt crucial for the European Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=279 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schierhuber">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, transport routes have been vital to trade and commerce since time immemorial.
The economic growth of a region and the prosperity of its people depend on opening up trade routes.
Rural areas in particular need an effective transport infrastructure which, together with other infrastructure measures, can prevent rural depopulation and decline.
Products can reach the buyers and consumers, there is more chance of employment in rural areas and that of course boosts competitiveness in general.
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That is why we must support a coherent, efficient and safe, but also environmentally compatible transport system in the Union.
But the European Union must also pay attention to link-ups with neighbouring states and the development of the Central and Eastern European countries' transport infrastructure.
Both they and the European Union will profit from improved transport links, since this can further strengthen export and trade.
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Under the PHARE and TACIS programmes, interregional and cross-border projects are to be supported.
The rural areas of Central and Eastern Europe need a well thought-out transport infrastructure for their development, to prevent large-scale migration to the towns and to promote employment and economic growth.
But we must realise one thing: within the Union, and in view of enlargement, our priority aim must be to shift traffic to environmentally friendly transport modes.
Here I am thinking in particular of combined transport, rail transport and, above all, inland waterway transport.
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<SPEAKER ID=280 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pomés Ruiz">
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Joaquín Sisó Cruellas on his excellent report.
As has already been said, we are honoured to have a Member such as Mr Sisó Cruellas in our midst with such knowledge of the field of transport.
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Secondly, I would like to briefly refer to the Commission's well-chosen title for this communication: 'Towards a pan-European Policy'.
Transport policies should indeed be Community policies, they should continue to be Community policies and they should continue to come under heading 3 of the budget and not heading 2, as some think, since this may be structural expenditure.
It is strictly a Community policy and, therefore, should remain under heading 3.
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Transport networks are, undoubtedly, one of the most direct factors of development and, as a result, we must pay close attention to the fact that, with the future enlargement of the Union, we will have to give priority to such networks. Yet we should not offer more than a helping hand as there are severe financing problems.
We cannot raise expectations and then realise that we are unable to finance them.
Therefore, the time has come to involve the free market as much as possible, and to bring private businesses and private investors into the construction and financing of these networks. In this way, the unfortunately small amount of money we will be able to take from the budget to finance these networks might act as an incentive so that those businesses, banks and groups of investors can get a return on their investments in the medium term.
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It cannot be denied that the trans-European networks will be the making of the European Union.
Now - and in the future with enlargement - we must believe that the European Union will be more of a union in that it will be more united. Also, trans-European networks will no longer be a pipe dream, and this will be shown in the budget with a sufficiently large amount to encourage public or private initiatives to help develop these networks.
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<SPEAKER ID=281 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pinel">
Mr President, the rapporteur's aspiration is for a system which is coherent, safe and kind to the environment.
That is a good thing.
Today, the overwhelming volume of road freight transport is a typical example of practices which are incoherent, unsafe and dirty.
Goods trains are disappearing from our railways, waterway transport is stagnating.
At the same time, the proliferation of heavy goods vehicles on the roads is pushing up considerably the cost of maintaining our major highways and the number of road accident victims too.
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The report passes over in silence a question which is nevertheless a fundamental one: who is to pay for infrastructure, the user or the taxpayer?
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At present there are two coexisting systems as far as the roads are concerned, which means duplication and many forms of wastage.
It is not good for the environment, or for our finances either.
We shall have to choose between these two systems one day.
Nowadays we have the technology to apply the principle that the user pays, and to make its application widespread.
Modern on-board electronic equipment means that we can measure exactly how much a vehicle costs.
This is the most environmentally friendly and fairest solution, and the one which uses taxpayers' money to best effect.
<P>
Some aspects of the report are problematic.
Firstly, the action plan does not specify which measures are needed, concrete problems are not identified and there is no timetable.
The rapporteur himself deplores this.
Secondly, the manifest intention is that European taxpayers should pay for infrastructure in the countries of the Maghreb, in Turkey or the Middle East and I, for my part, am opposed to that.
<P>
As regards Russia, and even beyond, as the report says, I am in favour of certain agreements with Eastern Europe but there would seem to be areas which require far more urgent attention, not least the energy sector, before we reach into our pockets for infrastructure in Russia which, let us not forget, the West has already funded in the past for no return at all.
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For all these reasons and because I do not think this has been thought through sufficiently, I am in favour of referring this dossier back to committee.
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<SPEAKER ID=282 NAME="Papoutsis">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in our policy on transport infrastructure in Europe, there is a clear distinction between on the one hand the strategy concerning the transport network on the continent of Europe as a whole, and on the other hand the special situation applying to countries which are candidates for accession to the European Union.
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For that reason, the Commission's communication firstly deals with the enlargement of the Trans-European Transport Network of the European Union, which was designed to serve the needs of the internal market and the social and economic cohesion of an enlarged Europe.
Secondly, it deals with the pan-European corridors and transport areas which provide appropriate links throughout the continent.
And, thirdly, it deals with links between Europe and Asia.
I need not repeat the details of the differences between those concepts, since it is clear from the report by Mr Sisó Cruellas that you agree with our view about the appropriateness of that approach.
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To form the Pan-European Transport Network, we propose that a partnership should be set up which covers the continent as a whole.
The Helsinki Conference supported the idea of that partnership, recognising that it concerned us all.
It concerns the countries involved, it concerns the European Union, the European Investment Bank, the other international financial institutions, it concerns private sector investors, and of course it concerns the social partners.
The massive challenges awaiting us can be met only by joint efforts and, in addition, by the development of flexible but effective means of cooperation.
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The report by Mr Sisó Cruellas refers in particular to the need to coordinate investments related to infrastructure in Europe, and also to the need to monitor the creation of the appropriate transport infrastructure for the benefit of European citizens, for the benefit of those in the professions, traders, and European travellers too.
Precisely that aim will be served by the partnership which, while remaining an unofficial one in legal terms, is intended to facilitate cooperation and the monitoring of progress.
The Community provides sufficient finance for the implementation of its policies, and that is a basic concept in which we believe.
Our policy in the area of transport infrastructure has two basic priorities: first of all the creation of a cohesive transport network for an enlarged Europe involving a reasonable price structure and, secondly, the mobilisation of the necessary financial resources for the establishment of that specific network.
It is clear that the cost of these investments will be borne mainly by the countries involved, a particularly painful burden for the national budgets, which are already under severe pressure.
Of course substantial loans will be granted by the international financial institutions, among which the EIB will of course lead the way.
But there will also be a substantial contribution from the EU's budget, at least for the countries which are candidates for accession.
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Between 1992 and 1998, the PHARE programme provided a total of some ECU 1000 million.
We hope that from 2000 onwards the contribution from the instrument for pre-accession structural policies, ISPRA, will propose the provision of an annual sum of around ECU 500 million for the transport sector.
Estimates of the cost of developing satisfactory and modern transport networks in Europe vary, but I should like to mention, by way of indication, that an estimate of the transport infrastructure needs in Central Europe has given a figure of ECU 100 billion by 2015 for the modernisation of 20 000 km of rail and road networks, to bring them up to the current specifications.
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We also give priority to the mobilisation of sufficient financial resources for elements of the European transport networks outside the future enlarged Union, in the Community of Independent States or even in the Mediterranean basin, so that the necessary infrastructure can be created in good time.
However, the potential for providing Community finance for those areas remains limited, given that the TACIS and MEDA programmes can at present only provide finance for technical aid.
<P>
As for cofinancing by the public and private sectors, we are clearly aware of the realities.
However, even the most optimistic assumptions make it clear that the national budgets, the budget of the European Union and the international financial institutions will not be able to find the necessary resources to bridge the gap in the area of infrastructure in good time.
Consequently, I am sure that the need to mobilise financial resources to improve the quality of the projects, but also to increase economic productivity, which led the EU countries to set up various partnerships involving the public and private sectors, will now provide an important incentive for similar efforts in Central and Eastern Europe.
The combination of those needs, the new problems arising and the new practices in the context of the transforming economy of Central and Eastern Europe could substantively prepare the ground for the establishment of new financing instruments and new ways to manage infrastructure.
<P>
Mr President, the Commission's contribution towards adapting Europe's infrastructure to meet the requisite standards has been and will continue to be substantial.
We will of course continue to keep Parliament informed on a regular basis about the progress being achieved.
<P>
With these comments, I would urge the European Parliament to approve the report by Mr Sisó Cruellas, whom I would also like to congratulate on his work and on his dedication to the task of developing transport networks in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=283 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Transport telematics
<SPEAKER ID=284 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0246/98) by Mr Baldarelli, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the communication from the Commission on a Community strategy and framework for the deployment of road transport telematics in Europe, and proposals for initial actions (COM(97)0223 - C4-0239/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=285 NAME="Baldarelli">
Mr President, the Commission communication seeks to establish a framework for action at EU, national, regional and local level, and puts forward five priority areas: traffic information services, based on the RDS-TMC system; transport data exchange/information management; electronic fee collection; the human/machine interface; and system architecture.
<P>
The Committee on Transport has no objection to the identification of five areas in the proposed strategy, but we consider that the range of priorities should be extended to cover goods transport, and that there should be a clearer specification of the place of public transport, in particular to encourage the development of coordinated multi- and intermodal transport.
This area is not spelled out clearly in the Commission's document; it does appear among the other actions of the Commission, but this does not satisfy us.
<P>
Another point concerning the Commission's document is as follows: the Commission sets out its intention to develop telematics and illustrates the advantages, but does not analyse the costs of not using telematics.
This might be a semantic point, but in actual fact the costs of not using telematics are closely related to its advantages.
Looking at these advantages, the VMS system should bring about a 30 % reduction in accidents and a 40 % cut in the numbers of dead and injured, an average reduction in speed of 10 %, a 30 % reduction in rain-related accidents and an 85 % reduction in fog-related accidents.
<P>
The system of emergency satellite or cellular links should cut reaction time for the emergency services by more than 40 %, and the survival rate should increase by between 7 and 12 %.
The collision alert system, coupled with on-board computers, should increase driver safety and, what is more, the VMS should cut traffic delays by 20 %.
<P>
All these aspects are very important, and you will appreciate that, when analysed in terms of cost, their advantages are significant indeed.
Some interesting research has been conducted into the internalisation of infrastructure costs.
These data should, I believe, be investigated further in respect of the cost of not using telematics; in other words, the social benefits should be assessed in financial terms.
<P>
Turning to the aspects not directly addressed by the Commission, but which could be taken up more specifically in further measures, and indeed in future communications, the principle of universal access for all the Union's citizens must apply to telematics.
Ultimately, telematics establishes hierarchies and leads to democratic authoritarianism, so somehow we must ensure that telematics will benefit everyone.
This is the principle of free and universal access. We would envisage telematics being freely and universally available for certain basic services: emergency situations, traffic congestion, dangerous goods and meteorological conditions.
<P>
These aspects could be extremely useful, and could be managed in the interests of the community at large so as to benefit all users. Other actions need to be devised to this end.
We are very keen on the financial possibilities opened up by the fifth framework programme of research.
We are convinced that a good job of work has been done here, and would encourage the Commission to work along these lines. However we are also convinced that the financial resources for the trans-European networks need to be committed somehow or other - we discussed this a short while ago - with the involvement of the regional authorities.
<P>
I would conclude with a word on the local, regional and national authorities: regional, local and even national authorities tend to undervalue these issues.
Much more needs to be done in terms of public transport too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=286 NAME="Camisón Asensio">
Mr President, I must start by congratulating the rapporteur, Mr Baldarelli, on his excellent report which, generally speaking, we agree with.
Nonetheless, as the rapporteur knows, our opinions do differ on a few minor points.
For example, it would have been logical to regulate the equipment requirements for vehicles with technological instruments or the tendency towards abusing tollbooths, even in protected areas.
<P>
As draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, I would like to highlight the most significant elements of this Community strategy.
It certainly deserves the most resolute and urgent political support from all the European institutions and, of course, from this House.
It is clear to us that no real progress will be made if research and development is not given the maximum support possible, and the fifth framework programme should not forget this.
<P>
Mr President, this strategy must be the first in a series covering each of the interfaces of all other modes of transport, as telematic applications for the various forms of transport must fit into a strategy aimed at developing a general, integrated transport system.
<P>
The Commission must also calculate the costs involved in the overall programme in order to allow an assessment of the correlation between the resources used and the practical results.
<P>
Nor should we ignore the principle of correcting territorial imbalances.
<P>
Similarly, the research programme should cover the development of telematic assistance systems for use when driving in fog or should seek to create the possibility of using on-board receivers of the 'no hands' type with GSM functions.
<P>
Community strategy in support of telematic safety measures in the carriage of dangerous goods should also be strengthened, as Mr Baldarelli stressed.
<P>
There is an urgent need to improve traffic management systems, particularly in the large European urban areas, with a view to using telematics to improve mobility in congested cities.
In this respect, we also need to devise a range of models for cooperation between the public and private sectors.
<P>
And finally, Mr President, although this may seem obvious, we must ensure that we protect consumers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=287 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stockmann">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Baldarelli's fine report continues the discussion on transport telematics that we started at the beginning of our legislative term.
This Commission communication differs from the last one in two ways. Firstly, unlike the earlier one it is not concerned with specific telematics applications but with Community strategies and with the framework conditions for the Europe-wide deployment of telematics.
That reflects the very rapid developments in this field, or at least in the area of road transport telematics.
<P>
This brings me to the second difference from the earlier communication. We are concerned here only with telematics applications for one mode of transport, road transport, which is a good thing in that it leads to proposals for practical action.
But it is also a bad thing, because it is not a multimodal approach.
When we speak of an integrated transport system in transport policy and say that is the only way to achieve sustainable mobility in the long term, that means we consider two types of integration necessary: quantitative integration of the individual modes of transport beyond national borders, and qualitative integration, namely linking up the transport modes to form a multimodal transport system.
<P>
We have a particular need for telematics with regard to the second aspect.
The integration of road transport alone could even prove counterproductive for the overall project.
So we expect the Commission to set out a strategy and propose practical actions for multimodal transport telematics.
<P>
Turning now to the strategies for road transport telematics, even if the communication and the report are very belated, since most of the strategies have already been implemented, let me say this.
One: we welcome the strategy of introducing RDS-TMC-based transport information services; we do, however, expect that this will be done across the board, Europe-wide, and not just in Germany.
We also expect a parallel strategy for introducing the technically superior DAB system.
<P>
Two: the exchange of traffic data and the creation of an information management service should be geared to intermodal transport from the outset.
<P>
Three: the effect of the Memorandum of Understanding on technical norms and operating reports needs checking.
<P>
Four: greater efforts should be directed at making the systems of electronic fee collection interoperable, since there is some need for political action here - at least in my view.
If we can sharply reduce what are called the external costs of road transport by means of telematics we must also be able to ascertain and apportion the residual costs on a uniform basis.
<P>
Five: we need comprehensive socio-economic studies on human/machine interfaces.
<P>
Six: the attempts to define an open, European system architecture are lagging behind recent developments.
That is why we look forward to the Commission's next communication on telematics.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=288 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is rather like a family party here tonight!
<P>
The PPE Group supports the development of framework conditions for the deployment of telematics in road transport because transport telematics can significantly increase road safety, improve traffic flows and thereby reduce the environmental damage caused by traffic.
<P>
We thank the rapporteur for his excellent report.
But let me make two points of criticism. We Christian Democrats believe that, firstly, the advantages and disadvantages of road pricing need to be checked thoroughly.
Secondly, we categorically reject new charges for driving into towns.
<P>
On my first point, electronic, distance-related charges - called road pricing in short - for goods transport by road or even for private motorists may in theory be fairer than non-use-related charges.
But we Christian Democrats fear that the costs of introducing and maintaining this kind of gigantic electronic system - for all 15 countries and not just one or two, and here I agree with Mr Stockmann - will be so enormous in practice, for the Member States, the private HGV companies or indeed the individual citizen if this kind of system is also applied to private cars, that it will no longer have any economic advantages over the current system of road-use charges or tolls.
In that case it would be better simply to give up the idea of road pricing altogether.
<P>
At any rate, we Christian Democrats totally reject a road pricing system that would involve a special charge for lorries or cars entering the inner cities.
<P>
Inner-city parking fees, whether on the roadside or in car parks, are enormous, in my country at least. It costs DM 2 to park for half an hour in my home town, Hamburg, which is pretty steep!
So I believe that we really would be putting too much of a burden on the consumer, the customer, if we also introduced a road pricing system for driving into the inner cities.
High charges would in effect put an end to delivery traffic into towns, and also make it impossible for customers to reach business centres.
<P>
On the one hand, we keep saying that we must revive our inner cities.
On the other we force drivers out to the suburbs, to the big shopping centres, so that they no longer come into town.
We want jobs in city centres, we want the inner cities to be alive and well.
That is why we emphatically reject charges for entering the inner cities!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=289 NAME="Papoutsis">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Commission, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Baldarelli, for the excellent report he has brought before us.
Like Mr Baldarelli himself, we too recognise the importance of road transport telematics services in our common effort to make our roads safer, cleaner, more competitive and more effective.
<P>
Telematics can serve individual citizens, vehicle fleet operators or indeed emergency service providers, and of course they can benefit public transport agencies, while at the same time creating opportunities on the labour market for our industries and helping to ensure a more efficient use of energy resources.
It was for all those reasons that the Commission drew up the communication we are debating today.
It provides a framework for the development of a broad range of telematics services and systems for road transport, in a flexible way so as to respond to both local and Community needs.
<P>
We also share the view that RTT services will only be more effective if they have been incorporated in transport strategies aimed at achieving specific policy aims - in other words, RTT is a tool to help in the implementation of political decisions.
<P>
The communication published in May last year identified some very specific actions for the sectors with first priority, and also indicated actions in other sectors.
Most of the first-priority actions have already been completed, as many Members will know from the excellent hearing held by the Committee on Transport and Tourism at the beginning of this year.
For example, we have already concluded memoranda of agreement in the RDS-TMC sector for the radio broadcasting of data and road traffic messages and for the exchange of data, which have already been signed by the main players in these sectors.
<P>
As for the arrangements being made by the various bodies to put these memoranda into practice, they too have made significant progress.
Alongside these arrangements, the situation is now developing through European regional projects and national projects financed by the budget for trans-European transport networks.
And we have already started examining certain other sectors which Mr Baldarelli's report rightly regards as important, for example information before and during a journey, public transport and multimodal transport.
Indeed, in the next few weeks we expect to be submitting a communication on interoperational systems for electronic fee collection in Europe.
<P>
The importance of European regional projects as a driving force for the development of RTT is also recognised in the report presented to Parliament.
These projects envisage the creation of RTT services in cross-border regions and have already attracted the participation of 12 of the 15 Member States.
Their contribution is of truly fundamental importance in securing the interoperability of RTT systems and the continuity of RTT services across the borders of these countries.
They presuppose the monitoring and management of traffic on the main arteries, including the formulation of new itineraries, information before the journey, information during the journey via message signal converters and the RDS-TMC services.
This presupposes the cross-border exchange of data between traffic monitoring centres.
In some projects, indeed, there is already cooperation in the sector of interoperational systems for electronic fee collection.
<P>
The Commission agrees that there is a need to establish standards at a high technical level for this sector, and for that reason it has commissioned the European Committee for Standardisation, the ECS, to carry out a project on matters which we regard as having particular priority for the achievement of our aims.
We asked the ECS to draw up a new working programme which would exactly reflect all those priorities.
Indeed, given the global nature of RTT markets, we will also be examining, again in collaboration with the ECS, to what extent the arrangements for the cooperation of the ISO on common standards are satisfactory from the standpoint both of the aims of a transport policy and those of our industry.
It is clear that the security of RTT systems on vehicles must be of great concern to us all, and that is exactly why it has been included as a priority among our actions.
<P>
Today, then, I am in the happy position of being able to tell you that an operational group set up by the Commission has drawn up a list of principles, and after consultation that list will undergo further refinement so as to give more accurate information about exactly what is required.
The Commission hopes to submit detailed proposals both to Parliament and to the Council on how this can be transformed into a self-imposed memorandum of agreement, a code of practice with which manufacturers of equipment and motor vehicles, and those who assemble them, will have to comply.
At any rate, I can assure you that if the self-imposed system we have proposed does not work, the Commission will not hesitate to submit new proposals for legislation in the sector.
<P>
Finally, another concern which runs through Mr Baldarelli's report is that RTT must not be available only to a select group.
The Commission shares that view completely.
However, we will have to work closely with Parliament and the Member States to make sure of that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=290 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=13>
Tourism
<SPEAKER ID=291 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0247/98) by Mr Novo Belenguer, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the Commission report to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on Community measures affecting tourism (1995/96) (COM(97)0332 - C4-0576/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=292 NAME="Novo Belenguer">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the report I am presenting to you today will be my last parliamentary initiative as, regrettably, I am giving up my seat tomorrow and leaving it in your hands to develop from now on a true Community tourism policy.
<P>
The Commission's report arrived at a key moment for the future of the Community tourism policy, between the problems of fraud concerning certain actions in the early 1990s and the major challenge that the start of the new millennium represents for us.
Perhaps for this reason, my intention as rapporteur is to present the report more from a strategic point of view than from the point of view of giving due recognition to Community activities in the field of tourism in 1995 and 1996, although it must be acknowledged that there have been many such activities and that they have been extremely varied.
<P>
The Commission's communication on Community measures affecting tourism in 1995 and 1996 was presented to Parliament in accordance with the requirements laid out in Article 5 of the 1992 Council Decision, which establishes a Community action plan to assist tourism.
I would point out that this plan ended on 31 December 1995 and has not been renewed, mainly due to the lack of a legal basis in the form of a multiannual programme.
For this reason, we have tabled an amendment - Amendment No 9 - that calls on the Council to adopt a Community framework for actions in this extremely important sector.
In any case, the resolution suggests that the tradition of presenting an annual report to Parliament on the Community measures affecting tourism should continue, together with an evaluation of the actions.
This will allow us to hold an annual debate in Parliament and to impose democratic control on future Community measures.
<P>
I would also like to highlight the main problems that, in my opinion, are hindering the development of a Community policy.
Firstly, there is the unwillingness of national authorities to entrust the European Community with the role of coordinating activities and supporting the tourism sector.
This was reflected in their refusal to adopt the PHILOXENIA programme last year, which meant that there was no legal basis to finance supplementary actions at Community level.
We are now in danger of making the same mistake once again for 1999.
Secondly, there is a lack of confidence, once again on the part of national governments, in the Commission's own services that does not allow it to develop an action programme; this is mainly due to the incidences of fraud detected in 1991, European Tourism Year, and in the most recent action plan.
Thirdly, the lack of human and financial resources means that the European Commission is having difficulty in developing a tourism policy that effectively coordinates the various Community policies affecting this important sector.
<P>
Finally, there is a lack of planning and long-term strategy.
Mr President, Commissioner, it is shocking that, in this day and age, there is no shared vision between the Community institutions and the various Member States of a sector that makes up approximately 14 % of GDP and provides 10 % of jobs in Europe. However, it seems to me that now is the right time to relaunch a Community tourism strategy.
Since I began to prepare this report, I have been calling for a complete reorganisation of the Commission's services, which would signal, from this moment on, a new beginning for European tourism.
This would provide the Commission with the necessary human infrastructure to enable it to contribute a real added value to the activities of the Member States, and to the different regions. Therefore, I can only be grateful to the Commission for announcing this summer that a directorate for tourism is to be formed from three units within Directorate-General XXII.
And I believe that, by and large, we agree on the abilities and competences these units should have. They include, firstly, guaranteeing cooperation and systematic consultation with other Directorates-General, maintaining a close and permanent link with the industry and with national tourist offices, carrying out the ex-ante and ex-post evaluation of all Community actions to promote tourism, and increasing the amount of information made available to tourists, particularly on those aspects relating to their rights and responsibilities as consumers.
Secondly, we also believe that the time is ripe for this as, in July, the Commission itself published its official response to the report by the Court of Auditors on the previous, allegedly fraudulent actions.
The Commission has identified all of the most problematic actions of the period in question, without prejudice to the legal proceedings that the national courts have yet to complete. It estimates that approximately 9 % of all the actions carried out or financed between 1990 and 1995 show irregularities.
It also points out that it is taking action to recover funds that were overpaid and is referring the matter back to national authorities where appropriate.
Thirdly, the meeting of the group of experts on tourism and employment, chaired by the Commissioner, was an excellent initiative and we are currently awaiting its conclusions and recommendations.
<P>
In conclusion, Mr President, I defend and support the added value that the European Community can bring to tourism in Europe.
All we need is for the Member States to recognise this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=293 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, as draftsman for the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, I could restate the conclusions that we reached, but I will refrain from doing so.
I have to say that tourism policy, and the Commissioner knows it full well, is something of a poor relation in terms of Community policy, and this is actually strange, because neither the Commissioner nor the rapporteur needs to be told that tourism is the biggest employer in the Community and is also a sector which could generate a great deal of economic activity in areas whose economy is in difficulty.
In short, we have a duty to see to it that something is made of tourism policy.
That means first of all that we have to do a good deal more about quality, and it means too, as we say in this opinion from the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, that we have to do something about the recognition and equivalence of diplomas.
Secondly, Mr President, we referred to fiscal policy.
Precisely because tourism is increasingly international, fiscal policy hugely distorts the level playing field, notably with regard to VAT.
Le me give you just one example.
Take the way in which theme parks are treated in one country...
<P>
... the President's own country.
Parc Astérix is regarded as a cultural attraction and is subject to a low rate of VAT, whereas other countries view this kind of park as a tourist attraction and so apply a high rate of VAT.
<P>
(NL) Having said that, Mr President, I would point lastly to Amendment No 9, on the new Article 7a, in which the rapporteur says that a framework programme constitutes a legal basis.
Not so, Mr Belenguer.
Framework programmes are not a legal basis, only Treaty articles are.
So once again our committee calls for the inclusion in the Treaty of an article which properly addresses tourism.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=294 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Torres Marques">
Mr President, I would like to congratulate not only the rapporteur, Mr Novo Belenguer, but also the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
Both present us with a series of conclusions of great interest, and the clarity, conciseness and the scope of the proposals contained in Mr Wijsenbeek's opinion, in our view, add a great deal to the report.
<P>
Although no specific legal base exists for tourism, Commissioner Papoutsis has succeeded not only in reorganising the tourism service in keeping with the guidelines drawn up by the European Parliament, but he has also continued to submit to us proposals with an obvious impact on this activity which is so important for Europe.
Although the principle of subsidiarity applies to this sector, in that each country should maintain its specific features and differences, and since tourists travel in quest of difference, it should nonetheless be carefully analysed, because the countries of the European Union have benefited from using the Structural Funds to maintain the specific features of each region and in particular to defend their own cultural heritage.
<P>
Information about the introduction of the euro and the greater freedom of movement within the Schengen area should be disseminated at Community level since citizens of the European Union account for some 90 % of the tourists received by these countries.
Even where third countries are concerned, action at European level is justified, since action taken individually by countries is of limited effect while action taken jointly can have a far greater impact and far more significant results for European tourism.
<P>
I would once more stress the need for a specific legal base for tourism in the Treaties.
Until then, Commissioner Papoutsis, continue to endeavour to coordinate the 6 % of the Structural Funds that are spent in the tourism sector and use all the possible legal bases to continue the Commission's action in support of the increased competitiveness of the European tourism industry.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=295 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Bennasar Tous">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to congratulate Mr Novo Belenguer on his report and on the excellent steps he has taken during his time in this Parliament.
<P>
I would also like to take this opportunity to mention the pressing need for an action programme covering all the aspects of tourism that have already been identified as providing added value to this sector at European level. Whilst showing the greatest respect for subsidiarity, it is vital that we promote the quality and competitiveness of this sector.
<P>
With the reform of the Structural Funds and the process of enlargement towards the East, this is a crucial time.
Tourism is the industry that has proven to be most effective in stimulating depressed areas by creating economic activity and employment.
Its effects are extremely beneficial for regional development, be it urban, rural or coastal.
There is a great deal that we can teach the Eastern European countries and that we can share with them so that they do not make the same mistakes as we did and so that they can reclaim their historical heritage in a coherent way and make it profitable through tourism.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is added value.
<P>
All responsible Europeans value and are aware of the fact that tourism must be sustainable and that tourist destinations must be clean.
We are in favour of protecting the environment.
In today's world, if environmental factors are not included, then the idea of quality in tourism has not been fully understood. These factors include integrated plans and hotels, no waste, clean water, solid waste monitoring, clean energy and harsh measures against atmospheric, noise or visual pollution.
<P>
Tourism in Europe is coming to the final stage of a long process that will lead to good value for money and increased competitiveness for SMEs.
Some countries promote cultural tourism, others promote rural tourism, good weather, beaches, sport, business tourism or tourism for children or older people.
Yet all countries are trying to diversify what they can offer, trying to break with the seasonal nature of tourism and to create employment.
Added value means promoting quality in training and the exchange of experiences.
Added value means projects for applying new technologies to tourism in reservations systems or in tourist destinations.
<P>
We would like to congratulate the Commission for having promoted the organisation of a conference on the impact of the euro on the tourism sector in order to help develop changeover strategies for businesses and consumers.
The euro will promote tourism in Europe and will promote Europe as a tourist destination.
<P>
We are looking forward to the report from the 'group of experts' and we strongly support continuing actions to combat sex tourism.
Ladies and gentlemen, everything I have mentioned here is added value.
We must inform and convince the Council of this.
I believe that there are sufficient elements to warrant an action programme that could form a legal basis and that would be warmly welcomed by the Member States.
I hope that the Council will be forward-thinking on this issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=296 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
Mr President, I should like to say first of all that I agree with the report tabled by Mr Novo Belenguer, and I think that he has put some extremely important points before the House.
In particular, he is right to stress the links between tourism and numerous other sectors falling under EU jurisdiction. Therefore, although the lack of a clear legal base is a very real problem, it is also true to say that tourism has links with many other activities and sectors where the legal bases are clear.
<P>
Be that as it may, the problem of the legal base remains and must be solved.
Unfortunately, as we all know, the Intergovernmental Conference in Amsterdam did not come up with a satisfactory solution, and the consequences are evident in that the Philoxenia programme, dating back to 1996, has still not been adopted because there is no legal base and hence no budget line.
<P>
In view of all these factors, we believe that efforts should at last be made to find a legal base, an appropriate programme and appropriate budget lines, and to recognise tourism as an issue in its own right.
For us Greens, this means in particular saying 'no' to tourism that destroys the land, 'no' to tourism that has so often led to the land being concreted over, but 'yes' to sustainable and eco-friendly tourism.
<P>
This is why we Greens have tabled a number of amendments, and I would draw particular attention to one of these. It seeks to take account, when assessing tourism, of the tolerance threshold of individual areas affected by tourist activities: we propose a so-called eco-label for tourist areas and bodies.
In this way, we can give a clear indication of how tourism can itself become a part of sustainable development.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=297 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Schifone">
Mr President, I was councillor for tourism in the Campania region for three years, and during that time I heard many people maintain that tourism is an important factor of development and an essential economic activity.
Unfortunately, these statements of fact were never followed up by any tangible administrative, legislative or economic measures of support.
<P>
The Commission's report likewise recognises the importance of tourism, both from the point of view of protecting and promoting our countryside, history and culture, and from that of economic expansion and job opportunities. And yet, at European level, we have this state of affairs whereby tourist sector activities do not receive due recognition.
<P>
I therefore believe that immediate action is needed in three fundamental areas, which have been highlighted both in the report and by previous speakers.
Firstly, the determination of a legal base to promote tourism at European level: there is no title in the Maastricht Treaty, and nor does the Amsterdam Treaty allude to it.
Secondly, an undertaking should be made to insert a specific title into the Treaty at the next revision, as was said at the European Study Days held in Naples in 1996.
<P>
Finally, a Directorate-General for tourism should be created and, in the reform of the Structural Funds, particular attention should be devoted to integrated projects which identify tourism as a factor of development and environmental protection.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=298 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schierhuber">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, tourism is an important economic sector in the European Union.
It is also important to job creation.
And let me remind you that it is not only urban and coastal tourism that are important, but especially tourism in rural areas.
This brings in extra revenue and also supports regional development.
Of course it also creates jobs, which benefits the entire region.
Priority must be given to soft tourism here.
<P>
The European Union ought to create a suitable framework for the future development of tourist policy, as is being discussed in the Philoxenia programme.
Another positive step would be to submit a white paper, following on from the Green Paper, to define the future strategy - not the communitisation of tourist policy but a strategy.
It is important to maintain and promote specific, individual customs and traditions.
I believe that we must give real priority to training those employed in the tourist industry.
<P>
To conclude, let me once again protest strongly in this House about sex tourism.
I call on the Commission to do its utmost to combat and finally put a stop to this truly shameful form of tourism.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=299 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Linser">
Mr President, let me, as a representative of the most tourist-intensive country in the European Union, say a few words on this excellent report.
After all, Austria derives 6 % of its GDP from international tourism.
The domestic pressure of competition is enormous, as a result of extremely cheap offers in areas with good climatic conditions.
Tourist companies are faced with a totally uncoordinated and inefficient EU tourism policy.
There is no uniform concept of tourism.
Twice now the Council has rejected the Philoxenia programme, which offers some really positive ideas.
In my view, this kind of action programme should obey the principle of subsidiarity and give priority to advertising particular regions, because I believe that would be the best way to find third-country customers for the European market.
<P>
The report calls on the budgetary authority to make a functioning budget available for direct Community measures for 1999.
Budget line B5-325 is the only one that refers explicitly to measures to promote tourism.
Then it emerges that this budget line, which was virtually non-existent in the past given that it only accounted for ECU 2 million, is to be cut even more under the Council and Commission proposals.
That is incredible when you think that the Commission described tourism as one of the five economic factors most likely to create jobs.
<P>
Tourism is to be promoted via the Structural Funds and various Community initiatives that were not originally geared to tourism.
As the Commission report shows, this results in an unfair distribution of resources, which is a serious disadvantage to Austria, among others.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=300 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendes Bota">
Mr President, tourism in the European Union does not have its own fundamental law.
And since the Treaties omitted to mention it, it has no legal base.
And since it has no legal base, neither does it have any activities: the PHILOXENIA programme is still on ice.
Consequently, it has no budget: the budget proposal came to nothing and the Committee on Budgets made sure that the amendment proposed by the Committee on Transport and Tourism, involving the modest sum of ECU 3.5 million for 1999, came to nothing.
<P>
How is it that, when everybody agrees that tourism is such an important sector for the European Union in terms of jobs, economic activity, investment and sustainable development, it did not merit even a tiny paragraph in the Treaty of Amsterdam?
Why should it be bound by the unanimity rule in the Council of Ministers, even for decisions relating to minor measures, in a way which undermines the very process of European integration?
Why is it that, although it is so clearly a sector which cuts across the greatest number of other sectors, from transport to the environment, from regional policy to employment, from trade to agriculture and rural affairs, the Council insists on denying tourism a minimum of institutional dignity and delegates it to a dark and shameful corner in the basement of DG XXIII?
<P>
I know that subsidiarily should be the rule.
We all know that regional policy supported tourism-incentive projects during the 1994-99 period to the tune of ECU 9 billion, but this cannot be used to justify the absence of a Community action plan for tourism, because there are areas in which potential exists for Community added value, with external promotion outside the European Union, reduction of seasonal variations, coordination of the activities of different programmes and policies where they affect tourism, fiscal harmonisation, classification of tourism structures, safety and information for tourists as consumers.
<P>
If tourism is to acquire some dignity, it must be given a higher budgetary profile.
It is now up to the political groups of this House to achieve a consensus which will put an end to this irrational situation of a tourist sector with no foundation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=301 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Cornelissen">
Mr President, there is good news and there is bad news for tourism in the European Union.
The good news first.
The introduction of the euro will make travel and tourism in 'Euroland' easier and cheaper.
I have worked out that, thanks to the euro, one day out of a two-week holiday in the European Union will be free.
Another piece of good news is that there is every indication that travel and tourism will be the number one growth sector in the next few years, although the less optimistic economic outlook suggests that this growth may be less spectacular than we had thought until recently.
<P>
Now the bad news.
The crisis in Asia and Russia will reduce the numbers of tourists from those countries visiting Europe.
At the same time, these countries will become more attractive because of the devaluation of their currencies.
I am thinking of the important sector of conference tourism, where we shall get more for our money.
My question is this: what is the Commission's response to this development?
We urgently need a strategy to enable Europe to benefit from the level of growth expected.
The watchwords of this strategy should be: quality and greater competitiveness for Europe's tourist industry, particularly with regard to SMEs.
In this context, I would like to see a uniformly low rate of VAT being levied on tourism.
Tourism does, after all, provide a great many jobs.
We must in future have tourism which is sustainable.
<P>
My second question is what part does DG XXIII play in the allocation of sizeable sums of money from the regional funds to tourism?
And my last question, Mr President, how does the Commission rate the chances of getting Philoxenia approved by the end of the year, given the energy displayed by the Austrian Presidency?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=302 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Vaz da Silva">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Europe should assert its difference in tourism as it is doing in the information society.
The European tourist industry must, increasingly, be an industry of quality.
A European concept of tourism exists which links it closely with the promotion of the environment, culture, regional development, health and the safety and well-being of individuals.
<P>
The Novo Belenguer report appeals for a European tourism policy, and rightly so.
This policy should, on the one hand, seek to create within the Commission a structure that is able to carry out studies, compare statistics, promote training, encourage innovation and facilitate cooperation networks and, on the other, encourage coordination structures in the Member States to enable Europe to maintain its leadership as a tourist destination.
The recent example of the establishment of the 'Europa Traditionis Consortium' to promote tourism in traditional private homes is just one example of a joint initiative in society which is on the right track, but which will be but a drop in the ocean if it is not publicised and extensively replicated.
<P>
The European Union could and should have a role to play, both in promoting cooperation networks and in training professionals, making them aware of the medium and long-term advantages for the sector itself of a sustainable type of tourism which respects nature and heritage.
<P>
If the Council persists in hesitating to deal with tourism policy at Community level, it should but consider the impact of its failure to do so on the competitiveness of the sector in Europe and on the development of its peripheral regions.
Under the present conditions of increased competition, with the absence of coordinated measures and common policies in the areas of mobility of professionals, efficiency of communications and marketing, in short with the failure rapidly to upgrade the sector as a whole, Europe could well lose its leading position, which it would subsequently find it difficult to recover.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=303 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Santini">
Mr President, as the last speaker, I shall touch on certain matters which have merely been alluded to by others, above all ones relating to the economic and employment potential of this sector.
<P>
The statistics tell us that tourism is now the world's third industry, after the oil and automobile industries.
The same statistics state that, in the year 2000, tourism will be the world's number one industry.
There are figures to substantiate these claims. Between 1990 and 1995, revenue from tourism rose by 8.5 %: it was USD 400 billion in 1996; by 2000 it will be USD 700 billion.
Currently tourism around the world accounts for 12.5 % of GDP; in 2007, the statistics say, this figure will rise to 12.8 %.
Here are a few more numbers in spite of the late hour: 19.1 million people are employed in tourism today in the European Union, the equivalent of 12.8 % of total jobs.
65 % of these posts are occupied by women; by 2007 there will be an additional 1.8 million jobs.
<P>
That, then, is the economic scale of a sector which is progressing, growing, increasing, and to which Europe's institutions still seem not to give proper consideration.
But I believe that, in spite of subsidiarity - which still remains a valid principle at territorial level - tourism can at the same time be promoted for Europe as a whole.
Yes, let us spread the word about this old continent of ours, just as the United States of America now speaks with a single voice, and similarly certain Eastern bloc countries.
Competition is worldwide.
We have the reasons; we lack the money. ECU 10.5 million to promote Europe!
My region has 450 000 inhabitants - true enough, we can offer Lake Garda and the Dolomites - and alone spends ECU 7 million, almost as much as the European Union.
Perhaps it is an example worth following!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=304 NAME="Papoutsis">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me firstly thank the rapporteur, Mr Novo Belenguer, for his detailed report, and Mr Wijsenbeek for the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
This report conveys an important message, namely that it is time we did something to improve the efficacy of Community action in the tourism sector, and to maximise tourism's contribution towards achieving the Union's objectives.
Of course, the necessary appropriations have to be secured, because the lack of specific finance for the budget line relating to tourism is creating serious practical limitations.
I am optimistic, however, that the Austrian Presidency's efforts will bear fruit and that we shall achieve agreement on the very important Philoxenia programme in the coming months.
Let me now refer briefly to the basic priorities you have set out in the motion for a resolution and which many of you have just mentioned in your speeches.
First of all, I too agree that tourism-related action must include employment, training and education.
As you know, after the European Conference on Tourism and Employment in Luxembourg, we set up a high-level group whose mission was to examine how best tourism could contribute towards employment.
<P>
The first stage of that process is already nearing completion, and in the next few weeks I shall be receiving the group's recommendations.
My intention is that the Commission should send the European Parliament and the Council a communication by the end of the year, in which an overall assessment of the report will be presented, along with guidelines for future action.
<P>
Secondly, there is the issue of modernising the tourism industry and improving its competitiveness, especially that of SMEs involved in tourism activities.
I absolutely agree that the application of new technology and the smooth operation of the internal market are essential prerequisites if Europe's tourism industry is to maintain the strong position it holds today at world level.
I therefore believe it was appropriate to adopt an initiative which provides a basis for the development and dissemination of technical knowledge concerning the use of information technology in tourist services.
The Commission is already looking into the specific needs and actions required for tourism, which will have to be taken into account when implementing the fifth programme of research and technological development.
<P>
Thirdly, there is the matter of the introduction of the euro and the challenges this presents for both tourists and tourism companies.
As you know, we have been involved in far-ranging consultations about the preparatory measures being taken for the euro's introduction.
Taking part in those consultations were banks, credit institutions, professionals in the tourism sector, and of course consumer associations.
The results of that work will be presented at the conference due to take place in Brussels on 18 October.
User-friendly guides for tourism companies are in the final stages of preparation and will be available by the end of the year.
<P>
Fourthly, there is the issue of the Structural Fund reform proposed in Agenda 2000 and the opportunities which could arise in that context for full exploitation of tourism potential in the less favoured parts of Europe, or even in declining areas.
In the context of the Structural Funds, then, the Member States are drawing up plans and indicating their sectoral priorities.
Experience shows that almost all the areas eligible under the Structural Funds have included plans related to tourism and its programmes.
However, application of the new operating rules for the Structural Funds is an opportunity for interested regional and national authorities to assess and reconsider their plans for the development of tourism, and in this way to determine coherent measures to upgrade tourist infrastructure and improve the quality of tourism-related services in those areas.
<P>
Fifthly, there is the question of applying the principle of sustainability to the development of tourism.
I agree with you that tourism cannot be developed successfully unless the principle of sustainability is fully respected.
I also agree on the need for a more widespread use in tourism of Community resources to protect the environment, and to protect and promote Europe's cultural heritage.
Together with the Member States, we must strive for broader dissemination of the results of certain previous worthwhile programmes in that sector.
And finally, there is the matter of overall monitoring and assessment and the preparation of the reports on Community action that affects tourism.
I agree with you that these reports are a way to improve transparency, a means of helping to ensure the democratic control of Community activities.
I can therefore accept the continuation of the existing arrangements regarding preparation of the reports.
<P>
In conclusion, I should like to take this opportunity to tell you about some administrative developments, because this is an issue which is touched on by the recommendations in the motion for a resolution now before the House.
Recently, under the umbrella of DG XXIII, we have created not just a sector, not just a working group, but a directorate - a directorate for the coordination of Community measures and coordinated action related to tourism.
This directorate includes three operational units respectively concerned with matters of policy, competition and sustainability.
<P>
Before I end, I would certainly like to mention the Community action to combat sex tourism which victimises children.
Thanks to your support, and especially thanks to the decision by the budgetary authority to establish a special budget line, very considerable progress has been made in connection with informing the public about the problem.
<P>
We are continuing our initiatives along these lines, and towards the end of the year I am glad to say that I shall be able to put before Parliament a report on what has been done in this area over the past two years.
<P>
Lastly, Mr President, I would once again like to congratulate Mr Novo Belenguer on his work and to thank all the Members of Parliament who have steadfastly maintained that tourism is and will remain a major and dynamic industry, which must be actively supported by the Community, I would say even more so than at present.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=305 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Cornelissen">
Mr President, my thanks to the Commissioner for his answer.
I did not get an answer either to my question of how he rates the chances of getting Philoxenia approved by the end of the year, given the energy displayed by the Austrian Presidency.
May I also take this opportunity, Mr President, of saying how much I appreciate it that there is still a representative of the Council in the Chamber for our debates, despite the lateness of the hour.
It is right and proper that there should be, but thank you nonetheless.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=306 NAME="Papoutsis">
Mr President, I wish to assure the House that the Austrian Presidency has indeed launched an effort by presenting a compromise proposal which contains ideas which I believe are fully in keeping with the spirit of Philoxenia.
It is based on the compromise proposed by the Luxembourg Presidency, and the Austrian Presidency is currently in consultation with the other Member States.
However, after the German elections we do not yet have the new government in the Federal Republic of Germany, and we are consequently waiting to consult with that new government because, as you will be aware, Germany is the only country, apart from certain reservations expressed by the United Kingdom, which has reacted against the acceptance of the Philoxenia programme.
<P>
I hope these negotiations will result in success.
And I certainly hope that the Council of Ministers for Tourism which the Austrian Presidency has scheduled for the beginning of December will be the meeting which approves the Philoxenia programme.
In any event, however, I sincerely hope for the European Parliament's active support so that these efforts may be successful.
<P>
The European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions, the whole of Europe's tourism industry, all the agencies involved in the tourism sector and 14 out of the 15 Member States are in favour of this programme.
At last, I think the time has come for the Philoxenia programme to form the legal basis for a multiannual programme on behalf of tourism.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=307 NAME="President">
I should like to take this opportunity to thank Mr Novo Belenguer, since this is the last report that he will be presenting, and to wish him every success in his future career when he leaves the House.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 11.40 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="Watts">
Mr President, I refer to an item in the Minutes concerning my report on ferry safety.
The Minutes indicate that Mr Papoutsis answered my question in response to his statement to this House.
In fact, the record should show that Mr Papoutsis gave me an undertaking that he would respond to my question in writing.
I would appreciate it if the Minutes could be changed to reflect that particular assurance he gave this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Mr Watts, I have taken note of that so that it can be corrected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schierhuber">
Mr President, this is not really related to the Minutes, but today I must once again draw your attention to a very unpleasant state of affairs in Brussels.
Two weeks ago, at 7.30 p.m., one of my assistants was attacked in the vicinity of Parliament.
I really do think that action should finally be taken - in the interests of Brussels and Belgium as well - to stop this kind of thing happening!
<P>
I would also ask you to bear in mind that New York was once one of the most dangerous cities in the world, and within a short space of time has become one of the safest.
I believe that all of us who work in the institutions have a right to live and work in safe surroundings!
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Mrs Schierhuber, I must admit that problems in this area of security are serious and have often occupied the Bureau's attention.
Just the day before yesterday, Mrs Schleicher raised some problems of this kind.
I admit that we still cannot deal with them and we will look into how we can do so more effectively.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, if the Austrians are starting to defend Strasbourg and attack Brussels, and if the Bureau is dealing with the matter and the Quaestors are starting to get involved, then we know for sure that nothing will ever come of it.
But I would point out that one of the three flights from the Netherlands to Strasbourg has now been dropped, making Strasbourg even more difficult to get to, so it is now high time that we started meeting for longer and more often in Brussels.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Mr Wijsenbeek, you are enough of an old hand in this House, and for years we have become used to hearing comments about that sort of thing from you, and of course from other Members who have the same view.
Now is not the time to begin discussing the issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen -Kallström">
Mr President, I should like to mention, in reference to the last comment, that there is not a single direct flight from Finland to Strasbourg, so I suggest we meet in Brussels only.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
European Conference/Malta
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the European Conference of 6 October 1998 in Luxembourg, including the current situation in Malta in connection with enlargement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, yesterday the European Conference met for the first time at foreign ministerial level.
As well as the 15 EU Member States and the Commission, the 11 applicant countries - the 10 Central and Eastern European countries and Cyprus - and the Swiss Foreign Minister, Mr Cotti, participated as members elect.
Turkey had already indicated beforehand that it would not be taking part in the Conference.
<P>
Discussions during the first Conference session centred on problems related to cross-border organised crime and regional cooperation on environmental issues. There was also an opportunity for a group photograph with our partners.
During the working lunch, the situation in the western Balkans, in particular in Kosovo and Albania, was also discussed.
The presidency thus tried to cover a wide range of business and, with the exception of the subject of competitive economies, actually tried to contribute something on all the topics which the Heads of State or Government, meeting in London, had agreed should be addressed by the Conference in the future.
<P>
Let me now turn to the topics in detail.
By way of an introduction under the heading of cross-border organised crime, the presidency reported on the work of the group of experts on drugs and organised crime.
This group of experts, known as the COLD Group, was set up by the London European Conference in March of this year and held its first meeting on 10 June in Brussels.
At the meeting, participants expressed their support for the presidency proposals for the types of problem the group should address.
Those from countries outside the EU then gave detailed information about the organised crime and drug-trafficking situations in their own countries.
<P>
They informed the group about the action they are taking to combat these problems at home.
All participants agreed that effective international cooperation must be guaranteed. This cooperation should be as broad as possible and include the police, customs authorities and criminal prosecution authorities.
They also agreed that every effort should be made to ensure that information could be exchanged between those involved as quickly and smoothly as possible.
<P>
In this context, it was also discussed whether structures to aid cooperation, or networks, already in existence within the European Union, should be extended.
Those participating in the meeting of the group of experts also proposed an extensive list of topics for their further work.
At the end of the discussion, it was agreed that several proposals, such as arranging contact points and inviting people to seminars, should be implemented quickly.
It was decided that other ideas, for example measures on criminal prosecution and combating money laundering, should first be examined at further meetings.
The group of experts will be meeting again under the Austrian Presidency.
<P>
In moving to the main topics for discussion at the Conference, the presidency referred to the importance that the EU attaches to the fight against organised crime.
The danger posed to our society by international networks of criminals should not, after all, be underestimated, since they have now infiltrated many different areas of human life - politics, economics and the law.
<P>
In the view of the European Union, two areas of organised crime are particularly abhorrent, because their victims are the weakest sections of society, children and migrants.
In the discussion on preventing and combating the sexual exploitation of children, the Conference participants agreed that protecting children, who are both the weakest members of society and the source of our hopes for the future, needs to be a particular priority of the international community, because, as well as being exploited economically and persecuted in times of war, children are the victims of a particularly detestable form of violence, that of sexual abuse. Usually this takes place behind closed doors.
Such acts of violence are known to occur throughout the world.
<P>
Since the advent of business, the exchange of information and tourism on a global scale, the sexual exploitation of children has been a matter of concern to all countries.
The Conference participants agreed, for this reason, that effective measures to counter it also require productive international cooperation in the various fora.
<P>
The reports on the discovery of cross-border paedophile rings are something we all recall with horror.
Fighting paedophilia, and related evils such as sex tourism and child prostitution, on the one hand, and taking action to prevent child abuse within the family and the production and distribution of child pornography, above all on the Internet, on the other hand, therefore present a very particular challenge, not only to the Member States of the European Union, but, we believe, to all states.
The Conference participants here reaffirmed that these challenges should be tackled across national boundaries.
<P>
The presidency referred to the European Union's intensive work in this area in recent weeks and months, giving an overview of the various activities being undertaken in that field and reporting on the progress of discussions in the General Affairs Council.
From the EU's activities, the presidency singled out, in particular, the joint action to combat trade in human beings and the sexual exploitation of children, which the Council adopted in February 1997.
This joint action contains proposals for improving judicial cooperation in the fight against trade in human beings and the sexual exploitation of children.
<P>
A number of the participating states reported on their experience of working in this field to the Conference and, at the end of the discussion, the participants agreed to invite the European Conference group of experts on drugs and organised crime to examine in detail, which of the EU's legal instruments the European Conference partner countries might be able to adopt.
Finally, the Conference participants agreed to step up coordination in the United Nations, so as to fight together against the sexual abuse of children.
<P>
Under the topic of cross-border organised crime, the Conference participants also discussed the problem of illegal immigrant couriers.
Lately, in particular, there have been repeated reports about the huge influx of illegal migrants trying to reach the richer countries of Europe and North America.
This new wave of migration, which is growing every year, has led some countries to tighten their immigration laws.
<P>
The final topic discussed in the first session was that of regional cooperation on environmental issues.
The various representatives reported on their involvement in environmental initiatives, through European regional organisations: the Central European Initiative; the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Group; the Council of Baltic Sea States and the Council for the European Arctic Regions of the Barents Sea.
Conference participants emphasised that environmental policies should be complementary.
For the future, they agreed that, as a first step, the presidency would invite the various bodies responsible for regional cooperation, along with the European Commission and the Environment Agency, to submit contributions and suggest solutions to the problems identified.
<P>
Over lunch, we discussed two further topics, developments in Kosovo and the situation in Albania, but I do not wish to address these now, because they will be the subject of a subsequent debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, with reference to yesterday's European Conference in Luxembourg, I would just like to say how much I welcomed the fact that the presidency decided to include on the agenda the important issues that Mrs Ferrero has just raised.
The fight against organised crime, the sexual exploitation of children and illegal immigration are all presently at the top of our political agenda, and we therefore feel that it is of the utmost importance that they should be discussed in a forum which brings together all the future Member States and the current members of the European Union.
<P>
It was particularly interesting yesterday to hear what the future Member States are doing or intend to do in these areas and how we can further strengthen cooperation.
I think that once the Amsterdam Treaty has been ratified we will have a number of new instruments to make transnational cooperation more effective, including with the new Member States.
I am thinking here of the activities which the Amsterdam Treaty has transferred from the third pillar of the Maastricht Treaty to the first.
This and all future presidencies can count on the Commission's support in putting these areas of cooperation into practice.
These are all areas which are directly related to bringing Europe closer to the people and about which people are, I think, rightly very concerned.
<P>
Mr President, looking at the screen in front of me I can see the words 'Conference' and 'Malta'.
I am not sure whether I am supposed to say something about Malta now.
We all know that the Maltese Government has reactivated its application to join the European Union, which it withdrew, or rather postponed, two years ago, and has resubmitted it to the presidency. As normally happens, the presidency and the Council have asked the Commission to deliver an opinion on it.
What this means in this particular case is that the Commission must now examine what effect the two-year gap in preparations for membership has had on Malta's current political and economic situation.
We have therefore told the Council that we will be updating the opinion delivered on Malta in 1993, and that we will be delivering a new opinion on how Malta can best be reintegrated into the accession process.
<P>
It is rather difficult to give a precise timetable for all this.
The Council sets great store by having extremely detailed information, which means that we are having to work through the 1993 opinion and compare it with the current situation in Malta.
<P>
Finally, as I do not need to tell you, when I was in New York I had the opportunity to talk to Guido Di Marco, Malta's new and also former Minister of Foreign Affairs, and I told him that we are delighted that Malta has renewed its application.
I also said that the Council is definitely expecting Malta to try to make this application a bipartisan matter, that everyone knows that the application withdrawn two years ago when the present opposition party came to power has been reactivated, and that the Member States are delighted that the people of Malta are so keen to become part of the European Union.
The minister told me that that was also certainly the intention of his government, and that as the integration process progresses it will also become easier to convince more and more people that this major political step that Malta is taking is both useful and necessary.
<P>
A second point was that the question of introducing a system of VAT in Malta was extremely important last time round and was even one of the main reasons why the coalition that has just returned to power lost the last elections but one.
It is another point on which clarification is needed.
This is all I can tell you for the moment about Malta's application to join the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, Commissioner, I believe the topics focused on by the European Conference to have been wisely chosen and worthy of our full support.
I also endorse the words of the Commissioner, who said that it is important to address those issues which are of particular interest to people, which give them cause for concern -whether this is justified or not - and to which they demand a response at European level.
My colleague, Mrs Malone, in particular, will be commenting on Malta; I do not, therefore, wish to go into detail on that now.
<P>
I should, however, like to make a number of fundamental remarks and ask a number of fundamental questions.
Firstly, I believe - and this is something of which the House should be aware - that the way we chose to deal with the applicant countries, using the European Conference as a kind of umbrella forum to negotiate with some of them, was the right way.
The elections in Latvia - as well as the referendum on integrating the Russian-speaking population - and the elections in Slovakia have shown that it was right to accept these countries as applicants.
Nevertheless, we must give them time and provide certain incentives for them to put the appropriate measures in place.
I am glad that this has actually demonstrated that we proceeded in the right way, even though our course of action was disputed in certain quarters of this House.
The incentives method - providing support for improvements on democracy, the rule of law and minorities - has proved to be the right method.
<P>
We failed - unfortunately, at this European Conference too - to secure the participation of Turkey.
I wonder how topics such as international crime, drug trafficking and so on can really be dealt with effectively without Turkey.
I should also like to take this opportunity to express my particular concerns about the current strained relations between Turkey and its neighbour, Syria.
Nobody should support terrorist groups and thus enable them to be active in other countries.
But if Turkey is not capable of solving the problem itself by peaceful means, then it has neither the legitimacy nor the right to take action and organise activities in another country.
<P>
I should like to ask the presidency whether this was discussed; what the presidency's views are on this issue; and whether, perhaps jointly with the Americans, a clear statement could be made to Turkey about its relations with Syria.
<P>
My final question for the presidency, however, is whether an initiative was put forward at the meeting of foreign ministers in Salzburg to extend this project to embrace other countries, as well as those in the European Conference.
Both the countries of south-east Europe and those in the Barcelona process are, of course, very much affected by issues such as crime and drug trafficking, but also immigration.
I wonder how these issues should be dealt with in the future.
The initiative did not exactly meet with enthusiasm or approval, but in principle, I believe it is the right approach, even though it was perhaps not prepared as well as it might have been, and the details still need to be considered.
The topics discussed, quite rightly, at the European Conference, relate to problems which can ultimately only be solved if, at the very least, the countries of south-east Europe and the countries in the Barcelona process are involved.
I should like to ask you, Madam President-in-Office, whether you can comment on how people envisage this in the future.
<P>
That apart, I would repeat that the issues you are addressing are of central importance for our continent.
I wish the European Union every success with the European Conference, so that we can find solutions to these problems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Günther">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have the impression that the topic of Malta came as rather a surprise, not only to you, Commissioner van den Broek, but also to you, Madam President-in-Office, because I had actually expected you to comment briefly on this in your statement.
<P>
As vice-chairman of the Malta Delegation, I do, however, appreciate the opportunity to discuss this issue here today.
Admittedly, I had expected a rather clearer signal from the Council, given the remarks the Commission made in the Committee on Foreign Affairs and Security, which were, even at that stage, along the same lines as those it made today.
<P>
The Council now tells us that it is waiting for a Commission communication, so as to first ascertain its assessment of the situation.
The procedure is rather bewildering, because on other enlargement issues, the Council has always taken the initiative.
Indeed, perhaps it is also the Council that should take some responsibility for the somewhat confused situation, because it gave Malta the brush-off and said that its turn would come after the preceding enlargement.
Malta was then, as it were, catapulted into the ranks of those countries which are experiencing severe difficulties in preparing for accession to the European Union.
<P>
In the two intervening years, Malta has not closed any doors.
The government, too, in the meantime, has done all it can to give a subsequent government, of whatever political hue, the possibility to reactivate its application for membership.
Besides, the Commission must certainly also have been aware of these signals from Malta, through the regular reports of its delegation.
<P>
The intention of our motion for a resolution is to call on the Council to send out a clear and immediate signal, first of all, to indicate that it welcomes Malta and that Malta is now once again a part of the European Conference.
For Malta belongs in this forum, if only because of its constructive role in the Barcelona process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="Cox">
Mr President, I welcome the report we have heard in the Conference; the sensitive way in which it has dealt with dossiers such as crime, sexual exploitation and illegal immigration will prove very helpful when eventually we have to move into the serious negotiations and the application of the new powers of the Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
I would like to use the opportunity of this debate to slightly broaden the focus, because also this week we had the important news that on 10 November next we will have the accession Conference, which is an integral part of the general Conference reported today, and marks an important psychological and political threshold.
<P>
In that regard, with the Council and the Commission present, I wish to make a number of political points.
My own Group, the ELDR, strongly believes in a wider and deeper political Union.
Now that we have crossed the threshold with the five plus one States for November, we must add new vigour to the search for the institutional reform of our own institutions urgently in advance, lest it become an obstacle later; none of us want to see that happen, but it has that capacity.
<P>
Secondly, politically, we strongly welcome the green light which was given this week to Cyprus as part of that process.
But this, too, must add a new urgency for the Council and the Commission in respect of an EU-led political initiative to resolve the Cyprus problem under the aegis of the United Nations lest, again, we should institutionalise inside the Union an intractable and difficult problem on that divided island.
<P>
In this regard, I wish to say to the Council that my Group deplores the continued failure by the Council to agree a legal base for a financial protocol with Turkey.
It is little wonder that Turkey does not participate.
We really need to get our act together at Council level there and indicate a capacity for a maturing EU relationship with all the states in that region.
<P>
My final political comment, in general terms, with regard to the upcoming Vienna Summit, is that this will afford an opportunity to review the claims of other applicant states.
My Group believes, especially in the context of the Russian political and economic crisis, that we need to review our position with regard to the Baltic States.
They have exhibited a deep commitment to reform and have made commendable progress.
This must be recognised at Vienna as, indeed, must the renewed interest in Malta.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Collins, Gerard">
Mr President, the election of Mr Adami as the new Prime Minister of Malta is going to have the effect of reactivating the application of Malta to join the European Union.
He recently stated that there would be two objectives for his new government: firstly, the application of Malta to join the European Union; and secondly, the repairing of the public national finances in Malta.
<P>
Both these issues are interlinked to a small extent, particularly in the context of economic criteria laid down in the Maastricht Treaty which prospective participants in the European Union must comply with in the single currency system.
The revival of the Maltese application to join the European Union will ensure that it is dealt with in the context of the next round of enlargement negotiations, in accordance with commitments given by EU Heads of Government at Corfu.
<P>
In fact the issue of Malta joining the European Union will be discussed at the November summit and the benefits of joining the Union for the 370 000 inhabitants of Malta are real and tangible.
There will be access to a frontier-free trading bloc encompassing over 20 European countries, assuming that the accession negotiations with the countries of Eastern and Central Europe prove successful.
<P>
The European Union with its internal market and free movement of goods, persons, services and capital is a positive economic prospect for a country which is seeking to find more markets for its domestic manufactured goods.
Malta has a lot to gain if it manages to align itself more closely with EU membership rules.
<P>
Signs of Malta's close ties with the EU are clearly evident on the island.
In fact, one of Malta's stronger arguments for entry rests on the close affinities that exist between the island's economies and the European Union.
Many industries in Malta which export a wide variety of semi-manufactured goods are owned by British, French, German and Italian companies.
As a result, 66 % of the visible Maltese import and export business is done with EU states.
<P>
Malta's other important cash income activity is tourism, which also depends on EU markets for its survival.
However, many of Malta's administrative, legal and fiscal structures have already been aligned to European Union standards.
The accession negotiations still have to overcome other difficult issues such as state support to industry and levies on imports, but I believe they can be overcome.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. This Parliament did not wish the European Conference to be left to drift along as a kind of token event, but wanted to enhance its status and make it a forum for discussing issues in the common interest.
That is a step in the right direction. However, it still lacks a coherent strategy, and has not developed into a pan-European body, capable of meeting ecological and social needs and fulfilling this continent's hopes for stability and peace.
<P>
A failed and internationally highly dubious European migration policy, which has manifested itself in some astounding ways, in particular under the Austrian Presidency, cannot be boiled down to the problem of illegal immigrant couriers and is, if you will forgive me, Madam President-in-Office, hypocritical.
Regional cooperation, on the other hand, is an important step in the right direction.
I hope that the Council will now also succeed in developing joint programmes and, when the money is distributed between the regions, that it will not differentiate between them this time, but will allow the regions to develop in parallel and along the same lines.
Finally, I hope, Mr van den Broek, that your Directorate-General will at last take a step in the right direction, and amalgamate the PHARE and Interreg funds.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Saint-Pierre">
Mr President, Madam President of the Council, Commissioner, I would like to speak about Malta, because today is a very important day for Europe and, I believe, for Malta itself.
<P>
I am delighted that Parliament agreed to the request made by my group, the Group of the European Radical Alliance, to have the relaunching of Malta's application to join the European Union put on the agenda for this part-session, in the presence of the Council and the Commission.
<P>
As chairman of the delegation to the EU-Malta Joint Parliamentary Committee, I have been a privileged and attentive observer of Maltese political life for two years.
It goes without saying that our delegation has always shown the greatest respect for the positions expressed by the various governments, since the will of the people must always prevail over partisan interests.
<P>
However, I am not going to hide the fact that I have always felt that deep down the Maltese people have had a real desire to share with the other peoples of Europe a similar common destiny, a destiny that included, on the eve of the reunification of the continent, full membership of the European Union.
<P>
I am convinced that after having made certain necessary technical adjustments, Malta can be immediately integrated into the enlargement process.
In fact, agreements were reached in 1995 that stated that negotiations with Malta and Cyprus would begin six months after the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Conference. Therefore, I personally believe that, in accordance with these agreements, it should be possible to begin accession negotiations with Malta in January 1999.
I truly hope that a decision in this direction will be taken by the Vienna European Council in December.
<P>
There is an additional reason why we should be pleased with the relaunching of Malta's application to join the Union.
On an institutional level, Malta's return will mean that the process of institutional reform will have to be speeded up. This is a necessary condition, in Parliament's opinion at least, for successful enlargement.
I would point out that, in accordance with Article 2 of the Protocol on the Institutions in the Treaty of Amsterdam, the process of institutional reform is automatically initiated when the Union is faced with the prospect of having 20 members, which would be the case here.
<P>
Without Malta, the Union, Europe, would never feel complete.
Mutual coexistence will constantly enrich both parties, Europe and Malta. It will also be an important asset in relations between the Union and the Mediterranean countries involved in the Barcelona process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Linser">
Mr President, when examining Malta's application for membership, which the Commissioner has confirmed has been resurrected, the Union must, I believe, take into account the following points in particular: firstly, consideration should be given to whether, from the point of view of its infrastructure, Malta is in any kind of a position to run a Council presidency.
A similarly small country such as Luxembourg, for example, cooperates with Belgium in this respect. No such possibility is open to Malta.
<P>
Secondly, I believe that it is essential that value added tax, which has been abolished in Malta, should be reintroduced.
While other Member States are obliged to have a minimum rate of 15 %, a derogation clause on this point would put this country, when it accedes, at an unacceptable competitive advantage.
But, with your permission, I will close with a general comment on the value of the European Conference.
This instrument was created, as a matter of urgency, as a forum for dialogue between the EU and Turkey.
The fact that this state has again failed to participate should give EU strategists cause to rethink their policy on this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Malone">
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate the Presidency and the Commission for the reports they have presented to us here today.
I am very glad that such relevant matters as drugs and child prostitution were debated yesterday, as well as all the other matters that are of concern to us here this week in Parliament.
We did ourselves debate the whole question of the harmonisation of the pharmaceutical industry.
<P>
As Parliament's rapporteur on Malta's accession, I am delighted that Malta was there yesterday at the European Conference and that such a welcome was given to its renewed application for membership of the European Union.
<P>
On behalf of my Group, which also welcomes this renewed request for accession, I wish to say that we also welcome the Maltese Government's decision and indeed the opinion, shared by the opposition, that there will be a referendum held on the conclusion of the negotiations.
That is of vital importance.
Our Group also naturally considers it important that the renewed request should be dealt with both expeditiously and in full accordance with the proper procedures laid down in the Treaty.
<P>
My Group has therefore taken the initiative of calling on the Commission to present an updated opinion on Malta's renewed application, and, as Commissioner Van Den Broek has said, to see if and how they can catch up on the past two years while the application was frozen.
My Group will also, by way of amendment, be defending Parliament's absolute right to express our opinion on the Commission's updated opinion on Malta's renewed application.
We consider that Malta has a natural vocation, both in terms of its democratic institutions and respect for human rights, to form an integral part of the European Union.
We look forward to receiving the Commission's analysis of the economic and political developments since the freezing of the previous application in 1996.
<P>
I was interested to hear what Commissioner Van Den Broek said about the VAT situation being much clearer here, but, as the Commissioner is aware, there were other problems associated with some small industries and so on.
There is also the whole question of neutrality which has not been touched on.
I know this is a very sensitive and divisive issue in Malta as indeed it is in other Member States including Ireland.
<P>
Finally, when we receive the Commission's updated report, I hope we will be able to quickly resolve any outstanding problems, so that the Maltese people can themselves decide once and for all on their future place in the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Azzolini">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by congratulating our friend, Prime Minister Eddy Fenech Adami, on his recent electoral success in Malta.
His success is all the more significant given that, at the same time, the electorate came out in favour of Malta's accession to the European Union, thus confirming the line taken by the previous Fenech Adami government, and which obtained a favourable opinion from our institutions in 1995.
The determination and speed with which Prime Minister Adami renewed Malta's application for EU membership, as one of the new government's first acts, should not only reassure us as to the possibility of including Malta in the first round of negotiations on enlargement, but should also give us great satisfaction.
<P>
Indeed, Malta complies with the criteria for accession to the Union to a much greater extent than other applicant countries, and we can also be sure that a rapid recovery and return to the Maastricht criteria - already achieved in the recent past - will reward this country's legitimate aspirations to join the monetary union.
We need only recall that in 1995, Malta achieved a deficit of 3.9 % of GDP and inflation of 2.9 %, and that the Maltese lira has been pegged to the ECU for eleven years.
Once it is fully integrated in the European Union, in my opinion Malta will constitute an important outpost in the Mediterranean basin, likely to form a natural bridge between the cultures and economies of third countries and of the European Union.
Therefore, I can state both out of the conviction deriving from my role as former vice-chairman of the delegation for EU/Malta relations, and for the reasons I have just given, that Malta should be considered in the first round of negotiations for EU enlargement by 2002.
<P>
I should like to hear the views of the Council presidency on this point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there has obviously been a communication problem between Parliament, the Council and the Commission, since the Commissioner only realised what was happening at the last minute thanks to the prompt on the screen.
We have not heard anything from the Council, although I am assuming that this will be covered in the response at the end.
Everyone in Parliament is delighted that Malta has decided to reapply, and I think that politically speaking it is important for the consolidation of the Barcelona process that the Mediterranean presence in the European Union should be a little larger.
The Barcelona process could certainly do with a little consolidation.
It is also a clear illustration of the fact that Europe is expanding not just towards the east, but towards the whole of the continent of Europe.
<P>
Secondly, I think that it is very important for the people to have the chance to have their say and to distinguish between voting for a party and voting for membership, and we naturally support the calls for a referendum here.
Finally, I do not think we need to adopt a paternalistic attitude towards Malta.
Malta is strong enough to protect its own interests, and I think it may also come to illustrate perfectly what Europe has always said about the first and second waves, which is that it is very easy to move from the second to the first.
This is what we want to see.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, I was delighted to hear the report from the Council on the activities in the European Conference.
It is clearly a very thorough conference.
It is important to know that the conference is prepared to deal with issues which are important to the ordinary voters of the European Union, such as drugs and the battle against crime.
It is important to know how seriously governments are now taking the way crime undermines the basis of a democratic society.
<P>
I am pleased the conference was able to find a mechanism to deal with these problems now rather than wait until we have negotiated full European Union membership.
I believe it is a step forward in the security of the continent.
<P>
I am particularly pleased to hear that attention is being focused on one group of people who are often ignored by politicians, namely children.
The situation in Europe, quite frankly, is an affront to civilised society; it is an affront to civilisation to have abuse of children and to have, in effect, the return to Europe of slavery.
<P>
Clearly it would undermine the democratic legitimacy of the European Union if the ordinary voter began to get the impression that the people who most benefited from the freedom of movement in the single market are the murderers, the blackmailers, the criminals, the junkies, the paedophiles.
We must make it very clear that we are not prepared to allow them to abuse what we wanted as economic benefits.
<P>
I would like to hear the Council say something about what it feels is the future of the European Conference.
Mr Swoboda has already mentioned certain countries which he feels should participate in the conference.
I would add to that list Ukraine.
I believe that is important because Ukraine is tied very closely to the West.
I would like to hear the presidency give us its observations about where we go from here in the conference, because it can be a major force.
<P>
On Malta, like everybody else I welcome the decision by the Maltese Government to apply for European Union membership.
But we must not get carried away.
This is not the return of the prodigal son.
This is not the opportunity to slay a few fatted calves and have a feast.
This is simply a democratic government expressing the will of its people.
Our enthusiasm must not blind us toward the many problems that come with Malta.
EU membership still remains a political football, which is not the best way to prepare for full membership of the European Union.
<P>
Secondly, the Commission in its avis identified certain weaknesses, particularly in relation to the structure of the economy.
What we have to do now is look again at the situation in Malta and judge it on the same basis as any other country.
Talk of Malta jumping to the front of the queue - which I have heard in Parliament - is nonsense.
Malta has to be judged the same as any other country.
But we are delighted that it is part of our family again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bianco">
Madam President-in-Office, I very much welcome the fact that you gave pride of place at the Conference to issues which are without doubt crucial, such as drugs, paedophilia and new forms of slavery, subjects which we hope to return to on other occasions for further consideration.
Nevertheless, I cannot refrain from expressing a certain amount of disappointment - which I hope you will be able to dispel in your reply - regarding your silence on the matter of Malta's accession to the European Union.
<P>
The Commissioner, whom I have heard speak several times in meetings of the joint committee, likewise struck me as rather more lukewarm this time than others, even though we now have before us a firm request for accession from the new Maltese Government.
We should like to hear more warmth, as much enthusiasm for Malta as for the other applicant countries.
<P>
Malta is not demanding special favours, Mr Titley.
Its Prime Minister has declared his intention to comply with the Maastricht criteria in full.
Some slippage has occurred over the past two years, it is true, under the Labour Government, as compared with two years ago when Malta met the Maastricht criteria in full, and now it needs to catch up again.
As for the neutrality issue which has been raised here, the Prime Minister has singled it out and said that the problem can be solved.
So Malta has all its papers in order.
<P>
I do not believe that a credible Mediterranean policy can be pursued without Malta being a member of the European Union.
The benefits would be considerable, especially as the Mediterranean will be a major policy area over the next few years.
It is our second main border, and we cannot tackle the problem of large-scale migration unless we conduct a serious policy, in conjunction with Barcelona.
Malta is a much-needed protagonist in all of this; that is why we are strongly in favour of Malta's accession to the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, although I did not mention Malta earlier, because I was not aware that it was included in today's discussion, I would like to say that we did take the first available opportunity.
You know, of course, that Guido De Marco emerged as the winner in the elections on 10 September, and obviously we took advantage of the first Council meeting after that to discuss the subject.
I believe that a very positive signal was sent out yesterday.
The Commission - as you know - has been requested to present, as soon as possible, an updated version of its opinion of July 1993, which, naturally, needs to be re-examined and revised.
In addition, the President of the Council was authorised to send a letter of reply to the Foreign Minister of Malta, referring to the procedure which is now necessary, namely the updating of the opinion.
I do believe that we responded as quickly as we could, and I in no way wish it to be understood that we harbour any feelings of resentment against Malta.
I should like to make that quite clear.
On the contrary, we are delighted that Malta is back on board, if I may put it like that.
<P>
Secondly, I should briefly like to mention Syria and Turkey.
Obviously, both the European Union and the Council are concerned about the tensions in the region, and at the moment we are supporting Egypt's efforts to restore a certain degree of calm to the situation.
On the Partnership for Europe, you are aware that at the informal Council in Salzburg, the Austrian Presidency pursued the idea of finding some kind of basis for bringing in those countries which are not applicants or have no prospect of acceding at the present time.
Unfortunately, perhaps because it had not been prepared in sufficient detail, many countries provisionally rejected this idea in Salzburg, saying that it was premature.
I myself believe, however, that opportunities will certainly also be provided in the future for these countries - Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, etc. to at least have the prospect of working in collaboration with Europe.
<P>
As regards institutional reform, which was also mentioned, I should like to say that it will soon be the Pörtschach summit.
Admittedly, this issue will not be to the fore, but perhaps one or other of the delegations will in fact address the subject of institutional reform, which will, of course, soon be back on the agenda as part of the follow-up to ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty.
But obviously, we know that institutional reform is one of the preconditions for our really being in a position to accept further applicants for membership.
<P>
On Cyprus, I should like to emphasise once more that we, the Austrian Presidency, are very pleased that we have succeeded in being able to start negotiations on membership with all the countries in the first wave - five plus one, Cyprus - on 10 November.
This could not be taken for granted, and we struggled over it to the last.
It is, therefore, all the more gratifying that we have managed it.
Obviously, we support starting the negotiations on membership, and hope that this will also have a renewed positive influence on the political negotiating process; in this respect, we are in close contact with the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan.
<P>
As far as Turkey is concerned, I should like to point out that the Council presidency is still endeavouring to establish the Association Council with Turkey, and of course here too, talks are being held with both sides, but as yet we have not achieved a breakthrough.
We will continue our efforts, to the end of our presidency at the very least.
<P>
I should like to make one more point on migration.
Although we will be debating migration issues next, I simply cannot let the accusation stand that our action in this respect is hypocritical.
The Austrian Presidency produced a working paper, which gave rise to a number of misunderstandings, because obviously under no circumstances were we going to do away with the Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees and its instruments; in fact, it was only referring to complementary protection measures.
<P>
Incidentally, there has been cooperation on migration and asylum within the European Union for longer than you think.
But I will say more about that during the next debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
I have received seven motions for resolutions on this subject pursuant to Rule 37(2).
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Situation in Kosovo
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="President">
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the situation in Kosovo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is now exactly three weeks since I last spoke to you on the subject of Kosovo.
Since then, the situation has again worsened dramatically.
The High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata, visited Kosovo, Montenegro and Albania just last week.
She reported that there were an estimated 200 000 refugees and internally displaced people, around 50 000 of whom are spending the night out in the open, in the forests and hills. Almost every day, more displaced people join them.
<P>
Belgrade's repeated proclamations that the fighting was being stopped and the Serbian forces withdrawn have proved to be either untrue, or a tactical manoeuvre on the part of President Milosevic.
In talks with Mrs Ogata, Mr Milosevic even denied the existence of a humanitarian crisis in Kosovo and gave assurances that the Yugoslav Government was endeavouring to ease the suffering of the displaced people and make it possible for them to return home very soon.
The reality, as perceived by Mrs Ogata and regularly reported by the KDOM, tells a different story.
So do the statements made by the Secretary-General of the United Nations in the report he presented to the Security Council the day before yesterday, in which he records that the Serbian security forces are waging a campaign of terror and violence against the civilian population in Kosovo.
<P>
Unfortunately, it is all too obvious that, given that winter is approaching, we are heading for a humanitarian catastrophe, unless the situation changes soon.
The Kosovo Albanians currently seeking refuge in the forest have no fresh drinking water, increasingly scarce supplies of food, no sanitation and no medicines.
The situation is, therefore, particularly serious for children, the elderly and the sick.
<P>
There is no doubt - and this needs to be repeated here - that the main responsibility for there being such large numbers of refugees and displaced people lies with the Government of Serbia and Yugoslavia, that is to say with Milosevic himself.
<P>
The Serbian and Yugoslav authorities are always claiming that they are, after all, only defending themselves against terrorists and separatists, and that the military offensive is merely a response to the attacks carried out by the KLA.
Obviously, the KLA bears some of the responsibility for the worsening security situation, but we should keep a sense of proportion.
<P>
As for the European Union, what I said three weeks ago still stands. It demands an immediate halt to the violence and early negotiations to find a political settlement to the crisis.
From the political point of view, the Union supports the proposal, drafted by the United States and expressly approved by the Contact Group, for an interim agreement, and sees this as the most important starting point for any negotiated solution.
<P>
The Union is particularly active in the humanitarian field.
In the margins of the United Nations General Assembly, EU foreign ministers agreed to appoint the Austrian Ambassador in Belgrade, Wolfgang Petritsch, as special EU envoy to Kosovo.
Two days ago, the Council also adopted the corresponding formal decisions.
<P>
The main tasks of the new special envoy will be to coordinate the EU's humanitarian activities with those of the international humanitarian organisations and, at the same time, to act as a point of contact for the Belgrade government and as an intermediary between it and Kosovo's political leaders.
<P>
Revisiting an initiative of foreign ministers Mr Kinkel and Mr Védrine, the presidency has also set up working groups in Belgrade and Geneva, composed of interested EU states, the USA, Russia, UNHCR, the ICRC, and the ECMM and KDOM observer missions.
The aim, by undertaking concerted action agreed on the spot, is to identify villages and towns to which the displaced people, at present living in the open air, can return, in safety and with dignity.
<P>
Within the last few days, the presidency has also presented 'Project Home' to its EU partners.
This initiative aims to make it easier for displaced people living in the open in the Komorane and Lapusnik area to return home. In addition, it provides for a number of accompanying, confidence-building measures.
<P>
Admittedly, all initiatives of this kind were called into question by renewed clashes and fear of further persecution, destruction and massacres.
I refer, in this context, to what happened in places such as Gornje Obrinje, where dozens of innocent people, including in particular elderly people, children and pregnant women, were tortured and murdered.
<P>
At its meeting two days ago, the Council condemned these atrocities and their perpetrators in the strongest possible terms, and called on the Belgrade authorities to investigate these abominable crimes without delay and punish those responsible.
Furthermore, it requested all those involved to cooperate with the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the investigation of these crimes.
Besides this, in the light of repeatedly levelled accusations that horrific war crimes were being committed, the presidency has for months been arguing in favour of sending a team of experienced forensic experts to Kosovo.
<P>
The resulting invitation from Belgrade University to a forensic team from Helsinki University on 2 October, represents the first modest fruits of our efforts.
Finally, from the Union's point of view, I should also like to recall the decisions the EU made on sanctions.
As you know, these consisted of refusing entry visas to security force officials, freezing the overseas assets of the Serbian and Yugoslav Government, banning new investment in Serbia, and lastly banning the Yugoslav airlines from flying and landing.
<P>
More far-reaching measures can only be taken with the support of a qualified majority of EU States.
Moreover, there is an EU-wide consensus, that the sanctions should not affect the civilian population or Yugoslavia's neighbouring states, which would themselves be faced with severe difficulties if there were an embargo on Belgrade.
In the same way, it is agreed that, wherever possible, Montenegro should not suffer as a result of the sanctions applied.
Nevertheless, at the most recent Council meeting, in Luxembourg, it was decided to examine the gaps in the current sanction regime and make proposals to close them.
<P>
In the Council's discussions and many other events over the last few days, however, another more fundamental development has become apparent.
A certain shift of opinion on the crisis in Kosovo can be observed within the international community.
There is increasingly clear support for tougher action from the international community.
Resolution 1199, adopted by the United Nations Security Council on 23 September, was the first outward sign of this.
<P>
The current mission of the American special envoy, Mr Holbrooke; the consultations in the Security Council on the report tabled by the United Nations Secretary-General; the preparations being made in NATO for possible air strikes; and the forthcoming meetings of the Contact Group and the North Atlantic Council, should, in the meantime, have made it abundantly clear to Belgrade that the international community's patience is running out.
There is no doubt that the decisions which lie ahead are also of tremendous significance for the European Union. After all, they affect the security and stability of the whole continent.
<P>
For the sake of the presidency, which is involved in the work of the Contact Group, I do not wish to pre-empt these decisions.
In any case, it is clear to me personally, that Europe and the international community can no longer stand by and watch, while the acts of violence and massacres in Kosovo continue.
It is precisely because hundreds of thousands of people are threatened by a humanitarian catastrophe, that I believe that it is time for clear answers, if the Security Council's decisions are not implemented immediately and in full.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, I would wholeheartedly endorse the President-in-Office's statement that only a tough response will bring about any change in the terrible situation of hundreds of thousands of refugees and displaced persons.
A tough response towards President Milosevic, of course.
But what use are all these tough statements?
Our hands are more or less tied, and we have now just about done all we can in the area where the European Union has the power and scope to act, with political and diplomatic pressure and economic sanctions.
However, I agree with the President-in-Office that it is rather worrying that it appears to be so difficult to get a package of sanctions approved, and approved in such a way that the Member States are forced to take tough measures without backing down. I am thinking here of the ban on flights which, as far as I know, is still not being complied with by all the Member States.
I think the necessary measures have now been taken here, but the real sticking point, which has us going round in circles, is whether humanitarian intervention using military means is allowed or not.
It is not primarily for the Commission to answer this question.
We can have an opinion on it, but it is only one of many.
It is up to the major players to decide whether they agree, and if they cannot reach a consensus, which is the case, then the question is whether to go ahead on the basis of a 'coalition of the willing'.
<P>
The thing that strikes me about this whole debate is that there seems to be constant confusion between those who say they want a political solution to the conflict but exclude any foreign intervention, and those who say they want a political solution to the conflict but that this will not be found unless President Milosevic, who wants a military solution, is removed, by military force if necessary.
We have often discussed the lessons to be learnt from Bosnia, and now history is repeating itself and another humanitarian disaster is looming.
Once it is too late we will all agree that we should have acted earlier.
It took 300 000 people to die in Bosnia before we realised this - how many will it take in Kosovo?
<P>
Since Resolution 1199, there have been 15 to 20 000 new refugees and displaced persons.
A Security Council resolution of 23 September referred to Chapter 7, which called on the parties to cease hostilities immediately, yet here we are on 7 October and ethnic cleansing is still going on at this very minute.
<P>
Belgrade will issue new invitations to representatives of the UN, the OSCE, perhaps even the EU and the Council of Europe.
Endless talking against a background of endless shooting.
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This may be my frustration talking, but I feel that we must take every opportunity to condemn this process as unacceptable.
I can understand why Russia has reservations about using military intervention, since there is such a thing as Slav solidarity, and the Russian Parliament, which is deeply opposed to such measures, is currently facing a serious financial, economic and political crisis at home.
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But this can be no excuse for simply allowing a humanitarian disaster to happen, especially given that any new tides of refugees or displaced persons will not be seeking refuge in Moscow.
Those who are the worst affected after the refugees themselves are other countries in the region or in western Europe.
So there are very clear interests at stake in ensuring that this destabilisation and humanitarian disaster are not allowed to happen.
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I have nothing more to add to what the presidency has already expressed in very clear terms.
We can continue to ask questions, but the only answer that counts - how we can put an end to the violence - will remain open until those who have the power to decide give a clear, unequivocal response.
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<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, for nine years I have sat in this Chamber and heard lots of pleas for a common foreign and security policy.
My suspicion is that what people were talking about during this time was simply the harmonisation of a process - a neat bit of packaging around a policy that could be fitted onto an institutional shelf.
They were not talking about an effective policy and were not concerned about the effectiveness of its outcome.
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This week all my suspicions have been proved absolutely correct.
Month after month we have heard Members of this European Parliament demanding ever tougher action in Kosovo, and yet we discover in the General Affairs Council that the countries these Members represent are the countries which are not prepared to take action on Kosovo.
When the going gets tough, the tough talkers sit on their hands.
That is unacceptable!
The common foreign and security policy is being seen as a total sham!
It is unacceptable to the peoples of Europe to see every day on their television scenes of atrocities and massacres; to see the problems of refugees; to see the destabilisation of a region of Europe as more and more refugees go into Albania and put more pressure on FYROM, so that the whole region could explode; and to see the European Union, the Council of Ministers, simply not prepared to do anything.
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I am not naturally somebody who instinctively talks about military action: I am naturally cautious.
Since my son recently joined the British Royal Air Force, military intervention is no longer an intellectual debate but is now a personal issue for me.
But I cannot accept that we continue to allow babies to have their throats cut while we sit around having ever more byzantine arguments about legal bases.
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Resolution 1199 is enough to justify military action.
Milosevic is not adhering to Resolution 1199.
How many more hurdles do we want to invent to excuse inaction?
I say to the Council: how many people have to die before it does something about Kosovo?
Let us have action!
No more words, no more hurdles, no more intellectual arguments about how many laws you can get on the end of a pin!
Enough is enough!
Do something!
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<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office: hear, hear, Mr Titley.
We could, therefore, take all the resolutions which we have adopted and adopt them all over again - this time, at last, with the support of the Socialists - so as to put an end to all that he has so forcefully denounced here.
Thank you very much, Mr Titley; I hope we will adopt a resolution along those lines today.
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All diplomacy could achieve with Milosevic was a scornful smile at so much Western stupidity.
Hitherto, he has always simply taken our weakness as a licence to continue the genocide in Bosnia and now in Kosovo.
Unfortunately, however, the situation is even more unsavoury.
The West did not say it explicitly, but at the beginning, the reality was that they let Milosevic kill in Kosovo because he was said to be crushing the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army, whose revolt it was which shattered the deathly calm in Kosovo, and at last turned the eyes of the world on this miserable Serbian regime of apartheid.
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Suddenly Mr Rugova is the most important man.
Why, then, did no one help him over the eight years that he led his people in peaceful resistance, hoping for our support?
The crocodile tears which the West now sheds for Mr Rugova, the contravened sanctions and the empty threats are all signs of helpless political disarray.
And now the countdown has started.
It has started, but, we might well ask, where will it end?
What does come after a military strike, which I have been calling for for so long in this House?
The only formula which could provide scope for successful negotiations, mediated by the West, is a temporary international administration in Kosovo, safeguarding the right of the Albanians to live in Kosovo, removing their fears of extermination, and granting them self-determination of their affairs.
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Unfortunately, however, I fear that Milosevic will then delay the negotiations, that the cat will lead the mouse a terrible dance and that, ultimately, the West will pronounce the mouse guilty because it did not give itself up to be eaten and because the poor spectators were forced to look on pityingly.
That is how it will end, and I very much regret it.
I hope that the Council, the Commission and the international community will see reason and come to the aid of the people of Kosovo, who are dying every day.
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<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cars">
Mr President, in Kosovo we have seen torture, burnt-out villages and violence against men, women and children - and a great deal of it.
Just as there has been a great deal of talk in this House and at the United Nations, but we have not actually done anything.
I am filled with dismay, especially since I get the feeling that a number of today's speakers have some sympathy for the Serbian position.
Maybe they want Serb forces to crush the Kosovo Liberation Army before we undertake any steps. That would soften up Kosovo, rendering it more pliable over the question of continued union with Serbia.
Despite all the fine-sounding resolutions, I sense that some people would not mind seeing the violence go on. Afterwards it would be that much easier to impose a solution.
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Take Mr Titley, who just had the floor. His actions to date could well have helped bring about what has happened in Kosovo.
He won applause today for saying that we must intervene. Yet when he himself could have intervened, when he could have demanded that measures be taken, he did nothing of the sort.
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I read in the newspaper this morning that President Bill Clinton is now saying that the time has come to end the violence in Kosovo.
That time came a long time ago, in my opinion.
I call upon this Parliament to have the courage of its convictions and to state - even if somewhat late in the day - that the time really has come. Our own humanist values are on the line.
Let us demonstrate that democracy can muster a little strength at least.
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<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, there are a number of questions I should like to ask.
Why has the war criminal President Milosevic not yet been brought before the tribunal in The Hague?
This would have solved part of the problem.
Yesterday evening I was in contact with the opposition in Belgrade.
Mr Draskovic told me that if there is an air strike he will fight to defend his country.
Mr Gingic said, and I quote, 'If there is an air strike against Serbia the road to Europe will be closed to us, we will fall into a black hole and the opposition will find things very difficult'.
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People in Europe see refugees shivering in the cold and expect the international community to do something.
Air strikes perhaps, but what does the EU plan to do afterwards?
Is the Council aware of the divisions within the KLA?
How will it negotiate?
Air strikes will simply provoke all these groups to take action.
The Serbs will resist, knowing their partisan mentality.
Is the Council prepared to support an international initiative to provide ground troops to break Serbia's resistance and protect the people of Kosovo?
Does it think that a forensic examination of all these terrible murders should be taken into account when deciding on air strikes?
Is anything known about the outcome of the talks between Rugova and Holbrooke?
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If all diplomatic efforts fail, we have no choice but to order air strikes, and I support this.
But I still think that the scenario after the air strikes is not clear and has not been thought through properly.
This brings me back to my first point: Milosevic must be brought before the tribunal and part of the problem will be solved.
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<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Mr President, I really do feel that, at this stage, we could do without speeches and meetings.
I believe we have to make very clear statements and, in particular, specific requests to the Council.
We all know that the situation in Kosovo is worsening by the minute, and we are all aware that Milosevic is about to attain his objective and complete his ethnic cleansing.
We are also certain that he will ignore Security Council Resolution 1199, as he did all the preceding ones.
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In the face of all this, what is the key question?
The key question is whether Milosevic really believes that the international community is prepared to implement the measures it announces with monotonous regularity every two or three weeks.
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I believe that the European Community must take some simple steps.
For instance, the Council should urge the United Nations to adopt a resolution to implement Resolution 1199, military action and humanitarian aid.
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In this connection, I believe that the European Union should conduct an honest debate amongst its Member States to inform public opinion as to which governments are fully prepared to implement the United Nations resolutions and which are not.
I also feel that, on the whole, public opinion needs a clear signal on this matter.
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The Council must also take into account what Felipe González, the special envoy, has so often stressed: the solution to the Kosovo problem depends, as do so many other things, on Serbia becoming a democratic country.
In this connection, I would like to ask the President-in-Office of the Council if the latter is really prepared to support Mr González and act on his recommendations.
Finally, I earnestly hope that this Parliament will not become a laughing-stock and fail to agree on a resolution on Kosovo, as happened a few weeks ago, in September.
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<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Cohn-Bendit">
Mr President, this situation is nothing short of surreal.
Obviously, we are in favour of air strikes in Kosovo or on the Serbs.
The question is, who can make the decision?
It can only happen if there is a proposal from the United Nations, a Security Council decision on the basis of a proposal by Mr Annan.
But, now you are saying, if they are not in a position to do this, then..!
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I tell you, if we are as strong as we are claiming to be, why has Mr Rühe - still the German Minister of Defence - who is in favour of air strikes, not yet ordered his troops in Bosnia to catch Karadzic?
There are 50 000 soldiers there.
It is possible to catch him, but we have not done so, and all of a sudden we are being all pragmatic and wanting to threaten Milosevic with air strikes.
Everyone knows that this is not the way heroes behave.
Mrs van Bladel is right there.
If we want to have a say in Kosovo, then we have to be prepared to leave 30 000 soldiers there for a certain period of time.
You are right there, Mrs Pack.
But then we have to actually do what we say.
And that means not discussing air strikes, which will not solve anything, but doing some straight talking about the action we need to take.
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I ask you: why did we not do this in Bosnia?
Why do we not make sure that all those who should go to The Hague actually do go there?
We mentioned Karadzic.
That is why I do not believe any of you. I do not believe you when you say that you want a solution!
You know that the situation is unbearable in Kosovo.
This fact is unbearable for all of us. But, Mr Titley, you have a stake in Mr Blair.
You all have a stake in some government somewhere, on which we are not getting a return.
All of a sudden, we are playing at being strong.
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I tell you, it is a drastic solution and a drastic situation, but it will not be solved by a Parliament which is so bigoted, that faced with a drastic situation it always responds in the same way and is never in a position to implement what we have the potential to do.
That is why I ask you to deliver a strong resolution, but also to conduct a strong policy in your countries, to prevent your government from allowing itself to be blackmailed by Russia.
Mr van den Broek, if you can speak so plainly with us, then speak plainly with Mr Primakov for once as well.
The solution is also to be found in Moscow.
'No money if there is no change in Kosovo, ' in whatever language you like.
That is what you need to tell the Russians.
Say it clearly, and your colleagues Trittin and Fischer should say it, and all the rest.
Then there will be change in Kosovo.
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<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, Madam President of the Council, Commissioner, I think we must all be mad.
For six months, our only policy has been to bury our heads in the sand.
Today, we are going through the motions.
We are flexing our muscles.
But what are we going to do?
We are going to launch missiles which will simply strengthen Mr Milosevic's regime.
That is the policy of Pontius Pilate.
Once again, we are ignoring the fundamental problem, which is that as long as there is no democracy in Belgrade, there will be no solution for Kosovo, just as there will be no solution for the entire Yugoslav population.
We need to take this on board and begin to take measures and define a policy.
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Mr Milosevic already has his policy, and I think it might be useful to go through it once again: in Bosnia, Mr Milosevic did everything he could, day after day, to be able to conclude the Dayton Agreement and to divide Bosnia. Today, three years after this agreement was implemented, no-one can claim that it has been a success.
Less than 20 % of the displaced people have returned to their homes.
There are fine programmes such as HOME and others which are designed to enable 300 000 Kosovan refugees to return to their region.
Milosevic will not allow this.
He is currently implementing a policy of partition in Kosovo.
He is prepared to give up the part of Kosovo that cannot be used in exchange for the 40 % or 50 % of the territory which borders on Montenegro. This is land which includes Kosovo's rich mines, which just by chance happens to be where the few Orthodox monasteries are based, and which, also by chance, would allow him to strengthen his control over an increasingly reluctant ally: Montenegro.
That is Milosevic's policy.
It is perfectly clear.
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Faced with that, the European Union has no policy.
We have adopted a racist approach: we believe that the Serbs have no right to democracy, and we continue, day after day, to condemn them to being governed by a nationalist-communist regime. Instead, the only thing we should be doing is bringing that regime down.
Rather than 'Exocet' or American 'Tomahawk' missiles, there is a much better missile that can work without leading to any bloodshed at all: it is called an 'arrest warrant', with Milosevic being taken directly from Belgrade to The Hague to appear before the International War Crimes Tribunal.
That does not require any special financing.
It is a political measure that the European Union can take tomorrow morning by sending the appropriate signals.
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<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Parigi">
Mr President, unfortunately in Kosovo we are witnessing the umpteenth Balkan tragedy, but as always we utter the same predictable and futile words.
However hard we in this House have tried to hurl curses or to trust in the prospect of peace, the facts remain the same.
Europe has been unable, incapable or unwilling to play a political role in preventing the massacres which have been going on for months now.
The big shots in this Parliament, as well as in the other European institutions, have opted to slow down - or rather to halt - the process of Europe's political unification, so much so that Europe, bereft of a common foreign policy, now counts for nothing whatsoever.
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We can trot out endless tedious, repetitive resolutions on human rights, and we can emphatically welcome monetary union, but the truth is that, without a political focus, our single currency will not create a single job for a long time to come, just as we shall go on standing cravenly on the sidelines of atrocities and massacres whose roots are lost in the dark past of Balkan history.
I would remind you that in the fourteenth century, the Muslims put all the Kosovan Serbs to death by the sword and brought in Albanians.
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Ours is still the Europe of individual foreign ministers, isolated policies and the interests of nations which regard themselves as the strongest.
If we really wished to do our duty, we would all of us together, today, demand that the mandate given to the EU representative in Yugoslavia should be entirely free from constraints and conditions, and that at the same time the Member States' Foreign Ministers should refrain from cultivating bilateral relations with this or that rival faction.
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Milosevic has been able to act undisturbed, in the knowledge of Europe's cowardliness. The massacre of this European people must finally be brought to an end, but only with the intervention of a European Union peace force: it is time to stop relying on action from the United States alone, allowing that country to go on asserting its hegemony over others.
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<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wiersma">
Mr President, I think it is time to draw a line under the situation in Kosovo.
The hour is fast approaching when action must be taken, as I think everyone here would agree.
Despite all the international pressure that has been brought to bear we still have not managed to put an end to the violent repression.
The report by Secretary-General Kofi Annan confirms that Belgrade is thumbing its nose at the UN demands, for which the report harshly criticises it.
The guilty party has been clearly identified, as we asked.
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The mission by the American envoy Richard Holbrooke has so far been a failure.
President Milosevic seems bent on out-and-out conflict and is clearly counting on support from Russia.
Either that, or he is playing cat-and-mouse as he did before, and plans to agree to some concession or other at the last minute.
We must not on any account be drawn into such games and must put an end to this situation, as I said.
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We welcome the fact that NATO is ready to enforce compliance with the UN demands and to enable help to get through to the refugees, because everyone is now talking about their terrible plight and we cannot wait much longer to get humanitarian aid to those who are suffering.
Winter is approaching, as people have pointed out.
I say that I welcome possible military action by NATO because I realise that a political solution, however desirable it may be, is becoming increasingly unlikely.
Belgrade refuses to budge and clearly expects us to accept the present situation, but this is out of the question.
The Security Council must decide in the next few days on whether to take military action.
If Milosevic refuses to budge, such action will become inevitable, in my view.
We would urge the Council to play an active part in this process.
It would be irresponsible to delay any longer, and the European Union must also adopt a clear stance here.
We are trying to find a UN-led solution, but as we have often said, the fate of the people of Kosovo must not be allowed to depend on details of international law.
The people of Kosovo cannot understand this, nor can our own citizens.
I hope that Russia does not force us to choose between our principles and our relations with it.
If it does, I would choose to stand by our principles.
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We do not want military intervention.
President Milosevic has forced our hand and he must now face the consequences.
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<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stenzel">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, Commissioner, what we are seeing in Kosovo is a humiliating display of powerlessness on the part of both the European Union and the international community, embodied by the international Contact Group and the UN.
The Amsterdam Treaty, not yet ratified by all the EU Member States, will, in theory, provide a means for us to undertake peace-enforcing, peace-keeping and humanitarian action in the form of Petersberg missions; the EU will have the option of giving the Western European Union, which would itself have to call on contingents of NATO troops, a mandate to undertake action of this kind.
But until the Treaty is ratified, this is just pie in the sky.
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The dilemma facing the European Union is that it does not have effective security instruments at its disposal, does not have the military backbone, to lend credibility to its demands for a political solution to the Kosovo crisis.
The crisis of credibility - and this is the tragic part - does not just affect the European Union, however. It also affects NATO, which has hitherto waited for the green light from the UN Security Council, but which must be aware that this green light to take military action will not come, because of opposition from Russia and China.
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My question to the Council is - and I respect the Austrian Presidency's policy of contributing to the political solution and the effort to avert a humanitarian catastrophe: what will Austria's position be, as holders of the Council presidency, if NATO, to avoid this crisis of credibility, now intervenes and sends out a military signal, given that there is not even a consensus within the Austrian Government about our security options?
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<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Caccavale">
Mr President, this morning we witnessed another show, another performance, on the television news. We saw buses full of soldiers - or made out to be full of soldiers - which were said to be leaving Kosovo and returning to Belgrade, like a sort of Barnum's Circus caravan.
At least that is what Milosevic would have us believe, one of the many yarns that he spins us, given that every week he tells us he is withdrawing.
Then, here, we have seen a few conversions on the road to Damascus: some who believed until ten days ago that it was possible to do business, to negotiate, with Milosevic, and who actually did negotiate with Milosevic, regarding him as a statesman who was vital to the balance of peace - peace, I repeat - in the Balkans; well, this morning I have heard them call with great conviction for military action, intervention and bombing.
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I, on the other hand, have long denounced Europe's impotence in respect of Kosovo. Given that this House has drawn attention several times to the enormous risk being run, I now ask you all what we intend to do with Milosevic, before or after military intervention.
Do you believe that the problem will be solved by dropping bombs on Kosovo?
I believe that with Milosevic we need to act immediately, so as to salvage some of our democratic credibility.
Milosevic must be hauled before the International Criminal Court; he must no longer receive any support from anyone, and certainly not from ministers, such as the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, who even now still believe that Milosevic can be a reliable partner.
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<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, in the Middle Ages, monks used to call meat fish and were therefore easy in their consciences when they ate it.
Here today, we are doing just about the same thing.
We are calling NATO bombardments a humanitarian enterprise and a mission of peace.
That is hypocrisy in all its glory.
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Peoples are not laboratory animals on which the European Union can test its ability to exercise the foreign policy of an international police force.
Instead of criticising the European Union and the Member States for lack of substantive will, substantive political will for a peaceful solution of the Kosovo problem, we are rebuking the European Union's bodies because they have not yet taken military action.
But when have military interventions ever proved to be a solution of any problem to the benefit of the people, which might lead us to think that such an attack can achieve this?
What we need to do now is to discuss some substantive intervention to find a political solution, if we wish to respect the rights of the people in Kosovo and in Yugoslavia as a whole.
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<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Antony (NI).">
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Mr President, we need to express our frustration, but we must also send out messages, because we are trying to present military action as an alternative to political action.
I must remind you that the most powerful weapon at the disposal of any parliament is the spoken word and, in my opinion, we can send out three messages.
The most important of these must be to the Serbian people, the first victim of that apparatchik turned nationalist, which is what Milosevic is. He has laid a carefully planned trail of destruction: beginning in Slovenia, continuing in Bosnia and turning his attention now to Kosovo.
It is worth mentioning that we have checked his progress on occasion. In December 1996, Felipe González, our special envoy at the time, succeeded in making Milosevic admit that the elections had been fraudulent.
Milosevic lost the support of the people, who turned against him. However, he is an experienced apparatchik , and regained the lost ground in four months.
Essentially, he is an expert in survival.
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I believe that, firstly, the Serbian people should be told that at present, a separate solution to the Kosovo problem and a genuine democratisation of the former Yugoslavia are not possible, and that the onus is on them to reverse the situation.
I do not advocate a James Bond-style commando raid to get Mr Milosevic to The Hague, not because I think it would be a bad idea, but because it would provoke a nationalist reaction which could be in his favour.
I do feel that this message should go out to the Serbian people because he really has become an outcast from the international community.
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Secondly, as regards Russia, we do have a significant relationship with that country, as Commissioner van den Broek has mentioned.
I believe that now is the time to raise this issue and to deal with it seriously within the framework of our relationship with Russia.
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To conclude, I think there is another important message for the Council and for the Commission.
It is just not acceptable that, having appointed a special envoy, he should be vetoed by Mr Milosevic for three years, and that during that time, a whole series of Community political representatives should troop off to Belgrade.
This enables Milosevic to exploit any divisions between us, and also places him in a position of power. We should be consistent here.
If we appoint envoys, it is for them to deal with Milosevic when appropriate.Finally, we must urge the Council to support the implementation of the United Nations resolutions - Milosevic understands that language very well indeed - not just to resolve this situation, but to achieve a lasting solution. Then in five months' time we will not need to start complaining all over again about the latest chapter in that gentleman's murderous and destructive history.
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<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
Mr President, as the President-in-Office has made very clear, this so-called political climbdown and withdrawal of troops is a typical tactical ploy by President Milosevic to give the countries of western Europe and Russia an excuse to do nothing.
I particularly welcome the fact that the President-in-Office spoke so unreservedly about this.
She also mentioned NATO intervention, and I think it would be a very good idea for Austria to take this opportunity to apply for membership of NATO in order to underline how much it values the role it plays in international peace and security.
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On the subject of the Council, our general view is that it has not acted particularly effectively.
We also have the impression, as the Commissioner also mentioned, that fear of being inundated with refugees is dominating the decisions and positions being adopted, rather than compassion with the huge numbers of victims.
The Justice and Home Affairs Council report of 5 October calmly recommends that we should send migration experts to investigate the causes of the refugee problem in greater detail, which sounds absolutely ridiculous given the seriousness of the situation.
It also indicates that the Council's position may not be guided by the best possible motives.
This is borne out by its failure to enforce sanctions: the ban on flights has simply put money in the pockets of the Yugoslav airlines, there are plenty of ways to get round the ban on investment, and nobody even knows how the visa restrictions are supposed to work.
Perhaps this all stems from the fact that parliaments, not just ours but parliaments in general, often have too little influence over what actually happens, and the indignation and moral questioning of our citizens have too little effect on policy.
We can see this from the reports issued by the French Parliament, for example, describing how the French Parliament was involved, or rather was actually not involved, in France's intervention in Rwanda.
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I would also make the following point to the Commissioner: he said he understood Slav solidarity, but I think this is a very dangerous thing to say to the Russians.
People in the Netherlands did not show solidarity with white South Africans during the apartheid regime.
The law must prevail, not demonstrations of ethnic solidarity.
We must not give the Russians the impression that we will tolerate it.
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We cannot force anyone to live under a criminal dictatorship, and this is why the regime in Belgrade will ultimately have to change, but for the moment nothing is actually happening.
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<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Blot">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, European foreign policy cannot consist of successively demonizing countries as dictated by American interests and their new world order.
Indeed, we might wonder why the United States is still militarily involved in the NATO summit in Europe, 50 years after the end of the Second World War and 10 years after the end of the Cold War.
Europeans should finally be left to deal with the conflicts within Europe and to build up their own security system themselves.
Why do we have to have this eternal American supervision?
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Furthermore, the current global media campaign against Yugoslavia is quite simply scandalous.
What is happening is, of course, appalling on a human level.
We all agree on that.
However, does a substantial part of the responsibility not also lie with the Kosovan terrorists who want to change the borders and separate Kosovo from Serbia?
Why have we never spoken too of the bullying that has been inflicted on the Serbian minority in Kosovo for many years?
The indignation is all one-sided and peace will never be achieved unless we respect the integrity of Serbian territory.
Humiliating this nation through sanctions will not bring any sort of viable or humane solution.
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<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, Commissioner, I have now listened to the debate and heard much criticism and strongly-worded contributions.
I believe that we all need a clear idea of what we want, and how we intend to go about achieving it.
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We want to come to the assistance of a people which is being brutally suppressed, sometimes to the point of death, and whose possessions are being destroyed, by its own government.
We can only do so, and that should also be clear, by sending assistance to Kosovo, accompanied and protected by ground forces, with two objectives - and we should indeed use ground forces if Milosevic does not give in.
The first is to provide large-scale humanitarian aid directly to those on the ground, and the second is to lay the foundations for Milosevic to agree to negotiate with the Kosovo Albanians about a new structure for Yugoslavia.
<P>
This may make NATO air strikes or air operations necessary.
But surely - and this may not have emerged clearly from the debate - two or three military air strikes will not be enough to change this grave, catastrophic situation.
We have to realise that if we are prepared, as an international community, to act as a protecting power, in much the same way as we did in Bosnia, then we will have to be involved for many, many years.
In my view, it would be a great mistake to believe that a handshake or a short attack on strategic targets would achieve anything.
I do not know whether the European Union is aware that this course of action will inevitably mean that NATO, and on the civilian side the European Union, will have to maintain a presence there for some considerable time.
I should like to say to Mr Oostlander that Austria has in fact already played an active role in other NATO operations, such as in Bosnia.
So, I do not see any reason for any stumbling blocks there - the EU has to realise this.
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Obviously, I fully support all the efforts being made to win over Russia and China.
If every conceivable effort is made, and still no agreement is reached in this respect, then I believe that we must go to the assistance of the Albanian people in Kosovo all the same.
It is quite out of the question for Europe to watch while a people is - I have already expressed it thus - butchered; that is not compatible with my conscience as a European.
<P>
Of course, it must also be clear - I should like to emphasise this here - that this is no licence for the KLA to take action, to a certain extent on the back of the NATO troops or whoever it might be. No, the KLA has to exercise the same restraint.
<P>
Madam President-in-Office, perhaps you could say a brief word about whether it is agreed, that, in the event of a military intervention, this will not be a short-term operation, but that back-up operations on the ground will also be necessary immediately afterwards, to provide humanitarian aid and, at long last, to achieve a political solution in Kosovo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Sarlis">
Mr President, I must say, and I must remind Parliament and the Council and the Commission, that three Balkan countries, one of them a Member State of the Community - Greece - and two candidates for membership of the European Union - Bulgaria and Romania - have ended up by agreeing on joint action concerning the issue we call Kosovo.
Consequently, I must stress the need for continual and constant communication between the Council and the Commission and those three Member States, which just recently, only ten days ago, established a tripartite military force precisely so that those countries, which are directly affected by what happens in Kosovo, will be able to deal with any consequences of the situation.
<P>
Our first concern is the protection of Albania, and of course the defence of our own frontiers too.
I will agree and say that everything the various speakers have said here is correct, given the standpoint from which it was all said.
But the solution to the Kosovo problem is above all else political, and if a military intervention of any sort takes place - I will not go into details, because I am not a military man; my only military experience was when I did my national service, so I will leave that to the Council and the Commission - it will have to be an action stemming from a predetermined policy.
We cannot go ahead with military interventions in a vacuum, but only if those military interventions take place within the framework of a political solution.
And I would say that the most important thing to emerge from the harsh resolution we will have to vote upon tomorrow on the Kosovo issue is the message we convey to the Serbian people.
That nation, which has at present become the instrument of a clique, a military and political establishment in power in Belgrade, must see that there is hope and that we stand by them to offer support if they wish to go in search of solutions which, however, they must find for themselves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, if the situation were not so tragic, the situation in Kosovo not so dreadful, then people would actually see an amusing side to the debate we are having in the plenary today.
If you recall the debate we held on Kosovo in this plenary a month ago, it really is hard to imagine that the great thinkers on foreign policy in the Socialist Group - Messrs Titley, Wiersma and Swoboda - were not able to foresee at the time what was actually going to happen in this country.
<P>
At that time, we knew exactly what was going to happen.
So, what has happened over the last month?
What has changed?
The whole situation has deteriorated significantly, as what we had already observed, in the countries where Milosevic had behaved in the selfsame way in the past, had indicated it would.
I also have to say that I am astounded to see everyone waiting today, as they did yesterday, for a possible United Nations resolution to bring about some kind of miracle.
In this respect, it increasingly seems to me that anything in which the United Nations has a hand comes to nothing.
Surely we cannot expect countries such as Russia and China suddenly to change their position, their opinion, on a situation, which closely resembles that in parts of their own countries, and which is dealt with in exactly the same way there, as we are seeing in Serbia and Kosovo at the present time.
<P>
By way of an example, I recall what we saw in Russia during the war in Chechnya; that was a very similar situation.
And we see China treating its colonies in much the same way.
We cannot expect these countries to have a sudden change of heart, and so we cannot wait for a miracle from the United Nations.
<P>
Madam President-in-Office, you rightly said that our patience is running out.
It has to be said, I believe, that our patience actually ought to have run out some time ago.
We see what is coming; we see what is happening here, and it is unacceptable.
There are only a few possible solutions - I have to grant you that, Mr Swoboda: he gave a very accurate picture of the military option and its implications.
But I believe that first of all, we must repeat that one of the political solutions, which must be at the very top of the list, is that Mr Milosevic come to The Hague and that negotiations be held, not with him, but about him.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will certainly give the Council a detailed report on the general feeling in this House, which has been clearly expressed in today's debate.
Obviously, I also believe that the use of military force - as mentioned in the debate - cannot in itself automatically resolve the political problems.
Even so, experience in Bosnia has shown us that there are situations in which military force - and air strikes, if need be - can be necessary to bring the adversaries back to the negotiating table.
That should also be stated quite clearly.
<P>
I expect Russia, in particular, also to make a constructive contribution to bringing the crisis in Kosovo to an end, given the influence which Moscow can exert on Belgrade, and its responsible role as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.
I am also saying this because Moscow should be aware that Milosevic has not in any way kept the promises he made to President Yeltsin either.
<P>
Opinions on the question - raised by several speakers - of the legal basis for military action against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, have hitherto diverged in the European Union.
I have already mentioned that intensive consultations are underway in the United Nations and NATO at the present time.
Discussions in the Alliance involve 11 out of the 15 states, which is why I do not expect the positions of the EU and the transatlantic community to differ on this issue.
<P>
In the light of the constantly changing situation, I thought it would be wrong to make definitive statements one way or the other on this very complex issue today, on behalf of the EU presidency.
I should, however, like to emphasise once more that - like Mr Swoboda and many other well-known representatives of the European Parliament - I personally believe that the international community simply cannot stand and watch, when there is an endless series of massacres and acts of violence in Kosovo, and the threat of a humanitarian catastrophe.
<P>
Finally, I should like to address one more issue you raised.
I do actually believe that it is quite legitimate to ask whether, in the event of a negotiated solution being implemented, a multinational peace-keeping force on the ground might be appropriate, on the Bosnian model for example.
These kinds of issues are under consideration at the present time, but it is too early to go into more detail.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, I very much support what the presidency said, including the last comments.
For the benefit of those who mentioned Russia's role here, I would just like to repeat what I said at the beginning: I understand Russia's situation, not just the Slav solidarity aspect, but also the traditional alliance between Russia and Yugoslavia, the position of the Duma, its unwillingness to set a precedent with military action that could be repeated in its own country, and so on, but I did not mean that Russia should be given the power to veto measures designed solely to end a humanitarian emergency or crimes against humanity.
I think we can expect a country like Russia, which we regard as our partner, not to do such a thing.
We are not asking it for active cooperation, but we must oppose Russia's use of any sort of veto.
That is what I meant.
<P>
Finally, I think that the international community and the European Union now have a duty towards these hundreds of thousands of refugees and displaced persons to stop going on about the problems and repercussions of possible military intervention and to make it clear that it is time for action, not words.
Discussions are already advanced about whether a military presence will be required afterwards.
NATO is not naive.
Most of the Member States of the European Union are also members of NATO and everyone realises that once the violence has stopped and the shockwaves have died down, that may not be the end of it and a political solution may not automatically emerge.
There are more than enough models for such solutions already, but the atmosphere is not ripe for negotiation because there is at least one party that is dominating the situation and has opted for a military rather than a political solution.
We need to change this state of affairs, but as I said the time has now come for action, not words.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, in the heat of the debate Mr Cars made some remarks about me which perhaps go slightly beyond the normal rules of debate in this House, although they would be unexceptional in the British House of Commons.
So I feel I need to respond by making it clear - as I did in my speech - that I have always supported diplomatic solutions to this problem.
That is not inconsistent with taking the view that we have now reached the end of the road in that respect.
I want to make that position absolutely clear.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="President">
I have received seven motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2).
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 11.15 a.m. and resumed at 11.30 a.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="President">
I would inform the House that Amendments Nos 1 and 2 are inadmissible.
That is the decision of the Chair.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Kellett-Bowman">
Mr President, on behalf of the PPE Group, I wish to propose that the Miranda report be referred back to committee.
I wish to stress that this is no reflection upon the work of Mr Miranda and the Committee on Budgetary Control.
In fact I described his report yesterday as courageous.
<P>
As you mentioned, there was a difficulty with two amendments.
For the first amendment, which I put down under the Rule which requires 29 signatures, I got 43 without any difficulty from four political groups.
One wonders how many signatures and political groups would be required for the amendment to become acceptable.
<P>
The second amendment was exactly the same as a group amendment.
It will give the Budgetary Control Committee an opportunity to consider the wording of the amendment and, if necessary, to consult the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and alter the wording accordingly, in which case a report could go forward with general support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="President">
We therefore have a request for referral back to committee, pursuant to Rule 129.
I shall ask if there is a speaker in favour, a speaker against and, if necessary, seek the opinion of the rapporteur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I should like to express my support for a request from the PPE Group.
I believe that the Miranda report, which was the subject of considerable work in the Committee on Budgetary Control, should be more detailed in the section on Parliament.
We have no hesitation in refusing to give discharge for the section on the Economic and Social Committee, yet we are much more indulgent when it comes to our own institution.
<P>
As regards the problem raised by Mr Kellett-Bowman, I must say that it is not new.
For a few days, a few weeks even, we have watched amendments being judged inadmissible, even though I am not sure whether our Rules of Procedure provide for the power to examine the merits of amendments.
When we want to declare something inadmissible, we move a motion of inadmissibility.
We do not just declare like that that an amendment is inadmissible.
Therefore, for all these reasons, I support the request made by Mr Kellett-Bowman on behalf of the PPE Group.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
I would urge that this report should not be referred back to committee. It is a very sound report that was examined in detail in the committee concerned and adopted by 23 votes for to one against, clear proof that it was supported by a large majority.
On the subject of the amendments, it is true that two were declared inadmissible.
I have no particular problem with this and I think it would be a complete waste of time for the House to refer the whole thing back to the committee just because of those two amendments.
We feel this is quite unnecessary.
The report is perfectly acceptable and also contains certain criticisms of how the House operates.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="Miranda">
Mr President, I would briefly like to say that I also oppose the request to refer this back to committee.
I understand the procedural considerations raised by Mr Kellett-Bowman, but I do not consider that there are any fundamental, substantive reasons to do so.
Indeed, the report was discussed at length and in depth in the committee some months ago.
The vote was practically unanimous. Only yesterday a normal debate took place and today it has been the subject of only one amendment.
There is of course the matter that has been raised regarding the two amendments but, even in that connection, I must point out that one of them was rejected by the committee itself.
Therefore, I do not think that there is any justification for postponing this report, which obviously affects the normal functioning of the institutions involved.
Consequently, I think we should vote to proceed with the discussion and vote on this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="President">
To avoid any misunderstanding of the vote we are about to take, I would just point out that these two amendments have been ruled inadmissible by the President of Parliament, following detailed consideration of them by our services, and not just because of the naming of a specific person.
To prevent any misunderstanding, therefore, they were not ruled inadmissible simply because they referred by name to a former official.
<P>
We shall now vote on the request for referral back to committee.
<P>
(Parliament rejected the request for referral back to committee)
<P>
(In successive votes, Parliament adopted the two decisions and the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Wibe">
This Council regulation offers an excellent illustration of the complexity of the CAP compensation system. In order to follow it, we need to go back to 1984.
Community legislation passed at the time took no account of the special situation of producers who had neither supplied nor sold milk during the reference year. These farmers were in fact taking part in a conversion programme introduced under a 1977 Council regulation and had agreed to refrain from selling their produce.
Over the years, case after case has gone to the European Court of Justice, and many a regulation has been adopted in an attempt to remedy the situation.
<P>
Sweden has not been a member of the Union for very long, but already we have seen milk producers deprived of hundreds of thousands of kronas in compensation payments because they have filled in the wrong coloured form.
<P>
These examples demonstrate how creaky the whole system of subsidies has become. We clearly need to reform the whole CAP.
<P>
Linkohr report (A4-0350/98)
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Rovsing">
The Agreement on wide-ranging scientific and technological cooperation between the USA and the EU, negotiations for which were completed at the end of 1997, provides a basis for historic technological progress by both parties to the agreement.
The very considerable tasks that remain to be accomplished in such fields as biotechnology cannot be tackled in isolation from country to country or from continent to continent.
It is therefore crucial to bring about ever closer cooperation between different regions of the world, so as to facilitate coordination of research carried out by the most talented investigators and by scientific institutions working together.
It is thus a cause for great satisfaction that Parliament and its rapporteur, Rolf Linkohr, recommend rapid implementation of the EU/USA Agreement.
<P>
Le Rachinel recommendation (A4-0349/98)
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Deprez">
I am pleased to see that this procedure aimed at harmonising the distinguishing signs to be attached to motor vehicles is to succeed.
Although it might appear to be a minor matter, this measure is likely to make life easier for the millions of motorists from the European Union who cross its internal and external borders every year.
<P>
At the same time, the general implementation of the 'Community' identification will contribute to developing the common sense of belonging for the 375 million citizens of the European Union.
This is true both for them and for all those who will see vehicles registered with the Union's colours pass them by, wherever work or tourism leads our fellow citizens beyond our borders.
That is also something we should welcome.
<P>
However, I do have one regret: the proposal for a regulation leaves it to the Member States to choose between 'national' plates and 'Community' plates.
Although such latitude might be an application of the principle of subsidiarity, I would have preferred a slightly greater element of compulsion.
<P>
Watts report (A4-0310/98)
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Ewing">
The objective of the proposal is excellent and I support the aims:
<P>
(1) Effect a greater harmonisation of international ferry safety provisions on services within the EU.(2) Ensure effective application of these provisions.(3) Ensure transparency of operating conditions for regular ferry services (including high-speed vessels) within the EU, whatever the flag they are flying.
I also support the specific proposals of the Commission:
<P>
list all the safety conditions that companies and flag states have to fulfil; -establish a regime to verify and inspect compliance with all conditions, both prior to entry and subsequently at regular intervals; -ensure the participation of host states in any maritime accident, including the use of voyage data recorders (black box); -avoid unnecessary regulation by allowing derogation from the expanded port state control inspections where conditions are met; -facilitate the operation of ships and craft on specific regular routes which are in compliance and the transfer of such ships and craft to other regular services.The rapporteur welcomes the initiative which forms part of a raft of measures to improve maritime safety - port state control requirements, registration of passengers, transposition of international maritime safety codes into EC law and harmonising minimum specifications for passenger vessels.
<P>
Scottish waters are amongst the roughest in the Community yet for much of the island population there is no viable alternative.
Ferry safety is thus of paramount importance.
<P>
The report and proposal deserve approval.
Following a number of high profile shipping disasters in recent years we must do everything possible to avoid any more 'Titanics'.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Rovsing">
Among the large number of Commission initiatives on common rules within the EU for safety at sea, this proposed directive is both necessary and particularly relevant.
The growing interest in scheduled sailings within the Community among companies operating ferries under third country flags imposes the need for uniform safety rules applicable to all.
I am therefore happy to give the report my support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Schlechter">
In order to draw up his report, our colleague Francis Watts had organised a hearing on the proposal for a directive on conditions for the operation of regular ro-ro ferry and high speed passenger craft services in the Community.
<P>
Unfortunately, this hearing did not arouse a great deal of interest among our colleagues.
They were mistaken!
In fact, the hearing that was held on this proposal for a directive brought to light safety problems that really give us food for thought.
<P>
We must therefore thank our friend Francis Watts for having taken the initiative to request and organise this hearing. More than one of the experts who attended highlighted an unbelievable lack of safety, despite the fact that IMO regulations already provide for a wide range of safety measures.
<P>
During the hearing, German experts showed us image after image to support this. Of 30 European car and passenger ferries, eight were classified as 'deficient' or 'very deficient' on safety features and only five of the 30 ferries were deemed to be in good condition.
<P>
It is therefore understandable that shipowners hardly look favourably on the report by a courageous Member who is fully committed to ensuring greater safety for the hundreds of passengers carried every year on these boats.
<P>
However, it is not the role of a Member to make the public aware of the problems that might affect people's safety or that of their families.
Our colleague Francis Watts has already been the rapporteur for reports on the safety management of ro-ro passenger vessels and on the registration of persons sailing on board passenger ships operating to or from ports of Member States of the Community. I truly believe that he was right to table amendments that go further than the Commission's proposals.
<P>
The 2000 human lives that were lost through the tragedies of the Herald of Free Enterprise , the Scandinavian Star and the Estonia should be sufficient to mobilise all the European institutions and transport companies to do everything in their power to improve safety on these boats, which are unavoidable for many travellers.
<P>
In any event, I am glad that the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, which has under its flag some 84 ships with an average age of seven years and a gross tonnage of 970 000 tonnes, does not have any ships or high speed vessels carrying passengers on its register.
For if that were the case, my conscience would not be as clear as it is now.
<P>
For all these reasons, I voted in favour of the report by Mr Watts and I hope that the shipowners will take this warning from the European Parliament seriously.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Titley">
I am backing this report and my Labour colleague Mr Watts' call for the setting out of standards for safe operation of the many ferries using EU waters.
<P>
Like many British people I recall the tragic loss of life in the Herald of Free Enterprise ferry disaster at Zeebrugge.
As always the rescue services did a courageous job of trying to save as many people as they could.
However we should not put ourselves as travelling members of the public or our emergency services in this kind of situation in the first place.
<P>
Setting out the toughest possible safety standards is in the interests of all of us - travellers, ferry crews and, not least, the ferry operators who need to assure their passengers of the best safety standards on board if people are to continue to use ferries in their journeys around the EU.
I hope that the industry will cooperate fully with our governments and the EU to make further strides towards the highest possible safety standards.
<P>
Teverson report (A4-0331/98)
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Novo">
As has been stated throughout the debate, the Commission proposal, as amended by some of the amendments introduced by the report, represents a credible working basis in endeavouring to reach consensus regarding a possible control system that is more reliable, transparent and efficient.
<P>
It is essential that objective criteria should be established, once and for all, regarding engine power and tonnage in order to compare capacities and productivity and ascertain (non) compliance with POP commitments.
Other positive developments are the attempt to introduce common definitions and practises with regard to inspection processes and the definition of infringements, while simultaneously seeking to move towards the establishment of comparable sanctions.
<P>
Meanwhile, a lack of clarity exists in the attempt to make the Member States responsible for monitoring vessels in non-Community waters, particularly in waters which are subject to international conventions.
There are no plans to allocate additional funds and operational problems could occur.
Ambiguities also remain to be clarified regarding responsibilities in and the scope of monitoring for vessels of third countries. These appear to remain in a privileged situation which could continue to give rise to unfair competition and, naturally, suspicion and opposition to the control system by Community fishermen and vessel owners.
<P>
Moreover, if Community inspectors were to be given broader scope, it would be useful if they could be accompanied by national inspectors, and observers from other Member States should attend only on pre-arranged inspections.
Likewise, prior permission should be sought for on-line access to data bases.
<P>
Imbalances therefore remain, even in the Commission proposal, despite the amendments made by this report.
We will therefore abstain in the vote.
We only hope that it will be possible to achieve consensus in the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Rovsing">
The development of the fishing industry in recent years has necessitated the modernisation of control systems.
That is both logical and correct.
Unfortunately, the Commission proposal must also be seen in the context of poor cooperation between the Member States in the monitoring of fisheries.
It is reasonable for the Commission to want a reinforcement of controls after the landing of catches.
This initiative is also necessary in the interests of restoring confidence in the EU's control systems.
Increased monitoring of fishing vessels from third countries too is a worthwhile and necessary initiative.
<P>
Bösch report (A4-0297/98)
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, as we all know, the report by Mr Bösch follows on from Special Report No 8/98 of the Court of Auditors concerning the Commission departments responsible for fighting fraud.
<P>
The Court of Auditors' conclusions are overwhelming but they are not new.
The Committee on Budgetary Control had made similar statements on many occasions, but they never really received any reaction.
In a resolution of 22 October 1997, the European Parliament had already condemned the shortcomings in the detection of and inquiries into irregularities and fraud, and the absence of an efficient and consistent prosecution system at European Union level.
<P>
The Commission's policy in cases of corruption within its own ranks is still unclear and inconsistent; there is, therefore, a tendency to cover up such cases wherever possible.
We approve of this assessment: in reading it, all the facts are clearly stated.
Similarly, we approve of the desire to increase the number of UCLAF staff, particularly those working on investigations, the proposal to establish an Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) to be responsible for combating fraud on behalf of all the institutions, as well as the technical elements proposed to ensure the necessary independence of this new body.
<P>
However, we regret the fact that the Committee on Budgetary Control did not include our proposal stating that the OLAF director should be appointed jointly by the Council and the European Parliament, and we regret, too, that the need for a European Public Prosecutor has not been reiterated.
It has been made quite clear once again that the effectiveness of the fight against fraud does not lie in ideological solutions, and we have often been told here that the only solution was to create a new integrated Community body, a European Public Prosecutor.
The solution is for Parliament - whose main function it is - to exercise rigorous control over all the Commission's departments and, in particular, financial control, as is its remit.
<P>
The Bösch report goes more or less in this direction, which is why we voted in favour of it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Kjer Hansen">
Mr President, I would like to present an explanation of vote on behalf of the Liberal Group.
I think it important to note that a concrete step has now been taken in determining how the fraud investigation unit, UCLAF, can be strengthened.
Parliament has once again taken the initiative and put forward a concrete proposal.
So now it is up to the Commission to react to that proposal and draw up measures to strengthen UCLAF.
It may well be that the model presented is not complete, and it may well be that a few things need to be changed.
We in the Liberal Group have had discussions, as have others, on what the absolutely correct model should be.
Opinions differed as to how the structure that is absolutely right should be achieved; these differences were also reflected in the voting.
<P>
What is crucial for us is that something should happen, that the fraud unit should be strengthened, so that we are in a better position to combat internal fraud and corruption.
It is important to stress that we cannot accept a model that would require an amendment of the Treaty, because that would delay the process for a long, long time, which would not do at all.
It is vital that the system be strengthened now, so that we are better able to combat corruption and fraud.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén and Lööw">
We would begin by thanking the rapporteur for a thorough text, which reflects both his competence and his commitment.
Recent revelations of irregularities and corruption within the Commission underscore the need for visibly tougher supervision of activities - managed by the Commission or the Member States - paid for out of Community funds.
<P>
Confidence in the Commission has now been undermined and criticism of its ability to handle taxpayers' money is justified.
The statement in the report that this might well be just the tip of the iceberg brings home the gravity of the situation. It is therefore incumbent upon the Commission to crack down on irregularities, whilst at the same time ensuring that legal and political responsibility is taken for any wrongdoing.
<P>
Both the Bösch report and the Bontempi report, which was discussed earlier in the week, spotlight the role of the European Parliament in pushing for fresh and stronger action to prevent the occurrence of further irregularities.
We should not underestimate our position or our strength when it comes to fighting fraud and pressing the Commission to take measures.
The Commission will be making a rod for its own back if it sets about hampering the operation of existing channels of communication with Parliament, thereby obstructing openness and transparency.
<P>
We do not feel that the proposal for establishing a new structure called OLAF is necessarily the right way to combat irregularities in the handling of Community funds. There is no basis in the Treaties for such an entity, which would not be subject to democratic oversight and could justifiably be criticised on that count.
A greater degree of scrutiny must be exercised in this area, and this can best be achieved through a combination of measures.
Several of the amendments put down suggest some interesting options in this respect.
Given the severity of the situation, the proposal discussed in Mr Bösch's report should not, however, be totally thrown overboard.
We should be using the leverage it gives us to persuade the Commission to come forward with further suggestions.
The steps it is already undertaking are welcome and necessary, but still more action will be required.
The European Parliament will have a significant role to play, and the proposals in the Bösch report provide us with a good negotiating position vis-à-vis the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Berthu">
The Bösch report, which follows on from the Special Report of the Court of Auditors on the running of the Commission's Unit for the Coordination of Fraud Prevention (UCLAF), presents overwhelming conclusions. During the 10 years this unit has existed, it has not managed to finalise its procedural rules, nor to obtain the independence and security in handling information that would be needed for effective financial control.
So we see an endless procession of incidents of fraud, waste or administrative irregularities. These are three distinct categories that must not be confused - and the Commission is right to underline this - but all three of them are very much in evidence and they give an appalling image of the construction of Europe.
<P>
The Bösch report proposes granting greater independence to UCLAF by transforming it into OLAF (Anti-Fraud Office).
Why not?
This reform will not, however, be enough, for the problems run much deeper.
<P>
In this respect, I have often had the impression in this debate that the European Parliament was trying to salve its conscience by condemning its own sins in others.
We have to realise that certain European policies that are supported by Parliament, particularly those involving agricultural refunds or the Structural Funds, generate fraud just as surely as clouds bring rain.
And, in particular, the 'Euro-worship' that has hitherto surrounded the Commission's actions has created a climate that is scarcely likely to promote efficient financial control.
If a third party tries to criticise anything, he is told: 'We are working for Europe; if you criticise us, you are being anti-European'.
My group is well placed to know that.
The result is that Brussels has become submerged in a sea of waste, just like all the institutions that are not controlled and that believe themselves to be above the law.
<P>
Europe can only be regarded as adult when it accepts real external controls, by the Member States in particular.
But until that happens, I have no hesitation in saying that the worshippers of federalism who dominate here, and who want to kill off criticism at any cost, are indirectly abetting fraud.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Deprez">
Recently, in addition to the articles traditionally devoted to fraud committed at the expense of the Community budget, the press has also mentioned the possibility that wrongful acts might have been committed by officials of the European Commission.
The possibility of such activities shows just how relevant the report is that we are giving our opinion on today.
<P>
Our rapporteur points out that the effectiveness of the Unit for the Coordination of Fraud Prevention (UCLAF) is restricted by a strict legal and organisational framework that limits its independence.
Moreover, its has a staff of only some 30 officials who can work on investigations.
It hardly comes as a surprise, therefore, to read that UCLAF has a limited capacity for action at the moment.
<P>
The credibility of the institutions and of the construction of Europe obliges us to step up the fight against the fraud undermining the Community budget and the criminal acts committed by European officials in the performance of their duties.
<P>
I agree with the members of the Committee on Budgetary Control who voted in favour of the report that it is important to improve swiftly the resources the institutions have available to combat fraud. And the best way of achieving this is to establish an Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) that is not only independent, but that also has the necessary human and budgetary resources available.
<P>
I therefore fully support the report submitted to us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Fitzsimons">
The EU anti-fraud unit, known as UCLAF, has a primary function to protect the financial interests of the European Union.
This is an unenviable task, particularly if one reads the recent annual report for 1997 on the fight against fraud in the European Union.
According to this report cigarette fraud in the European Union amounted to over £1.28 billion in 1997 alone.
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Three hundred and thirty million pounds of this figure related to the loss of EU receipts and the remainder covered the loss in indirect taxation such as customs and excise duties and VAT within the national territories of the 15 EU Member States.
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This one example should put into perspective the magnitude of the problem facing the European Union if we are to successfully defeat organised criminal groups who intend to counterfeit the euro currency notes from 1 January 2002.
On this date the euro currency will flood the territories of 11 Member States of the EU encompassing a population of over 291 million.
The law enforcement agencies of the EU must be extremely well prepared if the counterfeiters of the euro are to be defeated head-on.
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I support a coordinating role to be given to UCLAF, the EU anti-Fraud Unit, as well as to Europol, the European police agency, to oversee this extremely important counter-intelligence operation.
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Action must be taken to protect the credibility and authenticity of the euro currency when it is launched and replaces national currencies.
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In light of the fact that EU Member States presently have different structures for preventing and combating counterfeiting, there will be a need for structures for exchanging information between all the EU law enforcement agencies.
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There will also be a need for a common definition of currency counterfeiting and arrangements must be put in place to combat it in a concerted and structured manner.
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The Amsterdam Treaty provisions give more powers to Europol by putting in place coordinated structures between European Union police forces and related law enforcement agencies, so as to ensure that organised crime can be tackled effectively at European level.
These new powers are only right and proper in light of the fact that we live in an international market where a free movement of goods, persons, services and capital operates.
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However, these provisions can and must be utilised to the maximum so as to ensure that the evil of the prospective counterfeiting of the euro currency will be defeated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Lis Jensen and Krarup">
The resolution on the independence, role and status of UCLAF aims to strengthen the control of fraud against the Community budget.
We of course think this is a positive idea, not least in view of the identification by the Court of Auditors of a number of irregularities in UCLAF's present organisation and functioning.
However, we cannot support the report, because it calls for the control of fraud, corruption and financial irregularities to be dealt with through the establishment of a European criminal justice area and the setting-up of a public prosecution authority for the EU.
In our view, this initiative in principle presupposes that it should be possible to harmonise the criminal law and administration of justice of the individual Member States.
The legal formulation of the Member States' criminal justice provisions and criminal law should under no circumstances be a matter for the Union.
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Any further transfer of powers to UCLAF and the appropriation of more financial resources for the recruitment of officials must be undertaken as part of the control of fraud in the EU's own institutions and must not constitute a move towards a European prosecution authority.
The many specific cases of fraud and corruption in the EU system should instead be taken as a basis for: firstly, launching a debate with a view to abolishing a whole range of the support measures which provide the opportunity for fraud; secondly, introducing greater openness in the system, so that taxpayers and voters can see what their money is being used for.
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The report also refers to Article 280 of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which opens up new possibilities for the control of fraud on a Community-wide basis.
Paragraph 4 of Article 280 states that measures in the field of the fight against fraud 'shall not concern the application of national criminal law or the national administration of justice'.
We feel it is important to draw attention to this because it specifically states that the EU may not interfere in national policies in this area.
The fight against fraud at Community level should, however, not be pursued on the basis of conventions and additional protocols which have not been ratified, as is also intimated by the comments on Article 280 in the report.
Clearly the EU cannot assume legislative powers in areas for which provisions have not been ratified by the individual Member States.
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<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
The fight against fraud and corruption is a key issue for the Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament.
Let there be no doubt that combating fraud directed against the financial interests of the EU must always be a top priority.
Hence coordination of the fight against fraud - as understood by UCLAF - must always be placed on the best possible footing.
The report proposes the setting-up of a new unit to investigate fraud internally in the EU institutions.
We do not think that is an optimum solution.
It should be possible for this work to be carried out by UCLAF, but it should have a more independent status with respect to the Commission.
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The Edinburgh agreement of 1992 states that 'Denmark will participate fully in cooperation on justice and home affairs on the basis of the provisions of Title VI of the Treaty on European Union'.
In practice, this means that Denmark will participate in that cooperation as long as it is intergovernmental.
For that reason, the Danish Social Democrats cannot support any moves to set up a common prosecution service or eventually to introduce a common criminal justice system.
However, as has also been stated in Denmark's reservation in this area, we will also not stand in the way of others who wish to intensify cooperation in the legal field.
The Danish Social Democrats have therefore chosen to abstain from voting on paragraphs K, L and M. That does not alter the fact, however, that the main intention of the resolution is to strengthen the fight against fraud both in the Member States and internally within the EU system.
The Danish Social Democrats have therefore chosen to support the report as a whole.
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<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Kellett-Bowman">
I support the Bösch report because his proposals were a possible way forward for UCLAF.
In 1980 I proposed that the Community should have a flying squad.
So I was delighted when UCLAF was set up at this Parliament's initiative.
Parliament has over the years added resources for the unit's work.
However, we discovered that UCLAF's investigations were inhibited when working within the Commission itself.
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Mr Bösch's proposal for an independent OLAF offers the answer to this problem.
All institutions can be looked at including this Parliament, which I welcome.
Mr Santer's reply was helpful and constructive.
The House wisely, in my view, resisted attempts via amendments to emasculate this proposal.
I congratulate Mr Bösch.
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<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR), Holm, Lindholm and Schörling (V), Bonde and Sandbæk (I-EDN)">
Vigorous measures are required to fight fraud and corruption. There is a problem within the EU itself and there are irregularities involving Community funds going on inside and outside the Union.
The latest allegations corroborate this, as does the report from the Court of Auditors.
The report calls for the setting-up of a separate body - OLAF - with extended powers and increased resources. This would be one way of ensuring that the necessary internal inquiries are carried out.
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If OLAF is to be truly independent, the Commission cannot be allowed to act as the appointing authority. It must not take the decisions on nominations, or be responsible for instigating disciplinary measures.
A European criminal law area is not what is required, and OLAF should not be given the functions of a public prosecutor's office.
<P>
This whole debate on fraud, corruption and vanishing funds is evidence that all is not well with the EU.
It is too big, too cumbersome to grasp and virtually impossible to oversee.
The single most effective way of fighting fraud, irregularities and corruption is to introduce Nordic-style openness and transparency, with guaranteed protection for those who provide information.
If all the EU's documents were to be made public as a matter of principle, and the right to divulge information to the media were safeguarded, then our fraud detection rate would increase and our problems become fewer.
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<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Müller">
The Commission is living in an ivory tower.
The lack of consultation between Parliament and the Commission is mainly due to the fact that when we request information and apply to carry out checks, this is taken per se as a sign of mistrust.
This is because in the Commission, the principle that good management must always - with a few exceptions - be open to public scrutiny, has been turned on its head, at least in those areas where criticisms are being voiced and Parliament wishes to exercise its rights to carry out checks.
Then, everything is suddenly classified secret, reserved, internal and confidential.
But I ask you, Mr Santer: what is there in an internal report on financial control that needs to be kept secret from Parliament?
Why should we not be told speedily and plainly where overspending has occurred?
Who has anything to hide from us here?
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The culture of mistrust within your Commission has even undermined the rights assigned to us by the Treaty.
Article 206 provides that the Commission shall submit any information necessary for the discharge to Parliament.
How do you explain, then, why Parliament did not receive the UCLAF report, or why we only received it when we brought out our biggest guns, namely completely blocking appropriations for humanitarian aid?
It is a shame that this is the only language you appear to understand.
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Yes, we do not simply have a problem, but a serious crisis in relations between the Commission and Parliament.
When there are no transparent and reliable rules; when the Commissioners do not appear to have the courage to take action against cronyism and time-servers in the various Commission departments; when Commissioners are mixed up with people from the demi-monde ; when Parliament is stalled for months with excuses and 'no comment', it is not possible to engender trust in good management.
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In Germany, the people have just decided what happens to those who only want to sit out crises.
If the Commission is not sensitive to this, and does not react accordingly and send out the appropriate signals - and this does not seem likely - then it should be aware that we will have to refuse to grant it a discharge in December.
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<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Rovsing">
Fraud against the Community budget is one of the most serious problems in the 50-year history of European cooperation, both because of the financial loss caused by fraud and - in particular - because of the immense damage it does to the EU's image in the eyes of the public.
The Commission's central service for the fight against fraud, UCLAF, is therefore an EU body of exceptional importance to the Union as a whole.
UCLAF has already accomplished some major tasks since its creation, but it is clear that the lack of judicial cooperation between the Member States has made UCLAF's work considerably more difficult.
And there is currently no prospect of any significant progress.
Thus greater independence for UCLAF may be one of the few steps that can be taken at the present time to make the unit more effective in its action against fraud involving the EU's financial interests.
I wholeheartedly support this initiative.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Sjöstedt">
I can support most of this report, but I do not agree that our goal should be to create a European criminal law area and establish a European judicial authority.
Nor do I wish to see Europol given new powers.
That is why I did not vote in favour of the report.
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<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Souchet">
Our group supported the Bösch report mainly because it avoids political cant and provides a rigorous analysis of the internal corruption in the Commission.
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The rapporteur does not try to hide the extent of the fraud and corruption within the Commission's services.
In fact, we have lost count of the number of programmes run by the Commission that, over recent months, have been involved in embezzlement and the misappropriation of very substantial sums.
And yet, the rapporteur states that 'these reported cases probably represent no more than the tip of the iceberg'.
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It is therefore totally unacceptable to hear the President of the Commission, Mr Santer, describing these extremely serious practices, with black humour, as 'administrative acrobatics'.
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The work carried out over recent years both by the Court of Auditors and by Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control reveals a world of impenetrability, of cronyism, of connivance and omerta, of irresponsibility and of impunity. It is a world of forged contracts, of invented reports, of missing documents and of dubious reports associated with certain firms of privileged consultants.
<P>
The Bösch report underlines that, for the most part, when an offence is detected, disciplinary procedures are not even initiated and the offences are only referred to the relevant judicial authorities in exceptional cases.
'The clearing up of an offence is almost deliberately delayed', and we might wonder whether the Unit for the Coordination of Fraud Prevention (UCLAF) is 'actually being used to cover up the truth'.
A regional newspaper this morning summed up yesterday's debate with the headline: 'Disciplinary measures unlikely for widespread scandals'.
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This anti-fraud unit, one of the many cogs in the Commission's machine, lacks independence.
It thus tends to protect officials systematically.
The proposals by Mr Bösch to strengthen this unit and to grant it as much independence as possible are therefore heading in the right direction.
The office he proposes to create will have to work in close cooperation with the European Parliament, one of whose main tasks is to monitor the Commission's activities, particularly its financial activities.
Through the committees of inquiry appointed by the House, we have seen how effective we can be in this field, for example, as regards the way in which the Commission dealt with the BSE issue.
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But in order to stop this tendency on the part of the European institutions to foster large-scale fraud, it is also important to apply the principle of subsidiarity strictly and correctly.
To limit the volume of uncontrolled appropriations, we must reduce as far as possible the proportion of funds that has to pass through Brussels.
The most effective controls are those that are carried out at the levels closest to the taxpayers.
<P>
The rapporteur highlights, too, the existence of a 'grey area' that can conceal considerable risks of fraud in 'technical' legislation and its countless implementing regulations and provisions, as well as in the comitology system, with its many committees and other consultative bodies.
Decisions are taken here that sometimes have considerable financial implications.
In this respect, it is typically the case that very often only a small number of officials from the institutions taking part in the decision-making process have an overall view of the dossier and the state of progress of the procedure.
Under these conditions, interest groups can quite easily exert an influence and win their case.
<P>
This excellent analysis shows that the excessive concentration of powers and the bureaucratic labyrinth which this creates represent a very significant source of fraud and corruption.
Once again, the correct response here is that of genuine subsidiarity.
But, unfortunately, the Treaty of Amsterdam proposes going in the opposite direction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Theorin and Wibe">
The best way of combating fraud and corruption within the Commission is to enshrine the principle of full openness and transparency.
Fraud will be uncovered much more effectively if the public and investigative journalists alike have access to Commission records.
The current system, which shrouds in secrecy what happens to taxpayers' money, is not acceptable.
If things continue as they are, the logical consequence will be that the Commission have to cease its activities in those areas where major problems have arisen.
<P>
Sisó Cruellas report (A4-0241/98)
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="van Dam">
A European transport network offers enormous advantages in very different areas.
It is vital that we promote this development, particularly in view of the fact that the infrastructure is not interoperable.
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The rapporteur makes some extremely important points about this.
We are very much in favour of developing a sustainable transport network and exploiting technological possibilities, and we were therefore happy to support the report.
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However, we still have some doubt as to whether the projects under the European transport network are financially viable, calling as they do for major investment from both the Member States and neighbouring countries.
If this has to come from the public sector it will mean a heavy burden on the national budgets, so private capital will be needed.
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We need to develop a climate in the Union which makes investment in such projects attractive for the private sector.
Its influence must extend beyond the purely financial: it is a major source of knowledge and know-how that must be put to optimum use in order to achieve the best possible benefits for society.
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To sum up, we must use the knowledge and funding available carefully to produce a sustainable and sound transport network, and this report provides a very useful starting-point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Lis Jensen and Krarup">
The main concern of the Sisó Cruellas report is that the EU should play a role in strengthening the infrastructure of Eastern and Central Europe as a precondition for trade between the EU and Eastern Europe.
The TEN programme, which has been extended to cover Eastern and Central Europe, must however be seen in the light of the political and economic pressure that the EU has put on the Eastern European countries in association with demands for certain investment in infrastructure.
This criticism is not to deny that there is a need for massive investment in the infrastructure of Eastern Europe.
On the other hand, the EU's transport policy does call for some criticism in principle.
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The infrastructure projects in Eastern Europe which the EU has supported, for example through PHARE and the European Investment Bank, cater for the interest the big industrial concerns in the EU have in opening up Eastern and Central European markets for their products by improving east-west communications.
The question is just what significance this massive input of capital will have for Eastern European trade and industry.
Even the World Bank has gradually realised that major infrastructure programmes intended to bind the centre and peripheral regions together will not by themselves boost economic development in the peripheral regions.
On the contrary, it has been shown that the increased exposure of local markets in peripheral regions to competition from the central regions can bring about economic decline in the peripheral regions.
At the same time, the EIB has maintained an almost completely closed attitude to Eastern European environmental organisations, such as 'Bankwatch', and to the Eastern European public in general when it comes to publicising the environmental assessments it claims to carry out before lending money for a range of infrastructure programmes in Eastern Europe.
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For these reasons we cannot vote in favour of the Sisó Cruellas report.
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<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Schlechter">
For historical reasons, the road, rail and inland waterway networks on the European continent, as well as the ports and airports, have, apart from a few rare exceptions, been designed on grounds of national interest.
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It was only during the 1980s that a debate was opened on a genuinely pan-European transport policy.
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Thanks to the tireless efforts of our colleague Günther Lüttge, the European Parliament, with the help of the Commission, was able to organise Pan-European Transport Conferences in Prague, Crete and Helsinki.
These were a great success.
For the first time, elected representatives of the people of western and eastern Europe could discuss and adopt political resolutions on transport problems together.
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Today, we are presented with a new proposal from the Commission on connecting our infrastructure network with that of our neighbours in eastern Europe.
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The infrastructure needs assessment process is coordinated by the TINA group, which is made up of senior officials from the Member States and applicant countries and which has its secretariat in Vienna.
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This is all very well, but I would have liked us to have been first given information on the state of progress of the 14 projects adopted in the common position.
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As far as I can tell, of the 14 projects accepted at the Essen Council, only the link between Denmark and Sweden (Oresund) has been finished and the Milan-Malpensa airport is currently being completed, but without the rail shuttle and the rapid road link required by the Commission, the EIB and the European Parliament.
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But how are the other projects getting on?
It would seem that large sums have been spent on studies and on various plans, but for the rest, there has been complete silence!
This silence is difficult to understand given that Willi Piecyk stated in his report that the completion of the trans-European transport network would require investments of at least ECU 400 billion over the next 15 years and that the most urgent measures to be taken by the year 2000 already required around ECU 220 billion.
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I can still hear Jacques Delors advocating these trans-European networks, which he felt would create many jobs, and I still remember the decisions taken at the Luxembourg Employment Summit, but I am now waiting to see some concrete results.
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I know that up until now major national infrastructures have been financed to a large extent by public money.
National investment could have been greater still if all the taxes and duties on transport had been used for investment in infrastructure, but that has not been the case.
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Indeed, we are all aware that, in order to build the trans-European networks, we need enormous financial resources, financial resources that the Member States cannot supply in the short term.
We must therefore find other sources of funding.
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We assume that the European Investment Bank will certainly do all in its power to finance and promote at least some of the various cases.
Equally, we hope that financial resources from the different Structural Funds will be made available at last to begin to build infrastructure networks and, consequently, to create jobs. However, in spite of all this, I do not believe that we will have sufficient financial resources to pay for the 14 main priority projects.
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In my opinion, we must try to do everything to ensure that private capital also goes into the projects. Without it, the programmes might have to continue for decades, if not forever, in order to satisfy all our hopes and needs.
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Do we need to think about introducing a general European toll if the funding cannot be found from conventional sources?
I do not know, but I sincerely believe that in practically every country it is very difficult to envisage an increase in revenue or public expenditure, and that we must find other possibilities of cofunding for certain infrastructure projects.
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I am saying all this because we are faced with considerable problems in terms of making progress with the construction of Europe. But the problems are surmountable, if nothing unforeseen occurs.
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However, in my opinion, the unforeseen is already on our doorstep.
The first estimates by the TINA group indicate that additional expenditure in the region of ECU 45 billion to ECU 150 billion is required.
Where are we going to find this extra money? Can we link aid to certain conditions, such as that 40 % of the investment in transport infrastructure, which is deemed to be the most important, must be devoted to rail transport, 25 % to road transport and 15 % to combined transport?
These are questions that are not answered in the report by Mr Joaquim Sisó Cruellas.
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Without wanting to stand in the way of aid to the other neighbouring countries of the European Union, I wonder whether we are not holding these negotiations at a dangerously fast speed.
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For all these reasons, I voted against the report by Mr Sisó Cruellas.
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Baldarelli report (A4-0246/98)
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Deprez">
The continuous increase in the various forms of road traffic calls for integrated management of this traffic at all levels: local, regional, national and European.
The constant progress in information technology allows us to give serious consideration to such a hypothesis from now on.
That is why the Commission communication and the report we are voting on today are of such interest.
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The foreseeable developments in road transport telematics are significant and their consequences are positive in that they are likely to have a beneficial effect on the quality of life of all road users, particularly in terms of safety and time-saving.
The possible economic and financial advantages are equally obvious: improved traffic management in terms of time and space, multimodal transport, etcetera.
<P>
A balance exists between the jobs lost in the production and marketing sectors that become obsolete due to the application of new technologies to the network and to road traffic, and the jobs created in this new area of activity. I agree with the rapporteur that whether this balance is positive or negative will depend, for the most part, on whether or not our businesses are able to take the lead in the current trend.
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Consequently, I totally support the idea that we must help our businesses and, in order to do so, allocate substantial Community resources to the development and implementation of road transport telematics, in order to ensure job creation and sustainable development.
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Novo Belenguer report (A4-0247/98)
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Díez de Rivera Icaza">
We congratulate Mr Novo on his report, which deals thoroughly and in detail with what is such an important field.
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I regret, and I shall continue to say so, that the minimal reference to tourism was lost from the Treaty of Amsterdam. In my view, it was needed to enable us to provide appropriate protection for tourists and the industry, and of course to ensure the quality and environmental safety of the chosen holiday destination.
It was for that reason that I also proposed the creation of a European Agency for Tourism.
<P>
Mr Méndez de Vigo and I fought hard for the inclusion of a joint amendment to this effect in the Bourlanges-Martin report, because unlike certain sectors of the tourist industry and certain other Members, we believed that tourism is much more than statistics.
We felt that, in the long term, the loss of this reference from the revised Treaty would result in more problems than benefits, even for the tourist sector itself.
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Having said this, and to leave nobody in any doubt, I wish to make it quite clear that I welcome this new report, which is an effort to fill the legal vacuum somehow, although unfortunately outside the Treaty of Amsterdam.
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<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Gallagher">
I am pleased that the European Parliament is discussing a report relating to European Union measures for the tourism industry.
This is very important from an Irish perspective considering the tourism industry plays a very considerable role in generating jobs in the Irish economy.
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In fact, according to the mid-term evaluation on the spending of EU monies in Ireland carried out by the economic and social research institute, over 30 000 jobs will have been created in Ireland during the present Community Support Framework programme 1994-1999.
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The present tourism operational programme accounts for 369 million pounds, which is over 8 % of the overall Structural Fund programme presently spent in Ireland.
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I am confident that the Irish tourism industry will develop and prosper over the next few years.
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The introduction of a European single currency should have a positive effect in this regard.
The elimination of transaction costs in eleven Member States within the European Union encompassing a population of over 291 million people will means that the cost of travel and the cost of holidays should reduce even further.
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A single European currency brings with it a frontier-free capital zone where 'bureaux de change' no longer exist and costs are reduced.
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A single European currency will bring with it an increased number of tourists which will mean an increase in the number of jobs created in the tourist industry in Ireland over the next few years.
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The Irish Government has a role to play so as to guarantee that the Irish tourism industry develops to its maximum potential.
Discussions will take place shortly between the Irish Government and the European Commission relating to the next share-out of EU Structural Funds for the period 2000-2006.
The Irish Government will have to formulate a National Development Plan outlining our social and economic investment priorities for the seven-year period post-1999.
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In light of the fact that over 30 000 jobs will have been created between the years 1994-1999 in the tourism industry in Ireland, it is therefore very clear that substantial provisions must be included in the National Development Plan concerning future EU and national funding for the tourism industry in Ireland.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Blak, Sindal and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats today voted against the Novo Belenguer report on Community measures affecting tourism.
We do not think that the Community should start harmonising the Member States' tourism policies, as is advocated in this report.
It must be up to the individual countries to draw up sensible policies of their own in conformity with the subsidiarity principle.
There is thus no need for a directorate for tourism in the Commission, and there is also no need to appropriate more funds for this sector.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR), Eriksson, Seppänen, Sjöstedt and Svensson (GUE/NGL), Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling (V), Bonde, Lis Jensen, Krarup and Sandbæk (I-EDN)">
The Novo Belenguer report sounds too much like a plea for an EU tourism policy.
We think it would be difficult, if not impossible, to promote 15 countries of such diversity in one and the same campaign.
After all, Mr Novo Belenguer himself writes in his report that promotional campaigns for specific national or regional destinations in Europe (for which read 'the EU') should be left to the Member States and their national and regional tourist boards.
We could not agree more, and that is precisely why we think that the attempt of this report to get tourism covered by a common EU policy, amongst other things by setting up a directorate for tourism, entirely misses the mark.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Novo">
The Commission report on Community actions with an impact on tourism carried out in 95/96 clearly demonstrate two essential aspects.
<P>
First, it shows the usefulness of these measures which either directly or indirectly seek to meet the needs of a sector which, despite an overall drop in demand of almost 10 % between 1975 and 1995, continues to occupy a crucial place in the economy and in employment in the European Union (approximately 6 % of Community GDP, over 9 million jobs).
The usefulness of such measures allows us also to conclude, as we have previously stated, that cooperation between shared interests may be ensured without changing the existing legal framework, which shows just how unrealistic some attempts have been to communitise policy in the sector.
<P>
In addition, it is abundantly clear that these Community actions should be continued, without changing the legal framework and with the allocation of funding to increase the capacity for direct action and, simultaneously, to enhance synergies with other Community and/or national policies (planning, environment, culture, arts and crafts, heritage, employment policies, structural actions, new technologies).
<P>
This is a positive report and I would like to emphasise one aspect which we consider to be essential.
It is not enough merely to state that the tourism sector is of fundamental importance where employment is concerned.
It is essential also to guarantee the quality of that employment.
Therefore, we share the conclusion that highlights the need to draw up policies and allocate funds (for training, among other things) with a view to guaranteeing a maximum number of stable jobs, minimising the effects of seasonal fluctuations and ensuring that competitiveness is not achieved at the cost of low wages.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Wibe">
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Kellett-Bowman">
Mr President, I am on record as having said at the time when we had the strike in this House that the institution was made up of its Members and the officials.
Not everyone agreed with me but I still believe that.
This House is well served by many officials and I salute them for it.
<P>
However, in this case I want to say that there are many cases which reveal gross incompetence over many years which was rife in DG VI (Administration).
That prolonged litany of negligences and errors has damaged the image of this institution.
The former Director-General for Administration Jean Feidt should carry responsibility for that deplorable situation.
<P>
I must stress that these remarks are made with no consideration of nationality or political persuasion or membership of clubs or secret societies but because over the years - and I could list them if there was more time - this House has been let down by poor administration in DG VI and Mr Jean Feidt should carry that responsibility.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Our group voted against the Miranda report because of its key element, that is, the discharge given to the section on the European Parliament for the 1996 financial year.
<P>
As regards, in particular, the famous carry-over of appropriations from the 1996 financial year to 1997, the rapporteur has once more decided to defend the authorizing officer by blaming the Legal Service and the Financial Controller. However, the Financial Controller did his job correctly by suggesting that, in order to solve the problem of the absence of the President of Parliament's signature within the allotted time, the non-automatic carry-over procedure be followed.
Nonetheless, this suggestion was not taken up by the administration.
<P>
It was not until the end of January 1997 that the administration learnt that the additional agreement had never actually been signed by the President.
The former President of Parliament was then asked to sign it retrospectively, more than a month after the deadline, which he obviously refused to do.
This did not prevent the Secretary-General from putting the same request, once more in vain, to his successor.
<P>
There is an even more astonishing fact.
According to financial statements that were circulating between the services of the authorizing officer and the Financial Controller, the ECU 30.76 million involved did, however, form part of the appropriations automatically carried over to the 1997 financial year. Moreover, this sum was also marked as legitimately carried over in a document dated 20 January 1997 and signed by the appropriate authorizing officer.
This document also certified for the Financial Controller and the Secretary-General that the necessary procedures had been successfully completed, while its author had meanwhile tried to get the President of the European Parliament to sign the retrospective additional agreement. The Secretary-General was perfectly aware of this.
<P>
The rapporteur is asking us today to give discharge to the administration of the European Parliament, despite the fact that this episode demonstrated the alarming inefficiency of the procedure for closing accounts: despite the absence of the President of Parliament's signature to the additional agreement, this procedure allowed ECU 30.76 million to remain in the list of appropriations actually carried over to the 1997 financial year.
What is more, at its meeting of 25 February 1997, the Committee on Budgetary Control approved the closing of the 1996 accounts, including the automatic carry-over of the appropriations in question.
<P>
We are trying today to play down this affair by suggesting that, strictly speaking, there was no loss of funds, and that the Member States will do what is necessary to ensure that Parliament's budget is able to finance the D3 purchase within the allotted time. However, Parliament's administration did not submit the additional agreement to the President for his signature, nor did it then resort to the non-automatic carry-over procedure.
Moreover, it tried to backdate the additional agreement and, finally, took for granted that the appropriations would be carried over to the 1997 financial year. In this way, Parliament's administration completely failed in its responsibility to actually carry over the ECU 30.76 million in accordance with the financial regulations.
<P>
It is this unbelievable series of breaches and failings that we should have penalised today by refusing the discharge, in order to avoid this happening again.
<P>
In addition, my group is pleased with the decision not to give discharge to the Economic and Social Committee.
Nevertheless, we are surprised that the Miranda report, while deploring the extremely incomplete nature of the information contained in the revenue and expenditure account and financial balance sheet of the Committee of the Regions and the absence of a consistent staffing policy, did not choose to do the same for that institution. Yet certain irregularities in the running of the Committee of the Regions were brought to light in the Court of Auditors' annual report for the 1996 financial year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Holm">
I voted in favour of the 1996 discharge report by Mr Miranda on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
<P>
It is quite right that we should be postponing discharge for the Economic and Social Committee, since serious shortcomings and irregularities have come to light.
These must be investigated internally by the EU's Court of Auditors and UCLAF and, if necessary, externally by the competent national authorities.
Discharge cannot be granted until this has been done.
<P>
I personally think that there are problems too within the European Parliament and I would cite, among other things, procedures governing tendering and the use of consultants. There also seem to be shortages of qualified staff in the accounting and legal services.
The difficulties in the Parliament appear, however, to be structural in nature. Unlike the ESC, Parliament has not given any cause to suspect fraud.
I therefore suggest that we ask the Court of Auditors to look more closely at the problems.
Work has already begun in the European Parliament, but some assistance from 'outside' would be useful in my view.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="President">
That concludes voting time.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 12.55 p.m. and resumed at 3.05 p.m.)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="President">
Colleagues, unfortunately we are not in a position to start the session because the first speaker will be Mr Santer, the President of the Commission, and we are still waiting for him to return from the lunch with the King of Spain.
He is en route and should just be two or three more minutes.
I wanted to let you know why we have this delay.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 15.05 and resumed at 15.10)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Own resources (budget procedure)
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="President">
The next item is the Commission statement on own resources and the budget procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Santer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission has just adopted its report on the operation of the own resources system.
It is an important report, not only because of its content, to which I will return, but also because of the point in time at which it is being presented.
<P>
Article 10 of the own resources decision states that the text should be presented in 1999.
We have decided to do so earlier for one simple reason: the financing system for the Union budget is a vital factor in the negotiations on Agenda 2000.
Without this report, we could not possibly conclude these negotiations, as agreed, in March 1999.
Now that we have all the aspects of the problem before us, I would appeal for Agenda 2000 to be tackled with renewed determination.
<P>
The report the Commission has adopted today is comprehensive, transparent, objective and open.
It is comprehensive in exploring all conceivable avenues for a fair but also adequate future financing system for the Union.
It is transparent in hiding neither the difficulties nor the advantages of each potential choice.
It is objective in that it is based on indisputable figures.
And it is open as, for the time being, it puts forward only options.
<P>
With this report the Commission hopes to take some of the passion out of what will be a difficult and politically delicate debate and give it an objective basis.
In a new departure, the Commission is openly tackling the issue of net balances.
This is, I feel, essential as I would like the inevitable discussion on this subject to be based on clear and objective figures.
But I would add that it is a concept that must be handled with caution, as our report clearly shows.
<P>
Mr President, after these introductory remarks, I would like to present the broad lines of our document.
It is presented in two parts.
The first deals with the operation of the present system and possible future developments.
The second addresses the issue of budgetary imbalances.
<P>
The development of the present system in recent years reflects the changes introduced by the 1988 and 1994 decisions on own resources.
Contributions have become fairer as they are now a more accurate reflection of Member States' ability to pay, as expressed by their gross national product.
What is more, the existing arrangements have provided the Union with adequate resources to finance expenditure without the financial crises that the Union has experienced in the past.
<P>
In some respects, however, the present system has its shortcomings, one of which has been repeatedly underlined by the European Parliament itself.
Financial autonomy, which is fundamental to the very concept of own resources, has gradually been lost as the proportion of the Union's budget financed by national contributions has grown.
In addition, the current system lacks transparency, partly because of the complexity of the correction mechanism for the United Kingdom, but also because of the debasing of the VAT resource which, with the capping of the base, now amounts to little more than a national contribution based on gross national product.
The present system also encounters management difficulties connected with the collection of customs duties and agricultural duties, which we know as traditional own resources.
<P>
If we are to move towards a more transparent and logical system, we have two radically different options available.
The first possibility would be to simplify the present system.
This could be done by enhancing the role of the GNP resource in the system of contributions, even though this runs counter to the very concept of own resources.
A bigger role for gross national product would no doubt make the present system simpler and fairer, but it would not give the Union greater financial autonomy.
<P>
In this context, following the Cardiff European Council, the Commission has examined the proposal made recently by Spain with the backing of Greece and Portugal to insert a progressive element in the system of contributions.
But this proposal raises problems.
For instance, the solidarity objective is currently pursued by the expenditure side of the Union budget.
This approach guarantees more effective convergence efforts than a simple budgetary transfer to the less prosperous countries.
<P>
A second option would be to introduce one or more new own resources, in order to broaden the tax base of the own resources system.
This is something that Parliament has advocated on many occasions.
Apart from the greater financial autonomy which would ensue, the main advantages of introducing new own resources in the system would be to enhance political accountability and visibility in the eyes of the public.
<P>
Our report contains a long list of proposed or suggested resources.
If we measure this list against a certain number of essential criteria, such as fairness between Member States or efficient collection procedures, we have to conclude that there are very few options that satisfy all the criteria.
Only actual VAT, as proposed by the European Parliament in 1994, would appear to be a viable option for the medium term.
<P>
I will now turn to the sensitive issue of budgetary imbalances.
Let me begin by repeating - as the Commission has always said - that the very concept of budgetary balance is difficult to grasp and to handle.
The costs and benefits of belonging to the European Union cannot be reduced to a simple arithmetical calculation.
But Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Sweden have referred to the Fontainebleau compromise, which stated: 'Expenditure policy is ultimately the essential means of resolving the question of budgetary imbalances.
However, it has been decided that any Member State sustaining a budgetary burden which is excessive in relation to its relative prosperity may benefit from a correction at the appropriate time.'
<P>
If we look at this from a purely budgetary angle, the budgetary balances of these four Member States have indeed, for various reasons, worsened and are now of the same magnitude, or even bigger, than that of the United Kingdom before correction.
In fact, the United Kingdom is no longer - and will probably be even less so after enlargement - in a unique position as regards its budget balance and relative prosperity.
The special situation it was in at the start of the 1980s is now becoming rather commonplace.
<P>
As regards the future size of the net balances of the four countries mentioned, excluding the cost of enlargement, Agenda 2000 may have no more than marginal, and not necessarily negative, effects on these.
But it is too early to say with any certainty what will happen on this front since so much depends on the final agreement on the reforms of the common agricultural policy and the Structural Funds.
<P>
Despite its reservations on the very concept of net balances, the Commission has not shied away from the issue.
It has considered a number of options which may allay the concerns expressed.
I would, however, like to put them in context.
<P>
Firstly, the source of budgetary imbalances is to be found on the expenditure side of the budget, as was recognised at Fontainebleau.
Secondly, if there had not been a serious effort to contain Union expenditure - in which you played your part - the imbalances would have become more pronounced.
Finally, the cost of enlargement has to be shared out fairly by reference to the ability of all the present Member States to contribute.
Should it be agreed that a response must be found to the question of budgetary imbalances, the Commission has identified three fundamental options that, in addition, are not mutually exclusive.
<P>
A first option would consist of a return to a unified and simplified financing system.
There could be a simplification of the financing system in favour of a mechanism based more, or even entirely, on the gross national product resource.
This simplification could include the gradual elimination of the existing correction mechanism.
Secondly, it would be possible to make a correction on the expenditure side.
As I have already said, the Fontainebleau agreement underscores the role that Community expenditure should play in the correction of budgetary imbalances.
A large part of the budget, intended for structural expenditure, does of course contribute to these imbalances, but this is deliberate since this expenditure is explicitly designed to strengthen the economic and social cohesion of the least prosperous Member States.
<P>
The other major component of budget expenditure is the common agricultural policy, which is not intended as a means of redistributing wealth between Member States.
Since the common agricultural policy is the source of certain budgetary imbalances, the possibility of reducing the Community contribution to direct aid for farmers could be considered.
This would clearly not amount to renationalising the common agricultural policy as farmers' rights will remain unchanged and decisions will continue to be taken in Brussels.
<P>
A third option would be to introduce a generalised correction mechanism.
This mechanism would apply for all the Member States meeting the necessary conditions.
To avoid any explosion of the gross resources, which would have to be redistributed between Member States, this option would have to involve a system of partial reimbursement of negative budgetary balances above a certain threshold.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the reason why the Commission is today presenting its report on own resources is, I repeat, because it wants to see all the cards on the table for the final stage of the negotiations on Agenda 2000.
Having said that, the Commission continues to believe that the discussion on budgetary balances must not overshadow our reflection on an effective and fair financing system.
On this score I would once again stress that in its report the Commission presents various options but does not express any preference for one or the other.
<P>
Finally, whether we like it or not, we must allow for the differences, in terms of decision-making procedures, between Union expenditure and the financing system.
I would remind you in this connection that, in the Commission's view, Agenda 2000 can be applied without any financial resources in excess of the current own resources ceiling. It will not therefore require any urgent amendment of the own resources decision, a process which we all know is highly complex and cumbersome from the institutional angle.
<P>
This may mean that we have an adequate margin - possibly until the next enlargement - to allow us to consider the questions raised in the report and to take the necessary decisions with a clear and calm mind.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Haug">
Mr President, Mr Santer, thank you for the Commission report.
Long awaited, much longed-for!
You did say that you had drawn up the report dispassionately.
I would have liked to have seen some passion, because then we would perhaps have had a decision on the table which it was worth discussing.
Instead, we have a whole array of options, admittedly with certain qualifications, but nothing more than that.
<P>
Be that as it may, we have also had a focused discussion in Parliament and have already reached one or two conclusions in the Committee on Budgets.
We take as our starting-point the fact that we are bound by rules in the Treaties.
Thus, Article 130a states that the Community is committed to solidarity between the poorer and wealthier Member States, and establishes one of its aims as being to reduce disparities between the levels of development of the various regions and the backwardness of the least-favoured regions.
<P>
That is the first point.
At the same time, the performance of Member States' national economies - as you also described it - is, even in the VAT system, an essential factor in determining their relative contributions to the EU budget.
If we look closely, we note that this is actually true for all Member States except the United Kingdom.
The United Kingdom generates 15.9 % of Community GNP, but only contributes 9.9 % of the budget.
You described why this is the case, namely because of what is known as the British rebate.
Nevertheless, although contributions to the budget are indeed more or less based on performance, Member States are still demanding reduced contributions!
We have already had counter-proposals for a progressive system of raising revenue, or increasing the budget above the present ceiling of 1.27 % of GNP.
All of this was reflected in the minutes of the Cardiff summit.
<P>
The Member States calling, more or less vociferously, for their contributions to be cut, base their arguments on the so-called concept of net contributors.
They have made comments on this, and so their equivalence-oriented approach - which, as a method, stands on extremely shaky ground - requires no further comments from me.
One thing is clear, however; on closer inspection, it becomes apparent that, all the same, there are definite imbalances between the wealthier Member States.
For, example, it is immediately noticeable that Denmark, with the second most powerful economy in the Community, receives considerably more from the budget than it puts in.
At the same time, countries such as Sweden and the Netherlands, with lower GNPs, bear a much higher proportion of the financial burden than the portion of the common budget that they receive.
<P>
But if, as I have just said, the cause for these imbalances is not on the revenue side, then it must inevitably be on the expenditure side.
And here, I believe that our discussions and also our lines of argument in the Committee on Budgets were more focused than those proposed in your report.
We note, namely, that Member States' participation in the common policies varies considerably.
This uneven distribution is particularly apparent in the common agricultural policy.
<P>
Member States with a large farming sector and a high proportion of farms which qualify for support, such as Denmark or France, receive higher returns - regardless of their economic performance - than Member States with a smaller farming sector.
Sweden and Germany's proportional contribution to the Community budget is thus twice as large as their proportional participation in the agricultural policy.
But because 45 % of the budget is spent on the agricultural policy, it is obvious that this is where the source of the imbalances lies.
<P>
We are, therefore, rather pleased that you also examined this, our approach towards reducing the imbalances, in your report, which is for agricultural policy to be cofinanced.
An important precondition for this is that agricultural policy should tend to move away from price guarantees and towards a system of direct income aid coupled with measures to promote stewardship of the countryside and the protection of the environment.
This trend should be further reinforced by Agenda 2000.
Already, between 50 % and 60 % of agricultural expenditure is of a structural nature.
Because these measures are applied directly on the spot in the Member States, it is appropriate to involve them in the funding, as is the case with the other structural policies.
This would not, therefore, amount to a break with the system, another point you mentioned.
<P>
That is why this scheme for national cofinancing of the agricultural policy is being proposed.
It would not only be a logical development, but would also go a considerable way towards alleviating the problem of net contributions.
Much can be said about our proposal - which we are discussing here for the first time, so have not yet formally agreed - for example, that it will propel the common agricultural policy forward, but it has one additional, indisputable advantage over all the other options you mentioned, namely that it will be possible to implement.
It does not require unanimity in the Council: only a qualified majority.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Garriga Polledo">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, you will hear many opinions today, Mr Santer, but one undeniable fact stands out: if the Union's gross domestic product does not grow by at least 2.5 % a year, the current ceiling of 1.27 % of own resources will not suffice to enable us simultaneously to extend Community policies, maintain the cohesion policy and finance enlargement to the East.
<P>
You must be aware - and I address myself now to the Commission, as Mr Santer is not present - that in this House you will encounter many Members who are firmly of the opinion that any financing system which does not encompass fiscal progressivity and relative prosperity as basic principles is unfair and divisive from the start.
<P>
Mr Liikanen, the Commission of which you are a member has become infected by the virus of the theory of net balances and fair returns, and you have therefore taken the political decision to recommend a redistribution of expenditure to compensate for the net balances, instead of recommending a redistribution of income based on fiscal progressivity.
<P>
It has to be said that the proposal the Commission has put before us will not solve anything.
It will not produce a single euro more for the Community's budget, and will result in the Commission being starved of funds and unable to operate effectively.
Secondly, however you look at it, the proposal the Commission has put before us is regressive, regardless of which alternative is eventually chosen.
<P>
The proposal is also counter to financial solidarity and cohesion, and it is unfair, as the committees involved in the parliamentary procedures will tell you, along with the European farmers.
It is inadequate, as you will also be told by the European Council and, furthermore, the proposal is somewhat unworthy of a European institution which should be defending the common interest, as I imagine this Parliament will tell you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Miranda">
Mr President, we have no doubt as to the importance of a detailed debate on the system of Community own resources and we will analyse this document with particular attention.
However, certain points must first be clarified.
Financial matters cannot be divorced from their corresponding economic context.
This is also true if we wish to base our thinking on a foundation of redistributive justice and solidarity.
A balance must be achieved, both from the revenue side and from the expenditure side.
Our second concern relates to the fact that we must either define objectives and find the appropriate resources and means to realise them, which is the position we hold, or we must specify the resources from the outset and immediately lay down the objectives that may be achieved with those resources, which would appear to be the Commission's solution, on the extremely restricted basis, as we know, of 1.27 %.
<P>
Following the first line of reasoning, it is indeed possible and desirable to have a debate on the system of own resources, particularly with a view to resolving the distortions that have already been caused by the current system, those which are anticipated and others of which we are aware.
It is very difficult to operate on the current basis.
<P>
However, the Commission is distorting the discussion to some extent in that, before it has even begun, it has already opted for one of the two courses it suggests.
This is because its main concern would appear to be to settle not the problem of own resources, but that of existing imbalances.
It knows that it is not feasible to terminate the UK financial package, it knows that the system of a fair return would mean the end of the very concept of the Community and the end of the principle of solidarity; it does not believe, as we have seen, in the possibility of a progressive system founded on GNP.
It is left with a single option which does not involve own resources but seeks to resolve the problem by reducing spending.
That is what the Commission has brought us, which is to say nothing at all, because this debate contributes nothing new.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Mr President, Commissioner, I am glad that the Commission is considering the option of cofinancing agricultural policy. Cofinancing agricultural policy is, I believe, the right way forward.
This proposal attacks the nub of the problem, because it takes the expenditure side of the budget as its starting-point.
In addition, as has already been said, this option can be decided by a qualified majority in the Council and does not require a unanimously agreed revision of the decision on own resources.
The discussion on net contributors, led by the former Minister of Finance, Mr Waigel, can thus confidently be consigned to history, along with the Finance Minister.
<P>
If the Member States were to pay for half of the direct subsidies in the agriculture budget out of their own pockets, Germany would make a net saving of DEM 2 400 million.
The United Kingdom would also stand to benefit considerably from a reform of this kind, to the tune of around DEM 2 000 million.
The British rebate would thus be rendered obsolete.
If some of the financial burden were transferred from the Union to the Member States, then the EU budget would also have to be reduced by the same amount.
Otherwise, there would be an outright increase in the EU budget, which would meet with resistance, in Germany too, from those who then had to pay for cofinancing out of their own pockets.
<P>
In my opinion, there should be no question of using the resources released to fund trans-European networks and research policy, as a kind of European employment programme.
Responsibility for large-scale employment policy must continue to lie with the Member States; it is not possible to fund this at European level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Samland">
Mr President, Commissioner, thank you very much for your presentation.
In actual fact, for the first time in the Community, we have a document on the table which gives detailed figures and makes it clear what is realistic in this debate and what is not.
We agree with Mrs Müller that the rebate proposed by Mr Waigel was, from the very moment the idea was conceived, unrealistic.
For anyone who thinks that the Portuguese Parliament will agree to foot the bill for the cuts that the Germans want to introduce through a ratification decision, is living in dreamland.
That is why it is good that this file has been closed.
<P>
It is also good that the file has been closed on the proposal made by the Spanish Government, which thinks that there is a possibility of the net contributors forking out even more in the future, and that the current injustice can be stretched even further.
That is also nonsense; these are just initial negotiating positions for next March.
<P>
At this stage, however, I wish to emphasise quite clearly - I have said this here many times already and I underline it once more - that the European Union is not a savings bank into which everyone pays their contributions and then receives them back with as much interest as possible.
We are, as Mrs Haug said, a Community committed to solidarity, and the system of own resources also has to be capable of bearing out this claim.
<P>
On the other hand, it has to be said that the system is unfair, and this is made unusually clear and easy to understand here.
The report also takes the wind out of the sails of those who are shouting the loudest - I shall not take those from my own country, but those from the Netherlands, who are shouting loudly with us - because if you adjust the figures to take account of the Rotterdam effect, then the balance sheet for the Netherlands as a net contributor looks quite different from that repeatedly claimed by the Dutch Government.
In that respect too, these figures are very helpful.
<P>
Incidentally, if Mr Santer had still been with us, I would have said - and the Luxembourgers should take this on board - that if staffing costs are included, they have to keep quiet.
I agree with you that they should be more accommodating, when they are taking over premises in Luxembourg and expecting us to continue paying for them...
<P>
(Applause) ... they should keep quiet, because there we are a kind of living structural fund!
<P>
But now to the policy itself: it is a question - and this applies in Brussels in just the same way - of evening out the imbalances between the rich Member States in the Community.
It will not do for a country such as Denmark - which, measured on per capita GNP, is the richest in the Community - to be a net beneficiary, and a country such as Sweden to be a net contributor.
Something must be wrong with the system there.
<P>
Where does the fault lie?
Precisely where one of the three options makes it clear that it lies: with agriculture.
It lies with the repayments.
47 % of expenditure goes on agricultural policy.
A country with a large farming sector receives more money back and is thus a net beneficiary.
The amount the Danes pay in is not unfair, but our spending policies give them more back, with the result that they are net beneficiaries.
That is why I believe that the proposal made here for a corrective mechanism, based not on renationalising, but on cofinancing - and cofinancing is already the rule in the case of the Structural Funds, research appropriations and indeed appropriations in general - is a step in the right direction.
It has - as Mrs Haug said - the great disadvantage of only needing a qualified majority to become a reality.
That will put those wishing to retreat to a veto in a very bad position.
<P>
A second issue must be addressed, namely the British rebate.
It came into force in 1984 - I wish to state this clearly here - at a time when 71 % of the budget was spent in the agriculture sector, 71 %!
It came into force then because at that time the repayments the British were receiving from the agriculture sector were around 8 to 10 %.
Today, as a result of this rebate on their contribution, the British also receive a rebate on policies which have come to be of decisive importance for the Community since 1984, for example regional and structural policy.
In the future, it will be enlargement to the East, and I say this to you, Mr Wynn: my social democrat friend, Tony Blair, will also find it hard to explain why the British, who are calling for enlargement at the tops of their voices, should receive a further rebate from the other countries.
They will find it hard.
<P>
(Applause) Now, I know that this is a much more difficult area, because here decisions are by unanimity, and that is why I state very clearly: this Community has always distinguished itself by not making any radical demands.
But what we need to prepare ourselves for, what my British colleagues need to prepare themselves for, is the need to find a sensible way to have those parts of the rebate phased out which are not 'agricultural', namely regional and structural policy and thus solidarity within the Community, and future enlargement to the East.
<P>
One final sentence. I believe that the package put on the table in this House is a good package, which complements Agenda 2000 and will help us to reach a compromise next March: united backing for cofinancing on the one hand, and sound, sensible solutions for the British rebate and for reforming agricultural policy on the other.
This is the big issue, and I believe that we will find a good solution to it.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Tillich">
Mr President, it was the current Federal Government, Mr Samland, and at its head Helmut Kohl and Theo Waigel, which demanded that the existing system of own resources should be corrected.
Other Member States endorsed this demand, and it is good that the Commission is now proposing this reform and admitting that there is an imbalance.
Two points need to be considered for the future: what financial resources does the EU budget have at its disposal, and how much does each Member State contribute?
<P>
Only on that basis will it be possible to have an honest discussion about the expenditure side, namely Agenda 2000.
No one is calling into question the principle of solidarity, as laid down in the European treaties. And yet, the words spoken by the King of Spain this morning are still ringing in my ears.
He stated that the EU has changed, and all of us in this House have agreed on several occasions that the EU will continue to change.
<P>
That is why we should not assume that this system should be able to operate in the future, in the same way as it does now.
In some Member States, gross output has increased constantly over the last few years. However, the money going back into these countries has, in principle, remained at the same level.
The current system of rebates, applied to one Member State, has lost its raison d'être - you said it yourself: they even accepted a rebate on BSE.
Traditional sources of revenue have lost their significance, and contribute more to the general confusion than to transparency.
<P>
That is why Theo Waigel proposed that each Member State's contribution should be restricted to a specific maximum amount, calculated in terms of Member States' GNP.
This restriction is no straightforward rebate, Mr Samland, but should, above all, be seen in the context of the spending reforms, and not only in the agricultural sector, but also in the field of cohesion and structural policy.
This is the basis for a larger Union.
And now you have it: cofinancing in the agricultural sector was the idea of our colleague, Mr Böge; but, as always when there is every prospect of success, many people seem to have had the same idea.
<P>
(Mixed reactions) I do not agree with the Commission's statement, in its summary, that there is no need to reform the current system of own resources at the present time, and that the system would remain practicable even in the event of an enlargement.
I do not believe this statement, in the Commission's summary, to be justified.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, the question now is who is going to pay for EU enlargement?
If the Cohesion Fund is cut, it will be the cohesion countries that will pay.
If the Structural Funds are cut, it will be the EU regions scheduled for development that will pay.
If the EU funding of agricultural policy is cut, it will be the farmers of the EU countries that will pay.
If common agricultural policy funding is shifted into the national budgets of Member States, it will be the taxpayers who will pay.
If Germany pays less into the EU budget, the others will pay more for expansion.
If Britain is paid a smaller rebate from EU funds, it will be the British taxpayers who will be paying more for expansion.
If the customs revenue which the Netherlands calculates as its own share is deducted from its contribution, then it is not such a large net contributor as it claims.
As for my own country, Finland, I might point out that, if customs revenues were taken into account in the budget, we too would be net contributors.
<P>
I thank the Commission for its statement.
These matters have to be discussed frankly.
We shall not achieve a politically justified enlargement without all the present Member States putting money into future member countries.
It is impossible to accept that a country which supports enlargement should not share in the cost of it.
On the basis of this statement, we have to begin looking at who is going to pay.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Colom I Naval">
Mr President, I am deeply disappointed.
I listened carefully to the Commission's presentation and I have to say, quite plainly, that I had hoped for more.
What was uppermost in your minds, Commissioners?
Europe or the Member States?
<P>
The Commission has put forward three proposals which, if you look at them carefully, are really four, like the musketeers, and none of them is brilliant.
In fact, on this occasion and even more obviously than for Agenda 2000 as a whole, the Commission has put forward unduly cautious proposals, for fear of annoying the Council and, in particular, of annoying certain members of the European Council.
All Member States are equal, but clearly, some Member States are more equal than others in the eyes of the Commission.
Political realism or pragmatism should not be mistaken for shirking responsibilities which is what, in my view, the Commission's proposal amounts to.
<P>
Europe is at a critical stage just now.
We have gone beyond Amsterdam.
The Treaty is in the process of ratification.
We shall be using the euro in a hundred days' time, at least in the financial sector.
We are on the threshold of the ambitious project to enlarge the European Union.
Yet the standard of debate in Europe is quite simply not up to the challenges it faces.
The debate often tends to focus too much on Member State or Community budget balances, which is a more or less covert way of advocating the principle of fair returns which we all condemn loudly but insincerely.
<P>
The media and many national parliaments refer to national contributions, forgetting that not only have they been obsolete for years, but that the Maastricht Treaty itself - a good few years ago now - repealed Article 200 which would have provided for them.
Electoral fever is whipped up in national parliaments over something which does not exist either in practice or in legal terms.
<P>
In addition, we should remember that nobody is in the European Union for budgetary reasons.
If anyone were, they would be rather poor.
And since we are on the subject of balances, why not talk about other balances? Why not talk about trade?
Why not talk about finance? These are far more complex issues than any of the possible interpretations of the budget balance.
How can one evaluate the political and economic advantages of belonging to the European Union?
In my view, the Commission should have had the political courage to put forward proposals which would facilitate political progress.
I do not know if this is a case of short-sightedness or of political cowardice.
They have not dared to break with the nationalistic approach which is really marring the European atmosphere and, in my opinion, they should have put forward a truly European proposal.
There is talk of lack of democracy, but none of the proposals addresses it.
They are merely national contributions by another name.
We need to produce a European budget which is transparent and can be understood by the citizens.
None of the proposals goes in this direction.
It is quite unfair that each citizen's contribution to the European budget should br determined by his country of residence, and not by his income or his wealth.
In theory, we are all agreed on this principle.
Why not propose a European mini-income tax?
I am not talking of a heavy tax.
I am talking about a tax to finance a European budget which, translated into everyday terms, would amount to one cup of coffee a day at the University café throughout the year.
That is what the Community budget costs, ECU 240 per citizen.
Not everything would be financed through the tax I am suggesting, though.
A very simple tax would suffice.
Why not separate out the Community share of VAT on bills?
One part would be national VAT, and the other European VAT.
The European institutions would have to become more transparent and democratically accountable.
If the political courage to do so is lacking, we should at least apply the principle of the ability to pay in Europe. This replaced the principle of benefit as a basis for calculating tax in European countries as far back as the nineteenth century, and the principle it replaced has not been applied in the Member States for more than a century.
<P>
At the very least, I should like to stress that the Commission is as little inclined to move forward as the Member States themselves. If we cannot make progress and have to restrict the debate to an analysis of these proposals, I suggest that the majority of the proposals made do not even constitute a good discussion document, but are in fact regressive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, if I am not mistaken, the world economy is heading for recession.
At the same time, the European Union is on the threshold of the difficult business of establishing the euro, under such economic conditions and while we are facing the challenge of enlargement.
Under these circumstances, what would one expect from the European Union and in particular the more powerful countries?
One would expect some signs of solidarity and generosity.
But here, in the debate taking place in here, we are presented with a sorry picture of mean self-interest and nationalism, and we see Denmark opposite Germany and the United Kingdom opposite the Netherlands, representatives of some of the Union's most powerful countries, and what are they interested in?
What message are they broadcasting?
How we can keep more money in our own pockets than we give to the European Union's budget.
<P>
I believe this is an unacceptable situation, one which fails to respond either to the climate or to the great challenges facing the European Union.
From this platform, I simply wish to appeal to the Greek Government, the Greek Prime Minister, when faced by the risks in particular of nationalising agricultural policy and burdening the national budgets with the costs of the agricultural policy, to adopt a serious approach to these challenges instead of publicising the non-existent Santer packages which are on the way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fantuzzi">
Mr President, I too believe that the virus of net financial positions could spread a lethal disease throughout the European Union. We must all bear in mind the net gains that we have all made from Europe, particularly the strongest among us.
Some are now suffering, however, and I do not think that the fear of evoking a lethal virus should lead us to ignore this problem completely.
On the contrary, Commissioner, I am convinced that this discussion should have been initiated rather sooner, because it has been smouldering beneath the ashes for too long.
<P>
The dangers are now becoming clear. Clearly there will be much discussion of this second option, the one concerning agriculture, because - if nothing else - it has the advantage of not requiring an immediate unanimous decision.
The danger is that this proposal will completely bypass the discussion of CAP reform contained in Agenda 2000.
Consideration of the proposed reform of the COM has already reached an advanced stage, including in Parliament, and I wonder whether some people might take this as an opportunity to say: 'Let's throw our hats in the air and start all over again; there's nothing else to be done'.
The risk then is that decisions on the CAP will be postponed for even longer, whereas in my opinion they are more urgent than ever.
<P>
The imbalances in the CAP have not been invented today, but have existed for a good while. They were not ordered by the doctor, but are the fruit of political decisions.
I remember Commissioner MacSharry, when he proposed the reform in 1992, saying: 'We must redistribute the effects of the agricultural budget among countries, among producers and among regions'.
Specific decisions were taken in the Agriculture Council - where the ministers often resort overhastily to their calculators when taking decisions - which have prevented the original goals from being achieved.
<P>
If, by opening this discussion now, we can at last raise the quality of the whole debate on how to build more solidarity into the CAP, then I very much welcome today's discussion.
But if the final outcome is to hand money back to the Member States, just to redress the net positions of certain countries, then I have serious objections.
Instead, I believe that the whole approach to the CAP should be reviewed.
There are also other, alternative means of giving greater scope to high-quality policies - the structural policies - which are the missing second pillar of national farm policy, rather than constantly harping on about the risk of national rebates.
<P>
As we all know, national rebates are a real threat, but this road is already being followed implicitly even now, and in my opinion an inverted form of solidarity is the worst possible form of fair returns.
That is what we should be discussing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Mr President, it really is true that I always speak in front of Mr Liikanen with the feeling that it is not my turn.
I think that this is a bad omen for the general report on next year's budget and I would simply like to say a few words on the proposals we have just heard from the Commission.
I believe that the Commission is doing some very interesting work in trying to resolve a problem that is totally unsolvable - in other words, it is trying to square the circle.
<P>
How can you satisfy all the contributors to the European Union budget with a budget such as this? On the one hand and quite rightly, it is a budget based on vertical distribution, which benefits the less developed countries but which the more developed countries see as penalising them.
On the other hand and also quite rightly, it is a budget based on transferring resources between sectors, from 97 % of the population to 3 % of the Community's agricultural population.
When you have a budget of this nature, it is obvious that everyone, or a least a large majority of people, are going to be dissatisfied. The solutions envisaged by the Commission are based on a paradox worthy of Lewis Carroll: the tax that each of us must pay to the Community varies according to what we receive from the Community.
The fundamental principle behind both capping budgets and cofinancing agriculture, is: I will give you what you need, as long as you pay for what I give you.
<P>
Such an approach is obviously unsatisfactory, but the Commission is forced to carry out this exercise.
The only real solution is to get out of the contradiction into which the Member States have thrown us, in other words to unblock Community expenditure.
As long as we do not have a true Community policy, involving the 15 Member States in objectives such as environment protection, transport networks and town and country planning, the taxpayers in the European Union will not receive full recognition in the Union's budget, but this is something the Member States must do for themselves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Mr President, I just want to say one thing.
It is very important that the Commission come forward at this particular time with a communication on resources.
As President Santer said, it is the condition for a proper discussion on enlargement.
<P>
My group's point of view is that it is very important that we fundamentally attack the concept of the juste retour .
A juste retour based on net contributions only cannot resolve the problem.
Obviously the approach should be to achieve a more equitable solution but that requires a north/south balance and also progressivity in the budgetary contributions from all Member States.
That is the approach we will take.
<P>
It is up to the Member States to take up their responsibility but we would compliment the Commission for taking a position at this time.
Probably you were wise to simply sum up various alternatives but it is these alternatives which must now be politically on the table.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, perhaps it is good to remember that this report represents an obligation which was given to the Commission to a large extent already in Edinburgh.
The Edinburgh Summit decided that the Commission must, first of all, give a report on the operation of the financing system, on the own-resources system.
That is one part of this whole report.
Secondly, we are under an obligation to give a report on the British rebate system, which is also a part of this report.
Thirdly, the Commission was given an obligation to give a report on the potential new own resources.
There is a wide-ranging annex on this subject.
I hope we have time to pay attention to that - it is about 30 pages.
You received the papers very late.
The decision was taken by the Commission just before 12.
So take your time, study it all.
<P>
As to the question of the fair return and transparency, we have two objectives which are not always easy to reconcile.
Firstly, we are against the concept of fair return.
There is no concept whereby every country should get back what it pays.
Of course we are against it.
Europe and the European Union generate a lot of added value which is shared by all the countries.
You cannot make it just an accounting exercise.
That is one side, and that is clear.
<P>
Secondly, we are in favour of transparency.
We cannot play a game of hide-and-seek where the figures are not all out.
Now we have released all the figures and also there is a separate annex on that explaining how difficult the question of defining different net positions is.
There is no simple solution to that issue; we present them all here.
<P>
As to the character of the report, I wish to emphasise that we have proposed three options with a great number of variations.
Today the Commission decided that the options presented in the report are interchangeable, can be added to and can be spread over time.
So if there are new options which are well founded, and get the support of the European people and Member States, discussion is wide open.
<P>
I shall make just one remark on the elements of some proposals.
In our decision today and in our report we state that the shifts in the burden of financing implied by some of these options present regressive elements that might need to be redressed in the context of our solution.
That is clear and, before any other solutions are implemented, this element of certain regressive features must be solved.
We cannot do it before we have reasonable consensus to go forward.
<P>
The Commission has now opened the debate.
This has been the first public debate on the matter.
I am sure it will continue in the Member States and, in good time, we can draw the conclusion whether it is possible to submit a proposal.
This has not been a proposal: this is a presentation of the report and options.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Migrants
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions:
<P>
B4-0484/98 by Mrs d'Ancona, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to the Council, on migrants entering the EU from Mediterranean; -B4-0485/98 by Mrs d'Ancona, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to the Commission, on migrants entering the EU from Mediterranean; -B4-0486/98 by Mrs Schaffner, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, to the Council, on entry into the European Union of immigrants from Mediterranean countries; -B4-0487/98 by Mrs Schaffner, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, to the Commission, on entry into the European Union of immigrants from Mediterranean countries; -B4-0488/98 by Mrs Roth, Mr Orlando and Mr Voggenhuber, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, to the Commission, on immigration from the Mediterranean area



<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="d'Ancona">
Mr President, the oral questions about the uncontrolled waves of migrants from Mediterranean countries are primarily an expression of our concern for human beings who are seeking a better life, fleeing civil war or natural disasters and driven away by violence and oppression.
But often, instead of finding freedom, they end up dying a horrible death, becoming victims of the trade in human beings or finding that they are not welcome in their 'promised land'.
It is a human drama, but one which cannot and should not have to be resolved by the Member States most affected by this type of immigration.
It is the concern and the responsibility of us all, and this is why, as we have so often said, we need European solutions and a European immigration policy.
<P>
The Council's 'couldn't-care-less' attitude here stands in stark contrast to the panic that is typical of all the Member States' refugee policies.
The Austrian Presidency is to be applauded for having the courage to put this issue on the agenda, but it was hypocritical of the Justice Ministers to refuse to deal with it because it would conflict with the Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.
This is indeed the case, and Amnesty International, the ECRE and the UNHCR were right to criticise, but the position adopted by the Member States simply hides the fact that their own asylum policies parted company with the Geneva Convention a long time ago.
There is now a huge gap between principles and reality.
Europe's approach at the moment is making nimbies of us all, the burden is not being shared but pushed on to the next country, and asylum-seekers are shown degrading treatment in the way they are detained and expelled.
This cannot go on.
We need to introduce a single European asylum and immigration policy immediately.
Austria's revised strategy paper must be used as the basis for concrete plans, and we need to consider whether we can organise common reception and asylum procedures at or just outside Europe's borders so that refugees can then be directly distributed among the Member States.
This plan, which was put forward this week by a Dutch MP, will certainly require a European approach because, as we have already said, the Mediterranean problem requires a European solution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Orlando">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, one day the right to choose where to live will be recognised as a fundamental human right.
In the meantime, we should like to make a few remarks on the documents under discussion this afternoon.
We believe in particular - I myself, like the Green Group - that a motion for a resolution is unacceptable for the following reasons. First of all, migration is not a problem relating to the Mediterranean alone.
The Socialist Group's document refers solely to a problem which seems to come exclusively from the south, as if migration cannot come from the east, west or north.
<P>
The second point concerns Europol.
We are not convinced by the reference to Europol and its involvement, because there is still no proper protection of data; nor is there a clear legal context for Europol's activities in this sector.
<P>
Our third point relates to the need to step up the fight against the illegal exploitation of immigrants and against the criminal organisations which exploit the right to migrate.
Lastly, migration cannot be regarded as a police or border problem; it is an overall cultural and economic problem, which calls for an EU policy of development in the migrants' countries of origin.
<P>
Finally, I hope that the mystery over the Austrian Presidency's strategy document has been solved. As announced, it should have borne the date of 1 July, but it now seems to have been replaced by another document which has still not been forwarded to this House.
This does not set our minds at rest as regards the Austrian Presidency's intentions in this area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, since the Austrian strategy paper was one of the first things to be mentioned here, I should like to say a few words on that, before I go on to make some comments on the question of relations with the Mediterranean countries.
<P>
There is something I would like to say right at the outset, as there have been a few misunderstandings here. The Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees, and its instruments, should not be considered as in any way irrelevant as a consequence of the Austrian strategy paper.
On the contrary, the paper is concerned, amongst other things, with complementary systems for protecting persons fleeing from war zones, exceptional humanitarian cases, and other areas not included in the Geneva Convention.
I should also like to say that the subject of asylum and immigration is not actually a new one at all as far as cooperation in the EU is concerned, because in 1991, the European Commission was already giving some thought to establishing a strategy on migration policy at European level in two communications on immigration and the right of asylum.
<P>
But I am not going to go into what was a historic initiative at the time, I would prefer instead to set out some of the essential details of the strategy paper.
There is, in fact, a 1992 declaration of principles on migration policy, which included some specific strategic points which should now be useful for guiding future European policy on the subject.
Among these are the common desire to reduce the causes of migration through appropriate measures relating to the regions of origin, the development of a common policy for the temporary protection of the displaced, the fight against illegal immigration, the conclusion of agreements with countries of origin and transit, the ratification of the Dublin Convention and the adoption of the convention on external borders.
<P>
This declaration of principles did not exert any lasting influence on the migration and asylum policy of the European Community at the time.
The actual declarations of intent were also hardly implemented.
Then, in 1994, the European Commission made an extensive new attempt at developing a plan for migration policy, by submitting a very comprehensive and substantial communication to the European Parliament and the Council on immigration and asylum policy.
The purpose of the migration plan, which was seen in isolation in those days, was to come up with an integrated and coherent answer to what was happening on the ground, to identify the key elements for effectively regulating migration and to define a new framework for the Union's action.
<P>
The main elements were defined by the Commission as measures to stem the tide of immigration, effective supervision of immigration and strengthening the position of legal immigrants.
As for the degree to which this concept has been implemented, we find that today, after four years, clearly visible and measurable success has been achieved in only three areas.
In this regard, we should not overlook the result of work in the third pillar, which has resulted in some 70 legal acts from the Council in the area of migration.
Perfectly respectable work has been done.
But the European Union has not really succeeded in learning any lessons from its experiences of the reality of migration.
<P>
We believe it is necessary to approach this subject once again now, and that is the reason for the Austrian strategy paper.
It will be forwarded to Parliament at the earliest possible moment after a first round in the K4 Group.
<P>
I should like to say a few words now about the Mediterranean countries.
Over the last few years the Council has adopted a series of legal acts on illegal immigration, which also apply to relations with Mediterranean countries.
Particular attention was paid to issues associated with the return of illegal immigrants to their homeland and to transit countries. The following legal acts were adopted: a standard travel document for the return of third country nationals, a specimen draft of a bilateral agreement for repatriation between a Member State and a third country and standard clauses that in future are to be included in various agreements.
<P>
In addition, I would also like to point out that, in accordance with its decision of 16 December 1996, the Council regularly examines the actual implementation of the legal acts it has adopted in the areas of illegal immigration, repatriation, the illegal employment of third country nationals and cooperation in enforcing deportation orders.
<P>
The Council knows that the standard EU travel document is being successfully used by some Member States in their relations with third countries.
Moreover, the standard clauses for repatriation are presently serving as a basis for negotiations on the Euro-Mediterranean association agreements with Egypt, Lebanon and Syria.
<P>
Now a final word to Mr Orlando on Europol and the problems he raised.
The Council and the Council Presidency are also aware of these problems and solutions are being worked on.
As far as development cooperation with the Mediterranean countries is concerned, this is included in the MEDA programme.
Of course we have our contribution to make here but this is one of the main elements of the Barcelona process, and a great deal is being done in this regard too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission shares Parliament's concerns on the influx of migrants from Mediterranean countries trying to enter illegally the territory of the Member States.
As has been made very clear, on behalf of the presidency, this phenomenon not only affects the southern Member States; migratory pressures constitute real and complex challenges for the whole of the European Union.
<P>
Very often organised crime stands behind this phenomenon.
These would-be illegal immigrants are recruited among those who are desperately looking for better conditions of life and they sometimes become victims of the trafficking in human beings.
The fight against this shameful crime deserves urgent and specific attention.
<P>
I entirely agree that the only viable response is to adopt a comprehensive and long-term strategy, as stated in the Commission's 1994 communication on migration and asylum policy, to which reference has already been made.
That document identified three types of measures: actions addressing the root causes of forced migration, actions to manage migration flows, and actions to integrate legally resident third-country nationals.
It is clear that we need a multi-disciplinary approach involving all the relevant actors.
Law enforcement actions are essential but not enough.
We have to combine coordinated actions in the field of judicial and police cooperation, foreign policy, trade policy and development cooperation.
<P>
Some activities have already been developed at European Union level.
In 1996 the European drug unit's mandate was extended to cover the fight against trafficking in human beings.
When Europol is fully operational, it is our hope that these activities will be strengthened.
A specific programme on the training and exchange of persons responsible for combating trafficking in human beings, the STOP programme, was adopted by the Council in November 1996.
<P>
The Commission has also tabled two proposals dealing with temporary protection and solidarity amongst Member States in cases of mass influxes of displaced persons.
These proposals will enable the Member States to cope more efficiently with situations like the one that we now face in Kosovo.
The need to give international protection to persons fleeing from war zones is, of course, a different issue from illegal immigration and Parliament itself took the initiative for two new budget lines concerning the reception and repatriation of such people.
The first preliminary report on the implementation of these budget lines has already been transmitted to Parliament.
<P>
In order to tackle these migration flows, improved cooperation with the third countries concerned is essential.
The framework for this cooperation, having regard to this part of the globe, is the Euro-Mediterranean partnership.
One of the basic purposes of MEDA is indeed supporting economic transition and socio- economic development in the Mediterranean region.
By doing that we contribute to increased prosperity in the region and hopefully reduce the pressures for migration.
In addition, MEDA can support specific measures under the Barcelona Declaration to help cope with illegal immigration.
We shall, for example, be financing a seminar in Spain for police training on this subject.
We are also supporting a meeting in the Netherlands on a whole range of migration issues.
It must be understood that, under its own regulations, MEDA cannot be used to finance measures in Member States to fight legal immigration.
That would be against the regulation and, more important, it would send a wrong political signal to our Mediterranean partners.
<P>
The Commission shares the view that improved cooperation at European level is crucial to manage immigration flows.
The entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty will provide a good opportunity to enhance our efforts further and develop new and more efficient tools in all these areas.
<P>
I can assure you that the Commission will make the most of these new provisions in order to help manage immigration flows, to improve the fight against trafficking in human beings and also to improve the situation for victims.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Terrón I Cusí">
I was glad to hear the replies from the Council and the Commission before speaking myself.
I agree that we need to take medium-term and global measures.
However, that should not prevent us from taking other measures, immediately, to deal with the problems we are experiencing and those looming before us.
<P>
Some parts of the European Union are not much more than ten kilometres away from the north of Africa, and that narrow strait is becoming a gigantic common grave for some of those who try to cross it.
They die in the attempt, having first paid their undertakers handsomely.
<P>
Hundreds of human beings have died this tragic death.
They only appear on our television screens if something extremely serious happens, as it did on the coast of Italy.
The catalogue of deaths that take place every day goes quietly unnoticed, and is rarely in the news.
<P>
Other people are detained and placed in camps which are more or less well equipped to receive them.
The Algerians, for instance, whose situation is not so very different from that described by the Commissioner when referring to Kosovo, leave their homeland, which is now a powder keg, yet we in the European Union do not notice or do not want to notice what is going on.
They end up herded together, living in cramped conditions in Ceuta or Melilla, for instance, two cities which are not far from their own country.
<P>
I believe that the European Union does have the resources to deal with this situation, more resources than we sometimes draw on.
I am referring, as did the Commissioner and the President-in-Office of the Council, to the mechanisms provided under the third pillar for the control of cross-border traffic.
I am referring, of course, to police cooperation, and dialogue with third countries to enable us to make a joint attempt to fight against trafficking in human beings, and to fight together against everything with contributes to this disaster.
<P>
Nevertheless, Mr President, we must also take appropriate measures here and now to respond to the victims' plight. We need to deal with the situation of those who, through mafias or through their own initiative, leave their homeland in search of a better life and try to reach our shores.
Very often, they do not intend to live in the southern European countries, but plan to continue travelling north. Some of these people have been arrested near my home - in Catalonia, which is in the north of Spain - as they attempted to enter France, in the hope of reaching the countries of northern Europe.
We need to deal with them, and we need centres where this can be done.
Measures must be taken to control the Straits of Gibraltar, the Straits of Messina, and the most popular crossings. Above all, however, we must not look the other way, waiting for press headlines on large or small numbers of corpses washed up on our shores, waiting to have to regret the situation all over again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="De Esteban Martín">
Mr President, the problem of illegal immigration deserves specific attention because of the intense human suffering involved.
Not only are lives lost, but many people also fall prey to gangs of organised traffickers, who run criminal businesses, risking the lives of desperate people.
Faced with this situation, we need to increase cooperation within the European Union, strengthening, as has already been stated, the regular exchange of information on the criminal networks organising illegal immigration.
The fact is that the illegal immigration these gangs are involved in is essentially - I would stress - a crime. We need to target the organisation of these networks.
Sanctions will have to be effective, however, and the various administrations will therefore need to cooperate.
<P>
The legislative work undertaken by the Member States and the administrations themselves constitutes a great change.
Nevertheless, in order to resolve this problem we must speed up the creation of a common judicial and police area, and of a coherent and homogeneous policy on immigration and asylum in the Union.
This problem affects us all and, as we have often emphasised in this House, it can only be successfully resolved through cooperation.
Such cooperation should also include the administrations of third countries. If necessary, European aid should be made conditional on strong government action against illegal immigration in those countries.
The Council and the Commission should warn the Maghreb and the Mediterranean countries that unless they take action against illegal immigration, the European Union will, regrettably, be forced to reconsider Community aid to those countries when the MEDA programme is reviewed in 1999.
Of course, countries which make a greater effort to stem the flow of immigrants will benefit from more favourable treatment by the European Union.
<P>
The same applies to commercial and association agreements.
The European Union - the Austrian Presidency has already commented along these lines - should not sign any more agreements in the region unless they include the clause on the repatriation of illegal immigrants, which in my opinion will be of considerable help in resolving this problem.
<P>
The solution lies in control and collaboration, and if the administrations do not collaborate, the situation will not be resolved. I very much fear that if we do not take appropriate measures, we shall have to mourn more tragic victims in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Caccavale">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to begin by congratulating the authors of this import and laudable initiative, which is highly topical in the light of current events now and in forthcoming weeks and months.
<P>
The migration of peoples is part of world history.
There has never been a time in the history of this continent when peoples have not been moving from one place to another as a result of famine, war, scarcity, poverty or persecution.
So to think that migratory flows can be checked by building fortresses or barriers - which this time would have to go through the middle of the Mediterranean Sea - seems to me altogether illusory and over-ambitious, not to say stupid.
<P>
Clearly the problem must be tackled not as a problem but as an opportunity, because migration will be our future in the next century.
Public opinion in our countries would do well to understand this, and therefore all xenophobic campaigns, or ones based on keeping foreigners out, are a huge mistake which will rebound against us.
So we must make a major effort: convey the fact that there are, nowadays, many jobs which our fellow citizens no longer wish to do, and that immigration can therefore be a major opportunity, not least an economic one.
So let us no longer consider immigration as an uncontrolled influx of labour supply - and it is clear that controls are important here - but as being driven by demand, in line with the future requirements of our economies.
If we can alter our mind-set in this way, we shall give hope for the future not only to citizens from the other side of the Mediterranean, but also to our own fellow citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Mohamed Alí">
Mr President, despite the sad tone of some of the preceding speeches, I feel obliged to point out to you that immigration into Europe from the southern Mediterranean countries is becoming a wide-ranging problem with dreadful consequences for those who attempt to reach Europe. It is a problem which has much to do with the European Union's present approach to north-south cooperation policies.
<P>
Immigration is on the increase, as a result of the worsening social, political and economic situation in the countries of the southern Mediterranean, and international criminal gangs trafficking in immigrants are expanding. At the same time, immigrants are dying in flimsy craft trying to reach the shores of Europe, and the Member States are introducing ever more repressive measures to protect their borders and often mete out inhuman treatment to the refugees.
<P>
This is the situation with which we are faced.
I believe the time has come for the European authorities to take swift and effective action to resolve this problem.
Above all, the European Union must formulate, once and for all, a policy of genuine cooperation with these Mediterranean states.
Such cooperation must be honest and fair and not be based solely on economic interests. Rather, it must attempt to deal with the structural and immediate causes of the migration flows.
<P>
In the context of such a policy of north-south cooperation, based on a quite different philosophy from the present one, the European Union must combat illegal immigration, its networks and traffickers in an effective manner. It must put in place a common immigration policy based on principles of cooperation and solidarity with those states, and not on principles which are essentially economic and repressive, designed to protect fortress Europe.
<P>
In conclusion, Mr President, I would like to quote some words spoken yesterday in Madrid at the launching of Sami Nair's latest book, entitled: 'Mediterráneo hoy, entre el diálogo y el rechazo '.
At the launch, Joaquín Estefanía said, and I quote: 'The belief that these matters can be dealt with through recourse to economics alone is false.
Europe must return to politics in the search for a solution to the Mediterranean situation'.
<P>
Let us hope that this will be the case, and that history does not find us wanting yet again, for failing to live up to our responsibilities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pradier">
Mr President, for many years now thousands of people from North African countries have been trying, by taking risks that are well known, to cross the Mediterranean and gain a foothold in our continent.
They ask for asylum, they ask for jobs and they ask for lives for themselves and their families.
<P>
The attitude adopted by all our institutions up to now has been appalling: we turn them back, we send them back, we try to contain them, we make things up as we go along, we improvise ad hoc rules, we guess what the Geneva Conventions say, etc.
Even here, nationalist hypocrites are thriving, wrapped up in their sense of belonging to a bogus Christianity.
That is quite convenient; the whited sepulchres are not there today!
But meanwhile, the smugglers and crooks are making a fortune and dozens of drowned bodies are being recovered between Tangier and Algeciras.
Men and women, who have already been victims of these gangsters, are then locked up, deported, humiliated and murdered by policemen in aeroplanes, in front of dazed passengers, who had no idea that things like that happened in our countries.
<P>
For them it is a matter of survival.
It is a matter of eating every day, of working, of existing and of being able to send their children to school.
Europe, which is beset by its own problems, must not just sit back and build ramparts, in case it becomes a fortress.
Our society obsessed with profit, our society of the cautious and short-sighted, might one day easily bring calamity to us all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Madam President, the European Parliament is beginning to show concern at the influx of illegal immigrants from the southern Mediterranean, and it is right to do so.
But in the joint motion for a resolution, it proposes as a solution the reform of the immigration policy provided for in the Treaty of Amsterdam and, in this respect, it is wrong.
<P>
This reform, which has not yet been debated in France, has three main negative aspects.
<P>
The first is the abolition of all controls relating to the movement of persons at internal borders within five years, including those relating to nationals of third countries.
Such a measure would make illegal immigration from the South a great deal easier: the immigrants would only have to look for a weak point somewhere to be able to enter and then scatter throughout the rest of Europe.
<P>
The second is the European Commission's monopoly over the right of initiative, which would also become automatic after five years.
This measure would be dangerous and even dictatorial, because it is unthinkable that in the future national parliaments and governments might no longer have any right of proposal in the field of immigration.
<P>
The third is the move to qualified majority voting on a simple decision of the Council, which would also be a mistake.
In fact, the abolition of sovereignty and national frontiers would remove all sense of responsibility from the Member States.
No-one would gain from that.
On the contrary, we must rely on the present Member States to negotiate a common immigration policy, to make our territory secure again while respecting the will of each nation and, if need be, to establish different forms of cooperation between the countries involved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Vanhecke">
Madam President, as I only have 90 seconds of speaking time, I shall have to confine myself to just three points.
<P>
Firstly, the countries of Europe are not immigrant countries, yet they are currently facing enormous problems with foreign nationals and are simply not in a position to take any more immigrants.
As I see it this has to be the bottom line, the central principle of our policy here.
<P>
Secondly, it is in the interests of all the countries of Europe to maintain the best possible relations with the countries across the Mediterranean, which is precisely where political and economic circumstances could trigger a new wave of migrants at any time.
We need to focus our development aid as far as possible on those countries and conclude agreements not just to rule out further migration, but to leave the door open for both illegal and legal immigrants already in Europe to return home.
<P>
Thirdly, I still think that a territoriality principle must be introduced for political asylum-seekers, so that genuine political refugees - and these make up only a very small percentage of the total - are not given asylum in Europe, but in neighbouring countries on the same continent, preferably countries which have basically the same culture as the country of origin.
Most people in every country in Europe and every section of the population would be glad to support such a humane policy, which is certainly not the case with the 'open borders' policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="Ford">
Madam President, the problem of migrants coming in to the EU from across the Mediterranean affects us all.
Most come by sea but some come by land.
Few Members, I imagine, except the Spanish Members of Parliament, were aware that the European Union has a land border with Morocco and I had the opportunity recently to visit the two Spanish towns in Morocco, Ceuta and Melilla, with my colleague, Terrón I Cusi.
<P>
Hundreds of migrants from both sub-Saharan Africa as well as from Algeria are increasingly coming into these two Spanish towns.
The former are economic refugees and the latter are asylum seekers.
Groups of them build up in the two camps, the one in Ceuta, which is very sub-standard, and the more well- established camp in Melilla, which has been funded partly by the EU.
From time to time the economic refugees, most of whom are French or English speaking, are decanted over to Spain where they are issued with temporary papers and then promptly disappear northwards.
That is something that should concern us.
<P>
Equally, however, we have the problem of the asylum seekers.
Some of them are in my view genuine asylum seekers, suffering repression from the authorities and others in Algeria, and they of course are not allowed in.
They are sent back to Algeria where they suffer oppression, torture and even on occasion death.
<P>
What we need is a common European policy on these issues, as Sir Leon mentioned.
It is a European problem - it is not just a Mediterranean one.
We need to make sure that Europol helps to catch the criminal organisations that are engaged in this vile trade.
We need to ensure that we have asylum legislation that actually works and that those who are in fear of torture or death can come into the European Union and seek our protection.
We equally need to put pressure on the countries of origin and countries of transit to make sure that they play their part in helping to staunch this flow.
<P>
Finally, as a number of speakers have stated, we have to help remove the causes.
We have to help make sure that we get economic development in the countries of origin.
We have to ensure that the political situation there is such that its people can remain there rather than have to flee, abandoning their homes and, in many cases, their families.
These are difficult issues.
In the climate of xenophobia we have in Europe, they are increasingly difficult; but they will not go away unless we tackle them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Viola">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Group of the European People's Party calls on the Commission, and above all the Council, to ensure that this problem is tackled thoroughly, in political and practical terms - under the third chapter of the Barcelona Declaration, and more generally under the European Union's third pillar - by introducing specific actions for the monitoring and assistance of clandestine immigrants and by negotiating specific measures concerning readmission.
<P>
What I would stress is the essential need for coordination at European level on a problem which, although it has an immediate impact on the EU states bordering on the Mediterranean, in actual fact also affects continental Europe, which in most cases is the ultimate goal of most immigrants.
<P>
It is pointless to leave it up to the individual Member States to handle a crisis which is in no sense bilateral - it cannot be handled by EU countries individually - but is global and European.
It would therefore be advisable to institute a form of multilateral cooperation, perhaps based on cooperation between the Council of Ministers and third countries, and on Community framework legislation designed to tackle the repatriation of all clandestine immigrants in the same fashion, always with due regard for their basic rights, and helping at the same time to consolidate democratic, social and economic development in the countries of migration.
<P>
Only by means of such an approach, which should be incorporated into both the MEDA programme and the Schengen Agreement, will it be possible in future to protect the rights of immigrants, who should no longer be clandestine but sought out by Europe on the basis of a new employment policy and new, clear, social legislation enabling them to be integrated into Europe's social and economic framework and to develop their own potential to the full.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Madam President, our colleagues' questions, and in particular the one from Mrs Schaffner, once again raise a question of substance: how is it possible to handle in a humane and civil fashion a migratory flow coming from poor countries, in some instances ones torn apart by ethnic wars, without there being a common policy in the European Union?
<P>
A common policy would prevent individual Member States from passing the buck or implementing dissimilar, contrasting policies both in terms of reception, expulsion or insertion into the world of work - with the ensuing social prerogatives - and in terms of the concomitant and much-needed policy of developing economic activities and production in countries where people are still today dying as a result of famine and warfare.
<P>
The Commission's umpteenth listing of figures today is pointless. What is needed is a firm stance, leading to the immediate introduction of a common policy on immigration.
We need cooperation projects and measures to combat organised crime, which is causing a real exodus of desperate people who are destined to become the foot-soldiers of these criminal organisations themselves and the victims of prostitution rackets.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bontempi">
Madam President, I do not think that we should be discussing immigration policy in general terms today; we should be considering new approaches, such as those outlined just now by Mr Caccavale.
Above all, we should be focusing our attention today on what is happening in the southern part of Europe, the region which on the one hand is the most exposed to migratory flows - including illegal ones - but on the other is most encumbered with the burden of repeated refusals to take in the numerous immigrants and refugees. This can lead to dreadful tragedies at sea, as has already been recalled.
All of this results from a lack of coordination with the North African countries and from the pressure of highly organised, highly efficient organised crime.
Last year I visited the Kurdish refugee camps in southern Italy, and almost all of those to whom I spoke - Kurds from Sri Lanka and from Pakistan - told me how many millions of lire they had paid to middle-men to be brought to Italy, from where they would set off for Germany or the Netherlands.
<P>
We must bear all of this in mind - the worst possible exploitation of dreams, hopes and needs - and we must realise that it is more than just a matter of numbers and monitoring: of course monitoring is required, but cooperation is required too, and this should not be left to the countries on Europe's southern flank.
Whereas it is fair to expect us - Italy, Spain, and Greece when it joins the Schengen area - to carry out careful surveillance of our coastlines, it is also fair to equip us to fulfil our tasks properly, not only of monitoring but also of cooperation and humanity.
<P>
With regard to reception centres, for example, if immigrants are to be housed in dignity and with respect for their human rights, there is a pressing need for many more such centres, ones that are far superior to the existing ones in Italy and other countries.
The substantial investment which is needed in this area must at the same time be directed to improving cooperation.
<P>
I would also stress one further point: agreements with the countries on the opposite shores of the Mediterranean.
Some interesting agreements have already been drawn up in this area, for example by our government.
We urge the Austrian Presidency, or at the latest the German Presidency, to implement all the measures being called for during this debate: humanitarian assistance, joint monitoring, funding and cooperation. They should do so before next summer - which will soon be here - because that is when there is an increased risk of deaths in the Straits of Gibraltar, and an increased likelihood of the inhuman conditions that we have seen in the Sicilian Channel.
Our mission, and the possibility of future humanitarian cooperation, would likewise be jeopardised.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pirker (PPE)">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we are all agreed that the pressure of immigration from or via North Africa to Europe is dramatically increasing.
We are also agreed that it is the southern Member States that are most affected by it.
The reasons for the migratory pressures are sufficiently well-known - I do not want to go through them here again, as we are all aware of them.
<P>
But the southern Member States are not the only ones affected, all the European countries subsequently are, because as a rule, the destination countries lie further north.
Germany and Austria are the first in line, and their ability to take people in and to integrate them are limited.But what is the Union doing?
At present, we still do not have uniform or adequate instruments to meet the full extent of these new challenges.
<P>
We have the Geneva Convention, but we know that this is no longer enough, because only 10 % of those who come to us are treated as asylum-seekers in accordance with it.
We need other instruments and concepts for the remainder, in order to be able to help both them and ourselves.
Here, I would like particularly to thank the President-in-Office for presenting a very comprehensive concept, developed with total responsibility.
I am glad that you have mentioned the need, for instance, to reduce the pressure for migration through intervention in the crisis regions, to combat trafficking in human beings, and to regulate immigration.
<P>
We are not a fortress, but in the interests of eventual integration, immigration must be limited and controlled.
Legal checks on entry were mentioned as a general concept for the Union, and so was new protection for refugees, because first and foremost, we need a division of the burden to enable integration and transitional entry to Europe.
We need a completely new overall concept that will produce these solutions.
I am confident that this is the beginning of a discussion that will end positively for the whole of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Rojo">
Madam President, all the Member States of the European Union have contributed to the Euro-Mediterranean policy, and they should also all contribute to helping the Member States who have to deal with these problems.
In no way are the illegal bodies washed overboard from these flimsy craft the responsibility of one Member State alone.
We must all play our part in dealing with this problem.
As we know, this problem has arisen as a result of the immoral differences in earnings between the northern and southern Mediterranean countries, which can be as much as tenfold.
The southern Mediterranean countries are begging us to make a determined effort to come up with solutions quickly.
Yet the levelling-out - if that is indeed our aim - has to be achieved through favourable treatment of those southern countries, giving them advantages, making their task easier.
Promises of financial aid alone are not enough.
We have to be seen to act.
<P>
We should make use of those very television channels through which we have created the myth of a European wonderland, making many young people from the Maghreb believe in a European dream.
We should use those same television channels to broadcast information, dissuading these young people and informing them of the very real risks they run, telling them about the slavery which awaits young people in Europe if they do not possess the necessary documents.
<P>
It is both laughable and incredible that the European Union as a whole should declare itself powerless to fight against these mafias which exploit human beings, namely impoverished youngsters.
We need to create opportunities for temporary emigration, with offers of jobs and training.
Madam President, were you aware that the very doors we are opening to young people from the CEECs are being closed to young people from the Maghreb?
We need to give them a better reception, showing greater respect for their dignity.
After all, we are decent human beings. Those young illegal immigrants whose corpses are washed up are, in the main, the victims of a European dream we are creating here, in the European Parliament, as we use empty words to describe a non-existent European wonderland.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Hernández Mollar">
Madam President, nowadays, the European Union is a prime destination for many who, travelling from the Eastern countries, Latin America, and northern and central Africa, wish to cross its borders in search of solutions to the most pressing problems in their daily lives. What we are discussing today, however, is a flow of migration into the southern flank of Europe.
Spain and Italy are being besieged by migrants fleeing from the conditions in their home countries.
Highly dangerous methods of crossing from Africa are resorted to, some of which have been referred to earlier - these flimsy craft - and, as a result, thousands of corpses have been washed up on the coast of the south of Spain or the north of Africa, and a shameful traffic in human beings has developed. Clearly, we cannot remain indifferent to it.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, this problem will not be resolved through a debate on whether the Union's borders should be open or closed, or through repressive or police action. It will not be resolved either through the Geneva Convention or regulation of the right to asylum.
The problem has to be approached from a position of human solidarity, through the economic and social development of the migrants' home countries. The political stability of those countries must be promoted, and they should make the best use of their human and natural resources to transform the Euro-Mediterranean area into a balanced, stable zone.
<P>
The association agreements - the negotiation and ratification of which is unacceptably slow, the Barcelona Conference - full of good intentions but with few practical results, and the MEDA programmes are valid instruments through which to express our solidarity with the development of the people of the Mediterranean.
Countries such as Morocco, Algeria or Tunisia must receive special priority treatment where the Union's foreign and cooperation policies are concerned.
<P>
The Commission and the Council must include meetings and ongoing studies of migration flows in their schedules.
As I live in Melilla, a town on the border between the European Union and Morocco, I have witnessed the Spanish Government's determined effort to make a serious attempt to resolve these problems. The Commission itself has gained first-hand experience of the work under way during its visits to the town of Melilla, and also to Ceuta.
However, resources are needed.
In this area too, an effort must be made to help the European countries responsible for policing and controlling our borders, a task which is often unrewarding indeed.
<P>
I should like to leave you with a final thought on illegal immigration.
We should stop talking about the fight against illegal immigration.
Instead, we should talk about the fight against those who traffic in human lives, and about the fight against drug traffickers.
We should not and must not give the impression that we think of the migrants as invaders or criminals, because that is not what they are.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Goerens">
Thank you, Madam President, for allowing me to speak at the end of this debate.
As I am sure you are aware, the Liberal Group has signed the joint motion for a resolution.
We had no problems in doing so but I would, however, like to raise several points that I feel strongly about in relation to the debate on immigrants from the southern Mediterranean.
<P>
We must emphasise that it is essential to put a stop to this influx of immigrants. What is more, there is no doubt that the misery that has just been described affects us all deeply; we have to find a solution to it.
We must also take account of the fact that immigration is due to deep-seated causes that go beyond the purely technical aspect of crossing external borders that has been mentioned today.
<P>
I believe that, in this respect, we need to highlight the despair of the immigrants who have no hope of a future in their own country and who therefore believe that the only solution to their sorry fate is to flee to the countries on the other side of the Mediterranean.
We must hope that the authorities in the southern Mediterranean countries will cooperate fully with the Member States of the European Union in implementing measures to control illegal immigration.
We believe, too, that the police treatment of illegal immigrants and the legal provisions relating to them are inadequate.
Community policy must focus more on improving development in the Mediterranean countries and, consequently, the future prospects for their citizens.
<P>
Allow me to add one comment in conclusion.
These policies are in direct competition with other policies for which budgetary assistance from the European Union is desired. Therefore, we must highlight the importance of a systematic evaluation of the European Union's policy concerning the Mediterranean with a view to making this policy more effective, rather than useless.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I have followed this discussion and debate with great attention.
I have observed that many Members from the Mediterranean region have spoken here and that is why the issue of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership is an essential part of this debate.
I would like to point out that this partnership includes three areas: political dialogue, the economic issue (which of course includes socio-economic elements), and then the additional question of culture and other related items.
<P>
In the European Union of course, we very much try to provide support for countries south of the Mediterranean Sea, i.e. North African countries.
I would point out that we are also trying to conclude free trade agreements with them.
But we should also be aware that, unfortunately, many of these agreements fail because of the quota problem.
I do not want to go into detail here but I think you all know what I mean.
<P>
Secondly, of course you are right that improving the economic situation is of fundamental importance when it comes to seizing the problem of migration by the roots.
It is something that we are all aware of and are working on.
In the MEDA programme, especially, there is a lot of money for this purpose.
On the whole, there are enough funds and I would like to emphasise that.
<P>
Thirdly, I believe - and I said this in my statement at the beginning - that, on the question of migration, we must tread a new path.
The instruments that the Geneva Convention made available to us are no longer enough today on their own.
We must find a way of deterring criminals, especially traffickers in human beings (whom I shall discuss later), on the one hand, and accepting legitimate humanitarian refugees on the other.
We must also, however, show solidarity, and that is something that I would call for especially as President-in-Office from a country which has done a great deal for refugees, without always being able to count on the solidarity of every Member State in doing so.
<P>
This issue was raised by one Honourable Member only in relation to the Mediterranean region, but I would point out that in the case of Bosnia, for instance, we have as you know accepted between 85 000 and 90 000 refugees. That is almost equivalent to 8-9 % of the Austrian population and is the largest per capita share.
That is why we must call upon solidarity from all other countries as well.
This is the basic idea behind our strategy paper, which does of course still need to be debated and revised, but on which we can ultimately reach a consensus.
<P>
I agree with what was said in the debate - it is also true that we should, of course, tell countries that they are not just going to find a paradise here, that we also have unemployment and that they cannot automatically expect to be taken in.
But I would also like to say that exactly the same applies to the central and eastern European countries.
My country harbours the same fears about those countries as Spain probably does about the Maghreb countries.
<P>
Finally, I would like to mention the despicable trade of trafficking in human beings.
The Austrian presidency has tabled a draft for a convention on this within the UN General Assembly, partly in cooperation with Italy.
But this question is being worked on very closely in the European Union context too, as we consider it to be important not only with respect to the Mediterranean countries but also for the whole of the central European region.
It is not for nothing that this issue was also a subject at the European conference yesterday, but as I talked about this in detail earlier on, I will not repeat myself.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Ferrero-Waldner.
<P>
I have received six motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 40(5).
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
EU/Hong Kong
<SPEAKER ID=136 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0312/98) by Mr Cushnahan, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the Commission communication to the Council on the European Union and Hong Kong (COM(97)0171 - C4-0214/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="Cushnahan">
Madam President, when the handover of Hong Kong took place on 1 July 1997 many fears were expressed as to how the situation would develop.
It was widely acknowledged that if the transition was unsuccessful there would be far-reaching implications for political and economic stability in the region and for relationships between world powers.
<P>
Having closely monitored the situation for 15 months, including a visit to Hong Kong to meet and listen to a wide cross section of viewpoints, I believe that the transition was more successful than many of us would have dared to hope.
<P>
However, I have a number of concerns in relation to the implementation of democracy, the operation of the rule of law and the protection of human rights, which are detailed in my report and which the European Parliament must continue to observe closely.
The holding of elections on 24 May this year marked an important milestone in the development of democracy.
The relatively high turnout is an emphatic answer to those who would argue that Hong Kong residents are not interested in democracy.
<P>
However, this satisfaction is tempered by the fact that the electoral system is less than fully democratic with too much power vested in the hands of the elitist functional constituencies.
Suffice to say that as a consequence 140 000 functional constituency voters elected half the Members of the 60-member LegCo whereas 2.8 million voters were able to elect only 20 members for the geographical constituencies.
<P>
It is unacceptable that despite winning a clear majority of the popular vote, pro-democracy parties obtained a mere third of the seats on the Legislative Council.
It would be reassuring for Members of this Parliament, and others elsewhere including in Hong Kong itself who are committed to democratic principles, that a firm and unambiguous timetable was put in place for holding all elections on the basis of universal suffrage.
<P>
Additionally, a free and democratic society cannot exist unless the rule of law operates, untrammelled, within its borders.
The rule of law requires that all laws apply to all citizens equally, that they are enforced impartially, that they are justiciable in open courts accessible to all.
The implementation of the rule of law requires that the powers of government, judicial, legislative and executive, be separate from and independent of each other so that each is a check on the others, thereby ensuring that none can abuse its power.
<P>
In the unusual, indeed unique, HKSAR constitutional arrangements where autonomy is threatened by surrogacy, the independence of the judiciary assumes extra importance in discharging its role of upholding the rule of law and if necessary drawing attention to any democratic or constitutional deficit which is inhibiting the application of the rule of law to the citizens of Hong Kong.
<P>
Any objective observer must worry that a number of recent cases, notably the Xinhua case, the Hong Kong Standard case, the Ma Wai Kwan case and the right of abode case call into question the efficacy of the rule of law in the Hong Kong SAR.
These concerns have been intensified with the passage of the Adaptation of Laws bill.
<P>
As regards the protection of human rights, a number of issues perturb me.
The introduction of the concept of national security is a worrying development.
We must ensure that it is not used to curb political dissent as has been done in the People's Republic of China.
The suspension of labour laws, attempts to undermine the editorial freedom of the press and the implications of the introduction of laws under Article 23 of the Basic Law are all warning signs confirming the need to monitor the situation and to guarantee that there is no erosion of fundamental human rights and freedoms.
<P>
The European Union has a very important role to play in the evolution of Hong Kong.
The EU must fully support by deed and action the continuation of Hong Kong's international autonomy in economic and trade matters.
We must pursue cooperation at all international levels, particularly as a partner in the WTO.
We must strengthen existing links and establish new ones and it is of fundamental and symbolic importance that all Member States should grant free access to HKSAR and BNO passport holders.
<P>
Our strategy must at all times consistently and continuously underpin the 'one country, two systems' concept.
I hope the Commissioner, who I am glad to see here for this debate, will take on board the recommendations included in this report when he produces his own annual report.
I look forward to receiving that report and our committee will respond in due course.
<P>
Finally, I would like to thank all those who contributed to the drafting of this report.
I welcome the cooperation from all political viewpoints on the committee.
Of most significant importance were the views I received from within Hong Kong itself.
I hope we have advanced the debate.
I hope this is a balanced report and I hope it charts the way forward.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="Titley">
Madam President, it is customary on these occasions to congratulate the rapporteur on his work.
What is perhaps less customary is the fact that I actually mean it when I congratulate the rapporteur on his work.
This is a good, thoughtful and thorough report.
I would particularly like to thank the rapporteur on the way he went about producing his report and the cooperation he showed with others in the committee.
The report has taken on board many of the observations we made in discussion in committee.
That has meant that we have managed to keep amendments to the minimum and thereby kept the cohesion of this report.
I think that is important.
I should like to thank him for that.
<P>
This report emphasises the importance of Hong Kong to the European Union and indeed to the global economic system, as we have seen in the last few weeks.
But our main message has got to be, quite frankly, that we have to recognise that the hand-over of power has gone very well.
The worst fears of many people, expressed in this Chamber, have not been realised.
The idea of 'one country, two systems' appears to work.
There has been political, press and religious freedom.
There has not been widespread corruption as was feared.
Indeed the high quality of the Hong Kong civil service continues to shine through.
Of course there are areas of concern and Mr Cushnahan has outlined some of them.
<P>
There have been questions about political influence being used for appointments to statutory advisory bodies such as the housing authority.
That is an area that needs to be watched.
There were rumours that Chinese security advisors were to be installed in the Chief Executive's office.
I am glad to see that was denied by the government.
There was the attack on Radio Television Hong Kong by a member of the Chinese Peoples' Political Consultative Conference.
While the Chief Executive, Tung Chee-hwa was somewhat dubious in his response, President Jiang Zemin was very clear in condemning any influence in Hong Kong affairs.
I am very glad to see also that the new guidelines that will be introduced for Radio Television Hong Kong will be based on those applying to the BBC and other international broadcasters, thus helping guarantee its neutrality.
<P>
Our main concern was always about the existence of the provisional legislature.
We must recognise the positive step forward reflected by the elections to the Legislative Council.
We should celebrate the high turn-out in those elections and the fair way in which they were conducted, although we should still register our concern at the severe reduction of the franchise in the functional constituencies and the possibilities for abuse of corporate voting in the functional constituencies through the registration of shell companies.
We therefore look forward to full democracy in Hong Kong as soon as possible.
<P>
There have been concerns about some of the decisions taken in the Hong Kong courts, which Mr Cushnahan describes in detail in his report.
One particular issue is the question of the immunity of state bodies from prosecution and whether this applies to the New China News Agency.
That worry has been accentuated by the case of Emily Lau, who has been involved in dispute for nearly 12 months with the New China News Agency.
<P>
The precise status of the New China News Agency should be clarified as a matter of priority.
The rule of law, as Mr Cushnahan has said, is crucial to the future of Hong Kong.
One further area which will need to be watched carefully is the need for the new Legislative Council to pass legislation on issues such as subversion and treason under Article 23 of the Basic Law.
How Hong Kong handles that will be a key to the continuing success of 'one country, two systems'.
<P>
The best sign of the success of 'one country, two systems' has been that Hong Kong has been able, so far, to weather the Asian crisis, and to do so without interference from China, but with support from China.
I would be interested to hear Commissioner Brittan's observations on that aspect.
Clearly Hong Kong has to have autonomy in its own economic affairs but it also has to have the support of China.
<P>
Finally, I would endorse Mr Cushnahan's remarks about granting visa-free access to residents of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
I believe this would be an important step forward in developing greater commercial ties between the European Union and Hong Kong.
<P>
In conclusion, I would say so far so good; in fact, better than we had hoped for.
Let us hope that we can continue to work closely with the authorities of Hong Kong to develop a better future for the residents of Hong Kong and to develop Hong Kong's important status as a keystone in the Asian economy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Burenstam Linder">
Madam President, this high-quality report from Mr Cushnahan should serve to enhance the profile of the European Parliament.
The background information provided in part B is illuminating and offers a sound basis for the proposal for a resolution.
<P>
Hong Kong's economy grew rapidly thanks to extensive economic freedom, a culture of individual enterprise, generalised private saving and free trade.
Per capita GNP is now higher than in some EU countries.
Hong Kong's success story demonstrated early on the advantages of a market economy system over old-style socialist economic planning.
<P>
The country came more and more to be seen as a role model by developing countries fighting their way out of poverty - a factor which certainly contributed towards the spirit of economic reform in China.
In the run-up to the handover to China, there were many who felt that, ideologically, Hong Kong was taking over China.
Be that as it may, few would dispute that China has - so far at least - broadly respected the agreement it entered into regarding Hong Kong. Economic freedoms ultimately form the basis for freedom in the wider sense and the system guaranteeing those freedoms has remained intact.
<P>
As Mr Cushnahan says, a number of worrying things have nonetheless been happening recently.
Elements of the democratic structures that were built up have been undermined.
This Parliament and the European Union as a whole must keep a watchful eye on developments.
By adopting this resolution, we will be putting down a marker in that regard.
We need also to take steps in our own countries to alleviate the situation, for example through generous visa policies and a commitment not to introduce trade restrictions.
<P>
For many years, Hong Kong was a refuge for large numbers of people fleeing repression and dictatorship.
Let us use our influence to maintain it as a home for freedom in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="Watson">
Madam President, the Commission communication is called 'Beyond 1997'.
Well, we are beyond 1997 and the sky has not fallen in.
I organised a visit of MEPs to Hong Kong at the time of the elections to the new LegCo in May of this year.
It was the fourth such visit in four years.
We concluded that the elections were free and fair, that there is no very tangible change in Hong Kong and that by and large the citizens continue to enjoy the freedoms to which they have become accustomed in recent years.
<P>
Hong Kong retains economic autonomy too: its high-rise economy has withstood the pressure of the financial turmoil from Typhoon Thailand.
The actions of the Hong Kong monetary authority may not have pleased classical economists, but their response bore the hallmark 'made in Hong Kong' and not 'made in China'.
<P>
Yet, as this excellent report shows, it is important not to be naive.
A democratically elected Parliament has been abolished and replaced by a new Legislative Council rigged in favour of Beijing and against the free will of the Hong Kong people.
A sometimes supine judiciary, and suspicions of self-censorship, give grounds for concern.
There has been a gradual but consistent repeal of human rights laws and undermining of institutions essential to their protection.
The new police guidelines on demonstrations, issued a week ago, are just the latest example of this.
<P>
Hong Kong people must speak out against every potential abuse, and we must support them in so doing, not just by giving them visa-free entry to the European Union but by supporting education in democracy in Hong Kong.
<P>
There is an unseemly haste in Europe's new approach to China.
Tony Blair, as the Prime Minister of a Member State, is visiting China this week and almost ignoring human rights.
President Santer must not show the same myopia when he visits Hong Kong for the Commission next month.
<P>
We live in a time replete with political possibility.
If we are to feel our way towards a new relationship with China, let us welcome China's signature on Monday of the ICCPR; but we shall know them also by their actions.
Our watchword must be vigilance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Madam President, we have all been surprised to see that Hong Kong has remained one of the most free and open markets in the world since the UK handover.
Last week one of Hong Kong's most powerful men, Sir Donald Chang, visited my country, and while in The Hague gave a further illustration of how Hong Kong, as a special administrative region in China, is determined to maintain transparency and the strict application of the laws of the market.
<P>
Last month the authorities did, admittedly, intervene in the share markets to prevent speculation - successfully, according to reports I have read - but in my view this was a one-off measure.
There was just one thing that Sir Donald Chang was seriously concerned about, and that was the extremely slow and ineffective measures that Japan is taking to restore order in the Asian crisis and in the crisis at home.
<P>
Finally, it would be extremely useful to hear how the EU bureau has expanded its activities and in particular to receive a report on its human rights monitoring.
I have talked to colleagues who know Hong Kong better than I do, and they are extremely uneasy.
I think we should ask for a report as soon as possible.
Lastly, I congratulate Mr Cushnahan on his report, which has the support of my group.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Madam President, the historic and decisive fact about the issue we are debating is that after 100 years of forced British colonialism, Hong Kong has rejoined and is an inseparable part of the vast nation of China.
<P>
Whatever happens from this point on in that province of China cannot but be influenced in one way or another by that historic fact.
While that is the situation, I fear that Mr Cushnahan's report, in the ten recitals and 19 paragraphs of its motion for a resolution, is governed and permeated by suspicion and mistrust, and not, I would say, by good faith in what is happening.
There is something wrong with everything, everything must be regarded defensively and with doubts.
He goes so far as to say: elections for the legislative body are all very well, but they are suspect, undemocratic, because the electoral system is not democratic.
Mr Cushnahan, what kind of electoral system is there in your country?
In my own?
In all the European countries? Are we happy with those systems?
Are they supremely democratic or are they anti-democratic?
<P>
But beyond that, Madam President, I fear that this report wishes to appoint the European Parliament, the European Union as a joint detective agency, inquiring into what is going on and what must happen in Hong Kong as if it were populated by Belgians, Germans, Englishmen, Greeks and other Europeans.
But Hong Kong is populated by Chinese, and what goes on there is mainly if not exclusively their business.
There is even a naive view that what happens in Hong Kong in one way or another may become a springboard for changes all over the vastness of China.
That is naive and indeed suspect, because it shows that all the concern about what is happening in Hong Kong is just viewed as a springboard, a tool for us to meddle in China's internal affairs and bring about changes which suit our own purposes.
That is not the right attitude, it does not help relations between the European Union and China ...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gahrton">
Madam President, the most important message emerging from Mr Cushnahan's excellent report is that China has fundamentally respected the agreements it entered into on Hong Kong. We find that this former British colony de facto enjoys a greater degree of democracy today than it did during a large portion of its time under British sovereignty.
This confirms the impression I received when the China delegation visited Hong Kong in June this year.
<P>
I am not saying that there are no problems.
Reference has been made to Article 23 of the Basic Law, which could be used as a tool for infringing democratic freedoms.
This is a point that requires careful monitoring. The ILO is currently looking at trade union rights, which for me are of vital importance.
We must draw attention to any problems in that area.
<P>
Lastly, let us not forget that Hong Kong is an integral part of China. Developments in Chinese policy will affect the former colony more than ever before.
The EU must not start pushing reform in a way that will trigger mass unemployment in China. We do not want to see Russian-style social chaos overtaking the country.
That would be disastrous and put a halt to any form of democracy. Hong Kong's relatively positive position would also be threatened.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pradier">
Madam President, up until now China has, at least formally, fully honoured the commitments it had made regarding Hong Kong. We should be pleased about that.
However, the establishment of a form of parliament such as exists in democratic countries is not likely to happen before 2008.
Universal suffrage for the election of all of the citizens' representatives will not come into effect for another 10 years.
We must be extremely vigilant over these 10 years and show great solidarity with the democratic forces at work in that country.
<P>
The public authorities have until now maintained Hong Kong's reputation as an open and incorrupt business centre, as Mr Cushnahan very rightly pointed out.
But this seemingly exemplary attitude, this openness to the world must be supported and encouraged in an environment which is far from favourable.
<P>
We must stress in passing that it is important to grant entry to those holding a passport from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region without requiring a visa, just as the citizens of the European Union have access to Hong Kong without a visa.
<P>
The high volume of trade and movement of people, ideas, capital and goods is of vital importance for Hong Kong.
We must be committed, active and supportive in these areas.
It is not only the wellbeing of this advanced region of China that is at stake, but also our own wellbeing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Linser">
Madam President, the Asian, and particularly the Chinese, economic area holds immense potential for the European Union.
Without a doubt, Hong Kong plays a key political as well as economic role as regards links with the region.
That is why good relations with the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region are of great importance for the European economy.
The EU must undertake every necessary effort to foster appropriate contacts, and above all to speak out against the alarming anti-democratic tendencies cited in the report, and the lack of constitutionality which has been justifiably criticised.
Only a democratic order based on the rule of law can be regarded as the guarantor of a permanently independent Hong Kong economy.
<P>
On the issue of visa-free access to the Schengen area, I cannot agree with the rapporteur's current request for this to be given to all HKSAR and BNO passport holders.
In my opinion, this question should be treated separately, as the Commission has suggested.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Porto">
Madam President, we all have good reasons for following developments in Hong Kong - which are examined in great detail by the rapporteur, whom I congratulate - for itself, for its inhabitants, and for what it can mean for a country as important as China.
<P>
In my own case, being Portuguese, the situation is of particular interest given its inevitable implications for the integration process for Macau.
That will take place, a quarter of a century after the Portuguese revolution of 25 April 1974, under conditions that are much more favourable from every point of view.
<P>
On the one hand, it has been possible over these years to provide the territory with infrastructure and services which have been particularly important for its development and for the quality of life of its population, including the airport, the university, the new port, the waste processing plant, etcetera.
<P>
Moreover, and of particular significance, the Legislative Assembly has been approving the territory's own legislation, in complete freedom and in accordance with universal values that are also the values of its population.
Having already had an identity of its own - Macau is a member of the World Trade Organisation and has a cooperation agreement with the European Union - we have every interest in its continuation in the future.
But over and above our own interests and those of Macau, we consider that the interests of China are at stake here, which has in Macau an area of openness and development of which it may be proud.
<P>
It is important, therefore, that the Commission - and for that reason, I address the Commissioner - should give Macau a higher profile through its representation in Hong Kong or, preferably, by opening a representation in Macau, whose administration, we are sure, would not fail to offer whatever support was needed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Madam President, I am one of those who have visited Hong Kong since the transfer.
Things have developed very differently from what we expected just over a year ago.
At the time, the thinking was that in economic terms maybe things would be fine in Hong Kong, but that in political terms things would go very badly.
As my colleague Mr Watson and many others have said, we must remain very vigilant.
That is the usefulness of this report on the political side.
<P>
In practical terms one must acknowledge that in the Hong Kong situation, overall, the development of - albeit a limited - democracy has been scrupulously observed.
At the present time the concern is rather with economic developments taking place in that part of the world.
If things go wrong economically they will certainly have a negative political impact.
<P>
I should like to ask the Commission one specific question, touching also on the visa issue.
Of course we should not only be concerned about visas.
That is quite true.
Nevertheless it is one of the few specific things where Europe as a whole can do something more.
I am still concerned about this, particularly when I hear some speakers say that the visa question is something we do not take seriously, and that only eight countries admit visa-holders to Europe.
The Commission can play a role because Schengen will be incorporated in the Treaty of the European Union.
I hope that the Commission will say that it will take an initiative on this point.
This is the kind of concrete solidarity which we must maintain.
I hope that with next year's report we can say that things are better than they are at the present time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, may I too welcome Mr Cushnahan's admirable report and the motion for a resolution.
I would like to comment on some of the key points.
<P>
Firstly, a number of speakers, of whom Mr Titley was one and Mr Watson another, also Mr Gahrton and most recently Mr Brinkhorst, have commented generally on the nature of the handover and on the broad adherence by the Chinese authorities to their political commitments.
I would welcome those statements and I entirely agree with what has been said.
I really want to underline the remarkable nature of what has occurred because it is true to say that the introduction of the one country/two systems arrangement is unique, and to introduce it as successfully as has been done is a remarkable achievement; tribute is due both to Hong Kong and to China itself for that fact.
<P>
Nonetheless, a number of critical points have been made and Mr Brinkhorst summed it up by saying that we must continue to be vigilant.
And so we shall be.
The resolution calls for the acceleration of the introduction of universal suffrage.
In his visit to Brussels last February the Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa said: 'It is up to us, the people of Hong Kong, to decide for ourselves the further development of the democratic process with the ultimate aim of universal suffrage'.
<P>
I can assure you that the Commission will continue to pay close attention to the development of democracy in Hong Kong.
During my own last visit to Hong Kong I stated publicly that Hong Kong would earn credit at little cost by announcing as early as possible that it intends to introduce universal suffrage by a reasonable and specified date in the future.
We should recognize, however, Hong Kong's efforts so far, as Mr Cushnahan has done, while keeping up the pressure for a clear timetable to full democracy, as he urges us to do, and as Mr Pradier has also urged us to do.
<P>
There are signs that the financial crisis to which Mr Brinkhorst referred is already emboldening those calling for more democracy in Hong Kong.
I can assure you that is a point on which President Santer and I will not be silent when we visit Hong Kong at the beginning of November.
<P>
Referring to the visa question, the European Parliament resolution urges Member States to grant visa-free entry to SAR passport holders, and Mr Burenstam Linder has drawn attention to that.
While the Commission has no direct responsibility over EU visa policy, which is still intergovernmental until a common visa list is introduced under the Amsterdam Treaty, we strongly support Hong Kong's efforts to secure visa access.
That is one key way in which the European Union can support Hong Kong's economic autonomy and reinforce the one country/two systems concept.
<P>
In fact - and Mr Brinkhorst has perhaps been a shade too generous to the Member States in his statement of the position - it is the case that the eight referred to admit visa-free only BNO passport holders, but there are only two Member States that allow visa-free SAR passport holders, who are of course in the majority.
<P>
It is equally important that Hong Kong should convince European countries that its immigration, policing and customs procedures are efficient and reliable.
We have urged them to run special visitors' programmes for European national officials with that in mind.
Such programmes now exist and I hope they will help to persuade those Member States who have yet to be persuaded of the merits of visa-free entry for SAR passport holders.
<P>
With regard to the WTO, the EP resolution advocates close cooperation between the European Union and Hong Kong within the WTO, and I would agree with what Mr Porto said about applying that to Macao as well.
The Commission is convinced that Hong Kong's liberal economy, not least its open trading regime, underpinned by WTO membership, will act as an example and a spur to continued economic reform in China, notwithstanding the current problems related to the Asian financial crisis.
<P>
Within the WTO there is good cooperation between the European Union and Hong Kong.
Hong Kong is one of the staunchest supporters of our initiative to launch a new millennium round, and the Commission regularly discusses Beijing's WTO membership bid with Hong Kong.
Hong Kong of course supports it, and provides a unique example to China of the benefits of WTO membership.
<P>
The resolution also calls for wider cooperation in order to strengthen EU-Hong Kong relations and reinforce Hong Kong autonomy.
We believe that stronger bilateral ties are vital to the underpinning of the one country/two systems concept.
We are on the verge of concluding a customs cooperation agreement with Hong Kong which I hope President Santer will be able to initial when in Hong Kong, while also exploring the possibility of more ambitious agreements.
<P>
We need to take account of the delicate division of responsibilities between Hong Kong and Beijing in the foreign relations field but we need, nonetheless, to explore what Hong Kong can do to the maximum possible extent.
The European Union continues to pursue deeper bilateral relations in other areas, notably by encouraging business-to-business links; the first plenary session of the EU-Hong Kong Business Committee took place last year in Brussels, and the second will take place in Hong Kong during our visit there at the beginning of November.
<P>
The motion calls on the Commission to monitor the autonomy and financial stability of the Hong Kong market.
The Commission is monitoring the financial and economic situation from our office in Hong Kong, but also by means of frequent visits from officials in the SAR and through visits of high-ranking officials to Brussels.
That monitoring will be reflected in our first annual report on Hong Kong which we will be publishing shortly.
<P>
Mr Titley is right, in my view, to say that Hong Kong's problems have been formidable but nonetheless the crisis has been weathered there very much better than in many other countries in the region, and I would agree wholeheartedly with what Mr Burenstam Linder has said about the fact that it is liberal economic policies which have brought about that situation, for all the difficulties that Hong Kong is currently undergoing.
<P>
During the year Hong Kong has acted to increase liquidity, for example by cutting the savings tax and by expanding its repo market.
Lately it has resorted to more drastic measures, to curb speculation by traders seeking to depress the currency in order to hike up interest rates and benefit from the resulting fall in share prices.
<P>
The measures which were referred to by Mrs van Bladel are three-fold in character: a decision to buy shares in the stock market which boosted the share index by 19 % over two weeks; further measures to strengthen the currency board, increase liquidity and calm the volatility of inter-bank interest rates; and, thirdly, measures to improve transparency and enforce greater discipline on the stock market.
We are analysing those measures closely and will comment on them in our first annual report.
<P>
Parliament's resolution declares that the EC office in Hong Kong must be able to play a significant role in the development of EU-China relations and suggests that staff resources should be increased.
I entirely agree with Mrs van Bladel that an effective and well-staffed EU Office in Hong Kong is essential, and staff deployments have recently been made to strengthen the resources of the office.
<P>
Finally, the EP resolution welcomes our intention to produce annual reports; we are now finalizing the first one and hope to transmit it to the Council and Parliament by the end of October.
As I mentioned, President Santer and I will be visiting Hong Kong at the beginning of November, so the publication of our report will be timely.
It will look closely at the full range of relevant economic, political, judicial and other issues that have characterised Hong Kong life during the first year of the SAR.
Needless to say, we will take account of, and greatly benefit from, the observations and recommendations made in Parliament's reports and resolutions, and particularly Mr Cushnahan's excellent report and the points made during this debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 NAME="President">
Thank you for that very comprehensive reply, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Question Time (Council)
<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="President">
The next item is questions to the Council (B4-0483/98).
I should like to welcome Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, President-in-Office of the Council.
<P>
Question No 1 by Patricia McKenna (H-0832/98)
<P>
Subject: Mistreatment of journalists in UK
<P>
Is the Council aware that the UK police are mistreating members of the National Union of Journalists, especially freelance members, by not recognising their press cards, arresting them for trespass or obstruction or even under the Harassment Act (intended for preventing 'stalking'), assaulting them, holding them until their deadlines have passed, preventing them from taking pictures, confiscating their photographs with court orders and erasing their video material, as well as restricting their public access during protests ?
Is the Council further aware that, although written police guidelines do exist for relations with the press, journalists have not been allowed to see them?
Do such activities breach the Treaties, including the Treaty of Amsterdam, in particular the articles relating to Justice and Home Affairs, for which the Council is largely responsible?
If it wishes to be taken seriously outside the EU on such matters, will the Council instruct the Commission to ensure that journalists may operate freely within the EU before pursuing that issue elsewhere?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, may I say the following in response to the Honourable Member's question: the ruthless treatment and the harassment of freelance journalists is a matter which unfortunately does not fall within the Council's remit.
<P>
I can therefore tell Mrs McKenna that the Council has not discussed this matter at any time.
Upholding public order in the sovereign territory of a Member State is actually, as I should also point out at this time, the sole responsibility of the police authorities of the country concerned.
Also, I should stress that respect for human rights and democratic freedoms, and also of course the preservation of press freedom, form the cornerstone of the entire construction of Europe, of that there is no doubt.
<P>
It is true that the Council cannot rule out occasional shortcomings at local level. However, it is truly convinced that in their actions the governments of Member States will always be guided by the basic principles mentioned above, principles without which the Community would have no future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 NAME="McKenna">
I just wish to point out to the President-in-Office that there is written and video evidence concerning this harassment.
When you say that you cannot prevent occasional shortcomings as regards freedom of the press, you have to ensure that it is prevented because Article F of the Maastricht Treaty states that the European Union shall respect the European Convention on Human Rights.
<P>
This is an abuse of that Convention.
These journalists were covering social justice and environmental issues.
They have been harassed by the police, their offices and homes have been raided, equipment has been confiscated and the pictures they have taken at protests have been used against protesters in evidence.
This is a gross abuse of the freedom of the press and of the freedom to report what is going on.
<P>
If you allow it to happen in one Member State, it is the thin end of the wedge: it is going to happen in other Member States as well.
There is an onus on the European Union, if it adheres to the EU Treaties and respects the European Convention on Human Rights, to do something.
<P>
It is not enough to say that sometimes, as the President-in-Office said, the Council cannot prevent occasional shortcomings.
Perhaps you cannot prevent what has happened, but you can ensure that it does not happen again and that this will not be a signal to other Member States to follow suit, because freedom of the press is an extremely important aspect of democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mrs McKenna, our remit is clearly laid defined. I have just explained - and I would like to stress this once again - that the Council is not authorised to say anything about the conduct of police forces as regards measures to uphold public order in the sovereign territory of a given Member State.
I would emphasise again, if it is necessary to do so, that only the competent authorities of the individual state have the power to judge police behaviour in that Member State.
<P>
Mrs McKenna's question would therefore probably meet with a greater reaction if it were to be asked in the UK House of Commons.
However, there is something I can add: there is the Council of Europe and the European Convention on Human Rights, and complaints can also be made to the European Commission of Human Rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, I listened to the first answer given by the President-in-Office and to the one she has just given.
I am struck by the fact that her answers are inspired by the 'Pontius Pilate' tactic, whereas it was pointed out to the President-in-Office that even the Treaties provide for some kind of intervention by the Council.
But I would like to put a supplementary question.
Would she answer in the same way if such incidents of flagrant violation of the freedom of the press were to happen in Hong Kong, for example, which we were debating a little while ago?
The report refers to such matters and we considered that we were fully competent to intervene, debate and criticise, and the Commissioner praised those points.
So how can we be Pontius Pilate in one case, while in the other we jump in with both feet, as it were, into the internal affairs of a country?
I should like the President-in-Office to explain her view, and perhaps she could forgive me for my attitude, but such occurrences and such answers are very vexing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Ephremidis, I have to tell you once again that we only have certain powers.
The Council is indeed responsible for external relations and that is why it can talk about a lack of press freedom in a third country.
It is not responsible, however, for internal matters, such as the conduct of police forces in a Member State.
I can only repeat the answer that I gave a short while ago to Mrs McKenna.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="President">
Question No 2 by Felipe Camisón Asensio (H-0836/98)
<P>
Subject: Funding of the Almendralejo-Oviedo gas pipeline
<P>
What level of funding have the EU institutions provided for the construction of the gas pipeline which is to go from Almendralejo (Extremadura) to Oviedo, in Spain as part of the programme for the distribution of natural gas in that Member State?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Camisón Asensio, the gas pipeline that the Honourable Member refers to is part of Project E4 listed in Decision No 1254/96/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 5 June 1996 on a series of guidelines concerning trans-European networks in the energy sector.
E4 is part of the 'Introduction of natural gas into new regions' section, and deals with the development of gas networks in the regions of Galicia, Extremadura, Andalusia, the south of Valencia and Murcia, and also with a liquefied natural gas facility in Galicia.
<P>
In accordance with Article 6(2) of this decision, following an opinion from the committee provided for in Article 9 of the Decision of 11 July 1998, the Commission laid down the specifications for projects of common interest cited in Decision No 1254/96/EC, so that financing could be provided.
<P>
In the Decision of 14 May 1998 for the years 1997 and 1998, the Commission made a sum of ECU 103.16 million available from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) to support the entire Western Gas Pipeline project, of which this pipeline is a part.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Camisón Asensio">
In this case, the President-in-Office of the Council has not responded like Pilate.
In fact, she has replied very succinctly, and I am very grateful for the information she has provided.
This gas pipeline is of great socio-economic importance.
We should not forget that this is a corridor, all covered by Objective 1 of the Structural Funds, and with hidden potential for development which has to be exploited.
However, I do have some supplementary questions.
Does the programme outlined to us complement the Interreg IIB Community initiative concerning trans-European energy networks?
Further, does it also complement the Straits of Gibraltar - Córdoba gas pipeline, through which Spain receives natural gas from the Maghreb?
Finally, have these programmes allowed for the current tendency towards a reduction in the consumption of natural gas, evident in many Member States of the European Union?
In other words, had the Council foreseen this tendency towards reduction?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Camisón Asensio, these are questions of detail that you are putting to the Council.
In view of the explanations already given, I would refer you to the Commission, which will provide you with more precise information on exact amounts and specific questions, especially as to whether or not this also falls under INTERREG.
I cannot, unfortunately, provide any oral information on this but if you wish, I would be happy to answer in writing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 NAME="President">
Question No 3 by Roy Perry, which has been taken over by Mrs De Esteban Martín (H-0838/98)
<P>
Subject: Petitions
<P>
Can the representative of the Council of Ministers indicate how many times representatives of the Council have attended meetings of the Committee on Petitions of the European Parliament (either since the start of the year or the start of the Austrian Presidency) and what additional procedures the Council has available to monitor petitions to Parliament, especially as frequent allegations are made concerning the failure of Member States to honour their Treaty obligations?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, in response to Mr Perry's very interesting question on petitions, I should stress that the Council regularly takes note of Parliament resolutions, including those concerning the right of petition.
As far as possible failures on the part of Member States to comply with the Community's legal provisions are concerned, let me refer you also to Article 155 of the Treaty, which says that one of the duties of the Commission is to 'ensure that the provisions of this Treaty and the measures taken by the institutions pursuant thereto are applied.'
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<SPEAKER ID=162 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="De Esteban Martín">
Madam President-in Office of the Council, I appreciate your reply, but I am sorry to say that I am not happy with it.
The question was on measures to be adopted by the Council and, in particular, we queried whether the Austrian Presidency has any plans to ensure that the Council will indeed be present at meetings of the Committee on Petitions.
As you are aware, the right to petition is a fundamental right of European Union citizens. Unfortunately, it is frequently the case that the Member States fail to comply with many Community rules, and no proper mechanisms exist for the Member States to reply in an appropriate way to such justifiable petitions from Community citizens.
I would therefore be grateful, Madam President-in-Office, if you could tell me whether arrangements are being made to ensure that the Council will be present at meetings of the Committee on Petitions, and when this might happen.
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<SPEAKER ID=163 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mrs De Esteban Martin, in replying to this supplementary question, I cannot really add anything of substance to what I said a moment ago, namely that the Council takes formal note of all the resolutions approved by Parliament.
In addition, I can say that in a case where the responsibilities in question are the Council's own (something that is purely hypothetical, as I said), then it would carry out a careful analysis of each element of the dossier, and take appropriate measures if necessary.
<P>
Of course, the Council is very concerned with the application of the provisions of the Treaty and the secondary legislation.
However, in this matter, I would refer the Honourable Member to the division of powers between the different institutions established in the Treaty, according to which it is primarily the Commission, and where necessary the Court of Justice, that ensures that Member States are correctly applying Community law. That issue has already been addressed in this case.
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<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="Newman">
I am a very experienced and active member of the Committee on Petitions.
In the past, a few years ago, an official from the Council used to attend the committee regularly.
This lady just took notes, which was not very satisfactory, but it was better than nothing.
In the past few years, all we have had is an occasional visit from a representative of the Council, sometimes when the Ombudsman was present to give a report to the committee - which is welcome - but very rarely when there was a matter of particular concern to one of the Member States.
<P>
Most of Parliament's committees are regularly attended by representatives of the Council.
We are not talking about ministers but of a civil servant from the representation of the government holding the presidency at that particular time.
<P>
Could the same apply for the Committee on Petitions so that we can have dialogue between the Council and the members of that committee, as happens in other committees of Parliament?
That will help our petitioners and it will be in accord with the Treaty of European Union and the rights of the citizen under that Treaty.
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<SPEAKER ID=165 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr Newman, thank you for that comment, we shall ask the Council Secretariat to look into it.
I shall talk to Secretary-General Trumpf about this, and if it is as you say, then a solution can certainly be found.
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<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="President">
That is very kind of you.
<P>
Question No 4 by Olivier Dupuis (H-0849/98)
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Subject: Results of the Dayton agreements
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According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), when the Dayton agreements were signed in December 1995, more than 1 million Bosnians were displaced within the territory of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, while nearly 1 million were refugees in third countries.
Moreover, again according to the UNHCR, only 400 000 of these roughly 2 million refugees and displaced persons have returned to date to their place of origin.
<P>
Does the Council not consider that, nearly three years after the signature of the Dayton agreements, the fact that only 20 % of all the refugees and displaced persons have been able to return to their place of origin means that the Dayton agreements have essentially failed, confirming, de facto, the project for ethnic partition that was conceived, wanted, planned and implemented by the regime in Belgrade - a project which, we should remember, entailed war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocidal crimes which are now known throughout the international community?
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<SPEAKER ID=167 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, the Council agrees with Mr Dupuis that far fewer refugees have returned than the international community had been expecting for 1998.
That is true.
The return of refugees constitutes one of the main challenges facing the international community in the implementation of the Dayton/Paris Peace Agreements.
It has never been problem-free, and the fact that most refugees who have not yet returned must go back to areas in which they will form a minority complicates the situation still further.
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Many refugees are disinclined to return to Bosnia, or at least to their original homes and villages, often even where they will be part of the majority.
Apart from the obvious political constraints, other key factors are the absence of a sense of personal safety, and the availability of jobs and housing.
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Consequently, the strategy of the international community has been aiming at the longer term, and its most important task consists of improving the local security situation, such as by improving the police service, and of creating a sustainable improvement in economic prospects, thus encouraging refugees to return to their country for good.
<P>
The Council will never accept the ethnic partition of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
It entirely supports the ideals envisioned by the Peace Agreement of pluralism and multi-ethnicity as the key to full democratisation and lasting peace.
The Council would like to reaffirm the fundamental right established in the Peace Agreement of all refugees and displaced persons freely to return to their homes of origin.
It continues to support fully the use of the High Representative's authority to remove any public official who infringes this right and attempts to prevent refugees from returning.
<P>
The state of progress in Bosnia will be measured in October, when the EU Commission carries out its regular six-monthly review of compliance with the criteria laid down in the EU's regional approach, which was established in April 1997 for all countries in the western Balkans region.
At the last review in April, the Commission ruled out establishing cooperation agreements with Bosnia, Croatia, and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, citing overall concerns on democratic reforms, respect for human rights and minorities, and the slowness in helping refugees return.
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<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Madam President-in-Office, you stated that the Council would never recognise the partition of Bosnia.
We have heard so many false promises and repudiations from the Council that it may be rather risky to say such a thing.
<P>
But on the subject of the refugees, your comments are more like wishful thinking than an actual policy.
In fact, given that it is now three years since the Dayton agreement was signed, I think that we should be starting to learn our first lessons from the situation.
<P>
We should also ask ourselves what exactly Bosnia is today.
It is certainly not a state in any real sense of the word.
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<SPEAKER ID=169 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Dupuis, I believe that there is one thing in particular that you can say about Bosnia-Herzegovina, and this is that if the international community had wanted to break its promises there, as you suggest, then it would certainly not have sent multinational troops, and would not have such a heavy commitment there to this day.
It is precisely because we want to implement the Dayton Agreement that we have all agreed on involvement and it will continue.
<P>
For the first time since the Dayton Peace Agreement was signed, moderate parties in favour of the Dayton Agreement are in control of the legislative branches in both territorial areas and at all national levels of government.
For the first time the whole of the State Executive was able to support the Peace Agreement.
Although the result of the presidential elections in the Republika Srpska does constitute a symbolic defeat, it is compensated for by the substantial gains for parties supporting Dayton at all levels of government.
It remains to be seen over the next few weeks whether the Sloga coalition in the Republika Srpska will be able to retain control of the Parliament and whether they will still be putting the prime minister forward.
<P>
As for the Croats, the new member of the State Executive, Antejelavic, is going to organise a meeting of the party in October in order to reform the HDZ.
The EU has the following thoughts on these developments. Firstly, measures need to be taken to guarantee the coherence of the Sloga coalition.
Secondly, the Republika Srpska should be shielded from the effects of the Kosovo crisis.
Thirdly, at the HDZ party conference, more specific reforms should be decided upon.
Fourthly, the preparations for the local elections in 1999 should be taken in hand. Finally the integrity and transparency of the financial conduct of elected bodies should be ensured.
These considerations should enable us to be prepared when we go into the next Peace Implementation Conference in December in Madrid, where we will continue to advocate a multi-ethnic, pluralistic Bosnia.
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<SPEAKER ID=170 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, I have to be honest with you - I have one specific problem with the entire Dayton Agreement, and it is that one of the parties to it is Mr Milosevic.
In the course of the last few years we have seen that he is not at all willing to keep to any part of the agreement.
<P>
There has been very minor progress in a few areas.
The greatest advances by far which, while not being enough, at least represent progress have come from the Croats. They have set up a consulate in Banja Luka and made rapid changes to the law, especially as far as the right of abode of certain persons in Krajina and West Slavonia is concerned.
Big concessions have been made on the Croat side. But basically, as long as the other party is Milosevic - and we are seeing at the moment what is happening in Kosovo - I have to say honestly that the Dayton Agreements have no real value, aside from the symbolic.
We should consider the possibility of deferring certain elements of the agreement as long as he is one of the parties to it.
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<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Habsburg-Lothringen, there are a good number of areas in which the Dayton Agreements have certainly brought advantages.
The most important is probably that, through the Agreement, we have managed for the first time to consolidate the ceasefire and give the different parties the chance to live with one another again.
But of course not everything is perfect, particularly as far as Milosevic is concerned, and we are aware of that. I just think that there were hardly any other alternatives under the circumstances.
To suspend the Dayton Agreements now is, to my mind, not a good alternative either.
<P>
The civil society and democracy must be strengthened.
For that, I think that both the media and the electoral system need to be reformed and, as you know, there is a whole series of projects which are designed to do just that.
The continuation of the economic reforms is another reason why Bosnia and Herzegovina should still receive support from the international community.
As for the constitutional state, the creation of an independent multi-ethnic judiciary, a professional multi-ethnic police force, and resistance to all forms of parallel structure are also prerequisites for a democratic Bosnia and Herzegovina, and here I think that the international community has achieved something in the last few years.
I do not say everything, and I do not say that the situation there could not be improved a great deal in a few years time, but I think that we must continue the fight to strengthen the joint institutions and reform the Council of Ministers, and to set up an authority to monitor the revenue of the state and of the territorial units.
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<SPEAKER ID=172 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Mr President, I would like to ask the President-in-Office if she would agree with me that the small number of refugees returning may surely also be put down to the fact that the host countries have offered them a new home, in a truly generous and remarkably humane manner.
I know that in Austria, many Bosnian refugees have found housing, work, and integration into society, and that is also another reason why they do not want to go back home.
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<SPEAKER ID=173 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mrs Flemming, of course it is true that some countries, like Austria for instance, have taken in refugees, not only from Bosnia, but also elsewhere, and have done so quite generously.
Today, in the discussion on migrants, I told you that 85 000 to 90 000 have been admitted to Austria.
That is equivalent to 8-9 % of the Austrian population.
Nevertheless, our goal must be to return the refugees as far as possible.
It is their home and they must rebuild their own country.
Of course, the return depends on how fast we are able to build up the economy there, so that they can find work, and how quickly we can create security so that they have some guarantees when they go back to their country.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 NAME="President">
Question No 5 by José Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra (H-0853/98)
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Subject: US-Cuba relations
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Is the Council aware of the letter of 3 August sent by Mrs Albright, United States Secretary of State, to Mr Helms, Chairman of the US Senate's Foreign Affairs Committee, which was published by newspapers and other media?
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Does the Council intend to respond to this letter or take a stance on this matter?
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Does the Council consider that the interpretation placed on the terms of the declarations of 18 May by the US Secretary of State is in keeping with the spirit of the remarks made to the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs in May by the Commissioner responsible?
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Does the Council agree that this agreement represents an extraordinary reaffirmation of the principles underlying the Liberty Act?
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<SPEAKER ID=175 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Salafranca Sanchez-Neyra, the Council is of course aware of the letter sent by Secretary of State Mrs Albright to the chairman of the US Senate's Foreign Affairs Committee, Jesse Helms, on the 'Understanding with Respect to the Disciplines for the Strengthening of Investment Protection'. This is a part of the important package agreed at the EU-US summit meeting in London on 18 May.
The letter was not, however, addressed to the Council and therefore it would not be appropriate for the Council to respond.
The Union's position on the matter is set out in the EU unilateral statement, which also forms part of the London package, and which was confirmed by the Council on 25 May.
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The Council accordingly looks to the US to take the necessary steps arising out of the London summit package.
The EU will similarly respect its political undertakings.
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The Union does not accept that anything in the London summit package in any way vindicates the principles underlying the Liberty Act, particularly not the imposition of secondary boycotts and retroactive legislation with extraterritorial effect.
This is the position of the Commission and the Member States.
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On the question of expropriation, in a letter to Mrs Albright of 18 May which is also part of the London package, Sir Leon Brittan has accepted that according to information from the United States it appears that, having regard to the discriminatory provisions of Cuba's Law 851, the expropriations in a number of cases were contrary to international law.
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<SPEAKER ID=176 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
Thank you very much for your reply, Madam President-in-Office.
Obviously, I had not expected the Council to reply to this letter.
It is a letter addressed to the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the United States Senate by the Secretary of State.
<P>
The problem is that in the interpretation of the agreements between the European Union and the United States set out in that letter, it is stated that this interpretation serves as a basis for the philosophy and general aims of United States legislation.
I should like to know whether the presidency agrees with that interpretation.
I am aware that the European Union does not agree with it, at least not according to the unilateral declaration issued in May.
The first question I would therefore like to put to you is this: what reaction does the content of this letter produce in the Council?
<P>
My second question is: what time period does the Council consider is needed to implement the terms of the agreement, and in particular for the amendment of Title IV of the Act to take place, since this requires the approval of the US Congress?
I have the impression, Madam President-in-Office, that in view of the present situation in the United States, President Clinton will not be able to count on the majority required to ensure the amendment of Title IV of the Act.
<P>
So, in brief, I would like to know, firstly, whether the Council shares the philosophy of the letter and, secondly, what would the Council consider a reasonable period of time to elapse before some other measures are taken. Indeed, if Congress does not amend Title IV of the Act and the United States therefore does not keep its part of the bargain, what action would the European Union contemplate?
It is all very well to seek an amicable solution, but as I see it, this is not altogether appropriate, given that this Act lacks an acceptable legal basis.
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<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Salafranca Sanchez-Neyra, allow me to start by saying that I myself first met Cuba's Foreign Minister in New York, both as President-in-Office of the Council and also of course as Austria's State Secretary.
On that occasion, it was noticeable that Cuba seemed willing - and I deliberately say 'seemed' because it remains untested - to accept a type of dialogue similar to the EU-China human rights dialogue if necessary.
We are currently considering this.
I believe that a new form of dialogue could naturally have positive effects on EU-Cuba relations, and also perhaps on the EU/US/Cuba triangle.
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As to the detail of your question, I have to tell you that at the moment a change in the position I have outlined is not likely.
But as I said, if I have interpreted things correctly, I can see some fairly positive opportunities for the future.
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<SPEAKER ID=178 NAME="Newens">
I should like to ask the President of the Council, in the event of the agreement of 18 May coming into force - which appears unlikely at present - if the Minister can assure the House that this will not lead to the creation of serious obstacles for European traders seeking to carry on business activities in Cuba, those being implicit in Mrs Albright's letter?
Can she assure us that we will stand by the statements which have been made on a number of occasions in this House, at least by Sir Leon Brittan?
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<SPEAKER ID=179 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Newens, the European Union is greatly interested in improving transatlantic relations and especially in foreign policy cooperation, and differences in opinion on Cuba should not impair the effectiveness of these.
The EU's policy here consists of two main features.
Firstly, dissuading the US from internationalising bilateral problems - in this case between the US and Cuba - by applying extraterritorial legislation. Secondly, persuading the US that the critical-but-cooperative dialogue between the EU and Cuba is more successful in the longer term for the international community's relations with Cuba than the US approach of bringing pressure to bear and of threats.
That would be my response to your question.
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<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
A number of questions have in fact already been put to the President-in-Office.
There is probably little more she can say in reply, but I do share Mr Salafranca's concern, in the sense that the Commission and the Council should reply to a letter Mrs Albright has written to Mr Helms.
In fact that letter is surprising, to put it mildly.
It states that the European Union has undertaken not to award loans, subsidies, grants, tax advantages, guarantees or political risk insurance, or to give any kind of favourable treatment to European businessmen wishing to invest in Cuba.
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We were present at a hearing organised by the Committee on External Economic Relations at which European businessmen voiced their serious concern and explained how this very agreement, which is not at all clear, has disrupted investment in Cuba.
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The letter goes on to state something even more surprising, namely that the European Union must refer to the information which the United States holds on expropriated assets before helping any business wishing to invest in Cuba.
We still think this is a cause for great concern, and I appreciate the reply from the President-in-Office. However, leaving everything else aside, if only for the sake of the large number of businessmen - many Spaniards and other Europeans who have interests in Cuba - we would like the situation to be clarified.
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<SPEAKER ID=181 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mrs González Álvarez, allow me to state my view on this once more.
At the end of May 1998, Cuba claimed that with the summit agreements the EU had in fact accepted the principle of extraterritoriality it had always previously fought against.
Most importantly, the provisions of the Helms-Burton Act which had resulted in numerous restrictions on trade and transport remained in force and therefore the extraterritorial nature of the US embargo was essentially intact. According to Havana, the only thing which the US offered in return was a vague undertaking to the EU by the US Administration that they would try to have Titles III and IV of the Helms-Burton Act waived.
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Cuba also warned the EU at the beginning of June 1998 against inciting opposition groups and human rights activists. Such subversive activities would not be accepted by the Cuban administration and could result in appropriate measures being taken.
But the US is increasingly asking for this type of commitment, to demonstrate to the US Congress and to the American people that the EU is not distancing itself from the central statements of the common position.
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Of course the EU will not accept that anything in the package of measures agreed at the London summit in any way vindicates the principles of the Liberty Act, particularly not the imposition of a secondary boycott and retroactive legislation with extraterritorial effect.
This is the position of the Commission and the Member States.
<P>
As I have already mentioned, the issue of expropriation has been commented on by Sir Leon Brittan.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="President">
Question No 6 by Gerhard Hager (H-0854/98)
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Subject: Strategy paper on EU migration and asylum policy
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On 1 July 1998 the Austrian Presidency tabled a strategy paper on EU migration and asylum policy.
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What progress has been made in the discussions on the strategy paper tabled by the Austrian Presidency?
Which delegations have already made written submissions to the K4 Committee? What is the content of these submissions?
Has the current Presidency already dissociated itself from many areas of the proposal?
If so, from what areas, and why?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Hager, let me first of all repeat what I said during the discussion on migrants today, that the Presidency's paper is a discussion document which aims to promote further thought and consideration about how to get to grips with problems in the areas of migration and asylum.
It does not claim to provide an overview of future EC-policy in these areas, but does - as similar initiatives earlier (like the Commission's communication of 1994) - try to ensure that in determining such policy, the decision-makers have at their disposal as broad a basis as possible on which to take their decisions.
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As stated in the paper, the Presidency invited delegations to submit comments in writing by September and has received contributions so far from the German, Greek, Swedish and UK delegations and from the Commission.
In the light of these comments, and also of observations made by all delegations at the K4 Committee in September, the Presidency is revising the document.
This revised version will be forwarded to the European Parliament through official channels as soon as possible.
This will also be the first version that we have been able to forward, because the opinions of the fourteen other delegations have not previously been included.
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But, just to repeat this, I would like to dispel any misunderstandings that might have arisen from incorrect reports in the press and some of the other media.
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<SPEAKER ID=184 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, I regret the fact that my question has lost some of its relevance since it was submitted - this has all become common knowledge in the meantime.
Of course I have followed the discussion here this afternoon, and I am glad to have the information available at present confirmed by an authoritative source.
<P>
But let me ask a supplementary question.
If I take what you have said and what you explained in detail this afternoon about withdrawing parts of the paper, and turn the argument on its head, can I assume that the wording used in Articles 41 and 132 is still valid? They say that a shift towards less constitutional and more politically-oriented concepts of protection in the field of asylum would also be perfectly feasible.
If this is the case, then I would very much like to know what the Council position is.
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<SPEAKER ID=185 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Hager, I cannot now respond in detail on each piece of drafting, because I do not have the text in front of me.
I can only tell you that we gave a discussion paper to the press and another paper was discussed in the press even before it was made official.
That led to certain misunderstandings.
A paper which is to be officially debated by various bodies is of course not going to contain wording that could be offensive in any way.
I have already explained that there was a certain misunderstanding - we clearly never intended to do away with the Geneva Convention.
But it needs to be expanded in certain areas, as I explained in our discussion today.
<P>
Secondly, this is not a new subject.
In 1991 it was discussed for the first time, and in 1992 and 1994 it was taken up by the Commission.
As our discussion has shown, this question is certainly extremely complex today.
On the one hand we have to find a way to combat the despicable trade of trafficking in human beings, while on the other we must also find a way to create humanitarian possibilities for refugees, and take in those people who are most in need of help.
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<SPEAKER ID=186 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
I have the document we are discussing in front of me, and I was both surprised and disappointed to see what it contains.
Plenty of repression and very little humanity characterise this Austrian proposal. Practice at the EU's frontier points is already somewhat brutal and this would only make the situation worse.
Illegal immigration is effectively being encouraged and we see hundreds of deaths every year as a result of illegal attempts to cross the borders.
If the policy advocated in this minutely drafted text were to be implemented, refugees with a justified claim to asylum would not even reach the EU. Tighter visa rules and more stringently enforced carrier liability would prevent them from filing their claim.
Unfair demands would be placed on our neighbouring countries, with the EU expecting them to apply unbelievably restrictive measures. Relations between the various Central and Eastern European countries could well become disrupted if they were forced to close their borders.
<P>
I have one question for the President-in-Office.
Reference is made here to the SIS register, which is currently used to check asylum-seekers.
Yet we know that this register lacks elementary legal safeguards.
Asylum seekers have no right to see the information recorded and cannot therefore verify whether it is correct.
Might the presidency consider taking steps to enhance legal certainty for refugees by allowing for more effective scrutiny over the SIS register?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Sjöstedt, I do not think it is very sensible for us to enter into discussion on a paper that is not even officially before us, and in which the positions of the other Member States have only just been included.
We really must wait until the paper is officially forwarded to the European Parliament and then we can hold a discussion on it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 NAME="Elliott">
I appreciate that perhaps there has been some confusion about this report, and that it is simply a discussion paper.
Nevertheless, there is great concern in Parliament, in particular in the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, that Parliament seemed not to have been involved as we would have hoped from the earliest stages.
I hope that I can have an assurance that the revised document will be made available in time for Parliament to consider it and to express any views before the next meeting of the Judicial and Home Affairs Council.
<P>
Further to that, I wish to say that I am sure the President-in-Office will be aware that there has been a lot of concern expressed about some of the suggestions - admittedly no more than suggestions - within this draft paper, to the effect that we should modify in a major way the existing Geneva Convention and possibly remove the individual right to seek asylum.
Of course many of the refugees coming into Western Europe today are coming in a different way to that perceived 50 years ago at the time of the Geneva Convention.
However, it seems to me that their plight and the problems they suffer are the same, whether they are being persecuted by a government or simply fleeing disorder, civil war or chaos in society from which the authorities of their country are unable to protect them.
Many of us feel the individual right must be preserved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Elliott, on your first point, the Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees is not to be encroached upon in any way.
In the first draft, and especially in the version passed on to the press, there may perhaps have been some unclear wording, but the revised version does not contain any passage which could honestly give rise to such an idea.
<P>
Secondly, the procedure we have followed is entirely in keeping with the usual practice of not putting a first draft, which does not take into account the general positions of all the Member States, before the European Parliament until it has been handled by a Council working group.
That is precisely our procedure here.
After the first revision, this text will be made available to Parliament as soon as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 NAME="President">
Question No 7 by John McCartin (H-0860/98)
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Subject: Cost of motor vehicles and vehicle insurance in Ireland
<P>
Is the Council aware of the wide divergence within the EU of the cost of motor vehicles and the cost of motor vehicle insurance and does the Council consider that this contributes to a distortion of competition in the single market and are any initiatives being taken by the Council to resolve this situation?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr McCartin, as the Honourable Member rightly points out, the creation of a single market for motor vehicle insurance has been a priority for many years.
The third coordinating Directive on non-life insurance (Council Directive 92/49/EEC) basically completed the internal market in the insurance field.
Alongside the non-life directives designed to safeguard both the right of establishment and freedom to provide services, the Council has in addition adopted legislation concerning compulsory motor vehicle insurance.
<P>
The aim of the general and specific legislation is to ensure that all Community citizens have access to the widest possible range of insurance products.
This increases competition in this sector and should in time lead to reduced costs for insurance.
As regards the cost of motor vehicles, reference should be made to Regulation 1474/95/EEC which is a Commission Regulation laying down certain rules applicable to distribution contracts in the car sector.
Its aim is to ensure a better balance in contractual relationships between manufacturers, dealers and final consumers.
<P>
On the subject of possible distortion of competition in the single market regarding the cost of motor insurance and/or motor vehicles, it is up to the Commission to take whatever steps it deems necessary to ensure the proper application of the relevant legislation and to ensure the smooth running of the internal market in general, as well as in this specific field.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 NAME="McCartin">
I thank the President-in-Office for that very detailed reply.
Perhaps I made a mistake in putting this question to the Council rather than the Commission, because there is immense frustration in Ireland, with young people in particular.
Young men looking for their first job, if that job involves driving a car in Ireland, have to pay something like ECU 50 for insurance per week.
If they were in Brussels or in a city in the UK, they would probably pay only a quarter of that.
So it is felt that the European Union has failed to bring about a single market in the whole area of insurance.
The fact that we have failed, and the Council has failed, to harmonise taxation, creates a situation in which motor vehicles cost a lot more in the first place, and this has some knock-on effect in the insurance sector, but it is not sufficient to explain it.
The fact that insurance companies in the UK, Belgium and Germany are not competing in the Irish market was due, I felt, to a failure of the European Union to enforce the right of establishment and the right to equal access to the market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr McCartin, as I have already explained in my earlier reply with particular regard to the car sector, the Commission has adopted a number of rules to ensure that there is transparency in car prices across the whole of Europe.
In this connection, it would be useful to point out that under Chapter 5 of the Treaty, common rules on competition are the particular responsibility of the Commission, and as you rightly suspected, it would be in a position to answer your questions considerably better and in more detail.
<P>
In the insurance field, I would refer the Honourable Member to Directive 92/49/EEC, which aims to regulate activity in this sector and ensure greater competition.
If it is established nevertheless that distortions in the car market are occurring, then of course the Council will devote its full attention to any proposals the Commission deems necessary to remedy matters appropriately.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, do you think that the introduction of the euro will lead to more transparency in the cost of cars and motor insurance?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Rübig, the only thing I can really say to that is yes, of course.
I think it will certainly increase competitiveness.
It will naturally also mean stronger competition and lower prices, because better comparability will allow consumers to look all the more carefully at where they actually buy.
I believe that the introduction of the euro will definitely have positive effects for the consumer in the long term.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, the discrepancies between the different prices are so great that we have instances such as this: people who work in Germany, young working people who bring to Greece a car which their parents have bought, are in the end forced to give it up to the Greek state because they cannot afford the huge tax imposed by Greek law.
There are many such examples, which are dramatic at a personal level.
I agree with Mr McCartin.
<P>
So I would like to ask: can anything be done for this special category?
And, in any event, is there a date beyond which we will be able to say that the prices of cars will be comparable throughout the European Union?
Because the fact is that we have been talking about this in the European Parliament for decades.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Alavanos, I quite understand the problem you have raised here like the honourable Member who spoke before you.
Let me point out once again that it is the Commission's job, not the Council's, to see that the single market functions smoothly and that the rules on competition are respected.
Allow me also to remind you that fixing insurance premiums falls within the remit of Member States.
As for the completion of a single market for insurance, I would once again request the Member to contact the Commission, because that is the body responsible for ensuring that individual rules on competition are complied with.
Incidentally, I would be happy to pass this on to them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 NAME="President">
Mr Posselt has a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I only have one question.
You have been very politically balanced in whom you have called upon to speak, but I wanted to ask why, when we were on the very thorny issue of the Austrian strategy paper, you only gave the floor to two representatives of the Socialist Group, although I was the first to raise my hand the very second when you took requests for the floor and before you stopped taking them.
The President-in-Office may therefore have received the inaccurate impression that there were only critics of the paper here.
There are also strong supporters of it! But that was not reflected here at all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="President">
I am sorry, Mr Posselt, but I gave the floor to the Members who asked first.
I am sorry you were not called, but under the Rules of Procedure I can only give the floor to two speakers.
<P>
Question No 8 by Anna Karamanou (H-0862/98)
<P>
Subject: Role of the media in the increased sexual exploitation of women
<P>
According to a recent statement by the Council of Europe, women are the main victims of sexual exploitation using the networks, which constitutes a serious violation of human rights.
The way in which women are depicted by the mass media is contributing to the increased sexual exploitation of women in Europe, while those involved in the white slave trade are making increasing use of modern media and new technologies.
What action does the Council intend to take and what measures will it adopt in response to this serious problem?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mrs Karamanou, in response to your question, I would first like to stress that the Council is fully aware that this issue and the points you have raised are an extremely serious problem.
The Council's position is that everything should be done to prevent international criminals working in prostitution from making increasing use of the latest information and communication technologies.
<P>
The Austrian Presidency shall therefore try to the best of its ability to bring to an early conclusion the consultations currently underway on issues such as the joint action to fight child pornography on the Internet, the Community action plan on encouraging the safe use of the Internet by fighting illegal and harmful content, and the Community action programme on measures to combat violence against young persons, women and children (DAPHNE).
<P>
The presidency is confident that, with the impetus it gives, Member States will be able to find a joint basis for adopting these instruments.
<P>
You must however know how far-reaching the influence of these criminal organisations using prostitution is - this abhorrent business, which disregards the individual freedom of victims, operates at an international level.
<P>
Because of the international nature of the Internet, the Council's view is that the fight against organised prostitution must take place at an international level, and for this of course the United Nations is in a good position.
I am therefore certain that the Community and the Member States will devote their full attention to initiatives taken under the auspices of the UN.
<P>
These involve in particular a plan to end crime organised on an international level, a protocol on trafficking in women and children and a draft voluntary protocol to the agreement on the rights of the child, which deals with the sale of children, their sexual exploitation and also child prostitution and pornography.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Karamanou">
I thank the President-in-Office for her answer, although I think it falls far short of satisfying not only me but even herself, since so little has been done by the Union about such a vast problem - tragically little.
The European Parliament has repeatedly called for the Council and the Commission to adopt drastic and effective measures to do something about the international networks of modern white slavers, the slave traders of today.
I would like to ask the President-in-Office what the Council has done to create new, appropriate and effective European institutions, capable of developing joint action at international and European level and of establishing common sanctions and penalties that fit the seriousness of the crime.
International criminal networks certainly call for an international and multi-dimensional response, as the Minister herself recognised.
In other words, I would like to ask: does the Council intend to apply Community law and measures across national borders, to suppress a phenomenon which is steadily taking on more explosive dimensions and which is an affront to our very civilisation?
And also, Minister, I would like you to tell me how far we are along the way towards ratification of the Europol Convention by the Member States, and what resources are available to enable that service to fulfil the increased workload it is undertaking.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mrs Karamanou, allow me once again to point out that the matter you have raised is an especially important one for the Austrian Presidency too. We have also taken a series of initiatives in this area.
Before I go into more detail, I should like to tell you that this very issue was discussed at the European conference which took place just yesterday in Luxembourg, and which I reported on this morning.
<P>
We are beginning to discuss this important problem and look for solutions not only in the EU context, but also with all the applicant countries.
Significantly, Europol's powers have been extended to include this area.
The aim is not just to create more bureaucracy, but to try to fight this evil that you correctly identify together and effectively.
I would point out that in the last two years the Council has already adopted countless decisions that are now being applied.
<P>
I would just mention the following: two joint actions, from 29 November 1996 and 24 February 1997, for an exchange programme and measures to combat trafficking in people and the sexual exploitation of children; extending Europol's mandate to include the prevention of and fight against trafficking in people, as I said before; the 28 April 1997 action plan for fighting organised crime; the EU-US common initiative against trafficking in women (it seems to us important that this issue has now been taken up in the transatlantic dialogue); and finally the Council conclusions of 19 March 1998 on 10 principles for an action plan proposed by the G8 to combat crime in the leading sectors of technology.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
I have here a cutting from a Finnish newspaper which came out last week.
The article describes in detail the methods cited by previous speakers for changing women's identities, dyeing their hair and branding them with tattoos once they have been recruited.
I note with satisfaction that the Austrian Presidency believes this to be a priority issue and commend its action to date.
Yet I worry that we may be taking too many decisions and doing too little to follow them up.
<P>
You cited the DAPHNE programme, Madam President-in-Office, and I wonder when the Council intends to adopt it.
I am also keen to hear whether the Council and the Austrian Presidency support action to rehabilitate young girls.
Bulgaria, for example, has introduced a programme called La Strada .
And are the rumours we sometimes hear in this Parliament true that hundreds of thousands of young girls and children are being brought illegally into the EU from the candidate countries?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mrs Thors, I believe that I have tried to underline how much this Presidency in particular sees this problem as related to the larger one of the fight against organised crime.
<P>
On 1-3 October the Austrian Presidency organised a conference in Vienna for eastern and western countries on the trade in women, which the EU Commissioner for Immigration, Home Affairs and Justice, Anita Gradin, attended. Its aim was to inform the public about the basic and country-specific organisation of trafficking in women, and to offer the representatives of NGOs and of national and international institutions the opportunity to exchange experiences in the field of prevention and intervention and to develop further strategies to fight trafficking in women in eastern and western Europe.
<P>
The European Parliament and the Commission are to run a campaign next year against violence against women.
The Austrian Presidency has also organised a conference on the work of the police against violence against women. It will be held from 30 November to 4 December of this year in Baden and aims to contribute to the preparation of Member States' activities for 1999.
<P>
The conference intends, in the light of international experience, to raise the issue of standards which are in keeping with the times and to look at good examples of measures taken to combat acts of violence perpetrated by men against women.
It will looked in particular at the situation women are faced with in criminal proceedings when they have become the victims of domestic violence, the specific aspects of violence against female migrants and their special need for protection because of their legal and economic situation as foreigners, and the impact of each of these on the work of the police.
<P>
I have already explained how important this subject was at the European conference, particularly in view of the need for future EU member countries to find joint solutions to this problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pirker">
Mr President, as you know, many criminal acts are now perpetrated on the Internet.
This is also true of child prostitution and trafficking in women, and the trade in organs which often goes with them.
We now know that the DAPHNE programme is to be launched for a longer period up to the year 2004, and that it is to be quite generously funded.
My question is, since so much crime goes on through the Internet, can we think about setting up a kind of cyber-police to monitor communication on the Internet and take appropriate countermeasures as a remedy and to combat crime?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Pirker, you have indeed raised a very topical problem here, to which the Austrian Presidency is devoting great attention.
Since the Internet is a completely new medium, every possible measure must be examined closely.
We have to look at what can be done on the Internet.
Maybe we should be thinking in terms of some type of code of conduct for the user, because it is going to be very difficult to develop specific legislation.
But at the moment, we are in the process of looking at this in detail with experts, and we hope that either during this Presidency or shortly afterwards, we shall have something ready for presentation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 NAME="President">
Question No 9 by Astrid Thors (H-0867/98)
<P>
Subject: Reduced VAT for labour intensive activities
<P>
Commissioner Monti at one time proposed that the Member States reduce VAT on labour-intensive activities to encourage job-creation.
<P>
The Commission recently carried out an analysis of the impact of VAT on the internal market, employment being one of the aspects covered.
When does the Austrian Presidency intend to have this matter discussed by the Ecofin Council?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mrs Thors, the problem you raised is currently being examined by the Council's services, particularly with a view to obtaining an expert opinion on the questions raised by some delegations on the subject.
On the basis of this review the Council will then judge whether the Commission should be requested to present a proposal on the area referred to in Mrs Thors's question.
I regret that I cannot give any further information on this at the moment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
I too am sorry that the Council cannot provide more information, especially since the newspapers have been reporting over the past week that the Member States have sent in their replies to the Council working group.
<P>
I wonder why it took so long before they were given a proposal to which to respond.
The Commission produced its communication on 13 November last year.
It is now October 1998, one year on, but the timetable has still to be set.
Why the delay?
<P>
There are rumours that no conclusions will be drawn in the Council working group until the end of the year at the earliest. Yet we have 18 million unemployed.
Many of us are convinced that the measures being discussed could be the answer to reducing tax fraud and increasing jobs. Our current self-service society might then shift towards a proper service society.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mrs Thors, firstly of course I share your concern about the level of employment and about the need to combat unemployment wherever possible.
That is not in question.
At this time of economic globalisation the Council is particularly aware that everything must be done in order to maintain the level of employment and if possible to raise it even further.
<P>
In fact, the Council is of the view that the employment issue constitutes the greatest challenge for the EU at the turn of the millennium.
I personally am deeply convinced that the future generation of Europeans is going to measure Community policy by the success it achieves against the scourge of unemployment.
That is why for the time being, I can only reiterate that this is of course an extremely complex and multifaceted problem, which needs to be very closely examined in relation to all the implications tied up with it. That is what is presently happening.
It is currently under review, and a suitable proposal will be put forward at the appropriate time.
But because of the complexity of the situation it is too early at the moment to make specific statements on content.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
Taxation offers us a way of dealing with our desperately high levels of unemployment and creating more jobs.
Fiscal policy is primarily a national matter, however. We all know how sensitive people are to being told by the EU what tax policies they should adopt.
<P>
I should like to take up the second part of the President-in-Office's answer.
Perhaps we could hear what types of general measure the presidency plans to introduce before the end of its term. The President-in-Office referred to what she described as the biggest challenge facing us in the run-up to the millennium: bringing unemployment down for the next generation and providing more jobs.
Has the presidency any plans to come forward with specific proposals before the end of the year?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Lindqvist, you know that the Austrian Presidency in particular attaches the greatest importance to fighting unemployment, and that we intend to draw up specific guidelines for the European Council which should be approved at the European Council in Vienna.
I do not have all the details in front of me right now, but these are primarily based on the best practice, as it is called, of the different countries. In other words, we learn from each other.
At the moment we are also looking at how additional jobs have been created in the various countries.
I am thinking here of the great flexibility and mobility in Holland and the Austrian model of 'dual training' which involves both an apprenticeship and vocational school - theory and practice alongside each other - and which has made us the leaders in youth employment.
<P>
Similar ideas are being looked at very closely by experts, so that models that other countries have found useful can also be taken on by others.
This is the direction which the Austrian Presidency's guidelines on fighting unemployment take.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 NAME="McCartin">
Mr President, in relation to the labour-intensive industries the problem is competition from third countries, the cheap labour countries.
If we reduce VAT we do not improve competitiveness since there is VAT on the imported as well as the home-produced goods.
So we probably only expand the market a little bit and give a bigger opportunity to the cheap labour areas.
<P>
I have this problem in my own constituency.
A very big multinational company - Fruit of the Loom - is pulling out of a labour-intensive industry with thousands of jobs because they want to get the product manufactured in Morocco.
I would suggest that the direction to take - if the President-in-Office could comment - is to reduce our income tax and social charges which are too high, thereby improving the competitiveness of European industry.
<P>
Is it a question for Member States or is it an initiative that must be taken by the European Union?
Would it be in violation of our obligations under GATT?
Something needs to be done or we will have no clothing, footwear and such labour-intensive industries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr McCartin, thank you very much for that comment.
You are right of course that the measures that are now being discussed will have an impact within the whole context of globalisation.
On the issue of reducing labour costs - how would this be passed on?
These questions are also particularly important in the framework of the Lomé negotiations that we have just begun.
Of course I cannot go into details on this question now - I am not really an expert on these financial negotiations - but I can tell you that you were right in making the point that every aspect of tax management naturally has a major effect on the entire global economy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 NAME="President">
Thank you, Madam President-in-Office.
It is now 7 p.m. and I am afraid I have to bring Question Time to an end.
I commiserate with those Members who have been waiting patiently, but that is the way of things here in Parliament.
We also owe it to the President-in-Office to stop at this point, so that she can catch her flight home.
Thanks to her once again.
<P>
Questions Nos 10 to 29 will receive written answers.
These which will be put in Members' pigeon-holes this evening.
<P>
That concludes Question Time.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 7 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Pollution-related diseases
<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0333/98), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0340/98-97/0153(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Decision adopting a programme of Community action on pollution-related diseases in the context of the framework for action in the field of public health (1999-2001) (Rapporteur: Mr Cabrol).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="Cabrol">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have the task of considering the common position established by the Council with a view to adopting a programme of Community action on pollution-related diseases.
In order to understand the exact context in which the amendments may and should be voted on, it is essential to realise that the purpose of this programme is not to take direct action to combat the emission of pollutants, nor to combat pollution-related diseases, as has already been the objective of other directives.
<P>
The current programme aims to review existing knowledge of pollutants, to collect all available data on pollution-related diseases and to draw up a list of these pollutants. In this way, we can inform the Member States, which must collect the data, and the citizens of the European Union, so that they are aware of the pollutants and can protect themselves as far as possible against them.
It is therefore essentially a programme to produce a list of pollutants and the diseases they cause.
It is also an information programme for the public on pollutants and related diseases.
That is what we want to reassert in the amendments tabled: the first part of Amendment No 5 and Amendments Nos 10, 12, 13 and 14.
But this programme does not contain anything else, and that is why, to stay within this ambit and to avoid encroaching upon the direct action to combat pollutants and pollution-related diseases, I personally will not support the last paragraph of Amendment No 5, nor Amendments Nos 9 and 16, which go beyond the scope of the present programme.
<P>
This programme also aims to pool the experience of the Member States, international organisations and various third countries.
Naturally, a programme of this nature will need to be evaluated while it is in operation and any follow-up monitored.
On the whole, we believe that the common position is satisfactory.
We welcome, in particular, the fact that it covers diseases related to all forms of pollution, as we had requested at first reading.
<P>
Nonetheless, there are certain points on which we take issue with this text.
We had called for the information on pollution-related diseases referred to in Article 1(2)(a) to include clear information on those diseases, a point that has not been incorporated in the common position.
Furthermore, the duration of the programme has been reduced to three years, although it was set at five years in the original proposal.
Consequently, the financial framework, which is set at ECU 1.3 million per year, is now limited to an overall total of ECU 3.9 million.
We could accept these changes in the duration and funding provided this proposal was actually, as the European Commission claims, only a first step in this field.
But if that is not the case, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection asks, in Amendments Nos 2 and 4, for the duration of this programme to be extended once again to five years, and for the overall financial framework to be set at ECU 7 million.
This is the basis of Amendment No 7.
<P>
Once the programme has had its duration and funding reinstated, we will have to go a stage further, in other words, we will need to conduct coordinated epidemiological studies on pollution-related diseases.
That is the aim of Amendment No 11.
We must also take action to promote knowledge of the behaviour patterns, ways of life and eating habits that make it possible to reduce the risk from various forms of pollution, as we stress in Amendment No 15.
We must also point out that, in the Commission's view, the reference to Article 228 in Article 6 on international cooperation is inappropriate, as the text relates to technical cooperation rather than international agreements as such.
<P>
Finally, I would like to highlight, in particular, the evaluation and follow-up of the programme.
The European Commission takes the view that it would be premature to draw up a report during the third year of a programme's operation.
In Amendment No 8, we ask that the report be drawn up once the implementation of the programme is complete.
With regard to follow-up, we call on the European Commission to report to us, in the six months following the adoption of this project, on the measures taken to ensure that this programme is consistent with and complementary to the other programmes in the field of public health, the environment and research.
That is the aim of Amendment No 6.
This should also help us to make the necessary adjustments, as requested in Amendment No 1.
<P>
We hope, in this way, to provide the final touches to the proposed programme and increase its effectiveness while, finally, stressing that we believe that it is essential for the programme to be followed by other, more ambitious proposals setting out the measures to be taken to combat effectively the formidable consequences of pollution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Hulthén">
Madam President, I will begin by saying that the proper speaker this evening, Kirsten Jensen, is ill.
I hope it has nothing to do with the pollutants which we do indeed notice here in Strasbourg.
<P>
We are confronted with a classic dilemma where the EU and health policy are concerned.
The real powers to implement health policy lie with the Member States and not the EU.
It is the Member States which decide what taxes and insurance rules should apply in this area.
We also know that a large part of health policy is further decentralised.
At the same time, with a programme like this, we arouse expectations as regards active measures on the part of the EU to deal with pollutants and diseases related to them.
Yet it is not really the EU's business to solve these problems.
<P>
Of course the EU does have a role to play, partly by pledging money for research, partly by facilitating the exchange of experience in the field of health and partly - most important of all - by ensuring that its own policy is healthy, integrating health aspects into both transport and industrial policy.
The Treaty of Amsterdam enables us to do this.
<P>
As regards the programme we are now debating, we can choose between either letting it die of its own accord, which one might easily think is the likely outcome when one reads the Commission's budgetary proposals, or strengthening it so that at least it meets the expectations it awakens.
Our choice is for the last option - hence the amendment from the Environment Committee calling for a bigger budget.
For me, this choice is also underpinned by the fact that the patients' associations in the field which carry out work on pollution-related diseases actually consider the programme to be worthwhile.
For that reason, we propose that ECU 7 million be set aside for this programme.
<P>
As Mr Cabrol has quite rightly pointed out, the programme does not in itself prevent the emission of pollutants, but it calls attention to the fact that there is a link between pollutants and diseases.
It may, we hope, lead to more effectively integrated policy on the environment and health.
It is one thing to explain to people that they should not go out when there is smog, but it is another matter to prevent smog from arising.
It is one thing to treat babies with hormone ointments for rashes, but it is another matter to try to locate the link between the rashes and pollution and hence eliminate the exposure which causes the rashes.
<P>
It is further necessary to develop a better understanding of diseases such as multiple chemical syndrome or damage caused by hormone-altering substances.
These diseases and their links with the modern chemical world are an uncharted problem area.
I therefore look forward to the Environment Committee's health hearing later in the autumn, which will be dealing with the field of health impact assessment.
<P>
We know that it is worthwhile to link policy on the environment with that on health.
We can see that lead and sulphur emissions are gradually disappearing from our cities.
We hope that this will also have an effect on the related diseases.
In other words we have everything to gain from integrating health aspects into policies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valverde López">
Madam President, these programmes aimed at improving the European dimension of public health as always receive the support of Parliament and, in particular, that of the Group of the European People's Party.
At the same time, we must remind the Commission that, although we are offering our full support, we are still in need of more documentation.
In other words, Parliament should have access - especially in view of the next stage in which this Parliament will have greater legislative power - to the Commission's background documents on the basis of which it drafts its proposals, so that we perhaps might be able to avoid some inappropriate interpretations or interventions.
<P>
We are all aware that European Union competence in public health policies is of a complementary nature - as stated in the Maastricht Treaty and again in the Treaty of Amsterdam -, but we need to let all the citizens know that the European Union is concerned about these issues and is launching complementary methods of working and of organisation.
We are not claiming that these programmes will completely solve the problem, but we do want to ensure that all the entities involved, be they health sectors, regions, or states, are working to guarantee consistency and complementarity in all their policies.
I therefore believe that we must be positive in the message and support we give to this programme.
<P>
At the same time, however, we must provide information for the citizens and explain to them why we are undertaking such programmes.
This gives the impression that the actions that we are going to undertake are at an initial stage when we actually have sufficient information, and the necessary premises exist, to take decisive action.
This is because when they see that all the atmospheric pollution and other forms of pollution that we are suffering from have done more damage in the last 20 years to buildings such as cathedrals, that are centuries old, than they have in previous centuries, they will be aware that something is happening.
If our forests have decreased by 30 %, it is because something is happening.
In short, we cannot imagine humankind being able to put up with more damage than cathedrals and forests.
This therefore gives us a clear - and I would say urgent - reason to act.
<P>
And, of course, everything related to respiratory diseases and allergies gives cause for alarm.
Over the last ten years, the number of allergies has multiplied by 120.
<P>
In short, we support the complementary proposals, Professor Cabrol's amendment and the general proposal from the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Liberal Group supports the Cabrol report, but we have two comments.
Firstly, at first reading I proposed that the Member States should be encouraged to introduce a register of environmentally-related health problems, since this is a phenomenon that is causing people increasing concern.
Having a notification centre for these problems would give people confidence that there was somewhere where they could report their suspicions about illnesses or allergies.
The Netherlands already has a notification centre and my country, Flanders, is also looking into the subject.
I regret the fact that neither the Council nor the Commission are in favour, and I am surprised to see that the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has apparently accepted their position.
<P>
When we talk about environmental health problems in my country we are mainly thinking of air pollution, such as near incinerators.
The disturbing incidence of children with genetic defects and cancers brings home the fact that there are serious and even life-threatening diseases involved.
This action programme must make the authorities, industry and the general public realise how certain pollutants can affect human health.
We need to learn the necessary lessons for the future, such as that incinerators must not be located in built-up areas such as Drogenbos on the outskirts of Brussels.
<P>
Finally, we wholeheartedly welcome this action programme and we hope that it will promote greater knowledge and better prevention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Marset Campos">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, our group agrees with Mr Cabrol's report and thanks him for his excellent work.
<P>
The process of forming a correct and comprehensive European Union public health policy has a number of gaps that are gradually being filled.
What is more, we believe that we are moving in the right direction since the action programmes are actually meeting this need of the population and the citizens.
<P>
In the context of this particular issue, these diseases appear to act as a kind of warning signal and a point of reference in trying to understand what is happening to the model of industrial development that exists in the European Union.
This is why we think that the proposal being put forward is highly relevant, as are all the amendments tabled by Mr Cabrol.
<P>
We support the amendments on extending the programme to five years and on its complementary funding, and those concerning the need to acquire more overall knowledge and to initiate coordinated epidemiological studies. We also support those aimed at improving public awareness and perception, because it is in this way that individual and collective behaviour will gradually begin to change.
Finally, the European Parliament must carry out the necessary follow-up work to ensure that this is effective.
<P>
However, we are still concerned.
We are taking action, but our growth model is the cause of these diseases, and this cause must be attacked at its source.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="McKenna">
Madam President, firstly I am rather surprised that our rapporteur Mr Cabrol has said that he is not supporting Amendments Nos 5, 9 and 16. These were accepted by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and represent the committee's position.
Furthermore, these points are extremely important because one relates to actions to prevent pollution-related diseases, one to combating pollution-related diseases and, finally, one to the whole issue of allergies.
<P>
I would like to point out to the Commissioner that in the original Commission proposal these were all included.
After the Council met it was decided to exclude these extremely important requirements.
I would hope that the Commission will take on board Parliament's position, which is the position of the Environment Committee.
There is no point in carrying out research to find out what pollution is related to pollution-related diseases, and what is causing pollution-related diseases, if these findings are only going to be put on a shelf and nothing done about them.
It is extremely important that action is taken to ensure that we reduce the amount of pollution-related diseases.
<P>
In any city in Europe you can see the amount of respiratory and allergy problems caused by pollution in our cities.
We have to reinstate Parliament's original position and the original Commission proposal.
It is no good carrying out studies which we are not going to follow up.
The onus is on the European Union to tackle the pollution which is causing health problems and which could be avoided.
This must be tackled; without ensuring that action is taken, it will not be effective.
<P>
Furthermore, a timescale has to be brought in.
Three years is not enough.
We need at least five years.
As well as that, funding is extremely important.
We need to increase the amount of funding.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="Nicholson">
Madam President, in welcoming this report I should like to pay tribute to the rapporteur.
Mr Cabrol has certainly earned the respect of this Parliament for his commitment to protecting our people from the effects of pollution.
<P>
I recognise that the common position adopted by the Council is an advance in this field but, like many other Members, I do not feel it goes far enough.
By reducing the duration of the programme from five to three years, financing for it has effectively been cut.
Consequently we must question the Council's sincerity in seeking to address what is a major area of concern throughout the European Union.
<P>
We need a more ambitious programme.
I worked on the proposal for a sharing of resources amongst Member States, international organisations and third countries.
I firmly believe that the views of the sufferers' organisations should also be included.
Many of these organisations are doing valuable work by collating information on the effects of pollution and related diseases.
Such an organisation in my own area has drawn attention to the use of organaphosphorous sheep-dip.
Information which can only be provided by such organisations should be taken on board.
<P>
The more information available from all quarters, the more the aim of the programme to enable citizens of the European Union to protect themselves as much as possible against pollution will be realised.
Preventive action must be the primary aim of the programme, but this must be coupled with the recognition of the needs of those who contract the diseases too early to enjoy the protection now planned.
Mistakes have been made in the past.
We must now take the opportunity before us.
The chance is there to put those mistakes right.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pinel">
Many diseases, and particularly many cancers, are caused by the presence of pollutants in the air, in water and even in food, without a relation of cause and effect being clearly established or even quantified.
This prevents, for example, justice from working effectively.
People die but no-one is responsible and no-one is to blame.
<P>
We must not only focus on just the concept of pollution.
Various technological methods are used whose impact on health has not been seriously analysed.
This is true for electromagnetic fields, for the microwaves used for mobile telephones, for the glutamate used in food and also for the agricultural chemicals that have caused human fertility to fall over the last 30 years in western countries.
<P>
It is outrageous to hear a European Commissioner state, here before the House, that the market will decide whether a product is good or bad.
That negates the essential nature of research and prevention, and, in particular, is an admission that we are treating people like guinea pigs.
I would like to thank Professor Cabrol for shedding a little light on this rather nebulous world.
And I would like to thank Mrs McKenna for trying to make the report even more effective.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Trakatellis">
Madam President, this programme is practical proof of support for the efforts being undertaken today to investigate and prevent diseases caused by pollution, i.e. by environmental conditions and hazards.
<P>
The effects of pollution not only contribute to the manifestation of respiratory diseases, but extend to disorders of other systems which can become apparent after prolonged exposure and as a result of probable synergism between various pollutants.
These effects may be toxic, infective, allergenic, carcinogenic, and indeed they may be acute or chronic, reversible or not, local or systemic.
Exposure to these reactions may take place by breathing, by ingesting food, by absorption through the skin, or directly, as happens with radiation.
We should also note that through the placental route, harmful substances from the environment may pass from the mother to the embryo and do it harm.
Consequently, all environmental hazards that have adverse effects on human health and produce diseases ought to be monitored epidemiologically.
<P>
Indeed, if we bear in mind that we are not at risk from just one harmful factor but from many simultaneously, then we can surmise that their cumulative effect may even have an impact on the resistance, ageing and life expectancy of the human organism.
The phenomenon must therefore be investigated for pathogenic interactions between two or more environmental pollutants, as mentioned in Amendments Nos 12 and 13.
The quality of nutrition is also inseparably related to the content of various chemical compounds in foods, and a systematic study is needed of the consequences of food pollution, so that these risks to the health of Europe's citizens may also be reduced, as envisaged in Amendment No 15.
<P>
On the basis of the exchanges of information and experience which it is proposed should take place between the Member States, I am confident that new and useful data will be recorded and that conclusions will emerge concerning effective ways to combat diseases caused by or related to environmental pollution.
This is bound to bring action which will include the dissemination of the data, and information of the public and consumers, as mentioned in Amendments Nos 10, 14 and 16.
<P>
To conclude, Madam President, I believe that Parliament ought to vote for this programme because it will contribute directly towards improving the health of European citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Madam President, the issue of pollution-related diseases is a really important and topical one, as the Commissioner well knows.
Diseases caused by pollution are on the increase in all the industrialised countries.
Combating these diseases cannot, however, be just a matter of health policy, but their prevention requires action in all areas of social policy.
<P>
I can give you one example of a Finnish success story regarding the reduction of lead in the atmosphere.
Lead is one of the most dangerous heavy metals, causing, amongst other things, retardation in the physical development of children.
In one decade in Finland we brought about a dramatic fall in the lead content in the atmosphere by reducing the tax on unleaded petrol, i.e. through a policy of taxation.
<P>
An important aspect of the programme now under discussion is passing on to one another any useful experience we have had of the matter, as in our case.
I give my enthusiastic support to the rapporteur's view that the original length of the programme should remain at five years.
I also support the suggestion that the financial framework for the programme should be increased toECU 7 million.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Poggiolini">
Madam President, after the decision on health monitoring, for which I myself was rapporteur, and the one on the network for the epidemiological surveillance of communicable diseases, also tabled by Professor Cabrol, this decision, adopting a programme of Community action on pollution-related diseases, sets out to provide the Member States with a catalogue of data relating to diseases caused by pollutants, and to do so independently of direct action to combat pollutants of the air, water and ground, which falls under other programmes.
<P>
In the short time available to me, I merely wish to say that I can endorse in full Mr Cabrol's excellent report, and I hope that the 16 amendments seeking to improve the draft decision, unanimously adopted by all the political groups within the Committee on the Environment, will also be adopted by the House.
This is an initial step towards the adoption of more ambitious programmes in the increasingly tough fight against growing pollution in our society, which has such an impact on the state of health of the EU's citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 NAME="Flynn">
Let me thank you, Mr Cabrol, for your work on the proposal and, indeed, for your support for the common position.
<P>
The proposal is a key element of the Community's overall approach to the prevention of pollution-related diseases.
Pollutants persist in our environment because it is not always feasible to reduce or limit them for technical or economic reasons.
It is therefore necessary to complement our actions on emission controls and exporter limits with activities in the area of public health aimed at reducing the health risk caused by the various forms of pollution.
The prevention of pollution-related diseases through better understanding of how the pollutants cause or aggravate them is one of the objectives of the proposed programme.
Emphasis is also placed on improving knowledge.
This is a key point made by Mr Cabrol - how health risks are perceived, assessed and managed.
Respiratory diseases and allergies, which are of increasing public health concern throughout Europe, are an area which the Commission considers should be given very special attention.
I agree with Mrs Ojala there.
<P>
We propose sharing the experience that exists right across the Union, reviewing the effectiveness of preventive measures undertaken and reinforcing and promoting successful actions.
I note that Parliament is particularly supportive of this activity.
<P>
At the first reading the Commission accepted four of Parliament's amendments.
Subsequently the Council adopted a common position and to avoid any ambiguity I will say immediately that the Commission has accepted the common position.
But I will not hide from the House that the Commission does not consider the common position to be perfect.
I address that to Mrs McKenna.
<P>
The curtailment of the scope and the duration of the programme is particularly regrettable to me, to say the least.
A statement to that effect was placed in the Minutes.
However, the Commission considered that the political compromise in the Council was the best that was available at the time.
<P>
Consequently the Commission is only able to accept two amendments today: Amendments Nos 1 and 15, since these do not have legal or budgetary consequences for the common position text.
<P>
The Commission is unable to accept the other amendments for the following main reasons.
Amendments Nos 2 and 8 imply a duration for the programme beyond the three years set out in the common position.
Amendments Nos 5, 10 14 and 16 extend the scope of the common position beyond policy development.
Amendment No 6 is not considered workable with the timing envisaged; in broad terms its objective is covered by the general obligation on the Commission to ensure complementarity and coherence.
Amendment No 11 cannot be accepted because the nature of the duration and, indeed, the financial resources and the scope of the programme do not allow for the support of meaningful, large-scale epidemiological studies.
Amendments Nos 3, 12 and 13 would lead to omissions or inconsistencies in the text.
<P>
I should like to emphasise that the Commission considers that we need to have this very important programme on pollution-related diseases in place as soon as possible.
Then we can look forward to some extremely useful work on a subject of growing public concern.
<P>
What we are trying to do here is to get ready for the new framework programme.
The aim of this particular programme is to see how we can influence policy in that public health framework.
I should like to say that to Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens and Mrs McKenna since they also make the point very strongly.
We really are now trying to develop policy initiatives so that after the three years we can move into the mainstream and do better in the new framework.
I also agree with Mrs Hulthén that we need better links with research.
That is being taken on board.
<P>
All in all I have to thank everybody who contributed.
We are now going to make the best use of this programme, and put together all the benefits of the research so that we can move into the mainstream in the new framework.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Rare diseases
<SPEAKER ID=231 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0336/98), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0341/98-97/0146(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Decision adopting a programme of Community action on rare diseases within the framework for action in the field of public health (1999-2003) (Rapporteur: Mr Viceconte).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 NAME="Poggiolini">
Madam President, several thousands of people in Europe are affected by rare diseases, some of them of genetic origin and extremely serious.
In some ways, these thousands of European citizens seem to have been left to their own devices.
Research by the pharmaceutical industry is utterly inadequate: in these cases the profit motive obviously does not apply for pharmaceutical firms, given that the market for these drugs is limited by the relatively small numbers of people affected.
Hence the importance, from a humanitarian and health point of view, of the programme of Community action on rare diseases, which is one of the proposals being made in the field of public health in Europe for the four years 1999-2003.
<P>
At our first reading, the European Parliament considered this action programme to be of undoubted benefit, and greatly improved it through 28 amendments, which among other things provided for the people most directly affected - the sufferers themselves - and their families to be involved in the programme.
This could be a good opportunity to establish real Community cooperation by setting up a programme on rare diseases, pooling knowledge and then taking the best possible action.
Indeed, it is necessary to avoid duplication, which wastes time and money and leads to inefficiency.
Very few of the suggestions contained in the amendments tabled at first reading were accepted by the Council: of the 28 adopted by this House, the Council took up only two in full and four in part.
At the initiative of your rapporteur, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has adopted 20 amendments for the recommendation for second reading. These are now being tabled again and will form the basis of discussion at conciliation.
<P>
The situation in Europe varies from country to country.
In some Member States, data are collected and measures are more or less well organised; in others this does not happen.
Here, as in other sectors, we must centralise the gathering of up-to-date data and all necessary information as to the development, number and clusters of cases of the rare diseases concerned.
These data must be fed into a central European database and made available to everyone.
<P>
We are pleased with the Council's decision to fund the programme for the entire five-year period, bearing in mind that the original proposal provided for funding for the first year only.
Nevertheless, your rapporteur draws attention to the inadequacy of the budget.
The Committee on the Environment has once again proposed the sum of ECU 14 million, as opposed to the ECU 6.5 m proposed for the five years of the programme's operation.
It is likely that, at conciliation, the usual clash will occur with the Council on this matter.
There is no point in salving our consciences by presenting a programme of great value in health and humanitarian terms, unless it is endowed with adequate funding.
This is not a way of either saving face or salving our consciences and, above all else, it will not meet the expectations of sufferers and their families.
<P>
Nor does the committee agree with the Council on the subject of comitology. We prefer an advisory committee rather than a mixed advisory/management committee, which would ultimately restrict the Commission's activities.
It is true that similar mixed committees are envisaged in other public health programmes, but in this specific one, considering the type of measures intended, we find the position adopted by the Council to be entirely inappropriate and unwarranted; it would appear, moreover, that the Commission too has reservations in this regard.
<P>
We are therefore retabling the amendment concerning the requirement that one of the two representatives nominated to the committee by each Member State be a representative from a patients' help group or other directly relevant NGO.
Further, it is very important to involve specialist doctors and general practitioners; the latter can make a vital contribution, since they are the families' first port of call and the principal agents of accurate, early diagnosis.
<P>
By the same token, in the draft regulation on orphan medicinal products, the Commission also proposes to involve general practitioners.
<P>
In essence, therefore, your rapporteur is inviting the House to reiterate the position expressed at first reading, by approving all the amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, which have been accepted by all the political groups.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Marinucci">
<SPEAKER ID=234 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valverde López">
Madam President, we fully support the proposals put forward in Mr Viceconte's report as well as Professor Poggiolini's remarks.
And for our part, we believe that the Commission is aware that with a proposal of this type, which is aimed at tackling a very scattered problem - and this is precisely the reason why it does not have any sponsors -, we need coordination at all levels, and all aspects will certainly need to be examined in depth here.
<P>
Similarly, I believe that a flexible approach to the application of these programmes would enable the Commission, through its three main lines of action - informing people, helping patients' support groups and implementing actions to deal with clusters of rare diseases -, to tackle what I believe are the two most fundamental issues. These issues are the initiatives designed to increase the number of specialist doctors and those designed to strengthen high-level reference hospital centres.
And in this context we will be unable to fully extend such initiatives to all countries and regions. We will therefore have to bring all the patients together and concentrate our efforts on these two issues - which, in my opinion, are essential -, leaving aside the rest of the proposals and initiatives that are provided for in the programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Madam President, I think that all of the speakers support Mr Viceconte's report on the programme of action on rare diseases.
And we are prepared to support it because he was very flexible in the debate and discussion on his draft report and accepted all the amendments tabled by the various groups.
These are amendments that were relevant but that were not finally accepted by the Council.
As Mr Poggiolini says, out of a total of 28 amendments, only two were totally accepted and four partially accepted And the rapporteur is perfectly right - and in doing so is supported by the Committee on the Environment - to include the amendments in this second reading that he deemed to be of particular importance.
<P>
In the short time I have available, I will focus on four of these amendments that are of particular importance to both the rapporteur and the Committee on the Environment.
<P>
Firstly, I should naturally like to stress the issue of funding.
We are always aware that money is scarce, but if a programme is set up to address these rare diseases and does not receive sufficient funding, it will not be effective.
Therefore, the rapporteur proposes - and the Committee on the Environment approved his proposal - an increase in funding from ECU 6.5 million to ECU 14 million.
<P>
Secondly, a central database is very important.
Information is collected in the various countries but we need a centralised data base that allows for the exchange of information.
<P>
Thirdly, we propose that a consultative committee be set up.
We always have disagreements in this Parliament with the Commission over comitology.
<P>
And fourthly, we need to encourage the participation of non-governmental organisations and of relatives who experience at first hand the seriousness of a patient's disease and the difficulties he has in coping with it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Trakatellis">
Madam President, the action programme on rare diseases which we are debating supplements a series of efforts to improve public health in the European Union.
<P>
The field on which the programme focuses is in itself a particularly important area in which to adopt Community measures.
This is not simply because we do not have accurate statistics about the number of people suffering from rare diseases, but even more so because there is a complete lack of appropriate means - in other words resources, networks and organisations - for the identification, monitoring and effective combating of these diseases.
The programme's objectives are, firstly, to improve the data, information and knowledge concerning rare diseases; secondly, to reinforce the teams that provide assistance; and, thirdly, to create a rapid-reaction group for the contingency where several cases of rare diseases occur all together, as happened for example in the case of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or new-variant CJD.
<P>
The programme concerns rare diseases, i.e. those with fewer than five cases per 10 000 people.
Since these diseases have to be combated by a combination of efforts, the programme we are voting on should be promoted.
<P>
Rare diseases form a sensitive category because each of them affects just a certain number of people and, because of the impacts and social consequences to which they give rise, there is a need to support action to cooperate with the sufferers and their families and with organisations that are active in the context of those diseases.
It is also essential to support measures which encourage and promote the provision of information to doctors and health science professionals, so as to improve the early diagnosis, recognition, treatment and prevention of rare diseases.
<P>
An essential factor for the coordination of these efforts is to create a network for the monitoring and control of rare diseases, which will provide data and information to the public but must also include the potential to provide immediate assistance.
To achieve the programme's objectives, we consider that the budget for the period from 1999 to 2003 should be set at ECU 14 million, and not ECU 6.5 million as proposed by the Council.
<P>
To conclude, Madam President, I should like to ask Parliament to vote for this programme, as formulated by the Committee on the Environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 NAME="Flynn">
Madam President, I should like to thank Mr Viceconte for his efforts, Mr Poggiolini for standing in for him this evening and all the members of the committee who helped to prepare the report.
The added value of the European Union's action is particularly obvious in this area.
The low prevalence of these diseases and the limited means for scientific research into them make it less likely that swift progress will be made in their diagnosis, treatment and cure.
On the whole they have a limited impact on public opinion.
<P>
However, they are far from insignificant either in human or economic terms, and providing effective advice and diagnosis in health intervention tends to cost disproportionately more than similar provisions for more common conditions.
Thus, it is clearly sensible for the Member States to come together through a Community mechanism which will coordinate the actions, which would otherwise take place in isolation.
Mr Valverde López's point is very well taken here.
<P>
The Commission has proposed that the programme would run for the five years with three targets, namely, to provide knowledge about rare diseases especially for patients and their relatives, health professionals and researchers.
This is the very point made by Mr Traketellis and I support his point of view.
It is one of the main ideas behind the programme.
<P>
We also want to foster measures to strengthen the voluntary organizations involved in supporting people directly and indirectly affected by rare diseases.
This corresponds exactly with what Mrs Marinucci thinks is important and we agree.
We have in place an effective system of monitoring in order to ensure the rapid identification, assessment and handling of rare diseases and disease clusters, and they would be an important matter also.
<P>
This is consistent with ongoing activities in biomedical research, and with the recent proposal for a regulation on orphan medicinal products used for the treatment, prevention or diagnosis of these rare diseases where the commercial return is insufficient.
You first saw this proposal last March during the first reading.
At that time you adopted 28 amendments of which 16 were accepted either fully or partly by the Commission's subsequent amended proposal.
<P>
Since then the Council has adopted a common position on the programme which reflects fully only some of the amendments from the first reading, but the Commission has entered a reserve on the common position with specific reference to the Council's treatment of these amendments from the first reading.


As regards the 20 amendments under consideration today, the Commission can accept 11 either fully - that is Nos 3, 12 and 16 - or, partially - Nos 1, 6, 7, 9, 11, 15, 17 and 19.
Of the remaining nine amendments, Nos 4, 8 and 13 are not acceptable for legal reasons; Nos 5 and 20 are not acceptable for internal consistency; Nos 2 and 10 are considered to be unacceptably limited; No 18 is covered elsewhere, and No 14 is unacceptable because of budgetary reasons.
<P>
I shall elaborate a little on the reasoning behind the two key amendments, No 14 (the budget) and No 15 (the committee).
I know that the budget is an issue that Parliament feels very strongly about.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has voted again for ECU 14m for the years 1999 to 2003.
The financial perspectives as they currently stand simply do not allow for such a sum of money.
<P>
Some progress has been made since the first reading.
The common position has introduced a financial envelope of ECU 6.5m over the five-year period. And that gives the programme at least a clear budget situation and certainly goes beyond 1999.
So the amendment concerning the programme committee is partially acceptable.
The Commission agrees with Parliament as regards the preference for an advisory committee, rather than a mixed advisory management committee as favoured by the Council.
This is part of the Commission's reserve on the common position.
<P>
The experience gained from the implementation of the existing programme shows that a mixed management advisory committee is inappropriate and excessive especially considering the limited budget allocation.
However, the Commission cannot accept that one of the two representatives from each Member State must be drawn from voluntary organisations.
We say that from a legal point of view.
This is not in line with the comitology decision and would affect the right of Member States to appoint the delegation.
<P>
I would end by saying that I hope that Parliament will give a favourable vote on the programme.
We share the desire to put in place Community action for this neglected and often forgotten area of real human suffering.
On the point raised by Mr Poggiolini, Mrs Marinucci and Mrs Gonzalez Alvarez concerning the database, the wording of the common position does not exclude the possibility of creating a European rare diseases database.
The problem will be dealt with and addressed during the implementation phase.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 NAME="President">
Thank you for that reply, Commissioner, and for answering all our colleagues.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Activities in favour of consumers
<SPEAKER ID=240 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0334/98) by Mr Whitehead, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision establishing a general framework for Community activities in favour of consumers (COM(97)0684 - C4-0077/98-98/0028(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 NAME="Whitehead">
Madam President, we all welcome Commissioner Monti into the Chamber to reply to this debate.
<P>
When the historians look back on the fourth elected Parliament and its relations with the Commission between 1994 and 1999, I think there will be a significant chapter on consumer protection.
It is a chapter that will begin with the creation of DG XXIV and the arrival of the formidable Mrs Bonino.
It will cover the hideous tragedy of the BSE crisis, which brought Parliament to the brink of a vote of no-confidence in the Commission on issues of public health and safety.
It will cover President Santer's response in January 1996 to that crisis and the consequent undertakings written into the Treaty of Amsterdam.
It will see the establishment of a firm legal base as a framework for consumer protection, and as a necessary entrenchment in an area where, as we all know, the Community will benefit from common action for all its citizens.
<P>
I say to Commissioner Monti that a healthy countervailing power is a thing that, more than anything else, will make the single market not only efficient but also an informed and healthy market and community.
<P>
In urging the adoption of my report I should properly declare a non-financial interest myself, as an elected Council member of the Consumers' Association of Great Britain.
I also want to thank some very staunch allies, some of them present here today in Parliament: the representative on the Committee on Budgets of our own committee, Mr Eisma, and most notably Mr Pimenta - I am glad to see him present today.
Mr Pimenta flits between the parties, but his heart is always in the right place as it is in this debate tonight.
I should especially like to thank my assistant, for whom this report was the culmination of four years of specialised work in this area.
It is for her an appropriate introduction to her new life in the Commission.
<P>
We have no time to lose in debating the Commission's proposals.
They need to be accepted by Parliament and the Council by the end of this calendar year.
Much has already been imperilled by the lack of a legal base after the European Court of Justice ruling, including the special measures with regard to food safety, which were rightly adopted after the BSE disaster.
<P>
As my report states, we are dealing here with only one-quarter of one percent of Community spending and yet this, unlike a good deal of other Community spending, directly benefits all of the 375 million citizens of our Union.
<P>
I may be told that I cannot take the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty, and therefore of the draft Article 153, for granted.
Maybe.
But I think it would be grossly irresponsible for this Parliament and for its partners in the Union to approach the budget for the next five years without at least an apprehension that these responsibilities will come to the Council - the heart of what was agreed at Amsterdam, taking consumers' interests into account across the broad range of policies and activities, extending monitoring, promoting consumer information and education.
Indeed the last of these is at the heart of what the Commission is now doing, in alliance with long-established and embryonic consumers' NGOs throughout the Union.
The coming of the euro adds to this need for greater consumer awareness.
<P>
It is a common feature of the opinion of Mr Pimenta and of my own report that we note that the traditional role of the Commission in supporting activities within the Member States - particularly those in the south of Europe where consumer movements have not been widely developed - has been imperiled by the transfer of resources needed by a Commission which has been strapped for the money to do what is necessary.
<P>
BSE has already loaded a very heavy burden on DG XXIV and on the Commission as a whole in terms of the expanded inspectorate and the information campaigns that it has had to launch.
We have to will the proportionate means to match these pious ends.
Otherwise, this Parliament is just an empty vessel.
We have to be able to say what is necessary.
That is why, in my own amendments, I propose an increase over the next five-year period to prevent a real deterioration in consumer protection.
This amount would be ECU 130 million over five years, as opposed to ECU 114 million from 1999 onwards set out in the original proposals.
That is not there for some grandiose increase in spending or empire-building, but simply to maintain both the Commission's well-proven support for consumer movements and the new responsibilities in health protection, the monitoring of hazardous materials and products, information on the euro and access to justice.
<P>
I particularly commend to the House Amendment No 16 from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection which added the provision that access to justice for the citizens of Europe is a necessary provision, and one which was not taken sufficiently into account in the original proposals which came to us from the Commission.
I have some reason to believe that the Council would accept some amendment of this order.
We look forward to their proposals, perhaps next week.
<P>
I hope the Council can also accept the strongly-held view of Parliament that a starting budget of ECU 24 million in 1999, rising in the proportions set out in Agenda 2000, would produce a financial envelope for the legal base of between ECU 120 million and ECU 130 million.
<P>
We are not saying here that this is a matter of endless increase.
I have said in my report that there are elements within the current consumer budget, like the financing of EHLASS, that really should not be there.
They belong in another part of the Community budget.
If they were moved to it there would be a saving to the 'consumer' appropriation of over ECU 7 million over the five-year period.
<P>
The British presidency acted swiftly to untangle the knots caused by the European Court of Justice ruling which it sought, together with other Member States.
I should like to commend the Austrian presidency which has shown considerable dispatch in moving towards a viable and sufficient legal base.
They deserve our salutations for that.
<P>
I should like to say not only to Commissioner Monti, but also to the Member States and the Council - to all of them, including my own: do not betray Europe's consumers and citizens.
Allow this modest proposal to go through.
Above all, do not claim to be consumer champions, with glossy leaflets and public clamour, unless you have the civil courage to sustain in private what you commend in public.
The only single market worth having is the one where we can all make informed choices about what we buy, what we eat and how we live.
<P>
This report is intended to bring that one small step closer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 NAME="Pimenta">
Madam President, may I begin by greeting Mr Whitehead, not only in his capacity as rapporteur, but also as chairman of the consumer protection inter-group.
His work has been outstanding and this report, which I fully support, bears this out.
<P>
This report was urgently needed.
A legal base is necessary and it is positive that the Commission should have proposed it.
However, there are points that must be improved, in particular access to justice, which Mr Whitehead mentioned.
Amendments Nos 16 and 33 are essential.
When I held that particular responsibility in Portugal, I found that rapid and efficient access to justice was one of the key elements in protecting the consumer.
<P>
Second, how can we overcome the crisis of confidence on the part of European consumers towards European institutions, particularly as regards the Council and the Commission, brought about by the BSE crisis?
Amendments Nos 4, 6 and 22 seek to move towards a solution to this problem.
<P>
Third, the Commission proposal is inadequate regarding the impact of the euro and the achievement of genuinely single markets, particularly in financial services.
We already have immense experience of countless cases of contracts where consumers have been taken in by misleading advertising or bad contracts.
I support Amendments Nos 24 and 26.
<P>
Fourth, the effective implementation of European legislation and its correct application by the Member States.
It is certainly necessary to continue and to improve what has already been done, but the Commission proposal is defective here.
<P>
Fifth, the guaranteed review of the present action programme following ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam (Amendment No 21).
It is essential that the Commission should present the revised version after ratification.
<P>
Lastly, the recognition of the vital role of non-governmental organisations and the clarification of rules under which they are given assistance or contracts are concluded with them (Amendments Nos 17 to 20).

<P>
I wish to end by supporting the rapporteur's statement regarding the budget.
I consider that the budgetary framework which the Commission presents for executing such an ambitious project is not adequate and, therefore, in this regard, in the context of Agenda 2000 and in the preparation of policies up to 2006, the Commission must review the budget if it wishes to have a consumer policy that is supported by 320 million persons who will thereby also be supporting the construction of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldi">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I think that it is vital to pursue a proper policy of consumer protection.
Consumers are justifiably puzzled by the suspension of funding, as ordered by the recent Court of Justice ruling, and the programmes intended to consolidate consumer organisations in Spain, Italy, Portugal, Greece and the Irish Republic would certainly become less efficient if this ruling continued to jeopardise certain categories of discretionary expenditure.
<P>
Article 129a of the Maastricht Treaty and then Article 153 of the Amsterdam Treaty set out certain actions, which however are not sufficient unless a programme of priority measures is established for the implementation of the existing general framework. This framework at last makes it possible to have a legal base for promoting actions in the interests of consumers, allowing for a budget line amounting to ECU 114 million over the next five years.
<P>
The actions which are possible with this financial support range across four sectors: consumer health and safety, the protection of consumers' economic interests in respect of goods and services, consumer education and information, and the promotion and representation of consumers' interests.
It is, however, also important to support the scientific committees and experimentation, so that the information campaign will adequately promote access and participation by consumers.
<P>
We often forget that the five-year period 1999-2003 will be a particularly important and difficult one for consumers, who find themselves facing challenges such as the advent of the single currency, continued growth of the information society, accession of the applicant states to the EU, and information on food safety and quality.
<P>
In conclusion, consumers will need to be provided with adequate means of assessing risks and taking legal action where necessary, in other words monitoring and inspection will need to be speeded up.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 NAME="Paisley">
<SPEAKER ID=245 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Madam President, we in the Green Group were very concerned at the Court's decision to freeze the budget line for consumer activities.
What we in fact wanted was for these activities to be expanded and more resources to be allocated.
For us that is the crucial point.
<P>
We support the Commission proposal.
However, we believe it is most important that resources are made available not just to the classic consumer organisations but also to the NGOs.
May I remind you that in the Federal Republic very considerable resources are spent on an advertising campaign to promote meat as a vital energy source.
But there we are talking about marketing companies, which must not be confused with consumer organisations.
So the aim must be genuinely to strengthen the consumer organisations, which also means that key consumer protection organisations must receive funding from that budget line.
But this must not lead to funds being diverted from, for instance, the action programme concerning environment-related diseases or from activities in favour of consumers.
<P>
So we consider it most important that key consumer organisations also benefit from these resources.
The money really must be used to inform the consumer and not to market certain products in the European Union to the benefit of industry.
The consumers need these resources, because they have a great need for information.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Madam President, I remember the report on priorities in consumer policy for 1996 to 1998.
The rapporteur at the time warned the Commission not to move too fast, yet now that is exactly what he himself is doing.
He is not just calling for more funding, but also for more policy areas to include consumer activities.
I feel that the Commission document is more in tune with the limited opportunities open to consumer policy at European level.
<P>
The proposal to extend consumer activities to all areas of policy seems completely unrealistic.
The Commission's decision to go for transport and public health seems a sensible one, in that it is based on experience from the last few years and also fits in with the next action programme.
<P>
The increase from ECU 114 million to ECU 130 million which the rapporteur proposes in Amendment No 14 is far too little to be able to cover all areas of policy, and some scope must be left for dealing with unexpected consumer problems.

Part of this must be earmarked for defending consumers' interests when the euro is launched, and here I agree with the rapporteur: these interests can best be defended by supporting measures taken by the consumer protection organisations.
<P>
This brings me to my final point.
I welcome the shift in consumer policy which the establishment of this general framework represents.
We will no longer just be drafting regulations, but will actually be working to strengthen the position of consumers.
Consumer protection begins with the consumers themselves.
Strong consumer representation improves the operation of the market, while statutory regulations simply disrupt it.
<P>
In conclusion, it is not the quantity of measures to benefit consumers that needs to be improved, but their quality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Virgin">
Madam President, the Whitehead report discusses how European consumers are to be protected when the euro is introduced and how the Union is to deal with existing concerns over the safety and quality of foods.
I think it is a good report that touches on some important questions.
<P>
I think that the BSE crisis has taught us that we must adopt the precautionary principle when it comes to food, in other words also take measures even when it is only suspected that humans can be adversely affected by a food.
We should now devise rules to reduce the use of antibiotics in animal husbandry.
I believe that stable and firm rules create consumer confidence, as does labelling which provides sound information to the consumer.
I am, however, opposed in principle to increasing the budgetary provision in the proposal from ECU 114 million over five years to ECU 130 million, which the rapporteur is proposing.
I trust that the Commission has done its homework here and has got the right results.
In addition, I think that measures of a different kind are as effective in this area as central increases in budget appropriations.
<P>
I have a feeling that politicians sometimes tend to adopt measures which are not entirely necessary.
I do not think that we politicians should underestimate the civic forces in society.
Consumers themselves have a major responsibility.
Perhaps we politicians are inclined to say that it is we who must solve their problems.
In the long run, this can lull consumers into a false sense of security.
<P>
We must of course be exacting in our demands on safety, but we must also allow the consumers to use their power - which is now considerable - to take the necessary decisions.
A consequence of this will be that producers become more attentive to consumers' demands.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=248 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
Madam President, we must strike a blow for consumers, not because some elsewhere might think that the European Parliament lacks faith in itself, but because the consumers' interests need to be brought into focus.
As a justification for the legislative proposal, the Commission states that the purpose of the general framework is to make it possible for consumers' interests to be taken more into account in the context of the EU's other policies and activities.
I am surprised that the Commission then only gives public health, research and transport as examples and does not mention the integration of consumer concerns into areas such as agricultural policy, competition, financial services and, last but certainly not least, the EU's food policy.
<P>
Apart from that I think it extremely regrettable that the Commission proposal limits support to 50 %.
This rule makes it impossible for many smaller consumers' organisations to take part in projects, because they simply cannot afford to pay the remainder themselves.
Also consumers' organisations in the smaller countries, including the Consumers' Advisory Council in Denmark, have problems with this form of financing.
The EU should pursue consumer policy in such a way that it is actually feasible, for smaller consumers' organisations too, to take part in projects.
The financial resources of the organisations are tied up in wages and other administrative costs.
And it must also be remembered that it is often the EU, rather than the consumers' organisations themselves, that wants to launch various campaigns, and that in this context the EU needs reliable consumers' organisations, indeed organisations like the Danish Consumers' Advisory Council, to take charge of these campaigns.
Hence it is not reasonable to ask the organisations to cover as much as 50 % of the cost themselves, certainly not when the campaigns are an EU priority but not necessarily a priority for the consumers' organisations.
<P>
Also we find it unacceptable that the administrative part of the EU's consumer campaigns is often so complex that it demands an incredible amount of patience for the staff of the organisations to take part in these EU projects.
There is also a tendency to forget that the EU's campaigns derive great benefit from the credibility and reliability of the national and European consumers' organisations, but that the EU currently only pays half price for that credibility.
<P>
Finally, having said that, I would like to thank Philip Whitehead because, once again and - as usual - in an excellent report, he has struck a blow for consumers' interests.
I wholeheartedly support the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Garosci">
Madam President, I am particularly pleased that Mr Monti is here with us this evening: as we are all aware, he is the Commissioner responsible for the single market - or the internal market, to use a more agreeable term, given that we are dealing with consumers.
The needs of this single market, encompassing 370 million citizens in their capacity as consumers, must increasingly be taken into account by all the Community institutions; we must keep up with the winds of change sweeping through the consumerist world.
<P>
We very much agree with the call for increased funding, voiced by the rapporteur and strongly endorsed by Mr Pimenta: these improvements are merely a recognition of the new circumstances whereby consumers are the protagonists in all public and private activities.
Consumers first!
We can call him client, user or whatever we will, but the consumer remains king: it is he who, in a changing market, in the public and private spheres, constantly demands new or improved products, calls for simpler and less dangerous packaging, seeks more information on what he is consuming, clearer labels, eco-friendly and less polluting materials and, finally, demands modern and efficient services; in other words, more assurances all round.
These consumers move around more, wish to broaden their horizons and want to make better use of their time.
Their children might practise a different occupation from their parents, perhaps in a different country, but undoubtedly on a scale which is no longer just national but at least Community-wide, spanning all the EU countries.
<P>
The major innovation in this whole scenario is the advent of the euro.
Day one of the new single currency, which will revolutionise purchasing habits and consumer patterns, is 1 January 1999.
It is our duty to brief consumers exhaustively on the advent of the single currency, on the one hand to train businesses, and on the other to inform the citizens.
Only yesterday, during the discussion on the euro, I requested that the issuing of the 500 euro banknote be postponed by one year, because it could cause substantial difficulties for consumers within the new monetary system.
Their interests are the focus of our day-to-day efforts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 NAME="Monti">
Madam President, over the past decade the Union has considerably stepped up its consumer policy, especially since the entry into force of the Treaty on European Union.
Further developments in respect of consumer policy and health protection are provided for in the Amsterdam Treaty.
I very much agree with all those speakers this evening who have remarked, albeit in differing terms, that consumers are the protagonists of the European single market.
<P>
This proposal outlines the legal framework for activities eligible for Community funding under the policy relating to consumers and health protection.
For decades now, actions undertaken in the name of EU consumer policy have been financed through the Community budget.
During this period there has been no basic legal act geared to financing such action, nor a formal description of activities eligible for funding, with the sole exception of the references contained in Article 129a, introduced into the EC Treaty in 1992.
<P>
In the light of continuing European integration, it clearly becomes necessary to assure the citizens of the Union, in their capacity as consumers, that their rights and interests will be adequately protected in the new enlarged single market - and that market is taken a stage further with the single currency.
Consumers' interests must be taken into account in the same way as those of the other economic players.
<P>
This general framework should not be confused with a multiannual action programme.
Indeed, it would be impossible to predict with accuracy, on a five-year basis, all the problem areas in which the Community needs to intervene for the purposes of consumer protection.
<P>
By the end of the year, the Commission is to present a programme outlining its priorities for the years 1999 to 2001.
This programme will explain the actions which the Commission intends to undertake over the next three years.
The decision now under discussion constitutes the legal base for financing the activities set out in the priority programme.
<P>
Following the Court of Justice ruling last May, rapid adoption of this proposal has become necessary, given that, in the absence of a legal base for the expenditure, most of our activities in the field of consumer policy and health protection would have to be suspended.
I wish in particular to thank the rapporteur, Mr Whitehead, for his excellent report, for his constructive work and for the way in which he has managed to accelerate Parliament's internal procedures, making it likely that a decision will be reached by the end of the year.
<P>
Almost all of Parliament's amendments are acceptable to the Commission, and incidentally I would thank the rapporteur for having extended the indicative list of activities, notably in respect of consumers' rights.
However Amendments Nos 12 and 16, on the adaptation of this decision to the Amsterdam Treaty after its entry into force - amendments with which, I must say, I broadly sympathise - are too general and sweeping in the Commission's opinion; therefore they cannot be accepted in their present form.
I can nevertheless undertake here and now to present to the Commission, as soon as the Treaty enters into force, a proposal taking account of the implications of the Amsterdam Treaty for consumer policy.
<P>
As regards Amendment No 13, on the financial allocation, the Commission will provide Parliament and the Council with all necessary technical assistance to enable them to reach an early agreement on this matter.
I would merely point out - and I do so more to the Council than to the European Parliament - that, once the financial allocation has been set, its adaptation to the implications of the Amsterdam Treaty would seem rather unlikely; therefore the financial allocation must take account, as of now, of the new activities which will result from the Treaty's entry into force.
We are currently at the stage of the first reading, and the Council is to announce its position on this proposal on 3 November.
As I have already said, Parliament and the Council have undertaken to speed up the decision-making procedure for the adoption of the proposals which constitute the legal base providing for Community funding.
The Commission will do all it can to enable Parliament and the Council to reach their decision at second reading by the end of this year.
<P>
I would like to end by reiterating my thanks to all those who have spoken: their comments will be fully taken into account when the new three-year action plan to which I referred is drawn up.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=251 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Conditional access services
<SPEAKER ID=252 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0325/98), on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0421/98-97/0198(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive on legal protection of services based on, or consisting of, conditional access (Rapporteur: Mr Anastassopoulos).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 NAME="Anastassopoulos">
Madam President, with this recommendation for second reading of the directive on the legal protection of encrypted services which we are considering today, we are taking the penultimate step so that, with the Council's acceptance of our two amendments, it will at last become possible for this directive to be approved in the near future.
<P>
That will enable us in the European Union to do something more effective and more coordinated about a pirate activity which represents a real threat.
The illicit decoders produced by the pirate industry are estimated to account for perhaps as many as 20 % of all decoders.
The loss of income for encrypted services exceeds ECU 200 million per year and the effect on the European film industry is truly appalling, since 34 % of its income comes from that source.
In any event, it is enough to mention that, in just four months, there have been on the celebrated Internet over a million advertisements for illicit pirate devices, just to give us a picture of the extent of illicit activities in this sector.
<P>
These are activities which militate against the proper operation of our internal market, impeding the further development of industries specialising in new technologies and the development of new means of communication to facilitate trade.
They create consumer protection problems and weaken the protection provided by agencies dealing with intellectual property rights.
<P>
Designing more sophisticated decoders with more powerful features offering increased protection in order to combat piracy has been shown to be both costly and ultimately ineffectual, because the pirate industry has always managed to adapt at lightning speed and neutralise any protection system with even more advanced techniques.
The only thing left, therefore, was a Community approach to the problem involving harmonisation of the rules protecting services based on, or consisting of the provision of conditional access.
<P>
The Commission and the European Parliament in the first instance, but then the Council too, have shown that they understand the urgent need for this measure, because piracy has not ceased to flourish.
Between the Commission's Green Paper and the second reading of the draft directive, which Parliament called for following my first report in May 1992, only two years have gone by, a period which can certainly be regarded as brief in the context of Community procedures.
<P>
My second report on the draft directive, which was approved by a very large majority on 30 April 1998 by the House, included 24 amendments.
In its amended proposal, the Commission accepted 18 of these in whole or in part, and the Council has essentially followed suit.
The result is that we have before us a common position adopted by the Council whose text has several improvements compared with the original text.
The definitions have been reworked and have become much clearer.
A new Article 1 clarifies the directive's scope.
The rental and distribution of illicit devices have been added to the illicit activities, and the factor of addition has been established in the new explanatory concept 21 by the Council.
<P>
These important elements, however much they satisfied your rapporteur, were nevertheless unable to offset the refusal by the Commission and the Council to extend the directive's scope.
In its amendments, Parliament had asked for the protection of conditional access, with the aim of providing more general protection of the economic value of the services and not just ensuring remuneration for their provision.
However, the Commission and the Council insisted on limiting themselves to that last point alone.
The disagreement could have become more acute and prolonged if Commissioner Monti had not given an undertaking to authorise a study to ascertain whether it would be appropriate to extend legal protection to services which use conditional access for purposes beyond just securing remuneration.
<P>
Following that undertaking, which brings the prospect of more extensive protection in the future, your rapporteur felt that there was no need to resubmit the amendments tabled by Parliament at first reading.
With Amendment No 2 to Article 7, I thought it preferable to keep the door open for a later stage and generally to make things easier for the Council, always provided that just the two amendments which go together with the recommendation for second reading are accepted, so that the final draft directive can be approved quickly.
<P>
Madam President, our hope is that even though the Council and the Commission have restricted its scope, the directive will help to deal more effectively with decoder piracy.
In that hope, I have the honour to submit this recommendation for second reading to the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=254 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Madam President, as the rapporteur, Mr Anastassopoulos, said, Parliament's main concern was to fill a legal vacuum, and we must bear in mind that the three institutions have worked very effectively. Consequently, in only one year and two weeks, this directive, which is aimed, as the rapporteur said, at combating piracy in information society services, television and radio broadcasting, etcetera, has been approved.
<P>
The directive is a genuine one in that it does not contain provisions of a regulatory nature. It leaves Member States sufficient leeway to develop legislation either through criminal law or simply through civil responsibility, which to me seems quite reasonable.
<P>
The directive is also noteworthy because of the comprehensive way in which it deals with the issue.
As Mr Anastassopoulos said, we have chosen to close the matter for now, but have left open the option of carrying out a short-term review through Amendment No 2, should any inadequacies be detected.
And, apart from Amendment No 2, which is aimed at quickly rectifying any inadequacies, the Committee on Legal Affairs has also tabled Amendment No 1 that refers to the general need for each state to protect services that are remunerated.
<P>
I think that the three institutions are carrying out some good work and as always - as Commissioner Monti is well aware - the Committee on Legal Affairs has been very keen to collaborate.
I think that Parliament will be able to approve the text tomorrow with the amendments tabled by the rapporteur, and a step forward will therefore be taken.
<P>
We must, of course, remember that we are dealing with the protection of certain fundamental rights, such as the right to information, which is, moreover, compatible with the exercise of private activities that effectively enable this information to be transmitted.
I believe that Community law will soon be developed by Member States and that this matter will thus be dealt with without many difficulties.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=255 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Madam President, I should like to begin - and this is not just rhetoric - by congratulating the rapporteur on behalf of my group, the Group of the European People's Party.
I think that by accepting the sensible and well-reasoned amendments that were tabled, this directive has satisfactorily concluded a very complicated issue in a very short space of time.
This success has undoubtedly been achieved thanks to the combination of the rapporteur's rigour and skillful negotiating.
<P>
As far as the issue itself is concerned, the proposal for a directive covers a wide range of interactive broadcasting services, independently from the method of transmission used.
The market for conditional-access services is growing rapidly due to digital technology, but such growth may be threatened by the equally rapid development of piracy, a parallel industry - which is currently booming, as the rapporteur pointed out - that manufactures and markets the devices that facilitate unauthorized access to these services.
Apart from harming the industry, to paraphrase the rapporteur, this piracy has a number of adverse effects, not only in terms of the loss of income from subscriptions to service providers but also in terms of the economic damage it causes to conditional-access and content providers.
Furthermore, it will mean higher prices and less choice for the consumer, who is often the victim of fraud because he is not told where the pirated device he buys is from and is also led to believe that the device being bought is an authorized one.
<P>
The discrepancies between our legal systems have very serious and negative implications for the development of these services and also - as the rapporteur mentioned - for the internal market.
So, in simpler terms, this proposal for a directive is an instrument that is both necessary and useful to combat one of the many facets - but a very important one - of technological piracy. It is a facet that, through technical devices, facilitates access to encrypted services without paying the legal established fee.
<P>
This characterises the directive's field of application, its very structure and its purpose.
It does not aim to protect access to any type of distant encrypted service. Rather, its purpose is limited to those services that depend on previous authorisation aimed at guaranteeing the remuneration of the service, as well as services provided on the basis of this conditional access.
This limited field of application - as highlighted by the rapporteur - gave rise to a fruitful debate, an interactive debate - if you will pardon the pun -, between the Commission and Parliament.
As a result of this interaction, Parliament accepts the arguments put forward by the Commission, which advise against including the broader concept of economic value as a protected legal interest alongside the concept of remuneration.
Tomorrow we shall vote in favour of the Commission and the Council's approach and, in this case, we will support the argument that the legal instrument would lose some of its effectiveness since its precepts would have to be defined in very general terms in order to respond to very different situations.
<P>
By accepting this, the House understands that the Commission has committed itself to immediately initiating the necessary proceedings to ensure that those other services that are rendered without payment are also protected by European legislation as soon as possible. As far as these services are concerned, there is no doubt that criminal activities also damage an interest that can be legally protected, and this, in the last analysis, affects them economically.
<P>
This therefore resolves one of the controversies that has plagued these proceedings and, to a large extent, justifies Amendment No 2 by the Committee on Legal Affairs. This was voted for unanimously at the suggestion of the rapporteur, insofar as it expresses concern regarding follow-up work, so effectively led by the rapporteur himself.
The text of the common position contains clear improvements, not only because it follows the guidelines of the first reading report drawn up by this Parliament in its capacity as co-legislator, but also because it offers substantial improvements from a technical and objective point of view. The rapporteur referred to the clearer definition of Article 1 but, in terms of clarity, it is worth studying the strengthened definitions in Article 2.
At the same time, a number of gaps have been filled, such as the inclusion of activities relating to the renting and distribution of illicit devices among those activities that are brought to prosecution and those liable for prosecution. In addition, punishments are being better adapted in their current form to the different national legal systems.
We must also be pleased with the fact that, for example, difficult, specific and overly technical expressions, such as the seizure of illicit devices, that in some systems - for example, the Spanish system - would be difficult to implement from the transposition of the directive, have been replaced by more generic forms, such as the removal of illicit devices from commercial circles. This now appears in the text and is being introduced under the premise that each Member State will adopt it in accordance with the structures of their own legal system.
<P>
Lastly, the new recital includes the element of intent, which enables national legislation to prosecute the perpetrators of illicit activities who can be shown to have had fraudulent intent.
This addition must not, in any case, modify the concept of civil responsibility that in all our legal systems is of an objective nature, in other words, independent of any form of subjectivity.
<P>
To sum up, this directive is important in that it does fill a gap, albeit partially.
For us, it is a stage in implementing wider legal protection.
The ball is now in the Commission's court.
Let us hope it acts soon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=256 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Madam President, Commissioner, it could be said that in this Chamber we are 'cryptic correspondents', who go in for coded messages.
I do not know what I am now expecting from the interpreters.
<P>
To begin with, I regret that we have not taken up the amendment that was discussed in the Legal Affairs Committee.
What we wanted to secure by that amendment was that anything deliberately devised in order to circumvent this protection should have been made subject to criminal sanction.
I regret that this has not brought into the plenary debate.
<P>
Secondly I wish to take up the serious matter - in the light of information we have recently received - that it is not just the French but also the Spanish Government that persists in fragmenting the market in encryption products.
I have already taken up this question with Commissioner Monti.
I am very sad that we are not achieving progress, indeed we seem to be moving backwards as regards encryption in other sectors.
It is really my hope that this will form part of the work to create an area of peace, security and freedom which we have been talking about since the Treaty of Amsterdam.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=257 NAME="Monti">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by thanking the members of the Committee on Legal Affairs, and in particular the rapporteur, Mr Anastassopoulos, for their alacrity in examining this important and complex proposal.
I also wish personally to compliment the rapporteur, who obviously has a thorough knowledge of the subject as well as great political sensitivity.
As a result, I hope that the directive will be adopted and implemented very soon.
I would refer in particular to the withdrawal of the main amendment put forward at first reading, seeking to extend the scope of the proposal.
<P>
As stated in the report explaining the reasons for the recommendation, the Commission has undertaken to conduct a study to investigate the use of conditional access techniques for purposes other than that of ensuring remuneration, and to take into consideration the legal and economic implications for the single market and the need to introduce appropriate legal protection.
The call for tenders for this study was published in the Official Journal of 10 July 1998, and I am happy to announce that the administrative preparations for the relevant contract are now in their final phase.
<P>
Therefore the Commission welcomes Parliament's second amendment, designed to create a legal base to allow for periodical adaptations of the directive and in particular of the definitions under Article 2, in the light of technical and economic developments.
<P>
The first amendment introduces a new recital which helps to clarify the aims of the directive; it reflects the content of Amendment No 10 tabled at first reading, which was incorporated into the Commission's modified proposal but rejected by the Council.
I note with satisfaction the rewording of this amendment, and can tell you that the Commission is happy to accept it.
The Commission will defend the new modified proposal in the Council, taking account of the European Parliament's amendments, in an attempt to convince the Council to draw the appropriate conclusions and, in its turn, adopt the revised text.
<P>
Once again, Madam President, I thank Mr Anastassopoulos and all those who have cooperated in what we really can describe as a further example of rapid and successful interaction between our two institutions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=258 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Monti.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=13>
Recognition of qualifications
<SPEAKER ID=259 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0319/98), on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0422/98-96/0031(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive establishing a mechanism for the recognition of qualifications in respect of the professional activities covered by the Directives on liberalization and transitional measures and supplementing the general systems for the recognition of qualifications (Rapporteur: Mrs Gebhardt).
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<SPEAKER ID=260 NAME="Gebhardt">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner Monti, first let me thank all those colleagues who helped me to draft this report.
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That made it easier to reach a result that the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights could approve unanimously, which creates the best basis for making the necessary amendments to the common position.
That document concerns the mechanism for the recognition of qualifications in commerce and industry.
In Article 3(1), the Council provides that, in case of doubt, evidence can be provided by an adaptation period or an aptitude test, at the choice of the host Member State.
I regard this as an unnecessary bureaucratic imposition.
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The Legal Affairs Committee agrees with me that it should be left to the applicant to choose the mechanism for providing evidence of adequate knowledge and skills.
There are sound reasons for this.
An individual who wants to settle and work in another country can work out for himself how to provide evidence of adequate professional qualifications that fulfil the host country's requirements.
So he should also be able to decide for himself whether to sit an aptitude test or to attend an adaptation period.
He must not be burdened with the demands of a bureaucracy that he may find quite alien.
After all, we are trying to dismantle rather than build up obstacles.
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Applicants were given this choice in the first two horizontal directives on the recognition of diplomas.
It is important and necessary for the coherence and transparency of European legislation to adopt a corresponding rule for the third horizontal directive we are discussing here.
To that end we must amend the common position, and I do not think we will find that particularly hard to do.
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I assume that not many more monitors will be turned on in Members' offices at this time of night than there are Members present here in plenary.
But it would be wrong to take that to mean that we are merely killing time on a trivial matter.
The directive on recognition in the field of commerce and industry is in fact a highly important one. I can give you one figure to demonstrate this.
We are turning 35 liberalisation and transitional directives that have come into being over the years into one single one.
When it enters into force, 35 earlier laws will suddenly lapse.
That is what I see as the consolidation of European legislation.
It creates more transparency, even if the layman would probably find his head spinning at the sight of this document.
That should not necessarily be the case.
If we really want to come closer to the people, we must strive in future to make our texts more readable.
Otherwise even a minimum of legislation will frighten people off.
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I cite my own amendment as a bad example.
It is four sentences long, but only amends one point of the common position.
The German version of the draft amendment consists of no less than 36 lines, and even the first sentence is an endless 82 words long.
The second achieves a proud count of 50 and the third a mere 30.
By comparison, when journalists had to measure their dispatches in words, 500 words represented a full-scale report on an important event far away.
Or look at the Ten Commandments. They say much in few words.
That is not because Moses was lazy, did not have a computer and had to engrave it all laboriously in stone - it is a simply a well-drafted text!
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So much for the ugly facade of the directive on recognition, which is designed to sweep away 35 old rulings in order to create greater clarity and legal certainty.
I think that is most important.
Others could say the directive is an industrious piece of work, a successful technical repair job on the legislation and no more than that.
But it is more than that.
In fact this directive is much more - if we take a serious look at it.
It helps to implement an important civil right in the European Union, the right to freedom of movement.
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Remember, it is only since Maastricht that civil rights have become a part of the Treaties on which our European Union is based.
They are basic rights, although they are not drafted in particularly lavish terms.
Article 8a on freedom of movement provides that every citizen of the Union shall have the right to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States, subject to the limitations and conditions laid down in this Treaty.
This could be termed conditional freedom of movement on paper.
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The present directive creates an area of genuine freedom of movement that is recoverable by law.
For surely the truth is this: freedom of movement has to mean freedom to reside and work in the place of one's choice.
We have made a beginning with two other directives, now we are giving the green light to activities in commerce and industry.
Bureaucratic obstacles have been removed and the proposed amendment will ensure the necessary fair treatment.
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That is how the road looks that runs from civil rights on paper to living reality.
The recognition of diplomas is a big step along that road.
It not only loosens the bonds restricting young people in the exercise of their profession, but is also an important means of combating the scourge of unemployment in Europe.
Why?
Because by guaranteeing professional freedom of movement we can counter what is often an unfair distribution of work.
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After all, we all know about the complaints of numerous sectors that could offer enough jobs in certain regions, but cannot find suitable workers.
And then there will be the young person who does not dare to learn the trade of his dreams because it is not needed in his particular region.
The freedom of establishment guaranteed by the directive we will vote on tomorrow will ensure the necessary labour mobility.
This is not just an economic necessity, but for many who love their work it is also a matter of personal happiness.
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I cannot imagine doing a better political service to our citizens than helping to fulfil their wishes and dreams.
Now that we are completing economic and monetary union with the introduction of the euro, we can turn our eyes to the people of Europe and their rights.
It is up to us to breathe life into citizens' rights.
I believe that looked at from that perspective we can see the true importance of the recognition directive.
But it must not remain an isolated one.
There are many ways of making Europe useful to its people through citizens' rights.
Just a few months ago we adopted a whole range of measures with the De Clercq report.
Let us implement them!
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In conclusion, let me clear up an imprecision in the wording of the amendment.
In some languages, the term 'beneficiary' crept in instead of 'applicant'.
Only the word 'applicant' makes sense and corresponds to the word 'demandeur ' which I chose in the original French text.
I would ask for this to be corrected in all the language versions.
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<SPEAKER ID=261 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Florio">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, operators in the commercial, industrial and craft sectors will soon receive recognition, from the Member State in which they intend to establish themselves, of qualifications obtained in their Member State of origin.
What we are about to approve at second reading is an across-the-board system of recognition, according to the recognition mechanism referred to by the Court of Justice in the Glassopoulo ruling.
This complements Directives 89/48/EEC and 92/51/EEC, the first relating to university degrees and the second to vocational training, which are currently being updated to incorporate the Glassopoulo case law and to carry out some helpful simplification.
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The Commission and the Council have accepted the amendments adopted by Parliament at first reading.
The Council has moreover put forward some highly commendable modifications, such as the easing of the criteria concerning the length of training, giving priority to practical experience.
Before authorising someone to operate in the industrial, commercial or craft sectors, the Member State concerned will have to conduct a comparison of the knowledge and skills certified by the professional diplomas and qualifications acquired in other Member States and the skills required under its own national regulations.
If there is equivalence, recognition must be granted.
The host Member State must complete this procedure within eight months of receiving the application.
Legal action may be taken if the application is rejected.
If there are differences between the training provided in the Member State of origin and in the host Member State, the migrant worker must prove that he has acquired the additional knowledge through an updating course or an aptitude test.
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The only outstanding point at issue between Parliament and the Council of Ministers concerns the responsibility for choosing between a course and an aptitude test.
In its common position, the Council states that the host Member State should have this choice, albeit taking account of the migrant's preference, but the Committee on Legal Affairs decided unanimously - and quite rightly, in my opinion - that the choice should be left up to the migrant worker. There are two reasons for this: the administrative difficulties encountered by people wishing to obtain recognition of their qualifications in another Member State, which would be further compounded; and the need to keep a parallel between this directive and the general system of recognition of qualifications, already established through Directives 89/48 and 92/51, which give the migrant worker the right to choose between an adaptation period and an aptitude test.
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Another important aspect is the procedure for updating Annex A of the directive.
I believe that the decision to abide by the codecision procedure already laid down for the body of the directive is correct, because aspects of a legal nature which would merit a legislative procedure can often sneak into annexes.
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Finally, in complimenting Mrs Gebhardt on her work, I hope that the Council of Ministers will take on board the points raised by the European Parliament, and that the directive will be adopted very shortly in its final form.
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<SPEAKER ID=262 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ryynänen">
Madam President, Commissioner, supplementing the recognition system for examination certificates is essential to increase the free movement of citizens and to improve standards of equality among them and safeguard their legal protection.
People seeking the recognition of qualifications should, however, be allowed to choose a method themselves by which they can show their qualifications: either through application tests or adaptation periods.
I too hope, as has been said already, that the Council will adopt this amendment by the rapporteur.
The result would thus match the existing practice in the horizontal directives.
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The whole area of reciprocal recognition of examinations and qualifications is a vital one in the practical development of European cooperation.
The issue concerns not only the movement of skilled and professional people, but also the participation of students and young people in educational and exchange programmes and the wish for them to acquire experience alongside their studies, as well as developing a facility for European cooperation.
For example, the Socrates and Leonardo programmes, which are at present being reorganised, are good tools for reciprocal understanding and for the development of European awareness.
But at the same time, there has to be an awareness that the education programme must also include the recognition of examinations passed and qualifications gained in another Member State
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One problem is still a lack of knowledge of the workings of the common system for recognition and the possibility of an appeal.
We have to develop ways of spreading information on working conditions and vacant posts through the Eures network.
Furthermore, the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training does much good work for the reciprocal recognition of professional qualifications.
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The Commission should now look very closely into the experience gained from the application of the recognition system and the possible practical problems that exist, and embark on the further action needed, on the basis of a comparative study and the progress made.
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<SPEAKER ID=263 NAME="Monti">
Madam President, I have a good deal of sympathy for one remark made by the rapporteur, Mrs Gebhardt.
It may well be that the Chamber is not very full at this hour, yet for all its simplicity - and because of its simplicity - this directive really is extremely important.
And for three reasons: it is a tremendous simplification; it directly affects the people's Europe; and it relates more particularly to mobility of labour, which is so important in terms of enhancing the freedom of individual citizens, especially in an economic and monetary union.
It is vital in an economic and monetary union that labour should enjoy a high degree of mobility. As we are only too well aware, in Europe, unlike the United States, we shall always have the factor of language diversity - and would certainly not wish to lose it - but at least we can and must minimise man-made obstacles, including all the difficulties which this directive seeks to overcome.
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I am pleased that this House is able to approve the Council's common position almost in its entirety.
I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Gebhardt, and the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights for their constructive attitude.
The amendment granting the migrant the right to choose between an aptitude test and an adaptation course is acceptable to the Commission, as it is designed to facilitate freedom of movement for workers.
This directive is important because it not only simplifies Community law by merging 35 directives into a single text, but also extends recognition to qualifications for certain occupations which are not yet covered under the general system.
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I would also recall that, very logically in my view, this proposal has received the support of Parliament's Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, as a contribution to combating unemployment, an area where it is so difficult to come up with effective, straightforward measures. Here we have one!
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<SPEAKER ID=264 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Monti.
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The debate is closed.
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The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
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<CHAPTER ID=14>
Court of First Instance
<SPEAKER ID=265 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0290/98) by Mr David W. Martin, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the draft Council Decision amending Council Decision 88/591/ECSC, EEC, Euratom establishing the Court of First Instance of the European Communities to enable it to give decisions in cases when constituted by a single Judge (6290/97 - C4-0218/97-97/0908(CNS)).
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<SPEAKER ID=266 NAME="Martin, David">
Madam President, the Court of First Instance was created in 1988 and first heard cases in 1989.
The reason for its creation was that the Court of Justice itself could no longer cope with its case load.
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The reality is that the Court of First Instance only had to deal with 55 cases in 1989 and in 1997 it had 624.
Although 624 cases is a considerable number, it should have been possible for the Court of First Instance to deal with these efficiently.
Unfortunately, the backlog at the end of 1997 was 1 106 cases.
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So we have a crisis.
Clearly the Court of First Instance cannot cope with its workload and delayed justice often impacts on the quality of justice.
We are anticipating a further increase in the workload of the Court of First Instance when appeals against the trademark decisions start to feed their way into the system.
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The Court is naturally and rightly looking at ways to speed up the rate at which it handles cases.
In essence the proposal before us today is that certain types of cases, primarily those that raise non-complex legal issues, should be heard by a single judge instead of by chambers of three or five judges.
This item was very controversial and the vote ended in a dead heat the first time we voted on it, eight Members voting in favour, eight against and four abstaining.
Eventually we voted again and the committee agreed to support the proposal.
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Briefly, the arguments against the proposal were that by moving towards the system of having a single judge, we would undermine the multinational nature of the Court.
Many members of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights felt that it was important that different legal systems and different legal cultures were expressed in any judgment.
There was also a danger that a judgment would be identified with a nationality.
For example, an Italian judge who consistently gave judgments in a particular way against his colleagues might wrongly be impugned as having a national interest in his or her decision.
So it was felt that to be able to identify the nationality of a judge might start to weaken the confidence of the general public in the Court.
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Other members felt this was a false argument, that we were part of a European-wide organisation and we should have confidence in any judge no matter what nationality.
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In the end the committee voted in favour of this proposal because we had no other concrete proposals in front of us to improve the speed at which the Court of First Instance handles cases.
Although it would not save us much time as the Court claimed, we felt that having a single judge would save some time.
Perhaps 10 % more cases a year could be handled.
Neverthless, that leaves us with a significant problem and no one on the committee - whether for or against the proposal - believed this was the ultimate solution to the problems that the Court of Justice and Court of First Instance face in terms of handling their workload.
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The committee has suggested that in the future we should be looking at the possibility of increasing the number of judges in the Court of First Instance, improving the staff structures in the Court, moving towards the use of specialised Chambers to speed up cases and even reconsidering at a future IGC the powers of the Court of First Instance.
For example, should staff cases be a Court matter?
Would it not be better to find a tribunal to handle staff cases.
These cases take up a considerable proportion of the Court's work.
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So, although in the end we have decided to come out in favour of this proposal, it is with some reservations and it is with a view that this will not be the long-term solution to the Court of First Instance's problems.
Probably at an Intergovernmental Conference - but certainly at some sort of forum in the future - we are going to have to come back to this issue.
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<SPEAKER ID=267 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Madam President, the absence of Ms Mosiek-Urbahn this evening leaves me with the honourable but difficult task of presenting the majority position of the Group of the European People's Party in favour of the Council's proposal for a decision to enable the Court of First Instance to operate under a single judge, even though I personally have a number of reservations that I shall come back to later.
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I would now like to make particular reference to the excellent speech given by the rapporteur, which is simply a culmination of the way in which this complicated and controversial report has been conducted. I should firstly like to highlight the fact that the vote by the Group of the European People's Party in favour of the proposal - and I do not doubt that the House will vote the same way tomorrow - is proof of its confidence in the Court and those who work there, given that our competence is limited to presenting a report on the amendment of Article 2(4) of the Council Decision.
In other words, neither Parliament nor indeed the Commission have any institutional competence to give an opinion on the amendment of its Rules of Procedure.
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However, it is very difficult to assess the legislative proposal without considering the amendments to the Rules of Procedure, including future amendments, since they will determine the circumstances under which this body may be called to give a verdict in a specific case.
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I would stress the fact that Parliament will tomorrow be signing a blank check whose content and possible expiry date will be the sole responsibility of the Court and the Council.
Ladies and gentlemen, there can be no more trust than that.
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Let us now turn to one of the arguments outlined by the rapporteur.
The Group of the European People's Party welcomes, shares and encourages the concern over budgetary efficiency that this measure has generated since, according to the best estimates, the total number of cases handled will increase by 10 %, without any increase in costs.
A constant concern of this Parliament is to get the maximum return from every Community ecu that is spent, and in this respect we are pleased with the proposal.
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The argument put forward by the distinguished judges is also relevant as it states that the biggest threat to the Court's legitimacy is the slowness inherent in the running of the body.
And as the rapporteur has already said: late justice is not justice at all.
The Court's legitimacy will be strengthened as the time taken to handle each case is reduced.
This is certainly true.
But justice still has to be administered if the Court is to be strengthened.
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Lastly, a vote in favour of the proposal tomorrow will prove that the House has confidence in the ability and equanimity of the Court with a single judge.
And throughout its history there has certainly been no shortage of proof of the opportunities for the Presidents of the Chamber after they have fulfilled their role of assigning cases.
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The vast majority of the Group of the European People's Party will therefore vote in favour of the proposal.
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Allow me now, Madam President, to speak on behalf of those of us who have reservations about this solution, that we shall express tomorrow through a constructive disagreement with the majority.
An attempt to offset a critical situation - a situation that looks set to worsen with the imminent arrival of trademark litigation - by increasing the number of cases handled by between 5 % and 10 % is nothing more than a makeshift solution.
Because of the way the institutions operate, it will also prevent this issue from being dealt with decisively in the near future.
And, given the institutions' heavy workload, let us not forget that it will be difficult to 'come back' to the issue.
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According to the judges already mentioned, 150 appeals at the end of the year from Alicante would lead to a serious crisis.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, I do not want to be a prophet of doom, but a crisis appears to be the inevitable outcome of this solution.
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However, the reservations held by those such as myself are not only of a practical and temporary nature, but also stem from concerns relating to substance.
The rapporteur spoke of pluralism.
It is true that cultural pluralism and the pluralism of legal heritage form one of the foundations of European legal integration.
And this is particularly true in terms of the Court of Justice.
It is not a matter of mistrusting anyone, less still the institution itself, but who would deny that a joint, plural ruling, at least at the present stage of the construction of Europe, would receive wider public acceptance?
And, Madam President, if justice comes from the people, then the people should perceive it as such.
Who would also deny the fact that since the times of Ancient Greece one of the functions of the collegiate has been to integrate into one body those that, in the end, must always speak with one voice, with the same voice, and with the coherent voice of all those who come from very different backgrounds and who have very different, diverse and disparate experiences?
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And lastly, would it not be understandable, predictable even, that, in the face of collapse and the lack of solutions, the Court and the Council - since, as we have already said, neither Parliament nor the Commission would be anything more than powerless witnesses - might increase the number of cases in which a single judge could be used?
This would undoubtedly constitute a saving but only in the very short term and it would not take into account the social cost - in addition to the economic cost - that it would inevitably also entail.
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Madam President, this issue therefore needs careful consideration.
Further to the solutions put forward by the rapporteur, I would like to add that of the review of certain privileges for officials in relation to costs.
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And finally Madam President, to paraphrase Churchill, justice is expensive, but if the European Union is to fight for one thing, it should in fact fight to build a Europe of law.
Because Europe will either have its own body of law or it will not.
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<SPEAKER ID=268 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Madam President, we really have an odd situation here: all three of us who have spoken so far, including myself, are actually against the proposal.
We also have a situation in which the legal services of all three institutions find, for somewhat different reasons, that the proposal is not desirable.
My impression is that the core of their argument relates, firstly, to confidence in Community law and, secondly, to the fact that the problems of effectiveness are not solved.
It is precisely this point, the effectiveness problems remaining unsolved, that previous speakers have been addressing.
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The key issue for me is to uphold the principle of collegiality in decision-making. Collegiality needs to be maintained when difficult decisions are to be taken.
I think we must now take a serious look at the situation as regards the defence of the Community justice system.
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A congress was recently held here in France, a political congress, at which the Community legal system was ferociously attacked with claims that, for example, Community justice no longer works directly for citizens.
We see many attacks of this type on Community justice, which is nevertheless what holds our legal system and our EU together.
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We must, however, look very seriously at the need to have courts that function in such a way that citizens can have confidence in them.
The essence of this is the collegiate system.
I therefore hope, Commissioner, like David Martin, that you will give serious attention to this question of the functioning of the courts in the forthcoming IGC, preferably as soon as possible in Vienna, but at least when the mini-IGC begins.
For my part, I will endeavour to ensure that it becomes an objective for the Finnish Presidency, since this is important in holding together a Community based on the rule of law, which the EU is.
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I will merely say in conclusion that a large section of the Liberal Group will vote against the proposal.
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<SPEAKER ID=269 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ullmann">
Madam President, Commissioner, even as one who is well aware of the reservations about introducing single judge decisions by the Court of First Instance put forward during the discussion in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, and has now heard them repeated, let me on behalf of my group plead for adoption of the Martin report, now that the Committee on Institutional Affairs has decided to do so too.
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My reasons are these. The initiative for the new ruling comes from the Court itself, which set out its views in some detail in the Legal Affairs Committee.
The new rules can only be applied after a Chamber decision, i.e. only on the basis of a Chamber decision.
Their scope is so carefully circumscribed that there is no risk of legal uncertainty.
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These new rules on single judge decisions cannot be replaced by any other potential proposals with regard to the composition of the Court of Justice.
My other reason is, I believe, the most important one, and perhaps I can remind you of it even at this near-midnight hour: the European Union has to prepare itself for tasks on a quite different scale, not least with regard to its jurisdiction, in view of the forthcoming accession of the Central and Eastern European countries.
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<SPEAKER ID=270 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Florio">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Court of First Instance is faced with an enormous workload.
The deepening of European integration and the simultaneous realisation by citizens of their rights under Community law are adding to this workload.
The effect on the average length of lawsuits has been inevitable: it has now reached 29.3 months.
This is a cause for concern, particularly in view of the litigation likely to result from the application of Regulation No 40/94 of 20 December 1993 on the Community trade mark.
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The procedures and structures therefore need to be altered, so as to clear the backlog and enable the CFI to cope with the increase in litigation.
The proposal is to entrust a single judge with certain less important, repetitive cases, such as staff appeals.
There would, however, be no change to the principle whereby the CFI sits in chambers composed of three or five judges.
Referral of a case to a judge-rapporteur, as a single judge, would moreover be optional and confined to situations determined in the Rules of Procedure, with the decision taken in every case by the chamber comprising three judges.
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The changes to the Rules of Procedure which have been submitted to the Council of Ministers provide for an important set of limitations and restrictions.
The resulting legal framework would have a beneficial effect on the length of proceedings, without making Community jurisdiction any less authoritative.
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In any event, as proposed by Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, the impact of this measure should be assessed three years after its entry into force.
Finally, in thanking Mr Martin for his valuable work, I would say that I am in favour of the proposal but look forward to seeing other more comprehensive and fundamental initiatives, which will of course require more detailed examination and more time.
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<SPEAKER ID=271 NAME="Monti">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as you know, the Commission expressed its view on the issue of the single judge in the opinion forwarded to you last June.
Reading the introduction to your draft resolution, on which I compliment Mr Martin, I note that our reactions to the proposal from the Court of First Instance and the Court of Justice are broadly similar.
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Indeed, how could we fail to sympathise with the concerns expressed by the ECJ and CFI?
In a Community based on the rule of law, it is vital that judges should be able to perform their duties within a reasonable time-span; otherwise the citizens' backing for the building of Europe will be compromised.
Judges must therefore be given the means to work efficiently.
Nevertheless, the dilemma is this: is the single judge the most suitable means?
If I am to be guided by the main argument put forward by the ECJ and CFI, in other words the huge increase in the volume of litigation concerning trade marks, I have grave doubts.
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Indeed, according to the proposed criteria, delegation to a single judge will only be possible after a number of years, once an established body of case law already exists.
In that case, why lay down as of now the composition of the judiciary body for litigation the actual scale of which no one yet knows, especially as - I would stress - the huge increase anticipated in 1997 has so far failed to materialise, meaning that its complexity cannot yet be assessed?
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Perhaps it might be wiser to think in terms of a chamber specialising in all fields of intellectual property, rather than a single judge system.
Referring to the statistics submitted by the Court, including its sentencing rate, I am convinced that what is urgently needed is something else.
As the Court itself acknowledges, the single judge will have only a marginal impact on efficiency, since such judges will only be able to handle cases considered to be minor ones, following an investigation of the case by the chamber.
Undoubtedly, and the Commission has taken this into account, when reading these statistics one is bound to conclude that no request for help, however modest, should be neglected. At the same time, however, is it reasonable to ease the CFI's workload to such a marginal extent by introducing, without further reflection, a reform as far-reaching as the introduction of a single judge into the Community's legal system?
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The Commission has voiced many doubts in this regard. Indeed, it strikes the Commission as extremely hazardous to seek to transfer to the Community's legal system solutions adopted in the Member States, in other words in homogeneous settings, as a means of coping with an increase in lawsuits.
Obviously, there are some minor cases, such as disputes concerning annual staff reports, or certain cases, such as those mentioned by the ECJ concerning milk quotas or customs agents, which basically only require the application of the principles of so-called 'pilot' rulings.
Such cases could undoubtedly be left to the discretion of a single judge, but the texts proposed by the ECJ and CFI go much further.
They relate to litigation over trade marks and plant varieties which, for the reasons already given, cannot as of now be regarded as suitable for consideration by a single judge.
The same applies to public service litigation in general: such litigation, which draws its solutions from various general rules and principles of the Community's legal order, cannot in the Commission's view be regarded as minor.
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Finally, appeals in cases concerning the non-contractual liability of the Community are involved here, as are all manner of other cases which, on the strength of somewhat vague and subjective criteria, would be judged by the chamber and the judge-rapporteur to be not particularly complex.
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In the Commission's view, the proposed system should under no circumstances be approved in its present form.
In any event, and irrespective of any changes which might be made to the proposal from the ECJ and CFI, the Commission believes that it is premature to adopt, without further reflection, the principle of the single judge as a normal operating method of the Court of First Instance in the future.
And this is precisely the point here. Indeed, once the principle of the single judge has been adopted, and in the absence of any other reform of the CFI, the CFI will inevitably be tempted to extend the competence of the single judge, simply by modifying its Rules of Procedure, in order to cope with its burden of work.
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Under these circumstances, the Commission considers that the most urgent issue is not so much that of the single judge, but of conducting a thorough reform of the Community legal system as a whole.
The Court of Justice should not forget that it too is experiencing certain difficulties, and that it will soon be faced with competences deriving from the Amsterdam Treaty, particularly in the field of asylum and immigration, fields which by their very nature lend themselves to a fair number of disputes.
The Commission therefore believes that it was imperative to appoint a group of wise persons to launch a joint process of reflection with the ECJ as soon as possible, in order to determine what reforms are needed prior to the forthcoming enlargement.
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<SPEAKER ID=272 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Monti.
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The debate is closed.
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The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
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(The sitting was closed at 11.30 p.m.)
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<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
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Are there any comments?
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<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stockmann">
Mr President, I wish to lodge a complaint regarding the fact that, for some time now, the night sittings - such as that on Tuesday - have not been covered in the press reports. In my opinion, we cannot discriminate against individual policy areas.
Please be so good as to find out why this is happening.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Stockmann.
We will look into that for you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Mr President, I should like to raise a point which I have already raised at previous Strasbourg sittings.
On 7 April, I tabled a written question to the President of Parliament, in other words to the Chair, concerning the supply of furniture for the bars and restaurants of the Leopold building.
I tabled this question on 7 April.
That is nearly six months ago, Mr President, and I have still not received an answer.
The question has been put to you, and and I wonder why I have not received an answer.
I would repeat that I have raised this on several previous occasions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel.
We are preparing the reply and I hope you will receive it very shortly.
But I will do my best to ensure that the presidency sends it to you as soon as possible.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
5th framework programme
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0324/98), on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0419/98-97/0309(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Decision concerning the rules for the participation of undertakings, research centres and universities and for the dissemination of research results for the implementation of the Fifth Framework Programme of the European Community (1998-2000) (Rapporteur: Mr Marset Campos).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="Marset Campos">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, at this second reading I would like to thank the efforts of the Commission and the Council in accepting a considerable number of the suggestions put forward by our Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
In this respect, I should like to point out that the two debates that took place in committee were marked by unanimity and a common desire to accept the proposals put forward by the Commission through increased effort.
<P>
I would like to briefly outline the main issues that our committee thought should be retained at second reading so that they can be taken into consideration by the Commission and the Council.
The first issue relates to the nature of innovation in scientific research.
Our colleague Mr van Velzen is quite right to stress that in some innovative projects an exception may be made to the rule that an enterprise filing a request must have been operational for less than a year, and that those involved must guarantee the necessary scientific abilities as a group filing a request.
<P>
Another of our suggestions in relation to the advance financing period follows similar lines in that, for the same reason I mentioned earlier, highly innovative projects should not receive such funding for more than six months.
<P>
And finally, I shall mention the last point in relation to this issue of the importance of scientific innovation.
We are putting forward a proposal that states that in a rapidly changing market in terms of innovation, highly innovative projects may be altered while in progress.
We believe that this is important for certain research sectors so that they can increase their competitiveness.
<P>
We are also putting forward another proposal aimed at guaranteeing the European Union's right to the knowledge resulting from work carried out where the cost borne by the Community is higher than 50 %, and not when it is below this figure.
<P>
In addition, we are anxious to improve access to the dissemination and assessment of the results obtained, and to facilitate electronic communication through methods that currently exist, from the Internet to other forms that are continuous, efficient, flexible and fast. And here we must reiterate our constant request that all European Union languages be used.
<P>
Finally, another basic question remains at this second reading, which arises as a result of the growing awareness in our Community of potential fraudulent activity.
Such awareness is understandable within the European Union and it is therefore important to have this opportunity to put forward suggestions aimed at preventing it from occurring.
We have seen this happen recently in some of the decisions made by this very House in relation to some highly sensitive issues, such as humanitarian programmes.
In addition, for some time now the committee has been receiving complaints from both university departments and companies concerning possible discrimination and flaws in respect of equal conditions.
And I would like to refer to the fact that, with the implementation of the fifth framework programme, we can introduce amendments that will detect possible irregularities and thus take the appropriate measures that are necessary to eradicate them.
<P>
The Commission's response to this suggestion surprises us because it says that we lack the legal framework to enable such decisions to be taken.
Our support for this proposal is based on a ruling by the European Court of Justice that does, in fact, make this possible.
I believe that when it comes to guaranteeing public funds and the interests of the Union, Regulation No 2988/95 provides for this.
So we do not understand its negative response when it is evident that these issues need greater attention.
<P>
Mr President, we are therefore proposing these measures in the hope that the Commission and the Council will accept them and that they will be voted for in this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Collado">
Mr President, I believe that the rapporteur clearly explained the amendments approved in the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy and I shall therefore not go over them again.
<P>
I would, however, like to stress the fact that, as this is a second reading, it would perhaps be worth refreshing our memories as to what the dissemination of results implies.
We have often spoken about ways in which we can link scientific research and social and economic cohesion.
This is an essential step towards ensuring that research results do not remain in captive markets or limited to those areas that carry out the research, but that they can benefit initially the entire industrial sector, and then the research sector in general.
<P>
We have often tended to repeat research activities and to invent the wheel far too many times in various research projects.
I believe that the dissemination of results is of vital importance to enable a substantial section of the research and business sectors to benefit from European Union investments, and not only in the areas where the research has been carried out but throughout the European economy.
<P>
And in relation to the fifth framework programme, I have to say that it is precisely those areas that have an impact on the dissemination of results that are scarcely accepted and considered from a budgetary point of view.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Velzen, W.G.">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should firstly like to thank the rapporteur for the exceptionally constructive and enjoyable manner in which we were able to cooperate.
<P>
We are now at second reading, and when you look at the document you find we have the same amendments as were submitted at first reading.
I am rather disappointed at this, as I have the feeling that the discussion between Parliament and the Commissioner fell on deaf ears somewhat.
In my view, Parliament proposed some excellent amendments, but the Commissioner ultimately decided to ignore them completely as her letter was already ready when we discussed them in Brussels and she simply failed to take them into account.
I therefore sincerely hope that now at second reading we will receive more support from the Commissioner.
In this instance, I should like to ask Commissioner Papoutsis if he can perhaps convey a different message than Mrs Cresson did at first reading.
<P>
It is of course Articles 4, 8, 10 and 12 which are at issue here.
I should simply like to say that the research contracts under the fifth framework programme and the dissemination of research results are at least as important as the content of the fifth framework programme itself.
If these contracts are not correctly drawn up, then we could find ourselves involved in a lot of discussion about money, as this is what is ultimately at stake.
It is essential to realise that if you want rapid innovation - and that is what we want to promote, since it is that which creates employment - then you cannot have bureaucracy and you must make provision in advance for the nature of rapid innovations.
This also means flexibility in the regulations, with which a number of our amendments are concerned.
<P>
The second point is the following. We have concluded, notably following the research undertaken by this House in connection with ESPRIT and the telecommunications and applications programmes, that there is room for a great deal of improvement in the area of evaluation.
One of the key points is that the contract does not state what evaluation output criteria a project must satisfy.
If this is not laid down in advance, it is difficult to subsequently determine the results of such a project.
The contract also fails to include requirements concerning the dissemination of a project's results.
<P>
In this respect, much greater use must also be made of electronic communication.
I believe that if we include a number of proposals of this kind in the contracts for the fifth framework programme it will prove all the more effective and efficient.
This is why I hope that this House will once again approve these proposals and that the Commissioner will finally adopt them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Liberal Group supports the initiative of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy to submit for second reading all Parliament's amendments which were not accepted by the Council.
This is because the amendments in Mr Marset Campos's report are excellent, as is the report itself.
I therefore regret the arrogance shown by Mrs Cresson on this matter.
<P>
My group would like to underline two particular points.
First of all, Amendment No 5 which states that the research contracts must lay down how the research results obtained must be disseminated and implemented. In addition, the contract must stipulate the output criteria.
My group fully supports this amendment, and I will shortly be returning to this point myself in my report on innovation in SMEs. I will also be returning to the matters which Mr van Velzen has just mentioned.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, research under the fifth framework programme must not be an end in itself.
Research without making use of the results and thus without follow-up of implementation is of no purpose.
The provisions of Amendment No 5 can solve this problem.
Research must lead to innovation, by which I mean product innovation, because in that case European research strengthens our industry's ability to compete and this in turn creates employment.
<P>
My second point, ladies and gentlemen, concerns adequate financial management.
Research projects must be subject to control and measures to combat fraud.
We owe this to European taxpayers.
This applies to contracts and it also applies to the Commission.
The Commission is repeatedly a poor payer when it comes to research projects. Small businesses are particularly hurt by this.
My group therefore hopes that the directive approved last month with the aim of tackling this problem of late payments in the Union will also stimulate the Commission to pay more promptly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Mr President, first of all I wish to congratulate Mr Marset Campos and the whole committee on an excellent decision.
I think the rapporteur made exactly the right decision in repeating his views as expressed at first reading.
The views of the committee were well reasoned from the start.
None of the aims have vanished into thin air, but are well-founded, concrete and serious.
I think it is most odd that Council has not been able to approve them.
For example, the agreement procedures that are involved in highly innovative projects must be very flexible, as the rapporteur states.
The research market changes very quickly and the results of research must also be put to use very quickly.
This requires flexibility in the agreement procedure.
<P>
I also think that the view on combating fraud is particularly important.
It should be an aspect of all financial aid that the EU makes available, including that given to research, obviously.
Fraud prevention should also be common to, and standard in, all Union activity and should also be clearly and tightly regulated to a sufficient extent across the board.
Although I imagine that fraud is rarer in the field of research than elsewhere, there must be vigilance in this area too.
It is also a matter of the trust of our citizens, however - trust in how the EU works and how funds are used there.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Cellai">
Mr President, Europe is clearly lagging behind in research and technological development. The research effort is extremely patchy, the link between research and innovation is inadequate, coordination between the various individuals involved presents problems, the rules about disseminating research results are weak, and investment is too limited.
<P>
Quite obviously, in the current era of globalization, our backwardness gives cause for concern to say the least.
So there is a vital need to promote innovation and coordinate it with various specific programmes involving businesses, research centres and universities more closely, thus ensuring consistency and continuity of methods and synergies favouring innovation.
There is a clear need for greater transparency and clear rules, and a simple horizontal framework needs to be created to promote scientific progress. Taking account of the responsibilities involved in carrying out the specific programmes, this should include measures to promote innovation and ensure the transfer of technologies, it should incorporate and guarantee effective coordination with the activities envisaged by the specific programmes, and it should facilitate the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises.
<P>
They must be assured of positive exchanges of experience, dissemination of results and transfer of technology by improving existing laws, and especially by using liaison and innovation centres intensively, and rationalising data bank systems.
The development of human potential needs to be highlighted in the context of innovation, with incentives provided for training, mobility and researcher and scientist exchanges, in particular for SMEs, and contacts between the academic, scientific and industrial communities need to be strengthened.
<P>
Finally, the downward trend in funding and the impact this has on basic research are a danger signal for the future of the framework programme for research, and particularly threaten to accentuate the brain-drain in European researchers. That really must be avoided.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Quisthoudt-Rowohl">
Mr President, firstly I would like to thank the rapporteur for his cooperation and also for completing the report early enough to allow it to be used in the areas of the consultations on the fifth framework programme specifically relating to small and medium-sized companies.
It is small and medium-sized enterprises which are very often highly innovative and create the jobs that we need in order to cope with the difficulties experienced in Europe today.
Because they are highly innovative but also relatively small, they have greater difficulty in gaining access to European programmes than large companies.
<P>
For this reason I would once again urge the Commission to continue the measures it has already introduced in order to facilitate access: simplifying administrative procedures, shortening the duration of the processes involved and, in particular, providing reasons for rejection, which is simply a question of courtesy.
In addition, I would like to raise a point which is covered in one of the amendments: there have to be controls where taxpayers' money is being spent, but this does not mean that each applicant should automatically be treated as a potential criminal, which sometimes happens, or at least this impression is sometimes given.
<P>
Finally, I would urge that we should use a flexible definition of the term SME, as in the framework programme.
Of course, we must agree on limits, but above and below these limits there must be room for a degree of flexibility which can be applied without having to debate it at length.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, the application process for research projects is a difficult and awkward one, so it has to be made easier and less cumbersome in order that SMEs are also better able to participate.
A whole new profession has now emerged, solely engaged in the drafting of applications.
In addition, negative decisions and the reasons for them have to be submitted in writing.
<P>
The importance of information technology in communications between the different parties involved in projects cannot be emphasised enough.
I hope that Council will consider Parliament's request, as information technology can also help to reduce red tape and the rigidity that exists in administration.
In this way, there will be sufficiently more resources for researchers to carry out their research work.
<P>
We have to make rules in the fight against fraud so as to be able to intervene quickly and effectively when there are problems.
Investigators in such cases must have all possible resources to intervene, and we must not have a situation, such as that publicised here recently, where not all the documents are to hand.
There has to be more openness, therefore, but not at the cost of the protection of information.
Finally, I would like to express my thanks to the rapporteur, as this is a very important part of the whole fifth framework programme, which we will hopefully be implementing on schedule.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Vaz da Silva">
Mr President, in the application of Community science and research policy, the aspects of participation and dissemination are of central importance for countries such as Portugal.
<P>
I had the opportunity to speak at greater length about the Marset Campos report at first reading.
Therefore, I will now confine myself to the single matter of SMEs.
In the Council, Portugal, together indeed with the majority of Parliament, defended the importance of maintaining the definition of SMEs at the level of 500 workers.
This is the only way in which to guarantee the participation of the most innovative and dynamic companies in research projects in smaller countries.
The Council did not agree, and in its common position of last June it adhered strictly to the definition of SMEs contained in the 1996 recommendation at a level of 250 workers.
<P>
Having lost that battle, we must now win the war.
It is the war of the SMEs.
And the question is an eminently political one, concerning the role that must be given to SMEs in the execution of the framework programme and its individual programmes.
The possibility of strengthening the Europe's science sector and its capacity for innovation and flexibility depend on our emerging victorious from this war.
<P>
In this matter, small continues to be beautiful.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Papoutsis">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me first thank the European Parliament and especially the rapporteur, Mr Marset Campos, for the work accomplished during consideration of the Council's common position at second reading. In part, this common position reflects the position Parliament expressed at first reading, and which helps to make the rules of participation and dissemination clearer and easier to understand.
Thus today we have a text which takes into account both the experience gained from past framework programmes and the objectives of the fifth framework programme.
<P>
The Commission understands Parliament's concerns, which are embodied in the amendments tabled at second reading.
Despite that, for the reasons given at first reading, the Commission cannot accept them.
In fact, some amendments either tend to introduce rules of day-to-day practice into texts of principle which are required to form the framework within which the whole of research policy is to operate - and I refer here to Amendments Nos 7 and 10 - or are already covered by existing provisions, such as Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 11.
<P>
The Commission also considers that for other amendments, such as Amendments Nos 3, 4, 5, 8 and 9, the rules of participation and dissemination do not constitute the appropriate legal instrument to make them acceptable.
However, more especially as regards combating fraud, the Commission intends to make an early start on the work which should eventually lead to the publication of a sectoral regulatory measure relating to research in particular, in accordance with the provisions of the Council regulation on the protection of the Community's financial interests.
<P>
To sum up, the Commission takes the view that the Community should have proprietary rights over results stemming from measures whose cost it has borne in full, as mentioned for example in Amendment No 6.
The rules of participation and dissemination are an essential phase in the context of the next framework programme's implementation.
<P>
For the moment, the Commission's aim is to set the fifth framework programme in motion at a rapid rate.
It also aims to ensure the continuation of research activity in the Community.
Of course, I agree with you completely that access by SMEs to research and technology programmes should be facilitated.
However, the fifth framework programme is clearly orientated towards such enterprises.
<P>
As regards the definition of SMEs, there is indeed a common position from the Council.
However, the Commission has undertaken to look further into the matter so that we can find the best possible solution and definition, in order to ensure the maximum possible participation by SMEs in research and technology programmes.
<P>
We rely on you to help us realise that aim and achieve the overall approval of the framework programme, which will make available the means we need to face the challenges to which it will have to respond.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for your attention and for the cooperation we have enjoyed so far, both on behalf of the Commission and in particular on behalf of my colleague, Mrs Edith Cresson.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Energy sector - ETAP - SURE - Solid fuels - SYNERGY
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0340/98 by Mr W.G. van Velzen, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision adopting a multiannual framework programme for actions in the energy sector (1998-2002) and connected measures (COM(97)0550 - C4-0070/98-97/0302(CNS)); -A4-0335/98 by Mr W.G. van Velzen, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision adopting a multiannual programme of studies, analyses, forecasts and other related work in the energy sector (1998-2002) (ETAP programme) (COM(98)0423 - C4-0487/98-98/0233(CNS)); -A4-0323/98 by Mr W.G. van Velzen, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision adopting a multiannual programme (1998-2002) of actions in the nuclear sector, relating to the safe transport of radioactive materials and to safeguards and industrial cooperation to promote certain aspects of the safety of nuclear installations in countries currently participating in the TACIS programme (SURE programme) (COM(98)0423 - C4-0488/98-98/0234(CNS)); -A4-0339/98 by Mr Adam, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision adopting a multiannual programme of technological actions promoting the clean and efficient use of solid fuels (1998-2002) (COM(97)0550 - C4-0074/98-97/0372(CNS)); -A4-0322/98 by Mr Soulier, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation adopting a multiannual programme to promote international cooperation in the energy sector (SYNERGY programme) (1998-2002) (COM(97)0550 - C4-0073/98-97/0369(CNS)).
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="van Velzen, W.G.">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to congratulate the Commissioner on the publication of this framework programme.
It is an exceptionally important initiative, since it is in this way that we can incorporate all the energy programmes within a single framework.
I also believe that it is necessary in order to prevent overlapping and simply to make the energy framework programme more transparent.
When you have small programmes for every possible field, it is of course very difficult to gain an overall view of what exists in the various programmes and what the difference is between SAVE, Altener and ENERGY for example.
I believe that this energy framework programme satisfies a major desire on the part of the Council and the European Parliament.
<P>
An energy framework programme naturally has a great many consequences.
It therefore requires considerable thought.
First of all, it means that horizontal coordination within DG XVII must be increased in order to ensure that programmes are coherent, but secondly - and in fact we believe this to be even more important - it means that there will be horizontal coordination between the DGs.
<P>
I will give you two examples to illustrate why this is so important.
We all know that after Kyoto savings are going to have to be made in the energy sector.
Energy policy will play a crucial role in this.
Energy policy must not become a part of environment policy, since in that case the two other objectives of energy policy, namely security of supply and price competition, will be made subordinate to the environment objective and of course we do not want that.
But it is of course clear that a great deal must be done in this field.
I therefore believe that we must ensure that energy policy plays a more prominent role and that subsequently a contribution can also be made to achieving the Kyoto objectives.
<P>
The second example is of course what is taking place at the moment in Central and Eastern Europe.
Enlargement is on the way.
Yet there is no acquis communautaire , neither in the energy field nor in the nuclear field.
This also means that the energy sector must play an important role in this respect.
It is therefore important for Commissioner Papoutsis to have an instrument available, in relation to his colleague Mr van den Broek of DG I A, in order to also impose horizontal coordination.
I believe this is to be welcomed, and I therefore also hope that the Commissioner makes use of the new instrument and am also pleased that there is already talk of coordination and discussion between the DGs under Director-General Benavides.
I believe this is the right approach.
<P>
The legal bases were of course necessary for the two other smaller programmes: ETAP and SURE.
ETAP is clearly very important as it provides the information needed in order to implement a long-term energy policy.
<P>
In connection with the general energy framework programme, we have become rather more ambitious by calling for more attention to be paid to a couple of points: first of all, to combined heat and power and, secondly, to implementing the gas and electricity directive, where it is important to monitor the situation.
Amendment No 9, point 1g is very important.
We therefore hope that the Commission will report regularly to us on this aspect of the implementation of the gas and electricity directive, because we believe this to be of key importance.
<P>
The fourth paragraph of Amendment No 9 is also very important, as this can permit further horizontal coordination, not only to include the European Union but also other bodies, such as the European Investment Bank, which could implement a great many projects. A certain form of control from the European Union is exceptionally important in this area.
<P>
Mr President, nuclear energy commands our constant attention.
Under the SURE programme we have made the greatest possible efforts to ensure the highest possible safety standards.
But I hope that the coalition we now have between the SPD and the Greens in Germany will not result in an abandoning of the position previously taken on nuclear energy by the Socialist Group.
That would be to engage in national coalition politics, and we must not use the European Parliament for that purpose.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Adam">
Mr President, solid fuel, the subject of my report, is not exactly the favourite fuel.
Yet 15 % of our primary energy consumption last year in the European Union was in fact solid fuel and in world terms it still accounts for 25 % of fuel use.
We use, in world terms, more solid fuel than we were consuming in 1990.
World trade in coal is rising and it is clear that coal and solid fuels generally will continue to play a key role on the world energy scene for a long time ahead.
This is particularly true if you look at China and India.
<P>
It is important, in enlargement terms, in relation to Poland.
It is also important in relation to our cooperation agreements with other countries of Eastern Europe, particularly Russia and the Ukraine.
The key words in my report are 'lean' and 'clean': lean, efficient use of solid fuel and clean combustion ensuring that atmospheric emissions are not injurious to health.
These are the objectives for solid fuel use in the future.
<P>
Technologies exist and others are being developed.
Only last week I had the opportunity and privilege of being with Commissioner Papoutsis when he launched an advanced ultra-super-critical steam power plant project which will achieve an efficiency of 55 % in a pulverized fuel plant using steam at a temperature of 700 degrees centigrade.
Forty companies in the European Union are involved in this very imaginative project.
<P>
It is worth recalling that the world market for power generating equipment is ECU 3 billion a year and this is expected to rise to ECU 6 billion by the year 2005.
Here is an opportunity for European industry to make a huge contribution, not only to its own balance sheet but also to the clean use of coal in other parts of the world.
<P>
The programme that my report presents to the House will provide a much-needed spur for disseminating information regarding the existing technologies and stimulate further research and demonstration using the European Union's research and development programmes and the financial resources that are available to us.In terms of Community finance, this is perhaps a small programme.
The cost is tiny.
The potential for European industry and the scope to promote clean combustion of solid fuel is huge.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="Soulier">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am going to speak as part of the consultation procedure on a multiannual programme called SYNERGY, which is aimed at promoting international cooperation in the energy sector.
<P>
We have three main objectives here: to help third countries to define, formulate and implement energy policies, to promote industrial cooperation on energy between our Union and third countries, and to coordinate the European Union's external activities in the field of energy.
<P>
The programme is already under way.
Moreover, the way in which the Commission is carrying out this task is quite remarkable, Commissioner.
Current measures include providing advice and training on energy, analysing forecasts, establishing dialogue, encouraging the exchange of information, improving frameworks for cooperation and training people.
<P>
However, let us be clear about one thing: SYNERGY is not the type of programme that would involve building a power station, for example, or that would enable us to reform an entire gas sector.
No, this is a small programme: it only has ECU 36.4 million available over five years, which means that it would be very limited if it was aimed at specific schemes.
The objective is, in fact, to take part in general discussions and prospective analysis, and to enable some projects to get off the ground, before they are taken over by large programmes such as PHARE, TACIS or MEDA, and we have expressed the wish to have this complementarity clarified.
What defines the specific character of the programme, to which we are very committed, is that it constitutes a forum for exchange and a source of experience and knowledge that helps third countries to control their production and consumption of energy.
<P>
I would just like to highlight two or three points.
We know today that energy consumption in the world is constantly increasing.
I have heard what has been said on the television about the hole in the ozone layer, which is constantly growing.
We must not let go of our concerns about energy; we must keep them in mind.
This increase in energy consumption is going to continue, certainly at a moderate pace in the OECD countries, but more rapidly in Asia and in Latin America, and, to a slightly lesser extent, in the Mediterranean basin.
<P>
Secondly, it is essential that we work with others, because our resources are not inexhaustible and Europeans are in a position of energy dependency, which affects their security.
It is obvious that helping South America or Asia to draw up more reasonable energy policies that are more environmentally friendly can only be beneficial to the planet as a whole, and this directly concerns our security.
<P>
My last point is that SYNERGY is not an entirely new programme.
We have had a legal basis since 1995, and the funds for the programme are tending to decrease, despite the fact that, as I said, SYNERGY is essential in terms of international cooperation, in talking to others, and note that I did not say 'in talking to foreigners'.
This is why I have asked in an amendment that the contribution to SYNERGY be fixed at 18 % of the total amount earmarked for the Framework Programme for Energy, as otherwise funds could be cut further.
<P>
In conclusion, I would say that this programme is obviously a small one, but it has proved itself.
With limited means it has managed to achieve some interesting goals that have real implications.
It may appear less important when compared to other big programmes such as Save and Altener, the two other major components of the Framework Programme for Energy, but that would be forgetting that SYNERGY alone is responsible for the external aspects of energy policy.
We would therefore be ill-advised and lacking in foresight to deprive ourselves of such an instrument for international cooperation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, when we talk about energy, we are talking about a way of life and a policy of security.
Energy consumption is growing, as has been pointed out already, but non-renewable energy resources are not being renewed.
As a result, people living in industrialised countries may be in for a shock when it comes to their way of life.
<P>
Furthermore, it has to be seen than dependence on imports is increasing.
More and more energy is being imported from countries outside the EU area.
This is because traditional energy resources are cheap.
Fossil fuels are cheap - I would say too cheap, because there is no incentive to alter the basis of energy production.
By the year 2020, the EU area's dependence on oil importation will have increased to a figure of 90 %, and the figures for coal and gas will be 80 % and 70 % respectively.
We now have to ask ourselves if this is a desirable state of affairs to be in. Is this our aim?
If we do not want this kind of dependency on imports, we shall have to implement urgent measures for energy production in the EU area.
Those regions from which we import energy are often unstable.
Oil comes mainly from the Middle East, and gas from Russia.
If nothing is done, there will be no alternative but to rely on production in these regions.
<P>
Now the Commission has produced a common framework programme for the various energy programmes.
It is a good legal basis for budgetary spending in the EU.
But we really have to start from the notion that the EU ought to be using more resources for these sub-programmes, because if nothing is done, we shall be strategically dependent on imports from unstable countries.
<P>
We also have other restrictions on the use of energy, which have to be taken into consideration and to which EU countries are committed.
We have the Kyoto agreement, which is aimed at preventing climatic change.
If nothing is done, the EU will not embrace the aims spelt out in that agreement.
Member States have not yet embarked on measures to prevent carbon dioxide emissions.
The framework programme presents measures connected with pollution in an unsatisfactory way, and in particular pays too little attention to the fact that energy-saving schemes can help us try and have an impact on people's lives.
The matter was explained in a more satisfactory way in a Commission statement on the effect of Kyoto on traffic, and there are radical demands for a change in people's lifestyles that should be taken into account in other Union energy programmes.
<P>
Moreover, in the framework programme the question of taxation is hardly touched on.
Taxation is an indirect way of influencing energy-saving schemes and it is perhaps the most effective means of all, since other technological saving schemes may be noticed in the market, but the price in the consumer's mind is the decisive factor, and the price can be influenced by saving energy.
<P>
As for individual programmes, the CARNOT programme for the improvement of energy efficiency is really very modest and is founded mainly on an exchange of information.
It should be considered whether it is generally worth going ahead with such small-scale programmes, which receive so few resources.
I suggest that when the Commission reports back for the first time on the implementation of this programme, the whole thing should be reconsidered.
As for the alternatives, they are also mentioned in the framework programme.
The most important of them is Altener, which we will return to in the future, though personally I think it is going to be very hard to achieve a 12 % share for renewables in total energy production, if nothing is done.
<P>
Energy consumption is growing, then; dependence on imports is increasing, and the aims of the Kyoto agreement and the proposed objective in Altener for a 12 % share for renewable energy sources will not be achieved in this way.
With regard to this, I hope that Mr Papoutsis will change his rhetoric at our meeting on Tuesday, endeavouring to foster, as he does so, a spirit of hope and belief in these objectives.
It would be better if the Commission were to realise that these objectives will not be met.
Let us acknowledge the facts, including the fact that Member States are not really committed to these objectives at all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Linkohr">
Mr President, I agree almost one hundred per cent with what Mr Seppänen said.
I particularly liked his reference to the dangers of increased dependence on imports, which the Commission has also referred to on several occasions.
In this context, I would say that, when the euro is in place, any sudden rise in energy prices would represent a risk not only for energy policy but also for monetary policy.
We do not have time to debate this now, but I believe that it is clear.
<P>
I would like to thank the rapporteurs, Messrs van Velzen, Adam and Soulier, for these three excellent reports.
I would also like to thank the Commission for presenting this logical multiannual programme for the energy sector; as we have already said, it creates greater transparency and ties together various other programmes.
I am also very pleased that the question of safeguards, in other words the monitoring of nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union, has now been mentioned expressly within a programme.
Even if it does not involve much money, it is nevertheless a programme which is capable of improving our safety significantly.
<P>
One thing I would criticise - and this is not the fault of the Commission but that of the legal bases - is that we have a plethora of different articles which are enough to confuse the ordinary observer.
One programme is based on Article 35, another on Article 130s and a third on an article of the Euratom Treaty.
That is just how things are.
I repeat that I am not blaming the Commission but the European Union, which today has still not managed to bring energy issues together into one chapter, as is the case for the European networks, for example, and still has not allowed the European Parliament full co-decision rights.
<P>
If we are honest, all we do is to sit here and deliver opinions.
We are consulted, but no one really has to listen to what we say here.
Consultation means that you can give your opinion, which is then translated into eleven languages and finally thrown in the bin.
I know that the Commission takes what we say very seriously, but it is not obliged to do so.
This is unsatisfactory, and I would like at this point to emphasise once again that it is highly important for energy policy to be given its own legal basis and for Parliament to have full co-decision rights..
<P>
It has already been said that the cost of this programme is relatively low.
I have calculated it roughly.
Let us suppose that approximately ECU 150 billion is spent on energy investment per year in the European Union.
If the figure I have estimated is correct, this programme constitutes 0.03 % of total investment in energy.
It is not a huge amount, but we must be clear about what we can achieve with it.
<P>
At this point I would therefore like to propose that we concern ourselves not only with financial programmes but also with financial engineering.
I cannot think of any better term for this than the English one.
This involves gaining banks as partners in energy policy so that they can fund projects which border on being economically viable, while the particularly risky projects are financed from public funds.
I would urge the Commission and also Parliament's Committee on Budgets to attach greater importance to this issue.
Perhaps we can develop techniques - some are already available - to promote energy investment within the European Union.
<P>
I would like to thank the Commission once again for bringing the various programmes together, and I would also like to thank the rapporteurs once again; I hope we will continue to work on these issues in future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Estevan Bolea">
Mr President, Commissioner, I, too, would like to thank the three rapporteurs for their work on a programme that, although modest in financial terms, is of the utmost importance.
We all know why energy is not featured in the Treaty. However, Commissioner, the most important economic issue is in your hands, in your Directorate-General XVII.
Without energy, there is no quality of life whatsoever; without energy, there is no production.
<P>
In fact, if we take into account the world's commercial activities, the leading trade is the oil trade.
Out of the 10 largest companies in the world, more than half are energy companies. It was time for DG XVII to initiate work, work that constitutes a beginning, an embryo, but that needs to go much further.
And I would like to say, Commissioner, that more needs to be done than is currently feasible and you therefore have many tasks pending.
<P>
All environmental problems, or at least 80 % of the major problems, are in some way linked to energy.
And I think that DG XVII is somewhat shortsighted in its approach.
You need to examine the possible solutions and this is why I think the ETAP programme is so important.
We have liberalised some of the markets - electricity and gas - but you need to look at the direction in which we are heading.
To some extent, the security of our supplies is at stake, although there are now very cheap resources, as is our energy efficiency, as has already been pointed out; the intensity of Europe's energy use is extremely high.
We must use less energy in our production processes, and you have the task of working for everyone - and this House will also endeavour, through its Committee on Budgets - to ensure that more economic resources are allocated.
<P>
Now I should like to turn to the issue of coal, which also needs careful consideration.
Europe is lacking resources.
Apart from the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands to some extent, because it has gas, and, of course, Norway, the other countries have scant resources.
Spain's external dependency is around 70 %, and whatever little there is - be it good or bad -, we have to use.
This is why, in my opinion, the CARNOT programme is so important.
With enlargement, countries that will consume large amounts of coal are going to join.
Therefore, Commissioner, the issue of coal needs to be examined in depth, especially since we are continuing to use it: 50 % of the electricity produced in the world is generated by coal.
In the United States, this figure is higher and China's consumption is going to grow considerably, as is India's. We need clean fuel but, above all, we need fuel that is efficient.
<P>
And, in fact, environmental issues, which are so closely linked to energy, should be the subject of unofficial declarations and tackled through technology.
I am convinced that not only the fifth framework programme - I am rapporteur for the specific programme entitled 'Energy and the Environment' -, but all of the energy-related programmes, together with the means you will have at your disposal in the future, will help solve these problems.
In any case, I would like to congratulate the rapporteurs and the Commission - DG XVII - on their work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to express my pleasure at Commissioner Papoutsis's proposal to incorporate all the energy programmes within a single framework programme.
My group has stressed the need for this on many occasions and we welcome this initiative, even if it has come rather late.
I would also of course like to congratulate all this morning's rapporteurs on their excellent reports.
<P>
A single framework programme covering all energy measures has the advantage of allowing energy measures to respect a clear strategy.
This prevents overlapping between programmes.
It also permits a better use of limited budgets.
My group regrets that the Council regularly allocates insufficient financial resources to programmes aimed at energy efficiency and the promotion of sustainable energy.
This conflicts with the Union's undertakings at Kyoto.
It will not be possible to achieve the Kyoto objectives without new resources for research into new energy technologies.
<P>
Furthermore, Agenda 2000 identifies SAVE and Altener as priority programmes.
But what does the Commission mean by this, because the Council has drastically reduced the budget for these programmes?
What are the priorities?
It is thus to be hoped that the approaching Union enlargement will cause the Union to reflect, because it is precisely investments in Central and Eastern Europe which prove doubly profitable.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, the future energy situation of Europe and the world is being principally determined by the environment issue.
The Liberal Group has been arguing for an integrated approach to energy and the environment for many years.
My group believes that a single framework programme for energy and environment policy under the joint name of 'sustainable development' must be the Commission's next step.
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<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bloch von Blottnitz">
Mr President, the current framework programme on energy makes it strikingly clear once again what an obstacle it is that we do not have a separate chapter on energy.
The current framework programme on energy is by no means coherent, with a variety of legal bases, as Mr Linkohr already mentioned.
Funding is at laughably low levels and is not even worth discussing.
Under these circumstances it is impossible for us to fulfil our Kyoto commitments; the current situation will not provide a stimulus for the necessary innovations, nor will it allow us to become one jot less dependent on imported energy.
<P>
What is even more astonishing is the very awkward attempt in the form of the SURE programme to edge nuclear energy into the normal energy sector.
It is a Euratom matter, so there is nothing more to be said.
It covers only safeguards and the transport of radioactive materials, and while safeguards are certainly very important, they have nothing to do with this issue.
<P>
As far as the transport of radioactive materials is concerned, what is lacking in the Commission proposal is, firstly, a uniform and compulsory notification system.
We do not have this at all, as we saw with the scandals in my country in the spring, although they did result in all transport of radioactive materials being banned since then.
<P>
Then we need to agree on the requirements to be met by containers used to transport radioactive materials.
It is not acceptable that only computer simulations should be used, as has recently been the trend. Incidentally, this is banned in America.
Here I have to tell Mr van Velzen, who thought that we were suddenly in favour of animal experimentation, that this is nonsense!
But we do have vertical-shock tests and fire tests, and so on.
Currently, in the EU, very different containers are used for rail transport, and most of these should be banned as they no longer meet requirements.
<P>
Yet this would mean, firstly, that we would have to have an energy framework programme with substantial funds and uniform legal bases behind it, instead of organising a little bit here and a little bit there, and, secondly, that we would, of course, have to deal with every aspect of nuclear energy.
We finally need to get to grips with the issue of nuclear waste disposal, which will involve spending a great deal of money.
What will we do with existing nuclear waste?
It is only ever moved from one country to another, and no one knows where it goes.
Ideas in this area include transmutation techniques and vitrification.
We should invest our efforts and our funds in this; it is not sufficient to examine this issue only very briefly in the context of the transport and energy sector.
<P>
These are the tasks for the future, but they do not feature in the proposals under discussion.
I regret this very much.
I recognise the Commission's good intentions, but they fail to put us on the right track.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Ewing">
Mr President, in creating or attempting to create an energy policy I totally agree with Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz that we must have this one coordinated legal base and - I would suggest - one Commissioner to deal with it.
That would make a lot of sense.
<P>
We are told that the result of liberalization would be cheaper fuel.
However, I am sceptical about this being achieved in my own Member State under the current government.
Dependence on imports is phenomenal and will be even more so by the year 2020.
One speaker mentioned a figure of 70 % dependence for energy as a whole: oil 90 %; coal 80 %; gas 40 %.
Another speaker mentioned the fact that we would have to rely on imports from very unstable countries: this must worry us.
<P>
In relation to renewables, there are many possibilities but very little money is available and very little is being done.
In the UK the power of the nuclear lobby effectively stopped an excellent programme of hydro-electricity.
The Hydro-Electricity Board owned lots of land for more programmes but this was ended.
The nuclear lobby was too strong.
Then there was a marvellous programme from Professor Salter of Edinburgh University.
He invented something called Salter's Duck, a cheap way of producing wave energy.
My part of the world is entirely suitable for this, as it is for wind energy which has been very little developed - indeed, we could take a leaf out of Denmark's book with regard to its development of wind energy.
Salter's Duck was killed by the nuclear industry which said it would not be effective.
<P>
In the last year the UK Nuclear Inspectorate spent 136 days in Dounreay in my constituency.
If you work it out you find that each inspector was getting £5 000 a day.
They came out with 23 grave criticisms of Dounreay.
So, do not send your waste to Dounreay under any belief that it is going to be safely disposed of.
<P>
Recently the House of Commons was told after the event that Dounreay had taken in waste from Georgia in the interests of the safety of Europe.
It turned out that when it got there the license to reprocess had been withdrawn by the Nuclear Inspectorate, which had spent 136 days complaining about the discharges into the sea, into a waste shaft and into the land.
The House of Commons Trade and Industry Select Committee was critical of the culture of secrecy.
<P>
Going back to Salter's Duck, Tony Benn was the Secretary of State for Energy and admitted that he had misled the House of Commons that nuclear energy was safe, cheap and non-military.
It turns out that in June of this year it was admitted that the government had sent 73 kilogrammes of weapons-grade material to Aldermaston for military purposes.
This secrecy must stop.
Please do not let your countries send waste to Dounreay. We are not allowed to reprocess it.
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<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
Mr President, there is a need for a radical change of course in the EU's energy policy. Its sights should be set on the fastest possible transition to sustainability, with renewable energy sources explicitly stipulated as the main aim of the energy policy and energy prices clearly reflecting the real environmental costs.
Without such objectives set, the framework programme will lack the necessary vision.
Apart from a zero contribution to CO2 emissions, renewable energy sources offer long-term security of supply and remove the element of threat from the geopolitical context.
<P>
The Danish experience is unequivocal.
Good results were obtained by providing stable growth opportunities for private popular initiatives with satisfactory economic terms for the consumers, and without interference from the State.
Directives, central control and liberalisation actually constitute a potential threat to stable growth in the use of renewable energy.
There is instead a need for a broadly based effort, in which energy solutions for the future grow out of local initiatives promoted by both high-profile consumer groups and smaller institutions and firms. In contrast, the current heavy demands on administration and the high component of own financing in energy programmes have led to a concentration on established institutions and large firms with substantial capital resources, which do not need support.
I would welcome a framework programme based on the principles I have outlined, so I strongly urge you to support the Green amendments opposing nuclear energy, in particular Amendment No 17.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lataillade">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, our colleague Alain Pompidou who is the UPE coordinator for the issues we are discussing, has been detained away from this House and I offer his apologies.
<P>
It is my job to express our group's position in this joint debate on energy.
By way of introduction, I want to highlight the three aims of the Framework Programme for Energy, which would be set up for a five-year period from 1998 to 2002. It would aim to provide transparency, coherence and coordination of the actions carried out by the European Union, thus contributing to the security of supply, to competitiveness and to the protection of the environment.
<P>
The Framework Programme is based on three main objectives: providing a stable legal basis for the actions carried out by the Union; strengthening the coordination of all actions under the authority of the Commission's Directorate-General responsible for energy; and setting up a new framework for the coordination of activities in the energy field under other Community policies concerning, among others, the Structural Funds, external aid programmes and research programmes.
Our group will support the rapporteur's proposals aimed firstly at guaranteeing closer monitoring of the implementation of the 1996 directive on electricity and the 1998 directive on gas, with a view to ensuring the complete success of the internal energy market, in the interests of both European companies and households.
<P>
Secondly, we will support the proposals that aim to highlight the role that the Framework Programme should play in helping the enlargement process.
Thirdly and finally, we will support the proposals aimed at increasing transparency in monitoring, while stressing the fact that the budgetary funds allocated to the Framework Programme for Energy should enable it to face the challenges of the next decade.
<P>
What is more, our colleague Mr van Velzen has brought improvements to the ETAP programme through amendments that aim to strengthen the prospective analysis and monitoring of the market in two ways: the first involves the progressive liberalisation of the electricity and gas markets; and the second aims to guarantee a greater security of energy supply. The SURE programme aims to ensure safety in the transport of radioactive materials, especially in view of the enlargement to include countries that already participate in the TACIS programme.
It has our support.
With regard to André Soulier's report, to its great credit it ensures international cooperation in the field of energy policy from 1998 to 2002 by continuing the SYNERGY programme, which we support unreservedly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pinel">
Mr President, it is obviously a good thing to achieve a high level of security, in the nuclear field as in all other fields.
I think that the French nuclear industry, which has a high level of reliability, should be used as a reference for this matter.
Nevertheless, I would like us to discuss the energy issue in more detail.
I am among those who think that nuclear energy, whatever the level of security, is truly like a sword of Damocles hanging over our heads.
<P>
There are many types of risk.
Some are frequently discussed, while others, strangely, are passed over in silence. These include the human risk, of course, where an error in operation could cause a catastrophe like Chernobyl, and the technological risk linked to the ageing of materials.
Who can tell us that our successors, the political leaders in 20 or 40 years time, will be wise enough to renew nuclear equipment, especially if there is a serious and chronic economic crisis?
There is also the terrorist risk, which does exist, and finally, there is the risk of war, which is never discussed.
<P>
Tell me, ladies and gentlemen, what the prime targets would be for possible missiles in a conflict?
They would be the power stations, of course, and therefore nuclear power stations.
All nuclear power stations are thus vulnerable to being destroyed, no matter how reliable they are.
In any case, it has long been accepted that zero risk does not exist.
<P>
The conclusion seems obvious to me: we need to stop, progressively of course, but we do need to stop, using nuclear power.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="McNally">
Mr President, congratulations to the rapporteurs and Commissioner Papoutsis, who has not had an easy task here.
He never does have an easy task, given that the implications of energy spread across several committees.
<P>
It has been very interesting to hear so much consensus this morning.
I feel extremely European after hearing more or less the same speech in 11 different languages, albeit with some differences of emphasis and with different views, clearly, on nuclear matters.
<P>
We welcome the framework.
It provides a sort of legal base.
Having struggled with the budget of the energy programmes over the last two years I was aware of that lack.
It gives us that legal base for a set period although I have the same reservations as Mr Linkohr about the lack of a uniform legal base.
The budget is inadequate.
<P>
I too regret, as previous speakers have, the failure of Member States to insert an energy chapter during the discussions in Amsterdam.
There are far more aspects to energy than just environmental aspects.
Mr Adam clearly indicated the export possibilities for coal technology.
I like his phrase 'lean and clean'.
Perhaps it does not translate well into all languages, but in English it is an excellent sound bite.
<P>
Not all aspects of energy are included in this framework.
Some of the Euratom aspects are missing, as well as research, structural funds, MEDA and large aspects of PHARE and TACIS.
Development aid, agriculture, transport and tax all have energy implications.
If there is to be a restructuring of the committees in Parliament let us not fall into the trap of thinking that an Environment Committee could possibly undertake to look at all the aspects of energy.
We need quite complex discussions on energy in the event of any sort of restructuring, which may well be an interesting idea.
<P>
I have said before that the Euratom Treaty was a very efficient way of promoting nuclear energy, on which we have varied views.
We need an intergovernmental agreement which gives us something similar in the field of renewable energy and energy efficiency.
I have put my suggestions before you.
Maybe 'charter' is a better word than 'treaty', and certainly more achievable.
I hope the Commissioner will do some work on this.
We will shortly give him a tool to encourage him to carry out work on that basis.
<P>
I am pleased that some of the Euratom work is now being incorporated into a comprehensive energy framework, so that one management committee will encompass the work of the SURE.
That should be continued and encouraged.
It is quite absurd to have two separate Treaties dealing with something as fundamental and complicated as energy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, we are facing an immense challenge.
While we plan enlargement towards the east, our dependence on imported energy is growing.
We have to try and make sure the energy is delivered.
But just as much a priority, I think, is the development of high standards of safety in all nuclear power stations and in the transportation of radioactive materials.
These demands must also feature in negotiations on membership.
The aims in the energy document for cooperation between Eastern Europe and the EU in matters of safety, the environment and energy must be implemented.
<P>
The added benefit of combined heat and power production is an effective means of getting nearer to the Kyoto objectives and will have a positive impact on EU environmental policy.
That is how a cost-effective use of energy will make progress in Member States in the short and medium term.
Combined production ties in closely with the national objectives of Member States, but in spite of this we also need investment at Community level.
The Union should try and adopt an overall view of the promotion of combined production and allow the market to decide on the competitiveness of fuels.
If the aim is a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, the only feasible solution to the basic energy question is nuclear power and renewable energy sources.
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<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
Mr President, in my view we have before us two major tasks facing society in the energy field.
The first is to stimulate environmentally friendly energy sources which are sustainable in the long term, especially biological energy resources, for example wood fuels, pellets, briquettes and biogas, in order in that way to achieve sustainability in energy use.
The second task is to phase out nuclear power, oil and coal, which are not sustainable in the long term.
<P>
It is important that all this be done in stages: we who are elected representatives promote measures to phase out nuclear power and the burning of the fossil fuels, oil and coal, so that the market in turn gets the stimulus it needs to concentrate efforts on the development of renewable energy sources.
If this is done in the right way and with vigour, we shall in the long term be able to stimulate a sustainable energy market in environmentally friendly fuels for future generations.
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<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Mr President, when we listen to speakers here, we hear the words 'environment', 'long-term', 'secure and sustainable energy systems' and affirmations that these are what we should be building on.
That means of course that the majority here will also be voting today for the amendments tabled by the Greens.
These seek to promote precisely those ingredients: environment, sustainability, security and long-term action.
<P>
In Sweden we are about to start on the phasing out of nuclear power.
Following the change of government in Germany, nuclear power will also be phased out in Germany.
The EU must adapt to reality too and have some faith in the future.
The EU cannot continue to hold the nuclear power industry in its embrace indefinitely, but must break loose and set its sights on development and the future and on renewable energy sources.
These do not include nuclear power, oil or coal!
<P>
I therefore hope that the majority here will support Mr Bloch von Blottnitz who, on behalf of the V Group, has tabled these amendments calling for nuclear power to be phased out.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, the energy sector is changing fast.
The gas and electricity market has been further liberalised.
In the future, we will be increasingly dependent on energy sources outside the Union.
This is why we strongly advocate energy savings and the further stimulation of alternative energy sources.
Every effort must be made to greatly increase the relative share of sustainable energy sources.
In order to arrive at a share of 12 % or even 15 % in 2020, we need more in the way of tax and agricultural policy.
Research to improve and further develop solar energy must also be encouraged.
<P>
Coordination and integration by means of a framework programme is desirable in order to coordinate the individual energy programmes.
It is a good thing that the proposed framework programme will actively monitor developments, including analyses and forecasts.
But when it comes to activities in the nuclear sector we could not be more reluctant.
As long as there are good prospects of alternative energy sources, which are safer and for which waste production is less of a problem, then our preference goes to them.
We agree with the rapporteur to also include candidate Member States in improving nuclear safety.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kronberger">
Mr President, the decision concerning the future use of energy in Europe is one of the most crucial questions facing the European Union.
I have a feeling that the Commission has not yet fully recognised the significance of the energy issue.
Certainly some praiseworthy efforts can be seen, such as the announcement that the White Paper on renewable energies is to be implemented.
But the ALTENER II programme, which has almost no funds, is insufficient to achieve a change in energy policy.
<P>
There are five reasons why we need to change our energy policy.
The environmental reasons are clear.
Then there is also job creation, the protection of resources and the export market which we cannot afford to leave to Japan and the United States.
The most important point is that wars are currently being waged for energy resources, and as these energy resources are depleted the number of wars will increase.
Nuclear power is certainly not the solution.
<P>
Even in recent weeks we have heard of reactor problems in France, the quintessential nuclear state, where even security of supply was not guaranteed.
Yesterday the dreadful news came from Chernobyl that a worst-case scenario on a larger scale than 1986 is possible.
The changes to the programme proposed in Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz's amendments are therefore vital.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graenitz">
Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking the rapporteurs for their work. I will concentrate on two points.
<P>
The first concerns the legal basis.
As some of the previous speakers have already mentioned, it is very good that with this multiannual programme for energy we have created a legal basis at least for a period of five years.
However, I think it is only a stop-gap measure.
What we really need is an energy chapter in the Treaty covering all forms of energy, so that they all receive equal attention and so that we do not have a situation like the present in which nuclear energy receives more funding than all other types and is given preferential treatment.
<P>
In my opinion, an energy chapter of this kind would also help us achieve what Mr van Velzen mentioned, an acquis communautaire in the sector with uniform standards and rules on how certain power stations - and here I do not mean only nuclear power stations - must be set up and what sort of security measures must be taken.
In this way we could also help improve transparency of cost in the internal market in electricity.
A power station which converts renewable energies into electricity requires the local fire brigade in case of emergency.
A nuclear power station requires a range of security measures, and it is possible that a whole area may no longer be habitable if an accident occurs.
<P>
The second point which I would like to discuss is the need for a sustainable energy policy to achieve the Kyoto targets.
In this area it is not sufficient to pay lip service.
Otherwise we will not achieve the Kyoto targets, and we will miss the chance to gear the European economy to a modern awareness of the needs of the environment, climate and the protection of resources.
Since the Americans think too much in the short term and have not yet recognised that switching the economy over to energy-saving measures and the use of alternative energies gains much more than its initial cost, we as Europeans have the opportunity not only to take the lead in wanting to protect the environment, but also to push our own industry towards innovation.
When resources were scarce the pressure to innovate was always considerably greater than when we could rely on having a plentiful supply and did not have to concern ourselves with how energy and other resources were used.
<P>
I would like to conclude by repeating a sentence which I first said in the House when the Auto Oil Programme was passed.
Modern industrial policy is the same thing as environmental policy, and in order to allow the Union to develop better we must allow energy policy to overlap with environmental policy too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Vaz da Silva">
Mr President, if we are to integrate into a framework programme the wide range of activities in the spheres of international cooperation studies and analyses, renewable energies, energy efficiency, efficient use of solid fuels and nuclear safety, we clearly need an appropriate strategy for developing the sector.
<P>
Since the van Velzen, Soulier and Adam reports deal individually with the programmes in question, and very competently, I will say only that I hope to see the programmes that are currently in force, including the ALTENER and SAVE programmes, incorporated in the first framework programme for energy, although I know that some members of the Council are opposed to this.
<P>
Whether such programmes are incorporated in the framework programme or not, they should in any case be given an increased budget, since convergence in this sphere is far from complete and cohesion in Europe should include energy as well as economic and social matters.
<P>
Moreover, the Union's energy policy must be sufficiently clear and strong to prevail over the nuclear lobbies.
I will end by saying, on the subject of including the environment in the co-decision procedure, that I think it would be preferable if the programme had both Article 235 and Article 130 as its legal bases.
The quality of the framework programme can only benefit from an emphasis on the environmental dimension and from the fuller involvement of Parliament in decisions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lange">
Mr President, Commissioner, thank you for trying to bring together various elements of European energy policy.
I know how difficult that is because energy policy is really a difficult terrain.
I would like to comment further on two points.
The first concerns the way in which we deal with nuclear energy. The majority of countries in the European Union eschew nuclear energy, and some countries which formerly used it are currently preparing to abandon it.
Even one of the larger Member States is now taking significant steps to begin this process.
<P>
However, in a programme to which all countries make a financial contribution, the money cannot only be used to carry out research and work on the safety of nuclear energy.
I think we must also provide significant support for the efforts made by countries no longer using nuclear energy to move away from this type of energy completely.
It is not acceptable that all countries should pay so that a few can use nuclear energy; instead, we must lay further emphasis on moving away from this.
<P>
The second point is that the budget only pays lip service to energy policy in Europe.
It does not allow us to bring about a change of direction in energy policy.
We need legislative proposals to supplement this programme, firstly on energy taxes, and secondly on the promotion of renewable energies through a pan-European electricity supply directive.
For this reason, Commissioner, I urgently request once again, particularly in view of the change in government in Germany, that you devote your efforts to advancing the proposal for a European energy tax, so that a proposal for a pan-European electricity supply can be on the table as soon as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García Arias">
Mr President, in the short amount of time available I shall only refer to the CARNOT programme.
Although Mr Adam is not here, I would like to congratulate him on his report.
But the European Commission should firstly be congratulated for presenting this multiannual framework programme for actions in the energy sector, which is an attempt to coordinate and focus the work of the various sectors in a coherent way.
<P>
I believe that a programme such as the CARNOT programme was needed in order to encourage exports of clean coal combustion technology.
It was also needed to encourage the dissemination of results and cooperation both within the European Union and at international level. This is especially important in relation to other European countries that are heavily dependent on coal, countries whose entire coal industry needs substantial modernisation and to be adapted to the environmental requirements we have laid down.
<P>
However, Commissioner, I would like to use the time I have left to make a few general remarks on coal research because I think it gives us cause for concern.
In this technological sector, as in many other industrial sectors, both the medium and long-term prospects need to be borne in mind, and in this respect the situation is uncertain at the moment.
The Council decided that what was left of the ECSC Treaty budgets for steel and coal - which is what we are referring to now - should be taken over and integrated into the Union.
<P>
And yet, the information that the Commission itself provides in relation to coal research shows that we are in a hopeless situation.
And here we are discussing the fifth framework programme.
The Commission has once again proposed to include this research in that programme, which will be a programme for the future. However, with the exception of Germany, Mr Estevan Bolea, with the exception of Germany, the other countries, including Spain, are against the inclusion of coal research in the fifth framework programme.
It would therefore be a great shame to lose this scientific aquis, particularly concerning issues relating to the clean and efficient use of coal, because Europe's technological level, which I believe to be so important, is on a par with, and in certain areas even above, the situation of the international market.
It is true that a country can continue to carry out research on its own, but the point is that the wealth of all this research has been the European cooperation up until now, and myself and others would like to see this continue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Papoutsis">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to thank the three rapporteurs, Mr van Velzen, Mr Soulier and Mr Adam, for their excellent work.
The Commission's proposal for the framework programme on energy is vitally important for the future development of a Community energy policy.
That programme promotes three strategic objectives.
<P>
First of all, the creation of a stable, multiannual legal base for action in the energy sector.
<P>
Secondly, the creation of a coherent, complete and flexible framework for all activities in the context of energy policy.
<P>
And thirdly, the fullest possible coordination of energy-related action undertaken within the scope of other Community policies.
Today, as you know, we face great challenges in the energy sector.
Our first priority most certainly concerns reliability of supply, and that is why we must make better use of endogenous energy sources, while at the same time developing international cooperation.
More especially, as Mr van Velzen stressed, in the light of the enlargement process, such cooperation is critical so that the candidate countries will be able to adapt to what represents the Community norm in the energy sector.
Urgent measures are also needed to improve the competitiveness of European industry.
The creation of a productive internal energy market would certainly make a major contribution towards that.
<P>
We also attach great importance to ensuring compatibility between our energy policy and the Community's environmental objectives.
This requires effective measures in the areas of both energy production and use.
To meet these major energy challenges effectively, Community energy policy should focus more upon specific aims, it should be more integrated and it must certainly be better coordinated than are the other Community policies.
Beyond that, the Union's energy policy must have a clear international dimension, since energy is a powerful element of international cooperation, the political importance of which has been highlighted by Mr Soulier in his exceptional work and in his speech to the House today.
On the one hand, that too requires an integrated approach, but on the other hand it requires better means for coordination and cooperation between the parties involved.
That brings me to the main objective of the framework programme on energy, which is to ensure the cohesion, transparency and productivity of coordinated action in the context of our energy policy.
I am particularly glad that Parliament agrees with this approach by the Commission, and I believe - and at least, the early indications suggest this - that the Council too echoes the same view.
<P>
Now, as for the subject of finance which many speakers have raised - I noted Mr Linkohr, Mrs McNally and Mr van Velzen - I would like to point out that our proposal is accompanied by a financial statement whereby, as an indicative amount, a sum of ECU 213 million will have to be provided for the framework programme.
Let me add, however, that I personally regard that sum as a bare minimum.
At any rate, as you know, the budget will be determined on an annual basis by the budgetary authority.
For that reason it is largely up to you, up to the European Parliament, to ensure that there are enough appropriations to cover the activities in question.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission will agree with many of the amendments you have tabled.
For the sake of clarity, I shall deal with each report separately.
First of all, as regards Mr van Velzen's report on the framework decision, most of the proposed amendments clarify the Commission's proposal.
<P>
As far as enlargement is concerned, I completely agree that energy has an important part to play in the enlargement process.
For that reason the Commission accepts Amendment No 5.
As for liberalisation of the energy market, I quite agree that particular attention must be paid to the application and monitoring of the directives, and I can therefore accept Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 4.
I cannot agree with the proposal to establish a separate programme on the monitoring of the internal market.
The Commission has already done everything proposed within the scope of a new sub-programme of that kind, since it is obliged to by virtue of the Treaty and the directives relating to the internal market.
We are already working towards beginning to set that mechanism in motion.
Moreover, monitoring of the internal market will be part of the ETAP programme.
Consequently, I cannot agree with part 17 of Amendment No 9.
I would also like to point out that part 5 restricts the flexibility of the CARNOT programme, and that is why we cannot accept it.
However, the whole of the rest of Amendment No 9 is acceptable.
Amendments Nos 3, 6 and 11, which seek to improve coordination and transparency, are also acceptable.
However, having regard to the resources available, the Commission cannot agree with the last sentence of Amendment No 8, given that the amendment prejudices future financial perspectives.
But the Commission can accept the first part of Amendment No 8, and Amendment No 7 too with one small change of wording.
The Commission also cannot accept Amendment No 14, because that would disturb the overall balance of the proposal.
I also wish to say that while I do not disagree in principle with the contents of Amendments Nos 12, 13, 15 and 16, we consider that they are already covered by the programme, so we prefer the existing wording.
In addition, we cannot accept Amendments Nos 17, 19 and 21 since they conflict with the Commission's views on nuclear energy, while Amendments Nos 18, 20 and 22 are not compatible with the statutory provisions of the Treaty.
We also cannot accept Amendment No 23, because it is already covered by the initial proposal.
<P>
At this point, however, let me make a comment about nuclear energy.
So long as this form of energy exists, it is our duty, the European Union's duty as it emerges from the Euratom Treaty, to ensure that the maximum degree of safety is achieved.
As you know, it is up to each country to decide whether to have nuclear energy or not.
In any event, as you will be aware, we in the Commission are also striving to promote new forms of energy, to establish a new energy balance for the future.
<P>
Moving on to the ETAP programme, the Commission can accept most of the proposed amendments.
In other words, we accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3 and 5.
More particularly, Amendment No 2 is acceptable in principle, but I think we should add consumer organisations to the list of those able to participate in the programme.
<P>
Now, as for Amendment No 4, the objective of analysis relating to renewable energy sources is very important, but it is already covered by the special action of the Altener programme.
However, there must be coordination between the ETAP and Altener programmes in that sector, and in that sense, of course, the Commission undertakes to supervise the best possible coordination between those two programmes.
<P>
Thirdly, regarding the SURE programme.
The Commission accepts Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7, since they clarify the programme's objectives and stress the need for greater transparency.
More particularly, so far as Amendment No 3 on common safety standards is concerned - and this is in fact what I want to say in answer to Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz - the Commission can today accept the content of this amendment on common safety standards, even though that clearly falls mainly within the competences of the Member States.
At any rate, the Commission believes that the SURE programme could give even greater impetus to cooperation between the Member States.
<P>
The Commission also accepts Amendment No 6 with a few minor changes of wording, concerning industrial cooperation with the CIS countries and Russia, in other words the countries which can benefit from the operation and use of the TACIS programme.
In our view, there is a need to stress the fact that this cooperation should lead to the application of equivalent and high-level safety standards.
The Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 8 and 11, because they conflict with its views on nuclear energy.
We also cannot accept Amendments Nos 9 and 10 and the conclusions they lead to concerning the transport of nuclear material.
We can accept Amendment No 12 in principle, but we think it is already covered by Amendment No 7.
<P>
Now, as for the Synergy programme, we can accept the amendments tabled by the Committee on Energy, except for Amendment No 1.
More particularly, the Commission accepts Amendments Nos 2, 3 and 4, but cannot accept Amendment No 1 because we believe it simply restricts finance flexibility, a flexibility which is needed in light of the speed with which developments are taking place all over the world today.
<P>
Finally, on the CARNOT programme, I am glad that Parliament agrees with the great need for a programme in the sector of using clean coal.
The Commission can accept Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 4, but not Amendment No 3 on the programme's duration and its budget, because the result would be to reduce flexibility in the implementation of the programme. I also consider it exceptionally important to ensure that the programme's duration is the same as for all the programmes included in the framework programme, but apart from that I agree with Mr Adam that we must ensure that the results of research in this sector are published.
We also cannot accept Amendment No 5 for formal reasons, given that it equates the former Soviet Union republics with the Eastern European countries, with which we have concluded overall cooperation agreements.
Cooperation with countries covered by the TACIS programme in the solid fuels sector is certainly important, but we must comply with the official framework established for that cooperation.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I once again wish to thank the rapporteurs - Mr van Velzen, Mr Soulier and Mr Adam - for their excellent work.
As you have heard, the Commission can accept most of the amendments tabled.
Before winding up, however, I should like to draw the House's attention to the two remaining programmes of the framework programme on energy, namely SAVE and Altener.
I am sure that our cooperation with the rapporteurs on those two programmes, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz and Mr Robles Piquer, will be just as constructive as the cooperation we have had on the programmes we have been talking about today.
Thanks to Parliament's efforts, the Energy Council on 13 November will be able to carry the framework programme on energy forward substantially, taking due account of the political aspects of the subject.
I look to the adoption of final decisions by the Council in relation to the framework decision and the ETAP, SURE, Synergy and CARNOT programmes, as indeed I look to that Energy Council for confirmation of the political will to support the SAVE and Altener programmes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Elchlepp">
Mr President, I would like to ask a brief question.
The glaring contradiction between the announcement that you intend to step up the promotion of renewable energies, which I fully endorse, and the laughable budget figures before us - according to your proposal it should be ECU 11 million, after a figure of ECU 22 million was discussed in the preliminary draft - is, in my opinion, painful and regrettable, and we hope that we can bump this amount up a little.
<P>
The reason given is that more than ECU 11 million cannot be administered.
This is completely incomprehensible to me given how far behind we have fallen in the new biomass and photovoltaics markets, and also the considerable opportunities to promote exports, especially for small and medium-sized companies in this sector.
Could you please explain your position once again as I do not consider this to be a valid argument.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Papoutsis">
Mr President, I am glad of the opportunity to answer the honourable Member's question.
Indeed, I too agree that major impetus should be given to the use of renewable energy sources and to the spread of new technologies which can contribute towards advances in that sector.
<P>
In its proposal on the budget and the financial statement, the Commission limited itself to a sum which, according to present forecasts and demands, we estimate could be utilised sufficiently and in a rational way.
That is what we proposed, but it does not mean that in the future we would wish to continue just with that amount of finance and no more. Obviously, a policy to which we are giving political backing will need more finance in later years.
<P>
As you know, however, the budgetary authority - Parliament and the Council - took a different view in drawing up this programme within the overall framework of the financial perspectives.
In that respect, then, it is up to you, up to the European Parliament and the Council too, to decide on the level of finance and of course the degree of political priority that should be given to the issue of renewable energy sources.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended until 12 noon)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, we have with us here today a delegation from Moldova whom I should like to welcome.
This delegation is led by Mr Valeriu Matei, deputy speaker of the Moldovan Parliament, and Mr Nikolae Tabacaru, the Foreign Affairs Minister of Moldova.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="Bonde, Krarup and Sandbæk">
We do not care for the idea of an action programme at EU level on pollution-related diseases as a basis for work in this field.
We think it is superfluous and inappropriate to give the Commission powers in this area.
It would be far better to coordinate efforts in intergovernmental cooperation under WHO auspices, since pollution-related diseases are not restricted to the EU's territory.
As regards matters that require special European cooperation, this should be pursued through the European section of the World Health Organisation, which is based in Copenhagen.
<P>
In the second reading of the Cabrol report, however, we only have the opportunity to consider the individual amendments.
We therefore opt for a pragmatic approach and vote for the increase in the financial framework plus the amendments regarding additional evaluation reports from the Commission, but we cannot support the demand for further actions to be put in hand by the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="Caudron">
For several months, we have been giving our opinion on proposals linked to public health.
I want to reiterate what I have already said about Mr Cabrol's skills in this field.
<P>
I would also like to reaffirm my support for our colleague's relevant proposals.
I have already explained how I voted and the importance of implementing a specific policy in the fight against pollution-related diseases, and therefore the fight against pollution.
<P>
This summer was once again marked by peak levels of pollution in many cities in the European Union.
This deterioration of the situation does not look like it is going to improve.
It is even more important to realise the urgency of the situation given that water quality is causing great concern.
The cases of pollution that France has seen in the last few weeks are not, in my opinion, particular to France and cannot be considered as purely a French problem, but as a European or even a global problem.
<P>
Moreover, while I cannot understand the Council's attitude with regard to the budget margins available, I do not think it is reasonable to cross out with the stroke of a pen the provisions that we had advocated, not long ago, in the context of the action programme on pollution-related diseases.
<P>
While waiting for a global policy on the environment to yield its first results, it is Europe's duty to deal with the risks associated with pollution and its consequences for health.
<P>
Viceconte recommendation (A4-0336/98)
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Bonde, Krarup and Sandbæk">
It is important that patients with rare diseases are not forgotten, but are helped.
This should in principle be achieved at intergovernmental level under the auspices of the World Health Organisation.
Patients with rare diseases do not only live in the EU; besides we do not want the Commission to have powers in this area too.
We are voting against the amendments concerned with the setting-up of a Community database, comitology and continuing training programmes.
However, we are voting in favour of the amendments that seek to clarify the text.
Despite our position in principle, we wish to promote a pragmatic approach and are voting for the budget increase.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Caudron">
I recognize that the Commission accepts five-year funding for rare diseases.
Nevertheless, the main work is yet to be done, as resources now need to be given to this policy guideline.
<P>
However, we must approve the Community approach that our colleague Guido Viceconte wants to launch in the field of rare diseases.
The common sense, which in this case is not at all a derogatory term, involved here responds to a logic linked to the small number of people affected by this type of disease, some of which are particularly serious.
<P>
Therefore, the battery of provisions proposed by the rapporteur seems to me to be capable of responding to the research needs in this field, which is so specific and often absent from the immediate concerns of national governments.
In saying this, I do not wish to accuse the governments in any way, but it must be recognised that the amounts needed to further specialist knowledge require investments that the Member States alone cannot provide from their funds.
Europe must therefore intervene.
<P>
Finally, I think that the proposal to involve all those affected by rare diseases in this programme is a step in the right direction, and could help families and volunteers, who are often left to fend for themselves in their daily lives.
<P>
Let us hope then that the European Parliament's position will help to achieve the necessary goal of raising the public's awareness in this respect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Kirsten Jensen">
The Danish Social Democrats today voted for the abovementioned report.
However, we would stress that the question of comitology has not been settled.
We refer to the Commission's statement on comitology, according to which the Commission wishes to propose to the legislative authority that the comitology provisions in all previous legislative measures be amended in order to bring them into line with the new comitology agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Pradier">
I would like to congratulate Mr Viceconte on his excellent report on rare diseases, which I fully support.
I completely agree with his analysis of the importance of this issue and the urgent need to establish a true Community programme in this field.
<P>
In fact, the issue of rare diseases, like that of orphan drugs - which will soon be discussed in committee in Parliament and, I hope, in the House before the end of the legislature -, is indeed a matter of public policy.
Research into these diseases and the necessary treatments are not sources of profit for pharmaceutical laboratories.
For this reason, they are reluctant to use financial resources for research.
<P>
Nevertheless, these so-called 'rare' diseases are only rare to those who are not affected by them, and no supposed rarity can justify leaving sufferers untreated under the pretext of non-profitability.
The sufferers themselves are 100 % affected!
It is therefore the responsibility of public authorities to put some sort of constraints on pharmaceutical laboratories by virtue of a 'public health service' obligation.
This constraint, this responsibility, must of course be accompanied by support that stimulates research in these areas.
<P>
In this respect, it is therefore essential to have an appropriate budget available.
This programme, like that on orphan drugs that is soon to be discussed, must thus be provided with budgetary resources that are sufficient - unlike the usual scattering of resources - to give rise to real initiatives.
We should also think at some stage about directing Community health programmes towards providing direct support for research and not just towards attractive awareness campaigns.
<P>
Finally, in order to avoid the inevitable scattering in terms of Community programmes, we have to tackle the issue of comitology.
The mysteries of this clandestine science do not interest us here.
What is important is that we adopt the management methods that will enable us to finance projects according to their quality and not according to the nationality of the participants.
I therefore think it is essential that we have parliamentary monitoring and greater transparency.
<P>
Anastassopoulos recommendation (A4-0325/98)
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="Ullmann">
My group is voting in favour of the Anastassopoulos report. Thanks to the rapporteur's persistent but prudent negotiations we have a compromise which ensures that Parliament's wishes, which are not reflected in the current text of the directive because they were rejected by the Council and the Commission, will at least be pursued further by the Commission in this form, and also that by prompting research it allows investigation of ways in which the legal arrangement sought by Parliament could in future be realised.
<P>
It is necessary to extend the protection of conditional access electronic media services in such a way as to ensure appropriate remuneration but also to protect the economic value of the service from technical abuse.
<P>
We agree with the rapporteur's decision not to endanger the existence of the directive by insisting on Parliament's amendments, following the statement by the Commissioner responsible in favour of taking the protective measures recommended by Parliament.
<P>
Gebhardt recommendation (A4-0319/98)
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Bébéar">
I regularly point out here the progress that has been made in European harmonisation: the single currency, the freedom of movement, the standardisation of social protection systems, the struggle for high-quality public health, etcetera.
<P>
There is, however, an area in which, at the moment, we cannot guarantee equality to all our citizens.
Diplomas, certificates and other professional qualifications are recognised in different ways depending on whether a person chooses to work in their country of origin or in another country of the European Union.
<P>
Considerable progress has been made since the directive of 8 February 1996, especially in the legal and medical sectors.
But there is still more to be done to the system that has been set up, especially in the sectors associated with industrial businesses.
<P>
Up until now, the length of training received has always taken priority over the skills acquired.
It is therefore time to put an end to this inequality that each year prevents many young people from exercising their right to free movement.
<P>
The fight against unemployment and to create stable jobs is the permanent concern in the majority of the decisions that the European Parliament takes with the Commission.
In this field, as in many others, liberalisation can provide answers and solutions.
<P>
A greater liberalisation of diploma recognition, far from leading to services or products of lesser quality, may, on the contrary, allow skills that are currently too often neglected in their country of origin to be better distributed among the 15 Member States.
<P>
We must not close the door to employment on young people who are prepared to leave their countries, as long as we recognise, without too many administrative or bureaucratic complications, the training that they have acquired in their country of origin.
<P>
It is for this reason and from this perspective that I therefore support the Gebhart report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="Caudron">
This new reading of Mrs Gebhardt's report gives me some satisfaction, as the Council has accepted the amendments tabled by our House, which is proof that we can change the course of some decisions and provisions.
<P>
We now need to make sure that this directive is applied at national level for, in this field like in many others, it is one thing to legislate at Community level, and quite another to translate this initial will into action.
<P>
Whatever happens, the recognition of qualifications is a tool that is working relatively well, and this is something to be pleased about.
I also think, like our colleague, that the choice between an aptitude test and an adaptation period should be left up to the candidate.
<P>
However, although considerable progress has been made in this field, I wonder about the conditions in which those who have had their qualifications recognised are going to be able to practice their profession.
Problems with taxation and the freedom to reside in another Member State are very real and do not seem to be improving, at least in some countries of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Titley">
I am backing this report aimed at improving the recognition of people's hard-earned qualifications across the EU.
Too many people in the past, including constituents of mine, have faced in effect discrimination because they happened to earn their qualifications in another EU country from the one where they would like to work.
<P>
The single market we are still waiting to see operate in all its aspects for capital, goods and services is also supposed to apply to people seeking work in another EU country than their own.
<P>
In practice though we see bureaucratic hoops put in front of such people which they are then asked to jump through - perhaps being required to undertake a new course in their adopted country in order to practise a profession they are already trained in.
<P>
If the powers that be in the European Union think we can negotiate recognition of standards for goods traded between Europe and other parts of the world, then surely it is not beyond the wit of the governments and the Commission to agree on mutual recognition of qualifications between our own EU countries!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="Verwaerde">
I would first like to congratulate our rapporteur.
I think, too, that we should be pleased with the fact that in its common position the Council has taken over almost all the amendments adopted by our Parliament at first reading.
<P>
We must realise that these amendments all deal with fundamental issues, including, notably, the definition of 'manager of an undertaking' and the Commission's obligation to present a report after five years on the implementation of the directive.
<P>
By annulling the 'liberalisation' and 'transitional measures' directives, this text responds to the need to simplify and clarify the Community legislation currently in force concerning the practise of these professions.
<P>
It will therefore allow, in accordance with the 1990 judgement by the Court of Justice of the European Communities in the Vlassopoulou case, the recognition of qualifications not covered by the general system.
<P>
This is an essential objective, as it plays a very specific role in achieving the principle of free movement of people within Community territory.
<P>
Marset Campos recommendation (A4-0324/98)
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Malerba">
Madam President, we have just voted on the Marset Campos report on the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises in the research programme and I would like my vote against Amendment No 6 to be shown in the Minutes.
<P>
This is not a mere detail.
I did not have the opportunity to speak earlier, and I want to do so now.
This amendment seeks to change the rules governing the publication of the results of research partially financed by the European Union, placing the results of the research more easily in the public domain.
If that were to happen, small and medium-sized firms would feel both motivated to participate in the framework programme for research and put off from doing so at the same time.
It is vital to have tough protection for intellectual property so that small and medium-sized firms with short product-development horizons can genuinely participate, and I am glad the Commission was equally negative about Amendment No 6, because I cannot see it as positive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="Ahern">
It is bizarre that the Council has not reached agreement with Parliament on openness in the fight against fraud.
We need clear, transparent rules to help all concerned to work effectively.
Parliament's proposals have been long-fingered by the Council and Commission and we cannot tolerate this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Caudron">
The report by our colleague Mr Campos responds to two of our Parliament's requirements, which is why I will support the author's opinion.
<P>
Beyond simply disseminating research results, efforts should of course be focused on the contents of this research.
It is, for example, regrettable that projects, particularly innovative ones, should be so behind in comparison to what is at stake in the next few years.
<P>
Once again I must denounce the time-lag between words and actions.
In such a specific and uncertain field, we must be able to bet on the future.
If this constant timidity on the part of the authorities, but also on the part of the investors, continues, Europe cannot hope to play a significant role in the new technologies sector.
<P>
I also support the rapporteur's desire concerning the absolute need to be transparent in the fight against fraud.
We do not want to create conflict, but we have every right to question each other.
This does not only refer to the research sector, but to all European Community intervention programmes.
On several occasions, our Parliament has unanimously expressed the wish to step up the fight against the various types of crime, and particularly financial crime.
It would be absurd if this will, which has been demonstrated by the various authorities involved, were not extended to monitoring the use of Community funds, including those for research.
<P>
Finally, I agree with Pedro Marset Campos that simpler mechanisms should be set up in order to strengthen and coordinate more efficiently the teams taking part in the projects.
<P>
The adjustments that we are requesting are not foolish.
I believe that they correspond to the expectations of the majority of those who may be affected by the fifth joint programme on research and development.
I hope that the Council and the Commission will take account of these remarks, since their only aim is to improve the existing mechanism.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Theorin and Wibe">
Our contacts with the research community show clearly that the EU's research programmes involve too much bureaucracy for researchers.
If we really want to foster research, the best way of using these resources would be to pass them back to the national research councils.
The EU's research programmes are well meant but ineffective and bureaucratic.
Research is not well served by them, and they should be scrapped.
<P>
Whitehead report (A4-0334/98)
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Díez de Rivera Icaza">
I would like to reiterate the position I previously expressed in this Hemicycle: without consumer confidence in products and services, the internal market cannot operate properly.
This was also acknowledged in the Luxembourg Council's declaration on food safety, following the BSE crisis.
However, this harmonised approach to the protection of consumers, to their right to redress and access to justice, and to the introduction of effective international methods of monitoring and inspection requires an increase in the Community budget.
What is more, the imminent entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam and Article 153 also call for this increase because without it both the scientific committees and validation checks would not operate with the necessary rigour, which would be disastrous for the consumer.
<P>
The Europe of citizens is, in many regards, the Europe of consumers, and for this reason I shall also vote in favour of developing a sustainable food policy in the interest of consumers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Krarup">
The report on the establishment of a general framework for Community activities in favour of consumers contains a number of initiatives which may prove to be of benefit to consumer protection.
I therefore take a positive view of the content of the report.
I am abstaining from voting, however, because consumer protection and consumer health should in principle be a national matter and not a field in which the EU should dictate measures.
<P>
The recitals to the report draw attention to the need for consumers' organisations to be given more opportunity to contribute actively to the definition of consumer policy.
It is also stated that the general framework must make provision for the necessary financial support to ensure the provision of high quality and effective control and inspection methods in connection with the protection of consumers and consumer health.
The emphasis on the role of consumers' organisations and consumer protection in general I think is important in principle and I can agree with the need to promote food safety and quality, but that does not alter my view that consumer policy, along with health policy, social policy, etc. is a purely national matter.
The fact that the establishment of the internal market has to a large extent rendered a national consumer policy impossible is an argument for ensuring that the national political levels retain a right to maintain and adopt national rules which go beyond the EU's rules in the field, as opposed to the current and future position in which the EU dictates total harmonisation rules.
<P>
Indeed, in a large number of cases it has been shown that concern for the functioning of the internal market takes precedence over consumers' interests.
The three food additive directives, covering colouring agents and other additives in food, show that EU standards in the consumer protection field are often significantly lower than in national legislation.
Thus, in the context of the drafting of the EU's permitted list, Denmark had to raise its limits for a large number of additives in food, despite the fact that there are grounds for suspecting that some of these substances can cause allergic reactions in children.
This example shows with abundant clarity that consumer protection and consumer health should be a national prerogative and not a matter for the EU.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Lindqvist">
Consumer policy and questions of product safety and health must be given greater weight in political work at all levels, including the European level.
The EU's rules for consumer protection must be minimum rules, i.e. an individual Member State must have the right to apply more stringent rules.
<P>
Martin report (A4-0290/98)
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Andersson and Hulthén">
We thank the rapporteur for a thorough job on an important report.
We think that the difficult situation caused by a heavy workload in the Court of First Instance must be resolved in order to ensure that the Court of First Instance is able to perform its duties in an effective and credible way.
The proposal under consideration for a single judge procedure to be adopted in certain cases can therefore be viewed as acceptable under the circumstances.
The single judge procedure must, however, be applied to a limited extent and under very stringent control, so that legal security and proper judicial legitimacy in the conduct of cases are safeguarded.
The introduction of single judges is a measure that can only be justified by the specific case load prevailing in the Court of First Instance.
The single judge expedient should thus not be pursued as a measure applicable in principle and more generally in other contexts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Ewing">
The Court of First Instance now faces a huge backlog of cases and a further increase is expected when appeals against trademark decisions start to flood in.
The situation is clearly untenable.
However, the proposed decision to allow a single judge to decide a limited number of cases is not the solution.
<P>
Although in favour of clearly defined areas where single judges can sit, the proposal is uncertain and its scope unclear.
The scope of the proposed decision can be extended without further recourse to the European Parliament or the Council.
It is essential that the multinational and collegiate nature of the Court is maintained.
<P>
A ten per cent increase in efficiency will not solve the vast problems facing the Court and the Community justice system.
It is not even a temporary solution.
It would clearly be premature to approve the decision in its present form.
A more radical and urgent overhaul, including an increase in the number of judges and the introduction of specialised chambers, is necessary.
<P>
I therefore voted against the proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR), Seppänen, Sjöstedt and Svensson (GUE/NGL), Gahrton, Holm and Lindholm (V), Bonde, Krarup and Sandbæk (I-EDN)">
We have chosen to vote against the report, partly for reasons of legal security and partly out of consideration for the anti-federalist principle.
<P>
The Martin report proposes approval of the proposal from the Council - which had originally been drafted by the Court of Justice - that the Court of First Instance should be able to hear cases with only one judge.
It is clear that the risks of error and hence miscarriages of justice increase if the number of judges is reduced to only one in cases handled by the Court of First Instance.
The Court of First Instance currently deals mainly with competition matters, agricultural rules, state aid, trade policy protection rules, structural fund disputes, anti-dumping measures, intellectual property law and disputes between the institutions and their employees.
The criteria in the rules of procedure proposed determining what cases a single judge may be able to hear, in our opinion, lack sufficient precision for legal security to be considered assured.
<P>
Yet the solution is not to be found in increasing the number of judges or in reducing legal security, but rather in applying a more restrictive policy as regards the transfer of decision-making powers from the Member States to bodies concerned with Community legislation.
This is an especially important point for the majority in the European Parliament to consider, which invariably proposes supranational solutions for practically every problem.
A solution can also be found, however, in a transfer of decision-making powers from the EU to the national parliaments.
That would get rid of much of the workload of the EC Court of Justice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Theorin">
The proposal of the Court of Justice to change the working procedure in the Court of First Instance is welcome.
The Court of First Instance has become overloaded, a consequence of which is that the time for proceedings to be completed has become unacceptably long.
We take a positive view of concrete proposals on how to arrange the Court's work so as to achieve reasonable completion times.
Making the work more effective must not result in loss of legal security.
If the Court is to decide on cases with only one judge, these cases must only be ones which are entirely uncontroversial from the legal point of view.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Wibe">
I cannot vote for this report because I think that a reduction in the number of judges in the Court of First Instance could easily jeopardise legal security.
However, I do recognise the good intention of the report, i.e. the proposed change would in many cases mean an increase in effectiveness.
<P>
van Velzen report (A4-0340/98)
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Bonde and Sandbæk">
We voted against the van Velzen report on a framework programme for actions in the energy sector.
We did so because we think that there is a need for a radical change of course in the Community's energy policy.
It is quite obvious that it should be geared directly to the fastest possible transition to sustainability.
That means the most strenuous possible effort to promote renewable energy and environmentally correct solutions.
<P>
We also think it scandalous that the proposal is not also based on Article 130s of the Treaty.
If this entire politically important and sensitive sector cannot be governed by provisions which take environmental considerations into account, no EU legislation should be formulated at all in this area.
Legislating in the field of energy without taking Article 130s as a legal basis in our opinion sends the wrong signals about the Community's energy priorities.
<P>
The intention of the proposal is to standardise and streamline the EU's energy policy.
The report of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy boosts these intentions as far as the centralisation of energy policy and the strengthening of the EU's powers in the field are concerned.
This position should be challenged.
The Danish energy supply system is unique because it is consumer-led, and there is a risk of that being destroyed if energy supply is to be streamlined according to an EU model which is producer-led.
We have therefore supported the amendments tabled by the Greens.
As regards the use of taxes, this is something we can support where the environment is concerned, provided the proceeds are channelled back to the Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Krarup">
I have decided to vote against the van Velzen report.
A key reason for this is that I think the report wholeheartedly accepts the EU's electricity and gas liberalisation directives.
In the electricity sector we have already seen the first negative consequences of the Electricity Directive, not just for the environment but also for democracy.
The owners of the Barsebäck nuclear power plant in Sweden are invoking the Electricity Directive in order to get round the legislation enacted by the Riksdag under which nuclear power is to be phased out in Sweden.
Thus the option of pursuing a national energy policy has demonstrably been abolished by the EU in favour of free market forces in a field which, for environmental and supply-related reasons, must be subject to extensive democratic control - and as far as I can see it is only the national parliaments and authorities that can exercise that democratic control effectively.
<P>
The one-sided focus of the electricity and gas directives on energy as a commodity that can be freely exchanged frustrates the ability of Member States to maintain and extend a national energy policy in which, for example, the phasing out of nuclear power and power generated from coal in favour of renewable energy is a high priority.
<P>
van Velzen report (A4-0335/98)
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Bonde, Krarup and Sandbæk">
We voted against Mr van Velzen's report today.
According to the explanatory statement, the overall objective of the ETAP programme is to ensure that decisions at national and Community level on energy matters can be taken on common analytical bases, i.e. in terms of common economic studies and analyses and common energy forecasts and in terms of the dynamics of energy systems.
This sounds very trustworthy.
But an elaborate common system easily leads to intellectual strait-jackets and analytical orthodoxy.
Such a programme of analyses could easily end up serving industrial policy interests.
I would point out that it was not the nuclear power industry or the interests behind the coal and oil-fired power stations that analysed their way to the conclusion that there is a need to develop renewable energy.
<P>
Since the explanatory statement to the amendments of the Energy Committee clearly shows that these interests are poised to boost centralised energy policy in the EU still further, it is important to vote against them.
We also think that it is questionable whether the EU has any business implementing a programme such as ETAP at all.
Energy policy should be decentralised as far as possible. The ETAP programme only makes sense if energy policy is centralised at EU level, which strengthens the existing major players.
If the EU wants to spend money on analysis programmes, it should strengthen diversity and support independent research institutes and the grass roots.
<P>
van Velzen report (A4-0323/98)
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Bonde, Krarup and Sandbæk">
The reason why we voted against Mr van Velzen's report today is that the SURE programme serves to develop, not to phase out nuclear power production.
In our opinion the production of nuclear energy should be phased out, and programmes that promote it should be rejected.
With regard to the transport of nuclear material, it is obvious that all shipments should be undertaken in a responsible manner.
But we do not think there should be any transport of nuclear material from nuclear power stations at all.
We would far rather see the processing and, where necessary, dumping of nuclear waste carried out at the place where it is produced.
The transport of nuclear materials should be avoided.
<P>
Adam report (A4-0339/98)
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Bonde, Krarup and Sandbæk">
The intention of the CARNOT programme is to support the exploitation of solid fuels - especially coal - in such a way that emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants are minimised.
The aim is to promote technological actions for the clean and efficient use of solid fuels.
It is an excellent objective, but is it enough in the long term?
We would like instead to get away from an energy supply system based on the burning of fossil fuels in the longer term.
In the short term, however, it is necessary to burn coal, gas and oil in order to avoid what is worse, namely an energy supply system based on nuclear energy.
We are abstaining from the vote on this proposal because we do not know what the ultimate aims and implications of the proposal will be.
Are we to continue burning coal unchecked?
Is it about the environment or industrial policy?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Theorin and Wibe">
We note that the rapporteur is proposing an increase in the budget for this energy policy programme from ECU 4.1 million to ECU 7.4 million.
Unfortunately it has become a bad habit in this Parliament for every rapporteur to seek an increase in the field with which he or she is concerned in the report in question.
These increases are sought at a time when public authorities around Europe are cutting back on their activities and dismissing staff because of tighter budgets.
<P>
We feel that Parliament must restrict its activities in this respect and that such routine demands for increases in the budget for this or that item must cease.
<P>
Soulier report (A4-0322/98)
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Bonde, Krarup and Sandbæk">
The aims of the SYNERGY programme are a) to assist in the definition, formulation and implementation of energy policy for third countries; b) to promote industrial cooperation between the Community and third countries in the energy sector; and c) closer coordination of the Community's external activities in the energy field.
To support third countries in the definition of an energy policy stands out as a very sensible thing to do.
However, it is more difficult to see anything sensible in the EU sacrificing resources for the other areas.
The energy industry in the EU does not need public support for 'closer coordination', whatever that may mean.
Besides there is a good deal of uncertainty as to the demarcation of the scope of the programme in relation to other EU programmes.
Altogether the programme seems rather superfluous; the resources could no doubt be used to better effect in the development of renewable energy and programmes to promote energy saving.
We are therefore voting against the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Rübig, Flemming, Rack, Schierhuber, Habsburg-Lothringen, Stenzel, Pirker">
We support the principle behind the multiannual programmes in the energy sector which are being discussed today, and all efforts towards research and development in this area.
<P>
On the basis of the acquis communautaire , Austria, like other EU Member States, has declared itself against operating nuclear power stations.
At European level, Euratom's central tasks of health protection and safety monitoring must be guaranteed and consolidated.
For this reason we give priority to promoting scientific advances to improve the overall safety of nuclear energy, including the development of pan-European safety standards.
Greater emphasis must also be given to innovative forms of energy production and renewable energy sources such as solar energy, wind energy, hydropower and biomass, as real alternatives to nuclear power.
Dangerous nuclear power stations must be shut down immediately.
<P>
Given the above, the reasons for our votes on the various reports are clear.
<P>
Joint motion for a resolution on Kosovo
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Madam President, unlike the last part-session the result of today's vote on Kosovo was very welcome, and I congratulate the groups on this.
In particular, I would like to thank the Greens for tabling an amendment which we rejected by a very large majority and which sought to make a UN Security Council vote a prerequisite for military and humanitarian intervention already long overdue.
This was rejected by such a large majority that we can say that this House has now voted strongly in favour of military intervention in Kosovo on the grounds of the current legal situation.
<P>
Without military intervention of this kind, we will, within the foreseeable future, witness the death of huge numbers of people.
For this reason we hope that by the time of the next part-session we will already be able to discuss what measures to take following successful military intervention.
In my opinion, these measures must involve putting Kosovo's entire executive and judiciary powers into the hands of the elected representatives of the people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Bianco">
I am voting in favour of the joint resolution on Kosovo tabled by the various political groups in Parliament, but I think it ought to be associated with a firm call to the UN and NATO to take action, after the irresponsible 'no' to the American negotiator.
<P>
Yet again we have proof that the Serbian leader only understands the logic of force.
Immediate action must be taken unless we want to pay an even higher price tomorrow.
<P>
We will ask the Italian government to liaise closely with the other European countries and the United States, and to make its territory fully available for the inevitable military intervention designed to persuade the parties to negotiate and come to a sensible peace agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Caudron">
The situation in Kosovo and Europe's paralysis are once again demonstrating - as if this were needed - the urgent need for a political Europe.
It is important to be a great economic power, especially one that is armed with a single currency, but that does not guarantee peace, security, or even democracy.
<P>
In order to achieve this, we need a common European diplomacy, a common military force and therefore a European political authority to decide what Europe wants. We are very far away from this!
Each state tries to play its part, or else its card, without really worrying about the others, while the Serbian President gloats.
<P>
We might have hoped that the sad Bosnian affair would have borne some fruit, but nothing came of it.
This is both tragic and ridiculous.
Europe is disgracing itself by allowing civilians to be massacred and by serving the interests of tyrants.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Sindal and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats voted for the resolution on the situation in Kosovo today.
It is not the first resolution the European Parliament has adopted.
Innumerable resolutions from democratic assemblies in the UN, NATO, the WEU, the OSCE and the EU have condemned Serbian action in strong terms.
The West must now react.
It would be comforting if the United Nations Security Council could honour its responsibility and adopt a resolution putting some force behind its constant threats.
But, if this is made impossible by some mistaken loyalty towards Russia, other responsible - preferably European - politicians must step in.
It is not only our credibility that is on the line.
It is human lives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Raschhofer">
The FPÖ is of the opinion that the existing UN resolutions are sufficient for intervention by NATO.
It is essential to find a speedy solution to the conflict in order to prevent further bloodshed.
Therefore, the FPÖ supports the motion for a resolution as a whole, but points out that it is not in agreement with paragraph 8, as it is particularly those countries bordering on this trouble spot that should receive the humanitarian aid and financial support they need to allow them to take in as many refugees as possible.
This should prevent Austria from having to cope with most of the refugees coming into the EU.
<P>
Joint motion for a resolution on migrants
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Madam President, in my speech yesterday on the issue of illegal immigration from the South, I explained to our House why, in the opinion of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, the reform provided for in the Treaty of Amsterdam could aggravate the problems instead of resolving them.
<P>
I would now like to tell you what proposals we would have liked to have seen in the resolution voted for by the European Parliament, and which, unfortunately, do not feature in it.
It must be understood that, in a united European area in which there are no controls on people at internal borders, as proposed by the Treaty of Amsterdam, the overall level of security will always be that of the weakest link in the chain.
However, maintaining national controls means that the risks are limited, while giving the responsibility to each state, which knows that if it accepts illegal immigrants due to a weakness in its system, it will not then be able to get rid of them by passing them on to its neighbours.
<P>
But this is not enough.
Many illegal immigrants have already managed to enter our territories, creating serious problems, and if more of them enter, they could destabilise our societies.
On this level, Europe can be useful.
We need to draw up extensive programmes to return these people to their countries, and the European states would participate in these on a voluntary basis.
I do however believe that the majority of them would agree to participate in the programmes, as it would be in their interest to do so.
<P>
Obviously those to be returned to their countries also need to be willing, and in order to achieve this, the conditions for returning and their reintegration into the local society need to be attractive.
This means, unfortunately, that it is going to be expensive or relatively expensive.
But we need to get used to this idea. It will still be cheaper than keeping these non-integrated people in our societies.
<P>
In the same way, on the voluntary basis of various types of cooperation, I think that neighbouring states should help each other to guard their borders when it is in their common interest to do so, and without questioning each state's responsibility for its internal or external borders.
Should not France, Austria, but also - and why not - Switzerland, launch a joint programme to help Italy financially in guarding its external borders?
I think that such an initiative would be common sense.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Madam President, I voted in favour of the text but I believe we must improve it considerably, particularly on the issue of quotas, which we must fix in order to ensure that the burden is shared.
<P>
The problem is that we spend a lot of time debating these issues but we are actually neglecting the central question.
Therefore, I welcome the much-criticised Austrian strategy paper because it has brought completely new ideas into the discussion, because it is honest and because it makes it clear that we must aim to prevent the causes of refugee problems as well as reducing the burden and ensuring that it is shared equally. We live today in a Europe in which Bavaria and Austria also border on the Mediterranean and Spain shares a border with eastern Europe.
Only true solidarity can help here and not the Saint Florian principle of hoping that the lightning strikes elsewhere.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Bonde, Krarup and Sandbæk">
We abstained from the vote on the joint resolution because we cannot support the formulation of a common EU immigration and asylum policy on the basis of Title VI of the Treaty on European Union.
We are similarly opposed to Schengen and Europol, which are also mentioned in the resolution.
Clearly we think that immigrants should be treated correctly and we support a humane national policy on refugees.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Kirsten Jensen, Sindal and Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats voted in favour of a resolution on immigration questions today.
Indeed we must cooperate in combating illegal immigration and organised crime associated with illegal immigration.
That said, we must ensure that immigrants and refugees who are resident in the Union get the necessary protection.
We can do that by joining together in laying down certain minimum rights for immigrants and refugees.
We must point out, however, that Denmark has a reservation regarding supranational cooperation on immigration and asylum questions.
This reservation can only be changed, if required, by a referendum in Denmark.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Elliott">
I voted in favour of this resolution because of the many positive proposals contained in it to tackle the problem of illegal immigration, both by increasing the security of the external borders of the European Union and by curtailing the activities of criminal organisations assisting and promoting illegal entry.
I also commend the proposals to improve humanitarian assistance to illegal immigrants, who are often the unfortunate victims of the criminals who exploit their need.
<P>
However, I and other British Labour MEPs are unable to support recital F, which unjustly deplores the five-year limit for full integration of asylum and immigration policies, despite this having been agreed in the Amsterdam Treaty by the governments of all Member States.
We are also unable to support paragraph 2, which on similar lines calls for the creation of a common EU immigration and asylum policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Theorin and Wibe">
In conformity with what we have previously stated, we do not think that the EU should develop a common refugee and immigration policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="President">
That concludes the explanations of vote.
The sitting is now suspended and will resume at 3 p.m.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 1 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
TOPICAL AND URGENT DEBATE
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Goerens">
Madam President, we would like to express our distress at the tragic death of Semira Adamu.
Her tragic disappearance also, and above all, reflects a profound unease in our societies with regard to the countless nationals of third countries who, wanting to escape poverty, persecution, violence or violations of their rights, often do not find the legal means to do so.
The few measures adopted today to help find an acceptable solution to the problem raised in this resolution, and the slowness that characterises the search for humane solutions, only serve to demonstrate the embarrassment that our societies feel when faced with the victims of the unequal distribution of wealth and a lack of rights and freedoms.
<P>
This resolution does not aim so much to point the finger at the Member State in which the fatal tragedy involving Semira Adamu took place - although that Member State must of course initiate the necessary judicial enquiry and bring it to a conclusion -, as it aims to stress the need to introduce future measures in full respect of the provisions of the Geneva Convention on refugees.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Lancker">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, two weeks ago Semira Adamu, a young Nigerian woman, met a violent death as a result of her forced expulsion from Belgium.
I believe it is right for us in the European Parliament to also express our shock at this event and to condemn what happened.
As Mr Goerens said, it is extremely important for Belgian justice to provide absolute clarity regarding the circumstances of and the responsibilities for Semira's death.
I believe it is also important that the Belgian Government has finally abolished the harshest aspects of its asylum policy.
But the death of Semira also confronts the European Union with its responsibilities.
Semira is not the first victim of a restrictive refugee policy practised by Member States of the Union and also by the Union itself.
Heavy-handed expulsions have already caused deaths or serious injuries in other countries.
It is also not the first time that the European Parliament, together with many human rights organisations, has sounded the alarm about the tendency for Europe to adopt an increasingly severe asylum and refugee policy.
In this context, I do not believe it makes much sense to once again debate all the European Parliament's positions in defence of a more humane asylum and refugee policy.
But I do believe that Semira's death obliges us to place two very important problems on the Council's European agenda.
<P>
Firstly, Semira was fleeing a forced marriage in Nigeria.
I know that some people doubt her story, but I do not believe it is for us to judge that.
But it is our job to once again stress that all the European Member States should generously apply the Geneva Convention and thus give protection to women who are the victims of forced marriages, rape or sexual mutilation.
Europe does not need to wait for the world to review the Geneva Convention.
The Council can itself take the initiative, and I am very pleased that Commissioner Gradin has supported us in this during this week.
<P>
Secondly, difficult decisions to send people home can also be handled in a humane way.
The return of refugees whose asylum applications have been refused must not be an enforced deportation in which individuals are violently expelled from the country.
A humane return policy is possible by means of intensive support at this end, in which people are given the time, resources and help to prepare for their return.
It is also possible by means of resettlement aid in the country of origin and guarantees for their safety.
Ladies and gentlemen, there is more to international cooperation than simply standard return clauses or transit contracts.
All the Union countries should therefore make radical changes to their deportation policy.
This must also be an urgent task for the Council.
The Member States and the Union itself certainly have the right and the obligation to decide on the residence rights of refugees.
We believe the decisions must be made at European level.
But I believe there is a much more humane alternative to fortress Europe which is at present on the European drawing board.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gutiérrez Díaz">
Madam President, I ask you to allow me to make a point of order because the Portuguese, and therefore European, writer José Saramango has just been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Given that he is a European citizen, I would like this House to ask the Presidency to send him a message to congratulate and thank him for his work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pradier">
Madam President, she was 20 years old.
She refused to be expelled.
Some policemen killed her in a Sabena aeroplane.
It is as simple as that.
<P>
Of course, there were protests, demonstrations and a resignation, which is to the credit of the Minister concerned, and there are asylum-seekers who pay with their lives for so-called departure formalities.
There are others, in France and elsewhere: there have been those who have been discussed and those who will never have been discussed.
<P>
A foreigner who is to be expelled leaves via a detention centre.
I fear that few of our colleagues will have been curious enough to go and see what a detention centre is really like.
The buildings are not necessarily deep, dirty dungeons covered with wet straw.
Oh no!
Behind Charles de Gaulle airport there is a detention centre with acceptable rooms, a reading room, a meeting room and a television.
The only thing is that you are taken there by force between two policemen and handed over to the administration, with no contacts, no means of appeal, no lawyer, no possibility of altering the course of events and no power to do anything apart from wait for expulsion, which, of course, does not take long - from a few hours to a few days.
<P>
The State - with a capital 'S' - takes measures for which it is accountable to no-one.
Here, there are no rights to be respected, not even human rights.
There is no trial, no judgement, no appeal, no defence.
The machine keeps going and the steam roller moves on, crushing everything in its path.
However little you demonstrate your relative disagreement with the decision that has been made, you are handcuffed and your ankles are shackled. You are then taken away by civil servants - who all look very good in the eyes of their superiors -, with as much consideration as you can imagine, in a police van to the foot of the detachable steps that lead to the aircraft.
That is how it happens in Europe.
A foreigner to be expelled is first and foremost a security and public order issue.
<P>
Well, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, that has got to change.
The Ministers for the Interior of the countries of the Union have to be accountable to us and to those who have sent us here.
It is in our name that these barbaric acts are carried out, and in our name that these terrible deeds are done.
Our request for the Council to come here very shortly to explain to us precisely what the policy is, what measures have been taken and, finally, how Semira Adamu's murderers are being punished, is not a simple request; it is a demand.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Chanterie">
Madam President, on behalf of the PPE Group, I should also like to say that we are deeply shocked by the tragic death of Semira Adamu.
We trust that the judicial inquiry will shed full light on the circumstances of this tragedy and determine the respective responsibilities.
<P>
The tragic death of Semira Adamu demonstrates the need to implement a responsible asylum policy.
This must take into account the right of political asylum as laid down in the 1948 Geneva Convention, but also the commitments made within the European Union and the Schengen zone.
We should like to stress that this policy must be efficient and that it must be implemented with respect for human dignity and the fundamental rights of every individual.
<P>
I believe there are two elements, two lines of approach, which must be stressed: asylum and immigration policy must be founded on the best possible organisation of authorised immigration and the granting of protection to those in danger or in need of protection.
At the same time, asylum and immigration policy must also be designed to prevent and combat illegal immigration.
In this respect, our measures must be principally directed against the organisers of trafficking in human beings and those who abuse the situation of these poor migrants.
<P>
But an individual who remains illegally in a Member State must also be expelled from that country.
There is no way round that.
However, the need to respect human rights when doing so is of essential importance to the organisation of asylum and immigration policy in all its aspects.
This respect must be present during the asylum procedure and when removing persons illegally present in a country.
<P>
It is also important for asylum-seekers to quickly obtain legal security.
But we must also acknowledge the fact that the Belgian Government assumed its responsibilities following the death of Semira Adamu and congratulate the Belgian Government on seeking to adapt its policy and render it more humane.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, sometimes Members of this House are heard to say that Europe needs to develop a soul.
Well, Europe has a soul, and it is expressed in its universal thinking.
The prerequisite for this has always been love of the unfamiliar, openness, respect for and even curiosity about the unfamiliar.
In Semira Adamu's terrible death we have witnessed the death of Europe's soul.
Xenophobia has become an epidemic in our continent.
<P>
Cases such as the death of this woman could happen at any time.
This should come as no surprise in a Union where for years the right of asylum has been systematically undermined.
It should not surprise any of us that attempts can be made to violate the Geneva Convention, that it is possible to introduce deportation, which makes a mockery of human rights.
If we allow this, we will not only be responsible for further deaths, but we will also be killing Europe's soul, and there will be no point in looking for it any more.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Mohamed Alí">
Madam President, once again we must denounce and condemn the use of violence in forced expulsions of immigrants by security forces in certain Member States of the European Union.
<P>
It is not the first time that the technique of using a pillow to smother the cries of those being expelled has been condemned.
Everyone will remember that Amnesty International has repeatedly denounced this method but, unfortunately, the issue was ignored.
This method, employed quite frequently in Belgium by police authorities to silence the cries of expelled refugees, led to the death of Samira Adamu.
Her murder constituted an unequivocal attack on human dignity and respect for human rights. And this must be said emphatically and clearly, rather than using the euphemisms so often employed.
<P>
We most strongly regret and condemn the use of such practices and ask that those responsible be punished appropriately.
<P>
Nonetheless, we know that this tragic event is nothing more than proof of the repressive aspects of the immigration and asylum policy implemented within the European Union.
<P>
At the same time, I would like to highlight, in this context, the pressing need for sexual abuse to be taken into consideration as a factor for granting political asylum. This is something that has not occurred, not even in the case of the expulsion of this young woman who was forced to marry a polygamist who was 65.
<P>
From a more general point of view, I find it worrying that the European Union is implementing a policy that massively restricts the influx of immigrants, and that gives the impression of a fortress - as we already said yesterday in a similar debate - behind the measures that are adopted.
In addition, the document recently published by the Austrian Presidency also gives particular cause for concern because it highlights the serious threat to the already reduced right of asylum.
In this connection, we would like to state that we believe that any asylum policy that is developed within the European Union must be inextricably linked to the Geneva Convention.
<P>
Finally, I would like to stress and reiterate once again to this House that the immigration and asylum policy must be based on political measures of solidarity and not economic measures.
The first step to solving the problem of immigration is to consolidate in the European Union a genuine policy of generous and united cooperation that helps ...
<P>
(The President cut off the speaker)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="President">
I am sorry, Mr Mohamed Alí, but you are already a minute over your time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="André-Léonard">
Madam President, on 22 September, a young Nigerian woman died in Belgium, smothered by indifference, smothered by violence, smothered by selfishness.
She was 20 years old and had fled Nigeria because she was being forced into an arranged marriage.
She had hoped that in a European Union country she would find refuge, comfort and hope.
She thought that here the universal values of peace, freedom and equality were respected.
Poor Semira!
What she did not know was that our countries are too often insensitive to suffering and to personal or collective tragedies.
<P>
All our countries have ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and signed the Geneva Convention on the status of refugees.
They all have, of course, their own laws on asylum, expulsions and immigration.
The Belgian law, the so-called Van De Lanotte law, has therefore been the focus of all the criticism and uproar.
It allows men, women and children who do not fit the criteria defined by the Aliens Office to be detained in closed centres, often for very long periods of time.
<P>
The tragedy involving Semira has shaken our society and, while maintaining the political force of the law, Belgium has taken measures to make it more respectful of people and, of course, to prevent the use of cushions.
It is up to the European Union to start the process, as quickly as possible, to define a real common European policy on asylum and immigration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Vanhecke">
Mr President, in the case of the indeed very regrettable death of Mrs Adamu, so many lies and untruths have been told today that I should first like to remind the House of two facts.
<P>
Fact one: Mrs Adamu was, with all due respect, an asylum-cheater who even joked herself about the fact that people in Belgium swallowed her story about an enforced marriage.
This is clear, for example, from the shocking testimony of the Reverend Herman Boon, the chaplain at Zaventem Airport.
It should also be remembered that Mrs Adamu first stayed for some time undisturbed with a friend in Lagos, and then also left unhindered for the Togolese capital Lomé where, without encountering problems of any kind, she boarded a plane for Europe.
She was thus anything but a bona fide refugee.
<P>
Fact two: the fact that Mrs Adamu, incited by a far-left 'Collective against Deportations', succeeded on no fewer than five successive occasions in preventing a completely justified departure by screaming and fighting and more, simply means that the asylum policy is much too lenient, and certainly not the opposite.
The figures prove this.
In my country the greater part of rejected asylum-seekers, which means asylum-cheaters, if you will pardon the expression, are not repatriated but disappear into illegality.
Since 1990, this has been the case for 100 000 people, but that does not seem to be a problem.
<P>
Finally, I must also say that I am deeply shocked to see the police officers who have to escort refused asylum-seekers become the victims of slander. They are being labelled as murderers, even in this House.
These people have to work in the most difficult circumstances and deserve every support.
The fact that they are also being maligned by the former Foreign Minister, the socialist Mr Tobback, I see as nothing short of scandalous, because it was not the police force and not even the Vlaams Blok , but the socialist Mr Tobback, the big boss of the socialists who are here today, who described the refugees, and I quote from his book 'Black on White', as 'gulls who come to rest on a rubbish tip here because that is easier than fishing at home or farming the land'.
I would never dare to say this. They are Mr Tobback's words.
<P>
I recall that not a single Belgian minister resigned in the summer of 1996 when the four children in the Dutroux case were found, that nobody resigned when ten paratroopers were gruesomely murdered in Rwanda, and that nobody resigns in my country when its nationals are the regular victims of rape, robbery or murder carried out by illegal immigrants or asylum-seekers, for example.
<P>
I would end with this question: are there perhaps first class victims and second class victims of a defective policy?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Monfils">
Madam President, this resolution must not obscure our own failings in moving towards harmonising asylum and immigration policies.
What have we done over recent years?
We have made declarations, but we have done almost nothing tangible.
We cleared our consciences through the Treaty of Amsterdam by deciding that, in the five years following its ratification, minimum rules would have to be adopted in this sector.
<P>
So my question is the following: is Europe going to wait five years before acting? Is it not now time to present the 15 Member States with a set of measures leading towards a common vision, across all of Europe, of the conditions concerning both asylum and the status of refugees?
In so doing, Europe would show that it is not only an economic machine, but that it is also capable, when united, of facing the difficult challenge posed by the attraction our society has for those who flee their country of origin due to its political regime, poverty or the violation of fundamental rights.
<P>
If Europe does not do its duty, if the Council of Ministers does not progress on this issue, there will, unfortunately, be other Semira Adamus.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Madam President, the dominant fact is that a 20-year-old girl has been brutally murdered by organisations of the State.
All the rest that was said a little while ago by one of our young colleagues is unacceptable, being not devil's advocacy but a defence of crimes and criminals.
And the criminals are not simply the police, but the executive bodies, the government, the Belgian legal system and the more general legislation prevailing in the European Union on asylum, immigrants, foreigners - the very framework outlined by the Council of the European Union within which that legislation operates.
We must overthrow these things, and while our pain and anger over this matter may well up, we must remain calm and vigilant, and look out every day from now on for what can be changed and how to humanise the murderous legislation currently in force.
<P>
Madam President, a few days ago the new Greek Archbishop spoke of 'the barbarous East and the civilised West', but it seems that his prophetic powers leave something to be desired, since we have all seen where barbarism lies.
It is at the heart of the civilised West.
And we must change that heart, not tear it out but change it, make it truly civilised so that it does not just pay lip-service to humanity, human rights and other such mirages.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Chanterie">
Madam President, I will not allow the words of Mr Ephremidis to pass when he says that, in Belgium, murders are only committed by illegal immigrants and that Belgian law does not comply with the Convention on Human Rights or with the European legislation.
Making such statements simply cannot be allowed, not even in the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Pinheiro">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in view of the fact that my colleague Mrs Gradin gave the House a clear and lengthy account of the Commission's position last Tuesday, I will refrain, if I may, Madam President, from repeating my colleague's words and merely express my personal sadness at what occurred.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Neyts-Uyttebroeck">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I spent the whole of the first week of September in Slovakia as a member of the international team assessing the pre-election situation there.
I was a witness both to the doubts concerning the fairness of the approaching elections and the fanatical efforts of the democratic parties and NGOs to ensure open, fair and correct elections.
Through the very high turn-out in the election and by voting in the way they did, the Slovaks clearly demonstrated their commitment to democracy, the rule of law, freedom and justice.
The way the elections themselves were organised over the two-day period and the votes counted is also very encouraging.
A smooth transfer of power, the speedy formation of a new government and an energetic approach to the necessary reforms in order to come into line with our acquis must make it possible for Slovakia to be recognised as a candidate Member State.
The Commission and the Council owe it to the Slovak people, Madam President, to recognise the changed political circumstances.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wiersma">
Mr President, I am pleased that we can now have a debate on Slovakia with a very positive undertone.
I hope that for the time being this will be the last urgent debate on Slovakia, and that from now on we can discuss this country normally.
This is indeed the result of the elections which were successfully held on 25 and 26 September.
A small delegation of observers from the European Parliament was present, and we could confirm for ourselves that the elections were conducted in a manner which was orderly, well organised and fair.
<P>
This also allows us to make a new evaluation of Slovakia and to have a new discussion on the question of whether it should be included in the first group of accession countries.
We assume that the incoming government and the new Slovak Parliament will be announcing a programme of political reforms, designed to strengthen the country's democratic structure, protect the rights of minorities and better regulate the country's free and independent media.
If they succeed in this, they will have removed the principal obstacles to Slovakia being included in accession negotiations.
We hope that not only the incoming government but also the political parties which are now negotiating will clearly understand that this programme of political reforms is also very important to the European Union, because over the past year the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council have all stressed the need for a number of these reforms.
If they are implemented, we must give serious attention to the formal and informal undertakings we have given to Slovakia.
But there is a certain time problem to which I would draw attention.
This is also referred to in the motion for a resolution.
Formally, the Commission's screening reports are to be published on 6 November.
The Commission will clearly not have enough time to pay sufficient attention in these to the new political situation in Slovakia.
It is also unlikely that the new government will have come up with a concrete programme for political reforms by that date, and even less likely that certain actions will actually have been implemented.
The transition in Slovakia no doubt comes too close to the Vienna summit, and the Vienna summit will not be able to take a decision on whether or not Slovakia can be included in the first group of acceding countries.
<P>
We call on Parliament and above all on the Commission and the Council to show some flexibility, and to consider whether it is possible - if Vienna does not seem to be feasible, if in Vienna it is not yet possible to form an opinion on the political reforms - to draw up some kind of additional interim report on Slovakia in the spring for those points laid down as criteria for membership, namely rights for minorities and democratic stability.
The Council would then be able to decide under the German Presidency whether or not to include Slovakia in the first group.
It would be a very bad signal from Parliament, from the European Union, if we were to keep Slovakia waiting until December next year after everything we have asked of it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stenzel">
Madam President, the elections which took place in Slovakia on 25 and 26 September have caused a major upset.
The Slovak population has demonstrated political maturity by voting out Prime Minister Meciar and giving the Democratic Coalition a majority vote.
This is a departure from post-communist despotism and represents a particular success for our sister party, the Christian Democrats, who are the main political force in the new government.
The European Parliament, therefore, rightly congratulates the Slovak population on the results of this election.
<P>
There are grounds for hoping that a strong and stable government will now be formed quickly.
The victorious opposition, the Slovak Democratic Coalition (SDK), has found its feet in the determination to oust Meciar.
It unites such different forces as Christian Democrats, Liberals, the reformed Communist Left and the Party of the Hungarian Coalition.
It is a heterogeneous group which is going to have to work to maintain its cohesion.
However, there is a strong chance that it can create a government which fulfils the Copenhagen accession criteria, particularly in terms of achieving institutional stability as a guarantee of democracy based on the rule of law, of respect for human rights and of respect for and the protection of minorities.
<P>
There are now calls for the European Union to support Slovakia so that it can fulfil the political criteria for accession.
The political change in this country favours the integration of Slovakia into the European Union and represents a welcome element of stability in Central Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Madam President, the European Parliament has repeatedly expressed its dissatisfaction with the progress of democracy in Slovakia, which was also the reason it was not included in the first group of accession countries.
<P>
However, I believe that anyone expressing dissatisfaction and criticism should also be prepared to recognise change and progress and to assess them fairly.
The elections in Slovakia were fair and correct, as I observed for myself.
The question for us now is whether the Union is capable of responding to this situation quickly and firmly and of assessing it appropriately.
<P>
I believe that the current resolution is too vague, too 'wait and see', too cautious.
My group believes it is possible to bring Slovakia into the first group sooner, particularly given that the new forces of democracy could use all the support they can get not only on the path to democracy but also on the path to Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Madam President, as other Members have mentioned in their speeches, I would like to welcome the fact that the general elections held in September in Slovakia took place under acceptable conditions. They will surely constitute a decisive step towards establishing in that country a democratic system and the rule of law worthy of such names.
If this is indeed what has been achieved, there is no doubt that Slovakia will be in a similar position to the first group of countries that are already negotiating their accession to the European Union.
<P>
What is more, the Members of this Parliament should welcome this positive development. However, they should also take into consideration that perhaps, in one way or another, the opinions given by this House - as well as those of the European Commission and, of course, the Council - when determining the groups of countries and the processes through which they were to negotiate their accession have aroused a great deal of interest in Slovak society and public opinion, which has finally opted for the path of democracy and respect for the rule of law.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bösch">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am not usually one for debates involving associated countries on Thursday afternoons such as this, but today really is a welcome exception after the excellent decision made by the Slovak electorate.
<P>
I think that it is not so important for Mrs Stenzel whether it is the Christian Democrats or other parties who received a larger share of the vote.
In my opinion, it is crucial that this has given a very clear signal in favour of Europe.
In this context, I, as co-chairman of the Joint Parliamentary Committee, would like to offer my warmest thanks to my colleagues from the OSCE, the Council of Europe and this House for acting as election observers and contributing significantly to the generally smooth running of the elections.
<P>
I feel that this is also an appropriate time to remind you that the decision taken by the European Parliament to hold the door open for Slovakia, despite recommendations to the contrary by the Commission, was correct and was in the end rewarded by the voters.
However, we will have to judge the incoming government and the incoming majorities in Slovakia by what happens in future.
We expect appropriate parliamentary monitoring of the secret services.
We want a law on minority languages, as agreed, and I believe that Slovakia will need a different form of political culture than has hitherto been the case.
We believe that there have been some highly encouraging signs so far, and we in the Joint Parliamentary Committee and in the European Parliament must help to ensure that the changing situation is given appropriate acknowledgement in the form of increased cooperation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, 84 % voter turn-out speaks for itself.
I myself was in Slovakia for three days as election observer, and the enthusiasm of the Slovak people when they went to the polls was tangible.
I was also very pleased to note that the political representatives at the polling stations had had excellent training. Training sessions often lasted up to five hours, and the use of videos ensured maximum preparation for the elections.
Young people were palpably pleased to vote in this election and it was clear that the official representatives, who regarded each other with great scepticism, really did monitor procedures right to the end.
<P>
It is for these reasons that I believe this election was a huge step forward for Slovakia.
Today, we can confirm with a clear conscience that the elections took place in a correct and objective manner, that new majorities were made possible and that Slovakia now has a real opportunity to forge ahead on the path to Europe.
We noticed that the Slovak population were very pro-Europe.
Another vote took place at the same time as these elections and had a very low turn-out, yet 84 % voted in the election involving the 17 parties that stood, so we know that the Slovak people had both practical and emotional reasons for voting the way they did.
I also call upon the Commission to ensure that Slovakia's democratic election leads to appropriate action being taken.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Madam President, although this has already been said, there is reason to note that the Slovak people have realised that in a democracy it is possible to change the future of one's country.
The people there have shown their desire to belong to the European democratic fellowship and have understood that having a functioning democracy makes a difference.
<P>
We note this with satisfaction.
However, I join with Mr Bösch in maintaining that it is important also to achieve results in the governmental work, both as regards developing a functioning administration, a stable democracy and, not least, when it comes to resolving minority questions.
I am not entirely happy on that point, having heard certain first reports from Slovakia.
We must await results on this point, but our signal and our debate today are a clear gesture to the Slovak people: thank you for the result you have achieved.
<P>
Finally I will merely point out that we are quite surprised that Finland was not invited to participate in the organisation to observe the elections.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Madam President, in March of this year Parliament expressed its concern at the political situation in Slovakia.
The departure of President Kovac followed by the appointment of Prime Minister Meciar created an even more worrying situation.
The undemocratic behaviour of Meciar and his party towards the opposition and the Hungarian minority caused much criticism from abroad.
<P>
Not so long ago, Slovakia was a candidate for membership of NATO and the European Union.
Unfortunately, under Meciar the country turned its back politically, legally and economically on European standards, its political situation excluding it from the first group of potential EU Member States.
<P>
Fortunately, times appear to have changed.
Prime Minister Meciar's party suffered heavy losses at the elections to the National Council at the end of September, giving the Slovak opposition the unique opportunity to put right much of what had gone wrong under Meciar.
The high turn-out at the elections shows that the people are convinced of the need for change.
Meciar has lost the trust of his people, but his party nevertheless remains the largest.
<P>
The job is not over with this victory for the anti-Meciar parties.
A difficult task awaits the opposition.
The door of the European Union remains open to Slovakia, provided it has a democratic government.
The situation is worrying, as both before and during the elections the opposition had one thing in common above all else, namely their opposition to Meciar.
There was no agreement on a political programme.
Political and economic power are closely linked in Slovakia.
Although the election victory gives the opposition political power, economic power is still largely in the hands of Meciar and friends.
This is why the opposition must cancel many of the political appointments, look at the legality of the privatisation, and regain the trust of the international community.
They must show that they can provide stability.
Slovakia's recovery is dependent on these opposition parties drawing up a political programme which gives substance to the aforementioned points.
It is in this way that a genuine coalition will be created.
They must also hold together for four years.
<P>
In this, they need the political and financial help and support of the European Parliament.
Together it is possible to work constructively on ensuring that Slovakia can join the European Union, like its former partner the Czech Republic, for example.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Madam President, we have not had a great deal of good news in Europe in recent times.
At last, a real ray of hope has come from Slovakia; shortly before the elections, during which I was also present, the people really did not believe that they could win.
It is incredibly encouraging for us that these people were able to assert themselves against such a brutal power.
Mr Meciar really was a brutal potential dictator.
<P>
I spoke to him several times, and I have to say that I came away with the impression that the man is a medical problem rather than a political one!
However, this is dangerous for all of us.
We should now do everything in our power to enable the Slovak people, good people who have survived a tough history, to join the European Union as soon as possible.
We must ask the governments to do their best to ensure that the relevant decision is adopted at the summit in Vienna, which incidentally is only a few minutes away from Slovakia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="Pinheiro">
Madam President, the Slovak people have demonstrated, through their high turnout and their civil and peaceful behaviour on the occasion of the recent parliamentary elections, a firm commitment to democracy and a willingness to use this democratic opportunity to bring change to political life in the Slovak Republic.
The Commission encourages Slovakia to make full use of the opportunity thus created to address the problems highlighted in the Commission's opinion of July 1997 which have hampered its accession process.
<P>
We hope that the outgoing government will facilitate the process of formation of a new government and that, in the interests of Slovakia, the process will be conducted quickly, avoiding unnecessary delays.
It is hoped that there will be a rapid improvement of the political climate which will lead Slovakia closer to the European Union in terms of democracy.
<P>
The European Commission is firmly committed to facilitating the process of integration of Slovakia into the Union; it encourages the future government to accelerate preparations for accession by showing clear commitment to removing the obstacles indicated in the opinion, and to address the accession partnership priorities.
The new government is encouraged to consolidate and enhance the momentum of political reform, including in the area of protection of minorities, and to promote confidence and stability in key state institutions, including the presidency.
<P>
Macro-economic equilibrium needs to be promptly re-established and maintained; economic reform, particularly in the financial sector, transparency in economic-decision making and better corporate governance all need to be pursued urgently.
<P>
As you know, the Commission is currently preparing the first regular progress report.
We will take the changes in Slovakia into account as late as possible in that process.
But the government has not yet been formed so, for the moment, it is too early to make definitive judgments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner Pinheiro.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>

Taslima Nasreen -B4-0906/98 by Mr Collins and Mrs van Bladel, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, on Taslima Nasreen; -B4-0920/98 by Mr Telkämper and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on Taslima Nasreen; -B4-0934/98 by Mrs Lenz and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on Taslima Nasreen; -B4-0939/98 by Mrs González Álvarez and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the death threats levelled at Taslima Nasreen;
<P>
Malaysia -B4-0899/98 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on the human rights situation in Malaysia; -B4-0908/98 by Mr Collins and Mrs van Bladel, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, on Anwar Ibrahim; -B4-0914/98 by Mr Titley, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the human rights situation in Malaysia; -B4-0933/98 by Mr Habsburg-Lothringen and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on human rights in Malaysia; -B4-0944/98 by Mr Telkämper and Mrs McKenna, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the recent political detentions under the Internal Security Act in Malaysia;


<P>


Capital punishment in Iran -B4-0900/98 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on the human rights situation in Iran; -B4-0919/98 by Mrs Roth and Mrs Aglietta, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on capital punishment in Iran; -B4-0926/98 by Mrs Sandbæk, on behalf of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, on the situation of human rights in Iran; -B4-0930/98 by Mrs Maij-Weggen and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on capital punishment in Iran; -B4-0941/98 by Mr Manisco and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on human rights in Iran;
<P>

Capital punishment in the United States -B4-0911/98 by Mr Barzanti and Mr Bontempi, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the sentencing to death of an Italian national; -B4-0917/98 by Mrs Aglietta, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the sentencing to death in the US of Rocco Derek Barnabei; -B4-0925/98 by Mr Dupuis and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on capital punishment in the US; -B4-0940/98 by Mr Manisco and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on capital punishment in the US;
<P>
Leyla Zana -B4-0945/98 by Mr Wurtz and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the release of Leyla Zana;
<P>
Georgia -B4-0931/98 by Mr von Habsburg, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on human rights in Georgia.
<P>
Taslima Nasreen
<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
Madam President, we are concerned about one of the great women of this House.
Taslima Nasreen was awarded the Sakharov Prize here for her work, for her political commitment and for her commitment to human rights.
She received the Sakharov Prize, lived in exile for four years and has now returned to Bangladesh where she is being persecuted.
We are alarmed that fundamentalist parties such as Jamal-e-Islami in Bangladesh have been holding demonstrations against Mrs Nasreen since 14 September and demanding that she be executed.
<P>
We are worried that the police in Bangladesh are hunting for her after a court in Dhaka issued a new warrant for her arrest and for the seizure of her possessions, renewing the charge of blasphemy made in 1994, and we are alarmed that a new reward of FRF 33 000 has been offered.
<P>
Why is she being persecuted?
She incurred the anger of the fundamentalists in Bangladesh mainly because she defended the rights of women in the context of certain Islamic traditions.
Increasingly, we hear reports from Bangladesh about brutal and arbitrary behaviour by the police and about the inability of the organs of state to defend the rights of the victims of this violence.
We are dismayed by all of this and concerned that Mrs Nasreen has had to go into hiding, that she is being persecuted and that she may be facing death.
<P>
Therefore, I call upon the Commission and the Council to support the great lady of this House, the Sakharov Prize laureate, as I said, but also in particular, Madam President, to support this Parliament.
In two weeks a parliamentary delegation will be travelling to Bangladesh because of the devastating flood disaster.
That is a different problem, but I believe it is the duty of this delegation to address the human rights situation during talks with the government and to do everything possible to ensure that Mrs Nasreen can move freely.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Thomas">
Madam President, in 1994 the European Parliament awarded the Sakharov Prize to Taslima Nasreen.
In her book 'Lajja', which roughly means 'feelings of shame', she described the life of a Hindu family and outlined Muslim extremism, intolerance towards the Hindu minority and everyday discrimination against women in a male-dominated world.
The book was banned in her own country.
Anyone accused of injuring religious feelings can expect a prison sentence of up to two years.
After four years, Mrs Nasreen came out of exile and is back in Bangladesh.
Was it recklessness that drove her to do this?
<P>
On her Internet website she gives her reasons for returning home.
One is homesickness and attachment to a country that is much too important to be allowed to fall into the hands of extremists.
The other is her mother who is seriously ill with cancer.
She wants to be with her in what will probably be the last weeks of her life.
Almost as soon as Mrs Nasreen arrived in Bangladesh under a false name and went into hiding, the streets were full of soldiers.
We have reliable reports of serious outbreaks of violence.
A reward has been offered, as Mr Telkämper mentioned, and demands for her death are circulating once again, initiated by fanatical Muslim extremists.
<P>
So Taslima Nasreen's life is once again in danger.
It is still unclear how long the government, regarded as liberal, can hold its ground against the fundamentalists.
We call upon the Prime Minister, Mrs Hasina, to apply the human rights enshrined in the constitution and to protect Mrs Nasreen.
The demands for her to present herself voluntarily before the courts is a double-edged one, given the possibility of a prison sentence, uncontrollable pressure and the danger of attacks by extremists who are almost impossible to keep in check.
<P>
I hope, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, that the Sakharov Prize has the necessary international standing to finally help to free this brave fighter from danger.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Madam President, as other Members have already mentioned, after four years of being away from her country, Taslima Nasrin has returned there for personal reasons, perhaps to visit her mother whose health has deteriorated or because she missed her country.
She has returned and once again her life has been threatened.
We should ask ourselves exactly how being awarded the Sakharov Prize has helped her and her other colleague Leyla Zana - who will be mentioned later-, who continues to be held prisoner in Turkish prisons, after having received a further sentence of two years for writing an article.
<P>
I therefore believe that it should be very important for the European institutions to exert considerable pressure, in this case, on the Bangladeshi Government to prevent fanatics from killing a woman who has defended human rights in general, and the rights of women in particular.
The defense of human rights in general and the rights of women are of great importance to this Parliament, especially in those countries.
The Commission, or the Council, on its behalf, should apply severe pressure on that country in order to prevent something from happening.
<P>
Malaysia
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Neyts-Uyttebroeck">
Mr President, the recent events in Malaysia, and more particularly the tribulations of former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, provide further evidence of the fact that authoritarian and undemocratic regimes ultimately devour their own children.
This has nothing to do with any supposed differences in culture or national character. It has everything to do with accepting arbitrariness as a governing principle.
<P>
The Malaysian Prime Minister and his government cannot expect their country to be accepted as a full political partner if they violate fundamental human rights.
The Internal Security Act, which permits detention for long periods without any form of trial, violates the most fundamental principles of human rights, as does the criminal discrimination against homosexuals and the threats, persecutions, arrest of critics, mistreatment of detainees, refusal to grant legal assistance and much more.
<P>
My group supports the appeal to the Malaysian Government to stop this behaviour and calls on the Council and the Commission to apply human rights as the essential criterion in its relations with Malaysia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="Newens">
Madam President, the arrest of Anwar Ibrahim, former Deputy Prime Minister and heir apparent to Mahathir Mohamad, along with 11 associates, demonstrates the short shrift that is given to democratic freedoms and human rights in Malaysia today.
Despite his previous status Mr Anwar had a black eye and other evidence of the physical abuse to which he had been subjected when he appeared in court.
<P>
It is likely that the charges of unnatural sex acts and corruption are fabrications to justify his removal and imprisonment while the real motive is to remove a rival when the Prime Minister's standing has been shaken by the Far East economic crisis.
Regardless of this, however, the punishment of homosexual acts between consenting adults by flogging and up to 20 years imprisonment is an outrage.
<P>
Mr Anwar and his friends are by no means the first politicians to suffer at the hands of the Malaysian authorities.
A draconian set of laws threaten dissidents and journalists who speak out and people like Lim Guan Eng, an opposition MP, are already in jail for sedition; Irene Fernandez, head of a women's organization, is on trial for publishing allegations of abuses in immigration centres; Param Kumaraswami, a UN special rapporteur, faces a $25m defamation suit brought by two Malaysian companies, and the government refuses to recognize his immunity.
<P>
There have been large demonstrations in Malaysia, and in the European Parliament we must speak out clearly in favour of the release of Mr Anwar Ibrahim and his colleagues and all political prisoners, and the abolition of laws which deny the right of free speech or other basic rights.
We are deeply concerned about the economic crisis and its impact on the peoples of Malaysia and all south-east Asia, but we must continue to raise our voice against the flagrant abuse of fundamental political and human rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Madam President, Commissioner, we have recently heard repeated reports from the media about the terrible ill-treatment of the deputy prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, and the utterly grotesque accusations against him.
A representative of the Adenauer Foundation had the opportunity to visit him a few days ago and was able to confirm our worst fears.
<P>
I think we should take a brief look at the history of Malaysia and point out what Tunku Abdul Rahman, the founder of an independent Malaysia and one of the greatest figures in the whole of Asia, said about Mahathir Mohamad 15 years ago. He warned people against him and said that he was a great demagogue who could bring disaster to Malaysia.
In my opinion, our worst fears about Mahathir Mohamad have proved to be true.
He is one of the greatest demagogues and perhaps one of the greatest experts when it comes to pushing aside troublesome rivals or unseating others who come to power.
<P>
The last obstacle to his seizing full power in Malaysia was undoubtedly deputy prime minister Anwar, one of the greatest economic experts in the whole region. He was regarded by several newspapers as one of the genuine hopes for the future of Malaysia, and he was also someone who might actually have achieved something, particularly in these times of serious economic crisis.
<P>
Of course, the Anwar case also shows us that something is wrong with Malaysia's basic laws.
It has already been stated that under the Internal Security Act people can be detained without a warrant, for an investigation period of up to 60 days, if they are suspected - only suspected, mind you - of threatening Malaysia's national security or economy.
Furthermore, the Minister of Home Affairs may issue a detention order of two years without any significant reason.
We must protest against this and stand up for this man.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
Madam President, in recent years Malaysia has enjoyed the benefits of being at the centre of the economic boom, and human rights violations have not been a central issue, any more so than the Internal Security Act, a law from the colonial period. For as long as I have been in this Parliament, we have criticised this law as being clear proof that Malaysia is not a democratic constitutional state.
We have now been alarmed by the arrest of Anwar Ibrahim, the former deputy prime minister, and a further eleven people who were detained with him under the Internal Security Act, and by the arrest of Mr Nallakarupan, a businessman.
We fear that they have been subjected to ill-treatment during their detention.
Why?
This Internal Security Act is an arbitrary law.
People can be arrested simply on suspicion.
They can be held in detention and then imprisoned for two years, which can be extended indefinitely.
Currently, 200 people appear to be held in detention, and we demand their immediate release.
<P>
We also condemn the Malaysian penal code, under which homosexual acts between consenting adults are punishable by up to 20 years' imprisonment and whipping.
Some people have been imprisoned on these grounds, and we call upon the government to act in a constitutional manner and to release these people immediately.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, most people think that the situation in Iran has changed slightly in recent times but it is still very much the same.
I want to mention that during the first year of the new President there were 260 public hangings, hundreds of secretly-executed political prisoners; 7 people stoned to death in public, not to mention those stoned to death in secret.
Very recently the authorities have brought in new legislation for separate single-sex hospitals.
Women will be in one, men in another.
Women will be treated only by female doctors and men only by male doctors.
<P>
As we know, the vast majority of patients in hospitals are women.
This happens for a variety of reasons, not least because they are the ones who give birth.
The numbers of patients will be far in excess of the doctors available, who are mostly male.
This situation has to be addressed.
You cannot have single-sex hospitals.
<P>
The fact is that Iran has changed very little in recent times.
The only thing that has changed is its PR approach.
Salman Rushdie's death penalty has not really been lifted.
We have to be vigilant.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, the reason for this resolution on Iran is that once again two death sentences have been passed on Baha'is in the country.
We should remember that since the Islamic government came to power in Iran, in 1979, death sentences have been carried out on 200 Bahai'is, but that these stopped in 1992 following international protests - until this summer, that is, because in July another member of this group was executed.
That is why we are very concerned that these two individuals who have now received the death sentence may in fact be killed.
The first appeal in this resolution is an appeal to Iran not to take this road once again and to allow some religious freedom and certainly not murder people for their religious beliefs.
This violates every international convention in the Western world, and I believe in many more countries too.
Asia also rejects such practices.
This then is the first and most important aim of this resolution.
<P>
But I should also like to take this opportunity to express my great concern at what is happening in Iran.
Because Iran is now showing two faces to the world.
One face that suggests a little tolerance, a slightly improving situation, the famous show by Mr Cook and the Iranian Foreign Minister in New York, while on the other hand there is the repression which is not letting up at all, just taking place a little more behind closed doors.
There are many indications of this, but they are now rather more hidden, such as death sentences which in general are still being passed, but are now being carried out in private courtyards rather than on public squares in front of the cameras, as was previously the case.
Someone even told me that smaller stones are now being used and no longer the large rocks.
To be honest, I do not know which is worse, whether you are stoned to death in a private courtyard with small stones or with large rocks on a public square.
<P>
The repression against women is also continuing unabated.
Recently this has taken on an additional and very serious form. Women can no longer be treated by male doctors, which has led to women dying in regions where there are no female doctors.
<P>
The fact is that it looks better than it is, that we must not allow ourselves to be deceived and must know the truth about Iran and therefore keep up our protests until things are put right, not just on the public stage but behind the scenes too.
The human rights situation in Iran remains unacceptable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García Arias">
Mr President, in view of what my colleagues have said, I find the situation in Iran worrying because we have sufficient information to imagine what turn political events might take.
We know that a violent State regime generates violence and resistance. And we risk focusing our attention solely on the plight of women, trade unionists and other religious groups, when we really should be concentrating on the development of the fundamental right of association and political expression.
<P>
What can the European Union do in relation to this matter?
In my opinion, this critical dialogue has failed and we must doubt whether sufficient changes have taken place to enable the people to express political opinions without being suppressed.
<P>
I am therefore appealing for us here to focus our attention on the political developments that are needed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, the issue here - the eternal persecution of the Baha'is - is similar to one mentioned earlier.
The Iranians always say that these people are enemies of the country as the core of the Baha'i religion is actually based in Israel.
This is the pretext that is always used.
We should do everything in our power to help the Baha'is to regain the religious freedom that they had before Khomeini seized power, and the freedom to which they should be entitled once again.
<P>
There have been positive signs, but unfortunately the opportunity passed all too quickly.
I would strongly urge that we should begin our protests once again, as they helped in the past.
If we continue they should help this time too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cars">
Mr President, one of the things that fill me with pride at being a European and belonging to the European Union is the clear stand we have taken and continue to take in this part of the world against the death penalty.
<P>
What is happening in Iran is terrible.
It applies of course not only to the exposed group associated with the Baha'i movement, but also to a great many other people who are being put to death by the Iranian authorities.
We must protest at this process in all its manifestations.
One of the consequences of it is that it casts a shadow over the religion of which those in power in Iran say they are the staunchest interpreters.
I refuse to believe that Muslims act that way or advocate the kind of action pursued by those in power in Iran.
I think we must unequivocally condemn their measures and proclaim that they are in contradiction, not just with the principles of humanism, but with those of all reputable religions.
<P>
Capital punishment in the United States
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Barzanti">
Mr President, we are calling for the death sentence on Rocco Derek Barnabei, due to be carried out on 28 October in the American state of Virginia, to be commuted or at least for a stay of execution to be granted.
<P>
Rocco, a young man of 31, the grandson of an Italian emigrant, was accused of killing his fiancée in 1993.
His financial circumstances did not permit him to prepare an adequate defence.
New evidence has come to light which I gather may change the guilty verdict.
The condemned man should have the right to prove his innocence.
So the death penalty must not be carried out.
<P>
Furthermore, the resolution of 3 April 1998 of the 54th UN Commission calls for a moratorium on executions with a view to complete abolition of the death penalty.
This resolution must not fall on deaf ears yet again, nor must the General Affairs Council decision of 29 June 1998, requiring constant and determined action by the European Union at international level against capital punishment, be regarded as an empty statement of principle.
Save Rocco Derek Barnabei's life!
No court, no judge, no power can take the life of a human being.
Anywhere where this dreadful barbarity survives and has not been stamped out cannot claim to respect fundamental human rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, this year, for the second year in succession, the UN Commission on Human Rights passed a resolution calling on those states which still have the death penalty to impose a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty.
<P>
The United States is, of course, one of the countries which owes the largest amount of money to the United Nations.
As a so-called civilised country, it totally ignores international opinion on this issue.
It is completely unacceptable that it carries out the same barbaric acts as countries like Iran -it is basically in the same category as Iran.
Despite the fact that it holds itself up as the moral police force of the world, it is murdering people every year - and thinks that is right.
A strong message has to be sent out and it has to be forced to toe the line on this issue.
<P>
In this case, in particular, the fact that although fresh evidence has come to light and a re-trial has been denied is despicable.
This is someone whose life is going to be terminated and his right both to produce new evidence and a fair trial has been denied.
It is of fundamental importance that the United States adheres to the principles of human rights.
I would like Mary Robinson, the UN Commissioner on Human Rights, to put pressure on the United States to abolish the death penalty.
It is long overdue for a so-called civilised country to abolish such a barbaric act.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Colombo Svevo">
Mr President, battles are often fought - if not won - over similar situations in our countries - and some of these battles give rise to a sense of unease.
While we can feel sure we are doing the right thing, because any battle against the death penalty reinforces human dignity, there is also a feeling of deep regret for all those who are condemned to death, yet do not find a sympathetic audience like our Parliament.
<P>
Today we are dealing with an urgent individual case, where there is possible new evidence and an inadequate defence which might now be better presented.
But I think we should be starting from the decision of the General Affairs Council aimed at strengthening the European Union's international action against the death penalty, because these individual cases are increasingly becoming the focus of our determination to urge the United States and the United Nations towards a moratorium on executions. The final outcome of such a moratorium must of course be the abolition of the death penalty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is not much to add to what has already been said by previous speakers in this debate.
But it is still worth emphasizing that there are two sides to the case of Rocco Derek Barnabei: one is the European Union's overall, clear, precise and agreed condemnation of this barbaric punishment over many years, and the other is the rights and wrongs of the individual case, it being understood that we refuse to accept the legitimacy of the death penalty.
In this particular case rights of defence and full presentation of evidence were not guaranteed, and those are fundamental to a legal system like that of the United States, where advocacy of civil liberties is a matter of pride and it is often considered preferable to let the guilty go free than to condemn the innocent.
That is precisely the point we must rely on in calling for the sentence to be commuted or, if necessary, for a stay of execution, at least.
<P>
Leyla Zana
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Querbes">
Mr President, by awarding the Sakharov Prize to Leyla Zana, our Parliament has taken a clear position against the violation of human rights in Turkey and in favour of a negotiated and political solution to the Kurdish issue.
We do so on behalf of universal values, but also drawing lessons from situations of conflict in Europe, such as Northern Ireland, and in the world, and from the way in which they have been resolved.
Obviously, the leaders in Ankara are refusing to listen to this message from the democratic and progressive forces of the Union.
Worse still, the new sentences that the country has just passed against Leyla Zana and that threaten many leading members of HADEP, show that those leaders are locked into a repressive and military strategy from which there is no escape.
<P>
In this situation, our Parliament must not only demonstrate its human and brotherly solidarity with our colleague Leyla Zana and all those who are the victims of repressive measures, but it must also reaffirm its total support for all the forces that are fighting in Turkey to achieve democracy in that country.
This is the aim of the resolution that we have tabled, which calls, in particular, for the immediate release of Leyla Zana and all the political prisoners, and for a peaceful, political solution to the Kurdish issue through direct negotiations with the representatives of that people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stenzel">
Mr President, the Leyla Zana case is unfortunately symptomatic of the whole Kurdish problem in Turkey.
When we go there we are told by the PKK that this is the last battle.
The Turkish side answers with the same argument, that it is the last advance against the PKK.
<P>
There are several reasons why a solution has not yet been reached.
On the one hand, the Kurdish forces are fragmented; on the other hand, there are areas of withdrawal and also support from outside.
Therefore, I support the resolution, which demands that a political solution be found, as a military solution has so far not succeeded.
The current situation, in which there is considerable tension between Turkey and Syria, shows how dangerous it is to delay a political solution.
<P>
I myself once visited Leyla Zana in prison.
She was paraded as their star inmate.
I find it outrageous that a country that aspires to join the EU should imprison people because of their political beliefs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Mr President, I am pleased that the whole Parliament is so united on the subject of Leyla Zana.
But if I may, during the one minute's speaking time allotted to me, I should like to point out that this subject has been on Parliament's agenda at least five times in the past two years, and regrettably nothing at all has been done to improve her situation.
She is indeed a recipient of the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize.
She has been sentenced to a further two years in prison and of course it is not only her, Leyla Zana, who is the issue, but also all the other Kurds and members of the so-called banned political parties who are being arrested and given long prison sentences.
This is a violation of human rights in Turkey against which we must continue to loudly protest.
The only thing we can do is to continue to bombard the Turkish Government with our views on the violation of human rights.
When I visit Mr Demirel in Ankara next week with an environment group, I will certainly present him with this resolution of the European Parliament and ask him to comment personally on it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
Mr President, first I want to express the support of the Green Group for this resolution from the members of the GUE Group. Our support also reiterates the commitment of the Greens to sending a tangible signal of support from the European Parliament to the Kurdish people, through Leyla Zana.
It is absolutely incredible that even though the European Parliament has sought to highlight the lack of respect for human rights in Turkey through Leyla Zana, today she is still under such a heavy sentence, with another two years in prison for the article she wrote. Other Kurdish Members of Parliament are facing the same treatment and other people are in prison just for saying what they think.
<P>
The signal from the European Parliament would obviously look extremely weak if we did not use this vote to underline the significance of the award of the Sakharov Prize to Leyla Zana.
So I hope Parliament will recognise the importance of the resolution put forward by our GUE Group colleagues and that it can form the basis for creating the conditions to get the Turkish government properly involved in these issues.
<P>
As long as these things are happening, we cannot accept that there should be attempts at dialogue going on which do not stress the importance of human rights in Turkey.
Faced with a deteriorating situation - and certainly no improvement - we cannot, as the European Union and as the European Parliament, fail to uphold the commitment we have made in other resolutions and by awarding the Sakharov Prize to Leyla Zana, and we must forcefully stress that Europe and the countries of the world cannot tolerate countries which do not respect human rights and other people's ideas, and which use incarceration as an instrument of political struggle.
<P>
Georgia
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, we have already discussed various human rights issues at length.
Georgia, however, is quite a special case.
In April of this year the UN human rights section examined the case of certain prisoners in detail, obviously with the aim of setting an example for others, since it is the general treatment of people in Georgia's prisons that is simply scandalous.
I was co-opted into the Georgia Helsinki Group a long time ago, and as a result I receive information directly.
It is shocking what people are going through there.
<P>
This was why it was good that the UN dealt with this.
It wrote a report, which was adopted by the UN, calling on the Georgian Government to put an end to this scandalous situation, particularly with regard to the three people I have named in the resolution.
Since then nothing has happened.
The UN has made several inquiries but there has been no reply from Georgia.
The government remains silent.
<P>
In my opinion, it is now time for us Europeans to have a say.
After all, we must not forget that Georgia listens to us very seriously.
Therefore, it would almost be a service to Georgia if we were to take up this issue and call upon the Georgian Government, as stated in the resolution, to finally comply with the UN's proposals following lengthy, serious studies based on a broad range of evidence.
I only hope that the resolution is adopted in its current form, because I believe it can really achieve something.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr von Habsburg has already said that we have a fundamental problem here.
As we have seen, the signing of partnership, cooperation and interim agreements does not automatically improve the human rights situation in the partner countries in the manner provided for by European Commission of Human Rights.
Although the Commission always claims that these agreements are necessary in order to help improve the human rights situation, this is not the case.
Nothing is being done.
<P>
The interim agreement with Georgia was signed a long time ago and nothing has happened.
I believe that, particularly when a democratic society is being constructed, a democratic judiciary and humane conditions in prisons are a highly sensitive area.
Ukraine and Russia have an action plan in this field through TACIS.
Georgia does not.
This is why it is important that Georgia also has an action programme for democracy, in cooperation with the Council of Europe, through the TACIS programme.
I am pleased that Mr von Habsburg supports our amendments provided that the first amendment takes the form of an addition.
We would then make an oral amendment to the second amendment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 NAME="Pinheiro">
Mr President, the Commission has followed the case of Taslima Nasreen very closely since 1994 when she was obliged to leave her country to escape prosecution and death threats.
<P>
Article 1 of the new cooperation agreement to be concluded with Bangladesh makes clear reference to respect for human rights and democratic principles as laid down in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
This includes, of course, the freedom of speech and expression, as demanded in your resolutions.
I can assure you that, once concluded, the Commission will closely monitor the overall implementation of this agreement with special regard to the human rights situation.
<P>
Meanwhile, the Commission is preparing a human rights programme for Bangladesh of around ECU 1.5 million which will be accomplished before the end of this year.
The actions that we intend to finance are mainly in the sectors of women's and children's rights and voters' education.
This programme will be implemented by different NGOs specialised in human rights issues.
<P>
With regard to the resolutions on Malaysia, the Commission deplores the recent events in Malaysia, in particular the arrest of Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim under the so-called Internal Security Act, which allows for indefinitely renewable detention without trial.
We also deplore the ill-treatment of Mr Anwar Ibrahim in detention, as well as the arrest of a substantial number of Anwar's supporters also under the so-called Internal Security Act.
Therefore, the Commission associates itself fully with the declaration made by the presidency, expressing the Union's concern about these incidents and calling upon the Malaysian authorities to guarantee the rule of law and to respect the human rights of Anwar Ibrahim and other detainees.
The release of some of the prisoners is a positive step forward as is the examination of Mr Anwar Ibrahim by an independent physician.
<P>
However, the Commission is deeply concerned by the current restrictions applied by the Malaysian authorities to the rights of assembly, free speech and communication.
The Commission has instructed its delegation accredited to Malaysia to follow closely developments in that country.
<P>
Regarding the death penalty, the Commission is keenly aware of the sensitivity of the imposition of the death penalty and considers that, in all cases, the guarantees laid down in the International Pact on Civil and Political Rights and the other international instruments ought to be respected.
Needless to say, because we have reaffirmed it quite often, we are firmly against the death penalty, whatever the situation.
<P>
In the case of Iran, the Commission is concerned at the continuing grave violation of human rights of the Bahai and calls on the Iranian authorities to refrain from pronouncing death sentences on the grounds of religious belief or apostasy.
Furthermore, the Commission deeply regrets the execution of Mr Ruhu'llah Rawhani on 21 July 1998.
An EU-Troika demarche to the Iranian Government in Tehran was made on this matter on 5 August 1998.
<P>
However, I must say that we were satisfied with the clarifications of the Iranian Foreign Minister in New York on 24 September last concerning the death threat (fatwa) on Salman Rushdie.
The assurances given are a very positive step to remove one of the impediments to better relations with Iran which are being pursued in the new European Union-Iran dialogue.
<P>
In the case of the United States, the Commission believes that the legal system contains the guarantees necessary for a normal and objective discharge of justice, with particular reference to the right to a proper defence and the existence of appeal procedures.
<P>
With respect to the particular case of Rocco Barnabei, the Commission is able to provide the following clarification, as obtained from official United States sources.
First, contrary to the suggestions in the draft resolution before us today, there is no execution date set in this case and it is likely to be some time before one is set.
<P>
Second, we have been informed that Mr Barnabei is an American citizen and not, as indicated, an Italian citizen.
Third, the recent newspaper accounts of a US Supreme Court rejection of the case appear to be inaccurate.
Mr Barnabei has just begun all of his appeals and is a long way from a hearing before the US Supreme Court.
I am given to believe that the court has, in fact, not heard anything about this case because it is not yet time for the court to do so.
<P>
It seems from this information that there is nothing irregular in this case and its appeals process.
Nevertheless we will continue to be attentive to this matter and we shall reiterate to the United States, as we have done so often, that we are absolutely against the imposition of the death penalty.
<P>
The Commission shares the preoccupations expressed by the European Parliament concerning the fate of Mrs Leyla Zana and has insisted several times to the Turkish authorities that they make a significant gesture in this particular case.
<P>
The new condemnation of Mrs Zana by the Ankara State Security Court on 17 September is particularly worrying as it has inevitable consequences for the situation of freedom of expression in Turkey.
<P>
As you are aware, the Commission closely follows all aspects of the situation of human rights in Turkey.
In this context, the Commission fully agrees with the conclusions of the European Council held in Luxembourg in December 1997 which recalled that: 'strengthening Turkey's links with the European Union also depends on that country's pursuit of the political and economic reforms on which it has embarked, including the alignment of human rights and practices on those in force in the European Union...'
<P>
In all its contacts with the Turkish authorities, and despite the decision taken by Ankara to suspend any political dialogue with the European Union, the Commission is determined to continue to express its concerns on these matters.
<P>
As for the situation in Georgia, the three prisoners referred to in the motion were condemned in 1995 for murder and terrorist acts.
The conditions under which they were tried and also the state of Georgian prisons have been extensively criticised both inside and outside Georgia.
An important step forward was the decision of the Georgian Parliament last November to abolish the death penalty.
Following this, the death sentences on Mr Gelbakhiani and Mr Dokvadze were commuted.
They are now serving 20 years in prison.
I know that the state of Georgian prisons was frankly discussed when the European Parliament delegation for the South Caucasus met with President Shevardnadze in June.
The Georgian Parliament and Ombudsman are actively monitoring this.
It is a promising indication for the future.
<P>
The Commission takes the view that Georgia has made important progress in strengthening its democratic institutions, especially its parliament, but that it must continue to reinforce the rule of law.
The Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, which we expect to enter into force next year, will provide us with a platform to address these issues directly, both through political dialogue and through meetings of the Parliamentary Cooperation Committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, the Commissioner has not responded to the worsening situation of women in Iran, as presented by three fellow Members, namely the fact that women can no longer be treated by male doctors and that women doctors in Iran are few and far between.
An extreme policy of apartheid has also been introduced on buses and elsewhere.
We should like to draw the Commissioner's attention to this, and ask the Commissioner to be careful in creating the impression that the situation is improving, when for women the situation in Iran is in fact getting worse.
I believe that this should be clearly stated in the resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="Pinheiro">
Madam, I was addressing the issue of the resolution, not the speeches in Parliament.
But if you are asking what the position of the Commission is then, without consulting my colleagues, I can reassure you that this is absolutely unacceptable.
<P>
As you know - and this also concerns other discussions today in Parliament - the Treaty of Amsterdam rejects any kind of discrimination, as will any future treaties.
So it goes without saying that we ought to fight for that in all circumstances and especially when faced with clear-cut cases.
There is no doubt whatsoever about the position of the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>




B4-0902/98 by Mr Collins, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, on the closure of Levi Strauss factories in Belgium and France; -B4-0903/98 by Mr Vandemeulebroucke, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the planned restructuring of Levi Strauss in Europe; -B4-0910/98 by Mr De Coene, Mr Caudron and Mrs Van Lancker, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the planned closure of Levi Strauss works in Gits, Wervik, Deurne (Belgium) and La Bassée (France); -B4-0916/98 by Mrs Aelvoet, Mr Lannoye and Mr Wolf, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the closing down of Levi Strauss works in Gits, Wervik, Deurne and La Bassée; -B4-0929/98 by Mr Chanterie, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on Levi Strauss restructuring plans; -B4-0942/98 by Mrs Elmalan and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on restructuring of Levi Strauss textiles.
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Donnay">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Levi Strauss affair is demonstrating once again how devastating the effects of a badly controlled globalisation can be in human, social and economic terms.
<P>
Beyond the reasons officially cited by Levi's, the problem we are facing is, in fact, again one of relocations and social dumping.
The restructuring plan announced by Levi Strauss provides for the closure of four of its 12 factories in Europe.
Three of them are in Belgium and one in France, in La Bassée, a village in Nord/Pas-de-Calais, a region that is already severely affected by unemployment.
These closures will lead to around 1 500 job losses, 530 of which will be in France.
<P>
We cannot be indifferent and apathetic to these announcements.
Moreover, we have every right to question whether the closures are justified, particularly since we know that some of the factories in question are profitable, not to mention the fact that they have perhaps received aid from the European Union or the Member States.
Let us not forget that on top of the very painful human consequences of these site closures, an entire local economy is going to be turned upside down.
Are you aware that Levi's has been in La Bassée for 30 years?
It is true that a procedure has been announced for consulting the works councils involved, but this consultation is obligatory due to a directive that obliges multinational companies to consult union representatives prior to any restructuring.
<P>
This is why, while respecting companies' freedom of management, we have to be vigilant on this issue.
We must do everything we can to find alternatives to redundancies.
<P>
However, allow me, in this respect, to express my doubt as regards the effectiveness of the pseudo-solution of the 35-hour week, as is proposed in France.
I would prefer to see a discussion on reducing social costs along with the necessary safeguards to avoid the negative effects of such a reduction.
<P>
Levi Strauss is citing overproduction as justification of its decision, but we have also learnt that it has signed a contract with a Turkish subcontractor whose production costs would be much lower.
We are therefore dealing with a de facto relocation.
However, since we have to consider all the eventualities, if the site closures were unfortunately confirmed, we would insist that strong measures be taken as a result.
<P>
I would point out, in particular, that the La Bassée area, and the Nord/Pas-de-Calais region in general, is already experiencing serious economic and social problems.
It therefore has every right to expect a level of support during the restructuring of the site that is worthy of the name.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Vandemeulebroucke">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for some time now multinationals like Levi Strauss have no longer lived inside our societies but outside them.
They have their own isolationist code of practice, their own high technology and even their own kind of democracy, namely the so-called democracy of the shareholders, no more and no less.
Human or social considerations have no place in this world, where there is just one ideal: profit.
Of course the very high wage costs have been invoked.
That is true, but it is also totally inadequate.
Compare the figures: in the United Kingdom wage costs are 11 dollars an hour, in Hungary three dollars an hour, in China 0.56 dollars an hour.
So much more is required than simply invoking high wage costs.
Back on 14 July, the European Parliament stated that the Commission's plan for this sector was insufficient and should be more practical and above all more concrete.
I should like to refer to the compromise resolution, and in particular paragraph 7.
In this we demand a clear and comprehensive overview of all subsidies Europe may have granted to Levi Strauss.
Were there any subsidies under the Retex textile and clothing industries, under the TACIS, PHARE and ESPRIT programmes, or under the Structural Funds?
The Commission has known the answer to this question for some time already, and I would now like to receive a clear reply.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 NAME="President">
I should like to point out that Mr Vandemeulebroucke, who will be leaving the House after 18 years, has just made his final speech.
I had the pleasure of sitting with him as a group chairman some years ago now, and we all wish him every success.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="De Coene">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Levi Strauss, the jeans manufacturer, wants to close three factories in Belgium and one in northern France by the end of the year, with the result that 1 461 people will then lose their jobs.
This action by Levi Strauss can only be described as perverse, because they first organise overproduction outside the European Union precisely in order to subsequently invoke this overproduction as a major factor in deciding to make these closures.
Levi Strauss is honest enough to admit that it has a marketing problem, and apparently, at least judging from the reports of the Board of Directors, nothing, absolutely nothing, has been done about that marketing problem for the last ten years.
So it is therefore people lower down the ladder, the ordinary workers, who have to pay for the failure to take the necessary initiatives.
I should also like to point out that in 1997, Levi Strauss recorded net profits of more than BEF 430 million at its Belgian factories.
This is the Levi Strauss which, at these Belgian factories, was able to transfer BEF 380 million to the financial reserve for restructuring, the Levi Strauss that in Belgium was able to set aside an even greater amount, in order, it was claimed, to be able to pay the workers a double wage in 2002.
So these are not people on the breadline, these are not poor people.
It is a company which is perfectly able to keep open its factories in Belgium and northern France.
What is more, the workers in Belgium and northern France have themselves made the necessary efforts to secure their jobs.
They have accepted shorter working hours with wage cuts.
They have accepted greater flexibility. But all to no avail.
This is why we in the Socialist Group are calling on Levi Strauss, when the trade unions submit their alternative plans tomorrow, to seriously discuss them, to seriously consider them, so that there can still be a chance to offer the company a future, including in our regions.
<P>
Together with my colleagues Gérard Caudron and Anne Van Lancker, I have tabled a motion for a resolution, because there is European work to be done.
We can actually do something, and yet Liberal Members say that this is a non-event. Well, it is not.
We must tighten up on the directive on collective redundancies, and we must tighten up the directive on European works councils.
<P>
There is also something else on the political agenda.
The European Union can lend the Member States a helping hand in reducing social wage costs.
For this, we must coordinate our tax policy on companies and capital earnings.
That is the only way of putting a stop to the lethal competition in the fiscal area.
We therefore call on the Member States to follow up on the efforts of the European Commission and Commissioner Monti in particular, and for an agreement to be achieved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
Mr President, Levi Strauss intends to close various factories in Belgium and France and to cut 1 461 jobs.
The group was not making a loss; on the contrary, it made a profit last year of several hundred million Belgian francs.
It is the company's relocation policy.
A new factory has been opened in Turkey, and the factory in Hungary has even doubled its output.
<P>
We disapprove of the strategy of the group's management, which has announced that it is restructuring because of overproduction while increasing production in low-wage countries.
There has also been talk of a hearing for the employees.
This hearing, or this promise of a hearing, is a joke; if restructuring is ready to go ahead, any hearing has to be a sham.
<P>
We declare our solidarity with the employees, and for this reason our first demand is that the project be stopped.
Secondly, we call upon the Commission to request that companies that have received subsidies from the European Union budget or the Member States' budgets should refund what they have received in the past five years if these companies have undertaken mass redundancies despite having made a profit.
<P>
Thirdly, we call upon the Belgian Government to finally introduce implementing regulations for mass redundancies so that sanctions can be imposed in the case of closures and redundancies which are not carried out correctly.
I consider these measures to be necessary in the interests of the employees and in order to solve the problem of unemployment in the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Chanterie">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Tuesday 29 September 1998 will be known as Black Tuesday among the workers at Levi Strauss, because in a single morning 1 500 people were sacked, despite the repeated assurances by management throughout the year that there would be no job losses.
<P>
Closures and redundancies must respect the legal obligations which apply in Belgium and the European Union.
These obligations must not be seen as a formality.
It is dishonest to submit to the workers a redundancy proposal when that proposal is already a company decision and simply remains to be implemented.
<P>
On behalf of the PPE Group, I say that workers must be given full and proper information.
It is doubtful whether this happened in the case of Levi Strauss.
Consultation must mean giving the workers the chance to submit their suggestions and alternatives, and these must be seriously discussed.
It is therefore doubtful as to whether or not the Levi Strauss management is prepared to take any other new factors into consideration.
The aim of the whole dialogue and negotiating process must be to save the maximum number of jobs.
<P>
Secondly, we must look at the situation of the factories which are to close and the development of the whole group.
It is unacceptable for a profitable factory to close, factories which are among the most productive in the whole group.
It is certainly not a question of closing old factories at one location for reasons of overproduction, when at the same time new factories are being opened at other locations.
<P>
Thirdly, there must indeed be stricter European regulations on closures and redundancies.
I should like to end by saying that you do not build a social paradise in an economic graveyard, but neither do you build an economic paradise in a social graveyard.
Companies also have a social responsibility, which is something that Levi Strauss has totally forgotten in this case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Querbes">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a few weeks before announcing the closure of four of 12 factories in Europe, three of which are in Belgium and one in France, the Levi Strauss management congratulated itself on profits that had quadrupled in four years, reaching more than FRF 5 billion in 1996.
So what do they care about the consequences of more than 1 500 redundancies for the employees concerned and their families or for the economy of the region, which already had high unemployment!
<P>
What is more, Levi Strauss is also announcing redundancies in other factories, while increasing its production capacity in low-wage countries.
Following on from Renault in Vilvorde, Levi Strauss has chosen the destructive route, which is an even more unacceptable decision since the workers have made major efforts to improve productivity.
Following Vilvorde, Levi Strauss' attitude demonstrates once again the results of a European policy that gives priority, within the context of the Maastricht Treaty, to competition and the liberalisation of capital and, as a result, restructuring and relocations.
It is profit versus employment and social progress. It is the financial crisis that is crushing all economies.
<P>
In this context, we must undoubtedly welcome the response from the workers in all the group's European factories, and their demonstration on 5 October, which reduced the management's attempts at division to nothing and meant that some initial results were achieved.
<P>
Our group, which deplores the decision by Levi Strauss', welcomes the determination shown by the workers and their unions.
We call on its management to reconsider its decision and to negotiate with the unions in order to draw up an alternative solution to the closures, particularly through a reduction in working hours, which would preserve jobs.
At the same time, we propose that new rights should be granted to workers and that European works councils should be strengthened in order to fight relocations that put populations in competition with each other by playing on social and wage differences.
<P>
Above all, however, the decision by the management of Levi Strauss and the reaction of the employees show once again that it is necessary and possible to change the direction of the construction of Europe in a progressive way by freeing it from the domination of the financial markets, by making it democratic and by ensuring that its central aim is to respond o the needs and aspirations of its citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="Pinheiro">
Mr President, let me first of all express the regret of the Commission at the proposed closure of four units of Levi Strauss in Belgium and France and the loss of more than 1 400 jobs.
<P>
Let me also give you complementary information on some aspects related to Levi Strauss's announcement and, in particular, on the way in which things are being conducted.
<P>
The Levi Strauss management engaged last week in discussions with worker representatives, both at national and European level, and worker representatives are apparently now preparing proposals with a view to finding alternative solutions to the closure or to the dismissal of the workers likely to be affected.
<P>
Therefore, we should welcome the fact that the concerned parties are finally sitting around the table to discuss the current situation.
It is to be hoped that these discussions are productive and contribute, at least, to alleviating the social impact of the closures.
<P>
The relevant European Union legislation appears to have been properly respected.
Both the Collective Redundancies and the European Works Council Directive have proved again to be useful instruments in ensuring that decisions seriously affecting workers' interests are taken and implemented within an adequate social framework.
<P>
The Commission is certainly aware of criticisms of the manner in which the rules concerning membership of the European Works Council may give rise to an imbalance in the numerical representation of workers.
The Commission will, next year, evaluate the way the European Works Council Directive is working, and how issues like this are dealt with will inevitably form part of that evaluation.
<P>
But even if the provision of these two Directives appear to have been properly observed in this case, there is a general question of how best to deal with major crises within companies and how best to avoid closures.
<P>
Anticipation of changes in the market and their effects within companies is crucial.
This requires much more permanent, employment-geared and forward-looking information and consultation procedures, compared to the formality of much of the present rules in this field.
<P>
It is this that is behind the current initiative of the Commission on 'Information and Consultation of Workers in the European Community'.
We are waiting for the final decision of UNICE next week as to whether or not it will engage in negotiations with the ETUC on this issue.
The Commission believes that ideally the European-level social partners should decide to take in their own hands this task which concerns them primarily.
<P>
But, if there is no agreement among them, the Commission will put forward a proposal for appropriate legislation in this area.
<P>
Anticipation is also a central element of the European Employment Strategy.
On 14 October, the Commission will adopt proposals for the 1999 employment guidelines, together with the assessment of how the Member States are implementing the agreed employment strategy, and a report indicating areas where Europe's employment performance has a real potential to improve in the future.
<P>
An announcement like the one Levi Strauss made last week is always regrettable.
Let us hope that the current discussions lead to acceptable solutions for the people concerned.
<P>
Closures such as this underline again the need to work to put the European employment strategy fully in place to prevent long-term unemployment and to promote new employment.
<P>
Finally, as to Mr Vandemeulebroucke's request for data on potential support for Levi Strauss, I am sorry that is not possible.
But we will try to comply with the one-month period laid down in the resolution, although even one month is very short.
We will try our utmost, because it is politically important for the House and for us all to know whether any European money has been given to Levi Strauss.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
<P>



B4-0901/98 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on payments to the United Nations; -B4-0907/98 by Mr Collins and Mrs van Bladel, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, on the financial crisis in the UN; -B4-0912/98 by Mr Ford and Ms Oddy, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on payments to the UN; -B4-0918/98 by Mrs Aelvoet and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on financial contributions to the UN; -B4-0922/98 by Mr Castagnède, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on payment of contributions to the UN; -B4-0932/98 by Mr Provan and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on contributions to the UN; -B4-0943/98 by Mrs González Álvarez and Mr Ojala, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on payments to the UN.

<SPEAKER ID=157 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the United States owes the United Nations about USD 1.6 billion for the regular peace-keeping budgets.
How are we to judge that?
In what I like to call a geo-political way.
Since the fall of the Soviet empire, the role of international policeman calls for rather more delicacy.
To prevent that role being carried out only by the United States, the only solution is for such action to take place under the aegis of the United Nations.
<P>
So it is rather worrying that the United States is failing to pay its dues to the United Nations. This could be the prelude to a deliberate devaluation of the role of that highly important international organisation, perhaps with a view to its explicit replacement by the United States itself in order to gear all international policy to its own interests.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 NAME="Oddy">
Mr President, on 27 June of this year Glyn Ford and I attended a vigil outside the US Embassy in London to protest against the United States Government's failure to pay its dues to the United Nations.
USD1.55 billion are owing, which is approximately two-thirds of the total UN budget.
<P>
There is a mass campaign in the United Kingdom.
110 MPs have signed in support of the vigil, plus 58 peers and and 27 MEPs.
The governments of France and the Irish Republic have also joined the campaign as of that date.
<P>
The fact that we now have cross-group support for this resolution shows the intensity of feeling which exists in this House against the iniquitious failure to pay by the United States.
The United Nations is a very important global organization.
Its responsibilities have increased with its peace-keeping role and I know from my own experience in Sri Lanka from where I brought thousands of documents about disappeared people, that the United Nations needs more money.
When Alex Smith and myself delivered the documents on disappeared people in Sri Lanka, only four people in the United Nations were working on disappearances for the whole world.
<P>
The budget of the United Nations should be increased, not decreased in this very unfair way by the United States.
It should be setting a much better example.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="Spencer">
Mr President, I rise on this subject with more than my usual ambivalence.
While I accept that the behaviour of the US Congress is reprehensible, I am more interested in the detailed problems which face the reform of the United Nations, and the whole governance process at global level.
We in Parliament should be devoting ourselves to questions of how to find new resources to finance the United Nations that are not dependent on this problem of the American veto, and of reluctance to pay by national governments.
I would like parliamentarians to have a say in providing those resources so that we, as parliamentarians, feel some sense of ownership in the United Nations.
While I am sympathetic to the aims of what we are trying to do, I very much doubt that an 11-minute debate under the urgency procedure is the right way for Parliament to deal with this matter.
<P>
There is, at present, a report before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy looking at the whole question of UN reform and UN governance.
I doubt also that it is going to move one single vote in the US Congress, even if someone as distinguished as Christine Oddy shouts at them across the Atlantic.
I am sympathetic to what Parliament is trying to do but, yet again, the mechanism which we have chosen gravely risks interrupting our own credibility in this matter and limits our ability to make a difference.
<P>
I commend the resolution to the House, but I hope the House will return to it with greater wisdom and thought, and perhaps with an occasional new idea at some stage during the rest of this mandate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, I completely agree with Mr Spencer that we perhaps need to act with greater wisdom.
A resolution may not be enough for a problem of this nature.
<P>
We were also critical of the current structure of the United Nations.
We think that it should be more independent, more transparent, and that it should work towards removing the right of veto.
In other words, we believe that the United Nations should be more democratic.
But we do not want to call on the countries of the European Union - which are net contributors - to withdraw funds, because we are aware that the work it carries out on peace and humanitarian issues is very important.
That is why I agree with Mr Spencer that we have to find better solutions.
<P>
In any case, allow me one final joke, even though the Commissioner is no longer present. Many of us would like to say to the United States: look here, Article 19 of the United Nations Charter states that whoever does not pay will have no vote, and just for once, we could adopt the same attitude as they usually do and tell them that they have lost their right to vote.
But do not worry, we are all very benevolent and democratic in this Parliament and we will not deny the United States its vote.
But we would call on the United States Congress to at least accept Mr Clinton's request to release part of the funds that are owed to the United Nations, not to mention from the more imaginative solution that we shall continue to work towards, as suggested by Mr Spencer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Mr President, the US political strategy in this area is dangerous.
It is indeed a political manoeuvre we are talking about since the USA, by not paying its debt of USD 1.6 billion, is using blackmail in order to attempt to control UN policy and prevent the reforms the UN needs, which I think we are all agreed on in this Chamber.
<P>
The UN is important and needs to be developed.
Development demands reforms but, as long as the USA does not pay, it is tremendously difficult to get any major changes put into effect.
Other countries have paid their dues to the UN.
Despite formidable economic difficulties that many countries face, they have paid nevertheless, which the USA naturally should also do.
For in a 'green' world order, the UN has a key role to play.
One country cannot be allowed to set the agenda and direct policy at world level; it must be done through the UN itself, so that individual states cannot throw policy off course and steer it in a particular direction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendes Bota">
Mr President, Bill Clinton can pile all the blame in the world on Japan, the American Congress or the crisis in the world's financial system.
But the United States' 1, 500 billion dollar debt to the United Nations is to be attributed to other reasons of a political nature and, more particularly, as has already been said in this House, it has to do with the desire to undermine the United Nations itself in order to promote the role of the United States as policemen of the world.
<P>
The fact is that Japan, despite its domestic difficulties and in a climate of sharp recession, meets its international commitments and owes nothing to the United Nations; the fact is that the political pornography novel between President Clinton and Congress has only recently escalated; the fact is that, only four months ago, the stock market euphoria and the expectations of world economic growth remained high, just as the American economy was in excellent health.
<P>
But the United States' arrears to the United Nations are not recent.
It is a growing debt that has accumulated over the years.
The Americans did not pay, because they did not wish to, just as they are not participating in the capital injection for the IMF to the tune of the 18 billion dollars as is their allocated quota.
This is an extremely serious precedent, it is an appalling example on the part of a country which aspires to be world leader and it jeopardises all humanitarian aid and peace-keeping activities and indeed the very future of the United Nations.
Unfortunately, the current political weakness of the American Presidency, which discredits that country in the concert of nations, offers no guarantee that this situation will be resolved in a positive and prompt manner.
But the pressure of the international community on the United States, headed by the European Union, must not flag.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, the fact that certain countries - the United States first and foremost - do not pay their full contribution to the UN budget should be regarded as evidence of the malaise the international community is suffering from.
These debtor countries are to be criticised first of all because their failure to pay reduces the UN's total resources and hence its ability to intervene in crisis sectors, thus limiting peace-keeping possibilities; and they are even more to be criticised because their example - and what an example, when we are actually talking about the leading world power! - might have a domino effect bringing all UN activity to a halt and might make countries which have accepted the terms of UN resolutions in full, and have participated, like Italy, in peace missions, much more cautious, not to say reticent.
<P>
But the Alleanza Nazionale delegation calls on Parliament not only to condemn the defaulting countries, but also to enquire into the real reasons for the crisis facing that institution.
In our opinion there are ethical, structural and political reasons: ethical, in that the various episodes of waste and sometimes of corruption, nepotism and patronage which have occurred in this increasingly untransparent organisation are notorious; structural, because the staffing levels and organisation have become elephantine and bureaucratic, hindering rapid and efficient decision-making; political, finally, because the majority of UN resolutions remain dead letters, and they will continue to remain dead letters until there is a proper executive arm or alternative strict sanctions to enforce respect for those resolutions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="Pinheiro">
Mr President, as you know, the Community contributes substantial funding to projects carried out by the United Nations' funds, programmes and agencies.
<P>
However, as an observer, it does not contribute to the United Nations general budget.
Nonetheless, overall, the Member States of the European Union contribute some 36 % of the United Nations' operating budget together with some 39 % of the budget it allocates to peace-keeping activities, . These levels are considerably higher than the percentage of the world's gross national product accounted for by the European Union, which stands at 30.8 %.
<P>
Moreover, the Member States of the European Union pay what they owe in full, promptly and without conditions, and the European Union makes a point of insisting that the other members of the United Nations comply in the same way with their international obligations.
<P>
The current payments crisis undermines the efficiency of the United Nations, jeopardises current endeavours to reform the organisation and is extremely unfair for other contributors.
On 31 August 1998, the United States owed the United Nations 1, 613 billion dollars, accounting for 60 % of the arrears owed to the United Nations.
<P>
The American Congress has adopted legislation authorising the payment of 926 million dollars.
However, this legislation will doubtless be vetoed by the President since it also contains a provision which bans support for organisations which defend abortion.
In all events, even if these measures were carried out, only 57 % of the United States' arrears to the United Nations would be covered.
<P>
The European Union has repeatedly expressed its concern regarding this American legislation which provides for insufficient payment under unacceptable conditions.
The European Union has taken steps in connection with this matter and the Presidency, the Member States and the Commission will continue to raise the issue with the American administration and with members of Congress whenever the opportunity arises.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="President">
That concludes the debate on payments to the UN.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
We shall suspend the sitting for a quarter of an hour to enable Members to take their seats for the vote.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 5.15 p.m. and resumed at 5.30 p.m.)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="President">
We now come to the vote.
<P>
After the vote on Slovakia
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 NAME="Spencer">
Mr President, in my hurry to join the vote I pressed Mrs Reding's button instead of my own.
I would like the record to show that I only voted once but I voted in the wrong spot.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 NAME="Barton">
Mr President, I can only presume that in Mr Cassidy's hurry to join the Socialists he forget to tell us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="President">
Well, there seem to be Conservatives joining every group in this Parliament so why not the Socialists!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="Hallam">
Mr Cassidy, are you going to join the Labour Party?
I walk into the Chamber and here he is!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 NAME="President">
I am not sure the Labour Party can swing that far to the left.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="Cassidy">
Mr President, I am very pleased that so many of colleagues pay such attention to where I sit in the Chamber.
Unfortunately, the PES is not yet lucky enough to have me.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, the question you could pose is: Is there any difference between Old and New Labour and between New Labour and the Christian Democrats?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 NAME="Cox">
Mr President, I should just like to note for the record that this afternoon our colleague Mr James Moorhouse MEP joined the Liberal Democrats.
I look forward to welcoming him as a member of our group next week.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, in the public gallery we have a delegation from the Upper Austrian Parliament's Committee of Experts on Europe. I would like to welcome them very warmly.
<P>
<P>
(The sitting, suspended at 5.45 p.m., was resumed at 6 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
JET
<SPEAKER ID=176 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0311/98) by Mrs Ahern, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy on the Proposal for a Council Decision approving amendments to the Statutes of the Joint European Torus (JET), Joint Undertaking [COM(98)0013 - C4-0137/98-98/0063(CNS)]
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 NAME="Ahern">
Mr President, the EU fusion project has just completed a six-year engineering design activity at a cost of nearly ECU 1bn.
Meanwhile the US Congress is expected shortly to pull the plug on US involvement in the international thermonuclear experimental reactor, a 6-billion nuclear fusion project.
<P>
In July this year, the USA was unable to sign the proposed extension to the ITER-EDA, essentially because the US Congress is currently unwilling to provide any more money for continued US participation.
EU fusion design teams are in place in San Diego, Naka in Japan and in Garching in Germany.
But what legal basis now exists for their retention, continuation or even for the payment of their salaries?
This question is particularly crucial given that in December 1996 the European Court of Justice delivered a judgment ruling that the different treatment of employees at the European Joint Fusion Project, JET, was illegal.
The Commission proposal is intended to implement the Court judgment by amending the JET statutes so as to remove the discriminating elements.
<P>
According to the 1978 Council decision on the establishment of JET, the project was to be completed by 1990.
Since then a number of extensions to the project have been agreed, most recently until December 1999.
<P>
The JET statutes state that the staff provided by the host organisations, the UK Atomic Energy Authority, will remain in service to that organisation.
The staff provided by the other members of JET were temporarily seconded from their national laboratories and all received temporary Euratom contracts.
Finding this difference in treatment a form of unjustified discrimination on the grounds of nationality, the staff brought a series of cases in the Court of Justice of the European Communities.
In 1987 the Court ruled that there was indeed discrimination but that the discrimination was justified owing to the temporary nature of the Joint Undertaking.
<P>
The changes in staffing provisions are of significance, even if they will only apply to new recruits up to 1999, and there are not expected to be any.
They will constitute a model for a possible JET staffing system after 1999 with a new legal structure.
<P>
In order to put an end to the present unlawful system, a new uniform system of secondment of personnel from the members of the Joint Undertaking is proposed.
In future, all staff who might still be recruited after modification of the statutes will remain in the employ of the member organisations.
The new formulation stipulates that there will be only one category of new staff to be recruited, namely staff seconded by their national laboratories.
But the precise way in which these changes are to be implemented and, more remarkably still, the new conditions of service which will apply to new JET staff, are not included in the Commission proposal at all. Rather, they are left to the discretion of the JET Council, presumably under the assumption that they are mere implementing measures.
<P>
This really will not do.
Fusion's lack of transparency and democratic accountability has now clearly been shown to have had disastrous consequences and has, in fact, probably damaged the project itself.
The notion that staff pay and conditions in a project largely financed by the Euratom budget should be decided by a body which is completely unaccountable to one half of the budgetary authority, namely the European Parliament, is simply unacceptable.
<P>
There is another problem.
The first part of the new Article 8.4 reads as follows: 'staff made available by Parent Prganisations shall be seconded to the Joint Undertaking and shall... remain throughout the period of secondment in the employment of their Parent Organisations on the terms and conditions of service of these Organisations.'
Article 8.7 states: 'All staff expenditure, including reimbursement of staff expenditure incurred by the seconding Parent Organisations... shall be borne by the Joint Undertaking.'
<P>
Why is this peculiar system being proposed?
Simply because if the Parent Organisations had to pay the national salary component - as they do for teachers in the European Schools and all other seconded national experts working in the Community institutions - the Member States would, in effect, be asked to provide a net increase in the already agreed fusion budget - a prospect they would not relish.
<P>
While there is agreement to amend the JET Statutes in line with the European Court of Justice ruling, Parliament must be consulted on any proposal based on the Euratom Treaty to extend the life of JET beyond 1999.
It would be completely unacceptable to make this extension, with such significant implications for the EU budget, an executive implementing measure within this specific programme, on the basis of confidential contractual arrangements with the national associations.
<P>
In regard to the reimbursement of the national salaries of seconded national experts from the Euratom Community budget, such a thing is normally illegal in the Commission, i.e. contrary to the Financial Regulation, since it mixes up parts A and B of the budget.
The JET plan may get around this because it will be done via a series of contracts with national associations to provide services.
It sets a remarkable precedent for the renationalisation of the European civil service.
<P>
The Committee on Budgets has added its opinion on this report, but it is not as stringent as we would normally expect of this committee.
I wonder whether this is because pork-belly politics are being played out by some members of the Committee on Budgets.
I refer in particular to Mr James Elles in whose constituency the JET undertaking is.
I would like him to be as stringent on JET in his constituency as he is normally in the budgetary considerations of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 NAME="Adam">
Mr President, I must confess that there were considerable periods during Mrs Ahern's speech when I wondered if she was addressing the report which is under her name.
<P>
I should like to draw to your attention paragraph 1 of the draft legislative resolution which states: 'The European Parliament approves the Commission proposal'.
That indeed is the motion that is contained in the report.
<P>
The Socialist Group welcomes the Commission's proposal for the alteration to the JET statutes.
Let us put the matter in a more reasonable context.
The situation regarding staff goes back for a good number of years.
Perhaps we ought to reflect that the terms of employment for various people may at that time have seemed reasonable, and were certainly accepted by all the people that were employed, but that was 20 years ago, perhaps more.
Conditions change.
Therefore it is not unreasonable that, over that period of time, situations arose where the British staff were dissatisfied with the situation and took the matter to court.
The resolution of that has certainly been long-winded and that it has taken so long reflects no credit on the Commission, the JET Council or anybody else.
We started on this in the last Parliament, not this one.
<P>
At least we have got somewhere.
We have not been able to complete the arrangements for all the staff for the simple reason that there are still court cases pending.
That is why the situation only applies to new staff.
The arrangements that will - possibly - apply beyond December 1999 I think are quite reasonable.
I hope that they will be acceptable to the staff.
Certainly, if they are not, there are procedures in place whereby they can be changed again.
I hope that it would not take so long.
<P>
There are a lot of comments made in the report about the fusion programme, but they are not relevant to this particular discussion.
However, since a lot of comments have been made, perhaps I ought to say that there are some of us in this House who believe that the fusion programme should continue.
We are not certain how it is going to work out, any more than we are certain about any research programme that we have.
But it has made considerable progress.
<P>
If Members want further information I can assure them that all they have to do is to lift the phone and get on to the people at JET and ask the director for information.
I have never had any difficulty in getting any information about the project at any time.
This is what Members have to do if they want the information.
It is very easily done.
<P>
I have to admit that the most recent report I have on the advice of the JET Scientific Council is a little bit difficult to understand.
I will deal with this situation by phoning the director and asking if this cannot be put in slightly more understandable language for the Members of this Parliament.
That is the sort of approach we want, not a great harangue about obscure points which do not help anybody in this debate.
<P>
That is the approach of the Socialist Group.
We welcome the Commission proposal.
We hope that the disagreements amongst the staff will be completely resolved very soon.
We believe that they have worked very hard, that they have worked very successfully.
We in the Socialist Group wish them well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 NAME="Chichester">
Mr President, I would like to commend Mrs Ahern on the brevity of her report.
I cannot say the same, however, for her unwelcome slurs on my colleague Mr Elles, particularly as he is not here to answer them.
I hope Mrs Ahern will reconsider what she has said.
<P>
It seems that when JET was set up, the original arrangement was a pragmatic attempt at fair treatment both of the UK employees, in relation to their corresponding numbers at UKAEA, and of staff from other Member States, in an attempt to secure continuity of employment rights for all.
However, it clearly did not take very long for the differences in salary and conditions between JET and the AEA staff to emerge, and unsurprisingly the latter wanted a better deal.
I share Mr Adam's view that it is a pity it has taken quite so long to sort it out.
It seems to me, however, that the Commission's present proposal is basically a tidying-up operation to amend the Statutes and remedy the situation for any future recruits.
<P>
This seems to be a typically European solution, rather an elegant one, which only applies in future and therefore has no budgetary implications here and now.
It is particularly cunning since the future of fusion research, once the current phase of JET ends next year, is clouded in uncertainty.
The only certain aspect seems to be the consistent prediction that fusion will come good as a major source of renewable energy in 50 years time.
Twenty years ago it was going to be happening in 50 years time.
Clearly, the ECJ was correct to conclude that this is not a short-term project, although the jury may still be out on the word temporary.
<P>
This situation highlights the risks in having any sort of job which has a different rate of pay if performed at European level rather than at national level.
For example, proposals in this House for a Common Members' Statute would expose Members of this House to criticism from national members of parliament in their own country if MEPs were to be paid significantly more.
In other words I support the principle that if you are on secondment, and we are only here on a five-year term after all, the rate of pay should be at national levels, but reimbursement of expenses should be at a common level.
That seems to me the fair and equitable approach.
<P>
The other substantive point about this set of proposals from the Commission is made both in the explanatory statement of the report and in the opinion of the Committee on Budgets.
It is that, although the European budget pays most of the cost, it does not have most of the say.
I urge that this be looked at when the project moves on to its next phase.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Mr President, these amendments to the Statutes are indeed necessary, good and keenly sought, both the amendments which the Court of Auditors has recommended and those resulting from the judgment of the Court of First Instance according to which the illegal discrimination clauses had to be taken out.
<P>
In the new wording for the passages in question, the Statutes stipulate that there shall only be one category for new staff taken on, namely staff seconded by their national laboratories.
Thus there is still an element missing, namely stipulations on how the rules are to be applied to the new staff.
The new conditions of service are not covered at all by the Commission proposal, which one could cite as a deficiency.
They are now left to the discretion of the JET Council, presumably on the assumption that they are only implementing measures. This will not really do.
The lack of openness and democratic accountability of the fusion programme has been called into question and must be made good.
<P>
I do not think it is enough to know that we parliamentarians can telephone JET and ask for information, I think that it should be regulated somewhat better.
What is at issue is, after all, the parliamentary scrutiny and control of JET, which is extremely poor at present.
We must exercise better supervision over the EU's fusion programme, because it is tremendously complicated, as Mr Adam pointed out.
It is technically very complicated.
Certainly we have become knowledgeable in Parliament through the reports we have presented, for example Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel's report, and have improved our knowledge, but how do matters stand with expertise in the Council of Ministers, where the decisions are taken?
It is hard to say.
<P>
The Green Group put forward a number of amendments in committee, precisely in order to ensure that the European Parliament becomes more involved and can find out what has happened.
I think it a pity that these amendments were voted down in committee, as I believe they were a very good and necessary improvement.
However, that is a matter to which perhaps we can return.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 NAME="Pinheiro">
Mr President, I would like to start by thanking Parliament and the rapporteur Mrs Ahern for their work on the Commission proposal.
<P>
As you know, we are proposing the approval of a number of changes which the JET Council wants to make to the Statutes of the Joint Undertaking.
Some of these are technical adaptations.
A substantive change is the introduction of a new system of providing staff to the project as a response to the findings of the Court of First Instance that certain aspects of the existing system are unlawful.
<P>
As you know the Joint Undertaking will expire at the end of 1999 so these proposed modifications will only apply in principle for a limited period of time.
Your Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy and the Committee on Budgets has approved the proposal without modification and I am confident that you will follow their recommendation and support our proposal to approve amendments to the Statutes of the JET Joint Undertaking.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
EEC/San Marino: Protocol to the Agreement
<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation (A4-0238/98) by Mr Habsburg-Lothringen, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the Protocol to the Agreement on Cooperation and Customs Union between the European Economic Community and the Republic of San Marino, consequent upon the accession of the Republic of Austria, the Republic of Finland and the Kingdom of Sweden to the European Union (6788/97 - C4-0262/98-97/0022(AVC)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, Commissioner, the current recommendation concerns the Customs Union and cooperation between the European Economic Community and San Marino.
Perhaps I should give a brief historical outline of the way in which this agreement came into being.
It was signed on 16 December 1991, and its aim was to consolidate and extend the existing close relations between the European Economic Community and the Republic of San Marino.
It establishes a Customs Union between the two parties and seeks to introduce the most extensive cooperation possible in a wide variety of areas: industry, services, environmental protection, tourism, communications, information, culture and social policy.
<P>
It is administered by a cooperation committee operating on the same lines as those set up under various similar agreements concluded by the European Community, and is not expected to raise any particular problems.
That was in 1991.
An interim agreement on trade and a Customs Union was signed in Brussels on 27 November 1992 and entered into force on 1 December 1992.
However, the process of ratification by the 12 Member States then took over five years.
It was an agreement in which the Member States did not really have any particular national interests to defend, with the possible exception of Italy, so there were no significant objections to it.
However, although there were no problems, there was a 'minor agreement' that ended up being left to one side for a long time, and this is really not an acceptable state of affairs.
<P>
What happens in San Marino may not be of much interest to citizens of the European Union who do not live in the immediate vicinity, but we should not forget that the citizens of San Marino are extremely interested in developments within the European Union.
It really is a disgrace that they had to wait over five years for this agreement to be ratified in the various countries.
<P>
It all took a long time, and in the meantime additional countries - Austria, Finland and Sweden - had joined or applied to join the European Union.
This in turn created a new situation, as an addition to this protocol had to be drawn up.
We should not forget that this again took a relatively long time.
I myself was appointed rapporteur in February 1997.
The report was completed by June 1997, but it lay around again for a year, until 3 June 1998, without anyone really doing anything about it apart from Parliament, I would stress.
Now, thankfully, this topic has come before the House and will, I hope, be adopted at the vote tomorrow morning.
<P>
San Marino is a beautiful, very interesting - if very small - country, which over the centuries maintained its independence like no other small state in Europe.
Perhaps I may add one or two historical facts: when Napoleon offered San Marino the opportunity to increase its size at the expense of its neighbours, this was rejected in a referendum and it chose to remain the same.
Because of this, it had the opportunity to attend the Congress of Vienna as a party to the agreement and to make an active contribution; even then it emphasised its particular independence, its special position.
<P>
We should not forget either that later - during the Second World War - when San Marino, which is situated in the centre of Italy, was surrounded by a Fascist regime, it spared neither expense nor effort to offer refuge and protection to as many as possible of the refugees and the needy.
This shows that the inhabitants of San Marino have always demonstrated great independence, a particular character which they have retained to this very day.
A further aspect which we must mention today, and which we must also welcome, is the fact that San Marino is one of the few small states in Europe to have always refused to become a tax haven, and for this reason it has always had good relations with its larger neighbour, Italy.
<P>
It is important to point out here that we should not forget how near San Marino is to us.
A few months ago the decision was taken as to which countries should be involved in the euro and adopt the single currency.
We always talk about 11 countries, but in reality there are one or two more.
After all, San Marino's currency is the lira.
They also speak Italian there.
It is basically the twelfth country in the euro zone.
We should bear this in mind and give San Marino the attention it deserves.
<P>
To sum up, it is highly regrettable that the Member States of the Community of the Twelve took so long to ratify an agreement which, from the outset, did not give rise to any particular criticisms or objections.
The European Parliament delivered a favourable opinion on the agreement on cooperation and the Customs Union as early as 9 June 1992.
As the additional protocol only concerns formalities, I hope and believe that the European Parliament should vote in favour tomorrow, to bring this long and rather unpleasant saga to an end and improve our relations with San Marino.
There is still a great deal to be done.
It also gives me great pleasure to inform you that Laura Bologna, the representative of San Marino, has been with us in Parliament today to find out exactly what is happening with this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 NAME="Pinheiro">
Let me start by thanking the rapporteur for his report and for the words he has just pronounced.
A positive opinion of the European Parliament marks an important step forward in the conclusion of a long ratification process and brings nearer the actual implementation of the agreement.
<P>
This agreement, signed in December 1991, should be the centrepiece in the process of deepening and broadening our relations with San Marino.
Besides its customs and commercial provisions, the agreement allows for a widening of cooperation in different areas, including social policy.
The Commission regrets that the agreement has not yet entered into force.
I hope that the often complex ratification procedures will be completed soon by the national parliaments in order to allow for the effective implementation, in the near future, of the agreement with that very beautiful country.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Community Statistical Programme 1998-2002
<SPEAKER ID=187 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0321/98) by Mrs Lulling, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Proposal for a Council Decision on the Community Statistical Programme (1998-2002) [COM(97)0735 - C4-0197/98-98/0012(CNS)]
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lulling">
<SPEAKER ID=189 NAME="President">
By my calculations you exceeded your time by 20 % but since you are always so entertaining we do not mind.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 NAME="Holm">
Mr President, statistics can be quite tedious, but they are also immensely important.
Eurostat usually produces the statistics on which the decisions we take are based.
It is mostly politicians like us who use statistics in one way or another.
It is therefore of great importance that the statistics should be produced correctly, that they should be made comparable, and so on.
It is becoming increasingly difficult for Eurostat to provide all the statistical information needed to keep track of the growing policy requirements arising in the EU.
<P>
Through the Treaty of Amsterdam the EU has acquired even more power, which means that we shall be taking more and more policy decisions, which means in turn that we need better documentation on the basis of which to take our decisions, and this must be supplied by Eurostat. This applies to both old and new areas.
We must also remember that the relationship between Eurostat and the national authorities is based on the subsidiarity principle.
The Commission document says: 'this present level of resources cannot satisfy all needs'.
It is rather sad that priorities have to be set when it is a question of policy decisions for which the EU is responsible.
<P>
In the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy we have concentrated on the parts dealing with research and technological development and with energy questions.
One of the important points to which we draw attention is that Eurostat must be accessible when it is a question of disseminating information within the research community, on what has been produced and how it can be used in different contexts as an innovation indicator.
The same applies to the energy field: in order to pursue a sound policy on energy and the environment, we need to have the same statistical background and to be able to make comparisons so that we can take the right decisions, decisions that are necessary in order to bring about sustainable development, amongst other things in the context of the strategy laid down at the Kyoto Conference on climate change.
In this connection statistics are immensely beneficial, usable and necessary.
Eurostat thus needs resources in order to cope with these demands, which is important in view of the fact that much of the decision-making is being moved from the Member States to EU level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="Andersson">
Mr President, I will begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mrs Lulling, for giving close attention to, amongst other things, the conclusions we reached in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
<P>
There is an increased need to improve statistics in this field, not least following the Luxembourg summit.
We now have to monitor the guidelines which were adopted there and which are now resulting in national action plans.
There are still deficiencies, particularly as regards comparability. There are also other deficiencies, however.
The process takes too long, for example; we could do with shorter time lags before we can make comparisons.
<P>
We have set quite a lot of priorities in committee in those areas we are responsible for, i.e. employment, but also social affairs and education.
They apply of course to the four pillars of the Luxembourg guidelines.
They apply to statistics on active or passive measures for labour market policy.
They apply to hours worked per year and per week; in this context it is important to have sex-specific data, for example, in order to see how much unpaid work has been performed and what persons perform that unpaid work.
Those were some of our priorities.
<P>
As regards the social field, household budget surveys should be carried out more often.
Statistics are also needed on supply and demand for child care and on parental leave.
<P>
In the education field, it is important to see how the transition from vocational training to the labour market operates, to compare school drop-out rates in the various Member States and to see how the transition from sheltered employment for the disabled to the open labour market operates.
<P>
These are some examples of priorities we have in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
We look forward to receiving better statistical information from the Statistical Office in this area, especially as we have new tasks to accomplish since the Luxembourg summit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 NAME="Blokland">
<SPEAKER ID=193 NAME="Porto">
Mr President, Commissioner, the objectives of improving and extending statistics as provided for in the Community programme for 1998-2002 deserve our full support when, as emphasised by Mrs Lulling, we are facing extremely important challenges which include enlargement, the functioning of the single currency with the pact for stability and growth, the reform of the common agricultural policy, the preparation of the final VAT system and even, for example, the development and monitoring of the labour market.
<P>
Since I am the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on External Economic Relations, it will be clear why I particularly emphasise the need to ensure the same quality in gathering statistical information in third countries, including some countries that are closest to us.
Since the EFTA countries are already covered by the system, the greatest urgency no doubt lies, as has been correctly stated, with the countries of central and eastern Europe which have applied for membership, since this will be the only way in which to prepare adequately for their accession.
Thus, there is every reason to provide the necessary support.
However, in a global economy in which multinational corporations are assuming an increasing prominence, we cannot confine ourselves to the European area.
Moreover, we cannot confine ourselves to the flow of goods in a world in which other economic flows are assuming increasing importance, including the provision of services and capital flows such as foreign investment.
<P>
At all events, a correct balance must be found between the need to provide the most extensive possible information, and the need to refrain from excessively burdening companies, particularly small and medium enterprises, and citizens in general.
Indeed, experience shows that when you ask too much, you receive less than you have asked for and bad quality at that.
<P>
Lastly, it does no harm to emphasise that statistics, which are a public asset, must be accessible to everyone, including small entrepreneurs or students, which is why the increasingly prevalent practice of requiring that they should be paid for not acceptable, since that effectively restricts them to selected sectors with the greatest purchasing power.
In addition to general economic interests, what is at stake here are the values of a democratic society in which the conscious participation of properly informed citizens is required.
I think this is a point to which attention must also be drawn.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the proposal for the five year statistical programme contains a series of interesting projects.
Implementing these could really provide us with very useful insight.
During the period of the preceding programme, demand for harmonised statistics increased greatly, particular in relation to the convergence criteria.
I consider this to be a very important factor in our decision.
<P>
The Commission's demands for statistics that are comparable and of a high quality are, therefore, legitimate and understandable, and should be supported by Parliament.
However, as many speakers have already mentioned, this creates an enormous bureaucratic burden for many small and medium-sized enterprises.
The lesson to be learnt here is obvious.
What appears to be needed urgently is a period of consolidation, a pause for breath.
Priority must be given to this in the new five year programme.
<P>
It would also be useful to appoint an ombudsman specifically for issues relating to the statistical burden.
Just two days ago, Parliament decided that the burden placed on companies as a result of the European Central Bank's statistical reporting requirements must be kept to a minimum.
<P>
As a monitoring authority with corresponding powers, an ombudsman could ensure that such principles are observed.
He would be a point of contact for those affected, either by being asked to provide disproportionate detail or by quality requirements.
<P>
We must not lose sight of what is feasible using statistics and of the burdens associated with them.
For the future and for the current five year programme we need regulation of this kind more urgently than ever before.
We must avoid the risk of endangering the whole statistical system by imposing an unnecessary burden, as without the cooperation of those concerned and of the various companies, it is not possible to compile high quality statistics.
Therefore, it should be a goal for all of us to convince the companies.
They must come to have confidence in the fact that they will only be asked to do what is absolutely necessary.
We should consider putting this on a voluntary basis and setting up a system of incentives instead of penalties and threats.
<P>
We should also consider how we can advance automation and avoid duplication of information collected.
Possible methods include sampling, market research, opinion research; I believe it pays to consider how we can obtain statistics more quickly and more efficiently.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, it is immensely important, perhaps the most important element in the report, that Eurostat is being called on to provide sex-related statistics. I therefore congratulate my namesake for that.
The word I use in Swedish, 'namna ', does not really exist. I have coined it for the occasion, because the rapporteur and I have the same first name.
<P>
I congratulate her on the requirement of sex-specific statistics.
What I find missing, however, is a reference to the need for statistics in future to be produced in such a way that they can be coordinated with geographic information, so that Eurostat can form part of a process of Europe-wide cooperation in this area.
We should, however, be able to popularise the information available on statistics in our countries. Then they could become more comparable.
I hope that we shall soon get a communication on this, so that we can have common standards and can popularise this better.
Commissioner Bangemann has promised such a communication, and Eurostat is mentioned explicitly as a cooperation partner in the draft for the communication.
<P>
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs was looking for better unemployment statistics and labour market statistics.
This is a perennial problem, but I actually think that the solution has already arrived.
According to my information, on the one hand we use statistics more often - every month data have to be sent to Eurostat - and on the other hand we can have more uniform statistics by applying the ILO Convention.
I wonder what needs to be improved.
What perhaps needs to be improved is the production of statistics at regional level; but that is precisely something we can use the geographic information for.
<P>
Also, in other discussions during this part-session, we have sought better information from the European Information Network on Drugs and Drug Addiction.
I wonder whether, as I hope, Eurostat and this network could in the future cooperate, so that we could get common definitions and could get the authorities actually to supply the information needed.
<P>
Finally, let me say that nothing lies like bad statistics.
In our country we experienced the consequences of that when we passed on statistics on violent crime to Eurostat, including both homicide and attempted homicide.
After that, reports circulated in the British press that Helsinki was the most violent city, whereas others had supplied statistics in which only the number of assaults which had actually led to fatality was given.
Remember the old saying: 'lies, damned lies and statistics'.
It must not be like that in the future!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Féret">
The arguments put forward by the rapporteur, Mrs Lulling, in favour of allocating a sufficient budget to support the Community Statistical Programme 1998-2002, are entirely convincing.
Eurostat must be in a position to compensate for the lack of efficiency of national statistical offices. Apart from the fact that they do not have the resources to effectively carry out their role, they are too often under the influence of the government, which prefers to ignore figures or, worse still, to manipulate them in order to better convince citizens that, all things considered, 'Everything is fine, Madam'.
<P>
Are you aware, for example, that in Belgium - just to take my own country as an example - the Minister for Employment and Labour cites a figure of around 500 000 unemployed people for the entire country, which is gross misinformation, as the Minister only takes into account those who are fully unemployed, who are on benefit and seeking employment?
<P>
Intellectual honesty would require the Minister to add to this the unemployed who are on benefit and not seeking employment, those who are exempt from checks, and those in agreed early retirement. He should also add those on guaranteed minimum income benefit, that is, those dependent on welfare, the homeless, the disabled who receive sickness and invalidity insurance and those who receive benefits from insurance companies due to accidents at work.
This would increase the published figure of 500 000 unemployed to 1 million.
<P>
Are you aware that in Belgium it is impossible to find out how many illegal immigrants there are or how much the immigration policy costs the taxpayer?
Are you aware that in Belgium, while we know the volume of trade with foreign countries, we do not know anything about what the Walloons buy in Flanders, and that there is a refusal to carry out any sort of linguistic census in Brussels and its surrounding area?
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, in order to have better transparency and real democracy, I think that Eurostat should be given the necessary resources to respond to our legitimate questions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 NAME="Pinheiro">
Mr President, may I begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mrs Lulling, for the quality of her report.
In addition to the Committee on Economic Affairs, a further 12 committees participated in the drafting of your opinion on the draft Community Statistical Programme submitted by the Commission.
<P>
This bears clear witness to the interest devoted by your institution to the introduction of a coherent, transparent and reliable system of Community statistics.
The Commission welcomes this commitment.
You share the convictions held by other institutions of the European Union that the successful democratic operation of our institutions is not possible without good Community statistics.
<P>
Before giving the Commission's opinion on Mrs Lulling's report, I would like to say a few words about Community statistics.
Over the last decade, their role has been considerably strengthened.
Many important political decisions require a very stringent level of comparability and, therefore, a high level of harmonisation of Community statistics. These naturally include the introduction of economic and monetary union but also, for instance, the common agricultural policy, economic and social cohesion and budgetary policy.
If further evidence were needed, you would only need to look at the report approved during the last meeting of the Commission on the possible modification of the own resources system to see the importance of having reliable and comparable statistics.
<P>
During the last five-year statistical programme, the first priority centred of course on statistics relating to the convergence criteria, which were completed on time and with the necessary quality to serve as a basis for the decision taken on 2 and 3 May this year.
Another important priority for EUROSTAT was the preparation of statistical data for the Employment Summit which took place in November 1997, and the preparation of indicators for monitoring the employment guidelines adopted at the summit.
<P>
The Commission decided to make the Member States wholly responsible for gathering statistical data, in keeping with the principle of subsidiarity.
Thus, a sort of network was created between the statistical systems of the Member States.
This network jointly lays down the harmonisation methods to be adopted and its implementation will reap the full benefit of the experience of some 70 000 statistical experts involved.
<P>
In the context of its commitment to ensuring efficiency in the administration of the resources at its disposal, EUROSTAT, in conjunction with its national partners, introduced a series of measures intended to boost productivity, limit the volume of data submitted by companies (particularly by small and medium enterprises), adopt the methods offering the best cost-benefit ratio, improve the overall quality of its products and, lastly, to assess the results of these products.
<P>
On the subject of Mrs Lulling's report, the Commission cannot fail to welcome the improvements proposed, particularly in the areas of employment, the environment, equal opportunities for men and women, as well as in the area of statistics connected with a future VAT system.
However, the Commission cannot support Amendments Nos 5, 7 and 8 and, in part, 9, for the following reasons.
<P>
Amendment No 5 is redundant in the light of Amendment No 4.
It should be pointed out in this connection that the scientific independence of statistics experts is one of the fundamental principles embodied in Council Regulation No 322/97 regarding Community statistics.
The principle is likewise embodied in the new Article 285 of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
<P>
The Commission cannot support Amendment No 7 since it intends to retain responsibility for assessing this programme.
This does not of course exclude the possibility of calling in an independent expert or experts to assist in this task, as provided for in Commission communication SEM 2000.
<P>
The Commission likewise intends to call in the European Advisory Committee on Statistical Information in the Economic and Social Spheres (CEIES), which includes users' representatives.
<P>
Amendment No 8 would not appear to be relevant since the 'other spheres' referred to are covered by the programme in question.
<P>
Lastly, the Commission does not support the first part of Amendment No 9 since EUROSTAT does not have the power to draw up forecasts.
<P>
In conclusion, I would like to emphasise the importance of this new Community Statistical Programme for 1998-2002.
The Commission welcomes the excellent cooperation between our two institutions, which augurs well for the imminent implementation of Article 285 of the Treaty of Amsterdam providing for the establishment of the co-decision procedure in the sphere of statistics.
<P>
In connection with the question raised regarding the independence of EUROSTAT, I would like to add that the Commission makes it a point of honour not to exercise any political influence whatsoever over EUROSTAT.
This was clear, indeed, when EUROSTAT had to publish its statistics for Economic and Monetary Union, and departed from a specific decision of the Commission, not just for the purposes of that particular exercise, but as a point of honour in its usual practice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, I think that as the rapporteur, I must respond to what the Commissioner has just said concerning certain amendments.
I agree that Amendments Nos 4 and 5 overlap.
If you do not want to state that the work should remain independent from political pressure, I could perhaps withdraw Amendment No 5, because in a way it duplicates the previous amendment.
This does not however prevent us from adopting it and leaving the Council the option of choosing one or the other.
<P>
With regard to Amendment No 7, I am somewhat surprised that you should want to evaluate your work yourselves.
This is indeed work that requires independent evaluation, and you state that the Economic and Social Committee should do this.
I personally know the Economic and Social Committee very well, as for some time I was the intellectual 'harlot' of the unionists there, and I have to tell you that I do not see this Committee evaluating your statistics.
If you draw up a report, it could, if need be, provide an appraisal of it, but it will not do an evaluation report.
<P>
As regards the budget, I know that additional funds could turn out to be necessary.
If they are not necessary, all the better, but, if it appeared that they were needed, then it is better to say that we want the required resources to be available.
<P>
As far as Amendment No 9 is concerned, I think, Mr President, that there is a misunderstanding.
We are not actually asking Eurostat to make forecasts of the movement in agricultural spending.
We are asking for statistics 'enabling' the political decision- makers to make such forecasts.
Eurostat will not make these forecasts, but we need its statistics to enable forecasts to be made of the movement in agricultural spending in the various areas.
I therefore think that there is a misunderstanding here.
I hope, nevertheless, that Parliament will support me in adopting these amendments, which we consider to be necessary and important.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 NAME="Pinheiro">
<SPEAKER ID=200 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, I have a point of order.
On a previous occasion, I requested that the results of votes be displayed for longer after the vote so that we can make a note of them.
Perhaps it would be possible to have access to the results of the electronic votes on paper so that we can follow them better.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 NAME="President">
I am told that the services can always provide you with a printout of the votes at any time after the votes have taken place.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 7.05 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Madam President, I would like the Bureau to address the following problem. We discussed the urgencies yesterday, which included a motion for resolution I tabled on the situation in Georgia.
After the vote I discovered to my surprise that a letter, signed by an official of this Parliament, was sent to various Members - not to me, of course - on official Parliament paper, calling on them not to vote for it.
<P>
I would just like to know whether we have now reached the point where our bureaucrats can actually determine Members' voting behaviour. Would you please investigate this?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
We take note of that, Mr von Habsburg, and I should be grateful if you could provide us with this letter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
I have it here with me, Madam President.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="Kerr">
Madam President, on page 58 of the Minutes there is an account of an exchange between the President and certain Members concerning who is currently a member of the British Conservative Group.
Unfortunately, the President's remarks have been edited and his full wit and humour have not been reflected in the Minutes.
Could we have a full record?
Could we have an assurance from the Conservative Group as to whether Mr Donnelly and Mr Stevens are currently members of that group or not?
I gather that yesterday they came in and out several times.
For the record, we should know what the current state is
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President.">
That does not concern the Minutes, Mr Kerr, but the Verbatim Report of Proceedings.
It is the Minutes that we are currently approving.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="Chichester">
Madam President, my comment is also on the Minutes, because I note that Vice-President Martin was successful in having expunged from the record his comments about having to telephone No 10 Downing Street for instructions on how to vote.
If that facility is available to Vice-Presidents - and good luck to him - is it available to other Members?
By the way, Mr Kerr, the Conservative Group remains as it was yesterday.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
That also does not relate to the Minutes, but to the Verbatim Report of Proceedings.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="Hallam">
Madam President, this is, of course, a reference to the Minutes - page 21.
Mr Cassidy apparently crossed the floor of the Chamber.
I would like some clarification from the Chair, because according to the Guardian newspaper today, John Stevens and Brendan Donnelly, members of the Conservative Group opposite, were expelled and then later reinstated by the Tory Party; they later resigned and then, after a hasty compromise, were persuaded to stay.
Could somebody please tell the electorate in Great Britain whether these two people are now members of the Conservative Party or whether they are now independents?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, you are persistently confusing the Minutes wit the Report of Proceedings.
We are only approving the Minutes here.
We have heard what you said, but it would seem that no one else has anything further to say about the Minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="McKenna">
Madam President, I wish to say, for future reference in this Chamber, that if Members want to behave like schoolboys, do it outside.
Some of us have other work to do.
<P>
(Mixed reactions)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
Everyone has their own way of seeing things.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mosiek-Urbahn">
Madam President, you referred to the common position on the directive on consumer goods and guarantees.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights was asked to deliver its opinion at the first reading.
It should do the same for the second reading, but it was not mentioned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
We shall look into that.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Madam President, following the debate we had yesterday evening with the Commissioner, I should like to table an oral amendment to Amendment No 7.
The other amendments can be put to the vote together.
We actually asked for an independent evaluation of an independent evaluation report on the programme. The Commissioner said that it was the Commission's responsibility to produce this report and I understand that.
I would like, with your agreement, to propose deleting the word 'independent' in the first subparagraph so that it reads 'will provide for a mid-programme evaluation ...' And in the second subparagraph, I would also like to delete the word 'independent' so that it reads 'shall provide for an appropriate evaluation report on the implementation of the programme', and adding the words 'taking account of the views of independent experts', as the Commissioner promised.
<P>
I would ask you to accept this oral amendment, which is justified, and with this amendment and your agreement, we can put Amendments Nos 7 to 14 to a block vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Lindqvist">
It is very questionable whether the EU should devote large amounts of funding to the fusion research establishment, JET.
It would be better to direct such funds to renewable energy resources.
I have therefore voted against the report.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Pigmeat
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
The next item is the statement by the Commission on pigmeat.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Fischler">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, to make things quite clear from the outset, the background to the difficulties we are currently encountering in the pig sector is probably the fact that 1996 and 1997 proved extremely productive years for the pig farmers, which led them to make enormous stock increases.
Furthermore, with the decline in swine fever, products from the Netherlands are fully back on the market again.
These two factors have increased European pig production to 17.2 million tonnes this year, an increase of about one million tonnes of pigmeat or 6 % more than in 1997.
<P>
This trend obviously exerts enormous pressure on the European pigmeat market.
But the situation has become even more acute in the last few weeks with the almost total disappearance of the extremely important Russian exports, the falling demand in Far Eastern markets and the increasing competition from other exporting countries, especially the USA and Canada.
<P>
The Commission has taken a number of measures to support the pig sector.
In mid-May we re-introduced export refunds for fresh and frozen pigmeat on the bone.
At the time that stabilised the market for several weeks on end.
But when prices began to slump again in late July, the Commission increased these refunds by 50 % and introduced the same refund rates for meat off the bone.
That measure also had a very positive impact on exports.
<P>
But then, as I said, Russian exports fell drastically and were eventually blocked in mid-August, and European market prices fell by nearly ECU 10 per kilogramme in the space of three weeks.
To protect exporters from direct harm, we thereupon began by prolonging the validity of export licences to Russia by 60 days.
At the last meeting of the pigmeat management committee, it was decided rapidly to introduce private storage aids, which have been granted since 28 September.
<P>
This action allows the industry to freeze freshly slaughtered pigs at the Community's cost and to store it for four, five or six months.
But when these products are taken out of storage, it is compulsory to export them to third countries.
Part of the stored amounts, together with the expenditure on this action, however, come under the WTO export obligations for the pigmeat sector.
<P>
Under this action, some 70 000 tonnes of meat can be stored in the 1999 financial year.
Let me stress that the traders can incorporate storage in their export activities in the appropriate way, which will also make them more competitive on third-country markets.
<P>
Some Members are in favour of a further increase in the refund rates and have called for that.
In this regard, I would ask them to consider that it is pointless to increase them, especially for exports to Russia, so long as the Russian market remains completely closed and we have no partners there with whom to conclude export contracts; moreover, for the time being the other third-country markets do not need higher export refunds.
<P>
Of course we will follow further developments on the European pig market very, very closely and we will certainly discuss the matter further at the next management committee meeting, which is due to take place on 14 October. And as soon as the Russian markets open again, we will certainly review the refunds.
<P>
Let me conclude with a remark that some Members may not find very welcome.
In spite of the current crisis which, as I said at the outset, can be traced mainly to the expansion of pig stocks, there are still, particularly just now, some official organisations, advisory services and also regional authorities and even governments that are calling on pig farmers to expand rather than restrict pig production.
To be quite frank, I think that is bad advice.
The Commission may be able to moderate and cushion the effects of a temporary rise in production, but it cannot protect the sector from price falls caused by structural overproduction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fantuzzi">
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Redondo Jiménez">
Commissioner, you have just reported to us on the steps the Commission has taken to resolve this desperate pigmeat crisis.
You also mentioned that one of its causes has been the huge increase in production.
But clearly that growth has not been the same in all countries, so the solutions cannot be the same for a country where over-production stands at 104 % and for others where the level of supply exceeds 470 %.
<P>
The measures you described could be improved and there are others which you did not mention.
An effort has been made on export refunds - we are pleased that boneless meat has been included - and also on the issue of private storage, but 70 000 tonnes is a very small amount especially considering that we have further reserves of over 600 000 tonnes from last year as well as the reserves from this year.
<P>
Furthermore, there are two other measures you did not refer to and to which I would draw your attention.
The COM is operating in a free market, and we can tell you here and now that Article 3 applies. This article states that in case of exceptional price falls, intervention buying can take place, and the price cannot be used as an excuse - which is what the Commission's officials have done - because it is fixed in Article 5 in relation to the Community base price.
So intervention buying can take place.
<P>
What is more, we have the Community food aid system, which could help all the NGOs, charities, the Dominican Republic - which has suffered a terrible disaster - and Russia too.
<P>
There are solutions, Commissioner.
Let us be brave and take these measures.
In an exceptional market situation exceptional steps need to be taken.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Mulder">
Madam President, I should like to begin by thanking Mr Fischler for his statement, and I think the analysis he gave is essentially correct.
A pig cycle is nothing new.
Anyone here in the Chamber who knows anything of economics knows that pig cycles are mentioned in just about every economics book.
What makes the present cycle special is that it has coincided with the crises in Russia and Asia.
<P>
I think that the pigmeat sector can generally be proud of the fact that it costs so little.
Expenditure in 1997 was ECU 168 million out of a budget of ECU 41 billion, and in 1998 the figure is likely to be some ECU 330 million, which is an excellent achievement.
I therefore feel that the special measures being taken are fully justified, since crisis situations call for special measures.
<P>
The Commission says that the root of the problem lies in the fact that pigmeat production has increased so dramatically.
This is certain to be the case, since increased supply means lower prices.
But is not the Commission's policy of reducing grain prices also to blame?
And is the problem not simply going to get worse over the next few years when grain prices come down still further with Agenda 2000? What does the Commission think the effect will be on pigmeat production then?
All the types of meat produced using a lot of grain will have a clear advantage over other types of meat, it seems to me. Does the Commission have any sort of long-term policy in mind here?
<P>
I have another question: if reports are correct, something like six to seven billion dollars of extra support are to be made available to American farmers in the run-up to the elections. What does the Commission intend to do about this?
Is it going to react?
<P>
My final question is this: if the Dutch newspapers are to be believed, Commissioner Fischler has praised the Netherlands' policy on pigmeat production, which includes a quota system.
Is the Commissioner in favour of introducing this throughout Europe?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Poisson">
Madam President, Commissioner, we have witnessed a breathtaking drop in the price of pigmeat since the end of the summer both in the European Union and worldwide.
The Community production sector, and particularly small family producers, are in a state of emergency.
What has happened?
First of all, Europe has overproduced, as you said, Commissioner, largely due to the irresponsible expansion of some farms.
Supply in Europe therefore increased from 16 million to 17.2 million tonnes between 1996 and 1998, which is an increase of 9 %.
At the same time, we have seen pig numbers in the United States increase by about 8 % in two years, which has allowed the Americans, who set unbeatable prices, to conquer the external markets to the detriment of the European Union: we are in the middle of an economic war.
The situation is also explained by the Asian and Russian crises, which also deprive the European Union of a potential market.
At present, we are seeing the consumption of pigmeat in the Community stagnate because of strong competition from other white meats.
<P>
The Commission must now resort to drastic remedies - as they say in my country -, otherwise the crisis will persist and drag on.
Emergency measures are necessary.
Firstly, the level of export refunds must be adjusted as needed to ensure that the markets can be recaptured, including the Russian market.
Secondly, a promotion campaign should be swiftly launched within the Community to increase awareness amongst the general public and boost consumption in Europe.
Thirdly, meat stocks in the European Union must be reduced by adopting the principle of humanitarian aid, particularly for Russia, yet without calling into question present commercial distribution and putting future distribution at risk.
Fourthly, supply and demand should be controlled, as well as production, and farms should be managed rationally.
Fifthly, we must ensure that the production of pigmeat is not transformed into a huge business that no longer has anything to do with agriculture, rural development and compliance with environmental standards.
However, I fear that it may already be too late as far as this last point is concerned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Jové Peres">
Madam President, the origin of the current crisis in the pigmeat market lies in the supply and demand imbalance produced by the growth of industrial farming.
On top of that the heavy reduction in exports resulting from the Russian crisis has made this a crisis of unprecedented depth.
<P>
The victims of this crisis will be small and medium-sized farms.
The Commission ought to be proposing measures to correct this situation, using specific aid for small and medium-sized farms and disincentives against industrial farming.
<P>
All in all, the biggest problem is that the effects of the Russian crisis may also be repeated in other sectors.
This is the most serious aspect in my opinion, and the Commission is leaving itself without mechanisms for managing this crisis because the only instrument it is planning to use across the board is private storage; this is to be the sole intervention mechanism in the majority of sectors.
The social fabric of Europe's farming community cannot afford the destruction of its base - the small and medium-sized farms - or additional job losses.
So it is the Commission's duty to correct the social impact of the structural crisis in pigmeat by providing aid for small farms and disincentives against industrial farming.
<P>
I want to draw attention to the most recent events, because if the Commission felt even the slightest sense of responsibility it would revise some of the proposals it is making with regard to the various COMs.
Any COM worth its salt must have market regulation mechanisms for dealing with cyclical variations in production or short-term crises in all sectors.
<P>
My colleagues in the committee are right to call for exceptional efforts in the face of increasingly ineffective measures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Madam President, Commissioner, you should have begun with the observation you made at the end.
Everyone in the pig market knows why we have this crisis.
Our farmers' associations are still busily trying to encourage the growth of the pig sector and argue in their publications that we should at last reacquire the market shares which the Netherlands lost as a result of swine fever.
<P>
Of course, the same applies to the Netherlands as to other Member States.
They are attempting to promote industrialisation in the pig sector, where possible with public funds.
They want the resulting market pressure removed by raising export subsidies.
The taxpayer who has to pay for it, the smaller undertakings and species-friendly stock rearing all fall by the wayside.
<P>
We must resist this attempt - and on this point I would contradict Mr Pérez, which also relates to the joint resolution, which we did not sign; we must not give in to this attempt to set up a common organisation of the pigmeat market with state intervention, which would eventually lead to constant surpluses here too.
We must ensure that the market is cleaned up and dissociates itself from those who want it to expand and we must take measures to ensure that species-friendly stock rearing and small-scale pig-farming do not fall by the wayside.
<P>
That means that we must make it clearly understood by the Member States, at European level, that agro-industrial production is not entitled to privileges and may not be established in rural areas like other types of farm production, but must be treated as an industry; that means it may only be established in industrial areas and is subject to the appropriate emission rules, like those which other commercial and industrial undertakings also have to observe.
Any privileges must go to farming based on land utilisation, which also applies to pig-farming.
<P>
We must also support the regional market.
I personally am not affected by this crisis with my pig production - which is, admittedly, rather small - because I market directly.
Nor am I affected by the collapse of the Russian and Asian markets, because my markets are on my doorstep; the people who want to buy from me - and who are not concerned about Asia or Russia, nor do they believe they ought to eat more meat because of the growth of agro-industrial production - stick to their standards, as I stick to mine.
Nor have I expanded my production.
So I think this is a homemade crisis.
But it also shows the particular risks of gearing production to export and to the world market, because small parties then muddle up all manner of things that could in fact be regulated sensibly in the large single European market.
<P>
So I would ask you to let this pig surplus regulate itself and to protect those who must not be disadvantaged, namely small family farms, which might otherwise draw the short straw.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="Nicholson">
Madam President, firstly, I welcome the Commission's statement here this morning on the crisis in the pig sector throughout Europe.
The fact that we received this statement means that the Commission recognises that there is a serious problem within the pig industry in the European Union.
<P>
In my own constituency of Northern Ireland, the situation is perhaps even worse than in other parts of Europe.
It was aggravated by the loss of one of the processing factories due to a fire last June.
I know the Commission is probably aware of this.
This resulted in a massive backlog of pigs on farms during July and August.
Despite politicians' best efforts, no resolution could be found to this problem, either within Northern Ireland, in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in London, or in Brussels.
No matter where we went, we were told 'we are sorry, everybody is on holiday'.
The pigs did not go on holiday. They had to be fed and we had a serious problem.
It is not very good to go to your constituents and say 'I am sorry but everybody is on holiday in Brussels'.
While I appreciate that people are entitled to their holidays, in future there should be at all times an official of sufficient standing in every cabinet in Brussels who can make a political decision if a real crisis occurs in some part of the European Union.
It does not enhance the image of the European Union when we have a situation like this.
<P>
I know there are no easy solutions.
I know the crisis in Russia has aggravated the situation, but to simply start with the introduction of export refunds and aid to private storage is not enough.
We need a better mechanism to recognise the problems before they arise.
The pig industry is important. It keeps young people on the farms who might not otherwise be there.
It also provides substantial employment off the farm.
I fear the pig industry, in my particular area, is at a stage where it may not survive this present crisis.
<P>
I would ask the Commission to set up a task force to look into the situation and ensure that it is not repeated and that we can evolve a long-term policy for the future of pigs throughout the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="Paisley">
Mr President, the pig industry in Northern Ireland has been hit worse than all the other sectors in agriculture which are already in crisis, as the Commissioner knows.
In the midst of the crisis the pig industry was robbed in one night of 40 % of its slaughter capacity and curing capacity.
A new Malton factory costing £10 million was burned to the ground.
An industry already in crisis losing 40 % of its capacity is in danger of total collapse.
<P>
What representation did the Commissioner receive from the United Kingdom Government about this dire emergency?
What proposals for financial help were requested?
In any other region of this Union, if this had happened and 40 % of an industry had been destroyed something decisive would have been requested of the national government and undertaken.
<P>
The pig industry is a jewel in the crown of agriculture in Northern Ireland.
It is going to go under, as my colleague has mentioned, and cease to be viable if immediate aid is not forthcoming.
With pig farmers contemplating suicide, and some committing suicide as a result of the problems, the situation is desperate.
<P>
I would press the Commissioner to send one of his officials to Northern Ireland immediately to assess for himself the tragedy and gravity of the situation.
Agriculture is Northern Ireland's largest industry.
It accounts for £2.28 billion of its trade and employs 10 % of the total civil employment pool.
The whole industry is in crisis.
Farm incomes have been slashed.
In 1997 they were down 38 % from 1996, to £203 million.
Finally, a further drop this year in farm incomes is expected, to the extent of £50 million.
That is the gravity of the situation.
We are looking to Europe to do something for us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="McCartin">
Madam President, I raised this question originally.
I am happy that a large number of people in this House and indeed, the Commissioner, are well aware of what the problem is and how serious it is.
<P>
It is not just a question of farmers failing to make a living.
It is a question of farmers losing money rapidly and being in danger of having to lose their homes and entire business.
<P>
Farmers throughout Europe see the European Union as being responsible for agriculture.
We spend 17 billion annually on arable crops.
We spend 5 billion annually on beef.
We managed to find 2 billion extra when the beef industry got into trouble even though the pig meat sector is twice as big - there is twice as much pigmeat consumed in the European Union as there is beef.
In the dairy sector we spent 3 billion.
We merely spent 300 million on pigmeat, a sector which is twice as big as beef.
<P>
It is extremely important that we take note of the situation and seek to find emergency solutions because this is an emergency.
To my colleague, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, who thinks about these things seriously, I have to say that there are big factory farms involved, but the ones that will be there when this crisis is over are the big factory farms.
The ones that are going out are the smallest and most vulnerable.
We do not make a case here today for the large factory farms.
We ask for emergency measures for the family farms that are in dire need. They will go down first as the crisis develops.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Anttila">
Madam President, Commissioner, I thank Mr Fischler for his statement, which fully explained why the pig industry has reached this situation of overproduction.
The Commission's decision to support private storage is right, but it is not enough on its own.
To reduce the size of the pigmeat mountains we need a proper injection of aid for exports, so that surpluses can be shifted onto the global market.
We have to find funding for that.
In addition, pigmeat production must be cut in the EU in relation to consumption and the existing outlets for exportation.
The responsibility for this lies with the Member States, which have been increasing their production beyond the level of consumption over the last two years.
In a case like this, those governments that are still recommending increased production are being irresponsible.
<P>
In reducing production we have to stress the importance of the effect on the environment of production, and reduce production particularly in environmentally protected high risk areas.
My question to the Commissioner is this: is it possible to spend EU environmental aid on reducing pigmeat production that puts too much of a burden on the environment?
Balancing production is urgently required, as otherwise it will take place through a broad sweep of competition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Querbes">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the crisis in the production of pigmeat is unacceptable for small and medium-sized producers.
It must lead to joint action in the form of effective financial measures on the part of the Commission and the Member States, in order to enable farms to get through this ordeal without any difficulties.
<P>
Yet, at a time when Europe has a surplus of 600 000 tonnes, how can we allow authorisation to be given to set up huge factory farms that give rise to opposition from the surrounding population and the farmers themselves?
Does Europe not need a moratorium on this type of farm?
The present situation in Europe and in the world must, in fact, result in a policy aimed at controlling production through a genuine common organisation of the market.
We need to ensure a decent income for small farms within the framework of small-scale production that generates jobs and guarantees respect for the environment and harmonious use of the countryside.
<P>
However, who within the Union's bodies will have the will and the courage to change the direction of Community agricultural policy and attack this extreme liberalism, which, according to the chairman of COPA, is at the origin of the crisis? Can we believe that the Commission is prepared to act effectively to that end and against the collapse of pigmeat prices when it proposes an identical price trend for cereals, milk, and beef and veal?
Can we believe this when it proposes, with no real balancing mechanism, enlargement to include countries where agricultural prices are between 30 % and 60 % lower than those in the Union? And can we believe this when it relentlessly pursues this extremely liberal headlong rush by negotiating the opening up of the European market to the United States and to Mercosur?
Is it not urgent to escape from this market dogma that regulates the market, and to send the idea of the reform of the CAP and Agenda 2000 back to the drawing board?
<P>
We are not starting with nothing.
When adopting the Cunha report a few weeks ago on the reform of the CAP, our Parliament outlined the framework of another agricultural policy. It is a policy that is far more concerned with society's needs in terms of decent incomes, jobs, the quality of food and the environment, the balanced management of our territory and international cooperation.
This is the policy that should now be at the centre of debates within the Council and within our Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="Hallam">
Madam President, like many Members here I have been in touch with pig farmers in my constituency during the last week.
I found that many of them are close to financial ruin.
People who have made a long-term commitment to producing a first-class product now suddenly find that pigs which previously sold for £34 to £40 are now being sold for £10 or £12.
<P>
They are not asking for subsidies or for charity.
But they are asking for help. There are several ways in which our pig farmers could be helped.
We could introduce an export credit guarantee scheme.
We could look at assisted retirement from the market.
We could look at ways of managing the rationing of new entrants to the market.
<P>
Referring to the point Mr Fischler made about the Russian market - Russia is in a state and our pig market is in a state.
So why do we not make a gift to the Russian people at least of our lower value cuts of meat.
Let us give it away; let us put it on to the Russian market; let the Russians use that meat to feed their people; and let us relieve pressure on our own markets.
<P>
There are other issues.
British pig farmers have additional problems brought about by the unilateral adoption of stock-rearing rules.
We must make sure that these are consistent across the European Union.
We must also ensure that when imports come into the European Union they too conform to those rules.
<P>
Finally, rules on labelling should be tightened so that pigmeat can develop its own brand loyalty over time.
This will discourage the vast supermarkets switching sources so that they can follow lower commodity prices.
My pig farmers do not want charity but they do want a chance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Santini">
Madam President, the causes of this crisis have already been widely debated, but I would still like to make a modest contribution to trying to find some possible remedy.
The immediate solutions, which have already been mentioned, are institutional and they are the simplest to apply: private storage and export refunds - but the Commissioner is avoiding the latter as impracticable, because lack of demand means there are no exports, so even the refunds would automatically fall.
<P>
What other measures could be taken?
There is a danger that everyone is preoccupied with their own problems, so Member States' governments should be made aware that they must not take unilateral action - unidirectional action, I call it - partly out of panic and partly because of trouble-makers, since this would only have a palliative effect.
<P>
A second suggestion to the Commission is to take a firm hold of supply management, to get it back into balance and coordinate it. Then, considering the United States' close marking of the European Union on all issues affecting our international relations, why not counterattack, and find out if the United States really is breaking WTO rules by subsidising its producers?
<P>
Further proposals would be to carry out a careful investigation of the fundamental causes of the Russian and Japanese crises so as to prevent further ill-effects, and, finally, to ensure that the major agri-foodstuffs companies share the responsibility.
In short, we cannot resign ourselves to the biblical prophecy about the seven lean years and the seven fat years. If four years of high prices are going to be followed by four years of low prices, it will be a catastrophe, Commissioner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="Hardstaff">
Madam President, last Friday I too met with farmers in my constituencies.
They all have great anxieties about the current catastrophic decline in their incomes, in particular those in the pig sector whose animals are fetching such low prices in the market that they are making a loss on every animal.
British farmers, normally a very phlegmatic, law-abiding group of people, are far less prone to demonstrate than their opposite numbers in some other countries.
For them to take to the streets, as they did at the Labour Party Conference in Blackpool last week, or blockade a port to stop pigmeat being brought into the UK, as they did in Immingham in my constituency a few weeks ago, things have to be desperate indeed.
<P>
Travelling around my Lincolnshire constituency I often see pigs out in the fields enjoying a very normal active life with high welfare standards.
Their owners feel very bitter that the very low prices they are currently receiving for their pigs are not reflected in the prices of meat in the supermarkets which import meat raised to lower welfare standards.
<P>
Farmers need help now to get through to Christmas.
A number of short-term measures can be taken quickly to ease the situation.
Export refunds will help the market by assisting producers to find new markets outside the EU.
Private storage aids can relieve an over-supplied market in the short term.
However, when released, such meats should be exported or used as emergency supplies outside the EU - possibly to Russia, as has been said - to avoid recreating the problem of over-supply.
<P>
Export credit guarantees can help exporters to reduce risk and compete outside the EU with more confidence to find new markets.
An intensive marketing programme throughout the EU similar to that introduced for beef two years ago, for which I wrote the Parliament's report, could also play a significant role in boosting consumption and thereby reducing surpluses.
There also needs to be help for farmers wishing to retire from the sector.
<P>
Measures should be the same throughout the EU to ensure no one Member State gets an unfair advantage.
Through you I urge the Commission and the Council to reach decisions and take urgent action following the meeting on 14 October.
Europe's farmers need help now.
They cannot wait another two or three months for action.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Funk">
Madam President, Commissioner, although it has all been said, not everyone has spoken yet.
So I shall be very brief.
I want to address four points.
One, pig prices for farmers have fallen more sharply than the prices passed on by the trade.
That too needs pointing out.
Two, the Commissioner said nothing about evaluating the results of the recent pig counts.
After all, he must have good figures here since his expert on pigs learnt his trade on my farm.
That is why he is such a capable man - let us say that quite plainly here!
<P>
Three, now would be the best opportunity, and here I agree with Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, to implement the directive on nitrates and to look into the excessive stocks of animals in the Community, so that we can bring them back to a normal level and establish a sensible ratio of fodder land to land spread with liquid manure.
This is the best opportunity to do so.
I am doing so, obviously.
We have all been doing so for ages.
Only the Lower Saxons are, of course, very backward here.
And nevertheless one of them has actually become Chancellor of Germany.
That just goes to show the possibilities in our country!
<P>
Four, it needs to be checked to what extent the sharp fall in the grain price has had an impact on or stimulated the processing industry.
The farmers are seeking higher value creation.
That is quite clear, and then we shall never be able to resolve this dilemma.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Filippi">
Madam President, there are two points I would like to make, but first I would like to make it quite clear that I welcome the fact that we are debating this issue this morning and I think that a number of measures are needed to help get us through this difficult stage.
<P>
To be honest, Commissioner, your latest statement did not surprise me, and I think we ought to distinguish between the structural causes underlying this crisis and the circumstantial causes which have aggravated it.
The Russian market, for example, has exacerbated a crisis engendered by over-production and the misguided policy some Member States have been pursuing.
<P>
This policy must be corrected because it threatens to penalise even areas which are traditional producers of pigmeat used primarily for quality products - for processed products like ham, salami, etcetera - which risk paying the price of errors in the calculation of demand.
<P>
The second point I want to make is that we should only intervene with contingency measures, and we should try not to use this crisis to move towards regulation of the sector, which up to now has managed fairly well without subsidies. We must try to avoid going down the road of traditional assistance because of a short-term crisis in the sector.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="Fischler">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you warmly for this debate. I was asked whether I can show you the trend in production.
Production in the first six months of 1998 compared with the same period in 1997 was as follows.
In the Netherlands, production rose by 17.9 % - as I said, that was mainly due to the swine fever the year before; in Spain by 7.8 %, so that Spain is now the second pig producer in the European Union; and in Portugal it is also over 7 %.
But in some countries production actually fell, for instance in Italy, Luxembourg and Finland.
In Germany it rose by 4 %.
<P>
Let me now briefly answer the questions you raised. On the specific question of the fire in Northern Ireland, let me say that, firstly, the UK Government has requested a national subsidy for this, which is currently under consideration.
Secondly, according to our information that firm has now bought a replacement slaughterhouse.
Thirdly, if structural aids for reconstruction are needed, they must be given under the structural programmes.
Fourthly, do not say we were not available!
In fact the matter was discussed with my services twice in August!
<P>
To turn to Mr Hallam's question about giving food aid to Russia.
I believe that first of all we should talk with the Russians themselves.
It would certainly be counterproductive to make an offer - as some have already tried - when the Russians want nothing to do with it.
So far the Russian Government has declared that it attaches priority to the resumption of normal exports to Russia.
Moreover, if we considered such aid, we would first have to reach agreement at international level, to ensure that a food aid programme was not charged to our exports, landing us in further difficulties.
Above all, we must determine how this kind of programme would be financed.
<P>
So we are not against this kind of programme on principle, from the outset and under all circumstances, but first the conditions need to be determined.
We also consider it extremely important that, in the event that we grant this aid, we also receive guarantees that it will go to those in genuine need and not just to anyone.
<P>
On the question of price consistency from the producer price to the supermarket price, if you find that this is not the case in your country, the fault lies in weak competition and not with the Community; it is in fact up to the consumer associations and other organisations to ensure this consistency.
<P>
I come now to the more long-term aspects.
In our proposals in relation to Agenda 2000 we considered the probable future trend of competition between pigmeat and beef.
Because we think that pigmeat, like all white meats, will have more advantages than disadvantages in future, we believe that is precisely why beef prices must be cut more drastically, to maintain a balance.
The trend of demand is more towards pigmeat.
I do not think when you add up the figures here that you should look at the billions the Community pays for field crops separately and pretend that it has nothing to do with pigmeat.
Quite logically, many pig producers in fact receive farm premiums because they produce their own cereals and fodder.
<P>
On the support for American producers, President Clinton has announced that he will give more support for American agriculture as a whole - which is indeed facing a serious crisis at present, especially grain cultivation.
But of course the same applies to the Americans as to us: they must comply with the agreed GATT undertakings.
Of course we will monitor this very carefully.
Should we find at any point that this is not the case, we will take the appropriate steps.
<P>
I must admit I see the question of a world market orientation rather differently from the way it was presented a moment ago.
Obviously we do not want to disturb the local or regional markets which, as Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf described so graphically, continue to operate independently of the crisis; on the contrary, we want to strengthen and support these regional markets.
But we cannot market the entire European production solely on regional markets, for there happen to be others too, and we cannot simply disregard them.
<P>
I agree with him on one point, which brings me back to Mr Mulder's question.
The proposal on reducing stocks in the Netherlands is directly linked to the directive on nitrates.
The Netherlands is attempting to implement the nitrates directive in relation to pig production, and that is also how the Netherlands Government presented the matter.
But you all know that many Member States have still not implemented that directive.
I am quite willing, following the debate here today, once again to request the appropriate services and my colleague Mrs Bjerregaard to make the appropriate approaches to the Member States on this subject, for in my view that is the best way to protect indigenous production in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Fischler.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
Joint motion for a resolution on the crisis in the pigmeat sector
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Madam President, pig farmers are quite familiar with the phenomenon of yo-yoing prices, and it is not for nothing that we talk about pig cycles in economics.
The decline of the substantial Russian market has produced the very serious problems which the pigmeat sector is currently facing, and I therefore welcome the fact that the European Parliament has made a statement on the subject.
We support the calls for the Commission to take further measures and we voted for the resolution.

<P>
But what do we mean by further measures?
The general wording of the recommendations indicates that Parliament still has very different ideas about this.
One idea is to introduce a subsidy regime for slaughtering piglets, like the Herodes premium for calves.
We resolutely oppose this as being ethically unacceptable and bad for the image of the sector.
Other possibilities mooted include intervention for pigmeat and reducing the slaughter weight.
We have our doubts about both of these, since they would involve changing the entire organisation of the pigmeat market, which would take some considerable time.
It seems to make no sense to change a light-handed system into a heavy-handed one just because of the current crisis.
<P>
We would advise the Commission to make optimum use of the existing instruments, even though they are restricted to the light-handed system.
But by using the private storage scheme and increasing export subsidies the Union could do a lot to help solve the problems.
The Commission must also be very careful to ensure that the support measures introduced by the various Member States do not contravene European rules.
An especially hard line must be taken with Member States which have unilateral support systems, such as interest-free loans and help in maintaining surplus production.
That is just counterproductive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Barthet-Mayer">
The ARE Group has not signed this so-called 'joint' resolution, tabled by the PSE, PPE, UPE and GUE/NGL Groups.
This resolution has surprised us by its lack of bite.
In fact, the text seems to us to accurately take stock of the present crisis in the pigmeat sector, but it is nonetheless hollow. Above all, this resolution refrains from drawing lessons from the crisis and is devoid of any concrete proposals, which are, however, necessary and urgent for the farmers directly affected by this crisis.
<P>
This crisis could have been predicted: it resulted from the combination of an uncontrollable industrialisation of pigmeat production, attractive, artificial prices that were maintained for four years, thereby encouraging overproduction, and the absence of a genuine European policy to control production.
The sudden drop in pigmeat prices coupled with the loss of export markets, particularly following the Russian crisis, are only symptoms of the structural weakness of the sector, which has been created by the absence of political will and a certain amount of vote-catching.
Each crisis in the pigmeat sector forces out the smallest farmers to the advantage of the factory farmers, who themselves are primarily responsible for the present situation.
<P>
It is not with the modest and timid proposals in this resolution - which merely calls for the blind perpetuation of the present system without even calling into question the foundations of the policy implemented until now - that the Community will be able to respond adequately to the concerns of farmers.
The ARE Group had proposed taking clear measures with a view to controlling production effectively and on a long-term basis.
The decentralisation of production, which would allow quality to prevail over quantity, is also amongst our priorities.
<P>
With this in mind, the group is in favour of the Commission maintaining the ban on subsidies designed to increase production capacity in areas with a structural surplus.
The Commission should be encouraged to favour aid to the producer aimed at promoting extensive farming methods that respect the connection with the ground and that use feedingstuffs originating in the Community.
<P>
Finally, the ARE Group considers that any specific measure concerning aid to the sector must be dependent, in accordance with each region's particular needs, on measures relating to marketing, processing, the protection of the environment, the decentralisation of production and the conversion of companies. It must also form part of a global strategy to control production and achieve quality.
<P>
We will, however, be voting in favour of this resolution as a sign of our concern for the scale of this crisis and our solidarity with the farmers affected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats voted for the joint motion for a resolution on pigmeat today.
We did so taking the view that the resolution is acceptable overall.
Certain products which are exported to the Far East, for example, do not qualify for export refunds.
This amounts to discrimination against the producers concerned.
We therefore favour support for the private storage of products that do not qualify for export support.
In the longer term of course, we think that the best way of bringing about balance on the market is to give the animals reasonable conditions and to care for the environment.
We favour a reform involving the alignment of prices to world market prices and a reduction in export refunds.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="Souchet">
The pigmeat market is characterised by over-supply.
In fact, EU exports to the Asian and Russian markets account for almost 40 % of the total volume of exports to third countries.
Both markets are experiencing particularly worrying economic situations and are no longer in a position to stock up with the same quantity of supplies as before.
<P>
On an internal level, an epizootic disease (swine fever) was certainly rife during the past two years in two Member States: the Netherlands and Spain.
However, through the near eradication of this disease, production in both these Member States has returned to the level of previous years.
<P>
While the emergence of a surplus could have been predicted, the Commission, rather than analysing the inadequacies of the COM for pigmeat, instead quoted us the case of pigmeat production as an example to justify its proposal to reform the COM for beef and veal (private storage, abolition of public intervention, reduction of production prices, etcetera).
<P>
Here or elsewhere, it is good form to systematically condemn the increase in agricultural production and particularly that of off-land units, as has occurred notably in the area of pigmeat production.
However - and I think it important to point this out -, it is not the farmers who are responsible for this situation.
For many years, the Commission has implemented a policy that favours this increase in regions close to the provision of feedingstuffs.
We know that to produce pigmeat at competitive prices on the world market, the cost of feedingstuffs must be reduced as far as possible.
By favouring the imports of proteins of crop origin, such as soya cakes, manioc, etcetera (the European Union only provides 15 % of the proteins of crop origin it requires), and the imports of cereal substitutes (corn gluten feed) without any import duties, the European Union has a direct responsibility for the concentration of farms around supply ports along its western coasts.
The competitive advantage of these coastal production regions has been such that production in Europe has been completely relocated and concentrated in limited areas - the Netherlands, Belgium, Brittany, Denmark -, leading to the consequences we are now aware of in terms of the environment and risks of epizootic disease.
<P>
However, this increase in production has also had a perverse effect on the farmers themselves.
In fact, they have had to make large investments in high-technology animal housing.
When analysing the situation of agriculture in France, for example, we see that pigmeat producers are among those farmers most in debt.
During the market depression that we are experiencing, they are obliged to produce, even at a loss, and to sell at very low prices.
<P>
What is the situation like for the consumer?
Now, after several weeks during which the price per kilo has remained lower than FRF 6 per kilo of live weight, consumer prices are still the same.
In actual fact, the middlemen are profiting from this situation and are not passing on the decrease in the price of the raw material to the advantage of the consumers.
<P>
I do not want to finish without emphasising the serious repercussions for farmers of certain insufficiencies on the part of the Commission.
Our colleague Jim Nicholson, a Member from Northern Ireland, has told us about the dramatic situation experienced by his region this summer, as a result of the Commission's incompetence.
In Northern Ireland, one of the two slaughterhouses for pigs was burnt down during the summer and was no longer able to slaughter of pigs.
The one remaining slaughterhouse, although running at full capacity, was unable to compensate for this problem and the farmers could not have their animals slaughtered.
It was therefore necessary for the Commission to authorise the slaughter of pigs from Northern Ireland in the Republic of Ireland.
But the Commission was on holiday.
There was no-one in charge in Brussels.
No-one was able to take a decision.
Everything was blocked.
And during this time, the animals exceeded their optimum weight.
This tragic situation shows us once more the negative effects of a technocratic type of decision-making system, which is very far from the real world.
<P>
Finally, I should like to point out here the significance of a proposal put forward by our colleague Edouard des Places.
In the opinion he delivered last year on the Agenda 2000 communication, he pointed out that it was necessary to introduce the principle of income insurance.
This system has the advantage of being authorised under the GATT-WTO agreements.
Yet, as the Commission regulations on Agenda 2000 are gradually being put forward, we note that this proposal is still not present.
However, if pig farmers had previously been able to take out this type of insurance - cofinanced by the European Union - when prices were higher, it would have been easier for them to deal with the market situation we are experiencing now.
Instead of a reform of the CAP and main COMs based on a reduction of prices and its partial compensation through allowances, we call on the Commission to seriously and quickly consider creating new tools that enable farmers to have stable incomes.
<P>
Is the Commission capable of imagining anything other than the progressive dismantling of the CAP that it is currently implementing?
Is it capable of presenting European farmers with any other prospects besides that of merely enduring the fluctuations in the dollar and the changes in world prices for agricultural raw materials?
If the answer is no, then the transfer of powers from which it has benefited is no longer justified.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
The euro and the CAP
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0320/98) by Mrs Schierhuber, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on:
<P>
I.the proposal for a Council Regulation establishing agrimonetary arrangements for the euro (COM(98)0367 - C4-0406/98-98/0214(CNS)); II.the proposal for a Council Regulation on transitional measures to be applied under the common agricultural policy with a view to the introduction of the euro (COM(98)0367 - C4-0407/98-98/0215(CNS)).
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="Schierhuber">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the introduction of the euro in the European Union brings many changes, adaptations and adjustments with it, which also affect agriculture and the existing agrimonetary system.
The system we have had hitherto served to absorb currency fluctuations, which could affect farm incomes.
It tried to keep incomes relatively stable by an extremely complex and expensive method, the fictive conversion rate known as the 'green rate'.
<P>
With the single currency, this compensation mechanism will no longer be needed in the euro zone in future.
On 1 January 1999, once exchange rates have been fixed, this cumbersome system will disappear.
However, an agrimonetary system will have to be retained for those states which do not participate in the single currency.
That is why the Commission is proposing to suspend the existing agrimonetary system regulations and replace them with two new ones.
I believe the Commission has developed a good system which, as I said, is much easier to handle and in the end will also be cheaper.
<P>
These new regulations are to regulate, firstly, the transition from the existing system to the new one and, secondly, the system to be applied between the ins and the pre-ins.
Let me emphasise at this point how important the introduction of the euro is for European farmers, since they in particular need a stable currency environment.
Let me also point to the huge depreciation of the lira that occurred in 1995, which did great damage to Austrian farmers and others.
<P>
If incomes are no longer exposed to the risk of currency fluctuations within the euro zone, I believe that will improve security on the internal and third-country markets.
<P>
Let me say a few words on the new agrimonetary mechanism for the pre-ins.
The Commission makes a distinction between prices and other subsidies on the one hand, and direct aid.
Since not every minor currency fluctuation can immediately be compensated, a margin was set.
For prices, it was decided that only an appreciable currency revaluation of not less than 2.6 % gives rise to an income loss, which in the end would also be compensated.
In the case of direct aid, this rate is 0.5 %.
On the 2.6 % rate I would add that it already applies in the current system, as recently decided in a Council regulation.
<P>
On innovations in the financing system, here too there is a difference between prices and other subsidies on the one hand, and direct aid.
In future too the Union will grant 50 % of direct aid contributions, even if the Member State does not pay its contribution.
It is a different situation with prices: in future they will only be granted if the Member State cofinances an equal share.
<P>
The successive payments are on a degressive scale and end after three years.
Broadly speaking, the same system applies when the 'in' states adjust to the euro, i.e. at the time when the exchange rates are fixed.
Let me just emphasise that in the first year the Union will pay 100 % compensation for direct aid where a currency has appreciated by at least 0.5 %.
<P>
The introduction of the single currency is an important and significant step towards further development and integration in Europe.
It brings us a step closer to completing the single market.
Personally, I do not regard the European Union as just an economic community but also as a community of solidarity.
That is why I support the Commission's proposed aid for farmers in those Member States that are not joining the single currency.
They should not derive any advantages from that, nor disadvantages either, for the farmers must not be the ultimate losers because their governments have decided not to join the euro for the time being.
As I said, in the end the reorganisation of the Community budget will save much money.
But the financing of a rational transition must take account of the farmers' needs.
<P>
Finally, I expect and hope that if any unforeseen difficulties arise on the date of introduction of the euro, the Commission will respond rapidly and efficiently.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Wilson">
Mr President, the single currency - the euro - will, of course, save a great deal of money: most European Union countries will not require agri-compensation payments after 1 January.
<P>
The 'green rate', as we know it, will go and for the countries not in 'euroland', the staged currency fluctuations of the present green pound will end and be replaced by a currency exchange rate based on the declared daily rate.
<P>
The European Union countries not in 'euroland' will have a compensation formula until the year 2002 - for the next three years.
I am concerned about ensuring that farmers requiring compensation will not have that compensation payment delayed.
If our aim is to help when farming income drops, it will not help if the payment is delayed until after the farmers have gone bankrupt.
The proposed direct aid, when there is a revaluation of over half a percent, must be received by the farmers and not too late to help them.
<P>
One point we must address: my country, the United Kingdom, is now suffering from the high pound on international currency exchange rates.
Cheap imports are flooding in and we have economic problems.
The same situation in 'euroland' could happen if we develop free trade with North America.
We really have to think of the cost to the common agricultural policy in our negotiations.
<P>
To conclude, I respect the amendments tabled.
I think we will agree.
I congratulate the rapporteur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Funk">
Mr President, Commissioner, of course I fully support what Mrs Schierhuber has described to us so excellently.
She also raised a number of points into which I would like to go in more depth.
<P>
It is quite plain that agriculture has suffered most from fluctuations in currency values and therefore also had to accept considerable income fluctuations and falls.
But I have been struck by a document published by the German Bundesrat to the effect that the current compensation rules are not fair and cannot adequately protect farmers from the losses to which Mr Wilson has also referred.
<P>
This document starts from the assumption that 1 % compensation represents DEM 600 million, and we are working with a fluctuation band of 2.6 %.
So in any country where this 2.6 % fluctuation band is breached, say in Germany, agricultural prices could face losses of 1.5 billion - according to the German Bundesrat.
<P>
So, of course, I pricked up my ears and said to myself that I must put that before you here.
I would not like to stand up in front of my people and be asked why nobody said a word.
So I would now ask you and your watchmen: could this happen, and would that not mean that the compensation had to be renegotiated?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Anttila">
Mr President, Commissioner, congratulations to Mrs Schierhuber on her important report.
According to the Commission's proposal, the Community will be making, in the form of direct aid, a 100 % compensation payment for lost income in the first year to all Member States outside the euro area.
I see this proposal as establishing some sort of precedent.
When new member states are admitted to the Union, they will hardly be coming straight into the euro area.
I should like to ask whether we will be recompensing these countries too with an automatic 100 % payment in the form of direct aid to make up for loss of income arising out of fluctuations in currency values in the first year?
<P>
The national currency used to be one means of protecting domestic production of food.
Now the euro is laying bare differences in competitiveness and food prices within the EU.
The steady 7 to 8 % fall in the value of currencies like the Swedish krona and the Danish krone, which are the currencies of non-participating countries, compared to, say, the Finnish markka, give these countries a competitive edge in production.
Now, according to the report under discussion, the risk that the agrimonetary scheme will cause distortion of trade is being removed.
However, the countries outside the euro area are gaining a competitive edge stemming from fluctuations in the value of currencies, which to my mind have not been sufficiently explained in preparing for the euro.
I would like to ask if the Commission intends to monitor the changes in the value of currencies outside the euro area and their effects on the competitor counties, i.e. the euro area.
Finally, I would like to say that, apart from Germany, Finland's main competitor countries - and the ones we export to most - are those very countries remaining outside the euro area, and in that respect this matter is extremely important for us.
Otherwise, I think the euro is a perfectly good thing. It allows us to protect ourselves from a currency market that is now in turmoil.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs Anttila.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am going to call Mr Hallam now, but before I do I must inform him that the Chair noted his absence on the Friday of the last part-session.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="Hallam">
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, Commissioner, you put proposals before us for a radical reorganisation of the agrimonetary system in good time, some months ago.
That will indeed be necessary with the introduction of the euro as a single currency and you did not need letters from Members, which were presumably only aimed at the gallery and at currying favour with the farmers, to point this out to you.
<P>
Those familiar with the admittedly extremely complex system of agrimonetary compensatory payments knew these payments would no longer be necessary for farmers in the euro zone, as our rapporteur, Mrs Schierhuber, explained very clearly.
However, they may still apply to farmers from what are called the pre-in Member States if their currencies are revalued against the euro.
<P>
I think that is crux of the matter.
I want to know why a Member State that deliberately does not join the euro can be eligible for 50 % of any compensatory amounts out of Community funds and why that Member State can even be exempt from contributing its national share of subsidies.
With the introduction of the euro the entire agrimonetary problem could, after all, disappear overnight and we could save far more money.
I would certainly not want farmers in countries that do not want to join the euro to be penalised.
Yet I do not see why those countries' decision not to join should possibly cost the other Member States hundreds of millions.
I believe we should see whether we cannot find a solution in the EU financing framework, because these countries cannot have it both ways.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Gillis">
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first let me offer warm thanks to the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and, in particular, to Mrs Schierhuber, the rapporteur, for this excellent report.
I am glad that the rapporteur and the committee have endorsed the Commission's main reform aims, which are as follows. Firstly, we want to make the existing regulations much simpler.
Secondly, with the introduction of the euro and the new currency situation that will produce, we want to adapt the existing rules.
Thirdly, we want a system that adjusts to any given market situation and, not least, we want to prevent any farm income losses.
<P>
As a means of achieving these aims, the Commission has proposed abolishing green exchange rates and replacing them by specific conversion rates for those Member States that have not yet joined the euro and by irrevocably fixed conversion rates for those that have.
Similarly, for the pre-ins, the system of definitive facts is to be continued and that of agrimonetary compensatory amounts retained with minor changes.
I am pleased that the European Parliament welcomes all these proposals, as also emerged in the debate on the Langen report on Tuesday.
<P>
Mr Funk expressed some reservations in regard to the margin of fluctuation and the threshold level.
The 2.6 % margin of fluctuation is nothing new; it already exists within the present system and is already being applied.
This threshold is, in a sense, the counterpart to the flat-rate calculation of income losses resulting from falls in prices or in the non-direct subsidies in the respective national currencies.
The flat-rate approach produces more risk of overcompensation, which is why we have set the margin at 2.6 %.
<P>
But that in turn has nothing to do with the 0.5 % payment threshold, which also already exists under the present system.
This threshold is simply designed to prevent compensation having to be paid for very minor income changes, as otherwise we would face the absurd situation of administrative costs being higher than payments to the farmer.
<P>
All in all, the Commission's proposal is an example of how simplifying a proposal can also make it more transparent and intelligible.
<P>
I turn now to the amendments, which with one exception concern only the recitals.
I note with satisfaction that the rapporteur endorses all the other articles.
But since the recitals have a close bearing on the articles themselves and were drafted with that in mind, and since moreover they say only what is absolutely necessary, I would prefer to retain them in their existing wording.
<P>
I would just like to bring up Amendment No 6, on the use of the euro by the pre-in states.
That is an important aspect of the proposal.
The amendment seeks a wording which is not at present consistent with the corresponding article.
Yet the Commission is quite prepared to raise the reservations expressed in that amendment during the Council discussions.
<P>
On Amendment No 8 to Article 4, I still maintain that it should be up to the Commission and the agrimonetary committee to change the criteria for adjusting to the market situation when calculating cuts in agrimonetary subsidies.
After all, these are purely technical adjustments, which it is important to undertake very quickly to prevent the situation that was complained of earlier, namely delays in the calculation and payment of the subsidies.
That is our only intention here.
<P>
To conclude, let me thank Parliament again for its kind support for this reform, which will ensure that the common agricultural policy can adjust completely and promptly to the great milestone that monetary union represents in the construction of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
Before we move to the vote, I would ask you to take a minute to listen to a speech from Mrs Schierhuber, who has asked for the floor as rapporteur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schierhuber">
Mr President, Commissioner, I have listened very carefully to what you said.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, which adopted all the amendments unanimously, had not actually intended to change the text, i.e. the Commission proposal, but simply to give it more depth.
In that sense, I would ask you to reconsider this at a suitable opportunity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Schierhuber.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the two legislative resolutions)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="Souchet">
The I-EDN Group voted for this report because the six amendments that it had proposed in committee were adopted.
<P>
These six amendments stress that one of the fundamental principles of the CAP is that of equal treatment of the farmers of the EUROPEAN UNION Member States. They also emphasise the need to ensure that the introduction of the euro does not penalise the farmers of the Member States and particularly those of the Member States that have to integrate the single currency.
<P>
It has been said and repeated too often that farmers would benefit from the euro due to the absence of so-called competitive devaluations.
In fact, when we examine the Commission proposals, we see that no study has been carried out on the impact of the euro on farmers' incomes.
What is even more surprising is that these proposals state that no compensatory aid will be granted when this amount is less than 0.5 % of a revaluation, nor in respect of amounts to which a rate lower than the new rate was applied in the 24 months before the entry into force of this regulation.
<P>
Yet what are we seeing at present?
We are witnessing a global financial crisis that started this summer.
The repercussions of this crisis are already significant as far as the parity of currencies is concerned, that is, those participating in the euro and the dollar.
<P>
We know that world prices for agricultural raw materials are fixed in dollars.
A strong euro will therefore penalise European agricultural exports.
What will our farmers do when they see their prices go down in euros, even if the basic prices in dollars remain stable?
<P>
In the Commission proposals on Agenda 2000, the only issue is that of lowering prices and therefore significantly reducing farmers' incomes, given that the allowances in compensation will only be slightly revalued before the WTO negotiations.
<P>
I therefore fear, like all the members of my group, that European agriculture will suffer a great deal from the introduction of the euro.
Under these conditions, what will the future of the rural areas of Europe be like as a consequence?
<P>
Instead of asking this question, the French National Assembly is currently debating, in a completely surrealistic manner, a basic law on agriculture introducing territorial contracts for farms, which aim only to encourage farmers to become local agricultural civil servants.
But that is another story!
I am in any case very afraid for the future of a profession that is the cement of our European society.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Agricultural products and agri-foodstuffs
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0280/98) by Mr Mulder, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on a quality policy for agricultural products and agri-foodstuffs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="Mulder">
Mr President, when we talk about Europe's agriculture policy these days there are two main strands to the discussion: firstly that the agricultural policy needs to change and, secondly, that the food we produce needs to be safer and more animal-friendly.
The European Parliament's Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development is trying in this report to give the discussion a certain orientation.
First of all, the Commission has clearly stated that whatever proposals may be made about income subsidies, the average farmer and grower will always prefer to derive his income from the market rather than by filling in all sorts of forms to obtain a subsidy.
<P>
One of the possibilities we see for improving prices is to put the emphasis on food quality rather than quantity.
This is something that the Commission has already acknowledged, and it is hardly a new idea.
The Commission put forward proposals on organic vegetable production in the early 1990s and there will soon, we hope, be proposals on organic animal production.
But how we can actually change market trends is another matter, since organic products currently account for only 2 % of the European agricultural market.
<P>
The second Commission proposal is to place greater emphasis on regional products.
We in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development think this is an excellent idea, since we agree that there needs to be a much greater focus on such products, and they need to be marketed more vigorously, allocated promotional funds and so on.
There is certainly room for improvement here, as regional products currently account for only a very small percentage of the market, some 8 % if the Commission's figures are correct.
This means that 90 % of all Europe's agricultural products reach the market at various stages of production.
Some producers are heavy polluters, others are not, and the market has a certain influence here.
There is a wide range of quality marks in Europe, some 1500 or so, on which the Commission has just carried out a study, I believe.
The ones that stand out are those relating to integrated production, which is currently starting to develop all over Europe.
The concept here is 'from the stable to the table', with every stage of production being monitored.
We in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development feel that this form of production should be encouraged.
<P>
The consumer wants to know what he is eating, and farmers like to know what production standards they have to meet.
It will also make the huge range of quality marks slightly more transparent if there is one common European mark.
This is the thrust of the main section of the report.
We are calling for a European quality mark for the top end of the remaining 90 % of the market.
It does not mean that all existing national, regional or other quality marks should be dropped.
Everyone is free to produce what they want, but if certain claims are made they must be checked out.
<P>
This should form the basis of the system initially: farmers and growers should be able to join the system voluntarily.
The technical criteria must be completely open and easy to monitor, and checks must be carried out independently, either by a government body or by an officially approved body.
<P>
The system must also be paid for by those involved, so that it does not impose any extra costs on the European budget.
The only thing the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development wants from the European budget is a little extra money for promoting these sorts of products. Why is this quality policy important?
Firstly, because the market in Europe is becoming increasingly open to the world market, and it seems completely unreasonable to ask European farmers and growers to be more environmentally-friendly and animal-friendly in their production methods while at the same time opening up the market to products from farmers elsewhere in the world who are not subject to the same requirements.
This is unfair competition, which is why we would urge the Commission to put these quality marks on the agenda in the WTO.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fantuzzi">
Mr President, I congratulate Mr Mulder on his excellent report, although we must ensure that it is used as basis for future work and that we do not simply stop here, satisfied with what the Commission has done.
I personally am not satisfied with what the Commission has done, despite the claims of some DG VI officials that with the quality policy the whole CAP is no longer geared to the Ford approach, as it used to be.
I think that is only true to a very small extent: we still have a common agricultural policy excessively geared towards quantity.
If we do not begin to introduce quality concepts into the common organisation of the market, decoupling the aid from production tonnages, the actual scope for quality policies and producer responsibility will remain too small.
<P>
This is not to say that some positive signals have not come out of the Commission, for example the logo, this August, for PDO and PGI products.
Then I see that there is a new site dedicated to quality products on the DG VI homepage on the Internet, and I know that promotional measures are also being studied.
I have often had the opportunity to listen to the reports of the European Consumers Organisation in Parliament's Committee on Agriculture: they are unhappy about quality products, they have not grasped the fact that it is all about standards, seeing it as a protectionist measure to give producers an income and cheat the consumer.
This means we still have a lot of ground to make up, a cultural battle to fight, and I think that here the rapporteur's proposals for a quality category based on environmental criteria are very interesting.
<P>
Of course, we talk about these things and then, in Agenda 2000, not enough attention is given to quality, taken in the environmental sense.
The Regulation 2078 increments are too small and, above all, this idea of leaving it entirely to the Member States' discretion to link income support levels to environmental factors is unconvincing.
Then there are the promotional measures, which are not developing fast enough.
We now have 500 typical PDO and PGI products registered at European level, and I think there ought to be special ambassadors to promote the European way of producing and consuming worldwide, and to be the means of supporting new promotional measures at international level.
<P>
Finally, I agree with Mr Mulder that the Community needs to be very careful about protecting its quality policy in international forums.
In the WTO they talk about meat with hormones and genetically modified foods as if they were televisions: I do not think that is acceptable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Filippi">
Mr President, the PPE Group supports Mr Mulder's report and we are grateful to him for the work he has done in the Committee on Agriculture.
We have decided not to retable our amendments here, because the vote was carried in committee and we reject changes to the voting list because the improvements have already been made in the Committee on Agriculture.
<P>
I would just like to underline some very important aspects of the report.
The first concerns the need to establish a comprehensive strategy for quality policy, through a specific set of rules operating throughout the chain and covering every aspect of quality.
When we talk about quality we often only mean that a product must not be harmful to health.
Quality is more complex than that, and we must try to cover the principle in all its aspects.
The second point is about defending our typical products in the World Trade Organisation.
The third important point, in my opinion, is the need to develop a new breed of professionals to protect and enhance quality, and to spend a much greater amount on promoting typical products and quality products.
Too little is being done in this area. More needs to be done, but we must avoid creating more bureaucracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Anttila">
Mr President, Commissioner, firstly my congratulations to Mr Mulder on an important and well-informed report.
Consumers get confused by too many quality marks, trademarks and labels showing origin.
I therefore give my enthusiastic support to the coordinated scheme referred to in Mr Mulder's report, whereby quality marks and approval systems are regulated at Union level.
This will by no means be an obstacle to national, regional and local policy on quality, which is also very important.
In Finland, we have just established a basis for a policy on the quality of domestic foodstuffs.
It involves cooperation all along the food industry chain, quality control from the field to the consumer's table.
This quality policy has to embrace an industry which at the moment, at least in Finland, competes solely through food prices and totally ignores the meaning of high quality.
Quality means a higher price, because it costs more to produce it.
<P>
I support the proposal in Mr Mulder's report for an environmentally-based European quality category, because the European Union will never survive in global competition except through a policy of high quality and legitimate higher prices.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Rosado Fernandes">
Mr President, I thought the quality of my speech was worth two minutes, but it seems I have already been cut to the European mark.
Anyway, I want to say that we agreed with Mr Mulder's position, we continue to defend the view that one of the quality standards must be product flavour, and we maintain that, as well as standing up for flavour, we must also defend the ethical context in which the product is manufactured.
<P>
The Commission cannot solve this problem alone: it is a cultural problem and consumers need to be involved as well.
The consumer associations must be alerted so that they themselves monitor the products they consume.
It does not seem to me that this is an acute problem, given that life expectancy in the west has been increasing strongly and now even presents a political problem.
So we are not taking poison on a daily basis, and I am not obsessed with the hysterical notion that what we are consuming is poisonous.
But just as I do indeed defend quality, just as I believe quality should be respected and the 'MacDonaldisation' of the world should be prevented, so, at the same time, I insist that this process must not become too bureaucratic.
I also think that product flavour must be defended at the World Trade Organisation and defended against all those people who are accustomed to eating any old thing.
I defend European quality as the true quality of the things I like to eat, and that is what I call quality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Rosado Fernandes, and I want you to know that the Chair had no intention of cutting your eloquence by 30 seconds.
That is why - in spite of what the clock said - I did not use the gavel to stop you.
I hoped you would speak for the full two minutes because it is always a great pleasure to listen to you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, Commissioner, I bring greetings from the northern regions of the European Union.
It is a paradox that we have adverse natural conditions, but we produce better quality food than they do in countries with favourable natural conditions.
That is because we have family farms and not industrial production methods.
It is an ecological method of production that we have.
We have a winter, with cold conditions, which sees to it that there is less residual pesticide about than in the countries of the south.
We oversee the ban on hormones and antibiotics differently from the way they do in countries with favourable natural conditions.
Free trade within the EU has worsened the quality of our food and, for that reason, we give our support to labels, signs and codes that speak for quality, the environment, and which give information on content, all of which increase consumer protection and consumer choice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Mr President, Mr Fischler, you said earlier that we could not sell everything on the regional markets.
But what we are discussing now is precisely the opposite of what we discussed before.
Before, we were concerned not with selling quality goods on the world market but surpluses, which we can only get rid of by dumping them at low prices and for little money.
I have nothing against putting quality goods on the world market when it is a matter of competition.
Austrian wine, French wine, Parma ham: the same logic has to be applied on the world market as on the regional market.
<P>
What I want to say is that we must aim at quality and not at getting rid of surpluses from what is one of the largest food import areas in the world.
We do not have any surpluses.
But surpluses do exist in all areas where intervention attracts them.
That is why this report is so important. We must aim at production geared to quality, and then let us certainly produce for the world market, but I beg you, not with state aids but by finding customers and areas on the world markets that actually want to buy these products.
<P>
One last thought.
Mr Fischler, of course we also depend on the rest of the market in regard to our quality products.
If the pig market collapses now, it will of course become far more difficult to keep the regional quality market at a certain price level than if the price is generally stable.
That is why the two aspects are not entirely separate and it is in our interests to promote the overall quality of the market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Barthet-Mayer (ARE).">
Mr President, our quality policy for agricultural products and foodstuffs, although new, is incomplete.
It is based on three regulations that have dealt with organic vegetable produce since 1991 - and this regulation is currently being extended to include animal products -, and protected geographical indications and certificates of specific character since 1992.
<P>
The report by Mr Mulder, whom I congratulate on this reliable work, puts forward two interesting lines of thought for extending this policy.
Firstly, it proposes the adoption of a regulation improving the transparency and authenticity of quality marks.
It states that checks must be performed by bodies accredited by the Member States and truly independent of producers and traders.
It then proposes the creation of a European quality mark based on respect for the environmental criteria for production.
<P>
Mr Mulder, I think it should be pointed out that quality is a global concept that cannot be reduced to just a single element, be it hygiene, aesthetic quality, taste or absence of residues.
For agricultural products, quality is linked to variety, production methods, the environment and methods of conservation.
For processed products, it is linked to the initial quality and processing methods.
<P>
To complement this concept, my group proposes introducing the concepts of nutritional value and optimum health in Amendment No 8.
As regards monitoring, experience in the area of organic farming shows that checks must be rigorous so as to avoid distorting competition at the level of imports from third countries, but also between the Member States.
This is the basis of Amendment No 8, which recommends that checks should be the same for imported products and harmonised for Community products.
<P>
To conclude, I should like to say that between the two extremes of organic farming and factory farming, there is in fact room for an intermediate, but heterogeneous approach, which must be regulated in the interest of the consumer and of the producers who practise integrated agriculture.
A comprehensive regulation should define its procedures for production as well as its procedures for granting a European quality mark, which should be authenticated by a single logo likely to give rise to and merit consumer confidence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, everybody is talking about the concept of quality, but in actual fact it covers very diverse dimensions.
Some people talk about the health quality of a product, and in this respect the BSE crisis shows us that the consumer is increasingly sensitive to this issue.
Others talk about the organoleptic quality of a product and others, finally, talk about the quality linked to the tradition of local products.
<P>
Our rapporteur, whom I should like to thank very sincerely for his report, has successfully analysed the first two dimensions, to which the consumers in the northern Member States of the Union are particularly sensitive.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has, for its part, tabled three amendments to our colleague's report, which aim to strengthen the third dimension of the concept of quality.
<P>
In fact, due to the globalisation of trade, the market in agricultural raw materials is becoming increasingly dominated by the concept of price.
I think, Mr President, that the 'tradition' concept of quality represents a considerable opportunity for the rural areas of Europe.
The market in agricultural products is therefore no longer linked exclusively to price, but to the region.
<P>
In France, we have a long tradition of products with a registered designation of origin.
The 'Institut national des appellations d'origine ' has enabled high-quality wine-growing to develop and the quality of certain cheeses and meat products to be established and protected. We see that where agricultural production is linked to a product with a registered designation of origin, the enhanced value of agriculture in the area of production is protected.
<P>
Maintaining this enhanced value in the designated areas both protects agricultural jobs and prevents a shift towards production methods that are harmful to the environment, by protecting the biological diversity.
<P>
Some cheeses of designated origin require the use of milk from specific dairy breeds, and in winegrowing, only traditional vine varieties may be used.
These examples just go to show that this dimension of high-quality products, local products and traditional products represents an opportunity for certain production areas in the rural areas of Europe.
<P>
As mentioned in the report, it is time that we had a real policy on the quality of agricultural products and foodstuffs in the European Union.
This policy must cover all aspects of the concept of quality.
These three dimensions must be combined to enable us to respond both to the consumer's demands and those of the processing industry, but also to the need for a greater balance in rural society.
<P>
Employment, Mr President, will only develop in rural areas if agriculture shows that it is capable of adapting its production to the demands of consumers and the various operators involved in the sector, and capable of protecting, as far as possible, the added value close to the place of production.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Happart">
Mr President, Commissioner, cultural identity is, to a great extent, not only expressed in the way we feed ourselves, but also, and more particularly, in what we eat and drink.
Products of designated origin must be based on very precise qualitative criteria, whether they relate to the product's origin or the way in which it is produced.
In this way, we will guarantee the survival of cultural characteristics, but we will also maintain a significant economic potential in the rural areas that do not have other products or other alternatives.
For two years, since the conference in Cork, we have been stressing the need to protect jobs in rural areas and looking for consistent ways to achieve this.
Products of designated origin with specific qualities are a concrete response to this problem.
<P>
We talked about the pigmeat crisis this morning.
It could certainly have been predicted.
It is cyclical.
What is the alternative?
For example, to produce Ardennes ham, the pig must be raised and fattened up in the Ardennes, with cereals produced in that same region, and the meat must be processed in accordance with precise specifications for each stage of production, from the farm to the consumer's plate.
Of course, that does not mean that we can do whatever we like with mass-produced products with no designated origin.
The safety and the quality of foodstuffs must not suffer due to laxity.
Human health is above all protected by the way in which we feed ourselves and, in particular, by the quality of the products made available to the consumer.
<P>
I am not going to point out to you the reprehensible laxity of the relevant British authorities in the criminal problem of mad cow disease.
I hope that all those responsible in Europe have understood that the concern for the profitability of a minority must never prevail over the health requirements for the majority.
Under no circumstances, and on no account, must specific characteristics of high-quality products that enhance the value of regional traditions be renounced in order to mass-produce these products, which become commonplace and are shaped by the constraints of the global market.
Making products commonplace will never create as many jobs and will not give as much satisfaction to the consumer as maintaining regional characteristics.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Keppelhoff-Wiechert">
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Mulder has drafted a very good report on quality policy for agricultural products and agri-foodstuffs.
The consumer still finds it very difficult to identify many of the regional quality marks in the single market, which is why we should really all welcome the proposed supplementary European rules.
The European consumer is attaching increasing importance to the protection of the environment and animal life.
As representative of a large women's association, I still seriously question whether double labelling - i.e. a regional and a European quality mark - really will persuade people to pay higher prices for foods produced under more stringent rules.
<P>
In my experience, the public is prepared to pay higher prices for clothes, housing, cars and travel than for actual food.
But the double label does not necessarily have to raise prices.
As many previous speakers have said, we need a European code of good agricultural practice in integrated farming to put before the Americans at the WTO negotiations as a European agricultural model.
<P>
But we still have to explain to our citizens that if we want better environmental protection, better animal protection, then logically we must also be prepared to pay a reasonable price for goods produced under these more stringent conditions.
By establishing a European quality mark we now want to help consumers in the single market to recognise other Member States' national and regional quality marks too, since they say something about the special quality of this food.
<P>
In that way, a Spanish housewife looking at German products with a quality mark she does not recognise can be quite sure that this food complies with strict and transparent requirements.
Recognised European quality marks should satisfy very specific basic requirements, and I think that thanks to Mr Mulder's report we will be able to open up an even larger market for these products.
<P>
At present we have two European quality categories for agricultural produce: organic farming and the Community protection of traditional specialities.
We in Parliament would like to add a third category covering organic products that also comply with environmental and animal protection criteria.
That would satisfy the consumers' demand for environment-friendly products and give added importance to integrated production, something that has been widely discussed but in my view not yet clearly defined.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Hardstaff">
Mr President, I too believe that size, shape and appearance of food are not the only criteria by which quality should be judged.
I do not very often agree with Mr Rosado Fernandes in this House but I agree with him wholeheartedly that taste, flavour and nutritional value are the real benchmarks of food quality.
<P>
I was recently in Poland for the Joint Parliamentary Committee.
At the end of three very intensive days' work I felt amazingly well and healthy.
When I thought about it, I put it down to the excellent quality of food I had enjoyed during those three days: fresh fruit, vegetables, fresh fish and meat and the most delicious bread I have ever tasted.
And yet we in the EU tend to regard Poland as having inefficient agriculture.
<P>
We have to look at our methods of agriculture within the Europe of the 15 and the way in which we define quality.
Intensively produced, bland-tasting produce that looks nice is not real quality as even the big supermarkets are beginning to acknowledge.
Naturally-produced foods untainted by excessive use of pesticides etc., food with real favour and nutritional value are increasingly what European consumers are quite rightly demanding.
Europe's farmers, food manufacturers and supermarkets should be adapting to meet that demand.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schierhuber">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, congratulations to Mr Mulder on his report.
Quality policy is vital to European agriculture, although we note that the definition of quality still keeps provoking differences of opinion.
Quality production must also be reflected in the price and in farmers' incomes.
Let me point out that in Austria during the BSE crisis the sales of products with recognised quality marks and designations of origin did not fall.
<P>
Although we cannot yet have a uniform European quality mark, our aim should be, as stated in paragraph 8 of our resolution, to pursue this road steadily.
The vast majority of European farmers do not live in advantaged areas.
That is why they cannot significantly increase their incomes by increasing their production.
So quality production must be the number one criterion for European agriculture and its distinctive character; it is essential to obtain guarantees to that effect at the next round of WTO negotiations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too have read Mr Mulder's report on a quality policy for agricultural products and agri-foodstuffs with great interest.
From my point of view, I can only welcome the ideas put forward as a matter of principle.
I am sure the Commission should also look at all the points made in your motion for a resolution with great interest and attention, but I would prefer to concentrate here on the two main headings of your report.
<P>
First, on introducing a European quality mark to coordinate the existing quality marks, I would draw your attention to one particular point.
In principle, in all new legislation we must first consider whether the questions concerned can or cannot be regulated effectively within the existing legislative framework.
Here I would remind you of the Commission's basic concept of legislation, as set out in 1985 in the White Paper on the completion of the single market.
Since the adoption of that concept, harmonised common rules have been proposed in regard only to health and consumer protection, environmental protection and sound commercial practice.
Any questions that do not fall within the scope of these harmonised rules must be regulated by mutual recognition of national rules, laws or technical requirements.
<P>
The obligation to notify the Commission of norms and technical specifications makes it possible to evaluate whether the objective has been achieved, i.e. the removal of technical obstacles to trade in the Union.
If the content of the quality marks differs widely from one Member State to another, that could represent a quite substantial obstacle to trade within the EU.
This has become clear from the activities of the Commission services and various Court of Justice judgments.
<P>
In the early 1990s, the European legislative authority therefore laid down a legal framework for protected designations of origin, protected geographical indications, specialities guaranteed as traditional and organically farmed products.
This was justified because common measures have proved more effective than individual national measures - if you like because of the European value added.
<P>
Proposals on quality indications or certificates of special qualities of products with the exception of traditional specialities were, however, rejected.
At this time the Commission cannot see that anything has changed significantly with regard to the basis for that decision.
The unsatisfactory experience we gained with the European eco-label is further evidence, which is not to say that we will not continue to monitor developments closely.
<P>
Let me now turn briefly to the second main proposal, for a new European quality category based on environmental criteria.
As you know, in the case of integrated production we already have a number of Community measures, studies and research programmes, special support under the common organisation of the market, such as that for fruit and vegetables, and the financing of agricultural environmental measures under Regulation 2078.
All these aspects are in fact to be given further support under Agenda 2000.
<P>
So we should continue thinking at that level and, for example, work out guidelines that take account of the variety of our products, the different farming methods, local conditions and the use of technology.
I am firmly convinced that the further development of integrated agriculture really will benefit the environment and contribute to sustainable land use.
But that is precisely why we first need a clear strategy.
If a comprehensive strategy shows that it would be useful to introduce a European quality mark and we can take joint measures to make it sufficiently consistent, then it might well be appropriate to do so.
At this stage, it still seems a little too soon to take a final position on this question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="President">
Congratulations to Mr Mulder on the adoption of his important report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Mr President, I have one more question for Mr Fischler before he leaves.
By adopting paragraph 5, we have now voted that animal products should be included in Regulation 2092/91 on organic production methods and that this should now go ahead.
You know that a joint Commission and Parliament proposal on this subject has long been on the table, yet the Council has still not put it on the agenda.
This gives me another opportunity to call on you and Parliament to exert pressure to at least put it on the agenda of the Austrian Presidency, because I know that organic farming plays a very important role in your country, on which I would like to congratulate you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, ladies and gentlemen, I am quite prepared to put Parliament's request to the current presidency.
But I can also tell you that the presidency has already said that it intends to consider this question during its current term of office.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Gillis">
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats voted for the Mulder report on agricultural products and agri-foodstuffs today.
We did so taking the view that the report is acceptable overall.
We support the introduction of a European quality mark, which takes account of animal welfare and the environment.
However, we think it important to specify what is meant by animal welfare and the environment.
Concrete rules must be laid down, and those countries which do not observe the rules should forfeit the right to use the mark.
Many Member States still view quality as something linked to taste.
We also think that quality is animal welfare and concern for the environment.
It is important to establish transparency for consumers where such a mark is concerned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="van Dam">
Various Member States have developed quality marks for integrated farming products.
To provide the consumer with greater transparency, Mr Mulder is calling for a study to be carried out into whether such marks could be brought under one European quality mark.
We in the Dutch sub-group support this idea and we voted for the Mulder report.
However, there are a few comments we should like to make.
<P>
A European logo should not be used to replace existing national, regional and local quality marks, but at most to supplement them.
Every region has its own rural and cultural values and environmental problems, which is why regulations on integrated farming and its quality marks can only partly be harmonised at European level.
A further factor here is that quality marks stand or fall by the confidence that consumers have in them, and existing marks have now developed a reliable image.
It remains to be seen whether consumers will have the same confidence in a European mark.
<P>
On the other hand, we can only agree with the idea of a European quality mark if it really does mean something.
The products concerned must have a clear added value compared with other accepted products, not just in terms of intrinsic quality, but also from an ecological point of view.
Otherwise the European quality mark will be nothing more than a cheap marketing ploy.
<P>
In short, we support a study into the viability of a European quality mark, but we will reserve final judgement until we see it in practice.
There are two important points here.
Enough scope must still be left for national and regional marks, and the products concerned must have a clear advantage over other accepted products in terms of environmental protection.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Objective 2: job-creation
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0213/98) by Mr Vallvé, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the Commission communication to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions entitled 'New regional programmes 1997-1999 under Objective 2 of the Community structural policies - priority to job-creation' (COM(97)0524 - C4-0641/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Vallvé">
Mr President, Commissioner, we are about to debate this particular aspect of the Objective 2 programme for the years 1997-1999.
<P>
I do wonder whether there is much point in debating this communication, which was presented by the Commission nearly a year ago - on 14 November 1997, to be precise.
It contains an analysis of the period 1997-1999, but the document reached us when almost a third of the relevant period had already elapsed.
<P>
We are also debating this document at a time when the Committee on Regional Policy has already drafted its five reports on Agenda 2000 which are to be discussed in committee next week.
<P>
But I think it is positive that we are taking advantage of this debate to talk about regional policy, as that does not often happen in Parliament, and we should not forget that the European Union devotes 34 % of its budget to regional policy.
<P>
I particularly want to thank the Commissioner for being here for this report.
I am not surprised, because her dedication to the work of the Committee on Regional Policy has been constant.
<P>
I am not going to use this report on the years 1997-1999 as an opportunity to talk about what could and should be the regional policy of the European Union in the future, in other words, to analyse Agenda 2000.
I am not going to do that.
That will be the subject of future debates in this House, possibly in the November part-session.
<P>
I want to highlight the changes that were made to Objective 2 for the years 1997-1999, which primarily affect abstract elements, the development of firms - especially SMEs - innovation and product development, training and professional qualifications, and also the measures which need to be adopted for the protection of the environment.
<P>
Commissioner, I believe these changes mark a departure from the use of the Structural Funds - and specifically Objective 2 funds - for infrastructure development, operating as a substitute for Objective 1, in a sense.
<P>
Objective 2 relates to the conversion of industrial areas, and the word 'conversion' is maintained in Agenda 2000.
This is conversion with a wider scope: the reference to industrial areas will also include rural areas, urban areas and fisheries areas.
<P>
Conversion is a fundamental instrument for the promotion and improvement of economic and social cohesion in the European Union.
Clearly the top priority for 1997-1999 is job creation.
It is a fundamental goal in a Europe where - we should never forget - there are 18 million people who cannot find a job.
<P>
It is regrettable that there was no coordinated assessment of the measures certain Member States were already taking with social groups likely to be at risk of long-term unemployment in the future.
<P>
There are four priority factors: competitiveness, development of research, training and equal opportunities, and environment protection.
These are very important in relation to conversion and the development of competitive regional economic structures.
<P>
However, I very much regret that the increase in expenditure has applied basically to research and development, with virtually no increase for the other elements.
<P>
The 1997-1999 programmes obviously maintain continuity with those of 1994-1996.
I must also stress that the new Objective 2 guidelines for the year 1997 - this is one of the advantages of analysing reports retrospectively - have led to full take-up of the available resources.
The principle of additionality and proving its application when programmes are being approved continues to present problems at times.
The conditions need to be defined more clearly.
<P>
The cooperation principle needs to be strengthened as well, and the role of the regional authorities and social partners is fundamental here.
I understand the Commissioner has already made plans for the future in this respect.
<P>
It is also important to stress that due account must be taken of the nearness of Objective 2 areas to Objective 1 areas.
<P>
Finally, I am grateful for the amendments that have been tabled, although I do not want to incorporate those which refer to the Agenda 2000 project.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, Commissioner, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has drafted a joint opinion on the Vallvé report and the Howitt report, which was discussed last week and refers to the adjustment of the Structural Fund programmes up to the end of 1999 and the new Objective 2 regional programmes for 1997-1999.
What these reports have in common is a proposal for a medium-term review of the European Union's structural interventions and, as Mr Vallvé said, we are already halfway through that period.
<P>
We share Mr Vallvé's concern because jobs are actually the main priority in this proposal.
We believe it is necessary to harness the potential of the four sectors he mentioned: SMEs (over 80 % of jobs in the European Union are in small and medium-sized firms); the environment (sitting on the Committee on the Environment, I am very well aware of the new sources of employment in very important sectors drawing on the potential of the environment, and it is very important to take that into account); research and development; and, of course, equal opportunities - once and for all, women must have the same opportunities as men.
<P>
We endorse the criticisms about the failure to evaluate the previous period, because that would have improved the conditions for making proposals for the future.
We saw how difficult it was for the environmental authorities and the social partners to participate in each of the previous programming periods, and there has been no real evaluation of the role the new sources of employment have played in spending the Structural Funds to create jobs, especially in regions in industrial decline like my region - I am Asturian.
So we think it is very important that we should take account, in the ongoing reforms which we will continue to debate next week, of the need for across-the-board implementation of the principles of transparency, participation, equal opportunities and sustainable development - only 5.2 % is devoted to sustainable development - and for a balance between policies to preserve and create jobs and economic policies which do not destroy jobs, because sometimes economic policies do harm employment.
We also think the budget for infrastructure should be reduced, because the employment it creates is short term, and there should be more money for new sources of employment, because they create longer term jobs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Howitt">
Mr President, on behalf of the Socialist Group I wish to express our very strong support for this current programme of measures to combat unemployment in Europe's areas of industrial decline.
Support, because job creation and an end to the scourge of unemployment must be the first priority of our Structural Fund programmes; support, because people living in our coal-mining, textile, steel and defence regions did not ask for the economic shock waves that have taken the heart out of their communities and no one can ask them to rebuild their economies without public support; and support, because this ECU 9bn of expenditure - more than £7m - represents the people's priorities on how European money should be spent.
<P>
In congratulating Mr Vallvé on his report, I note there are many areas of agreement with my own parallel report on guidelines for Objective 1 and 5b areas over the same period.
We agree on the need to ensure stricter adherence to equal opportunities and environmental objectives in all of the programmes.
Five per cent for the environment: that means that 95 % of the money could be harming our natural resources, and that is not good enough.
<P>
We agree on the need to support the guidelines process to ensure common themes underlie the programmes in each of our countries, and the need for a full consultation on those guidelines by the European Commission.
I hope the Commissioner will take the opportunity this morning to guarantee to us that the new sets of guidelines will be ready by 31 December.
<P>
We agree that the delayed agreement of the programmes in the first period - 12 % of the money being carried over - causes unacceptable damage in the regions and localities which wait too long and then are forced to spend too quickly.
<P>
On behalf of my own country, we appreciate that the United Kingdom is the biggest beneficiary of this programme: some ECU 2.7bn - over £2bn.
More than 150 000 small and medium-sized companies in Britain are being helped today thanks to that money.
With some 14 % of all public investment in metropolitan France represented in this programme, it demonstrates, beyond doubt, the value of the safety net, which we argued for in the next programming period, to avoid a sudden disappearance of this very significant level of support.
I thank the Commission for accepting what we had to say.
<P>
The Socialists will support the vast majority of amendments before the House today.
In particular, we support the conclusions of our colleagues from the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs that more money must be allocated to new sources of employment, including the cooperative sector, environmental projects and local development initiatives.
We agree with them that the complete lack of evaluation of the number of disabled beneficiaries is a marked failure to achieve the mainstreaming, which the Commission so often talks about.
<P>
Let me explain where we must disagree.
Firstly, we cannot support specific amendments which single out maritime fisheries or urban areas for special priority, whatever our personal sympathies, because this represents a balanced package in which no one special interest can be advocated above any other.
Secondly, we cannot support proposals for the split in funding or criteria in relation to the new Structural Fund regulation.
That debate is being held in committee, and it would be premature to resolve those issues today.
Thirdly, we will not single out the Commission for specific criticism over underspending or for its failure to address the horizontal objectives sufficiently.
<P>
We share the concerns, but we prefer to work together with the Commissioner to constructively tackle the causes of these problems in the future.
<P>
Finally, in our resolution of 14 February 1996 we stated our demands for this programme to the Commissioner.
I am delighted that those were largely agreed.
14 February is Valentine's Day - a day for sharing messages between lovers.
With the greatest respect to Mrs Wulf-Mathies, even if we cannot guarantee such a close relationship today between Parliament and the Commission, we thank her and congratulate her on the very important work being achieved in this programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Berend">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, like Mr Vallvé, the rapporteur, I welcome in principle the definition of guidelines to establish the Commission's priorities.
They are designed to ensure a balance between economic policy, creating and preserving jobs and the other specific Union policies.
These have already been mentioned: competitiveness, support of SMEs, environment and sustainable development, together with innovation and equal opportunities.
<P>
The Objective 2 measures remain extremely important to creating and preserving jobs.
I welcome the emerging evidence of the broader continuity of the various new programmes with the previous programming period.
But one point of criticism I must make is that the quality of the programmes still does not always meet expectations, and the findings of the mid-term reviews are not turned to account early enough for planning future assistance.
<P>
The principle of additionality and its evaluation still cause problems because the necessary documents are not always forwarded.
We welcome the introduction of conditional clauses for the second payment.
However, the new provisions on assessments need to be made much simpler.
<P>
We support the Commission's intention to give the Member States more room for manoeuvre in future by combining national and Community criteria.
We do not really think the rapporteur is justified in his fear that the Member States might abuse this room for manoeuvre.
In my view, the Commission's subsidiarity-based approach is a step in the right direction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
Mr President, Commissioner, the four areas, small and medium-sized enterprises, the environment and sustainable development, equal opportunities for women and men and promotion of research and development, are good priorities for the creation of new jobs.
<P>
I wish to draw special attention to the environment, with new environmental products and new environmental systems, as an area for development. Good technical solutions and environmental technology will be needed throughout the world in the future.
We must of course exploit that and make sure that we are well ahead in this area.
<P>
There is a downside, however.
Appropriations must be used more effectively.
There must not be empty chairs and money for projects remaining unused for several months or for half a year.
Evaluation must be improved through correct environmental impact assessments and equality assessments in all programmes, so that the main rules that have been laid down on equal opportunities, the environment and sustainable development are actually adhered to.
<P>
I especially welcome the inclusion of coastal, island and archipelago regions in the new Objective 2 areas, i.e. the old Objective 5b areas.
I for my part will support Amendment No 4, which covers increased national influence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Donnay">
Mr President, the European Union has almost 20 million unemployed, and this is an extremely worrying situation.
That being the case, the issue of employment represents a major challenge.
The results of the fourth phase of the Objective 2 programme, whose priority is job creation, are relatively pleasing.
But there is still a great deal to be done.
<P>
We can make a certain number of conclusions from the report.
However, let us go beyond this partial assessment and examine the Commission proposals under the future Objective 2.
There is a risk, in our opinion, that the performance reserve might damage the effects of extending the programmes to ensure their necessary continuation.
We are also sceptical as regards the fixing of indicative percentage figures relating to the allocation of the volume of the programmes' interventions between the different priorities, and as regards the extreme diversity of this objective, which might damage its coherence and effectiveness.
<P>
Finally, it is absolutely necessary to continue to grant a substantial amount of aid to regions in industrial decline in order to allow them to continue to develop, as the majority of them have already started to do. This development could be strongly compromised by a reduction in aid.
<P>
In conclusion, we must be able to put the lessons drawn from the current Objective 2 to good effect in order to obtain the best possible results from the interventions of the future new objective for employment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Donnay.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, I will now ask Mr Manuel Escolá Hernando to speak on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance.
Mr Escolá Hernando is speaking for the first time in this House.
I would like to welcome him, and I speak from my personal knowledge of him and his career when I say that I believe he will make a very positive contribution to our work together in Parliament and to the progress of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Escolá Hernando">
Mr President, as you said, this is my first speech before Parliament, and on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance I would like to express our support for this report.
We would especially like to underline the point made in paragraph 18 of the report, which we entirely agree with, about the Commission's proposals for the new Objective 2.
The point is concerned about the very significant increase in Member States' discretionary power which might be introduced if the proposal goes ahead to have a combination of Community and national criteria for selecting regions theoretically eligible to receive aid under the new Objective 2.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, some might interpret this formula as an abdication of responsibility by the Commission to the internal political interests of each Member State.
It might even suggest a certain renationalisation of the structural policies, and that could not only distort the results the Commission is looking for with the creation of the new Objective 2, but could even undermine its fundamental aim, which is to support declining regions with structural difficulties.
It could mean that areas suitable for Objective 2 selection are excluded, while others which are not so suitable are included to serve the internal political interests of Member States.
<P>
In view of this, we think it is vital for the future of Objective 2 for the Commission to make the selection criteria more objective.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Porto">
Mr President, the Objective 2 Structural Funds deserve very special consideration. They are extremely important, but very difficult to apply correctly.
<P>
As industrial areas in decline are involved, extreme care must be taken to ensure that the industries concerned have prospects and, more specifically, to ensure that each individual company is viable.
If so, they must be given the direct support they need, correctly applying the 'ageing industries' argument.
<P>
If this is not the case, or if the industries or companies are not competitive in the medium or long term, it is in the interests of all, and of course in the interests of the workers, to find valid alternatives in a competitive world where a return to closed borders is neither likely nor desirable.
<P>
As Objective 2 now also covers urban renewal, this needs to be kept very much in mind, although it is not something which can be attained unless there are clear and balanced national promotion policies.
If, as happens in my own country, we persist with policies of polarisation or, at best, bi-polarisation, concentrating all our efforts to improve quality and introduce dynamism on only one or two towns, there will still be population movements and there will still be sensitive social problems of exclusion and insecurity.
It will be like trying to hold back the waves, and all the national and European Union funding directed at it will be inadequate.
<P>
Comparative experience in Europe is very clear: countries with a balanced urban network do not have problems like this; they are able to keep people in their region of origin, thus achieving a better use of resources.
<P>
We cannot simply go on forever dealing with the social problems suffered by people who are not to blame for misguided policies. We must keep making progress towards fundamental solutions which will benefit all of us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Klass">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, structural policy always implies labour market policy too.
There is a cycle to life in the regions.
People simply tend to live where the jobs are.
But they prefer to work in regions that offer not just jobs but also an intact environment, which means a well-kept and healthy natural environment, a good infrastructure and rapid transport connections between work and home.
The ideal job also requires a good cultural environment.
There must be schools and educational and further training facilities, together with a range of cultural activities to be pursued in leisure time.
If one of these cogs in the life cycle disappears, imbalances will appear and whole regions bleed to death.
People do not live in places where there is no work and, conversely, there is no work in places where no people live.
This is the situation that structural policy must address; we must look at all the surrounding factors and not just at jobs in isolation.
<P>
When we look at roadworks, we tend to see large machinery with very few workers actually in evidence, but that road may be a lifeline for the region.
The evaluation of the individual programmes has shown that where EU funding goes, additional cofinancing also goes, but in particular private sector money.
For every million ECU of EU cofinancing, the Member States contribute another two million and 20 % of total resources come from the private sector.
So this creates quite a strong centrifugal force.
We must take a long-term approach, and I agree with the rapporteur, Mr Vallvé, that three years is too short a period.
We must take a broad view of the whole question, so that the people of Europe can lead a life worth living.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Hatzidakis">
Mr President, Commissioner, while there is almost a year before the period of the programme we are referring to lapses, in essence we cannot do anything other than to draw conclusions and lessons for the new programme period.
<P>
It is therefore important - and this is my first comment - that according to the Commission's estimates, for the period we are talking about 880 000 jobs are being created in the Objective 2 areas.
The number could have been even larger, but clearly it could also have been smaller.
And consequently I express myself well content with the fact that we have concentrated on four priorities, namely competitiveness, environmental protection, equality of the sexes and innovation, which I regard as very important.
At the same time, however, there are problems, which other speakers have mentioned, relating to the quality of the programmes and to the forecasting of job creation, and it would be desirable to deal with them.
<P>
Now, as for the new programme period, we as the European People's Party, I must tell you - although you know it already - have many doubts about the Commission's effort to deal with the new Objective 2 and at the same time with the difficulties of industrial and rural areas which are facing problems of conversion.
Beyond that, however, we think it necessary, if nothing else, for there to be some guarantee that we will have a coverage of 10 % - I mean in population terms - at European level for industrial areas and 5 % for rural areas within the regulation.
<P>
We are also in favour of the Commission's proposal to have both national and at the same time Community criteria for the selection of those areas.
This is made necessary by the principle of subsidiarity.
And we also favour the Commission's proposal for a safety net, in other words a maximum reduction of the order of 33 % for regions covered at present by Objectives 2 and 5B.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Wulf-Mathies.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
Before we proceed to the vote, Mr Kellett-Bowman has a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Kellett-Bowman">
Mr President, on a point of order, I notice that the Europe des Nations Group has asked for six roll-call votes in this vote with all the implications of time and resources.
They have just left one Member behind to make sure we do.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="President">
Mr Kellett-Bowman, the request for a roll-call vote was properly made.
The Chair can only apply the Rules.
I do not have the power to do anything else, but your comments will be noted in the Minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, I should merely like to answer Mr Kellett-Bowman in one sentence.
When we see the debate and the votes, we are happy that we requested roll-call votes.
One of the amendments has been accepted, others have been rejected by just a few votes, and we think that we were right to put forward this request.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Berthu.
The Chair has already stated that the proposal was made in accordance with the Rules, so there are no grounds for changing anything.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Andersson">
I voted in favour of Amendment No 4, because I wish to see greater flexibility, especially in the matter of state aid.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Souchet">
Mr Vallvé's report is presented as a diptych.
Its first section attempts to evaluate Objective 2 in the 60 eligible regions for the 1989-1993 period.
The rapporteur is fair in noting that we are totally in the dark here: the data is 'rarely available' and the performance indicators 'are not standardised'.
Simple rigour should therefore have led the rapporteur to distance himself from the fanciful overall assessments that the Commission has produced with regard to the number of jobs created or preserved due to the existence of the Objective 2 programmes.
Mr Vallvé does indeed recognise that 'these figures are to be taken with caution due to missing or incomparable data, their estimative character and the missing link to targets...
Targeting was still exceptional in these programmes, an assessment of the degree to which the programmes were successful', the rapporteur adds, 'thus proved difficult'.
<P>
However, he finally accepts an overall figure - obviously carefully worked out for propaganda purposes since the statistics have no relevant meaning -, of 450 000 to 500 000 net jobs attributable to the Objective 2 programmes.
The reality is that no-one is in a position to assess the real impact of these Structural Funds, which are very significant in terms of employment.
We had tabled an amendment taking up exactly the same reservations as the rapporteur himself expressed in his explanatory statement, which strangely were not then followed up on by their author.
<P>
The second section of Mr Vallvé's report relates to the future prospects of the new Objective 2.
The rapporteur examines the heterogeneous nature of the new objective and seems to make a euphemism when he questions 'the Commission's optimism on being able to assure coherence in such a diverse objective'.
He also fears that the population ceiling established by the Commission will lead to inappropriate criteria for defining theoretically eligible regions.
<P>
I am sorry that the rapporteur totally ignores the importance of the maritime coastal areas of the EUROPEAN UNION Member States, which are, however, one of the major characteristics of the countries in the west of our continent.
The risk of a population drain is, in fact, real in a large number of areas, particularly those whose peripheral disadvantage is going to continue to deteriorate.
Summer tourism would not alone be able to permanently maintain life along our coastlines.
A purely regional logic, introducing significant differences in the system from one coastal sector to another, could be extremely disruptive.
Therefore, the Member States must be allowed, in general, the necessary flexibility to enable them to promote balanced planning of their territory and to face the risk of a progressive population drain in certain regions.
With this end in view, the distribution put forward in terms of geographical coverage of 10 %, 5 %, 2 % and 1 % respectively could not be interpreted strictly.
Our group has tabled several amendments in this direction.
<P>
This flexibility is particularly important in the areas dependent on fisheries, where it is essential to be able to continue to compensate for the various constraints imposed on fishermen through a carefully targeted intervention of structural aid. This is a necessary condition for the effectiveness and continuity of a fair common fisheries policy.
If not, it is no longer even worth the trouble of still talking about a CFP: it will represent nothing more than an empty shell.
<P>
It is interesting, finally, to note the oh so careful reservations of the liberal rapporteur that Mr Vallvé represents in relation to the link between employment and public subsidies.
It is a paradox that he has not thought to point out that the best way of safeguarding or creating jobs was, for the Member States, to reduce their taxation and alleviate the administrative constraints they impose on companies and, for the European Union, to better promote fair trade.
<P>
For all these reasons, our group has not been able to give its support to this report.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
ARIANE - KALEIDOSCOPE
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0355/98 by Mr Pex, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision amending Decision No 2085/97/EC establishing a support programme, including translation, in the field of books and reading (ARIANE Programme) (COM(98)0539 - C4-0544/98-98/0282(COD)); -A4-0356/98 by Mr Pex, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision amending Decision No 719/96/EC establishing a programme to support artistic and cultural activities having a European dimension (KALEIDOSCOPE Programme) (COM(98)0539 - C4-0545/98-98/0283(COD)).
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Pex">
Mr President, I am pleased to have the opportunity today to talk about the Ariane and Kaleidoscope cultural programmes in 1999.
Ariane is a programme of Community support, including translation, in the field of books and reading and was introduced for the period 1 January 1997 to 31 December 1998.
Over those two budget years, the European Union has provided support for the translation of some 300 literary works, the dissemination of literature by around 80 minority language authors translated into Europe's main languages, the realisation of 60 cooperation projects involving libraries, cultural associations and so on, and training for around 900 literary translators.
In short, Ariane has worked very well and deserves to continue.
<P>
The second cultural programme, Kaleidoscope, provides Community support for artistic and cultural activities with a European dimension and was set up for the period 1 January 1996 to 31 December 1998.
Over this period, Kaleidoscope provided support for 420 cultural projects whose development and execution involved some 1500 cultural institutions from the 15 Member States, the European Free Trade Association and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
The programme has also contributed to the activities of 50 000 creative or performing artists and other specialists in the cultural sector.
It helped 20 000 young people to have access to artistic and cultural activities, it sent 10 000 plays and exhibitions on tour, it paid for 600 traineeships and many other activities.
In short, it made a significant contribution to the development and maintenance of artistic and cultural activities in the Union.
It would therefore be a great pity if Ariane and Kaleidoscope were to finish on 1 January 1999, only for another programme to begin a year later on 1 January 2000.
The Commission's answer here, having caused the problem in the first place, was to launch pilot projects for 1999 to bridge the gap, but it came to nothing because the European Court of Justice ruled that there was no legal basis for such pilot projects.
<P>
However, a miracle occurred on the weekend of 12 and 13 September in Linz, when Commissioner Oreja and Austria's Secretary of State for Culture, Mr Wittman, succeeded in persuading the Culture Ministers that it was essential to continue the current programmes.
<P>
The budget for 1999 was adapted in record time with the help of all the members of Parliament's Committees on Culture and Budgets, and a proposal to create a legal basis was considered.
The decisions were adopted unanimously.
However, for technical reasons which I very much regret, the Commission proposal contains smaller budgets than those agreed in the interinstitutional agreement.
The decision was to continue on the basis of the 1998 budgets, and this is why today's proposals contain an amendment to increase the budgets to 1998 levels.
Parliament is having to do the Commission's homework for it, and we are glad to do so.
For the sake of form, I will give you the figures: ECU 4.1 million for Ariane and ECU 10.2 million for Kaleidoscope.
<P>
The decision will, I hope, be taken shortly to extend these two cultural programmes next year.
In the year 2000 we hope to start a new combination of the programmes, perhaps with a new structure: the first framework programme for culture 2000-2004.
It is now up to the Council.
The unanimous decision taken by the Culture Ministers will have to be reconfirmed, and unfortunately the Council must decide unanimously.
At the last Coreper meeting, people clearly did not know about the Culture Ministers' decision, because there were some Member States that were still raising objections.
<P>
I would therefore urge the Council and all the Member States to adopt this decision before the first budget reading in Parliament, so that the actual amounts, currently listed as 'pm' entries, can be included.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, I just wanted to add a few words to what Mr Pex said.
It is of the utmost importance that we finally convince the governments that after completing the preparations for the euro we are entering a new phase of European development, in which real priority will be given not just to the economy but also to culture.
This does not seem to be fully understood yet in the higher echelons, hence all these delays, these difficulties that continue to hamper the cultural programmes.
I thank Mr Pex very much for insisting that at least after the millennium we must at last have cultural programmes that preserve the great diversity of European culture.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, you know that with its proposals to extend Kaleidoscope and Ariane the Commission is seeking to ensure the continuity of Community cultural activities for the year 1999.
The aim is to bridge the gap in time until the first European Community cultural framework programme for 2000 to 2004 is adopted.
Initially, the Commission had planned preparatory measures in the coming year as a transition between the first generation of Kaleidoscope and Ariane and the new framework programme scheduled for the year 2000. These measures were to be geared even then to the main points of the new framework programme.
But after the Court of Justice decided in its judgment of 12 May that all Community expenditure requires a legal basis, the Commission preferred to abandon the planned measures, extend the duration of the two programmes and thereby at least ensure continuity.
<P>
One major concern here was not to jeopardise the success of the cultural cooperation to date, which has taken the form of the partnerships and networks on cultural matters to which, I am pleased to note, the rapporteur also referred.
At the informal trilogue on 21 September, the three institutions agreed to extend the duration of Kaleidoscope and Ariane for 1999, under the same conditions and with the same allocations of funds as in 1998.
<P>
Since the Commission proposals are based on a lower amount, to ensure consistency with the 1999 preliminary draft budget, the proposals now need to be amended in the framework of the legislative and budgetary procedure; you will be taking your decision on that shortly.
I can only endorse the request by Mr Pex and Mr von Habsburg that we now conclude this chapter with a positive signal.
<P>
I wish to thank Parliament and in particular Mr Pex, the rapporteur and chairman of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, for their constructive cooperation.
I would also like to thank them for making possible this improvement - which will benefit the Community's cultural activities in 1999 - in such a short time.
In this way, they have shown once again how much importance they attach to culture in the context of European integration; let me also emphasise that although subsidiarity and diversity go hand in hand, that definitely does not preclude our having a common awareness of this subsidiarity and diversity and highlighting it through exchanges and through the visibility of our Community activities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, I apologise to you and to Parliament for taking advantage of your unfailing patience.
This time I want to make a point which, in my opinion, has a direct bearing on the two reports we are debating, the Kaleidoscope report on support to artistic and cultural activities and the report, also by Mr Pex, on a programme of support, including translation, in the field of books and reading: the Ariane programme.
I say this because yesterday the Nobel Prize Committee awarded the Nobel Prize to a great European writer, José Saramago, who is Portuguese but resident in Spain, an adopted son of my island of Lanzarote, where he lives. I would like to ask the President of Parliament to send a message of congratulation to Mr Saramago, who has actually visited Parliament and taken part in those activities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Medina.
You know there is an old saying that you can never have too much of a good thing.
So your remarks are welcome, but the Minutes show that yesterday, immediately after we learned of the award, I did address Parliament along those lines.
And I will certainly not forget the matter when we take our leave today.
Mr Medina's remarks will of course be included in the Minutes and I am sure they will reinforce what I said yesterday and that the President of Parliament will indeed contact Mr José Saramago.
<P>
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the two legislative resolutions)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I would congratulate Mr Pex on his excellent work with the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, which he chairs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Hawlicek">
I greatly welcome today's legislative proposal on extending the Kaleidoscope and Ariane programmes.
Even before the summer, the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media had criticised the fact that without cultural programmes and with only pilot projects the year 1999 would entail a 40 % cut in the culture budget.
<P>
Thanks to the efforts of Dr Peter Wittman, the Austrian Secretary of State, a political decision was taken at the informal Council of Culture Ministers in Linz on 11 September 1998 to extend both programmes by one year.
With great encouragement from Mr Pex, the chairman of the Committee on Culture, we agreed the amended budget in committee as early as 14 September, and on 21 September the Council, Parliament and the Commission reached political agreement to extend the Kaleidoscope and Ariane programmes by a year.
<P>
This agreement provides that the budgetary allocation will remain at the 1998 level, namely ECU 14.3 million rather than the ECU 10.9 million in the Commission proposal.
<P>
I am sure Parliament will endorse this justified proposal and that Dr Wittman, the President-in-Office of the Council, will persuade the Council of Culture Ministers to endorse the decision on the ECU 14.3 million at its meeting on 17 November 1998.
<P>
The extension of these programmes is an outstanding example of the excellent cooperation between the European Parliament and the Austrian Presidency of the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="President">
That concludes Parliament's agenda.
The Minutes of today's sitting will be submitted for Parliament's approval at the beginning of the next part-session.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, before the Chamber lights are turned off, I have the pleasant task of thanking Parliament's services for their patient and efficient assistance.
<P>
But I would also like to take advantage of the opportunity that Fridays offer for informal statements, to express a feeling which I am sure I share with all of you, at least in general terms. I feel this has been a week when the blue of the European Union flag has been slightly tinged with the colours of the Iberian Peninsula, the colours of the Portuguese and Spanish flags.
This week we have seen events which I believe enrich our cultural heritage and our political heritage, although they spring from two very different sources.
On the cultural side - as Mr Medina reminded us - Mr Saramago has just been awarded a richly-deserved Nobel Prize. Obviously it is a recognition of his literary powers, but it is also a recognition of the Portuguese language, part of the cultural heritage of our institution.
It is an important language not only because of its history and its current contribution in this House, but also because it is a linguistic hand of solidarity and cooperation stretched out towards South America.
I think we should congratulate ourselves on that.
<P>
And the other point, ladies and gentlemen - and this affects me a little more closely - is that this week the Spanish Head of State, King Juan Carlos, paid us a visit.
I think we were all united in giving him a warm reception and, indeed, in laying great emphasis on the value of his pro-European remarks.
A superficial observer might have been surprised to find both republicans and monarchists expressing the same feelings, but I say superficial, ladies and gentlemen, because King Juan Carlos is a democrat, and he is no passive democrat. No-one with an honest recollection of recent history can deny the positive contribution he has made to the peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy in Spain.
What is more, he was at the forefront of the defence of our democratic constitution when there was an attempted coup d'état on 23 February one year.
<P>
I wanted to say that, ladies and gentlemen, because the contribution to cultural and political heritage which these two figures have made is at one with the modest day-to-day work that we do here and personally, at least for me, that renews my faith in the future of the European Union.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="President">
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 12.45 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 9 October 1998.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Statement by the President
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
It gives me enormous pleasure to be able to share with you all today my joy at the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to John Hume and David Trimble.
<P>
Over the years the European Parliament has been constant in its support for the peace process in Northern Ireland.
The road to peace is not assured.
Just as the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to John Hume and David Trimble must fortify the people of Northern Ireland in their quest for peace, so must the award reinforce our own solidarity and that of the international community as a whole in the peace process.
Here in the European Parliament we are proud to salute our colleague John Hume.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="Banotti">
Mr President, I appreciate and thank you for your kind words.
I am sure all our colleagues will share our great joy and pride in this unique honour paid to John Hume and to David Trimble.
After all the anguish and despair of the last 30 years this is a wonderful tribute to the consistent belief on John Hume's part that the non-violent path to peace in Northern Ireland was the only way.
I would like to thank you and join with all our colleagues in expressing our great joy and support for John Hume and David Trimble in the work they are doing in Northern Ireland.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, perhaps it would be a good idea to wait a moment until Mr Hume arrives so that we can say this on our groups' behalf whilst he is actually present.
<P>
Mr President, I think we should congratulate not only Mr Hume himself, but the whole Irish people too on the fact that the Good Friday agreement has created fresh opportunities for peace.
I think it would be appropriate if Mr Martens, our group chairman, conveys his good wishes to him again in the House tomorrow, and through him our good wishes to all those who now have a chance to make peace a reality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
I chose to make this statement at the beginning of the sitting because I was not sure if Mr Hume would arrive within the next half hour, and I felt that the opening of the sitting was the most formal moment to make this statement before the honorable Members.
That does not mean that we cannot repeat our congratulations to Mr Hume when he is with us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Puerta">
Mr President, on behalf of my Group, I would also like to congratulate our fellow Member, Mr Hume, since we have all seen how hard he has worked to achieve peace in Northern Ireland over the years.
I am going to take this opportunity, on behalf of the European Parliament - which has drafted numerous resolutions on the subject -, to welcome the fact that the bloody dictator Augusto Pinochet is today awaiting trial in London and that we will have the opportunity to hold him accountable for having violated human rights, for having submerged Chilean democracy in blood and for having caused the death of President Allende.
I believe that all democrats in Europe and throughout the world today hope that impunity will cease.
We hope that all judicial and government institutions will prove themselves equal to the task and fulfil the hope that these crimes will not remain unpunished.
We hope that some day the International Criminal Court will be able to fully exercise its jurisdiction over those who commit crimes against humanity and crimes of genocide and who violate human rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="Gallagher">
Mr President, thank you for giving me the opportunity of congratulating John Hume who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday last.
Coming from the border counties and representing part of that historic province of Ulster, I was overwhelmed, as were all the people of Ireland, when John Hume was so rightly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
<P>
In all his press conferences and all his interviews on Friday and Saturday last John Hume was magnanimous.
He said this was for the people of Ulster.
It was for all those who helped to pursue the peace process culminating in the peace agreement of Good Friday.
I sincerely hope - as do all in this House - that this will further the peace process and bring us to the day when in the North of Ireland we will have peace with justice.
John Hume has spent 30 years of his life on this, ably assisted and with the strong support of his wife Pat - and I would pay tribute to her also.
John Hume was always a righteous man but not necessarily a self-righteous one.
<P>
Deánaim comhghairdeas ó mo chroí le John Hume as ucth na dúise Nobel a bhuachan.
Bí se tuillte go maith aige tar éis 30 bliain ag obair thar ceann na síochána.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
Mr President, I would also like, on behalf of my group, to congratulate the Nobel Committee in Oslo on such a splendid and well-balanced choice.
My group unanimously nominated both men for the Nobel Prize, and I am glad that it was awarded as a double prize, so that the idea highlighted would be that of peace and not the cause of one side or the other.
We know John Hume here in Parliament as a man who has consistently worked for peace - certainly during the 19 years I have known him here.
When he comes tomorrow we can pay tribute to him.
My group has also had the opportunity to meet David Trimble on a few occasions and have only words of praise for the Protestant side in the peace settlement.
He showed very great personal courage when he had six members of his group against him in Westminster and only three with him in his bid for peace.
I do not know how many group chairmen in this House would put forward proposals if they were part of such an obvious minority in their groups.
I think that Mr Trimble has made a very impressive contribution to the peace process. I therefore feel that the Nobel Prize Committee is fully justified in awarding the prize equally to both sides in the conflict.
<P>
My group was the first in Parliament to hold study days in Belfast.
I urge all the other groups to hold study days in Belfast, to get to know that beautiful area and see how, together, we can lend a hand in the peace process in Belfast, for they deserve it after so many years of war.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="Cox">
Mr President, on behalf of the ELDR Group, I wish warmly to congratulate our colleague John Hume on the recognition which has been given to him for his courage, consistency of analysis and on the way he has persevered politically and personally over many, long, trying years in Northern Ireland.
For my Group, I could agree entirely with the words of Senator George Mitchell of the United States, who for almost three years also made a significant personal contribution to the search for peace in Northern Ireland.
He said that without John Hume there would truly have been no peace process, and of David Trimble he remarked that without David Trimble there would have been no peace agreement.
They have each in their own way showed enormous courage.
We congratulate them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="Green">
Mr President, I wish to express my great disappointment that we have moved to this event before John Hume has arrived.
We notified your Office that we would make sure that Mr Hume would be here in about 20 minutes.
It seems a travesty that all these words are being said and tributes paid in his absence.
I bitterly regret that.
It is a great shame and we would have done Parliament a service and paid one of our Members a great tribute had we been able to say these things to his face, in his presence and give him the recognition and tribute he deserves.
<P>
I do not intend to pay tribute to Mr Hume in his absence.
I will either do it here, if you will allow, when he arrives or we will do it in our Group.
He is a member of our Group and we will congratulate him, personally, in his presence, having nominated him for this Nobel Peace Prize.
Mr President, I hope you will do the same when he arrives very shortly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
Mrs Green, had you arrived a few minutes earlier, you would have heard that I contacted Mr Hume's office in an attempt to find out whether or not he would arrive in time to hear these statements.
But, just a moment ago, before I came in, Mr Hume's own office was unable to tell me what time he would arrive.
That is why I took this decision, and I informed the House of it just before you came into the Hemicycle.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Aelvoet">
) Mr President, I prefer not to wait but to echo all those who have spoken before me and say on behalf of my group how happy we are to see Mr Hume given this honour, which he fully deserves.
We are very pleased for him.
And we shall make sure that this evening's meeting of the Socialist Group receives a letter from our group, to be given to him personally.
<P>
I also wished to take up the second point which Mr Puerta mentioned, namely the fact that the European Union currently has something of a political hot potato on its plate in the British Government's decision to arrest the former dictator, General Pinochet.
This is an extremely important political issue which Parliament addressed or kept returning to many years ago.
<P>
It is of course particularly unfortunate that this week is one in which we do not normally have a topical and urgent debate where this matter might be discussed.
My group's question is whether, given the close involvement here of two European countries, the United Kingdom and Spain, we ought not to make sure that the European Parliament gives a clear statement of its position.
We are asking the Bureau to make sure that provision is made for this matter to be addressed.
And, on behalf of all members of my group, I congratulate the British Government for its courage in detaining Pinochet, because it restores our faith that people with serious crimes on their consciences can ultimately be brought to book, even if they have held the very highest political office.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, in addition to congratulating Mr Hume on winning the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Mr Trimble, I would like to join other speakers in drawing attention to the fact that this weekend an important event took place when the British authorities carried out a request by the Spanish judicial authorities to arrest General Pinochet.
That decision on the part of the British authorities is in line with this Parliament's repeated requests that crimes committed under the Chilean dictatorship should be prosecuted, both in that country and outside it, and it implies a strengthening of the European judicial area.
Specifically, I would like to state that in Chile only one case has been prosecuted, involving a North American citizen, in connection with the assassination attempt against General Letelier. Although more than 40 European citizens were assassinated by the Chilean dictatorship, no legal proceedings have so far been instituted against it.
Consequently, if the Chilean Government fails to punish criminals, it is only logical that the European authorities should do so.
And I urge the Spanish Government to immediately submit a request for the extradition of General Pinochet so that he can stand trial in Spain for the numerous cases that have been filed against him.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bloch von Blottnitz">
Mr President, some time ago Mr Jarzembowski put a question to the Commission concerning the appropriateness of the American secret services' practice of tapping telephone conversations held in the European Parliament and the Commission and of intercepting emails.
The Commission confirmed this information at the time.
Mr President, I should now like to ask what measures you have taken to put a stop to such practices.
After all, even nations with which we are on friendly terms, but with which we are in economic competition, should not be able to hear all our conversations and read our emails.
Nor should nations with which we are not on friendly terms, needless to say!
I would therefore like to know what technical measures have been taken in the new buildings in Brussels and Strasbourg.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="President">
Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, may I draw your attention to the fact that the House has already debated this matter and decided not to adopt any resolution on the subject.
<P>
(Protests from Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz) No, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz.
I repeat that this House has already had a debate on this matter and did not adopt a resolution on the subject, and it is therefore difficult for me to ensure compliance with resolutions that have not been adopted.
In the new building, all possible guarantees will naturally exist to ensure that interference, of this or of any other kind, does not occur.
This is stipulated in the specifications and will obviously be stuck to as far as technically possible.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Chichester">
Mr President, I too, would like to add my congratulations to Mr Hume and Mr Trimble on the award of the peace prize and express the hope that it is not a premature award.
<P>
I rise on the minutes of last Friday in which I am referred to as having spoken on the subject of membership of the British Conservative Party.
While I am always happy to speak on that subject, the main reason that I spoke was to comment on the success of a Labour MEP in having his remarks about having to ring No 10 Downing Street to find out which way to vote expunged from the record.
I asked a question at that time: is this facility open to other members?
I wish to put that on the record in the minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
We will check on the content of your statement and include it in the Minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Mr President, I merely wanted to state that I was present at the sitting of Tuesday, 6 October; I was also allocated speaking time and I participated in the vote.
However, my name was not on the attendance register.
I would ask that this be corrected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Mr President, I would like to share the sentiments expressed by Mr Puerta and Mr Medina in welcoming the arrest of Augusto Pinochet Ugarte in London, although I would like to emphasise two aspects that I consider important.
First, the governments of the Member States have an obligation to collaborate unconditionally with the justice system and, consequently, it goes without saying that when the Spanish judiciary requests the extradition of this man, we all hope that the Spanish Government will subsequently take appropriate action.
However, in all sincerity, Mr President, and following on from what Mr Aelvoet said, I am not content with this agenda.
I would like to make an appeal, if I may, that a proposal be made in the relevant bodies that the chairmen of our groups should consider the possibility of including a specific point whereby this Parliament may express its opinion in the form of a resolution on the arrest of the dictator General Pinochet, and on the need for Member States and their governments to collaborate with the justice system.
I think we should go a little further than what we are doing at present, and I believe that this is possible; budgets should leave room for politics and, in this case, for solidarity.
Therefore, I would like us to consider the possibility of introducing a specific point to this effect in the agenda at the appropriate time.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="President">
I have great pleasure in welcoming Mr Raymond Langendries, Speaker of the Belgian House of Representatives, who has taken his seat in the official gallery.
<P>
Mr Langendries attended a meeting we held this morning with other speakers, Mr Violante, Mr Fabius and Mr Fischer, in preparation for the meeting of speakers from European parliaments in Vienna at the beginning of December, for which he will prepare the keynote speech.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Membership of Political Groups
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="President">
Mr Moorhouse has informed me that he has joined the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Balfe">
Mr President, I merely wish to observe that Mr Moorhouse is far too left wing to have a place in the modern Labour Party.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="Teverson">
Mr President, I should like to inform the Labour Party, having made that comment, that Mr Moorhouse has obviously found the real third way, which is liberal democracy.
We shall welcome him here tomorrow.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Agenda
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="President">
The next item is the order of business.
<P>
The final version of the draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents pursuant to Rule 95 of the Rules of Procedure has been distributed, to which no changes have been proposed.
<P>
(The order of business was adopted)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, I asked you a quarter of an hour ago if a proposal could not be made regarding the week's agenda to allow us to discuss the detention of the dictator General Pinochet.
I have not had an answer, and now you say that there are no questions in connection with the agenda.
I asked a question, and a very specific one at that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="President">
Mrs Aelvoet, as you well know, under the Rules of Procedure, I cannot make this proposal at the present time.
I will be able to do so once the chairmen of the political groups have been consulted.
Later on, after consulting them, if the majority is in favour of the subject, I will propose it, and the House can amend the agenda at that time.
I cannot do so at present because the request has not been made in time and the group chairmen have not as yet expressed a view on the subject.
<P>
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, if a number of groups have not asked for this, it is because we do not need to deal with it this week.
According to the Rules of Procedure, Mr President, we would have had to submit the proposal to you one hour before the start of the sitting. That did not happen.
Consequently, we do not have to discuss it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="President">
As a result, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, what I intend to do, once this initial part of the sitting has finished, is to consult the chairmen of the political groups in order to see what they think and to establish whether or there is a majority regarding this proposal.
<P>
Mrs Green, do you wish to take the floor?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="Green">
Mr President, as the leader of my group I can tell you now that it is our view that, having raised this issue, it would be more appropriate to have a proper discussion about it in the next plenary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="President">
Mr Carnero, who has already put forward his proposal, wishes to speak.
And I believe that he is not speaking on behalf of his group.
<P>
Therefore, Mrs Lulling has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, Mr Giansily's report on the expiry of the ECSC Treaty will feature on the agenda tomorrow.
The secretariat of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and I myself at the beginning of last week drew the attention of the sessional services to the fact that my opinion had been wrongly reproduced in this document.
<P>
I did ask for this document to be reprinted.
However, I see that the text available in distribution is still the incorrect version of my opinion.
I ask you to rectify this immediately.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="President">
Mrs Lulling, our services have told me that a corrigendum is being prepared.
I hope it will be available as soon as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Mr President, the fact is that on the loudspeakers I heard that 'since Mr Carnero is - apparently - not speaking on behalf of his group, I will not give him the floor'.
I do not consider this to be correct.
I have a mandate as a Member here and it seems to me that I can express the opinions and put forward the proposals that I consider to be appropriate. In this case, moreover, I believe that my group and the majority of this House are calling for a resolution welcoming Pinochet's arrest and also urging the governments to do their duty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="President">
Mr Carnero, we have already listened to your opinion, just as we have listened to the opinion of other Members.
I will use my powers at the appropriate time and will put the proposal to the House after holding the relevant consultations.
This is the established procedure in such cases and, as always, we will adhere to it.
<P>
Mr Puerta, do you wish to take the floor or do you think it is not necessary?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Puerta">
Mr President, I simply wish to make it plain and clear that, as group chairman, I have expressed the hope that the judicial and government institutions will take full advantage of this opportunity to put an end to General Pinochet's impunity and I think that all the political groups should support a serious and comprehensive debate.
In this respect, and in principle, subject to the agreement of my group at a meeting of the entire group, I support Mrs Green's proposal for a proper debate during the next part-session.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Mr President, I should like to reassure Mrs Lulling that the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on my report was adopted unanimously and in full by the Committee on Budgets, without the slightest alteration.
It can therefore easily be included in the final vote.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Transport of dangerous goods: safety advisers
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0351/98) by Mr Koch, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Directive on the harmonisation of examination requirements for safety advisers for the transport of dangerous goods by road, rail or inland waterways (COM(98)0174 - C4-0242/98-98/0106(SYN)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Koch">
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Schlechter">
Mr President, the proposal for a Directive that we are about to discuss follows on naturally from Council Directive 96/35/EC on the harmonisation of examination requirements for the training of safety advisers in the field of transport of dangerous goods.
<P>
The Directive to be transposed could even be considered to be innovative in that it is the first text, in terms of derived Community law on transport, that deals both with safety and with the three terrestrial means of transport: road, rail and inland waterway.
Given the purpose of the Directive, it can be included in the series of measures aimed at preventing the risks inherent in the transport of dangerous goods. This is because it stipulates that the companies concerned must appoint safety advisers with adequate professional qualifications in order to reduce the risk of accidents by promoting all action that will help to ensure compliance with regulations relating to the transport of dangerous goods and to establish optimal safety conditions.
<P>
The Socialist Group supports the final aim of the Directive in this instance, even though a number of issues need to be clarified.
For example, in certain countries, the majority of professional drivers have taken an examination and refresher courses to obtain an ADR vocational training certificate and as a result receive quite substantial increases in salary.
Could they use these qualifications to gain employment as a security adviser?
<P>
The Annexes clearly outline the tasks to be carried out by the security adviser, whose certificate of training is valid for five years.
Given that the transport of dangerous goods, and consequently the risk of accidents, is increasing significantly, we wonder whether the introduction of annual refresher courses might be considered to enable security advisers to update their knowledge of safety procedures.
<P>
Another issue which needs to be addressed relates to the obligation faced by companies to appoint one or more safety advisers.
This would not pose a problem for bigger companies.
But where would it leave smaller companies that have few employees?
A safety adviser could be appointed from among the company's staff or could take on this role as an independent expert.
But where the company director takes on the role of safety adviser we must ensure that he/she has obtained the required professional qualification.
Whatever the case, the Commission's assertion that the Directive will not lead to extra work or higher costs must be carefully examined.
<P>
Even if Member States can no longer notify the Commission of their penalty provisions before the deadline stipulated, it would have been interesting to hear what type of penalties the Commission has in mind.
For example, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg provides for prison sentences of between eight days and five years for breaches of the Directive and fines of between 10 000 and 1 million francs, or either one of these penalties.
This is a warning to all amateurs, and may subsidiarity continue to prevail!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendes Bota">
Mr President, from time to time - but far more often than is desirable - the world is shocked by news of accidents occurring during the transport or handling of dangerous goods.
Whether they involve explosives, gases, radioactive materials, mineral oils or other liquid or solid substances, road, rail and waterway accidents are regular occurrences leading to loss of life and ecological damage.
<P>
As was expected, the entry into force of the European Economic Area has increased trade volumes among the signatory states with the result that thousands and thousands of lorries, tankers, containers and wagons now circulate loaded with dangerous goods.
The risks can be reduced if stringent controls and safety and technical standards are imposed on firms in this sector.
Since firms have until 31 December 1999 to appoint one or more safety advisers, it made sense for the standards and content of the vocational training courses and exams for the safety advisers to be harmonised.
That would avoid any unfair competition while guaranteeing a high level of preparation for the advisers, so that they can deal with dangerous situations and materials.
<P>
That is why we congratulate Mr Koch on his report and support the ten amendments that have been tabled.
We regret the fact, however, that the Council did not receive the European Parliament's proposal in time. We proposed that whenever accidents take place it should be compulsory for the adviser of the firm involved to draw up a report within six months, and the Member States should be required to present the Commission with an annual report on all accidents taking place on their territory.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Kaklamanis">
Mr President, this report deals with the qualifications and criteria for granting a safety advisor's permit for the transport of dangerous goods.
<P>
Of course, we will be voting for the report even though, as a group, we think it is a timid one. The main blame for that, however, may not lie with our colleague Mr Koch, but with the Commission and the Council.
The scientific qualifications of the safety advisors are not described in detail, and in particular, nothing is said about their personality, trustworthiness, and especially about any relations they may have with any economic or industrial lobbies.
You all know exactly what I am implying, and I believe we ought to attach particular importance to it.
<P>
Taking advantage of the presence of our esteemed Commissioner Mr Kinnock, I must say that there is something else that should have been in this report, and Mr Koch again cannot be blamed because it is not in the Commission's proposal.
Commissioner, it is not just safety conditions during transport that matter.
It also matters where the dangerous goods are going, especially radioactive materials, where they are buried, where they are stored, and under what conditions.

I imagine, Commissioner, that you will be aware, since an official announcement to that effect was made by the Bulgarian Government, that radioactive mushrooms have been picked in Bulgaria and they are now looking to see whether it was because nuclear waste was not buried properly or because of a leak from the nuclear plant at Koslodui which is still in operation.
Should such matters too not be mentioned in this report? I wonder!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sindal">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner Kinnock, I will be brief in what I have to say on this excellent report, on this excellent initiative.
All our safety measures in the Union have been well received among the European public.
Standards and rules are quickly taken up, whether they relate to motor vehicles, boats, trains or aeroplanes.
Our everyday existence is marred by too many accidents, so improvements are welcome.
Point 9 of the report describes the cooperation between the Member States and the Commission.
It is my firm conviction that, despite the fact that it is the Member States' responsibility to ensure implementation, we need to have a form of annual reporting, an annual discussion on how things are progressing.
We need to have an overview so that we can ascertain whether what we have agreed is being implemented.
There is nothing more annoying than to see a neighbour or competitor cheat.
Education and examinations are one thing; how safety is assured in everyday practice is another matter.
I am sure that the Commission wants to get the Member States' cooperation in such a scheme on a voluntary basis.
<P>
I will say to Mr Kaklamanis that, if only we can get this report by Mr Koch adopted and implemented, then we shall have achieved a great deal.
I do not think that we should concern ourselves with what is lacking at this stage.
We must do that another time.
It is my view that the Member States are perhaps slower to implement common rules of this kind than we realise.
But I wish the Commission every success, and of course we support the proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Stenmarck">
Mr President, may I first of all thank the rapporteur, Mr Koch, for an excellent text.
I feel that he has improved the original proposal in a number of respects.
<P>
As everyone involved in transport policy knows, facilitating free movement within the Union is one of the main challenges facing us today.
Freight transport in particular needs to move freely - which is why so much effort is going into the TENs project and expanding transport infrastructure on the other side of the old Iron Curtain.
Once the links are in place, greater quantities of hazardous goods will inevitably cross the borders.
We need assurances that those handling such consignments have the necessary knowledge and skills.
Legislation varies from country to country, and any harmonisation must be based on the highest possible safety standards.
This is especially important when large volumes of all kinds of dangerous goods are constantly moving across borders everywhere.
A body of Community legislation has been built up over time to ensure that all Member States treat dangerous goods in the same way - whether they are being transported by road, rail or water.
<P>
Corresponding standards need to be maintained at the external borders of the Union.
This is an important point, and I should like to ask the Commissioner one or two questions regarding our external frontiers.
Will provisions introduced in the EU Member States also be binding on the EEA countries?
And what sort of rules will apply to dangerous goods coming into EU Member States from candidate countries in Central and Eastern Europe?
Some clarification here would be most welcome.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sisó Cruellas">
Mr President, I would like to begin by congratulating Mr Koch on his excellent work in drafting this report on the harmonisation of examination requirements for safety advisors for the transport of dangerous goods by road, rail or inland waterways.
<P>
I think it is of the utmost interest to have specialised, well-trained people to plan the transport of dangerous goods because many accidents have been caused by inexperience and a lack of preparation when handling dangerous goods during transport.
<P>
Frequently, we consider it sufficient that vehicles transporting dangerous goods do not come within a given distance from population centres, but I believe that safety should be based not so much on where the vehicle goes, but rather on the technical specifications of the vehicle and on the transportation technique employed.
<P>
I witnessed at first hand an accident of this type that occurred years ago in the Spanish province of Tarragona, and it was truly horrifying.
When the vehicle exploded, a huge tongue of fire leapt an immense distance at high speed, burning everything in its path, including people, animals, plants, buildings, etcetera.
Hence, it is necessary to genuinely seek to ensure the safety of the means of transport and the logistics of that transport.
This should make it very difficult, or practically impossible, for an accident to happen because, if it does, it is often not possible to calculate the effects or repercussions it will have, in terms of either harm to people or to the environment.
<P>
For this reason, I welcome this proposal, which I consider to be very important and which will ensure greater safety in transport.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
Mr President, could I first of all thank the Committee on Transport and in particular the rapporteur, Mr Koch, for his very useful contribution to the improvement of the Commission proposal on the safety adviser examination.
As the House will know, the 1996 directive relating to safety advisers already ensures that all companies whose activities include the transport of dangerous goods by road, rail or inland waterway are obliged to appoint at least one safety adviser whose professional competence is to be achieved by special training, subjected to examination and proved by certification.
However, the minimum requirements for this examination have not yet been agreed, and the present proposal addresses that important issue.
I am glad to note the support for the Commission's proposal which was generally voiced again in today's debate and indeed was set out in the Koch report.
<P>
I am also pleased to say, therefore, that the Commission can accept Amendment No 1, both parts (one and two), Amendment Nos 2, 4, 5, 7, 9 and 10 since they are consistent with the aims of the proposal.
The remaining amendments must be rejected, but only for the simple and uncontroversial reason that they are unnecessary because they are already covered either in the 1996 directive, as in the case of Amendment No 1, part three, and Amendment No 6, or are already envisaged elsewhere in the current proposal, as in the case of Amendment Nos 3 and 8.
<P>
I listened intently to all the speakers in the debate and I would just like to tell Mr Sindal that I agree with everything he said and to say to Mr Kaklamanis not only what Mr Sindal said about progressing with the certainty of this proposed legislation, but also that many of the issues quite properly raised by the honourable Member would be more appropriately addressed to my colleague, Ritt Bjerregaard, the Environment Commissioner, and of course to DG XI.
I am sure they would be glad to hear from the honourable Member and happy to try to provide him with a constructive response.
<P>
So far as Mr Stenmarck's questions are concerned, I can offer him what I think will be good news: the Central and Eastern European countries, including obviously all those which have applied to become members of the Union, are already covered by the relevant ADR agreement, the agreement on the transportation of dangerous goods by road, and in addition Community legislation including this proposal will be proposed for inclusion in the ADR.
That is what you could call a 'belt and braces approach', and I know it is consistent with the desires expressed by Mr Stenmarck.
<P>
The large measure of agreement between the House and the Commission is further evidence of the fruitful collaboration between the Transport Committee and my colleagues in DG VII.
I am grateful for that and I am happy to recommend Mr Koch's report to the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Inland waterway vessels
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0352/98) by Mr Konrad, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 82/714/EEC of 4 October 1982 laying down technical requirements for inland waterway vessels (COM(97)0644 - C4-0066/98-97/0335(SYN)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Konrad">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if we want to promote the creation of a single market, particularly as we prepare for the enlargement of the European Union towards the east, we must ensure that we do not have different safety, environmental and social standards on our waterways; nor must the authorisation procedures and documents which are of importance in inland waterways shipping be different.
The current directive aims to help to achieve standardisation.
<P>
Inland waterways shipping in Europe is and remains an extremely environmentally-friendly mode of transport with a promising future.
We are told that there is still reserve capacity available and that we should use it.
It is important to discuss inland waterways shipping because it no longer transports only bulk goods; it is now also possible to transport high-technology, high-quality goods, which means that new cars can be transported, hundreds at a time.
<P>
Of course, it is said - and in my opinion this is correct - that the opening-up of the markets will now lead to increased capacity in Eastern Europe also.
This is precisely the point that we must discuss.
We need to make arrangements to ensure that all those involved are able to move into line with the new conditions as the situation changes.
<P>
In agreement with the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine and the UN EconomicCommission for Europe, this Directive can contribute to achieving uniform technical standards for inland waterway vessels throughout Europe, and thus to harmonisation.
It was important to Parliament - and this is, incidentally, a very old requirement - that this directive should include provisions not only for freight goods transport but also for passenger vessels.
In future, therefore, this directive will also apply to passenger vessels carrying more than 12 passengers.
I consider this to be a proper and important measure.
<P>
We want a modern, competitive fleet on our inland waterways in Europe, with maximum safety for the vessels and their crews. We also want to achieve clear, agreed environmental standards in Europe, and we want all of this in the context of market liberalisation.
I must state expressly that for the PPE Group as well as for myself, as rapporteur, it is absolutely essential that markets are opened up and that we achieve liberalisation in this area too.
Liberalisation is particularly needed in the tariff system if the market is to be expanded.
<P>
I think it is very important, in the arrangements we make, that we do not aim for standards that are too high and that cannot be achieved in this form by the applicant countries, at least not in the next few years or decades.
An important point for me - and this is why I am addressing this topic - was that in the hearing that we had in the Committee on Transport and Tourism, we were able actually to talk about the issue of enlargement towards the east with the applicant countries, as the eastern Europeans were also present - the Rhine-Main-Danube canal being the keyword here - and discussed matters with us.
Their fear was that the introduction of over-strict standards would create the impression that the old EU Member States were to a certain extent trying to erect protectionist barriers.
This cannot and should not be allowed.
I believe that the current directive and the report speak a different language.
We are open to competition, the markets are open, Eastern Europe is welcome, and inland waterways transport will prove itself in competition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="McMahon">
Mr President, my credentials for speaking about canals are based simply on the fact that the Forth and Clyde canal starts in my constituency at Bowling, near Clydebank and goes right across to Grangemouth.
<P>
The Commissioner comes from a country where they have a very important canal, the Llangollen canal, which is very much used by tourists.
It is important that we bear in mind that inland waterways represent a very viable means of transport.
Perhaps in the UK they have not been used to the extent that they could have been - a situation we should really think about changing.
As far as the Forth and Clyde canal is concerned, we are now going to use Millennium funding and structural fund money to modernise and try to regenerate it.
<P>
To turn to the issue of the Konrad report, it is a very good report, actually.
The Socialist Group would like to congratulate Mr Konrad on this report which was unanimously adopted by the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
It is specifically a technical report that aims is to update the technical requirements for carrying dangerous goods on inland waterways.
Both the proposal and the committee report deal with these technicalities but the rapporteur, in my opinion, has successfully explained the complexities of the three different regimes in Europe for carrying dangerous goods on inland waterways.
<P>
The rapporteur very eloquently explains the operation of these three different regimes.
One is the Central Commission of the Rhine, the first transnational body, the first genuine European body established after the Congress of Vienna and confirmed with the Mannheim Convention in 1836.
Having worked on my own report, which is a similar report to Mr Konrad's, I have been very impressed with the way that the Rhine Commission has gone about its work and managed to get agreement in a transnational area and even has its own police force monitoring compliance with the rules for shipping and cargoes on the Rhine.
<P>
The alignment of technical and safety standards to the highest possible level is extremely important.
The developments we have had in Eastern Europe, particularly the linking of the Danube and the Rhine by a canal in 1992, have led to a second body, the Danube Commission.
Coupled with enlargement, it is important that we get agreement, harmonisation and standardisation of best practice and conditions.
It is still more important, as Mr Konrad states in his report, that inland waterways will be a way of opening up Eastern and Central Europe in the future.
This is something we should consider in the context of enlargement.
<P>
The Rhine rules are very efficient.
We had a hearing on this issue with the representatives from the Rhine and the Danube who came before the committee.
The clear message was that we have good working rules here and we want the best practice adopted for the rest of Europe.
<P>
At the moment the Commission is involved.
I do not know if Commissioner Kinnock is involved personally, but the Commission is involved in discussions in Geneva on this issue, working out what will precede harmonisation to establish standardised procedures for inland waterway vessels.
This is of crucial importance.
The Konrad report is important in these discussions.
Its adoption will assist in updating technical requirements and achieving a uniform system.
<P>
The other issue which will not be so easy is achieving mutual recognition of boat master certificates etc.
Mr Konrad highlights this in his report.
This is an issue to which we will have to return in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Like the speakers before me, Mr President, I must refer back to the hearing we held in the Committee on Transport and Tourism, because that hearing confirmed the importance of inland waterways and outlined their essential structure.
We support the reports of Mr Konrad and Mr McMahon, but they are only part of the important place we need to attribute to inland waterways.
We can lay down the technical rules, Commissioner, yes, but there is more to it than that: vessels which carry passengers and freight are involved, as the recent accident at sea off Catalonia again reminded us.
Anyway, I agree with the rapporteur.
<P>
But, Commissioner, in addition to technical rules we need a decent policy for modernising the fleet.
That means permanent compensation for breaking up vessels and, secondly, better infrastructure.
There is none of that at present, Commissioner.
Mr McMahon said as much already.
We need better infrastructure for our inland waterways to improve our links with Eastern Europe, and there is not a single inland waterways project in the TENs, nor is there a single project under our programmes of aid to Eastern Europe.
That needs to change, and fast.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
Mr President, as the honourable Members will know, the aim of the Commission proposal is to update Directive 82/714/EEC in line with the technical progress made since 1982.
The proposal is based on the latest technical standards in operation on the Rhine; it will create a single set of rules for all inland waterway vessels operating on the Community network and it will provide certainty for the participants in the inland waterways sector, including the shipbuilding industry operating in a single and liberalised market.
<P>
At present, as the House will know and as we have already heard in the debate, there are two sets of rules for inland waterway vessels in the European Union: those applicable on the Rhine and those applicable on the other inland waterways.
Whilst the Rhine certificate gives vessels access to the Community waterways, the Community certificate does not give access to the Rhine.
Given that operations on the Rhine represent more than half of the inland waterway transport in Europe and the applicable technical standards are among the highest in the world, the Commission believes that the uniform set of rules that is now proposed for the whole Union will be in the interests of the whole industry.
This development means upgrading to Rhine standards; it means automatic recognition between the Community certificate and the Rhine certificate for inland waterway vessels; and the clarity and uniformity which will result will, of course, also facilitate the negotiations with the candidate countries in Central and Eastern Europe, whose technical standards will, obviously, have to be adapted before future accession to the Union - a point raised by several honourable Members in the course of the debate.
<P>
The proposal allows the Commission to update regularly the annexes of the directive, with the assistance of a committee consisting of representatives of the Member States.
That mechanism will ensure that the rules applicable in the Union take full account of the latest technical standards, in particular those developed in the context of the Rhine.
<P>
Against that background, the Commission welcomes the report of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, prepared very ably, as we have already heard, by Mr Konrad, and the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, drafted by Mr Miller, is also welcome.
The reaction of those committees demonstrates the high level of awareness among honourable Members about the potential of inland waterway transport in Europe, as Mr McMahon has just said.
They also present a very clear picture of the necessity for the modernisation and harmonisation of technical standards in the interests of the inland waterway industry.
<P>
The amendments tabled support and reinforce the Commission proposal.
I am glad to say, therefore, that six amendments can be accepted with some minor redrafting changes where appropriate.
Amendment No 4, however, which asks the Commission to report to the European Parliament at regular intervals on substantial changes made to the annexes in the directive, cannot be accepted because the present rules on comitology, which are to be revised, do not provide for regular notification of Parliament on the work of committees created on the basis of the cooperation procedure.
The Commission is, of course, willing to inform Parliament at any time, but it cannot make a formal commitment in the articles of this directive simply because of that procedural reason.
<P>
The current initiative could assist in the efficient high-quality functioning of the inland waterway transport mode and that, of course, is highly desirable for the economic competitiveness and sustainability.
<P>
I, therefore, thank Mr Konrad and Mr Miller for their work and this Parliament for its continual understanding and support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Protection of water against pollution
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0284/98) by Mrs McKenna, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the Commission reports on the implementation of Council Directive 91/676/EEC concerning the protection of waters against pollution caused by nitrates from agricultural sources and on measures taken pursuant to Council Directive 91/676/EEC concerning the protection of waters against pollution caused by nitrates from agricultural sources (COM(97)0473 - COM(98)0016 - C4-0040/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, despite the existence of the 1991 Nitrate Directive which was supposed to reduce the nitrate in water from agricultural sources, very little progress has actually been made.
In fact, despite a requirement that all Member States should present action plans by the end of 1995, by spring 1998, nine Member States including my own country of Ireland has not done so.
This irresponsible attitude shown by Member State governments towards protection of the environment should not be tolerated.
The Commission is being far too lenient towards Member State governments that are totally disregarding EU directives on protection of the environment in some cases.
These governments must be forced to implement fully and as quickly as possible the 1991 directive.
I cannot understand why infringement proceedings have not already been taken against Member States that have not implemented, or have incorrectly implemented, this directive.
<P>
Serious health problems are caused by nitrates.
Nitrates in drinking water are considered a health problem for human beings because nitrate rapidly reduces to nitrite in the body.
This results in the inability to transport oxygen to the tissues.
The reduced capacity to transport oxygen manifests itself particularly in young babies up to six months old and causes a condition which is commonly known as 'blue baby syndrome'.
There is also a serious problem with nitrite when it reacts with compounds in the stomach to form products which have been found to be carcinogenic in many animals.
<P>
In the EU the concentration of nitrate in water has been regulated by two directives: the 1975 Surface Water for Abstraction of Drinking Water Directive and the 1980 Drinking Water Directive.
Both establish a maximum admissible concentration of 50 mg/l.
Although this level is now widely accepted for human health, Greenpeace is campaigning for an even stricter limit value of 10 mg/l, especially in order to take account of the health impact on babies.
Also the UN organisations - the WHO and FAO - advocate the same limit value because this is the level at which drinking water is safe for bottle-fed babies.
<P>
Apart from the health problems, we have to take into account the problems of eutrophication.
This is the enrichment of water by nitrogen and phosphorous compounds which causes the accelerated growth of algae, bloom and other plant life which results in an imbalance of organisms present on surface water.
This has a knock-on effect not just on biodiversity of the seas and the waters but also on tourism because of the serious problems of poisonous algae and fish kills etc.
So even if the present trend towards intensive animal husbandry is stopped and reversed now, it will take some 20 to 30 years before the surface and ground waters of Europe are healthy again.
In some areas it may take 40 or 50 years before an ecologically sound situation is restored.
<P>
Despite the fact that action programmes should have been presented by all Member States by 28 December 1995 at the very latest, by spring 1998 only six Member States, namely Austria, Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Sweden had done so.
My own country, Ireland, maintains that there is no problem as regards nitrates but the most recent coast watch survey published in December last year displayed some quite alarming findings.
The most alarming was the high incidence of nitrate pollution with 40 % of the 242 inflows tested showing levels of 25 % mg/l or more and in 15 cases over 100 mg/l. This is way above EU limits.
The most recent Eurostat report shows two Member States where levels of nitrates have risen even though this is in breach of the directives.
These countries are Ireland and Germany.
<P>
When it comes to implementing the Nitrate Directive the regions which show the least willingness to deal with the problem - despite the fact that they have the greatest problem - are the Netherlands and Flanders.
They show total disregard for the problems, and it is clear that the kind of farming methods used have to be examined and the number of animals per hectare reduced, because of the problem of animal manure.
<P>
I would draw your attention to Amendment No 13 tabled by the Socialist Group.
This amendment is looking for money to deal with large-scale installations which handle animal waste.
It is seeking a 25 % Community subsidy.
In the Netherlands this was tried but failed.
I would like to know the Commission's opinion.
The farmers are again looking for more money to deal with problems they have themselves created.
This is not acceptable to the European taxpayers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Provan">
I should like to begin by expressing my thanks to the rapporteur from the Environment Committee.
<P>
We in the Agriculture Committee take this matter very seriously.
It is not often that a Community regulation seems to be totally ignored by the Member States, but to a large extent that is very true in this case because most Member States have moved very slowly on this issue.
<P>
We find it extraordinary, therefore, that, in its report, the Commission has not really delved into the background to see why the Member States have not been implementing this properly.
The Commission has failed to try and assist, and in the future we hope that they will be less authoritarian but perhaps try to get more cooperation and persuade the Member States to encourage the farming industry to do something about it.
<P>
Agriculturalists and the farmers themselves fail to recognise the problem.
I know very well that there are many who feel that eutrophication, for instance, is a problem not necessarily created by agricultural industry.
I have seen with my own eyes lochs in the hills of Scotland around which there is no agriculture other than the grazing of sheep on a very light basis, and yet there is eutrophication in the lochs.
It is a complex issue that no-one really understands: increased hours of sunlight is very often an argument that is put forward.
<P>
The Agriculture Committee feels that the Commission could have done more to guide the Member States to try and make this directive more effective in the future.
It has to be more effective and we recognise that shortcoming.
<P>
Substantial improvements are needed in the directive itself because of the lack of progress that has been made, and the Agriculture Committee feels that there must be a better understanding of the total problem so that the agriculture industry can react as part of the reform of agricultural policy as a whole.
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<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Jensen, Kirsten">
Mr President, the biggest problem with the nitrates directive is - as Mrs McKenna has said - not the directive itself, but the lack of action to implement it in the Member States.
Many countries are still not properly implementing national legislation to ensure cleaner groundwater.
It cannot be the intention that tough environmental rules which are adopted in the EU should be simply shelved in the Member States.
It is damaging to mutual trust among Member States when individual countries cock a snook at the common policy.
<P>
It creates problems for farmers if only some farmers are obliged to pay to reduce nitrate run-off.
It cannot be right that some farmers who apply more environmentally friendly production methods should end up in a more disadvantageous competitive situation.
It is vitally necessary that pressure be put on all Member States to implement the nitrates directive, so that the burden is evenly distributed.
Countries which have not implemented the nitrates directive on time should not be rewarded by higher support from the EU than those countries which have already implemented the directive.
Besides, it would mean that the EU is throwing money away.
When the environmental policy is not adhered to, cross-compliance should be introduced as proposed in Agenda 2000.
<P>
The last point I wish to mention is the deplorable situation with regard to reporting to the Commission.
We in Parliament must support the Commission in its efforts to put pressure on the Member States.
The Member States must be made to report correct figures to the Commission, so that it can prepare overviews of how the nitrates directive is working in practice.
Furthermore, the figures reported will be an effective tool in the fight to get the nitrates directive properly implemented in all the countries.
After all, that is unfortunately the main reason why the reporting does not take place.
The Commission can hardly charge a Member State with circumventing the directive if there are no data at all.
It is necessary to put pressure on the Member States to ensure proper implementation and better reporting, if the nitrates directive is to have any relevance at all.
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<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schnellhardt">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this report deals with the Commission reports on the implementation of the Nitrate Directive, which, amazingly enough, has been in existence since 1991.
The problems connected with nitrate are not new, nor are the solutions proposed here.
We should not be intimidated by this.
We should concentrate on continuing the work which has already been begun, while at the same time avoiding trying to take on too much.
We all agree in principle.
We now need to implement the directive in the Member States and ensure that it is transposed and applied consistently.
We do not need to change it.
The European Parliament should encourage the Commission to take stricter action against the Member States which have not yet fulfilled their obligations arising from the directive.
<P>
Sometimes we get tired of playing this game.
On the one hand, we have constant demands from some quarters for greater subsidiarity, and on the other hand the Member States are not willing or able to play their part in areas in which there is no question that Community cooperation is needed, such as here on environmental policy.
<P>
The amendments tabled by my group aim to emphasise the demand for consistent implementation and application of the directive.
There is little point in overloading Parliament's resolution.
For example, we cannot make it compulsory to comply with the code of good agricultural practice if it has not even been defined at European level.
Furthermore, the requested limitation of the number of animals per hectare will not be necessary if the Member States apply the directive in the first place.
<P>
In addition, we reject absolutely the inclusion of Agenda 2000 criteria in this report.
The Agenda, as we know, is currently only under discussion, and demands of this kind tend to dilute Parliament's actual intentions and are only grist to the mill of those who advocate subsidiarity, and who would accuse Brussels of stipulating the number of cows in the fields!
We should concentrate our efforts and insist that whatever is necessary be done, and what needs to be done is already stated clearly in the Nitrate Directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Liberal Group will be supporting Mrs McKenna's report.
Her analysis of the situation in the Member States is critical but fair, given that no fewer than eleven Member States are disregarding a 1991 directive, either totally or in part.
This is the case at least in Flanders, where the position is serious.
I cannot contradict the rapporteur when she speaks of a lack of political will in Flanders.
The problem will not be solved just by ignoring the European standard.
This is what has been done so far in Flanders where, for example, the fertiliser action plan for 1998 sets standards for the use of fertilisers on pasture land which are twice as liberal as the European standard.
<P>
How should we address the problem?
The European standards have to be enforced.
Starting from the principle that 'the polluter pays', we should target and tax fertiliser surpluses rather than fertiliser production.
Let the sector itself decide initially how it will resolve the problem.
If it does not succeed, we may have to think about the compulsory reduction of livestock headage.
But let us try other ways first.
<P>
Mrs McKenna, your report has stirred things up a bit in Flanders and has caused the talks on a new fertiliser decree to move up a gear.
I am most grateful to you for that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Hyland">
Mr President, environmental protection is now a priority for most Member States, and European citizens are increasingly aware of its social and economic potential.
Farmers who are, in the main, the custodians and managers of the landscape are responding in a positive manner by conforming with changing environmental guidelines, many of which have a cost factor for which they deserve to be compensated.
<P>
Nowhere is there the same positive commitment to environmental management as in my own country.
Ireland as an agricultural country has a greater dependence than any other EU Member State on agricultural exports.
Our quality food products are closely linked to our grass-based natural environment.
Our tourism, and in particular our agri-tourism, are closely linked to the countryside.
Employment in both the food and tourism sector is dependent on our quality image.
<P>
It is wrong and harmful to suggest that the government and farmers are indifferent to environmental protection.
The government has responded positively to Commission comments with regard to nitrates in groundwater and has in fact established that phosphorous represents a greater threat.
In both cases the government, farming organisations and farmers are committed to eliminating any possible threat to the environment and in particular the quality of groundwater.
One only has to look at Ireland's interest in the rural environmental protection scheme and the number of farmers participating in that scheme to see how positively we in Ireland are committed to a natural environment.
<P>
A final comment: without farmers there would be no environment.
There would be no custodians of the rural environment, and I would caution people to take that particular matter into consideration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, as the rapporteur has said, this is a matter of public health and of systematic non-compliance with Community law.
<P>
It is a matter of public health because, as far back as 1975, directives relating to the quality of water established that the level of nitrates should not exceed 50 milligrams/litre, but some countries such as Belgium and the Netherlands exceeded that by 100 milligrams/litre.
And it is a public health matter, too, because the World Health Organisation and the FAO say that it is necessary to remain below 50 milligrams/litre and that, for the safety of nursing infants, the level should not exceed 10 milligrams/litre.
<P>
And it is a matter of systematic non-compliance with Community law because the directive not only suggests that a selection should be made of vulnerable areas for the application of good agricultural practices, but it also provides for two action plans, the first to end next year and the other in 2003. Despite this, in 1998, only six Member States submitted anything resembling an action plan in this respect.
This is therefore a clear case of non-compliance with Community law.
<P>
I understand the concern of the rapporteur for the Committee on Agriculture, as well as the concern of some members of the Committee on Agriculture who tabled amendments, where they state that there should be more information for farmers, that aid should be forthcoming, and that perhaps the European Commission should take a less authoritarian position.
Nonetheless, we feel that the European Commission has done the right thing in initiating infringement procedures because it is the only way to persuade the governments to take measures relating to the nitrates in drinking water.
It is up to us to defend public health, as the Treaty very rightly states and as we take great pains to emphasise, and compliance with Community law offers a guarantee not only for consumers but also for the future of Europe itself.
Therefore, we consider that infringement proceedings should be initiated and that, in any case, farmers and Member States should be helped to implement this and other directives with a bearing on public health.
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<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Lagendijk">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it will be clear that for a variety of reasons, no one in the Netherlands is happy with the conclusions which Mrs McKenna has very clearly and properly outlined: the environmentalists are not happy, the farmers are not happy and the government is not happy.
If nothing is done, if drastic action is not taken, the Netherlands will not even come close to meeting the requirements set out in the nitrates directive by the year 2002.
The Dutch Government has said as much itself.
Rarely has a report delivered so clear a message.
So we say to the Dutch Government, to Minister Pronk, do something!
If you do not, the Netherlands is heading for disaster. Nitrate levels in the environment are far too high, and it will take tens of millions of guilders to clean up our drinking water.
More certain still is that by the year 2002 the Netherlands may face a fine of 500 000 guilders a day.
This summer, the Dutch Government took refuge in the fact that it was a caretaker government.
This allowed it to escape being hauled before the courts by the European Commission.
That will probably happen now at the end of the year.
<P>
A failure on the part of the Netherlands, how else can one put it?
It is scant comfort to know that the polluter will pay in the end.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, I come from a region, Flanders, where there is not a single well yielding water that you can drink.
To paraphrase what our previous speaker said here about agriculture, I put it to you that without clean drinking water you cannot have a stock breeding industry, nor can you have public health.
So I welcome Mrs McKenna's report, and I hope that Flanders will cease to be one of Europe's slowest pupils as regards learning to combat the pollution of our drinking water by nitrates.
At present, the nitrate levels in our drinking water are four times the levels permitted or envisaged.
To save time, Mr President, I refer the House to what Mrs Kestelijn said on the subject.
But even though the Commission has twice, in 1995 and 1997, found Flanders to be in breach of the rules, things have still not improved.
When I compare Flanders with Denmark, where things were bad to start with too, I feel ashamed, although I have to say it is not my fault.
It is not the majority of the population that wants this - the majority currently in power in Flanders has given in to the farm lobby, which has secured a fertiliser action plan for 1995 that in no way meets the targets set in the directive, neither as regards standards nor as regards a code of good farm practice.
No vulnerable zones are named, but I can understand that, Mr President, because the whole of Flanders is a vulnerable zone, one big vulnerable zone.
So the action programme is nowhere near adequate.
<P>
I would like to ask the Commission how things stand as regards following up these letters and these infringements?
Are we really going to rely on the goodwill of the sector, because I no longer have much faith in that goodwill.
I see that the sector is in crisis and that we have nevertheless failed to take obvious steps such as cutting pig production, for example.
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Mr President, cuts will not be enough and I am convinced that less intensive and more environmentally and animal-friendly farming is ultimately the best thing for human beings.
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<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, first may I compliment Mrs Maes most warmly on her maiden speech.
I heartily agree with what she says.
<P>
The point of adding fertiliser is to make the soil more fruitful; implicit in this is that one must not add more fertiliser than the crops can absorb.
So it is most important to stop nitrate from leaching into groundwater and surface water.
The implementation of Directive 91/676/EEC is very relevant here, but the picture as regards its implementation is a sorry one.
Years ago, all the Member States agreed on a standard of 50 mg of nitrate per litre of groundwater, but most Member States have not got anywhere near that.
Some Member States have not even made plans, so that the European Court was forced to intervene.
It is now time for all the Member States to be serious about implementing the directive - including the Netherlands, which is not in this instance the good little boy it so often claims to be.
<P>
However, responsibility for the current problem rests not only with the farmers, but also with consumers, who eat a great deal of meat relatively cheaply.
In the past, that was often encouraged by government.
These intensive farming methods naturally create a number of problems.
Indeed, even if we were to stop using fertiliser now, nitrate would still be leaching into the groundwater 20 years from now.
In short, real solutions require a long-term view, and it is this which we must now work hard for.
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<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pinel">
Mr President, the issue of nitrates in water does indeed pose a problem, but it is one which forms part of a wider and more global problem that I shall endeavour to outline here.
<P>
For fifty years, our countryside and natural resources have been systematically destroyed by intensive and polluting agricultural practices.
It has taken five thousand years to shape our countryside and only fifty years to spoil its greatest gifts.
For fifty years we have emptied the land of its farmers, torn out hedges, filled in ponds and poisoned our soils.
We have squeezed the earth, prevented it from breathing and have even prevented rainwater from reaching groundwater supplies; instead of penetrating the earth, the water flows along the surface and carries the humus to the closest river.
In some areas of Normandy, where I live, soil erosion sweeps away up to twenty tonnes of humus per hectare per year.
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Such irresponsible practices have a great many consequences, but some are more serious than others.
Intensive methods of production have caused a large number of farmers to leave the land, which has contributed greatly to overcrowding in urban areas.
This therefore creates a genuine problem in terms of land-use planning.
Pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and other chemicals also act as spermicides.
In fact, since their widespread use, these poisons have halved the level of human fertility in western countries.
There is now a medically proven cause-effect relationship between the two, so this constitutes a major public health problem.
Whether or not it rains, groundwater supplies have difficulty maintaining their levels and replenishing supplies.
Due to these low levels, pollutants such as nitrates tend to become concentrated.
The reduction in water resources and the reduced level of potability gives particular cause for concern, especially as we are all well aware that this water will become one of the major strategic issues of the next century.
It is therefore also a considerable geopolitical problem.
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Ladies and gentlemen, we are no longer living in the world of fifty years ago, at the end of a war, at a time when the many shortages justified the need to produce large quantities.
This is no longer the case today.
We should have redirected our efforts a long time ago and focused not on quantity but on quality.
Since the 1950s, however, we have been caught in an unstoppable spiral, fed by agro-chemical multinationals and banks.
No, the farmers are not to blame for this situation, though many have been the first victims of it, strangled simultaneously by the problem of debt and the race for subsidies.
Those who have struggled hardest to respect the environment have been wiped out, both literally and figuratively speaking; here one has only to look at the suicide rates among agricultural populations.
We must recognise that the European Union is jointly responsible for this situation.
In fact, it is not in the best position to give lessons on the environment to Member States since, for a long time, it has systematically favoured intensive farming practices by means of subsidies.
<P>

To conclude, anything aimed at raising awareness should always be welcomed and Ms McKenna's work is indeed praiseworthy, but I am convinced that the solution to all of these problems lies essentially in the banking and industrial sectors which, ladies and gentlemen, are unfortunately far more influential than we are.
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<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Mr President, it has been a real problem for the EU that implementation procedures for directives on the environment have gone so slowly, and, as we have heard repeated here so often, this Nitrate Directive has been especially slow to be implemented.
Current farming practice, as has also been stated here, has been responsible for most of the effluent in our waterways and the reason for their eutrophication.
Eutrophication and other problems really get noticed when they show up in the places where we swim locally, and the places where we moor our boats.
That is what has happened in the Baltic Sea, for example.
Now people are demanding that the pollution and eutrophication of the Baltic should be kept in check.
We cannot put the blame for the eutrophication of the Baltic solely on the Baltic States and Poland, as we normally do, since statistics show that it is Member States of the EU that are at fault.
That is why this matter requires special attention and action.
<P>
I especially wish to point out that Finland has not put together any kind of plan itself, but, at least, it has promised to lower its nitrate emissions by fifty per cent.
This is very important, because we not only have a coastline but we also have an inland waterway system.
At present I can say I still drink the water from the lake by my summer cottage.
<P>
The agricultural policy which is part of Agenda 2000 is an important instrument for controlling agricultural emissions.
No direct aid will be forthcoming unless we observe the regulations that are in place.
We should allocate special aid for the rural environment to those places where real action is being taken and the state of the environment is being improved.
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<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valverde López">
Mr President, in principle we can fully support the motion for a resolution in Ms McKenna's report.
However, during our considerations, we should perhaps engage in a little self-criticism regarding the manner in which we draw up our reports.
Perhaps we ourselves fail in our reports to respect the greater transparency demanded of the Commission and thus, when we say that a certain number of Member States comply and that others fail to comply, perhaps we should specifically name those Member States that fail to comply and those that comply in certain circumstances.
<P>
Therefore, in the section to which we are referring, I would have thought that the three countries that meet the general requirements for ground water - Sweden, Austria and Finland - should have been named.
And it should also have been emphasised that only four Member States have transposed the directive, namely, Denmark, Spain, France and Luxembourg.
In my view, in these sittings, relating to the monitoring of Member States, we must be specific and proceed in a transparent manner.
<P>
I also feel that we should not personify our resolutions.
We should not talk about a Parliament being shocked; we as individuals might be shocked, but perhaps we should use other types of expressions for institutions.
We should therefore analyse our own resolution, and this is not a specific criticism of a draft, but perhaps rather of the work that we do.
<P>
And this brings us to a point on which I agree fully with all the Members who have taken the floor, that is, the discretion of the Commission in initiating proceedings, since its action in this regard perhaps leaves much to be desired. This House should certainly express its concern that the Commission is not more effective in fulfilling this obligation to ensure that Member States comply with Community legislation.
Its discretion in this matter is excessive.
I think that the cornerstone might be to ensure compliance with codes of good agricultural practice.
<P>
As regards the final paragraph of Ms McKenna's report, which advocates that 'energy production at small-scale... plants should be promoted', it might carry more weight if mention were made of encouraging and offering incentives to achieve such objectives.
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<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Mr President, I entirely agree with Mrs McKenna's conclusions, despite coming from a country whose record on this is very poor.
Her report contains one or two errors concerning the situation in the Netherlands, but that in no way invalidates the truth of the charges she makes against the country.
As a Liberal, I am no great lover of official do's and don'ts, but in the Netherlands we have found that the fertiliser problem cannot be resolved without recourse to instruments of this kind.
The Netherlands has done everything possible to resolve the problem, short of cutting back on livestock production.
Levies on fertiliser surpluses was one method tried, but it did not work to good effect for us.
We are stuck with 14 million kilos of fertiliser which we cannot get rid of.
I should like to think that this will be a lesson to other countries facing the same serious problems.
I appreciate that each country must be free to seek the solutions which suit it best, but there is one thing we have to admit: quite simply, we produce too much in the European Union.
We have far too many animals and so it is vital to restructure the stock breeding industry.
There is no more time to lose.
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<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Rosado Fernandes">
Mr President, it is obvious that Commission directives are often based on studies that do not reflect the agricultural situation as a whole or the environment Europe-wide.
I come from an area in southern Portugal with barely one head of cattle per hectare - if that.
In other areas in Portugal there can be as many as five head per hectare.
In other words, even in a country as small as ours there is a difference between small-scale agriculture in the north, and larger-scale agriculture in the south.
It is obvious that, in a country like mine, with large climatic differences between the dry season, which we are in now, and very wet seasons, i.e. the winter, the only time of year when the weather is settled is, in fact, the summer.
And in order to produce crops in the summer you have to irrigate.
And if you irrigate you must also fertilise because unless you do you will have no harvest.
<P>
However, the problem in Portugal is not the same as that facing Sweden or the Netherlands.
The problem is a completely different one in that, when we spread nitrates on the soil, we do so in the summer when there is a smaller chance of polluting the groundwater.
<P>
Nonetheless, good farming practice is needed.
But how can you find a good farming practice that enables country-dwellers to survive?
Do we want to keep the European farming model or apply with quasi-inquisitorial rigour the notion of pure European breeds?
How can the two be made compatible?
We must find a solution to this problem, through education first of all.
We must educate people visiting the countryside to stop them from polluting it.
Secondly, pollutant industries, including intensive farming or wineries, need to be curbed.
Thirdly, we need to give attention to the issue of biogas, one way of practising and developing agriculture while making use of something that pollutes our countryside.
That is an issue waiting to be tackled.
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<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
Mr President, I am glad that we are getting another opportunity to debate this important subject.
The extent of the nitrate problem is alarming.
Leaching from 22 % of agricultural land in Europe exceeds 50 mg per litre, which is the generally accepted health limit.
The figure should in reality - as the rapporteur also pointed out - be down to 10 mg per litre, as recommended by the WHO, FAO and Greenpeace, since at this concentration drinking water would become safe for children.
We must not forget that the nitrate issue is a serious health problem and, in the light of the very serious environmental and health-related nature of the nitrate problem, the calls made in the report with a view to bringing about a solution are too vague.
The fact that the Member States have not implemented the legislation adopted in the field is clearly irresponsible.
I of course, along with everyone else, wholeheartedly support the call for the Commission to expedite the infringement procedures.
However, that is not enough.
The Commission must also be called on here to bring about a radical change in the EU's agricultural policy, so that it becomes attractive to farmers to minimise water pollution caused by nitrates.
To begin with, this must involve a massive increase in the use of resources under the common agricultural policy for conversion to organic farming, so that it becomes attractive to conventional farmers.
A comprehensive switch to organic farming in the EU in this way would also bring with it innumerable other environmental and health-related gains.
<P>
Moreover, it is important to note that the nitrates directive is not sufficient in itself to ensure clean water in the EU.
I therefore call on the Commission to take the initiative to introduce common nitrogen levies in the EU, with the explicit proviso that the proceeds of such levies be passed back to the Member States.
Such levies may provide a means of furthering the aims of the nitrates directive.
With these comments in mind, I hope that the European Parliament will give its support to the report, since its demands constitute an important step in the right direction.
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<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Trakatellis">
Mr President, there is no doubt that nitrate pollution is mainly caused by the excessive use of fertilisers on crops and by intensive livestock breeding.
And of course, since the amounts of nitrates involved are excessive, the plants cannot use them all, they pass into the soil, pollute groundwaters, and the results are twofold.
On the one hand, eutrophism in rivers, coastal areas and seawater, with all its consequences, and on the other hand a danger to public health through drinking water, because as we all know, nitrates are reduced in our organism to nitrites and nitrites transform haemoglobin to methaemoglobin.
The result is that oxygen is less efficiently transported from the lungs to the tissues, which can be particularly dangerous for infants.
<P>
There is no doubt that the aims of the directive, namely to reduce and prevent nitrate pollution, were correct.
Unfortunately, Member States did not respond as well as they should have, and I particularly regret the fact that my own country too has failed in this respect, because although four vulnerable areas have been identified, no decision has yet been taken on how to protect them, nor have any related action programmes been submitted.
I believe that the European Commission should monitor the implementation of the various directives more decisively, because it is not right that we should enjoy a good standard of living but not care about protecting the environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Novo">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, fighting the pollution of groundwater calls for an integrated strategy to fight the various causes of that pollution, be they agricultural, industrial (of whatever kind) or even domestic.
We welcome the reference in the report to the need to carry out research to compare the importance of the various sources of groundwater pollution.
<P>
As far as the pollution of groundwater by nitrates is concerned, Community legislation must urgently be transposed into national law, which should already have been done.
Nonetheless, the rules should be implemented in each country on a consensus-basis in such a way as to cater for national characteristics and regional differences, as we tried to introduce into the report in our amendments.
<P>
We tried, for example, to insist that special attention be paid to some easily identifiable and well-known agricultural areas of certain countries - some of them have already been referred to - where the situation is serious and levels of pollution already far exceed tolerance thresholds as a result of intensive farming practices which, in the short term at least, make farms more competitive either because productivity is increased or because they more easily attract Community support.
<P>
In some cases, these are particularly vulnerable areas. This is undoubtedly a situation that needs tackling as a priority.
Generally speaking, we think that if we are to deal with widely different situations, we need comprehensive knowledge both of the different crops and production systems and the practical situations in the different Member States and their regions, if we are to prevent artificial discrepancies, by-the-back-door privileges or greater injustices.
<P>
Special attention must also be paid to the number of head of cattle per hectare. All decisions must bear in mind both absolute and relative figures together with regional differences in farming structures.
<P>
However, on the same subject - leaving aside the proposal to create biogas production plants, which we agree with - we feel that appropriate aids and incentives are needed so that properly supervised manure collection and processing plants can be set up on all cattle farms. This idea is not explicitly tackled in the report but is one that, we hope, will be introduced through an amendment that we have tabled.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
Mr President, I wish to begin by referring very briefly to two women.
Firstly, my colleague Ritt Bjerregaard who, unfortunately, suffered a rather nasty accident at her home a couple of weeks ago and is quite seriously injured.
The good news is that she is making an excellent recovery and should be back with us very shortly.
The difficulty she is experiencing in part accounts for my presence here tonight at this fascinating debate.
Secondly, I wish to congratulate Mrs Maes on her maiden speech.
This is her first day in this Parliament.
She managed to speak within about two hours of becoming a Member.
She managed to speak for three minutes when she was down for two minutes, so her constituents can be very satisfied at the fact that instead of one Member they have got one and half Members and that, I am sure, bodes well for the future.
I wish her well in her career in this Parliament.
<P>
I thank the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and, in particular, the rapporteur, Ms McKenna, for this very welcome own-initiative report that focuses attention on the critical need to ensure implementation of the 1991 nitrates directive.
They say that the wheels of God grind exceeding slow. The transposition and implementation procedures of Member States make the wheels of God look positively rocket-propelled by comparison.
<P>
The report rightly highlights the slow pace of implementation of this directive.
As Ritt Bjerregaard made clear before, the present situation is indefensible and completely unacceptable to the Commission.
The resolution before the House calls on us to speed up our infringement proceedings, and what I will try to do this evening is to explain in some detail exactly what progress has been made since the implementation report.
<P>
It appears that Member States are beginning to take their obligations seriously but it is still a case of too little too late.
Three out of the five non-transpositions have been rectified; two out of three missing codes of good agricultural practice are now in place; and all three of the missing reports have been produced.
But only two out of seven Member States with no vulnerable zones have now made their designations and only two out of ten in breach of the action programmes - the critical application - have established them.
<P>
It is clear that the progress that has been made is solely the result of stringent enforcement and it is also clear that the present situation is grossly inadequate.
The Commission will therefore intensify pressure.
Thirty-two cases have been opened against 13 Member States - all except Finland and Sweden - of which 9 have been closed because of the progress that has been made.
In the case of the action programmes, the reasoned opinion issued at the time of the implementation report has now gone to the Court.
In addition, seven more reasoned opinions and three letters of formal notice have been issued and many of those will end up going to court this year if no effective action is taken.
The Commission will also follow rapidly with proposals for penalty payments.
I realise that even these efforts, strenuous though they are, will not produce total satisfaction amongst some honourable Members.
Indeed, the Commissioner herself is not totally satisfied with it, as Members of the House who know her can well imagine.
<P>
But we have to strive to secure implementation of a Council directive by the Member States which actually voted to make the directive law.
If they are slow or reluctant, then all we can do is undertake our best efforts, as everyone in this House, will know.
Some commentators have said that to get proper implementation we need, as a Community, to support farmers with additional funding.
Frankly, the Commission is not convinced by that argument: it runs completely counter to the polluter-pays principle.
While we provide funding for pilot projects for reducing nitrate pollution, we do not provide any funding for compliance with mandatory requirements.
The agri-environment measures, for instance, support a number of nitrate schemes, but only where they produce an environmental benefit over and above the requirements of the directive.
<P>
Meanwhile, the request in Ms McKenna's report for the Commission to produce an annual report is supported.
That is essential in order to publicly identify those Member States that fail to make progress.
It will also enable this Parliament to follow developments in infringement proceedings.
However, we believe that a communication on promising an effective solution - it could have a happier title - to the nitrates problem suggested by the report might provide a further excuse for delay in implementation.
Since we consider that all attention should be squarely focused on ensuring that the directive itself is properly implemented, we would be reluctant to provide that facility for what could be another excuse for delay.
I hope that the honourable Member understands our motivation in that.
<P>
Integration is another basic concern, and reference to it is timely in view of the recent commitment to integration made by the Heads of Government at the Cardiff Council.
Considerable progress has been made on environmental integration into the structural funds where Commissioner Wulf-Mathies has collaborated closely, as the proposal for increasing the environment share of the European Regional Development Fund already shows.
<P>
On the common agricultural policy, the agri-environment measures are obviously evidence of progress.
Since the present Commission came into office, intense efforts have been made to develop and establish these measures which include support for organic farming.
They are testimony to Ritt Bjerregaard's work and they will be further reinforced in Agenda 2000, which also continues the decoupling of aid from production and proposes new instruments of potential environmental interest.
<P>
The integration strategy, obviously, also involves Member States and this Parliament, as well as the Commission.
I welcome the report as further evidence of Parliament's close interest in a policy to secure healthy and potable water.
One of Commissioner Bjerregaard's main priorities is clearly to make sure that existing legislation, and the new water policy which follows it, are properly implemented.
The strong position that Parliament has taken and continues to take on this issue, as is evidenced by this report again, will greatly assist that effort by the Commission, and both my colleagues and I express our gratitude for this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Endocrine-disrupting chemicals
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0281/98) by Mrs Kirsten Jensen, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on endocrine-disrupting chemicals.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Jensen, Kirsten">
Mr President, we all recognise that chemicals can cause acute poisoning, and they can cause allergies, cancer and brain damage.
But in recent years it has emerged that chemicals can affect our health and our reproductive ability in an insidious manner, which is why we must question both the maximum values and the sectoral approach by which we have regulated chemicals in the EU.
Some may have thought that, with the biocides directive, the EU had finished regulating chemicals, but that is by no means the case!
Hence this own-initiative report from the Environment Committee.
We have rules for chemicals in agriculture and for chemicals in the workplace.
But there is no sense in regulating these areas - which are relatively easy to police - in isolation, when chemicals also produce their effects in leisure activities, in kindergartens and in other situations which are not covered by any rules.
<P>
The widespread use of synthetic chemicals is a post-war phenomenon.
I cannot forget how, in the mid-1970s, the first pale green blouse mass-produced from man-made fibres was celebrated at an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary History in East Berlin.
During the years I have worked on European chemicals legislation, I have tried to get male decision-makers to listen, asking them whether they knew that there was something here that could affect their ability to reproduce.
It proved to be an argument that opened their eyes.
In my report, I first list the possible effects on men and then move on to women and children.
Ability to reproduce is not the only thing that is threatened.
Scientists talk of weakened immune systems.
Sperm counts are falling, while rates of testicular cancer and breast cancer are rising.
People are getting totally incapacitating forms of allergy, and children are developing behavioural problems which may be attributable to man-made chemicals in the environment.
We know from serious cases of medication wrongly prescribed by doctors that foetuses have been damaged in the mother's womb, in some cases involving damage that only manifested itself when the young person reached the age of reproduction.
Other instances of morbidity are occurring; cases of feminisation have been observed in the animal world, for example both individuals in a pair of gulls around a nest full of sterile eggs being hens; and animal experiments show that quite small doses at a precise point during pregnancy can be fatal, which raises the question of whether it is the dose or the point in time that is dangerous.
<P>
Recently the Commission came out with some vague pronouncements on the subject of phthalates in babies' teething rings.
Here the precautionary principle gave rise to national bans, but there was no EU regulation.
The maximum limits are fully utilised, even though so much controversy surrounds them in these cases, and there are precious few instances of the Commission adhering to the precautionary principle, as required by the Treaty.
<P>
In the past month, the Commission has admitted that the risk assessment process is not working, and one has to agree with that when only a tiny fraction of the 100 000 chemicals already on the market have been subjected to a health or environmental assessment.
The system is not working, and that is why the report from the Environment Committee draws attention to group classification.
Moreover, we ask whether it would not be appropriate to reverse the burden of proof, so that anyone who wants to market a substance must show that it is harmless.
This would give industry a much more powerful incentive to provide information on and to investigate its own products.
<P>
The provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty on sustainability and its emphasis on the precautionary principle make it possible to intervene in the interests of health and the environment, so that these principles take precedence in the approval of individual chemicals or product types.
We therefore propose that the Commission should put forward a list of substances which can have an endocrine-disrupting effect.
The Commission must screen all EU legislation to see whether we have sufficient resources to intervene on endocrine-disrupting substances.
It must also get a serious grip on its system of risk assessment and systematically apply group classification.
The Commission must present proposals to reverse the burden of proof.
It must also support research in priority areas, such as long-range studies of sperm quality, and must support research on the causes of the increase in rates of breast cancer and testicular cancer.
The EU must apply the precautionary principle in concrete instances and hence consider phasing out substances which are simultaneously carcinogenic, allergenic and bronchially irritant.
When this report was being discussed in the Environment Committee, we were given some very unsatisfactory answers by the Commission's officials, so I hope that the answers we receive this evening will be clearer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Pompidou">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, endocrine disruptors are substances that act chiefly by mimicking the action of natural hormones or by interfering with their metabolism.
This is particularly the case for pesticides and certain medicines.
<P>
For my part, I am reluctant to give my full support to the rapporteur, even though his dossier is a particularly difficult one.
Why?
Because the scientific data available to date is full of contradictions and requires an in-depth analysis and an experimental approach that is both rigorous and independent.
<P>
As draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, I would like to draw your attention to the absence of a scientifically-proven direct relationship between exposure to endocrine disruptors and effects on health.
Hence the need for in-depth epidemiological studies on exposed populations in order to ascertain the possible risk of cancer, endocrine disruptions in women, the influence on fertility levels among men, which are measured not on the basis of sperm counts as all current studies are - these being subject to individual or seasonal variations - but rather on the quality of the sperm.
This is why experimental studies carried out under laboratory conditions are needed to examine the synergistic effects of several substances, with a view to ascertaining a dose/effect relationship, which is the only way to demonstrate whether there actually is a direct relationship between endocrine disruptors and their effects on health.
<P>
In this instance, recourse to the precautionary principle should be linked to empirical data and should lead to the implementation of a monitoring system.
It is with this in mind that I have tabled several amendments aimed at guaranteeing better coordination of national initiatives in the area of research, implementing a research network in conjunction with the JRC, and improving the compatibility of research findings thanks to a classification system that will afford the necessary prevention for the various classes of exposure.
<P>

Aside from the linguistic amendments to Recommendations Nos 7, 29 and 31 by the rapporteur, I am tabling an oral amendment to Recommendation No 28 by the rapporteur, which is aimed at establishing the existence of a dose/effect relationship. This is essential to guard against making simple assumptions and also to take the necessary measures based on objective, independent and experimental arguments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Mr President, in its opinion on this highly sensitive issue, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has intentionally dealt only with pollutants of agricultural origin, namely pesticides, which have often created a stir because of other harmful effects on human health and the environment.
In its report, the Committee lists 25 pesticides which are permitted in the Union but are suspected of having a harmful effect on human and animal hormone systems.
Four further substances, including Atrazine and Diuron, have already been clearly proved to have an effect on hormones.
Such substances must be taken off the market immediately.
We must rapidly update the authorisation procedures for pesticides and require environmental impact assessments to be made of their hormonal effects.
Our committee has requested that the authorisation procedures test the hormonal effects not only of the pesticides themselves but also of their waste products and additives, as it is precisely additives such as softeners and emulsifiers which are known in other areas of the chemical industry for their harmful effects on hormone systems.
<P>
It is astonishing that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development should make stricter demands in the area of pesticides than the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
I hope that the House will approve the amendments we have retabled so that the wide availability of hormone-mimicking pollutants can be limited following the much-needed tightening of the authorisation procedures.
I would urge the Commission and the Member States to follow the 'better safe than sorry' principle, if in doubt, and take hormone-mimicking pesticides off the market.
<P>
I should also like to raise a point with Mr Pompidou.
Sometimes I get the impression that we have to bury ourselves in research before we can take action.
Yet it is incomprehensible that we react only when the damage has been done.
This is why we propose that research should be a means to achieve approval more quickly.
It is only under these circumstances that I can approve Mrs Jensen's report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Bowe">
Mr President, on behalf of the Socialist Group I want first of all to endorse the remarks made by the rapporteur.
She has given a very clear assessment of the dangers posed by this new chemical threat.
Again, on behalf of the Socialists, I want to say that we will be voting for this report tomorrow and looking for European Union action on chemicals which mimic hormones and which have been shown to cause all sorts of strange health and reproductive difficulties in fish, birds and other wildlife.
<P>
Those chemicals called endocrine disrupters - not endocrine modulators, as some would have them known - are present in many different plastics and many other products including food wrappers, paints and pesticides.
It is certainly feared - and there is sound scientific research to show it - that these chemicals are responsible for the apparent drop in sperm counts amongst men in many Western countries.
Their long-term effects could be even more serious, including hypospadias, undescended testes and a range of reproductive difficulties in both males and females, which we really must take action about now.
<P>
Many of the chemicals which may be the source of this problem have quite frankly not been properly tested.
We are uncertain as to their real power or impact.
The prime effects so far appear to be during the period of foetal development, rather than in adults.
The effects we have seen in the natural environment have tended to be water-borne and to affect fish, shellfish, some birds and other animals which feed on marine life.
But that is no excuse for not adopting the precautionary principle and taking action to protect human life now.
<P>
For that reason, on behalf of the Socialist Group, I hope the European Commission will pick up the demands in this report, draw up a list of substances which are known to be hormone- mimicking, take action to start to phase out those substances or minimise their use, start to look at legislation on pollution control and water quality legislation to ensure these substances are reduced to a minimum or completely eradicated in the environment, and really put some effort into a research programme which will look into the real mechanisms of endocrine disruption.
<P>
Finally, we have to recognise that we are limited and do not have an acceptable internationally-recognised test to identify hormone-mimicking activity by chemicals.
That has to be a key issue for the Commission to work on and bring forward as quickly as possible, along with American and Japanese researchers.
<P>
The long-term effects of these chemicals are certainly very serious on the basis of the evidence we have seen.
They are hard to predict, but on the basis of the effects they have on creatures with much shorter life cycles than human beings, it is quite clear we should be seriously disturbed and prepared to take action.
Parliament will continue to demand of the other European institutions that action is taken, that an international effort is made to tackle what is clearly a global problem.
The European Union is in an ideal position to take that action.
We call upon the Commission to act.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valverde López">
Mr President, I think that it is important to reiterate, for the benefit of public opinion, that this report was drawn up on the initiative of Parliament, that this Parliament is a political and not a scientific body, and that what we do is to forward our concern to the European Commission so that it may determine whether this concern of ours is founded or not.
That is the first point that should be clarified.
<P>
Second, I agree with the clarifications and remarks by Mr Pompidou to the effect that we cannot inform the general public of our concerns unless there are sufficient scientific grounds.
Nor can we suggest through our debate that all or most of the blame should lie with pesticides, simply because these are topics that are dear to us and that we have discussed on earlier occasions.
However, it is important that we encourage the Commission, and we should do so with some urgency, to put all its mechanisms into operation.
The fifth framework programme should of course include some action in this respect.
<P>
I believe that we cannot fail to mention, too, that there are independent research teams in the European Union that have been working on these topics for some years.
I am a lecturer at Granada University and I know that for more than ten years the Granada Faculty of Medicine has had an excellent research team working on these topics and on certain products that are not mentioned in the resolution, products that are to be used in orthodontic treatments.
<P>
I do not believe, however, that in a resolution we can make statements of a general nature regarding the negative effects of chemical substances, because all that remains at the end of the day are these general allegations.
We must remember that there are also many chemical substances that are very beneficial.
Nowadays, we need look no further than the Nobel Prizes for Medicine that have been awarded for the discovery of the mechanisms of such a traditional product as nitroglycerine, which had already been in use for a good many years, and which is something you, Mr President, know a great deal about. The discovery of the mechanisms allowing these products to act in the walls of blood vessels represents one of the major discoveries of recent decades.
Therefore, we must not go too far as regards chemical products in general.
<P>
Paragraph 35 of our rapporteur's resolution is particularly important, where she calls on the European Commission to review the procedures relating to the marketing of chemical products for this purpose.
I believe this to be a very important conclusion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pompidou">
Mr President, I would like to intervene on a point of order to ensure that the interpretation given is not used by anyone else.
My colleague Mr Valverde López referred to NO, which is in fact nitric oxide.
This was translated by the interpreters - and this was not their fault - as nitroglycerine, which is a dangerous explosive.
So it must be stated clearly that the Nobel Prize was awarded for nitric oxide, and not for nitroglycerine.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="President">
Mr Pompidou, Parliament is not a scientific centre, it is a political body.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Watson">
Mr President, there are more than 100 000 synthetic chemicals in use and only a fraction of these have been tested for endocrine-disrupting affects.
Some which have been tested have been banned in the West but are still in use in developing countries.
<P>
Why are they a cause for concern?
They destroy cells which form natural hormones.
They impair reproductive functions.
They affect body weight and temperature.
Most importantly, we know that they have a trans-generational affect passed from the mother to the offspring.
<P>
We find them in industrial discharges, in pesticides, in detergents, in plastics, in canned goods and in personal care products.
We know of their effects on animals.
In the Great Lakes some 16 species have been affected.
In the UK, as Mr Bowe has pointed out fish and snails have been affected.
In the United States alligators have been affected.
There are routes of human exposure to these chemicals.
Through the womb, via breastmilk, drinking contaminated water, absorption via skin from shampoos and so on, and inhalation and ingestion from pesticide sprays.
We have no solid proof that they are yet affecting humans but there are many indicators such as the decline in sperm counts, and the rise in testicular and breast cancer.
<P>
In December 1996 the Commission said there was no cause for alarm.
I would question that.
Liberal Democrats in this House are supporting this report and in particular the call for a cautionary approach, the call for more research and its implications for the budget for the Fifth Framework and the need for international cooperation.
We congratulate Mrs Jensen on this initiative.
We believe we have a duty to future generations to act now to make sure these chemicals do not become more widespread.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we also congratulate Mrs Jensen on her report.
It was important for the European Parliament finally to take an initiative, as it seems to me that the Commission buries its head in the sand and merely observes the problems.
What we need is action at European level, particularly as the data are more than alarming.
We constantly hear shocking information, such as that softeners can also find their way into the food chain, as they can be absorbed in fatty foods.
We have heard the alarming news that these endocrine substances are carcinogenic, and we now know that we must finally have a European ban on PVC.
<P>
I also think the way in which the Commission is dealing with the data on phthalates in children's toys is scandalous.
Although it has been known since February that there are at least three highly toxic substances, the Commission has failed to take any steps.
Instead, research results have been manipulated or, more precisely, research methods altered so that the Commission does not need to take action.
This is particularly bad because it is an out-and-out violation of the precautionary principle and because, due to neglect, the health of children is being put at risk.
This is why we have gone further than Mrs Jensen's report and requested that these highly toxic phthalates be taken off the market immediately.
There are alternatives to them, so we do not need them at all.
I should like to point out to the House at this point that we will ask for a roll-call vote as it is very important that we now increase pressure on the Commission on this issue.
Furthermore, until we have managed to ban PVC - and for us this is crucial - we call for these substances to have to be labelled, so that the consumer can at least be aware of the dangers and so that we can increase pressure on the industry to begin a genuine search for alternatives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graenitz">
Mr President, during my childhood in Austria under the occupation of the Four Powers, when we had to travel from one sector to another we not only showed ID, but also those of us who lived in the American sector were always dusted with DDT on the way back, and this happened to many people several times a day.
At that time we saw only the short-term effect, which was that DDT killed the fleas, lice and other insects that we had in Europe after the war.
What we did not consider, and what we still do not always consider sufficiently today, is that chemicals have not only short-term effects but also long-term consequences.
For this reason I would like to thank Mrs Jensen very warmly for her report because she has drawn the attention of Parliament, the attention of the public and, I hope, Commissioner, the attention of the Commission to the fact that short-term thinking is a mistake where the authorisation of chemicals is concerned, and that it is often only after several years, perhaps even after decades, that we see the changes which are brought about in the environment, in animals and finally also in humans as a result of the use of chemicals.
<P>
Some of the chemicals from thirty or forty years ago are now banned, but many others are still around today, and we have neither adequate methods for testing them nor appropriate labelling for many of them, nor - and this is much more important, as many problems are transferred by air or water - the international agreements necessary to ban these chemicals.
Negotiations are currently taking place at international level to draw up a list of chemicals that are particularly hard to break down, and which we must undertake to ban rapidly.
I would ask the Commission to allow this list to remain provisionally open so that substances which we are still testing, and which may be proved to have harmful effects on the endocrine systems of animals and probably of humans, can be added to it.
<P>
We have the precautionary principle in the Union, which people often talk about and pay lip-service to.
We must now actually implement this precautionary principle in legislation on safety in the workplace, consumer safety and environmental safety, and above all we must increase the amount of research carried out, as further research will certainly reduce the health effects already visible today to levels compatible with the precautionary principle.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Poggiolini">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, various studies have revealed that the introduction into the environment of certain chemical substances, among the hundreds of thousands known to us, can have extremely disturbing effects on both animals and human beings, in that they interfere with the functioning of the endocrine system.
These substances, such as pesticides, DDT and their derivatives - industrial products and medicines - and pollutants in general, deemed harmful or suspect under the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North East Atlantic - the OSPAR Convention - or by the OECD working group, mimic the effect of natural hormones and thus disrupt the natural balance of organisms.
Worrying phenomena have already come to light: fish which change sex during their lifetimes, a steady rise in human male sterility, due to a sharp decline in both the number and the quality of sperm, an unprecedented upsurge in dysfunctions of the thyroid and other glands in large population groups, as well as carcinogenic effects in man: there has been an otherwise inexplicable increase in cancer of the testicles and prostate.
However, experts are not yet in unanimous agreement as to a direct link between exposure to such substances and these phenomena.
It is therefore necessary, taking due account of the international studies already carried out on this topic, to develop a research strategy at European level, geared to a deeper understanding not only of sperm quality but also of the nervous system, the varying effects of these substances on the internal glandular system in man, and the resulting disruptions to the quality and quantity of the hormones produced.
<P>
The Commission must therefore ensure that each chemical product is labelled in an easily understandable way to show what level of substances not occurring in the natural environment it contains, making sure that the category of risk is shown.
<P>
I would conclude by complimenting the rapporteur, Mrs Jensen, on her excellent work.
I hope that the resolution will receive broad-based support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Tannert">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is no doubt that Mrs Jensen deserves credit for tackling an important issue and making good proposals to take it forward.
However, dealing with this issue is difficult in that the empirical basis, that is the data, is not just shocking, as Mrs Breyer said, but downright inconsistent and poor.
That is the problem, and it is why research and coordination of research are priority tasks here.
What is most important for the European Union, as Mr Valverde López said, seems to me to be the establishment of appropriate research priorities in the fifth framework programme of research.
As rapporteur for this individual programme I will do my best to promote this, and I hope that the reports we have heard are not correct that the Council has already decided on the individual programmes, even though the framework programme has not yet entered into force.
<P>
The Community's Joint Research Centre could serve as a coordination and control centre for this research and could be responsible for creating a European research network.
Moreover, the Commission, if possible in agreement with the OECD, must urgently provide a provisional definition of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in order to make empirical data substantially more comparable.
The Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy has therefore taken great care in drafting its opinion, and I regret that it was adopted only hesitantly by the committee responsible.
I should like to thank Mr Pompidou in particular for reintroducing a number of what I consider to be very good proposals that we had made.
<P>
In our opinion it is high time that we coordinated our research efforts.
In this area, actionism is both economically and environmentally counter-productive, so we should take care not to become actionist, but we should at the same time take action.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Heinisch">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, chemical substances which make their way into the environment could be a possible cause of endocrine disruptions.
For this reason it is absolutely essential that we test chemicals for their effects on the endocrine system.
Should they prove to be dangerous, it is imperative that they are banned or substituted.
However, it is important that such precautions or countermeasures are based on a scientific risk assessment, yet there is currently no question of having sure scientific proof of damage to endocrine systems by chemicals.
In the amendments which I tabled in the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy and also in the Committee on Women's Rights, I have tried to draw attention to this.
In my opinion, the Commission should develop a research strategy which helps to clear up uncertainties in the area of endocrine disruption.
<P>
Measures based solely on suspected causal connections are, of necessity, of dubious effectiveness.
I would ask, therefore, that we keep a cool head despite our concern.
Our motto should be not to resort to actionism but instead to invest our energies in increasing our knowledge.
We can then use this as a basis for specific health protection measures.
We owe it to the responsible citizens of the European Union to proceed in this manner, as we do not want to frighten them but to inform them, and their health protection must be our main priority.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
Mr President, I wish to begin by expressing the Commission's appreciation for Parliament's initiative in addressing the topic of endocrine disruption and for the work of the rapporteur, Mrs Jensen.
I would also assure the House that the concerns voiced here throughout the debate and, indeed, in Mrs Jensen's report, are shared by the Commission.
<P>
The suspicions relating to adverse health effects on humans and other creatures arising from exposure to specific chemicals clearly need to be investigated by research scientists to gain additional essential information.
They also need to be assessed by public policy-makers who are committed to the precautionary principle.
The Commission will, therefore, propose a strategy on endocrine disrupters and it can at this stage accept the general lines of this draft resolution which calls for the reinforcement of the research strategy to improve the legislative framework, to provide information to the public and for participation in international efforts to address the problem.
<P>
As Mrs Jensen's report makes clear, it is obvious that research is vital if we are to gain greater insight into the phenomenon of endocrine disruption.
The Commission is already working closely with Member States and the OECD to help to develop a harmonised approach to the screening and testing of endocrine-disrupting chemicals.
<P>
In addition, projects are already being funded under the fourth framework programme on R&D, as has already been pointed out in the debate, and the topic will be reflected in the priorities under the forthcoming fifth framework programme.
The Commission also plays a key role in bringing together researchers from different projects to exchange information and to coordinate activities.
<P>
From a regulatory standpoint, it will naturally be necessary to consider basing policy on proper scientific advice and to provide a means of responding quickly and effectively to specific concerns when evidence comes to light at short notice.
The Commission can, therefore, support the calls in the draft resolution to examine the adequacy of existing legislation and, if necessary, to consider adapting it appropriately in order to address endocrine disruption.
Similarly, on the basis of the precautionary principle, we foresee the need to consult the scientific committees of the Commission for independent scientific advice in cases of direct or indirect consumer exposure to potential endocrine-disrupting chemicals.
The role of the scientific committees is, of course, to provide independent scientific advice and not to coordinate regulatory activities in Member States.
<P>
Continuing on the theme of improvement of the legislative framework, there are a number of concepts such as those proposed for labelling requirements and for risk assessment which are being actively considered within the overall chemicals policy.
It must also be remembered that agreed test methods are a prerequisite for legislative action, like the proposed amendment to Directive 91/414 on plant protection products, and the establishment of a definitive list of endocrine-disrupting substances.
<P>
In the international context, there is a clear need for coordination in order to pool resources, to avoid duplication of work and to facilitate harmonisation of any regulatory actions, taking due account of international trade factors.
To this end, in June this year the European Community signed a protocol on persistent organ polluters under the 1979 ECE Convention for long-range transboundary air pollution.
The Community is currently participating in international negotiations for a global instrument on POPs.
<P>
The Commission is also playing an active part in several research-related international initiatives, together with organisations, such as the World Health Organisation, UNEP, OECD and with representatives from the United States of America and Japan under the auspices of the intergovernmental forum on chemical safety.
<P>
In addition, under the recently signed European Union/United States Science and Technology Coordination Agreement, endocrine disruption has been identified as one of the four priority projects.
<P>
As the House would expect, the Commission supports the call made in Mrs Jensen's report for effective communication to the public.
Not unnaturally, the perception of risks by the public sometimes differs from that of the scientific community and, in the case of endocrine-disrupters, public concern may, to some extent, be due to a lack of clear and comprehensible information about the phenomenon and also about the actions being undertaken in order to address it.
It will, therefore, be necessary to make dependable public information available through appropriate channels in a more efficient and effective form, as indeed the report recommends.
<P>
Finally, I wish to assure Parliament that the Commission will be looking at recommendations for short-, medium- and long-term actions which will address the central points raised in the draft resolution.
I repeat my thanks to the House and to Mrs Jensen for providing a good quality report and an opportunity for consideration of an increasingly important issue, not only in this House but, I hope, among the wider general public who are very interested, for obvious reasons, in this theme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Biodiversity
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0347/98) by Mr Sjöstedt, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on a European Community biodiversity strategy (COM(98)0042 - C4-0140/98 and SEC(98)0348 - C4-0155/98).
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<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Sjöstedt">
Mr President, the fact that biodiversity is being impoverished is one of our biggest environmental problems.
This is an issue that has to be addressed. There are sadly no indications to date that the threat to plant and animal species is lessening.
Extinction is a real possibility in some cases.
Today we face an extremely serious situation. The UN's Convention on Biological Diversity has been signed both by the EU and the 15 Member States individually.
All the EU countries are now working on special - albeit different - programmes to enable them to comply with the wide-ranging provisions of the Convention.
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We now have before us a proposal from the Commission for a European Community biodiversity strategy capable of bringing us into line with the requirements of the UN Convention.
My report is a response to the Commission communication, which quite rightly concentrates on what the EU as such can do.
Competence in this field is shared between the Member States and the Union.
The key idea running through this whole communication is that a concern for biodiversity must be extended into other policy areas. I wish to stress this point.
Whilst it is important to fulfil the requirements of the habitats directive and so on, we shall not be doing justice to the UN Convention unless we take an all-embracing approach to conservation. Protecting special areas is not enough.
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The communication lists five headings under which specific measures should be taken: natural resources, including areas covered by the habitats and birds directives; agriculture; fisheries; regional policy, together with town and country planning; and development cooperation.
Generally speaking, I am happy with the Commission's communication.
It is a high-quality document, containing good suggestions as to the policies we should implement.
The overall thrust is right, but there is a tendency to remain at the level of generalities.
It is hard to imagine what will happen in real terms.
In politics, there are two ways of not getting things done.
One can decide to take no action; or one can agree to a project in theory, but never implement it in practice.
There are some areas of Commission activity where it will not be easy to draw practical consequences from the communication and move from words to deeds.
We really do need to know from the start how issues are to be tackled - and proper provision must be made for follow-up. Realistic planning and a fixed time-frame are of the essence.
Work could be linked to efforts to safeguard particularly endangered species, for example.
Programmes must, however, be comprehensive in their overall design. The Commission apparently sees no need for action on transport and energy.
Reference is simply made to work on climate change and acidification, but that is not good enough.
I as rapporteur have the whole committee behind me in calling for measures in these two fields.
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We would also like the Commission to report back to the European Parliament. It is not sufficient simply to be informed of future activities; we would hope to exercise some influence over forward planning, and we need to be involved in evaluating ongoing work.
The actual drawing-up of measures should be an open process, with input from environmental groups and national experts.
I have two questions to the Commissioner in this context.
The first has to do with reporting back to us.
I wonder how much influence Parliament will be allowed to have over the future shape of proposed measures.
And my second question concerns transport and energy.
Is the Commission willing to come forward with any plans in this area?
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Moving on to the more political dimension, our biggest problem is that much of what the EU does - for example in the agriculture, transport and fisheries sectors - is directly harmful to biological diversity.
Set against the provisions of the UN Convention, much of what we do is downright destructive.
Our main task is to change the thrust of EU policy.
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Enlargement places major responsibilities on us.
We know that many areas in Eastern Europe enjoy great biodiversity.
Some of Europe's greatest riches are to be found in the applicant countries.
Integration is fraught with danger, since higher levels of biological diversity are partly due to lower levels of development - in farming, for example.
The drastic upheavals bound to occur as agricultural policy is reformed could have a devastating impact on biodiversity.
Great care will be needed to pre-empt this.
We would urge a more cautious approach to investment in infrastructure. Close examination of EIB lending policy towards the Member States is called for here.
I do not have time to go through everything in the report, but we trust that due attention will be paid to the various other points which it contains.
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<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Trakatellis">
Mr President, the astonishing variety of thousands of life forms is the result of the biodiversity created by nature itself as one of its most important expressions.
It is the quintessence of the dynamic equilibrium between the various forms of life and the various ecosystems.
It is also an important source of economic wealth, and is directly related to mankind's quality of life because it relates to man's day-to-day environment and man's recreation, as well as being part of man's natural heritage.
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Unfortunately, the natural rules which created the dynamic equilibrium between life forms on our planet have been violated by human activities, which in recent years have accelerated the reduction of biodiversity.
Yet we can do something to help, though incentives are needed if the stresses on many ecosystems are to be identified and neutralised.
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A strategy must be developed for the management of biodiversity both at Community level and worldwide, if harmonious co-existence is to be achieved between economic development and biodiversity.
In any case, that is an essential ingredient of the model of sustainable development which the Community is promoting, but it also emerges from the International Convention on Biodiversity.
It is of primary importance to incorporate that strategy in the various Community policies in the context of the Agenda 2000 programme.
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In general terms, policy is being developed along four main thematic lines.
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The first is the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity.
It is a sine qua non to conserve ecosystems and populations of species in their natural environment, though of course protection should also be given to unprotected areas through the implementation of measures both in situ and ex situ .
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The second is the distribution of benefit from the use of genetic resources.
The creation of a legal framework and, in parallel, protection of the use and development of genetic resources, are powerful incentives towards the distribution of benefit from the use of those resources.
In parallel, we must consider the adoption of positive financial disincentives.
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The third line relates to research, monitoring and information exchange, and the fourth to education, training and increased awareness.
In conclusion, the general aim must be to highlight the importance of biodiversity for the future of mankind as a source of economic and ecological wealth, and mainly as a basic factor in the preservation of life on our planet.
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<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Langenhagen">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the present communication from the Commission on an action plan for biodiversity says too little about the area of fisheries.
For this reason, the Committee on Fisheries presented the following conclusions to the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, the committee responsible, for inclusion in its resolution.
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The Committee on Fisheries calls on the Commission to set up a scientific working party to develop an action plan for research into the interaction between fisheries and marine ecosystems.
Here we would stress that a biodiversity plan for fisheries needs to be drawn up in order to counteract sectoral interests and to ensure that environmental aspects are more fully integrated in the fisheries sector.
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In addition, we call on the Commission to use the precautionary approach, as defined in the UN Agreement on Highly Migratory Fish Stocks and Straddling Fish Stocks, in its management of fish stocks.
We urge that all regional fisheries management bodies in the EU also adopt this precautionary principle.
We ask that conservation measures be strengthened in the long term in all fisheries agreements to which the EU is signatory.
We call on the Commission to explain how the objectives stipulated in the biodiversity strategy can be implemented, and we wish to be consulted by the Commission on this issue.
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In order to secure our fish stocks and the valuable food commodity of fish, we must not delay any longer in drawing up and implementing an appropriate environmentally-friendly, sustainable strategy for which those who work in fisheries will also be responsible.
The research results available so far are, in this area at least, inadequate.
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<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Mr President, if we consider that there are an estimated 20 to 30 million species of living organisms in existence, of which only about 1.4 million species have even been discovered and described by scientists, but that 1.5 million will have become extinct within the next 25 years, we can see the urgency of the situation.
We need to take action.
For this reason we in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development cannot comprehend why the regulation approved by the Commission and Parliament on the placing on the market of plant varieties has still not been adopted by the Council, why the Commission's support for cooperation between the Member States' own programmes, the gene banks and the informal sector has only been half-hearted, cumbersome and ineffective, and why even DG VI is toying with the idea of allowing the only integrated programme for the conservation, characterisation, collection and use of genetic diversity in agriculture to expire in 1999.
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In order to preserve biodiversity, we need to promote extensive farming methods and organic farming.
We must also implement Community initiatives and targeted project support, particularly in the context of Agenda 2000, rather than allowing projects to run out of funding and personnel, which is unfortunately what is happening at the moment.
The degree of biodiversity in the applicant countries is still very high, and we must take action as soon as possible to promote and support this and to extend existing programmes to these countries.
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The last two opinions of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development were drafted by my colleague, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, and it has been my honour and pleasure to present them on his behalf.
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<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Tamino">
Mr President, I must repeat a point already made by previous speakers, namely that the most recent studies of the dispersion of different species in our natural environments point to a steady decline in biodiversity in Europe.
The reasons for this decline are well known, and are attributable to highly intensive farming and land use, the break-up of natural habitats through infrastructure - most notably transport and urbanisation - as well as mass tourism and the pollution of water, air and land.
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It is therefore most important that, in application of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the issue of biodiversity should be integrated into Community policies thanks to this communication.
However, despite the considerable impact of transport and tourism policies on ecosystems conservation, the communication maintains that there is no need for the implementation of specific action plans on transport and tourism 'as the development and implementation of the Community strategies on climate change and acidification... together with the implementation of adequate environmental assessment procedures should be adequate to achieve the biodiversity objectives in these policy areas'.
This decision on the one hand prevents the implementation of adequate control procedures in the areas referred to by the European bodies, and on the other hand limits the scope for the promotion and development of related policies by the Community.
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It is for these reasons that the Committee on Transport and Tourism is calling for specific action plans in these areas - transport and tourism - and indeed the Committee on the Environment agrees with us here.
The Committee on Transport and Tourism wishes to highlight the following points in particular: the unlimited growth of transport and tourism; the problem of transport flows, currently channelled into areas of great biodiversity; the need for a shift from road to rail, a means of transport with a lower environmental impact, as stated in the international Alps Convention; the need, identified by the Commission, to internalise external costs; the fact that the Kyoto Agreement sets out specific aims which necessitate appropriate transport policies; the impact of transport infrastructures on biodiversity; and the need for a thorough environmental impact assessment and strategic environment assessment on the trans-European networks.
Our committee demands that there should be no new infrastructure which has an impact on areas protected under the Natura 2000 Network, and that tourism should be sustainable and not of a kind to endanger biodiversity: it is therefore necessary to identify maximum absorption capacity limits in sensitive areas.
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For these reasons, we are calling for an eco-label for sustainable tourism. Furthermore, Mr President, looking beyond transport and tourism issues, I think that it is vital to take account of the points made by the Committees on Research and the Environment concerning the potential impact of genetically modified organisms.
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<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Virgin">
Mr President, this is a very important report. At stake is the legacy of bioversity that we pass on to future generations.
The rapporteur's interesting text has been complemented by many good suggestions and ideas from other committees and individual Members.
I believe there is a broad agreement within Parliament on this issue and will restrict myself to just a few comments.
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Biological diversity, upon which we are all so dependent, is heavily influenced by other environmental factors.
Acid rain from the atmosphere, together with sulphur and nitrogen oxides, have destroyed biodiversity in many northern European lakes. This has been the case in Sweden and elsewhere.
Last spring, Parliament aimed high and called for reductions in emissions to a level the environment could absorb. The effects on biological diversity should gradually be felt.
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Swedish newspapers reported yesterday on the threat to coral reefs as a result of an above-average increase in sea temperatures.
It is quite obvious that such developments endanger biodiversity.
There could well be a connection between the greenhouse effect - which has often been debated in this House - and the steep rise in water temperature.
We could doubtless support the call for measures in this area with the need to safeguard biological diversity.
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I also wish to touch upon the role of private ownership. A broad spread of land ownership can have an impact on biodiversity.
The desire of individuals to tend and protect nature has often led to rich biological variation.
Yet there are circumstances where the burden of caring for unique biotopes is too much for one single owner. It makes sense then for the State to intervene and provide compensation for possible losses.
In the long term, however, respect for private ownership will further biodiversity.
Financial incentives in this area have in the past produced positive results.
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In its opinion, the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy referred to biotechnology as an additional means of maintaining, and even re-creating, biological diversity.
That is certainly an interesting perspective and should be borne in mind for the future, despite the fact that the proposal was rejected in committee this time round.
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<SPEAKER ID=97 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Mr President, I am standing here in my shirt-sleeves because it is so unbearably hot in the Chamber.
It bodes ill for biodiversity that the temperature regulation in our own Chamber should be so bad.
Perhaps you can do something about it?
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In any event, I regard the Commission's communication on biodiversity as enormously important, because it touches the essence of Europe's policy on nature and nature conservation.
I am pleased with this communication, but only as a first step.
We know that the Commission draws up all manner of action plans for the conservation of natural resources, agriculture, fisheries, regional policy and economic cooperation.
This list, as the rapporteur rightly points out, is not complete.
Transport and energy are missing.
I find that a pity, since these sectors in particular have major repercussions on biodiversity.
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I think that action plans of this kind are needed for transport and energy too.
I shall be very interested to hear Mr Kinnock's response to our questions about this sector.
Looking at the situation as it is at present, the incorporation of environmental safeguards into other policy areas is still nowhere near good enough.
To give you a recent example: the Union gives subsidies to sheep farmers in Crete, which leads to overgrazing and soil erosion, with terrible consequences for biodiversity.
I believe we must call a halt to projects of that kind which are directly harmful to biodiversity.
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As draftsman on the budget for the environment, I have argued for better integration of safeguards for the environment and the natural world into other policy sectors.
My idea is that the Structural Funds could also be used for Natura 2000 and for implementation of the habitats and birds directives.
I hope the House will endorse this idea from the Environment Committee when we vote on the budget on Thursday.
It will be a great step forward for Europe's protection of nature, and a good way of combining biodiversity with structural policy.
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<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, I share the rapporteur's concern regarding the possible effects of intensive agriculture, trans-European networks, the reduction of fisheries stocks and so many other activities connected with Europe's economy on natural resources and biodiversity.
In line with the agreement the Member States have signed, I wish to join with him in expressing the need for rapid and immediate action plans that Parliament is informed of.
And, since the best way of showing how biodiversity is threatened is to give an example, this weekend, in my country, in the province of León, I visited a forest where 5 000 hectares had burned during military exercises, a wood where plants and animal species disappeared and will probably not reappear for another 50 years.
If we do not promptly draw up action plans, it will be difficult to maintain biodiversity, and to maintain life in the manner we would wish.
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<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gahrton">
Mr President, our biodiversity is exposed to many threats.
The latest issue of the Malaysian-based journal Third World Resurgence reports on how a few large western corporations are effectively destroying biological diversity in the agricultural sector by their abusive exploitation of genetic engineering techniques and patent rights.
This problem was also raised at the fourth meeting of the parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, held earlier this year in Bratislava.
Many delegates expressed unease over the use of what is known as 'terminator technology'. Patented techniques are used to manipulate the genetic composition of seed, rendering the resulting plant sterile.
Patent rights and genetic engineering are being wielded by the big corporations in a bid to prevent farmers from reproducing their crops. That was the message emerging from the meeting.
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In the light of all this, I particularly support paragraph 43 of the report. It affirms that all states enjoy sovereign rights over their own genetic resources and that this principle shall be paramount whenever the EU enters into agreements with third parties, especially in the field of patents.
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<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Weber">
Mr President, today, as a European environmentalist, I am embarrassed.
I am not happy that many of the Member States have not yet done their homework.
Not all of us have drawn up a national action programme to meet our commitments under the Convention on Biological Diversity.
We Europeans like to criticise countries elsewhere in the world which continue to destroy their natural forest or to convert them into plantations.
On the other hand our forests were converted centuries ago - some were destroyed and only very few natural forest ecosystems remain in the EU.
Unfortunately we are not very keen when it comes to the reconversion of forests to their natural state.
The implementation of the habitats and birds directives has also been blocked.
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The success in establishing the Natura 2000 network has so far been very limited.
Seven countries have not yet drawn up their plans for conservation, amongst them France, Germany and Luxembourg.
That is indeed embarrassing.
I hope that the forest strategy on which the Commission is working so hard now will give us the opportunity to establish protected areas to meet our commitments under the biodiversity convention. And funds are needed to set aside protected areas.
Let us not repeat the mistake that was made with the announcement of Natura 2000.
Nobody has yet proposed a serious funding plan for Natura 2000.
Let us change that.
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<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, the Commission says in its communication on biodiversity that a Community strategy is needed to turn the tide in Europe.
Measures taken to date are not enough to stop the loss of biodiversity in Europe.
I welcome the Commission's concern for nature in Europe.
This is an international issue which warrants joint action by the Member States.
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But the Commission's policy on biodiversity has to be consistent.
The Commission is still funding activities which adversely affect biodiversity.
Where these are necessary activities under the CAP or TENs or the regional policy, I think that recompense must be made for the damage, for example by the creation of extra nature conservancy areas.
It is of course highly unsatisfactory to have the Commission undermining its own measures in favour of maintaining biodiversity.
So I would urge the Commission to take due heed of what the resolution says on this subject.
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Lastly, I feel I have to point out that one or two things in this resolution are said twice.
Combining one or two paragraphs on fisheries, TENs and the periodic evaluations that are required would have made the resolution neater and more concise.
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<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valverde López">
Mr President, I think we all support this communication from the Commission, which reflects the concern of the Community's institutions in complying with international agreements and in carrying out another of our obligations, that is, making environmental policy a dimension of all other policies.
We must also send a message to the national governments and regional and local authorities, since policies at those levels must converge and be consistent with those of the European Union.
There are a number of areas in this regard that offer major opportunities and we must highlight this for all our citizens. For, it is not only the responsibility of the authorities but of each and every one of us since, as consumers, we can make a positive choice in this field and also, as actors in local democracy, we can help support those communities that really defend biological diversity.
However, the most important part of the entire communication is the general warning that nobody in a position of political responsibility can consider themselves exempt from this general concern.
And I would also like to very firmly express my support for the rapporteur's conclusions.
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<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Kinnock, Neil">
Mr President, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Sjöstedt, and the Committees on the Environment, Transport and Tourism, Fisheries, Agriculture and Rural Development and Research, Technological Development and Energy for their opinions and for the comprehensive report that has been the subject of the House's consideration this evening.
Clearly this Parliament is actively engaged in promoting the integration of environmental concerns in all areas and the Commission welcomes the support given to the biodiversity communication by the opinions from the committees and, indeed, by this report.
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With the presentation of this communication, the Commission has committed itself to the integration of biodiversity concerns into Community policies and instruments.
We are now starting to develop action plans and other measures to implement the biodiversity strategy.
The Sjöstedt report will obviously be useful in this process.
I would only add that action plans, whilst very useful and very welcome, are not prerequisites of effective environmental policy and practice, as I am sure honourable Members will readily understand.
In the transport area, for instance, our commitment is to sustainability.
That means action, as contributors to the debate suggested, along a broad front, whether it is the encouragement of the use of rail passenger and freight transport; or the securing of an effective agreement with Switzerland; or the introduction of fair and efficient pricing policies for the use of transport infrastructure; or emissions reduction; or a number of other strategies, none of which neatly fall into the definition of action plans for the protection and furtherance of biodiversity but all of which are extremely valuable in securing environmental sustainability by improved transport policies.
I am sure that will be understood.
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This report, apart from its generally agreeable nature and effectiveness of the analysis, includes some requests that the Commission will not able to satisfy.
When I provide some detail about our thinking I hope the House will understand why we cannot accept every particular part of the report.
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First, in paragraph 14 there is a request for an action plan to be adopted by the European Parliament and the Council - or at least for all the plans to be adopted by the European Parliament and the Council.
However, we consider that such a procedure would unnecessarily slow down the implementation of the strategy.
We had envisaged the adoption of the action plans by the Commission in the form of communications to the Parliament and the Council but not necessarily for adoption by them.
Legislative proposals that may be contained in those action plans must obviously be adopted in accordance with the legislative procedures.
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Secondly, in paragraph 16 there is a request for the development of specific action plans for the energy and transport sector to which I have already referred.
In our view many of the biodiversity concerns in these areas are already covered by the climate and acidification strategies that address the relevant emissions which may have an impact on biodiversity and by the existing or envisaged proposals on environmental assessment.
Beyond that the Commission does not consider that substantial new policy actions need to be developed in order to integrate biodiversity into relevant instruments in those areas.
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Thirdly, in paragraph 43 there is a request for some principles under the biodiversity convention to take precedence over other international agreements concluded by the Community, for example under the World Trade Organization regime.
The Commission's position is that environmental agreements are at the same level as trade agreements and should be implemented in a mutually consistent way.
But there is no a priori hierarchy of norms.
Fourthly, Recital J suggests that the European Union should finance the compensation of damage deemed to be caused by TENs, by the common agricultural policy and by regional policy.
The Commission position is that the Community biodiversity strategy should help to prevent the networks policy, the agricultural policy and regional policy from causing damage to biodiversity and that therefore there should be no need for new compensation mechanisms.
Naturally the Commission would be grateful if this House could take these elements into consideration.
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On the specific questions raised by the rapporteur: he has asked about the system we have used for reporting to Parliament on the implementation of the strategy.
The Commission will be reporting both to Parliament and to the Council regularly on the implementation of the strategy.
Indeed, in June the Environment Council June requested the first of those reports to be available by June 2000.
Obviously that report will also be transmitted to Parliament.
Then there is the question Mr Sjöstedt raised about consultation not only with experts from Member States but with NGOs and other relevant interested parties about what he described as national action plans.
We are not talking about national action plans; these are Community action plans and they have an added value as a consequence of that.
The answer to his question is that the consultation will takes place with the same breadth and same thoroughness as took place in the compilation of the strategy itself.
Everybody would acknowledge that was an extensive operation with networks now very firmly established and they will be exploited fully in ensuring that consultation about the action plans take place systematically and sincerely.
I hope that meets the requirements that Mr Sjöstedt and his colleagues have.
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It is clear, as several Members in this and many other debates have said, that biodiversity is essential to life on earth.
It is also evident that it is being eroded more quickly now than at any time in the history of the planet.
The Community has a legal, moral and self-interested obligation to assume its responsibility and to cooperate with third countries in efforts to change that pattern.
Cooperation with Member States and with a wider public in this process is obviously vital in order to ensure that in conjunction with national efforts, the implementation of a Community biodiversity strategy helps to reverse those negative - indeed, ruinous - trends, as biodiversity is reduced, not only in the Community but also more widely in our continent and indeed throughout the world.
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I know that this House shares this conviction that the rot has to be stopped and the process reversed.
I express the appreciation of the Commission for the way in which that conviction in this Parliament is continually manifested through useful initiatives like Mr Sjöstedt's report.
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<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
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The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
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(The sitting was closed at 8.30 p.m.)
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<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
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Are there any comments?
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<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="Kerr">
Madam President, I want to apologise for my absence yesterday.
This was due to Air France notifying my travel agent that my flight from London City was cancelled.
In fact the flight went but by that time I was re-routed to Basle and finally got here at 7.30 p.m. instead of 5 p.m. for the opening of the sitting.
I wonder if your services would drop a note to Air France asking them not to do this again.
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However, I have to report that I managed to get here in time for the production of Don Giovanni at the Strasbourg Opera.
I thank the City of Strasbourg for allowing me and several other Members to go - a splendid production.
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<SPEAKER ID=3 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Guinebertière">
Madam President, my name is not on the attendance register.
I should like this to be corrected as I was here yesterday.
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<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herman">
The same applies to me, Madam President.
I cannot see my name on the attendance register, but my neighbours can confirm that I was here.
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<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Poisson">
Madam President, my name is also not on the attendance register, yet I too was here yesterday.
I would be grateful if my name could be added.
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<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
That will be corrected.
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(The Minutes were approved)
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<CHAPTER ID=2>
Statement by the President
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
I would inform the House that I have received a request from five political groups - the Group of the Party of European Socialists, the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, the Green Group in the European Parliament, the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left and the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations - asking for a topical and urgent debate under Rule 47 to be held on Thursday from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. on the arrest of General Pinochet in the United Kingdom.
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I should first like to inform you of the implications of this, because we adopted our agenda yesterday. This is therefore an amendment to the agenda.
If this proposal by the groups is accepted, the whole procedure under Rule 47 will have to be applied.
This means that the Conference of Presidents will have to be convened this morning.
The results of its meeting will have to be announced to Parliament at the beginning of this afternoon's sitting.
Any objections will have to be tabled by 8 p.m. this evening and put to the vote at the beginning of tomorrow morning's sitting.
The deadlines would then be as follows: motions for resolutions would have to be tabled by 4 p.m. today, and joint motions and amendments by 4 p.m. tomorrow.
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<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Green">
Madam President, there was a preliminary discussion of this yesterday.
After the group chairmen met last night there was agreement among a great many of the groups that we should use the opportunity this week to have some immediate discussion of a political nature in this House.
Clearly an urgency debate is the most relevant, given that this is not an issue on which we need a statement from either the Council or the Commission.
It was the feeling of all of us that this should be put to the House.
I regret that it has to be through such a bureaucratic procedure as you have just described.
If that is all that our Rules allow, then so be it.
My group is in favour.
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<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Galeote Quecedo">
Madam President, I want to speak against this motion, but first I want to explain why to my parliamentary colleagues.
In the last few hours, significant legal decisions have been taken in my country which affect this debate.
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For one thing, the examining magistrate has amended the warrant.
For another, the public prosecutor's office has appealed against the warrant on the grounds that, in its opinion, the judge is not empowered to issue it.
And, finally, the judge has established a period for the parties involved - the accused and the prosecutor - to state their positions on a possible asylum appeal.
So I think we should let the court do its work and only indulge in political interpretations once the court has made its decision.
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This makes it inappropriate, in my view, to interfere in the work of the court at this time and I call on my colleagues in this House to make the cries for an independent judiciary compatible with political initiatives that in fact, taken at the wrong time, do nothing but put pressure on the independence of the judiciary.
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<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Madam President, this Parliament has been calling for General Pinochet to be put on trial for a very long time.
This should normally have happened in his own country, Chile, but apparently this has not been possible because the dictatorships have been maintained.
The Community treaties now provide for a European legal area, so what is involved is the application and implementation of that European legal area.
Parliament is not going to interfere in the legal procedures, but it ought to take this opportunity to highlight the unity of all our peoples and all our governments in the fight against the international terrorism represented by the dictatorship, genocide and cruelty that General Pinochet inflicted on his people and on European citizens. According to the most recent estimates, almost 100 European citizens were assassinated by General Pinochet's government.
Therefore, this Parliament must immediately give its opinion on the issue.
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<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
Having heard one speaker for and one against, I now put the request to the vote.
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(Parliament approved the request)
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<CHAPTER ID=3>
Decision on urgent procedure
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
The next item is the vote on the request for urgent procedure concerning the proposal for a Council Directive amending Council Directive 94/4/EC and the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Council Regulation (EC) 355/94 and extending the temporary derogation applicable to Germany and Austria.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Wogau">
Madam President, this proposal for a directive relates to Austria and Germany's derogation from the duty-free arrangements.
There has been a legal vacuum here since 1997, because the arrangements were in force until December 1997.
That is why we are rather surprised that the proposal was only forwarded to us in September.
We have hardly had any time to consult on this, and yet we do consider it to be an important matter.
I propose, therefore, that we reject the request for urgent procedure.
We will endeavour to produce a report for the November part-session, but at the latest for the December part-session.
<P>
(Parliament rejected the requests for urgent procedure)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
1999 Budget - Expiry of ECSC Treaty - 1999 ECSC Budget
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0360/98 by Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft general budget of the European Communities for the 1999 financial year (SEC(98)0800 - C4-0300/98); -A4-0361/98 by Mr Viola, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft general budget of the European Communities for the 1999 financial year - Section I, European Parliament - Annex: Ombudsman; Section II, Council; Section IV, Court of Justice; Section V, Court of Auditors; Section VI, Economic and Social Committee - Committee of the Regions (C4-0300/98); -A4-0330/98 by Mr Giansily, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the communication from the Commission on the expiry of the ECSC Treaty: financial activities (COM(97)0506 - C4-0573/97); -A4-0363/98 by Mr Giansily, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft ECSC operating budget for 1999 (SEC(98)0966 - C4-0394/98).
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Madam President, I pointed out yesterday that my opinion on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy had not been reproduced in full in Mr Giansily's report.
The President said that a corrigendum would be published.
However, I have just been to get this, and Mr Giansily's report is available, but without opinions from any of the committees.
How is this possible? Madam President, I would ask you to ensure that this document is correctly printed!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="President">
The matter you have raised is being investigated, Mrs Lulling.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Dührkop Dührkop">
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Viola">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the total for Category 5, administrative expenditure, has been set at EUR 4.7 billion, with an increase of 4 % - or EUR 182 million - over 1998.
Of this sum, EUR 1 579.5 m represents the total budget for the 'other institutions', with an increase of just under 1.55 % as compared with 1998.
This, clearly, is a modest increase, an indication of the rigour shown by all the 'other institutions' when drawing up their budgets. Rigour has been applied in particular by Parliament itself, which accounts for almost three fifths of this amount.
Despite the option of purchasing IPE IV in Strasbourg, Parliament has curbed its expenditure, registering an increase of just 1.7 %.
I believe that this is worthy of note, as it is indicative of the extreme restraint demonstrated by Parliament's administration and by the Budgets Committee, a body very well aware of the need for reliability, rigour and austerity.
<P>
In the case both of Parliament and of all the 'other institutions', this budget is unusual in certain respects: it is the first budget in euros, it is the one which will mark the turn of the millennium, with all the ensuing implications for computers, and it is the one which will see the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty and the new elections to the European Parliament, with the related expenditure for both Members and the data-processing sector.
<P>
Let us now turn to the individual budgets, beginning with our own.
Parliament's budget is EUR 923 779 000, with an unused margin of almost 21 million, which confirms that we have always understood this margin not as a target but as an expenditure ceiling.
The most significant decisions have been the introduction of a new chapter and a new Article 390 - to be appropriately named to cover the new arrangements governing parliamentary assistants, which are currently being drawn up by the committee responsible and the Council.
Yesterday, following the meeting of the Bureau, the Budgets Committee took it upon itself to adopt an amendment, in the light of decisions taken by the Conference of Presidents...
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="President">
Excuse me, Mr Viola, but I would like to correct that.
It was not the Conference of Presidents, but the Bureau of Parliament.
I am afraid there is still some confusion over that within the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Viola">
You are absolutely right. That was a slip of the tongue; I meant the Bureau of the European Parliament.
In the light of the decisions taken by the Bureau, our committee took it upon itself to adopt by majority vote an amendment which, on the one hand, recognises that Members' travelling allowances must be reimbursed on the basis of the real costs, with a detailed breakdown of these costs, and, on the other, links the implementation of this decision to the Statute for Members, to be brought before this House by 15 December.
<P>
I believe that the solution adopted in the committee is a well-balanced one overall, and that it tackles the matter head-on: a Statute for Members, the lack of which creates unequal treatment, inequality and injustice.
The crux of the matter is that this fixation with travel expenses is out of all proportion!
That is why we turned our attention to this issue and adopted the amendment, which we hope will serve to ensure that the Council, together with the parliamentary committee responsible, will find a solution as soon as possible, as has long been desired by Parliament and as was asserted at the last summit.
<P>
As far as the next elections are concerned, the impact on the budget will be approximately EUR 17 m, fully in line with previous years.
On staffing, we have shown great restraint here too by allocating only ten new temporary posts, only five of them at grade A, to reinforce the parliamentary bodies involved in the enlargement procedure.
<P>
Significant progress has been made in the data-processing sector, although some things still remain to be done - especially on e-mail applications within and between the institutions - and the effects of the transition to the year 2000 need further investigation.
For this reason we have decided, through an amendment signed by the chairmen of the two largest groups and by myself, to release EUR 5 m from the reserve. This will be discussed tomorrow.
<P>
With regard to buildings policy, it has been decided that the option to purchase the IPE IV building should be exercised with ten-year refinancing, on terms comparable to those applicable for the D3 building in Brussels.
This obviously entails substantial budget expenditure: EUR 10.8 m.
On the other hand, the saving of EUR 8.3 m made by calculating the annual lease payments for the D3 building was more favourable than expected, and is indicative of a policy leading overall to a considerable reduction in expenditure on property.
This has already happened for 1999, and will undoubtedly continue in future years.
<P>
As regards the Ombudsman, his increased workload has been noted and, by agreement with the Council, an increase of six posts, three of them in the reserve, has been granted pending submission by the Ombudsman of a global action plan to restructure his secretariat, whereby many temporary posts may need to become permanent.
I would just point out in this context that, from now on, the budget for the Ombudsman should constitute a section in its own right.
This is provided for in the amended financial regulation discussed in the Budgets Committee, and with some justification, I believe.
<P>
With regard to the Court of Justice, which had requested a sizeable increase in posts for the translation directorate, in line with the Council's wishes we have allocated ten new LA posts for translators and four new B5 proofreader posts.
<P>
As for the Court of Auditors, its budget has been increased by 11.69 % in view of the decision to allow an extension to its building, for which such a commitment is necessary, and for which total funding of EUR 25 m over five years is planned.
We have entered the first five million for to 1999 in the reserve, whilst awaiting the conclusion of the new interinstitutional agreement, which - at least in the Commission's proposal - allowed for this expenditure in the financial perspective, and also whilst awaiting alternative solutions from the Court of Auditors as regards the appropriateness of building a new chamber, given that sufficient chambers already exist in buildings located in Luxembourg.
<P>
Moving on to the Committees - the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions - it is worth stressing that the role of the latter is much enhanced under the Amsterdam Treaty, which is why we have seen fit to increase the appropriations for meetings, as emerged from the implementation of the 1998 budget.
<P>
As we are all aware, Protocol 16 provides for the abolition of the joint organisational structure.This protocol must be applied as soon as the Treaty enters into force, and we have invited the ESC and the CoR to submit their proposals to this effect.
We hope that all due regard will thereby be paid to the need to avoid dual expenditure and to guarantee a homogenous staff policy for the ESC and the CoR, with a view to long-term interinstitutional cooperation.
<P>
Finally, as regards buildings policy, we were pleased to learn that the ESC and CoR have undertaken to occupy the Belliard I and II buildings, as was suggested by Parliament.
These premises are in need of refitting: we have earmarked sums for this refurbishment and hope that it will be undertaken as soon as possible by the two Committees. We believe that they should begin by occupying these two buildings, and only if - as seems likely - these do not prove adequate, should they then occupy the Atrium building.
<P>
These are the most significant aspects of the budgets for the 'other institutions'.
I believe that we have all done a good job of work, and I should therefore like to thank my colleagues in the Budgets Committee. I hope that this House will endorse our committee's decisions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Viola.
<P>
I should like to emphasise one other thing at this point, namely that for the first time our budget is being expressed in euros, with the ECU being replaced after 20 years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Giansily">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, each year I have the honour of presenting to you a report on the ECSC budget. This year it is accompanied by another report, on the Communication from the Commission to the Council on the expiry of the Treaty.
In my opinion, these two reports are linked because they have been affected by various events which I wish to highlight and which, as I see it, are not helping to improve Community policy or increase solidarity between the nations of Europe.
<P>
Firstly, we should remember that, last year at the same time, by just a few votes and contrary to the opinion of the rapporteur - namely, myself - this House voted in favour of removing the compulsory levy on the turnover of the coal and steel industries.
In addition to its symbolic nature, in that this eliminated the only real joint financial contribution binding the European coal and steel industries together, this decision conclusively cut off the source of fresh money which formed the bulk of the ECSC budget. The reason given for this was that the restructuring of these industries was virtually complete and that there was enough money to pay for the management fund until 2002, commitment funds until 2007, the guarantee fund until 2019, the special reserve until 2021 and the former pension fund until 2026.
In fact, the ECSC coffers contain ECU 1.2 billion which will basically be enough to finance the operating budgets until 2002, when the Treaty expires, and to pay for the last pensioner until 2026.
<P>
Should we take the view that this sector is now positively thriving?
First of all, we should remember that it is still shedding jobs: about 11 000 jobs will probably be lost between 1998 and 1999.
It may well be possible, in view of the very high volume of funding, to allocate additional appropriations, in line with the positive opinion of the Committee on Budgets, in order to establish an additional ECU 3 million for redeployment aid which could help, as stipulated in Article 56 of the ECSC Treaty, to create new activities capable of reabsorbing the redundant workers into productive employment.
<P>
In the same respect, it may be possible and desirable to carry out the proposal in the Communication of 9 June which would allow ECU 60 million to be transferred from the operating budget of the ECSC to the Union's general budget in order to reinforce the Rechar II and Resider II Community initiatives.
These two programmes are capable of absorbing the funds in question, between now and the end of 1999, and are totally consistent with the aim of protecting jobs.
<P>
Finally, on the initiative of our colleague, Joan Colom i Naval, paragraph 12 of the motion for a resolution before you calls on the Commission to earmark appropriations from the PHARE programme for activities in conjunction with the coal and steel sectors of the applicant countries.
We only need to think of Poland or Romania to see that there are good grounds for this request.
In fact, by agreeing to the end of this excellent instrument - the ECSC - in 2002, i.e. just before enlargement, the European Union is preventing the countries of eastern Europe from having access to an instrument on which the Union was founded.
Is this right?
Whatever, it is now clear from the direction taken in recent months, particularly at Amsterdam, regarding the allocation of the ECSC's assets after 2002, that a number of points have now been decided.
The first is that the ECSC will certainly expire on 23 July 2002 and that the ECSC assets and their management will most likely be transferred to the remaining communities in the final days of the ECSC.
The second point relates to economic and industrial policy aspects.
The Committee on Budgets unreservedly supports the Commission's proposal to allocate all the interest earned on the assets to the promotion of research in the coal and steel sectors.
Finally, the third point, which I must highlight and which is exactly what our committee said it wanted to see, is that, with regard to intellectual property rights, the dissemination of results to SMEs is to be an element of the sector's research programmes.
<P>
To conclude on these two reports, I must acknowledge that they have gained the virtually unanimous support of the members of the Committee on Budgets, unlike last year when the fee problem divided the House.
Both texts concerning the ECSC in 1999 therefore have a broad consensus and their adoption on Thursday should not pose any major problems.
Furthermore, I should like to thank the draftsmen of the opinions of the other committees, Mrs Graenitz, Mr Blak and Mrs Lulling, who have made a significant contribution to the report of the Committee on Budgets.
I would stress to Mrs Lulling that her report does indeed form an integral part of the final report, despite the technical difficulties which seem to have dogged its route to the printers.
<P>
I will now, as agreed with the Sessional Services, give the opinion of the UPE Group on the draft budget for 1999.
The budget on which we are required to deliver an opinion at first reading will be a difficult one: difficult because of the current situation of uncertainty and the need for rigour, and difficult too because, although this is the last budget coming under the financial perspectives and Interinstitutional Agreement of 1994, our task is to outline the profile of future budgets and to overcome financial constraints, at the risk of surrendering any ambitions we might have.
<P>
In preparing the 1999 budget, we must be aware that anything is possible, but nothing is guaranteed.
Will the Interinstitutional Agreement be renewed in 1999 and under what conditions?
Will the next financial perspectives be sufficient to ensure that spending develops?
And if the renegotiations fail, will the reversion to Article 203 of the Treaty and the application of the maximum rate of increase be carried out under conditions acceptable to Parliament?
What is certain, in this case, is that budgetary rigour is required of the legislator.
Besides, the European Parliament committed itself to this by accepting, in its March resolution on the budgetary guidelines for 1999, a budget whose rate of increase would not be higher than that of the national budgets.
This rigour was both imposed on us and freely accepted by us.
We still have to agree on how to correctly apply this rigour to spending.
The Council's interpretation, which is just to gamble on the levels of under-spending, particularly on internal policies, is unacceptable.
What the Council actually wants is a general reduction in all expenditure and, in this respect, it has submitted a draft budget in which appearances are deceptive, in that it confirms the agricultural envelope and the Structural Fund appropriations but also blocks, through significant reductions, any progress in Headings 3 and 4, particularly for research, i.e. internal policies and external measures.
We must not be taken in by this.
Although the draft budget presents an overall increase of 2.8 % in payment appropriations and 6.1 % in commitment appropriations in relation to last year, actually, by keeping the budget at 1.10 % of the GNP ceiling - whereas, strictly, 1.27 % is available - and by limiting expenditure in the headings which are the most decisive for the future development of the European Union to the ceilings fixed by the Interinstitutional Agreement, the Council is ensuring that future budgets will be paralysed.
This planned rigour amounts to sacrificing the future, which is not acceptable.
<P>
The rigour required of the budget must be compatible with the development outlook, and the 1999 budget must prepare for the budgets of tomorrow by allowing the Community to meet its commitments, particularly with regard to enlargement.
This is why we support the rapporteur's approach which aims to establish special reserves as viable calculation bases for forthcoming financial perspectives in the 2000-2006 period, in accordance with the provisions of the Interinstitutional Agreement.
Like the rapporteur, we hope to reach an agreement with the Council on these special reserves because it is the survival of future budgets which is at stake.
If the Interinstitutional Agreement is renewed, it must have adequate bases so that the future financial perspectives ensure the development of Community policies and, should the renegotiation of the Interinstitutional Agreement fail, the re-application of Article 203 of the Treaty should not condemn the European Union to the planned spending paralysis.
The choice is clear and we approve it.
<P>
However, we do not want Parliament's assertion of its prerogatives to cause it to make an unfortunate exception for agriculture expenditure by seeking to limit the appropriations to well below the ceiling of the guideline, in other words to reduce the actual financial requirements of the CAP.
Neither must the aim of the budget be to reform the CAP or limit the growth in agricultural expenditure. The aim should be to ensure the correct financing of this while complying with the provisions of the Interinstitutional Agreement and ad hoc procedures.
<P>
I have a further comment about the problem of putting the funds intended for humanitarian aid into reserve. Here, Parliament must confirm or reject the position of the Committee on Budgets and must indicate whether the letter of 9 October from Mr Jacques Santer to the President of Parliament is sufficient to allow us to forgive the ECHO managers for their despicable actions which led to the UCLAF report that everyone is talking about but the Members have not yet seen.
Just reading the Commission's answers to Members on subjects relating to the budget sometimes produces a real feeling of revolt.
For the last ten months, for example, Messrs Papoutsis and Liikanen have been refusing to take responsibility for the former's incapacity to make his departments comply with a legal provision unanimously adopted a year ago by the Committee on Budgets and then by Parliament, for the reason that this is inconvenient to the department's director who really could not care less about the parliamentary vote.
Answers phrased in hackneyed, Soviet-style language have now taken over from the initially condescending replies.
The scorn displayed by officials towards the Members of this House will only strengthen our resolve.
The ECHO scandal proves one thing: that if some Commission officials are doing what they like, it is because the Members of the Commission are too preoccupied with their own interests - I am thinking of ECHO - to waste time supervising them. And it is also because malpractices and bad habits are now second nature, which has led to the development of a principle of out of sight, out of mind, undermining the Commission's credibility.
In this Parliament, in our group at least, we are not ready to let the electors believe that we are only interested in retaliation, and we are therefore waiting to find out exactly what happened with ECHO before adopting any position.
<P>
More generally, the Council, the Commission and, unfortunately, Parliament too are suffering from Fontainebleau syndrome, each fighting its own corner in pale imitation of Margaret Thatcher, each considering that the State which it represents must reassert its position, regardless of the Community policies founded on solidarity.
We will return to this matter in detail when we discuss the report on own resources.
However, on behalf of my group, I would like to prepare the ground.
Because the common agricultural policy is the cause of certain imbalances, and based on the Fontainebleau agreements among others, the Commission's proposals include reducing the Community contribution to direct aid to farmers and introducing cofinancing for this direct aid between the national exchequers and the European Union budget.
The rest of the common agricultural policy as we know it would then be reduced to a vague agricultural structural policy.
It is clear that such a proposal, although attractive at first sight, would allow some Member States to reduce their contribution to the European Union to the detriment of the common agricultural policy.
This would mean that agricultural policy would have to be partially renationalised and it would also compromise European solidarity, as happened last year when it was decided, as I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, contrary to my proposal as rapporteur, to remove the ECSC levy for the last five years of the ECSC budget.
<P>
In the wake of the abandonment of this unique Community tax, the Commission is now proposing to attack the European Union's only integrated policy.
Are we mad?
Is our Europe of shopkeepers turning into a Europe of horse-traders?
Do we really believe that, after having ruined the IGC and botched Amsterdam and Luxembourg, we should now dismantle this unique Community policy because the socialist governments of the United Kingdom and Germany are implementing ultraliberal tax policies in order to win votes?
It is time to reflect on this and to seriously ask ourselves what the technocrats, who only have their own interests at heart, are planning for us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, as the budget procedure for 1999 progresses it becomes clear that the broad consensus among the institutions of recent years on general budgetary stability for the Union will continue in 1999.
All the institutions agree that rigour has to be maintained.
At the same time the obligations of the Union in particular with regard to the decisions of the Edinburgh European Council have to be respected.
Discussions continue on some aspects.
As far as compulsory spending is concerned, the Commission has an amending letter on its agenda for 28 October.
It will assess probable additional spending requirements as tightly as possible.
<P>
With the amending letter for 1999 and the recently transmitted amending letter to the supplementary and amending budget for 1998 all elements are on the table. This should permit the budgetary authority to come to an overall agreement for 1998 and 1999 by the time of the Budget Council of 24 November at the latest.
But this budget exercise is not only about numbers.
It also marks further important improvements in the financial management of the Union, and I should like briefly to raise three.
<P>
Firstly, the 1999 budget is established on the basis of the new interinstitutional agreement as regards the legal basis.
The budget procedure has already shown that the agreement works.
At the same time new and experimental activities can still attract initial funding from the Community budget.
The Commission and the organisations concerned will benefit from this clarity when it comes to implementing the budget.
These were major successes for Parliament in the budgetary field.
<P>
Secondly, significant progress is also being made with regard to the Community subsidies.
There is a Commission communication imposing clear minimum rules on publicity and collective decision-making for all Community subsidies.
It is the result of many parliamentary initiatives.
Both Mr Brinkhorst and Mr Tillich have invested a lot of effort in this field and I note with interest that Barbara Dührkop Dührkop is pursuing these same lines.
<P>
The new Commission rules come into effect for the execution of the 1999 budget, and efforts are under way to inform and discuss the matter with actual and potential beneficiaries.
<P>
A third issue concerns the possible use of operating resources for administrative purposes.
In particular the Technical Assistance Offices or 'BATs' as the French abbreviation has it.
I understand that the European Parliament wants to change certain practices immediately to improve transparency and control.
These objectives are shared by the Commission.
I regret it if this has not come out clearly enough in its recent communication on the Technical Assistance Offices, but work needs to continue to make sure that the short-term decisions are also a step towards the medium-term solution.
The Commission has put ideas forward in its communication and in its working paper on renewal of the financial regulation.
Both seek to establish a closer link between the decisions on the financial and the human resources required for each Community action.
<P>
Finally, Parliament is preparing to vote to introduce important additional credits into the 1999 budget by means of its bridging amendment.
I understand the role of this in the bargaining process towards the next interinstitutional agreement, but should such an agreement and the cancellation of the bridging credits not occur early enough then the Commission would have, some time in 1999, to call up more funds than needed from the Member States.
<P>
Let me conclude by expressing my sincere respect for the formidable work of the rapporteurs, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop and Mr Viola, as well as the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, Mr Samland.
As this is a joint debate with the reports of Mr Giansily on the European Coal and Steel Community, I would like to add some further points on this subject.
With regard to the financial consequences of the expiration of the ECSC Treaty, I note that solutions are emerging which have both the approval of the Council and Parliament in many respects.
The administration of the heritage of the ECSC by the existing Communities and the financing of research activities in the steel and coal sector from the interest generated from this now seems to be established.
<P>
Further discusssions are required on ownership of the heritage, on questions related to future enlargement of the Union and on the distribution of research funding between the sectors.
The Commission will submit a further contribution to these discussions before the end of the year.
As far as the 1999 operating budget is concerned, the Commission shares the regrets expressed by Mr Giansily that the Council does not appear to be willing to approve the transfer of funds to the general budget to reinforce the Community initiatives RESIDER and RECHAR.
<P>
I note that the draft opinion already foresees an alternative solution based on Article 56 of the ECSC Treaty.
The Commission may indeed have to orient itself in this direction even though the possibilities for absorption need to be carefully examined.
The Commission will have another look, as proposed by Mr Giansily, at the funds for steel and coal research.
These funds should gradually descend to the level which can be sustained in the medium term after the expiraty of the ECSC Treaty.
<P>
Let me again thank the rapporteur, Mr Giansily, for his substantial work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="Lenz">
Mr President, two minutes is not very much time in which to explain the significance of the EU's foreign and security policy for the European Parliament.
The Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy has, nevertheless, identified its priorities for the budget.
Achieving democracy and the protection of human rights and supporting peace processes should be a significant aspect of all programmes, in particular those concerned with the applicant countries, but also the Euro-Mediterranean programme, MEDA, and programmes concerned with Eastern Europe.
The interpretation of the Court judgment on the legal bases of programmes on democracy and human rights caused quite a stir amongst the general public, because it is these programmes which are carried out by numerous NGOs and which are effective at grass roots level.
Fortunately, the conciliation in July between the Council, the Commission and Parliament made it possible to remedy this situation.
<P>
Creating a new budget line exclusively for the Royaumont process is intended to serve a similar purpose, namely the building or strengthening of civil society. As part of this process, it is proposed to organise projects in Central and Southern Europe, involving applicant countries, associated countries, Member States and states formerly part of Yugoslavia.
It is for the same reason that we are supporting the Masters degree in human rights, which is intended to provide training and instruction in human rights, and in which numerous universities are already participating.
We have made proposals on stepping up cooperation with Latin America, Asia and South Africa, as have the other committees involved, either directly or through the appropriate institutes.
<P>
Events surrounding the arrest of the former President of Chile, General Pinochet, show how fragile democracy still is in Latin America.
We also wish to support the work of the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague and Rwanda.
The Analysis and Evaluation Centre has started its work on conflict prevention and laying the foundations for peace. We wish to support it.
<P>
Yesterday, there was a heated debate in the Committee on Budgets about whether this chapter should serve external relations, external experience, or something else.
What we want is for our measures to serve the European Union's foreign policy and, in doing so, to gain a higher profile.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="Sonneveld">
Mr President, at this stage of the budget negotiations we have to look at more than just non-compulsory expenditure on agriculture.
As draftsman of an opinion on the 1999 farm budget, I think it is my duty to ensure that the efficient procedure set in train by Messrs Tillich and Mulder for the 1998 budget is used for the forthcoming budget too and further clarified if necessary.
<P>
So it is not right, for example, to include in our resolution on the 1999 budget pronouncements about lowering or at least stabilising farm spending.
We must consider the Commission's latest estimate of future spending which it will shortly be putting before the Council and Parliament in its letter of amendment.
It is clear that international markets are currently subject to change, which will undoubtedly affect agricultural spending.
It proves that our new approach to the budget is right.
In setting the budget we must base ourselves on the latest market and currency data.
<P>
Last year, one of the main political questions was whether anything should be done about the supposedly excessive compensation paid to British arable farmers, for example.
It is good to see care being taken, by our Committee on Agriculture amongst others, to ensure that our policy is constant and reliable, because the world market has again reached a low point and the fall in value of the pound sterling has hit the British per hectare premiums hard.
<P>
A striking feature of this budget is the marked rise in expenditure on accompanying measures - in itself a sound farm policy development, provided spending is appropriate to the end in view.
It is essential for the Commission to submit the agreed evaluation reports on this to the Council and Parliament, because otherwise we shall be groping in the dark as things move on.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the economy is crucial to job creation.
That is why we have lent our full support to the strategic programme on the internal market, and in particular to the 'new approach'.
This means that where standardisation is concerned, our aim must be to ensure that products sold in Europe, which are licensed for sale in one country, are also automatically licensed in another country.
We need similar work on standards in the telecommunications sector.
It is precisely the telecommunications sector which plays a major role in creating new jobs, and here we wish, above all, to promote electronic commerce.
Because this is also something new in the education sector, it is necessary to improve the applications of these telecommunications networks.
Through the IDA programme, in particular, we are trying to link up schools, administrations, small and medium-sized enterprises and public hospitals, and to disseminate this new knowledge.
Obviously, this can also have harmful consequences.
We are aware that there are many problems associated with the Internet.
That is why the European Parliament is advocating an increase in appropriations here.
<P>
A further important point is the construction of trans-European transport networks.
I believe that investment in this sector will not only create new jobs in the short term, when this infrastructure is built, but also, and more significantly, that the knock-on effects will open up entirely new opportunities.
<P>
My final, and perhaps most important point concerns training and continuing education.
The Leonardo programme is a vital one, because it gives young trainees the opportunity to go to other countries and work in companies there, and that leads to success.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Ferber">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy has studied the 1999 budget very carefully.
There are two reasons for this.
Firstly, as far as energy is concerned, we need to step up our efforts at European level to promote alternative sources of energy, in order to meet the commitments we entered into in Kyoto.
The second point is research policy.
Here, of course, we are faced with the huge task of implementing the fifth framework programme in the 1999 budget.
On both matters, we received the support of a majority of the Committee on Budgets, and for this I wish to thank the rapporteur in particular, and her colleagues in the Budgets Committee in general.
An increase in appropriations for Altener and SAVE, as has now been decided, was urgently needed and has been achieved.
<P>
The situation with the fifth framework programme is more difficult.
We still do not have a decision, which also means that at today's first reading we have no legal base.
At this stage, I should like to urge the Council to do all it can to make it possible for us to find a solution - a lawful one - at our next meeting on 10 November.
I should also like to state quite clearly, that the guillotine clause is unlawful and incompatible with the Treaty.
We are awaiting sensible proposals from the Council here.
But - and this is the Budgets Committee's great achievement in the budgetary procedure - enough room for manoeuvre has been secured for it to be possible to implement Parliament's funding proposals.
I think that this constitutes a great success and strengthens Parliament's negotiating position in the conciliation.
By the second reading, we will in any case have closed the conciliation procedure, one way or the other, whether we find a solution or not, so the situation will be clear.
One further request: next year I should like us to devote some time quite specifically to the Joint Research Centre.
We discussed this once again yesterday in the Committee on Budgets; we will be saying something about it in the motion, and Parliament urgently needs to have a clear line on this.
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Once again, I should like to thank colleagues for their constructive cooperation.
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<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="Schwaiger">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, more than two thirds of the amendments tabled by the Committee on External Economic Relations were accepted either in full or in principle by the Committee on Budgets.
These are directed towards securing the necessary funding for incentives for opening up and penetrating third country markets with European Union products and services - a traditional preoccupation of the REX Committee.
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We were also able to win support for our views that, although financial assistance to the Central and Eastern European and Mediterranean countries is necessary and of prime importance, it is only sensible to the extent that these countries are able to use the help to help themselves.
In the future, when it is drawing up the draft budget, the Council should, together with the Commission, give more careful consideration to the capacity of the applicant countries, in particular, to absorb this aid.
In this context, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop's proposed reserve of around ECU 200 million for external economic activities is a step in the right direction, and will improve the way in which the funds available are distributed.
The amendments now being retabled by the Committee on External Economic Relations have three purposes.
Firstly, restoring funding for humanitarian aid in Kosovo to an adequate level, and also making p.m. entries for Turkey, the Socrates, Leonardo and Youth for Europe programmes, and the exceptional financial assistance for Azerbaijan.
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Secondly, the necessary extending of trade cooperation with Asia, Latin America and South Africa, as well as cooperation with economic and social groups, chambers of commerce and industry, employers' organisations, unions, farmers, small and medium-sized enterprises, consumers and environmental organisations.
This is, as it were, multicentric cooperation, involving real people from the economy and society.
Remarks to this effect should also be included.
And lastly, there is market access and budget lines for opening up the Japanese market.
I should like to take this opportunity to thank Mrs Dührkop Dührkop - for being a sympathetic listener, for examining our proposals and for her excellent cooperation - and also the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, Mr Samland, for his patience in the face of my obstinacy.
Finally, I am grateful to the advisers to the Committee on External Economic Relations, Christian Augustin and Francisco Gomes Martes, especially for their excellent cooperation.
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<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="Novo">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, two central objectives guided the Committee on Regional Policy with regard to the 1999 budget: first and foremost, ensuring that the agreements reached in Edinburgh were respected in full.
Fundamentally, the final proposal meets that objective.
The Committee on Regional Policy also expressed doubts about the level of payments, after having presented proposals aimed at guaranteeing adequate capital flows.
The proposal does achieve that, albeit by different means.
Let us hope that it will work in practice.
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Our second main objective was to restore appropriations for Community initiatives.
Our committee still questions whether the Council should be allowed to cut back amounts earmarked for Community initiatives, using delays in their execution as the pretext, even though those delays have never been specified or explained.
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In the committee's view, given this vagueness, Community initiatives should have their initially earmarked appropriations restored to them and, in addition, the PEACE initiative should be given an extra ECU 100 million - but that does not mean cutting amounts for the other initiatives.
It is a significant and regrettable fact that the demand made by the Committee on Regional Policy has not been met in full. Instead the proposal that we are discussing today does nothing to restore appropriations for Community initiatives in full.
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<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="Eisma">
Mr President, as draftsman for the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, I must begin by thanking Mrs Dührkop most warmly for her ready cooperation.
Clearly she is all in favour of a green budget and looks kindly on matters of the environment.
An indication of that is that the budget for the environment has been increased by nearly 5 % compared with the Council's figures.
We have achieved much towards the greening of the budget, notably as regards the Structural Funds, which can now be used to implement the habitat and birds directives - a major gain.
If the other Members of this House are willing to endorse the amendments which the Committee on Budgets has already approved, we shall of course be very pleased.
Notwithstanding this, I have tabled some further amendments on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
These concern the heading 'tropical forests' and the programmes for cooperation with third countries.
We in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection proposed that 10 per cent of MEDA be allocated to the environment, and this was agreed.
It would be logical to do the same for PHARE and TACIS too.
That amendment was not approved by the Committee on Budgets, which is why we have tabled it again to be voted on in plenary.
It will make for greater consistency in the budget if we extend this line to TACIS and PHARE.
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Lastly, Mr President, I believe we must not only take account of the environment in all areas of European Union policy; it must also be systematically integrated into the everyday internal activities of the European institutions.
Through an amendment to the Viola report, we call on all European institutions, including our own European Parliament, to draw up an action plan for a more environmentally friendly internal administration.
Energy, mobility, recycling, all these aspects must be reflected in the way in which the European institutions manage their own affairs.
If we improve our own behaviour in this way, we can make our institutions into a model for other organisations, not just in Europe but worldwide.
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<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="Morgan">
Mr President, I wish to say that the initial Commission proposal was a slight disappointment to us, specifically in the culture sector where we saw a cut of 43 %.
However, the Committee on Budgets, and specifically Barbara Dührkop Dührkop, who understands the need for a strong cultural sector within the EU, have given it priority.
The committee is extremely grateful for that.
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The Culture Committee is divided into three parts: education and youth, cultural and audiovisual, and information.
Throughout the process we have been trying to build on the principles of openness and transparency.
Our task has been to set out criteria and then to allow open competitions to take place.
Of course the whole process this year has been dogged by conflicting reports on the interpretation of the Court judgment on the legal base but, somehow or other, we have managed to find a way through.
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A new approach has been initiated, creating a Europe of knowledge. This has found expression in a new budget line called 'connect' - the brainchild again of Barbara Dührkop Dührkop.
This will give an opportunity for cooperation between different programmes.
It will allow much more flexibility and fluidity, especially between the cultural and educational budget lines.
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In the education sector, we are pleased to be able to resolve the problems regarding lesser-used languages, and we look forward to a legal base being proposed by the Commission on this.
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The culture lines were the biggest headache of all, and still are.
I am, of course, referring to the Kaleidoscope and Ariane programmes.
The problem has been one of timing: these programmes were due to finish in 1998 and, of course, the new culture programme is not meant to start until the year 2000.
So what we have here is a year's delay, and we were very concerned that we would lose the momentum we have gained through these programmes.
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We are pleased to see that the Commission and the Council are coming around to our way of thinking and we have set money aside ready for an agreement on this; we are grateful again to Barbara Dührkop Dührkop for ensuring that money is available if and when that agreement comes through.
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In the audiovisual sector, we are slightly disappointed that not more money has been made available for the experimental actions to help to develop a stronger, more vibrant audiovisual sector in Europe.
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Finally, on the whole information sector: the governments of Europe talk about creating a more people-friendly Europe.
I think they should open their eyes because we already have a people-friendly Europe.
The problem is that people do not know about it, which is why we need to develop a better information policy.
It is critical that, especially during the time of the introduction of the single currency, this is carried through, and I hope that Members will reverse the bizarre vote in the Committee on Budgets on cutting the money for decentralised actions.
All in all, the Culture Committee has a great deal to be happy about, and we thank Barbara Dührkop Dührkop for her courageous support.
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<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="Cunningham">
Mr President, first of all I should also like to pay tribute to the general rapporteur, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, with whom I worked extremely closely.
She has shown a tremendous amount of empathy for the work of the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
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However, I still have a number of concerns, first of all about ECHO.
I wholeheartedly agree - no-one would disagree - that we have to stamp out fraud and corruption.
Fraud and corruption are bad enough and have to be condemned, but when they actually concern food aid to some of the poorest people in the world, that makes it even worse.
Therefore I wholeheartedly agree that we have to condemn it.
But to hold these poorest people in the world hostage whilst we sort out the administrative problems of the Commission is not fair.
Therefore I very much hope that this particular problem will be resolved.
Then we can get on with doing the work that we are supposed to be doing.
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Secondly, on assistance to the ACP banana producers, we all know the desperate situation that these farmers face as a result of the WTO ruling.
We very much want to see the money placed on the line there.
People will have noticed in the last few weeks the horrendous destruction that the recent hurricane has caused in the Caribbean.
It is for that reason that bananas are produced in that area - because they actually grow within six months.
We know how important they are.
We want to see the money on the line to make sure that compensation is provided.
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We would also like to see, as far as the Development Committee is concerned, the Committee on Budgets reconsider a couple of lines.
First of all, on landmines, we were all absolutely thrilled and delighted when the 40th country in the world ratified the Ottawa accord.
We know that on 1 March 1999 the ban on landmines will become a legally-binding treaty of the United Nations.
But there are still something like 110 million of these landmines killing or maiming someone about every quarter of an hour of every day of every week somewhere in the world.
Therefore we would like to see this particular budget item restored to what it was last year.
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On gender, we would like an increase in that line up to what was ECU 5 million because we recognise the importance of gender as far as the development world is concerned.
If someone asked me what single action would make a huge difference as far as the developing world was concerned, I would have to say it would be educating girls.
We know how important gender is.
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I conclude by saying that overall we are relatively happy with the outcome so far of the Budget Committee.
There have been a number of increases which we are pleased with, in particular the budget line on Nigeria, which has been increased by ECU 1 million because there is still a huge amount of work to be done there.
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Many thanks, once again, to the rapporteur, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop.
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<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="Deprez">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, I must firstly tell our general rapporteur, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, how pleased we are with the attention which she has paid to our concerns.
We had five priorities within the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs which have basically all been met.
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Our first priority was the creation of the European Refugee Fund, and here I should like to thank not only the rapporteur, but also Mr Brinkhorst who played a leading role in this area.
The creation of this budgetary fund augurs well for the continuation of the European Union's policy in this area of strategic importance. It will soon be brought under the first pillar and there are currently political discussions on how to share the burden.
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The second priority for our committee was the continuation of measures to combat violence against women and children, sex tourism and the use of the Internet for criminal purposes.
The rapporteur took our request in this particularly sensitive area into consideration and we thank her for that.
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The third priority for our committee was the integration of refugees and the fight against racism and xenophobia.
These budget lines were in a delicate position because they have no legal basis and the rapporteur proposed a solution with whose wording and amounts we are satisfied.
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The fourth priority was our insistence, as has been the case for several years, on a Europol line being included in the budget, because we consider that part of the appropriations intended for Europol must appear in the Union budget, even if this is through a p.m. entry. We are grateful that our request was noted.
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We have one regret with regard to cooperation in the fields of justice and internal affairs.
We wanted a small programme to help the Member States to agree on ways of fighting urban crime, particularly crime committed by groups of youths.
I clearly was not convincing enough as this small programme - and this is my only regret - has been rejected.
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<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Mr President, our committee is not very much of a spending committee.
But we look towards the future as far as the Amsterdam Treaty is concerned.
So it is against that background that the Institutional Committee was very pleased that it is possible to actually align the new budget on the new priorities.
Our colleague, Mr Deprez, has just mentioned this for civil liberties.
It is important that we provide orientations on Europol and on European refugees so that it is clear that once the first pillar receives the aspect of the third pillar we can actually do that.
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Also, it is important that the Amsterdam Treaty takes into account the new rules on comitology.
It is against that background that we fully supported the orientation that we must discuss with the Commission and the Council, namely that on comitology there will be shared responsibilities between the European Parliament and the Council.
It will be one of the tough issues of the future.
A hierarchy of European Community norms is the essence of the Community of the future.
It is this kind of democracy and accountability which the Commission should take a forceful position on.
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<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="Tillich">
Mr President, until now, the procedure in the Committee on Budgetary Control has meant that, every year at the October part-session, we would vote on a motion for a resolution on the implementation of the current budget.
As a result, this was either confused with or clashed with the debate on the next year's budget.
That is why this year, the Committee on Budgetary Control and the Committee on Budgets have agreed a new procedure, namely that we should give a more comprehensive opinion on the coming year's budget, and ask the rapporteur and the Committee on Budgets to take account of this opinion in their deliberations.
I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, for doing just that.
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Now a few comments, both on the debate on next year's budget and on the 1998 budget.
Since the summer, we have had a decision on legal bases.
The situation has thus been clarified and the uncertainties of the previous years finally dispelled.
At the same time, however, I should like to repeat my request to the Commission and the Council to actively work on those areas where they have given us assurances that the legal bases still required will be established, both those for the 1998 budget - before the end of 1998 - and those for 1999.
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On the ad hoc procedure, I should like to support Mr Sonneveld.
Last year, we introduced an ad hoc procedure, the Tillich-Mulder procedure.
In so doing, we thought that we had at last found - through the Commission presenting a letter of amendment in late autumn - a feasible way to forecast agricultural spending, and would thus be able to discuss the budget on a realistic basis.
That is why, should the Commission present a letter of amendment this year, it must also be possible - this procedure provides for it - for increased demand to appear in the Commission's modifications; both reduced and increased demand are possible.
We have taken account of this.
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On Category 3, we have a request for the Commission.
In the 1998 budget procedure, we adopted the SME technology facility in the hope that it would have a positive impact on employment.
I would ask the Commission to provide regular reports on the practical results, as the legal base was only adopted this summer.
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One further comment on Category 4: the Commission itself refers in internal documents to the fact that it is having considerable difficulties utilising the appropriations in MEDA and PHARE.
The Commission must take the necessary steps to improve this situation.
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<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="Baldarelli">
Mr President, first of all I would thank the rapporteur for her work.
I must say on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries that in general we are satisfied with the content of the budget: we are won over by the approach to international agreements; we are content that the specific operation in favour of small-scale fisheries and coastal fishing has been maintained; above all, we are certain that Parliament's efforts in respect of small-scale fisheries have facilitated the establishment of projects which create employment, especially for young people, as well as land-based assistance for fishermen.
We are however mystified by some of the proposals relating to controls: funding is actually being cut back in this sector, and Item B2-901 is inadequate in our view.
We have therefore put forward an amendment concerning the allocation earmarked for controls under Item B2-901, namely an increase from ECU 41 m to ECU 45 m.
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<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="Gröner">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to thank Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, who has continued the process begun in recent years of feminising the budget and has already incorporated the concept of gender mainstreaming - enshrining equal opportunities in all policies - in the budget lines.
We are, however, still waiting for this principle to be applied consistently, as shown by several working documents on the 1998 and 1999 budgets, and as I can prove - for the areas in which the Committee on Women's Rights is competent - from extensive correspondence with 15 of the Commissioners.
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A further priority in our opinion was the fourth action programme on equal opportunities for men and women, and combating violence.
The Daphne programme is being discussed in the meantime, but as I recall, we in this House - namely 350 Members - supported calls for a European Year and a campaign to combat violence against women by signing the Declaration in May.
For reasons we fail to understand, this amendment to the remarks, tabled by the Committee on Women's Rights, was not adopted in the Budgets Committee.
A new amendment is before the House, and I hope that all our colleagues will be consistent and vote in favour of it.
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<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Schmidbauer">
Mr President, in the Petitions Committee's opinion, we emphasised that the funding provided for the committee's work and the Ombudsman must be commensurate with the tasks we are asked to undertake.
The Treaty on European Union gives every citizen the right to petition, and to lodge complaints about the European institutions with the Ombudsman.
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The Treaty of Amsterdam provides a more solid basis for Union citizenship.
The incorporation of part of the third pillar, justice and home affairs, into the first pillar will have an impact on the powers and the scope of the activities of both the Committee on Petitions and the Ombudsman.
The right of petition and complaint is an important instrument for a democratic Europe.
That is why we warn against being over-zealous when making proposals to rationalise the committees' facilities, and the danger of only focusing on legislative work and budgetary duties.
Framing policy can and must amount to something more than austerity measures.
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The Committee on Petitions asks to be given priority when changes to the establishment plan are being considered. We also need resources to make better use of information technology when exchanging documents with citizens.
We support the Ombudsman's requests, and regard them as objectively justified.
The proposed solution to the problem - treating the Ombudsman as a separate institution for the purposes of the budget - allows additional posts to be created.
We are grateful to the Committee on Budgets and Mr Viola for this idea.
This will allow us to consolidate and continue to build up this institution, which is vital for democracy.
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<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, I should first of all like to thank the rapporteur of the Committee on Budgets on the expiry of the ECSC Treaty, Mr Giansily, for incorporating all the conclusions in my opinion - adopted unanimously by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy - in his motion for a resolution, which was also adopted unanimously by the Committee on Budgets.
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If all Members agree with our sensible and just proposals, then the ECSC money - most of which was, after all, amassed by the coal and steel industries themselves, in the form of the levy they have paid since 1952 - will, after 2002, be used to promote research of future significance in the interests of these industries.
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In my report, I have made it clear, for example, that only 20 % of steel's potential as a material has been exploited, which means that both from the quantitative and, especially, the qualitative point of view, steel has a bright future.
The steel industry is not a sunset industry, and if it is able, by stepping up its research efforts, to meet customer demand for ever more sophisticated applications, then its bright future will become a reality.
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The Amsterdam European Council has already decided to use the revenue from the reserves existing after 23 July 2002 for a research fund, which will benefit the sectors related to the coal and steel industry. It is therefore obvious to me - and this is also the easiest and most straightforward solution - that ownership of the ECSC assets should be transferred to the remaining Communities.
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The ECSC Treaty of 1952 has a more developed sense of social issues, a stronger competition policy and an exemplary statistical system.
That is why we are asking the Commission to make proposals, in good time, on integrating these instruments, which have certainly proved themselves, into the EU framework.
It would actually be irresponsible and a great shame if we were to lose these instruments from the first European Community.
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<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="Graenitz">
Mr President, the expiry of the ECSC Treaty presented us with a difficult task, because despite this Treaty being concluded for a limited period, it did not include any kind of winding-up provisions.
I can endorse very much of what the previous speaker said.
For the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, it is obviously particularly important that funding for research continues to be available.
We know from analyses of research in the steel and coal sectors that, by virtue of being closely connected to industry, this exerts a particularly large influence on the development of European industry and has, in broad areas, inordinately strengthened the competitiveness of this European industry compared with the United States, and also Japan.
It would be a shame if the Commission were now not to make the appropriate proposals, firstly so that this research can continue, and the expertise and instruments can continue to be utilised and, secondly, so that in the event of an enlargement, the states concerned can participate in these specific research programmes, in particular those related to coal.
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<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Blak">
Mr President, the wings of history are beating through Parliament today.
We are not only discussing the budgets of this and all the other institutions for next year, we are also looking back to the launch of the European Coal and Steel Community in order to perform the annual exercise of winding up the financial part of the old Treaty.
The proposal that has been presented contains the idea that the interest income on the capital of the ECSC should be used for research programmes within the coal and steel sector.
But it is not ambitious enough.
It is perhaps precisely this sector which is in the greatest difficulty in Europe today.
If we are to achieve the objectives of the Amsterdam Treaty in terms of growth based on sustainability and respect for human beings, we must think on other lines.
We must think in terms of more housing, more research and many more jobs.
That is what Europe needs, and that is also what Europeans need.
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<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="Ruttenstorfer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to preface my remarks with two pleasing points.
Firstly, on behalf of the presidency, I should like to congratulate John Hume who, together with David Trimble, has been awarded the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize.
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I believe that Parliament can be proud to have Members of such calibre in its ranks.
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Secondly, I should like to emphasise how glad I am that the 1999 budget is, for the first time, being drawn up in euros. This makes it very clear that economic and monetary union is becoming a reality, thus bringing Europe even closer together.
Parliament has voiced the criticism that the cuts made to the appropriations in the initial budget estimates were not always in tune with the Council's political declarations on the sectors concerned, in particular in Categories 3 and 4.
In this connection, I should like to remind you that the Council based the decisions it made on 17 July on the 1999 draft budget on several principles: firstly, establishing clear priorities for the financial resources available; secondly, entering realistic amounts in the budget, which will be possible to implement but do not, in our view, hinder important Community policies; taking account both of the criteria in the Interinstitutional Agreement of 29 October 1993 and the Court ruling of 12 May 1998 on legal bases; and, finally, taking account of minor items of expenditure and retaining considerable room for manoeuvre beneath the ceilings of the financial perspective.
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The Budgets Council did not, therefore, make its decisions exclusively on the basis of the priorities set by the Council; it also took into account the budgetary principles I have just outlined.
That explains why - in accordance with strict financial management, which we are constantly striving to achieve - the appropriations, even in areas which are Council priorities, have in some cases been reduced.
I would like to confirm, however, that a special effort needs to be made in the Council procedures to ensure that the various interest-groups involved are adequately coordinated.
In that sense, it was particularly important for me to hear about the matters of particular concern to Parliament, and of course to understand them.
Obviously, I will bring these into the Council's discussions.
Examples mentioned were an agreement on the fifth framework programme of research, and the continuation of Kaleidoscope and Ariane, so as to guarantee a healthy cultural policy in the Union.
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I am also glad that Members addressed the issue of the alleged irregularities and cases of fraud which have recently been uncovered.
Like the European Parliament, the Council is concerned about these alleged irregularities and possible cases of fraud, which were of course recently the subject of a detailed report.
In the Council's view, it is extremely important that the funds at the disposal of the European Communities are disbursed correctly and in such a way that gives no grounds for suspicion.
As one arm of the budgetary authority, the Council feels a high degree of responsibility to the taxpayer for the way in which public money is used.
Moreover, as a European institution, the Council is firmly convinced that the European ideal should not be allowed to be damaged by dishonest behaviour.
The Council is therefore very keen to see the Commission speedily carry out further thorough investigations into these cases, and to see all the necessary conclusions being drawn from their findings.
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On 23 November, in the light of the Court of Auditors' Special Report No 8/98, the Council will consider how the efficiency of UCLAF - following the considerable progress already made - can be further improved.
In addition, the Council is familiar with the various observations, studies and reports - in particular Mr Bösch's report - about a possible reform of UCLAF's status.
Finally on this issue, I should like to stress that the recipients of ECHO aid are in no way responsible for possible administrative shortcomings.
Throughout the world, needy people are dependent on the resources which were set aside for them.
During the budgetary procedure, the needs of these people will, no doubt, be given the consideration they deserve by all those concerned.
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Finally, I can assure you - as I have already said - that I will bring all your comments to bear in the Council's continued deliberations.
I should also like to express my confidence that, through further constructive discussions with your representatives - but also with the Commission - we will produce a good budget for 1999, a budget which is good for the people of Europe.
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(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Wynn">
Mr President, I shall be speaking in general terms about my group's position.
Several later speakers will go into more detail.
I would begin in the usual way by thanking the rapporteurs, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, Mr Viola and certainly Mr Giansily as well.
His report has been supported by our group with the small amendments which occurred in committee.
In the light of the President-in-Office's remarks that we are not quite as much in tune with things as the Council, I have to say that in July the Council made known its decisions: one of the problems in July was that we did not have a dialogue on the PDB because all the time in conciliation was spent on the legal base.
So it is a great pity that we did not have the discussions we should have had.
By the same token, we have not had the ad hoc procedure which we should have had.
This is a breakdown in communications between our two institutions and it needs to be rectified next year.
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Having said that, I thank the President-in-Office for the work he has done on the legal base.
It was appreciated.
It has helped to establish next year's budget, certainly in Categories 3 and 4.
We consider it to be a prudent budget; we consider it to be a reasonable budget.
We have tried to make reductions where we think they are necessary.
The problem for the Council is the strategic reserve, the bridging budget that Mrs Dührkop Dührkop has spoken about.
We are going to leave no margin.
As you know it is our insurance policy, as the Commission has said.
It is our guarantee because if we do not get an interinstitutional agreement we have to have a fallback position.
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Let us be clear: Agenda 2000 depends on the financial perspective.
The financial perspective depends on an interinstitutional agreement.
From our side of the House we want to see an interinstitutional agreement but if we cannot come to a conclusion on that then, make no mistake, we will go back to Article 203.
But to have Article 203 we need the finances for future years.
As the Commissioner said, if we adopt that strategy the Commission will have to call on own resources from the Member States earlier in the year.
There is a way round that which the Council should be discussing.
That was mentioned by Mr Samland in one of our discussions: namely, we need to get an agreement between our institutions before the end of the year which says that if there is no interinstitutional agreement, the basis for Article 203 in the future will be the maximum amount of spend for the year 1999.
If the Council could take that on board it might solve some of the problems which Member States have.
I know they have these problems because they keep contacting us on this side of the House.
We now have more socialist governments than ever and they keep contacting us to say it is not a good idea.
We have to explain the strategy to them time and time again.
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I turn now to the different areas.
Mrs Dührkop Dührkop has covered Categories 1 and 2.
I would like to add the part that the peace programme funded by the European Union has played in Northern Ireland.
Parliament and the Council - and the Union in general - have something to be quite proud of with the role that money has played.
John Hume was instrumental in making sure that each year we had a case to make for that.
Let us add our congratulations to those the President-in-Office extended to John Hume.
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On Category 3, one of the reasons why things have been so easy is because the legal base solved a lot of our problems.
The recommendations made by the rapporteur on the pilot programmes and on the preparatory actions have taken a lot out of the debate.
We have not been arguing over small lines.
I was quite surprised how easily we came to a conclusion on those amounts of money for the pilot programmes etc.
The vast majority of actions on the lines that have disappeared have been placed elsewhere on other lines.
So, all in all, between the Commission, Council and the rapporteur, a decent job has been done in getting over the problem of the legal base.
Hopefully that has now been solved and we can move on in the future to have a better basis for the budget.
<P>
On the Fifth Framework Programme we are still looking for a solution.
While the Committee on Budgets voted the PDB, it may at the end of the day be far too big.
If we get an agreement in which it is less than the PDB - and if we are realistic, it probably will be - if, in second reading, we then reduce that figure we may have a gap and that affects our strategy for the bridging budget.
One thing that crosses my mind - and it has not been discussed in our group - is that we may have to frontload the Fifth Framework Programme in the 1999 budget to make sure that the margin is kept to an absolute minimum.
<P>
Concerning Category 4, I should first like to mention Turkey.
The vote in committee was straightforward.
It is a token entry on the line and ECU 50m in reserve.
But there is no legal base for that line.
Whilst we voted for that in the committee because we consider it to be a political statement rather than a common sense action to vote out the line, we went along with it.
Since then our group has discussed the matter and our approach would be not to support that line; not to support the ECU 50m in reserve even, because there is no legal base.
Our problem is how to do it because there are no amendments to scrap the line.
If we can get a split vote, that is what we on this side of the House will do when it comes to the line on Turkey.
<P>
On ECHO, in committee we voted against the money going in reserve and we stand by that position.
Regardless of the statements made elsewhere about the pressure being put on the Commission, we have to say the work done by Mr Liikanen and Mrs Gradin in trying to get this problem solved has actually gone unnoticed in many areas.
We want to pay tribute to the work they have done.
We thought it was wrong to put the money for humanitarian aid in reserve under threat for next year - we were penalising the people who needed those resources.
I could understand it if we were going to put the expenses of the Commissioners involved - or even the salaries of the people involved - in reserve, but we did not.
My group and I consider that putting actual humanitarian aid in reserve is the wrong thing to do.
We will therefore be voting against that amendment and if we vote against it, it will not get 314 votes and consequently the money will go back on the line.
<P>
Also in category 4 there are two items which Mr Cunningham mentioned, and others will mention, which have given cause for concern: one is tropical forests and the other is the line on anti-personnel mines.
I should like to explain why we voted the way we did.
On tropical forests it has been ECU 50 million for the last two, if not three, years.
Each year the Notenboom procedure takes money which is unspent from that line.
This year the Notenboom procedure will be taking ECU 11 million from the tropical forest line.
That is why our group has voted for the ECU 40 million.
<P>
A similar thing has happened with the anti-personnel mines.
We went along with the reduction proposed by the rapporteur because there are many other lines which have the facility for de-mining those areas which cause a danger to personnel in those areas.
We have agreed with the rapporteur in the resolution that we should get some concrete statements from the Commission on both these areas.
What is the situation with tropical forests?
Does it need ECU 50 million or does it need ECU 40 million?
On the anti-personnel mines, do we really need a plethora of lines for this action or can it be concentrated in one area?
The Commission would help tremendously if we could get some clarification on that.
<P>
Still in category 4, we have a problem with bananas.
We have always had a problem with bananas.
The Treaty of Rome was held up for 24 hours before it was signed because of bananas.
The final GATT round was not concluded until the EU had finalised its agreement on bananas.
We have problems even in our group about this.
The reality is that the majority of our group will be voting against the amendment which will put the money on the line.
This is an area where there is a lot of confusion and once again the Commission could help if they could clarify the difference between the 'spends' in category 4 on this and the 'spends' in the EDF and why it has to be done in one and not the other.
<P>
On Mr Viola's report, most things can go through smoothly.
The one thing that will not go through smoothly on Thursday is the Members' allowances and the Statute.
Our group was split on the vote last night and I am sure our group will be split on the vote on Thursday.
I will state now that the Socialist Group does not have a definitive position.
Whilst we discussed and voted on it last week, I am sure that position will change come Thursday.
I am sure you will see hands going up in several directions on the various votes that appear next week.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, the Court of Justice.
We voted against an increase in personnel there because we are being consistent.
All the political groups have had a policy of no increases in personnel in all the institutions, and that should also apply to the Court of Justice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Elles">
Mr President, this budget debate is the last one of this particular House before the elections next year and, indeed, when we come back to discuss the year 2000, we should have an institutional agreement and a financial perspective which will be different from those we have today.
<P>
Before coming to my remarks on institutional budgets and the Commission budget, there are two general remarks I wish to make about the 1999 budget as a whole.
Firstly, I believe it is a sign of Parliament's sense of responsibility that it has left large margins untouched in the budget.
It is true that the overall strategy will be earmarking some of the funds in the margin in the reserve but we have made it very clear from our Group's point of view that these are not funds which will be committed - they are for strengthening Parliament's negotiating position for the financial perspective and the interinstitutional agreement.
<P>
We have a budget which is very stringent: it has shown how, over a seven-year period, the figures that one is now voting on are very different from the financial perspective which we negotiated back in 1992.
But these are unexpected developments: the CAP is well under the guidelines, as the rapporteur for the Commission budget has said, and much of the structural funds has remained unspent and uncommitted and handed back to taxpayers.
<P>
My second remark on the budget as a whole is that there is a real danger that we are moving into a period where the annual budget has no relevance whatsoever; where we have multiannual programmes which have decided the figures year by year, and a financial perspective which has allocated funds well into the future.
This is why when it comes to the negotiations on the future financial perspective, we want to make it absolutely clear that there will be sufficient flexibility, both in terms of the allocation of funds and in the structure of a financial perspective.
Otherwise we would be better going back into 203 and into the annual budget process where Parliament can have its real relevance.
But we must ensure that the annual budget is a place where we can discuss the figures rather than the present state of affairs.
I have had the feeling we have been talking about small amounts rather than some of the bigger issues which we are concerned with in the European Union.
Above all, we must avoid what I would call a kind of Soviet-style rigidity in the way in which we set our budgets in the European Union in the 21st century.
<P>
Let me move now to comments on other institutions.
I wish to congratulate our rapporteur, Mr Viola.
It is not an easy task to be rapporteur on the budget when there are really sensitive issues around that the House has to decide on.
But we in the EPP Group have not taken the line that we have to be absolutely rigid: where there is a justifiable case for extra staff, as the Court of Justice convinced us, then we have voted for those credits for 10 LA staff.
We also want to make sure that next year, when Parliament comes back after the European elections, that we can have a properly organised system for information technology, which is why we will be voting to clear all the credits out of reserve on information technology.
<P>
The most sensitive issue is quite clearly travel expenses, where we, as a group, have held together so far - and I expect that this will be the position on Thursday - for the overall Committee on Budgets' compromise which links the question of travel costs taken at actual cost for Members' allowances to the overall question of the Statute.
The vast majority of us believe that the most sensible thing is to come to an overall agreement on this, linked to our signature on the interinstitutional agreement at the end of March next year, so that then we can have a really strong and satisfactory means by which Members know what their rights and duties are and we will then know how we will be paying for our travel costs for the next Parliament. Because it is illusionary to think that simply having a transitional decision - which the Bureau decided last night - is something we can live with for a future Parliament and settle all our problems.
We would like the Statute to be resolved and decided as soon as it can be on the basis of the Rothley report.
<P>
I move to the Commission budget.
I congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, on behalf of my Group.
I know only too well it is not easy either to navigate that kind of thing through the House.
<P>
There are three points here which stand out from our particular perspective.
Firstly, there are still some minor points which we wish to see instated, which have not been instated by the Committee on Budgets, relating to such issues as information outlets - I can assure Ms Morgan we will be voting in favour of that on Thursday (B3-0301) -, on Alzheimer's, tourism, and tropical forests: these are issues which we want to see part of the budget that is adopted.
Because we know that the provisions on the legal basis have not eased our decisions this year in terms of how to decide on what are pilot projects and what are preparatory actions.
Presumably this will get easier now as we move into a different process.
It is always the first year which is the most difficult.
<P>
Secondly, on the external budget, last night in the Committee on Budgets we voted on a proposal by my Group for Russia.
We want to ensure that credits have been set aside so that we can respond to the request for humanitarian aid which Mr Primakov has made to the European Union institutions.
We do not know what it is going to be, but these credits should be set aside for the budgetary authority to be able to take specific action, should the need arise.
That is the purpose of that amendment.
<P>
Lastly, I come to ECHO.
This is a question which has caused some real concern, but this arose because we in the EPP Group decided that it was intolerable that we, as parliamentarians, should have to go to look for a particular report in the Commission offices and that we could not actually view that particular document as parliamentarians on Parliament's premises.
So that was the major condition which we attached to unblocking the funds on humanitarian aid.
Whether wilfully or not, this has been blown out of some proportion by many in this House because they did not vote in favour of it.
It always said in the amendment that this was up to the second reading.
It was a tactical reserve.
Now Mr Santer - and I thank the President of the Commission very much for the letter he has sent - has fulfilled those two conditions, and tonight I will propose to my Group that we release the reserve on this line for the vote on Thursday.
In my view, this has been a significant victory for Parliament in terms of making the Commission more open and accountable.
This is the only way we can really make our citizens confident in the financial process in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Brinkhorst">
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Kaklamanis">
Mr President, you may remember that about two years ago in 1996, when the House was debating the 1997 budget, the Council and the Commission made a statement designed to overcome the European Parliament's objections at that time.
<P>
They told us then that the 1997 budget was the last austerity budget.
Not only was that commitment not honoured, but subsequent budgets, including the one for 1999, have been adapted to the dictates of a phoney EMU and have bowed to decisions made by bankers.
The common agricultural policy has come under attack.
Not only has European expenditure on agriculture fallen to 46 % of the budget, but the partial renationalisation of the CAP is already being planned, and the promoters of this strategy, which threatens Europe's political cohesion, are the supposedly socialist governments of the neo-liberals Mr Schröder and Mr Blair.
<P>
The gulf between the poor South and the wealthy North will yawn still wider, and our farmers will have their backs to the wall.
Europe's social cohesion and public health are again at risk.
Training activities for the benefit of workers' organisations have been cut compared with 1998, with payment appropriations falling from ECU 8 million to ECU 6 million.
The social dialogue shows a very small increase, just ECU 50 000.
Funding for solidarity between generations is almost halved, in terms of both commitment and payment appropriations, from ECU 4 million to ECU 2.4 million.
Payment appropriations for the suppression of violence against children, young people and women - line B3-4109 - have been increased very little, from ECU 2 million to ECU 3 million.
<P>
For health issues, payment appropriations are down on the previous year, including in the areas of training, the fight against cancer and the fight against AIDS.
For employment, in lines B5-502 and B5-512 the increases are just ECU 1.5 million and 4.7 million respectively.
Payment appropriations for actions against anti-personnel mines are down by 1.5 %.
Interpreters and conference technicians are also victims of the new budget, with the corresponding budget items cut by ECU 1.5 million.
<P>
I am sorry, but as a non-socialist I cannot vote for such a budget.
I congratulate Mrs Dührkop Dührkop on her hard work and the trouble she has taken, but my own philosophy is different from hers and from the philosophy of the Council and the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Miranda">
Mr President, first of all I wish to congratulate the rapporteurs, especially as they have had to deal with such complex matters.
The current budget procedure has to be tackled by two distinct but inseparable approaches: not only, as you would expect, as a forecast of revenue and expenditure for the next financial year but also as a reference for the new financial framework due to be introduced at the end of that financial year.
<P>
In the light of this twofold approach the Commission - and the Council, even more so - have presented an extremely tight budget which, as a percentage of GNP, represents a sharp reduction compared with the 1998 budget.
Their aim is to pursue and intensify a strategy intended to set an example for meeting the convergence criteria and the stability pact requirements, to bring spending levels down somewhat lower than the ceiling on own resources established at Edinburgh, to provide continuity in the next financial year, and to make significant savings in readiness for enlargement.
<P>
The final value of this budget - after first reading but without taking into account the special reserves - is lower than was set out in Agenda 2000 for the current 15 Member States and for the next financial framework. The European Parliament is inevitably involved in this strategy, and in terms of fixing priorities its hands are tied.
<P>
It should therefore come as no surprise that we are rejecting this strategy today, as we have always rejected it, and its consequences on the budget. Let us say right away that the problem is not so much what we shall be voting for on Thursday but far more what we are not voting for.
For example, the fight against unemployment still has not met with the necessary response. Furthermore, this new budget is being drawn up without the slightest regard for the world financial crisis or the need for Community measures internally and also externally, in particular to help Russia and Latin America.
<P>
On this score, it is obvious that the proposal approved in committee to set aside a special reserve of ECU 500 million for Russia only scratches the surface, because it is not just Russia that is at stake, and in any case I do not think that this is a matter for a special reserve.
On the subject of the reserves and the overall strategy of which they form part - creating a 'virtual' or 'reference' budget - we feel that they should be adopted, in view of the current situation and to avoid the failure to sign a new interinstitutional agreement.
We therefore go along with the rapporteur in this important area because of the tight budget proposed for 1999, as I said earlier, and because that would in a way enable the European Parliament to avoid going along with the medium-term strategy I also referred to earlier.
<P>
I should also like to voice our dissatisfaction at the backward step in the ad hoc process.
A different form of cooperation between the European Parliament and the Council is essential.
<P>
I should now like to turn to some of the other central aspects of the budget process and say a few words on the legal bases.
In this area, we also essentially go along with the position adopted by the European Parliament, although we have to point out that certain budget lines by which we had set considerable store, especially in the social field, have been sacrificed.
Even so, we consider that the tripartite agreement reached means we can salvage something of significance that would otherwise have been lost.
For our part, we regret the fact, for example, that the appropriations earmarked for migrant workers, tourism and small-scale inshore fishing have been scrapped.
<P>
Now for some more specific issues.
Above all, I welcome the fact that, generally speaking, the structural measures agreed at Edinburgh have been acted upon.
Putting into reserve certain amounts for Structural Fund authorisations and payments is acceptable to us, since negotiations on their future use are scheduled and because the actual take-up of the funds by the different Member States is being taken into account.
In our view, it is right not to make the innocent pay for the guilty.
<P>
As for the ECU 500 million reduction in payments, although that is technically understandable, at first reading we would have preferred it to be limited to the ECU 250 m placed in reserve.
<P>
Two more issues result from votes in the Committee on Budgets, both of them in the field of cooperation.
The first concerns humanitarian aid and the ecu.
We do not think that the best approach has been taken.
The decision to select a given heading and initially place the total amount of aid in reserve, leaving the final decision to the Commission provided that certain conditions are met, shows how the European Parliament caved in on its initially successful demands.
<P>
In the light of the positive if limited response by Mr Santer and the decision to go the whole hog and place the whole amount in reserve, the European Parliament was effectively in a catch-22 situation and, in the end, saw this as the only satisfactory response. But, in doing so, it renounced any means of exerting pressure in the future on this vital matter.
The situation would be different if, as we have always contended, the reserve was more limited (albeit significant).
The Council statements that we have just heard on this subject, which we welcome, should enable us to do something about this issue in the current budget procedure.
<P>
The second issue also concerns cooperation: the cancellation of the line for banana production by ACP countries.
This is an especially delicate subject and, of course, we shall be voting against the proposal approved in committee.
May I also say that, although we consider the issue of parliamentary expenses to be extremely important, it is not a major issue - other issues are more serious.
For our part, we done our best to help the various bodies of the European Parliament to resolve this matter.
A consensus must be reached and we have said that we are quite willing to share that consensus provided that there is no demagoguery.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. It is done; we have a budget!
And that is why I should first like to thank the rapporteurs.
<P>
In this bridging budget, Mrs Dührkop herself has been a bridge between the many wishes of the House and has constructed a very well-balanced budget.

Many thanks to her.

<P>
(DE) Much of this procedure has also been painful, in particular redesigning budget lines in connection with the legal base. Social policy was the most affected.
On the other hand, genuine priorities have successfully been set.
The decision of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, in the context of the Agenda 21 process, to support the promotion of renewable energies, sends out an important signal. The fact that we managed to top up research funding in the fifth framework programme by 33 % marks the start of a genuine new trend.
This will not only have a positive impact on climate protection; it will also provide increased employment opportunities in forward-looking technologies. The much-discussed reserve for ECHO has had the effect that, from now on, the Commission has to make the UCLAF report and all future UCLAF reports available.
All the legal reservations which the Commission has hitherto used in its efforts to circumvent Parliament's right to be fully informed have now disappeared. I well remember informal discussions with four Commissioners and a secretary-general, and also other discussions in the Commission, when I was repeatedly told that there were legal reasons for our not having sight of the documents.
These have now been eliminated. Parliament has managed to have Article 206 turned the right way up again.
<P>
But Mr Santer's letter does not mean that all the conditions have yet been fulfilled.
That is why my group has tabled our original amendment to put 30 % of ECHO funds in a reserve for Central and Eastern Europe, as a kind of cushion, to give the Committee on Budgetary Control time to take full stock of Mr Santer's letter and to scrutinise the UCLAF report.
For the future, it would be helpful if the Commission were to be more specific about the staffing problems it regularly reports in this context - being well aware that in the case of ECHO this was no ordinary mini-budget - and if it were to discuss these with the Committee on Budgets to see whether the Liikanen facilities or alternative possibilities might provide a solution.
<P>
Turning now to travel expenses, one might say that once you have lost your reputation, you can do as you please, and the Bureau has palmed us off with a new set of rules which could only be described as a joke, if this were not such a serious matter.
Last night's vote produced a majority in favour of our group's proposal, which was subsequently supported by Mr Dankert, Mr Brinkhorst and Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
That was a good starting-point.
However, the addition, which calls for a link with the Statute for Members, undermines the positive statements and stands in contradiction to the first part.
That is why Thursday's vote in the House will depend on each and every Member.
This will show whether Parliament is capable of organising its own affairs and reforming itself or not.
Unfortunately, the Green Group is not represented in the Bureau.
Last night's discussion of our proposal showed, however, that there will only be new rules on allowances - and, in this specific case, travel expenses - if the Green Group is involved.
<P>
For three years, my group has been working to ensure that those who work in the European institutions receive a pension.
A huge shortfall has occurred, which means that a new approach is needed.
Thanks to the work done in cooperation with Mr Viola and Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, there is now a joint proposal from all the groups to set up a pension fund for all pension entitlements arising after 1 January 1999.
A reserve will first be created to make up the shortfall.
This is sustainable, forward-looking budgetary policy, and it remains to be hoped that an agreement will soon be reached with the Council on this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would also like to congratulate Barbara Dührkop Dührkop for the excellent work she has accomplished, under conditions which were particularly difficult this year, on a budget which is effectively the last of this legislature and therefore full of ramifications, particularly in view of the expiry of the Interinstitutional Agreement.
<P>
In this respect, my group and I subscribe to one of the strategies proposed in this document, which involves reminding the Council of the political, moral and even legal arguments in support of the commitment to conclude a new Interinstitutional Agreement.
We would like the approach which we are proposing to Parliament, as the Committee on Budgets, to be adopted on Thursday to show that this Parliament will not be pushed around and that it is ready to use its powers to stand up for what we feel is a good working instrument which has proven its effectiveness.
<P>
I also welcome the agreement on the legal bases.
I believe that we have opened the way to a more comprehensive agreement which will allow a, shall we say, healthier view of things for many lines and several projects which are very important to the future of the European Union.
I hope that the Council, for its part, contrary to what has happened so far, will do everything in its power to ensure that the regulations are approved and that emphasis is not laid on Parliament's budgetary powers to the detriment of its legislative powers.
<P>
With regard to the budget itself, my group and I are particularly annoyed that some people have tried to mix up our roles.
We have a budgetary role and we have a budgetary control role.
I believe that our control role must be exercised with the greatest possible rigour if we want healthier, more transparent institutions which are more capable of responding to people's expectations.
If there are problems, such as fraud or misuse of Community funds, we must of course resolve these using the instruments which are available, but we must not act emotionally or make a big song and dance about them, because this always leads to a lot of coverage in the press.
We must not mix up our roles or use the examination of the 1999 appropriations as an opportunity to ask for explanations on the 1993 and 1994 appropriations.
<P>
I believe that this is not the way to go.
I believe that there were other instruments we could have used, in addition to the amendment putting the ECHO appropriations into reserve, and that it was precisely those instruments which helped to produce a very wise decision, in my opinion.
Where we need to protect a group of interests, including the interests of those presumed guilty of certain misdemeanours, I believe that we must act with a certain respect.
This is what happened.
Clearly, we played our part here, but it was in our budgetary control capacity, not our budgetary capacity, and we should have underlined this.
When I hear criticisms in a budget debate such as those made by an eminent Member of this House, Mr Giansily, I want to reply, as General de Gaulle did thirty years ago, by saying 'reforms yes, chaos no!'
<P>
I therefore believe that, in this respect, we are not helping Europe by mixing up our roles.
I really hope that, between now and Thursday, we will be able to sort things out.
Our group is hoping, in any case, for an end to this blackmail which is undermining one of the most fundamental and important programmes that the European Union has managed to develop in six years.
For the rest, Mr Liikanen, we are waiting on you. However, I am also waiting for my colleagues to shed light on the other cases.
We cannot have just one case filling the newspapers whilst others are completely ignored.
It rather depends on the person, I would say.
So we should settle this case, if there is one, and use it as an opportunity to resolve them all.
<P>
Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I would strongly urge you to vote wisely and to vote in a manner consistent with the dignity of the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, as the rapporteur pointed out, the unique feature of the 1999 budget is the fact that it will be the last under the current financial perspectives.
This has led the Committee on Budgets to propose to us today not a budget, but a negotiating document with a view to concluding a possible future interinstitutional agreement with the Council.
<P>
The absurd thing about this is that it has led the Commission to propose structural measures up to the ceiling for each heading, so that all the funding decided in Edinburgh is effectively committed.
The Council, probably because it alone knows the real value of money, has rightly recommended that the structural measures should also be subject to the same discipline as everything else.
Parliament, however, intends to continue to give structural measures a privileged status, with an increase of over 16.6 % in commitments, yet everyone knows that these appropriations have been underspent.
<P>
Budget expenditure other than on structural measures and internal policies has been strictly limited by the Commission, releasing sizeable margins compared with 1998.
The Council has applied even greater rigour.
As a result, agricultural expenditure, ever Parliament's scapegoat, is alone in having no increase over 1998.
In real terms, this expenditure is actually lower than 1998 and will, this year, represent no more than 42.2 % of the total commitments.
<P>
Internal policies, which the Council insists must also be subject to budget discipline, have been increased by more than ECU 300 million by the Committee on Budgets to a total of ECU 6.15 billion, an increase of over 7 %.
This is far removed from our budget guidelines of the spring which recommended a maximum increase of 2.5 to 3 % on last year's figure.
<P>
The creation of four special reserves, totalling ECU 1.6 billion in commitments and ECU 4 billion in payments, is unacceptable.
It is a gamble by the Committee on Budgets in an attempt to put pressure on the Council, because the committee rejects a draft budget set at 1.09 % of GNP.
<P>
I refuse to allow European taxpayers to be used as hostages once again in a European Parliament stand-off with the Council.
The draft budget has been artificially increased to 1.17 % of GNP to serve as a calculation basis for the 2000-2006 period, but this is an increase of 7 % over 1998, or 12.5 % if you consider just the non-compulsory expenditure.
<P>
Finally, we condemn the scandalous manoeuvre in the committee which resulted in the removal of subsidies to banana producers in the ACP countries and the pseudo-ultimatum issued to the Commission by placing appropriations for humanitarian aid into reserve.
The discharge vote will be the appropriate time for assessing the ECHO scandal.
<P>
A final word on the Viola report: we welcome the fact that our amendment on the reimbursement of actual travel expenses incurred has finally been adopted.
However, it is clear that this is a transparency measure which should not be linked to the Members' Statute.
It is the responsibility of the Member States to alter MEPs' pay if necessary according to the respective situations of their various MPs and their assessment of their role and importance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Le Gallou">
Mr President, the proposal before us today is not a budget, it is an exercise in budgetary inflation, a ballooning of appropriations.
Although inflation is under control and indeed almost non-existent, and although the Member States are subject to restrictions in connection with the introduction of the euro, the European Union budget is increasing wildly.
<P>
We have a 6 % increase in commitment appropriations and a rise of nearly 3 % in payment appropriations in the draft budget, and an increase of over 7 % for commitments and nearly 4 % for payments in the budget which the European Parliament is preparing to vote on.
Of course, Parliament is always ready when it comes to spending without counting the cost!
<P>
This is not justified.
The bulk of agricultural expenditure will fall in real terms.
Furthermore, in its document on the reform of Community finances, the Commission is proposing to reduce direct agricultural income subsidies in the EAGGF Guarantee Section. This will result in a transfer of the burden from the European Union to the Member States.
<P>
Under these conditions, how can the overall increase in the budget be explained?
Firstly by the increase in the Structural Funds budget: 18 % more in commitment appropriations and 9.5 % more in payment appropriations.
These figures are devoid of any reality and any rigour.
The European Union is throwing open the doors to regional favouritism, without any regard for the taxpayers and without any concern about the waste which will inevitably result.
<P>
The increase can also be explained by the growth of over 8 % in the budget for internal policies, whereas under the principle of subsidiarity the responsibility for this should lie with the Member States, the regions or the local authorities.
<P>
Finally, we have the increase of over 5 % in the budget for external measures.
This is also open to question.
Is the European Union right to be proud of the humanitarian measures which lead to the proliferation of fictitious activities and fictitious jobs?
The only thing which is not fictitious in these humanitarian measures is the lifestyle and the self-publicity of those in charge.
<P>
Is the European Union right to be proud of its TACIS projects and its activities in the former Soviet Union when it shares with the IMF the responsibility of having given Russia the advice and structures which have led to its economic and social collapse?
<P>
What can be said about the food aid which is now proposed by the Committee on Budgets when the production and distribution systems have been disrupted wherever food aid has been provided?
<P>
Unjustified for internal policies, harmful for external measures and a source of waste for the Structural Funds, this inflationary budget will cost taxpayers dear: FRF 95 billion for French taxpayers alone, which is one third of income tax revenue, with an annual increase of nearly 4 %, more than any of the other main headings in the French budget.
<P>
This being the case, the National Front Members intend to vote against this draft budget, which is a budget for the Europe of Maastricht and Amsterdam and which is not in the interests of the taxpayers or citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="Samland">
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Nobel Peace Prize
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="President">
Honourable Members, yesterday I had the opportunity at the beginning of the session of expressing the great satisfaction of the House at the Nobel Prize which has been awarded to our colleague, Mr John Hume.
<P>
(Loud and sustained applause) Many Members expressed the wish that our colleague should hear their congratulations directly, so I propose that one member of each group should now extend congratulations to our colleague, for one minute.
Afterwards I will give him the floor.
We can do today what was impossible yesterday.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="Green">
Mr President, it gives me the most enormous pleasure to be able, on behalf of the Socialist Group, to pay tribute to our colleague and our comrade, John Hume, who, as you know, is now a Nobel Peace laureate.
<P>
John Hume's contribution to the peace process in Northern Ireland is without question the basis on which the Good Friday Agreement, which we all hope is going to lead to long and lasting peace in Northern Ireland, was founded.
We pay tribute to John and the immense work he has done, the personal trials that he and his family have overcome over three decades in the search for a peaceful solution in Northern Ireland.
In saying all that, we pay tribute as well to David Trimble who shares the Nobel Peace Prize this year with John, for the courage he has shown in more recent times in moving forward on the peace agreement for Northern Ireland.
<P>
But to John, our dear John, who has been a member of our group for some years now, we want to say how proud we are of him, how difficult the years have been, how we understand he has been subject to physical attack himself but also to vitriolic personal attack as a result of his efforts to open up the peace process.
That has been recognised in John, by the Nobel Peace Prize but more importantly by the Good Friday Agreement which is, we know, a testimony and tribute to the work you have done.
It is for us a great pleasure to share this moment with you; it is a wonderful moment for us.
We thank you, we congratulate you and we wish that this will be a stimulus to fight and continue the fight for peace in Northern Ireland.
All of us are with you in that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Banotti">
Mr President, on behalf of my group and as a very, very proud Irishwoman, I would like to pay tribute to John Hume and to say how pleased and delighted we are that he finally received his just reward and recognition with award of the Nobel Prize, both to himself and to David Trimble.
<P>
After a time of great anguish and pain in our country, these are the good days, John, and thank God you are there to enjoy them and to enjoy the tributes from your friends and colleagues and your countrywomen and men at this particular time in your life.
<P>
We look, too, at the great tenacity you have displayed in the past 30 years in trying to find peace.
Your path of non-violence has finally, please God, won forever the sort of peace we have all been praying for in Northern Ireland for a great many years.
<P>
Our warmest congratulations to you.
The country is proud of you.
The world is proud of you and especially also, of course, this Parliament of which you are a distinguished Member.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="Cox">
Mr President, on behalf of the ELDR and on my own behalf I want to warmly congratulate our colleague, Mr Hume.
<P>
Mr Hume has shown the most consistent commitment to the constitutional way in politics in very difficult circumstances throughout his adult life.
He has also brought powerful personal analysis to bear on the politics of a divided society.
It is based, most of all, on a sense of tolerance, pluralism and respect - respect for divergent and different traditions.
It is that analysis which has become the foundation stone of the peace process.
Mr Hume has also personally taken major risks for peace.
He had the courage, in the face of much criticism, to bring Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein into that process. They are an important part in the evolving situation in Northern Ireland.
<P>
His award this week, an award which he has generously acknowledged is a mark of respect for the new situation in Northern Ireland itself, is richly deserved.
I congratulate him and his ever-supportive wife, Pat, personally on this achievement.
<P>
I wish, on behalf of my group, to warmly congratulate and acknowledge the role of Mr David Trimble.
I quote Senator George Mitchell of the United States, who played an enormous role in this process.
He argued correctly, I believe, that without John Hume there would be no peace process, and without David Trimble there would have been no peace agreement.
It is therefore right and proper that these two men, in their separate ways, through their separate political journeys long and recent, should be recognised handsomely in this way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="Collins, Gerard">
Mr President, it is a very great privilege and honour for me, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, to very warmly congratulate Mr Hume on his outstanding achievement in being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
I wish to congratulate him and his wife as well, who had to stand with him during a very lonely vigil down the many years.
<P>
I have watched Mr Hume very closely over the many years in which he has been trying to promote peace with justice in Northern Ireland.
There was a time, particularly, when he had very few friends: he was very unwelcome at most doors that he knocked on to plead the case for people who deserved what we take for granted here today.
I watched John Hume as a young man with a small band of loyal and dedicated followers trying to stir up the consciences of many people.
He made a great breakthrough, initially, here in the European Parliament.
It was here that he learned how the Member States could cooperate with each other after a very difficult time during World War I and World War II.
He brought this experience home to Ireland and asked people why, if the Germans, French and others can do it in Europe, we cannot do it in Northern Ireland.
This was a lesson from Europe which worked in Ireland.
Europe responded strongly to Mr Hume's request in helping him to make it a reality.
<P>
I very much hope that the recent recognition - much deserved and much valued - that Mr Hume has had bestowed on him by the Nobel group will act as a further incentive to Mr Trimble and all the others that are there to follow right through to the end of the road, knowing that they have the full support, not only of Parliament, but of the entire world.
<P>
Well done, John.
We wish you God speed in everything you are trying to do.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Puerta">
Mr President, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, I would also like to express our delight at the award of the Nobel Prize to our dear colleague.
We see John Hume as a man of peace, a man of tolerance, an outstanding man who has explored the paths of peace, who has been ahead of everyone else, several years ahead, and who has always taken personal risks, has always been committed, and has always been convinced.
And he has set an example for us all.
For Europe, the Irish situation was a terrible wound in the very depths of its own political body.
And the determination of men like John Hume has made this light and this hope possible.
Some say that peace and a normal democratic situation have not been fully achieved in Northern Ireland, but he has made the objective of peace and political normalisation irreversible.
<P>
Like all the parliamentary groups, we believe that this prize actually bestows more prestige on the Nobel Prize than it does on John Hume.
The Nobel Prize gains in stature when people like John Hume receive the prize from the Academy.
<P>
So today, as Members of the European Parliament, we share John Hume's prize.
His determination, his modesty and his friendliness mean that we feel as if he is family today, beyond the protocols of an institution.
And we are sure he can count on the whole of the European Parliament to go on working for peace in every corner of Europe and the world.
Thank you, John Hume.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, on behalf of the Green Group and especially my colleague Nuala Ahern, I would like to warmly congratulate Mr Hume on this honour.
It is an honour not just for Mr Hume personally, it is also a great honour for this House that a Member has received the Nobel Peace Prize.
He now follows in the footsteps of other great men of peace, for example Nelson Mandela.
It is also an honour for all the other people who have worked for peace in Northern Ireland.
<P>
Less than five years ago when I came to this Parliament it was still very difficult for John Hume, and there was a lot of opposition from the mainstream media in some countries, including my own, to the initiatives he had taken.
He has been proved right and what he did was clearly right.
It has moved peace along.
There is a lesson to be learned from this, and it is that very brave initiatives taken by people, who stand up to bitter and strong criticism against themselves, their families and their followers, can prove extremely important in achieving peace when in the end they are proved right..
<P>
As many people have said, we still do not have peace in Northern Ireland, but we are getting there and I hope that the generation that is growing up in Northern Ireland, in particular young people, have the right to grow up in a demilitarized society where guns are seen not as the norm but as something unusual.
John Hume will have contributed to that.
On behalf of the Green Group I congratulate him most warmly for what he has achieved.
He has sent out a clear message to other people in the world that we must take courageous action.
It is the only way forward.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lalumière">
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, and also personally, I should like to express our warm and heartfelt admiration for John Hume, and also our gratitude.
<P>
With clearsightedness, patience and courage, you, Mr Hume, have managed to stay on course and achieve the goal.
We hope that the peace agreement will hold firm and be permanent.
You have been an example to all of us and for us, as Members of Parliament, you are and you will remain the example to follow.
We are proud to have a man of your stature in our midst.
You have also been the embodiment of a message of hope and tolerance.
Clearly, tolerance should be the rule throughout Europe, as it is one of the fundamental values of our Union, but there are unfortunately still some very problematical areas in Europe.
Northern Ireland was one of these areas but, thanks to you, we are once again full of hope.
We thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Nicholson">
Mr President, on my own behalf and on behalf of my group, I wish to offer my warmest congratulations to a colleague, someone I have worked with as a Member of this Parliament for over nine years.
I offer my sincere and warmest congratulations on the award he has received not only to John but to his wife, Pat, whom I know very well indeed.
Indeed, there are occasions when, if you want to get something done, it is Pat I have to contact and not John.
<P>
I should also like to congratulate my own leader, David Trimble, who has shown remarkable fortitude and courage as the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party.
I know better than anyone else the risks he has taken and, indeed, the challenges still before him.
His courage should not go unnoticed.
<P>
(Applause) I also wish to say that, as someone who has been in political life in Northern Ireland for the last 25 or 26 years, I know the difficulties, risks and challenges and what it is like to plough a long, lonely furrow through the last 30 years in Northern Ireland.
I have to echo the words of my leader at the time: he just hoped that it is not too soon.
We all hope and pray that it is not too soon and that we are on a route from which there will be no turning back to the last 30 years we have experienced.
We have a challenge before us.
I think we will face that challenge.
While there may still be a long way to go, I certainly believe that there will be no turning back and no looking back.
<P>
It must be said that John and myself, and indeed Mr Paisley, have shown by our cooperation within this Parliament what can be achieved, what is possible and how we can achieve it.
The challenge is there for us all to take up.
I know my party leader and I know John, and I know that my party leader and Seamus Mallon will be in Brussels at the part-session at the beginning of November.
We have an opportunity in this Parliament to recognise the work and the task and the deeds before us.
I end by congratulating John again, and wish him every success with the award.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Hume">
Mr President, I am clearly very moved by today, and I thank you all for the warmth of your support.
Obviously, I was very honoured to achieve this award, but I see it not just as a personal award.
I wish to express my deep appreciation to the members of my own Group here and to the members of other groups who nominated me for this award.
As I have said, I do not see it just as a personal award: I see it as a very powerful expression of the international goodwill and support for peace on our streets.
I have no doubt that it is strengthening the will of our people to continue in the enormous task of ending a quarrel of centuries and bringing lasting peace to our people.
<P>
Throughout that peace process I was very grateful for the enormous support that the process has received from this House and the institutions of the European Union and, in particular, the programme for peace and reconciliation which was unanimously endorsed by this House and which is doing so much work at grassroots-level.
It is so positive that it deserves to be studied now by other regions of Europe.
<P>
But, most important of all, I have to say that, as far as I am concerned, the peace process in Northern Ireland has been most heavily inspired by the example of this House.
When I first came here in 1979 - I tell this story often - I went for a walk across the bridge from Strasbourg to Kehl.
I stopped and I thought: 30 years ago if I had stood on this bridge and said: 'Don't worry, although there are 25 million dead for the second time in a century and for centuries these peoples of Europe have slaughtered one another, now it is all over and in 30 years they will all be together' I might have been sent to see a psychiatrist.
But it happened.
Let us not forget that European Union is the best example, as we have learned, in the history of the world of conflict resolution.
<P>
The philosophy that created European Union and the peace of Europe is a philosophy - if you study it - that is at the heart of our agreement: respect for difference and for diversity, the creation of institutions which respect that diversity but which allow all sections to work together in their common interests and economics - spill their sweat, not their blood.
In this way the real healing process of breaking down the barriers of centuries begins and a new society evolves.
That is the philosophy of European Union and it is the philosophy of real peace and, might I add, that is the philosophy that we should be sending to areas of conflict in the world.
We should not be sending armies, we should be sending a philosophy.
The philosophy we have in this building is a philosophy that will resolve conflict everywhere because, at the end of the day, all conflict is about the same thing: it is about seeing difference as a threat.
What we all have to learn is what the peoples of Europe have learned and we are learning in Northern Ireland: difference - whether it is race, religion or nationality - is an accident of birth and is not something we should be engaged in conflict about, it is something we should respect.
<P>
Thank you very much for your support today.
<P>
(The House rose and accorded the speaker a standing ovation)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pompidou">
Mr President, the text of the French version needs to be harmonised.
<P>
Sometimes the term 'principe de prudence ' is used and sometimes the term 'principe de précaution '.
'Principe de précaution ' is the usual term and paragraph 7 must therefore be changed accordingly.
Paragraph 29, in the French version, calls on the Union to ensure that sperm count surveys are carried out. Counting the sperm of the whole of the European Union would be difficult.
I therefore propose that this is changed to sperm sample surveys.
This will probably mean that the other language versions will also have to be changed, but I am not sure how this would be phrased.
Finally, in paragraph 31, second indent, the term 'anomalies de genre ' should be replaced by 'anomalies sexuelles '.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Jensen, Kirsten">
Mr President, I can assure Mr Pompidou that I agree with his first two objections. On the other hand, I cannot make a judgement on the third.
I will therefore say that if what Mr Pompidou is proposing conforms to the original Danish text, i.e. reads the same as the wording of the original text, I can also agree with his third oral amendment.
But if there is a difference, I cannot agree.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Tannert">
Mr President, I should like to draw your attention to the fact that in the German and English versions, recital B states that the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe is developing guidelines for tests on hormones.
This organisation is certainly very important, but it is not responsible for hormones.
Or has not been up until now, at any rate.
<P>
It should read the OECD, at least in these two language versions, and I assume in all the others too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="President">
When I see what hormones do to some people, the OSCE is the appropriate organization.
Nevertheless, we will ensure it is corrected.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Blak, Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Bonde and Sandbæk">
It is with great pleasure that we vote for this report, since it represents an improvement of the present methods for the assessment of environmental aspects.
The key consideration is that the environmental assessment enters the picture at a much earlier stage in the process, and hence takes account of many more factors than was the case with previous assessments.
Hence this assessment approach can also represent a saving in economic respects, in addition to its coverage of environmental aspects, which means that this proposal links together environmental and economic aspects in an effort to secure sustainable development.
The fact is that a good environment must be a concern in all our activities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Lindqvist">
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Bonde and Sandbæk">
We are voting against the Koch report on the harmonisation of examination requirements for safety advisers, because it is not an area that should be of concern to the EU.
In our opinion, it is the job of the national parliaments to formulate examination requirements for training courses, and the award of examination certificates is not an EU matter, but should continue to be handled by the national educational institutions.
It is also our view that the subsidiarity principle should be applied in precisely those areas of policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Caudron">
I should firstly like to thank our colleague, Mr Koch, for his work on this important and serious subject.
<P>
It concerns a particularly grave and important issue which affects the daily safety and lives of not only millions of our citizens who live near roads, railways and rivers, but also everyone else, given the potential extent of the damage caused by chemical, bacteriological and nuclear disasters.
<P>
This once again demonstrates the importance of Europe's role on these major issues, and also the prominent role of the European Parliament.
Our fellow citizens should be better informed about these matters.
<P>
Specifically, we are asking for safety advisers with identical training in every company.
<P>
I approve the report without reservation, particularly as this harmonisation will reduce distortions of competition while at the same time increasing safety.
If we could similarly manage to harmonise the working conditions of drivers, this would also ensure greater safety and less distortion of competition.
<P>
I hope that the momentum generated by this report continues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="van Dam">
In our society there is, alas, in many respects no getting away from dangerous substances.
Using these substances means that they have to be transported.
Given the risks attached to moving them, there must be appropriate safeguards in place.
To guarantee this, persons professionally involved as advisers must possess sufficient expert knowledge and ability.
Because many transport operations cross international borders, it is important to consider the issues here in a European context.
<P>
In view of this, I gave my backing to the Commission proposal and to most of the amendments, aimed at harmonising the level of training required of these advisers within the Community.
A consistently high level of safety demands that all advisers satisfy stringent requirements.
<P>
I am sorry to see that the final proposal talks about minimum requirements rather than uniform standards.
The danger here is that countries which operate a strict system of examination will price themselves out of the market.
If certificates are valid throughout the Community, people will, after all, tend to take the easiest option, that is to say the easiest examination.
<P>
Although I have doubts about possible variations in the difficulty of the examinations, I think this proposal represents an advance on the existing situation and for that reason I voted in favour.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Titley">
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, obviously we supported the McKenna report, because today the European Parliament has made it clear that the game is up for the agricultural well-poisoners.
The resolution will force the Commission to snap out of its lax attitude to nitrates.
It is terrible that, seven years after the nitrates directive's entry into force, it should still be possible to ignore the limit values and escape unpunished.
The Federal Republic of Germany is one of the prime culprits here, and we hope that the new German Government will change that.
<P>
The Commission has neglected to implement the action programmes on cleaning up groundwater.
It has given in to the lobby of farmers' organisations, which put short-term yields ahead of preserving an uncontaminated environment.
The nitrate map reveals the EU to be an ecological disaster zone.
In almost 90 % of the agricultural area in the EU, nitrate concentrations in groundwater exceed the guide value.
In almost a quarter of agricultural land, they are even well above the limit value.
Even if animal husbandry were to become much less intensive, it would still be over 20 years before the surface and ground waters in the EU were even reasonably healthy again.
The blame mainly lies with the Member States - which are bowing too much to pressure from the farming lobby, and are not incorporating the relevant provisions of the directive into national law - but also with the Commission, because it is turning a blind eye to the well-poisoners.
<P>
The Commission must insist on the dilatory Member States keeping strictly to the maximum quantities of animal manure stipulated in the directive and, if necessary - and this is very important - also bring them before the Court of Justice.
Moreover, there should be no more EU aid for farmers who do not comply with the nitrate norms.
There are also calls for a nitrogen levy on animal manure and artificial fertiliser to be introduced, as several Member States are already planning to do.
<P>
We need to ensure that the precautionary principle is applied.
This is also about guaranteeing biodiversity and protecting the seas and lakes from becoming polluted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Caudron">
It is always difficult tackling a subject where national passions often rule over reason - and agriculture is always a real minefield.
I would therefore congratulate Patricia McKenna on the quality of her report.
<P>
However, I have a few points to make which go beyond just the agricultural pollution of waters.
Firstly, we should remember that the current water situation is the result of a policy pursued over many years, the basic principle of which was to subsidise intensive production and therefore the excessive use of fertilisers.
<P>
In all conscience, I believe that if the common agricultural policy continues as it is, or even slightly altered, nothing will change with regard to the ecological risks run by both the environment and the consumer.
If we are to obtain tangible results, the common agricultural policy needs to change direction. This is in the interests of farming and therefore of farmers.
<P>
The French government, through the former Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, Louis Le Pensec, has begun this change.
It shows courage when you consider how certain farmers have been known to react.
However, we should note that many farmers seem to have got the measure of the challenges, aware that changes must be made in this area as consumers may no longer be happy to subsidise certain excesses.
<P>
I therefore believe that it is vital, in the context of Agenda 2000, that we realise the importance of promoting good-quality agriculture which respects the environment.
Although I admit to having certain concerns about the commitment of some of those in charge, as a result of certain particularly active lobbies, I believe that the effort will be worthwhile.
It will certainly be in everyone's interest.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, the House's debates on these matters have often lagged behind the national politicians responsible for agriculture, but attitudes are changing.
We must seize this opportunity to confirm our desire to reform the agricultural and rural policy of the Union, with the constant aim of defending and promoting European agriculture while ensuring the best service for consumers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Malone">
The Commission's report highlights the almost complete failure by all Member States to meet the terms of the 1991 Water Directive.
<P>
Excessive levels of nitrates in drinking water can cause a reaction in the blood's capacity to move oxygen around the body and can be carcinogenic.
As a result of the uncontrolled growth in algae, high levels can also ultimately 'suffocate' ecosystems.
<P>
The Irish Environment Minister, Noel Dempsey, must comply with the terms of the directive and publish the results of the government's most recent study on nitrate levels in Irish drinking water.
<P>
The Irish Government says that an extensive programme of monitoring was carried out in 1992-93 to establish the extent of the problem in Ireland and that the results of this monitoring showed concentrations well below permitted levels.
It adds that a follow-up study is presently being carried out.
<P>
While the problem may not be as serious in Ireland as in other countries, we cannot afford to be complacent.
<P>
Ireland's economy has grown by almost half since 1992.
We know we have a problem with phosphorous but do we now have a problem with nitrates?
The Minister should complete the follow-up monitoring study as soon as possible and let the public know whether nitrate levels in Irish drinking water are still below recommended levels.
If so, he should implement the 1991 directive in full.
<P>
There is little point in the Irish Government signing up to European legislation if it makes no real effort to live up to its obligations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Nicholson">
Whereas, like many Members, I have reservations about the amount of time given over in this Parliament to the discussion of own-initiative reports, Mrs McKenna's concern over the poor implementation of the Nitrates Directive certainly justifies the use of the procedure.
<P>
I have sympathy for the case which Mrs McKenna has outlined.
This comes from recent experience of how disastrous poor implementation of the Groundwater Directive could prove to be to the environment in my own constituency.
Fortunately, a public inquiry managed to avert the danger but that was no thanks to my own Government.
I am pleased that infringement proceedings have now commenced.
<P>
Mrs McKenna's report highlights the sometimes appalling record of our national governments in implementing environmental protection measures.
I agree with the view expressed by Commissioner Kinnock that the present situation is grossly inadequate.
However, I do not agree with his view that it is the farmers and the farmers alone who should pay.
Implementation requires more than legislative action.
It is easy for the Commission to say the world must be cleaner and farmers must pay for it.
Unless more funding is made available the benefits to be won from the Nitrates Directive will not be achieved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="des Places">
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, this is an extremely important report because of the health implications.
I am quite alarmed at some of the amendments adopted today.
Amendment No 11 states that 'sounder scientific data is therefore needed before relevant legislation can be drawn up' regarding the setting of limits values.
It is quite clear that this goes completely against a precautionary approach which should, firstly, ensure that even without sounder scientific data precautionary measures are taken to ensure that people's health and the environment are protected.
As regards some other amendments, such as Nos 6 and 8, it is quite clear where these are coming from and which vested interests are involved: the plastics industry and Mr Pompidou, who probably supports their interests.
It is clear that those amendments weaken the report because industry's research departments should be involved in research.
Even though industry itself has all the capabilities to employ expert researchers, when it comes to protecting people's health, Amendment No 11 asks that sounder scientific evidence should be available first.
There is a total contradiction between the two.
It is quite clear that the precautionary approach is the first thing to be taken.
<P>
I am quite surprised that our Amendment No 2 was not adopted because this is extremely important as regards toxic chemical substances which persist and accumulate in organisms and which have serious and irreversible effects on health and the environment.
We asked for these to be phased out immediately, and we cannot see why this is not acceptable.
We also consider that labelling is an essential requirement and should be introduced immediately.
I cannot understand why Parliament cannot accept such a thing.
Firstly, we have to protect people's health and, secondly, we have to make information available to the public to give the consumer the opportunity to decide whether or not to purchase something which may be harmful to health.
There are a lot of contradictions here, the main one being the contradiction between the precautionary approach and the notion of sounder scientific evidence being available first.
It is clear that industry has enough sound scientific evidence to try to counteract the activities of the environmental and health movements.
Parliament has a duty to the health of the consumer, and the environment to protect their interests first and foremost.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Blak and Kirsten Jensen">
The Danish Social Democrats have voted against two amendments from the Greens on an immediate phasing-out of PVC and three phthalates - not necessarily because the Greens are wrong, but because the own-initiative report already contains a demand for the Commission to present proposals for the phasing-out of endocrine-disrupting substances.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Blokland">
The rapporteur's text describes a large number of potentially harmful effects of chemical substances on the endocrine balance in humans.
I emphasise the term 'potential' effects, because the jury is still out on these effects.
Science has not yet established clearly and conclusively that there is a direct link between these chemical substances and changes in the endocrine balance in humans.
Nevertheless, this is a matter of deep concern to me.
The potential effects of these substances are not insignificant.
If it is true that these chemicals cause an increase in certain types of cancer, impair fertility or are dangerous to the unborn child, then something has to be done about them.
Human life deserves protection.
With a view to doing that, we need to know as much as possible about these substances.
<P>
All praise to the rapporteur in not yielding to all kinds of emotional arguments in writing her report.
In it, she stresses the importance of research.
In many Member States of the European Union, extensive research is being done on the effects of various chemicals.
We need to be abreast of this.
Until we know exactly what the effects of the substances in question are, it is difficult to take far-reaching decisions on removing certain products from the market.
So I did not support the Greens' amendments on phthalates.
Regarding Mr Pompidou's amendments, to my mind these points are covered sufficiently in the resolution.
I voted against his amendments in order to avoid duplicated and impossible pieces of wording.
The rest of the amendments I did support.
<P>
Once again, the main reason for voting for this report and this resolution is the seriousness of the changes which these chemicals might potentially cause.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Bonde and Sandbæk">
Changes are taking place in the environment and in reproductive ability.
Hence there is increasing concern over the impact of chemical substances with hormone-mimicking effects.
The public is worried.
It is providing front-page stories for the press.
On the other hand the Commission dithers, and legislation is falling behind - legislation for which there is a crying need.
It should in fact be following the consumers' wishes, which are that the precautionary principle should be applied and that our sights should be set on phasing out these substances, or at least that provision should be made for suitable labelling, with classification into risk categories if a risk assessment has been carried out.
If a risk assessment has not been carried out for the substances, this must be stated on the label.
We consumers have the right to a life without poison!
<P>
I should like to congratulate Kirsten Jensen on her own-initiative report, which emphasises the precautionary principle and contains a number of practical recommendations that could be a good, but also necessary, springboard from which to move forward.
I would draw special attention to the ideas on labelling rules, independent scientific studies which are not in the pockets of industrial interests, the phasing-out of chemicals, and better and new testing procedures.
But I also strongly endorse the call made in paragraph 19 for openness and transparency in connection with legislation on the environment.
This highlights a recently adopted convention on public access to environmental information in connection with environmental legislation.
<P>
I hope that the debate today and the European Parliament's position will send a clear signal to the Commission on phasing-out and the amendment of legislation - we owe that to the consumers of Europe!
We can always ask for better scientific evidence.
However that does not solve the problems, but only brings delay and does not benefit the legislation or the main objective.
It is no longer a question of more or less safe or unsafe data, it is a question of adopting a precautionary approach in legislation, which does not even need to involve added costs to industry.
<P>
In Denmark we know this debate only too well, especially when it concerns phthalates in toys.
Denmark in fact wants to prohibit the use of phthalates from November this year, but may face a court challenge if the ban is introduced.
Ritt Bjerregaard and Emma Bonino earlier in the year called for emergency intervention to ban those phthalates that are used to make plastic products more flexible.
But Mr Bangemann, and perhaps a number of industrial interests, called it an overreaction and wanted to have further scientific documentation.
The Commission waited for a Dutch report.
When it arrived, it found phthalates not guilty.
The problem is simply that scientific studies, especially those that are not independent, can prove exactly what one wants.
The result depends on the premises on which the study is constructed.
A similar report from Austria advises against the use of phthalates.
Why was this not the report to which the Commission paid attention?
<P>
We do not need more delays, we need legislation which takes account of consumers and the precautionary principle.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Schleicher">
Although one does not vote on the reasoning behind a report, Mrs Jensen's line of reasoning has such a weak scientific basis - and gives the impression that it is on this basis that we are voting in Parliament - that I am voting against this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Wibe">
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Hyland">
I have been on the record of the House many times before on the issue of biodiversity and biotechnical matters.
Biotechnology is a new form of innovation which in general terms must be welcomed, but at the same time controlled mechanisms must be put into place to safeguard the public interest and public policy.
Any debate which takes place at European Union level in relation to understanding what legislation must be implemented on this subject must take place in an environment that is even-handed and balanced.
<P>
The problem I find with the debate taking place on biotechnology is that the opposing sides - whether in favour or against biotechnological inventions - are engaging in sensationalism with regard to the merits or demerits of biotechnological developments.
<P>
For farmers who are the custodians of our land resource and responsible to society for guaranteeing food safety and quality it is of the utmost importance that the benefits of science and research are made available and applied to the sector.
It is to the credit of those who manage our land resource, that they have been at the forefront in the application of modern technology which has helped in advancing food quality and safety.
<P>
It must be borne in mind that the world's productive land resource remains constant and much of it will not respond to established agricultural practices.
It is only through ongoing research, the application of new science including safe and tested biotechnology that the full potential of the resource can be harnessed.
<P>
Biotechnology is not a recent discovery.
It has been applied in varying degrees since the 1970s.
There is now a greater understanding of its potential and benefit for mankind.
It is one of the key technologies of the 21st century and there is an obligation on us to use it in a careful and planned way.
<P>
As should be the case with the application of all new research, transparency and proper information for consumers are important.
I fully support the need for the labelling of all genetically modified food so that the consumer can ultimately decide whether to purchase GMOs or not.
<P>
The future of our agricultural systems and the profession of farming itself, the health of our citizens and those who are employed in the food sector are dependent on the modernisation and development of our agricultural structures in a balanced and even-handed manner.
<P>
It is pointed out in this report that there is a need to take into account the issue of biodiversity in the reform for the Common Agricultural Policy announced under the Agenda 2000 programme.
The strategy also stresses the ecological role of rural areas and the devotion to agricultural methods which favour biodiversity.
I support these recommendations in principle.
<P>
With regard to genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and the possible impact of their release on biodiversity, it is proposed that the matter be dealt with by means of national legislation under which Member States would explicitly be allowed to adopt more stringent measures than those imposed at European Union level.
I do not particularly agree with this approach, because I feel that the European Union - through the European Commission and the European Parliament - should have the necessary foresight to legislate in a tough and reasoned manner.
<P>
I feel that this matter should be dealt with at the level of the European Union so as to ensure uniformity in the rules which apply within all the Member States and territories of the EU itself.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Titley">
I am happy to give my support to this report which calls for our attention to be more focused on preserving the biodiversity of our natural environment.
<P>
Biodiversity is a scientific term of course - to me it means the sheer variety of animals, birds and plants we find, or sometimes used to find, in our countryside.
In my own country one of the mistakes of past EU policies for the agricultural sector is now increasingly acknowledged as the active encouragement of intensive, large field farming.
<P>
The most visible sign of this in Britain has been the destruction of mile after mile of ancient hedgerows, which in the past had acted as homes and corridors for countless species of animal and plant life.
<P>
I am looking to the reforms to be agreed for the future common agricultural policy to move from intensive agriculture to more environmentally-friendly ways of farming and rural development - how about moving a little subsidy from excess crop production to the replanting of British hedgerows?
<P>
As I follow the enlargement of the EU to central and eastern Europe, I will be backing the report's idea that applicant states should make biodiversity protection a key part of their membership bids.
The East should not be encouraged to repeat the mistakes of the West in our CAP designed for the 1950s when environmentally-friendly farming was hardly the fashion.
<P>
(The sitting was adjourned at 1.15 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
1999 Budget - Expiry of ECSC Treaty - 1999 ECSC Budget (continued)
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on the 1999 budget and the ECSC.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fabra Vallés">
Mr President, I would like to take up the debate where the previous speaker, the socialist chairman of the Committee on Budgets, Mr Samland, left off. He argued very clearly in favour of placing the humanitarian aid in the reserve in view of the Commission's refusal to let Parliament have the UCLAF information and that concerning the financial control of the so-called 'serious irregularities' in ECHO.
Thanks to the pressure from this amendment and the good offices of the President of Parliament, Mr Gil-Robles, we have succeeded in obtaining an agreement from Mr Santer by which he undertakes, by letter, to ensure due compliance with and broad interpretation of Article 206.2 of the Treaty.
And that is why last night, in the Committee on Budgets, the common factor of the speeches of all the members of the Group of the European People's Party was raising the reserve.
<P>
As regards Mr Santer's letter, I want to make it clear to you that when he says the rapporteur for the ECHO report had still not been to look at the file, it is because the Commission's Secretariat-General has not allowed me to study it with a translator and an official from the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Tell Mr Santer that when he talks about omitting the names mentioned in the ECHO file on grounds of confidentiality, he is being disingenuous, because all the names have already appeared in the European press before anyone in Parliament has seen a single paper.
And please do not fail to remind Mr Santer that there is no greater lie than a half truth, so the UCLAF and financial control files must be handed over entire and complete, both to Parliament and to the courts.
<P>
How can they explain the fact that UCLAF recommended the immediate dismissal of an official from his position and the order was not transmitted until eight months later?
<P>
Mr President, I could not conclude without saying that this is a serious matter, recognised as such by the Court of Auditors, the Anti-Fraud Unit and the Commission's financial control.
This is another reason to deplore the demagogy used when claims have been made that the PPE Group and the Greens have taken the starving children of the Great Lakes, the women of Sudan or the widows of Bosnia hostage.
Yes, yes, it has been said that we are holding them hostage in our private war with the Commission.
But that is demagogy, because the only thing we want to do is kidnap fraud and corruption and make them disappear.
Because if we do not make fraud and corruption disappear, then ECHO and MED and PHARE and TACIS and so many others will disappear. And above all we must make no mistake, we must not look for fraud where the aid is destined, we must look for fraud at the origin of the programmes, because there are no luxury hotels in the Great Lakes, nor are there any large brand new cars with Bosnian licence plates.
And anyone looking for an enjoyable weekend goes to Haiti, not Sudan.
<P>
Mr President, who is taking hostages: those who want to end corruption or those who are trying to hide their responsibilities behind the misery of the most unfortunate?
It does little service to the future of the Union if we believe that this is all about northeners avid for transparency hounding corrupt southerners.
It is precisely we southerners who need to see the end of fraud and corruption, because when the last euro gets to its destination we will no longer find that talking about the new financial perspective means talking about cuts in the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund. If the net contributors want to pay less, there they have the scissors and pliers to cut down and tear up fraud and corruption, since there is no need to cut programmes and policies with a legal basis.
The 1.27 % of GNP is worth a great deal more.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Virrankoski">
Mr President, the European Union budget now being discussed is a very responsible and disciplined one. Sufficient appropriations have, however, been allocated in the most essential areas.
I would also like at this stage to thank Mrs Dührkop-Dührkop, Mr Viola and Mr Giansily for their excellent work.
<P>
With regard to Parliament I am firstly pleased that the office of the Ombudsman is being strengthened, thus creating opportunities to develop this new and most worthy institution.
Secondly, the budget also contains a review of Members' travel expenses.
Expenses are to be paid only for the actual costs incurred, which I think is the right solution.
The status of Members and the issue of equality will now be dealt with by the Council, and here the so-called dual mandate issue rears its head.
Can the same person be a full-time Member of two different Parliaments at the same time in two different places?
<P>
The Commission's budget now contains an exceptionally high level of appropriations in the reserve.
This has been a growing trend over the years.
The largest reserve is the ECU 1 500 million for the Structural Funds.
The under-use of the Structural Funds and the way they build up by the end of the programme are real problems.
It is not as if there were no need for them, as is borne out by Europe's huge unemployment figures and regional inequalities.
Appropriations are being administered in a way that is too bureaucratic, ponderous and confusing.
The Commission and the Member States are applying a bureaucratic system to the administration of the Structural Funds that is out of all proportion to the amounts of money that need to be spent.
<P>
The biggest political reserve is for humanitarian aid, all ECU 330 million of which have been put into a reserve fund for further investigation and continued action by the Commission.
If it were a matter of anything other than humanitarian aid, this would be understandable. But Parliament's intention to put pressure on the Commission to help people who are suffering is questionable.
Hopefully Mr Santer's letter and measures taken by the Commission will speedily resolve the situation.
<P>
The second sizeable reserve is for the TACIS programme.
One condition for releasing the funds is that the Commission must present to Parliament its overall strategy for solving the acute economic and political crisis in Russia.
I believe this is an impossible demand.
<P>
Three hundred years ago, the Frenchman Montesquieu put forward his doctrine on the three-way division of power, which forms a basis for constitutional government in western states.
According to this, the legislative, the executive and the judicial powers have to remain distinct from one another; otherwise a nation's citizens are vulnerable to despotism.
Perhaps we too should consider the three-way division of power in future, or, in other words, to what extent the European Parliament is a legislative and monitoring body and to what extent it should become involved in actual implementation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Gallagher">
Mr President, at the outset I want to congratulate all those who have prepared the various reports.
Looking at last year's budget, ECU 40 billion out of some ECU 83.5 billion was paid to the common agricultural policy, which is one of the core elements of the annual budget.
<P>
The common agricultural policy is an integral part of the European Union and it is designed to keep farmers on the land, protect the European Union food supply and enhance rural development.
The policy has been in place since 1962 and has at all times been centrally administered by the Commission.
This is the way it should remain.
<P>
I refer to this issue because of the recent publication by the Commission of possible options for the future spending of Union funding.
One of the options under consideration which alarms me somewhat is that 25 % of direct income supports for European Union farmers be directly paid out by the exchequer of the Member States of the Union.
This is a dangerous proposal for a number of reasons.
Firstly, it would only suit those Member States which are not dependent on the agricultural industry, while it would have devastating effects for countries which have strong agricultural industries.
Agriculture as an industry is three times more important to Ireland's economy than to that of many other European States.
Last year Ireland received some £IRL 1500 million under the common agricultural policy.
If it were to be implemented, this proposal would lead to the renationalisation of the CAP.
It would have horrendous effects whereby different EU governments would engage in a process of outbidding each other in terms of the amount of grants they could allocate to the national farmers.
<P>
Let us be abundantly clear about one thing: the renationalisation of CAP would lead to a fragmentation of the CAP itself which would fly in the face of the social and economic policy objectives of the Union.
<P>
On another note, the European Union can never prosper, notwithstanding its economic success, if it alienates the less well-off and marginalised in a society, many of whom are farmers in my country.
<P>
More work needs to be done regarding the twin evils of long-term unemployment and social deprivation.
The decision to reduce the allocation for structural fund programmes in 1999 is certainly not to be welcomed.
In particular I want to welcome the proposal to provide another ECU 100 million for peace and reconciliation which was referred to so many times today by our Nobel Prize Winner, John Hume.
I am delighted with this, but we have to look to the future - there is no provision for the future.
Now that the foundations have been laid, it behoves all of us to find additional monies for the future to pursue peace in Northern Ireland through peace and reconciliation which has been such a success.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, the policy buzz-word in today's euro economy is discipline.
The neo-liberalist discipline of the single-alternative policy concerns just people, but not capital or markets.
On the consecrated ground of the market-place discipline is synonymous with deflation, and is not considered to be a third way.
In global and electronic capitalism the markets are sacrosanct and safely beyond the reach of policy, or, in other words, discipline.
You can control people with policy, but not markets or capital.
Therefore people cannot trust policy that does not have alternatives.
While record sums of money are being made in the stock exchange sweepstakes, the price is being paid for it in the shape of mass unemployment.
Monetary policy is a European Central Bank monopoly.
We need a democratic body to oversee it, a council on financial policy that is concerned with employment and social matters.
The devaluation of the dollar is not only a monetary policy issue.
<P>
I would like to draw attention to one item in the budget, or rather not so much the item itself as the thinking behind it.
The European Parliament is imposing conditions in the budget for the provision of aid for Russia under the TACIS programme.
For aid to be continued, and it has been the western consultancy agencies that have done better out of it than Russia has, Russia is being told to continue with its 'policy of reforms'.
In Russia reform and poverty go hand in hand.
They are synonymous, as are reform and racketeering, and reform and corruption.
The European Parliament's resolution therefore wanted poverty, racketeering and corruption to continue in Russia before we supply it with the TACIS new technology aid.
In practice this might mean that our aid programme to Russia will end.
That might well be a good thing, if the only alternative is the continued programme of reforms we demand of Russia and our support for Yeltsin's sick and corrupt administration.
The best human rights policy for Russia would be if the EU ended aid to Yeltsin.
There are a lot more victims of Yeltsin in Russia and Chechnya than of Pinochet in Chile.
<P>
Before we tell others how they ought to behave, it would occasionally be a good idea to take a look in the mirror and put our own house in order.
I am referring here to the urgent and fundamental reforms needed in MEPs' salaries and travel expenses.
In the Nordic countries a politician cannot earn more than ECU 10 000 net per month after expenses for public duties, as I, for example, am getting today in this Chamber.
We have to create a new expenses claims system, and it should be brought into effect this week here in Strasbourg.
For this we need a single-alternative policy: travel expenses may only be claimed for bona fide costs incurred.
The Committee on Budgets has laid down the lines in this matter.
We need a Statute for Members, but we cannot wait forever.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, I have a comment on what Mr Seppänen was just saying.
Of course we cannot accept the principle of travel expenses being organised as part of our salary, and we should also lay that idea to rest this week.
I wanted, however, to say a word on the general debate: gone are the days when we could simply say that economising is certainly a good thing, and deregulation is fantastic; today, the situation is rather different. The expiry of the European Coal and Steel Community shows - and this is actually the issue I wished to address - that the radical belief in market forces over the last 15 years has claimed unnecessary victims.
Instead of developing the European Coal and Steel Community into an agency on industrial policy, which would be able to tackle the problems of the energy and raw materials sector in a really constructive way, we have simply dissolved it and said: the market will see to the rest.
Now we have to deal with the problem of what to do with the enormous reserves accumulated.
It is quite right that we should allow them to benefit the sector, and here we need to consider more generally how, through a targeted industrial policy, we can revitalise this sector in the long term.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
Mr President, nearly ECU 100 billion, or 750 billion Danish kroner, can be spent in the EU next year.
The Danish contribution will top DKK 15 billion by the turn of the millennium.
Danes are now going to pay more in their contribution to the EU than farmers and others in Denmark receive from the Union.
A typical family with a father, mother and two children will be paying DKK 11 000 on an annual basis.
The problem is not just that it is expensive insurance.
The problem is that a great deal of EU spending does not prevent, but causes damage.
Consumers and taxpayers pay high prices for products which encourage the use of pesticides and growth promoters, which gives rise to new expenditure for storage and destruction, without the farmers getting a reasonable income for their daily toil.
The net effect, it seems, is that we pay directly for the spoiling of our water.
Imagine if we stopped all the support for destruction and let our EU contribution assist a changeover to organic farming or promote sustainable development in poor countries and regions, or imagine if the budget and the accounts were made so transparent that democratically elected representatives could check every record and citizens could see what had been appropriated for whom.
Why not post all the EU accounts on the Internet, Mr Liikanen, so that it would be more difficult for fraudsters to live off EU funds?
Here in Parliament too, we shall be able to set a good example on Thursday by cleaning out our own pigsty and finally switching to the procedure of only refunding expenses actually incurred.
I would urge everyone to vote for our amendment to the Viola report.
It is the thirty-eighth time we have tabled it, so I hope that it will also be the last.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, one question immediately occurs to us on examining this budget, which meets the need for rigour imposed by present circumstances: will Europe's citizens be footing the Union's bill out of their own pockets yet again?
After Edinburgh, where it was decided that the EU budget for economic and social cohesion would be raised to 0.46 % of GDP, we are today being presented with a tight budget, one justified by the need to assist the Member States in their efforts to gear up for the euro, but above all to provide structural support for enlargement.
We wonder how the various Member States' difficulties in terms of cofinancing projects can be resolved during these hard times, when a reduction of ECU 500 m in payment appropriations alone is being recommended for next year. How, above all, can we convince our citizens that the Community is justified in showing solidarity towards the new democracies of Eastern Europe, which face an overwhelming task in developing their infrastructure, environment, production sector and human resources?
The Commission has opted for a radical solution, harnessing the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund in their entirety to the requirements of enlargement: Alleanza Nazionale is convinced that this is necessary and proper, especially if we consider that the CEECs have only recently emerged from under the Communist yoke. They are, nevertheless, in equal need of support from a political union - culpably slow in the making - which could at the very least lend some shape to a disparate array of policies, and of an institutional reform to give the citizens a voice at long last by placing the European Parliament at the forefront of the legislative and decision-making procedure.
<P>
The European people require strong signals and the knowledge that they are supported by representatives who are mindful of their interests and demands.
Unfortunately, we hear all too much nowadays of poor financial management in the case of the PHARE and TACIS programmes, and even of fraud and irregularities in that of ECHO.
<P>
Finally, I would like to speak out in favour of Europe's public servants, who are now being faced with enforced cutbacks in the establishment plan, staff freezes and overhauled social security and pension schemes.
Let us beware, because a civil service under fire and demoralised would endanger the efficiency and independence of the institutions!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Colom i Naval">
Mr President, in very sincerely congratulating the rapporteur I want to go beyond formality and parliamentary courtesy.
I have been through enough budgetary procedures by now to be able to say that this is undoubtedly one of the most peaceful as regards conflicts and frustration amongst committees and groups, at least as far as the rapporteur's area of responsibility is concerned.
<P>
I also want to highlight the fact that this is the first general rapporteur from the Socialist Group who is a woman.
And she is also the first Spanish Member to occupy the position.
<P>
Moving on to the substance, I have two roles to fulfill: one as rapporteur for the Interinstitutional Agreement and the financial perspective, and the other as a representative of the Socialist Group.
<P>
My group has asked me to concentrate on the link between the Interinstitutional Agreement, the financial perspective and the present budget - the one we are debating - which is a fundamental concept for the rapporteur and our Socialist Group.
Although the State Secretary has gone, I am sure that the representatives of the Council will pass this on to him.
In addition, I have seen enough members and officials of the Committee on Budgets here to be sure that what I have to say will reach the Council.
<P>
Mr President, nobody is more convinced than I am of the general usefulness of a budgetary interinstitutional agreement and some medium-term prospects.
Some people miss the never-ending conflicts of pre-1988 budgets.
I will not go so far as to quote the saying about living in interesting times, but I prefer to reserve my excitement for other occasions and causes and to keep the budgetary peace as far as possible.
<P>
I think the 1988 and 1993 agreements were a sign of progress.
They were agreements on major decisions that allowed the harmonious development of the principal European Union policies to take place in peace and serenity at important times of change, such as the single market, the single currency, etcetera.
This peace and serenity is also required in facing up to the challenges of the first years of the 21st century, including pre-accession and perhaps even accession.
<P>
In the past I criticised - and I do not take back a single word - the flaws in the Commission's proposal and underlined the weakness of some of the hypotheses on which it is based.
I will not labour the point.
But I do want to highlight two negative aspects of the financial perspective the Commission is proposing that are relevant today: if Article 203 of the Treaty were strictly applied and the increase in gross national product were 2.5 % a year, as the Commission assumes, the Member States' budgets would, in fact, have to fall annually by 1.1 % to equal your proposed figures.
A higher percentage - for example, if the fall were only 0.5 % - or even any positive percentage would mean that the Article 203 option would turn out to be more advantageous than the Commission's financial perspective.
<P>
Furthermore, the proposals mean that the European Parliament will decide throughout this period - 2000-2006 - on some EUR 20 billion less of non-compulsory expenditure than this Article 203 would permit and, in addition, it could do this or would do this in a new context without restrictions in terms of Article 203.
<P>
What is offered in exchange for that sacrifice of Parliament's powers?
The answer is basic and we have already stated it several times: political power.
There are two areas where we can make progress: one is the resolution of old disputes, such as classification, which has dragged on since 1982, but above all there is flexibility.
I would say that flexibility is the key word, covering revision clauses and certain opportunities for transfers between categories or carryovers.
We must define it and we are ready to look at any formula.
But be aware, representatives of the Council, that without flexibility there will be no agreement.
<P>
The Council does not seem to understand that to sign an interinstitutional agreement there must be at least two parties, usually three, but at least two, and one of these two is Parliament.
<P>
The same thing happened last time.
It took us a year and a half to draw up the Agreement.
After Edinburgh, the British Presidency thought it had completed the negotiations but the Agreement was signed by the Belgian Presidency a year later.
The next Belgian Presidency is in the year 2001.
I hope to sign before then, but if there is no flexibility I give you advance warning that we may end up signing in 2001.
<P>
In view of the lack of dialogue with the Council and because we have no faith in its capacity for reaction, we have been obliged, with the general rapporteur, to table some amendments - the ones we call strategic amendments - which use up the ceiling of the various categories.
Their objective, their real intention - as we know, and as we have always stated - is certainly not to be wasted but simply to give those responsible for the budgets in the Member States heart attacks.
Or rather, joking apart, their objective is for Parliament to do its duty properly and bequeath to the new European Parliament, which will be elected in June 1999, either an adequate and flexible agreement or a sufficient basis for non-compulsory expenditure allowing the new Parliament to define its budgetary priorities easily if it has to do so using Article 203.
<P>
Do not accuse us of squandering now.
After a great fuss, it turned out that last year - or the financial year in progress, 1998 - the Member States increased their budgets by more than the European Parliament increased the Community budget.
So do not accuse us of that, representatives of the Council.
This Parliament has been thrifty and you know that.
It has spent ECU 80 billion less than was agreed with you for the 1988-1999 period.
If we had put that in a savings bank, we would now be paying for the enlargement in cash, but we gave it back to the Ministers for Finance, representatives of the Council.
But you have no guarantee that the Parliament elected in June will follow that thrifty path.
Take that on board.
If we reach agreement, we all know perfectly well that the Treaty and the Financial Regulation contain methods of removing the dreadful inconveniences these amendments might cause the treasuries of the Member States.
<P>
In this context, you will understand that I was opposed to an amendment seeking to create a reserve of EUR 500 m for emergencies in Russia and the former Soviet Union.
Its aim is undoubtably laudable, but it lacks any legal basis and contravenes the agreement on legal bases that we signed on 17 July last.
I would call on my colleagues who proposed it yesterday to think again.
We will lose credibility if this amendment is approved in the House.
If it were approved, it would weaken and undermine the negotiating capacity and the credibility of this institution in the negotiations in progress on the Interinstitutional Agreement.
So I ask you to think it over and not to support it in the House.
<P>
The other point I would like to make relates to the famous 100 % reserve of part D operational appropriations. In my opinion, one of the European Union's most positive external actions, our emergency humanitarian aid, has been taken hostage to resolve some irregularities that are out of all proportion to the sanction.
It has been said that saying this is demagogy.
Obviously I do not share that view.
I think taking these appropriations and putting them in the reserve is demagogy.
That is indeed pure demagogy.
You cannot call for action in Kosovo or Russia and at the same time put the necessary appropriations in a reserve which begins on 1 January and so prevents us taking action in Kosovo or Russia on 1 January.
The only plausible explanation, in my opinion, is that it is easier to vote this reserve through in public than to shoulder the political consequences there would be for the discharge procedure if there were a real belief in the statements made.
Contrary to what some people here say, this is a way for Parliament to duck its political responsibilities.
Parliament has a path to follow: the discharge procedure, not the budgetary procedure.
<P>
I would like to make two very personal final points, ladies and gentlemen.
First, I want to support the proposals we made in the Committee on Budgets and also highlight all references to anti-personnel mine deactivation programmes as far as possible. At the same time, I want to congratulate the rapporteur on her formula for resolving the financing in favour of minority languages.
<P>
Having said that, let me appeal to the conscientiousness of the current Council Presidency so that between now and December we can make progress towards the solutions needed for the European Union budget over the coming years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Tillich">
<SPEAKER ID=97 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Mulder">
Mr President, I was very pleased to see how much importance the rapporteur attaches in her text to continuing the procedure we used last year in setting the farm budget.
I think this is most important, because the agriculture budget has to be based on the best forecasts available.
Secondly, this increases the influence which Parliament is able to exert, and that is good for democracy.
<P>
It is premature at this stage to say that the farm budget should remain at the same level or maybe even be cut.
What counts most for me is that the Commission and thus the European Union should stick to what has been agreed.
If it is true that expenditure turns out to be higher than expected, then that is unfortunate, but if it is lower, then automatically that is regarded as a welcome bonus.
We have to proceed on a basis of budgeting as realistically as possible, and at the same time we must discharge the obligations we have entered into.
<P>
There is one thing I have to say about the farm budget.
Last year, we expressly asked the Commission to clarify an important budget line, namely accompanying measures.
These are particularly important in that there will be more and more talk in future of cross-compliance with regard to income subsidies.
We asked the Commission for a report on those measures. It came at the very last moment, just ahead of the second reading.
But it was a report made up solely of statistics - somewhat on the lean side.
Surely it was not beyond the Commission to produce an analysis of which environmentally friendly farming methods had been the most successful in the Member States?
How is it that only five of the 15 Member States draw on the budget lines for accompanying measures, when everyone talks about a better environment and so on?
These, I think, are the essential things we need to know as we prepare for the forthcoming round of Agenda 2000 and all the rest.
So I would welcome an assurance from the Commission that it will supply us with comprehensive information on the budget line for accompanying measures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Hyland">
Mr President, I welcome the opportunity to speak briefly in this debate.
I welcome in particular proposals in the draft budget for an 8.8 % increase in appropriations which would provide adequate funding for the current round of structural funds.
I believe this is important.
I do not have to remind the House of the importance of structural programmes as an instrument for the economic and social development of the regions.
I hope that these programmes continue into the future.
<P>
I wish, however, in particular to put down a marker in the context of future EU budgets, particularly in the period 2000 to 2006, and to reject proposals emanating from the Commission which suggest a move towards the renationalisation of the common agricultural policy.
The people responsible for this heresy need to be stopped in their tracks.
The economic and social philosophy of the European Union is clearly outlined in their own treaty.
To these new, self-appointed architects of European reconstruction I say: you are doing a serious disservice to the concept of European solidarity and undermining the foundation which has brought us to where we are today within the European Union.
<P>
From an agricultural perspective this Parliament is now aware of the serious threats to the European farm model based on family farming.
We are aware of the role of farmers as guarantors of food security and quality.
We are aware of the serious threat to Europe's rural infrastructure through rural depopulation.
We have brought forward proposals to address many of these problems.
We must now stand up to those who would deny us the lifeline to implement the policies which are necessary to deal with these massive European problems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Elmalan">
Mr President, the constraints linked to the introduction of the single currency in 1999 are weighing on the national budgets and on the Community budget.
It is the sectors of education, social welfare and employment which are most threatened in these rigorous budgets, including at Community level.
We cannot debate the 1999 budget without considering the European Commission document on future financing.
Under pressure from Germany, the Commission has submitted several options, with the aim of rebalancing the national contributions to the Community budget.
The Commission is attempting to satisfy Germany, without regard for any harm which may be caused to the fundamental principles of European construction, such as financial solidarity.
This is particularly true both with the extension to other countries of the rebate on the UK contribution and with the partial renationalisation of aid to farmers.
Germany, which initiated these proposals, seems poorly placed to demand lower payments when you consider the economic and commercial advantages which it gains from the single market.
Its trading surplus should exceed FRF 500 billion in 1998, the majority of it from the Community market.
This is a real record.
<P>
I agree with the recent assessment by the future German Minister for Foreign Affairs, Joschka Fischer.
Germany is, physically and politically, the main net beneficiary of the European integration process.
This being the case, there is no justification for Germany being given even more advantages.
<P>
Beyond the budget discussions between the Member States, with the rise in importance of the fair return principle which Parliament has always criticised, Europe is managing to paint a sad picture people in the Member States and the applicant countries.
This principle is the very negation of the European Union.
I propose a completely different approach.
We must move away from the shopkeeper mentality, whose only aim is to satisfy the appetites of financiers, and reverse the logic of the Community budget by basing it on the principle of solidarity: solidarity with those sectors which are struggling the most and with the poorest regions; solidarity with the European people, by responding to their need for jobs, purchasing power and social welfare; solidarity with the people of the applicant countries, by respecting their experiences and their desires and not imposing on them the diktat of the acquis communautaire
<P>
In order to ensure this solidarity, the Community appropriations must be used differently, for example by concentrating them on the sectors in crisis and on the most underdeveloped regions, by imposing a ceiling on aid to farmers and by developing employment and training policies.
However, we must also generate new income without burdening taxpayers, for example by looking for resources from the financial markets which have broadly profited from the liberalisation of capital.
Why not plan a new Community resource based on the taxation of financial transactions?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Nicholson">
Mr President, I certainly would like to make a small contribution to this debate.
I congratulate the rapporteurs and all involved.
I welcome the continued support for the special programme for Northern Ireland.
I would like to thank the Committee on Budgets for the way in which it has controlled this issue on this occasion.
We did not have the hype we have had for the past two years.
<P>
In Northern Ireland the Peace and Reconciliation Programme has been doing a very good job.
It has created new ideas and shown new ways forward.
However, the whole future of the structural funds has to be borne in mind as well and there will be a fair battle ahead in this Parliament over the next six to nine months when we discuss Agenda 2000 and the entire reform package.
<P>
While we continue to give massive support to the agricultural industry, throughout the European Union the industry is bleeding and dying.
In my own area farmers in my lifetime have never had it so bad.
The situation is impossible.
We are still putting all this money in, so we have to ask the question: where is it all going?
Is it going the right way, or where are we going wrong?
Surely the time to examine this is over the next six to nine months.
Farmers cannot continue as at present.
We are going to destroy the whole fabric of rural society if we allow the present situation to continue.
Money itself will not solve this problem.
We need to have a new look at where we are going.
We need to have a new look at our markets.
We need to take a positive position on the way forward.
I appeal to the Commission to take this point on board.
The defence of our small family farms and our rural farms structure must be maintained.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Ghilardotti">
Mr President, I should like to examine certain aspects which, in truth, represent only a tiny percentage of the budget but are of major relevance to Parliament and its relations with the European citizens.
I refer to the education and culture programmes.
This year the budget discussions have been especially tough in this field, and my colleagues and I are very satisfied with the agreement reached on the legal bases.
<P>
Although this agreement is positive in respect of interinstitutional relations and at last clarifies thelegal options and creates transparency in the budget, it has placed the rapporteur in a considerable dilemma.
The rapporteur has done a tremendous job concerning the sum earmarked for pilot schemes and preparatory actions, managing to take on board the demands of all the committees and of Parliament as a whole, as well as - most importantly - those of the citizens.
The so-called 'other social operations' are always something of a Cinderella in the budget, even though they are a means of enabling citizens to identify with Europe and to expect that their problems will be addressed.
<P>
The work of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the Budgets Committee pre-empted the Amsterdam Treaty, in a sense.
I really would have expected the Council to be equally bold at its first reading.
Although it was not, we were.
I hope that, at second reading, the Council will not assess Parliament's decisions in its traditional manner, but will comply with the undertakings it made when drawing up the agreement on the legal bases.
In particular, I think that it is important to satisfy the voluntary sector, which has been seeking in recent years to confront problems that cannot be solved by either the Community budget - not being competent to do so - or the Member States.
<P>
I should like to draw attention to one final aspect: training.
As the rapporteur said this morning, education and training shape the future of our young people, enabling them to find their way in this frontier-free Europe and look forward to a brighter future.
<P>
Finally, I should like to thank the rapporteur once again for having done whatever could be done, and indeed more - within such tight budgetary constraints - to satisfy all concerned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Goerens">
Mr President, yet another rigorous budget, yet another budget prepared against a backdrop of disagreement about the future financing of the European Union: this exercise, which is repeated every year, is becoming monotonous.
However, this debate should not allow us to forget two important aspects.
The first concerns our desire to bring the Union closer to the concerns of the citizens, which would have been condemned to oblivion if those responsible for implementing the budget had not had to draw lessons from the recently publicised problems.
I do not need to add that each failure in this respect only serves to make people more sceptical, particularly when we are preaching the virtues of rigour at them.
<P>
We cannot claim, and this is my second point, to be in tune with the concerns of our fellow citizens if the lack of adequate legal bases means that whole areas from cooperation to social development and commitment are paralysed.
I hope that the Interinstitutional Agreement will put an end to a situation which, in the community arena, has blocked the activities of the most committed people in our society and withheld aid from those who most desperately needed it.
The monotony of the exercise should also not make us forget that the closure of the next financial year, on whose budget we will vote on Thursday, will coincide with the passage from the second to the third millennium.
<P>
1999 will be a transition year which will raise yet more questions about the future of our societies and the way in which we intend to meet the major challenges. It will only be positive if our management capacity from our past, and more particularly from the 20th century, remains intact.
<P>
In this respect, I am very pleased that the Committee on Budgets accepted our amendment about the republication of the Nuremberg records in the various languages of the European Union.
Although the sums reserved for this may seem derisory, they are still evidence of our desire to substitute our duty to history for our duty of remembrance, given that our memories are failing and history, when widely taught and understood, constitutes the best protection against the pollution of revisionism and denial.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Eriksson">
Mr President, let me use the short time available to comment on two seemingly minor points in the budget, which could nonetheless have major consequences.
Just over a year ago, I tabled a proposal here in this Chamber for a campaign to be undertaken in 1999 to combat violence against women.
There was a large supporting majority in the House and the Committee on Women's Rights put forward a proposal for a very modest budget of ECU 5 million to fund the campaign at EU level.
A majority in committee then rejected the proposal.
I hope that the ECU 5 m will be reinstated when we vote on the budget. There are hundreds of thousands of women throughout the Member States who agree with the majority in this Parliament that this is a matter of great importance.
<P>
People might be wondering whether this would lead to an overall increase in the budget. It is worth remembering that we managed to add ECU 5 m for participation in the Hanover World Fair.
I am sure that Europe's women would appreciate a similar reallocation here too.
<P>
I should also like to use this opportunity to say how pleased I am that we voted in favour of having our expenses reimbursed on a real cost basis.
There is of course a problem with linking the expenses issue to a Statute for Members. In my opinion, we are here to represent voters back at home, not to represent the EU institutions vis-à-vis our electorate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, a word or two on two important points - the overall budget strategy, but firstly the refunding of expenses.
<P>
It is high time Parliament sorted out the matter of expenses.
Already when it looked at the estimates for 1998, it adopted an amendment that travel and subsistence allowances should be paid on the basis of the actual costs incurred.
A full year later, nothing has been agreed.
This is largely the fault of the Bureau which, up to yesterday evening at least, seemed incapable of dealing with the question of expenses.
<P>
Members of the Committee on Budgets quite properly took matters into their own hands.
The amendment by Mr Dankert and others, adopted yesterday evening by the Committee on Budgets, contains some excellent proposals.
Unfortunately, at the insistence of the PPE Group, an addition was made to the effect that the payment of expenses should be covered in a Statute for Members.
This is a malign connection, because it may take a very long time for the Council to approve a statute of that kind.
I urge all Members of the House not to tolerate any further delay in reforming the payment of expenses, and to undo this connection.
<P>
Turning to the question of overall strategy, the 1999 budget debate looks like being pivotal in the discussions on the financial perspective for 2000-2006.
To give Parliament maximum room for manoeuvre, the rapporteur is seeking in 1999 to have the margins beneath the expenditure ceiling carried fully as reserves in the budget.
If Parliament does that, it will be sending out a completely wrong message.
The European Union cannot wriggle out of the budgetary discipline which it is demanding of the EMU countries.
The talks on an interinstitutional agreement envisage the management of expenditure.
It is not acceptable for Parliament to opt for an alternative which will mean maximising spending in 1999 and beyond.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="Wilson">
Mr President, I will talk specifically to two amendments.
Firstly, B1-3800.
We must increase funding for the promotion of beef-eating; we must advertise beef; we must cut the amount of beef in very costly intervention storage.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development tabled these amendments, the Committee on Budgets rejected them.
Since then, we have had confirmation of the loss of our Russian market: 400 000 tonnes of European beef went to Russia last year.
That will have to go into expensive storage this year, in addition to the 580 000 tonnes already there.
A huge beef mountain of a thousand million tonnes!
The Committee on Budgets turned down a proposal to increase beef promotion to cut this intervention storage.
<P>
If we vote this extra money, we could save on intervention costs - probably up to ECU 100m.
Let us spend ECU 20m to save ECU 100m - this is good economic sense.
<P>
Secondly, I hope we will support line B2-518N which would help fund the creation of future jobs involving the exploitation of sheep wool.
Sheep farmers all over Europe are having serious problems.
If only we could get added value for the wool of sheep, besides the meat, it would help our rural areas.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Böge">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, overall this has the potential to be a sound budget, and I should particularly like to thank the rapporteur for her commitment to this budgetary procedure.
It is a bridging budget to the next financial perspective, and it should also be a budget which will help to prepare the ground for introducing the necessary flexibility in the future agreement between the institutions.
I also think that the way in which the European Parliament has framed a sound budgetary and financial policy in recent years should make it easier for the Council to take the first practical steps towards concluding the necessary agreements with Parliament over the next few weeks.
<P>
On Category 1, I think we need to develop the Tillich-Mulder procedure further, to allow agricultural expenditure to be forecast as precisely and accurately as possible, but at the same time to formalise, in the budget, the commitments entered into.
Our experience with this procedure has been good.
But I also wish to add that this procedure will only be able to prove itself in the long term and receive the support of this House if it is adjusted, firstly to take account of budgetary discipline, but also to provide some room for manoeuvre one way or another in the decision-making process, before the final decision is made.
The Tillich-Mulder procedure - I will say this quite explicitly - is not meant to make the management of agricultural expenditure one-sided.
<P>
Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, yesterday in the Committee on Budgets we made some slight changes to the original text of your motion for a resolution.
There were some phrases which might have compelled those concerned not to trust completely the singing of the Agenda 2000 sirens, and also to be a little sceptical about the Tillich-Mulder procedure for the same reason.
I should like to say something about two particular points concerning us in this budget which are obviously of particular interest to the public - because in the end, the budget itself gives less cause for general concern than the ensuing use of the appropriations - in the light of current problems regarding ECHO, MED and TACIS, to mention three examples.
In the Committee on Budgets, we put the money for ECHO in the reserve and set two conditions for its release.
In the meantime, we have received the letter from the President of the Commission, Mr Santer, which I welcome.
But I would add that these are promises for the future.
We all know, do we not - from other committees and committees of inquiry - that promises for the future are only made for the purposes of overcoming present difficulties.
That is why, Mr Liikanen, I would very much like a statement from you, in today's plenary debate, on how the Commission proposes to deal with the second condition, that is the question of handing over documents concerning the fictitious contracts to the judicial authorities competent in each case.
Has that already happened?
Is it going to happen?
I say to all Members that this is not about taking humanitarian aid hostage.
We have plenty of time before the second reading.
But anyone whose resolve is weakening today will basically take us into a difficult discharge procedure in December.
That is why we are well advised to tell the Commission that there are two conditions and that these need to be met.
Otherwise, the money will stay in the reserve until the second reading.
In view of the motion, we will certainly also have to take further clear action on this.
<P>
One final word on the Viola report and the arrangements for reimbursing Members.
I tell you clearly: without a Statute for Members, we only have the bare bones of a proposal.
Secondly, the Bureau's proposal does not solve the problem, but is actually a further step towards the realms of the absurd, with obvious preferential treatment for particular groups.
It is just one dubious proposal in place of another.
<P>
That is why the motion, adopted yesterday by the Committee on Budgets, is an attempt to form a majority in this House and to take action, so that together - without trading accusations - we can take practical steps towards finding a workable solution, not only for travel expenses, but for the whole issue of allowances, reimbursement arrangements and the legal status of Members of the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, the European Union's draft budget for 1999 is a particularly harsh and restrictive austerity budget, a budget dictated by the harsh financial policy imposed by progress towards EMU and the stability pact.
<P>
Once again the Commission and the Council have become exponents of monetarism at the cost of social policy and the social rights of working people.
The Commission and the Council have learned nothing from the continuing worldwide financial crisis which is already a threat to the real economy, to development and to employment.
They have learned nothing from the dramatic consequences of the restrictive policy squeezing Europe's citizens.
Farmers, mainly those in the South, working people, entrepreneurs in the small and medium-sized cottage industry sector, young people and pensioners have all reached the limits of their endurance.
They cannot cope with still more austerity.
<P>
These financial perspectives and budgets are not going to improve the situation of citizens or of the Union's less prosperous countries.
The European Parliament, as the Union's only elected body, must at some point speak up for Europe's citizens and send out a message denouncing this policy and demanding that it should be reversed by voting against this austerity budget directed against the peoples of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Desama">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I must say first of all that the budget on which we will be voting on Thursday morning has the peculiar characteristic of containing some very high figures for research and development. Clearly, these are purely theoretical figures as they relate to a sort of game within the European Parliament which has produced a compromise between the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy and the Committee on Budgets based on the preliminary draft budget tabled by the Commission.
<P>
Actually, the conciliation procedure between Parliament and the Council of Ministers is not over, and I must say that the situation as it stands does not give cause for optimism.
We had hoped that a conciliation agreement would be reached just before the vote in the Committee on Budgets.
Unfortunately, this is clearly a long way off, to the extent that I cannot today guarantee - and I am personally quite pessimistic - that we will have an agreement before the second reading of the budget. This would certainly put us in an extremely difficult situation.
How can we give a legal basis to the research expenditure which we would be required to allocate from 1 January 1999 if there is no agreement with the Council?
<P>
My pessimism is based on the gap between the Parliament and Council positions - 16.3 billion for Parliament and 14.3 billion for the Council, give or take a little - and particularly on the atmosphere in which the conciliation procedure is taking place.
We really do not feel that the Council of Ministers wants to reach agreement here.
On the one hand, the Council is completely obsessed with the revision of the financial perspectives and it wants to impose on Parliament a clause which goes against the rights conferred on Parliament under the Treaties.
On the other hand, we have the impression that, despite everything, the Council wants to advance very carefully, as if it were already convinced that the financial perspectives would be even more unfavourable than at present in terms of resources.
<P>
We are therefore at an impasse and I cannot exclude the possibility that we may attempt an agreement with the Council for just one year, 1999, and defer the overall agreement for the following four years of the framework programme until after the revision of the financial perspectives.
<P>
We must therefore consider this seriously when we vote on the research budgets on Thursday and we must ensure that the Commission, which is an important intermediary - I nearly said mediator - between the Council and Parliament, and particularly the Council bring whatever pressure is necessary to bear on the ministers for research.
Finally, I would draw your attention to the fact that the operation of phasing the ECSC into the budget of the framework programme for research has still not really been dealt with, as we are not sure whether the framework programme will include research on coal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Christodoulou">
Mr President, I will not go into details of the various articles and chapters of the budget - other speakers have analysed them sufficiently - but will restrict myself to expressing a number of general thoughts concerning the role of the budget and how that role is developing.
<P>
In fact, if we consider the development of the European Union's budget over the years, it is evident that it has contributed to the promotion of policies that have influenced the Union's development.
In other words, it has basically been a policy instrument, and its manifestations and expressions at various levels demonstrate as much.
The common agricultural policy and its development, the issue of the Structural Funds and the efforts towards convergence, the European Union's foreign policy and the way it has been financed without bureaucratic impediments at times and has therefore been able to be effective on the few occasions when it has been used; all this shows that the European Union's budget is basically a policy instrument.
<P>
However, the goal of EMU, whose achievement has entailed the exercise of rigorous financial policy at national level, has encouraged the idea that the Union's budget must itself be just as strict.
As a result, the budget has been drawn into a short-term mentality which is gradually altering its basic function and leading to the view that revenues should be saved or, more precisely, that Member States should contribute less to the Union's budget.
In fact, we are going back to 1988 levels in terms of the proportion of GNP contributed, as other speakers have already pointed out.
<P>
The worrying thing is not the austerity of the budget as such, which will naturally increase awareness that excesses must be avoided and that appropriations must be allocated and utilised sensibly.
What is worrying is the emerging trend of using the net financial contribution, which is somewhat arbitrarily defined, and the principle of subsidiarity, which is equally arbitrarily defined, as a means of partially depriving the budget of its ability to function supportively in the context of EMU and adequately to offset the consequences of differences in the regional development of the EU's Member States.
In other words, the budget will cease to play an active part and become a completely passive book-keeping exercise.
<P>
The European Parliament, which is the custodian of the real policy the budget ought to be pursuing, because that is its role, has certainly grasped the need for the budget to be drawn up and implemented in a sound manner.
The current budget demonstrates that, and further proof is to be found in the recent agreement on legal bases which already applies to the budget under review.
That agreement is very important and it has already begun to bear fruit.
It must, of course, be applied consistently and must not lead to ad hoc deviations which would undermine Parliament's credibility.
What that agreement achieved was to rid us of many situations not entirely in keeping with the spirit of the European Union in which legal bases were exploited without anyone's endorsement.
So austerity is not an end in itself.
The 1999 budget is very important because it can become the basis on which financial perspectives are developed.
We must therefore be very careful about the way we formulate it.
<P>
We must also distance ourselves a little from the Council's book-keeping approach which unfortunately tends to prevail.
<P>
In the past, when we were drawing up the budget, we started off with the policy we wished to implement.
In other words, we used to say that this is the European Union's objective, this is the policy it wishes to implement, and then we found the resources.
Now, unfortunately, we do things the other way round and we say: this is the money available; what can we do with it?
That does not help the European Union, especially during the critical period we are going through at the moment, a period when everything is changing and which will require genuinely positive action on the part of the European Union. We will have somehow to reconsider how to restore to the EU budget its true political role.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Mr President, it was stated in this Chamber earlier on today that the European Union budget sends an important message to the citizens of Europe about what issues the Union considers important.
In my opinion, one of the most vital messages that we should be sending out is that we have a sense of responsibility towards those Europeans who are in danger of becoming excluded from society as a result of unemployment, poverty, disability, homelessness or other problems.
In the draft budget we are now discussing there is a proposal for a new item covering measures to combat social exclusion.
ECU 10 million has been allocated for the measures for next year.
When the Treaty of Amsterdam comes into force and places obligations on the Union in this area too, we must be ready and willing to commit much larger sums in the future.
The Council of the European Union has begun a campaign of global solidarity.
I hope that the European Union, and its Member States, will bear a part of this responsibility.
<P>
Finally, greetings to Mr Liikanen from the inter-group meeting.
Everyone agreed that the reason for the Commissioner's absence was perfectly understandable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Dankert">
Mr President, it goes without saying that ever since the 1980 budget, I find myself looking back nostalgically to 203, but at the same time I cannot deny that the financial perspective has done much to secure budgetary calm, budgetary balance in relations between the institutions and within Europe too.
So I find it most unfortunate that we currently have finance ministers in Europe who, seeing that the ceiling has not been reached, think that a policy of zero growth has to be applied to the budget.
It is as if they had been bitten by a millennium bug which sets the clock back to 1980 and before.
<P>
There are some who have sought zero growth even in their own national budgets.
That defies belief, of course.
It cannot be and it must not be.
Looking at how the budget has developed in recent years between Parliament and the Council, I see that the budget has developed in a very controlled manner, that it has been very close to zero growth and would even have been below that had it not been for the Council - the Council - deciding to make a considerable increase in the Structural Funds, which in fact I welcome, and which led to this extra growth.
<P>
Parliament has not been guilty of profligate spending even in recent years.
We too have shown great restraint in the budgetary process.
But that does not mean you can now say that zero growth must be the rule for the next few years.
We are in favour of enlargement.
Whilst the Commission has already done a few sums on the cost of enlargement, it is not clear exactly how much the cost will be.
My feeling is that the Commission errs on the side of caution.
<P>
And then, looking at the agricultural markets - the honourable Member behind me raised the question of meat just now - the CAP will be yielding fewer windfalls than it has done in the past.
Payments out of the Structural Funds will fall due after 2000 which are not included in the financial perspective.
<P>
In short, then, it is not possible to meet all the challenges facing us if at the same time we decide on this zero growth which is so popular at present with a minority of the Council.
I think that will bring us to a far more serious budgetary situation than we experienced in the early 1980s.
We shall have to try to steer a good course for this budget, maintaining our role as joint budgetary authority, namely Parliament and Council together, and not just a minority of the Council.
<P>
So I welcome the fact that Mrs Dührkop does not suggest lowering the financial base for the 2000-2006 negotiations to the level to which the financial perspective for 1999 will bring us.
The difference is about ECU 4 billion, soon to be four billion euros.
We certainly do not want that money to be spent, as has already been said here. We want to go on having room for manoeuvre in budgetary policy, though the attitude of some finance ministers seems to be threatening its survival.
The budget must make a confident transition into the twenty-first century so that the European Union can take every opportunity which that century affords.
<P>
I have a few comments to make on the system of reimbursement of Members' travel expenses.
And I have to put these to you, because in all honesty I wonder which parliament our Bureau actually represents.
Parliament instructed the Bureau to come up with a proposal for the realistic reimbursement of travel costs.
The Bureau decided on a system in which it is apparent on three counts that an income is being paid as well as travel expenses.
Previously that was hidden in the reimbursement of travel expenses, but now it is explicitly stated in the proposal.
Mr President, if you want problems over this in one or two Member States, that is the right way to go about it.
I recall the judgment of the Court of Justice about travel expenses in the case of an English lord.
If the lawyers get to look at it, the system is doomed from the start.
So the Bureau has failed to carry out its instructions.
Mr Böge said just now: I have a far better solution.
I will put off any solution for ever and a day.
I will vote in favour of actual costs, but I will not introduce the system until we have a Statute.
The Christian Democrats see that as their negotiating position.
I think it is a bad one.
I think the only thing we can do is to accept a proposal based on the Bureau's decision, namely that reimbursement should be made for actual costs incurred for actual travel.
Amendments have been tabled to that effect.
The Committee on Budgets achieved some progress yesterday, though it was later reversed by Mr Böge's additional demand.
It is not a compromise, because we are fundamentally in disagreement.
It has to be the case that actual travel costs and only those costs are reimbursed.
<P>
Lastly, Mr President, mention has already been made of this, but for the sake of political clarity I will refer again to Turkey.
The Socialist Group advocates scrapping the reserve in the budget line for financial cooperation with Turkey.
That is a direct consequence of the Court of Justice's decision that a legal basis should be required for budgets.
There is no denying it: there is no legal basis here, and as a result the reserve must go.
It is a pity that some people put a political construction on this.
That is not the intention.
It is the inevitable consequence of what the Council itself has sought to push through in the budget.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Pimenta">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the 1999 budget reflects current European policies as they were enshrined in the interinstitutional agreement leading to the Delors II package.
As such, it could be regarded as a good budget all in all.
I wish to express my sincere thanks to our rapporteur, Barbara Dührkop, who with intelligence and perseverance has done an excellent job.
<P>
Nonetheless, I should like to make the following points. The 1999 budget respects in full the amounts set aside for Chapter II on the Structural Funds whose application has generally proved to be a success.
The cohesion countries are now either already in the euro zone or, in the case of Greece, making progress towards it.
What has happened in my country, Portugal, is proof of that.
Ten years ago it would have been unthinkable that Portugal would now be part of the founding group of the single currency.
Our extraordinary growth rate shows that, if correctly applied, European regional policies, along with the opening and creation of the single European market, are a vital instrument of cohesion and harmonious development.
When negotiating the next interinstitutional agreement and Agenda 2000 we should bear those results in mind. Otherwise, we risk destroying the European development model achieved after so many years.
<P>
I should also like to welcome the fact that, in the chapter on the Structural Funds, the European Parliament's budget proposal calls for more money to help the ultraperipheral regions - in the case of my country, the Azores and Madeira.
<P>
On agriculture, the policies applied in this budget do nothing to correct the unfair imbalances between different types of agriculture and farmers.
I hope that current discussions on CAP reform will bring an end to this scandal.
<P>
As far as internal policies are concerned, the European Parliament's proposal bolsters the action programmes on environmental protection, renewable energies, consumer protection, school exchanges, historic heritage restoration, occupational and social integration for those with special difficulties, sexual equality, NGOs, job creation, assistance for SMEs, and others.
<P>
In effect, the European Parliament has done what the Council was loath to do.
It has scrutinised the programmes and policies that give the European Union a human face, seen what progress has been made, and demanded and approved the amounts needed for them to continue.
Showing a total lack of consistency and, I would even say, stupidly and cynically the Council of Ministers brutally cut back these programmes even as the Heads of State and Government were heaping praise on them in their European Council statements.
<P>
On foreign policy, I would like to stress the role of the European Parliament and my political group in insisting on having more details about the rumours of fraud and misuse of funds in the ECHO Programme.
The Commission has tried to cover up these very serious accusations in order to protect someone - exactly who, we do not know. Were it not for the decisive action taken by the European Parliament there would have been no transparency nor would plans have been made to set up an independent body with more teeth than the current UCLAF.
<P>
Just another couple of points: we wish to support the amendment tabled to restore the ECU 50 million to be spent on tropical forests.
We also support the strategic global reserve so that the Year 2000 budget can start out from a reasonable base should the European Parliament and the Council fail to agree on Agenda 2000.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bösch">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to reiterate what Mr Böge said about ECHO.
Mr Liikanen, please take this matter seriously.
We both know that we have not yet heard the last of these suspected cases of fraud for this year, and it is important that you give us a clear indication here of how seriously you view this whole business.
<P>
In a few days, the summit on the European Union's responsiveness to citizens will take place in Austria, and I believe that it is legitimate, in this context, to ask how responsive the European budget is to citizens.
I recently read the following - and I will quote it in English - in the Financial Times : 'Opening up the whole budget system to make it more simple, more fair and more transparent is a political nightmare, far easier to keep it complicated.'
<P>
In this context, I particularly welcome the European Commission report, 'Financing the European Union', on the operation of the own-resources system.
I have already said in committee that the Commission could perhaps have been a little more emphatic about its own position, but this is a very good report.
It also examines the individual proposals on financing the Union in detail, considering the revenue's visibility to citizens, its yield and how easy it is to monitor.
It is a first step in the right direction.
Mr Liikanen, I hope that you will keep to this path.
<P>
As regards the expenditure, on which we have to take a final decision on Thursday, I should like to highlight in particular - in connection with the theme of responsiveness to citizens - the successful resolution of the legal base problem under the Austrian Presidency.
All the budget lines now have a legal base, and the appropriations can also be disbursed.
After many years of squabbling over legal bases, the citizens of Europe can now have confidence that appropriations entered in the budget will also be converted into expenditure.
I believe that here the European Parliament has proved itself to be a reliable and valuable partner.
After all, we have cancelled 16 budget lines without a legal base amounting to some ECU 124 million.
It was our rapporteur's idea to create a closer match between certain Union policies and promises.
Look at the Leonardo programme - seemingly a priority in Cardiff - now cut by ECU 100 million.
Look at external actions, where even more appropriations have been entered against PHARE, even though we know that the money cannot be absorbed.
I believe that to be our rapporteur's achievement in the 1999 budget.
On this I offer her my warmest congratulations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="McCartin">
Mr President, I want first of all to thank the rapporteur for the good work she has done and indeed to compliment that small group of experts in the Budget Committee who work extremely hard and apply a lot of skill and expertise to this whole business and also the excellent Commission staff who have a lot of patience.
Sometimes the mood in these meetings can be very combative, sometimes unnecessarily so.
<P>
Nevertheless, I often see the whole apparatus as a big locomotive pushing a little wheelbarrow, a bit like children playing shop sometimes, because there is not so much substance there as people would like to believe.
This one per cent is all that we deal with.
By contrast the national governments elected with smaller numbers of people and having less mandates than we have in so many ways control 50 % of public spending throughout the European Union.
If you look at the major newspapers, you see that nobody worries about the effect any decision we take will have on the stock market.
Turn on 'World Business Today' and unless they are making some kind of joke about us, they will not be making any comment on the importance of the decisions we are making here.
It is important for us to say that because this whole budget of the European Union is so small, it makes little difference.
<P>
The only place where it makes a real difference is in agriculture where the recipients get real money - six million farmers throughout the European Union are the recipients of real money.
On the other hand, if you look at the Structural Funds, while in agriculture the average is ECU 5000 per farm-family throughout the European Union, assuming a figure of 7 million farmers, in Structural Funds spending comes to between ECU 200 and 300 per capita in those regions.
It is a relatively small amount of money.
Nevertheless we welcome the fact that the agricultural budget is as big as this.
<P>
In relation to agriculture let me say briefly that, as Mr Nicholson said, all sectors of agriculture are going through hard times, in spite of the fact that real money is being spent.
We have to look at it again and say this must be more to do with marketing and processing and our trade regulations, because throwing money at it is not resolving the problem.
Agricultural spending has maintained the same level for the last ten years, while the number of farmers has dropped from something like 12 million 10 years ago, to 6 million today.
In real terms we have maintained spending without resolving their problems.
We should tell farmers that we have made a real effort and applied real resources.
<P>
On the other hand, there is a regrettable tendency at national and European level to say there must be a balance between what people put in and what people get out.
If this sort of calculation is going to be made, we must do it over a wider front.
Firstly, we have to look at the countries which make the biggest contribution.
These are the countries which gain more from the single market and which have a surplus in their balance of trade with other members of the Community.
We should draw attention to that.
If we enlarge the Community, the countries that pay most at the moment are probably the countries that will gain most from enlargement.
Some policies suit some parts of the Community, others suit others.
We are not going to resolve the problem by reducing the size of the budget and making it smaller.
It will be resolved, as Mr Christodoulou and Mr Bourlanges said, by developing new policies.
We need a bigger budget for the European Union.
We need it because we have a wider vocation than just financing agriculture and collecting a few shillings in tax.
We are trying to create a real political union and if this is to be a Union of regulation only, then it will alienate ordinary people.
One only has to look at what impact ECU 100 million had in Northern Ireland.
Two communities were anti-Europe and both communities have been largely reconciled by the spending of small amounts of money.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr McCartin.
I must admire your commitment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Willockx">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is the last budget of this parliamentary term.
It has been my first term in Parliament and in the Committee on Budgets.
I have greatly admired the massive expertise on budgetary matters and the dedication shown by my fellow members of the Committee on Budgets, but I should add that I do not think this expertise and dedication have had enough of a political impact in shaping the major policy options chosen by Europe.
We have been careful stewards of Europe's coffers.
In so doing, we have done a very important job, but that is not enough as a political authority.
Much of this is down to the Interinstitutional Agreement.
Piet Dankert reminded us of the background, of the pros and cons: an agreement which one way or another means a voluntary limitation of our budgetary powers.
In the next few months, this Parliament will have to weigh thoroughly the pros and cons of a new interinstitutional agreement.
The reports of Mr Colom I Naval contain enough material to serve as a specification against which any negotiating result can be measured.
I agree with Mr Bourlanges that the notion of flexibility between the chapters must be paramount here.
<P>
The 1999 budget is a good run-up to the final talks on the Interinstitutional Agreement.
The extra reserves built in provide a good basis which we can fall back on, if we need or want to switch to Article 203.
The next six months will be crucial, not only for the budget of this Parliament, but for the future of the European Union.
The Interinstitutional Agreement, the financial perspective, Agenda 2000 and the debate on own resources are all up for discussion and are indissolubly linked together.
On the subject of own resources, we should not avoid any of the issues.
It all has to be discussed - expenditure, agricultural structural spending and revenues.
The rebates granted in the past will also have to be reviewed and tested against the reasons for which they were granted.
They have to be updated.
I have to say I was not happy with the first debate we had on the budget in the Committee on Budgets.
We must at all costs avoid a situation in which the European Parliament connives at renationalising European policy and European politics.
We must try, as the European Parliament, to rise above national interests and exert firm pressure on the European Council to overcome the unanimity rule and secure a reasonable new package.
<P>
Lastly, ladies and gentlemen, Europe has sadly lost credibility.
John Hume has proved here how noble a project Europe is.
If there is one point on which we can show exemplary credibility, it is our own Statute.
Please let us do our utmost to achieve, before the end of the year, a revised system for reimbursing travel expenses and, ideally, a new Statute for Members.
On the eve of the elections, we owe that much to the citizens of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Garriga Polledo">
Mr President, the rapporteur has handled a complicated budgetary exercise quite brilliantly.
It is complicated because it coincides with the debate on Agenda 2000, the financial reform of the Union and the negotiations on the Interinstitutional Agreement, that is, all sorts of ingredients that the rapporteur must mix together in one bowl, cook and finally serve up to the citizens of the Union as something edible.
I think she is on the right track and that we will be able to come up with a dish that everyone likes.
<P>
The rapporteur is right to get Parliament working on a hypothetical failure of the negotiations on the Interinstitutional Agreement.
If these negotiations were to prove fruitless in the end, we would find ourselves faced with an Article 203 under the worst conditions for us.
Therefore, her bridging amendments, which commit the available margin of the categories, are, firstly, an imaginative solution to strengthen the role of the European Parliament and make the Council face up to its own inconsistency and, secondly, proof that the ceiling of 1.27 % of own resources is ridiculous and does not help deepen Community policies.
I think that the Committee on Budgets is more aware of this inadequacy today thanks to the proposals by Mrs Dührkop.
<P>
Within that strategy, we would like to look at the reduction of EUR 1 500 million in commitment appropriations and another EUR 500 m in payment appropriations in Category 2, Structural Funds.
This reduction is bound to cause at least a certain amount of fear and suspicion.
The rapporteur calls this the 'flag and amount' mechanism, tying a reserve in Category 2 to the degree of uptake of the appropriations in each of the Member States.
In theory, this will prioritise budgetary effort and good implementation.
But bear in mind that, for the first time, this Parliament is going to accept a change to the Edinburgh Agreement which could result, in the worst case, in payment problems in Objective 2 in 1999.
But, of course, from a budgetary point of view, the strategy is consistent with the interinstitutional negotiations that are still to be concluded.
<P>
However, in the end, we are going to rely on variables outside our control, such as whether the Council does or does not approve an amending and supplementary budget or, more simply, how the Notenboom transfer evolves.
In other words, we are going to give the Council a negotiating advantage without keeping any for ourselves.
So it is risky and we should perhaps take advantage of having Commissioner Liikanen with us to obtain more details from the Commission on how it expects payment appropriations to evolve in 1999.
If they are not going to, or if the expected evolution is not sufficiently adequate, perhaps politics and the budget are on different tracks here.
<P>
Finally, I want to express my very sincere thanks to the rapporteur for her goodwill and the open and conciliatory way she has handled the whole parliamentary procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="Tappin">
Mr President, I should like to concentrate my remarks on the two excellent reports Mr Giansily has presented for this House's consideration.
As he said this morning, unlike previous years, there has been a unanimity of views in the Committee on Budgets.
Two years ago, as draftsman for the EMAC committee for the ECSC budget I said: 'Most of all we need to know that there are no plans to transfer any of the ECSC funds away from the programme and that any surplus funding will be treated as the rightful inheritance of the ECSC, the foundation of its future existence in whatever form it may take'.
<P>
We are now looking at that future existence.
In a period when the Coal and Steel Community still faces big problems, let us look at the changes in global markets, the collapse of the Far Eastern economies and the flood of steel into Europe which is undermining our own steel industry, the effects of enlargement, of ongoing job losses and our need to upgrade technology.
I am delighted that the Commission has proposed that Article 4 should be used to accommodate Parliament's concerns and that this money should not be lost in the budget, or be subject to any complicated and costly procedures and that in this way we can maintain, specifically, targeting in relation to ECSC funds.
<P>
However, I am less than delighted that the Council is not showing the same spirit of cooperation.
By failing to authorise the transfer of ECU 30m for use in time to be able to commit appropriations by the end of next year's budget, the Council is failing to support the aims expressed by Parliament to help create jobs in areas suffering from the consequences of sectoral closures, principles echoed so clearly in the Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
I hope the Commission will make every effort in line with Articles 49 and 56 of the Treaty to use its powers to implement the proposals by other means.
The difference this money will make to the social and research programmes will be significant.
I want to remind this House that we are looking at a predicted 17 000 job losses in coal and steel for 1999.
For the candidate countries it is obvious that the inclusion of their low-tech, over-manned coal and steel plants will have a huge impact on the Community.
It is equally clear that the required modernisation will have enormous social consequences for the regions concerned since there is a massive geographical concentration of production.
We are talking single-sector dependency here.
<P>
Parliament has expressed its awareness of the problems and its desire to take positive action.
I hope that neither the Commission nor the Councill will show themselves any less committed to these problems, and that we shall see, starting with this budget and continuing throughout the process of change accompanying the ending of the ECSC, the positive, direct and effective measures put forward here operationalised by the Commission and supported by the Council.
We want to make sure that ECSC money goes to help restructure the communities the coal and steel industry has served.
After all, that is the legacy we are being left with.
We must make sure that people in those communities have a future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Pronk">
Mr President, first let me compliment the rapporteurs, Mrs Dührkop and Messrs Viola and Giansily, most sincerely on their reports.
We have here a budget which is rigorous, but nevertheless meets most of the reasonable demands made by Members of this Parliament.
At a time when there is turbulence in Asia and Russia and when the Americans too are panicking a little, the European Union, thanks to the euro, remains an oasis of calm and stability.
That has to be underpinned by the right financial policy.
In absolute terms the budget is up, but as in recent years, its relative value is down - which is more than can be said for some national budgets.
I think that national Member States would do well to take a leaf out of our book when it comes to budgets, especially when they find, after an election, that they cannot quite deliver on what they promised before it.
<P>
We have also shown that we are able to be a reliable and constructive partner for other European bodies.
We are seen to be responsible.
Despite the financial perspective, which allows for a ceiling on expenditure of up to 1.27 %, we are well below that ceiling.
So the idea of a spendthrift European Parliament is a misconception.
Few parliaments in Europe would be prepared, with this perspective, to stay below the expenditure ceiling, and the Council and Commission should realise this, though often the Council does not seem to do so.
Let us hope that our record has a positive influence on the talks on the Interinstitutional Agreement.
<P>
A few comments on the additional amendments which have been approved.
They are of course intended solely as a basis for negotiation.
It was never intended that they should stand as they are.
That is not what Parliament intends.
It is not what anyone intends, but hopefully it will make the Council willing to negotiate.
So far, I have not put that willingness to the test with a number of governments.
The budget lines for social policy and employment are up on the preliminary draft, at ECU 48.3 million and 14 million respectively.
But spending this year is down on last year, largely due to the debate on the legal basis for matters relating to the social area.
The Court judgment caused some confusion.
I think Parliament has now largely succeeded in clearing up the confusion, but it has complicated matters very much this year.
<P>
And we have to take the conclusions of the Luxembourg summit seriously.
It is important to conduct an investigation into the effectiveness of the trans-European networks and the money tied up in them.
For Category 3 this is a great deal of money, and the size of the sum may even put the rest of it in jeopardy.
So I think we must be very careful not to find that, after one or two projects, we have spent all the money that we have.
Happily, the Committee on Budgets has reconciled the various parts of internal policy. And I am very pleased with the extra ECU 99 m for the Leonardo programme.
Here again, the Council is being particularly unreasonable.
The money is being well spent, and there is a great deal of interest in it in the Member States.
It is money within the envelope of the financial perspective, and yet the Council is trying to cut it.
<P>
One last thing, Mr President.
Will you take a look at the text of the amendment to the Viola report which was tabled by the Greens and adopted by the Committee on Budgets?
In two respects, the text really is no good and to my mind not altogether consistent with what was agreed in committee.
It is vital, with an eye to the future debate, that we should check this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Haug">
Thank you, Mr President. I just wanted to make a few comments on Mr Giansily's two reports on the ECSC Treaty, although it is of course tempting to give an immediate response to what colleagues have just said.
But that is not my intention now.
<P>
The ECSC Treaty might not expire for another three years, but Parliament has already spent some time considering the question: what actually happens afterwards?
The ECSC's political aim has undoubtedly been achieved, namely to secure peace in Europe by putting the coal and steel sector - which played a decisive role in post-war economic regeneration - under supranational control.
<P>
There it has succeeded.
But its economic achievements should not be underestimated either.
In providing economic and social assistance and supporting structural change in the coal and steel industries over the past decades, the ECSC Treaty has overall proved itself to be a very flexible, very effective, and thus very helpful tool.
On the basis of the Treaty, several specific economic and social instruments were developed, which were very useful to the coal and steel industries and regions during their difficult processes of readaptation.
Without it, it would have been very much more difficult to manage the dramatic structural change in these two sectors in a socially acceptable way.
I know what I am talking about, because I come from just such an area of coal and steel production, and now I live in one.
<P>
Now we all know that the restructuring of the coal and steel industries has not yet been completed, that these sectors continue to lose jobs, and will possibly do so at an even greater rate in the future.
Moreover, the importance of the coal and steel sector will again increase with the admission of the first Central and Eastern European countries into the European Union.
<P>
That reinforces our view that we cannot simply bid the ECSC farewell and leave nothing in its place.
Our firm intention - as reported by Mr Giansily and agreed by the Budgets Committee - is to continue the phasing-in to the budget, to use the provisions and reserves accumulated by the ECSC as the capital for a future Coal and Steel Foundation, to do all this on the basis of a transparent and uniform budget, and on no account to give up the European Union's powers within any such multilateral organisation.
<P>
Bearing in mind the points I have mentioned and in keeping with them, we have put forward our proposal for the ECSC budget.
We urgently call on the Council to give the go-ahead for our funding of conversion activities in the coal and steel industries and regions.
We want to create and convert jobs, and to do so we need support for training and continuing education for employees in these regions.
We are expecting the Council to approve the EUR 30 million for 1999 and to bring in the 30 million from 1998 through the supplementary and amending budget.
We want to use this to generate further momentum on jobs.
Areas of coal and steel production are in particular need of our help.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Imaz San Miguel">
Mr President, first I want to congratulate the rapporteurs, Mr Viola and Mrs Dührkop, on their excellent work.
I am aware of how difficult it is to reconcile politics and various interests, as well as of the need to set priorities in a budget because, in the end, that is making politics.
And I am delighted to say that our rapporteurs have succeeded in doing that, so I will vote for this budget in its entirety.
<P>
What would a European citizen say about this budget?
First, he would say that it is a budget that strengthens the cohesion policies and the cross-border solidarity of the European Union, and that it is a budget that fulfills the Edinburgh Agreements considerably better than last year's.
And it does so in a key year - 1999 - when the financial perspective and the principal European policies for the next few years will be determined.
The cohesion priorities concentrate on the least favoured areas, the so-called low income Objective 1 areas. But there is also an effort to assist other areas of the Union that have suffered conversion processes and are regenerating their economic fabric or running training programmes for their human resources - for the people - geared towards employment, or for regions dependent on the countryside, so that people can live in a rural environment, work and be assured of services and infrastructures.
<P>
To give a simple example, the Basque Country, which I represent, will receive 37 billion pesetas under those headings - covered by Objectives 2, 3, 4 and 5 - for next year.
This investment is no doubt helping to boost our economic fabric with positive results because the whole of society is making an effort.
It is a joint effort that is giving rise to a real convergence in terms of the Community income.
And, to give you an example, the Basque Country's GDP has risen from 79 % to 91 % of the Community average over the last 12 years.
<P>
This budget also strengthens the Union's internal policies in the face of the Council's planned cuts.
In this respect, the amendments by the Committee on Budgets strengthen culture and education through programmes such as Leonardo, Socrates and Youth for Europe, and, as Jacques Delors said, promoting projects like these is, in a sense, creating the European soul. I think we all support the project of continuing to build this Europe that respects diversity.
<P>
And I want to mention one particular cultural point: the item on support for less common languages, because if anything is crucial in supporting cultural diversity, it is these languages. They are less common but that does not mean that they are unimportant, because they are spoken by over 10 % of Europeans.
ECU 4 million is inadequate from any angle, but maintaining it against the Council's intention to cut it is a step towards consolidating a stable programme of support for these languages at European level.
<P>
And I want to thank Mrs Dührkop personally for the effort she has made on this, as a Basque and as someone committed to cultural pluralism.
<P>
There has been controversy, in the approval of this budget, about placing the amounts intended for the humanitarian aid office, ECHO, in the reserve.
This is a necessary measure from any point of view, because our duty as managers of public money is to fight fraud and corruption and there was enough information to indicate that a clear misappropriation had taken place.
We have not taken the weakest people hostage, those who need humanitarian aid, by establishing this reserve because, first of all, the reserve affects next year's budget, so we have not paralysed any project today given that we are at first reading.
And, in the second place, the establishment of this reserve has borne fruit because the letter received from Mr Santer contains a clear signal that this Parliament will receive precise details from UCLAF, and promptly, on possible cases of fraud and corruption that might affect the Community budget.
<P>
Therefore, Mr President, thanks to this operation we will be able to go on granting humanitarian aid and improving the routes so that this aid effectively reaches the weakest, and perhaps we will be better able to control the corruption that, unfortunately, often accompanies aid programmes to some extent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="Kellett-Bowman">
Mr President, this is probably the most important work Parliament does in the whole year.
Therefore, I was very sorry this morning to see that Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, after more than a year's work behind the scenes, was harried by the President in the Chair while making her presentation this morning.
It was unfortunate.
<P>
I want to address the two contentious items in the budgets today.
The first is the scandal in ECHO, which concerns humanitarian aid.
Some would say - and some did last night in the Committee on Budgets - that we should not mix together the work which the Committee on Budgetary Control and the Committee on Budgets does.
The fact is that four agents are involved on the European scene when trying to deal with fraud and irregularities: the Court of Auditors; UCLAF; and the Parliament in the form of the Budgetary Control Committee and the Committee on Budgets.
If the Budgetary Control Committee cannot get satisfaction, the teeth of this House are in the voting on the budget.
<P>
I want to pay credit to Mr Fabra and Mrs Müller for the work they have done in the field of ECHO.
It is unfortunate that the non-governmental organisations, the people who work for us and with this aid should be the ones that suffer.
But if the you look at the way the budget is structured, because the Commission would like to see 'umbrella' lines in the budget, it is very difficult to target those areas which one wishes to target.
So the weak suffer with the strong.
<P>
The President of the Commission must have been rather embarrassed to have to write that letter which was addressed to the Committee on Budgets.
He referred to misunderstandings.
The fact is that they were not misunderstandings; they were questions of principle.
This is why the Budget Control Committee and the Committee on Budgets took a strong line.
I have to say that the UCLAF reports must be dynamite if it is necessary to go into bomb-proof shelters in order to read them.
I feel sorry for President Santer.
This House is empowered to dismiss the whole of the Commission. This has never happened.
I think when we look at the Treaty in the future we might make an amendment which empowers the President of the Commission to retire one or two of the members of his Commission if he thinks so fit.
<P>
I turn now to the European Parliament budget: expenses of Members of this House.
In 1979 the failure of the Council, acting as a summit in that case, to agree a salary for MEPs meant that we had a temporary solution put into operation by the Bureau of Parliament.
That temporary arrangement was to compensate those MEPs on low salaries compared with the others by way of a rather generous travel expenses system.
That temporary system has been working for 19 years.
It is a great pity that we are now arguing about a Members' Statute.
We put into the budget for 1980 a token entry for a Members' Statute.
We are still waiting for this statute.
I realise that the present Council had nothing to do with the origins of the problem, but I look to it and its immediate successor to make the Members' Statute fair for Members of this House.
<P>
I cannot support any proposals unless I can be assured that those less well-paid Members of this Parliament are not made worse off by the proposals put before the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Liese">
Mr President, in making my comments, I should like to focus on Category 4, external actions.
We are still dealing with the repercussions of the Cannes decisions, and I am still of the opinion that the Council acted unwisely in making them.
It decided that we should focus our external policy in particular on our immediate neighbours in Central and Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean basin.
I still think this is questionable, for two reasons.
Firstly, I have my doubts about whether the money is really put to good use everywhere; with MEDA in particular, these doubts are increasing rather than abating.
Secondly, this has its consequences, which the Council brutally forces through every year, unfortunately often supported by the Commission.
Cuts are repeatedly made in the field of traditional development policy, that is, for the poorest of the poor.
I am glad that the Committee on Budgets, and Parliament as a whole, do not go along with this policy, and that we continue to attach importance to showing solidarity with the people of Asia, Latin America and Africa.
<P>
In my view, budget line B7-6000, 'Cofinancing of schemes carried out by NGOs', is particularly important.
People are at work here who, with great idealistic vision and very considerable resources of their own, repeatedly make project proposals, and all they receive from us is support.
That is expressed by the word cofinancing, which is also, I believe, a guarantee that this money will be used very efficiently.
We still have the problem that the office which processes the applications is grossly understaffed, and I call on the Commission once again to improve the staffing situation in this administrative office, by carrying out an internal reorganisation.
<P>
A few words on ECHO from the point of view of development policy.
I believe that it is in the interests of development policy for us to get right to the bottom of this scandal, because the fact is that we have problems making people understand why we are providing more resources for development policy when, after all, times are hard at home too, and when we cannot prove that the money is being put to good use.
These problems of gaining acceptance will become worse.
That is why I am very disappointed by the statements Commissioners Marín and Bonino have made on this subject in recent days and weeks.
But whatever we do, money will still be tight in Category 4, and we need to think very carefully about how we spend these meagre amounts of money.
That is why I am also against cofinancing being provided here, for areas which have little or nothing to do with development policy.
I am talking about bananas.
There is a dispute here, mainly to do with agricultural policy, to which the proposed solution is, in my view, inadequate. Appropriations are being taken from Category 4 - appropriations which are actually intended to benefit the poorest - and are being used to promote the banana industry.
You see, the money does not go to small farmers.
That is why I tabled an amendment to exclude multinational concerns from this budget line through its legal base.
This was rejected by the Commission.
So the money will go to the multinationals.
<P>
Taking money from the poor to give it to banana multinationals - regardless of whether these have European or American names - is wrong.
That is why I support the Budgets Committee's proposal not to withdraw the appropriations from this line, but to consider whether they can be taken from Category 1 or from the European Development Fund, where we have surpluses every year.
<P>
One final remark on the subject of population policies, budget line B7-631, an important area which Parliament has always supported.
We struggled over the legal base for this topic and made it clear that population policies have nothing to do with abortion, but that other methods are to be chosen here.
Now the Committee on Budgets is proposing to change the title of this budget line.
My question for Mr Liikanen is this: what does the Commission think about changing the title of a budget line when we actually have a legal base?
Will we not get into a terrible mess if we constantly change the title so late in the day, having established the legal base?
How do the Commission experts view this proposal?
I would be glad if the Commission could give its position on this specific point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pinel">
Mr President, I will not need three minutes to tell you of my surprise.
My colleague, Mr Le Gallou, and I have tabled nearly one hundred amendments to the Committee on Budgets, based on three guidelines.
<P>
Firstly, respect for Community responsibilities and the principle of subsidiarity; secondly, respect for moral values which are the cement of any civilisation; thirdly, respect for transparency, namely, a reasonable, detailed and well-defined use of public funds, because we owe it to all European taxpayers to provide them with accounts.
<P>
We have to say that there is a great deal of complicity evident in the refusal to give the people of Europe precise accounts, just when the news is full of stories about millions of ecus having been embezzled within the Commission and funds having been stolen from appropriations allocated for international cooperation.
<P>
This is a curious concept of cooperation, and also of morality and public health, given that the aid will be distributed to the associations without the slightest transparency!
<P>
We wanted to prevent public funds from being used by anyone and everyone, particularly for subversive purposes, as is the case with certain bodies which try to legitimise what is illegal, for example illegal immigration or drug use.
<P>
We also wanted to guarantee the concept of Community preference, in other words ensuring priority for aid to nationals of the Member States, which seems the least that we can do.
This has also been rejected.
So, for example, vocational training will not be reserved for Community workers and apprentices.
Once again we are paying for the whole world.
<P>
We also wanted to prevent public funds from being used for the electoral campaigns of certain candidates or certain parties.
This concern is also not shared by our colleagues, all of them very obedient, I have to say.
The federalists, or rather the fusionists, will therefore continue to enjoy the ongoing campaign in favour of the euro and the forced integration of states within a single supranational entity known as Euroland.
Euroland: it has the flavour and name of a theme park, but is much less entertaining. It actually genuinely undermines democracy and the principle of subsidiarity, it undermines our individual freedoms, those of our regions and those of our nations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Cornelissen">
Mr President, those still here listening to our debate are punch-drunk from the dozens of speeches we have heard.
But may I ask you to consider briefly one of the nicest areas we have to deal with, namely tourism.
In the course of this month, we shall be receiving the findings of the committee of wise men and women who have been looking at tourism and employment.
The enviable expectations of growth in many countries, and in the European Union too, mean that we ought to give greater consideration to sectors that are likely to create more jobs.
And tourism is one such sector.
<P>
At the same time, we have to acknowledge that currency devaluations in a number of South-East Asian countries will make it harder for our own tourist industry to be competitive.
The weaker dollar does not help either.
I am thinking in particular of conference tourism, which is very important for jobs in our countries.
I urge the Commission to respond appropriately to the recommendations which the committee of wise men and women will be making shortly.
<P>
The Austrian President-in-Office of the Council has reassured us that the action programme for tourism currently under consideration will be approved by the end of the year.
So we shall need a legal basis for that.
In these circumstances, it would be a missed opportunity not to include a modest sum in the budget for this objective.
Sadly, neither the Commission nor the Council has done that so far.
<P>
I have a very specific question for the Commission and the Council President. Can we be sure that, if necessary and depending on what happens now, they will be resolute in proposing a budget amendment to take account of this point?
I think that the many, still far too many, people in our countries who are out of work have a right to expect that.
I should very much appreciate a specific reply to this question of mine to the Commission and the President-in-Office.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Liikanen">
I wish to begin by expressing my pleasure at the broad participation in this debate: we have been here more than five hours.
Many participants have other engagements now, so only a few have been able to resist the pressure to go elsewhere.
That is why I shall reply only to those questions put by Members who are here now.
<P>
Firstly, on the tourism issue, I cannot take a position on the conclusions the Commission will adopt on the basis of a report yet to be submitted.
We will study it carefully and then, I am sure, the Commission will inform Parliament on the follow-up.
<P>
Secondly, on the question of the legal base and the title of the budgetary line, I have not been able to take the requisite legal advice but my position is that it is the substance of the action that matters.
If the action has a legal base, the title of a budget line is secondary.
Thus the substance of the action must have a legal base.
<P>
Thirdly, the question put by Mr Samland, the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, and others on the documents transmitted to the Luxembourg authorities.
During the debate I consulted our services and I can read the four points of the French text I have on the so-called issue of fictitious contracts.
<P>
Firstly, the department of public prosecutions has been informed of the relevant facts relating to the four contracts in question, i.e. the fictitious contracts; secondly, the department of public prosecutions has been given the facts specifically relating to the links between an official and the contracts in question; thirdly, the UCLAF report has been sent in full; fourthly, to avoid any ambiguity, the department of public prosecutions has access to any other documents which it may consider useful when examining the case.
Of course, the Commission has cooperated in full: the department of public prosecutions will be sent any documents which it deems useful.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Böge">
Mr President.
Since this is such an important issue, I should like to ask Mr Liikanen one more question: what did you mean by 'the court' just then; which court were you referring to, please?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Cornelissen">
Mr President, I put a question to the Council too.
Given that the Council is the budgetary authority, together with Parliament, I would also appreciate an answer from the Council.
If it cannot be given now, I would be glad of an assurance that it will be provided in writing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="Liikanen">
There was obviously a problem of translation.
'Parquet' means 'Luxembourg judicial authorities' here.
No other court is meant, only the Luxembourg judicial authority: the 'parquet Luxembourgeois'.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="President">
I see from the Council's representative that an answer will be given in writing, if necessary.
<P>
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Thursday at 10 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
European Union progress in 1997
<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0357/98) by Mrs Spaak, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on the European Council report to the European Parliament on the progress achieved by the European Union in 1997 (Article D of the Treaty on European Union) (8690/1/98 - C4-0411/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 NAME="Spaak">
Mr President, Commissioner, Representative of the Council, the European Council report for 1997, pursuant to Article D, adopts, as in previous years, the purely perfunctory approach of listing the legislative and other activities carried out in the year under review.
<P>
Disregarding the criticism of the European Parliament, it makes no assessment of the progress achieved, the problems encountered, or the shortcomings still to be remedied, even though Article D itself requires the Council to generate the impetus required for the Union's development.
<P>
It is regrettable that the real political impetus is stemming, for example, from certain Heads of State or Government, as could be seen when Mr Kohl and Mr Chirac wrote their letter just before the Cardiff European Council.
The Committee on Institutional Affairs has therefore decided to focus on the elements that appear to give the necessary impetus to the Union's development.
<P>
In this respect, I support Mr Corbett's amendment, which is aimed at modifying the procedure by providing for a European Parliament debate on the Council's annual report immediately after it has been presented, without referring it back to the Committee responsible.
I call on the Council - and I am not sure whether it is present and listening - to give us its opinion on this matter.
<P>
This brings me, Mr President, to the second half of my speech.
With the entry into force of economic and monetary union and the prospect of enlargement, we can no longer put off answering the questions that we have been hearing so often for years; why Europe, what sort of Europe, and what ambitions do we have for this Europe?
<P>
Last week, the President, Mrs Ferrero Waldner, in her work with the Committee on Institutional Affairs, told us that she shared this concern and that it had been included on the Pörtschach Summit agenda.
This has not been done for years.
For fear of revealing a lack of consensus, and in order to avoid dangerous clashes, Member States have for decades preferred, at an institutional level, to use the policy of the lowest common denominator.
Today this procedure is no longer viable.
Public opinion supported the political impetus given by the founding fathers because after two terrible wars that united the victors and the vanquished in the same disaster, the peoples aspired to peace and democracy.
<P>
So two generations have passed, during which time the European Community has established free movement, the single market and the single currency, ratified treaties and authorised the accession of 15 new Member States.
It is an impressive record of achievement, but during this period European citizens witnessed company closures and relocations, experienced constraints linked to meeting the convergence criteria and were the powerless witnesses of events in Europe, Bosnia, Albania and Kosovo.
The link with the past was broken.
The whole raison d'être of this great adventure escaped them because, as President Delors himself said, one does not fall in love with a single currency.
<P>
The aim today - and this is something that needs to be reiterated clearly and emphatically - is for the European Union to be a unique political project in the world, because it is based on peace, democracy and values: human rights, solidarity between peoples and generations, the establishment of a model of society that allows the people in it to blossom and prosper as much as possible.
<P>
This morning, John Hume gave us a wonderful example of these values when he said that one of the things that Europe and the European Parliament have taught him is respect for difference and diversity.
It is this aim, remembered and shared by all, that gives full meaning to any discussion relating to the type of institution we need.
I would like to add that the forthcoming discussion on the budget will stem from the same urgency and must take into consideration the same criteria as regards the aims of the Union.
<P>
The intergovernmental method has failed to bear fruit at institutional level.
This is the great weakness of the Amsterdam Treaty.
We must learn the lessons of this failure and reactivate the Community method, whose effectiveness was recognised when the Treaty of Rome, the Single Act and the Delors Committee were established.
<P>
The next institutional reform should be completed before the first accessions take place, to ensure that they can proceed in all clarity, without risk of delaying or compromising their success.
Furthermore, the objectives of this reform should be included in the Community acquis .
These, Representative of the Council, Commissioner, are some of the challenges facing the Austrian Presidency, to whom we offer our best wishes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Spaak.
We must hope that the Council also heard what you had to say.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, tomorrow we shall hear Commission President Santer deliver his annual statement on the European Commission's plans for 1999 - the 'state of the Union message'.
Today we are debating the progress made during 1997.
Mrs Spaak has compiled an excellent report on that, and I would have thought it better to have a joint debate on this report and the state of the Union report.
Looking forward carries much more weight if you have some positive achievements to look back on.
<P>
The resolution and Mrs Spaak's report make a number of pertinent criticisms in that respect.
Mrs Spaak finds, for example, that the Council shows little vision in its 1997 report and really gives just a summary of decisions taken in the course of that year.
As regards the Amsterdam Treaty, the rapporteur notes that Parliament's position that a number of reforms are needed prior to enlargement is acknowledged in a letter from Messrs Chirac and Kohl, that the Commission has since set up a working party headed by ex-Commissioner Frans Andriessen to seek solutions, but that the Council has done very little.
What is the Council doing here?
We wait with keen interest to see what the informal summit in Austria will produce.
<P>
A third criticism is that no real progress was made in 1997 on crucial topics such as foreign policy and internal security.
The paralysis is as great as ever.
In that context, Mr President, may I anticipate tomorrow's debate and set out my priorities for the informal summit.
Firstly, there must be a solution to the permanent stagnation in the Union's foreign policy.
The only way to achieve this is by removing the need for unanimity.
This requires at the very least an annex to the Amsterdam Treaty.
I hope a decision will be taken to that effect.
<P>
A second priority is the democratic deficit, which has partly been eliminated in respect of Parliament's legislative duties.
In our view, the final obstacles need to be removed too.
These remain primarily in the field of agriculture.
Here too the Treaty must be improved.
The third priority lies in the field of justice and home affairs and the fight against international crime.
The Treaty needs to be tightened up here as well, and a decision is needed at the informal summit.
The fourth priority concerns own resources.
This is something which looks set to bring everything grinding to a halt in the very near future.
We think that a better, neutral formula must be found in order to distribute revenues more fairly.
That too must be discussed at the Austrian summit.
The fifth priority concerns the question of refugees and asylum seekers.
We think they have to be shared more fairly among the Member States and that decisions have to be taken on this.
This is a further subject which the informal summit in Austria must address.
<P>
Lastly, of course, the institutional problems have to be resolved, as Mrs Spaak says, in particular the question of voting and unanimity.
Well, Mr President, it would have been better if this problem had been expressed more clearly, not least in the Council's report.
If we had known we were so far from achieving our goals, we would have had a better basis for improving things, and we fervently hope that the Austrian Presidency will see its way to making some small progress on that front.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Frischenschlager">
Mr President, Commissioner, I also criticise the Council's report for comprising too few declarations of political intentions and objectives.
I sometimes have the impression that the Council is developing more and more into a gathering of 15 Heads of Government, who merely place the individual interests of their countries at the centre of their political intentions and objectives.
I consider this to be a dangerous development because the Council is the political centre of the European Union, and the political initiative for further integration in Europe should come from it.
I therefore think that there are some very crucial points that must now be clearly established as political intentions and objectives.
<P>
The first is a clear declaration that we are really seeking to achieve enlargement of the European Union.
I sometimes have the impression that the objective of enlargement is becoming something that we merely preach about and that, when all is said and done, many people will be happy if, in the end, it does not happen at all.
That is the first clear objective that the European Union, the Council and all of us must tackle.
<P>
The second is Agenda 2000.
I understand that there is a growing body of opinion, right up to the President of Parliament, that it cannot be adopted within the period stipulated.
We must realise that Agenda 2000 is the most immediate objective that needs to be met in order to be able to keep enlargement on track and also to maintain the ability to make decisions within the European Union.
<P>
The third is the transition to majority voting.
That is a prerequisite for the European Union's ability to make any decisions at all in future.
These objectives must be tackled immediately, and I hope that the Council regains its political strength on the path towards Europe and further integration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cardona">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in order to prepare my speech I went on a journey in time back to 1997.
Then I realised that it is nearly 1999.
This type of report - regardless of its quality on which I must congratulate our colleague, Mrs Spaak - is only useful when it is adopted in good time.
I hope and predict that there will be no more journeys back in time like this.
<P>
Now for the content of the report.
Paragraph 11 deals with finding a different approach to 'closer cooperation', a new concept to be found in the Amsterdam Treaty.
If I remember rightly, Parliament has already adopted the Méndez de Vigo-Tsatsos report and, more recently, the Frischenschlager report which contradict, or seem to contradict, these proposals.
By adopting this report, as far as this particular point is concerned, we might puzzle some people, especially those whom it targets.
We really ought to avoid contradictions of this kind.
<P>
In any case, I have to say that if we deepen the European Union we must respect what the different States want.
We talk about a Europe of citizens and states, although certain powers may be delegated, as and when we agree to do so.
Closer cooperation might be one way of achieving the objective of European integration.
Accordingly, we feel that the arrangements made in the Treaty should be left unchanged because, in our view, the arrangements are not the main reason why the new institutional framework of closer cooperation is still ineffective.
<P>
Institutional reform is also tackled in this report. Let us begin with the proposal to give the Union fresh impetus, especially the arrangements for revising the Treaties.
Unfortunately this report makes no substantial reference to the role of the national parliaments, contrary to what is specifically said in the De Giovanni resolution already adopted by the Committee on Institutional Affairs, to be voted on tomorrow.
We think that measures aimed at deepening and widening the Union need to be supported by the citizens of the different states through their elected representatives.
<P>
As for Council deliberations, this report contains a proposal to boost qualified majority voting.
There is no doubt that, if the European Union's institutions are to be made more effective, one approach would be to broaden the scope of their powers and even to increase their respective weightings.
However, in my opinion, there are still areas, especially of a constitutional nature, that should continue to be decided upon unanimously.
We think that this rule could strengthen solidarity and political cohesion among the States making up the European Union.
If we are to strike an institutional balance, then we must definitely transfer certain powers from the Member States to Community bodies, voluntarily and in an acceptable way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Mr President, the rapporteur is naturally right to draw our attention not to European Union progress in 1997, but to the numerous unresolved problems that lie ahead, and she expresses the impatience and discontent of this Parliament that have been reflected in dozens of resolutions of this House, though without particular success.
We have not managed to put any real political pressure on the Council and Commission.
Our resolutions are in increasing danger of becoming a general lament.
A glance at 1997 certainly explains the causes of this inability on the part of the Union to take action: responsibility lies with the failure at Amsterdam to reform the institutions, as well as with an Intergovernmental Conference that, as an instrument and a procedure, has increasingly become a setting for fighting out national interests.
A type of imperial college of princes has become established here instead of a European Council.
This Parliament is urged to exert greater political pressure and to exert a firmer influence on the Commission and Council in order to remove the blockade to enlargement towards the East, the blockade to the development of political union, and the blockade to the establishment of a European democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank our rapporteur, Mrs Spaak, for her report and for the manner in which she has drawn it up.
And in this connection, I would like to highlight the disappointment felt by the Committee on Institutional Affairs as regards the sheer scale of all that could have been achieved and was not, of all the ideas that we will have the opportunity to take up again tomorrow in the De Giovanni document, which in our opinion remain on the agenda in view of the Union's development in 1997, even in 1998 and beyond.
<P>
I therefore think that the report's criticism will give the Commission food for thought, as Commissioner Oreja and Parliament wish to work together to develop a joint project, whatever shape this may take, and I very much hope that the Council will support this approach.
A number of paragraphs in the resolution are addressed to the three institutions and I, personally, fully endorse the text.
I would like to draw the attention of the House and of the Commissioner to one particular paragraph that I consider to be important in the context of a foreign and security policy that is one of the weakest links in this Union. Proof of this can be seen both in Maryland and in Belgrade, where the two major issues of foreign policy remain, as usual, beyond the scope of the European Union and of each of its Members.
<P>
I therefore draw your attention to a paragraph of this resolution which focuses on two measures that could be taken and that in our opinion would by their very nature increase the European Union's standing in the world.
The first is the creation of a military and civil intervention corps - particularly a military one - for the European Union as a whole; the second is the idea of establishing joint diplomatic representation at Union level by means of setting up joint embassies where fewer than four Member States have diplomatic posts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Mr President, when our ideas about Europe were once outlined in committee, the rapporteur responded by saying: 'That is not our Europe'.
Precisely these words came to me when I read her report, which in itself is thorough and of a very high standard.
It is just based on a completely different philosophy from ours.
We reject an unrestrained move towards integration.
We consider the poor Amsterdam results to be a sign that there is a lack of willingness among citizens for further integration.
We consider the contents of the annual fraud reports, the collapse of the concours , and the news of misappropriation in connection with various programmes, which is growing almost daily, to be indicators that the Union has reached the limits of its manageability.
<P>
We know that the majority of our citizens do not want over-hasty enlargement that includes neighbouring states.
Therefore, we would have liked the report to deal in greater depth with the position of our citizens, and their wishes and concerns, and with the issue of their integration.
My amendments, which were rejected by a majority in committee, also proposed this line of action.
If we do not want to allow the concepts of transparency and closeness to the citizen to become merely empty cliches, we must show by means of concrete examples that we take the wishes of our citizens into account and that we take them seriously.
Let me give you a brief example of how this concept is put into practice.
A few days ago, when my assistant requested a Commission document on my behalf, which incidentally was quoted in an answer to a question, the official in charge refused to forward the document because the Members of Parliament only mess around with them anyway and because that gets 'on his nerves'.
If even Members of Parliament are treated like this, then you can imagine how our citizens are treated.
That may be an isolated case, but I am convinced that the means to make the Union more acceptable to our citizens lie precisely in the detail.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have three remarks to make on the Spaak report, which will in a way be an advance discussion of the subject of our talks tomorrow with President Santer and the Austrian Chancellor, Mr Klima, and on the basis of which we will be adopting the De Giovanni resolution.
I should like to begin by expressing my warmest thanks to Mrs Spaak for her commitment in her work on her Europe, and I add in this connection - because this was mentioned just now - that this is, I think, also our common Europe.
Admittedly, there is still a lot of work to do on this common Europe.
We must work towards deepening and widening Europe.
We need strong institutions, as this report also says.
We need a strong single currency.
We need more solutions and we need solutions that are more convincing, particularly in the area of the second and third pillars.
The key words are Kosovo, the fight against drugs and the fight against child abuse, to mention but a few, and these show how much we need a strong common Europe of this kind.
<P>
Secondly, I have a criticism to make of the Spaak report.
I feel - and I am almost certain that Mrs Spaak herself and all of us would agree - that greater attention should be given to the subject of human rights.
Amendment No 8, which Mrs Lenz introduced on our behalf, calls for an adequate basis for an EU human rights policy.
I hope that we can gain wide approval for this amendment tomorrow.
<P>
A few weeks ago in Vienna we presented a research project undertaken by the European University Institute in Florence, entitled 'Human rights for the year 2000'.
We saw from this that Europe has achieved a great deal in the area of human rights in recent years, but that much remains to be done before we in Europe can say that we do not merely claim to fully respect human rights, but actually practice what we preach.
<P>
The third subject and my third remark indirectly concern what we have heard again and again today and in recent days.
In reality, we are dealing here with a very crucial point in the question of a 'People's Europe'.
That is why I, like Cato in ancient times, always try to take the caeterum censeo line.
<P>
We need European money to be managed honestly.
In the past few days we have received many letters on the subject of human rights and on putting the money for the NGOs in reserve.
Many of these non-governmental organisations, whose views on the subject of human rights are convincing, and which contribute a great deal in this area, are right to fight against a situation where the money for their work is, where possible, not being made available to them.
However, it is not a question of taking something away from the NGOs; quite the reverse.
We seek to, and we must, ensure that money for those in need is not re-routed through dubious and fraudulent practices to those who are out for themselves.
That is why the second indent of paragraph 8 of the resolution on the Spaak report calls for greater control in this common Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Mr President, I should like to raise two matters.
One is the question of the financial framework.
It is very clear that the whole development of the European Union will hinge on the finances for the next century, and the Commission has recently put forward a new financial perspective and a new financial division of responsibility between European Community countries.
<P>
Paragraph 15 of the resolution very clearly indicates that the new financing of the European Union must be such that a continued solidarity and cohesion remain the key words.
By putting forward a number of choices, the Commission has given a certain vision of the future.
It has been courageous on the issue of agriculture for instance.
It has also been very clear that a number of continued approaches - like having a British-style rebate for four other countries - will not work.
For this reason it is very important to demonstrate that this Parliament wants to reject the concept of 'juste retour' for future developments.
<P>
Secondly, Schengen.
Paragraphs 22 to 24 deal with justice and home affairs.
We should be very concerned that the division of Schengen between the first and the third pillar has not yet taken place.
I regret that the presidency is not here, because if the Treaty of Amsterdam enters into force without any agreement, the net result will be that everything will stay in the third pillar.
<P>
I would like to ask the Commission how it judges the situation; if that is happening, we can forget the free movement of workers, we can forget the free movement of persons, we can forget the beginning of an asylum and common immigration policy.
Why is it that 15 months after the signing of the Treaty of Amsterdam there is not a single agreement in sight for the division between the first and the third pillar on the question of Schengen?
That is my serious question to the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Féret">
<SPEAKER ID=145 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, I want to address my remarks to the section on the common foreign and security policy in the Spaak report.
<P>
On reading this report I wonder whether this was a product of politicians on the Committee on Institutional Affairs or academics living in intellectual ivory towers.
It does not seem to me that what is here relates necessarily to what I find out in the real world.
<P>
Turning to paragraph 17, it says the Union plays no political role on the international stage.
Self-evidently that is nonsensical.
Of course the European Union plays a role on the international stage.
We may question how big that role is but it is nonsense to say it plays no role.
Similarly to suggest that in the pubs and clubs of Bolton the public are concerned about this on a daily basis is also rather to exaggerate matters.
What my electors tell me they are concerned about is that the European Union should play a much firmer role in crisis prevention and crisis management, and peace-keeping and peace-making.
So we need to be specific about what it is our citizens want.
<P>
Turning to paragraph 19, the suggestion seems to be that we could have resolved the Kosovo crisis if we had better institutional arrangements.
I really do not see how anybody can actually come forward with that idea.
Kosovo was a failure - if it was a failure - of political will.
Whatever institutional arrangements you have will not make any difference whatsoever.
<P>
The fourth indent of paragraph 20 seems to imply that the Institutional Committee thinks that the European Union is a member of NATO.
Of course the European Union is not a member of NATO.
Certain Member States of the European Union are members of NATO.
I therefore do not understand the point that is being made by the Institutional Committee.
What we should be focusing on is to make sure that the provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty and the Berlin Declaration on the European defence identity are implemented.
<P>
Finally we come to paragraph 21.
I know this has been something which Parliament keeps approving in its resolutions, but do we really believe that there is a demand among the public for a European military intervention corps?
We already have NATO; we already have a whole range of organisations around the WEU - joint ventures, Eurocorps, Anglo-Dutch Brigade, etc.
What is a European intervention corps going to do that the others do not do?
We should stop chasing down these intellectual cul-de-sacs and address ourselves to practical measures which will secure the defence of the European Union and the better security of its citizens.
This section on a common foreign and security policy quite frankly does not achieve that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="Oreja">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first I want to congratulate Mrs Spaak on her work.
I think the spirit of Article D of the Treaty on European Union was about trying to distance oneself sufficiently from debates and day-to-day issues to be able to think more generally about the meaning of European action.
That is what I expect from the report the European Council produces each year. It should be a report on the progress of the Union and specifically correspond to the European Council's role in guiding and driving forward the Union's general policy.
<P>
I agree with Mrs Spaak's appraisal of the report and I have to say that I also share her disappointment.
I think there is nothing for it but to recognise, once again, and in spite of the criticism last year and in previous years from both Parliament and the Commission, that this report by the Council is actually limited to presenting a balance sheet of activities that is merely factual and often lacks the political scope it ought to have in accordance with the actual spirit of the Treaty.
Perhaps, instead of recalling what a political action means, it would be preferable to offer an overall view allowing us to go more deeply into the various issues and see what impetus the European Union can be given with a view to the future.
<P>
In this respect, I also agree with Mrs Spaak's analysis of the importance of certain objectives achieved during the past year in terms of the construction of Europe, and specifically what is implied by the signing of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the launch of Agenda 2000 and the preparations for Economic and Monetary Union.
In fact, the challenges we have to face in each of these fields are well-known and the responsibility we all have is to see how we can put the citizen at the centre of our concerns, how issues as important as growth and employment can be renewed and how the European Union can prepare for enlargement, in both financial and institutional terms.
<P>
Clearly, these debates continue to be highly topical.
It is the Commission's intention to provide different responses - concrete responses - through actions inspired precisely by those objectives.
I could mention here, for example, the conclusion of the Treaty of Amsterdam. It is evident that the long process of negotiation has culminated in a text that has been frequently criticised, and I have criticised it myself.
I came straight from Amsterdam to Parliament, to the Committee on Institutional Affairs and Mrs Spaak was there.
We finished at 4.30 a.m. and at 10 a.m. on the same day, 18 June 1997, I was in Parliament to give my reaction.
And at that time I expressed some disappointment, which has probably become much more muted with the passage of time, because there was a series of questions and it seemed to me that if the plans that were on the table a week earlier had been adhered to, we would probably have obtained different results from those that were achieved as a result of some amendments that were introduced in the last 72 hours.
<P>
All the same, my disappointment was probably most intense at that first moment and the passage of time has made me see things more calmly and see the more positive side of the Treaty.
I have heard some very negative comments about it here.
I believe that if we want to highlight the positive aspects, we can, for example, stress - as Mrs Spaak does - an issue that is very important and that has been with us as long as the institutions and the Treaty, ever since 1958: institutional balance.
I very much like the way Mrs Spaak emphasises the issue of institutional balance.
I remember how a person I respected a great deal, Emile Noël, who was Secretary-General of the Commission for many years, always talked about the magic of the institutional balance, and I think it is one of the things we must safeguard, especially now, with the prospect of enlargement.
<P>
Enlargement cannot be allowed to introduce imbalance.
There was balance with six.
There is balance with 15.
There must be balance with 25.
<P>
And I also think we should remember the efforts that have been made to strengthen the role of fundamental rights and the impact of society in the European Union, not forgetting the responses the citizens expect from the Union.
The whole issue of fundamental rights, which was in a sense outside the scope of the Treaty, has been somewhat included in the Treaty with the Amsterdam reform.
And there are some very telling examples in this respect, as there are in areas such as all the issues relating to employment, which was excluded and is now included, and the creation of the great area of security and justice, much of which comes into the Community arena.
<P>
Mr Brinkhorst - who is not here now - mentioned this issue just now.
It is what the Commission wants, but I hope and trust that it is also what the Member States want.
A major contribution of the Treaty has been Schengen, which was excluded from the Treaty and is now included.
It was impossible to include it in the Treaty originally, so it remained outside.
And that was an anomaly; it was outrageous.
Now Schengen is included in the Treaty.
Obviously, we must look at what remains to be done.
And I share Mr Brinkhorst's concern over whether it will be included in the first or the third pillar, because, clearly, if we did not do anything, there would be nothing left in the third pillar. There are some issues that must continue to be intergovernmental, such as cooperation on criminal or police matters, but there are other issues that must come under the first pillar.
This is probably one of the things the last minute changes at Amsterdam prevented, that is, having a time period - three, four or five years - for issues to come into the Community arena simply by majority decision.
Nevertheless, the change introduced at the last minute was that such a decision must be adopted unanimously, which means that, over the five years, a single state can stop the transfer to the Community arena. Of course, that was a step backward, but it was a real step forward that what was outside the scope of the Treaty at Maastricht - because it was simply under the umbrella of the European Union - is now included in the Treaty, and we will have to see what form that inclusion takes.
<P>
Furthermore, the reform of the CFSP instruments will mean - and we hope this happens - that the Union can express itself on the international scene with a single voice.
A moment ago, someone mentioned that some progress had been made on issues relating to the common foreign and security policy.
It is clear.
What is happening is probably that the fact of merely having the instruments is not enough.
The instruments are there.
What is lacking is the political will to act in foreign policy, and that is a different matter.
<P>
It is perhaps regrettable that, in institutional terms - and Mrs Spaak highlights this - the results have not been very encouraging.
Parliament has certainly achieved an unprecedented extension of its powers as a co-legislator, but certain important and longstanding problems remain unresolved. However, there was not enough time to resolve them at Amsterdam, and that is why so many important issues are outstanding, such as an increase in qualified majority voting, the weighting of votes in the Council, or the number of Commissioners.
So there is some unfinished business here. These points are clearly set out in the Treaty itself, so we therefore know that another Intergovernmental Conference is going to be required, and it needs to be held soon.
<P>
We hope the Treaty of Amsterdam will soon enter into force. But it still has not done so and, as a result, it may be premature to draw up a balance sheet and make new plans for reform.
However, it is clear that we must start getting ready to be able to respond, firstly, to the questions that actually appear in the Treaty, the issues the Treaty itself asks us to respond to. This is the case for institutional issues - the ones I mentioned a moment ago - and security issues, for example, everything that affects the integration of the Western European Union into the European Union.
This will also require an Intergovernmental Conference, at the appropriate time.
<P>
It is therefore obviously necessary for each institution to carry out its work and play its part in accordance with the Treaty, and to seek what we have called for on so many occasions, namely, effective and democratic solutions for the future.
And in this connection, the Commission has already announced, in Agenda 2000, that it wants a new Intergovernmental Conference to meet immediately after the turn of the century.
<P>
Moreover, the arrival of the euro, the opening of the enlargement negotiations and Agenda 2000 are also long-term projects initiated in 1997 that commit us to the future.
Parliament and the Commission have worked very harmoniously on those issues.
<P>
I am coming to an end, Mr President. These questions clearly go far beyond the framework imposed by a calendar year or even a legislature.
I am sure these challenges will be present in the minds of the Heads of State or Government meeting in Pörtschach on 24 and 25 October, and we hope that this meeting will be an opportunity to launch a joint study of the European Union's mission in the 21st century.
<P>
That is all I have to say, but just one more word, if I may.
Mr Hager referred earlier to a document he had asked the Commission for and the fact that no-one had bothered to reply.
If he will tell me what he wants, I will make sure he gets an immediate reply to his request.
I cannot understand why a request from a Member has not been given consideration.
So I am at his disposal and I will gladly try to sort this out because it was probably due to a misunderstanding that he did not receive a response to his request.
In any case, all I can say is that although I may not be the relevant Commissioner, I am speaking here now so I am happy to offer to seek a response to Mr Hager's request.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Commissioner, thank you very much for your offer.
However, it is not at all about the document not being forwarded, but about the way in which this was refused.
By this I mean a Member of Parliament being told that Commission documents are often messed around with, and the official in charge saying that what the Members of Parliament do with them - and I quote - gets on his nerves.
I protested against that, nothing else.
However, I would be pleased to give you more detailed information, though I do not want to do so before the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.15 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Commission statement on MAI
<SPEAKER ID=149 NAME="President">
The next item is the Commission statement on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Erika">
Mr President, Sir Leon Brittan, you have outlined the background to the debate that the House is holding once again on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, and you have also described the different points of view and interests, some of which vary a great deal.
In addition, you have dealt with the position of the French government, and with the Kreissl-Dörfler report.
<P>
Allow me to mention a few points, perhaps.
They all concern an aspect which you have mentioned.
Which strategy should we in fact be developing in future in view of this situation?
This is practically the only remaining issue of interest.
Moreover, like you, I believe - this is my personal opinion, and I do not want to pretend that I share the view of the majority of my Group on this - that we need an international agreement on investment, and that this should have a high level of protection. I am also grateful in this connection that the Commission has just drawn up the REIO clause, and it was a success!
Nevertheless, we have made mistakes, and we should learn from these mistakes because we will have new rounds of negotiations, as you have mentioned, hopefully in the framework of the WTO, and we will in fact have the opening of the next WTO round.
I feel, and I also fear, that the widespread uncertainty and criticism, in part justified, are linked to two aspects.
<P>
The first is that there is growing uncertainty, and there is increasingly the feeling that globalisation or international trends and institutions undermine national sovereignty.
This is seen in America, and we are also witnessing a similar trend here.
We often follow the Americans anyway, and it seems to me that we are also following the Americans in this area, instead of going against them, which in my opinion would be the better position for Europe.
You were right to say that it must be in our interests to strengthen Europe's international position, and in this respect this would be a step in that direction.
<P>
However, the second difficulty, as I see it, is that we do not know how to deal properly with sensitive issues.
We have not learned to include sensitive issues, such as culture, the environment and agricultural policy, in international negotiations, with the result that we always discuss them in a negative sense only.
We always say simply that we do not want them to be included, which is also right, and that we want the acquis communautaire to be preserved, which is right too; that is our position.
However, we constantly fear that international agreements serve to gradually undermine us, because the others, our opponents so to speak, are clever.
We always assume that they are cleverer than we in the European Union are.
I believe we must now, with the help of an extremely open strategy, learn how to deal with this and perhaps also to convey the message that both the European Commission and the European Parliament are capable of formulating very good and very firm positions.
<P>
Finally, I am also concerned that if we fail do this, the non-governmental organisations will increasingly take on a parliamentary role, and this is something that I would not like, since I still firmly believe in a parliamentary democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kittelmann">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, firstly I accept the basic statement by Mrs Mann, who made a personal remark on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, namely that we need an international agreement on investment.
We should not talk around the issue, as we simply need it.
Conversely, fears of globalisation and many other things actually protect us from making mistakes.
Anyone who wants there to be investment in the Third World must also make sure that a protective framework is in place for those who invest their money, precisely because of what we have experienced with the Asian crisis, for example.
We must also stop making an ideology out of this.
Of course, I understand that everything is discussed at length here in the European Parliament, and we always see problems somewhere or other.
No, we need an international agreement on investment.
That is why the Group of the European People's Party states quite clearly that we need a multilateral agreement.
<P>
Secondly, we must redress the balance between the rights and obligations of investors.
The European Parliament must always be fully included in this issue, and you always do so, Sir Leon Brittan; I know that you like to be praised, as I am doing here.
I must also explain that we have stated clearly that the WTO negotiations need to be concluded soon.
In parallel with this, the matter must be considered within the OECD, because it is legitimate that we consider in the OECD what the situation is in the WTO: with 134 countries in the WTO, how are we to achieve anything if we are not prepared to provide a framework.
<P>
In conclusion, the French Government is a sovereign government.
It may allow itself to be pushed into a corner by the Greens if it wishes.
Yet, as an industrial nation, France will not in the end be able to avoid making a clear statement here on what we all want.
I would therefore be pleased if the parliamentary groups were to talk a little more calmly with each other about how this can best be achieved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="De Clercq">
Mr President, the multilateral agreement on investment is designed to provide greater freedom for international investment, to protect it and set up a machinery for resolving disputes between governments and investors.
All in all a good thing, I would have thought, for a number of reasons.
<P>
Firstly, it will put an end to the more than 1 800 bilateral agreements on foreign investment.
These will be replaced by one large, transparent agreement, making for a framework of greater legal certainty and so expanding the investment formula, which will then lead to greater economic growth and prosperity.
<P>
Secondly, it seems to me logical that a multinational agreement on trade should be complemented by a multinational agreement on investment.
Trade and investment are after all closely interlinked.
Cui bono? Who benefits?
In the first instance, the multinationals.
And why not?
Are they not entitled to equal treatment, just like any ordinary citizen - and thus entitled to protective measures and compensation in the event of appropriation or other measures which deprive them of their assets?
But the developing countries too will benefit from this agreement.
Foreign investment creates jobs which would not otherwise exist.
And growth in the new export sectors driven by foreign investors, multinationals amongst them, brings spill-over effects which benefit the whole economy.
The facts bear this out.
To take just one example, wage increases in Taiwan and South Korea: whilst the hourly wage there in 1975 was on average just 6 % of that in the USA, by 1995 the figures had risen to 34 % and 43 % of it respectively.
This positive development is a direct result of investment.
<P>
There are of course some undesirable situations. But these have nothing to do with the investment agreement.
There are of course countries which pay no heed at all to social and environmental standards in their efforts to attract investment.
And these countries do not need the agreement, because they are for the most part authoritarian regimes.
So the answer is not to weaken or block the multilateral agreement, but rather to bring political democracy to these regimes, in other words what is needed is not only economic liberalisation but political liberalisation, an MAD, a multilateral agreement on democracy, as well as an MAI.
<P>
The conclusion is that most of the criticism is exaggerated, indeed unfair, though the draft agreement certainly has some shortcomings.
The developing countries must be directly involved in the negotiations on the agreement.
Ideally, the negotiations should be conducted under the aegis of the World Trade Organisation, and the MAI should be inspired by the principles of the WTO.
The dispute-resolving procedure must be more balanced, so that the host country is able to take action against the investor.
<P>
My final point is that we think the MAI must be made more democratic and that the present draft text must be amended in a number of respects.
But for the rest I am convinced that the agreement on international investment needs to be concluded as speedily as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Guinebertière">
Mr President, over the last ten years, growth in direct investment has increased at twice the rate of growth in world trade.
This observation concerns all products and all sectors of the economy, and it is because of this that the idea of a Multilateral Agreement on Investment, or MAI, has been proposed since the beginning of the 1990s.
<P>
However, if there is indeed an emerging need for a multilateral framework, as several speakers have mentioned, we must note that the United States has always preferred to conduct these negotiations within the OECD, with industrialised countries, whereas the European Union tries to hold them within the WTO, a global organisation that brings together all countries concerned with investment, including the less developed countries.
<P>
The MAI is aimed at protecting investors' rights and guaranteeing stable rules of operation.
But the proposals put forward so far do not respect the cultural exception clause that Europe fought to obtain in the GATT or the integration procedures employed by the Union to facilitate the progressive accession of central and eastern European countries into the single European market.
Neither do they respect the social and environmental standards laid down by the European Union, less still the sovereign right of the Member States of the European Union to determine them.
Lastly, this agreement stipulates that American extra-territorial laws be recognised, and we object to these laws being implemented indiscriminately.
<P>
So within what framework should these negotiations be pursued, or not, as the case may be?
In the OECD each state negotiates on its own behalf and, in this way, the US seeks to undermine the solidarity between the states of the Union.
On the other hand, if the Union grants Sir Leon Brittan a mandate to negotiate this matter within the framework of the WTO, which is what we want, this mandate must include the exception clauses, for example the cultural exception that the Baladur government fought so hard to obtain in 1994, along with the other clauses that we do not want to retain.
How can we fail to see that the United States is trying, by means of the OECD, to take back with one hand what they have given to the GATT with the other, and to undermine our social and environmental framework in their quest for absolute liberalism.
The position of the UPE Group is that negotiations should continue within the framework of the WTO.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Moreau">
Mr President, I have noted that the Commission persists in supporting the philosophy behind the MAI, according to which private investors have all the rights, the states have all the duties and all countries are subject to US domination.
I would like to remind you that on 11 March Parliament called on governments not to accept the MAI in its present form.
This draft treaty has considerably mobilised progressive forces and leaders in our countries, and this has paid off.
Following a six-month suspension of negotiations, the French Government, through its Prime Minister, concluded that this agreement could not be reformed, and announced that France would not resume the MAI negotiations.
Commissioner, I would like you to withdraw the pejorative remarks you made in relation to the French Government.
<P>
This far-reaching decision is a noteworthy example for any government concerned about its sovereignty.
But its success should not lead us to lower our guard.
The MAI should not simply be replaced by a newer version inspired by the same principles, such as the PET, which you, Sir Leon Brittan, negotiated without a mandate in London on 18 May, and which to me amounts at the very least to an abuse of power.
France has already stated that it was in no way bound by these negotiations.
I would therefore like to ask the following question, and this time I would like an answer; what use is a declaration that has been concluded by one Commissioner who has not been granted a mandate to do so by the Member States?
<P>
The content of the MAI must therefore be discarded.
Any new negotiations must take place on an entirely different basis and within a framework other than that of the OECD, which brings together the richest countries.
We need to recognise the sovereignty of states in the choices they make in relation to development and their social, cultural and fiscal policies.
It is not American or Japanese multinationals that should lead the world, but governments that have been elected by the people.
The rejection of liberalism and a desire for change were expressed during the last elections held in France, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Germany.
The European Union and global agreements must take this into account, as failure to do so will lead to their outright rejection by the people.
Lastly, new negotiations, which could be carried out under the auspices of the UN or the WTO, should be transparent: the people, the elected representatives and associations need to be aware of the major issues that affect the future of their countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Mr President, the Prime Minister, Mr Jospin, chose the only correct option last week in announcing that France was to withdraw from the OECD negotiations on the MAI.
As rapporteur on the legal framework for the MAI, I am extremely pleased by this, Mr Kittelmann.
The European Parliament's resolution in March established clearly that the draft agreement not only has serious shortcomings, but that it even goes completely in the wrong direction in many areas, because it gives priority to the rights of investors over everything else, for instance.
We therefore urged that the agreement should not be signed in this form.
The Commission's answer to this was certainly incredibly disappointing.
Yet we have seen the effect of Parliament's resolution, of the widespread international mobilisation of hundreds, if not thousands, of citizens' interest groups, non-governmental organisations and trade unions in Europe and worldwide, Mr Rübig, and the same applies to the sound report produced by Mrs Lalumière for the French Government, and to the important signals given by the Greens in France.
<P>
Sir Leon Brittan, you now have clear evidence that European politicians, European governments and European civil society do not share your line on free trade!
Accept the consequences of this, bury the MAI, shelve it.
Mr Jospin rightly said last week that the MAI cannot be reformed.
That is why it also makes no sense to transfer it to the WTO in the near future, because the WTO is anything but democratic, and is urgently in need of reform itself.
Developing countries would be overlooked once again, with disastrous consequences for them.
Nevertheless, one thing is clear - pay attention now, ladies and gentlemen -, we need an international agreement to regulate and supervise investments, the number of which has increased and is increasing by leaps and bounds.
However, the crucial issues are: who takes part in the negotiations?
Are weaker parties granted an equal right to a say in the matter?
Are all those parliaments affected, including the European Parliament, granted power of codecision, and what is in it afterwards?
This is really crucial.
That is why this agreement should not lower environmental and social standards.
It must establish political control of the economy and make democratic supervision the norm.
Please inform the French Government of this, Sir Leon.
<P>
You always place emphasis on the developing countries yet they were not even at the negotiating table.
Please read the texts first!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Sainjon">
Mr President, the MAI as formulated by the OECD is dead.
Let us not beat around the bush or waste time with a text that has lost all credibility.
France, quite rightly, has definitively rejected this MAI in the light of Catherine Lalumi&#x010D;re's excellent report, which showed the extent to which this pseudo-agreement attempted to strike a fatal blow to the social, cultural and environmental acquis .
What is more, France has stated openly what a number of governments, trade unions, NGOs and even some Members of the Commission have been thinking.
<P>
The MAI has been in the spotlight for some time now.
But how many other agreements of this type are concluded by the OECD to then be rendered inapplicable?
The shipbuilding industry is one example.
They are inapplicable because they are prepared behind closed doors by people who are completely cut off from reality.
People who are doubtless very competent but perhaps a little too confident, to the extent that they take over from the political officials and make the decisions that they are supposed to make.
As a result, this type of institution finds itself in a situation in which technocracy prevails over politics and in fact over democracy itself.
<P>
This is why I personally question the role of the OECD and think that today we should no longer hesitate to call its very existence into question.
You will be aware, Mr President, that the Chateau de la Muette in Paris, where the organisation has its headquarters, has become rather like the Bastille at the end of the 18th century, in other words a symbol that has lost its purpose.
I myself strongly believe that the dissolution of the OECD should be accompanied by a strengthening of the WTO.
It is within this organisation, and no other, that this type of debate on investments should take place.
But if we want to be as efficient as possible - and here I am specifically referring to the millennium negotiations - we should consider a more democratic way of monitoring the WTO.
<P>
This is why I would like Parliament to agree to create a powerful committee, one which is fully involved in monitoring the work of the WTO, along the lines of the system already in operation in the US Senate.
If the French Government has dealt a fatal blow to the OECD's MAI, it did so in order to better create a new dialogue, one that involves all actors, both large and small, who have a part to play in the globalisation of the economy.
Once again Mr President, this should take place in the WTO and nowhere else.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, I have been listening carefully to Commissioner Brittan, but I would like to remind you that we were among the first to draw attention to the detrimental nature of the MAI project developed by the OECD, mainly because it called into question the vital regulatory role played by the states, it introduced a new legal hierarchy amongst international actors by favouring investors and it marginalised developing countries from the negotiation process.
<P>
I would like to welcome all parliamentary and extra-parliamentary initiatives, including Mr Lannoye's initiative, in which I am involved; these have mobilised a large part of the European political community against a draft treaty that is both unreasonable and unamendable.
The way it has been drawn up would, in practice, have prevented major European interests and specific characteristics from being defended (cultural exceptions, high social and environmental standards, unacceptable extra-territorial legislation).
These initiatives have in my opinion contributed to a significant shift in position for some Member States, including France, and of course I welcome this.
<P>
The definition of a clear regulatory framework along with complete and harmonised rules would indeed be very useful. Consequently, a number of Member States think that negotiations should be resumed but on a completely different basis and within the appropriate framework, one that allows participation of all parties concerned.
This is certainly not a touchy reaction, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate calls for negotiations to be carried out within the WTO and not the OECD.
But the rules of the WTO - let us not forget - do not take into account the social and environmental concerns so dear to our peoples.
We shall therefore once again have to be extremely vigilant: the Council must be very precise in the way it draws up the new mandate that it will grant the Commission, and we in the European Parliament and the national parliaments must monitor its implementation rigorously so that in the long term investment flows benefit all our populations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kronberger">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, initially an attempt was made behind closed doors over many years to work out an international agreement that aimed to achieve complete control of financial capital.
This attempt was temporarily unsuccessful due to an indiscretion in Canada, which attempted to eliminate national, social and environmental legislation that had been secured previously by years of legal cases.
<P>
The structure of the MAI programme has made every democrat aware of how quickly fundamental democratic rights can be lost.
We are facing a large-scale redistribution throughout the world.
Multinationals no longer make their profits predominantly from production; up to 70 % of profits are now a result of speculating in money.
This is a system that is bound to go wrong, and is already doing so to a degree, and one that leads to mass unemployment and widespread poverty in favour of a small number of people.
<P>
The MAI was an instrument that aimed to remove even the minimal residual risk from this speculation, and to undermine the remaining sovereignty of the nation states.
<P>
You are unsure, and that is why you feel the need to interrupt.
I know I am right.
That is why I do not need to interrupt you!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Mutin">
Mr President, the MAI can be reduced to a simple formula: multinationals have all the rights and the states have all the duties.
However, at a time when some multinationals have bigger budgets than some Member States of the European Union, I do not think it is the multinationals that need protection, as Mr De Clercq proposed.
<P>
It is to this Parliament's credit that it has debated and endorsed the Kreissl-Dörfler report, which serves as a warning to Member States that the Multilateral Agreement on Investment could endanger democracy itself.
As it was the cultured men and women in France who immediately took action to preserve the cultural exception, it very quickly became clear that this MAI affected every area and that, had the agreement been signed, a national parliament would not in future be able to adopt a text that was not in line with the provisions of the MAI.
<P>
As Prime Minister Lionel Jospin stated, the arguments against this draft agreement do not hinge on sectorial or technical points, rather they relate to the very reasons behind these negotiations and pose fundamental problems as regards state sovereignty, given that each state would be obliged to make an irreversible commitment.
Irreversible!
So what would be the point of changing government, voting, changing policies, if everything were determined elsewhere?
<P>
It is one thing to confer sovereignty on delegations within the framework of this Community, in a state-controlled procedure and a historic adventure, as we perceive and currently shape it, and which for us is of considerable importance.
But it is quite another thing to confer sovereignty on private interests. Therefore, for those of us who campaigned against the MAI, Lionel Jospin's decision to leave the negotiating table is very satisfactory, and is not a touchy reaction, as Commissioner Brittan said.
It is a decision that was thought through carefully and taken following the excellent work by Mrs Catherine Lalumi&#x010D;re.
<P>
Does this mean that we are against all agreements?
No, it does not.
But we very much hope that none of the agreements currently under discussion, be it the MAI, the New Transatlantic Market or the Transatlantic Economic Partnership, are devised in secret or abandon the rights of the people in favour of private financial interests.
It is to be hoped that future debates will take place under the auspices of the WTO, for example, where developing countries will be able to have their say and will no longer be presented with a fait accompli .
In short, democracy should still have a purpose and a future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Burenstam Linder">
Mr President, I welcome Sir Leon Brittan's statement.
Criticism of the MAI is largely based on a misunderstanding.
It is not a matter of instituting privileges for foreign investment, but of establishing guarantees of equal treatment.
Under an investment protection agreement, a country may adopt the environmental provisions of its choice, provided they are not used to discriminate against foreign investment.
Contrary to what some critics seem to believe, the MAI would not facilitate short-term capital movements.
The underlying aim is quite the opposite: promoting long-term investment.
For the underdeveloped countries, long-term investment can be preferable to short-term borrowing or foreign portfolio investment.
If the economic situation changes for the worse, short-term capital of this kind can easily be moved away - with potentially dire effects.
Since it is usually the best companies that invest abroad, the social conditions on offer are likely to be better than average.
These companies will normally engage in transfers of know-how and technology, providing better support for long-term development than national exchequers could achieve by means of transfer payments.
<P>
There are more than 1 600 bilateral investment protection agreements.
One MAI could replace this contractual jungle with a more transparent system.
There is no obligation on countries to join.
If the current criticism leads to negotiations being broken off, long-term investment in the developing countries will be one of the first casualties.
All the more so if a renegotiated MAI, instead of enshrining non-discrimination, were to impose higher requirements on foreign companies than on domestic ones - which is what some critics seem to want.
Private investment does not come on demand. And slowed investment flows would be to everyone's disadvantage.
<P>
Many developing countries today are so keen to attract foreign investment that they are offering subsidies to foreign companies. An agreement involving extra burdens on business would undermine their attempts to make themselves attractive to investors.
The purpose of some opponents' endeavours to block the MAI could precisely be to put obstacles in the way of international investment.
There is a widely held belief that, if companies cannot invest abroad, they will do so back at home.
Protectionism of this kind can easily have the opposite effect.
Companies unable to invest abroad - in support of new market strategies, for example - might then find it hard to do business at all on the domestic front.
Maybe it was a mistake to hold the negotiations under the auspices of the OECD. Suspicions are bound to arise when the lead organisation has such a limited membership, with a mere handful of developing countries participating.
As Sir Leon said, even though its remit is primarily trade and not investment, the WTO is probably better placed to handle the negotiations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
Mr President, the French Government's decision to withdraw from the OECD-level MAI negotiations was a courageous one, and leaves me gratified on two counts. Firstly, the agreement that was being worked on would grant unilateral rights to multinational companies at the expense of democratic principles, and that is totally unacceptable.
Secondly, the decision demonstrates that democracy works; the will of the people can prevail.
Nothing dictates that the multinationals will have their way, with unfettered free trade as the be-all and end-all.
The French decision puts down an important marker in this respect. I am surprised that other governments calling themselves left-wing - the Swedish one, for example - have not followed the French lead.
Instead, they have simply absorbed the underlying philosophy of the MAI.
<P>
We should now jettison the current proposal and start the process all over again, basing ourselves this time on a more socially and environmentally oriented agenda, and offering a place at the discussion table to the third world countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lannoye">
Mr President, in my opinion this incantatory talk of the virtues of liberalism is not likely to restore health to a project that is so obviously ailing.
<P>
Following the French Government's decision to withdraw from negotiations, it seems quite clear that political conditions are no longer appropriate for these negotiations to continue.
I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the French Government is not alone.
The Belgian Government was greatly disturbed by what happened in Paris, and the future government of Germany is also questioning the relevance of a project that is evidently flawed.
<P>
We are talking of transferring negotiations to the WTO.
Firstly, I would like to remind you that the WTO is not the temple of democracy people presume it is, and that the small states of the South barely have their voices heard in this forum.
So as Mr Sainjon suggested, we will certainly also have to review the way in which the WTO operates.
<P>
Furthermore, to transfer the debate without changing the basic project would not change a great deal.
In this respect, I am very concerned to hear Commissioner Brittan reiterate during meetings his faith in the virtues of the present project.
It is a project that can be likened to a poor-quality film, or what we might call a 'turkey'; changing the set or adding extras to crucial scenes will not turn it into a good film, especially if the script and the stars appearing in it are the same, and if it continues to be directed by the multinationals.
<P>
I therefore think that if future negotiations take place within a new framework, the conditions in which they take place should be discussed democratically, and that Commissioner Brittan and the European Commission should be given a clear mandate that is monitored democratically; otherwise we are in real danger of misleading ourselves totally in this debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Lassus Saint Geniès">
Mr President, an agreement on investment is doubtless needed, but not simply any agreement.
The present draft MAI treaty almost caricatures the concept of ultra-liberalism.
We are told that it is aimed at protecting non-national investors who, it would appear, have a lot to fear from the states.
But this protection is to be put before the rights of citizens and the rights of the states.
This would give non-national investors the opportunity to question any government policy or action that might reduce their predicted profits.
It would also grant them the right to full and constant protection, and this would ban the states not only from taking future nationalisation measures, but also from taking any measure that has the equivalent effect. In addition, there would be a special clause that would render irreversible any liberalisation measures laid down by a government.
<P>
How could such a monstrosity ever have been negotiated?
Did the OECD believe that science and money create world peace?
No, world peace is the result of an agreement between democratic governments who create and protect it.
Investors are able to prosper within the framework of this peace, on the condition that they do not destroy, undermine or evade these democratic agreements.
Public opinion is well aware of this, as it has demonstrated in the space of a few weeks by speaking out against this very attractively packaged draft agreement purporting to guarantee that in future everything would be free and without discrimination, with a couple of exceptions, namely cultural and audiovisual exceptions which the states, like naughty pupils, would be granted on the condition that they submit a specific request.
<P>
Is this promise that everything will be free and without discrimination for foreign investors aimed at the non-democratic states?
Of course not.
We are all aware that they can sign treaties and have absolutely no intention of respecting them unless threatened with war.
We are therefore getting closer to the real reason behind these negotiations: they are intended to facilitate foreign investment in developed democratic countries and ensure that investment comes directly from multinationals or indirectly from the various mafia or dictatorships in the world.
But of the democratic countries being targeted, it is evident that the countries of the European Union are being targeted most, because they constitute a huge market that is gradually placing social issues high on the agenda and becoming a unique democratic force in the world, one that is capable of making human rights a priority.
But the fact remains that democracy is a lengthy process and we have still not completed the task of defining all our environmental or consumer protection regulations, or even our minimum social requirements.
Neither are we equipped with political institutions that are strong enough to ensure our choices are respected and to negotiate with one voice.
So it is understandable that some are keen to create the conditions which would destroy this democratic construction by imposing other laws, such as the law of money, or even that of the United States.
<P>
It is therefore a very bad project, one that has been carried out outside civil and democratic society, as Catherine Lalumi&#x010D;re's report so clearly highlighted, and that should be discarded.
Not because of a touchy reaction, Sir Brittan, but in order to start again at a later date, for example within the framework of the WTO.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, I should firstly like to thank Sir Leon Brittan for continuously helping to objectify the debate.
I believe that the most important thing is to go into what this agreement is actually concerned with.
I should like to thank Mr Kreissl-Dörfler for stating very clearly that an agreement is necessary.
I believe we can also say that increasing demands are being made on politics as a whole.
It is also repeatedly said that we must come to grips with globalisation.
Mr Kittelmann said today that we in the European Parliament must also determine the rules of the game for increasing world trade.
That is why I should like on this occasion to take up the cudgels for the Multilateral Agreement on Investment.
I believe the mystery should be removed from the whole project, because this is about nothing other than ensuring that foreign investors and investments do not enjoy less favourable treatment than domestic investors and investments.
This is the core issue, and I believe we must all declare our support for it.
We are seeking to ensure high standards, rational liberalisation of investment rules, and an effective disputes settlement procedure.
<P>
I believe it is essential that we settle conflicts satisfactorily in this area.
The current negotiations on the MAI have led to an increase in the information needs of the general public.
The importance of this issue was also recognised.
Cross-border investments have meanwhile become the most important driving force in the world economy.
Impressive figures support this statement.
In the last 13 years annual investment flows have increased 17-fold, from USD 25 billion to 424 billion.
In my country alone, Austria, 8 % of the gross domestic product is apportioned to investments from abroad.
This secures many jobs.
No less than 1 500 bilateral agreements are in force throughout the world for concluding such investments.
It goes without saying here that the need to create adequate legal frameworks has increased greatly; a legal framework such as has existed for trade in goods since 1947, in the form of the GATT, and since 1995 for cross-border trade in services.
<P>
The current draft agreement now secures equal national treatment as well as most-favoured nation treatment.
For instance, it guarantees the French employer that competitors in the market cannot draw any competitive advantages from discriminatory locational factors.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Mr President, the effects of the MAI would be felt around the world - which explains why it has met with such near-universal condemnation.
Some 560 organisations from 67 countries have come together and launched a joint plea for the right of scrutiny. They want greater transparency and openness, more free debate and the involvement of civil society.
<P>
I wish to congratulate all those - including my colleagues in the European Parliament - who have contributed towards uncovering the true face of the MAI.
What lessons have been learnt?
What has this discussion taught the Commission, the negotiators, Sir Leon Brittan - and even Mr Burenstam Linder?
Well, they have been made to understand that this is not the way to proceed.
An investment agreement should be facilitating, not restrictive, and should help us to meet our international environmental commitments.
We must state unequivocally that our environmental objectives are of paramount importance.
Priority should be given to fulfilling the agreements and commitments entered into at the major UN conferences; international investment agreements are not exempt from these overarching criteria.
The MAI will not meet with general approval until human rights are given precedence over the rights of big business.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
There is a wider degree of consensus on this issue than the protagonists would wish to admit.
The fact of the matter is that most people, but not all who have spoken, see the merits of an international agreement on investment, and they are right to do so.
<P>
They are right to do so, because it is an absurd caricature to present such an agreement, provided it is of the right kind, as being something that is simply for the benefit of multinational companies.
Not at all.
If we are concerned about those who are suffering from the Asian crisis, if we are concerned about the fact that there are in a country like Indonesia literally millions of people who are now below the poverty line because of that crisis, then we have to be interested in attracting investment to those countries, because that is one of the ways to recover.
It will not attract investment unless there is an adequate framework to enable people to invest safely.
That is the reality of the situation.
You cannot force investment to take place.
You can do what you like.
You can shout and you can scream slogans from the sky, but people will not invest unless they believe that there is a possibility to get a return.
That is why it is in the interests of the poorest people in the world that there should be a proper framework for investment.
That does not mean that there should be any agreement.
The question is what agreement should there be and where should the forum be.
<P>
I have to say, in particular to Mrs Moreau, that some people who have spoken in response to a Commission statement seems to have decided what to say before they heard what the statement was, and seem to have made comments which are completely unjustified by the statement.
In particular, I said right at the outset that, as far as we were concerned, the primary forum for such an agreement should be the WTO. The primary forum for such an agreement should be the WTO, because it is there that the developing countries are present in person and there that their concerns can most fully be met.
I said that quite clearly and I have said that many times before.
Of course one has to look at what has happened in the OECD in the context of that view.
I did not make any pejorative remarks about the French Government.
If that was heard by the honourable Member, she heard what was not said.
She should withdraw that, because nothing of the kind was said.
<P>
The fact of the matter that we now have to consider, coolly, if we now have to go to the WTO - which is likely and which I have always favoured, in any event - is indeed one of the lessons to be learnt from the negotiation that took place in the OECD.
I do not reject that negotiation as being one that was invalid or inappropriate.
The fact of the matter is that that negotiation was commenced on the basis of a mandate which was supported unanimously by the Member States, all of them democratic governments, after debates in this Parliament as well - not on the basis of some go-ahead of an irresponsible kind and abuse of power by the Commission.
It is nonsense.
Last year the Council of Ministers commended the progress that had been made and asked that further progress should continue to be made.
So it is not a frolic of our own that we have gone on, but a responsible negotiation in a responsible place.
It was legitimate for the Member States - including every single one of them - to believe that a negotiation in the OECD could provide a platform from which one could proceed to a negotiation in the WTO and it could provide lessons that could be drawn from it.
All of that is clear.
<P>
I have made it clear in this House time and time again - and most recently today, for those who are prepared to listen - that we, on behalf of the Member States of the European Union, were not prepared to complete a negotiation and to enter into an agreement which did not provide adequate protection for the concerns that have been expressed about the environment, for the concerns that have been expressed about audiovisual and other cultural matters and for the concerns that have been expressed about the observance of ILO labour standards.
<P>
We did not conclude the negotiation and were not going to conclude the negotiation without reflecting on the legitimate concerns of the Member States on those subjects, because that was the mandate.
The sole question was whether there was a reasonable chance of completing those negotiations with an acceptable agreement or not.
I believe that we will never know the answer to that question because the negotiations are likely not to be concluded in that way.
I do not know what the answer would be, but what I do know is that there is absolutely no basis for suggesting that the Commission would reach an agreement, when we have expressly said that we would not do so without meeting the legitimate and reasonable concerns that have been expressed!
<P>
Now it may well be that the scene shifts to the WTO.
I have said that we regard that, in any event, as the preferable forum and as the main place in which a negotiation should take place.
To achieve that we have to persuade everybody that there should be a new Millennium round and we have to persuade people that a negotiation on investment should take place in it.
<P>
We will be able to do so and we shall be accountable to the democratically-elected governments of the European Union and, as has been generously said by at least one distinguished speaker, the Commission accepts its responsibilities to the European Parliament as well.
<P>
One thing I must say, and one thing that is dangerous that has been said, is that there has been a lot of talk about sovereignty.
What does that mean?
As far as sovereignty is concerned any international agreement on any subject is to an extent an acceptance of a limitation of sovereignty.
The agreement setting up the European Union is an expression limiting sovereignty.
The Treaty of Maastricht limits sovereignty, the Treaty of Amsterdam limits sovereignty, but it is being done by democratically elected governments with the support of democratically-elected parliaments, because they believe that internationally we can reach an agreement which is for our benefit and achieve thereby something that cannot be done just by individual governments acting on their own.
<P>
If you take this argument about sovereignty or au pied de la lettre in the way that has been argued today, you would never have an international agreement on anything.
Of course you may want to have provisions in agreements that allow you to withdraw from them at a certain time and on certain conditions.
That is reasonable and it may or may not be appropriate in this case.
But the argument about sovereignty is an appeal to the emotions and a contradiction of everything that we have achieved in the European Union over the last 40 years, because if that argument had prevailed, we would never have started and none of you would be here today.
<P>
I value your presence, I hope that we can work together to achieve the right results in the right place but we will only be able to do so if we speak with a clear head and shed some of the emotions which have wrongly entered a subject which is important but where it is necessary to have a little more light and a little less heat.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Moreau">
Mr President, I would like to come back to the remarks I made earlier, which were corrected by the Commissioner.
I heard a comment made that the French Government reacted touchily to the MAI.
In French, a touchy reaction means an unconsidered one, and this is why I think that this is a pejorative comment in relation to my government, which is democratically elected like the others.
Several speakers have also repeated this expression and this is why I am asking Mr Brittan to withdraw his remark.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="President">
I do not intend to reopen the discussion at this point.
I shall just briefly give the floor to two colleagues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Mr President, Sir Leon Brittan, of course it is absolutely clear to everyone in the House that international treaties, including the Treaty on European Union, limit sovereignty in certain areas.
And we do not have anything at all against this.
But what Mr Jospin said, and what we are also saying, is really that this agreement on MAI limits the sovereignty of a state in a particular way that is no longer linked to the way in which an EU treaty limits sovereignty, for instance.
The issue here is preferential treatment in the area of investment: great.
But the EU is much more than purely an internal market.
This is a project for the whole of Europe, and that is really the crucial difference.
We will gladly give up sovereignty for this, but not for an MAI in this form.
I hope you can agree with me on this, as that would already be important progress.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kittelmann">
Mr President, I do not know whether you share my opinion.
I sometimes have the impression at the moment that we are sitting in the French National Assembly and not in the European Parliament.
It will have been well received at home.
I should like to support you, Sir Leon Brittan, on one issue and pass on your conviction.
Without a Multilateral Agreement on Investment there will be no investment.
I urge all those on the Left, who are so vociferous in their views, to explain this to the Third World countries when there is no investment.
If you want to invest your own money, your personal money, in something, then you also require security.
The agreement will be amended, and further negotiations will take place.
However, if the Third World no longer receives aid in the form of investment, you have caused more damage than merely to prevent an agreement on ideological grounds.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 7.15 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Emissions from diesel engines
<SPEAKER ID=174 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0364/98) by Mr Lange, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directive 88/77/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the measures to be taken against the emission of gaseous and particulate pollutants from diesel engines for use in vehicles (COM(97)0627 - C4-0194/98-97/0350(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 NAME="Lange">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, almost exactly a month ago to the day, we adopted at third reading the legislation on passenger cars and light commercial vehicles.
With this legislation, emission limit values for these vehicles have become 95 % stricter in Europe over the last fifteen years.
Now we are turning our attention to trucks, lorries and buses, and here we find that the legislation has been very hesitant and quite different from that on passenger cars.
The result is that today 50 % of all nitrogen oxide and particulate emissions in Europe are from lorries and buses, and not from the far more numerous passenger cars.
Looking at the figures, there are about 200 million passenger cars on the roads, and lorries and buses add up to just a fraction of this number.
It seems as though something is not quite right here, which is indeed the case, because until now it has never been necessary to fit an exhaust purification device in lorries and buses.
The small changes to the limit values that have been made thus far could be dealt with by the manufacturer making a slight mechanical adjustment to the engine, changing the injection nozzle, adapting the engine, none of which involved any exhaust after treatment.
I ask myself whether we can continue to accept this when we have fixed strict limits on exhaust emissions for passenger cars and light commercial vehicles, which require a catalyst to be incorporated into the exhaust system.
The answer is no: we urgently need exhaust after treatment for lorries too.
<P>
That is why the proposal from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection says that alongside the stage for 2000, which is still based on making changes to the engine only, we should lay down a second stage for 2005, which would require an exhaust purification device to be fitted for reducing in particular nitrogen oxides and soot particles.
This is not cloud-cuckoo-land, this is state-of-the-art technology.
We now have vehicles with catalysts that reduce NOx emissions.
There are entire testing programmes, which incidentally are strongly supported by the Bavarian state government and by the Dutch TNO, and even Fiat Ivecco in Switzerland is working with the federal environment authorities there.
We have a combination of filters to reduce NOx and we also have particulate traps.
Tests have already been underway for six months in Paderborn, and the results show clearly that the limit values we are proposing are realistic and achievable.
So the central objective of this second stage for 2005 is that lorries, trucks and buses should also have built-in systems for exhaust after treatment.
<P>
This would also be economical in terms of price, because of course it will become cheaper with mass production; at present it costs about ECU 3000.
But, because until now attempts to comply with exhaust emission limit values involved only making technical adjustments to the engine, the most significant consequence was increased fuel consumption, due to the fact that we were only targeting NOx and not CO2 emissions.
By fitting a de NOx catalyst, to reduce NOx emissions by means of a catalyst, we can achieve a reduction of approximately 10 % in consumption in lorries.
I think that a 10 % drop in consumption, given rising lorry traffic in Europe, is certainly going to contribute to reducing CO2 here.
So a reduction in consumption is added to the effects of exhaust after treatment.
<P>
We also suggest of course that durability and monitoring should be increased, as with the passenger cars and light commercial vehicles.
Commissioner, I would therefore ask you to show a little courage here, and not resolve to do merely what is already out there.
In September there was a large fair for heavy goods vehicles, where the talk was of truck manufacturers being prepared for EURO III.
Visitors could see for themselves that lorry manufacturers were able to satisfy the legal requirements of EURO III two years ahead of time.
Surely we cannot say that we are adopting something that has been the state-of-the-art for two years already!
No, we have to be ambitious.
We must see to it that the lorries that we need are also as ecologically harmless as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 NAME="Pollack">
Mr President, I do not want to take up a great deal of the House's time, but first I would very much like to congratulate Mr Lange on his continuation of work on these very technical and important matters.
As rapporteur on air quality, I simply want to highlight the importance for air quality of these issues.
<P>
This report probably has to take the prize for lengthy and difficult titles but it is a very important measure in the battle to improve air quality and, as a result, the health of our citizens.
The limit values which are being been laid down in the first daughter directive on air pollution which is currently between first and second readings in this House depend on the whole package of measures under Auto-oil of which this is really an intrinsic part.
The air quality directives have emission limits for 2005 and 2010.
So the text that we are debating tonight is a very necessary piece of this jigsaw.
<P>
In Britain around 80 % of our goods are now moved by road compared to rail, waterways and other means.
Heavy lorries, therefore, have major implications for the health of our citizens.
Heavy lorries mostly run on diesel engines and these are responsible for a large amount of pollution from particulates and oxides of nitrogen.
They also contribute to the creation of ozone and summer smog.
We know all about those problems.
<P>
Several of the amendments supported by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection especially refer to particulates and Nox, recognising the difference between what pollutants are released in cities and what escape from long-range haulage.
The research studies which have been carried out on particulates, or black smoke, underline the necessity to specify 2005 under this proposal, precisely so that industry will have to create the necessary anti-pollution devices such as particulate traps, and have the lead-in time to be able to do so.
We have only recently pushed through the legislation demanding low-sulphur fuels by 2005.
This is the logical other side of that equation.
We must not listen to the voices calling for delay.
<P>
I simply want to emphasise, in conclusion, how essential it is to maintain the toughest possible emission limits as we have demanded in other parts of the Auto-oil programme.
To ensure the health of our future generations is one of the most tangible parts of the work that we do here in the European Parliament to meet the needs and desires of our citizens.
<P>
I fully support Mr Lange's amendments and his work on what is a very technical area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Florenz">
Mr President, Commissioner, I am glad that in the last few months we have been able to discuss and approve a number of interesting reports in the House, some of them by means of the codecision procedure, which gives meaning to the single market in the areas of transport and mobility as well.
If we all realise that the single market is a success story, then it follows that we also want to have mobility.
I would very much like to see mobility, not only of persons but of goods and services too.
That is indeed the point of this single market.
It is the answer to the global challenge, and this is why we in Europe need to have calculable values for mobility and for the hauliers who will in future have to pay out a great deal of money to drive vehicles with purified exhaust gases, and will indeed wish to do so.
But before that, we need to have calculable and reliable values.
I am not quite sure whether it is the Commission or the Council that procrastinates and says to itself 'Oh God, no! We cannot adopt such strict values!'
I think that those guilty of procrastination come from both institutions.
<P>
I would like to thank the rapporteur for his presentation, which we will be glad to support.
Again, I would like to point out that I consider the on-board diagnostics system to be an important issue.
But it is equally important that this system does not automatically result in a bonnet crammed full of electronics, and that small and medium-sized companies continue to have access to these electronic steering devices.
Commissioner, I would be much obliged if you would continue the work on OBD in this paper, should you be offered and accept the task, to ensure that SMEs are able to carry out maintenance work.
<P>
All in all we have certainly made some progress.
I would like to say once again that the Auto-Oil programme was the breakthrough.
We had stubborn partners but Parliament provided some good reasons as to why responsibilities should be given to this House.
We were happy to assume them and we were also pleased to share them with you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Mr President, Mr Lange has produced a first-rate report, which is no less than we would expect of him.
The amendments to the Commission proposal incorporated in the report are altogether consistent with the amendments which Parliament pushed through earlier through the conciliation procedure when we looked at the other part of the Auto-Oil programme, passenger cars and light commercial vehicles.
Now we are looking at heavy-duty vehicles.
<P>
The matters at issue are compulsory on-board diagnostics, the durability of emission purification systems and the standards which will be compulsory by 2005.
Looking at the Lange report, the proposals - the standards for 2005 in respect of diesel fuel - would seem to be realistic.
But if we are in favour of the use of 'best available techniques', we can aim to improve air quality rather more.
The expectation is that fast developing technology will enable heavy-duty vehicles to meet the standards easily by the year 2005, even without clean-up technology such as catalytic converters.
So Mrs Hautala's amendment is more ambitious.
We have just discussed it in the Liberal Group, and the overwhelming majority of my group believe that we should support this Hautala amendment.
We have to be somewhat ambitious, to set our standards rather high, because then we shall have a good starting position for the conciliation procedure with the Council.
<P>
And I hope the Commission, having learned from experience with the Auto-Oil programme, will back us over these more ambitious targets for diesel emissions.
If we achieve that, we shall be on the way to getting environmental imperatives integrated into the transport sector.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, Mr Lange continues his splendidly competent work, this time in connection with heavy-duty vehicles.
Everybody must surely realise how important it is to clean up emissions from buses and lorries.
I would like to propose, however, that we should be a little more ambitious in one respect, namely the matter of particulate emissions.
My colleague, Mr Eisma, has just mentioned that if we make use of the best scientific know-how at our disposal we could propose a more stringent limit value for particulate emissions for the year 2005.
It may interest all of you who are still sceptical that the ACEA, the trade association for the car industry, appears to regard this as technically feasible.
I have seen the documents with my own eyes.
The other side of the coin is that they want to avoid binding obligations in a way.
But we in Parliament have already stated in the Auto-Oil programme that we wish to give a clear signal to industry and, with that in mind, we want binding limit values, as Mr Lange proposes.
<P>
What we need to do now is to think seriously about the decisions reached in the Auto-Oil programme.
We are bringing onto the market cleaner, low-sulphur fuels, which are just what we need for a more progressive approach to vehicle technology.
We have given a signal that we want new generation catalysts and filters for particles that are a danger to health.
In fact, these technical solutions are already on the market.
For example, the United Kingdom's largest supermarket chain, Tesco, has decided to fit all its vans and trucks with very effective particle filters that do much to lessen particulate emissions, while low-sulphur diesel fuels are still being used.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Virgin">
Mr President, Commissioner, Bernd Lange has produced a very good report on reducing emissions from heavy-duty vehicles.
I agree with him on most points and support his proposal, although there is one area where he is being over-ambitious in my view.
Mr Lange is calling for a limit value of 2.0 for emissions of nitrogen oxides, whereas I would suggest 3.0.
<P>
The automobile manufacturers' association ACEA believes that, by 2005, it will be possible to reduce nitrogen emissions by 30 %, the reference value being 5.0 in the year 2000.
This corresponds to 3.5 g per kWh, but brings with it a rise in fuel consumption, which is a problem from the point of view of the greenhouse effect.
Greenhouse gases have been the subject of discussion on many occasions in this House; keeping them down is one of our main environmental objectives.
I still feel that we can afford to be a little more radical than ACEA suggests, dropping to 3.0 g per kWh.
<P>
Thanks to the efforts of Mr Lange and Mrs Hautala, we achieved good results in Parliament on the Auto-Oil proposal.
Research evidence has shown that our suggestions - for example on fuel quality - have solid underpinning.
<P>
As for diesel engines, comprehensive trials are still being carried out.
Before we submit proposals, we need to evaluate the results of this work
<P>
Lastly, I would like to support Mr Lange's call for financial incentives to encourage changes in motoring behaviour. If we are lucky, we might even manage to surpass his strict target values.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, the differences of opinion that I have from time to time with Mr Lange shall not prevent me from praising him on the quality of this report.
It is of interest to us too.
But it has already been mentioned in the discussion that, following preliminary consultations, the Commission - and also incidentally the Member States - started out from a different basic idea.
With passenger cars and light commercial vehicles, we managed to propose having a second stage with indicative values, but that was changed.
In this case though, we believe that because the necessary test procedures have not yet provided all the data, it would not be sensible, particularly in terms of making better use of the technical possibilities, to fix mandatory values at this early stage for 2005.
And all the more so, Mr Lange, because we have committed ourselves to presenting values for a second stage by the end of 1999.
That means that we - or industry - have another five years.
We would still have time to include the results of the Auto-Oil II Programme, we would have more data, and above all, we would have better international coordination by then.
We also want to implement these values internationally, so please understand that the Commission cannot accept this fundamentally different proposal.
I also presume that I am right in predicting that the Member States will be more inclined towards our approach.
<P>
I would therefore now like to talk briefly about the individual amendments.
We can accept Amendments Nos 11 and 12 fully, we can accept Amendments Nos 6, 16, 17 and 24 in principle, in other words we shall have to look at the wording again, but we still have time to do that.
We can accept in part Amendments Nos 3, 5, 7, 8 and 20, on the need for high quality fuel to achieve future emission standards (No 3, second part), and on the need to link future standards with durability requirements (No 5).
Mr Florenz, we wish in any case to put together a package which also includes the OBD requirements.
It is to be a coherent package because each element supports the other.
Because we are striving for international regulations, we can of course accept Amendments Nos 7, 8 (second part) and 20 (second part), supporting the idea of a worldwide harmonised test cycle.
We cannot accept the other amendments for the general reasons I have already cited.
I think that because we are at the first reading stage here, I do not need to go into each amendment and explain in detail why it cannot be accepted.
<P>
That is the present situation and now we shall see what the Council decides.
It is indeed possible that the common position will be approved at the next meeting, so that we shall be able to go on with consultations quite soon.
Then there will be the second reading and there we will see what the outcome of the subsequent wrestling match is.
The Commission is relatively calm about it, because we think that this proposal in any case represents a considerable improvement.
Mr Lange is right that the matter has simply been ignored for a long time, by all of us; I cannot remember Parliament ever urging us to make progress in the area.
But that does not excuse us.
Now we are making progress, and I think that perhaps we are even moving faster.
If, as Mr Lange has said, technology develops equally quickly, then it may even be possible that in the course of 1999 we are able to make proposals which, when they become mandatory in 2005, will come close to what Mr Lange is now proposing.
But as we do not want to do that until 1999 - not because we are lax but simply because we still have time and therefore we should use it - we do not need to have a big argument on the basics here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="Lange">
Mr President, Commissioner, allow me to ask a supplementary question.
You are now a very experienced Commissioner and, in a manner of speaking, caught up in the European institutions.
Could you once again enlighten me as to the percentage of cases in which the Commission has submitted a proposal by the specified date?
Secondly, if you put forward a proposal for the 2005 stage in autumn 1999 at the earliest then, in view of the experience with the first Auto-Oil programme, where it took over two years, and considering also that the time needed to develop the engines of heavy goods vehicles is about twice as long as that for passenger cars (about five years), how much time are you estimating for legislation?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, I believe that we comply quite closely with our deadlines.
I do not have an overview, and can only comment on my own area where I am very familiar with the situation.
It may occasionally be the case that a Commission proposal comes one or two months later than promised, but in my sector the deadlines are respected fully.
As the responsibility for this one is thankfully my own, I shall present the proposal before the end of 1999.
Then it will be up to you how quickly you can deal with it.
I shall not criticise you of course, as I am not entitled to do that, but if I remember correctly, this proposal was presented by us in December 1997 and you are dealing with it now.
It has taken quite some time, but we had to tackle questions of detail, which we will not have to do with this new proposal, or so I would hope. I imagine therefore that this matter may be concluded within a year.
As industry also follows the debate when a proposal is submitted to see what is in store for them, the five-year period would have to be complied with approximately.
I do not consider this to be a decisive point.
We will be able to do it, above all when we have a standard with comprehensive worldwide validity.
That is naturally of great importance for industry, which does much more international business in this area than in any other.
I do think that we can try.
But I will take your comment as another request for us to be as punctual as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lange">
Mr President, to set matters straight, the Commission did indeed adopt the proposal in December 1997, but it only reached Parliament six months later.
So it took six months to cover the 200 metre distance between the Commission and Parliament!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, to clarify the matter I must point out that we passed the documents on to the Council, as is the usual practice, but after that it was no longer in our power to see whether the Council dealt with them with appropriate speed.
I must stress that we are not the guilty party here.
The Council cannot comment on this as it is not here, but that is just the way it is.
Les absents ont toujours tort .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="President">
I agree with Mr Bangemann.
I do not think that now is the time for us to deal with the question of why it took several months to cover 200 metres.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12.15 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Volatile organic compounds
<SPEAKER ID=187 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0358/98), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0389/98-96/0276(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Directive on limitation of emissions of volatile organic compounds due to the use of organic solvents in certain activities and installations (Rapporteur: Mr Cabrol).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 NAME="Cabrol">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this proposal for a Directive seeks to limit volatile organic compound emissions, or VOCs, emissions which occur due to the use of organic solvents - which are themselves volatile organic substances - in many industrial activities.
The aim is to reduce these emissions by 67 % in comparison to the 1990 rate.
<P>
The proposal for a Directive puts forward three different ways of achieving this aim.
The first involves respecting emission limit values which are mentioned in Annex II A. This means that thresholds or values are indicated for each industrial sector and undertakings must respect them.
Secondly, Member States could implement national plans giving the same results across all industrial sectors as those obtained through the first method.
The third method involves implementing reduction systems as defined in Annex II B, allowing each undertaking to use solvents containing fewer VOCs, either by changing processes or treatment materials or by using a combination of both to achieve the same results as those obtained through the first method.
<P>
The common position has kept some amendments, which is an improvement that Parliament wanted to see, but other amendments have not been kept and the Committee on the Environment calls on you to either vote in favour of those amendments which have not been retained, or rather put them to another vote.
The amendments are as follows; Amendment No 1, although slightly unrealistic, calls for the total elimination of emissions rather than attempting to reduce them as much as possible.
Amendments Nos 2 and 8 demonstrate our concern to safeguard the health of people who by virtue of their occupation are exposed to organic solvents.
Amendment No 3 calls for the best available techniques to be promoted in accordance with Directive 96/61/EC.
Amendment No 4 calls for solvents used by painters in the building trade or for DIY to be included since these solvents account for 30 % of total emissions.
Amendment No 5 proposes to examine how installations operating below the thresholds laid down by the Directive can be brought within the scope of future rules.
Amendment No 6 is designed to enable certain Member States to impose more stringent restrictions.
Amendment No 7 calls for the time period in which regulations are implemented to bring existing installations up to standard, to be extended to two years.
Amendment No 9 aims to allow volatile organic compound emissions to be measured by any method equivalent to continuous measuring. This means that enterprises can select which method to use, providing the overall result produced is the same.
Amendment No 10 provides for wagons and trailers to be included under 'vehicle refinishing', a clause that will be easier for professionals to apply and is just as effective in terms of results.
Amendment No 12 provides that the solvent management plan should be done every three years, which appears far more understandable and more easily applicable than to request an annual management plan.
Lastly, Amendment No 13, which mistakenly bears my name but was in fact tabled by the PPE, refers to the principle of the best available techniques, as already mentioned in Amendment No 3.
<P>
However, despite the fact that some of these amendments have been accepted by the Committee on the Environment, I, for my part, and from a purely personal point of view, should like to remind you - because I have not always been understood in these cases - that I will oppose the second part of Amendment No 11 due to the fact that it might lead to difficulties in the leather industry because it limits the solvent consumption threshold. I will also vote against Amendment No 14 which, incidentally, has already been rejected by the Committee on the Environment and retabled by the PPE, because it rejects national plans which are so useful.
I think Amendment No 15 has been withdrawn.
<P>
To conclude I would simply remind you, Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, that this Directive concerns more than 400 000 undertakings and 10 million jobs across a broad range of industrial sectors.
It therefore merits our full attention, and we must consider all the potential threats it could pose to jobs in these companies if we implement measures that are either too stringent or do not take the reality of the situation into account.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 NAME="Bowe">
Mr President, I should like firstly to thank the rapporteur for his excellent work.
His first report at first reading was very balanced and achieved a very high standard of protection for human health and the environment whilst, at the same time, recognising the needs of industry and the difficulties it has - certainly small and medium-sized enterprises - in achieving some of the standards laid down in this proposal.
<P>
We think that the common position is in large part acceptable.
It has for the most part taken in a large number of the amendments we tabled at first reading.
But we do not think it is perfect.
The rapporteur has quite correctly addressed some of the deficiencies of the common position and the Socialist Group will certainly support the amendments he has tabled.
We hope the Commission will do so also.
I and other colleagues have complemented his amendments with several others, seeking to plug the holes through which some of the VOCs might still continue to escape from the common position and cause problems for us.
<P>
Finally, I feel the Commission must support us and press for these amendments with the Council.
They will undoubtedly bring about a significant improvement in the technical proposals within the directive will continue to strengthen protection for human health and the environment and fully and properly establish a level playing field across the Union, in particular for small and medium-sized enterprises, in such a way that they can achieve the objectives of these proposals and at the same time remain viable, effective and functioning businesses.
<P>
I would urge the Commission and the Council to accept these amendments and give us a directive that we in the European Union can all be proud of.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 NAME="Schleicher">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this Council text on the common position is a considerable improvement to the original Commission proposal.
In the PPE's view the common position constitutes a balanced regulation for restricting VOC emissions, from both an ecological and an economic point of view.
The proposed measures can achieve the goal of an EU-wide reduction in the emission of VOCs resulting from the use of organic solvents in the biggest industrial and commercial sectors by at least 50 % by the year 2010, by comparison with 1990.
This Directive is thus an important step towards reducing the precursors to ground level ozone and therefore to fighting Europe's summer smog.
<P>
As Professor Cabrol has already said, we have here practicable regulations on authorisation and registration procedures for the approximately 400 000 predominantly small and medium-sized enterprises in Europe.
The numerous amendments that the European Parliament tabled at first reading have also contributed substantially to these improvements.
Where Parliament has only been partly successful is in restricting these national reduction plans, as they are known, to existing installations.
Unfortunately at second reading the Socialist Group withdrew its support for our amendment completely eliminating national reduction plans.
These plans are useless in protecting Europe's environment.
Proof for me of the ineffectiveness of national action plans and reduction plans is the European Commission's report on the implementation of the Nitrate Directive.
<P>
I cannot begin to understand why the Commission is holding on to the instrument of national plans in spite of all the negative experiences we have had.
We shall certainly have the opportunity to examine the results of these measures over the next few years.
The rapporteur, Professor Cabrol, has kindly included some of the amendments which neither the Commission nor the Council took into account, but which were particularly important to us, for example the request for additional rules on the marketing of products containing solvents. In the main, therefore, our Group can support the present amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Dybkjær">
Mr President, the late hour stands in stark contrast to the importance of the proposal we are now debating.
It is indeed a question of a good or a bad life, or even death, for many people who work with or are exposed to VOCs.
We therefore have good reason to thank both the Commission and the Council for not bowing to the massive pressure from industry, which was in favour of getting the matter shelved.
These substances may be said to be doubly dangerous.
On the one hand they are carcinogenic and cause brain damage and many other forms of damage by their direct effects, i.e. on people who work with the substances.
That is a major risk in a large number of working environments.
On the other hand, if they are released into the natural environment, they can undergo chemical or physical changes and, amongst other things, create an ozone layer.
As good and necessary a thing as that may be 10 km above the earth, it is harmful at ground level.
It can harm both people and animals.
Raised ozone concentrations constitute a formidable health risk.
A number of studies have shown that peaks in ozone concentrations bring with them serious disorders, such as asthma, eye diseases, constant headaches and, in extreme cases, death.
<P>
With the directive and Mr Cabrol's report we have moved a step further in the right direction.
The ELDR Group cannot support all the amendments, because we do not actually feel that they all represent improvements.
But there is one amendment I would mention in particular, which is Amendment No 1, because it is the only solution to the problem.
We cannot protect ourselves against the problems arising from VOCs.
There is no use trying to do that.
We must quite simply be rid of them.
The aim is straightforward: VOCs must be replaced by a better product, and that is precisely what Amendment No 1 demands.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that Mrs Dybkjær has pointed out very strongly the dangers associated with these volatile organic substances.
For my Group I can say that we are not very happy with the compromise that has been reached.
It is more than lax, and hardly constitutes an ambitious approach. The common position merely stipulates that values which have been in force in the Federal Republic of Germany since 1987 should be implemented in the EU only by 2007.
That is absolutely ridiculous, because it means that standards that already apply in Germany would only need to come into force in the EU 20 years later. I think that belies all claims that this proposal is revolutionary.
<P>
Nevertheless, I think that Parliament has taken two initiatives that are very worthy of support. The first is a Directive on paints, as we know that a third of all paints are also responsible for VOCs.
In the future we should be looking at developing and using more water-soluble paints, rather than those based on organic substances.
Secondly, and this is something which particularly concerns me, it is essential that we launch an initiative for people who have been harmed by solvents.
Mrs Dybkjær has just indicated once again the problem of carcinogenic substances, especially for people who come into contact with them in the workplace.
Considering that these people often suffer life-long damage we really should be doing everything possible to make sure they receive more rights. We must also be resolute in fighting for greater safety, particularly for employees, in order to drastically reduce the number of people harmed by solvents.
In this day and age we really should not be exposing people to this danger to their health by negligence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graenitz">
Mr President, the present Directive is a further step towards a strategy to combat ozone, one which the European Union desperately needs.
We know that the Union area is permanently covered by a layer of tropospheric ozone. The slightest incident can cause this layer to become so concentrated that it may endanger health, and even in areas where the air is clean, plants may be damaged to a degree that has serious consequences for agriculture.
<P>
A number of Member States have shown that we could have been stricter, which is why it is no surprise that Parliament has once again tabled an amendment that states: 'Member States which have progressed further than the Community in substituting dangerous organic solvents must be permitted to impose more stringent restrictions'.
I think that we will have to continue in this way, and if necessary look again at whether abandoning the use of VOCs cannot be done more quickly, perhaps even before 2007, especially in the paint industry where many alternatives are already available. Or maybe we could move over to more closed systems in companies so that fewer harmful substances can leak out.
<P>
I also think that it is very important to worry not only about the health of the general population, but also to direct our attention to those people working in factories and workshops, and who come into contact with such substances.
We should introduce special programmes for them, to restore their health or to prevent it from being too seriously damaged.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Hulthén">
Mr President, let me begin by congratulating Mr Cabrol on a well-drafted new report.
Some points are not fully developed, however, and I would underline what Mrs Dybkjær said just now, namely that the main purpose of this exercise should be to replace VOCs once and for all.
They belong to a bygone age. New technical solutions will have to be found.
It is no good telling just the big companies to comply with the directive.
It may seem strange, but most operators in this sector are in fact small or medium-sized businesses. And they are now being offered exemptions.
We appear to be shooting ourselves in the foot.
<P>
We have a prime opportunity here to illustrate how the needs of the environment and the demand for jobs can be reconciled. This is something we have talked about on many occasions, and it is a real pity that the report fails to address the question adequately.
Everyone knows that substitutes for VOCs exist.
We could surely strike out a little more boldly with these directives that affect our future.
The solutions advocated take us backwards, not forwards and I regret that.
The environment makes no distinction between small and medium-sized companies.
It does not say 'Oh, those emissions are coming from a small plant, never mind.'
The consequences are the same, regardless of the size of the works concerned.
If I had a wish, it would be for a little bit more imagination to be shown. Let us find solutions for tomorrow's world, and leave these symbols of the past behind.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, the Commission would like to thank the committee, and particularly the rapporteur, for the careful and detailed examination of the common position laid down by the Council.
We think that the common position clarifies and strengthens the original proposal, without changing its fundamental objectives or in particular its technical approach.
It holds to the high level of protection for the environment and health, and in doing so, also tries to take into account the effects on industry.
<P>
For this reason I should perhaps limit myself to talking in greater detail about the 15 amendments.
We can accept Nos 8 and 9 fully, Nos 10 and 13 in principle, and No 11 in part.
All these amendments make practical or drafting improvements; passages which may be misleading are removed, additional information is provided, and reasonable requirements are added.
Unfortunately, we cannot accept the other amendments.
We do not wish to support Amendments Nos 14 and 15, which undermine the option of national plans.
May I say to Mrs Schleicher that, in view of the objections raised by Parliament at first reading, we were able to persuade the Council to restrict the scope of these national plans and to introduce additional conditions under Article 6.
I think that this flexible instrument is so clearly limited now that it can be accepted.
<P>
As for Amendments Nos 3 and 7, we want to avoid incompatibilities between the instrument proposed and Directive 96/61.
Amendment No 7 would in our opinion lead to an inappropriate discrepancy between the definitions of 'existing installation' and No 3 would cause confusion with regard to the concept of 'best available techniques'.
Amendment No 12 aims to reduce the frequency of solvent management plans, which we do not support because the usefulness of the plans is considerably affected when they are carried out over longer periods of time.
<P>
The Commission fully agrees with the comments made in the debate about health risks and the damage to health which has already occurred, particularly among people who work with these solvents.
But as this proposal does not deal with occupational health risks, we cannot accept Amendment No 2.
However, in the context of Amendment No 8, which we accept, we could exchange information with Parliament that will make it easier for us to take possible further steps.
In two new recitals, Amendments Nos 4 and 5, the Commission is asked to take additional initiatives.
We have already begun work on the first, but we do not want to commit ourselves at this point to finishing it by any particular time, because at the moment it is impossible to guess when that might be.
As for what is requested in Amendment No 5, we do not actually wish to take action here.
We are not presently planning to take new legislative measures for installations operating below the thresholds.
<P>
To Mrs Graenitz particularly, I would say that we do not support Amendment No 6 because the EC Treaty already contains the provisions which allow Member States to impose more stringent restrictions.
The Commission thinks then that the proposal for a directive, together with Parliament's amendments which it has accepted today, offers an effective, enforceable and balanced basis for fighting ozone pollution in the troposphere, and that it will contribute to a high level of protection for the environment and for health.
<P>
And finally, in passing, I would like to say how glad I am that Mrs Breyer referred to the legal basis in force since 1987 in Germany, because it shows how progressive the government in office at the time was!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.15 p.m.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 10 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
Mr Schierhuber has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schiedermeier">
Mr President, my name is Schiedermeier!
<P>
Mr President, I only found the Minutes of 19 October, in other words Monday's Minutes, in my pigeon hole yesterday afternoon, and although I was present and signed in, unfortunately my name is not on the list of attendance.
Could I ask you to correct that?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Mr Schiedermeier, I must apologise to you on two counts.
Firstly because due to my age and the distance involved, I had not recognised you, and secondly because there is indeed an error in the Minutes, which will be corrected.
Thank you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lalumière">
Mr President, my name does not appear on yesterday's attendance list, although I was, of course, here.
I would like this to be corrected.
Thank you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
<CHAPTER ID=2>
State of the Union - Meeting of heads of state and government of 24/25 October
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="Klima">
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Santer">
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="Green">
Mr President, it is with great pleasure that on behalf of my group I welcome to Parliament the first Chancellor of Austria to hold the presidency of the European Council.
I thank him very much for being here to take part in our annual debate on the state of the Union and listen to our views about the future of Europe.
<P>
It is, in my view, a sign of the times that our heads of state and government are meeting in informal session to discuss the direction in which Europe is travelling.
It is a sign of confidence - indeed of the growing confidence and maturity of our Union - that the meeting this coming weekend will focus on giving European citizens a sense of ownership of this Union, to make them feel that the partnership in which we are engaged is of value to them.
And of course it is.
<P>
We have spoken many times, but over the last year in particular, about the need to give Europe back to its people, to create a people's Europe.
Fine words, but just what do they mean?
I believe that a people's Europe is about peace, prosperity and security.
If Pörtschach can breathe new life into the vision of a united Europe by pointing the way forward on these three concepts - peace, prosperity and security - then it will be setting a new and relevant agenda for the coming years.
<P>
This weekend we can continue the very excellent start that was made in Amsterdam last year.
Amsterdam gave some signals of just what a people's Europe might be about, what it might look like, because we agreed a job creation role for the Union, endorsed the social dimension, created a broad anti-discrimination competence, strengthened environmental, consumer and health opportunities and insisted on stronger cooperation between enforcement officers on terrorism and drugs.
These are the issues that affect people's lives.
These are the issues we pursued in Amsterdam.
Now, in an increasingly unstable world, economically and politically, it is time to build on the strengths of Europe; to look at those areas where people increasingly expect us to be active and creative.
For instance, the need, as has been much mentioned here already, for a dynamic common foreign and security policy, has never been so evident.
The European Union's 15 economies, on the verge of the most exciting and innovative monetary venture of modern times - the launch of the euro - are calling out for greater economic coordination to manage global economic turbulence and to stimulate internal growth.
<P>
Europe is not an end in itself.
Europe is a tool to deal with the problems which confront us across the continent and globally.
In that sense as well the moment is right.
Over recent weeks and months we have seen a desperate need for political leadership in the world.
With economic turbulence continuing from the Far East to Russia, with increasing pressure on Latin American economies and currencies we have witnessed a paucity of political leadership.
Japanese politics has been reeling from crisis to crisis.
President Yeltsin has struggled to keep a government - any government - in the Kremlin and we have all been compelled to watch the personal and institutional trauma of the American presidency.
It is Europe which is promoting innovation in the global economic and monetary structures.
It is the euro which is creating a significantly new element in Europe's favour in that economic turbulence.
And it is European leaders who are articulating the need for new globalised, appropriate regulation and reformed global structures to give shape, coherence and rationality in the global market.
<P>
But this is also a moment when confidence worldwide is at a low ebb and when many are confused about where and in which direction the global market is taking them.
It is a moment when we have the opportunity to demonstrate that we in Europe can provide leadership in an unstable world.
The questions which are crying out to be answered are the same throughout the Member States and the same issues that are demanding answers in the European discussions as well: how to create jobs in a global market; how to reform the social welfare systems of Europe without denying help and support to those who truly need it; how to save the environment for the future; how to deal with the scourges of racism, drugs and terrorism; how to train and retrain individuals to cope with the challenge of information technology; in essence, how to create a dynamic, prosperous economy with social justice.
<P>
I believe in a strong European Union.
I believe that Europe's institutions need to be effective and efficient.
We must continue to change, refine and democratise our institutions if we want to establish within the body politic and amongst the Union's officials a culture of openness and a willingness to conform to the challenges of modern democracy.
But amongst the people in our Member States, the institutional debate is long past its sell-by date.
It is and remains important to us, as it should be.
We operate within the institutions.
We are bound by their rules of engagement and we are often trapped by a culture of political administrative involvement which is dated and often found wanting.
<P>
So inevitably and quite rightly we will pursue changes.
That is common to all parliaments, particularly to new ones, such as we are.
But it is time that we made clear that Europe must not be about building institutions.
It must be about securing a wider, more stable, peaceful European continent for us all; not building institutions - building a Community of shared values; not building institutions - building a future for our young.
<P>
We are often teased and criticised that we have no big idea.
Europe is a big idea whose genesis and motivation is no less powerful today than it was at its inception.
As John Hume said yesterday in his moving statement to this House, Europe is the greatest model of conflict resolution this world has ever seen.
But today the Union has even greater vocation.
Those who give more than a cursory glance at the global environment in which we are working cannot fail to see the significance of the European Union: its ability to act together for its 370 million citizens; the potential power of its economy with a single currency; its opportunity to offer a coherent chance to its young through coordinated action for employment for the future; its traditions of tolerance and openness and its sophisticated social model.
If all of this can be harnessed with a greater and expanded model of cooperation in foreign and security affairs so that the Bosnias and Kosovos of this world can be prevented - not just stopped once they have begun, but prevented - then we are truly offering something new for the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stenzel">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, I think we can assume, Mr President-in-Office, that we all endorse your call for a European social market economy model.
We also endorse your belief in a European Union that is more than merely an internal market and a common European currency.
It needs a new European injection of energy.
In particular, the European Union needs to achieve credibility among its citizens.
On behalf of my group, I am very grateful to you for defining the Pörtschach objectives.
The Members of this Parliament were not always sure what this summit would be about.
They knew what it would not be about.
It will not be able to take any decisions, or to anticipate any institutional reforms, but it can define guidelines for the Vienna summit and of course also set signals, signals designed to make the European Union more credible.
At least that is what I hope.
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There is a chance - and here of course we are dying to know what will happen - that you will receive the newly elected German chancellor in Pörtschach.
You have invited him, and of course we expect him to give us full details of his economic policy targets, of the aims towards which he will steer the most important and strongest European Union economy.
You have therefore invited Mr Schröder, and looking at recent events one might almost think it would have been a good idea to invite the super-minister, Oskar Lafontaine, because nobody is quite sure who will actually have the final say on Bonn's economic policy, Gerhard Schröder or Oskar Lafontaine.
What interests our people here is, of course, the credibility of this economic policy, in particular the credibility of the European currency, to which you have also given priority.
At the Pörtschach summit we must ask - and I expect you to do this - what the new Bonn government's views are on the independence of the European Central Bank.
Is it tempted to try to influence it from within?
What does it think about easing the burden on the economy by easing the burden on the small and medium-sized enterprises that pay the highest taxes and can create most jobs?
After all, Mr President-in-Office, we have to accept that the short-term economic forecasts have been revised worldwide. Europe is still in a good position here.
The euro has already proved to be a bulwark against financial turbulence. But we must strengthen the people's trust in the euro.
Unless Pörtschach clearly supports sustainable stability, an independent European Central Bank and a careful budgetary policy, rather than confining itself to the aim of speaking with one voice on the euro at the WTO and other international bodies, then I fear our citizens might under certain circumstances have less confidence in this common currency, or even lose it entirely.
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We must also give the European Union credibility with regard to security.
The people need to feel secure.
They need to feel secure against international crime, against uncontrolled migration.
The incorporation of visa, asylum and immigration policy into Community law provided for in the Amsterdam Treaty is a step in the right direction.
But more needs to be done.
We must coordinate our criminal justice systems more closely, even prior to ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty.
We must also regard the process of enlarging the European Union as a factor of security policy.
As you said, the beginning of practical negotiations on seven chapters under the Austrian Presidency of the Council is also a positive signal.
Mr President, we would be pleased if the Pörtschach summit also adopted a declaration on the objective of the enlargement process, namely to enlarge the area of freedom, security and the law in order to consolidate Europe from within.
This is an extremely important project, in view of the situation in Russia.
If we focus clearly on this objective of exporting security, our citizens will find it easier to identify with the process of enlargement.
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The people of Europe, whom we represent here in Parliament, will also find it easier to identify with a common foreign and security policy.
The evidence of the European Union's impotence in the Balkans and in the Middle East does not exactly enhance the people's confidence in this Union.
But let me warn you against the illusion of believing that the problems can be resolved by appointing a CFSP representative.
This representative would have to be backed by a common political will.
Here I also appeal to you not just to look at this in terms of personnel, but also to look at the content.
After all, the citizen must be able to see that decisions are transparent and sustainable.
The original watchword of the Pörtschach summit, subsidiarity, has been short-changed to some extent, simply because European policy priorities change so quickly.
But the European Parliament has put forward some ideas on the question of subsidiarity.
In particular, as you said, it must not be used as an alibi for renationalisation.
The Council must take better decisions, based more often on a qualified majority. They must be endorsed by the European Parliament.
The European Parliament must always cooperate with the national parliaments.
And, above all, we must restore the credibility of the EU as a whole and of its institutions.
This is a particularly urgent concern, given the irregularities that have emerged in the Commission and also in Parliament.
I would ask you to give priority to the question of the Statute for Members of the European Parliament.
Let us remember something that Lenin once said, which may seem rather odd for a conservative, Christian Democrat Member, but is still true in this context: confidence is good, control is better!
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<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="Cox">
Mr President, ours is a Union that has shown itself capable of extraordinary achievement when it combines vision with political will.
Sadly, it is also capable of causing grave disappointment when such qualities are absent.
Vision and political will have brought us to the threshold of launching the euro in 71 days' time.
Internally and externally our economic relations are set to reach a new plane.
As a zone dedicated to stability we can exert a major positive influence on the global stage especially at this time of crisis.
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My group believes that to do this the presidency must develop proposals to ensure that the European Central Bank, together with the Euro 11 Council, assisted by the Commission and accountable to this Parliament, fully develops the external representation of the euro.
Having worked so hard to create this powerful federal monetary capacity, we must not dissipate its international effect by an absence of vision and will.
In seeking to enhance the international role of the Central Bank my group also expects from the bank itself greater transparency in its policy formulation.
Without that we fear tensions could arise between the political and the monetary authorities, especially if the pace of economic progress slows down.
The ELDR also strongly urges those Member States which meet the criteria, namely Denmark, Sweden and the United Kingdom, to join the euro.
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There are few areas where our policy pretensions and our actual effort stand in starker contrast than in the area of common foreign and security policy.
Once again the Kosovo crisis exposes the gap between aspiration and outcome.
Kosovo, despite recent progress, remains dangerously poised on the edge of a humanitarian disaster.
Its ceasefire is fragile, its political prospects uncertain.
The ELDR believes that the Union and the international community must maintain pressure on Mr Milosevic and must be prepared, if necessary, to back this with the credible certainty of military intervention.
The reasonable, but unfulfilled, expectations of many of our citizens that we should never again witness on European soil what we see in Kosovo undermines the credibility of the European Union.
My group believes that foreign policy is an area where decidedly we need more Europe, including a Europe with a security and defence capacity.
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Enlargement challenges all of us to rediscover Europe's essential task.
The great prize which it offers is political and security stability across the wider continent.
The ELDR welcomes the decision to open the Conference on Accession at ministerial level next month.
As we face a difficult debate on the future financing of the Union and Agenda 2000, we must not lapse into an arid, sectional and narrow debate on budgetary policy, to the exclusion of the wider vision.
Again, as we await the ratification of Amsterdam, the same logic applies to institutional reform.
This now assumes a new urgency by going to the heart of the kind of Union we wish the applicant states to join.
For the ELDR this is a Union both wider and deeper with a political and social as well as an economic mission, but also with the institutional capability to see it through.
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We welcome the green light given to Cyprus but it now requires a deeper EU-led engagement to resolve that problem under the aegis of the United Nations.
This will require an even-handed capacity to deal with all the regional political powers.
In this regard, we deplore the continued failure of the Council to deliver the financial protocol for Turkey, and ask today how the presidency proposes to unblock this unhappy situation.
The Vienna Summit will review the claims of other applicant states.
My group commends in particular the progress made by the Baltic States, in the economic field in Lithuania and in human rights in Latvia.
We note also with satisfaction the evolving situation in Slovakia and the renewed interest of Malta.
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The prospect of deepening cooperation in the field of immigration and asylum policy is to be applauded.
Concerted action can have a positive effect, provided it is not founded on the values of the lowest common denominator nor on any retreat from the 1951 Geneva Convention's fundamental approach to asylum-seeking as an individual human right.
We welcome the breakthrough in a statute to establish an international criminal court as a permanent structure to bring to justice those charged with crimes against humanity and urge that the preparatory work proceed.
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Finally, we remain concerned about the fight against fraud in the Union, an issue with serious potential to undermine the institutions.
We believe it is important to maintain a sense of proportion, but also where there is wrongdoing to ensure full accountability which so far, regretfully, has either been unforthcoming or begrudging.
We need a more independent investigation process.
The state of the Union reflects that where we have the political vision and will, we succeed; where we lack those qualities, we do not.
Let us learn and apply that lesson.
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<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the informal meeting of the Heads of State or Government, due to take place in Pörtschach at the end of this week, should mark an important stage in the history of the construction of Europe.
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In fact, at a time when Europe has undertaken a new process of enlargement greater than ever before, which will have unprecedented consequences, it is essential that we consider the political angle of the entire project of the construction of Europe.
It is no longer a question of merely adapting the working of the institutions to accommodate a new geographical region. We must redefine the very purpose of the construction of Europe so that it can be understood by all the citizens of the Union.
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The basic question that our fellow-countrymen are asking today is: why do we need the Union?
It is true that the method used firstly to pool the coal and steel resources of six countries, and then to build a large internal market of 15 countries that is soon to be a monetary union, has at least left us with a substantial acquis communautaire .
But this method has today reached its limits.
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Today, the Union is nothing but an economic idol with feet of clay and a political dwarf, because it does not form part of a political project such as that conceived by General de Gaulle when he proposed what was known as the 'Fouchet Plan'.
If we are not careful, the concept of solidarity or even of a political union is on its way to disintegrating rapidly under the pressure of national economic and financial interests. Unfortunately, this is clearly demonstrated by the renewed debate - in the context of Agenda 2000 - on net budget balances, which denies all notion of Community added value.
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It is unfortunate, to say the least, that by proposing the partial renationalisation of CAP funding, the Commission - which should be the spearhead of the European spirit - is supporting what may turn out to be the unravelling of the tapestry that the European governments have had so many difficulties weaving over the last 40 years.
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Reasserting that solidarity as the basis of the European Union is the only possible antidote to the prevailing fundamentalist economic thinking that undoubtedly threatens the acquis communautaire much more than the consequences of this enlargement. And it is an enlargement that some both desire and dread because they are unable to take a broad and coherent view of an expanded Europe.
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With a single currency, which must undoubtedly be used to promote employment and growth, the European Union, enlarged towards the centre, the east and the south of our continent, must have the will, if it wants to survive, to play an international role that corresponds to its economic power and its historical and cultural heritage.
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Throughout the world, in the Maghreb, in Africa, in the Middle East, in Asia, and in Latin America, there are high expectations of a Europe capable of defending the values of civilisation and humanism that have formed the basis of its influence over the centuries.
This is much more important for the people of today than widespread free trade.The European Europe, which was the wish of General de Gaulle 40 years ago, still remains to be built.
And it will only be built if Europe has the will to set up an autonomous defence and intervention force that can be deployed beyond its borders when required for the common interest and to preserve peace.
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We must include the applicant countries of central and eastern Europe in this significant debate on the political emergence of a genuine Europe, for they have the most concerns about the security of the Union's external borders, as Greece also has at the moment.
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The European states will not be able to go on avoiding the following question: what immediate and effective action could they take if the borders or territorial integrity of a Member State were threatened by a third country?
The response at the moment is clear: they could not do anything without the blessing and participation of the United States, as the Kosovo crisis has just demonstrated once again.
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Ladies and gentlemen, these are the vital questions that the Heads of State or Government should consider if they truly hope, as we must assume, to relaunch the project of a political European Union.
If they were to abandon this, then it is difficult to see how, during the European elections in a few months' time, we will be able to mobilise the enthusiasm and support of our fellow-countrymen.
Let us hope that our call is heard!
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The guidelines that you have just set out, Mr President, are a step in the right direction, but they need to be clarified.
Viel Glück, Herr Präsident !
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<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Puerta">
Mr President, Europe is entering a stage which will be crucial to its future. A new political impetus is urgently required.
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Our group believes that the institutions of the European Union should focus their efforts on three main aims: to create a social model, to make progress towards institutional reform with a view to political union, and to strengthen internal solidarity, extending it to the countries included in enlargement.
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The major features of the social model are full employment, the conservation of the environment and democratic control of the economy.
It encompasses the proposal for a 35-hour working week in France, and the prospect of a new energy policy in Germany. Both of these could have a European dimension greater than that of monetary union, some of the conditions of which run counter to our hopes for the social sector.
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As regards institutional reform, we are hoping for something more than a rhetorical message from the forthcoming summit.
We strongly support transparency and participation.
We hope for compromises concerning the balance - a new balance - between the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament; the strengthening of democratic accountability and the development of a genuine spirit of European citizenship, compatible of course with the existence of the Member States.
A proposal on institutional and political change should be available before the next elections, so that our citizens can express their views at the ballot box.
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The European Union must strengthen its role in the world with a common foreign and security policy capable of promoting its own position and of ensuring peace and respect for human rights in Europe and in every continent. The world must be freed from the military and financial power structures dominating it at present.
Such a peace is already being achieved in Northern Ireland, following the end of terrorism and the political dialogue championed by our colleague and recent Nobel prize-winner John Hume.
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It is also worth mentioning that the recent cessation of terrorist violence and crime has brought renewed hope to Spain, and particularly to the Basque Country.
If this cessation proves permanent, it will make it possible to move towards a normal democratic situation.
Elections are to be held in the Basque Country this coming weekend, in a peaceful atmosphere we totally support, and which the European Parliament must support.
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Finally, we wish to stress that enlargement must not take place at the expense of internal solidarity.
That would be a serious error, threatening the Union's very existence.
For that reason, we could not support the document on options for the own resources system presented by the Commission recently.
In our opinion, this proposal renationalises policies which are currently common ones, and would hinder social and economic cohesion in Europe.
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Mr President-in-Office of the Council, our group strongly supports your view of a European employment policy.
We venture to suggest however, that the main challenge for the Austrian Presidency is devising a plan for the future. The Austrian Presidency should not resign itself to going down in history as the forerunner to the German Presidency.
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<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, nearly all the elections held during the past year clearly show that European voters want new political majorities which distance themselves from the myth that political governments must do as little as possible and that market forces will solve the problems of society through greater flexibility, liberalisation and deregulation.
After the United Kingdom and France, we in Germany now have the incoming government of Socialists and Greens.
The political authorities are responsible for ensuring that life in society remains tolerable for all its members, with the prospect of work, a healthy environment and emancipated rights of participation.
We want to see more women on the Union family photos when a summit is held in Europe.
It is impossible for isolated nation states to acquire sufficient room for political decision-making in a world economy over which there is virtually no control - and if there is one thing which recent months have made clear, it is that such control is absolutely necessary.
It is in this area that the political union must exercise its authority in order to also impose global political regulations.
We therefore welcome the fact that, thanks to the French Government, the Multilateral Agreement on Investment in its present form has been consigned to the waste-paper bin, and this is also stated in so many words in the new German coalition agreement.
In this respect, Mrs Stenzel, a majority in this European Parliament has clearly stated that it must be possible to enter into dialogue with the European Central Bank.
If that is also too much for the Conservatives, then I really do not know any more what age we are living in.
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To conclude, our colleague Mr Voggenhuber will be speaking about the European summit in Pörtschach, but I would like to end on two points.
The drama of foreign policy which is once again being revealed over Kosovo is that there is not in fact any common foreign policy at all.
Also, we want the Commission - and I believe in this respect that Parliament has done some exemplary preparatory work - to be more transparent and better managed, ensuring that certain incidents of fraud are stopped.
In this respect, it is of the utmost importance for the Commission to have the courage to support an efficient and well-structured administration, subject to democratic control.
Only a well-managed administration can do this, one which does not permanently employ the services of hundreds of consultants and subcontractors of all kinds.
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<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lalumière">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the European Council, Mr President of the Commission, on the eve of the informal summit in Pörtschach, the first summit under the Austrian Presidency, what state is the Union in?
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I would like to begin by welcoming the efforts of the Austrian Presidency in a certain number of areas that I would look at in more detail if I had time.
These include, for example, human rights.
Recently, in Vienna, a number of Members of the European Parliament attended the ceremonies commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in which Austria participated, and we can vouch for its efforts in this respect.
Similarly, in the fields of culture and audiovisual media, Austria is endeavouring to move several issues forward.
I could go on, but I would like, in particular, to highlight the issues that invariably reappear and that are becoming more and more worrying every day.
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In Pörtschach, Chancellor, as you have just said, you are going to discuss the future of the Union, its objectives and its raison d'être .
That is all very well.
Such basic reflection is essential, but we already know that one of the elements of this future is the forthcoming enlargement.
And indeed, among the decision-makers and the public in general, we can sense uneasiness and fears.
You yourself, Chancellor, said in Luxembourg last March that enlargement was certainly necessary, but that it was not exactly enthusiastically welcomed.
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Without concealing the difficulties, is it not essential today to put more emphasis on the progress and positive aspects of enlargement?
A statement from you in this direction would be very welcome.
You have already begun, this morning, to send out this optimistic message, without ignoring the reality of the situation.
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As regards the necessary reform of the institutions as a result of enlargement, I know that you are waiting for the final ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam before you really tackle this issue.
But I do not think that it is premature to put forward innovative ideas concerning the operation of the Council of Ministers, not forgetting the necessary coordination of the various Councils of Ministers.
The President of the Commission has just talked about the operation of the European Parliament - and I would stress here the need for a Statute for Members of this Parliament - and the operation of the Commission.
He also spoke of greater coordination of economic policies, particularly within the euro area, and the institutional resources required for this cooperation and for the euro area to be represented beyond our borders.
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In a third fundamental area, that of the Union's finances, the Austrian Presidency can make a valuable contribution on resources and expenditure.
As far as expenditure is concerned, I would like to stress that solidarity must continue to be one of the main guidelines for the Union's actions.
Solidarity must not, of course, lead to waste, but budgetary austerity must not serve to undermine solidarity or - and this is something that you all hold dear - social justice.
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It is time to consider a possible change in the way we look at our resources.
Should we keep VAT or look for resources based on income?
This is a good question that we are considering at the moment.
How can we avoid the mistake of renationalising common policies, particularly the CAP?
Should we introduce a major system of European loans to encourage investment that generates employment, since employment is our priority?
Finally, can we avoid reviewing the method for calculating the contributions of our different countries?
These are important questions that must be considered in the very near future.
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In conclusion, Mr President, I will say a brief word on the CFSP.
Once again, the Union has appeared hesitant and absent on the international scene in recent months.
We hope that in December, the appointment of someone with overall responsibility for the CFSP, a male or female politician - and I stress the word politician - will mean that we can give real impetus to this policy that is so vital for the Union's future.
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<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, the Pörtschach summit will find it hard to untangle the knot of institutional problems the Union has got itself into.
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The single currency is going to come into force in the midst of financial turmoil, while a great many additional factors which were only to be expected, but which the states do not seem to have anticipated, have not been taken into consideration.
Enlargement will not be able to take place if we do not challenge the monolithic nature of Europe and the bulk of the acquis communautaire , which is, in fact, still increasing every day.
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There is, in particular, one contradiction that sums up all the others: it seems as if the Union only wants to escape its problems by rushing headlong into a super-state, thereby increasing a democratic deficit that is not a 'euromyth' or a 'ready-made slogan' - as you said, Mr President of the Commission - but a reality experienced by all the peoples of Europe.
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Given such a mass of institutional problems, the Treaty of Amsterdam takes the wrong route, that of the super-state that reduces the quality of democratic control in Europe.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations believes, on the contrary, that the most pressing matter is to restore the people's control over the Union.
Unfortunately, this type of proposal always results in more Community procedures, more harmonised rules for our citizens and greater marginalisation of the nation states.
This is not the right method; it only aggravates the problem.
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We believe instead that we must rely more on national democracies, which are best at encouraging people's involvement, and, on the basis of these national democracies, control the Union better.
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Our belief is so very different from that held today in this House that we did not think there was any point in just amending the resolution by the Committee on Institutional Affairs which will be put to the vote at the end of this debate.
That is why our group has tabled a completely different resolution with detailed proposals, which is also, in fact, a programme for a Europe of nations, and for a Europe that is based on national democracies, which alone are capable of adequately representing our values in the world ahead of us.
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<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Muscardini">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are at least two ways of assessing the current state of the Union: the first is the one rejected by Mrs Spaak yesterday, the bureaucratic and formalistic way, namely to enumerate the legislative or other activities carried out during the period concerned; the second is to evaluate the processes under way in the Union with reference to the international context and the economic and social situation of the Member States, so as to reflect on the political nature of the European venture and fine-tune its aims.
If we take this second approach, we must acknowledge with some disappointment that no progress whatsoever has been made.
The Amsterdam Treaty is one cause of this stagnation, this political paralysis, but not the only one: the other is bad will on the part of governments, and the intergovernmental method has proved unfit to overcome the institutional difficulties.
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As we have stated before, Amsterdam is one of the most insipid fruits to have been borne by the low-profile UK Presidency, at a time when the Union's aims need to be redefined and adjusted in the light of the profound changes being brought about by the single currency and enlargement.
If there is merely to be a mechanical listing of what has been done, then we must denounce clearly and firmly the comatose state of the operation, which is only making progress - alas - in the declarations made by those in power.
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Yet again the Union has been unable to respond in unison, as it should have done, to the challenges of the crisis in Kosovo: no joint proposals for a solution to that problem have been forthcoming at diplomatic level, and no concrete initiatives have been put forward to throw the Union's weight behind the negotiations.
Almost all the governments regard the UN as a precondition and NATO as a guarantee here, as if to shirk any direct responsibility of their own.
And what about Europe?
And our foreign and security policy?
Whatever became of the eagerly anticipated planning and evaluation unit, which was to ensure the coherence and effectiveness of our policy in a truly joint operation, making the Union's foreign policy more visible to public opinion?
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Until such time as the political union is launched, we shall have cause to repeat year in, year out this tokenistic, meaningless ritual of discussing the state of the Union.
The state of the Union should at long last be tackled by pursuing common European policies.
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<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="De Giovanni">
Mr President, I believe that Pörtschach is a major opportunity for the resumption of an institutional political dialogue.
We are all aware that no decisions will be taken at Pörtschach, which is to be an informal summit, but this, in a sense, might make it easier to take stock of the political will to carry Europe forward.
In my opinion, it would be quite an achievement if, on the eve of enlargement and the adoption of the euro, Pörtschach were to contemplate the deepening of the Union and Europe's new position in the world, because both the external representation of Europe and a means of balancing stability with growth will clearly have to be addressed.
If employment really is one of our aspirations, how can we establish a link between Europe and employment policies unless we create a relationship between stability and growth?
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I am thinking in terms of an area of freedom, security and justice where human beings - and not just goods - can move around freely, with all the associated problems concerning jobs, legislation, judicial guarantees, security and basic rights.
How can a new balance be established here between the national and the supranational dimensions, both of them necessary?
That is the point.
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Mrs Green referred to the need for our citizens to feel a sense of belonging to Europe: that sense of belonging can take shape most effectively in an area of freedom, security and justice.
It is therefore necessary to continue building a European democracy and to determine a new balance between the institutions of the Union.
We need to know who does what.
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This is why, in accordance with the work programme drawn up at Cardiff, our resolution stresses the importance of subsidiarity to the shaping of democracy; without demonising it, we place it within certain limits.
In the resolution to be put to the vote tomorrow, we reject subsidiarity as a pretext for the renationalisation of Community policies, we reject fears of over-centralisation in the Union, and we reject the idea of creating another institution or body to take responsibility for subsidiarity. We highlight the connection between subsidiarity and solidarity, as well as between subsidiarity and cohesion.
We have sent an important political message to national parliaments by drawing up this resolution together with some of their representatives.
This implies a change, since we must overcome the mutual diffidence of the past.
I do believe that it is vital to minimise the grey areas and emphasise fields for cooperation.
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Finally, Mr President, Mr Santer among others spoke of taking a fresh look at institutional policy.
I agree with what he said: there is a need for both more and less Europe.
In my view, we also need a political Europe.
For example, our foreign policy has need of appropriate institutions, and in the field of employment it should be possible to take decisions at European level, but by the same token there should be more delegation of powers when it comes to implementing decisions, so as to create a fresh equilibrium between the Member States and the Union, because there really is a problem here.
Administration should therefore be less partial: all the institutions must become more democratic and more efficient, and it is no accident that we have insisted on proportionality.
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Last of all, I believe that certain things can be done without amending the Treaties; others cannot.
Amendment implies a new method of revising the Treaties, and we shall strive to ensure that, once Amsterdam has been ratified, the Commission takes the initiative of consulting all the institutions about Treaty reform.
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<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Madam President, as we debate the state of the Union, I think it is appropriate to refer to the comparison made between our Union and a Gothic cathedral. The President-in-Office is very familiar with Gothic cathedrals, as he comes from a city with one of the best in Europe.
Gothic cathedrals were the work of many generations. They were started in one style and finished in another.
I think that, at present, the European Union is just like a Gothic cathedral.
It is only half finished. There are pillars which do not support anything, galleries leading nowhere and we even have areas which are not provided with any type of Community safety net.
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Furthermore, it is often said at the moment that the European Union grows at times of crisis. That is to say, when everything is normal, it develops very slowly, and then, at times of crisis, development is accelerated and the Union becomes stronger.
I believe that in the speeches they have made here today, the President of the Parliament, the President of the Council, and the President of the Commission have all pointed out just how a structure created for another purpose, the euro, has enabled us to withstand the international financial crisis.
The euro came about for other reasons but, thanks to the euro, our stock exchanges and our currencies remain unaffected. I do therefore agree with the view that the Union matures at difficult times, for it has become stronger as a result of the financial crisis.
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Of course, the main problem facing the Union is that, like a typical Gothic cathedral, it is still unfinished.
Completion will take another two or three generations, and at present we need to consider how best to enlarge it.
Gothic cathedrals began as little Romanesque churches which were enlarged time and again until some of them encompassed the whole of an old city, as Vienna Cathedral does, for instance. We are being called upon now to enlarge our cathedral to accommodate the countries which lie between the Baltic and the Mediterranean.
Over a hundred million people are involved. They have a right to be here, and we must find ways of providing for them.
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Well, there is one very simplistic solution. You could say, 'seeing that all these people will not fit into our cathedral, let us knock it down and start from scratch'.
In other words, 'Let us get rid of the common agricultural policy, Community funds, Community policies, and we can all start from scratch together'.
To use a German expression which can be translated into Spanish, this would amount to throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
So, Mr President of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, we are genuinely concerned that if we go down this road, we will end up without a cathedral or even a storehouse.
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Arguments are currently under way over tiny percentages of the Community budget.
Countries which, for example, have what used to be a national port and has now become a Community port are complaining that they have to contribute too much to the Community budget.
I do feel, Mr President, that this is not the time to argue over tiny percentages. What we should be doing is pressing ahead with our great project, so that we can build a real home for the whole of Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, on behalf of our group, I wish you a warm welcome on this first occasion that you have addressed Parliament.
I should also like to thank you for paying homage to the historic work of German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.
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This debate on the state of the Union is taking place in a climate of uncertainty.
Globalisation is causing concern, and financial turbulence - first in South-East Asia and then in Japan, Latin America and Russia, but also on stock markets in the United States and Europe - is creating the impression that the world economy is slipping out of control.
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The market is reacting increasingly irrationally, demonstrating the mutual dependence of economic systems.
Yet, despite this general sense of crisis, the pessimism is being tempered by the fact that Europe has been able to maintain great stability around its euro zone.
Who, a few years ago, would have believed it possible that the weakest currencies in the European Monetary System would be able to stand up against speculation and the exchange rate fluctuations of the dollar?
Together, our countries have regained the monetary sovereignty which they had each individually lost.
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Although there was scepticism among some, hostility among others and indifference among a great many more, we should consider ourselves fortunate that we concentrated our efforts on this monetary union.
I believe we are now in a position to enter into new undertakings.
The 11 participating Member States must now ensure that the single currency, the euro, acquires a status beyond our borders, namely in regard to the G7, as a result of which it will carry real weight in world trade.
<P>
I would also like to see a political stimulus provided for the enlargement negotiations.
I hope that there will be a continued awareness of mutual interests.
Now that the Balkans is being revealed as a more explosive region than ever before, the Union - which is becoming economically, monetarily and socially robust, but remains a dwarf when it comes to any diplomatic or strategic decisions - must ask itself whether the provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam allowing joint diplomatic action should be given an early application.
<P>
I believe that our citizens also continue to attach great importance to the two fundamental liberties of freedom and security - the free movement of individuals and workers without fear of crime or insecurity.
This lies at the basis of our democratic system.
Our group therefore wonders whether it would be possible to speed up the harmonisation of legislation on internal security.
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The priorities for Pörtschach and Vienna are very clear to us.
We are aware that without strong and democratic institutions, the future Union of 27 Member States has the potential to weaken that which has been built up over the past 50 years.
Parliament has always stressed - and Mr De Giovanni said this - the need for a common approach in which the three political bodies and the national parliaments are all involved in reforms.
We remain convinced that only majority decisions of the Council can save the Council from paralysis.
The Commission remains an essential institution.
Its independence and right of initiative must be safeguarded.
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We expect this Parliament to acquire new legislative powers and that it will bear the new responsibility for the investiture of the Commission.
We find it legitimate for the Council to accept that negotiations should begin on the Statute for Members of Parliament.
<P>
I should like to end on an optimistic note.
In these three institutions, we always conduct a positive debate on the state of the Union.
I believe that yesterday John Hume also provided a moving message which gave historic significance to reconciliation in Europe.
Today, I should also like to pay tribute to him and say that his message must be accepted by all of us as an essential message for Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Frischenschlager">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we have good reason today to take stock of the state of the European Union and also to consider the future and how to bring it closer to the citizens, because there is a strong sense of dissatisfaction at large.
In my view, it is not enough to hold big conferences at which the participants merely swap slogans, which may make for good sound bites on television but produce no results.
Mr President-in-Office, I therefore want to establish one thing quite clearly with a view to Pörtschach: the European Union's objectives, timescales and practical projects are all there; what is not there is the courage to take decisions, the courage of the national governments to take decisions.
The problem with the European Union is not the much-discussed Brussels centralism; it is the weakness in decision-making, the poor capacity to resolve problems on the part of the national governments and therefore of the Council.
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What I hope Pörtschach will do is give clear political signals on the main problems.
A clear 'yes' to enlargement of the European Union, and under the same conditions we ourselves set in Europe, at a point when the countries concerned are able to fulfil these conditions, even at some political and financial cost.
A clear endorsement of institutional reform, the improvement of our decision-making structures, so that we remain capable of taking decisions, and a clear 'yes' to a common foreign and security policy that is really worthy of the name, in the interest of peace on this continent and in the world.
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The focus of power in the European Union lies in the Council, the heads of government and the national governments.
They must act, they must decide, and therein lies the weakness in our present situation.
Hence my appeal to you to shed light on these fundamental weaknesses during your term of the presidency.
We in the European Parliament, the Members and the Commission will gladly help to promote the project of European integration in the interest of all our citizens.
But without doubt it is primarily up to you, up to the national governments to do so.
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<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Collins, Gerard">
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herzog">
Madam President, we appreciate the desire of the President-in-Office of the Council to make progress towards a genuine political union, in order to promote employment and the development of the social model.
Yet we cannot help but point out the discrepancy between his intentions and the behaviour of our institutions in the face of current problems.
We believe that it is particularly essential for the European institutions to assume their responsibilities in the face of the international financial crisis and the very real slowing down in growth that is bound to ensue.
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The Member States have been guilty of maintaining a feeling of euphoria by saying that the euro marks the end of all the hard work and will give us permanent protection.
This is a totally false assessment and we face some very painful days ahead.
It is therefore the responsibility of the European Parliament to shake up the Council and the Commission.
The present circumstances force us to review the effects of the budgetary stability pact and the EU's monetary policy on the different national situations.
The Community is going to have to take initiatives to support economic activity and, in particular, to create plans for sustainable development.
What we need is genuine coordination of economic policies, with democratic controls.
We must get the instruments of solidarity working and the Union must, as a matter of urgency, define its views on how to regulate the global economy.
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In order to pursue these objectives, we recommend a form of joint responsibility between the Council, the Commission and our parliamentary bodies.
The resolution by the Committee on Institutional Affairs is right to recommend qualified majority voting and to balance subsidiarity with solidarity.
But, in our opinion, it goes in the wrong direction by trying to confer the majority of executive power on the Commission.
The Commission cannot move forward without a Council that assumes its political responsibilities.
The European Parliament itself has a duty to promote public debate on the basic choices in economic, financial and social policy, in cooperation with the national parliaments and the civil society.
The House has failed in this task.
It must therefore reconsider its duties towards citizens, employers and trades union bodies, with a view to allowing them to become more involved in our institutional system.
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<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, you said that the special Pörtschach summit should consider the future of Europe.
But the list of subjects on the agenda tells us that it is more likely to discuss everything and anything.
Many of us fear this meeting will turn out to be the most expensive boat trip in the history of the Union.
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Mr President-in-Office, when politicians consider the future they should remember the promises they have made to the people and the tasks to be tackled in the present.
There is indeed no lack of broken promises and unfinished tasks in the Union.
We have been promised since Maastricht that the serious democratic deficits in the Union would be dealt with, that parliamentary and constitutional principles would be underpinned.
The people are still waiting, while the Council is not even able to make its legislation visible.
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The democratic deficit of the European Union still goes by the same name - the Council.
It has promised us since Amsterdam to remove the internal barriers to EU enlargement.
We know that this requires a comprehensive reform of the EU institutions.
But so far the Council has not even managed to produce a binding timetable.
Instead, it tends to fuel fears about enlargement towards the east.
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Since the decision on monetary union, we have been promised that European integration would be given a social dimension, that instead of a market and money-based Europe, we would have a political union, a social area.
But so far the political statements about fighting mass unemployment have not been followed by deeds.
No sign so far of a coordinated economic policy, of an end to fiscal and social dumping throughout Europe!
Council summits are increasingly turning into a bazaar of conflicting nationalist interests.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office, there are some things we do know about the future of Europe.
We know that it can only succeed as a democracy, that it must overcome the division of Europe, that it can only flourish in a climate of social peace.
The Pörtschach summit will be measured by whether it takes practical steps to open the door to this future a little wider.
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<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Gaulle">
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, from one year to the next, the report on the state of the Union sends out the same message of self-satisfaction.
We are led to believe that 'euroland' would keep France safe from the chaos of the world, from the threat of an international recession, and from the fluctuations on the foreign exchange markets.
In reality, all the forecasts of economic growth are currently being revised downwards, not only in France but also in Germany, and we might wonder whether the 3 % government deficit target will be met in 1999.
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On the subject of international economic relations, we should remember the statements made at the Uruguay Round, that $100 billion or $200 billion of additional wealth would be created in 10 years, particularly in South-East Asia and in the emerging countries, from which Europe would undoubtedly profit.
We should remember, too, the assurances given by Mr Delors, who, in 1994, in response to a question I put to him, promised that the preparatory phase of the euro would not involve any form of recession, and the ode to joy on 2 May this year, which only Mr Trichet spoiled, and which, at 3.00 p.m. precisely, should have announced the long-term prosperity ahead.
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But, fortunately, we are protected by the Maastricht Treaty and the Treaty of Amsterdam, which will in future enable the people of Europe to do together whatever they no longer want to do alone.
In any case, with or without a legal pretext, you know that France's leaders will give you what you dare not even ask for, without asking for anything in return, and once you have it, you will hear these so-called leaders claim the fact that they have not asked for anything in return as a success for France.
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Mr President of the Commission, your message appears to me to convey a certain weariness, because we are all aware of the artificial nature of the construction of Europe.
One day you will not be able to avoid the real question: what is all this for?
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<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Raschhofer">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, when Chancellor Kohl and Jacques Chirac wrote to Tony Blair a few months ago calling for Europe to be brought closer to the people, they were speaking from the hearts of many.
The people are aware that the list of the Union's shortcomings is a long one.
Let me just list the most recent headlines.
A Union of fraud cases and secret Council meetings, a Union unable to speak with one voice in foreign policy and take action in a common foreign and security policy; a Union that puts forward a best practice model while unemployment stands at 18 million.
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The expectations of a political declaration on the subject raised by the subsidiarity letter have accompanied us right up to the special Pörtschach summit.
What signals will this special summit send out?
Pörtschach is no longer concerned with closeness to the citizens.
Any debate on the meaning of subsidiarity has been buried prematurely with the lethal argument of renationalisation.
Pörtschach is concerned with the future of the Union, or so I have read.
But it does not want any quarrels about Agenda 2000 or net contributors.
Yet these questions that are to be excluded from the discussion are in fact questions of the future.
We are told that the institutional reform of the Union cannot be discussed at Pörtschach because Amsterdam has not yet been ratified.
The truth is, in my opinion, that the presidency of the Council is rather relieved to have this as an argument for not opening up a Pandora's box.
I fear that in Pörtschach nobody will be keen to burn their fingers on difficult issues.
So they are to be left out of the discussion.
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Yet many areas need reform, even without amending the Treaties.
This could have been a chance to show a little more courage and send out a signal for Europe.
If Pörtschach is to become a summit of missed opportunities, then I would ask you to consider, Mr President-in-Office, that the loss of credibility and sense of disappointment may lead people to ask: 'what for?'.
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<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berès">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, what does the future of the Union depend on?
It undoubtedly depends on two major advances.
The first is related to the need to define, codify and validate, through democratic consultation, the nature of the contract between the Union and its citizens, on the basis of the European social model and the values we hold dear.
We need to define this contract and establish goals which will allow us to regain the support of the people of Europe, to legitimize the action we take, to establish a sound basis for the courage needed, and to verify the accession requirements for new members.
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We must also provide ourselves with the tools to exercise our responsibility and to assume our dynamic role, in the midst of global chaos, in order to contribute to better regulation.
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Given this long-term perspective, what do we expect in the medium term from Pörtschach?
We do not want any grand declarations.
It is an informal European Council.
Bravo!
Make sure it remains an informal European Council, Mr President; that is what we expect of you.
The agenda is already very crowded.
This informal European Council is welcome, and we will certainly need more of them.
It is only the start: you must then also make a success of Vienna, whose timetable is very full with the national action plans on employment and the question of the external representation of the euro.
Do not overload the timetable.
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Beyond this informal European Council, you will also have to discuss broad guidelines with the new Commission and the next European Parliament.
You must remember that.
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So what are we hoping for from Pörtschach?
We must start discussing these questions about our future and the institutional issue.
And do not tell us that you are going to wait until everyone has ratified the Treaty of Amsterdam, because, as you well know, for certain countries - and particularly my own - it is not enough to say: ratify first, then we will negotiate.
We know full well that the issues at stake are very complex, that the deadlines are short, and that the process of enlargement is already under way.
In order to ratify the Treaty of Amsterdam, some countries, including my own, need guarantees in terms of the timetable and method to be used for this reform of the institutions, for what is contained in the Treaty of Amsterdam today is not enough for us.
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Let us now look briefly at the broad institutional guidelines as we would like to see them, on the basis of the proposals made by the chairman of our Committee on Institutional Affairs.
Yes, the General Affairs Council needs to be reformed.
And you have begun deliberations on this issue.
Well done!
You need to follow these deliberations through, transform the General Affairs Council into a purely Foreign Affairs and Defence Council, and set up a body to coordinate with senior ministers meeting once a week.
Great emphasis must be laid on this, while the importance of the Ecofin Council must be balanced out.
I have nothing against the Ministers for Economic Affairs and Finance, but they are not the most important generator of social transformation.
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Next, as far as the Council-Commission balance is concerned, we must insist on the balance initially provided for by the authors of the Treaty, which is a fair one.
We must not over-interpret this or that provision of the Treaties to the benefit of one or other of the institutions.
That is not the way the Heads of State or Government have chosen to act up until now, and that is only fair.
We simply need a strong Commission and a strong Council.
In this respect, we need the Commission to rediscover its sense of collective responsibility and to drop the 'non-aggression pact' which it sometimes seems only too happy to hide behind.
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I will not say anything on the Euro Council, despite the fact that there is a great deal that could be said, particularly as regards the dialogue that we will have to enter into with it.
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I would like to make a last comment on subsidiarity.
This principle must not serve as a pretext for renationalisation.
It must promote effectiveness and cohesion, but we will not achieve this by defining groups of responsibilities.
There are numerous examples that demonstrate that we must act on all levels, with each of us doing what we are responsible for.
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<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
Madam President, two questions spring to mind in the context of this debate on the state of the Union and the Pörtschach informal summit.
First, what is the true state of the Union, and second, what can we hope for from the Pörtschach informal summit to help us out of the state we are in?
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I believe, following the recent elections in a number of Member States - and the declarations by the Prime Minister of a certain small but rich Member State which is part of the European Union, threatening to veto the whole of Agenda 2000 if he does not receive a cheque like the British one - that what we are witnessing is, at the very least, a renationalisation of the Community debate.
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I feel that we are placing far too much emphasis on a particular, though nevertheless valid vision of Europe. We are concentrating on the Europe of the net balance, the taxpayer and the beneficiary, a Europe of the cash register and material goods.
Europe, Madam President, is more than this. To use a phrase of Madariaga's, it is more than coal and steel.
As a result of placing too much emphasis on this vision of Europe which is, I would stress, a valid one, we are becoming blinkered and forgetting the basics: the Europe of values, of peace, of understanding, of harmony and of solidarity, yes, especially the Europe of solidarity, Mr Santer. As you have heard in the House this morning, Mr Santer, many of us believe that the Commission's report on the future of own resources is in fact a break with the line of solidarity, a backward step for the Commission, and a muddled exercise in which income and expenditure are confused and in which you threaten the powers of this Parliament as you refer to Community policies.
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Europe has to wake up and get back on the right track. How can this be achieved?
By strengthening its internal operations through the provisions of the internal market and of economic and monetary union, and by making its presence felt in the world, because the European Union has to be more than the body which pays up and signs the cheques to sort out all the major disasters in today's world.
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What can we hope for from the Pörtschach summit?
There is no point in being too optimistic.
There will be no operational conclusions, as it is an informal summit.
What this Parliament is requesting is, in fact, the introduction of the Community method.
The President of Parliament has explained what duties lie with Parliament as of right.
For its part, the Commission must overcome its internal differences - it should be remembered that the ECHO case has shown up the differences between four Commissioners - and resolve to work in tandem with our Parliament, setting a course for the project of European integration.
The Council has to prioritise its objectives, and bring coherence and rigour to its work. It must understand too, once and for all, that if each Member State does not seek its own advantage within the common advantage, we shall have to relinquish some degree of sovereignty to other powers which are perfectly well aware of the benefits to be derived from union and integration.
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I agree entirely with the majority of the objectives put forward by the President-in-Office of the Council, but I should just like to make a small correction concerning myths. Myths are a basic ingredient of human life, but what we have to do is to replace false myths with true ones.
True myths respect reality and yet are not content with it, they do not bring violence to bear on the present situation, but are not satisfied with it and aim higher, grafting our hopes and aspirations onto the present. Madam President, what we hope is that, as Mr Martens has said, Europe will not fail to live up to its aspirations to be a world leader in the twenty-first century.
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<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
Madam President, let me say a few words about this motion for a resolution from Mr De Giovanni and the Committee on Institutional Affairs.
It is a very federalist resolution.
Were it to be implemented, the countries of the Union would effectively be on the road towards a 'United States of Europe'.
What is the problem, you might ask.
The problem is that there is no demand for any such thing in the Member States.
I come from northern Sweden and the calls for a stronger Commission, or for the integration of the WEU, are few and far between.
Opinion polls even show that only a fraction of those Swedes who are in favour of EU membership endorse these further developments.
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The real problem with the EU is its lack of proper democracy and the absence of adequate scrutiny of legislation.
That is why we should now be demanding across-the-board democratisation. If we are to have a sound basis upon which to build, national parliaments must, in the foreseeable future, exercise oversight where the real legislative work is being done.
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<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Madam President, the motion for a resolution by Mr De Giovanni on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs makes a series of assertions in the run-up to the Pörtschach meeting of heads of state and government.
Paragraph 22 states, for example, that we should lay the groundwork for the integration of the WEU's areas of competence into the EU sphere. This is effectively a call for militarisation of the Union and runs totally counter to the goal pursued by a majority of Green Group members, who seek to build a peace-loving, demilitarised Europe.
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The Swedish Greens will be among those voting in favour of the alternative resolution put down by the Danish 'June Movement'. The Cardiff summit sent out a plea for greater democratic legitimacy and proper application of the subsidiarity principle.
This alternative resolution better reflects that view.
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My colleagues and I will sadly have to vote against several amendments from our own group, in particular the one seeking to grant the European Court of Justice jurisdiction in the field of justice and home affairs.
Since judicial powers are invested in the Member States, we cannot support such calls.
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<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Vanhecke">
Mr President, I should first like to remind you, and this is important in this debate on the state of affairs in the Union, that there is such a thing as the decision of the Karlsruhe Court, which specifies that the European Union is a union of states and not in any way a European superstate in the making.
I believe that this fact and this decision cannot be repeated and confirmed often enough in this House.
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Secondly, I should like to draw the attention of the President-in-Office of the Council to the fact that many areas of European decision-making are not only unclear and untransparent, but also fundamentally undemocratic.
This applies, for example, to the excessive power of senior civil servants appointed on a party political basis, namely the European Commission, and also to a great many European directives.
In my country, Flanders, there are still a great many problems connected with the transposition into Belgian law of the European directive of 19 December 1994 on voting rights for European citizens.
Both the Maastricht Treaty and this binding directive itself were approved with a simple majority in Flanders, despite the fact that under Belgian law a constitutional change to voting rights should only have been possible on the basis of a two-thirds parliamentary majority.
This supremacy in practice of a European directive over the Belgian Constitution means that Europe can override the constitutions of the Member States, which to my mind cannot be in line with a correct interpretation of the Union as a union of states in the sense of the binding Karlsruhe decision.
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Flanders is facing the problem that granting voting rights to EU citizens in Brussels and Flemish Brabant will in practice mean an ethnic cleansing at the expense of Dutch-speaking Flemings.
Nobody in this House should therefore be surprised if, at the time of next year's elections for example, Europe proves extremely unpopular in Flanders.
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<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, what some Members see as a summit that will weaken the European Union can, should, indeed must turn out to be a summit that strengthens the European Union.
That does not mean the European Union should take on everything and anything; no, in fact we should distinguish clearly between national and regional tasks.
But in what the Union can and should take on, it must show greater commitment and efficiency.
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One example is the foreign and security policy, about which there has already been some discussion today.
We have seen from a number of recent examples that if the European Union pursues a common, clear and definite line it can be successful.
On the question of Kosovo, as we have said often enough: when the European Union took a united stand and when it coordinated with NATO, it managed to make Milosevic bow to its will.
And if we continue to take a united stand then, I believe, Milosevic and also the KLA will bow to it and begin peace talks.
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On enlargement, we told the people of Slovakia and Latvia that we do indeed want to negotiate with them, but they must take a few more steps towards democracy, respect for human rights and the rights of minorities.
Both countries have now done so, which shows how successful we were.
It also shows, however, that we must now send out signals to the effect that we have understood, respect and support their efforts.
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Mr President-in-Office, you spoke of the important decision to appoint a Mr or Mrs CFSP.
I too believe that this is an important decision.
But we must be clear that this has to be a strong personality, someone who can coordinate and negotiate with the members of the Commission and the individual countries.
In this area, uncoordinated action would do more harm than good.
Mr or Mrs CFSP must realise that too.
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You made it plain that the social market economy is a model, a model that we have not just adopted in Europe.
I came back from Russia yesterday, where I noticed how ultra-liberal advisers, mostly of American origin, have put the wind up and misled the Russians, but also Europe, which means that there is much that we must now put right again together.
Of course Russia itself must also put matters right, since it is partly responsible for producing the entirely free market economy, especially given the conditions that have prevailed in Russia over the last few years.
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My last comment, Mr President-in-Office, concerns Mr Medina's description of the European Union as rather like a Gothic cathedral.
But sometimes it looks more like a post-modern building with Greek columns, Italian piazzas all around, patios from Spain and Portugal, English and French gardens, bits of German Gothic and Austrian Baroque.
Even a structure like this can be attractive, but in the end it has to be based on a uniform plan.
I hope it will prove possible in Pörtschach to convince all the builders we have here in Europe - sadly there are not enough women builders - to apply all their different styles and nonetheless build a uniform, common structure.
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To that end, I wish you much success in Pörtschach!
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<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Graziani">
Madam President, it seemed to me - particularly in what the President-in-Office of the Council said - that I detected a new slant on the very important, high-profile issue of unemployment, which is hitting all developed societies very hard.
This is something new, because it has been said until now, both within and outside this House, that unemployment is a national problem, affecting the individual Member States and not the Union, which clearly has other matters to deal with.
At last we are discovering - or rather, rediscovering - that the Union too has a role to play.
In other words, politics is seeking to return to the arena from which ideology - in this instance a laissez-faire attitude - had sought to expel it.
Of course, we are only just taking stock of the problem - solutions are a long way off - but at least this is something, or rather it would be something if we could sweep away the ideological conviction that public institutions are nothing other than guardians of whatever the market is able to do by itself, as though economic policy were not an essential component of the introduction of the single currency.
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The Council, however - and I congratulate it - has seen the need to follow up the euro with a harmonisation of economic policy, aiming not only for stability but also to fight unemployment, which degrades those affected by it but also reflects badly on those, both institutions and people, who perhaps shed a tear but do not engage their brains in respect of this problem.
As the Gospel puts it, 'Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven'.
<P>
All this re-opens the question of properly functioning institutions, one linked not so much to reforms of what already exists, but to the creation of what does not.
EU foreign policy, thus far confined to mere aspirations, proves the point well: for as long as the institutions remain bogged down - and unfortunately there seems to be very little movement here - we cannot have high hopes.
A foreign policy without a proper government, without a common army, is at the very most an exercise in rhetoric which smacks of irksome and inevitable impotence.
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<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="Klima">
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, I am grateful for this detailed debate, which gives us an opportunity to incorporate your views, your policy line, in the discussions of the heads of state and government on a specific subject area, prior to the Pörtschach summit.
It is widely accepted that this subject must not and cannot be renationalisation but, as stated in Cardiff, that we must focus on the future of Europe.
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There is also a large majority in the European Parliament that believes we must discuss the key political aspects of a more closely coordinated economic policy aimed at stability and employment in Europe, while also considering what responsible contribution Europe can make to the stability of the financial and global economic markets and the question of internal security. In this context, I am not satisfied with the rate of progress towards achieving this area of freedom, justice and security in Europe.
We must also address the frequently raised question of a self-confident Europe in the framework of a stronger common foreign and security policy.
I am aware that it is not enough simply to appoint a political figure, who must be a good coordinator but also a doer, as the high commissioner for common foreign and security policy.
But we must take this process seriously, and it must be followed by further steps towards genuinely enhancing Europe's role in the world.
<P>
Mr Frischenschlager, I do not share your view that we have already determined the common direction precisely and laid down precise timetables.
For example, I certainly believe it is important, if I may make this observation, to ask the Finance Ministers to study the prospects and possible time-frames for the progressive harmonisation of tax policy - not because I believe we should aim at some sort of levelling-down of tax rates in Europe, but because I believe we should set up a system under which in future it is not just those who cannot defend themselves, the consumers and the workers, who contribute to financing government tasks; instead, we must find a system under which something which is now very mobile, in other words capital, also makes a fair contribution to financing our common national and European tasks.
<P>
I believe that in Pörtschach we will, of course, have to address the question of improving our relations, improving coordination, but also the question of greater efficiency, together with initiating a process of greater democratic legitimacy. But, and let me make this quite clear, we must also address the question of subsidiarity, which has still not been resolved.
It was never our intention that subsidiarity should imply a move towards renationalisation.
Subsidiarity means strengthening common policies in areas where the citizens of Europe would derive advantages, derive European added value, from common decisions.
And it also means that in cultural policy, for instance, where we do indeed have these post-modern cathedrals constructed out of a variety of cultural building blocks, a sense of European nationality, a European spirit can represent a plus but does not mean that regional or national cultural identity should or must be destroyed.
<P>
It will be our common task, in line with this Amsterdam protocol on subsidiarity, to breathe life into it, to look at each decision in terms of whether it will produce European added value for the people. This is one task the Commission has set itself.
It would certainly be possible for the national parliaments to discuss an annual subsidiarity report by the Commission in order to counter the at times unjustified sense that too many decisions are taken at European level which it would be more reasonable to take at another level.
<P>
I think we must prepare ourselves carefully for the Vienna summit, and let me promise you again that the Austrian Presidency will do its utmost to achieve substantial progress on Agenda 2000. I appeal to the common resolve of the Member States to make this progress possible.
I believe that it would also be very good for the Members of the European Parliament if this question were resolved jointly by the European elections; this would act as a positive sign of the capacity to solve problems, rather than a sign of weakness, a sign that we are not prepared and not able to implement the necessary internal reforms.
<P>
I also believe that if we give this sign that we are taking a positive attitude to the enlargement process at the beginning of the negotiations, we will also be able to hold a very open and honest debate on the Commission's progress report in Vienna in September.
Without wanting to interfere in Slovakia's domestic policy, I must say that I very much welcome the fact that at the elections, the people of Slovakia expressed strong approval for pursuing the road to democracy, the road to a constitutional state. They thereby endorsed the European Parliament's position, namely that Slovakia must not be isolated, as a reasonable political position for the future too.
I also believe that, if we have a Statute for Members by then, we will discuss and consider it in Vienna.
We will get a discussion going, because it makes sense to determine rules for Members before the elections to the European Parliament.
<P>
Thank you for this debate.
We have many common tasks.
I wish us the success that the European idea deserves and I look forward to a second discussion with you after the conclusion of the Pörtschach and Vienna summits.
Many thanks!
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="President">
Thank you very much for that speech, Mr President-in-Office, and I believe the President of the Commission would also like to say a few words.
I shall gladly give him the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="Santer">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I will confine myself to answering a number of points in order to clear up certain misunderstandings that emerged from what certain Members said.
<P>
Firstly, the report that the Commission presented for the purposes of the decision on own resources does not contain any Commission proposals or guidelines on future own resources.
However, the Cardiff European Council instructed the Commission to examine several lines of thought, precisely in order to facilitate negotiations relating to the Agenda 2000 proposals for reform.
<P>
The Commission has not therefore put forward any own-initiative proposals for the renationalisation of the common agricultural policy.
Nor did it propose taking net balances into account when establishing net contributions.
The Commission has done its duty simply by indicating the possible lines of thought in order to make the negotiations in the various Member States easier.
<P>
If it should happen that agreements were reached within the Member States on the entire package and on the financial perspective, the Commission would then, and only then, take the initiative to make specific proposals.
However, at this stage, the Commission has only made the negotiators aware of the possible lines of thought in one direction or another.
It is now up to the Member States and the Council to give their opinions.
<P>
This was intended to clear up any misunderstandings.
As for the rest, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I agree with all those who have told me that, in order to ensure its future, the European Union must be closer to its citizens.
You know that this was, in fact, the leitmotiv of my investiture speech before the European Parliament, and I support all the efforts of the Austrian Presidency in this direction.
Europe is not just a market and the euro is not an end in itself, but they are important instruments for defining and promoting a European model of society, a model of growth based on the spirit of solidarity, where economic and social cohesion must remain one of the fundamental pillars of the construction of Europe.
This must be the spirit behind the debate on subsidiarity: in my opinion, subsidiarity and solidarity are two sides of the same coin, two sides that cannot be separated if we truly want to build a Europe that is closer to its people.
<P>
As for the rest, I am convinced that Europe can fulfill its responsibilities on the international stage, within the framework you mentioned, Mr President-in-Office.
However, I fear that, once again, Europe might not be able to seize this opportunity and that the projects most of you support are becoming bogged down in bureaucracy.
This is the great danger, the great risk, and I know what I am talking about, having heard what has been said at various Council of Ministers meetings.
<P>
That is where the European Council must intervene, and where the deliberations of the Heads of State or Government can give fresh impetus so that Europe can face up to its responsibilities to its own citizens and its partners, as well as its responsibilities on the international stage.
If this is the path taken in Pörtschach, then Europe will certainly increase its credibility in the eyes of its citizens!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Santer.
<P>
I have received two motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 40(5).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Madam President, hopefully the speeches that come after the keynote speeches of the Commission and the Council will not be of any less value than those that preceded them.
<P>
It is very important to mention that we are not living in a ready-made Europe, but one that is continually changing.
Our success will be determined according to how well we are able to meet the challenges of the future.
It is thus vital that we continue the debate on whether the policy we have chosen to follow, and the one that is in place here and now, is a feasible one.
<P>
Europe has clearly coped better than other continents with the growing economic problems that exist worldwide.
In a world ravaged by one crisis after another, European stability is regarded highly even by those, who, for various reasons, have opposed European cooperation.
This is seen, for example, in opinion polls, which show that the single currency is growing in popularity while, at the same time, support for the European Union, which gave birth to the euro, is diminishing among our citizens.
<P>
A common economic and monetary policy requires greater coordination on economic policy between the Member States than ever before, in order to guarantee effective development in the future.
In economic policy we have to pay special attention to those areas of European cooperation which our citizens judge to be important.
We have to promote a European model of society, with greater compatibility in social, ecological and economic action.
The central tenet of our economic policy must be to try to improve the employment situation.
For this we can thank the United Kingdom, which held the previous presidency, and the current holder, Austria; we have got to grips with issues much more so than before.
<P>
The international economic crisis is unfortunately creating pressures for Europe too.
We especially hope that, in our neighbouring regions, Russia will solve its present economic and political crisis as speedily as possible.
The initiative still to be discussed this year on the EU's northern dimension will create much-needed sustained and systematic cooperation between Russia and the EU.
In economic cooperation with Russia we have to stress the absolute necessity of making genuine structural changes, such as in the banking and administration sectors, and for this we need to redirect the TACIS cooperation programme for Russia.
It is now time to develop the TACIS programme so that it reflects current requirements.
The right policy is not to freeze TACIS resources but, as I said, redirect them more efficiently than before.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Myller. I should like to say, for the benefit of those Members who are due to speak in this debate, that the President-in-Office and the President of the Commission were obliged to leave us.
That is why they wished to speak when they did, but the Minister for Foreign Affairs is here and is listening with great attention to everything Members may have to say, as is Commissioner Fischler.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Madam President, you are asking us to talk in the desert, but we are used to it here in Parliament, and this desert is actually highly populated since the Minister is here.
<P>
I would like to use the two or three minutes I have to simply send out a message.
We have the feeling today that something quite strange is happening in the European Union at institutional level.
We are seeing a certain increase in consensus on the idea that institutional reforms are necessary, but at the same time, this consensus tends to relate to very subtle aspects.
To tell the truth, the further we progress in the institutional debate, the more we have the impression that the elements to be reformed are fading away, disappearing before our eyes, so much so that the process has now been reduced to a 'nominal reform' of the weighting of votes, a tiny extension of qualified majority voting and improvements to the Commission's organigramme.
<P>
I believe that these twin developments are worrying and that we cannot accept reforms on the cheap.
Indeed, what is at issue in the European Union is not simply incidental adjustments to three institutions, but the overall concept of the Union itself.
How can we operate, what must we do together, and with what resources, and, at the end of the day, what policies do we want to have in common?
This lack of fundamental thinking is what is causing the drift I was just referring to, a minimal drift towards reforms that are almost non-existent.
<P>
I think that it is time to show concern about this drift and to protest against this worrying development, for enlargement requires a fundamental reform, not only of the Treaties, but also of our customs, our administration and our political will.
As the former French Prime Minister, Raymond Barre, put it, in the European Union, the more we are, the greater the problems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fayot">
Madam President, the informal summit next weekend and the one due to be held in December will be of major importance for political life in Europe.
Moreover, the European elections in June 1999 and the reappointment of the Commission are approaching.
The political debate in Europe is therefore gathering speed.
<P>
As far as the content is concerned, I think that recent election results in the Member States have clearly demonstrated people's desire for proactive policies, such as on employment, their refusal to allow the market to determine most political decisions and their demand that the social model that workers struggled so hard to achieve through this century should be maintained and developed.
We must therefore offer the citizens genuine choices in society, both at national and European level.
For that purpose, we also need to have political instruments at our disposal and I agree with President Santer when he says that European governance involves all public players, national and European.
I would like to look at four aspects of this European governance.
<P>
Firstly, there are still no European political parties worthy of the name.
Article 138a of the Maastricht Treaty is more or less a dead letter.
We know that, in national politics, it is the parties that give structure and dynamism to political life.
There is nothing of this sort at European level.
Who is to blame for this?
The responsibility comes down to the national parties.
They should be aware of the need to build strong European parties, able to take majority decisions and with efficient mechanisms and democratic structures.
<P>
Secondly, fleshing out the concept of European citizenship, another aspect of European democracy, is proving very difficult.
Not enough non-national Community citizens take part in European and local elections in every country of the European Union.
This is a genuine flaw in European democracy.
<P>
Thirdly, some people believe that we can improve democracy by increasing the number of assemblies, such as by adding to the assemblies we already have an assembly made up of members of the national parliaments responsible for ensuring respect for subsidiarity.
This is absurd.
The only thing this would do would be to make the process less transparent.
<P>
Fourthly, how can we make European political life more interesting, with a little imagination, but without amending the Treaties?
Madam President, the 'Notre Europe ' association, chaired by Jacques Delors, has proposed that, during the next European elections, the European parties should each choose a candidate for the position of the future president of the Commission.
Neither Jacques Delors, nor the members of his association, myself included, are exactly frivolous people.
If they have made this proposal, it is because there has been a clear drop in the number of people voting.
So, in the spirit of the age, we would be well-advised to add a personal touch to European politics, and the most politically prominent European figure is and will continue to be the President of the Commission.
Moreover, I believe that it creates a very bad image democratically to keep the allocation of this role out of the democratic process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Nassauer">
Madam President, I am happy to follow on from what Mr Bourlanges said and point out that the minimalist approach of the European Union runs counter to the rising expectations our citizens certainly now have of the European Union.
Europe is increasingly being seen as a single area.
The internal borders have disappeared, and accordingly the citizens expect a comparable degree of internal security in their national states, of protection against organised crime and also of protection against illegal immigration.
<P>
For a long time now, we have been living in a Europe that is a successful, uniform economic area, but so far we have not had a corresponding legal area to regulate and protect economic activity on the basis of social justice.
That is what our citizens are looking towards.
We see enlargement eastwards as an enormous historic opportunity to give Europe a new order. But at the same time, we must expect the applicant states to adopt our standards of security, justice and democracy, rather than simply seeing the eastern mafia managing to extend their field of operations.
<P>
The Amsterdam Treaty is certainly a huge step forward, but it also represents a major programme of work for the European Union.
We must finally realise that it has not just brought more rights for Parliament, but is also accompanied by a perceptible loss of democratic legitimacy.
This treaty transfers major domestic policy responsibilities to the Community and withdraws them from the national parliaments' direct legislative competence. Supranational competence in these areas is conferred on the Council, which only has indirect democratic legitimacy, while the European Parliament does not acquire any significant powers of codecision.
This is a democratic deficit that needs to be tackled.
<P>
Under the new treaty, the Commission acquires a broader right of initiative; after five years it even has a monopoly here, and it will have to consider how to apply this monopoly in the interests of all, and not just the few.
The temporary protection of refugees, for example, must not just be a generous measure to help bring families together but must also ensure a fair distribution of the burden.
Consequently, in an area of freedom, security and justice, that freedom must be based on greater solidarity, greater security for the citizens; it must not founder on the persistent defence of national sovereignty!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schäfer">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the future of Europe presents us with some major questions, to which we must not give trivial answers.
In today's debate we are discussing real issues, and quite rightly not fighting mock battles.
To make the EU fit for the twenty-first century, we must gradually continue the integration process we have begun by also embarking on institutional reforms; that does not mean adhering only to what has been achieved and certainly does not mean renationalisation.
The crux of the debate on subsidiarity lies in the fact that the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties have shifted the EU power structure more towards common policies, and that this fact has simply not yet been recognised in national policy-making.
Most European questions have now become internal policy questions that have to be resolved jointly with the EU.
It is important for the governments to say quite openly to their citizens at home: yes, we will and must decide on a common European basis, because that is good for our country and because our country can no longer resolve central issues on its own.
<P>
The Euroscepticism we see among some sections of the population stems from a certain attitude: if the sun shines in the morning, it is thanks to our country; but if we wake up to snow and mud, then it is the EU's fault!
Europe must assert itself!
Globalisation and a growing international division of labour can only be established and influenced by a Community with strong instruments at its disposal.
There are many areas in which we must reverse our policies, since we believed too much in deregulation and purely market solutions in the 1980s and 1990s.
The European model still remains a state-based model.
The euro was one milestone, the common employment policy must be another.
I wish the Austrian Presidency great success along this road and warmly salute it: as we say at home in the Ruhr, 'Glück auf ', good luck!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Madam President, economic union will change Europe, it will create an orderly political framework for the internal European financial market and it will also pave the way to political union.
Without it, the European Union will not manage to achieve Agenda 2000 and enlargement eastwards.
But we also need to develop a stronger Community spirit.
The German writer Peter Schneider is constantly being disappointed in his hope for a perfect Europe because the dynamic of a strong and viable internal market created by a single currency is not being reflected in other policy areas.
But every market needs a regulatory framework if society is not to be damaged, and I would remind you that the money for the people does exist.
That is why monetary union offers the European Union an historic opportunity to successfully master the consequences of globalisation.
<P>
The crises in Russia and other parts of the world on the one hand and the progress in price stability on the other show how very important the euro is to European and international monetary stability.
The euro-11 zone is like a lighthouse in the stormy waters of economic and financial turbulence.
We in the Union must not sit back; we must organise social stability alongside monetary stability.
It is not just markets, people too need to have confidence in this Europe.
That is why it is now important to formulate and coordinate the economic, employment and social policy aspects of monetary union.
Here I would appeal to the presidency of the Council and also to the Commission finally to give Parliament an equal say in coordinating economic and employment policy and finally to conclude the interinstitutional agreement with us, so that we can play our part in promoting this important and necessary progress in the Union.
We in Parliament organised the democratic dialogue with the European Central Bank; the first monetary dialogue has taken place, but now we also need to see progress at political level, as also at international level.
The European Union, and in particular the euro-11 zone, must speak with one voice both on Central Bank and political matters, and it must do so with the participation also of the Council and the Commission.
<P>
We must take measures against fiscal, social and environmental dumping, against tax havens and for a minimum company tax.
The euro will prove to have its own dynamic and establish itself on the markets and among the people.
We also need to organise measures for the real economy, so that as from 1 January 1999 this euro-11 zone can contribute to constantly improving the state of the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Azzolini">
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cunha">
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow morning.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="President">
Voting time will be quite short today because owing to the flood of requests from the political groups for separate votes on the resolution concerning the Extraordinary Summit Conference, we have had to postpone the vote on that issue until tomorrow.
That should be of some concern to the political groups, and I think that we ought perhaps to set a shorter deadline for tabling requests for separate votes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Falconer">
Mr President, you will note of course that I am in the Chamber.
My point is directed to you because I know the matter is of great concern to you.
It is on communications.
I recently sent an e-mail from Parliament's new computer in Brussels to my office on Thursday.
After involving a number of the administration staff, the e-mail finally arrived in my office today.
I do not think it is a good example of progress in the Union for an e-mail to take almost 5 days to go from Brussels to my constituency office.
I understand it is the fault of the Groupwise server which Parliament employs for this task.
<P>
As Vice-President Haarder is already looking at these matters, perhaps he could look further into this and advise us if we are receiving value for money and if there have been other complaints of this nature.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Blak, Iversen, Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
This proposal forms part of the EU's overall policy in the field of air pollution.
It concerns stationary installations using organic solvents.
The main burden of the proposal relates to air pollution and the consequences for public health.
However, aspects which may have to do with the internal environment of the workplace, the working environment, are not included.
The Danish Social Democrats have therefore supported the committee's amendments on the possible effects on human health in general and occupational exposure in particular.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Lindqvist">
I support the thrust of this report.
We need more stringent requirements for organic solvents, particularly when they are being used intensively for industrial cleaning purposes, as straight solvents or as preserving agents.
<P>
I shall be voting in favour, on condition that the individual Member States are given the right to maintain or introduce stricter requirements - in other words, only if Amendment No 6 is carried. The precautionary and substitution principles must be followed.
Chemical substances should not be used unless they are compatible with the interests of human health and the environment and pose no risk. And less dangerous substances should be used where they are available.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="Rovsing">
Experience from the health services in all countries has shown that volatile organic compounds per se are harmful to human health.
Furthermore these compounds contribute to the formation of ozone, which also gives rise to health problems.
A reduction in these substances is therefore a vital step to take in the interests of preventing a whole range of diseases, particularly bronchial conditions.
Parliament contributed very positively to the improvement of this proposal on a range of points during its first reading.
This applies in particular to the demand for organic solvents arising in painting also to be taken into account.
It is to be welcomed that the Council's common position meets the main demands from the first reading in Parliament.
<P>
Lange report (A4-0364/98)
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Fitzsimons">
The proposal for a directive to reduce exhaust emissions from heavy-duty vehicles is part of an overall Community strategy and follows on from the directives reducing emissions from passenger cars and light commercial vehicles recently adopted by Parliament and the Council by conciliation procedure.
<P>
This new legislation is a success for cleaner air in Europe.
The new set of agreed proposals goes far beyond the original text included in the European Commission recommendations and will certainly guarantee that new passenger cars and light commercial vehicles will in the future be less polluting than in the past.
The European Parliament has also succeeded in imposing better fuel qualities in this new revised arrangement.
<P>
Low sulphur fuels are an integral element in these sets of proposals which seek to reduce the amount of emissions from diesel engines.
<P>
Sulphur content in fuel will be substantially reduced and this new fuel will easily adapt to the new emission reduction technologies for commercial vehicles as well as for exhaust purification systems.
<P>
We must remember that the Kyoto conference set down a strict global timetable for the reduction of CO2 emissions and related hazardous pollutants so as to help redress the effects on the depletion of the ozone layer and climate change.
<P>
The legalisation before us today is an intrinsic part of the programme of reform being implemented by the European Union to comply with the guidelines laid down by the participants at the Kyoto conference.
<P>
CO2 emissions from heavy-duty vehicles are a continually rising percentage of total road traffic emissions.
These vehicles must therefore be covered by the Community strategy for reducing CO2 emissions as soon as possible.
<P>
Moreover, tax incentives to ensure that commercial vehicles meet the new requirements and that older vehicles are re-equipped must be brought forward so that the strict deadlines are met under this new legislation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="Lindqvist">
This report on more stringent rules for diesel emissions is most welcome.
It complements the earlier decisions taken by Parliament, requiring lower fuel emissions and higher fuel quality for passenger cars and light commercial vehicles, etc.
<P>
The report is basically a sound one, and I voted in favour.
I supported Amendment No 26 by Mrs Hautala, in which she calls for a further reduction in emissions, with 2005 as the target year for compliance.
Events surrounding the introduction of catalytic converters demonstrated that the automobile industry can meet a deadline, provided a clear policy is in place and a fixed date specified.
<P>
Spaak report (A4-0357/98)
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
The report by Mrs Spaak on the progress achieved by the Union in 1997 asks that the forthcoming adjustment of the European Treaties for enlargement be used to try out a more Community-based method of decision-making led by committees of experts.
It calls on the Commission, which it would thus seem to include among the experts, to draw up a preliminary reform plan before the end of the year.
In the opinion of my group, this method involving committees of experts seems extremely questionable.
As a general rule, it will simply be an attempt to present people with a fait accompli dressed up as some sort of God-given truth.
In addition, I cannot understand why this idea is not taken up in the De Giovanni resolution on the political future of the Union.
Perhaps chairman De Giovanni also has his doubts.
<P>
As regards the European Parliament, it has no legitimate codecision role to play in this review, where it would simply be supporting the most federalist pressure groups, as usual.
On the contrary, this is a matter for the nations.
National parliaments must put forward proposals and give their opinions, according to each country's system, before the final Council in the negotiating mandate they vote to give their governments.
Finally, the Commission should only have an implementing role here, not an initiating one, but since, in this particular case, the present Commission seems to have drawn up draft reforms for the post-Amsterdam period, it should publish them. At least the French, who are soon going to have to debate the ratification of the Treaty, will be enlightened as to its genuine aims, as they are interpreted in Brussels.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw and Sandberg-Fries">
We are not willing to depart from the principle of enhanced cooperation, as described in the Amsterdam Treaty.
We cannot therefore support paragraph 11.
<P>
The coordination of defence policy should also be carried out in the way indicated in the Treaty. Nothing else is acceptable.
We believe that the Union should be primarily involved in coordinating peacekeeping efforts, with the aid of the WEU.
The fact that some countries are members of NATO should not prevent the EU from acting independently here, no more than the non-aligned status of other Member States should be an obstacle.
We cannot therefore support what is said in paragraph 20, indent 4.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="Bébéar">
It has already been some months since we began the enlargement negotiations, and we are going to have to organise ourselves in future with 13 new Member States.
It is therefore becoming increasingly essential to establish precise rules in order to ensure a new balance.
<P>
Of all the risks we face, the most serious, in my view, are the fact that the decision-making bodies are so widely scattered and the watering down of both the European Union's decisions and its common policies.
<P>
That is why I support the comments made in the Spaak report, particularly where it underlines the need to carry out an institutional reform of the European Union as soon as possible before the next enlargement.
<P>
A tight schedule must therefore be established in order to make up for the negative impression given to the people of Europe by the IGC.
This should also make us consider who should be leading these types of negotiations: all the Member States together or, directly, a body that is democratically elected at European level?
<P>
The negotiations that have been held up until now have shown that they are incapable of achieving the desired objective.
We now need real progress, or else there is no chance of stepping up the preparations.
<P>
It is vital that the accession negotiations should run alongside the institutional reforms.
The slightest hint that the IGC had failed would spell disaster for the negotiations already under way and would bring all the applicants' efforts to a standstill.
<P>
I will therefore vote in favour of the Spaak report, while highlighting the importance of trying to find an institutional balance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="Blak, Iversen and Kirsten Jensen">
The Danish Social Democrats today abstained from voting on Mrs Spaak's report.
In certain areas, we disagree with the wishes being expressed.
We think that the Amsterdam Treaty is good, and we want to see how it works in practice.
Institutional reforms must not hold up the enlargement process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Gallagher">
In this report before the European Parliament today, the rapporteur, Mrs Spaak, calls for institutional reform to take place before any prospective enlargement of the European Union.
We know that negotiations between the European Union and the six prospective members from Eastern and Central Europe who are set to accede to the European Union in the early part of the next century is due to commence in November next.
The President of the European Commission, Jacques Santer, has already gone on the record that another intergovernmental conference will be held to reform existing European Treaties so as to ensure that the enlargement process can take place in a structured manner.
What he is primarily saying is that decision-making procedures within the European Union will have to be changed if the European Union is to operate effectively when Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Estonia and Cyprus accede to the EU.
<P>
I fully agree with the general principle that decision-making procedures within the European Union must be reformed but any reform must take place in a balanced and open manner.
Certainly the Single European Act introduced the cooperation procedure and the Amsterdam Treaty has extended the power of codecision for the European Parliament in many fields of political, economic and social activities.
I support the continuation of this process.
<P>
However, it has been suggested in reports from the European Parliament in prior years that the size of the European Commission should be reduced.
I remember the Bourlanges report before the 1996 Intergovernmental Conference which suggested that the European Commission should be reduced in size to only ten members.
As a consequence of the discussions relating to the Amsterdam Treaty, it has been agreed that the five larger Member States of the European Union will lose one of their two nominees to the European Commission when the next round of enlargement negotiations take place.
<P>
I believe that this is very important particularly from the perspective of smaller Member States like Ireland who recognise the importance of maintaining a nominee to the European Commission.
Since 1973, Irish Commissioners have held such wide-ranging and important portfolios as the Directorate of Social Affairs, the Agricultural Directorate, the Competition Directorate and the Transport Directorate, and it be wholly inequitable if Ireland were to lose out from nominating its Commissioner at a future date.
What I am saying here on the record of the House is that any future intergovernmental conference must maintain the right of smaller Member States to nominate a member to the European Commission at all times.
<P>
Lindqvist (ELDR), Eriksson, Seppänen and Sjöstedt (GUE/NGL), Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling (V), Krarup and Sandbæk (I-EDN), in writing.
(DA) Among the events that took place in 1997, the Amsterdam Treaty was signed and over 50 000 people protested against the EU in Amsterdam, while the negotiators - behind closed doors - thought that they were looking after the interests of the population.
We think that 1997 was a year of retrograde development, not progress, in the areas covered by the report, i.e. the Amsterdam Treaty, the euro, the CFSP and EU powers in the field of legal and other matters, to mention only a few.
We cannot therefore support the Spaak report in any way at all.
<P>
The Amsterdam Treaty is not a project of the peoples, as has already been stated; neither is EMU.
In 1997 there was widespread opposition to the euro, opposition which still flourishes now towards the close of 1998, just a few months before the introduction of the currency.
Legislative power must be transferred back to the national parliaments and not vested in an EU Court of Justice, which in many respects is more of a legislative than a judicial instance.
We are opposed to the implementation of certain provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty before it has been ratified.
We think that shows a lack of respect for the parliaments and hence the populations of those countries in which the Treaty has not yet been ratified.
How can the European Parliament claim to represent the 'European' people if it will not respect their democratic processes?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Palm, Theorin and Wibe">
We believe that EU cooperation should be intergovernmental in nature. We cannot go along with the report's express advocacy of moving towards a 'United States of Europe'.
<P>
The rapporteur calls for more decisions in the Council of Ministers to be taken on a qualified majority basis, with the European Parliament exercising greater influence. This would mean confusion in all Member States as to who is responsible for policy-making.
<P>
The report also goes further than the Amsterdam Treaty requires with regard to foreign and security policy.
We agree with cooperating in pursuit of the Petersberg tasks of peacekeeping, conflict resolution and humanitarian intervention. We do not, however, support military defence or the establishment of military or civilian rapid deployment corps.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Souchet">
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Spiers">
The European Parliamentary Labour Party supported the Spaak report but with serious reservations.
<P>
We did not support paragraph 8 which calls for the extension of qualified majority voting to all decisions except those of a constitutional nature.
<P>
The EPLP also has concerns about the paragraphs on the CFSP in Mrs Spaak's report.
We supported Amendments Nos 1 to 3, by Gary Titley, on behalf of the Socialist Group.
<P>
Parliament's rejection of Amendment No 2 was surprising.
This made the obvious point that any failures in the EU's efforts to resolve the crisis in Kosovo result far more from an absence of political will than from institutional considerations.
Paragraph 20, as voted by Parliament, suggests that the European Union is a member of NATO.
It is not.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Theonas">

The future of the European Union is of direct concern to the citizens of its Member States and, more generally, to all European citizens, especially those who are the first victims of the EU's anti-populist, anti- labour and neo-liberal policy: the millions of people who are unemployed, poor and wretched, women, the young, and the hundreds of millions of working people who are facing a head-on attack by the EU, an attack aimed at abolishing their fundamental and basic rights.
<P>
The European Council, however, despite its much-advertised social-democrat majority, remains faithfully fixated upon monetarist, neo-liberal attitudes and persists with the same policy as its predecessor.
The central reference point for this Council too will be the completion of the single internal market and Economic and Monetary Union, the faithful implementation of the stability pact, and commitment to the nominal pointers established in Maastricht.
<P>
The EU's leaders have not only failed to wake up to the popular reaction and resistance of working people, not only failed to draw appropriate conclusions from the crisis affecting the world's economy and from the increasingly acute problems in a series of countries and regions such as Russia, South-East Asia and Latin America, but they are trying to defend monopolies and large companies both against their enemy within, in other words popular movements and the workers, and against the Member States themselves, which in exercising their sovereign rights could try to prevent them from doing what they want.
<P>
That is why the central issues for the European Council are to be internal security matters, with further progress on Schengen as decided upon in the Treaty of Amsterdam, reinforcement of the forces of oppression and persecution at European level, strengthening of the CFSP and promotion of the requisite statutory changes which will establish the abolition of the veto and unanimity, and the generalisation of the majority-vote rule.
<P>
The enlargement of the EU and the Agenda 2000 choices are an attempt to kill two birds with one stone.
On the one hand, the aim is to acquire new markets for European capital, while reducing the Union's 'cost', making drastic cuts in the contributions from the more developed countries and further reducing the already grossly inadequate resources earmarked by the EU for development and agriculture. Responsibility for the consequences of economic policy is being transferred to the Member States and this, together with the financial discipline imposed, will mean restricted expenditure on services such as education, health and social policy, while resources are made available for major monopolistic enterprises.
<P>
On the other hand there is an attempt to disarm popular movements and the Member States, depriving them of the means to resist at national and international level, and to promote new anti-populist international agreements such as the multipartite agreement on investments, which advocates the immunity of foreign investments from state control and safeguards the interests of 'investors' against the claims of the labour and popular movement.
<P>
The people in the countries which have applied to join the EU will also fall victim to those attempts, since a prerequisite for accession is acceptance by their governments of the acquis communautaire , in other words the institutional, legal and operational framework of the European Union.
<P>
Working people in all the Union's Member States but also in the countries about to join have only one way to resist those choices and that policy.
The struggle of the workers will provide a response to the choices made by the monopolies and will open the way towards another Europe, the real Europe of the future, which will serve their interests, the interests of human beings and not those of capital.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Konrad">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am speaking as rapporteur on inland waterway vessels and wish to make the following statement in this context. Evidently a change has occurred in the drafting of the press releases issued by the House.
For example, there was no press mention at all of the inland waterway vessels report in the Monday afternoon German-language edition of the press release.
In fact, German-speaking journalists have already protested about this in the House.
I wish to join in this protest and make it known to the public, on behalf of the German-speaking Members.
Clearly the Secretary-General, Mr Priestley, unilaterally decided to change the rules, which is not acceptable.
We in the House decide on press releases! So I would strongly urge the Bureau to ensure that this is remedied as quickly as possible so that it can never happen again!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="President">
Mr Konrad, I have taken careful note of your comments and, of course, we will look into the matter and see what must be done to avoid the problems you have referred to in future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schwaiger">
Mr President, I wish to endorse what Mr Konrad has just said.
I have had the same experience.
The German press releases cover the budget, rapporteurs and external economic relations.
Here too there is no trace of this report.
I would urge you to ensure that press releases in the German as well as the English and French-language editions are published in full and reflect what the rapporteur actually said.
I consider it an intolerable procedure suddenly just to leave out this press release without a word.
We will not tolerate this!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="President">
Mr Schwaiger, I have already told Mr Konrad that I have noted what he said.
Personally speaking, since I am responsible for information in the Bureau, I have always thought that this is an area in which we unfortunately still have many problems.
I have always said as much, both to the Bureau and in reports to the Members which you have all received.
I am very well aware that we still have many problems in that area.
It is one of the major issues for us, though we have unfortunately not yet been able to do anything about it, and we will look into that aspect very carefully.
I am sorry that our German colleagues are experiencing these problems.
They are not the only ones, but in any case it is very distressing that Members who devote so much time to presenting excellent reports or other work here are not accorded even rudimentary recognition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Thomas">
Mr President, thank you for your statement.
I also want to thank you because you are known to be a Vice-President who tries to ensure that we create transparency, that we work closely with the public, to stop them from looking only at questions such as travel expenses, scandals and so forth.
The journalists must receive prompt information from us, and you as Vice-President have done much to ensure this; the statement you have just made to us is encouraging.
We will be happy to take the opportunity to pass on the personal statement you have just made to the journalists.
I see that as a good and encouraging sign and hope you will continue along precisely these lines.
That is why I am especially glad that you have presided over the debate on this question today, and I believe we had good reason to address you in this regard.
Thank you very much!
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 1 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Situation in Kosovo
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="President">
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the situation in Kosovo.
<P>
I give the floor to Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, President-in-Office of the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, since we last discussed Kosovo here in the European Parliament exactly two weeks ago, the sequence of events has given at least some grounds for hope.
The resolute stand taken by the European Union and the international community as a whole, as reflected in the results of the Balkan Contact Group's discussions and in particular what are known as the 'act' decisions of 13 and 16 October, has made it clear to Belgrade that the international community has finally run out of patience with its Kosovo policy, as I had suggested during the last debate we held here.
<P>
Yugoslavia is facing serious consequences if it does not fulfil the undertakings it has entered into.
We see the agreement that President Milosevic concluded with the US special envoy Richard Holbrooke on 13 October as a basis for a political solution to the Kosovo problem, no more and no less.
<P>
The NATO decision on 16 October to extend the deadline for the withdrawal of army units and the special police to 27 October shows that we will not countenance any Yugoslav departure from its undertakings.
<P>
The main provisions of the agreement that was approved by the OSCE Permanent Council on 15 October and signed by Foreign Ministers Geremek and Jovanovic on 16 October are as follows. Firstly, within the next few weeks an unarmed group of about 2 000 observers will be stationed in Kosovo, what is called the Kosovo Verification Mission, led by the OSCE in close cooperation with NATO.
This mission is to monitor respect for UN Security Council Resolution 1199, adopted on 23 September.
<P>
The EU will make a substantial and clearly visible contribution to the Kosovo Verification Mission, and in particular to alleviating the humanitarian situation.
The European Union is actively involved in the preparations for implementing the agreement and has immediately taken the necessary first steps to ensure its smooth operation.
The Council's Political Committee is meeting at this moment to consider further European Union measures.
The EU will provide the bulk of the mission, with 1 000 observers or even more.
Particular importance will be given to the safety of the observers on the ground.
<P>
For the OSCE based in Vienna, the Kosovo Verification Mission represents a huge challenge.
A large number of EU Member States have already agreed to provide contingents, Austria about 50 troops.
The hard core of the mission will be provided by the KDOM, the Kosovo Diplomatic Observer Mission.
As you know, the European Union is taking part in this, in the form of the ECMM, the European Community Monitoring Mission.
This monitoring on the ground will be supplemented by NATO airspace monitoring which is already under way.
<P>
Secondly, we have a precise timetable for concluding an interim agreement between the Belgrade central government and the representatives of the Kosovo Albanians.
An agreement on the basic aspects of a political solution is to be concluded by 2 November.
The basis for it is the document on the status of Kosovo endorsed by the EU Balkan Contact Group and the OSCE presidency.
<P>
Thirdly, it is planned to determine by 3 November the procedure and rules for holding general elections for a provincial parliament and local self-governing bodies, including the courts, monitored by the OSCE, within the next nine months.
<P>
Fourthly, Serbia will guarantee the Kosovo Albanians and other ethnic groups in Kosovo full equal rights, covering all national and religious rights, within a Yugoslav legal system.
What is most important, not least in terms of confidence-building among the Albanian population and viable self-government, is the creation of local police units, which will come under the local authorities and reflect ethnic proportions.
<P>
The humanitarian situation in Kosovo was one of the main factors that impelled the international community to take rapid and vigorous action.
One of the priorities of Austria's presidency is to avert the worst.
In Vienna yesterday Austria set out the ongoing and planned future EU activities on the return of the refugees.
We hope these measures will also gain broad support from the next General Affairs Council.
<P>
One of the current priorities is the return of the homeless refugees, making provision for the approaching winter, providing assistance for people who have found temporary shelter with relatives and basic aid for the coming winter months. But in the end all these activities will succeed only if it proves possible to ensure the safety of those who are willing to return.
We will do all we can to achieve that.
<P>
The European Union has long been calling for an early end to the bloodshed.
We believe a negotiated political settlement is the only viable solution.
But first, of course, the violence really must come to a halt, in other words both sides must declare and fully observe a cease-fire, even if only informally for the time being.
At the same time, the humanitarian situation must be improved rapidly and radically.
Only when these two conditions have been satisfied can we hope to achieve the third priority, the start of meaningful negotiations between the two sides.
<P>
On the first priority: on 23 September the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1199 which calls on Belgrade in so many words to put a stop to the hostilities in Kosovo and to withdraw the army units and special police.
In any event, NATO is now prepared for armed intervention if President Milosevic does not comply by 27 October with the concessions he has made on paper.
<P>
On the second priority, the humanitarian situation: the main task of the EU special envoy for Kosovo, presidency ambassador Wolfgang Petritsch, is to coordinate the European Union's humanitarian activities with those of the international humanitarian organisations, while also acting as a contact both for the Belgrade government and between it and the Kosovar political leadership.
The presidency has set up working parties in Belgrade and Geneva to coordinate the international activities.
The aim is to take concerted and locally coordinated action to identify villages and areas to which the refugees currently living in the open can return safely and with dignity.
This would make it considerably easier to provide humanitarian aid.
I have already told you of the presidency's 'Project Home', which is aimed at helping the refugees to return.
Practical project activities have now begun.
<P>
What has been achieved in recent weeks?
In view of the repeated accusations - by both sides, in fact - of serious war crimes, from mass shootings to humanitarian crimes against women and children, the presidency had been calling for months for a team of experienced international forensic experts to be sent out to Kosovo to investigate these serious accusations.
<P>
I would say that the invitation issued by the Yugoslavs to a forensic team from Helsinki University shows that the presidency has had some success here.
The advance team arrived in Belgrade yesterday and is holding preliminary information talks today with the presidency's ambassador.
He is to begin his work in Kosovo the day after tomorrow.
<P>
Let me turn now to another point I consider important, the gagging of the independent media in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
A few days ago, the government closed down several independent radio stations and daily newspapers on the pretext of an external military threat.
The presidency responded at once with a declaration on 15 October and a protest by the presidency's ambassador to the Belgrade Foreign Ministry on 16 October.
The representatives of independent media are now in constant contact with the presidency, various embassies, NATO, the UN and the OSCE.
<P>
We must make it clear to Belgrade that such measures are incompatible with membership of international organisations such as the Council of Europe and the OSCE and are strictly condemned by them.
The new media law which the Serb parliament passed yesterday contains a range of provisions that restrict media freedom.
That is a cause for concern.
<P>
The international's community's resolute and coordinated approach has finally produced results.
Now, however, it is up to President Milosevic to respect the agreements and to comply with the requirements set out in Security Council Resolution 1199.
If not, military attacks on Serbian targets will remain a constant threat.
The responsibility for whether that happens, together with all the consequences that implies for the people of Yugoslavia, lies with Milosevic.
We have made that quite plain to him.
<P>
The international community, and in particular the European Union, which backs the various decisions on sanctions, is no longer prepared to stand by and watch while refugees freeze and are threatened with starvation and the civilian population is driven out or even subjected to massacres and other atrocities.
We hope we shall be able to report concrete progress at the next Kosovo debate here in the European Parliament.
In order for this progress to be made, the European Union, the Council, Commission and Parliament, the OSCE, NATO and the UN, together with other international players concerned with the stability and fate of the people in this region, will have to continue to take a common approach.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, I shall be brief after the elaborate exposé of the presidency and confine myself to saying that the Commission also, in close cooperation with the presidency, is working hard to see what further contribution can be made to the humanitarian situation which has, of course, the highest priority.
We have funds available for that, it is a matter of coordination.
As the presidency has just said, we are in close contact not only with it but also with the High Commissioner for Refugees to ensure that the return of displaced persons and refugees can get under way.
It is a slow and difficult process because it also requires a secure environment.
Although we may be content that the worst violence and clashes have subsided since the agreement between Mr Holbrook and President Milosevic, we cannot be certain that the situation will continue - vigilance is absolutely necessary.
We believe that the SACEUR, General Clark, has made quite clear to President Milosevic exactly what is required in military terms, notably as far as the withdrawals which, up till now, have not been completed, are concerned.
As long as that is not the case, there is still a danger of the hostilities flaring up again, with all the human suffering that may entail.
<P>
In the meantime, the Commission continues to prepare proposals for the Council, as requested, to sharpen up the sanctions policy and package which has been in place for quite some time but which contained some loopholes that needed to be closed.
We will continue our work on that.
<P>
With the presidency we abhor and condemn the law adopted by the Yugoslav parliament yesterday which bars a number of independent papers from publishing their views and radio stations from transmitting Serbian language programmes from foreign radio stations.
It is clearly an expression of the entire political climate in Yugoslavia these days where fundamental rights and freedoms - and notably the freedom of the press - have been the subject of constant oppression, and that continues.
<P>
I can only hope, along with the presidency, that the situation will stabilise, that the withdrawals will actually take place.
That is not only a prerequisite for the peaceful return of refugees and displaced persons, but it is also absolutely necessary to allow aid workers to do their work without personal danger.
It is extremely important that the large verification mission of 2 000 people is able to work in safe conditions.
<P>
Last but not least, the absence of violence and the fulfilment of the obligations of President Milosevic will also determine the political climate in which a political solution will have in the end to be negotiated.
<P>
With the presidency, I repeat that we see no other ultimate solution to the Kosovo problem other than a political one.
The only question is whether that also goes for President Milosevic.
That remains to be seen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, it goes almost without saying that we in the Socialist Group are delighted by the progress that the President-in-Office of the Council has been able to report.
We congratulate the presidency on all its efforts in the last couple of weeks.
<P>
We are clearly delighted that we seem to be edging towards a solution in Kosovo and that President Milosevic appears to have accepted, at long last, the principle of self-government for Kosovo and, therefore, we have a basis for moving forward.
<P>
Clearly we are all concerned to ensure that the message that goes out of this Chamber is that the cease-fire has to apply to all sides in Kosovo.
The murder of four Serbian policemen over the weekend, supposedly by the KLA, only helps those who wish to undermine this process.
So we must make clear that all sides must abide by the cease-fire.
We also have to be aware of what might be called the CNN factor, i.e. once we stop seeing this on our TV screens we think the problem has been resolved.
<P>
We should be clear again today that we are seeing the beginning, not the end, of a process.
It is going to require a major effort to keep Milosevic on board to this agreement and, as we have seen, and as the President-in-Office and Commissioner van den Broek have mentioned, one of his first acts has been to ban the independent media in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, clearly a sign that he is still up to his old tricks.
<P>
We must not forget that it was only the credible threat of military force which forced Milosevic to the negotiating table, and we must maintain that threat.
That is why it is important that deadlines are kept, particularly 2 November.
We must bear in mind that going for the solution of over-the-horizon military force puts us at risk of Milosevic playing cat-and-mouse games.
At what point do you release your military force?
So we must be determined to maintain the deadlines.
<P>
It is also a beginning in the sense that what we now need - and we have seen it all before in Bosnia - is the full commitment of the international community to the stability and security and reconstruction of Kosovo.
Countries cannot go away thinking the job is done: the job has not even started to be done, and we have to build upon that.
I would like to see, as Commissioner van den Broek has indicated, us tightening the sanctions and looking to work on a further UN resolution that goes beyond 1199 and makes it very clear that military force could be used if Milosevic does not adhere in every aspect to this agreement.
If we do not, then we will find that in six months time we are back to playing games again.
I really do not want us to go back to the tragedies, particularly of the last three or four weeks, when the entire situation went beyond anything that any humane person would be prepared to listen to and be prepared to watch.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, I am not as quick as the previous speaker to see progress where there is none.
So let me say this: I see no signs of an all-clear, and I see no change in regard to the misery of Kosovo.
The western politicians have all been taken in by Milosevic again.
What has come of Holbrooke's negotiations?
They should have brought results no sooner or later than in spring this year.
At a time when villages are still being shelled in Kosovo, when people are still being turned into refugees, we are sending 2 000 OSCE observers out there.
What are they supposed to do, what can they do?
<P>
After all, they cannot really monitor the promised eventual withdrawal of Serbian forces. Who could make us believe that?
How can they prove it?
They cannot identify troops that remain there out of uniform.
And the Serbian police units who have been carrying on their murderous business for years remain in the region.
The OSCE observers are unarmed.
We cannot even ensure their protection, let alone that of the Albanians they are observing.
It seems to me that the recruitment of these observers is a very parlous affair.
Who are they?
What are their qualifications?
I checked it up in Germany.
There they are being signed up at a salary of DM 6 000 a month plus USD 100 a day, which comes to DM 10 000 per observer.
<P>
Many people are tempted by this kind of thing and set out into the unknown.
I said to many people who questioned me: don't do it.
Does anyone really think the NATO planes flying over Kosovo offer any protection whatsoever?
It is another of those damned déja vu situations.
Remember what happened to the UN soldiers in Bosnia and Herzegovina, who were at least armed for their own protection - while the OSCE observers are not armed, not even for their own protection.
But let us assume this observer mission runs smoothly, as I described, and of course without producing results, as we all now know.
Elections have been promised nine months hence, but what or who are these people supposed to vote for?
Does any reasonable individual here or elsewhere believe there can be an acceptable outcome to the negotiations between Milosevic and the Albanians before the deadline expires?
The negotiations are a tactical ploy by Milosevic, they are his survival strategy.
He will go on and on negotiating until we eventually get fed up with the stubborn Albanians not letting him take them to the cleaners.
Our threats will have less impact and the Serbian soldiers will be back in Kosovo six hours later, if Milosevic so wishes.
And it will take NATO another six months to get round to doing anything at all.
<P>
How blind must the western politicians actually be to believe Milosevic's assurances that he will give way on Kosovo while at the same time, as you both noted, he has banned all the independent media in his country and forced a law through parliament that even makes it a crime to broadcast CNN and Deutsche Welle reports on radio and television?
Nobody with any respect for the human rights of the Albanians would behave like that.
He does not even respect the human rights of his own Serb compatriots.
He treads them all underfoot.
<P>
Madam President-in-Office, your belief that anything can be guaranteed within the Yugoslav legal system, in a Yugoslavia that is further removed from democracy than anyone could ever imagine, miles away, aeons away even, really is rather naive, and is irresponsible vis-à-vis the Albanians.
You may say here that you hope you can give us a better report next time.
Hope may spring eternal, but it is unfounded, because as we have seen in Kosovo: Milosevic is the problem and not the solution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Haarder">
Mr President, Mrs Pack is unfortunately quite right.
There was a mood of despair in this Chamber when we debated these matters, and with good reason.
Posterity will remember our impotence in Bosnia and Kosovo in the same way that our parents remember Hitler's first years in power, when he exploited the weakness of the western powers.
Picasso gave form to that tragedy in his depiction of Guernica.
Perhaps in a few years a painter will create a similar work which he will call 'Srebrenica'.
However hard it may be to imagine, Srebrenica is worse than Guernica, and it happened in our lifetime, in a time when we were elected to look after our part of the world.
And it was our troops who failed, and were failed.
If it is unleashed all over again because of the weakness of the West in Kosovo, we shall once again ask: how many bodies does it take before help comes?
<P>
I know that it is NATO and not the EU which holds the means of exerting military pressure.
But nearly all our countries belong to NATO, and we have something we call a political union, we have a vision of speaking with one voice.
What have our countries done to get NATO to act more promptly?
We cannot lay the blame on NATO, and certainly not on the USA.
On the contrary, we must praise and thank the USA which fortunately - unlike ourselves - is able to step in when we disintegrate because of our divisions and national special interests.
I hope that the Council of Ministers will get its act together and learn from the tragic consequences of these divisions.
One Member State would not even uphold the sanctions on air traffic, which had been agreed, and another Member State curiously maintained reservations and acted as a brake.
Yes, Mr President, I am thinking of Britain and France, but my own country, Denmark, is no better.
Because of the negative outcome of the referendum in 1992, Denmark has limped along with a dismal reservation which even prevents our government from taking decisions on mine clearance, evacuation and humanitarian actions, so we are not the slightest bit better.
<P>
What is inconceivable is that there are still some who fear that the cooperation will go too far.
Anyone can see that the risk is exactly the opposite, that it will come to nothing - and that the best we shall manage is to sweep up and count the bodies after the accident has happened, and to receive huge flows of refugees, by which we shall be doing Milosevic the greatest service of all.
Commissioner, can we now be sure that everything is being done to help as many as possible, in the mountains too, even if the KLA and the Serbs start shooting at one another?
Can we be sure that it will not end with a new Srebrenica, in which those who should help merely leave their positions at the slightest threat and consign the people to their fate.
I go to Kosovo on Saturday, Commissioner. I know that some excellent work is being done down there, but are they also getting the back-up they need?
I would really like to have an answer to that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Daskalaki">
Mr President, the debates on what has happened since the break-up of Yugoslavia often adopt a rather high tone.
<P>
Kosovo is now the most acute problem.
It constitutes a risk to the stability and security of the entire region, and threatens to affect the European Union itself if the disturbances spread to the south.
We therefore need to be as objective as possible, because very often the loudest voices are heard from those who do not themselves face any direct danger.
<P>
There is a ten-day extension of the NATO ultimatum and a fragile agreement has been reached which may not be perfect and may be being violated by both sides, but it is a positive first step, as the Presidency too has stressed.
We must give it our backing and demand respect for it.
We are only too aware that fanatics will always react against such agreements and try to sabotage them, but this is all the more reason to persist.
The savage Serbian attacks on civilians are beyond doubt, as are the human rights violations and Belgrade's efforts to muzzle the press.
But there is also no doubt about the intransigence of the so-called Albanian liberation army which is restricting the options of the moderate Rugova.
<P>
We must also consider whether the systematic marginalisation of the entire Serbian nation promoted by the west may not simply have lent strength to the fanatics and the nationalists, and whether what the non-nationalist Serbian opposition says about Milosevic might be true, namely that he is fostering the conviction that everyone is against the Serbs and that they have to fight in order to survive.
<P>
The European Union must exert every possible diplomatic pressure to back the agreement achieved and demand respect for democratic principles and human rights, together with the reforms mentioned in connection with Kosovo.
Everyone agrees, and the UK Foreign Minister said the same thing again yesterday, that there is no question of independence.
However, NATO military intervention in an independent state outside its jurisdiction and without the agreement of all the permanent members of the Security Council is also no simple matter.
There are other ways of intervening, which the Presidency has spelled out very carefully.
If we hold our line political agreement will be achieved, the people of Kosovo will be settled under the new agreements, and the Serbian people will more easily put the ghosts of the past, which they too find oppressive, behind them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, this is an agreement which contains a number of elements and has a certain timetable.
It is a very welcome development, even if it is only temporary, to stop the bloodshed and the violence, even if the agreement is sometimes violated by irresponsible and fanatical elements on both sides.
However, the agreement also has a number of shortcomings and disadvantages.
It was imposed by pressure from outside, by threatening the use of excessive force, even going as far as military intervention.
Secondly, it shows a certain bias, because whenever there is talk of conflict, we only think - even here in the House - about imposing obligations on one side while ignoring the other.
As if there were not two sides which, rightly or wrongly, each feel that they have right on their side.
And finally, this agreement will have to prove itself in practice if we are to welcome it as we welcomed the agreement in Ireland a short while ago: the whole of Parliament gave that agreement a standing ovation for ten minutes.
An agreement of this type needs to be sincere and to look towards peaceful, political solutions which are fair and even-handed to all sides.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
Mr President, as I stated in this House just a month ago, now that some sort of an agreement is in place, what is still plain is the lack of action on the part of the European Union.
What is more, no real action has been taken for over ten years in support of peace and the non-violent protests of the Albanian population under the leadership of President Rugova.
So it has to be said that, once the Albanian population had been making non-violent efforts for ten years to obtain their inalienable rights, the clashes which occurred were virtually inevitable.
And here the EU's blatant lack of involvement in solving this crisis is self-evident; in fact we have delegated our role to the United States and to NATO.
This of course fits into the broader context of the absence of a common foreign and security policy in the EU, but we are duty-bound to highlight the Union's lack of involvement here.
<P>
As at other times, our potential powers have not been fully exploited during the current phase: why, for example, has the European negotiator, Mr González, not stood alongside the US negotiator, Mr Holbrooke?
Could it be that the Union was concerned not about the plight of the refugees, but solely about the risk that the Albanian refugees from Kosovo might enter Europe?
Is this our only concern?
This certainly reveals that scant attention is being paid to what is happening in the Balkans, as well as the absence of any real policy to involve the whole Balkan region in the future eastwards enlargement of the European Union.
<P>
These, to my mind, are the real problems.
But having said this, we must of course welcome the fact that an initial agreement was reached on 14 October, entailing an immediate cease-fire, the withdrawal of Yugoslav troops from the region and the presence of 2 000 observers.
Of course, two thousand would seem a rather small number of observers for this purpose.
Regrettably, this was not the outcome of real negotiations but merely resulted from the threat of bombing by NATO, which only reveals Milosevic's true spirit and disinclination to negotiate.
We believe that an immediate and full withdrawal must be guaranteed, in an attempt to avoid any confrontation; not only Milosevic but the KLA too is responsible here.
We are concerned that the cessation of hostilities should not merely be an end in itself, but a real starting-point for a dialogue leading to a definitive solution of the Kosovo problem, beginning with its autonomy. We must aim to solve all the problems of the Balkan region, bearing in mind what is now happening in Serbia - the closure of certain independent newspapers - and in Macedonia, from where the signs reaching us are anything but encouraging.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, Madam President of the Council, Commissioner, I would first like to say to Mr Titley that you would really have to be very brave to say that in the last few days a solution for Kosovo has been found and that progress has been made.
<P>
I think that after all the attempts made by some of us during recent months, we have to give in to the evidence and perhaps make the Council and the Commission face reality.
The reality is the constant denial on the part of the European Union today in the face of the serious and tragic situation in Kosovo and Serbia, which is the same denial that was shown by Europe towards what was happening in Czechoslovakia and then in Austria and everywhere else in the 1930s.
I find it truly scandalous that it should be the Americans who have been putting in the hard work in Kosovo while the European Union seems to be abandoning any sort of intervention, any sort of policy and any sort of political objective.
<P>
As long as Mr Milosevic is in Belgrade, there will be no peace, either for Albanians, Serbs, Hungarians, the gypsies, or for anyone in the small republic of Yugoslavia.
We need to face up to this problem now and get down to fighting this nationalist-communist regime.
With all due respect to our socialist friends who are rightly celebrating the legal action that has been brought against Mr Pinochet, they need to finally have the courage to start working towards bringing Mr Milosevic before the court in The Hague as soon as possible. This will enable the Serbs and the Albanians together to rebuild a democracy and solve their problems, which involve living peacefully together, while our problem, and I repeat, involves whether or not we support a nationalist-communist regime.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Angelilli">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the situation in Kosovo is still problematical and confused, and Milosevic remains utterly unreliable.
Despite NATO vigilance and the presence of a few OSCE observers on the ground, according to the press the bombing in Kosovo has resumed over the past few days.
So the tragedy continues: more people are being forced to leave their homes and take refuge in the forests.
Furthermore, because of the resumption of hostilities, the UN has even been forced to delay sending humanitarian assistance to the region.
<P>
Albanian sources report that, instead of withdrawing their troops, the Serbs are actually sending reinforcements to Kosovo, in total contravention of the conditions laid down in the UN Security Council resolution.
Meanwhile, the crisis is deepening even further for the 60 000 or so people who have fled to the woods and for all the others, including large numbers of children, who are seeking safety and peace through a mass exodus to the countries of Central Europe and onwards to Italy.
Indeed, in Italy alone, over 1 500 Kosovars have landed on the coast of Puglia in recent weeks, creating obvious difficulties in terms of receiving and assisting them.
<P>
Once again, by devolving its powers to other international organisations, the Union has lacked the courage and ability to thrash out even a basic strategy under the common foreign and security policy, proving itself unable to adopt a coherent and clear-cut stance on this crisis.
Everything is left to the UN and NATO.
<P>
One of today's Italian newspapers carries an interview with Tony Blair in which, perhaps under slight provocation, he stressed the urgency of appointing a European Union representative to NATO, a sort of EU Foreign Minister.
And yet the EU's sole practical contribution to date is the OSCE observer mission, whose establishment in Kosovo is proving painfully slow.
There was talk of 2 000 observers, but as far as I can tell there are 200 or 300, so even they are not fulfilling their role.
<P>
Thus Europe is in effect absent, while the Serbian forces are delaying their withdrawal, playing on the misunderstandings and invective within NATO. Meanwhile Mladic and Karadzic are still on the run, evading international justice, and the Serbian authorities are being allowed to muzzle the press, closing down on a flimsy pretext all newspapers which disagree with the regime.
<P>
We wonder why the European Union, so attentive to human rights issues, is not drawing up a more effective and hard-hitting policy.
While an entire people is enduring unspeakable injustice and suffering, we press on with our interminable, sterile discussions, memorandums of protest, verbal censure and study groups.
<P>
I would end by asserting that we must promote much tougher initiatives.
I agree with Mr Dupuis in calling for an international arrest warrant to be issued at long last against Milosevic, so as to put an end to his war-mongering and, I believe, criminal actions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wiersma">
Mr President, I find the atmosphere so far of the discussion here today rather surprising.
It all seems rather downcast with regard to what Mr Holbrooke and also our intervention have achieved, as if there had been no progress over recent weeks.
I reject this idea.
Despite all the doubts which you may have, I think that we are now seeing a form of progress, and I would certainly not have described dropping bombs as progress.
I am pleased that it has not come to that.
Two weeks ago, I stood here fearing that NATO would be intervening in the Kosovo conflict.
We then also expressed support for taking a hard line against the government in Belgrade, but at the same time we hoped that this would not result in a rift within the United Nations and that a political solution was perhaps still possible.
I want to stress this point once again.
We have always said: above all else, continue to strive for a political solution.
That has been our position and it is still our position.
Violence must only be used to combat violence as the very last resort.
<P>
Two weeks later, we can be cautiously optimistic.
The threat of military intervention and Mr Holbrooke's negotiating skills have caused Milosevic to back down at the very last moment, despite the fact that, as usual, he himself presented it as a victory while at the same time taking a swipe at the independent media.
By next week, Serbian troops must have left Kosovo.
It is proving a laborious process, we are seeing that, and there remains the risk that interested groups will once again try to inflame the conflict.
NATO's military threat must therefore remain in place, while pressure must also be put on the KLA not to violate the peace.
Both parties are responsible for implementing the agreements.
We reject provocation from either side.
The Serbs must allow an autonomous Kosovo, but it must again be made clear to the Albanians that, as far as we are concerned, independence is out of the question.
On this basis, and after full implementation of UN Resolution 1199, we can begin negotiations on the future of Kosovo, without preconditions.
<P>
It is now important for the OSCE to be present as quickly as possible.
Observers must be in place without delay in order to reduce the risk of incidents.
I agree with those who have expressed their concerns at the risks the observers themselves are facing. I believe that over the coming weeks we must take a good look at how these people can be protected as effectively as possible.
We are also pleased that the Union has allocated funds for humanitarian support.
We hope that the General Affairs Council can provide the necessary legal basis as soon as possible, but this aid must also be made available as quickly as possible.
<P>
The solution which has now been achieved could be described as the least worst solution, but it is nevertheless a solution which could mark the beginning of a process in which the problems concerning Kosovo can be resolved.
In any event, it is a solution.
I did not hear my colleagues who expressed their criticisms say what would have been a workable solution.
It is a fragile solution, and vigilance is therefore required and its implementation cannot simply be left to the parties to the conflict.
The continued involvement of the international community and above all of the European Union is therefore both necessary and desirable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, I hope you will not take it amiss if I do not endorse your cautious optimism, because I find that rather difficult.
The events of recent years and in particular Mr Milosevic's behaviour in recent years have taught us quite a lot.
In fact our own behaviour in the last few months should also teach us some lessons.
If when the situation in Kosovo worsened we had taken it more seriously, perhaps we would now find it much easier to join in the general optimism.
But in fact we let things slide for a long time, for a long time we reacted very little, if at all.
We waited till the house had actually burned down before calling the fire brigade.
Thank God the fire is now gradually beginning to burn out by itself.
But there is no doubt it is still there, and it really ought to be up to us to remind people again and again that the fire in this house is still burning and has not yet been extinguished.
<P>
In this connection, I am really very sorry that I have not heard a single word in this debate about the concept of the people's right to self-determination.
I think we should always uphold that concept and reiterate it as a principle - for it is enshrined as such in the OSCE and not just in the EU.
We failed to apply the principles of the right of the people to self-determination during the war that originally broke out following the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, and we are failing to do so again.
<P>
Mr Wiersma, I am very sorry to have to tell you that some of the words you use are quite simply neo-colonialist, because you are setting preconditions for the people of Kosovo which they should in fact determine for themselves.
You set preconditions and say that you cannot conceive of autonomy in independence. But it is not up to us to decide that, it is up to those concerned.
We should be very careful about anticipating what will actually happen.
<P>
Let me make one more comment. We should now look at the factors of stability in this region and support them.
At the elections in Macedonia last Sunday, the old Communist regime was voted out.
There will be a second ballot in two weeks' time, when it is very probable that a new government will get in which said right at the beginning of the campaign that it definitely wanted to build up entirely different relations with the Albanian population in Macedonia.
Many of the constituencies were won by Macedonian candidates - especially by the Democratic Alternative - and I hope that in future we shall see a region of stability here right next to Kosovo.
We in Europe should provide the necessary support.
<P>
Allow me in conclusion briefly to touch on the ceterum censeo that we desperately need. We must not forget that the source of all evil is in fact called Milosevic and that we cannot negotiate with him, but only about him, and we must do that in The Hague!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cars">
Mr President, at last the resolute action taken by the international community has borne fruit, and we Europeans once again have the United States to thank.
I would like to express the Liberal Group's appreciation of the agreement between Mr Holbrooke and Milosevic, with its provision for observers and so on.
Commissioner van den Broek did however say that military withdrawal is not yet complete, and referred to Belgrade's imposition of tighter restrictions on the media and free speech.
I am pleased to hear that NATO is now ready to intervene militarily if Milosevic fails to honour his undertakings by 27 October at the latest.
Can the President-in-Office assure me that action really will follow, or is there a risk of still more procrastination?
<P>
The plan is for negotiations between Milosevic and the Kosovar leadership.
Yet surely, Madam President-in-Office, the Kosovans will be attending these talks with their hands tied behind their backs. Will they be free to claim liberty and independence as their goal?
The answer is a resounding 'no'.
They will be allowed to negotiate a greater degree of self-government, but the EU and NATO are forcing them from the outset to accept Mr Milosevic as their head of state.
I am right, am I not, Madam?
<P>
The European Liberals would have liked to see negotiations without preconditions, and we very much regret the fact that this is not to be the case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Caccavale">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the scene has shifted slightly in these two weeks: yet again it has been decided to negotiate with Milosevic, and to regard him as part of the solution to the Balkan problem, this time Kosovo, like Bosnia before it and Croatia before that.
<P>
In my view we have yet again set out in the wrong direction, first and foremost because Europe is yet again bringing up the rear, standing on the sidelines and waiting for our American daddy to come along and solve our problems. Yet again Europe has shown itself to be a political dwarf, incapable of taking any political initiative in our own backyard.
Secondly, I cannot imagine that this agreement, wrung out of Milosevic at the eleventh hour, will make him adopt a responsible attitude.
Milosevic has already perpetrated ethnic cleansing in Kosovo; he has already attacked the Kosovars, chased them from their homes and razed to the ground at least 700 villages in that region. I ask myself and I ask you how the clock can possibly be turned back; I ask myself and I ask you how we can trust a man who has proved yet again, in these latest events, that he is a criminal, a murderer of women and children, confirming that he is not part of the solution but is in reality the problem, the real problem of the Balkans, of Kosovo and of Yugoslavia.
<P>
There will be no peace, either in Kosovo or elsewhere, for as long as Milosevic remains in charge of the Yugoslav regime.
<P>
Yet again I urge absolute firmness in respect of Milosevic. I call on Europe to propose that he be tried for war crimes and hauled before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, in The Hague.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Mr President, I very much doubt if there is much to rejoice about in what the international community has achieved over the last few weeks. I think the sentence 'Milosevic has been forced to negotiate' ought to be turned round the other way.
Is it not rather that Milosevic has forced the international community to negotiate?
Implementation of Security Council resolution 1199 has not even been negotiated with Milosevic, only the points he wanted to discuss were dealt with.
In fact, nothing has changed following the agreements.
For example, might not the verifiers sent to Kosovo end up as hostages?
Suppose Belgrade fails to honour the agreement, will the international community, will NATO risk a military intervention with 2 000 verifiers on the ground?
That would be sheer madness.
It is a trick, a trick which could prove fatal.
Does the Council still remember the aim of democratising Yugoslavia?
Will any notice ever be taken of Mr González?
Or are we to remain lost forever in Mr Holbrooke's maze?
For once, Mr Dupuis, I can actually agree with you: Milosevic is an international criminal and must be brought to trial at The Hague.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Antony">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on two occasions I have already expressed my opinion and that of my colleagues on Kosovo, recalling on the one hand the overwhelming responsibility that lies with Milosevic but also with the European and French authorities - Mr Delors, Mr Santer, Mr Mitterand - who in the past, with their federalist ideology, had encouraged him against the wishes of the Slovenian and Croatian people. On the other hand, I have highlighted the illegitimacy of NATO's intervention, which in the past steered well clear of supporting people who were fighting against communism; this intervention would undoubtedly only aggravate the situation and make the crisis in the Balkans even more inextricable.
<P>
Yesterday I listened carefully to the eulogies that were bestowed on our colleague Mr Hume, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, for his work towards an agreement in Northern Ireland.
In his moving response, which was unanimously applauded - including by us, aside from our differences on other issues -, he said that anywhere in the world, instead of sending troops or bombers, it was infinitely more preferable to adhere to his philosophy of respect for differences and in all cases to reach settlements similar to that achieved in the Irish situation.
I am well aware of how difficult this is.
That is all the more reason for us to get down to work.
<P>
I therefore propose that peace missions, supervised or directly led by Mr Hume himself, should be set up with a view to finding a solution to the situation in the Middle East, as we in Europe have effective links with Israel and the Palestinians and therefore cannot distance ourselves from this issue.
We must naturally work to ensure the implementation of the UN resolutions on Lebanon.
We also have to work for peace in Sudan, where real genocide is taking place, with the Christians and the Animists in the south doomed to famine and the civil war that is raging in the north.
<P>
However, the closest conflict to us is indeed Kosovo.
A Hume mission must go there, and quickly.
I have no doubt that our Parliament is determined to put pressure on the Council, as shown by its applause yesterday, in order to avoid not only destruction and death among the Serbian people, but also a real outbreak of violence in the whole region.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Imbeni">
Mr President, I endorse my colleagues' assessment of the agreement and their denunciation of the crimes committed, and I hope that we shall not have to wait 25 years to bring that criminal to justice.
Where I disagree with them is in analysing the situation and looking to the future.
Here we are found wanting: the Council, the Commission and Parliament too.
To my mind, such important institutions cannot simply issue denunciations and sign the agreement reached - above all thanks to US intervention - and then, as you quite rightly said, undertake to implement the agreements.
<P>
We are contributing money and men as usual, but in my opinion the problem is our piecemeal approach to the Balkan problem.
And here we are making a mistake.
If we claim that this problem is a duel between two parties, Milosevic and Kosovo, we are confusing the issue.
We know full well that the problem, an intractable one, is how - or how not - to give a people the freedom to express all their human, political, civil and social rights, and not least the basic rights of culture and language.
What I find unconvincing is the belief that once Milosevic has been done away with, as it were, the problem will have been solved.
No!
The Balkan question will still be there in the form of a clash between conflicting nationalisms, still smouldering beneath the ashes, one being the Communist nationalism of Milosevic, and the other the nationalism of a greater Albania.
After all, we saw what happened in Bosnia.
<P>
So the question is what alternative strategy the European Union can adopt to tackle the issue of peace and stability in the Balkans.
We must reflect on the need to address this question as a whole, while undertaking to implement these hard-won agreements and ensuring that there is a real cease-fire and a complete withdrawal of Milosevic's special forces.
Why not investigate the idea of an international conference on the Balkan issue as a whole, attended by all concerned, in other words several different European countries - Serbia, Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro and Bosnia - as well as their internal minorities?
This is how we can begin to make a contribution, in my opinion.
We cannot call on the European Union to do more, and then persist with a narrow, blinkered approach.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Thank you, Mr President. Ladies and gentlemen, it has been said here repeatedly that the agreement with Milosevic is not an ideal one.
That is certainly true.
But we must accept that although Milosevic has very often broken his promises in the past, he has sometimes kept them - under pressure of course.
Think for example of the Dayton Accord provisions.
So it is difficult to decide how to judge his present concessions in the Kosovo conflict.
I believe it is up to the entire international community to be resolute and simply to take the appropriate steps if he does not respect the agreement.
After all, the threat of a NATO military attack remains, and in fact that alone led to the agreement. I believe we must keep up this political pressure.
And the Kosovo Verification Mission is surely very important.
It has not been mentioned much during this debate.
But after all, 2 000 observers in Kosovo is quite a lot of people.
Let me say in response to the suggestion by various Members that the EU is not making its presence visible enough that the European Union will provide more than 1 000 members of this Verification Mission, while the Americans will only be contributing around 200.
So that assertion is not true either.
<P>
Secondly, it was frequently said during the debate that the Americans were the only ones to take action.
It was indeed Mr Holbrooke who negotiated this agreement, but he acted on the basis of our instructions and, as you know, within the Contact Group.
The Contact Group held its last meeting at London Airport, and this last attempt was very much a joint EU and American venture.
Why?
So as to take the Russian Federation on board too, for of course that is also of some political significance.
We now have that political agreement, but of course I think it is most important to continue exerting military pressure.
<P>
Let me also briefly respond to the criticism that this Kosovo Verification Mission is not visible enough.
There are continual complaints that the EU is not being visible enough here.
Let me also point out that the question of who is to head this mission has not been settled finally.
The head of mission will be an American, but the Political Committee in Brussels is still considering whether there should not also be a deputy head from the EU.
<P>
I also want to address the question of the safety of these observers. That too was raised during the debate.
I believe it is a most important and delicate aspect of the Kosovo Verification Mission.
Of course the observers will be unarmed.
That is why I consider it so very important for the OSCE and NATO to work together very closely.
But we must take on board that Milosevic has after all accepted a restriction of sovereignty.
That is at least a first step.
Apart from monitoring on the ground, NATO will also be carrying out air surveillance; so here too there will be joint action.
For the rest, as the UK Member said, the United Kingdom is putting another draft resolution before the Security Council.
It was discussed last night and there is a chance that the Security Council will adopt that resolution tonight, so that it can offer us all a certain basis for further action.
<P>
In summary, Mr President, let me repeat: we all know this is not a perfect agreement, but in the circumstances it offers some kind of a solution which allows one thing in particular: the return of the refugees.
Surely we all regard that as important, and the fact that it will continue to be underpinned by the military threat.
We hope - although we are none of us sure - that Milosevic will recognise the seriousness of the situation and use the time to negotiate and not to break this agreement again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Sarlis">
Ladies and gentlemen, I wish to protest because the President-in-Office of the Council is leaving.
I see no point in continuing with my speech, since neither the relevant Commissioner nor the Council is present.
Consequently, to make things easier for other colleagues too, I am protesting because we are being deprived of the right, those among us who happen to be last in line, to have at least an answer either from the Council or from the Commission, since neither Commissioner van den Broek nor the President-in-Office are here. The latter of course spoke at great length, even though there were only two speakers from Parliament.
I thank you, and in protest, I am giving up my chance to speak.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Mr President, I cannot follow the debate in the way it is taking place, with platitudes and ravings and with each country expressing its views separately as if they were the views of the entire European Union.
What has happened in Kosovo may be a positive step, or it may not amount to much at all.
It may even be a mistake.
And the same question applies to Bosnia now and will apply tomorrow to Tetovo and the day after tomorrow to other regions which speakers here who like to solve all our problems at a stroke will hear about for the first time.
What I feel is missing is an overall cohesive framework policy for south-eastern Europe or, as we call it otherwise, the Balkans.
Neither the Council nor the Commission have one.
They should develop one as soon as possible, having done the same thing for much more remote areas, and of course it will have to be a policy with a long-term European and Community perspective.
It must prove itself in the long term, otherwise we will for ever be reacting spasmodically.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Sarlis, we cannot overlook the presence of the Commissioner who is here and who represents the Commission.
Ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by fully endorsing the position of the Council and its presidency.
I do so not because it is an Austrian position, and certainly not for party-political reasons, but because I really do believe that it is based on the right considerations.
I have been saying for some time that we will not achieve a peaceful settlement in Kosovo without the threat of military attack.
However, I do not accept the view expressed by some Members here that we must take military action under all circumstances.
Nobody knows what the consequences would be of an air raid.
Everything we have to do now, we would also have to do after an air raid, with the many, many disadvantages which that would entail and which we would have to take on board if no other solution is found.
<P>
One disadvantage - and let me emphasise this, because I was in Moscow on Monday and talked with members of the Duma, with the chairman of the foreign policy committee and others - is that with the fall of the Iron Curtain and Communism we must do all we can to incorporate Russia into a European security system.
But I also said that even if Russia vetoes it, we must be present and, if the worst comes to the worst, launch a military attack.
Nonetheless, it is naive not to say dangerous, it is playing with fire to believe that we could certainly find some way to leave Russia out of it and even that we should provoke Russia.
<P>
After all, the nationalist forces in Russia are just waiting for this kind of attack to change the climate in Russia accordingly.
To take the example of the bear, we all know that an injured or weak bear is often more dangerous than a strong bear.
I think it would be a totally wrong approach deliberately to annoy Russia.
I think the right approach would be, as the President-in-Office said, to involve Russia as far as possible in a peaceful solution, without however abandoning our objectives.
That is the Council's position.
That is why I think we should adhere to this position.
<P>
It must be made clear that the observers sent to Kosovo will of course be protected.
If any problems arise there, these units, these monitors, must receive adequate military and police protection.
We cannot gamble with the lives of these helpers.
But it must be made clear that the less we seek to achieve that aim with armed forces, the more we can achieve it with civilian forces, the better for us all.
After all, we must not forget what happens to a country, to a people that is being shelled.
As I said, this would not just engender corresponding support for the forces of nationalism, for example in Russia, but perhaps also keep Milosevic even more firmly in the saddle.
We must remember that if we follow this road.
That is why we should not play with fire, Mr President, but keep to a sensible but hard line, as we have done in the past.
We should continue to take this common approach!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
Mr President, I hope that some Council staff are also present to witness what we have said in the presence of the President-in-Office of the Council himself.
The Commissioner has just correctly stressed that he has no confidence at all in agreements with Milosevic.
He has already seen a good many of Milosevic's signatures, and knows better.
<P>
He is also right in saying that aid workers do extremely dangerous work.
I am increasingly wondering who they are in fact, this group at present described as verifiers?
To my surprise, my administrative trainee, a girl of 22, told me that on a visit to NATO she was invited to join them. Just come along as a verifier, she was told.
It seems to me highly irresponsible to just allow people to engage in such dangerous work for which they have received no military training whatsoever, in addition to being unarmed and also, as we have heard, with an appeal to the Serbs to help evacuate them in an emergency.
You are then calling on those who are themselves playing an exceptionally dangerous role to evacuate unarmed young people, who are untrained and so forth.
They are simply hostages.
I saw a wonderful cartoon in a Dutch newspaper in which Saddam Hussein with his feet up on his desk was cheerfully telephoning Milosevic to warmly congratulate him on his 2 000 unarmed hostages and relishing all the fun in store.
This is the situation we are facing.
In the past we sent blue helmets.
They were at least soldiers, but were sent under such conditions that they could easily be taken hostage.
Now we are making an even more serious mistake.
I wonder whether this is really a good policy, and whether Mr Holbrooke, who - as I have understood it - was acting in part on behalf of the European Union, could not have achieved a better result.
Unfortunately, I believe that we must realise that Milosevic and his kind can only be convinced by a much clearer forceful stance, although I am not at all in favour of using violence if it can be avoided.
But we must understand that money and fine words do not help much in the Balkans.
I also find it a pity that this House remains so divided.
The same was true in the past over Bosnia.
The Social Democrats, supported by the far left, have always pursued a policy which more or less failed to take account of Milosevic.
I simply cannot understand this.
There is an anti-militaristic tendency behind it, but I would say that defending the rule of law demands rather more.
I hope that the time will come when this House overcomes its divisions on this question.
<P>
The President-in-Office of the Council certainly has an unpleasant task.
Please note what she had to say here: patience has run out, just like two weeks ago.
She has given dates, 27 October and 3 November, by which time things must have changed.
She is not going to come back with 4 November, I hope?
Our patience has run out, just like two weeks, four weeks and six weeks ago.
This really is losing all credibility.
I must say I find it a great pity to hear Mr Wiersma say that the Kosovars cannot have independence.
I find that too patronising.
You should not have to live under a criminal dictator, even if we do want Kosovo to remain part of Yugoslavia.
This really cannot be ignored.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, I have a number of comments.
<P>
First, it has been proved that diplomacy has potential, provided that it is accompanied by patience and persistence.
It has potential in Yugoslavia, Palestine and Ireland, and there is no need to rush to resort to arms.
<P>
Secondly, it was unfortunately again the United States and not the European Union, even though Yugoslavia is our neighbour, which led the persistent and difficult negotiations and pressure that produced this peaceful resolution.
<P>
The third point I want to stress is that there are certainly forces which want to undermine the package agreed upon, on both sides, as we saw with the murder of a number of Serbs a few days ago.
That is why the international community, everyone involved in this process, must look in both directions and not just at one side.
<P>
Fourthly, it is important that we should stress the framework within which developments in Kosovo - full autonomy while at the same time respecting the existing frontiers in the Balkans - are to take place.
<P>
My last point is addressed to Mr Bangemann.
I would like to ask why it is that the European Union, the Commission and, indeed, all of us are so keen to take up the cause of Kosovo, of the Kosovo Albanians, and even resort to military threats, but when it comes to occupied Cyprus or the Kurds, the Commission is happy not only to turn its back on threats and political pressure, but even to manipulate policy so that finance for Turkey can go ahead.
That is a very sad state of affairs, and it reflects badly on the European Union, Mr Santer and all the Commissioners.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Cushnahan">
Mr President, it is good to have hope but it must not misplaced and it must not blind us to reality.
I want to be optimistic but I am fearful that Milosevic is still playing a cat-and-mouse game.
I believe he has been encouraged to do this particularly because of the inaction of the United Nations.
While I recognise that there were problems with China and Russia, I cannot help but feel cynical when I compare and contrast the UN response in Kosovo with its response during the Gulf War.
Obviously, if Kosovo, like Kuwait, were rich in oil the UN would have acted differently.
<P>
The lesson of Bosnia-Herzegovina has not been learnt.
Because of procrastination then hundreds of thousands of people needlessly died in ethnic cleansing.
But once the US and its European allies took action, the situation changed dramatically.
This point should not be forgotten, especially if Milosevic fails to honour the US-brokered agreement and comply with UN security resolutions in letter and in spirit.
His failure to do so should be met with only one response and that is the military option.
I regret to say that I believe that is the only language that will be understood and that will lead to a resolution of this particular crisis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Cushnahan.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Economic crisis in Latin America
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="President">
The next item is the statement by the Commission on the economic crisis in Latin America.
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Bangemann, on behalf of the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, the current economic and in particular financial situation in the world is having a number of adverse effects which, of course, also affect Latin America.
There is a difference between the real economic situation and the situation of the financial markets.
This difference is particularly marked in countries like the Latin American countries, which basically have a fairly stable economic situation that offers some good prospects, while at the same time being threatened by financial uncertainty.
Because of this situation, because of this difference, we must not overreact to these uncertainties.
<P>
The sober fact, which nobody can overlook, is of course that the uncertainty on the global financial markets has led to situations of crisis in some regions of the world, including Latin America.
But at the same time, we must point out that the current economic situation and the prospects in the Latin American countries still look promising. That is to say that the situation can be assessed in two different ways, depending on the factors we take into account.
But perhaps these two different points of view can be coordinated if we realise that we must not try to make a self-fulfilling prophecy, in other words that the financial uncertainty should not lead us to regard Latin America's economic prospects unfavourably, which would only help worsen the real economic situation, since the statistics paint an entirely different picture.
<P>
In 1997, Latin America's economic performance was the highest in decades.
Average growth in the region was over 5 %.
Per capita GDP rose by more than 3 % and inflation tended to fall throughout the region - certainly not to the level we consider acceptable here at home, but what is important here is the trend.
All this reflected the rise in investment, the massive influx of capital.
Let me remind you that during the time when people were speaking of a lost decade, the flight of capital was quite substantial.
Today we have the reverse situation, which is why, looking at the statistics, the picture is certainly quite different from that suggested by the financial situation alone.
<P>
All the Latin American governments have also set themselves the aim of achieving general economic stability through reforms, and the majority of these governments have carried out some radical reforms, based on sound financial management and economic openness.
The Commission therefore believes we can regard this as a solid foundation for tackling the current financial problems.
Of course the economic downswing in Asia - less so in Russia - has an impact on the region.
That impact varies depending on the countries' economic links with the Asian region.
Brazil conducts 12 % of its foreign trade with Asia, 25 % of Chilean exports go to Asia, and 13 % of Peruvian exports.
<P>
This means that the economic decline in Asia will certainly affect some countries more than others, and that despite greater diversification and the increasing importance of the processing industry and the services sector, raw material exports will continue to play an important role and therefore also make some countries economically vulnerable.
The Asian economic downswing will, therefore, necessarily be reflected in these countries' current account balances.
But that is not the real danger.
We are convinced this decline can be absorbed.
The immediate danger is that the Latin American currencies may weaken.
<P>
The loss of confidence in the international capital markets and the growing awareness of risks following the Asian and, more recently, the Russian financial crisis have made the Latin American currencies more vulnerable to potentially destabilising capital movements.
That is why Brazil has now taken stringent measures to combat speculation and Chile, Mexico and Colombia will no doubt follow suit.
These rapid and resolute reactions show that the region is better equipped than in the past to meet the challenges of the globalisation of financial markets.
Argentina is one outstanding example of how joint international efforts can support a country in this respect.
<P>
Although growth has also slowed in Argentina in recent months, we believe the country has solid economic foundations and that the reforms introduced earlier this decade are now having an effect, and a very positive one too.
Yet at the beginning of this month there were great fears that the worldwide financial instability would overtax its economy.
On 5 October, the World Bank therefore approved loans of USD 5.7 billion to reassure investors and because foreign banks were hesitating to provide Argentina with the necessary resources.
This guarantees that Argentina will be able to meet its financial obligations by the end of March next year.
<P>
It is also a clear sign that the international community will also help other countries - if it proves necessary - which means we have good reason to evaluate Latin America's future realistically and also positively.
However, the radical political and, more importantly, economic reforms on which so many Latin American countries embarked at the end of the 1980s must be pursued to their end.
It would be suicidal to conclude that because of these difficulties, the reforms must be brought to an end and a different policy pursued.
The Commission will therefore support every measure that encourages the continuation of these reforms.
That is the only chance for the continent.
You know that we are taking very practical steps in many areas: both political but also, where necessary, financial measures in the area of industrial cooperation, and of course in the area of traditional cooperation.
<P>
With this statement we want to help prevent a collapse, which could not be justified in any rational, realistic economic terms, but could only be the result of an overreaction.
The key point of this debate, in our view, is to help prevent this overreaction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Miranda de Lage">
Mr President, I should like to thank the Commissioner for the information he has just given.
This debate certainly provides a good opportunity for us to review relations between the European Union and Latin America. The fact that contact has been made with a view to preparing the final phase of trade liberalisation agreements with Mercosur, Chile and Mexico proves that the Union is genuinely committed to strengthening and moving forward with the agreements, and is not just expressing a vague desire to come closer together.
Likewise, the Latin American economies have made a genuine effort to modernise, fight inflation and meet their international obligations such as debt repayment.
As the turn of the century approached, growth was becoming quite marked, and expectations of a strong economic recovery were high.
It was hoped that a fairer distribution of wealth would begin to do away with the polarisation of Latin American societies into the haves and the have-nots. Increased international investment, improved growth, the encouraging progress made towards integration, along with marked political stability and strengthened democracy had all played their part.
However, as the Commissioner just mentioned, most of the progress made has evaporated in just a few weeks, following a crisis which was probably partly exaggerated, causing a panic reaction.
Certain economies still have structural problems and some had not yet felt the benefit of the spectacular growth in other countries. For them, the consequences have been devastating.
After a decade when our relationship has grown so much closer, there is a degree of mutual trust between us, and Latin America is therefore hoping we will do more than make a fine statement of intent.
<P>
My group is concerned for the citizens, for social stability and democracy.
We therefore wish a firm political stand to be taken.
Let me explain what I mean by this.
We must make a determined effort to tackle the debate on the workings of the international financial system in what is now, to all intents and purposes, a globalised economy.
The joint resolution takes this approach and is a positive step which will have a calming effect and spread confidence in those markets most affected by the crisis.
However, the practical effects of this resolution must make themselves felt soon.
My group urges the Commission to take the initiative, because due to the extent of our social development and the size of our economy, of our financial system, of our share of the world market and of our profits - which must be mentioned here - we are called upon to take a lead in today's world. We should not shy away from this role, particularly in situations such as the one we are currently discussing, when the international monetary institutions fail to play their part in resolving the crisis and persist in applying conventional solutions, thus generating worldwide unrest and loss of confidence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Galeote Quecedo">
Mr President, the economic crisis we are confronted with is certainly real. It began in the Asian countries, moved on to Russia with serious consequences, and is now threatening to spread to Latin America.
Yet, as Commissioner Bangemann explained so clearly, there are no objective reasons for it. What the Commissioner neglected to mention was that in the meantime the European Union, its institutions, and almost all the Member States have failed to become involved in the debate and consequently in providing solutions, maintaining a silence which has baffled everyone, our Latin American partners most of all.
It is bad enough that the European Parliament has not made time to debate the situation until today, but it is even worse that the European Commission has shown itself totally lacking in initiative and that the Council has been unable to adopt any decisions on the matter.
<P>
For us to claim a place on the world stage, as the major economic power we are, and to hope to take on the responsibilities and the leading role which the arrival of the euro on the world economic scene could create for us, when we lack the breadth of vision called for in today's globalised world - overlooking even the view, that fortunately for us, Latin America is the only emerging area not so far shaken by the crisis - would be a contradiction in terms.
We ought to bear in mind too that, only this morning, the Commission reduced our forecast growth for next year by six tenths.
<P>
Thanks to the determined effort made by those countries to carry out structural reforms during the last ten years, they have been able to withstand speculation from a strong economic base, created by developing sound economic policies.
Fiscal and monetary discipline, liberalisation and regional integration have been the key elements of Latin American economic policy in recent years.
Without these, Latin America would have suffered grievously already.
Now is the time to reiterate and emphasise the need to resist the temptation to block the free movement of capital, and adopt protectionist policies which are irrelevant at the end of the twentieth century.
<P>
Of course, for us, this new vision of a globalised world economy must be subject to certain restrictions imposed by the values of democracy, solidarity and social cohesion.
At this juncture, therefore, we feel we should draw attention to the social consequences of financial instability.
<P>
My group therefore supports the call made at the recent summit of Latin American nations for discussions to be held with a view to establishing minimum rules of conduct where major flows within the financial and economic worlds are concerned.
<P>
In this context, we should certainly welcome the unblocking of the United States' contributions to the International Monetary Fund and the reduction of interest rates, but more is needed.
<P>
For its part, Spain has contributed USD 3 000 million to the International Monetary Fund to provide for a reserve or contingency fund for Latin America to be established.
So you will understand, ladies and gentlemen, how pleased I am that, in the hope of extending it to the Union as a whole and to the Member States, this initiative has been included in the joint motion for a resolution with which this debate will close.
<P>
Responsibility for developing the initiatives and putting forward further measures now rests with the European Commission.
In this connection, I think it is worth mentioning, Commissioner, how very low the utilisation of the budget allocation for Latin America has been - barely 2 % in the first six months of this year.
<P>
We would urge the Council to make every effort to further the processes now in place for progressive and reciprocal trade liberalisation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gasòliba i Böhm">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I must say how much I welcome Commissioner Bangemann's statement and the concern both he and the Commission have expressed regarding a situation which is affecting international financial and economic stability.
I have reflected on the reason behind the progressive impact of this international financial and economic crisis which has hit the economies of Latin America so hard. It is worth mentioning, in the first place, how fragile they are.
These economies are still emerging from a long period of internal conflict, and excessive debt.
They have, in fact, as has already been mentioned, made a great effort - on the one hand, to achieve stability, setting up democratic regimes and, on the other, to restructure their economies. They have also tried hard to open themselves to the outside world.
<P>
To date, the attempt to open up to the outside world had proved successful when coupled with good access to foreign markets. Furthermore, as Commissioner Bangemann remarked, the flow of investment had been most beneficial.
<P>
Unfortunately, according to a range of statistics, the price of raw materials has plummeted.
For instance, the price of rubber fell by 32.9 %, that of wool by 31.8 %, that of maize by 9.3 %, and that of cotton by 14.6 %.
Expectations for economic growth have been dramatically revised: growth has halved from last year to this. Furthermore, participation in trade and production has been drastically reduced, for example by a third of exports from Chile or 23 % of exports from Peru.
<P>
Clearly, the situation must be retrieved, and this should be done through financial arrangements which restore international confidence in these economies.
As we see it, two essential elements are involved.
Firstly, the process of internationalisation and opening up the markets on a world scale must not be jeopardised and, secondly, genuine economic, social and political stability must be guaranteed. Progress has already been made in these areas, and the importance of transparency and support for the economies must be emphasised.
<P>
In conclusion, therefore, I should like to join with the previous speakers in calling on the Community institutions and the European Commission to play a more effective role in this area. Unfortunately, although the launch of the euro is now almost upon us, they are not yet making their presence felt in the international financial institutions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Puerta">
Commissioner Bangemann, you will have realised that all the Members who have so far spoken have done so in Spanish. Naturally, we are particularly sensitive to the situation in Latin America, and we know many of our colleagues in the House share our concern.
However, when we speak, we do so as Europeans.
We are not alarmist. When we speak as Europeans - in my case, as spokesperson for a group on the left - we do not wish to be prophets of doom, but we do wish to register our concern.
<P>
Following the so-called lost decade of the 1980s, the International Monetary Fund's structural adjustment applied a coercive mechanism which produced a mirage of recovery and growth.
We can now appreciate that the reality is quite different, and that Latin America is very vulnerable to the effects of the Russian and Asian crises.
And not only is it psychologically vulnerable, its structures are vulnerable too.
This does not bode well for countries which have suffered under a succession of authoritarian regimes.
We feel that the responsibilities we have acquired through our role as Europeans require us to respond to the serious challenges posed by the loss of production, loss of employment and drop in salaries.
That is not all: we are also witnessing an exodus of capital, a drop in internal and foreign investment for fear of insolvency in the private sector, and a progressive deterioration in the fabric of society. The outlook is far from bright for this region, which should be very dear to us in Europe for historical and cultural reasons.
<P>
My group believes that, due to globalisation, the crisis may have a negative impact on societies in regions which have just emerged from what were often bloody conflicts. Most of these societies are embarking on major processes of internal restructuring.
We therefore appeal to the Commission and accept as Members of this House that we have a duty to act as well as to consider.
We have to work responsibly and not be motivated purely by our self-interest as Europeans. It is true, however, that the Latin American crisis may destabilise the European economy if we fail to express our solidarity and to take prompt and decisive action to safeguard the future.
<P>
An enhanced role for the European Community could counter the influence of Japan and the United States, and result in a better framework for the globalisation of the world's economy.
Our group does not defend the simplistic notion that economic policy should be surrendered to politics and solidarity.
We are in favour of social adjustment which takes the human factor into account, but we know that if the economy is disregarded, costs will spiral and benefits vanish.
We therefore support the resolution which will be put to the vote in the House today. We urge the Commission to play an active role in these processes of regional integration, demonstrating strong support for and solidarity with Latin America, and facilitating the emergence of stable, democratic and highly developed societies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the crisis that is currently gripping more and more regions in the world and therefore also Latin America is not a disease, but the logical consequence of a world economy that has gone awry.
So there is no risk of contagion, no point trying to vaccinate with new financial injections, as various groups are proposing in their compromise resolution.
On the contrary, injections of finance would only be grist to the mill of those people who have been unscrupulously amassing fortunes in Latin America for years.
<P>
All the fiddling and cheating that has been going in Brazilian banks in the last ten years alone can only be described as criminal.
Let me just remind you of the famous 'pink file' affair two years ago.
It contained a list of politicians from António Carlos Magalhães to the former President Sarney who had been receiving illegal transfers for years; the only reason it did not come to court was because these same politicians voted against setting up a committee of inquiry.
Large private banks collapsed by the dozen, the State took over the debts, balance sheets were forged unscrupulously and the ordinary people lost all their savings.
<P>
Anyone who in such a situation calls for more liberalisation, fewer controls and nothing but measures to, and I quote, 'ensure that confidence is regained among investors' is asking for trouble.
Just offering funds to service the external debt simply makes the vicious circle rotate even faster.
In the face of the growing poverty in Latin America, it would be cynical of us once again to miss the opportunity to incorporate brakes in the financial roundabout.
Fresh money, new investment must remain in Latin America; at least they must remain there for a minimum period, and they must be used to support local production and promote local consumption.
<P>
At the Latin American summit in Lisbon last week, even President Cardoso was prepared to remember his own left-wing past, in view of the crisis.
It was he personally who called for a tax on short-term capital movements and for the resulting revenue to go to poverty programmes.
That is exactly what the so-called Tobin tax is meant to achieve.
It may not be a way of gaining the confidence of irresponsible speculators, but will certainly attract investors who look to the long term.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, if you endorse our amendments in this regard, we would also be prepared to support your resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Escolá Hernando">
Mr President, I should like to thank the Commissioner for his statement.
Ladies and gentlemen, try to imagine a scenario where a country experiences a steep rise in the interest rate, a dramatic fall in the stock market, an increase in the national debt, panic amongst financial investors, the threat of currency devaluation - in short, a major crisis of confidence and the collapse of economic reforms in progress.
Well, this is exactly what befell many Asian countries last year, then Russia during the summer, and is now happening in Brazil. There is a danger that other countries in Latin America may soon be affected.
<P>
Fear, particularly financial fear, comes free of charge.
If we do not put a stop to this domino effect, there can be no guarantee that the United States or the European Union itself might not soon be affected, even though their economies are solvent.
We should, of course, hope that this possible domino effect will be arrested thanks to the solid democratic basis established across South America, following the many agreements signed with the European Union.
<P>
In our view, long-term measures should be taken to deal with the situation, namely the reform of the institutional framework which developed from Bretton Woods. Medium-term measures are also called for, to promote greater transparency and the regulation of financial institutions.
In the short term, we should find ways of offering immediate financial support.
Spain, for instance, has set up a fund to assist Brazil, and the United States has followed suit, offering lines of credit to countries threatened by similar financial problems. It is to be hoped that the European Union too will act swiftly and decisively in the near future.
I stress the need for swift and decisive action, because we need to move quickly to prevent the crisis spreading across Latin America and resulting in the withdrawal of foreign capital and a regional recession. It has been estimated that the Brazilian stock market is currently losing a million pesetas a second.
Ladies and gentlemen, this cannot be allowed to continue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, the scale of the financial crisis that is affecting the countries of Latin America, as it is affecting nearly all countries with emerging economies, and the extent of the impact it is bound to have on the European economies and particularly on the countries in the euro area, have been largely underestimated in Europe up until now.
Here, in fact, we have incessantly heard the political cant about the euro shield and the European exception, as if Europe could remain an island of stability, due to a mistaken understanding of the importance of intra-Community trade, and as if we were trying to ward off the crisis and its impact on us through a show of optimism that is infantile and irresponsible.
Our primary task as responsible elected representatives should be, on the contrary, to consider the true reality of the crisis as it stands, even if this in fact threatens to make the introduction of the euro more tricky than we thought and might even lead us to question the possibility of introducing a new currency in the middle of an international financial upheaval.
<P>
The declaration that has just been made by Commissioner Bangemann on Latin America is at least a sign, in part, of this essential return to realism, and we are beginning to see such signs in various quarters.
The Prime Minister of Luxembourg, Mr Junker, is saying that the euro is not an eternal shield.
The winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economics, Amartya Sen, is expressing his fears of seeing a single monetary policy guided solely by anti-inflationary concerns having devastating effects on Europe when faced with a sustainable drop in American rates.
<P>
The Asian and Latin-American financial crises and their effects on the value of the dollar could indeed be the first asymmetrical shock to affect the various countries of the euro area.
Their economies, I remind you, are still far from being in line.
The Iberian economies will therefore be affected earlier and to a greater extent than the others by a major Latin-American crisis.
It is in this context that we will be able to judge whether the euro really acts as a shield or whether the countries of the euro area can together withstand the wide gap between the very heavy constraints of the single currency and the shocks that each of the countries is going to suffer as a result of the crisis, to different degrees, in different sectors and at different times.
<P>
Nor can we fail to ask whether it is really the right time for the various countries committed to forming the euro area to deprive themselves of flexible monetary resources that are tried and tested means of adjusting to an economic crisis, at a time when we appear to be verging on a major world financial crisis!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Antony">
Mr President, the overall economic situation in the countries of Latin America is not good. It is not good in the banana republics exploited by North American trusts.
It is not good in the countries where the communist guerillas are pillaging, raping and killing.
In Peru, the so-called 'Shining' Path is massacring entire villages. Nor is it good in Colombia, especially in Caguán, where the extreme left-wing Columbian revolutionary armed forces receive payments from drug traffickers whose cultivation and trade they are protecting.
<P>
Only one country, which was put back on course for a sound economy several years ago, is showing a clean bill of health all round.
That country is Chile.
The Chilean model is therefore an example for the other countries of Latin America, but also for the African countries and for Russia.
<P>
The bulletin of the French Embassy, which I consulted yesterday on the Internet, says that growth is continual and that stability is guaranteed for prices, the currency and public finances.
Chile is the country where investment is being made and where financial reserves are increasing.
In 1973, the situation was different.
The Marxist dictator Allende had ruined the country, which, following the lorry-drivers strikes, was experiencing a revolt among housewives.
Everywhere, extreme left-wing armed groups were ruling with violence and murdering more and more people. It was like Spain in 1936, where the right-wing majority, Gil Robles' CEDA, had its activities curbed and its leaders and militants assassinated, not to speak of the anti-Catholic atrocities.
<P>
Then a republican officer took a stand: General Pinochet.
He took a stand, like General Franco in the past, to avoid the grip of communism that, there as elsewhere, was preparing to set up its gulags and fill the mass graves.
The army and the police dealt with terrorism and the violence of subversion with warlike methods and every type of regrettable abuse.
And, on the pretext that torture is institutionalised and widely practised in Israel, are preparations being made in London or Madrid to imprison Benyamin Netanyahu, whose army has killed more Palestinian resistant fighters than Chile has killed revolutionaries?
Is General Sharon going to be arrested in Washington or Paris for all the savage repression that has taken place under his authority?
<P>
We are forever appealing here for the rule of law, but the ambush on General Pinochet, organized in a joint Spanish and British plot, cynically violates all the rules of international law.
However, no committee of inquiry and no people's tribunal has been set up to judge 80 years of red terror in the world and those responsible for 200 million deaths, if we add the victims of the wars to the 100 million who have died in the organised famines and mass executions of communism, an impassable scenario of modern slavery.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Linkohr">
Mr President, allow me to add a few words to Mr Kreissl-Dörfler's comments.
He is naturally quite right to cite corruption as one of the causes of the economic instability.
The fact is, of course, that there are some thoroughly corrupt states - one could call them military dictatorships.
Mr Antony just referred to a country that used to be a military dictatorship.
These countries are certainly stable economically.
But there are also some properly governed states that are economically vulnerable.
There are many reasons why this can be so.
We are seeing this situation in Latin America at the moment.
There is a certain psychology that applies to financial markets when they obviously no longer have confidence in the fixed exchange rates of Brazil, for instance.
It leads to a flight of capital, as in Asia and Russia.
That happens for psychological reasons.
It has no economic basis, as Mr Bangemann rightly pointed out.
<P>
But there is also one factor over which the states often have no influence at all, namely the fall in raw material prices.
The advantage Europe is currently deriving from cheaper oil is quite simply a disaster for Mexico, Venezuela and other countries.
That has nothing to do with corruption, it is because of the fall in raw material prices, which really should give us food for thought. How can we also stabilise raw material prices in the long term?
<P>
It is also due to the disappearance of Latin America's Asian markets, through no fault of its own.
Furthermore, with the disappearance of the Asian markets and the devalued Asian currencies, Latin American goods are now faced with cheap competition from that region.
That is why I think we must take a very practical approach to this problem.
Looked at in practical terms, that means Brazil must be stabilised at this time.
Brazil is the key economy in Latin America.
Let me refer you to paragraph 9 of our motion for a resolution, in which we call for a special fund - something which has been discussed in the past - supported by the international financial institutions, to help Brazil cope with the present difficult situation.
If Brazil collapses, if Brazil has to devalue, the entire region would be affected.
We would be exactly where we were in the early 1980s, namely confronted with a disastrous situation in which the ordinary people, the people of Latin America, have to pay the price for the inability of the financiers to maintain order in the world.
<P>
So I ask you to approve our motion for a resolution and thereby to support all the efforts made by the Commission and the Council and also by others to prop up the Brazilian economy at this time.
That does not excuse them from the homework that needs to be done in these countries, with which we would be happy to assist them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
Mr President, I should like to thank Commissioner Bangemann for his ever-positive and involved presence amongst us.
<P>
Following the debt crisis, Latin American countries have in recent years made a considerable political and economic effort towards structural adjustment. This has involved enormous social costs.
<P>
It so happens, Mr President, that although those countries agreed to the clause on democracy in their cooperation agreements with the European Union, they receive the worst treatment, in real terms, under the Community budget.
Not only do they not enjoy any budgetary advantages, but they do not benefit either from the preferential trading treatment granted, for example, to the countries of the Lomé Convention.
<P>
With the advent of this crisis, the Latin American countries have been punished twice over: they have been the victims of the adjustment, and they have also been the victims of the system we advised them to adjust to.
Clearly, the solution to this crisis lies beyond the competence and sphere of influence of the European Union. Nevertheless, Commissioner, much can be done at Community level.
Mr Marín, the Commissioner responsible, is aware that I have always supported him in the past, and that he can continue to rely on my humble self to support any initiatives he may put forward with a view to strengthening relations between the European Union and Latin America.
<P>
I do have to say, however, Commissioner, that on this occasion a clear, effective and diligent response from the Commission was sorely lacking.
In such difficult times, the European Union cannot and must not shirk its responsibilities, nor may it resort to silence.
<P>
Mr Bangemann, it is regrettable that year after year the Commission should propose the same amounts for the main budget lines for Latin America. No account is taken of the new agreements with Chile, Mexico and Mercosur, of the challenges next year's Rio summit will present, or of the current crisis affecting the economies of Latin America.
No provision is made either to compensate for the rate of inflation.
<P>
I therefore share the concern expressed by Mrs Miranda in this regard.
I trust all the political groups which have participated in this debate - Mr Puerta's or even Mrs Miranda's, since the general rapporteur for the budget is in her political group - will be able to support the amendments to the draft budget for the coming year put forward by both Mrs Miranda and myself.
As it has consistently done, my group also supports the amendments I have proposed.
<P>
I do hope, Mr President, that following this debate the Commission will tackle the situation with enthusiasm and imagination and will consider a suitable response at Community level. What is needed is not just a declaration, but a package of budgetary measures, investment, more credit from the European Investment Bank, Community guarantees and trading agreements.
The Old World has to find a way of expressing its solidarity with its long-standing and long-suffering friends in Latin America.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Orlando">
Mr President, although the financial and economic crisis in Latin America is undoubtedly linked to those in the Far East and Russia, being a consequence of them, it has certain specific features of its own.
There is a clear disparity between, on the one hand, all the admirable proposals and efforts being brought to bear by the parties concerned - the international community, the Monetary Fund, the European Investment Bank and the World Bank - and, on the other, the utterly inadequate results achieved.
This is a sign that the treatment is perhaps not the right one: we should stop showering Latin America with aspirins, which have disastrous effects, but should perhaps prescribe for it a course of antibiotics, or in other words - as Mrs Kreissl-Dörfler put it - adopt an alternative policy approach.
<P>
Tough decisions must be taken to break the vicious circle of debt which only produces more; debts should be written off once and for all.
Measures should be taken with all due respect for human rights; equitable growth should be pursued in both Europe and Latin America, without applying different standards.
Finally, excessive liberalisation should be avoided, since that serves only to make matters worse, and we should put an end to unconditional guarantee funds, which have contributed to the disaster in Russia.
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<SPEAKER ID=108 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, not so long ago, Latin America was regarded as one of the most promising regions for the world economy.
Today the economic and financial crisis in this region has had very serious consequences, and not only for the people there.
The Latin American countries rely heavily on the trend in raw material prices, and it is an established fact that this crisis is seriously disrupting the international financial markets.
We keep rightly declaring that so far the euro zone has reacted in a relatively stable way to the international network of crises.
But we must realise that all the worldwide economic problems are bound to have an impact on the European Union too, unless internationally coordinated measures are taken.
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We shall have to tackle the problems at their roots if we wish to resolve them and revive the world economy.
One problem is that the level of real interest rates is at times too high.
We must improve the quality of management systems, supervisory systems and, in particular, financial systems, on an international basis.
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<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="Katiforis">
Mr President, dear colleagues, Commissioner Bangemann, it matters little that the fundamentals of the real economy are sound, as you said at the beginning of your speech, because in a monetary economy, a market economy, the disease always comes from the money side.
It is the money side that we have to somehow cure if we are going to stop the financial crisis from spilling over and overwhelming the real economy.
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The question is what are we doing to achieve this?
The answer is that we, the developed world, are doing very little indeed, yet we are asking Latin American to bear the burden of the adjustment.
What is Latin America doing?
Latin America is actually doing quite a lot.
Brazil has raised its interest rates to 50 %.
You can appreciate what effect that is likely to have on its real economy.
Next year Brazil will have negative rates of growth: -2 or -3 %.
You can understand how that will exacerbate the poverty and misery in that country, which are already considerable.
Now we are asking them to do more.
We are asking them to reduce a deficit of 7 % in Brazil to 2 or 3 %, as if they were going to join the euro.
You can understand what that will do to their public services: it means taking the food out of the mouths of starving children.
This is what this pressure implies.
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We threaten them with a repeat of the speculative attack on their currency.
The speculators, we tell them, are waiting to see what we will do on 25 October after the election when the new measures will be announced.
What can they do?
They are starving already, what more can they do to save the Western financial system, Mr Commissioner?
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What can we do to save our own system?
President Cardoso spoke in favour of introducing a Tobin tax.
For four years we have been talking about a Tobin tax and we have not made any progress.
We need to have a fund to rescue them.
What size should this fund be?
Between $40 and 100 million say the specialists - that money does not exist in the financial institutions, Mr Commissioner.
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It is a mistake to think that we are talking about their interests alone.
If Brazil falls, any person in a responsible position will tell you that Wall Street will fall and if Wall Street falls the consequences for Europe will be terrible.
Mr Commissioner, it is our interests that we have to defend and we should defend them at our cost and not at their cost.
When one hears the ominous sounds coming from Latin America do not ask 'for whom the bell tolls?' - it tolls for you.
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<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lenz">
Mr President, after all these economic and political considerations, let me point to another aspect.
We all breathed a sigh of relief when we heard in the early 1990s that the economic upswing in Latin America heralded the end of the lost decade of the 1980s.
In addition to this economic upswing, which in fact differed widely from one country to another, we also saw more stable democratic governments emerge in all the countries - and I believe this is most important for us - with the exception of Cuba.
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True, this was sometimes accompanied by severe political difficulties and social crises, and there were still many human rights violations.
But what was important was that democracy and economic recovery gained ground and gradually also filtered through to the people, as reflected at least in some degree of political stability.
Now the Asian economic and financial crisis has also reached Latin America, where structures that are still weak are being further weakened and threatened.
We must not allow the new financial crises to make the people begin to doubt in democratic structures that are, in any case, still very inadequate in some respects.
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By now we in Europe should be familiar with the disappointment people feel if the chain of democracy, the rule of law and prosperity does not match up to their expectations.
Europe, the EC and the democratic parties provided much support in their time.
Despite all the problems engendered by the changes in Eastern Europe, which have brought similar problems in their wake, we should not forget these partners, and especially not the risks which this kind of disappointment can entail.
The current debate about Pinochet shows how thin the protective cover actually is, although here we are dealing with an established democracy, namely Chile.
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Nor must Mercosur, with its high ambitions, become a victim.
It too is in a sense our godchild, and we must attack the human rights violations that accompany every economic and social crisis, even if the two aspects may seem quite unrelated.
Certainly, the Latin American markets are future markets for us.
We would ask the Commission to take these factors into consideration in any initiatives now taken, given also that the word has now spread in what are called the worldwide and international financial institutions that the two aspects are indeed interrelated.
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<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Musumeci">
Mr President, despite the Commissioner's upbeat tone, the financial crisis affecting Latin America is bound to cause alarm and concern in the European Union, not only because of the need for the EU to play a role in international monetary cooperation, but also because Europe has for many centuries been linked to that vast area of central and southern America through ties of culture, language, religion and civilisation, and - perhaps - because everything possible has not yet been done to establish a special relationship with that market.
<P>
Naturally we welcome the idea of a financial package for Latin America, geared to creating new jobs and boosting domestic consumption.
We are equally pleased to note the increased growth of recent years, but there can be no doubt that reforms aimed at achieving economic stability and financial transparency have now become absolutely essential, and that we must ensure that a loss of confidence by financial markets does not weaken the currencies of Latin America.
<P>
How should the challenges of the future be tackled?
The World Bank has already assisted Argentina; it could obviously do likewise for other countries.
But the European Union cannot refrain from playing its own part, by reinforcing political cooperation, intervening more effectively and ensuring that capital does not stop moving freely around Latin America. Rather, strict controls should be put in place to prevent speculation, and new investors encouraged with incentives targeted in particular at small and medium-sized enterprises.
At the same time, human rights must be complied with in full, and democratic conditions respected.
<P>
Unless the European Union can assume a leading role in the shaping of a new international monetary system, the much-vaunted launch of the euro could result in partial failure, like a Ferrari without an engine: good enough to display in the shop window, but not to set out on the long road towards international solidarity.
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<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Newens">
Mr President, the economic crisis in the world today clearly demonstrates the fact that few countries are immune from the consequences of economic shocks in other parts of the world.
Asia is important, but Latin America only sends 1 % of its exports to Russia.
It was, however, badly affected by the flight of capital triggered by the situation in Russia.
If Latin America is plunged into deep crisis, this will inevitably have a very serious effect on the American economy and pose the threat of a world crisis more serious than any since the pre-war era, which could devastate Europe.
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It was hoped that the low inflation rates and improving levels of growth in Latin America would provide the basis for real progress and, as Mr Bangemann said, in 1997 the average rate of growth was over 5 %.
This was attributed by many observers to liberalisation, privatisation, deregulation, etc. encouraging an inflow of capital.
However, the present crisis has shown that such policies leave their practitioners vulnerable to events totally beyond their control.
As the Managing Director of the IMF, Michel Camdessus, put it: 'At times one has the impression that markets do not differentiate properly the good players.'
While it would be totally mistaken to consider returning to closed economies or narrow protectionism, there is a need for agreed international regulation to deter huge and sudden capital flows, particularly of short-term funds, and to work towards globally coordinated interest rates.
Consideration must also be given to a rescheduling or writing-off of huge foreign debts which rose for Latin America as a whole from $83bn in 1975 to $627bn in 1996.
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Structural adjustment programmes, liberalisation and fiscal reforms have also frequently involved cuts in health, education and social and poverty alleviation expenditures, and these should have been avoided in the past and must be resisted in the future if poverty is not to be rapidly increased and demand further reduced.
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It is incumbent on us in Europe to adopt policies, such as the easing of interest rates, to encourage growth, and the provision of appropriate financial support - not, however, just to help the rich and the speculators.
<P>
The crisis in Latin America and in the world as a whole should alert us to the necessity of questioning the neo-liberal policies which became the conventional wisdom and seeking to construct a new model of development involving regulation at the global level, a new international financial agreement, reform of international financial institutions and a new deal to reverse the trend to ever greater income inequality and vast poverty.
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<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Secchi">
Mr President, I very much appreciated Mr Bangemann's introduction, and I believe there is no need to stress that - as virtually all the previous speakers have said - the violent financial turbulence which has hit all markets in recent months, sparked by the crises first in Asia and then in Russia, could have particularly serious adverse effects on the economy of Latin America.
This possible development is all the more worrying, given the efforts made in recent years by most of these countries to stabilise their economies and equip themselves for a satisfactory move into world markets.
These processes of adaptation have demanded considerable sacrifices on the part of the populations of Latin America, not least in terms of reduced real incomes and living standards.
The first green shoots are nevertheless emerging, as proved by the growing interest in that area on the part of economic operators, in terms of both financial flows, trade and investment in production.
<P>
Unfortunately, our assessment is less upbeat in the case of countries claiming to be friends of Latin America, in particular the European Union.
By way of example, we could mention the deadlock reached over the draft cooperation agreement with Mercosur and Chile, not to mention the one with Mexico.
Indeed, despite the Commission's efforts and the support from this House, the selfishness and short-sightedness of certain Member States - more concerned to protect narrow farming interests than to develop a broad-based vision of international economic and hence political relations - are preventing the launch of initiatives which could have extremely important repercussions, primarily for Latin America but also for Europe.
<P>
Whilst this unacceptable stalemate should be criticised in no uncertain terms, it is equally necessary to encourage the Commission and Council to do whatever they can, not least through financial measures, to consolidate the results achieved to date and prevent the efforts made by Latin America from degenerating into a new and untenable 'lost decade'.
For example, referring to the figures quoted by Mr Katiforis, whereas it might be entirely inconsistent with the principles of sound economic policy management to think of using for domestic purposes any excess reserves of the European central banks which might be generated once the euro is introduced, it would seem quite reasonable to devote part of these sums to extraordinary financial support for Latin America, by agreement with the other international institutions, with a view to avoiding a situation where - as has already been underlined - those countries' problems could soon become ours as well.
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<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herman">
Mr President, I would like to draw three lessons from this.
The first is that in a very interdependent world, the possibility of infection means that we have to make it our priority to stop the spread of disease, if I might say so.
We have scarce resources: the intervention methods of the Monetary Fund. We have wasted them.
Going to Mr Yeltsin's rescue, in the circumstances in which it was done, was a waste.
And we no longer have these resources to give to countries that show that they have a State and a market structure, which is not perfect - nothing anywhere is perfect - but which, when compared to the void with which we are faced in Russia, is totally different.
This is, therefore, the first lesson to draw: we must initially block the spread of the disease.
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The second lesson to learn is that the problems of balance of payments or of collapse of credits are not simply problems of credit or of advancing the necessary liquid assets.
There needs to be a framework, a culture, a set of institutions that work.
A market is not a jungle.
The market is the result of a civilised legal and political structure.
That is what a market is.
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Those people who today - and this is the third lesson - want to do away with the entire condemned system and replace it, because the failures we have seen are the result of uncontrolled collective behaviour, are not saying what they want to replace it with, but we know that they are thinking of systems that have brought no results.
Protectionism, which for 20 years has been called support for the Third World, has yielded no results.
Billions have been spent on helping regimes that have done nothing to ensure the development of the population, and this was done in order to have a clear conscience.
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I therefore think that, all things considered, integration into a globalized economy according to very precise rules is the best solution, in the long run, to guarantee development.
The example of Chile has shown this.
There have been others, and the fact that at a given time things may get out of control, for very specific reasons, must not make us give up.
We know very well why things got out of control in Japan, Thailand and elsewhere.
What we are dealing with is not so much poor management in those countries, but rather the arrival of a short term influx of capital, which was withdrawn at the first sign of a setback, and then the collective chain of events led to a difficult situation.
That is what we need to solve, that is the lesson to learn.
We must not throw out the baby with the bathwater.
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<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="President">
I have received five motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2).
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The debate is closed.
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The vote will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m.
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<CHAPTER ID=6>
Telecommunications, media and information technology
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0328/98) by Mr Paasilinna, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication from the Commission: Green Paper on the convergence of the telecommunications, media and information technology sectors and the implications for regulation (COM(97)0623 - C4-0664/97).
Draftsmen (Hughes procedure): Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel for the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, Mr Hory for the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and Mr Kuhne for the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media.
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<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="Paasilinna">
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of all the committees involved in the Green Paper on convergence, I should first like to thank the rapporteur for the excellent cooperation which has produced a coherent report.
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Convergence of the telecommunications, media and information technology sectors is a major challenge for policy-makers and legislators.
The keen competition between the various technologies makes it extremely difficult to predict what the situation will be in the future.
But what is certain is that the arrival of new services will lead to an expansion of the information market as a whole.
This will bring new opportunities for economic growth and employment.
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A new environment for communication services also provides opportunities to improve the quality of life of European citizens by offering the consumer more choice and lower prices.
Applications and services are becoming independent of the supporting infrastructure, which is why technology is clearly a motor for change.
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Support for research and development activities in the field of ICT under the fifth framework programme can make a major contribution to the convergence process.
The Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy therefore much regretted that the budgetary resources proposed by the Council for the Technologies of the Information Society programme are lower than under the fourth framework programme.
This is not in keeping with the economic and social importance which the Green Paper on convergence rightly awards to information technology.
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Technological developments influence the regulatory framework and vice versa.
Regulations must not be an obstacle to the interoperability of different technologies and must therefore, if nothing else, be technologically neutral and non-discriminatory.
Rules should also preferably be applied worldwide.
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The convergence of telecommunications, media and information technology is essential to a flourishing electronic trade.
The relatively high cost of data and telecommunications in Europe and the lack of security on the Internet means that electronic commerce has so far remained principally limited to the transfer of data between large companies and their suppliers and customers.
Lower telecommunications costs due to liberalisation and the possibilities offered by the Internet will facilitate access to electronic commerce for small and medium-sized businesses and the consumer.
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There is a real shortage of factual material - by which I mean good statistics - with which to assess the rate and direction of the development of ICT services currently used in trade and industry in other areas of society.
Measuring computer use or Internet use, for example, is just one of the elements.
Good benchmark studies, preferably at international or European level, are necessary in order to judge whether or not it is desirable to regulate.
We must learn to live with the fact that government cannot keep up with all these developments at the legal level.
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Finally, Mr President, convergence is not an aim in itself.
It is a matter of eliminating barriers to the supply and use of ICT products.
National legislation for telecommunications or for information technology or for printed media alone must therefore be adapted.
In this context, the capacity for innovation and the opportunities for risk-taking must be sustained, and not hindered by an excess of rules and regulations designed to channel convergence.
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<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="Kuhne">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would love to see a more detailed debate on how an uncontroversial and positive technical process can fall victim to an interest-led ideology of deregulation, regardless of its market capacity or the behaviour of users and viewers, regardless even of everything that is recognised and known as necessary to the economic strengthening of the production and use of European content.
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In the view of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, the report before us must also contain the following points, in addition to the emphasis on public broadcasting and the Amsterdam protocol on the subject, i.e. not having programme requirements laid down by an EU Commissioner. They include what are called 'must carry' obligations for network operators in respect of the programmes of public service providers; a form of regulation which reflects a balance in the law on the media, telecommunications and competition, to ensure security for investors and legal certainty; the continued enforcement of regulatory principles such as pluralism, cultural diversity, protection of young people and the production and marketing of quality programmes, even in a world with no shortage of frequencies; and the submission of a draft directive on media ownership and the protection of pluralism.
Precisely in view of the growing convergence of transmission channels for all forms of electronic communication, access is quite rightly an important factor with regard to acquiring market power and must therefore be subject to democratic control. I believe we still have quite a lot to do here, which includes supplementing and correcting the motion for a resolution by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy along these lines.
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<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I wonder why this curious combination of vulgar Marxism and speculation keeps cropping up whenever we discuss the information society.
According to Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, technology is the motor of development, which is simply not true.
The question of productive forces and production conditions is not that simple, not even according to Marx, although that is another matter.
Even good statistics are no use in themselves.
We need to look at quality.
We need to understand what is happening.
Until we understand that, there is no point in producing statistics.
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Vague ideas about where market opportunities might exist do not help open up markets; what helps open up markets is careful regulation, investment security, definite rules.
Careful regulation cannot be used as a blanket excuse for continuing to apply the deregulation ideology in the way it has been applied in the past.
In that respect, I welcome Mr Paasilinna's report.
By taking a specific approach and by clearly defining his terms in his report on convergence, he is shedding some light on the obscurity which the Commission report unfortunately creates, and is establishing at least some basis for a discussion that really can answer the question: what does careful regulation mean here?
Two words, information and communication, can in effect serve as a gold mine, a weapon or a lever for democratic participation.
But that depends on how they are applied in the various areas, what the people need and expect, and what needs and expectations must be supported, created or indeed scaled down by the appropriate rules; because of course only a vulgar Liberal would believe that we can simply let things take their course and surely something good will come of it.
That is not the real world either.
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<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, I take the floor to deputise for Mr Hory of the ARE Group, draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs.
I fully support his views, and shall now continue in French, since we discussed this speech in that language.
<P>
Mr President, in drafting this opinion, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights set itself the prime objective of studying the legal problems presented by the phenomenon of convergence.
This phenomenon is mainly a result of the technical developments of digitalization and compression, which permit various types of infrastructure functioning independently of each other to transport various types of content.
This infrastructure despecialization erodes the traditional distinction between telecommunications and broadcasting, and is bringing about a debate on the desirable regulatory changes in this sector.
<P>
The Committee on Legal Affairs therefore felt it was important to adopt a functional approach that is not limited to the three options proposed by the Commission's Green Paper.
This is why our committee has proposed a model for the future that, while maintaining the traditional distinction between infrastructure and content, aims to simplify the regulatory framework.
<P>
The new framework that is proposed is subdivided into five different sectors.
The first involves infrastructure provision: resource access and interconnection arrangements.
The second relates to network operation: routing and transporting of communications content.
The third concerns access system management: allocation of Internet numbers and addresses and browser systems, including electronic programme guides.
The fourth relates to general content, that is, the content of television and Internet programmes, including intellectual property rights.
And the fifth relates to specific content, that is, the provision of services such as voice telephony and Internet access.
<P>
The Committee on Legal Affairs also emphasises that due to the speed of technological change, simply applying Community legislation on competition, which is there to stop, a posteriori, the formation of cartels and the abuse of dominant positions, is no longer enough to respond effectively to the large-scale process of alliance-making and vertical integrations within the industry.
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Our committee therefore considers it necessary to broaden the ONP-type open provision rules whenever bottlenecks threaten to limit competition between businesses and to compromise consumer protection.
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It therefore calls on the Commission to do its utmost to ensure that digital TV decoders in Europe are compatible in future and to draw up a draft directive to close the remaining loopholes, notably in the protection accorded by consumer law to consumers of goods or services offered via new technologies.
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<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="Hendrick">
Mr President, I should like to start by thanking Mr Paasilinna for an excellent report.
The Green Paper and the report defined convergence as growing together and interchangeability of networks and channels for communication, and, in addition, the integration of distinct technologies in the new forms of applications and services.
They also talk about convergence of content which I will discuss a little later.
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The divisions of the past into the technical areas of voice telephony, broadcasting and new services have led to a complex legislative and regulatory framework which has arisen due to a variety of different technologies being applied.
These technologies made the distinction between a telephone call, a television broadcast and an Internet page access quite pronounced in terms of delivery and content.
In network and technological terms those services will still be delivered in a similar fashion as they are today but the technologies applied will be predominantly digital rather than analogue and predominantly fibre-optical and satellite-based rather than electrical, cable and terrestrial broadcast based.
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Therefore, the delivery mechanisms will not greatly affect the way in which these services are delivered or consumed.
They will, however, provide and offer new services of a form and nature which will break down the traditional boundaries that exist between current forms of communication. This will mean that traditional forms of content can be stored, transmitted and received by the same media and means.
The content will, by the technology at least, be treated indiscriminately.
<P>
For that matter, why should we, as regulators, discriminate between different forms of content other than to cost added value, protect copywrite and provide security when the boundaries between the traditional forms of content break down?
We are, in effect, experiencing convergence of content.
Is a video-conferencing session between four people a telephone call with vision? Is it a live television broadcast to multipoint destinations?
Is it a new service which should not be covered by European telephony or broadcast regulation but treated like a new service such as Internet shopping?
I believe it is none of these.
<P>
The review of communication into a single regulatory framework to be carried out by the Commission next year is to be welcomed.
On the basis of its Green Paper on convergence and Parliament's response in the form of the Paasilinna report, it will provide a framework that will contain light and simple regulation to promote economic and industrial objectives such as competition and interoperability.
It will also enhance the concept and implementation of universal service so that everyone is information-rich and cultural diversity is maintained.
<P>
The Commission's Green Paper and Parliament's response make those arguments.
I commend Mr Paasilinna's report to this House.
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<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hoppenstedt">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, globalisation and convergence are the prevailing slogans of our time.
That is why the Green Paper described the review of the traditional regulatory system in terms of its relevance to the future as the most important challenge.
The Commission launched this discussion in December last year.
It is clear from the huge participation of media representatives, consumer associations and industry in the consultation meeting that was then organised, with 270 contributions and more than 80 000 visitors to the Internet site by July 1998, that there is enormous interest and an enormous need for action in this area.
How should we respond?
Depending on the various interests of the parties concerned, the proposed solutions range from trust in the self-regulatory powers of the free market, through a partial regulation of specific areas, to excluding certain areas of public service.
<P>
My position in this discussion is that we are standing at the beginning of a development whose effects we cannot clearly predict, with the best will in the world.
There is certainly no consensus in the forecasts on the future use of digital services.
It is too soon to say anything for sure, because there are still too many unknown variables.
So we must take care not to place too much importance on any one aspect, which could distort the discussion and spoil our future chances on this potential European market.
<P>
I wish to congratulate the rapporteur warmly on his first report in this Parliament, in which he has endeavoured to strike a balance between the various demands.
He says to the Commission, and I quote: 'a cautious attitude towards regulating new services should only be introduced where and when it proves necessary for the safeguard of the interests of consumers', adding, 'and if self-regulation by the industry based on these principles appears not to be efficient enough'.
Here I can only agree with the rapporteur.
However, there are some points, though only a few, on which I differ with him.
I think that, at this stage of the discussion, to over-regulate by focusing the debate on the impact of convergence on content could have some adverse effects.
<P>
Mr Kuhne, of course I believe in recognising today's evaluation of the importance of public broadcasting, but all the various areas must be included in this discussion, and on an equal footing.
We must create a favourable climate, so that everyone can find their own place in future developments, by which I also mean the future role of public and private broadcasting in this changed environment.
We are still in the first year of the discussion, which will extend over another two or three years with the further measures planned by the Commission.
So at this initial stage, I would urge that we do not block the way to further discussions by laying down rules that are too specific.
We are only at the beginning of our search for the best solutions for all the areas concerned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, perhaps I might cite two topical examples of convergence.
Today we experienced a world - or at least a European - first. The Finnish Parliament's 'debate on the future' was broadcast live over the Internet.
Using my notebook computer, I was able to follow in real time here in Strasbourg.
<P>
Moreover, the promoters of Sami Radio in Finnish Lapland have designed a website. Now the Sami people in Sweden, Finland and Norway have a cheap and easy way of keeping in touch across the borders and exchanging news about what they are doing.
Samis account for four to five thousand of Finland's five million inhabitants.
<P>
I am quoting these examples to illustrate the need for us media folk to stop thinking that, as long as we copy the Americans, everything will be fine.
Instead we should have the confidence to go our own way, offering variety and opening the door to all groups in society. Danish film producers have recently pointed us in the right direction.
It is our duty to ensure that minority groups have their own channels and that small producers are given the scope they need. Journalistic quality should be a priority.
More channel space will become available over time, and greater specialisation will increasingly be an option.
<P>
We need to prepare ourselves for less regulation, as several speakers have said.
We need common EU rules more than ever before.
This means more transparency in the telecommunications sector, especially with regard to tariffs.
<P>
This is certainly an exciting area and no one has all the answers. Dizzying developments are underway.
This partly explains why we in the ELDR Group cannot support the rapporteur's Amendment No 13, stating that TV will increasingly become the prime means of locating and processing information.
It is a pity we are not discussing Mrs Ryynänen's report on the role of libraries in the modern world until Friday.
<P>
Lastly, I should like to inform the President and the rapporteur that Amendments Nos 1 to 4 in the Swedish version of the text make no sense at all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Thors.
We have taken note of your comments on the Swedish versions of the amendments.
That will be looked into.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="Gallagher">
Mr President, first and foremost, I wish to pay tribute to the rapporteur for the preparation and presentation of the report.
We cannot deny that developments in the telecommunications industry and in the information technology sector are verging on the astounding.
Examples of new products being delivered include home banking and home shopping over the Internet, Voice over the Internet, e-mail data and Worldwide Web access over mobile phone networks and the use of wireless links to homes and businesses to connect them to the fixed telecommunications network, web casting of news, sport, concerts and other audiovisual services.
Such developments represent concrete examples of an information society that has the potential to touch the lives of every citizen in the Union.
They also highlight the significant change and the range and diversity of traditional telecommunications and media services.
<P>
The changes described in the Green Paper have the potential to substantially improve the quality of life for all the citizens of Europe.
They will also have the effect of assisting the process of integrating the regions of Europe in the heart of the European economy.
Legislation by means of regulation must be introduced to oversee the working of the new evolving sector of e-commerce, because the general good might not always be protected if unfettered market rules were to apply.
<P>
On the separate but related matter of media pluralism, I support the recent initiative by the Irish Government to maintain free access to major sporting events for all viewers.
This is a commitment of the Irish Government and it is a programme for government, and legislation will be enacted, thereby giving pride of place to this important social objective.
<P>
Sport must remain an outlet for all people, regardless of class or background.
Legislation must be enacted which ensures the principle of equality of access for all prospective viewers to our important national sporting events, such as hurling and football, all-Ireland finals and, of course, the Irish Grand National.
<P>
We must recognise that the new multimedia conglomerates are continually endeavouring to buy up the rights of many sporting events worldwide.
The Member States of the Union must not lose sight of the fact that cultural and regional diversity can only be protected if national sporting events are accessible to all viewers who wish to see them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Mr President, there is one aspect of this debate on the Paasilina report that I find especially important and should like to highlight.
<P>
This report was approved in committee by 49 votes for, 1 abstention and 2 votes against (those of our group).
The reasons why we voted against it are very clear.
We believe that convergence in the sectors of telecommunications, the media and information technologies, in the framework of the information society, should not mean treating everything as if were merchandise, ignoring cultural specificities and identities, or calling into question the notions of creation and copyright, intellectual property or the fundamental concept of public service in this area.
<P>
We are quite convinced that our stand is the right one, which is why we have tabled eight amendments in keeping with the reasons why we voted against this report - apparently in a minority.
<P>
It is both curious and significant that the rapporteur has had the courage to table 16 proposals for amendments to his own report. We congratulate him on this as some of those amendments suggest that we are on the same wavelength, although we would not have chosen to word them as he has.
But these amendments refer both to the role of the authorities as an essential component of public service and the preservation of cultural diversity and we welcome that.
<P>
We shall therefore wait and see what fate the plenary has in store for these amendments before we decide which way to vote.
They reflect an approach that goes beyond merely looking upon these phenomena in terms of the economy or trade. That might restore to the text the stances taken by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media and the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment rejected by the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Leperre-Verrier">
Mr President, tomorrow we will have to answer the main question posed by the Commission's Green Paper: what will be the impact of the use of common technologies, particularly revolutionary ones, by the audiovisual and telecommunications sectors?
One does not need to be a genius to imagine what consequences such a technological breakthrough will have on our daily lives, consequences that will not only be economic and legal, but also cultural and social.
<P>
Despite this, we must not be discouraged by the scale of the task. On the contrary, I welcome the fact that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has recognised the need for European regulations.
In this respect, I would like to offer my congratulations for the contributions from Mr Kuhn, the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Culture, whose work is an example of clarity and precision, and from Mr Hory who, in the Committee on Legal Affairs, led with intelligence and talent a thorough discussion on the legal implications of the issue.
<P>
We therefore need a clear separation between the regulations to be applied to electronic communication infrastructures and those relating to content.
Maintaining current Community regulations and setting up more flexible regulations for the mixed interactive services offered by the Internet fulfill the requirements of public interest and also the need to take cultural concerns into consideration.
<P>
This means that priority would be given to a combination of options 1 and 2 proposed in the Green Paper, as advocated at the Birmingham Conference.
However, we need to remain vigilant because technology moves faster than political decision-making and there is a great temptation, when faced with changing concepts, to strengthen competition law or make sacrifices to the religion of ultra-liberalism.
<P>
Moreover, the European Union, which has already lost the battle of Hollywood, is in danger of losing the battle of Silicon Valley if our various Member States do not realise the urgency of regaining technological control by putting in place a common multimedia policy.
We will thus belie the statement by Mrs Irina Magaziner, an adviser to President Clinton, declaring that the Internet is not an international resource, but the fruit of American investment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="Read">
Mr President, I want to start by offering my congratulations to my colleague, Mr Paasilinna.
I know how much careful preparation and extensive consultation has gone into his report.
I commend him on it.
<P>
Colleagues, it is normal when considering issues like this to look to the future.
But I want to illustrate my own comments on Mr Paasilinna's work and the Commission proposals by looking to the past, to a book written by Mark Twain called 'A Connecticut Yankee at the Court of King Arthur'.
The Connecticut Yankee was a telephone engineer in America who sustained a blow to his head and was transported back to the time of King Arthur.
He used his skills and knowledge to intervene in the wars of that time, mainly to save his own skin - it has to be said - rather than from any philanthropic designs.
He understood from his own practical experience the importance of access to networks and services.
He knew, as does Mr Paasilinna, that these proposals are not just about technology, they are about how technology can address the needs of citizens and consumers.
But what the Connecticut Yankee did understand - I quote from the motion for a resolution - ' takes the view that the convergence of telecommunications media and information technology sectors must be reflected in European rule-making in such a way that inter-operability of various technologies is not hampered'.
It is that point that I think was so crucial at the time of King Arthur and is going to be crucial not just in the future but now.
<P>
The Green Paper and the rapporteur can but guess at the speed of change.
Other speakers here have commented on how this whole world of telecommunications and broadcasting and transfer of data has changed in a relatively short time.
What seems very clear is that the market can deliver on some of this but there is a need for clear rules at European level about much of it to make sure that the European industry remains in the forefront of these changes.
<P>
The Connecticut Yankee was not particularly concerned about competition rules.
He had all the information and for understandable reasons he kept it to himself.
But the rapporteur - as well as this House and the Commission - is concerned that the rules are clear, that there is a price to pay for anti-competitive measures, but that the needs of citizens and consumers are not lost sight of.
<P>
I commend Mr Paasilinna's report to you.
I also commend to both the Commissioner and the rapporteur - and anybody else who is interested - that you read Mark Twain's work.
It was remarkably prescient and really repays reading.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Malerba">
Mr President, the Green Paper on convergence is devoted to an issue of great importance and, I believe, the main question it raises is that of three options for future regulatory work: the first is to extend existing regulations and keep the different sectors distinct; the second is to create a new incremental framework for services as and when they become available; and the third, more ambitious one is to create a new global framework.
<P>
I agree with Mr Paasilinna's reasoning, and would refer in particular to the fourth paragraph of his conclusions, which inclines towards the third option, that of a global framework.
I believe in fact that within a reasonable time-span, perhaps not immediately, we shall have to move on from a legislative approach based on the means of transmission, the hardware, to one based on the type of transaction, and hence the user and the added value of the transaction.
In the meantime, however, work must continue both on updating the existing regulatory framework and on defining the new statutory framework requirements occasioned by the new media. I am thinking here of the Internet initiative launched by Mr Bangemann, which we shall be discussing at the next part-session.
<P>
Time is pressing, but very briefly, what two points must be taken into account in this move towards a global regulatory framework?
The first is interoperability, in other words the promotion of open systems and standard platforms.
Even though Europe is not the leader in this sector, it must hold its head high, and I believe that the fifth framework programme will help it to do so.
The second rule is competition.
Whereas, on the one hand, the huge transmission capacity generated by digital technology will reduce the pressure on a shortage of transmission channels and on the public utilities, on the other hand new forms of public or private monopoly could arise - I refer in particular to the Microsoft case, which we are all currently following with interest - and the rules of competition might need to be reviewed in the light of new technological opportunities, so as to reorientate alliances along these lines.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pailler">
Mr President, the Commission's Green Paper presents some open options, but underlying them is a basic approach: that the convergence of modes of transmission would lead to the convergence of content.
This amounts to treating cultural works in the same way as any type of goods.
This liberal approach is of particular concern because it would have an adverse effect on creation, information and public service, and would end up calling into question cultural policies and legislation on authors' rights and intellectual property.
<P>
The Paasilinna report recognises some of the risks and dangers of this approach, but it is based overall on the respect for competition law.
Moreover, it is significant that the positive amendments by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the Committee on Culture have been rejected.
My group has therefore tabled amendments that are all based on the principle that cultural works, especially films and television programmes, cannot be treated like other products.
It is essential to maintain specific regulations for the audiovisual sector that are justified with regard to the issues of freedom of expression, pluralism, cultural diversity, minority cultures and preserving the public interest.
<P>
The current regulations, which need to be improved and not abolished, should be complemented with a directive on pluralism and the concentration of media that takes all forms of communication into account.
I would like to refer to what was said by one of Mr Bangemann's own compatriots - to repay the Francophile approach he often shows towards me -, namely Walter Benjamin, if you will excuse my pronunciation: letting things take their course is a recipe for disaster.
They are his words and I agree with him.
<P>
By adopting these amendments, our Parliament will express its will to oppose the Commission's ultra-liberal approach that contributed to the failure of the MAI, one of the objectives of which was, I recall, to liberalise the audiovisual sector.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am especially addressing the two of you, as you have a lot of experience of parliament and government, in order to draw your attention to the ridiculous situation that we are in.
<P>
We are debating the Paasilinna report, to which there are about 20 amendments from a certain Mr Paasilinna, on behalf of the Socialist Group.
I am wondering which is the real Paasilinna, Paasilinna I or Paasilinna II?
It is like the films: Rambo I, Rambo II.
It must be a Nordic saga I do not understand.
But perhaps tomorrow the real Paasilinna will tell us what position the rapporteur Paasilinna intends to take on the Paasilinna amendments tabled to the Paasilinna report.
You must admit that, in the world of information technology, it is a little difficult to work it out!
Personally, I am in favour of Paasilinna I and against Paasilinna II.
I am saying this so it will be clear in everybody's mind.
<P>
Aside from this exercise - which was not at all rhetorical, because it seems to me to be somewhat contradictory, Mr Paasilinna, as you must realise -, I would like to say that even Paasilinna I, which I personally support, seems to fall a little short of what we might have expected.
We are faced with a global challenge.
In Europe we have 20 million computers.
There are 70 million in the United States.
Silicon Valley is in the process of taking over all our minds, as my colleague Mrs Leperre-Verrier rightly said, and here we are, saying that maybe we could...
<P>
We should have given Mr Bangemann a lot more scope to include this as a main point in the Agenda, in the interest of our countries, in the interest of research, etcetera.
I think this little report lacks ambition.
Mr Bangemann, I would like the White Paper to be a little more equal to the task, and to set out the huge challenge that we are facing.
Either we face it, or we will be dominated by the Americans in this field, too, as we already are in others.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wibe">
Mr President, let me first of all commend this sterling report by Mr Paasilinna - although I should point out that some parts are not easy to comprehend in the Swedish translation.
How we move forward towards an information society is a very important matter, and I wish to make three points in this respect.
<P>
Developments are not moving at the same pace in the USA and in Europe; the Americans are clearly ahead.
US companies are much more successful than their European counterparts.
Some people may wonder whether we should seek to offset Europe's competitive disadvantage with some kind of development programme to help us catch up.
I think not.
The theory of comparative advantage teaches us that it is quite natural for a country to be ahead in certain sectors.
In return, other countries will be on top in other sectors.
Take the Nordic area, where we currently have two of the world leaders in mobile telephony.
I see no reason for concern that America is ahead on computers and the Internet.
<P>
My second point has to do with market regulation, which - as the rapporteur says - is not all bad.
Nor does it necessarily stand in the way of technological development. In fact, evidence shows that regulation in a particular branch can actually boost innovation.
It is above all the Internet that needs attention, in my opinion.
I am no advocate of regulation for regulation's sake, but the Internet is an essential tool for certain new varieties of crime.
Standard use cannot sensibly be regulated, however.
It would be like trying to stop people in a crowd chatting to one another.
One watchdog per individual would be required.
Comprehensive Internet surveillance is just not possible; every single computer would need monitoring.
<P>
The role of public service companies is the third area I wish to cover.
I am fully behind the rapporteur when he says that we must have a strong public service sector so as to prevent the commercial companies - whose taste is not always of the best - from taking over.
Throughout Europe and the USA, we have terrifying examples of how privately-owned media concerns, particularly in the television sector, are pursuing flagrantly political goals.
One does not have to be paranoid to realise that the concentration of ownership we now have poses a potential threat to democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Velzen, W.G.">
Mr President, both the Commissioner and Mr Paasilinna are tackling a difficult subject, and I pay tribute to their commitment and efforts in this field.
Technological developments proceed at such a pace that PCS, TVS and so on are able to do things which until recently we never thought possible.
But naturally there is also communication between the fixed and the mobile network, and we are seeing that it is possible to telephone via the cable system and so forth.
In short, traditional legislation is changing.
The answer is often technology-independent regulation, but I should like to ask the Commissioner if he could name any cases where technology-dependent regulation exists.
<P>
Mr President, the market players are involved in all kinds of integration processes, such as mergers, alliances, and the rest.
It is of course necessary to avoid the creation of huge monopolies or parties with a dominant market position.
The consumer's choice must not be limited, and that is particularly important when access to the customers is via systems of conditional access or even decoders.
I would therefore ask the Commissioner if on that point he envisages strictly enforcing the rules of competition.
<P>
The UMTS, the successor to the GSM telephony which has been so successful in Europe, is an example of a convergence system.
Does the Commissioner know at the present time the situation regarding the allocation of frequencies in the Member States?
I believe this to be of essential importance.
But convergence also involves international compatibility.
It is very important that the business community is now busy with this in the context of the Internet manual.
But what are we doing in the public field?
What is the role of politics?
Can the Commissioner explain the current role of politics in this field?
<P>
Finally, it is a question of consumer confidence in the field of privacy.
I therefore believe that it is very important for the electronic signature directive to come before Parliament as quickly as possible, and I hope that vigorous efforts are being made to ensure that this is the case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, I agree with our rapporteur that convergence is not a technical, legal or economic issue.
It is first and foremost political, and concerns individual rights, employment, cultural polymorphism and consumer protection, all of them issues which cannot be left to market forces.
However, with the public sector being unseated in the converging areas, the ever-shrinking world and the creation of huge, global monopolistic conglomerates through the many takeovers and mergers taking place, disquiet about what is happening to citizens' rights is growing.
<P>
In light of these developments the Green Paper should first consider and highlight the connection between convergence and the way the market is being controlled more and more by monopoly interests, the prospect of vertical integration in the sector, the imposition of restrictive policies and the control of critical resources and services, and the consequences for employment and labour relations. It should indicate measures for the protection of the service as a whole, for people's right to have access to a broad range of services, for the avoidance of artificial cost increases, etc.
<P>
Technological progress is necessary and one way or another advances will be made.
However, it is not right that citizens' rights should be denied in its name and that the interests of the market and the monopolies should be put first.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, Mr Dell'Alba has summarised my feelings about this debate very well.
He was, of course, far better able to do so than I could, because if I had put it the way he did, the rapporteur, who has done a remarkable job, and perhaps some others too, might feel offended.
This debate has brought to mind the first discussion we held on what we have called the information society.
At that time, exactly the same arguments were put forward: the information owners and non-owners, the social role of the public monopolies, the question of how to apply competition law, a whole catalogue of fears which have now proved groundless, when we look back at the information society, and in particular at telecommunications.
Mark Twain offers a good example. The success of market mechanisms takes me back to Huckleberry Finn, who was made to paint his fence.
He does so with such fervour and enthusiasm that all his friends who are watching think it must be so much fun to paint the fence that they offer him a few cents to allow them to paint too.
<P>
What this means is that we are not dealing here with the question of regulating, but with a development that has arisen from the needs of people and from technology.
Nobody, and I say this to Mr Kuhne, can define convergence.
You say in your opinion that we have not even defined it.
That is typical of the lawyer's attitude, who wants a definition before he can do anything, instead of looking at life, at what really happens.
Convergence is not something that was defined by the Commission, or by myself as an ultra-liberal; it is something that happens on a day-to-day basis.
To say that convergence, if it exists at all, relates only to technology and cannot relate to its content is fundamentally wrong!
Even now you can of course find content in what used to be called telecommunications that used to be found only on television.
One of the problems, Mr Kuhne, if I may say so, is that in discussions of this kind, the public television networks keep letting themselves be represented by people who once had dealings with them of one kind or another.
The rapporteur for the Federal Constitutional Court was the head of Norddeutsche Rundfunk , a public television corporation.
That is a hindrance to discussion.
Why?
For example, you say that quality should be the deciding factor.
I can only reply that if you want to make quality the yardstick - and I am quite prepared to take the time to watch the television content produced by public corporations for nights on end with Mrs Pailler, indeed especially with Mrs Pailler - then you will have to ban half the programmes, at least half of them!
I am certainly optimistic in this respect.
Walter Benjamin for instance, if I am pronouncing his name correctly, was a total individualist.
He was, if you like, a left-winger in the broad sense of the term.
But he would never have been given a job in public television.
Never!
Because he was far more of an individualist than those people.
Then there is Mr Wibe, who has now left - it really is a bit much to put forward some kind of argument in a debate with the Commission and then to go away. I find that appalling!
Anyway he said, well, we need the public broadcasters so that they can evaluate things in a politically neutral manner.
Of course there are private broadcasters who are political animals.
As we saw in Italy. But there are also public broadcasters who push their political views, Mr Kuhne!
If I turn on the television instead of the radio in the morning and know after about three seconds that this can only be Westdeutscher Rundfunk , that is because of the political slant of that corporation!
So please do not try to argue that we need public broadcasting because of its political impartiality.
That is a total myth, nothing else, and it is misleading for the public!
<P>
What we have here today is something quite different.
I tried to point out during the first debate with Parliament that we should not let ourselves be drawn into this discussion.
In the first place, the public television companies have a right to exist.
Of course they have, if they are doing a job.
If you read the Amsterdam protocol properly you will see exactly what it says, namely that no treaty provision may be annulled; of course it cannot.
The competition rules remain in force.
If the Member States want to apply the right to operate public companies, then they would be well advised to begin by defining what that public purpose is in the first place.
But I do not want to pursue this further, otherwise I will be making the same mistake you made, namely concentrating on this question.
<P>
The key question is a quite different one.
We are seeing closer convergence not only of the technology of various media and communications areas, but also, therefore, of content.
I do not know who said this, I think it was Mrs Thors, and Mr Hendrick also pointed it out, but of course today we can obtain all forms of content via the Internet.
We can telephone through the Internet.
The question that interests us right now is not how to guarantee the continued existence of public television companies.
That would be like having a discussion on agricultural policy in the context of economic policy in which every farmer asks whether his son can still be a farmer in the future.
Likewise, you go to a television company today and every journalist asks whether journalism has a future. Can my son still become an editor or head of department in a public television company?
<P>
Mr Wolf, a little while ago I accused you of vulgar Marxism.
You obviously took that very much to heart.
I do not know what this is about, perhaps vulgar corporatism or something like that.
But that is not the point.
The point is whether we can apply the rules we currently have in telephony to the provision and use of Internet telephone services.
The question is, according to what rules can purchasing agreements, for instance, be concluded on the Internet?
As Mr van Velzen rightly pointed out, these are the real problems!
And does the report mention any of this?
Not in the least.
You are chasing shadows, talking about things that will never happen!
Just as I said at the time about the deregulation of telecommunications, there will no disadvantages for the consumer.
On the contrary, when you look at telephone charges today - in fact they are no longer charges, they are prices - when you look at the various offers, you discover that everyone benefits greatly from this.
Meanwhile, the job losses that initially occurred with the earlier monopoly companies, because these were unproductive jobs, have actually been offset.
We still have a positive balance here today.
<P>
Mrs Pailler, as a member of a Communist party, you are quite right to consider this question.
We are counting on the creation of a substantial number of jobs in a few areas, including precisely the area of telecommunications, over the next few years.
We already have about 500 000 new jobs in the Union, and we reckon on another 1.5 million jobs by the year 2005.
If we do not create the appropriate market conditions, we will simply find others trying to take over that market.
Today, if you want to accept an offer on the Internet, you will find it virtually impossible to identify the source of that offer, and if we want to make all this impossible by trying to apply the restrictive rules of traditional telephony, we might as well say goodbye to the whole business!
Then it will not happen here.
That is the real problem.
We asked questions about this in the Green Paper.
I admit that those to whom we sent the Green Paper were rather conservative in their replies.
They are - well, I do not want to insult anyone again, but it is nothing personal when I insult you.
I am quite prepared to work together with you, but your response to the Green Paper is inadequate, with a few exceptions, as a means of supporting us in our efforts.
<P>
Mr Gallagher?
He is gone too.
The sporting events he described to us again with such aplomb are matters that have all been settled already.
There has been a European Union rule for more than a year now which leaves it up to the Member State to decide whether access to certain outstanding sporting events is free.
So that no longer needs saying here.
He puts it forward with great aplomb as a contribution to the debate, and a few people clap because it is such fun.
You could say that if Newcastle United played against - I can't think of an Irish club at this moment - let us say some Dublin team, the game must be accessible to everyone.
Of course it must, we have already decided that.
That is not the problem.
The problem is that if this game is to be freely accessible, can it only be made accessible by a public company or could a private TV company do so too?
These are the kind of questions that arise.
<P>
I was also told that first we must see how things develop, and then we would have to react as fast as possible.
True enough.
But we have two trends that we cannot control.
The first is the rapid development of technology, the other, as Carsten Hoppenstedt said, is that we are living in a global system.
That means we can no longer lay down rules for ourselves alone.
You have not yet realised, if I may say so, that the general, traditional regulatory framework we have is inadequate here, for two reasons.
Firstly, because we can never keep pace with the speed of technical progress.
We need at least two years to get a directive through, by which time, of course, everything may have changed entirely.
<P>
Secondly, if we did manage to keep pace with developments, we would never achieve global rules.
That is precisely why we are now trying to produce global rules for the Internet with the participation of private companies.
It would have been nice to have answers or contributions to the debate that could have helped us on our way.
I hope that will be the case in future discussions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, many thanks to the Commissioner for what was a very colourful and arresting speech.
I would, however, say that there can be no information society without rights, either in Europe or the world at large.
That is something we want to assert strongly.
It is why we have traffic regulations and other rules.
There are no phantoms in the report, as you suggested, since we now have enormous international global companies that operate in these regions and spend larger sums of money than many EU Member States.
The big question is how we can work together so that both culture and business and firms both large and small can operate successfully.
For this reason we need some sort of framework.
I do not think we disagree on this issue. It is an important one.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr Paasilinna, I did not dispute the fact that we need a regulatory system.
I said so myself at the end of my statement. We need a regulatory framework which is appropriate to technical progress, to its speed and to globalisation.
That is what we need.
It is a regulatory system.
But that is something different from the traditional rules, directives and regulations we normally produce here.
That is the problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Bangemann.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Third stage of EMU
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0341/98) by Mr Giansily, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on foreign currency reserves in the third stage of EMU.
<P>
I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mr Giansily, for five minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="Giansily">
Ladies and gentlemen, what are the currency reserves of the central banks used for?
This question was at the root of the debate we had in the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs and in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on this own-initiative report that I have the honour to present to you.
<P>
The first use of these reserves is to enable intervention in the exchange market when there are major disruptions and especially when there are attacks against the currency concerned, which are mainly massive sales of currency that cause the price to fall.
The second use is to cover balance of payments external deficits.
Having pointed this out, let us now look at what is stated in the Treaty establishing the European Central Bank. In Article 30(1) it states 'that the European Central Bank shall be provided by the national central banks with foreign reserve assets, other than Member States' currencies, ECUs, IMF reserve positions and special drawing rights, up to an amount equivalent to 50 billion euros.'
<P>
Naturally, the removal of the need to have exchange reserves among the 11 currencies that, through the application of the principle of fungibility, will become subdivisions of the euro on 1 January, could lead us to believe that a substantial proportion of the reserves in question will become useless and that this supposed excess of reserves could be used elsewhere.
In other words, once the reserve of 50 billion euros has been set up - in fact, as 50 billion euros was planned for 15 countries, this sum is reduced to 40 billion euros for 11 countries, 39.46 billion euros to be precise -, we can estimate that the excess that will remain in the coffers of the banks that are members of the ESCB will represent around 400 billion dollars.
<P>
This is why one could, through a somewhat summary analysis, imagine that those funds might be redistributed on the economic circuit by massive injections into the markets of the reserves that have thus become useless.
I held the opposite opinion in the debates in the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and I would like to thank my fellow committee members for supporting me on this point, and particularly Fernand Herman, who improved my draft without actually altering it.
<P>
We must not, in fact, believe that the euro will be the sum of the 11 currencies that are going to be absorbed: it will be something else entirely.
It will be, above all, another great world currency, as President Jacques Chirac called it, and its role as an exchange stabiliser will be the first truly positive act in the world monetary system since President Nixon's unilateral denunciation of the Bretton Woods agreements on 15 August 1971.
The euro is a new currency, it has been well received by global operators since it has become clear that it is really going to come into circulation, and on the global monetary market it will find itself mainly in competition with the dollar, while the ESCB will have a reserve of 400 billion dollars.
Injecting massive amounts of the American currency into the market, with the risk of causing it to fall and thereby increasing the competitiveness of the products of our principal competitor on the world industrial and agricultural markets, would be completely counter-productive in economic terms.
<P>
We therefore need to be extremely cautious and, as a consequence, not lose sight of the fact that the quality of the euro will be assessed according to three main criteria.
The first of these will be the ability of the governments of the 11 countries involved to respect the stability pact and, consequently, to keep, dare I say it, the spirit of Maastricht alive.
The second will be the ability of the directors of the European Central Bank and the ESCB to give credibility to the management of this currency, notably through the amount of outstanding credit that will be granted.
The third will be the response in terms of reserves in the event of 'disfiducia ' concerning our new currency.
In this particular case, it is better to be envied than pitied and to preserve and keep what we have.
<P>
I will conclude with two points.
Our committee thus approves the decision dated 8 July to make an initial transfer in gold of 15 % of the exchange reserve assets from the national central banks to the European Central Bank.
The second point is that we also want a gold euro coin to be minted, the value of which is still to be decided, but which in the future would be an important marker in the general disorder that has been reigning for too long on the world capital market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Metten">
Mr President, one of the major changes which the euro will bring is that 11 countries which are strongly or very strongly exposed to exchange rate risks will immediately become a single zone which is only very slightly exposed to such a risk.
The average exposure to exchange rate fluctuations will be reduced by a factor of three, while foreign currency reserves will remain unchanged.
That is a luxury.
The other principal reason for keeping foreign currency reserves, namely a balance of payments deficit, will also not apply to the euro-11 zone.
Unlike the United States with its huge deficit, the EU in fact has a modest surplus.
Yet despite this large balance of payments deficit, the United States has relatively modest foreign currency reserves, opting to print new dollars instead.
This is all very well as long as there is no alternative to the dollar as a world currency.
The euro provides just such an alternative, and as a result the US will have to take a more critical look at its balance of payments deficit.
At the present time, with the global economy on the brink of crisis, this balance of payments deficit, which is just a symptom of an even greater US trade deficit, is the principal motor for the global economy.
Without the US deficits, the rest of the world would be unable to build up surpluses.
The privilege of being a global currency therefore also brings responsibilities in respect of the global economy.
In practice, the US helps provide liquidity in the world trade system, even if largely at the expense of the rest of the world, the so-called seignorage which comes with issuing the global currency.
<P>
The question now is whether or not Europe is prepared to take on, even if only in part, this role currently played by the United States.
The euro will certainly mean the end of an all-powerful dollar.
The euro will become a trading, monetary and reserve currency.
There will be seignorage and the euro will be stashed away in safes and socks.
The euro zone will grow rich at the expense of the rest of the world, but are we going to give the rest of the world anything in return, apart from a stable currency to hoard and to pay with?
The answer could be yes, if the euro further appreciates in value.
Although this would not be good for the internal economy, as it would worsen our competitive position, it could prove necessary as a result of our global responsibility.
It would be the quickest route to a situation in which Europe would also contribute to economic recovery in Asia, the former Soviet Union and Latin America.
With a more expensive euro, our trading partners in the second and third world can more easily export themselves out of misery, just as Europe recently did by virtue of the high dollar.
<P>
But what has such a philosophy to do with the Giansily report? A great deal.
Because the vast quantities of foreign currency reserves held by the European System of Central Banks, USD 400 000 million, would most certainly make the euro more expensive if they were released onto the market in large quantities.
The Giansily report argues against doing this at present, partly in the belief that a more expensive euro is undesirable at the present time.
I should like to see the surplus reserves released more quickly onto the market, because a more expensive euro can act as a much-needed additional motor for the international economy.
Also, because the euro zone is a much more closed economy than that of the 11 individual countries which comprise it, the euro zone will be better able to cope with a more expensive euro.
One thing is clear, however.
The euro will not automatically become a global currency.
We must also earn it, and have the courage to assume our global responsibilities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Christodoulou">
Mr President, let me thank Mr Giansily for his excellent analysis and for his efforts to deal with a difficult subject.
<P>
The entry into operation of Economic and Monetary Union, and consequently too the European Central Bank's assumption of responsibility for monetary policy, coincide with a period of exchange-rate fluctuations and pressures which, I would like to hope, are temporary but, as it seems, are not an isolated phenomenon but one that is fairly generalised and needs careful and prudent handling.
<P>
For that reason, the management of foreign reserve assets is extremely important from the very beginning.
In fact dealing with the crisis will entail coordinated action and international cooperation, which unfortunately does not seem to be happening at the moment, especially between countries whose currencies occupy an important position in the world economy.
So determination of the optimum level of foreign reserve assets will depend to a large extent on the efforts to stabilise the euro, particularly against the dollar.
It is also vitally important to lay down clear rules for the exercise of the powers granted by the Treaty to the national central banks, so that decentralised foreign exchange interventions can be effective and will not go against the objectives we hope to achieve.
Of course, the sums involved are not very large, and with the enormous volume of money that is circulating internationally, foreign exchange reserves sometimes appear too small to be able to withstand difficulties.
<P>
However, it should be noted that in the early stages of a profiteering raid, well organised and coordinated intervention by the central banks can have the effect of preventing profiteering from getting out of hand.
And this is precisely where foreign exchange reserves play a major part.
That is why we should not hurry to reduce them.
Reductions will be made by the national banks according to circumstances: if they see that the conditions require or allow a reduction of foreign reserve assets, they will reduce them.
If the conditions are otherwise, then they will naturally hold on to those assets.
Consequently, I think we should deal with the issue more calmly, in other words we should not propose reductions of foreign reserve assets until the situation becomes clearer and we are in a position to decide that there is no need for interventions of the type I mentioned earlier, which anticipate more general crises.
<P>
On the subject of utilising foreign reserve assets for other purposes, I must say that foreign reserve assets are not something we keep hidden in a drawer and which we can take out when we like and use for anything we want.
They are already resources in circulation, they are in use, countries have invested them, and consequently they are not just there like something that grows on trees, to be used as we wish.
I therefore think that we should have been rather more conservative in the amendments we tabled, and for that reason my group, having consulted those who introduced those amendments, would prefer not to adopt this rather superficial and premature approach to the problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, today we are discussing something quite sensational, namely that there is money in the bank and everyone seems to admit that it is in a sense money surplus to requirements.
We know from everyday experience that it is not that easy to get it out of the bank.
And what Mr Christodoulou said is quite true: we must look at the circumstances and not be too hasty.
But we really should accept the arguments Mr Metten put forward here, namely that an economic area which does away with the old concepts of external and internal trade and then, to be realistic, still has a foreign trade dependence of less than 10 %, does not need the same currency reserves as the pre-euro economic area, with its foreign trade share of somewhere around 60 %.
<P>
Secondly, the balance of payments is in fact positive, structurally positive, and that is no mere chance.
Consequently, it is important to realise that these two factors together produce a potential quantity of surplus money in the hands of the European system of central banks.
Of course we will not manage to get hold of it by breaking in with a crowbar - that would indeed be silly - but we shall have to liberate it and use it for purposes compatible with the aim of stabilisation in the euro zone, perhaps in the framework of the European Investment Bank.
I believe that is the point we are discussing today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Castagnède">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we share Mr Giansily's point of view in that we are against reducing the reserve assets of the ESCB during the changeover phase to the introduction of the euro. However, we share this point of view on the basis of an analysis that is not exactly in keeping with that of our rapporteur.
<P>
Mr Giansily expresses, in fact he endorses, an opinion that states that a level of exchange reserve assets of around 400 billion dollars would be excessive in terms of international standards.
However, one could question the nature or the relevance of the standards to which he is referring.
Obviously, the introduction of the euro, in a geographical area where trade will take place mainly between the participants, will reduce the need to cover possible external deficits.
<P>
We feel, however, that the need to have the ability to intervene in order to prevent disruptions on the currency markets has been underestimated.
It has been underestimated firstly in respect of the economic risk presented by monetary disruptions associated with the fluctuation of considerable flows of private capital; we should recall that the loss of wealth through the devaluation of shares that followed the crisis that began in Asia a little over a year ago is estimated at between $1 600 billion and $3 500 billion. It has also been underestimated in respect of the role we believe the euro should play in stabilising monetary relations in the world and even in reorganising the international monetary system.
<P>
A significant stock of reserve assets is likely to act as an effective deterrent against monetary turbulence. That is one of the main reasons, along with that set out by Mr Giansily, for ensuring that we do not give in to the temptation to reduce the reserve assets of the ESCB.
<P>
So monetary union will have the effect of transforming a fraction of the exchange reserves of the national central banks into internal assets.
We think that this fraction could be usefully employed in some cases to reduce public deficits or for investment spending that supports growth and employment.
This would in some way be a bonus for joining the euro that could make it even more acceptable to the citizens of the countries taking part and encourage those countries that are still reluctant to participate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, Commissioner, the Giansily report explains extremely well how part of the reserves of the national central banks will be pooled in the future single currency system and how the relations between those banks and the European Central Bank will be organised in order to manage them.
<P>
Nevertheless, we would like to ask here for clarification on two points.
Firstly, what will be the exact relationship between the ECB and the national central banks with regard to the management of the free reserves, that is, the reserves that fall outside the 39.46 billion euros that will be placed at the disposal of the Central Bank, in accordance with the Statute?
Article 31 of the Statute of the ESCB mentions the possibility of authorisation from the European Central Bank for the most significant operations carried out by the national central banks.
This authorisation is therefore provided for in the Treaty, but it is quite an outrageous procedure concerning reserves that, in principle, remain entirely the property of the Member States.
We would very much like to know at least what the limits are.
<P>
Secondly, will exchange reserves in gold be physically transferred to Frankfurt or not?
The Giansily report is not entirely clear on this point. It leaves the issue open to several interpretations.
You know, Commissioner, that the French Minister for Economic Affairs, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, took a very clear position on this before the French National Assembly.
When he was questioned on 31 March by members of our Assembly's committee on finance, he stated very reassuringly that the ECU 50 billion that is the sum of the contributions to the European System of Central Banks will remain the property of the various Member States.
He then added that only the management of the reserves was transferred and that for the currencies and bonds concerned, it is only a matter of simply signing them over, while the gold will stay in the cellars of the Banque de France, without even being physically transferred.
<P>
I would therefore like us to be equally reassured of this at a European level and to be given confirmation that there will be no physical transfer, as this does not seem to me to be essential, from a technical point of view, for the smooth running of the system.
<P>
Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to recall that, two months away from the introduction of the euro, some very important issues have still not been clarified, such as the exact degree to which the Council is involved in defining the exchange-rate policy, the democratic control of monetary union or the resolution of liquidity crises.
These ambiguities obviously reflect, in my opinion, structural defects.
The International Monetary Fund has recently expressed its concern about this, stating that there will be an increase in systematic risks to the banking system at the time when the single currency is introduced, due to the fact that a large number of important decisions have not been taken.
<P>
To conclude, we do not know where we are going, but we are going anyway.
This seems to be the motto of our politicians, who are caught up in the spiral of their so-called irreversible commitments to the single currency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, I congratulate Mr Giansily on his balanced report and agree with him that the extremely high currency reserves may act as a necessary safety net during the transitional period.
A successful speculative attack on the single currency during this phase could in effect have serious implications for the European economy and do considerable damage.
It is clear, however, that surplus currency reserves of up to USD 200 billion must not remain unused in the long term.
In my view, it is therefore quite legitimate to begin considering even at this stage how this money could be used in future to combat the high unemployment rate in Europe.
In any event, it would be unjustifiable to leave it lying around unused any longer than is absolutely necessary.
<P>
Everybody knows that neither the Community nor most of the Member States have enough funds for research.
Here the situation is markedly better in the United States and Japan.
With more support for research and innovation, we could manage to make our firms more competitive and thereby give impetus to employment policies.
In particular, this would enable us to strengthen the SMEs - which form the backbone of the EU - in terms of technology and also make them more competitive.
So let me conclude by calling for the surplus currency reserves to be targeted at practical research programmes, when the time comes, so that we can successfully tackle our main problem, namely massive unemployment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herman">
Mr President, Mr Castagn&#x010D;de is right, the reserves are not only necessary for settling international payments.
They are necessary, too, in order to intervene in the markets and they also serve to offset the issuing of the currency.
So people are wrong when they think that the reserves can be put back into the budget to be used for something else.
That money does not belong to the State, or to the budget, but to the banks.
Even when the banks are completely nationalised, in order to reduce reserves, there has to be a reduction in the currency circulation that offsets it.
So for goodness' sake, let us think a little about the basic workings of the currency in Europe.
Before using money that is not there, for political objectives, we must take account of how the current banking system actually works.
<P>
Having said that, I completely support Mr Giansily, especially as at the start, when we still do not know how things are going to develop, it is essential to have a minimum amount of reserves in order to be able to play the markets.
<P>
I know that it will be rather through changes in interest rates that we will be able to influence prices, but we also know that it is better to have several strings to our bow than just one.
If it broke, we would be left with nothing. But when we have considerable reserves here, we can intervene if the manipulation of or changes in interest rates are not enough to deter some speculative attacks on the future euro.
<P>
This, Mr President, is why I completely support the Giansily report and we will vote in favour of most of the other amendments that have been tabled, apart from taking account of the fact that some of them could be modified in order to take the international economic climate into consideration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, the creation of the euro zone means that the Member States with a relatively very open economy will immediately be part of a relatively closed economy.
As a result, a large part of the present official external reserves will in time prove to be superfluous.
In due course, they can therefore be disposed of.
But it must be done in a way which does not cause market turbulence.
Care is required.
The European System of Central Banks must be on its guard.
There is no reason to suppose that it will not be.
In this respect, the resolution we have before us supports the proposed policy.
<P>
Part of the problem will solve itself.
Around one quarter of the present official external reserves are in currencies which will be converted into the euro.
From 1 January 1999 these will no longer be part of the reserves, but internal resources.
There is no question of them being used to pay off the national debt.
Monetary financing is in any event prohibited by the Treaty.
<P>
In this debate, we must be careful not to be solely concerned with a euro which is valued too high against the US dollar.
In fact, a relatively strong euro stimulates US imports and hinders European exports, while a weak euro is very attractive for US companies contemplating merging with or even taking over European companies, which is not the intention either.

<P>
We believe there is one conclusion to be drawn from this: the internal price stability of the euro must always be the priority.
The euro's external value is the result of monetary policy.
Depending on the possibilities offered on international currency markets, the official external reserves can be reduced to a lower level.
Payments to international organisations, such as the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund, are an excellent means of doing this.
But we must always remain very attentive to the impact of this on exchange rates.
The necessary changes having been made, this also applies to reducing the gold reserve.
I do not much like the idea of a gold euro coin - it would be a strange symbol of European unity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Peijs">
Mr President, I congratulate Mr Giansily on his judicious report.
The report concludes that the 330 billion in foreign reserves can ultimately be reduced.
I agree.
The American Federal Reserve Bank keeps relatively smaller reserves, and in the future the US situation will be comparable to that of Europe.
The Federal Reserve adopts a policy of benign neglect with regard to the dollar's external value, comparable to what is expected to be the approach of the European Central Bank.
In terms of openness and exports, the US economy as a bloc is also comparable to the future euro zone.
The central banks themselves also have cause to keep an efficient quantity of foreign reserves, since in future part of the income from foreign reserves will be added to the reserves of the national banks.
In the Netherlands, the ratio is 95 % to 5 %, with 95 % going to the state.
A less than optimal mix will result in reduced transfers to the reserves.
<P>
But foreign reserves are necessary.
At the end of December 1998, it may be possible to intervene on a large scale on foreign currency markets against the agreed rates.
Until that time German marks, French francs and so on can be used.
After that, the European Central Bank will start to apply its monetary policy.
Assets in German marks and French francs will then automatically be domestic assets.
But a considerable proportion will remain in dollars and gold.
For the durability and credibility of the bank, it may be important to keep significant reserves.
I should like to ask the Commissioner to what extent he has received signals that the financial markets believe in the rates which have been established.
<P>
One more very urgent matter, Mr Commissioner.
There is already some discussion in the Netherlands of how the euro coins and notes are going to be introduced.
The scenario of the legal big bang, which is supported by the Dutch Parliament, makes it necessary to distribute euro coins and notes before 1 January 2002 when they are not yet legal tender, in the same way as a tourist buys pesetas before going to Spain.
He is not yet able to use them.
This so-called 'frontloading' requires permission from the Central Bank.
Will the Commission and the European Central Bank try to reach a speedy and positive decision on this point?
For the rest, I am indeed in favour of gold coins, and precisely for that reason, Mr Blokland.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García-Margallo y Marfil">
I should like to thank the rapporteur for this fine report.
Commissioner, it has been said, with slight Gallic exaggeration, that the introduction of the euro is the most important event which has taken place in Europe since 1917.
It is certainly true, however, that we Europeans have been absorbed by the internal repercussions of the euro and have been slow to consider its external impact.
<P>
Conditions inside and outside the Union have changed since the Washington Conference two years ago, at which these matters were first raised, and even since the spring, when the decision on the countries to be included in the first group was taken.
Forecasts for growth have been revised downwards, as a result of the Asian crisis, the Russian crisis, the Latin American crisis and the fall in the value of the dollar, as the Commissioner has mentioned this very afternoon.
In these circumstances, we should be glad that the report recommends prudent handling of the reserves.
The key question, Commissioner, is this: in these circumstances, what action has to be taken to ensure that the euro does not become too expensive and does not make our exports dearer, threatening jobs?
In the present situation, prudent handling of the reserves alone will not suffice to save us from such consequences. Development has already been slowed down enough.
As the report states, what is required now is greater coordination between the governments concerned, and between European governments and the governments of countries outside the Union regarding the management of the international monetary system.
It will be difficult to achieve such coordination until the euro makes its presence felt on the wider political scene. It will be difficult too to review the system or set up a system like Bretton Woods until the euro is managed by a political authority, until we install a pilot at the helm of the vessel we are about to launch.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Porto">
I shall begin by congratulating Mr Giansily on his magnificent report with which I agree.
Apart from some more technical problems, the main concern when the reserves of the European Central Bank are created must be the dollar reserve assets at its disposal.
<P>
They come to an enormous amount, some US$ 400 billion, the 'legacy' of the reserves of the various national central banks. No useful or immediate use can be found for them, if we bear in mind that trade between euro-countries will no longer be external trade.
Realistically, we might foresee the need, even in the future, for between US$ 50 billion and 200 bn, i.e. only one eighth or, at most, one half of what is at the Bank's disposal.
<P>
We must not be tempted by any objective, however noble, for using these reserves at once, flooding the world markets with dollars and drastically reducing that currency's value against the euro.
<P>
A strong euro might be attractive for prestige's sake but we must also maintain the competitiveness of the European economy.
Realistically that would be jeopardised if the euro were to be over-valued.
The European business community would react against such a move and that would lead to less investment and, in turn, to fewer jobs.
<P>
The credibility of a currency, after all, does not depend only on very high parities.
If it is to be genuinely and durably credible its parity must be the right one externally, which in turn will depend on its internal stability. We must therefore do all we can to ensure that the stability and growth pact is achieved, as the rapporteur rightly stressed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendes Bota">
... but his plans to use some of the reserves of the euro zone Member States' central banks - an idea shared, as it happens, by Lionel Jospin - for taking a major political initiative to boost economic recovery in Europe, with job creation as the main target, fail to provide the necessary safeguards.
<P>
That is mainly because the proposal still applies very little rigour to the so-called surplus currency reserves of the European System of Central Banks.
It is true that, with the advent of the euro and stage three of Economic and Monetary Union, the exchange risk inherent in transactions using national currencies will be considerably reduced.
It is also true that most external trade will be transformed into internal trade, because it will take place within the euro zone itself, drastically reducing the need for currency reserves as a means of international payment.
<P>
But the exact size of that surplus is still a mystery.
Figures quoted range from US$ 50 billion to as much as US$ 300 bn.
Nor can it be ascertained for sure that reserves are the same as surpluses, especially since sizeable reserves set up in DEM will automatically be converted into euros as of 1 January next, and will no longer be regarded as currency reserves.
They will become internal assets.
<P>
On the other hand, it will not be easy to violate the broad autonomy granted to the national central banks for managing their own reserves, and make them use those reserves in specific ways to suit the political decisions taken by the Member States' governments.
This all suggests that the right strategy will prevail, namely a hands-off approach to the management of assets held by the ESCB. That would reduce the risk of a sharp depreciation of the dollar against the euro, something that would be disastrous for exporters in the European Union.
<P>
Maintaining a significant volume of currency reserves in dollars and yen will undoubtedly be the best safeguard for preventing the speculative turmoil that might hit international financial markets in this stage of transition towards the euro. That will enable stability measures to be taken so that the euro can earn prestige, based on soundness and credibility, as a major international reference currency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="de Silguy">
Mr President, I promise to give as global and as brief a speech as possible, and I thank you for agreeing to prolong this debate slightly.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, at a time when the European Central Bank is establishing how it is going to function, it is right that Mr Giansily is calling on you to discuss the problem of currency reserves in the third stage of EMU.
<P>
First of all, I must point out that I am speaking here today without prejudice, of course, to the position of the European Central Bank, which, under Article 105, is responsible for managing the reserves.
I do not wish to interfere with the independence of this institution.
<P>
In general, the Commission agrees with most of the analysis made by the rapporteur.
However, there is one point on which I would like to speak, as it could cause problems for us. It is the question of the optimum level of exchange reserve assets.
Of course, there will no longer be a need to intervene in the exchange markets in order to stabilise exchange rates between the currencies of the participating countries, and this obviously removes the need to keep reserves for this purpose.
However, moving from that position to deducing that the total amount of reserves held by the ESCB will be higher than the optimum level of exchange reserve assets requires a step to be taken, and I hesitate to take that step, because we are not sure how we should estimate an optimum level of exchange reserves.
Mr Wolf, exchange assets are not superfluous money lying dormant in the coffers of the national central banks, and as I think Mr Herman rightly pointed out, the amount should not be exaggerated and its usefulness should not be underestimated.
<P>
I think that, in the context of the euro area, to answer this question we need to consider a series of factors.
Firstly, even after the introduction of the euro, on 1 January 1999, the exchange reserves of the euro area will still be considerably less than those held by the main Asian countries.
I am thinking here, for example, of China, whose ratio of exchange reserves to external trade will be twice that of the euro area.
However, China does not have a convertible currency.
<P>
Secondly, for industrialised countries at least, the traditional link between the volume of international trade and the level of exchange reserves needed is in any case extremely difficult to establish for reasons associated with free movement and the liberalisation of capital movements.
I have consulted a whole series of studies in order to try to estimate, to quantify, the surplus level of reserves within the ESCB.
I have seen results that vary from zero to 200 billion euros - 200 billion dollars -, and that is the how vague the results are.
<P>
The third important factor is that the national central banks will adjust their balance to the introduction of the euro.
The changeover to the euro will therefore automatically diminish the reserves in European central banks for purely technical reasons, notably the removal of reserves in currencies that are going to become part of the euro, for example, the reserves of German marks in the Banque de France.
<P>
Fourthly, high exchange reserves are an effective means of maintaining the banking system with its structural need for liquid assets.
By definition, this is essential for the sound running of monetary policy and for defining interest rates.
<P>
The fifth factor is that a high level of reserves in the ESCB will contribute to its credibility, which is absolutely essential at the launch.
It would be inappropriate for us to now reduce that credibility, especially considering the turbulence that we are experiencing on the financial markets.
I would like to remind you, and particularly Mr Metten, that if the credibility of the ESCB were affected, the credibility of the euro would also be affected, and this could, in fact, lead to a rise in interest rates, which is completely the opposite result to what we are seeking by introducing the euro.
You can be assured that the reserves are not there to turn Europe into an international powerhouse, but if there is a need to inject liquid assets into the system, there are other means of doing it apart from liquidating the reserves, which would affect the credibility of the currency.
I think, however, that this point was strongly and rightly highlighted by your rapporteur.
<P>
To conclude, while congratulating Mr Giansily on his serious analysis and cautious conclusions, I would like to point out that in this field - and I think this was highlighted by Mr Christodoulou, who is more skilled than I am in this respect having been the governor of a central bank -, only experience will allow us to decide on the appropriate level for exchange reserves, and this is principally the work and the responsibility of the ESCB.
<P>
The Commission therefore has every confidence that this task will be adequately carried out by the members of the Governing Council of the Central Bank.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr de Silguy.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 7.25 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Protection of workers
<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0353/98) by Mr Correia, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Directive amending for the second time Directive 90/394/EEC on the protection of workers from the risks related to exposure to carcinogens at work (COM(98)0170 - C4-0310/98-98/0093(SYN)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="Correia">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this report deals with the Commission proposal amending for the second time Directive 90/394/EEC on the protection of workers from the risks related to carcinogens at work.
<P>
The main purpose of this proposal is to extend the scope of the existing Directive to include hardwood dusts (oak and beech), category I and II mutogens and vinyl chloride monomer.
<P>
Pursuant to Article 118A of the Treaty on European Union, the Council must adopt, by means of directives, the minimum provisions to promote the improvement of working conditions and guarantee workers the highest level of health and safety protection.
We welcome any initiative taken to achieve that and this is one such initiative.
It is, however, a shame that the Commission did not take this opportunity to broaden the scope of the directive even further to consolidate the provisions of Directive 83/477/EEC on wood dust. The failure to amend the established general framework means that significant difficulties would arise should the Member States or the Court of Justice opt for a restrictive interpretation of the provisions of that directive.
Furthermore, under the terms of Article 118A, we are supposed not to impose any 'administrative, financial and legal constraints which might inhibit the development of SMEs'.
<P>
During discussions on this report, we were told by the Commission representative that an impact study had been carried out into these constraints but, as far as we know, it has not been published. We do not therefore know what the consequences of the publication of this directive might have on SMEs.
<P>
It was against this background that we tried, with welcome help from other Members of Parliament, to reconcile workers' inalienable right to health with the desirability of financially healthy businesses, with special emphasis on SMEs, the main job creators, but also not forgetting the major industries in this sector.
Nor could we overlook the fact that in the European Union there are more than 42 000 industries, the overwhelming majority SMEs, employing around 1.9 billion workers.
At a time when the main priority is fighting unemployment we must create tax and financial incentives or derogations to make sure that costs of applying this directive are kept as low as possible and do not fall solely on the shoulders of the entrepreneurs, as that would have a knock-on effect on their workers. Any bankruptcies caused would naturally lead to job losses.
<P>
As to protecting workers' health, which is the main focus of our approach, we understand that the Commission will have to take into account - as it rightly proposes - levels which are about average for the limit values encountered at the workplace.
We should mention in passing that there are no accurate scientifically proven figures - opinions vary from 2 to 20 mg per m3 .
The choice of 5 mg/m3 is not based on any scientific evidence but it seems to me to be pitched about right.
We cannot say the same of the types of wood covered by this proposal for a directive.
Although it has been scientifically proven that oak and beech dust may be carcinogenic and, when inhaled, cause nasal adenocarcinomas, we think that, given the biochemical similarities of various other hardwoods, and based on estimates, this directive should as a preventive measure include all hardwood types - which does not mean that research into the potential carcinogenicity of wood dust when inhaled should not be continued, as long as it is extended to cover all types of wood.
<P>
We have tabled some amendments to the Commission text on the basis of these arguments.
Bearing in mind that the vote in the Committee on Social Affairs on these amendments was unanimous, we hope that the Commission will accept them and amend its initial proposal.
Finally, I should like to thank everyone who contributed to my report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 NAME="Skinner">
I welcome this report from Mr Correia because I know that considerable hard work has gone into it.
Health and safety is not the most popular pastime in the European Parliament, but within the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs Mr Correia has spent some time developing what I hope will be a future career in this area.
The committee has achieved certain compromises which, I believe, will effectively win a proper vote in plenary this week.
<P>
The carcinogenic effects of hard wood, as we have just heard, have been of the greatest concern to the European Union's Member States.
The fact that we now embrace all hard woods in this particular directive is a sensible start.
The limit values which have been set, as Mr Correia indicates, are for a common European standard.
Of course each Member State will be able to set standards much higher than that - that is up to them, but one thing is quite clear: this is something which will be revised in years to come and which, I am sure, we will all wish to revisit in order to be able to accord the highest standards to workers in the industry across the European Union.
This is nevertheless a start.
<P>
I will say that in terms of those compromises financial assistance for such changes is something which will perhaps cause some concern, and maybe the Commission may respond to that particular issue.
We have clearly indicated that we can no longer tolerate the carcinogenic effects in these particular industries where the mass production of wood dust which people breathe in clearly leads to the mutagens which cause unidentified mass illness and sickness within our Community every year for many of our unprotected workers.
<P>
I would like to end here with a quick remark to say that Mr Correia has spent a difficult and courageous time discussing this in committee at times and I commend his report to all here today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Pronk">
Mr President, health and safety is a subject of great importance to us all.
The European man in the street regards it as one of his most prized assets.
And the European Union has done a very great deal for health and safety as part of its social policy.
Numerous directives have been issued and this is one of them.
Each directive seeks to address an area which is not as yet regulated and which is harmful to health.
<P>
But the hapless reader finds it rather difficult to pick his way through the maze of directives.
So before I deal with the rest of the report, I have a question for the Commission.
Might it not be possible for the Commission to have a study carried out, by the University in Florence, for example - I see that Mr Monti is with us and so the University in Florence immediately comes to mind - to see if the whole body of directives might not be made rather easier to navigate through, arranged according to a different ranking system.
I know that Florence tried to do that with the European Treaty, and quite successfully, though unfortunately it has not been emulated by the policy-makers.
I would like to propose something of the kind here and ask you if a study on the matter might be commissioned.
<P>
Regarding the directive, I must compliment Mr Correia on all his hard work.
I think it is very important that he sought to broaden the issue a little.
The point he mentioned just now, whether or not effects were scientifically proven, is a rather difficult one.
I think he has managed to secure some good compromises here.
I think that too is something on which we should congratulate him.
<P>
We did not in fact support all the amendments.
We voted against two of them, Amendments Nos 1 and 2.
Amendment No 1 because it is not clear what is meant by a transitional period.
Is that the normal transitional period, or is it one which starts when this directive comes into force?
That is not clear at all.
It creates confusion.
Amendment No 2 is wrong in principle, because Member States are asked to give financial aid to companies in difficulties.
Those kinds of problems have to be solved under our system by the directives themselves.
And I want to hear the Commission's view on that, which will doubtless be forthcoming.
<P>
I have no problems at all with the rest of the opinion, indeed I am very pleased with it.
I would like to see the first two amendments scrapped, though.
I trust the majority of the House will agree with me on that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Mr President, the Commission's proposal for the carcinogens directive to include exposure to wood dust from oak and beech wood is an excellent one.
There is good reason to adopt this approach.
Directives have to be supplemented as we acquire more scientific evidence, such as the evidence we have now obtained on oak and beech wood.
As for other hardwoods, we can state, on the basis of research, that they are likely to have carcinogenic effects on human beings, but that has yet to be conclusively proven.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has decided to apply the precautionary principle in this matter and propose that the directive cover all hardwood trees.
<P>
There is, however, no such proof in respect of softwood trees.
These produce a softer wood than the harder deciduous trees, which makes their dust less harmful.
For example, there is still no scientific evidence to suggest that there is any danger of cancer with Finland's main industrial timber types: pine, spruce, and birch.
Naturally the directive will have to be amended again if we acquire new data on these.
However, it is hardly worth broadening the directive to include all species of tree at this stage, as there is no evidence to justify doing so.
<P>
We nonetheless have to remember that possible carcinogenicity is not the only problem with wood dust.
All wood dust causes health problems, such as allergies, but this is an area outside the scope of the directive.
<P>
The Commission finally proposed a limit value for hardwood dust of five milligrams per cubic metre, which is very high.
In many countries that will not mean any change at all to the situation that already exists.
Our committee, however, agreed to the high limit value once it had received an assurance from the Commission that the value would be amended downwards.
We did hear that such a proposal might appear even within the next two years.
<P>
If the health of workers is to be protected at the workplace, there must be an assurance that people at work are in no way exposed to carcinogens.
Whatever limit value is set, with the obvious exception of zero, means we are giving our approval to a situation where workers' health is at risk.
In setting limit values there are always compromises between workers' health, on the one hand, and the economic and technical consequences of worker protection, on the other.
Now that wood dust is covered in the directive on carcinogens we can only hope that the Commission will produce new proposals as speedily as possible to supplement this directive and lower the limit values set.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
<SPEAKER ID=162 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
Mr President, there is still a need for minimum directives in the field of the working environment, so I am glad that the Commission has taken this initiative.
But the Commission proposal to amend the cancer directive is far from satisfactory.
The Commission proposes that the directive should be extended to include work involving wood dust from beech and oak.
That is quite unacceptable.
The Scientific Committee has concluded that dust from other tree species is in all probability also carcinogenic.
I therefore urge you to vote for dust from all woods to be covered by the directive.
A person exposed to wood dust runs a serious risk of developing cancer of the nose, chronic bronchitis and allergies.
We should help to ensure that European employees get real protection from this risk.
If there are doubts as to the carcinogenic effect of a substance, we should apply the precautionary principle.
Besides, it is difficult in practical work at a plant to have different safety arrangements for different types of wood dust.
<P>
The Commission proposal for a maximum value for wood dust of 5 mg per cubic metre is also unjustifiable from a health point of view.
The Commission does not explain why it has opted precisely for 5 mg.
The Scientific Committee has not given an opinion on the matter.
It is thus not possible to set a maximum value on the basis of any assessment from the Committee.
It is therefore appropriate to refer to the maximum values applied in the Member States.
In many Member States, the limit is much lower than the 5 mg proposed by the Commission.
Experience from these countries shows that it is a relatively simple matter in purely technical terms to adhere to these limits.
It can also make sense economically.
Danish studies have shown that, by halving the maximum value from 2 to 1 mg, it is possible to save considerable amounts on the cost of hospitals, absenteeism and early retirement.
It is of course a minimum directive, so Member States with lower limits will not be forced to raise their maximum values, but we must still work to ensure that workers throughout Europe get the best possible protection, especially when such serious diseases as cancer are involved.
We must therefore, at the very least, oblige the Commission to examine the question of lowering the maximum values as early as two years after the directive has been implemented.
<P>
We have also achieved a reasonably good compromise in committee, so I urge you to vote for the report since, in many ways, it represents an improvement on the Commission proposal.
I would also like to praise the rapporteur for a job well done.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schiedermeier">
Mr President, I would like to extend my warmest thanks to the rapporteur for the good job he has done.
The European Parliament places a high value on the protection of health, as does the second amendment of this directive.
While the other issues are relatively easy to resolve, the problems of hardwood dust are more difficult.
A strict interpretation of the term by Member States, in so far as one is technically possible, could not only signify an end to furniture production, but could also pose a threat to the production of hand-crafted work.
<P>
Within a context of globalisation, the EU cannot cut jobs by laying down excessive requirements, which would lead for instance to the creation of yet more jobs involving higher health risks for workers in third countries.
That would not make sense.
The technical expenditure that is being called for should therefore be commensurate with the resulting protection of workers' health.
It would also of course be logical to do further research into possibly improving the way in which limit values are fixed.
A solution is not possible without transitional periods.
<P>
According to one of the rapporteur's amendments, Member States may need to provide financial assistance.
The SMEs affected do not by any means receive assistance, however, because if one Member State helps out its companies a great deal, and another cannot or does not want to do this, then a huge distortion in competition could arise.
That is why I would ask the Commission to make sure that the technical requirements and the limit values remain within a range that can be respected, and that the Union provides appropriate support so that conditions end up being more or less equal everywhere. Ultimately we do not want a situation where workers enjoy excellent protection against carcinogens and hardwood dust as a result of the new version of Directive 90/394, but at the same time have no work because their company has had to shut down due to the excessive requirements.
That is not what the amendment of this directive is trying to achieve.
However, I will, of course, be voting in favour of this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, the report says that wood dust is a substance that causes cancer, but completely fails to mention an even more important substance in this connection, asbestos. Its use is allowed in Belgium, for example.
It would have been easier for the Berlaymont to hoover up wood dust rather than having to take years and years to dispose of sheets of asbestos.
What is the situation with the new Parliament building with regard to asbestos?
<P>
Asbestos is a notoriously dangerous material.
During the first years of the new millennium more than ten thousand people will die from diseases caused by it, mainly lung cancer, every year.
Asbestos can be effectively replaced by other materials that have the same properties but which are considerably safer.
Why has this not been done?
The use of asbestos in new applications is already banned in the Nordic countries, in Germany, the Netherlands and France.
The Commission, however, for one reason or another, has dragged its feet in deciding to ban the use of asbestos.
If the Commission allows its continued use in new applications, national bans will no longer be able to prevent the importation of machinery and equipment that pose a risk in terms of asbestos.
<P>
I have asked the Commission what progress has been made in drafting a directive to ban the use of asbestos in new applications.
Urgent decisions have to be taken precisely because asbestos is so dangerous.
In addition, certain manufacturers use asbestos as a competitive tool against safe but more expensive substitutes.
People's health should take priority and it is about time these urgent decisions were taken.
The directive is being drafted but the investigation stage is taking up too much time.
The experience of many countries over many years should vouch for the use of substitute materials.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="Cushnahan">
Mr President, if we support the social dimension of the European Union, we must give it practical expression by giving priority to the protection of the health and safety of workers.
I support the extension of the existing directive on carcinogens to include dust from oak and beech wood, category 1 and category 2 mutagens and vinyl chloride monomer.
I also support the rapporteur's view that the directive should cover wood dust from all types of hardwood.
<P>
Some may argue that sufficient scientific evidence has not been produced to justify this.
I dispute that approach.
Often action is taken too late in relation to health and safety matters.
In this context it is much better to be ultra cautious.
To put it quite simply, I would suggest that it is better to be safe in the short term than sorry in the long term.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="Monti">
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Correia for his excellent report, as well as the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs for the constructive way in which it has examined the proposed amendment to the directive on the protection of workers from the risks related to carcinogens.
The aims of the proposal are relatively straightforward.
First of all, we wish to extend the scope of the directive so as to include dust from certain types of wood, and category 1 and 2 mutagens.
This is an important initiative within the Community's efforts to guarantee better protection of workers from the risks related to carcinogens at work.
Secondly, with a view to simplification, we are taking this opportunity to incorporate the provisions of the Council directive on vinyl chloride monomer into the directive on carcinogens.
<P>
I am pleased to say that the Commission can accept most of Parliament's amendments since they help to make the proposal more effective.
I am referring to Amendment No 3, the first part of No 5, and Amendments Nos 6, 7, 8, 10 and 11.
I shall explain briefly why, in contrast, the other amendments are not acceptable.
<P>
Amendment No 1 stipulates that the provisions relating to wood dusts will only apply to existing places of work after a transition period.
Mr Pronk touched on this point among others.
In the Commission's opinion, the time granted in the draft directive for undertakings to make technical adaptations to their workplaces is adequate.
<P>
Amendment No 2, referred to by Mr Skinner and Mrs Schörling among others, proposes that the Member States should provide undertakings with financial assistance to help them meet their obligations.
If a Community instrument were to impose such a duty on Member States, it would conflict with the principle of subsidiarity.
What is more, it would set a precedent and, in our opinion, it would be a mistake to suggest subsidising employers to fulfil their responsibilities in terms of the health and safety of their workers.
<P>
Amendment No 4 sets out to fix limit values for wood dust at a level which rules out any risk to workers.
We have every understanding for the underlying idea here, but, given the characteristics of carcinogens, we should not fix unrealistic limits.
The Commission's proposal puts forward a workable limit in this regard.
<P>
The second part of Amendment No 5 is deemed superfluous, given that the Commission accepts the first part of this amendment.
<P>
My final comment relates to Amendment No 9: it is unacceptable to the Commission because the date of entry into force of the directive must coincide with the repealing of the directive being replaced.
Finally, I take note of Mr Pronk's interesting suggestion of examining the feasibility of grouping together various directives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 10 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Insurance
<SPEAKER ID=168 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0307/98) by Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens Rights, on the draft Commission interpretative communication on freedom to provide services and the general good in the insurance sector (SEC(97)1824 - C4-0049/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="Mosiek-Urbahn (PPE)">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, to come straight to the point, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights welcomes the Commission's initiative.
The single European market has created an integrated financial market, and this has lead to increased competition and the free movement of persons and capital in Europe.
Of course this also impacts on the insurance industry, where existing barriers have to be broken down gradually.
<P>
On 1 July 1994, the 'third-generation' insurance directives came into force, creating the conditions for an insurance undertaking to do business in the entire territory of the Community.
The single market in insurance is based on the principles of mutual recognition and uniform authorisation, and makes it possible for insurance companies that are registered and authorised in one Member State to do business in any other Member State in the context of freedom of establishment and freedom to provide services.
Prior inspection of contract conditions and premium rates has been dropped, but financial supervision of the insurance undertaking in the Member State of establishment has been stepped up.
<P>
Although there are indications of an increasingly integrated market and there is a more competition-based environment in the Single European Market, particularly in insurance products for what are known as high-risk companies, the effectiveness of the single market in insurance still remains restricted due to a number of legal and fiscal barriers and barriers arising from the policies of individual countries.
Recently Eurostat also arrived at the same conclusion, expressly bearing out the Commission view and underlining the necessity and importance of this draft communication.
<P>
The Commission rightly thinks that one of the reasons preventing insurance companies from taking advantage of the fundamental freedoms in the EC Treaty is the uncertainty which still surrounds the interpretation of fundamental concepts such as 'freedom to provide services' and 'general good'.
The inexact legal concept of the 'general good' is used in the Third Insurance Directives with respect to services as well as freedom of establishment, and means that in each case of cross-border insurance activity it must be ensured that the application of national legislation to foreign providers of services can be justified for compelling reasons of the general good.
<P>
In its extensive case law, the European Court of Justice has many times clarified and decided in individual cases the conditions under which legitimate non-economic interests can be recognised in the interest of the general good.
The rules on the general good must apply to all persons or undertakings operating within the territory of the State in which the service is provided in so far as that interest is not safeguarded by the provisions to which the provider of a service is subject in the Member State of his establishment.
<P>
In addition, such requirements must be objectively justified by the need to ensure that professional rules of conduct are complied with and that the interests which such rules are designed to safeguard are protected.
The usefulness of this communication from the Commission consists above all in the overview it provides of the important and typical instances of difficulties in interpretation.
The Court of Justice has partly already clarified matters by means of judgments; some cases are still pending, and there are others in which the Court has not yet intervened.
Therefore the communication provides the parties concerned with a useful and sensible guide.
<P>
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights very much welcomes the fact that the Commission itself has made it clear in its draft communication that its communication does not in any way prejudge any interpretation of matters by the Court of Justice and is not normative.
A Commission communication on pension funds has already been declared void by the Court of Justice in another case.
<P>
We cannot endorse the criticism made of the Commission for referring in its study to practical examples of what it considers to be infringements of Community law in cases which are still pending.
Rather, the Commission's role as guardian of the Treaties requires it to bring its legal opinion, which may of course be examined by the Court of Justice, to the public's attention at an early stage and without qualification.
We agree with the Commission's observation that the fact that cross-border business activities in the insurance sector are rather slow in getting started is also attributable to corporate policy.
Most European insurers have hitherto obviously preferred to establish themselves abroad through takeovers and build up their network in the EU through subsidiaries.
<P>
But the introduction of the euro is going to have a huge impact on the insurance market in Europe.
It should simplify the cross-border sale of insurance services, make it easier to compare products, and lead to a reduction in costs.
So it can be expected that the euro will considerably boost the cross-border insurance business, which today could often be described as underdeveloped.
That is another reason to have this communication at this time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="Malone">
Mr President, I am a lawyer and I also worked in the insurance industry, but I did not expect to be leading the Socialists on this matter this evening.
But, obviously, Mr Rothley is still dealing with his onerous task of the Statute for Members and so on.
<P>
When I started my insurance career a long time ago - practically 30 years ago - I remember the first week I was in the company, and the boss told me: 'The big challenge facing us is that we are going to have to deal with competition from Europe!'
Little did I think 30 years down the road that nothing would have changed, and I hope the same happens to duty-free.
<P>
As we know, over recent years we have adopted a considerable body of legislation aimed at achieving a single market in this sector.
However, it is having no real effect.
It is obvious to us all that the single market is just not working in this sector, especially when you look at the high cost of car insurance in my own country, Ireland.
Young male drivers, for example, face insurance costs at least twice as high as in other European countries, and that is on top of the higher car prices in Ireland anyway.
So that is not a single market: no competition there, no help to the consumer.
<P>
Member States have had sufficient warnings.
The Commission must make full use of its powers under the EU Treaties, especially Article 169, to open up the market.
Member States are adding too many cumbersome requirements to European directives, thus making it difficult for insurance companies to operate in other Member States.
<P>
In Ireland, insurance companies trying to operate in other Member States have highlighted problems to me, such as different rates of tax relief on premiums paid to locally established insurers; the requirement to appoint tax representatives - fiscal representatives as they are called (we are not familiar with this notion and most companies do not have to appoint such agents) - and to fill out detailed questionnaires; there are also the problems associated with different rules on languages, and finally, there is the vexed question of minimum policy terms.
<P>
In my view, insurance companies should not fear the entry of other European competitors into their national markets.
A single European market should be seen as an opportunity rather than a threat.
It would, of course, make it easier for other firms to enter, but it would also make it easier for Irish companies to do business abroad.
I would like to agree with what the rapporteur says: the consumer must be looked after, and that means competition.
I wish to congratulate her on her report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 NAME="Cushnahan">
Mr President, I have noted very carefully what my Irish colleague has said.
I am very surprised that she was working in an insurance company 30 years ago: I did not think she was that old, so she wears her age well.
<P>
I welcome the Commission's initiative in this area.
Many of us had hoped that the single market would have produced strong competition in the insurance sector, resulting in lower premia for consumers.
Regrettably, this has not happened and, clearly, no real single market in insurance exists at the present time.
I agree with the honourable Member that it is disappointing, especially for young Irish people. They pay exorbitant rates for motor car insurance, and I had hoped, like many people, that competition would force prices down.
I urge the Commission to investigate insurance rates for under-25s in Ireland to ensure that no abuse of the market exists.
I welcome the fact that the Commission is investigating whether or not the general good clause is being misused.
<P>
Finally, I hope that with both this Commission initiative and the introduction of the single currency, we will witness more transparency, more shopping around by consumers and, consequently, the eventual creation of a real single market in insurance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sierra González">
Mr President, there is considerable uncertainty surrounding certain key aspects of the general good clause concerning the freedom to provide services. In particular, these relate to the implementation of the directives on insurance.
We should be aware of the dangers of the possible use of this clause as a means of discriminatory restriction.
<P>
In fact, as the report states, the harmonisation achieved through the directive of 5 April 1992 has not prevented insurance undertakings wishing to operate in Member States other than the one where they are domiciled from having to comply with cumbersome requirements imposed by the host state.
<P>
True, the relative failure to establish an internal market in insurance is not due solely to the tendency to interpret the general good clause in a biased way. Problems in the internal operation of the undertakings themselves have also played a part.
Nevertheless, the clause must be clearly defined.
In my view, it does not matter how this is achieved. The best way may be through subtraction, as the Commission - supported by the rapporteur - is suggesting, or there may be another way, but what is important is to arrive at a clearly stated legal position.
<P>
To sum up, if a clear legal position is to be established, it is essential to approximate the most important provisions of the law on insurance contracts and insurance conditions. Our citizens will then be able to shop around in an open market and make a choice which is in their own best interest, not that of the insurance undertakings.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ullmann">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, both the Commission communication and the report by Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn deal with a central concept in the interpretation of Articles 59 and 60 of the EC Treaty on the freedom to provide services.
We know that in its insurance judgment of 4 December 1986 the European Court of Justice identified the 'general good' as justification of the restriction of this freedom to provide services.
But even a lay person in legal terms would see at once that such a broadly framed concept as the general good has to be protected from falling prey to misinterpretation.
That is exactly what the Commission communication aims to do.
<P>
Like the rapporteur, we should support the Commission, and I also think that we should be behind her in encouraging the Commission to resume its efforts to approximate the provisions on insurance contracts, which have become bogged down, and to make its legal opinion known in spite of the fact that procedures are pending.
I hope that in future this will be a reason for many policyholders to be thankful to both the Commission and the rapporteur for their commitment to the freedom to provide services.
Perhaps even Mr Cushnahan may yet have cause to be pleased about this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 NAME="Monti">
<SPEAKER ID=175 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 10 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Preferential tariff arrangements
<SPEAKER ID=176 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0262/98) by Mr Nordmann, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the Commission communication on the management of preferential tariff arrangements (COM(97)0402 - C4-0447/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 NAME="Nordmann">
Mr President, the report that I am to present on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation relates to issues that go quite far beyond the scope of the Union's development policy, as it involves suggesting improvements to be made in the management of the preferential tariff arrangements that the Union grants to some of its trading partners. This is done in several forms: for some countries it is in the conventional form of negotiated cooperation agreements, in particular, of course, within the framework of the Lomé Convention, but also in the form of autonomous preferential tariff arrangements such as the Generalised System of Preferences, which is unilaterally granted by the Union.
<P>
It seems that these preferential tariffs are subject to a certain amount of fraud, and the irregularities that have been uncovered, for example, amount to the very substantial sum of ECU 220 million.
This fraud affects textiles, fisheries products, industrial products and agricultural products, and one of the main attractions of the Commission communication is that it lists the products affected by fraud.
The mechanism of fraud here obviously involves the misuse of the certificates of origin that are granted by the customs authorities of the trading partners and that involve many cheques drawn on the Union's funds.
The only thing is - and here lies the limit of the comparison - that in the case of cheques that have no funds there is no payment, and the surplus comes from the Union's funds and therefore from the Union's taxpayers.
<P>
The fight against fraud, which is the main objective of the Commission communication, involves a certain number of improvements to the system and a certain number of control measures as well as training measures, especially for the trading partners. Indeed, it has to be said that they do not always have the technical and administrative infrastructure to combat fraud where it is not actually encouraged, and this is something that also has to be recognised.
The Commission communication looks at a number of actions to be undertaken.
We would also like to add that we must raise the awareness of and encourage greater action on the part of the Commission's delegations in the partner countries, which should play a driving role in this field.
<P>
The Committee on Development also hopes that there will soon be an initial assessment of the impact of the new 'binding origin information' procedure. This should allow importers in the Union to ascertain, before customs formalities have been completed, that the products qualify for preferential tariff treatment.
This binding information procedure gives some sort of customs validity to the products for three years.
<P>
We also hope that the penalties mechanism that was put in place in 1995 will be effectively applied, when appropriate.
Up until now it has only been used once and that was in a case arising from social problems and not from commercial fraud.
We hope that it can be implemented.
<P>
To conclude, I would like to point out that, notably in a very interesting hearing before the Committee on Budgetary Control, which in the end did not, unfortunately, give an opinion on this issue, the debate was centred around strengthening the legal certainty of importers.
In this respect, there is a difference in perspective between the report by the Committee on Development, which mentions that certainty, which must be improved, and the opinion by the Committee on External Economic Relations, which gives great emphasis to the problem.
We think that the responsibilities must be shared and that the Committee on Development's wording is undoubtedly more balanced than the opinion - and this is quite normal as it comes from the Committee on External Economic Relations - that highlights only the issue of the certainty of importers.
This is the reason for the indications that I have given regarding the amendments, and I wanted to make that clear now.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on External Economic Relations on this matter, I read Mr Nordmann's report with great interest.
At the beginning of his report, he rightly points to the importance of the preferential arrangements in Europe's trade policy.
The main aim of this, fostering the development of less developed countries like the Lomé and ACP countries and helping applicant countries prepare for membership of the European Union, deserves our full support.
<P>
The problem is that the reality falls far short of the ideal.
Not for nothing did the Council ask the Commission in May 1996 for a study of the matter and for proposals to improve the system.
The Commission points in its communication to fraud over the rules of origin and a significant portion of Mr Nordmann's resolution, the first nine paragraphs, deals with this in greater detail.
Of course we have to work hard to counter fraud, in the interest both of the European Union and of the beneficiary countries.
The Commission places the emphasis mainly on direct measures against fraud, using supervisory bodies and penalties.
To my mind, more has to be done to counter fraud by indirect means.
The preferential tariff arrangements should be made more effective.
That may prove more beneficial than penalties, control mechanisms and all the other administrative rigmarole.
What I have in mind is more flexible and simpler rules of origin and improved cooperation between Member States and beneficiary countries.
An early warning system, whereby the importer is alerted early on to possible irregularities, may be useful too.
But that means the current inadequate system has to be faster and more reliable, as Mr Nordmann advocates in his report.
<P>
A second consideration is protection for importers in Europe.
I was disappointed that the Commission communication contained nothing to protect those who import things in all good faith.
This was precisely one of the reasons which prompted the Council to ask the Commission for a communication.
The Council wanted the confidence of importers and the validity of certificates of origin to be protected, so that they no longer faced sky-high duties and the risk of going bust.
On this precise point, the Commission has done nothing.
That is unfair.
Mr Nordmann alludes to this obliquely in paragraph 10 of his report, but it has to be raised more specifically.
Our starting-point has to be that the risks must not be borne by the importer alone.
For this reason, I have tabled Amendments Nos 3 and 4 to paragraph 10.
They derive from the opinion which the Committee on External Economic Relations adopted unanimously on this subject.
Amendment No 5 is from our Committee too, and takes up the Council's question.
It concerns importers who, in applying the preferential arrangements, are disadvantaged by irregularities in the decisions of beneficiary countries.
I would urge the Commission to put forward a proposal to protect them where they cannot reasonably be expected to have known about such irregularities.
<P>
Lastly, given the aim of the preferential arrangements, I think it is important that they should also benefit the least developed countries.
So I urge the Commission to ensure that the system really does improve the market access of these most vulnerable countries.
This is the thrust of Amendment No 6, once again tabled by the Committee on External Economic Relations.
I hope that the rapporteur, Mr Nordmann, will incorporate these crucial amendments into his resolution, which is an excellent one.
The improvements which I advocate are of great importance to the continuing existence of the preferential tariff arrangements.
The Commission's communication is helpful, but does not go far enough on these points.
So it is up to the European Parliament and the Council to act.
The present situation is bad not only for the least developed countries, but also for firms in the European Union.
Given this situation, I believe that we have to conclude, irrespective of political allegiance, that the current system is ineffective and unfair.
We should take action accordingly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, Mr Nordmann and Mr van Dam have studied this whole issue from the point of view of their respective committees and have thus largely made comments of a technical nature.
I should like to make some comments which are rather more political, on this proposal and on Mr Nordmann's report.
<P>
Firstly it would seem, superficially, that the purpose of the system of preferences is to enable a number of third world countries to export their products to the European Member States on more favourable terms.
The reality of course is rather different.
The reality is that these products compete with products from our own European Union, and that is the main reason for charging import duties on products from the third world.
We then ease that burden a little by lowering the rate of duty imposed.
I say this because I think this system of preferences is viewed from within the European Union as a kind of concession to the developing countries, whilst the developing countries themselves see it above all as a minor concession, in areas where the European Union is struggling and setting import duties which are far too high, largely to protect farm products produced within the European Union itself.
In all honesty, it is actually a somewhat hypocritical system.
That is the first point I wished to make.
It is a general political observation.
<P>
When we then find that massive frauds are perpetrated on the system in the developing countries, we have to ask ourselves what is the point of such a complicated system and what is the need for it.
ECU 220 million, or half a billion Dutch guilders - that is a lot of money, if it is indeed the total sum being lost through fraud.
<P>
And knowing where that money has gone - into textiles, fisheries, agriculture and the countries of Asia - I really wonder whether far more fundamental changes to the system are not warranted.
The rules of origin should be radically revised, for example, but perhaps we should concentrate the whole system rather more on the really poor countries and not have to keep adapting the current system in this way.
<P>
Since we have a system of penalties and sanctions for humanitarian reasons, why can we not apply these sanctions in cases of fraud and abuse?
If there is real abuse of the preference system, I think sanctions could be imposed there too.
Perhaps Mr Monti will tell us what he thinks of that idea.
<P>
Lastly, I agree with Mr van Dam that if importers are losing out under this system, that is a very good reason to review the whole procedure.
<P>
That, Mr President, is my political critique of the system as a whole, but the essence of my criticism is that it is a hypocritical system, because we start by charging duty on goods from the third world and then take a bit off again, all because of the scale of protection given to agricultural products, textile and fishery products in our own European Union.
It is hypocrisy, it is a cheap trick, and as we know the European Commission can do little about it.
Perhaps it would be better to get rid of the system altogether.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendes Bota">
Preferential tariff arrangements, whether under the Lomé Convention or the generalised system of preferences (GSP) are still under-used because of contradictions between the European Union's own policies.
While recognising these systems as a strong weapon for helping the developing countries and a vital element of cooperation policy, the Union sticks so closely to the demands and red-tape bound up with rules on origin that they become a protectionist practice which defends European industries to the detriment of their competitors in the developing countries who are supposed to be benefiting from them.
<P>
Many of the least-developed countries will not have any opportunity to compete in the open and free international market.
Throwing them into the lion's den of the World Trade Organisation is tantamount to condemning them to eternal poverty and suffering.
Putting an end to the preferential tariff arrangements is therefore out of the question.
Not only are they necessary but greatly improving them should be one of the EU's priorities.
That does not mean turning a blind eye to fraud or tolerating beneficiary countries' lackadaisical or uncooperative attitudes.
But fraud cannot be combated without an effective and practicable system of sanctions.
Suspending the benefits of a preferential tariff arrangement, a sanction so far only applied in the case of Burma, should not be limited to cases of fraudulent trading practices, unfair competition, slavery, forced labour or relations with the drug trade.
<P>
Certain countries benefiting from the GSP have high incomes.
Countries where child labour and discrimination against women are the rule continue to benefit from the GSP.
But let us not exaggerate.
The ECU 220 million of fraud detected comes to only 0.25 % of the Community budget.
What is more serious is the fact that an excessive onus is placed on European importers when it comes to checking certificates of origin, a discouraging factor for trading with the beneficiary countries of this system of customs tariff exemptions or reductions.
That responsibility, as the rapporteur has said, has to be shared.
We support the consensus reached between the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament on the measures needed to increase the exchange of information, strengthen the control mechanisms, reduce red-tape and apply the system more flexibly.
But now we need action not words.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as a member of the Committee on Budgets, I am always concerned with speaking out in favour of fair structural conditions.
I would like to come back to what Mrs Maij-Weggen said.
I think that in principle we should from time to time reflect on the worth of certain regulations, and attempt to lay down objective criteria as to where provisions are still relevant and where they could be removed.
<P>
Own resources is a sensitive area for us because it consists of amounts of money which are important for the EU.
I think that it is very easy to use forged certificates of origin, because monitoring the flow of goods (which is often independent of financial flows), and dealing with the accompanying papers and the people involved in the operation is so difficult.
Any groups that have specialised in fraud would of course know the weaknesses of our system and also how to hide their cheating by staggering the four flows into a favourable chronological sequence.
<P>
I think it is necessary to offer better training in this area.
There has been some progress, but it might be necessary, especially in the field of statistics, to develop increasingly precise methods in order to determine what the likelihood of fraud is in each of the four flows.
I would also like to point out our request that OLAF should, together with the Court of Auditors, undertake intensive monitoring.
There is also of course the issue of jurisdiction, and of who is really laying down the measures that will lead us to fair structural conditions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="Cushnahan">
Mr President, the image of the European Union has suffered greatly because of recent scandals relating to fraud.
If we do not close the loopholes that facilitate fraud we will compound our problems, resulting in increased cynicism and hostility towards the European Union.
It is therefore frightening that the Commission's 1996 Annual Report concludes that there were irregularities to the tune of ECU 220 million in the EU's system of preferential imports.
<P>
Mr Nordmann - I congratulate him on his report - is correct to cite the need to tighten fraud detection systems in the countries of origin.
Unfortunately the preferential tariff arrangements enable goods to be imported into the EU from under-developed nations, either duty-free or at a reduced rate.
Regrettably fraud occurs by falsifying certificates of origin.
<P>
While the Commission is correct to propose simplifying the rules of origin, I support the rapporteur in his view that all risks should not be borne by EU-based importers and furthermore, that the poorest countries should not be penalised in any reform.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="Monti">
Mr President, preferential tariff arrangements have become a mainstay of the European Union's external economic relations.
They are difficult to manage because of the need to play off political interests against economic ones; as Commissioner responsible for both customs policy and the single market, this matter is of particular concern to me.
I wish to express my sincere thanks for the work of the rapporteur, Mr Nordmann, and to the Committee on Development and Cooperation for having highlighted so clearly that the challenge of improving on the present system for the future lies in establishing a balance that more effectively meets today's economic requirements.
<P>
When discussing preferential arrangements, account must be taken of all the aspects involved: trade policy, development aid, public funds, customs rules, industrial interests, importers' liabilities, etc.
This whole set of issues must be addressed in the search for a solution to the current problems: taking isolated measures affecting individual elements would only distort the system and could ultimately compromise its credibility.
Every economic operator must fulfil his obligations: the beneficiary country - and on the subject of beneficiary countries I would remind you, in relation to the remarks made by Mrs Maij-Weggen and Mr Cushnahan, that the European Union is the biggest donor of preferences; the Union grants new possibilities of access to less developed countries through specific measures and derogations - must guarantee that the products exported satisfy the conditions of admissibility, especially the rules of origin.
The importer, for his part, must assume the normal commercial risk associated with all commercial transactions. The importing country must guarantee that no fraud is committed and that public resources are safeguarded.
<P>
I realise that economic operators have felt themselves to be particularly disadvantaged by certain irregularities which have occurred in the past.
The Commission has taken due note, and I should therefore like to comment on the matter of importer liability.
There are - I would recall - two types of customs rules: the first, rather outdated and abandoned some time ago by the Community and the Member States, consists in checking every single consignment of imports as it is cleared through customs.
This cumbersome procedure, which is feasible only when few goods are moving around, does have one advantage: as soon as the goods have been cleared through customs, the importer knows whether or not everything is in order from a regulatory point of view.
Thus there is no need for subsequent checks.
<P>
The second type of rules is much more up-to-date and was adopted by the Community in 1992 through the Customs Code; its purpose is to promote trade.
Imported goods are no long subjected to systematic checks, and thus their freedom of movement is not slowed down.
Only a small percentage are checked at the time of customs clearance.
But in return for this freedom, importers must assume legal liability.
That is why the Community's customs authorities may demand that for a certain period of time - three years, which moreover the Commission has recently suggested to the Council should be reduced to two - customs duties must be paid on goods which have been imported.
<P>
At the same time, I am aware of the administrative shortcomings in certain third countries, which create both economic and legal uncertainty for operators.
We are exploring suitable measures to remedy this situation.
I would merely emphasise the main principles which we believe should guide us in our efforts.
These are the guidelines contained in our communication of July 1997, the thrust of which was to prefer a global approach to this problem on the grounds that - as I said a moment ago, and as I think has been confirmed by this evening's interesting debate - to focus on an individual aspect in isolation, neglecting the others, would not lead us very far.
<P>
This same reasoning was followed by the Internal Market Council on 18 May 1998.
The Commission is therefore of the opinion that the following should be promoted: first and foremost, a responsible approach by all operators of these arrangements and better cooperation among them; secondly, improvements in the rules on origin; thirdly, greater awareness in the beneficiary countries and an offer of assistance to their customs administrations; and fourthly, an examination with the Member States of customs-related and financial measures to be adopted.
Finally, it is important in the Commission's view to seek to improve the mechanisms designed to enhance the security of commercial operations.
I am thinking, in particular, of the introduction of effective penalty clauses into preferential arrangements, supported by a mechanism for providing regular information to importers, like the one put forward by the Commission in its recent proposal on the new generalised system of preferences.
I would also refer you to other measures encouraging greater recourse to the 'binding origin information' procedure.
<P>
In conclusion, Mr President, I would reiterate what I said at the outset: we cannot envisage measures relating to just one element of the system, for example merely extending the notion of good faith on the part of importers.
Here I am pleased to note that Mr Nordmann's report gives strong political backing to the Commission's initiative to update the management of preferential tariff arrangements.
The challenge for the future is the need to combat fraud effectively, whilst at the same time shouldering our responsibilities to third countries and to economic operators.
I am gratified to note that the Committee on Development and Cooperation broadly shares the Commission's intended approach in this difficult area, and I hope that Parliament as a whole can endorse this reasoning.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Commissioner, I have a further question.
We have of course a system of penalties in this area.
Do you think that we might make more progress with a system of incentives or that, in the course of time, this could be turned into a system of incentives?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 NAME="Monti">
Mr Rübig, we see assistance and cooperation between administrations and, in the final instance, penalties as complementary.
As you know, the system is currently in the throes of change, and we are striving to improve it with this cross-cutting approach, whereby no aspects can be overlooked, I believe, including the possibility of penalties. I think we are right to maintain that cooperation and assistance are a step in the right direction, in an area which - I would emphasise - is highly complex and requires many conflicting demands and interests to be taken into account.
<P>
I thank you once again for the suggestions and encouragement which the Commission has drawn from this debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 10 a.m.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 10.25 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Madam President, I wanted to inform you that 100 francs have disappeared from my petty cash.
That is the second time this has happened.
Would you please ask the parliamentary security service to take action to prevent these thefts, of which an average of 10 to 15 occur here every month.
Thank you, Madam President.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
As you know, Mr Rübig, we try to provide the best possible security in all our places of work.
Thank you for this piece of information.
I can assure you that we shall step up our efforts further still.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Falconer">
Madam President, yesterday I made a statement to the House which was recorded in the Rainbow.
However, it was not mentioned in the Minutes, apart from the comment that I was in the Chamber and was not voting.
I took part in all the votes yesterday. Therefore I would like the Minutes to be altered accordingly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Falconer.
That twofold mistake will be corrected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Madam President, I have a question which we should like the Bureau to answer as soon as possible.
There has always been a regular press digest produced by Parliament.
The German version, entitled 'Plenum aktuell ', has recently been radically shortened, a situation which still obtains. I have not checked the other versions.
In the item on the Spaak report, for example, apart from the Commissioner and the rapporteur, nobody else is mentioned at all. I should like an explanation for this.
Is it only the German version which is affected, or is this part of a general savings drive? Precisely because this digest is designed to give the public a picture of our work, I believe that such measures are totally unjustifiable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
I cannot imagine that these are measures to achieve savings, Mr Rack.
In any event, we shall look into it.
I think it is very important that the reports should be as accurate as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Madam President, I should like to endorse the previous speaker's comments on the reporting in yesterday's 'Plenum aktuell '.
In connection with the crisis in the finance markets of Latin America, Commissioner Bangemann was scarcely mentioned and nobody else featured at all.
If this is to be standard practice from now on, we might as well discontinue the publication, because it no longer serves any useful purpose in its present form.
For one thing, it does not communicate Members' views to the public as I would expect it to do.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
Yes indeed.
Thank you for those comments.
Once again, we shall look into the matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Madam President, I would like to join the two previous speakers and point out that half the staff of the European Parliament were not allowed to come to Strasbourg for this second October part-session.
This saves money on the administration side.
Given that we must come to Strasbourg, Madam President, we must also have the necessary staff available so we can do our work properly.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="Dührkop Dührkop">
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Dührkop. I think it would in fact be preferable if you gave us the necessary details when the time comes, so that Members know exactly what they are voting on.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Samland">
Madam President, since this will be forgotten afterwards in the hustle and bustle of voting, I wanted to take advantage of the time when we are all taking our seats to thank the parliamentary services for their exemplary cooperation in ensuring that the amendments and other documents in every language were delivered to us on time.
After all, we have more than 1 000 amendments to consider, and I think it is only right to express our congratulations to the services and the House for completing this mammoth task on time.
<P>
<P>
Draft Amendment No 714
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="Dührkop Dührkop">
Madam President, I propose adding EUR 400 000 in commitment appropriations, which means that the vote is on a total of 3 million in commitment appropriations for this line.
<P>
Draft Amendment No 844
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Dührkop Dührkop">
Madam President, I would like the remarks to note the amount of EUR 1.7 million preallocated to the International Federation of Europe Houses.
<P>
Draft Amendment No 738
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Dührkop Dührkop">
Madam President, I request that the following comment be included: these appropriations are also aimed at financing the 1999 campaign on violence against women.
<P>
Draft Amendment No 741
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Dührkop Dührkop">
Madam President, I request that an additional EUR 3 million be approved in commitment appropriations, that is, a total of EUR 5 million for this line.
<P>
Draft Amendment No 584
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Madam President, I believe a mistake has been made.
This is my group's original amendment on the 30 % reserve, and I should like to emphasise that it does not relate to the condition for the establishment of this new reserve, but rather to the conditions we had for the 100 % reserve, because one of those conditions, namely the surrender of the documents to the Belgian prosecuting authorities, has not yet been fulfilled.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Madam President, I did not fully understand what Mrs Müller said.
If she wishes to make an oral amendment in a very complex and very long voting procedure, I will oppose it and I believe that other colleagues will also oppose it.
Let us vote on her amendment as it stands.
This is the only way to proceed in such a complex vote.
<P>
Therefore, I would like to ask you to put Mrs Müller's original amendment to the vote, as it stands.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="President">
Yes, that is what I intended to do, Mr Dell'Alba.
Thank you for your support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Madam President, should we not hear the opinion of the chairman of the Committee on Budgetary Control here?
She is surely in the best position to tell us what exactly is behind the amendment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="President">
No, Mrs Maij-Weggen, I do not see the need for that.
<P>
We shall proceed to the vote.
<P>
Draft Amendment No 808
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="Dührkop Dührkop">
Madam President, I request that an additional EUR 5 million be approved in commitment appropriations above the sum proposed in the amendment by the Committee on Budgets, that is, a total of EUR 45 million in commitment appropriations for this line.
<P>
Draft Amendment No 810
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="Dührkop Dührkop">
Madam President, I request that EUR 16.5 million be approved in commitment appropriations for this line in place of the amount proposed in the amendment by the Committee on Budgets.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="President">
We shall now proceed to the vote on the amendments to Section I.
<P>
Mr Martens has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of my group I should like to ask, on the basis of Rule 115(3), that we should first vote on the fifth paragraph of Amendment No 899 relating to the link with the Members' Statute.
Could I just take two minutes to explain why?
<P>
For the last 20 years, we have had a system of flat-rate travel expenses.
The Court of Auditors' report indicates that this is no longer acceptable.
We need to find a fair solution, and this is only possible if we link it to the Members' Statute.
Our group is opposed to having a complex and untransparent system which, it has become clear, is extremely difficult to justify to the general public.
<P>
Secondly, and this is something I would ask you to think seriously about, we fear that if we accept a transitional system, certain members of the Council will use it as an excuse to reject the Statute.
<P>
The Statute has to be adopted unanimously.
Parliament has to put forward a proposal, the Commission will deliver its opinion and the Council must reach a unanimous decision.
We fear that the fair solution that relies on linkage with the Members' Statute will not be possible if we accept a transitional system.
What we need to do instead - and this is what my group has decided - is to formulate a proposal based on the Rothley report that Parliament can then put before the European Council on 11 and 12 December in Vienna.
We are therefore prepared to approve the Rothley report as the basis for an interinstitutional agreement.
The only guarantee we have is if you, ladies and gentlemen, agree to vote on the fifth paragraph first and approve it.
I think we would then be on the right road towards, firstly, dismantling an untenable system and, secondly, establishing the Statute for Members.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Green">
Mr President, yesterday in this House Chancellor Klima of Austria made it clear that if there is a proposal from Parliament in time for the Vienna Summit in December, then he will present it to the Vienna Summit.
He made it absolutely clear and also did so informally, with the group leaders, when he met us the other day at your invitation, Mr President.
What we see here is an attempt to obfuscate and hide behind this approach.
My group is in favour.
<P>
(Murmurs of dissent) I listened to Mr Martens, quietly.
I will wait until the baying crowds cease.
<P>
My group is in favour of voting.
We will vote on a free vote so that every Member in my group will be able to make up their own mind on this critical issue.
We will ask that the vote be taken in the order set out on the order sheet.
We are all in favour of a Members' Statute here.
The only way in which we got it on to the agenda in Amsterdam - which changed the Treaty - was by changing the political balance in the Council.
So we take some credit for having at least got it on the agenda in Amsterdam and in the Treaty.
We now believe that we have the right way forward to pursue the Members' Statute.
We are pursuing it in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
As you know, we have changed the timetable in order to get it included in the Vienna Summit. But we also believe it is important that we make a political statement about our credentials and our desire to make sure that firstly, we are acting as required by the Court of Auditors and secondly, that we are completely open and transparent on this issue.
Knowing that some Members on the opposite side of the House were rushing around this morning, looking to get votes for a secret ballot on this request, I think this request is a bit rich, coming from Mr Martens.
We would like to retain the order of voting as on the timetable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, if I have understood correctly, this request has been presented to you pursuant to Rule 115 on the order of voting on amendments.
I do not see what reason there is for changing the order of voting as it currently appears on the list of votes.
<P>
In the Committee on Budgets, this problem had already arisen.
Subsequently, we had voted on the paragraph that you are now being asked to vote on first.
There is no link between the first vote and the vote concerning the statute for Members.
The first vote is asking us to express our opinion firstly on an opinion, that is, on how allowances should be reimbursed.
The statute for Members is a different matter altogether.
Therefore, there is no reason, neither legal nor political, to ask for the order of voting to be changed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="Cox">
Mr President, on a point of order.
I want to state clearly on behalf of the ELDR Group that we wish to maintain the order of vote as indicated.
We all know inside each of our groups this is a difficult issue.
It is difficult to strike a balance, and we need to have a mutual respect and tolerance for each others' positions.
But we need to do so in such a way that each individual clearly, openly and transparently assumes his or her responsibility before this House, on the record and before public opinion, not because we do not respect the differences of each individual but because we must reveal those differences.
We must have the courage of our convictions to defend those differences.
<P>
It is the position of my group that we accept and promote the parallelism and the strong complementarity between a Members' Statute and reform of the travel allowances.
However, in terms of the scheme of things, it is the responsibility of this House itself to determine the nature of its travel allowance system, whereas for the Statute it is the responsibility of others to ensure that this House gets its act together in time for Vienna.
Let us assume our responsibilities as a House in the area where we have the complete authority to do so and let us vote in the order indicated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="President">
I do not think it is necessary to continue this debate because the second paragraph of Rule 115(3) of the Rules of Procedure states, Mr Martens, that the President shall establish that it is not opposed by at least 29 Members.
And I would ask you whether or not you are standing by your position, because it seems clear to me that it will be opposed by at least 29 Members, but I have no problem in counting them.
If you tell me that you are standing by your position, I will ask the Members who are opposed to stand and we can count them in no time.
Are you standing by your position, Mr Martens?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
It is clear that there are more than 25 Members opposed to changing the vote.
All I am asking is that, whatever else happens, we should vote separately on the fifth paragraph.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="President">
Yes, Mr Martens.
This split vote was requested at the appropriate time by the groups and will take place.
<P>
After the votes on Draft Amendments Nos 899 and 537
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, to avoid the pervading confusion, I would like both you and us to draw our conclusions from the votes that have just taken place.
In other words - and I am completely in favour of this interpretation - the Bureau's decision of 19 October on a transitional system of allowances is to be enforced.
I would like to ensure that this is clear.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="President">
Exactly, Mr Pasty.
What has been decided is that no remarks will be added which modify the decision of the Bureau.
The Bureau's decision thus remains in place.
The sum has been approved and will be applied in accordance with the decision taken by the Bureau.
<P>
<P>
Draft Amendment No 899
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Colom i Naval">
Mr President, we have rejected several remarks regarding particular budget items.
These same remarks are reproduced as a draft amendment to the text of the motion for a resolution.
Can we carry the previous vote over to the motion for a resolution?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="President">
Of course.
Parliament has stated its position.
We will not vote twice on the same texts simply because they are in two different places.
<P>
The rapporteur, Mr Viola, has asked for the floor to speak on block 28.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="Viola">
Mr President, now that we are about to vote on block 28, I would just say that Amendment No 697 by the Committee on Budgets, which is included in this block, relates in particular to the appropriations under Chapter 21, 'Data Processing and Telecommunications'.
This amendment removed part of the appropriations entered in the reserve.
The conditions now exist to remove all the appropriations entered in the reserve under Chapter 21, with the favourable opinion of the Budgets Committee.
Furthermore, Amendments Nos 900 and 901 to Chapter 37 take account of the principle that funds should be entered in the budget for specific purposes, and of the new accounting plan which has already been unanimously approved by the chairmen of the political groups.
I would therefore ask that these amendments too, Nos 900 and 901, should form part of block 28.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="President">
The rapporteur has asked for the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="Dührkop Dührkop">
Mr President, before proceeding to the vote on the motion for a resolution, I would like to make three remarks concerning the vote on Section III that we have just completed.
<P>
Firstly, I would like to repeat what I said before the vote to the effect that Parliament voted first on Amendment No 888 relating to the strategic reserve, for which the proposed payment and commitment appropriations will now need to be adjusted in terms of the limits of the financial perspective, and leaving margins in each of Categories 3, 4 and 5.
The amounts I propose are: in Category 3, EUR 400 million; in Category 4, EUR 990 million; and in Category 5, EUR 150 million.
<P>
Secondly, I would like to thank the President and, equally, Mrs Fontaine for so ably conducting this vote on the budget and making it slightly easier.
I would also like to thank Parliament's services and the staff of the secretariat of the Committee on Budgets for their excellent work, without which this budget vote would not have been so easy.
<P>
I would also like to say to the Council that I think we have adopted a budget for the citizens of Europe and to urge the Council once more to conform with Parliament's position.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="Samland">
Mr President, I should like to point out that we have an amendment structure here which was requested by all the groups, namely that by voting for the budget we have also adopted the amendments to lines 3307 and 3308.
This was a so-called pipeline that was created between budget lines 3307 - information policy - and 3308.
All the group chairmen had asked us to incorporate this as an additional amendment.
This is what we did in consultation with all the groups.
I merely wish to point out that this also happened when we cast our votes.
<P>
On paragraph 21
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, this block contains paragraph 21, which contradicts the position we took when voting on the budget.
I would ask the rapporteur to withdraw it, since it conflicts with our vote of a moment ago.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="Dührkop Dührkop">
Mr President, of course this contradicts the vote we have just held and this contradiction must be removed from the paragraph.
<P>
On paragraph 30
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Dührkop Dührkop">
Mr President, paragraph 30 would also appear to me to contradict the vote we held previously and should, in my view, be removed from the resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Samland">
Mr President, this is about the bananas.
Mrs Dührkop rightly stated that the decision taken by the House to make budgetary resources available for the bananas is not at issue.
What the wording expresses is that, besides the budgetary resources, funds will also be allocated from the European Development Fund.
To that extent, the text before us is not inconsistent with the decision which we took when we voted.
I would therefore ask the House to approve it.
<P>
On Amendment No 4
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Dührkop Dührkop">
Mr President, I do not see any contradiction here whatsoever and, therefore, I would prefer that you submitted it to the vote of the House.
<P>
On paragraph 39
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="Viola">
Mr President, with regard to paragraph 39, on which we are about to vote, I would ask that, in the report which the Commission is to forward to the budgetary authority, it should also give the appropriate information on the situation of the other institutions in the context of interinstitutional cooperation.
To save space in the text, I think that we could dispense with this paragraph in the resolution on the other institutions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="President">
Mrs Dührkop, what is your position on Mr Viola's request?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Dührkop Dührkop">
I agree with Mr Viola.
<P>
On Amendment No 6
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Dührkop Dührkop">
Mr President, it seems to me that this amendment is redundant since it already features in Mr Viola's other resolution, where it mentions all the institutions.
I would therefore like to put my opinion on record although, of course, I leave the outcome to the wisdom of the House.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Viola">
Mr President, as you said quite rightly a moment ago, Amendments Nos 1, 4 and 5, which are related to the vote expressed a short while ago on the budget, should now lapse, since they contradict the outcome of the budget vote.
With your agreement, I would propose that the House should endorse a decision taken by the coordinators of the Committee on Budgets, by which I mean the coordinators of all the various groups. This decision relates to cases exactly such as this one, where no amendment at all is adopted.
It was nevertheless agreed to enter an oral amendment to the budget resolution, merely stating two points of fact, without adding anything.
If I may, Mr President, I shall read out this oral amendment.
<P>
The new text of paragraph 8 would read as follows: 'recalls that it has requested the Council to support unreservedly the principle of a statute for Members of the European Parliament, as provided for by the Treaty of Amsterdam; draws attention to its resolution on the outcome of the European Council meeting in Cardiff of 15/16 June 1998, in particular paragraph 20 thereof'.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, the argument given by our rapporteur is unquestionable in terms of Amendment No 1.
This is the amendment from the Committee on Budgets that repeats all of the text that was rejected earlier by split vote.
<P>
On the other hand, his theory is more questionable in relation to Amendments Nos 4 and 5, namely, our group's amendment and the amendment by the ELDR Group.
These amendments contain measures which most certainly were not mentioned earlier. Amendment No 4 assigns the Bureau a task which is entirely different to the one in Amendment No 1.
Amendment No 5 - and I apologize for speaking on behalf of the ELDR Group - provides for new allowances and different conditions. Therefore, I do not think they should be considered obsolete.
<P>
As regards the oral amendment by Mr Viola, I reserve the right to oppose it, when the time comes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="President">
That is, of course, the correct interpretation and the Presidency's services have verified this.
Amendments Nos 4 and 5 are not affected by the previous vote and I will put them to the vote after solving the matter raised by Amendment No 1.
Amendment No 1 has lapsed but now an oral amendment is being tabled.
Are there any objections to this oral amendment?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Green">
Mr President, given the fact that this is such a difficult and sensitive issue, I myself might be very tempted to vote for that.
However, this whole issue is so controversial that it would be better if we did not actually vote on anything in this connection.
If we accept that Amendment No 1 by the Committee on Budgets was lost, as it was earlier, then we should just accept its loss and do nothing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="President">
There are clearly more than 12 Members who are opposed to this oral amendment, so I cannot put it to the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Cox">
Mr President, it is clear, as Mrs Green said, that we are now in a position where we have established the principles from the earlier vote, and we should try to accommodate that at this stage.
We know where we stand; we have recorded votes on the basic principles of the budget vote, and it would be helpful if we avoided trying to replicate something about which we have, in substance, already reached a decision.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="President">
Yes, there is clearly opposition to this oral amendment.
<P>
On paragraph 31
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="Viola">
Mr President, basically I believe that this amendment to paragraph 31, tabled by the Socialist Group, is no longer relevant after the votes which have been taken.
Instead, I think that paragraph 31 of my resolution - the text from the Committee on Budgets - should be modified to remove the words 'to create four permanent B5 proofreader posts', given that this proposal fell during the earlier votes on the budget.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="Viola">
Mr President, please allow me - I could not do so just now - to join Mrs Dührkop in thanking the entire staff of the Committee on Budgets.
Their assistance in the course of my work was absolutely invaluable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Mr President, I would just like to point out that we rejected the substance of this third indent when we voted on the budget.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="President">
These are two different resolutions, and while they may say the same thing, I have to put both of them to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Madam President, I would like to ask whether you said there were mistakes in certain language versions.
For example, there is one in the Finnish version.
It talks about hardwood and coniferous trees, yet the committee has constantly stressed that we are only talking about all deciduous trees, not conifers.
I just wanted to make it clear to everyone that there was a mistake in the Finnish version.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="President">
You are quite right, Mrs Ojala.
There is a corrigendum to the German, Finnish, Spanish and Swedish versions, and a second corrigendum to the Danish version.
This will all be looked at very carefully.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Andrews">
Different political groups in the European Parliament will always vary as to how best they feel the European Community budget should be spent at any given time.
I myself would like to put on the record of the House that I feel that appropriate financial resources must be put aside at all times to help the marginalised and disadvantaged in our society.
I give you one example, the Irish Government is presently formulating a National Development Plan outlining our social and economic investment priorities for the period 2000-2006.
We have been told that Ireland has spent the Structural Funds under the present Community Support Framework 1994-1999 very shrewdly with the consequent economic benefits.
<P>
There are many people within the European Union, some notably from Germany and the Netherlands, who feel that Ireland should not be given extra resources under the next round of EU structural funds, 2000-2006.
The person who invented the phrase 'the Celtic Tiger' has not done Ireland a favour.
In Dublin city and county for which I am a Member, there are presently still 70 000 people on the live register.
The Irish Government must include concrete proposals in the National Development Plan which is being sent to the European Commission to help combat this problem which is highly concentrated within the Dublin city and county region.
<P>
One of the priorities must relate to the need to continue to put into place more innovative training programmes so that the evil of long-term unemployment can be defeated once and for all.
<P>
Notwithstanding the fact that Ireland as a country will not qualify for Objective 1 status for the seven-year period post 1999, Dublin city and county still merits the receipt of EU structural funds for particular projects.
The EU budget must reflect this at any given time.
The priority number one area must be to ensure that the European Social Fund is made available for measures to help combat youth and long-term unemployment.
However, other areas which will merit the assistance of EU Regional Fund monies will also relate to the need to implement an integrated transport system as well as introduce innovative measures to deal with our growing waste problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling">
Through our voting strategy we have sought to reduce the total EU budget, which we feel is too all-encompassing.
We are particularly concerned about the Structural Funds and the CAP.
We also voted consistently against funding propaganda ventures such as the Prince programme.
<P>
As regards the vote on Members' travel expenses, yet again the majority in this House has managed to avoid voting for the only ethical option, i.e. refunding individuals for expenses on an actual cost basis.
The system under which Members of the European Parliament can stuff their own pockets will continue, a state of affairs which we deplore.
It should go without saying that reimbursement should cover what we actually spend on travel.
The recent decision by Parliament's Bureau, soon to come into effect, will leave the situation largely unchanged.
The majority of MEPs have once more demonstrated their inability to come to grips with this important issue. This perhaps tells us more about Members themselves than about the European Parliament as an institution.
<P>
We do not think that it would be a good idea to remunerate Members on a common basis. We therefore voted against the proposal in Amendment No 899, fifth indent.
<P>
The amendment calling for funds for a project to put an end to violence against women is, however, very much to be welcomed and we therefore voted in favour.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Graenitz">
Although I reject many of the budget items, particularly the support for nuclear energy and for fusion research, the contributions to the NATO golden jubilee and some agricultural premiums, I voted for the budget because the prudent measures it finances outweigh the others.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Grosch">
I explicitly voted for actual travel costs to be refunded, yet without linking this decision to the new statute for Members.
This statute is vital if there is to be greater clarity, but the two issues cannot be linked.
<P>
I regret that, as a result of this Parliament's vote, a decision by the Bureau is now in the process of being applied.
This decision is incorrect for at least two reasons.
Firstly, it is only applicable from 1 May 1999, one week after the close of this session.
Secondly, those Members who already receive the largest allowances will then receive an additional allowance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Lindqvist">
I voted against all the proposals advocating 'more Union'.
There is something wrong with an institution which, because it lacks grass-roots support among the people, has to resort to ceaseless propaganda campaigns in order to sell itself. Look at what is happening over the euro, for example.
<P>
I supported the proposals for changing the way the CAP and the Structural Funds operate. I welcome calls for less regulation and more straightforward procedures in these areas, and am therefore behind much of the Agenda 2000 package.
<P>
I voted against EU funding for Turkey, since it has not met the commitments it entered into when the Customs Union agreement was signed. Turkey undertook then to stop waging war against the Kurds and to cease persecuting them.
It also promised respect for human rights, democracy and freedom of expression.
<P>
I voted in favour of the proposals to reimburse travel expenses actually incurred, on production of receipts.
By voting against the Members' Statute or 'common statute', I rejected calls for a standard level of remuneration, accompanied by low EU tax.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Reding">
The indecipherable tangle of account-settling, bogus contracts and nepotism in the domain of humanitarian aid - the ECHO programme - has aroused indignation, and rightly so.
In fulfilment of its obligation to control and inform, the European Parliament reacted immediately; because of the inadequate response from the Commission and its glaring failure to provide the elected representatives of the people with sufficient information, we froze all humanitarian aid as a first step.
<P>
In the face of this pressure, the Commission relented and promised to hand over to Parliament all the documents held by the anti-fraud unit UCLAF.
Moreover, the Commission undertook to submit the documentation on the bogus contracts to the judicial authorities.
<P>
Not all the problems, however, have been solved - far from it.
That is why it would be irresponsible to take the pressure off the Commission now.
On the contrary, Parliament must use all the means at its disposal to have this appalling business fully cleared up.
<P>
For that reason, I supported the Green Group's Amendment No 584, whereby 30 % of the TACIS funds were to be set aside for as long as it took to resolve the outstanding issues - an independent audit of ECHO, disciplinary proceedings and the handover of the documents.
The Commission would then have been required to practise transparency and to shed light on this matter between now and the second reading of the budget in December.
<P>
I deeply regret that the opposition on the Socialist side has killed this amendment.
Parliament has thereby thrown away an effective means of enforcing those demands that would have served to promote honesty and transparency in European politics.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Swoboda">
Although I reject many of the budget items, particularly the support for nuclear energy and for fusion research, the contributions to the NATO golden jubilee and some agricultural premiums (such as the 'Herod premium'), I voted for the budget because the prudent measures it finances outweigh the others.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Willockx">
1) In the light of this turbulent debate on travel expenses, I should like to make the following points. The Belgian Socialist delegation continues to support a system in which only the expenses actually incurred and for which evidence is supplied are repaid.
We ourselves have already introduced such a system.
Anne Van Lancker, Philippe De Coene and I only ever claim the costs we have actually incurred.
<P>
2) It is true that there are considerable differences in the salaries paid to Members from the different Member States.
If we are to move to a system of reimbursing actual travel expenses, it may therefore be desirable to introduce a fair transitional system for Members from certain Member States.
The system provided for in the decision of Parliament's Bureau is excessive, questionable under tax law and therefore unacceptable for the Belgian Socialist delegation.
<P>
3) In addition to reforming the travel expenses system, we also need a new Statute for the Members of the European Parliament.
However, if we are to find an efficient solution we must not link these two things together.
<P>
Dührkop Dührkop report (A4-0360/98)
<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Madam President, we voted against the budgets and I would like to explain the additional reasons for this, that is, those that were not mentioned during the general debate.
<P>
Of course, three votes did receive our approval.
The first was Amendment No 439 where we deleted the amounts included in the reserve for Turkey. The second was Amendment No 866 where we withdrew financial aid to ACP banana producers, which is a good decision.
We also deleted the special reserves for external policies and we welcome this move.
<P>
On the other hand, we believe there are two decisions that are reprehensible.
Firstly, we got rid of the reserve for humanitarian aid with Amendment No 784.
Secondly, Amendment No 1, our amendment to the resolution, was rejected.
<P>
As regards humanitarian aid, I see that, having shown its fighting spirit in the face of the ECHO scandal, the European Parliament is once again satisfied with explanations and a mere letter. However, Madam President, we have still not, and I repeat, still not received the UCLAF report that sparked the whole affair.
<P>
Finally, our Amendment No 1, on the exchange of information with the relevant committees in national parliaments was a repeat of the initial version from Mrs Dührkop Dührkop's report.
It was merely a repeat of what she had initially stated in her report.
<P>
I see now that, on all sides, people are constantly talking to me and to us of closer links with national parliaments.
In this report there was a simple measure that allowed the relevant committees in national parliaments to become more involved in terms of the budget.
At a time when the budget is causing more and more problems, when we are asking more and more from the Member States, when some even envisage asking Member States to once again finance certain expenditure, how can we accept this refusal to allow such vital collaboration with national parliaments?
<P>
These are the additional reasons for our opposition to this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Madam President, I did not vote for the agricultural chapters of the budget.
Not because I do not wish there to be an agricultural budget: indeed, I consider this to be a very good budget, with the exception of those funds which are to be spent on supporting certain activities that not only I but also an ever-increasing number of citizens of the European Union reject, fail to understand and simply no longer want.
We are using the 1999 budget to go on financing the Herod premium and subsidising the transport of live animals.
I am entirely on the side of Europe's farmers, who have to work very hard to earn their living in the service of our citizens.
Let not a single ECU be taken from the farmers!
But do let us seek ways and means of paying our dues to the farming community without financing the transport of livestock to the Middle East and the Herod premium.
My intention in casting this vote was to speak for those people who would not otherwise have a voice in this Chamber.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Alavanos">
In today's vote on the budget the Commission, its President and the Commissioner responsible for relations with Turkey have received a firm political response from the European Parliament concerning finance for Turkey.
Parliament voted by 365 votes to 135 not merely to consign financial aid for Turkey to the reserve but to delete it from the reserve altogether.
I hope we will give the same response when we vote on the Commission's new regulations, which I am sorry to say constitute an institutional coup d'etat.
I also hope that Turkey will soon meet the European Parliament's demands with regard to democracy and compliance with international law, if the financial aid is to be unfrozen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw and Sandberg-Fries">
More than half of the Community's budget is spent supporting agriculture in the Member States.
We therefore welcome the proposals by the EU's budgetary authority to cut CAP expenditure.
This is a step in the right direction.
The Council now needs to deal with the fact that the agricultural guideline has become a cover for extra spending far in excess of true needs.
The guideline should instead offer a means of containing farm expenditure.
<P>
We believe that far-reaching reform of the existing common agricultural policy is necessary if the European Union is to meet the challenges of the next century.
It needs to become leaner and fitter and to prepare for enlargement.
If nothing is changed, the current system of subsidies could well be a problem for countries wishing to join.
Not only must the EU promote sustainable agriculture, based on agreed and effective environmental standards; consumer interests also need to be taken into account.
We think that it is fundamentally wrong for the Union to be supporting tobacco-growing.
<P>
We welcome the fact that the continued funding of job-creation measures within the Union figures as one of the European Parliament's budgetary priorities. Another positive feature is that environmental considerations will henceforward carry greater weight when programmes and projects are set up under the Structural Funds.
We very much approve of the proposal to introduce a special budget item for the Baltic region. We just hope that the Council will find an appropriate legal basis for authorising expenditure on this line.
Finally, we are seriously perturbed by the Commission's occasional inability to manage Community resources properly.
Bearing in mind that EU taxpayer' money is at stake here, it is disturbing that no channels of communication were available to inform Parliament of instances of fraud and poor management within the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling">
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Mendes Bota">
I voted against the motion for a resolution (A4-0360/98) on the Draft General Budget of the European Union for the financial year 1999 to protest against the neglect of and discrimination against the tourism sector and the fact that Amendment No 75 was rejected, thus preventing the inclusion of any budget heading on measures to help tourism and thereby depriving it of funding.
<P>
This majority decision by the European Parliament comes in the wake of the rejection by the Committee on Budgets of an amount of ECU 3.5 million and the proposal, currently under discussion, to restructure the parliamentary committees, which would mean that tourism would cease to be the subject of any committee in its own right (there is currently a Committee on Transport and Tourism).
<P>
This anti-tourism attitude seems to be echoed by a majority of the Council. The fact that it is now finding its way into the European Parliament is an affront to the most important economic activity in the European Union, in terms of employment, investment and per capita GDP, a sector still facing problems requiring a specifically European approach.
<P>
The European Parliament's only concern seems to be to open a budgetary heading on the Campaign against Sex Tourism in Third Countries (B7-663), and it has abandoned the European tourism sector altogether. That sector is now bereft of the resources and legal basis needed for Community measures to be taken.
<P>
I am a member of the European Parliament representing a country, Portugal, where tourism is a vital sector in the economy, and the Algarve, a region where tourism is extremely important, and so I have to express my disappointment at the attitude shown by the European Union institutions and vote against this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Palm, Theorin and Wibe">
Spending on the Structural Funds and agriculture is compulsory expenditure. The Council of Ministers takes the decisions, even though Parliament's President ultimately signs the budget.
We challenge the need for much of the EU's expenditure in these two areas.
Unfortunately, we cannot use our votes to influence spending on those parts of agricultural and regional policy which we dispute.
<P>
We believe that competence for regional policy should be given back to the Member States.
Speedy root-and-branch reform of the current common agricultural policy is needed for reasons of efficiency, and in the interests of forthcoming enlargement.
And support for wine and tobacco growing should cease as soon as possible.
<P>
There are also a number of dubious budget items, the purpose of which - according to the remarks - is to promote the 'idea of Europe'.
We particularly object to providing 'grants to organisations advancing the idea of Europe', or' grants for projects organised by associations and federations of European interest'. We have even come across an item devoted to preparation and support for economic and monetary union.
We are firmly opposed to such items.
<P>
Viola report (A4-0361/98)
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Madam President, we voted against the Viola report and I would like to stress the main reason for our position on this report, namely, what happened in relation to the reimbursement of travel expenses during the vote.
<P>
Amendment No 899 to the remarks by the Committee on Budgets was rejected.
It received only 224 votes.
The amendment by the Liberal Group, which said it was in favour of actual costs, received 214 votes.
Our group's Amendment No 4 to the resolution obtained 143 votes and the Liberal Group's amendment received 188 votes.
<P>
Each year, during the budgetary debate, we have asked that the travel costs reimbursed to Members are those actually incurred.
The rejection of these amendments, which took place today, shows how irresponsible our Members are.
In fact, how can we maintain a system that allows Members to receive a fairly significant allowance depending on how far they live from Brussels or Strasbourg, an allowance that is not provided for by any treaty nor any Community act and that is not taxable?
<P>
We hear talk of the problem of the statute for Members, and of inequality, but the Member States are responsible for the situation of their Members.
It is the Member States which must decide whether or not there should be a different allowance in relation to members of their national parliament.
Since the European Parliament has not been asked, it is not responsible for providing a system of compensation, a system that also compounds inequality, as the level of compensation increases when one is geographically further away.
The level of compensation is not related to the amount of the parliamentary allowance in each country.
<P>
This is why we are opposed to this report.
It is wrong to claim that the Bureau's decision is a good one.
The Bureau's decision institutionalizes a system that reimburses fictitious costs.
We are against this system and will continue to oppose it in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Madam President, I did not vote in favour of Mr Viola's report on the expenditure budget of the European Parliament because the majority of Members voted against the amendments providing for the reimbursement of actual travel costs, based on the presentation of proof of travel.
I had personally voted in favour of these amendments.
The outcome of the vote is that the decision of 19 October by the Bureau of the European Parliament, as unjust as it is hypocritical, will enter into force and will benefit even further those Members who already receive too much in terms of travel expenses.
Through this decision, Members will receive a distance allowance that is, in truth, an additional salary and Members who already receive the highest parliamentary travel allowances provided by their national parliaments will be entitled to this allowance.
<P>
Subsequently, I voted for Amendment No 4 to the motion for a resolution on the budget of the European Parliament, an amendment that could have repaired the damage done if it had been adopted.
The Amendment did, in fact, aim to give the Bureau the task of withholding all payments of travel expenses that exceeded actual outlay.
Unfortunately, only 143 Members voted in favour of this.
Fortunately, the 275 Members who voted against have thereby revealed their hypocrisy, which I will continue to expose.
Their hypocrisy does nothing to improve Parliament's image and does even less to improve the image of the majority of the Bureau which, through its decision of 19 October that is hypocritical and lacks transparency, has established a true self-service system for the money provided by the taxpayer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw and Sandberg-Fries">
In connection with this year's budget round, the issue of Members' travel allowances has once again been raised.
The current system allows Members who travel cheaply to keep the difference between the amount actually spent and the flat-rate allowance.
We have always said that we support those proposals which seek to replace the existing travel allowance with a reimbursement system based on the real cost of travel. This is preferable to a flat-rate allowance for the distance covered.
We have worked throughout for a proper, comprehensive solution to the problem.
<P>
The system that has now been adopted is not satisfactory.
If we as parliamentarians want to enjoy the confidence of the electorate, we must resolve the question of our allowances once and for all.
The four of us have therefore agreed that, as from the beginning of next year, we will accept reimbursement of the actual cost of travel only; any surplus will be returned to the Community budget.
This initiative is designed to create transparency and counter the suspicion that travel allowances are used for purposes other than those envisaged.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling">
On this much-discussed question of travel allowances, we of course voted in favour of reimbursement of the actual cost of travel, and no more. This has been our stance throughout.
Anything else is quite unethical.
Amendment No 1 - which was based largely on the Green Group's proposal - was lost because of the way the earlier vote went. Apart from the paragraph on the Statute for Members - which we oppose - the text with that amendment would have been eminently acceptable from our point of view.
<P>
We voted in favour of two of the amendments taken in plenary: Nos 4 and 5.
We have our doubts about the proposal in Amendment No 5 for a further allowance to cover travel in a Member's home country.
We would have voted in favour, however, had the principle of reimbursement on the basis of real costs been carried.
<P>
Yet again, the European Parliament has proved incapable of taking the necessary decisions.
The only sensible and ethical solution would have been to introduce real-cost reimbursement.
What we have now is a situation where Members are free to pocket any surplus allowance that is not needed for travel.
<P>
We very much regret that not even Amendment No 3 on 'greening' the administration of the EU institutions was adopted.
<P>
Since the really important points in this text were dropped, we chose to vote against the whole report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Ojala">
I voted in the Chamber for Amendment No 537 and paragraphs 1-4 of Amendment No 899 in the belief that Parliament would at last be prepared to adopt the practice whereby travel expenses may only be claimed for the actual costs incurred.
Such a practice would be consistent with a sense of fairness and the expectations of our citizens.
<P>
The new situation, in other words the fact that the decision of the Bureau is to come into force, will not improve matters as we had hoped, but on the contrary will confuse things even further.
Parliament does not seem to understand that such spectacles and resolutions only diminish our credibility still further, which I seriously regret.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Palm, Theorin and Wibe">
The EU Member States have for years been suffering as a result of reductions in social spending, which have affected social care and public services.
And all because of the convergence criteria. Unemployment seems to be stuck at around 20 million in the 15 Member States.
We believe that the time has come for careful evaluation of the EU's budget; serious questions need to be asked.
Many of the Union's activities look very lightweight and low-priority when set alongside the social policy work currently being stopped by cutbacks in the Member States.
Long-stay wards are being closed down in Sweden's hospitals, and we deplore the fact that the EU is pouring money into bodies whose results and raisons d'être are highly questionable.
<P>
Obliging Parliament to shuttle between Brussels and Strasbourg is a terrible waste of financial resources.
Huge sums are being spent on the new buildings in both places.
Throwing away money like this does no good for the Union's image with the European public.
<P>
The EP's total expenditure on premises in Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg amounts to ECU 149 610 706.
The situation is made all the more absurd by unnecessary local costs.
Yet nobody appears to have a remedy for this state of affairs.
We, however, do have a few suggestions as regards the European Parliament's budget:
<P>
MEPs' travel costs could be brought down if we introduced a special credit card for travel, rather than paying out generous flat-rate allowances as we do today.
Receipts would obviously have to be produced in support of expenditure on the card.-The Members' pension fund should on no account be topped up out of general EU funds when the books fail to balance.
Participants in the fund should not simply reap the profits when the going is good; they should likewise stand any losses.
The money hitherto paid into the pension fund from the EU budget must be recouped.We also advocate the rejection of any proposals to grant financial help to political parties operating at European level.
In times of general belt-tightening, it looks very bad if politicians authorise further privileges for their own organisations.
European parties should see to it that they obtain funding from their affiliates.
<P>
Finally, we would challenge the Economic and Social Committee's very raison d'être .
We really wonder whether the work this body does justifies its running costs.
<P>
Meeting of heads of state and government
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="McKenna">
Madam President, I voted against this resolution because it goes completely in the wrong direction and totally ignores the citizens of the Member States and their rights and the rights of national parliaments which are much closer to the people than the European Parliament or the European institutions.
It is extremely important that Member States allow their citizens to have as great as possible a role in decision-making and that national parliaments should have the right to scrutinise all the EU institutions.
In particular, it is quite incredible that Parliament should not criticise - since it has often criticised - its role as regards the Commission and that we should not be able to dismiss individual Commissioners rather than the Commission as a collegiate body, because Parliament will never use that power.
<P>
As regards the role of the common foreign and security policy, it is clear that Parliament and the EU institutions are obsessed with the development of a common defence policy, yet the question of whom we are defending ourselves against has never been clearly answered.
It is basically in the interests of the militarisation of Europe, which is not in the interests of people in the long term.
We need to look at demilitarising Europe and the world instead of going in this direction. But this resolution fails to address the democratic deficit of the European Union and completely ignores the rights of ordinary people in the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Madam President, in his introductory speech to the debate on the state of the Union yesterday morning, the President of the European Parliament, Mr Gil-Robles, expressed his concern over the complete lack of progress in the Council's work on how to incorporate the Schengen acquis into the Treaty.
In fact, we know that the protocol incorporating Schengen, as it was adopted by the Amsterdam Council, states in Article 2 that the Council, acting unanimously, shall determine the relevant legal basis for each of the Schengen provisions. In other words, the Council will distribute them between the first and third pillars by sovereign decision.
<P>
This procedure is completely extraordinary and, in my opinion, goes against the French constitution, as it allows the Council of Ministers to determine which aspects of the Schengen agreement can be dealt with by majority voting and which will still require unanimity, without any parliamentary ratification nor any control over constitutionality.
This, for France, is one of the many reasons why we reject the Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
The Council working party has been considering this distribution for a year and has still not produced any tangible results. If the situation were still the same after the Amsterdam Treaty had been ratified, all the Schengen acquis would be attributed to the third pillar, creating an incredible legal imbroglio with the area of freedom, security and justice that was automatically attributed to the first pillar by the Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
Given these conditions, we can understand that the President, Mr Gil-Robles, is calling on the forthcoming Vienna Council to breath new life into this work.
But what can the European Council do?
In reality, the working party's paralysis shows that the Amsterdam Treaty, as it was signed, appears to be completely unworkable on this point.
How can the Heads of State or Government have put their signature to such measures?
This will have to be clarified later but, for the moment, it would indeed be a relief if France did not ratify the Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Andersson and Lööw">
In the event of a majority vote in favour of the original text:
<P>
We would point out that, in paragraph 3, the Swedish words 'ett så kallad rättvist återflöde ' do not accurately reflect the French 'juste retour ', which should be translated as 'exakt ' or 'precist återflöde '.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Barros Moura">
The context of the invitation to this meeting has been changed by the German general election.
The meeting was an idea put forward in a joint letter signed by President Chirac and Chancellor Kohl. Therefore, what purpose can this meeting serve other than to give Mr Schröder and the 14 other Heads of State and Government a chance to meet each other?
<P>
Nonetheless, the proposal by the Committee on Institutional Affairs contains some good points which, if they are taken into account, could just enable the 'summit' to reach the kind of conclusions to give a fillip of a proactively European political nature to the fight against the root-causes of the crisis and the upsurge in reactionary nationalism. Those factors are making it even more difficult to stick to an already extremely complicated political programme, what with the international financial crisis, enlargement to the east, Agenda 2000 and the future financing of the European Union.
<P>
In my view, what makes this resolution interesting - for once getting away from the petty and monotonous institutional demands continually being drummed out by the European Parliament - is that it makes the political future of the European Union dependent upon four fundamental conditions:
<P>
the need to play a decisive political role, apart from the market and the single currency, and to try to promote human rights and peace through its foreign policy; involvement in the regulation of international economics and finances in order to bring about economic progress and social justice (see the proposal by Mr António Guterres made on behalf of the summit of Heads of State and Government of the Ibero-American countries, meeting in Oporto last weekend, for the EU summit on 2425 October dealing with the international financial crisis), and in the creation of an area of freedom, security and justice; -achieving enlargement in a fair way while maintaining cohesion between old and new Member States; -applying subsidiarity not as a pretext for renationalisation nor in a spiral of centralisation but as a 'dynamic criterion' in order to determine who, the Member States or the European Union, should exercise their powers in order to guarantee that the aims of the Treaty are effectively attained; -carrying out an institutional reform to guarantee greater democracy, transparency, citizen participation and effectiveness - aspects which this resolution, unlike others, rightly and expressly considers to be unconnected with the question of the weighting of votes or other issues linked to the power-related status of the larger Member States.This is a resolution which, by laying such emphasis on subsidiarity, by defending the vital participation of national parliaments and by realistically enhancing the decisive role of the Council in a union of sovereign States, demonstrates that the widespread fears of federalism were unfounded - a federalism that only produced bugbears of benefit to nationalists. What has won the day is an authentically federal approach applicable to those powers already transferred, ensuring participation and democracy at that level, in particular by strengthening the European Parliament and giving the Commission, which is effectively responsible to the European Parliament, a bigger say.
<P>
At the same time, the resolution does not ignore the fact that it is more urgent than ever to make progress towards European unification and that the ways of bringing that about require the appropriate institutional finances for meeting the aims of the Treaties to be made available - or, to put it another way, the governments must show willing!
<P>
Last but not least, the resolution puts economic and social cohesion and the European social model on a par with democracy, human rights and the market economy as the fundamental elements of the new constitutional pact being worked out in the European Union.
These are further reasons why we are voting in favour of the motion, denouncing the small-minded interests of those who confuse politics with accountancy and are defending come what may the anti-Community theory of the so-called juste retour .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Delcroix">
Whatever committees we work in, the political future of Europe concerns all of us as Members of the European Parliament.
As the Pörtschach European summit is deemed informal and as the Amsterdam Treaty has not yet been ratified by the Member States, the Committee on Institutional Affairs has wisely based its resolution on the issues announced at the Summit: subsidiarity and the democratic legitimacy of the institutions. This is so that its voice will be heard by the Heads of State or Government of the 15 Member States in a clear and concise political message.
<P>
This pragmatic approach must not prevent us, the socialist Members, from looking further ahead into the future, to a possible overall institutional reform, and we should remember that the next six presidencies of the Union will be held by governments where socialists are in office.
We should therefore ask ourselves what the words of our resolution mean: 'go beyond the completion of the internal market and the introduction of the single currency and move towards a real political union'.
<P>
Twenty years of neo-liberal utopia have taught us the hard way that political globalisation is needed in order to face today's financial and commercial globalisation, to face the deregulation of financial flows and to face monetary fanaticism.
For this reason, the development of the European Union represents an essential step forward in constructing a regional world power.
In today's world, the economy, technology and the development of the information society are evolving in an increasingly international arena.
Those who wish to change society must have a supranational political structure available that will compensate for the influence individual states have lost on such developments.
<P>
The European Union has allowed us to benefit from globalisation whilst protecting us from its disadvantages.
The Union has become a strong economic block that makes businesses more efficient.
A single market has been created and it guarantees, albeit belatedly, the free movement of goods, services, capital and persons.
National trade barriers have been eliminated.
In 1999, national currencies will begin to fade out and the euro will take over.
The Union has become one of the major commercial powers in the world and has many instruments available to allow it to face the challenges of the international economy.
<P>
Moreover, with the euro, the European Union will become a world power on a monetary level.
A specific policy has also been developed to assist less-developed regions in Europe.
This structural policy has generally been successful.
At the same time, the European Union is protecting peace in Europe.
Of all its achievements, this remains the most remarkable, even if it does have its faults.
For half a century, the Member States have lived in peace.
Confrontation has given way to cooperation.
<P>
Nonetheless, public opinion is turning away from Europe due to the unjust nature of the integration imposed by the single market.
Europeans as consumers, workers, unemployed people and citizens have often been neglected.
Although the Treaties have given the European institutions a clear mission, this mission has not been accomplished in terms of social, employment and environmental policies, nor in terms of fiscal and security policies.
European policy on these matters has been inadequate.
Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop these policies.
The introduction of the single currency will only increase this need further in social and fiscal matters.
And until people see the European Union solving their problems, their confidence in Europe will not be restored.
The Europe of Citizens only has meaning if it refers to a project that allows Europe to respond to the everyday concerns of its citizens.
<P>
Raymonde Dury, my predecessor in this European mandate, was fond of saying that if the European Union as an entity asked to join the Union, it would be refused on the grounds that it was not sufficiently democratic.
We are a unique showcase in history as the whole, the European Union, is less democratic than each of its parts, the Member States.
This is why the main aim of the institutional reforms must be to build true democracy and to achieve even greater efficiency.
This democracy and this efficiency will only be achieved in Europe by means of a federal model.
<P>
In this model, the Commission would become a true government.
The European Parliament would become a first chamber representing the people.
The Council would become a second Chamber representing the Member States and their bodies.
The entire structure would be founded upon a true European constitution.
The Court of Justice would become a European constitutional court.
Democratization means European decisions would be made within a framework where the essential guarantees of democracy would be real guarantees, namely, the principle of majority rule, the political accountability of the authorities, control of parliamentary institutions and transparency in decision-making procedures.
Strengthening the democratic nature of the institutions would allow their efficiency to be increased whilst reducing the weight of their bureaucracy at the same time.
<P>
This would first mean strengthening democratic controls in the first pillar and then bringing the two intergovernmental pillars fully within the Community arena.
This would also strengthen the role of the Court of Justice.
<P>
Democratization must therefore go hand in hand with a streamlining process, based on fundamental changes within the three major European institutions.
<P>
The main aim of reforming European policies is to increase efficiency.
Enlargement is forcing the European Union to review the efficiency of its policies.
In a European Union with 500 million inhabitants spread over the whole continent, all European initiatives must be reviewed.
The need for efficiency must be given more consideration.
And this, more to the point, is the basic meaning of the principle of subsidiarity.
The role of the European Union needs to be reduced in certain cases and increased in others.
As a result, the European Union is still too weak in its fight against the negative social and cultural repercussions of globalisation.
On the other hand, some of its forms of intervention, and occasionally some powers, have lost much of their meaning.
They add to the cumbersome bureaucracy and budgetary expenditure yet achieve very little.
<P>
Certain forms of intervention must be reviewed, such as those relating to the fight against social exclusion, to social, environmental and fiscal matters and to agricultural policy.
The Cohesion Fund, in its current form, no longer has a raison d'être . It must become a growth fund offering Member States loans that will facilitate a policy of budgetary adjustment.
It will then be easier for them to respect the convergence criteria in times of financial crisis.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling">
The resolution from Mr De Giovanni and the Committee on Institutional Affairs contains a series of points in the run-up to the October meeting of heads of state and government.
Most of what is said takes us too far along the road towards integration and federalism.
Paragraph 22, for example, states that we should 'lay the foundations for integration of the powers of the WEU in the European Union'. This of course means militarisation of the EU, which runs counter to our desire for a peaceful and demilitarised Europe.
<P>
The alternative resolution from the EDN Group is much better, since it calls for a strengthening of democracy and the application of the subsidiarity principle, as formulated in Cardiff.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Palm, Theorin and Wibe">
The whole thrust of this resolution is that the EU should become more supranational, transforming itself into a 'United States of Europe'.
In paragraph 10, the European Council is warned 'against the temptation to use subsidiarity as a pretext for the renationalisation of Community policies'.
Paragraph 11 'underlines that fears of over-centralisation in the European Union are greatly exaggerated'.
<P>
Our premise is that the EU should function on the basis of cooperation between independent states.
We therefore cannot vote for the resolution.
We also reject the idea that the European Parliament should have its own Statute.
The link between Members of the European Parliament and national parliaments is vital as a matter of principle.
A uniform EP statute would shore up federalist leanings further still.
Huge pay rises for most MEPs would inevitably ensue.
Many citizens who are currently going through hard times would find that difficult to swallow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Spiers">
The European Parliamentary Labour Party supported the De Giovanni resolution, but with considerable reservations.
<P>
This month's special Council meeting is a welcome attempt to address the gulf that is perceived to exist between the European institutions and the EU's citizens.
Its purpose is to explore ways of reconnecting the EU with its citizens, to address the concerns of Europe's peoples rather than to tinker further with the institutional framework.
To concentrate on the EU's institutions and propose institutional reform for future IGCs - when we know that previous IGCs have damaged the EU's legitimacy by making it appear ever more remote from the concerns of its citizens - is to miss the point of this special Council meeting.
<P>
On the specifics of the resolution, the EPLP abstained on paragraph 5 which calls for the EMU countries to be represented by a single voice on international bodies.
<P>
The EPLP voted against Amendment No 40 to the fourth indent of paragraph 18, extending the responsibility of the Court of Justice to all areas of EU competence.
<P>
The EPLP voted against the second indent of paragraph 21, calling for the extension of QMV to all legislative acts.
We voted against Amendment No 35 to this paragraph, which would extend QMV to all appointments made by the Council.
<P>
The EPLP supported Amendment No 19 to paragraph 22, which called for a more effective focus on crisis management and conflict resolution, and greater coordination of EU Member States' defence policies in pursuit of the effective realisation of the Petersburg Tasks.
<P>
The EPLP voted against paragraph 23, which calls for the next revision of the Treaty to be prepared using the Community method.
<P>
Correia report (A4-0353/98)
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Bébéar">
The latest medical data from the World Health Organization (WHO) shows that occupational cancer is constantly increasing in the European Union.
Such cancers account for a significant share of mortality statistics.
<P>
We no longer underestimate the impact of certain environmental factors on cancer and we should treat industry in the same way.
When hereditary tendencies are added to these unfavourable circumstances, we know that cancers then develop on a large scale.
<P>
As a doctor, I have had the opportunity to study this health problem.
Besides the human aspect, all this inevitably incurs an economic and social cost.
Today, the wood industry, in particular, is under close scrutiny.
Nonetheless, the answer does not lie in imposing measures that are too strict and that, in practice, cannot be applied.
<P>
It has become essential to consider the economic aspects of this problem.
The implications in financial terms and in employment terms affect several hundred European businesses in the wood sector.
Therefore, we must know how to act in this respect and take measures that will preserve human life but that will not condemn a sector that employs a large labour force.
If we act hurriedly and without proper judgement then thousands of jobs will be a stake.
<P>
Part of the European Parliament's role is to advocate a progressive conversion to stricter standards on eliminating wood dust.
It is also important in this field to ensure that precautionary measures are harmonised for all countries in the European Union and for all businesses, no matter what size they may be.
<P>
A major part of the efficiency of this protective measure lies in the time allowed for transposing it and applying it to the various national legislations.
Our proposal is sufficiently flexible to allow it to be adapted over time.
<P>
I voted in favour of the Correia report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Blak, Iversen, Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted for an amendment to the directive on carcinogens.
The Commission proposal is not good enough.
It only proposes that the directive be extended to apply to work involving exposure to wood dust from oak and beech.
There is enough scientific documentation to justify all species of wood, both soft and hard woods, being covered by the directive.
In practical work at a plant it is also difficult to have different safety arrangements for different wood species.
We have therefore voted for all species of hard and soft wood to be covered by the directive.
<P>
The Commission proposal for a maximum value of 5 mg/m3 is also not acceptable.
The limit is lower in many Member States, and the Commission has not given any scientific justification for its choice of 5 mg/m3 .
We have voted for the maximum value to be reduced to 1 mg/m3 and for the Commission to be required to review the question of maximum values two years after the directive has been implemented.
<P>
Paasilinna report (A4-0328/98)
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Titley">
As a consumer I am glad that new technologies are opening up new possibilities such as the opportunity to use the Internet for telephone calls.
The possibilities for this kind of 'convergence' between different sectors of the communications industry are exciting.
Perhaps such technological developments will help to open up access for disabled people and others for whom past systems have been difficult to use.
<P>
Almost by definition we must adopt a light hand to regulating services offered by the Internet, which is independent of any national or regional control.
However the fact that we as legislators are currently often left to rely on industry self-regulation to see that consumer interests are safeguarded should not mean that we simply forget the needs of consumers.
<P>
We can, and should if needed, act against monopolies which could limit customer choice.
And the new communications service providers should remember that just as technology can be made to maximise profit, other experts perhaps employed by the public sector could be asked to come up with systems to check quality of service to paying customers.
<P>
I hope that the industries involved in the new communications services will serve all their customers to the highest standards and remove the need for devising what they would complain of as red tape regulations - if they do not, we should be prepared to act to make sure that everyone benefits from new ways of communicating.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Wolf">
It will surely make things clearer if I briefly outline the situation regarding these amendments as I see it.
<P>
Amendments Nos 1 to 15 are nothing other than a necessary cancellation of the conservative-liberal 'carvery party' organised by the majority within the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy in the Paasilinna report.
The left-wing and ecological majority which this House is able to muster will, I hope, remedy the situation.
Amendments Nos 18, 19, 20, 21 and 23, tabled by the Confederal Group of the European Left - Nordic Green Left - are already covered by the text of the report and/or the aforementioned amendments.
For that reason, the overwhelming rejection of these amendments must not be interpreted as an expression of the position of this House on the substantive issues under discussion.
We Greens reject them in any case, because we do not approve of the practice of adding supplementary amendments which contribute nothing new and merely serve internal party-political ends.
Perhaps this was not deliberate, and it simply happened that way, in which case the amendments could equally simply be withdrawn.
<P>
These remarks do not apply to Amendments Nos 16 and 17, which repeat valid points from previous reports, and Amendment No 22, which is substantively indisputable.
These amendments will have our support.
<P>
Giansily report (A4-0341/98)
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Blak, Iversen, Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted for Mr Giansily's report on currency reserves in the third stage of EMU.
That does not mean, however, that we have abandoned Denmark's reservations on the third stage of EMU, which remain in place, but that we are interested in what happens in this area, since the third stage of EMU will have great significance for Denmark, with or without our participation.
<P>
The proposal will in fact ensure that the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) holds a considerable currency reserve in the transitional phase between introduction of the euro and its final implementation.
This will assure the participating countries that their exchange rates remain stable during the transitional period.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Fourçans">
Mr Giansily's report raises the problem of foreign currency reserves in the third stage of Economic and Monetary Union.
The introduction of the euro on 1 January 1999 will mean that part of the current reserves of the national central banks (NCBs) will cease to count as foreign currency reserves and will become de facto internal assets.
<P>
Nonetheless, the fact remains that the NCBs will still have considerable foreign currency reserves, particularly in dollars and in gold, but also in IMF reserve positions and in SDRs.
The overall amount is estimated to be $400 billion for the whole of the euro area.
Given that the NCBs are transferring the equivalent of 50 billion euros to the ECB, a considerable amount of currency will be left in the NCBs' accounts.
<P>
Currently, these reserves can be used to carry out interventions to prevent exchange market disturbances or to cover possible balance of payments deficits.
With the single currency, interventions in currencies of the euro area countries will no longer exist.
What, then, should be done with these surplus reserves?
<P>
We might think at first that this considerable amount will be used to enhance the stability of the euro by discouraging possible speculative attacks.
<P>
It is then important, for the euro's stability, not to dispose of these surpluses in one fell swoop.
Such a move would result in a sharp appreciation of the euro in relation to the dollar and would harm the competitiveness of our economies.
For the euro as an international currency, it would also be wise to avoid any unnecessary disturbance on the exchange markets.
<P>
To conclude, I would like to come back to a point which, to my mind, has not been sufficiently developed by our rapporteur. The Statute of the ESCB states that the NCBs shall continue to be allowed to use their currency reserves, in particular to fulfil their obligations towards international organisations.
If these interventions exceed a certain amount, each NCB will have to obtain the approval of the ECB.
Our rapporteur should undoubtedly have stressed the risks of manoeuvring involved in such a procedure and the need for meticulous control of these interventions.
Besides this one observation, Mr Giansily's report is a good report and I will vote in favour of it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Palm, Theorin and Wibe">
Since Sweden will not be involved in the introduction of the euro over the period 1999-2002, we decided to abstain in the vote on this report.
This is a matter for the Member States who will form part of the euro zone.
<P>
We do however have a point on gold reserves. These carry with them a high emotional charge and tend to be seen as the safest form of emergency reserve for an independent nation.
The pooling of gold reserves would be another nail in the coffin of the independent democratic state.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="de Rose">
In the resolution our colleague Mr Giansily is submitting for consideration, the question is being raised of how the introduction of the euro on 1 January 1999 will affect foreign currency reserves currently held by Member States participating in the euro.
<P>
Article 30 of the protocol annexed to the EC Treaty on the Statute of the European Central Bank states that, in proportion to their share in the capital of the ECB - their share of Community GDP and of population - the national central banks shall transfer foreign currency reserves to the ECB to a total sum of approximately ECU 50 billion.
<P>
The stated objective of the system thus established is that interventions should be carried out on the one hand to prevent disturbances and, on the other hand, to cover possible balance of payments external deficits.
<P>
But, as Mr Giansily explains, the economic and monetary area created by the third stage of EMU should reduce the need for reserves, even though we must exercise the utmost caution during the changeover period in order to ensure that the euro enjoys a certain degree of credibility in the international arena.
<P>
If we take France as an example, a swift calculation shows that France will have to transfer just over 50 billion francs to the ECB. The official foreign currency reserves of the French Government had increased to 400 billion francs by the end of February 1998, of which 150 billion were gold reserves in the coffers of the Banque de France.
<P>
Therefore, once the euro has been introduced, the French Government will possess just under 350 billion francs in surplus foreign currency reserves. The assets in ecus - around 67 billion francs - and in national currencies - the 11 currencies of the euro area - will have to be deducted from this amount and these assets will be converted into euros.
<P>
Given that the ECB should not use these currency reserves to establish the euro, the fundamental question remains: how are these reserves to be used?
<P>
In addition, it ought to be pointed out that the level of reserves needed should increase according to how far an economy opens up to others. The more an economy opens up, the greater the risks and the higher the level of reserves needed.
So, given that European economic integration and the introduction of the euro will reduce extra-Community transactions and exchanges, one amount, estimated at ECU 80 billion, appears to be rather excessive!
<P>
In the light of these figures, what conclusions can be drawn?
<P>
The concrete result for the Member States is a loss of reserves, which is equivalent to a loss of revenue, as these reserves generate interest.
What is more, not content with whisking these financial resources away from the Member States - resources which also act as a means of reducing budgetary deficits - the ECB should find itself sitting on a real 'war chest'. So what does the Bank intend to do with it?
<P>
As a result, we cannot vote in favour of Mr Giansily's report as it seems to us that the vital question of how these reserves will be used has not been raised. Nor has the issue of highlighting the financial resources given to the ECB been raised, where these resources appear to be proportional to the loss of real monetary sovereignty in the Member States.
<P>
Finally, it is clear that the aim of transferring financial resources to the omnipotent ECB cannot conceal the partial transfer of monetary sovereignty from the Member States to this Community body, which is devoid of all democratic legitimacy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Wolf">
This debate should actually be seen in two broader contexts:
<P>
1.the determination of the future international role of the new Euroland, particularly within the global financial system, and2. the establishment of a European credit policy as an essential component of a funding framework for sustainable investments in our social and ecological future.In both respects, the rapporteur has been overcautious.
The bank funds of USD 200 billion which are available in the medium term are certainly not chicken-feed!
<P>
In our amendments, we have tried at least to initiate a structured debate to find out how we can exercise the necessary diligence and avoid undue haste, but still come up with measures that can lead to the gradual elimination of mass unemployment.
This is surely the very least that the 27 million and more unemployed Europeans can expect of us, and indeed of this House as a whole and of the Commission.
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It would naturally also be useful and would serve the true interests of the European people if some of these reserves were used to finance a structured and regulated underpinning of the international financial edifice.
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(The sitting was suspended at 1 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
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<CHAPTER ID=3>
Topical and urgent subjects of major importanceArrest of General Pinochet
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on the following motions for resolutions:
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B4-0975/98 by Mrs Green on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, Mr Cox on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, Mr Puerta on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, Mrs Aelvoet on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament and Mrs Lalumière and Mr Escolá Hernando on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the arrest of General Pinochet in London; -B4-0976/98 by Mr Galeote Quecedo, Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra and Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the arrest of General Pinochet in London.
<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, as you have just said, it falls to me to speak on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, although I will be putting the case for a motion for a resolution submitted jointly by five political groups of this House, the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, the Group of the European Radical Alliance, the Liberal Group, the Green Group and the Socialist Group itself.
I believe that this resolution is couched in very carefully considered terms in which we confine ourselves to welcoming the arrest of General Pinochet in London and urge the Spanish Government to hasten the extradition procedure, once the judicial authorities have submitted a formal request, in order to ensure that General Augusto Pinochet appears before the Spanish courts.
There is a reason for this which is that dozens of Spaniards were among the many people murdered during the Pinochet regime; it is estimated that over 3 000 people were murdered during that black period in the history of the delightful country of Chile.
We now find ourselves in a European judicial area.
We have gone beyond the borders of the Union as both the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 and the new Amsterdam Treaty of 1997 lay down principles of judicial cooperation and, above all, the new Article 31 of the Amsterdam Treaty provides for cooperation in the field of extradition.
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The mere mention of figures, of the thousands who disappeared, fails perhaps to convey the true human dimension of the tragedy that the Pinochet dictatorship inflicted on Chile.
I will refer to only one case, because it concerns someone I knew personally.
That person was Carmelo Soria, an international official of the United Nations.
I met him in person at the United Nations shortly before he went to Chile.
He went there full of enthusiasm, during one of the better stages of Chile's history.
He was going to work as an international civil servant.
And this man, whose only crime was to be an official of the United Nations and to have a somewhat liberal ideology, disappeared, was tortured, was ill-treated, was murdered and his remains were even destroyed in order to give the impression of an accident.
He has left behind a family; he was Spanish; he was a man who was internationally protected as an international civil servant.
The endeavours made in this House to see the authors of this crime brought to trial in Chile have been to no avail, despite a number of promises, and now we have the opportunity, through collaboration between the authorities of different countries of the Union, to bring the main culprit of this and over 30 000 more murders before a Community judge, before a Spanish judge.
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I think that the least we can do in this Parliament is to ask that General Pinochet be made appear before a Spanish court to answer for these crimes.
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<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Galeote Quecedo">
Mr Medina, you know that our group has been most adamant in condemning the regime of the dictator Pinochet, but the motion for a resolution tabled by the Socialist Group urges the Spanish Government to take steps to ultimately request extradition and that is simply not necessary because the Spanish Government - as you well know - has already expressed, through its President, its respect for the decisions of justice and of the relevant courts.
When the time comes, as I am sure everybody is aware, it will be the British authorities who will have to grant extradition. Therefore, I presume that nobody in this House will oppose a request for collaboration, too, with the justice system of the Government of the United Kingdom, that nobody will oppose our stating and repeating the principle of non-interference in the course of justice, and that, equally, nobody will have anything against our restating our support for the democratic institutions of Chile in the process of consolidating the rule of law.
I hope and expect that all these positions in particular, together with others contained in the amendments tabled by my group, will receive the support of the majority in this House.
However, if anybody is using this initiative to conceal the hidden, unacknowledged intention of causing problems for the Spanish Government, I would like them to know that it is very sad, and also very revealing, while also being completely useless.
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<SPEAKER ID=104 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Goerens">
Mr President, Pinochet, like his supporters, has nothing to oppose the imprescriptible charges pressing down on him other than his immunity which, on this occasion, the British authorities deem worthless.
It is as if following the Second World War, Belgium had made Léon Degrelle a life senator in order to shield him from legal proceedings by that very act.
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Our joint resolution calls on the British authorities to seek a favourable outcome to a possible demand for General Pinochet's extradition.
This would allow justice to run its course and would also be a sweet partial victory for those who have been fighting against the impunity of those responsible for crimes against humanity since the Nuremberg trials, the Eichmann trial, the setting up of international tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda, not to mention the International Criminal Court.
Pinochet's arrest and the legal consequences involved will test the credibility of the international legal measures that can be applied in this respect.
That is why my group supports the joint resolution.
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<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Puerta">
Mr President, the arrest of General Pinochet in London at the official request of Spanish judges has given rise to the hope that his crimes will not go unpunished.
Twenty-five years ago, Pinochet violently destroyed the Chilean democratic system, causing the death of President Salvador Allende and thousands of Chilean and foreign citizens, including dozens of Spaniards.
In a premeditated and systematic manner, the country's population and its intellectual, political and trade union leaders were repressed on a large scale.
Let us look at a number of symbolic cases: the singer Víctor Jara, the United Nations official Carmelo Soria, General Carlos Prat in Argentina, and the diplomat Orlando Letelier in the United States.
Pinochet's criminal activities knew no bounds; he respected neither human rights nor democratic legality and he disregarded all forms of extraterritorial status.
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Today, through the action of Spanish and British judges, this long impunity may be contested.
It was made possible by the fact that, for some time, individuals and organisations have not lost hope and have worked tenaciously towards this end.
Human rights associations, the Salvador Allende Foundation under its President, Joan Garcés, and the Spanish United Left have all been involved, from the outset, in lawsuits concerning the disappearance of Spanish citizens in Chile and Argentina.
The request to arrest and extradite Pinochet is based on a separate proceeding by the Court of First Instance No 5 of the Spanish National Criminal Court, at the official request of the United Left, on the basis of the documents on the so-called Operation Condor in the Southern Cone of Latin America.
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In this respect and in keeping with the successive resolutions of the European Parliament and with the Treaties of the European Union, both the Maastricht Treaty and the Amsterdam Treaty that is currently being ratified, our group is tabling and supports this joint resolution. It urges the judicial authorities and the governments involved to fulfil their obligations and ensure that it is possible to hold a fair trial of General Pinochet that will put an end to his arrogant impunity.
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It is to be hoped that this opportunity will be the point of departure for a universal and effective defence of human rights that must undoubtedly pass by way of the International Criminal Court.
It is to be hoped that this signal will help the Chilean people to complete their process of democratization.
We in the European Parliament cannot allow hope to be hijacked yet again.
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<SPEAKER ID=106 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Mr President, we Greens welcome the arrest of Chile's former dictator Augusto Pinochet in London.
There is certainly every reason to consider the bloody deeds of the Pinochet regime as crimes against humanity which could be punished by any court in the world.
However, the divisions that are re-emerging in Chile also reveal how great the influence of this terrible dictator and his henchmen still is.
This makes it all the more urgent that we as Members of the European Parliament support the forces of democracy in Chile so that they can examine the consequences of the Pinochet dictatorship.
This also represents a major success for the human rights groups in Chile.
How must it offend the Chilean people's sense of justice, and especially that of the victims' families, to see the former dictator Pinochet sitting as a life senator in Parliament and being able to travel the world while his victims cannot be brought back to life.
There is still much to be done here.
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This arrest also effectively means that many henchmen and generals who are and have been involved in butchery and dictatorships cannot sleep peacefully any longer, because they are now actually liable to arrest.
There is, of course, the International Criminal Court in Rome, which would also be a key institution in the prosecution of Pinochet for these crimes, even if he cannot be extradited to Spain and convicted there, although we very much hope that he can.
We also need to ask why dictators always have to die in bed at home in their villas.
Another point is perhaps quite important too: I believe that conviction and justice are also possible before death!
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<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pradier">
Mr President, the case of Augusto Pinochet is a model case in every respect.
It is quite probable that he did not kill anyone with his own hands, at least not after gaining power.
On the other hand, it is almost certain that he caused, authorised, encouraged and explicitly ordered the torture and murder of thousands of citizens of his country, and even of foreign countries, who did not share his vision of the world.
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A Spanish court, more concerned over the fate of its fellow citizens than many European bodies, has put out an international warrant for the arrest of the suspect, General Pinochet, and this warrant has been relayed by Interpol, which does not take these warrants lightly.
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The charges hanging over him do not all carry the same weight, in particular the genocide charge, which could well prove to be questionable.
In spite of all his efforts, Pinochet did not become Adolf Hitler.
This arrest, as well as encouraging those who long for peaceful justice, has also sent out an interesting warning to those who have ordered, supported and encouraged other crimes against humanity on this continent.
It must be said that it would be most unwise for them to set foot outside their own countries in the coming years.
The Spanish legal system will do its best with this case, but we cannot fail to acknowledge that legal and political powers will unfortunately weave a tangled web around it.
Never has the need for a permanent international criminal court been so glaringly obvious, a court protected from all forms of pressure and one that will allow this type of situation to be handled in the best possible manner in future.
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<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Nicholson">
Mr President, I should firstly like to say that I have considerable reservations about debating this subject at all this afternoon.
It is a judicial matter and not a political one.
It should be dealt with in a different way.
Although we in this Parliament may give our views this afternoon they will have no great effect on the ultimate outcome.
It falls within the competence of the United Kingdom authorities who will cooperate with the Spanish authorities, and I am sure they will follow the correct procedure.
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We recognise the strong opinions which society holds about Pinochet.
I understand only too well the feelings of Spanish colleagues in this House.
I am conscious of their views.
Like them, I want to make it clear that many of the evil deeds carried out during his time deserve retribution.
I understand only too well the feelings of the families of the 'disappeared'.
In my own area for the last thirty years there have been families who have sought the return of the bodies of their loved ones for burial.
So I understand them. But it should properly now be left in the hands of the Spanish and United Kingdom Governments to go through the due process of law.
I am sure they will do that thoroughly.
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<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="McNally">
Mr President, it is appropriate that we have a debate here on those events; they are very significant events concerning an issue which we have been concerned about in this Parliament for over 20 years: human rights.
EU citizens were affected by what happened in Chile, citizens from almost every Member State.
Many Member States welcomed refugees from Chile.
There is every justification for us to debate it.
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The events are straightforward: following an initiative from a Spanish judge, General Pinochet was arrested in the United Kingdom under an international extradition warrant; he has no diplomatic immunity in that country; the Spanish Government has 40 days in which to respond.
This is due legal process.
Due legal process is the sometimes long-winded tool for attaining justice.
Justice in this case has been slow. However, everyone has the right to a fair trial.
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Mrs Thatcher has sought through her disgraceful intervention to make this issue a political football in the United Kingdom.
This cannot be allowed to happen.
The judicial authorities in the United Kingdom and Spain have to go through the correct processes.
Were there crimes?
Oh yes, there were crimes which shocked the whole world!
There was torture, murder, imprisonment, kidnapping, coercion and blackmail, affecting people in Chile and in our countries.
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The European Parliament is not a court of law.
There will be no verdict during our debate on anything that General Pinochet may or may not have done.
We are not the body which will carry out any sort of trial on that man.
However, there must be punishment for those crimes for someone at some stage.
If this process - carried out, I am pleased to say, in cooperation so far between the Spanish and British Governments, which I am sure will continue - is a means to attain justice for those people who died and were tortured and whose lives have been changed, then I am very pleased that it is happening.
I certainly support every part of the resolution from all the groups concerned.
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<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, General Pinochet's arrest in London has triggered waves of emotion and support in broad sections of the population in Europe and South America.
Those who, like myself, supported the opposition in Chile in the 1970s and 1980s and visited Chile many times to help our political friends there know just how Chile suffered and was torn apart in those years.
The only way to describe the Pinochet regime was as a vicious military dictatorship which crushed democracy and incarcerated, tortured, abducted and murdered thousands of people.
There can be no excusing it.
The Spanish judges who are seeking to right this wrong, which also affected Spanish citizens, deserve our support, and Prime Minister Aznar's announcement that he will react positively if the Spanish judges apply for extradition also deserves our support and respect.
The UK's decision to arrest Pinochet was the right thing to do.
The law should take its course to deal with the terrible crime that Pinochet perpetrated in his own country against thousands of his own citizens.
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A lot of people will be surprised at the attitude of the Chilean Government, which appears to want to protect Pinochet.
But the ridiculous dilemma is that because of their constitution, which Pinochet is using to hold the government to ransom, as it were, the Chilean authorities unfortunately have no choice, otherwise they would be acting unconstitutionally.
So it is good that the United Kingdom and Spain are solving the Pinochet problem for Chile.
It was the same coalition of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats in Chile which restored democracy in the 1990s.
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We intend to vote for the resolution before us, but we would also ask our Socialist colleagues to vote for our amendments in the same spirit of cooperation that has always prevailed here.
They do not detract from the political content of the resolution, but primarily call for the law to be applied so that Pinochet can be brought to justice instead of being allowed to walk around scot-free.
In my opinion Pinochet belongs in prison, as do many violent left-wing military dictators.
Human rights are not left-wing or right-wing issues, they are universal, and they need our constant support wherever they are violated.
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<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Vallvé">
Mr President, the fact that the dictator Pinochet has been arrested and that a warrant for his arrest was issued by Spanish judges is important and excellent news, because it is high time that a dictator who was behind so many crimes - in this case, in Chile - ceases to be able to travel with impunity in his own country and throughout the world.
And in this respect, I believe that this has been an extremely important decision.
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Our group has always supported, and will continue to support, the establishment of an International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity but, until this court becomes operational, any proceedings aimed at prosecuting dictators are to be considered very positive in this sense.
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During this debate in the European Parliament, I, for my part, would like to express my support for the action that has been taken and to urge that any extradition request submitted should be granted, in accordance with judicial decisions.
I would like to remind you of the names of Joan Alsina, a Catalan priest who was killed by machine gun fire in Santiago de Chile under General Pinochet's dictatorship, and Joan Olidon, from Valencia, who disappeared during the early days of Pinochet's dictatorship.
The memory of these names will, I believe, prompt all of us to condemn what took place during those years in Chile.
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<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Mr President, the arrest in London of the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, on a warrant issued by the judge Baltasar Garzón, has fulfilled the two aims pursued by the immense majority of European public opinion of bringing to trial a person guilty of crimes against humanity and of beginning to break the previously armour-plated glass of impunity.
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We in the European Parliament must fully support Judge Garzón in his actions, call for continued cooperation and justice on the part of the British Government in these proceedings and, most importantly, demand that the President of the Spanish Government, José María Aznar, moves away from his current position of unacceptable ambiguity and makes a public and formal commitment to immediately and unconditionally forward the request to extradite Pinochet to Madrid.
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Aznar should instruct the public prosecutors, Mr Cardenal and Mr Fungairiño, who are the authors of a de facto doctrine of exoneration of the Chilean military regime, to desist from denying the competence of the Spanish justice system in this case, and he himself should defend it politically from his position in the government.
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We should also send a double message to Chile: firstly, to its President that he should not try to defend a person who, if he had been able, would have murdered him, as he did Salvador Allende; and secondly, to its government and people, to let them know that Pinochet's trial will certainly not be an obstacle to increasingly close cooperation between the European Union and Chile, and, in fact, should be the opposite.
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It is to be hoped that these events will finally make it clear that no national sovereignty or diplomatic immunity will stand in the way when it comes to defending human rights.
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<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Kerr">
Mr President, I would like to begin by saying that we have heard a lot about the rule of law this afternoon.
I would hope that General Pinochet, from the luxury of the London clinic, is reflecting on his failure to apply the rule of law to the citizens of Chile in 1973 when he was installed in a coup by the American CIA, with, I have to say, British collaboration.
Perhaps we should reflect on what happened to President Allende, the legally elected President of Chile, whose palace was strafed and bombed by the Chilean airforce.
That might give us some pause for thought on the way Pinochet is being treated currently.
For the thousands of people imprisoned in the football stadium in Santiago who were tortured, beaten and who then disappeared, that is what the rule of law meant under Pinochet, so I do not think we should have too much tender mercy for him at the present time.
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The question is what we do with him now?
I have just spoken to Mr Medina who tells me there is a law in Spain which says that you cannot go to prison if you are over 80 years of age.
So I would be a bit worried about sending him to Spain.
Perhaps we should try to find some more creative radical solutions.
We could keep him in England for a period, take him to a football stadium every week and subject him to English football hooligans.
That might make him reflect a little more.
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More seriously, we have to insist that he is brought to justice in the courts either in Britain or in Spain and an appropriate sentence handed out.
I am a little worried that the British Government may be leant on by the Americans.
The CIA which installed him originally in the 1970s like to look after their own and there is a suspicion that the Americans are leaning on the British Government to let him slip quietly back to Chile in the night.
If that happens this Parliament should come back and reflect again on those measures.
Bring him to justice and throw the book at him!
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<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Marinho">
Mr President, what sets Mr Pinochet apart from the other butchers in history - whether they were directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of thousands of human beings - is that this man not only committed crimes but he also carefully arranged for his own acquittal and his own constitutional impunity.
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Pinochet would have committed the perfect crime had he not thrown down this final challenge to crown the perversity of his political career - a challenge to the European judicial institutions that are responsible for justice and the prosecution of criminals like him.
If, just because of who he is, Pinochet were also immune from judgment or punishment in Europe then we would no longer be able to hold our heads up high and claim that our countries have been applying the rule of law and justice, since the end of the Second World War at least. Justice was never something that Pinochet knew much about or had much regard for.
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Fortunately, although history writes justice in crooked lines it writes it nonetheless.
At the end of his life, Pinochet has fallen foul of justice, a concept he has never known, because he has always practised the axiom 'might is right'.
Whatever his current detention in London leads to, at least history will remember the victory of memory over amnesia and will vindicate, albeit symbolically perhaps, the just and innocent victims of Pinochet's ideological ignominy - after all, these people have been hoping for even just a modicum of justice for the last 25 years.
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<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Robles Piquer">
Mr President, I had the honour of meeting the constitutional President of Chile, Salvador Allende, in person, and even in my own modest way to participate in negotiations that were initiated, during the first Chilean stage, by him. At the end of these negotiations, he awarded me a decoration that he had signed and that is an honour in my modest life story.
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You will understand my emotion, Mr President, whenever these subjects are discussed and when we endeavour, and rightly so, to bring to justice the person who brought him down with violence, who caused his death and who was behind so many murders.
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Nonetheless, I also have other concerns, the first of which is that not only the Spanish authorities but also the British authorities should be reminded that at the end of the day it is they who must assume responsibility if the extradition request is submitted to them; this, incidentally, is not stated in the motion for a resolution we have before us.
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My second concern is that we must be able to respect the independence of the justice system.
It is the justice system that must take the relevant decision and we all hope that that decision will indeed be just.
And I would also like to say, in connection with a remark that we just heard that is clearly related to domestic politics in Spain, that President Aznar has already stated in the clearest possible terms that he will abide by the decision of the justice system.
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My third, and perhaps most serious concern is that this Parliament should contribute to, and not undermine the strength of the political transition in Chile.
Those of us who have lived through and have on occasion been required to participate in a difficult political transition are well aware that each country has its rules, its needs and its problems.
And we know that, for instance, to contribute to a deterioration from within of the difficult Chilean process and the way they have managed to live together, having certainly paid a price that they doubtless had no desire to pay, is certainly not the best way to help Chilean democracy.
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I would therefore ask that we demonstrate caution and serenity in accepting a number of reasonable requests that my group has submitted in the form of amendments.
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<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, every day we face new challenges which are the logical consequences of decisions we have taken earlier.
Today it is the arrest of General Pinochet, the man who will stand in next century's history books as the symbol of repression, human rights violations and dictatorship in Latin America.
He deserves to be prosecuted.
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We will not let legal hair-splitting about immunity get in our way.
Of course there are always controversial aspects when new ground is broken like this, and a good many lawyers will probably have a field day, but we must have the courage to do it.
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We also have warrants out for the arrest of Karadzic and Mladic, and we have the International Court of Justice.
Pinochet must be prosecuted for crimes against humanity, and human rights, as Mrs Maij-Weggen said, are universal, even in Latin America.
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That is why my group, as we have already said, supports the Spanish and UK authorities for taking this courageous step.
We hope there will be effective cooperation not just between those two countries, but between all the Member States.
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It is not our intention here to influence the judicial process.
The rule of law comes first, of course, but it will ultimately be a political decision by the UK Government to agree to the extradition.
We wish the government courage and wisdom.
I was also pleased to see the reactions of the Norwegian and Canadian Foreign Ministers in the International Herald Tribune, wishing us all courage.
I can assure Mrs Maij-Weggen that the Liberal Group also intends to support the amendments.
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<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sauquillo Pérez del Arco">
Mr President, over and above judicial technicalities, General Pinochet's arrest in London has a fundamental significance for democracy in that it signals the end of impunity for those who, from behind the shield of power, violate the human rights of the peoples under the control of their regimes.
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The principles of sovereignty and non-interference in countries' domestic affairs do not cover these cases of crimes against humanity.
Indeed, from now on, humanity is protected against any abusive exercise of sovereignty.
Let dictators be aware that these things are never over and done with.
The European judicial area, which is effectively being inaugurated with this case, could not have a better beginning.
Judicial cooperation in the defence of the values that are inherent in the construction of Europe is a foretaste of what will happen when the International Criminal Court becomes operational and justice will not have to wait until the dictator of the day takes a trip to Europe.
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This is something we should welcome and we should urge the governments to demonstrate their real, as opposed to merely nominal, commitment to those values when the time comes for the judicial authorities to submit the request for extradition.
This does not mean, as the Group of the European People's Party fears, that we are meddling in the course of justice, but that we are carrying out our political role.
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This case offers us the opportunity to show unambiguously to the people which side each of us is on: on the side of human rights or on the side of judicial subterfuges in the interests of those who violate human rights.
As socialists, we are on the side of justice and in this respect we are going to vote in favour of the joint resolution by the Group of the Party of European Socialists and other political groups in this Parliament.
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<SPEAKER ID=118 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Imaz San Miguel">
Mr President, there should be no impunity when murder is committed.
General Pinochet has ultimate responsibility for a dictatorial regime that killed, tortured and led to the disappearance of thousands of people.
Impunity cannot and must not exist in cases of such flagrant violation of human rights.
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Unfortunately, international law has long protected situations of this nature, but collaboration is increasing every day and we are building a world in which the free movement of persons goes hand in hand with increased police and judicial collaboration that could reduce crime.
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Pinochet is also responsible for the murders and disappearance of dozens of Community citizens, mainly from Spain.
In this respect, the action of the Spanish justice system is commendable - and I certainly welcome it -, as is the effective collaboration with the British justice system.
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Augusto Pinochet's arrest is good news, particularly for his victims and for their families.
I hope that justice will give them the victory that history, hampered by crime, denied them.
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We will naturally abide by the decision of the justice system, but the Basque Nationalist Party that I represent hopes that it finds the appropriate legal channel to request General Pinochet's extradition so that he can stand trial in the various proceedings initiated against him in Spain.
I also hope that there will be maximum collaboration between the Spanish and British Governments in the event that the judicial authorities do submit an extradition request.
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The poet Neruda might have been able to alter one of his poems in the light of this situation to say that he could write the most joyful verses tonight.
I hope that justice and international collaboration will bear this out.
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Lastly, I hope that an extradition request will indeed be submitted and I join those who call for an International Criminal Court with competence in these matters, so that dictators with blood-stained hands may be arrested and have a fair trial, which is something their victims never had.
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<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="Newens">
Mr President, the argument put forward by General Pinochet's legal representatives that his detention in London pending possible extradition to Spain is a breach of certain legal niceties would not have cut much ice with his administration in Chile in 1973.
The status of President Allende as the democratically-elected head of government which he, General Pinochet, was pledged to uphold did not deter him from bombing the presidential palace, leading to the President's death.
The rights of Chilean citizens, including elected representatives, were not respected when they were confined in the sports stadium, tortured and killed.
Over 2 000 disappeared and were never seen again.
Even foreigners or people with dual nationality were not accorded their just rights and many European citizens were woefully ill-treated and some killed.
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I helped to organise the first protest demonstration in London against the 1973 coup and I have never forgotten the heart-rending stories told by some of the refugees who came to Britain of suffering, of losses, of relatives barbarously killed.
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If human rights are of any importance, there can be no impunity for those who organise a reign of terror.
But General Pinochet's own rights will be scrupulously respected, unlike those of thousands of his victims as he faces the judicial process here in Europe.
I strongly support the action which has been taken.
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<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="Spencer">
Mr President, I am a parliamentarian and not a lawyer.
I want, for a moment, for all of us to consider our intent as we take part in this debate this afternoon.
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Are we after individual justice, after collective vengeance, or after finding some way of producing future deterrents against military dictators?
It seems to me that the political question this afternoon is not the rule of law but the effectiveness of legal institutions at global level.
Do we have a genuine global jurisdiction in human rights?
Almost.
Do we have the institutions for enforcing that global jurisdiction? Probably not.
But if we are going to attach all our longings, all our wishes, to those institutions, then we must make sure that global justice is blind; that global justice applies to everybody; that global justice is enforceable; that it does not look out from under its blindfold with one eye, either left or right.
I am not convinced that we yet have those institutions for bringing such dictators to book.
We had better be very careful that we do not destroy such global justice as we have in the emotion of a particular case, because if we apply this to Pinochet, are we now to arrest Castro the next time he is on European territory; or the Chinese leadership; or a dozen African dictators existing or retired?

<P>
I think the British Government will find that it has blundered into a very difficult legal minefield.
If it had had half the wisdom of the French it would not have let Pinochet in in the first place.
I look with interest to see how the British Government conducts itself.
I trust it will conduct itself in line with the rule of law and not in line with the kind of politics of sound-bite that Mr Mandelson indulged in at the weekend.
What matters here is not the reputation of one man or one government, but our future chances of a proper institutional structure for this planet.
<P>
Justice can be pursued through the courts.
We can do something as politicians about future deterrence, but vengeance is the Lord's.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pons Grau">
Mr President, the European Parliament is a political body.
Therefore, the European Union should have a foreign policy that is based on the defence of freedom, democracy and the rule of law.
It is for this reason that Parliament promoted the creation of clauses incorporating the condition of democracy in all the treaties signed by the Union with third countries.
Consequently, we support the establishment of the International Criminal Court and, for this reason, our resolutions all maintain the precept that crimes against humanity are never prescribed.
The best antidote, the best way to prevent dictatorial temptations in the future is to put an end to impunity.
It is pathetic to say that actions such as those carried out by the European Parliament against impunity stand in the way of the advent of new democracies, just as it is false to say that this resolution constitutes interference in or pressure on the judicial machinery of a given European country.
This is a political stance that speaks for itself.
It is quite possible that there are others who are tempted to bring pressure to bear on the justice system, either directly or through rules, excuses and interpretations that seek to disguise a political stance, which cannot, however, be disguised.
How can any European president ask that a fact that is political in itself not be politicized?
To engage in politics is to assume a position, to take sides, to make a choice, and the European Parliament takes the side of democratic reason against obscure reasons of State.
Why is it, Mr President, that when reasons of State run counter to the defence of human rights, we defend a given State, as opposed to the concept of a state's rule of law?
Parliament takes the side of the citizens, those who were defeated and humiliated, those who must always give in and those who now, finally, are catching sight of justice - not vengeance -, those who even now in Chile can still not openly express their joy at Pinochet's arrest for fear of the same old diehards.
To expect them to remain silent now is like asking the victim not to cry out so that his cries do not disturb the executioner.
<P>
We choose peace, which is simply to be able to express oneself freely, calmly and without fear.
We are aware of the difficult period Chile is now experiencing, as a country facing its painful reality without subterfuge or cosmetic disguise, but one that is about to end its painful kidnapping and throw open the doors to life and memory.
We know in Parliament that many will accuse us of interference but the fact is that, even if the majority of the population supported Pinochet, that circumstance would not exonerate him of his crimes.
Crimes are not measured by majorities or minorities.
The dead have names, families and friends.
Some even have a diplomatic passport.
It is up to these families and friends to pardon those involved, if that is what they wish to do.
<P>
Today we hear an international cry for justice through a judicial proceeding, with the unarmed bobbies standing guard at the door of the old man of death.
Perhaps the broad avenues are opening up for the passage of the free men and women who remember so many Amandas, Manuelas, Victors, Marías, Carmelos and Salvadors who have lived on this earth.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, as we close this debate, ignoring certain requirements that are as dissonant as they are senseless, what is the leitmotif of this resolution?
It is that the defence of human rights, Mr President, is the basis of our ideology and the foundation of the judicial order both of the Union and of the various Member States.
It is that the powers and responsibility granted to this institution by the Treaty on European Union today require us to be rigorous.
It is that Parliament must certainly shun any opportunistic voluntarism that detracts from the impact of a statement that, when all is said and done, involves almost 300 million European citizens.
<P>
Therefore, it is important to state - and Parliament should certainly do so loudly and clearly - that the rule of law is based on the independence of the judiciary and that this principle, and its corollary of scrupulous respect for judicial rulings, must prevail over any other interest, however legitimate.
Parliament must restate its defence of the principle of universal justice and its commitment to the International Criminal Court and we must also restate our unequivocal support for the society and democratic authorities of Chile in their process of consolidating democracy.
We must certainly raise the level of the debate from that of the petty wrangling of party politics to an expression of a position worthy of this Parliament.
<P>
In this respect, we must insist that the extradition procedures fall equally to the Spanish and British Governments and we should therefore address them both.
If I were to be pressed, I would say that it falls particularly to the British Government, since anybody who is familiar with the Treaties knows that the relevant legislation requires that in the case of crimes committed in a third country, the extraterritorial competence invoked by the applicant state may be contested politically, almost at its discretion, by the state to which the application is made.
Is this why the Socialist Group flatly refuses to accept that the term 'British Government' should appear in the resolution?
Well, Mr President, if that is New Labour, the third way, then we really are in big trouble.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if I may make something clear from the outset, the European Commission opposes any form of totalitarian government of whatever political hue.
My colleagues and I are firmly convinced that a society can only develop properly on a democratic basis.
<P>
It is a universally known fact that human rights were violated during General Pinochet's 15-year rule in Chile, sometimes flagrantly so.
Our deep sympathy is therefore with all those who suffered or even lost loved ones and those who had to leave their homes to escape wanton persecution.
Under the Treaty on European Union, the European Commission has no jurisdiction in the domain of mutual assistance in criminal matters, which is the sole prerogative of the Member States.
It is therefore a matter for the Member States concerned, subject to their obligations under the applicable extradition treaties and their national legal systems, to make and process applications for extradition.
<P>
It should, however, be noted that two conventions on extradition have now been adopted, but because the Member States have not yet ratified them they remain a dead letter for the time being.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
As you know, the President of the sitting should not normally make any comment.
Let me say, however, that in my view Parliament was right to put this subject on its agenda, and that the House has used this time to good effect.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 3.50 p.m. and resumed at 4 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Decommissioning of nuclear power stations
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0354/98) by Mr Chichester, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on decommissioning of nuclear power stations and other nuclear installations in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="Chichester">
Madam President, the aims of this report are to review the current situation in the nuclear energy industry with regard to decommissioning, to bring a wider awareness of the strategies, techniques and costs of this part of the nuclear cycle and to make suggestions for further action at a European level.
<P>
I visited six sites around Europe where decommissioning activities and research into them are taking place.
Before learning about all the expertise and experience that exists in Europe in this field, I shared some of the misunderstanding and concerns caused by the much-repeated myths that nobody knows what to do with nuclear power plants at the end of their working life and that nobody knows how much it will cost.
The fact is that not only does the industry know how to dismantle a nuclear power station but dismantling has been done safely and successfully to 'green field' status.
The experience gained in the many decommissioning projects already undertaken shows us that the cost is known and calculable at around 15 % of construction costs.
This is a far cry from the public perception.
<P>
So what should be done?
The report calls for action in a number of areas which come under the general heading of public awareness.
The nuclear industry itself must meet its responsibilities to be open and proactive in education and information activities.
The Commission must do more to contribute to public knowledge, to make research results more readily available and to reassure public opinion.
<P>
The report also reminds us where the responsibility for decommissioning and its financing rests, namely with the operators within the Member States.
It seems to me to be vital for public confidence that people be aware that there is accountability and that it is subject to rigorous regulation by independent inspectorates.
<P>
Much emphasis in the report is placed on requirements for safety and health of the highest order.
People are anxious at the mention of radiation and radioactivity, so it is right to call for the most stringent requirements on protection measures.
Yet the fact is that once a reactor has been defuelled, by far the greater part of radioactive material has been removed and 90 % of what is left of the structure of the power plant is not radioactive and can be recycled safely.
There is a debate about which strategy should be adopted, namely whether to proceed in phases over a longer period of time to allow residual activity to decline and make dismantling even less of a risk or to carry out direct or accelerated decommissioning to reach that 'green field' status as soon as possible.
There are arguments in favour of both approaches, and we would be wise to refrain from saying that there should be only one way to do it.
<P>
Either way, the operators and the regulatory authorities have a duty to see proper financial provision is made for the costs of decommissioning.
The report calls on the Commission to study the various options to see how they might best be applied to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe where most help should be concentrated.
In that context, we must not become complacent about Western European skills and expertise: there is always room to improve techniques to find new, safer and cheaper ways of tackling the task of decommissioning.
<P>
This field of activity represents a great industrial opportunity for employment in the decades to come.
It is an immensely important opportunity for European businesses and engineering skills.
The fact is that whatever your views may be on nuclear energy, this part of the cycle cannot be abandoned or shirked.
We have a duty to see every power plant that reaches the end of its useful life decommissioned safely and effectively.
<P>
I want that to be the case so as to encourage people to plan ahead for and build new, modern design nuclear power stations for the future.
We derive too much of our electricity from nuclear energy to turn our backs on it.
If we are to stand a chance of meeting those Kyoto CO2 emission targets, then we must continue to generate nuclear electricity, safe in the knowledge that we know how to decommission the power plants.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="McNally">
Madam President, I am rather sorry that Mr Chichester chose to end his contribution with a plea for building more nuclear power stations.
That is not what his report was meant to be about and he has misused his available time on something that is inappropriate.
<P>
Back in the 1950s, at the time of the Euratom Treaty, there was an optimism about nuclear power which was, frankly, unrealistic.
It was to be 'electricity too cheap to meter'.
There were several snags which should have been thought about, but were not.
Firstly, the relatively small risk of a very serious accident with huge implications.
Secondly, the whole question of how one disposes of nuclear waste.
Thirdly, the techniques, costs, etc. and financing of decommissioning.
Had all those things been discussed, the optimism would have been much less.
<P>
It is not true to say, as Mr Chichester implies, that this has been completely solved, that everyone knows exactly how to do it and how much it costs.
I would refer him to the area near my place of birth, Trawsfynydd in North Wales.
Here no clear decision has been taken about what should be done: the site of a nuclear power station has not been returned to a state in which it can be used for other purposes, and we have a legacy of nuclear waste which will stay in the mountain for a long time.
<P>
Of course we are very much in favour of openness and transparency.
The links between the nuclear power industry and the nuclear weapons industry for many years led to an ethos of tremendous secrecy and a refusal to admit anything could ever possibly be wrong.
There is some indication that is changing, but Mr Chichester is right to say that unless there is openness and transparency, there will most certainly not be any sort of public confidence.
Incidentally, it is not a matter for the European Union to tell Member States whether or not it is appropriate for them to have early decommissioning of their nuclear power stations.
Whether or not nuclear power stations are taken out of operation at the planned date or earlier is entirely a matter for the Member State concerned.
That should not be in his report.
<P>
We know how you cut apart pieces of metal and how you transport them; but we do not have a publicly-acceptable solution to what happens to the radioactive part of nuclear power stations.
Here, in the European Union we have the problem of decommissioning our nuclear facilities at our Joint Research Centre.
We have not calculated the cost of that decommissioning in the correct place, and it is currently, completely irregularly, being put into a research budget.
Decommissioning of nuclear power stations is not research.
That is not the appropriate place for the decommissionining of the JRC's facilities.
<P>
Something which concerns me greatly - and I mentioned it during the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy's debate - is the use by some nuclear utilities of contract workers for the more dangerous aspects of decommissioning and accident work.
That is deplorable.
If the intention of using contract workers is that the monitoring, which must be long-term monitoring, does not need to take place, this is unacceptable.
I do not see either that it is appropriate in this report to talk about 50 to 60 years' extension of nuclear power plants.
Mr Chichester may hold those views, but they were not for this report.
His last remarks, as I have said, are about the construction of more nuclear power stations: this is completely inappropriate and nothing to do with the subject he was asked to report on.
Let us solve the first problem before we do any such thing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Estevan Bolea">
Madam President, I would like to congratulate Mr Chichester for two reasons.
First, I would like to congratulate him on taking the initiative to draw up this report, since I consider it to be particularly timely and, second, I would like to congratulate him on its quality. Moreover, I fully endorse what he said at the beginning and at the end and, in fact, I think that he could have gone further.
We will miss Mrs McNally, whose work I admire tremendously - as I do her beautiful English -, but not the many confused issues she has just raised, which were so mixed up that I was, quite frankly, unable to follow her.
<P>
I think that the main issue in connection with the closing down and decommissioning of power stations relates to the closing of the cycle.
I wish, ladies and gentlemen, that we were as clear about what we are doing in other areas as we are about nuclear energy.
Some countries say that they are going to decommission power stations, but I seriously doubt that they will do so for another 30 or 40 years.
<P>
The United States is extending the life of its nuclear power stations up to 40 or 60 years.
Europe will also do so, as will Japan.
Why?
Because it is clean energy, it is safe energy, it is cheap energy, and that is what we need in a liberalised electricity market.
It would be most important to internalise the cost of decommissioning power stations in electricity generation as a whole.
Oil platforms, for instance, are to be decommissioned: a number of such procedures have already been approved for companies in the North Sea and there are several Commission communications on the subject.
Meanwhile, as regards nuclear energy, ladies and gentlemen, in the eight countries of the European Union that generate electricity in nuclear power stations, all costs relating to waste management and the decommissioning of nuclear plants have been internalised and, as Mr Chichester rightly said, the costs are very low, and considerably lower than is claimed by those who have not studied the matter.
And how do I know that they are low?
I know this because Spain is decommissioning the large, 460 Mw Vandellós 1 power station, because its technology is obsolete - French technology using natural uranium that was not considered very useful - and not because of any nuclear problems as such.
It is a major power station but the decommissioning costs are well below even the 15 % mentioned by Mr Chichester, just as it is well below in terms of waste management costs, despite what is frivolously stated by those who have not studied the matter or looked at it in depth.
I think Mr Chichester hit the nail on the head when he said that this advanced technology that is going to be used represents a further opportunity for our industries. It is a new field of industrial activity that we should all take advantage of, because we will have to wait 40 or 60 years, although there are research centres and power stations that will have to be decommissioned at some point.
Congratulations, Mr Chichester, and I hope that you will continue to work with the same rigour.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
Madam President, nuclear power is an outmoded energy technology.
Mr Chichester's report demonstrates this very well.
He therefore did not need to start talking about new nuclear plants at the end of a statement on a report which describes how decommissioning is gathering pace around the world.
<P>
There are major risks inherent in nuclear power, beginning with the possibility of radioactive emissions during the mining of uranium, running through the operating life of a plant, and on to transportation for final disposal - not to mention the danger of the proliferation of plutonium waste for weapons purposes.
The problem of the final disposal of nuclear waste has not been resolved.
In the light of considerations such as operating and transportation risks and the fact that new waste is constantly being produced, nuclear power should be abandoned as a source of energy.
<P>
Each country should decide independently on when and how to decommission.
It is also up to each country to take charge of its own radioactive waste.
Sweden - and other countries which, thanks to their research effort, now have sophisticated disposal methods - cannot be allowed to become dumps for the whole of Europe's reactor waste. States must be in a position to make their own decisions on the import and export of waste.
Nuclear waste has to be taken for what it is; we cannot afford to pretend that it is just any old product.
<P>
The report is a good one in many respects.
I agree with most of what is said about research, preventive measures, health protection, transparency, contact with the public and the export of decommissioning know-how to the Central and Eastern European countries. This latter point is extremely important.
<P>
More and more nuclear plants are being shut down.
Sweden has decided to abandon nuclear power, and two of our twelve reactors will be decommissioned this year, 1998.
The Euratom Treaty will need to be wound up in the foreseeable future and transformed into a treaty for the development of renewable and environmentally friendly energy sources.
I can support all of the amendments, apart from Nos 6 and 9.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Ainardi">
Madam President, in 1997 there were 128 nuclear power plants operating in the European Union and 39 were in the process of decommissioning.
<P>
The Chichester report, drawn up on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, highlights the fact that the efforts made at Community level, particularly as regards research on decommissioning nuclear power plants, have allowed us to reach a high level of expertise.
Yet even more effort can still be made, as the report shows, in order to reduce health risks and to promote the recycling of material obtained from decommissioning.
The report also quite rightly shows that the closure and decommissioning of nuclear installations for political reasons, before they reach the end of their natural life, cannot be economically justified.
<P>
In my opinion, there are two main pitfalls to be avoided in today's extremely controversial field of nuclear power: blind faith and irrational fear.
Nuclear power, which generates up to an average of 35 % of the electricity used in Europe - and more than 75 % of the electricity used in France - is an advantage that should not be dismissed but rather developed.
<P>
Environmental constraints, especially the importance of decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, have given nuclear energy a new lease of life as it is the least polluting form of energy.
Using technological development and European know-how as a basis, additional efforts must be made in the fields of the environment, safety and public health.
Also, employees in nuclear plants and the public should be more closely involved in this field.
High-level investment is particularly necessary to eliminate radioactive waste and reduce radioactivity levels in order to allow for its terminal storage, without endangering future generations.
<P>
Finally, in the face of threats that have become more real due to the liberalisation of the energy sector - set in motion by the directives on gas and electricity -, I believe it is very important that Member States are able to maintain their sovereign right to opt for the energy form of their choice.
I believe this choice should be respected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bloch von Blottnitz">
Madam President, it is, of course, remarkable and gratifying that after decades of unbridled subsidising of nuclear technology, consideration is now being given to what we should do when nuclear facilities reach the end of their operational lives.
It would naturally have been far better if, before embarking on this whole nuclear adventure, we had given some thought to the disposal of the resultant waste.
It is a fact that no place in the world is safe enough for the final disposal of high- and medium-level radioactive waste.
Experts are even still arguing about the host rock we should choose and the type of matrix in which the waste should be sealed.
Mr Chichester may now claim that some facilities have already been dismantled and turned into green fields, but that is simply not true.
We have demolished one single nuclear power plant in the European Union, namely Niederreichbach, which had only been in operation for 14 days and was not at all contaminated.
Then in Greifswald the Lugmin reactor was dismantled but was not even connected to the grid, and what you perhaps saw in Reinsberg was a research reactor, which cannot be compared with an operational power station.
And so I can tell you quite categorically that we neither know what sort of technology to use nor do we have a final storage place.
To turn the argument round, before dismantling anything we must first think about where to put it, and since we do not know that yet, the decommissioned nuclear plants should be safely sealed off, naturally without removing the fuel rods; these should stay in the plant, so that a stop can be put to this senseless practice of transporting them around Europe.
<P>
What we also need urgently, of course, is a ban on recycling and on the mixing of different contaminated and uncontaminated materials.
It is surely unacceptable that roads, for instance, should be built with contaminated materials.
What are we demanding of workers?
Let me tell you that the steel industry as well as the entire precision-engineering and light-engineering industries cannot do anything at all with contaminated steel. That is another constraint.
<P>
Moreover, we need an amendment of the European regulation on protection from radiation, because it is possible to make progress through this regulation as far as the sorting of decommissioning waste is concerned.
This also means, of course, that we urgently need a decommissioning fund, which should be based on the polluter-pays principle.
I do not wish to suggest that we should suddenly have to fork out this money.
Certain parties have been amassing huge profits over all these years at the taxpayer's expense, because they had a monopoly; their prices had to be paid, and they built up enormous reserves with their tax-free billions.
That certainly must be halted.
But we do need a decommissioning fund to ensure that the population is protected from radiation.
We could also take the money from the ECSC budget, which runs out in 2000 and still amounts to more than ECU 100 million.
So there are possibilities.
But this does not alter the main point: if we create waste, we must decide where to dispose of it.
That decision is your problem, and it still needs to be solved.
You always tell us everything is fine, they will all be turned into green fields, it will cost nothing, and recycling is no problem, but the reality and the truth of the matter look quite different, otherwise there should not be overfilled interim storage facilities everywhere, and we should not have great mountains of nuclear waste at the reprocessing plants.
I believe it is high time we faced up to reality, instead of constantly producing more and more waste.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Madam President, anyone listening to the debate here between the supporters and opponents of nuclear energy would certainly think that there will never be agreement between them.
Yet we have before us a report drawing attention to a common need to ensure that power stations are decommissioned safely, because people's health is at stake.
I have to say, Mr Chichester, that your reassuring words about Belgium are not entirely accurate, because the nuclear waste problem is being passed from one office to another like a hot potato, and a genuine solution has yet to be found.
<P>
Thanks to pressure from a strong nuclear lobby, nuclear power stations were built all over the place, despite the fact that there is no way of disposing of highly radioactive waste, as the previous speaker tellingly described.
Nevertheless, a number of stations are going to have to close over the next few years, and now that the Cold War is over, we no longer need military installations - in fact, in my opinion we do not need them at all - and there are hopes that we will switch to other methods of electricity production, and so on.
The working life of the power stations is also limited, though opinions differ as to just how long that life is.
But in the end they all have to be decommissioned, and there are unfortunately no general rules about how this should be done.
<P>
The report refers to the possibility of direct complete dismantling and of staged decommissioning, where dismantling to 'green field' level takes 135 years - none of us would even live to see it.
I feel that this is totally irresponsible.
<P>
Financial arguments are bound to be raised, because despite all the warnings, the cost of decommissioning has never actually been included in the price of the power stations or the electricity.
Critics of nuclear development have always pointed out the financial risks.
Nevertheless, decommissioning must be done very carefully, and we support the report on this point, although we have to say that any decommissioning will automatically generate further mountains of waste, some of it highly radioactive.
<P>
At this point I would just mention the irresponsible risk of having old, disused installations next to others which are still in use.
International rules must continue to be applied and short- or long-term storage monitored until the risk is completely eliminated.
Experience with the Third European Programme in the Field of Decommissioning indicates that this is technically feasible for 15 years after shut-down.
It is a difficult job, and funding needs to be made available for it.
This is why we want to make international bodies face up to their responsibilities, and we have tabled an amendment for a European decommissioning fund.
<P>
We support most of the recommendations in the resolution, but we still felt we needed to table a number of amendments, although not all the members of the ARE Group are prepared to vote for them.
But as democratic nationalists and regionalists, we would stress that we are preparing for a future without nuclear power stations and we are therefore also against recycling, because it is still not a real solution to the problem of highly radioactive waste.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 NAME="President">
I am sorry, Mrs Maes, but I really do have to stop you there.
You have already gone one and a half minutes beyoond your time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pinel">
Madam President, during a previous debate on nuclear power, I expressed a certain number of concerns about this form of energy.
One of these worries related to what I then called the economic risk, that is, the temptation to push the usage of such power stations beyond their natural life expectancy in a crisis situation.
<P>
On reading paragraph 14, I realise that I had underestimated the truth as this temptation is already emerging, here and now, in a situation of relative prosperity.
We must show staunch opposition to this unacceptable aim.
A few years ago, certain negligent airlines were the victims of a series of disasters.
Very old-fashioned Boeing aeroplanes, well beyond their use-by date, were crashing then with alarming frequency.
If we make the same mistake with nuclear power stations, we would inevitably have similar results.
So, for goodness' sake, do not let us go down that path.
<P>
It would also be an excellent idea if we were to better inform the people and I would even go as far as saying to train people on how to act in an emergency.
It would be an excellent idea, for example, to begin preventive distribution of iodine tablets to combat the risk of thyroid cancer.
<P>
Transparency in terms of the cost of nuclear power is also a fundamental issue, because we cannot carry out a fair comparison with other forms of energy until the cost of nuclear power has been accurately calculated.
<P>
I regret the fact that recital N defends, and I quote, 'the future development of nuclear power'.
Yet the French version of Amendment No 4 goes to the other extreme by referring, as if taken for granted, to - and again I quote - ' l'abandon obligatoire du nucléaire' , that is, stating that it is an obligation.
This may well be a mistake in the translation since one might have expected something along the lines of ' l'abandon souhaitable' , a term I would have accepted in that it would represent a wish rather than an obligation.
If this is not a translation error, then I would be grateful if Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz would clarify exactly what obligation she is referring to.
<P>
Finally, Amendment No 7 by the same author is quite excellent, as we must be resolutely opposed to the release of radioactive materials, and even low-level radioactive materials, into normal commercial circulation.
That would mark the beginning of a process that would both spread radioactivity and make it a commonplace phenomenon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lange">
Madam President, when archaeologists comb the countryside today and find the bones of prehistoric dinosaurs, they are delighted and can prepare and exhibit these finds in perfect safety. I do not believe that it is quite so simple with the energy dinosaurs of today.
Future archaeologists cannot be let loose on them willy-nilly, nor can we give any reassurances about their safety.
On the contrary, we have to be extremely cautious with these nuclear dinosaurs, because they carry a real danger, posing a risk not only to ourselves but also to succeeding generations.
In other words, today's dinosaurs have to be treated very differently to those of bygone ages.
<P>
I thank Mr Chichester for having taken the initiative to compile this report, even if his ideas diverge markedly from my own.
It is clear that we need to get down at long last to disposing of these energy dinosaurs in a way that will not endanger future generations.
I am pleased that this need is being increasingly recognised.
In the European Union we have about 130 nuclear power stations, 19 of which are in Germany.
Happily, the new Federal Government has decided to proceed with the longoverdue removal of these hazards.
There is an additional need for decommissioning techniques, for safe methods of closing down these plants, but so far no one has developed the appropriate technology.
<P>
For that reason we need research, and we also need decommissioning techniques for different types of nuclear power station.
I must stress that we really do need new techniques.
We should not merely try to find some sort of hiding place, Mr Chichester.
That is why I cannot subscribe in any way to the idea that extending the remaining useful life of a nuclear power plant is part of the decommissioning process.
No, we must be resolute in our intention to condemn this prehistoric technology to the same fate as the dinosaurs.
<P>
There is, of course, the additional matter of reaching agreement as to who should foot the bill, and we need to let honesty prevail here.
There are energy supply companies which have been profiting from these power plants for years and even decades.
The plants will be written off, and the companies will invest the proceeds in telecommunications and suchlike.
Now that disposal is on the agenda, we are supposed to create yet another fund from the public budget for decommissioning.
No, I say, that is not an option!
Those who have made money from nuclear power stations must be handed the bill for decommissioning them.
<P>
Of course, the most awkward question is basically what happens to the waste.
This question has not been resolved.
Final disposal is the key question we have to study.
We must stop focusing our attention on the development of new safety technology designed to ensure that the nuclear plants will still be operational in 100 years' time.
No, we must examine which final-disposal technique is the safest.
One reason for this, I need scarcely say, is that we can no longer afford to send nuclear waste back and forth across Europe like coachloads of tourists as a way of deferring the decision on final disposal.
On the contrary, we must get down to creating specific arrangements for safe final disposal.
That is the crucial problem.
Not until we have done that, for the sake of generations still to come, for the sake of our children, can we be sure that future generations will be able to practise archaeology without anxiety.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Trakatellis">
Madam President, I would like to draw your attention and that of the House to a number of outdated Soviet-design nuclear reactors which are still in operation and now constitute a threat to the people of Europe.
<P>
For example, the continuing operation of the Koslodui nuclear station in Bulgaria is a permanent nightmare for my own country, but also a direct threat to the whole of Europe because of the huge risks related to its operational safety.
The plant has 6 high-pressure water reactors of Soviet design, numbers 1 to 4 of which are of the VVR 440 230 type and are among the most antiquated and the most dangerous.
The other two reactors, numbers 5 and 6, are VVR 1320 reactors which are considered less dangerous because stricter safety criteria were applied during their construction.
Despite that, problems have been identified even with those reactors too, and experts estimate that even after they have been upgraded to western standards, they will not be able to operate safely for more than two years without continual safety checks.
It should be noted that the most recent incident at the station took place only last May and was provisionally classified as a level-2 incident.
Since 1991 the European Union has granted more than ECU 50 million from PHARE for improving the station's nuclear safety, and more than ECU 70 million for the adoption of short-term urgent measures in the traditional energy sector.
<P>
There is therefore a clear need to shut the station down immediately and to decommission the more dangerous reactors 1 to 4.
In any case, the Bulgarian government committed itself to that in the agreement on subsidies from the European Investment Bank for the upgrading of units 5 and 6.
Any appeal for more time or to change this commitment would be an extremely dangerous development, and would undermine Bulgaria's efforts to join the European Union and dramatically worsen its relations with it.
That has already been made clear in a letter from President Santer to the Bulgarian authorities.
<P>
However, the EU must be ready to assist Bulgaria, taking an active part in the reduction of its dependence on nuclear energy.
For that purpose, instead of standing by and watching huge sums from the PHARE programme accumulate unused, the Commission should take immediate action to develop and fund appropriate measures.
Risks are presented even by uranium mining and processing facilities, nuclear fuel production plants and plants for the processing of spent fuel and the storage of waste from Koslodui.
Capacity for the storage of radioactive waste has already been exceeded, with the result that it is now being stored temporarily at the site where the Koslodui station is located.
<P>
Furthermore, the cross-border radioactive contamination of the river Nestos is an indisputable fact.
The Commission must approach the Bulgarian government with a view to securing its cooperation in eliminating cross-border radioactive pollution.
<P>
Madam President, today nothing is more important for Europe's citizens than avoiding another Chernobyl, which is what could happen if the dangerous reactors at Koslodui continue in operation, not to mention other Soviet-design nuclear reactors still operating in Europe today, with all the dreadful consequences we already know so well.
We must therefore act very promptly before it is too late.
The Commission should tell us what it intends to do about Koslodui and all the other Soviet-type nuclear reactors, and more generally, nuclear reactors whose working life is over and which pose a deadly threat to the people of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Madam President, the proposal we are debating contains some very useful suggestions about what must be done when the time finally comes to decommission a nuclear station.
<P>
Yet, the basic problem that concerns me is the level of support for nuclear energy, the dangers involved, and the real costs.
On those questions Mr Chichester's report provides only indirect answers.
It contains some views which seem odd, to say the least, such as that the nuclear industry should educate us so as to increase our awareness, and that the decommissioning of unsafe nuclear stations should be encouraged.
But how safe are the rest?
And not just those of Soviet design.
What is the 'proven' probability of accident, at what 'cost' and with what hopes of recovery, in how many hundreds or thousands of years?
What does the Commission have to say about all that?
<P>
I also think that this report underestimates the cost of decommissioning.
We have information from France and Spain which puts the cost at tens of billions of francs, and which indicates that possibly as many as ten years may be needed for decommissioning, which is a further cost factor and one that cannot be calculated.
It is therefore high time, Madam President, to find a different strategy which will replace all nuclear stations and promote other sources of energy for which modern technology exists and for whose development investment is required.
That investment will certainly be much smaller than was required for the development of nuclear energy, which is ultimately proving not to be cheap.
I think we must applaud the governments in the Union, or at least those which say they are coming round to this view, as happened recently in Germany.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="Cushnahan">
Madam President, I welcome this report by my colleague Mr Chichester.
The Chernobyl disaster changed the public perception of nuclear energy, and many of those who live in the shadow of nuclear power plants are apprehensive about current levels of safety.
<P>
This is particularly worrying for European citizens who share a border with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
It does not help that the industry itself acts in a secretive way when a problem occurs.
If it were more open and more transparent, it would be more reassuring to those who have legitimate cause to be concerned.
<P>
This debate about decommissioning comes at an opportune time, and in our discussions with the applicant countries in the enlargement process we must press for the decommissioning of plants that are unsafe.
However, I would like to point out that this applies as much to the Member States of the European Union as it does to countries that share our borders.
In particular I would like to reiterate the concerns of my fellow Irish citizens regarding the Sellafield-THORP plant.
There have been too many incidents, too many scares and too many coincidences of health problems along Ireland's eastern seaboard.
With the change in government in Germany, as you would know, Madam President, Germany's nuclear policy will obviously be re-evaluated.
This could mean that the reprocessing shipments that have normally gone to Sellafield-THORP will be discontinued, thereby raising questions about the economic viability of that plant.
<P>
As well as the concerns that have already been expressed, I should like to draw the Commission's attention to paragraph 15 of my colleague's report which calls on the Council and Commission to encourage the closure of unsafe nuclear power stations in Europe.
In that regard I would ask the Commissioner to examine seriously whether or not Sellafield-THORP would come into that particular category.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="Fischler">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to express my sincere thanks to Mr Chichester for his detailed report, but I should also like to thank the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy for dealing with this report and particularly for their very close cooperation with the various departments of the Commission, which has done much to promote understanding of the current problems in what is undoubtedly a highly sensitive area.
<P>
The Commission is well aware of the industrial and ecological challenges that have to be faced in our Member States in connection with the decommissioning of nuclear power stations or other nuclear facilities.
At the present time, some 110 nuclear installations in the European Union are being decommissioned, although the preparations for decommissioning are at widely differing stages.
Looking at the existing nuclear facilities in Western Europe, we cannot but conclude that the first decades of the new century will see the decommissioning of an ever-increasing number of nuclear installations.
By the year 2020, it is expected that at least a further 150 installations will have to be wound down.
The planned enlargement of the European Union will further exacerbate the problems, because there will then be a need to decommission nuclear plants that do not necessarily meet the generally recognised safety standards.
According to initial estimates by the Commission's services, after enlargement about 50 more installations in the new Member States will have to be decommissioned.
By that time, decommissioning strategies will have ceased to be adopted on a case-by-case basis.
The fact is that an industrial-scale process will then be in place, a process in which tens of thousands of European workers will be engaged and which will involve considerable amounts of material, especially low-level radioactive material.
<P>
In view of the large quantities involved and in an effort to develop more and better cooperation among the Member States and harmonisation within the Union, the Commission advocates the establishment of some general guidelines for the decommissioning of nuclear facilities.
For that reason, the Commission is in general agreement with the views on decommissioning expressed by Mr Chichester.
<P>
Let me deal in more detail, however, with some of the points that were raised.
In paragraphs 3 and 5, the Commission is called on to preserve a high level of expertise in the European Union and to take steps to ensure the dissemination and transfer of know-how in this domain.
On that point, I can tell you that, within its present framework programme of research and technological development, the Commission will continue to set up and develop databases in order to simplify exchanges of information on technology and costs between current decommissioning projects.
<P>
In paragraph 6, the rapporteur stresses how important long-term technical aid is to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
In this context, the Commission is presently funding a whole series of studies which deal with the strategic and technical aspects of decommissioning in the Central and Eastern European countries and the newly independent states; these studies will be of great assistance to the governments concerned as they strive to develop their own strategies.
<P>
On paragraphs 8 and 11, let me say that the Commission naturally shares the view that the public have to be kept informed.
The Commission will continue to play its part in the pursuit of that goal.
The fourth Commission report outlining the present situation and assessing future prospects with regard to the disposal of radioactive waste in the European Union should be published by the end of the year.
Like you, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission takes the view that the question of funding as well as the possibilities of reducing quantities of waste and cutting the cost of decommissioning are among the main related issues to which paragraph 8 refers.
The Commission will take these facts into account in the preparation of its communication on decommissioning.
At the present moment, however, the Commission is not in a position to make any forecasts about extending the useful life of nuclear power stations, the issue that is raised in paragraph 14.
However, studies into the question of extending the useful life of nuclear reactors will be conducted as part of the fifth framework programme of research and technological development.
I hope that the results of these will help the Commission to arrive at an accurate assessment of the present situation and of future prospects.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Fischler.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Agricultural production and the environment -Forestry measures - Mountain areas
<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0345/98 by Mr Iversen, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the report from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the application of Council Regulation (EEC) No 2078/92 on agricultural production methods compatible with the requirements of the protection of the environment and the maintenance of the countryside (COM(97)0620 - C4-0075/98); -A4-0346/98 by Mr Otila, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the report from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the application of Council Regulation (EEC) No 2080/92 instituting a Community aid scheme for forestry measures in agriculture (COM(97)0630 - C4-0076/98); -A4-0368/98 by Mr Santini, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on a new strategy for mountain areas.
<SPEAKER ID=142 NAME="Iversen">
Madam President, I think we have achieved a good compromise on this report.
Our task here in Parliament is, after all, to ensure that what happens is what we wish to happen.
On the one hand, we have to put resources into programmes which promote environmentally friendly production methods.
On the other hand, we have to look at whether we are getting enough for the money we spend.
Are we getting enough environment for the money we allocate to these schemes?
Indeed, we are not talking about small change.
A total EU budget of ECU 3.8 billion has been allocated to this programme for 1997, on top of which are the Member States' contributions amounting to ECU 2.5 billion.
So we are talking about significant amounts, and of course we need to look at how we spend this money.
Are we getting enough environment for the money?
<P>
It is EU taxpayers' money we are talking about. It is therefore important to ascertain how well this programme works in practice.
We may complain that there is no actual evaluation report, but that was not the intention anyway - that should be said in the Commission's defence.
But, in these circumstances, it was difficult for me as rapporteur to draw any final conclusions as regards the environmental effects of this programme.
I understand from the Commission - with whom, moreover, I have had excellent cooperation during the drafting of this report, for which I wish to say thank you - that it is still waiting for two of the national evaluation reports and that it will have a general report ready by April next year.
That is good, but it would obviously have been much better if we had been able to produce our report on the basis of an actual evaluation from the Commission.
<P>
It is indeed difficult to evaluate a programme such as this, because it lacks actual objectives or criteria for success.
What is it that we want?
How far do we want to go?
What do we need to have before we can say that it is good enough?
I think it should be borne in mind that a good evaluation requires explicit evaluation criteria, and I also think that in the future the objectives should be stated more clearly than has been done hitherto.
I will also say that the Commission's report contains a number of very, very positive effects in a large number of areas.
Amongst other things, many farmers have been encouraged to switch to organic farming, and that is no bad thing after all.
But the figures we already have also show that there has been insufficient take-up of the programmes.
There may be many reasons for this.
The Member States have indicated that it may be attributable to factors such as start-up difficulties, incomplete information on the programmes, lack of national cofinancing, and it may be due to a lack of willingness on the part of farmers to commit themselves for such long periods ahead as are necessary to take part in these schemes; there have also been complaints that the remuneration arrangements did not cover expenditure during the conversion of production.
<P>
The Commission should therefore, in my opinion, present proposals on how the scheme can be made more transparent for farmers in the future.
There are currently three different support arrangements for environmentally friendly production methods, and it may be difficult for the individual farmer to decide which scheme is the most economically viable for him in a given situation.
I would therefore call on the Commission also to bear in mind that information on the scheme is an important prerequisite for successful implementation in the Member States.
But publicity and information are not necessarily enough to ensure that potentially interested farmers choose to take part.
The low take-up rate is most pronounced - and I greatly regret this - in areas where agriculture is most intensive.
We are thus in the situation that nothing is really happening in those areas where these schemes are really needed.
We are seeing that there is no real scope for converting intensive agriculture to extensive agriculture.
I think that is a serious deficiency in the programmes, since it is in those areas that there would have been the greatest environmental effect.
The problem with the present scheme is that it clearly cannot pay farmers applying intensive farming methods to avail themselves of these programmes.
I believe we need to think again about what success criteria we should be applying and what objectives we should be pursuing.
<P>
On a somewhat more critical note, I must say that, on the basis of the information I have received from the Commission, which has been very open on these matters, I get the feeling that a number of the things that have been carried out as a result of these schemes, for example conservation measures, would have been carried out anyway.
This means that some people have received money for doing something they would have done in any case.
I therefore think that we need - as I said before - to do some thinking about success criteria and objectives.
I also feel that there must be a possibility of graduating the support so that there is a stronger link between the amount of the support and farmers' expenditure in relation to environmental effects.
<P>
Our job as a Parliament in this context - and I will make this my last point - is, on the one hand, to look after the environment and to check whether we are getting environmental improvements.
I think that we are getting them.
On the other hand, we must also carry out investigations to determine whether the environmental improvements we get show a reasonable relationship to the expenditure we incur.
It may be difficult to tell exactly whether that is the case with these schemes, so I will say once again that we look forward to getting a proper evaluation.
I was pleased at the cooperation we have had, and I also hope that Commissioner Fischler can confirm here today that he will give the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development an initial evaluation even before the peace of Christmas descends upon the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="Otila">
Madam President, Council Regulation (EEC) No 2080/92 was a flanking measure introduced as part of the 1992 CAP reform.
Its main aim was to organise afforestation as an alternative use of agricultural land, so that surpluses in agricultural produce, which are politically and economically harmful to the Community, could be reduced.
There was a stipulated amount to pay to farmers in compensation for losses of income resulting from lower prices and reductions in output.
At the same time the Community would improve its stock of afforested land, while restoring the ecological balance in its efforts to combat the greenhouse effect.
There were thus two aspects to the scheme: the reduction of agricultural production, and increased afforestation and improvement of woodlands in the Community.
Aid is paid to compensate for the costs of afforestation and the initial maintenance of saplings, and for the improvement of woodlands on farms.
Community co-financing in the Objective 1 area is 75 %, and 50 % elsewhere.
<P>
The Commission's activity report submitted to Parliament does not, however, answer the question as to whether the general aims of the regulation have been achieved.
There is no information in the report on reductions in agricultural production or on losses of income incurred by farmers as a result of the reforms which have been compensated for with forestry aid.
The report states that agricultural land has been reduced in three countries by around 0.95 % to 1.35 %, and in other countries the amount is noticeably less.
<P>
In the absence of such information the European Parliament is unable to give a clear evaluation of the effectiveness of the measures taken, which have cost the Community approximately ECU 0.8 billion over the period 1993-1997, and which, if we include the contribution made by the Member States, totalled around ECU 1.8 billion in all.
Only a short time has passed since the creation of the scheme, so I understand that it has not yet been possible to give an overall evaluation.
As rapporteur for the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development in this matter, however, I am asking for a proper evaluation to be made on the implementation and viability of the scheme.
In my opinion, the Court of Auditors should submit a report to Parliament of the costs and benefits arising from the Council Regulation so that we can get a comprehensive picture of the viability of a scheme that has paid out billions of ecus in the European Union.
In addition, a comparative analysis should be made in particular of the possible advantages of the forestry regulation and Council Regulation (EEC) No 2078/92 relating to agri-environmental measures.
My colleague, Mr Iversen, has produced an excellent report on the latter.
<P>
Perhaps the most noteworthy feature of the scheme is its uneven distribution of aid.
Member States are obliged to observe the regulation within the framework of the principle of subsidiarity, but they apply it according to their own priorities.
In practice the regulation has had a significant effect in four Member States: Spain, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Portugal, which account for 81 % of the total EU hectarage quoted, or approximately 500 000 hectares.
During the implementation period, the total area covered by the whole of the EU forest improvement programme was around 185 000 hectares, and 7 312 kilometres of lumber truck track were constructed.
It would seem that Member States have applied the regulation according to their own forestry and environmental policies, without paying attention to the original purpose of the regulation or its policy on agriculture.
<P>
It seems odd that the Commission should have wished to produce this activity report at such an early stage and with insufficient information.
Most Member States did not approve the scheme until 1994.
Furthermore, I found the figures given in the activity report to be incomplete or even wrong while I was drafting the report for the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, mainly perhaps because of the delay in the implementation of the regulation.
This, however, is not an indication that the costs of the scheme were any less than was believed, but that generally the scheme had not worked and does not work as programmed.
I believe we are entitled to enquire whether the action the regulation calls for should continue in the way it now does, as the desired aims, with few exceptions, have not been achieved.
We must return to this issue again when discussions are held on the legislative proposals for Agenda 2000.
<P>
The European Parliament adopted a resolution on forest strategy in the Community in January 1997, which states that forest policy is not mentioned in the Treaty of Rome and therefore does not fall within the jurisdiction of the Community.
I would like to remind everyone of this important fact.
I believe that in the future agriculture has to operate primarily according to the dictates of the market economy and that there should not be any new aid schemes.
There is a heated debate going on at this very moment at EU level on a possible forestry strategy and the different systems of certification there are with forests.
In this debate we have to keep our feet firmly on the ground and face facts, and not join the environment organisations in calling for finance mechanisms.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="Santini">
Madam President, I wish to say first of all that this own-initiative report on a new strategy for mountain regions in Europe goes back quite a long way and picks up on previous work which clearly needed updating.
It also goes back a long way as far as this term of Parliament is concerned.
I would recall that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development held a hearing on mountain regions, and in particular on hill farming, on 27 January 1997.
Since then, Parliament's Directorate-General for Research has produced an extremely useful update study.
This is a very recent document, published less than a month ago, for which I should like to thank all those concerned.
I am holding up this volume now, and as you can see it is an extremely weighty one: it is most enlightening for anyone wanting to find out about Europe's mountain regions, and not only in respect of agriculture.
Lastly, another major incentive was the attention devoted to this matter, and the studies produced literally in the last few days, by the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions.
<P>
So we in the European Parliament were keen to make our own contribution to this range of analyses, and above all proposals, geared to putting some order into measures in favour of mountain regions.
Here we should be careful to avoid any misunderstanding, since mountain regions form part of what are generally known as disadvantaged or less-favoured regions of the European Union.
But I shall return to this matter when I comment briefly on the amendments which have been tabled.
<P>
This study - and indeed this initiative - starts from the premise that mountain regions account for 30 % of the territory of the EU and 20 % of its usable agricultural area, a sizeable proportion where life is extremely difficult, moreover.
I would just remind you of some of the reasons why: altitude, first and foremost, gradients which make it hard to use mechanised farming methods, land fragmentation, poor soil fertility, depopulation and the ageing of the resident population, difficulties for communications and transport, remoteness from centres of habitation, constant environmental risks - making it difficult to plan for the future - and the need for basic infrastructures, roads, schools and general services.
<P>
Mountain regions have a cross-cutting role which not only affects those who live in them: environmental protection and land management, hydrogeological monitoring, the promotion of agri-tourism, improved utilisation of resources, stabilisation of low-lying areas - it is not a commonplace to say that, in many instances, city defences lie in mountain regions - and also, where appropriate, cross-border cooperation and the management of forestry and grazing activities.
<P>
These considerations give rise to certain proposals, not to say pointers for reform, which in general terms lie within two spheres of prime concern to the European institutions as a whole: the first is safeguarding jobs - given that we have undertaken to create new employment, let us try not to lose existing jobs - and the second is environmental protection, a commitment which underpins all the reforms.
But if this approach is to succeed, it must above all be global, integrated, coherent and sustained, not based on one-off measures.
As I indicated earlier, the European Union has already adopted a strategy for lessfavoured areas, which include not only mountain regions but also Arctic areas and coastal areas threatened by desertification.
<P>
This own-initiative report paves the way to two other possible in-depth studies, attesting to the fact that the legislator's job is to design a broad avenue, from which pathways branch off into the real heart of the matter.
Mountain regions are one aspect of the matter; Arctic areas are another, and are the subject of an own-initiative report to be presented very shortly by Mrs Anttila.
At some future date, perhaps during the next parliamentary term, someone might turn their attention to coastal areas threatened by desertification.
Thus it is quite unnecessary to address ourselves to the issue in its entirety on every occasion: that would be a retrograde step, a pretext for more solemn declarations of principle and sweeping proposals, but without indicating in practical terms and in detail how to get to the very heart of the matter and produce tangible measures.
<P>
So, what tangible measures do we mean?
I shall briefly mention a few of them.
First and foremost, an integrated approach is required.
The rural population should be encouraged to stay on the land by granting them fixed - not unpredictable - additional income for ecological and social services over and above what must remain their main activity, namely farming.
The main regulations having an impact on mountain areas should be published in a single volume, thereby creating an EU mountain code.
Seminars should be held to explore the issues in greater detail, the Commission should draw up a communication for the Council on EU mountain regions, and on that basis a Community action plan for mountain areas should be produced.
Lessons could be drawn from pilot projects under the TERRA and LEADER programmes, and a whole series of other initiatives is required. They can be examined in detail by Commissioner Fischler, to whom I - as rapporteur - now hand over this study, so that it may be taken into account when charting the new course of rural development in the context of Agenda 2000.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fantuzzi">
Madam President, our group welcomes these two Commission reports on Regulations 2087 and 2080.
Mr Otila said that both reports were drawn up too hastily; I fear that the opposite is true, and that they have come along rather late in the day.
The regulations on the CAP accompanying measures date back to 1992; now, in 1998 and six years on, this is our first across-the-board assessment of these measures.
I think that such innovative initiatives, which were so full of significance when they were first presented, would benefit from more regular monitoring, bearing in mind that this is a fastchanging area, in constant need of updating and revision.
<P>
As Mr Iversen said, the problem is the lack of critical assessments of the effectiveness of these measures: this loophole must be closed, and such assessments must be made public.
We must have all the necessary information on how these substantial financial resources have been used, not least because we must now start to look at new proposals. I am sure that those who advocate the greening of the CAP need very sound facts and arguments, because many people object to a renewal along environmentalist lines of traditionally market-oriented policies.
<P>
I would encourage the Commissioner to proceed on the basis of these initial experiences.
The new regulation on rural development does include the actions contained in Regulations 2078 and 2080, and yet we have three areas of doubt.
Firstly, as Mr Iversen says in his report, the financial allocation for the new accompanying measures is still somewhat meagre.
In certain circumstances, the compensation paid will probably be too limited to meet the need, which is why we should perhaps consider cofinancing these measures at differential rates.
Secondly, Regulation 2080 is still overshadowed by the ambiguity concerning Community actions relating to forestry per se - it is true that the Community has no direct competence here, but we said in the Thomas report that a whole series of measures could be introduced at Community level - and compensatory allowances for non-food production, for example that of timber.
I believe that this reminds the Commission of the need to present specific proposals on forestry policy.
Thirdly, the new Agenda 2000 proposals provide for cross-compliance which is left rather too much to the Member States' discretion.
Subsidiarity is all very well, but should not be taken to such lengths.
The track record of Regulations 2078 and 2080 should be assessed, maintaining some common rules which leave scope for independent initiative by the Member States.
<P>
Turning to mountain regions, I should like to compliment Mr Santini: his report paints a picture of mountain regions which is more than just a postcard view, and which we now need more than ever before.
<P>
Many points are set out, and I would merely add that these initiatives should not be taken at Community level alone. Indeed, I always fear that we expect rather too much of the Community.
They must be carried out in tandem by the Member States and regions, because the new thinking behind the CAP is to give the regions greater freedom of planning within their own confines, taking account of all the areas which have physical and natural handicaps and therefore need special help and consideration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Keppelhoff-Wiechert">
Madam President, Commissioner Fischler, the agricultural environment programmes of the European Union have met with widely varying responses from one Member State to another.
A scientific analysis conducted in Germany to assess the approval rating of the EU agricultural environment programmes highlights this very clearly.
In your home country, Commissioner, 86 % of farmers welcome such programmes.
The acceptance rate in Germany stands at 30 %, while the figure for France is 17 %.
<P>
Three years after the entry into force of this environmental regulation, the Commission has now presented the European Parliament and the Council with an assessment of the way in which the regulation has been applied.
The rapporteur, Mr Iversen, on whose report my remarks are chiefly based, has generally tended to adopt a somewhat critical tone, to my mind, in his report.
He points to weaknesses in the aims of the regulation, which he feels should be more stringently defined, as well as calling for clearer details of the quantitative improvements to be achieved by farmers when they implement the programmes.
One of his demands is that the agricultural environment programmes should be far more strongly result-oriented.
This may mean that further increases in grants and incentives will be needed in particular sectors, and perhaps a little more democracy too.
<P>
At the present time, there are ceilings on the grants that can be cofinanced from Community funds.
However, it may be necessary to adjust these ceilings in accordance with actual requirements.
In my view, Member States which developed and implemented their own agricultural environment programmes even before the reform of the common agricultural policy have a certain advantage in terms of experience.
The main reason for the varying acceptance levels of agricultural environment programmes in the EU is not a lack of willingness among some farmers to take part in the programmes, but rather the financial priority and organisational resources that the Member States feel able to assign to the creation and planning of such programmes.
<P>
In my home region, the farmers already have quite some experience of these things.
There was undoubtedly a great deal of resistance to begin with, but I believe that the subject has now been aired as thoroughly as possible.
The greatest quantities of newly formed groundwater have been found under farmland. Who has ever mentioned that?
In areas where the whole countryside is under cultivation, the production of drinking water is another major contribution of the farming community, alongside the other contributions - food production and care and conservation of the agricultural landscape - that we never tire of citing.
That is why I believe it makes sense for us to deal jointly with these reports on forest and mountain regions in terms of these factors too.
For these important reasons, I too am committed to ensuring that agricultural activity is maintained in naturally disadvantaged regions as well as in good farming areas.
To that end, transfer payments are necessary and warranted.
<P>
In conclusion, may I say that one of the aims of the agricultural environment programmes is to strengthen the farming economy, with its wealth of useful functions, in peripheral areas too.
In that respect, Regulation No 2078/92 makes a very important contribution to the stabilisation of rural areas.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Anttila">
Madam President, Commissioner, congratulations to my colleague on an excellent report.
Agreements under measures contained in the CAP reform have been signed with only 17 % of all EU farms, and environmental aid is only going to five countries.
The scheme must be made more attractive, such as by making it a condition for receiving aid.
Environmental aid in the future can also be used to lessen the burden production places on the environment.
Environmental protection and sustained development are becoming ever more important to consumers when they choose the food they buy.
Sound principles are required for Europe's agricultural production if we are to achieve a sustainable base for high-quality European food, as Mr Mulder states in his report on food quality.
The European Union will only succeed in the global food market in the area of high-quality produce.
<P>
Mr Otila's report shows that the afforestation scheme has not worked out as expected.
When Finland and Sweden joined the Union the northern coniferous zone became a brand new part of the area. Sustainable use of the forests, and their reform, have been the backbone of our economy for decades.
As Mr Otila said, forestry in the future must operate according to the principle of the free market.
Community policy must be responsible for coordination in order to produce benefits and added value for the sustained use and exploitation of forests in the EU area.
EU action is needed to ensure, for example, that WTO negotiations cover the free access of the timber industry's products to global markets.
The Union must also define the criteria for sustainable forest maintenance and reform for forestry products in the EU area, as only then can we prevent the introduction of certification that would increase the power of environmental organisations which are biased.
Certification schemes are being developed all the time by Member States, and that is why we need an umbrella scheme at EU level to cover the individual systems.
Proposals on this have already been put to you, Commissioner, and I would like to ask you this: when will you come up with a proposal for such an umbrella scheme?
<P>
Mr Santini's report deals comprehensively with the special problems of mountain areas.
I can see that mountain areas and the Arctic region have very many problems in common with agriculture: a short growing season, vast distances, a sparse population, difficult growing conditions, and so on.
The European Union can function in a sustainable way only by acknowledging differences, and taking greater notice of the different needs of the regions.
I believe these reports now under discussion will be an excellent opportunity to give more weight to the whole question of differing needs in the regions, which undeniably exist in the vast area of the Union, and the report on mountain areas covers this in detail.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Rosado Fernandes">
Madam President, Commissioner, I have been given a mountain of minutes but I do not want to reach the very summit because I do not want to tire everyone else out if I climb that high.
Nevertheless, I am going to be speaking about three reports: the Iversen, Otila and Santini reports.
<P>
The Iversen report, of course, reveals extensive knowledge, especially of those agricultural areas with the luxury of being able to carry out more intensive forms of agriculture.
That is not the case in my country, or in Greece, where in certain areas it is impossible to carry out intensive farming even if you wanted to - unless you want to set up industrial pig farms.
There are, however, environmental differences and huge environment-related differences between the various countries.
How can all of that be assessed?
By means of studies and asking university institutes and others to assess the situation as a whole.
<P>
There is no doubt some countries cannot combine development with environmental protection.
In others development only harms the environment.
So who can decide?
That problem will not go away.
Is some bureaucrat always going to decide what is good farming practice for me?
Of course, I do agree with Mr Fantuzzi when he says that we must have general rules for Europe as a whole.
<P>
As for the Otila report it deals with an extremely useful aid measure.
We all know that this is not enough to solve the forestry problem in Europe but it can, at least in countries like mine, withdraw certain marginal areas from production.
But a study must be carried out into this, too: to see which varieties are planted in poor areas, whether those varieties will be of any economic value in the future and who should take decisions about those varieties in conjunction with the farmers themselves or about which marginal areas should be withdrawn from production.
Who actually decides?
Money is needed and we must assess what has been done in each country.
I am completely against the notion of taking under-used funding away from one country and giving it to another country that makes better use of it, because I feel that the Commission should also play an educative role and work in conjunction with the national governments.
<P>
As far as my friend Mr Santini's report is concerned I have to say that Mr Santini is more Tyrolean than Italian.
There is no doubt that he is much closer to Commissioner Fischler's land of yodelling than he is to the country of Italian ballads.
That is why he has produced a report for the mountains - not for the Tyrol but for the Italian mountains that are an extension of the Tyrol.
I know the poor mountains, the dry mountains, snowless mountains, mountains where farmers cannot double up as skiing instructors.
<P>
That is why, out of my friendship for him and my great respect for his work in the European Parliament, I proposed that he should also look at mountains in arid and semi-arid areas.
I succeeded in tabling some amendments and he kindly took them on board.
Of course, in a previous parliamentary term, Mr Görlach drafted a report on the arid and semi-arid areas.
But I think that they should be paid more attention because, as a rule, science pays attention to the rich areas because it is paid to do so.
Science does not pay any attention to the poor areas because they do not have any money to pay for it.
That is why I would call on the Commission to think about much more comprehensive studies of the real situation in Europe.
I have now reached the top of the mountain and I do not want to go any higher.
I shall stop there even though I have one more minute to go - but I did not want to bore you all stiff.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Querbes">
Madam President, Commissioner, I believe that the three reports that have been presented to us are particularly important when considering the Union's policies.
In fact, they question which agricultural and forestry policies would be more ecological and would ensure the best use of land, as well as the maintenance and development of human activities.
<P>
These issues are major concerns for our societies.
They came to be of such concern through the rejection of productivity-based policies that weakened the quality of production and of the environment, led to job losses and to desertification in fragile areas.
Every effort should be made to allow these alternative policies to succeed, but this is not the verdict handed down by our rapporteurs, in spite of the lack of information from the Commission.
In fact, they note that the objectives have not been achieved.
The decline in agricultural activity has often transformed agricultural areas into fallow land and wild forests, which are not valued and are extremely prone to fires, particularly in southern Europe.
Difficult and mountainous regions continue to see their populations drift away.
Areas of intensive production that threatens the environment have not been affected by the agri-environmental measures.
This failure is the result of a CAP that put agricultural and forestry produce at the mercy of a market that tramples on prices and on human beings.
<P>
Alternative policies do exist.
Both the Cunha report, which was adopted by this House, and the basic law on French agriculture, call for a reform of the CAP that would use public funds to develop high-quality production that encourages land use, that respects the environment and that develops employment.
In difficult mountain areas, prices and premiums should guarantee a reasonable revenue for small production structures.
In all areas, premiums should have a fixed upper limit per operation in order to slow down the productivity race and to finance production contracts that work towards quality, employment and environmental protection.
<P>
In the largest cultivated forest in the Union, in the south-west of France, as in Mediterranean forests, implementing new resin production techniques could bring people back to the now deserted areas.
These are only three specific projects that reflect the spirit of a policy that would allow the financial resources committed by the Union to be used to meet the needs of our society.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Madam President, thank you for the ten minutes.
I already had one from my honourable colleague, so that makes eleven.
I shall begin with my own three minutes.
<P>
First point: We must remind ourselves clearly of the aim of these accompanying measures under Regulations 2078 and 2080.
Mr Fischler, you were not yet the Commissioner at that time, and Austria was not yet in the EU.
The aim was not to create an innovation programme, but rather, as the term 'accompanying measures' suggests, to establish mechanisms to accompany price reductions. These reductions had not been properly implemented and, as a result, certain farming activities outside the high-performance areas had been pushed to the brink of unprofitability.
The intention was to compensate for this, which is why Regulation 2080 gives farmers the opportunity to afforest land that has been taken out of production.
That was the aim behind these environmental measures.
<P>
The fact that it has now developed into an innovation programme - and this is my second point, Mr Fischler - has nothing to do with its aims, but rather with the way it has been used by interested parties.
Austria is a good example.
The Austrians joined when the scheme was already operational and soon began to use the special production methods dictated by these environmental requirements as a cachet of quality for marketing purposes.
The same applies to the organic farmers, some of whom are not even based in less-favoured areas, who have also joined this scheme and have been able to live with these rather small compensatory payments because the environmental tag has secured higher prices for their produce.
It says here in Mr Iversen's report that the farmers and regional authorities in the more favoured areas have not otherwise availed themselves of this scheme, but that is precisely because these measures and the payments granted for them would not have compensated for the loss of earnings in these areas.
So it was an accompanying programme, and the interested parties have turned it into an innovation programme.
<P>
My third point concerns the funding issue.
This scheme, of course, came under the heading of compulsory expenditure.
I recently spoke to the Basque Agricultural Minister.
He had visited Austria and was quite astonished to discover how much Austria obtains under this scheme.
And so I asked him why the Basques had not been doing the same over the past few years.
It was a notifiable Commission programme. Measures would have had to be paid for, because it was a compulsory scheme and was covered by the guarantee section of the EAGGF.
In this way these funds could have been increased, we should have had a higher budget today, and there would have been no need for us to press for this increase.
<P>
My final point relates to the future of this programme.
Here I agree with you.
This programme must be incorporated into the second pillar, and the way to do this is to take what has actually been done, to take this scheme that was launched as an environmental programme and turned into an innovation and marketing programme for special organic produce, and to combine it all with a structural programme for the integrated development of rural areas.
So I am in agreement with you here.
What I do not agree with, of course, is that you as a Commissioner are making the mistake of...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Barthet-Mayer">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, we should set this debate back in the general context of the reform of the CAP.
Existing regulations on agri-environmental and afforestation measures should be made top-level priority in this area.
In so far as it is true that in 1992 these regulations represented real attempts to better incorporate less production-orientated attitudes, it is also worrying to see today that they have had mixed, even negative, results.
<P>
With Agenda 2000, a fundamental reform is necessary to improve food safety, particularly in meats.
With animal nutrition lacking 70 % protein, the European Union is still running the risk of possible international embargoes.
At the same time, a growing number of farmers are becoming involved in new high-quality production, land-based production, which shows more respect for the environment and which promotes regional markets and areas rather than producing vast quantities for export.
There is also a need for some basic questions to be asked so that agricultural jobs, food safety, the quality of production and the protection of the rural environment remain at the heart of the reform of the CAP.
<P>
We should no longer settle for accompanying measures, which are often no more than a scanty cover-up for an agricultural policy geared towards productivity, the constant reduction of prices, deregulation and the world market.
The CAP must incorporate both economic and social considerations as well as aspects relating to the environment and rural land-use planning in the Union.
<P>
Yes, Mr Iversen, you are indeed right to regret the fact that the Commission has decided to merely provide a summary, and not move on to a true assessment.
The Commission did not wish to draw the operational conclusions that are necessary for the future.
Agri-environmental measures could not be reduced to mere supplementary income for farmers.
Making European agricultural producers sell their produce at a price that is below production costs does not create sustainable development.
<P>
Rather than increase the number of environmental constraints imposed on farmers, let us include proportional aid in the specifications for payment conditions from the outset. Society would derive health, social and environmental advantages from a revitalised agricultural industry with, for example, special measures for mountainous regions, as Mr Santini suggests, or even for less-favoured areas.
As for industrial-type operations, which often cause pollution, let us steer them towards the 'polluter pays' type systems, with environmental conditions and an upper limit for aid.
<P>
Lastly, the same, rather worryingly, applies to the relative failure of forestry aid schemes in agriculture.
As it was very unevenly applied depending on the country, there was no real effect in terms of rural development, even if it did achieve its goals in terms of land use and decreasing the amount of cultivated land.
A simple European forestry strategy would be sufficient to encourage us to produce wood in Europe in a sustainable manner and to reject imports from tropical or boreal forests that often come from felled areas.
<P>
We must, of course, fight for a substantial increase in financial resources, but we need the European Union to demonstrate a true political will in order to ensure the success and widespread adoption of these measures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 NAME="Nicholson">
<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="President">
Thank you. We shall now suspend the joint debate, which will be resumed after the votes.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Madam President, I have the honour to be the spokesman for the five groups which have drawn up this resolution, namely the Socialists, the Greens, the GUE and ARE Groups and, of course, the Liberals.
I would like to inform you that these groups support only two amendments tabled by the PPE Group, Amendments Nos 5 and 8, and we will support the latter only on condition that this new text becomes paragraph 2.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Madam President, I would like to make a reference to the Rules of Procedure pursuant to Rule 102, as the amendments relating to this resolution are not available in French.
I am quite happy to say that I would willingly vote in favour of this resolution but I believe it is absolutely impossible to express an opinion when the amendments are not available in all languages.
I waited for 10 minutes where the documents were being distributed.
I was told there were no amendments left in French, that it was impossible to find any and I was advised to wait.
I waited as long as I was supposed to and stopped waiting when I came into this sitting.
Therefore, we do not have the amendments available in one of the languages in use in the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Madam President, together with Mr Dupuis and others, I signed a number of amendments calling for action to be taken against numerous other dictators and ex-dictators.
I cannot find any of these amendments in our documentation, and now I hear that the administration has declared them inadmissible, as it were.
Let me ask you this: since when has the administration had the power to decide which dictators and ex-dictators we may and may not pursue?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="President">
You are labouring under a misapprehension, Mr Posselt.
The administration does not decide whether or not an amendment is admissible, but the President himself.
In this context, we are dealing only with the arrest of General Pinochet, and nothing else.
Consequently, all the amendments which go beyond that subject are inadmissible.
The authors have also been informed of this in writing, to the best of my belief.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Madam President, I never questioned the existence of a French version of the amendments.
I simply said that this version was not available.
But thanks to the goodwill of one of our colleagues who has now become an usher as well, I received the document in French after I had taken the floor.
<P>
I am delighted by this.
But, besides all this, I question the reasons why we are deciding, and I wonder on what authority we are deciding, that the amendments relating to certain dictators are admissible, whereas amendments relating to other dictators are not.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="President">
You may table as many motions for resolutions as you wish, but this time we are dealing only with a single person, and nothing else.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Galeote Quecedo">
Madam President, I accept Mr Bertens' proposal but, when we vote on this text, I would like to table an oral amendment, which I am sure will be accepted by the Socialist Group and, therefore, I would ask you to allow me to state it now.
<P>
Before the vote on Amendment No 8
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Galeote Quecedo">
Madam President, when we make mention here of our commitment to the principle of universal justice and, consequently, call on the competent authorities to interpret it in accordance with the principles of the Treaty on European Union, I would like to add after 'competent authorities' the words 'in particular those of Spain and the United Kingdom', which are the authorities involved in this matter.
<P>
I am sure that the Socialist Group will understand, since it is entirely logical, that both the Spanish judicial and government authorities - the latter having the authority to convey the judges' request - and the British authorities - which have the authority to grant extradition - are those involved in this case and, consequently, will accept this obvious reference to them.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bloch von Blottnitz">
That was recital G. We asked for a separate vote on each part.
May I question Mr Chichester on one point? It may be that something has been mistranslated here, but the German version says that the radioactive waste which is currently produced is principally medical waste.
That, of course, is entirely wrong from a factual and a technical point of view.
If it has been mistranslated, fair enough, but if not, we shall naturally have to delete the reference to 'principally medical waste', because that is not true; it is nonsense, as everyone knows!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="Chichester">
Madam President, this was an amendment which was originally introduced by the Green Group at the committee stage so I do not know what they are on about now.
Surely, we have not quite reached the vote. We are having a separate vote on the three parts of Consideration G, so why do we not just vote?
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Madam President, we are very pleased with the substance of this report, in which Mr Chichester gives a realistic and objective description and assessment of the problem.
We were therefore happy to vote for the resolution.
<P>
The decommissioning of nuclear power stations is going to become an increasingly important industry in the future.
The report rightly stresses the need to protect public health through prevention in all the activities associated with decommissioning.
<P>
Because of the huge range of differences inside and outside the Union, it is not feasible to harmonise decommissioning, and the responsibility therefore falls to the Member States and the power station operators.
It is up to them to choose whether to go for direct, complete dismantling or staged decommissioning, and the cost of decommissioning should, of course, be included in the cost of the electricity produced.
<P>
Exchanges of knowledge and experience should be encouraged, as should research, education and information activities.
Giving the general public clear information on why and how nuclear power stations are decommissioned also gives them greater insight into the problems associated with decommissioning and the storage of nuclear waste.
However, there is one small criticism we would make about recital N: requiring social acceptance of decommissioning and the storage of nuclear waste as a condition for the future development of nuclear energy seems a little excessive, which is why we voted against it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="Holm">
According to its title, this report should be dealing with decommissioning nuclear power stations, but it looks more like a defence of nuclear energy.
I find that unacceptable.
Nuclear power is not safe and should therefore be abandoned.
The report ought to be focusing more on how decommissioning is to be organised and, fundamentally, on the technical measures required to ensure that it happens safely from the radiation point of view.
<P>
I am sorry that the majority of the House felt unable to support the important amendments tabled by the Green Group. Several EU Member States, including Sweden and Germany, have decided to begin decommissioning, but this is not mentioned in the text.
I therefore voted against the whole report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="Titley">
Representing a constituency in a region which has for many years played a leading role in the civil use of nuclear energy, I welcome the initiative of Mr Chichester in producing this report on the future of decommissioning nuclear plants.
<P>
Nuclear energy inspires both strong support and strong criticism.
Here perhaps is a nuclear issue - how to retire nuclear plants safely as they reach the end of their useful life - which can unite us all!
<P>
I acknowledge the skills of nuclear energy workers such as the many people in the north-west of England who work in this sector and help the modern economy to function.
I have faith in their ability to manage the decommissioning of old plants in the future, just as they have risen to the challenge of reprocessing spent fuel in the past.
<P>
I back the principle of this report that such work is best left to national authorities and the industry's expertise rather than the EU.
<P>
However, the report is also right to ask that, as in research, where the EU can play a useful role in decommissioning, its work should as a matter of course include the many Central and Eastern European nations whose communist-built nuclear plants need help to decommission safely.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 NAME="President">
That concludes voting time.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Agricultural production and the environment -Forestry measures - Mountain areas (continued)
<SPEAKER ID=168 NAME="President">
We shall now continue with the joint debate that was interrupted earlier.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="Wilson">
Madam President, in the context of agriculture and the environmental impact in different terrain, I have to say that all the arguments put by Mr Santini apply equally to less-favoured areas.
Rural depopulation is a problem, particularly in my country of Wales.
Young people - parents - are leaving the rural areas for the towns and their place is being taken by retired people or those who use rural areas as dormitories while their economic activity takes place in the town.
This has disastrous effects.
The economic vitality of youth is replaced by the recreation of the elderly.
Schools and shops close and bus routes close down.
<P>
We have to devise new methods to keep young people in rural areas.
We have to ensure affordable public services in all these rural areas.
One way we can help is to find better methods of compensating rural inhabitants for the provision of environmental services.
The Hill Livestock Compensatory Allowances should be used to compensate for natural handicaps and not to achieve environmental goals.
Separate schemes to encourage intensive farming, like Tircymen in Wales, should be funded through separate agri-environmental schemes.
<P>
The identities of people in sparsely-populated areas must also be respected.
We must not think of rural areas as the playground of visitors from the towns.
We want the economic benefits of tourism, but we need investment in bread-winner jobs as well.
We must always beware of the environmental impact of all development. But we must also evaluate the economic impact of all our environmental considerations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Funk">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I speak from experience when I talk about this programme, because we have been working with this Regulation 2078 scheme on my farm since 1993.
So what I tell you here is drawn from practice, and I should also like to deal with a number of areas in which we could perhaps make improvements.
<P>
In my own federal state of Baden-Württemberg, this programme has gained wide acceptance, but the level of regional cofinancing is very high at 50 %.
Our regional government is groaning under this burden.
It also maintains, and I can only agree, Mr Fischler, that it has far too little say in the scheme. Because it bears half the cost and is responsible for inspecting the scheme, it should have a greater say.
I certainly wish to endorse that view.
This is an opportunity to put subsidiarity into practice.
The local authorities used to have more scope to decide how to implement the programme.
The Commission, however, is always imposing new requirements and more red tape, and in particular its new authorisation policy is tending to focus far more sharply on nature conservation and less sharply on the management of poor farmland.
<P>
Commissioner, I am sure you will agree with me when I say that the Black Forest and our central German upland farms with their typically high proportion of grassland should be preserved and should not be altered.
You will also agree with me when I say that extensive farming is far cheaper than the management of industrial land. That is why we should support it.
Farmers participating in the scheme must commit themselves for five years.
Apart from anything else, this will provide a sound planning basis.
In our part of the world, however, there are farmers who have a great many leased fields and have no influence over the fluctuation of these leased fields.
That is why there should be some scope for local adjustments to improve the effectiveness of the scheme.
<P>
The farmers in our region fulfil certain prior conditions, which nobody has mentioned.
They refrain from second cuts and from late fertilising, because these restraints really protect the countryside and safeguard groundwater.
Above all, we forego maximum yields, and we hoe our maize.
That costs more, and it means that we dispense with plant protection.
That is what I really call environmentally friendly farming, but it is not taken to extremes.
<P>
Let me mention four more points.
Regulation No 2078/92 has proved its worth.
Greater regional flexibility should lead to wider acceptance of the scheme, and its benefits must be recognisable at the local level.
Secondly, the Commission's restrictive authorisation practice tends to neglect the important role of extensive farming as a means of caring for and preserving the agricultural landscape.
Thirdly, in some areas of farming, more flexible rules of application should be devised, with a view to promoting regional adaptations.
Agri-environmental measures should not exclude statutory environmental requirements.
Fourthly - and this is very important, Commissioner - the strict limitation of grant income to 20 % of total earnings, as imposed by Regulation No 746/96, reduces the level of acceptance of some measures.
Greater flexibility would therefore be welcomed.
<P>
Thank you very much, Madam President, for your indulgence; I did continue beyond my allotted time, but I just know so much about this matter and want to impart that knowledge, at least to the Commissioner!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ryynänen">
Madam President, Commissioner, it is absolutely vital to discuss the Commission's report on forestry measures promoted as an alternative use of agricultural land, before taking a decision on the proposal for a significant increase in afforestation aid as part of rural development policy under Agenda 2000.
<P>
The rapporteur, Jyrki Otila, is absolutely right when he says that the Commission has failed to address the essential question of whether the objective of reducing agricultural production has been achieved with the enormous amounts of aid spent.
At the end of the day, what we require is a comprehensive, detailed report on the cost-benefit ratio of the afforestation programme, the actual amount of money spent and how it was allocated, and giving an in-depth survey of the impact on the environment.
The vague and weak aspects of the scheme have to be put right before aid policy is extended in any way.
I genuinely hope that the Commission will now give a clearer response to the questions posed than it did, for example, in the reply I received a couple of weeks ago to a written question of mine on the evaluation of forestry aid.
<P>
In the explanatory statement of his report the rapporteur refers many times to Parliament's proposal on forestry strategy.
Parliament's proposal emphasises that forestry must continue to operate according to market forces, without aid that would distort competition, and primarily under State guidance.
The added value of the role of the EU in forestry policy has to be strictly limited to action that supports the multi-functional use of forests and economic exploitation in accordance with sustainable development.
For example, there could be support for the certification of European holdings engaged in forestry that promote the use of wood, as an alternative to the FSC scheme, which strives for monopoly status.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Madam President, the Community has no common forestry policy, not only because none is mentioned either in the founding Treaties nor in their later revised versions, but also because practical experience over 30 years proves as much. The Community - its institutional bodies - always comes up with improvised and random measures, trying to patch up the deficiencies.
In my view this Community policy on forests and forestry is responsible for the destruction of our forests.
Tens of thousands of hectares are destroyed every year throughout the European Union, especially in southern areas and more disastrously still in Greece.
<P>
The Otila report, which attempts to address the issue, adopts a similar view, Madam President, but negatively so because it says that reforestation is an alternative use for agricultural land. In other words, reforestation should spread to areas used for growing crops.
This is sheer hypocrisy because thousands of hectares are still awaiting reforestation in vain, and now we want reforestation in areas where the land can be cultivated!
<P>
Unless we decide to adopt an organised forestry policy with the necessary resources for the research, science and technology needed to prevent and combat fires, what we are debating today is only so much hot air and there will be very painful economic, social and ecological disasters.
Disasters which may prove to be totally overwhelming.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindholm">
Thank you, Mr Santini, for a very good report.
Mountains cover one quarter of the EU's surface area.
Soil quality is poor in these areas, and very few people live there.
In Sweden, the figure is a mere five inhabitants per square kilometre. Holdings are small, with a mixture of farming and forestry activities to make ends meet.
Often, people farm only part-time, because they cannot earn a living from the land alone. The migration rate away from such regions is high.
There are many elderly people, and the young move away to escape the tough living conditions.
Not to mention the climate - winter lasts seven months in Scandinavia; it is dark for four months of the year, and vegetation survives a bare 160 days.
Yet these environments are unique, with rich biological diversity.
The agriculture that does exist is environmentally friendly, the natural world is full of variety, there is a strong culture and much else besides.
<P>
We have to acknowledge that mountain farmers cannot compete with those in flatter places.
Specially designed and flexible measures are required, and account needs to be taken of the real circumstances in mountainous districts, which are so different from other areas in which agriculture is practised.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Madam President, Commissioner, the promotion of farming methods which are not harmful to the environment, nature or the countryside deserves serious attention.
The Union's agri-environmental measures can provide an incentive here.
Agreements had been concluded with 17 % of the Member States' holdings by halfway through the 1997 budget year, and the scheme has grown into a major policy field within the CAP.
<P>
The Commission report indicates that the scheme is facing a number of teething problems.
Spending has been far less than estimated, partly because the programmes started late, and a number of Member States are making little, if any, use of the scheme, which is worrying.
We need to analyse the reasons for this, and in particular to find out whether the fact that the Member States themselves also have to provide funding has anything to do with it.
I feel it is important to find out about this, especially in view of the possibility currently being mooted of introducing cofinancing for income support as well.
<P>
The Commission report unfortunately does not analyse the beneficial effects of the agri-environmental measures on the environment and the countryside.
If, as the rapporteur suspects, agricultural activities are being subsidised which should not be receiving subsidies, then the scheme needs to be reviewed.
I would therefore urge the Commission to produce a detailed evaluation report as soon as possible, and certainly before any final decision is taken on a new programme.
The agrienvironmental subsidies must not be allowed to become a form of disguised income support, and I feel it is extremely important here to clarify the requirements in the regulation and to monitor compliance more closely.
<P>
A report on the effects of the agri-environmental measures is also needed for the forthcoming WTO negotiations.
The Union must be able to prove that the subsidies bring advantages for the environment, so that they can stay in the 'green box'.
So there is every reason to ensure that the fullest possible use is made of these subsidies in restoring the environment and the countryside.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 NAME="Hallam">
Madam President, it is probably appropriate today that we have a group of visitors in the gallery from the lovely country of Scotland, which is our key forestry area in the United Kingdom.
<P>
I would just like to put a tiny question mark against Mr Otila's report, and that is that we always take it for granted that we want more trees.
I have trees in my garden, I have planted trees in my garden and I like to see trees when I am driving around.
I would like to ask the simple question: are we really certain that we will need those trees in the future for the production of wood?
<P>
It is quite obvious in my constituency of Shropshire and Herefordshire that, at the moment, our wood industry is under tremendous pressure.
In fact some people responsible for saw mills say that it is the worst situation they have experienced in 45 years in the industry.
The market for British wood - and only a tiny part of the British market is actually supplied from within the UK - has actually contracted by some 25 %.
In southern England eight saw mills have closed in the last three months.
There is real concern for the future of our wood industry.
It seems that part of the problem arises as a result of the raising of the Iron Curtain.
It seems that the former Soviet Union is dumping wood at ridiculously low prices simply to get foreign exchange.
<P>
I would like to say yes, by all means let us plant more trees but let us at least have some concrete idea as to whether in the future there will be a market for the wood produced.
At some point in the future it might be necessary to place a moratorium on trees under this scheme being put on to the market so that we do not in the future damage the wood industry.
Perhaps we need an import levy from non-EC countries to ensure that we protect our own market.
<P>
I am concerned that we are following this path and are in danger of overproducing, and I would certainly like to hear the Commissioner's response to that point.
This might be the very first time that anybody has stood up and questioned whether we should plant more trees.
In the light of current circumstances, faced by at least the British wood industry and wood industries in other parts of the EU, it is a question we need to ask.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 NAME="McCartin">
<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Virrankoski">
Madam President, the package of three agri-environmental reports under discussion is an extremely interesting one.
I wish to thank the rapporteurs for their thoroughness. For now, I only want to refer to Mr Otila's report on forests and woodland.
<P>
The word 'forest' carries with it different images in different parts of the European Union.
In Finland and Sweden the forest is the normal natural environment.
Cultivated fields just appear as odd patches in the midst of the forest.
The forest is also a very valuable renewable resource.
Rural regions that remain uncultivated become afforested naturally, which is also the case with areas of woodland that have been cut down or burnt.
In central Europe the forests are mainly recreation areas and parks, where people can interact with the countryside.
The forests of the Mediterranean region are a key factor in protecting the landscape and nature in general.
Forests help prevent soil erosion, they make for more evenly occurring precipitation and regulate its effect, and they improve the climate.
<P>
For these reasons, forest maintenance varies from country to country.
It is influenced by ecological, social and economical factors, which is also why forestry policy differs from country to country.
The basic aims, philosophy and methods cannot be the same, so forestry policy cannot be harmonised, because different conditions call for different policies.
This may also be the main reason why the Treaty of Rome does not bring forestry policy under the jurisdiction of the EU.
<P>
For all these reasons I cannot agree with paragraph 8 of Mr Otila's report, which advocates efforts to harmonise national forestry policies, but I support his Amendment No 3 in the same way as I support his other amendments.
Joint development of the forestry sector must be promoted, but if it were part of Community policy the sector would be subject to much bureaucracy and would be a shambles as far as funding is concerned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Madam President, I have read Mr Otila's report and what he says in it has made me very worried.
<P>
My first concern is that this regulation seems to enjoy varying and rather disappointing degrees of success in different countries, as I think is only natural given that it was designed to reduce agricultural production and to use the development of forests as a vehicle for doing so.
In other words, it was the main vehicle for increasing the incomes of certain farmers.
In that sense, I think that its success was limited from the start so far as forests and their development in the European Union are concerned.
<P>
My second point is that it is a pity the European Union does not have a forestry policy and unfortunately, in the absence of an EU policy, there are countries such as Greece whose forests are being devastated and which also have no forestry policy.
The last speaker said that situations vary.
Of course they do.
But, for example, the EU has a policy on islands.
The United Kingdom is an island, Ireland is an island, and so is my small island in the Aegean.
This does not mean that the same policy will apply to all islands.
And it is a serious omission, especially when Mediterranean forests are now being destroyed and the environment of half of Europe is being degraded, with consequences for tourism, civilisation, and the development of Europe itself.
<P>
In that sense, I cannot agree with Mr Otila's report, and in particular paragraph 8 in which he seems to assume that there will not be a forestry policy in the European Union. On the contrary, I believe we ought to try to include the issue of forests in the Treaties.
That, of course, does not mean that the same measures would be adopted in Finland and in Greece!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Sonneveld">
Madam President, I have a few points about the accompanying measures designed to promote environmental protection and conservation.
The Member States are making increasing use of these types of measures, which pay farmers for protecting nature and the environment by using extensive farming methods in particular.
Austria, Finland and Sweden are all countries making above average use of them, and their attention must clearly have been drawn to them during the accession negotiations.
<P>
An important condition for using this form of Community aid is that considerable national cofinancing also has to be provided.
Not all countries are equally prepared to do this, which explains why the take-up of EU funding available also varies.
This is actually a good example of an area of shared political and financial responsibility between the EU and the Member States within the CAP.
The aid benefits farmers making an extra effort to help the environment and nature, but it is also a matter of agricultural policy in that it is also about the fairly widespread use of extensive farming methods.
We could well imagine that, if the support we are discussing today is maintained, the idea of sharing political and financial responsibility between the EU and the Member States could also apply to some of the income support provided for under the 1992 price support reductions and subsequently under Agenda 2000.
In that case, the environmental criteria would not need to focus so much on extensive farming, but would cover all farms applying what we now call good agricultural practices.
Social criteria could also be added.
This is a lesson we can learn from Regulation 2078: it is better to have a custom-built system of cofinancing subject to national environmental and social desirability criteria than to have a uniform system of income support allocated centrally by Brussels alone.
<P>
Actually, even Regulation 2078 seems to have been inspired not just by environmental criteria, but by social necessity too.
Such an approach will also automatically qualify these sorts of measures for the WTO green box.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Happart">
Mr President, Commissioner, what is sadly lacking in European policy is the ability to confront the problems faced by citizens living in a rural environment, and mountain regions are part of this environment.
<P>
Amongst other things, it does of course cost a great deal of money to maintain a farming population in these difficult areas.
But there is also a high price to pay for the exodus of these citizens, who leave their poorer regions to move to towns and their suburbs, where they find very few jobs.
The more poor people there are in the towns and their suburbs - often called shanty towns - the more insecurity there is and the more police officers or security guards are employed, and this also comes at a high price.
<P>
The decline of agriculture in mountainous regions has also led to an increase in the number of avalanches, particularly in northern areas.
And look at the human tragedy this entails: every year, avalanches claim many victims.
Neglecting pasture land and not maintaining undergrowth increase the risk of forest fires. These fires are causing more and more damage and are becoming more and more frequent, mainly in southern Europe.
Imagine how much all this must cost.
<P>
We should pay shepherds for services to the environment, we should pay them in order to save a considerable amount of money.
We must also consider farming forest areas with a view to producing alternative green energy sources par excellence .
Research must also be carried out on how to obtain rapid growth species, such as eucalyptus, and on developing power stations for such plant matter, or on producing methane, which could be extracted to be used for other thermal power stations.
<P>
And perhaps, rather than saving money with no positive outcome, the general rule should be to better organise the integration of less-favoured areas into the economic development area by making considerable financial efforts, as indeed you do so well in Austria, Commissioner.
<P>
What is more, nowadays, given the amazing developments in communication and exchange technology, it would be possible to encourage high-quality job creation in these areas, through remote working, for example. And why not send some of the staff of the Commission's various Directorates-General to these troubled areas, where they can do routine office work?
<P>
Commissioner, I am also counting on you and on your collective intelligence to achieve this and so allow the rural world in general, and less-favoured areas in particular, to be transformed from the dead weights they were to a catalyst for the harmonious development of all our peoples, throughout Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 NAME="Cushnahan">
Madam President, I want to say something briefly about the reports by Mr Iversen and Mr Otila.
It is notable that although both argue for alternative agricultural activity, both rapporteurs conclude that there has been no evaluation by the Commission.
That is unfortunate because it is difficult to promote them as measures before we have some sort of evaluation.
<P>
As far as environmentally-friendly farming is concerned, I certainly would support it. However, I suspect that part of the problem is that it is quite expensive to set up.
Maybe the Commission should look at the levels of grant aid.
<P>
As regards forestry, I have always supported it.
The reason I have supported it is that I saw it as an opportunity to supplement the incomes of farmers, especially those with poor land.
But one must ask the question if that was the intention, are they the ones currently benefiting?
It seems to me that a number of the forestry schemes that operate in Ireland most of the benefits go to speculators, particularly from outside the country.
I question whether that is a sensible direction for forestry policy. I would much prefer that the income went to farmers themselves.
<P>
There are also some serious questions relating to planning because some of the afforestation is also unsightly.
Perhaps that is something that our local authorities should look at: whether or not forestry schemes should require planning approval.
<P>
Those are the comments I wanted to make regarding those two reports.
I urge the Commission to carry out an evaluation in these two areas to see if there is more potential in them as initiatives in the field of agricultural activity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="Fischler">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, for the sake of simplicity, I shall deal with each of the three reports in turn, in other words beginning with the Iversen report, moving on in the second part of my remarks to deal with the Otila report, and finally stating our position on the Santini report.
<P>
The Iversen report testifies on the one hand to a thorough understanding of the complex issues involved.
On the other hand, though, it is also a highly critical report, and its criticism is levelled both at the Member States' authorities which produce and implement the programmes and at the Commission.
The main focus of the report is certainly on the question of evaluation.
That is also the principal concern of the Commission itself.
Before I deal with these matters in detail, I should like to draw your attention to some basic facts of agri-environmental policy which are also recognised and confirmed in the Iversen report.
<P>
First of all, the main principle underlying our policy is that we should pay the farmers for their environmental contributions, not in the form of so-called income-support grants but as remuneration for the work they do, as reimbursement of their increased expenditure and as compensation for loss of income.
<P>
Secondly, because the programme has been monitored, we now have concrete evidence that successes have undoubtedly been achieved through our environmental measures in cutting back on the quantities of nutrients introduced into the soil and in protecting the natural world.
These successes are acknowledged in the report too.
<P>
Thirdly, further improvements are needed in the format and administration of the programmes.
<P>
Fourthly, the various rural development measures and the market measures contained in the common agricultural policy must be more effectively integrated and coordinated in general terms, just as we have envisaged in our Agenda 2000 proposals.
<P>
To these central points enumerated in the report I should like to add a few more.
A fifth point would be that the ecology of the European countryside is determined to a great extent by agriculture and forestry.
New research findings show that biodiversity and the landscape which has developed over centuries can only be preserved with the aid of appropriate systems of land and forestry management.
<P>
Point number six: attitudes in European society, including farmers' attitudes, will have to change. We must make our position clear on the need to improve the protection of the environment, since that is the only way in which we can justify the cost of such measures now and in the long term.
In principle, our strategy for the future is based on two considerations. The first of these is that farmers must attain a certain minimum standard in order to qualify for compensatory payments.
This is taken for granted in any industry, and is no more than the population expects.
In my view, the minimum standard must be good farming practice.
The other consideration is that, if farmers go beyond this minimum standard and do more to improve the environment, society must compensate them for the loss of earnings or additional expenses this entails.
In a world that is increasingly ruled by competition, farmers must necessarily minimise their costs.
This could mean that the contributions to the protection of the environment which they used to provide virtually free of charge as part of normal farming routine will no longer be possible in future.
That is why we need to provide remuneration for agri-environmental measures.
Many farmers are prepared to enter into a contract to provide these protective measures. But the fact is that they will only do so if they are adequately recompensed.
<P>
Let me now deal with the question of evaluation to which I referred.
I welcome Parliament's interest in this matter, because that really does help us to impress our positions more forcefully on national and regional authorities.
The Commission has already taken important measures with regard to the evaluation of agri-environmental schemes.
We have been vigorously urging the national and regional authorities to have such evaluations carried out as a first step.
We have also provided these authorities with appropriate guidelines.
And in addition, we have included in the implementing regulation a provision which unequivocally lays down the Member States' obligations in the field of evaluation.
Lastly, we have been working continuously on evaluation-related questions by investing research funds under the PHARE programme and by commissioning other studies.
Of course I understand the sometimes critical stance of the national and regional authorities.
Most of the programmes they are implementing were not launched until 1995 or 1996, and it is only logical that a certain time has to elapse before measurable results actually start to emerge.
Moreover, it must be admitted that environmental protection is a complex business and that the monitoring of biodiversity and the monitoring or recording of nutrient input, for example, are physically and technically difficult tasks.
Nevertheless, we have received no fewer than 158 evaluation reports from the Member States, although 53 of these were only completed this year or are only available in draft form for the time being.
We therefore expect another large batch of reports in the coming year.
<P>
As far as the findings of these reports are concerned, I can well understand why Parliament is becoming impatient as it awaits the results of these important measures.
However, I can inform you today that this additional report will be completed within the next few days and will then be transmitted as quickly as possible to the chairmen of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the Committee on Budgets.
<P>
Mr Funk indicated that he wanted the Member States or regional administrations to have a greater say.
I must point out to you, Mr Funk, that responsibility for drawing up these programmes already lies with the Member States and regions.
It is in fact the Commission which merely has a say here, while the actual programming is done by the regions.
That is how it is, Mr Funk!
<P>
This brings me to the second part of my remarks, which focuses on the Otila report.
This report contains numerous relevant points, some of which have already been incorporated into the Commission proposals for Agenda 2000.
<P>
In its proposal for a new regulation on rural development, the Commission has considered a number of amendments to the aid regime which correspond to some of the conclusions set out in the Otila report.
In particular, the Commission proposes an end to the distinction between full-time and part-time farmers that is made in the present regulation, since this differentiation has frequently obstructed the successful application of the aid regime.
<P>
The Commission also proposes that the implementation of the measures in the Member States should cease to be compulsory and become optional.
However, the Commission cannot endorse all the conclusions of the parliamentary report.
We believe that caution should be exercised in formulating the final conclusions regarding the application of Regulation 2080.
As we argued in our report, afforestation of farmland is a lengthy process.
It is almost certainly too early to judge after so few years how the regulation is working and, in particular, the extent to which it is helping to reduce agricultural production and improve forestry resources.
<P>
May I also take this opportunity to state that timber supplies in the European Union are not diminishing but are increasing from year to year.
So no one need fear that our forestry stocks are being depleted.
We take the view that the farmland afforestation schemes will contribute to rural development in the long run by promoting diversified employment opportunities, a dynamic land-use strategy and proper conservation of the rural landscape.
Moreover, we firmly believe that this regime will have a beneficial impact on the environment.
<P>
The Commission agrees with Parliament on the need to assess the implementation of Regulation 2080.
I can also assure you that we shall go all out to complete this task and to submit the results to Parliament.
To do this, however, we must first have reliable and representative data.
With regard to the forestry strategy of the Community in general, and in particular the question whether forestry activities should be governed by Community legislation, the Commission will also shortly reach a decision on such a forestry strategy, which will likewise be communicated to Parliament.
Without seeking to anticipate the view of the Commission, let me say now that I personally am not in favour of forestry policy becoming a Community responsibility.
<P>
And so to part three, on Mr Santini's report.
I believe Mr Santini has addressed a very important subject, and I should like to express my sincere thanks to him and to all the other rapporteurs.
It is now over 20 years since the subject of mining and mountain regions was first addressed in the Communities, and back then a framework was created for less-favoured areas.
Mountainous areas were given an especially prominent position within that framework.
The difficult conditions in which farmers work in mountain regions also warrant special consideration in the common agricultural policy.
However, we must not overlook the fact that there are other regions which have to struggle with specific problems, such as Nordic regions, dry areas and places with various other types of natural disadvantage.
We must not therefore make the mistake of examining the needs and wishes of farmers in mountain areas in isolation, without reference to all the other less-favoured areas.
This is clearly reflected in the wish expressed by individual Members that this report should be extended to arid and semi-arid or Arctic zones.
Moreover, an excessively individualised approach to the features of any specific type of rural area would run counter to the need to simplify our policy.
<P>
Allow me, in response to this report, to outline to you the way in which we intend to approach the problems of mountain areas in Agenda 2000 and the solutions we are offering.
We want to introduce greater degrees of flexibility and subsidiarity into rural development policies so that the Member States will be better able to achieve their objectives in terms of supporting rural areas.
In my opinion, the two principles underlying this approach open up interesting prospects for our mountain areas, because in the future it will be possible, by combining the existing subprogrammes and measures into a single programme, to set clear priorities in order to select from the many options those which guarantee the most fruitful development.
In this way the whole can become greater than the sum of its parts, and the specific needs of mountainous areas can be more effectively addressed.
Restructuring and topping up the compensatory allowance also create greater scope to reward specific contributions made by the farmers living in the less-favoured areas.
The place of mountain areas in the new provisions on rural development is therefore secure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Madam President, Mr Fischler has said nothing about the question of funding.
We have tabled an amendment which states that cofinancing by Member States should be fixed at 25 %, with a 75 % input from the EU; similarly, we have this discussion about the other premiums, the compensatory premiums, which have always been paid in full, as you know.
It seems to me that the political assessment of these measures we are discussing here is often dependent on this figure of 50 %, and we should agree here on a lower national and regional cofinancing rate, so that the programmes will actually be accepted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="Fischler">
Madam President, may I begin by reminding the House in quite general terms that environmental policy and environmental measures in the agricultural sector cannot be a matter for the Community alone, but must also be a concern of the Member States and regions.
After all, these regions are where the people of Europe live.
<P>
With regard to cofinancing, then, let me point out that we already have 75 % Community funding in Objective 1 areas and 50 % in the other areas.
Since we are seeking to extend these measures, and since I also have the impression that the Member States are availing themselves of these schemes more and more frequently, we have laid down in the Agenda 2000 proposals, under which these environmental measures would be integrated into the overall rural development programme, that the cofinancing of environmental measures should at all events remain at 50 %, because in other situations, for example development aid for the less-favoured areas or mountain regions of many countries, the Community cofinancing rates fall considerably short of the 50 % mark.
In that respect, environmental measures outside the Objective 1 areas will certainly attract a higher cofinancing rate in future than other rural development measures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Fischler.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
EAGGF: 26th financial report
<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0298/98) by Mr Rehder, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the twenty-sixth financial report concerning the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF), Guarantee Section (1996 financial year) (COM(97)0589 - C4-0112/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 NAME="Rehder">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, while it is certainly true that anyone reading this rather cryptic title will be taken aback, the report before the House is considerably more interesting than the title would suggest.
This report was drawn up because the European Parliament, representing the taxpayers of Europe, has the right and the duty to carry out exhaustive checks on the management of Union finances.
And the precept of good housekeeping - a virtue in men and women - enjoins us to ensure that taxpayers' money is being used economically and that any misuse of funds is identified and penalised - to ensure, in short, that something is done here to stop such abuses.
<P>
This agricultural budget attracts particular public interest because it accounts for almost half of the entire EU budget and because, sadly, sufficient care has not always been taken in the past to comply with this housekeeping principle of economical and proper use of tax revenues.
We know that not only the Court of Auditors of the European Union but also the national audit offices of the Member States apply very stringent criteria. For all their necessary rigour, glaring errors do still occur.
<P>
Some of the objections and defects undoubtedly result from the impenetrable application jungle, which causes many applicants to make unintentional mistakes.
There, now, is a task for you, Commissioner - to cut a swathe through this forest of bureaucracy; this would be one type of deforestation that every environmentalist would support.
We could then plant freeflowering vegetation there which would create its own natural environment and would not have permanent links with the waste-paper bin.
Please have pity on the people who have not been trained to fill in forms but are entitled to aid by virtue of their farming activities.
<P>
A major part of these shortcomings, however, is down to subsidy fraud and often - and we sometimes forget this here in our parliamentary discussions - to a lack of willingness on the part of the Member States to prosecute and, if necessary, punish those who misappropriate EU funds with quite the same vigour as they apply to breaches of national law - despite the fact that the European Union even makes funds available to the Member States for verification purposes.
This is an utterly untenable situation.
It is also intolerable, as the European Court of Auditors noted, that a mere fraction of wrongfully received support funds is actually reclaimed, thanks to the continuing inadequacy of the statutory instruments available.
If this were to occur in the average small municipality, in the treasury of a county town or in any other town hall or city chambers, the mayor or members of the administration would face suspension from office in countries where the law so provides.
<P>
In this context it would be advisable, if only for educational reasons, to prescribe cofinancing in future in the realm of the EAGGF.
I say 'educational reasons' because it would be a means of bringing home more clearly to the Member States that it is basically their own money or the money of their own citizens and taxpayers that is being managed so casually and - I have to be blunt - often sloppily too.
<P>
Another point which merits criticism is that a significant proportion of allocated budgetary funds are still not being used.
When we examine this report, we see that in the reporting period, the year 1996, this sum only amounted to ECU 1.3 billion. That, however, was a result of the BSE crisis, which created a demand for considerable extra resources; in 1995 a total of ECU 3.5 billion went unused.
To the taxpayer, that is an enormous amount of money.
And that brings me back to forestry policy, where we could surely have put those funds to far better use in Germany over the past eight years.
<P>
These vast surpluses show that the contingency planning which is necessary in every political domain has been overdone in this case.
The present legal position - and this is the crux of the problem with this whole business - is that these funds have to be returned to the Member States.
For many Member States, including my own, the agricultural budget has developed into a sort of cash box which offers governments an annual opportunity to plug revenue gaps which their own policies have created and to convey the impression that national fiscal policy can more or less ensure survival.
<P>
But the agricultural budget is not a cash box; it is the principal means of preserving the rural areas of Europe for those who inhabit them and for everyone else.
Every penny is needed for that task, because we must also try to reverse the sins of the past.
For that reason, I have proposed in the report that an annual reserve of ECU 1 billion should be created from the agricultural budget.
<P>
If there is a surplus at the end of the year, this reserve should be used to improve the rural infrastructure in general and above all to fight unemployment, which naturally exists in rural areas too.
Mr Mulder took up this idea and, being a experienced budget specialist, perfected it.
Thank you, Mr Mulder.
This demonstrates that such joint efforts across the party-political divide are effective, and that we can achieve progress if our minds and our work are not dominated by these divisions.
The European Parliament is far more agreeable in that respect than is sometimes the case, unfortunately, in other parliaments.
<P>

On the downside, however, there are other Members of this House who have been fighting tooth and nail - unsuccessfully, thank goodness - to prevent any further public identification of the real problem within our agricultural support policy, namely the fact that about 80 % of agricultural subsidies are still being paid to only 20 % of all farmers and that the beneficiaries are the most prosperous farmers rather than those whose need is greatest.
There is not an ounce of social justice in that, Commissioner, and I am certainly grateful to you for having replied last year to a written question from a doubting Thomas - his real name is not Thomas - in the PPE Group, by reaffirming that there has been no fundamental change in this intolerable situation.
<P>
Not until we have eliminated this problem shall we obtain the support of the European taxpayers for a new and sustainable policy for rural areas.
We need that, not least because of our 20 million unemployed, and we need a support system that will put an end to this lunacy whereby a farming millionaire - whose millions I do not envy him, because he and I will meet the same end - to this ludicrous situation whereby this farming millionaire receives tax subsidies he does not need while there are others in rural areas who need them desperately: smallholders, for example, who basically have no option but to work themselves into the ground to eke out a living.
<P>
We then need an effective support ceiling, which should only be raised if we resurrect old solidarity requirements, and I refer specifically to the requirement that everyone should have the right to a decent job.
If this additional requirement is fulfilled, we can think further ahead.
We also need - and this, of course, is something we have been discussing today - a new integrated policy for the less-favoured areas.
I emphatically endorse everything, Commissioner, that you and some of the Members of this House have said about the danger of starting to think again in terms of several little money jars - one for mountain regions, one for maritime regions, one for moorland regions, one for wetland regions.
All of these regions do deserve help, but they deserve help because they all have a shared problem: they simply cannot compete with the economically stronger regions, but they still have to be kept alive.
That is why I would warn everyone against a continuation of this piecemeal approach.
The basic elements of the Commission's ideas which I have read about are undoubtedly sound.
<P>
An integrated rural policy must also ensure that new jobs are created in rural areas.
By that I mean not only employment in agriculture or related sectors, but also high-tech jobs.
Advanced technology does no harm to rural areas.
That is why the microchip factory in Untermagerbein, which is near my home, must be basically feasible.
These things need not always be in the centres of population; they can be located elsewhere.
<P>
We have actually talked enough about all these principles.
In 1996, we adopted my report by a large majority, and I should be pleased if all my fellow Members were prepared to vote for these things, not for the sake of bringing the discussion to an end, but so that these proposals can be turned at long last into concrete policies in your own countries.
For some of those who were sitting here just a short time ago, it would serve as a timely reminder to do that in their countries.
<P>
The gradual demise of many villages in your countries and in mine will ultimately lead to the decline of rural areas in general.
These areas account for 80 % of our European territory. And our Europe will only have a future if its rural areas have a future too.
That will only be the case if we finally stop producing new paperwork.
Let us create a future for our rural areas, and then we shall preserve Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Iversen">
Madam President, I think that Mr Rehder has produced a splendid and very interesting report on the financial report of the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund.
It is always important - we also talked about this earlier today - to ensure that the EU taxpayers' money is spent prudently.
I also think it is crucial that we in Parliament adopt the position of those who take a critical line on what we see.
That must be our task as democratically elected representatives, and that is the approach adopted in Mr Rehder's report.
<P>
The Commission's report on agricultural expenditure for the financial year 1996 is in many respects an excellent report.
It gives an account of factors which have affected the expenditure on agriculture in the year in question: enlargement of the Union to 15 countries, implementation of aid during the 1992 reform and expenditure associated with the BSE crisis.
In addition the Commission also reports on the implementation of a new factor, which I think is very important, namely a plan to avoid fraud against funds for agricultural support.
The plan involves the setting up of a database, registration of control systems, identification and more detailed registration of stocks.
All well and good!
There are of course some who get into difficulties, in my country too, as a result of what is called excessive bureaucracy, but it is good that we have these things.
When we pay out money, we must also be sure that there is proper control.
<P>
On the other hand, I do not think that the Commission's report pays enough attention to the way the funds are used in the Member States.
The problem with control is that it varies from one Member State to another.
In other words, one cannot expect that people will be treated uniformly in the various countries of the Union, even though uniform rules are actually applicable.
That is not good enough!
That cannot continue indefinitely.
We need to have proper control over the use of all these resources.
Of course I know exactly what the Commission will say: do you want more bureaucracy?
Do you want to make things even more difficult?
And of course that puts us on the spot.
We need to create a system that can also function.
It is thus clearly also necessary to ensure that the agricultural reform points in the direction of a more transparent system than we have at present.
<P>
I want to say to end with - and Mr Rehder also had something to say about this - that social imbalances are manifest in the way the funds are distributed.
We can see quite clearly - and the Commission's report says nothing about this, but we can see - that 80 % of the funding goes to 20 % of the farmers.
What is the reason for that?
No doubt there are many explanations, but I really think the Commission owes us an answer as to what it considers the explanation to be.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Redondo Jiménez">
Madam President, Commissioner, if I may, after listening to Mr Rehder's lecture in presenting his report, I will repeat the title of the report we are debating.
We are debating the twenty-sixth financial report on the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund, Guarantee Section (1996 financial year), submitted by the Commission under Article 10 of Regulation No 729. In addition, I would remind you that, since 1987, the budgetary period no longer coincides with the calendar year but runs from 15 October to 15 October.
<P>
Therefore, let us look at the subject under debate.
What, in fact, is it all about?
Basically, it involves determining whether what has been spent corresponds to what was budgeted and whether we have resolved any unforeseen situations that have arisen.
I think that, broadly speaking and at a basic level, this has been done.
Therefore, I agree with what is said in the Commission communication regarding final appropriations totalling ECU 40 828 million, which coincides with the agricultural guideline for 1996, which is the year we are discussing.
<P>
And with regard to spending, ECU 39 107.8 m was divided among three main areas.
<P>
The first was the full payment of CAP subsidies.
<P>
The second was the enlargement from 12 to 15 countries.
<P>
The third was the unforeseen BSE crisis.
<P>
Nonetheless, the share of agricultural spending in the general budget dropped by 1.2 %, from 51.7 % to 50.5 %.
<P>
I also agree with the breakdown of spending by economic characteristics: restitutions, intervention, etcetera, together with the review of control systems in some sectors.
In this connection, when we review what is sent to us by the Commission, small, intimate details are revealed.
For example, I would like to ask the Commissioner how it is that Austria, in only three years, has virtually caught up with Germany in terms of Regulation No 2078, that it is drawing dangerously close to Germany in Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development-environmental accompanying measures and is well ahead of France and the other countries.
But that is merely incidental.
<P>
However, this and much else besides has already been stated by the rapporteur, but I regret that I cannot agree with him on paragraphs 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 of his report, which will not be supported by myself nor my group. We feel that they have nothing to do with the report we are dealing with and that they also seek to introduce subjective statements, which are positive neither for the common agricultural policy nor for our dairy and arable farmers, together with guidelines for the future CAP, such as the issue of cofinancing, which were not requested in this report.
<P>
I would like to thank you, Commissioner, as I always do, for your presence in this Hemicycle, since you never fail to attend and endure long and tedious sittings as today's might be described by those who are following it here. And I would like to end with a phrase from page 42 of your communication, which states that the Community represents a unified economic area for agricultural products.
<P>
Commissioner, today more than ever, given the circumstances we are experiencing, this should be the case and I hope that it will continue to be the case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Mulder">
Madam President, first of all, let me say that I welcome the fact that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has delivered an opinion on agricultural expenditure in 1996, since this is normally the job of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
I think that it is extremely important for the agricultural sector itself to do everything it can to ensure that the agriculture budget is spent correctly, because when we talk about irregularities and fraud in the farming sector it is not primarily the farmers or growers who are responsible, but other areas of agriculture.
If we want to increase support for farmers in Europe, which is what all of us in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development wish to see, we must ensure that money is spent correctly, and I think that Mr Rehder's report makes a significant contribution here.
The previous speaker has already thanked Commissioner Fischler for staying here for such a long time, and I would like to pay him another compliment, even though this is something he is not exactly used to receiving here in the Chamber.
We very much appreciate the fact that the Commission has complied with the Budgetary Control Committee's demands relating to the 1992 discharge, which come up again indirectly in the 1996 report, for 15 extra officials to be appointed to improve monitoring, and for an extra 25 % fine to be imposed if Member States do not implement agricultural expenditure correctly.
I think this is one way in which controls can be improved.
<P>
Regarding the rest of the Rehder report, I agree with the previous speaker - and it has nothing to do with the kind words he said about me - that there are a number of points which actually have nothing to do with the financial report for 1996.
Over the next few months, we shall be looking in detail at all the problems associated with Agenda 2000 - and whether the 80/20 ratio is fair or not, I think it is inevitable that some sectors will always receive more than others, because some sectors will always be close to the soil.
If we want to maintain the countryside we must, by definition, give it more money than we give to a greenhouse, or whatever.
You cannot just say that all sectors must receive an equal percentage of the agriculture budget.
I cannot agree with this approach.
<P>
One final point about the accompanying measures.
I have just heard that the report is to come out any day now, perhaps as early as next week.
This is excellent news.
I think that one of the main points in future discussions will be how to combine the environment and agriculture.
I would be curious to know exactly why it is that only five of the 15 Member States are making use of the accompanying measures.
Austria is a good example, but that could have something to do with the Commissioner here.
However, I would really like to know why certain environmental measures are successful in some countries but not others.
If we can find out the secret of how they should be applied in countries where they are not successful, I think we will be on the right road in spending the agriculture budget.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="Nicholson">
Madam President, I do not want to over-egg the situation but I would like to follow on from Mr Mulder and pay tribute to the Commissioner for his patience and fortitude in staying to this late hour to listen to us going on about him.
I congratulate the rapporteur on bringing forward a thought-provoking report on the EAGGF.
Mr Rehder calls into question many important points and we can quite readily take them on board this evening.
<P>
One of the things referred to which struck me immediately is the complicated life the farmer now leads because of the number of forms he has to fill in.
Most farmers are prepared to fill in as many forms as necessary to get whatever support or aid they require but there is an argument that the forms could be easier to complete.
I am sure the Commissioner is aware of forms which are highly complicated and technical.
I know these forms assist in controlling fraud but there should be a greater degree of flexibility at local level.
I receive regular complaints from constituents who have made genuine, innocent mistakes in their application or claim form resulting in the refusal of a grant.
They come to me as their MEP because they have been told that at local level there is no discretion to recognise what is a genuine mistake.
That is one area we could look at to make the system more user-friendly to the farmer.
<P>
At the moment in Northern Ireland there is no structural support.
The relevant programme was so popular that it was oversubscribed and no more applications could be accepted.
That shows the importance of such support to rural communities and farmers especially at this very difficult time.
We have to try to address some of the points Mr Rehder and Mr Mulder have made with regard to the long-term future of the reform package.
<P>
Mr Mulder raised the interesting point of why some national governments are more successful than others in bringing in the environmental measures.
The answer is that some governments just do not want to introduce these measures.
It is as simple as that.
They are not prepared to put up the matching funding that is required to get the measures started.
We heard about this in the earlier debate. So there is a good opportunity for us to debate and find the best way forward.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 NAME="McCartin">
Madam President, I wish to thank Mr Rehder for his report.
He emphasises the cost of the common agricultural policy.
Yes, it is about 40 % of the Community budget at the moment but that reflects more on the size of the Community budget than on spending on agriculture.
When you consider the size of the European Union, the number of farmers involved, the area and the problems, we are spending 0.4 % of GDP on the common agricultural policy.
This is the price we pay for the policy of seeking to maintain the population of the European Union in the rural areas.
<P>
If the policy did not exist, if we left it entirely to market forces, there is no question but that the flight from the land would have been very much accelerated.
It is disappointing, of course, that we have not succeeded in stabilising the number of people living in rural areas.
Similarly, today we are spending about the same amount of money on the policy as we spent 15 years ago, but only half the number of farmers are involved.
I predict that in ten years' time - say, at the end of the next programme - instead of the seven million farmers we have today, we will probably have four million farmers, and yet we will be spending more money.
<P>
When you consider that, along with the point that 80 % of the money is going to 20 % of the farmers, then we have to say that perhaps at the moment it is time - I do not want to decouple it from production entirely - to consider a greater variety of schemes - and certainly now the money can be spread more widely.
Too few people may be receiving too much money as the whole industry becomes restructured, and some very big producers get the compensation foreseen in the reorganised policy.
<P>
I am a little concerned about it.
I would like to see a variety of policies that are based more on programmes such as the Leader programme - I know it is going to be retained and strengthened. But to maintain the population in the rural world we need to do a bit more than just relate it directly to volumes of production.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Klaß">
Madam President, Commissioner, I am the last speaker this evening, but I do wish to use my two minutes and to thank you for staying with us.
What are we talking about this evening?
We are talking about the support measures, about compensatory measures for our farmers in Europe.
The guarantee section of the EAGGF mainly finances expenditure in connection with the common agricultural market and pricing policies.
A large percentage of the fund is used for interventions to regulate the markets for agricultural produce.
<P>
In the 1996 financial year, the agricultural budget ran to ECU 40 828 million, which represents 50.5 % of the general EU budget.
We did have a rise in the agricultural guideline, precisely because the reform of the CAP, with the aforementioned new criteria, resulted in the aid available to the Member States being fully utilised for the first time, and because the European Union increased in size from 12 to 15 Member States on 1 January 1995.
However, if we measure this rise against the increase in the general budget, we find that agricultural expenditure has declined by 1.2 %.
When it comes to dealing with public money, thrift is always a virtue, and expenditure must be seen in the light of the task in hand.
<P>
Turning over the complex field of the common European agricultural policy requires adequate finances, and agriculture is the policy sector which is most comprehensively supported, and indeed monopolised, by the European Union.
Besides compensatory support schemes for productive holdings, the European Union also provides accompanying measures which reflect its responsibility for the environment and for the victims of structural change.
These measures are important, and I welcome the proposals in this area, Commissioner, which you have made in the Agenda 2000 framework.
I support the rapporteur's call for greater transparency, and above all for the simplification of the complex application procedure.
We shall no doubt have ample opportunity here in Parliament to discuss the future shape of the EAGGF in the framework of Agenda 2000, and I therefore take the view that points 11 and 12 do not belong in this report on the financial year 1996.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Klaß. I have seen something quite remarkable during my spell in the Chair this evening.
Everyone has shown a respect for their speaking time tonight which could hardly be bettered.
<P>
In conclusion, I now give the floor to Mr Fischler.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 NAME="Fischler">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I too have no wish to try your patience at this time.
Let me begin by expressing my sincere thanks to Mr Rehder for the report and to the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development for the interest that has been taken in this twenty-sixth financial report on the Guarantee Section of the EAGGF.
<P>
I also wish to thank the rapporteur for supporting the reform of the common agricultural policy.
In the present context, however, I believe there is no need for us to engage in a debate on Agenda 2000.
We shall have many more opportunities to do that, and the same applies to the own-resources report.
But when I am asked why the environmental measures and the accompanying measures have been so successful in the country with which I am undoubtedly most familiar, my reply is that there seem to be are two decisive reasons for this.
The first is that we began back in 1987 with comprehensive fact-finding and discussions on the need for multifunctional agriculture, and that we perhaps developed a few things rather earlier than was the case elsewhere.
Let me give one small example from my time in charge of the agricultural portfolio.
When I was appointed Minister of Agriculture in 1989, I inherited a budget of two million Austrian schillings for the promotion of organic farming, and when I left the Ministry a few years later some 270 million schillings had been earmarked for that purpose.
<P>
The second significant reason is simply the fact that there is a social consensus in the country on the need to take an appropriate degree of national responsibility for conserving the countryside and safeguarding sustainable forms of agriculture.
Raising the requisite funds to cofinance these measures has never really been a problem in Austria.
<P>
But now to the business in hand. I should like to limit my remarks to a few main points that relate directly to the financial report.
First of all, there is the matter of the unused funds.
Let me place on record that the volume of unused funds was halved from 1995 to 1996, and in the following financial year, 1997, it has been further reduced to about ECU 400 million.
This is equivalent to the Community's financial obligations in the agricultural sector for about two days in the year.
As far as the expenditure estimates in this sector are concerned, because of various imponderables there will always be a certain margin of error, since nobody can forecast the weather or market trends with absolute certainty.
<P>
As regards checks on expenditure, I fully subscribe to the view expressed by the rapporteur.
As for the rejection of considerable amounts of expenditure during the clearance of accounts, I will concede that this is partly caused by complex application procedures and by inadequate checking in the Member States.
Many of the rejections, however, are also due to the fact that the Member States' interpretation of the CAP implementing provisions has differed from that of the Commission.
We want to eliminate these problems and have adopted a number of measures to that end.
We are trying to simplify the provisions in question and formulate them more clearly, so that these dubious interpretations can be avoided as far as possible.
Part of this effort is being made in the Agenda 2000 framework, but there are other vehicles too, especially the SEM 2000 project.
<P>
Then we are supporting the Member States as they try to solve their verification problems; this support is provided through measures covered by budget chapter B1-3600.
In addition, we are trying to improve the procedure for the clearance of accounts, and we shall continue to apply flat-rate corrections and guidelines to the clearance of accounts.
<P>
On the question of imbalances in our financial support, a point raised by several speakers, I should like to emphasise that we have addressed this problem in our reform proposals.
We shall simply no longer tolerate a situation in which a small percentage of farms receive the bulk of the grants.
Let me stress that one of the aims of the common agricultural policy is to ensure that producers receive appropriate incomes.
To achieve this goal, however, farms must not rely solely on grant aid.
We need more market orientation, primarily so that enterprising farmers and processing businesses can take full advantage of the opportunities available to them.
The market situation is good and well balanced for many products I can think of, particularly wine, fruit, vegetables and other - mainly specialised - types of produce, and producers can secure an appropriate level of income by selling in these markets.
<P>
As for the more technical issues concerning the budget guideline and the expenditure forecast, I am interested in the proposal for the establishment of a general budgetary reserve covering the estimated funding requirement but within the guideline framework.
When it comes to the matter of repaying unused funds to the Member States, the bottom line is that the EAGGF appropriations are only provisional estimates.
To that extent, the repayment rule contained in the regulations is justified, and it would no doubt be very difficult to have this rule amended.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Fischler.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 7.45 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Mr President, I have nothing to say about the Minutes, I am perfectly happy with them.
Yesterday, however, an amendment by the Liberals on the Viola report was rejected for some incomprehensible reason.
It was all about making the institutions more environmentally friendly.
I would therefore like to put the following request to you.
If you wish to promote the use of bicycles here in Strasbourg, you need to ensure that there are adequate covered bicycle racks, but if you look in the garage, the racks are by no means sufficient for the Members and their assistants.
Could I ask you to increase the number of bicycle racks in the garage at the expense of perhaps two car-parking spaces?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Eisma.
I have taken note of your request and I will pass it on to the Bureau and, in particular, to the College of Quaestors so that they may examine this matter in the most positive light possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Kerr">
Mr President, regarding the Minutes on my speech yesterday, I want to raise a point.
I mentioned at the end of my speech on Pinochet that I feared that the British Government was about to do a deal to let him go.
In this morning's Guardian it is reported that precisely that is going to happen.
I just want to confirm that my prediction was correct.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Mr Kerr, you are aware of the leniency of this Chair, particularly on Friday mornings, which are peaceful days.
But this has nothing to do with the Minutes.
<P>
I see that there are no comments on the Minutes.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="Hallam">
Mr President, on a point of order.
I have, on a number of occasions on a Friday, raised the fact that this sitting, which is often a very good sitting, is not televised.
It is not available for television companies to use and it is not available for archives.
I should again like to press the point and ask when this sitting is going to be properly televised and treated like any other.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Mr Hallam, I note your concern, which I share because, being in the Chair, I could appear more often on television but, in all events, Mr Hallam, I will not forget to pass this matter on to the appropriate authorities.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Santini">
Mr President, I merely asked for the floor to make a brief preliminary remark concerning the amendments which have been tabled.
This report was adopted unanimously in the Committee on Agriculture, after which a compromise was reached with certain groups which had tabled amendments on a point of substance.
The report on a strategy for mountain regions is a more thorough examination of one aspect of a general report, submitted during the last parliamentary term, on less-favoured areas in the broader sense.
Mrs Anttila, who is here with us today, is to present a report on Arctic areas within a few days from now.
During the next term of Parliament, someone will be presenting a detailed report on arid and semi-arid zones, a subject already dealt with many years ago.
<P>
I now have to put to the House some amendments from a single group, the EDN Group, the same amendments on which we had reached agreement in the text of the report, and which seek to generalise the issue once again, thereby taking us a step backwards.
We have the opportunity today of exploring one specific aspect of this subject, while other aspects are dealt with in other reports.
This means that we have a possibility at last of getting right to the heart of various problems, without restricting ourselves on every occasion to grand declarations of principle which everyone can endorse but are neither down-toearth nor practical.
That is why I can accept only some of these amendments: those which do not detract from the concrete, pragmatic nature of this report and, above all, do not conflict with its title.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
Mr Wijsenbeek has a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, as this week has been rather heavy with its three voting sessions, I am not asking for a secret ballot pursuant to Rule 121, but for a more discreet vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I would refer to the Rules of Procedure and ask your respectful silence to give Mr Wijsenbeek and also this Chair a degree of peace.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Santini">
Mr President, I feel that I must comment on the result of this vote.
It was a fine exercise in parliamentary democracy, without a doubt.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy was right: we were simply voting on the addition of four words, the usual four, in all the amendments. These are the four words which distort the original intention of this report, intended to cover mountain regions exclusively, given that - I repeat - arid areas have already been discussed and Arctic areas are to be discussed at next month's plenary.
<P>
It would be as if I were to resubmit all my amendments on mountain regions next month, on Mrs Anttila's report.
This has been another case of indulging in grandiose declarations, but yet another total failure to get to grips with the real issues.
Nothing changes, the report is perfectly valid - that is why I did not ask the chairman of my group to vote against it - but once again we are talking a lot of hot air.
We are incapable of producing down-to-earth legislation with which our citizens can identify.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
Mr Santini, it is not the Chair's practice to cut speakers short, but please bear in mind that your statement is virtually an explanation of vote and re-opens the entire debate.
But I do not intend to reopen this debate.
We have already voted on this matter and the vote is the most democratic expression of our Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="Souchet">
Our group voted in favour of the Iversen report on the promotion of agricultural production methods compatible with the requirements of the protection of the environment and the maintenance of the countryside. At the same time, we are aware of the problems posed in implementing the CAP and international agreements, either within the framework of the WTO or as part of free trade agreements that the European Union establishes.
<P>
In fact, Mr President, I would like to remind the House that the Commission's proposals on the reform of the CAP, drawn up as part of Agenda 2000, force farmers to seek to make their land as productive as possible.
The development of intensive and specialised agriculture in certain regions of the European Union is only the result of the strange incentives offered by the CAP.
The proposals for reform as they stand today will only intensify these trends, in spite of the Community legislation on the protection of the environment and the maintenance of the countryside.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, I must remind this house that the GATT agreements do not incorporate the social and environmental dimensions.
The increase in the number of free trade agreements promotes agricultural production at low prices and therefore low production costs.
In order to be competitive, European farmers are forced to be as productive as possible, even if this means not being able to meet European environmental requirements.
<P>
To conclude, Mr President, our group would like to point out that Community policy, both on an external and agricultural level, is in conflict with European policies on the environment and animal welfare.
European farmers are, in truth, caught in a stranglehold that both hems them in and that hastens their extinction.
They cannot meet both the environmental requirements and the productivity requirements, which are linked to falling agricultural prices due to the disappearance of the Community preference.
<P>
Otila report (A4-0346/98)
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Lindqvist">
It is important for farmers and foresters to be able to maintain their livelihoods when soil conditions change.
One option is to switch from farming to forestry, while preserving enough farmland for food production.
Soil is a natural resource that needs nurturing.
Changes in land use must be accompanied by environmental and natural resource analyses, and a woodland certification system will be required to ensure forestry sustainability.
It will be necessary to involve organisations representing the farming and forestry sectors in this work. And overhead costs, changes in income, and the effect on the environment will all need evaluating.
I voted in favour of the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Titley">
I vote for this report with a mixture of pride and concern.
<P>
Pride that Britain is one of the four best performers in the EU's scheme to promote tree planting as an alternative use for farmland.
But concern that this report suggests that in general across the EU the forestry aid programme has not led to major changes, namely planting trees instead of yet more crops to add to Europe's food mountains.
<P>
The report's other worries about high costs per hectare of the tree planting programme also lead to doubts about how it is being implemented on the ground.
<P>
Given the importance of encouraging forestry, such as the highly successful British community forest movement which I know best from the Red Rose Forest in my own constituency, it is important that this report's concerns about other users of EU forestry aid are addressed.
That is why I back the report and hope that the Commission will respond with an early evaluation of the EU scheme to aid afforestation.
<P>
Santini report (A4-0368/98)
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Ephremidis">
Despite their differences, diversity and individual features, the Union's mountain areas have one thing in common: conditions that make development difficult.
The very areas which concentrate the Union's greatest ecological heritage and biodiversity - an incalculable environmental asset - as well as traditional activities are facing increasingly acute problems of isolation, underdevelopment, desertion and decline.
<P>
Mountain areas are suffering the consequences of terrible political decisions which are accelerating their decline.
The natural, demographic and economic problems of these areas have been and are being tackled by inflexible, fragmentary and above all 'symptomatic' policies.
For example when, thanks to the CAP and GATT, policies are implemented which lead to the continual decline of farming, which is one of the main sources of employment and population maintenance in the countryside and in mountain regions, which is essential for the conservation of the natural environment and which does much to preserve nature and the countryside, how can it be possible to maintain and encourage the development of the countryside and of mountain areas and regions?
<P>
When quota restrictions are constantly being imposed on the production of basic mountain agricultural and livestock products, a problem which is particularly acute for southern products which cannot be replaced by others in the primary sector for reasons related to soil and climate, it is impossible to keep people and especially young people in those areas because of the lack of jobs, adequate incomes and a decent standard of living.
It is not by chance that Epirus in Greece, which is predominantly a mountainous area, is the poorest region in the EU, with Objective 1 status.
And all this at a time when the 'Agenda 2000' proposals are preparing further cutbacks in the agricultural economy and are advocating major changes which restrict the aid provided by the Structural Funds.
<P>
At the same time, the large distances which as a rule separate those areas from urban centres, their particularly difficult climatic conditions, the lack of infrastructure and appropriate technical support, and their inadequate and inappropriate road network, lead to isolation and restrict the potential for making the most of local products and for the proper operation of local markets, for the development of new economic activities, for the maintenance of satisfactory health levels, for education and for cultural activity.
<P>
Those problems are not only not being addressed, they are becoming worse.
Indeed, they tend to be regarded as permanent, inherent, even natural 'geographical' disadvantages.
Current policies need to be redirected immediately, and new policies must be developed which are capable of addressing and reversing the dangerous rate at which the Union's mountain areas are being abandoned and deserted, and providing real incentives for the development of those areas - incentives for the maintenance of population, jobs and income, for the development of primary and secondary production, the upgrading of infrastructure, improvements to the road networks and transport facilities, and for the organisation and provision of goodquality health and education services.

<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Souchet">
When our group tabled 31 amendments to this own-initiative report on mountain regions, we hoped to raise the awareness of both the Commission and the Council regarding the general situation of less-favoured and environmentally sensitive areas. Together with mountain regions, these are the most fragile rural areas affected by the CAP and particularly by proposed CAP reforms contained in the Agenda 2000 proposal.
<P>
For several decades now, these areas have experienced considerable desertification, as agricultural productivity is lower there and regular price cuts in agricultural produce are more difficult to compensate in such areas.
<P>
The way in which farming activity has responded, in development terms, to the different agronomic, pedological, climatic and environmental constraints experienced in these areas has been expressed in a variety of forms. In certain areas, the increase in agricultural productivity has been achieved by an extensification of farming.
In other areas, agriculture has diversified by incorporating additional activities such as agricultural tourism, for example. These developments determine the specific needs of actors in the rural world, such as public service needs and infrastructure needs, to improve communications and prevent communities becoming isolated.
It is, of course, vital that these needs be taken into account in the Structural Funds, but as regards agricultural activity in itself, such activity requires specific aid that is, in fact, a compensatory allowance for natural handicaps.
<P>
The difference in production between less-favoured areas and lowland areas must be compensated for as the future of these areas and the future of land-use management are dependent upon it.
<P>
As regards ecologically sensitive areas such as wetlands, specific environmental constraints imposed on these areas must be taken into account, as these also penalize the productivity of farms.
We must not forget that, in the wetlands for example, farmers must not only take into account the canals that divide up their areas of land but they must also maintain the overall infrastructure, keeping it as it often has been for several hundred years.
The disappearance of agriculture in these areas would lead to the disappearance of any economic activity linked to maintaining the countryside. But, most importantly, it would lead to the disappearance of an environmental balance that is part of the culture of these regions.
<P>
In conclusion, we ask the Commission and the Council to develop a true accompanying policy for the countryside that compensates for the handicaps these less-favoured and ecologically sensitive areas of the Member States of the European Union have to contend with.
The European Union's agricultural policy must take account of the countryside and the diversity of agronomic, pedological, geomorphological, climatic and environmental conditions.
<P>
Rehder report (A4-0298/98)
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Lindqvist">
Agricultural support is very unevenly allocated.
Big farms and holdings in well-to-do agricultural regions receive large amounts of aid, while small ones in peripheral and sparsely populated areas receive very little.
<P>
The support system is complicated, and trying to understand it uses up farmers' and society's time and resources.
We need to gradually move towards paying more for what is produced and imposing less regulation and control.
It would be a mistake to do as the rapporteur suggests and further extend the system of checks carried out by the Member States.
The whole philosophy of increased surveillance and greater zeal in combating infringements of 'EU law' is misplaced, and will simply bolster the existing suspicion of both EU and national agricultural administrations.
<P>
We should strike out in the opposite direction, with less rules and controls, working for more market penetration and rewarding quality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="van Dam">
We were not able to vote for the Rehder report for the following reasons.
Firstly, and most importantly, because of what the report says about the 'outstanding' EAGGF appropriations.
The rapporteur proposes that we should examine the possibility of keeping this available for the CAP, instead of repaying it to the Member States.
If by 'outstanding' appropriations he meant money that had been entered in the budget for a particular year but was then not spent, I would agree.
But this is not the case in this report.
Recital F indicates that, for the rapporteur, 'outstanding' appropriations means the difference between the agriculture guideline and agricultural expenditure, and he wants to use all of this margin for the CAP.
What this really means is that he regards the expenditure ceiling for agriculture as a spending target, which is something we cannot agree with.
<P>
Furthermore, this report is not the right place to be making statements of this kind, and it contains even more sweeping statements about the future common agricultural policy and how it should be financed.
Such matters should be dealt with in the context of the Agenda 2000 proposals, not in this report.
<P>
Finally, we cannot agree with the description that is given of possible imbalances in the CAP.
According to the rapporteur, the current agricultural system is socially unbalanced because 80 % of the support goes to only 20 % of the farmers.
This gives the impression that the aim of the agricultural policy is to give all farmers equal support, but this is not how it is intended.
One sector may find it perfectly easy to operate profitably in the single market, whereas others desperately need State support.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Role of libraries
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0248/98) by Mrs Ryynänen, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the role of libraries in the modern world.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, before giving the floor to Mrs Ryynänen, could I suggest that you follow Mr Wijsenbeek's advice?
I would ask you to be quiet, because we should like to hear what Mrs Ryynänen has to say.
<P>
I now give the floor to the rapporteur, Mrs Ryynänen, for five minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Ryynänen">
Mr President, Commissioner, in the information society knowledge is a vital resource and information the most important raw material.
It is high time libraries were made the cornerstone of the debate, as their significance and their potential as meeting points for many phenomena relating to the information society have not yet been fully grasped.
<P>
One of the greatest threats with the information society is the growth of inequality.
It is libraries that can guarantee that all people have the opportunity to make use of the information and cultural input they require, irrespective of the form in which it is packaged, from the traditional printed word to the newest on-line data.
As on-line data becomes more common, the role of libraries is changing, but not declining.
They are becoming especially important as expert organisers of data obtained off the net.
In the deluge of information available we need guidance and signposts, so that anyone can get the answer they require.
Democracy, openness and active citizenship can only come about if everybody is able to access data such as legislation, decisions taken by other countries' governments, including EU data, and, for example, the press with up-to-date accounts of events.
There have been good reports about European information points at libraries.
More generally, we must make sure that data accessibility continues to be funded with the aid of tax revenue, and that the service remains free. Producing on-line versions of catalogues, maps and statistics can ease the general process of accessing such information considerably, as it can be done very cheaply in terms of distribution costs.
<P>
The free-of-charge policy that exists for the basic services that public libraries offer is contained in the Unesco Public Library Manifest, yet reports indicate that lending charges have started to be introduced in many places.
The result has been a drop in the number of readers, that is to say the accumulated educational capital has a poor take-up rate, and the economic problems that libraries face will not be solved with the meagre revenue from charges.
The question of funds for libraries is something that has to be rethought all over Europe.
With current resources they will not be able to rise to the challenges of their task to provide diverse and traditional cultural and information services as well as the challenges of the information society.
However, lifelong learning in the information society puts even greater demands on libraries for the efficient utilisation of all manner of data and professional knowledge.
Further and complementary training in the library and information sector is a major challenge, and it is here that European cooperation can produce results.
Investment in information technology for libraries has to be seen as a major part of the basic infrastructure of the information society.
As information gets to be an ever more essential factor in production, it is worth investing common resources in its dissemination.
Pressure on the economy of libraries is due, for example, to fees they have to pay for housing electronic data, and converting catalogues and original data, in other words all their vast cultural heritage, into digital form.
<P>
When they are most effective, libraries function as networks that transcend all borders, including national ones.
Unfortunately, networking has barely got under way in Europe.
It is important that the Telematics for Libraries programme which was launched in 1990 and started a splendid process of cooperation should be extended in the fifth framework programme of research and technical development.
We need an EU library know-how centre to coordinate developments in the European library sector and to promote research and complementary education in the field.
At present we also lack comparisons of services offered by libraries in different parts of the Community.
Cooperation between libraries is rising high on the agenda in the information society strategies of central and eastern European countries, and in their endeavours to strengthen democracy.
<P>
In the current debate on copyright, libraries, archives and museums represent the view of the citizen and the user.
Safeguarding the institution of copyright and prevention of the illegal dissemination of information is only right, and is an important objective for libraries too.
The present balance that exists between the copyright-holder and the user of material should be maintained.
It is important, therefore, clearly to define the exceptions to exclusive copyright that safeguard the rights of libraries and users.
The ban on the use of digital information and cultural input should not be allowed to expand.
Unnecessarily tight restrictions on the use of a library, for example, by excluding private study, is at odds with the principles of lifelong learning.
Copyright legislation that is too stringent may, contrary to its aims, impair intellectual productivity in Europe.
<P>
I hope the Commission, when preparing its green paper on the role of libraries in the information society, considers the views expressed in this report and takes them on board in order to promote a democratic information society for our citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, Mrs Ryynänen, thank you for a splendid report.
Our main concern about the information society is that we will become divided into those who can afford to access information and those who cannot; that is to say, the information-rich and the information-poor.
This gap must be narrowed by all the means available to us.
In Finland and other countries we have done this with the aid of the institution of the library, and we have been very successful.
We are the best-read nation in the world.
The essential task of the nation's libraries is to safeguard the framework of the educational and cultural system, and this is especially important with the minority language groups, which are difficult for the majority language groups to understand.
<P>
Under the Copyright Directive, electronic data may not be viewed on a computer screen by library users, meaning ordinary people, unless a special agreement is made with the copyright-holders.
This poses a threat to the modern library service, and is a big problem for the issues of equality, education and culture in the information society.
I consider this to be a stupid mistake which threatens to ruin the work of an institution that has proved particularly cost-effective in the culture sector, since libraries would then not be able to fulfil their task as providers of information.
They are free of charge to each citizen, and that helps those who cannot afford to purchase all the products needed.
This is something we have got used to. The library has become a sort of church of information.
People need it and use it.
If its work is now to be impeded because of digitalisation and reproduction, then we will, depressingly, be taking a step backwards in the field of education, whereas we should all be doing our level best to develop it.
As I believe that this is rooted in ignorance, my position is that we change the Copyright Directive to enable libraries to continue their work and increase their educational role as a promoter of equality, and one that represents wisdom and justice, in today's information society.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valverde López">
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Virrankoski">
Mr President, Mrs Ryynänen's report, now under discussion, gives us a very clear picture of the role of the library in modern society.
At the same time it maps out, in excellent fashion, the huge potential and the challenges to be faced on the part of the institution of the library over the coming years.
The report was put together with care and skill, in accordance with the best Finnish traditions of culture and education, and I wish to convey my warmest congratulations and thanks to Mrs Ryynänen for her work.
<P>
Education and culture are geared to development.
They are also small countries' only protection.
When, for example, the EU puts together its development programmes, they might well flounder in recipient countries as a result of poor levels of education.
Libraries have always been powerful aids when it comes to national education, allowing the whole spectrum and all the best of human culture to be enjoyed by the entire nation.
They have supplied comprehensible and varied information, and provided information on skills and new discoveries, as well as applications in different sectors.
The importance of libraries in raising the education and living standards of western countries is enormous.
<P>
On the other hand, knowledge is power.
Control of information means power, and a lack of information means a lack of influence.
If national standards of education are not attended to, the result is a critical level of social inequality.
The key to library development is the definition of incorporeal rights.
Copyright is a very important part of the western judicial system, safeguarding the rights of inventors, science and scientists.
It also safeguards development in many fields.
Mrs Ryynänen's approach in this matter is the right one.
While it keeps the institution of the library user-friendly and recognises it as the best cultural institution with such limited funding, it also puts forward an appropriate solution for the future development of copyright.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate Mrs Ryynänen on this own-initiative report, which I think reveals the European Union's great potential for adopting initiatives in a range of areas relating to knowledge and civilisation, both now and in the future.
We fully support Mrs Ryynänen's views.
I would like to mention two points concerning the situation in Greece.
<P>
First, the possibility of providing libraries is not just a matter of economics.
Very often, the educational system too can play a major part, encouraging the young or even older people to make use of libraries. Very often too it can lock them out, imposing prohibitive restrictions on the use of these great repositories of human knowledge.
Greece is a typical example of the latter, and I confess that I felt a certain envy when listening to what happens in Finland.
In Greece, typically, all highschool students, as they approach their examinations for admission to university education, have to memorise one book, just one book in each subject!
If a student quotes from any other books, then he or she is sure to fail.
A student who can put all the commas, full-stops and dashes in the right places gets top marks.
The characteristic picture in Greek families with students finishing high-school is that in the evening, when the father or mother get home from work, the 17- or 18-year-old child sits there reciting the book to them from memory, because self-testing is not good enough.
Consequently, where the use of books is concerned, the educational system can contribute much, either positively as I believe happens in Finland, or negatively as I believe happens in Greece.
<P>
The second point I want to mention concerns the special effort we must make to promote libraries in the European Union's major cities which specialise in the culture, civilisation and knowledge of other peoples and languages of the EU.
I say this because, unfortunately, in many university faculties which have their own libraries, such as in Modern Greek studies in large cities such as Berlin, Munich and other cities in Germany, all that fund of knowledge is now declining, vegetating and at risk of disappearing completely.
In that sense, I think a general impetus to promote libraries, one which would attach special importance to those concerned with the languages and cultures of other EU countries, would be a very positive development.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Kerr">
Mr President, one of the earlier Finnish speakers said that libraries were very important in Finland.
I hesitate to suggest that this is because in their long dark winters there is nothing else to do but read books.
I know in fact from my visits to Finland with Mrs Ryynänen there is much else to do, not least go to the wonderful Savonlinna Opera Festival.
I was very impressed with the library provision and the importance of libraries in Finland and I commend Mrs Ryynänen's report.
It is an excellent report from an excellent member of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media.
We have had many good discussions in the Culture Committee on this report and I hope due notice is taken of it by the Commission when it brings forward its directive.
It is an excellent basis for the green paper.
<P>
Libraries are extremely important for our civilisation and culture in Europe.
Personally I have benefited enormously from them.
I left school at 15, went to university at 20 as an adult student and was able to do this because I had a friend who was a librarian.
He gave me a private space in the local library, supplied me with books, found reports for me and helped me to reconstruct my studies.
It helped me to go on and take several degrees and eventually become a university lecturer.
In Scotland I shall be standing for the new Scottish Socialist Party - I thought I would get a mention into the Rainbow, we launched it last month - and I have made sure that we have a strong commitment to public libraries in the policies of that party.
<P>
This is important in Britain because in the last 18 years we had cuts in library resources and provisions by the Conservative Government.
And I have to say that this is continuing under the New Labour regime which pays lip service to knowledge and education but continues to cut local authority library resources.
Libraries are under extreme pressure in the UK.
So I hope this report will have its significance.
<P>
On a lighter note, I would conclude by saying that library cards are sometimes very useful sources of identification.
My Scottish colleague Hugh McMahon tells me he got into Hungary once using his library card as the source of identification.
But he did have Otto von Habsburg with him at the time, so maybe that helped.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Kerr.
You have just mentioned Mr Otto von Habsburg.
Most unusually, he is not with us today because he is ill.
I take advantage of the fact that you have mentioned Mr von Habsburg to wish him a prompt recovery, on behalf of the House.
On Fridays, we need him here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, I agree with all the recommendations contained in the report, which gives an accurate picture of the current problems.
Listening to the debate here, I can see that the situation varies greatly between the Member States, and I must confess to being a little disappointed with the text of the actual resolution after the recitals.
I am still a fervent supporter of the principle of subsidiarity, and I therefore feel that the European Parliament should not be pointing a critical finger where it has no instruments and no powers to change anything.
<P>
Quite the reverse is true, of course, when it comes to the recommendations for the Commission, which I have to say is doing very little in practice.
I would therefore like to ask the Commissioner responsible for culture what progress has been made on harmonising copyright and the concerns expressed in this report.
We all know that libraries have changed: they are no longer just places where books are stored, they have become information centres with Internet connections for the public, and they are becoming the focus of the learning society in which we will all soon be living.
I am therefore very pleased with the report and its recommendations, though I am not so happy with the rather critical tone it adopts, implying as it does that things are not going as they should be anywhere.
I think that what we actually need is some sort of exchange of information to show just how much progress some countries have made.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, the role of libraries in modern society has changed enormously.
In the past, when you went to a library, there were impressive long rows of books that you could take off the shelf, have stamped and take away with you.
Nowadays modern university libraries do not have books any more, but computers where you can look a book up and request it using keywords.
Fifteen minutes later you can take the book away with you.
In the near future, more libraries will have become virtual libraries providing people with information in every possible form.
All this is described in an accurate and informative way in Mrs Ryynänen's report, and I welcome the fact that we are anticipating these developments.
<P>
I agree that libraries need to work with each other at European level, and for me the main question here is which institution should deal with this.
It is not clear from the report why the Commission and Parliament should take this on.
Is it not more obviously a job for the Council of Europe and UNESCO?
Is there not an overlapping of responsibilities here?
I think the arguments for dealing with this own-initiative report here in the European Parliament are rather weak.
<P>
The motion for a resolution also talks about a modest approach and organisation, so this is obviously an area where Europe does not want to arouse high expectations.
<P>
In view of all this, my main problem is with the passage in the resolution which calls on the Commission to speed up the production of the green paper on the role of libraries.
<P>
Subjects such as copyright, royalties and a European library network are important, but here again I feel that they are more a job for the Council of Europe or UNESCO.
If these issues were dealt with by the Council of Europe, there would be an even broader basis for cooperation because of the number of countries involved.
On the subject of copyright, the report fails to make any reference to the copyright convention of the World Intellectual Property Organisation, the WIPO Convention.
<P>
I agree that there is a problem with acid paper, and I would welcome European regulations promoting the use of 'permanent' paper.
I would support a Parliament recommendation on this, but calling on the Commission to produce a directive on the subject before the green paper is even out seems to be going a little too far at the moment.
<P>
In my view, the European Parliament does not need to make resources available to promote cooperation.
Cooperation between libraries is an excellent idea, but I think that it is really up to the Member States to encourage it.
<P>
There are a lot of very valuable ideas in the resolution, and the report rightly stresses the importance of libraries for society.
As it says, libraries are important cultural centres, repositories of knowledge, information-providers and social forums.
We need to take care of them.
<P>
Libraries also have to move with the times.
It is a big step to switch from just books to all possible forms of information such as cassettes, CD-ROMs and networks.
I doubt whether the new media will completely replace the old, as the explanatory statement says, and I myself would stress the importance of the printed book.
This is part of how I envisage the transition from the bibliographical age to the visual or virtual age.
The American cultural philosopher Neil Postman has some very interesting things to say about this in his book 'Amusing to Death', which was published in Dutch as 'Wij amuseren ons kapot '.
What could be nicer than to sit by an open fire with a glass of wine and a good library book?
That seems more appealing to me than sitting at a desk looking at all sorts of electronic documents on a screen.
But as I have already said, libraries need to move with the times.
<P>
My conclusion is that this is an excellent report with a very informative explanatory statement, but it is really something that the Council of Europe should deal with now, and Parliament could review at another time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Sichrovsky">
Mr President, this report is an important and extensive piece of work on the role of libraries.
As a member of PEN, I am always glad when Parliament deals with these subjects that are on the periphery of major world politics.
But I must call into question the historical roots behind the library idea, two of which were very important.
The first is to make it possible for the general public to read without having to buy the book, and the second is to enable them to find books which simply could not be found at that time in the many small bookshops.
But both these circumstances have since changed.
Today, books are in the main cheaper and, in what is known as the modern mega-store, every book is in stock anyway.
The challenge is therefore not merely a quantitative one - and this is the weakness of the report - but has more to do with making a qualitative contribution towards solving the problem.
We lack the ideas which would respond to modern consumer needs.
<P>
We must ask ourselves why fewer and fewer people are going to libraries.
If consumers no longer need them, then it is the job of libraries, and libraries alone, to win them back.
The report also mentions that libraries are probably never going to be a profit-making undertaking.
They are responsible, though, for arousing interest in consumers, so that they want to come back again and read.
Perhaps not just to read: maybe in future the library could be an intellectual database at the population's disposal.
With the modern techniques of electronic networking, the modern library could be linked up to all the libraries and archives in the world, thereby giving worldwide access to documents, articles and books, as well as all the other publications available.
This for instance would be a service that no bookshop, however large, could provide for consumers, and it would raise libraries' ability to compete.
We come back again and again to the problem of lifelong learning.
It is a right that we are going to have to prepare ourselves for.
Economic differences today are no longer a result of whether individuals can afford a book or not.
That was long ago. Today, it is more to do with access to electronic information media, and by making learning generally available, modern libraries could help to open up lifelong learning to everyone.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Mr President, I also wish to congratulate Mrs Ryynänen on a most comprehensive report, and especially for focusing on the question of the future, because if the institution of the library does not respond to the new, its importance will wane.
Libraries must keep abreast of the times and, preferably, be ahead of them.
Everybody must be able to use libraries to obtain with ease the information they want.
<P>
The basic principles of public libraries must include a service that is free of charge to users. I disagree with the previous speaker that charging for books would not cause people problems in seeking information.
In Finland, at least, books are so expensive that only a few people can afford to buy everything they need for study purposes, or for cultural reasons, for example.
<P>
The word library conjures up images of shelves full of books and lending facilities, but for decades it has served as a place to store records in ever-changing forms, and new electronic services and networks are increasing all the time.
Knowledge is to be found on the Internet these days, rather than on library shelves.
This form of information must also be available to everyone on exactly the same basis of equality as other data.
The Copyright Directive and other systems in place to protect people's rights must not prevent ordinary citizens from accessing the information they seek.
For example, in Finland, which has provided examples for other issues we are discussing here, we have what we call library compensation scheme, under which copyright-holders are paid royalties, on an equal basis, for works of theirs that are available to the public.
The adoption of this practice and its extension to other areas of information might be worth considering.
<P>
The institution of the library is based on serving citizens in their varying quests for information.
The library is also an institution used by the majority of citizens, an information bank for every man and woman.
This is vital from the point of view of society's objectives of social equality and for democratic development.
<P>
I hope that in the future there will be still more cross-border cooperation in the area of library development; the new technologies already require it.
Cooperation must above all be based on an endeavour to discover ways of working that can be applied in different countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, I have learnt from my southern colleagues in this Parliament that half of every speech is dedicated to congratulating the rapporteur, and the speech proper then begins with a 'But'.
So I will do likewise this time, and congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Ryynänen, on the work she has done in the name of education and culture.
Working together in Parliament as we have been doing now for a long time, I have come to know her as someone who conscientiously applies herself to the issue of education.
<P>
The tradition of reading in the Nordic countries is founded on being able to read, and deciding what to read.
Libraries help to spread education and culture more evenly among the population.
The fact that they are free of charge is important, but it conflicts with a current, alternative economic policy: the neo-liberalist pay-to-study phenomenon.
Neo-liberalism is barbaric. According to its doctrine, great wealth is needed to qualify for health and education.
This kind of economic policy is the death knell for libraries.
Libraries, however, are helping in the struggle against this alternative approach and the electronic hullabaloo.
If people are to have a basic right to access information, they must be able to distinguish between order and chaos.
Library staff have the important task of teaching people to distinguish between education and sensation.
<P>
This was by way of congratulating the rapporteur. Now comes the 'but'.
The rapporteur is calling for the adoption of a panEuropean report on libraries.
I do not think that is wise. It is simply a way of officialising Europropaganda.
The European Parliament is an example of indoctrinated communications.
For example, financial assistance is provided for Euro News , which is used to produce electronic Europropaganda.
When I have followed different reports produced in Parliament, the Secretary-General appears to be the head of Parliament's propaganda section.
<P>
Libraries must be kept independent from the European Union, the European Parliament, and the other official institutions.
People themselves must have the opportunity to become aware of the options.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Elchlepp">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I agree with the comments made by the rapporteur and earlier speakers: of course public libraries will continue to occupy a key role in social and information policy in the information society of tomorrow.
We should continue to remind people of this, just as we should continue to call for libraries to retain their role of providing greater democracy and political education, for access to them to be free for everyone - this is a very important point - and for quality to remain high in rural areas too.
<P>
That is why in the discussion on the Directive on copyright, it was right to insist that libraries should be granted generous copyrights.
In contrast to the previous speaker, I would like to emphasise two points in particular.
Libraries also have to assume new roles.
Looking at our own patch for example, public libraries could be much more involved as independent bodies providing information on the European Union.
I would point to the very well organised network of Public Information Relays in the UK, which link up public libraries specifically offering EU information.
<P>
I hope that as we decentralise the public relations work of the EU, we can also induce libraries to take some of it on.
I also think libraries could already be doing more in terms of acting as transfer points in communicating contemporary European culture. In practical terms, this could be by way of mutual consultation, by acquiring books and videos from other countries and by directly exchanging stocks of books and multi-media publications with libraries in other countries.
This would be an important step, in keeping with the spirit of openness and tolerance.
<P>
I think that lending libraries could also quite easily be small Internet centres for schoolchildren and young persons who want to build up small communication networks on European culture, and here of course it is important that access to the networks for educational purposes is free of charge.
Finally, allow me to make one brief point: if libraries are to continue to offer reasonably-priced access to the cultural wealth provided by books, then in some language areas the tried and tested means of price fixing will be essential to protect the diversity of what is on offer.
I ask you: should only paperback American bestsellers be available in European libraries in the future?
So, I would really urge the Commission not to sink into its dogma of liberalisation and competition, which is not in the citizen's interest, but to give greater thought to private methods of selfregulation in future decisions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldi">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by complimenting Mrs Ryynänen on her excellent work.
Libraries merit special attention within the European Union's cultural strategy, with particular reference to the information society.
They must be put in a position to play an active role in guaranteeing access to information and in communicating knowledge.
<P>
One fundamental task of libraries is to provide all citizens with basic knowledge and essential information, through works which contribute to an awareness of different identities and origins, fostering the cultural integration to which we aspire in the unique venture of building Europe.
Furthermore, libraries make a significant contribution to the depositing, organising, compatibility and transmission of information which, in the age of computer networks, should receive generous financial support from every one of the Member States.
<P>
Of course, the establishment of the telematics networks is still at an early stage, even though some cooperation does exist between national and parliamentary libraries, and between associations of European libraries, as is clear from the Telematics for Libraries programme.
It is necessary to further develop this cooperation and examine the possibility of different types of library services, so as to find out what opportunities there really are.
One means of doing this is to promote smaller libraries, which play a special role and have a strong local identity: they are a public meeting-place for users, where a variety of social activities can take place.
<P>
In the fifth framework programme of research and technological development, the Commission should consider establishing a network of European libraries. One of its aims would be to cooperate on a technical level and to conduct targeted research into the manufacturing of permanent paper which does not deteriorate with age, so as to safeguard for the future our present library stocks, so rich in books and archives.
<P>
Finally, a European Centre for Libraries should be established, with well-trained staff, and entrusted with coordinating this sector. An additional benefit here would be the creation of new jobs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="Cushnahan">
Mr President, I welcome the opportunity to discuss this report on the importance of libraries for the European Union.
I agree with the rapporteur when she states that libraries represent one of the most important systems which afford access to knowledge and culture.
The report contains a number of interesting recommendations, some that are complex and, obviously, will cause problems, others that are more straightforward.
<P>
I wholeheartedly support the proposal that Member States incorporate public libraries in their general initiatives concerning the information society.
We are doing this in Ireland, and the Information Society Commission clearly recognises the value of public libraries.
<P>
The recommendation that the Commission unequivocally takes account of libraries and their role as an information source for members of the public when resolving copyright disputes, may well be opposed by some Member States.
Also the proposal for a multinational approach to legal deposit may also run into linguistic difficulties.
<P>
However, the call to the Commission to boost its input to the library sector by establishing a focal point to coordinate library affairs and to oversee developments will be universally welcomed.
<P>
I congratulate the rapporteur on her report and, certainly, it is an opportune time to discuss it, particularly in advance of the Commission's green paper on this subject.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by congratulating Mrs Ryynänen on her own-initiative report, without adding any ifs or buts.
The report shows considerable understanding of the technical, economic, cultural and education-related problems with which libraries are faced.
The role of libraries in organising access to knowledge is becoming more and more important and is particularly worthy of our attention.
In the face of the fast-growing supply of all types of information there is indeed a great need to link up public libraries in the whole of Europe into a network which is accessible to citizens and which conveys knowledge and culture just like schools or other institutions.
<P>
As the rapporteur has underlined, the Commission has actively encouraged the development of new library services, particularly within the context of the Telematics for Libraries programme.
It is gratifying to see that many Member States are now, partly as a result of pan-European cooperation, beginning to set up modern, networked library services, which are easily accessible to their users.
As the rapporteur's analysis shows, libraries are confronted with a very wide range of problems.
The fifth framework programme of research should place us in a position where we can support research work into many of the technical issues that were indicated, especially in terms of standards for processing, conserving and transferring information and the creation of links through Community projects.
<P>
Other aspects, for example issues of copyright or universal access, should be placed within a wider context.
The fact that the Directive on copyright is currently under discussion within several parliamentary committees should for instance contribute to preserving the balance on copyright between the various parties, as called for in the report.
<P>
The report asks the Commission to push ahead with its work on a green paper on the role of libraries in the information society.
Since March 1997, when the Morgan report was adopted, we have made good progress in identifying and classifying relevant developments in the Member States and in gathering background material on most of the subjects raised.
The Commission therefore thinks it ought already to draft a communication on the role of libraries, which could serve as a basis for coordinating all the important issues which affect modern library and information services and citizens' access to them.
The communication would therefore address a number of subjects of specific importance for libraries, such as lifelong learning, copyrights, the promotion of reading, regional information services, and extensive cooperation between public libraries in access to knowledge and culture.
Also, this communication could give additional impetus to including libraries in the 'User-friendly information society' chapter in the fifth framework programme of research and pave the way for future actions aiming to help citizens of all age groups and all sections of society to make proper use of digital information and services.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="President">
I would congratulate the rapporteur on the fact that her report has been unanimously adopted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, it cannot have been approved unanimously.
I registered a symbolic abstention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Maes.
I see now that there was not complete unanimity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindholm">
I intended to abstain during the last roll-call vote.
Perhaps I was late coming in, or maybe my voting machine did not work.
I should like that to be recorded in the Minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, there is no further need to explain abstentions.
It is sufficient to say that the resolution has been adopted by a broad majority.
I lay your consciences at rest.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Striby">
Mr President, the vote was not unanimous as I voted against the resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="President">
I have corrected my initial euphoria, Mr Striby, and said that the resolution was adopted by a large majority, which takes account of the two abstentions which have been mentioned and your own vote against.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Sign language
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on the oral question (B4-0489/98) tabled by Mr Hughes, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on sign language.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Schmidbauer">
Mr President, 10 years ago, when Mrs Lemas presented her report on sign language to the House, she had a group of visitors in the gallery who were following our discussion through a sign language interpreter.
It was very impressive to see this, and it substantiated the demands made in the report and allowed us to experience what they involved.
I must admit that I myself have not yet learnt sign language, although we Members were offered the opportunity to do so by the European Union of the Deaf.
That was in connection with a project on sign language, carried out in 1996-97, which culminated in a conference in September 1997 and an extensive report on sign language in the EU.
This project was, incidentally, financed by the EU within the context of the HELIOS II programme.
The result of the project, and the 16 exemplary national reports which were drawn up to provide a complete overview, are proof once again of how important and helpful the HELIOS programme was.
I would just like to ask the Commission to use its imagination again and find a solution, or legal basis, within the framework of the new Amsterdam Treaty, so that in future useful programmes or projects such as these, which are not concerned with employment, may be supported.
<P>
At the end of the foreword to the report on sign language, it says that the project will need to be followed up if the results are not to be wasted.
The European Parliament called for sign language to be officially recognised as an independent language 10 years ago.
There have been some developments in the meantime, and the Commission's financial support for the project is certainly a step forward, but it is not enough.
As we try to achieve equality for all the Union's citizens, the question arises of whether it is not the job of the Commission to draw up a directive on the official recognition of sign language.
I no longer accept the term 'subsidiarity' in this context, as unfortunately for a large number of our Member States, it is merely a good pretext for preventing European action and then doing nothing themselves.
<P>
While on the subject, I do see a small ray of hope in my own country, Germany. There the situation as regards the recognition of sign language has been and still is extremely difficult.
In the coalition agreement of the future new German Government though, there is a sentence which says that it will look at how German sign language could be recognised and given equal treatment.
Of course, with a directive the Commission could go further than simply undertaking to have a review.
However, even if sign language were to be recognised and enough interpreters were available everywhere, there would still be a great many problems.
The easy part would be to ensure that a minimum number of television programmes are broadcast in sign language.
But we know that television is not the only modern information system.
In our Member States there are seven different systems for text telephones and these are not compatible.
The Commission could also do something here by introducing framework legislation.
It is up to the Commission in any case to ensure that, from the very beginning, multimedia equipment is designed in such a way that the hearing-impaired are not excluded from using them.
<P>
I would like to give the example of mobile telephones to illustrate this point.
In the USA, thanks to their anti-discrimination act, mobile telephones are compatible with hearing aids.
But in Europe, devices have been authorised which, when used with a hearing aid, convert it into a jammer.
Technical barriers have to be avoided, but so do bureaucratic barriers, for example those which prevent the participation of the hearing-impaired in EU programmes.
Yes, there is financial support to go and learn the language of the exchange country, but there are no funds provided for an interpreter during the exchange, and that applies to sign language interpreters too.
Such things have to be sorted out.
<P>
This example also shows that a great deal still remains to be done when it comes to bringing down the barriers, not only those that tangibly exist but also those that exist in our heads, and which we have to work on ourselves.
But we ask the Commission to actively put forward legal frameworks and to break down the bureaucratic barriers in order to make it possible for us all to live together without discrimination, whether we have a disability or not.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission is fully aware of the significance of sign language for hearing-impaired people.
It was emphatic in supporting the Birmingham University research project carried out as part of the follow-up to Parliament's Resolution.
This study showed that there are considerable differences between Member States as far as the state of development, the availability and the official status of sign language are concerned.
There is without doubt a lot of room for improvement here, and the Commission will continue to become involved where Community measures can be of additional use.
However, the Commission's view is that the main responsibility lies with the Member States, and that is why it is not planning any specific proposals on this.
<P>
In the field of education, however, there was for instance the Lingua-Surda project, which was supported within the context of the former Lingua programme.
Further cooperation projects on general or vocational training for people with special needs may be developed within the framework of the Socrates or Leonardo programmes.
As regards television programmes, the legal framework that currently applies in the Community has its legal basis above all in the 'Television without Frontiers' Directive, and in Article 57(2) and Article 66 of the EC Treaty, which provide for coordination of the legal and administrative provisions of Member States, to ensure that differences between them do not hinder freedom to provide services.
Currently though, we have individual state provisions on television programmes in sign language.
Turning now to the different text telephone systems used in the EU, in fact there are compatibility problems.
The Commission's view is that the easiest way to remedy this deplorable state of affairs is through agreed standards and it therefore supports the work that is being done on this.
The European Union of the Deaf has made clear its view that there has to be a uniform standard for text telephones in the whole of the EU.
Already in 1996 the Commission communication on equality of opportunity for handicapped people had spelled out the advantages of the 'Design for All' idea in connection with multimedia applications.
The Commission services are currently doing a study on 'Design for All' and on the integration of handicapped and elderly people into the information society, and this includes the accessibility of multimedia applications.
<P>
I am glad today to be able to tell you that on 22 September of this year, the Commission adopted a code of conduct for its own employment of handicapped people.
The arrangements for the application of this code include, amongst other things, sensitising Commission staff to the problems of the handicapped, and that includes the hearing-impaired.
Sign language interpreters will be provided on the same basis as other interpreters in order to make meetings accessible to the deaf.
But it is clear that, because everyone learns their own language, there are going to be as many sign languages as there are spoken languages.
If we were to request the hearing-impaired to make themselves understood in a single common language, then that would obviously be further discrimination.
At any rate, the Commission will continue to back a wide range of measures to protect the interests of the deaf, in particular by supporting the European Union of the Deaf.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Thomas">
Mr President, you can tell how civilised a society is by the way in which it treats its vulnerable members, not its strong ones.
Like so many others with restricted possibilities, the deaf have a distinct energy, they overcome their limitations and their senses are highly developed.
They often look more closely and that is why they are in a better position than most to see things properly.
But participation in technological developments, like text processing devices or videophone technology, and use of multimedia applications and increased communications, have been made more and more difficult for them over the years.
<P>
The European Parliament could lead the way by good example, and for instance have a special monitor up there in the gallery to transmit debates to the deaf or hearing-impaired.
We can see how alive sign language is when what is being said and done in a television programme is interpreted on a split screen or in a window placed on the screen.
Though of course this is mostly restricted to information programmes which are banished to the afternoons, when not many people are watching.
What does the Commission think of a quota system with a significantly higher volume of programmes, and how could this be implemented in Member States, Commissioner Fischler?
<P>
People who cannot hear are not speechless as a result of this.
That is why the Group of the European People's Party appeals to the Commission to fully recognise sign language as an EU language and to prepare a proposal for a directive along these lines.
The Commissioner has just pointed to some of the difficulties, for instance the different sign languages that have to be considered.
I am very well aware of this but I think that to start with one language would be the most sensible approach that we can take.
That would definitely also contribute to more equality.
<P>
And it would also clear the way for us to train more skilled interpreters in sign language and to provide adequate EU funding.
Then we could prove once again that there is a European added value, and minorities, as we call them, must of course also benefit from it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Mr President, we are told that sign language - the language of those with hearing difficulties - does not enjoy official recognition in some Member States. The logical conclusion to draw is that people do not see any reason for the deaf to have their own language.
And that does in fact appear to be the case in some places. Yet it is not enough simply to acknowledge the need for sign language.
That language has to be used in everyday life to a much greater extent than is the case today.
Those with hearing impairments must be given a chance to take part in public debate. This means both providing them with information on what is happening and ensuring that they can truly participate in an up-to-date way.
The first step is to increase the numbers of trained sign-language teachers and interpreters.
<P>
The news is now interpreted into sign language in Sweden, as is live TV coverage of important debates in the Riksdag.
This is excellent, of course, but there is scope for many more programmes with signing.
Television companies should be expected as a matter of course to offer sign-language interpretation of political debates and news broadcasts.
Such a requirement should, I believe, be included in TV companies' licence agreements.
<P>
The most valuable contribution the Commission can make is to offer the Member States support and urge them to act. The main responsibility does, after all, lie with them.
We can of course also do a good deal in the European Parliament. With a little help and encouragement from the Commission, let us hope that more Member States will recognise sign language, promote the use of signing during TV programmes and televised debates, and train more teachers and interpreters.
Perhaps we might set them an example here in the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, on behalf of our group I should like to express our support for the various issues that Mrs Schmidbauer raised at the beginning of this debate.
I listened to the Commissioner very carefully, and I think we can agree that the main responsibility does indeed lie with the Member States.
Nevertheless, as you yourself said, Commissioner, there are a number of measures that could be taken in the field of coordination, harmonisation and in particular the alignment of text telephone systems.
I think it would be extremely useful if you were to implement these practical measures.
I feel, however, that the Commission too should consider giving symbolic recognition to the Union's sign languages so that the deaf do not feel discriminated against here in the House, and so that the necessary measures can be taken to ensure that they can communicate with Parliament in their own language.
For too long now, sign language has not been given proper recognition, and now that the situation is changing we must be quick to ensure that it is officially recognised and applied in practice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Maes.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Wednesday, 18 November.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Late payment by the Commission
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on the oral question (B4-0490/98) tabled by Mr Pex, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on damage caused by the Commission as a result of late payment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Pex">
Mr President, the fact that I am asking this question in the Chamber today may be rather surprising, because as committee chairman I am naturally in regular contact with the Commission and often have the flexibility to deal with all sorts of things myself.
But there are now so many organisations that are having problems that I thought it best to bring the matter out into the open.
<P>
In my view, the purpose of granting subsidies is to enable work to be carried out that we regard as desirable, not to keep a number of civil servants busy all year until they finally grant the subsidies as an act of generosity.
It is the duty of the authorities to provide and maintain legal certainty.
This means that any subsidies granted must be notified in good time after the application has been received, and payment must be made as quickly as possible after notification.
<P>
Let me give you two examples.
The first was a small project in the United Kingdom in 1997.
ECU 15 000 was finally paid out in December 1997 after I myself had intervened.
The people concerned were not able to carry out the project because they had no money to pay for it.
<P>
The second example is an organisation with a number of staff which has been receiving subsidies for several years.
The sum in question here was ECU 500 000.
On 30 July this year, they received a letter telling them that they would be receiving a subsidy - on 30 July, when half the year was already over in which they had had to support themselves.
The first instalment was paid at the end of August, again after I had intervened, and the second was paid very soon afterwards.
<P>
The interest charges for this second project came to ECU 24 000.
I could give you dozens of other examples, but I will not mention any names, because companies beg me not to do so in case it harms their position in future.
<P>
I think it is important that if people are forced to borrow money to fund activities because they trust the Commission to honour its promises, they have to be sure about their situation. If they have to pay interest, which we hope is not the case, then they have to know that they can recover it.
This year the situation is even more serious than in previous years, because after the Court of Justice ruling, the decision was taken not to make any further payments at all.
Just imagine what happens.
An organisation goes to a bank with a letter signed by the European Commission and is granted a loan on the basis of that letter.
After a few months, the bank starts to become nervous.
It asks the Commission what is going on, and the Commission says it is making no further payments.
Organisations are getting themselves into enormous difficulties, not just in terms of liquidity but also with their banks.
According to what I have been told, a number of organisations have had to stop work because of this.
<P>
I think this is absolutely scandalous, and I would therefore, in short, ask the Commission to guarantee Parliament two things in the 1999 budget, in other words for next year: firstly, that the budget promises will be honoured in the first quarter and, secondly, that payments will be made immediately afterwards, so that projects can start on time.
The budget lines are fixed here in Parliament.
The organisations concerned know about them as soon as the second reading is over, they submit their applications by the end of the year and expect to be able to start work very quickly.
We are the ones who commission all these individuals, private organisations and sometimes businesses to do this work, because we want them to implement our policy for us.
It is too ridiculous for words that we do this in a way which makes it impossible to guarantee that our plans can actually be implemented in the budget year for which they were intended.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="Fischler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the payment of subsidies for measures in the cultural field that Mr Pex raised in his oral question did indeed have to be deferred until September.
The Commission had already published a call for proposals in January, with a view to granting these subsidies.
However, because of the judgment on the legal bases from the European Court of Justice in May, the Commission was forced to suspend the procedure.
<P>
For the budget line concerned, created by the European Parliament, the requisite legal basis had not been enacted and this was confirmed at the trilogue meeting in the middle of July.
The trilogue decided that the Commission could pay out the appropriations to recipients selected before the judgment was pronounced, on the basis of legitimate expectations.
Because the call for proposals was issued before the beginning of the year, the Commission was therefore able to grant these subsidies.
We fully realise that the organisations concerned were in difficulties as a result of the funds being blocked.
The payments though were made as agreed within 60 days of the contracts being signed.
Compensation was not therefore deemed to be justified, and no money has been set aside for it in any case.
<P>
This problem will no longer arise in the coming year, because we hope this type of blockage of funds will not occur again.
At the trilogue, it was clearly established under which conditions budget lines can be implemented without a legal basis, and we are going to respect these.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, Commissioner Fischler, ladies and gentlemen, as a Member of the Committee on Budgets, I welcome the decision reached by the European Court of Justice and the Commission.
Since the earliest days of European integration, the European Court of Justice has always played an important role.
It has protected Community law and developed it further.
It has made many far-reaching decisions.
On 12 May, the European Court of Justice decided on the basis of complaints from several Member States, especially the UK, and I think this is worthy of note, that two things are required to release funds from the EU budget: the first is financing with commitment and payment appropriations, and the second is an adequate legal base.
As a result, the Commission stopped all payments that did not correspond to these criteria, and I think it was absolutely right to do so.
<P>
The Commission blocked 100 budget lines, in the region of 920 million euros, in order to examine their legal bases.
56 lines, that is EUR 390 million, were fully released, 19 lines, or EUR 170 m, were partly released, and some 16 lines, or EUR 340 m, were in the pipeline, that is to say they had been approved by Parliament.
NGO projects in the areas of family, children, the elderly and especially culture were particularly affected.
My congratulations go to the Austrian Council Presidency first of all, and also to the Commission, under whose chairmanship, on 17 July of this year, we managed to reach interinstitutional agreement, release the funds and arrive at a workable decision on the legal bases.
<P>
Let us not forget though that the European Parliament, and the Committee on Budgets in particular, has been calling for such a regulation for the past 16 years.
Considering that for 16 years we have concerned ourselves with this essential demand, and now within a few days it is ready to be implemented, you can see how much of a contribution the Court's decision has made to placing the arrangements - and ultimately also the decisions - between the institutions on the appropriate legal basis.
<P>
After the publication of the judgment and until the compromise was reached, the Commission's position was certainly not a simple one.
Many of the budget lines affected programmes already mentioned, in the fields of culture, education, youth and family.
We in Parliament received many pleas from organisations affected, which of course could no longer be certain that they would receive the money on time.
Therefore, and particularly after today, I am happy to be able to say that most of the appropriations have now been released again.
<P>
But the Commission cannot be alone in bearing the consequences of its conduct.
After all, it was only following EU law in complying with a judgment from the highest court in the Union.
And as the Commissioner has just explained to us, the payments were made within 60 days.
<P>
I am also of the opinion that the discussion on this, and the quick solution, represent clear progress for the EU.
In parallel to this, there is also a directive on late payment, which deals with the payment period, and I think that will also be good for the Union.
We should not just be an example when it comes to bringing money in, where we are very quick to take action in the form of legal sanctions and harsh instruments, but as the EU we should also be exemplary when it comes to paying out.
We should be a reliable partner and an example for Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="Kerr">
Mr President, as president of the Friends of Music in the European Parliament I regularly get requests, urgent telephone calls and pleas from organisations in the musical field who are waiting for their payments from the Commission.
The European Court of Justice case made it worse this year but I have to say that in my 4 ½ years experience in this Parliament it has been the same every year with the Commission.
Every year we take the decisions in November, in the budget, as to which organisations should get funding, and every year the Commission delivers the money to them if they are lucky by October of the following year.
<P>
This is a totally unacceptable delay in terms of delivery of money.
The solution seems to be that we need more multiannual programmes - which I hope the new cultural framework programme will actually establish - so that major organisations like the European Youth Orchestra, the European Opera Centre and so on will actually be getting their money on a staged payment basis, with monitoring and evaluation by the Commission and proper auditing and all those things, but in a reliable and regular way that they can count on.
<P>
If delays are incurred because of the Commission's fault then we should demand that the Commission pay the interest payments that they have to pay to the banks because of the delay.
I can see Commissioner Fischler is laughing there and I assume that is a positive response.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rehder">
Mr President, in some respects, what we are dealing with here is a moral rule of procedure.
I would like to give the example of a case on which I do not think a decision has been made by the European Court of Justice, and where payment has been delayed by about a year now.
Voluntary workers wanted to build a school for homeless children in Chile. They obtained a legally binding commitment but they have been waiting for the money for a year now.
Luckily they were able to get some interim financing.
All this is surely bad enough in itself, but what is even worse, and a sign furthermore of the arrogance and slowness in the Commission, is that all the letters asking for an explanation have either remained unanswered or have been answered without giving any answers.
I would ask you, Commissioner, to pass this matter on to the competent services, otherwise I shall report it to the European Ombudsman.
This is no way to treat European citizens!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="President">
Mr Rehder, that was not a point of order; it was a statement.
I would be grateful if, in future, you could ensure that you are included on the list of speakers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
I have received a motion for a resolution to wind up the debate.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="President">
Parliament has now come to the end of its agenda.
The Minutes of today's sitting will be submitted to Parliament for its approval at the beginning of its next sitting.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, before ending, may I express my thanks as usual to all of Parliament's services.
This week has had some tense and intense moments, which is inevitable when debating and adopting budgets. And, it must be said, everything has run very smoothly thanks to the efficiency of Parliament's services, thanks to the quality of the rapporteurs and, it might also be said, thanks to Mrs Fontaine's enviable ability to conduct the voting.

<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, this week began with the sign of peace.
The first words of our President, Mr Gil-Robles, were to honour the fitting award of the Nobel Prize to two of the greatest leaders of the peace process in Northern Ireland.
And we end, likewise, with the sign of peace, because these Friday morning sittings are extraordinarily peaceful, so much so that, when the time comes round again to nominate candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize, I am tempted to nominate the Friday morning sittings as a candidate.
I hope, ladies and gentlemen, that I am successful.
<P>
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 11.15 a.m.)
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 23 October 1998.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Statement by the President
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
I have to inform the House that since the closure of the last part-session, I have sent a number of telegrams on its behalf, expressing solidarity and conveying condolences from all the Members of the House - and I am sure I acted for all of them. First, to the Prime Minister of Sweden and to the Speaker of the Swedish Parliament, following the horrific tragedy in Gothenburg.
As soon as the news broke, I sent messages to Sweden, expressing our solidarity and also our sorrow and horror at what had happened.
<P>
Sadly, just a few days later, I found myself sending another set of messages, this time to the governments of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua. Once again, I expressed Parliament's deep regret and the sadness felt by all its Members.
As in the previous telegrams, I asked for our messages to be forwarded to the victims' families and to the relevant authorities.
<P>
I should mention that authorisation has been given for a meeting of our Parliament's Delegation for relations with the countries of Central America and Mexico to be held this very afternoon. The delegation will meet the ambassadors from the four countries concerned and the Commission, to discuss the best way of helping these devastated countries.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
I now wish to welcome the members of the new Northern Ireland Assembly to our Parliament. They are present in the Distinguished Visitors' Gallery and with them is the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, David Trimble.
In the same way that the other day we were able to congratulate and show our support for our colleague John Hume we take the opportunity today to offer our congratulations to this man.
<P>
(The House rose and accorded Mr Trimble a standing ovation) We wish the members of the new assembly a fruitful visit to Brussels and every success in the months and years ahead.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President">
The Minutes of the sitting of Friday, 23 October 1998 have been distributed.
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Are there any comments?
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<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="Hallam">
Mr President, regarding the matter of televising Friday morning sittings, can you tell me whether they will be televised from now on?
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<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
We will deal with this matter in the Bureau but we have had to organize extraordinary meetings of the Bureau to cope with a very long agenda.
I hope it will be dealt with very soon.
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<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="Kerr">
Mr President, on page 1 of the Minutes of the Friday of the last part-session, I predicted that the British would let General Pinochet go free.
Perhaps when you are sending your telegrams you can send one to the British saying they should send him to Spain where I believe there are many good prisons which would be happy to accommodate him.
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<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
The Parliament has had an opportunity to debate this question and has made its views clear.
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<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, I want to refer to the change made to the agenda, with the introduction of Mr Skinner's report on the proposal for a Council Regulation establishing a mechanism for the Commission to intervene and abolish certain obstacles to trade.
My question is: why are we dealing with that subject now, when it was originally scheduled for the second November part-session, and what is the reason for an urgent procedure?
We ask that it be postponed, given that the text of the Council's agreement is not available in all the languages - at least, I could not find it in my own - and that because of this urgent procedure there is not even time to table amendments.
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<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
Mr Theonas, the Skinner report was added because we have not received from the Council the common positions which we were expecting today. So, to make best use of the short time remaining before the end of the parliamentary term, the Skinner report has been included because it was ready.
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I give the floor to Mrs Pailler.
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<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pailler">
Mr President, in March 1997 you sent a letter to the Governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Ridge, about the death sentence passed on Mumia Abu-Jamal and his planned execution.
I would now ask you to write another letter of protest to Mr Ridge who promised during his election campaign that the execution of Abu-Jamal would go ahead. Abu-Jamal has just lost his appeal and may be executed any day now, possibly even as we speak.
Could you also please write to the US Ambassador to the European Union?
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I believe that Parliament, which has passed many resolutions on the death penalty and specifically on Abu-Jamal, must continue to show its support and desire for the protection of human rights, in particular to ensure that proceedings are correctly instituted, which has not been the case with Abu-Jamal, and that the death penalty is finally abolished.
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<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Pailler, I will write the letters as you request.
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<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Killilea">
Mr President, I have here today as my guest, and as the guest of many Members, the Dairy Trade Coalition from the United States of America.
Despite the fact that I had passes for them to go into the visitors' gallery, they have been prevented from doing so.
Along with your welcome to the new Northern Ireland Assembly Members, I wanted you to welcome them also.
However, they have been prevented from entering the gallery which is scandalous considering that I made the necessary arrangements.
I do not understand what has happened.
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<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
Mr Killilea, our Parliament is so much appreciated that now the Official Gallery is full.
It is simply a matter of lack of space.
But I am sure we welcome them as we do any other visitors.
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<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, Last week the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy sent you an urgent letter asking if we could have a statement here today from Mr Santer on what grants are to be made under the budget lines for human rights.
It was a unanimous and urgent request from the whole of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Can you tell me what has happened to that request?
Clearly it is not on today's agenda.
Can you explain?
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<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="President">
Mrs Aelvoet, that letter did indeed reach me yesterday, and it was immediately forwarded to the European Commission, because in the letter, the Committee on Foreign Affairs asked for the Commission to be invited to make a statement pursuant to Rule 37 of our Rules of Procedure.
You know better than I do that it is for the Commission to decide to invoke Rule 37.
We cannot require it to do so.
The invitation was only extended yesterday and, so far, the Commission has not responded.
If and when the Commission indicates that it is willing to make such a statement, we shall endeavour to add it to the agenda.
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In fact, that is not the worst thing.
The worst thing is that it appears that the European Commission has not yet concluded its debate and resolution on enlargement, and we are expecting Commissioner van den Broek to arrive at any minute bearing the latest information.
Clearly, if no decision has been taken he will have nothing to tell us.
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<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Paisley">
Mr President, on a point of order.
I understood, and so did my colleagues from Northern Ireland, that we would have an opportunity to thank you for your welcome to the folks from Northern Ireland and especially the members of the new assembly.
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I am sure that people in this House have firm opinions on this matter.
However, I would suggest to this House today that, as the people of Northern Ireland see some 200 convicted terrorists released on the streets, without any effort on the part of the terrorists to hand in their weapons, it as a democratic parliament would want to lend its voice in support of those who want to support the democratic way, and urge them to do it democratically, hand in their weapons and rid us of the plague of terrorism on both sides of the divide.
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<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Hume">
Mr President, all I would like to say is to express my deep appreciation to you and to the Members of this House for the welcome they have given today to the members of the Northern Ireland Assembly.
It is the first time in history that the entire membership of an assembly from any region in Europe has come here during our part-session and that underlines the strength of the feeling of appreciation in Northern Ireland for the support that our agreement and the peace process has received from the European Union and especially from this Parliament, and in particular the special Programme of Peace and Reconciliation.
The attendance of our assembly here today is a clear expression of that appreciation and their wish to ensure that they are fully informed as to the workings of the European Union so that they can make the best advantage of it when they take up office.
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In relation to the matters raised by Mr Paisley: those are dealt with adequately in the agreement and the task of us all is to implement all aspects of that agreement and for all parties to do it together.
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(Loud applause)
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<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Nicholson">
Mr President, very briefly I would like to add my welcome to the members of the Northern Ireland Assembly to our Parliament today, including my leader David Trimble.
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All of us here remember that on many occasions down the years we have stood in this House and condemned the violence.
We have to hope that we never have to do that again.
But the House should be aware that we have some way to go to achieve our ultimate aim of total peace and a normal society in Northern Ireland.
We must look forward and not back.
The members of this assembly bear the responsibility of bringing a new future to all the people of Northern Ireland.
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<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I have a query about the Minutes which I believe we are still discussing, although I did ask to speak some time ago.
I made a speech on Friday 23 October which was incorrectly reported on page 10 of the Minutes.
I did not request a vote en bloc on the remaining amendments, but rather on the amendments whose aim was identical to that of the amendments which had just been adopted.
My remarks are therefore not correctly reported in the Minutes and I would not like there to be any ambiguity.
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I am also astonished that this speech does not appear in the so-called 'verbatim' report, given that the verbatim report should be the complete version of events.
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<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="President">
The Minutes are clearly not a verbatim record, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, but if you think that your remarks have not been accurately reflected, I would ask you to let us have the precise text of what you said in writing and it will be corrected in the Minutes.
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<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Ahern">
Mr President, I wish to speak on the agenda but before doing so would like to add my voice to those who have welcomed the members of the new Northern Ireland Assembly here today and to tell them that we have always endorsed the new agreement in the North.
None of us want to see any more death or grief in any region of the European Union, in particular there where the situation has been so tragic for so long.
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I rose to ask you to inform me further - as you have already done in writing - about an issue I raised some time back.
It concerns the UK Charities Commissioner, in particular the Director of the Neurofibromatosis Association, and her information to this Parliament, for which she was later censured.
I have not received an answer.
We have been in correspondence but I am raising the matter because I do not feel that I or this Parliament have received a proper answer.
It is a matter of the privilege of this House.
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<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="President">
Mrs Ahern, I will check that and write to you again
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<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Rosado Fernandes">
Mr President, first of all, I should like to remind you that, on behalf of my group, I tabled an oral question on the visit by the Veterinary Committee to Portugal because I should like to be told of the findings of that visit.
We already know that an embargo has been introduced but I would like to remind the House of something with reference to the Rules of Procedure.
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An extraordinary meeting of the Committee on Agriculture was convened for the sole purpose of voting on Mr Görlach's report on rural development, although it was not on the agenda but was the result of a gentlemen's agreement - if indeed there are still any gentlemen in this Parliament.
Yet the Commission took that opportunity to hear Dr Joachim Heine on the matter of BSE in Portugal, even though no Portuguese Member of Parliament was present.
The underhand, clandestine and cowardly way in which the Commission often acts - even when it is right - is a disgrace.
I am not saying that the Commission was not right to do this.
But it is not enough to be right; you have to know how to be right and the Commission does not know.
That is what I regret so deeply.
I am calling on the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture, who is indeed a gentlemen and behaved as one, to do whatever is necessary to recall Dr Heine so that we can hear what our German colleagues have said about Portugal, whether or not they are right.
They should hold their tongues and show a little more common sense!
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<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Rosado.
We shall investigate what has happened in the Committee on Agriculture.
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<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, with the presence of the delegates from the Northern Ireland Assembly Parliament has again welcomed the agreement with a standing ovation of several minutes, and I wish to say that we too share in this celebration, as we did last time.
I asked to speak, however, in order to say that we have drawn a conclusion which I think could be the European Parliament's conclusion too.
What has been happening for decades in Northern Ireland is not exactly the same as what is happening in Kosovo, though there are important similarities.
And, Mr President, in Ireland there was no need either for unilateral military intervention by America or by NATO. We reached a national...
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(The President cut the speaker off)
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<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="President">
Mr Ephremidis, this is not a debate on Kosovo, and we are not going to debate Kosovo just because a number of guests from Ireland are present.
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<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Hulthén">
I should like to express my appreciation to the President for his opening address and to all those who sent messages of condolence to my home town, Gothenburg, where 63 young people died recently in a fire.
I am sure that the messages brought great comfort, and now our thoughts should be with the survivors, both the young people who still live near the scene of the fire and their parents.
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<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Mr President, I would like to return to the agenda and in particular to what Mr Theonas said. This is in connection with Mr Skinner's report.
In Parliament we have the new technologies of e-mail and all the other communication systems available, but nevertheless, we did not get any advance information that Mr Skinner's report would be discussed.
This really is a matter of principle.
We should know in advance what matters are to be discussed, so that we can table any necessary amendments.
I do not think it is right that we should find out on the same day that we come to the Chamber.
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<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="President">
The groups were already aware of this, Mrs Ojala, but their Secretaries-General initiated the change.
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(The Minutes were approved)
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<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="President">
The Commission representative is not yet present.
I shall ask the Commission's officials when Commissioner van den Broek is expected.
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I am informed that the meeting has finished and that Commissioner van den Broek is on his way to Parliament by car.
I shall therefore suspend the sitting for five minutes. We shall resume in five minutes' time with Mr van den Broek's statement and the debate.
I am sorry that the Commission has acted in this way and put us in such a position.
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(The sitting was suspended for five minutes)
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<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="Thomas">
Mr President, as the Commissioner was late in arriving does that mean that our hour of questions begins from when he stands up?
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<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="President">
We will have three quarters of an hour because it will be followed by a statement by President Santer.
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<CHAPTER ID=5>
Enlargement
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="President">
The next item is the Commission communication on progress reports on the countries which have applied for accession.
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I give the floor to Mr van den Broek.
I trust that he will provide an explanation for the Commission's attitude and for this totally inexcusable delay.
Out of respect for the House, I think he is duty bound to apologise and give us an explanation.
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<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, obviously I apologise for this delay and ask for your understanding.
I rushed out of the Commission after we had concluded our discussion of the twelve regular reports we have to send to Parliament and the Council.
This means that the results of this discussion in the Commission this morning are still being elaborated into the final text of the report which I do not have with me for that particular reason.
You will also be aware that President Santer returned from his visit to China only this morning which is why the Commission started its meeting one hour later than normal.
But I hope that after I have made my statement on the regular reports, there will be some understanding of the intensity and the scope we have tried to cover in these regular reports.
It is almost 18 months after the opinions on the candidate countries and 9 months after the formal launch of the EU enlargement process in London that the Commission has today adopted its first regular reports on each of these 12 candidates' progress towards EU membership as well as a composite paper that accompanies these reports and summarises them.
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These reports will provide the basis for the discussions on enlargement at the Vienna European Council in mid-December.
I hope they will reach you as soon as possible.
Compiling these reports has been a huge task.
Last year's opinions were recognized as high-quality work and I am convinced that in today's reports we have taken our analysis to an even higher plane.
Commission officials have gained more experience. We have worked with the candidates more intensely.
We know more and we understand better.
As last year, the Commission would not have been able to produce this work without information and advice from the candidates themselves, Member States and international organizations.
The European Parliament, and in particular its many rapporteurs, have also made a professional and valuable contribution to the EU's work on enlargement.
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Our assessment has been conducted on the basis of the same Copenhagen criteria as the opinions last year.
The goalposts have not been shifted.
The work of our officials was expert, objective, impartial and free of political prejudice.
The reports look in detail at actual progress in the candidate countries, namely on the laws passed, on policy decisions implemented and on institutions created, rather than at intentions or promises.
This was the only way to be fair, and to be seen to be fair, to all countries.
We are well aware that all the candidates have much new legislation in the pipeline and once adopted and implemented they will be highlighted in forthcoming regular reports.
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The reports show that much has been achieved but that there is also still a huge task for the candidate countries in preparing themselves for EU membership.
In the reports we do not gloss over the challenges they face.
We would be doing nobody - and least of all the candidates themselves - a service if we did.
Yet our assessment reveals that the inclusive enlargement process which involves all candidates remains broadly on track and that the momentum toward enlargement in the candidate countries is being maintained.
Our assessment does not lead us to propose the extension of negotiations to any further candidates this year.
In the case of Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia we conclude that the rate of progress has been sufficient to hold out the possibility of a positive recommendation regarding the opening of negotiations at the end of 1999 for Latvia.
For Lithuania and Slovakia we also hope to be able to recommend the opening of negotiations within a reasonable period.
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This approach provides a clear political recognition of the progress that Latvia and to a somewhat lesser extent Lithuania have made to prepare for membership over the past 18 months.
In the case of Slovakia it provides necessary encouragement to the newly-elected government, as it seeks to put in place the policies and laws that will bring it closer to the European Union.
I shall discuss in more detail the reasons for highlighting these three countries in a moment.
In addition to the conclusions concerning Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia, we issue a stern reminder to the negotiating countries and in particular to the Czech Republic and Slovenia that they need to speed up their adoption and implementation of the acquis .
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The slowdown we have observed since the opinions is a cause for concern.
It needs to be very clear that delays in transposition or implementation of the acquis cannot simply be resolved by transitional periods.
We also provide for the first time a comprehensive insight into each candidate's administrative capacity to apply the acquis .
This is an area where all the candidates will have to strengthen their reforms.
Another recommendation of a somewhat different nature is that the Council of Ministers should reconfirm its commitment to the aims and format of the European Conference as set out in the Luxembourg European Council conclusions.
This Conference was designed to provide the over-arching structure of the enlargement process, notably for second and third pillar issues.
We feel it should not be weakened by opening it up at present to a wider membership.
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I should now like to provide a brief overview of the main findings of the regular reports.
I shall refrain from providing a detailed description of each country's progress and each particular sector. That can be found in the individual country reports themselves which I hope will be available this afternoon.
In the case of all ten countries of Central and Eastern Europe, I shall briefly set out our assessment on the political criterion, the economic criteria, both of which are conditions for starting negotiations and on the adoption of the acquis , as well as each candidate's administrative capacity.
I will then make a few remarks on Cyprus, Turkey and Malta.
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I begin with the Copenhagen political criterion which focuses on the stability of institutions, guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities.
In last year's opinions the Commission concluded that all the candidate countries, except Slovakia, broadly met the political criterion for membership.
I will come back to Slovakia in a moment.
In this year's regular reports the Commission has again looked beyond the letter of the law and analysed the way democracy functions in practice.
Our overall conclusion is that the situation is encouraging as the candidates are continuing to consolidate their political stability.
Six of the Central European candidates - Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia - have held free and fair parliamentary or presidential elections in the past 12 months.
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In Latvia the situation of non-citizens was given an important boost with the positive result in the referendum on the citizenship law.
It will ease the way for the naturalisation of mostly Russian-speaking non-citizens and stateless children.
In a number of specific instances shortcomings that the Commission highlighted in the opinions last year have not yet been adequately addressed.
In most of the candidate countries, for example, the judiciary still needs to be strengthened significantly and in some cases its independence needs to be reinforced.
Regarding respect for minority rights and other political criteria, the situation of the Roma in the candidate countries continues to be a cause of concern.
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Slovakia deserves a special mention.
The Commission's assessment last year was that of all the candidates only Slovakia clearly failed to fulfil the Copenhagen political criterion.
Today's regular report covers developments since mid-1997, a period in which little happened to make us revise that assessment.
However, following last month's general election, a new government has been formed and a new impetus for political and economic reform is tangible.
This new situation also allows for the prospect of opening negotiations on condition that the regular, stable and democratic functioning of institutions is confirmed.
It will also be necessary before opening negotiations to verify that Slovakia has undertaken measures to correct the economic situation and has introduced greater transparency in its operation.
Those elements received less attention last year because the political arguments against the opening of negotiations were so overriding, but the economic elements were also mentioned in the report.
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As far as the economic criteria of Copenhagen are concerned, these focus on two particular issues.
Firstly, the existence of a functioning market economy; secondly, the capacity to withstand competitive pressure and market forces within the Union.
For a candidate to pass the economic test, it needs to be a functioning market economy now and to be able to cope with competitive pressures in the medium term.
Overall, the candidate countries continued to make considerable progress in implementing economic reforms.
Elements such as privatisation, restructuring and liberalisation are clearly moving ahead in most cases and although the situation in all the candidate countries varies considerably, we believe that it is largely due to historical reasons.
Our analysis reveals that, as in the opinions last year, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia can be regarded as functioning market economies and they should be able to fulfil the second, the competitiveness criterion, in the medium term.
Hungary and Poland continue to be somewhat ahead of the others in this respect.
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<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="President">
Commissioner, you have now spoken for more than one minute over the scheduled time. Could you please finish immediately.
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(Mixed reactions)
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<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, obviously I am prepared to return to Parliament to elaborate further.
Allow me to say a few words on the economic criteria and the acquis.
I shall try to do this as briefly as possible.
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Lithuania, for its part, has also made considerable progress.
I mentioned Latvia and Slovakia earlier.
However, additional measures are needed and some recent decisions need to be tested in practice before it can be considered to have met the Copenhagen criteria.
That said, we would also like to see the perspective opened for a positive recommendation.
As far as the adoption of the acquis is concerned, I repeat that there are a number of countries that are negotiating but which tend to neglect adoption of the acquis .
We have to make clear to these countries that negotiations as such cannot replace or be a substitute for adoption of the acquis .
On administrative capacity I will be brief.
Clearly one has to strengthen the administrative capacity and the judiciary in order not only to adopt but also to implement the acquis .
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On Cyprus I can be very brief.
The negotiations are on track and continuing and we still hope that the situation will allow the Turkish Cypriots to participate in these negotiations.
All the screening that has taken place now obviously only relates to the southern part of Cyprus.
On Turkey we have also made a regular report and for the first time also included the measurement against the Copenhagen criteria.
It will not be a big surprise that although there are a number of positive comments to be made on the economic side, on the political side a lot remains to be desired, notably the functioning of the political system, the role of the military, the question of the protection of human rights and other issues which are well known to the Parliament from the reports we have made earlier.
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On Malta we will come forward with our report probably by the middle of February, updating the conclusions of 1993, taking into account two years of interruption of the enlargement process for Malta because of the change of government.
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This has been a brief overview of some 600 pages of thorough analysis. They are summarized in the composite paper.
Finally, I thank the European Parliament once again for its own contribution and I look forward to continuing our discussion on the regular reports in the coming months.
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<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hoff">
Mr President, Commissioner van den Broek just said, with reference to the progress made by Lithuania, that this progress must not, however, take the place of negotiations.
Perhaps the Commissioner can come back to this and explain exactly what he meant.
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<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="van den Broek">
When we talk about the six that are negotiating, it is rather striking that a number of them have considerably slowed down the process of adoption of the acquis .
The reasons behind this can only be guessed at but we thought that the report should also be used to signal clearly - and I mentioned the Czech Republic and Slovenia in particular - that negotiations cannot replace the work that has to be done to take over legislation etc.
That was the main message here.
One may not draw the conclusion that would be a reason to move other countries which are not yet negotiating, but that do meet the criteria, to the negotiating circle.
We thought it was necessary that where we laud and commend improvement and progress, we also should be critical where some performances are lagging behind.
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<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cars">
Mr President, I was pleased to hear the Commissioner's glowing account of Latvia's swift and steady progress, and I assume that full membership within the agreed time can now be negotiated.
I hope that Lithuania and Slovakia will now be subject to the same conditions.
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I should like to know why the Commission did not mention in the summary it is preparing that Estonia had abolished capital punishment?
Parliament has made it quite plain that countries which retain the death penalty cannot become members of the European Union.
I wonder whether the Commission has been forceful enough in conveying this message to countries that are negotiating membership, but where this grotesque sanction is still in force?
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<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="van den Broek">
It is obvious that we are not speaking yet about membership. We are talking about the preparation and process.
We are talking about the distinction between the preparation on negotiations of five countries and the actual negotiating by six countries.
It is obvious that at the present point in time none of the candidate countries entirely fulfil the criteria for membership.
That is why the preparation in general has to continue.
The measurement of that will be done year by year in the regular reports on the basis of the progress made by each and every individual candidate country.
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<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="Green">
Mr President, on a point of order.
There is something wrong with the procedures in this House when, on this issue, which is the major political issue facing the European Union, the Commissioner was cut off when giving his report.
I understand your need to keep to the agenda and your need to get through the business, but perhaps we could have asked Mr Santer to present his report at a later time and taken this item in full.
We were all irritated that the Commissioner was not here but, by the same token, we all welcome the fact that he has come straight from the Commission meeting.
It would serve this House and the seriousness with which we want to be taken much better if we had a proper debate on this and let the Commissioner finish his report.
I am very sorry that we did not do so.
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<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
Mr President, I think that Parliament and this debate would be better served if we had the full text of the Commissioner's report.
So I echo Mrs Green in asking for the Commissioner's full report to be made available to us so that he can have a proper chance to debate his report with us.
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<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="President">
It was the Commission which said that it would present its report today.
The Commission knows it has ten minutes.
The Commissioner spoke, in fact, for 14 minutes.
The longer he speaks, the less time he has to answer Members' questions.
I cannot perform miracles but I can make a choice between letting him make a long speech or answering the many questions Members may have.
I have to try to make the best choice.
I understand your point of view very well but if we followed your line we could have 20-minute statements with no time to answer questions.
And answering questions is important.
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<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, let me do Mrs Green and our President too something of a favour.
Coming up shortly is the Commission programme which Mr Santer will present to us.
I have to tell you that we have no documents about it at all.
Would it not be a good idea to continue the debate on enlargement and say to Mr Santer: just give us the paper or the letters we need.
You have to give us the texts.
So I am grateful to Mrs Green - give us the texts and we will postpone the debate.
I think that is a far better idea.
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<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="President">
I have no programme.
It is not me who makes the agenda.
You have just approved the agenda with these changes.
If you want the House to remove Mr Santer's statement from the agenda to create more time, I will put it to the vote.
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(The House accepted the proposal to remove Mr Santer's statement from the agenda)
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<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="Perry">
Mr President, I am glad that we now can have a full debate on this important subject.
I noted very carefully the words of the Commissioner in relation to Slovakia - and I speak as the second vice-president of the joint parliamentary committee.
He used the words 'within a reasonable period we would open negotiations'. In referring to Latvia, he said 'at the end of 1999'.
Are we to interpret 'within a reasonable period' to be before the end of 1999 or after?
Can he not be more precise in the best interests of our relations with Slovakia?
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<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="van den Broek">
With due respect, we will not make our recommendations for opening of negotiations in order to maintain good political relations because they were not the Copenhagen criteria.
As I said, we will judge on the individual merits of each and every country regarding the political criteria, which was at stake with Slovakia, and the economic criteria - both the market economy requirement and the competitiveness requirement.
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Regarding the periods we have put in the conclusions of the composite paper, some elaboration may be required when you have had an opportunity to read the document.
We are saying that with regard to a future extension of negotiations, the Commission wishes to highlight the particular progress made by Latvia.
If the momentum of change is maintained it should be possible next year to confirm that Latvia meets the Copenhagen economic criteria and before the end of 1999 to propose the opening of negotiations.
It must be well understood that this is not a blank cheque.
Verification will take place during the course of next year as to whether the momentum of change in Latvia that we have broadly described in the report is being maintained.
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On Lithuania we are saying that considerable progress has also been made.
However, additional measures are needed and some recent decisions by that country need to be tested in practice before it can be considered to have met the Copenhagen economic criteria which would allow the Commission to propose the opening of negotiations.
So we are mentioning the negotiations, putting that into a clear perspective and have described in the individual report what further measures need to be taken to have this prospect realised.
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Finally, on Slovakia, the new situation created following the election also allows for the prospect of opening negotiations on condition that the regular stable and democratic functioning of its institutions are confirmed.
This will need to be verified.
It will also be necessary before opening negotiations to verify that Slovakia has undertaken measures to correct the economic situation and that it has introduced greater transparency in its operation.
Why do we say that?
It is because under the previous government one could say that the legislative part of a market economic system was in place but that there was heavy state intervention and a lack of transparency, notably in the way the privatisation process was being carried out.
This new government has already made known that it wants to change that but the effects must be verified before we are able, on the basis of the objective Copenhagen criteria, to recommend the opening of negotiations.
We clearly put this into perspective and the political signal from this conclusion cannot be misunderstood.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, I listened very carefully to what Mr van den Broek had to say.
First of all, I am confused about the ranking he applied.
I knew that there was a group of six countries applying for accession, with priority for the countries of central and eastern Europe and for Cyprus.
Mr van den Broek presented us with a different ranking, and that is important: the five central and eastern European countries, certain other central and eastern European countries, and then a grey area which, in one and the same group, included the Republic of Cyprus which is in the first area, Turkey which was not considered eligible in Luxembourg, and Malta, which has declined to embark on the procedure for accession to the European Union.
<P>
My question to Mr van den Broek is: how can we put Turkey and the Republic of Cyprus in the same group?
Has anything changed in relation to Turkey and its attitude towards Agenda 2000, towards enlargement, since the Luxembourg European Summit when specific conditions were laid down for Turkey?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="van den Broek">
We do not think in different categories.
All these countries would be eligible for enlargement and all form part of an enlargement process.
We clearly explained last year how the enlargement process was operating, and the accession process.
That notably related to countries for which opinions were made last year.
Cyprus which, as Mr Alavanos will remember, received an avis in 1993 and did not receive the same kind of opinion as such, has a different kind of preparation than the others because it was further advanced.
It was already a market economy and it is therefore now in the negotiating process.
As far as Turkey is concerned, we are complying exactly with the wishes of the European Council of Luxembourg and Cardiff.
So we made a regular report based on Article 28 including conclusions from Cardiff, including our comments on progress in the European strategy for Turkey and so forth.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Brok">
Mr President, if I understood you rightly on Slovakia, you said that following the elections the new government has plans which, if implemented, will offer a chance to introduce democratic processes and the rule of law.
This has not happened so far, and there has indeed been some criticism in this respect.
I should be pleased if you could confirm this again.
Is it the case that the President of the Commission will be receiving the Slovakian Prime Minister on Friday partly in order to mark the difference between this government and the previous one?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="van den Broek">
President Santer and I will be having talks with the new Prime Minister of Slovakia Mr Dzurinda. We will convey the following message: Obviously we welcome the new government in place.
As far as the enlargement process is concerned and Slovakia's place therein, we would be delighted to see a situation develop in which the stability of the political institutions, its democratic nature, the respect for human rights and the rule of law, including respect for the rights of minorities, would be confirmed.
Secondly, that the shortcomings we noted in the economic situation will be corrected by this government.
<P>
I expect very much that the Prime Minister of Slovakia will make clear what his plans are in this respect.
He will of course need a certain time for implementation.
We will closely monitor those developments and when we feel the criteria for the opening of negotiations as such have been fulfilled - and here I am thinking especially of the political ones, but also a number of economic ones - we will recommend the opening of negotiations.
That is the clear-cut message for the Prime Minister of Slovakia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Mr President, the Commission has changed its approach with regard to the arrangements for coordination of the pre-accession instruments.
I should like to ask, firstly, for what reasons it has done so?
And secondly, does this not mean that all the efforts will be concentrated on the PHARE programme?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="van den Broek">
I am not sure I understand what the honourable Member means by 'changing the approach'.
I am not aware of changing any approach.
When we talk about the coordination of pre-accession instruments, that has to do with the changes that will take place from the year 2000 onwards when, subject to approval by the budgetary authority, we will have more financial means at our disposal.
Mr Barón Crespo will be aware of this.
We will have to coordinate all the various instruments that underpin the preparation for accession in the candidate countries.
I know there is some discussion going on in the Council regarding the regulations we have proposed in this respect but I hope that conclusions can be drawn in the very near future.
I do not think it has a political connotation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, Mr van den Broek, we welcome the fact that the Commission is showing a certain flexibility and is, after all, following this Parliament's idea of a starting-line.
But in the light of its proposals in the protocol on enlargement annexed to the Amsterdam Treaty, and of the fact that no progress has been made with the institutional reform of the European Union, does the Commission not perhaps see a risk to the negotiations and to early accession?
What is the Commission doing, as the motive force of integration, in order to bring about rapid progress on these questions and on institutional reform in the European Union, which is part of its own domestic responsibilities?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="van den Broek">
It is quite right that while we are talking now about what we wish the candidate countries to do in preparation for membership, that in no way discharges our Member States from making progress in the EU's own reform.
This is embedded in everything that has to do with Agenda 2000, including proposals for policy change, institutional change and the whole of the financial framework.
One thing we want to try to avoid is that where we urge the Member States to make progress with Agenda 2000 - and we have made the proposals for that - we should not threaten the candidate countries and undermine their confidence by saying we are taking into account some delays in the European Union not to move them forward towards negotiations or to make progress with the screening etc.
You are quite right that things have to be balanced, that the EU Member States and the Commission have to take their own responsibilities and try to keep in step.
<P>
Finally, you know full well that when Agenda 2000 was presented last year, it was the Commission referring to the Treaty of Amsterdam, which gave clear preference to having the whole of the institutional debate in an intergovernmental conference, completed before the first enlargement, before the first new member entered.
Decisions have not been taken yet but it shows already that the Commission wants to accelerate as much as possible and, insofar as it has influence, the process of institutional reform of the EU itself.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
This sitting is proving to be rather chaotic.
I hope that this is not a reflection of the enlargement process on which I have two brief questions.
<P>
Firstly, we have been told that Latvia could be included in the first wave, but what about Estonia?
Estonia is already part of the first wave but has it made sufficient progress in the treatment of its Russian-speaking minority and is Latvia not now overtaking Estonia in this respect?
<P>
Secondly, the Commissioner was interrupted at this point, but what about Bulgaria and Romania?
Am I right in thinking that we are moving from a process of six plus five to a process of six plus possibly three, plus two, and that the two excluded are Bulgaria and Romania?
<P>
Are you not concerned that this approach may pose serious internal policy problems within these two countries which will find themselves completely sidelined, even though pre-accession instruments are being proposed?
I believe that we are running the risk of destabilising these countries politically.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="van den Broek">
On the basis of the principles accepted last year in Agenda 2000, it remains possible that one country will overtake another in the preparations.
I am not saying that is the case between Estonia and Latvia.
Latvia is not at the negotiating stage yet although, as I said earlier, very significant progress has been made and there is a perspective.
But where Latvia has made more progress than Estonia is in the matter of the Russian-speaking minority.
I referred to the recent referendum in Latvia where this matter - notably of facilitating the naturalisation process and also improving the situation of stateless children - was approved.
There is still legislation to be adopted in Estonia.
<P>
As far as Bulgaria and Romania are concerned, it was not my intention to put them behind any kind of curtain.
It was in my speaking notes that I was not able to complete at an earlier stage to say that Bulgaria has made significant progress but comes from further back than a number of other candidate countries.
So we are very much encouraged by what the Bulgarian Government is doing which is laudable in many respects.
Unfortunately, I cannot be that enthusiastic about Romania, although I hasten to add that the present government, and especially the present Prime Minister, have concluded themselves that there is a delay in the reforms in Romania.
We are working very closely together with the authorities there, including the international financial institutions, to try to get the engine running at full speed again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Titley">
Commissioner van den Broek began his statement by saying that he was going to give a report on the 12 candidate countries.
Can one conclude therefore that the Commission views Turkey as a candidate country, not a potential candidate country?
Has it interpreted the Cardiff Summit as meaning that Turkey is a candidate country?
<P>
Secondly, may I ask if this report has led the Commission to make any recommendations to change the format of pre-accession aid in order to strengthen the work in one area as opposed to another area?
<P>
Finally, to say that Latvia can begin negotiations at the end of 1999 is rather strange.
If Latvia is ready, it is ready now; if it is not ready, it needs to wait until the next report next year.
Is it not rather dangerous to say that we will open negotiations in 12 months' time?
It leaves a lot of hostages to fortune.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="van den Broek">
Turkey is considered as eligible.
I do not deny that there is a very interesting ideological debate about the question as to whether it should be called a candidate or not.
As the Commissioner responsible for relations with Turkey I know exactly how to treat the dossier.
That has been enumerated both by the Luxembourg and Cardiff conclusions and the European strategy for Turkey is perfectly clear with all that it implies for preparation of membership.
<P>
Obviously with regard to Latvia you could say that it does or does not meet the criteria.
There is of course a certain grey zone if you say: I am very impressed by the significant improvements which have been made but if I look at the interaction between the economic parameters of the market economy requirement on the one hand and competitiveness on the other, I want more track record to be sure that these requirements are really being met.
That is the situation with Latvia, except for a number of concrete points that we have referred to in the report where we would like to see some further improvement.
That has in particular to do with supervision of the financial system, to mention just one example.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Spencer">
Mr President, it is a sign of a real parliament that it is prepared to eat its bread hot from the oven. This afternoon we have seen an example of some of the indigestion which that can cause.
I suggest you and your colleagues on the Bureau might like to look at ways in which we can improve the flexibility of this plenary in response to both Commission and Council at moments like this.
<P>
Commissioner, it is time someone in this debate sounded a note of congratulations.
At least at first hearing what you appear to be proposing on Latvia, Slovakia and Lithuania seems an intelligent and pragmatic formulation and you should be congratulated on that.
But you only mentioned very briefly the largest and most difficult of the dossiers, namely Poland.
Would you now like to take the opportunity to say something about Poland?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="van den Broek">
Obviously Poland - the largest candidate country in terms of population - belongs to the countries with which we are negotiating.
There is a very positive note to make, namely that since we had a little incident with that country regarding the preparation and notably regarding projects we felt were not being carried out according to the accession partnership, the Prime Minister and his staff have taken the coordination of the preparatory process firmly in hand.
That can clearly be seen.
<P>
What cannot be solved so immediately is that it is a country with a still very considerable agricultural sector and with quite significant environmental problems.
But I would not single Poland out as the worst case although it is automatically the case that with a country as large as this, to a certain extent this dictates the dimensions of its problems.
You will find this in the composite paper which I hope will reach you today.
We have tried to summarise as much as possible - without leaving out any country- our general impressions of the whole process.
I should like to take this opportunity to add an important point, namely the debates we were able to have with Parliament last year about the 'ins' and the 'pre-ins'.
<P>
Firstly, the past year has clearly shown - and I give credit to Parliament for having urged us to follow those procedures - that the difference between those two groups has been greatly reduced.
We are screening them all and with the pre-ins the screening is moving in the first trimester of next year from the multilateral to the bilateral system.
This means that the bilateral screening of the pre-ins comes much closer to what we are doing with the negotiators.
This further reduces the difference and also means that when the pre-ins become negotiators their disadvantage by comparison with the ins will be less than it was at the start.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Haarder">
Mr President, once again the wind of history is blowing through the House, because it is a historic moment that the Commission has now decided to give the process of enlargement a new credibility and fresh impetus by recognising that Latvia should perhaps have been included in the first wave and could therefore be one of the first of the former dictatorships to become a member of the Union.
I should therefore like to ask the Commissioner to confirm that Latvia - if its current development is maintained - could very well be included in the first group of countries to become fully fledged Member States at the beginning of the next millennium.
So I would ask the Commissioner to confirm that Latvia now has the possibility of joining the very first group, and that Lithuania and Slovakia will of course be able to do so very shortly afterwards.
I should be grateful if you would confirm that, Commissioner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="van den Broek">
It is always tempting to speak about very clear-cut dates but, especially with regard to membership, we know that many of negotiating countries at present are taking the working hypothesis that they will become full members in 2002 or, most of them, in 2003.
I am talking about the Group of Six.
My only answer is that I hope this is so.
But it is the candidate countries which have to fulfil the conditions to make it possible.The same goes for the opening of negotiations on which I elaborated earlier.
It is clear that there are the political criteria which are met by Latvia, the economic criteria where we say that we need some more track record but there is a clear perspective that you are approaching the stage where we can recommend this step.
That is the text in the conclusions of the composite paper.
Anything further than that is guesswork.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Malone">
I was hoping the Commissioner was late because he was putting the final touches to the evaluation of Malta.
So I am doubly disappointed to hear you say, Commissioner, that it will be mid-February before you can come up with your new evaluation.
After all, the Commission gave a favourable opinion in 1995 as did this Parliament, on Malta's accession.
I would like you to give us the real reason for this delay and also to bear in mind that in Madrid in 1995 it was decided that negotiations would start with Malta six months after the end of the IGC.
Given that, is there any real reason not to include Malta in the first wave?
I think you will agree with me but if you do not you should say it here that Malta is well qualified economically and otherwise ahead of other applicant countries.
I would like a precise answer here today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="van den Broek">
If we want to do Malta justice under the circumstances which present themselves, namely after an interruption of two years of preparations for accession, it means that we should update our avis of 1993.
That is exactly what the Council has asked us to do.
So I have sent a letter to the Maltese authorities and the Foreign Minister will visit us tomorrow.
He was sent a questionnaire to fill in all the relevant data, which we have also collected from others, so that we can do the work of presenting an update of that avis .
I even mentioned a time, namely the beginning or middle of February.
So it is very close.
To Mrs Malone I would say that we welcome the revitalisation of Malta's application but we serve that country best by updating the situation.
I do not expect big suprises but verification should be made and on that basis we will see how Malta can best be incorporated in the further accession preparations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Christodoulou">
I would like to clarify the confusion that at least exists for me following the exchange between Mr Alavanos and the Commission on the subject of Cyprus.
Let us assume for the purpose of our discussions here, that the problem of the Turkish minority not participating in the discussions did not exist.
I cannot understand how a minority should impose its rule on a majority, a fact apparently accepted by the European Union but anyway, if this were not an issue, how close is Cyprus to fulfilling the requirements for joining the European Union?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="van den Broek">
In the report on Cyprus there is an economic analysis.
The honourable Member will be aware that Cyprus has enjoyed quite a protected economy in the past so liberalization has to continue.
We certainly have no reason to warn Cyprus of anything although there are certain things, for example the banking system and some judiciary matters which could be improved and which belong to the package which all candidate countries are working on.
<P>
As far as the question of the North is concerned, I share the honourable Member's wish that the participation of the Turkish Cypriots would materialise for the simple reason that it is our common objective to see to it that membership of Cyprus eventually benefits both communities.
This has been stated umpteen times in summit conclusions.
But we cannot force anyone's hand - certainly not Mr Denktash's.
It is his responsibility if he continues to refuse to participate in the negotiating delegation.
In the meantime we shall continue our work with Cyprus.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Mr President, Mr van den Broek mentioned in his speech, when referring to the situation of gypsies or Romanies, that when it comes to political criteria, and especially the status of minorities, there is cause for concern in many applicant countries.
It is important that the Commissioner should have given attention to the status of minorities, which account for many millions of people, in applicant countries.
We know, for example, that many Czech Romanies have sought asylum in the United Kingdom and Canada.
I would like to ask the Commissioner whether the Commission has drawn any conclusions on what is now required of applicant countries to improve the status of the Romany population.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="van den Broek">
Apart from the encouragement to governments to continue to work on these issues, a number of our financial cooperation programmes - PHARE for example - include programmes to improve the situation of this minority.
As I said quite frankly, so far our conclusion is that it is not enough of a political priority in the policies of the countries concerned.
That means that in our contacts with them - and you will also find the request to do something about it in the accession partnerships - we will continue to advocate an improvement of that situation and make our programmes available to come closer to that end.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, thank you at any rate to the Commission for announcing this to Parliament first rather than the press, and also for telling us that some countries have made real progress and have thus moved up a step in terms of accession negotiations.
<P>
In the case of Bulgaria, I am happy to see that serious progress has been made.
I think one has to acknowledge that loud and clear.
But I have one question concerning one very difficult issue in relations between the European Union and Bulgaria, and that is of course the nuclear question, the question of Kosloduch.
And the Bulgarian Government's latest proposals talk of decommissioning dates which are quite different from what was originally promised and formalised in an agreement back in 1993.
So I would ask the Commission to tell us as precisely as possible how important it thinks this nuclear question is and how it affects Bulgaria's accession prospects.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="van den Broek">
I am being careful because I regularly tend to mix up the nuclear power plants in Bulgaria, Lithuania and Slovakia.
But one thing is absolutely clear.
Nuclear safety forms an extremely important part of our cooperation with the candidate countries.
We have made it perfectly clear that as far as closing dates are concerned, we count on the closure of these plants on the basis of the nuclear safety agreements entered into earlier.
Moreover, one can sometimes dispute what exactly constitutes the lifetime of a certain element in a nuclear power plant and we are listening to experts.
Those are the experts who are connected to the EBRD nuclear safety account etc.
<P>
Lack of concrete data today prevents me from being more specific but rest assured that the question of the close down of nuclear plants, which we are convinced can never reach the levels of safety required by international safety standards, remains a high priority in our cooperation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, I asked to be allowed a question as soon as the Commissioner began, and you are now telling me that the debate is nearly over.
But I have not had a chance to speak.
And yet, I observed that some Members have spoken - I am not complaining about that - who came in a long time after the Commissioner began.
What is going on?
I repeatedly asked the gentleman who was sitting next to you, and he told me not to worry, because I was on the list.
And now you tell me that the debate is nearly over.
I asked to speak just after the Commissioner began.
I protest!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="President">
Mr Ephremidis, I have to distribute speaking time fairly among the nationalities and political groups.
Two people from your group have already spoken, and one of those, Mr Alavanos, is of the same nationality as you.
Many Members have asked to speak and I have been unable to allow them all to do so.
I do apologise.
These decisions are always difficult.
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Bonde.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
I should like to ask Mr van den Broek whether the Commission has dealt with the institutional issues concerning the weighting of votes, the number of Commissioners and the number of decisions to be taken by qualified majority, whether the institutional consequences have been discussed with the applicant countries, whether there are any applicant countries which have said that they do not wish to have one Commissioner each, and whether any of them have queried the institutional ideas that are now being aired in the corridors?
In other words, what is the position of the applicant countries as regards the institutional questions?
Have any of them asked for permanent derogations, for example on protection for second homes, chalets or weekend cottages?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="van den Broek">
Institutional and financial questions regarding the candidate countries are - looking at earlier negotiations - as a matter of tradition reserved for the end of the negotiations.
So the answer to the honourable Member is: No.
<P>
As far as the negotiations with the Six themselves are concerned, we will have the first ministerial negotiations on 10 November.
The common positions of the EU Council will be established on 9 November at the General Affairs Council.
<P>
A number of transitional periods have been asked for by candidate countries, notably regarding the telecommunications sector.
What exactly will be the reply?
We have advised the Council and the presidency to ask for more clarification because we are not quite certain that the exceptions being requested reflect a correct understanding of the telecommunications and audiovisual directives etc.
That is the best answer I can give at the present time.
Obviously this is an ongoing process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="President">
Thank you very much.
I am grateful to Commissioner van den Broek for making himself available to allow this debate to be extended, and for the clear answers he has provided to all the questions raised.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Partnership for Integration
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="President">
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on Partnership for Integration.
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Bartenstein, President-in-Office of the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Bartenstein">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I welcome this opportunity to discuss with you the progress the Council has made since the Cardiff European Council in integrating the environment and sustainable development into other policy areas.
Let me begin by giving you a practical example to explain the need for integration.
The climate change caused by man and its adverse effects on the environment and mankind are the most serious global environmental problem facing us.
That is why all the industrialised countries undertook to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, i.e. those caused by man, under the Kyoto protocol.
<P>
The EU Member States jointly undertook to reduce emissions by 8 %, a target that can only be achieved by common and coordinated measures.
Transport will be a decisive sector here.
The aim of the voluntary agreement with the European umbrella organisation of car manufacturers on the introduction of the '6-litre' car by the year 2008 is to contribute about 15 % to that European Union target figure.
Given that the volume of traffic is still rising, however, unless guideline measures are taken in transport policy it will not be possible to reduce CO2 emissions; instead, they will rise by about 30 %.
So technical improvements must be backed up by European and national economic instruments.
We must do more to internalise external costs.
<P>
One way to check the growth of private car and heavy goods traffic while satisfying the needs of both man and the economy for mobility is to improve the rail infrastructure at national but also international level, for instance through the trans-European railway networks.
This brief example of what is involved in climate protection shows that the only way to resolve the problems facing us is by taking an integrated approach which cuts across all policy areas.
We should therefore regard Agenda 2000 and the post-Kyoto climate strategy as the key to integrating the environment and sustainability into other policy areas, as stated in the Commission's communication.
<P>
The first steps towards integrating environmental and transport policy were taken jointly at informal and formal Environment and Transport Councils.
So I welcome the motion for a resolution submitted by the European Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
We see the involvement of the European Parliament in the partnership called for by the Commission as an important factor in the success of this common project.
Sustainable integration can only be achieved if all the Community institutions, and of course also the Member States, take the appropriate initiatives.
<P>
In the final analysis, and in the light of the subsidiarity principle, the Member State governments and parliaments must also make the integration of sustainable development a leitmotif of their national strategies in the field of transport, agriculture, energy, taxation and so on.
<P>
The fifth environmental action programme had already put forward the idea of integrating the environment into other policy areas.
Yet it took a long time for this idea, however persuasive in itself, to make any real headway.
At the time, one of the factors was presumably the lack of awareness in other policy areas of the need to take account of environmental protection in all decisionmaking.
But no doubt another obstacle was the fact that the action programme was not legally binding and that the various policy areas were not sufficiently interlinked.
Meanwhile, a number of decisions taken in the European Union have led to greater recognition of the importance of integration and the concept of sustainability.
One key factor is no doubt the adoption of the Amsterdam Treaty, which lays down at primary legal level that the requirements of environmental protection must be considered when Community policies and measures are defined and implemented, with special emphasis on promoting sustainable development.
<P>
At the Luxembourg summit, the heads of state and government took this matter up again and undertook to make substantial progress.
Of course, we environmental politicians remain the motive force of integration.
That is our primary interest.
With the call by the heads of state and government on all the appropriate Councils to draw up their own strategies for taking real account of the requirements of the environment and sustainable development in their particular policy area, responsibility for integrating environmental requirements has now been transferred to sectoral level.
Subsequently, the European Council in its turn will examine these strategies.
<P>
It is most welcome to find that these three particular sectors - transport, energy and agriculture - are fully responding to the demands of the Cardiff European Council and drawing up their reports for the Vienna summit.
Moreover, one chapter of the planned General Affairs Council report on Agenda 2000 for the Vienna summit will be devoted to the integration of environmental aspects into regional and cohesion policy, i.e. the Structural Funds, in the framework of Agenda 2000.
The Council's reports will be adopted in the form of conclusions and submitted directly to the European Council.
<P>
The presidency and the Commission jointly submitted draft reports on agriculture and transport in the respective Council working groups.
In the energy sector, there is a separate Commission communication, in addition to the Council report.
The drafts of these three reports now before us show that efforts have clearly been made to comply with the requirements set out by the Commission in its communication and by the European Council in Cardiff.
All the reports will indicate both the measures already taken and activities for the future.
Over and above this, all the documents address the need to define sustainability indicators and to formulate a more comprehensive strategy for each sector.
In future, the sectoral Councils must lay special emphasis on developing indicators and defining targets to be reviewed.
<P>
At present, the determination of a practical deadline for the choice of indicators is still under discussion in all three areas.
Account should be taken here of the ongoing work in the United Nations, the OECD, Eurostat and, last but not least, the European Environment Agency.
To be realistic, however, there is not enough time to define comprehensive strategies and indicators between just two European Councils.
Work must continue on determining sectoral strategies with timescales and practical measures, with a view to the forthcoming European Council in Cologne and also that in Helsinki in the year 1999.
<P>
Let me make a few brief comments on the content of the three sectors.
As regards energy, environmental protection without doubt represents one of the three principles of the European Union's energy policy, together with security of supplies and competitiveness.
Having regard in particular to the Kyoto protocol commitments, the Energy Council is making environmental questions an integral part of its activities.
Measures to integrate environmental protection into this Community sector have been defined for the single energy market in relation to energy efficiency, renewable energy sources and the framework programme on energy.
<P>
Regarding transport, here too the Environment Council has already taken practical measures to reduce pollution, for instance with the Auto-Oil programme and the voluntary agreement with the car industry I referred to earlier on introducing the '6-litre' car.
Here we must thank the Commission warmly for its activities.
The continuous demand for transport services and mobility does, however, remain a challenge that we have not yet resolved.
Regrettably, all the technical progress made in reducing pollution is still more than offset by the continuous growth in traffic.
The Commission has drawn up and submitted a number of proposals to help resolve this problem, which the Council will be considering without delay.
<P>
As for agriculture, integration measures have already been decided in the areas of landscape, biodiversity, water, soil and clean air.
The forthcoming reform of the common agricultural policy under Agenda 2000 will bring further, major progress towards integration, for example in relation to rural development.
Whether we can achieve practical results of course depends largely on the programmes and measures at national and regional level.
Although energy, transport and agriculture are without doubt particularly important sectors of integration, of course they are not the only relevant policy areas.
In line with the Cardiff decisions, other Councils are also involved.
In my view, we should pay special attention to the central, environment-related issues of coming years, such as climate protection and the Kyoto follow-up, together with EU enlargement, when we formulate sectoral strategies.
<P>
Without questioning the fact that the individual Councils are responsible for their strategy, I do believe that in the longer term we need an all-embracing, blanket concept of sustainable development.
At the informal Environment Council in Graz in July 1998, we agreed in this connection that we would try to identify best-practice models of integration in our Member States.
On the basis of these models, we would be able to review the decision-making structures at Community level and in the Member States.
In the long term, we must integrate the environment and sustainable development into both our strategies and our decisions.
<P>
Let me point out again that it is most important to the further success of this process that the European Parliament plays an active and supportive role in the partnership for integration with the Council and the Commission.
The motion for a resolution contains a large number of calls on the European Council and the Commission.
Commissioner Bjerregaard will be describing to you in more detail what contribution the Commission will be making in future.
I am sure you all agree with me that the process has only just begun, and that obviously this kind of project can only succeed in the long term.
That is why we need close cooperation between the Member States, extending beyond the span of a single presidency, and cooperation between the institutions if we are to succeed.
We need to have a comprehensive strategy for integration and sustainability before us by the year 2000, when the continuation of the fifth action programme comes on to the agenda.
<P>
The Cardiff follow-up process should be linked to the preparation of another environmental action programme to ensure the continuity and coherence of future European environment policy.
Here I am firmly convinced that only the concept of integrating sustainable development into all the policy areas concerned can help us to make real progress in resolving pan-European and global environmental problems in the long term and to improve our standard of living and maintain it for generations to come.
I believe that if we wish to make further progress towards integrating the environment in other policy areas, it is essential for this process to be pursued at the top political level of heads of state and government.
The success of Cardiff must be pursued in Vienna!
<P>
But successful integration also requires long-term planning.
Germany and Finland, the next two presidencies, have already announced that they are prepared to continue with this work, so as to maintain the dynamic of this process even beyond the millennium.
We need to have a vision of the future shape of European environmental policy. The concept of integrating the environment and sustainable development into all sectors can and must form a solid basis for creating this kind of vision for the next millennium.
I am glad that the Council, the Commission and in particular Parliament all accept this challenge.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to thank Parliament's Committee on the Environment for tabling this motion for a resolution on what is one of the most important issues in environment policy, namely the integration of environmental aspects into other Community policies.
As we all know, and as has been discussed on many occasions both here in Parliament and in the Council, the source of many of our environmental problems lies in other policies.
It may be transport, energy or the agricultural sector, as Mr Bartenstein has already mentioned.
We need to make changes in these policies in order to improve the environment.
It is exactly the same when it comes to implementing the Kyoto protocol.
We can only fulfil our obligations if we involve other sectors and make changes in the policies there.
<P>
As you know, the Amsterdam Treaty gave impetus to the process of integration.
The requirement of sustainable development now occupies a central place in the Treaty, since it is included in one of the first articles.
The integration of environmental aspects has thus become a key instrument for achieving our objectives, and there is no doubting the priority attached to these aspects.
This is a significant victory and, I hope, a crucial turning-point in the development of Community measures on the environment.
I shall repeat what the Commission stated in its communication to the Cardiff summit: integration has become a commitment.
It is no longer simply a possibility.
I would be among the first to admit that this goal will not be easy to achieve.
We all know how difficult it is to persuade those responsible for the individual sectors - whether in the Commission, the Council or Parliament - to get to grips with environmental questions, in other words to tackle the environmental aspects, and - perhaps even more difficult - to coordinate their efforts.
I have been very pleased with the efforts made by the European Parliament, because I know how difficult it can be to convince colleagues working in other sectors such as agriculture and transport that they should take account of the environment.
<P>
The Commission's communication to the Cardiff summit and the clear and positive response it received have set a process in motion.
The request that all sectors within the Council should review their own policies and formulate a future strategy for sustainable development provides an essentially new dimension, in particular because it is linked to a requirement for indicators to be identified which can be used in the monitoring process and in policy development.
The Commission departments concerned are already working with the presidency on reports on the agriculture, energy and transport sectors for the Vienna summit, as Mr Bartenstein also pointed out.
We are talking about the first step in the process and, in the light of this, we shall have to decide on the subsequent activities.
Choosing indicators and reaching agreement on objectives are important factors in assessing the success of the strategies.
During 1999, we need to reach agreement on the indicators for those sectors which have the highest priority.
This task is not without difficulties, since it is with the help of indicators that we can obtain very precise information on the state of the environment, if we know the right indicators to use and use them correctly.
At the same time, the indicators are also what one might call a kind of tell-tale as regards the results of previous policy choices.
<P>
The Commission has also committed itself to carrying out environmental assessments of its major proposals, and you will see the first practical demonstration of this in the Commission's programme of work for 1999.
We have been very active in bringing about the integration of the environmental aspect, as can be clearly seen in the Agenda 2000 proposals.
I am quite sure that many of these proposals broke new ground in terms of integrating the environment into other policies, such as agriculture and the Structural Funds.
Now the challenge is to have these confirmed through final decisions at Community level, both here in Parliament and in the Council of Ministers, and here we still need to make every effort to achieve success.
<P>
The Commission welcomes Parliament's support in the process, since the motion for a resolution broadly supports the initiatives we have taken hitherto.
As far as I can see, there is just one small difference of opinion with regard to Parliament's wish to have a directive on this subject.
I do not entirely understand how it is thought that this could operate in practice, and in fact I believe that our proposal for a directive on strategic environmental assessment already represents a remarkable step forward towards integrating the environmental dimension into Member States' plans and programmes.
We are indeed therefore working very hard to ensure that this proposal is adopted.
<P>
I would remind the House that the Commission's communication on Partnership for Integration was also addressed to Parliament, with a request that it should review its own procedures to see how it could increase its contribution to integration.
I can see from the motion for a resolution that the House is carrying out such a review, and I look forward to working with Parliament on any measures which it decides to introduce in response to this request.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Collins">
Mr President, I must say the very existence of this debate today is an example of the cooperation between Parliament and the other institutions.
It was very clear to us that we needed to have such a debate in public and this has proved possible with the cooperation of both Mrs Bjerregaard and Mr Bartenstein.
I am very pleased with the comments they have made today.
<P>
Articles 2 and 3 of the Amsterdam Treaty state unequivocally that environmental requirements are brought into the definition and implementation of all Community policies and activities.
The Commission communication on partnership for integration which reiterates this obligation is clearly a step in the right direction in our view.
In the light of enlargement, current Agenda 2000 proposals, Community strategy for implementing the Kyoto protocol and the Commission communication on the European Community biodiversity strategy, it is very clear that integration is important if we are going to achieve sustainability.
<P>
However, though I do not want to pour cold water on anything, I recall the words of Jacques Delors after the Rio Conference some years ago.
After that experience President Delors said that Rio tended to be about heads of state turning up to Rio making speeches just like the great and the good going to church on Sunday, praying ostentatiously and publicly for the poor and then putting the minimum in the poor box as they left the church.
It is not enough to say these things, welcome though the words are.
We need to do them as well.
It is not enough to say there is a need to do it.
<P>
The European Union has a tremendously significant role in this.
None of our individual Member States can tackle the problems of pollution and conservation.
None of the problems of trans-frontier difficulty can be dealt with by individual Member States.
Therefore we ought to deal with employment and industry, transport and agriculture etc. within the single market, the sustainability framework and the integration framework.The holistic approach is essential if we are to create real sustainability as outlined by the Fifth Environmental Action Plan which, after all, was developed in a straight line from Brundtland in 1987 to Rio in 1992 and Agenda 21.
<P>
Environment policy clearly has to be integrated into all policy areas.
It needs the maximum participation of the public, of industry and of NGOs.
It needs to be a genuine partnership. That means we have to have a real look at current growth strategies and the reorganisation of current consumption patterns.
<P>
This resolution goes in the right direction.
It will provide further impetus towards the sustainable development goal we are all trying to achieve.
Unfortunately, some Member States are high on rhetoric and low on action.
Therefore, paragraph 10 and its instruction to the Council of Ministers to monitor Member States' action in implementing the communication and partnership for integration is important.
It is good to hear Mr Bartenstein's views. It is a refreshing attempt to drive integration into the consciousness of Member States.
However, it is necessary to have a structure to ensure that it is not merely good intentions on the part of the Member States with words replacing concrete agreements and concrete actions.
We need these actions and we need timetables and I am very pleased to hear that the work on developing indicators is going ahead.
We need that to go ahead and we need to be quite clear about when we expect it to finish.
<P>
In conclusion, it is time to take these words and translate them into action.
There is no question but that the Council and the Commission have the full support of Parliament if they are genuinely supporting integration as a strategy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valverde López">
Madam President, I think we are all entitled to congratulate ourselves on this joint debate between the Commission, Parliament and the Council.
It is most important for our citizens to be aware of the true nature of the Community's legislative institutions.
By means of a three-way dialogue, these three institutions jointly determine the final outcome.
It is also important for us to consider the implementation of what is already contained in the Treaty of Amsterdam, which it is to be hoped will soon be ratified by all the Member States.
<P>
Environmental policy has ceased to be a separate area. We have now adopted a holistic approach, and environmental policy is an integral part of all other policies.
This is the message we have to convey to every sector, and in particular to all the administrations.
Hence the importance of the agreement at the Cardiff European Council.
<P>
I am very pleased that the Council has realised that it is responsible not only for making national administrations aware of these requirements, but also for coordinating regional and local policies.
This is essential, otherwise we shall not be able to meet our objective.
<P>
It would also be desirable, in my view, for the Council to change its working practices. The Commission has already changed its internal working practices, and the European Parliament is preparing to review its Rules of Procedure for the next parliamentary term.
It is for the Council to decide, but joint meetings of ministers for the environment and other ministers are evidently not enough.
I believe the internal system should be changed.
<P>
As regards how best to convey specific instructions to other administrations at local, regional and national level, it seems to me that the system laid down in the directive on environmental auditing of firms could serve as an excellent model, and could also be applied to different levels of the administrations.
<P>
With reference to specific policies, Parliament has been waiting for some years now for the objective of replacing wage costs - or part of these - by environmental levies to be achieved.
Despite a number of efforts, we have still not received a satisfactory answer from the Commission and one which is acceptable to the Council, so the challenge still remains.
<P>
Specific measures are also needed to promote consumer habits which are compatible with sustainable development.
<P>
I do not think we have made a sufficient effort to promote alternative sources of energy, even though the Community institutions have dealt with the matter on several occasions.
<P>
Finally, Madam President, I think we should be delighted that the Council is hoping to give some continuity to its work and its policies regardless of the rotation of the presidency every six months.
I am sure too that we are all pleased with the work done by the Environment Commissioner, and glad that she has made a full recovery.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Mr President, firstly may I welcome Mrs Bjerregaard back to the Chamber.
I gather she is once more fully fit and ready to stand with us in doing battle for the environment.
Welcome back, Commissioner!
<P>
What we do here at European Union level serves as an example to the Member States.
We in the Union were the first - the Council, the Commission and Parliament - to incorporate the concept of sustainability into other areas of policy.
And we need to do it well, because then the Member States will have a good example to follow.
We have made people realise that including sustainability in other areas is not simply possible, but mandatory.
So we need guidelines and indicators so that we can check that it is being done.
Mrs Bjerregaard says it will be difficult to develop these, but we shall see what the Commission's programme for 1999 has to say on the subject.
<P>
More important still is whether or not we can in fact put the idea of including sustainability in other areas into practice, because the Amsterdam Treaty, which my country has today decided to ratify, requires Member States to take account of environmental imperatives in all other forms of Community policy.
So we shall have to see how that pans out.
Agenda 2000, the Kyoto agreement, biodiversity - these are the things which will prove whether we in the European Union can indeed integrate sustainability into all areas of our policy.
<P>
We have made a number of demands.
Every six months at least, we want a joint Council meeting between the environment ministers and other ministers for agriculture, transport and so on.
We also want ECOFIN and other Councils to consult the environment ministers when they take decisions on regional policy.
<P>
Lastly, a question to the Council representative.
At the Vienna summit shortly, you will be reviewing the progress achieved towards integration over the last six months.
There will be a document coming out of that, and we would very much appreciate being given this Council document and a chance to express our views on it.
Will you ensure that Parliament receives the document you will be debating or have debated in Vienna, so that we can express our views on it?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graenitz">
Madam President, Commissioner, I am glad you are with us again and are feeling better, and I am also very glad that this subject is now being tackled in a practical way under the Austrian Presidency.
Sustainable, environmentally friendly development in the Union has been enshrined as our aim for many years now.
We have not achieved this aim because there is often a wide gap between words and deeds, and because we have not had the necessary strategies and mechanisms for integrating environmental policy properly into the other policy areas and thereby achieving sustainable development.
<P>
I therefore welcome the proposed partnership for integration, and I hope - perhaps the President-in-Office and the Commissioner do not quite agree, but I think others may well do so - that Parliament will not just be involved in this partnership as a junior partner, but will have the same rights as the other institutions and work together with them in a very open and visible way on integrating environmental questions more closely into the other areas.
<P>
As an example, let me quote the Kyoto follow-up process.
We have committed ourselves to a definite target: an 8 % reduction in emissions in the European Union.
If we want to achieve this target, we must not only decide how to distribute the burden, but must also check whether the Member States really do reduce the emissions to the level to which they have committed themselves.
We should also consider what to do if they do not reduce the emissions to that level.
I do not agree that we do not need laws for this purpose, Commissioner.
I believe that a legislative framework is particularly necessary to meet the Kyoto target, because it is not just a question of indicators and objectives, but also of the measures to achieve those objectives and indeed of the measures to be taken if they cannot be achieved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Madam President, it is easy to add one's voice to the general call by the Commission, the Council and Parliament for real action to integrate the environment into all policy areas.
I do not believe it is enough to speak of sustainable development in a general way.
We need to adopt an approach that aims to promote the improvement of the environment.
<P>
Traffic is of course one of the biggest problems, and the prevention of gas emissions is a central feature of our policy to improve the environment.
The best way of guiding consumer behaviour is by putting money in consumers' pockets, and the Auto-Oil programme is a good example of this.
It contains a system of tax incentives and penalties, the stick and carrot method, to promote the use of better-quality fuels and make the use of poorer quality fuels more expensive.
This scheme could be extended to many other areas.
<P>
The forthcoming AGENDA 2000 programme now under discussion in Parliament and the Council is a concrete indication of where we really want to be heading.
On regional and structural policy the Commission's proposals are good as far as words go, but not enough has been done in practice.
The environment authorities really must be included in all programmes on an equal footing with the other parties that are actively involved.
In agriculture it is not enough to say that it is the task of the Member States to see to it that the environmental objectives agreed on are met.
There has to be action on a Union-wide basis.
Aid must not be granted if insufficient attention is being paid to environmental matters.
<P>
The work that precedes enlargement is important and it requires great efforts, because we cannot allow a situation where new states join before they have completed their environmental preparations and lengthy transitional periods are therefore needed.
We know that if enlargement goes ahead like this it will only harm the state of the environment in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Bartenstein">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for this brief but most important debate, because apart from a few criticisms and a few suggestions it has also brought wide agreement on what has been achieved by way of integration in recent months, starting with the UK Presidency and now under the current Austrian Presidency, and what will no doubt also be achieved under the German and Finnish presidencies.
It is quite clear that Mr Collins is more than justified in quoting Mr Delors: the days of speechifying must come to an end!
We have to take action, and to do so we need the right instruments.
We need indicators, we need aims, and we also need the mechanisms for reviewing them.
<P>
But at the same time we need a sense of common purpose.
Here in particular - and people have spoken of a trialogue - the Council, Parliament and the Commission must work together to achieve their goal.
For reasons of competition alone, individual Member States are rarely able to make progress here.
Only Europe can set an example of sustainable development, because we know that since Rio we have had anything but sustainable development, especially outside our continent.
But it is not enough for the Council, the Commission and Parliament, and the national governments too, to join forces; once again I agree with Mr Collins that of course we also need public support, cooperation with industry - in other words the private sector - and in particular with the non-governmental organisations.
We would all consider it impossible to pursue environmental policy without them.
<P>
Indeed, we can no longer regard environmental policy as a sectoral policy.
We need partnership with our government colleagues, however difficult that may be on a day-to-day basis.
New initiatives such as the joint Transport and Environment Councils may be important, but they are not the be-all and end-all.
Even outside these joint meetings, we must still feel that the environment and sustainable development are live issues that go beyond Environment Councils.
<P>
It is important and all to the good, and sets a good example for the European Union, that the first major measure to transpose the Kyoto protocol in Europe was taken at European, at Community level.
Let me reiterate my thanks to the Commission for its very successful negotiations with the European car industry: 15 % along the road to the Kyoto target, one seventh of the way, is a good start.
It must be followed by further European and also national measures.
<P>
Of course, Vienna should be another milestone in this process and it will be important to know how our heads of state and government respond to the reports the three Councils - whose activities I consider positive in principle - have submitted and will be submitting.
And of course I am prepared to inform the European Parliament immediately of the outcome of the Vienna summit in this regard.
<P>
There is a wide gulf between words and deeds, Mrs Graenitz said, and she is quite right.
But I believe that we do have some grounds for hoping that, with our integration policy, we now have the right strategy for capping words with deeds.
We not only have the right strategy, I believe we have the only possible strategy.
We know of no other, we know of no better.
I believe the real test will be how far sustainable development is now incorporated into our post-Kyoto strategy, our climate protection activities, and of course into the three important areas of Agenda 2000 - by which I mean the Structural Funds, the future of agriculture and EU enlargement.
<P>
We should be equal partners, and here it will be important to act at Community level.
In a few days' time, we shall be meeting in Buenos Aires for the next climate protection conference.
Even if it is not likely to produce the kind of results we saw in Kyoto, in the sense of defining major objectives, it will have to be a milestone towards laying down the rules of play, rules of play on which the European Union will have a real say, rules of play which make it clear that climate protection is one of the most important tasks on the way to achieving sustainable development, which is to say that it is also one of the great challenges.
With that in mind, I thank you warmly for your attention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Madam President, I must first of all thank the House for its good wishes for my health.
Happily, I think I can say that I am on the road to recovery.
<P>
I agree with the many comments which have been made to the effect that we are heading in a direction where we must do something and that people are becoming rather tired of all the speeches and well-meaning words.
I think it was Mr Collins who pointed straight to Rio, and so it is of course important that we have also involved the Council and the heads of state and government directly in this project.
I agree with Parliament that it is a good thing that the presidency and the Commission are having this debate with Parliament today.
<P>
I also share Mr Collins' view that the problem cannot be solved by the individual Member States alone.
It is a Community project.
On the other hand - as Mr Collins stressed - it is of course a precondition that the Member States should stand by their commitments if we are to succeed, and at any rate we have Mr Bartenstein's word today that the presidency will do all it can to bring this about.
Likewise, I share Mr Valverde's view that the environment is no longer a sectoral policy, and I agree with the points which most speakers made as regards the results of the Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
Clearly, financial resources play a major role in environment policy, but here in Parliament - and for that matter in the Council - it is known only too well what kind of difficulties we have encountered every single time we have tried to achieve any Community results in this sector.
We may not have been able to demonstrate major successes in this area, but that should not prevent us from continuing to work on it.
I can confirm to Mr Eisma that we are working on indicators and, as I said in my first speech, I am expecting us to be able to produce something much more concrete in this respect in 1999.
I stand by what I said earlier, namely that it is a difficult task, but I entirely agree with Mr Eisma that it is one which must be resolved.
<P>

Mrs Graenitz referred to the responsibilities of individual countries, and this ties in very well with the point which Mrs Myller made, namely that the local authorities play a very important role in environment policy.
I would once again stress that I believe that in Agenda 2000 we have a number of measures concerning integration of the environment sector which it is very important to maintain, and this applies to the agricultural sector - which Mrs Myller mentioned in her comments - and indeed also to the process of enlargement, where in my opinion we are facing greater problems than we have ever seen in terms of implementing a sensible policy on the environment.
<P>
I naturally hope that Parliament has noted the presidency's positive comments on the agreement with the car industry on CO2 emissions.
This was one of the debates I had with Parliament not so long ago in which we were not entirely in agreement, but we believe that this is a crucial aspect of the climate negotiations and that we have made a contribution to solving the climate problems.
That is why we worked very actively to achieve a result.
<P>
Let me end by saying that there is no doubt that practising integration is difficult, but on the other hand it is also necessary if we are to find the solution to our environmental problems now and in the future.
This requires all sectors to simply accept that they represent both part of the problem and part of the solution.
Only if all the parties involved accept and understand the situation can we hope for better decisions to be taken.
I believe that we have taken a step forward in the process, but we have only started, and I welcome the undertakings which Parliament and the presidency have given.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Bjerregaard, and I too would like to wish you a very speedy recovery.
<P>
I have received a motion for a resolution (B4-0981/98) to wind up the debate, tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2) by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Homeopathic medicinal products
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0378/98) by Mr Chanterie, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the Commission report to the European Parliament and the Council on the application of Directives 92/73/EEC and 92/74/EEC on homeopathic medicinal products (COM(97)0362 - C4-0484/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Chanterie">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, since September 1992 we have had two further directives in the European Union concerning the approximation of legislative and administrative provisions applicable to medicinal products and laying down additional rules for homeopathic medicinal products for both human and veterinary use.
In these, four considerations are paramount: firstly, the accessibility of homeopathic medicines; secondly, the quality and safety of those medicines; thirdly, information for users of homeopathic medicines; and fourthly, rules governing the manufacture and supervision of these medicines.
<P>
On behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, I should like to particularly highlight four of the points made in the report.
Firstly, recognition.
Article 6(1) says that each Member State must take due account of registrations and authorisations previously granted by another Member State.
To us it is not clear what is meant by 'due account'.
And who decides whether a Member State has taken 'due account' of the other Member State?
This is an unclear formulation and we would like it replaced.
<P>
Secondly, the special, simplified registration procedure.
This applies only to products taken by mouth or used externally.
Other forms of administration such as injections, plasters, sprays, drops, suppositories and so on are excluded.
On the one hand there are no scientific arguments to justify this exclusion and, on the other hand, some Member States do use this specially simplified registration procedure for certain forms of administration.
<P>
Article 7(1) also restricts the special, simplified registration procedure to preparations where the degree of dilution does not exceed one part per 10 000 of the mother tincture or a maximum of 1/100th of the smallest dose used in allopathy for active principles in medicinal products requiring a doctor's prescription.
Again, there are no scientific reasons for imposing those limits and, once again, some Member States allow preparations which do not meet these criteria.
<P>
Another point concerning Article 7(1) is veterinary use.
This is restricted to pet animals or exotic animals and not animals used for human consumption.
There is nothing to warrant this, not environmental protection, not public health and not the consumer interest.
We therefore propose that this restriction to exotic species or pet animals should be dropped.
<P>
My third point concerns labelling.
Article 7(2) contains a requirement that the label or package insert should mention only the scientific name of the homeopathic stock material and not use fantasy names.
But patients need recognisable product indications and clear product descriptions.
We think that fantasy names should be allowed, especially for combined preparations, provided no therapeutic effect is implied or introduced.
<P>
Article 7(2) also requires the express indication that this is 'a homeopathic medicinal product without approved therapeutic indication'.
The Commission notes that the Member States vary quite considerably in their compliance with this requirement.
Manufacturers claim that an indication of this kind discriminates against their products in favour of other medicines, and is pointless given that therapeutic indication is not part of the registration procedure.
<P>
It is suggested that the European Commission should replace this wording with an alternative text.
Our committee is proposing 'application in accordance with clinical homeopathic pharmacology'.
Personally, I would have preferred to see 'registered homeopathic medicinal product', but I understand we can expect further indications from the Commission on that.
<P>
Then there is the mandatory warning about consulting a doctor.
I think I speak for the great majority of the committee in saying that we think a doctor should be consulted when any form of medication is taken, and that we are in favour of keeping this mandatory warning.
I think this mandatory warning might be worded better and that our report represents an advance here.
<P>
My final point concerns the special provisions.
Article 9(2) says that homeopathic medicinal products not eligible for a special simplified registration procedure are to be evaluated and either approved or not on the basis of four other directives.
Under that article, however, Member States are allowed - but not obliged - to introduce or apply special rules for pharmacological, toxicological and clinical testing in accordance with the principles and special characteristics of homeopathic medicine as practised in the Member State concerned.
Some Member States have done this, but most have not or have not done so yet, with distortions of competition as a result.
So it would seem that Member States need to be compelled to introduce these special provisions so that we can achieve freedom of movement for homeopathic medicines, since we are talking here about half of all the homeopathic medicines used.
<P>
That is all I have to say, Madam President.
Those are our committee's suggestions for amending the existing directive.
We shall be very interested to hear the European Commission's response.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Hallam">
Madam President, I would like to explain something about homeopathic medicines which perhaps in other cultures in Europe is not entirely understood.
Homeopathic medicines and the way in which people use them varies very widely in the way in which they are perceived.
In the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, for example, homeopathic medicine is seen to be the preserve of the rather eccentric fringes of medicine rather than being a core area of medicine.
That is one of the reasons why it is quite wrong for us to go for binding agreements and binding regulations on all Member States.
Member States are moving at a different rate.
<P>
This is highlighted by the concerns of the Agriculture Committee about some of the ingredients of homeopathic medicine.
Here we have tinctures such as arsenic which we are being asked to put onto animals in the food chain.
There seems to be no scientific evidence that they actually work and little scientific evidence that they are harmless.
One thing we want to stress is that all mother tinctures should be subject to rigorous scientific tests to establish dilution levels consistent with safety in the food chain.
We are also concerned about the use of fantasy names.
They must not make therapeutic claims that cannot be sustained by rigorous testing.
We would also assume that all homeopathic remedies are used only on the basis that they are handled by qualified practitioners.
<P>
And finally - and it is important that we get this point over - it is not just that this testing and monitoring should be done by people from the homeopathic community on their own.
It must be capable of withstanding rigorous scientific testing from other parts of the scientific community.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Hautala">
Madam President, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Chanterie, for his very broad coverage of this issue and for having taken account of the views of the committees.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has examined the subject from the angle of implementation of the single market.
The Member States have not actually applied the 1992 Directives, which harmonised requirements for homeopathic medical products to be brought onto the market, so a problem has been caused by the fact that these products have not been able to circulate freely.
<P>
The committee has also observed that the manufacturers of homeopathic medicinal products are usually small and medium-sized companies, and they are greatly hampered in their work by the diversity that exists in legislation and approval procedures among the different countries.
The committee feels that a system of reciprocal recognition regarding these products should be adopted so that safety criteria for the recognition scheme can be defined at EU level, and the first Member State in which a product is registered should assess and document to what extent these jointly determined criteria are met.
The principles of 'good manufacturing practice' and 'good laboratory practice' could be adopted. In this way we can ensure that there will be no safety risk of any kind.
The Committee also supports the idea that fantasy names for homeopathic medicines could be approved.
<P>
Convention certainly differs from country to country.
But those countries where homeopathy is better known have been able to confirm that these medicines do not cause side-effects.
They are cheap, and, although the effect mechanisms cannot always be clearly ascertained using traditional methods, they work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Breyer">
Madam President, the question of homeopathic medicinal products does, of course, come within the remit of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, and many of the aspects that concern us have already been addressed by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
Firstly, I too wish to express warm thanks to Mr Chanterie, who has endorsed many of our committee's requests, indeed all of them.
Like the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, we too have called for a system of mutual recognition; Mrs Hautala has already told you this.
I believe it is also most important, so that we really can support homeopathic medicinal products, to have good manufacturing and laboratory practice and to make it possible to choose fantasy names.
<P>
As a research committee, we are of course particularly keen for the Commission also to report on the studies and research which have been carried out to check the effectiveness of homeopathic and other alternative therapies under the Community's biomedical research and development programme.
Under this fifth framework research programme, and on the basis of the requests made in the report, support should be given to research activities in the field of alternative medicine, with special reference to individual and general procedures, and to the preventive roles and special features of alternative medical disciplines.
These, of course, include programmes for basic research into homeopathy, to be carried out by bio-medical institutions, designed in particular to explain the process of homeopathic potentisation and prove the efficacy of homeopathic high-level potencies, together with programmes to promote international pooling of the experience of experts in homeopathy.
<P>
This was of quite particular concern to us, since we should also remember that in recent years the demand for homeopathic medicines has risen in most European countries, and that according to the Commission it now accounts for a share of over 1 %, in some countries even over 5 % of the gross sales of the European pharmaceutical industry; I believe we must take that into account in research as well.
Hence the concern of the Committee on Research, which we are grateful to Mr Chanterie for addressing, with stepping up research in this area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Marinucci">
Ladies and gentlemen, many of you - and probably many of the people listening to us in the public gallery - will not be users of homeopathic or anthroposophic medicinal products.
A lot of people are sceptical about their effectiveness and do not believe there is any scientific basis to anthroposophic medicine. But 29 % of European citizens have used homeopathic medicines at least once.
Many Europeans have faith in therapies described as alternative, complementary or nontraditional. Homeopathic product sales are rising, and now account on average for 1 % of sales of medicinal products, with much higher percentages in some countries.
So it seems only right and proper that we should look at this issue again on the basis of the report the Commission has presented to Parliament on the application of the 1992 Directives.
<P>
With the approval of those directives - as Mr Chanterie reminded us - the European Union guaranteed all citizens access to the medicinal products of their choice. It is intended to prevent discrimination between European citizens depending on the country where they live - some very open, some quite tolerant, some completely anti - and to ensure that safe, high quality medicines are available which provide users with clear and helpful information and instructions.
These two objectives - access to free choice of medicines for all European citizens together with the necessary guarantees for product safety and correct use - have guided the Group of the Party of European Socialists, which I represent, in the debate and vote on Mr Chanterie's excellent report for the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
<P>
There were not many problems, but they were serious ones.
How could registration of a pharmaceutical already registered in another country be made cheaper and less bureaucratic?
Should the simplified legislation modify the dilution threshold indicated in the current directive and the recommended methods of taking the medicine?
Should it be left to the instructions for use to remind users to consult a doctor while using the product?
Or should it be specified, instead, that a doctor need only be consulted if symptoms persist after several days of treatment?
Or that people should actually see a doctor before starting the treatment? Should the label state 'homeopathic medicine' without approved therapeutic indications?
Or would 'approved homeopathic medicine' be sufficient?
<P>
The resolution passed in committee is a balanced response to these questions.
The matter will be considered further if and when the Commission presents a proposal for a directive specifically responding to the questions raised by analysis of the application of the current directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Zimmermann">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, with this report the European Parliament welcomes the Commission's report on the application of Directives 92/73 and 92/74.
On the legal basis of this directive, homeopathic remedies were recognised for the first time as medicinal products, but this legal act has not been implemented effectively.
In this opinion, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights calls on the Commission to make use of its right of initiative and to apply its competence in the field of homeopathy.
<P>
There are five points which the Commission should bear in mind if it is to improve the application of the two directives.
Firstly, it would be desirable to achieve general recognition of homeopathic remedies which are already authorised in another state.
To that end, the directive must be reworded in a clear and binding manner.
This alone can prevent countries from exercising arbitrary power as regards the recognition of homeopathic remedies.
<P>
Secondly, special rules for tests and trials should be introduced to ensure free circulation on the market, while at the same time taking account of the need to protect the consumer.
Thirdly, simplified registration procedures need to be worked out in order to speed up the procedure for recognising homeopathic medicines.
Here too, account must be taken of consumer protection.
Fourthly, the simplified registration procedure should be extended to veterinary homeopathic remedies for food-producing animals.
In taking account of consumer interests, there is no reason to exclude food-producing animals from the possible therapeutic benefits of homeopathic remedies.
<P>
Fifth, we must treat homeopathic and allopathic medicinal products in the same way as regards the use of fantasy names on labels and package inserts.
Provided it accepts these points, the Commission will in our view be submitting a proposal that deserves consideration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Vaz da Silva">
Mr President, it is symbolic that, in the space of one year, two European Parliament reports have tackled the subject of unconventional medicines and that now, with the Chanterie report on homeopathic medicinal products, five parliamentary committees have been called upon to give their opinion on the subject.
This confirms that the European institutions are aware of the importance of their role in improving the quality of public health and intend to do so in response to public practice, given that an increasing number of people are turning to these complementary forms of medicine.
<P>
The European Union can no longer bury its head in the sand, thanks to pressure both from the European Parliament and from members of the public and their organisations.
The European Parliament has often been a pioneer in tackling controversial or politically sensitive subjects as well as by introducing culture and education into the European Union's remit or debating issues such as genetic engineering, equality or sexual orientation.
Once again, the European Parliament is leading the way in the process of granting unconventional medicinal products a recognised status.
It is vital that a social practice affecting about one quarter of the European Union's population, as is the case with the use of homeopathic medicinal products, should find a response in the European institutions. In that way the sector can develop without risk for its users, in fair conditions both for professionals and industrialists.
It is important not only that the European Union should be willing to do something but also that the Member States should respond. They should proceed with the swiftness that common sense demands and ensure that a common procedure (with mutual recognition) is introduced for registering these medicines and that studies are carried out into homeopathic practice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Dybkjær">
Mr President, I should like to thank the rapporteur for his report.
This is a sector which attracts considerable public attention.
Most people have a view on the subject, and many passionate discussions have taken place on it.
It might be said that fortunately this passion has so far only been expressed in words.
These attitudes are also reflected in the ways in which the different countries have tackled the problems and which we must naturally take into account when we are looking at what more we need to do at EU level.
I shall not go into all the points which the rapporteur has made, but simply present the overall view of the Liberal Group as a guideline for the future work of the Commission and the Council, since that is ultimately what is at issue.
<P>
Firstly, it would be desirable to have greater mutual recognition in practice, but it would then be necessary - and an absolute precondition for such greater mutual recognition - for us to have a knowledge of the method of registration in the individual countries.
It must be said that we do not have this at the moment.
So there must be well-documented registration, on a basis which is as scientific as possible.
And secondly, as I said, this therefore means that we must have a requirement for individual countries to publish their lists of homeopathic medicines and also to explain how they are approved, for example whether they have been approved under Articles 7 and 8, because in that case we have already come a good deal of the way.
In our opinion, a simplified registration procedure should not be used either for medicines for human use or those for veterinary use, which can enter the food chain.
Instead, I think that we should consider a positive list of harmless substances and diluents.
Lastly, fantasy names are fine as far as we are concerned, and there should not be a requirement to consult a doctor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cabrol">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this debate concerns the Chanterie report on homeopathic medicinal products.
<P>
As a doctor, I would say that, in order for homeopathic medicines to be regarded as useful and effective, they must meet certain conditions regarding their manufacture, approval and use.
Otherwise, homeopathy will simply be regarded as an unorthodox enterprise practised by charlatans. This would be very harmful to a discipline which is supported by some pharmacists and doctors.
<P>
These conditions are as follows: firstly, a totally clear distinction must be made between homeopathy and anthroposophy. Some people have the impertinence to call the latter anthroposophic medicine, even adding the adjective 'homeopathic' to this term.
However, whether or not Mr Chanterie likes it, anthroposophy is just an example of unorthodox practices trying to jump on the homeopathic bandwagon. This strange mixture has been insidiously introduced by the rapporteur and must be firmly excluded.
<P>
Secondly, the approval of a product must not mean that all the Member States have to accept a medicine which might have been accepted by only one of them, whose laxness could be dangerous and could put patients at risk.
<P>
On the contrary, an assessment must be carried out in each Member State, in accordance with criteria providing full guarantees of quality and harmlessness - all of which, I must stress, is for the protection of patients.
<P>
Fourthly, it is also dangerous to entrust the approval of these medicines to a Community body of 'experts' whose scientific qualifications are not guaranteed by the proposed text.
<P>
Fifthly, the names must be precise.
We do not agree to fantasy names being used and, in our opinion, the approved therapeutic indication is perfectly adequate.
<P>
Finally, it is essential that homeopathic medicinal products are not prescribed by any supposedly qualified person - and by whom would they be qualified? - but by a doctor, given that many doctors are also homeopaths.
<P>
This is the aim of my amendment which, contrary to the proposed text, advises the user to consult a doctor only if symptoms persist.
I believe that patients must consult a doctor about using such medicines, in order to prevent an illness such as cancer, for example, going undetected by a medically unqualified prescriber, with a doctor being consulted only after this cancer has spread.
<P>
Patients' lives must not be put in danger.
Society has spent millions on training professionals: we must therefore be wary of dangerous amateurs.
Would you trust a pilot who had been trained by any old qualification body, or who had taught himself?
<P>
To conclude, if these conditions are not clearly expressed in the report, our group will vote against the motion for a resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, there is still no free market in homeopathic medicinal products in the Union, despite the fact that the directives are already in place and a legal framework was created in 1992.
So Mr Chanterie's report quite properly advocates a revision of these directives based on a thorough evaluation of the status quo .
<P>
Implementation of the directive varies from one Member State to another, and the Commission has even seen fit to refer the question to the Court of Justice because the directives were only partially being carried out in Belgium, France, Portugal and the UK.
And it is easy to see why.
In some countries, Belgium among them, the value of homeopathic medicines and whether or not they should be recognised remains a matter of heated debate.
Moreover, the wording of the directives is so vague, de jure , that differing interpretations are inevitable, and in effect they are not stringent enough to prevent distortions of competition.
<P>
Thus the report quite rightly argues in favour of a new text which precludes any difficulties of interpretation and is binding in nature.
This will be helpful not only to manufacturers, but to doctors and consumers too.
Discriminatory statements on the label must be avoided and, on the other hand, the instruction to consult a doctor if symptoms persist must be given not only for homoeopathic medicines, but for conventional medicines as well.
<P>
We wholeheartedly endorse the objectives of the report and also the specific recommendations it makes on registration procedures and a definitive system of coordination and harmonisation.
We do have reservations though, Mr Chanterie, about paragraph 7 of the recommendations, namely the obligation on Member States to recognise registrations carried out, or authorisations granted, prior to the devising of a system of coordination.
We agree that work is needed to determine the conditions under which national approval should be recognised by other Member States.
But pending harmonisation and coordination, it does not seem to us to make too much sense to force mutual recognition on Member States, because that really would make for abuses and laxity.
It may of course be seen as a means of exerting pressure, but it may lead to abuse, and that really does not serve the consumer interest.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, the Commission report points to the need for a decision to amend the directives in question.
Some Member States treat existing authorisations or registrations not as they should, but as they see fit.
Treating them as they see fit often means in practice ignoring them.
A considerable amount of time and money is wasted as a result.
Each Member State has different procedures for assessing the effects and harmful effects of homoeopathic medicines.
It is thus desirable that the relevant directives should be amended.
<P>
I understand the reluctance to treat homeopathic medicinal products in the same way as allopathic ones.
They should not be treated in the same way, because they are based on different understandings of human health, disease and healing.
Homeopathy takes a holistic view of human health, and I think that is inherently a sound approach. Now that the action of certain substances in homeopathic medicinal products has been scientifically demonstrated, the charge that the effects of homeopathic medicines are all in the mind has lost much of its validity.
I am therefore in favour of a more equal status for homeopathy and allopathy.
<P>
A first step we need to take is more widespread use of the simplified registration procedure.
It is important that Member States should be free to decide for themselves when a homeopathic medicine qualifies for this procedure.
We cannot allow the free availability of homeopathic medicines to be curtailed by all manner of unrealistic fears and powerful opposition lobbies.
<P>
I also think it would be a good idea to see if we can agree on a system of mutual recognition.
I am most interested here in the money this would save.
We should of course need clear criteria as a basis for that recognition.
It would make it easier to interpret the relevant directives.
I compliment Mr Chanterie on his report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, I have to admit that I have found it very difficult to take a firm position in an argument which is still very obscure and difficult to assess.
It is also true that when we are discussing health we ought to avoid Khomeini-like positions, because research has often overturned received wisdom.
Yet we cannot disregard one fundamental concept that has been stated for many years in pharmacology and medical text books in the European Community and throughout the rest of the world, which is that the patient should be treated with the maximum dose for the minimum possible time.
This concept is overturned and denied by homeopathy, which maintains a very low - infinitesimal - dose for a prolonged period.
<P>
It is true that these concepts are, like all science, not fixed in stone, but it is equally clear that science needs to find an answer not only for the authorities, but above all for consumers, and that answer must reconcile those two facts.
In particular, science needs to clarify the immunity problem arising from a possible choice between conventional and homeopathic during treatment.
Some maintain that prolonged low doses divert the immune system so that it is unable to deal with anything else, which is a serious threat to health.
Other scientists challenge that assertion, claiming that an infinitesimal dose does not stimulate the immune response.
Obviously we are not scientific researchers in a position to clarify these concepts, so we need, and we should be able to expect, clear answers from research.
There are also some questions from Professor Cabrol to be answered if homeopathy is to be dignified as a medical science proper.
<P>
I do have some comments on Mr Chanterie's excellent report, in which, like Professor Cabrol, some passages left me very perplexed.
My first point is that standards for the authorisation and registration of pharmaceuticals differ from one Member State to another.
Of course we think harmonisation is essential but it must not mean any reduction in the present levels of safety and protection of health.
Secondly, Chapters IV and V of Directive 92/75 on principles and guidelines for good production and laboratory practices must also be applied in full to all homeopathic medicinal products.
Thirdly, the Member States must draw up the lists of homeopathic medicines or themselves take responsibility for banning them.
Fourthly, until it is scientifically proven that homeopathic medicinal products for veterinary use do not involve risks to human health, we think the simplified registration procedure is inapplicable. Tinctures in particular must be subject to rigorous scientific tests to establish what degrees of dilution guarantee the safety of the food chain and protection from contaminated preparations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Heinisch">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my job as a pharmacist means that I often come in contact with the question of homeopathy.
As you know, patients - in other words the consumers - are reacting more and more positively to these medicinal products in Europe.
It is up to us in this House to accompany and support this trend by preparing adequate legislation.
Mr Chanterie has indicated the most important aspects in his report, for which I am very grateful.
In my view, mutual recognition of registrations and authorisations in the Member States of the European Union is important, as is extending the forms of use to parenteral administration, while adhering to the stringent conditions governing quality and safety tests for the consumer which are already in force now.
<P>
We have scientific studies and decades of experience of the harmlessness of these products.
This brings me to the next important point, which also played a central part in the opinion drawn up by our Committee on Research, namely research.
Surely we cannot keep bringing up the argument we have just heard about the lack of a scientific basis while at the same time excluding homeopathy de facto from EU-supported projects.
We already have a considerable number of scientific reports on the subject, and we should further develop and support these initiatives.
We must ensure that homeopathy is given an equal place in future in the fifth framework research programme.
<P>
Let me say in conclusion that I have learned from numerous conversations with colleagues in the veterinary field that it is essential to organic farming that we no longer exclude homeopathic medicinal products for food-producing animals from the simplified registration procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Ahern">
Mr President, homeopathic medicine has been officially recognised in certain Member States for many years but has been barely tolerated in others.
Thus, the Commission, by means of Directives 92/73 and 92/74, created a legal framework allowing patients access to the products of their choice while providing precautions to ensure the quality and safety of the products.
<P>
However, there have been problems with the implementation of this in certain Member States and thus the Commission's current approach is welcome.
I also welcome this report by Mr Chanterie.
It is really important that we deal with this issue because of the increasing popularity of homeopathic products in particular and of natural and alternative medicine in general.
Citizens throughout Europe have a right to have these products circulating freely in the Member States under single market rules as much as any other product, provided that all considerations of safety and efficacy are properly applied.
<P>
In this regard, it would be very useful if we followed up questions of research under the Fifth Framework Programme and the Green Group has introduced amendments to that effect under the Fifth Framework Programme and in the budget.
So I hope the Commission takes note that the instruments are there by which we could carry out testing and make sure that the harmonisation of homeopathic medicinal products with therapeutic indications is properly tested.
In other words, given the particular problems surrounding the proving of homeopathy as against allopathic medicine, the pecular requirements of homeopathy should be taken into consideration in this testing and the expert knowledge of homeopaths applied.
We have the instruments available.
<P>
I have tabled certain amendments.
In the UK and Ireland these registered practitioners are not only doctors and it is incumbent on us to make clear in the report that where a physician or a doctor has to be referred to on the labelling requirements, this refers to a homeopathic doctor or a registered medical homeopathic practitioner.
That is the law in my Member State and in the UK and we wish to continue that practice.
That is why I commend my amendment to you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, the Commission is grateful for the keen interest shown in our report, and especially for the rapporteur's efforts.
Our intention in choosing this rather unusual procedure, namely drafting a report in order to spark off a broad debate instead of proposing to amend the two directives which are in force, was to clarify the positions of Parliament and the Council.
Parliament has clarified its position today with its report and this debate.
We thank it for doing so, and will no doubt be hearing the corresponding views of the Council in the near future.
<P>
Let me begin my reply with a general consideration.
We did not intend to embark on a discussion of principle during this debate, in other words should homeopathic medicinal products be regarded as medicinal products and, if so, under what conditions? Or should we only recognise allopathic medicinal products?
The widespread use of homeopathic medicinal products gives us good reason to concern ourselves with them.
We cannot simply assume that they are a sideline or something rather esoteric only used by certain sects; in fact, patients use them generally as one kind of medicinal product among others.
We cannot ignore that.
It is a fact of life!
<P>
But the Commission also believes that the concept of science, which has been used by some speakers in this debate too, is somewhat apodictic, because traditional medical science, which researches, produces and evaluates non-homeopathic medicinal products, sets its own conditions.
The concept of science implies that for anything to be scientifically recognised it must first be clarified by being defined.
On the basis of the methods and procedures that are applied, we can judge whether something is scientific or not.
But that is a very narrow definition.
Mrs Heinisch is quite right to say that the concept of science can of course be defined much more broadly, so that other phenomena which do not fit into this traditional, orthodox definition of science come within its scope.
In our view, the main problem in this discussion of principle is that there happen to be doctors, scientists and chemists who want to apply this narrow definition of science and therefore say that because this is the case and because homeopathic medicinal products do not fall within this definition, we believe that we should not concern ourselves with them.
<P>
We think that is wrong, as we have made clear from the outset, because when you take the three characteristics of medicinal products - safety, efficacy and quality - you will find that we have not made efficacy a condition for homeopathic medicinal products.
That, however, does not mean - and it would be wrong to draw this as a logical conclusion - that a homeopathic medicinal product is not effective; it only means that efficacy is not a condition for its recognition as a medicinal product.
We all know that it is effective and that many people can expect and even achieve good results, not so much from any direct and verifiable chemical effects, but more from the psychological - although that is too narrow a definition too - let us say from the overall effects of this product.
That covers many things.
I think listening to agreeable debates with pleasant Members of the European Parliament is an example of the homeopathic doses which Commissioners would sometimes find most welcome.
<P>
We also know that the current state of affairs is not satisfactory.
As we heard during the debate, a number of Member States have done nothing at all, so we must do more.
So this exchange of ideas is very helpful.
Overall, the report takes the same line we did.
So we have no problem with it; on the contrary, we feel supported, and in the follow-up I am sure we will move in the direction that Mr Chanterie and other speakers indicated.
That is to say, we should define the conditions for mutual recognition of registered homeopathic products more carefully and then make mutual recognition a binding principle.
It is quite clear that mutual recognition is possible only if we lay down the minimum conditions under which this recognition is binding.
That is why the obligation of mutual recognition must go hand in hand with a more carefully defined simplified registration procedure.
It could be very helpful in this regard to draw up harmonised lists of degrees of dilution, for example, and to clarify the field of application of the simplified authorisation procedure.
<P>
I also agree that there is no reason to maintain the ban on registering veterinary homeopathic medicinal products for foodproducing animals.
Some of the provisions on labelling could also be reworded and made more consumer-friendly.
Obviously that includes dosages, but also provisions on names.
This can and must be improved, because totally misleading fantasy names are just as harmful as meaningless descriptions that nobody can understand.
We are also in favour of making the provisions of Article 9(2) binding, i.e. introducing special provisions on tests and trials.
<P>
We do not agree with the following points of the report.
In their present form, the directives cover all homeopathic products and preparation processes.
We have not listed the various schools of homeopathy that exist in this area separately, and for a good reason.
In my view, to enter into that kind of doctrinal dispute would be more likely to be damaging for homeopathic medicinal products.
That is why we do not understand why only one of these schools, anthroposophic homeopathy, should be mentioned separately in the text of the directives.
This does not mean we are against anthroposophy, it simply means that we do not wish to become involved in this doctrinal dispute.
In our view, that would be going a little too far.
<P>
As Mr Chanterie can imagine, the Commission is certainly sympathetic to the idea of a Community body which would be responsible for authorisation and assessment, including the question of labelling.
After all, we have had extremely good experiences with the London agency for the authorisation of medicinal products.
We shall consider whether a similar body could be set up.
Of course, that would require the cooperation of the Member States.
So we are saying quite clearly, as your report does, that the directives need to be supplemented and improved and we thank Parliament for its proposals.
We now await the Council's opinion.
As soon as we have it, we shall set to work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Bangemann.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Liability for defective products
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0326/98) by Mrs Roth-Behrendt, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Council Directive 85/374/EEC of 25 July 1985 on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States concerning liability for defective products (COM(97)0478 - C4-0503/97-97/0244(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Roth-Behrendt">
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Casini, C.">
Mr President, in view of its positive impact on consumer protection, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights welcomes the proposal for a directive, which, by widening the scope of producers' liability for defective products to cover all movables, extends the 1985 Directive to include agricultural products.
But the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has expressed reservations, and continues to do so, about the admissibility of the amendments from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection for the following reasons. First, in the light of Rules 124(2) and 125(1)(a) of the Rules of Procedure taken in conjunction with Article 138(2) of the Treaty, the committee believes the European Parliament cannot covertly deprive the Commission of the exclusive right to initiate legislation through amendments to the legislative proposal.
If Parliament considers that a legislative act should be amended, it is entitled to ask the Commission to submit the requisite proposals.
Secondly, the proposal for a directive gives full effect to Parliament's recommendation set out in the report of 7 February 1997 by the Temporary Committee of Inquiry into BSE.
Thirdly, the 1985 Directive has radically altered, if only in terms of producers' liability, certain key points of private law laid down in the Member States, namely civil liability, the burden of proof, compensation for damages, and time-barring of rights. The approaches proposed in the directive to deal with these points are still valid, since they take proper account of all the interests at stake, striking a rational balance between the different views of the parties concerned.
<P>
So the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights believes the amendments from the Committee on the Environment are inadmissible because they exceed Parliament's right to amend a proposal from the Commission.
Besides, in our opinion, these amendments are unacceptable in substance.
<P>
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights considers that no substantial amendment of Directive 85/374 should be put forward until the Commission has held detailed discussions with the other Community institutions, the Member States and the relevant private individuals.
This proposal could be made after examination of the Commission's forthcoming report on the implementation of Directive 85/374, due to be published in the year 2000.
<P>
In conclusion, we are in favour of the directive but, for strictly legal reasons, we cannot agree to the amendments put forward by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="Barthet-Mayer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this House wanted this legislative proposal and with just cause.
The BSE scandal forced us to ask the European Commission to present a proposal, as quickly as possible, extending the scope of the basic directive to primary products, i.e. products of the soil, stock-farming or fisheries, and game.
<P>
We cannot now refuse this extension, particularly in view of the extreme consumer distrust of food products and the increasing industrialisation of agricultural production methods.
In any case, zero risk does not exist and as producers know that, when placing products on the market, they are running a risk and may be making the consumer run a risk, the latter must have a right of redress in the event of injury.
<P>
It is true that it would be unfair for agricultural products to escape this general rule.
Consumers must enjoy the same protection, whatever the nature of the defective product.
It should be recalled that, in the case of liability without fault, what counts is the act of placing a product on the market; it is not a question of determining who is guilty but who is liable.
<P>
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development is well aware of this, particularly as society needs to come to terms with its agricultural sector and as, in any case, the very existence of such a system will surely act as an incentive to the placing of safe, healthy and high-quality products on the market.
<P>
This proposal is therefore acceptable to the Agriculture Committee. However, the specific nature of agricultural products must not be forgotten and we have therefore proposed certain amendments, some of which, we are pleased to say, have been adopted.
However, we regret that other amendments have not been adopted: firstly, because of the heavy dependence of primary agricultural production on external factors, we proposed including a clause dealing with this specific characteristic and suspending the directive's application to agricultural products in the case of damage resulting from natural disasters or other cases of force majeure .
We also thought that such a system should not be used in any way as an instrument of unfair trade by the customers (and sometimes the exclusive customers) of agricultural producers.
<P>
During the assessment that will have to be made of the directive, specifically with regard to the agricultural and rural sectors, I hope that proposals will be made in this respect, as the specific characteristics of agriculture will then be clearly apparent to everyone.
<P>
In general, regarding the directive as a whole, our group - I am speaking on behalf of the ARE Group here - cannot support Mrs Roth-Behrendt's proposal which we unfortunately see as a reversal of the burden of proof.
There is no doubt that it is the victim who must provide proof of the harm caused by a clearly identified product.
On the other hand, our group agrees with the rapporteur that the period of liability should be longer than the ten years provided for by the Commission.
<P>
Finally, our group also supports Mrs Roth-Behrendt in questioning the exemption from liability on the basis of development risks.
This exemption, in our opinion, is not justified in the context of the strict principle of liability without fault, linked to the act of placing a product on the market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Whitehead">
Mr President, I do not want to follow the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights in their discussion of whether this report is in order or not.
My colleague Mrs Roth-Behrendt is probably as good a lawyer as anyone on the Legal Affairs Committee and it is right that she has tried to make substantial amendments to the proposal from the Commission.
That does not mean, however, that all of us on the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection follow her entirely down that road.
<P>
The reason is quite simple.
There are advantages and disadvantages to the position in which Mrs Roth-Behrendt and those of us, like the last speaker, who were previously on the Temporary Committee investigating BSE, find ourselves.
Because of Mr Medina's report we had the opportunity in a crisis situation to bring forward one simple reform. That was to add primary products to the products which would be subject to this directive.
Given what we learned in the BSE scandal and given what we now know about the dangers that may linger for many years in primary products, it is surely right that the Commission bring forward this proposal and that we seek to improve it as best we can.
<P>
Where I need to express a slightly divergent view is in whether our efforts to improve and extend it have been over-expansive.
I would agree with the rapporteur in her view that the ten-year limit is not enough and also that the initial limits set on the amount of damages were inadequate considering the context in which this report came forward, namely the horrors of the BSE scandal.
So I am in favour of that section of the amendments.
I commend Mrs Roth-Behrendt for the attempt she made at a late hour to bring in compromises.
My difficulties - and she knows this - are with the burden of proof as set out in these amendments and also on the question of development risk.
<P>
As far as burden of proof is concerned, looking now at Amendment No 12, if you say that a causal relationship can be proved if it is shown to be sufficiently likely, I am not sure where between the causal and the casual that leaves you.
The problem is that however difficult it may be to prove damages, you have to be able to show that a given product supplied by a given producer brought about this effect.
You may need more time to do it but you cannot just say that it is down to inference.
That is one of the problems with Amendment No 12 as it stands.
<P>
My last point is that on development risk we suffer from the fact that this is an emergency measure that we have brought in with great speed.
The problem is that we need to look very carefully at the Member States and at their liability laws is to see where development risk leads us if it is included or excluded.
That is more appropriately done in the review in the year 2000.
<P>
Having said all that, representing I suspect a minority view on the Environment Committee, I greatly admire the work that the rapporteur has done.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Grossetête">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today we have to discuss the extension to agricultural products of the scope of Directive 85/374/EEC on liability for defective products.
<P>
The Commission's proposal is welcome because it responds to a request from Parliament following the BSE crisis and also because it avoids the problem of having to define processed products and agricultural products which was encountered in the implementation of this directive.
The problem is Mrs Roth-Behrendt's report.
Under the pretext of generosity and using the emotions raised by the BSE crisis, she has completely altered the basis of the 1985 directive by reversing the burden of proof, deleting the scientific development clause, removing or extending the deadline for action by victims, etc.
<P>
The rapporteur's proposals alter the balance between consumer protection and legal certainty for economic operators.
Mrs RothBehrendt has certainly encountered many problems - the debate on this report has itself been postponed several times - and she has tried to water down her proposals.
She is now proposing supposedly compromise amendments, but where is the compromise?
There has been no compromise with other political groups and some amendments are only supported by 29 Members.
<P>
This is just a case of currying favour in the run-up to an election campaign. However, consumers are responsible people, many being producers themselves, and they know that the balance of the 1985 directive must not be altered.
There is also a risk that the courts will be flooded with cases and will have difficulty in legally interpreting the majority of the amendments which are, to say the least, contradictory and vague.
<P>
Also, has anyone calculated the financial implications of Mrs Roth-Behrendt's amendments?
These implications are out of all proportion and we cannot imagine the consequences, not only for growth industries such as medicines and research, but also for all our SMEs and SMIs, and our farmers who have been the subject of much discussion in this House today.
<P>
For goodness' sake let us wait for the Commission to produce its Green Paper on the application of the directive.
We know that the Commission must bring this Green Paper before us after wide consultations with the partners involved, and we also know that this Green Paper must be brought before us by 1 January 2000 at the latest. I would ask the Commission to inform us whether it intends to meet this deadline, although I realise, of course, that 1 January 2000 is not far off.
It seems that Mrs Roth-Behrendt has completely neglected to consult the partners in this respect.
<P>
Therefore, for all these reasons which I believe are particularly serious, the Group of the European People's Party would prefer that we should not act in haste and that we should decide not to rush into changing the substance of such a sensitive directive.
This is why the PPE Group will vote against all Mrs Roth-Behrendt's amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Olsson">
Mr President, Parliament's proposal to extend the scope of the directive to include primary agricultural products is a welcome move.
Mrs Roth-Behrendt, like the ambitious politician that she is, has used the occasion to include some other issues in her report.
I think we can take the liberty of doing the same, since it is a way for us to influence policy.
I should therefore like to make the following comments.
<P>
We support the proposal to raise the total amount of liability from ECU 70 million to ECU 140 million, as stated in the final amendment.
We also support, in principle, the extension of the deadline for claiming compensation on account of the length of the incubation period.
<P>
The proposal on the burden of proof which, while not actually reversing the present position, provides for a different arrangement, is perfectly acceptable.
We need to support the man in the street against the big companies.
On the other hand, we do not really know how such a change will affect the industry.
The same thing applies in the case of risk-development.
The industry, as well as producers, needs to know how to proceed when it develops new products.
It should be possible to take certain risks, otherwise there would never be any progress.
<P>
Neither of these proposals has been adequately explored in the Roth-Behrendt report.
I would therefore like to refer to Amendment No 9, where we specify that every five years the Commission is to present a report to Parliament and the Council.
This should be done no later than the end of the year 2000, with a view to carrying out a general revision of the directive.
<P>
I hope that the Commission will take note of this discussion and the proposal - even if it is not approved - and that its implications are looked into. We shall then be able to discuss it again in the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cabrol">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have before us a European Commission proposal which aims to extend the Community provisions on no-fault liability for defective products to primary agricultural products and game.
<P>
Firstly, I must say that the rapporteur has exceeded her brief because she has completely taken over a legislative initiative.
She would actually like to rewrite all the provisions on defective products, and not just agricultural products, which does not seem to me to be very fair, particularly as the European Commission is preparing a review of this directive on defective products for next year and particularly as certain Member States, such as France, have only just transposed the general directive into their own laws.
<P>
The rapporteur also wants to take over and alter certain conditions already laid down in the previous directive.
I will highlight just two of these: firstly, the rapporteur wants to remove the concept of objective liability, which would mean that the person injured by the defective product would no longer have to prove the causal relationship between the defect in the product and the damage in order for the producer's liability to be incurred.
<P>
Secondly, she wants to challenge the clause excluding the so-called 'development risk', which means that a producer would be regarded as liable even if the state of scientific and technical knowledge, at the moment when the product was put into circulation, did not in any way allow him to detect this defect.
<P>
Mrs Roth-Behrendt, if you gave a product to your children and you realised later that it was defective, even though you had no proof, would you still change all that?
<P>
This exclusion clause has been adopted by some Member States in order to develop their pharmaceutical research potential.
The removal of this exclusion clause by the European Parliament would cause European research and innovation to be relocated to competing countries which have not accepted such a provision or which still offer incentives.
This would lead to a delay in certain medicines becoming available for use by citizens of the European Union and a potential refusal by insurance companies to cover this risk.
<P>
Furthermore, this exclusion clause was enshrined in law by the Court of Justice in a decision of 29 May 1998.
Not to include this clause seemed unrealistic and unreasonable to the Court at the time.
The maintenance of the clause is also justified as it does not leave the injured person without any redress, since the latter will be able to rely on rights recognised under the contractual, extracontractual or social liability systems, i.e. Article 13 of the Directive of 25 July 1985.
<P>
Because of these two amendments and many others which I will not mention, all of which, we should remember, fall outside the scope of the brief entrusted to Mrs Roth-Behrendt - given that the rapporteur has taken over the European Commission's right of legislative initiative - amendments which would no longer protect consumers but which would seriously threaten producers and could have serious repercussions on some countries' precarious economies and on employment, our group will not vote for Mrs Roth-Behrendt's amendments.

<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, our group was pleased with the Commission's proposal but even more so with Mrs RothBehrendt's extremely high-quality and courageous report, because it is likely to be the only one to draw the logical conclusions from the BSE scandal.
This makes it all the more regrettable that the majority of Members of the European Parliament will not endorse the rapporteur's views and that they, and especially the large political groups, are allowing themselves to be misled by the industry.
I simply cannot understand the arguments which have just been put forward about the financial risk to undertakings.
<P>
If agriculture says it wants to be regarded as a form of undertaking, it must behave accordingly!
Surely the point here with regard to liability is to create an instrument to ensure that industry and agriculture finally live up to their own responsibilities.
After all, we must not create indirect subsidies here by exempting these undertakings from the obligation.
Surely the principle of a constitutional state is that the potential victims - who are the consumers - are better protected than the potential offenders, who are after all the industry!
<P>
When we talk about strict liability, that should have meant no longer allowing any excuses.
It should have meant protection for the consumer.
What is being planned now waters down the report.
However, it is still better than the current practice, which is why we shall endorse it with a heavy heart, but it is not an improvement for the consumer.
On the contrary, it means that in future lawyers will be able to line their pockets nicely, which is why I think it is such a pity that we cannot manage finally to carry forward what we keep calling for, namely consumer protection and the preventive principle, together with the acceptance of responsibility on the part of the industry which is also constantly being called for.
<P>
Let me once again warmly congratulate the rapporteur, who has made a truly great effort, but I find the compromise amendments very watered down.
It is a pity that we as the European Parliament will not succeed here in really putting consumer protection first.
I think that would have been the least that we in Parliament could have tried to do.
Mrs Grossetête and Mr Olsson, we cannot just keep representing the interests of the industry.
We should have tried - and I hope you will realise this by tomorrow's vote - really to put consumer protection and the potential victims first.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, the latest reports tell us of new cases of BSE.
Consumers are thus increasingly concerned about the quality of meat.
In view of that, it is a good thing that we are addressing the subject today.
After all, it was the BSE crisis which prompted the proposal to amend Directive 85/374.
<P>
The Commission proposal seeks to resolve the problem of the continuing lack of liability for primary products in agriculture, and I welcome it.
Farm producers are liable for the quality of their products, just like their fellow producers in other industries.
Product liability for primary products encourages farmers to act responsibly.
The proposed changes also remove the lack of clarity about when a product has undergone first processing or transformation.
<P>
The rapporteur calls for liability to be extended to primary agricultural products, but also for a number of weaknesses in the existing directive to be addressed.
Since we are looking to amend this directive now, I think we should deal with these defects straight away whilst we are about it.
It will avoid duplication.
I compliment the rapporteur on her attention to detail here.
The amendments proposed provide better protection for the consumer, and they are less spectacular than many producer reactions would have us believe.
In some Member States, the changes in question were made a long time ago.
I am in favour of those changes, because I think the position of consumers and producers should be the same.
That makes the single market work better.
<P>
Finally, I should like to explore one of the changes in greater detail using an illustration.
Under the current directive, it is possible for a consumer to buy a washing machine which floods out his entire kitchen.
The consumer can claim that the machine is defective and that he has sustained a loss, and he can point to a causal link between the loss and the defect.
But he cannot obtain compensation, because the manufacturer has already reached his total liability ceiling for compensation.
The consumer is just unlucky in being not the first, but the umpteenth claimant.
This kind of thing has to be made impossible.
I therefore believe that the total liability ceiling should be abolished.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Mr President, I entirely agree with the rapporteur that the consumer is entitled to total protection which covers the entire food chain and is not effective only after a certain processing stage.
In other words, I welcome the amendment to the product liability directive proposed by the Commission following the BSE crisis, which is designed to extend its scope to primary agricultural products.
<P>
On the other hand, I do not agree with the proposals and amendments from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, because they overstep the mark.
I cannot judge how far the committee was aware of the adverse and unpredictable effects which they would have on the economy, especially on small and medium-sized enterprises and on agriculture, or of the fact that this would represent an intervention in national civil law which has no basis in fact and is in some ways contrary to the system.
Here I would have preferred to see a different approach.
I am thinking of the problems of the burden of proof, a question that has been addressed by a number of speakers, of the development risk and also of abolishing the limit on liability.
I also believe that the rapporteur's approach underlines the legitimacy of the proposals made by the Austrian Minister of Justice, Mr Michalik, at the informal Council of Ministers of Justice and Home Affairs last week, whereby the Justice and Home Affairs Council should also consider judicial matters discussed in other Councils so that it can tackle this kind of legal problem.
We cannot endorse the rapporteur's proposals.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lienemann">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Roth-Behrendt's brief was extremely difficult.
She had to meet the expectations of Parliament and public opinion with regard to the unhappy events of the BSE crisis. It was clear that simply updating the 1985 directive by including primary agricultural products would not be enough to meet those expectations.
It is to be regretted that the Commission did not take the initiative in listing the points which needed to be updated quickly, in order to take this unhappy experience into account.
<P>
Mrs Roth-Behrendt did list these points.
At the start of the discussions in committee, some proposals which we did not feel were sufficiently balanced were thrown out.
These related to concerns which affect us all: maintaining consumer protection, which is the main priority, and also ensuring that producers do not fall victim to random events and an unfair and systematic anti-producer attitude. There was also a major concern about the question of the future of research and development.
<P>
Mrs Roth-Behrendt has tried to achieve reconciliation and compromise.
She was keen to try and make progress which would not challenge the original balance of the 1985 directive.
In the main, I consider that her proposals are good but I do have two reservations.
<P>
We will not vote for Amendment No 12 on the burden of proof as it is ambiguous.
Mrs Roth-Behrendt does stress in her explanation that it does not involve a reversal of the burden of proof, but we feel that the phrases which aim to facilitate the protection of consumers and injured people are too vague in legal terms.
I am particularly thinking of the phrase: 'it shall suffice for the injured person to prove that the damage occurred and for the causal relationship to be sufficiently probable'.
Under French law, the concept of 'probable' does not exist and is difficult to define in my opinion.
<P>
I must also just say that the deadline problem cannot be avoided and that, even though the wording of Amendment No 13 on the definition of the hidden defect or the hidden fault needs to be improved, the idea of allowing the deadline to be extended, although only in certain very specific cases, seems to me to be necessary. At first reading, therefore, Parliament must stress its desire for dialogue in order to achieve a situation which is satisfactory to everyone.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, to begin with I must compliment Mrs Roth-Behrendt for having shown great creativity and inventiveness, as befits a true parliamentarian, in probing every last aspect of the proposal which the European Commission has put to us.
That means of course that unexpected problems may arise.
I do not really agree with those members of the Legal Affairs Committee who say that some amendments are inadmissible.
Why do I disagree?
Because I think that the European Parliament, by virtue of having always probed every last aspect of a situation, has also managed to resolve a good many of those situations.
That is one point.
<P>

Turning to the substance, as I said just now, some things may be a case of a bridge too far.
I fully endorse the Commission's proposal that primary agricultural products should also be covered by the directive, and I think Mrs Roth-Behrendt can be pleased that the findings of her BSE committee will thus have been implemented accordingly.
<P>
What we have here is a product liability directive which in 1985 - and I have taken a look back at the negotiations - left very little room for manoeuvre.
It is these limits which the rapporteur, and Parliament too, I think, is now coming up against.
Naturally there are a few problems.
The points which the rapporteur made about shifting the burden of proof, who bears the full development risk and extending the period of liability, for example, are all problems which need to be resolved.
This does not mean we can do that now, because I think our various group discussions of the proposal have shown that a number of amendments in their current form are not yet quite as they need to be.
It means that we shall need to look at this proposal again. I would ask the rapporteur to incorporate into the proposal of the Legal Affairs Committee a deadline, a point in time for assessing whether further progress can be made through due debate, and whether further changes are necessary and desirable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="De Clercq">
Mr President, I have two basic quarrels with the draft report which has been presented and the amendments which have been put down.
The first is a formal objection.
I refer to the opinion of the Legal Affairs Committee which says that the amendments tabled by the rapporteur concerning the substance are inadmissible.
Not because we as the European Parliament must curtail our own powers, but because the institutional balance between the European institutions has to be preserved.
We have to know our limitations in life.
<P>
My second objection concerns the substance.
We welcome the extension of product liability to primary agricultural products, but the rest of the proposed changes to the draft directive go very deep, and I wonder if thought has been given to their consequences.
I wonder if proper prior consideration has been given to the concrete repercussions of the proposed amendments, for example as regards the burden of proof, the time limit for proceedings, the absence of any financial threshold or a ceiling on total liability for compensation.
<P>
I fear that stricter measures may have quite the opposite effect to what is desired.
Tighter rules on liability will discourage producers from bringing goods on to the market unless there is total certainty that they are entirely safe.
As a result, it will be the consumer who suffers, because business innovation and therefore progress too are likely to be substantially inhibited.
After all, what firm is going to invest in research and development without insurance against the development risk?
Our firms will become a little less competitive in world markets as a result, and this again may cost jobs.
<P>
For all these reasons, I hesitate to endorse the findings of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
On the substance too, we have to know our limitations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Buffetaut">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, while considering the extension of the directive on liability for defective products to primary agricultural products and game, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection thought it advisable to adopt certain amendments, taking over provisions which were fiercely discussed during preparatory work on the original directive, but were ultimately rejected.
I am thinking in particular of the reversal of the burden of proof and the deletion of the clause excluding the development risk.
<P>
We have two main objections here, one on legal grounds and the other on the substance and also for economic reasons.
Firstly, there is legitimate doubt about the validity of the manoeuvre to alter the 1985 directive instead of confining ourselves to the proposal for a directive submitted to us by the Commission.
<P>
Of the amendments proposed by the rapporteur, those numbered 2 to 9 relate to this original directive, and not to the directive proposed by Parliament and the Council which has been submitted to us.
By adopting these amendments, Parliament would actually be taking the legislative initiative which, until proven to the contrary, is an area over which the Commission has a monopoly.
<P>
With regard to the substance, it is clear that the amendments tabled would create an unreasonable imbalance in contractual relations and would burden enterprises with charges, particularly insurance charges for SMEs, which some could not support.
<P>
As for the compromise amendments, these are scarcely any more acceptable.
On the one hand they introduce a concept which is legally very dubious, i.e. the probable causal relationship concept which could be a source of many disputes, and, on the other hand, they significantly increase the charges on enterprises by doubling the duration of the period of limitation and the amount of the liability threshold.
Finally, we could ask why there is such a rush. Is there no time even to wait for the Commission's Green Paper on the application of the 1985 directive?
<P>
All these reasons mean that we will not be voting for Mrs Roth-Behrendt's amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valverde López">
Mr President, I should first like to express my support for what my colleague Mrs Grossetête has said, and then to indicate that I totally support the European Commission's proposal for the scope of this directive to be extended to include products derived from agriculture and stock breeding, in the hope of providing better consumer protection.
On the other hand, however, we cannot support the proposals contained in the rapporteur's report. As many of my colleagues have already explained, we do not think there is sufficient legal justification for them, nor do we feel they are appropriate from a political point of view.
<P>
Nevertheless, we must all learn some lessons from this report.
In the first place, we should not forget that when the directive on product liability was discussed, we allowed ourselves to be swayed and agricultural products were not covered by the directive.
We now have to admit our mistake and remedy the situation.
<P>
Secondly, I should like to draw your attention to how the legal advisers of a number of pressure groups have recently been flooding the media with statements which might well generate confusion as regards the nature of the Community institutions and our work. It has been stated, for instance, that Parliament is not entitled to put forward certain amendments.
It must be made very clear to the public that Parliament's power to put forward amendments is limited only by the Treaty itself. And even the Treaty is an open one, since it includes an open-ended article - Article 235 - which allows the Council to extend its powers should that prove necessary, when requested by the Commission and supported by Parliament.
<P>
Furthermore, Community legislation - or so it has been said repeatedly of late - should be applied in parallel with national legislation.
This is an outrageous statement, which has been denied day after day by the Court of Justice of the European Communities.
As has already been established, Community legislation takes precedence.
<P>
We also have to congratulate the President of Parliament for taking the wise decision not to declare the rapporteur's amendments inadmissible. We do not like them, and he may have had to act against the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs itself, but to do otherwise would have been an error of political and legal judgement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are totally in favour of this extension of no-fault liability as proposed by the Commission.
But, like my fellow Liberals who have spoken previously, I cannot agree either with the tightening of liability which the rapporteur proposes and which goes too far.
I am against shifting the burden of proof, against liability in respect of 'development risks' and against abolishing the time limit on proceedings.
<P>
We have to remember that, unlike the USA, we in Europe have opted for wide-ranging product legislation.
In this way, officialdom gives the consumer a kind of guarantee that products available on the market meet all the right standards and are thus safe and healthy.
<P>
If we back the rapporteur's proposals, we shall be opting for a combination of both tough product legislation and tough rules on liability.
In this European context, more stringent liability is not feasible for manufacturers.
Not only would it seriously inhibit the process of innovation for businesses, it would also mean huge insurance premiums for manufacturers which would send the cost of new products rocketing.
For the pharmaceuticals industry, for example, which is constantly looking to develop new drugs, it is just not on.
<P>
Consequently, we shall be voting against all those amendments which seek to impose excessively stringent liability.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Thyssen">
Mr President, the product liability directive which was a star feature of the first phase of consumer policy was a revolutionary milestone in liability law.
But just because it predates the Single European Act and Maastricht, that does not automatically mean it is outdated.
Anyone suffering loss or damage as a result of a product defect has, since the directive, been entitled to compensation from the manufacturer without having to prove negligence, omission or fault on the manufacturer's part.
Whilst no one has to be proved to be at fault, the fact of risk still remains.
Since the directive, the risk has been borne by the manufacturer of the defective product causing the loss or damage.
<P>
This radical change to traditional jurisprudence meant and still means that, out of concern for a degree of balance, there have to be limits on this liability: limits in time, a limited period in which proceedings may be brought, and rules to cover 'development risks'.
There is no reason at all to change these aspects of the directive, certainly not until all parties involved have been consulted in depth.
And this also holds good for the burden of proof.
<P>
Not that this House ever wanted changes here.
What we asked for, we have got.
Our contention in the BSE Committee of Inquiry was that it was no longer socially accepted or acceptable for primary agricultural products to be excluded.
Between 1985 and the present day, agriculture itself has radically changed and technology has made great strides in this sector.
But between 1985 and the present day, we also had the crisis over BSE.
That shook people's faith in food safety.
For that reason too, broadening of the product liability directive is justified.
It means, let us not forget it, an additional safeguard for the consumer.
It will be an incentive for farmers to win back the consumer's trust in agriculture and farm products.
To that extent, it is a good thing not only for Europe's consumers but also for agriculture itself.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Keppelhoff-Wiechert">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I will readily admit that I am not one of the fans of this report but, Mrs Roth-Behrendt, you are an intelligent woman!
I am just trying to imagine what would happen if we included game.
Everyone knows that you can become very ill from eating certain meals.
You can become ill from eating game.
That sets off a train of thought: where was the pheasant bought?
Who shot it?
In what area did it live, or did it in fact fly through various different areas?
Or maybe it flew across border areas?
I live in a hunting family near the Dutch border.
I wonder whether this pheasant might have eaten defective seeds, or perhaps even genetically modified maize?
In what field?
On which farmer's land?
Or perhaps the animal feed was defective?
I am just posing one or two questions of this kind, Mrs Roth-Behrendt.
The issue is a very serious one, but I believe we must at least try to explain the feasibility of what we are setting in motion here.
<P>
I also have a few questions about the period for lodging claims.
This is a very serious matter, but when you say that ten years is not enough, I as a layman simply have to ask the lawyers: will that mean in future that the person who inherits a farm will somehow or other also have to take over the product liability of the person who left it to him, such as his father, or what does it mean?
I just think that the Commission has presented us with a proposal which is not completely thought through and still needs a good deal more work.
I have learned by now that we cannot restrict the Commission's right to propose, but what we can do is to call for a revised and better Commission proposal than the one we have before us here today.
<P>
I think that when we reach that point, it is most important to us, in terms of agriculture, that we also include more of the earlier stages, the seed distributors, the genetically modified products and so forth.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schierhuber">
<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mosiek-Urbahn">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as a member of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights I fully endorse Mr Casini's views and would point out that this position was decided almost unanimously, regardless of group.
Moreover, I would point out that Parliament has often and on the most diverse occasions called for better legislation and stipulated as a basic requirement that in the context of legislation we urgently need to hear the economic circles involved and then also to evaluate the impact on costs.
<P>
It is not acceptable for Parliament simply to ignore these requirements.
I do not want to go into the substance of Mrs RothBehrendt's amendments.
It may well be that it is useful to change the ceilings on liability, for some areas at least.
It may well be that it is useful to change the deadlines for lodging claims, or even to alter the burden of proof.
I do not wish to go into any of that today; what I consider both urgent and essential is that we at least observe the requirements which we impose on the Commission, which has the right of initiative, when we put forward our own amendments.
<P>
I think we would be disqualifying ourselves as Members if we disregarded those requirements.
The argument that keeps being put forward, namely that the kind of rules Mrs Roth-Behrendt has in mind would offer the consumer more protection, is not good enough.
If we want more protection for the consumer, then to be quite safe, we should immediately say that we must not eat any more meat or produce any more meat.
But that would certainly be a disproportionate reaction.
I think we really must argue rather more pragmatically and less emotionally here, which would serve our purpose better.
We shall have an opportunity to discuss the matter more pragmatically when the Commission has, as announced, revised its proposal for a directive, so that all these arguments can be reviewed.
That will be the right time to do so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="Roth-Behrendt">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am not assuming that I can change people's opinions this evening.
It would be naive of anyone to believe that they could still persuade others during this kind of debate.
But let me address some of the objections which have been raised, starting with those of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights - sadly Mr Casini is no longer here, but Mr De Clercq and Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn are.
I find it interesting that these objections come from a committee which is not very often faced with legislation - unlike my committee - but when it is, does exactly what you reproach me with, namely takes it further.
<P>
Let me ask you to consider what you did with the patents directive.
You legislated on something that was not in the Commission proposal, and I would ask you to consider what you did on designer protection, for instance, on the question of harmonising Community law on designed or protected products.
You invented entirely new rules on compensation. That was not in the Commission proposal!
So what about the Commission's right of initiative?
There seems to be a slight confusion here between dreams and reality.
You bring it up when it is politically opportune.
I have nothing against you arguing that the content of my amendments is wrong.
We can discuss that.
But admissibility is not really a level at which we should be holding a discussion.
<P>
Let me say something about their content.
Those of you who say that I am overstepping the mark in my proposals are forgetting one thing. You cannot logically say, both here and outside in front of your voters, yes, we want to draw conclusions from the BSE crisis, and then accept some of what the Commission is doing but for the rest say: that is going too far for me!
Anyone who knows me is aware that the last thing I am afraid of is difficulties.
<P>
The speaker who suggested that a moment ago should know me better.
She knows quite well that difficulties are more likely to spur me on.
I have no problem with being outvoted, nor has my group.
We shall vote in favour, and then we can explain why.
Of course I can understand why some Members have said that we are being precipitate.
From their point of view it is of course precipitate, because if a Member State transposes legislation ten years too late, in 1998 instead of 1988, it will not necessarily want it to be amended again just a few months later.
That is not the level at which we should be arguing either.
<P>
I can understand you saying that we need a detailed discussion.
We will be having it.
We are still at first reading.
The Commission will now have to sit down with the Council when, as I hope, Parliament has adopted some if not all of the amendments tomorrow.
Then we will be presented with a common position, and you may be sure that the Commission will then involve all the circles concerned, industry and others, which have of course long since begun to use their influence and have also spoken with me.
And I think it is entirely legitimate to try to achieve the widest possible agreement, but agreement for all concerned, not just for the industry but also for the consumers.
<P>
I have not turned the burden of proof on its head.
Anyone who says that has not understood.
I have merely changed the burden of proof for products that no longer exist.
A person who has suffered damage still has to prove it.
Tomorrow we shall have a chance to show that we were serious about dealing with the BSE scandal, and tomorrow you will be able to demonstrate through your vote, in a roll-call vote, whether you were being serious or not.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="Monti">
Mr President, the proposal for a directive being debated today is a response to the European Parliament's recommendation following the BSE crisis.
This called for a proposal no later than September 1997 to extend the no-fault civil liability system provided for by Directive 85/374/EEC to primary agricultural products and game.
I emphasise the date of September 1997, which was actually set by the European Parliament to encourage us to act more swiftly.
So the Commission considered it appropriate to put forward a proposal within the suggested deadline, and did so on 1 October 1997.
<P>
The 1985 Directive gave consumers the right to compensation for injury resulting from a defective product without having to prove that the producer was at fault.
By extending this right to the agricultural sector, the Commission - and this is a point I want to emphasise - has actually taken up an idea which was already present in its initial proposal from 1976.
All the parliamentary committees which have examined the text, and in particular the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, support this principle.
However, the committee responsible in Parliament wants the proposal approved subject to the inclusion of a number of amendments, which can be broadly divided into two groups.
Here I want to thank Mrs Roth-Behrendt, the rapporteur, along with Mr Lehne and the other Members, for tabling compromise amendments which we have examined very carefully.
<P>
The amendments in the first group are broadly intended to revise the basic 1985 Directive well beyond the Commission's objective, which is limited to extending the directive to primary agricultural products: these are Amendments Nos 3 to 9 and 11 to 15, on the burden of proof, risks in new developments, psychological injury, immunity, time-barring of rights, maximum liability and revision of the directive in 2000.
The second group of amendments seek to specify certain points exclusively concerning agricultural inputs: these are Amendments Nos 1 and 2 on liability for intermediate products and means of production, and Amendment No 10 on the obligation to submit a report on the implementation of the directive in 2002.
<P>
As regards the first group of amendments, the Commission understands the concerns which led Mrs Roth-Behrendt to propose substantial changes to the basic directive, wider than the current proposal and the European Parliament's initial recommendation.
But the issues raised by Amendments Nos 3 to 9 and 11 to 15 call for more detailed examination than is carried out in the committee's report.
That examination should take place in a wider context than the BSE crisis.
The Commission takes the view that the next report on the implementation of the directive, which the Commission is to present to Parliament and the Council in 2000, may provide the best and most appropriate occasion for it.
The report will be preceded by a Green Paper and full consultation open to all interested sectors.
So I can confirm - for Mr Grossetête in particular - that we will issue the Green Paper before 1 January 2000.
Two horizontal aspects - development risks unknown at the time when the product is marketed, and financial ceilings - will need to be looked at particularly carefully. Other points to be covered in this general examination will be statutory limitation periods, traceability, burden of proof, types of injury covered, etcetera.
The socio-economic importance of the directive - several speakers made this point - means we cannot make do with hasty solutions.
<P>
On behalf of the Commission, I can say that we fully support the aims of Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 10 - the second group.
But in our opinion these amendments are superfluous because a correct interpretation of Articles 2 and 3 of the 1985 Directive, which make all participants in the production process liable, including producers of means of production and intermediate products, and of Article 21, which requires the Commission to present a report on the implementation of the directive every five years, does, we feel, make it possible to meet the stated objectives in full.
So the Commission cannot adopt those amendments.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I hope what I have said can reassure those defending the legitimate interests of farmers by means of Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 10.
I also hope the European Parliament can support this approach when the time comes to vote tomorrow, and thus allow the Council to examine the proposal in turn, with a view to adopting a common position.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Culture 2000
<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="Mouskouri">
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, it is a great honour and at the same time a responsibility for me to present the report on the Commission proposal concerning the 'Culture 2000-2004' framework programme here today.
<P>
The beginning of that programme coincides with the beginning of the new millennium and signals a new era for the European Community and for Europe's citizens.
Perhaps more than anyone else, the programme concerns young Europeans, those who will build our future on the basis of the diversity of European culture.
With this new programme, culture is for the first time being dealt with as a whole within the framework of a single programme which replaces the three existing ones.
<P>
The Commission's proposal was indeed ambitious, but it lacked transparency and detail.
For that reason, the new programme would have been difficult to implement and would not be accessible to Europe's citizens.
The report I am presenting to you today attempts to correct certain flaws.
I think we all agree that culture is not something abstract, but has a specific content.
Today indeed, more than ever, it is a many-sided industry which creates new jobs.
Besides, the field of culture is directly related to the sectors of education and training.
European culture with all its diversity has direct need of our support if it is to survive and develop.
<P>
The first important change relates to the programme's title: the term 'cultural cooperation' covers neither the content, nor the structure, nor the aims of the new programme.
We therefore propose the term 'cultural policy', thus laying the foundations for a genuine Community policy in the area of culture.
For the structure of the programme, we propose to approach culture sector by sector, with vertical activities.
This will make the actions more appropriate in each case, taking into account the special needs of each cultural sector, but also allowing horizontal synergies to enhance cooperation with other programmes.
<P>
As regards the implementation of the programme, we believe that the Member States and the Commission will have to cooperate closely.
We therefore propose an advisory committee comprising a representative from each Member State.
Alongside it will work a subcommittee comprising experts proposed by the Member States.
In that way, the states will become actively involved in the programme's implementation.
Appraisal of the programme is essential to ensure transparency and projection, and we therefore propose that the Commission should periodically assess its results in collaboration with the Member States.
<P>
I would also like to mention the development of European cultural resources.
With those, we want on the one hand to ensure the propagation of the programme at national and regional level so that it will be accessible to local agencies as well.
On the other hand, we want cooperation and coordination between the Commission and the Member States, as is necessary if the programme is to succeed.
<P>
Before finishing, I should like to stress two more points.
The first concerns cultural cooperation agreements.
We have repeatedly asked the Commission to show us a sample of those agreements, because we still do not know what exactly they contain.
The second point I want to mention is the budget.
The budget proposed by the Commission is very low.
With ECU 167 million the programme will be condemned to fail, and we therefore propose ECU 250 million, because we believe that is the absolute minimum for the realisation of so important a programme.
Let us not forget that the new programme concerns Europe's cultural future for which we bear full responsibility on behalf of young people in Europe.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the past the European Parliament has often expressed the importance it attaches to culture and to Europe's cultural future.
By adopting the report we are putting before you, we will be giving culture the position it deserves.
In parallel, we will be confirming our political will to support cultural activity in the European Union and to create a single European cultural area within which the cultural individualities and values of our countries can flourish and develop.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="Christodoulou">
Mr President, I want to congratulate Mrs Mouskouri on all her hard work and the report she has produced.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, this is an ambitious programme based in principle on Article 128 of the Treaty, and which I feel will develop into something much more important than it seems at present.
For exactly that reason the presentation of this action in the form of a multiannual framework programme aims precisely to ensure cohesion and greater effectiveness, on the basis of the principle of subsidiarity.
And of course, that is not a feature of large programmes alone.
Programmes which begin in a more modest way can also develop along those lines.
Of course, a degree of flexibility is needed. It is a programme which will develop as time goes by.
We do not know what form it will eventually take, because the actions undertaken are new and pioneering and the European Parliament has a very important role to play because many proposals will have to be monitored so that the funds allocated can be properly absorbed.
That is precisely why the amount of funding, which in Mrs Mouskouri's proposal is increased from ECU 167 to 250 million, is - let me remind you - not a spending target and is subject to the rules of proper financial management and budgetary control.
<P>
We also ought to remember that the general financial framework has not yet been approved. That sum, then, if used correctly and with the flexibility we have tried to incorporate in our proposals, can be a factor which develops the programme very substantially.
Later on, if it turns out that more capital is required, the necessary adaptations can be made.
Besides, according to the statement of 6 March 1995, that sum is a preferential reference for the Budget Authority in the context of the annual budget procedure.
Consequently, the amount proposed should not create conflict between the Council and Parliament or polarisation within the Council itself.
Let me explain that in the Committee on Budgets we did not increase the sum proposed by the Commission, but in the spirit of the statement of 6 March 1995 we proposed that it should be possible to review the sum within the annual budget procedure, up to a level of 20 %.
If the possibility of co-finance is also taken into account, the sum becomes even bigger.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, it must be said that this programme, which has of course taken some considerable time to be worked out by the Commission, has eventually taken shape and generated proposals, and Mrs Mouskouri's excellent report ratifies and improves them.
But it is a very important programme, especially for Kaleidoscope and Ariane, because it ensures that the continuity of those programmes is not interrupted.
Activities bound up with them will continue while we wait for final approval of the general financial perspectives, on the basis of which matters will develop in what I hope will be the best way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sanz Fernández">
Mr President, the Commission's proposal to establish the European Union's first framework programme for culture comes in response to wishes expressed by both the Council and the European Parliament.
Although it respects and shares the objectives of the Commission's proposal, the Committee on Culture has nevertheless approved substantial amendments which essentially concern the structure of the programme.
<P>
Given the lack of precision in the Commission's text, the Committee on Culture wishes to see a programme in which the specific sectors targeted by the framework programme will be clear from the outset.
It would like it to be established, from the beginning, exactly how much importance will be given to the various cultural sectors - heritage, music, literature and so on - throughout the programme. According to the proposal put forward by the Commission, the Commission itself would establish priorities and make unilateral decisions on the relative importance of each of these sectors during the lifetime of the programme, in other words over the next five years.
<P>
Nevertheless, we accept a number of innovations which the Commission has incorporated into its text, for instance the creation of a field for horizontal actions, integrating activities from a range of cultural sectors into a single project.
On the other hand, we differ from the Commission in that we feel that the essential features of the current programmes must be preserved, because the results have been satisfactory, even though the expectations aroused far exceed what the budget for the programmes has allowed. In defending its proposal, however, the Commission is very critical of the results of current programmes.
<P>
It is for this reason, therefore, that the Socialist Group joins the Committee on Culture - unanimously - in supporting the amendment aimed at setting a budget of ECU 250 million for five years, against the ECU 167 million proposed by the Commission.
<P>
Expenditure on essential programmes in the field of Community cultural action has been curtailed in recent years, as was the case with the Raphael programme, for instance. The European Commission's own expectations of this programme as stated in its 1995 proposal have therefore fallen well short of being realised.
In the financial statement for that proposal, the Commission anticipated expenditure of ECU 15 million for 1999.
Parliament had hoped to increase it by some 40 %.
In the event, opposition from a few Member States resulted, after conciliation, in a much reduced budget amounting to ECU 8.8 million for 1999. This was far less than the 15 million proposed by the Commission and indeed less than the expenditure on cultural heritage in the years prior to 1996, in other words when we were implementing pilot actions.
<P>
That was in fact the very programme which the Culture Commissioner had hoped would be the flagship for the European Union's cultural action.
Perhaps we all lacked the determination to push that proposal forward.
<P>
We Socialists believe that the time has at last come for culture and European citizens to play a decisive role in the building of Europe.
It is therefore very important for this programme to be supported - it is not a particularly ambitious one - and so the Socialist Group will support the amendments and Mrs Mouskouri's report as a whole.
I congratulate her on her work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldi">
<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Guinebertière">
Mr President, my first task must be to congratulate Mrs Mouskouri on her excellent work - a Greek singer was surely the ideal person to carry out this work in our committee.
<P>
' Culture 2000' represents the European Union's cultural approach for the next few years and into the 21st century.
I completely support the idea of new guidelines for a programme which embodies cooperation between Member States in this area.
What has the Commission proposed?
To gather within one programme the Kaleidoscope, Ariane and Raphael programmes which have allowed 1 400 cultural projects to benefit from financial support from the Union.
Various countries of the Union, in partnership, have therefore been able, through cultural and artistic events, to develop the richness of our heritage, the diversity of our culture and the value of its complementarity.
<P>
Unfortunately, it must be pointed out that although 1 400 projects were helped, 9 000 were proposed.
I will leave it to you to work out the number of rejections.
How can we improve on this when there is widespread criticism about both the distribution of resources and the problems of access for everyone?
The complementarity between the work proposed by the Commission and that carried out by Mrs Mouskouri, unanimously supported by the entire Committee on Culture, should give the citizens of Europe a balanced programme allowing small, medium and large projects to go ahead each at their own level, and I am very pleased about this.
I believe that this is the best way to ensure greater participation and improved access to culture for everyone in each of the sectors concerned.
<P>
In a Europe which seems to be increasingly controlled by bankers and stock markets, we need to recognise the true value of the benefits of cultural expression.
Culture is a source of new jobs and I must take this opportunity to say how much I regret that the European Parliament has not had the chance to discuss the Commission's working document on 'Cultural industry and employment' which underlined the immense source of jobs to be exploited without delay.
Specifically, the audiovisual and tourism sectors have also been identified as the most hopeful in this area.
<P>
To conclude, I must mention the globalisation of trade and the cultural challenges linked to this, and I should therefore like to express my support for a policy which ensures respect for and the promotion of cultural diversity, both in the countries of central and eastern Europe and in the developing countries whose cultural sectors Europe, through agreements, is supporting as a full component of economic development.
Have not those pleading the case of culture also won another victory against the OECD, which had decided to deal with investment questions without distinction between products, but was forced to give way?
<P>
In order not to fail in my parliamentary duty, I must point out that the resources allocated for this policy are too limited.
I hope that the ECU 250 million voted by the Committee on Culture will be adopted by the Council of Ministers.
The scope of this programme clearly deserves this amount.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, first of all I should like to congratulate the Commission and the DG concerned, because they took the first steps and understood the need to draw together and unify cultural measures which have hitherto been fragmented and were not guided by a common rationale and a single policy in the field of culture.
<P>
Of course, I would like to offer particular congratulations to the rapporteur, Mrs Mouskouri, who has I think upgraded, improved, developed and, if you will, broadened the horizons of the Commission's proposals.
I believe that with proper cooperation between the European Parliament and the Commission, we can achieve results in the area of culture, which is unfortunately one of the European Union's major failings.
All too often we restrict our attentions to the democratic or social deficit, but unfortunately we also face a cultural deficit because if, indeed, the construction of a united Europe with a multicultural dimension, with peoples and intellectual and artistic potentials that derive from different sources, different histories, different languages and ways of life, if the effort to build that is a historic one, it must be accompanied by a major cultural efflorescence and explosion.
<P>
We cannot say that there is a cultural desert in Europe, but unfortunately cultural processes, particularly where young people are concerned, move along parallel lines and for that reason do not converge with the European Union.
From that standpoint substantial initiatives are needed on the part of the European Union if we are to make contact with cultural forces which, just as much as the European Parliament's resolutions and legislation, just as much as the economic rules we establish, and in their own intangible way, will largely influence the building, character and personality of this original enterprise of global importance and historic depth which we are undertaking.
<P>
From that perspective I agree with Mrs Mouskouri's basic observations.
I think it is very important that the sum set aside to support this programme should be increased to ECU 250 million.
It is also important to keep records and ensure transparency in relation to the activities that take place and of course, with my experience as a Greek MEP and with the widespread disappointment I note in many who have proposed various projects for programmes which subsequently fail because of inadequate funding, I too would like to say that it is very important to support more of these operators and, especially, to do what we can to relieve them of the burden of strict bureaucratic control by the European Union, though this does not mean that there will be a lack of transparency and financial monitoring.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="Kerr">
Mr President, firstly I congratulate Nana Mouskouri on a very good report.
She has a great name in music already and she will now have a great name in cultural policy in Europe.
As President of Friends of Music I have been very supportive and worked with Nana Mouskouri in the committee on this.
In particular, I want to pay tribute to her for the section on music policy.
Music is very important in the European Union.
Some 350, 000 people are employed in the music industry and there is a turnover over ECU 15 billion per year.
This report will help to strengthen that in terms of training, education - which is very important - and supporting musical projects on which this Parliament has taken the lead, such as the European Youth Orchestra.
Recently I went to the European Youth Opera in Baden Baden to see that launched and it is a great success.
For the first time we are going to fund a European jazz orchestra, the European Youth Jazz Swinging Europe which I also welcome.
<P>
Clearly there needs to be more money as Nana Mouskouri says in her report.
We need to fund the big projects in Europe and the small ones.
With an expanded budget we can do that.
We should take account of the very good advice from the European Federation for the Arts and Heritage which has just produced a conference report.
I hope Commissioner Oreja has read that and will respond to the very good suggestions that EFAH gives us as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Féret">
Mr President, as a European citizen I am obviously delighted by the establishment of a new financing instrument for cultural cooperation in Europe.
The Commission has finally realised the vital fact that Europe is more than just a vast free trade area.
<P>
However, there is a large shadow hanging over this instrument.
The forecast budget of ECU 167 million for five years is derisory.
I fully agree with the rapporteur in her request for more funds - ECU 250 million - to be spent on encouraging the development of our European heritage, greater participation and improved access for citizens to cultural activities. I also agree with Mrs Mouskouri's view that culture is a way of affirming our identity to other people.
<P>
Thanks to Mrs Mouskouri, we, the children of Athena, are no longer orphans.
I will therefore be voting unreservedly and enthusiastically for her report.
This vote, together with those on the creation of the euro and the enlargement of the European Union to the countries of eastern Europe, is the most important, in my opinion, since I was first elected to this Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="Tongue">
Mr President, like everyone else, I would like to pay tribute to the rapporteur for her hard work.
I should also like to thank the Commission for making real this proposal for a single framework for culture, reflecting the political will expressed in Article 128.
As everyone has said, it is high time for us to have a common approach and coherence and some common goals in European Union cultural policy that add value to the actions that nation states take.
It is time we give a clear voice for our common cultural endeavour and in this sense I would wholeheartedly endorse what Mr Alavanos has said.
<P>
We should have had a longer debate. One conference was not really enough.
We could not just sweep aside Ariane, Raphael and Kaleidoscope and we had to reconcile apparently contradictory aims.
This Parliament, on the one hand, rightly said that we need to support many small projects and operators because we see those on the ground.
On the other hand, we must have far greater visibility and cultural policy should be visible across all Community action.
This is very hard when only 17 % of cultural action will in any sense come from this programme.
As we know, the big cultural money is coming particularly from the structural funds.
<P>
So what Nana Mouskouri attempted to achieve, and why she won support in our committee, was to build on Ariane, Raphael and Kaleidoscope and the best of that, but also to reflect the views of the Commission in creating a horizontal perspective which takes into account the same proposal the Commission has made to achieve the creation of networks, inter-disciplinary projects and big symbolic projects.
<P>
In my own constituency there is something called the Summer University of East London.
It is one of the most magnificent cultural educational events in the whole of London but has always fallen between two stools and not managed to get funding.
It is that kind of endeavour that should and can be supported under the kind of proposals we are putting forward.
So we are suggesting a compromise of the best from the past but also that you must put a spotlight on European cultural action by large projects.
I am confident we can find agreement between the institutions.
This has to be part of the cornerstone of the People's Europe.
That is absolutely vital and I always say that the European Union cannot live by commercialism alone.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Vaz da Silva">
Mr President, a framework programme for culture is a step forward towards asserting the fact that culture should be playing the role of vehicle and lynchpin in the process of European construction.
Europe needs to define itself through a horizontal cultural policy cutting across all policies.
That should be its trademark for the next century.
<P>
The Commission's Culture 2000 Programme had many positive aspects: it is a multiannual programme, integrating different sectors. But it also had some serious gaps.
The Mouskouri report has managed to reduce those gaps, thanks to a good deal of work and a constructive approach, which I recognise and salute. Nonetheless certain aspects that I would have liked to have seen included have been left to one side, and I would like to mention two in particular: the budget and cultural diversity.
<P>
The European institutions' recent discovery that culture promotes social development, internal cohesion and citizenship, and makes Europe more outwardly visible, has inexplicably and ludicrously not been reflected in the budget.
It is a mistake to think that shaving a little off the culture budget results in only slightly fewer projects.
The question is: either we spend enough to create the critical mass for culture to bear fruit, by encouraging quality, individually or socially, or we decide to give culture peanuts.
<P>
A European Union worthy of its own history and aware of the challenges facing it, such as enlargement and worldwide competition, must radically change the approach it has taken to grow to its present size.
It is now and not later that the European Union must become both an economic and cultural union.
It must assert that political will by indexing the culture budget at a realistic percentage of the Community budget as a whole.
To begin with, at least ECU 250 million.
That would be a signal people could understand.
<P>
As for cultural diversity, culture cannot be dealt with like some statistic, defined once and for all.
Culture is in perpetual motion and knows no boundaries.
The European programme for culture, if it is to play a useful role, must be broadly based and flexible so that it can ...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hawlicek">
Mr President, I should particularly like to thank Nana Mouskouri for all her hard work on this Culture 2000 report, and I support her central demand for more funding.
If - and this appeal is addressed to the Commission - we really mean what this programme says, that culture is to be at the heart of European integration, a touchstone of Europe's values and a driving force in society, then it is really only right and proper that the funding should be increased to ECU 250 million, as our committee recommends.
It is a disgrace that it currently only receives 0.003 % of the budget, and many people involved in cultural projects are disappointed when their applications for funding have to be rejected.
<P>
I should particularly like to stress the commitment shown by our chairman, Peter Pex, who will be speaking shortly, by the whole of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, and by the President-in-Office of the Council, Dr Peter Wittmann, who tried to convince his colleagues of the need to increase the budget at the informal Culture Ministers Council meeting in Linz.
I only hope that the meeting of the Culture Ministers Council scheduled for 17 November will also approve the increase in funding, so that a first common position can be drawn up.
<P>
I also support Mrs Mouskouri's proposed amendments to divide the programme into different cultural fields, as previous programmes have been, and to promote cultural networks, small and innovative projects, long-term promotional measures and the broad involvement of culturally underprivileged groups of the population.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stenzel">
Mr President, if I could begin again, I would start with culture.
This statement by the great European political figure Jean Monnet clearly illustrates the importance of culture in the European integration process.
The European Union is not just an economic community, but a community of values incorporating a wide range of languages and cultures.
Europe must be made into something that people can experience and understand, which is why I welcome the proposals in this excellent report for getting people involved in cultural activities.
Due recognition is also given to the employment aspects of culture at European level.
<P>
The requirement is that three Member States must be involved if cultural events or projects to be carried out by partnerships or networks are to receive funding.
However, it must be ensured here that the Commission provides the necessary infrastructure so that finding partners does not become an insuperable barrier.
Applicants would find things a good deal easier if more help was provided on the Internet or through data banks, and if there was greater transparency and more information on the programmes.
<P>
The Commission's proposal of ECU 167 million per year will certainly not be enough to put these proposals into practice, but if we look at the amounts being spent on other programmes, the European Parliament's demands for ECU 250 million per year will probably also be too little.
The report rightly calls for consultation with cultural operators about the implementation of the programme, and we should encourage the establishment of European cultural centres in the Member States to ensure constant contact with the various aid institutes.
This would be another important step in the development of a comprehensive European cultural policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Pex">
Mr President, of course I too must compliment Mrs Mouskouri on the outcome of all her hard work and dedication to the future of cultural policy, because that is what we are talking about today.
I congratulate the members of the Committee on Culture too for the fact that their dedication and cooperation have brought us to the point of debating this important proposal in record time.
And lastly, I must pay tribute to Commissioner Oreja and his officials for their creative effort in preparing this proposal for a decision.
<P>
But actually the work is only just beginning.
What we need is good interinstitutional cooperation to implement the policy plans we shall be agreeing today.
I have some grave misgivings about these, because in reality we have three proposals here - a Commission proposal, a Parliament proposal and this weekend I saw a Council proposal too which is markedly different from what you have heard here this evening.
<P>
I worry too about the Council's intentions with regard to the budget.
What are our good intentions going to come to?
I see cultural policy as pivotal to European policies as a whole.
I would venture to say that, without a good cultural policy, the deepening and widening of the European Union is in jeopardy.
So we need to work together with Europe's cultural institutions too, because they have the know-how and the vigour to implement the plans prompted by policy.
<P>
I hope the Commissioner will reassure us presently that he will back us in impressing upon the Council shortly that we want to see a good outcome to the conciliation process, not the frustration of having to change our policy and end up choosing between half a loaf and no bread.
I hope we can agree and get a satisfactory result, ideally before Christmas.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="Oreja">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to congratulate Mrs Mouskouri and the Committee on Culture on this report.
It is a thorough and detailed study, providing clear evidence of Parliament's commitment to the cultural sector and demonstrating its determination to establish a European model of society in which culture plays the important part it should.
In this context, it is entirely appropriate to develop a framework programme in support of this sensitive and important sector and to ensure also that our citizens become more involved in building the new Europe.
<P>
In keeping with the letter and the spirit of Article 128 of the Treaty, the aim of the framework programme is to promote a common cultural area as a means of fostering creativity, cooperation and exchanges. It should also facilitate the preservation and dissemination of the common cultural heritage of European interest and the history of the peoples of Europe, and raise awareness of the cultures of Member States.
The framework programme is based on a transparent global vision. Its objectives and structure are more general and, we believe, more complete than those of the first generation of cultural programmes.
<P>
Moving on to the amendments, the Commission can accept the majority of the 31 amendments put forward by Parliament.
It accepts Amendments Nos 2, 5, 6, 7, 9, 13 and 21, in the sense that they improve the text of the Commission's proposal.
The Commission accepts the spirit of Amendments Nos 12, 23, 28, 29 and 31, and in part the spirit of Amendments Nos 10, 15 and 19.
Finally, the Commission accepts Amendments Nos 4 and 14 in part, as they are in line with the Commission's proposals.
<P>
Nevertheless, the Commission wishes to maintain its initial position in the case of 14 amendments, which are as follows.
With regard to Amendments Nos 1, 3, and 11, the Commission cannot accept the references to cultural policy and a single market for culture in certain recitals. This is because the Treaty only provides for action to support cooperation between Member States and cultural operators and thus only allows for the creation of a common cultural area for all Europeans.
<P>
Concerning Amendment No 8, the Commission wishes to retain the entire phrase in the recital, as it is an integral part of the text of Agenda 2000.
<P>
With regard to Amendments Nos 4 and 14, the Commission cannot accept the reference to 'affirmation of identity vis-à-vis third parties', and prefers to retain the notion of dialogue with cultures in the outside world.
<P>
As for Amendments Nos 17 and 20 on the implementation of the programme, it is the Commission's view that cooperation with Member States should be taken for granted, and should not appear in the heading of Article 4.
In any case, the Commission uses its executive powers to ensure constant consultation with professionals. It does not therefore wish a specific reference to this to be included in Article 4.
<P>
In connection with the follow-up to the programme, no requirement exists for the Economic and Social Committee to be consulted on matters of culture.
The Commission therefore does not accept this reference, nor that concerning the follow-up to the programme, since a long, complex and costly process would result.
<P>
The other amendments accepted or rejected in part by the Commission relate to four main issues: the types of cultural actions, the budget, comitology and measures for implementation.
<P>
As regards the types of actions referred to in Amendments Nos 15 and 23, the spirit of which is acceptable in part, and in Amendment No 22 which is rejected, the Commission understands Parliament's desire to ensure that every cultural and artistic discipline is covered by the programme, and it agrees to the inclusion of the notions of vertical and horizontal measures in Article 2 and also, for reference, in the annex.
<P>
However, it is the Commission's view that allocating a percentage of the financial package to each cultural sector may be detrimental to the quality of the projects seeking support. It could also mean that the organisation of the programme would be too rigid, and that in practice it would prove difficult to administer.
<P>
Concerning the budget - Amendment No 16 - the Commission is grateful to Parliament for demonstrating once again its interest in and support for the Community's cultural action.
It is bound to point out, however, that the proposed budget of ECU 167 million was arrived at on the basis of the budget programming authorised by our institutions and may only be revised by the two arms of the budgetary authority, Parliament and the Council.
<P>
As regards comitology - Amendment No 18 - the Commission would like to remind the House that this issue is being dealt with in horizontal negotiation within the framework of an interinstitutional agreement.
In addition, the Commission feels that a joint committee is the appropriate means of guaranteeing the implementation of the framework programme, and it cannot accept the inclusion of a subcommittee, since this is not in line with any of the types of committee approved by the three institutions.
<P>
On the measures for implementation - Amendments Nos 24, 25, 26, and 27 - such measures are generally published by the Commission in the Official Journal, where information on decisions taken by our institutions is provided for the benefit of practising professionals.
<P>
Parliament has included very specific details on implementation in its text, going so far as to fix the percentages to be allocated to each cultural area. In so doing, Parliament has introduced terms which could hamper the implementation of the programme and its efficiency.
In particular, they would make it harder to simplify procedures, one of the main priorities for both the cultural operators and our institutions.
<P>
With regard to the reduction of the minimum contribution to specific actions from ECU 50 000 to ECU 40 000, the Commission believes that although this amendment is intended to facilitate access for relatively small cultural projects, there is a risk of encouraging more projects in this category to apply than can be provided for, given the budgetary restrictions. The dispersal of funds would therefore be replicated and not prevented as had been intended.
In the long run, this would generate discontent rather than satisfaction amongst the cultural operators.
<P>
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, that is the Commission's position.
I should like to thank Parliament once again for its report. It is a thorough and detailed document, produced in record time, thus demonstrating Parliament's efficiency.
I trust that all these contributions will enable us to consolidate a Community programme which is entirely visible to our people, to our creative spirits and to all European cultural operators.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 8.27 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Removing obstacles to trade
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0385/98) by Mr Skinner, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation creating a mechanism whereby the Commission can intervene in order to remove certain obstacles to trade (COM(97)0619 - C4-0011/98-9348/98 - C4-0441/98-97/0330(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 NAME="Skinner">
Mr President, this has been quite a controversial report from start to finish, and it is not over yet.
Indeed, you will not find it surprising that I take the view that we should be consistent as a parliament.
We should not be engaged in facile, political posturing but we should be involved very directly and very earnestly in trying to engineer something which benefits the citizens and the companies of the European Union in effectively building up the trade and wealth of the Union so that we can create jobs and on that basis alleviate poverty and all the other worst aspects of our society.
I am sure Members will agree with me in this respect.
<P>
However, I have to say that as somebody from the south-east region in the United Kingdom I have had to recognise that there are good things and bad things which come out of the EU.
One of the worst aspects has been the effects of port blockades which cause delays.
<P>
(Interruptions from Mr Kerr) I understand, Mr President, that Mr Kerr will have an opportunity to speak in a moment.
In Kent, in the south-east of England, we have had to deal with some pretty severe problems.
In particular, there were lorries parked all along the M20 which for many people in the south-east, the most populous region in the United Kingdom, is not good.
This behaviour on the part of the EU does not lead to a sophisticated debate in terms of the EU and leaves people in the UK, as elsewhere in the EU, second-guessing what can be done to assist the process of free movement of trade.
<P>
(Interruption from Mr Kerr: What about the workers, we say!)
The previous document, introduced by the Commission after the Council had asked it to intervene, introduced an specific instrument to allow the Commission to act very quickly in such occurrences.
The single European market implies no barriers to trade and therefore the Treaty has a legal framework whereby we permit the free movement of trade.
In practice, as I have said already, the obligation does not allow that free movement of trade.
At worst it is ignored and at best it is conveniently forgotten.
Whether it be British hill farmers or French lorry drivers does not matter. It should not happen.
<P>
The Commission document dealt with this and attracted much attention at the time.
Of course it did not receive popular consent and support in Parliament, primarily because it erred in two particular directions: in the area of subsidiarity where national governments would be held by their own courts to be responsible on the basis of interpreting Community law and also because of the expression of fundamental human rights, in particular the right to industrial action and strike.
So it was rejected in the European Parliament, referred back to the Council and the Council came back with a reworked document.
This modified text corrected both these particular problems and so we have before us in this plenary a report which Parliament, Commission and Council have jointly agreed is a progressive text.
It is one that allows us to speed up the legislative procedure, allows companies and citizens to have their rights respected within the European Union but does not damage the social fabric on which industrial relations is based across the Community.
<P>
These are important considerations when we come to inspect any legislation in the area and movement of trade.
We should remember that this particular instrument comes under Article 7(a).
It does not deal in any respect with the social agenda.
What we should call for is for the social agenda to be equally respected and I call upon the Commission ...
<P>
(Interruption from Mr Kerr) I hope you will add on time, Mr President, for the interruptions I am getting from my colleague.
I call in my report upon the Commission and the Council to make special provision for an equal balance to be given within the EU to ensure equal treatment for workers as well as capital.
<P>
With regard to the amendments, these from the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights which clarify the issues and to put any attempt by governments to change the situation immediately onto the Commission website rather than into the Official Journal would be of benefit.
I note with interest that the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs supports my own views about the equal treatment of capital and workers.
However, that is best placed as a political statement rather than changing the text itself.
This would allow us to breathe much more easily and allow this text through.
I think this report will be seen as a quite ground-breaking.
It will really help the companies of the European Union.
<P>
(Interruption from Mr Kerr: What about the assembly of workers?)
And I believe that most of the European Union will thank us for making this sensible and progressive move forward instead of what we have had to live with over recent decades.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, let me begin by commenting on the extraordinary qualities of the rapporteur, Mr Skinner, who has displayed common sense and legal responsibility alongside political instinct and the ability to listen throughout the lengthy parliamentary progress of this report.
I should also like to mention Mr Wijsenbeek, whose earlier suggestions reflect a strong determination to achieve European integration and a shared concern to protect the interests of our citizens.
<P>
The regulation we are considering should be seen in the context of the Commission's document presented in November 1997, as the speaker rightly said.
That text raised many legal problems. For instance, it threatened to affect the balance between the institutions laid down in the Treaty.
For this reason, Parliament welcomed the new text from the Council, submitted last July, which has led to the report now before us.
The main difference is the elimination of the Commission's decision-making instrument, which was presenting the most difficulties.
<P>
The Committee on Legal Affairs gave priority to considering two aspects: the proposal's legal base and its added value.
Article 235 of the Treaty is proposed as a legal base. According to the case-law, it is applicable under the following conditions: when the aim is to fulfil one of the Community's objectives regarding the operation of the market; when the Treaty does not make specific provision for the case at issue; and when the action sought is necessary.
<P>
The Committee on Legal Affairs queried whether the second condition pertained in this case.
However, it eventually decided that the revised text did not involve harmonisation procedures, which are covered by Article 100a. As a result, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights agrees entirely that Article 235 provides an appropriate legal base.
<P>
With regard to the added value of the amendments, the Committee on Legal Affairs endorses the relevance of Amendments Nos 11, 13 and 14.
However, it is aware that integrating them successfully into the framework of primary legislation will not be without its problems. It should be remembered that, according to Article 191, it is only compulsory to publish regulations and directives of a general nature.
Nevertheless, following the presentation of the issue by Mr Skinner, the rapporteur, I do feel that a compatible interpretation can be arrived at in the case of Amendment No 11, particularly if we bear in mind that the Treaty of Amsterdam lays great stress on transparency. Furthermore, the use of these new technologies is an excellent way of achieving transparency and of making this most important regulation known to all those affected by procedures opened under it.
<P>
Concerning Amendment No 13, it is true that the formalities in Article 169 of the Treaty are essential, and that there is no scope for modifying them in a secondary legislation document such as this.
The Committee on Legal Affairs decided that the form of words proposed is compatible with this requirement if it is not interpreted too strictly, whilst still naturally complying with the principles on which our Community is founded.
<P>
The remaining amendments are aimed at broadening the scope of the regulation to include serious obstacles to freedom of movement for workers.
The Committee on Legal Affairs shares this concern, but feels that it is not appropriate to include such measures in this mechanism for three reasons.
<P>
Firstly, it should be remembered that this regulation was produced in response to a mandate from the Amsterdam European Council in July 1997. This mandate was restricted to the free movement of goods.
<P>
Secondly, the particular nature of the obstacles to free movement of goods which this regulation is designed to eliminate should be borne in mind.
They involve underhand deals, faits accomplis and physical obstacles.
Obstacles to freedom of movement for workers are of a different nature.
In terms of visual images, as the rapporteur remarked, the sight of a lorry held up on a highway is unfortunately all too common. So far as I am aware, however, the problem for workers has never been that they have been physically prevented from crossing a border or reaching their place of work, which would have been the equivalent situation.
An attempt to provide for such disparate situations with a single legal instrument would detract from its internal coherence. It would also be to the detriment of the quality of the legislation, that is of its legal security.
We should be doing our citizens no favours if we presented them with a hotchpotch.
<P>
Thirdly, this is neither necessary not appropriate, because we do have another channel available, the appropriate instrument through which to deal with these concerns.
I refer to Regulation No 1612/68 on freedom of movement for workers, and Directive 68/360.
I have before me documents COM(98)0229, (98)0230 and (98)0231 which propose the reform of the regulation and this directive, following the plan of action for the freedom of movement for workers presented by the Commission.
<P>
That is the channel to be used, Mr President.
That is where the amendments should be included.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 NAME="Ettl">
Mr President, I have just a few comments on what the previous speaker said.
It is not enough for the Council to instruct the Commission to 'improve the free movement of goods', because we need to bear in mind the whole concept of the single market and look a little further if we want to improve that.
This is why we must also look at the political aspects of these issues.
But let me tell you first what I like in all of this.
I like the fact that the free movement of goods is to be improved in principle by creating regulatory mechanisms which ban illegal action, guarantee the free movement of goods, and are currently presented in a form we can vote for.
<P>
Before I go any further, I should like to say that I do not envy Mr Skinner this very complex task that he has taken on, but I think he has done a good job, even if we do not admittedly agree on every point.
My basic idea is that it is important to improve the free movement of goods and to ban the protectionist measures that still exist in certain Member States, and this is why I welcome this report.
<P>
There is one difficult area in this complex issue that needs to be looked at, and that is the fact that it is difficult to determine when action is illegal and when it is legal.
This has led to problems, in that various countries have actually approved illegal measures, which is why we need this particular regulation now, because some countries have misunderstood the concept of the single market.
The risk with this was that fundamental rights such as the right or freedom to strike, freedom of assembly or the right to demonstrate might also have been banned, and that is why I particularly welcome the fact that it was made clear in consultations between the Council, Parliament and the Commission that basic rights such as the right or freedom to strike should not be affected.
This is a fundamental condition for agreeing to this regulation, and I think that with our cooperation the matter was handled successfully.
<P>
What I do not like is the fact that we are improving only one of the four freedoms and leaving other issues aside.
We are creating an intervention mechanism for the free movement of goods which takes effect very quickly, within five days.
This is as it should be.
It means that we are creating a special system of legal protection for the movement of goods.
But when we compare the free movement of goods with the free movement of workers, we can see that there is a huge imbalance.
There have been proceedings brought on behalf of workers in the European Union that have taken more than six years - six years for workers to win justice on a sound legal basis and with the help of the Court of Justice.
So this five-day intervention mechanism stands in stark contrast to the unfortunate situation of workers, who should of course be able to move freely within the European Union.
Workers face an uphill struggle to win justice for themselves.
<P>
All of this may mean that their pensions are affected, it may mean that they have to wait years for additional pensions, and more besides.
This is the point the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs is making.
We say that we should not create imbalances between the four freedoms, we should also enforce freedom of movement for workers and thus improve the entire concept of the single market.
The whole thing would then make sense, and our proposed amendments should be seen in this light.
This is really an appeal to the Commissioner to do more in this direction and to avoid one-sided developments designed only to help the economy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García-Margallo y Marfil">
Mr President, I shall endeavour to follow on from what other speakers have said, because it does not make much sense to produce distinctive speeches at this time of night.
<P>
The various speakers have stressed that this regulation has had a rough passage.
Nevertheless, all the institutions and all the political groups agreed that something had to be done to guarantee the free movement of goods throughout the Union. There was also a consensus that the increasingly frequent acts of vandalism which were being committed in certain countries against goods originating from other Member States had to be stopped.
<P>
The Court of Justice dealt with the issue, but an instrument to turn the freedom of movement enshrined in the Treaty into a reality was lacking.
Although there was general agreement on the need to do something, it was difficult to establish exactly what and to specify appropriate measures.
Some of the contentious issues have been laid before you this evening, ladies and gentlemen.
I agree with Mr Ettl that, as a result of the discussion, the programme now before us falls short of our ambitions.
However, I do welcome it, because despite its shortcomings it is a first step and we can build on it in the future.
<P>
Nevertheless, I have been perturbed by some of what has been said here this evening, particularly by some remarks the last few speakers have made, and I should like to elaborate a little.
Mr Ettl is delighted that this regulation takes account of certain fundamental rights - the right to strike and the right of association.
Yet this should never have been in question.
No Union measure may ever infringe those rights.
I cannot conceive of measures which would be compatible with those rights but incompatible with the free movement of goods.
In my view, there are no circumstances in which exercising the right to strike can involve overturning lorries from another Member State.
The right to strike is subject to certain limitations as to its scope and effects.
<P>
I cannot conceive either how one could ever envisage a conflict between the right of association or the right of assembly and the free movement of goods.
In no way, surely, can exercising the right of assembly justify acts of vandalism such as overturning lorries from another Member State.
<P>
Although I differ from Mr Ettl in this respect, I agree with him on other points. I do indeed believe that the two principles in question must be brought closer together.
The free movement of goods has to become a reality. At the same time, provision must be made for freedom of movement for workers.
I therefore proposed in my committee that my political group, the PPE Group, should vote in favour of the amendments from the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs. However, I emphasised that in so doing, we were departing from the terms of reference of this regulation.
The rapporteur is not present at the moment, but I have written to him to suggest a way of bringing together the issues of respect for both freedoms - freedom of movement of goods and freedom of movement for workers, whilst observing the terms of reference of the regulation. In my view, an oral amendment should be put forward, calling on the Commission to draw up a regulation securing freedom of movement for workers.
I do not know if such an amendment would be adopted or not.
However, if the Commissioner stated that freedom of movement for workers would be provided for in another text, we would modify the text of our amendments by the Committee on Economic Affairs, returning to the original text and referring solely to the free movement of goods. We would nevertheless be making a clear political statement of our desire to promote freedom of movement for workers.
Mr Ettl, our group shares your group's concern on this issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Mr President, a report such as this one, on the proposal for a Council Regulation creating a mechanism whereby the Commission can intervene in order to remove certain obstacles to trade, deserves another debate, not the one on the agenda at this time.
To put it another way: this subject and this report really deserve a debate, whereas instead it seems that everything has been done to prevent one. We need to set up a rapid and effective intervention mechanism, but that seems to be regarded as incompatible with stimulating and holding democratic debates.
Before I go on to discuss the issue in question, on which Parliament's opinion has been sought, three or four facts need to be highlighted. They are so significant that very little needs to be said about them.
<P>
The Skinner report was approved last weekend by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
After the first stage and given the fact that the Council had reworded some of the text, the rapporteur tabled no amendments but, when it came to the vote, a number of amendments were tabled on the basis of the opinions of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
The report was due to be included in the agenda of the November II or December part-sessions but seemed to have been left off both the draft and final agendas for this part-session.
At possibly the last minute, as a result of a decision taken last night by the Conference of Presidents or a body deputising for it, the report was added to the agenda, with a deadline for tabling amendments at noon today.
<P>
This is not a normal procedure: it suggests an urgency that nobody suspected, and it meant that we had no opportunity to raise the question of its doubtful legitimacy in terms of the Rules of Procedure, given that it was not available in certain languages and in view of the deadline set for amendments.
<P>
We have to say that we are both surprised and alarmed at the excessive speed with which Parliament is giving its opinion on a subject such as this one.
What it involves is an examination of the means and mechanisms for effectively guaranteeing the free circulation of goods, including the possibility of imposing sanctions on Member States, on the basis of a Commission proposal, in accordance with the provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty.
Is this an unimportant issue?
Of course not.
Is this a delicate issue?
Of course it is, because it is a matter of compatibility between different laws and different levels of regulation, and it also deals - almost brutally I would say - with the relationship between national competences and sovereignties and the setting up of Community mechanisms and relevant regulations.
<P>
In his explanatory statement, the rapporteur rightly tackles certain points which reveal the complexity of the intervention mechanisms to be set up.
He rightly says that this regulation was not intended to define what civil or industrial rights or freedoms are, nor to solve the possible contradictions between different and equally legitimate rights, freedoms or interests, since those issues are the responsibility of national legal systems, if necessary in the framework of the European Convention on Human Rights.
<P>
Therefore, the definition of obstacles to trade cannot infringe on the Member States' right and obligation not to go beyond 'necessary and proportionate measures' which do not adversely affect 'the exercise of fundamental rights'.
Although Mr Skinner seems satisfied that the second version, in his opinion, has dispelled 'any ambiguity in this matter', he draws attention, albeit only in the explanatory statement, to the fact that industrial conflicts standing in the way of trade, the reason behind this Council and Commission initiative, do not occur at random and may be closely linked to the content or absence of other legislation on occupational issues, an equally urgent matter.
<P>
Furthermore, the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs rightly raises the problem of striking a balance between the four freedoms of movement defining the internal market, pointing out that once again emphasis has shifted to the economic sector and that the proposal for a regulation serves solely to boost the free movement of goods, thus reinforcing that trend. This is a complicated and delicate issue that is now going to be rushed through the plenary without even the minimum of required preparation.
For our part, although we have tried to keep up with this fast pace - which is dubious not to say suspicious - we feel that this has made the debate an undesirable one; more than that, the debate is unjustified and unacceptable and we cannot therefore lend our agreement to the report put forward for our approval.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, I think there is a fundamental problem here.
I know Mr Skinner and Mr Ettl to be very clever and astute men, but I do not think they have thought this process through.
The right to industrial dispute is an attempt to put such disputes on a legal footing, and it only works where there are guaranteed rights for both sides - not just individual freedoms or rights of ownership, but also rights against arbitrary lockouts and against the criminal prosecution of strikers.
None of this has been taken into account here at all.
<P>
Mr Skinner has very subtly drawn the teeth of the original Commission proposal, I have to admit, and Mr Ettl has added a few points which make it clear that this is the wrong direction to take, but nevertheless the original idea is still completely wide of the mark.
A civilised European right to industrial dispute will not be achieved in this indirect manner; instead we need to sit down and talk about what the guarantees and limits of a European right to strike might be.
This is the only way to tackle the problem, and we are therefore still not happy with the result.
It may be that there is no alternative, but it is still the wrong approach, and Mr Skinner can do nothing to change that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, in our opinion it is important that the original Commission proposal giving the Member States excessive powers to intervene was not accepted.
The Council regulation before us is a fairly acceptable compromise.
Industrial disputes which result in the sort of obstacles we are discussing do not occur for no reason and sometimes have a good deal to do with shortcomings in the European legal system.
As far as possible, we must leave it to the individual states to ensure the operation of the single market.
<P>
The right to strike as such must not be jeopardised, and it is undoubtedly right that in the balance between the four freedoms, greater emphasis should be laid on economic issues.
However, I do not think it is appropriate to mix the movement of goods with socio-political considerations, which is what some of the proposed amendments do.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="Gillis">
Mr President, there have been many examples of disruption of the free movement of goods in the EU in recent years, whether for reasons of industrial action, for example the French lorry drivers' blockade which caused so much damage to trans-European trade, or the more recent blockades of Welsh ports by angry farmers protesting about the ban on British beef exports due to BSE or because of falling sheep prices.
In any event, they prevented meat trucks and other trucks from Ireland accessing routes through the UK to the continent.
<P>
It is essential that we find a means of ensuring the reality of free movement of goods throughout the EU without prejudice to those who earn their living from inter-Community trade.
I agree with the rapporteur that much of the problem is linked to the gap between free market conditions we now enjoy and the lack of harmonisation of rules on working conditions.
Whatever measures we take to ensure the free movement of goods must not undermine the right to industrial action or peaceful protest by the EU workforce.
It is, however, essential that we have a rapid system of intervention in order to reduce impediments to free movement and, wherever necessary, to provide compensation for losses for those adversely affected by such actions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="Kerr">
Mr President, firstly I should like to pay tribute to Mr Skinner who is a perfect messenger of New Labour.
I can see now why they made him number one in the south-east on the list for re-election next year.
He defends British truck owners - some of the nastiest, most reactionary right-wing people you could meet - and attacks French lorry drivers who are fighting for fewer hours and better social conditions.
You would have thought Labour Party members should support this. But of course he is a New Labour Member.
<P>
Earlier tonight Mr John Prescott, Deputy Prime Minister, was speaking in this building to the British Labour members.
Thirty years ago he was leading the seamen's strike.
Under Mr Skinner's laws, Mr Prescott would be thrown in prison.
Of course, Mr Prescott was then a member of the International Socialists. Today he is Deputy Prime Minister for New Labour.
The truth is that this Council Regulation is all about keeping Mr Blair happy who went to the Amsterdam Summit and complained about the French lorry drivers.
We in this Parliament should protect the right of workers to take action, to take solidarity action and to enjoy freedom of assembly and I would like to see a little more concern from Mr Skinner for the rights of workers and the free movement of workers, rather than the free movement of goods.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="Skinner">
Mr President, Mrs Palacio summed up very well in my view the legal necessity for us to accept that this instrument is to deal with the dysfunction of the market and that is what it was set out to do.
Clearly there is no objection to that because the Treaty spelled it out.
Mr Ettl made his view that the political balance was essential and I am pleased to agree.
That is right and overall it should be our long-term goal. But I do not think this instrument is necessarily going to achieve that overnight.
Nevertheless, politically we should make that statement.
Mr García-Margallo y Marfil also knows that from both sides of the argument it is essential to bring those freedoms together and he, like me would join in asking for an independent instrument to do something about that sometime in the future.
That is something which the Commission and the Council should look at.
<P>
I have to disagree with Mr Ribeiro about the length it has taken for us to get here.
It has been quick getting to this plenary but eight months in discussion.
Much of the discussion took place with Mr Ribeiro there I am pleased to say.
I am not in control of Parliament's procedures for putting this on their agenda.
I would say to Mr Wolf that the the legal basis to guarantee strike is not subtle but very fundamental.
This should be a freedom to which everyone in the European Union, as a citizen, trade unionist or not, should aspire to.
I am very pleased that this is accepted for the first time in many Member States.
I am glad Mr Wolf recognised that not too subtly but very obviously.
The UK, for example, in this regulation now has the first mention of legally free strikes.
<P>
I thank Mr Lukas for his comments though I do not necessarily share them all.
Mr Gillis spoke about the French lorry blockade, UK hill farmers and the problems in Ireland.
I agree with him an in particular his underlining of the social rights.
But, Mr Kerr!
I am so sorry. I know he is always very good for a laugh and even at this time of the evening he is stretching our humour.
However, I cannot agree with anything he says.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="Monti">
<SPEAKER ID=158 NAME="Kerr">
Mr President, I notice that the Commissioner did not talk about Amendments Nos 15 and 16, the splendid amendments submitted on behalf of the Green Group in my name, calling for freedom of assembly.
Is this a concern that the Commission does not share any more or is it, like Mr Skinner, more interested in the freedom of goods than the freedom of people?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="Monti">
- Mr President, the rights Mr Kerr refers to are of the greatest importance.
It is, however, our view that the whole of the proposed regulation as well as its specific language do not make it necessary to add the specifications proposed in the amendments you mentioned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, the Commissioner referred to Regulation No 1612/68 but failed to mention that Parliament is considering the proposal to amend this regulation - document COM(98)229 - and the proposal for a directive to which I referred - document COM(98)230.
<P>
I agree entirely with what the Commissioner said.
The appropriate instrument already exists for dealing with amendments concerning freedom of movement for workers, an issue which is of such concern to us all.
There is therefore no need to ask the Commission to create a new instrument or launch a new initiative.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
SMEs and craft sector
<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0359/98) by Mrs Thyssen, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the report from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on the coordination of activities to assist small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the craft sector (1997) (COM(97)0610 - C4-0019/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="Thyssen">
Mr President, for a long time now, our hopes for a growth in jobs have rested with SMEs.
For both 1998 and 1999, the European Commission has made the encouraging of small businesses one of the pillars of its employment policy, quite properly pointing to the economic factors underpinning its policy on jobs.
<P>
The Austrian Presidency has played its part by devoting a high-level round table conference to SMEs for the first time since the Belgian Presidency of a few years back.
In short, SMEs, SMUs and small businesses have in recent times been a prominent feature of all policy statements and declarations of intent.
It would appear that 15 years after the European Year of SMEs, attention returns every year afresh to this area of business life.
But what people care about most is not so much the talking, but the answer to the question of whether SMEs are present as a factor to be considered in all areas of policy, whether they are considered in the best way possible, and whether all efforts on the SME front are coordinated as efficiently as possible.
<P>
The report we are discussing this evening deals precisely with this question of coordination.
We initiated it ourselves, and we want it to be useful as an instrument of policy.
As we know, policy on SMEs looks simple.
Putting the little man first is what they say, and it sounds good.
But in fact SMEs are of course a difficult sector, not only because the sector itself is not homogeneous, but also because policy is a horizontal affair which interfaces and intersects with the most diverse of policy areas, where powers rest with the European Commission, with the European Union and with Member States, and where the powers at each of these policymaking levels are spread over a variety of departments.
<P>
This of course makes the business of scrutiny and assessment far from simple.
So a report on coordination is useful - useful in order to show whether and how coordination operates between the various levels and sectors of policy and to determine where there is room for improvement and how policy itself can best be directed.
<P>
A positive feature of this report is its emphasis on the greater appreciation of small businesses which now exists in society compared with earlier, and on the fact that people now realise that SMEs have specific characteristics which mean that they cannot simply be treated as miniature versions of bigger companies.
The SME is increasingly being seen as the rule rather than the exception.
We can only welcome this; it is the only realistic approach.
<P>
One instrument which is extremely useful for assessing and coordinating policy on SMEs is the SME definition of 1996.
Using this definition, we can demarcate the field and systematically check whether the instruments deployed really are benefiting the target group.
The definition is a good one, but it needs to be used more systematically in future.
The forthcoming period of programming for the Structural Funds will provide a first important opportunity for this.
According to the Court of Auditors' report, it was not unusual in the past for big companies to swallow up the funds intended for smaller ones.
The BEST working party too asks for Community programmes to be tailored better to the SME format.
This can only be achieved by greater and more rigorous application of the SME definition.
<P>
Despite the signals I seem to have been receiving to the effect that some people would like the ceiling for these definitions to be raised, I can only recommend to the Commission that it does not give in.
That would only mean that the small business we are at last working to help lose out once again when it comes to a share-out of attention and resources.
<P>
A few suggestions and questions to end with.
Small businesses represent a world of people engaged on practical activities.
They have no time for fat reports showing how hard we are working for them and at how many levels.
Above all, they understand concrete action, less red tape, more legislative stability, lower labour costs, greater legal certainty, easier access to credit and a single market free of obstacles.
They want to know clearly who to go to for what.
So I would ask the Commission, I would suggest to it, that every time it produces a communication on its policy for SMEs, the Commission not only says who is responsible for what, but also looks at how much working time it spends drafting reports on the policy carried out and how much of its time it spends on actually devising, thinking through and implementing its policy on SMEs.
<P>
I would also ask the Commission what it proposes to do in future to supply us with more precise figures, because the meagre figures in this report are not enough to allow us to do our job of scrutinising the Commission's work and putting forward proposals.
<P>
My final comment is that a good policy is not only effective and successful, but credible.
Credibility is enhanced by a policy pursued in consultation and dialogue with the parties concerned.
Our finding is that in the small business sector, SMEs can have their say in a context of consultation and opinion, but once the context becomes one of a full voice and shared power, they are shut out.
This, Mr President, brings us to the question of the social dialogue in Europe, and my final question once again is this: when can we expect to see a real change in the Commission's attitude?
When is the Commission finally going to do something to get rid of this flagrant example of a democratic deficit?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="Cellai">
Mr President, it was disappointing to find that Mrs Thyssen's report did not really take up the important proposals from Members responsible for drafting opinions, like myself.
The report seems timid and is limited to an overview of small and medium-sized companies without putting forward proposals which would introduce a breath of fresh air.
With globalisation the role of SMEs has increasingly taken on international proportions and significance.
It is now widely recognised that SMEs constitute the key sector for economic growth and the consequent creation of jobs.
Furthermore, the present VAT system places an excessive burden on businesses and discourages cross-border trade.
<P>
On reducing the indirect labour costs arising from national law, the Commission has pointed out that SMEs are hit hardest by relatively high tax burdens and contributions.
The need to lighten the fiscal load on labour is now clearly recognised by all the main political players.
There are three ways of improving the competitiveness of the industrial fabric of SMEs throughout Europe: reducing tax burdens that penalise employment, simplifying red tape for SMEs, and opportunities for experimental reductions in VAT.
<P>
SMEs are increasingly entering the global market by belonging to networks of companies for the purchase and exchange of production factors. Cooperation between companies creates wealth and sources of innovation and new jobs, making it an instrument in the development of endogenous local potential.
Finally, an optimal partnership is needed between European institutions, Member States, regional and local authorities, professional organisations and the SMEs themselves.
That can help reduce administrative segmentation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
<SPEAKER ID=166 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this report clearly describes the aims which a sensible SME policy must pursue in the new millennium.
The SME dimension must become a much more definite aspect of Community policy than hitherto.
There are still many areas at both national and EU levels where obstacles have yet to be removed and life needs to be made easier for small businesses.
I am therefore also grateful for the detailed report by the BEST task force, which has made a considerable contribution towards creating a better European entrepreneurial environment.
I also support the idea of obtaining appropriate information on small and medium-sized firms and making it available at all political levels.
<P>
We are quite happy with the data provided by the European statistical system both on small and medium-sized firms and on the Observatory, but we should not forget that the provision of data creates problems for many businesses.
The administrative burden, particularly for firms with few employees, must not be allowed to grow any heavier, and from now on we must try to ensure that statistical reporting requirements are efficiently deregulated.
The second approach recommended in the report is also a step in the right direction.
Small and medium-sized firms must be more involved in the Community programmes, and I would mention here the third multiannual programme, which will next year be open to some of the applicant countries.
Another important and influential decision is to be taken next week, when the Conciliation Committee meets on Tuesday to discuss the fifth framework programme of research.
<P>
I feel sure that everything will be done to ensure that this programme goes ahead next year, because it is of such particular relevance to small and medium-sized firms which Parliament has proposed should be given special assistance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, I sense a certain amount of scepticism from our rapporteur about the usefulness of this repetitive and routine exercise which the Commission's biannual report on the coordination of activities in favour of SMEs and the craft sector has become.
We all know, however, what an essential role SMEs play in terms of innovation, job creation and regional development, particularly in rural areas.
In France, for example, 37 % of employees work in enterprises with less than 20 workers, and two-thirds in enterprises with less than 100 workers.
The craft sector represents 13 % of the working population and employment is increasingly shifting towards the SMEs.
<P>
Why then does our rapporteur stress that 'there is no point in constantly reiterating the same views and drawing up unreadable reports and resolutions'?
This is because, in this area of national competence, there are serious doubts about the usefulness of the role played by the Commission in terms of coordination and structural aid.
On this last point, the Commission states that large amounts of public money are available to SMEs, particularly in the context of regional funds and certain Community initiative programmes.
<P>
But to what extent are these funds used?
How are they used and by whom?
Is this aid really useful and effective?
Would other systems not be more economical and better suited to the real needs of enterprises?
We have no answers to any of these basic questions and no assessment of these issues.
Such uncertainty and absence of monitoring are totally unacceptable.
It is not satisfactory, as the rapporteur stresses, that the Commission is content to assert, 'often on the basis of purely theoretical data, that SMEs are receiving the necessary attention'.
These are just cliches, and we are not likely to be reassured by the remarks of the Court of Auditors, which tell us that the occasional data provided by the Commission are not reliable and that large enterprises have captured aid intended for SMEs.
<P>
We are therefore in a real mess and we must ask ourselves about the relevance of such Community aid schemes.
It is curious that the Commission does not question the proliferation of regulations which it is itself responsible for imposing on SMEs, nor the need to provide better protection for SMEs against unfair competition, counterfeiting, moonlighting, social and environmental dumping and the risks of relocation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, the basic message in this report is entirely welcome.
The Structural Funds are now going to have to focus on SMEs much more in future.
However, I would point out that both the Commission's coordination report and the present report clearly show once again just how far the obsession with subsidies dominates our economic thinking.
It is now high time that the emphasis was shifted onto entrepreneurial independence, and we MEPs could play a highly constructive role here.
For example, we should keep mentioning the EEIG, the European Economic Interest Grouping, in our talks with SMEs.
This extremely useful opportunity for entirely unbureaucratic and flexible cross-border cooperation has not yet been exploited as it should be.
Yet the form of cooperation involved not only brings business advantages, but is also very much in keeping with the spirit of the single market.
<P>
In conclusion, I agree with the rapporteur's request to the Austrian Presidency to organise a seminar for the social partners and SMEs on improving social dialogue in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="Thyssen">
Mr President, I see that my honourable friend Professor Secchi is not here.
Would you be good enough to allow me 30 seconds of his time so that I can just address a few words to the draftsmen?
<P>
Mr President, for the benefit of the draftsmen of opinions on my report, I should mention the fair comment by Mr Cellai that there is little trace in my report of the specific proposals contained in the opinions.
That is indeed the case, but I would ask them not to see that as a lack of respect for the work done in the other committees.
We shall certainly be taking due account of it in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs when we debate policy on SMEs.
But the difficulty we had was as follows.
We are limited in the space we can give to an opinion.
We realised that we just could not write meaningfully and formulate meaningful, detailed proposals about every last aspect of policy on SMEs.
We explicitly put that fact to our colleagues and decided in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs that we would confine ourselves to the methodology of the Commission's policy on SMEs and not comment on every last detail of the policy itself.
That is why you find so little trace of your opinions, but you can take it from me and my fellow members of the committee that they are much appreciated!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="Monti">
Mr President, I am grateful to the European Parliament for its unswerving commitment to the Commission's efforts to promote schemes for small and medium-sized enterprises, and in particular for its contribution to the Commission's 1997 report on the coordination of Community activities to assist SMEs and the craft sector.
<P>
It is vitally important for small and medium-sized enterprises to be able to take advantage of the opportunities offered by Community programmes to maximise their potential for innovation and development and above all job creation, an imperative necessity and our common objective.
<P>
I want to thank Mrs Thyssen for her motion for a resolution and her report, which I regard as extremely useful and constructive texts.
I also extend those thanks to the other Members who contributed to this report, Messrs Cellai, Peter, Adam and Robles Piquer and Mrs Ferrer.
<P>
The Commission's report presents a structural review of Community measures for the benefit of small and medium-sized businesses and the craft sector, and illustrates the results achieved through the coordinated approach adopted by the Commission to ensure that all Community policies take account of the interests of SMEs and facilitate their access to Community programmes.
<P>
As always, and especially on questions relating to SMEs, the European Parliament has a vital contribution to make and it comes at just the right time, since negotiations have started on the proposals to reform the Structural Funds for the 2000-2006 programming period, and also on new programmes like the fifth framework programme for research and technological development and the new Leonardo programme.
<P>
Clearly, effective coordination will bring tangible advantages for SMEs.
Progress has already been made, as is underlined by the Thyssen report, but the Commission is committed to achieving even better results in the future.
I would also like to mention the role of the group of Commissioners, chaired by Commissioner Papoutsis, who are looking at small and medium-sized businesses and the spirit of enterprise.
<P>
Our intention is to make further improvements in the coordination of the Commission's activities as regards programmes and measures to benefit SMEs.
I can assure you that the Commission is committed to achieving that aim, and we broadly agree with the recommendations set out in the motion for a resolution.
<P>
In particular I want to stress the crucial importance of three questions: first, the need for the Community definition of small and medium-sized enterprises to be used in all the Community and national programmes at European and national levels; secondly, the importance of facilitating SME access to the programmes, particularly in the context of the Structural Funds and the research and training programmes; and thirdly, just as important, the need for small and medium-sized enterprises to be more involved in planning the programmes that affect them by having their own direct representation.
<P>
I have a few more points to add.
The risk of a massive increase in the number of regulations has been mentioned. That is a risk we must always bear in mind, but I would point out, to Mr Souchet in particular, that simplifying the regulations, with the needs of SMEs most in mind, is exactly what the BEST task force and the SLIM groups (Simpler Legislation and Internal Market) are working on - and they are beginning to show the first concrete results, as Parliament is well aware.
<P>
Mr Cellai raised a burning question - taxation - which often turns out to place a disproportionate burden on SMEs in terms of the level of taxes they pay and the paperwork involved.
We now have a good example of how certain Commission activities, although not geared expressly to small and medium-sized companies in so many words, are actually geared to them in substance.
I refer to the fight against damaging tax competition, which the 15 Member States have decided to undertake on a proposal from the Commission.
Well, the fight against damaging tax competition is intended, once certain tax niches and tax havens have been closed, to allow Member States to lower their total internal fiscal pressure.
It is usually large businesses that can take advantage of those niches and havens while small ones are unable to, but this time small businesses will be the ones which benefit most from the reduced fiscal pressure resulting from the fight against damaging tax competition.
I will not go into the Commission's ideas about the possibility of applying VAT at reduced rates to highly labour-intensive activities, an idea supported by Parliament but on which the Member States are still reserving their final position.
<P>
I would like to make my final observation on a point underlined by several Members, namely the position of SMEs in relation to structural fund programmes.
Aware of the lack of detailed information, the Commission has launched a thematic evaluation on the impact of the structural funds on SMEs.
The final results will be available before the end of 1998.
The first results of this evaluation confirm previous appreciations, that is share of structural funds dedicated to SMEs and typology of measures.
Therefore, we cannot really say that the information is not available, although it may not be detailed enough in terms of distinguishing the size class of the beneficiaries, which is important.
<P>
Moreover, the Commission has undertaken an analysis of the financial engineering schemes for some countries which will be used for guidance for future programmes.
It has to be borne in mind that Member States are primarily responsible for the evaluation and analysis of the performance of their Structural Funds programmes and they should be encouraged to provide more detailed and accurate data on SME participation.
The study which I mentioned a minute ago will not lie on a shelf gathering dust.
Its purpose is not only to gather useful data but also to make recommendations for the next programming period on how to improve SMEs measures and their implementation in future programmes.
<P>
Finally, I should like to mention also the fact that the Commission should issue guidelines in 1999 to help Member States in the preparation of their future programmes to be cofinanced by the Structural Funds.
In this context, a very special focus will be placed on supporting SME development and entrepreneurship.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 10.15 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Education programmes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>

A4-0373/98 by Mrs Waddington, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Decision establishing the second phase of the Community vocational training action programme 'Leonardo da Vinci' (COM(98)0330 - C4-0522/98-98/0196(SYN)); -A4-0371/98 by Mrs Pack, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision establishing the second phase of the Community action programme in the field of education 'Socrates' (COM(98)0329 - C4-0510/98-98/0195(COD)); -A4-0389/98 by Mr De Coene, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision establishing the Community action programme for youth (COM(98)0331 - C4-0511/98-98/0197(COD)).
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="Waddington">
Mr President, the proposals for a new Leonardo programme give us the opportunity to recognise the growing importance of vocational training to individuals, enterprises and the economy and to think creatively about how the European Union can add value to Member States' own systems, encourage innovation and transnationality.
The Commission's proposals to simplify the aims and measures of the new programme are to be welcomed, as is their willingness to cooperate with Parliament and its committees in agreeing to introduce further improvements.
<P>
I want briefly to outline the main areas of concern to the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs which are contained in our amendments.
Firstly, we have proposed that the Leonardo programme should influence national vocational training programmes by supporting innovation, lifelong learning, employability and accessibility.
The lessons learned from Leonardo II can be mainstreamed through the other EU programmes, in particular the European Social Fund, but this will need a level of synergy, integration and coordination not achieved in the current programme.
<P>
Secondly, we have emphasized the need to combat discrimination and remove the barriers to participation.
For example, the upper age limit for involvement in the transnational mobility projects has been removed and the special needs of people with disabilities have been recognised.
<P>
In view of the importance of vocational training, not only to Member States and the social partners, but also to civil society, we have called for a greater involvement of consultation with NGOs.
Innovation is a key element.
The unique feature of Leonardo is its ability to test new transnational approaches in vocational training.
Evaluating and disseminating Community innovation rather than simply funding exchanges is the central objective of the programme.
That is why we have proposed that a higher percentage of the budget should be spent on innovation projects.
To encourage innovation, transparency and more effective management of the programme, we have proposed only two clearly defined selection procedures, centralised and de-centralised.
<P>
I understand that the Commission and the Council are still discussing these management issues but I would like them to recognise the important role the Commission must play in ensuring innovation, transnationality, quality, efficiency and simplicity in the selection of the projects and in the management of the programme.
We believe this can be achieved without excessive bureaucracy.
<P>
We have also stressed the importance of evaluation in the new Leonardo programme.
Evaluation should be a requirement for every proposal built in at the outset and used as a tool to influence and improve vocational training systems and approaches.
While the current programme has been popular, there have been criticisms of the content, procedures and management which need further investigation.
I have written to President Santer on this matter and I hope that the lessons have been learned.
<P>
I have listened to and valued the views of a range of organisations, including the social partners, in drawing up the proposals for Parliament.
Our joint proposals presented here today for improvements to the new Leonardo programme provide a new opportunity to realise the potential of a European vocational training programme which, along with the new Socrates and Youth for Europe programme, make a major contribution to a Europe of lifelong learning.
Essentially, Leonardo can influence the systems of provision in Member States, encourage transnationality and innovation, enable mobility and is a programme which gives us a lot of confidence in the future.
We know that vocational training will continue to be a key element in economic development in Europe.
This programme must be valued and seen as a laboratory for innovation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="Pack">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry that the Commissioner is not here, but Commissioners always seem to be late these days.
Perhaps she has been held up in traffic, or at least I hope that is the reason.
Ah, excellent, there she is now.
<P>
I should like to begin by quoting something that Jean Monnet, one of the founding fathers of Europe, said: we are not linking countries, we are uniting people.
This objective must be the guiding principle behind the policies of the European Union and, especially, of the European Parliament.
Our hopes mainly focus on the young generation, because they are the ones who will shape the future of our countries, and we therefore need to ensure that young people will, as we hope, really connect with the European integration process.
If we can establish close-knit ties between young people in Europe, such as through education networks, we will create a Europe that will be stronger, more united and greater than we could ever imagine.
<P>
This idea was one of the main reasons why a European education policy has now become one of the European Union's central tasks, and it is also why we need a comprehensive concept to promote the European dimension in education.
I would add that it is not our intention to change or harmonise the education policies of the individual Member States, but we would like to be able to do what the individual countries cannot do as well as we can at European level.
All we want to do is to increase the European added value here.
<P>
We should remember that education and training are also the keys to Europe's competitiveness, which is why the specific objectives of our education policy are to improve the quality of education and to prepare young people for occupational and social integration.
This will allow young people not only to play a part in society, but also to assume a position as an economic player.
The new Socrates programme and the other programmes we are discussing here are being expanded to become a genuine European citizens' programme that will link up with other vocational training, research and youth programmes to become much more efficient.
To date, some 110 000 young people, 500 000 students and 60 000 teachers have taken part in exchange schemes under the Socrates programme, 30 000 language teachers have attended further training courses, and 1 500 universities and 10 000 schools have taken part, not to mention all those who took part in the lifelong learning schemes.
In future the programme will be more decentralised and the application and selection procedures will be simplified.
<P>
The programme is aimed at around 300 million people between school age and retirement age or, to put it rather crudely, from the cradle to the grave.
This is why we need to take a great deal of care with this programme, and it is also why, although the Commission proposal is an extremely good one - and I would like to underline this point - we have made some changes that we, as representatives of the people, are offered every day at home.
Some of the changes we have made are substantial, some are merely points of detail.
One very substantial change is that we have condensed the Commission's proposed eight actions into six.
<P>
Our aim here, if I might just explain why we did this, was to highlight the importance of the five main actions. Let me run through them for you.
The first, I am pleased to say, is Comenius, which covers school education, school partnerships and staff working in schools.
The second is Erasmus, which covers higher education, cooperation between European universities and student and teacher mobility.
The third is Grundtvig, which covers other educational pathways, adult education and new educational approaches.
The fourth is Lingua, covering the teaching and learning of languages.
The fifth is what I prefer to call Minerva rather than the Commission's idea of Atlas, because I think that multimedia, which is what this action is all about, requires great wisdom, so I prefer to have Minerva as its patron saint.
The sixth action covers horizontal measures.
<P>
We have placed great emphasis on improving young people's language skills, and we want them to learn two foreign languages in future, one the language of a neighbouring country so that they can gain a much better experience of the single market around them, and the second another communication language.
In the Comenius action I have changed the Commission's proposal, which it has accepted.
I do not think that schools wishing to take part should have to submit a plan.
<P>
Commissioner, I do not like plans.
Plans are just a paper exercise, and that is not what this is all about.
I would point out that I still support the idea that teachers wishing to take part should be able to submit individual applications.
Remember, the school system is different from the university system.
I also welcome the fact that pupil exchanges are to be possible in future.
We have added something to the section on Erasmus which aims to limit the little funding available to those who really need it, if this is possible under the various national aid guidelines.
We have made further efforts to promote the ECTS system here and have asked the universities to look at it.
<P>
I should just like to add a few words on the subject of finance.
This is the most important element, and I would like to thank the Committee on Budgets for supporting us again.
ECU 1.4 billion is too little.
It is too much for the programme to fail, but too little to keep it alive.
We have called for ECU 2 billion over five years, for 15 Member States and 13 other associated countries that are also involved.
All we can say is that this is the only thing we can really do to help people to become good European citizens.
The many information campaigns are all well and good, but they are just ad hoc measures.
These education programmes make young Europeans into people who think and feel intensely European, so please help us to convince the Council to give us ECU 2 billion over five years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Pack.
The final part of your speech provided the basis for the debate which will take place in the conciliation procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="De Coene">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, just before the summer recess, Commissioner, you presented your Youth 2000-2004 programme.
We are glad to now have a comprehensive programme in which measures which target the same group are brought together.
This makes for greater coherence between the various measures, avoids a fragmentation of resources which are, after all, thin on the ground, and enables us to conduct a clearer policy.
We are keen to support you in that policy, as you can see today just a few months after you first presented your document.
As rapporteur, I have been concerned from the start to address the following points.
<P>
Firstly, that this programme should reach as many young people as possible and above all those young people who have the greatest need for this kind of programme.
Secondly, the programme should have a political dimension built into it.
This programme must involve young people too in building the European Union by strengthening their notion of European citizenship.
Your proposal, Commissioner, puts the main emphasis on young people's employability.
But the European Parliament wishes to broaden that objective and so make the programme more balanced.
I will just go through the amendments to your programmes which have in the meantime been submitted by the European Parliament's Committee on Youth.
<P>
First and foremost an increase in the budget.
You propose ECU 600 million and we are asking for 800 million, because the amount has to show that Europe really is committed to investing in its younger generations and, moreover, we need that much in order to achieve the programme's ambitious objectives.
Increasing the budget is one thing, but no less important to us is a redistribution of the funds.
Because in your proposal, and do not take this the wrong way, Commissioner, the European Voluntary Service is strikingly predominant.
If we look at the figures, we see that two thirds of the monies under the whole programme are going directly or indirectly into the European Voluntary Service.
We are not for or against the European Voluntary Service, that is not the issue, but we can see that other programmes such as exchange projects or initiatives in favour of young people may be squeezed as a result.
That is why we wish to strike a balance, without creating any kind of panic, because the European Voluntary Service will always receive more money than the sums requested for it on Parliament's behalf in the past by Mrs Fontaine, who was rapporteur at the time.
<P>
We have a number of arguments in favour of that balance.
In your proposal, and we understand that, the references are almost exclusively to preparation for the world of work, entering the employment process, and social and vocational integration.
Sadly, concepts such as European citizenship for young people, living together and inter-cultural learning have been pushed into the background.
Naturally we are convinced of the special importance of work to young people, but this target group is equally alert to things like the environment, law and order and the peaceful resolution of conflicts, European and international cooperation, and the position, rights and obligations of young people in society.
<P>
We also believe that this programme must provide an answer to phenomena such as individualism, nationalism, uncertainty, and lack of faith in others and in the future.
Consequently we think the pillar of youth exchanges must be strengthened, especially since if we increase and redistribute the funds available, we can hopefully involve some one and a half million young people in the various measures and actions.
<P>
We have one or two more points to make.
We believe - and we looked at the experiment you tried with the CFO - that voluntary service must not replace paid jobs, and that beneficiary organisations must respect the European Union's rules in every particular.
<P>
Fourthly, we think that the money must go primarily to those who need it most, and in our evaluation work we have found, from talking to young people and agencies on the spot, that it is those who know the situation best who are often best able to benefit from the funds available.
So we want to change things here, precisely for the benefit of those young people who invariably miss out.
<P>
Lastly, we want more openness in evaluating projects, better publicity for programmes and a measure of flexibility in setting the age limits.
Parliament's Committee on Youth was keen above all to listen to young people themselves and to the organisations which oversee the implementation of the programmes.
We were in touch with some 5 000 young people, and out of those contacts we distilled a report which had a multiple objective.
One, to invest more money to enable more young people to be reached.
Two, to achieve a balance between the various actions, stricter guidelines and better scrutiny to ensure that funds were being properly spent.
Three, to make access to and implementation of the programme more democratic and, lastly, to give young people better hopes for the future and at the same time to ensure more of a future for the project of building Europe by increasing the number of young people involved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="Christodoulou">
Mr President, with the three proposals we are debating today, just as with the 'Culture 2000' programme we looked at yesterday, the Commission is inaugurating a new overall approach in its efforts to put into practice the strategic guidelines embodied in Agenda 2000 and in its statement of November 1997 on the Europe of Knowledge.
<P>
A common characteristic of all three proposals is that by improving knowledge and education, both general and professional, they all aim indirectly and directly, or their result could be, to improve employment and reduce unemployment in the medium and long term.
So it is very important that these programmes should be coherent, in other words be mutually compatible and show synergy with other Community programmes, which would make all of them more effective. This not only provides good reason to extend programmes which have already proved their value, but also justifies the new framework into which they are being brought.
It is not, therefore, just a quantitative increase which is involved, but also an important qualitative improvement.
We took that into account in the Committee on Budgets when considering how to deal with them from the financial standpoint.
These programmes are not isolated activities, and the two proposals we are debating aim to establish genuine Community policies in the areas of education and youth, as required by Articles 126 and 127 of the Treaty.
<P>
The sectors in question are ones for which the Member States are mainly responsible, and I will come back to this later, Mr President.
However, bearing in mind the principle of subsidiarity, the Community is there to supplement activities by the Member States, confer upon them a new European dimension, coordinate the respective activities at a multinational level, and promote cooperation between Member States and with third countries and international bodies.
In other words, it is there to do what the Member States could not do for themselves, or even if they did, then without the same efficiency and overall added value at Community level.
<P>
Now, purely from the financial standpoint, we must not forget that the level of funding required and the new financial framework have not yet been decided, but are still under discussion.
I therefore think - and this is the opinion of the Committee on Budgets - that an increase from ECU 1 400 to 2 000 million at this time may be excessive.
I know that this is not a particularly popular idea with the relevant committees, but there is always the second part of Amendment No 17 which provides for the possibility of annual adaptation by up to 20 %. This creates the scope for much more funding to go to programmes which prove successful.
In any case, may I remind you of what I said yesterday about the 'Culture 2000' programme, with reference to the indicative nature of the sums involved when these are recorded in legislative acts, and about the role of the annual budget procedure.
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Ladies and gentlemen, there are two things we must remember.
The first is that once sums have been recorded, it is a major responsibility for Parliament and for the Commission too of course, to ensure that the programmes covered by those sums are implemented.
In other words, to ensure that there will be no surpluses that create problems of a financial nature in subsequent financial years.
The second thing we must remember is that framework programmes often come under the responsibility of Parliament and test its ability to be a full member of the two arms of the Budget Authority in dealing with the budget of the European Union every year.
So when we set up major framework programmes without having the possibility of adapting them according to results, we are to a certain extent creating problems regarding Parliament's rights in financial and budgetary matters.
Let the relevant committees bear those two points in mind, and take on board the proposal we are making.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="Virrankoski">
Mr President, the Commission's proposal for the second phase of the Socrates programme connects with the broader situation. In addition to the Socrates programme, it covers the Leonardo da Vinci programme for vocational training and the new Community action for youth programme, which is to be formed by combining the Youth for Europe programme with European voluntary service activities.
Altogether ECU 3 billion has been allocated to finance these three programmes over the period 2000-2004.
Together with one other programme, the Culture 2000 programme, they represent a substantial confirmation of the EU cultural dimension.
<P>
Because there are still many different programmes, and because they have been implemented fairly randomly, the Committee on Budgets thought it was important to boost their synergy value.
This idea was brought up during discussions on next year's budget.
Likewise, the committee considered it important to promote job creation through these programmes and also in cooperation with the research and new technology programmes.
The report by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media also discusses these ideas.
<P>
The Socrates programme is the largest of the culture programmes.
The Commission proposed ECU 1 400 million in funding for the next five year period.
The Committee on Budgets considered this figure to be acceptable as an initial guide, but wished to establish some leeway and therefore tabled Amendment No 1, which proposes a 20 % margin to allow for deviation from the sum allocated, should any new objectives or permanent factors that are clearly and precisely justifiable present themselves.
<P>
The Committee on Budgets believes that administration costs, general aid and technical support must be kept separate from normal operational expenses and should be approved separately by the budgetary authority.
They represent a large item of expenditure, approximately ECU 85 million, which eats into the normal resources considerably.
<P>
In addition to the changes mentioned, the Committee on Budgets examined certain other details which are described in its opinion.
The Socrates programme is one of the most successful EU programmes.
For that reason, the Committee on Budgets continues to give this Commission proposal its strong support, just as we did before.
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<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Papakyriazis">
Mr President, I am speaking as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, and on the basis of the dual-approach procedure, the Hughes procedure, which we too applied in committee particularly in relation to the Youth for Europe programme.
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First of all, I too would like to say that we think these three programmes, the Youth programme, the Leonardo programme and the Socrates programme, really form a single entity, a general framework to which the European Commission, with its specific proposal, is adding flesh and bones.
We think this framework is exceptionally important, particularly the Youth programme.
Furthermore, and with particular reference to Youth, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs stresses the importance of promoting active and responsible citizenship in the European context, by advocating fundamental values such as solidarity and the encouragement of participation.
<P>
Beyond that, the acquisition of general skills and qualifications is particularly important since it is both directly and indirectly related to employment.
On this point let me just say that, by definition, activities related to young people and their employment involve mainly voluntary provision at local level, usually with citizens' associations and non-profit-making groups, in other words in some way related to third-system employment, a subject to which, as we know, the European Parliament attaches particular importance.
<P>
Moreover, we believe that the programme must focus on encouraging young people from deprived environments to become active, precisely to enable those groups to express themselves.
In that spirit, then, we have tabled a whole series of amendments - about 20 in all - aiming to emphasise those points.
Here, I must thank the Committee on Youth's rapporteur, Mr De Coene, who accepted most of the amendments so that what is being put to the vote today is in some way a common approach.
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<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="Guinebertière">
Mr President, we have three reports aimed at achieving one objective: a citizens' Europe.
The commitment given in the Treaty of Amsterdam for a policy of lifelong knowledge and learning shares the same objective.
<P>
The Commission deserves congratulations when a Community action achieves its objectives.
I sincerely believe that the three programmes - Socrates, Leonardo da Vinci and Youth for Europe - have been a success, and we must congratulate all those who, at one stage or another, have been involved in their implementation.
The Commission plans joint actions for the three programmes with the aim of rationalising them and making them more efficient, at a time when the distinction between initial and continuing training is becoming blurred, just as it is between formal and informal training.
And I fully support this plan for joint action; I believe that it represents a positive and innovative move.
<P>
Unfortunately, this is not the only thing these programmes have in common.
Indeed, they all share an element of poverty, despite the funding recently obtained for Socrates, and as we are continuing to extend their scope, it is resources that are most lacking.
However, the UPE Group will support the content of these three reports, and I would like to thank the rapporteurs for the quality of the work carried out and their willingness to listen to all the points of view.
<P>
So what is the second generation of these programmes going to involve?
As far as Socrates is concerned, it involves strengthening the European dimension of education at all levels, promoting cooperation in the field of education, removing obstacles to such cooperation and fostering innovation in this area.
This programme is now well-known to everyone, and in spite of the many difficulties and obstacles relating to mobility, there are still just as many applicants who hope to benefit from the programme.
<P>
As draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Culture on the Leonardo da Vinci programme, I would like to look at it in more depth.
Leonardo da Vinci is aimed at improving and strengthening the social and occupational integration of young people through access to continuing training throughout their lives.
<P>
I would like to highlight three fundamental points.
The first involves recognising the benefits of mobility and the will to develop virtual mobility to supplement it.
I support this, as I believe that new communication technologies should get rid of the problems relating to distance; however, I would emphasise here the importance of the irreplaceable element of face-to-face meetings.
In particular, new technologies must bring rural areas closer to urban areas, and those in the north closer to those in the south. This is the main benefit of the programmes: being able to integrate the new technologies and knowing how to use them, without forgetting the importance of face-to-face exchanges.
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The second point relates to the role of small and medium-sized enterprises in terms of work-linked training opportunities and vocational training, and their involvement in social dialogue and partnership, which is still not sufficient.
We must review this situation with a political will for genuine dialogue.
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The third point relates to the need to promote the programme among people of all ages, since the objective of lifelong training cannot mean that these programmes are restricted to young people alone.
Finally, and this will lead me on to the Youth for Europe and Voluntary Service programme, I have to point out that we must very quickly ensure that recognition is given for the knowledge which the various participants in these programmes have acquired through informal education.
<P>
In conclusion, I would like to look at the framework programme for youth, and at its assets and weaknesses.
The Youth for Europe programme encourages the promotion of informal education experiences for young people by facilitating mobility within the Union and to third countries. It also encourages young people to show initiative.
Among its assets is the fact that the success of the European Voluntary Service experiment guarantees the success of the programme; its objectives are praiseworthy and have indeed been praised, but it receives much more money than the other actions within the Youth programme. Its weaknesses are naturally of a financial nature.
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This action is an opportunity for young people to show initiative and commitment, and it will allow them to take hold of Europe in both hands and to become true European citizens, responsible for their own future and involved in the creation of their own jobs. In this respect, I have to say that I deeply regret the fact that this action is neglected financially, given the enormous challenge it represents.
<P>
I have, in fact, made two proposals concerning this report. We need to rebalance the budget for these actions and we should create a structure designed to collect information and documentation on young people as well as specific publications and studies both from Member States and Community institutions, or from young people's organisations themselves, which would allow us to develop the programmes for the benefit of young people.
This structure could be complemented by an Internet site that would be run by the Commission and that would promote interactive communication among young people in a wide range of areas, but that would not necessarily form part of the integrated Community policies.
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We must give Europe to the young people and they must take it in their grasp.
That is the work before us, and the structure could be called 'Europe 15-25'.
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<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
I was held up by the traffic a little this morning, Mr President, but doubtless other honourable Members had the same problem.
Thank you for your patience.
<P>
On behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, I can say that this second generation of programmes, and particularly Socrates, represents quite a large step forward in terms of cohesiveness and management.
We note, however, that there is no strategically new concept.
But I think that if we look at the impact which this kind of programme has on jobs, we have to acknowledge that programmes like this are extremely important, since one of the things they do is encourage the mobility of labour within Europe.
After all, the process begins when you are young: if you are accustomed to studying in another country, you are more likely to be willing to work in another country.
Excellent projects are often developed under these programmes to promote that kind of thing.
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There are one or two points where I would have wished things to be different.
Separate agreements are to be concluded for Malta and Turkey.
The Commission has still not produced any proposals for these, nor for the separate agreement guaranteeing access for those countries.
At the very time when we want to give an extra chance to democracy in countries such as these, and I have Turkey in mind, we ought to be putting these proposals forward.
We have already been waiting for them for a year now, if not three or four years.
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As regards the information society, I would also recommend that we think about cooperation with countries like Japan and the USA.
It is most important that young people should have the chance of international exchanges under these programmes too.
This is touched on in the proposals but not yet addressed in any depth.
I would urge the Commissioner to give some further attention to that.
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<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Elchlepp">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to thank the Commission as a whole for proposing the much-needed extension of the Socrates programme.
I support the aims that have been mentioned of ensuring the concentration and continuity of aid and accessibility, although I would have liked to see more effective concentration in practice on areas where Europe can genuinely add value.
A fundamental point, however, is that although Socrates and the other youth programmes have now become an essential part of Europe's education policy, they have also become an easy excuse for Member States to avoid doing more themselves to europeanise their schools, universities and educational establishments.
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It would therefore be extremely welcome if Parliament and the Council could agree on a much bigger financial package for the programme.
The ECU 2 billion called for by the committee is the absolute minimum as far as my group is concerned.
The Commission's proposal for ECU 1.4 billion spread over five years is not really an increase if you take account of the latest situation as regards expenditure, the extra spending on adult education that is now included, and the additional burden created by opening up the programme to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
Nor is it enough if we want to correct the social imbalance in the programmes, as we Social Democrats do.
The shortage of funding for Socrates and the other youth programmes stands in stark contrast to all the fine words spoken about the need for more contact between young people in Europe and the creation of a genuine European education area.
It is simply not on, as we keep complaining, that EU youth exchange schemes should be given less money per year than is paid in agricultural aid for growing peas, field beans and sweet fodder lupins.
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People also forget that, in addition to promoting integration, Socrates also does a great deal to promote employment.
All young people should be given the opportunity during their education to experience other countries and to improve their knowledge of foreign languages.
This is all about equality of opportunity.
Instead of the 2 % of students currently taking part in Erasmus, we feel the figure should be nearer 10 %.
And the same should apply to young people in vocational training, less than 1 % of whom currently take part in EU exchange schemes.
From the outset, therefore, my group has called for more funding for the programme, because the individual grants are far too small.
The average paid under Erasmus, for example, is only ECU 70, which is certainly no incentive for young people from socially disadvantaged families to spend periods of study abroad, whereas those that can already afford it receive the grant on top.
<P>
There is one area where we would like the programme to be expanded, and I would ask for your support here.
We would like to provide funding under Comenius to encourage the use of young unemployed teachers in neighbouring countries for fixed periods.
This would help to europeanise education and would help young unemployed teachers to get their first break in working life.
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<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Thomas">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Leonardo II is designed not just to supplement the Member States' vocational training initiatives at European level, but actually to advance them.
We must continue to develop a Europe of knowledge and a Europe of innovation in research, development and education, which are both absolutely vital if we are to meet the challenges of globalisation.
However, Commissioner, whether the ECU 1 billion allocated for the years 2000 to 2004 will be enough is extremely doubtful in view of our enlargement plans, and this is why we are calling for a budget procedure in which the funding is fixed every year.
We are also calling for the Leonardo programme to be extended until 2006 with a suitably increased level of funding. To increase effectiveness, the funding should be linked to other European measures.
The new Structural Funds, Community initiatives, the Socrates and Youth for Europe education programmes, the reduction in the number of programme objectives from 19 to 3 and in the number of areas of action from 23 to 6 - these are more than numerical changes, they all mean that greater effectiveness is required.
<P>
Sound basic vocational training should develop knowledge, for example of working with the new information and communication technologies.
Practice with teamwork, group learning processes and good problem-solving skills all equip young people for future jobs.
They need better access to working life from their initial training onwards, and all ages need access to good-quality further training in accordance with the concept of lifelong learning.
There is still a tendency to undervalue or even to despise the experience that comes with age, although many young people could benefit from it.
It is up to us to ensure that older workers remain motivated and active.
If we invest enough in vocational training in the long term, the people of Europe will have a better chance of being able to compete at international level and, equally importantly, of strengthening social cohesion.
<P>
Mrs Waddington has produced another excellent report which incorporates almost all the amendments put forward by the Group of the European People's Party.
I therefore hope that she will also accept our most recent amendments, in which we underline the importance of Leonardo for further and continuing vocational training.
We agree that the vocational training systems should focus on reintegration into working life and integration into working processes for those with inadequate or outdated skills.
Leonardo is based on Article 127, the cooperation procedure, and Socrates on Article 126, the codecision procedure.
There is an imbalance here.
Leonardo, which covers vocational education, and Socrates, which covers education in general, must surely have the same status.
<P>
Human resources will always be our greatest source of potential, and they must be constantly encouraged, including through vocational training.
Let us hope that Leonardo II will succeed in further developing individual flexibility and personal development into the 21st century.
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<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Frischenschlager">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, everyone acknowledges that education and training affect economic competitiveness and progress.
A further consideration for us as Europeans is that if unification is to happen, we must also try to ensure that young people have the chance to experience what Europe is.
This is the most important task that faces us in our work on Europe's education policy.
I support the demands for more funding, though I do not want to say much on the subject, but I would like to go back to what someone said about 'fine words'.
There has not been a single summit that has not called for more funding for education and research, yet what happens in practice is quite different.
I think we really need to insist that the heads of government get a little more out of their finance ministers, because education is a field where work needs to be both extended and intensified.

<P>
At home in Austria, for example, there was for three years a very dramatic increase in the trend towards internationalisation among students, though this has tailed off slightly in the meantime.
We must try to encourage this, and it is vital that more resources should be provided so that the applicant countries can take part in the process.
Their students too must be able to experience their future in Europe.
More intensive language training is absolutely essential here, of course, and every ECU is money well spent on the future political and economic stability of the Member States.
However, there are a number of very specific practical problems.
I am told time and time again that the information provided by the national bureaux sometimes leaves much to be desired, and that information is often not getting though in Europe's universities.
Commissioner, we need to examine whether they really are all linked up and whether they really have the most up-to-date information to pass on to their students.
<P>
There are also a few other major practical difficulties, such as social security problems, particularly in the field of health care.
Accommodation is another recurring and extremely practical problem.
Perhaps a European initiative to create a common infrastructure dealing specifically with accommodation issues could be of help here.
<P>
Education is a task for Europe.
It goes without saying that Europe is an education community.
Let us act accordingly and provide the necessary resources for it.
It is money well spent!
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<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, we know that good vocational training is a factor in preventing unemployment.
It does not create jobs as such, but it is vitally important in the current situation of mass unemployment among young people in particular.
European programmes are no substitute for Member States attending to their domestic responsibilities.
What they do is to exploit the genuine added value of the European dimension in the Luxembourg process which forms part of Europe's employment policy, in progress towards a knowledge-based society that can learn from cooperation precisely because of Europe's diversity, and in opening up a Europe-wide wealth of experience.
We need to make the programmes less bureaucratic.
We do not need to renationalise them.
<P>
Our aim must be to spend 1 % of the budget of the European Union on vocational training proper, because this is investing in the future rather than spending on consumption.
The Green Group has tabled some amendments to Mrs Waddington's very fine report, on the issues of second courses of training, accompanying research and opening up the programme to the third sector.
There is one further comment that I feel I have to make, however, before I finish.
There is a shadow over these excellent programmes that we are discussing today, Mrs Cresson.
Please, put your house in order so that your successor can really push ahead with implementing the improved Leonardo programme, and I support Mrs Waddington's appeals to Mr Santer to do everything he can to help you in this.
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<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, I shall not be able to comment on all the excellent reports we have heard today, since time is short and I wish to focus in particular on the programmes concerned with young people.
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Our group expressly endorses the suggestions which the rapporteur has made.
It would be good to have more money, but above all the money needs to be spent in a more balanced manner.
I was shocked, Commissioner, to learn how much money had been given to voluntary work in connection with the France '98 World Cup.
I wonder whether that is the right way to be using money of this kind, and whether voluntary work should be looking in the first instance at such public relations activities being pursued by an organisation which is ultimately out to make a profit.
<P>
I must stress the importance of youth programmes if the idea of European citizenship is to flourish.
Most of us grew up in an atmosphere of Euro-optimism.
For today's young people, that is not necessarily the case.
We have to learn a different way of awakening young people's interest in building Europe.
That way is through enabling young people to have contact with other young Europeans, transcending national borders, transcending language differences, transcending cultural differences.
So it is important that the players in that field who can work with us are encouraged to continue their efforts: local authorities and organisations.
But we must also bear in mind young people who are not part of organised structures and who are thus very hard to reach through local authorities and organisations.
<P>
I appreciate the position of the many honourable Members who advocate vocational training here.
I have every sympathy with it.
But practical experience of exchanges shows that youth exchanges entailing vocational training cause far more problems for young people than student exchanges, perhaps because the language is much less of a problem for student exchanges than for young people undergoing vocational training.
Like the rapporteur, I am therefore in favour of a broad youth programme which is sure to take account of the overall cultural dimension, so that a firm foundation can be laid for European citizenship and enthusiasm about Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Seillier">
Mr President, in the new proposals from the Commission, who would not welcome the efforts made to ensure that the programmes do not overlap, to make them more consistent, to define more precise objectives and to improve the assessment on the ground? Similarly, who would not welcome the efforts made to respect the principle of subsidiarity, that is, only proposing Community action where it has a genuine European added value beyond what we are doing in our various countries?
<P>
Personally speaking, I also welcome the fact that we are extending the Leonardo and Socrates programmes to include adults as well as young people.
The distinction between young people and adults is arbitrary to begin with and, what is more, we know that lifelong learning is vital.
As far as the Youth programme is concerned, I admit that it is difficult to decide on how to share the funding between the European Voluntary Service and the Youth for Europe programme since there are arguments for both sides, and I am aware that the current distribution is very strongly criticised by some of my colleagues.
Is a short stay in a foreign country beneficial for young people, even if there are a greater number of young people involved and if the contact is more superficial?
We can certainly wonder about this.
A much longer stay, and a much longer experience, such as that involved in the voluntary service, is more expensive; however, it does have more of an impact. It is therefore difficult to come to a decision; I believe that the best idea would be to find a new balance.
<P>
Nonetheless, besides these almost minor points - what I was almost going to call 'the small print' - I seriously wonder about the philosophy behind these programmes.
We sometimes have very different ideas, ladies and gentlemen, of what the construction of Europe should involve, this joint European adventure into which our countries have launched themselves, and the group I belong to is more aware of this than any other. We must nevertheless spend more time reflecting together, with a view to reaching common ideas to improve the thinking behind the youth programmes.
<P>
You will be not surprised if I criticise the expression 'promoting European citizenship', an expression that is always used but never defined.
However, I am convinced that European culture must pay more attention to liberal education and that is why I have been politically active since I was 18, as the first time I came to Brussels and to Strasbourg was because I was in charge of a newspaper in my school and we had a European meeting on this issue. This liberal education is extremely necessary as a basis for technical training, for vocational training and to ensure that exchanges are successful.
To my mind, this point is essential if we are genuinely to improve our youth programmes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Evans">
Mr President, in her opening remarks Mrs Pack said that we should not just try to unite states but to unite human beings.
As we enlarge the European Union this is vital.
We now need real action not just fine words.
Others have spoken of the budget for this programme and I would like to say just one thing about it.
If we were to spend as much money looking after students and teachers as we do looking after wealthy farmers it would be a better use of European money.
I hope we will move towards that in the future.
<P>
I want to make three clear points.
The first is on the recognition of qualifications.
We have to do a lot more to make sure that European schools, colleges and educational establishments are playing by our rules and abiding by what we are setting out as our objectives.
Too many at the moment are not prepared to accept the talents of their colleagues from other countries on a par with those in their own states.
That is a detrimental step.
<P>
Secondly, learning languages is absolutely crucial to the peoples of Europe.
It is important that we recognise other people's languages, especially minority ones.
This is even more so as we move towards enlarging the Union.
For example, we must accept the right of applicant states to use their own languages.
We should be encouraging Western European students to learn Polish or Czech as much as we encourage their young people to learn English or German.
<P>
Finally, we must ensure that money from Socrates and the other programmes does not go disproportionately into the pockets and budgets of those who already have.
We need to ensure that the money from Socrates, Leonardo and Youth for Europe goes to the poorer students, the ethnic minority students and the disadvantaged.
At the moment, because of the bureaucracy and the procedures for application in some countries, the money is finding its way disproportionately into middle class and wealthy areas.
<P>
I welcome these projects very much and hope the Commission will do more to ensure that the education euros really do reach more Europeans.
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<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Günther">
Mr President, Commissioner, the youth programmes we are discussing here have long been one of the European Union's success stories and will probably continue to be so for some time to come.
Even though people in general seem to have boundless enthusiasm for travelling, more and more young people are preferring to find out about other countries by taking part in practical projects or doing part of their training there.
But on the subject of this approach, I would also like to speak up on behalf of those who perhaps do not belong to the group described by Mr Evans, because we also need to think about having potential leaders in future with a far-sighted view of Europe, who can take responsibility for others.
It is, however, the language requirements that I think should be given top priority.
<P>
As I see it, the current proposal does not involve the Member States enough.
This subject is dealt with in recital 13a.
We must continue to insist that the Member States must share responsibility here, because this could make it easier for us to attain the level of funding needed.
Although we have a very positive impression of how the programmes are coming along, the funding aspect is still extremely important, because if we work it out, as Mrs Pack mentioned in her speech, it comes to about ECU 3 for each young person involved.
Much more money than this is provided in other areas - it does not have to be agriculture, which my colleague mentioned, the MEDA programme is just another example among many.
<P>
As the deputy chairman of the Malta delegation, however, I have to say that I am extremely surprised that there is no suggestion of including Malta more closely in the programmes.
The university there is preparing for involvement, the young people are expecting it, and we really cannot hold them to their two-year government's decision to put the programmes on ice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Kerr">
Mr President, I want to welcome the Leonardo II programme, in particular the report introduced by Mrs Waddington this morning which, as usual, is excellent.
I must say that Mrs Waddington is one of those rare Members who actually writes most of her own reports and drafts her own amendments, unlike many other Members, including myself.
She is therefore a respected expert in this field.
It is unfortunate that she is being placed in a position where she may not come back to this House next year.
New Labour clearly does not respect her as much as Members in this House.
Incidentally, I was interested to note that the House of Lords may be reversing the system.
<P>
The Leonardo II programme is very important, not least because it should be at the centre of a European Union strategy to combat unemployment, education and training.
Vocational training in particular, to make the European labour force more effective and more employable, is the key to the full employment strategy which should be now at the centre of the European Union strategy.
This is particularly so since the great victory of the Red/Greens in Germany has shifted Europe to the left and left Mr Blair as the last reactionary force on the right of Europe.
<P>
Oh, heckling!
Mr President, please protect me against these Members who are intervening against me.
<P>
The measures in Leonardo are very important.
However, the monitoring and evaluation done on Leonardo I raises serious problems and I hope that Mrs Cresson will respond to the queries made to her.
So far she has not done so.
And I hope President Santer will respond to the queries made to him and take seriously the important questions raised over the administration and the budget on Leonardo I and make sure that Leonardo II is a better managed programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Raschhofer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this joint debate on Socrates and Leonardo gives us an opportunity to assess and above all to compare progress to date in the two programmes.
The Socrates programme, which covers education in general, has done very well: 500 000 students, 30 000 language teachers and the many other young people who have taken advantage of the programme paint a very positive picture, and in view of this excellent result it seems only logical to continue to provide funding.
However, the vocational training measures under the Leonardo programme are very definitely on the minus side, and when I say this I do not mean that I think the programme is fundamentally bad or ill-conceived, but in practice it has presented complex administrative problems.
<P>
So if we are wondering why the programmes have been assessed so differently, the answer is quite simple: in the area of practical vocational training, theoretical programmes soon reach their limits, and those who take part will only benefit from the added value if they can actually do something with the practical experience they have gained.
I think that changes will have to be made here in future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hawlicek">
Mr President, many very important and accurate comments have been made today about the importance of the education programmes.
I would stress that it is vital that we facilitate and broaden access to the education programmes in general, particularly for young people from the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and those from socially weaker groups which tend not to have access to education.
The education and youth programmes clearly demonstrate European added value and have a multiplier effect, while at the same time preparing young people to be mobile and to be involved in the Europe of knowledge.
The Leonardo programme facilitates the development of specialised knowledge in Europe about vocational training and increases mobility.
The Socrates programme, having gone through a highly successful first phase of promoting European cooperation in university education, school education and language teaching, is now to be extended to cover adult education and those who left school without qualifications.
<P>
It is also important that all young people in Europe should attain a basic level of knowledge.
I therefore feel, like previous speakers, particularly Mrs Pack, that the call from the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media for funding for the Socrates programme to be increased from ECU 1.4 billion to ECU 2 billion is the most important of its demands.
It is also important for the Youth for Europe programme to have its funding increased from ECU 600 million to ECU 800 million if we really want to try to double the number of young people involved, which is the Commission's aim.
It is absolutely essential if structures are to be simplified and communication improved.
I would like to thank our colleagues, particularly Mrs Waddington and Mrs Pack, for producing their opinions so quickly, with the result that we will now probably be able to have a first common position during the Austrian Presidency.
<P>
I was particularly pleased that at the informal meeting of ministers in Baden there was already broad agreement on increasing funding and on the fact that the education programmes should be less bureaucratic, more transparent and more decentralised. I therefore hope that there can now be fruitful cooperation between Parliament, Council and Commission for the benefit of education in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldi">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I congratulated Mrs Pack in this Chamber last year and I renew those congratulations.
This second phase of Socrates, the Community action programme for education, seeks to resolve two of the main obstacles encountered in the first phase: insufficient financial resources and coordination and information difficulties between Member States, Commission and citizens.
It is therefore important to increase the financial allocation for the period 2000-2004 to ECU 2 billion, and to simplify management and application procedures at the same time. It is essential to pursue the programme's aim of promoting quality in education by encouraging cooperation, intensifying mobility and developing the European dimension in all sectors of education.
<P>
Socrates is the touchstone of a policy intended to bring the European Union and its citizens together, and it is making a crucial contribution to the progressive construction of a European education area.
Furthermore, exchanges of information and experience on problems of common interest relating to education are vital if we are to guarantee any one of the cooperation activities provided for in the various measures.
In particular, this includes Ortelius, the database on higher education in the fifteen Member States of the European Union which DGXXII and the Council of Ministers has wanted ever since 1993, because it is the only database in the world permitting integrated recovery, through a single question and a cross-referenced search, of information on different educational situations, thus bringing together information dispersed across the net.
<P>
Finally, I want to thank Mr De Coene for emphasising the need to establish a better balance between the European Voluntary Service and the other actions, coordinating and integrating them, and counteracting their tendency to fragmentation.
The Youth programme combining Youth for Europe and the European Voluntary Service can play a decisive role in resolving issues linked to individualism, nationalism, insecurity and distrust of one's fellow man.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Vecchi">
Mr President, with the new phase of the three Community programmes devoted to education, training and youth, we have a great opportunity to invest, at European level, in the development of human resources, especially amongst the younger generations.
We are very well aware that these programmes are not intended to replace individual national policies - which should be strengthened by them - but to become an important reference point both in developing the transnational dimension in human resources actions, and in the ongoing process of reforming the education systems in all the Member States.
<P>
As regards the Youth programme, the Commission's proposal, as amended by Parliament, will represent an important development in the opportunities offered both to young people individually and to groups of young people.
Transnational exchanges, informal education, voluntary work and support for youth creativity are the planks of a programme which could really become a great opportunity for individual and collective growth for the young people of our continent.
<P>
In particular, the European Voluntary Service, which has already proved itself in previous years, is destined to become one of the pillars of Community policies to develop European citizenship and affirm the practice of informal education.
But, all in all, we are asking for the three programmes to be adequately funded to ensure that the resources available are enough to meet their needs.
So Parliament is placing major emphasis on the need to simplify the management of the programmes and cut down on bureaucracy so that access to them is guaranteed to all - to young people, to associations and to training and education institutions. Only by putting our money on the energy and intelligence of young people, and the world of education and training, will we be able to build a fair, democratic and effective Europe which is worth working for.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, exchange programmes in the EU for young students and researchers are one of the most important Community policies aimed specifically at our citizens and which serve to promote free movement.
The significance of the exchange programmes in relation, for example, to the process of Union enlargement or the aim of equivalence in qualifications cannot be overstated.
I believe it is important to increase funding for Union exchange programmes, and it is a positive step that the Commission communication on a Europe of knowledge and skills recognises the need for additional funding.
The participation of eastern European countries in exchange programmes in particular will put pressure on the funding framework, and there is a danger that the present citizens of the Union will have to settle for a much smaller share of funding than now as compared to the lion's share the EU applicant countries stand to receive.
<P>
It is vital to ensure that young people continue to be involved in the preparation of programmes, and the Commission must see to it that the voice of those participating in programmes makes itself heard in the working parties which decide on programme form and content.
In this way we can ensure that the programmes will continue to be popular in the future.
Finally, my thanks to the rapporteurs for their commendable work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="Morgan">
Mr President, this is the first time that these three programmes have been bunched together in this way, creating a Europe of knowledge.
Its importance I hope is that it will provide a degree of flexibility between the Youth for Europe, Socrates and Leonardo programmes.
One of the problems we had in the past was a lack of flexibility.
We have tried to add to the possibility of fluidity between the programmes by creating the Connect line within the budget so we should be able to create better links.
<P>
These are three of the most successful programmes within the European Union but it is important for us to analyse who they have been successful for, who have been the participants.
I would like to focus on one programme in particular and one aspect of that programme: The Erasmus programme within the Socrates Programme.
This deals with student exchanges.
The Union has helped thousands of young people to gain experience in studying abroad.
Originally it was forecast that approximately ECU 5 000 per person would be available.
The reality is that there has only been ECU 70.
This is a joke; nobody can live on it.
So the parents have had to contribute and inadvertently we have created an elitist programme.
The most important amendment to the Socrates report is that which emphasises the need to select students on the basis of the financial needs of applicants as well as merit.
We do not just want rich students to have access to this programme.
<P>
That is not to say that other people cannot participate.
We want up to 10 % of EU students to participate and they can gain the prestige of being a part of this programme.
But, the money should be targeted at those who need it.
We need more money.
That is the important point.
ECU 2 billion is what we are going to fight for and the fight will commence now.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gröner">
Mr President, Commissioner, some young people who came to Parliament this week asked me 'Where is the spirit of Europe?'.
The answer is to be found in the new education and youth programmes, I told them, and Socrates, Leonardo and Youth for Europe combined with the voluntary service activities are all making a very important contribution to developing the synergy of the European spirit.
There need to be strong links with the Structural Funds and Hughes-Start, and the aim is to integrate young people into European society, to combat the unacceptably high levels of youth unemployment, to promote cultural understanding in the Union, education in tolerance and solidarity, equal opportunities for boys and girls and to fight against racism and xenophobia.
Those are our objectives, now it is up to us to prepare the young people of Europe to meet them.
The capital that we invest in them, as tomorrow's achievers, is our best economic investment for the future.
This is why it is a mistake to think that we do not need to spend more money on the culture and education programmes.
As long as we continue to regard olive plantations as more important than young people, we are barking up the wrong tree.
We need to change the way we think.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Perry">
Mr President, for Europe to respond to the needs of young people it has to be in touch with what those needs are.
A young British student expressed them to me when he said: 'We have all heard of the three 'Es' - education, education, education.
But I think young people want the four 'Es' - education, employment, environment and Europe'.
I think he is spot-on.
The first three may well be self-explanatory.
The fourth 'E', Europe, in my country sometimes seems a less obvious choice.
I would argue that the major reason for Europe's importance to young people is precisely because it has a fundamental role to play in the quality of assurance of the first three 'Es' and also for creating the opportunities of the single market.
<P>
In Britain alone some 200 000 young people are set to benefit directly from the EU initiatives over the next five years.
But the demand for places still far outweigh the supply.
Other organisations in Member States are needed to pick up where the EU has shown the way.
I would cite a charity, Trident Transnational, of which I am a trustee.
This organises work placements and vocational training for 150 000 students each year.
That is only one-third of the half a million or so young people who either go to the UK or leave the UK on work placement schemes.
The EU should certainly not think it must do all this itself but encourage and facilitate others in doing the work we believe in.
<P>
If we want the single market to be truly functional and the right to work across Europe to be meaningful, a period of study or work across Europe should not just provide an opportunity to experience the way of life in another country but should be to get a tangible qualification.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="De Esteban Martin">
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate the three rapporteurs on the reports we are debating in the House today.
I believe Parliament should determine to make youth one of the priorities for Europe, because young people represent the present and the future of our Union.
<P>
We have before us today proposals which amount to a genuine rethink of Community programmes in the fields of education, training and youth for the period 2000-2004. We should rejoice in them.
A great deal of experience has been gained in these areas. Taking all of it into account, I think we should make the most of the opportunity to make the fresh start which this new programme 'Youth' represents.
In the Committee on Culture, we have tried to produce a report which takes into account young people's concerns and which responds to their requests.
We have made every effort to provide young people with opportunities to travel in order to learn each others' languages and broaden their horizons. We have also emphasised the importance of new technology.
<P>
Our citizens need to be well informed if they are to play a full part in the building of the new Europe. This is precisely what the new programme, 'Youth', aims to achieve.
Only then can people set to work and take advantage of the opportunities now available.
<P>
In my opinion, ladies and gentlemen, this new programme, 'Youth', is even more open to the young people of Europe as a whole.
It enables young Europeans to come together, whatever their origin, and learn to value each other whilst respecting their cultural, linguistic and social differences. In short, it will foster what we in the European Union hold dear: greater tolerance amongst the young people of Europe.
Implementation of this programme will allow young people to learn to live together. It will also develop their initiative.
This will be excellent training for the economic world of the future in which the young will have to play their part. This opportunity for our young people must be supported by the House, together with its specific objectives: the development of solidarity, and guaranteeing and enhancing every aspect of European citizenship.
The programme also allows young people to absorb a range of values which will create a sense of belonging to a common social and cultural area.
<P>
Parliament's position has played a large part in setting the proposed budget for these programmes. As a result, twice the number of young people as were involved in previous ventures of this nature will benefit from the actions in this programme.
A total of some 130 000 young people will gain from it.
<P>
In the Committee on Culture we tried to share the budget fairly amongst the various actions in the programme. We have taken account of research, management structures and young people's groups who have explained to us what they really need.
We are therefore putting forward what we think is a more realistic budget amendment.
<P>
As you will gather from what I have already said, I believe that thanks to all the political groups working so well together, and to the rapporteur's flexibility, we have produced a helpful amendment to the Commission's text. On behalf of the People's Party, I therefore ask you to support this programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="Cresson">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this sitting of the European Parliament marks a very important stage in the adoption of decisions for the new generation of action programmes in the field of education, training and youth.
I would like to firstly congratulate and thank Parliament's rapporteurs, Mrs Pack for the Socrates programme, Mrs Waddington for Leonardo da Vinci, and Mr De Coene for the action programme on youth.
I would like to thank them for their commitment and for the quality of their work in furthering this debate within Parliament and presenting their reports at this sitting.
I would also like to thank the draftsmen of the opinions of the various committees involved, particularly Mrs Guinebertière, Mrs Boogerd-Quaak, Mr Virrankoski, Mr Papakyriazis and Mr Christodoulou.
Thanks to their efforts, you can give your opinion during this same sitting on the reports relating to the three programmes.
In my opinion, it is very important that these issues are being considered at the same time.
This confirms my desire to develop an integrated approach, through these three proposals, that contributes to the construction of a Europe of knowledge that is open to all citizens, and particularly young people.
<P>
I must highlight, too, the very positive attitude of the Presidency towards moving the work forward at Council level and ensuring the maximum collaboration among the three specialist preparatory groups and with Parliament.
I think that the cooperation established between the institutions in order to move the negotiations forward under the best possible conditions sets a fine example.
<P>
In this context, the Commission believes that most of the amendments tabled add more precision, and even strengthen Community action in the fields of education, training and youth; we will thus be able to take them over.
As a result, we accept, in full or in part, 33 amendments for Socrates, 42 amendments for Leonardo and 36 amendments for the youth programme.
There are a few sensitive points that I would like to look at in more detail.
<P>
First, I think that the high political profile of the programmes must result in clear and concise objectives.
We have made an effort in our proposals to concentrate the objectives and give them a specific meaning.
I would like each programme to have a reduced number of objectives which will then be the messages that the Union sends out to European citizens to explain its action.
And I accept the amendments that go in this direction.
<P>
In this respect, I would emphasise the importance of the provisions that are common to the three programmes. They are a sign of their contribution to the construction of a Europe of knowledge and to the development of a European education area.
Similarly, the three programmes must help to remove the legal or administrative obstacles that stand in the way of the transnational mobility of young people or people undergoing training, and I accept the amendments that strengthen these provisions.
<P>
I think it is important to enhance the programmes' complementarity with the Structural Funds with a view to developing and broadening the scale of the results obtained within the framework of the programmes, particularly Socrates and Leonardo.
I also entirely share Parliament's concerns and the proposals it has made to improve the assessment of the programmes, both from the point of view of the measures taken at Community level, and as regards their effect in modernising education and training systems.
<P>
The amendments that we cannot accept are mainly of an institutional nature, in other words those relating to the rules governing comitology, for example, the procedures for consulting the Community institutions, external policy or the budgetary rules.
<P>
As regards the duration of the programmes, the Commission has taken account of past experience and proposed a duration of five years.
The aim here is to find a fair balance between the need for the programmes to have stability over a period of time, so as to facilitate work, and the need to ensure that the objectives and procedures for Community action do not become bogged down during an excessively long period.
I believe that a duration of five years strikes the right balance.
<P>
I note Parliament's support for an increase in budgetary allocations to these programmes.
The experience of recent years has shown that, as several speakers here have pointed out, more and more people are applying to take part in these programmes, both from teaching and training establishments and from bodies working with young people or involved in young people's issues, as well as European citizens themselves.
<P>
During the vote on the budget each year Parliament has shown constant support for this issue.
The Commission's budgetary proposals represent a very significant increase and confirm the political priority these programmes are being given, while respecting the constraints of the financial perspective, particularly item 3.
I welcome the fact that the Commission and Parliament share the same desire to increase the budgetary resources in order to satisfy the ambitions of the programmes.
I hope that the rest of the negotiation process will allow the Council to give a similar opinion in this respect.
<P>
Apart from these general comments on the three programmes, I must make a number of specific observations.
In the framework of the Socrates programme, we accept many amendments designed to strengthen the Commission's proposal, and these can be incorporated either as they are, or in spirit.
In particular, I would mention here the amendments relating to the target figure for the number of people in the group the programme hopes to reach; the principle of integrating the equal opportunities dimension in all the measures supported, including through the use of positive actions; the fact that priority is to be given, when allocating Erasmus grants, to students with particular financial difficulties; and the increased use of the European Community Course Credit Transfer System (ECTS) in the field of higher education.
<P>
I would like to say a few words on Erasmus and, to repeat what was said earlier, I would point out that it is not an elitist programme.
It reflects the reality of the student population in the Member States.
The Commission has always tried to ensure that the relevant authorities in the Member States give grants to the less privileged students and the results of the survey currently being carried out on the economic and social situation in this respect will be forwarded to Parliament next February.
<P>
I agree with the proposal to call Action 5 on multimedia 'Minerva', and thereby to have a female name associated with an education programme.
<P>
However, I cannot accept certain amendments that could limit the development of joint actions between the programmes and with other Community actions.
I must stress the importance of these joint actions: these new provisions allow us to combine the resources of the three programmes and of other actions that contribute to the construction of a Europe of knowledge.
In the case of Leonardo, we welcome the fact that an explicit reference is made to NGOs to facilitate their access to the programmes, but for comitology reasons they cannot actually be included in the committee.
Moreover, we accept the proposal to strengthen the general principle of non-discrimination in terms of access to the programmes, but without refocusing access on specific target groups.
I must also point out that the Commission agrees with the rapporteur that more attention must be given to equal opportunities.
<P>
In answer to the questions by Mr Wolf and Mr Kerr about information on the administration of Leonardo, I would point out that I referred the matter to financial control at the beginning of the year.
As a precaution, pending the results of the examination, I suspended all contract operations for the projects selected following the 1997 call for proposals.
When the checks were completed, financial control noted that there had not been a conflict of interests and my services were able to issue financial agreements for all the projects selected.
Financial control also authorised the renewal, for the third year, of the projects selected in 1995.
As regards the more general audit of the administration of the programme, the financial control report has still not been finalised.
I am waiting until I receive this report before deciding what corrective measures might be needed.
<P>
On the subject of the Youth programme, the Commission accepts all the amendments relating to promoting genuine European citizenship and the ideals of democracy, tolerance and cohesion in the construction of Europe, which were highlighted, in particular, by Mr De Coene. We also accept those highlighting the importance of information that allows us to reach all young people and the importance of ensuring that the programme is more accessible, as underlined by Mr De Coene and Mrs de Esteban.
We welcome, too, the amendments on the specific efforts that must be made in order to provide for the creation of a structure aimed at promoting young people's projects, information, background material on youth and dialogue with all young people, as proposed by Mrs Guinebertière.
Particularly important here is the plan to combine additional resources to help the integration of those young people who have most difficulty in participating in the programmes.
Moreover, the use of the Internet, also proposed by Mrs Guinebertière, is a good idea to help young people gain access to the programme.
In fact, we are already doing this, by way of the Eurodesk project.
The proposal by Mrs Guinebertière strengthens our determination to develop these tools.
<P>
I would like to clarify for Mrs Maes that the voluntary service is very successful with young people.
Those young people who participated in the organisation of the World Cup were, in general, from less privileged groups.
They were very enthusiastic about taking part in this unique experience that took place right at the end of their stay, which itself involved working in sports establishments of their choice.
<P>
However, the Commission has not been able to approve the amendments changing the age range and limiting youth contribution to the construction of Europe. Specifically, we accept some of the amendments in full or in part.
For Socrates, this means Amendments Nos 2 to 8, 10 to 13, 18, 20 to 23, 25, 27, 29 to 39, 41, 42, 44 and 46. For Leonardo, we accept Amendments Nos 1 to 5, 7 and 8, 11 to 19, 22 to 24, 27, 29 to 35, 37 and 38, 41 and 42, 46 and 47, 49 to 55, 57 and 58.
For the Youth programme, we accept Amendments Nos 1 to 15, 17 to 19, 21, 22, 24, 26, 28 to 31, 34, 36, 39 to 42, 46, 49, 52, 57 and 59. As a follow-up to Parliament's reports on the three programmes, we are putting forward amended proposals based on the amendments tabled by Parliament.
They can therefore be taken into consideration in the common positions that the Council will adopt during the Youth Council on 26 November, and during the Education Council on 4 December.
<P>
In conclusion, I must point out that, in my opinion, we are well on the way to enabling Parliament to proceed to its second reading before the end of the parliamentary term.
This is important as it will allow you to continue to provide, to the very end, the continuous political support that Parliament has given to these programmes, which directly affect citizens and provide them with specific opportunities to participate in the Europe of knowledge that we have begun to build together.
It will also allow us to prepare the implementation of the programmes during 1999 under optimum conditions, so that they will be ready for launching on 1 January 2000.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="Waddington">
Mr President, I simply wanted to raise an issue that Madam Cresson referred to but since she missed my opening speech she did not respond to it.
We were very pleased to hear the point she made about the audit of Leonardo but I would make a request to her that she come to the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment to discuss with us the findings of that audit on Leonardo I.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pirker">
Mr President, I should like to put a comment to the Commissioner.
The best way to enable young people to find employment is to ensure that they are qualified for the right jobs.
We now know that the majority of young people, 80 %, obtain qualifications for only 11 types of work, which drastically reduces their chances of finding a first job.
This is why I would suggest that transnational analyses should be carried out to identify what types of work are in demand in the medium and long terms.
This is an idea worth supporting, because this is what makes young people decide on what skills to learn.
Would you consider pushing this analysis through, so that young people can finally concentrate on obtaining qualifications in types of work where there are actually jobs to be had?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="Cresson">
Mr President, I would firstly like to apologise to Mrs Waddington.
I was indeed a few minutes late and did not have the pleasure of hearing her speech.
As regards the Leonardo audit and the question of my coming to the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, this is a proposal that I fully agree with and I will be coming to the committee to discuss this problem as soon as possible.
<P>
As regards what Mr Pirker said, it is true that we must ensure that our young people are qualified for the jobs on offer today.
Guiding young people is a serious problem since, given the extremely rapid developments in technology, we are not entirely aware of exactly what qualifications are going to be required.
I also believe that nothing can replace solid, basic training and good guidance. And I would like to point out to him that these transnational analyses, which help us to discover what jobs will be most accessible, already exist in the Commission for the social affairs sector.
But we can, of course, focus our efforts more on these problems and I am quite open to any suggestions that might be made in this respect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 11 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Work-linked training
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0374/98), on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0418/98-97/0321(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Decision on the promotion of European pathways in work-linked training, including apprenticeship (Rapporteur: Mr Castagnetti).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="Castagnetti">
Mr President, the initiative on European pathways in work-linked training ties in very well with this morning's speeches on educational programmes. If I may say so, this is an initiative which goes beyond the exchange of information and experience.
It offers an opportunity for real experience, and diversified, alternative training pursued in different geographic areas. It is a response to the request for new ideas we are hearing from the young people of Europe, and in a sense it is a metaphor for the training of tomorrow in Europe.
I said European pathways, and I want to emphasise that: these are not just national any more.
They include student mobility, lecturer mobility, mixed systems and training experiences, and then there is integrated skills training, in other words training which is more work-linked and more adapted to helping young people into work.
<P>
We emphasise the idea of pathways.
On the subject of the common position, we, the European Parliament, mainly stress the value of the pathway and not just the final certificate, the Europass.
It is true that the Treaty protects the individuality and autonomy of the various national training systems, but it is also true that in a Europe of free movement of persons, with young people independent and eager for training, some national rigidity needs to give way so that a start can be made on at least some common training pathways.
So we appreciate the fact that, in the common position, the Council did not make significant changes to the text which emerged from the first reading and actually accepted that this work-linked training pathways initiative applies not just to countries which provide for training experiences abroad, but to the whole of the territory of the Union, to all the countries which voluntarily agree to adopt this initiative.
<P>
Because we appreciate these points in the common position we have lessened the thrust of our amendments, because we really want to get this text approved quickly.
<P>
We also appreciate the fact that the common position considers it useful for the Commission to play a part and not be excluded from the monitoring process or from establishing the principles common to this type of training experience.
The Council has partially taken on board the idea of preparation and information measures which young people taking part in this experience need.
In committee we also accepted some amendments tabled by Mrs Waddington, whom I would like to thank, primarily regarding occupational safety requirements.
<P>
The Commission's text, as confirmed by the European Parliament at first reading, set out certain objectives: defining the content and common principles of the European pathway and establishing the final document, the Europass.
It is true that the Council rejected the first of these objectives but that does not remove the need to ensure that the certificate complies with common principles.
That is how the amendments we approved in committee should be understood, particularly Amendments Nos 1 to 6 and 9.
<P>
We have also revived the issue of the European pathway: without distorting the intention of the common position we have in a sense strengthened it, with a few fairly modest amendments designed to restore and enhance the value of the European pathway, and not just the Europass.
So we trust that these amendments, unanimously approved by our parliamentary committee, will finally be accepted by the Commission and the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="Kerr">
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="Waddington">
Mr President, I should also like to thank Mr Castagnetti for his report and for being prepared to take on board so many of my amendments in the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment.
We believe that one important means of encouraging people to take part in a period of worked-linked training in another Member State is to ensure that experience is validated and recognised across the European Union.
This is really one of the most significant aspects of the scheme.
<P>
We in this Parliament want to ensure the quality of these experiences and the quality of the validation.
To support and encourage such opportunities requires considerable preparation by all the partners involved and the proposals that the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment have resubmitted provide the key elements for such preparation.
For example, the trainees themselves need preparation, including an awareness of the health and safety risks in a new and unfamiliar environment.
Accidents often occur when young people are unfamiliar with their working environment and to move and work in another European country may create more dangers.
So it is important that the health and safety risks are taken on board.
<P>
It is also important that the social partners at the European and enterprise level are fully involved and consulted and that all the potential beneficiaries, enterprises and trainers are aware of the possibilities so that they can themselves inform others.
These are important aspects of quality and enabling of mobility.
We hope that the Commission and Council will take them on board.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Mr President, I welcome the communication from the Commission on the promotion of apprenticeship schemes, which would have a considerable impact in reducing youth unemployment.
<P>
In Sweden there are virtually no apprenticeship schemes, but at the beginning of the 1990s work-linked training was introduced in secondary schools, with 15 % of teaching being carried out in the workplace and the remainder in the classroom.
Of course, it is up to Member States to devise apprenticeship schemes in accordance with the subsidiarity principle, but I still believe that it would be both positive and rewarding to establish common principles and also to have a EUROPASS.
<P>
I share Mr Castagnetti's view that too much attention has been focused on EUROPASS Training at the expense of the European pathways.
We therefore support the report as amended by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Raschhofer">
Mr President, SMEs are the backbone of the European economy, some apprentices are future specialised workers and others are future entrepreneurs, provided that their training is practical and in line with economic requirements.
The basic idea of allowing them to develop skills in other European countries too is to be welcomed, but I fear that it will prove very difficult to put this into practice in vocational training.
There will be occupations for which it is entirely logical to obtain experience from other countries, such as chefs and waiters, for example.
The added value of their experience ultimately benefits the firms to which they return, and this acts as an incentive for their bosses or those training them.
But there will also be vocational fields where this is not so true, such as with business apprentices learning accountancy and wage clerking.
How are they supposed to gain these skills abroad?
<P>
If we really want to bring the European project alive, we need to ensure that periods of training are comparable, otherwise only certain dual training sectors will be accepted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="Cresson">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Parliament, and particularly the rapporteur, Mr Castagnetti, for the support given to this proposal and for the amendments tabled at this second reading.
<P>
Parliament proposes 21 amendments, and the Commission accepts 19 of them.
These amendments improve and clarify the common position adopted by the Council and, at times, even strengthen it.
We therefore accept the amendments aimed at guaranteeing that the duration is consistent with the objectives and the skills to be acquired under the European pathway, and ensuring that this is, in fact, a real training period.
<P>
We also accept the amendments that aim to guarantee the provision of adequate information and broader accompanying measures in relation to the conditions under which the European pathway is completed, particularly as regards occupational health and safety, among other things, in cases where those undergoing training complete their European pathway in a company.
I would like to thank Mrs Waddington for drawing my attention to this essential aspect, which is also a key factor in ensuring the success of the European pathway.
In addition, we accept the amendments aimed at highlighting the role of the various partners, work-linked training and apprenticeships, and those that clarify the Commission's powers so that it can implement and assess the European pathways.
These are the amendments we can accept.
<P>
However, we cannot accept the amendments of a budgetary nature.
But I can assure you that the proposals you make, particularly as regards how the decision on 'EUROPASS Training' ties in with the programme on vocational training, have been taken into consideration.
In the Commission's proposal for the second stage of the Leonardo da Vinci programme, which is also on today's agenda, we have agreed to provide Community support for transnational placements and exchanges that are European pathways in work-linked training, including apprenticeship.
<P>
In conclusion, we can accept Amendments Nos 1 to 5 and 7 to 20.
On this basis, I plan to present, in the very near future, an amended proposal so that the final decision can be taken at the Social Affairs Council on 2 December, and so that in 1999 we might begin the preparatory work to implement this decision on 1 January 2000.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
Thank you also for your patience.
I must apologise for the noise in the Chamber.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place in a few moments.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Janssen van Raay">
Mr President, I had asked if I could raise a brief point of order before the vote on Rules 5 and 119.
Normally I follow Mrs Fontaine's procedure in saying that, for reasons of principle and on fiscal grounds, I do not take part in roll-call votes.
Today I have my reasons for saying that, so that it can be recorded in the Minutes.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, during this vote, you stated that the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations was responsible for having requested practically all the separate votes, and there seemed to be a somewhat negative connotation in that statement.
I would like to congratulate you, on the one hand, on the attention you are paying to our group and the work it does. But, on the other hand, I must point out that, in fact, it was not our group that requested the votes in question, but the Union for Europe Group, so they should be the ones you pay tribute to.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="President">
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, thank you for the correction.
It is true that, indeed, it was not you who asked for a separate vote on this report, but the Union for Europe Group.
In previous votes, however, it was you who asked for most of the separate votes.
I said most of them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, unquestionably you have delivered an important speech.
We should be grateful if you could repeat it, but I would like to hear it translated into Dutch.
I am afraid my Greek is not up to following every last word of what you said.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="President">
Mr Blokland, if at some time the Dutch booth was unable to follow me, thank you very much for letting me know.
I would be very glad and willing, especially in view of our friendly relationship, to explain to you in detail what I said and what I meant after the end of the sitting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Christodoulou">
Mr President, I would like to explain that the reason why our group will be voting against these amendments, those relating to the free movement of people, is not because we disagree with the concepts they express.
On the contrary, we agree completely. But to avoid confusion, we do not think that this should be included in a report dealing with the free movement of goods.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Hendrick">
Mr President, I am sure that the rapporteur will speak for himself but this group feels that it is important to mention the free movement of workers, but not necessarily in the main text.
We will be voting that position.
<P>
I should also like to make it known that our group opposes the Green Group amendments because they were not submitted in committee.
If everyone submitted amendments directly to the plenary then plenary sessions would last 24 hours.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García-Margallo y Marfil">
Mr President, as I stated earlier, I wish to put forward an oral amendment, adding a further brief point to the draft legislative resolution. It reads as follows: 'Calls on the Commission to draw up as soon as possible a draft regulation effectively securing free movement of workers in the Member States of the European Union'.
<P>
This amendment would be inserted after paragraph 3. I believe it would reflect the feeling that free movement of goods should be aligned with freedom of movement for workers, an issue on which the House is determined to make progress.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="President">
Mr García-Margallo y Marfil, you did indeed submit that draft to the Bureau and I will bring it up for debate as soon as we get to the draft legislative resolution.
What you have said has already made Parliament aware of the issue, but we will consider it at the appropriate time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
I do not understand this, because we did not complain about this report being put on the agenda again at such short notice, although it is a point worth making again.
There was a special new deadline for amendments, which we met, as far as I am aware, when we retabled some amendments from committee.
I think it is quite unfair to tell us it cannot be done and that we have not acted correctly, and I would like to register a formal protest at the way in which this already difficult matter is being steamrollered through.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="Skinner">
Mr President, I should like it to be known that I am against any oral amendments tabled by any other group.
We have had eight months to debate this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="President">
Mr Skinner, we will consider that at the appropriate time, and you can declare your opposition then.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, as has already been stated, the European People's Party supports the amendments concerning freedom of movement for workers.
However, the House already has before it the proposal for the revision of Regulation No 1612/68 on freedom of movement for workers, and in legal terms it does seem more logical for such amendments to be included in that proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="Skinner">
Mr President, my own oral amendment with the agreement of the author of this amendment which is an attempt to try to assist its passage, is to remove the specific reference to the particular Directorate-General where this would be published so that the words 'DG XV: Free movement of goods' section will be deleted.
I believe that technically this will be helpful for the amendment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="President">
Is there any objection to putting that oral amendment by the rapporteur to the vote?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lataillade">
Mr President, I thought you had announced that no oral amendments would be accepted during the sitting.
I just wanted to remind you of the presidency's proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="President">
Mr Lataillade, I asked whether any Members objected to the rapporteur's oral amendment.
There was no objection, so we will put it to the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="von Wogau">
Mr President, this is not an oral amendment, it is simply a matter of omitting part of the article.
This can quite easily be done by having a separate vote.
Mr Skinner is simply proposing that these five or six words be omitted, and we can vote separately on that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="President">
Mr von Wogau, this can be done in various ways, but the rapporteur preferred to submit an oral amendment, as was his right, and I am obliged to put it to the vote.
You are right, he could have done it otherwise.
However, he did it orally and Parliament accepted that.
<P>
I will read out the text of the oral amendment in French:
<P>
'Calls on the Commission to draw up as soon as possible a draft regulation effectively securing free movement of workers in the Member States of the European Union'.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García-Margallo y Marfil">
Mr President, I am sure the rapporteur will accept this oral amendment, since the Socialist Group and our group have made the possibility of putting forward oral amendments into such a sensitive issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="President">
I would like to ask the rapporteur, and Parliament too, of course, whether they agree that this oral amendment should be put to the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Skinner">
Mr President, in fact my oral amendment was to help your group.
It was not to help my group.Your amendment was very good.
I tried to help that.
But I really cannot accept this amendment.
We have already said enough about the free movement of workers as a political statement.
In that respect I cannot support this oral amendment however good it might be.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="President">
Is there any objection on the part of the House to my putting this oral amendment to the vote?
To establish that there is an objection, at least 12 Members must rise.
<P>
(More than 12 Members rose, thereby expressing their objection) There is an objection.
Consequently, I cannot put it to the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, I would just like to say that the rapporteur, Mr Skinner, is being very unsporting.
We are voting for his oral amendment.
We are remaining seated and you are not.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="President">
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, I think that if we start debating about a sporting spirit in this House, we will run into major problems about who is and who is not sporting, and why.
Let us go no further with that discussion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Wogau">
Mr President, I would like to support what the rapporteur has said, because as committee chairman I have only just received Mr García-Margallo's oral amendment.
There are many directives on the free movement of workers in the European Union - we cannot talk about one directive, there are a great many of them on the subject.
I think we should not take such decisions on the basis of oral amendments, so I tend to agree.
Mr Skinner has already said that he will not accept an oral amendment on this question, which I think is sensible, and so the matter is settled.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Chanterie">
Mr President, I should like to comment as follows on the UPE Group's Amendment No 1 to this paragraph.
Professor Cabrol thinks it is most important that a doctor should be consulted before a medicinal product is taken.
I think we all agree on that.
So I would suggest that we put in a combination of his amendment and my text, and if that is done I can support it.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Caudron">
The report by our colleague Mr Ford is interesting in many respects and is proof of a high degree of coherence and resolution in the fight against all forms of racism.
<P>
Of course, it is entirely right that we should ensure more effective links between the various bodies involved in these problems, and, similarly, we must rely on data and surveys to increase our knowledge and understand the problems and phenomena associated with the increasing lack of tolerance towards foreigners. However, we must not forget the key element: fighting and opposing racists and fascists whose words are full of hatred and exclusion.
This is something worth saying again and again, and it is a point I would emphasis most strongly.
<P>
We must not let our guard down.
Instead, we must constantly harass the racists, and allow them no respite in Europe and throughout the world.
These ideas are dangerous for democracy, violent for humanity, and intolerable for citizens and elected representatives like us.
Unfortunately, they are spreading like gangrene at all levels of our society, and although the fight is not lost, it is far from being won.
<P>
Faced with fascists of all kinds, at the end of a century where racism, xenophobia and anti-semitism have caused thousands of deaths, we must show no tolerance towards racists, xenophobes and their accomplices, whether they are disguised or not.
<P>
Castagnetti recommendation (A4-0374/98)
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw and Sandberg-Fries">
In our explanation of vote, we would like to stress our interest in the points made in the committee's report concerning the health and safety aspects for those involved in apprenticeship schemes and work-linked training.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Bonde, Krarup and Sandbæk">
We have voted against Mr Castagnetti's report today on the promotion of European pathways in work-linked training, including apprenticeship.
We are in favour of people being able to participate in exchanges as part of their training, whether this is vocational or at university level.
It can be a breath of fresh air compared with the everyday grind.
However, we are strongly opposed to the political overtones and undertones which are expressed in the report, for example when it says that the stay in another European country shall form an integral part of training in the country of provenance, or where it relates to 'EUROPASS Training'.
<P>
Roth-Behrendt report (A4-0326/98)
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, during the vote on the Roth-Behrendt report what I actually wanted to do was to protest about the procedure.
Indeed, I am not opposed to the proposal for a directive, which aims to eliminate the derogation for agricultural products and game in Article 2 of the Council Directive of 25 July 1985 on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States concerning liability for defective products.
<P>
Moreover, I welcome the fact that Amendments Nos 3, 4 and 7 were rejected by roll-call vote.
Firstly, I disagree with Amendment No 3 because it removed the obligation of the injured party to provide proof of the defect or the causal relationship between defect and damage under certain circumstances, a rule that is not compatible with liability law.
Similarly, I do not agree with Amendment No 4, which was rejected and which eliminated what is known as 'development risk', nor, finally, with Amendment No 7, which aimed to eliminate the limitation period of 10 years from the date on which the product is put on the market.
<P>
However, I would like to repeat the concern expressed by the Committee on Legal Affairs.
These amendments, and others that were also rejected - much to my satisfaction - had no direct link with the committee.
By allowing them to be put to the vote, without considering their admissibility, we were undoubtedly challenging the fact that Parliament does not have the right of initiative.
<P>
I would point out that there is a discrepancy in the attitude that has been adopted by the Presidency's services in this case and their attitude in a recent report on the creation of the Anti-Fraud Office, for example.
I do not think it was admissible - as Mr Casini points out in the opinion by the Committee on Legal Affairs - for these amendments to be put to the vote today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy. Because you were so keen to say your piece, I let you speak for half a minute longer, but I should be grateful if you could remain within your speaking time in future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Bébéar">
Consumer protection has been the subject of several texts we have studied in recent months, notably the Kuhn and Roth-Behrendt reports.
The amended directive that was presented to us yesterday also comes into this category although it includes, however, one regrettable exaggeration that I would like to highlight here.
<P>
The Temporary Committee of Inquiry into BSE carried out a very productive investigation into a subject that was particularly delicate and likely to arouse highly conflicting passions.
We have been presented with the amendments proposed as if they follow on directly from this approach.
As a member of this Committee of Inquiry, I would like to protest against such excessive claims.
<P>
Along with my colleagues, I have spent many months trying to ensure that measures were taken to help known victims and those yet to appear.
No directive on protection could be invoked.
It was therefore unthinkable to continue to ignore the damage suffered by consumers of agricultural products, whatever they may be, while all other manufactured products were covered by a directive.
<P>
For this reason, which in itself is positive, we are being presented with an extension of the directive that is totally unenforceable and unrealistic.
How can we restore the confidence of consumers if we propose, by way of protection, judicial procedures that will probably never reach a conclusion?
How can we apply in practice the obligation on the producer to prove that he is not responsible for the damage reported by the consumer?
<P>
With all due respect to Mrs Roth-Behrendt, it is not a matter of good consumers who are the injured parties on the one hand, and bad farmers who are thus the guilty parties on the other.
The circumstances surrounding the BSE crisis are difficult enough without making these kinds of categorisations.
<P>
The same is true when it comes to abolishing any time limit for establishing the liability of producers.
This is also totally inadmissible.
Accepting such amendments opens the door to all kinds of excessive proposals and, in particular, to budgetary increases that are impossible to estimate.
<P>
I will therefore vote against all the amendments proposed by the Roth-Behrendt report.
Although they are based on a fair view of the situation of consumers of agricultural products, the solutions proposed are out of all proportion and require a great deal more thought and consultation with all the sectors involved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Blak, Iversen and Kirsten Jensen">
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of Mrs Roth-Behrendt's report on product liability.
The original directive on product liability from 1985 contained a derogation for agricultural products.
Since then, all the Member States have extended the directive to include agricultural products and game as well, with the exception of Portugal, Spain and Germany.
However, the mad cow affair has led the Commission to remove this derogation.
That is the background to the revision of the directive.
<P>
The report also contains some quite controversial amendments aimed at extending consumer protection further than the Commission's original proposal.
The only point which the Danish Social Democrats are unable to support is the proposal to remove the scope for Member States to introduce thresholds or limits for liability.
The principle must always be that the rules - whether national or European - which protect consumers best must be applied.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Bonde and Sandbæk">
The June Movement has voted in favour of the proposals from the Environment Committee on consumer protection in the area of product liability.
Only in this way can the Member States take a decision on the matter in the Council of Ministers.
However, we do not wish to hide the fact that we have deep concerns about the procedure which has been adopted.
The June Movement does not want the right of initiative to be transferred from the Commission to the EU's Parliament, but instead to see it residing with the national parliaments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Grossetête">
The House today gave its opinion on the amendment of the 1985 directive on liability for defective products.
This is an extremely important text that establishes a Community system of no-fault liability, and simply putting a product onto the market is sufficient to warrant inclusion here.
<P>
At Parliament's request, following the crisis concerning mad cow disease, the Commission proposes to include agricultural products in the scope of the directive.
This will allow us, in applying this system of liability, to get round the problems of defining processed products and primary products that, unfortunately, have too often been encountered by judges up until now. It represents a significant step forward for consumer protection.
<P>
The rapporteur did not stop there, however, and by playing on the emotional aspect of the BSE crisis, has put forward proposals that are totally excessive and unrealistic.
They are excessive in that we cannot simply change the rules on no-fault liability without having first carried out an impact study on all the sectors involved and on the level of consumer protection.
They are unrealistic in that, with the best will in the world, the rapporteur's proposals would not, in fact, have increased the level of protection. Instead, they would have complicated the work of judges.
For example, how would they interpret the concept of 'possible causal relationship' advocated by the rapporteur? In addition, they would burden producers - particularly SMEs and SMIs - with insurance costs that would be passed on to the final consumer in the purchase price.
<P>
Parliament is wise to have rejected the six most extravagant amendments proposed by the rapporteur, who prided herself in having reached an acceptable compromise.
But with whom?
There was never any compromise, for our group, the PPE, had a clear position: none of the amendments that were proposed and put to the vote deserved to be adopted. There were two reasons for this.
The first is that it is never a good thing to increase the amount of legislation we have and the amendments adopted today will only serve to hold up the implementation of the Commission's proposal on agricultural products.
Secondly, Commissioner Monti yesterday promised to forward to Parliament, in January 2000, his Green Paper on the application of the directive and, in particular, its application in the agricultural sector.
This Green Paper will be the result of broad consultation with all the sectors involved - producers, consumers, insurance companies, and so on - and is an essential stage in the work involved in any proposal to amend such an important directive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Souchet">
I agree with all the observations made by my colleague Édouard des Places on the substance of this issue and, in particular, on the need to apply the system of liability for defective products further up the chain, that is, to apply it to those supplying agricultural products, such as cattle feed, seed, etcetera. What I would like to talk about, however, are the serious legal problems presented by certain amendments.
<P>
Some of the amendments are designed to change the general structure of Directive 85/374/EEC and are in no way connected with the Commission's proposal for a directive.
An examination of these amendments presupposes that the initial question of their admissibility has been resolved.
In fact, it is the Commission that has the power of initiative in terms of legislation.
<P>
Although we do agree with the content of some of the amendments proposed, it is not acceptable for the directive to be amended in this slipshod manner, without an initial study and without allowing the Member States to debate this issue in detail with all the necessary information at their disposal. We are once again violating the rules governing the operation of the European institutions.
<P>
We therefore vote against Amendments Nos 3, 4 and 7 in the report.
<P>
Amendment No 3 aims to abolish the obligation of the injured party to provide proof of the defect or the causal relationship between defect and damage under certain circumstances, and the vague wording of the amendment makes it difficult to determine what they are.
Moreover, it is not compatible with our national law and changes the overall balance of Directive 85/374/EEC.
<P>
Amendment No 4 is designed to eliminate what is currently known as the 'development risk', based on the state of scientific and technical knowledge, as one of the reasons for granting a producer exemption from liability.
This significantly changes the balance of Directive 85/374/EEC.
<P>
Finally, Amendment No 7 aims to abolish the limitation period of 10 years from the date on which the product is put onto the market.
This also changes the structure of the system of producer liability.
<P>
In conclusion, we should only allow such fundamental changes to a proposal to amend a directive if we have the agreement and active involvement of the Member States within the various Community institutions and, more particularly, within the Council.
Under no circumstances can we allow the European Parliament to try to take the place of the Member States by attempting to seize their legislative decision-making powers.
<P>
Mouskouri report (A4-0370/98)
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Blot">
This report deals with the restructuring of the European Union's cultural activities and in particular the creation of a single financing instrument.
It does not tackle a crucial issue that is undermining cultural life in Europe, namely the monopolisation of culture by a small oligarchy, a clique that is really quite powerful because it tends to take a significant proportion of public funding for itself.
<P>
The great art historian Ernst Gombrich believes that the politicisation of art is not peculiar to totalitarian regimes but is also seen in western regimes.
He notes the way in which access to commercial channels is denied to artists who do not conform to the dictates of fashion, to cosmopolitan, non-classical art that breaks with tradition.
As a result of this, funding goes to the type of art reserved for a small oligarchy that is cut off from what people want.
In addition, the public sector plays a much more important role than sponsors, resulting in the loss of the necessary cultural diversity.
<P>
The European Union should not be indifferent to this state of affairs as it means that artists who belong to subsidised groups living in the pockets of the cultural authorities tend to have a monopoly on artistic production and dissemination.
This leads to the creation of an official art, one that is admittedly diverse but unfairly and undemocratically excludes many artists, in particular those involved in classicism.
It is regrettable that this problem is not tackled, particularly in this report on the 'Culture 2000' programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Darras">
I would like to thank Mrs Mouskouri for the excellent report she has presented today.
In fact, while the European Commission's approach to this new generation of programmes in the field of culture is commendable in being both transparent and effective, the way in which it intends to implement them needed to be revised, and it is this that Mrs Mouskouri has undertaken so successfully.

<P>
The Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media could not understand how the Commission could forget to include in its objectives the ordinary person's involvement in and access to cultural activities and, when it comes to implementation, forget to provide greater support for the source of richness in European society, namely the 'small' projects that involve people directly.
<P>
The Commission placed too much importance on the large, established networks, which would in any case have no difficulty in responding to an invitation to tender, nor would they have any difficulty in finding the necessary partners, even in six other Member States!
It also placed too much importance on large-scale projects and events, which require a high degree of mobilisation that small associations cannot provide.
<P>
I will therefore be voting in favour of Mrs Mouskouri's report, because she has managed to redress the balance in favour of ordinary people, the small groups that take on projects, while giving a more complete view of the socio-cultural activities that can be awarded funding and are therefore indicative of the evolution of our society.
These include plastic, applied and visual arts (visual arts and multimedia), music and other (existing and future) forms of artistic expression.
<P>
I appeal to the Commission to review its position and to accept our rapporteur's view, which I hope will also be that of the European Parliament as a whole.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Deprez">
We all recognise that culture must be a cornerstone of the unification of Europe that we aspire to.
To build an integrated Europe, we must exploit and promote a European cultural area, which will only fully meet the objectives of European cohesion if all Europeans feel that they are fully involved in it.
<P>
The great advantage of the 'Culture 2000' framework programme, as amended by the rapporteur, lies in the fact that it accepts this point of view and as a result envisages a new approach to cultural activity.
It opens up cultural activities to initiatives by and the active involvement of the Union's citizens and recognises culture explicitly as a source of jobs and a factor in social integration and citizenship.
<P>
Another important advantage of this amended framework programme is that aims to ensure that the budgets allocated are used with optimum efficiency by resisting the tendency to spread funding too thinly and recommending a sectoral approach which encourages synergies between the various artistic fields and new forms of expression, and between these and other Community programmes.
<P>
Looking at the prospects in store, I am delighted with the eminently democratic nature of the amended framework programme and also with the excellent work done by the rapporteur, who has taken the broad areas of cultural cooperation previously opened up by the Commission and used them to best advantage.
<P>
It goes without saying that I support fully the draft legislative resolution proposed here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Hyland">
I fully support Nana Mouskouri in her call for more money for 'Cultural Programmes'.
<P>
With the welcome move towards greater EU integration and particularly in the context of enlargement, Europe's rich cultural diversity is its greatest resource in protecting the identity and individuality of each Member State.
From an economic perspective its potential has not been fully recognised or exploited.
There can be no doubting the significance of its role in the new and expanding area of cultural and rural tourism.
No other EU programme puts people and their cultural roots and traditions in their proper perspective.
<P>
Coming as I do from Ireland, we are particularly proud of our rich and diverse cultural tradition.
It is important for Europe that it is protected and promoted for future generations.
I am reminded of the words of Gandhi: 'We did not inherit this world from our forefathers - rather, we have borrowed it from our children'.
<P>
In conclusion, I would ask the Commission to seriously examine the role of Local Authorities in promoting cultural programmes.
In Ireland we have set a good example through the employment of Arts Officers and I believe their role should be strengthened if we are to succeed in bringing the richness of our cultural resource to all the people.
Culture should not be the preserve of the élite .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Leperre-Verrier">
By voting in favour of Mrs Mouskouri's report on the 'Culture 2000' programme, the ARE Group wished to lend its support to this Commission proposal establishing a single political instrument for cultural activity and cooperation.
<P>
In fact, Culture 2000 is a very real step forward which could strengthen the role of culture in the construction of Europe and provide it with an efficient and coherent means of intervention.
<P>
We in the ARE Group have not voted in favour of the amendments to the annex to the proposal because we felt that splitting up the funding allocated and restructuring by artistic discipline would be tantamount to spreading the funding too thinly, which was what happened previously.
<P>
Nevertheless, as implementation of this ambitious and promising project would require significant funding, the ARE Group supports the rapporteur's proposal to increase the finance to ECU 250 million.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR), Eriksson, Seppänen, Sjöstedt and Svensson (GUE/NGL), Holm and Schörling (V), Bonde, Krarup and Sandbæk (I-EDN)">
The report by Mrs Mouskouri on the introduction of a single financing and programming instrument for cultural cooperation is another attempt to put some flesh on the idea of 'EU culture' - a culture which does not exist and which we do not think is desirable.
The report stresses that the most important aim of this cooperation is to ensure that the cultural dimension assumes centre stage and acts as a driving force for European integration, and that culture is a means of integrating peoples and societies.
Moreover, in prioritising the selection criteria, the greatest weight is given to so-called 'European added value'.
<P>
Culture cannot be artificially created through political measures.
Local, national and regional culture is flourishing and has done for many centuries, and we want this to continue by letting it sow its seeds among those groups which feel a sense of common culture.
We think it is utopian to believe that an EU culture or a European cultural heritage can be invented.
It would be quite appropriate to make proper use of the subsidiarity principle, namely by giving local, regional and national cultures the scope to develop, and not by establishing a cultural policy in the EU.
<P>
On the basis of these considerations, we have voted against the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Mutin">
Mrs Mouskouri's report has the merit of having found an acceptable way to bring together two lines of thinking on culture.
The Council of Ministers and the Commission, in presenting a framework programme establishing a single financing and programming instrument, have made culture and cultural activities into an instrument for structuring European policy and identity.
The appropriations are less thinly spread and concentrated on major European events or in-depth activities involving a greater number of European partners (six or seven) than is currently the case (usually three).
<P>
Many Members consider that this cultural cooperation risks giving priority to existing major cultural networks and distancing cultural activity from the citizen.
They therefore prefer a more sectoral approach with the promotion and exploitation of activities that are more directly targeted towards small projects.
<P>
The debate has been fascinating.
Mrs Mouskouri's report provides a compromise for the period in question, 2000-2004.
There is no doubt that the debate will continue and that the various points of view will change in accordance with the phases of European construction and with everyone's determination to create what is truly a European Community.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Palm">
This report deals mainly with supranational measures that aim to strengthen our common European cultural identity through a common cultural policy that will act as the driving force of the process of cultural integration.
<P>
The measures proposed, for example to resolve the problems arising from the existence of disparities between Member States in the fiscal and labour market areas, would be appropriate if we wished to have a supranational cultural identity, but in my view this is the wrong approach.
Instead I would prefer to see an international cultural policy.
<P>
Furthermore, we should think about how much importance we really attach to safeguarding our European cultural identity.
Historically, it is very difficult to find anything that could be called a 'common European cultural identity'.
Today, cultural groups more often span different countries or continents.
For example, a young person in Stockholm has more in common with young people from the same social group and with a similar lifestyle in New York, Paris or Barcelona, than with a 'pan-European youth' group.
<P>
In order to discourage xenophobia and misunderstanding between people from different parts of the world and to foster solidarity and brotherhood, we should be striving to promote an understanding that cuts across today's cultural boundaries instead of constructing an artificial culture.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Vaz da Silva">
Mr President, there is something missing from this text that I must point out since it deals with a framework programme for culture.
<P>
Culture cannot be dealt with as a statistic, defined once and for all.
It is in perpetual movement and knows no boundaries.
<P>
If it is to play a useful role, the European programme for culture must be broadly based and flexible, so that it can take on board new emerging forms of culture and the different people involved in culture, who emerge, alter and disappear like comets.
But there are also minority cultures and languages and trans-territorial, migrant and immigrant cultures, not linked to a given territory. They are overlooked more than any other form of culture, because they have no state or region to represent them.
Let us not forget that the European mosaic is made up of all of these types of culture.
<P>
Waddington report (A4-0373/98)
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw and Sandberg-Fries">
We should like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Waddington, for her careful report, which deals with a matter of considerable importance for the European Union.
Mrs Waddington has shown great commitment in an area that we regard as very important for the future development of the 'Leonardo da Vinci' programme.
Above all, we should like to stress the following points: non-discrimination in the realisation of projects under the programme, the importance of the role of non-governmental organisations, and the promotion of quality and innovation in vocational training.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Bonde, Krarup and Sandbæk">
We have voted against Mrs Waddington's report today on the establishment of the second phase of the Community vocational training action programme 'Leonardo da Vinci'.
We are in favour of people being able to participate in exchanges as part of their training, whether this is vocational or at university level.
It can be a breath of fresh air compared with the everyday grind.
However, we are strongly opposed to the political overtones and undertones which are expressed in the report, for example the emphasis it puts on the European dimension in the theory and practice of vocational training.
<P>
It is also advocated that the Leonardo da Vinci programme should be seen in connection with a European employment strategy.
We believe that unemployment should be tackled locally, regionally or nationally, since there are many different reasons why people lose their jobs.
The strategies for combating unemployment must therefore also reflect this diversity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Caudron">
Susan Waddington's report includes several proposals which will improve vocational training and its impact on employment.
<P>
Many of our reports dealing with unemployment stress the need for good quality training, which is absolutely essential if workers and people in general are to be made employable.
<P>
It is therefore clear that priority must be given in this Community programme to those who are threatened by exclusion.
This effort must be sustained and continuous, and I share the Commission's opinion about extending the programme to six years.
Although this aim is entirely consistent with the European Social Fund, we must bring the schedules into line in order to increase coherence and efficiency.
Similarly, we must ensure that sufficient finance is provided for the proper functioning of the programme.
<P>
Another welcome point is the desire to involve the social partners in the implementation of Leonardo.
This concern for transparency is a credit to Parliament and illustrates a strong determination that has already been highlighted by other texts from the House.
<P>
In conclusion, I would like to express a reservation about the possibility of using Leonardo to support existing measures, particularly relating to the mobility of students and teachers.
While the intention is good, does this not risk overburdening the system?
Rather than trying to do this, I would prefer to increase the funds allocated to the Socrates programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Holm">
First of all, I should like to establish that this programme of activities is of fundamental importance.
In the main, I am able to give the report my unqualified support.
<P>
However, I am unhappy about the fact that the internal investigation which is currently being carried out into the 'Leonardo da Vinci' programme, and which will soon be completed, is not available now when Parliament is deciding on the next phase.
Obvious problems have come to light in the management and monitoring of the programme, which is a cause for serious comment.
<P>
I believe that Parliament should postpone consideration of this report until the results of the internal investigation of the first phase of the 'Leonardo da Vinci' programme are clear and have been evaluated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Titley">
I am happy to vote for this report by my Labour Party colleague Sue Waddington.
<P>
The added value of EU training programmes like Leonardo should be safeguarded in the years ahead and not threatened with cuts to its funding.
Training needs to be given time to bear fruits in new jobs being taken by the people who take part in courses - we need to invest time as well as money in our training programmes.
<P>
The report rightly calls for the Commission to make available across the EU information about new and innovative types of training.
If there are lessons in training we can learn from each other in Europe about how best to train ourselves for tomorrow's careers, they should be available to all our countries - what counts is what works, not which country first came up with the ideas.
<P>
Leonardo should be opened up to all public, private and not-for-profit groups, with a priority for EU training projects to be given to disadvantaged people - for example those who face double discrimination by being not only unemployed but also disabled or belonging to an ethnic minority.
<P>
Pack report (A4-0371/98)
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Bonde, Krarup and Sandbæk">
We have voted against Mrs Pack's report today on the establishment of the second phase of the Community action programme in the field of education 'Socrates'.
We are in favour of people being able to participate in exchanges as part of their training, whether this is vocational or at university level.
It can be a breath of fresh air compared with the everyday grind.
However, we are strongly opposed to the political overtones and undertones which are expressed in the report, for example inter-school plans, educational projects with a European dimension, European modules and the setting-up of European knowledge centres.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Caudron">
I would like to congratulate Mrs Pack on the clarity of her report and the fairness of the proposals she has made to improve the Socrates programme.
<P>
This Community programme for schools and students is one of the great successes of the European Union.
It has allowed thousands of students to perfect their education by including the European citizenship dimension.
<P>
There is no doubt, however, that we have to improve the existing system, particularly in terms of the administration of the programme.
<P>
Priority must of course be given to increasing the funding allocated for Socrates to allow more people to take part and also, perhaps more importantly, to increase the amount awarded to each student.
<P>
As the report explains, the cost of this mobility is significantly higher than the grant awarded.
I am regularly contacted by students involved in the scheme asking whether they could not be given extra funds to allow them a decent standard of living in the country in question.
<P>
So I think we have to enhance the mobility grant significantly and take into account the discrepancies that exist in the standards of living in the Union.
<P>
This would allow us to make this programme accessible to many more students who are sometimes worried by the extra cost involved in living abroad.
<P>
I agree with the proposal to widen the scope of the Socrates programme to include adults who have left the education system without qualifications.
This measure is very much in line with the fight against unemployment and the ideas put forward by the Luxembourg Employment Summit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Deprez">
I agree with the rapporteur that, despite obstacles such as insufficient financial resources and disjointed structure and functioning, the first phase of the Community action programme in the field of education, Socrates, has been a success that has played a major role in increasing a common sense of belonging within the Union.
<P>
In a world where it is becoming increasingly difficult to separate education from training and initial training from continuing training, the integrated approach of all the programmes in the field of education, vocational training and youth is most certainly the main innovation and merit of the Socrates II programme.
<P>
Of course, there is room for improvement. It could be made more effective and more relevant, for example.
A better match between the declared objectives and the methods to be used to achieve them, and a more precise definition of the tasks required of the Commission, would both help to make Socrates II even more successful.
<P>
Nevertheless, I strongly believe that the development of a European education that transcends national borders and offers new prospects and new horizons to the European citizens of the future, is one of the key ways in which we can unify the European Union and, further, the European continent into a peaceful and prosperous whole.
<P>
Economic and monetary union alone cannot ensure the success of such an ambitious undertaking.
Union will be achieved just as much, and probably with greater certainty, in people's minds and in the discovery by the younger generations that they all belong to a common project that is still open to the world.
<P>
This is the fundamental issue underlying the Socrates II programme, and I subscribe to it totally.
For this reason I lend my unequivocal support to Parliament's opinion on the subject today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw and Sandberg-Fries">
We would like to thank the rapporteur for her invaluable report.
Opening access to the 'Socrates' programme has important implications for European educational programmes in the future.
In our explanation of vote, we should like to express our views on opening the programme to include Turkey.
We regard this move as controversial because of the continuing instances of human rights abuse in that country. However, it should be noted that Amendment No 22 not only deals with Turkey's participation in the programme, but also with that of EEA and EFTA countries.
<P>
The European Parliament should, as a matter of urgency, give its opinion on whether Norway and Iceland, for example, are to be included in the programme.
As regards Turkey, the views expressed above also apply to the action programme for youth.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Palm">
In view of the fact that, despite having signed the European Convention on Human Rights 50 years ago, Turkey is still not complying with the principles it enshrines, I cannot support the proposal to include that country in the programme of actions outlined in this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Heinisch">
There are two points I would like to make about the new version of the Socrates programme.
<P>
The new Grundtvig programme includes parents' associations as equal partners in adult education for the first time.
As the initiator of various European parents' projects, I welcome this wholeheartedly.
Our education programmes have a common goal: to develop a generation of young Europeans to whom we can entrust the future of Europe.
Parents have a considerable role to play here, and their cooperation at European level, their cooperation with teachers and their own continuing education are all important issues.
<P>
I also welcome the fact that the new Socrates proposal creates a legal basis which also allows Turkey to participate in the programme, and I hope that this can be put into practice in the near future.
I regard Turkey's involvement as an opportunity to develop awareness of human rights and democracy among the Turkish people, and it was on this same basis that I produced my own report calling for Turkey to be included in the current Socrates programme.
The decision taken on the basis of this present report will enable us to start preparing Turkey for participation in the programme, and I feel sure that the European Parliament will now back this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Darras">
This second phase of the Socrates programme, like the other programmes in the field of youth and vocational training, is in line with an overall trend that places the emphasis on lifelong education and training for all.
<P>
The aim is to create a common base resulting in the creation of a European education and training area.
This programme is obviously based on the experience gained from its first phase; it consolidates the positive achievements and adds to these innovation, an essential element for the growth of any society, as well as an 'adequate' budget for 29 countries.
<P>
The report by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, as presented to us today, seems to me to be acceptable, because the European Parliament is proposing a budget increase, to a total of ECU 2 000 million instead of the ECU 1 400 million proposed by the Commission.
If we want this programme to be accessible to a maximum number of young people and adults wishing to undergo initial or continuing training, it is a minimal figure, given that the programme will be accessible to the citizens of a total of 29 countries.
It is acceptable also because it provides for the possibility of joint action with other programmes in the field of youth and training, because it takes new information technologies into account as an educational tool and as new knowledge.
Finally, it is acceptable because the procedures are simplified and the regional and local levels are taken into account, with a view to decentralisation of course, which implies better information, dissemination of information and improved cooperation with the Member States.
<P>
A great deal is at stake: not just the model of European society that we wish to safeguard but also, and in particular, the future of the young and the not so young, and the possibility of offering them a job and a place in this citizens' Europe that we aspire to.
<P>
De Coene report (A4-0389/98)
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Bonde, Krarup and Sandbæk">
In Denmark there is a good and long tradition of performing voluntary work in all age groups, and not just among young people, even if the level of activity is considerably higher in that section of the population.
Denmark is often referred to as 'the country of organisations', and on average every Danish person belongs to an organisation of one kind or another, whether it be a political party, a youth organisation, a scouting movement or a residents' association.
All these people are working to improve the situation of their members and of others who sympathise with their cause.
However, there are few of them who wish to work to develop the European dimension, to promote awareness of true European citizenship and to promote a European educational area.
We would also query whether there is such a thing as a 'European dimension' at all.
We are strongly opposed to the political overtones and undertones which are expressed in the report.
<P>
On the basis of these considerations, we have voted against Mr De Coene's report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Darras">
I must congratulate Philippe De Coene on the excellent work he has done, not only because I agree with his analysis, but also because it has probably given certain Commission services and in particular the Member States something to think about.
I have always thought that, in order to improve a situation, it is necessary to take a new look at accepted ideas and not to stop at the first hurdle.
This is what the rapporteur is suggesting today.
<P>
In terms of content, it seems to me that the idea of striking a balance between the various actions within the youth programme is a very positive one.
Young people, by their very nature and mentality, are thirsty for mobility, knowledge, experience, involvement; in a word, what they need is citizenship.
So reintroducing exchanges among the young and giving them the necessary funding is a very good thing.
In this respect, the recent demonstrations by French secondary school students support the rapporteur's arguments.
<P>
In addition, I also believe that the EVS, which I support wholeheartedly and which is very much a credit to the Commissioner and her services, can be improved upon, for example by adopting Philippe De Coene's idea of providing a more precise definition of what the host organisations (non-profit-making organisations) and host projects (activities which cannot replace jobs) should involve.
It is better to be clear about this from the beginning so as to avoid any misunderstandings.
<P>
What we want is to be more accessible to young people and to provide them with better information to get them more involved, which will in turn help them to take part in a Europe which is created by them and for them.
That is why I will be voting in favour of this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Holm">
In many respects, it is a good idea to group the various programmes together.
Most of the objectives are also praiseworthy, for example the learning of languages and the mobility of young people to increase their knowledge about new and unfamiliar cultures.
<P>
However, I am unable to support those amendments which contain the objectives of promoting a 'true European citizenship', 'the European Union's principles and rules' and 'the participation of young people in the development of the Union'.
I do not believe that these objectives are compatible with a programme for young people.
In my view, we should be broadening our global and international perspective, which is very different from the narrow concept of an EU identity that is a constantly recurring theme, even though no one supports it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Palm">
In view of the fact that, despite having signed the European Convention on Human Rights 50 years ago, Turkey is still not complying with the principles it enshrines, I cannot support the proposal to include that country in the programme of actions outlined in the report.
<P>
Waddington (A4-0373/98), Pack (A4-0371/98) and De Coene (A4-0389/98) reports
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="Amadeo">
The Treaty of Amsterdam and indeed Agenda 2000 firmly place the whole of cultural policy, research, innovation, education and training policy, in short, knowledge policy, at the centre of the future evolution of the Union.
<P>
What matters today is to provide the widest possible access to education and continuous updating of knowledge.
Presenting its three proposals for decisions on education, training and youth, the Commission sets out guidelines for Community action designed to contribute to the construction of a European area of culture and education.
<P>
In our view it is important to have synergy between these three proposals which must inevitably contribute to the development of knowledge, the enrichment of citizenship and the improvement of employment chances, through acquisition of the specific skills that have become necessary today.
<P>
In a rapidly evolving world, driven by technological change and the advance of the information society, the artificial division of education and training must steadily be reduced, and this is our priority task: to draw up legislation which upholds the cultural policy of the Union at all levels.
<P>
In our opinion the traditional distinction between initial training and continuous training or, indeed, the distinction between formal and informal education, also needs to be broken down by simplifying bureaucratic procedures and creating close and continuous links between the Community and national spheres by means of the Structural Funds, especially the European Social Fund. Cooperation measures in the field of youth constitute a crucial keystone in the active integration of young people and the promotion of citizenship of Europe.
Socrates, which promotes quality in education and expands the European dimension - involving 4 million teachers and 70 million young people - represents a major Community achievement, especially in terms of bringing Europe closer to its citizens, and in the construction of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Blak, Iversen and Kirsten Jensen">
The Danish Social Democrats in Parliament have today voted in favour of extending and improving the three programmes based on the guidelines in Agenda 2000.
The programmes are being simplified and the equal treatment aspects strengthened, both in terms of equal treatment for men and women and the inclusion of marginalised groups.
<P>
On the whole, we also support the proposed changes to the programmes.
However, there are some wordings which we feel go too far in terms of emphasising the supranational element.
In our view, the Member States should continue to have the main competence in the education sector.
European education policy should only supplement and support the national policy on education.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Lindqvist">
The Waddington, Pack, De Coene and Castagnetti reports on work-linked training and apprenticeship, life-long learning, transnational education, guest teachers and so on contain a number of fine proposals.
<P>
The programmes are strongly geared towards 'European identity', 'European cultural heritage' and 'EUROPASS Training', all of which are designed to carry us inexorably towards European integration.
Most of the programmes involve the allocation of fresh funding.
In this respect, the current investigation into the 'Leonardo da Vinci' programme concerns the misappropriation of EU funds.
The impartial nature of the report is to be commended, but the recurring theme of a 'European' superstructure is not supported by the people themselves.
The questions we should be asking are: what is meant by a European culture, and is there really any such thing?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="Seillier">
The second phase of the Socrates and Leonardo programmes calls for imagination and innovation in the field of vocational training for young people and adults and lifelong learning.
As the aim of 'equal opportunities for men and women' is also strongly emphasised, would it not be judicious and just to propose training courses especially for young women?
<P>
Nowadays many women postpone having their first child in order to ensure they obtain occupational qualifications at all costs (in Europe the average age at which women have their first child is 29) or they break off their university education or vocational training as soon as they have children.
Reconciling motherhood and training would be both possible and highly desirable, and would benefit women, couples, children and therefore social cohesion.
Should we not therefore encourage healthy competition in this area between the various countries of Europe?
<P>
As for the Community action programme for youth, it lacks character, inspiration and cultural perspective.
There are already other programmes for young people in the areas of school exchanges, vocational training and apprenticeships, so we would have liked this new programme to put forward ideas on ways to help the young people of our various countries to become more familiar with what they have in common in their cultural heritage, something which they are no longer brought up on. Sadly, throughout Europe, literary education, knowledge of Greek and Roman antiquity, ten centuries of history and civilisation incorrectly referred to as the Middle Ages - in short, culture in general - have been replaced by disciplines which do not aim to impart knowledge of the human condition.
<P>
All the great ages in history and in the civilisation of our various peoples have had a European dimension: the Roman Empire, Charlemagne's Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, monarchism, chivalry, Romanesque art, Gothic art, universities, pilgrimages, the Renaissance, classicism, the Enlightenment, and so on.
To allow our young people to come to know the diversity of our respective heritages against a background of fundamental unity, to allow them to immerse themselves in a common culture, not only out of love for the past but in order to equip them spiritually and intellectually to face today's great challenges together, would be a noble aim to promote.
<P>
Would a lack of humanism, at the end of the century and the millennium, not be the greatest deficit in Europe, even though, according to Paul Valéry, Europe is the continent that has most questioned the role of man in nature, in society and in the face of God.
<P>
Yes, if we wished, Europe's young people could indeed discover renewed enthusiasm for their common destiny.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Vaz da Silva">
Mr President, the issue of education/training is so essential to our societies that so many people wanted to speak in this debate that I have been forced to put what I had to say in writing.
I welcome the joint debate on the questions of education, training and youth, reflecting the growing trend towards an integrated policy on these sectors, something I obviously support.
I should like to make two comments, the first on the De Coene report and the second on the Pack report, summing up my own amendments.
<P>
First of all, we have to avoid the risk of creating a barrier between young people and the adult world, or between young people who belong to organisations and their peers - the majority - when developing youth policies.
A genuine youth policy is one which, instead of trying to make itself more visible and increasing the number of youth bodies and concerns, plays itself down in order to give young people a bigger say in other policies.
<P>
Secondly, there can be no European education policy without a European language policy.
This calls for serious thought and a wide-ranging debate on teaching children from primary school onwards throughout the European Union the same foreign language that can be used as a language of communication.
Along with that decision, we should also develop pro-active policies to promote multilingualism, since it is only by taking both approaches together that we will create a realistic European language policy.
<P>
Skinner report (A4-0385/98)
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw and Sandberg-Fries">
We should like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Skinner, for his diligence in carrying out this important task.
The creation of a mechanism whereby the Commission can intervene to remove certain obstacles to trade had previously been dealt with in an unsatisfactory manner by the Commission, particularly with respect to the rights of trade unions and the right of Member States to govern their own affairs.
Nevertheless, the problem needs to be resolved promptly and, in our opinion, this report deals satisfactorily with the question of trade union rights and the right of Member States to govern their own affairs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Berthu">
The proposal for a Council Regulation presented to us today aims to create a mechanism whereby the Commission can intervene to require the Member States to remove certain internal obstacles to trade.
The Commission had this idea following the farmers' demonstrations in France in 1993 and 1995, during which imported products - in particular, lorry- loads of Spanish strawberries - were intercepted and destroyed by farmers.
In certain cases the French government considered it better not to send in the forces of law and order so as to avoid more serious disruption, an attitude which outraged Brussels.
Hence the current draft text, which aims to provide the Commission with instruments to ensure greater respect for the free movement of goods, which, as we are told ad nauseam in the explanatory statement and in the recitals, is one of the fundamental principles of the European Community, though it is not pointed out that it is not the only one and that it is in fact less fundamental than others.
<P>
The Commission proposal shows the outrageously undemocratic way in which the European institutions often behave in order to promote supranationality.
It also leads us to consider the responsibility of the Member States in the area of public order, which is also topical in the context of the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
Firstly, I would like to comment on the undemocratic methods.
The first version of the draft simply provided for the Commission to have the right to take 'decisions' condemning the action (or inaction) of certain Member States with regard to obstacles to trade.
These decisions were to serve as a basis for court judgments, at both national and Community level, imposing fines or penalty payments on the Member States.
The Council was amazed at the enormity of the proposal: Commission officials, without batting an eyelid - although for them it was a natural thing to do - were asking the Council to grant them the power to impose sanctions on the Member States.
Even if it had wished to do so, the Council would not have been able to delegate this power, quite simply because it does not possess it, except in the case of the excessive deficit procedure.
<P>
The officials invoked the conclusions of the Amsterdam European Council on the action plan for the single market, in which the Heads of State or Government requested that the Commission 'examine ways and means of guaranteeing in an effective manner the free movement of goods, including the possibility of imposing sanctions on the Member States'.
On this occasion, the Council discovered that at the Amsterdam European Council the Heads of State or Government were made to say all sorts of things in the Final Act without being aware of what was happening.
We actually hope that we were instrumental in revealing this manipulation, since we denounced it vigorously at the time.
<P>
So the Council revised the Commission proposal, but only half-heartedly, so that the second version of the text, which is presented to us today, is little better than the first.
In it, the notion of Commission 'decision' is in fact replaced by that of 'notification', which is deliberately ambiguous, with the result that it is difficult to say whether it is optional, like an opinion, or binding, like a decision.
The problem is exacerbated by the total absence of a legal basis, so that the Commission has been obliged to resort to the ever-useful Article 235, which we have condemned a hundred times because it allows the Community to grant itself powers which the Treaties deny it.
For all of these reasons the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations believes it is very much justified in voting against the draft regulation.
<P>
However, this case also leads us to consider the wider issue of the principle that the Member States have primary responsibility for internal public order.
Although this basic rule is recognised by the Treaty in several places, for example in Article 36 on the movement of goods, it is constantly flouted, including by the Court of Justice of the European Communities.
In fact, in what is now an old case (Rutili judgment, 28 October 1975), the Court stated that the concept of responsibility of the Member States for internal public order 'must be interpreted strictly. Its scope cannot be determined unilaterally by each Member State without being subject to control by the institutions of the Community', such control being itself the result of the desire to preserve the principles of Community law.
<P>
In the case relating to the farmers' demonstrations of 1993-1995, we now have the Court of Justice's judgment of 9 December 1997, which takes the same line and bears out all the Commission's claims.
France's arguments, which were based on national responsibility for public order, were swept aside by the Court.
I will quote one passage of the judgment: 'the Member States, which retain exclusive competence as regards the maintenance of public order and the safeguarding of internal security, unquestionably enjoy a margin of discretion in determining what measures are most appropriate to eliminate barriers to the importation of products in a given situation.
It is therefore not for the Community institutions to act in place of the Member States and to prescribe for them the measures which they must adopt and effectively apply in order to safeguard the free movement of goods on their territories.
However, it falls to the Court, taking due account of the discretion referred to above, to verify, in cases brought before it, whether the Member State concerned has adopted appropriate measures for ensuring the free movement of goods.'
<P>
In other words, the state is responsible for its own public order, but this responsibility is restricted by Community principles which it cannot contradict; on the contrary, it must support them.
<P>
This ruling by the Court, and the position of the European institutions in general, sheds a very interesting light on the debate on the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty.
Supporters of this Treaty claim that abandoning personal controls at the borders with our neighbours would not cause any particular problem, nor would communitising our whole immigration policy, as Article 64 of the Treaty establishing the European Community provides a safeguard clause by guaranteeing that: 'This Title shall not affect the exercise of the responsibilities incumbent upon Member States with regard to the maintenance of law and order and the safeguarding of internal security.'
We can see what a 'safeguard' of this kind would be worth in reality.
It is a smokescreen intended to mislead people by making them believe that their Member State retains its powers, while these powers are gradually being whittled away by the undemocratic means of the case-law of the Court of Justice.
In this case, if France, having ratified the Amsterdam Treaty, wished one day to restore personal controls at its borders because of an increasing threat to public order, the Commission would reply that our country must find a way to maintain its internal law and order while preserving the fundamental Community principle of the free movement of persons.
We would be required to obey this injunction under threat of being dragged before the Court of Justice, whose final decision would be known in advance.
<P>
What the Council wishes to adopt today in the form of this draft regulation, and what some wish to have adopted in the Amsterdam Treaty, is the most appalling crime that can be committed against a people: preventing it from defending itself when attacked.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Blak, Iversen and Kirsten Jensen">
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of creating an intervention mechanism in order to remove certain obstacles to trade.
The Commission's original proposal was completely unacceptable, since it gave the Commission too great a power to intervene in technical disputes, and also because the proposal could have undermined some basic rights such as the right to strike.
<P>
The new proposal for which we have voted is quite different.
The Commission is no longer given the power to require a Member State to intervene in national strikes.
The new proposal only obliges the Member States to keep the Commission informed of any obstacles to trade, and of how they intend to bring these to an end.
A provision has also been included which guarantees the right to strike.
<P>
We have therefore decided to back the rapporteur, who has recommended that the Commission's proposal should be supported in its present form.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="Eriksson, Seppänen, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We, the undersigned, voted against the report for the following reasons:
<P>
the decision could lead to violations of the fundamental rights of trade unions; -it is legislatively inadmissible to combine provisions on the free movement of goods and those on the free movement of persons; -the Commission should not be given the kind of authority that is proposed, which should be reserved for the Court of Justice or negotiations on the substance of the Treaties.
The Commission should not be entitled to act in cases that involve distinctions between national and EU rights.
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="Hager, Kronberger, Linser, Lukas and Raschhofer">
The non-attached Members cannot agree with Amendments Nos 1 to 15.
Although what they say is correct, it does not appear appropriate to link our justified concern about the free movement of workers with a regulation introducing a mechanism for the Commission to intervene in order to remove certain obstacles to trade.
The issue of the free movement of workers should be the subject of its own report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="Lindqvist">
The report has been produced with undue haste and raises additional issues at too short notice for consideration during this part-session.
It has not been properly thought through, and although it has been toned down and is thus an improvement on the original, it is still unacceptable.
The right to strike has been restricted, labour rights emasculated, and both national legislation and collective life disregarded.
The report should therefore be rejected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="Murphy">
The European Parliamentary Labour Party supports the Skinner report on the proposal for a Council regulation (EC) creating a mechanism whereby the Commission can intervene in order to remove certain obstacles to trade (COM(97)0619).
This is primarily about the free movement of goods around the Single European Market, and not the free movement of people.
However, given its importance, the EPLP has supported a reference to the free movement of people in the recital of the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="Palm">
The report deals with the possibility of intervention when the free movement of goods is 'obstructed by actions of private individuals'.
The report does not, in itself, override the right to strike, but it could still have serious consequences for the work of the trade unions.
For example, the proposal imposes far-reaching obligations on the respective countries to remove obstacles to trade, which makes it impossible for countries to remain neutral in labour market conflicts.
Furthermore, according to the Swedish Transport Workers Union, the proposal would result in the governments of individual countries acting in a way that would facilitate strike-breaking in conflict situations.
For this reason, I am unable to vote for the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="Theonas">
Having established the single internal market and entered the final straight for the introduction of the euro, the EU is now trying to armour-plate its policy with measures which will 'safeguard' it from the reactions of European citizens and their disputes.
<P>
In the name of unimpeded implementation of the principle of the free movement of goods, it is trying to use the proposed regulation to undermine the most fundamental social rights.
<P>
The argument always used, the celebrated 'obstacles to trade', is again being trotted out as an excuse to stifle European citizens' democratic, social and personal rights.
<P>
Under the first proposal, which represented the prevailing view in the Commission - the predominant 'federal' body of the EU with extensive executive powers - private citizens were given the right, following a decision by the Commission, to go to the national courts and to ask for the adoption of temporary measures, the award of compensation and the imposition of fines.
At the same time, and in order to 'prevent the spread of disturbances', the Member State on whose territory disputes are taking place is transformed into a policing executive body with responsibility for adopting the 'necessary' suppressive measures to 'remove obstacles, failing which it risks the Damoclean sword of being taken before the European Court of Justice.
Working people will be attacked on two fronts: by the national authorities and by 'private individuals who would be affected'.
<P>
The political agreement achieved by the Council brought some improvement to the initial text since the individual's right of recourse to legal proceedings is eliminated in favour of a decision by the Commission and recourse to insurance.
However, the legal and political pressures on the Member State involved remain in place.
<P>
Despite the changes made, the proposed regulation we are considering potentially unleashes a storm and threatens to become a decisive blow against the exercise of collective labour rights.
The right to strike and the right to hold meetings are flagrantly undermined and a new period of restrictive application of those rights is being officially inaugurated.
It is clear that the Europe of monopolies and bankers cannot withstand the claims of Greek, French and Italian farmers who are fighting to mitigate the consequences of the anti-agricultural policies pursued by the EU and the Member States, with demonstrations by lorry-drivers demanding reasonable working hours and the abolition of dumping.
The Europe of 'free movement' cannot withstand action by ships' crews fighting to prevent their labour rights from being reduced to third-world levels.
<P>
Yet again, hypocrisy is exceeding all bounds.
On the one hand, lip-service is paid to the celebrated subsidiarity, bombastic declarations are made, the fundamental rights of individuals are invoked, and at the same time the Member States are transformed into brutal suppressors of the struggles of the labour movement.
Clearly, the division of responsibilities that results from subsidiarity assigns the role of strike-breaker to the Member States.
<P>
There is also justified concern about the part to be played by the Schengen Information System in this context, since there is a danger that anyone actively involved in industrial action will be entered on lists of those 'suspected' of being responsible for public disorder.
The step to bring back the concept of 'the enemy within' is not far off and is facilitated by the deliberately vague definition of 'the suppression of terrorism', which seems to have been upgraded to one of Europol's main areas of activity.
<P>
We will vote against the report in the most categorical way.
It is an issue where there is no room for amendments or corrections.
But on that point, it is not by chance that some amendments by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, which attempt to introduce some kind of safety valve in relation to the right to hold meetings and concern for legitimacy, from a legal point of view and exclusively in the context of national labour legislation, have not been included in the report.
For our part, we call upon working people in Europe to continue their struggle to overthrow such orders and fight to safeguard and extend their rights.
We will stand by them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="Titley">
I am happy to vote for this Report by my Labour Party colleague Peter Skinner.
After the French lorry driver strikes of recent years which have caused so much damage to other countries' innocent companies and self employed drivers, this report makes sound suggestions for limiting such problems in the future.
<P>
I back the call for a rapid restoration of the free movement of goods in cases where they are impeded so as to seriously disrupt the working of the internal market.
<P>
There is a difficult balance to reach between the competing demands of union rights to protest peacefully in their own country on the one hand, and the need to allow trade to continue in the internal market all our governments have long been committed to.
<P>
Domestic disputes such as the recent blockades of ports in France should be settled by the parties to those disputes in the country concerned.
The rest of us should be able to go about our business.
<P>
An early warning system of possible obstacles to free trade between the governments and the Commission should help.
Governments should be required to ensure that foreign citizens and companies are able to carry on their legitimate business where a local dispute has nothing to do with them.
I hope that the balanced approach of this report will allow for both legitimate disputes to be settled in any EU country as well as for the rest of the EU to be allowed to trade freely and fairly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="Wibe">
I am voting against the report for the following reasons.
<P>
Firstly, it is expressly stated that the directive shall not establish the meaning of civil rights and freedoms.
<P>
Secondly, actions in this area may lead to restrictions on rights in disputes, since any legally and constitutionally admissible actions in the transport sector are an obstacle to the free movement of goods.
<P>
Thirdly, the proposal does not differentiate between legal and illegal actions.
<P>
Fourthly, the proposal imposes far-reaching obligations on the respective countries to remove obstacles to trade, which makes it impossible for countries to remain neutral in labour market conflicts.
<P>
Fifthly, the proposal would result in the governments of individual countries acting in a way that would make it easier for citizens to work in other countries, which would facilitate strike-breaking in conflict situations.
<P>
Under Chapter 2(1) of the Swedish Constitution, Swedish citizens are guaranteed fundamental rights and freedoms.
<P>
In Chapter 2(17), it is established that 'Any trade union or employer or association of employers shall be entitled to take strike or lockout action or any similar measure unless otherwise provided by law'.
<P>
Chanterie report (A4-0378/98)
<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, I am speaking in this explanation of vote because I wish my vote on Mr Chanterie's report to be recorded in the Minutes.
I voted differently from the rest of my Group and am very proud of having done so, particularly as regards paragraph 7.
<P>
I welcome the adoption of this text and I believe that, pending the implementation by the European Union of the complete harmonisation measures which we recommended, Parliament was right to call by such a large majority for Article 6(1) of the existing directive to be modified 'in such a way as to create an unmistakable obligation on the part of Member States actually torecognise registrations carried out, or authorisations granted, by other Member States' in the field of homeopathic medicine.
<P>
I believe that my Group was wrong to vote against this recommendation.
For this reason I have voted with the majority of the House, and I wanted to make this statement in order to ensure that it is recorded in the Minutes.
I am extremely pleased with this vote on the Chanterie report, which is very important for the future of homeopathic medicine.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="Deprez">
We cannot help but notice that, six years after the adoption of the two 1992 Directives adding additional provisions to the 1965, 1975 and 1981 Directives relating to homeopathic medicinal products, there is still distortion of competition and an imbalance in the market in this sector.
Furthermore, four Member States have been brought before the Court of Justice by the Commission on the grounds of failure to transpose the two directives or to transpose them in full into national law.
<P>
Yet more than one in five Europeans now uses homeopathy!
<P>
Things have definitely dragged on too long.
It is particularly important to respond quickly to this situation as the manufacturers of homeopathic medicines are generally small and medium-sized enterprises that suffer from the continuing obligation to register their products separately in each of the Member States.
<P>
For this reason I support the rapporteur's proposal to modify Community legislation in such a way as to create an obligation on the part of Member States actually to recognise - under specific conditions yet to be determined - registrations carried out, or authorisations granted, by other Member States.
<P>
Such changes to the legislation currently in force presuppose of course that all Member States meet the highest health and safety standards with regard to national authorisations and registrations of homeopathic medicinal products. The effective liberalisation of the market in these products must not result in a lower standard of health protection for the population of any Member State.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="Lindqvist">
Interest in homeopathic medicinal products is increasing.
It is important for consumers that homeopathic remedies are recognised as medicines.
A decision needs to be taken so that they can feel confident in what they are buying.
People should be able to buy and use homeopathic medicinal products in the knowledge that they will not harm their health.
<P>
Consumers would like to see clearer and better product descriptions on the products they use, which would be encouraged by greater mutual recognition in the field of homeopathy.
At the same time, there are various reasons why national legislation in this area differs between Member States and, in this respect, a lack of coordination is apparent in the present directive.
<P>
For there to be mutual recognition, each Member State should know about the registration requirements in other countries.
Those requirements and the reasons for them should be made known in order to facilitate comparisons.
Each country would then have to decide whether it was going to recognise another country's homeopathic products.
In the meantime, there is no reason why Member States should be compelled to recognise products which have been authorized in another country.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="Palm">
In this report it is stated, amongst other things, that the compulsory mention of 'homeopathic medicinal product without approved therapeutic indication' on the label of homeopathic products has pejorative overtones which have a discriminatory effect.
It therefore proposes that this should be changed to: 'application in accordance with clinical homeopathic pharmacology'.
Furthermore, Member States would be obliged to recognise homeopathic remedies which had been authorised in other Member States, and also to agree to the lifting of the ban on fantasy names for homeopathic medicinal products.
<P>
I think that these measures will have adverse consequences.
The sale of homeopathic medicinal products is quite strictly regulated as regards names and warnings, for example, so that consumers will not be duped into believing that a particular preparation will cure serious illness.
In countries with high charges for hospital visits, people may be inveigled into taking pills that make them feel better, instead of being examined by a doctor and having the right medicine prescribed.
In this context, the name of the preparation is of considerable psychological importance.
<P>
Homeopathic medicinal products are good when taken in conjunction with traditional medical treatment, but we should not allow ourselves to end up in a situation where people use homeopathic remedies instead of going to the doctor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="Wibe">
I am unable to vote for this report, because it contains too many references that are detrimental to conventional medicine and too favourable towards more or less dubious homeopathic preparations and remedies.
For example, point 17 proposes to change the original wording from 'homeopathic medicinal product without approved therapeutic indication', to the totally incomprehensible 'homeopathic medicinal product without allopathic claim'.
Furthermore, in recital O it is stated that 'the obligatory use of the scientific name on labels ... does not make for clarity'.
<P>
In short, the present report, in my opinion, is not scientific enough and will, in the long run, do nothing to further medical and health care development.
<P>
Thyssen report (A4-0359/98)
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="Blokland">
I was very happy to support Mrs Thyssen's report.
It was quite right to stress the value of a good outside assessment of the Commission's activities.
The Commission's wide-ranging report all too often fails to say clearly exactly what results have been achieved.
In a variety of respects, the added value of Community action remains distinctly nebulous.
The European Commission has a duty to allow the subsidiarity principle to operate freely in practice.
If there is no added value, there is no justification for Community action.
So you have to be sensible and draw a line under it.
In short: the Commission should do less, but do it better.
<P>
Paragraph 20 of the resolution makes the point that environmental policy is not sufficiently integrated into policy on SMEs.
On the relationship between policy on SMEs and policy on the environment, the informal Environment Council held in Amsterdam in mid-April 1997 concluded that small businesses created jobs, but that they also created a significant amount of environmental pollution.
My impression is that the Commission does not take its Treaty obligation all that seriously here, and that perhaps the environment is better off as a result.
The environmental technology sector offers a very promising challenge in terms of both more jobs and less pressure on the environment.
<P>
I trust the European Commission's next coordination report will be considerably more informative and insightful.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="Deprez">
We all recognise the dynamic role played by small and medium-sized enterprises in the vitality of modern economies and in job creation.
The extent of the work carried out in recent years by the various European Union institutions to promote greater development of small and medium-sized enterprises is to be welcomed with good reason.
<P>
However, we cannot help but note that a number of these enterprises continue to regard the European Union with intense mistrust.
One of the reasons for this is that, as we have lamented on several occasions in the House, these enterprises are not involved in European social dialogue.
<P>
A further reason for small and medium-sized enterprises' mistrust of European institutions lies in the complexity of our legislation, which often gives the impression of being mixed up with national provisions to create an impenetrable web.
I share the rapporteur's belief that greater clarity and precision in the Commission communications on SMEs and their real powers in this area would facilitate understanding for the businessmen concerned.
<P>
Another point highlighted by the rapporteur, and which caught my attention, was the absence of precise data on the actual involvement of small and medium-sized enterprises in Structural Fund measures.
<P>
The absence of statistics in such an important area seems to be a contradiction given that the Structural Funds account for a third of Community expenditure and that, as I have already mentioned, we all agree on the importance of the role of SMEs in a modern economy and in job creation.
<P>
In conclusion, I believe it is essential that we continue to look closely at possible ways of achieving synergies among the SMEs in all areas of their activities where economies of scale are possible: administration, research and development, training, market assessment, etc.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="Wibe">
The report contains many fine proposals.
The one which incorporates Mr Robles Piquer's motion for a resolution on a European quality certificate for small and medium-sized enterprises, which as an additional precaution will include 'identical criteria in all Member States', contains too much regulatory detail.
Quality certificates already exist in the different countries, to which small businesses also have access.
I think that any attempt to introduce such a European certificate will only lead to more bureaucracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="President">
That concludes voting time.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="President">
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 12.40 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 5 November 1998.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
The Minutes of the sitting of Thursday, 5 November 1998 have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Janssen van Raay">
I should like it to be explicitly recorded in the Minutes that I said in Brussels that it is not only for reasons of principle that I am no longer voting in roll-call votes - which I have not done for some time -, but also for taxation reasons.
I repeat: Dutch taxation reasons.
I should like this to be recorded.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Janssen van Raay, that will be done.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Striby">
Mr President, I do not want to speak about the Minutes, but I would like to ask you when the new parliament will be completed.
Is the IPE4, which is still a 'forbidden city', something out of a science fiction novel?
We are still here today in this lovely Hemicycle, which we are, of course, attached to, since we cannot sit in the new building.
We hear rumours here and we wait.
When will the inaugural sitting be held?
Will it be in December, February or the summer of 1999?
<P>
Why are there such delays?
We accept the argument that the complex process of moving in must be as well organised as possible, but I sincerely hope that it not a matter once again of politicking against Strasbourg.
Mr President, we expect a clear response explaining all this wavering that damages Parliament's image of rigour, efficiency and credibility.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
What I can tell you, Mr Striby, is that the building is not yet ready for occupation.
Clearly, the company which had the task of constructing of the building should have made it available to Parliament last January.
Parliament is not responsible for the fact that it is still not ready, since it has not yet been certified by the relevant authorities or the architects.
For our part, we are doing our utmost to cooperate with the city of Strasbourg and the French Government so that it can be completed as soon as possible, in accordance with the regulations which apply.
Once this has been done, we shall carry out our share of the dataprocessing work for Parliament and inaugurate the building as soon as possible.
However, I cannot give you a date.
That is outside our control.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Mr President, I took the liberty of writing to you last week on the situation in Central America.
As each day passes it becomes clearer that the loss of life and physical damage experienced in that region have indeed been of biblical proportions.
<P>
The citizens of the Member States - Spain, for instance - are making an enormous effort to express their solidarity with the people of Central America.
In keeping with this effort, I suggested in my letter to you that the Members of the European Parliament should open a special account. Members could pay their own contributions into such an account, and also any donations made through reputable non-governmental organisations to help rebuild the area.
This symbolic gesture would supplement the effort the European Community is already making to respond to the situation.
<P>
I believe that on this occasion Members of the European Parliament should show they are on the same wavelength as the citizens and join with them in expressing solidarity with the victims.
<P>
I wonder, Mr President, if you are now in a position to voice your response to this letter I sent you last week.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Carnero.
The matter was put before Parliament's Bureau, as you requested in your letter.
The Bureau felt it was not appropriate for it - or, indeed, for Parliament - to open such an account, and that problems could well arise in connection with the Financial Regulation. However, if one or several Members were to take up your suggestion, we would publicise their initiative, drawing it to Members' attention so they could contribute if they wished.
<P>
I am sure many of us have already made a contribution through these organisations, as have large numbers of our fellow citizens in the Member States. Nevertheless, the sort of initiative you suggest is always welcome and worthy of commendation.
However, it must be undertaken on an individual level. It is not for a parliamentary body to launch it, though every assistance and support should of course be offered.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pompidou">
Mr President, I would like to speak at this public sitting this evening in my capacity as chairman of Parliament's Delegation for relations with Japan. In the framework of the bilateral exchanges and meetings organised by the European Parliament, particularly by Parliament's sessional services, we are receiving an official visit from an important delegation of seven members of the Japanese Diet and four members of the Japanese Senate, including two former ministers, this week in Strasbourg.
<P>
According to the agenda, there are votes being held on Thursday morning.
But on Thursday morning we also have a meeting that is authorised by the sessional services, which was even organised by Parliament's sessional services, during the votes on Agenda 2000.
Therefore, I find myself caught between two stools. This is not a serious problem for me personally, as I have accepted my responsibilities and have decided, as chairman of the delegation, to attend the meeting, but there is a risk that I might be there on my own.
Short of cutting themselves in two, my colleagues are, in fact, either going to have to appear impolite towards our Japanese guests or show a lack of consistency with the decision we had taken not to plan any meetings of Parliament's official bodies during voting time.
I am in a situation where I feel totally schizophrenic and, although I am a doctor, I am having trouble sorting myself out.
I would like to have a response on this matter, Mr President.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
Normally there are no votes at that time on Thursday, Mr Pompidou, except in the case of those on the budget.
This is a quite exceptional situation because of the large number of votes to be taken on Agenda 2000.
That could not be foreseen when the time was fixed for the meeting of your delegation.
We shall look into the matter and see what can still be done at such short notice, and I will keep you informed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Nassauer">
Mr President, would you please have it recorded in the Minutes that today I found my office ransacked and full of broken glasses and a radio missing, even though I had locked the office doors after the last part-session and, interestingly enough, found them locked again today.
Would you please also record the question I am now putting to you in the Minutes: when will we finally be able to get on with our work without fear of the kind of violent attacks that occurred in Brussels or break-ins into our offices?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
Mr Nassauer, I hope you have informed the security services of this incident.
I should reassure you that to date, Parliament's security services have almost always resolved such incidents successfully.
I trust this will not prove to be an exception and that the culprits will be identified.
Should it appear necessary to tighten up on security, the appropriate measures will of course be introduced.
Thank you for informing us of the incident.
It will be noted in the Minutes and the security services informed so that they can take appropriate action immediately.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="EN" NAME="Killilea">
Mr President, I would like to ask the Commission when they propose to deal with the report which was commissioned by DG XIV - reference PEM/306 - concerning the physical interaction between grey seals, fishing gear and the abnormal predatory conditions of the seals in the North Atlantic, the North-West Atlantic and now penetrating into the South Atlantic.
<P>
It is about time that the Commission had the courage to present that report and its scientific findings to Parliament so that we can deal with that particular matter.
Predatory behaviour of seals around the Irish and Scottish coasts amounts to the total allowable catch plus one quarter.
Something has to be done soon and we have to face up to it.
I ask the Commission to act with haste.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President. -">
Mr Killilea, you know perfectly well that that is not the way to put a question to the Commission.
<P>
There are several ways of putting your question.
This is not the right time to ask it.
You can ask it in one of the different ways provided for in the Rules.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Guinebertière">
Mr President, I would also like to make a point concerning working conditions because for the second time my trunk has not arrived.
Each time I put all the files I need here in the trunk and when I arrive, I find out that it is still in Brussels.
This is very inconvenient because all my documents for work are in that trunk.
<P>
What is happening is that my office is on a corner and it must clearly get in the way, because people put it away in the photocopying room.
When the removal men come, they obviously forget the trunk.
I therefore took it out of there and put a label on it to let people know that when my trunk is put away in the photocopying room, it is not taken to Strasbourg.
I presume that the removal men saw the second part of that note saying that it is not taken to Strasbourg.
And I still do not have my trunk!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="President">
We shall take that up with the department which is responsbile, Mrs Guinebertière.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Puerta">
Mr President, I must first apologise for my somewhat late arrival. Unfortunately, due to the considerable difficulties involved in reaching Strasbourg by air, many Members have arrived three hours late.
<P>
Secondly, I should like to express my group's concern over the arrest in Italy of Mr Abdullah Ocalan, who is in danger of being extradited to Turkey.
We are all aware of the European Parliament's policy on supporting human rights, political rights in Turkey and the rights of the Kurdish people. My group believes it would be appropriate to take the necessary action to ensure that Abdullah Ocalan, who declared a unilateral cease-fire some months ago, is not extradited to Turkey from a European country.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Thomas">
Mr President, as you are aware, recently I presented a report to Parliament on the banana regime.
It was overwhelmingly supported with quite a lot of common consent within this House and was passed on to the Commission.
We now have complaints from the United States in the guise of Chiquita, who are attacking the Commission and the proposals that the Commission finally brought forward after the original complaint from the WTO.
<P>
As a matter of concern, would the Commission be willing to come and explain to us how they are dealing with Chiquita's complaint?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="President. -">
Mr Thomas, I just told Mr Killilea that is not the way to put questions to the Commission.
You know the way to put questions to the Commission, so use it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
I did follow the procedure you just outlined and put down two questions - one to the Commission and one to Council - on building costs in Strasbourg and Brussels ...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="President. -">
This is not the time to put questions to the committee, nor to the Council.
You cannot have the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="President.">
Since there are no further comments, the Minutes are approved.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Order of business
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="President">
The next item is the order of business.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I just wanted to make a point of order.
I have heard that Question Time to the Council is to be deleted this week.
I regard this both as an infringement of Rule 41(1) of the Rules of Procedure and as an infringement of the Treaty, which specifically guarantees us the right to put questions.
The right to put questions is one of the most important, individual parliamentary rights and I believe no Conference of Presidents, not even in this House, can simply cancel that right; we have a right to a monthly Question Time to the Council.
I and many other colleagues have tabled important questions to the Council within the deadline.
Let me insist that we have this Question Time.
If the Council wants to make statements, which are often merely upgraded press conferences, that is fine by me, but not in the place of Question Time, which is a key right of every Member of Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, I have no objections to the draft agenda for Monday, but I would like to know if it is true that the Conference of Presidents has taken a decision concerning the legal basis of the Fabra Vallés report.

<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="President">
Yes, Mr Dell'Alba, and the Conference of Presidents has established that Article 206 was not the appropriate legal basis for the report.
This report will therefore be put to the vote by simple and not absolute majority, and will not entail either approval or rejection of the Commission's management.
The Conference of Presidents instructed me to convey to the president of the sitting its wish that this should be made very clear when the vote is taken.
However, I am grateful that you have given me the opportunity to do that now.
<P>
Tuesday:
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="President">
The PPE Group has asked for the Ferri report on supplementary pensions to be brought forward from Thursday and placed after the Añoveros Trias de Bes report on promoting innovation through patents.
<P>
Is there a speaker from the PPE Group in favour of this request?
<P>
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, we made this request because the Ferri report goes very well with and the Añoveros report, I and II.
It is a very difficult report covering very complex issues relating to pensions.
It is better to be able to count on the largest possible presence when voting on it.
<P>
(Parliament approved the request)
<P>
Wednesday: no changes
<P>
Thursday:
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="President">
The Group of the Party of European Socialists has asked for the Commission statement on the results of the Buenos Aires summit on climate change to be postponed.
It has also requested the inclusion, after the report by Mr Wiebenga on displaced persons, of the report by Mr Lehne on airport transit arrangements which is currently entered on Friday, so that the agenda for Thursday would be as follows: from 9.30 a.m. to 1 p.m., 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. we would have first voting time, and then the Wiebenga report and the Lehne report.
Between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. there would still be the topical and urgent debate, reduced to two hours and without returning to the normal length of three hours.
<P>
Is there a speaker in favour?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graenitz">
Mr President, let me justify my motion to postpone the Commission statement on the Buenos Aires climate conference on the grounds that I and the Members who took part in this conference on behalf of Parliament decided, after talking the matter over, that it would be more sensible to prepare carefully for this discussion in the appropriate committees; that would allow us to conclude with a motion for a resolution which was not drafted in haste, straight after hearing the outcome of the conference, but was based on careful and detailed preparation.
I would ask the House to endorse my group's motion, so that Parliament's views can have some substance, rather than being put forward in a rush.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="Spencer">
Mr President, I led the Parliamentary delegation to Buenos Aires.
I absolutely endorse the proposal that we take our time in responding to what was a very complex outcome in Buenos Aires.
It missed failure by a very narrow margin.
It was Mr Linkhorst's suggestion, as one of the other members of the delegation, that rather than going straight to a debate in plenary we should attempt to have a discussion in at least the three committees most clearly responsible, draft a careful resolution and come back either in December and January.
That is certainly the opinion of Commissioner Bjerregaard, so I endorse the idea.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, we addressed this question last week in a perfectly normal manner.
It was handled positively at the meeting of General Secretaries and at the Conference of Presidents.
Anybody who has looked at the media today and also over last weekend will know that it is now and not in January that the public debate is taking place.
It is inconceivable to me that the European Parliament would not be able to make an initial political assessment of the outcome of Buenos Aires last week.
If we wait until January to come up with a very searching, very balanced and very detailed response, we will find that nobody is listening any more.
On the basis of the information currently available we are perfectly able to adopt a brief, well-founded political position this week while the matter is still in the news and not when it is past history.
It is now that we must react, it is the European Union which has shouldered its responsibilities on this issue and it is this European Parliament which must now make its voice heard.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Aelvoet.
<P>
I put to the vote the request from the Group of the Party of European Socialists
<P>
(Parliament approved the request)
<P>
Friday:
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="President">
The Group of the Party of European Socialists has requested the removal of the debate on the oral questions on BSE in Portugal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="Colino Salamanca">
Mr President, I should like to express my view as chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development. This issue has already been discussed in committee, first in the presence of Mr Heine when the Veterinary Committee arrived at its decision and more recently, just a few days ago, when the Commissioner himself was present at our committee meeting.
<P>
I am not aware of any further developments that would justify this request for inclusion on the agenda.
As far as we are concerned, this would serve no useful purpose.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Rosado Fernandes">
Mr President, I asked for this oral question to be included in the agenda since, in my opinion, the situation in Portugal is sufficiently serious to justify that.
<P>
After all, despite our meetings in the Committee on Agriculture, the decision on the Portuguese meat embargo was taken at an extraordinary meeting for which I did not receive - nor did some of my colleagues - the respective agenda containing the item on the statement by Dr Heine, even though the Chairman of that committee told us here that it was sent to all Members.
Dr Heine made a last-minute appearance to announce the reasons for the embargo.
Everyone knew that many Members of the European Parliament would be unable to attend as it was an extraordinary meeting arranged at the last minute. That is why I have asked for a debate to be held here.
<P>
It should be made clear that this is not only an issue for the Portuguese but also relates to how the Commission acts in this kind of situation, a very serious situation for all Portuguese meat producers.
That is why I tabled an oral question on behalf of my group.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Rosado Fernandes.
<P>
Do you wish to speak in favour or against, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Mr President, I am in favour of keeping this item on the agenda, and would add that our oral question has not been included in it.
However, we have been told that it will be included in the final version of the agenda.
So we also have an oral question on BSE, and I am very much in favour of debating this item.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf.
<P>
I put to the vote the request from the PSE Group.
<P>
(Parliament approved the request)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
MED Programmes
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0404/98) by Mr Fabra Vallés, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on repercussions in the case of the MED programmes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="Fabra Vallés">
Mr President, the Spanish Secretary of State for Development Cooperation, Mr Fernando Villalonga, published an excellent article in the press last week entitled 'Felling the rotten tree to save the forest'.
This age-old idea encapsulates the thinking behind my report. Through the resolution dated 31 March this year, Parliament entrusted me with its preparation, and I can assure you that it has been one of the least pleasant duties I have had to carry out in my 20 years as an elected representative.
<P>
Clearly, it is not and never has been the intention of Parliament, its Committee on Budgetary Control, or myself as rapporteur to obstruct the policy for decentralised cooperation with Mediterranean countries.
Such cooperation aims to strengthen direct contacts with universities, cities, local groups and journalists in those countries, enabling the peoples on both shores of the Mediterranean to become acquainted, exchange views, and understand each other better.
Our intention has always been to preserve such important cooperation, and to strengthen and improve its foundations.
<P>
In this context, I must remind you that it was not Parliament but the Commission - Commissioner Marín himself - that ordered such cooperation to cease at the end of 1995. In my opinion, this was entirely justified, following as it did a most critical report from the Court of Auditors, whose investigation had revealed very serious irregularities.
<P>
Since this report became public, Parliament has done everything necessary to restore the credibility of this policy and allow it to be relaunched, from the month of April.
I am grateful for the Commission's efforts in this regard, Mr Liikanen.
Nevertheless, it also has to be said, Mr Liikanen, that if we really want to save the forest we have to be sure to fell all the diseased trees.
And, before felling them, we also have to be sure that we have identified them all first.
<P>
In this connection, I want to make it quite clear that on the basis of the documentation received and studied, it does not appear that there are grounds for bringing criminal charges against those in authority at the Commission's 'North-South' Directorate- General.
<P>
Thanks to the information made available by Mr Marín, we know that the Commission has paid ECU 600 000 for the projects to be audited.
You are aware of this too, as you have had the findings on your desk since September.
On the basis of the European Commission's own criteria, experts at the London firm that carried out the audit have identified costs totalling ECU 4 million that ought to be recovered.
They have also identified a further sum of over ECU 20 million and additional checks will have to be done in this respect, not to mention the total of ECU 2.2 million to be recovered from the technical assistance firms.
A further and as yet unknown sum must be added to this total. The exact amount will become known when we receive details of the audit from financial control concerning the MED-LINK aid offices.
<P>
Commissioner, I am about to conclude, but I must first call on you to show some courage, courage enough to recognise that you have been mistaken or misinformed as to the true extent of the problems and the sums concerned.
You now have the opportunity to inform us that you are going to pass the whole file on to the judicial authorities.
I urge you to take advantage of this opportunity, because it is not for the European Commission or for Parliament to decide whether or not punishable offences have been committed.
That is a matter for the judicial authorities.
It is a simple and fundamental principle that Parliament confirmed once again in its resolution on the discharge on 31 March this year.
Furthermore, it is an obligation the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg has confirmed by case-law.
<P>
It is not only an obligation, it is a necessity, because it is a very complicated file, and many individuals are involved. Given the resources and rights it has, or rather does not have, at its disposal, UCLAF cannot successfully undertake an investigation of this magnitude without the support of the judicial authorities.
<P>
If matters take this course, I shall be able to say that I am in favour of granting the discharge where this issue is concerned, and at the same time, you will have the chance of restoring the credibility the Commission has been losing over the last few weeks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wemheuer">
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Theato">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, did we not all believe, or at least hope, that we had finally got to the end of the long saga of the MED programmes and that the Commission had taken action, after adopting a resolution on it more than a year ago and emphatically repeating key points of it when we postponed the discharge in the spring?
<P>
We were well wide of the mark!
As Mr Fabra Vallés has explained, instead of improvements, we have seen new information come to light which seems to show that the financial damage is far worse than we had hitherto assumed.
<P>
This was discovered by a British auditing company which - and we grant the Commission this - was commissioned by Brussels to investigate completed MED programmes and projects.
The auditors are looking into about half the completed projects and believe that some 4 million euros can be reclaimed.
Let me ask the Commission: how much money has it actually recovered so far?
Have the rest of the projects been examined now, and what amount of repayments does that come to?
What conclusions does the Commission draw from the serious defects found by the auditing firm, such as over-subsidised projects, evidence which had disappeared and so on?
Why was UCLAF not brought in promptly, as the rapporteur says?
As regards the financial management of the Agency for the Trans-Mediterranean Networks - ARTM - the UK auditors make a devastating assessment, as did the Court of Auditors in its special report No 1/96.
<P>
This brings us to one of the two main problems that led to the postponement of the discharge for 1996, namely the question of whether criminal fraud may be involved here, in addition to serious irregularities.
For the Commission to entrust ARTM, an international association under Belgian law, with the financial management of the MED projects without any legal basis and without obtaining the opinion of the legal service or of financial control, for the management board members also to be managers of the technical assistance agencies and to be involved in awarding some project funds without tenders and thereby secure themselves a large slice of the cake, that is to say fat contracts, is to say the least an overlapping of interests, as is also the view of the Court of Auditors and UCLAF.
<P>
Evidently the Commission has until now disregarded the clear advice of the Court of Auditors to the effect that these kinds of facts are punishable under Belgian law.
But this matter can only be settled by the courts, which is why we call on the Commission for the third and last time to forward the entire file to the judicial authorities, so that they can at least examine the question of their competence and then, where appropriate, bring proceedings!
<P>
The second question in relation to the discharge for 1996 is how the Commission handles disciplinary proceedings.
We believe that administrative inquiries and processes are no substitute for disciplinary proceedings and are not the appropriate way to prove the innocence of a possible suspect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Kjer Hansen">
Mr President, let me begin by thanking the rapporteur for his cooperation.
In particular, I have been very pleased with the support there has been for a number of amendments we have tabled, and I am glad that we are agreed on an approach which is aimed at placing the responsibility on the Commission and not singling out particular officials, but insisting that it is the Commission which accepts the political responsibility for the situation.
It must in fact be the case that the Commission must neither cover up for its officials nor hide behind them, but simply accept the responsibility for the fact that things are as they are.
<P>
This is a very serious matter that we are dealing with today.
How much time and effort we have spent on this which we would rather have used on other things!
I can only deplore the course of events, because the fact is that we cannot close the matter with this report, but once again have to call on the Commission to take action and once again say what steps we in Parliament will be obliged to take if the Commission does not comply with our requirements.
<P>
I would therefore ask the Commissioner if we can have a clear answer here and now as to whether the Commission will respond to paragraph 3 of the report and take the specific action which is being requested.
Let us be clear today if it is willing to do so, or if it is simply going to cock a snook at Parliament's requests.
If there is one thing that can shake our citizens' trust in the EU system, it is the suspicion that certain things are not happening in accordance with the rules, that irregularities are occurring, or that some people are engaging in a cover-up.
For that reason, Commissioner, I cannot urge strongly enough that we should bring this matter to a conclusion and see that the necessary action is taken, so that we can all honestly say that we have rectified the mistakes and the shortcomings, as well as the procedures which are necessary to enable the Commission to live up to its responsibilities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pompidou">
Mr President, I am speaking here on behalf of Mr Giansily who has been detained at another meeting.
In spite of the serious and expert work carried out by Mr Fabra Vallés, we find the report on the repercussions of the MED programmes affair highly unsatisfactory.
In fact, we believe that, far from clarifying the debate on the 1996 discharge, this report only makes the issue more confusing.
The irregularities discovered in the management of the MED programmes, which meant that these programmes were suspended until the Commission relaunched them in April, involve more than a third of the appropriations used and the financial loss is much greater than was first supposed.
<P>
As the rapporteur has clearly shown, the management of the MED programmes shows evidence of serious management problems for which the Commission is entirely responsible and for which it must accept the consequences, as provided for in the Treaties.
This whole matter falls within the framework of the discharge procedure, which will be on the agenda in December.
The instruments the European Parliament has at its disposal to mark its disapproval, or to punish the Commission, are the refusal to grant discharge and even the censure procedure.
Further debate, in my view, is likely to weaken Parliament's position in the vote in December and I regret the fact that consideration of the MED programmes is not an integral part of the general report by Mr Elles on the discharge.
<P>
Secondly, the petition to the Commission in the rapporteur's resolution is of little use when the European Parliament should judge the Commission on its financial auditing rather than following it through the maze of its administrative inquiries that are not sufficiently transparent.
It is unfortunate that the rapporteur has not included any mention of the link between the irregularities discovered and the refusal to grant discharge, which is, however, at the heart of the debate.
<P>
For our part, we are hoping for an objective debate on the discharge for the 1996 financial year.
We hope, on the one hand, that genuine and frank questions will be asked regarding the irregularities and the fraud committed in the implementation of the MED programmes, for which responsibility lies with the Commission. And we hope, on the other hand, that Parliament shows no sign of weakness in exercising the powers of which it is guardian on behalf of Europe's citizens because, when all is said and done, is it not our citizens who have been deceived in this affair?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Miranda">
Mr President, we agree with the rapporteur as regards both his assessment of this particular case and the criticism that he levels at the Commission. We also go along with some of his proposals.
This is not an issue on which we are giving our opinion for the first time. In the light of its seriousness, in that it refers to a collapse of the Union's financial resources - undoubtedly far greater than was initially thought -, it is politically embarrassing for the Commission.
<P>
It is therefore to be hoped, in this case as in others, that there might be signs of rigour and commitment of a different kind for preventing irregularities and fraud.
We might expect far more firmness and swiftness in starting disciplinary or judicial procedures against those responsible for the irregularities and fraud. Whenever there are suggestions that fraud has taken place, we might expect far more transparency and, in particular, an attitude of cooperation with the European Parliament, and especially with the relevant judicial authorities in the Member States.
<P>
At this stage, we think it is very important that the Commission should forward the whole MED case-file to the Belgian, French and Italian courts or the European Parliament should act in its stead, making available all the evidence at its disposal and forwarding it to those national authorities.
<P>
The Commission should do this as quickly as possibly, by 1 December, as our colleague Mr Fabra Vallés has asked.
In any case, it should do so as soon as possible and if it does not, in my opinion, I do not see how we would grant the Commission the discharge.
When assessing the discharge, a lot of things have to be taken into consideration, including whether or not the Commission has met our demands concerning this vital issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Fabra Vallés for this excellent report.
Many of us, both in the Green Group and in Parliament as a whole, are extremely upset about events surrounding the implementation of the MED programmes.
It is not their content that is in dispute, but the way in which they have been administered.
<P>
One of our foremost duties towards our electorate and the citizens of the EU is to act as a supervisory body.
It is up to us to ensure that matters we discuss in this House are taken forward in a proper manner.
The EU Treaties clearly give us the task of exercising this supervisory role.
<P>
Since the MED programmes were last examined, new facts have come to light.
Yet the Commission has still not produced the information we asked for initially - and which we need in order to fulfil our remit as a supervisory body for the EU.
We must have the data if the Committee on Budgetary Control is to do its job. This is a serious matter.
People could end up thinking that the Commission has something to hide. There is, after all, a possibility that its own officials might be involved in activities which could - at worst - entail criminal prosecution.
The only way for the Commission to allay such suspicions is to come forward with the relevant documentation.
We in the European Parliament need the material, and so do the judicial authorities.
This is the last chance for the Commission.
<P>
The Green Group naturally supports the tough - but patently necessary - conclusions drawn by the rapporteur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, last month the Committee on Budgetary Control had tabled a report by Mr Bösch, on the basis of Article 138b of the Treaty.
The Presidency had to make it change the legal basis.
This month it is retabling a report by Mr Fabra Vallés on the basis of Article 206 and the Presidency has told it that another legal basis must be adopted.
I think that this is a bit of a mess and I feel I must draw attention to it because, in my opinion, if it is acceptable once, we will have to be more careful in the future before presenting reports before the House.
<P>
The Court of Auditors has drawn up around 40 special reports over the last four or five years and Parliament has given its opinion on 10 reports in this House.
As far as the MED affair is concerned, we have already had two reports and, in practice, we force the Commission to meet such short deadlines - by asking it, for example, to present documents within 10 days - that there may well be a third MED report.
As a result, alongside Dynasty or Dallas, we will also have the MED soap opera with all the publicity it entails.
I believe that Parliament has important control instruments at its disposal and that it must handle them well.
It must not, in my view, resort to some sort of therapeutic persecution that hardly enhances the institutional balance or, more particularly, our own role.
We have these instruments, and we must keep them. But please let us try to put an end to this saga.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Our resolution of 31 March informing the Commission of the postponement of the 1996 discharge stated, in particular, that the Committee on Budgetary Control was to draw up a new report on the MED programmes on the basis of a report by the Commission on the financial audit of these programmes.
<P>
It would appear today - and this has already been said - that the loss to the Community budget is significantly greater than had been originally assumed: a figure of almost ECU 10 million is mentioned.
Indeed, the subsidies that were wrongly allocated are not spread evenly over all the projects; there are certain projects where more than 50 % of the subsidies paid are in serious doubt.
<P>
The report by financial control not only confirms the appalling quality of the service provided by the agency the Commission entrusted with financial control of the trans-Mediterranean networks, but it also provides a great deal of information about how this agency was run and the relations it had with the Commission.
We thus learn that when the two board members of the agency who were also managers of two technical assistance agencies were called on to resign from the board in order to put an end to an obvious conflict of interests, they made their resignation conditional on their firms being awarded new technical assistance contracts, and this condition was met by the Commission.
Financial control's inquiry provides clear evidence that the selection procedures could have been rigged to make sure that the contracts did in fact go to the firms of the board members involved.
<P>
So a whole network of firms largely managed to bring the implementation of a whole policy under their control, and they were able to do so because this was tolerated, if not encouraged, by Commission officials.
The Commission can no longer claim that these are individual cases of fraud; we are most certainly dealing with an established system that has allowed firms to gain extensive access to Community funds.
As such, we must now look at this in the context of the refusal to grant discharge and I am calling on the general rapporteur for the discharge to propose a decision to this effect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Sarlis">
Mr President, let me first congratulate the rapporteur Mr Fabra Vallés on the energy he showed in drawing up and preparing this report, which was solidly supported by nearly all the members of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
It should be realised that the Committee on Budgetary Control addresses such issues because there are special reports by the Court of Auditors and these are becoming more numerous.
Their number has increased significantly and it is impossible for the European Parliament not to react to those reports and to what they denounce.
So it must be made clear - particularly to the Commission - that whilst we are neither the police nor detectives, we have to face up to our responsibilities in relation to denunciations by an official institutional body of the European Union.
<P>
The details of the matter have been examined, in particular the role of the well-known Belgian companies which the Commission uses and seems to have used quite extensively to deal with things like the MED programmes.
The general conclusion from this whole affair, Commissioner, is that there will have to be a structural change in the internal organisation of the Commission, a thing which all these phenomena show to be more necessary than might appear at first sight.
The way the Commission functions must be reformed and restructured, because nobody in this Assembly wants to downgrade or debase the Commission.
What irritates us is what I might call an apathy, a lack of reaction by the Commission to what both the Court of Auditors and the European Parliament are complaining about.
Please react, and please do so in the right way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="Liikanen">
The MED cooperation programmes were initiated in 1990.
The Council approved the legal basis for them in June 1992.
The aim of MED programmes was to promote contacts and the transfer of know-how between the actors in the civil societies on both shores of the Mediterranean.
<P>
Between 1992 and 1995 the Community financed 496 decentralised projects involving 2 000 participating operators.
A total of approximately ECU 53m was allocated to these projects.
What conclusions should we draw from this?
I would draw the conclusion that never have so many small projects been financed with such limited funds and limited administrative resources.
<P>
The aims and the administrative requirements of MED programmes were not in line with the human resources that the Commission had at its disposal.
There was significant pressure from Parliament to use the allocated credits quickly.
The Commission signed a management contract with a Belgian organisation, ARTM.
<P>
In October 1995, as has been mentioned here, a preliminary report by the Court of Auditors alerted the Commission to the alleged existence of irregularities in the management of the projects by ARTM.
The Commission decided immediately to suspend the execution of MED programmes and the contract with ARTM in order to clarify the facts surrounding the alleged irregularities.
On the basis of the audits carried out by the financial control of the Commission and the final report of the Court of Auditors published in May 1996, the Commission instructed its anti-fraud unit, UCLAF, to carry out an inquiry within and outside the Commission.
UCLAF's final report of May 1997 could identify no cases giving rise to suspicion of fraud involving Commission officials.
<P>
The rapporteur asked the Commission to submit the whole MED file to competent national judicial authorities by 1 December.
There are, however, provisions governing the transmission of documents to judicial authorities.
A sufficient presumption of fraud has to be established and this is the task of UCLAF.
In its inquiries no sufficient presumption of fraud could be established.
I will come back to this later.
<P>
In order to shed light on the alleged mismanagement in the MED programmes, the Commission launched an administrative inquiry.
I would like to stress that mismanagement is not the same thing as fraud.
The latter would imply that the misappropriation of funds was intentional.
The aim of an administrative inquiry is to establish facts for the appointing authority.
The inquiry is carried out by a higher-ranking official or officials than the official who is the subject of the allegations of mismanagement.
The outcome of the inquiry is a report that is submitted to the appointing authority.
The administrative inquiry does not replace disciplinary procedure.
It only establishes the basic information.
The appointing authority decides on the opening of the disciplinary procedure as laid down in Article 87 of the Staff Regulations.
<P>
In the case of the MED programmes an initial inquiry was carried out by one Director-General of the Commission.
His report depicted a situation where Commission officials, highly committed to their aim of running the programmes under considerable political pressure, were always stretched because of the lack of appropriate resources.
This situation had led officials to breach the principles of sound financial management, in particular when using the services of ARTM.
<P>
In order to get the most complete picture of the programme management the competent Commissioners decided to complete the inquiry at the initiative of the Director-General for Personnel.
A complementary inquiry was carried out by three DirectorsGeneral.
They concluded in their report that there had been a failure to adhere to the principle of sound financial management.
It was also noted that there had been a failure to recognise the risks of delegating administrative and technical tasks.
<P>
In view of the difficult circumstances surrounding the management of the programmes, these three Directors-General did not recommend that the disciplinary procedure should be opened.
The Commission endorsed the findings and conclusions of the report.
A letter signed by the Secretary-General on behalf of the Commission was sent to the officials concerned expressing the dissatisfaction of the institution with their management performance.
Both of these above-mentioned reports have been transmitted to Parliament.
<P>
The rapporteur asked the Commission to submit to Parliament the minutes of the hearings carried out in its administrative inquiries.
In this we must be careful to strike the right balance between two requirements.
Firstly, the people who are questioned in an administrative inquiry have the right to confidentiality.
Secondly, Parliament has a responsibility to monitor the implementation of the budget and the right to be provided with information as laid down in Article 206 of the Treaty.
<P>
In order to reconcile these two imperatives, the Commission has approached Parliament with the aim of the two institutions drafting a code of conduct together on access to documents.
<P>
The first meeting between the representatives of the institutions is scheduled for this week.
The purpose is to involve the legal services of both institutions in the process.
The Commission hopes that an agreement can be concluded at the highest possible level.
<P>
In addition to the abovementioned measures related to management of the programmes the Commission also ordered, as has already been said, an external audit with the aim of helping to identify all the expenditure that is not strictly in line with contracts or the rules of accounting.
The audited projects equal 70 % of the net expenditure used.
This audit was carried out by a firm of auditors.
A private firm cannot decide whether the expenditure is appropriate.
That is for the authorising services, under the financial control of the Commission.
<P>
On the basis of the external audit report submitted at the end of August this year, authorising services have begun to examine, project by project, the information gathered by the external auditor.
The results of this examination will be verified by the financial control of the Commission as a whole.
The Commission will submit an interim report of the results to Parliament by 1 December.
<P>
Taking into account the huge amount of work involved in examining the 233 audited projects, the interim report will cover approximately 50 to 70 projects, leading to the first issue of recovery orders.
The work will have to continue and the services of the Commission expect it to be finalised by the end of January 1999.
<P>
If expenditure is found to be ineligible, recovery orders will be sent out.
The Commission will do everything in its power to ensure as much money as possible is recovered.
<P>
Should there be any suspicion of fraud in relation to any operator, the case would be referred to UCLAF.
If UCLAF then finds sufficient grounds for suspicion likely to lead to criminal charges, the file would be transmitted to the competent national judicial authorities.
In any case, any operator who has not met his contractual obligations will be excluded from receiving financing for new programmes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Combating fraud - Protection of the euro - Action against organised crime
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0396/98 by Mr Schmid, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, onI.the Commission communication to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Central Bank and the Economic and Social Committee: A framework for action on combating fraud and counterfeiting of non-cash means of payment (COM(98)0395 (Annex 1) - C4-0455/98-98/0911(CNS))II.the Commission communication to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Central Bank and the Economic and Social Committee: A framework for action on combating fraud and counterfeiting of non-cash means of payment (COM(98)0395 (Annex 2) - C4-0455/98)III.the Commission communication to the Council, the European Parliament and the European Central Bank: Protection of the euro - combating counterfeiting (COM(98)0474 - C4-0527/98); -A4-0376/98 by Mrs Cederschiöld, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the draft Council resolution on guidelines and measures for the prevention of organised crime with reference to the establishment of a comprehensive strategy for combating it (9986/98 - C4-0494/98).
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Schmid">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are two mistakes which people make that seriously hamper us in our fight against organised crime.
The first mistake is to say that we are dealing mainly with drugs-related crime.
The second is to say that we are dealing mainly with the most serious crimes, such as murder.
In fact, organised crime is crime that is organised on the basis of a division of labour, on a systematic, daily, hierarchical basis, rather like the way a company is organised, but using illegal means.
The problems arise because of the sum of the damage, not the individual damage, and they arise because ill-gotten gains are channelled back into the normal economic cycle through money-laundering operations.
<P>
One example is fraud with non-cash means of payment - in short, plastic money and credit cards.
I can illustrate this with an example.
If a briefcase is stolen in Brussels, this may be an individual act by a criminal who wants money, perhaps to buy drugs.
But it could also be part of a process: specialists, groups of pickpockets, are flown in from Latin America - there are special schools there to train them - work the city and then disappear again in the evening by plane.
The stolen credit cards are flown on by plane to other parts of the world the same night and used there to buy goods, which receivers of stolen goods then convert back into cash, which is then channelled back into the normal economic cycle through money-laundering operations.
<P>
As far as we know, credit-card crime is usually organised crime and crime that operates internationally in the way I have described.
The damage worldwide comes to about USD 3 billion a year, of which a quarter falls to the European Community's account.
So there is a need for us to act, and it is therefore a good thing that the Commission has submitted proposals for a joint action.
These proposals are aimed, firstly, at harmonising the law, because we have totally different criminal laws for the crimes I have described.
To give one example: in my country, neither the manufacture nor the possession of forged credit cards was a crime until April this year.
So I could have opened a factory to make them and could have marketed them freely.
Nobody would have said a word.
<P>
The Commission wants to close these legal loopholes, and we welcome that.
Secondly, we very much need to make means of payment such as credit cards more secure.
The market does not automatically guarantee maximum security; the sector weighs up the goods and carries out a cost-benefit analysis between security on the one hand and the cost of security on the other.
That is why the result does not provide maximum security, but only precisely the level determined by the cost-benefit calculation.
<P>
But it is important to society to have a high standard of security if it is to combat organised crime consistently.
That is why, in my report, Parliament submits a number of proposals.
Let me draw your attention to three of them, which are obviously reasonable.
In future, we want a better method to be found for issuing credit cards, because sending them by post, as is usually done now, is too unsafe.
These credit cards have security marks.
Every credit-card issuer uses a different one.
No cashier can remember them all.
So we want to see them standardised.
Thirdly, in the long term there is no alternative to replacing the signature used for paying by plastic card with a numerical code, as in the case of the Eurocheque card, and a chip.
<P>
Another problem we will have to tackle is counterfeit coins and notes.
Here again, we must distinguish between two cases.
There are what are known as home-worker counterfeiters, who try to counterfeit notes using a colour photocopier.
We are less concerned with them.
But then there is large-scale money counterfeiting, carried out by organised crime.
Introducing the euro as cash will create special risks.
Firstly, this is because the euro is a new currency whose appearance people are not yet familiar with.
Secondly, it is because organised crime predominantly counterfeits what are known as reserve currencies, which means currencies that can be placed globally.
Thirdly, it is because criminal prosecution authorities and the police in the various Member States of the European Community have different experiences, because, conversely, there are also currencies that have hardly ever been counterfeited in the past.
That is why the national authorities have little experience there.
So we welcome the fact that the Commission is presenting a communication and putting forward proposals.
Much of it we endorse.
But our specialist committee does not approve the special role the Commission has assigned itself in this communication in relation to combating counterfeiting of the euro in future.
Underlying this special role is the assumption that, as in the case of fraud against the Community, the interests of the Member States as such are not really affected.
Fraud against the Community is after all, according to this view, money lost to the Community budget and not the national budgets.
<P>
But in the case of counterfeit money, things are different.
Here the Member States certainly have a marked interest.
We have serious reservations about allocating too much responsibility to UCLAF in this respect when we look at the Bösch report, which described the situation of UCLAF clearly enough.
Let me put it in somewhat provocative terms, Mr President: the euro is too important for the matter to be left in the hands of UCLAF.
So we suggest retaining the existing and proven system of cooperation between criminal prosecution authorities, police forces, central banks and cash acceptance points and supplementing this system by organising the rapid exchange of information and by giving Europol new responsibilities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="Cederschiöld">
Mr President, it was a year ago that the European Parliament considered the action plan to combat organised crime.
The focus then was on 'acute' intervention.
This was to be enforcement-oriented, but I pointed out at the time that preventive action was just as necessary.
Anti-crime strategies require a long-term perspective and this was one of the areas where I found the Council's approach wanting.
Civil society has a key role to play in strengthening people's sense of identity, helping them to resist temptation and say no to crime.
The family also bears responsibility for passing on decent values to children.
<P>
Citing my report as the trigger, the Council has now come back with a proposal for a preventive strategy.
This is a novel occurrence in the third pillar area and I commend the Council's initiative.
We now have some scope for constructive debate and a fruitful exchange of ideas.
<P>
What a pity Commissioner Gradin cannot be here.
Although we all appreciate the need to set priorities, a key person's absence on a particular issue can only reflect the degree of importance which is attached to it.
Perhaps this is primarily a Council matter.
It is certainly good to see the Council represented, but I would have liked Commissioner Gradin to be in attendance too.
I note with pleasure, however, that Commissioner Liikanen is here with us.
<P>
There was a remarkable show of consensus in committee, and I would thank my colleagues for their positive contributions.
What we need is a strategy to develop a truly European civil society, alert to how early in life criminal behaviour is engendered and how fast it spreads. We can then take appropriate measures at national, local and regional levels to nip in the bud any drift towards a criminal lifestyle.
Voluntary organisations, churches, schools, friends and family - all these make up civil society. And it is to civil society that we should look in order to derive the strength to resist crime.
It is no good leaving everything to politicians and letting people think that the State will right all the wrongs.
Social engineering, rather then protecting against crime, tends to weaken resistance.
I have seen this happen in my own country, Sweden.
We must be aware of the danger of 'everyday' crime and be ready to react before the petty offender becomes drawn into serious, international crime.
People should take responsibility for one another, and this means empowering individuals so that they want to care.
To put it figuratively, we need to create the software to be used with the hardware of law enforcement.
<P>
It is vital that Member States ratify the existing conventions.
Full use is not being made of the instruments at hand.
Nor has the action plan to combat organised crime been sufficiently developed.
There were 30 points in the original text and barely half have been implemented. Progress is still awaited in 18 areas.
We can learn from each other and promote those crime prevention measures that have proved effective. Everyone would like to live in a society where they can feel safe and secure.
This is particularly relevant in the case of the applicant countries, where the crime problem is worse than here.
Worst of all, though, is the transformation in attitudes that takes place in a society where crime becomes generally accepted as part of everyday life. If criminal behaviour becomes the norm in a community, that community is in trouble.
The applicant countries should be encouraged to develop long-term crime prevention strategies; the impact will be felt across the Union.
We need to vaccinate ourselves mentally against crime.
Our societies will become less susceptible once the fundamental values we all share become more firmly enshrined through increased public awareness. Work will need to be done at both practical and 'human' levels.
<P>
Some of the EU states border on countries with crime levels that are inconceivable to us here in the West.
The prevalence of protection rackets is an example.
In one country not so very far away from here, up to 70 % of companies pay protection money to crime syndicates.
Once criminal activity is allowed to penetrate so deeply into an economy, both democracy and market principles are under threat.
Fundamental values go overboard and policy-making in other areas loses its meaning.
If we lose our grip on crime, we shall be destined to fail elsewhere too.
Pressure on each and every Member State must be maintained.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="Michalek">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by thanking you for giving me the opportunity today to visit the European Parliament's plenary.
As a member of the government who does not belong to any political party but will soon be able to look back on eight years of experience as Minister for Justice in the Austrian Republic, I have particular respect for the activities and responsibility of the Members of the European Parliament and very much appreciate the significant role the European Parliament plays in the pursuit of justice and democracy within the process of European integration.
<P>
Accordingly, the Austrian Presidency is endeavouring to cooperate closely with the European Parliament in its activities.
Let me also use my visit here as an opportunity to make some comments on the subjects of this joint debate from the Austrian Presidency's point of view.
Turning first to the non-cash means of payment: the possibility of obtaining services from third parties without having to carry the corresponding cash - generally by using a debit card - not only makes life easier and things more flexible, but also paves the way to new forms of abuse.
<P>
The Commission recognised this risk early on and submitted proposals on how to reduce it.
The presidency welcomes the Commission's initiative, because we too realise that action is certainly needed here.
The working group on Community law and national criminal law has already held an initial exchange of views on the matter.
Without wishing to anticipate the working group's conclusions, I do regard it as very helpful with regard to our further progress that the Commission chose to forward its communication to Parliament quickly, thus enabling Parliament to give its opinion at an early stage and the Council to take due account of it in its deliberations.
<P>
The subject of the Commission's second communication, protection of the euro against counterfeiting, on which Mr Schmid has drawn up his report, is equally important for the future.
The Austrian Presidency agrees with the Commission and the European Parliament that we must do our utmost to protect the euro against counterfeiting.
On the one hand we must give special attention to the appropriate preventive measures, and on the other we must also ensure that we have sound measures for prosecuting counterfeiters from the moment the euro coins and banknotes are issued.
<P>
One key question here will probably be how to demarcate the responsibilities of the various institutions involved - where, as I know, there are different views - clearly and carefully enough to ensure effective protection of the euro; here, I believe, Europol will also have a major role to play.
<P>
With regard to criminal law, I can tell you that the Council working group responsible has already embarked on the necessary preparatory work.
First we must gain an overview of the provisions in force in the Member States and establish to what extent we need to approximate the legal provisions.
On the basis of this preparatory work, we will then have to propose a legal act, aimed at approximating the Member States' legal provisions.
The aim will be to ensure that certain forms of conduct are regarded as punishable offences in all the Member States.
However, the presidency regards it as rather difficult and not very useful to approximate the penalties so long as the general penal provisions, especially the prosecution system, the list of penalties, the imposition of penalties and the conditions governing mitigation are based on different systems.
What we must ensure, however, is that we do not prevent the Member States from cooperating effectively in relation to mutual assistance and extradition provisions
<P>
Let me conclude with a word on the resolution on prevention which the Council intends to draw up.
We followed with great attention the European Parliament's in-depth consideration of the action plan to combat organised crime.
The presidency took the European Parliament's resolution of 20 November 1997 as an incentive to propose an amendment to the Council in the important area of the prevention of organised crime.
That is why we also forwarded the presidency's draft resolution on preventive measures to combat organised crime to the European Parliament for information, although even the Amsterdam Treaty does not make provision for Parliament to be formally consulted on draft resolutions of the Council.
<P>
The multidisciplinary group on organised crime has discussed the draft in depth and will probably adopt it at the Justice and Home Affairs Council on 3 and 4 December.
This resolution seeks to address all aspects of preventing organised crime in a comprehensive manner.
Special emphasis is placed on the need to coordinate state measures with civil society in any attempt to reduce the incentive to commit crimes and take preventive measures against organised crime.
In line with the horizontal nature of prevention, it addresses areas in the first and third pillar of the European Union, although emphasis is also placed on the Member States' responsibility at national, regional and local level.
<P>
In this context, we attach great importance to the preparation of national preventive programmes, the creation of interdisciplinary and interinstitutional crime prevention councils and, above all, the evaluation and assessment of preventive activities.
I believe this resolution is a first major step forward, which I hope will be followed by others.
Let me end on that note - I thank you for your attention and hope for further good cooperation between Parliament and the presidency!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bontempi">
Mr President, I should like to compliment both rapporteurs - both our colleagues have done a good job - and to make one preliminary remark.
I think it is appropriate to point out that the House is now discussing for the umpteenth time matters related to the somewhat new institutional exercise of fighting for lawfulness, in other words against crime.
I was very pleased to hear the President-in-Office stressing the value of Parliament's role and contribution.
Now, post-Amsterdam, Parliament is playing a very important leading role in some ways, particularly in respect of an initiative which has perhaps been somewhat underestimated, namely the newly created area of freedom, security and law.
These are new issues, but that is perhaps why Parliament's contribution is so significant, as the Minister clearly acknowledges: we are not restricting ourselves to requests and aspirations, but are attempting to identify tangible means of implementing aims and objectives which are of deep concern to the citizens of Europe.
<P>
I emphasise this point because I think that both rapporteurs rightly draw attention in their reports to the very important proactive role being sought by Parliament.
I would dwell in particular on the question of crime prevention, as dealt with in the Cederschiöld report.
I believe that this is the key point picked up by the Council from the first report on organised crime and proposed afresh in its draft resolution, given that any steps taken collectively by a society or community to reduce - if not avert - outbreaks of crime count as prevention.
A range of measures therefore exists; we need only think of corruption.
As far as corruption is concerned, most of what needs to be done is preventive: the culture of political back-scratching and patronage must be combated; the guiding rule in relations between institutions and citizens must be the transparency of operations.
We have raised all these aspects of prevention in an amendment, calling for a code of conduct and attention to new occupational groups which can easily fall prey to corruption or organised crime. We have done so in order to stress the importance of preventive action when faced with change.
<P>
I would however point out here - as we state in another amendment - that preventive action is also very much a matter of partnership between institutions and civil society.
I would remind you all of the concept of educating people to remain within the law.
Two years ago, our committee held some remarkable consultations with an Italian organisation - called 'Libera' - which is an umbrella organisation encompassing some 600 civil associations. Its members described the work they are doing to combat organised crime in Italy, and told us how they were attempting to stamp it out in the worst affected regions.
We heard from Rita Borsellino, the sister of Judge Borsellino, whose commitment testifies to the importance - not only for the sake of her brother's memory, but in order to combat the mafia - of a struggle based on a deep commitment by society to conveying the message of lawfulness.
<P>
I would just refer finally to preventive action against urban crime and petty crime.
Here I think that there is now greater awareness: it has been understood that repression, where it is necessary, must be combined with prevention.
The work being done on the ground, in a joint effort by institutions and civil society, inspires hope that it will be possible to reduce this huge amount of crime, this enormous sense of danger which is making our cities and citizens feel unsafe - according to a recent survey, 33 % of people felt unsafe in cities in 1996.
But what is to be done?
Should we put police on every street corner?
No, that would serve no purpose; it would probably be both wrong and impossible.
We must establish a close link between prevention, work on the ground, concrete measures, monitoring and controls.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendes Bota">
Mr President, there can no longer be any doubt that the Single Market, the information society, technological inventions, the Internet, financial services and electronic commerce have revolutionised the use of non-cash means of payment.
Turnover for payment cards alone exceeds $US 2 000 billion a year throughout the world.
This huge market has also given rise to new forms of computer piracy and crime specialising in fraud and counterfeiting, or so-called cybercrime. Something therefore needs to be done to protect the interests of those issuing, using, being paid by or acquiring these new means of payment.
<P>
That is why we need to harmonise the systems of controls and penalties in the Member States to guarantee the euro's credibility and security, even in the intermediate phase from 1999 to 2002.
The Commission should be congratulated on the initiatives that it is taking and, generally speaking, the rapporteur, Mr Schmid, deserves our support. But now allow me to turn to the report itself.
<P>
There are, however, some points for concern.
For example, on the subject of combating the falsification of euro notes and coins, the Commission statement calls for close cooperation and mutual assistance between UCLAF, the ECB and Europol.
But the future role of UCLAF still has to be clearly defined and, in the wake of cases of fraud at ECHO, the President of the Commission, Jacques Santer, has just publicly announced the Commission's intention to transform the UCLAF into OLAF, a body completely independent of the Commission, extending its inquiries and investigations to all Community institutions. That would then leave it for the Commission to focus on the legislative proposals and coordination with the Member States in the fight against fraud, in the interest of the European Union, as would be the case of counterfeiting the euro.
But doubts linger and this lack of definition needs to be cleared up.
In the end, who is going to supervise what?
Will it involve UCLAF, OLAF or the Commission?
We must in any case continue to compile, assess and update data on money counterfeiting practices, circuits and networks if we are to protect the euro.
<P>
It is therefore very worrying that there is no specific idea of the type of information to be included in the database, but we hope for a joint effort on the part of those actually responsible for issuing the coin, the courts, the police and financial bodies.
In other words, we are looking into it.
But time is short.
These legislative instruments need to be adopted at the latest at some time in the year 2000 so that the comprehensive euro protection system can be operational as of 1 January 2002, in order to be tested before the euro notes and coins are brought into circulation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Schaffner">
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank the two rapporteurs for the work they have both done on this issue.
<P>
The fight against fraud and the need to establish a comprehensive system to prevent the counterfeiting of means of payment is of key importance, not only for governments but also for all the citizens of the European Union.
<P>
The Commission's communication on the counterfeiting and protection of the euro along with the amendments adopted are a positive and practical contribution to the fight against fraud.
It is a start, but it is not the end.
One of the main objectives is to ensure that these cases of fraud are treated as criminal offences in all the Member States.
We also need an efficient system to protect the euro.
The most important element is to make sure that the euro has a uniform level of protection throughout the entire Union.
<P>
Europol's responsibilities in combating counterfeiting should be extended.
The euro has a very high potential circulation, which means that there is the risk of counterfeiting both within and outside the European Union.
We are therefore going to call for an information system for the rapid exchange of data between the authorities responsible for combating counterfeiting.
<P>
It is very unfortunate that the implementation of the action plan to combat organised crime is so far behind schedule.
The Council must ensure that all its recommendations enter into force and become effective by the end of next year.
<P>
The only aspect of the report by Mrs Cederschiöld that concerns me is the link between the measures to prevent organised crime and electoral procedures.
That has no place in this report, which, apart from this, has my full support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Svensson">
Mr President, I have three points to make on this report.
Firstly, it is common knowledge that any real semblance of control over movements of goods around the Union has gone, demonstrating that the much trumpeted vision of a Europe without frontiers is a dangerous illusion.
The whole enterprise merely encourages criminal dealings.
Experience has shown that free trade is not undermined by proper and efficient border controls.
The free trade system should facilitate lawful activity, not crime.
We therefore need effective controls for goods and persons at the EU's national frontiers.
<P>
My second point concerns corruption and mafia-style activities.
Perhaps we could contribute to the fight against this type of crime by introducing a system of open government and public accountability. This is not something people necessarily think of in such a context, but the Nordic countries are committed to the principle of public access to official records.
Ordinary citizens, as well as journalists, have a right to consult documents and paperwork produced by public authorities. This means that the general public is able to monitor financial management within government departments.
I believe that the low levels of corruption we find in the Nordic countries can partly be attributed to this system of open access to documents.
As well as enabling facts to be uncovered, the system also has a deterrent effect in terms of crime.
<P>
Lastly, the EU now boasts three groupings operating in the field of police cooperation: Schengen, Interpol and Europol.
I wonder if we should be splitting up our anti-crime effort in this way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking the two rapporteurs for the work they have done.
Democratic societies do indeed have a duty to make maximum efforts to combat organised crime and corruption in all their guises.
Yet a balance has to be struck between effective anti-crime strategies, on the one hand, and the freedom of the individual and legal certainty on the other.
We cannot allow ourselves to become a Big Brother society.
My group has been highly critical, for example, of the holding of detailed files on individuals under the umbrella of Schengen and Europol.
I also have reservations about the widespread use of global interception systems. These may well yield results in terms of combating crime, but the effects on democracy and civil liberties are not to be countenanced.
<P>
I commend the way in which Mrs Cederschiöld has managed to find a balance between ends and means in this report.
I fully support her call for more work on crime prevention, and she is right to point out that the proposals still fall short on specific prevention measures.
I agree on the role of civil society and the importance of setting long-term targets, and transparency and public accountability are essential in this context.
Yet there is another dimension if we want to stop the rifts that already exist in our societies from widening. We need more job opportunities, better education provision and a fairer distribution of resources.
<P>
I have one final point.
Mrs Cederschiöld talks about combating crime at European level, but we know that organised crime reaches beyond the frontiers of Europe.
I am therefore in favour of working with Interpol and other international bodies too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pradier">
Mr President, the report by Mrs Cederschiöld must be congratulated for having highlighted the often subtle distinction between organised crime and less serious crime and between prevention and repression, despite the complexities all these concepts involve.
<P>
We will certainly vote in favour of this report, even though it appears to be somewhat reliant on a political magic wand.
We must of course - and I am merely quoting here - encourage citizens to cooperate with the judicial authorities, guarantee the protection of witnesses, and promote policing at a level that is closer to citizens. We need a reduction in factors that encourage and a promotion of factors that discourage crime.
We must promote the integration of marginalised groups. Everyone will be in complete agreement with these issues.
<P>
There is one specific area that needs to be defined here, and that is the prevention of repeat offending, which falls somewhere between prevention and repression.
Prevention is an extremely important factor and is linked to the quality of penal institutions and their ability to assist the social reintegration of offenders.
<P>
Significant efforts must be made in this area and they must be targeted.
They are going to cost money and will require a great deal of imagination and intelligence.
Whatever else happens, we must at least be prepared to agree to make this effort.
Let us remember that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Buffetaut">
Mr President, the European Union only has legitimacy when it acts more efficiently than the Member States acting individually.
Organised crime is the very type of harmful activity that calls for action at European level.
<P>
The report by Mrs Cederschiöld rightly stresses the need for the Council to propose concrete measures and to involve the applicant countries that hope to join the European Union in whatever prevention measures might be established by the Council.
Unfortunately, we know that those countries, and particularly the countries of central and eastern Europe, have been left in a dreadful state of moral and economic decline by Marxist-Leninism.
It is therefore highly desirable that from now on they should be involved in the work we ourselves can do within the European Union.
<P>
The rapporteur also rightly emphasises the need to involve civil society in the prevention of organised crime.
<P>
Prevention from within society is necessary but its effectiveness depends on society's general state of mind and on the promotion of values that are all too often scorned, such as a sense of responsibility, of duty, of honesty and of work.
In short, it is also a matter of how civilised we are.
<P>
The prevailing relativism, the loss of reference points, a libertarian idea of freedom, individualism taken to its extreme, and the puerile desire to reject what are known as supposedly middle-class social conventions are all elements that, in fact, fuel everyday crime, which itself undermines the foundations of civil peace and acts as a basis for organised crime.
Mrs Cederschiöld has also rightly highlighted the damaging effects of poor town planning.
<P>
We will support her report apart from the elements that relate, strangely, to voting rights and the prevention of crime.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office, I share your concern about the problems raised in the Schmid report.
There can be no question that we need a coordinated approach at European level here.
Some time ago I put a question to the Commission on protecting the euro from counterfeiting, but only received a rather evasive answer.
The fact that the rapporteur believes that the euro will act as a magnet for criminal activity and that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs also believes that the euro will be an extremely attractive target for counterfeiting confirms me in my view.
<P>
The overall package of proposals to protect the euro from counterfeiting and fraud does, however, seem to be a useful instrument for tackling these problems.
Here I wish to highlight the new regulatory system for harmonising criminal law, which I regard as very useful.
I see the idea of laying down the framework, determining the crucial features, but leaving it to the Member States to formulate them in terms of their own criminal law systems, as a step forward in the right direction.
Past attempts to formulate case materials on a Europe-wide basis, as in the corpus juris , gave rise to a great many problems and conflicts between systems.
I believe that the legislative method which has now been proposed for approximating the Member States' different, historically based legal systems is a better one, and we approve it, as we do all the other points made in the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, I congratulate the two rapporteurs on their two reports and the three accompanying resolutions.
Mr Schmid and Mrs Cederschiöld have done an important job here in dealing with issues that are vital to the future of the European Union.
I am talking about combating fraud in the non-cash sector, combating counterfeiting and action against organised crime.
<P>
Most of the points I want to make are in relation to Mr Schmid's report.
There are three main points.
Firstly, it is a wonderful opportunity, with the switch-over to the euro from national currencies, to catch those who have currently got large sums of illgotten gains hidden under the bed or somewhere else and are going to have to switch from deutschmarks or francs, from pesetas or lire into euros.
What I hope we are going to see is some coordinated action at European level to try and take advantage of this opportunity.
We need special reporting requirements on currency exchanges around the time of the switch-over to the euro and we need a European-wide organisation of police and customs officials working together to see how much of the grey or black money we can detect when criminals have to move across from their own national currencies to the euro.
<P>
Secondly, with respect to non-cash fraud: I am pleased that in the report we complain about the fact that the banks do not worry very often because they offload the cost onto the customers.
We should be looking at using new technologies for identification to help protect the customer - via new biometric patterns for example.
Retinal patterns are very successful in allowing you to identify unambiguously the owner of a car. That will be something that can be used at cash points.
<P>
But, secondly, we should be allowed to use the highest available means of encryption that cannot be broken to protect these transactions.
At the moment I understand the Commission is apparently negotiating with the US Government to limit our ability to encrypt electronic transactions.
This is very foolish in the light of this particular report.
<P>
With respect to cash fraud, the euro will be reasonably well-protected.
We have a problem with the euro coins, where we are allowing national characteristics on coins.
Unless we have a plan to sort out those coins and send them back to their countries of origin, the average shop, after a comparatively short period of time, will have to deal with recognising 120 different coins if we are going to have six coins from the 15 states of the European Union, and added to that coins from Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, the Vatican City and Gibraltar.
That seems to me to be complete nonsense and we should try to remove it later with legislation to enable shops to have a fairly small number of coins to identify rather than the enormous number that the rather foolish earlier decision will lead to.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pirker">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we know from a reliable source that about 30 % of all crime is now organised crime.
Given that the business of organised crime now extends from credit-card fraud to traffic in human beings and to money laundering, there is obviously an absolute need for action not just in the Member States but also by the European Community.
<P>
We must give absolute priority to combating organised crime, as both the rapporteurs say.
What we need, without any doubt, is a combination of repressive and preventive measures.
Let me just take up three points which I see as especially important in terms of combating crime.
The first is that we, the European Community, must finally transpose the measures and the action plan which the Community has adopted.
We must set aside national animosities in the interests of Europe-wide cooperation in combating crime and make efficient use of the instruments we have at our disposal, such as Europol and UCLAF.
<P>
The second point concerns expanding judicial cooperation.
We are still at the beginning here: we have proposed some useful steps forward, but what we need to do is to harmonise criminal provisions relating to new types of offences, such as credit-card fraud, money laundering, environmental crime and gangs.
<P>
The third point, which I think needs very special emphasis, is that we must export security to the applicant Central and Eastern European countries that are seeking to join the European Union.
We should help them to implement these programmes in the interest of Europe and in their own interest.
The fight against organised crime must be intensified and expanded.
That is what our citizens expect of the European Union, and it is absolutely vital to the security of the European Union as a whole.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Gallagher">
Mr President, I am very pleased that the European Central Bank is set to establish an Analysis centre for counterfeits.
The relevant statistical and technical data will be stored as a database to which national central banks will have full access.
As of now no more precise details have been given by the European Central Bank but I am sure these will come in due course.
<P>
I welcome the fact that the Central Bank is taking this initiative at such an early stage of its inception.
This is important because 13 billion euro banknotes will be printed by January 2002 when they will be brought into circulation within the 11 Member States encompassing a population of some 290 million people.
It is very important that this Analysis centre for counterfeits should work closely not only with national central banks but also with Europol and the national police forces within the 11 Member States participating in the new single currency regime.
<P>
The Amsterdam Treaty is giving more powers to Europol in the area of judicial and police cooperation and this Treaty is set to be ratified shortly.
Parliament must ensure that any financial resources which will be required by the Central Bank for the working of this new Analysis centre for counterfeits should be supported so that the evil of this prospective counterfeiting of euro notes is defeated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Vanhecke">
Mr President, we all - I believe - agree on the need to combat crime effectively. But I must add that we must not be too naive about the real effectiveness of the various preventive measures summarised in the second report we now have before us.
The simple reality is that in many large and medium-sized towns in Europe there are whole streets and neighbourhoods which the police no longer dare enter, where there is virtually no longer any public transport and where the plucky citizens who remain, those who lack the resources to move elsewhere, are exposed to the laws of the jungle.
In other words, we must have the courage to acknowledge that this prevention policy of ours has failed.
Out there, in these neighbourhoods, it is well past the eleventh hour. The time has come to crack down hard and to take repressive action in order, if necessary, to restore law and order by force.
First things first.
Prevention is important but I believe this tough approach must take first priority, contrary to what is stated in this report.
<P>
I also regret that Parliament is afraid to speak out clearly when it comes to the subject of crime committed by foreigners.
The second report just beats about the bush.
We all know that, regretfully, 90 % of so-called street crimes in the major towns and cities are committed by uprooted people, uprooted foreigners, often second or third generation immigrants.
We are not going to solve this huge problem by continuing to deny its existence or by trying to falsify the statistics by means of more flexible naturalisation procedures.
We will also certainly not solve it by granting active and passive voting rights such as this report, to everyone's surprise, I would imagine, dares to propose.
The only short-term solution is a courageous policy which presents those involved with a choice.
Either integrate yourselves into our society, and thus respect its laws, customs and culture, or opt for supported and accompanied return to your cultural home where you will no longer be uprooted.
Just because this solution has been declared taboo does not mean that it is not a decent and proper solution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Schmid">
Mr President, I am glad to be able to make a few more comments on the problem of preventing organised crime.
Repression and prevention are two equally valid means of combating crime, including organised crime.
However, we must realise that the traditional concepts of prevention will not work here.
Let me explain this: the common belief that we can do something about organised crime by combating poverty and unemployment overlooks the real problem.
Organised criminals are not usually poor people - on the contrary!
<P>
There are some chances of success in the field of technical prevention, that is to say technical precautions to prevent crime.
These include the prevention of car theft by fitting immobilisers, preventing credit-card fraud by making this means of payment more secure, introducing better rules with regard to some areas of what is called hi-tech crime, and introducing better data comparison precautions in fields such as social security fraud, as are widely found in the United States.
<P>
Another question concerns the drying-up of markets.
Organised crime often involves the supply of illegal goods and services.
We will not manage to combat that in all cases.
With regard to drugs, for instance, there are good reasons for not legalising them.
On the other hand, there is no reason whatsoever for the state to retain its monopoly on gambling.
Nor is there any reason for driving a system which has obviously been a social need for centuries, namely prostitution -whatever we may think of it as such - into the grey area of the semi-legal, which would only turn it into a seedbed for organised crime.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Pomés Ruiz">
Mr President, I should like to comment briefly on matters related to the euro.
I am particularly anxious to speak about this issue because I am concerned about the way this debate is developing.
<P>
The euro needs to generate confidence.
However, the debate has not been particularly helpful in this regard. Too many speakers have expressed concern about the risks of counterfeiting even coins, which is in fact quite difficult to achieve.
The first thing that should be said is that the European Central Bank guarantees the notes and coins issued. Furthermore, Interpol, Europol, the police forces of the Member States and the Member States themselves now have at their disposal means of controlling fraud and counterfeiting through the legal and penal systems.
This should boost confidence.
<P>
Our role is not to be alarmist nor to think of the arrival of the euro as the very opportunity for deceit all the European mafias are eagerly awaiting.
Our role in this House is to support the Commission and the European Central Bank, and to facilitate their task. For instance, we should try to ensure that Europol has arrangements in place to coordinate the attack to be launched by all the national police forces and by Interpol.
We must also support the Commission once it has prepared more detailed proposals and presented them to Parliament.
The citizens need to know that we are aware of the possible risks of counterfeiting, but they must also know that in this instance, 15 police forces will be working alongside Interpol and Europol.
Our task is to enable appropriate legal provision to be made to ensure that detailed particulars on the type of offences are readily available, as stated in the report.
<P>
We should do all we can to promote confidence in the euro. It does need it.
Fortunately, control does not depend solely on us, as we shall be assisted by many others.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, the Commission is very satisfied with Mrs Cederschiöld's report on ways we may best prevent organised crime from taking root in society.
We have to get to the core of the problem and devise a strategy for the prevention of problems, with all parties in the Community taking part at national and local level.
Ridding ourselves of crime can only succeed if we make use of all the means available to the constitutional state.
The rapporteur justifiably stresses the need to support common measures taken by citizens against organised crime in the constitutional state.
<P>
In the area of money laundering the Commission has applied legislation under the first pillar to prevent the circulation through laundering of money obtained from selling drugs.
At the start of 1999 the directive will be broadened to cover suspect business activity linked with smuggling, other than drug-smuggling.
In the area of telecommunications the Commission issued a communication in May 1998 on the protection of minors and human dignity in general in audio-visual and Internet contexts.
This is a good example of a case where national legislation is not enough to ensure that we are rid of crime, but where action at Union level is needed.
As Members of Parliament know, the Commission has initiated a number of projects under the Falcone programme in conjunction with the Member States and NGOs.
<P>
The rapporteur made special mention of the need to support employment, health, family, and social policy, so that the security of the immediate environment of our citizens might be improved.
The Commission fully supports these objectives. Similarly, there is support for citizens' local services.
The issue has been raised in a communication on city policy, which is to be presented at the Europaforum Wien Centre for Urban Dialogue in Vienna at the end of November.
Crime in our cities is a real problem, as it is based on organised crime, which threatens cross-border social order.
<P>
The unambiguous aim of the Commission is to create a pan-European area where freedom, safety and justice prevail.
With the ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam this goal has moved a lot nearer.
The heads of state and government have already agreed to meet in Tampere, Finland, in October 1999, to discuss priority aims and deadlines in this important area.
The report by Charlotte Cederschiöld will form part of the foundations upon which the Commission's work will be built.
<P>
Moving on to Mr Schmid's report, I would like, on behalf of the Commission, to congratulate the rapporteur, who, in very clear terms, raises the issue of the connection between the Commission's proposal on fraud and counterfeiting in non-cash transactions with fraud and counterfeiting specifically in respect of the euro.
The amount of fraud in non-cash transactions is growing fast.
Payment card fraud accounts for around ECU 2.7 billion in losses a year.
At the same time the legal authorities in the Member States are able to combat these types of crime only semi-effectively simply because there are no laws on the matter.
The aim of the Commission's proposal is to correct this situation. It calls for joint action to ensure that all fraud in non-cash transactions is looked on as a punishable offence in all EU Member States.
<P>
Mr Schmid's report opposes the inclusion in the proposal of provisions on money laundering and mutual assistance.
He believes that satisfactory results will be achieved in these important areas only through horizontal regulation covering all forms of crime.
The Commission agrees, but as, unfortunately, there is not yet enough of this sort of regulation, legislation needs to be created jointly.
The Commission cautiously supports all the proposals for action put forward by Mr Schmid and the other agencies concerned and will take them into consideration in future planning.
<P>
The other subject covered in Mr Schmid's report is protecting the euro from counterfeiting activity.
This is an important matter that needs to be addressed urgently.
We expect the euro to be legal tender internationally.
That being the case, it may well fall prey to internationally organised crime.
The Commission thus believes that before the euro is allowed to circulate we must devise an effective system to prevent the manufacture of counterfeit euros.
The Ecofin Council has itself emphasised that an effective protection mechanism must be in place for the new currency before its introduction.
Ecofin also stressed the role of Europol here and urged the Commission to continue with its initiative.
<P>
The main protection targets will be set out in a Commission communication to be issued in July, reflecting the Commission's views.
It will focus on the following: education, information, communications systems and databases, cooperation and mutual assistance in investigations, defining what constitutes criminal counterfeiting activity and the introduction of penalties that will act as a deterrent.
The Commission believes that the institutions concerned each have their own job to do: the European Central Bank, Europol, the Commission, especially in its capacity as the initiator of legislation, the Member States, their central banks, their police forces and their courts.
<P>
Finally, I would like to say a few words about Europol.
Much has been spoken about how the workload should be divided between Europol on the one hand, and the European Central Bank and the Commission on the other.
Each will have its own job to do in any future system.
The sole guiding principle in making decisions will be how effectively we can protect the euro.
As we know, difficult compromises had to be reached before the Europol Treaty was introduced, relating to the delicate issue of cooperation in matters of crime and punishment when it comes to combating international crime, as these issues are regarded as too tightly bound up with the notion of national sovereignty.
The protection of the euro will be the responsibility of both the Community and the Member States, however.
For that reason, we need a properly functioning legislative framework, which might go further than the Europol Treaty.
Until then we must give Europol the necessary authority to act to prevent counterfeiting activity in respect of the euro within the limits of its present powers.
<P>
I would once more like to thank the rapporteurs for their thorough work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Safer use of Internet
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0377/98), on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0535/98-97/0337(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council decision adopting a Multiannual Community Action Plan on promoting safer use of the Internet by combating illegal and harmful content on global networks (Rapporteur: Mr Schmid).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Schmid">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is a saying that goes: 'knowledge is power'.
If that is true, then we are currently witnessing a shift in power from those who have to some extent enjoyed a monopoly to the many people who have gained access to unheard-of power through the Internet.
The Internet offers an enormous opportunity.
But we also know that it involves risks.
The Internet contains content that can be either unwanted or criminal.
So the Commission was right to propose a programme to deal with this problem.
<P>
We approved the core of this programme at first reading, but tabled some amendments.
Most but not all of these amendments were accepted.
Our committee is therefore retabling some of the amendments from the first reading.
Basically they can be divided into two groups.
The first groups is addressed to the Commission, and concerns the implementation of the programme or things that we do not necessarily have to incorporate in a legal text, but which the Commission can ensure are done.
Firstly, these are actions to prevent the Internet from being misused any longer for trafficking in women or children.
Secondly, and in particular, we want preparatory studies to be carried out with a view to making it clear to all concerned what is needed in the way of harmonisation of legislation.
This is important, because any criminal prosecution, for child pornography for instance, is in fact bound to fail so long as we have different age limits for the protection of children, so long as a server can be operated anonymously, or e-mail sent anonymously.
<P>
If the Commission makes a satisfactory statement on implementation during this debate, I can withdraw Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 6, with the committee's approval.
That depends on what Mr Liikanen tells us in a moment.
<P>
So I would ask the President to allow me to speak again briefly at the end of the debate, in response to the Commissioner.
<P>
The other group of amendments is addressed to the Council.
Here we have managed, in cooperation with the Austrian Presidency, to find some compromise formulas which both we and the Council can endorse.
Firstly, they concern the idea of a quality label for Internet service providers who voluntarily adhere to a code of conduct agreed within the sector.
That will make it easier for parents to decide which Internet provider's services to use.
The other concern was to use as little paper as possible for the awareness actions and, wherever possible, to opt for cheaper electronic information.
<P>
As I said, we have reached compromises with the Council.
This means that we are withdrawing Amendments Nos 3, 4 and 5 in favour of Amendments Nos 8, 9 and 10, which we have tabled as compromise amendments in accordance with the Rules of Procedure.
There are other amendments, which I reject without exception, because if we were to accept them we would have to go into a conciliation procedure.
By handling the matter as we have so far, namely reaching agreement with the Commission and the Council, we avoid the conciliation procedure and save about three months of time.
For that reason alone, I would advise against accepting the other amendments, from No 12 onwards.
Furthermore, the importance and quality of these amendments is not such that not accepting them would significantly harm the programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Iversen">
I am pleased that we have made such progress with this action plan, and I would like to compliment the rapporteur on what is an excellent report.
The Internet is first and foremost a wonderful invention, which breaks down boundaries and opens doors on a scale we could not possibly have imagined only ten years ago.
In this sense, the Internet is part of a revolution which enables us to communicate with people throughout the world.
However, if the Internet is organised in an anarchical way, it also means that dishonest and criminal individuals will more or less have a free hand to disseminate illegal images or text, for example child pornography or incitements to racism.
This is very difficult to stamp out, as we all know, and I am glad that we are proceeding with this European action plan, which can try to prevent the spread of illegal material.
Users of the Internet will have full control and be able to filter out this kind of material automatically, and so there should be complete transparency.
<P>
However, it is very important for us to distinguish between what is illegal and what is offensive or morally damaging.
Who is to decide what is damaging, and whose morals are the best?
The great thing about the Internet is precisely that there is no censor in the middle of it.
In the opinion of the Danish Social Democrats, therefore, we should not have a quality label, awarded by the Commission.
The Commission should not have a monopoly on deciding what is morally correct.
Nor should we be harmonising civil law in the Member States, but rather working and cooperating to combat such things as child pornography.
This is illegal in all the Member States, and we can all agree that it is damaging to children's rights.
So let us begin a joint action to combat child pornography as soon as possible and extend the competence of Europol, so that we can combat international networks which produce, sell and distribute pornographic material of this kind.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cederschiöld">
Mr President, the Internet was virtually unknown a few years ago.
Now, nearly all of us make use of it every day.
Wherever in the world we happen to be, there is a good chance that we will be able to follow the news and keep ourselves up to date.
In this sense, the Internet is bad for dictatorships and good for democracy.
Many of us connected to 'Sarajevo on-line' at a time when that city was otherwise cut off from the world.
This might sound exaggerated, but I believe that the Internet will one day go down in history books alongside Gutenberg's printing press.
<P>
As to the specific proposals in the report, I am in favour of websites which offer information and assistance on unlawful material coming over the Internet.
I particularly support the idea of self-regulation for service providers.
I myself suggested a system of quality labelling to reward those who observe the sector's code of conduct, and I hope that the Commission will go along with this.
There appeared to be some reticence in the beginning, but I sense that both the Commission and the Council have now been won over.
Let us hope that we will reach an accommodation on this issue.
Since we are dealing with an international problem, I remain convinced that effective self-regulation is the best way of achieving sustainable results.
It must be possible both to offer the necessary safeguards regarding personal integrity and to halt the spread of unlawful or damaging material.
<P>
I should like to congratulate Mr Schmid on his fine report.
It has been a pleasure to work with him, and he deserves praise for the excellent results he has achieved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, it is a pity that the Council of Ministers is not present to hear me say how much I deplore the decision not to accept the proposal on judicial cooperation.
I would encourage the Commission to pursue the matter and exploit the possibilities offered by the Treaty of Amsterdam.
<P>
I also have high expectations of the fifth RTD framework programme, which we have often discussed here.
Many important proposals are likely to be forthcoming as regards safe use of the Internet. This is only right and proper if people are to have faith in the system.
Copyright too will need protecting. And coordination between this action plan and other measures is vital.
<P>
We are confronted by a twofold problem. Individuals want to know that it is safe for them to pay their bills via the Internet, to send messages and so on.
Equally, society has a duty to intervene where necessary. The first step is to win people's confidence by ensuring that the Internet is safe.
The Commission could do a great deal to facilitate the use of encryption.
One Member State actually prevents the unfettered sale and use of encryption services. The US is also putting obstacles in the way of trade.
Action by the Commission is particularly necessary if the Internet is to become safe to use.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there is no surprise here. We are witnessing how a great invention such as the Internet is growing.
There is an increase in the number of people using it and in the attempts to control and censor this brilliant invention, and Mr Schmid, our rapporteur, is acting as their spokesman.
<P>
My group will oppose this report because it is not by claiming to defend groups that are particularly vulnerable - we have mentioned here the victims of paedophiles and victims of drugs - that we are going to tackle these problems.
We know very well that the problem of drugs can be tackled by giving the State the opportunity to regulate and legalise this phenomenon.
We also know very well that paedophile rings - rings that the judicial authorities in many countries, including Belgium, are failing to clamp down on - do not work via the Internet, and we are attacking something that has nothing or very little to do with these crimes.
I therefore believe that we must look at the problems facing us and begin to tackle the real issues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, in an earlier life I was chairman of a film censorship committee in Manchester.
In my time on that committee I never voted to censor a single film.
I am in favour of minimal censorship but not of none.
Certain material needs to be kept out of the hands of children; certain material needs labelling so that those who, if you want, investigate it know what they are getting.
Certain material - paedophile material, pornographic material of certain kinds, particularly snuff movies, and certain racist material - should be banned.
<P>
If it is illegal in written form, it should be illegal on the Internet.
I know the librarian argument: a librarian does not know what is in every book. But when you point out what is in some of the books, you expect them to take action.
The same should be true of service providers on the Internet.
<P>
I also want to say that STOA conducted a study recently on the subject of whether material on the Internet can be controlled technically.
Slightly to our surprise, as a member of the STOA panel, there seemed to be good technical means for controlling what is on the Internet, for example, pornography, so that you can signal areas which you need to investigate and look up.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="De Esteban Martin">
Mr President, I should first like to congratulate Mr Schmid on his report.
It is not the first time that this issue has been debated in the House.
The action plan results from the reply obtained by the Commission when it raised the issue for the first time. It has been developed in conjunction with the Council's recommendation on the protection of minors and human dignity taking the European Parliament's resolutions into account.
<P>
I would like to highlight the positive aspects the House has tried to include in all its resolutions on this information network, taking into account the role of the Internet in the daily lives of our citizens.
Nevertheless, like any other source of information, it has to be governed by certain rules on security, particularly where children are concerned and particularly because it is so accessible.
As always, allowing complete freedom of information and expression, in conjunction with the development of new technologies can make it possible to disseminate illegal material that may affect other rights and freedoms.
<P>
This issue has been much debated and has awakened great interest in international forums as well as in the Council of Europe and the OECD. The amendments tabled at first reading have allowed it to be discussed again here today.
<P>
These amendments enabled us to change its legal basis and adopt this proposal for a decision through the codecision procedure and not through simple consultation. The involvement of this House in an issue that does indeed come under the protection of consumers and Internet users, that is, of the citizens, was therefore enhanced.
<P>
As the report emphasises, I should like to stress the need for police and judicial cooperation, and for the approximation of the systems for prosecuting these offences under the legislation of the various Member States. Further studies on this subject are called for too.
This could bring us closer to concrete solutions.
<P>
By granting a legal basis to its budgetary line, this action plan will enable us to reach these solutions.
I would therefore like to stress the need for interinstitutional cooperation to smooth the way towards solutions that would be of real benefit to our citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Neyts-Uyttebroeck">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the vast increase in the use of the Internet is prompting outpourings from many opinion-leaders which are comparable to the reactions 500 years ago in response to the advent of printing.
Then too there were claims that this new technology would sow confusion among the more vulnerable souls and undermine established values and practices.
<P>
It is to the credit of the Commissioner, the Council and Parliament that the multiannual action plan for safer use of the Internet is based more on information, increasing awareness, self-regulation and voluntary codes of behaviour than on repression and censorship.
The Union has not yet given way to what is said to be a Marxist principle - but I leave that to those who say it - which claims that trust is good, but control is a lot better.
<P>
That said, I am not so naive as to believe that this is the reason why the Council has omitted any reference to cooperation in the field of justice and prosecution.
This omission indicates that it is mainly with words that the governments of the Member States are urging a joint approach to combating cross-border crime, while shrinking from even considering such cooperation in practice.
Simply calling with words for more security, while refusing to prepare the necessary action, let alone actually taking it, will only increase the sense of insecurity and threat among our citizens.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is ultimately very damaging to democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, Parliament has expressed the wish for changes to the common position.
The Commission has no difficulty with the substance of most of these amendments.
In order to be consistent with its position on first reading and its original proposal, the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 1, 3 and 13.
The Commission can accept the remaining nine amendments.
However, time is now of the essence.
I urge Parliament to consider carefully the proposed amendments so that delays that would occur in the conciliation procedure can be avoided.
There is little doubt that there is overwhelming support for the action plan; there is no substantial disagreement that should prevent the action plan from being adopted without further delay.
<P>
In three cases - Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 6 - the Commission proposes dealing with Parliament's concern by making the following declaration: 'Liability of intermediaries for Internet content will be dealt with in the proposal for the directive on certain legal questions relating to electronic commerce which the Commission has undertaken to bring forward.
Counteracting violence and the abuse of women and children is covered by the Daphne programme.
The Commission will ensure that due account is taken of Parliament's concerns in implementing action lines 1 and 3 with respect to violence and the abuse of women and children on the Internet.
As a follow-up to the crime study and in conjunction with the forthcoming Commission communication on computer crime, the Commission will arrange for studies on the issues of substantive provisions of criminal law, referred to in Amendment No 6 by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, subject to the availability of budgetary appropriations and to obtaining the necessary approval under the Financial Regulations.'
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I hope that this will enable an agreed text to be voted and so allow the action plan to be implemented as soon as possible.
In the light of the sad evidence this summer, with child pornography on the Internet receiving much attention, everybody agrees that there is an urgent need to act.
Adoption now is vital if the European Union is to maintain its lead in dealing with illegal and harmful content on the Internet.
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I wish to thank the rapporteur, Mr Schmid, for his very constructive approach to the proposals contained in the action plan.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Schmid">
Mr President, following the Commission's statement, I am authorised by the committee to withdraw Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 6.
They are redundant.
Let me point out again that we are withdrawing Amendments Nos 3, 4 and 5 in favour of the compromise wording of the Council's Amendments Nos 8, 9 and 10.
<P>
I should like to make another formal comment. There is an Amendment No 7 which concerns the entry into force of the programme by 1 January next year, since the date of 1 January this year is now obsolete.
That obsolete date is repeated elsewhere in the programme, so the amendment obviously applies there as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Schmid.
Your explanations will be taken into account tomorrow during the vote.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Clinical trials
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0407/98) by Mr Amadeo, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive on the approximation of provisions laid down by law, regulation or administrative action relating to the implementation of good clinical practice in the conduct of clinical trials on medicinal products for human use (COM(97)0369 - C4-0446/97-97/0197(COD)).
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<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a long-awaited directive is coming before the House today; it is a very important one because of its implications for the use of medicinal products, and therefore because of the substantial health benefits to be gained by citizens and patients in Europe.
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It may seem surprising that, at a time which I would describe as a significant one in the life of the European Parliament, a nonattached Member is presenting a report.
I consider this to be a most noteworthy sign of the democratic, respectful and impartial nature of this Parliament, and I am grateful to all my fellow members of the Environment Committee, in particular its chairman Mr Collins, and to the coordinators of the political groups: they not only allowed me to draw up this report, but pulled out all the stops to improve its content through a series of well-considered, sincere and truly valuable amendments.
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It is now my duty to report to the House on the background to this presentation in the plenary and on the content of the directive.
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I shall comment first of all on the working method.
Having noted immediately the importance of and expectations concerning the implementation of good clinical practice in the conduct of clinical trials on medicinal products for human use, I considered that my task should mainly be one of meticulously and objectively coordinating a series of proposals from experts in the field. I therefore held a number of meetings with European consumer groups and associations, patients' groups of different nationalities, representatives of ethics committees in various countries, independent voluntary bodies, groups of university and hospital researchers, and European representatives of drugs companies.
At the same time, I took on board the views of all those - individuals or groups - who approached me either in person or in writing with particular comments and considerations. In short, in the explanatory statement and the amendments, I have attempted to summarise all the different opinions I have heard, so as to bring to bear the greatest possible measure of democratic spirit, openness and active participation on a proposal which must not be handed down from above, but rather should be the fruit of concerted action on the part of everyone.
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The basic aim was as follows. The adoption of this directive could give a major boost to the long-standing eager expectations of the Union's scientific community, provided that it really does bring about harmonisation.
In other words, all 390 million European citizens, exercising the same rights and duties, should be in a position to benefit from the outcome of clinical trials on human subjects.
It is likewise imperative that research institutes as a whole, whether public or private, in all 15 Member States should enjoy equal opportunities and compete with one another on proper terms.
<P>
At present, the guidelines on good clinical practice are intended purely for information and not enforced in the same way in individual Member States, which are responsible for legislative regulation.
Our task is to convert the principles and guidelines into a binding Community legislative act to regulate an activity now largely carried on at trial sites, often operating in different Member States.
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My first remark is that the directive contains proposals relating to the conduct of clinical trials of medicinal products on human subjects and the implementation of GCP.
This text acknowledges the need to harmonise within the Community the administrative procedures and documents used, especially in multi-centre trials.
Its stated aim is to rationalise the administrative procedures required for the launch of a clinical trial, thus making Europe more competitive as compared, for example, to the United States, whilst maintaining a high level of protection for trial subjects.
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Secondly, it is necessary in our opinion to provide a simple, unambiguous legislative frame of reference for European clinical research.
Europe should improve its ability to supply clinical data needed to develop and register pharmaceutical preparations, for instance by stipulating that replies and documents requested must be produced within standard time limits, thus enabling trials to be conducted in several countries at once.
Rapid access to clinical trials, however regulated, is ethically beneficial to the extent that it allows patients, especially those suffering from serious diseases, to be treated at an early stage.
Moreover, trials are scientifically beneficial, since the researchers involved can publish and discuss the findings of their experiments and in that way further their careers.
<P>
Lastly, clinical trials are economically beneficial because they can attract substantial corporate investment which can also be used to fund basic research in the centres concerned.
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Thirdly, the technical aspects of the proposed directive must be harmonised with documents already issued or currently being drawn up, and in particular those relating to the ICH, those on GCP and those on pharmacovigilance.
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Fourthly, one particular weakness in the current proposal for a directive is its provision for two possible procedures, one based on authorisation and the other on notification.
After lengthy deliberations, we resolved that harmonisation must be based on one procedure only, and the Environment Committee expressed this view when voting on the amendments.
In our opinion, when an application for authorisation is submitted to the ethics committee, the regulatory authority should merely be notified and would then have 30 days in which to raise objections, should it think fit.
Under that procedure, patients would be doubly protected - by the ethics committee and because the regulatory authority would have the option of intervening - but clear-cut and brief time limits would be laid down, and time is, at present, the most decisive factor where clinical trials in Europe are concerned.
All countries must make the same undertaking: to harmonise - that is, to determine a single procedure based on the system of notification.
Such a procedure would ensure, firstly, scrupulous protection for patients, in that GCP rules must be complied with, the green light must be obtained from the ethics committee and the Member States may put forward any reasoned objections within the 30-day period; secondly, certainty as to the starting date of the trials; and, thirdly, uniform procedures in all the Member States.
<P>
In conclusion, our task as the European Parliament goes beyond single market and competition issues, and encompasses a human dimension that should be a matter of particular concern to us all.
It is to be hoped that Parliament will manage to provide the democratic impetus to persuade the Commission and Council to lay down a single clear-cut rule for all the Member States.
<P>
I have one brief final point, Mr President.
Amendments Nos 29 and 30 have been resubmitted so as to ensure that trials can also take place in centres engaged in research other than for the registration of medicinal products. Amendment No 14 should, in my opinion, be put to the vote after No 31, which is more comprehensive and which, if adopted, will cause No 14 to fall.
Amendment No 35 should be put to the vote before No 16 because, if adopted, it will cause the last paragraph of No 16 and the whole of No 17 to fall.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Amadeo.
Since you were so courteous, at the beginning, as to thank all the groups for having permitted you to draw up this report, I allowed you three or four brief points at the end, and not just the one.
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<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Heinisch">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the approximation of these provisions, we must pursue two aims.
The first is to ensure the protection of the patient, which is the prime concern of good clinical practice.
To that end, the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy has called for it to be made absolutely plain in the wording of the directive that an investigator means a doctor and not, as proposed by the Commission, a person responsible.
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Another means of improving patient protection is to ensure that resources allocated to pharmaceutical research are not squandered on obsolete trials or trials also carried out at another site.
If the standards established through good clinical practice are observed, we shall be able to avoid that kind of duplication.
The second point is that we must bear in mind the interests of the pharmaceutical industry which is conducting the clinical trials.
These trials are essential to bringing new medical products on to the market.
The extent to which the pharmaceutical industry can be innovative depends largely on the efficiency of the administrative procedures that have to be gone through before trials can be conducted.
The Commission has taken a major step towards tightening up these administrative procedures by obliging the authorising authorities to decide within 30 days whether or not a clinical trial may be conducted.
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In some Member States, such as Germany, it has already been shown that it is quite possible for the authorities to take an informed decision within that period.
The procedures have been tightened further by allowing the decision on the conduct of certain clinical trials to be based purely on a notification procedure.
Another important aspect is that the directive approximates good clinical practice rules with the guidelines laid down by the International Conference on Harmonisation, because clinical trials conducted in Europe must not be subject to stricter requirements than those carried out in the rest of the world.
At the same time, however, they must comply with international requirements in this field.
That is what we proposed, and I warmly thank Mr Amadeo for his report.
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<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Needle">
Mr President, I want to welcome the Commission proposal this evening and to recognise the work done by Mr Amadeo in producing a very well thought-out report.
He has been very courteous to the other groups tonight and we can all say that we appreciate the time he has taken and the strenuous efforts he has made to find a compromise in certain particularly difficult areas of this report.
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I would like to emphasise that European legislation on clinical trials has to be in line with international guidelines as laid down in the International Conference on Harmonisation of Good Clinical Practice Guidelines.
This is something that should be included in the directive in order to ensure harmonisation.
The report is a very important one which aims to reduce the amount of bureaucracy surrounding the conduct and application procedure of clinical trials while, at the same time, ensuring that the health, safety and confidentiality of clinical trials subjects are of utmost priority.
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The issue of timescales of the application procedure has proved a problematic factor in the discussions on this issue and it has been of some concern particularly among the pharmaceutical industries.
We have looked at this further in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and it is especially of concern in the case of multicentre trials where administrative procedures can lead to extensive delays and confusion even before the commencement of the trial.
Some rationalisation has therefore been achieved in this report to ensure that multicentre trials, especially those covering a number of EU Member States, are using the same information and products of the same high quality.
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In committee we agreed that the procedure for applying to conduct a clinical trial had to be looked into very closely.
At present companies or researchers may commence with a clinical trial without an obligation to notify.
Between the systems of authorisation and notification we favour the system of notification because with this system, when an application is submitted to the Ethics Committee, the regulatory authority will be notified, and the investigator may commence with the trial thereby cutting the bureaucracy to a minimum.
Moreover, the Ethics Committee would have the possibility of raising its concerns and the investigator would have to act on those concerns.
<P>
I also welcome the rapporteur's views on the role of ethics committees and agree that the safety and dignity of patients must remain the utmost priority.
The introduction of ethics committees under EU law seeks to ensure the safety of subjects in such trials.
When red tape is reduced and the safety of trial subjects is ensured, particularly through the involvement of ethics committees, EU citizens can benefit from exciting new drugs and discoveries and innovative medicinal products that result from efficiently conducted clinical trials carried out in a more timely manner than hitherto.
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Finally, I thank the rapporteur for the commitment he has shown in drafting a highly appropriate report, and I look forward to a positive response from the Commission.
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<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valverde López">
Mr President, we feel that the Commission's proposal is sound and one we can accept and support.
Nevertheless, quite a number of amendments were tabled in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, where all the political groups worked closely together.
I support my colleague Mr Needle's statement, which proves that the work in committee was fruitful and that we come to the House with a widely accepted position.
<P>
Nevertheless, too many amendments were adopted in committee, as has tended to be the case of late. Some of these amendments are not entirely appropriate and it does not seem very likely that they could be incorporated into a coherent text.
That is why we need to repeat Amendment No 31, which does not change what was adopted in committee but makes it easier to understand and enhances the legal certainty of the wording.
<P>
I also believe it is important to repeat here in the House and for the benefit of the sector and the patients themselves, that the work would be facilitated and the trials harmonised with a fairly efficient system. Its key features are the mere notification of the start of the clinical trial, a time limit of 30 days and a single ethics committee.
Speed and legal certainty will be gained. Finally, there will be adequate safeguards for the fundamental rights of individuals, which has been one of our main concerns since the beginning.
In addition, the proposal will result in a text that is in line with international regulations, which was another of the goals we set ourselves.
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<SPEAKER ID=92 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Dybkjær">
Mr President, I too would like to thank the rapporteur for the work which he has done in committee, and I welcome the broad support for this proposal.
The proposal codifies the Helsinki declaration while allowing the Member States to go further in terms of strengthening the protection of patients, which is also a focus of the committee's amendments.
There are three main problems which may be a cause of division.
Firstly, there is the question of whether the Member States should authorise a clinical trial when the ethics committee has said yes, or if authorisation can be withheld in some cases.
Secondly, there is the question of whether authorisation is obtained automatically when an application has been made and no answer has been received, or if notification actually has to be given before proceeding with clinical trials, regardless of the fact that nothing has been heard from the official authorities.
And thirdly, there are the time limits which are to apply to the work of the ethics committee.
<P>
I would firstly like to say that the Liberal Group supports the main thrust of the amendments, but I personally have some reservations about the three points I have mentioned.
I think it is extremely important to preserve the Member States' ability to reject an application, even if the ethics committee has said yes.
I do not in fact see this as a major problem in practice, because the ethics committee will not normally be operating in a political vacuum.
As regards the question of whether it is possible to proceed automatically, or if notification has to be given or a positive authorisation obtained, I would emphasise that I think this is also important in terms of patient protection.
I do not agree with the amendments concerning time limits.
Experience with the present ethics committees shows that ethical considerations and decisions take time, and so we should not set too short a time limit for the ethics committee to do its work.
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<SPEAKER ID=93 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cabrol">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the rules on conducting clinical trials are to apply from now on to socalled 'multi-centre' trials, that is, trials that apply the same protocol in 50 or 60 different investigational sites, thereby ensuring that between 2 000 and 3 000 patients are used at a total cost of between ECU 300 million and ECU 500 m for one single trial.
That goes to show that when the human, social and economic resources of these trials, which are aimed at developing new medicinal products, are better targeted, they are therefore more effective and better tolerated by patients.
<P>
Besides having to notify the relevant local authorities of the trial, or using a centralised procedure through the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products, a certain number of rules must be respected, and they were the subject of amendments in committee.
These amendments, which are supported by the UPE Group, have various objectives.
Firstly, they aim to guarantee full and objective information for the patients likely to take part in the trial.
Secondly, they are aimed at ensuring that the participants give their consent voluntarily by means of a written document that must be dated and signed, and, as a result, the necessary arrangements must be made for the mentally handicapped.
Thirdly, they aim to obtain the opinions of multidisciplinary and independent ethics committees, that is, committees consisting of doctors and paramedical staff that are not directly involved in the clinical trial.
Fourthly, they hope to oblige the Member States to take the necessary measures to respect good manufacturing practices with a view to guaranteeing the quality and safety of medicinal products.
And fifthly, they aim to make third countries exporting to the European Union provide proof that quality control and batch approval have been carried out, so that the products can actually be traced if something happens.
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Notification must, of course, be given of any undesirable and serious occurrence in a Member State where the trial is taking place.
Finally, the researchers must be qualified doctors, who are responsible for the trial and, therefore, capable of assessing whether it is running smoothly and the effects on the patients voluntarily taking part in the study.
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We are in favour of the proposal for a directive as amended, which aims to establish a framework designed to promote efficient clinical research to the benefit of patients.
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<SPEAKER ID=94 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, Mr Amadeo's report is extremely interesting, and is indeed improved in certain respects by some of the amendments.
I think, however, that there should have been more criticism of the loopholes and omissions in the Commission's proposal, and that we should be more daring about more specific proposals and more advanced measures for carrying out checks, both preventive and repressive, and imposing sanctions as and when criminal intentions are exposed that stem from profiteering by the all-powerful multinational pharmaceutical groups.
This is because those groups, involved as they are with other interests too - even political interests, as we all know - use and exploit a whole range of people without any accountability at all, for example people suffering from incurable diseases, people committed to psychiatric clinics or similar institutions because of psychiatric disorders, or people whose freedoms are restricted - I am talking about prison inmates who become experimental animals without their consent so that new drugs can be clinically tested.
Such people must of course be protected, but we must not forget that declarations alone do not suffice for their protection. For this, there must be specific measures, which are unfortunately missing from the Commission's proposal.
Unfortunately, despite the amendments, the Amadeo report does not criticise those omissions and does nothing to make them good.
<P>
It amazes me that payments and compensation are provided for; payments for those who undergo trials and compensation for those whose physical or mental health is damaged in trials of new drugs.
In other words, the human body and mind have become a commodity.
Here we see the prevalence of the law, the taboo of free competition, the right of industrial ownership, the prevalence of lack of transparency in programmes, research and funding.
With the opportunity this report gives us, we must overcome these things so that clinical trials of new drugs for diseases will be beneficial for the health of mankind...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we all agree on the need to protect patients - and many here have spoken of a high level of protection; but I too feel that the level of patient protection should be defined in far more specific terms.
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I too am concerned with defining this high level of protection.
It is not enough for us to say: someone else has to give consent for those who are incapable of giving their informed consent.
No!
That is why we have tabled an amendment which provides quite plainly that no research may be carried out on people who are incapable of giving their informed consent unless it is of direct use.
This is a crucial point, because what would happen in the reverse case?
If we do not endorse this amendment, then that would surely automatically mean that anyone at all can consent on behalf of these people who are incapable of giving their informed consent, and that research can be carried out on them which is of no use at all.
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Then we really will be treating people to whom we have promised a high level of protection just like guinea pigs.
In my view, we must not forget either that we are running a risk of opening the door to eugenics, unless we guarantee a direct level of protection.
The past has after all proved that we must not carry out research on the mentally handicapped who are incapable of giving their consent, unless it is of direct use.
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So I would very urgently ask you to support this amendment by the Green Group, so that we can ensure precisely that.
Let me also place special emphasis on this aspect against the background of the heated discussions we have already seen here in the European Parliament, and especially also among many social groups, concerning the bioethics convention.
The Federal Republic has not signed this bioethics convention, for precisely the reasons I have just given.
That is why our prime concern should be that we do not approve a directive which does not specifically guarantee protection for people who are incapable of giving their informed consent.
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I would therefore ask the House to endorse our amendment, which makes it clear that research may only be conducted if it is of direct use, and that any other research is quite out of the question.
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<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Correia">
Mr President, everyone knows that since 1990 the rules governing clinical trials in the European Union, and internationally, have been codified in directives on good clinical practice. The globalisation of the pharmaceuticals industry has necessarily led to the harmonisation of international rules set at the International Conference on Harmonisation.
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Nonetheless, the Member States can still take different legislative or administrative measures, and that can lead to significant delays in starting clinical trials. This, in turn, is bound to lead to delays in the application of the benefits of those trials to the treatment of patients.
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That is why, without prejudice to the principle of subsidiarity, we need to take decisive steps towards rationalising and harmonising clinical trials.
Nonetheless, while scientific research has to be supported and encouraged, we must also ensure that those who take part in the trials are guaranteed protection, so that their human rights and dignity are respected.
<P>
That is why it is important to have ethics committees and for them to be transparent and independent.
If there were one national ethics committee, coordinating the regional and local committees, then each Member State could have a single set of rules while safeguarding the independence of local committees and allowing them to agree to or ban trials.
There would also have to be an ethics committee, whose opinions would be binding, at every centre where clinical trials take place.
<P>
Those opinions would be issued by doctors not involved in the trials, along with nurses and other health professionals, as well as non-medical staff, to guarantee patients' safety and the wellbeing of those taking part.
Researchers, whether medical or not - and if not then medical supervision should be provided - ought invariably to obtain the informed consent of everyone taking part in trials - or of their guardians - and honour their confidentiality.
We could then promote research, safeguarding the interests of patients and of the pharmaceuticals industry alike.
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<SPEAKER ID=97 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Liese">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too am grateful to the rapporteur.
Two thirds of all diseases can still not be treated or treated adequately.
Some of them are quite dreadful diseases, and often fatal.
Hence the need for medical research, and especially research into medical products.
The directive we are discussing can help improve clinical research in Europe.
In particular, the standardisation of procedures offers a chance to avoid duplication.
<P>
However, we must guarantee comprehensive protection of the trial subjects under all circumstances.
Special attention must be given to protecting people who are incapable of giving their informed consent, such as children and the mentally handicapped.
The Commission proposal does not take adequate account of this.
Instead, it refers mainly to the Council of Europe Convention for the protection of human rights and biomedicine.
But that convention is a subject of dispute, and some Member States have not yet decided whether or not to ratify it.
The European Commission - and I would ask Commissioner Liikanen to pass this on - should stop writing this convention into EU legislative documents, rather on the assumption that 'we need not concern ourselves with the ethical questions; the Council of Europe has already done so'.
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We need very strict provisions to protect individuals who are incapable of giving their informed consent.
Under no circumstances may children or the mentally handicapped be misused as guinea pigs.
However, I do not accept Mr Ephremidis's statement as it stands, since I believe that the overwhelming majority of responsible persons in industry and in the clinics do not carry out research in an abusive manner, but abide by the rules on the protection of trial subjects.
But we must also make that clear under this directive.
I do not endorse the amendment by the Green Group to the effect that people who are incapable of giving their informed consent should be totally excluded from the research, because I believe we would then be bringing research to a standstill, for children's diseases in particular.
Some children's diseases do not occur among adults, which is why it is not possible to conduct the relevant studies in full on adults.
That is why we need strict rules, but not a total ban.
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<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Poggiolini">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too should like to begin by thanking Mr Amadeo for his excellent work and outstanding readiness to cooperate with all members of the committee, as well as for taking up so many amendments and being so open to suggestions.
This proposal for a directive is of particular importance because it sets out to regulate such a sensitive sector, seeking to harmonise standards for the conduct of clinical trials of medicinal products on human subjects.
The good clinical practice guide has existed since 1990, but as we all know is not binding; that is why national provisions must be harmonised.
It is advisable to lay down a single procedure in a field where the rules currently vary from one Member State to another.
<P>
We have opted for notification rather than authorisation, and the reasons why have been explained.
But what is even more vital is to protect the health of subjects who volunteer for trials.
To this end, an amendment submitted by me and adopted unanimously by my colleagues in the Environment Committee provides for an explicit definition of informed consent: before taking part in a clinical trial, the subject of that trial must receive full and easily understandable information about the trial, and must sign a written statement indicating consent.
Ethics committees play a particularly important role in protecting subjects who volunteer for trials: it will be they who evaluate the relevance of the trial, the protocol, the suitability of the investigators and the available facilities.
Ethics committees will assess the adequacy and completeness of the written information.
In the case of injury, the sponsors and the ethics committee should be informed immediately.
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In this way, we shall ensure that trials are completely safe.
The Member States will furthermore be cooperating with one another in the interests of research by the European pharmaceutical industry and, ultimately, the health of their citizens, who will receive early treatment with the new products.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schleicher">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, like Mr Liese, I too wish to emphasise once again that despite the undoubted success in curing illnesses by the use of medicines, there are still at present some 20 000 diseases that we cannot treat with much hope of success.
That is why new, effective and safe medicines will still be essential in the future.
<P>
Clinical trials, in other words studies of the potential effects of a medicine on human beings, are extremely important to medical research and development.
Various speakers have referred to the need for international networking.
We consider it urgently necessary not just to take joint action on a Europe-wide basis, but to have international agreements.
That is why Mr Valverde and I have tabled three amendments, to emphasise that point again.
This is all the more important because - as has already been said - all these safety requirements also concern the protection of human beings, and in particular the protection of people who are incapable or less capable of giving their informed consent.
<P>
Our group aims to ensure that human beings are comprehensively protected in the conduct of clinical trials, that all patients have access to therapeutic progress, but also that we have and maintain reliable and innovative framework conditions for research and for the development and production of innovative medicines.
Mr Amadeo has done some valuable work towards achieving these aims, and we can basically support his report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Trakatellis">
Mr President, the characteristics we demand from pharmaceutical products are quality, safety and efficacy.
The most important information regarding those characteristics comes from clinical trials in man.
I believe it is quite clear to us all that such trials must be carried out in accordance with firm and inviolate rules which go as far as possible towards protecting the physical and mental integrity of those who take part in them, and at the same time provide air-tight guarantees of the inviolability of their private life.
<P>
Most of the amendments the European Parliament will be voting on go some way towards strengthening the Commission's text in relation to the safeguarding, if I can use this expression, of the human experimental animals used in clinical trials, with detailed provisions ranging from full information for participants about the clinical trial and their written consent, to restoration and compensation in the event of damage or death.
<P>
I would like to believe that the Commission will accept all these amendments.
We must not forget that we owe a lot to the volunteer subjects who undergo clinical trials, because it is thanks to them that the final assessment can be made, particularly of a drug's safety and efficacy, with records of any side effects it may have.
This has benefited mankind in the past, and it is still a benefit and will remain so in the future, thanks to valuable drugs that protect human health and provide means of restoring it when it fails.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, it is self-evident that the provisions of this directive must be implemented in a uniform manner in all the Member States if we really want to ensure proper clinical trials and fair competition in the production and marketing of drugs.
Here, I would like to thank the rapporteur Mr Amadeo, who worked so well with the Committee on the Environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, Parliament has recommended some thirty amendments to the proposal for a directive.
The Commission accepts half of them, as they either complement the Commission's original proposal satisfactorily or they simplify it.
The Commission unreservedly accepts seven amendments.
In addition, we can accept two amendments if we alter the wording slightly.
The Commission accepts Amendments Nos 1 and 6, paragraphs 1, 2 and 4 of Amendment No 10, and Amendments Nos 13, 14, 15, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24 and 27.
<P>
The Commission will take the following into consideration in its amended proposal.
<P>
The Commission intends to include in its proposal Amendments Nos 1 and 6 and paragraphs 1, 2 and 4 of Amendment No 10.
The amendments serve to improve the degree of protection afforded to participants in clinical trials in particular by imposing the condition of informed consent and the protection of the sponsor in Amendment No 19.
The Commission agrees with Parliament's competent committees that we need to confirm the status of the ethics committee as the recipient of certain types of information especially with regard to medical safety during a clinical trial, as well as the tasks connected with undertaking the clinical trial itself. The trial could last as long as five to ten years.
This concerns Amendments Nos 21, 22 and 27.
<P>
The most major amendment put forward by Parliament's competent committees concerns deleting the reference to alternative commencement procedures.
In the Commission's original proposal the alternatives were either to notify the competent authorities, which is the normal legal procedure, or to obtain an official licence issued by the competent authority, which was suggested in consideration of special or exceptional circumstances.
Parliament's competent committees only support the notification procedure, which is the purpose behind Amendments Nos 13, 14, 15 and 18.
The Commission accepts this position and will amend its original proposal accordingly.
In addition, the purpose behind Amendments Nos 23 and 24 is to clarify or specify more precisely the principles of good manufacturing practices applicable to investigational medical products to be used in clinical trials.
<P>
The Commission cannot accept amendments that do not improve on the original as it stands, especially when it comes to the readability of a complicated text.
This applies to Amendments Nos 3, 8, 9, paragraphs 1 and 2 of Amendment No 12, and Amendments Nos 16, 17, 20, 25 and 26.
Neither can the Commission accept amendments which dramatically alter the original text, or stray too far way from its spirit or legal basis.
This is the case with Amendments Nos 4, 7, paragraph 3 of Amendment No 10, and Amendments Nos 11 and 20, and, similarly, Amendments Nos 28 and 36, which reiterate amendments the Commission cannot accept.
<P>
I would further like to emphasise that the Commission is very satisfied with the constructive view taken by the rapporteur and is confident that there will be effective cooperation with the European Parliament so that the statute can be adopted reasonably quickly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 8.30 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Janssen van Raay">
Mr President, the Dutch taxation authorities tax not only Parliament's contribution to voluntary pensions but also the actual pensions payable.
I am grateful to Mrs Fontaine for her spontaneous protest at this, and to Mr Rothley for putting down an amendment aimed at ending this anomalous state of affairs in the Netherlands.
Unfortunately a number of our Dutch people have indicated through their representative that they are happy with the system.
That is what I wanted recorded in the Minutes yesterday, and I am glad to see that it has been done.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="Evans">
Mr President, I would just like to say that I was here yesterday but for some inexplicable reason my name does not appear on the list.
I would be glad if that could be put right.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President">
We shall check that and include your name.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, the same thing happened to me yesterday.
My name is not on the attendance register either. I must have been so focused on the Rothley report and the work of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights that I forgot to sign.
Please could my name be added.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
That will be checked and corrected.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, we have been looking forward to getting the diaries for 1999 and am pleased we were able to collect them yesterday.
One of the important dates for 1999 is that of the elections to this House.
As you know, there has been a wide-ranging debate in Parliament about the days on which these elections should be held.
So I am very disappointed to see it stated incorrectly in this diary that just three countries of the European Union will be voting not on Sunday the thirteenth but earlier, and that my own country, the Netherlands, is not listed with these.
<P>
It is quite wrong that the elections are to be held on Sunday.
One of the good traditions we have in the Netherlands is that these elections are held during the week, and it is a mistake that the Netherlands is not down as voting on 10 June.
I should like to ask how you propose to correct this misunderstanding and prevent the turnout from being even lower.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
I believe you should put this question to the Dutch authorities.
As you are well aware, the date of the elections is not determined by entries in Parliament's agenda but by the authorities in each Member State. The elections must take place within a set time period that may only be altered following a Council decision and Parliament has no power in this respect.
The particular date set for elections in the Netherlands must have been decided by the authorities in that country, on the grounds, presumably, of the principle of subsidiarity.
In no way is Parliament responsible for the dates of the elections nor may it change them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
That is not the point, Mr President.
The elections will indeed be held in the Netherlands on 10 June.
That is not the problem.
It is the diary which is wrong.
That needs to be corrected.
That is what Mr van Dam is asking.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
A check will be carried out to establish if an error has been made on our part in the agenda.
Rest assured, however, that elections in the Netherlands will not be held in accordance with our agenda but in accordance with the arrangements made by the Dutch authorities.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Decision on urgent procedure
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="Proposal for a Council Regulation amending Council Regulation (EC) No 355/94 of 14 February 1994 (COM(98)0473 - C4-0516/98-98/0251(CNS))">
<P>
President.
I call Mr von Wogau to give the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, which is the committee responsible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="von Wogau">
Mr President, this is an issue which we have had to deal with before.
This problem referred to by the Commission has existed since January of this year.
But we did not receive the documents until September.
I cannot therefore understand why the Commission has now twice in succession lodged a request for urgent procedure when it had plenty of time before.
Mr Langen is currently preparing a report which we will vote on at the November meeting and present to the House in December.
I therefore propose that we reject the request for urgent procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
I put the request for urgent procedure to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament rejected the request for urgent procedure)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Court of Auditors annual report
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
The next item is the presentation of the annual report of the Court of Auditors.
<P>
I should like to welcome the President of the Court, Mr Friedmann, who once again has been kind enough to come and present this report to the House.
<P>
Mr Friedmann, you have the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Friedmann">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Members of the European Court of Auditors, may I thank you for allowing me to present the results of our work over the past year at this early hour of the morning.
We will surely agree that money is not everything, but the way in which money is used is an indication of whether a policy is successful or not.
<P>
You will probably have noticed that this year's annual report is much slimmer than in previous years.
This is not because we have done any less work, quite the contrary.
In the past year, we have presented 25 special reports.
Our aim is in fact also to make your own work easier by spreading these annual reports over the year, so that you too can spread your work accordingly.
I readily admit that there is still room for improvement, but there is good will for this on our part.
<P>
On the revenue side in the past year, the Community has continued to lose billions from both customs duties and value added tax.
In the case of customs duties, this is partly due to the fact there is still insufficient cooperation between national customs authorities.
The possibilities of modern information technology are not being adequately exploited.
Every Member State has its own risk analysis methods, which produce different results.
The Member States' lack of interest in pursuing this more vigorously is all the more surprising when one considers that uncollected customs revenue has to be offset in the budget by higher contributions from the Member States.
I would therefore appeal to the Member States to attach greater importance to collecting customs duties correctly, in their own interest.
<P>
In the case of value added tax, as I said, huge amounts are being lost.
Model calculations have shown that in the years 1991 to 1993 - on a basis of nine Member States - the amount underpaid on average every year was ECU 70 billion.
It is true that this is happening in the Member States, but it has a direct impact on the European Union.
We still have the unsatisfactory situation that the country of destination principle applies in the single market, whereby the goods are outside the tax system from the place of origin until they reach their destination, which of course offers tempting opportunities for irregularities.
<P>
On the expenditure side, following the structure of the budget, we have once again concentrated our efforts on agricultural and structural policy.
On the agricultural policy, we have presented a number of special reports, for example on the BSE disease in cows, and on the closure of accounts.
In the annual report itself, we tackle the question of durum wheat, amongst other things.
Why?
Because this is a cereal which is particularly heavily subsidised.
For durum wheat, not only is the normal aid per hectare paid, but an additional aid which is only justifiable in political terms.
Had the same criteria that apply to other cereals been applied to durum wheat, more than ECU 3 billion in subsidies could have been saved over a four-year period.
<P>
We dealt in a special report with the exports of New Zealand dairy products to the United Kingdom.
Certain quotas of New Zealand milk and cheese may, in fact, be exported from New Zealand to the United Kingdom on preferential terms, provided that it meets certain criteria, including in particular a specified fat content.
As we established, the import conditions were not always complied with, leading to a reduction of Community revenue by some ECU 410 million.
Much of this revenue can no longer be claimed, but around ECU 110 million is still recoverable, and we have called on the Commission to pursue the matter.
<P>
So much for that area of the agricultural policy.
As you know, the Court is strongly committed to environmental policy.
It was recently awarded the 'Europäisches Naturerbe ' prize for its work in this area.
In a special report, we point out that among the 40 000 sewage plants in operation in the EU, some of which have received EU assistance, there are some serious shortcomings.
A third of the plants in Belgium and as many as half of those in Italy are in need of repair.
Above all, we established that a good many sewage plants were not even put into service initially, because the operators did not have the money to cover the operating costs or lacked the technical know-how.
This is something that must be considered, since between now and the year 2005, a further 40 000 plants are to be constructed.
<P>
We also took a critical look at the support for renewable energy sources under the JOULE-Thermie programme.
Amongst other things, we established that the Commission had used more than 50 % of the staff posts earmarked for the programme in other areas of expenditure.
At the same time, we discovered cases where Commission staff involved in management decisions were exposed to major conflicts of interest, in particular because these staff had previously worked elsewhere, something which must be looked at in connection with the placing of orders.
<P>
We all know that, time and again, the European Union is faced with new challenges.
This is often a difficult task for the Commission, when it is called upon to respond rapidly to heavy demands imposed upon it at short notice.
Humanitarian aid is one example of this, to which we devoted a special report which appeared in March last year.
In 1991, it was decided that, for the period 1992 to 1997, some ECU 4 billion would be made available for this purpose.
More than ECU 3 billion has already been spent. The aid has indeed reached the people in need of it.
The problem lies in the Commission's central unit for managing humanitarian aid, known as ECHO.
<P>
In our special report last year, we had already pointed out that the staff policy regarding outside personnel in particular in this department was not transparent.
We asked for further information in writing from the Commission.
This information was not satisfactory.
You are all only too well aware of the debate which then flared up under the catchword 'U-boats'.
It is not only with ECHO that there are problems with external staff, however, but also with the PHARE, TACIS and MED programmes, where some of the operating appropriations may be used for programme support, i.e. for outside experts.
<P>
The figure - known as the 'Liikanen facility' after my neighbour here, Commissioner Liikanen - is 2 % for PHARE, 3.5 % for TACIS and 3 % for MED.
Our initial inquiries have shown that these figures were exceeded by more than twice as much.
I would ask Parliament to give some critical attention to this matter, so that proper order is restored.
<P>
As you know, the PHARE and TACIS activities also include nuclear safety.
In the last week, we have adopted a special report on this which has now been published.
In this report, we have established some significant things.
It should first be pointed out that, since 1990, the Community has provided some ECU 850 million for nuclear safety in Central and Eastern Europe.
To this aid provided by the European Union must be added the further aid which the international community has made available, in particular through the G7 and G24.
And in addition there are the loans granted by the EBRD in London.
<P>
What complaints do we have?
Of the ECU 850 million made available, only ECU 300 million has been spent so far.
This is an indication that this policy is not being pursued with the necessary determination and rigour.
We criticise the fact that the G7 and G24 activities are being inadequately coordinated by the Commission.
The Commission points out that it is not exclusively responsible for this, but it must nevertheless be clear that it has to coordinate these activities.
<P>
We are critical of the fact that the Commission has no definite policy on the decommissioning of older nuclear power plants and the disposal of radioactive waste.
I think this is a very important point.
Another criticism is that, of the money provided for technical assistance, about one third, in other words ECU 200 million, was spent directly, i.e. without any open tendering.
<P>
With the best will in the world, it was not possible at the end of last year to form a definite judgement on how the Commission's efforts to improve nuclear safety in Central and Eastern Europe should be assessed.
I would appeal urgently to you, as political decision-makers - but also to the Commission and the Council - to devote appropriate attention to this extremely important task, which is ticking away like a time bomb.
<P>
We are now constantly being asked what progress we are making in uncovering fraud involving European funds.
On this point, I would like to take the precaution of defining our position for you once again.
We in the Court of Auditors are required to consider whether the principles of legality, regularity and sound financial management are being met.
This means that we are not a criminal investigation department, nor a police force.
However, we do pay particular attention to areas of risk which we select using specific criteria.
In other words, we see our task above all as preventing fraud, helping to ensure that it does not occur, and developing ideas which make fraud unattractive in the first place.
<P>
If we do encounter actual cases of fraud or irregularities in carrying out our normal auditing tasks, we naturally work together with the national criminal investigation authorities - as well as UCLAF - so that matters take their proper course.
In the field of tourism, for example, we are working with the criminal investigation departments of several countries, and in the case I have just mentioned, the 'New Zealand Dairy Report', we are cooperating with the British authorities, that goes without saying.
We also audit UCLAF, since UCLAF is also a department of the Commission.
A few weeks ago, we presented a report on it which met with an appropriate response from you, for which I should like to thank the House.
<P>
Amongst other things, we criticise the fact that the UCLAF databases are incomplete and therefore not fully usable.
It is not clear who actually has access to these databases, and that is of course a question of security.
Half the UCLAF employees are on short-term contracts, so that when people have settled in they leave again and important knowledge is lost.
<P>
Because the databases are not fully usable, it is sometimes not possible to recover sums which the Community should be able to recover.
It is also not clear what powers UCLAF has within the Commission itself, given that it has no powers in other institutions.
This needs to be clarified by the Commission.
<P>
We have taken careful note that a debate has started here in the House on the subject of OLAF.
Your aim here is to extend and develop the powers of UCLAF.
You have also looked at the question of whether a separate institution should be created.
We have followed all this very carefully, especially since you base some of your arguments on our own report.
We in the Court of Auditors believe - and here we agree with you - that the Community institutions can of course develop their administration and their organisation further.
That is in accordance with the Treaties and does not infringe the rights of the Member States, and to that extent we in the Court can imagine that the independence of UCLAF could well be increased if it were to be given a position of independence in the form of OLAF roughly similar to that of the Financial Controller at the Commission.
But that is your decision!
We are of course ready to work with any unit that is created by the legislative authority.
<P>
As you know, the Court of Auditors is repeatedly asked to provide opinions on proposed measures.
Any institution can ask us to produce a report, especially on measures which affect the budget.
The latest comprehensive opinion of this kind dealt with Agenda 2000. We were asked for such an opinion by the Council.
In this, of course, we also address the agricultural policy as it is envisaged for the future by the Commission.
<P>
As you know, the Commission is proposing to reduce the guarantee prices for beef by 30 %, for cereals by 20 % and for milk by 10 %.
My impression is that the Commission drew up these plans at a time when the full extent of the crises in Asia, Russia and Latin America had still not been recognised.
In the meantime, it has become clear that, because of the crises in these regions, purchasing power for European agricultural products has fallen.
To prevent surplus stocks being created and the associated export refunds and storage costs, it would be more sensible to cut the guarantee prices more sharply than the Commission has proposed, but as a counter-move to place greater emphasis on direct aid.
<P>
As you know, the Commission is proposing to reduce direct aid above ECU 100 000 by 20 % and above ECU 200 000 by 25 %.
<P>
We would ask whether, in view of the fact that 80 % of the direct aid is paid to 20 % of the agricultural holdings, it would not be more sensible to put a cap on direct aid over ECU 100 000, for example, as we have indicated.
<P>
The Commission has assumed that no direct aid is to be paid to the new Member States which are to join the Union.
We in the Court of Auditors take the view that this appears unrealistic, and have therefore proposed that, as a precaution, direct aid for the future Member States should be included in the calculations.
This would mean that ECU 3.3 billion would have to be entered in the budget annually in connection with the future Member States.
<P>
With regard to structural aid, we are largely in agreement with the Commission.
We think it is right that Community structural assistance should be implemented in more concentrated form.
We think it right that a 10 % reserve should be created for the countries that perform particularly well.
We also think it is right, and this is a very important point, that appropriations should automatically lapse if they do not give rise to payments within a specified time. We believe this to be very significant; it means that the Commission's approach on structural aid - and, I would add, perhaps also with a view to creating more jobs - to a large extent coincides with our judgement.
I would also like to confirm that the relationship between commitments and payments has become very good and sensible.
However, that is not the real problem with structural aid. The problem is as follows: it was decided at the Edinburgh summit to spend some ECU 175 billion on structural aid under the various Funds.
Of this amount, however, only ECU 85 billion has been spent so far, in other words more than ECU 90 billion is still waiting to be disbursed.
To this can be added another ECU 5 billion from the previous programming period, and it is an illusion to think that this sum of ECU 95 billion might still be spent in the two remaining years of this programming period. These payments will have to be made in the years that follow.
<P>
Let me briefly mention to you the widening and deepening of our cooperation with national audit institutions.
This is more than just a formal process, because it ensures that the arguments of the Member States which are audited are included with more emphasis in our reports.
A few days ago, the heads of the institutions of all 15 EU Member States visited us to coordinate this work, and at the beginning of the year a conference took place in Warsaw with the heads of the East European audit institutions, under the chairmanship of the Polish audit institution and the European Court of Auditors.
As a result, I can tell you that the structures for cooperation between the East European audit institutions are now similar to those we have within the EU.
This is important because they will be our future colleagues in Central and Eastern Europe, and because these East European audit institutions will increasingly have the right to audit European Union resources on the spot.
<P>
In conclusion, may I offer our thanks for the excellent cooperation we have had with Parliament. On behalf of the Court, I would like to thank, in particular, the Committee on Budgetary Control under its active, wise and intelligent chairman Mrs Diemut Theato, together with the rapporteur responsible for us, Mr Brinkhorst.
Finally, I would like to thank all of you who have listened to me here at this early hour of the morning.
<P>
(Applause) Let me add one further point. This year too, we are also presenting a statement of assurance for the general budget and the European Development Funds.
Contrary to the practice of previous years, we have not quantified the irregularities which we established; we are thus presenting a qualified statement of assurance rather than a quantified one. We want to avoid quoting percentages that might lead to misinterpretation.
In general, I can say that this year's statement of assurance for the general budget essentially draws the same conclusions as it has done in previous years.
<P>
This means that, apart from the continuing problems with the recording of fixed assets, debts and liquid assets, the Court believes that the accounts for the 1997 financial year reliably reflect the Community's revenue and expenditure for the year and the financial situation at the end of the year.
The transactions underlying the revenue are, taken as a whole, legal and regular.
In the case of customs duties and agricultural levies, however, no assurance can be given as to whether all taxable imports have actually been declared and have generated the corresponding revenue.
In the Court's opinion, the transactions underlying the commitments are also, taken as a whole, legal and regular, although some commitments were effected either without budgetary authorisation or without a legal base.
As regards the transactions underlying the payments, however, the Court is again, as in previous years, unable to given any positive assurance, as they are affected by too many irregularities.
<P>
The statement of assurance for the Sixth and Seventh European Development Funds for the year 1997, on the other hand, is, on the whole, essentially positive, and that also includes the transactions underlying the payments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="President">
Thank you very much for that additional comment, Mr Friedmann.
<P>
Mrs Wemheuer has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wemheuer">
Mr President, President Friedmann, you know that staffing policy was one of the five points which caused the European Parliament to postpone the discharge for 1996.
I mention this because staffing policy is referred to in almost all of your reports.
One extreme example is the case of ECHO, which involved falsification of contracts.
I say that it is an extreme case, but issues such as mini-budgets, exceeding the limit of the Liikanen facility, which you have just mentioned, and combinations of interests arise again and again, and the same applies to transferring too much authority to external personnel, with all the consequences that follow both in financial and political terms.
In the report on nuclear safety you wrote that such measures even undermine the credibility and authority of the Commission.
It is therefore a very broad area.
<P>
However, I believe it is not merely a question of staffing policy, but that it also has financial repercussions. I therefore have two questions.
Firstly, to allow us to assess the situation, could you summarise for us from all the special reports what your opinion is of the Commission's staffing policy?
Secondly, can we expect a report on this specific issue, or can we call upon you to provide this?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Theato">
Mr President, President Friedmann, firstly I would like to reciprocate to you and to the Court of Auditors the thanks that you extended to the Committee on Budgetary Control and to Parliament as a whole for the work we have achieved together.
<P>
We have worked together very closely, increasingly so over the years, in fact, and I believe this is very useful in investigating good financial and budgetary management and in intervening where necessary, where something is not working properly.
This is not done in order to cause or to publicise scandals but to develop preventive measures, as you emphasised strongly.
Wherever there are subsidies, there is unfortunately also the risk of fraud, if indeed it is not inherent.
<P>
I come now to the report presented by the Court of Auditors for 1997. This sets in motion the discharge procedure which we will now begin.
It is remarkable in two respects; the first is that we have not yet concluded the discharge procedure for 1996 and are already beginning another one.
We must be careful not to confuse the two, but of course it cannot be denied that there are certain points that are common to both.
<P>
The second point that is worthy of note is that you have presented a significantly higher number of individual reports or special reports this year for 1997, and also retrospectively for 1996.
You highlighted the fact that the annual report had simply become too long, which meant that all the information came at once and at a time when everything had to be processed, so of course something always slipped through the net.
We must now adjust our method of working in accordance with this, as we could almost take up a whole year of debates before the House dealing with these Court of Auditors reports.
However, as this is simply not possible we have decided to summarise them to some extent.
But I strongly support what Mrs Wemheuer has just said on this matter.
In her comments she raised the issue of how we are to approach staffing policy.
This question is addressed to the Commission but also to the budgetary authority.
How are we to allocate staff and approve posts in future?
You also mentioned this in your report.
<P>
I am also particularly grateful to you for having very clearly highlighted the issue of own resources.
In view of the loss of revenue, partly from customs duties, as we established in our committee of inquiry into fraud in the transit system, we must ask how much is lost due to a lack of coordination in our work.
We are still examining this whole question, and I would ask you to continue to give it your attention.
<P>
I have a further question concerning the annual report.
We would like this report to be published earlier, as you know.
Will you be able to work towards presenting it in October in future?
<P>
I would like to say a final word to Mr Liikanen.
I listened very carefully yesterday to what you said on the subject of the MED programmes.
Unfortunately, I have to say that I did not find it terribly enlightening or very promising as far as the 1996 discharge is concerned.
We will have a great deal more to discuss on this issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Mr President, as always, it is a great pleasure to listen to President Friedmann's presentation of the accounts - this time for 1997.
<P>
Over the coming months we will have an opportunity of discussing in greater depth all the detailed points and, quite clearly, it is important to note that a number of improvements have taken place.
<P>
In the few minutes available, I wish to concentrate on a very central point which should be emphasized more in the future.
President Friedmann rightly states that enormous responsibility lies with the Member States both for resources and for expenditure.
One hundred per cent of resources come from the Member States.
He stated just now that 40 years on the Community Member States' customs authorities still do not cooperate.
He states also that on the issue of VAT, 70 billion - nearly the total amount of the budget of the Community - is not collected by the Member States.
That means that 80 % of expenditure is also spent by the Member States.
The various cases he mentions - durum wheat, New Zealand butter, environment policy - all relate to lack of action in that area.
<P>
I am very happy to hear him say that cooperation with the national courts of auditors has improved.
But I would like to make more specific points.
Could the Court of Auditors enter into specific agreements with the national courts of auditors so that they perform tasks on behalf of the European Community budget, too?
I know that there are all kinds of constitutional problems - sensitivity, national pride, and what have you - but if the figures he indicates even approximate reality, it is intolerable that the Community is still a lame duck as far as the Member States are concerned.
The general public's perception is that the Community is squandering money, that the European Union does not do its duty, whether it is on nuclear safety, the environment or agriculture.
But, in fact, a large amount of responsibility lies with the Member States.
I call on the President here and Commissioner Liikanen to make it clearer to the outside world that only if Member States are ready to overcome old-fashioned ideas about national sovereignty can we really have significant improvement in terms of the environment, nuclear safety and fraud.
This is the central point.
I would like the President to elaborate on this specific point because it will be relevant for the whole of next year when we discuss this specific declaration of assurance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Mr President, I was very interested in the section of the Court's report relating to own resources, because this debate is at the heart of the political problems that are going to be mentioned and that are already being mentioned within the European Council on the future financing of the Union.
The findings are incredible: the Court of Auditors shows that, since the last audit, the amount of revenue lost has doubled to ECU 70 billion.
<P>
That is an overall assessment.
However, we would be extremely interested to know, Mr President of the Court, if the Court can tell us whether or not this sum of ECU 70 billion is spread evenly and fairly between the various Member States.
In other words, are certain Member States more at fault than others in terms of the collection of the own resources of the European Union?
If this is the case - as I happen to believe it is - I imagine that this fact would certainly be politically very difficult to demonstrate. Nevertheless, it would be very useful for Members when assessing the discussions that are going to take place within the Council, particularly if certain countries put forward the concept of net balance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my thanks for the presentation of the Court of Auditors report.
I was particularly interested in the chapter on foreign policy.
As you know, in deciding to postpone the discharge for 1996 we paid particular attention to the PHARE, TACIS and MEDA programmes.
I have now read the new Court of Auditors report for 1997, bearing in mind our criticism from 1996, 1995 and also 1994, because I wanted to know whether there is any improvement in how our money is managed in the area of foreign policy.
<P>
The new report for 1997 has confirmed my opinion that the Commission obviously still finds it difficult - and I am saying this from a completely neutral point of view - to take action on the problems it discovers in the large PHARE, TACIS and MEDA programmes, action that would enable us to say that things really will be better next year.
I would therefore like to ask the Commission: why should Parliament believe that the assurances that next year will bring an improvement really will come true?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, Mr Friedmann should not be surprised if the House is hardly full to bursting, and also if there are spaces in the press gallery: it is because, once again, we have read much more of this report in the newspapers over the past few days than we have heard here from the horse's mouth today.
The first remark I would make, therefore, is that the Court of Auditors - from where leaked information often gives a partial picture of its reports - should pay more attention to this aspect, which is important if it is true that reports should be produced to the public here in this forum.
<P>
Mr Friedmann, you quite rightly referred several times to the question of staffing and to ECHO, and you have good cause to do so.
Parliament has discussed and approved your report on ECHO, and indeed we approved a document of yours at the beginning of this year.
If we are correctly informed, although you state in your report that the Commission does not grant sufficient resources, it is the world's leading donor. I believe that your report refers to external staff as one tangible problem.
Well, all I would say - and I hope you will agree, because your neighbour can certainly pass you the latest figures - is that we are not talking here about ECHO submarines; what we, and perhaps the Court too, should be considering is an entire fleet of U-boats.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, Mr President of the Court of Auditors, the annual report for the 1997 financial year mentions the existence of an audit concerning a sample of 100 information and communication projects implemented by the Commission.
A special report, Report No 23, is in the pipeline.
We are looking forward to receiving it, but the Court does, however, make several comments regarding the budgetary heading B3-300.
On one page, and one page only, it makes a number of criticisms about the lack of specific objectives and the lack of an appropriate system to monitor and assess the impact of the objectives involved.
<P>
It notes that certain projects that have benefited from financial support from the Community budget have no demonstrable link with information policy activities.
Indeed, for many years, our group has constantly condemned the lack of transparency, consistency and democracy in what the European Union calls its 'information policy'.
<P>
That is why I would like to ask the following question: what type of precise recommendation does the Court intend to make to the Commission so that it puts an end to the ideological drifts that are characteristic of headings B3-300 and B3-306?
And more precisely, what exactly does the Court mean when it refers to 'equal treatment of final beneficiaries' and 'a policy and financial planning framework in order to define the overall objectives of information policy'?
These are the very terms used in the report that suggest that changes are needed to put an end to these problems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Le Gallou">
Mr President, the European Court of Auditors points out that in terms of external actions, the European Union has become one of the largest donors in the world with a total of ECU 6 billion, or almost FRF 40 billion.
But your report, Mr Friedman, highlights serious shortcomings, particularly in public procurement procedures, the quality of contractors and, finally, the follow-up procedures for the actions.
<P>
This being the case, do you not think that there is a serious risk, particularly in certain countries such as those of the former Soviet Union, that Community aid, rather than helping the people, only in fact serves to increase corruption and the power of the mafias?
Would it not therefore be wise to reduce this type of aid, which can do more harm than good, and wait for proper control procedures that guarantee that Community aid is used effectively and honestly?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="Tomlinson, the Lord">
Mr President, I welcome Mr Friedmann and thank him and the Court of Auditors for their report.
<P>
Would he agree with me if I suggested to him that the rather alarmist headlines of £3 billion fraud are not borne out by the annual report and the accompanying special reports?
I am sure he will understand if I concentrate the rest of my remarks on the revenue side of the budget.
<P>
The first thing I would say to him - and I hope he accepts it in the spirit in which it is said - is that it is not really the Court of Auditors' responsibility to challenge the Fontainebleau Agreement on the United Kingdom budgetary rebate.
Any change to the own-resources decision will require unanimity in the Council between the parties involved and the Court of Auditors will not be one of those parties.
<P>
Concerning the own-resources side of the budget, would he agree with me that it is an extremely serious picture that is painted?
In traditional own-resources we see evidence of the difficulty of collection and the propensity to fraud.
But when we look at the very valuable analysis that has been done on VAT collection in the Member States, we see this alarming figure of a gap between the theoretical VAT yield and the actual collection running at ECU 70 000m a year.
That not only has an effect on Member States but also on the GNP and VAT based receipts.
<P>
Finally, it is reasonable to say - and I hope Mr Friedmann agrees with me - that there should be no substantial increase in own resources until all income is collected and until we can be reassured that all revenue is not only legal but is properly, efficiently and effectively spent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Garriga Polledo">
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Friedmann and the other members of the Court of Auditors present in the gallery for being here today.
I believe that the procedure for granting discharge for 1996, which has not yet been granted by Parliament, is excellent proof of the importance of the Court of Auditors' reports in this area.
In any case, this discharge will result in important methods and tools becoming available to Parliament in terms of the financial control of other institutions, notably the Commission. In particular, these will involve the ability to request documents and other relevant information.
<P>
Mr President of the Court of Auditors, I should like to comment on the section on Structural Funds and put some questions to you in that connection.
The Court has consistently criticised the large number of administrative irregularities in structural expenditure.
You point out that there is very little coordination between the Member States and the Court you so ably preside.
<P>
You hope to receive from the Member States in 1998 the first reports on the implementation of the regulation unifying the Member States' provisions for financial control in operations cofinanced by the Structural Funds.
Have you received these reports yet?
And if so, what is your assessment of them?
<P>
You have also presented very detailed conclusions as to the number and nature of substantive errors in the Structural Funds.
However, this seems to contradict your statements on the lack of coordination on the part of Member States.
I would repeat the argument I have put forward in previous years: in my view, it is impossible to produce a reliable estimate if you do not have a well-established coordination procedure involving the national control institutions.
I would therefore like to ask: has progress been made? Is this coordination currently taking place?
<P>
Finally, Mr President of the Court of Auditors, I should like to point out that the majority of Structural Funds are actually allocated during this last part of the programming period.
This does not seem to me to be clear from your remarks, and could perhaps lead to confusion amongst some of the more naive Members of the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Rosado Fernandes">
Mr President of the Court of Auditors, the Edinburgh Council decided upon a multi-annual programming of expenditure until the financial perspective expires at the end of 1999.
<P>
According to the Court's audit, ECU 70 billion have not yet been spent.
Why is there this delay?
Is it mismanagement by the Commission?
Or is it that the Member States are implementing, through Structural Fund expenditure, the policy known, in French, as the policy of the juste retour ?
Which Member States could be picked out as the bad pupils?
In my view, the Edinburgh Agreement should be honoured since maintaining the structural actions allowed by those Funds is the key to balance in southern Europe.
To end with, I have one more question: can those ECU 70 billion still be used or not?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bloch von Blottnitz">
Mr President, we should be happy that only ECU 300 million were spent of the total ECU 850 million of PHARE and TACIS funds made available for nuclear safety, because 80 % of the money was scandalously spent on safety studies of dubious value, simply on paperwork.
On top of that, it stayed in Western hands without any proper methodology, evaluation or consultation, and without the eastern European countries being informed of the results of the studies.
What this amounts to is simply money down the drain, and we have not even achieved the slightest improvement in safety as a result.
That is the true scandal, and here I would like to hear from the Commission how it intends to put a stop to such situations in future.
<P>
Secondly, I would like to give an example of how money is wasted. For the purpose of a rather dubious investigation a study costing ECU 170 000 was undertaken to preserve the Siberian tiger.
The study was carried out in Italy, filed away and forgotten about, and it was concluded that the tiger would simply die out.
So that was the end of that.
Something else could have been done with this money.
This is how the Commission wastes money on studies which do not lead to any action bring taken.
I would therefore like to know what will be done in the near future with the ECU 550 million that we have left for nuclear safety, and whether we will continue to have studies of dubious value without any action being taken as a result.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="Paisley">
Mr President, it is surely amazing that the president of the Court of Auditors has to report on the loss of millions by the Commission.
The Commission, while allowing this to happen, adopts an entirely different attitude to the pig producers of Northern Ireland.
The devastated pig producers there have had to have a financially-assisted scheme to remove unwanted animals from their farms.
<P>
Now the Commission says that the farmers must repay this money which prevented cruelty to animals.
The Commission allows millions to be lost but has no consideration for those in the most desperate circumstances.
I would put on record today the call of those of us in this House who are from Northern Ireland to stop increasing the desperation of our pig producers.
Already some of have become so desperate that they have been driven to suicide.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
Mr President, when I received the Court of Auditors' annual report yesterday, I read it with great interest.
As a Dane, I was naturally interested in what it had to say about Denmark.
I have read the report countless times overnight, but I cannot find anything about Denmark in it.
Of course, I am glad that we are doing things properly in our country.
It is always good to be able to take that as a starting-point.
<P>
I noted that there have been a number of special reports, and I would like to say that one of them which really made an impression on me is the one which has featured in the press for the last fortnight and deals with safety in nuclear power plants.
I would like to ask Mr Friedmann, and also Mr Liikanen and the Commission, not just to focus on nuclear power plants in the eastern countries.
We should perhaps also be looking at the situation in Murmansk, where there are several hundred submarines which have been scrapped but still have active reactors, and where a number of reactors have been dumped in the Barents Sea.
I really do think that we need to have a special report on this area, and I think that instead of going on talking about these things and employing expensive consultants and a good deal more besides, we should employ people ourselves and send them out there to start the necessary process.
That naturally requires there to be cooperation with the Member States.
I know that is difficult, but we must do something about this.
The greatest time bomb that we have is the nuclear power plants and the submarines which are lying around.
All the other small-scale fraud which is happening round about should also be addressed, but it must not be our top priority.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="Kellett-Bowman">
Mr President, I want to congratulate Mr Friedmann and the Court on their best-seller report again this year.
When he presented it last night to the Budgetary Control Committee the room was full - people were perched on windows and tables and even sitting on the floor.
Of course the media were there looking for the 'f' word but fraud is scrupulously not mentioned in the report.
<P>
I was disappointed particularly by the phrase that 'substantive errors affecting transaction underlying payments' was in the same range as in previous years.
<P>
I take some encouragement from the postscript to President Friedmann's speech this morning where he said that there was some improvement.
That is what we are looking for - improvement.
<P>
In paragraph 1.18 there is a quotation from the transit report where we called for the Community customs services to work together as if they were one.
The gaps between them provide this figure of about 70 billion lost to the Member States in a year, 35 to 40 times the amount which is actually defrauded from the EC budget.
I wish finance ministers would take note of this.
<P>
I am interested in Chapter 6 on administration.
Thank you for the various reports we have had from the agencies.
You mentioned specifically Turin and the fact that ECU 380m from PHARE and TACIS spent by that agency is not included in their accounts.
One hopes that it is hidden somewhere in the Commission accounts.
<P>
As for the schools, I would point out that the fact that four of the schools have more external pupils than Community pupils poses a problem.
I wonder if we should transfer some of the cash to overcrowded schools in other places.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bösch">
Madam President, President Friedmann, ladies and gentlemen, on the subject of UCLAF, you consider the creation of an additional institution to combat fraud to be problematic, as you said last week at our interparliamentary conference and again yesterday.
However, we have heard that this is precisely what is currently being prepared by the Commission.
A proposal for a regulation on the basis of Article 235 of the EC Treaty on creating an external assessment agency, as it is called, is evidently in the process of being drafted by the Commission.
The Commission is giving the false impression that in doing so it is complying with Parliament's request to create an OLAF, an office for fraud prevention. I would like to make it clear that this is not the case, Commissioner Liikanen.
<P>
What Parliament called for with a large majority at the beginning of October was not an additional institution. Instead, we want the current UCLAF to be replaced by an office of fraud prevention with full operational independence, but not one that is a satellite organisation somewhere outside the institutions of the EU.
An external solution is not valid as long as we do not have a European public prosecution authority.
No, OLAF should remain within the Commission and all other institutions of the Union should be involved in it.
I would now like to ask you, President Friedmann, whether it could be of interest to the Court of Auditors to be involved in an office of this kind and to contribute its experience.
Has the Court of Auditors formed an opinion on this yet?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Krehl">
Madam President, I would like to discuss the planning and implementation of actions in the field of external aid.
The scale of Community activities in this area has in recent years increased continuously in both political and financial terms.
Moreover, neither the extent nor the importance of these activities will decrease in the coming years. Following the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty, in fact, the opposite is to be expected.
The content of the Court of Auditors' annual report is therefore all the more worrying as it has found considerable shortcomings in all phases of preparation, implementation and assessment of the actions by the Commission.
<P>
The cost/benefit outcome currently falls far short of its potential, and it is not clear whether restructuring measures within the Commission, for example the creation of a common service for all external aid and ECHO, can solve all these management problems.
Unfortunately, as we have already seen, while the creation of a separate common service results in improvement of management capacities, it also distances political and economic services from the implementation of policies.
<P>
The question I would like to ask the Court of Auditors is the following: is the Court of Auditors of the opinion that the creation of the common service RELEX will result in significant improvements or is it necessary, particularly in view of the future tasks of the Union in this area, to think of completely new solutions?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="Friedmann">
Madam President, thank you very much for the many very interesting questions.
Mrs Wemheuer - and this also fits in with what Mrs Krehl has just said - you expressed criticism about staffing policy.
On the one hand, it is astonishing that the administrative costs of the European Union represent in total approximately 5 % of the budget, including personnel expenditure.
But this does not say much as European Union policy must be implemented by the administrations of the Member States.
As you know, Mrs Wemheuer, we referred some time ago to fact that the mini-budgets used at the time were to be heavily criticised.
Parliament kindly took control and resolved the matter by granting the Commission a generous number of posts for permanent staff.
In the meantime, however, it has emerged that, despite this, more of the operational budget is once again being spent on a decentralised staffing policy and in particular on employing external consultants and experts.
This was why I criticised these Liikanen facilities whose limit is being exceeded.
In this respect I share your concern about the Commission's staffing policy. I will discuss with the members of the Court whether and to what extent we could examine this in a special report and how it would fit into our schedule.
<P>
Mrs Theato, thank you for your comments. I appreciate that you wish to receive the annual report earlier.
The actual problem is the time needed for the contradictory procedure, though the period agreed does not even take account of the summer recess.
We must enter into intensive talks with the Commission, as we discussed yesterday in the Committee on Budgetary Control, in order to clarify to what extent this period can be reduced and the Financial Regulation amended accordingly.
<P>
Mr Brinkhorst, it is clear why you place importance on cooperation with the national courts of auditors.
We have developed a particular procedure whereby we write a sectoral letter when our auditors come back from the Member States; this means that the relevant auditing sector writes to the Member State and to the relevant national court of auditors in order to inform them of the results.
The Member State can then reply to us, usually via the national court of auditors, and if we do not reply to this within two months it means that we are in agreement with the Member State's reply.
Therefore, if each party meets its deadline the arguments of the country being audited are taken into account in our annual report and in the special reports.
<P>
Mr Pasty, like several of your colleagues, you referred to the ECU 70 billion that have been lost in VAT revenue.
This figure of 70 billion refers to the model calculations based on nine Member States and is the annual average over four years.
We calculated it by adding up the VAT actually paid and comparing this figure with the sum of the Member States' total gross national product.
This gives an indication of the sum not paid.
We can also account for this in detail, but of course the Member States are the first to be affected by this loss, and obviously the Community is indirectly affected by it to a certain extent.
To give you an idea of the magnitude of this I could say that the sum lost by the Member States in the form of VAT revenue is in the order of the budget of the European Union.
<P>
Mrs Müller, on the issue of foreign policy and the question of whether the situation is improving, I have to say quite honestly that we cannot give the all-clear. We always provide timely information on everything, but we cannot say that currently everything is exactly as it should be.
<P>
Mr Dell'Alba, I understand your anger regarding the newspaper reports. However, I must make two points here.
Firstly, many newspaper reports simply rehash the special reports already published officially by us. Sometimes the impression is given that the annual report has been leaked, but I am not aware of any incident of this kind.
However, I understand your concern, and we in the European Court of Auditors generally agree that Parliament has the right to be the first to be informed.
<P>
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, you addressed the issue of information policy.
We have referred to a few points in that area. The content of the information policy is outside our jurisdiction.
We do not see it as our job to censor the information the Commission feels it has to provide, but we insist that the delegations, or whoever may be concerned, must be capable of meeting their responsibilities.
<P>
Mr Le Gallou, the question is whether we should reduce humanitarian aid if, as we say, so much money does not actually reach the people concerned.
This is a political issue but in my personal opinion I would ask you to bear in mind that it is probably the very poorest who have to suffer as a result of others not being honest.
That should be taken into account in this decision.
<P>
Lord Tomlinson, you stated that British press reports of fraud in the order of three billion pounds are not borne out by the content of our annual report.
We deliberately mention irregularities, as you know, and I should make it clear - here we are in agreement - that the report of the European Court of Auditors is not a fraud report; rather, we check for legality, regularity and sound financial management, and the content of the report reflects this.
<P>
I understand your reference to the Fontainebleau Agreement as a UK Member of Parliament.
We addressed this issue in our special report on the Community's own resources.
We do not regard it as our job to tell the political powers how possible changes should be made to the contributions paid by the Member States.
However, we did note that it had been arranged in Fontainebleau that should adjustments be decided on for political reasons, then expenditure policy too must be changed.
<P>
Mr Garriga Polledo, you mentioned the Structural Funds and asked whether we received reports from the Member States and how coordination with the Member States works.
In fact, we exchange views continuously with the Member States, particularly in the area of structural aid.
The issue of why this delay has arisen in the programming period was touched on later; one of your colleagues also mentioned it.
I must say that at the beginning of the programming period a certain amount of time is always needed for work to get properly underway. We are seeing this at the moment with the new Member States, with the result that at the end of the programming period a backlog tends to build up.
<P>
However, the problem of co-financing in the Member States was doubtless partly responsible for this, as when we request co-financing the Member States are often obliged to incur additional debts. We must understand that this was not easy in the run-up to monetary union.
So it is a combination of several factors that account for the delay.
In my opinion, the money will have to be paid via the budget outside the programming period.
<P>
Mr Rosado Fernandes, you mentioned Edinburgh and asked why there has been a delay over the ECU 90 billion.
I hope I answered this question together with that of Mr Garriga Polledo.
Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, you addressed the issue of nuclear safety.
The way in which companies have awarded subcontracts is indeed a problem.
Some contractors have taken the price of Western experts as the basis for the terms specified in the contracts, but in fact employed east European experts to do the work.
The fees of Western experts are about fifteen times higher than those of their east European counterparts.
<P>
But you are right, and I think this is the opinion of the entire House: a nuclear safety strategy is urgently needed and should be given priority.
Mr Blak, you mentioned that there is a big problem with submarines in Murmansk.
As you know, this is a military issue that is not within the direct jurisdiction of the European Court of Auditors.
We can only audit in connection with the EU budget - we have already discussed this in the Court of Auditors, and I will bring it up once again - but I must first remind you that these submarines in Murmansk are a military matter, with which we are not directly involved.
I understand your concern, and we will discuss this again.
<P>
You also mentioned that in Denmark everything is in order.
Mr Blak, I am pleased that you believe you can draw this conclusion, but the fact that we do not criticise something does not mean that everything is in order.
That is obvious.
<P>
Mr Kellett-Bowman, you are right to say that the Community loses considerable customs revenue in transit traffic.
You are also right to say that the European Schools have more external pupils than children of EU staff, and in view of the high deficit this is a point that needs to be clarified.
We have also referred to this in the relevant special report.
<P>
Mr Bösch, your question concerning whether we would be prepared to accept OLAF being affiliated to the European Court of Auditors in some way was a very difficult one.
It must be clear that the nature of the tasks involved is quite different.
I repeat, and on this we are in agreement, that the European Court of Auditors is not a criminal investigation department or a police force.
There is a good reason for this, as much of our auditing leads to consultation work.
I also appreciate your idea that if an independent unit of this kind is to be responsible for all the institutions without becoming a new institution itself, you need an existing institution to which you can affiliate OLAF.
I can only say in this discussion that the nature of the task is not the same; it is quite different.
You will have to make the political decision, and the Court of Auditors will have to accept what is decided by the legislator.
<P>
In conclusion, Mrs Krehl, I believe I have already answered your question on creating a separate common service, on staffing policy and administration.
Finally, I would like to thank you all very much for your keen interest.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="Liikanen">
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Liikanen.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Employment in the Union
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0417/98) by Mr Wim van Velzen, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission communication: Proposal for guidelines for Member States' employment policies 1999 (COM(98)0574 - C4-0587/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="van Velzen, Wim">
Madam President, looking at what has happened a year on from when the first guidelines were drawn up, I think we can rightly speak of a quiet revolution.
Initial opposition to an active labour market policy and the near-total belief in EMU and the jobs it would create have actually disappeared.
There is not one Member State which has failed to take on board the guidelines agreed in Luxembourg.
That is an extremely good thing.
But things could be even better.
If we look at the evaluation carried out by the Commission, and it is a first-class evaluation, you will see that the Member States' approach to the guidelines has been one of picking and choosing and that often the choice they have made has been unbalanced, placing too much emphasis on employment and entrepreneurship.
<P>
At the same time, however, it might be said that those guidelines which were the most precisely, most exactly formulated have also produced the best results, and that is an argument for continuing with the strategy.
But I do have a problem with the proposals put forward by the European Commission.
I do not think they keep the process in a sharp enough focus.
By sharp focus, I mean ensuring that quantified objectives are as far as possible based on benchmarking.
That is the best way of keeping the Member States' minds on the job.
I have no sympathy at all for those Member States which say 'we already have so much to do; let us cut down a bit, let us not have any new objectives'.
The work we are adding is all work which they have to do in the normal course of events.
We are just trying to target it at European level towards common goals which we have previously defined.
<P>
The current process, developed in Luxembourg, focuses strongly on people already out of work - quite properly, as things stood at the time.
I think it is now time to look also at how, whilst helping the unemployed, we can stop more and more unemployed people from joining them.
How can we get more attention paid to prevention?
This, in my view, will have enormous implications for education.
Hence my request for an additional objective for those who are now employed but who need further training to make sure they stay abreast of new developments.
<P>
Another problem which I myself feel is not taken into account enough in the objectives is participation in the work process.
There are large groups for whom it remains difficult to break into the labour market, even in my own country of the Netherlands, which is reckoned to be successful.
In the Netherlands you find older people over 55, you find migrants and still women too who have trouble finding work.
It is no different in other countries of the Union.
<P>
That is just employment policy, not unimportant - far from it - but it is just one side of the coin.
The other side is this: what are we doing on the economic front?
What are we doing about economic coordination?
What are we doing to deepen the process begun with EMU?
What use are we making of these opportunities?
I think the moment for making a start has long since passed.
But given the fact that we are now debating this report, I think we must urge the Council to produce, as quickly as possible, a framework in which economic coordination can really take shape.
Other speakers will cover this in more depth.
<P>
At this point, I would mention an aspect touched on earlier by the Commission, namely the fact that there is a large measure of under-investment in Europe.
Where are the Commission's plans, its proposals for tackling that problem?
Where are the opportunities for broadening the financial initiatives taken at Member State level?
In my country - as I said just now - we seem to have been successful.
A decision has been taken there to cut back the programme for giving school children more computer-oriented education, due to shortage of funds, and now there are one or two pioneering schools which will get computers whilst all the rest will have to wait years before they get them.
A laughable investment failure!
So in an area where we ought to be investing in the future, one of the European countries with the best record is unable to come up with the cash.
I think that should prompt the Council to reflect about what we can do to give Member States more room for manoeuvre.
I am not coming down in favour of one proposal rather than the other.
It is a package of proposals, and I think we have to choose very carefully here.
<P>
Lastly, I am very surprised by the PPE Group's amendments I have seen, admittedly very late, because we have very little time.
They have retabled all the amendments they had originally tabled in the Social Affairs Committee.
May I remind you that the PPE coordinator volunteered the information during the part-session that I had done an excellent job by incorporating their proposals into my report, that there was still just one difference of opinion remaining which concerned investment policy, but that otherwise he was very happy.
Now all the amendments are being put down again unseen, even those which are already in my report.
I find that incomprehensible.
I hope I can reach a more satisfactory resolution of this with the PPE Group, because I think it is putting our future cooperation in jeopardy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="Gasòliba I Böhm">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in two minutes it is hard to summarise the opinion I drafted for the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, and which was unanimously approved.
The basic idea was that the creation of jobs, a higher rate of employment for Europe, will only become a solid, stable and lasting reality if it is based on a truly competitive economy and on what we term a globalised or internationalised economy. Unfortunately, the European Union is not yet in a position to cope with the level of competition demanded by an open economy.
<P>
We therefore wish to emphasise the importance of a series of issues raised over recent years.
These include the need to eliminate barriers and systems of protection that still exist in key areas of our economy and the need to increase our level of knowledge. We must also improve our level of education, particularly in the areas of vocational and technical training.
In addition, an effort should be made to remove the current obstacles to the creation of new jobs, particularly those involving taxation.
The possibility of modifying VAT, value added tax, must be considered, with a view to reducing it in the so-called labour-intensive sectors, the sectors with the largest workforce. I should also mention the need to provide new and improved guidance in terms of allowing better access to finance, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, so as to promote a better business environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="Torres Marques">
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr van Velzen's excellent report, which the PSE Group supports, is rightly based on lasting, sustainable strategies to combat mass unemployment, but also on innovative adjustment of the employment guidelines.
Of particular importance are the structural elements for the promotion of structural reform of the labour market, the need to bring about a better balance among the four pillars of the employment guidelines and the emphasis on gender mainstreaming.
At the same time, however, the totally inadequate employment recovery must be regarded as a challenge for the Union and the Member States to achieve a better and more balanced policy mix and to improve coordination of economic, financial and employment policies.
<P>
As we are now only a few weeks away from the beginning of monetary union it is high time to integrate guidelines for economic policy and for employment so that the accent can deliberately be put on effectiveness in creating employment as a condition for policy coordination, in good time for the national budget debates.
The European Parliament must at long last be involved in an interinstitutional agreement on this issue.
<P>
The parties to the collective agreement are also called upon, in view of monetary union, to begin to harmonise productivity-based wage agreements in order to avoid the risk of wage dumping that would adversely affect the Community.
<P>
Once again, calls are being made for a review of the basic elements of economic policy and for proper coordination of economic policy.
The European Union cannot afford to sit back, despite the Commission's favourable autumn forecast.
Even the lack of currency fluctuation that has been caused by the prospect of the euro should not induce us to sit back.
Today we are already seeing the effects of the crisis in South-East Asia on European jobs.
The chemical, engineering and electronics sectors are already hit by reduced orders and falling prices.
This is affecting European jobs.
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Supply-side measures alone are not sufficient.
Demand must also be stimulated by increasing the purchasing power of consumers and fostering greater trust in the future of the European Union.
In this respect, the van Velzen report is right to emphasise changing the system by means of implementing tax reforms and reducing taxation on labour.
But we also need a reform of wage structures that takes productivity into account, as well as stimulation of investment as an important means of stabilising the European economy.
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As current investment levels are much too low - public investment is currently barely 2 % of GDP - growth and employment cannot be achieved.
Structural change in the labour market must be supported by a new prospect of growth.
Alliances for work could successfully accompany this process.
We still lack Europe-wide modernisation offensives with investment plans in the areas of communications, transport, the environment, energy conservation, research, development, innovation and training.
Here we must speedily draw up an indicative list that allows a combination of public and private investment.
In the spirit of the Maastricht Treaty the EU Ministers for Finance are called upon to separate this kind of investment from the general government deficit, as long as the EU is still caught between mass unemployment and the Stability Pact.
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<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Hernández Mollar">
Madam President, by this stage I think all the main debates concerning the employment situation in Europe have now come through the worst.
We already have European guidelines - the Treaty of Amsterdam includes a chapter specifically on employment - and we also have a European strategy that has inspired national employment action plans.
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I feel Mr van Velzen's report bears all the hallmarks of a rushed and interim document, but I must stress that I do not in any way wish to blame him for that.
The Commission's report reached us late, as it almost always does, and it too was wanting, as the Commission itself is not able to conduct rigorous and serious investigations at present.
What is true, however, is that some Member States of the European Union are applying principles that are producing excellent results where job creation is concerned. This has been the case in my country, Spain.
The results, ladies and gentlemen, speak for themselves: unemployment has been reduced by 4 %, over 800 000 jobs have been created and a meaningful social dialogue is in place that is leading to a radical reform of the labour market and greater stability of employment.
Government and unions have recently reached agreement on important issues such as part-time work and the introduction of a new concept: 'supplementary time'. This will allow greater flexibility in the management of working time and will replace overtime.
I believe it would be very interesting to evaluate this new formula.
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In addition, I would like to refer briefly to two key issues in any employment policy. The first is the relationship that ought to exist between training and employment.
A first job depends very much on that essential link between the institutions offering education and training and the requirements of the labour market.
There are too many instances of failure at school, inadequate training and graduate unemployment in Europe.
Even worse, there is considerable underemployment which means human resources are not being exploited to the full.
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The second issue I would like to raise seems important to me, but is not mentioned in the report. It concerns the strong resistance to geographical mobility within the Union and between regions of the Member States, both on the part of those seeking their first job and the unemployed.
This situation has as much to do with income policies as with language problems and the shortage of affordable housing for these people.
As a result of the lack of mobility and of migratory flows between regions, unemployment becomes structural and prices and costs are destabilised, with the consequent negative impact on the competitiveness of businesses.
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<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, my thanks to Mr van Velzen for having incorporated paragraph 9 into his report.
This concerns the evaluation of the venture capital we provide through the Investment Bank.
We have been looking this morning at the report of the Court of Auditors, and it transpires that this provision of venture capital is not exactly satisfactory.
The criteria are too general, there is no cohesive policy and the use of interest margins is unclear.
But above all, and I would stress this, the Commission has no role other than that of information exchange.
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I think that where we ourselves are at issue, in a report in which we are primarily asking the Member States to do certain things, we should have our own house in order.
So I seriously urge the Commission to produce an evaluation on this point very soon for the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
If it is not forthcoming, I shall ask questions in the committee myself.
Many speakers have already said as much, ladies and gentlemen, and the advent of Economic and Monetary Union requires measures to be taken in a number of policy areas.
This report indicates that the Member States are beginning to take them, through the reform of tax and social security systems and all manner of measures to stimulate the labour market.
There is one point I should like to make here: slowly but surely, power and influence are shifting from national to European level.
This goes unnoticed by the man in the street.
Of course we have to be in favour of most of the measures in the van Velzen report.
We cannot live with an employment rate of 60.5 %, for example.
But it is high time these measures were subjected to democratic debate in the Member States; we must not think, as is sometimes suggested in this House, that all this is a matter for the Member States and that the European Parliament does not need to be involved and that there is no feedback either from the process, from Europe to the European citizen.
With the elections almost upon us, it is an absolute must, and I am thus asking the Commission whether a little more might not be done to keep us informed on this matter.
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<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Kaklamanis">
Madam President, I wish to congratulate Mr Wim van Velzen on his report.
Unfortunately, however, this fine report addresses appeals and wishes both to the Council of Ministers and to the Commission, and the question, Mr van Velzen, is whether the Council and the Commission have ears to hear what you are saying.
I would remind you that in Amsterdam no substantive decision was taken regarding unemployment.
In Luxembourg the ball was tossed into the court of the Member States.
I would also remind you that the Maastricht criteria on economic and monetary union deliberately do not include the criterion of unemployment.
I would remind you that both in the 1998 budget and in the budget for 1999 we will be voting on in a month's time, expenditure to combat unemployment for social Europe, for people with special needs and for the third age is either static or even lower, and all this at a time when, as you say in your report, full-time jobs are continually becoming fewer and only part-time jobs are being created.
Consequently, incomes are down in a Europe in which costs are going up, and that is why the proportion of nouveaux pauvres has climbed above 15 %.
I am sorry to see that this is taking place with the approval of Parliament, which on 2 May 1998 put social Europe into the hands of bankers and EMU.
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<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Madam President, the European left in all its diverse forms now has the chance to show that it is really serious when it comes to increasing employment.
Of the fifteen Member States, the left is in government in one form or another in thirteen.
My impression is that European voters are looking to the left for protection against the forces of money and uncontrolled market trends.
Is it at all possible for the left to respond to the wishes of the voters?
The different formulas left-wing governments have come up with are very much at odds with one another.
While Britain continues to rely on the market to create jobs, in France and Italy there is a drive to shorten working hours and raise public spending to increase employment.
Furthermore, the conditions agreed previously by the EU countries on economic and monetary union are slowing down progress.
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We now need to create a programme for economic revival and employment based on four vital elements.
The first of these is the lowering of interest rates, to prevent Europe from falling into the abyss.
Unfortunately, the European Central Bank, which is ruled by the economic dogma of the last couple of decades, does not seem ready to lower interest rates so that production and employment might increase.
Secondly, taxation has to be changed to encourage people to work.
The current tax system favours ownership, investments and lazy money too much, and penalises work.
Thirdly, we have to increase investment, especially in the area of transport and communications.
It is also time we stopped regarding public services as a harmful extravagance and admitted they are immensely important in creating jobs and the infrastructure we vitally need.
Fourthly, we must embark on action to shorten working time generally.
The ways and means may vary from country to country and from region to region, but the objective must be a common one.
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<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Mr President, we are all keen for the Member States to cooperate with one another, coordinating their strategies for creating sustainable employment.
It is important that the employment guidelines are actually implemented under national action programmes.
Member States may occasionally need a nudge to remind them to abide by the recommendations - although we have to accept that there are considerable differences in the way countries handle these matters. Discussion is of the essence, and it will take time before everything is adopted and in place.
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Mr van Velzen is clearly an impatient man!
He wants action, but his zeal possibly gets the better of him at times. One of his proposals is for economic and financial policy coordination - a very far-reaching enterprise indeed.
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Most of his suggestions are very good, nonetheless. I particularly like his ideas on reducing working hours in a flexible way.
And he rightly sets his proposal in the context of the fight against unemployment. My group has, however, tabled an amendment calling for a slightly more radical approach to cutting working hours in Europe, and I would recommend that colleagues vote for this.
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<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, the level of unemployment in the Union has remained far too high despite the favourable economic trends of recent years, primarily amongst the categories of the poorly educated and the long-term unemployed, and these include a great many women.
Not only in Europe but worldwide, the pressure of world unemployment is increasing.
I would point above all to the millions of young people in the third world who are unemployed.
The effects of that are felt throughout Europe, and it is a factor in social dislocation and poverty.
Problems with asylum seekers are just one part of the result.
Stimulating employment must thus be recognised as a prime objective in the Member States, the Union and in international organisations as well.
In view of the slow-down in economic growth we are experiencing, it is doubtless all the more important.
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The van Velzen report illustrates this especially clearly, and I am grateful to the rapporteur.
The achievements of the European Union in the field of employment are meagre, so the report tells us.
Differences between and within Member States remain enormous, despite the Structural Funds.
Evaluation of the national action plans shows up positive points, it is true, but many gaps and weaknesses too.
In my country, for example, there is the failure to reduce labour costs.
These shortcomings also apply to the four pillars.
Europe's leaders have concluded too late, regrettably, that a better balance is needed between a Europe of monetary union and a policy of employment.
We echo Mr van Velzen in wanting quantified objectives, training and participation.
We also believe above all that the choice of a European investment programme is a good choice.
We shall vote for the resolution but there is too much in it, Mr President, and we think that ultimately we may not be able to see the wood for the trees.
Unless Europe makes jobs a priority, there will no future for its children and thus no future for Europe itself.
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<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Angelilli">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the van Velzen report paints a clear picture of the economic situation in Europe over the past year: on the one hand, cautious optimism due to the welcome prospect of the European single currency and to slight but appreciable economic growth; on the other, a climate of distrust and instability due to all the international financial crises - in Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America - the repercussions of which have had an adverse effect on the European market.
And then there is unemployment, still the most urgent social problem facing our continent, above all for young people and women.
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Broadly speaking, therefore, we can endorse the report's approach to relaunching effective employment policies in the Member States.
I would stress in particular the importance of vocational training, which must be improved and adapted to the requirements of the labour market.
There is a major contradiction inherent in vocational training: it is true that the funds available are inadequate, but it is also true that a good deal of money is badly invested in poor-quality courses with a minimal impact on employment.
The Member States should be called on, in more general terms, to overhaul their educational systems thoroughly.
Italy's Audit Office recently bemoaned the fact that a substantial percentage of graduates have difficulty in finding jobs owing to the mediocrity of the education system, in particular the universities, where the practical and applied aspects of the theoretical instruction are all too often overlooked.
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My second point relates to women.
They are the greatest victims of discrimination in the world of work, partly because of their family responsibilities and, where necessary, their role as carers for the elderly and the disabled.
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This House has already drawn the Commission's attention on numerous occasions to the fact that, unless proper social assistance is available for working women, especially single mothers, the right to work is nothing but a figment of the imagination.
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Finally, I should like to turn to another proposal made in the report, namely a more flexible distribution of working time.
Where economic conditions permit, it is indeed desirable to reduce weekly working time and above all to introduce part-time work in order to create new jobs.
But let us not forget, in accordance with the fundamental principles of subsidiarity and participation, that any reduction in working time must be agreed between the social partners, in other words not by handing down legislation which would merely be a source of pointless and harmful inflexibility.
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<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Damião">
Mr President, the van Velzen report is excellent and very balanced.
The rapporteur wanted to reach a consensus catering for various different European social situations in the current economic situation.
Concerns over investment, support for small firms, assistance for companies that employ large numbers of people, working conditions, the gradual reduction in maximum working hours and improving the management thereof, wages, social protection, training leading to genuine qualifications and appropriate education systems all give a social meaning to the terms of adaptability and employability, which, without that guidance, would be cynical objectives, concerned only with economics, as I would like the Commission to remember.
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Unemployment is not inevitable but I would not wish on other countries in the European Union the solution applied in large areas of Portugal, where all three generations have to work in order to scrape together the minimum wage paid in Spain, half the minimum wage in Belgium, and a quarter the minimum wage in Germany, albeit with almost full employment.
It is a world where, when people lose their jobs, especially women, they lose 50 % to 100 % of their income and in order to survive, they rely on strong family support, weak national solidarity and your solidarity, thanks to the European Union's cohesion.
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I support this report because it takes a significant step towards fleshing out the concept of employability.
But we do not wish on countries experiencing high levels of unemployment a solution that only weakens citizenship and undermines the European social model.
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<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Thomas">
Mr President, the situation four years ago was as follows: at the summit in Essen we agreed a broad strategy to combat unemployment more effectively at European level by strictly observing the principle of subsidiarity.
The situation one year ago was that we agreed guidelines at the Luxembourg Employment Summit to guarantee a high level of employment.
The situation today is that we are publicly assessing what has and has not been achieved in the National Action Plans.
There are gaps in particular in terms of training; not enough training is provided, not enough older workers are involved in training, training courses are not sufficiently adapted to new technologies and education systems often fail to provide practical experience, team work and knowledge of other countries.
Employability, the first pillar of the NAPs, is therefore difficult to achieve.
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Much too little importance is placed on the fourth pillar: equal opportunities.
Commissioner, where child care is not provided, in the form of creches, nursery schools and day care centres, it is mainly women who are denied access to a career.
But there are also encouraging developments: more and more Member States, for example Germany, are managing to adapt to changed employment structures.
Conditions for entrepreneurship are being improved and passive employment policies are finally being replaced by active policies.
We must now institutionalise dialogue between the Ecofin Council, the ECB, those responsible for social policy, the social partners, the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament in order to better coordinate economic and monetary policy, including the indispensable Stability Pact, with employment policy.
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The forthcoming summit in Vienna should set the right course instead of arousing false hopes such as the supposedly comprehensive investment programme worth billions that the Member States will not in any case finance.
With a realistic approach there is a good chance that even those affected by unemployment and exclusion will feel that Europe is overcoming obstacles and inaction, is capable of coordination and can provide important impetus and new ideas.
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<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, current rates of development are not absorbing the high level of unemployment.
In 1997 economic development in the European Union was 2.7 % and it is expected to be about 2.8 % in 1998, while salaries increased by just 1 % in real terms, despite which the unemployment indexes have not improved.
Full-time jobs are becoming fewer and only part-time jobs are increasing.
The spectre of poverty and social exclusion is already affecting or directly threatening millions of the Union's citizens.
To be honest, how much optimism do these facts justify?
In our opinion, employment policy has been shown to be unreliable and a factor which exacerbates the crisis.
That is the conclusion which the Union's citizens reach.
But while that is the situation, the Commission's statement gives priority to the competitiveness of trade and industry, to the stability pact, to monetary stability, to the promotion of part-time employment and informal forms of work, and to employability - a concept which transfers the burden of responsibility for finding work from the state and its policy onto working people.
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Mr President, working people disapprove of this policy.
They see no future in it, and their only recourse is to intensify their struggle to overthrow it.
We will stand by them in that.
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<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Sainjon">
Mr President, since we are talking about a social Europe, I would firstly like to congratulate Mr van Velzen and - just this once - the Commission for the action taken on the consultation of employees.
After Vilvoorde and, more recently, Levi's, there is an urgent need to give employees greater rights when it comes to informing and consulting them about companies' investment strategies and any decision to relocate.
This culture of information - I would even go so far as to say joint management - is a step in the right direction.
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However, I must say, more generally, that the Commission's social action programme lacks ambition and grand design.
Obviously, reference is rightly made to reducing VAT for labour-intensive services, lowering costs for SMEs, flexibility, training, etc.
But I would like to know what is being done about the commitments made at the Luxembourg Employment Summit in November 1997.
It is politically vital for us to have a major project that is able to channel our efforts.
To be honest, what we need is a new welfare state which promotes employment and lifelong learning for every citizen of the European Union. In other words, we must ensure that every woman and man from Lisbon to Berlin, from London to Rome, has the same hope if they lose their jobs.
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I myself dream of banishing the word unemployment from our vocabulary and this is more than just rhetorical.
What this means in practical terms is that from now on during each redundancy or period of inactivity, a compulsory period of paid training should automatically begin, one that more than just fills a gap.
We must translate the wishes of the Luxembourg Employment Summit in November 1997, where the 15 Member States decided that it was a priority to ensure that no young person was out of work or without training for more than six months, and no adult for more than a year.
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We must bring this idea to life by going even further and proposing that throughout their lives people should alternate between working and training by moving from one to the other without any unwanted breaks, that is, without any periods of unemployment.
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This would be a really major project that would allow Europe to get back in touch with its past, when it used to initiate social progress.
It could be financed through the FRF 2 300 billion devoted every year in Europe to combating unemployment and through the European Structural Funds, which would better serve this objective if less fragmented.
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<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Raschhofer">
Mr President, the latest statistics show a fall in unemployment.
On closer study, however, we see that unemployment has fallen to a lesser degree than the economy has grown in the same period.
The fact that 23 million European citizens are living at subsistence level also gives cause for thought, as does the fact that the present report warns of low-pay and low-quality jobs and demands that monetary stability be maintained.
The Luxembourg Summit's guidelines for a successful employment policy are ambitious.
No one will seriously oppose alternatives to taxation on labour or measures to improve the climate for investment or education and training.
But these formulas are not new, after all.
Precisely these measures were discussed at the Essen Summit in the context of the White Paper on employment.
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However, it is sobering that the NAPs for employment are so unspecific about these measures.
Many National Action Plans do not fix any concrete aims or financial resources, or else they are inadequate.
What is needed are appropriate indicators, specification of budgetary funds and laying down of priorities and the deadlines for achieving them.
And how are we to evaluate honestly the progress and results of employment policy?
I have to say that I hear the message but I do not believe it if the Member States fail to realise the objectives.
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<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Lancker">
Mr President, I should like to agree with those honourable Members who have said that the process begun in Luxembourg is a good thing but that Vienna will of course have to move things forward emphatically.
I should like to focus on one aspect, Commissioner, which is extremely important to me.
It is time Member States restored the link between more work and more equal opportunities for women.
In the van Velzen report we firmly advocate a halving of the gender gap.
This requires a particular commitment on the part of Member States for all the guidelines, and it also represents a commitment to positive action.
Let me give you a few examples: it looks at the fact that more women are unemployed and for longer, and it is good, Commissioner, that the Member States have opted for action to prevent long-term unemployment.
But that means too that women must get at least their fair share of any benefit from such measures.
It means too that Member States must not be allowed, as they now do, to ignore long-term unemployment, where women are over-represented.
No, the two things have to go together and complement each other.
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Secondly, we also want a clear commitment to more training opportunities for people currently in work.
I think it is disgraceful that women working part-time are quite simply excluded from the opportunities offered under most of the training programmes laid on by employers.
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Thirdly, it presupposes extra attention in wage bargaining for the unacceptable differential of 20 to 30 % which still persists between male and female earnings.
The result of this would have to be that any increases agreed in wage negotiations were now applied primarily to women's earnings, which are undervalued.
It also presupposes that Member States will not remain obsessed with part-time work, but will talk about more family-friendly forms of work sharing and shorter working hours such as a four-day week, for example.
We should like to see the Commission coming up with a further proposal to tighten the existing directive on working time.
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Lastly, Mr President, the preparation of concrete objectives has already proved its worth.
We must intensify this process for all guidelines, and my group would like to make an important request for the Commission to address with urgency the question of benchmarks for the efficacy of social protection.
We must ensure that more work also means better quality work and thus an adequate level of social protection.
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<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García-Margallo y Marfil (PPE).">
Mr President, I should like to express more than the conventional expressions of gratitude to the rapporteur, and also to put forward four ideas that would, in my view, enrich the report.
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Firstly, I regret the lack of any reference to the coordination of economic policies with monetary policy, that is to say, of the Economy and Finance Council with the European Central Bank.
Recent publications, particularly Krugmann's work, are beginning to call into question whether it is logical and coherent to continue giving priority to price stability now that we have reached all-time low levels where job creation is concerned.
Although I agree with Carlos Gasòliba that economic stability is a prerequisite for job creation, I also believe that greater coordination is needed and that the European Central Bank should focus more on this objective.
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Secondly, I think it is unfortunate that when comparing - benchmarking - job creation in Europe and in the United States, the experience gained by this Parliament was not drawn upon.
Apart from some ideas reiterated in this House by a number of speakers - flexibility and the liberalisation of certain markets, particularly the service market and the labour market -, the report emphasised that one of the main reasons why the United States takes the lead where job creation is concerned is that it is far more committed to research and development. Also, private initiative plays a much greater part in that joint effort and there is an option of encouraging R&D through tax incentives rather than direct aid, thus linking projects to making a profit.
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Thirdly, with regard to the tax burden, there is reference to VAT on labour-intensive services.
It seems to me that the time has come to ask ourselves whether it makes sense to maintain a value added tax such as the one devised in 1967 when there was a shortage of labour in Europe, and jobs remained unfilled. It might well be appropriate to consider whether it is still reasonable to allow immediate deduction of the tax on investment goods thus encouraging the replacement of workers by capital goods.
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My concluding remark is that I agree with the references to trans-European networks, but it is time to move on and say how we intend to finance them: from surplus reserves, issuing loans or in some other way.
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<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Formentini">
Mr President, allow me to begin by congratulating the rapporteur, Mr van Velzen, who has managed to home in on the fundamental issues concerning this key aspect of the economy - employment.
He has done so at a time of uncertainty: there can be no doubt that the situation is now radically different from that described in the conclusions reached by the national governments in November 1997, both within the Community - which has since embarked on stage three of economic and monetary union and created the stability pact, with everything which that implies - and in the rest of the world, where there is no denying the serious changes that have taken place in the recent past. A recession is undoubtedly under way, affecting at least 40 % of the world's population, as the rapporteur himself has stated; so far, the storms have spared Europe and North America, but there are no guarantees as to the future.
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All in all, the growth rate in Europe is not keeping pace with the need for employment growth, and there is ground to be made up.
We are convinced that the problem of unemployment cannot be solved through acts and decrees on employment: jobs cannot be created by decree; they are created by promoting economic growth.
So efforts are required all round in order that such growth is stimulated by means of appropriate policies, above all fiscal ones, and through adequate support for economic development.
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Investment must therefore be as productive as possible, concentrated in areas where it can be used to best effect.
Investment of a purely social nature would be ineffectual.
I hope that this will be the approach adopted at the forthcoming Vienna summit, which Europe as a whole will be observing with keen interest.
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<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Cabezón Alonso">
Mr van Velzen has indeed produced an excellent report, Mr President.
It contains sound proposals, is in touch with reality, unpretentious and contains several innovative ideas.
If I had to highlight one aspect of it, I would highlight the section devoted to the preventive approach.
I hope and trust that this report will receive all possible support from Parliament.
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The European Union's millions of unemployed do not render this debate pointless - quite the contrary.
In any case, thanks to this and other debates, employment is developing, albeit slowly, into a common policy that must be linked to economic policy, as coordination is essential.
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Unemployment leads to forms of exclusion, precariousness hampers personal development, and the lack of personal expectations places available labour in a feudal position in relation to whoever can provide a job.
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The authorities have the duty of ensuring that the principles of equality and solidarity are maintained where opportunities and income are concerned. However, they must also promote active policies and foster the basic conditions to relieve unemployment, the greatest concern of our societies.
As stated in the report, the authorities must adopt economic policies that will strengthen or promote growth resulting from investment, generate consumer confidence and maintain domestic consumer demand.
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A much more determined effort by the authorities is called for to develop active policies on the labour market, and they should be prepared to take risks in dealing with the present situation.
We shall continue to defend proposals providing both flexibility and security against the preservation of the concept of deregulation, which tends to be used as the key argument.
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<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Todini">
Mr President, my compliments naturally go to the rapporteur, Mr van Velzen.
His report tells us that, according to the data available, unemployment has actually fallen this year; however, we should not raise our hopes unduly, because the situation in Europe is only marginally positive.
What is more, if we analyse the real situation in each individual Member State, we find wide divergences between the 15 countries.
In Italy, for example, unemployment is still running at around 12 %.
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What remedies have we come up with?
A reduction in labour costs, naturally, and of course increased entrepreneurship, above all among SMEs.
The importance of vocational training and qualifications has already been mentioned, so I shall not dwell on that point.
I would merely stress one idea which is contained in the report and which I consider extremely important, namely that of reducing VAT on labour-intensive services.
This proposal was put forward by the Council on 21 October 1997, and it could usefully be put back on the agenda.
By the same token, an initiative could be taken by the European Investment Bank - which has expressed its readiness to do this - to finance projects at rates below the market rate, provided of course that such projects really are effective in generating employment.
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Furthermore, why not propose a review of the Central Bank's key role?
This new body, which came into being so as to keep down inflation within the 15 Member States, could and should have another important aim, namely to keep unemployment under control.
Such a role is played in the United States by the Federal Reserve; its European counterpart should also undertake the vital task of keeping down unemployment.
I believe that it is worth underlining the social relevance of the institutions which are being established.
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<SPEAKER ID=60 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Mr President, the Commission's report is on employment in Europe in 1998.
It is on the question of employment and not on the problem and the statistics of unemployment.
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Mr van Velzen, in particular, in the explanatory statement accompanying the motion for a resolution, has got close to and dealt well with this finer point of detail. In other words, we must make sure that we refer to the quality of employment, without calling into question the seriousness of the unemployment figures and the alarm that this causes.
Some of the rapporteur's comments on the climate of economic recovery seem outdated because they no longer reflect the real situation.
That is not his fault but the result of how the situation has developed.
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I would like to make one more comment, given the little time I have, about something that is not really that negative in itself, that is, the fact that the Commission has used the terminology of pillars in its report on employment.
We would highlight the ambiguity, in particular, of the first pillar, that of employability, a concept that seems to hold the unemployed responsible for the very existence of unemployment because they are poorly qualified.
This seems to take away the blame for unemployment from a social system that not only creates unemployment but also exploits it.
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<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Pronk">
Mr President, I too must thank the rapporteur very warmly for all his hard work and for the report he has put together for us in so short a time.
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It is not really possible to work in these conditions.
Perhaps that explains his attack on our amendments.
We were of course not happy with some parts of the report.
We also abstained in the committee meeting.
Consequently we felt obliged to retable the amendments on the points in question.
That does not mean of course that all the compromises reached are lost.
But we were in the extremely awkward position of having to make amendments on the basis of a report which did not yet exist.
It just means we shall have to find another solution in future, though I appreciate that the rapporteur himself cannot do anything about it.
<P>
As regards the subject itself: happily unemployment is slightly down for the first time, but that does not mean of course that this will continue to be the case in future.
There are a few dark clouds on the horizon.
So we must continue with the strategy we have started.
I should say really that this strategy has been far more successful than anyone could have expected beforehand.
There was a good deal of cynicism about this strategy, but it appears to work.
It really seems to be leading to change in the Member States.
Perhaps not enough change, but at least some.
<P>
A number of things are now threatening, some of which are actually in Mr van Velzen's report.
Paragraph 7 and the broad investment programme is something which we cannot accept, because it would take us back to the whole discussion on the overall strategy.
We previously rejected this kind of broad investment programme, firstly because there is no money and, secondly, because it does not work at European level.
It is hard for us to agree to it now, even if we do have eleven prime ministers in the European Union with a socialist background.
It does not automatically mean that we are going to cough up.
<P>
The second point I wanted to raise is the question of taxes.
I think it quite proper that the rapporteur should ask for that to be addressed.
It is a great shame that the debate on this, specifically variations in the rate of VAT, went totally awry in the Council and that governments which were supposedly in favour and are doing nothing else about it, and the one or two governments which were against, appear to be getting their own way.
I think it is a great pity.
I hope the European Parliament will manage to get the matter raised again.
<P>
These are the main points.
We may be able to back this provided we do not radically change it all of a sudden, and provided enough of our amendments are adopted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, it may well be that globally in the European Union there is a downturn in unemployment, though I do not know if it can be said that someone whose temperature has fallen from 41º to 40.5º can be said to be getting better.
What I would like to quote as experience from my own country is that the phenomenon of unemployment is increasing, especially among young people and women, and this alongside and in parallel with Greece's desperate effort to meet the criteria for inclusion in economic and monetary union.
From that standpoint I think we are getting to the heart of how to address the problem of unemployment today.
A few years ago we had the White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment.
I do not know what its results were, perhaps there were some, but nothing came of all our discussions here and from the mobilisation in the European Parliament and in general.
Today, however, I think that if we want to see some results from the positive ideas expressed by Mr van Velzen and from the efforts of Commissioner Flynn and the Commission to develop an overall unemployment strategy based on certain pillars, the course established by Maastricht will have to be changed.
A change in the sense that social criteria and unemployment are included in progress towards EMU, investments are not counted among public deficits, and the European Central Bank at least follows the path pursued by the Federal Reserve in the United States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Chanterie">
Mr President, first of all I think the strategy launched in Luxembourg is producing good results and will provide an impetus for structural changes in the European labour market.
It is our expectation that the guidelines will be adjusted and tightened in Vienna so that the Member States have to give more specific commitments with quantified sums of expenditure.
We expect the European Commission to improve its proposals accordingly.
<P>
Secondly, there is no denying that the number of jobs rose by 750 000 in 1997 thanks to economic growth, economic growth which is now threatened by financial crises elsewhere in the world.
Hence the need to underpin economic growth by a broad European programme of investment.
There has been enough talking about the TENs.
It is time now for clear decisions to be taken.
<P>
Thirdly, I agree with those honourable Members who advocated a stronger presence in the jobs market for women, the over-fifties and the handicapped.
Last of all, Mr President, it is a matter of great urgency to bring labour costs down.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Hatzidakis">
Mr President, though Europe's economy has in recent years been developing at relatively satisfactory rates - for example, in 1997 growth amounted to 2.7 % - we are not seeing a corresponding fall in unemployment.
Unemployment has fallen, but by a small, an exceptionally small amount and in some countries it is at the same level or even increasing slightly, as in my own country.
This means that growth on its own does not create as many jobs as we need.
We also need structural measures in the labour market, and it is to this that we should turn our attention.
<P>
Given that the problem of unemployment is a pan-European phenomenon, there must certainly be coordination between the policies of Member States to address the issue globally and effectively.
The solution to the unemployment problem and the promotion of employment must become a truly European concern.
It is important, however, that any such coordination should proceed along appropriate lines, because otherwise we could all be coordinated, all have the same policy, and end up by increasing unemployment.
So here I should like to say - though this will provoke an allergic reaction in some colleagues - that we should look at what is happening in America and Japan.
We do not have to ape the American or Japanese models, but let us look to see why they have lower unemployment and try to learn some lessons, just as we can learn something from some countries in the European Union where unemployment is already exceptionally low.
I believe, then, that in this context there should be greater flexibility in the labour market, measures such as modernisation of the taxation and legal systems for employment, tax and other incentives for company investment, especially in the case of SMEs, completion of the internal market and easier movement of working people, flexible working hours, reduction of non-salary costs, the promotion of active employment policies and not just emphasis on the unemployment fund, and finally, utilisation of resources and potentials for education and higher education via the European Social Fund, which I feel could be much more effective than it currently is.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Flynn">
I thank you, Mr van Velzen, for your report.
It is a stimulating document, containing a thorough examination of the key problems of the European Union labour market, and it certainly it has a number of very good and interesting proposals for future action.
<P>
A year ago I presented to Parliament the first set of employment guidelines.
I am very pleased to inform you that we have achieved very considerable progress and success since then.
All the Member States have lived up to the political commitments they made at Luxembourg last year.
The Commission, in its draft joint report for 1998, has duly reflected this progress by making national employment policies more structured and transparent, for instance by reporting on concrete funding for the NEPs and on monitoring and evaluation structures.
This progress is clearly in line with the proposals in Mr van Velzen's report.
<P>
In particular I am pleased to see that the messages of prevention and activation as guiding principles for employment policy have penetrated the thinking of the national authorities and the social partners.
Such principles have begun to be translated into concrete action, which the Member States have already started on this year.
I recognise and welcome this progress.
<P>
You all know that early intervention to prevent youth and long-term unemployment and the move from a curative to a preventative approach lie at the very heart of the strategy.
This is the key point Mr van Velzen has been making - that we have to have a preventative approach.
<P>
Concrete action has also been taken, for instance in reducing the number of young people leaving training and educational systems without adequate qualifications.
This point is made very forcefully by Mr van Velzen and by Mr Thomas Mann and I agree wholeheartedly.
You will notice, Mr van Velzen, that in our recommendation for the 1999 guidelines, life-long learning is a key issue for consideration at Vienna.
What we are saying in the new guidelines is that we want to increase the number getting access to the labour market, in particular older workers.
Not enough attention has been paid to that point and the report supports us on that.
<P>
I should just draw your attention to a remark in the employment rates report, that high employment rates depend on educational attainment.
That must be a key feature in the development of these policies by the Member States.
<P>
We are talking about improving the environment for enterprise, encouraging and assisting business start-ups, coordination between the relevant authorities in the Member States, making the social partners more aware of their potential contribution, developing the adaptability pillar, introducing tax reforms to reduce the tax burden on labour, promoting greater awareness of the avoidance of gender segregation and facilitating access to the labour market for all.
Here I would refer Mrs Van Lancker's comments on women in the labour market.
In fact the employment rates report deals with this very point.
I would just like to draw to your attention, Mrs Van Lancker, that equality is now a key element in our strategy.
You will notice that we are not just talking about mainstreaming, we are talking about a horizontal issue and not just relying on the fourth pillar in support of your point.
Your comments and those of the House have been taken fully into consideration.
<P>
The draft joint report identifies these encouraging developments, but that is just the beginning and there is a long way to go.
We need to involve the social partners more fully at all levels and to foster and develop a strong partnership approach at local level, promoting employment entrepreneurship and local economic development, especially in the services sector.
I agree entirely with what Mrs Ojala said about the services sector.
You will notice that in the employment rates report, where we draw the comparison between what happens in the United States and what happens in the European Union, the key issue is that we have not developed the services sector as they have done in the United States.
In the European Union 39.2 % are employed in the services sector, in the United States it is 54 %.
That is a big difference.
<P>
We need to work out new options for lowering taxation on labour compatible with the overall macroeconomic strategy for stable growth and raising employment in the EMU, to devise and implement more concrete action to develop equal opportunities in our labour markets for women, disabled people and immigrants.
<P>
Your report, Mr van Velzen, puts forward a wide range of suggestions for further developing the strategy.
I think that is going to happen.
The momentum is there.
I am pleased to tell you that many of your proposals and ideas have already been taken on board in our proposal for 1999.
You will see that reflected in the outcome of the Vienna Summit.
<P>
In its proposal for employment guidelines for 1999 the Commission has sought to consolidate the political momentum that has been gained this year.
You yourself said, Mr van Velzen, that there is a quiet revolution.
I would like to think that it was not so quiet.
But the momentum is there, the Member States have taken on the commitment and I believe that it is going to be very much strengthened after Vienna.
<P>
In the interests of consistency and continuity, there are very few adjustments of substance in the 1999 proposal.
It preserves the four pillar structure and the three Europe-wide operational targets.
Nevertheless it incorporates the orientations of the European Council at Cardiff and it draws from the assessment of the 1998 joint employment report and the employment rates report for 1998.
Some substantive additions and, in some cases, new guidelines aim at putting particular emphasis in 1999 on active measures: developing life-long learning, making the labour market more open to all, fully exploiting the jobs potential of the services sector and better reconciling work and family life.
<P>
The Commission has also identified a number of horizontal issues.
They include gender mainstreaming, the information society, undeclared work, the role of the structural funds, especially the social fund, local development and the need for improving common indicators and quantitative targets.
Moving in this direction requires realism and ambition.
Common targets require comparable statistics at European level and concrete action to improve the current state of such statistics will be proposed by the Commission in a specific report to the Vienna Summit.
<P>
This year's revision of the guidelines is, however, a good opportunity to further develop this dimension of the strategy.
The Commission has proposed a new target to be set individually by the Member States for increasing the number of workers benefiting from life-long learning.
Furthermore, the Member States are invited to set concrete targets for other guidelines according to their national priorities and possibilities.
<P>

Mrs Boogerd-Quaak and Mrs Todini referred to the Community financing initiatives for the EIB and the EIF.
I should just like to say that the EIB Edinburgh facility of the ECU 5b in loans to general infrastructure projects is ongoing.
The Copenhagen SME facility is in place and the facility has been fully taken up.
The growth and environment pilot project is in place for loans of perhaps ECU 1.6b.
The EIF is authorised to commit up to 20 % of its own funds.
The EIB's Amsterdam special action programme of ECU 1b to finance special action is also under way.
We would be happy to discuss these at any time in the future.
<P>
The 1999 joint employment report will for the first time attempt an evaluation of the impact of the NEPs.
It will be a test for all of us.
It is going to give the people of our Member States a tangible demonstration that we have moved from ideas to action and concrete results.
So the quiet revolution, Mr Van Velzen, is taking on quite a political momentum.
The strategy is there, we have targets, a timescale and a convergence policy.
We need better implementation, but I think we will be successful.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="van Velzen, Wim">
To start with, Commissioner, what a lucky fellow I am that everything I propose is already being planned by the Commission.
But that is not the point I wish to make.
You have heard a lot of speakers complaining here at the way in which we were obliged to prepare and amend this report.
The reason for that is the ridiculously short time which the European Parliament was given.
I would welcome the Commissioner's reaction to the suggestion which I make on this in paragraph 30 of my report.
How does he think we can solve the problem in future?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Flynn">
Mr President, we are stuck in a very tight time frame to deal with all of this.
Obviously, it is going to have to be considered further when the Treaty is ratified.
I cannot really say at this time how we are going to fit all of this in.
<P>
When you consider the reports coming next year in June - preparation for the Joint Annual Report, the Joint Employment Report - and meeting all the deadlines including the consultation report under the Treaty with Parliament later on, I cannot see yet how we are going to fit it in.
Some new arrangement is going to have to be entered into between the institutions to enable us to meet the time-scale so that we can be ready for the December summit each year.
We will have to consider how it is going to be done.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="President. -">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11.30 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Social action programme 1998-2000
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0381/98) by Mr Hughes, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Communication from the Commission: Social action programme 1998-2000 (COM(98)0259 - C4-0343/9)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Hughes">
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="President. -">
The debate is suspended and will be resumed at 3 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Schmid">
Mr President, I would like to briefly draw your attention and that of the House to the fact that the date change proposed by Amendment No 7 applies not only to Article 1(3) but also to Article 1(2).
It is the same date in both cases.
This is only logical.
<P>
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, I merely wish to make three remarks concerning the votes on the amendments.
<P>
With regard to Amendments Nos 29 and 30, these have been resubmitted because the expression 'sperimentazione non interventistica ' in the Italian version is incomprehensible, and the addition of 'observational studies' enables research to be conducted in centres which carry out research for purposes other than the registration of medicinal products.
<P>
Secondly, Amendment No 14 makes the wording of Article 7(2) incompatible with Article 7(3).
Amendment No 31 corrects this inconsistency without altering the spirit of Amendment No 14; I would therefore suggest voting on No 31 before No 14.
<P>
Finally, should Amendment No 35 be adopted, it will cause No 17 to fall. However, I believe that it should be considered before Amendment No 16, in that it would also cause the last paragraph of No 16 to fall, where it says 'the sponsor shall notify the competent authorities at the time of taking those measures'.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Liese">
Mr President, my request is for the different language versions of Amendments Nos 1 and 10 to be brought into line.
In committee we used the German text for the vote, and there I asked that the English version be aligned with it.
Now, however, the original German version of the amendments has also been changed for presentation to the House.
It is very important that we clarify that what we are voting on is what was adopted in committee in the original German version.
The German term in question is 'gesetzlicher Vertreter '.
It must be very clear that for individuals who are incapable of giving their informed consent, approval is given by their legal representative.
If this is not clear in the English translation, the English version can be brought into line by saying 'legally responsible person', but nothing other than 'der gesetzliche Vertreter ' can be written in the German version, as this was used for the vote in committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valverde López">
Mr President, as we are currently dealing with general remarks and so as not to interrupt the vote later, I should like to point out, with respect to Amendment No 7, that there is a discrepancy between some of the translations.
When the term ' Doctor' is used in a general sense, colloquially, it ought to be understood to mean a medical doctor.
There are of course also Doctors of Architecture, Chemistry, Engineering and so on.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, as we decided in principle in Amendment No 28, which we adopted by a large majority, that research may only be carried out on persons incapable of giving informed consent if it is guaranteed that this is for his or her direct benefit, I request that we ask the Commission before the final vote what its opinion is on this amendment.
I believe it will also be decisive for later votes, not only for the Commission and the Council but also for Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="President">
Mrs Breyer, your comment is somewhat unorthodox because such statements are the province of the rapporteur, not of other Members.
I would not like to follow it up, though it will be noted in the Minutes.
<P>
After the approval of the Commission proposal
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, I merely wished to say thank you and to appeal to the Commission to show sensitivity.
The overwhelming majority of this House has made certain requests, and I believe that such pressure must be taken into account.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Fabra Vallés">
Mr President, I should like to clarify two points in connection with Amendments Nos 1 and 2.
Both of these relate to the reinsertion of text that was part of my document prior to the vote in committee.
There is a significant difference between the two amendments, however.
Amendment No 1 involves reinserting material that I myself deleted following a compromise reached with Mrs Wemheuer, the Socialist spokesperson.
I would therefore ask the House to support this compromise, and recommend that they vote against the amendment.
<P>
Amendment No 2 also involves the reinsertion of text into the report.
In this case, however, the text concerned was deleted following the adoption of an amendment to delete it.
So in this instance, the rapporteur's position is to recommend a free vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I would like to make a general comment to point out to you, since I am aware of how fond you are of procedural motions, that two groups have requested split votes on this text: the first has asked for 13 split votes, and the second has asked for 23 split votes.
I would like to make it clear that the request does not come from our group.
So you see that all the groups can make use of the rights they are granted by the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
As regards what our rapporteur, Mr Fabra Vallés, has just said, I would point out that Amendment No 1 is an addition to the compromise text.
It does not therefore contradict the compromise text that has been adopted in committee.
Moreover, as regards Amendment No 2, it seems to me that, in the German version of the text, the verb 'prévient ' is not translated correctly.
It appears that the German version uses the term 'stellt ', from the verb 'stellen ', when it should be 'warnt ', from the verb 'warnen '.
I think that we should correct this version in line with the French text.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
I would like to say that it was never my intention to suggest that your group is the only one to request split votes.
Other groups ask for them as well.
It sometimes happens that a slip of the tongue can give a false impression.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, I have two minor comments.
Firstly, you say that the Conference of Presidents has decided that this report cannot refer to Article 206, which means that the reference must be deleted from the motion for a resolution. Otherwise what would happen is that, although we are not voting by absolute majority as required under Article 206, the reference would still be made.
Since Article 188c of the Treaty deals with precisely these matters, it should be included in the report.
<P>
Secondly, I wish to highlight a linguistic problem in recital T. The French expression 'ladite enquête administrative ' has been translated into Italian as 'la cosiddetta indagine amministrativa ', whereby 'ladite ' has become 'soi-disant '.
I would ask that the Italian version be corrected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="President">
Mr Dell'Alba, I have noted your comment.
<P>
We will continue with the votes, and to avoid upsetting Mr Fabre-Aubrespy I will mention that this time, most of the separate votes were requested by the Socialist Group.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Evans">
Mr President, if I could just ask you, on a point of order, whether it is within the rules or against the rules for Members to conduct lengthy telephone conversations on their mobile phones.
Mr McMillan-Scott is doing so and I would like to draw that to your attention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="President">
Mr Evans, you are quite right.
Other colleagues of mine and I too have repeatedly requested from this platform that when voting is in progress, telephone conversations should not be taking place on mobile phones.
I do not know how urgent that telephone call was for Mr McMillan-Scott, but in cases of urgent need Members can leave the Chamber so that they are not on the phone while voting is in progress.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, our group voted against the report by Mr Fabra Vallés.
Yesterday, I said how well this report illustrated the scandal that we all know about surrounding the affair of the MED programmes and I gave the reasons why we agreed with the content of the report. However, I did say that we needed to make some changes, as we said earlier, to bring it back into line with the text proposed by the rapporteur.
<P>
We have known since last spring exactly what this scandal involves.
On two occasions, Parliament called on the Commission to forward the entire file to the national judicial authorities so that they could decide themselves whether or not the matter did indeed come under their jurisdiction.
As yet, the Commission has only forwarded part of the file.
In so doing, it leads us to suspect that it wants to cover up certain unlawful practices because some of its officials could be involved in them.
<P>
What is more, the Commission is required, in accordance with Article 206 of the Treaty, to do all in its power to follow up on the comments that accompany the discharge procedure, and that is what is at issue now.
Is the majority in Parliament going to take the next logical step after its repeated condemnations of this affair, or is it just going to accept that it has been wasting its efforts?
When we read that plans are now being made to initiate proceedings and that our Amendment No 1 is being rejected, which merely warned the Commission once again that we were going to refuse to grant discharge if it did not respond to our requests, we certainly get the impression that Parliament is going to give in again.
<P>
Along with my colleagues, I must welcome the fact that 102 Members voted against this report, probably for the same reasons we did.
In the Committee on Budgetary Control, I was the only one to vote against.
These 102 Members have shown through their vote the role they hope to make Parliament play.
<P>
Pirker report (A4-0390/98)
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Palm">
This report proposes that Europol should have direct access to the customs information system.
A federal police force, lacking any democratic accountability, has no attractions for me and I certainly cannot endorse granting it powers of this kind.
For more detailed arguments, please refer to my explanation of vote on report A-0396/98.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Theorin and Wibe">
This report proposes that Europol should have direct access to the customs information system.
A federal police force, lacking any democratic accountability, has no attractions for us and we certainly cannot endorse granting it powers of this kind.
<P>
Schmid recommendation (A4-0377/98)
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Andersson and Lööw">
We thank Mr Schmid for producing such a thorough and pertinent report.
Regulating Internet use is a sensitive matter, and it is necessary to proceed with extreme caution.
The Internet facilitates global contact between individuals. Ideally, the flow of information should be unhindered and free from regulation.
This report calls for a necessary degree of self-regulation, primarily in order to pre-empt exploitation of the Internet for criminal purposes, such as the dissemination of child pornography.
<P>
The rapporteur's proposals complement the Commission's initial text. We particularly welcome the calls for European quality labelling and the approximation of substantive provisions in criminal law.
Common definitions should prevent child pornography rings, for example, from exploiting differences in legislation in pursuit of their vile and degrading activities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Blak and Kirsten Jensen">
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of an EU action plan to promote self-regulation, develop filtering and classification systems and encourage information activities and support measures.
We are very much in favour of providing financial support for moves to restrict violence and pornography on the Internet.
However, we have voted against a common European quality label awarded by the Commission.
It is not the Commission's role to decide on the morality of material.
We have also voted against harmonisation of civil and criminal law in the Member States.
Legal practice in the Member States reflects the different national cultures and traditions in terms of what should be censored and how it should be punished.
It is important to distinguish between what is illegal and what is offensive or damaging to morals.
<P>
We need to have European cooperation to combat illegal material such as child pornography.
In this area, we should extend the competence of Europol as soon as possible, so that we can combat international networks which produce, sell and distribute pornography of this kind.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Blokland">
My reaction to the common position of the Council was one of ambivalence.
<P>
On the one hand, I am glad that efforts are being made to counter 'pollution' of the Internet as effectively as possible.
Cooperation between the Member States is altogether essential here.
<P>
On the other hand, I remain very critical of the artificial, not to say spurious distinction generally made between 'illegal' and 'harmful' material.
Child pornography is illegal, whilst adult pornography is merely harmful to children.
But the appalling and abhorrent extent of sexual abuse against women and children ought to make us take a more realistic view of things.
<P>
I voted for the amendment to develop a European 'quality-site label'.
If we first have self-regulation on the part of service providers and personal responsibility on the part of Internet users, everything should be done to facilitate this.
<P>
I did not support the proposed amendment to have legal questions ruled on at Community level.
After all, the law varies from Member State to Member State in respect of the limits placed on freedom of expression.
I think it would be a waste of energy trying to persuade the Council to change its mind on this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Buffetaut">
The development of the Internet has rapidly presented us with a difficult problem: how can we prevent this new means of communication from being used for unlawful purposes such as prostitution, paedophilia and the dissemination of theories or doctrines that do not respect human dignity, without establishing a system of censorship?
<P>
The only realistic method was to take action with the Internet providers.
The Community action plan is based around this idea, particularly through codes of conduct developed by self-regulatory bodies.
<P>
In this respect, the European Parliament had proposed, at first reading, the creation of a European quality label for suppliers of Internet services complying with these rules.
The Commission did not adopt this idea and that is unfortunate.
We therefore welcomed the fact that this amendment was tabled again.
<P>
Finally, since the legal questions raised by the content or use of the Internet are difficult, the Council has reserved the possibility of issuing an invitation to tender in order to assess these difficulties.
Parliament wishes to go further and to make this initiative compulsory so that these studies can begin immediately.
The Council's position seems to be more sensible, and we should only undertake these studies if there truly is a need to do so.
<P>
In conclusion, I would like to say that the same applies to the Internet as to all means of communication: it is the reflection of a civilisation, of a general state of mind.
It is in some ways the mirror of our society, its tensions, its contradictions, its hedonism and its amorality, but also its creativity and the need to break the personal solitude and misery that the materialism and individualism of our time so often bring with them.
<P>
If the images we receive over the Internet are not always pleasant, we should ask ourselves why.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Seillier">
The Internet is the same as all the tools invented by man: it can be used for both good and bad purposes.
The report by Mr Schmid relates to an action plan to promote safer use of the Internet.
But in what way would it be safer?
Let us come out and say it: from a moral viewpoint, since other reports have dealt with the protection of consumers' interests as regards electronic commerce.
It is a matter of protecting particularly young people who use the Internet from pornography, disguised offers of prostitution and the risks of traffic in human beings.
What is more, these risks are very real, with all due respect to our colleagues who protested at the censorship in the action plan.
<P>
In any case, it would appear to be essential to promote self-regulation by those involved in the profession through the adoption of charters and codes of good conduct.
We must also encourage research to improve the techniques that allow us to identify the chain of responsibilities in order to place the liability for illegal content on those who create or distribute it, for no-one must be able to say: 'I am only an access provider'.
<P>
Moreover, we must remember once again that we should class all pornography as illegal, not only child pornography.
Whether it involves adults or children, it is just as shocking to consider the human body as a sexual object to be exploited.
<P>
Amadeo report (A4-0407/98)
<SPEAKER ID=94 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Mr President, I abstained from the vote on the Amadeo report although I consider the report itself to be a very good one.
I did this to protest against the fact that in particular the Group of the Party of European Socialists rejected Amendment No 36.
The amendment is worded in such a way as to allow a type of disciplinary committee of the professional representation or a committee of the national professional representation to be convened in the event of a breach by the doctor conducting the trial.
I believe that, where a problem arises, it is the right of doctors, who do so much for all of us, to have a professional representative that can be informed, make a case for and stand by the doctors.
I regret this attitude of hostility towards doctors that is shown by the Group of the Party of European Socialists and I wished to protest against this by abstaining from the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Blokland">
'In Europe there is a diversity of cultural traditions. Equally, there is diversity in religious beliefs.'
That is what the European Commission says in its proposal for a directive on the introduction of good clinical practice.
This pronouncement was an important starting-point for me in deciding where I stood on the clinical trials directive.
<P>
Decisions on whether or not clinical trials are ethical are the province of the Member States, precisely because of this cultural and religious diversity.
This is an important issue, and decisions on whether or not to authorise clinical trials cannot be taken just like that.
Ethics committees can never carry as much authority as national governments.
<P>
Moreover, each Member State has developed its own system for allowing or not allowing trials.
The industry is familiar with them.
They are afraid that a European directive will create a lack of clarity and thus an additional link in the chain of decision- making on clinical testing.
In this way we are making the European market less attractive.
<P>
These considerations prompted me, following the adoption of Amendments Nos 13, 14 and 15, to vote against the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Bonde, Lis Jensen and Sandbæk">
We have today voted against the Amadeo report on the implementation of good clinical practice in the conduct of clinical trials on medicinal products for human use.
We believe that the Member States themselves should be able to decide how to organise their health systems, and that there should be no harmonisation of health policy at EU level.
We therefore cannot support the undermining of the Member States' competence in this area through an EU directive, or the undermining of national systems which work perfectly well because of a desire to lay down standards by law at EU level.
We cannot vote in favour of a proposal which would mean increased bureaucracy and higher costs for existing national systems which already efficiently handle applications for the authorisation of trials of medicinal products for human use.
However, we have decided to vote in favour of those amendments which deal solely with the protection of trial subjects and their rights.
<P>
The report is far too vague about the procedures associated with applying to begin a clinical trial, and we do not think it is justifiable that the new ethics committees are exclusively able to authorise trials, without consulting the national authorities.
The time limits set out in the report for communicating authorisations are unreasonably short, and mean that it is not possible to carry out a thorough assessment of the applications as is required.
We therefore cannot support the proposal that clinical trials of medicinal products can be begun if authorisation has not been given by the expiry of the time limit.
It is unacceptable to us that clinical trials of medicinal products for human use can be started under any circumstances without being directly authorised by the Member States, but simply once the authorities have been notified.
<P>
The proposal will cause a reduction in the level of health protection in those cases where the Member States are obliged to give authorisation for trials on the basis of the time limits in the directive, even if the national authorities have still not completed a more thorough assessment of the application.
We shall always oppose EU rules in the health sector which produce a lower level of health protection in the Member States in this way.
As is quite rightly pointed out in the Commission's proposal for a directive, ethical principles reflect the culture, traditions and expectations of our peoples, and we also think that the Commission should respect these.
We will not play a part in enabling the EU to harmonise national ethical judgements.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR)">
There is no justification for the Commission's proposal for authorisation to be given before clinical trials may commence.
A straightforward application procedure should suffice.
<P>
Schmid report (A4-0396/98)
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Andersson and Lööw">
We are grateful to the rapporteur for producing a good and thorough text.
Given the transfrontier dimension of fraud and counterfeiting, there is a clear need for the countries of the Union to cooperate in combating such crime - especially when it comes to protecting the euro against counterfeiters.
The report offers some imaginative suggestions as to how the Commission's proposal might be rendered more precise.
As regards the role of Europol, we can support the relevant amendments for the specific purpose they are designed to serve: namely to combat fraud and the counterfeiting of means of payment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Caudron">
Given the emergence of electronic commerce that is developing on the Internet, the report by our colleague Gerhard Schmid has come at just the right time to warn us of the risks of fraud that we can already see growing.
<P>
I believe that the text should enable us to limit the amount of fraud, even if it cannot put a stop to all attempted fraud on its own.
<P>
Moreover, it is vital for the Member States to coordinate their judicial policies, for this type of crime will undoubtedly tend to develop on the global network.
As it has done already.
In this respect, we must speed up the talks we are holding with our partners in the framework of the WTO.
<P>
It is not unreasonable to think that countries that are very conciliatory towards certain networks involved in serious crime might kindly welcome these new types of criminals.
To fight them effectively, the international community must not only mobilise itself but must also have the means available to ensure that a minimum standard is applied in every country.
<P>
It is indeed necessary to coordinate all those involved in these new means of payment, but we must also encourage the use of encryption in payment transactions.
Equally, the use of credit cards at home can be made secure though the use of an individual terminal.
The first trials in this respect seem encouraging.
<P>
But there is a great deal yet to be done and time is moving on.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Gahrton, Holm and Schörling">
We are not in favour of economic and monetary union and would rather it never came about. EMU signals a major political step in the direction of a 'Greater Europe'.
Eleven out of the 15 Member States are more or less sure to go ahead, however, and we accept that the consequences will have to be dealt with as best as possible.
<P>
This report deals with protecting the euro against counterfeiting, and we appreciate the need to introduce an effective system for pre-empting the forging of bank notes.
Close cooperation between the national police authorities will be essential - and with Interpol, since the euro will also be circulating outside the eleven participating countries.
We therefore see the logic of supporting this report, despite our fundamental disapproval of EMU as a political project.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR), Seppänen, Sjöstedt and Svensson (GUE/NGL), Bonde, Lis Jensen and Sandbæk (I-EDN)">
We are unable to support this report.
We are opposed to harmonisation in the legal sector and see this report as the beginning of cooperation in the area of criminal law.
Amongst other things, we are concerned at the proposal for a common European definition of what constitute criminal offences.
The current differences in definitions are a reflection of differences in culture and legal traditions, and they should be maintained.
<P>
We are also deeply concerned at the part of the proposal which relates to the Member States exchanging information on people who have been convicted of breaking the law in this area.
The Commission document on which the report is based contains many sensible elements which respect the Member States' sovereignty in this area of criminal law.
Unfortunately, this does not alter the fact that other parts of it may provide a basis for EU cooperation on criminal law being developed in the longer term, and we are opposed to this form of cooperation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Palm">
<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, on behalf of the German delegation in the Group of the European People's Party, but also on behalf of the Austrian and some other delegations - for example, the Luxembourgish delegation - I would like to say that some of us voted against the Cederschiöld report and some abstained from the vote because it is our opinion that this report was rendered unacceptable by the adoption of the socialists' amendment on the introduction of voting rights for foreigners.
The text contravenes our own constitution and the Treaties because we are exceeding our authority here, and it contravenes the constitutions of a number of Member States, such as Germany, that expressly prohibit it; it is a pity that this does such a disservice to the serious concerns expressed by Mrs Cederschiöld in her excellent report.
We therefore felt obliged to vote against this report although we fully agree with the report's concerns.
But we must reject the text of the amendment, which certainly does not belong in the report, as totally unacceptable.
It is our opinion that it is basically unlawful because it is inconsistent with the legal system of the European Union and of a number of Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Andersson and Lööw">
The need for joint action to combat and prevent organised crime cannot be overstated, and we welcome the Council's initiative in this field.
The report from the committee responsible brings some useful improvements to the original text.
<P>
The purpose of our explanation of vote is to express some reticence with regard to the rapporteur's paragraph 6.
We find the wording somewhat infelicitous, since it would be inappropriate to seek to infringe the media's inalienable right to make independent judgements as to editorial content.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Berthu">
The report by Mrs Cederschiöld on crime prevention is full of good intentions, and we can but say that it is unfortunate that the European Union is not paying more heed to them.
It says, for example, that we need 'a strengthening of a sense of community' through the promotion of 'families, kindergartens, schools, churches and leisure associations'. We also need to encourage 'the absorption of laws and values in the family socialisation process' and, finally, we need to maintain a feeling of belonging to a neighbourhood so as to form a 'sense of local area', which will encourage citizens to feel responsible for what happens in their common area.
<P>
All these intentions are excellent, and we can only regret the fact that the European Union is doing the contrary by trying to destabilise all communities, from the nation, through standardisation and integration, to the family, by fighting against discrimination on grounds of 'sexual orientation'.
Similarly, we do not see how it could be possible to promote a sense of belonging to a local neighbourhood at a time when the European Union is advocating mobility on an international scale as the greatest of virtues and when it is establishing, moreover, all the policies that will mean that this is absolutely necessary in the future.
<P>
However, we cannot support the section of the Cederschiöld report relating to immigrants, which has been made even worse by an amendment.
It says that the European Parliament wishes to guarantee them 'the introduction of voting rights at communal level after a certain period of legal residence', according to the same conditions as apply for citizens of the European Union.
We can see here a glimpse of the old idea promoted by certain federalist camps that nationals of third countries should have at least some of the rights of European citizens.
We believe that those who wish to vote in a country, at whatever level, must apply for nationality of that country.
They must share the destiny of a country - that is, hold its nationality - if they want to be involved in its decisions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="Blak and Kirsten Jensen">
The Danish Social Democrats have voted in favour of this report on the prevention of organised crime.
We have voted in favour of calling on the Member States to develop national programmes in the areas of job creation, health, education and social policy, and of improving the European cooperation which already exists in this sector.
However, we believe that this report is somewhat superfluous.
It is not particularly ambitious, and it is time that we proceeded instead with a practical and binding form of cooperation which really is capable of preventing organised crime.
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<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Hager">
In principle I support all measures to combat organised crime, both repressive and preventive measures.
The current scale of organised crime makes all conceivable initiatives necessary.
Nevertheless, in my opinion the report goes beyond the stated aim, which is to draft guidelines and measures for the prevention of organised crime.
In several points in paragraph 7, for example, measures to prevent organised crime are confused with measures to prevent small-scale crime.
<P>
Apart from the fact that in my opinion it is not the task of the European Union to make such detailed statements on these issues, I also reject some points because of their content (the introduction of voting rights at local level for foreigners, giving priority to crime prevention projects in the context of the reform of the Structural Funds, attaching increased importance to alternative forms of reaction).
Despite this, I voted in favour of the report in the final vote because in my view the positive aspects outweigh the negative, and I would simply like to make it clear that this approval does not apply to all points.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Jensen, Lis">
We cannot support the Cederschiöld report, even thoughwe fully sympathise with its view that combating crime does not just involve tackling the crime which currently exists, but also social prevention, for example.
In this context, we can only deplore the adverse social effects of the EMU policy on large sections of the EU's population, while the convergence demands made on national budgets by EMU will indeed make it difficult for the Member States to carry through many of the sound proposals contained in the Cederschiöld report.
We are voting in favour of all the report's good advice to the Member States, but we are strongly opposed to all those elements which point to EU harmonisation of this sector, whether now or in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="Palm">
This is a good report overall.
Mrs Cederschiöld manages to come to grips with many of the problems connected with organised crime, but two important elements are missing.
<P>
My first caveat is that no real account is given of the huge social problems underlying criminal behaviour.
What we need is an analysis of the way in which greater divisions in society and mass unemployment are generating organised crime.
<P>
The second shortcoming is a consequence of the first.
Flawed premises lead to faulty conclusions, as we find on occasion in this report.
Special reference is made to the importance of 'civil society' and the role of the individual in reducing organised crime.
I have no faith in such an approach.
Welfare and equality are the prerequisites for cutting crime.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Theorin and Wibe">
There are many good suggestions and interesting ideas in this report.
The rapporteur fails nonetheless to mention the prime causes of both organised and non-organised crime: poverty, destitution, large income discrepancies and, of course, unemployment.
<P>
In paragraph 7, she expresses the view that we can combat organised crime by encouraging 'voluntary service for social policy objectives and the communication of values through private socialisation' - by setting up kindergartens and schools, for example.
Such things are always possible, but it would be far preferable to build up a strong public sector, financed by taxation and capable of offering the fundamental facilities of society to everyone.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="President">
That concludes Voting Time.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 1.10 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Social action programme 1998-2000 (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report by Mr Hughes on the communication from the Commission on the social action programme 1998-2000.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Mann, Thomas">
Mr President, a model for political action in Europe is the market economy, or at least the social market economy.
An element of the work of unification is cohesion, both economic and social.
And the single market, which as a result of the euro will become the home market, will only be complete when this social dimension is in place.
The Commission's Social Action Programme therefore has an important status even in principle, and not only for unemployed, excluded, disabled and disadvantaged persons.
It creates the general conditions for new fields of responsibility in social policy, particularly in employment.
<P>
For this reason it is particularly regrettable that it is only a medium-term strategy until 2000.
The opportunity to make a longer-term arrangement until 2006 was missed, but this is what we need in view of EU enlargement and the rapidly changing age structure.
Equal opportunities is one of the four pillars of the NAPs.
The Commission mentions it only randomly, however, instead of devoting a chapter to it.
Mainstreaming is not given sufficient attention either.
It deserves more than lip-service and is too significant to be restricted to employment and social protection.
Gender mainstreaming is relevant to health and safety at work, demography, new work organisation and other areas.
<P>
We thank Stephen Hughes, the rapporteur for the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, for his excellent report.
He has also accepted some of the demands of the Committee on Women's Rights, such as the directive on equal treatment between women and men in social security schemes, the social protection statute for assisting spouses and the evaluation reports on the health and safety of pregnant women and on equal pay for work of equal value.
We were able to integrate other issues into the report on Leonardo and the report on the European Structural Funds.
<P>
We call upon the Commission to take the initiative in the following areas: child care in the Member States, improved access for women to education, and the provision of new information on the situation of women in the applicant countries, both on the labour market and in society.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Weiler">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of my group I would firstly like to thank Stephen Hughes for his report, which is a good and balanced one, as we have come to expect from him.
The Commission communication, however, contains an assortment of good ideas that have been put into practice but only very modest plans for the future.
The large discrepancy between Annex I and Annex II is perhaps symptomatic of this.
The debate about the new Social Action Programme is taking place in the context of the Amsterdam Treaty; this means that the new instruments - the employment chapter, the Protocol on Social Policy, Article 13 on anti-discrimination and the instrument of social dialogue - should in future ensure a new quality for Europe's social policy.
<P>
However, when I consider the Commission plans I am very sceptical.
They contain too many non-binding measures instead of new proposals to expand European legislation.
The consequences of European monetary union, of the euro and of enlargement to the east, on which our committee has often asked for information, are not mentioned.
Coordination of the guidelines and economic policy is imprecise and non-binding.
Two of the three main areas are also absolutely inadequate.
We consider the participation of workers to be relevant to the subject of the world of work in relation to modernisation, but at the moment it seems that the debate on information and consultation of workers has disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle of the Council.
<P>
The second area is that of exclusion.
Citizens have lost a great deal of faith in us due to the irresponsible behaviour of the Council of Ministers in this area, and incidentally the poverty reports demanded by Parliament are not mentioned.
<P>
The third area is that of jobs and mobility, and here I must in fact praise the Commission.
Many points have already been discussed this morning in the context of the van Velzen report.
However, the courageous decision made by the Commission on the issue of free movement was the right one.
If you continue in this way, including in other legislation, you will be able to count on the support of our committee and my group.
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<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Pronk">
Mr President, I too must thank Mr Hughes very sincerely for all the work he has put into this actually quite slim report.
I think we have a new process here.
He has said as much himself this morning, a new process in our cooperation with the Commission, namely that we look first at what an action programme of this kind might contain and then pass it over to the Commission, which then shapes it into an action programme of its own or at least adopts it as one element of its own programme.
<P>
I think it has worked well.
And I do not think there are too many problems.
We have one amendment concerning a relatively minor detail.
So there are no differences of opinion as far as the main substance of the report is concerned.
I agree really with Mrs Weiler that the Commission's proposals are somewhat on the lean side, that there is not all that much to them.
<P>
This brings us really to the only major difference we have with the European Commission, namely the time frame we have for this action programme.
The time frame, which is above all limited to what is covered by the current mandate of the Commission, is too short.
We cannot know exactly when the Amsterdam Treaty will come into force.
We know the Amsterdam Treaty creates many new opportunities precisely in the very sensitive and important area of social and employment policy.
That has not really been taken into account.
<P>
What makes no sense, and what I want to ask the Commissioner, is this: how can it be that the Commission has very far-reaching plans with regard to Agenda 2000, so far-reaching that it is virtually impossible for the Council to agree them, but that in this relatively simple, straightforward area it refuses to go beyond its own mandate?
I think these things are very hard to reconcile, because social policy will be important not only within the European Union of today, but also in our dealings with the new states which will be joining the European Union early in the next millennium.
And unless we have our house in order, unless we have clearly established what constitutes the acquis communautaire , we shall have a lot of problems.
Those problems could be greater than the problems in all the other areas which we cover in such breadth.
So this is a missed opportunity.
I would actually have been far happier if the Commission had gone along with what we suggested, namely working to a longer time scale.
Then we could take the Amsterdam Treaty fully on board, and if we did that we should advance a little further in the social field and show the public some results from our social and employment policy, not just what has been achieved already, but what is likely to be achieved soon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR).">
Mr President, let me begin by stressing how important it is that jobs and employment policy are now to receive the treatment they deserve at EU level. European cooperation has too long been dominated by competition, the market, trade policy and so on.
<P>
There is, however, a problem.
Perhaps I will not have my whole group behind me in what I am about to say, but I am not convinced that EMU is the way forward on jobs.
An abiding anti-inflationary strategy - in the current climate of low inflation throughout most of Europe - could in fact cause more problems than it solves on the employment front.
I feel that we should be looking for alternative ways of improving the unemployment situation, focusing on an interplay between economic and employment policy.
<P>
The social dialogue, social policy cooperation and the action programme are important instruments for highlighting political issues and analysing problems. We need all this in order to understand the causes of exclusion, poverty, unemployment, discrimination and globalisation.
If we are to preserve socially viable societies, the big questions must be looked at from a long-term perspective.
<P>
My position possibly differs somewhat from the general committee view in this respect.
I would tend more towards supporting the Commission's approach.
Many of us in my group feel that these are matters to be dealt with primarily by the individual Member States. Decisions on the rights of individuals belong within the realm of domestic policy.
Furthermore, I believe that partnership, mutual support, positive incentives and setting a good example count for just as much as Europe-wide legislation.
Provided all these elements are handled properly, equally good results can be achieved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hermange">
Mr President, I would firstly like to congratulate the chairman of our committee on this important report and echo his support for the Commission communication on this new social action programme that presents significant new areas for intervention.
I would like to say that I agree with and I thank the rapporteur for proposing the inclusion of a bill of rights at the next revision of the Treaties, as requested by many associations as well as our fellow citizens.
I can tell you that the President of France at least is very much in favour of this as part of refocusing the Treaties and the necessary changes to the institutional set-up of the Union for enlargement.
<P>
I would also like to emphasise how important we feel it is to promote every aspect of the social dialogue and European civil dialogue. This is the way to make those taking part in social dialogue more representative, particularly the SMEs which account for more than 66 % of all jobs in France today.
<P>
I would like to emphasise another aspect of participation.
I am referring here, Commissioner, to participation in the profits and results of companies, particularly in its most perfect form, that is, employee share ownership. This is not mentioned in the social action programme despite the fact that its development seems to me to be an important element in modernising labour relations.
That is why I am calling on the Commission to encourage the development of this form of participation, which is both beneficial to the competitiveness of companies and fulfilling for employees.
<P>
Those are the few comments I wanted to make on behalf of the UPE Group on this important report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Mr President, I too would like to thank our committee chairman for all the work he has put into this report.
He has my support in his criticism of the fact that the action plan will cover only three years and not run the full five to 2006, as originally envisaged.
Forward planning and a long-term perspective are essential here.
<P>
I am also a little disappointed that the civil dialogue, which we well and truly need, was deemed to be dispensable.
The Commission appears content with the European social policy forums held every other year, although these are far from adequate.
It is a great pity that neither home working nor the general issue of equal opportunities are included in the action plan. An amendment from my group seeks to remedy this.
<P>
I do not share the rapporteur's disappointment over the Commission's proposal for greater resort to 'soft law'.
This is an acceptable way forward, preferably in combination with commitment to the civil dialogue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Jensen, Lis">
Mr President, when I read the Commission's Social Action Programme 1998-2000 and the Hughes report on it, an expression which is often used in Denmark came to mind: this is the thin end of the wedge.
And why was that?
Well, the fact is that when someone says 'A' in the European Union, it is not long before the whole alphabet has been used.
This is also clearly illustrated by this report, as when the rapporteur states that there is a need for an action programme which is 'more explicitly a political document rather than simply a list of intended actions'.
And when a concept like 'the European social model' is used from time to time, then in my view we have taken far too many steps in the wrong direction.
Because what is the European social model?
It does not exist in reality, although it certainly does in the imaginations of most of the Members of Parliament.
That does nothing to make it any more real, however.
There is a huge gulf between fantasy and reality in this system, and everyone should face that fact before the next step is taken.
Think of the people out there in the Member States who cannot identify with the fantasy world of the EU, and who in many ways have hardly any idea of what is going on down here.
<P>
There are great differences between north and south in the EU, and these are both cultural and economic.
For example, there is a major difference in terms of women's participation in the labour market and as regards the provision of care for children and the elderly.
There is a different basis for social policy in the individual countries.
In some, it is largely geared to families and private schemes, whereas in others it is based on the public sector.
In Denmark and the rest of Scandinavia, the dominant principle is that of solidarity - and continues to be, I have to say.
But we are seeing in Denmark too how things are changing towards a more personal system, in which it is up to individuals to save and take out insurance for themselves.
This is a new and not particularly welcome trend, in my opinion.
It is also one which has not just taken place because the majority of the population want it, but also because Denmark is a member of the EU and is therefore trying to approximate Danish social policy to the concept referred to as the European social model.
This is a foolish and mistaken development, and one which is dangerous for democracy in our individual countries.
<P>
It is stated in the Commission's proposal and in the report that the introduction of the European social model is important in relation to the internal market and EMU.
I refuse to accept a social principle which is based on the principles of the internal market, where it is reasons of competition which determine what kind of social policy is pursued.
That does not imply any particular kind of solidarity.
And in conclusion, I would say that it must continue to be the individual Member States that decide for themselves what kind of social policy they wish to pursue in their countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="McMahon">
Mr President, I wish to join with the others in congratulating the rapporteur.
I also welcome Commissioner Flynn, who has been unstinting in his efforts to encourage a very close dialogue between the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the Commission in this area.
<P>
Turning to the Hughes report and to the future of the social action programme, I should like to make a few brief comments.
At a time of unprecedented political change in Europe, we should not only consolidate but also strengthen the social dimension and update it for the next century.
We face three tremendous challenges in the European Union at the moment: the advent of economic and monetary union, enlargement and the policy to combat large-scale unemployment.
When we add this to the demographic trends within the European Union, global economic change and technological innovation, we can see that we are facing considerable challenges.
I agree with Bartho Pronk and Barbara Weiler that it is regrettable the Commission has only really planned for an action programme up to the year 2000, which is just over 18 months away.
We need something longer term, particularly as the Amsterdam Treaty - which has not yet been ratified in all the Member States - will have greater powers in the social area than any previous Treaty.
<P>
The social action programme should form the heart of Europe's social policy agenda.
Like everyone else, I welcome the Commission's emphasis on employment creation but this is not only a panacea for the European Union.
We need to strive to develop policies to help people who are unemployed, excluded or less fortunate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendonça">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Hughes report that we are debating today, welcoming the Commission's new social action programme, makes such major changes that it virtually transforms the subject into a debate on the European social policy in its broadest sense.
Creating a genuine European welfare society, with an improved quality of life and strong social cohesion, calls for the drafting and subsequent implementation, in practical and objective terms, of a political document reflecting the new status of a European Union social and employment policy, something that has already been acknowledged.
<P>
Regrettably, instead of covering a longer period, 1998-2006, the timetable has been limited to 1998-2000, hampering the issues of employment and other social matters in Community policy.
The European Union's new economic framework, resulting from the completion of the Single Market and the new monetary policy, which is about to come into effect, makes interaction between economic policy and social policy all the more important and accentuates the need to consolidate relations between EMU, the Single Market, the cohesion policy and effective social and employment policies.
<P>
The new social action programme, as a strong component of a European social policy, should be taken on board by all the European institutions, by the Member States and by the social partners, stressing the importance of more objective and decisive ways of bringing about civil dialogue in the future.
<P>
The report emphasises the need to strengthen the existing legislative framework, particularly in the areas of labour organisation, workers' individual and collective rights and social measures aimed at regulating a free market economy.
However, we should not neglect legal arrangements for tackling serious problems lingering as a consequence of demographic trends, racism, poverty and social exclusion, for example.
This report has our support since, in our view, it should lead on to new and far-reaching discussions about the future of European social policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, my colleague, Mr Hughes, has produced an excellent report.
We in the Green Group would like to make one or two changes touching on the issue of equality between women and men.
I believe that it would be a good thing if the report were to emphasise that the issue of equality should be incorporated in all social policy, with particular emphasis on mainstreaming.
We would also like Parliament to remind everyone of the importance of childcare, without which equality between women and men will make no progress whatsoever.
We know that Mr Flynn has made enormous efforts here, and we would like Parliament to support him in this.
<P>
Finally, we should remember that we are in the middle of the enlargement process and we have to be concerned when we see how badly applicant countries perform in the area of equality between women and men.
We would like this to be emphasised in the enlargement negotiations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
Mr President, when you look at a report, it is important to realise that you have to read what it actually says.
My Danish colleague from the movement of permanent discontent evidently had some difficulty with that.
However, I would like to begin by congratulating Mr Hughes on what is a very fine report.
It focuses on the challenges that we are facing in labour market policy over the coming years.
The new social action programme is different from the previous action programmes in that it does not contain any specific proposals for directives on such things as the working environment and social protection.
I think it is a pity that the action programme does not include some more specific proposals on the working environment.
We do still need to improve matters there.
On the whole, the new programme is an excellent basis for the EU's social and labour market policy in the next few years.
There are some shortcomings, for example the fact that the Commission does not mention home workers.
I am therefore pleased that we are calling on the Commission to take action in this area.
We should ensure that the seven million people in the Community who work at home are not treated in an inferior way to the rest of the labour market.
We should also be calling on the Commission to ensure that the existing directives also cover home workers.
<P>
The section dealing with employment could also have been a little more ambitious.
We should not just shift jobs around between the Member States.
That will not bring many people into work.
Some Member States have unfortunately used the trick of enticing businesses to their country with offers of tax exemptions and low corporation tax.
The Commission should therefore act to set a minimum rate for corporation tax.
Work is currently being done on drawing up a code of conduct for business taxation.
That is not enough.
We must have binding rules in this sector.
So there is a need for a more ambitious and binding form of cooperation on social and labour market policy for the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Hatzidakis">
Mr President, the new social action programme for 1998-2000 proposed by the Commission is securely based on the guidelines for employment as agreed at the European Councils of Amsterdam and Luxembourg.
However, the proposals could certainly have been more daring.
For example, there should be more active participation by working people in the decision-making process in companies, and the rights of their representatives should be amplified.
But a special approach is also needed for small and medium-sized enterprises, which takes account of their special features and needs.
The Commission also ought to clarify the way in which it means to exploit the potential offered by the new legal base in the area of social protection.
In addition, preparatory work should begin straight away on action programmes against social discrimination and to promote social access, and I wish to stress in particular the care we must devote to people with special needs.
We must make sure that in directives concerning public contracts it will be compulsory to conform with current social legislation.
Finally, I cannot but agree with the rapporteur that the Commission should have chosen the period 1998-2006 and not the very brief span of 1998-2000 which it ultimately selected, since the former would have reinforced the basic role of employment and social affairs in the Union's policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papakyriazis">
Mr President, Commissioner, let me begin by saying that I regard this present debate on the excellent report by Mr Hughes as a very important symbolic debate.
The rapporteur and Chairman of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs sets out in his explanatory statement the entire history of this contact and cooperation with the Commission, and the entire history of its development following the progress in Amsterdam and at the special conference in Luxembourg.
We in the European Union are today facing a new reality which finally accepts and recognises that employment and social policy are the first priority in Europe, and I think the social action programme which the Commission has proposed, Commissioner, is an important step forward.
It is indeed a policy document of great weight for the European Union.
I think this must be followed up, and I stress that the emphasis placed on dialogue with the civil society in various forums is extremely important, though more important still is social dialogue with the social partners, which is of course not just a fashion which has had its day.
<P>
Last Saturday a very important event took place in Athens at which Mr Delors was present, and he repeated that what Europe needs is precisely to highlight the value of social justice and solidarity.
I believe that for us too, this ought to form the basis which gives the European Union, our Europe, fresh impetus and brings our vision to fruition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schiedermeier">
Mr President, I would like to comment further on the van Velzen report in the light of this morning's debate. Employment continues to be first and foremost a task for the Member States.
Guidelines and coordination are useful and good, and I too hope that they will allow us to promote and develop employment.
But we must be careful not to do as we did this morning and talk as though we alone at EU level are capable of solving the problem of unemployment.
By doing so we are merely giving the relevant national politicians the opportunity to pass the buck to the EU or the European Central Bank if national labour market policy fails.
Incidentally, calling the Stability Pact into question has the effect of threatening employment rather than promoting it.
<P>
I call upon the Commission to give greater prominence to updating minimum social standards in the Social Action Programme 1998-2000.
A fundamental aim of European social policy is to develop a European framework of social legislation that guarantees a common basis of binding and enforceable minimum social standards, which does not demand too much of weaker states and does not prevent more developed economies from maintaining or improving their social standards.
At least, this is what I have been told, Commissioner.
<P>
However, those countries which are weaker in economic terms have made progress since minimum standards were established, which is why I would repeat that the further development of minimum social standards must be seriously taken in hand.
Existing gaps, such as the inclusion of homeworking, teleworking and contract workers, and the reinforcement of information, consultation and participation procedures, must be dealt with by introducing new directives.
These gaps must be closed.
<P>
I would also like to comment on the social dialogue.
I support Mr Peter's demand that the social dialogue must be placed on a broader basis of organisations, and despite your optimism, Commissioner, the results of the social dialogue have so far been disappointing.
In my opinion there is a great deal to be done, and if need be we must put the situation right by means of directives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="Flynn">
<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Social dialogue
<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0392/98) by Mr Peter, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the communication from the Commission: Adapting and promoting the social dialogue at Community level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="Peter">
Mr President, allow me firstly to raise a technical point. My attention has been drawn to the fact that in recital D of the Swedish version of this report there is a translation error which distorts the meaning.
I would ask you to have this checked.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the goal of coherence of economic and social development is enshrined in the Treaties.
The Commission's clear remit to promote social dialogue, the European Social Charter, the Agreement on Social Policy which has now been incorporated into the Amsterdam Treaty, the employment chapter in this Treaty and not least the effects of imminent monetary union give the social dialogue greater significance than ever before.
<P>
It is consensus rather than conflict that remains at the heart of the social dialogue.
Where the social partners have completely different interests, a major factor in determining their ability to reach agreement will be whether they carry equal weight.
It is essential that the individual organisations prove that they are representative, but clear criteria must be set for establishing this and these must be continuously updated.
The organisations are autonomous, which means that they are free to decide with whom, in the given representative framework, they wish to sit at the table, negotiate, perhaps reach agreement.
They also decide, within the given framework, what they want to regulate.
Out of respect for the autonomy of the organisations the public authorities and political bodies must not directly interfere in the composition of the social partners.
<P>
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs supports all the basic elements of the proposals drawn up by the Commission to increase the efficiency of structured European social dialogue, as presented in the Communication of 20 May 1998 on adapting and promoting the social dialogue at Community level.
The amendments approved by the committee do not stand in the way of this.
<P>
I have a few more points to make on this topic.
The social dialogue is doubtless part of what we call the European social model.
In order to really do justice to this claim, it is crucial - and this is a point I would like to emphasise again - that the Commission should identify with it completely.
This means that there can be no arbitrary restriction of the traditional jurisdiction of the Social Affairs Commissioner, for example, or of certain of the other Commissioners!
Regardless of jurisdiction, the social dialogue must be conducted seriously at the relevant level for all social issues.
<P>
In future not only the employment guidelines but also the economic policy guidelines of the EU are to be discussed in the Standing Committee on Employment.
The results of the consultations are to be forwarded to the relevant Councils in time to be included in their consultations and decision-making.
This may seem obvious but from past experience it should not be taken for granted.
<P>
In the context of accession measures for the central and eastern European countries we must ensure that these countries have in place appropriate structures for the social dialogue by the time of accession.
I can only recommend to Parliament that it make its approval of accession conditional upon this.
<P>
Because legislation comes into effect in the EU by means of a Council decision resulting from the social dialogue process, the fact that the European Parliament is not involved creates the problem of a lack of democratic legitimation for such legislation.
<P>
Not least because of the rules which will in future become effective in all Member States and the duty of the Commission to present all social legislative initiatives to the social partners so that they can decide whether they wish to negotiate on the issue, Parliament must now insist on being placed on an equal footing with the Council in this procedure.
As the Commission has now stated that it is prepared to participate in interinstitutional negotiations, whether or not this actually happens will depend on the Council.
If Parliament continues to be excluded completely from this legislative procedure, while the Council has the last word, this will be a cardinal error that cannot be compensated for by extending the codecision procedure elsewhere.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Ghilardotti">
Mr President, the European integration process, particularly after economic and monetary union, must bear the hallmark of greater commitment to sustainable growth and development and to social policy and employment; indeed, this is the thrust of the reports presented this morning and this afternoon.
<P>
Europe's social partners have a crucial role to play in this process, a role which is expressly recognised in the Treaty.
The Member States must take account of basic social rights in all their actions, and one of their aims is to promote social dialogue.
The new chapter of the Treaty devoted to employment, which was inserted at Amsterdam, also refers explicitly to consultation of the social partners.
What is more, under the Treaty the social partners may negotiate European-level framework agreements on relevant social policy issues falling within their competence.
Thus, because of the steadily increasing significance of the social dialogue, I should like to touch on three matters which crop up in the Commission's communication and are also referred to in Mr Peter's report.
<P>
Firstly, the problem of representation and the representativeness of the organisations concerned.
This is a problem that is beginning to arise in the Member States too, so in my opinion there is all the more cause to raise it at European level.
In this context, the study launched by the Commission - which we hope will soon be completed - will undoubtedly be most helpful in consolidating the European social dialogue, and will go a long way to avoiding the sort of disputes that have occurred in the past, some of which have even ended up in court.
<P>
The second matter is sectoral dialogue.
The development of social and sectoral dialogue can be crucial in terms of predicting and managing industrial change in the Community, paving the way for further progress and improving quantitative and qualitative results.
<P>
My final point relates to the role of the European Parliament.
Although I appreciate the Commission's willingness to keep Parliament informed, under the legislative procedure laid down in the Protocol, I believe that an interinstitutional agreement should be concluded in the near future with a view to involving Parliament - the only institution directly elected by the citizens - in the legislative procedure provided for in the Agreement on Social Policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Glase">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the social dialogue procedure is still a relatively new arrival in the European Union.
After two successful test runs involving the guidelines on parental leave and on part-time working, we now have a Commission communication that is considered to be a revision and a new direction.
The Commission has not provided anything new.
The rapporteur, Mr Peter, whom I should like to thank warmly for his collaboration, has put a great deal of effort into his report.
Nevertheless, it cannot be overlooked that the trade unions had the lead role in this extremely important text.
There need not be anything wrong with this if negotiations remain balanced and fair.
<P>
It is difficult to understand why the Commission should give increased support to only one side: that of employees' representatives.
The ETUC certainly does not require any coaching or particular support in its work.
The financial support provided by the Commission for the ETUC should also be adequate.
<P>
I would now like to address a key issue.
The current round of social dialogue takes the form of tripartite negotiations, and many who cannot take part directly in the negotiations object to this.
The Commission has not been able to come up with any satisfactory proposals.
The Christian trade unions are still waiting in the wings, as are many representatives of small sectors and areas of employment.
Even if 80 % of UNICE's members are from SMEs, UEAPME, as a direct and individual SME representative at EU level, has so far been forced to adopt a completely unacceptable position in the social dialogue.
<P>
Our group has protested against this again and again, and has asked that UEAPME be included.
UNICE and UEAPME are now concluding a contractual agreement that should allow SME representatives to participate directly in negotiations within the context of the social dialogue.
I deliberately say 'should', as we will have to wait and see how it works and whether the UEAPME representatives consider themselves to have been accepted.
<P>
This would solve one problem to a certain degree, even if it is only a stopgap, but other parties continue to be excluded from the negotiations.
We now urgently need the study of representativeness that the Commission announced in 1996, and then we will have to take another long, hard look at the participants in the social dialogue.
At that point, at the very latest, the position of the European Parliament as the only democratically legitimate body of the European Union will have to re-examined, since our role in the social dialogue is also unsatisfactory.
We therefore continue to have two major problems facing us in the context of the social dialogue that are only too familiar to us.
<P>
Our group is determined to continue to work towards a solution to both these problems.
We owe it to the small organisations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR).">
Mr President, what we are mainly dealing with here is how to structure the social dialogue as it operates between the two sides of industry.
The end result of such a process is a collective agreement of some kind - an instrument often better suited to resolving issues than legislation.
We have used this model of negotiation in Scandinavia for a long time now and would be happy to see it adopted at European level.
All the same, policy-makers should beware of seeing the passing of laws as an inevitable consequence of entering into a social dialogue and promoting collective agreements.
Legislation may follow, but that should not be the main purpose of the exercise.
<P>
The role of national authorities and the EU institutions is to further cooperation between autonomous and independent negotiating partners, as the rapporteur rightly says in paragraph 8.
It will be up to the public bodies to act as mediators and facilitators, fostering contacts between the parties and stimulating discussion.
Many openings exist; there is no need to reach for the legislative option every time.
<P>
I have three further points, Mr President.
If the necessary connection between the employment guidelines and the economic policy guidelines is to be made, the Standing Committee on Employment would be well advised to discuss them in parallel.
<P>
Secondly, the social dialogue will need special consolidation in Central and Eastern Europe, since the parties have not had the same scope for cooperation as has existed in labour relations elsewhere.
<P>
Lastly, let us not forget that the local and regional authorities are major employers too. We will have to find a better way of incorporating them - as a matter of course - into the process of dialogue and cooperation.
In that way, they will constitute a strong employment presence at local level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="Crowley">
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate the rapporteur on his report and also to pay tribute to Commissioner Flynn for his involvement in this whole area.
<P>
With any model of social dialogue and social partnership, rights are devolved to the social partners to negotiate, consult and come up with framework agreements which should be implemented on a European basis.
Alongside the rights there are obligations.
A very important aspect, perhaps sometimes overlooked by this Parliament, is the obligation to come to the table with a real negotiating position and not just take a stance for the cameras.
In particular, it is necessary to broaden the partnership to include those sectors that are at present excluded, in particular the SME sector.
<P>
We should also look at questions like the disability sector, the education sector and the importance of life-long learning and education and training with regard to employment and other social exclusion problems which we discussed this morning, when we were speaking about the Van Velzen report and the Commission's response.
Maybe we should now examine how we can bring more people into the social dialogue.
One way that we could do this, perhaps on a trial basis, is with a third type of organisation which also incorporates the Economic and Social Committee.
This would be more representative and could be used as a clearing house for some of the minor details and proposals.
<P>
I am concerned about the role of Parliament in this whole process.
Sometimes we in Parliament feel that we are presented with a fait accompli agreed by the social partners, and that this is political blackmail - we cannot oppose it because the social partners have agreed it.
Therefore some role must be found for Parliament in the interactions between the social partners.
<P>
However, bearing those points in mind, I would commend this report to the House and my group will be supporting the position of the rapporteur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Schörling">
Mr President, under Article 118b of the Single European Act, the Commission is required to 'develop relations between management and labour at European level'.
Yet the local and regional authorities - who together constitute one of Europe's largest employers - are being sidelined from this process.
<P>
Local and regional employers in the EU are extremely annoyed at not being seen as fully- fledged partners in the cross-sectoral social dialogue.
CEMR, the body representing hundreds of thousands of municipalities and regions around Europe, was set up back in 1951. It is somewhat bizarre that an organisation representing the employers of over 14 million people full-time - and up to 30 million, if part-time workers are included - should be left out in this way.
<P>
The members of CEMR are very active in labour relations nationally and often enjoy negotiating powers.
They have behind them a long tradition of negotiating practice, after years of successful participation in social dialogue at national level.
It therefore makes sense in my view to envisage taking CEMR on board as a full and equal partner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Andersson">
Mr President, let me begin by thanking the rapporteur for producing such a fine and eloquent text.
In future, the social dialogue will play an ever-increasing part in shaping EU policy. One of the main reasons for this is that the new treaty includes a specific reference to social and employment issues.
<P>
I wish to concentrate on three points.
Mrs Schörling was talking about the important question of fair representation.
Just how are we going to enhance representation?
Is it a matter for politicians, or should the parties directly concerned be left to work things out for themselves?
In line with Swedish tradition, my belief is that it is up to management and labour to ensure that they are properly represented.
The workers' side - including public sector employees - has managed to get its act together.
The employers will now have to see to it that they follow suit.
<P>
Whilst I can appreciate the desire to reduce the membership of the Standing Committee on Employment, I do feel that something may be lost if that happens.
We must not lose sight of the need for outreach from the Standing Committee to the Member States.
A Brussels-only phenomenon is not what we want at all.
I would therefore urge people to take heed of paragraph 13 in Mr Peter's report.
<P>
Thirdly, I should like to raise the matter of the Standing Committee's remit.
Employment policy cannot be seen in isolation, as separate from economic policy.
It is essential for the Standing Committee on Employment to encompass macroeconomic issues and take part in drawing up economic policy guidelines.
Lastly, I agree with what has already been said on Parliament's role in this process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Thyssen">
Mr President, a few days ago the presidents of UNICE and UEAPME declared that, respecting each other's autonomy, they would be recognising one another as interlocutors in future European negotiations and would be stepping up their cooperation in that context.
UNICE acknowledges meanwhile that UEAPME is the body most representative of the specific interests of SMEs in Europe, and is thus giving it a place at the negotiating table.
<P>
If this agreement is finalised on 4 December by the decision-making bodies of the two organisations, a major step will have been taken towards achieving something which the PPE Group called for at the time of the Maastricht Treaty, namely full participation in European social dialogue by a partner speaking specifically for SMEs.
<P>
We are in favour of social dialogue, Mr President, but as a democratically elected body we cannot but approve of growing autonomy for the social partners, provided these are sufficiently representative - that word again.
This presupposes, amongst other things, that these partners together will cover enough of the ground to ensure that different interests are given sufficient consideration in negotiations.
This agreement represents a particularly significant step in that direction.
I would ask the Commission to honour the agreement in setting the long-awaited representativeness criteria.
We could put it this way, Mr President.
An engagement has been announced which will increase the representativeness and legitimacy of the social dialogue.
Anyone who now puts a spoke in the wheel and stops the wedding from going ahead or stops the couple from living together will bear an enormously heavy burden of responsibility.
<P>
SMEs are important creators of jobs. They must have the chance - by virtue of having their own social partner at the European negotiating table - to take part in the negotiations and in that way to give expression and shape to their desire to be a responsible player.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="Malone">
Mr President, Ireland's version of the social dialogue, which we call social partnership, is well established and has played a major part in the economic success which our country has achieved over recent years.
<P>
Our version of social partnership is in many ways ahead of the social dialogue.
The traditional social partners - the unions and the employers - are certainly central to the process, but they have been joined by others: farmers, women, people with disabilities, the unemployed and other marginalised groups.
I would like to see that broadened to include those representing the development area.
<P>
The benefits of the change from an adversarial to a consensual approach are very clear to everybody.
But there have been difficulties for many in Ireland, as the Ryanair dispute earlier this year clearly showed.
While we have managed to reach consensus on issues such as pay and taxation, the question of employee consultation within firms has not yet been adequately explored.
It is for this reason that I really welcome last week's decision by the Commission.
Commissioner Flynn is to be congratulated for coming forward with a draft directive on worker consultation in firms with more than 50 employees.
I see the Commissioner is rightly satisfied.
This is another success and I hope to do the report.
<P>
I am convinced that the Ryanair dispute in Ireland would have been solved long ago if this directive had been in place.
Ireland fits somewhere between the continental European social model and the Anglo-Saxon model.
Worker consultation and information is a key part of the former but relatively unknown in the latter.
But it is strange that many companies in Ireland which do not negotiate with trade unions representing their own workers at local level do not seem to have great difficulty dealing with unions at the national or European levels.
<P>
I therefore call on all employers to be consistent in their approach to social dialogue and to take a positive view of the new directive.
Increased worker participation helps to achieve a happier, more highly motivated and more productive workforce.
Is this not what employers want?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Menrad">
Mr President, I congratulate Mr Peter on his report, which is of a very high quality.
If agreements by the European social partners acquire legal force in the European Union in the area of work by making them generally binding through a Council decision, the SMEs will be among those most affected as they employ the majority of workers in Europe.
<P>
The report by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs is right to call for increased involvement of the SMEs in shaping the European social dialogue, which is an issue of great concern to the Group of the European People's Party, as is clear from our Amendment No 9.
<P>
The social dialogue is necessary at both European and national levels. It is also successful at company level.
This is illustrated by the success story of the European Works Council and the positive development of the discussion on the European Company.
Or so I am told, Commissioner.
In both cases the remedy has been negotiations by the social partners to establish ways in which the workers can participate.
<P>
A conference organised by the Austrian Presidency took place in Vienna last week on the European social model and the social dialogue.
Comparisons were made with other models, for example with the market economy pure and simple, as in the emergent industrial nations of South-East Asia.
But as they have neglected the social dimension many of the Asian tigers have in economic terms become tame, lame domestic cats.
The effective answer to globalisation is the European model, the social market economy based on social partnership and social dialogue.
The Group of the European People's Party will therefore be voting in favour of the Peter report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="Flynn">
Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking Mr Peter for his report, which has been very helpful.
<P>
I would remind you that in 1996 the Commission initiated a major consultation exercise on the future of the social dialogue through the consultative communication.
At that time Parliament drew up a comprehensive resolution on the document and I was here in Strasbourg to discuss it with you in the summer of 1997.
<P>
The Commission has worked very hard to take on board your comments in drafting this second communication.
The new Amsterdam Treaty provides the means for a renewed commitment of the social partners to modernise and strengthen the social dimension of Europe.
To do this the social dialogue must be helped.
It has to be helped to play its full role within the framework of supportive and efficient information, consultation and negotiation procedures.
<P>
As you said in the 1997 resolution, there are some key issues that we had to tackle and there are three of them.
Firstly, the need to reform the Standing Committee on Employment: considering the new focus on employment and the unwieldiness of the current structure, it has not worked well and has to be reformed.
Secondly, the importance of creating a more coherent and efficient framework within which the sectoral dialogue could develop and, finally, the question of representativeness.
<P>
The Commission's communication on adapting and promoting the social dialogue at Community level was adopted on 20 May this year.
It addresses these three issues and sets out to strengthen the social dialogue at the European level and to make it more adaptable so that we can link the work of the social partners much more closely with the development and the implementation of all our European Union policies.
<P>
I begin with the question of representativeness, because it was raised by a number of Members - Mrs Ghilardotti, Mrs Glase, Mrs Schörling and Mrs Thyssen - and I am grateful for their concern.

It is clear that the institutions have to fully respect the autonomy of the social partners during their negotiations.
It is the social partners which, in this context, are responsible for ensuring sufficient representativeness.
However, as regards consultations, the institutions have to take their responsibilities to ensure the best possible representativeness.
It must be remembered that the Court of First Instance recently supported this approach in a landmark judgment.
<P>
We take the principle of the autonomy of the partners very seriously indeed.
In view of the European Parliament's call on the Commission to reform the Standing Committee on Employment, as a matter of urgency, the Commission adopted a parallel to the communication: a proposal to the Council to reform the current structure.
What we want to do there is to give each presidency the choice of either calling a troika of Heads of State or Government or a council to meet with the social partners within the framework of the Standing Committee on Employment.
The social partner delegations to these meetings should be restricted in their number but always include the main social partner organisations.
In short, the Commission suggests to the Council creating a single, transparent and representative forum for high-level dialogue on employment.
So the ball is really in the Council's court, to ensure that the real dialogue on employment is not restricted just to a core group of social partners.
<P>
With regard to the other consultation procedures, the communication introduced a liaison forum, involving quarterly consultations with all recognised European social partners on policy matters.
The first of these forums has already taken place and has proved to be a very useful exercise indeed.
Furthermore, at the sectoral level, new, flexible, sectoral committees will replace the many existing and cumbersome structures.
This decision caused some initial fears of a reduction in support for the sectoral dialogue.
Many of you have been in contact with me personally to query the practicalities of this new structure.
I will emphasise again here that this is not a reduction but rather a new start for the sectoral dialogue, where all the sectors wanting to make a meaningful joint contribution at European level can take part on equal terms.
There will no longer be a restriction of formalised support to activities where there is exclusive Community competence.
So the need to discuss industrial restructuring in employment matters is present today in all sectors of activity.
<P>
Just a few words about the Peter report.
Mr Peter and the Social Affairs Committee have once again managed to strike a fair balance between the different interests that are involved.
This is a very good report.
I would simply like to reiterate the importance of respecting the autonomy of the social partners.
I would therefore question whether it is politically or, indeed legally, feasible to involve any form of consultative committees in the negotiations between the partners or to involve any national organisations directly at European level.
<P>
As for the key point of the communication, I find the report is very supportive indeed and this is true of reform of the Standing Committee on Employment, the new sectoral dialogue committees, the representativeness question and the importance of developing a social dialogue with the applicant countries.
This should not come as a surprise because, as I have already stated, the position taken on these issues in the communication takes into account to a large extent the position of the European Parliament.
So the whole exercise serves, in my opinion, as an example of very good cooperation and understanding between our institutions.
<P>
Mr Crowley raised the question of the involvement of the European Parliament in the decision-making process leading to the adoption of legislation based on European agreements.
I wish to say to him that the Commission worked for the involvement of Parliament in this very respect during the IGC.
As emphasised in our draft report, this standpoint is clearly reiterated in our communication, and I know there are ongoing contacts between Parliament, the Council and the Commission in order to resolve this particular issue.
You know where I stand and where my support is on that point.
<P>
I wish to say to Mrs Thyssen that UNICE is in dialogue with UEAPME about the representativeness issue.
We understand that great progress is being made, and certainly I support that.
I would say to Mr Lindqvist, on the question of enlargement, that on all my visits to the applicant countries I have sought out the social partners to talk with them.
There are real problems there.
Through PHARE, we are trying to help the development of the dialogue there.
We look at the state of the social dialogue in all the screening exercises on each of the applicants.
But it is a very keen point and we will return to it certainly.
<P>
Finally, I wish to say to Mrs Schörling that local government is part of CEEP, and I understand they are contemplating a sectoral dialogue.
If that is the case, I would greatly support it.
<P>
I thank Mr Peter.
It has been a very useful debate, and I look forward to the continuation and the enhancement of the social dialogue.
Mrs Malone, what happened last week on information and consultation was an enormous step forward.
We look forward to debating that issue in the House at a later date.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
New Transatlantic Marketplace
<SPEAKER ID=142 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0387/98) by Mrs Mann, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the Commission communication on the 'New Transatlantic Marketplace' (COM(98)0125 - C4-0271/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="Mann, Erika">
Mr President, Commissioner Brittan, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to address a few fundamental points before I discuss the report.
Today's debate will be dominated by the Americans' threat to impose sanctions in the form of duties on products from Member States of the European Union, in particular from France and the UK, in order to undermine the present regulation on the banana market before 1 January 1999 and to stir up trouble among the Member States.
It is particularly ironic that the General Affairs Council made its decision on adopting the Action Plan for the Transatlantic Economic Partnership on 9 November 1998, at almost the same time as the Americans decided to impose unilateral sanctions on the European Union.
<P>
This step by the Americans threatens the credibility of the whole WTO dispute settlement procedure.
The Americans are within their rights not to agree with the new banana market regulation.
They are within their rights to believe that this regulation is not consistent with WTO rules.
But they are not within their rights to decide this themselves.
However attractive such wild west behaviour may seem at national level, it provokes severe counter-reactions.
Increasing nervousness on the part of the Americans is nevertheless understandable and can be explained largely by their current trade deficit, which is relatively large.
So we should adopt a calmer stance in future.
<P>
We are doing well to consolidate and expand the political and economic basis between us.
The banana dispute will not be our last trade dispute; the next ones, on hormones and steel, are already on the horizon.
We must accept these realities.
Since 1989 and 1990 our relations have been undergoing a sea-change.
The conditions which we formerly took for granted have changed and we have become global competitors.
Economic and trade policy determine more than ever the political actions of the two world powers.
However, we should not forget that we compete on a solid basis of friendship.
Nor should we forget that adapting and strengthening economic relations guarantees jobs on both sides of the Atlantic.
The huge merger of Daimler and Chrysler is only a foretaste of what we can expect in the near future.
<P>
The present report on the Action Plan 'Transatlantic Economic Partnership' expressly supports the initiative of the Commission and the Council.
You will all remember that during the last summit between the European Union and the United States in London, the Council, particularly France, withheld its approval and presented a new plan that was less ambitious.
The result of the process was then the Transatlantic Economic Partnership rather than the Transatlantic Marketplace.
The Council feared that the Commission's proposal to call for a framework agreement with a general negotiating mandate would result in an uncontrolled transfer of national decision-making powers and scope.
A framework agreement would have had the advantage for the European Parliament of allowing it to be formally consulted.
Now we are merely informed.
<P>
The Action Plan for the Transatlantic Economic Partnership proposes firstly the coordination of multilateral activities and secondly the coordination of a bilateral agenda for the following areas: first, removal of technical barriers; second, intensification of the role of labour in services; third, increased market access for EU and US companies in government procurement; fourth, better protection for intellectual property; fifth, strengthened dialogue and the creation of social cooperation structures in the areas of food, plant and animal health and biotechnology, and the creation of an environmental group.
I believe that this is a good report and we should support it.
<P>
However, the creation of an organisational framework should also be part of this report.
Many of the issues that are the subject of negotiations relate to what are regarded as new, sensitive areas, such as biotechnology.
This organisational framework should also define the forms of institutional cooperation between the institutions and procedures involved, and in many cases open the door to agreements, along the lines of mutual recognition, on certification and testing procedures.
To allow this to work in areas that are very sensitive for the consumer, it is essential that the process be absolutely transparent, and that the industries, experts, occupational groups and consumers concerned be kept fully informed and consulted.
<P>
We must build up an institutional process of trust so that we can ensure the broad approval of the public.
Certainly, I do not share the fear of some Members of the House and of the consumer associations that we are ignoring the general public.
We have become institutional experts, in a manner of speaking, so it is not amateurs that are taking action at European level, either in the Commission, the Council or Parliament.
We are perfectly capable of managing this process very well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="Cushnahan">
Mr President, the relationship between the European Union and the United States is a very important one.
We share many common values and interests and, while trade and investment links between us represent the world's largest economic partnership, it would be wrong to restrict discussions to simply trade and economic matters.
<P>
I regret the fact that the more ambitious plans suggested by Sir Leon Brittan under the heading of the new transatlantic marketplace met with such strong opposition in the Council and were therefore not discussed with the US authorities.
Consequently, the obstructive stance of the Council resulted in the more restricted proposals contained in the transatlantic economic partnership.
<P>
When the European Parliament discussed the Souchet report in January of this year we expressed the desire for a more comprehensive level of cooperation.
Paragraph 3 of the Souchet resolution pointed to the need for greater dialogue in relation to justice and home affairs.
Paragraph 5 called for greater cooperation regarding the management of crisis situations and the use of peace-keeping forces.
<P>
The opinion that I have produced on behalf of the Foreign Affairs Committee attempts to restore the wishes of Parliament and, I hope, of Sir Leon Brittan himself, to ensure that security and defence relations become an important part of the EU-US dialogue.
<P>
An EU-US summit will be held shortly and it is important that we are able to examine the state of our respective relationships and resolve any problems, including those in the field of security and defence which are underlined by the current crisis in the Gulf.
<P>
I congratulate the rapporteur on her report and I thank her for including in it the specific proposal contained in the Foreign Affairs Committee opinion on this important issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 NAME="Peijs">
draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy. (NL) Mr President, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has given broad support to the transatlantic economic partnership and Mrs Mann's excellent report on it.
Without in any way playing down the importance of multilateral talks, I think it is good that the two biggest players in the world market should be talking about eliminating barriers to free trade.
Together, the two trading blocs can provide the combined impetus for launching the debate which is needed if a multilateral agreement is ultimately to be concluded.
Of course, that must not mean that the EU and the USA together form a power bloc so that other countries are faced with a fait accompli within the WTO.
But the ideal of regional trading blocs is consistent with the ideals of the WTO.
<P>
Apart from long-standing issues which are obviously harder to resolve, there are two newer issues causing me some concern in the current trade relations between the EU and USA.
Firstly there is the metric-only directive.
In the meantime, Commissioner Bangemann has promised at the Internal Market Council that he will bring forward a proposal quickly, though he does not say how quickly, to defer the requirement that products should be labelled using the metric system only.
That proposal ought really to have been made months ago.
I have pressed the Commissioner for it on several occasions.
Europe is all about helping business and industry to play a more powerful role, not about hampering it.
<P>
The Economic Affairs Committee proposed in an amendment that conclusion of the transatlantic economic partnership should be conditional on the USA going over to the metric system.
We gave careful thought to this.
We were sorry that the REX Committee watered down our amendment to the point where it was neither fish nor fowl.
I hope that Mr Bangemann gets the message.
There has to be an end to the burden placed on European business and industry by American recalcitrance.
I think that Mr Bangemann and Sir Leon Brittan must put pressure on the USA.
<P>
My second concern is about anti-dumping measures in the EU and the USA.
Mrs Mann devotes just one paragraph to this in her report, and the European steel industry complains that it receives unreasonably harsh treatment.
Even the US Congress says in a major report that the ratio last year was 35 anti-dumping cases on the American side compared with just two on the European side.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Mr President, these relations are also extremely important as far as jobs are concerned.
On behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, I would make the point that 59 % of EU investment goes to the USA, and the figure in the other direction is 44 %, so to both parties that is very important in terms of jobs.
In an increasingly global world economy, however, there is more to it than trade relations alone.
We also have a responsibility to work together to tackle important issues of the kind which can lead to a new declaration by the International Labour Organisation on fundamental labour standards such as freedom of association, the right to collective bargaining, non-discrimination, the abolition of forced labour and of child labour.
Both parties can play a part here in the forthcoming WTO negotiations.
But there are more things of relevance to the social and employment dimension.
Let me quote a few of them. Take European works councils, for example: numerous companies in Europe with parent companies in the USA come under the directive on European works councils, and there needs to be a proper exchange of information here between US and European firms and governments.
Another issue is that of pension funds.
Europe is a long way behind when it comes to the provision of investment loans.
Here too we need to work together, take notice of each other and talk to one another.
<P>
Lastly, Mr President, agriculture is a not insignificant obstacle in transatlantic negotiations.
In my view, things can get better here if not only the EU authorities but the US authorities too take greater account of social and employment issues in rural areas.
Optimum competition does not always have the best outcome for all parties in the world.
A balanced approach is needed here.
As my very last point, I should like to say that our education and training programmes ought also to include provision for exchanges with America..
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 NAME="Brittan">
First of all I should like to congratulate Mrs Mann on her admirable report and also on the way in which she has put the banana contest in its proper perspective.
I will come to that at a later stage, but I entirely agree with her that we must not allow it to completely distort our consideration of relations between the European Union and the United States, which relate to wider issues. Some of those have already been referred to by the previous speakers.
<P>
I am grateful to Mr Cushnahan for his kind remarks about the scaling down of the new transatlantic marketplace proposals.
They were more ambitious.
I do not apologise for that.
Nonetheless they have certainly informed the transatlantic economic partnership.
But important as the transatlantic economic partnership is, Mrs Peijs is quite right to say that the multilateral aspect of that should not allow us to give the impression of ganging up against the rest of the world.
We are cooperating to try and make faster progress in the multilateral talks, not seeking to impose a diktat, still less a fait accompli.
<P>
Mrs Boogerd-Quaak is right in saying that the discussions that we have with the United States have to include matters relating to social and employment questions, just as Mr Cushnahan is right in saying that there is a very important security and defence component in our relationship, even though that has to be pursued outside the transatlantic economic partnership.
<P>
Nonetheless, the transatlantic economic partnership is the most recent feature of the relationship, deriving from the new transatlantic marketplace and now, as Mrs Mann reminded us, endorsed by the Council last week in the form of an action plan.
Negotiating directives have been approved for the Commission to start bilateral negotiations on a series of agreements relating to technical barriers to trade in goods, services, public procurement and intellectual property.
<P>
It is a major initiative to consolidate and enhance transatlantic relations, including both multilateral and bilateral elements.
Bilaterally the core element is the tackling of trade issues such as regulatory barriers, which are the main current obstacle to transatlantic business while preserving a high level of protection for health, safety, consumers and the environment.
If we can achieve a degree of progress in dealing with these barriers, that promises great new economic opportunities for European firms and consumers.
If we can stimulate further multilateral liberalisation then I believe we will be able to make great headway in the new millennium and save a great deal of time.
<P>
The European Parliament has played a key role in this process, first with its call in January this year for a new impulse in transatlantic relations and afterwards through its involvement in the evolution of the transatlantic economic partnership.
I am very glad that we have been able to work together.
This will need to continue, not only in the face of the threat represented by the banana dispute but also in dealing with, for example, the unjust and inaccurate allegations that have recently been made about the European Union not doing its share in taking the strain of additional Asian exports.
<P>
So I welcome the very operational report of Mrs Mann and thank her for the support that she and Parliament have given to the development of the relationship.
<P>
I can give you some preliminary reactions to the report.
We fully share your desire to see positive results in the areas of MRAs, food safety, government procurement, intellectual property, compliance with international rules in the liberalisation process and many other areas.
I welcome the European Parliament's desire to enhance its involvement in the work to be done on the transatlantic economic partnership.
<P>
Unfortunately all this has been overshadowed in recent days not only by the position of the United States on Asian exports but most of all by the recent controversy over bananas.
The position is really quite simple.
The WTO ruled against certain aspects of our regime and gave us until 1 January next year to comply with the ruling.
We have taken action to comply fully with it and a revised regime which we believe to be entirely consistent with WTO rules will take effect on 1 January.
<P>
The US is entitled to disagree with us about the compatibility of our new regime with the WTO rules.
It has the right to challenge this if it wishes, but only according to the procedures established by the WTO which are readily available to deal with precisely this sort of disagreement.
No WTO member has the right unilaterally to judge the compliance of another, nor to be judge and jury in its own cause.
In resorting to unilateral action the United States is setting itself above the law and resorting to the principle of 'might is right'.
<P>
This threatens to damage the system which we both helped to create.
It will seriously undermine the confidence of WTO members in that system.
Therefore, we have publicly called on the United States to desist from unilateral action and seek to resolve our differences according to the lawful multilateral channels which are readily available and are the sole means that a law-abiding country should choose.
<P>
We are ready to cooperate with the United States to deal with our differences within the WTO rules and procedures but we will not do so under the threat of illegal unilateral action.
Unless the United States desists from that we will have no alternative but to go to the WTO and begin proceedings against the United States for its unlawful action.
<P>
I regret that this issue has overshadowed - at least in the headlines - the broader and more important work we have been doing.
It is, indeed, as Mrs Mann has rightly said, ironic that this should be the case.
I look to the European Parliament to be robust in the defence of European interests where they are under attack but also to take the broader view of what we need to do for the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Karamanou">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it seems that the issue of trade and economic relations between the European Union and the USA is one which usually inspires very heated debates and, I would say, intense passions.
That happens because so far we have been unable to form relations of mutual trust and open, sincere communication, despite the prolonged talks and negotiations, despite the planning of an ambitious programme and despite the honest efforts both by the Commission and by our rapporteur, our esteemed colleague Mrs Erika Mann, whom I congratulate on her report.
<P>
From what you have said, Commissioner, it is clear that we are still facing a very difficult interlocutor who is also burdened by activities which have shown that the United States, to promote its own exclusive interests, does not hesitate to violate international rules, and this to the cost of the poorest and weakest countries.
The truth of what I am saying is demonstrated by the fact that problems are still outstanding related to extraterritorial American legislation, while competition against the Union is constantly becoming keener.
So in view of the forthcoming transatlantic summit conference, the European Parliament must today send out some very clear messages, such as these:
<P>
First, the bipartite approach is acceptable to the extent that it does not impede multipartite negotiations at WTO level and does not create obstacles to access by third countries to markets in the Union and the USA.
<P>
Second, respect must be ensured for the rules of international law, and a definitive solution must be found for the dispute concerning extraterritorial laws.
<P>
Third, any commitments undertaken must be compatible with the acquis communautaire , especially with the CAP and the trade agreements we have concluded, particularly those with our traditional partners. They must also be compatible with the commitments undertaken by the Union under the Lomé Convention and in the context of the enlargement procedure with central and eastern European countries.
<P>
Fourth, cooperation must include and emphasise social issues, such as securing the rights of working people and safeguarding collective bargaining, the abolition of child labour and forced labour, job creation, and the mutual recognition of qualifications.
<P>
Fifth, any agreement must be compatible with the high standards that prevail in Europe concerning health and safety, consumer protection, and the protection of the natural and human environment.
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Sixth, cooperation must lead to the establishment of rules on the operation of credit institutions in all countries and control of the international movement of capital. I say this bearing in mind the present economic and money-market crisis.
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Finally, the European Parliament must be kept constantly informed about the negotiations, most particularly about matters that relate to co-decision procedures.
As our rapporteur Mrs Mann said, there must be transparency and full information.
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<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kittelmann">
Mr President, the Group of the European People's Party welcomes Mrs Mann's report and congratulates her on her very useful arguments presented here over 43 pages, though they have been overshadowed by current events.
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The USA's relations with the European Union are a high priority for all of us, and in future, despite all the conflicts caused in our bilateral relations both by ourselves and particularly by the USA, we will continue to place great importance on the fact that we are dependent upon one another.
<P>
Bananas, hormones, steel, the US trade deficit, all these things make us nervous.
What increasingly concerns me about our relations with the USA is the fact that it is always the parliamentarians who put their governments under pressure and that administrations are often too cowardly to observe WTO rules because they always have to give in to domestic policy.
It is precisely this that should make us, as Members of the European Parliament, intensify our own contacts with Congress, and not rely on the Commission, which always seems to be told: we cannot do anything, it is the members of Congress who do that.
<P>
The Helms-Burton and d'Amato Acts, which violate the principles of international law, were also the work of members of Congress.
Thankfully d'Amato cannot be voted in again, so that leaves one less to be considered.
I say this because it must be clear that, as Sir Leon said, it must be the WTO requirements that determine our rules.
The WTO sets the standard for free competition, and in free competition we compete with each other.
<P>
Competition will become increasingly fierce, borders will become increasingly fluid, technology and in particular investment will become an area over which we Members of Parliament no longer have an overall view.
We do not always see the source of the conflicts in question.
This is all the more reason for us to support the Commission so that it does not debate for too long or look for compromises, but can often take a tough stance.
<P>
The USA often accuses us of being only paper tigers or lightweights because when it is being tough our reaction is not tough enough.
We must move more quickly in future with the new measures.
As Parliament we can perhaps take a tougher stance than the Commission does.
<P>
We are also accused of not really being affected by the growth of the Asian markets while the USA suffers as it has to take in all the cheap products.
We face the same the problems, although it has to be said that one or two aspects of our trade policy are also rather doubtful, and this has nothing to do with the USA.
We must monitor this and not simply say for the sake of national interests that one form of protectionism is good and the other bad.
None of the 15 Member States would bear scrutiny here!
<P>
In conclusion, I believe that an appreciation of mutual-interest politics is always advantageous if we advocate the interests that are important for our European economy strongly and consistently.
I would encourage us to intervene again in the current discussion about the USA's violation of the principles of international law. This report has given us a good opportunity to do so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I warmly compliment Mrs Mann on her excellent report.
The transatlantic economic partnership which has now been agreed can put an end to the succession of trade disputes we have seen in recent years.
Remember the biotechnology bananas and all the rest of it.
The agreement may serve as an example to the rest of the world.
The European Union and the United States are the two biggest trading blocs in the world and each others' main trading partners as well.
Bilateral agreement between two leading trading blocs will enable the Union and the USA to develop a transferable trading model consistent with the multilateral framework of trade, and in particular with the rules of the WTO.
<P>
My group deplores the fact that the Council has given a negotiating mandate to the Commission and already adopted an action plan without waiting to hear the European Parliament's position.
I agree with Mrs Mann and Mr Kittelmann.
<P>
A new transatlantic economic partnership has major implications for private citizens and businesses in terms of jobs and prosperity.
Democratic scrutiny is absolutely vital here, because only that will guarantee the requisite public acceptance.
So my group also welcomes Mrs Mann's suggestion that a joint parliamentary committee should be set up, because we have seen time after time that solutions to disputes reached at civil servant or government level are regularly torpedoed again by the US Congress.
Structural dialogue between parliamentary delegations and Members of Parliament may perhaps put an end to this.
I would thus urge the Commission and the Council once again to stop talking to the Americans on their own and to involve Parliament to a far greater extent; they must not keep adopting plans without first waiting to hear what Parliament thinks.
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<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, Commissioner, ever since the initiative of the transatlantic agenda, our relations with America have been visible.
But I see that they are not sufficiently tangible, and this action plan may improve things here.
Regrettably the action plan has come into being without the European Parliament being consulted in any way, and so I too support Mrs Mann's suggestion for a joint parliamentary committee linking the US Congress and our Parliament as the final democratic counterbalance in the new relationship.
<P>
I must compliment Mrs Mann anyway on the form and content of her report.
The new partnership may prevent bilateral trade disputes from ending in threats of sanctions, as happened over the EU's policy on bananas.
But there are one or two things which are not covered.
To my mind, too little attention is paid to the audiovisual imbalance.
The USA does well out of the European market in this respect, but makes no concessions at all itself.
We as the EU, with so many wonderful cultures, just cannot swallow that.
Certainly not!
<P>
Furthermore, I hope that future political and economic dialogue will address the question of anti-dumping measures.
Mrs Peijs has talked about that.
My group is very anxious too to preserve the acquis communautaire and especially the services of general interest which have a considerable influence on our social and economic cohesion.
These aspects must not be neglected.
<P>
Lastly, Mr President, the partnership will be good for jobs.
As Mrs Mann says, we shall have Daimler Benz and Chrysler on both sides of the Atlantic.
I hope, though, that this initiative will stimulate not just commerce pure and simple, but above all the values and cultures which exist in the relationship between the USA and Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Herzog">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, a transatlantic relationship that is of mutual benefit and positive for everyone else in the world is a fundamental political issue.
Three conditions must be met: we must work to make trade more compatible with sustainable development and social welfare; we must respect multilateral solidarity and commitments; and we must guarantee real democratic control.
<P>
By rejecting the MAI and transatlantic free trade projects, several European countries have highlighted the importance of these requirements and signalled their disapproval of a certain way of conducting external relations.
We need a more autonomous and unified European Union and we would ask our American partners to show more loyalty towards the commitments they have made.
The United States is renewing commercial tensions and is not respecting the London commitment on extraterritorial laws.
We must remind them that the enormous deficit in the United States' balance of payments is inseparable from the privilege they have of financing their growth through other countries.
<P>
The European Parliament is therefore faced with a contradiction: the renewal of aggressive commercial behaviour on the part of the Americans, and concern, on our part, for the development of dialogue.
It is under these conditions that we will undoubtedly be forced to take other political initiatives.
For the time being, we are taking note of the Transatlantic Economic Partnership and the Action Plan.
We welcome the fact that it is not simply a resumption of the NTM project, which project was particularly dangerous because of its aim of guaranteeing free trade in services and because it favoured bilateral settlements, at the risk of stifling multilateral progress.
<P>
We are also pleased that some of the provisions included in the Draft Action Plan have been removed by the Council, particularly a bilateral standstill agreement that would have suspended the development of Community rules. We are pleased, too, that the Council is resuming its supervisory role by placing bilateral negotiations under its mandate.
<P>
We would finally like to stress the need to develop a new political doctrine for the Union in terms of both the content of the negotiations and democratic control.
We want to discuss the future WTO negotiations with the Americans, but has the impact of the Uruguay Round been felt?
Do we know what we want to say on the new issues of society and regulation?
Within the partnership, we must not prepare the basis of an agreement between two giants - the United States and Europe - before the next millennium.
Dialogue must only be exploratory and we have other friends to talk to.
<P>
As regards bilateral negotiations, we would like to look at them on a case-by-case basis.
We must defend employment and our industries, and this would mean strengthening their solidarity before the negotiations start.
<P>
Finally, I would like to emphasise the fact that our institutional procedures are showing a political and democratic deficit.
We call on the Council and the Commission to inform and consult the European Parliament both before and during the dialogue and negotiation process.
Consultation of the civil society, which today is inexistent, must be organised, and it is up to the European Parliament itself to play a key role here in guiding firms, unions, associations and public opinion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Mr President, in order to prevent any misunderstandings right from the beginning, I must say that a good relationship with the USA is very important to us.
But not in the way you see it, Sir Leon.
Your first priority is the removal of so-called barriers to trade, and this includes political decision-making powers.
Your plans for the NTM were rejected by the Council in the spring, and now a slimmed-down version of the TEP is on the table, practically a disguised MAI.
<P>
But why should we applaud something that was rigged in advance?
The negotiating mandate for the TEP was given long ago.
Yet we in the committee were only able to see it when the vote had already taken place.
That is absurd.
But some of its content is even more absurd.
It does not contain anything about setting up joint programmes for sustainable development in the world economy, nor does it say anything about commitment to a better quality of life, about using fewer natural resources, or about strengthening the multilateral system.
On the contrary, Charline Barschifsky stated on 28 July what the important issues are for the USA: the rights of US industry, the enforcement of US patent laws, crushing European protection laws in the field of biotechnology, the business interests of American banana producers, Helms-Burton, hormonized meat and genetically-modified food on European tables.
<P>
You, Sir Leon Brittan, wish to sacrifice all European and national standards on the altar of free trade, in accordance with your neoliberal philosophy.
Instead of constantly hatching new projects you should do your homework.
You gave in on the issue of Helms-Burton instead of enforcing WTO rules.
As a result, the Americans have taken legal proceedings against European firms in 5 911 cases.
Now the US does not care about the WTO and is threatening a full-scale attack on European products if the EU does not given in to US interests in the banana dispute.
We have been waiting for a reply from you since September on ECHELON, the unspeakable EU/US secret service dossier.
The Greens certainly do not want to see more and more national and European consumer protection laws, for which we have fought so hard, being violated by dubious trade agreements in the name of free trade.
We can only approve the report if our amendments are adopted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Sainjon">
Mr President, I would naturally like to congratulate Mrs Mann on her report, which I believe to be balanced on the whole.
This new partnership is obviously preferable to any notion of a single market between the European Union and the US, which was rightly rejected by the Council last April.
The Action Plan proposed today by the Commission to establish this dialogue provides a framework for the negotiations in the months ahead.
<P>
In my opinion, it is, for example, essential to establish a common strategy between the European Union and the United States with a view to laying down minimum social standards within both the WTO and the ILO.
It may be beneficial to have discussions on services or electronic commerce provided that this does not undermine countries' cultural interests, and I am naturally thinking here of the audiovisual sector.
The creation of a global economic area in the field of electronic commerce is, to my mind, completely premature, particularly when we know that the US is the market leader in terms of the Internet.
<P>
This framework must therefore clearly establish the boundaries of the debate in terms of social, environmental and cultural issues.
It is true that similar action plans exist and serve as a basis for discussion between the Union and other countries, such as Canada, New Zealand and Japan. But there is a fundamental difference between those countries and the United States: with them we do not negotiate with a gun at our heads.
In fact, the US is once again threatening to impose 100 % customs duties on us, jeopardising the very existence of some of our companies.
And surprise, surprise, the products concerned come from countries in the Union that produce bananas.
<P>
So after the famous Helms-Burton legislation, the United States is again beginning to use gunboat diplomacy, and we cannot accept that.
We do not underestimate the role of the American multinationals behind the Clinton administration.
I am thinking here of Chiquita in the case of bananas, but also of the American oil companies that are encouraging the bombing of Iraq.
<P>
That is why I believe that this notion of partnership must be suspended, and I call on the Commission to draw up a list of retaliatory measures aimed at certain American companies.
We must stop being naive!
If the Americans want to complain, then let them, but let them do it before the WTO. And let us hope this time that the body responsible for settling disputes gives a clear ruling on the banana issue.
In the meantime, my group believes that the report by Mrs Mann, good as it may be, should be referred back to committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, recent developments that have taken place have tended to temper somewhat the optimism surrounding the report by Mrs Mann on the future of transatlantic economic relations.
The rapporteur herself has just admitted this.
In this respect, the entirely unacceptable threats of trade retaliation illegally made by Congress towards a number of our countries, outside the WTO dispute settlement procedure on the banana issue, show that our partners have an uncontrollable propensity for unilateralism. And this is true even though everyone knows that the economic survival of entire regions of the European Union, particularly in the French overseas territories, depends on a solution to the banana conflict.
<P>
Moreover, on 21 October, Congress introduced a new provision that clearly has an extraterritorial effect, by adopting a corresponding amendment to Article 211 of the Finance Act, aimed at banning all transactions involving a well-known confiscated brand.
This provision, which aims to block the commercial development of the Pernod-Ricard company on the American market, is further proof that the United States, far from renouncing unilateralism, is, on the contrary, forging ahead with sanctions that have an extraterritorial effect.
<P>
This violation, which is taking place scarcely six months after the signing of the London agreement, makes us seriously question the credibility of the commitments that have been negotiated by the Commission with our American partners. This is all the more worrying since, in addition, Congress does not seem willing to vote for the derogations provided for by the London agreement, which itself still does not completely settle the question of American laws with extraterritorial effect.
If we add to this use of unilateral instruments (which cannot fail to affect the implementation of the TEP), the lack of progress in the negotiations on government procurement and intellectual property (areas that are essential for Europe), the divergent positions on the future multilateral trade negotiations, and the stonewalling attitude that was maintained by the United States at the Buenos Aires Conference, it appears that the current situation is very worrying and requires a great deal of determination on our part.
<P>
This determination can be easily seen in the Council, which has ensured, in particular, that the audiovisual sector is excluded and the status quo for services clearly rejected within the framework of the TEP.
We hope that the Commission will also display such determination.
Perhaps the Council has some concerns in this respect, since it thought it necessary to formally state that the Commission could not give a definite decision on the Union's position in the future multilateral trade negotiations, particularly in the audiovisual sector, without the Council's approval.
<P>
It is unfortunate that in the recitals the rapporteur limits herself to deploring the institutional imbalance and does not mention these different and important concerns that may weigh heavily on the development of trade relations with the United States and on the implementation of the Transatlantic Economic Partnership if they are not tackled with enough determination by Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Mr President, the debate about the United States and Europe is an old one.
Today, Commissioner, we are returning to it in a context that has three aspects: the United States' trade deficit, which we have all discussed; the negotiations in the World Trade Organisation, which are multilateral and that is why we cannot understand this bilateral move, unless we recall the unpleasant memories of Blair House and your colleague, Franz Andriessen, at the beginning of the 1990s; and finally, of course, the American tradition of the big stick policy, with its attacks on Iraq, imperialism in the audiovisual sector, and selfishness in Rio.
This all means that we may well have doubts about the sincerity of the United States.
Everyone has mentioned - including Mr Sainjon and other speakers - the banana issue, the unilateral 100 % customs duties, the Helms-Burton legislation, Libya, Iran, Pernod-Ricard, etc.
<P>
This leads me to put two questions to you, Commissioner.
Firstly, I would like you to tell me about the strategy, the principle and the philosophy involved.
Are the world trade negotiations necessary for the wealth of nations?
We signed the GATT in 1994.
Has that led to increased wealth in Japan, Brazil, Korea or Thailand?
Has unemployment fallen?
Conversely, we rejected the MAI, the Multilateral Agreement on Investment.
Who suffered because of that?
No-one did.
The truth is that world trade, despite the myth, only plays a residual role.
Let us look at the beef and veal market, for example.
It does not even represent 10 % of our production.
And if we had another policy besides Article 104c of the Maastricht Treaty, another policy besides austerity and rationing, we would have an internal demand that would do away with all this rubbish about having to find external markets.
<P>
Secondly, I would like to know how we can have an independent trade policy when we do not have an independent foreign policy, when we do not have an independent military policy and when we behave as we have done in Iraq, the country of the Code of Hammurabi, the country of Babylonia?
I was with Mr Tariq Aziz three weeks ago and he asked the following question: 'I am offering Europe the best oilfields in southern Iraq.
Why will Europe not accept them?'
Mr Sainjon gave you the answer: when we have a global market, we should not hold bilateral negotiations.
We are a parliament: we are not traders, we are not a chamber of commerce, we are representatives of the people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Mr President, I take the floor to make clear my support for Mrs Mann's report.
As debate is focusing mainly on the background to this report rather than on its content, I should like to say that it might initially appear that, in principle, we are offering an olive branch whilst our friends in the United States are digging up the battle axe.
I do not in fact believe that this is the case, because we could have applied many of the arguments we now use in connection with United States imperialism to each other in Europe in the past.
<P>
Nevertheless, I do believe we must send two clear messages to our friends and allies in the United States: firstly, that the association known as the Transatlantic Economic Partnership essentially implies a shared responsibility on the world stage, at global level, and therefore at multilateral not just at bilateral level; and secondly, that we are not concerned solely with trade at this moment. We are indeed concerned with trade, but also, and especially at the moment, we wish to emphasise the notion of shared responsibility for the world as a whole.
In particular, we are concerned with the financial situation, bearing in mind that our discussion is taking place on the eve of the introduction of the euro.
<P>
I feel this is the first message we should send, and I for one have never been in favour of adopting a defensive position as a matter of course.
I am convinced that we Europeans put forward very good reasons and arguments when we state that a market and a relationship have to be civilised and bilateral, and that they cannot be controlled solely by one party, in the kind of atmosphere portrayed - if I may be permitted a reference to the cinema - in 'High Noon', where the Sheriff wields absolute power.
I believe that we are and must continue to be partners on equal terms.
<P>
My second concern is that we must make it quite clear to our friends in the United States that we do not share the unilateral vision of managed trade they uphold and that is particularly evident not only in Act 301 and 'Super 301', but also in extraterritorial legislation such as the Helms-Burton Act and the D'Amato Act. In addition, it underlies several other measures that contravene the regulations of the World Trade Organisation.
<P>
In my opinion, this report reflects our philosophy.
However, we obviously need to do more.
In the first instance, we need, for example, to coordinate the Commission, the Council and Parliament, given that they are not presently coordinated.
In addition to being absent, the Council takes decisions without consulting Parliament.
I think we need to prove that we can act as one, like the United States.
If we do, I am sure we will be listened to.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pomés Ruiz">
Mr President, I should firstly like to thank Mrs Mann for her report, which we support.
I should also like to express my appreciation to the Commissioner for his efforts towards developing the best possible transatlantic relations.
<P>
Unfortunately, what seemed at first to be a good idea - the Transatlantic Agenda - turned into something of a damp squib after April, when the Council took a number of decisions we perhaps did not all support.
I agree entirely with Mr Enrique Barón who has just said that we ought to get on well, as well as we can.
Commissioner, you said that might is not necessarily right.
It remains to be seen who will have most might, once the euro is in place, the European Union's institutions have developed and the 11 countries - soon to be more - are working together.
In any case, power must be vested in the bodies, and we need to learn to use them to resolve conflicts.
<P>
As the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has stated, the existing obstacles must be removed, and here, we are certainly not in a very happy position.
The situation concerning Asian exports and the banana dispute are not exactly encouraging examples. Nevertheless, we have to ensure that, within the framework of the WTO, we can reach multilateral agreements that are compatible with the acquis communautaire , the CAP, the Lomé Convention, and the association and enlargement agreements.
<P>
Commissioner, Parliament will support you, in the hope that we can establish a relationship on equal terms with our friends in the United States, insofar as the provisions of the law allow. It is quite clear, though, that Parliament will have to be more involved.
As Parliament can express its support for your claims, you will be in a stronger negotiating position and so will we.
It is not acceptable that our companies should still be experiencing difficulties in the area of government procurement in the United States, and there is a long list of other problems I do not think it appropriate to elaborate on here and now.
<P>
We support the report, trust that deadlines for achieving the objectives are set and that we will find the way of enjoying the best possible relationship with our friends in the United States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="Teverson">
Mr President, I want to concentrate on one area only.
I have read few reports - even from the Commission - that have been stuffed so full of three and four-letter acronyms.
The one that is missing is GMOs.
If there is one area where US and European public opinion contrasts most it is here.
In the European Union consumers are particularly resistant to genetically modified food and the governments of Luxembourg and Austria are moving against current European policy.
On the other hand, in America crops which have been genetically modified are increasing and the proportion of maize now grown under GM conditions is quite large.
<P>
Then there is this brave attempt to remove trade barriers between these two major trading blocs.
My question to the Commissioner is: In such a market place as he proposes, how do we protect European citizens' preferences in public health and environmental areas, as illustrated by the GMO issue?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Donnay">
Mr President, the relations that link the United States and the European Union are very special.
We form the most important trade relationship in the world.
Therefore, the project for a new Transatlantic Economic Partnership carries great hopes for our respective economies and reasserts the objectives of Euro-American multilateral cooperation.
<P>
The global economy requires us to participate in this regular dialogue, but recent events lead me to fear that this enhanced partnership, which we have achieved after months of work and negotiations, might be at risk if one of the partners does not apply the principles on which it is founded.
<P>
The threats made by the United States of unilateral sanctions against European products, such as bananas and meat, are of some concern for the future, to say the least.
A solution will have to be found to this dispute within the framework of the WTO, that is, through the multilateral legal channel.
<P>
In any case, the application of unilateral sanctions against European products on the part of the United States would be unacceptable and would seriously damage the trust and cooperation that characterise our relationship.
<P>
I agree with the rapporteur and I would like to pay tribute here to her excellent work and to insist that as far as possible Parliament be involved in and informed of the development of transatlantic relations.
In addition, I fully agree with the proposal to create a US-Europe interparliamentary group.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, the French left-wing government overturned the MAI agreement in the OECD, which it considered a threat to national sovereignty in social issues and matters relating to working life and the environment.
My thanks to France.
In a new combination of letters of the alphabet, TEP, the Transatlantic Economic Partnership, poses the same problems as the MAI.
The TEP is a slimmed-down version of the MAI, Mr Kreissl-Dörfler said, and he is right.
We are hanging flesh on the same skeleton.
<P>
Free trade, which is the freedom of markets rather than people, is often an attack on the structures set up in a nation to protect its people and its environment.
They were created with good intentions.
Market forces have no social or ecological responsibility.
For example, the views of consumers in Europe on the one hand, and the USA on the other, on health foods are fundamentally different.
We do not want to eat hormone-treated meat.
We do not want to eat poison-resistant, genetically-modified soya, maize or potatoes, nor any other new American foods.
One problem in particular is the agreement on the reciprocal approval of products: approved one place, approved everywhere.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lannoye">
Mr President, I would like to make a few comments.
I would firstly like to say that I am surprised that the United States is using retaliatory measures towards the European Union.
In the case of bananas, it is quite obvious.
I am amazed that we are surprised because, in fact, it is not the first time.
The United States has been playing this type of game for a very long time and, without getting involved here in kneejerk anti-American reactions, we should nevertheless remember the serious case of the Helms-Burton Act in which the European Union adopted an extremely timid attitude.
We even withdrew our complaint to the World Trade Organisation - in accordance with who knows what regulation and what principle - but this demonstrated two things: intransigence on the one hand, and weakness on the other.
It therefore seems to me to be time to put an end to this imbalance, particularly since - and I would like to mention this point - the United States has just showed itself up once again through its intransigence in Buenos Aires where it totally ruined a conference that was absolutely essential for the future of the planet.
<P>
My second comment relates to the involvement of the European Parliament in the process we are discussing today.
Are we going to continue to allow ourselves to be treated like this over the months ahead?
As far as I am concerned, I do not think we should run after a moving target.
We firstly had the MAI, and I believe that we managed, along with others, to avert the danger.
There is the New Transatlantic Marketplace, which has been rejected by the Council, and we are now being offered the Transatlantic Economic Partnership.
When I look at what that project contains, I do not have the same positive outlook as some of my colleagues.
I think that it basically involves stepping up and extending bilateral cooperation with the United States, even if we add to it the multilateral dimension.
And it involves making general use of the principle of mutual recognition, particularly in areas such as biotechnology, food quality, the environment and social protection, which seems to me to be extremely dangerous.
If Parliament accepts the idea of not intervening from the outset in this type of debate, I think that it is making a fool of itself and bringing discredit upon itself in the face of public opinion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, improved trade relations with the USA are a welcome development.
Given the increasing trend towards globalisation, it is useful to have a good relationship with trading partners whose interests are similar to ours.
The position of the individual Member States is fairly weak within a multilateral trading system, certainly since the advent of the World Trade Organisation.
So this is a job for the European Union, especially when it comes to looking for like-minded trading partners.
But I have a few cautionary comments to make on the new transatlantic marketplace.
<P>
Earlier this year, Parliament approved a resolution on the environmental, health and consumer protection aspects of world trade.
Those aspects are extremely important for the transatlantic marketplace.
The Commission's communication does not take sufficient account of them.
I agree with the rapporteur, Mrs Mann, when she insists that there can be no tampering with European legislation in this area.
<P>
Another word of caution on the new transatlantic partnership concerns the place of the European Union in multilateral bodies and agreements.
The Union's position in these must remain independent of the USA, especially in debate with and about the developing world.
I am not talking here of the so-called 'banana preferences' referred to in Amendment No 4.
I am concerned to ensure that this new transatlantic marketplace should not hamper the European Union in its worldwide pursuit of sustainable development and a fair distribution of prosperity.
Nor must the new transatlantic marketplace lead to a widening of the gap between north and south.
The same goes for other initiatives for cooperation by developed nations, for example the multilateral agreement on investment.
<P>
Lastly, I would like consideration to be given to the cultural issues on the transatlantic agenda.
There are important differences in approach here between the European Union and the USA.
The Member States of the European Union, for example, have a different system for protecting intellectual property.
On the question of whether or not a royalty should be paid for books made available on the Internet, we cannot allow the Americans to dictate to us.
Europe's cultural identity must not be left to the mercy of the free market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Blot">
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="Kinnock, Glenys (PSE).">
Mr President, this is an excellent report but I have to say that I do regret its juxtaposition to the deep concern many of us have expressed here today about the threat to our banana regime.
<P>
Commissioner Brittan, I heard you say last Friday on the BBC that the ongoing dispute with the United States is actually not about bananas but about trade rules and the obligation to comply with them.
I have to say - and I know you are aware of this - that the poor farmers in the Caribbean are not going to be impressed by what they might see as a rather technocratic approach.
They are bewildered and frightened by what they see as a relentless onslaught on the banana regime by the United States.
If they are to grow another crop, as has been suggested, then - as you have said yourself - they are likely to resort to growing drugs.
<P>
Therefore the principles here are very important indeed.
As you rightly said earlier, sabre-rattling by the United States and the threat of sanctions against the European Union is something that we deeply regret, especially since there is no threat whatsoever to the United States' own economy.
<P>
There are a number of questions that we need to ask.
Is this dispute likely to be about rules; is it about hormones in beef; is it about the Democrats' pay-off to Chiquita bananas?
The Caribbean bananas which enter the European market account for only 7 % of the EU's market in bananas and also, if this wrangle is about Article 13 of WTO, there are other North-South arrangements that do not sit that happily with Article 13.
I hope the United States recognises that as well.
<P>
This is, I hope, the very last act in this banana drama that has been going on for many years.
It needs to be shown up for what it is.
I hope that the European Union will stand firm and say that there is a moral issue here, an issue of obligation and responsibility to our traditional suppliers in the Caribbean in particular.
I hope that you will continue to make the case for real justice for the people of the Caribbean in the face of what is perceived by all of us here as the completely unacceptable attitude of the United States towards the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valdivielso de Cué">
Mr President, I have no intention of repeating the general statements made by previous speakers on the quality of the report. It covers all the key issues and I therefore congratulate Mrs Mann.
Nevertheless, we regret the lack of mechanisms to prevent the United States from taking unilateral action in contravention of World Trade Organisation arrangements and to the detriment of bilateral relations.
I do not want to talk about bananas.
What had to be said has already been said by the other Members.
<P>
No mechanisms are included to provide for concerted action in connection with third countries, such as China or Japan.
Issues as important as the protection of databases, the protection of patents and intellectual property were omitted from the negotiations.
I regret too that the liberalisation of international telecommunications, product responsibility, the harmonisation of customs issues and the standardisation and simplification of information required for business were not dealt with either.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, we are convinced that transatlantic relations can be seen as an opportunity for Europe, especially in respect of difficulties still outstanding.
Some of these problems are sizeable - we need only think of the barriers to trade and investment. Above all else, rules and regulations are what constitute the greatest difficulty and have given rise to a number of bilateral conflicts over the years.
<P>
All things considered, the new transatlantic marketplace could serve to safeguard consumer interests, given the stated aim of eliminating by 2010 all existing tariffs on industrial goods, thanks to new agreements negotiated on the basis of mutual recognition, the so-called MRAs. These, in our opinion, should reproduce the levels of consumer protection, safeguards and environmental safety currently guaranteed by EU rules within the Community.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Porto">
Mr President, first of all I should like to say that I will always be the first to defend close links with the United States: we are talking about the world's two main blocs and they both have special responsibilities.
We believe that, apart from the bilateral links uniting us, we should endeavour to strengthen multilateral arrangements, provided that we bear in mind the interests of smaller countries as well as the United States and Europe.
<P>
Of course, we must refer to the backward step taken over the banana issue.
A mountain has been made out of a molehill.
As far as bananas are concerned, what is at stake are bananas from Madeira - as a Portuguese Member I have to speak about them - but also from the Canary Islands and certain ACP countries.
What is at stake are potential social problems for people with no alternative way of earning a living.
Unless we lend a little support to banana production, I do not see what alternatives we might offer.
<P>
I would like to add that this is not a typical issue and I hope that no others crop up.
This is also feared, as it happens, by the rapporteur, Mrs Erika Mann, whom I congratulate.
I hope that this problem has been sorted out and that cooperation can be strengthened between the United States and Europe. I think that would benefit not just the two blocs but also the rest of the world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="Elles">
I would like to support the excellent report of the rapporteur, Mrs Mann, and the courageous proposal put forward by our Commissioner here today, for three reasons.
<P>
Firstly, the TEP is going to give us a possibility of finding a framework to discuss multilateral issues with the United States.
All those involved in multilateral negotiations know that, unless the European Union and the United States are prepared effectively, negotiations such as the World Trade groundwork which we expect in the millennium round will not happen.
That is the first reason.
<P>
Secondly, in terms of a bilateral relationship, looking into the longer term, we are wanting to see a broader partnership.
It is not US colonialization of European decisions, it is a partnership based on broader economic aspects which will include monetary affairs and some security aspects when the Amsterdam Treaty is signed.
<P>
The last point is that this will not operate, as our rapporteur has said, unless we have parliamentary dialogue - a legislative dialogue - because the problems which we have had on Cuba, the problems which we have on bananas, come from the US Congress and therefore you need a parliamentary dialogue based on equality, balance and substance to be able to make this important initiative succeed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
Mr President, I too wish to congratulate Mrs Mann on her full and thorough report.
I would also like to thank Commissioner Brittan for the clarity and determination he showed in his statement last week and in what he said to the House this afternoon.
<P>
Unfortunately, our friends and partners in the United States only understand firm and aggressive language.
It really is remarkable that last week, as the Council of the European Union was adopting the action plan paving the way for the Transatlantic Economic Partnership, our friends in the United States should spring a whole range of unilateral measures on us, in blatant disregard of the rules of the game and in clear violation of the obligations entered into within the World Trade Organisation.
<P>
Unfortunately too, experience has shown that the United States only takes the European Union seriously when we take clear, strong and determined action. This is the case, for instance, when the European Union asks the World Trade Organisation to set up a panel to deal with extraterritorial legislation, as was the case for the Helms-Burton Act.
However, we are not respected if we allow matters to run on.
<P>
I believe that, as Mr Brittan put it so well this afternoon, the United States, flaunting its obvious irresponsibility, has placed itself above the law. It has replaced, or rather, hopes to replace, the rule of law with the rule of force.
<P>
I feel that the European Union as a whole has displayed abundant prudence, caution and goodwill when handling transatlantic relations. Therefore, Mr President, I believe the time has come for the Commission to respond in kind now that we have the ability to suspend the negotiations until reason and good sense prevail.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Salafranca.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Question Time (Commission)
<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="President">
The next item is questions to the Commission (B4-0705/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 NAME="President">
Question No 42 by Ursula Stenzel (H-1048/98)
<P>
Subject: ECB
<P>
European Monetary Union, in which a politically independent central bank council committed to the objective of monetary stability within the euro area will determine future policy, will be launched on 1 January 1999.
<P>
The statements by the new Federal German Government that monetary policy should make a greater contribution to overall economic development and should also seek to generate growth and jobs are a cause for concern, since it is precisely the restriction of its remit to monetary policy which justifies the independence of the ECB.
<P>
What view does the Commission take of these recent developments?
In this connection, how should the Commission proposal that a stricter distinction be drawn between consumer and investment spending when assessing excessive national budget deficits be interpreted?
I give the floor to Mr Flynn to answer Mrs Stenzel's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 NAME="Flynn">
In its capacity as guardian of the Treaties, the Commission would point out that Article 107 of the Treaty guarantees the independence of the ECB and of the national central banks when carrying out the tasks and duties conferred upon them by the Treaty and by the Statute of the ESCB.
The Commission would recall here that the primary objective of the ESCB is to maintain price stability.
Article 105 of the Treaty adds that without prejudice to the objective of price stability, the ESCB shall support the general economic policies in the Community with a view to contributing to the achievement of the objectives of the Community as laid down in Article 2.
<P>
These objectives are concerned, among other things, with promoting sustainable and non-inflationary growth and a high level of employment and social protection.
There is no need for the Commission to present a new proposal.
In accordance with the Treaty it has always paid attention to the specific share of investment expenditure in general government deficits, as witness its recommendation of 25 March 1998 concerning qualification of the Member States for participation in the third stage of economic and monetary union.
<P>
The Commission would, however, point out that sustainable growth is not possible without a reduction in public deficits, that the reduction in public deficits is not incompatible with a sustained level of investment and that the golden rule - namely, that the public deficit should be smaller than the volume of public investment - is a principle of sound fiscal conduct.
In this connection, I can inform you that the Commission is preparing a report on the economic, fiscal and investment strategy for the Vienna European Council which will follow the Pörtschach European Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, Commissioner, I would simply like to ask whether you have heard about the statement made by Mr Strauss-Kahn and Mr Lafontaine at the latest German-French summit, which raised the issue of suspending the Stability Pact in a few years.
What is the Commission's opinion on this issue, and what indeed is its view of the independence of the European Central Bank?
Are additional security measures necessary here?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 NAME="Flynn">
I do not have the exact details concerning the matter you referred to.
Perhaps it might be better if my colleague, Commissioner de Silguy, answered the matter in writing.
I would just say that the Commission would be happy with a debate between the ECB and finance ministers.
That is quite understandable because independence does not necessarily mean isolation.
I will be quite happy to convey your point of view to Commissioner de Silguy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 NAME="President">
Question No 43 by Robert Evans (H-1023/98)
<P>
Subject: Reciprocity for pensioners' concessions in the EU
<P>
Would the Commission agree that pensioners travelling to other European Union countries should expect to be able to benefit from concessions, with particular regard to travel and cultural activities from which pensioners who are nationals of the state they are visiting are able to benefit from?
<P>
One of my constituents recently visited Italy. On seeing that entry to a monument was free for pensioners, he asked for that concession.
He was shocked to hear from the staff that the concession applied only to Italian pensioners.
<P>
A recognised card for the over-sixties would help to avoid this problem and ensure that pensioners received the concessions to which they are entitled across the EU.
<P>
Could the Commission inform me if there has been any progress following the adoption of the Commission Recommendation of 10 May 1989 (89/350/EEC ) on this subject? I give the floor to Mr Flynn to answer Mr Evans' question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 NAME="Flynn">
The Commission agrees with the honourable Member's view that it is desirable that pensioners travelling to other European Union countres should be facilitated in claiming discretionary concessions available to pensioners from the state which they are visiting.
Regrettably, the Commission knows that in practice such discretionary concessions are not always freely accessible to nationals from the state other than the one which is offering the concessions.
<P>
The Court of Justice has examined several complaints of discrimination against nationals of other Member States as recipients of services, for example, to reduced or free entry to museums and other public buildings and reductions in transport fares.
The Court, basing itself on Article 6 concerning discrimination on grounds of nationality and Article 59 on freedom to provide services, has consistently condemned discriminatory practices.
<P>
The Commission will continue to be vigilant in upholding respect for basic principles of Community law and will, wherever appropriate, have recourse to the Court of Justice.
Furthermore, for almost ten years, the Commission has been negotiating with Member States on the introduction of a European Union-wide over-60s card as called for in the Commission's recommendation of 10 May 1989.
<P>
The implementation of this recommendation has been hindered by practical difficulties in a number of Member States.
In order to take the matter forward, the Commission supported a first feasibility study on this issue during the European Year for Older People in 1993.
The Commission launched a second feasibility study in 1995 aimed at updating and deepening the first one.
The final report on this study has been received and copies have been given to the members of the European Parliament Intergroup on Ageing.
The report has also been presented to the NGO members of the liaison group for older people.
The conclusions and recommendations of the report still have to be examined and discussed further with the representatives of the Member State governments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 NAME="Evans">
While there is some cause for optimism in the Commissioner's response, there are also some worries.
This is an important question about building a Europe for the people and when people are refused reductions because they are not residents of a particular Member State this is very damaging to the whole image of Europe.
The Commissioner referred to the Commission recommendation of ten years ago but it is taking a long time.
This is something that ought to be supported and which we should all want to come to fruition.
<P>
I am also looking at a similar venture, namely a European youth card.
As there is nothing to suggest that in ten years' time we will not still be looking at the question of an over-60s card, can the Commissioner give me any cause for optimism on a European students' card?
At the moment we seem to be backtracking as much as moving forward.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 NAME="Flynn">
Mr Evans, I would not be too optimistic.
I certainly would not hold my breath on this issue.
I have been trying for a number of years, without much success.
There are two main obstacles to a card for older people.
The nature, the form and the administration vary so much between Member States.
The whole question of subsidiarity and proportionality raises its head every time I try to move the question forward.
<P>
Some Member States operate a card system, others do not.
The conditions vary: in some Member States age alone is sufficient, in others age is combined with income or even residence.
The age of application varies from 58 to 67.
Many Member States have decentralised and localised administration and services for application.
<P>
The second problem is that the picture is constantly changing.
There is a lot of commercialisation and privatisation, particularly in transport, and a lot of the responsibility is in the hands of private and semi-public agencies.
<P>
So it has not gone well and I am finding it extremely difficult to reach a point where we can coordinate the whole system.
I would like to think it could happen but, as you say, it has proved impossible so far and I do not see any great hope for the immediate future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 NAME="Truscott">
I wish to thank the Commissioner for his reply to the question by Mr Evans.
I certainly hope the Commission will consider bringing forward detailed proposals for a card for the over-60s in the foreseeable future, even given the difficulties.
<P>
Would the Commissioner like to take this opportunity to condemn the ageism which is widespread throughout the European Union and is still a major problem?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="Flynn">
I just wish to say that the Commission has already announced its intention in the 1998 to 2000 social action programme to launch a debate on the use of the future Article 13.
Article 13 provides for appropriate action to combat discrimination based on sex, racial and ethnic origin, religion, belief, disability, age and sexual orientation.
So we are examining the possibility of legislation as soon as the Treaty is ratified.
<P>
I have just announced our intention under the programme to present a communication on the issues you have referred to as part of our contribution to next year's United Nations Year.
We will have an opportunity to discuss the matter further at that time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="White">
Mr Flynn, if you hold your breath for too long you will do yourself an injury and then you might need the health card.
I do not know whether you remember that some time ago we, as a Parliament, led an initiative and I presented you with a mock-up of that health card which you assured me you would strive for.
You told me that in the Republic of Ireland the introduction of the health card was being considered.
Since it was mentioned by my colleague, Mr Evans, what progress has been made on the introduction of a health card?
I remind you that one of the possibilities I suggested to you was that rather than go for a high-tech version we might just go for something which was a very posh E111.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="Flynn">
You know that I support the introduction of this card.
I have spent a lot of time trying to get it organised.
It has been extremely difficult because of the difficulties I have outlined to you, but we might be able to make some progress.
Perhaps more action could be taken at European level to help improve the flow of information.
It might also be helpful to have an update on the concession schemes that are available and try and promote the identification and exchange of best practice.
<P>
The Commission could consider supporting the development of a website on concession schemes available to older people in the Union.
I do not whether you think that would be helpful but it might be a first step in breaking the log-jam.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 NAME="President">
Question No 44 by Bernie Malone (H-0925/98)
<P>
Subject: Cancellation of 1999 Year Against Violence Against Women
<P>
I understand that the 1999 Year Against Violence Against Women has been cancelled at the behest of the Member States.
<P>
Given that this House itself called for the declaration of 1999 as the Year Against Violence Against Women in a Resolution in 1997, can the Commissioner explain why the Commission was insufficiently prepared financially and organisationally for it to go ahead?
I should like to welcome Mrs Wulf-Mathies and give her the floor to answer Mr Malone's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Mr President, Mrs Malone, Parliament was late in expressing its wish to declare a Year Against Violence Against Women, with the result that the Commission no longer had time to present a formal proposal, ensure appropriate finance and plan the activities carefully.
However, in an effort to take Parliament's wishes into account, the Commission proposed a campaign on the subject of violence against women.
Measures for this were begun following a preparatory meeting under the British Presidency in June 1998.
<P>
The first conference will take place from 1 to 4 December on the role of the police in fighting violence against women, in particular against immigrants.
This event is partly funded by the DAPHNE programme.
Another important conference, which the Commission is organising with the German Presidency, will take place next spring.
One feature of the conference will be the presentation of an analysis of relevant statistics from the Member States.
This report is currently being drawn up jointly by experts from all Member States and the European Women's Lobby, and will also be financed by the DAPHNE programme.
<P>
The campaign's closing conference will be organised in cooperation with the Finnish Presidency.
The Commission is also planning an exhibition and several seminars, and will draw up and publish information literature that is to be used for prevention in particular.
The Member States are being invited to organise events in their own countries that should be aimed at the general public and the non-governmental organisations.
The Commission has also proposed launching a Eurobarometer survey on this subject in the Member States.
In addition, a report is to be drawn up for the closing conference to summarise all the measures that have been taken or introduced in the Member States during the campaign.
We would very much welcome the participation of the applicant countries in this campaign.
<P>
Against this I must say, however, that the implementation, type and scale of the measures will depend on the level of financial and staff resources made available by you for 1999.
The Commission will therefore not be able to make a final decision on the campaign until the general budget has been passed in December 1998.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 NAME="Malone">
I thank the Commissioner for her reply.
<P>
I do not normally put down questions because I do not like to waste time, but I feel very strongly about this issue.
I am disappointed that we have not been able to make further progress.
I wonder if the fact that you did not have enough resources at your disposal has anything to do with the report that was published yesterday by the Court of Auditors, which says that a lot of work is being impeded by people being on short-term contracts.
I hope that is not the case here.
<P>
Your plans are very laudable and the campaign and the points you have made are very good.
But we must also take the campaign to the schools.
Educational input is very important.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Mr President, firstly, the problem of late application was due solely to the fact that we have certain deadlines to observe if the Council is to make appropriate decisions, and for this we were simply too late.
But this has nothing to do with employment contracts in the Commission.
You are familiar with the Commission communication 'on a medium-term Community action programme on measures providing a Community-wide support to Member States action relating to violence against children, young persons and women'.
This is a programme that is to run from 2000 to 2004, and it makes sense to accept this proposal for schools too.
You know that part of this communication and of the action programme is raising public awareness.
I agree with you that raising this awareness must begin as early as possible so that the public develop information and attitudes that make them reject violence against women and allow joint measures to be organised.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 NAME="President">
Question No 45 by Gerard Collins (H-1029/98)
<P>
Subject: EU support for computer purchases for schools
<P>
At Shanagolden Primary School in Limerick, in Ireland, a new computer room with eight computers has just been opened which will enable teachers to work with pupils, including remedial pupils, in furthering their education through the use of new technology.
This only came about as a result of various fund-raising activities and the offer of an interest-free loan.
<P>
Can the Commission outline what support, if any, is available at EU level to support the purchase of computers and/or the fitting out of computer rooms in primary and secondary schools.
I give the floor to Mrs Wulf-Mathies to answer Mr Collins' question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Mr President, Mr Collins, the Commission is heavily involved in improving access for European schools to new information technologies.
The actions that have already begun or are currently being introduced include the following: firstly, the Action Plan 'Learning in the information society', the aims of which include the networking of European schools, training for teachers and the development of strategies for developing multimedia content.
<P>
Secondly, it includes the Educational Multimedia Task Force, which brings together the educational activities of eight different Community programmes.
In this context, a joint call for proposals on the subject of educational multimedia was published in December 1996, in which in particular Socrates, Leonardo da Vinci, TEN and three research programmes took part.
One example of the 46 projects selected is the 'European Schoolnet' project, which involves the education ministries of the Member States.
The Socrates programme is aimed at European cooperation in education and promotes cooperation in these areas, in particular within the context of open and distance learning.
The proposal for Socrates II provides for a new action that is to promote the critical and responsible use of information technologies in schools and colleges.
<P>
Finally, there are numerous research and development actions under various research programmes, which serve to develop an infrastructure and the resources to use it, to create new tools such as simulations or virtual classrooms and to promote open and distance learning.
<P>
In the Community, provision of equipment for schools, in particular computers, is financed in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity from the budgets of the Member States or local authorities.
Those areas which are eligible for aid from the Structural Funds receive additional funding from them, some of which has helped to finance suitable computer equipment for vocational training centres and further education institutions, including in Ireland.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Wulf-Mathies.
Mr Collins is satisfied with your reply.
<P>
Question No 46 by Marie-Paule Kestelijn-Sierens (H-0968/98)
<P>
Subject: Authorisation of the Drogenbos incinerator in contravention of European legislation
<P>
On 21 November 1997 the Flemish Ministry of the Environment authorised the construction of an incinerator at Drogenbos (Flemish Brabant).
The construction of this incinerator contravenes, inter alia, the proximity principle, the precautionary principle, Directive 80/779/EEC on air quality limit values and guide values for sulphur dioxide and suspended particulates and Directive 85/337/EEC on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment. Does the Commission consider the complaint lodged by the people living nearby to be justified, and if so, what steps will it take?
I give the floor to Mrs Wulf-Mathies to answer Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Mr President, the Commission is currently investigating several complaints relating to the Drogenbos incinerator which this question refers to.
In view of these complaints, the Commission asked the Belgian Government for information at the end of August, and it is currently examining the reply from the relevant Belgian authorities.
If the current investigation confirms that Community environmental law is being violated, the Commission will decide whether infringement proceedings should be instituted in accordance with Article 169.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
I am grateful to the Commissioner for her reply, but I should specifically like to know when we can expect a decision from the Commission.
This is an extremely important problem which needs to be addressed with the utmost urgency, since it concerns an incinerator being built in a densely populated area of one and a half million people where the maximum limits for particulates and cadmium have already been reached.
I would like to press the Commission to investigate this matter with the utmost urgency.
Perhaps Mrs Wulf-Mathies could tell us how long it will take for the Commission to reach a decision?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens, we are aware that this is a very sensitive issue.
This is why we asked the Belgian Government for information, which we received in October.
Please do not expect me to be able to tell you now how long the investigation will take.
However, we are aware that this issue is a source of concern for the people from that area and they are therefore entitled to receive a reply from us as soon as possible to confirm whether environmental regulations have been violated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 NAME="President">
Question No 47 by John McCartin (H-0945/98)
<P>
Subject: Local partnership companies in Ireland
<P>
Is the Commission aware of the concern of Partnership companies in Ireland (receiving funding under the Operational Programme for Local Urban and Rural Development under the sub-programme for the 'Integrated development of designated disadvantaged and other areas') that the programme will be cut short when it has only just got up and running (operational only in 1996)?
<P>
Will the Commission make a commitment, given the importance of countering disadvantage through such local community effort, to include such a programme in the new Structural Funds regulations?
I give the floor to Mrs Wulf-Mathies to answer Mr McCartin's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Mr President, as we see it, the concern of partnership companies mentioned by Mr McCartin is unfounded.
It is not the Commission's intention either to introduce reprogramming or to reduce funding.
On the contrary, the Commission is convinced, on the strength of the information provided by the monitoring committee for the Operational Programme for Local Urban and Rural Development, that partnership companies will succeed by the end of 1999 in dividing up between the projects all the programme funds available under the TAI Programme II. This is particularly important given that it will only be possible to fully disburse the funds allocated to the individual projects in the following year.
<P>
The Commission would be in favour of the national authorities including, in their regional development plan, proposals on ways of promoting integrated development when making plans for the next programming period.
It acknowledges the progress that was achieved within the current programme in promoting local socio-economic development and in compensating for disadvantages, and is open to proposals on ways of promoting local development and, in particular, combating social exclusion in future as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 NAME="McCartin">
I want to thank the Commissioner for her very full reply.
One of my concerns is not actually about this year or next year but about the new programme which starts in the year 2000.
This did not commence with the present structural funds programme because there was a delay in getting it off the ground, particularly in Ireland.
<P>
At the moment people are just learning what it is about, getting their programme off the ground, and now they are concerned that it might not continue after the end of 1999.
Will you be making proposals for it to be continued into the next programme so that they have another six years?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Mr President, I understand the concern.
Firstly, it is simply a question of carrying out all appropriations for commitments by the end of 1999, and this means that measures can also still be financed in the year 2000.
<P>
Secondly, the Commission is generally interested in promoting local partnerships in the next programming period as well.
The only thing is that, without knowing the Irish Government's programme proposals, it would be going too far at this stage to say that they will also be part of future programmes.
However, since we attach great importance, in the new proposals for structural reform, to local initiatives and, in particular, to local employment initiatives, I am assuming that continuing to promote similar measures in future as part of a programme will be an important concern for all of us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 NAME="President">
Question No 48 by Konstantinos Hatzidakis (H-0973/98)
<P>
Subject: Defective work in implementation of Greek Community Support Framework
<P>
According to information which has come to light in Greece, a great many of the projects jointly funded from the Community budget under the Second Community Support Framework for Greece, particularly road-building, have been carried out in a slipshod manner and, in general, do not meet Community specifications.
<P>
This information came to light following the publication of a report by the expert quality control consultant appointed by the Greek Government. The report notes that for all categories of road-building projects subjected to checks, between 26 % and 95 % of the work was defective.
This is a particularly serious matter both in terms of the high percentage of defective work and the fact that such work is largely responsible for the high number of accidents and deaths on the roads in Greece.
<P>
Given that these projects are carried out with Community funding, will the Commission say whether it considers such a high percentage of defects to be normal in comparison with the situation in other Member States? Where does responsibility for this situation lie and what does the Commission intend to do to put an end to this unacceptable state of affairs?
I give the floor to Mrs Wulf-Mathies to answer Mr Hatzidakis's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Mr President, Mr Hatzidakis, according to existing Community law, responsibility for carrying out projects cofinanced by the Structural Funds lies exclusively with the Member States. In other words, according to existing law, the Member States must guarantee the required quality.
Monitoring of these projects is therefore subject to national legislation.
When the Community Support Framework for Greece was approved for 1994 to 1999, the Greek Government assured the Commission that it would take measures to put right the serious deficiencies occurring in the past in connection with the execution of public works.
This was particularly important for the Commission given the significant increase in the number of new projects.
<P>
One of the measures included the appointment of an independent special adviser for quality control for projects cofinanced by the Community.
In fact, the first quarterly report of this body known as ESPEL establishes that there is still a problem of quality.
However, despite spot checks carried out on the projects, it is still not possible to submit applications for certain projects.
Therefore, the Joint Permanent Committee, whose members also include representatives of the Commission, made the proposal, accepted by the Greek authorities, to have the projects monitored systematically and thoroughly by a quality control officer from 1 July 1998, and no longer simply by spot checks.
<P>
The results of this second ESPEL inspection are to be presented in two days, that is, on 19 November, at the next meeting of the Community Support Framework Audit Board.
Only then will it be possible to identify the quality defects for each specific project, to determine who is responsible and, above all, to proceed at the same time according to three groupings. The first of these involves projects with secondary defects that are to be put right by the companies, and the second involves projects with considerable defects that do not affect the safety of transport, for instance, but result in high maintenance costs; these additional costs are to be settled by means of payments to the companies concerned.
The third category is for projects with serious defects that cannot be repaired, and the companies must put these right at their own expense.
<P>
The Commission has no information that would allow it to make a comparative assessment of quality problems in the individual Member States.
However, the Commission is in favour of increasing independent quality control in Greece, and it is in close contact with the Greek authorities.
It shall examine the results of the second ESPEL inspection and shall follow closely further developments to repair project defects with those responsible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Hatzidakis">
Mr President, I do not know what to begin with because the subject is far too big to be covered in just one minute.
Commissioner, whilst you know that all of us MEPs stand up for our regions and for the correct implementation of the Second Community Support Framework, trying to get more money for the forthcoming Santer package, there is unfair treatment here and we denounce that.
It is a scandal.
I have the published figures for the second quarter from the report by the Special Quality Control Council, which show that projects not conforming to specifications are found in a very high proportion: concrete materials of poor quality 77 %, substrate material of poor quality 91 %, foundation materials of poor quality 95 %, and so on.
It is a scandal, Commissioner, and frankly I would have expected a clearer answer.
To a written question I submitted to you a while ago about the Patras-Athens-Thessaloniki project, you answered that the work had not been put right even though you had asked for that to be done, and that the delay was worrying.
So I want you to tell me what action you intend to take with the Greek Government, and tell me also, since you say you have comparative figures, what is happening elsewhere.
Are there such major problems of the order of 95 % in other countries?
Sincerely, I ask you for a more specific answer because this is an issue of the first priority for my country.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Mr President, Mr Hatzidakis, I do not have any figures from other Member States, but of course you know that for years we have been busy hurrying along improvements to the tendering procedures for public procurement. And you also know that the reform of public procurement has necessitated legislative changes that must now also be brought through Parliament by a democratic procedure.
Therefore, all of this has lasted much longer than what was acceptable to us as well.
However, we are now well on the way to obtaining really secure data.
It would be good if, together - you given your responsibility as a Member of Parliament, and we given our responsibility as the Commission -, we now waited for the meeting of the monitoring committee where we could assess the last relevant inspection.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Trakatellis">
Mr President, Commissioner, I would first like to hear from you which exactly are the projects we are discussing, who are the contractors, and who are those responsible in the various services of the Greek State for monitoring these projects.
It is impossible for us to find out specific details.
Secondly, please tell me what procedures have been set in motion for penal sanctions on the grounds of negligence, because in a written answer you gave me, you said that penalties would be imposed but I have heard of no such procedure taking place.
Do you know anything about that?
Thirdly, if those instances of negligence, which are very major, happen to be real, will the return of the funds be demanded?
In other words, is it possible that my country will have to return money to the European Union and the Commission?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Mr President, I should gladly like to try that.
I have just pointed out that we have now started a very specific inspection, the results of which are to be discussed on 19 November in the monitoring committee.
Please appreciate that I do not wish to prejudge the meeting of the monitoring committee here today.
However, I have made it clear what the consequences are if defects can definitely be proved.
First and foremost, these are not things which the Commission demands from companies, but which the Member State is obliged to demand, because responsibility for the inspection lies with the Member State.
We cannot govern within the Member State, nor do we wish to.
<P>
There is not only the principle of subsidiarity, but also the need to separate the powers. However, it is clear that the necessary consequences will be discussed in the joint committees, and this is the case for both the monitoring committee, in which the Commission is also represented, and for this Joint Committee, which was set up because we realised that the system of pubic procurement is not working adequately.
Due to our discussion in Parliament today, I will also gladly instruct our representative in the monitoring committee not only to be very careful when finding out which problems have actually occurred, but also to make sure that they result in appropriate financial consequences for companies, and naturally consequences under criminal law, where this proves necessary or is indicated.
But I have to know the facts first before I start quoting criminal law here.
<P>
In this respect, I now consider this discussion to be a further impetus for the representatives of the Commission to take appropriate action at the meeting of the monitoring committee on 19 November.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 NAME="President">
Question No 49 by Glenys Kinnock (H-0980/98)
<P>
Subject: Timetable for Structural Fund negotiations
<P>
Will the Commission give a breakdown of the timetable for the remaining negotiations concerning the Structural Fund Regulations and the likely period of programme negotiations between the Commission and Member States for Objective 1 and Objective 2?
I give the floor to Mrs Wulf-Mathies to answer Mrs Kinnock's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Mr President, I should like to point out to Mrs Kinnock that the timetable for the negotiations on structural intervention in the new programming period depends of course mainly on when the new Structural Fund Regulations are adopted.
The Cardiff European Council has declared in this connection that political agreement on the whole package is to be achieved by March 1999 at the latest.
The Commission was pleased to note that the German Government intends to keep to the Cardiff timetable during its Presidency of the Council, as stated by the German Chancellor, Mr Schröder, in his inaugural speech on 10 October.
If this is the case, Parliament could agree, in particular, to the proposal for a Structural Fund Regulation with general terms and conditions by the end of the current legislative period.
The regulation could then be finally adopted in May 1999.
<P>
According to the Commission's proposal, the list of Objective 1 areas is to be drawn up immediately after the regulation has been adopted.
If we take into account the period of time that is necessary for drawing up the regional development plans and negotiating the Community support frameworks, the Commission's decisions on the distribution of the funds under Objective 1 could therefore be issued in the first quarter of the year 2000.
<P>
The list of eligible areas for Objective 2 could be adopted by the Commission in the third quarter of 1999, because the consultation process is longer in this area due to the flexibility that was introduced.
<P>
In the third quarter of the year 2000, the Commission could draw up the plans for the Objective 2 programme and issue the decisions on the distribution of the funds.
However, this depends on the regulations being adopted by Parliament within the legislative period, that is, in May, and on all the follow-up decisions being promptly taken as well, because things have yet to be put in concrete terms thereafter.
I think it is therefore truly important that Parliament and the Council give a clear signal that they also intend to keep to this timetable.
I hope very much that Parliament at least will do this tomorrow at the first reading on the reform of the Structural Funds.
You may rest assured that the Commission has the greatest interest in urging all those concerned to fulfil their specific obligations now, so that the areas which need our assistance do not suffer as a result of the present standstill in the decision-making process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="Kinnock, Glenys (PSE).">
I thank the Commissioner for a very comprehensive answer.
Could the Commissioner say what formula the Commission will be using to allocate Structural Fund resources to the Objective 1 areas for the period 2000 to 2006?
In the interests of transparency - and far be it from me to suggest that the Commission would not always want to be transparent on these issues - would the Commission do us the favour of publishing the formula it intends to adopt?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
I should gladly like to do that, because we do in fact agree on the principle of transparency.
We should like to make it clear that the basis of calculation and the indicators are transparent and can be understood by everyone.
We are therefore currently in the process of preparing a paper which will be made available to the Council and of course to the appropriate committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR).">
I have two supplementary questions, the first of them on Objective 6 areas.
I am keen to discover how much headway has been made with regard to Sweden and Finland. The matter was raised during the accession negotiations in 1992.
The criteria agreed upon then still hold good, and I wonder whether they will apply unchanged with the transfer to Objective 1.
<P>
In the run-up to the elections to the European Parliament, it would also be useful to iron out any uncertainties as to what is going to happen in the various Member States with regard to the Structural Funds.
Both MEPs and the public at large would benefit from clear information from the Commission on this point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
You know that, should there be delays, it is not because of the Commission, and I still hope that we will also manage through a joint effort to bring the discussions on the Structural Funds to a close in May, that is, before you begin the election campaign.
The Commission already submitted its proposals in March this year, and in this respect, more concrete results could have been achieved had they been wanted.
However, it is now up to the Council, and I hope that the Council will ultimately remain loyal to the decisions it made in Cardiff.
<P>
As far as Objective 6 is concerned, the principles applying to Finland and Sweden, which were laid down in their treaties of accession, are being retained; the one exception is a region in Finland which is going to be a genuine Objective 1 area, and which will be improved in accordance with this status.
However, as was already said, this is the Commission's proposal, and the Council and Parliament still have to agree to it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 NAME="President">
Question No 50 by Reinhard Rack (H-1011/98)
<P>
Subject: Future substance of the Community's Interreg initiative
<P>
The details of the future framework conditions for the new objectives 1, 2 and 3 are now beginning to emerge very clearly.
The same is not true of the Community initiatives.
In particular I should like to know what priorities the future Interreg initiative will contain, whether one of these will be the promotion of the regions at the EU's external borders - which the European Parliament has called for by a large majority - and what type of measures the Commission considers to be worth supporting in the context of promoting the regions bordering on the countries of Central and Eastern Europe?
I give the floor to Mrs Wulf-Mathies to answer Mr Rack's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Mr President, I should like to point out to Mr Rack that the Commission has proposed continuing and reinforcing the Community's Interreg initiative.
It believes that in future this should comprise three forms of cooperation.
<P>
Firstly, cooperation between neighbouring border regions with a view to developing integrated cross-border economic and social areas, as well as close cross-border cooperation in all other areas.
Secondly, transnational cooperation between regional and national authorities with a view to promoting the economic integration of peripheral regions, and closer European integration, as well as deepening cooperation in regional development.
Thirdly, interregional cooperation with a view to exchanging practical knowledge and proven methods, as well as promoting the transfer of know-how between the regions in question.
<P>
As you know, only measures within the Member States can be financed under Interreg.
However, Interreg measures in the regions bordering on the applicant countries are linked to the PHARE cross-border measures, under which cross-border cooperation is financed in the PHARE countries.
This includes a large number of measures in areas such as economic cooperation, environmental protection, infrastructure, policies for small and medium-sized enterprises, tourism, and so on.
<P>
The Commission has embarked upon reform of the PHARE-CBC regulation.
The aim of this reform is to make cross-border cooperation more efficient, and to reinforce the cross-border nature of measures by means of common structures and common programmes.
As regards the nature of the measures taken, the PHARE-CBC arrangements are to be brought into line with Interreg procedures in order to facilitate genuine cross-border cooperation and, if you so wish, to make the PHARE-CBC instrument a pre-accession Interreg instrument, so that together we can also learn how to cooperate across borders.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Commissioner, what you have just summarised in your answer shows that we have already come a very long way particularly on this important matter, and above all, that we have gone in the right direction for the regions, but also particularly for you as the Commissioner responsible.
The question which is always asked in this connection, of course, is the question of how much.
Interreg was previously one of 15 Community initiatives, and funds were therefore not abundant, at least in the previous support period.
How does the situation look for the next support period, as far as you can tell?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Mr President, Mr Rack, the funds are being extended in any case because, as you know, Interreg will no longer be one of 13 initiatives in future, but one of three, according to the Commission's proposal. I can only ask Parliament to now also oppose a whittling away of Community initiatives.
In addition, the Commission has always believed that Interreg should be the most important of these three, and this could mean that around 50 % of the funds for Community initiatives - that is, from the Community initiatives' total 5 % slice of the cake - should be given to Interreg.
<P>
However, this relies firstly on the Member States accepting the 5 % figure.
This is still being disputed in the Council at present.
Secondly, it requires that we resist all attempts to add further initiatives, because it is clear that the funds would then automatically have to be made available for more initiatives, with the result that Interreg would then also suffer financially.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, with that question by Mr Rack, we have come to the end of the time set aside for questions to Mrs Wulf-Mathies.
I should like to thank her for attending.
<P>
Since we have no more time for questions to Mrs Wulf-Mathies, Question No 51 by Mr Schröder will receive a written answer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 NAME="President">
Question No 52 by José Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra (H-0923/98)
<P>
Subject: US-Cuba relations
<P>
Is the Commission aware of the letter of 3 August sent by Mrs Albright, United States Secretary of State, to Mr Helms, Chairman of the US Senate's Foreign Affairs Committee, which was published by newspapers and other media?
<P>
Does the Commission intend to respond to this letter or take a stance on this matter?
<P>
Does the Commission consider that the interpretation placed on the terms of the declarations of 18 May by the US Secretary of State is in keeping with the spirit of the remarks made to the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs in May by the Commissioner responsible?
<P>
Does the Commission agree that this agreement represents an extraordinary reaffirmation of the principles underlying the Liberty Act?
I should like to welcome Sir Leon and give him the floor to answer Mr Salafranca's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
The Commission is aware of the letter from Secretary Albright to Senator Helms regarding the understanding on investment disciplines.
We discussed it with Secretary Albright during the ministerial meeting in Vienna in September and the Commission informed her that there were several parts of the letter which the Commission would not have written.
The Commission does not believe that it is desirable or useful to focus on differences in the presentation of the understanding on investment disciplines.
The text of the understanding itself is detailed and explicit.
It is a text which we will respect and implement when a title for waiver of the Helms-Burton Act is granted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=218 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
Commissioner, I would be grateful for further clarification on two points.
<P>
The day after the General Affairs Council at which the terms of the Transatlantic Summit's declaration on extraterritorial legislation, and more specifically, the Helms-Burton Act, were noted, you appeared before this Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy. On that occasion you stated that if the United States did not fulfill its part of the agreements - I refer in particular to the amendment of Title IV -, the agreements would lapse.
Were this to prove the case, you did not rule out the possibility of again initiating proceedings in some way before the bodies of the World Trade Organisation.
<P>
The question I should like to put to you, Commissioner, is as follows: what, in the Commission's opinion, is a reasonable period of time to allow the United States to amend Title IV of the Act?
Is President Clinton's term of office a reasonable period?
Or what about the present Commission's term of office?
Or perhaps the term of office of the next President of the United States is the appropriate period of time?
What exactly do you have in mind?
<P>

Moving on to my second point, Commissioner, I would like you to confirm that you did have the opportunity of meeting with the Chairman of the Congressional Foreign Affairs Committee, Senator Gilman, and also with Congressman Bob Menéndez during your latest visit to Washington. Also, I would like you to state whether or not it is true that you - or the European Commission - were asked to put in writing your position with regard to the content of Mrs Albright's letter to Senator Helms.
Finally, Commissioner, I would like to know whether you are in receipt of any communication from the United States' Congress on this matter, requesting the Commission to state its position on the content of the letter in question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon.">
The position is, that we will not carry out our part of the agreement if the United States does not carry out its part.
We have not set a deadline.
I had a number of meetings with Congressional leaders including Mr Gilman during a recent visit to the United States in which I put our position and the United States seemed more prepared to understand it.
Above all, the reasons we have not concerned ourselves to set a deadline is that, for the moment, under the agreement, the United States is taking no action against any European company under either Title 3 or Title 4 and has indicated that not only does Total get a waiver agreement but anybody else who invests in Iran on comparable terms will similarly get a waiver.
They are not implementing their law and we are not subject to it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 NAME="Newens">
Although the Commissioner has told us, the United States, is not at present implementing the Helms-Burton law in certain respects, is he aware of the fact that many European businessmen have been intimidated into refusing to take the risk of incurring liability under Title 3 and Title 4 of the bill and, if they have had relations with the United States, have preferred to limit relations with Cuba or not have any at all.
<P>
In these circumstances, will there not come a time when, although no deadline has been set, further action will have to be taken to protect European businessmen from the effects of this situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon.">
They seem to be pretty well protected by the understanding that we have because they are apparently piling into Cuba.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 NAME="President">
Question No 53 by Jonas Sjöstedt (H-0976/98)
<P>
Subject: Negotiations on the MAI
<P>
The OECD negotiations on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) resumed some time ago.
The draft agreement which was negotiated during the spring has been sharply criticised by the European Parliament and others.
What changes does the Commission wish to see made to the agreement that was negotiated in spring?
I give the floor to Sir Leon to answer Mr Sjöstedt's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
This is, of course, a complicated question.
Since it was tabled I made a Commission statement in the plenary session of 20 October.
That remains an accurate statement of the current position, and I would refer to it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
I should like to extend sincere thanks to the Commission for that answer, which was brief and to the point.
My question is no longer entirely relevant in any case. It was in fact put down before the good news reached us that the French Government was withdrawing from the MAI negotiations.
<P>
It now looks probable that new negotiations will be started up within the framework of the World Trade Organisation.
I wonder if the Commission believes that the draft agreement produced at OECD level would constitute a sound basis for these WTO negotiations. Or would it be preferable to begin again from scratch, given that the situation has now changed?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon.">
As I explained in the debate, the position is that we favoured an agreement in the OECD.
The negotiations have not been terminated but, being frank about it, I indicated that the prospects were not good.
If we had had an agreement in the OECD, or if we have one, that seems to me to be a good prelude to negotiation in the WTO, which has not yet been agreed but which we have argued in favour of.
If there is no agreement in the OECD, I still think that the right thing to do is to commence negotiation in the WTO.
So that is the course we would favour, irrespective of what happens in the OECD.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="President">
Question No 54 by Richard Howitt (H-1031/98)
<P>
Subject: The World Trade Organisation and the Multilateral Agreement on Investment
<P>
Given the recent actions of the French Government, will the European Commission now support the removal of talks on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) from the OECD to the World Trade Organisation (WTO)?
Will the Commissioner ensure that equal weight is given to responsibilities of investors under such an agreement as to rights vis-à-vis nation states?
I give the floor to Sir Leon to answer Mr Howitt's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
As I said in the debate I referred to in answer to the previous question, I have always believed that the WTO is the best place in the long term to create a predictable framework of investment rules.
I am glad we have made some progress in starting down that road at the WTO ministerial meeting in Singapore.
It is important that at the meeting next autumn we should continue to press the case for negotiation and ultimate agreement on investment in the WTO.
Meanwhile, there have been the negotiations on the MAI in the framework of the OECD.
We have participated in those negotiations but the chances of bringing them to a successful conclusion do not look promising at the moment.
So we need to consider what would be the best way forward now in order to deal with the situation and get negotiations going in the WTO in any event.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 NAME="Howitt">
Could I ask the President-in-Office to comment on the second part of my question, in particular the need to incorporate binding regulatory standards, especially in the areas of labour, the environment, investment incentives and restrictive business practices in any new multilateral agreement on investment, alongside rights for investors.
I am very pleased that the British Government, as reported on 13 November in the Guardian , has said that Ministers have decided the way forward is to include labour standards and environmental concerns from the outset.
I hope that the Commission will take that view in its relations with the WTO.
<P>
I should also like to ask the Commissioner if he will ensure that as far as the WTO is concerned, there is full consultation with civil society and NGOs and that labour issues are taken into account?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon.">
There has not been an agreement that there should be a negotiation in the WTO.
I very much hope that we will get that but there is strong resistance from a number of developing countries.
So it would be altogether premature to talk about the nature of our negotiating mandate for a negotiation that does not currently exist.
The short answer is that there is none at the moment but there will have to be one in due course.
As for consultation with civil society, that is enormously important.
The Commission organised a very large meeting with representatives from a very large number of NGOs, as well as others concerned, yesterday in Brussels on the whole range of WTO negotiations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 NAME="President">
As Mr Barton is not present, Question No 55 lapses.
<P>
Question No 56 by David Bowe (H-1034/98)
<P>
Subject: Steel
<P>
What action has the Commission taken in response to the recent court case in the Ohio State Court in the USA which was directly aimed at preventing foreign steel from entering that particular state, an action that appears to be in contravention of US and international law?
I give the floor to Sir Leon to answer Mr Bowe's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
On 27 October an Ohio- based steel producer filed an action in the Ohio State Court alleging unfair competition from low-priced steel imports into the state.
The action was meant to seek restrictions on imports into the state by a number of trading companies as well as Russian and Japanese steel producers.
This is a highly unusual move by the US steel industry which had already begun to lodge a serious of anti-dumping and anti-subsidy complaints at the federal level in response to the crisis in South-East Asia and Russia.
<P>
On 17 November 1998, however, the Ohio State Court where the case was pending dismissed the action brought by the Ohio corporation.
Apparently the judge decided that the plaintiff was not entitled to relief under state law.
The Commission is monitoring the further progress of the case as there may well be an attempt to seek relief before a federal court.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 NAME="Bowe">
I thank the Commissioner for that reply which I found very interesting.
I would also bring to his attention some more recent events.
In the steel industry journal The Metal Bulletin of 12 November it said that US steel company executives and trade union representatives met a few days ago with President Clinton in order to push their case for exceptional protection against steel imports.
While the report goes on to say that no decision has yet been taken, the companies are pressing for a change to the injury standard of the so-called 201 market safeguard rule which would make it easier for the Americans to shut down their market to imports but stay within WTO rules.
<P>
If the American Government gives in to this type of pressure, what is the European Union - and the Commission in particular - going to do to protect its steel companies?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon.">
It would be unwise to speculate on what we would do in a certain speculative event but I can tell you one thing.
We would certainly wish to ensure that the United States acted in accordance with WTO rules.
As far as Europe is concerned, EUROFER has been to see me and has indicated that it will be putting forward a complaint alleging that there has been dumping and possibly other unlawful trading activities in the steel industry.
If we receive that complaint we will obviously give it very serious attention.
But the proper procedure would have to be gone through and I could not begin to anticipate what the outcome would be.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 NAME="President">
Question No 57 by Graham Watson (H-1035/98)
<P>
Subject: China-Taiwan relations
<P>
What discussions has the Commission had recently with the Chinese authorities concerning its relations with Taiwan?
I give the floor to Sir Leon to answer Mr Watson's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon">
The latest contact that we had with the Chinese on the subject of Taiwan was in July 1998 when the Commission's Deputy Director-General in DG I, Mr Gérard Depayre, explained to an envoy from the Chinese mission to the EU the content and purpose of our bilateral WTO market access agreement which I signed - the record of the negotiations - with the Taiwanese Minister Wang in Brussels on 23 July.
Since then there has been no official contact with the Chinese authorities on the question of Taiwan.
<P>
We do not recognise Taiwan as a separate sovereign nation but rather as a separate customs territory with which we have had increasingly intense economic and commercial links.
We attach great importance to our economic and commercial links with both China and Taiwan so we must be available to discuss these relations as and when necessary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 NAME="Watson">
Please allow me to declare an interest.
I went with a group of other Members of this House from different countries and different political groups to Taiwan last week at the invitation of their Ministry of Foreign Affairs to observe their election campaign.
I led a similar group there in 1995.
Taiwan is a free and open democracy.
They have made tremendous strides towards democracy.
It is the world's 14th largest trading nation.
As a result of being a free and open democracy with a transparent economy they have come well out of the financial turmoil.
<P>
Would you not agree, Commissioner, that Taiwan is a beacon for democracy in the region and that the isolation of Taiwan is increasingly anomalous?
Will the Commission support Taiwan's early entry into the WTO and greater links between the European Union and the Republic of China?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 NAME="Brittan, Sir Leon.">
Mr Watson knows the official position of the Commission and indeed Member States with regard to Taiwan.
Our links with Taiwan are very strong. They are economic and commercial though.
In those circumstances I do not think it would be appropriate for me to comment on political developments in Taiwan.
<P>
But I would say, with regard to the other points that have been made, we are negotiating in good faith and rather successfully with Taiwan on its admission to the WTO.
We have made very good progress on the market access question.
There are other aspects that still have to be considered.
We will negotiate with Taiwan on those other aspects without delay and seek to reach a mutually acceptable agreement.
<P>
More generally, as far as the economic and commercial links with Taiwan are concerned, I entirely agree with what has been said.
It is a territory that has been extremely successful economically, even in the context of the current problems in Asia.
There is enormous further potential for the development of economic and commercial links with the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 NAME="President">
Question No 58 by Paul Rübig (H-0924/98)
<P>
Subject: Directives on the recognition of diplomas and discrimination against consultant engineering firms
<P>
The first and second directives on the recognition of diplomas govern entitlement to exercise a profession, or rather the evidence entitling a person to pursue a regulated profession in an EU Member State.
The term 'diploma', however, includes not only school leaving certificates and university degree certificates but also a number of training and examination certificates such as, for example, those required in Austria as proof of qualifications for a licence to exercise a regulated profession.
<P>
However, some Member States, Italy for instance, interpret the directive very restrictively, only recognising, for the purposes of granting licences to consultant engineering firms, degrees from universities and higher education establishments.
This practice has even led to the prosecution of Austrian citizens for illegal exercise of the profession of engineer.
How does the Commission intend to react to this possible discrimination against consultant engineering firms with regard to the exercise of their profession within the internal market?
I should like to welcome Mr Monti and give him the floor to answer Mr Rübig's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 NAME="Monti">
As the honourable Member has pointed out, within the meaning of Directives 89/48/EEC and 92/51/EEC the term 'diploma' may include not only school leaving certificates and university degrees, but also a number of training and examination certificates.
The directives relating to the general system of recognition of diplomas make no provision for coordination of training nor for automatic recognition of vocational qualifications.
Each Member State is free to stipulate what qualifications are required to exercise an occupation or profession within its own borders.
Thus Italy is entitled to permit only graduates from universities and higher education establishments to practise as consultant engineers.
<P>
Practitioners from other Member States must be treated in the same way as Italian citizens.
Infringement of the rules in force in the individual Member States may lead to the opening of legal proceedings, provided that any sentences are proportionate to the seriousness of the violation.
<P>
Austrian citizens wishing to practise as consultant engineers in Italy must submit an application to this effect to the competent authorities.
Should it emerge that there is a significant difference between the qualifications laid down by law in Italy and those required of Austrian citizens to practise that profession, the Italian authorities may invite the Austrian citizen to opt for an equalisation measure such as, for example, a training period or an aptitude test.
If, as appears to be the case, the Austrian practitioners possess only lower-level diplomas such as those provided for in Directive 92/51/EEC, the Italian authorities may require an equalisation measure to be applied in all cases.
It will be clear from what I have said that the general position of the Italian authorities does not conflict with the provisions of Community law.
I might add that, here as in other spheres, should any specific individual cases prove problematic, the Commission is prepared to examine them and check on their compliance with Community law.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, it appears in practice that an engineer in Austria may provide a service which meets market requirements, and that when he provides the same service in Italy or in another Member State, it is then no longer admissible.
How do you intend to deal in future with these problems which constitute obstacles for the internal market?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Monti">
Here the relevant distinction is the one introduced at the Fontainebleau summit back in 1984.
Indeed, ever since the Fontainebleau summit the vertical sectoral approach - that is, specific directives - for specific jobs and occupations has been replaced by a horizontal approach, in other words the general system based on semi-automatic recognition of qualifications without prior harmonisation of education and training systems.
<P>
Generally speaking, the Commission is not in favour of proposing new specific directives. In these cases, therefore, the host country is entitled to restrict the exercise of a certain occupation to holders of university and higher education degrees, and then - as I said - a citizen from another Member State may opt either for an aptitude test or a training period.
The alternative to this system would be highly detailed regulatory provisions: these are appropriate for certain jobs and occupations but not for others.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 NAME="President">
Question No 59 by Antonios Trakatellis (H-0940/98)
<P>
Subject: Decision on complaint concerning the Thessaloniki underground railway and implementation of Community legislation on public contracts
<P>
Almost four years since the Thessaloniki underground rail project was incorporated in the section of the 2nd CSF for Greece (1994-1999) entitled 'Improvement in living conditions', and almost two years since a complaint was made to the Commission that the project was in breach of Community legislation on public contracts, the only progress has been the transfer of ECU 26 million of the ECU 60.7 m of the Community's total contribution.
According to the Commission's announcement in July, it had taken a decision on the complaint, on the authorization of Commissioner Monti.
<P>
Will the Commission, therefore, say whether it has taken a final decision on the complaint, what that decision is and whether it may be overturned in the light of new information?
If that is so, how can the Commission ensure a swift review of the case when it took 18 months to make any statement on the complaint?
<P>
In view of the fact that the Greek Ministry for Public Works has announced that the contract has been signed, can work commence without further complication due to controversy over the contract?
Did examination of the complaint reveal any shortcoming in the implementation of Community directives on public contracts in relation to this project and, if so, how will the Commission ensure that the law is upheld in the future?
I give the floor to Mr Monti to answer Mr Trakatellis's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 NAME="Monti">
The Commission wishes to inform the honourable Member that it has dropped the case concerning the Thessaloniki underground railway, by Decision H/98/3262 of 27 August 1998, given that it did not come across any breach of the principle of equal treatment.
The competent authorities in Greece were informed in a letter dated 18 September 1998.
Before arriving at the decision to drop the case, the Commission requested and obtained from the Greek authorities a guarantee that future calls for tender, in particular ones relating to contracts of a similar scale, will be drawn up and implemented with the greatest care, so as to avoid difficulties and delays of the kind which have occurred in the tender procedure for the Thessaloniki underground railway.
<P>
The Commission would point out that, as always, should any new facts come into its possession relating to an infringement of Community legislation, it could decide to open a new procedure to verify the legality of the situation.
However, the facts of which we are aware thus far do not justify such action.
If valid reasons for reopening proceedings were to arise in the future, which - I repeat - is not the case at present, the Commission would certainly require considerably less time to assess the new facts, because the substance of the matter has already been investigated in depth.
<P>
Finally, as concerns the state of advancement of the project itself, the Commission considers that all further developments must be the sole responsibility of the competent authorities in Greece.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Trakatellis">
Commissioner, thank you very much for your answer.
Firstly, I would like you to tell me this, please: you have already said that when new figures emerge clearly from the agreement signed between the Greek state and the contractor, we will be able to make an approach to the Commission with those new figures.
I would therefore like to ask you: if an approach is made, can the work begin and can payments be made, or do we first have to wait for the Commission's decision and only then begin the work?
Secondly, given that there has been an exchange of correspondence between you, Mr Monti, and the Greek Government, for the sake of more complete parliamentary monitoring and greater transparency I would like a copy at least of your own letter to the Greek Government.
Finally, time marches on inexorably, Commissioner, towards the end of the Second Community Support Framework. Will it be possible for the work to begin and for payments to be made before then?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Monti">
I would add in reply to Mr Trakatellis that - as I have said - if new and different facts arise in relation to a case, it is always possible to reopen proceedings.
I would stress that, in this case, none of the information which has so far come to light justifies such action.
Therefore, as far as the Commission is concerned, this case has been dropped in the same way as all others are dropped: the relevant proceedings have been closed.
New and different facts would be required in order for it to be reopened, but that is not the situation at present.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Hatzidakis">
Commissioner, you said that you have shelved the matter until you receive new figures, but that at the same time you have told the Greek authorities that in future they should handle things differently from the way in which they dealt with the Thessaloniki metro contract.
So the conclusion I draw is that the procedures followed had certain deficiencies.
Politically, therefore, the procedures were not transparent.
Legally, however - since I am a lawyer - you may indeed have shelved the matter, but the comment that in future such practices should be avoided means that the practice followed was incorrect, that it lacked transparency, that it infringed Community regulations, in other words that someone could go to court solely on the basis of what you have just told us, and blow the contract to pieces.
The question, therefore, is: will the project go ahead?
What do you think of the syllogism I have stated, because you cannot both grant approval and say that in future the Greek Government must avoid such practices.
You must do one or the other.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Monti">
Our approach in the matter under discussion was to assess whether or not Community legislation on public contracts had been breached.
In examining the complaint, the Commission found that the voluminous contract documentation contained provisions on the specific conditions demanded which were open to differing interpretations by bidders.
Nevertheless, in view of the complexity of the procedure and of the contract documentation, the Commission finally concluded that the awarding authority could not be said to have deliberately operated a tender procedure which was not genuinely competitive.
It was not possible in this context to prove that a clear infringement of the principle of equal treatment had taken place; that would have meant opening the appropriate proceedings.
As far as the future is concerned, I can say that the guarantees sought by the Commission take the form of the experience acquired by the Greek administration and its advisers in designing and completing projects of this type; these guarantees are backed by a firm undertaking regarding their future conduct.
Naturally we shall continue to remain vigilant.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=248 NAME="President">
Question No 60 by Sören Wibe (H-0951/98)
<P>
Subject: Parallel imports into the EEA
<P>
One of the effects of a judgment delivered by the European Court of Justice in summer 1998 is to prevent parallel imports of branded clothing from countries outside the EEA.
Sweden has protested in the Council against this ruling, as it affects Swedish consumers and retailers.
Sales of parallel imports in Sweden are worth SKr 30 bn a year. Naturally enough, then, parallel imports have a very significant effect on Swedish consumers' personal finances.
<P>
The Commission has now resumed a study of the pros and cons of parallel imports (which according to Svenska Dagbladet of 29 September 1998 had been shelved), the findings of which are to be presented to the Council.
<P>
When will the study be ready?
What will happen in the meantime?
Does the Commission not think it would be better to defend consumers' interests rather than those of general agents?
I give the floor to Mr Monti to answer Mr Wibe's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 NAME="Monti">
In its judgment of 16 July 1998 in the Silhouette case, the Court of Justice upheld the principle that the holders of trade marks in the Community have the right, on the basis of those trade marks, to object to parallel imports into the European Union of products originally placed on the market elsewhere.
This bears out the Commission's interpretation of the 1989 directive on trade marks.
Consequently, importers and retailers may not import branded products into the Community without the consent of the holder of the relevant trade mark.
This also means that the Member States must apply the current Community rules on trade marks in accordance with the interpretation given by the Court of Justice in its recent judgment.
<P>
I am aware of the reactions provoked by this judgment in a limited number of countries, and particularly in Sweden.
Concern has been expressed that consumers are being deprived of the opportunity, thanks to parallel imports, of buying branded products at cheaper prices.
These concerns are, however, only partially justified.
<P>
I would stress that the protection of intellectual property rights is crucially important in developing innovation in Europe.
European producers invest vast quantities of money and know-how to create new high-quality products, build up the prestige of their brands and organise their distribution networks.
It should be noted here that, although parallel imports enable consumers to benefit from lower prices in the short term, in the longer term reduced profits might discourage the holders of trade marks from investing in their brands or from competing actively with other brands, which would be disadvantageous for the entire sector.
<P>
Let us be absolutely clear about one thing: parallel imports within the Community and also, more broadly, within the EEA are a key element of the single market, and the current discussions concerning the exhaustion of the right conferred by a trade mark do not revolve around this fundamental element, but relate only to parallel imports from outside the Community.
<P>
I would point out, finally, that in order to gain a complete picture of the situation, a study is being undertaken of the economic consequences of the exhaustion of the right conferred by a trade mark in the Community; it is to be completed in the early part of 1999.
This study will consider the various aspects of trade mark protection and the possible consequences of a change in the exhaustion system, in particular as concerns product availability, after-sales service, advice to consumers, investment in new products, price competition and employment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wibe">
I have a very brief supplementary question, which I shall preface by saying that I disagree with the Commissioner on parallel imports.
This ruling is tantamount to a ban on retail activity.
I fail to see the economic rationale from anyone's point of view, including that of the manufacturers.
<P>
My question is as follows. If parallel imports to various Swedish retailers continue, does the Commission intend to instigate legal proceedings against Sweden?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=251 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Monti">
Given the situation which has been corroborated by the judgment of the European Court of Justice, the holders of trade marks are at liberty to demand the appropriate legal action.
This does not affect the Commission; the Commission must see to it that trade mark holders are in a position to exercise this right.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 NAME="Malone">
I am very pleased to see the Commissioner here.
I did not think you would be in Strasbourg today because you did not attend the Duty-Free Intergroup.
We had to cancel it, even though you had earlier said that you would attend.
<P>
I took the floor to say that it is a shame that we cannot now deal with the two items on duty-free that are on the agenda and that some of us have come here to deal with.
We get very little opportunity to speak to the Commissioner.
We are trying very hard to change his mind on this issue with a very important report going to the ECOFIN ministers, which has just been completed by the Commission.
I would like to cross-examine the Commissioner on this report, on the implications of duty-free for jobs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 NAME="President">
Mrs Malone, Mr Monti, this is not within the scope of the question under consideration. Also, the time allowed has elapsed.
Nevertheless, Commissioner, you may take the floor if you wish.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=254 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Monti">
I believe that this is a very important matter - and I have had occasion to speak on it both here in the plenary and in various parliamentary committees - but it is wholly unrelated to the question asked by Mr Wibe.
I would therefore not wish to comment any further, Mr President.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=255 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Monti.
Mr Gallagher has also asked for the floor to put a supplementary question further to Mr Wibe's question.
I would ask you both to confine yourselves, please, to the context of the question put by Mr Wibe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=256 NAME="Gallagher">
I appreciate the time constraints, but I should like to take this opportunity while Commissioner Monti is in the House.
He has on numerous occasions in the past referred to structural funds as an instrument to be used to overcome the consequences of the abolition of duty-free.
<P>
I would say to the Commissioner that I have to hand a copy of the Commission's working document on the proposals. There is absolutely nothing new in this.
I believe I am being reasonable and fair in saying this document is window-dressing.
There is nothing more in it than has been available in the past.
This is no reflection on the Chair or the Commissioner.
Perhaps the Commissioner would give a number of us who have had questions tabled this evening the opportunity to meet him during the next week or so.
This is nothing more than window-dressing and it will not address the issues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=257 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Gallagher.
I did not ask you to stop speaking because that is not my practice, but I did warn you that the issue had been discussed for longer than anticipated and that the time allocated has been exceeded.
Mr Monti may take the floor if he wishes.
He is indicating that he does not wish to do so.
<P>
Since the time allowed for Question Time to the Commission has now come to an end, Questions Nos 61 to 119 will receive written answers.
<P>
That concludes Question Time to the Commission.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 7.20 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Budget lines for human rights
<SPEAKER ID=258 NAME="President">
The next item is the Commission statement on the implementation in 1998 of budget lines for human rights and democracy under Chapter B7-70 'European initiative for democracy and the protection of human rights'.
<P>
I give the floor to Mr van den Broek.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=259 NAME="van den Broek">
Madam President, thank you for this chance to share our collective concern here with Parliament over some worrying reports which are circulating about the way in which human rights policy is being implemented at the moment.
I think it is a very good idea to clarify one or two things and then to agree on a few points which may be useful to all the parties concerned in safeguarding this policy on human rights which is very dear to Parliament's heart, but certainly no less dear to the Commission's heart - and that also goes of course for all the organisations which work to protect and promote the upholding of human rights.
<P>
Perhaps I can begin by trying to outline the current state of affairs and then deal with questions and comments of the kind made, for example, in a letter from the vice-chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Mr Mendiluce, to the President of Parliament, Mr Gil-Robles.
When we talk about human rights policy, at least that part of it for which I have direct responsibility, we are talking about part of an ECU 97.4 million budget, that is to say a part which totals ECU 44 to 45 million and is administered by Directorate-General IA. It comes under budget chapter B7-7.
We are talking about democracy projects, the fostering of democratic development in Eastern Europe, including the new independent states of the former Soviet Union.
We are talking about more general human rights issues, but also of support for victims of torture.
We are talking of support for a number of international criminal courts - for example the tribunals for former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
We are talking about the monitoring of elections.
Total spending on these projects is ECU 44.7 million.
<P>
Up to the end of May, we had important and valuable outside assistance in managing these funds from the European Human Rights Foundation, with which you are very familiar.
This Foundation was involved in assessing project proposals, had a great deal of contact with applicants in the course of that work, and handled the post-completion evaluation work and the financial settlement for many of these projects.
The fact that this assistance has ceased is undoubtedly one of the main reasons for the concern which has arisen over management of the budget lines for human rights.
<P>
Before I go into the situation which has arisen following the loss of this outside assistance and answer the question of how, in these circumstances, adequate management can be assured, I first want to tell you where things stand at present concerning the implementation of this budget line.
To date some 315 applications - project proposals - for aid under the 1998 budget have been received in total.
All these 315 proposals have been assessed.
So far, the Commission has given its approval for ECU 19.1 million out of that ECU 44 million.
This is for some 35 projects, whilst preparations for decisions to be taken in the Commission are largely complete in respect of ECU 18 million, that is to say for about 41 projects.
So we really expect the Commission to have taken a decision within the next three weeks on 76 projects to a total value of some ECU 37 million - I am still talking about 1998.
Out of the total sum of 44.7 million, that leaves about five to six million which have already been earmarked for civil society projects in Kosovo.
The quickest and most effective way of implementing that will be by transferring the sum to the budget line for reconstruction in former Yugoslavia.
<P>
Those submitting project proposals which cannot be accepted will be notified as speedily as possible.
I should stress that acceptance of a project proposal is based solely on considerations such as quality, and of course the priority which the project merits.
These are criteria which have been applied in earlier years to project assessment, and in other years too only some, a third to a quarter of all applications, were approved.
In other words, over the years there have always been more applications for aid than the budget could fund.
In itself that is hardly surprising.
<P>
Of course it only makes sense for the Commission to approve these projects if there is also proper follow-up to them, in the form of awarding contracts, implementing the projects and completing the financial settlements.
There is no denying the fact that the loss of the outside assistance which I referred to before was painful.
I have the following things to say concerning that loss.
<P>
At the end of 1997, it was decided for reasons of transparency and to encourage fair competition that outside assistance should be obtained by means of an open procedure, that is to say public tendering.
The aim was to charge the costs of this outside assistance to part B of the budget, to operating appropriations.
But before the tendering procedure could be taken further, all new commitments for the budget lines for human rights were frozen as a result of the famous Court judgment which was delivered in May of this year.
Then came our consultation and the interinstitutional agreement of late July which was concluded for the remainder of this budget year, and which thus made it possible for us to enter into new commitments.
So this was how things got moving again following the Court judgment.
<P>
When it came to a new contract of assistance based on the call for tenders, a complication then arose over whether or not the Commission could draw on outside assistance and fund it from part B of the budget.
Honourable Members who sit on the Committee on Budgets will recall the discussion on this matter.
<P>
In view of the nature of the aid required to implement the budget lines for human rights and then assistance both to beneficiaries - i.e. the NGOs - and to the Commission, that is to say the debate over a joint technical assistance office, it was not possible to draw on the operating appropriations.
The budget remarks for 1998 made no provision for that, and for the same reason it was not possible to draw on part A of the budget line.
So the tendering procedure ground to a halt, and with it the chance of obtaining outside assistance.
<P>
So where do we go from here?
Given that the regulation proposed by the Commission as a legal base for expenditure on human rights policy has not yet been approved - it is still under discussion by the Council and Parliament - it looks to begin with as if we shall need another interinstitutional agreement in 1999, and fairly quickly.
Otherwise we shall have no legal base for 1999.
<P>
But we shall also have to ask the budgetary authorities to add some remarks on the budget lines for human rights which will enable us to draw on outside assistance in carrying out these projects.
Again, it is assistance not only for beneficiaries, but also for the Commission.
The Commission will make that request before the second reading of the budget.
<P>
These possibilities, namely the interinstitutional agreement on the one hand, plus the question of budget remarks allowing outside assistance on the other, may provide a solution in the shorter term.
If the appropriate budget remarks are secured for this outside assistance, the Commission can explore all possible ways of obtaining the requisite outside assistance in the short term and perhaps through direct contracts.
By the end of next year, that should give a greater assurance to all those involved that human rights projects will be properly selected and implemented.
<P>
1999 could then be used for carefully considered decisions on how our human rights policy should be organised in the year 2000 and beyond, because in the meantime we may gain more of an idea, for example as to the areas of implementation in which the new joint service might take part, and at the same time we can study how human rights policy can best fit in to the reorganisation which the Commission is preparing for the field of external relations and which will take effect from the year 2000.
<P>
When we talk about how human rights policy is to be organised in future, there are also possible variants such as the setting-up of a human rights agency.
But I would prefer to discuss the alternatives with you at a later date, because we feel that for the moment our first priority must be to secure the situation for the rest of this year and for 1999 through an interinstitutional agreement and remarks in the budget.
<P>
That is what I wanted to say to Parliament in the first instance, adding a heartfelt cry of my own that obviously there will time and again be tensions between, on the one hand, the justified plea of Parliament and the human rights organisations too that we should not only provide an opportunity for large-scale projects, but also give smaller organisations and those truly working to develop civil society from the grass roots up a chance in our programmes and, on the other hand, the constant pressure which is understandably exerted on us by the Committee on Budgets, by virtue of their responsibilities, to keep the Commission's use of outside assistance to a minimum.
Because that is the debate which has been directed at us in recent months.
<P>
I will end by saying this: give us the tools if we are to do the job.
We cannot keep helping the smaller organisations, which automatically means a lot of projects and thus a fair degree of fragmentation which is sometimes unavoidable, and at the same time be deprived of outside help in implementing these projects.
I repeat: we are in something of a transitional stage as far as the joint service is concerned, because at present I have no means of knowing exactly how much work the joint service will be taking off our hands. This joint service was set up to achieve a certain economy of scale in the implementation of all manner of aid projects.
I think that what we are putting to you now is the best solution possible and the best guarantee possible for the period from now until the end of next year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=260 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Dankert">
Madam President, the problem is really threefold: the problems over the legal base which have come down to us from the Council, the question of minibudgets where Parliament has always insisted that agreements entered into should be kept, and finally the somewhat unclear policy and management priorities which we see in the Commission itself.
If you look at the reports of the Court of Auditors, DG IA is hardly a model of sound management.
We cannot do much about the legal base for the time being. I quite agree with Commissioner van den Broek that we must wait until things have been sorted out by regulations, and that means that the legislators must do their job first before we have any long-term solution.
The question of minibudgets will remain controversial, but there is one aspect of these which needs to be pointed out, although the Commissioner did not do so.
We increasingly get into difficulties with the Council over the minibudgets, because they are likely to mean cuts in the operating budget.
Of course the administrative load is quite heavy with small-scale projects of this kind; in other words, cutting the operating budget becomes very attractive.
So I think we have to look for solutions other than simple outside assistance, which has to be paid for at the expense of policy.
<P>
And in my view not out of the operating budget, Madam President - I grant the Commissioner that we may not manage to find the right answer here in the short term.
I think the long-term policy which the Commissioner responsible for budgets has launched within the Commission offers better possibilities, but just now I think that is too difficult.
<P>
These are the problems which are facing us, but what we need are solutions.
In the longer term, and I agree with the Commissioner here, ad hoc solutions are no longer acceptable.
We must look for a structure within which we can work to longer deadlines.
I am quite sure that we cannot achieve it in 1999, but I think 1999 has to be the basis for further developments.
I am so against ad hoc solutions because they lead to the kind of endless discussions we are seeing now over ECHO or MEDA and that is not good, either for us, for the Commission or the European Union.
So long-term stability is what we need.
<P>
Madam President, this means that I think the Commission will this year need to find a few extra staff in DG IA to deal with the remaining problems, because I do not know, in all honesty, whether the civil society project in Kosovo is feasible this year.
I think the situation there is still rather too unstable to allow larger-scale projects to be implemented.
So I think priority should be given to human rights problems on a rather broader base.
I wonder too if it might not be possible within the current machinery to make greater use of delegation.
The Court of Auditors' report repeatedly tells us that we do not really decentralise enough.
This Commissioner knows full well that in the Netherlands, in the area of development cooperation, ambassadors have little stashes of money which they can spend, subject to certain conditions.
I think that kind of mechanism should be created to help small projects of this kind.
That would help us.
And then we have the proposal for a budget remark.
It is something of a nuisance to have to add a new remark at the second reading of the budget, but I think that if we can reach an interinstitutional agreement on it, that will solve our problems for 1999, once again with all my reservations about the minibudgets which will automatically follow on from that.
But again, Madam President, the only solution is a long-term solution, and I look to the Commission for a proposal on that in the very near future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=261 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lenz">
Madam President, Commissioner, I do not wish to blame you for this evening's empty house, as this is entirely down to ourselves.
But the failure of human rights policies to work is something for which both Commission and Parliament must take the blame.
That is what we wish to discuss this evening, and I cannot really endorse the comments made by Mr Dankert.
In my view this is not just a budgetary problem.
<P>
I would also like to broaden the context a little, as I was involved in the discussion on all of this in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
You failed to make it sufficiently clear that the entire discussion over the last few days and weeks has centred on the issue of the 1998 human rights policy. You talked a little about its execution, but you were not able to tell us much about the budget for 1999.
<P>
We have proposed a budget in which we have again had to accept some minor defects. It affects, of course, not only the human rights budget lines but also Bosnia, Kosovo, Latin America, MEDA, the Middle East and more.
<P>
Our point though is a different one. For two years now, we have been looking to have a dialogue with the Commission on various resolutions in order to find new structures, but we did not manage to achieve this.
This explains why the letter was written, which was actually supposed to have gone to the President of the Commission.
But the dialogue did not take place.
Together with yourself at first, we tried to invite the President, Commissioner Liikanen, and even the Secretary-General.
But these visits never took place, which accounts for part of our annoyance.
<P>
Even the instruments created hitherto have not worked as we had actually imagined they would. People have been saying that for a year now.
We are constantly told that the programmes require greater transparency, and Mr Liikanen said this again this morning.
Of course this also applies to the democracy programmes.
But when we hear (and you have not entirely denied this) that the macro-projects just go to large organisations - the OSCE, the Council of Europe, and so on - then our view is that there should be interinstitutional agreements to clarify the role played by the European Union and the European Parliament with their resources.
<P>
The second point is that we really cannot be glad about your shifting the micro-projects to EU delegations, without central monitoring from Brussels to include the NGOs. We cannot be glad about your shutting out the agency that previously helped you, no matter what the reasons behind it and regardless of your explanations.
They are clients that help us to spread the European Union ideas of human rights and democracy far and wide. Most importantly of course, six months before an election they could really stab us in the back if we were to reclaim one of the most humane features of the European Union in a reorganisation.
I admit that all this is very difficult but perhaps we should discuss it together at some point.
When I consider that the result might be something like the course for the Masters degree in Human Rights, and that at one of its summit meetings the Council might set up a European Human Rights Monitoring Agency, a body which we really do not want as it would make it impossible for us to see where resources are going, then my urgent recommendation is that we meet here once again to have a better dialogue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=262 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Madam President, Commissioner, you have already answered a number of questions which I shall nevertheless put to you again directly.
The Liberal Group is asking for a clear statement on how human rights policy is being implemented, either from you or from the Commission.
It would seem, Commissioner, that fine words are obscuring a far harsher reality - the reality of inability, impotence and perhaps bureaucracy.
How can it be that the Commission supposedly has hardly any officials to implement more than 1 000 projects, and how can we reconcile what you have said with the fact that 200 projects have not been implemented?
Why has the Commission not drawn on the technical assistance which the European Human Rights Foundation could provide?
From reports reaching us in recent months, it has become clear that chaos and poor monitoring of projects continue to be the order of the day, with no adequate measures being taken in the wake of what I have to say are administrative irregularities.
We are talking about human rights, about people, and we are talking about people not on the other side of the world, but on the other side of society.
I do not think the Commission has any right at all to gamble with their fate.
Not that it means to, but that is what is happening.
<P>
I would also like the Commission to tell us why money is being spent via the 'big' funds, the Council of Europe and the United Nations.
I do not think we have drawn up our budget just to see development funds channelled into small projects through the Council of Europe.
The process of constant reorganisation within the Commission is damaging the Union's human rights policy and has damaged it in the past.
The Commission has not yet altogether thrown away the Union's good name on human rights but it is putting it in jeopardy, and we owe that good name to the work the Commission has done in the past.
<P>
The priority for the Liberal Group is microprojects so that as wide a public as possible can be reached, and it is also essential of course that the funds should be soundly managed.
I wish you a great deal of luck and staying power, Commissioner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=263 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Janssen van Raay">
Madam President, Mrs van Bladel cannot be here because of a meeting on human rights, and she has asked me at all events to be here before the actual reports on legal matters come up for discussion.
But I have her authority to say just one thing, and that is in response to what Commissioner van den Broek said a moment ago.
I refer to the tension which exists between our inclination to favour small-scale projects, because these have a more direct influence on human rights in countries where this is needed, and the scrutiny exercised by the Commission.
A new case has just arisen in the Netherlands - I will not say which it is, you will be getting a question from me on the matter raised in the NRC on the misuse of funds in South Africa and so on, and I shall not go into it now - but it is most important, and here I totally agree with Mr Bertens, that you really do have the necessary know-how and powers of scrutiny to ensure that small projects are monitored properly.
I wish you every success, and I thank you for your attention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=264 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Madam President, Commissioner, with the coming 50th anniversary of the UN Charter of Human Rights, I think it is quite shameful for this House to be engaged this month in a discussion on what is so bad about the management of DGIA.
As you began your comments with the statement that rumours were circulating, I would like to point out that you are also responsible for giving rise to some of them.
Five or six weeks ago, I wrote to you personally to tell you of my worries on this subject. To this day, unfortunately, I have received no reply.
I am having to answer telephone calls such as the one today from a colleague in the Belgrade organisation 'Women in Black', which reached agreement with the Commission upon a project in 1997, carried it out, wrote the final report, and has been waiting for the final payment to be made since the beginning of 1998. This is because no one in the Commission has been able to read the final report, declare the work to be in order, and say that the organisation should receive the final payment because it has managed the project according to the rules.
<P>
Please tell me, what should I say to these people on the telephone?
Should I say that there are some rumours in circulation, but that in general everything is going terrifically well in the Commission?
Or should I say that things are not that great?
We both know exactly what the truth is.
It is out of the question for us to take this issue of mini-budgets and legal bases, and fight it out at the expense of the NGOs in this sensitive area.
<P>
Mr van den Broek, pressure from the Committee on Budgets would make no difference at all to the mini-budgets. This has to do with the correct application of the Financial Regulation, which stipulates that money from Part A should not be used for Part B and vice versa.
You cannot say that the Committee on Budgets is applying pressure.
The Commission has known since 1991 that mini-budgets were not authorised and it has used them anyway.
<P>
I very much agree with you that a solution should now be found to this particular issue.
I was glad to hear you say therefore that in the 1999 budgetary procedure, together with the Commission and Council, we are going to find a solution for next year, and I hope for this year too, as you indicated.
At any rate, what makes the rumours so offensive is that behind all this lurks an unspoken policy change by the Commission.
That is why you must tell us whether you agree with Mr Burghardt, when he wrote on 22 October this year that in 1998 and 1999 priority will be given to payments to the OSCE and the Council of Europe, and so on.
If that is the new Commission policy on human rights, then we might as well give up, and then a new debate on the true meaning of the construction of civil society and the defence of democracy and human rights both inside and outside the European Union will begin.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=265 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Madam President, this is clearly a case of a Commission manoeuvre backfiring.
Chapter 7 was 'invented' by Parliament and we are proud of it.
Every year more money and more resources are requested.
Every year, for example, I table an amendment asking for more officials for the internal management of this item, but this amendment is never adopted by the Committee on Budgets.
<P>
The Commission has tried to argue over a system which basically worked until it was unfortunately realised that outside bodies were acting to accelerate the contracts.
The Commission's manoeuvre has backfired and we are the first to have said that such a system cannot work.
The lack of additional officials is clearly the Commission's fault.
However, I believe that we too should examine our consciences to see how many of these additional items, which you have secretly removed without our approval, could have been spared if communications had been better and if our priorities had been better structured by using the essential resources provided by the admirable Part A of the budget.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=266 NAME="Soulier">
Madam President, it is clear that everyone is concerned about an apparently badly structured case and an organisation which was satisfactory in practical terms and also in terms of finance and accounting given the thanks it received from the Court of Auditors.
So we now find ourselves in a very delicate situation where appropriations might not be committed.
It is clear that the European Union represents the very essence of democracy in the world. This is because, after the horrors which our continent has experienced and in which many of our countries have unfortunately participated to a certain extent, we want to tell the world that this will never happen again.
Rather, we want to stress that we are the home of human rights and we can therefore give others assistance.
<P>
Yet we are deprived of the tools we need and the appropriations that are going to be used by others.
This situation must be resolved as quickly as possible because it is clear that elsewhere in the world, as we chose to assume a global duty in this area, the poor and the disadvantaged, those who are persecuted, exiled or wrongly prosecuted, whether individuals or communities, cannot wait for us to agree on regulations. They cannot accept the excuse that our procedures are unsuitable and that they must therefore wait until the year 2000 for us to sort ourselves out.
<P>
Everyone must make an effort and, even though we should respect certain rules and we should have legal bases, we must be able to act quickly.
This has been proven by Hurricane Mitch, which has ravaged Central America and brought the international community to life.
Why could we not do this ourselves?
You have made the admirable suggestion of setting up a monitoring centre, or rather an agency, together with other solutions, but the fundamental point is that we must act quickly.
Commissioner, it would be good if you could do this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=267 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Commissioner, it is not clear from your comments whether the money which is to be committed this year is really going to be of benefit to the small human rights projects run by NGOs.
I suspect that due to the shortage of personnel in the Commission, you have decided to simply hand this year's money over in large chunks to the international organisations.
However, in my view this contradicts the budgetary purpose of these resources, which is to build up and strengthen the grass roots organisations of democracy in the beneficiary countries.
I would be very glad if you could dispel my suspicion.
<P>
I would also like to ask what problems you had with external support.
And how would you assess these problems within the Commission in the light of the Court of Auditors report, which specifically praises this type of cooperation as the only way for smaller organisations to obtain access to this money at all?
I have to be completely honest and say that I think these questions must be answered because otherwise the European Parliament is going to have draw its own conclusions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=268 NAME="McMillan-Scott">
Madam President, on the point about the interinstitutional agreement, I should like to ask the Commissioner by whose authority the interinstitutional agreement by which there was an advisory committee, established between Parliament, the Commission, the Council of Europe and the G24, was unilaterally abrogated on 9 January this year.
I used to represent Parliament on that committee, and there were officials from Parliament too.
We were told it was now ended.
Since that time none of the programmes under democracy have gone forward.
It is important to know that the Commission decided then to take all these matters in-house.
Further, why, in response to a number of questions here, the contract in the tender brochure, properly entered into, which was won by the Human Rights Foundation, was never enacted.
The result of that is that the democracy programmes, which we all support here, and the human rights programmes, are now dying.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=269 NAME="van den Broek">
To take the last question first, Mr McMillan-Scott is aware that there are no longer two deadlines per year for submitting applications for aid, as was formerly the case, but that applications may now be submitted all through the year.
Consequently there was no point in continuing the procedure whereby a review of them was conducted twice a year.
Let me begin, Madam President, by clearing up another seemingly persistent misconception, namely that although policy in that direction has changed compared with last year, we are now focusing all our attention on the big organisations, OSCE or the Council of Europe. I can tell you that if we look at last year, the proportion of our spending which went to those organisations was about ten per cent.
I should add, and I have not heard anyone make the point here tonight, that these projects are also human rights projects and civil society projects organised with the Council of Europe for the Baltic states, and in Albania too, and we all know what is going on there, and in Ukraine.
In other words, it will not do to regard those projects as less worthy and put all our energy into small projects.
The emphasis is still on small projects, but with all the difficulties inherent in them.
I would ask you to understand here that it was less difficult for us to deal with these small projects while we were indeed able to count on outside help - help not only for the beneficiaries, the NGOs, but also for the Commission itself, which cannot manage and implement hundreds, sometimes thousands of contracts using its permanent staff alone.
So for the benefit of Mrs Müller I would say yes, I do indeed recall your letter, which I believe recommended that we should conclude direct contracts with the European Human Rights Foundation.
Mrs Müller also knows that last year we got bogged down over this tendering procedure as regards the Foundation due to the restricted interpretation given to our freedom to use outside assistance, the whole discussion about disputes, and so on.
In other words, it is one thing or the other, Madam President, either we agree that the Commission cannot handle these kinds of projects, and smaller projects, without outside assistance, or we say no, you cannot have that outside assistance.
It is up to you to decide what Parliament wants, but I have no option but to put the emphasis on larger-scale projects, which I am not doing at the moment.
So above all let us agree on where we stand.
<P>
Madam President, I think what we are in fact proposing now is that we make sure for the immediate future that we have an interinstitutional agreement, so that in any event a legal base is created pending adoption, formal acceptance of the new regulation.
That, as we know, is currently being debated by the Council and Parliament, and with all the amendments which have been put down it looks as if it may take some time before this regulation is adopted.
So we need an interinstitutional agreement in order to be able to continue the legal base.
Secondly, and no doubt in this case equally importantly, we must at all events have a budget remark which, as I said in the first instance, will allow us to secure the outside assistance we need for 1999, possibly by the conclusion of direct contracts.
I see no other way of restoring the good reputation we had previously established.
And it certainly is not true that we have too few staff working on this, Mr Bertens, I too read those newspaper reports, about two hundred projects still floating around somewhere and still not yet assessed.
That is not correct either.
We have reached the stage where we can say for 1998 that within a few weeks' time we shall not only have assessed all the projects but also, as far as the Commission is concerned, we shall have accepted and approved them.
But of course that still leaves us with the whole business of contracts, implementation, payment and evaluation.
The Commission cannot do all that itself without outside assistance.
If I am raising my voice here, it is because we feel very strongly about this.
Human rights policy is something of huge importance to the European Commission, as it is important to the Union as a whole.
We have very specific contacts on that with a large number of organisations which are active in this field.
We are very much concerned, for example, with a region like Eastern Europe where the whole process of developing a civil society is naturally part of the efforts to foster an effective process of integration.
But it is not fair to hold us solely responsible for one or two hiccups last year: the first time when the Court judgment meant that we could not create a legal base; the second time when a very restrictive interpretation was given of the freedom to use outside assistance, because of all the debate concerning disputes and the like.
It distresses me greatly, Madam President, to be told by the Court of Auditors year after year that our aid projects, PHARE and TACIS to name but two, can never be implemented with our existing staffing levels and then to be accused in a Court of Auditors' report this year of making too much use of outside assistance, with as a result the whole debate which has now taken place in Parliament.
It prompts me to ask, what am I supposed to do?
How can I in fact implement these projects if I cannot increase my staff, and I ask the question again. Because once these projects are completed, the question is whether or not those people are still needed.
So some degree of flexibility has to be maintained.
We have to try to find a solution to this, and I shall certainly play a part in assessing the ideas put forward for the longer term concerning agencies and suchlike.
<P>
That concludes what I have to say, Madam President, and I must thank the House for its altogether constructive comments.
I hope that in the short term, budget remarks will in any event provide a solution for next year.
That will mean that the NGOs and those who benefit from their work do not suffer, and it will give us a little more time to consider together how best to proceed in the longer term.
I would just say to Mrs Lenz that I suggested earlier in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, where I am a very faithful visitor, that I might come once or twice a year to exchange views with you on human rights strategy as such.
Not management and operational matters, the place for that is a debate such as the one we have had this evening, but to trace the broad lines and hear what Parliament thinks.
I have no problem at all with that, but first we must see to it that we get the ship under way again.
I think that is the main priority.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=270 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr van den Broek.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Patents
<SPEAKER ID=271 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0384/98) by Mr Añoveros Trias de Bes, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the Commission Green Paper on promoting innovation through patents (COM(97)0314 - C4-0342/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=272 NAME="Añoveros Trias de Bes">
<SPEAKER ID=273 NAME="Gasòliba I Böhm">
<SPEAKER ID=274 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Madam President, spending Tuesday evening discussing patents is not everyone's idea of fun.
Yet my group colleague, Mr Gasòliba I Böhm, was right to point out how important the subject is both for individual countries and for the Union as a whole.
If we are to foster innovation and remain competitive, we need a system that works.
There is also a regional policy dimension, in that citizens around the Union are entitled to a level playing field.
I trust that a system will be devised that enables the European Patent Office to fulfil its mission, which is ultimately to spread knowledge.
<P>
As Mr Añoveros Trias de Bes says, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has come out in favour of equal treatment of languages and advocates decent and fair service for all companies.
I hope that the Commission will take up these proposals, and that the European patent will promote the spreading of information, benefit technology and guarantee legal certainty.
If the committee's ideas are taken up, I am confident that this will be the case.
<P>
It would be good if the Commission could accept the creative suggestions we put forward in recital E and paragraph 2, where we call for effective cooperation between the European Patent Office and the national authorities.
I did mention to the Commissioner on another occasion that new technology would make a decentralised approach possible, and I hope that this option will be pursued.
<P>
May I also express my gratitude to the rapporteur for the excellent degree of cooperation.
I do not make a habit of saying thank you, but Mr Añoveros has done such a good job that I cannot resist.
What is more, my Nordic soul glows at the mention of the EEA in the text of the resolution.
All too often we forget that the directives which we adopt will, in many instances, apply in Norway and Iceland too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=275 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Heinisch">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to thank the Commission for taking the initiative to produce this Green Paper.
If we want to ensure that Europe is competitive, we have to work on innovation.
Sponsoring research is one element of a policy supportive of innovation.
At the same time, however, it is of crucial importance to guarantee effective legal protection of industrial property throughout the EU.
In this context, it is also particularly important for all the options for reshaping European patent law to be explored, a process which the Commission has initiated with its Green Paper.
<P>
A key point, to which I - speaking on behalf of the Committee on Research - attach particular importance is improving patent protection for computer software.
Pursuant to Article 52(2) of the European Patent Convention and the corresponding national patent laws in the European Union, computer programs are excluded from patent protection.
If we do not want to lose our competitive edge in the field of computer software technology, we need to change this legal situation.
We should, therefore, delete computer programs from the provisions of Article 52(2) of the European Patent Convention.
In addition, the respective national provisions should be harmonised by means of a European directive.
By introducing these new arrangements, we could avoid falling behind the United States and Japan, where there is already extensive patent protection for computer software.
<P>
New rules also need to be introduced on the language regime.
The rapporteur's preferred solution here is also the one I have supported in my opinion for the Research Committee.
A translation of the full patent specification would only be required if there were a dispute over the rights created by the patent.
This would mean that the average translation costs could be reduced from their previous DEM 22 500 to DEM 4 000.
Once again, my thanks go to the rapporteur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=276 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, patent policy is a very important instrument in economic policy, and licensing policy is directly derived from patent policy.
Research and development can thus lead to new products being created, and there was once a very good quotation on the subject: 'today's research and development policy is tomorrow's social policy'.
<P>
A good patent policy is a particularly effective way of supporting research policy.
We need to be aware that, on the one hand, there are the small-scale inventors who, once they have invented something, face the problem of developing the idea into a marketable commodity.
Without a patent, it would be easy for a large company to appropriate this idea and exploit it.
We know of many researchers, inventors working on their own, who have spent years, if not decades, working on particular ideas.
On the other hand, many multinational companies have large research establishments which have billions pumped into them, and ultimately, of course, this investment has to pay off.
<P>
That is why I am in favour of harmonising national provisions, because it is important, for both small and large companies, to identify the basic conditions which will make a single procedure possible.
We know that inventiveness is important.
If the Japanese display a very low level of invention, and we in Europe a very high one, then there will be many patents in Japan, and not in Europe, and this will affect the balance of licences accordingly.
That is why I very much welcome the Commission proposal, precisely because international policy on patents and licences is an extremely important instrument for Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=277 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Janssen van Raay">
Madam President, you can deduct my time from the three minutes I had on the Ferri report.
I am not Mrs Schaffner who was down to speak, and nor am I Mrs van Bladel.
But on behalf of my group, I have to say that we are particularly grateful both to Mr Añoveros and to the Commissioner for this project, which is so important to Europe because in terms of the simplicity and safeguards we are seeking here, it is far more accessible than large-scale projects which encounter far more problems, and Commissioner Monti knows that.
So I hope that the small project, which is far more important than large projects for strengthening the competitiveness of Europe's small businesses, will come into effect and be implemented quickly, and once again my warmest thanks to both gentlemen for their contribution here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=278 NAME="Monti">
Mr President, the patent system plays a crucial role in promoting innovation, growth and employment in the Community.
In order to play this role to the full, the European patent system needs to be thoroughly overhauled and updated.
It has two very obvious weaknesses, especially if compared with the systems in North America and Japan: it is costly and it is incomplete.
<P>
As is clear from the report by Mr Añoveros Trias de Bes - whom I congratulate on the quality of his work - there is a direct link between the competitiveness of companies and the free movement of goods and services within the single market.
A coherent and effective Community system of patent protection is a vital element in this context.
<P>
The Commission's Green Paper has been successful in generating a very broad-based debate on this issue, in which those concerned have participated enthusiastically.
The overall message emerging from these discussions is that the effectiveness of the patent system should be boosted by fully incorporating the practical needs of users.
Moreover, as is rightly highlighted in the motion for a resolution under discussion today, the system must be restructured prior to the enlargement of the European Union.
In particular, a clear and unanimous consensus has emerged that the right approach to reforming the system is the introduction of a unitary Community patent, preferably through a Community regulation, as was done in 1994 for the Community trade mark.
<P>
I would recall here that, in late January 1998, the Commission held a meeting of experts from the Member States, an overwhelming majority of whom expressed a willingness to engage in legal and technical discussions linked to the design of the Community patent.
The Economic and Social Committee, for its part, was virtually unanimous in adopting a highly positive opinion on the whole range of proposals aired in the Green Paper, including the introduction of the Community patent.
I am pleased to note that the proposals put forward by Mr Añoveros go along similar lines: these proposals are extremely cogent and well-balanced, and I can assure you that they will be studied in detail by the Commission as it makes the legal preparations for introducing the Community patent.
I would also say, with regard to the system of insurance to cover the costs of legal proceedings connected with patents, that the Commission will investigate the best ways of promoting this system across the Community and will involve the European Parliament in this task.
<P>
To conclude, the Commission is now thoroughly convinced that the patent system must be modified as soon as possible.
This modification must be based, on the one hand, on legislation to establish a Community right to patent protection and, on the other, on the updating and harmonisation of national rules on certain specific points, including the patentability of inventions relating to computer programmes, as mentioned by various speakers.
In addition, this new framework could perhaps include Community action to support efforts made by national patent offices to promote innovation.
<P>
I believe that the system must be developed within a Community context and not, as originally intended, through an international convention.
Such an approach will inevitably strengthen the Union's hand when it comes to negotiating international agreements, and the role of the European Patent Office as technical operator of the Community patent will be guaranteed.
The Commission will shortly be preparing a communication on the follow-up to be given to the Green Paper; this communication will conduct a thorough review of the consultations and announce the specific measures which the Commission intends to present in this important sector in the near future.
The European Parliament will obviously be involved in this new stage of our work, but I already wish to thank Members for the constructive way in which they have participated so far.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=279 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=13>
Supplementary pensions
<SPEAKER ID=280 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0400/98) by Mr Ferri, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the Green Paper on supplementary pensions in the single market (COM(97)0283 - C4-0392/97-00/0595(COS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=281 NAME="Ferri">
Madam President, what is to become of Europe's pensioners?
The Commission's very well-structured Green Paper addresses this question - and it does so in a responsible fashion, as do we in the European Parliament, in these times of widespread crisis when the two most crucial and worrying issues of all are the economic future of pensioners and jobs for young people.
Hence the need for this initiative taken by the Commission, which I should like to thank, and in particular Mr Monti himself.
The Commission took the initiative, with active support from Parliament, of holding public hearings with the leading experts from various European countries; these, I believe, have shed light on a whole range of aspects.
<P>
The first point to make is that we are all convinced that the first pillar - state social security - must remain the cornerstone, the foundation of the system.
But it is not sufficient: cracks are appearing, and it cannot guarantee our economic future.
That is why, together with life assurance which is well established and well regulated, pension funds are coming under the spotlight.
A Community framework is however lacking: the Commission attempted to create one in 1991, but the proposal was subsequently withdrawn; there was an interpretative note from the Commission, if I remember rightly, which was then overturned by the Court of Justice; and now here we are again making a fresh attempt.
We are calling on the Commission, given that it made such a good start, to draw up a directive taking due account of the various aspects which we have sought to highlight.
<P>
One key point in the background is of course the sustainability of the euro, which in fact changes the frame of reference for pension funds and for supplementary pension schemes in general; in many senses, it certainly facilitates investment and cross-border mobility of workers.
I must say here that another directive, a very recent one, has tackled at a most opportune moment the problem of acquired rights, also an important aspect of this afternoon's report. In addition, the report sets out to cover various general aspects: taxation, in other words fiscal harmonisation to eliminate the undoubted risk of double taxation, which at present jeopardises the future of anyone working for a multinational who is transferred or even temporarily seconded and runs the risk of being taxed twice over, including from a pension point of view.
Another aspect is fund management, with administrative managers and investment managers: this is another very sensitive point which we have investigated jointly with workers and under their supervision, ensuring equal representation of men and women; this aspect has been stressed repeatedly here, in opinions from the Committees on Social Affairs and Women's Rights which we have taken on board.
Then of course there are organisational aspects: a Pension Forum has been proposed, and could I believe be useful for the purposes of wider comparisons; the so-called European passport; and a stock exchange for SMEs, which will have the task of making investments that are vital and very sensitive, but at the same time very advantageous and very stimulating.
<P>
All of this has still to be achieved, through capitalisation and the 'prudent man' principle.
This point is an important and interesting one.
I attended a congress on pension funds in Munich, where this concept of the 'prudent man' was discussed at length.
I took the liberty of putting forward a framework, a sort of chart with various pointers.
Naturally, the 'prudent man' is difficult to define, but in this most sensitive of sectors his hands must not be tied, because he must obviously manage his affairs in the light of the particular historical and economic context in which he is operating.
We were nevertheless able to agree in the Legal Affairs Committee on a few little rules, which I believe are of some interest and comply with freedom of establishment, freedom to make cross-border investment, and so on and so forth.
So, all in all, I would once again thank Mr Monti - for his sensitivity and attentiveness - and all who have participated in this work. This package - explained in more detail in the text - should constitute a significant turning-point in our economic system and also in the fundamental rights of our citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=282 NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Madam President, Commissioner, first I must congratulate the Commission on the fact that thanks to the Green Paper a full picture has been provided of supplementary pensions and the whole question of pensions, and it is important that pensions should be considered at European level.
If the demographic trend continues as it is at present, there will in future be just two employed people funding every pensioner, rather than the four we have at present.
The reason for that is partly that most pension schemes in the European Union are funded by the pay-as-you-go system.
So we urgently need to seek other solutions, because otherwise it may be disastrous when the euro comes in.
I have said this on previous occasions here, and I think we must give it very serious thought.
<P>
Apart from that, I think it is very difficult to tell Member States which system they should choose.
But we can use benchmark studies, of the kind which the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs recommends, at least to identify the best practices in the Member States and put these before the various Member States.
<P>
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs also thinks it important that pension systems should be gender-neutral, and that the investment returns on pension funds should be improved.
That after all may lead to lower indirect wage costs, enabling more jobs to be created in Europe.
<P>
The same goes for the pension providers' prudential rules.
If these can be put in place quickly, I think it will mean a better investment yield on pension funds.
These are things which will also be good for jobs in Europe.
<P>
Madam President, Commissioner, I think we need to look at pensions again here as a broader-based issue.
I would urge the Commissioner to address the whole question of pensions again, including basic pensions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=283 NAME="Lulling">
Madam President, in my opinion the essential merit of this Green Paper is that the Commission clearly specifies that, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, it is for the Member States to decide on the role of the first, second and third pillars which form the basis of pension schemes for employees and the self-employed in the Member States.
<P>
I believe that the Community framework needed to ensure the development of a genuine single market for pension funds must be limited to removing the obstacles to the free choice of pension funds, to the free movement of persons and to the freedom to provide services.
<P>
I must stress that the prudential supervision rules currently in force in some Member States are too disproportionate to guarantee the security of funds and they prevent fund managers from determining the best capital investment strategy.
<P>
With regard to pension fund investment policy, the rules should prescribe the diversification of investment portfolios.
Taxation is clearly a potential brake on the free movement of persons and on the freedom to provide services.
I believe that tax treatment in the European Union must be harmonised, providing for tax exemption or deductibility when rights are constituted, and that beneficiaries should be taxed in accordance with Member States' income tax rules.
<P>
Having said this, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Women's Rights, I must insist on equal treatment for men and women in supplementary pension schemes.
I know that the life expectancy of women is generally longer than that of men, but gender-based actuarial calculations cannot cause the principle of equal contributions and equal benefits for beneficiaries of both sexes to be questioned.
<P>
I must also take this opportunity to stress the urgent need for the revision of the directives on equal treatment for men and women in statutory and occupational social security schemes so that we can lay the foundations for the individualisation of pension rights, fix flexible retirement ages for men and women, regulate the rights of survivors and those of divorced spouses during the splitting of pension rights acquired during marriage and, finally, ensure independent social security for spouses assisting self-employed partners in the craft sector, trade, agriculture and the professions.
<P>
Mr Monti, I hope that you will inform your colleague, Commissioner Flynn, of these requests.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=284 NAME="Falconer">
Madam President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for producing this report because it is a very important one.
I would also like to thank the Commission for bringing forward the documentation, although I may have a few critical comments to make as I go on.
<P>
One of the most enriching experiences I have had in the European Parliament is a look at the structures which have governed Europe economically since 1945.
That has led to huge economic benefits for the people of mainland Europe.
The codecision and the codetermination policy which meant that communities, workers and people involved in the businesses worked together to build up Europe after 1945 was not repeated in the United Kingdom.
In the United Kingdom we adopted the Anglo-American type structure.
In the 1950s we saw the growth of pension and insurance funds in the UK.
The figure now stands at something like £1.3 trillion, which converts into something like ECU 1.6 trillion, a huge amount of money by any standards.
And yet we have watched since 1979, when Mrs Thatcher removed exchange controls in the United Kingdom, an investment drain and a portfolio investment drain from the United Kingdom to other parts of the world: from 6 % to 31 % out of the EEC, which the Commission now admits is the actual figure.
<P>
There is no effective control on these funds by the contributors.
They are set to one side as fund managers make use of the huge financial weapon afforded to them in takeovers, mergers and increases in the wages of the fat cats in the City of London.
<P>
In any casual glance at the National Association of Pension Funds in my country you would have to search long and hard to find a workers' representative, and yet there are many representatives from the City of London.
Compare this with Holland, Germany, Sweden, Belgium and the other countries where cooperation, codecision and consultation are the order of the day.
Yet the Commission, in its White Paper, made no reference whatsoever to the possible involvement of the contributors.
<P>
I hope and trust that when the Commission brings forward the directive which I understand it is considering, there will be a clear assurance that the contributors towards these huge funds will be involved.
<P>
The Socialist Group will support the European market model of codecision and codetermination.
We reject short-termism and we expect financial and economic returns for our citizens.
<P>
For a number of years now I have studied the advancement of political democracy.
One of the people that I looked to for inspiration was Tom Paine, who took part in two revolutions, one in America and one in France, and strove for political democracy.
I believe it is time now for us to move forward in order to give the citizens of Europe an economic democracy.
I believe, with the Socialists, that democracy is best served by the European social market model.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=285 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kuckelkorn">
Madam President, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has incorporated the principal amendments proposed by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy in its report, and has thus made appropriate comments on the Green Paper.
Five points need to be emphasised, which the Commission should respect when drafting further Community legislation on the basis of the Green Paper.
<P>
Firstly: reforms to the scope and structure of the first pillar - that is, statutory pension schemes on the pay-as-you-go model - can only take place at national level, and must thus remain the responsibility of national bodies.
In my opinion, the Community is not competent to deal with contracts between the generations formed at national level.
<P>
Secondly: supplementary pension schemes in the internal market are also characterised by a multitude of schemes and pension funds.
Community legislation should not discriminate against pension funds, either in terms of prudential supervision provisions or in terms of tax conditions.
<P>
Thirdly: restrictions on investment can only be eased if standard prudential supervision rules guarantee the possibility of controls, the joint involvement - on an equal footing - of those entitled to pensions, and insolvency insurance.
<P>
Fourthly: basic tax conditions for supplementary pension schemes need to be harmonised and improved across the internal market, so as to better exploit the potential of the internal market in pension schemes and to make it more competitive.
The principle of downstream taxation of pension entitlements should apply throughout the Community.
<P>
Fifthly: a high degree of convergence needs to be achieved within the Community on transferring and preserving pension entitlements and on vesting periods.
<P>
I should like to thank the rapporteur, but also the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, for endorsing the proposals made by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy to modify the Green Paper.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=286 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we are talking about the future, and the future is very important for everyone.
Babies born today will probably live to be 100 years old!
We know that one of our most important objectives for the future is to remain in good health until we reach old age.
That means that, even today, we need to consider how we can maintain the level of social security for the elderly.
Today we have the principle of the contract between generations, with the result that young people provide what the elderly consume, and we need to complement this, in an appropriate way, with the principle of saving.
<P>
It is a question of finding a sensible way to bring public pension schemes into line with private and company ones.
If we can produce basic conditions for an internal pensions market in Europe, then we too will be able to look towards the future with hope.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=287 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Madam President, I had not realised I would be getting one minute more, but I shall use it primarily to raise the question of freedom of movement for workers.
At present fewer than two per cent of all workers in Europe are employed in another Member State.
The main reason for that is social security, and pensions too play a major part.
I think we might find the answer to this by exploring further the possibility of a European pension passport, for example.
<P>
The directive we have at present is a step in the right direction, but if we are looking at greater flexibility in the labour market, we could have a far more work-friendly system of pensions simply by legislating to allow people to take their pension or their pension provider with them when they change jobs or move to a different country.
I think it is possible to enact legislation at European level to safeguard the value of pensions and beneficiaries' entitlements.
Pension funds of the kind operating in my country, for example, are rather too reluctant in this respect.
I would ask the Commissioner to take this a little further.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=288 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Janssen van Raay">
Madam President, pension schemes are based on three pillars.
Firstly basic schemes, government ones - in our country the AOW or Working Incapacity Act, then supplementary pension schemes, social partners with full worker codetermination, and the third pillar, voluntary supplementary pension schemes.
I wish Commissioner Monti luck in this mission, which is a 'mission practically impossible'.
I must stress that there has been great alarm in the Netherlands at some things which the Italian Prime Minister has said.
Other speakers and Mr Ferri too have already made the point that if there is any meddling with the fixed value of the euro - and rightly or wrongly we in the Netherlands have understood what Commissioner Monti and Mr Ferri have said to mean that the fixed value of the euro might be tinkered with for political reasons - that would meet with fierce opposition from those on fixed pensions.
I would urge Commissioner Monti to allay the fears which have arisen in the Netherlands and to reassure those concerned about his inherently excellent Green Paper.
My thanks to the rapporteur for the first-class job he has done.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=289 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Elmalan">
Madam President, the Commission's Green Paper uses the pretexts of the ageing population and the fall in the number of workers to open the door to pensions funds for supplementary pensions.
This is wrong as this approach totally eliminates any dynamic for a process of job creation and reduction in retirement ages.
Even before the consultations on the Green Paper had finished, Commissioner Monti approved a Community directive aimed at defining a liberal system for pension funds in the European Union. This directive guarantees, for pension funds, the freedom of investment and the freedom to provide management services.
<P>
This approach runs the risk of creating a system based on private insurance which would gradually replace social security.
Health and retirement would no longer be rights but would become goods subject to the laws of the market.
The basic aim of the pension fund strategy is to channel savings towards the financial markets.
The French MEPs in my group are totally against pension funds.
This system of capitalisation is particularly dangerous and deeply unfair as it benefits the rich, who have the ability to save, and leaves the poorest with a starvation pension.
<P>
This is why we cannot accept the Ferri report prepared by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, given that this report conforms to the approach taken in the Commission's proposals.
Rather, we must defend the pay-as-you-go system which is alone in guaranteeing the rights of employees and which allows the latter to claim a pension in a context of national solidarity between workers and pensioners, between generations and between the nation and its workers.
In order to find new resources and to increase the purchasing power of pensions which often lag behind the cost of living, as evidenced by the recent demonstrations by pensioners in France, we propose to apply a levy on financial products at the same rate as that applied to wages.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=290 NAME="Monti">
Mr President, the Green Paper on supplementary pensions in the single market had two main aims: firstly, to launch the widest possible debate on ways of ensuring the financial sustainability of pension schemes in the Member States.
Lengthening life expectancy and falling birth rates are likely to pose a threat to schemes based solely on the pay-as-you-go model.
Most of these schemes were established at a time when there were four or five workers for every pensioner.
In 2015 this ratio will be in the order of two to one, or even more unfavourable in certain Member States.
The Member States must face up to these changes and organise their pension schemes in such a way as to safeguard the income levels of elderly persons, whilst keeping public spending under control.
<P>
As regards the second aim of the Green Paper, we must strive at EU level to ensure that supplementary pension schemes, based on capitalisation, can benefit fully from the advantages of the single market.
The current situation is quite different: it has to be said that in many cases, pension funds face severe restrictions in respect of investments.
As the Green Paper points out, some of these restrictions - some, not all - are not justified by prudential considerations and limit the return on funds, causing pension costs to rise.
<P>
These restrictions are hampering the integration of capital markets in the Union, to the detriment of growth and employment.
Pension funds are not free to use any authorised manager established in the Union, and this limits the advantages deriving from healthy and effective competition at EU level.
Occupational mobility is hampered by the frequent absence of mutual recognition of taxation systems and of transferability of supplementary pension rights.
<P>
Finally, and in particular, because of the lack of coordination of taxation systems, life insurance companies and pension funds are not free to offer their services throughout the Union.
This situation is all the more unsatisfactory, considering the way that supplementary pension schemes are flourishing in the EU.
Pension fund assets in the Member States already constitute 25 % of EU GDP, and a growing number of countries are relying on these bodies to tackle demographic and budgetary changes.
<P>
In addition, more and more people now wish to work in different EU Member States, and they must enjoy the freedom to do so without running the risk of losing their supplementary pension rights.
The Commission has received almost a hundred responses to the Green Paper, from the Member States, the Economic and Social Committee, and financial and social circles.
A large majority of them stress how urgent it is to create a Community legal framework for supplementary pension schemes, which will allow them to develop throughout the single market.
In this way they will contribute fully to consolidating social protection and safeguarding pensioners' incomes, taking account of the need for equal treatment of women and men - I am addressing Mrs Lulling in particular here; it is indeed vital that women should not be penalised.
<P>
I am very pleased to note that Mr Ferri's excellent report likewise concludes that it is necessary as a matter of urgency to create a Community legal framework governing supplementary pension schemes, and asks the Commission to propose a directive on pension fund management and better coordination of taxation systems.
<P>
This same conclusion was reached in the context of the action plan on financial services, proposed by the Commission on 28 October.
The Commission is quite determined to act along these lines, and will need active support from Parliament.
Broadly speaking, the Commission very much welcomes Mr Ferri's report and the ideas contained in the opinions from the other parliamentary committees.
Their work has added considerably to the consultations launched by the Green Paper, and will be extremely useful in our future work.
<P>
At the beginning of next year the Commission is to publish a communication drawing political conclusions from these consultations.
Thereafter we intend to propose a directive to ensure that pension funds can benefit, under conditions of optimal security, from the freedom of investment and to provide services, which are laid down in the Treaty.
<P>
Finally, the Commission will cooperate closely with the Member States in an attempt to abolish the main fiscal barriers to the creation of an internal market in supplementary pensions.
<P>
Allow me to conclude with a comment on the remark made by Mr Janssen van Raay.
There is no doubt that supplementary pension funds are a vital instrument in looking after future generations in Europe, not least to guarantee a sustainable financial equilibrium in the long term.
Turning now to Mrs Elmalan, I would say that the Member States will clearly retain every right to determine what role the different pillars of pension schemes ought to have.
It is true that the Commission's proposed approach to the role of supplementary pension systems is a substantial liberalisation of their assets and management, subject to specific prudential rules.
If we are keen to boost employment in Europe, as Mrs Elmalan undoubtedly is, we are duty-bound to acknowledge that a single market for pension funds will - for the same level of risk - make it possible to obtain a higher yield on pension fund assets, and hence to reduce both social contributions - for the same pension entitlement - and non-wage labour costs.
All of this naturally plays an important role in employment policy.
<P>
I therefore believe that few issues are as central to Europe's economic and social system as this one is in several respects, and I thank Parliament once again for its most valuable contribution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=291 NAME="Falconer">
Mr President, just briefly, when Mr Monti spoke about his Green Paper there was no mention of how the contributors to these funds, i.e. people who put their money in, are to be involved in the decision-making process.
Could he give us some assurance that any of these communications or directives will include that which is enshrined, i.e. the European market conditions of co-determination and co-decision?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=292 NAME="Monti">
Mr President, I wish to respond briefly to Mr Falconer by indicating that the possible involvement of contributors in the management of supplementary pension schemes and pension funds is, of course, important and falls within the competence of the Member States rather than within the competence of the Community.
<P>
I also wish to point out the distinction between a firm producing goods and services in which, at least in some Member States, there are forms of involvement of workers employed in it and a financial intermediary in a broad sense, like a supplementary pension scheme.
It is not the norm in financial intermediaries to have involvement of the counterparts in the management.
To me the best guarantee for contributors is that an appropriate prudential regulation is set out and implemented in practice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=293 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=14>
Vehicles with more than 8 seats
<SPEAKER ID=294 NAME="President">
The next item is the second report (A4-0424/98) by Mr Murphy, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive relating to special provisions for vehicles used for the carriage of passengers comprising more than eight seats in addition to the driver's seat and amending Council Directive 70/156/EEC (COM(97)0276 - C4-0545/97-97/0176(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=295 NAME="Murphy">
Mr President, given the reputation, at least in Britain, of buses being late and given the fact that this particular report is coming back to us a second time, having been delayed since April of this year, it is probably apt that we are starting a little bit late on the debate this evening.
That said, I would like to place on record my thanks to the staff of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy of this House, in particular the interpreters and translators who have quite a task in dealing with this particular report.
They have done an admirable job.
I would also like to thank my fellow members of the Economic Committee, in particular Mr Rübig who is here with us this evening, for their assistance in getting us to this stage.
<P>
A friend of mine told me about somebody she met at a bus-stop in my home town of Wolverhampton, a young mother with a child in a buggy.
A bus pulled up for her but she did not get on, she let it go.
My friend asked her why she did she not get on the bus.
She said she could not get on to that particular bus but there would be a low-floor bus along in a little while.
At one level that describes what we are trying to do this evening: to make sure people can get on and off buses.
But at another level we are quite clearly trying to put in place a further important piece of the completion of the single market.
Buses and coaches are important products of the automotive industry and we need to have certain acceptable standards so that they can freely move around the single market place.
<P>
I hope that the Commission will accept that although the proposal we have come forward with is a radical one it is nevertheless workable.
I recall being here having a short exchange with Commissioner Bangemann in April, about the derogations in the Commission's original proposal about taking certain vehicles outside the scope of the directive.
He challenged me as to why that should be the case.
I told him that my proposals would have removed those derogations because to all intents and purposes Members of this House accept that most vehicles are safe and ought to be granted type-approval, not just in their national markets, but also in the European market.
We have come back to that proposal in this report.
<P>
A key area, certainly for this side of the House, is accessibility and the provisions for accessibility.
To achieve that the Economic Committee has put in certain definitions of what a passenger is.
We have also put in certain technical standards which we would expect a technical working party to look at as mandatory, for example: the height of the first step, particular specifications for boarding aids, wheelchair accessibility on vehicles and the safety of passengers inside the vehicles.
Allied to that, the committee has also protected the ability of national preferences and regional variations to continue, whilst at the same time accepting that certain standards of accessibility are required.
<P>
A further area that the committee has taken on board is the whole issue of driver safety.
If we are to have safe vehicles for the citizens of the European Union to use then we need to make sure that the drivers are comfortable and free from any risk.
Therefore we are calling on the Commission to come forward with a proposal six months after the introduction of the directive looking specifically at driver safety.
<P>
I accept that the report which the Economic Committee is putting before you this evening is something of a challenge to the Commission and something of a new approach.
Nevertheless I believe it merits serious consideration by the Commission.
I would challenge the Commission to accept what the Economic Committee is trying to do: to balance out the needs of the citizen; to balance out our obligation to complete the single market, but at the same time to bring forward a report which is useable and sensible and deals with what is needed and not perhaps what civil servants might want to see.
<P>
I accept it as a radical challenge, something which the Commission may not have dealt with before, but I believe that if the Commission is willing to take this new approach on board then we will get closer to completing that single market, we will respect national and regional variations where buses and coaches are concerned, and the sort of story I started off with this evening, of a young mother not being able to get on a vehicle in my home town may never happen again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=296 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Murphy's very good report is much more far-reaching that the title of the dossier suggests.
This is no longer just about vehicles used for the carriage of passengers comprising more than eight seats.
In presenting these amendments by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, we are signalling the beginning of a new era in technical legislation.
<P>
Until now, proposals have been settled down to the last detail.
I should simply like to show you the proposals here, so that you can see what huge proportions the technical legislation - just for buses with more than eight seats - has assumed.
The legislator then has to decide whether the height of the step for boarding a bus should be 240, 260 or 280 mm.
This, however, can and should no longer be the task of this House and its Members.
We are more responsible for laying down the political guidelines and basic principles.
A bus has to be safe, stable and accessible to people with reduced mobility.
Any more detailed provisions must be agreed - on the basis of these principles - by those whom they actually affect: manufacturers, operators and users, especially elderly and disabled people.
In this regard, I should particularly like to thank Mr Murphy for placing special emphasis on this aspect.
<P>
That is why we are proposing that a permanent working party be set up to perform these tasks.
It should firstly, for practical reasons, rely heavily on the regulations which already exist in the context of the UN Economic Commission for Europe. Secondly, European standardisation bodies will be involved, and they have accumulated a wealth of experience with this type of legislation.
<P>
Until agreement is reached on the individual issues, however, an alternative way of guaranteeing the free movement of goods and the proper functioning of the internal market will have to be found.
That is why the subsidiary principle of mutual recognition applies.
Once a bus is authorised for use in one Member State, it can be authorised for use throughout Europe.
That also ensures that the arrangements are sufficiently flexible and geared towards customers.
The demands placed on a bus in Sicily are completely different from those placed on a bus in the north of Finland, or in a large city such as London, or in a small town such as Oberplattling in Bavaria.
I believe that we need to give the market this freedom, so that customers can say what they want, and so that manufacturers - once they have learnt this - can offer what their customers wish to have.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=297 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Carlsson">
Mr President, the Murphy report is not simply another piece of legislative work.
In my opinion, it signals a breakthrough in terms of the kind of legislation we should be adopting and how we should see the EU's regulatory remit. Evidence has now been produced of Parliament's faith in the market and those who operate within it.
And, as elected representatives, we have broken new ground.
<P>
I refused to take part in the first round of voting in committee last spring.
The all-embracing proposal for a directive contained mathematical formulae and levels of detail that I could not understand myself, let alone explain to my electorate.
The committee was confronted, in addition, with 135 amendments.
The PPE Group abstained at the first vote in plenary and managed to get the report referred back to committee.
We owe special thanks to Mr von Wogau, who is a political stalwart, always ready to take on ambitious reports and opinions.
He, with our support, rightly questioned the wisdom of such extensive and detailed proposals. It was high time that this happened.
<P>
I should also like to thank Mr Murphy for his insight and understanding. As the person responsible within Parliament for the SLIM project, he presumably realises that we need to do more than simply talk.
Through our actions, we have to demonstrate our wish to simplify regulatory activity and produce better, and less all-embracing solutions. My thanks also go to Mr Rübig, who not only asked questions, but played a constructive role in this whole discussion.
<P>
Let us hope that industry - which frequently calls for less, but better regulation - does not feel put out by the radical nature of the changes we have made.
There are those who would probably have benefited from a very detailed proposal - the sort of people who take one view in general discussions and another when it comes to action which affects them in particular.
I look forward to seeing the Commission overcome its annoyance at Parliament's pruning of its painstakingly drafted proposal. There is much to be learnt from the Murphy report.
<P>
The European Parliament has now thrown down the gauntlet to the Council and Commission. It is now up to them to demonstrate who can best meet the challenge of simplifying and improving EU procedures - fighting for a common framework, whilst trusting in the subsidiarity principle and letting the market have its say in working out standards and resolving details.
Parliament has put down a marker this week, making it clear that we want a less detailed, but better functioning EU.
We are acting on a mandate from the citizens of Europe, at a time when they are rightly questioning an institutional set-up which has in many ways become unwieldy, obsessed with regulations and bureaucracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=298 NAME="Monti">
Mr President, I wish first and foremost to thank Mr Murphy for his thorough examination of the proposal for a directive on buses and coaches.
As you know, this proposal fits into the Community system of type-approval for motor vehicles, governed by framework Directive 70/156/EEC.
It completes the technical harmonisation of this category of vehicles, thereby creating a single market for all types of vehicle.
The proposal follows the detailed approach traditionally used in the motor vehicle sector, both within the Community and internationally.
<P>
The revision of the 1958 agreement of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, to which the European Union only acceded in March 1998, has led to a number of international regulations on the fitting-out of urban and interurban buses.
The Commission's proposal is based on these regulations, introducing certain improvements adopted after consultation of all the experts in the field and taking account of all the economic and social implications of public transport.
In this context, we appreciate the rigour demonstrated by Mr Murphy in his first draft opinion, which contained over a hundred amendments, only some of which were found acceptable.
The drastic reduction to twelve amendments, carried out in Mr Murphy's second report, might appear to be an excellent achievement, in that the report now stays on a more political level and is less oriented towards technical detail.
However, the remaining twelve amendments are a long way from the Commission's proposal and strike us as unacceptable for the following reasons.
<P>
First of all, the proposed test does not fully fit either into the traditional, detailed approach taken in regulations in the automotive sector or into the new approach centring on essential requirements.
In actual fact the rapporteur's amendments appear to be guided by the new approach, in that the technical specifications set out in the Annexes are removed.
And yet they provide for recourse to working groups and a regulatory committee, the type of committee which embodies the traditional approach.
<P>
Secondly, the report provides for the establishment of a new group, the technical working party, to comprise representatives of operators, manufacturers, standardisation bodies and consumer groups, among them representatives of the disabled.
This technical working party is modelled on the traditional-style regulatory committee.
Entrusting it with the task of assisting the Commission services, by drawing up the detailed technical specifications, would add to confusion over responsibilities and further delay the adoption of the harmonised technical specifications.
<P>
Thirdly, I would point out in addition that the Commission's proposal strikes a balance - which was not easy to achieve - between the interests of industry, Community transport policy, bus user safety requirements and 'Community social policy' considerations, especially in respect of mobility-handicapped persons.
<P>
Fourthly and lastly, let us not forget that this directive completes the overall system of type-approval for this category of vehicle.
It would therefore be inappropriate, above all during the final phase of completing the single market in vehicles, to alter the method of harmonising national provisions.
<P>
For these reasons, the Commission is obliged to reject the twelve amendments proposed.
We do of course wish to complete the Community regulatory system in conjunction with the European Parliament, with the legislator in the context of codecision.
It is our intention to carry forward this task with the assistance of the rapporteur and of Parliament in a constructive manner, in such a way as to satisfy everyone concerned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=299 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Monti.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=15>
Aerospace industry
<SPEAKER ID=300 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0362/98) by Mr Hoppenstedt, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission communication on the European aerospace industry: meeting the global challenge (COM(97)0466 - C4-0547/97).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=301 NAME="Hoppenstedt">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for a few years now the Union has been devoting considerable attention to European aerospace policy, as can easily be seen from numerous communications issued by the Commission.
The present report, however, does not merely deal with one of the many aspects of this strategic domain, but also analyses the current situation in its entirety, and on that basis devises a coherent European policy for the future.
<P>
The importance of the European aerospace industry as one of the paramount factors in our economic future is now generally accepted in Europe.
But this economic potential can only be used to the full if the present fragmented European aerospace industry is restructured to strengthen its competitiveness in the world market, a necessity arising from the increasingly complex nature of the aerospace products that are now in demand.
<P>
This becomes all the more important if we consider the significance of the aerospace industry as a source of employment which provided more than 377 000 direct jobs in 1997.
The fact that the European aerospace industry has been affected in recent years by stiffer competition, cuts in public funding and the meteoric pace of technological development does not make the restructuring process any easier.
Alarm bells started ringing in earnest within the European industry last July with the merger of Boeing and McDonnell Douglas.
This American example of restructuring clearly shows the direction in which the European aerospace industry should also be heading.
<P>
Within only five years, three gigantic groups have emerged in the United States through mergers and takeovers.
In an almost faultless blend of technological and economic potential, these groups have brought all areas of military and civilian aerospace activity as well as defence technology under one roof.
This enables them to spread their risks as widely as possible, to strengthen their immunity to cyclical fluctuations and to ensure that, in both technological and business terms, the whole is far greater than the sum of its parts.
<P>
But even though, with a patchwork of policies based on national interests, the European aerospace industry has undoubtedly had a very different starting position to that of the United States, for example, a great number of encouraging developments have taken place on a European scale, especially over the past year.
One example is the project for a European Aerospace and Defence Company, which is surely incontrovertible evidence of a desire for restructuring within both the industry and national governments.
Following a number of meetings, Daimler Benz Aerospace, Aérospatiale, Casa and British Aerospace have devised a clear plan of approach, setting out the aims, scope and operational structure of a common aerospace policy covering both the civilian and military branches of aerospace activity.
<P>
The first step in this direction will be the creation next year of the Airbus single corporate entity.
Although this is a great advance, it is not the only one.
For instance, 1998 promises to be a record-breaking year for the Airbus in the large-capacity aircraft market.
In the first half of 1998, the Airbus consortium, with a market share approaching 50 %, secured more contracts than its direct competitor, Boeing - McDonnell Douglas, for the first time.
Civil aviation is certainly the most important branch of the aerospace industry in financial terms, but a long-term European strategy must also be established in the other branches.
For that reason, we must welcome and develop communications-satellite projects such as Sky Bridge, the European answer to Teledesic, and the success of the Ariane programme in the domain of carrier services; the programmes for the construction of navigation satellites and the creation of satellite navigation systems are taking us in the right direction.
<P>
In this context, it is also gratifying to note that provision has been made for this type of venture in the fifth EU framework programme of research under the broad line of action 'promoting competitive and sustainable growth' and particularly the specific programmes under the heading of 'prospects for aviation'.
The framework programme also ensures the provision of a specific coordinating mechanism for activities within the various thematic programmes in the field of aerospace technology.
The appraisal contained in the report spells out that Europe can only benefit in future from an unswerving commitment to progress.
The developments and examples that have been described illustrate the fact that Europe possesses great inherent potential.
But if that potential is to be fulfilled, the aerospace industry, with the support of the national governments and European institutions, must take up the gauntlet.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=302 NAME="Malerba">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations I should like to say how much I welcome the Hoppenstedt report. I would just refer to two salient points: cooperation and dialogue between Europe and newly industrialised countries such as China; and the Commission's involvement in international negotiations on safety and on the allocation of the resources of space and the electro-magnetic spectrum.
<P>
From a somewhat broader point of view, I would say that the aerospace industry has emerged from the morass of a year or so ago, thanks to a number of agreements, but that so far it has only been partially restructured.
In institutional terms and in respect of ownership arrangements, the guidelines for privatisation in France have recently been drawn up, but much still remains to be done.
Mr Hoppenstedt has referred to the need for Airbus to have the status of European company, the fact that there is still no European Armaments Agency, and that the national space agencies are seeking a new role, whereas the ESA does not yet have a clear relationship with or clear mandate from the European Union and the Commission.
<P>
Two things do give me cause for satisfaction: the allocation to the aerospace sector in the fifth framework programme, which is almost double that of the fourth, and the growing consensus apparent in both political and industrial circles in Europe concerning the satellite navigation programme.
These, in my opinion, are the two positive signs within the Union; otherwise, I fear that the European aerospace industry is not moving at a sufficiently fast pace for it to meet successfully a worldwide challenge which could be crucial in our progress towards the information society.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=303 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Mr President, Commissioner de Silguy, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Hoppenstedt, everyone knows that the European aerospace industry is a prestigious jewel in the crown of our European economy, of our economic power and therefore of our political power.
<P>
Like the rapporteur, I must firstly welcome the Franco-German-UK declaration of 9 December 1997 on this subject.
I firmly approve, as does Mr Hoppenstedt, of the European-level restructuring of our military and civil aerospace industry.
This is a necessity which cannot now be denied.
<P>
Europe needs powerful integrated industrial groupings in this area, as in many other industrial sectors.
I must at this point question the lack of desire to carry out this restructuring and to create these groupings at the right time in other European industrial sectors.
This applies, for example, to the shipbuilding industry and even the textile industry to a certain extent.
As someone who has observed these industrial matters for some years, I must be allowed to say this and to express my regret concerning this on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of employees in these sectors, many of whom are now unemployed.
<P>
The reason I am saying this is because there are many other sectors which are or will be affected.
This is now clear and we cannot pretend or say otherwise.
I must also take this opportunity to restate that Europe must stop imposing rules, constraints and limitations, in the name of triumphant liberalism, with which our international competitors do not have to contend, which means that they are at an advantage in terms of international competition.
<P>
Returning to aeronautics, like Mr Hoppenstedt, and all credit to him, I also approve the transformation of Airbus Industrie to give it more muscle.
I, too, regret our weaknesses and I hope that we will find solutions in the area of communications and navigation satellites.
The two final points which I must stress are the need to jointly develop the next generation of military equipment and airframes and never to forget in Europe the importance in social terms, and in terms of direct and indirect jobs, of the civil and military aeronautical industry and therefore obviously the need to introduce Euroworks councils as quickly as possible.
<P>
This is a good report whose subject gives just cause for European pride and is also, in my opinion, a lesson and an example for other European industrial sectors.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=304 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, may I begin by thanking my honourable friend Mr Hoppenstedt for his excellent report.
He is an acknowledged expert in this area, and I believe we must recognise that.
We have an enormous diversity of issues to deal with, and to have someone who can deal with a subject in such depth is of extra special importance.
<P>
Let us now turn to the substance of Mr Hoppenstedt's report.
I believe that, while we must create the conditions for the development of a European aerospace industry, it is even more important that companies within the aerospace industry in Europe should get together properly, and there is still much to be done in this respect.
Above all, I believe that a European aerospace company comprising several enterprises which have hitherto operated in a national framework will not tolerate government involvement in the longer term.
I believe we shall have to organise this industry entirely within the private sector, and that remark is especially addressed to one particular country.
<P>
Secondly, as far as defence technology is concerned, or Wehrtechnik , as we would say in German, there is an urgent need for us to cooperate so that we do not fall behind our competitors.
In this domain, of course, some very delicate questions remain unanswered, and we have to recognise that whatever is developed must be distributed in accordance with the Member States' respective market shares, irrespective of where the product has been developed.
But allow me to say at the same time that, whatever we do as a joint European aerospace enterprise, although we must make our own products in order to hold our own against American competition, there is no reason why we should not cooperate with the United States too in certain segments of the market, since some of the companies that will combine to form a European aerospace and defence group will naturally have their own links with the United States and with businesses there.
So the message is: establish a strong position, but cooperate with American corporations too.
<P>
Let me end with a word on the satellite navigation systems.
And please listen especially carefully, Commissioner, to what I have to say on this point.
I am not sure whether we in this House, you in the Commission and the governments in the Member States are fully aware of the problems associated with the global satellite navigation system.
Do we really want to become dependent on the United States by jointly developing with the Americans a system that they can switch off at their own discretion?
We shall have to think harder about ways in which we can assert our own European identity, for this question of global satellite navigation is not only important in terms of aerospace; it is an important factor in transport policy in general, and I believe that this is a point on which we Europeans must close ranks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=305 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hermange">
Mr President, the aerospace industry involves 350 000 people, one million jobs and a turnover of EUR 50 billion.
It is threatened, however, by the United States, which benefits from considerable aid for technological development and has been able to anticipate the consequences of international competition.
In this context, the Hoppenstedt report has come at an opportune moment.
<P>
As Europe must act quickly and appropriately in order to maintain its place in the aerospace industry, our four main objectives must be: to consolidate the initial success of the launch of Ariane V; to develop a subsonic long-haul Airbus A3XX; to achieve the space and terrestrial components of the European satellite navigation systems GNS 1 and 2, and finally, in terms of research and development, to develop cheaper, lighter and more powerful satellites to meet the needs of telecommunications and Earth observation and also prevention, particularly of natural disasters.
<P>
The competition from the US must be met by a resurgence in Europe.
Manufacturers must now increasingly come together.
Only in this way will the European Union score new successes in the aerospace industry and reap the benefit of its skills through the development of new activities.
Technological developments in the aerospace industry represent aid for employment.
We must therefore pay particular attention to developing this sector.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=306 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Ainardi">
Mr President, this report conforms to the Commission's approach by supporting the current restructuring in the European aeronautical industry.
I will confine myself to this subject.
Although Airbus has achieved enormous worldwide success, the current upheavals appear to be fraught with danger.
The stated desire to confront Boeing and its might forms the basic argument justifying the aim of and the need for a major European aerospace grouping.
I agree that Airbus should be given more muscle but we must realise that a ferocious battle has begun between the former associates of Airbus, who are now partners, concerning the leadership of the future grouping. This is despite an interim report having been sent a short while ago to the government.
<P>
Although we need to enter a new stage in the European aerospace industry, we should pay attention to the aim and objectives of the current restructuring.
The realisation that the purpose of this restructuring is competition and improved profitability raises concern about the future of an industry which needs long-term investment without any immediate return and whose effectiveness is particularly dependent on the skills and training of its employees, and on the recognition of their qualifications.
This is also an industry which has always benefited in France from government subsidy, to the dislike of some people.
<P>
I must stress that the explosion in worldwide requirements in the civil aerospace sector poses challenges of a new magnitude in terms of reducing environmental pollution and in terms of financing costs and democracy. My opinion is that the reasons behind the economic war in which we are engaging cannot meet these challenges.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=307 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, it seems grotesque that we should have a report before us which purports to be about competitiveness but is actually about an increasingly highly subsidised industry.
Fifty per cent of the aerospace industry is about military production, which is kept alive by public money and public money alone.
The report speaks of efficiency.
Let me tell you that the best way of achieving efficiency and competitiveness would be to combine the restructuring of the aerospace industry with disarmament strategy and not, as is suggested here, to pursue a process of building up and renewing our military arsenals.
<P>
The Greens are particularly concerned that, in the absence of safeguards, mergers in the aerospace industry will trigger an irreversible arms spiral in Europe and that this will all happen without transparency and democratic control.
Research and development funds are being misused here.
In view of the changing climate, they would be far better spent on areas such as renewable sources of energy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=308 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="de Lassus Saint Geniès">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in thanking Mr Hoppenstedt for his report, I must repeat what previous speakers have pointed out, that the restructuring of the European aerospace industry is essential.
The Member States and manufacturers are clearly aware of this and they are currently making progress towards a joint solution which will soon be satisfactory to all the partners.
<P>
Parliament must assist this approach by ensuring that social progress is achieved, particularly in terms of Euroworks councils, as has just been mentioned.
The aerospace industry is clearly a sector of considerable strategic importance both because of the guarantees which it can give for the defence of Europe and because of the developments it allows in the use of inner and outer space at world level over the next 50 years.
This is why the current restructuring must not be assessed using purely liberal or capitalist criteria.
The importance of the trade agreements resulting from this type of industry will clearly have an effect on the standard of living of people in Europe.
The Community's financial support for research in this sector must therefore not be reduced but should actually continue in parallel with the considerable effort being made by the government of the United States in respect of the restructuring of the American aerospace sector.
<P>
As suggested by Mr Hoppenstedt, this support must act as an incentive but under no circumstances must the aid from national and European public funds be decreased as this would dramatically reduce the scope of the restructuring undertaken.
One point of particular concern is the development of the A3XX.
Despite the enormous costs, large long-haul passenger aircraft are clear proof of the know-how of the aerospace industry and constitute a powerful promotional tool for a whole family of products, as the 747 has proven for Boeing over the last 20 years.
<P>
It is therefore impossible to abstain from this project.
I must stress the confidence which we have in the capacity of all the manufacturers and particularly the workers, managers and design offices of Aérospatiale in Toulouse to successfully complete this magnificent project.
However, we must also take advantage of this ambitious financial programme to improve the organisation and distribution of subcontracting, so that this vital industrial effort can best serve the interests of industrial development in all the European regions concerned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=309 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Antony">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, no-one can be more delighted by the success of our aerospace industry, and in particular the exemplary cooperation represented by Airbus and Ariane, than the National Front.
<P>
It must be emphasised once again that these initiatives owe nothing to the European institutions and everything to the willingness of the manufacturers, technical engineers and workers.
We can only be delighted at the determination not to let our countries be subject to the domination and even in certain market segments to the monopoly of the American giant Boeing-McDonnell-Douglas.
However, we have some concerns about the ulterior motives of the Hoppenstedt report. Under the guise of economic efficiency and the confused concept of integration, we are moving towards the simultaneous privatisation and Europeanisation of our defence industries.
<P>
Under the guise of privatisation, progress is being made both towards our national defence being controlled by the Commission in Brussels by the development of Community regulations and standardisation, and towards the weakening of our military industries by every takeover bid imaginable.
It is particularly worrying that at no time have these industrial problems been linked to the higher interest and security of the Member States, nor even of a hypothetical European superstate.
The aim behind the integration of the civil and military sectors is not to bring into play any synergies, dual technologies or possibilities of public subsidy for research, but is merely to let the armament industry join the common fate of the European economy in terms of competition at any price and seizure of control by Brussels.
<P>
With regard to the civil aerospace industry, the French Members must be warned against the immediate consequences of transforming the Airbus GIE into a single corporate entity.
In the current context, this will be lead to the relocation of the headquarters in the Netherlands, followed by the relocation of the production units.
Economies of scale and defragmentation of markets can be achieved using means other than by abandoning our companies to private capital and by Community law.
The search for these means certainly should not involve the Commission.
Problems of national security or strategic industries are too important to be left to the Commission.
In France, we are not ready to forget the Commission's incredible actions concerning the shipyards.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=310 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Mr President, the rapporteur has very clearly emphasised the significance of the European aerospace industry as a genuinely important factor in our economic future.
I recall the parliamentary debates on other Commission communications which have repeatedly made the point that the future prospects and competitiveness of the European Union in the industrial sphere, but elsewhere too, are dependent on developments in aerospace.
That, of course, does not absolve us from highlighting and re-examining the specific political issue that arises in connection with the civil and military components of this industry.
<P>
The question we really ought to be asking concerns the extent to which the aerospace market is actually organised or whether such organisation is even possible - to what extent, in other words, the subsidisation of the military sector actually leads to the emergence of good competitive products for the civilian market, as is the case in other parts of the world.
If we recall that the European Union still has but a tiny share of the world market, and if we consider that in 1996 the value of aerospace exports just edged over the ECU 15 billion mark, which is equivalent to about 3 % of all EU exports, we cannot fail to realise that aerospace is so important that the European Union, for all its successes, still needs to achieve more in this sector.
<P>
Great challenges await the European aerospace industry.
The merit of the Commission's communication and the Hoppenstedt report is that they really do emphasise this point, as well as indicating how fiercely the battle for supremacy is being fought in a global market, especially the market in products designed for civilian use.
The United States is still far and away the major player in the global aerospace market - and I am telling you nothing new here - with a 58 % share.
Moreover, the plain fact is that company structures are different in the USA.
That is nothing new either, and for this reason the demands for an end to the fragmentation of the European aerospace industry that have been reiterated in today's debate can only be supported.
The large number of aerospace companies in a relatively small internal market means that research, production and marketing potential is dissipated, which is not without an influence on the competitiveness of the European Union.
<P>
Unlike the American corporations, European producers are scarcely able to cover the increasingly high development and financing risks.
This is one of the reasons why it is important to develop new forms of business cooperation which will ensure, among other things, that economies of scale can be made and that technological and organisational synergy can be produced between the various disciplines within the aerospace industry.
It is therefore essential to make up lost ground rather than falling further behind.
<P>
What makes the situation especially critical is that the European aerospace industry possesses great fundamental employment potential and a highly skilled workforce.
Aerospace is one of the top 15 industries, employing more than 370 000 people as well as sustaining thousands of jobs in component manufacturing and in other high-tech areas.
That is why I should like to put it to the Commission that it is high time their industrial working parties and task force began to highlight the employment dimension far more clearly in the papers they produce on industrial policy, including the present one, to emphasise that employees' rights are part and parcel of the ongoing development of any industry and in particular to prescribe the principle of codetermination for key industries such as aerospace.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=311 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, pardon my smiling, but it is pleasing to be able to conduct a political debate, even at this late hour.
I should like to express my special thanks to Mr Hoppenstedt, who through patient determination is able to achieve progress in important areas such as the development of a global satellite navigation system, not only on this side of the Atlantic but on the other side as well.
<P>
It is important to carry this sort of technology in our own product range, so that the market does not depend on a single supplier, because the thought that we shall be able to combine this satellite navigation system with the universal mobile telecommunications system at some time in the future opens up completely new avenues.
That is why I, as a member of the Committee on Budgets, should like to suggest to the Commission that a precise financial framework for the development of this system is long overdue, because when the time comes we shall need the proper hardware, software and mainframes.
That will create many new jobs in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=312 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, allow me to deal with an aspect that was not expressly mentioned in this excellent report, namely the question of component supplies.
The aerospace industry awards contracts to hundreds of small and medium-sized businesses in most Member States of the European Union.
If Airbus sells a large number of aircraft, that means good business for many upstream companies, which safeguards numerous jobs.
For that reason alone, there is never too much we can do for European civil aviation or for the European space industry.
<P>
In order to obtain a proper grasp of the economic significance of the aerospace industry, the Commission should produce a study on the volume of component supplies. That would be an important step.
Above all, the study should include the percentage of total supplies drawn from small and medium-sized businesses and the number of staff employed by the component manufacturers.
It would also be interesting to catalogue the countries of origin of the supplied components, since that would enable us to determine, for example, whether the Airbus really is a pan-European aircraft.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=313 NAME="de Silguy">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Hoppenstedt's report contains an in-depth analysis of the situation in the European aerospace industry.
It is an excellent report and on behalf of the Commission I must congratulate the rapporteur because he has also taken into account the main events that have occurred since September, that is since the approval by the Commission of its communication.
I would remind you that the aim of this communication is to draw attention to the urgent need to accelerate restructuring and regrouping in the European aerospace industry.
As you know, only a few aerospace companies can survive at world level in the long term given what this sector represents and given the degree of competition in the world aerospace market.
<P>
The American industry has actually already begun restructuring.
In 1980 there were about 20 companies whereas there are now only four.
I can reassure Mr Malerba that we are agreeable to proper cooperation between America and Europe, of which there are some good examples, such as the Snecma/General Electric deal.
However, we must be partners and not subcontractors.
We must therefore be as strong in the world market as the Americans in order to be able to cooperate.
The situation of the European industry is clearly different, as underlined by the rapporteur, given that it remains partitioned at national level and even in terms of its products.
<P>
I believe Mrs Randzio-Plath mentioned that the European aerospace industry now has to face three main challenges, the first of which is due to the complexity of the products.
The exponential growth in development costs and the financial risks exceed the resources of the European aerospace companies, even the most powerful.
The second factor relates to the market.
No Member State has an armaments market equivalent to the American market.
The same applies to the aid for research and technological development that American companies receive from the American Government.
Finally, the third element involves the fact that the European aerospace companies cannot take advantage of the same economies of scale as the American giants.
<P>
The Member States must therefore understand that the future of the European aerospace industry is linked to the interdependence of the structures existing within the European Union.
Although the manufacturers must be the main protagonists in this restructuring, it is clear that the governments have a decisive role to play in this process.
They must promote the creation of companies at European level by guaranteeing genuine commercial flexibility based on suitable support and training structures.
<P>
In the Commission's opinion, the success of the restructuring will depend on the level of integration of the various branches of the aerospace sector and of civil and military activities at European level.
As several MEPs have rightly stressed, the first stage in this restructuring should be the transformation, which has actually already been agreed, of Airbus Industrie into a single corporate entity involving the companies participating in the GIE.
Furthermore, the European aerospace companies would profit from a Common Foreign and Security Policy and Community rules on the public armaments market.
<P>
However, Mrs Ainardi, I must tell you that, in relation to 1980, the European aerospace industry is now much more oriented towards the civil side.
In 1980 nearly 30 % of this industry's turnover was civil-related whereas this figure is now 60 %. Military activities therefore represent a small part of aerospace activities in Europe and are destined to shrink even more due to the growth in civil demand.
Despite the difficulties caused by the problem of restructuring in the defence sector, the immediate progress to be made in the civil sector must not be delayed.
<P>
I must also mention the employment problem at this point, in answer to Mrs Randzio-Plath and Mr Caudron.
The question of the level of employment in the aerospace sector is implicit in the Commission's approach which aims to increase the competitiveness of this European industry. It is clearly by encouraging competitiveness that employment will be assisted, not only in the aerospace sector but also in other sectors.
It is these efforts to increase competitiveness which have allowed the loss of jobs, which started in 1990, to be halted. The number of jobs has now stabilised at about 380 000.
<P>
To conclude, I must stress to Mr Malerba and Mr de Lassus that the Commission is making new efforts in research and technological development to support this restructuring.
However, the Commission is also initiating developments in air traffic and satellite navigation.
You will remember that we prepared a communication on this subject in January 1998.
The Commission will propose the approach to be taken with regard to satellite navigation in a new communication in the first half of 1999, together with financing proposals.
Similarly, the Commission has drawn up proposals in terms of standardising and creating a single authority for aviation safety.
<P>
Finally, only integrated action by the companies involved and the Member States can provide the framework needed for the survival and development of the European aerospace industry.
Mr Hoppenstedt, your report is a useful contribution to this, and for this the Commission would like to thank you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=314 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=16>
Euro coins
<SPEAKER ID=315 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0401/98) by Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 975/98 on denominations and technical specifications of euro coins intended for circulation (COM(98)0492 - C4-0597/98-98/0270(SYN)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=316 NAME="Soltwedel-Schäfer">
Mr President, Commissioner de Silguy, ladies and gentlemen, we are dealing today with the amendment of a regulation laying down the denominations and physical features of the euro coins to be put into circulation.
Afterwards, I should like to add a few words on the subject of monetary union to my party colleague Mr Fischer in Rome.
But I shall save that until the end.
<P>
The problems that had to be resolved in this report related to the number of coins to be introduced, the denominations in which they would be produced, and lastly the choice of material and the physical characteristics of the coinage.
At the time of the first reading, Parliament advocated a reduction in the proposed number of denominations of coin from eight to six, and a direct correlation between the diameter of the coins and their value to make them more distinguishable for visually impaired and blind people.
When the Council, unfortunately, rejected this and other proposals, including moves to prevent the use of nickel on the surface of the coins, Parliament called on the Council once again in second reading to heed the opinion of the European Blind Union and reduce the number of coins.
<P>
Once more, however, our pleas fell on deaf ears; as a result, in this draft regulation to correct a regulation that is barely six months old, we now read that slot-machine manufacturers are demanding a clear distinction between the 50 cent and 20 cent coins to avert the danger of fraudulent use of doctored 20 cent coins as 50 cent coins.
The European Blind Union is not satisfied that the 50 cent and 10 cent coins are properly distinguishable, because their excessively similar physical characteristics could lead to confusion between the two.
<P>
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy voted by a narrow majority against my proposing the scrapping of a denomination again in my report.
Nevertheless, we shall have to produce a clear majority tomorrow on an amendment to that effect.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy did, however, favour the introduction of a gold 100 euro coin, and of course the material value and production cost of this coin must not significantly exceed its monetary value, which would mean that the 100 euro coin could perhaps be equal in size to a French 20 centime coin.
<P>
I do not wish to go into any further detail, but I should certainly like to ask Mr de Silguy to think less in terms of losing face than of the fact that this gold euro coin is an inevitability.
It is only a matter of time.
With a view to enhancing the symbolic value of the 100 euro coin as the sign of a united Europe and a strong common currency, it should not have a national side as the other coins have, but should uniformly bear a powerful symbol of the European Union.
Famous people, for instance, might feature on the coin.
I think it is possible to reach agreement on that point as well.
<P>
I indicated at the outset that I should also like to deal today with the results of the Rome meeting.
May I therefore comment on the position adopted by my party colleague, Joschka Fischer, the German Minister for Foreign Affairs, who today linked monetary union with the Western European Union, or so-called defence union.
Now that monetary union has succeeded, as it were, and the first step has been taken, the way is considered to be clear to push for a common foreign and security policy and a stronger Western European Union.
Mr Fischer is forging ahead too quickly.
European monetary union is the first step.
The second step is social and environmental union.
That is the only way to develop a European economy.
That is crucial.
<P>
Unfortunately, my colleague from the Green Party is putting the cart before the horse.
He is creating a stumbling-block for us and for himself.
If monetary union is overloaded, which is what is happening here, there is a danger that it will collapse.
Not all the European nations that have signed up for monetary union are also members of the Western European defence union.
I earnestly urge him to think about that - to think, for example, about Austria, Finland and Ireland.
The question here is whether the euro should be embraced at the expense of neutrality, which is an extremely delicate and sensitive issue.
Is this the new German foreign policy?
<P>
Let me stress that Ireland, Finland and Austria will never submit to such ideas. Nor do I, incidentally, as a representative of the German Greens.
Anyone who plays fast and loose with the neutrality of European nations is undermining confidence in the European ideal and in monetary union.
I have emphasised that point because it has taken a long time to build up this confidence, and more time is needed to consolidate it.
Nobody, whether it be the Green Foreign Minister or anyone else, should jeopardise this progress by overburdening monetary union with other objectives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=317 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Mr President, Commissioner de Silguy, ladies and gentlemen, I must say, like the rapporteur, that I too am aware that we currently have little room for improving the euro coins.
<P>
My aim, like the report, is to highlight the case of the visually impaired, and also of many other categories of citizens.
This is why I support the proposal to simply delete the 20 cent coin, which would solve some of the problems raised.
I also support the proposal to change the definition of the edges of the 50 and 10 cent coins, which would solve some of the other problems.
<P>
However, these problems once again demonstrate that time and money would have been saved if the citizens and Parliament had been consulted and heard more effectively.
In this respect I must again express my regret at the decisions taken which mean that too many coins and notes are having to be produced.
In addition, as a result of the ridiculous decision to have national faces on euro coins, we have a situation of longer production times, higher costs and greater risks of mistakes and fraud.
Simpler and more reasonable decisions would have reduced the three-year production period expected from 1 January 1999 to 1 January 2002. This period will prove to be too long and will therefore lead to mistakes, fraud and even swindles affecting the weakest members of society.
The visually impaired and all other citizens could have been better served.
<P>
The rapporteur's proposals are therefore a step in the right direction and I support them.
Finally, I also support the request for a gold 100 euro coin.
I believe this is a good idea symbolically, economically and also emotionally.
For all these reasons, I can confirm my support for the report and for the amendments which have already been approved in the main in committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=318 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a year ago in Parliament we set out our principles: the introduction of a gold euro and the reduction of the coinage to six denominations, possibly eliminating the 2 and 20 cent pieces.
Just as we did by advocating national designs on the reverse of the coins, we can use these measures to enhance people's emotional identification with their new currency while simplifying things at a practical level.
<P>
For the period following the definitive introduction of the euro, we must also step up our efforts to study its practical implications in day-to-day transactions, or perhaps compile a study on the matter.
For example, the lowest banknote, the five euro note, which is worth about 70 Austrian schillings, replaces not one but two of the most frequently used Austrian banknotes, namely the 50 schilling note and the 20 schilling note.
These amounts will soon have to be paid in coins, which means that in future we shall have to carry large money bags around with us instead of wallets.
Or will the development of electronic money be so far advanced by then that these problems might be avoided, or is it necessary to make a one or two euro note instead of printing 200 euro notes?
Perhaps these are not the things to be discussing when the euro is just about to be introduced, but I believe there is every reason to include such matters in our future considerations.
<P>
Finally, I welcome the fact that the most recent statements do not question the independence of the European Central Bank.
The Bank's independence must remain one of the cornerstones of economic union in order to ensure a prudent and above all a stable monetary policy, because that is still the only strategy capable of winning the trust of the European people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=319 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, clearly some of the proposed coins are vulnerable to fraud and hard to identify for blind people.
Yet Parliament pressed in December 1997 for the number of coin denominations to be kept as small as possible and for their value to be linked to their diameter, precisely in an effort to prevent fraud and make life easier for blind people.
A majority of the House, and the rapporteur has already stressed the point, thus failed to see why it should in fact be necessary to bring eight different coins into circulation, especially since electronic cash will shortly be replacing coins.
As far as I know, there is not a single currency set which has so many different coins.
The Council and Commission impressed upon us at the time that we needed to hurry, because production of the coins would be starting shortly.
Perhaps it was thought that the design and manufacture of coins was a technical matter and that Parliament knew nothing at all about that kind of thing.
Neither the Commission nor the finance ministers agreed at the time with our proposal that the 25 cent piece should be dropped. And what do we find now?
Even the experts could not manage to design coins which are easily recognisable to the blind and proof against fraud.
We have wasted time, not because Parliament wanted to make amendments, but because we now have to go through the whole exercise again.
It does not look as if the bodies responsible are going to take any notice of our opinion this time either - I hope I am wrong, Commissioner.
It does, admittedly, make sense that the Commission should take account of the views of the European association for the blind and the vending machine manufacturers.
I wholeheartedly endorse Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer's proposal, and I thank her for the way in which she has approached this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=320 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, I fully endorse the substance of the rapporteur's comments in so far as they referred to the social aspect of the coins.
The Council has shown no signs of a social conscience in this matter.
The introduction of the euro would be a unique opportunity to prove that the European Union is prepared to make a gesture for the benefit of those citizens whom fate has placed at a disadvantage.
Many Member States are still in the Middle Ages anyway in terms of facilities for the disabled, at least by comparison with the United States.
The opportunity to design these coins in such a way that those who are blind or visually impaired can easily identify their value by feeling them has sadly been squandered.
This would have been a means of giving the euro a human dimension, so to speak.
<P>
I am in favour of the introduction of a gold 100-euro coin, one reason being, as the rapporteur so eloquently put it in her report, that it would enrich the new currency by lending it an emotional aspect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=321 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Mr President, the amendments proposed by the European Commission are to be welcomed, since they are designed to help the visually impaired, to protect consumers and to thwart counterfeiters, as the rapporteur has indicated.
To be perfectly honest, however, I must say that Parliament was aware of this a year ago and came up with some very sound proposals.
The Commission considered the proposals to be good, but not practicable because of the timetable and the early deadline.
I therefore find it regrettable that lobbying in the course of this year has resulted in changes being made to the draft regulation after all.
I thought we in the European Parliament were still supposed to be the legitimate representatives of the consumers and citizens of Europe.
<P>
I consider it right and proper that the 50 cent coin should be 0.8 grams heavier so that coin-operated machinery can distinguish more reliably between 50 cent and 20 cent coins.
I consider it right and proper that the edge of the 50 cent coin should differ from that of the 10 cent coin, since it has proved difficult for people with visual impairments to distinguish between the two.
For these reasons the proposal merits approval, but there seems to be no logical reason why Parliament's proposals in particular could not be implemented, given that our findings should have carried at least as much weight as those of the specialised associations.
Every effort must now be made to ensure that these coins gain acceptance, not only in the financial markets and among financiers but also among the general public. Since monetary stability is so especially important to our citizens, the mints must be able to guarantee at this juncture that the currency will still be counterfeit-proof after these alterations, for I believe that was one of the arguments used against the European Parliament proposals.
<P>
I also endorse the rapporteur's view that we need a sort of stability symbol in this economic and monetary union which will grow into a community rooted in stability.
What is the reason for minting a 100 euro coin in gold?
I believe there is every reason.
For one thing, the proposal is consistent with the decision of the European System of Central Banks to hold only 15 % of currency reserves in the form of gold.
In view of the high gold reserves held by the national central banks, this proposal makes sense from both a monetary and an economic point of view, because it precludes the adverse effects on the price of gold that would result from any dissolution of gold reserves.
<P>
A gold euro coin can also help to build confidence in the stable foundations of monetary union. That is certainly an important reason.
In the past, many European governments have used metal and its value to prove their commitment to stability.
A euro coin made of gold can therefore continue this laudable tradition.
That is why it is high time that the European finance ministers and the central banks decided in favour of the gold euro coin, because unless the resistance of the central banks is overcome, another initiative will come to naught.
<P>
If there is a surprisingly heavy demand for these coins which creates an imbalance between their market value and their nominal value - and I say this partly to calm one or two fears - production of the gold coins could be halted.
That has happened with other coins, such as the French silver coin.
But in that case too, the effect of the initial commitment was to stabilise the franc.
The finance ministers' argument that there cannot be a 100 euro coin because there is already a 100 euro note seems a fallacious one to me.
Such duplication occurs in certain monetary denominations in many countries.
It is possible, after all, to ensure that banknotes and coins of the same denomination are not competing for public favour.
The 100 euro coin is also an overdue successor to the 200 franc Napoleon coin which circulated throughout Europe; it will be a collector's piece, a coin of value, a symbol which may well help the euro to win over the hearts and minds of the European people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=322 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hoppenstedt">
Mr President, everything has been said, but not by everyone and certainly not by me.
For that reason, I should like to add a few words on the subject in general.
I find it marvellous that Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer has been grappling so valiantly with this report and is still doing so, even though the striking presses have long been working to produce the coins we have discussed here today.
I am also gratified that all the things we had proposed in the past have now been put on the table here by the Commission, especially the proposals that affect the 11 million Europeans with impaired vision.
I believe this emphasises the fact that we are canvassing for confidence in the new currency within this section of the population too.
With the introduction of the euro only a few weeks away, confidence-building measures are precisely what is needed, and they are precisely what these proposals will help to achieve.
<P>
I find it really rather comforting to note that - as Mr Rübig has also spelled out here - the German Minister of Finance has come right back into the race at the final bend by endorsing the call for confidence-building measures, instead of standing on the sidelines casting doubt on the sovereignty and independence of the Central Bank with ill-considered statements.
<P>
I can only re-emphasise a point that is beyond doubt here in Parliament as elsewhere, namely that the European Central Bank must retain its independence - and it will, because there has been no indication that it will not - if it is to achieve its foremost objective of guaranteeing price stability.
<P>
Price stability, as we all know, happens to be one of the basic economic conditions that encourage investments, thereby promoting growth and employment.
Let me quote Wim Duisenberg again, who told us here that stable money is the best contribution that monetary policy can make to sustained economic growth and to the long-term reduction of unemployment.
I wish you all good-night!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=323 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Wibe">
Mr President, I have one or two minor points to make.
I understand why the rapporteur wishes to see one of the coins abandoned, but I would warn against minting a coin as big as the 100 euro in gold.
<P>
There are two reasons why I am so reticent.
Firstly, such a coin would never actually function as a coin.
Secondly, it would encourage counterfeiting and fraud.
A 100 euro gold coin is never going to stabilise the price of gold, which is dictated by supply and demand.
If the price of gold were to rise above the face value of the coins, these would find their way out of circulation.
Were the price were to drop below face value, people would be encouraged to buy gold and make their own coins.
It is worth remembering how much easier it is to counterfeit coins than banknotes.
<P>
Mr President, even if - contrary to all expectations - the price of gold were to match the face value, it would still be easy to counterfeit such a coin.
Lead weighs much the same as gold.
There is no wizardry involved in making a lead coin and then covering it with a thin layer of gold. This fraudulent exercise could be very profitable.
My message to you today is that I really do not think that putting a 100 euro gold coin into circulation would be a very good idea!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=324 NAME="de Silguy">
Mr President, I will try to be as quick as possible so that I do not try everyone's patience at this late hour.
<P>
Firstly I must congratulate Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer and thank her for supporting the Commission's proposal.
I will very quickly answer the two questions posed, one on the content of the regulation and the second on the issue of the gold 100 euro coin in which interest was shown during the first debate on the Commission's proposal last November.
<P>
The reasons for and content of this proposal are as follows: we have proposed amending the basic regulation for purely technical reasons.
We do not want to re-open last year's debate on the national face or on the number of coins.
This proposal is in response to purely technical problems involving two coins, the 50 cent coin and the 10 cent coin. These problems have arisen since the adoption of the regulation.
<P>
Why?
The answer is that the use of these coins must be made easier for the visually impaired and the blind.
They have asked us to do this and there is no reason not to meet their request.
They must be able to easily distinguish between the coins.
Furthermore, we must ensure that identification of the coins by vending machines will be as accurate as possible.
These problems arose after the mint-masters, on the basis of the regulation of 3 May, produced the much more detailed specifications needed for the production of the coins and when the first coin samples resulting from an industrial production process could be tested.
<P>
Two sets of necessary but very limited modifications are therefore proposed to solve these two technical problems.
Firstly, the weight of the 50 cent coin must be increased slightly to allow easier differentiation between it and the 20 cent coin, and secondly, the definition of the edges of the 10 and 50 cent coins must be changed by replacing the coarse milling with a shaped edge with fine scallops.
This will allow the coins to be more easily identified by touch.
I would point out to Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens that agreement has been reached with the European Blind Union on this point.
It was at their explicit request that we accepted these modifications which are purely technical and very limited and which do not bring into question the coinage system already specified and adopted. I would add that the production of coins has already started, or at least of those coins which are not affected by these modifications.
<P>
With regard to the second problem of the gold 100 euro coin, in the Commission's opinion this request cannot be considered in the context of the Regulation on denominations and technical specifications of euro coins as this requires in-depth consideration.
The Commission, as the Guardian of the Treaties, must remind you that, under Article 105a (2), the regulation relates solely to the harmonisation of coins intended for circulation.
A gold 100 euro coin would pose risks of confusion and fraud and there is also a risk that these coins would be collected rather than used.
Mr Wibe clearly explained these risks just now, specifically with regard to the existence of a 100 euro note.
The intrinsic value of a 100 euro coin could exceed its spatial value following fluctuations in the price of gold.
It is considered that for easier use and to be aesthetically pleasing, a 100 euro coin would have to have a face value of EUR 300 to 400.
<P>
However, I have taken on board the concerns about the attachment of the population to the euro and the symbolic nature of the issue of this coin and we must examine this, together with all the competent authorities, regardless of the amendment of the regulation in line with Article 105a (2).
Not including this coin in the regulation does not prevent the possibility of the Member States, if they so desire, issuing a gold coin whose characteristics could be harmonised by mutual agreement, on a voluntary basis.
However, under the legislation in force on commemorative and collectors' coins, the legal status of such a coin would come under national law.
This coin could therefore be legal tender throughout the euro zone but it might only be legal tender in the country of issue.
<P>
At my request, the Commission services have contacted the mint-masters, the European Central Bank and the Monetary Committee no later than yesterday evening, and I can confirm that there is real interest in this proposal among the mint-masters. However, there is a certain amount of reticence among the Ministries of Finance and the European Central Bank.
The technical aspects involved in the issue of such a gold coin require an exhaustive study to be carried out and these aspects cannot be defined at this stage.
Similarly, the time of issue would also have to be carefully chosen in order to prevent any risk of confusion during the introduction of the coins and notes intended for circulation.
<P>
To conclude, I must stress the importance attached by the Commission to your proposal and I must say that the Commission is prepared, even though this proposal does not come directly under its competence, to report to the Council and to assist as far as possible with a feasibility study by all the parties concerned, whether mint-masters, issuing authorities, Ministries of Finance, national central banks or the European Central Bank.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=325 NAME="President">
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="Falconer">
Mr President, yesterday I raised a point regarding a camera stationed outside the Chamber with its light peering in through one of the doors.
In addition to this, I was proceeding along the corridor yesterday afternoon when a cameraman was walking backwards filming a Member of this House.
Not only was this a hazard to the cameraman's life and limb but it was also a hazard to any Member's life and limb.
<P>
I would ask the House and you, Mr President, as I know you treat this place with some dignity - much more than I do on occasions - to investigate these matters and perhaps advise us how these practices can be stopped.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Thank you for informing us of this, Mr Falconer.
Fortunately, this practice of walking backwards is not one that has been widely adopted either by Members or officials, but we shall look into what was going on.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, on a point of order relating to Rule 41(1), we obviously had a linguistic misunderstanding on Monday.
So I have to raise this matter again.
On Monday, I objected to the deletion of Question Time to the Council from today's agenda.
You said the agenda was adopted as it stood because no group had objected.
But it says in our Rules of Procedure: 'Question Time to the Council and Commission shall be held at each part-session'.
I wish to make that point.
I believe we must observe the Rules of Procedure, even if not a single group has objected to the agenda.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Mr Posselt, this issue always raises problems because the Rules of Procedure also state that Question Time shall be held at such times as may be decided by Parliament on a proposal from the Conference of Presidents.
If the proposal from the Conference of Presidents is that it should not take place - and this is not the first time that this has happened, since it has unfortunately happened on a number of occasions -, then I cannot go against their wishes or force them to make a proposal to that effect.
It has always been parliamentary practice to ensure that Question Time takes place but there are exceptions to the rule - as in this case - and if matters on the agenda prevent it from taking place, then it may be that it does not indeed take place.
However, I note your comments and will forward them to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure so that it might inform us as to whether our interpretation of the Rules of Procedure, which has been used until now, is acceptable or not.
<P>
I would also like to point out that we have very limited scope for action in this respect because the Council is usually only present one day of the week in Strasbourg.
I have already requested that in one of the next tripartite discussions the Council be given the opportunity to extend its presence an extra day, so that Question Time can take place, although not necessarily on Wednesday afternoons.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="Hardstaff">
Mr President, I want to add to what my colleague, Mr Falconer has said.
I also saw a film crew yesterday along the corridor filming some of our employees moving a trunk.
I am not sure why that should be of such importance.
I suspect the programme was not one showing the wonderful work that we do within this Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President. -">
I will ask DG 3 to look into what happened and I will give you and Mr Falconer the information as soon as we get it.
<P>
Since there are no further comments, the Minutes are approved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Imbeni">
Mr President, I would like to inform you and all Members of the House that, late yesterday evening, the Conciliation Committee reached a conclusion on the fifth framework programme.
It has been very hard work - this was the fourth meeting - and I have to say that, as usual, codecision with a Council operating under the unanimity rule was an unequal struggle.
But all the members of the delegation and all the political groups faced up to it with intelligence, persistence and great determination.
The House will be asked to give its opinion on the work done by the delegation in December, but I think I can already say that everyone really did act very positively and I believe now is the time, while bringing you up to date, to thank all the members of the delegation who took part in the conciliation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Imbeni.
This really is good news, given the particular difficulties involved in these negotiations.
And, in addition to thanking all Members, I think we also must give you special thanks for the effort you have made to secure the success of the conciliation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="De Clercq">
Mr President, I should like to inform you that yesterday evening, after six hours of continuous voting, the Committee on Legal Affairs approved the draft Statute for Members of the European Parliament almost unanimously.
I would like to thank and sincerely congratulate the rapporteur and all the members of the committee, who have worked very hard to ensure that the agreement reached in the Conference of Presidents was observed.
We will therefore shortly be publicly debating the draft Statute for Members of the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr De Clercq.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Agenda 2000
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the guidelines for Agenda 2000.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Agenda 2000 is a central issue for the Austrian Presidency, as it is also in the European Parliament's debates.
This is an important day for Agenda 2000, because the European Parliament will be determining its positions during this part-session.
So I am glad to have this opportunity to report briefly, at the beginning of the debate, on the progress of work in the Council.
<P>
Let me underline again at the outset that the Austrian Presidency attaches great importance to constructive cooperation between the Council and the European Parliament on this matter.
Each of our institutions has a very substantial role to play in accomplishing this great reform project.
We will only manage to keep to the demanding timetable set by the European Council in Cardiff if we have an open exchange of views and effective coordination.
<P>
As early as June this year, the presidency agreed to take note of Parliament's views through regular contacts with Parliament and through its usual participation in plenary sittings and the appropriate meetings of Parliament's committees, to ensure that the European Parliament is kept constantly informed of progress made in the Council's work and to inform the Council of the results of Parliament's discussions and the content of its reports, of which the Council will then take due account.
<P>
I am glad to be able to say today that, to this end, Parliament and the Council have now agreed to initiate a regular, informal dialogue on the general trend of the discussions on Agenda 2000.
The Commission will also take part in this dialogue.
<P>
The first meetings on the subjects of pre-accession instruments, reform of the common agricultural policy and reform of structural policy will take place at political level by the end of November or beginning of December.
They will give Parliament in particular an opportunity to clarify its positions on Agenda 2000, which it is debating today and will vote on tomorrow.
To ensure continuity, the future German Presidency will also be represented.
<P>
The Austrian Presidency regards Agenda 2000 as one of its main challenges.
From the outset, we have considerably intensified the work in the various working groups and in COREPER.
This Agenda is an important theme of every General Affairs Council, as it is for the Ministers of Finance and Agriculture.
There is not a day that passes without intensive work on elements of the package.
<P>
Let me briefly summarise the main points relating to the state of the negotiations.
Firstly, regarding the financial perspective for 2000-2006, there is general agreement that when the financial perspective is drawn up, account must be taken both of the need for budgetary discipline - efficiency in relation to expenditure - and of the need to make resources available for the adequate further development of Union policies.
We have managed to reach agreement on the demarcation of pre-accession and accession-related expenditure.
The overall structure of the financial perspective - allowing for the separate description and calculation of the expenditure for pre-accession and the new Member States - and the seven-year period of validity from 2000 to 2006, with a projected adjustment at the time of the first accessions, have met with broad support, although some Member States take the view that the financial perspective needs to be reviewed for each accession.
<P>
The average growth rates on which the Commission has based this will have to be constantly reviewed in the light of the most recent economic data, since annual growth rates can fluctuate considerably over a period of seven years.
The Commission is starting out from the working hypothesis that the ceiling for Union resources should be fixed at a constant value of 1.27 % of the EU GNP as from the year 2000.
This has also received broad support, although the negotiations on it have not yet been concluded.
<P>
Agreement on the total amounts under the various expenditure headings will probably not be reached until the final stage of the negotiations.
The bodies responsible are currently also holding intensive discussions on the concept of stabilising expenditure in the new financial perspective.
The meetings of the Finance Ministers on 23 November and 1 December will be most important.
They will be concerned with continuing the discussion on key issues and identifying options for solutions in this area.
<P>
The Commission presented the report on the functioning of the own resources system to the European Parliament on 7 October and to ECOFIN on 12 October.
The report discusses various methods of further developing the own resources system and resolving the problem of excessive budgetary imbalances.
There has been little evidence of convergence in the discussions so far in ECOFIN and the General Affairs Council.
Considerable efforts will still be required here with a view to finding generally acceptable solutions.
<P>
Regarding the Interinstitutional Agreement, good progress has been made in recent weeks in the negotiations on the Council's position on a new agreement of this kind.
That enabled us, jointly with the European Parliament, to embark on the technical evaluation of the Commission proposal on 12 November.
I hope that this work will make good headway.
<P>
Regarding the reform of structural policy, very major efforts have been made during the Austrian Presidency.
I believe that overall we have made good progress here.
There is agreement in principle on the following points and the corresponding technical regulations.
<P>
One: there is broad support in principle for the concept of spatial concentration and concentration of the eligible Community population.
The number of objectives is to be cut from seven to three.
<P>
Two: the planning and implementation of the programmes are to be simplified and speeded up.
Decision-making is to be more decentralised than in the past. Financial management and control are to be improved.
<P>
Three: in future structural policy, clear emphasis is to be placed on job creation and safeguarding competitiveness and sustainable development.
<P>
Four: the number of Community initiatives is to be reduced substantially, while giving precedence to Interreg.
<P>
Five: transitional rules are needed for Objective 1 and Objective 2 areas losing their eligibility.
<P>
The Council has now to a large extent determined its positions on the regulations on the Regional Development Fund - the ERDF - and the Social Fund - the ESF.
Most of the technical work on the Cohesion Fund is completed.
What still remains open is the question of the eligibility for assistance of the participants in economic and monetary union.
Some of the key political issues in the continuing negotiations involve establishing more precisely the definitions and criteria of the individual objectives and clarifying the transitional rules.
Then, of course, there are also the key financial questions relating to structural policy, which will probably not be clarified until the final stage of the negotiations.
<P>
Finally, I would like to say a few words on the pre-accession instruments.
We take a very positive view of the progress of negotiations on the Commission's three legislative proposals for a coordinating regulation and structural and agricultural policy pre-accession instruments.
Difficult questions needed to be resolved here, in particular the distribution of resources after the first accessions and guaranteeing sound financial management, together with control of the use of resources.
<P>
We are pleased that the General Affairs Council of 9 November managed to achieve political agreement on the three pre-accession instruments, subject to a reservation about the level of the ceiling of assistance rates.
That has clarified a first, important component of Agenda 2000 in political terms, although of course this aspect depends on overall agreement on that Agenda, given that it is a package.
<P>
Above all, this progress sends out a positive signal to the applicants for accession, who expect the Union to give vigorous support to their reform efforts.
I will not sum up the state of negotiations on the reform of the common agricultural policy, because as you know, my colleague Mr Molter, the Minister for Agriculture, will be giving you very detailed information on that this afternoon.
<P>
All in all, we can certainly say that concrete progress has been made on many aspects of Agenda 2000 over the past five months.
During the next very busy months, we will make further efforts to achieve real headway in clarifying the key questions.
Our aim must be to make substantial progress, so that by the Vienna European Council we have created conditions that will allow the decisive final stage of the negotiations on the overall package to start on schedule at the beginning of 1999.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="Santer">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, today's sitting marks an important step in the process which must, before the end of this parliamentary term, result in the adoption of all the measures proposed under Agenda 2000.
<P>
The Cardiff European Council and the recent informal meeting of the Heads of State and Government at Pörtschach expressed the political will to conclude the negotiations on Agenda 2000 at a special summit next March.
I am delighted that the new German Chancellor gave a very clear indication at Pörtschach of his determination to successfully conclude this work.
<P>
My Commission colleagues will discuss in detail our reactions to your reports.
I should like to remind you of the political importance of the Agenda 2000 package. As you know, it involves the following three strands: substantial reform of EU policies, preparation for the most ambitious enlargement of the EU to date and, finally, the development of adequate and reasonable financing within the ceiling agreed at Edinburgh.
<P>
The Commission believes that it has always been clear that a reform of our policies and an agreement on financing in the context of the financial perspective were essential to prepare Europe for the 21st century.
The prospect of future enlargement adds to the importance of the global reforms contained in Agenda 2000.
<P>
Why must we reach agreement by March?
There are several reasons for this: firstly, the approaching European Parliament elections which will have an impact on the activities of this House from March or April; secondly, the damage which a delay would cause to the credibility of the EU and to confidence; and finally, practical considerations linked to the programming of the Structural Funds and the establishment of policies, and also the negative effect on the accession process itself of any delay in implementing the pre-accession instruments.
<P>
Can agreement be reached by March?
I believe so, because all the relevant information is available, including the Commission's 19 detailed proposals, considered in your reports, and also the Commission's report on own resources.
<P>
Aware of the problem of financing the EU budget, the Commission chose to bring forward by a year its report on the operation of the own resources system.
This report was adopted by the Members of the Commission at the beginning of October.
I must say that this is an innovative document from the Commission as it agrees to an in-depth study of the EU budgetary situation, including the delicate question of the 'net balances'.
What was the reason for this?
It was not because we enjoy tackling this difficult and over-simplistic concept but because of a desire for objectivity and Community spirit, to allow the discussions to take place in an open manner and on sound bases.
<P>
Parliament's role in this is clearly legislative, first and foremost.
While maintaining a global approach, Parliament has chosen to use every possible option to assert its point of view and, where the Treaty provides for this, to fully exercise its prerogatives.
Thanks to your cooperative attitude and substantive contributions, today's sitting will allow considerable progress to be made.
The Commission will listen attentively to Parliament and try to respond substantively to your observations.
<P>
We all know that the concurrence of the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty and the end of your parliamentary term may pose certain problems.
There are some aspects of Agenda 2000 which will be subject to the codecision procedure following ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
I would therefore highlight the responsibility of all the institutions to rapidly conclude an interinstitutional agreement that will allow a seamless transition to the codecision procedure.
Such an agreement is generally required in all cases where there is a changeover from the cooperation procedure to the codecision procedure.
<P>
However, Parliament does not just have a legislative role.
As one of the two branches of the budgetary authority, it will be a signatory to a new interinstitutional budget agreement.
The current agreement has proven to be very useful in maintaining budgetary peace and in guaranteeing a moderate increase in expenditure.
In the Commission's opinion, the conclusion of a new agreement that satisfies both branches of the budgetary authority is an integral part of Agenda 2000.
I am delighted that the initial technical discussions on a new agreement have finally begun.
<P>
Yet we must not rest on our laurels.
There is not much time between now and next March and we must intensify the in-depth discussions.
The adoption of the Agenda 2000 package is in the general interest of the Community.
We should all consider the consequences that a lack of agreement, before the European elections, would have on the new impetus in the EU created by the introduction of the euro.
<P>
I would therefore ask everyone to intensify their efforts before the Vienna European Council in order to ensure a good starting point for the discussions that must be concluded under the German Presidency.
<P>
Clearly, until there is agreement on every aspect, there will be no agreement.
However, mindful of this reservation, I hope that we will achieve three objectives in Vienna.
We must firstly obtain agreement on the 'technical' aspects of the legislative texts. In this respect, I am delighted at the progress achieved recently in the Structural and Cohesion Funds, the pre-accession strategy and the trans-European networks.
Secondly, we must try to make progress in more political areas, for example in certain aspects of the agricultural and rural development reforms, of the structural measures and in the 'format' of the financial perspectives.
Finally, we must outline a final package that should concentrate in particular on the financial implications of the reforms and of connected budgetary questions.
<P>
I have tried to briefly outline the challenges facing us in the coming months.
The Commission is fully aware of the important role to be played by Parliament in this respect before your parliamentary term comes to an end.
On many occasions in the past you have proven your intention to play this role seriously and with the necessary responsibility.
Today's work must be treated similarly and the Commission will willingly contribute to this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hänsch">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we know that the decisions on Agenda 2000 are the central challenge facing the European Union, and therefore also the European Parliament, in the next six months.
Before we discuss the individual reports in detail, I would like to make a few general points on behalf of my group.
What is the real issue?
<P>
Firstly, it is about helping the Central and Eastern European countries to become eligible for accession.
We welcome the Commission's proposals on pre-accession aid.
We also welcome the instruments that have now been developed - or at least their main features.
We do not see this pre-accession aid as a bonus or premium for the Eastern and Central European countries, but we say that it is also in our own economic and political interest.
It is also clear, however, that it is the countries applying for accession themselves that must make the main efforts to qualify for accession.
<P>
Secondly, we ourselves, the European Union, are still not ready for enlargement.
Considerable efforts are still needed before we are prepared.
We regard the concept of Agenda 2000, as presented by the Commission, as the master plan for making the European Union ready for enlargement over the next six months. This applies to reform of its policies.
It also applies to the financial perspective up to the year 2006.
<P>
In recent weeks and months, I have heard much criticism from the Member States, as also from the European Parliament and from my group, of individual Agenda 2000 proposals.
I think that is only normal.
It will happen again today.
But let me make one point at the start of the debate: to date, I have not heard any Member State, any Union body or any parliamentary group propose a counter-plan that would be as consistent in itself, as coherent and as likely to achieve a majority as the one the Commission has presented.
That is why my group will endorse the basic features of Agenda 2000, its essential points, in the form proposed by the Commission.
<P>
Perhaps I might try to list one or two of these points.
We regard job creation, the sustained economic growth and the competitiveness of the EU regions as the most important objectives in the reform of the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund, but also in the necessary reform of the EU agricultural policy.
<P>
We underline the need for Structural and Cohesion Fund measures to be environment-friendly, more environment-friendly than in the past.
We want regional and local organisations, but also our citizens, to be more closely involved in the planning and implementation of regional programmes.
We also hope to see simpler and more responsible fund management, and the appropriate Commission proposals.
The PSE Group has taken a clear stance on a range of disputed points.
The group supports the EU Commission's proposals on the Objective 1 criteria, but insists that the European Parliament must carefully examine any necessary exceptions.
The group supports the Commission's proposal to maintain Cohesion Fund allocations of about ECU 20 billion for the least developed Member States.
The group firmly supports the aim of reducing the number of Community initiatives, as it does the precedence given to Interreg, but we call for the URBAN programme to be retained and hope an initiative will be set up for regions exposed to unexpectedly severe economic and social restructuring.
<P>
We insist that the aid for those regions that will no longer be entitled to aid after the year 2000 should be reduced gradually, while also saying that the transitional stage should last up to six years and that no distinctions should then be made.
<P>
Finally, we support the Commission's intention to bring about greater coherence between national aids and measures and EU Objective 2 measures.
Here we certainly need greater flexibility.
<P>
These are the positions endorsed by my group, at least by a large majority.
Let me add a general point of principle: if we only discuss how much some Member States have to pay and how much a few others receive, we shall not be doing justice to the scale of the decision we are facing, in Parliament and in the Council.
In our view, all reforms - not just institutional reforms aimed at enlargement, but also reforms of our policies - are not only targeted at enlargement of the European Union; in fact they also serve as an opportunity.
They are an opportunity to breathe fresh air into the EU policy-making of the past.
Basically, we would still have to carry them out even if we were not faced with enlargement.
To underline it once again, with these reforms we are aiming to concentrate what we can do as a Community and a Union.
We are not aiming to demolish anything in the Member States, and we are not aiming to demolish the EU's policies.
<P>
Madam President-in-Office, you spoke of constructive cooperation and coordination of our activities.
Let me say a few words on that. I do not have the impression that all the Member States, or rather the governments in the Council, have understood yet that Parliament's role has changed, have understood that in fact the European Parliament now has codecision powers through assent on the regulations on the reform of the Structural Funds and on the Cohesion Fund.
That means that it must also be in the interest of the Council to enter into an interinstitutional dialogue with Parliament after this first reading, not just on the financial perspective, because that is routine and always happens, but also on the reform of EU policies and on the position of the European Parliament and the Council, which will have to be prepared in future.
<P>
If the dialogue to which you referred only consists of Parliament reporting and the Council listening but apart from that remaining silent, as would seem to be the idea, then let me tell you that is not enough for us!
Then you are in danger of seeing all the reforms that need to be made running into a brick wall.
<P>
We want to decide Agenda 2000 during this parliamentary term, before the elections.
We are prepared to adhere to the timetable.
Let the Council do the same!
We need to have the Council's position by the end of March, so do not expect Parliament to give you a pretext for not keeping to your own timetable!
We know that the political, economic, social and ecological future of the whole of Europe is in our hands, in the hands of the Commission, in the hands of the Council, but also - and not least - in the hands of the European Parliament.
You may be sure we are aware of that!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Poettering">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the success of Agenda 2000 with the necessary reforms it involves is the condition for achieving European integration at the beginning of the 21st century.
On 1 January 1999, European monetary union will become a reality - an historic event that many people in Europe still considered impossible only a few years ago.
Monetary union is an example that shows that Europe can make great historic progress and is able to do so if the political actors summon up the necessary resolve.
<P>
But it is not enough just to have resolute political actors.
The people of Europe must be able to have confidence in the European Union's decisions.
In fact the people do not want less Europe, they want more.
They want a convincing Europe, a Europe capable of acting at home and abroad, a Europe that is free of corruption and abuse of power, a Europe that serves the people and their interests.
It is on that basis that Agenda 2000 must become a story of success.
<P>
I would like to address four tasks.
Firstly, the top priority is enlargement of the European Union with the accession of the Central and Eastern European countries.
The negotiations to that end must be conducted as rapidly as possible, so that the ten nations of central Europe can share the European Union's common values.
This means that the enlargement process must take a flexible and transparent form.
It means that those countries which are not in the first round of the negotiations can quickly move up that to level when they make the necessary progress.
We must avoid giving the impression that the people in some applicant countries are excluded from the negotiation and enlargement process, because it is important to these countries' will to reform that they are also aware that they can soon share the European Union's common values.
<P>
The second major task is to reform the common policies, with particular reference to agricultural and structural policy.
Agricultural policy must make its contribution to enabling efficient farms to stand up to competition.
But agricultural policy is not just a policy for farming; it must increasingly include the rural area as a whole.
Conditions in Europe differ from those in the USA. So Agenda 2000 must make its contribution to the further development of the European agricultural model and thereby to safeguarding it.
<P>
Structural policy is aimed at solidarity with structurally weak regions.
I firmly support concentrating these resources, in terms of geographical area and content, on the structurally weak areas.
But we also believe that the regions in what are regarded as the wealthier countries that are no longer eligible for EU assistance must continue to receive a certain amount of state aid, under a sensible competition policy which compares the structurally weak areas in these countries with the wealthy regions in the same countries.
<P>
The third task concerns reform of the European Union's institutions.
We are all familiar with the Amsterdam protocol.
But the reorganisation of the Commission, the new weighting of votes in the Council, is not the crucial issue.
What really is crucial is to expand majority decision-making in the Council so that the European Union is able to act now and will be able to do so in future after enlargement.
That is the basic condition: majority decisions in the Council for European Union legislation.
<P>
Let me address a fourth aspect.
There has been a government agreement in the Federal Republic of Germany under which the government parties are to be entitled to both posts in the Commission.
This deviates from the principle that the opposition is entitled to one post.
If this becomes accepted practice in the European Union, in the Member States, it would put the political architecture in the Commission at risk.
Under the Amsterdam Treaty, the European Parliament has a new role to play.
The President of the Commission is elected.
The Commission is appointed by agreement between the President of the Commission and the national governments, after which the Commission as a whole is subject to a vote of confidence by the European Parliament.
If we were to have a one-sided Commission in the year 2000, at the beginning of Agenda 2000, that would not be a good start and it could lead to a conflict with the European Parliament, at least with my group.
That is why we believe we must maintain the balance in the Commission.
It must include all political persuasions so that it can contribute to stability and peace in the Europe of the 21st century.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Cox">
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Rosado Fernandes">
Mr President, I must say that I cannot see in Agenda 2000 the historic values on which the idea of the European Community was founded.
Instead of real values, we see monetary values - a currency.
Furthermore, it does not seem to me that the ideals have been maintained, especially in respect of the subject that I know best. This is going to be the subject of my speech as it is one of interest to my group, namely the common agricultural policy.
<P>
It does not, in fact, contain any concrete proposals but makes an underhand attempt to undermine one of the basic principles of the CAP, perhaps the most important, that of financial solidarity - which is also a form of moral solidarity -, through poorly concealed proposals to renationalise the CAP by creating national envelopes for the beef and milk sectors.
<P>
There is also a desire - one that is not concealed - to maintain the negative discriminations against less productive and less developed forms of agriculture by indexing the calculations of compensatory amounts on historical productivity rates. That will maintain a schizophrenic Europe, one divided between extremely poor countries and countries that are not poor for natural reasons or for reasons linked to their own national history.
<P>
As if Agenda 2000 and its legislative proposals were not enough, the Commission has now attacked agriculture and European farmers, especially the most fragile, in its report on the system of own resources by proposing the partial reimbursement of expenditure as direct aid from the CAP.
<P>
We are all equally aware that the CAP, the only genuinely common policy so far, is the cement of the construction of Europe. That is without referring to enlargement to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, or the millennium round of the World Trade Organisation.
Nor does it include even yesterday's statements here by the President of the Court of Auditors, who overstepped his functions as a judge to give his opinion on the aid given to durum wheat in the poorest countries. This smacks of a confusion of powers and goes against what old Montesquieu and old Locke preached about the defence of democracy.
<P>
Finally, in Agenda 2000, the least-favoured regions will continue to be least-favoured and the most-favoured will become richer and richer.
The gap can only widen; of that I do not have the slightest doubt.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Puerta">
Mr President, the challenge of the enlargement of the European Union can and must be approached in such a way so as to ensure that we achieve the major objectives in the process of the construction of Europe and particularly those concerning economic and social cohesion.
This is why we feel justified in our severe criticism of Agenda 2000, because it was drawn up in haste as an irreversible decision and without being thoroughly assessed.
It is a great paradox that Agenda 2000 was drawn up to facilitate enlargement and that, since then, it has scarcely been referred to in the proposals and arguments put forward.
<P>
Public opinion in the Member States sees the debate as one that centres on own resources and the insufficient ceiling of 1.27 % of Community GDP, as well as on the much disputed allocation of solidarity through the Structural Funds.
That is the major difference in terms of this debate with the Delors stage, when successive increases in both resources and the size of the Structural Funds were proposed.
<P>
The debate does not adequately address the issue and does not bear in mind the fact that we must not only build an internal market but that, above all, we must achieve economic and social cohesion.
Instead of simply talking about net contributors and beneficiaries, we should explain who benefits and by how much in an overall economic assessment, since the most significant economic policies are not reflected in the budget.
We cannot ignore the enormous profits that some economies in the large internal market are making, whilst others are paying the economic and commercial price.
<P>
Our main criticism in relation to the common agricultural policy is that there is no overall view and it only refers to certain sectors of production.
The reforms of the COMs will lead to substantial price reductions that will be compensated to a very small extent by income support and premiums for private storage.
Time will show this to be the case.
<P>
We are concerned about the effects involved both in social terms and in terms of employment that will affect the weakest farmers.
We are also concerned about the introduction of cofinancing since it does not solve the problems.
The solution should be found in genuine proposals to regulate direct aid aimed at correcting the present unfair imbalances.
<P>
In our opinion - and with all due respect -, the Commission's proposal is no more than a vague attempt at regulation that will merely serve to exacerbate the present imbalances.
Therefore, we are convinced that further efforts will still be needed to achieve a successful enlargement and also to solve the serious contradictions and insufficiencies that exist in our socio-economic and institutional lives before enlargement takes place.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, after all the solemn declarations in Brussels, Luxembourg and London about the historic significance of enlargement, it now appears that the Council is moving down a gear.
There appears to be a climate emerging in which instead of the old Iron Curtain we now have a smokescreen of fine words concealing the Council's true intentions, which are to postpone the accession of new members.
We are perfectly well aware that we are dealing with an unprecedented enlargement operation here that places extremely heavy demands on all countries, both our own and the applicant countries.
The excellent progress reports which the Commission presented to us at the beginning of November show the efforts the applicant countries have made to meet the Copenhagen criteria, but they are paying a heavy price for the changes they are having to make.
Sizeable groups of the population are now poverty-stricken, as anyone who goes there regularly will have noticed.
This is why we want to draw attention to the fact that the establishment of a smoothly running market economy often degenerates into nothing more than an insistence on rapid privatisation.
The situation in Russia, for example, shows that privatisation which enables a small number of people to monopolise a country's wealth is definitely not a sound basis for a socially adjusted free market.
So the Commission and the Council should be insisting not just on rapid privatisation, but on responsible privatisation with the necessary mechanisms for political and social adjustment.
<P>
Compared with the enormous efforts that the applicant countries have made, the Council's approach has been far too laid back, in our view.
What progress have we actually made?
Institutional reform has been put on the back burner, and there is no sign yet of agricultural reform.
In fact, all the indications are that we are going to continue with the old system of producer price reductions and exporting structural surpluses, rather than moving over to integrated rural development.
On finance, we are still calling for an open approach that would allow us to adjust the volume of funding if necessary.
For us, the key words here are participation and decentralisation.
Decentralisation of funding is now a reality, fortunately, but we have still not settled the question of the participation of representatives of the applicant countries in the advisory committees deciding on projects.
The recent report on nuclear safety by the Court of Auditors notes the Commission's embarrassing failure to improve the safety of nuclear power stations in the applicant countries.
The issue was actually taken up by the western European nuclear lobby, which was intending to use its own extremely expensive experts and export its own equipment, with disastrous results on the ground.
We can understand that the Commission should play a coordinating role in all this, but none of the programmes like TACIS, PHARE, BIRD and so on were put to best use at all.
<P>
We wholeheartedly support the proposals to start negotiations very soon with Latvia and later with Lithuania and Slovakia, and we were very pleased to see in the Joint Committee that our openness towards Turkey is producing immediate results, in that the Turkish representatives are now reacting differently to the European Union.
Above all, we must prevent the Union from being held to ransom by Greece and Turkey, both of which are behaving like interfering mothers-in-law rather than caring mothers, and are only making things more difficult.
Everyone knows that the resolution of the political problem in Cyprus is an absolute prerequisite and that without it, Turkey's accession is going to run into severe problems.
We therefore urge that the Union should appoint a European mediator to promote a more dynamic policy and bring this issue to a successful conclusion.
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<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hory">
Mr President, there is a real temptation today to compare what our debate on Agenda 2000 could have been with what it has become due to a lack of sufficient political will.
The enlargement of the EU gave us a unique opportunity to examine together the principles on which our Community is based, to consider a new institutional structure which would be viable with 25 or 30 Member States, and to envisage the budgetary reforms which would have given meaning to continental integration.
After, and only after, this attempt to overhaul the EU, we might have studied the technical consequences of enlargement, on our agricultural and regional policies for example.
<P>
Instead of this wide-ranging debate, throughout the day you will hear the Members bemoaning the fact that they rightly consider that the measures proposed today are not equal to this historic challenge.
We should surely have started among the 15 Member States and with the applicant countries by reaffirming, and not just in rhetorical introductions, the special values of humanism, solidarity, justice and peace which form the European model, and the objectives of the proposed enlargement.
Given the lack of general agreement on the founding principles and on the new frontier, we are left with the impression that some are distributing the remnants of their prosperity, with much condescension and political imperialism, whilst others believe that they have been invited to enter a supermarket.
<P>
We must not fail to also mention the missed opportunity of Amsterdam when we should at least have outlined an institutional architecture suited to the continent and resolutely moved towards a federal model, instead of adopting a unique structure whose limitations are constantly being revealed. We must not fail to highlight the emptiness of our financial undertakings, which make our political undertakings meaningless.
In our own interest we should instead have been generous and imaginative, for example by considering direct Community taxation, which would give a concrete dimension to the People's Europe and genuine responsibility to Parliament. We have not even used all the financial resources that existing treaties allow us to use for enlargement.
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I am aware of all the arguments of the economists, accountants and statisticians.
They actually put forward these arguments against the German unification project.
Whatever the figures might suggest, common sense allows us to realise that increasing the size of the EU from 15 Member States to 20, 25 and then 30, with the same resources and unchanged rules, will inevitably result in a weaker Europe.
This will not be an enlargement but a dilution and a loss of solidity of the European Union, which will leave open Europe to extremely dogmatic economic liberalism and political powerlessness, thus paving the way for other interests.
<P>
This is why the Group of the European Radical Alliance, while generally being in favour of these reforms and some of the so-called reforms proposed, is still waiting for the major political debate on continental Europe which cannot be postponed for ever.
It is clear that this enlargement is an important moment in history but it is also clear that, at this great moment, our European project is singularly failing to make its mark.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="President">
I should like to welcome to Parliament two distinguished members of the recently elected Slovak National Council: Mr Peter Weiss, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee and now co-chairman of the Joint Parliamentary Committee, and Mr Frantisek Sebej.
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We wish you every success in your work of taking Slovakia forward along the road to membership of the Union.
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<CHAPTER ID=4>
Pre-accession strategy
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0397/98 by Mr Barón Crespo, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on coordinating aid to the applicant countries in the framework of the pre-accession strategy (COM(98)0551 - C4-0606/98-98/0094(CNS)); -A4-0382/98 by Mr Walter, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation establishing an instrument for structural policies for pre-accession (COM(98)0138 - C4-0301/98-98/0091(CNS)); -A4-0388/98 by Lord Tomlinson, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) amending Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 2728/94 establishing a Guarantee Fund for external actions (COM(98)0168 - C4-0302/98-98/0117(CNS)); -A4-0383/98 by Mr Sonneveld, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on Community support for pre-accession measures for agriculture and rural development in the applicant countries of Central and Eastern Europe in the pre-accession period (COM(98)0153 - C4-0244/98-98/0100(CNS)).
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="Barón Crespo">
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, the Council has left the Hemicycle and I would like this to be recorded in the Minutes.

<P>
I am going to present the report on the proposal for a Council regulation on coordinating aid to the applicant countries in the framework of the pre-accession strategy.
Let me begin, Madam President, by reminding you of a very basic but extremely important fact: enlargement is an essential political project not only within the context of Agenda 2000, but also for the European Union. This project does not simply involve the Union giving the applicant countries a check-up, as though it were a medical examination, less still letting them come in through the back door.
Rather, it is a protracted process that requires joint and shared effort to help these countries meet the requirements set out in the treaties, which were also reflected in theso-called Copenhagen criteria. Basically, they involve consolidating the applicant countries' democratic systems; restructuring their economies, not only to bring them into line with our acquis but also to ensure they operate as market economies; and encouraging good neighbourliness and solidarity between those countries, between each other and with us.
This requires political will and clear objectives.
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I sincerely hope that the Vienna European Council will reach a political consensus in this regard and, in particular, that it will take account of the inclusive and global nature of this process, without creating new differences and divisions between these countries.
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I also take note of some of the things that the Austrian Presidency has said and that I have interpreted as meaning that Parliament's proposals are being taken on board.
Firstly, category 7, which distinguishes pre-accession from the reforms, has been accepted. This is something that is positive more from the point of view of clarity rather than transparency, since transparency is not discernible whereas clarity is, and I think that we need to start talking more in terms of clarity in this respect.
The need to review the financial perspective is also accepted - since the figure of 1.27 % is not set in stone - as is the need for a certain degree of flexibility.
I believe that this may help the process.
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As regards Parliament's basic contributions to the pre-accession strategy, we think that any pre-accession strategy has to bear in mind the overall political dimension of the process and not simply those individual assessments.
It also has to take account of dimensions such as those related to aspects of political cooperation and security, which are fundamental.
We think that it is important for the strategy to reflect and comply with what is set out in our treaties.
In this respect, we would like to emphasise that the strategy must be developed through the instruments we have, that is, our joint actions and common positions.
It is important that we ourselves respect the rules we have laid down, without needing to be reminded of them from time to time by the Court of Justice.
<P>
What is more, we have carried out significant work in terms of coordinating the various committees involved with the three basic instruments that are currently in force.
I must say that the Commission, which put forward the three proposals for a regulation somewhat hastily, has changed its position and amended these giving far greater weight to the PHARE programme.
In that respect, the Commission should also take Parliament's comments and amendments into account because they better clarify those objectives, particularly as to how the PHARE programme operates. This programme runs the risk of becoming two or three PHARE programmes: one for those countries that have already begun negotiations; one for those that are about to begin them and hope to do so; and one for those countries that are still not involved in the PHARE programme and that are not in the accession process either.
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To conclude, Madam President, I wanted to point out that as a result of the coordination between the various committees in relation to the Hughes procedure, we were able to table amendments aimed at defining the political and economic conditions of the process while stressing the need for cofinancing. The amendments also referred to the need to assess and readjust the aid given within the limits established by the budgetary authority, to decentralisation and the monitoring of the process, to an annual report and to the European Parliament's involvement in the entire development and monitoring process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="Walter">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Parliament has on numerous occasions expressed its clear support for the enlargement process.
The enormous challenge now facing us is as follows: how can we on the one hand ensure that the applicant states are ready for accession, but on the other hand make the European Union and its structures ready for enlargement?
In this context, the pre-accession instrument for structural policies for the applicant states, in short ISPA, represents an important link between countries within and outside the Union by giving support to the applicant countries for urgently needed investment and gradually bringing them into line with the methods of operation and mechanisms of European structural policy.
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The success of the pre-accession strategy will depend decisively on whether all the available instruments, that is to say ISPA, PHARE, pre-accession aid in agriculture and also Interreg are coordinated as far as possible in the context of cross-border cooperation.
We cannot afford any duplication.
That would put an unnecessary added burden on the applicant countries, because they have enough on their hands already.
It must be clearly established, under the coordination regulation and any partnership agreements with the applicant countries, which instrument is to be used, where and how.
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Apart from that, the pre-accession instrument for structural policies must also resolve a fundamental dilemma.
On the one hand, the applicant countries have an enormous investment need in all possible areas.
In the field of the environment alone, it is currently estimated that the cost of the necessary investment efforts in the ten countries will come to more than 100 billion euros.
In that context, the EU financial contributions now being negotiated are little more than a drop in the ocean.
So the funds must be targeted carefully.
I think, and the clear vote in the committee endorses that view, that focusing the investment on environmental infrastructure and transport infrastructure should make it considerably easier to fulfil the requirements of the acquis communautaire .
We must not fritter away our money.
<P>
Given the slender funds, it is also right, as the Commission has proposed, to provide project-based aid, as in the case of PHARE.
But that does not mean that the relevant players on the ground in the countries and regions should not be fully involved in these activities.
Apart from the infrastructure investment, technical assistance will also be given under ISPA.
It would be wrong to use ISPA to support the general improvement of administrative capacity in the applicant countries, since PHARE does that.
Given that administrative problems still exist, and given the need to catch up here, it is however necessary for the efficient implementation of the projects to ensure project-related support for the appropriate administrative bodies.
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Focusing also means concentration on a few projects or project packages of relevant size.
The Commission is right to propose a minimum investment of 5 million euros, provided this is supplemented by the provision that smaller investment sums up to a certain percentage of the resources can be allocated to smaller applicant countries and also in other justified exceptional cases.
Here we need room for manoeuvre.
We can also achieve our target by applying the principle of cofinancing. This ensures that European funds are used rationally and improves their knock-on effect if they are used in coordination with international financing institutions, such as the European Investment Bank.
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The structural pre-accession instrument keeps being compared with the Cohesion Fund.
That is correct if we look at the concentration on transport and environmental projects.
As in the case of the Cohesion Fund, we shall have to ensure a good balance between the two areas.
The environment must not draw the short straw when we support investment for enlargement.
But ISPA is more than merely a cloning of the Cohesion Fund.
It must also help the applicant states become accustomed to the Structural Fund mechanisms.
That is why we say that as regards implementation and management and any other area where this proves possible, the same provisions must apply as in relation to the Structural Funds and the further development of the Structural Funds currently under discussion.
The partnership principle must be applied from the outset and as widely as possible.
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With ISPA, the Union is giving a good sign that we are serious about the accession of the Central and Eastern European states.
Much has already been said in relation to enlargement about time scales, dates and annual figures.
I think we must define realistic yardsticks here.
There is no point arousing great expectations that cannot be met, but at the same time we must make it clear that we will use our instruments and that we will indeed provide financial support.
ISPA represents the financial resources we can make available.
It helps the applicant states towards self-help, no more and no less.
In that respect, we welcome the Commission's proposal, subject to the amendments we have tabled, which we hope will be taken into account in the further discussions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Sonneveld">
Madam President, the applicant countries are all busy adapting their farming sectors in order to be ready to join the EU on time.
Those wishing and intending to join early must demonstrably achieve substantial results in this sector if they are to be able to bring their markets, administrations and institutional infrastructure into line with those of the Union of the 15 without too much difficulty.
If the EU is to introduce a new instrument at this point to help the applicant countries in this pre-accession adaptation process, therefore, the help we provide must be strongly geared towards obtaining short-term results.
We must not make it excessively restrictive, because the field is extremely complex and the situation varies so much from country to country.
<P>
The Commission proposal to allow the applicant countries to choose priority programmes from a list of qualifying policy areas is a fair approach.
However, the proposal to demand that they draw up a rural development plan by 1 January 2000 incorporating all the programmes they have chosen seems far from fair, in my view.
Not that such plans are not useful and necessary in themselves, but they cannot be produced at such short notice in a democratic manner and with a sufficiently integrated approach.
All this does is to introduce unnecessary and even risky complications into this aid programme.
<P>
This is why I have put forward a proposal to the plenary on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture not to make these rural development plans a precondition, but instead to adopt a more pragmatic approach for the time being by funding a number of measures which are universally agreed to be useful.
We therefore call for a consultative committee to be set up made up of experts from the 15 Member States and the applicant countries.
Its remit would be twofold.
First, it would help to identify these useful measures, and at the same time it would ensure that the process of submitting them to the Commission for assessment was kept moving.
Its recommendations and support would be based on a thorough knowledge of the acquis communautaire and the process of change which the applicant countries are undergoing.
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The services of the committee must be accessible to the administrations of the applicant countries and to the Commission's departments, in close cooperation with the EU representations in the applicant countries.
This should improve quality and speed up procedures, and thus provide more quantifiable results in the short term.
<P>
To the list of measures proposed by the Commission from which the applicant countries should preferably choose their priorities, the Committee on Agriculture has added the establishment of an agricultural credit system and the accelerated and widespread introduction of book-keeping in farming.
The committee's text also introduced conditions for a number of the measures, relating to distortion of competition and compatibility with Community legislation.
I think it is more logical for all these conditions to be listed in Article 6, which deals with the question of compatibility and the conditions to be applied to the aid measures.
<P>
As regards coordination, we must try to ensure that the EU rules for the various aid programmes are as uniform as possible, such as the rules on budgeting and accounting.
The best possible use must also be made of existing coordination and monitoring structures, and I therefore agree with the amended Commission proposal to make the PHARE committee responsible for this agricultural aid programme too.
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The system of twinning between institutions in certain Member States and those in some of the applicant countries, in the field of veterinary and plant health inspections for example, should also be supported.
The monitoring committee set up for this system should naturally continue its work under the new arrangement with our support.
In this way, we can continue to build on the current activities under the PHARE programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="Titley">
Madam President, it is appropriate that we are launching this latest enlargement of the European Union this year, which is also the year we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Berlin airlift.
That was a remarkable international effort in the interests of European peace, stability and democracy.
It is already very clear that this enlargement of the European Union is going to require the same kind of international effort if we are to see it through successfully.
It will require unselfishness on the part of the Member States of the European Union and the applicant countries.
It is clearly a complex and extremely demanding process.
We have to commit ourselves to the ultimate goal, which is a stable and prosperous Europe.
<P>
Having said that, any solutions to these problems have to be accepted by the people of Europe, both our own voters and the voters in the applicant countries.
So our solutions have to be practical and acceptable.
Opinion polls in the European Union at the moment show that people are either indifferent or hostile towards enlargement, so we must actually sell this project, both within the European Union and in the applicant states.
As well as putting money into infrastructure and the environment we have to think about the people.
After all, as Galbraith said: 'Money is not superior to democracy'.
<P>
I would like to see more work done on the social dialogue and on developing programmes in these countries to help people affected by economic change.
<P>
In terms of the particular instrument that we are looking at today, as Mr Barón Crespo says, there has to be greater clarity about how this money is spent and how the committees administering this money are set up.
In view of the latest Commission scandals we must make sure that this project is not tainted by any doubts about how the money is managed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
Madam President, the regulation on coordinating aid to the applicant countries in the framework of the pre-accession strategy is an extremely important step along the road towards the enlargement of the European Union.
We are currently engaged in a process that considerably changes the Union's image of itself.
Up to now, we have always regarded ourselves as members of a European economic community, but we are increasingly coming to the conclusion, particularly in our contacts with the applicant countries, that we are primarily a confederation of democratic constitutional states.
This has also, of course, had an effect on our relations with some of the applicant countries, particularly Slovakia, and we can be grateful that the trouble we took with Slovakia in this respect may well have helped to influence its people to change the way they voted.
We welcome the fact that the new government there is pursuing a completely different policy from that of its predecessors, and we hope that Slovakia will very rapidly feel the benefits of its prospective membership.
<P>
The Council has taken account of Parliament's desire to monitor the entire process, and we welcome this.
The way in which the aid is organised is a very instructive example of the Union's political and administrative practices, and there is an important element here of familiarising countries with what future membership of the Union will entail.
They have to deal with three financing instruments with clearly defined aims.
They are shown how the Union manages operations, and they also get to know how things are coordinated.
The emphasis on the responsibility of the Commission is extremely important.
Article 9, in the Commission's version, is very clear and detailed on this point, and certainly must not be watered down.
If the Member States are involved in the coordination, it seems logical that they should coordinate their own aid within the same framework.
I think this is a point worth emphasising.
In our accession discussions with the UK Presidency, we demanded and secured a procedure which guaranteed that Parliament would be able to examine any changes or additions to the accession strategy.
We must be very careful here, which is why I do not think it is a good idea specifically to bring this dossier under the second pillar, where we have little say at the moment.
It is also a good thing that our budgetary powers put us in a strong position, and this is partly why I think that we should not adopt the Swoboda-Titley amendment, Amendment No 15.
<P>
The PPE Group will therefore be voting against the amendments which give the applicant countries a stronger say in the aid process, since we think that the management should ultimately remain in the hands of the European Union.
After all, it is our taxpayers' money, and we have a responsibility to them.
The amounts of aid are not particularly high - in fact, you could say that they are surprisingly low.
It is amazing that we can achieve such a high ideal at such a low cost.
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<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Madam President, the Liberal Group supports the amendments by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy to the Commission's commendable proposal to streamline aid to the applicant countries.
It is very much in the Union's interests to use the aid funds efficiently, but the budgetary scope is limited and sound management is called for, making alignment with the Member States and the international financial organisations essential.
We also support the Commission's proposals to decentralise the decision-making powers on micro-projects, and staff and funding must be made available for this.
We oppose the proposal to make the entire enlargement dossier a foreign policy joint action.
This sounds like a good idea, given that enlargement is or is claimed to be the main element of the Union's foreign policy, but joint action under the CFSP requires unanimity in the Council and puts the European Parliament in a weaker position.
<P>
More dynamism is required in the preparations for enlargement, as is clear from the Commission's progress report.
There are considerable differences in the efforts which the Member States have made and the results they have achieved in preparing for enlargement.
It is primarily up to the applicant countries to do their work properly, but it is clear that the quality and quantity of the aid provided is also a factor.
It is not the financial target of 1.27 % of GNP but the quality of the preparation for enlargement that must determine the level of aid.
The Liberal Group is delighted with the objective assessment of all the applicant countries.
The Commission has rightly said that the two groups are not set in stone, and the efforts they make must be rewarded.
Lithuania, Latvia and Slovakia are all making progress in their own way, but the Czech Republic and Slovenia are proving surprisingly lacklustre.
We do not have to decide yet on moving certain countries from group II to group I. That will come next year and not just in six months' time either, because we cannot expect the Commission to report every six months.
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<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Caccavale">
Madam President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank Mr Barón Crespo and the other rapporteurs for their work. Obviously some of Mr Barón Crespo's report is the product of the work done in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, and we are very grateful to him for taking on board a whole series of points and suggestions.
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It is clear that the Agenda 2000 enlargement is the great challenge facing this Parliament and the European institutions.
It is an extraordinary political challenge for countries which only a few years ago could only cherish the dream of Europe, the myth of Europe, a democratic Europe, a Europe of rights and freedom.
Well, the thought of reducing all this to an accountants' logic of how much money needs to be transferred from one place to another to help those who want to join in this great dream of liberty and democracy, strikes me as pretty simplistic.
If this is the political challenge our credibility will be riding on in the years ahead, our institutions are certainly not ready to face up to it.
It is like a car designed for six passengers which already has fifteen people in it, and now we are trying to squeeze twenty-five in.
The car is in danger of collapsing!
<P>
That is why, in my opinion, we need to deepen our institutions in this pre-accession strategy. Above all, our dealings with countries which are getting closer to Europe must not revolve around the quantitative problem of economic support, but must substantially involve exporting democratic models and citizens' rights.
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Madam President, those countries are building a constitutional state.
If there is one thing of value Europe can transmit to them, it is that very concept of the constitutional state, democracy, citizens' rights and the ability to exercise them in every way.
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<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Miranda">
Madam President, today's debates take us into a crucial phase for defining the next Community financial framework and the guidelines and rules due to govern some of the most important policies and instruments.
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I feel that these debates are taking place in conditions that are completely different from those surrounding the debates that we held on the first and second Delors packages.
But, in practical terms and to sum up, far off are the times when economic and social cohesion was presented as a point of honour and when we held heated debates about the resources to be earmarked to match our ambitions.
Undoubtedly, there is an ambition: that of enlargement.
And there are instruments - yes, there are - to carry out the various proposals made.
Nonetheless, what is lacking is the money available for the aims and instruments.
We have no reservations, in principle, about enlargement but we cannot say the same about the approaches chosen by the Commission to carry it out.
<P>
Enlargement will obviously lead to increased expenditure, undoubtedly far greater than the contributions that the candidate countries would be able to make to Community funds. This means that the European Union is going to have to make a choice between two alternatives and only two: either we must make additional financial resources available for enlargement or we will have to reduce expenditure, in other words, cut back our current aims and policies.
<P>
For our part, we are clearly in favour of the former option.
But this is not the option of the Commission. As it has made strict compliance with the Stability Pact a priority, it has opted for the approach of reducing expenditure.
This is the objective result of its proposals to maintain a ceiling on financial perspectives at current levels of 1.27 % of Community GNP and the subsequent reduction in that ceiling for the current 15 Member States to 1.13 %, or freezing the structural actions for an enlarged Union at the current 0.46 % of GNP.
This is now also the result of its proposal to renationalise CAP costs.
We reject the Commission's option and think that this vital question cannot be put to one side at this moment in time.
That option would inevitably result in the sacrifice of economic and social cohesion.
We cannot understand how, for the sake of a new form of solidarity, we can sacrifice the solidarity that happens to be enshrined in the Treaty.
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<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we say that enlargement of the European Union is the greatest challenge since the cold war.
We say that the accession of our eastern neighbours can bring new stability to Europe.
The Council representative says that our neighbours await European Union support for tackling their reforms and adopting the acquis communautaire .
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But let us look at the scale of the financing: it is pocket money and it is shameful.
The reality is that the applicant countries are virtually paying all the costs of the pre-accession strategies themselves.
That is why I regard the patronising attitude towards these candidates reflected in the regulation as unacceptable.
Surely they cannot be treated merely as objects of decision-making.
They must finally be recognised as partners. The least we should do is to give them a say in the coordinating committee.
The Greens reject the concept of enlargement as a one-way street and call for an enlargement strategy based on partnership.
<P>
Let me add something on the amendments, because in my view the order of the voting list is wrong.
Mr Barón Crespo will surely accept that our Amendment No 17 to his Amendment No 7 and our Amendment No 19 to his Amendment No 9 represent, in both cases, additions rather than alternatives.
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<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Leperre-Verrier">
Madam President, I have some comments to make on this pre-accession strategy, resulting from my experience as rapporteur on the subject of the association of certain CCEE with the education, youth and culture programme.
Apart from the media sector, these are areas in which the acquis communautaire is modest.
However, these areas demonstrate certain imbalances from which our strategy suffers.
<P>
To start with, I fully support the rapporteur's point of view.
Firstly, this pre-accession phase cannot be considered without taking into account the link that exists with certain Community policies and their necessary development.
Secondly, the goal of coherence and efficiency involves the reaffirmation of the political objectives in the enlargement process.
This is why it is unfortunate that, in this second phase, the PHARE programme concentrates more on technical operations to the detriment of more political reforms, for example in the social or cultural area.
<P>
Furthermore, in this obstacle course which the applicant countries must tackle, and which is modestly referred to as the adoption of the acquis communautaire , I fear there is a tendency to be content with appearances and to sometimes fail to assess the adherence of these countries to Community policies in terms of values and beliefs.
This is particularly true in the areas of the environment and transport, which are covered by this new ISPA instrument.
In this case too, I am not fully convinced that this instrument meets the intended objectives.
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<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Madam President, we were very pleased to hear from the Commission that good progress has been made in the run-up to the negotiations with the applicant countries on accession to the European Union.
A number of sections of the acquis have been screened and the results are encouraging, although some countries are slower in moving down the right path.
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However, we are also hearing some less positive noises, and it is becoming clear that adaptation to EU legislation is a much bigger task than was originally thought.
I endorse the reports before us today, but there are a few points I would like to emphasise.
A great many demands are being made of the applicant countries, such as respect for fundamental freedoms, which have to be met if they are to join.
The demand for quality in the adaptations they make must on no account be used as an excuse for delaying their accession.
<P>
The reports show how the Council has been unable to convert the implications of the decision on enlargement into a political strategy.
Is the political will really there?
<P>
The negotiators must realise that the former eastern bloc countries have little experience of respecting democracy, human rights and the rights of minorities.
I am not saying that they should not be blamed for this, but we in the European Parliament have to acknowledge that many of them have made surprisingly rapid progress here.
<P>
We must not set the bar too high for the countries of Central and Eastern Europe to join.
They belong to western Europe, and after a period of Communist domination they are now looking to the countries of western Europe to help them achieve their legitimate aspirations to security and prosperity.
Joining the stable security structures of the European Union and NATO may help to prevent new conflicts, and the fledgeling democracies of Eastern Europe can be encouraged to develop along particular lines.
We should seize this opportunity and make every effort to ensure that these countries join as soon as possible.
<P>
If we expect the applicant countries to adapt, the European institutions should set them a good example.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Antony">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union is preparing for the fifth time to welcome new Member States, namely Cyprus and the ten countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
<P>
This enlargement will be much more important than the previous ones.
Europe of the 15 will become Europe of the 26 and will consist of an additional one million kilometres and a further one hundred million inhabitants.
In particular, this enlargement towards the East can be taken as a sign of the final destruction of the Iron Curtain, which has divided our continent for nearly half a century.
<P>
Since its creation in 1972, the National Front has constantly fought against this Iron Curtain, which was built by the Communists to enclose the people of Eastern Europe in an enormous concentration camp.
In his first speech to this Parliament, Jean Marie Le Pen denounced this oppression.
For many years, although lacking resources, we tried to help our brothers in Eastern Europe but we were then a lone voice.
In France, all the other parties accepted the situation, including the Communists, of course, whose leader Marchais acclaimed the positive consequences of the people's democracies, their socialist allies, and also the RPR and the UDF, led by Giscard d'Estaing and Jacques Chirac who even went so far as to place flowers on the tomb of Lenin, the worst mass murderer of all time.
<P>
Similarly, in 1991, our group was alone in supporting the struggle of the Lithuanians against the Soviet Union and that of the Croats against Yugoslavia.
At the time, Jacques Delors, the US Government and all the European leaders condemned these people for daring to rise up against communist and federalist regimes.
<P>
These same people now want to see Eastern Europe come under the control of Brussels.
We are opposed to an enlargement of this kind, as it would cost our countries dearly.
The Commission has assessed the financial cost at over 500 billion francs between 1999 and 2006.
This is hardly surprising.
The countries of Central and Eastern Europe have been ruined by over forty years of Communism.
This cost will be borne in particular by France for it currently receives little from Brussels, to which it pays over 90 billion francs, and it will receive even less in the future.
The agricultural policy, which has already been drastically reduced, will be cut back even more.
France's regional aid will be reduced by 20 %.
Corsica and French Hainaut will no longer be included among the regions assisted under Objective 1.
<P>
However, money is not everything.
Lech Walesa, when he visited Brussels some years ago, said to me that we in Europe were creating a new Soviet Union.
He was right.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Pronk">
Madam President, although Mr Samland has not spoken yet, I would like to concentrate on Lord Tomlinson's report.
<P>
I have to say that it is clear from this whole debate that the idealists are not practical enough and the practical people are not idealistic enough when to comes to dealing with the enlargement problem.
We have just heard a number of ideas that are extremely idealistic, such as my colleague Mr Oostlander's suggestion that the whole enlargement dossier should be brought under the CFSP and thus handed over to a bunch of quarrelling diplomats.
I think the CFSP is far too important for this.
<P>
The fund mentioned in the Tomlinson report is a good example of something that is both practical and idealistic.
It provides aid for countries which is guaranteed by loans and guarantees issued by the Union, and it seems to have been very successful.
<P>
Of course, there are times when it becomes clear that some countries cannot pay, which is when the European Union's guarantees come into play.
This is an important element.
The only thing is that it costs money, and this is something the Council in its wisdom failed to consider.
It thought that the guarantee in itself was enough of an advantage, but there comes a point when you have to pay up.
<P>
Thanks to pressure from the European Parliament, a fund has been created which more or less provides those guarantees itself.
The fund needs to be supplemented, but it now fortunately appears that we need less than we originally thought and that we can reduce the figure from 10 % to 8 %, which is good news.
<P>
This means that the Union has created an extremely practical instrument which is effective, which can be directly applied in the countries concerned in one way or another through the institutions which they themselves have set up with their central banks, and which is making progress.
I would even add that we have used this same model in the employment programmes in Europe, where we have also used the combination of guarantees plus loans.
It really is a very, very good model, much better than all the other things that have been proposed.
It is also a model that I can prove was purely the result of pressure by the European Parliament's Committee on Budgets. If it had been set up as some Member States wanted, in a happy-go-lucky fashion, nothing good would have come out of it, and people would have blamed Parliament for wasting taxpayers' money again.
But this is not the case.
I think that we in Parliament need to bear in mind that if the diplomats get it wrong, we shall be the ones who are blamed, not them, and so we need to be both idealistic and practical.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ryynänen">
Madam President, it is vital to focus and coordinate the aid for the applicant countries effectively by means of the three instruments available if we are to achieve maximum possible benefit.
Fulfilment of the Copenhagen criteria is the basis for further development action.
Efforts must also to be made to coordinate aid to the applicant countries based on cross-border and intergovernmental cooperation in the EU with the Interreg and TACIS programmes, so that the aid itself forms a coordinated whole.
Aid to improve nuclear safety must also be concentrated in accordance with the PHARE programme.
<P>
In the allocation of agricultural aid to applicant countries we need flexibility and a clear system of prioritization on the basis of partnership agreements.
Integration with the EU's single market and standards requires a massive amount of development work, which must focus on a policy of quality in foodstuffs production, monitoring, plant and animal health and the environment as a whole, all within the framework of sustainable production.
We have to prepare for the consequences of structural change in agriculture with an effective, wide-ranging rural policy to create new and varied enterprise action and new jobs, and that is why a high level of education and training is vital when it comes to exploiting the use of the aid given to the applicant countries.
<P>
The partial decentralisation of administration to the applicant countries under the supervision of the Commission is also a step in the right direction.
We should support the participation of the beneficiary countries, and we must also emphasise the importance of their own involvement in financing investment and discovering sources of funding.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Madam President, since we are debating a report by the Committee on Foreign Affairs about enlargement, I would like us to turn our attention to a superlatively political issue which has affected people in my country and is very worrying for them.
It concerns the accession of the Republic of Cyprus to the European Union.
<P>
We were extremely disconcerted to see a statement by France, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands, in which they link the eventual accession of the Republic of Cyprus to the European Union with a solution to the Cyprus problem, a thing which bears no relationship to the initial positions adopted by the European Union at a succession of European Councils.
It is certainly sad to see governments such as those of Mr Dalema, Mr Schröder or Mr Jospin pursuing policies which are worse and which deviate from the commitments made by governments such as those of Mr Berlusconi, Mr Juppé or Mr Kohl.
<P>
In that sense, I would stress that the worst way to solve the Cyprus problem is to say that its solution is a political prerequisite for the accession of Cyprus to the European Union, because that would constitute a motive for Turkey, which does not want Cyprus to join, to do nothing about the Cyprus problem even supposing it would otherwise have liked to find a solution to it.
In that sense, I think it is very important to stand by what Mr van den Broek once said here, and our principle should be that the accession of the Republic of Cyprus must not be held hostage by any other country.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Madam President, enlargement of the EU to the Central and Eastern European countries brings with it both opportunities and risks, not just for the applicant countries but also for the EU.
<P>
It is particularly important to the agricultural sector that we do not export the destructive system of agricultural policy we have pursued in recent decades to these countries, but that instead we support their existing regional structures, develop them and give them a chance to modernise and become more effective.
At the same time, we must resist the temptation to set in motion a form of development which, under the heading of 'structural improvement', would give rise to the same kind of negative trends.
That is why I do not agree with the line taken in the Sonneveld report.
It says that we must not call for plans for the integrated development of the rural areas.
This means that he is not in favour of this positive development, which we must promote, but would like to continue pursuing the old system of rationalising structures and thereby destroying jobs and encouraging forms of production that are neither species-friendly nor environment-friendly.
<P>
So we cannot endorse Mr Sonneveld's amendments, not least out of a sense of responsibility for the development of agricultural policy in the EU.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Madam President, the accession of the countries of Eastern Europe, in particular the great Christian country of Poland and the Hungary of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, is clearly an important and wonderful project.
<P>
I should like to examine the consequences from the agricultural perspective of the Seapared programme.
The agricultural population of the West will increase by 50 % and our land will be increased by 30 %. Of course it is good to add to one's assets.
In the Eastern European countries, 25 % of the working population are farmers but this percentage should fall to 6 % as in Western Europe. Agricultural prices are lower with 30 % less for meat, 20 % less for cereals and 15 % less for wheat.
These countries also have problems of overproduction and plant health and they must adapt to our standards, particularly in terms of food safety. The cost is ECU 500 million per year but I am not going to talk about this as it could be resolved if necessary.
<P>
The problem, however, is that these countries must start on the difficult journey which we in the West have already completed.
Common market organisations must be established, the right to property must be revised, veterinary and plant health changes must be made and in particular farmers must be eliminated.
This means eliminating Hungarian farmers and producers of Hungarian Tokay, the king of wines and the wine of kings.
Polish farmers must be eliminated, leading to unemployment.
Structural Funds would then be needed.
The West's regrettably hyperproductive agricultural model must be applied with, if you will pardon the expression, concentration camp-like livestock farming, the consequences of which we have seen in the West.
<P>
My greatest fear is that the accession of the countries of Eastern Europe - to which we might agree given the strategic nature of the project - is just a pretext for certain things. The first is for the fall in prices in the West, due to the revision of the CAP and to prepare for the negotiations within the World Trade Organisation.
The second is for the revision - currently underway - of the financing of not only the common agricultural policy but also the whole European Community, with the ensuing problems of France losing too much, Germany losing even more and part of the common agricultural policy being nationalised under the pretext of the cost of the accession of the Eastern European countries.
Thirdly, the accession of these countries must not be used as an excuse for challenging our CAP.
It must not be used as a weapon to defeat western farmers by highlighting the fact that their costs are higher and must be reduced.
<P>
Furthermore, it is impossible to do two things at once.
Can we handle Mercosur, the transatlantic market and all the costs it may incur, and open up to the East at the same time?
<P>
In conclusion, this is clearly a major strategic project which is soul-stirring but gives the impression of being premature, badly prepared and with many negative elements for the countries of Eastern Europe, which I know want to accede, and many negative elements for us. Perhaps discussions should be continued and intermediate stages provided?
Everyone knows that the road to hell is paved with good intentions and that perfectionism can be counter-productive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="Samland">
Madam President, first let me thank you and the House very warmly for your forbearance in allowing me to deputise for the rapporteur.
Unfortunately I could not be here at the set time because I had to talk to one of our partners about the conciliation procedure this afternoon.
That was the problem.
I must also apologise on behalf of Lord Tomlinson, who is attending an important meeting in the House of Lords today in a different capacity.
As you know, an important decision is pending there for our British colleagues.
<P>
Let me now turn to Lord Tomlinson's report on amending Regulation 2728/94 establishing a Guarantee Fund for external actions.
<P>
As Mr Pronk just pointed out, establishing this Guarantee Fund was a long-standing aim of the European Parliament, because we could not agree to the Member States of the European Union giving guarantees unless these guarantees were safeguarded through a fund, especially in the event of defaults.
The entire budget stood guarantee in full for any potential defaults.
So we found it very welcome when this Fund was proposed in 1994 and accepted by the Council, because it created the basis for covering the guarantees in Central and Eastern Europe.
<P>
In the report it has now submitted on the use of these funds and the risks they are designed to cover, the Commission concludes that the target amount of the Fund should be brought down from the existing 10 % to 8 % of outstanding capital liabilities.
The Commission justifies this on the basis that potentially risky guarantees are situated at a level for which a lower percentage rate of payments into the Fund would suffice.
By how many per cent are we reducing the rate?
In this case, the proposed percentage rate would require an annual maximum amount of EUR 150 million to match up to the present level of lending to non-member countries, which comes to a maximum of about EUR 2.5 billion.
That would allow the Fund to cover these risks.
<P>
The rapporteur, as also the Committee on Budgets, reached the conclusion that the Commission is right in saying in its report that, according to its estimates and analysis, the total of outstanding loans carrying a more than normal risk was about ECU 1.075 billion as of 1 July 1998.
You can read that up in the report too, broken down by the various CIS member countries and the countries of Asia and Latin America.
On that reference date, the Fund had at its disposal ECU 1.186 billion.
Therefore, in the event that the total amount of loans which could be considered to be carrying a heavy risk were not repaid, the Fund would be able to cope with that loss.
It would not even be necessary to draw on the amount allocated in the budget for loan endowments during that financial year, which is to say ECU 338 million in 1998.
In that respect, it was right and sensible to reduce the target amount.
The rapporteur and the committee endorse the Commission's proposal in that respect.
<P>
We have, however, tabled two amendments on which we would like to hear the Commission's position before the vote on this report.
One calls on the Commission to submit a regular report to us so that we can re-evaluate the trend in the utilisation of the credits and the funds.
I think this is the point on which we differ least.
Here the Commission will endorse our view.
It is Amendment No 2. But I would like the Commission to confirm this.
<P>
Far more important, however, is Amendment No 1.
Who is to manage the Fund?
Here we take an entirely different view.
I tend to agree more with Mr Pronk than with the Commission.
The Commission would like to transfer the management of the Fund from the European Investment Bank to its own administrative staff.
We believe such a step would be quite wrong.
In his explanatory statement, the rapporteur has once again pointed out that he considers it unlikely that European Union officials would be better able to evaluate the risks in granting loans than a bank, which has to prove itself at bank level and has to evaluate the quality of the risks as part of its usual banking business before deciding to grant loans.
So we want to maintain the existing article.
That would mean adopting Amendment No 1.
The Commission is asked to delete the point in its proposal relating to the financial management of the Fund. We would like the Commission to make a statement on this.
<P>
As proposed by the rapporteur, I would like to say the following: if the Commission does not accept these two amendments, we will call for the report to be referred back to committee, because we cannot in fact support it if the Commission does not accommodate us on this point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Botz">
Madam President, enlargement of the EU with the accession of the Central and Eastern European states and Cyprus is not just a project starting with the new century, it is also a task for that century.
And a project of this scale calls for an exceptional effort on the part of all concerned.
Indeed, everyone has now realised that this primarily means the applicant states.
But in the light of the real differences between us and the applicant states, for instance in the economic and social field, I continue to believe that in general the European Union is still not making enough efforts to meet this challenge, not least in financial terms.
<P>
But be that as it may. In the given circumstances, I believe the Commission has nonetheless submitted proposals that are for the most part viable and at least still give us a chance to master this important process of accession to the European Union and give it a positive shape.
I would like to address one detail.
I believe it is more necessary now than in past enlargements to familiarise the public administrations in the applicant states with the aims and procedures of the acquis communautaire at all levels- not just at the highest level, where this is certainly already the case, but also at lower levels.
<P>
In my view, we are still underestimating the background situation of the majority of these states, namely a dictatorship system with the corresponding type of administration.
Moreover, we all too often forget that the same people are still working in the lower echelons of this administration, who are of course now endeavouring to work under the new system.
But we should gear parts of our pre-accession aid much more specifically than in the past towards retraining the administration.
On the other hand, it is probably less necessary now for western Europe to finance new studies.
I believe it is enough to analyse what we already have in that respect.
<P>
Let me come back to our task for the new century.
We should approach the interests not only of the applicant states but of course our own interests too in the most fair and balanced manner.
But above all, as European democrats we should also be thankful that we can take part in this historic process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Brok">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to follow on from Mr Botz's last comment.
Indeed we do not need to carry out any more feasibility studies; instead we need operational resources, and I believe that is the road the Commission has been pursuing for some time.
We are quite prepared to support the Commission in terms of concentrating more on that approach.
Setting infrastructure and the environment and the support measures for supervisory staff and investment financing as its objectives is the right starting-point, as is the strong emphasis on promoting democracy and the rule of law and viable administrative structures, together with a sensible judicial system.
<P>
But we must now spend these funds rapidly and unbureaucratically, so that they can make a fairly rapid impact.
We are facing a difficult task, namely how to bring about an economic and political balance on a continent that was once mercilessly divided both economically and politically.
Our major task in connection with this process of rapprochement must be to fuse the two parts together again.
Here we must also take a look at ourselves and remember something we tend forget: that what we represent as the national interest can in fact be assimilated with the interest of the Community.
When we look at the opposition between national interests, which are often considered in a short-sighted way, we may see short-term difficulties here and there, but in truth we want enlargement because it is also to our advantage, and not just to the advantage of the applicant countries.
If we realise this, if we really define our interests in the political, security and economic areas, then we will also be in a position to muster the ability to compromise and achieve the balance that we need if we are to make progress here.
<P>
One thing is clear: until now we have enjoyed the benefits of strengthening trade relations between Central and Eastern Europe on the one side and the European Union on the other.
Our citizens may have gained the impression that up to now all this has simply cost a lot of money; but the reality is that we have actually earned more than we have spent on these countries, simply because of the imbalance in trade relations.
I believe we should make that clear to our people too if we are to mobilise the necessary political support for this accession process.
<P>
We must also take the time factor into account, since it is an important factor if we want the citizens of the applicant countries to continue giving their support.
That means the programmes have to be of a high quality.
Mrs Schroedter, I am delighted to hear you say that shamefully little money is being spent!
I would cordially ask you to invite your Foreign Minister and your Chancellor to take your words to heart, so that we can achieve a better policy here!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Madam President, the reports on 'Agenda 2000' that the various committees are presenting hang together like spider's web.
But acceptance of the proposed reforms must be wholly subject to maintenance of the Community policies contributing to cohesion between the Fifteen and to measures to facilitate the accession of the applicant countries.
<P>
As regards relations ahead of the pre-accession strategy, we agree with the rapporteur and with those who assert that the criteria defined at Copenhagen must be respected: the constitutional state, democracy, existence of a market economy, respect for the acquis communautaire .
<P>
We take the view that the new accessions represent a historic opportunity to reconcile our continent with its past and that they are needed to define the Europe of the future.
But the Commission's proposals are prudent and pragmatic as they have to take account of the strong divergencies between the states, divergencies which underline what the Alleanza Nazionale has long maintained: that a great Europe is one where political union is the precursor of economic union. Political union should be and should have been refined before initiating the pre-accession negotiations, so that the new states could actually be presented with a precise and well-defined framework for the whole.
So the proposal lacks a political introduction, which we think is necessary and which would have buttressed the central problem that the new accessions raise - the future financing of Europe.
Plus we deplore the fact that the opening presented to the six states does not respond to precise political choices, and we suspect that it may be just an accounting device to make it possible to achieve the enlargement while maintaining the Community budget on the current base of 1.27 % of gross domestic product until 2006.
<P>
To be complete, the construction of Europe must unite all its peoples.
But we must point out, with some regret, that the institutional reforms, the future financing of the budget and other problems are still waiting in the wings, while there is a need for unambiguous political will on the part of all the governments to handle European affairs politically and not as a purely economic and financial negotiation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berès">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I detect in our joint debate a discrepancy between a pre-accession strategy that is admirable and full of ambition and an Agenda 2000 that should prepare the Union for welcoming the applicant countries and in fact involves the necessary alignment of our common policies.
<P>
With regard to the pre-accession strategy that I wish to discuss this morning, I feel that we desperately need to take an overview of this. This overview would show that the enlargement for which we are preparing is not just a simple case of adding together two units.
The EU must remind the applicant countries of this.
We cannot engage in a bilateral process with each Member State.
We must assess the overall impact of this strategy.
Less than a year after the adoption of a list of applicant countries that the EU could initially integrate, we now see that the map has already changed.
Malta has resubmitted its application, the Commission is envisaging the accession of Turkey under new conditions and there is a renewed possibility of two Baltic applicants being accepted.
<P>
More than ever it seems that the European Conference is essential, in its role as a forum for producing this overview, and I feel we must return to this.
<P>
I cannot stand to see this gap between the global and inclusive process that we have always wanted and the absence of an overview.
We need to debate and consider the frontiers of the Union, the political objectives of the Union, the methods for decision-making and governing with more than 15 countries, and the methods for defending this body and for making its voice heard in world affairs.
The amendments proposed by Mr Barón Crespo are in line with this and I fully support them.
However, we must all be careful: if the devil is in the details, we are in danger of becoming blind to these details sometimes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="van den Broek">
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="President">
As you know, ladies and gentlemen, our agenda this morning has been organised to take account of the formal sitting.
That is why the votes are taking place now, and also why we unfortunately cannot complete our debate this morning, as we could have done if we had held the votes at midday.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I should like to welcome a delegation from the National Assembly of Mauritania who have taken their seats in the official gallery.
<P>
This delegation is led by the Speaker, Mr Sid'ahmed Ould Baba, and I would point out that this is the second interparliamentary meeting with the relevant delegation of the European Parliament.
Our relations are based on friendship, cooperation and partnership, and I very much hope that this second meeting will enable us to strengthen these relations further.
<P>
Thank you, and a warm welcome to Strasbourg.
<P>
(Applause)
<CHAPTER ID=6>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Howitt">
Mr President, on a point of order.
I should like to ask you to join me in welcoming into the public gallery Helga Stevens, from the European Union for the deaf, who is observing this vote on behalf of the 500 000 profoundly deaf people within the European Union, as we vote to reaffirm this Parliament's support for the official recognition of their language - sign language - in every Member State of this European Union.
<P>
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, I do not know whether it is our machines that cannot keep up with Scottish technology or whether you are going too fast for the machines but there is a whole row here that is not working properly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="President. -">
I think it is probably something to do with the Liberals.
Mr Watson - a good Scot - you will have kept up, I am sure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Watson">
Mr President, I think we need to get away from the destructive tribalism of your last comment.
<P>
We voted on 12 amendments with one vote.
I should like to have your ruling as to whether that counts as 12 roll call votes or not.
<P>
(Laughter)
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="President.">
It is a productivity deal and I am afraid it is one move of the finger, one count.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pompidou">
Mr President, as chairman of the Delegation for Relations with Japan, I would like to point out that an important delegation from the Japanese Diet is present.
<P>
They have travelled a long way and I hope that we can give them a warm welcome.
<P>
(Sustained applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="President. -">
Thank you very much, Mr Pompidou.
In fact I was going to leave it to the President to make the greeting but I shall do so with pleasure myself.
<P>
It gives me great pleasure to welcome to the official gallery a delegation from the Japanese Diet, led by Mr Taro Nakayama.
This is the 19th meeting between our respective delegations and, on behalf of the European Parliament, I wish to welcome them officially to this working session of Parliament and wish them every success on their visit.
<P>
<P>
(The sitting was suspended for a formal sitting and resumed at 12.30 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
VOTES (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Carlsson">
Mr President, it is an unmitigated disaster that Members have only received this amendment at 10 a.m.
I wonder what the Liberals are up to?
The wording in the Swedish text says 'shorter working hours', but the Liberals would prefer it to be 'flexible working hours'.
Low inflation is mentioned, but not in the translation, which is absolutely terrible!
I was, of course, opposed to this proposal, which was fine in the original, so please can we have the original version back!
Something also has to be done about the translation!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="President">
You are quite right.
The one safeguard we have is that the language services always ensure that the amendments correspond to the original version. But there is a problem in getting amendments to people on time.
<P>
Amendment No 2
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="van Velzen, Wim">
Mr President, after consultation with the various groups, I should like to make two small, but to some people important, changes to Amendment No 2.
In the first section, 'European investment programme' should be changed to 'European investment strategy' and 'develop' to 'extend'.
This last change is mainly a point of accuracy.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="President. -">
Before we move on to the next vote, I have great pleasure in welcoming to the official gallery a delegation from the South African National Assembly led by Mrs Frene Ginwala, Speaker of the National Assembly and leader of the South African delegation, who are with us for their fourth interparliamentary meeting with the relevant European Parliament delegation.
<P>
This is an historic moment in the relations between South Africa and the European Union: negotiations are currently under way to conclude a trade, development and cooperation agreement, and we hope that they will be concluded successfully shortly.
Our respective assemblies will then be consulted on this agreement, which will help to bring the countries and the peoples which we represent closer together.
<P>
I wish the South African delegation every success and a pleasant stay during their visit to Strasbourg.
<P>
(Applause)
<CHAPTER ID=10>
VOTES (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lannoye">
Mr President, on behalf of the Green Group and pursuant to Rule 129 I must ask for this report to be referred back to committee.
During yesterday's debate, Mr Sainjon put forward arguments justifying this request.
Unfortunately he cannot be present today but as I fully agree with him I am repeating his proposal.
Both arguments relate to current events.
<P>
Firstly, we are actually voting on a Commission communication that we know is no longer applicable.
We are in fact going to adopt a report which Mrs Mann has had the goodness to adapt in accordance with the new political situation.
The current context involves a Transatlantic Economic Partnership dealt with in a Commission/Council agreement and, more recently, in fact just a week last Monday, in a Council agreement on an action plan which we have never seen.
We received a copy of this in English in the Committee on External Economic Relations but Parliament has never been able to debate this text.
This is the first current event which means that we risk voting on a text which is out of date in terms of the policy and the issues and which, more seriously perhaps, risks causing confusion and even contradiction in Parliament.
This would not be good for this House.
<P>
In conclusion, the second current event is the American position on bananas.
Everyone is aware of this situation so I will not go into it.
I believe that the context in which we debated this in committee, and even yesterday, has changed.
We cannot be conciliatory towards a discussion partner who is being arrogant.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Mann, Erika">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry but the proposal from the Greens is absurd.
Just listen a moment! That is no way to achieve what you want.
If you want Parliament's voice to be heard, both in the Council and in the Commission and also by the Americans, you will have to state your position today.
The next summit between the United States and Europe will take place in early December and this particular report will be discussed there too.
That means that you will achieve nothing at all by preventing Parliament from stating its position on it today.
Why do you not just look at the realities!
After all, the political reality outside our doors does not depend on the position of the Greens!
<P>
(Heckling and applause) We have adapted everything.
We are not pronouncing on an old report!
I have specifically included all the Council's new decisions.
I have pointed out that Parliament would like to have a new report.
I have pointed out that these reports should go to all the committees.
The Commission has agreed, the Council has indicated that it too would take note of this.
That is all you can do.
That is the way to ensure that Parliament and the committees can reconsider precisely that decision at a future date.
If you refer the report back to committee, you will be depriving us of any chance of making a political statement.
I would ask my colleagues in this House to agree that we vote on it today, and that we also vote in favour.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Hory">
Mr President, the Group of the European Radical Alliance agrees totally with the request submitted by the Green Group and Mr Lannoye, and we also agree with the reasons put forward.
We can give an excellent incidental reason, namely the banana affair.
The European Banana Market Organisation uses the basic rules of our Community to ensure both internal and external solidarity, particularly with regard to the ACP States. We are being subjected in this case to an American diktat that has not yet received an appropriate European response.
This is our circumstantial reason.
<P>
However, we also have more general substantive reasons and, without wanting to offend Mrs Mann with regard to her excellent work, we do not share all her assumptions, particularly not those contained in the initial recitals of the draft resolution, which assert the similarity of the models of society on each side of the Atlantic.
On the contrary, we believe that these models are different and that the banana affair perfectly illustrates the difference between one model of society based on rules of liberalism and competition and another model based on values of humanism and solidarity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kittelmann">
Mr President, this will not become the rule here in Parliament, but in this case the European People's Party entirely agrees with the Social Democrat rapporteur.
<P>
We have held a very detailed discussion, which has taken full account of relations between the USA and the European Union.
The report makes some very critical comments about American policy.
If all these critical comments on American behaviour are to find a hearing, the report must be adopted now, and not at a time when there is no chance of our view being heard.
I am therefore against the ideological and hyper-critical attitude of the Greens, and ask for this motion to be rejected.
<P>
<P>
(Parliament decided against referral back to committee)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, I found it difficult to understand the translation of the amendment from the Liberal Group in the earlier work and it is even harder to understand Amendment No 1 from the UPE Group.
In the Swedish version it has been left out altogether. I apologise to Mr Pasty for my incomprehension.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="President">
That may not necessarily be the translation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Mr President, I believe you made a remark which I consider to be rather personal.
In reply to Mrs Thors, you indicated that the stupidity of Amendment No 1 might not just be a result of the translation but that it was perhaps intrinsically idiotic or stupid.
My conscience has led me to reread this amendment which simply says that, in the negotiations with the United States, we must respect the acquis communautaire .
I will let you and this House judge whether there is anything stupid in this amendment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="President">
I am sorry, Mr Pasty, if my remarks caused offence.
It was meant to be a flippant remark in the spirit in which the point of order was made.
No offence was meant to your group.
It was a joke.
Some people find jokes harder to take than others.
<P>
(Mixed reactions)
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
Mr President, our group wholeheartedly supports the resolution on sign language, and we call for our policy on the deaf to pursue two objectives.
First and foremost of these is greater accessibility, by which we mean equal access to education and public services and equal opportunities to take part in public meetings and hearings.
There are about half a million deaf people in the European Union.
By improving accessibility for the deaf, we are strengthening democracy.
<P>
Secondly, we call for better integration for deaf people, and there are five things that will help us to achieve this.
First and most important is better training for sign language interpreters.
Integration for the deaf is perfectly possible through the use of interpreters, so we need to provide adequate training opportunities for those who wish to learn sign language.
It will be difficult to achieve general recognition for sign language.
In Sweden, Denmark and Finland, sign language is already recognised in education, and the other Member States should follow suit here.
We also need recognition for sign language in contacts with the public authorities and in the fields of employment and culture, perhaps following the United States' example.
We must also ensure that the deaf have equal access to information.
They have the same rights as those who can hear, but while this is obviously the case in the United States, it is often not so here in the Union.
Another glaring problem is the incompatibility of text telephone systems.
In my country, Flanders, alone we have at least three different systems that are not compatible, which gives you a good idea of the scale of the problem throughout Europe.
This is completely unacceptable in the single market.
There are no absolute standards for these communication systems, which is why deaf people currently tend to use faxes, though this is not two-way communication.
They are now investigating possibilities using the Internet, which offers them huge opportunities to improve communication with those who can hear.
Here again, the question is whether all chat systems are compatible and whether everyone can afford to buy the necessary equipment.
<P>
In conclusion, I should like to stress the importance of multimedia applications and of ensuring that the deaf are fully involved in their development.
One final point: the Community has few powers in these areas, but I think that we in Parliament, as representatives of the people of Europe, have a duty to speak up on behalf of half a million deaf people.
The incompatibility of the text telephone systems is clearly an internal market problem, so I hope we can rely on the Commission to come up with some proposals here.
In any case, I hope that this resolution has more of an impact on the Member States than was the case with our resolution of ten years ago.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Howitt">
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Andersson and Sandberg-Fries">
We should like to thank the rapporteur for his excellent work on an urgently needed report.
The proposed directive relating to special provisions for vehicles used for the carriage of passengers comprising more than eight seats in addition to the driver's seat is of great importance in enabling people with reduced mobility to lead fuller lives, as well as making it easier for them to use public transport.
We are pleased to note that to a large extent the report takes account of the needs of people with reduced mobility, so as to make it possible for them to travel in the types of vehicle covered by the directive.
The rights of people with reduced mobility must come before the private interests of bus manufacturers.
There should be a Union-wide coordinated approach to dealing with the issue, since to allow Member States to decide matters for themselves, or to leave it to the market, would only worsen the chances of people with reduced mobility having their needs met.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Eriksson, Seppänen, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
Although we voted for the report, we are still critical - for the reasons expressed in our previous explanation of vote - of the form of legislation it represents.
In the different areas, legislation should be the principal and guiding mechanism, while technical specifications at profession level should be left to professional bodies and be applied through special regulations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Gahrton, Holm and Schörling">
Mr Murphy's report is topical in dealing with what constitutes one of the most difficult problems for the European Union and the internal market.
The free movement of goods presupposes either the establishment of a minimum requirement, which applies to all Member States, or that Member States mutually agree to approve each other's goods.
In both cases, Member States with high minimum requirements can be forced to lower them.
<P>
In our view, the minimum requirement recommended by Mr Murphy in his report is so wide that there would be no serious risk of Member States having to lower their own minimum requirements.
Neither does the report make any mention of compelling Member States to change their current regulations to make buses that are now in service undergo alterations.
Instead, the report recommends that vehicles which comply with the requirements contained in the report would automatically be acceptable in all Member States.
<P>
We have decided to vote for the report for the above reasons.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Lindholm">
It should be a foregone conclusion that all Member States, manufacturers and operators have a duty to ensure passenger and traffic safety and that the special needs of disabled people are met.
<P>
Any loophole in the laws of Member States should be rectified at national level.
There is no need for an EU directive to legislate on total harmonisation or detailed specifications relating to the construction of buses, for example the width of seats, height of boarding platforms, provision of palm-operated buttons, or size and location of exit signs.
<P>
Furthermore, it is absurd for MEPs to have to adopt a position on 143 pages of technical data, drawings, and so on.
It is evident in both the Commission communication and the report that it is the existence of protectionist measures with regard to trade in buses within the internal market which is the prime concern and is the reason for both the report and the Commission's proposal.
I voted against the report for the above reasons.
<P>
I would have preferred the Commission to have viewed the issue from the standpoint of passenger and traffic safety and with the problems of disabled people in mind, and to have put forward a recommendation that would have improved safety and accessibility.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Lindqvist">
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Andersson, Lööw and Sandberg-Fries">
In our explanation of vote, we should like to stress that we still think that the design of the euro coins should take into consideration the needs of blind and elderly people.
As regards the proposal to introduce a 100 euro coin, we have decided to bow to the opinion of the PSE Group, although for our part we view the issue in a more neutral light.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Fayot">
This report gives me an opportunity to draw attention to a problem about which the public is becoming increasingly concerned: the proliferation of euro coins.
<P>
In addition to the euro coins minted by each of the 11 Member States in the euro zone, it seems that states that have a monetary agreement with one of the Member States in the euro zone are requesting that they be allowed to mint euros with national faces.
This request is being made by San Marino and the Vatican City in Italy and by Monaco in France.
<P>
I must say that this request is absurd.
Not only would it mean that countries which are not part of the euro zone and which do not therefore have to fulfil the very strict obligations for this would have the right to issue euros, but it would also contribute, if accepted, to the proliferation of euro coins. This would add to the public's confusion, which will be widespread anyway given the numerous commemorative coins that will undoubtedly be issued around 2002 to celebrate the advent of the euro.
<P>
In addition, as the Prime Minister of France, Lionel Jospin, has already indicated, authorising the Vatican to mint euros with an image of the Pope on the national face would risk causing constitutional problems in countries where there is a clear separation of Church and State.
<P>
For all these reasons, the issue of euro coins must be strictly limited and the three states indicated must consequently be refused the right to mint euro coins.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="de Rose">
The Council's proposal amending the Regulation on denominations and technical specifications of euro coins intended for circulation has two aims. The first is to alter the weight of the 50 cent coin in order to meet the requirements of vending machines, and the second is to change the definition of the edge of the 50 and 10 cent coins, at the request of the European Blind Union, to facilitate their use.
<P>
We agree to these substantive changes as we believe they are practical. On the one hand, they are intended to facilitate the daily life of the visually impaired and, on the other, they should prevent fraud.
However, we must consider the consequences in terms of cost of these last-minute changes, given that production has already started.
It is rather curious, not to say unacceptable, that these changes have been made at the last moment when the minting of the coins has already begun, at the end of a full-scale campaign to promote the euro throughout Europe and after many technical studies and numerous hearings of experts!
<P>
Once again the cart has been put before the horse.
It is saddening that disabled people were not taken into account earlier, while the practical aspects are still not fully settled!
<P>
The Council, Commission and Parliament should all share responsibility for this.
A little more precision in the first place would obviously have helped the introduction of the euro.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Wibe">
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Amadeo">
High rates of unemployment and the falling demand for labour are fixed variables preventing our Union's social policies from coming into line.
If we introduce factors like the future economic and monetary union, the ageing of the population or the future enlargement to the CEECs into the analysis, the paradigm gets even more complicated.
<P>
The Union's philosophy on policies for employment and mobility and on differentiating work typologies must be based on three types of approach: the first is optimising action; the second relates to financial support; and the third to the legislation which should underpin the new social action programme.
<P>
Like the rapporteur, we must first deplore the way the Commission keeps insisting on resorting to the use of instruments that are not legally enforceable, when, in our view, in areas such as the organisation of work, workers' individual and collective rights and social measures regulating the free-market economy, rules should continue to take the form of directives.
<P>
In our view the Commission would be able to act more vigorously if it included a series of provisions in the new social programme. The most important of these would be reducing the fiscal pressure on small companies and raising employees' wages through profit-sharing schemes, practical measures which should certainly be accompanied by initiatives to define the future of social dialogue precisely, and promote the adoption of a charter of fundamental social rights, also extending it to those partner countries which have not yet ratified it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Andersson, Lööw and Sandberg-Fries">
We should like to thank the rapporteur for his excellent work, both as regards the presentation and contents of the proposals contained in the report.
The new Social Action Programme is very important in the Union's development of its social and labour market policies.
<P>
The Commission's proposals are basically sound, but they would have been noticeably improved by the inclusion of the committee's amendments.
We agree with the proposals put forward in the report, in particular as regards the following: a clearer focus on the social dialogue, a move to incorporate provisions relating to individual rights in the social sector in the Treaty, an action programme against discrimination, legislation on sexual harassment, the need for stress to be included in legislation on the protection of employees, and their right to information and representation in the workplace.
The report warrants a number of amendments which constitute urgent matters in themselves. However, it would be better to deal with them in another report that is more relevant to the areas they touch on.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Bonde and Sandbæk">
We are not voting in favour of the Hughes report on the Social Action Programme 1998-2000, since it contains proposals for directives on workers' individual and collective rights and the social regime which will disregard the Danish system of agreements.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Eriksson, Seppänen, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We are going to vote against the report, because we do not think that it is appropriate to legislate at EU level on matters relating to the organisation of work and workers' individual and collective rights.
Labour rights and related issues should, in the main, fall to the competence of individual countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling">
We agree with many of the rapporteur's proposals to improve the new Social Action Programme, for example on promoting worker involvement in company decision-making and strengthening the rights of employees' representatives, as well as the proposal to promote civil dialogue - we think that biannual forums are inadequate.
<P>
However, we do not agree that directives are an appropriate form of legislation in areas such as the organisation of work and workers' individual and collective rights. Instead, we think that negotiated agreements between the partners in the labour market are a workmanlike and appropriate way to achieve success in this area.
<P>
We also have reservations as regards legally binding legislation on sexual harassment.
<P>
We have therefore decided to abstain in the final vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Lang">
The Social Action Programme, commonly known in Brussels jargon as the 'SAP', was submitted for our approval today. The French abbreviation is 'PAS' and this reminds us of unfortunate recent events in France when the French National Assembly considered the now notorious PACS - ' Pacte Civil de Solidarité', which is a legal framework for two cohabiting people.
<P>
We have voted against this SAP.
<P>
There are several simple reasons for this, and they basically relate to our very conception of social Europe and what this must be.
<P>
Social Europe is not the Europe of the devotees of Maastricht and Amsterdam.
It is not the Europe of the general minimum income or of voting rights for immigrants.
It is not the Europe of no borders and company relocations.
It is not the Europe of ultra-liberals, free traders and internationalists.
<P>
Social Europe is first and foremost the Europe of homelands, national preference and social welfare.
As a tool for social peace, social welfare must have the nation as a development framework and must come under the responsibility of each state.
<P>
Unlike the rapporteur, we believe that, in the context of the internal market, social matters must require unanimous approval by the Member States.
Decisions taken on social matters have such extensive effects on all labour relations and on the lives of our citizens that all decisions taken by a qualified majority, where these are compulsory and therefore imposed on all the Member States, are dangerous for all citizens, whether working or unemployed.
<P>
We have therefore voted against this report which is dangerous in addition to being demagogic.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Lindqvist">
Prioritising employment is a positive move.
EMU, the single currency and a permanent anti-inflation policy make it more difficult to increase employment.
<P>
The Social Action Programme should preferably be a non-binding instrument for analysing problems that lead to social exclusion, poverty, unemployment and discrimination.
<P>
Legislation on social issues, individual rights and so on should preferably be carried out by Member States and not through EU Treaty provisions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Palm">
In paragraph 2 of the report, Parliament expresses its disappointment that the Commission is increasingly resorting to the use of regulatory instruments in the field of labour legislation.
Instead, the report establishes that 'in areas such as the organisation of work, workers' individual and collective rights... rules should take the form of directives...'
<P>
I am wholly in agreement with the report as regards the importance of basic labour rights legislation.
However, I should like to point out that this is mainly a matter of national concern, and EU competence only extends to areas involving the organisation of labour and the working environment.
In other areas, it is important to recognise Member States' cultural differences.
For example, Sweden does not have a legal minimum wage; the issue is decided through collective bargaining and agreement.
<P>
I am in favour of an EU directive on minimum standards in the areas of organisation of labour and the working environment.
In many Member States, it will enable workers and their representatives to enhance their working environment.
However, I have serious reservations about an EU directive in the field of labour legislation.
<P>
It is also very important to encourage the European social partners to commit themselves to a binding agreement.
Agreement has shown itself to be the most effective way of achieving a functioning labour market. Getting the social partners to take greater responsibility for reaching agreement considerably strengthens the labour market.
There should be no recourse to legislation by Parliament until the social partners have articulated the causes of their disagreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Theonas">
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Andersson, Lööw and Sandberg-Fries">
We should like to thank the rapporteur for his excellent work on an urgently needed report.
The report should be praised for the way in which it undertakes the adjustments to the employment guidelines that are needed in order to make them more effective.
In particular, we should like to stress the importance of ensuring that employment is placed within the context of European macroeconomic policy.
The scope of the report in this respect is to be commended, and goes in the right direction for achieving a dynamic employment policy within the framework of the European labour market, as the predominantly social democrat Council acknowledges.
<P>
Amendment No 1 on the need to prevent unfair tax competition is particularly interesting from Sweden's point of view, on account of the recent high-profile transfer of profits by Pharmacia and Upjohn to Luxembourg.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Blak and Kirsten Jensen">
The Danish Social Democrats have voted in favour of the report on the employment guidelines for 1999.
We firmly support the new form of European cooperation on employment.
Exchanges of experience and annual assessments for the Member States will hopefully bring results in the form of more people moving into work.
We are also pleased that the emphasis has been placed on continuity in relation to the employment guidelines for 1998.
The initiatives which are under way need time to operate in practice.
Equal treatment is the area in which the Member States have lagged most behind in 1998.
It is therefore right that it should be given greater prominence in the guidelines for 1999.
We need to have some quantitative objectives in terms of equal treatment.
We do not support the call made in paragraph 2 for VAT to be reduced.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Bonde, Lis Jensen, Krarup and Sandbæk">
The van Velzen report contains a long series of parameters designed to guide the Member States' employment policy in 1999 which we are unable to support.
It is clear from the report that an important part of the European Union's drive towards integration is to ensure social convergence.
At the same time, it stresses the importance of the Member States acting in accordance with the Stability Pact.
In principle, we do not believe that social and labour market policy should be a matter for the Union.
It should be left to the individual Member States to determine the guidelines for these policy sectors on a sovereign basis.
The power to regulate should therefore remain at national level, and as close to individual citizens as possible.
<P>
The report stresses the need to raise the level of qualifications in the workforce and to mainstream equal treatment policy and promote policy initiatives in favour of the disabled.
It is important to give priority to these sectors, not least because there is still a large group of women who, despite the fact that they do the same work as their male colleagues, are paid less for it.
However, it is problematic for the EU to combine these initiatives with its attempt to establish common European guidelines for Member States' employment policies and to encourage social convergence in the EU.
We believe it is crucial for the EU system to respect the different social and labour market policy traditions in the Member States.
Establishing social convergence is therefore a step in the wrong direction, because for a number of countries, many of the Commission's proposals will in the longer term result in a gradual dismantling of their social security systems, thereby actually worsening the situation of the disabled and other vulnerable groups in society.
<P>
Thus in the Commission's communication dated 14 October 1998 - COM(98)574 - it is emphasised that, in order to promote employment, the Member States should set a target for 'reducing the overall tax burden and, where appropriate, a target for gradually reducing the fiscal pressure on labour and non-wage labour costs'.
Combined with the monetary policy contained in the Pact on Growth and Stability and the requirements for Member States' monetary and financial policy, we believe that this economic strategy will ultimately result in the Danish social policy model being put under pressure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Fourçans">
I welcome the fact that our rapporteur has raised the question of coordinating economic policies and, in particular, of using tax harmonisation as one of the main weapons in the fight against unemployment.
I am also delighted that he has emphasised the need to develop entrepreneurial spirit, and that he has stressed the need for better targeted use of the Structural Funds in order to promote employment.
<P>
On the other hand, it would have been better if a number of unrealistic and economically questionable solutions had not been put forward.
As a result, I am concerned by our rapporteur's persistence in asking, on several occasions, that working time be reduced by means of a centralised procedure.
There is nothing to stop a company appealing for greater flexibility in working time whenever the opportunity presents itself.
But to want this decision to be taken, at all costs, at the highest level of our European institutions would be pure nonsense.
<P>
There is another proposal that strikes me as particularly worrying: some sort of European 'New Deal' that involves using the currency reserves of the National Central Banks to stimulate investment!
Without going as far as debating the validity of a Keynesian upturn, such a measure would only accelerate the fall in the dollar and, in doing so, would work against recovery in Europe.
I do not believe that this is what we wish to achieve.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Gahrton, Holm and Schörling">
This report on the proposed guidelines for Member States' employment policies for 1999 contains a series of recommendations relating to Member States' action plans.
<P>
We are all keen that Member States should cooperate and coordinate their strategies in order to create lasting employment.
Sometimes it is justifiable to 'urge on' Member States, but there are also times when Parliament wants to go too far.
Amongst other things, the proposal in paragraph 6 of Mr van Velzen's report, concerning a European Pact that should include the coordination of economic and financial policy, goes too far in our view.
<P>
Despite the fact that we are voting against this paragraph and have abstained on another, we are still going to vote in favour of the report as a whole, because it encourages job creation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen, Pirker and Rübig">
The van Velzen report contains some very sensible proposals on employment policy.
However, I think it would be useful to look more towards tax reliefs and less towards aid measures.
<P>
But I have no sympathy at all for giving unilateral support to women in paid employment, while at the same time discriminating against women who bring up their children themselves.
It is high time we recognised that bringing up children in the family is a real and highly-qualified job and remunerate it accordingly.
The relevant studies show that a clear majority of mothers want to bring up their children themselves but are forced by material pressures to take a paid job, which means they then have to put their children into child care establishments.
The job of bringing up children within the family deserves to be fully recognised as such.
After all - to put it in business management terms - it produces valuable human capital.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Lienemann">
I will vote in favour of the van Velzen report.
Nevertheless, the European Parliament should have been clearer about how much macroeconomic manoeuvre was allowed to stimulate growth, particularly as Parliament maintains, with the French and German Governments, that there is a need for a fresh cut in interest rates in countries in the euro zone. Parliament also supports the requests from the Head of the Italian Government that the vice-like grip of the Dublin Stability Pact be loosened, particularly to promote investment.
<P>
The report should have placed greater emphasis on the urgent need for major developments in infrastructure by setting time limits and suggesting ways of financing them, for example by means of a major European loan.
<P>
We fear that this idea, which has been raised many times, might remain only on paper and might not become a reality. There is also cause for concern that it has not fulfilled the desired objectives - namely job creation - as it has been diluted over time and has not reached significant critical financial mass.
<P>
Lastly, the plea for a reduction in working time is rather feeble as the objectives do not provide figures or dates and the 35 hour week is never clearly stated.
More serious still is the wording of paragraph 19, which links flexibility to a reduction in working hours.
As everyone knows, flexibility does not create jobs but, on the contrary, destroys them. Flexibility is a characteristic of jobs that do not have normal status and leads to an increase in part-time work and to job insecurity.
I will therefore vote against this paragraph.
<P>
Whilst the European Union does not have a true founding treaty for a social Europe, whilst employment, according to the Amsterdam Treaty, still falls under national jurisdiction and whilst European initiatives are restricted by the Stability Pact, there is a real danger that Europe will not be capable of taking decisive action that may help reduce mass unemployment.
<P>
So, if current growth is a bonus, it must be consolidated, and if we assume that it will continue at the rate recorded, it would take decades to substantially reduce the mass unemployment we are currently experiencing.
Finally, what can we say about full employment, other than that it is still the only valid objective for supporters of a European social model!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Palm">
I am delighted to note that the employment issue looms large on the EU's programme of work. This report is proof of that.
It contains many good ideas on ways of tackling mass unemployment, but there are also a number of omissions.
<P>
In my view, we will only achieve full employment through combined and vigourous efforts.
Most importantly, countries should be pursuing an economic policy aimed at full employment - to stimulate the economy with the ultimate objective of combating unemployment.
<P>
Apart from the imperative of ensuring that the fight against unemployment is the constant and top priority of economic policy, there are three other important areas in the struggle to achieve full employment: education, job security and a wages policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Seillier">
On several occasions, the European Union and the Member States have committed themselves to taking coordinated action in the fight against unemployment. Mr van Velzen's report highlights the guidelines which have been raised many times;
<P>
improving education systems-developing a wide-ranging investment programme-supporting the creation and development of SMEs, - promoting entrepreneurial spirit-exploiting the potential of the 'social economy' for the creation of jobs.All these are praiseworthy indeed but are in danger of being nothing more than wishful thinking if we keep forgetting two parameters that are important for prosperity in Europe and which are also linked, namely the family and population growth.When children and young people fail at school - a real problem in Europe - it is not due simply to the failure of education systems to provide general knowledge and suitable occupational training, but largely to educational shortcomings resulting from the crisis of the family unit, to selfishness and to adults' lack of awareness. Young people are no longer sufficiently spiritually developed to cope with all the different problems of human existence.
In this respect, this report sees reconciling work and family life once again as a problem for adults who experience difficulty in finding someone to look after their children.
The quality of family education received during early childhood and adolescence is extremely important for subsequent professional and social success.
Therefore, given that we must encourage the formation of small and medium-sized businesses, can we not view a family with several children as a small business providing basic and further training? Can we not see the allegedly 'inactive' mother of the family - who manages and organises the life of this small community - as a business manager worthy of respect and payment as she enriches in both quality and quantity a country's most precious capital: human capital.
<P>
When will economic and political leaders be prepared to face facts, namely that mothers and fathers of families are the main economic investors in a country and that they deserve to be encouraged rather than exploited, as they currently are in the Marxist sense of the word?
<P>
When a society's birth rate plummets, there can be no lasting economic growth and therefore no gradual reduction in unemployment. We are constantly being told that economic and social policy cannot be separated.
And this is all very well provided that they go on to say that, if we are to come through an economic and social crisis that is leading an ageing Europe to a peaceful death (euthanasia) - as is currently the case - each of the countries of Europe needs a bold family policy. Even if such a policy is not enough to create jobs and to help in many other important matters, it is still a necessary condition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Theorin">
I welcome the report's aim of increasing employment.
However, with regard to reducing taxes on employment, I would like to point out that there is no correlation between that and increased employment.
Technical and empirical studies have failed to show that an overall reduction in employment taxation would increase employment.
The extensive and independent studies that have been carried out reveal considerable uncertainty as to whether lower taxes affect employment.
In the Scandinavian countries, in particular, such studies have failed to identify any such correlation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Titley">
I am happy to vote for this report, noting as it does that an extra 750 000 jobs were created across the EU in the last year.
<P>
But as we all know, other jobs are threatened by traditional problems such as skills shortages and by new problems such as the knock-on effects of financial market crises in East Asia and other parts of the world.
<P>
The stark fact that more than half of all unemployed people aged 25 or more are classed as unskilled underlines the depth of the challenge we all face in the EU to raise our skills and raise our competitiveness in the global economy.
I am glad that the New Deal for young people introduced by my own country's Government is to extend to older unemployed people in response to this challenge.
We are in a long war against unemployment and we have to bridge the skills gap if we are to win the struggle.
<P>
The report rightly calls for more quality childcare places to allow parents who do want to work to find and keep a job and thus support their family by their own efforts.
Again, I would commend the British Government's radical national childcare strategy for further study in the rest of the EU.
Of course, each country has to adopt policies to suit its own particular unemployment challenges, but I believe that the great changes in British policy embodies by the New Deal and the national childcare strategy are British answers to the common European problems of skill shortages and parents trapped on benefit with no childcare available.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Wibe">
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Andersson, Lööw and Sandberg-Fries">
We should like to thank the rapporteur for his excellent work on this important report.
Promoting social dialogue will be of the greatest benefit in strengthening the Community's policy on employment, labour markets and the enhancement of working life, as well as on social issues.
The committee's proposal clarifies the role of the social dialogue in the provision of information and the intensification of negotiations. At the same time, a wider view of the importance of the social dialogue in partnerships for employment is put forward.
<P>
As regards Amendment No 3 on the CEMR's participation in the combined sectors of information, consultation and negotiation, we do not support the proposal as a matter of principle.
With regard to negotiations involving the different sectors within the framework of the social dialogue, which this amendment touches on, we do not think that the EU institutions should interfere in the selection of representatives to participate in the negotiations between the different partners.
This is a matter for the social partners to decide for themselves, without any of them being deprived of their role by the Council, Parliament or Commission.
We should also like to see the partners, when they so wish, involve the CEMR in the negotiations on the social dialogue, but only on their own initiative.
<P>
We should like to point out the significance of paragraph 13 on the number of representatives in the new composition of the Standing Committee on Employment.
A reduction in the number of representatives to no less than 12 would appear to be unavoidable. However, additional arrangements are required if the partners are to carry national authority.
Paragraph 13 highlights this point, but the Commission should devote more attention to the practicalities of achieving this.
<P>
Finally, we should also like to stress the importance of the Standing Committee on Employment being given the chance to discuss the EU guidelines on economic policy as well as the guidelines on employment policy.
A strong employment policy in Europe clearly has an economic perspective which goes beyond the employment guidelines.
So it would be quite natural for the Standing Committee on Employment to discuss the economic guidelines as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Bonde, Krarup and Sandbæk">
We are unable to support the report on adapting and promoting the social dialogue at Community level, because we believe that the basis for the dialogue between the partners in the labour market is ultimately the establishment of what will in fact be EU agreements.
At the same time, we think that it is problematic for the partners in the labour market, as it says in the report, to be involved 'in economic policy in the context of EMU'.
Denmark has an exemption from the third stage of EMU.
In our view this is an important exemption, because we do not agree with the Union's economic policy, which gives priority to combating inflation at the cost of measures to create jobs.
<P>
Particularly in recent years, the labour market has been a focal point of EU regulation.
This regulation is having ever greater consequences for the Danish system of agreements, and this is putting the Danish tradition under pressure.
We feel it is important to retain the Danish model, which ensures that trade unions have substantial influence through the collective agreements that are negotiated, unlike the EU system, which is based on centrally dictated individual rights laid down by law.
Transferring to the EU the responsibilities in this sector which previously lay with Denmark represents a fundamental break with the traditional system of collective agreements which has been very important in shaping the Danish model of society.
This trend may therefore ultimately have implications for the system governing the labour market and society in Denmark.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Carlsson">
The labour market is undergoing rapid change, whereas the social dialogue is based on the corporatist viewpoint and is likely to preserve the old structure and create unnecessary regulations at EU level.
<P>
I and my group are sceptical about giving any encouragement to the social dialogue which confers on the partners in the labour market a unique position under European legislation and an absurdly large degree of direct influence on policy-making - at a time when fewer people are choosing to join trade unions and many are remaining outside the labour market, with the result that the number of entrepreneurs and proprietors of small businesses, consultancy work and new types of employment conditions are all on the increase.
<P>
Popularly elected politicians have a responsibility to reform labour market legislation, not to give the partners the right to introduce yet more rules.
<P>
I have therefore decided to change my position in the final vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Deprez">
European integration is a whole in which all Europe's citizens should be involved.
If we wish to have greater cohesion, the social dialogue must fit in with the construction of economic union.
Therefore, I must once again welcome the fact that the Protocol on Social Policy has been included in the Amsterdam Treaty.
Nevertheless, it must be emphasised that, evidently, the European Parliament's role within this framework is still unsatisfactory as, in effect, the Protocol abides by the general principle of Community law, according to which Parliament must give its assent on this matter.
<P>
I therefore welcome the Commission's statement that it wishes to inform Parliament, comprehensively and in good time, to give it the opportunity to deliver its opinion before Council makes its decision.
I agree with our rapporteur that the Commission's positive attitude should be interpreted as the first step on the road towards Parliament's full and complete participation in this procedure.
<P>
Having said this, we must specify that true dialogue can clearly only take place between independent partners who have freely chosen to negotiate at the same table, and when all parties actually sit at that table.
None of the actors in economic and social life can be kept out of the social dialogue against their will.
SMEs should also be involved in the social dialogue, in the same way as other parties involved.
<P>
In addition, there is a need to develop the social dialogue if we wish to resolve the major social and economic issues that are as yet unresolved, in a peaceful manner and in everyone's interests. Obviously, and most importantly, these issues include problems relating to employment.
Although the latest figures published by Eurostat on the subject of unemployment within the Union are encouraging, they do not mask the widespread and lasting nature of this problem.
<P>
What has just been said is particularly valid when it relates to data on the enlargement of the European Union to include the applicant countries.
Therefore, we must welcome the Commission's wish to develop the social dialogue in these countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Lang">
We agree with the Peter report on the need to adapt and promote the social dialogue between both sides of the world of work.
In this text, there are also some grand and noble declarations of principle on the role and missions which should be allotted to the two sides of industry, and we must welcome them.
<P>
However, we voted against this report due both to some irrelevant aspects and to its shortcomings and omissions.
<P>
In fact, the Peter report does not talk about the persecution of the national trade unions in France.
It is because of this persecution that it is not possible for workers in France to create new trade unions or to stand freely as candidates in union or workplace elections, unless, of course, they belong to the trade unions that are recognised and restricted by law.
Such violations of union and electoral rights are serious and unacceptable.
The truth is that the official trade unions, which represent workers less and less, are only good for banning any form of competition.
<P>
So, if Mr Peter wants to adapt and promote social dialogue, then let him start by taking an interest in the repeated attacks on trade union rights and in what is really happening in the countries of the EU.
Then, and only then, will it be possible for dialogue and negotiation between workers and employers to take place without pretence or hypocrisy and without being dictated to by political correctness.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="Lindqvist">
The social dialogue should, above all, be based on consultation and agreement between the partners in the labour market.
Legislation is not an end in itself, neither at national nor European level.
<P>
National authorities and EU institutions should stress the importance of encouraging negotiations between self-governing and independent partners, rather than legislation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Palm">
Power is unevenly divided in the labour market.
It is still the case that employers' representatives have an advantage over those representing employees.
The report is well-intentioned and is favourable towards the setting up of a real dialogue between the labour market partners, but it does not contain any meaningful analysis of the division of power in the labour market.
Without this analysis and a recognition of how power is allocated, there can never be a real dialogue on social conditions in the overall labour market.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Theonas">
In quite a short time the issue of the social dialogue has again come up for debate in the European Parliament.
In view of that, we wish yet again to stress that the development of broad and productive thinking about the aims, content, results and future of the social dialogue at the Community level is a positive thing, to the extent that it leads to specific measures to strengthen that dialogue and to reverse the trend that the EU and its Member States are promoting, which involves degrading it or using it as an excuse to promote anti-labour measures and as a damper to suppress the social unrest and reactions brought about by the economic and social policies currently being implemented.
<P>
For us, the central question is on the one hand the representativeness of the spokesmen for social agencies who take part in the negotiation procedures, and on the other hand the degree to which their views are taken into account when formulating the attitudes of the Community's bodies and those of the Member States.
It is a characteristic fact that SMEs are still excluded from all forms of dialogue at Community level.
<P>
It worries us in particular that the social dialogue in progress today in most cases has little connection with the central issues which concern working people in the EU, as a whole and in the various branches, sectors and regions.
It is also not focused on the search for specific solutions to their very acute problems, on the effort to safeguard and extend their individual and collective rights, on the development of initiatives aiming to address the profound crisis that is affecting the EU and on the promotion of a progressive alternative solution to the liberalisation and globalisation dictated by the multinationals.
<P>
The touchstone for all these things can only be to address the problem of unemployment and work, which cannot of course be dealt with on the basis of the Thatcherite model of shared unemployment or by creating 'jobs' governed by a regime of labour and security dumping.
A real social dialogue cannot ignore the tragic results of the policy of liberalising the markets, the policy signalled by the criteria of EMU and the stability pact.
A real social dialogue cannot ignore the fact that the overthrow of even the most elementary acquisitions of the trade union movement is being promoted, with collective labour agreements first in line.
<P>
In our opinion, the most basic form of expression of the social dialogue if it is to play its part correctly, is collective bargaining aimed at the signing of collective labour agreements.
Only in that way and in view of the increased legal force of such agreements, can working people be protected from the individualisation of labour relations, from the attempt to cut back their rights in the name of 'increased competitiveness' and more intense competition.
Experience shows that whatever substitutes are put forward from time to time only aim to reduce the negotiating power and force of the trade union movement, to disorientate, fragment and undermine its champions, and ultimately to promote misrepresented views about class cooperation and cause it to abandon the role which it has historically been called on to play in the class struggle.
<P>
What working people and their unions need today is the reinforcement of collective bargaining at EU and Member State level, solidarity from all who are fighting to oppose the overthrow of any notion of collectiveness, and decisive action against those who are undermining collective, structured and targeted dialogue and the central means for stating worker demands, namely collective labour agreements.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="Wibe">
<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, the trade negotiations that are about to begin with the United States on the Transatlantic Economic Partnership will follow a procedure that is far from clear.
<P>
As this procedure will relate both to sectors which fall under Community jurisdiction - goods and public markets - and to sectors which fall under national jurisdiction - services and intellectual property - one would be forgiven for thinking that representatives of the Member States would be engaging in negotiations alongside the Commission.
Yet this is not the method that has been chosen.
The Commission will negotiate with the United States, both on behalf of the Community and on behalf of the Member States, by means of a global mandate.
For sectors under national jurisdiction, we are told that the Member States will 'be involved in negotiations' but we are concerned that they will not be in charge of them, not even for their own sectors.
It seems rather improper that this procedure has been chosen, particularly as we know full well that the Commission wishes to promote a free-trade area with the United States and that France experienced considerable difficulty in ruining the previous attempt, known as the NTM or New Transatlantic Marketplace.
<P>
This procedure casts an interesting light on Paragraph 5 of the new Article 133 of the Amsterdam Treaty, currently being ratified in France.
This text provides for the Council, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission, to extend Community competences to include international negotiations on services and intellectual property.
I also note in passing that this procedure - which would deprive the French Parliament of its right to approve the ratification of Treaties as laid out in Article 53 of our constitution - seems as reprehensible as a very similar procedure on the movement of persons provided for in Article 67 and which has already been censured by the Constitutional Court in its decision of 31 December 1997.
<P>
It may seem improper to allow the Commission engage in negotiations on services and intellectual property in view of the way it dealt with the Uruguay Round negotiations on goods.
However, the form of negotiation used for the Transatlantic Economic Partnership clearly shows that, short of abandoning the Amsterdam Treaty now, the Member States are in danger of falling back into the same trap as before.
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<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Caudron">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the content of the report by our colleague Mrs Erika Mann raises several questions, both in the field of economics and in the field of security and defence relations.
<P>
Following Mrs Mann's lead, I believe that the parliamentary bodies should be involved as much as possible in the negotiations.
I hope that we will not find ourselves in a situation similar to that of the MAI, where legitimately elected political leaders are consulted in the last resort, and whose importance, dare I say it, was deemed negligible.
<P>
Therefore, we must keep a watchful eye on the content of this future agreement, particularly as regards the level of public aid.
It is unthinkable that some of our partners impose draconian conditions whilst they themselves are exempt from such orders.
<P>
In these negotiations, the European Union must be seen as a power in its own right and must be capable of making its voice heard without having unilateral decisions imposed upon it.
This is probably one of its most glaring weaknesses.
For the record, I would like remind the House of the directive on shipbuilding, where we hurried to apply measures which now work against our interests as we are the only ones who follow them.
<P>
In this respect, I find it rather damaging that the Commission did not protest over the funds made available by the IMF to safeguard Korean shipyards that are already heavily subsidised by public authorities.
<P>
Although I do share the concerns outlined in the text as regards health, consumer protection and the environment, I am more cautious and worried about promoting core labour standards together with the United States.
I admit that I do not share the enthusiasm for a country which, for years now, has been the champion of exaggerated ultra-liberalism, which displays its inhumanity day after day.
<P>
For many, the European Union is a relatively well-balanced pole of development that attempts to preserve economic dynamism and social justice.
Let us ensure that we do preserve them!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Leperre-Verrier">
The American diktat on European banana imports shows to what extent establishing an economic partnership between the European Union and the United States is still premature. This partnership would not only involve solving current disputes, but also asserting our ability to develop global and balanced relationships.
<P>
Recent experience has proven the need to widen the scope of this type of negotiations to include the whole international community, particularly within the WTO. The outcome of the MAI and of the draft NTM should be reason enough for the European Commission to exercise greater caution.
<P>
Therefore, whatever the common values and interests which unite the European Union and the United States, the very different attitudes to development, social policy and protection of the environment, as well as the need to preserve cultural sovereignty with all its diverse components, make the principle of privileged transatlantic relations in itself rather a deceptive one.
<P>
It is for these reasons that the ARE Group has asked that this report be referred back to committee and this is also why we abstained from voting on this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Lienemann">
I will not vote in favour of Mrs Mann's report despite the quality of the work done by our rapporteur on developing a suitable framework for bilateral relations between Europe and the United States.
Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is completely different and the European Parliament should voice loudly and clearly its disagreement with the attitude of the United States of America, particularly in the light of recent decisions - unilateral ones - made by that country.
<P>
The United States' attitude towards the banana market, the fact that it announced unjustified protectionist rules and used pseudo dumping as an excuse to tax steel, all highlight the fact that opening the market is a good thing for the United States when it is to its own advantage and a bad thing when its interests are challenged.
<P>
We are being deceived as there is no sincere commitment from this country towards balanced bilateral agreements.
In fact, the Americans hope to benefit not only from their position of world domination, but also from Europe's weakness and from Europe's inability to react efficiently or to announce protective rules in retaliation, rules which convey an idea of shared progress.
<P>
Europe could, for example, create socio-taxes and refuse products made using child labour or carried out without the least respect for ILO standards.
The issue of environmental standards is equally important.
The unacceptable attitude of the USA at the last summit on climate change in Buenos Aires is proof of their lack of respect for the general interests of the planet. It also highlights the threats that the transatlantic partnership agreements pose to European legislation on health and the environment.
<P>
In effect, there will be an increase in the arrival of large quantities of products containing GMOs or made using procedures that do not respect our environmental regulations. Europe could find itself being penalised if it does not impose an environmental framework on its imports that is as rigorous as measures within the European Union.
Lastly, the ambiguous attitudes of the Commission and of Leon Brittan have weakened the EU's links with the United States.
<P>
Fortunately, the Council has rejected the MAI and the NTM but, in a bid to protect itself from fresh manoeuvring, it has drawn up a restrictive framework for monitoring the Commission which, in fact, puts Parliament on the sidelines, and this has extremely serious implications for the future.
So the European Parliament should now say that this cannot go on.
American domination and the Americans' lack of respect for the rules cannot continue.
Europe must retaliate.
The lack of social and environmental standards in world trade cannot be tolerated for much longer.
Multilateral agreements or bilateral agreements cannot be signed without such standards.
The European Parliament can no longer be kept out of these negotiations.
<P>
If it wishes to make itself heard, the European Parliament cannot be kept out of these negotiations.
And in order to make itself heard, Parliament should have formally voted for this report to be referred back.
It did not do so.
Therefore, by voting against this report, I would like to express my severe discontent with the way Europe has backtracked and capitulated to the United States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="Linser">
The FPÖ rejects the report on 'The New Transatlantic Marketplace' because first we need a comprehensive and public discussion of the objectives and impact of this kind of partnership.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="Theonas">
The rejection of the Brittan plan was intended to throw dust in the eyes of all those who reacted strenuously to the creation of a new transatlantic market which would put working people in Europe in an even more difficult position.
The substance of that plan remains unchanged even after today's developments, the only difference being that the rate at which the specific plans are promoted will be different and greater flexibility will be shown in their implementation.
But the principles of the new agreement are still to protect major capital and its unimpeded movement, to safeguard the unaccountability of the monopolies and of market liberalisation, and to restrict the ways in which the Member States and even the European institutions themselves can intervene and exercise control.
These measures are regarded as essential for the preparation of the new round of multipartite negotiations in the context of the WTO and the talks on the Multipartite Agreement on Investment in the context of the OECD.
They are an attempt to create new faits accomplis .
<P>
The political agreement achieved during the recent summit between the two sides and the Commission's action plan for transatlantic economic cooperation give cause for serious concern and raise some pointed questions, since important issues concerning public health, labour relations and the rights of working people, consumer protection, matters related to the free provision of services and the liberalisation of public contracts and to the promotion of regulatory cooperation and the abolition of technical trade barriers, are to be determined without any democratic or political control.
Characteristically, in order to prevent possible reactions, the Commission has chosen the method of sectoral agreements on which the European Parliament delivers non-binding opinions, instead of a framework agreement requiring Parliament's approval, thus avoiding any possibility of greater control and intervention.
<P>
Besides, it is not by chance that the provisions establishing the procedures for the EU's trade policy were not amended and enable the Council and the Commission to employ suitable devices to achieve the signing of very important agreements without much 'interference'.
Indeed, the fact that such a method was chosen after the reactions provoked at national and Community level by the publication of the draft OECD multipartite agreement on investments and the Brittan plan leads us to the natural conclusion that working people and the popular movement must remain vigilant and intensify their struggles. The danger is not only not past but, on the contrary, is greater than ever, because the various substitutes for those agreements being promoted are presented as 'more prudent' and less ambitious in their formulation and timing, though they follow exactly the same anti-populist direction.
<P>
The Mutual Recognition Agreements constitute an ingredient of the new agreement.
Their aim is to facilitate the flow of trade, with a decisive role for technocratic committees subject to no democratic control at all.
This lends strength to the view that the existence of legal provisions to protect public health and the environment constitutes an artificial barrier to trade, and seeks essentially to abolish safety requirements.
<P>
There is also serious concern about the provisions for further liberalisation of public procurement and about the services and the coordination envisaged in the context of the new round of multipartite negotiations on investments, agriculture and intellectual property.
<P>
No concern at all is shown about social rights, about reinforcing provisions that protect working people, or about any commitment to incorporate the basic ILO conventions in the WTO system.
On the contrary, the increasingly frequent statements that labour legislation must not constitute a means of 'protectionism' convince us that once trade in goods and services has been liberalised, the next item on the agenda will be to dislocate labour relations and restrict state authority in the matter via the WTO, in other words to promote the related provisions of the Multipartite Agreement on Investments within the framework of the multipartite trade system.
<P>
We believe the plan for transatlantic economic cooperation fails to represent the interests of working people on either side of the Atlantic. On the contrary, it supports the choices of the major multinationals, which have been working since 1995 in the context of the 'Transatlantic Business Dialogue' towards the abolition of provisions that restrict their activities.
It is an agreement which again signals the EU's compromising attitude towards the USA and its frequent attitude in favour of promoting the schemes of major capital in its frontal assault against working people.
Besides, this is clear from the settlement agreement on the extraterritorial Helms-Burton and D'Amato laws, and also emerges from the provisions for agriculture and for the opto-acoustic industry.
<P>
This agreement discloses the true nature of international trade negotiations on so-called equal terms.
The report by the Committee on Foreign Affairs we are debating, despite the few welcome comments it contains, accepts that framework overall and we will therefore vote against it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="Theorin and Wibe">
We share the rapporteur's desire to improve trade relations between the EU and the USA.
This is a comprehensive report covering a wide range of issues relating to the new transatlantic marketplace.
However, we do not agree with the assertion in recitals B and C, as well as in paragraph 1, that the EU and the USA share the same security and defence policy, as well as economic, political, cultural and environmental values.
As regards security and defence polity, this is even more relevant in Sweden's case since it is a non-aligned country and not a member of NATO.
<P>
We welcome the clear indication in paragraph 25 that the Helms-Burton and D'Amato Acts are unacceptable, and we wholeheartedly support the recommendation to speedily eliminate them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="Titley">
I am happy to support this report by my colleague, Erika Mann.
It is often the case that close links with other countries are most important when we have disagreements with them.
This could not be more true than this week with the US Congress apparently set to start a trade war with the EU over objections to our support for banana growers in former British and European colonies in the Caribbean.
<P>
Like many people, I believe that we should have as free an international trade system as possible, free from distortions to fair and open competition.
However, free trade needs to be fair trade as well, as in the case of the Caribbean banana growers. A little assistance to their exports to the EU does not threaten the already massive market share of US-owned banana producers in the EU and the rest of the world.
<P>
The kind of close dialogue called for by the London EU-US summit earlier this year should be established as soon as possible, to help both parties in the new transatlantic community to defuse and hopefully avoid such disagreements in future.
That is why I urge fellow MEPS to vote for Erika Mann's sensible report today, and not egg on the Republican zealots in the US Congress who would love us to react in kind to their trade war bluster.
Regular EU-US dialogue would allow us to point out the errors of Congress' approach to the EU's support for Caribbean banana exports to Europe, which keeps their economies going in a legal trade, and stops the temptation which would otherwise exist for farmers there to grow even more hard drugs - and both American and EU politicians know the damage they do to our young people when the drugs reach our streets.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 1.25 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Pre-accession strategy (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on the pre-accession strategy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Féret">
Mr President, the very title of the Barón Crespo report on the proposal for a Council regulation on coordinating aid to the applicant countries in the framework of the pre-accession strategy summarises the faults and handicaps that afflict European integration, which, at the dawn of the 21st century, is still trudging along very slowly.
Once again, priority has been given to economics and not to politics, and the plan for European integration appears to be nothing more than a regional version of globalisation of the economy.
Economics is what divides Europeans.
Politics and culture are what unite them.
Yet, the closer we get to political union, the further away it drifts from us.
It is, as I have already said, the modern version of the torment of Tantalus.
<P>
Economically speaking, I also believe that we are taking the wrong path by refusing to fight in the world economic war, by not accepting the principle of Community preference championed by Maurice Allais and which I have so often pleaded in favour of in this House.
<P>
I should like to conclude, Mr President, by returning to the main issue, to the primacy of politics over economics.
Eventually, Europe must learn to eat to live and stop living to eat.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rehder">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen - and let me give a warm welcome to our visitors from the Central and Eastern European countries in the gallery - what we are trying to achieve here in the European Union is basically not enlargement but the integration of the Central and Eastern European states, the integration of people who are of course Europeans and who have not so far been given the chance to join this Community.
<P>
So they are partners, with whom we are working together, and when we look at current developments in, for example, the field of trade, we find that here there is unfortunately a dramatic imbalance against the applicant countries and that we must ensure that this imbalance is corrected, since we can only be partners if we work together on an equal footing in this economic area as well.
<P>
The Polish President said something remarkable this morning, which is true for both sides: 'One does not refurbish the house merely because there are guests coming'.
That means that the European Union, the 15 Member States, must also do their own work first, especially in a sector that always tends to be pushed to one side, the agricultural sector.
Basically, the Central and Eastern European states find themselves in an absurd situation here.
On the one hand they are to adopt an acquis communautaire , the European Union rules, while on the other hand the European Union has not taken any major step forward in even formulating the agricultural reform, the new agricultural policy.
<P>
If we now take a critical look at ourselves, and if the pace at which the hard-baked representatives of the interests of the agricultural lobby are pursuing these vital reforms is to serve as a model for the Central and Eastern European states, it will take several decades before these states can become integrated.
That is another self-criticism we shall have to accept.
We must also take these representatives critically to task and say: if they do not want the reform of the common agricultural policy, then logically they do not want enlargement of the European Union either, or only enlargement on the medieval model, whereby these areas would merely be colonies, markets for selling our goods; that is not democratic enlargement.
<P>
Social policy plays an important role in this enlargement!
Here we must tell our partners clearly, and emphasise during the discussions, that at present every single Member State of the European Union is responsible for its social policy and that naturally those countries that want to join us will have to be responsible for their social policy, for instance their labour market policy.
That is not a disadvantage; basically it is also part of adopting the acquis communautaire .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Linser">
Mr President, 60 seconds of speaking time is not enough for a comprehensive analysis.
So I would like to concentrate on one aspect of the Barón Crespo report.
The rapporteur would also like to finance agricultural development measures out of PHARE funds.
Only recently, Parliament took some ECU 200 million from the PHARE programme for the 1999 financial year and allocated it to other areas of external relations.
Its reasoning was that the absorption capacity of the Central and Eastern European states was exhausted.
Is it not absurd to decide a few weeks later to give further PHARE support to the tune of ECU 1 560 million?
In the light of the irregularities that have occurred in connection with PHARE, I am against supporting agriculture in the Central and Eastern European countries with funds from that programme while EU farmers have to accept massive losses as a result of Agenda 2000.
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<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ettl">
Mr President, Commissioner, people can only say the kind of things the previous speaker has just said if they believe they can turn back the clock.
The European integration process is marching on, if not perhaps at the pace President Kwasniewski suggested here today. He beautifully described the dynamic of the Polish development process, and also said that Poland would probably no longer need any transitional periods.
I do not share his view.
I believe that Poland will certainly need transitional provisions with regard to economic and environmental matters, and not just concerning the free movement of workers.
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But I do not want to go into that any further at this point.
The fact is - and I am assuming that we all want this integration process - that the quality of the EU enlargement process very much depends of course on the quality of the preparations for it.
That is why it is extremely important to coordinate the aid and the structural policy instruments.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs was particularly concerned with social and employment policy questions.
We must firmly support social policy mainstreaming.
That is why it is so important not just to strengthen the administrative structures of the institutions, but also to promote the social dialogue.
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Here the aim is to develop, structure and support employer/worker relations in European policy.
That is the only way to make European policy at all meaningful and transposable.
The social partners are best able to do this.
The PHARE instruments, which are primarily designed to support institutional development, provide the framework conditions for promoting social dialogue in the appropriate manner.
Mrs Wulf-Mathies addressed this matter yesterday, when we were discussing the social dialogue in Europe, and Mr Flynn also underlined its importance.
If that applies in Europe, it also applies in the integration process.
That is why we must support the concept, and of course the further development of the social dialogue in the framework of enlargement.
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<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Pimenta">
Mr President, as a member of the European Parliament representing Portuguese voters, I should like to make three points very clear:
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we are in favour of the enlargement of the European Union and the negotiation procedure under way; -we are in favour of the institutional review that is needed to strengthen Europe internally and for its external representation and presence; -we are committed to the debate on Agenda 2000, the reform of the common agricultural policy, the new framework for the policy of cohesion and regional development, own resources, and so on.What we cannot accept is the attempt by some people, behind the scenes, to break off the contract of internal solidarity enabling the various European regions and countries - especially those with delays and development problems - to participate fully in the European project and to offer their peoples legitimate hopes of progress within a political and economic area without first-class citizens and second-class Europeans.
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I should also like to make it quite clear here and now that the amendments tabled by Mr Berend, calling into question the Cohesion Fund, will lead us down a slippery slope with very serious consequences.
There are many other points that we are hoping to clarify in the negotiations and they are negotiable; but this point is not negotiable.
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My country and other Member States have made an enormous effort and, against all the odds, they have succeeded in meeting the conditions for participating fully in the euro.
They cannot and must not be penalised and, in any case, that would violate the provisions in the treaties.
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We shall definitely be making our contribution towards financing enlargement.
What we cannot accept is that the poor countries will end up paying.
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<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Virgin">
Mr President, this debate is about what we in Europe can do to facilitate the enlargement process, which must be a burning issue for us all.
In a world once split by dissent, we now have a chance to demonstrate our capacity to overcome the difficulties as we contemplate a major political step.
The Sonneveld report clearly shows that substantial funding - ECU 3 billion per year in all - has been made available to help the applicant countries to make the necessary changes for future membership of the EU.
In my view, this is not a matter of 'pocket money', and I share the rapporteur's opinion that resources should continue to be concentrated on strategic actions.
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The resolution which will be discussed later today calls for an in-depth analysis of Europe's financial situation following the accession of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, so that we would then have a sound basis for a decision.
Nevertheless, I would like to highlight the dynamic effect that enlargement of the Union would have, and also my belief that the positive results would very quickly outweigh any budgetary effects.
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The Commission's proposal on agricultural reform, as set out in Agenda 2000, goes mainly in the right direction.
It should help to place the global market on a firmer footing and enable the EU's agricultural industry to play a more active role in the market.
As a result, enlargement would be made considerably easier and any negative budgetary consequences for the EU would not be overpowering.
The transitional arrangements will also facilitate the process.
Regardless of the problems we will encounter, it is vital that we never lose sight of the overriding goal of making Europe a better and more harmonious place by means of enlargement.
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<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papakyriazis">
Mr President, Europe's progress towards genuine integration, the enlargement with the accession of Cyprus and the eastern European countries, the one plus ten countries, is a historic decision which has been taken and is not questioned by anyone, always in accordance with the clear Copenhagen criteria in force.
This is no longer just a political aim to be achieved eventually, but a colossal enterprise which has already started and has a clear timetable.
I believe that the precise effect of today's debate on the Commission's proposals is:
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to prove that a decision of such historic scope can be achieved by a specific strategy, as complex and detailed as necessary but at the same time one which is cohesive, harmonious, and has clear mechanisms, procedures and legal bases; -to demonstrate that the European Parliament has powers and responsibilities in this great matter and aspires to exercise them.So: pre-accession aid for the applicant countries, enhanced where necessary, and in parallel internal reforms in the European Union.
That must be the European Parliament's message to the citizens of Europe 2000, the citizens of the 15 Member States and those of the one plus ten applicant countries.
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<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Friedrich">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, we find it unacceptable for the EU Commission, so far at least, to take it upon itself alone to define the eligible areas for regional and national funding too.
I was pleased to read in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung last week that you are prepared to meet us halfway here.
I would sincerely ask you actually to do so.
Countries like Germany and regions like Bavaria really must continue to be able to determine their own priority support areas in future too.
Amendment No 47 by Mr Schiedermeier calls for just that possibility, which is in our view quite self-evident, namely that we can determine our own priority support areas with our own money.
We cannot have our hands tied and not be able to allocate aid where we consider it necessary to do so, on the basis of our analysis, for the purposes of structural policy.
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The Commission must not be able to tie our hands here completely.
We are happy to show solidarity with the structurally weaker areas.
But in return we expect a minimum of solidarity with our problems, given that we are dealing here not with EU funds but with our own support funds.
I know the final decision on this has not yet been taken, but we want to make it clear here and now that we see a link between the reports being considered today and the ones that are still to come.
My CSU colleagues and I regard this aspect as so important that our vote on the Hatzidakis report will depend on whether Amendment No 47 is accepted.
Thank you for your attention, and let me point out that I have used ten seconds less than my speaking time.
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<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Piha">
Mr President, in creating the pre-accession aid programme for applicant countries the Council was aiming for a flexible system.
The varying backgrounds and needs of the applicant countries have to be taken into consideration when planning such aid programmes.
Already at this stage of the initial screening and negotiation process it has become clear that there is a need for investment under the PHARE programme in all countries concerned, particularly for 'institution building' in order to implement Community law and modernise the legal systems.
This will also have a multiplier effect on matters such as the rooting out of corruption and the fight against organised crime.
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While we are discussing whether the aid given by the European Union will prove to be adequate, it is worth remembering that the main force for change in the enlargement process is not and cannot be the Union's present bottomless purse but a natural desire on the part of the applicant countries to achieve the standards required for EU membership as quickly as possible.
The applicant countries must themselves finance most of the changes required. This is the only way we can both ensure we have the approval of the citizens of the present Union and guarantee the success of policy decisions taken with regard to the enlargement process as a whole.
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The aim of flexibility in pre-accession partnership also means that the Union needs new policy-making tools to increase cooperation with applicant countries, and one of the most significant elements here must be considered to be the Union's northern dimension, as presented at the Vienna Summit on the initiative of Finland.
Via this northern dimension cooperation networks could be established, for example, in the areas of environmental protection and nuclear safety with the Baltic States, and we would get Russia involved in large-scale regional security projects.
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<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Karamanou">
Mr President, the substance of our policy and the grandeur of the historic political enterprise which we call the European Union is expressed through the policy of economic and social cohesion, in other words through the practical expression of solidarity towards the less favoured countries.
The Union's political and economic interests make it necessary to outline a strategy which will create a climate of security and hope for all parts of the European continent, which will abolish the divisive lines of the past, and which will guarantee a decent life for all social groups and will in practice confirm the principles of European humanism and the values of peace, equality, democracy and solidarity.
Enlargement must come about with generosity and dignity, with planning and rapidity, with imagination and vision, with participation by the citizens and with care for the preservation and use of Europe's multicultural wealth.
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I wish to stress that any attempt to change course on the conditions for the accession of the Republic of Cyprus would call into question the Union's authority and credibility as a whole.
And when talking about enlargement, let us also not forget that the European continent includes all the countries between the Atlantic and the Urals without exception, if we really want to do away with the divisive lines of the past and build a united and strong Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a few days ago, official negotiations opened on the accession of six - or, as we keep saying, 5 + 1 - countries to the European Union.
We have completed seven chapters of the acquis screening.
We now know that considerable progress can be made in this area too if we work consistently.
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Let us perhaps look back a few years, or even longer.
We see that in those days, Europe was facing problems with dictatorial regimes, that we were at war, and that in founding the European Union we were endeavouring to establish a system of democracy, market economy and security in Europe.
I believe we must always regard these as the central aims.
The Pope did so during the visit to Vienna.
He said that we do not want enlargement of the Union - we are in fact Europe, and we should try constantly to move closer towards the same principles in a common Europe.
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I believe a comprehensive concept for the accession strategies is quite simply necessary in order to prepare the applicant countries for the single market and political union.
I myself am vice-chairman of the Slovakia/European Parliament delegation.
It has become particularly evident in the case of Slovakia that our policy has done much to change the system, that its positions are now clear, and that the country is also perfectly adapted to accession.
I believe we should make it quite clear, again and again, that we are not urging accession, but that the door to Europe stands open.
However, it is up to these countries themselves how quickly they can meet the conditions which are plainly set out before them.
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<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Lambrias">
Mr President, everyone accepts that enlargement is a historic challenge and a historic step.
However, this means that the European Union has many responsibilities to live up to, and I am sorry to have to stress that although all the reports by our colleagues on the eligibility of the various countries, one by one, speak of the conditions to be fulfilled by those countries, there is no mention of the fact that the European Union itself has obligations in the same parallel process, in other words the present 15 Member States must also fulfil their own obligations.
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The structure we wish to extend must have firm foundations and it must be functional.
But how can it be functional when at present, between Maastricht and the present day, the European Unions's most vital policy, the Common Foreign and Security Policy, has not only failed to be promoted but is being dangerously afflicted?
For example, in conflict with the European Union's commitments on the Cyprus question, a few days ago four Member States of the Union expressed views which are provocative towards another Member State.
What sort of example are we setting for the countries which we are inviting in and which we are even trying to help before their accession, when the European Union does not abide by its own basic policies and statutory obligations?
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<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
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The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
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<CHAPTER ID=12>
Structural Funds
<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=133 NAME="Hatzidakis">
Mr President, I want to begin by saying that although this concept has been much discussed already, we must return to it in today's debate and consider its importance.
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I refer to the concept of economic and social cohesion, which is directly related to the present debate.
Economic and social cohesion is one of the European Union's basic pillars and is directly related to the single market, and in my view, to the establishment of the single currency as well.
The single market could make rich areas richer and poor ones poorer under certain conditions, and that was why, as early as the 1980s, the then European Community correctly conceived the mechanisms of the Structural Funds so that weaker areas would be supported.
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The same applies to the single currency.
Coincidence of name is not enough to achieve the European Union's objectives and to establish a really strong euro.
There must also be real convergence and the economic and social cohesion policies contribute towards that.
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In that context, the Structural Funds play a very important part.
It would be unjust if I were now to try and decry the contribution they have made so far.
They have contributed substantially in all areas, regions and countries where they have provided help.
They have assisted convergence, vocational training and the education of the workforce, but of course there is always scope for them to help still more substantially.
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I now come to the heart of today's debate.
This review is taking place at a turning point which we identify with enlargement and with the next millennium.
Great care must therefore be taken to learn lessons from the past and to lay emphasis on certain sectors.
Clearly, the areas covered by the Structural Funds must be limited.
They cannot cover 52 % of the Union's population.
Emphasis should be placed on the poorer regions, on the problems of unemployment and equal opportunities, and of course, we will have to consider alternative methods of managing the Funds.
We will have to simplify the procedures and encourage greater participation by the private sector in the activities of the Structural Funds, because then, from the European Union's point of view, we could achieve much more with the same money.
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Beyond that, I wish to refer to some points in the report that Mrs McCarthy and I prepared, which I regard as particularly important.
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I think that Objective 1 must be the point on which the strongest emphasis is placed.
For that reason, we believe Objective 1 should receive exactly two-thirds of the resources.
Not approximately.
Just as we say that structural activities should take up 0.46 % of the resources, we should talk about the amount to be earmarked for Objective 1 with equal clarity.
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I also consider that the European Union's poorer areas, in other words those regions in which the per-capita GDP is below 70 % of the Community average, should be co-financed more extensively up to as much as 85 %, as happens now for example with the remotest peripheral regions.
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In the context of the Interreg initiative, I think it is important to have a special sub-programme for cooperation between islands and for cooperation between mainland regions and islands, to flesh out what we voted for in Amsterdam, in other words the amendment of the Treaty which provides special treatment for island regions.
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I also wish to stress that we oppose the Commission's proposal that there should be an effectiveness reserve amounting to something like 10 % of the resources.
That 10 % corresponds to ECU 20 billion, or an entire Cohesion Fund.
Consequently, we oppose that proposal.
It creates uncertainty in planning and enables the Commission to deal with a very large sum without accountability, and we therefore do not think that proposal by the Commission should go through. We also should not approve the Commission's proposal that unspent amounts should be given to other Member States two-plus-one years after they were first committed.
We consider that at least in the first phase they should be held for the same Member State.
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(The President cut the speaker off)
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<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="McCarthy">
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="Collins, Gerard">
Mr President, it is a great pleasure for me to present the report on the cohesion fund on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy.
Last March the Commission presented its proposals to Parliament for the next programming period running from 2000-2006.
These proposals are set out in a series of draft regulations and as far as the cohesion fund is concerned the Commission has tabled two sets of amendments.
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The first set concerns the articles of the regulation itself and the second set concerns Annex II to the regulation which sets out in detail the provisions for implementing the basic principles.
My report on the cohesion fund respects the main guidelines set out in the Commission's proposals and also welcomes the fact that the Commission fund will remain largely the same.
Eligibility for the cohesion fund as stated in the report will apply to Member States with a per capita GNP of less than 90 % of the Community average.
This is explicitly stated in Protocol 15 on economic and social cohesion of the Treaty.
It is my belief that despite the significant benefits that the cohesion countries receive from this fund and despite the strong economic growth of recent years there is still a significant infrastructural deficit in the cohesion countries.
These countries - Spain, Greece, Ireland and Portugal - simply do not have the same level of basic infrastructural facilities which typify the rest of Europe.
A gap still exists between them and the more developed regions of Europe.
The Commission's funding proposal is therefore consistent with generating long-term growth and promoting economic and social cohesion.
Continued EU funding is necessary to help consolidate the progress made so far.
The recognition of this by Agenda 2000 proposals is very welcome.
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Despite comments made in some quarters I categorically reject any link being made between economic and monetary union and the cohesion fund.
In fact, as Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs I participated in the negotiation and the signature of the Maastricht Treaty, which included the agreement on economic and monetary union.
At that time it had also been decided that Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Greece needed an increase in structural funding in order to help them catch up with the EU average economic performance.
No link whatsoever was made between monetary union and cohesion fund eligibility at that time and I do not see any reason to establish one now.
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Certain innovative measures contained in the Commission's proposals are in principle correct.
I welcome the Commission's efforts to improve the functioning of the fund.
However, the practical implementation of the new measure needs further clarification.
For example, the 'polluter pays' principle can be supported with a view to ensuring high environmental standards for projects. However, guidelines need to be set out for the application of this principle which should logically take into account the particular circumstances which exist in the four Member States to which the fund will apply.
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As far as project financing is concerned, a single advance of 10 % as a first payment is too limited.
The initial phase of a project is crucial from a qualitative point of view and a significant percentage of the total available money is generally necessary to guarantee the commencement of a project.
Moreover a small advance could lead to discrimination against regions which are unable to generate sufficient start-up financing from their own resources.
Even though I am extremely sensitive to the Commission's concern to keep the total cost of the plan and the annual breakdown in line with implementation on the one side and the progress of work in line with the advances paid on the other, I still consider that a 10 % advance is too limited and it would be too heavy a burden on less-favoured regions to support the initial phase of a project.
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In view of the difficulties encountered in the previous programming period with regard to financial corrections and, more precisely, reducing, suspending or cancelling aid in the event of an irregularity, it seems to me that the appropriate response is to reduce or cancel the advance only in respect of the irregularity and not the entire project.
Irregularities can easily be detected and corrected without interrupting the continuation of the project.
By the same token the principle of automatic cancellation of assistance, in other words the cancellation of any commitment for which a payment application has not been made by the end of the second year, should certainly encourage Member States to implement their projects within time limits.
However, the amount decommitted should be reassigned to the same Member State in order to penalise the region or, better still, just the project, but not the whole country.
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Finally, I wish to express my concern over the consequences of a strict application of the mid-term review as it stands in the proposal.
My report points out that if, at the time when the mid-term review is carried out, any Member State ceases to be eligible, it would be advisable to foresee some kind of an arrangement for phasing out, as is being actively considered with regard to the structural funds.
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The end of eligibility for the cohesion fund is obviously a matter which will be decided on the basis of the relevant statistics. However, sudden cessation of funding to a country which has made good use of the funds could have too severe an impact on the country's economic wellbeing.
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<SPEAKER ID=136 NAME="Varela Suanzes-Carpegna">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there is no doubt that today we are holding a joint debate of great importance.
As the democratic representatives of the citizens and peoples of Europe we are debating what should be the guidelines for the Commission's policy in Europe for the next seven years.
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I think that the European Parliament, and particularly its Committee on Regional Policy, has risen to the occasion.
Our contributions, which tomorrow will be taken on board by the entire Parliament, define and improve the Commission's proposals.
In this set of proposals, the ultimate regional financial instrument is the ERDF, which, under Article 130c of the Treaty, is assigned the role of redressing the main imbalances in the Community.
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The specific quality of the ERDF is the fact that it identifies with the central core of the cohesion policy, which, in the words of Article 130a of the Treaty, is aimed at reducing disparities between the levels of development of the various regions and the backwardness of the least favoured regions, which is why more than 50 % of funding for the cohesion policy between 1998 and 1999 has been made available through the ERDF.
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The Commission's proposal does not offer a great deal that is new to a Fund that is as broad and versatile as the ERDF and that, in addition, has generally worked very well.
Your rapporteur believes that the European Parliament has enriched the proposal, defining the priorities and adding different political connotations to the technical proposals, connotations that have come from the amendments of the different parliamentary groups and committees. Moreover, it gives the proposal as a whole a coherent structure that also, undoubtedly, identifies better with the problems that concern citizens and the less developed regions of Europe.
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The European Parliament report combines economic and social cohesion with European territorial cohesion by developing regional planning.
Regional planning means better communications, greater attractions for industry and greater opportunities for growth.
In short, it means more development, employment and welfare.
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Territorial cohesion means fighting to overcome the permanent geographical disadvantages of peripheral or island regions, and to promote the building of links among those regions and between them and the central regions of the Community.
The ERDF has an essential challenge in this field and, in order to promote the development of these backward and peripheral regions, the majority of which are maritime regions, the European Parliament is calling for the development of maritime transport, an issue that is unresolved in the Community. This would reduce congestion in land transport, help the environment, and thus contribute to the development of the backward regions.
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Our report also advocates the explicit inclusion of cultural investments that create employment, that tend to protect natural and cultural heritage, and those aimed at developing sustainable tourism, eco-tourism and cultural tourism.
It develops the Commission's proposal to explicitly include those investments that are aimed at preserving or recovering a region's industrial basis, or those specifically aimed at local development.
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Our report is in favour of maintaining the Community initiative URBAN, which, along with INTERREG, has clearly brought added value to the Community.
Support for Interreg has been unanimous and there are great hopes for Interreg III, both in its traditional field of cross-border cooperation, in which the European Parliament is now asking for the explicit inclusion of inter-island and maritime cooperation, and in its new section C on transnational cooperation between large regions of Europe - a field that is also very closely linked to regional planning.
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Finally, the report includes a broad development of specific business activities aimed at promoting small and medium-sized enterprises and cooperation between enterprises, services for enterprises, renewable energy sources and respect for the environment.
The Commission can say or will say that its proposal already enabled the Member States to include these and other aspects, but the European Parliament, through its various political tendencies, wanted these issues to be clearly specified. They could thus identify with the views of the citizens and peoples that we represent, guiding and also giving priority to the activities that in due course will have to be included in the programmes to be funded by the European Fund for Regional Development.
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Therefore, as well as having a good technical document, we now also have a good political document.
I think we have done a good job at first reading and I would like to conclude by thanking the Members in the various parliamentary groups and committees who, with their amendments, have contributed to enriching this report for which I had the honour of being rapporteur.
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I would like to end by mentioning the structural aspects of fisheries.
Today, I would particularly like to make my voice heard in this House - in order to represent the regions that are dependent on fisheries, whatever their aims - in strong support of the position widely held by the European Parliament's Committee on Fisheries on the future FIFG regulation.
I would like to highlight point 13 of the report on the general regulation and to ask why the fisheries sector does not receive the same treatment as agriculture.
Commissioner, the fisheries sector needs a serious, rigorous, single and horizontal structural regulation that covers all its measures and gives legal certainty to its potential beneficiaries.
I hope that you can do so in time and that you will rectify this and accept Parliament's position.
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<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="Kellett-Bowman">
Mr President, this is really a first-reading type debate under the Hughes procedure and I must say that I shall welcome the new rules for the Hughes procedure when they come about and hope that the second reading will be subject to them.
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I am presenting, on behalf of the Budgets Committee, one report and five opinions.
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The report is about new rules for financing the trans-European networks.
It is a rather technical report about the Commission finding more money to be available to fund the already agreed policies.
As I say, it is a technical report and it will be my intention to resist amendments which are about policy and not about the subject of the report.
We shall be voting on that tomorrow.
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It would take too long to list the five resolutions on which the Budgets Committee is offering an opinion in my name.
The objective in the Budgets Committee is not, in any way, to intervene in the policy arrangements of the spending committees. But as the Budgets Committee we are concerned by two things in particular.
One thing was referred to by the President of the Court of Auditors here yesterday. He said that for two years running the number of irregularities in the structural funds were growing at the same time as those in agriculture, which has long been a problem, were falling.
The other is the regular annual underspend of the regional funds.
So, we as a committee welcome the new rules being put forward in this way by the Commission.
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The amendments are to all five reports and are technical amendments.
They are in no way seeking to alter the policy-making processes of the spending committees.
The one exception might appear to be the Budgets Committee's support for the performance reserve.
Another name for the performance reserve is efficiency reserve.
Can you imagine the Budgets Committee being able to resist the idea of something called efficiency?
I know - because I am a member of that committee too - that the Regional Committee is seeking to promote the idea of the performance reserve.
However, if the Commission's proposals hold true, the Budgets Committee believes that we should be having proper financial rules to cover it.
In no way should the decision-making view of Parliament be by-passed by use of the performance review, although it is tempting for a budgets committee to find support for this.
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The amendments have not been welcomed in large sections of the House.
I think that is a great pity and I would invite Members to read them.
Any suggestion that we might be using the Financial Regulation should not raise hostility.
Any suggestion that we should follow the financial rules should not cause people to be greatly concerned but I do understand that there are several Members of the House who are worried about those and I would invite them to read those amendments before they come to vote tomorrow.
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<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="Jöns">
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, although the European Social Fund reform is much less controversial than the reform of the other funds, there are still problems associated with it.
The first thing to emphasise is that the Social Fund is the only labour market instrument we have at European level.
It also accounts for an impressive 10 % of the budget.
Precisely because it is our only instrument for supporting the European employment strategy, we absolutely have to whip it into shape for the big new challenges in labour market policy.
We must use it to open up new employment opportunities above all in the third sector, the non-profit-making sector.
By this I mean the environment, culture and social services.
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It is also necessary to use local employment initiatives to create more employment.
Over and above that, we should be using Social Fund support not only to develop new forms of work, but also to do more to test them.
This applies to two particular cases. Firstly, as regards women, we need to enhance the compatibility of family and working life.
Secondly, for older employees, we need to facilitate the transition from working life to retirement.
In future we also need to take greater care of a new problem group, workers in their mid-forties, who are generally the first in line to lose their jobs. Experience shows that regardless of age, doing a training course under the Social Fund increases a person's chances of finding a job by a third compared to someone in the same age group without this training.
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Another novelty is that whereas up to now, education measures were only possible in Objective 1 areas, in future they are to be promoted throughout the EU.
On this subject, I am very happy that yesterday the European People's Party was also able to agree to a compromise on this, which allows us to offer hundreds of thousands of young people in Europe the opportunity to improve their employment prospects through better education.
This point is particularly important to me because taking Portugal as an example, in that country alone 600 000 young people are profiting from education under the Social Fund.
In Spain the figure is 152 000. In Ireland, in the current promotion period alone, ECU 380 million has been deployed for education under the Social Fund.
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But it is not only poor Member States that need this assistance.
The United Kingdom, France and Italy have all implemented appropriate measures as well.
Dear colleagues from the PPE, that is why it is a good thing that you agreed at the last minute.
These are new priorities for assistance that have the support of all groups.
But there are also two PPE amendments which the committee has already rejected, and which my group certainly cannot support.
Opinions diverge fundamentally on a preventive labour market policy and, unsurprisingly, on assistance for women.
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Now to begin with the first contentious issue, which is the expenditure of 15 % of Social Fund resources on a preventive labour market policy in Member States.
This policy approach was introduced so successfully to Europe in 1994 by the Social Fund, that it quite naturally found its way into the Luxembourg Employment Guidelines, which is why I cannot for the life of me understand why you are against it now.
The present division of funds between Objectives 3 and 4 is already quite similar.
The present ratio between the resources for fighting long-term unemployment and for measures to facilitate the adaptation to industrial change is 80: 20.
<P>
Turning now to the second controversial issue, everyone here knows that mainstreaming for women is not enough to reduce the discrimination against them in the labour market.
If we really want to make progress in realising equal opportunities, then here too Europe must adopt a pacesetting role and make 50 % of the Social Fund resources available for very specific additional measures to assist women.
Anyway, I hope that by tomorrow, my dear colleagues in the PPE, you will have come to your senses on this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="Arias Caete">
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, in 1994 fisheries became a part of the Structural Funds for the first time and the financial instrument for fisheries guidance (FIFG) was set up. The main objective of this instrument was to reorganise the chaotic situation that existed up until then in terms of the system of funding for the fisheries structural policy, which involved, on the one hand, the Structural Funds, and on the other hand, an instrument called the European Fisheries Guidance Fund.
<P>
This situation involved serious management problems, administrative inflexibility, a lack of coherence and a lack of transparency.
The idea was to find a new and different way of dealing with the issue of funding measures related to the fisheries structural policy by simplifying instruments in order to overcome the flaws evident in the previous system.
<P>
The 1994 reform covered all the areas of the European Union dependent on fishing as it was in the form of a common policy.
In addition, as part of this reform, Community initiatives appeared for the first time.
Among them was the Fisheries Initiative, which was set up to complement the Structural Funds.
<P>
It seems, however, that the Commission has now forgotten the reasons that led it to make that reform. With the model it is currently proposing we are in danger of going back to absolute chaos in the fisheries structural policy, as well as the lack of coherence that the Commission is presenting us with in its proposal for a new regulation.
<P>
The Commission's proposal does not move further along the path taken with the 1994 reform.
It is incomprehensible that we should be presented with a document in which details are not even given of the measures to be taken and in which structural action in the fisheries sector is not clearly expressed.
The result of this shortcoming is that instead of the fisheries sector, it is the Commission that is benefiting from extending its discretion in an unthinkable manner in other sectors, such as agriculture or rural development.
Perhaps the fisheries policy is not such a common policy as the agricultural policy?
<P>
What Parliament is proposing in view of the lack of coherence, the contradictions and the discriminations that we find in the Commission's proposal, is something as simple as a single legal framework, a horizontal regulation within the framework of national programmes with the aim of maintaining the coherence necessary to fulfil the objectives of the common fisheries policy.
We are proposing a document that is the result of reorganizing and simplifying all the instruments available for structural measures in the fisheries sector, and that covers all the regions that are dependent on fisheries.
<P>
This more pragmatic approach would enable us, on one hand, to cover all the structural measures and, on the other hand, to cover all the regions that really need those measures to be implemented, disposing of ideas such as that introduced by the Commission of selecting areas for the new Objective 2 on the basis of employment criteria and not of fishing activity.
This would inevitably cause a significant distortion as it is forgetting the ultimate reason for the fisheries structural policy, that it should be aimed at regions that are dependent on fisheries, and not exclusively at regions with employment problems in the fisheries sector.
These are completely different concepts that should not be confused.
To this I should add that, in general, regions that are dependent on fisheries do not have a particularly high level of unemployment.
Usually, the problems in those areas are of a different order.
<P>
The regulation would enable the fisheries sector to have its own structural policy so that it might maintain its competitiveness, and would enable the Member States to resolve internal issues, taking into account the particular characteristics of various sectors.
<P>
In addition, this system would mean that there could be considerable simplification in terms of programming, as many existing regulations that are complicated, and at times inconsistent with each other, would disappear.
<P>
In short, we need to establish a single legal framework that brings together all the Community regulations on fisheries and that includes all the measures on modernising and renewing fleets, joint ventures, processing and marketing, socio-economic measures, aquaculture, etcetera.
In short, we need measures that enable the fleet to maintain its competitiveness in an open global market.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, we have to prevent the achievements made so far from being lost through an incoherent reform that would lead us into a chaotic and obsolete situation.
We must not forget the achievement that meant that the Edinburgh European Council adopted the decision to consider structural action in the fisheries sector within the framework of the Structural Funds.
With the proposal that the Commission is presenting we have an alternative that goes against this decision by trying to take part of the structural action out of the Structural Funds to the detriment of the European fisheries sector.
<P>
I would like to conclude by briefly referring to the Cohesion Fund, stressing - like Mr Collins - that the only reason for the Cohesion Fund is to contribute to strengthening economic and social cohesion, not to constitute a nominal convergence instrument in order to fulfil the requirements for joining the single currency.
It is always a final instrument, linked solely to the objective of cohesion and regulated in the final cohesion policy title and not by the Economic and Monetary Union title.
For this reason, I fully support Mr Collins' suggestions and the Commission's proposals, which we believe are the only ones that fully comply with the spirit of the Treaty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Berend">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioners, firstly on behalf of my group, I should like to thank all the rapporteurs for their reports on the Structural Funds, and if I single out Mrs McCarthy and Mr Hatzidakis by name, then it is only because they have done the lion's share of the work.
<P>
If European regional policy is to remain effective we must confine ourselves to the main tasks.
The objective is to help the regions that have economic problems, which is why we would approve the idea proposed by the Commission of concentrating assistance on the regions which lag behind in development, namely the Objective 1 regions. From a geographical point of view also, Objective 1 regions should receive assistance amounting to exactly two thirds of Structural Fund resources.
<P>
We urge strongly that the choice of the Objective 1 regions should in future be based on the strict application of the criterion of a regional GDP per capita which is less than 75 % of the Community average.
For us this is a very important yardstick that is significant for the overall evaluation of the report.
<P>
I would draw your attention to the fact that those who advocate flexibility on this issue are jeopardising the common consensus and preventing a reform of the Structural Funds as a whole.
At the same time, however, I would urge the Commission to see to it that Objective 1 regions are treated equally when resources are distributed.
In view of the regional slant of Objective 1, I do not think that we can guarantee equal treatment by considering the national criterion of prosperity in determining the amount of resources to be allocated.
We therefore explicitly reject this on the grounds that it would create a new type of unfairness.
<P>
As far as the Cohesion Fund is concerned, the opinion of my group is divided.
Some of the group, mostly Members from southern European countries, are in favour of what the rapporteur and the Commission propose, which is a continuation of the Cohesion Fund in its present form.
Others, including myself, consider that the Cohesion Fund has already achieved its most important goal as far as the countries participating in Economic and Monetary Union are concerned, by significantly helping to bring about nominal convergence.
In our opinion there is therefore no reason for it to continue to exist in its present form.
This kind of European assistance consists of temporary measures and should not be considered a permanent acquisition after its aim has been achieved. This issue is fundamental for a society based on solidarity.
Solidarity is not just a one-way street; it is not just about taking, but must be based on the understanding that there is both give and take. Otherwise, this solidarity that we all emphatically support will be a very one-sided burden.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Vallvé">
Mr President, Commissioner, the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party would like to express its support for the principle of strengthening economic and social cohesion in all the territories, all the states and all the regions of the European Union.
We would like to affirm the need to maintain the level of 0.46 % of gross domestic product for the Structural Funds.
<P>
We are in a period when the European Union is enlarging and we will have to bear the costs of this.
In order to do so, we are relying on the economic growth of the Union.
The main objective of the Structural Funds, along with economic and social cohesion, must be to encourage job creation through the promotion of small and medium-sized enterprises.
<P>
In the Commission's document we support the concentration of the Structural Funds with the aim of making them more efficient, and we also agree with the simplification of procedures in order to bring more transparency to the management of the Funds.
We support the principle of subsidiarity and the recognition of the important role played by regional and local authorities, especially the authorities in those Member States where the regions also have legislative powers.
We are in favour of consulting civil society and non-governmental organisations in drawing up the programmes.
We are also in favour of decentralising the management of the Funds and making it more flexible, but we know that this means strengthening the control mechanisms in order to guarantee that the Funds are used appropriately.
<P>
We support, too, the reduction in the number of objectives from seven to three and we believe it is necessary to make State aid, as established by Article 92(3)(c) of the Treaty, compatible with the Structural Funds, especially in Objective 2 regions where the two types of aid need to be compatible.
<P>
We must also highlight - and I said this a few times in committee, Commissioner - the problem of rural areas, and in those areas unemployment and population decline must be looked on as important factors.
We support the Commission's approach with regard to the phasing-out system.
We also support the reduction in Community initiatives and would like to highlight the important role of Interreg in cross-border cooperation, which brings a truly European dimension to the initiative. In addition, its action involving the candidate countries must be strengthened.
<P>
Our group unreservedly supports the establishment of a percentage for performance, and a reserve percentage for each objective and in each Member State in order to encourage greater efficiency in its application.
<P>
We believe, Commissioner, that the reserve fund is a good idea that should be supported.
We can discuss the percentage, but we think that it is important that it be implemented.
<P>
Finally, we also support the Cohesion Fund for Member States whose gross domestic product is less than 90 % of the Community average.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Baggioni">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the McCarthy-Hatzidakis report quite rightly welcomes the Commission's extremely valid objective of simplifying standards in terms of structural policy.
<P>
Parliament has a duty to draw the attention of the Commission and the Council to the need to closely link the aim of economic and social cohesion to that of cohesion in the European area, which is clearly expressed in the Varela report.
<P>
As well as the terrestrial aspects of the Union, we must also take the maritime aspects into account and then provide an adequate response to the specific needs of the island, peripheral or landlocked regions.
We should not allow Europe to let its peripheral regions crumble.
This is unfortunately the risk which these regions run, given the socio-economic data which is typical of these areas and the economic trends of the European market, mainly based around the London-Paris-Bonn axes.
<P>
As strict as it may be, the definition of the new Objective 1 in the report on general provisions, by tolerating limited exceptions, gives Member States the opportunity to improve the coherence of national zoning as the procedure is transparent and the list of eligible regions is annexed to the regulation.
Therefore, the obstacles which impede the economic and social development of regions suffering permanent structural handicaps would be taken into consideration as a priority objective of the Structural Funds.
I am also pleased to note that the report on general provisions provides for a special Interreg strand, dedicated to regional cooperation with and between the island regions. This fulfils the Commission's commitment which, until now, has been without any follow-up.
<P>
Finally, I believe it is important to compensate for the absence of Commission proposals on the relations between the Structural Funds and the draft development plan for the Community area.
To this end, I would like to ask that we support the two amendments which we tabled to the McCarthy-Hatzidakis report, so that the framework regulation does not disregard the efforts made to develop a coherent strategy for planning the European area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Novo">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the central question in the report on the Structural Funds is whether or not the European Parliament approves of reducing the financial resources earmarked from 0.6 % of Community GNP to 0.34 % in the next Community support framework.
Whoever agrees with that reduction, tantamount to a reduction in the Structural Funds - which would lose my country hundreds of billions of escudos - will be voting for the report.
Whoever thinks that it should not be for the current cohesion countries alone to finance EU enlargement will be voting against it.
That is what we shall be doing unless the European Parliament approves amendments aimed at rejecting that move.
<P>
The essence of the report will not be hidden by its somewhat positive aspects. These positive elements include the vehement objections to the creation of a reserve, supposedly for reasons of effectiveness, the point that the Commission's guidelines for structural actions should only be indicative of the allocation of two thirds of the appropriations to Objective 1, or the restoration of the URBAN initiative.
<P>
The report on the Cohesion Fund, on the other hand, is in keeping with what the Treaty on European Union already provides for legally and what Agenda 2000 only confirms. In other words, all countries with a GNP lower than 90 % of the Community average should benefit from the Cohesion Fund, whether or not they belong to the group of countries participating in the single currency.
<P>
On the other hand, in line with what we have always contended, the report opposes the idea that the Cohesion Fund should be conditional, as the Commission proposes, on meeting the requirements of the Stability Pact.
<P>
We hope that the content of this report will not be radically altered by the amendments tabled by Mr Walter and Mr Berend, from the Socialist Group and the Group of the European People's Party.
They reveal a total lack of solidarity with the current cohesion countries and are aimed at preventing countries that form part of EMU, such as Portugal, to mention just one, from continuing to benefit from the Cohesion Fund.
<P>
Finally, the continuity of the Cohesion Fund for these countries cannot be used to exert extra pressure, as Mr Berend is now doing, nor should it be used to conceal possible or real losses in the Structural Fund, since that Fund is, in principle, laid down in the Treaty and is even one of the rare positive elements included in Agenda 2000.
<P>
Having said this, we shall go along with the remaining reports as a whole in that they involve essentially operational regulations.
As for the FIFG, we support the strategy of the report aimed at unifying regulations on activities in this sector, but we do not feel it necessary or even appropriate to present such a complete document at this stage as, for that very reason, we have not been able to sufficiently discuss all its implications.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, you will be amazed that I of all people am the first and only one here to observe that the Commission proposal is quite balanced, considering the tight financial framework.
It makes sense to concentrate resources on the weakest regions.
The Greens support the Commission proposals, even though we must of course observe that the Commission did not show any internal flexibility concerning the limits on resources in its own sectors, nor was it able to develop coherent structures.
<P>
I must simply say that there is no uniform structure for assisting the rural area, and no attempt is made to find a solution to the problems of European regions which share borders with the applicant countries. In other words, there is no attempt to establish the possibility of cross-border assistance in these regions.
The common fund is the only useful solution and the Commission has still done nothing in that regard.
<P>
It is of course undeniable that progress has been made.
Most importantly, in the Structural Fund Regulation, we have finally been able to introduce sustainable development as the central objective.
The economy, ecology and social security need to be re-balanced once again if regions are not to stay connected to the drip forever but instead to undergo stable development.
Of course, for this type of stability, the participation of the local and regional players and social groups is crucial.
<P>
The Structural Funds have this democratic approach.
Parliament has put forward some crucial improvements in the Committee on Regional Policy, which could allow the social players a decisive say in drafting the plans.
Unfortunately 'could' is about as far as we will get, because everyone knows that the new legal basis comes much too late as the plans were ready long ago.
That is why today, Commissioner, I expect you to give us some idea as to how, in view of this dilemma, enough time can be found for the democratic participation stipulated in the Structural Fund Regulation.
<P>
In conclusion, it makes no sense for us to push through old claims of entitlement here, as though this were some kind of fair.
The Structural Funds are not akin to a shop that is there to serve Member States.
We are called upon to support the German Government's plan to conclude the Agenda 2000 package in March.
It really is the last possible opportunity for us to grant regions assistance in January.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Escola Hernando">
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="Nicholson">
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating all the rapporteurs on the reports presented to us today.
There is little doubt that Structural Funds have delivered very worthwhile support to peripheral and poor regions in many parts of the European Union for many years.
We are now at a stage where they need to be reformed.
They have been extremely successful and many projects have gone forward which would otherwise never have got off the ground.
<P>
European Union support for my own area through difficult and dangerous times gave us hope for a better tomorrow and helped us to maintain our position for almost 30 years.
<P>
I understand why there has to be a 75 % benchmark. I must say to the Commission that we need a degree of flexibility to ensure that special areas will continue to receive support.
For me, coming from Northern Ireland, to remove Objective 1 would send the wrong message at an extremely important and crucial time.
<P>
Parliament's report is balanced, responsible and realistic.
It offers a possibility of a better proposal than exists at present.
<P>
I agree with the performance reserve in principle but it is too high: it should be no more than 4 or 5 %.
There are not enough European lead projects. I would like to see the Urban programme and other European-led initiatives - five, six at the most - remain so that the people can see that this comes from the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Blot">
Mr President, I will begin with recital C of the report, which specifies that the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund are the principal instruments of economic and social cohesion in Europe.
Of course, it would have been useful to distinguish more clearly between cohesion between the various Member States and cohesion within the states themselves, especially cohesion between rural and urban areas.
On this first point, namely cohesion between Member States, it is difficult not to think along the same lines as the rapporteurs, given that the high number of appropriations allocated to some Member States is necessary for the sake of efficiency.
Nonetheless, we should not forget the need for cross-border cohesion, as there is still a great deal to be done in this field.
Appropriations for such cross-border cohesion should not be used to bear the costs of adjusting to new objectives.
Indeed, in relation to this, there is a most welcome mention of the Interreg programmes on page 14.
<P>
As regards the internal cohesion of Member States, which is perhaps discussed less, I believe this to be extremely important as cohesion between rural and urban areas is vital in the stages of development that we are currently experiencing, and which are generally detrimental to rural areas.
Objective 5b will disappear, which is indeed regrettable and there is a danger that this may lead to disinvestment in rural areas. Examples of this are north-western Alsace, a region I know well, the Vosges massif and the Sundgau region.
We are also unwittingly promoting the urbanisation of less-favoured regions.
It would be worth knowing what percentage of funds were awarded to urban and rural areas, taking all funds into account.
The Social Fund, for example, or industrial conversion funds, are mainly paid to towns.
I approve wholeheartedly of the rapporteurs' paragraph 3 which quite rightly suggests that separate treatment is needed for the coherent development of the rural area under Objective 2.
I hope that this request will later be acknowledged and that rural areas will not bear the costs of restructuring funds, as is currently the case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldarelli">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as a Parliament we want single programming for the fisheries sector.
The Commission's proposal closely resembles the fragmentation theory: in substance it seeks to divide the sector along existing territorial lines and abandons the option of unitary management for the European Regional Development Fund, the European Investment Fund, the European Guarantee Fund and the European Social Fund.
<P>
We want single programming because we do not think there should be territorial discrimination in fisheries, and we are convinced this can come about through a regulation capable of achieving single programming of actions in the fisheries sector, covering Objective 1, Objective 2 and areas outside Objectives 1 and 2.
Unless there is unitary action, there will be the risk of discrimination.
That is why we are committed to putting forward a serious and rigorous regulation, anticipating the Commission proposal.
That is why we have looked at fisheries not just from an exclusively production and market angle, but taking account of environmental issues, social issues and the revival of sector-linked economic and social activity as well as thinking about the market.
We have also considered the possibility of establishing mixed companies involving third countries, taking maximum advantage of NGOs and small-scale fishing.
<P>
In short, ours is a serious, precise and timely proposal, and we would have hoped the Commission would naturally incorporate it.
In fact the Commission is taking its time, but we are pleased that in some respects the Fisheries Council is fairly consistent with Parliament's position, and we are also aware that the Commission is going to propose a regulation which does take account of Parliament's own proposals, opportunely backed by the Fisheries Council.
For this reason the possibility of two readings, approving this proposal for a regulation today and then approving the legislative resolution in April, when we assess the Commission's new proposal, will allow us to give the fisheries sector a single answer and single treatment, avoiding discrimination which would certainly be negative.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Glase">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as Mrs Jöns, the rapporteur, has already explained, her report is about the organisation of ESF content.
Important things are to be settled in the framework regulation as it is still unclear whether or not certain points are going to be included in the text of the ESF Regulation.
These delimitation problems should not arise in future.
With regard to organisation, there were at first considerable differences of opinion between my group and the Socialists.
As a result of many constructive discussions and rounds of negotiation continuing through into yesterday afternoon, we managed to reach some compromises.
<P>
I should like to express my respect for the rapporteur and thank her for being prepared to enter into discussion with me. I should particularly like to thank her for the commitment she has shown.
We agree on the basic direction to be taken.
The ESF is the structural policy instrument for fighting unemployment, and this in turn is the best social policy.
Unemployment is the biggest economic problem we have, and the biggest problem for social policy.
ESF resources are in short supply, and we must bear this in mind when considering the compromises that have materialised.
This is the message for the Commission regarding the implementation of the text.
It is also because of this that education is not itself one of the fields of ESF intervention, although of course it is a prerequisite for employability and for a culture of lifelong learning.
<P>
Of course Europe should also play its part.
But on the basis of experience garnered from the last few programming periods, we have agreed not to just use the word concentration because it sounds good, but also to implement it rigorously.
This is also true when it comes to the application of the ESF resources, where we want concentration on actively combatting unemployment.
In this process, we should be guided by the employment guidelines at all levels.
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="President">
I have to be strict, in view of the number of speakers.
So just a few words to finish, please, in 30 seconds.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Glase">
In conclusion, allow me to cite the rapporteur in this regard: 'In future the ESF is to support the European employment strategy and the multiannual national action plans for employment set up within the framework of this strategy.'
I support this completely.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 NAME="Teverson (ELDR)">
Mr President, firstly I should like to congratulate the Commissioner on putting together a proposal which is generally uncontentious among the 15 Member States and on all sides of this Parliament.
That is no mean feat.
I want to focus on three specific areas: timetables, the criteria for Objective 2 and access to funds.
<P>
Firstly, on timetables, we have just had an informal summit on bringing Europe closer to the citizen.
One of the key issues with structural funding is making sure that we deliver regional and structural funding on time.
This is one of the key areas where the European Union has credibility.
Of course we have to complete the rest of Agenda 2000 as well but we have to be there for the March Summit.
<P>
The other thing I would say is that there will be a huge bottleneck at the beginning of year 2000, making it difficult to get these programmes approved.
I should like to ask the Commissioner how she intends to deal with the almost impossible task for her staff of approving SPDs and CSFs in time to get those programmes rolling.
<P>
Secondly, on criteria; in Objective 1 we have a very good and tight definition of who should qualify for Objective 1, based primarily on GDP.
Yet in Objective 2 GDP is not one of the criteria for qualifying.
Will the Commission accept GDP as one of the extra qualifying criteria for Objective 2?
It is the best poverty index so let us use it.
<P>
Thirdly, on access.
One of the things I hear most often from my constituents is how difficult it is to get hold of structural funding, in particular for small voluntary organisations or firms.
I know it is primarily a national problem, but how do we make sure that organisations can easily access European funding without being put off by the bureaucracy?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="Gallagher">
Mr President, at the outset I want to compliment Mr Arias Cañete on the presentation of his very fine report.
I pay tribute to all my colleagues on the Committee on Fisheries for presenting a set of very realistic proposals.
The 1994 reform ensured a common approach to all Union areas dependent on fisheries.
There are many such areas throughout the Union where there is no alternative source of employment.
<P>
These measures were complemented by the socio-economic measures of 1995, as I outlined in my report on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries.
The Edinburgh Summit did not endorse Parliament's proposal for a separate objective to deal with fishing.
However, it accepted the strong case made by Parliament by directing that appropriate funds be allocated to coastal regions dependent on fisheries.
This Commission proposal is a retrograde step and does nothing to improve the lot of the fishing communities.
<P>
The proposal is too general.
It leaves a vacuum to be filled not by this Parliament but by the Commission.
The Commission is hoping to obtain our imprimatur.
I suggest that we should not do this until we know the details.
Under the new proposals most of the fishing policy measures are to be finalised under the agricultural guarantees section.
I question the legitimacy of this section being used to fund structural measures.
The agricultural funds are apportioned on an annual basis while the fisheries funds are provided on a multiannual basis.
Even if we accept the principle of the Commission proposal, it must agree to ring-fence funds specifically for the fishing sector...
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sierra González">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to say that the provisional report on the Structural Funds regulation makes important advances - that we support - in strengthening the principal of cooperation by increasing the number of people who will be involved in preparing, implementing and monitoring the programmes.
The report also makes progress in enhancing transparency and in supporting peripheral, ultra-peripheral and island regions.
<P>
However, there are important aspects with which I am bound to disagree, such as the approval of the Commission's proposal that the resources destined for the Structural Funds should be fixed at 0.46 % of the European Union's annual gross national product.
There are plenty of reasons to fear that, whatever happens, this allocation will be insufficient to secure economic and social cohesion.
As a result, if this proposal is approved, inter-regional solidarity would be seriously damaged.
<P>
In addition, the report even contradicts itself.
It expresses an opinion against the establishment of the performance reserve proposed by the Commission, but it does not prevent those reserves from being set up: it only stipulates that the provision must be less than 10 %.
What is our decision?
Are we for or against the performance reserve?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="Ahern">
Mr President, I broadly welcome the Commission's proposals and would like to make some concrete points.
<P>
As Mr Collins has pointed out, cohesion funding should not be linked to monetary union.
The cohesion funds could usefully be transformed into a structural instrument not directly linked to the trans-European networks.
Here we have made a global amendment keeping the structural and cohesion funds in line with the agreed budgetary proposals of this House, as Mr Kellett-Bowman has indicated.
We are giving priority to rail infrastructure.
In my own country, Ireland, for instance, the railways are in a state of dangerous decay whilst most of the funding has gone to roads.
<P>
Our amendments also stress the importance of cross-border links.
I should like to ask the Commissioner to emphasise in her response the importance of the democratic involvement of local regions, particularly those local regions who are asking for Objective I status.
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="Ewing">
Mr President, my aim is to try and wring the heartstrings of the Commissioners and Members who are here and, hopefully their groups also, to support Amendment No 49, tabled in the name of my colleague Mr Escolá Hernando and 60 others, with the pledges of nearly 200 Members already, and Amendment No 85 in the name of Mr Miller with the signatures of nearly all the British Labour Members.
<P>
They bring in the concept of remoteness and low population density.
The Highlands and Islands of Scotland are certainly remote and have a low population density of 8.9, as probably everybody knows by now.
The GDP is 76 % of the average according to my information at the moment.
<P>
There are two points I would like to refer to: one was made by one of the government Ministers to me recently, Gus MacDonald, who admits that but for the wages of all the oil rig workers - of whom very few come from my area - we would be well under 75 %, and I think it is a very unfair situation.
<P>
We are the land of whisky, but although the British treasury gets billions from that, we do not get very much in the way of financial benefit.
<P>
My constituency is often described as the last wilderness of Europe.
It is a man-made wilderness.
It was created by genocide.
We peopled the lands of Canada because we were cleared out in favour of sheep, which were more profitable.
<P>
The Commission has done a marvellous job of supporting the Highlands and Islands.
We have taken full advantage of it.
We have spent the money wisely, as the Commission must admit. But you cannot expect 150 years of neglect and oppression to be cured in five.
It would be ironic if, just when the work of the Commission has enabled us to halt, for the first time, the drain of our brightest and best young people away from the Highlands and Islands, it suddenly came to a stop because of the infrastructure.
There are still single track roads in much of my area, with 50 miles to a petrol pump.
When you get there you find the petrol is the most expensive in the whole of the EU.
A hundred miles to a hospital - one could go on indefinitely.
And the weather - I am sure you all sympathise with that.
We even had a visit from hurricane Mitch - the only bit of Europe to get it - at 240 kilometres an hour over my area.
We have sub-Arctic temperatures in the winter.
For two-thirds of the year all surfaces are damp, houses have to be strong, the cost of distance is enormous.
There are 90 inhabited islands - longer than England, bigger than Belgium or Denmark - and the costs of that peripherality are enormous.
I am trying to wring the heartstrings of everyone.
Make a note now for your coordinators: Amendments Nos 49 and 85, please.
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<SPEAKER ID=157 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, the Arias Cañete report is an excellent step.
Along with Mrs Fraga's and my own opinions on regional policy and rural development, it displays a great deal of determination and widespread agreement in the views of the three committees on Regional Policy, Agriculture and Rural Development, and Fisheries. There is widespread agreement on the need to maintain a substantial CFP, based on significant structural measures which apply to Community territory as a whole and which affect fisheries, marine cultivations, aquaculture - including inland aquaculture - and activities further on in the chain such as processing and marketing.
<P>
The unanimous position of the Committee on Fisheries, adopted after consultation with fisheries representatives in the Member States, should have attracted the attention of the Commission, and especially that of Commissioner Bonino.
In the opinion I drafted on the 'Agenda 2000' communication, also adopted unanimously by the Committee on Fisheries, we had already warned the European Commission that the whole fisheries sector was in danger of experiencing intra-Community relocation. Such relocation would take place if the Commission's original intentions - which would have created distortions - were not modified by implementing a regulation which accepts that the whole of the Union's territory is eligible for structural measures.
<P>
In the field of agriculture, a specific regulation on rural development has been drawn up.
We have scrupulously monitored it to ensure that it applies to all of the Union's territory in order to preserve equity when applying the CAP.
Why has the same thing not happened in the fisheries sector since it, like agriculture, has its own common policy?
<P>
So what will remain of the CFP, as there is no overall horizontal regulation bringing together all structural measures which apply to the fisheries sector throughout Union's territory and there is no regulation which is financed by an single instrument adapted to the needs of this sector?
All that will be left is a bundle of different restrictions, fleet reduction measures and some stopgap measures, remnants that are certainly not worthy of being called a common policy.
We do not expect the policy to be abandoned, but we expect a far-reaching and forward-thinking policy to be developed which will take into account the maritime dimension of the Union, one of its most essential characteristics.
Mr President, the amendments tabled by our group reflect this aim.
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<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Cellai">
Mr President, the Alleanza Nazionale delegation does not believe the objective of strengthening economic and social cohesion can ignore special situations involving structural handicaps, as in the case of island regions.
Islands suffer from structural disadvantages which have long-term negative effects on their economic and social development, and there are many islands among the territories to be excluded from Objective 1 programmes.
This means island territories will be dealt with on a par with regions which do not need special structural aid.
That is a contradiction in terms.
The new regulation cannot ignore the precepts of the new Treaty of Amsterdam which recognises and emphasises special features in Article 130a and the statement on the islands.
So there ought to be a category for islands in Objective 1, applying greater flexibility to the GDP parameters.
This is because careful and conscientious examination of the situation should make it clear that macro-economic issues are not the only ones; above all there are geo-economic issues involved.
<P>
On Objective 2, we note that the Commission's proposal to apply a certain population ceiling to the various Member States may penalise some regions in comparison with others.
In Italy the Commission's proposal to include regions leaving Objective 1 in Objective 2 would penalise the centre-north regions.
Instead the concentration of the Structural Funds by reducing the population assisted ought to be balanced and equitably distributed between all the Member States.
<P>
As regards transitional support, we think the period should be seven years for regions leaving Objectives 1, 2 and 5b.
We are not asking for greater allocation of resources to regions in this group, only Structural Fund intervention for the whole of the programming period.
I should specify that one Italian region, Abruzzo, ought to be able to benefit from transitional support despite the fact that it came out of Objective 1 in 1996, otherwise its inclusion in Objective 2 must be regarded as further penalisation of the centre-north.
<P>
Finally, we agree on the reduction in the number of Community initiatives from thirteen to three, but we think it is essential to maintain the URBAN initiative in order to implement a homogeneous policy throughout the territory.
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<SPEAKER ID=159 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fayot">
Mr President, the Interreg, URBAN and Leader initiatives are breeding grounds for social and economic innovation which we must preserve at all costs.
Interreg will encourage cross-border development of European territory.
This affects not only the peripheral regions but also the very heart of Europe.
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Whilst we are on the subject of the heart of Europe, have you ever travelled by train between Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg?
The trains are slow, uncomfortable, often late, and so on.
However, the train is the ideal way to travel such distances and also the most ecological way to do so.
What should be a symbolic journey - travelling on the train of the future to the heart of Europe - happens on a rickety and wheezing machine from a bygone era.
<P>
And that brings me to Interreg.
Something that should feed and open up regions - such as the Walloon, Lorraine and Luxembourg regions - across borders is a train that has not progressed in the past hundred years.
Something that should contribute to developing cross-border regions is out of date.
Mr President, we must make a serious effort to look after cross-border regions such as those I have mentioned, regions which ask nothing more than to be integrated and to develop.
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<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Mr President, I hope that you will not need to watch the clock while I am speaking.
This morning we have already heard a great deal on the subject of enlargement.
We have also talked about how this has to do with more than just making use of a historical opportunity, as we have to do a great deal before we can actually use this chance.
We have discussed pre-accession strategies in the applicant countries, which involve driving forward as intensively as possible the process of economic and political accession to a common Europe.
<P>
But although we have a great deal to do in the candidate countries, there is also homework to be done here.
We often talk for instance about the need for institutional reforms.
This is an important issue but it is not the only one.
For example, there is much potential here for economic restructuring in order to safeguard our own chances for the future.
In this regard, I think that there is one important key idea. Austria, the country which probably shares one of the longest external borders with the candidate countries, is justifiably interested in ensuring that the crossing and opening of the common border is organised in such a way as to bring advantage to both sides and harm to neither.
<P>
The long discussions in the Committee on Regional Policy have achieved a great deal.
I would particularly like to thank the Regional Affairs Commissioner, Mrs Wulf-Mathies.
Yesterday evening during Question Time, we touched on this subject briefly, and today all sides of the House have rightly emphasised this willingness to cooperate.
It has led to some fine results, but a little bit more could still be achieved.
<P>
More could and should be achieved, given that the money is guaranteed and there are many good ideas from the regions.
We should not always be waiting for Europe to lead the way; we must take things in hand ourselves.
On this subject, although in essence we fully approve and support the content of the Commission proposals, we would perhaps have liked to have seen one or two things treated differently.
Perhaps also a separate Objective for rural areas would have been good, although we are satisfied knowing that the rural area can be suitably safeguarded by specifying percentages of the population.
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For the next few years and for the transition period the phasing-out rules are particularly important, as is a long phasing-out period for areas which will no longer be eligible for assistance under the future criteria because they no longer need it.
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<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ryynänen">
Mr President, I wholeheartedly agree with the key aims of the Structural Fund reforms on improving the focussing and effectiveness of aid, pruning bureaucracy and simplifying administration.
I also believe it is now essential to ensure that this more transparent policy is put into practice.
In applying the principle of partnership a clear division of responsibility must be established and the decision-making process must not be allowed to be hampered, but we have to approach the question of listening and commitment on the part of the various parties flexibly.
<P>
I support the Commission's proposal on eligibility criteria and funding contributions for Objective 1.
The poorest regions must be included in the group receiving the highest amounts of aid, that is to say the under-75 %-GNP regions, as well as the current northern and sparsely populated Objective 6 regions, as already agreed in the accession negotiations.
Regarding the Objective 2 criteria and the issue of population density I would hope for some flexibility according to circumstances.
For example, in Finland, Europe's most rural country, the hardships of farming in a northern climate and the long distances that people have to travel underline the need for an effective agricultural policy.
Unemployment and mass migration from the countryside demonstrate the need for development aid measures.
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<SPEAKER ID=162 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Girão Pereira">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the first report on cohesion reveals to what extent the structural policies have had a strong levelling off effect.
In particular, the Cohesion Fund has played a fundamental role in achieving convergence among the Member States, although some of them still have not reached the level of 90 % of the average GNP in the EU.
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It is a fact that, in some cohesion countries, there is still a considerable deficit in terms of infrastructure.
The conflict between the need to invest in these infrastructures and the need to make budgetary cuts, for countries taking part and not taking part in the euro, justifies the maintenance of the Fund.
<P>
On the other hand, the Cohesion Fund is fundamental for sustainable development in environmental terms, as was stipulated in the Amsterdam Treaty.
Therefore, we welcome the Commission's decision to maintain the fund, despite the fact that these countries are joining the euro.
It would be unfair for the poorest countries, which have made the greatest efforts to meet the convergence criteria, sacrificing expenditure in fundamental sectors, to be now deprived of this instrument for cohesion.
<P>
We should not confuse nominal and real convergence.
But the Cohesion Fund is not just an act of generosity.
We must not forget that it also enables money to be returned to the more developed states in the form of the acquisition of know-how and capital - in some cases, such as Portugal, as much as 50 %.
<P>
Therefore, not only is the Commission's decision in keeping with the treaties, but it is also in keeping with the spirit of Edinburgh: that of a cohesive Europe embracing solidarity.
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<SPEAKER ID=163 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Moreau">
Mr President, in spite of their growing share of the Community budget, the Structural Funds have not allowed us to get to the root of regional imbalances.
They have barely compensated for the negative consequences of implementing the single market and preparing for the single currency.
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The efficiency of the Structural Funds must be strengthened.
To achieve this, we must concentrate the funds on least-favoured regions and channel them towards job-creating objectives.
The participation of elected representatives, of organisations and of citizens - democracy, in other words - is vital for the effectiveness of the Structural Funds.
And moving beyond the Structural Funds, the question of future financing of the European Union is also being raised.
I am more than slightly hesitant about the guidelines from the recent Commission document which aims at redistributing national contributions, under pressure from Germany who wants to pay less whilst still benefitting from the markets that will open up in Eastern Europe.
<P>
On this issue, I should like to say that I believe the theory of fair returns is the very antithesis of European integration as it goes against solidarity, and without this solidarity Europe cannot exist.
There is solidarity with the poorer regions, with sectors in difficulty, solidarity amongst the peoples of Europe, with applicant countries, with the Mediterranean countries of the south as part of the move towards development cooperation.
<P>
Rather than bickering over national contributions, would it not be a better idea to think of a more fitting use of Community appropriations, to seek new resources - from the financial markets, for example - by introducing a tax on financial transactions which, in this case, would be a fair return based on justice and not on...
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(The President cut the speaker off)
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<SPEAKER ID=164 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioners, firstly I would like to thank Mrs Jöns for constructively including our group's ideas in her report as well.
A point she made very clear in her statement, which I would endorse, was that we cannot lose ground.
The 15 % figure reflects the level of European experience.
Targeted assistance for women simply reflects our stage in the process of civilisation.
Do our colleagues from the People's Party really want us to drop behind that?
I think that the Christian Socialists in the House are in future going to have to decide whether they really want to risk a red-green majority in Parliament by opposing proposals which make sense.
<P>
(Heckling from Mr Schiedermeier) That is certainly something we shall see.
Mrs Glase, concentration is not about cutting back on the given aims.
It has to do with labour market policy, the process agreed upon in Luxembourg and above all employment policy in the third sector.
But it is also about social reintegration, complemented of course by a fight against poverty that is worthy of the name.
<P>
I shall have to stop there. But let me just add that we based the synergies with other Funds on...
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(The President cut the speaker off)
<SPEAKER ID=165 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Raschhofer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, perhaps you will remember that at the time of the Oostlander report, Mr Hänsch commented that many people would change their tune when it actually came to giving things up.
We have reached that point now.
Those who are familiar with the situation of the Structural and Cohesion Funds will know that Mr Hänsch hit the nail on the head.
As is so often the case, everyone is basically of the same opinion, but when it comes to the crunch - the details of the sacrifices that need to be made - many change their tune.
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Let me turn now to the individual points, and firstly to the Cohesion Fund.
I also think that the countries participating in Economic and Monetary Union should lose their right to these resources.
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Secondly, the Commission suggests that we maintain the present criterion for Objective 2.
I am in favour of strict compliance with this, and not ...
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(The President cut the speaker off)
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<SPEAKER ID=166 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Ghilardotti">
Mr President, with the inclusion of an Employment Chapter in the new Treaty, a process began which led to the adoption of the employment guidelines in Luxembourg last November.
One of the pillars of these guidelines is employability, based on a preventive and proactive labour supply policy in which training plays a fundamental role.
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The proposal for a Social Fund regulation we are debating today is part of this new approach.
The Commission has undoubtedly put a major effort into making the Fund as flexible an instrument as possible, without losing sight of the need for it to serve the achievement of European objectives.
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Those objectives can be summarised as the development of proactive labour market policies, the promotion of social inclusion, the development of educational and vocational training systems to promote lifelong learning, the development of systems and models for the organisation of labour geared to producing a qualified labour force capable of facing up to the challenges of change, support for entrepreneurship and for the world of scientific and technological research, and the development of actions geared to promoting equal opportunities in the labour market.
<P>
Now I would like to comment on certain points contained in the Commission's proposal and strengthened by the excellent report from Mrs Jöns.
The range of measures that can be financed allows the training stage to be encapsulated in a package of integrated actions, geared to facilitating entry into or return to work.
It is important to emphasise that a whole series of pre-training measures is included, intended to reach the categories of people who would otherwise be irredeemably lost.
This means there can be a response to problems which go well beyond the work dimension and, instead, involve the whole person, which is something worth highlighting.
An important part of this is the proposal to devote 1 % of the Social Fund's resources to funding small projects run by non-governmental organisations, entrusting them to intermediate bodies on the basis of simplified procedures.
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The Commission has already begun an important experiment in this area.
Equally important is the promotion of new sources of employment by exploiting the third sector and the social economy, in particular by promoting and supporting local development.
Fundamental here is the proposal to extend partnership, which should become an obligatory procedure at national level, for both governments and regions.
<P>
Finally, women must be guaranteed equal rights to participate in the measures promoted by the Social Fund not only by including mainstreaming in the regulation but also through specific measures.
For this reason, the Jöns report proposes setting a minimum of 15 % of the Social Fund resources to guarantee that equal opportunities for women and men also remain a priority when the regulation is applied by the national and regional services.
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<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="d'Aboville">
Mr President, Commissioner, I come from Brittany, a region where fishing is a vital and dynamic economic activity, a keystone in development and employment and a balancing factor in land management.
Where I come from, the fishing tradition has been handed down from father to son for hundreds of years.
Fishing permeates every aspect of our way of life and our traditions and, in spite of the difficult nature of the job, it plays such a large part in our lives that it is a fundamental element of our identity.
This is why, Commissioner, we cannot accept the proposals for regulations on structural measures in the fisheries sector. As our rapporteur pointed out, these proposals in their current state would threaten the unity of the fisheries sector by scattering the structural measures in the different regulations, they would destroy the current coherency in the maritime sector and, to the detriment of the final beneficiary, they would make it more difficult to gain access to aid.
Above all, they would inevitably cause activity to be transferred from certain regions to others that will have greater advantages in the future. In Brittany, as in all regions dependent on fishing, we must preserve the means for building newer and safer boats, we must continue to modernise our ports and the fisheries industry, to upgrade our production and to train young people for a noble profession which, despite what is sometimes said, is a profession of the future.
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<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Tamino">
Mr President, I intend to speak on Mr Arias Cañete's report on the fisheries sector.
The Greens agree with many of the rapporteur's criticisms of the Commission's proposal, which is decidedly inadequate.
Mrs McKenna has already been able to express our point of view during discussion in the Committee on Fisheries, and the various amendments proposed by the Greens have been accepted by the committee.
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But we do not agree with all the proposals made by Mr Arias Cañete: I refer in particular to the new annex 3, which lays down measures for the construction of new fishing vessels.
The Greens believe Community financing under the CFP should be limited to vessels no longer than 24 metres.
Our proposal takes account of the environmental aspects - sustainable fishing is incompatible with a fleet of large fishing vessels - and the employment aspects, because large vessels certainly employ fewer fishermen.
We hope the House can accept our amendment.
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<SPEAKER ID=169 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Moretti">
Mr President, this proposal for the reform of the Structural Funds is broadly positive in intention.
The present seven objectives will be cut to three, which will certainly make it easier for both the Commission and the regions to manage the funds.
Better practical implementation also demands greater decision-making powers and greater autonomy on the part of the provincial authorities, which cover bodies with more detailed knowledge of the situation locally.
<P>
As regards Objective 2, I think a great deal of attention needs to be paid to the admissibility criteria.
This objective groups together four separate and distinct actions, namely one for urban areas, one for industrial areas, one for rural and mountain areas and one for fisheries.
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If the admissibility criteria are neglected this grouping threatens to be detrimental to regions where there are great disparities between the various sectors in terms of development.
Take Lombardy, for instance.
It has a highly productive industrial fabric, which often means the poor and backward rural and mountain areas are forgotten.
The depopulation and abandonment of pastures in progress are grave symptoms of an irreversible decline caused by our insensitivity to the mountains.
The elimination of the Leader Community initiative in favour of the rural areas is a clear example of the lack of interest in mountain areas and people.
I wonder how the Commission intends to manage this situation equitably.
Still on the Leader programme, we are told that, with the reformed financing, the actions under it will be funded through Objective 2.
I am curious to see how the funds will actually be managed.
I am convinced - and I am not too far off the truth - that some of the local action groups always financed and provided by the Leader programme will be refinanced by the new Objective 2, but I rather fear that many of them will be destined to disappear together with much of the aid, support and incentives to rural development.
We are once again faced with a good reform of the ...
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(The President cut the speaker off)
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<SPEAKER ID=170 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Mr President, Commissioner, representatives of the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament have all appealed to one another to keep to the timetable agreed at Cardiff, and we have been assured that at least the institution that this speaker represents is keeping to this timetable.
We have thus shown ourselves to be unanimous in our wishes here.
Now we should also be able to agree unanimously that once the Council has finalised its decisions by the Brussels summit in March, Parliament will then be able to take part fully in the decision-making process.
We know that there are deadlines to meet here, so we need to agree on how this is to happen.
<P>
The Commission communication on the Agenda 2000 document has provided a very good and solid basis for regional and structural policy reform.
It is particularly important to simplify the administration of the Structural Funds, to place more reliance on regional and local authorities, and to concentrate resources in regions that have the greatest development problems.
It is vital to keep to the priority of tackling the employment problem.
The Commission's proposal is founded on the principles of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which took account of the fact that important environmental matters have gained greater prominence in the eyes of our citizens.
The question of integrating environmental issues with regional, structural and cohesive funding does not, however, go far enough in the Commission's proposal.
This aspect of the issue has been dealt with more effectively by Parliament.
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What is of most importance is that the environmental authorities play a full role in the selection and implementation of regional projects.
Furthermore, the role of NGOs has to be acknowledged as part of a real effort to bring about greater transparency and better publicity.
By making the role of partnership between the environmental authorities and NGOs more visible and genuine we can make it much easier for citizens to become involved in regional and structural policy projects.
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<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schiedermeier">
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to look briefly at the main points. The ceilings of 1.27 % of the gross national product on the revenue side and 0.46 % on the expenditure side for the Structural Funds should not in future be exceeded.
For Objective 1 the threshold should be a strict 75 %!
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Objective 6 regions - peripheral and island areas - are in the Treaty, but that is all.
Phasing out should just be six years, not seven under any circumstances, otherwise you will be dealing with them forever.
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With regard to Objective 2, I do not agree with you.
I do not like this catch-all category of yours, as the rural area will probably get a raw deal. I am afraid that unemployment as a sole criterion may be too harsh and I think that the soft criteria are important so that national authorities can have a say in the arrangements.
For reasons of fairness, I want the 'phasing out' to be not four years but six, as you know is the case with Objective 1.
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I would say yes to the safety net.
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With Objective 3, I would say yes to the horizontal assistance.
I fully agree with you on the three Community initiatives.
If you permit others, then you will quickly find that you end up with 13 again, and that is also something that I do not want.
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No reserves, Commissioner, I cannot grant you that playground.
National assistance is better and I would support it.
Above all else, within the context of subsidiarity it should still be possible for us at least to use own resources without the Commission constantly stepping in.
So please increase the 'de minimis' rule as you have already promised to do.
My preference would be ECU 1 million, as we could easily accept that and arrange everything quite successfully.
<P>
Commissioner, although you are already hearing about the red-green majority, I do hope that you accept sensible proposals from the other side. As I am a trade unionist, I hope that this is at least one level on which we can agree.
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<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="Crowley">
Mr President, I should like to welcome both Commissioners to the House and thank them for their time and assistance.
<P>
I should like to speak in particular about the social fund regulations and thank Mrs Jöns for her very visionary and forward-looking report.
We must remember that when the Treaty of Amsterdam is ratified and comes into force it will have an employment chapter.
Because of the problems of unemployment, in particular long-term unemployment across Europe, we must have preventative as well as curative measures for the long-term unemployed.
<P>
Therefore I would hope that we maintain our emphasis on life-long learning.
It is essential that in an ever-changing world, in technological and financial terms, we upgrade people's skills.
We must also ensure that in our schools and colleges more emphasis is given to looking forward to seeing where the new skills are going to be required in 10 years' time so that we can put in place the training programmes for that as well.
<P>
Most important of all is local development, where we can provide more and more assistance and more and more long-term employment, but for far smaller amounts of money than the present state aids and interventions.
I am delighted to see that under the local social capital programme 1 % of the proposed new regulations under the ESF would be given towards that.
<P>
Finally, we must never forget that there is nothing rigid; it must be flexible; we must adapt.
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<SPEAKER ID=173 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Lage">
<SPEAKER ID=174 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Camisón Asensio">
Mr President, it is quite right that we should recognize here the efficient actions of the Member States that have received Structural Funds during their short but already ample history.
Therefore, the obligation for all the European institutions should be to try to improve and strengthen them, without forgetting the fact that there is also inevitably a flow of capital into the more industrialised Member States.
Will the regulations be improved?
We have our doubts.
Making the conditions for being declared Objective 1 more flexible would lead to a distortion of its essence, which is fundamentally social and involves solidarity and redressing imbalances.
<P>
We should also recall that the ruling from the Council's Legal Service was very convincing.
The Maastricht Treaty states that it is legitimate to continue to include in the Cohesion Fund countries, such as Spain, that passed - indeed, with flying colours - the test to join the third stage of monetary union.
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If it is established, the performance reserve - at least as it is in the Commission's current proposal, with a figure of 10 % - will in practice be a political instrument that is unnecessary and even counterproductive.
Other complementary indicators should have been taken into account, such as inequalities in health resources, the decline in working population or environmental problems.
However, we welcome the fact that the criterion of unemployment will play an essential part.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, I must point out the scarce amount of attention that has been paid to sustainable development in terms of the availability of energy resources and regional investment.
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<SPEAKER ID=175 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Donnay">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, no-one challenges the principle of or the need for the reform which has been proposed, but it is practical details of the reform which give us cause for concern and raise questions.
I am thinking of my region in particular - the Nord/Pas-de-Calais region - which currently comes under Objectives 1, 2 and 5b and which stands to lose much of the aid it has received until now.
<P>
This region suffers from high unemployment, as high as 25 % in certain areas.
The recession here is serious and the conversion of coal fields, amongst other things, is far from complete.
Thanks to European aid, we were able to initiate a significant development process but this would be jeopardised by any sudden cut-off in aid.
Of course, a transitional support mechanism has been set up but, as in other cases, people are still worried and need to be reassured.
Therefore, I would like to stress the absolute necessity of this transitional support.
We welcome the fact that it is provided for but we would like it to be extended to all regions no longer eligible for Objective 1, 2 and 5b status. We would also like it to cover the whole programming period, in other words from 2000 to 2006.
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<SPEAKER ID=176 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Walter">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is Parliament's first opportunity to comment on the Commission proposals for the reform of the Structural Funds, and give some clear indications on them.
As we do this, we German Social Democrats will be anxious to discover whether or not Parliament has the strength to display some truly common, clear principles.
The consultations have shown that, in principle, all of us want greater accuracy and a concentration of resources on what is important. This means priority should still be given to assisting regions whose development is lagging furthest behind, but it also means continuing to give an appropriate level of assistance to regions in the richer Member States which are experiencing problems with restructuring.
<P>
We agree that we should concentrate the Structural Funds on creating employment and on simplifying structural policy, as well as helping the regions that are no longer eligible with transitional rules so that they are not just excluded all of a sudden.
But the discussions of the last few weeks have shown that there is reason for us to fear that the representation of national interests and the horse-trading that accompanies it - something which we have so far only seen in Council - have spread to Parliament too.
<P>
Parliament is running the risk of needlessly ruining its reputation.
There are amendments which we will table and present tomorrow so that a decision can be taken on them, but two points should allow me to clarify the exact direction that we are heading in.
If at first reading we are already opening the door to exceptions to the 75 % rule for Objective 1, then we are giving the Council the unequivocal signal to start horse-trading.
The price we will pay is a long list of exceptions, and less money for the regions that really need it.
We cannot suspend basic arithmetic, after all!
If we do not make the cake we are distributing any bigger but more people want a slice, then there is less for those who urgently need it.
The cake that we are distributing is not going to become any bigger because there are more hungry people.
<P>
On the other hand, we should not, via the back door, turn the Cohesion Fund into an unlimited instrument for redistributing income to all those Member States which are beneath a certain level of prosperity.
European integration has not quite reached that stage yet.
The Structural Funds are an expression of European solidarity.
The Cohesion Fund must be concentrated on the Member States that are having difficulty in complying with the hard criteria.
I would ask that flexibility ...
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(The President cut the speaker off)
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<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Peijs">
Mr President, I shall confine myself to commenting on the Community initiatives, on which Parliament is now to deliver its opinion.
I myself am in favour of reducing the number of initiatives, but I would urge that they be reduced from thirteen to five, which still simplifies matters very considerably.
These would be Interreg, which has a very clear European added value, Leader, which guarantees rural development, and the Community initiatives on combating discrimination in access to the labour market, all of which are excellent.
However, I also regard URBAN as extremely important.
Focusing attention on Objective 2 cities is a good idea, but it is not enough.
Medium-sized cities outside the objective areas should also be given a chance, and this is what URBAN, which has already proved its effectiveness, does.
We all know that urban development and the accumulation of problems in cities has now almost become a global problem.
It is a good idea to focus equal attention on their problems in tandem with the development of rural areas.
<P>
Together with Mrs McCarthy, the PPE Group has tabled a compromise amendment on behalf of the Socialist and PPE Groups, which I would urge Parliament to support.
In the amendment, we call for the possibility of creating an instrument at EU level that can be applied flexibly in regions feeling the effects of the rapid changes that industrial processes are currently undergoing.
There are at least three reasons for these changes: firstly, increasing globalisation; secondly, the dramatic upheaval caused by the information and communication technologies; and thirdly, enlargement towards Central and Eastern Europe.
<P>
We felt we had to table this amendment in order to ensure that we ourselves have the possibility of reacting flexibly.
Moreover, we will shortly be living in euroland, and if there were to be a real crisis, there is currently nothing in the Structural Funds that could help the EU countries to deal with it.
As a consequence of the amendment, I would also, as is only logical, urge that the contribution be raised to 7 % to ensure that funding is not taken away from the other initiatives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 NAME="David">
<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fraga Estévez">
Mr President, there have been few times when the various rapporteurs and draftsmen in a committee have worked so much in unison as we have done in the Committee on Fisheries on the reform of the Structural Funds. We were trying to prevent structural actions in the fisheries sector from being left practically to the Commission's discretion and to neutralise the contradictions and the enormous programming problems that the current proposal presents.
<P>
Therefore, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Fisheries on the framework regulation, I have proposed the creation of a single legal instrument that would enable us to draw up a regulation on fisheries Structural Funds - the FIFG - which, being horizontal in nature, might bring together all the structural actions involving the fisheries sector, as the Commission itself has already done for the agricultural sector.
<P>
This need for a single sectorial legal instrument was easily understood by the various parliamentary committees and the change proposed will - I hope - be incorporated at this first reading.
The fisheries sector does, in fact, need to have access to a series of structural measures that must be the same for the entire sector, regardless of the region in which a particular fisheries enterprise is established.
<P>
That is why the legal instrument that embraces them needs to be of a horizontal nature.
This essential horizontal nature is destroyed by the regional planning that the Commission's proposal establishes for Objective 2 regions.
The result of this will be enormous programming difficulties in the fisheries sector and serious risks of relocation of enterprises, as they will establish themselves in those regions where there are regional programmes or where the regional programmes are more favourable to them.
<P>
It was therefore necessary to correct this tendency so that the Member States might have the flexibility needed to establish the most appropriate level of programming for the fisheries sector, regardless of the region concerned.
<P>
Commissioner, you have seen that many Members have spoken on the subject of fisheries.
The structural side of the fisheries sector is greatly affected ...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Lancker">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioners, I think it is now quite clear to both Parliament and the Commission that the Structural Funds must be focused much more than before on the priorities of Community policy, and one of the main priorities for us is equal opportunities between men and women in employment, social policy and regional policy.
The Structural Funds could be quite a trump card in improving equal opportunities, if only this were spelled out in the regulations governing them.
Previously, these regulations referred to equal opportunities, but in such a half-hearted way that often nothing much was actually done in practice.
Women were given attention in training and employment initiatives, but the Member States were far less enthusiastic when it came to infrastructure and regional policy.
I would love to know, in figures, just how much has been spent on female entrepreneurship, social infrastructure, reconciling job and family, and support for women in rural areas.
<P>
The Commission has done its best.
It has organised two conferences and supplied information on good practice.
The Council even passed a resolution on the subject in December 1996, but none of this was enough.
We are therefore particularly pleased that the Commission is making an effort to strengthen the principle of equal opportunities in legislation, and we welcome the twin-track approach it proposes of incorporating equal opportunities right across all the Structural Funds while also devoting special attention to equal opportunities between men and women.
Yet we still think, Commissioners, that greater attention can and must seriously be given to this subject.
I am particularly grateful to the rapporteurs and especially to Karin Jöns for looking very carefully at the questions raised by the Committee on Women's Rights here.
<P>
We want to see improvements in two areas.
Firstly, mainstreaming must have a much higher profile and must be much more quantifiable, in other words equal opportunities must be translated into clear objectives, clear statistics broken down by gender, accurate indicators and detailed evaluations.
Organisations must be able to prove whether and how they have spent money on equal opportunities for women.
Making structural policy work also means involving women more.
This means that women must be included in the monitoring committees, and those responsible for equal opportunities must be involved in all stages of the implementation of the Structural Funds.
Secondly, alongside mainstreaming we also want to see accompanying measures specifically designed to eliminate inequality.
We therefore think that the excellent measures that have only just been launched under the Community initiative should be retained in the new Community initiatives in the future.
Finally, as Karin Jöns said, we insist that 15 % of the Social Fund should be used for equal opportunities.
I have to say that I cannot understand why the PPE Members are opposed to this.
The Commission itself has proposed it, and we all know that special measures are needed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 NAME="Banotti">
Mr President, the structural funds have been a great success for Europe in Ireland.
On the whole, the bulk of the funds have been used very well though there have been some instances when European funds were used for projects which threaten to undermine our environment.
However, what a difference a few short months make.
Our government has put together a package which must fail the Eurostat test for structural funds which requires eligible regions to have less than 75 % of average European GDP.
<P>
The structural funds for Ireland are in danger of becoming a victim of this particular plan.
We should have put aside party political divisions and established priorities based on need in targeted rural and urban unemployment blackspots.
The plan could have faced the need to integrate immigrants and refugees also.
Instead, its only contribution to future regional planning has been to produce a plan so bizarre that it can only be designed to fail.
We should have put aside party political wrangling.
The Irish Government's strategy is, at best, a party political deal based on expediency.
At worst it is a cruel attempt to deceive the Irish people.
Proposing at the last moment a plan that must be rejected by Brussels has only one aim: to blame Brussels for its rejection.
I would like to thank both Commissioners present for their own contributions to the success in Ireland.
<P>
We have, however, substantial and real underprivileged and underdevelopment, in particular in the west and in parts of Dublin and other urban blackspots.
We have a serious literacy problem.
We need a revised structural fund to tackle these and other problems and a greater political consensus to solve them effectively.
I can only hope that there is sufficient goodwill in the Commission and in this House to ignore the dithering and mismanagement of our government.
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I have to interrupt the debate at this point.
You must forgive me for being strict, but we had an hour ahead of us and 50 speakers on the list.
<P>
The debate is therefore adjourned.
It will be resumed this evening at 9 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=13>
Situation in Central America and EU action
<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="President">
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the situation in Central America and European Union action.
<P>
I give the floor first to Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, President-in-Office of the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, some of the disasters of our times are predictable.
Then we can at least take measures to prevent them or reduce their impact.
But the scale of some other disasters is unpredictable and there is no human means of preventing them.
Hurricane Mitch was that kind of disaster in Central America.
Hurricane Mitch was a Category 5 hurricane.
It was the most violent whirlwind to hit the Caribbean this century.
You all know the consequences, insofar as we can estimate them at all at this stage.
I am grateful to Parliament for proposing that we should discuss this question in the plenary today.
<P>
Once again we are facing a situation that is so serious that all the international players must cooperate intensively, coordinate their efforts and mobilise all the available resources.
The effects of Hurricane Mitch call for measures at two levels: firstly at the level of humanitarian emergency aid and, secondly, at the level of long-term reconstruction aid for the countries concerned.
The fact is that the hurricane caused damage that none of the countries concerned, and probably very few countries anyway, could repair by their own efforts alone.
<P>
Economic development in these countries appears to have been set back years, perhaps decades.
They cannot tackle the short, medium and long-term effects of this disaster unless the international community provides generous and effective aid.
We are referring to them as the countries concerned, but that is not all they are: they are our direct partners, these countries are our friends and partners in the framework of San José.
<P>
We regard the European Union as representing above all a community of values and of solidarity, a Community whose members must show solidarity not only among themselves, but also and in particular with all other states and their inhabitants.
These are not just so many empty words, as shown also by the rapid response of the Member States and Commission departments to the news of this natural disaster.
<P>
Following a request by Spain, which the Austrian Presidency was only too happy to endorse, the General Affairs Council began to consider the question of humanitarian aid for the countries concerned at its meeting of 9 and 10 November.
All the delegations welcomed this initiative and the proposal for emergency aid.
An inquiry carried out during that Council meeting showed that the Union as a whole is making ECU 100 million available, of which ECU 70 million comes directly from the Member States and ECU 30 million from Community resources.
<P>
I am in constant contact with Commissioner Emma Bonino, who is currently visiting that same crisis-hit region, where she has had contacts with the governments, the international organisations and the non-governmental humanitarian organisations and has also been able to see for herself the scale of the damage and of course of the necessary aid measures.
<P>
ECHO will be submitting a further global humanitarian plan so that we can determine the additional funding that is required.
But the amount of resources is not the only important factor; another is the way in which they are used.
We must prevent hunger, disease and epidemics in the worst-hit areas and guarantee minimum supplies of food, drinking water, medicines and emergency shelter.
<P>
The use of the financial aid must be monitored strictly.
The material aid must be distributed as quickly and directly as possible to the suffering people of the region, and for three reasons in my opinion.
Firstly, it is because the humanitarian aid must have as rapid and direct an effect as possible. Secondly, it is because we have an obligation to our taxpayers and contributors, who are entitled to see their contributions used for the right purposes.
Moreover, the best means of preventing aid fatigue is by utilising the aid in an absolutely exact and correct way.
In this context, we must not forget that other regions of world, such as Kosovo but also Bangladesh, are also in great need of humanitarian aid.
<P>
The third and last reason is the need to maintain social peace and political stability in the recipient countries.
The poverty and despair among the suffering people, the governments' failure to manage the crisis, and inadequate, slow and poorly organised aid measures can, as we all know, produce a social powder keg that could easily explode.
The appropriate lessons should therefore be learned from comparable experiences in the recent past.
Misappropriations of financial aid and the resulting social unrest following this kind of natural disaster are, unfortunately, the rule rather than the exception.
<P>
At the same time, we must begin even at this stage to think seriously about reconstruction and a development plan.
Here special attention will also have to be given to reafforestation, for instance, since deforestation evidently made the effects of the hurricane even worse.
In Nicaragua, despite the tradition of political polarisation, the disaster appears to have led to a new approach, towards a more pragmatic and consensual policy with regard to the current problems.
It seems inadequate and also illogical to provide humanitarian aid without at the same time cancelling at least a major portion of the debts of the hardest-hit countries, Honduras and Nicaragua, which are also the most heavily indebted countries in the region - the foreign debt of Honduras is 92 % of its GDP, and that of Nicaragua 300 %.
<P>
That is why we attach special importance to the trust funds to be set up by the Inter-American Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund with a view to cancelling the multilateral debts of the countries concerned, and we should all support this.
Austria is currently drafting a law to that effect at my initiative.
<P>
The aid measures by the international community are now under way.
The share provided by the European Union - the Member States and the Community together - is substantial, and is a reflection in humanitarian terms of the Union's importance and weight.
Above all, we should show that we have learned from past experience in the conduct of humanitarian actions.
But we will also cooperate closely with the governments concerned, for they now have an opportunity, through reconstruction, to improve their economic and technical structures and also their social, environmental and political structures.
We shall also call on the governments to make the appropriate contributions here.
<P>
I have therefore asked for this subject to be placed on the agenda of the next Development Cooperation Council, which I myself will be chairing on 30 November, and expect practical proposals on long-term aid measures to be discussed there.
Thank you for your attention; I am of course available at any time to answer further questions during the debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 NAME="van den Broek">
As you heard from the President-in-Office, Mrs Bonino is currently visiting the disaster area in order to see for herself, and on behalf of the Commission, what the situation is like there.
Clearly, alongside the measures that the presidency has already taken, the Commission felt that priority had to be given to providing emergency aid for the most vulnerable people in the region.
A preliminary detailed assessment indicates that things like food, blankets, medicines and chlorine are urgently needed, as well as cooking utensils and the like.
Pending a more complete analysis, the Commission approved an aid programme of almost ECU 7 million under the emergency procedure provided for in Article 13 of the regulation on humanitarian aid.
We were thus able to make a very timely and substantial contribution to the international aid effort as early as 4 November.
The first aid programme is being carried out by the German and Spanish Red Cross, in cooperation with their sister organisations in the countries affected and 11 European NGOs already working on ECHO projects in the region.
The first phase, in more detail, is as follows: first of all, direct support is being provided via the various national disaster programmes, and major efforts are being made on the ground to coordinate the work of national and international organisations, United Nations bodies, the International Development Bank, the World Bank, USAid and the European Commission, because coordination is the key to ensuring that all the human and financial resources deployed in the region are used as effectively as possible.
There are a number of measures which form part of this and which focus on a regional or sectoral approach, such as the Red Cross's work to save victims and organise evacuations, help in providing a water supply, measures to protect public health, water purification tablets to prevent epidemics, and so on.
Médecins sans Frontières has been extremely active and is receiving our support.
The international Red Cross federation is being supported in its attempts to restore the very fragile and damaged communication network, which is vital for the distribution of the first emergency aid supplies.
Existing humanitarian aid projects being run by NGOs in the region have been reorganised to provide the most urgently needed aid.
The NGOs were already on the spot and have been able to provide help straight away, and they have reorganised or adapted ECU 3 million worth of projects to deal with the current situation.
<P>
The emergency aid under ECHO has come to ECU 10 million up to now, and the total including food aid is some ECU 30 million.
The ECHO workers are now asking for extra funding in order to organise another aid programme, which is likely to be finalised in the next few weeks and which will probably be on the same scale as the previous one.
<P>
However, this second phase of emergency aid will also need to include a recovery element in order to prepare for the transition to more structured recovery work and aid for economic reconstruction.
<P>
There is just one point I would like to make about the prospects for recovery and reconstruction programmes in the short and medium terms.
Of course, we are still waiting for a detailed analysis of the effects of this terrible natural disaster on the economies of Central America, but there is no doubt that each of the countries involved has suffered enormous structural damage.
The first assessments mainly talk about damage to key sectors like agriculture, roads and supply systems.
<P>
The Commission is examining what potential funding could be provided to make an early and substantial contribution to the international reconstruction effort.
Our approach from this point onwards will be as follows.
In the short term, in other words in December this year, the Commission will put a funding proposal to the Member States using an urgent procedure, setting out a framework for future action.
The proposal will be based on whatever funding for reconstruction and technical financial cooperation is still left in the 1998 budget.
As soon as access is possible to the areas affected, a multidisciplinary technical evaluation team will be sent there in close coordination with the Member States and with the national authorities and other donors.
<P>
The development programmes planned for 1999 will be reviewed and adapted case by case, in close consultation with the beneficiary countries.
Current projects may be strengthened or restructured to help with recovery or reconstruction.
In addition, a strategic approach may require the setting-up of a regional reconstruction fund in the medium term, say, and the Commission could put forward proposals on this subject to the Council after consultations with all the parties involved, including other donors and the governments of the countries affected.
The main problem with this strategy is the rather low level of funding currently provided under the budget line for recovery and reconstruction in Latin America, B7-313, which at present amounts to only ECU 4.25 million.
<P>
Of course, the budgetary authority could take a decision to allocate extra funding to this budget line.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Linkohr">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first I wish to thank the Council and the Commission for the emergency aid.
It is perhaps not always a matter of course in this House for us to thank one another, but I do want to express my open praise for them here.
I am also glad that Mrs Bonino has made the European Union visible in Central America through her presence there.
<P>
I have little time and will therefore be brief. Unfortunately, this will not be the last natural disaster to occur, so I would advise that we consider building up a kind of disaster aid system.
A number of countries in the world actually have a special ministry for disasters, with its own transport capacity, aircraft and perhaps even satellites for predicting natural disasters.
<P>
My second point is that longer-term reconstruction aid should be given not only to the states of this region, but also towards the integration of the region.
Now that so much has been destroyed, infrastructure measures, roads, telecommunications, energy networks and so forth can in fact also help to turn this region, inhabited by something over 30 million people, into a common region.
The European Parliament, with the support of the Council and the Commission, has always expressed strong political support for the integration of this region.
<P>
My third comment is that we keep saying the aid must be unbureaucratic.
On the other hand, it must be carefully thought through, planned for the long term and as transparent as possible.
That is squaring the circle, I know.
Perhaps we could discuss one day how we really can square the circle, since otherwise we shall be in trouble with the Court of Auditors again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
<SPEAKER ID=188 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gasòliba i Böhm">
Mr President, I just wanted to add a few words to what my colleagues in the Socialist Group and the Group of the European People's Party have been saying in relation to the urgent action - and subsequent action - that needs to be carried out by the European Union, at both Council and Commission level, in the areas affected by the disaster.
<P>
In July, I had the opportunity to visit the countries involved and saw that they had begun a very positive recovery process following the internal wrangles and serious conflicts they had experienced, and I could see that they were genuinely on the road to recovery with a real desire to cooperate.
<P>
In a matter of hours, nature, in a most brutal and unfortunate way, destroyed the work of recent years.
I think that from our privileged position in Europe, we must show as much solidarity as possible with the societies and people affected. We must also bear in mind those urgent aspects where, logically, public authorities at all levels - starting with the administration of the European Union, the governments of the Member States, and the other levels of administration within Europe - should be directly involved, together with non-governmental organisations.
I would like to stress that it is essential to review these countries' debt so that it does not impede their possible recovery. Moreover, as we propose in our joint motion for a resolution, it is also vital to build the foundations for a medium and long-term recovery that will consolidate and restore the process that, as I said, I had the opportunity to see at first hand in July.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Guinebertière">
Mr President, Hurricane Mitch has devastated Central America, destroying everything in its path.
This would be just another news story if there were not such an immeasurable human drama behind it all which, sadly, will remain a gaping wound for a long time to come.
Throughout history, nature has made its presence felt through extremes, creating natural disasters which unfortunately take place all too often in areas that are already poor. These disasters add inhumane conditions, grief, desolation, separation, illness and the anguish of the aftermath to economic instability.
<P>
As a member of the interparliamentary Delegation for relations with the countries of Central America and Mexico, last May I had the opportunity to visit Honduras with a few colleagues and we were able to see how, even in the capital, Tegucigalpa, the hand held out by the Union was already a lifeline for these populations before the hurricane struck.
Now, we not only have a duty towards them, but a real moral debt, which must take the form of a long-term commitment.
<P>
The international community as a whole has immediately lent a hand, and its spontaneity is not all as it has also provided supplies, clothing, means of transport, water filters, medicines and mobile hospitals. Like my colleague, I am proud to be French.
And although, of course, I fully support the value of the emergency aid provided to these countries and pay tribute to the men and women in the field who are making every effort to reconstruct basic infrastructures to support a population which has absolutely nothing, I believe that the worst we could do would be to forget them after this emergency aid.
<P>
After this united effort, the world's rich nations, together with the governments of these countries, must draw up a plan for rebuilding this area and go beyond cancelling debts.
However, we must not make the mistake of making decisions for them, as I believe that the chance to support the development of democracy in these countries has been presented to us on a plate.
Alongside these plans we should introduce close dialogue with these governments, but also with the populations and organisations of these countries, to whom we must give the means to play a role in their own reconstruction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, I completely agree with the President-in-Office of the Council, Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, when she said that the hurricane had been very strong and devastating because it was classed as a level 5 hurricane.
However, we must also bear in mind - and I think that many non-governmental organisations are highlighting this fact - that if there had been housing in this area that was not substandard, a civic network that could have predicted what could happen and, in short, if there had been greater consolidation of human rights in that area, the hurricane would not have been as devastating.
And I agree with many of the issues raised here by Mr Salafranca and Mr Linkhor in relation to generalised preferences for these countries.
<P>
However, in the short time I have left, I shall inform you of what was said to us by some Members and certain Central American organisations at a seminar held last week in Brussels.
Their main concerns are the following.
<P>
First, they believe that in this case we need to review the cooperation agreements and, as other Members have said, adapt them to the medium and long term to help recovery in the area.
<P>
Second, there needs to be a way to ensure that aid reaches those affected.
Unfortunately, this has not always been the case in the past.
<P>
Third, the distribution of aid has to take the town councils into consideration.
There are small councils that are facing many difficulties but lack resources to deal effectively with these problems.
<P>
Fourth, a call must be made to have these countries' debt written off. We are all aware that it amounts to 300 % of gross domestic product in Nicaragua, but it is equally high in other countries.
<P>
Fifth, it is essential that a debt write-off does not serve to alleviate the governments' concerns, but those of the people.
This is why the total amount of debt should be earmarked for specific recovery projects in the area.
<P>
I also feel proud, as Mr Salafranca said, not only of the response of the Spanish Government but, more particularly, that of the Spanish nation. It has shown a great sense of solidarity.
But that is for now.
We shall see what happens in January and February.
We all need to continue acting beyond this emotional period surrounding the events in Central America.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Mr President, a disaster on this scale calls for reactions going far beyond those of the past.
Thousands of people have died or lost everything, in part also because no precautions were taken as the hurricane roared towards them, because the poorest people have to live in the unsafest areas, because whole swathes of land were deforested for industrial agriculture.
Central America has been devastated; it will take decades to reconstruct.
But if this reconstruction is to work, these countries do not just need effective handouts of aid packages.
They need a far-sighted reconstruction plan to be drawn up, not a patchwork of gift packages which, as we have seen in the past, seep away into dubious or government-chosen channels.
<P>
Well-coordinated reconstruction must be aimed primarily at improving the condition of the population.
Top priority must be given to health, education and housing, as well as far-reaching agricultural reform.
The people concerned must have a say and a right of control here.
Central America needs total, bilateral debt cancellation. France is setting a good example here.
The other EU countries should follow suit as quickly as possible.
But it is not just a question of writing off debts that can in any case no longer be recovered.
The multilateral debts must also be cancelled.
The IMF and the World Bank will help out with loans, but these must not be tied to structural adjustment measures.
<P>
The European governments should therefore make real use of their influence at the IMF and the World Bank to make sure the loans are not conditional.
According to today's 'Guardian', the prospects for Chiquita are rosy.
The banana multinationals will make the insurance companies pay for the reconstruction of their plant, while their workers are left on the streets.
The multinationals, for instance those in Honduras that have not paid taxes for years, are trying to evade their responsibility.
The devastation caused by a hurricane is not just the result of a force of nature descending on mankind.
The destruction of the ozone layer, the thoughtless wastage of natural resources and the reckless poisoning of the environment play their part in the disaster.
And this will not be the last one, unless the industrialised countries engage in a process of radical rethinking.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Escolá Hernando">
Mr President, with each day that passes and as people begin to assess the human toll and material damage caused by hurricane Mitch, the true scale of the disaster is gradually emerging.
On this occasion, nature has not been kind to the countries of Central America, but we should remember - as Parliament has - that it was the hand of man and his negligence that has caused climate change to unleash natural disasters such as this.
We must all be aware - particularly industrialised countries - that if we do not radically change our behaviour, other hurricanes will follow hurricane Mitch with similar and devastating effects.
<P>
In Central America, ladies and gentlemen, as is almost always the case, the weakest have lost the most.
It is therefore our unavoidable duty to ensure that aid is distributed in the most efficient, effective and coordinated way possible so that it reaches, above all, those who need it most and so that it does not become a source of corruption as has unfortunately been the case in other similar situations.
<P>
Lastly, we would like to publicly welcome the excellent displays of solidarity that have been made by the citizens of Europe individually and by the institutions that represent them, particularly the European institutions.
We must welcome the rapid response that has been given to a situation that required immediate solutions.
On many occasions, we have complained about the bureaucratic red tape that has delayed Europe's response to such situations, but today we can thank it for responding so promptly.
Now all that is needed is for this action to be supplemented by totally writing off the debts of the countries concerned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, we have been shocked to see the devastation in Central America.
When the forces of nature wreak havoc in this way, leaving behind a trail of destruction, death and injury, we cannot help but feel completely powerless.
Even in today's modern society with all its technical expertise, nature can still take us by surprise, though in this case it was not a total surprise in that we knew Hurricane Mitch was on its way shortly before it arrived.
<P>
The impact of the hurricane was bound to be hard, but the scale of the disaster was increased by the type of region affected.
Poor farmers had been driven out by large landowners to farm on higher mountain slopes, with disastrous consequences.
The hurricane was unleashed on the deforested slopes and washed everything away in a destructive river of mud.
<P>
However, the most important thing at the moment is to ensure that adequate help is provided.
A great deal has already been done by countries all over the world, including in Europe.
The example set by France and the Netherlands in writing off debts should be followed by the other EU countries, and the same applies to the rescheduling of debt repayments by the financial institutions and the international financial organisations.
<P>
In the longer term, a socially and ecologically responsible programme needs to be set up to help farmers and to restore the environment.
The major landowners must cooperate in genuinely sustainable development, including appropriate measures to combat erosion, and it would be advisable to involve the NGOs here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, I want to speak on debt rescheduling to revive the economies of the countries struck by the catastrophe.
The countries cannot all be measured by the same yardstick: Guatemala and El Salvador seem to be richer countries than Nicaragua and Honduras, or at least less poor.
When the criterion for debt remission is established, the actual difference between national incomes might favour differential treatment depending on the economic and financial situation of the country involved.
In this way, the clauses agreed at Naples on the fringe of the 1993 G7 meeting, which provided for 66 % debt remission, could be applied to the less disadvantaged countries, while the G7 Lyons Agreement of 1996 could be applied to the most disadvantaged: remission of up to 80 % of debt.
<P>
In Nicaragua, as in Honduras, the already difficult economic situation is now expected to get worse, with damaging repercussions on a poverty threshold calculated today at 60 % of the population, and increases in rates of unemployment which currently stand at 53 % in Nicaragua and 30 % in Honduras.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Manzella">
Mr President, the rapid reaction from the Community institutions and civil society is a sign that we have got off on the right foot.
But it is only a start; everything else is still to be done and Parliament eagerly awaits Commissioner Bonino's report and the proposals she is going to suggest to us.
In fact, the catastrophe in Central America is not just a natural and a human catastrophe, it is also, and above all, a political catastrophe.
<P>
All these years we have been thinking in terms of political unity for Central America in the hope of bringing peace to the region in the face of the wars which have torn it apart, and now there is the possibility of a new social breakdown.
We have supported Parlacen, the parliament of Central America.
We have always thought in terms of regional interdependence.
Well, now we must try to reproduce that interdependence in the proposed second stage of our intervention.
We must think in terms of interdependence in relation to the plan to combat the mass unemployment which has immediately resulted, the infrastructure plan, the financial plan - where the problem of bilateral and multilateral debt remission arises both for the countries affected and for the international organisations - and above all in relation to multilateral cooperation between the donor countries. This must of course operate, as Mr Salafranca just said, in association with the San José Conference, but must definitely involve the continuous presence of the Union and not just at this emergency stage.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Liese">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would also like to convey my sincere sympathy and dismay to those who live in the countries of Central America.
I shall continue in German.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have heard it many times.
The scale of the disaster is enormous and there has been nothing like it ever before, at least not in this region.
So we really must all try to make our support as good and comprehensive as possible.
There must be no taboos here.
I have already said this at a meeting of our delegation.
Parliament and the Council must jointly and rapidly consider how to release the necessary budget funds.
The funds allocated so far can only be a first step, since we shall be needing a great deal of money for reconstruction for many years to come.
Nicaragua and Honduras were in any case two of the poorest countries in the world, and now they are even poorer.
So we need a great deal of money and we will have to take a very unconventional approach here.
That is why I would like to repeat the proposal I made during the delegation meeting: we must seriously consider whether European Development Fund money could not be made available for this disaster because of their particularly difficult situation.
Of course Honduras and Nicaragua are not ACP states, but we have to take an unconventional approach here.
If some of the ACP states do not utilise the funds earmarked for them, perhaps these funds should be made available for disaster and reconstruction aid.
<P>
In the long term, I believe these countries will have to become members of the Lomé Convention, because how can we in fact justify withholding the Lomé preferences and financial resources from these countries, which are the poorest in the world and now becoming even poorer?
We cannot justify it at all.
If we want to be really honest, we really will have to do everything in our power.
That is part of it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Linser">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the situation in Central America is devastating: 12 000 people are dead, 18 000 missing.
In Honduras, 90 % of the banana harvest has been ruined and 70 % of the roads are destroyed.
A majority of Central American states have seen their development set back by years.
The European Union aid is vital, not least as a means of preventing the threat of an escalation of the political situation in Nicaragua.
The call for resources to be used to maximum effect in the motion for a resolution is of course welcome.
<P>
Besides the humanitarian aspects, which we all support in this House and where we strongly encourage the Commission to continue its activities, let me address a further aspect, following on from what Mr Kreissl-Dörfler said.
Many experts believe that the high level of greenhouse gas emissions is one of the main causes of this environmental disaster.
In these circumstances, I cannot understand why the adoption of rules on reducing greenhouse gases was postponed for another two years at the climate conference in Buenos Aires.
I believe that it is essential, precisely in view of this kind of natural disaster, for the Union to give firm support to a rapid, worldwide reduction of CO2 emissions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Cabezón Alonso">
Mr President, I would like to thank the Commission and the Council for their presence.
<P>
In Central America, more than one generation will go by before the consequences of hurricane Mitch are fully overcome. This infernal hurricane has left a fateful mark that is far greater than was originally imagined.
The area affected has been set back several decades and its efforts to heal the deep wounds of its most recent past have been undone.
<P>
The countries affected are aware of the reality of their situation: they have only a minimum response capability and State structures that are too weak to cope with the damage.
We are seeing societies that, resigned to their fate, refuse, in spite of everything that has happened, to lose even hope in the face of these tragedies that affect them from time to time, as though they were some sort of collective Sisyphus watching his work being undone, just as he was about to complete it.
<P>
My sincere congratulations go to the Commission for responding immediately - mainly in the form of humanitarian aid - and also to the Member States for acting with equal speed.
Our societies - and I know this has been the case in Spain - have shown solidarity and generosity, and in some cases have even surpassed government responses. However, the measures taken until now, though quite substantial, will not be enough.
Governments need to solve the problem of these countries' debt through an act of strict justice, as a useful tool to cooperate in kick-starting their economies.
<P>
I would like my government, the Spanish Government, to write off the debt of these countries and for all the Member States to follow suit so that it can be used for physical, medical, educational or environmental infrastructures.
As has been said, a regional aid and reconstruction plan will be necessary and should be launched in January or February. The institutions of the European Union will undoubtedly have to make their financial and budgetary mechanisms more flexible in order to support this plan.
The tragedy of pain and death was caused by the hurricane and it is up to all of us to alleviate its consequences and help build a future for the people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Robles Piquer">
Mr President, as a vice-chairman of the PPE Group, with responsibility for relations with Latin America, I would briefly like to express the feelings of solidarity our group shares with the victims of the tragedy, as well as our delight at seeing that this popular and official sentiment of solidarity has been so strong.
I would also like to say how pleased we are at the speed with which Parliament's Delegation for relations with Central America and Mexico met, at the request of Mr Salafranca, and with the large number of Members that attended this extraordinary meeting along with the Vice-President of the Commission, Mr Marín, and Commissioner Bonino.
Finally, we must welcome the huge amount of aid generated in Europe, not by each state on its own, but by all of them together.
Perhaps this aid may be symbolised by the visits to the area by the Prince of Spain, Don Felipe de Borbón, President Chirac and Commissioner Bonino.
These three names perhaps best reflect the European aid given, aid that will certainly not be lacking in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="Newens">
Mr President, the countries of Central America which were devastated by hurricane Mitch were already seriously afflicted by the aftermath of years of civil war.
In all of them high rates of illiteracy, grinding poverty and the crushing burden of international debt were endemic, as those of us who have visited the area have seen.
Now hit by the most deadly storm of the century, innumerable villages, shanty towns, bridges and roads have been swept away, crops destroyed, farm stock decimated, supplies of water eliminated, and many thousands are dead.
The European Union and all who have sent emergency aid are worthy of the highest praise.
<P>
The steps taken to relieve the burden of debt are also of vital importance. It will, however, take years to rebuild the economies of these countries which were, in any case, desperately poor.
We need to face the fact that there is a pressing need not merely for a moratorium on debt servicing but also for debt cancellation.
Honduras and Nicaragua will never be able to repay the interest on what they owe and postponing their liabilities is not enough.
Furthermore, medium- and long-term development aid must not be allowed to be cut back, particularly for social needs.
<P>
In land ownership there are all sorts of problems over tenure.
The need for land reform is more pressing than ever.
The European Union has long been deeply concerned with Central America, for instance through the San José process.
We must redouble our efforts to help.
The Council, the Commission and Parliament should facilitate the use of unspent funds in our budget for relief.
<P>
The disaster also reminds us of the need for far-reaching international action to limit environmental damage from climatic change, which will otherwise cause ever more frequent catastrophes, some even worse than the one we are talking about this evening.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, may I briefly respond?
Firstly, I am very grateful for the support expressed in the various statements made, and also for the many suggestions and ideas put forward by Parliament, which will certainly prompt me to review these matters again at the Development Cooperation Council on 30 November.
<P>
In summary, let me say the following: the main issue is the coordination of the humanitarian aid - and also of the reconstruction and development aid - and here we will first have to achieve coordination between the partners, a task which the presidency intends to tackle mainly on the ground.
Secondly, it is of course very important to consider the debt clearance question.
This too has already been discussed in the General Affairs Council.
We shall be devoting great attention to this issue at the Development Cooperation Council, but of course preparations are also under way for a donor conference.
A donor conference is to be held in Washington on 10 and 11 December. There it will also be determined, under the aegis of the Inter-American Development Bank, what amounts can still be demanded.
Another conference has now been scheduled for March, in Stockholm, which will focus on long-term reconstruction.
<P>
As regards the debts, we must of course distinguish very clearly between bilateral debts - development loans on the one hand and export credits on the other - and multilateral debts, in particular the HIPC initiative which is indeed seeking either the creation of a new fund, which the presidency will of course support and encourage, or drawing on existing World Bank funds, which we will also support.
<P>
For the rest, everything I said earlier has been discussed during the debate.
Perhaps just a word on the climate convention: we all know that the European Union is, of course, making headway here, but that it is not easy to bring all the other major players on board too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 NAME="van den Broek">
Speaking for myself and also on behalf of the Commission and Emma Bonino and Manolo Marín, who could not be here but who would certainly have been delighted to take part in this debate, I would like to thank you for the tremendous unanimity of feeling and solidarity that you have all shown towards this terrible natural disaster that has befallen so many people and countries in Central America.
I would just like to look briefly at a few of the points that were made, including the speech by Mr Salafranca.
It is true that the Commission has no powers when it comes to the debt problem, but listening to what the presidency had to say, I think that it must be clear to everyone that our efforts cannot stop at humanitarian aid, and that the international community must also do something in the present circumstances to ease the terrible debt burden or even, if possible, to write it off.
<P>
Secondly, Mr Salafranca referred earlier to the San José dialogue, which I still remember from much further back with the Contadora process and so on.
I imagine, and I am sure that this goes for Mr Marín and probably also the presidency too, that once the situation in Central America has become a little clearer and financial decisions have been taken and a reconstruction programme has started, we will certainly begin talks between the European Union and the countries of Central America within the San José framework.
This would seem to me to be an extremely constructive approach.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr van den Broek.
<P>
I have received a motion for a resolution to wind up the debate.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=14>
Developments in Middle East peace process
<SPEAKER ID=204 NAME="President">
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on developments in the Middle East peace process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union has always underlined the need for a comprehensive, just and lasting peace settlement in the Middle East.
The foundations for this are contained in the relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions and elsewhere.
In this context, we should note that all the states of the Middle East region have a right to live within secure, internationally recognised borders, but also that the Palestinian people have the right to self-determination, and that here no option should be excluded.
<P>
The Union has therefore fully endorsed the content of the Madrid and Oslo accords which set the current Middle East peace process in motion.
Since early 1997, however, we have been witnessing the dangerous standstill of this development with growing concern.
The United States and the European Union reacted to this difficult situation by making even greater mediation efforts, during which the EU special envoy in the Middle East, Miguel Moratinos, repeatedly put proposals to the conflicting parties on ways of bridging their differences.
<P>
On 23 October this year, after difficult negotiations between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Arafat, an agreement was finally reached at Wye Plantation near Washington, largely thanks to the efforts of the United States and President Clinton, but in which King Hussein also played a crucial role.
This agreement was meant to signal the long-awaited breakthrough and set the peace process in motion again, after it had been at a standstill for more than a year and a half.
<P>
In signing it, the parties to the conflict revived the Oslo process by withdrawing further Israeli troops from the West Bank in return for comprehensive Palestinian security guarantees.
Both sides agreed that they would rapidly begin negotiations on the final status and refrain from unilateral measures.
With its commitment to achieving an agreement, the USA has assumed the role of arbitrator and also of guarantor.
<P>
Given the present lack of trust between the contracting parties, the Wye Memorandum may, however, very easily be at risk.
So under these circumstances, we consider it most important for both sides to refrain from any unilateral action that could prejudice the outcome of the final status negotiations.
At the same time, it is a remarkable and positive sign that the current Israeli Government has for the first time openly accepted the 'land for peace' principle by signing that agreement.
<P>
The European Union has firmly endorsed the breakthrough achieved at Wye Plantation, while also pointing out that its success or failure will depend on the speed at which the accord is implemented.
So yesterday's ratification of the agreement by the Israeli Parliament is a very important step in that direction.
<P>
The European Union will support the implementation of the Wye Memorandum in all areas where it can make a constructive and further contribution.
This relates in particular to aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian interim agreement, such as opening the airport and building the Gaza port and safe road links between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The European Union is currently conducting an anti-terrorism support programme for the Palestinians, and is preparing another small programme of the same nature within the EU-Palestinian security committee.
<P>
Independently of the progress made in implementing the Wye Memorandum, the first five-year tranche of EU aid for the Palestinians will expire at the end of this year.
The USA has convened another donor conference at ministerial level in Washington on 30 November 1998, in order to assure continued support for the Palestinians.
The EU has already taken a decision of principle to maintain its high-level support for the Palestinian people for a further five-year period.
<P>
The Austrian Foreign Minister, Dr Wolfgang Schüssel, visited the Middle East region from 12 to 15 November in his capacity of EU President-in-Office of the Council, accompanied by Miguel Moratinos, the special envoy, and a European Commission representative. He visited Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian areas, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt, where he held political talks.
The purpose of the mission was to seek means of actively involving the European Union in the implementation of the Wye Plantation agreement.
The period immediately after the signature of that agreement was a propitious moment for this visit.
The talks with all the regional parties were very open and substantive.
It was found that all the parties concerned valued the role played by the European Union in the peace process, and that many people hoped Europe would show even greater commitment towards it, not least of course through the intermediary of the EU special envoy, Mr Moratinos.
<P>
Israel, however, wished for this commitment to apply only to practical areas of cooperation and not, as it made quite plain, to political questions.
There remains considerable domestic policy resistance among both the Israelis and the Palestinians to the implementation of the Wye Memorandum.
Israel seems to be as inflexible as ever on the question of Jerusalem, the security zones around Jerusalem and in the Jordan Valley, and the expansion of existing settlements.
Israel did, however, signal its willingness to cooperate with the Arab side on the questions of water and infrastructure - for instance railway construction.
<P>
Many of the interlocutors in Egypt, Syria and Lebanon expressed scepticism about the Wye Memorandum and the willingness of Israel to implement it.
There was clear evidence of a certain pessimism among the Palestinians.
Israel was particularly keen to see the rapid resumption of the multilateral components of the peace process, while the Arab representatives were against this so long as the Wye agreement has not been implemented and the peace talks at Syrian-Lebanese level have not been resumed.
<P>
In the light of the new developments initiated by the Wye Plantation agreement and the impressions gained from the Middle East mission of the President-in-Office of the Council, we have now identified a number of urgent tasks that need to be addressed and opportunities that need to be taken in order to support peace and enhance the European presence in this region, in terms of the Middle East peace process.
For example, it seems urgently necessary for the EU to establish a common position for the forthcoming donor conference in Washington on 30 November to which I have referred, so that the Union can take a firm stance there.
<P>
Since Europe provides some 60 % of the economic aid to the Palestinians, the Europeans must have a very substantial say at this meeting, which we must use to assert our position.
It would seem a very good idea to hold a quadrilateral meeting between the European Union, the USA, Israel and the Palestinians, since that would give strong impetus to raising the question of support measures during the talks on final status. Support measures relating to water, refugees and infrastructure could then be discussed.
It would also be valuable to set up a bilateral European Union-Israel working party to consider regional questions and projects relating to water.
<P>
The Union should also make greater efforts now to reactivate the Syrian-Lebanese negotiating route, and the EU special envoy Mr Moratinos will continue his efforts in that respect.
On 7 December, the Austrian Foreign Minister and President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Schüssel, will report to the General Affairs Council on his mission to the Middle East and use that occasion to submit further, concrete proposals on how the EU can play a more effective role in the Middle East peace process.
<P>
During this unusually difficult and complex process, it is particularly important that we do not allow ourselves to be deterred by the constant setbacks.
We must initiate, coordinate and support extremely comprehensive and concrete cooperation measures at political level and in all other areas.
In that way, we can contribute to building confidence, to defusing existing and potential conflicts and preventing the entire process from coming to a standstill, because such a standstill could herald the beginning of a new spiral of violence and confrontation in the Middle East, which it is also in our own, immediate interest to prevent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, thank you for your report.
There are indeed few promising signs.
Those that do exist should however be recognised, such as the ratification by the Knesset yesterday.
We must admit that steps were taken in this case, despite the bomb attack, whereas in the past the Israeli Government and Parliament always used such events as a reason not to take any steps towards peace.
On the other hand, however, Israel has tied that decision to certain conditions, and then there is the government action regarding Jerusalem, in particular Har Homa.
Let me state here even more clearly and plainly than the President-in-Office can perhaps put it: for us in Europe, for my group at least, it is quite unacceptable for the Israeli Government to keep trying to incorporate the whole of Jerusalem into Israeli national territory.
Israel must show more respect here, towards the Palestinians and of course also towards the religions practised on an international basis there.
<P>
My second point is that I believe it is most important - and I have some information to the effect that the Arabs and Palestinians take the same view - for the European Union also to carry out some form of monitoring of the implementation of the Wye Plantation agreement.
We must strive towards that, and we need exact information about what is happening.
In the same way as settlement is being monitored, we now need to monitor effective withdrawal; that is what my group is calling for.
<P>
I fully endorse what the President-in-Office said about investment, which we wish to support and indeed have to support.
Parliament is also prepared to do so.
Even if we are only talking about small sums, I would now call on the Commissioner to carry this forward, so that we can also give adequate and prompt support to the Israeli and Palestinian NGOs which are doing good work, across the borders and in particular through people-to-people initiatives.
I would ask the Commissioner and the Commission representatives to please consider how long the various organisations have to wait between the authorising of funds and the actual financing!
That is quite unacceptable!
<P>
My final and very important point is this. As we can see from the calendar, it is not long till 4 May 1999.
However much my group fully recognises the right of the Palestinians to unilaterally declare independence if the appropriate agreements cannot be reached with Israel, we should nevertheless strive all the more to ensure that agreements are reached, either agreements on independence or agreements on postponing that deadline, if Israel accepts the principle that there will be a Palestinian state.
The European Union must endeavour in the immediate future to ensure that this date, 4 May 1999, does not signal the beginning of a new crisis, but that we have a joint declaration on independence by that date or, in the event that the deadline is postponed, that interim agreements are reached and the Israeli Government fully recognises the principle of a Palestinian state.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 NAME="Provan">
Mr President, I would like to thank the Commissioner and the President- in-Office of the Council for their statements.
I rise today with a certain diffidence because I was hoping, as I am sure many colleagues were hoping, that we would be much further down the track of reaching peace in the Middle East.
Whilst one welcomes the statements of Yassir Arafat that he has no intention of using violence to achieve his ends, one does see a continuation of violence.
<P>
We must also recognise that there has been a certain courage shown by Yassir Arafat in arresting some of the leaders of Hamas.
That is to be greatly welcomed by this House and a great step forward.
I am also glad that the Knesset has approved the Wye Accord and that we can move forward hopefully to see some greater security within that agreement.
But the final status talks are really the most important we have to face.
It is of the utmost importance - and I agree with Mr Swoboda - that the beginning of May is going to be a turning point.
If UDI were the result of the lack of a peace process and a peace agreement in the final status talks, that would be a disaster for everybody involved.
We have to strive very hard to ensure that does not happen.
Unfortunately we are still seeing a certain amount of confrontation on both sides.
I hope we can involve Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon to make sure that we begin to see a stop to this horrible confrontation.
That is where we must try to achieve our results.
<P>
Implementation of the existing agreements is vital.
The resolution which Parliament is going to adopt tomorrow emphasises this.
We must go back to the Oslo Agreements and hopefully, as we can now see movement as a result of Wye, we can get back to these agreements without delay.
Fresh impetus should therefore come as a result of the Wye Accord and that is what we must all try and achieve.
<P>
I believe Israel always intends to discuss more with the United States than with the European Union.
That is a tragedy.
We get the reputation of only looking after the interests of the Palestinians.
We must try to overcome that perception with the Israeli Government and point out that we are dealing evenly with both sides of this argument and not taking sides at all.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, the Liberal Group is delighted with the Wye Accord, and the Clinton administration deserves great praise for its efforts.
At long last we once again have some good news about the Middle East, though if we are honest it is still a rare event.
Since Mr Netanyahu became prime minister the peace process has, honestly speaking, been in terminal decline, and it was only thanks to considerable American pressure that an agreement was reached.
I agree with Mr Provan that America tends to play a pro-Israeli role and we a pro-Palestinian, yet it was America that talked the Israelis round, or so it appears.
<P>
We also welcome the fact that the Israeli Government has finally reluctantly agreed to hand back an extra 13 % and that the Palestinians have agreed to cooperate with the Americans on security guarantees.
The terrible attacks that took place afterwards show that Israel's security demands are perfectly legitimate.
If we fail to accommodate them, there will never be peace.
Human rights organisations have rightly pointed out that maintaining law and order must not be allowed to lead to large-scale human rights violations which would have negative consequences for both sides.
<P>
Since the developments on 23 October, it is clear that constant external pressure is needed to keep the peace process on track.
The statements made by President Arafat and Mr Sharon have merely poured oil on the flames, and the extra conditions demanded out of the blue by Mr Netanyahu were, even for us Liberals, unacceptable and unpalatable.
The decision to give the go-ahead for the construction of more houses in Har Homa and Hebron was another wrong signal, and undermines the mutual trust that is essential for lasting peace.
<P>
I would like to ask the Commission what is happening about the Palestinian airport and seaport?
Can he also tell us what the situation is with the hospital in Gaza that was built with European funding?
And is there any truth in the rumours that Brussels bureaucracy is delaying the opening of the hospital?
I must apologise for asking these two questions so abruptly, but we want to see peace and we want to see justice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, there has been a war of words in the Middle East over the last few days, a war of words between the Israelis and the Palestinians that was supposed to lead to peace.
In my opinion, this is one area of the world where deeds are what count, and looking beyond all the words and rules, I think that we really are coming closer to compliance with the Wye Accord.
I welcome the fact that the European Parliament is making another critical but supportive contribution here today in a special debate on the subject.
I congratulate the Members of the Israeli Knesset for voting by a majority to support the Wye Accord.
The Palestinians too have shown great commitment, as we have all seen, and this must eventually be rewarded.
I hope that in December, when the Palestinian national assembly meets in Gaza, they will finally remove the paragraph on the destruction of Israel from their charter once and for all.
<P>
Plans for a port and an airport in Gaza are back on the cards, but I gather that the airport has come up against certain technical problems.
I was there recently and I saw that the buildings were finished, but there were no technical installations.
Can the President-in-Office or the Commissioner tell us what the problems are?
The EU plays a vital economic and financial role in the Middle East which is likely to grow in importance.
The resolutions mention specific areas where we can provide support, and I entirely agree with these.
As vice-chairman of the Subcommittee on Human Rights, I would draw your particular attention to peace education and to the citizens' programmes which are designed to foster mutual understanding between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
<P>
Our enormous financial and psychological commitment to the Middle East is certain to increase our influence in the region.
My group has no problem with the proposal put forward in paragraph 12 of the resolution that the EU should take on the role of monitor and, if necessary, arbitrator, but the resolution then goes further and starts to concern itself with the final status of the peace agreements, which I think is particularly confusing, because this is something that the United States partly dealt with in the Wye Accord.
The President-in-Office indicated that Israel would prefer us not to interfere here, but would be glad to see us play a stronger economic role.
This is perfectly understandable, since a country whose existence has always been under threat would obviously prefer not to let it depend on a partner that does not have a uniform foreign policy.
It cannot afford to do so, particularly while it still does not have peace agreements with Lebanon and Syria.
Mr President, the peace process may be moving slowly, but progress is being made.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Moreau">
Mr President, it is to the credit of the Wye Plantation accords that they have reignited a peace process which we may have feared dead and buried.
Of course, the accords are limited as the majority of Palestinian territories are still occupied.
They also contain negative aspects, such as the role bestowed upon the CIA.
Yet in spite of this, the agreements constitute a step forward.
Of course, provided that they are implemented, they will be able to bring positive changes to the lives of thousands of Palestinians and allow hundreds of prisoners to be freed.
The Knesset's agreement is a positive sign.
Unfortunately, many extremists are fast constructing obstacles.
The Israeli Government itself is relaunching a provocative strategy for fresh colonisation.
This is not in the interests of peace, nor is it in the interests of the Israeli people.
Once again, this peace process is in danger of being compromised.
<P>
The European Union must show proof of a firm stance and use the means available to take effective action to implement these agreements and to work on stopping anything that may go against them.
The Wye Plantation agreement cannot be seen as a finishing line but rather as a starting block leading to a peaceful and lasting settlement which respects the right of the Palestinians to their own land, in the spirit of the Oslo accords.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ullmann">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, it gives me great personal pleasure to congratulate the members of the Knesset, on behalf of my group, on their successful adoption of the Wye Mills Memorandum between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Arafat of the Palestinian Autonomous Authority.
<P>
That agreement makes it clear that the Oslo accord, which has constantly been violated, and the process it initiated are irreversible.
At the same time, I must of course express to the people of Israel, its parliament and its government our deep concern and sympathy following the recent terrorist attacks.
I do so in the awareness that the peace process in the Middle East is not just a question of foreign policy and the European Union's association agreements, however important both aspects are, especially in the context of the Barcelona programme.
<P>
The peace process in the Middle East is a key question of our political and religious culture.
We must decide how long we are to allow terrorists and fundamentalists on both sides to succeed in imposing their agenda on the civilised world, by reversing a fundamental tenet of Jewish, Christian and Islamic tradition, namely the commandment: thou shalt not kill!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pradier">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is another fresh start for a new stage in the race for peace in the Middle East.
Hope, like the phoenix, has risen from the ashes, and yet the truth is that the main characters involved are hardly enthusiastic.
We cannot say that they are welcoming each other with open arms.
Urged by the President of the United States and already rejected by more than half its parliamentary majority, the Israeli Government is moving forward but dragging its feet.
For its part, the Palestinian delegation, tired of having been deceived too many times and of being taken for a ride, no longer believes in the merits of dialogue.
Nevertheless, the commitments made will actually have to be respected.
The attacks and murders on all sides must stop, extremist settlers must no longer be urged to take provocative actions, deaths must cease and people must be prepared to look at, listen to and respect one another.
<P>
We in Parliament must launch an appeal to our counterparts in the Knesset and the Legislative Council, above and beyond the Israeli Government and the authorities. Through our counterparts we must launch an appeal to the Israeli people, heirs of those who brought unprecedented and unequalled messages of knowledge and spirituality to the whole world.
We must launch an appeal to the Palestinian people, where Christians and Muslims come together in the melting pot of a nation that is being born and whose birth is particularly painful.
We must tell them not to be afraid, not to fear their neighbours or the world that is following their progress. Europe, although unfortunately still not involved in the diplomatic progress, is nonetheless very active and very much part of the construction of this country; this Europe is their brother and wants them as its new-born partners.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, Commissioner, in the Book of Psalms, King David says in the 122nd psalm 'Pray for the peace of Jerusalem'.
Even though he wrote that thousands of years ago, his appeal is still extremely topical.
Time and time again, peace accords seem to break down because of mutual suspicion and the breaking of agreements by both sides.
<P>
Even after the Wye Accord recently concluded between Mr Netanyahu and Mr Arafat, peace in Israel seems further away than ever.
This week violent conflict broke out again, with both parties perhaps rightly accusing each other of breaking agreements.
Fortunately the Knesset approved the accord yesterday evening, but sadly this does not yet bring peace within reach.
On the contrary, once it has been approved by the Israeli Parliament, the accord still has to be implemented in practice, and this is only part of the problem, because first and foremost confidence needs to be restored between the two peoples, and no agreement can achieve that.
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The basic conditions for lasting peace in the Middle East are, in my view, the establishment of secure and recognised borders for Israel and recognition for the Palestinian nation's right to self-determination.
Only when the Arab countries enter into full diplomatic relations with Israel can a lasting peace settlement be reached.
The European Union must show political restraint here and coordinate any action it takes with the United States.
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There is always a risk of terrorist attack with any peace negotiations, as we saw last week at a market in Jerusalem.
Terrorism is the greatest threat to a lasting peace settlement and must be countered by international agreements, strict border controls and measures to combat poverty.
European Union aid should be targeted on this, and it should also be an important consideration in any trade agreements that are concluded.
Support from the European Union must foster strong economic cooperation in areas such as water supply, infrastructure, tourism and security.
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Finally, the countries of the Middle East must take the agreements seriously, as this is the only way that progress will be made.
Outsiders must show restraint, including the European Council and the European Parliament.
If the peace talks are to go smoothly, the European Parliament should not interfere.
It can no longer act as a neutral mediator, since it has openly sided with the Palestinians in the past.
It is counter-productive to blame one of the two parties when both have clearly made mistakes.
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At the start of my speech, I quoted the Bible's call to pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
The original text says 'shalom', which has many connotations including the good or well-being of the city.
Let us make this well-being our objective in our policy on the Middle East.
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<SPEAKER ID=214 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Antony">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Wye Plantation agreement can be seen as a glass that is either half full or half empty.
It could be seen as progress or one may feel rather uneasy, as I myself do, and think that the actors involved are only hoping to prolong a situation which has already been going on too long.
The Wye Plantation agreement represents an enclave policy and will turn the situation into another Bosnia; it is a pathetic agreement not worth the paper it is written on.
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I am well aware that this is not an easy situation.
It is not easy because the situation in Israel must be confronted head-on.
Yesterday, I criticised a report which appeared in an important left-wing newspaper from my region, La Dépêche du Midi , taken from the Sunday Times , which I hope was wrong and which stated that Israeli laboratories are working, and I quote, 'on the production of ethnic biological weapons, containing genetically modified micro-organisms that would harm Arabs but not Jews.
The Hebrew State scientists are apparently attempting to identify the distinctive genes carried by some Arabs, then create a virus or bacterium which would affect that specific population'.
I hope that this will be denied and that the Sunday Times , given the information by the Israeli Embassy, will tell us that this is not true.
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But, in addition, the domestic situation in Israel is tragic and I acknowledge that Benjamin Netanyahu's role is not, of course, an easy one.
This is why, in Tel Aviv's main daily paper, Yediot Ahronot , the great writer Seffei Rachlevsky criticises the cabbala-Messianic revolution which seems to be making progress towards 'relentlessly taking absolute control of the Holy Land', to use the words of Yediot Ahronot .
Furthermore, in Tribune Juive , Jean Kahn, president of many organisations and rapporteur for the Committee of Inquiry on Racism and Xenophobia, describes the meetings held in Israel by the Sephardim where speakers claim that Hitler, alas, did not complete his work with the Ashkenazim.
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Finally, again in the Israeli press I read that the Falashim are demonstrating in the streets shouting 'death to the whites'.
So, the reality in Israel is not simple: it is one of real hatred and the climate of a civil war.
It is not any simpler in Palestine, where Yasser Arafat is struggling to control the situation and where, at times, his days appear to be numbered.
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I think that the only way out of such a situation is by working objectively and with very clear ideas.
We could believe in the greatness of Israel, which would lead to a situation similar to that of the Milosevic regime and to civil war.
Or we could promote - and why not? - a secular republic of Israel and Palestine, based on the South Africa of today, as there are both Muslims and Christians in Israel.
Or we can even advocate a sovereign and viable free Palestine, with the right to self determination as recommended by the UN.
This is the position of our group and we believe that, in the long term and if people behave wisely, it could lead to an Israeli-Palestinian confederation.
But I do not think that squabbling yet again over tiny portions of territory will lead to a definitive peace agreement.
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<SPEAKER ID=215 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Madam President-in-Office, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, without any hesitation or beating about the bush, I should like to say that, as far as I am concerned as chairman of the Delegation for relations with Israel, I am extremely pleased about the signing of the Wye Plantation agreement.
After months and months of wrangling and of difficulties, this agreement, ratified today by the Israeli Government and by a large majority in the Knesset in spite of the two attacks that have taken place, is a major step forward.
Of course, all has not been resolved but a new step has been taken on the road to peace.
We must not forget that this agreement was signed by a right-wing Israeli Government, elected on a political platform hostile to the Oslo accords. Therefore, this peace process has today been given an electoral basis which has never been reached before in Israel.
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I would therefore like to congratulate Mr Netanyahu and his government on their courage.
I would also like to congratulate Mr Arafat and his secular team of Palestinian leaders, who have shown proof of their maturity, their composure and their ability to carry out the duties which weigh heavily upon them.
We must now implement this agreement completely and swiftly, and on both sides.
The next phase must now begin as soon as possible in order to discuss the final frontiers of the future Palestinian State as well as all the different links with the State of Israel, with Jordan and with Egypt, and we must not forget about the Syrian issue. Between now and then, we must avoid further obstacles being thrown in the path of this process.
We must avoid threats of unilateral declarations, on the one hand, and of continuing to establish settlements, on the other. Such settlements are true time bombs, for Israelis as well as Palestinians.
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Last week, in Brussels, the Group of the Party of European Socialists organised Israeli-Palestinian meetings.
We were able to gauge the good-will on both sides and almost completed discussions for the basis of an agreement on the long-term objectives to be achieved.
We were also able to gauge the ground that remains to be covered and the many obstacles to be overcome.
But who would have imagined, in May 1943 - a bloody year if ever there was one in Europe -, that five years later The Hague would launch an appeal for a united Europe and that then, eight years later, the Treaty of Rome creating the EEC and the Common Market would be signed.
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So, ladies and gentlemen, in the name of our still-recent history, let us be tolerant and attentive, in particular when a new problem arises in the Middle East. Rather than always asking whose fault it is, let us ask ourselves what we can and should do to help the Israelis and the Palestinians overcome this obstacle, and then go one step further down the road to peace and cooperation.
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<SPEAKER ID=216 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="De Esteban Martin">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, it is to be regretted that just a few weeks after the Wye Plantation Agreement we have seen a series of damaging remarks and threats made on both sides that, although they have been withdrawn very recently, can only be described as very dangerous and unproductive. We do, however, welcome the fact that the Israeli Parliament has ratified this Agreement.
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It is evident that the main opponents of the peace process at the present time are the most radical factions on each side that continually attempt to thwart the small advances that are so difficult to achieve for both the Palestinians and the Israelis.
This can be seen in the fact that Netanyahu needed the support of the Labour opposition to guarantee the ratification of the Wye Plantation agreements, as well as in the increasing difficulties experienced by Arafat in his attempt to win over the more fundamental and radical sectors.
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In spite of this, we must bear in mind that the majority of the people - both Palestinian and Israeli - openly support the peace process. This amounts to the best guarantee the process has of reaching a satisfactory conclusion and I hope that that conclusion will include the issue of Gaza.
In this respect, and as stated in the resolution we are discussing here today, the European Parliament fully supports the agreements of 23 October. It reiterates the need for the European Union to exert a political influence in line with its current role in the area of providing economic and financial assistance, particularly in relation to the implementation of these agreements and the proposals for new formulas that might help the peace process move forward.
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Having said all this, I do not want to overlook how important it is for both parties to avoid an increase in verbal attacks, such as those we have seen recently. Such attacks incite violence and do nothing to reconcile their positions and search for compromises, merely serving to add confusion and desperation in the area and in the rest of the world.
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The Israeli Government should review its policy on the resettlement of colonists, as has been mentioned, as well as making the necessary efforts to implement the Oslo and Wye Plantation Agreements. In so doing, it must not give in to the pressure exerted by the ultra-orthodox sectors whose only aim is to destroy the peace process.
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On the other hand, the Palestinian Authority must focus its attention on monitoring the extremist factions that are also opposed to the peace process, especially in relation to the control and prevention of terrorism, which, sadly, has been so prominent in recent years. It should also offer Israel the guarantees of security it has been calling for.
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The European Union must play a more prominent role in this process and, in this respect, I was very pleased to hear the comments and proposals put forward by Madam President-in-Office of the Council. However, it must not limit itself to merely donating funds.
The 15 Member States are currently involved in an in-depth debate on how to reach the desired objective of acting with one voice on the international scene and ensuring that this voice is strong and listened to by the rest of the world.
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Madam President-in-Office, Mr President, I think that we now have a unique opportunity to make the voice of the European Union heard in the peace process.
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<SPEAKER ID=217 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gahrton">
Mr President, I agree with my fellow group member Mr Ullmann when he calls for an end to violence.
I therefore feel very strongly about the total lack of balance in the reactions of the world community to last week's violation of the Middle East peace agreement.
In the case of Iraq, we had to prepare ourselves for a major military offensive, which according to the 'Washington Post' could have cost the lives of 10 000 Iraqi citizens. But when, only a few days after the Wye Plantation meeting, the Foreign Minister, Ariel Sharon, in breach of the recent agreement, openly encouraged Israeli settlers to occupy Palestinian territory, what happened then?
Not very much - at most a resolution here in Parliament.
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I am not asking for Israel to be treated in the same way as Iraq.
I do not want tens of thousands of Israeli children to pay with their lives for their leaders' transgressions.
But some form of economic and political pressure should be exerted - and very soon - if our resolutions on the right of Palestinians to their own state are to be taken seriously.
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<SPEAKER ID=218 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, I would also like to add my voice to those who have agreed to support the Knesset's ratification of the Wye Plantation Agreement, with one exception, however: they have added a number of conditions that, to a certain extent, almost amount to a denunciation of the Agreement.
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But the fact that there has been such widespread support is a sign of hope for the future, and the same applies even for the reactions to the Agreement reached.
In other words, everyone has had to confront their extremists, and that is usually what happens when agreements that are equally unsatisfactory for both parties are able to work.
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In this respect, there is an issue that needs to be highlighted that forms part of my personal experience: terrorists - whatever their colour - cannot be given the chance to hold the key to a process.
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I wanted to focus on one point that was highlighted by the President-in-Office of the Council, that is, the role of Europe.
We are faced with an immediate challenge.
I think we must try and explain to our Israeli friends, with all the patience of a saint, that it is not normal for us to simply donate money and do nothing else. We have been reminded of this on several occasions, although there now appears to be more discretion.
I believe that Europe's wish, as shown in the process that has gone from Venice via Madrid to Oslo and continued until now, is to participate, because we feel politically and morally responsible and because we have a great deal to offer, not only in the financial sense but also in terms of our own experience.
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This is why I think that we should not only support the action of our mediator, Mr Moratinos, but that it is also vital for us to strengthen the role the European Union plays.
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<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="Spencer">
Mr President, I would like to thank the President-in-Office for her statement.
It is always a delight to listen to her.
I hope she will take particular inspiration from what Mr Caudron said.
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I think our commitment in this situation should not be to one side or to the other but to success.
We should be offering solidarity to both sides in the face of the inevitable terrorist extremist outrages.
We should be putting pressure on both sides to observe commitments which they have undertaken and, above all, we should be offering encouragement to both sides to think, if not the unthinkable, at least to think those things which are politically difficult.
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Yes, we must play our role in those matters such as water, trade and infrastructure, where our experience and money are important and are urgently needed. But I suggest that there is a much more difficult area where we might also make a uniquely European contribution and that is Jerusalem.
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For 50 years we in Europe have struggled with the nature of co-existence in a crowded land.
We have learned to be creative with the heritage of sovereignty and symbols.
This European fascination with Jerusalem is not a new or a passing fad.
Next year marks the anniversary of the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 by Christian armies, in moments of medieval glory mired in murder.
This city of Jerusalem has been central and sacred and important to all the peoples of the Book and we should honour that interest by a legal and a constitutional creativity, the kind which we have shown here in Europe in our own domestic arrangements in the Union.
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I would say to all who choose to be involved in these negotiations positively that we will need two great virtues.
The first is an eye for the devil in the detail.
I learnt on a trip to Ramallah that our diplomats are going to have to eat and sleep and negotiate with a street map of greater Jerusalem in their pockets.
They are going to need to watch each and every word.
For instance a capital in Jerusalem is different from Jerusalem as a capital or the capital.
Secondly, and most importantly, they are going to need the absolute determination to secure success, of the kind which President Clinton showed in Wye Plantation.
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I think the European Union owes the Holy Land not just an economic investment but an intellectual investment in the final status of issues.
This is not something which we should leave just to our overworked presidency.
It is a challenge to the creativity of the Commission and indeed of this Parliament and of all of us as individuals.
I hope it is not too much to believe that by May 4 next year we could perhaps echo the prayer of the ages, 'next year in Jerusalem, and mean by that a peace for the millennium in the navel of the world.
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<SPEAKER ID=220 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Delcroix">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the signing of the Wye Plantation accords have given rise to a fresh wave of optimism that the current deadlock will be broken and substantial progress made towards peace in this part of the world.
By pulling out all the diplomatic stops, the European Union should put all its strength behind these beginnings of a peace process, no matter how fragile they may be.
We must once again remember that the civilian populations of Israel and of the Palestinian territories are the victims of blind violence, whose aim is to obliterate any progress towards a negotiated solution.
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The Near and Middle East encompasses different conflicts and the specific interests that fuel them.
Each conflict in this region has its own origins, its own particular aspects, and needs its own specific solutions. Yet these will only see the light of day after a widespread dialogue, based on a detailed analysis of the situation and leading to a balanced agreement for the whole region.
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To attempt to solve each conflict separately would be to erase all historical, ethnic, religious and cultural characteristics which fuel nationalist or fundamentalist attitudes, and would be to forget the international strategies that aim to control raw materials and maintain spheres of influence by means of military alliances.
The real problems to be solved in this region involve abolition of the occupied territories, freeing prisoners and allowing refugees to return freely, recognising the rights of national minorities, lifting embargoes, ceasing military operations, organising cooperation between the countries in this region, normalising trade and exports, and strict control of the production and trading of arms.
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I dreamed that this was an ambition which the EU was capable of achieving and that we were willing to see through such a process which would establish mutually beneficial security and cooperation amongst all countries in the Near and Middle East. I dreamed that we would be willing to support any joint efforts to find regional solutions, which are at the heart of the Euro-Mediterranean partnerships.
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<SPEAKER ID=221 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Dimitrakopoulos">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I think the new Wye Plantation agreement is important, as also are the results of yesterday's vote in the Knesset on the implementation of that agreement.
Also important and serious, and I congratulate you on that, are the Austrian Presidency's activities to assist the peace process.
At the same time, however, it is sad that the agreement was reached in the United States, under the aegis of the United States and not in Salzburg or Vienna under the aegis of the European Union.
There is no doubt that the peace process will progress more correctly and completely if the European Union becomes politically involved.
In parallel with the huge economic and technical aid it provides, the European Union should also maintain a permanent political presence in the area which, - and I am sorry to have to disagree with you, Madam President-in-Office - does not now exist.
It does not exist because the European Union cannot express its position through just a single ambassador, Mr Moradinos, who in any event is not doing much.
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I would propose two measures here. First, upgrade the presence of the European Union by selecting a prominent figure, as happened for example with the choice of Felipe González for Bosnia, supported by a team of experts.
And secondly, establish the presence of the European Union in all procedures involved in the implementation of and compliance with the content of the Wye Plantation agreement.
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<SPEAKER ID=222 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have followed this most interesting debate with the greatest attention and believe we all agree on one important point or important aspect, namely the role the European Union must play in the peace process.
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We know it will be enormously difficult to implement the Wye Plantation accord, but let me emphasise again that it did represent another new start and a new hope.
I believe one very important factor is that the European Union should now continue, as has been said here, to work firmly, patiently, courageously and creatively towards its implementation and continue to do so at the various conferences.
I referred a moment ago to the donor conference now scheduled for 30 November in Washington.
Of course we would have liked to see it held in Vienna.
And we made every effort to achieve that.
We negotiated with the Americans, we negotiated with the Norwegians, because we had hoped at least to co-chair the conference.
We made all these efforts, but unfortunately we did not succeed.
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Of course one could now say that we are rather sad and a little offended about this.
Yet I believe that is not the right approach to take.
The right approach is for us to become an important factor, an important element in the peace process. And what could be more important for both sides at present than for the Union to be present at, for example, the donor conference in Washington and to play its own important part there?
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We are not in competition with the USA - one could almost liken this to a beauty contest.
What is important is to make progress towards peace.
If there is no other option, if one side listens more to the Americans and the other side more to the European Union, then we will simply have to act together.
I think that is precisely what we must all do.
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We must try to discover what specific contribution we can make, and on that basis I have tried to identify a whole range of necessary follow-up measures we must take.
We cannot entirely separate the political and economic aspects, since the opening of the airport is in fact a very political matter, because it is the next step.
How long is it since the airport has been completed but not opened?
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In principle the airport is scheduled to open very soon, on 20 November, on an emergency basis.
True, the airport is not quite ready.
It should be completed as soon as possible; but at least this sends out a political signal that things are finally progressing here.
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Secondly, the port. Foreign Minister Sharon said himself in talks with the President-in-Office, Mr Schüssel, that we could count on further steps towards agreement, if not agreement itself, in about two months' time.
Even I tend to think it is perhaps going a little too far to use the word agreement.
We have to be careful here.
Another point that was unfortunately raised - and quite rightly so - was of course the question of the possible consequences of the 4 May 1999 deadline.
It could indeed spark off a serious crisis and a new outbreak of violence, unless it is preceded by negotiations that can avert such a crisis, avert a unilateral declaration and the ensuing reactions.
The Council has begun internal consultations and has also had contacts with the United States on this matter.
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But what I regard as most important of all is that we jointly take concrete steps forward.
As I said earlier, after the donor conference we shall be organising a quadrilateral meeting at which the four main partners, the EU and the USA, together with Israel and Palestine, will be discussing these important political and economic questions further.
On the whole, I believe this is an important new step on the long and difficult road to peace in the Middle East.
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<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="Spencer">
Mr President, the Commission has an important role to play in this matter.
I find it inconceivable that a man of the legendary eloquence of Commissioner Flynn does not feel moved to contribute at the end of this debate.
Would you please repeat your invitation to him to take the microphone.
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<SPEAKER ID=224 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Dimitrakopoulos">
Mr President, I support Mr Spencer's proposal.
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I listened to the President-in-Office of the Council and I am afraid there has been some misunderstanding.
I did not criticise the Austrian Presidency for the fact that the Wye Plantation agreement was not concluded in Vienna or Salzburg, I simply said that I would have felt much better if it had been reached in Vienna or Salzburg, and I repeat as much.
With this opportunity, I wish to say again that the Austrian Presidency's contribution towards helping the Middle East peace process has been and is important.
I wanted to make that clear.
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<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="Flynn">
I will speak very briefly, as I would hate to disappoint Mr Spencer.
I appreciate his kind words about my eloquence.
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I have been listening very carefully to this debate.
It seems to me that the Wye River Israeli-Palestinian interim Accord really gives the peace process a much needed chance.
We have to appreciate that it was at a very delicate point of near collapse, so I see this as a very major improvement.
In fact it is the only tool available to support peace in the Middle East that the international community has available to it at this time.
For that reason, since it is the best chance that the ailing Middle East process has, it has to have our great support.
We greatly applaud the fact the Knesset has taken the necessary steps in the recent past.
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There may be many hurdles to cross insofar as the Accord is concerned but both political and economic support should be provided to all of the parties to maintain the momentum.
That is a key point that has come out of this debate.
But when all is said and done, implementation is the key.
I quite clearly support what Mr Spencer so eloquently said.
He said it is going to require a delicate touch from those who are on the ground to recognise all the vagaries of the situation that exists in that very sensitive part of the world.
Having visited myself I have a full appreciation of how a wrong word, used at the wrong time, can jeopardise the whole thing.
That must certainly be taken on board.
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We have a contribution to make.
We should focus our action on a limited number of high-impact areas.
There were a few mentioned.
It is quite interesting to mention the one about the hospital.
The hospital is there; it is empty.
The Palestinians would appear not to have the capacity to run it just now. But the Commission has sent a management team to get it up and running.
So that is a positive development that we can support.
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As far as the airport is concerned, Israel said that it should be up and running this particular week.
We have to wait now to see what is going to happen over the next couple of weeks, if that commitment can be honoured.
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Insofar as the port is concerned there are the continuing problems of access.
They have yet to be resolved.
One has to understand that there will be a three or four year delay in the actual construction anyway. So there are impediments there.
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But what we have heard here is a consensus view that we want to give this a chance and we want to give our total support to the Austrian presidency and Mrs Ferrero-Waldner for all that has been done to enable it to happen.
Certainly the Commission will be pursuing that objective too.
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<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
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I have received seven motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2).
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The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.30 a.m.
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(The sitting was suspended at 7.40 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
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<CHAPTER ID=15>
Structural Funds (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on the Structural Funds.
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<SPEAKER ID=228 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Hernández Mollar">
Madam President, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs made a significant contribution to the report by Mr Hatzidakis and Mrs McCarthy.
We have an important opportunity to plan the future of the European Social Fund since the new Objective 3 that is proposed in the regulation will be exclusively applied in respect of the European Social Fund and its activities are closely linked to the development of the national employment plans.
We see as positive the simplification and concentration that has resulted in combining the current Objectives 3 and 4 into Objective 3 for the next seven years.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the Committee on Regional Policy support the horizontal nature of the regulation because it is in keeping with the aims of the new Objective 3 to promote the policy of developing human resources in the management of the rest of the objectives. In addition, it is linked to the national employment plans and this guarantees that active policies will be applied in the entire Union, and not only in the regions that are not included in Objectives 1 and 2, as proposed by the Commission, since that would discriminate against the richest areas of the least developed regions, which would not come under the umbrella of Objective 3.
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In committee we also expressed the need to guarantee the planning and implementation of the Structural Funds in all its objectives and to promote the principle of equal opportunities, but in a balanced way.
It is true that there are serious distortions in the labour market that are detrimental to women and to the disabled.
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I would also like to emphasize that we agree that resources should be used efficiently, but in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs - and the Committee on Regional Policy feels the same - we feel that the formula proposed by the Commission to free funds automatically is too rigid and that the exceptional nature of the Structural Funds appropriations should be retained.
That is, these appropriations should be spending objectives and not ceilings for spending.
In addition, if there are funds that are not used, they should be distributed among other regions of the Member State, and the Committee on Regional Policy has also approved this.
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Finally, with regard to Community initiatives, it is important that the interventions and objectives of Community initiatives should be clearly separate. In addition, the Commission should announce the criteria it will propose for the new generation of initiatives, as is stated in the report.
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<SPEAKER ID=229 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Napoletano">
Madam President, I think today's debate has demonstrated substantial agreement between the approach of the Commission and the position of Parliament, agreement on concentration, simplification, efficiency and partnership.
But I think the Commission will need to take account of some of Parliament's views if there is to be a meeting of minds in the spirit Mr Hänsch spoke of this morning, rather than a dialogue between someone maintaining one position and someone pursuing another route.
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I think we have reached some important agreements on principles; now there are a few points to be finalised.
The Commission is already willing - it seems to me - to review the reserve proposal.
One approach to the Community initiative programmes is that Interreg should immediately become the main programme, but we are insisting both on the maintenance of the URBAN programme and on a greater role for the city within the regulations, both in Objective 1 and in the other Community initiatives, like the Interreg programme.
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For Objective 2, coherence with state aid can be achieved in two ways: either through greater flexibility, or by asking the state aid to bear in mind that a problem has to be identified for there to be Structural Fund intervention, and that, possibly, the two maps should coincide.
However it is the Structural Fund intervention which signals that there are certain problems to be dealt with here.
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<SPEAKER ID=230 NAME="Cushnahan">
Madam President, I would like to have talked in general terms but, given recent developments in my own country, I will confine my remarks to our future strategy.
I am sure the Commissioner is well aware of the Irish Government's decision to divide Ireland into two regions: a grouping of 15 counties from the west, the border and the midlands, including two counties in my own constituency, Kerry and Clare, to be designated as a new Objective 1 region.
It is intended that the remaining 11 counties will be designated as Objective 1 in transition.
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I understand, Commissioner, that you have already made it clear to the Irish Government, that this strategy will not result in any extra funding for Ireland.
In any case you are leaving it to Eurostat to decide on the admissibility or otherwise of the new regions, based on the statistics available.
Could you confirm whether it is true that Eurostat will be producing new figures in the next couple of days providing the economic indicators for 1996-1997?
If, as I fear, they show a dramatic improvement in Ireland's economic performance, is there not a real danger that a major part of the newly designated Objective 1 region will no longer qualify?
It will be above the threshold and that would leave our current strategy in tatters.
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The use of the GDP criterion overestimates Ireland's true position.
It includes multinational profits which do not stay within our economy and I ask the Commission to bear this in mind when considering the Irish case.
GNP would be a much fairer criterion.
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Finally, I seek clarification from the Commission in relation to the proposed Objective 1 in transition status.
Will the change in co-financing from 75 % to 50 % apply equally to EAGGF projects and those under ESF and ERDF?
What will be the situation in relation to headage payments.
Will the level of headage payments under Objective 1 be continued under Objective 1 in transition areas?
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<SPEAKER ID=231 NAME="Howitt">
Madam President, I commend the Commissioners on their attendance at this marathon debate and the attention they are paying to it, but I am afraid I have to use my limited time to talk about where I believe the Commission has got it wrong: first in the proper pursuit of concentration and simplification.
The cuts in the Community initiative go just too far.
The Commission must not tell us that the amounts are too small to justify the administration.
Tell that to the people in my region, which has used ECU 30m - £25m - in the last five years.
Smaller programmes which are targeted, can actually work better.
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In supporting the Urban initiative, let us not hear about duplication.
What about the 60 % of people who live in small and medium-sized towns, innovation, transnational links?
A new Community initiative can be tailored to these needs.
In Objective II, let us be clear that giving help to the poorest regions is not the same as giving help to the poorest people.
Let us help the pockets of poverty; one programme, one region, yes, but targeted help from Objective II within the region at below NUTS III level.
<P>
On the question of services, a redundant bank teller or hotel receptionist is just as unemployed as a redundant factory worker.
I welcome the fact that the Commission has supported our representations on this, but the regulation still needs clarification.
<P>
It was wrong of the Commission to exclude environmental authorities from participating in decision-making.
And regional funding, just as much as social funding, should respect principles of non-discrimination.
<P>
Finally, on the issue for which I have been rapporteur, the guidelines: let us have an unequivocal assurance from the Commissioner that they will be published by the end of the year and they will not be used to impose late changes on local projects.
This is a test of the Commission's real commitment to simplification.
Let us accept a duty to negotiate this package on time.
Anything less will mean funding delays, short deadlines, rushed projects for the next seven years.
The opportunity to prevent that exists once and once only.
We must act now.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Imaz San Miguel">
Madam President, the cohesion policy is an element of solidarity for the most disadvantaged regions.
The regions that are a priority for aid, as defined by the Commission, are the Objective 1 regions, which are those with an income that is less than 75 % of the European average.
For this definition the autonomous community or region is used as a point of reference.
This procedure may seem fair, but one change needs to be made.
There are areas that, although they are not as large as a region, have objective needs, and their income is unfortunately below the level required.
For this reason there must be exceptions, which are, of course, limited, so that those areas can be Objective 1 and can take priority in receiving aid.
There are various areas of this type in the European Union.
One example is the area made up of the left bank of the Nervión and Ayala in the Basque Country.
It has 350 000 inhabitants, with an income that is below 75 % of the European average, a level of unemployment above 20 %, a socio-economic fabric that urgently needs revitalising and, what is more, is an area adjoining two autonomous communities that are currently Objective 1: Castilla-León and Cantabria.
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Therefore, including the left bank of the Nervión and Ayala in Objective 1 would leave no island in the European aid map.
It would be an act of solidarity towards its inhabitants and a essential element in revitalising investment and economic activity in the area and in creating jobs.
It is therefore necessary to consider the possibility of taking account of exceptions in the Objective 1 map, so that specific and objective needs for support will have their share of the Structural Funds, above and beyond political and administrative limits.
<P>
There is another aspect of the Commission's proposal that we must modify.
Aid for training and employment for the new Objective 3 could be lost for Objective 2 areas: industrial areas.
This would be a complete contradiction in terms.
Where are training and human resources more needed than in areas that are undergoing industrial change?
It is only through this concept and through this modification that the Basque Country, as well as other industrial areas of Europe, will be able to continue to receive around 8 billion pesetas every year.
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I hope that Parliament will tomorrow be in favour of using that Fund for training in Objective 2 areas that are undergoing industrial change, because if training is needed for employment anywhere in Europe, it is undoubtedly needed in areas like these that have a high level of unemployment and where a considerable amount of effort is being made in industrial and technological change.
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<SPEAKER ID=233 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pérez Royo">
Madam President, I would like to speak about the proposal for a regulation on structural actions in the fisheries sector.
It is impossible to take, in principle, anything but a critical position with regard to this regulation.
This critical position is justified by the current situation of the fisheries sector, and by the proposals that are being made to us in this regulation, even though they are not very specific.
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It is important to emphasise - and you are all perfectly aware of this - that the common fisheries policy currently relies almost exclusively on the Structural Funds.
On this issue, both from a quantitative as well as a qualitative point of view, it is impossible to take anything other than a critical position.
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The Community fisheries sector is currently undergoing a profound change in order to survive and be competitive in a globalised economy.
The action that is taking place requires the provision of sufficient funds to finance the various aspects that make up the common fisheries policy in its various facets: conservation and protection of resources, international agreements, markets, structural measures, social aspects, etcetera.
<P>
The lack of sufficient funding would lead to the collapse of a sector that is vital in coastal areas and that is labour-intensive, both in the actual fishing sector and in the processing industry, and the loss of this would result in a considerable outlay of public resources.
From a quantitative point of view, there are a series of uncertainties that are making its future difficult.
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And from a qualitative point of view - and I am coming to an end here - there is an observation that has been made many times in the Committee on Fisheries: it involves the plan for the new structural policy, in which the horizontal nature of the fisheries objective is lost.
The fisheries sector needs a regulation, or at least a specific objective, that is of a horizontal nature, as well as a single legal instrument, a basis like the current FIFG, which should be strengthened on the basis of the criteria put forward by the Commission in the proposal to create a rural development fund.
This is what we are calling for, Madam President, in our amendments.
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<SPEAKER ID=234 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Porto">
Madam President, in the discussion on the Cohesion Fund overriding importance should be attached to the proposals for amendments removing entitlement to the funds from countries that have joined the euro. In other words, we should focus our attention on this element.
These are proposals without any substantial justification since it is a structural fund aimed at bringing about real convergence among the countries with per capita GDPs less than 90 % of the Community average.
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Given that this convergence would be jeopardised by the restrictive policy dictated by nominal convergence, it is understandable that, in everyone's interest, further support should have been granted to bring about real convergence.
The need to bring the less developed countries closer to the more developed did not come to an end when they joined the euro.
This is indeed a temporary mechanism - as was said yesterday afternoon -in that it no longer applies once they reach 90 % - as a transitional measure -, and due to the fact that these less developed countries are obliged to pursue austerity policies under the terms of the stability and growth pacts.
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The proposal to exclude these countries from the Fund would have the paradoxical consequence of punishing those countries that met the conditions for joining the euro while rewarding those that failed to do so because they applied a less rigorous policy.
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Apart from these substantial reasons, what is at stake is our credibility vis-à-vis a Treaty where the conditions of access to the Fund are made perfectly clear: a per capita GDP of less than 90 % of the average Community GDP and the definition of a programme of nominal convergence.
It is a Treaty that, without any reservations, rightly won the support of the European Parliament and has been ratified by all the Member States.
What image would we be giving of politicians in general, and Members of the European Parliament in particular, if, for no reason - and in this case against the Commission - the Treaty were disregarded through our initiative?
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Both the treaties and our word must be honoured, not only by the southern countries but also by the northern countries, which naturally played a decisive role in drafting those treaties.
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<SPEAKER ID=235 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Collado">
Madam President, Commissioners, we are debating a section of Agenda 2000 that has a special bearing on the nature of Europe, as it is directly concerned with cohesion.
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I have listened to many speakers in this debate and, possibly because they have been rushed due to the short amount of time we have, they seem to have given an impression with which I do not agree, because they have tried to say to the Commission that its proposals are not sound.
I wish to say the opposite - using the short amount of time that I have - by stating that the documents we have received from the Commission are truly positive, genuinely encompass the meaning of cohesion, have enabled us to work, and we are amending them.
However, I am not so pretentious as to assume that our amendments improve the Commission's texts.
I think that society is complex and that our amendments possibly complicate the Commission's text.
And this is necessary because we are Members of this Parliament and representatives of the people, but are acting at the cost of lowering the technical level and the appropriate tactical level of the Commission's document.
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However, I know that in the Commission you have been positive and courageous.
You have been courageous in designing the structure of cohesion, courageous in proposing the Cohesion Fund and succeeding in the legal ruling, and courageous in proposing a balanced and sound amount to be set aside for this Cohesion Fund.
<P>
Madam Commissioner, I ask you in particular to try to send us a new document on this framework regulation that precisely encompasses this very rich debate that you have had with Parliament and that I know you are having with the Council.
It would be good if this regulation, which has already been discussed at great length in a certain way, could be replaced by another that would then be the final draft in this very fruitful debate we have had.
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<SPEAKER ID=236 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sisó Cruellas">
Madam President, the funding for trans-European networks proposed by the Commission from 2000 to 2006 is almost double that from 1995 to 1999.
I welcome this increase in funding, but it should be noted that the period from 2000 to 2006 is longer than the previous period, that figures must be compared in real terms and not in current terms, and that investments in the Union's infrastructures have fallen from 1.5 % to 0.9 % of the GDP in recent years.
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I therefore think that the figure is as relatively poor as that put forward in the Council regulation that we are now amending and for which I was rapporteur.
At that time, I said in this House that the funding anticipated for trans-European networks only represented 0.6 % of the funds needed in order to build the infrastructures planned for the 1994-1999 period.
We are in a similar situation despite the fact that the funds have been doubled in current terms, and there is therefore still a clear contradiction between the needs in terms of a real Community policy on infrastructures and the funds that are available from the Union.
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In addition, as I was also draftsman of the opinion on the Cohesion Fund, I must make the following observation.
According to what has been determined, if a Member State that is receiving money from the Cohesion Fund does not fulfill the convergence criteria, such as public debt and public deficit, it will stop receiving funds.
That is what has been determined.
However, some people say - and today we have heard speeches to this effect - that if a Member State that is receiving money from the Cohesion Fund has fulfilled the convergence criteria, it should stop receiving that money.
That means that every Member State, whether it fulfills the convergence criteria or whether it does not, will be punished by not receiving its share of the Cohesion Fund.
When faced with such a contradiction, there is nothing more that can be said.
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I will only add that this was not the spirit of the temporary committee that was set up in order to implement the Cohesion Fund.
I know what I am talking about, as I had the honour of being one of the members of that temporary committee.
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<SPEAKER ID=237 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Darras">
Madam President, the document presented to us today is the result of many hours of discussion and compromise. It was drawn up by our two co-rapporteurs, Mrs McCarthy and Mr Hatzidakis, whom I should like to thank for their efforts.
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Although we can approve the general content of the report, which adopts the Commission's suggested principles of concentration, simplification and decentralisation, we cannot vote in favour of the final version.
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In effect, we will still vote against the report, in spite of its positive points, such as the horizontal application of Objective 3, maintaining the 'URBAN' initiative and taking small and medium-sized towns into account for the first time, the need for a new initiative to deal with the economic and social crises that lead to job losses, and the restructuring of the performance reserve provided for by the Commission.
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As regards Objective 1, we too believe that, first and foremost, aid should be given to the regions that need it most.
We believe that the 75 % criterion should be adhered to strictly.
We cannot, under any circumstances, accept that appropriations from the Guarantee section of the EAGGF, used within Objective 2, be considered as non-compulsory expenditure.
Also, we consider that our democracy will be tarnished if the House does not vote in favour of our Amendment No 46 which, in the interests of greater transparency, stresses that the non-discriminatory use of Structural Funds appropriations must be ensured in the different regions concerned.
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It is for this reason, Madam President, that the French Socialists in the European Parliament will not vote in favour of this at first reading.
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<SPEAKER ID=238 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pirker">
Madam President, Commissioners, quite an important objective in the Council Regulation is that the ERDF resources should mainly be used for measures which are favourable to employment.
I would consider that point, which was also the subject of our discussion in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, to be particularly significant.
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I should like to pick out a few essential points which we in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs unanimously thought should be implemented.
Firstly, we know that, in general, flexible models and new forms of organising work also lead to more jobs.
However, we also know that these flexible models are very often not applied, and this is often because small and medium-sized companies are not in a position to transpose them.
That is why we would request that you promote examples which can show how these new flexible models are to be implemented in smaller companies.
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Secondly, many small and medium-sized companies cannot afford to transfer to their companies all the technology that has been developed.
I would propose that we set up innovation centres where innovative young entrepreneurs can obtain the appropriate knowledge and guidance to create new jobs in young companies.
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Thirdly, we think that from the very beginning of each project attention should be given to ways of best developing human resources in this context.
Fourthly, we were all very concerned that the needs of the disabled should receive special attention during the planning stage of the infrastructure measures being supported.
There are a great many other points, but I think that these are the main ones that can help to create a higher level of employment.
We have reached unanimous agreement on these points and I call for them to be implemented.
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<SPEAKER ID=239 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langenhagen">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen of the Commission, just a week ago I organised a conference in my hometown of Cuxhaven, an important fishing location in Germany, to look at the reform of the structural measures in the fisheries sector.
The criticisms made by the regional fisheries sector reflected the great anxiety that prevails in that sector at present.
In December 1992, the European Council in Edinburgh agreed upon the principle that areas dependent upon fisheries should receive privileged assistance within the context of the structural policy.
However, in the new Regulation on the Structural Funds, the Commission no longer respects this principle.
The partial restructuring in the agriculture fund threatens to bring the fisheries sector once again into direct competition with agriculture, an aspect which caused the greatest disquiet during the conference.
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According to the Commission plans, the very same measures in the different Objective regions are to be financed from different sources in future, with Objective 1 areas clearly coming off better.
Does the Commission realise that companies in Objective 2 areas are going to consider relocating to an Objective 1 area purely and simply because the conditions there are better?
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We must drop our original request for a separate Objective 4 for rural areas and separate consideration of the areas dependent on fisheries. However, we do need a horizontal, harmonised structural policy to safeguard the objectives of the common fisheries policy.
That is the only correct approach.
We cannot simply proceed as normal, because making the wrong decision in such a sensitive area as this would further undermine confidence in the European Union.
That should not be the outcome of this new European Structural Funds policy.
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<SPEAKER ID=240 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Viola">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today Parliament is dealing with the first step in the reform of the Structural Funds which will govern the cohesion policy of the Fifteen up to 2006.
From this date onwards I think everything will change substantially, both the CAP and the conception and management of the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund.
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To manage the period up to the enlargement of the Union, the financial perspectives propose the maintenance on paper of 0.46 % of GDP for Category 2 of the budget, while the Commission is in fact promising a concentration and a simplification which, in real terms, will significantly reduce the map of the regions and the percentages of the European population which will be covered by Objectives 1 and 2.
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Now, if the level really were 0.46 %, this concentration could be understandable.
But it is not so, since the cohesion policy funds will also be used to finance the pre-accession, thus reducing by half a point the percentage of expenditure laid down at Edinburgh and confirmed in Agenda 2000 for the cohesion policy of the Fifteen.
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On the subject of the Community initiatives, the reduction from thirteen to three is acceptable if the surviving Community initiatives really have the added value compared with the existing funds and the trans-European regional character that must be at the basis of this type of initiative.
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I welcome the reference in the general regulation on the Structural Funds to the fact that it is not appropriate to link this regulation with competition policy.
Of particular importance, in the reports on the general regulation and on the European Regional Development Fund, is the reference to the requirement to incorporate the island criterion both for Objective 1 and for the Community initiatives, providing a new area clearly dedicated to inter-island cooperation under the new Interreg especially.
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By adopting these proposals at first reading, the European Parliament shows consistency with its own position - in view of the vote in May on my report - and with the Treaty signed in Amsterdam, which provides, in the basic article on cohesion policy, for the inclusion of all the European island regions amongst the less favoured regions.
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In conclusion, I hope that the Commission can adopt the same consistent line that the Council and Parliament have been following since Amsterdam.
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<SPEAKER ID=241 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Madam President, I would like to begin by thanking Mrs Jöns for her splendid work.
I intend to speak here about the social funds.
I would like to raise three points in particular relating to the proposal by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
Firstly, it is inevitable that the social funds should form part of the process of implementing common guidelines for employment.
On this we are in full agreement with the Commission.
Secondly, we need action to promote the status of women, and thirdly, we need to address the possible role of the social funds in implementing Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam on non-discrimination.
The committee proposes that Article 13 should be amended and that a statement should be added to the effect that the funds should promote action to prevent discrimination based on gender, race, ethnic origin, religion or beliefs, disability, and age.
I do hope the Commission will take the committee's proposal seriously.
It is vitally important, as without resources the article on non-discrimination might not have any real impact.
I hope the Commission will take the views of the committee on board.
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<SPEAKER ID=242 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Botz">
Madam President, Commissioners, one of the most important aims of this reform is concentration.
If we are to achieve this objective, the funds available must be concentrated on - that is, allocated to - the really needy areas.
The more regions are classified in the highest category of assistance - Objective 1 - either because people do not wish to accept the 75 % threshold or because they find ways to avoid complying with it, the harder it becomes for us to achieve this important Community objective satisfactorily.
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That is acceptable neither in the present Community of 15 Member States, nor in the light of the coming enlargement.
In my view the 'phasing out' suggested by the Commission is in itself a fair way of dealing with the regions that have reached the 75 % mark.
But let me give you an example by way of clarification: a region that has reached 74 % in 1999 would evidently remain at the top level of assistance for another six years and then ultimately enter the 'phasing out' stage by 2011.
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If I may express it thus: those who have benefited cannot with a clear conscience claim that there is a lack of solidarity in the EU; quite the contrary.
I should like to remind you that we had a very distinguished guest here today, the President of one of the countries on our doorstep. I hope that if we ever reach the situation where the Republic of Poland fulfils the 75 % criterion during membership - and of course neither I nor any one of us knows when that might be - then our Polish friends will not insist upon staying in the top level of European assistance for more than 12 years from that date.
To summarise, we in Parliament should really think once more about establishing a clear, exact definition of the criterion for membership of Objective 1. I hope that tomorrow's decision will reflect this.
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<SPEAKER ID=243 NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by thanking all the rapporteurs for the considerable amount of work they have done and for the quality of their reports: Mrs McCarthy and Mr Hatzidakis for their report on the proposal for a Council Regulation on general provisions; Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna for the report on the proposal for a Council Regulation on the ERDF; Mr Collins for the report on the proposals relating to the Cohesion Fund; Mr Kellett-Bowman for the report on the proposal to amend the rules on trans-European networks; Mr Arias Cañete on the proposal for a Council Regulation on structural measures in the fisheries sector.
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I think that these reports are a means for Parliament to express its determination to conclude the work on Agenda 2000 before the end of this legislative period, and I am grateful for the many clear statements made in this debate to the effect that Parliament shall assume its responsibility.
Madam President, I have five proposals here, and in part they are legislative ones, so this might unfortunately take somewhat longer than the ten minutes remaining.
I would assume that you also have a right to hear what our position is on the amendments, and I will be glad to clarify it. For this reason I beg your indulgence.
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Allow me first of all to make some comments on the general Regulation on the Structural Funds. I am glad to see that the Commission and Parliament follow the same line on most of the issues of principle connected to the reform of the Structural Funds.
This applies particularly to the financial framework of 0.46 % of GNP, the selective assistance for regions whose development is genuinely lagging behind, the reduction in the number of Objectives and Community initiatives, the strengthening of the principle of partnership and the significance of the Programme Monitoring Committees in the decentralised programming process, and the emphasis placed on equal opportunities and sustainable development.
My colleague, Commissioner Flynn, will shortly be commenting in greater detail particularly on the subject of equal opportunities in connection with the Social Fund.
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I would very much regret it, though, if in crucial areas such as concentration, which is essential, Parliament did not summon up the courage to push through the principles which have been acknowledged as the right ones, regardless of the specific interests of individual Member States, regions or sectors.
That is why the Commission cannot support a number of proposals on implementation in the report.
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Firstly, the geographical concentration of assistance under Objectives 1 and 2.
Many speakers have made clear in the debate that this constitutes the heart of the reform.
Without concentration, our efforts to use the money for assistance more efficiently will come to nothing. They will be nothing more than a noble intention.
Without it the positive effects for poorer regions will level off, and ultimately the Cohesion Fund itself will be undermined.
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That is why the Commission cannot support proposals which amount to watering down the goal of concentration.
This is the case with the requested exceptions to the strict application of the 75 % criterion in Objective 1, as well as the attempt made in Objective 2 to water down the reduction of the population ceiling to 18 %, by taking the level as indicative only.
Let me say to our Irish colleague that the figures for Objective 1 will be available during the course of this week and I am sure that you would therefore understand why I do not wish to comment on the Irish government's decision at this point.
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Moving on now to the organisation of Objective 2, the developments in unemployment are still the most prominent aspect of our assessment of structural adjustment, as you stress many times in your comments.
Nevertheless, in the context of greater flexibility, the Commission proposal does allow Member States to use a number of so-called soft criteria as the basis for choosing which regions to assist.
In the light of today's discussion, I think it would be completely acceptable to include some of the criteria that you requested in the wording of Article 4(9). But there can be no change to the restriction of the population ceilings to 18 % and the allocation of ceilings to Member States on the basis of the European criteria proposed.
Similarly, the Commission cannot endorse the suggestion that GNP should be used as the yardstick for Objective 2.
That would in fact amount to establishing an Objective 1 for rich Member States behind the façade of Objective 2.
This would be a contradiction in itself and, as we see it, could not be reconciled with cohesion policy.
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But the rural area shall not be disadvantaged because here too there is in fact some leeway because of the soft criteria.
On Objective 3, let me just say something from the point of view of regional policy, namely that it does of course have an important role within the context of the National Employment Action programmes.
Here as well there are absolutely no differences of opinion between the Commission and the European Parliament.
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We also need to see to it that previous overlaps between measures under Objectives 2 and 3 are avoided, and that we achieve real coordination between promoting investment and the labour market in the regional Objective areas.
We have no objections to the national employment strategy being in application everywhere; quite the contrary.
But we want to make sure that regional measures to promote human resources, measures which fit perfectly into the regional investment and development strategy, have at their disposal the necessary resources from the Social Fund.
That is why the Commission is ready to examine alternatives to its present proposal which take on board Parliament's concerns.
For example, I think that it is conceivable for there to be a separate Objective 3 assistance within Objective 2 regions.
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From the points of view of the economy and regional policy, however, we think it is essential that ESF funds are also provided under Objective 2 for the development of human resources.
This incidentally is also in keeping with the necessary increase in the influence of the local and regional administrative bodies in determining the strategy of regional development, which you rightly call for in many places.
I think that this compromise takes account of both these necessities.
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I would now like to comment on the Community initiatives, and more specifically on the issue of whether we still need URBAN.
For reasons of simplification and improvement in efficiency the Commission cannot accept any further increase in the number of Community initiatives beyond the three that are suggested.
I would emphasise that this also includes LEADER, as one of the contributions to the debate was not sufficiently clear about that.
This is also due to the considerable problems with the absorption of Community initiatives.
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Sustainable urban development is already one of the aims as far as assistance in Objective 1 regions is concerned, and it is specifically emphasised for the new Objective 2 as well, together with an indicative percentage of the population.
After the experiences with the URBAN Community Initiative in the previous promotion period, it is now a question of transferring the tried and tested measures and forms of implementation to the mainstream programmes of Objectives 1, 2 and 3.
An URBAN Community Initiative existing alongside these would hinder the process rather than promote it.
Though for instance we could think about whether the idea of sustainable urban development should not be emphasised more in the recitals for all the Objectives, in order to counter the misunderstanding that sustainable urban development is not to be assisted unless it is explicitly mentioned in the Objective.
I think that would also take account of some of the problems that you have mentioned here.
This would mean of course that assistance is not restricted only to large towns.
In the past I have always made this point clear, and it should be made clear here as well.
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The subject of the efficiency reserve, or the performance reserve, came up in many of the contributions to the discussion here.
I am still disappointed that the Council and Parliament constantly called for improved efficiency in the Structural Funds in the past, for better provision to be made for penalties and better evaluation and monitoring, but now they are almost flatly rejecting the opportunity to actually create a system of incentives to safeguard an efficient management of the Structural Funds.
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It has already been stressed many times that the Commission is prepared to consider changes to its proposal, not however to compromise on the principle.
We all owe it to the European taxpayer to do more than merely attach a commitment to public resources that they will be handled efficiently, because in the last promotion period this unfortunately fell far short of assuring the general success that we were looking for.
In order to make it easier for Parliament and the Council to agree to the efficiency reserve, the Commission is prepared to discuss the size of the reserve, and to think for instance about whether it could be restricted to 10 % of the amount of resources earmarked for the last three years.
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Changes are also possible to the decision-making mechanism, to ensure that Member States have a decisive say in the allocation of the reserve funds.
Not because we are concerned with playing, Mr Schiedermeier, which is why we do not need a playground, but because we want to work with you to make sure that we end up with a successful structural policy.
Maybe the reservations that still exist would be dispelled by the allocation of commitments at national level so that funds would not have to be reorganised between Member States.
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Mind you, this would no longer comply with European best practice, and it would certainly harm the European dimension of the reserve, and so I think we also need to discuss the individual problems which could arise as a result.
The Commission is ready to discuss this constructively with the Council and Parliament, because I think that we can all agree that the reserve is a crucial element of the Commission's proposals to improve efficiency through a combination of simplification and decentralisation, better evaluation and more rigorous financial management.
I think that is something we all want.
<P>
Perhaps it was not a coincidence that yesterday the President of the European Court of Auditors explicitly described the efficiency reserve as a useful instrument in improving the efficiency of the Structural Funds.
As the credibility of the Court of Auditors is really very high, I would ask you also to bear this in mind in your future considerations.
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The consistency between the figures for funding in competition policy and the Structural Funds also inspired part of the discussion and even gave rise to some ideas for compromise.
I would merely like to draw your attention to the fact that this is also necessary if we want greater efficiency, because it makes no sense for European regional policy to assist areas that are not assisted nationally with regional subsidies, especially as the room for manoeuvre is greater at national level than in the Structural Funds.
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It also seems to me a contradiction that in the reports we are constantly reminded of the need for coherence between all Community policies, and yet now our proposal is being rejected for going too far.
The suggested flexibility of 2 % of the population ought to be sufficient if, for example, the urban problem areas were not included in the ceiling for competition. I would suppose that the priority there is probably not the need to boost investment from big companies or work with particularly high investment subsidies.
It is more a question of softer measures: the fight against social exclusion, the provision of social services, the promotion of small and medium-sized enterprises and the craft industry.
I think that in this way the Commission position would move very much closer to the ideas expressed in the reports.
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A final important point on the general regulation has to do with Parliament's role in the application of the Structural Fund Regulation.
The Treaty assigns to the Commission, as the executive body of the Union, the responsibility for managing the implementation of Community policies.
Of course, in doing so the Commission has a duty to regularly account to Parliament for its actions. It does this.
But compulsory prior consultations on the management of the Fund are not compatible with this legal situation.
Nevertheless I am prepared to comply with the practice hitherto, which has developed on the basis of the Klepsch-Millan Code, and elaborate a new code of conduct which includes information being provided to Parliament in advance on general implementation issues.
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You know that in this promotion period, we also kept to this and thus took account of Parliament's position in our final proposals.
We also made available to you all the documents that were sent to the Council working parties.
But it cannot be reconciled with the institutional balance, or with the principles of subsidiarity and decentralisation, for Parliament to have a say in the implementation of structural policy at Member State level.
I hope you understand that the Commission must confine itself to protecting Parliament's role as the body which monitors Community institutions.
The national and regional Programme Monitoring Committees are not Community institutions.
<P>
Now I would like to turn to the new ERDF Regulation, and three points specifically.
The first is the amendments concerning the field of application.
The Commission has no fundamental difficulties with most of the amendments, which are meant to provide further detail on the field of application and the possibilities for intervention.
However, I do have reservations against including them all in the regulation, and for two reasons.
The first is that most of these instances have already been covered by the practice of the last few years, so there is in fact no need for a modification.
And the second is that, if there is too much detail, the text of the regulation will not only become largely unreadable, an observation that has already been made here, but there is also the hidden danger that it will lose the necessary flexibility and possibly even in future exclude different types of assistance which may be important for regional development, and which correspond to a real bottom-up approach.
<P>
Moreover, experience teaches us that, however much we try, it is still probable that we would not succeed in including all the different possibilities in the text of this kind of regulation.
I would have to rule out amendments which cannot be reconciled with the basic thrust of the Regional Fund.
This applies for instance to maritime transport (but not to the infrastructure facilities in this context), and to biodiversity.
Both of these are covered by other Community programmes.
However we are prepared to accept the specific examples of the subjects which have played a role in today's discussion, namely culture and tourism, as they constitute a real added value in expanding a region's endogenous potential for development and could lead to a higher level of employment.
<P>
I would basically welcome the different amendments underlining the added value of the Interreg initiative and the significance of transnational, cross-border and interregional cooperation.
The Commission is prepared to change the text in accordance with the spirit of these proposals.
The same applies to the need to improve coordination with PHARE, TACIS and MEDA.
We are in the process of revising this regulation.
<P>
The Commission can accept the amendments which aim to extend the innovative actions and pilot projects.
However, I think the request that the Regional Fund's financing of the Interreg initiative should also cover the development of human resources and the rural area is redundant, as this is already explicit in the text of the regulation.
As for the URBAN initiative and Parliament's role - on which I am prepared to elaborate a new code of conduct - I would refer you to my comments on the general regulation.
<P>
A final word now on the Community initiatives and RESTRUCT.
In Objective 2 we explicitly noted that the mid-term assessment should include the possibility of reacting to any crises that may have arisen suddenly and replacing regions.
I think it is actually the task of the mid-term assessment to establish where there is a need to reorganise and change programmes in the interests of future developments.
<P>
As this consultation procedure will hopefully at some point be a codecision procedure, allow me briefly to sum up the amendments to the ERDF once again and also the Commission's position in relation to them.
We can take on board the following amendments wholly or in part, or incorporate them into other recitals and articles in the regulation: Amendments Nos 1, 3, 6, 7, part of 11, 19, 22-26, 29, 34, 35 and 55.
Some of the other amendments are deemed by the Commission to be redundant and therefore unnecessary from the technical and legal points of view: Amendments Nos 2, 4, 5, 9, 10, part of 11, 13-18, 20, 27, 30 and 33.

<P>
A number of other amendments cannot be taken on board by the Commission, as they go beyond the ERDF framework and do not correspond with its general objectives.
These are Amendments Nos 11 in part, 12, 28, 31, 32, 36, 38-54 and 56-62.
And finally, the Commission will take on board Amendments Nos 8 and 37 when the code of conduct for Commission and Parliament is drawn up.
<P>
Turning now to the Cohesion Fund, the aim of the change that the Commission has proposed is to bring about greater harmony with the Structural Funds system, particularly with regard to financial management.
The Commission has noted with satisfaction - I can say this now following our discussion - that the majority of the Members of this House obviously share the Commission's point of view on the necessity of continuing with the Cohesion Fund for 'ins' as well.
As regards the request that the more exact definitions of projects or project stages be taken from the Annex of the basic regulation, here the Commission thinks that due to the precise details provided on the substance of the concepts, they have the quality of implementing provisions, and the Annex is therefore the appropriate place for them.
<P>
The Commission shall consider whether the proposed rule on the advance payment of 10 % will lead to difficulties in view of the short duration of the project, and whether the proposal needs therefore to be amended.
<P>
The Commission has difficulties with paragraph 5, as we do not think it expedient for the future distribution of funds between different Member States to be laid down exactly, in advance, in the annual budget.
Identifying the annual amounts would lead to needless rigidity and also the danger of a lower utilisation of the resources available annually.
<P>
On the conditionality issue in paragraph 7, the Commission remains of the view that it is essential to align the conditions with the Stability Pact for the Member States participating in monetary union.
The Commission cannot endorse the request in paragraph 8 that 'phasing out' also be introduced in the Cohesion Fund.
It is hardly likely that upon attainment of the level of 90 % GNP nationally, compared to 75 % regionally under Objective 1, there would be a sharp economic shock when the assistance comes to an end, especially as these countries will continue to profit from Objective 1 assistance by means of the 'phasing out'.
<P>
Paragraph 17 calls for 5 % of the total fund endowment to be reserved for the grouping together of small projects.
The Commission thinks this is unnecessary, as grouping small projects into bigger entities has not given rise to any difficulties hitherto.
The need for grouping does however differ from year to year and from one Member State to the next, so please allow us the flexibility that would be required to help out when good projects are actually presented to us.
<P>
The ability to reassign cancelled authorisations requested in paragraph 20 would undermine the intended effect - that projects are implemented quickly - and so we cannot support it.
<P>
With respect to the TENs Regulation, the Commission welcomes the desire to guarantee greater efficiency in the use of the funds, in view of their limited nature, and also the fact that we have similar opinions on how to achieve this.
I particularly welcome the support for the most important measures: multiannual planning, the introduction of risk-capital participation, increased Community controls over the cofinancing of investments and the estimate of EUR 5.5 billion for the period 2000-2006.
We can therefore take on board either the whole of, or the essence of, 18 of the 30 amendments to the report.
They are Amendments Nos 1-4, 6-10, 12, 14-20 and 22.
<P>
I should probably repeat that the other way round: we cannot accept Amendments Nos 5, 11, 13, 21, 23 and 24-30.
As these points were not brought up in our discussion I will not give an explanation of each one. However, I would be glad to provide written explanations if they are requested.
But I think that for today we can close this point now and move on to the final one, namely the structural measures in the fisheries sector. We have seen this give rise to many of the contributions here.
<P>
With the Regulation on structural measures in the fisheries sector, we are proceeding in two stages, with a basic regulation and an implementing regulation.
We are thus using the same process we did in 1993, and it did not raise any problems at the time.
<P>
The amendments in Mr Arias Cañete's report aim to incorporate important elements of the implementing regulation in the basic regulation.
As you know, there is no Commission proposal for the implementing regulation yet but the Commission shall shortly be adopting one.
Therefore, in the light of the Commission's exclusive right of initiative, the amendments today cannot be taken on board as such, even though I regard them as an important part of the general discussion.
As far as the content is concerned, it is to be welcomed that the Commission and Parliament see considerable need for reform.
<P>
From the Commission point of view, there are clear lessons to be learnt from the experience that has been gathered since 1994.
The present regulation does have some gaps and weaknesses in practice, and occasionally it has even led us onto completely the wrong path.
Here I am referring particularly to various Court of Auditors reports, which make statements that cannot be ignored, to the inadequate coordination and lack of synergy between the structural policy in the fisheries sector and the common fisheries policy, as well as the difficulties in ensuring compliance with certain aspects of the regulation.
Parliament has criticised all of these things on many occasions and even called for remedial action.
<P>
The Commission will soon present its proposal for a new implementing regulation to replace the present regulation.
Then you will see that the fisheries sector is not at a disadvantage compared to agriculture and that, taken together, the two instruments cover all EU regions.
This Commission proposal will also contain many of the basic ideas from your amendments.
<P>
In the debate which will subsequently take place on the implementing regulation in Parliament, we shall have the opportunity to go into the individual aspects of implementation in more depth.
Nevertheless, the Commission is prepared to include some general guidelines on the fields of intervention in the basic regulation we have discussed today, and this is to follow at a later stage of the process.
I would hope that once we have both regulations on the table it will be possible for us to agree on some reasonable solutions, and to take adequate account of all the concerns that have been discussed in the fisheries regions.
<P>
I should like to thank you all, and especially the rapporteurs, for your cooperation, support, and additions that you have made to many areas, which from a Commission point of view are very valuable.
As an incorrigible optimist, allow me to conclude by expressing my hope, and indeed my expectation, that we shall find a constructive solution to the points that remain controversial, allowing us to get this important part of Agenda 2000 up and running in good time.
This brings me onto Mr Teverson's question, to which I would respond only that our assumption at the outset is that even if the regulation is adopted in May 1999, and after that the programme for Objective 1 regions in March 2000, or at any rate in the spring of that year, it will still take until August to adopt the Objective 2 programme.
Therefore there is a definite possibility that some of the things that you were worried about could arise in the meantime.
This also shows though how important it is for us all to keep to the timetable. Commission, Council and Parliament are all jointly responsible for making sure that the regions that most urgently need European solidarity are not let down.
Thank you for your patience.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner. That was certainly required, even if it means that we have gone well beyond the speaking times.
Nevertheless, only 20 minutes were set aside for both speakers. I did not interrupt you because I felt that your detailed statement was entirely appropriate.
<P>
Mrs McCarthy would like to put another question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 NAME="McCarthy">
Madam President, it is very simple.
The Commission indicated that it will be modifying its proposal on the performance reserve.
Does that mean that we are to expect a modified regulation or simply a modified proposal on the performance reserve?
I should like to remind the Commission that while we are very willing to have discussions with you on the perfomance reserve, we do not have the right of initiative.
We would like to have codecision, we would like to propose our own performance reserve, but that is not our job.
It is up to the Commission to come forward with a proposal that is water-tight and workable.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 NAME="Wulf-Mathies">
Madam President, Mrs McCarthy, we are not going to draw up an actual legislative proposal yet, but a paper which we would like to discuss with the Council and Parliament.
I think that before we work on a new legislative proposal, it would make sense for us to discuss it together and see if we can reach agreement as far as possible.
We also want to include many of the valuable ideas from Parliament, as I see that you are prepared to support the basic idea of the performance reserve.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 NAME="Flynn">
Madam President, first let me thank Mrs Jöns for her extremely thorough report on our proposal for a Council regulation on the European Social Fund.
<P>
We agree on nearly all the major points of substance in the Commission's proposal for the future operation of the Social Fund, the importance of preventing and combating unemployment and the vital link between the Social Fund and the European Employment Strategy.
In this spirit I am happy to take on board your Amendments Nos. 4, 8, 11 and part of 14 which reinforce these points.
<P>
I also know that Parliament has concerns about the Commission's proposal, that Objective 3 - the main focus of the Social Fund activity - should apply only outside Objective 1 and Objective 2 areas.
This is a concern which is shared by many of the Member States.
We accept therefore, on reflection, that Objective 3 will have to intervene within Objective 2 areas in the future.
<P>
We will still have to establish how we will operate that.
Our original proposal in this area was framed with the objectives of simplification and flexibility.
We must ensure that any alternative arrangements do not depart from this.
<P>
We also agree on the need for a strong partnership in the Structural Funds.
It is all the more important for the European Social Fund with its focus on inclusiveness, developing human resources and on involving local organisations.
I welcome the recognition that the report gives to the importance of local development and the involvement of non-governmental organisations.
<P>
I am happy to accept the first part of Amendment No 12, the first part of Amendment 38 and Amendment 63, which clarify the importance of partnerships particularly involving NGOs in the distribution of small grants by intermediary bodies.
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I want to take the opportunity to thank you all for your continued support for our proposal in Article 4(3) of the draft regulation, that at least one per cent of the Social Fund appropriations should be available for such an approach.
<P>
We are running into some resistance in the Member States in the Council who want to water it down to a point where it would be just meaningless.
Parliament clearly has a better grasp of the job creation potential of local development and local social capital.
We will all do our utmost to keep these provisions in the Social Fund regulation and I hope that you will continue to support us on this essential point.
An interesting fact here is that we have had more than 600 applications for a pilot project action that we have undertaken.
It gives you some idea and I hope that the sceptics will take note.
<P>
In keeping with our emphasis on equal opportunity I accept Amendment No 6 clarifying the aims of the fund in relation to equality between women and men.
I also accept the principles behind Amendments Nos 19 and 60 for specific additional measures to encourage women's participation but we need a clear wording here.
<P>
The general regulation sets out very clearly that the principle of mainstream equality of opportunity should apply at all stages of programming in all of the Fund's interventions.
<P>
Accordingly, Amendment No 47 dealing with equal opportunities at the evaluation stage is therefore already covered in the general regulation and is not therefore necessary.
I am pleased that you broadly support the five Social Fund policies that we have proposed in Article 2 of the regulation.
<P>
Amendment No 15 - the first part - Amendments Nos 17, 18 and 19 are in line with the Commission's intentions and I am happy to support them.
Similarly, the clarifications that you bring to Article No 3 - the eligible activities - to Amendments Nos 21 and 24 and in principle Amendments 23, 27 and 31, these are very welcome too.
<P>
However, there are three main groups of amendments which the Commission could not accept.
I will explain why very quickly.
The first is the return to the target group approach of the current Objective 3, which for us of course would be a retrograde step.
The key principles behind our proposals for the new Social Fund are simplification and flexibility.
Specifying certain target groups at the start of a seven-year period would act to the exclusion of other groups and would deny the Social Fund the flexibility to intervene in support of any further vulnerable groups which might emerge during the programming period.
It is in fact the exact opposite of the mainstreaming approach that we have been trying to promote.
For this reason I am unable to accept the new Article 1(2) proposed in Amendments Nos 14 and 58, the second part of Amendment No 15 or Amendment No 39.
<P>
However, let me be clear.
Support will still be available for these groups.
The Social Fund must support a more all-embracing approach to combating inequalities in access to the labour market.
I accept Amendment No 3 (first part) which makes this very clear, and Amendment No 7, subject to some rewording.
The second major amendment which the Commission has difficulty with is Amendment No 20.
This seeks that a minimum of 15 % of interventions be devoted to adaptability and equal opportunities.
This does not mean that we are not committed to these two issues.
Indeed, we suggest this 15 % in the explanatory memorandum as an indicative figure and stipulate in the regulation that particular emphasis must be given to these two fields.
<P>
However, specifying a figure in Article 4 would not allow Member States the necessary flexibility to respond to the needs identified by their ex ante evaluations and in their national action plans for employment within the annual employment guidelines.
<P>
Finally, the third group of amendments concerns technical assistance.
It is a simple fact that the availability of technical assistance is a matter defined within the regulation and not by the budgetary authority.
<P>
So, in conclusion, I have no difficulty in accepting 19 of the proposed amendments.
These are Nos 1, 2, 3 (first part) 4, 6, 8, 11 and 12 (first part) 14 (second part) 15 (first part) 17, 18, 21, 24 and 34 (first part) 38 (first part) 45, 52 and 63.
Further to this, I can accept in principle a further six amendments, subject to some clarification of the wording.
These are Amendments Nos 7, 19, 23, 27, 31 and 60.
I hope that I have adequately explained why the Commission cannot accept the remaining amendments.
<P>
The Social Fund is above all concerned with people - their jobs, their skills, their prospects in the labour market.
I therefore believe that it is absolutely right for the European Parliament to have a strong input into this regulation.
I have greatly appreciated Mrs Jöns' partnership and that of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and I look forward to continuing close cooperation in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=248 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Flynn.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=16>
CAP, EAGGF
<SPEAKER ID=249 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions:
<P>
B4-0702/98 by Mr Colino Salamanca, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, to the Council, on Agenda 2000 - reform of the CAP; -B4-0703/98 by Mr Colino Salamanca, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, to the Commission, on Agenda 2000 - reform of the CAP; and the report (A4-0405/98) by Mr Görlach, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on support for rural development from the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF) (COM(98)0158 - C4-0297/98-98/0102(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 NAME="Colino Salamanca">
Madam President, I would first like to welcome the President-in-Office of the Council.
Thank you for attending this evening.
I think that this sets a good example for future Councils.
<P>
With regard to the Council, I would like to express our concern about the way in which Agenda 2000 is being handled.
The Presidency's programme stated that you intended to actively continue the negotiation process.
The truth is that, if we believe the most recent Council report from the 19th and 20th, we may have some doubts as to whether the Council is really continuing this active negotiation.
I am saying this mainly because I have had the opportunity to read the report of the last Council of Ministers in which you listed the key issues in each of the sectors being reformed. That list does not give us much optimism that we are soon going to reach a solution.
For example, I read the Council's thoughts on the horizontal regulation where you specify that the main issues are the need to include 'environmental conditionality', the need to regulate aid, the need to fix a ceiling for direct aid and the need to determine how budgetary resources are redistributed.
In order to produce that, all that you really needed to do was to read the regulation involved.
This gives the impression that, so far, four or five months have gone by and all the Council has really done is to read the regulations.
In truth, we had thought that something more would have been done during the last four or five months.
We are even surprised to find that the Council of Ministers is still discussing whether the wine regulation is included in the Agenda 2000 reform or not.
I thought that this had already been resolved, that we had come to an agreement on this issue and that we were now working on Agenda 2000 with wine included.
<P>
In any case, you concluded at your last Council meeting that you can now start to look at the solutions.
This is all well and good.
Above all, I would like to know when you intend to conclude your discussions, because I think that after five months things should have progressed a little more, especially if we want to meet our deadline of the Vienna European Council in December and, in particular, so that by March, which is the date we have fixed, we will be in a position to give our opinion on the issues involved in Agenda 2000.
<P>
With regard to the Commission - and I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Mr Fischler for attending - I would like to say that there is an issue that is somewhat disrupting the debate: the famous issue of co-financing.
It did not come up initially, but halfway through the debate, and it has complicated the matter somewhat.
I think that more information is needed.
For example, when reference is made to 25 % of the aid, what aid is being referred to?
There are many types of aid.
Does it refer to aid for tobacco or hops, to the premiums for sheep or those that are in the 1992 reform?
It would be good if these issues were clarified so that the debate could move on.
We should also have clarification on whether or not this co-financing has to be the same for everyone when there are - as you know very well from the study carried out by the Commission - countries affected that are undergoing what we call 'cohesion' and that, according to your presentation, it does not seem that they are the ones who end up paying when this situation arises elsewhere, as occurs with budget balances.
<P>
The other issue that I feel needs to be highlighted with regard to the Commission is that it recently endorsed the studies carried out in Bonn and Amsterdam on the possible consequences of the 1999 reform.
I think they are a good thing - I am not going to start judging them as I do not have a detailed knowledge of them - but there is one piece of information that catches my attention: the possible job losses that could occur while farmers' incomes are being maintained.
I feel that this is serious, because there were already significant job losses in 1992.
In this respect, it would be appropriate to consider what measures we are prepared to take in order to prevent this.
<P>
Moreover, according to my information, the calculations and forecasts are pure futurology.
Sometimes the results show that they are right, and sometimes not.
However, what does seem to be correct is the information that unemployment may rise - according to the studies - by between 2.2 % and 3.7 %.
If this were the case, it would be important to know whether or not you plan to strengthen the area of rural development.
I think that if this forecast might be right, we should be able to implement the second pillar of agricultural policy - that is, rural development - with even more vigour.
We should have a set of measures planned that will enable us to deal with a situation that will otherwise overwhelm us.
In this respect, I think that it would be appropriate for us to consider the possibility of promoting rural development - not only that linked to agricultural issues, but also to non-agricultural issues - so that we can approve the reforms that are currently on the table.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=251 NAME="Görlach">
Madam President, now that Commissioner Wulf-Mathies' comprehensive discourse has given us the opportunity to discuss one or two points outside the Chamber, perhaps we can now catch up with some lost time to ensure that everyone on the list has the chance to speak this evening.
<P>
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have all entertained high hopes for the Commission's proposed reforms.
There is no doubt that the overall package, including the merging of several directives into a single directive for rural areas and their development, contains genuinely far-reaching proposals and new ideas.
Having said that, I must add that, if the headings are compared with the descriptions, it emerges that not every heading matches the small print underneath.
We must be careful not to raise hopes that cannot be fulfilled when the ideas are implemented.
<P>
Let me now focus on the new proposals on rural development.
For several years, of course, we have all been under the influence of the proposition, which the Commission has reiterated, that the development of rural areas is effectively a second pillar of the agricultural production system that has to be erected alongside the traditional, albeit reformed, agricultural policy.
I recall the excellent conference that the Commission organised in Cork, but we are all well aware that, although we may sit together in a relaxed atmosphere and speak a little about our dreams for the future, those dreams cannot always be fulfilled in the way we would wish.
Our hopes were higher, but they could not all be converted into concrete proposals.
<P>
I also know this is difficult, but I believe that many of the Commission's proposals were too strongly influenced by the thought of the editing scissors that the Council would inevitably wield, given the wide diversity of the Member States' interests.
Of course it is essential to seek a majority but, as every trade union knows, to secure a 3 % pay rise you must start by asking for 6 %.
Anyone who opens negotiations by offering a compromise solution need hardly be surprised when that offer is beaten down, particularly in the agricultural debate, where so many different interests are involved.
<P>
Allow me to highlight Article 31, for therein lies the key to the question of the extent to which we can take account of the potential of rural areas in the support we give them.
As far as the agricultural economy is concerned - and I refer expressly to the agricultural economy, and not just to farming - the wording is unclear.
We are not quite sure where it is supposed to be leading.
We have heard many explanations from you, Commissioner, and from others.
That puts our minds at rest.
But I believe this has to be more clearly worded.
It must say more clearly what we intend to do, and it must also give a clearer indication of the resources that will be available to us in the future.
Parliament cannot accept being fobbed off with the promise of more specific provisions in the implementing regulations.
<P>
I am well aware that it is not possible to formulate everything in detail in a legislative text.
I have even criticised a considerable number of my parliamentary colleagues' amendments for trying to do just that.
A piece of legislation cannot be crammed with helpful details, but there should certainly be a little more clarity.
If the implementing provisions subsequently spell out everything that can be done, we should then find a way, if possible, in which Parliament can participate in a Commission measure as a goodwill gesture, even beyond the scope of written agreements.
<P>
The two pillars are not yet pillars.
Or at least the second pillar, namely rural development, is not so much a pillar as a spindly little tree.
We shall have to tend and fertilise it very well until its trunk attains the same girth as the first pillar.
That will be exceptionally hard work.
Parliament knows that the Commission is on the right road, but that road is not yet very clearly signposted.
Let us try to work with you to mark out this route and perhaps also to find a means of bringing home to the Member States, in all their diversity, that rural development is not simply a matter of financing non-agricultural activities but that, by bringing stability to rural areas, it ultimately benefits agriculture and the agricultural economy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 NAME="Molterer">
Madam President, I am pleased that this oral question on the agricultural part of Agenda 2000 affords me the opportunity to continue our dialogue with the European Parliament which has started very promisingly, in my opinion, in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
In view of the situation with regard to speaking time, I should like to give a very condensed report on the progress made by the Agriculture Council in examining the Commission proposals with a view to transposing them into statutory instruments.
<P>
I should like to concentrate on the main political issues that will be at the heart of future discussions.
I need hardly tell you that some of my comments will be made without prejudice to next week's Agriculture Council discussions, the aim of which will be to formulate a clear political position as a contribution to the Vienna meeting of the European Council.
<P>
As you are also aware, it is the intention of the presidency to engage in further talks with the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development as soon as we have the results of the forthcoming Council meeting.
<P>
We are all conscious of the challenge posed by Agenda 2000 in general and particularly by the special status attaching to the common agricultural policy in that context.
It is now generally recognised by the body of Agriculture Ministers that the reform process initiated in 1992 must be continued, intensified, adapted and supplemented.
This necessity derives from both the inherent constraints within the farming world and the new extraneous challenges, such as the forthcoming round of WTO negotiations and enlargement of the EU.
It is therefore our duty in the context of our political responsibility for agriculture to take swift and concerted action to structure the CAP in a way that will determine the course to be followed in the global negotiations.
In my opinion, at any rate, this approach is preferable to a wait-and-see strategy, which would result in our having to take decisions that were forced on us by a deteriorating market situation on the one hand or by our non-EU partners on the other.
<P>
In this respect, we are proceeding from a number of basic principles which most Members of the House have approved and are able to endorse and which ought to enable us to complete the ambitious project of CAP reform on satisfactory terms, in the true interests of the farming community and to the advantage of consumers.
I am thinking here particularly of the European agricultural model, which ought to be further developed.
This model agricultural system must be multifunctional on the one hand and sustainable and competitive on the other; in other words, it must cover the entire territory of the EU, including regions with specific problems.
This European model should not be unfamiliar to us, since the initial inspiration came from this House.
The model was endorsed in the conclusions of the Luxembourg European Council.
<P>
We also largely agree that the reform of the common agricultural policy has to result in arrangements that are economically prudent and reliable as well as socially acceptable, in appropriate earnings and in a balanced relationship between production sectors, producers and regions, and that it must prevent distortions of competition.
<P>
After all, we are firmly resolved to preserve budgetary discipline and are virtually unanimous in the view that the agricultural guideline should, as a matter of principle, be maintained as a ceiling and be calculated in accordance with the present formula, irrespective of what the guideline covers.
With regard to this point, however, I must point out that there has been a change in the position of some delegations on the agricultural guideline, as well as on the question of shifting some fiscal burdens from the CAP purse back to the Member States.
<P>
The European Council itself, moreover, has expressed the view that the Commission proposals offer a basis for further reform of the common agricultural policy.
This means that the completion of the reform process will depend on adjustments being made to these proposals.
<P>
In this context, it is imperative that the Vienna European Council should make considerable progress, in accordance with the Cardiff timetable, on the main components of Agenda 2000, so that political agreement can be reached on the whole Agenda 2000 package by March 1999 at the latest.
The Austrian Presidency expects to engage in highly constructive cooperation with the European Parliament in this matter.
As far as the Agriculture Council is concerned, may I tell the honourable Member that tangible progress has been made since the meeting of the European Council in Cardiff.
For one thing, the Council has completed the process of identifying and clarifying the issues that will form the core of future negotiations.
This means that it can now move on to the next and more substantive stage of seeking ways and means of resolving these issues, possibly in the form of a range of options.
<P>
To this end, as I explained at the start of my remarks, the Agriculture Council is to adopt a report at its meeting this week for the Vienna European Council.
The aim of the report is to identify the general guidelines that have emerged from the papers produced to date, to outline the main progress made since the Cardiff meeting and to shed light on the issues on which the Member States still hold sharply differing views.
<P>
From my point of view, there is also a need to emphasise that the negotiations have to proceed at a very brisk pace after the Vienna European Council.
Since I assume that the timetable for dealing with Agenda 2000 which was set by the European Council in Cardiff will be adhered to, I believe it is desirable that agreement be reached as quickly as possible on the unresolved issues, so that the Agriculture Council is left with a limited number of key political issues to discuss at its March meeting.
As you can imagine, the solution of these problems may depend to some extent on developments in the negotiations on other aspects of Agenda 2000, particularly on the financial conditions.
For that reason, it would be very useful if the European Parliament's preliminary reports were available on time.
I am gratified to note that the report on rural development, one of the most important areas where reforms are needed, will shortly be completed.
<P>
As far as the reform of the common organisation of the cereals, beef and milk markets is concerned, may I remind you that the Agriculture Council, at its November meeting, expressed the view that the approach adopted back in 1992, the main element of which was a reduction of the price-support measures, combined with direct compensatory aid and accompanying measures, remains valid.
The Council also took the view that the suitability of this approach in specific situations and the weighting of the various measures should be assessed on a case-by-case basis, with all available internal and external factual information being taken into account.
The work that has been done on this subject, however, indicates that the Member States have different concepts of suitability.
<P>
There is actually quite wide-ranging agreement that this approach should be pursued in the domain of crop farming, irrespective of the size of the reduction in the intervention price and the amount of compensatory aid.
With regard to beef too, the great majority of the delegations consider this approach useful, again notwithstanding the amount of the reduction in the intervention price or of the compensatory aid.
Some delegations, however, doubt that this approach alone can control the supply situation and recommend provision for measures specifically designed to control supply, which would mean a smaller reduction in the intervention price.
<P>
As far as dairy products are concerned, the positions of the delegations differ widely.
Some Member States believe that this approach, and especially the lowering of prices, is unnecessary in the present market situation.
Others, however, believe that radical changes to the system are indispensable.
<P>
These differences derive partly from the opposing positions adopted by the delegations on the future of milk quotas.
While most of the delegations wish this quota to be retained, some Member States are calling for it to be abolished by 2006.
There are numerous questions concerning details of the individual market regulations which we can certainly include in the discussion if so desired.
<P>
With regard to the proposed reform of the common organisation of the wine market, which was submitted in July, a technical examination is now being undertaken so that the key questions can then be identified quickly at the political level.
For that reason, I cannot provide you with a résumé of the Member States' positions at the present time.
<P>
However, I should like to make two comments, because I believe they are important.
First of all, the discussions to date and the exploratory talks held by the Council in September have shown that the Member States generally regard the present Commission proposal as a decidedly better discussion basis than the proposal of 1993/94.
The more flexible approach and the general objectives are considered on the whole to represent substantial progress.
<P>
In addition, let me say to the honourable Member, since it was he who asked the question, that this proposal should be regarded as part of the general package of CAP reforms under Agenda 2000.
So in order to achieve this goal, it is essential that we progress as quickly as possible.
It would be very, very helpful - and I address this appeal to all of you in this House - if the opinion on this proposal could be delivered as soon as possible, so that we in the Council can make the progress that needs to be made.
<P>
Some very definite progress has been achieved in the realm of rural development.
This is an issue with extremely important implications for the future of our farmers and the entire countryside.
That is precisely why the presidency devoted its informal meeting in St Wolfgang to this topic.
There is unanimous agreement in the Council that vital importance attaches to rural development policy as the second pillar of the common agricultural policy.
The delegations also largely accept the recommended integrated policy framework.
There is also very wide-ranging agreement on the objectives that should underlie the granting of assistance for the development of rural areas.
Moreover, the idea of developing forestry and giving it a more prominent role in the package of rural development measures has also been welcomed, although I cannot deny that the Member States still differ on the scope of individual measures in the package, because most of this domain, of course, falls within the jurisdiction of the Member States.
<P>
Various important questions will have to be dealt with in greater detail so that they can be definitively resolved.
In my view, the main questions are these: firstly, the type of specific measures that can be implemented - in other words, whether these measures should only relate to activities connected with agriculture in all its multifunctional aspects, or whether multisectoral contributions to rural development of a non-agricultural nature can be considered.
<P>
Secondly, the link proposed by the Commission between the compensatory allowance for less-favoured areas, subject to compliance with certain environmental requirements, has elicited comments from many delegations to the effect that the compensatory allowance is primarily a socioeconomic instrument designed to compensate for natural disadvantages.
<P>
The third and last question relates to sources of funding and especially to the Commission proposal that rural development be switched from the Guidance to the Guarantee Section of the EAGGF.
<P>
As far as the financial regulations are concerned, it is logically obvious that the discussions on those can only be concluded at a later stage, particularly in the light of the negotiations on other elements of the Commission proposals, the results of which will have to be reflected in the provisions of the financial regulations.
<P>
My own point of view on the question of horizontal regulations is that these proposals include innovations which must be examined extremely thoroughly before they can actually become common political guidelines.
<P>
As for compliance with environmental requirements, there is general agreement on the need to promote the attainment of environmental targets; this, incidentally, is wholly in line with the European agricultural model that all the relevant bodies want to see developed.
But there is still a need to examine how these targets are to be achieved, and particularly whether they should be incorporated into the common organisation of the markets or whether they should be prescribed elsewhere, for example in specific regulatory frameworks.
<P>
Moving on to the criteria governing the employment of workers, there are divisions among the Member States on basic principles as well as on procedural details.
This is evidently a highly sensitive subject which requires more study.
<P>
Lastly, with regard to the sliding scale of total grants paid to farms on the basis of farm size, the delegations evidently differ on this point too. Several delegations agree with the principle or are keeping an open mind on the maximum amount, whereas some delegations still disagree with the Commission's approach.
<P>
I hope that I have managed to provide you in this brief summary with all the most important information on the work that has been taking place in the Agriculture Council and on the prospects for future progress in connection with the agricultural element of Agenda 2000.
<P>
I am confident that this dialogue will help to foster the deliberations that are taking place in Parliament and in the other institutions.
You may rest assured that the Austrian Presidency is willing to do whatever is necessary to ensure that the targets laid down in the Cardiff timetable are met and that the process is therefore duly completed in March 1999 in the interests of the agricultural sector, which needs a clear vision of the future.
Thank you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Molterer.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, I have been doing some calculations.
The sitting is due to continue until midnight.
The speaking time for the individual speakers is so tight that we shall only manage if you all keep very strictly to your time, and indeed save a little if possible.
<P>
In this context, I should like to ask Mr Fischler something.
You ought to have the floor now, and then again after the debate.
Could you make your statement at the end, or do you wish to speak at this point?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=254 NAME="Fischler">
<SPEAKER ID=255 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fantuzzi">
Madam President, first I would like to compliment Mr Görlach on his report.
His argument is very convincing, and reflects our group's constant attention to agricultural and rural policy.
<P>
We are disappointed that, in fact, despite all the declarations and grand statements at Cork, this second pillar of the CAP still looks like a shaky crutch.
Yes, simpler procedures for rural development programmes are an excellent step forward, and the new role of the regions and strengthened partnership are important, but the paramount problem is still funding, which is pretty limited at 10 % of all CAP expenditure.
This suggests that planning for the countryside, that vast physical and human European resource, will be largely driven by traditional market policy with its powerful funding and instruments, which makes our poor little rural policy look like a lady-in-waiting
<P>
In this context, I fear that the entirely legitimate attempt to extend rural policies to cover more than just agriculture - mentioned by the Commissioner - runs the risk of generating eagerness and expectations everywhere which are bound to be disappointed.
We will not be able to satisfy all the rural communities wanting to take advantage of them.
I think that is a sign of the difficulty and uncertainty surrounding this endlessly awaited reform of the CAP.
And our motion for a resolution on the Agenda 2000 agricultural reform is geared to that very point.
<P>
We are driven by two concerns: the first is that the crisis situation on the international markets may hold up reform while waiting for better times.
Instead, we think it is necessary to press on rapidly and stick to the planned timetable for decisions next spring.
And there is no need to water this reform down excessively and have a kind of artificial reform - as the Commissioner said - especially on those innovative aspects of the horizontal regulation which are supposed to be an opportunity to reconcile people to the CAP and justify the aid it covers, and which, in my opinion, threaten to disappear altogether.
<P>
Mr Görlach is right - if the Commission's proposal, here too, had been a bit more courageous and a bit less wedded to a rather too convenient subsidiarity, we might not have reached this point.
But now we must move forward, and there is absolutely no need to curl up like a hedgehog to defend the status quo.
I believe a fortress Europe would be the worst signal to send to the CEECs who even now see their accession date fading sadly into the distance.
<P>
The second concern is the one this debate on the cofinancing of income support raises in me.
Commissioner, I appreciated your extreme prudence at the last meeting with the Committee on Agriculture because, in fact, this logic of net budget balances, which has got absolutely nothing to do with the real issues of reforming the CAP, threatens to introduce a dangerous virus into the whole construction of Europe, and I do not want all of this to lead to another reform deadlock.
Our message - at least the one we have tried to get across in this resolution - is that it is right to have the cards on the table and let the farming world have its say too, because it cannot be made just a passive witness of decisions taken over its head.
If we want to grasp the opportunity of the debate on budgetary resources to talk about expenditure, and hence about the CAP, fine, but what drives us are the real problems of the CAP - the unfair distribution of its benefits - which the President of the Court of Auditors also described to us in this House yesterday.
<P>
I think it would be wrong to erect an ideological wall against the renationalisation which the cofinancing would provoke, and see it as a demon.
But it would be equally wrong to allow purely accounting logic to prevail over aspects of balance, cohesion and solidarity which are even more necessary in the new CAP than they were in the old one.
So debate and negotiation should come together in this context.
I think it will be best for everyone.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=256 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cunha">
Madam President, I wish to greet the President-in-Office and the Commissioner. I should also like to congratulate Mr Görlach on his excellent report.
<P>
What are the main issues of concern for the European Parliament that led to the tabling of this oral question?
You only have to consider the report on the general aspects of the reform approved by the European Parliament in July, a report that I myself drafted, the declarations made at the 1997 Agriculture Council or the Cardiff European Council, or the statement made recently by the Austrian Presidency to find the answer.
But I should like to reiterate the main concerns.
<P>
First of all, we must show caution and moderation in the reduction of prices, especially in the milk and beef sectors.
<P>
Secondly, we need to maintain the intervention regimes, albeit in a more flexible and operational form.
<P>
Thirdly, we must ensure greater equality between different crops, farmers and types of farm so that the CAP can finally contribute to the economic and social cohesion of the European countryside.
<P>
Fourthly, we should strike more of an internal balance within the CAP by strengthening the so-called second pillar of rural development.
It is incomprehensible that there should be virtually no change in the appropriations earmarked for this extremely important pillar when around 10 % of the guideline resources have not been used.
<P>
Fifthly, we need to preserve an adequate number of farmers working the land. This is a major concern in the less-favoured, peripheral and ultra-peripheral areas, which are already running a great risk of abandonment and desertification.
<P>
If, as is proposed, the reform of the CAP is limited to a reduction in prices and their compensation by means of aids indexed to productivity rates, then we shall be carrying out a reform only for the more efficient farmers.
That would be a shocking contradiction with the political aims of defending the European farming model and keeping the countryside alive. Those aims have always been pursued and reiterated by the Commission and the Council.
Let us leave aside such political hypocrisy.
<P>
It is now 13 months since Agenda 2000 was first presented and 7 months since the proposals became more practical. But we have yet to see any signs of progress despite the efforts made by the Commissioner and Jacques Santer.
As if that were not enough, there is now the proposal on cofinancing, which has poisoned the whole debate over the CAP.
We do not want to avoid this debate and we cannot escape it but it goes far beyond the question of the agricultural policy and is a debate that we have to hold at the right time, not now.
The European Parliament has reached a broad consensus on the CAP but the question of financing at this stage cannot be allowed to poison our debate, nor should it be allowed to divide us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=257 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Mulder">
Madam President, I should particularly like to welcome the President-in-Office, the Austrian Minister for Agriculture, along with his many assistants who are here this evening.
This is a very positive signal from the Austrian Presidency.
I should also like to congratulate Mr Görlach on his report, which I think lays a very solid foundation for the rural policy in Europe which my group feels is so badly needed.
It will have to be defended in future, particularly in international circles in my view, as part of the 'blue box'.
While we on this side of the Atlantic are busy drastically reforming the agriculture policy that we feel we need, those on the other side are sending out completely different signals, however understandable this may be, by suddenly increasing their subsidies enormously.
It would be interesting if the Commission could analyse, and let Parliament know, whether this extra aid is classified as being in the blue box or the green box.
It will inevitably be part of Europe's future agricultural policy, to be paid for from Category 1.
<P>
The main problem with income support in future will be that once the Central and Eastern European countries have joined, they are sure to apply for it.
This will be very difficult: it will become unaffordable, and then the common agricultural policy itself will come under threat.
I favour cofinancing under strict conditions: only if there is no renationalisation, and if the Member States are obliged to pay or face strict sanctions if they fail to do so.
You will not be surprised to hear that I also advocate a policy of promoting good-quality agricultural products.
In my report a few months ago, I gave a detailed account of how this should be approached, and I hope that the Austrian Presidency will bring this matter up again in its discussions in future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=258 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Poisson">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, as the Commissioner explained to us a few moments ago, in answer to the protest from certain Member States who make net contributions to the Community budget, the Commission has just drawn up a report on the own resources of the European Union, with a view to readjusting Member States' contributions.
<P>
The Commission puts forward three options, one of which is the national cofinancing of direct aid to agriculture at a level of 25 %.
This proposal may be tempting at first sight as it would have a considerable effect in terms of readjustment for certain Member States whose agricultural sectors are smaller than the Community average.
However, in the short and medium term, there is a danger that national cofinancing could weigh heavily on the national annual budgets of certain Member States, such as France, who would be forced to significantly increase their agricultural budget. Yet this goes against the policy of controlled expenditure needed for the success of the euro.
<P>
Also, national cofinancing represents a real threat to financial solidarity among Member States.
There is a danger of intolerable imbalances among the fifteen Member States, which would lead to the formation of a two-speed Europe: a Europe of rich states and a Europe of poor states.
I am opposed to national cofinancing.
The Commission's proposal poses a serious threat to the common agricultural policy and could mark the beginning of its renationalisation and, over time, its disappearance.
<P>
The progressive and underhand dismantling of the CAP would irreparably challenge European unity as the CAP is the first Community policy which, for 50 years and despite battles fought over agricultural matters, was able to give strength to the cohesive force and spirit of solidarity that are characteristic of the European Community.
CAP reform is necessary but it should not trigger the collapse of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=259 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Jové Peres">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I think firstly that the Cunha report - which is an excellent report - brought to light the contradictions, imbalances and effects of the 1992 reform.
I do not think it is right that the Commission should propose Agenda 2000 to us without having completed the task of presenting a report evaluating the effects of the 1992 reform.
<P>
Commissioner, reports from universities are not enough: the Commission's political responsibility obliged it to set out the effects of the previous reform before this Parliament in order to have an adequate debate.
This was one of the Commission's major responsibilities.
<P>
With regard to the proposals, the Commission has restricted itself to drawing up proposals for sectorial reforms, without having an overall plan. What is more, the reforms it is proposing are, in general, price reductions that are not partially compensated for by direct aid to incomes, and a widespread system of replacing purchasing intervention with aid for private storage.
<P>
With the development of the international financial crisis, it would also have been desirable to use more specific tools for analysing these measures and the effects that the international crisis might have on this sector.
<P>
Finally, on behalf of my group, I would like to congratulate Mr Görlach, and draw attention to rural development, Commissioner, as neither the tools nor the financial resources considered in the Commission's proposals are satisfactory with regard to this issue, and they will in no way be able to compensate for the negative effects of the remaining proposals on the rural society and economy.
<P>
I would like to add a few thoughts on the subject of co-financing.
What is proposed is not a policy of solidarity, because the real economic policies - the internal market policies and the common commercial policy - are not reflected in the budget.
Therefore, presenting matters in terms of net balances is inappropriate and very inaccurate.
Perhaps we are seeing there the hand of a Member State, and the Commission should be more generous and not give in to certain pressures.
<P>
Allow me a final thought: what is happening with Agenda 2000 is an example of institutional game play within the context of Europe.
It is very important to keep to timetables, but it is just as important to take the right decisions, with the appropriate methods and pace of debate and with sufficient transparency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=260 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Madam President, Commissioner, a great deal of money is spent in the agricultural domain; just imagine that all the money that has been poured into agriculture in the past had gone towards this second pillar we are discussing here today.
<P>
Commissioner, it is impossible to assess the extent to which rural areas could have flourished, how many jobs would have been created and preserved, how much agricultural spin-off development we could have initiated too.
If we consider how much innovation has taken place as a result of the frugal programmes we have had and through the funds that have trickled into the Leader programme and the accompanying measures, we can obtain a rough idea of the sort of impact these programmes would have had if they had been furnished with the necessary capital.
<P>
Nevertheless, what is planned for the second pillar is very sound in terms of quality, but in quantitative terms its resources are meagre.
We should be bolder here, and above all in the other areas, in the traditional agricultural domains, in the support premiums for price reductions; we should surely look long and hard at the social and environmental quality of our measures and adjust them accordingly, with a view to bringing them into line with our social and environmental policies and to charting a new course, so that these funds will eventually flow into what we now call the second pillar, which within five or ten years - perhaps we should not set ourselves too tight a schedule - could become the first pillar.
<P>
If we make wise use of the funds at our disposal, if we do not let them disappear into the national treasuries, we stand a great chance of succeeding.
I would ask you, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, to be rather more daring and to adopt a somewhat more positive approach in explaining to the public the great opportunities that lie along this route.
Your native country has some valuable tips and good examples to offer us in this respect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=261 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Barthet-Mayer">
Madam President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office, I would simply like to make two points.
Firstly, we are used to hearing that the CAP has achieved its objectives of self sufficiency, as set by the Treaty.
Then we immediately think of overproduction, set-aside, fallow land, the drop in agricultural prices and yet, it has to be said, this does not really reflect the reality of the situation.
The Union is in deficit in certain products that it could easily produce itself.
We import 70 % of proteins for livestock farming, but also 50 % of honey and a considerable amount of citrus fruits, fish, wood and even sheep whilst, at the same time, troubled rural areas remain unused.
<P>
Also, on a budgetary level, we should not be decreasing aid but rather improving it, without diluting it with hypothetical cofinancing. Such cofinancing promotes selfishness in national accounting and harms the founding principles of solidarity within the Union.
This reform should redistribute production among the various regions, climate zones and countries.
This reform should stop making intensification a priority.
The main aim of reform cannot be to satisfy the multinationals of the food and farming sector.
<P>
We understand that European citizens do not wish to continue financing such a convoluted system. A European agricultural model does exist.
It is not uniquely based on the Union's exports, nor on a widespread drop in prices.
It is based on the multi-functional nature of our agricultural sector and on the patchwork of our land. We should ensure that they complement one another with a view to sustainable rural development in the human interest, and the creation of jobs.
<P>
And what of the world market?
We must, of course, take our place in it, but not at the expense of our fellow citizens and their health, nor at the expense of their environment.
This is also the price we pay for European integration.
It is also the price we pay for having a European Union, a worthy partner that is respected and well-known in the globalised world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=262 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="des Places">
Madam President, the proposal for a regulation on support for rural development from the EAGGF incorporates all of the existing measures relating to Objective 5a of structural policy.
<P>
I find that the Commission proposal lacks realism and does not take into account the negative impact that the 1992 reform of the common agricultural policy had on the economic fabric of rural areas.
A perfect example is the frantic race for output, productivity and enlargement in order to maintain an income that no longer allows profitable investment.
<P>
Our group, both in committee and in the House, has tabled a series of amendments which include all economic sectors in rural areas in the support mechanism for extensive agricultural production. This support is provided by compensating for the supplementary production costs for farms in less-favoured areas.
<P>
A large number of these amendments have already been adopted by different majorities in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, thereby showing both the Commission and the Council how much importance we place on rural development for a healthy balance in European society.
<P>
As regards financing the CAP, we are opposed to any system where Member States cofinance a common policy due solely to the fact that Article 2 of the Treaty of Rome lays down the principle of financial solidarity.
Moreover, although the national cofinancing of aid would at first be compulsory, the methods for implementing it would soon become optional or discretionary.
As a result of this cofinancing proposal, Mr President, I question the Commission's objectives.
Do you really want to maintain a Community agricultural policy, the only existing common policy along with the Common Fisheries Policy?
If this is not the case, then it must be stated clearly and without pretence in order to allow Member States to renationalise agricultural policy to defend their own interests themselves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=263 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Garot">
Madam President, CAP reform is dictated by outside considerations, particularly in the eyes of the Commission, and it should now be clear that developments in the international arena, with the crisis in Asia and Russia, mean we must be more realistic about export possibilities for our agricultural products.
We must be wary of being too confident in this area.
<P>
Similarly, enlargement to include the CEECs should be subject to careful consideration.
In this respect, it must be clear that such enlargement should not lead to our common policies, particularly the CAP, being watered down.
<P>
In addition, it is also in our interests as Europeans to note that, currently, the United States is once again being forced to strengthen public support for its farmers.
These are new arguments to justify our CAP and the European agricultural model within the WTO.
<P>
But I would also like to draw attention to more internal aspects of our forthcoming reform. The legitimacy of our agricultural policy needs to be renewed.
For the consumer, the quality of products needs reinforcing, and the taxpayer needs to be reassured that public money is being wisely spent. And our fellow citizens need to be reassured that we are safeguarding regional balances and promoting sustainable development.
<P>
More importantly, we must make our CAP more coherent, as the Cunha report suggested.
From this point of view, I would like to warn against the initiatives and decisions in favour of Member States cofinancing the CAP as this measure, if it were taken, would challenge the whole principle of financial solidarity, one of the basic tenets of the CAP.
It may also lead to the renationalisation of the CAP as, when national partners have to vote on appropriations for their country's farmers, it will not be long before they use national criteria to decide which way they vote.
<P>
For these reasons I cannot sanction the idea of cofinancing, and I call on my colleagues to be most careful on this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=264 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schierhuber">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I too should like to begin by thanking the rapporteur for his cooperation and his willingness to compromise.
<P>
A report on the funding of measures for rural areas is very difficult to deal with, not only because of the host of amendments but also because of the diverse needs of the Member States.
The development and promotion of rural areas is a particular concern of mine, since I am convinced that Europe, in all its diversity, will only have a future if its less-developed regions, including its rural areas, receive targeted and effective support.
<P>
I therefore crave your indulgence, ladies and gentlemen, for my repeated interventions in the House on behalf of rural areas, but I consider rural development to be a very important subject which warrants these constant reminders and which needs to be explained clearly to all our citizens.
<P>
Alongside regional policy, agricultural policy plays an important role in the development of rural areas.
While regional policy focuses its array of instruments and resources on supporting the rural population and the economic base of small and medium-sized businesses, agricultural policy supports the farming community through the EAGGF.
This fund and the regional support measures are now to be made available as a combined package, primarily to meet agricultural needs and requirements.
In my opinion, this idea of an integrated policy for rural areas is extremely important, but let me emphasise that care must be taken from the outset to ensure that these resources are used efficiently.
In other words, measures which primarily affect agriculture must be financed from this fund, whereas measures that affect rural areas without having any link at all with agriculture and the multifunctionality of rural areas should actually be supported within the framework of regional policy.
<P>
I also support the constructive approach based on the principle of good professional practice.
Good farming practice is really the basis of the way in which farmers run their businesses.
They must be specially recompensed for any contributions they make, over and above that basic farming practice, to improve the environment, promote animal welfare, care for the countryside and help society in general.
<P>
Let me just remind you of the Commission's policy, the aim of which is a relentless process of price liberalisation; that makes it all the more important that our farmers should have the opportunity to top up their incomes by providing additional services.
<P>
I am naturally a staunch advocate of transparency in the production chain, of environmentally acceptable production methods and of high standards of animal welfare.
Farmers, however, cannot be expected to make these contributions without the guarantee of a commensurate income. It is on that guarantee that the future of our European model of agriculture depends.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=265 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Anttila">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, Agenda 2000 aims to facilitate the eastward enlargement of the EU and to prepare for the next WTO talks.
The Agenda 2000 timetable was decided at the Edinburgh summit, and the ELDR Group is pressing ahead with the agreement of reforms laid down in the timetable.
<P>
The costs of enlargement have been assessed too conservatively.
The global economic situation has got worse and so the plan for the funding of enlargement has altered.
The new situation prompted the Commission to draft a report on own resources, proposing as one solution the partial assumption of the burden of funding agricultural expenditure by the individual states.
This national funding of Common Agricultural Policy expenditure is already routine in Finland, for example, which acquired the right to finance aid itself during the transition period, in order to ease the integration of Finnish agriculture into the EU single market.
The co-funding of environmental aid is also something already happening.
<P>
The national funding of agricultural expenditure must be very strictly regulated, so that farmers in the Member States receive equal treatment.
When operating in a single market under very different circumstances the worst-off producer regions must be supported by means of a common agricultural policy.
The Agenda 2000 reform, therefore, should have given more weight to the needs of the worse-off regions, as was called for in the Luxembourg resolution.
I hope more consideration will be given to these needs in future.
<P>
The Agenda 2000 reforms further reduce the share producers get from the market place, which is a particularly serious problem for the worse-off regions.
The share of direct aid in the income structure for the Finnish farmer has now grown too large.
Agenda 2000 is only exacerbating the situation.
How, I would like to know, is the spirit of enterprise in farming to be kept up?
<P>
The provisions on forestry aid in the Agenda 2000 reforms are worded very unclearly, and it is thus difficult to discover what they mean, for example, in terms of funding.
The ELDR Group opposes extending the aid policy to cover the forestry sector, which falls into the category of free trade.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=266 NAME="Hyland">
Madam President, in the available time it is not possible to deal with the many challenges facing European agriculture or the role of farming as a central pillar in rural infrastructure.
Neither is it possible to evaluate that role in economic terms.
<P>
In spite of generous EU support, which I acknowledge, family farms are disappearing from the rural landscape.
The age profile of farmers is deteriorating and young people no longer see farming as a sustainable career.
How then is the European family farm model to survive?
What are the consequences for long-term food security and quality, not to mention the role of farmers as managers of the environment?
<P>
To those politicians who see farmers as a legitimate target to boost their own political careers with urban voters, I say that they are displaying an appalling lack of understanding of the unique role of agriculture in the context of broader national and EU policy.
They are ignoring the fact that in the present circumstances food is now being produced at profit levels that are marginal and, in many cases, below the cost of production.
<P>
In Ireland there is certainly a short-term crisis for beef and sheep producers which could not have been foreseen at the time of the 1992 reform.
The collapse of the Russian economy and the fall-out from BSE are just some of the problems that are impacting on our beef sector.
<P>
Taking the long-term view in the context of Agenda 2000, we must ensure that family farms and their individual enterprises are supported within the available budget resources.
Large-scale commercial enterprises should not be allowed to usurp funding which should go, in my view, go to family farming.
<P>
In conclusion, I fully support those who say that there should be no co-financing of the common agricultural policy.
I would certainly oppose any move towards renationalisation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=267 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindholm">
Madam President, I should like to congratulate Mr Görlach on his excellent report, in which he emphasises the fact that rural development is in danger of falling between two stools, in other words being virtually gambled away, since according to the Commission's proposal, it is no longer to be a separate objective.
I wonder whether a proper analysis of the consequences has been carried out.
<P>
It is important to support and encourage interaction between rural areas and towns, since each provides the other's resources.
The development of agriculture - in which the EU plays an important part - has brought about a situation in which it is often impossible to depend on the family farm as the principle means of employment and sole source of income.
Running a farm often has to be combined with other work to make it feasible for family members to remain in the countryside.
The situation is particularly acute in sparsely populated areas.
Therefore, the support criteria need to be changed, otherwise only the large agricultural units will continue to thrive, while the small, environmentally friendly farms see their future disappear.
Rural depopulation would continue, leading to the painful demise of small towns and villages, since it is the small and medium-sized undertakings that keep the countryside alive.
The EU's agricultural policy therefore needs to be flexible to allow the countryside to go on flourishing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=268 NAME="Nicholson">
Madam President, I should like to begin by congratulating the rapporteur.
He is a man we all respect within the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and Parliament.
<P>
Rural development is being put forward at the moment as a second pillar for agriculture.
The question I ask myself is: will the second pillar be any use?
You can only give it the strength it requires by providing sufficient finance to give maximum support to the rural community.
I am extremely concerned that the second pillar will create an even more uneven playing field within the European Union than presently exists.
To only make the agri-environmental measure mandatory is an extreme weakness.
It gives Member States the licence to pick and choose to their own advantage, which may not be in the best longer-term interests of people living in the country, especially those dependent on the land for their support.
<P>
Rural development, as proposed, can never hope to address the serious problems facing the rural and agricultural communities throughout the European Union at present.
This will not protect the family farm structure that we have within the European Union.
Farmers throughout Europe are asking where do we go from here; what do we do and what have we done wrong?
We should ask ourselves what we have done wrong.
We are the people with the responsibility within the Commission and Parliament.
We are the people who have to point the way forward.
We are the people who have to find and ensure that there is a way forward.
Unfortunately, to date, I do not see within this proposal enough support for the family farm structure within the European Community.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=269 NAME="Hardstaff">
Madam President, we need to be serious in this Parliament about achieving genuine reform of the common agricultural policy for the 21st century.
Mr Görlach produced an excellent report on the Commission proposals for rural development and put forward a small number of very practical amendments to bring them more closely in line with the Cork Declaration which the Commission had watered down somewhat.
<P>
Those amendments recognised the reality that in the conditions of the 21st century European agriculture will be much less labour-intensive and more mechanised in almost all sectors.
It is therefore essential to see rural development as support for the creation of a range of additional occupations in rural areas, not just those relating directly to agriculture and food processing, important elements though they will certainly continue to be in such areas.
<P>
It was therefore disappointing that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development introduced many additional over-detailed amendments to link support primarily to farmers and weaken the commitment to wider rural development.
We are not the farmers' committee and we have a duty to look beyond personal vested interests and towards the interests of all those citizens living in rural areas who will not find jobs in agriculture.
<P>
I hope this House will reject the majority of amendments so that we will have an opinion from the European Parliament which is realistic and constructive in adapting the European model of agriculture to new economic and social conditions as set out in the joint resolution from our colleagues, Mr Fantuzzi and Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf.
They identify as key factors sustainable development, quality food production, consumer safety, protection of the environment and biodiversity, animal welfare and rural development.
To achieve the latter we need LEADER type programmes to assist small-scale enterprises to develop new jobs in high technology as well as in tourism, traditional crafts and skills and environment-enhancing projects.
They should not only be in Objective 1 and 2 areas but everywhere the rural environment is suffering high unemployment and social deprivation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=270 NAME="Gillis">
Madam President, I have listened very carefully and have participated actively in many debates on the major elements of Agenda 2000.
I fully agree that the Union must plan its course for the future. But the proposals for CAP reform are based too heavily on measures to ease the cost of enlargement to the East and to satisfy US pressure in WTO.
<P>
It is very clear that there is a strong move to reduce farm prices to world price levels and the levels of Eastern Europe to save money.
This approach requires EU farmers to sell their products below the cost of production and depend for their income solely on partial compensation.
This is not sustainable and should be changed.
The system is already generating angry criticism of farmers as the amounts of these payments are identified separately from the costs of products that farmers produce and are seem by some as handouts.
In fact, you yourself, Commissioner, used the word subsidy.
The Court of Auditors report this week is a good example.
It certainly generated widespread headlines almost implying that farmers are criminals.
<P>
The system is also acting as a deterrent to young people making a career in farming.
The environmental benefit of their management, their energy and their skills is also being lost.
I can find no basis for the Commission's optimism that farming incomes will increase except at the expense of a sharp decline in numbers.
The proposals will cost an extra six billion euros and make farmers a lot poorer.
<P>
I would appeal to the Commission to soften the severity of these proposals and find a better way.
Farmers in my country are already suffering a huge decline in income.
Beef prices to farmers are 40 % lower than two years ago.
Pig prices and sheep prices have collapsed.
<P>
Lastly, can I ask the Commission again to investigate why food prices to consumers are not reducing in line with the huge fall in farm prices?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=271 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Madam President, Commissioner, Minister, I think that it is extremely important that we should follow up the report by Mr Görlach and the proposals from the Commission by developing a broad rural policy.
Why do we need this policy?
The point has been made several times this evening: because we need new economic platforms in rural areas.
I would like to draw attention to two aspects that have scarcely been mentioned this evening.
Eighty per cent of the population live in towns or cities.
I think that people in rural areas must realise that, when we develop a rural policy, it has to be geared to the people in the towns.
This is what I mean by a broad rural policy.
<P>
I would also ask for attention to be given to women in rural areas, who are often a powerful voice for change, often much more so than men.
I would like to see them given extra help as part of this rural policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=272 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Lambraki">
Madam President, we agree that the CAP needs to be reformed, partly because of the new economic circumstances but also because of the malfunctions that have been noted in it so far.
We say yes to reform, reform that will reduce the inequalities between countries, regions and farmers, reform which will contribute towards ecological development of the countryside, reform which will support the farming populations in our countries.
So we back the measures proposed by Agenda 2000, which move along those lines and are compatible with the fundamental principles of cohesion and financial solidarity.
We must point out, however, that like some other objectives, the objective of developing the countryside will be nothing more than wishful thinking unless it is accompanied by sufficient funding.
<P>
However, the need to reform the CAP must not serve as an excuse for its virtual abolition.
Consequently, we cannot support proposals such as the co-financing of direct aid for farming, which, though it responds to the demand by some Member States that their net contributions to the Community's budget should be reduced, leads the CAP along the way to renationalisation and in essence calls into question the level of the agricultural guideline.
At the same time, the adoption of co-funding will have an adverse effect on the flow of funding from the Structural Funds to the Union's poorer countries, so increasing the inequalities that exist already.
<P>
I think the need for reform is more or less agreed.
That should allow us to proceed more steadily, taking careful steps towards a well thought out reform which the farming world really needs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=273 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Filippi">
Madam President, Minister, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this important debate must end with approval of a document on the reform of the CAP.
I do not want the difficulties that have emerged in relations between the political groups to lead to the defeat of the resolutions tabled.
In my opinion, this would be serious for the European Parliament, which ought to express itself clearly and not just leave the decisions to others.
There has to be a realistic assessment.
Cofinancing can make it possible to resolve the conflict which has developed on the net contributions of Member States to the agricultural budget.
<P>
What must be avoided is renationalisation of the CAP and reduction and weakening of the spirit of internal solidarity.
That is why I am in favour of the proposals which clearly uphold all these principles and I urge all my colleagues, starting with the Italians, to vote consistently tomorrow.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, if we do not decide on an approach here and if the Council does not find a solution to the problems soon, the risk is that the decision will pass to others, to the Ecofin Council of course, and it certainly is not likely to increase the relevant resources, which would be needed to sustain the reform of the CAP.
So the cofinancing can be there if the demand for a new equilibrium and internal cohesion remains firm.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=274 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
Madam President, Commissioner, 80 to 90 % of Europe is countryside.
A vast area of Sweden consists of countryside, but only a small fraction - 10 to 20 % - of the population lives there.
If no one lived in the countryside, half of Sweden would be uninhabited.
It is therefore very important for us that support should be given to rural development and agriculture.
Support for Objective 6 should be included in Objective 1, and support for Objective 5 should be included in Objective 2. The criteria for support should remain the same.
<P>
The countryside, the people, nature, the soil and water are all resources that Europe should be using sensibly.
It is also important to strengthen local communities, coordinate support, address education, protect the environment, encourage organic farming and invest in bio-energy and new types of fuel such as ethanol and methanol, as well as in tourism and transport.
However, these activities must take place in accordance with the wishes of the people concerned, if rural development is to be successful.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=275 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Happart">
Madam President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office, Agenda 2000 is most certainly one of the issues that has caused the greatest activity in the European Parliament over the past ten years.
The length of the debates and the number of meetings that all Parliament's committees have devoted to it lead us to expect a far-reaching project.
<P>
We were finally about to give birth to Europe, so to speak, to an ideal Europe where our children were be able to live in peace as free citizens, from the Atlantic to the Urals.
We were going to open our doors to new countries, countries that may be poor in financial terms but are rich in hope.
At last we had stopped being afraid and were marching towards the creation of a European state.
This state was to be a area of intellectual freedom where the concerns of political and economic leaders would be centred around human concerns.
<P>
We were going to leave hormone-laden meat and the quest for profit at all costs to the Americans and to their World Trade Organisation.
We were ready for true solidarity, where the rich - as indeed we are - offer a helping hand to give and to support rather than to take and to trample.
Yet this was just another dream.
I woke up this morning and my blood ran cold when I realised how we have behaved.
Once again, we are ready to pretend to help our poor, each of us entrenched in our own little states, made more callous by our narrow-mindedness.
<P>
Sadly, cofinancing will for example legally allow our richer states to help their own farmers.
If there is no longer any solidarity in Europe, if Agenda 2000 consists simply of allowing rich Member States to obtain rebates of their own money, then who will pay for the poor in the poorer countries, be they in southern Europe today or in eastern Europe tomorrow?
Once again, we are doing the opposite of what should be done, and this is unfortunate for our children.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=276 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Arias Caete">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, nobody doubts that a reform is necessary and nobody doubts that the common agricultural policy is not entirely fulfilling the role assigned to it in the Treaty.
When this policy is judged from the point of view of its contribution to economic and social cohesion, the level of criticism is sometimes outrageous.
<P>
However, in my opinion, the most worrying thing is that with a reform process that is so highly complicated, particularly given the small amount of resources set aside for rural development policies, the debate on the Community's own resources has become involved.
<P>
In this context, it is true that the Commission has restricted itself to presenting a report with various options, but our experience in the Community means that we are accustomed to fearing reports, White Papers and Green Papers drawn up by the Commission.
In the end, there is a considerable possibility that the option that has the most support and the most justification will become a definitive part of Community legislation.
Co-financing direct aid to incomes represents not only a breakdown in the principle of financial solidarity, but also a violation of the principle of 'means necessary', as laid down in Article F.3 of the Treaty on European Union.
It is not a means of improving the efficiency of the CAP, but simply a mechanism for redistributing the burden of spending.
<P>
The proposals involved are clearly regressive, are largely detrimental to the 'economic and social cohesion countries' and benefit the more prosperous countries, with the exception of France and, to a lesser extent, Denmark.
This would lead to the paradox whereby enlargement would take place at the expense of the 'cohesion countries', whose relative share in category 2 has been considerably reduced and that, in addition to this, the reform of CAP funding would also affect those countries again.
Moreover, Commissioner, that does not take account of the fact that, according to the information provided by the Commission in June, the list of direct aid that Directorate-General XIX has used for its calculations includes a much smaller amount of aid than that which is considered direct and subject to regulation in the reform that we are currently dealing with.
This means that the proposals are even more regressive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=277 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Iversen">
Madam President, the common agricultural policy was established in the 1950s, when there were only six Member States.
As nearly everyone recognises, this policy is not ready to cope with an enlargement which will mean the Union consisting of some 20 countries.
The Commission has submitted its proposals for specific changes to the agriculture policy, and we are currently studying our attitude to the reform of the CAP in several parliamentary committees.
The main ideas are well known: the across-the-board support schemes will be abandoned, and European farmers will have to compete on the world market, where liberalisation is now in full swing.
This will mean that prices have to fall into line with those on the world market, and that will put an end to milk quotas and stocks of surpluses.
This should not take place at the expense of our farmers, who will find it difficult to hold their own in free competition.
On the contrary, future agricultural support needs to be much more targeted.
Price support should be replaced by increased direct aid for those farmers who really need help.
Support will also continue to be provided for areas and sectors which have special problems.
<P>
The present form of agricultural support is based on quantity rather than quality.
It takes no account of animal welfare and environmental considerations, and in my view is in fact totally out of step with the growing importance which most consumers attach to these values.
The agricultural policy cannot continue without change if European farming is to participate in competition on the world market.
And the CAP currently swallows up more than half the EU's total budget, and with enlargement things will become even worse.
<P>
Our consumers are increasingly demanding to be told what their food contains and how it has been produced.
They want to have natural systems of production which protect the welfare of animals and do not harm the environment.
It is important to realise that we have to organise our common agricultural policy so that it meets the current demands both for the present Member States and - not least - for those which join in future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=278 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Botz">
Madam President, Commissioner, the farmers in the new federal states, like farmers everywhere, are following the decision-making processes in the realm of agricultural reform very closely.
Even though it has not yet filtered through to everyone - I know that it filtered through to you long ago - most of these farms of ours correspond to the European model of agriculture.
They are multifunctional, they are sustainable and they are at least potentially competitive.
We all know that some of those in favoured locations are very competitive.
<P>
Let me say a few words on multifunctionality with special reference to communal farms, which of course account for most of our farmland, especially in less-favoured locations. Not only are these farms multifunctional, but - and this is our main concern, and I believe you are aware of it - in truly rural areas where unemployment is in the 30 to 40 % range, such as Mecklenburg/West Pomerania and other regions, they are the only guarantors of the relatively few jobs that still exist.
With regard to this second pillar, to which we all look forward eagerly and which ought to become strong as quickly as possible, under no circumstances must we permit the rules governing the first pillar to break down the last bastion of employment in these regions.
<P>
I believe this point has been taken on board.
As far as long-term prospects are concerned, I should like to make explicit reference to the re-established family farms, which are reasonably sized from our point of view, because their size is based on the sole objective of passing on the farm as a viable business to the next generation.
Here too, the degressive intentions of the Commission meet with very little comprehension.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=279 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Campos">
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, I shall begin with the point I feel is closest to the statement made by the Commissioner, that is, we cannot carry out a 'reformlet' but it must be a real reform - I would even say a great reform.
<P>
The problem facing us at the end of this century is not one of production.
Production is doing fine and Europe has nothing to worry about.
Since 1950 the rural population has dropped from 35 % to 5 %, yet production has increased almost eightfold. As you have just said, Commissioner, this reform is going to lead more people away from the countryside.
That means that the Commissioner is going to spend half of the Community budget on far less than half of the population and, since there is profound injustice in the entire common agricultural policy, the Commissioner is going to spend 40 % of the Community budget to benefit 1 % of the richest people in the Community.
While 20 % of all farmers get 80 %, the Commissioner can work it out for himself that 1 % of the richest are going to be receiving 40 % of the Community budget.
After all, the problem is not one of production.
The problem is one of justice, a just policy to defend people living in the countryside.
That policy of justice is not understood or even being discussed by the Commission.
That is the fundamental issue at stake because today's problem is whether the Commissioner or the Council are going to put a complete end to aid to production.
As they stand, they are the enemy of quality, the enemy of the environment, and the enemy of jobs, because the crops that the Commissioner gives most of the finances to are those with the highest levels of unemployment: cereals currently receive 43 % but producing cereals is the least labour-intensive of all the types of farming that exist.
In other words, unemployment is being subsidised.
The Commissioner is doing nothing to regulate, set ceilings or ensure that justice prevails.
It is the vital issue of justice that we ought to be discussing because productivity is doing very well, thank you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=280 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
Madam President, although I am speaking last, I do not think I am speaking about anything trivial if I take up the points made on this issue by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
The aims of agricultural reform in the Agenda 2000 document are in principle very much a step in the right direction, taking account of the decisions taken, for example, at the meetings in Amsterdam and Cardiff.
The aim is to make agricultural policy more environmentally-friendly, and to serve the needs of the consumer to a greater extent.
<P>
In practice this is not actually being implemented very successfully.
The problem is that the Commission is leaving these issues to be decided at national level.
The decision on whether or not to link environmental matters with income support is being left to the national authorities.
There is no desire to make joint decisions, but this is vital if we are to be able to change tack.
Agriculture, as is well known, is one of the worst polluters of soil and water.
We will only see genuine improvement when we devise common rules for good agricultural practice which apply the principle of sustainable development, and only when these practises are introduced can we share the benefits of a common agricultural policy.
<P>
As for future agricultural policy in the European Union, the issues have been gone over at many summit meetings.
Along with the approach to the environment that emerged from the Cardiff conference, emphasis must be given to the policies agreed at Luxembourg, which stated that in the future we must be able to practise farming everywhere in the European Union area, including the north.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=281 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Myller.
<P>
The Council and the Commission have indicated that they will forego their statements if there are no further questions, as seems to be the case.
<P>
I am grateful to everyone for staying with us for so long.
<P>
I have received eight motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2).
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.30 a.m.
<P>
Finally, I must not forget to thank the interpreters, who have worked for much longer than was originally planned.
<P>
I wish you a safe journey home.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 0.17 a.m.)
<CHAPTER ID=0>
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="Donnelly, Alan">
Mr President, I am sure the House will join with me in condemning the action of the British House of Lords last night in rejecting the British Government's attempt to bring the United Kingdom in line with the rest of the European Union by introducing proportional representation in the United Kingdom.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President. -">
Mr Donnelly, that is an opinion on another parliament's decision.
This House is not the place to condemn or approve actions of other Houses.
<P>
We have to respect other parliaments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="Green">
Mr President, I wish to bring to the attention of this House a totally unacceptable and disgraceful attack on the government of Italy yesterday by the Prime Minister of Turkey speaking before the Turkish Grand National Assembly.
<P>
I would like to ask you, Mr President, to make clear to the Turkish Prime Minister that this House utterly rejects and condemns his accusation that failure to hand over Mr Abdullah Ocalan for trial in Turkey is tantamount to becoming accomplices in murder.
Italy has a clear legal, indeed constitutional, obligation not to return a person under extradition to countries where the death penalty still exists.
In that context, it must be said that Italy embodies the values of this House and the European Union generally.
Italy is currently going through the proper democratic and constitutional processes dictated by its constitution.
Encouraging demonstrations and trade embargos against one of our Member States is, frankly, unacceptable from a country which wishes and aspires to join us in the European Union.
<P>
An attack on the government of Italy in this way is an attack on all of us in the European Union: on the values which underlie this Union, on the solidarity and partnership which is fundamental to European integration.
<P>
Mr President, I would ask you to make clear the views of this House to the government and Prime Minister of Turkey and, indeed, to send a message of our strong support to the government and Prime Minister of Italy to continue with their proper democratic and constitutional processes, despite the harassment, to deal with the issue before them.
Perhaps we could ask the Turkish Grand National Assembly to join with us in seeing this moment not as a threat but as an opportunity to launch the political dialogue, which is the only way to solve the Kurdish problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of our group I should like to express support for Mrs Green's proposal.
We do indeed believe that the Turkish authorities - and more specifically the Prime Minister - have made unacceptable statements about Italy, accusing it of being an accomplice to terrorism if it fails to grant the extradition of the Kurdish leader Öcalan.
We believe that in this case Italy and the Italian authorities are respecting the rule of law by applying a constitution which prevents the extradition of an individual to a country which still has the death penalty.
I believe that the vast majority in this Parliament have always opposed terrorism, in all its forms, and that we can have every confidence in Italy, a Member State of the European Union, which has shown a fundamental respect for the rule of law and the fundamental rules of the constitutional state.
It will solve the specific problem it is now facing in accordance with these rules, of that we are convinced.
I should indeed like to support the request to protest to the Turkish authorities and to declare our support for the position of the Italian Government.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="Cox">
Mr President, on behalf of the ELDR Group I support the initiative of Mrs Green.
We believe that the Italian Government is respecting the rule of law, that we should show our solidarity with that process and that we deplore as misguided the political attack which has been launched against the Italians by the Turkish Prime Minister.
We reject the view that according any person whose extradition is sought their rights under law is tantamount to an implicit or explicit support of terrorism.
Nor does it in any way pre-judge their guilt or innocence.
We wish to show our solidarity with the Italian process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Puerta">
Mr President, at the beginning of the week, I expressed my group's concern regarding the Turkish Government's request for extradition.
I had already made it clear, as other chairmen had made it clear, that we wanted Mr Ocalan to be granted political asylum.
<P>
We are now faced with a new situation that affects Parliament.
The co-chairman of the European Union-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee, Mr Bülent Akarcali, sent a letter to the various Italian Members threatening them on behalf of Turkey.
This letter ends by saying that granting Mr Ocalan political asylum would not only have a negative effect on the friendly relations between Turkey and Italy, but would also create a terrorist problem for Italy, Europe and the rest of the world.
<P>
It is entirely unacceptable that the co-chairman of the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee, a country with which we have a customs union, should be allowed in both an institutional and formal way to threaten Members and Italian and European institutions with terrorism.
<P>
Mr President, I strongly call on you to write to this gentleman to defend the dignity of this Parliament, peace and democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Greens in the European Parliament agree with what has been said here today.
But we should like to stress two points in particular.
Firstly, the way Italy and the Italian Government have been treated by the Turkish authorities is unacceptable.
This is not a dispute between Italy and Turkey. It is a dispute between Europe and Turkey, which is I why believe it is a good thing that the European Parliament - albeit a little late - is now giving its attention to it, as we knew on Monday already that serious problems were in store.
<P>
Secondly, a very clear majority in Parliament has taken the line throughout this debate that a political solution must be found to the Kurdish problem.
In this respect it is clear that at the very moment when the PKK - from which my group and all other groups have always distanced themselves - unilaterally declares a cease-fire in order to seek a solution by alternative means, Turkey has decided to resort to this sort of action.
We therefore believe that no pressure must be placed on Italy, that the whole of Europe must declare its support for Italy on this and above all that further efforts must be made in working towards a political solution.
Clearly there must be no pressure to extradite an individual to his enemies who have already shown in the past that they often use methods which are little better than his.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lalumière">
Mr President, we are not being asked today to judge the leader of the PKK.
In fact, on several occasions, particularly in the McMillan-Scott report, Parliament has given its opinion on this movement that takes part in terrorist activities.
What we are being asked today is whether or not Italy should extradite Mr Öcalan.
Italy is a state under the rule of law.
Italy has a constitution and case-law that prohibits it from extraditing anyone to a country that still has the death penalty.
We should trust Italy as a state under the rule of law.
It will abide by its constitution and its case-law and that is as it should be.
We support the Italian authorities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, as an Italian, I want to thank all the political groups for the solidarity they have expressed.
I would like to add that solidarity is extremely important in situations like this where one Member State is attacked by the Turkish Government, because that is the way, and the only way, we can build our common European home and the common foreign and security policy.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Statement by the President
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I think that the European Parliament possesses sufficient moral authority, as a constant defender of the rule of law and as a Chamber that has always condemned terrorism, to show support and solidarity with a Member State that strictly adheres to these rules, and that respects the independence of the judiciary and the implementation of its own laws.
<P>
I therefore understand that I am responding to the requests that have been put to me by the vast majority of representatives of the political groups.
These requests form a vigorous protest, on behalf of this Parliament, against the attacks the authorities of that country have been subjected to by no less than the Prime Minister of a third country. At the same time, they express your outright rejection of the procedure whereby a co-chairman of a committee addresses the Members of this House and poses what could be considered a threat to both their independence and freedom in exercising their mandate.
<P>
Both aspects will be dealt with immediately.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="Corbett">
Mr President, Article F of the Treaty of European Union requires the Member States of the European Union to be democracies, a provision which has, if anything, been strengthened by the Treaty of Amsterdam.
<P>
In the circumstances I am sure that the majority of this House would agree that the vote last night, in an unelected chamber ...
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
Mr Corbett, I say clearly that it is not up to this House to pass judgement on what the parliaments of our Member States do. They have their established powers.
It is not for us to judge the use they make of them.
I will not allow any further debate on this question.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="Walter">
Madam President, I am sorry to have to intervene so soon, but it says on my voting list that if we adopt Amendment No 9, then No 21 falls.
Amendment No 21 addresses an issue which affects not only Mr Barón Crespo's report, but also Mr Sonneveld's and my own, that is whether the applicant countries are to be represented on the appropriate monitoring committee or not.
The Committee on Regional Policy has advocated this.
We believe that these countries should be involved in the committee, at least in an advisory capacity.
<P>
We should be consistent across these three areas.
If we reject No 21, then we should make a general statement to the effect that we do not want these countries represented on the committees.
If we vote in favour here, that would support the view of the Committee on Regional Policy, and then we would have to say for all three: they are in.
I believe that we should give them the opportunity to take part.
But this needs to be settled now, because it is here that it appears on the agenda for the first time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="President">
Mr Walter, I shall give the floor to Mr Barón Crespo.
It may be that the request from the Green Group has created some confusion.
That is why I should like things to be clear.
I wanted to put to the vote first Amendment No 9 by the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
It seems to have been rejected, but we shall check that.
If it had been adopted, we should have voted on Amendment No 19 by the Green Group as an addition.
After that, I will of course put to the vote Amendment No 21 by the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
<P>
Is that how you see the matter, Mr Barón Crespo?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Barón Crespo">
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Walter">
Madam President, you said before the vote that you would also be putting Amendment No 21 to the vote.
The first phrase of this amendment ...
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="President">
If Amendment No 9 had been rejected, Mr Walter, that is what I said.
But it was adopted - the result was quite clear.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Madam President, formally speaking, your conclusion might well be correct, but from a practical point of view, Amendment No 21 constitutes an addition, and I also think that it should be put to the vote, particularly as you said so yourself.
Many Members want participation in another form, within the meaning of our amendment, and I think they are now expecting that amendment.
That is why you have to put it to the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="President">
Mrs Schroedter, I did not say that I would put Amendment No 21 to the vote in any event.
I said that I would put Amendment No 21 to the vote if Amendment No 9 was rejected.
But it was adopted - that was the decision of the House.
My personal view is that Amendment No 21 now falls.
I shall consult the rapporteur and, if he shares my view, we shall move on to the following amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="Barón Crespo">
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Barón Crespo">
Madam President, I would like to ask the Commissioner, Mr van den Broek, if he still opposes Parliament's amendments, as he announced yesterday in the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="van den Broek">
Madam President, I thought that after what I said in Parliament yesterday it was clear that there is one category where we have said: yes, we agree. There is also another category where we clearly respect the reasoning.
But we do not yet want to formally support these amendments, because we have the feeling that the Council will perhaps make changes here and there to the way they are formulated with which we would be able to agree.
I therefore believe that I must stand by what I said yesterday.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="Barón Crespo">
Madam President, in view of the Commissioner's response, I would ask that, pursuant to Rule 60(2) of the Rules of Procedure, this report be referred back to the committee responsible.
<P>
(Parliament decided to refer the matter back to committee)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="Walter">
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Barón Crespo">
Madam President, I would draw your attention to the fact that the Presidency has been somewhat inconsistent because by voting for Amendment No 16, Parliament has just contradicted what my report says, despite the fact that I had previously warned of this.
Parliament has given its opinion as regards the committee's composition in terms of my report and has now just adopted a resolution that contradicts this.
I would like the first vote to count.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="Walter">
Madam President, given that Mr van den Broek did say yesterday that, while many figures could be accepted or incorporated, some important parts could not actually be adopted, I would request referral back to committee pursuant to Rule 60(2).
<P>
(Parliament decided to refer the matter back to committee)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Samland">
Madam President, following the Commission's unsatisfactory response - that it is not prepared to accept Amendment No 1, on which we have just voted - I should just like to announce that, if the Commission has not changed its mind on Amendment No 1 by January, when we have the proper reading of this document, then we will propose that the report be referred back to the committee.
I should like to make that clear here.
In so doing, we are giving the Commission time to consider whether it might not rethink its position on Amendment No 1 by January.
<P>
Before the final vote
<P>
(Parliament approved a request from the rapporteur for the matter to be referred back to committee)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="Barón Crespo">
Madam President, I would like to remind you once again that we are about to encounter a problem that I outlined in writing to the 'Steering Committee' and to the Presidency and that I repeated today.
Madam President, I do not want to be held responsible for this.
I understand that Amendment No 30 by the Committee on Agriculture, which is along the same lines as the one to which I previously referred, namely Amendment No 16 by the Committee on Regional Policy, has lapsed. If this is not the case, then the Hughes procedure and coordination we are involved in serve no purpose whatsoever.
As I have already stated, I would ask the Presidency and its services to take this matter seriously and not to leave all the responsibility to the Member.
I think that we should act in line with our rules.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="President">
Mr Barón Crespo, it is not a question of shifting the responsibility on to someone.
As you know, the House is sovereign, which is a principle of democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="Sonneveld">
Madam President, I believe that Amendment No 30 deals with something different from what Mr Barón Crespo was just talking about.
This is a consultative committee on which the EU Member States and the applicant countries have a representative, but it is a committee concerned with the preparation of projects and that is central to my report.
This is most definitely different from what Mr Walter was just talking about.
I would not therefore bring it under the same regulation as Mr Barón Crespo just mentioned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="Sonneveld">
Madam President, I assume that this is not good news to the Commissioner, and that he has changed the position he announced yesterday.
In that case I should like to request that the report be referred back to the committee responsible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="President">
I see that Mr van den Broek agrees.
<P>
(Parliament decided to refer the matter back to committee)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="Teverson">
Mr President, if we are going to try and get this vote through quickly, I suggest that the PPE, if they are going to continue to vote against their own amendments, actually have the courage to withdraw them before we go right the way through this session.
It is ridiculous.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Fraga Estévez">
Mr President, I would also like to invoke Rule 60(2) of the Rules of Procedure and ask that this report be referred back to committee for two reasons: to be able to proceed to a second reading and to be able to initiate talks with the Council.
I hope that the House will unanimously support this request.
<P>
(Parliament decided to refer the matter back to committee)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="Görlach">
Mr President, since Mr Fischler informed us last night, or rather very early this morning, after the debate, of the amendments which the Commission can on no account accept - and I assume that the position has not changed since then - I request that the report be referred back to the committee, pursuant to Rule 60(2).
<P>
(Parliament decided to refer the matter back to committee)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, in order to further lighten the work of fellow Members, our group has submitted a proposal to you to vote at the next part-session on Mr Ferri's report, which is now finished, rather than this week.
I understand that most Members agree with this. It is a very complex report.
<P>
(Parliament agreed to the proposal)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="President">
I propose that we vote on the remaining reports this evening, since we have already done a good deal of work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="Malone">
Mr President, in relation to the vote on the McCarthy report, I wish to say that my explanation concerns the Irish situation.
We have been main beneficiaries of EU Structural Funds and Cohesion Funds and have used them very well over that period.
As a result, we now have a very prosperous economy.
However, we still lag a considerable way behind our European partners in terms of our infrastructure, in particular transport, telecommunications and environmental protection facilities.
We still have enormous problems of social exclusion, especially in deprived urban and rural communities, and, indeed, underdevelopment.
All these problems have to be tackled and for this reason I welcome the Commission's proposal that there should be no sudden end to funding from Brussels.
This should be reduced gradually.
However, I deplore the cynical manner in which the Irish Government has chosen to divide the country into regions for party-political purposes, with scant regard for the aim of structural funds which was to assist with economic and social cohesion.
They are thereby depriving both the urban and rural poor of the full benefit of funds and, indeed, state aid.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Raschhofer">
Mr President, on the McCarthy report. We voted against this report for the following reasons.
Firstly, on Objective 2, we think it is inappropriate for unemployment to be the dominant criterion.
It is essential to broaden these criteria, in particular with a view to protecting rural areas.
Secondly, on Objective 1, the criterion put forward by the Commission must not be watered down or extended by the introduction of exceptions.
Thirdly, we particularly emphasise our support for all those measures which will help to ease the pressure of making adjustments on regions bordering the CEECs.
We therefore support the provisions seeking to adapt the Community initiative Interreg, but at the same time point out that this will only be able to make a limited contribution to providing the desired assistance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Barros Moura">
I voted in favour of this report in the final vote because I feel that, in the end, it does not compromise Portugal's specific interests in the negotiations on Agenda 2000, despite relevant factors with regard to economic and social cohesion.
On the other hand, I voted against Amendment No 2, which calls into question the future decision-making capacity on the financial perspective. I also voted against Amendment No 5, which, following approval of Amendment No 7 - which I again voted against -, could lead to a restrictive reading of the Council's decision-making capacity concerning the regions in Objective 1.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Gallagher">
I would like to begin my comments by saying that I welcome the decision of the Irish Government this week to sub-divide the country for the purposes of drawing down EU Structural Funds during the year 2000-2006.
<P>
It is only correct and sensible that poorer regions in Ireland should receive a higher proportion of European Regional and Social Funds to redress economic performance in all these areas.
<P>
The benefits of Objective 1 status are very clear:
<P>
A higher proportion of European Regional Development Funds so as to redress the infrastructural deficit in the less well-off parts of Ireland.-A higher amount of state aid to be given to industry setting up in the Objective 1 regions in Ireland.-The fact that Objective 1 status in transition may be accorded to the poorer areas in Ireland post-2006.The fact that this decision has been taken will mean that the correct infrastructures will be put into place so as to win over a higher proportion of industry setting up in the Objective 1 areas in Ireland
<P>
Ever since the Single European Act was implemented in 1987, it has been clear that one of the core policies of the European Union is to ensure that all regions in Europe can effectively participate within the Single European Currency regime and within the internal market.
<P>
I would like to commend the efforts of all the people involved in the process of lobbying for Objective 1 status for the poorest regions in Ireland for the next round of EU Structural Funds for the period 2000-2006.
<P>
This will go a long way towards redressing the problems of rural depopulation in Ireland, which has reached very high proportions in recent years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="McCarthy">
I would like to thank the Members of the House for supporting my report today.
I know that voters in my constituency in the East Midlands will be pleased to know that Parliament is supporting continued European funds to the rural, urban and industrial heartlands of our region where lower levels of unemployment mask underlying structural and social weaknesses.
Indeed in accepting an additional two years of funding beyond the Commission proposal for areas going through restructuring, this will sustain the process, particularly in the coalfields and rural areas.
<P>
I am particularly pleased that the release of the latest Eurostat figures indicates that four UK regions are on track to gain Objective 1 status.
Although negotiations still have to be held and decisions taken next year the figures will form the basis of those negotiations.
Merseyside, in the north west region, with a GDP of 72.54 % which falls within the 75 % threshold, has ongoing structural problems which mean the area will continue to need priority EU status.
<P>
On Objective 1 status, Parliament has made it clear that any exception to the 75 % GDP application must be annexed to the regulation before we deliver our final assent on the Commission proposal.
<P>
The House also voted in favour of a new 'Urban' Community initiative and a separate initiative for future crisis sectors or regions; a kind of 'Restruct' initiative.
Manchester, Liverpool and Nottingham which have benefited from the Urban fund will be delighted to hear that Parliament has backed its continuation.
<P>
As rapporteur I will now take forward this first reading position in our discussions with the Council and the Commission, and hope to achieve Parliament's priorities as outlined in the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="Collins, Gerard">
While we must recognise that standards of living have increased in Ireland due in part to the contribution of the European Union Regional, Social and Cohesion funds, I still believe that much work remains to be done if there is to be a quality of access and opportunity for Irish businesses, exporters and manufacturers to compete on an equal footing within the frontier-free trading block of the European Union.
<P>
I welcome the acceptance of the European Commission of the need to introduce changes in European funding for Ireland on a gradual basis which is known as the 'soft landing' approach.
The continuation of European funding after the present programme concludes next year is vital if we are to consolidate the strong economic growth rates of recent years.
A sudden cut-off of European funding would risk provoking a major shock in our economy and in the process undermine recent gains.
<P>
It is a priority for the government and for the Fianna Fail group of the European Parliament that the European Regional Development Fund and the European Cohesion Fund continue to apply in Ireland in as an extensive role as possible under the next round of funding 2000-2006.
The reasons for this are as follows: our road infrastructure is still well short of the standards enjoyed by most regions of the Community; our peripheral location creates a greater need for relatively high levels of investments in ports and regional airport infrastructure; investment is required to meet compliance with the EU Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive which is going to cost £1.6 billion to implement in its totality between the year 1994-2005.
<P>
Thirty-five per cent of all structural fund programmes in Ireland is presently spent in the areas of education and training under the European Social Fund.
While this is likely to be reduced in part post-1999 priority must remain for the provision of better education and training facilities for those who lack the necessary skills or have difficulties in securing employment.
<P>
The transition period proposed by the European Commission post 2000-2006 will ensure many important roads, environmental protection schemes, industrial, tourism and rural development projects will now be able to proceed as planned.
This decision will means that more communities both urban and rural will be able to avail of European funding for projects to generate new jobs, improve the environment and guarantee continued economic growth.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Darras">
In the light of the European Union's enlargement process, the Commission's proposal for reform of the Structural Funds acquires a particular importance for the future of European citizens.
We must confirm that the Union cannot be merely a large market that is given over to the excesses of liberalism, but that mechanisms are to be established for catching up and for keeping up; in short, for practising solidarity.
We should not forget that regional policy is still an essential component in moving towards the Europe of citizens.
We should therefore continue to work in that direction so that we may better understand the challenge of enlargement.
<P>
The report before us today is the product of many hours of discussion and compromise solutions reached by our two rapporteurs, and I thank them for their work.
We can support the general substance of the report, which incorporates the principles of concentration, simplification and decentralisation proposed by the European Commission. At the same time, it specifies certain eligibility criteria - youth unemployment, long-term unemployment, the level of GDP, and so on - particularly as regards Objective 2, and emphasises the need for transparency.
However, we could not vote in favour of the final resolution.
<P>
Indeed, our opinion remains negative despite the positive aspects of the report.
These include the horizontal implementation of Objective 3, which is essential in achieving social cohesion, the provision of training and the fight against exclusion. Other important aspects are the maintenance of the URBAN initiative, which for the first time caters for small and medium-sized towns, the recognition of the need to draw up a new initiative to deal with the economic and social crises that lead to job losses, and the revision of the inappropriate and ill-defined 'performance reserve' envisaged by the Commission.
<P>
Our opinion remains negative because, with regard to Objective 1, we have no wish to reopen Pandora's box.
While we are aware that nobody can escape budgetary cutbacks, we maintain that aid should go to the weakest first.
That is why in our countries we will no longer have regions with a development lag that receive European aid in this respect.
We would like the criterion of 75 % to be stringently respected, and no exception should be made to this principle.
<P>
Our opinion remains negative because we cannot, under any circumstances, allow appropriations from the guarantee section of the EAGGF that are used in connection with Objective 2 to be considered as non-compulsory spending, since that infringes the Treaty.
<P>
And finally, our opinion remains negative because we would consider it to be harmful to our democracy if our Amendment No 46 to paragraph 53 of the resolution were not adopted by the House. In the interests of transparency, this amendment calls for an assurance that appropriations from the Structural Funds will be used in a non-discriminatory manner in the various regions involved.
<P>
This is why, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the French Socialist delegation to the European Parliament will not vote in favour at first reading.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Delcroix">
The Agenda 2000 action programme cannot be dissociated from the Commission report on the system of own resources.
It even seems more logical to first consider the reform of own resources, because that will condition the three programme areas: the budget, the agricultural policy and the Structural Funds.
<P>
In the long term, the system of own resources should be given a new focus to make it fairer and more effective.
That means giving up the VAT resource, which distorts the fair division of contributions among the Member States, and adopting one of the measures proposed by the Commission: the integration of a tax on earnings from securities into the own resources system.
It does not appear that the other Commission proposals would actually increase own resources: the tax on CO2 would not generate a great deal, while harmonising corporation tax would involve substantial technical difficulties.
Community measures concerning speculative capital movements, for which legislation will eventually have to be provided, might be added at a later date.
The ultimate aim must be to ensure that all Member States pay a fair contribution based on the criterion of GDP per inhabitant.
<P>
In the short term, it is time for certain European countries to stop advocating the theory of a fair return.
Such a theory corresponds to a mercenary conception of the construction of Europe that would make the enlargement negotiations considerably more complicated.
The fair return is, in effect, the antithesis of enlargement.
It makes no sense to support the accession of countries that are far less developed in economic terms than the 15 Member States and to simultaneously reduce net flows within the Union.
<P>
And what about the different areas of Agenda 2000?
<P>
As far as the budget is concerned, the ceiling of 1.27 % of the Union's GNP is a realistic figure under present conditions. It would not be possible to agree on an increase and this figure has the advantage of obliging the Union to undertake a more effective reform of current expenditure.
Nonetheless, we might still wonder whether this position is realistic in the medium term, when the accession of the Baltic countries and Poland becomes imminent.
The figure of 1.27 % cannot, however, be a definitive standard.
In the meantime, this solution requires that ceilings be established for the agricultural and structural policies.
Without such ceilings, there is a risk that no funds will remain for the policies that, in our view, deserve priority: research, employment, networks and foreign relations.
<P>
As regards the agricultural policy, it is essential to avoid the major pitfall of revising the CAP in a manner that would carry the European Union towards a de facto renationalisation.
Consequently, Member States should not be given excessive leeway in the use of funds.
The success of the CAP reform will be measured by the extent to which it enables European agriculture to become competitive once more, without sacrificing the development prospects of rural areas.
In other words, the economic dimension of agricultural activity must be enhanced, while simultaneously reconciling agriculture and society on the basis of a sustainable development model that respects the environment and that focuses mainly on the development of rural areas, product quality, consumer safety, respect for biodiversity and animal welfare.
<P>
In the light of the enlargement to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the new European model will have to further decentralise its day-to-day management and substantially simplify its legal framework.
Simplification and subsidiarity will be the key to the successful development of a new process of integration.
<P>
In terms of the Structural Funds, the first two objectives are very different from the third.
Their activities are focused on restricted geographical areas whose economic and social development is clearly below the average of the other areas of Europe, either because they are disadvantaged, or because they need to be converted.
These regions are either subject to a development lag or industrial decline, or they are made up of rural or urban areas that are experiencing serious problems.
Massive financial investment with a clear focus will seek to help these regions counteract the negative effects of an open market that is increasingly deregulated.
The regions involved should be small enough to ensure that the impact is visible.
<P>
Objective 3, meanwhile, is of a very different nature.
Here, it is not a question of seeking a localised cure, but rather of triggering an overall movement in society through the development of human resources. It is a question of investing in people rather than in infrastructures.
The development of human resources should play a central role in the European and national employment strategies. And the juxtaposition of a general, horizontal objective alongside vertical objectives that are focused on specific areas is to be welcomed.
Thought should be given to the resources that are available for achieving such an ambitious objective.
<P>
Although the motion for a resolution tabled by Mrs McCarthy and Mr Hatzidakis on the Structural Funds speaks of the 'horizontal nature' of this Objective 3, and considers that it should cover all areas of the Member States, there is reason to fear that lack of funds will cause the Objective to be confined, as suggested by the Commission, to only those areas that are not covered by Objectives 1 and 2.
In my view, its most innovative aspect would thus be lost.
<P>
We know that the disparities between Member States have increased in terms of both training and unemployment levels: one young European in five is unemployed and increasing numbers of families live below the poverty line.
This is a decisive element as far as the competitiveness of regional economies is concerned.
Such disparities, which are equally apparent in the fields of scientific research and technological development, cannot be tolerated in political and social terms and they undermine the position of the European Union in the light of global competition.
I would therefore ask that Europe ensures that it has the resources needed to allow Objective 3, which must cover the entire territory of the Union, to be fully implemented.
<P>
It is only when Europe has proved that it is able to resolve the major problems faced by our society, namely unemployment, poverty and exclusion, that public opinion will support, with total confidence, the strengthening and enlargement of the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Ephremidis">
People in the EU's less developed areas regard the review of the regulations governing the Structural Funds and in particular their funding from the Community budget with particular disquiet.
<P>
Though the report by the Committee on Regional Policy confirms the proposed 0.46 % of Community GDP for structural activities between 2000 and 2006, since the matter remains outstanding nobody yet knows what the total funding for the Community budget will amount to during those years, and what contribution will be made by the Member States.
<P>
The inadequacy of the amounts provided so far to close the gap between the less and more developed regions is evident, given that the desired result of real convergence is not only failing to be achieved, but even greater discrepancies are appearing, as confirmed for example by figures relating to my own country, Greece.
<P>
While the sums provided are inadequate, and while the funding of the Community budget has still not been settled, to the Objective 1 countries are being added the most remote areas of the Community (from which, quite unreasonably, the Aegean islands are excluded) as well as the areas covered by the old Objective 6.
At the same time, there is a looming risk that some areas in countries covered by the Cohesion Fund, where per capita income is lower than 75 % of the Community average, may be excluded from Objective 1.
In other words, as we say in my country, 'a mouse carrying a pumpkin will not fit into its hole'.
<P>
It is known that the required co-financing of projects covered by the Community programmes absorbs almost all the national resources available for development.
From that standpoint, then, the proposal to increase Community participation from 75 % to 85 % is well founded.
The fact remains, however, that because of the total absorption of national resources, the potential for applying any national developmental policy is decisively limited and necessarily moves within the framework of Community imperatives.
<P>
To impose still greater control and obedience to the Community's choices, the Commission proposes to create a reserve amounting to 10 % of the appropriations and maintains that appropriations not used after 2 years should automatically be cancelled.
Quite rightly, the Committee on Regional Policy rejects the proposal to create a reserve and also insists that appropriations unused after 2 years should remain available for the same country to which they were originally allocated.
<P>
While Community funding could play a helpful part in bridging the gap between the less and the more developed parts of the Community, in essence they are a drop in the ocean, designed to throw dust in the eyes of the people of Europe, to buy off consciences and to create mechanisms for promoting the major monopolistic interests which are essentially the main beneficiaries of Community programmes, since they possess the necessary equipment and technical knowledge.
It is known that a large part, if not the lion's share, of the amounts available for structural aid go back to the better developed Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Eriksson, Seppänen, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We have decided to abstain in the final vote.
We are among those who are critical of the EU's Structural Funds because they have not attained their objective of smoothing out regional differences.
The bulk of the Structural Funds should be transferred to national level, where control and monitoring of standards is considerably tighter than appears to have been the case at EU level.
There is a willingness on the Commission's part to simplify and refine structural support which we regard as a step in the right direction. The same remarks apply to a restriction on the number of Community initiatives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="Klaß">
The European structural policy may have proved itself, but it is in need of reform.
It is necessary to establish an appropriate structural policy for the next seven years, which will promote economic and social cohesion, while meeting the general requirement of greater efficiency and transparency.
<P>
This is no place for thinking in terms of vested interests.
The purpose of the European structural policy is to make it possible to close the gap between the Union's poorer and wealthier regions.
By way of an example, I will simply mention the Cohesion Fund, which was created to help Member States experiencing particular difficulties to prepare for participation in economic and monetary union.
If this aim has been achieved, then the Cohesion Fund has fulfilled its task.
Any further funding for Spain, Portugal and Ireland from the Cohesion Fund is, therefore, neither justified nor - in view of the enlargement of the Union - feasible.
<P>
' Innovative actions' are also encouraged through the aid granted by the Structural Funds.
However, the number of projects submitted to the Commission often bears no relation to the number finally considered eligible for funding.
This is due first and foremost to the low funding capacity.
Between 1994 and 1999, 1 % of the Structural Funds' resources are set aside for innovative actions.
I very much hope that Parliament will declare itself in favour of increasing these appropriations.
These projects are of particular importance for individuals, clubs, associations and organisations in all the European Union's regions, because they are thus spared the often complicated and tedious alternative of going through the regional authorities.
<P>
In addition, simply because Structural Fund appropriations are concentrated in the worst-affected areas of the Community, this should not mean that national support measures are permitted only in these regions.
<P>
The European structural policy has brought us considerably closer to realising our aim of reducing the disparities between the levels of development and per capita incomes in the Member States and their regions.
I am sure that the reform of the Structural Funds will further strengthen the social and economic cohesion between the regions of Europe.
In the long term, Europe can only grow closer together if the existing economic and social disparities are permanently eliminated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Lindqvist">
An absolute condition for reducing the number of objectives and other changes to the Structural Funds is the transferral of the unaltered criteria for sparsely populated areas in Objective 6 to Objective 1.
In addition, the criteria for Objective 5 should also be included, unaltered, within the framework of Objective 2.
Furthermore, the conditions relating to sparsely populated and rural areas, which Sweden negotiated as part of its membership package, should not be undermined.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="Lööw and Sandberg-Fries">
Enhancement of the Structural Funds is of considerable significance as regards the process of widening and deepening within the European Union.
In our view, reforming the Structural Funds contributes towards strengthening social and economic solidarity in Europe. It also has an important role to play in meeting the need for increased employment, emphasising the importance of sustainable growth, pursuing a tough environmental policy and enabling us to achieve solidarity between the rich and poor European regions.
The Structural Funds are a financial instrument that serve to underline the EU's powerful coordinating role in areas where the wishes of European citizens can only be met through greater cooperation across national frontiers.
<P>
In this respect, there is a need for reform of the Structural Funds.
In particular, we think they should be concentrated on the areas needing most attention, that there should be three main objectives, and that their composition should be simplified.
Furthermore, we think it is important that any expansion of the Structural Funds - and the same applies in the case of the common agricultural policy - should be adapted to meet the challenges that will be posed by the enlargement process.
Reform of the Structural Funds should be regarded as an instrument for facilitating enlargement.
Above all, we would like to stress the need for a financial ceiling of 0.46 % of GNP.
In addition, structural support should be allocated in a flexible, horizontal and decentralised way in which there is plenty of scope for partnership as well as national, regional and local initiatives.
<P>
Under Objective 1, the 75 % criterion should be strictly applied, and the previous Objective 6 criteria included under the new Objective 1.
Objective 2 should apply to large conurbations, and Member States should not be given unlimited freedom to decide on the distribution of support measures.
In our opinion, Objective 3 should be broadly based and allow for support for normal education.
The Structural Funds should be subject to stringent financial rules.
<P>
Our standpoint on these issues has served as a guide on how we should vote on the different proposals, while we still greatly respect the position of the PSE Group.
We have decided to allow ourselves to be influenced as little as possible by strictly national considerations, since our remit as MEPs extends beyond Sweden's immediate interests.
<P>
The following are some comments on our position as regards the organisation of the Funds, their size and distribution.
These three aspects should be coordinated to coincide with the different obligations of the Structural Funds, but the proposals in the report and the amendments do not meet these requirements in every case.
We have already mentioned that the financial ceiling must not exceed 0.46 %, so we have decided to support the amendment that corresponds to this objective.
As for the rest of paragraph 2, which deals with financial calculations, we take this to mean that the proposal should not be interpreted as indicating a willingness to raise the financial ceiling.
<P>
With regard to Objective 6 and its incorporation in Objective 1, we approve the amendment that is closest to our position on the inclusion of a population density criterion.
Paragraph 6, as well as several other amendments, all refer to distribution in relation to population density.
While we find this manner of distribution worthy of consideration, we do not think that the percentage allocations as specified, are appropriate in the present situation.
<P>
On paragraph 31 and additionality, we think that the proposal to also take account of macroeconomic conditions is formulated in a way that makes it difficult to assess the work involved in carrying out the proposal.
As regards continuing to consider the structural measures under Heading 2 as an expenditure target, we think that this should be discussed in more detail than in paragraph 46 and the related amendment.
<P>
Amendment No 94 on evaluation is well-intentioned, but it should be noted that the proposed method of evaluation could lead to increased bureaucracy.
We should also like to indicate that we do not support the proposal on signs as set out in paragraph 55.
There should be signs, but their design should not be as strictly prescribed as in the report.
We agree with the proposal on equal gender representation in monitoring and advisory committees.
<P>
Finally, we especially approve of the proposal contained in the report regarding a strong role for the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Malone">
Ireland has been one of the main beneficiaries of the EU's Structural and Cohesion Funds over the last decade.
EU support has helped turn the Irish economy around and create thousands of new jobs.
As a result of our economic progress, Ireland has now reached average EU wealth levels.
<P>
But we still lag a considerable way behind our European partners in terms of our infrastructure, particularly as regards transport and telecommunications, and environmental protection facilities.
And we still have enormous problems of social exclusion, especially in deprived urban and rural communities, and underdevelopment.
All of these problems have to be tackled.
<P>
For this reason, I welcome the Commission's proposal that there can be no sudden end to funding from Brussels.
This will have to be reduced gradually.
<P>
This is likely to be the last occasion Ireland receives substantial financial support from the EU.
This is not a sign of failure on Ireland's behalf but of success.
It is a sign that we have made good use of the assistance we have received.
<P>
But mistakes have been made.
Too much has gone on golf clubs and marinas.
We must not repeat this error.
We must ensure that the next round goes to those who most need it, the deprived urban and rural communities across the country. These must be the absolute priority during the next round.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="Palm">
The report forms part of the collective strategy for reforming the Union's structural support system.
I have decided, in the main, to support the Social Democratic Group.
<P>
I am pleased to note that the Structural Funds are more focused and directed towards the areas where support is needed, rather than being 'spread around' and ending up like a rebate from the Union.
I am also glad to see that we are at last beginning to appreciate the potential problems that might arise in relation to structural and agricultural policies as a result of enlargement - a welcome development, in my opinion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="des Places">
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations wished to express its misgivings during the vote on the various reports on the reform of the Structural Funds.
These misgivings do not relate so much to the reports as such or to the authors, whom we congratulate on their work, but to the Agenda 2000 proposals themselves.
They are frequently incoherent, they are sometimes dangerous for the territorial balance of the Member States and they neglect the difficulties experienced by many European workers, particularly fishermen.
<P>
During the debates, everyone concentrated on defending the interests of their region or their country, which is, of course, perfectly legitimate.
Our German friends certainly appear to be the most skilled at this game: they claim, for the benefit of anyone who wants to listen, that they are net contributors to the budget of the European Community.
Before demanding a reduction in their financial contribution, our German friends might do well to remember that the Community largesse bestowed on the former East Germany makes them the main beneficiaries of the regional policy.
<P>
In addition, it would appear that the reform of the Structural Funds unfortunately neglects a number of issues.
For instance, the regions that depend on fishing have been forgotten.
Likewise, we might wonder about the implications of Agenda 2000 for the rural regions, which are among the most fragile regions in the European Union.
In this respect, 9 % of the population of the Member States of the Union benefited from Objectives 5a and 5b; in the future, no more than around 5 % of the population will be eligible for such aid.
A number of rural regions will cease to be eligible, at the very time when the reform of the CAP and the fall in agricultural prices are eroding the situation of our farmers.
In France, 9.7 million people lived in areas covered by Structural Fund activities; in the future, that figure will be reduced to 7.1 million.
Some 3 million French citizens who live and work for the most part in rural regions will suffer as a result of the new reform: 20 % of French territory will no longer be eligible for aid from the Structural Funds.
<P>
We should remember in this connection that, following the GATT negotiations and the reform of the CAP, which had been highly detrimental, rural regions had obtained more ambitious structural aid measures by way of compensation.
Today, the reform of the Structural Funds calls into question the geographical scope of these measures, even though the effects of the Uruguay Round and the fall in agricultural prices, exacerbated by the new reform of the CAP, are still being felt and increasingly so.
This is blatantly inconsistent.
<P>
What is more, the Structural Funds seem, in fact, to be a tool of federalist redistribution, whose objective is to make the recipient regions more and more dependent on the Commission, rather than allowing them to overcome their difficulties.
<P>
We would like to take advantage of these debates to point out once more that, instead of indulging in the sterile scattering of public funds, the Union should concentrate its efforts on the existing common policies: the CAP and the CFP.
Unfortunately, however, that is not the course that has been chosen, since some people are using this opportunity to try to garner a little more power, to the detriment of the nations and their local authorities, in contempt of the principle of subsidiarity and to the sole benefit of Brussels.
We hear calls for 'the establishment of a European regional planning strategy' or even for the introduction of an 'integrated urban policy'.
<P>
In this respect, it would be better in a general sense if, rather than constantly seeking to gain more powers, the European Union concentrated instead on assessing the repercussions of the existing Community policies, the decisions it makes or the negotiations in which it participates, both at WTO level and in the context of international agreements, on the balance of European territory with a view to doing away with their negative aspects.
Indeed, it must be acknowledged that Community action has sometimes had highly damaging effects on economic and social cohesion, a matter people are all too ready to revel in, but one that should be resolved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="Schiedermeier">
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Theorin and Wibe">
Out of loyalty to our political group, we have decided that in the main we will keep to the PSE Group's voting list.
<P>
We firmly believe that the Structural Funds are ineffective and should, to a large extent, be returned to the Member States in the form of reduced Union charges.
A sizeable share, say 20 to 30 %, could be retained and the entire sum used to provide aid for the Eastern European countries, where there is a considerably greater need than in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Titley">
I am voting for this interim report as in my view it represents a sound response from this Parliament to the immensely complex and potentially controversial changes needed to the Regional and Structural Funds suggested in the Commission's Agenda 2000 plans.
<P>
Given the concerns of people in areas which currently receive EU funding about their future status as we need to move towards funding the costs of enlarging to the East and South of Europe, the rapporteurs are quite right to call for the Regional Policy Committee to scrutinise the eventual list of eligible regions and any possible exceptions.
Equally important is the report's argument for any regions which do in fact lose funding to be given a transitional period in which to adjust.
<P>
In particular I applaud the rapporteurs' call for low GDP, wealth disparities within regions and any decline in the number of people of working age in a region to be included as factors taken into account alongside unemployment when judging which areas in future will be funded under the new Objective 2.
<P>
If the Commission and Member States follow the fair and sensible approach advocated in this report, with transitional rather than overnight reductions in funding, calculated by a balanced set of criteria to decide which EU funding goes to which areas, I believe this would strengthen public understanding of the changes needed to secure the enlarged and more prosperous EU of tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Trizza">
To create economic and social cohesion, the reform of the Structural Funds must take account of the real economic situation in the recipient regions.
In Italy, especially in the Mezzogiorno, the coexistence of different circumstances calls for strict selection of eligible areas to prevent the intervention from becoming purely welfare.
<P>
The Alleanza Nazionale - and I personally - therefore believe that the following guidelines should be followed:
<P>
geographic concentration of intervention geared to simplification of Structural Funds access and management procedures; -programming of intervention in a broader partnership including, in addition to the Member States, regional and local authorities, economic and social partners and other relevant organisations, especially as regards environmental issues and promotion of equal opportunities; -flexible application of the 75 % per capita criterion in the Objective 1 definition through the inclusion of the insularity principle to guarantee intervention in islands structurally disadvantaged by their geography; -flexible application of the population cap under Objective 2, with the introduction of additional indicators, such as geographical handicaps and/or environmental circumstances, in order to protect Member States heavily penalised by rigid application of the 'safety net', like Italy.-general agreement on reducing the number of Community initiatives to three, keeping the URBAN initiative, the only instrument capable of ensuring uniform urban policy in all the local authorities concerned; -disagreement with the creation of a performance reserve either along the lines of the Commission's model or in the form of reallocation to the ERDF or the other Structural Funds within the same Member State; -phasing out over seven years for the regions leaving Objectives 2 and 5b ensuring progressive elimination of the provisional aid, including the new leaver, Abruzzo.- G. Collins report (A4-0395/98)
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Eriksson and Seppänen">
We have voted against the report on the Cohesion Fund.
The fund is intended to assist Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Greece to meet the convergence criteria in order to become integrated into EMU.
It does not come under the EU's regional and structural funding, but is direct aid to those countries.
As soon as they fulfil the EMU convergence criteria, the aid should be phased out.
The countries that would then be entitled to subsidies should seek assistance from the EU Structural Funds.
There must be an end to the everlasting aid which has already fulfilled its purpose.
<P>
In the past, the EU's regional policy has unfortunately included many negotiating arrangements where secondary agreements have been set up to create forms of compensation other than those intended to smooth out regional imbalances.
For example, the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) was established in 1975 to resolve the United Kingdom's budgetary problems, and not to iron out regional imbalances.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Lindqvist">
Enlargement to include the new member countries of Central and Eastern Europe on the basis of the current support criteria implies either greatly increased contributions for countries like Sweden and Germany, or a smaller total amount of financial support for agriculture and rural development.
<P>
A complete reform of agriculture is required that would increase labour and product costs and reduce subsidies.
It is unacceptable and shows a lack of solidarity if the Central and Eastern European countries receive less aid than the rest of Europe.
A reduction in EU subsidies with the possibility of more support at national level should be the way forward in the future.
Agricultural subsidies in Sweden must be shared equitably between north and south.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Lööw and Sandberg-Fries">
The Cohesion Fund is very important with respect to economic and social solidarity in Europe.
The question of its future in relation to the countries that have qualified for EMU definitely needs to be discussed.
Once the common currency has begun to play its part in strengthening European economic and social solidarity, then the future of the Cohesion Fund and its importance should also be reappraised.
<P>
Therefore, we do not think that a direct connection can be made between meeting the convergence criteria and the possibility of receiving aid from the Cohesion Fund.
Countries that have complied with the convergence criteria have undoubtedly performed well according to the macroeconomic indicators, but at the same time, this does not necessarily mean that complete social and economic cohesion has been achieved in and between those countries.
We would also like to emphasise the need for effective financial management and control.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Marinho">
I voted for this report because the specific vote rejecting the proposal to limit the Cohesion Fund to countries outside EMU, to discriminate against Portugal, was so overwhelming, with more than 300 votes against, that the minimum conditions have been created to prevent Portugal's exclusion from the Cohesion Fund and its benefits.
<P>
The European Parliament is explicitly confirming the Commission's position to guarantee a more favourable position for Portugal's interests.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Novo">
The proposal for the Cohesion Fund included in Agenda 2000 - a document presented by the Commission in the middle of 1997 - states that the beneficiaries of this Fund should be countries that continue to have a GNP less than 90 % of the Community average, regardless of whether or not they participate in Economic Monetary Union.
<P>
The Council's legal services later issued an opinion confirming, in the light of the Treaty on European Union, the eligibility for the Cohesion Fund not only of Greece - which is outside the single currency - but also of Spain, Ireland and Portugal - whose governments decided to join the euro.
<P>
For us, there was never any doubt as to this question and we think that no Community institution has the legitimacy on this score to undermine the Treaty and the principle of economic and social cohesion on which the very creation of the Fund was based, and prevent Portugal from having access to the Cohesion Fund.
<P>
The Collins report corroborates this view and we can, of course, vote in favour of it.
In addition, and in keeping with what we have always contended, the report also questions the condition of meeting the convergence criteria to receive Fund money and also opposes the Commission's proposal that benefiting from the Fund means meeting the conditions of the Stability Pact.
<P>
Obviously, we should emphasise the fact that maintenance of the Cohesion Fund for Portugal should not be seen as something of enormous importance but instead as a simple confirmation that this was conceded a long time ago in the negotiation process on the next Community support framework.
We have therefore rejected the idea that maintenance of the Fund could be used as a smokescreen to conceal the real losses that Portugal might suffer in terms of the Structural Funds.
The vital issue is now that of the changes in the government's negotiating stance, to solve the vital issue of increasing funds overall in order to tackle the new problems and burdens resulting from enlargement and prevent the financing of that enlargement from being carried out exclusively at the cost of the current cohesion countries, by jeopardising the very appropriations allocated from the Structural Funds.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Theorin and Wibe">
The report forms part of the collective strategy to reform the EU structural support funds.
Out of loyalty, we have decided to support the bulk of the PSE Group's proposals.
However, we firmly believe that the Cohesion Fund should be phased out and the money returned to the Member States.
A sizeable share - 20 to 30 % - could be retained by the Union and the entire sum used to provide aid for the Central and Eastern European countries, where there is greater need for financial support than in the Mediterranean countries, which already have a perfectly acceptable standard of living.
<P>
Varela Suanzes-Carpegna report (A4-0393/98)
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Darras">
The European Commission's proposal did not aim to make any great operational changes to the EAGGF.
The objective was to clarify and extend the scope of the Fund.
<P>
As such, I indeed support the report as presented to us today.
In fact, the additions contributed by the European Parliament reflect the evolution of the European Union's socio-economic development, of new technologies and of local services.
These are a series of new areas that we believe should be covered by the EAGGF.
<P>
Equally, the rapporteur considers that tourism and culture must both remain within the scope of the EAGGF.
Indeed, these two sectors are of key importance for job creation: culture accounts for 3.1 million jobs in the EU, that is, 1.8 % of the working population. Tourism frequently offers an alternative solution for regions that are suffering a structural lag or that are highly dependent on other sectors that are in decline.
<P>
Also, in connection with the report by Mrs McCarthy and Mr Hatzidakis, I strongly support the maintenance of the URBAN initiative for the development of a European urban policy.
<P>
Finally, it is essential that Parliament plays an active role in following up and monitoring the implementation of structural policies.
<P>
For all these reasons, I will vote for the report as amended.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Eriksson, Seppänen, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We have decided to abstain in the final vote.
We are among those who are critical of the European Regional Development Fund because it has not attained its objective of smoothing out regional differences.
This type of funding should, in the main, be transferred to national level, where control and monitoring of standards is considerably tighter than appears to have been the case at EU level.
There is a willingness on the Commission's part to simplify and refine structural support which we regard as a step in the right direction.
We are also in favour of the proposal to highlight environmental issues and working for equality between men and women.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Theorin and Wibe">
The report forms part of the collective strategy to reform the EU structural support funds.
Out of loyalty, we have decided to support the bulk of the PSE Group's proposals.
However, we firmly believe that the European Regional Development Fund should be phased out and the money returned to the Member States.
A sizeable share - 20 to 30 % - could be retained by the Union and the entire sum used to provide aid for the Central and Eastern European countries, where there is greater need for financial support than in the Mediterranean countries, which already have a perfectly acceptable standard of living.
<P>
We are therefore firmly of the opinion that structural support funding has been an inherently inefficient way of using Member States' budget contributions.
We believe that regional development at national level is both more effective and less costly.
<P>
Kellett-Bowman report (A4-0380/98)
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Bonde, Krarup and Sandbæk">
We are unable to support the overall text of the proposal for a Council regulation laying down general rules for the granting of Community financial aid in the field of trans-European networks.
The TENs programme is often portrayed as one which has been introduced to promote environmentally friendly forms of transport.
Judged against this aim, one is bound to say that the programme has been a fiasco.
The figures from Eurostat show that the transport sector has now overtaken industry as the largest single source of pollution in the EU.
Another important part of the argument in favour of the TENs programme is that improving the infrastructure in the underdeveloped peripheral regions - in particular by connecting them to the key regions which are more developed - will help to bring them up to the economic level of the affluent regions in the centre.
Here too, Eurostat's figures show that the difference between the richest and poorest regions in the EU is still as great as ever - in terms of prosperity, unemployment and so on - despite the fact that this programme has now been in existence for a number of years.
The TENs programme is now being extended to cover the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, and the arguments being used to justify the TENs are exactly the same as those that were used inside the EU's borders.
In reality, the TENs programme is first and foremost about ensuring that the EU's industry has the best possible access to its markets, including the new ones in Eastern Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Eriksson, Seppänen, Sjöstet and Svensson">
We are voting against the proposal by the Commission and the rapporteur to amend today's provisions regarding EU economic aid for the trans-European networks.
The Commission would like to allocate ECU 5.5 million to the trans-European networks during the period 2000-2006, which is more than double the amount allocated in 1993-1999.
<P>
At the same time, national investment within the Union has fallen from 1.5 % of GNP in the 1970s to 0.9 % in the 1990s.
The tight budgetary constraints that the majority of Member States have imposed on themselves during the past year have been necessary in order for them to be able to comply with the economic and monetary criteria for participating in EMU.
Consequently, individual Member States have been unable to afford to provide good transport facilities in and between each other's countries.
<P>
Jöns report (A4-0398/98)
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Blak, Iversen and Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats have voted in favour of a reform of the Social Fund.
With the new chapter on employment in the Treaty, there is a need for coordination between the Social Fund measures and the annual guidelines on employment.
We have voted in favour of a number of changes to the Commission's proposal: provisions have been added concerning the need for sustainable development to be taken into account, emphasising the aspect of equal opportunities for men and women, and on interventions to benefit disadvantaged groups such as the long-term unemployed and handicapped persons.
Not less than 15 % of the resources should be reserved for women, for example.
We believe that all the Member States should be obliged to take action in the field of equal treatment.
Even a country like Denmark, which has come a long way in integrating women into the labour market, must still be obliged to make a special effort in the area of equal treatment under the Social Fund.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Krarup">
I have abstained from voting on the report on the European Social Fund, because the overall aim of the Fund is to help bring about social convergence in the Union.
The ESF is therefore an instrument for creating what is in fact a European social policy and for promoting economic and social solidarity.
The EU should not attempt to regulate the national systems of social and labour market policy, with a view to standardising the social security systems in the Member States.
Social and labour market policy must continue to be a national matter.
<P>
A series of judgements and assessments are presented in the report regarding Social Fund measures designed to promote equal opportunities for people to be integrated into the labour market, strengthen systems of education and increase the participation of women in the labour market.
The Fund is also to encourage local and regional initiatives on employment.
In the longer term, these measures are intended to help reduce the differences between the levels of development of various regions in the EU.
These initiatives all have some positive features, but the problem is that these efforts are linked to the establishment of a European social policy and the promotion of the social dialogue, which are ultimately meant to contribute to the establishment of a common European labour market policy.
At the same time, the report also contains moves towards the coordination of Community instruments in education policy.
<P>
I agree that underdeveloped regions throughout Europe should be supported.
It is also important to promote equal opportunities for people, so that they can be integrated into the labour market, but this should take place without any political undertones, and not as part of a strategy designed to bring about social convergence in the EU.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Lööw and Sandberg-Fries">
We welcome the current revision of the European Social Fund, not least in respect of the new chapter on employment in the Amsterdam Treaty.
The European Social Fund plays a very important role in employment strategies, since it supports and complements the strategies carried out at national level.
<P>
Previous experience of lower contribution payments to non-governmental organisations, as well as within the Peace initiative, has proved successful.
We therefore support the proposal, which aims to prioritise local projects in Social Fund programme planning activities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Theorin and Wibe">
The report forms part of the collective strategy to reform the EU structural support funds.
Out of loyalty, we have decided to support the bulk of the PSE Group's proposals.
However, we firmly believe that the European Social Fund should be phased out and the money returned to the Member States.
A sizeable share - 20 to 30 % - could be retained by the Union and the entire sum used to provide aid for the Central and Eastern European countries, where there is greater need for financial support than in the Mediterranean countries, which already have a perfectly acceptable standard of living.
<P>
The report points out that we need the European Social Fund in order to combat unemployment.
However, taking money from Member States' budgets and redistributing it through the EU's Structural Funds does not create new jobs, except possibly for those involved in the redistribution itself.
The people who lose out are public sector employees in the respective countries.
<P>
Resolution on the CAP
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Barros Moura">
My vote on this issue took into account the position on the proposal to cofinance income support out of national budgets, as suggested, in particular, in point 8 of the joint motion for resolution by the PSE and Green Groups.
I voted against that option - whose impact on the CAP has yet to be determined - because, in my view, it boils down to anticipating the decision on the financial perspective in accordance with one of the Commission's proposals for solving the alleged problem of the excessive contribution by certain Member States.
In other words, the proposal sets out to correct the situation in Germany's favour and, in particular, to the detriment of France's current Community budget situation, but without safeguarding the situation of other Member States such as Portugal. They could be penalised in terms of agricultural expenditure or even their overall receipts from the Community budget.
<P>
Fundamentally, this option would unacceptably make negotiations rely on the issue of own resources and confine Portugal's negotiating position both on Agenda 2000 and on the financial perspective.
<P>
I supported the excellent proposals to reform the CAP contained in the resolution by the PSE and Green Groups and I hope that they will be endorsed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Collins, Gerard">
A further integration of environmental initiatives must be included in any new revised common agricultural policy for the post-1999 period.
I believe that the EU's goals of sustainable development, integration of environmental protection with agricultural initiatives and the recognition of farmers as guardians of the countryside must be made central concerns of the common agricultural policy.
Most parties are in favour of a further integration of environmental policy objectives into the CAP.
<P>
However, positive environmental results must be measured and rewarded.
In order to do justice to the role of the farmer in caring for the countryside, a further principle should be added, namely the principle that the steward is remunerated.
Farmers must be supported by the European Union in bringing about more environmentally friendly farming practices in the form of direct payment supports.
<P>
We already know of the success to date of the Rural Environment Protection scheme started in 1994, whose aims include the establishment of farming practices and controlled production methods which reflect the increasing public concern for conservation, landscape protection and wider environmental problems.
The Rural Environment Protection scheme is also designed to assist in the production of quality food in the extensive and environmentally friendly manner.
This scheme must go from strength to strength and it was worth over £101.4m alone in 1997.
<P>
Under the Operational Programme for Agriculture, Rural Development and Forestry for the period 1997, £67.176m was allocated for direct on-farm investment.
This sub-programme was broken down as follows: improvement of dairy hygiene standards, £11.252m; improvement of animal welfare standards, £149 000; farm improvement programme, £8.769m; control of farm pollution scheme, £47.006m.
<P>
This programme has contributed substantially to reducing pollution on our farms as well as promoting environmentally friendly farming.
<P>
I support an expansion of EU assistance for on-farm investment in any new arrangement under the common agricultural policy for the period post-1999.
Environmental concerns are becoming increasingly important in EU policies in general.
However, incentives and support arrangements must be in place through the European Union so that any changes in this sphere are brought about in a cost effective manner.
Rural areas are increasingly used by many people for leisure and recreational purposes.
Farmers receive no financial reward for maintaining and shaping the countryside.
<P>
Discussion should take place on these issues with farming organisations and with the Irish Government and the European Commission so that any changes which are brought about command the goodwill and the support of Irish farmers and national and European authorities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Damião">
I voted against the Fantuzzi resolution on Agenda 2000 and the reform of the CAP because in paragraph 8, the rapporteur actually claims that cofinancing is not meant to solve the problems and meet the needs of agriculture but to deal with the issue of the Member States' budget contributions.
<P>
I regret having had to vote against an otherwise excellent document on agricultural policy because the matter of financing the Community budget should be discussed at the right place and at the right time, with complete openness and transparency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Ephremidis">
The review of the CAP in 1992 led to a large reduction of the Community budget amounts available for agriculture and to the annihilation of small and medium-sized family holdings, mainly in southern parts of the Community. As a result, the numbers of holdings and people employed have been greatly reduced, the proportion of unemployment in rural areas has rocketed, and the rate at which the countryside is being deserted has increased to dangerous levels.
<P>
The new proposals put forward on European farming by the Commission in Agenda 2000 are perhaps the most representative indication of the EU's overall intentions as regards its model of development.
The agricultural sector bears the brunt of the changes dictated by the medium-term strategic plans of monopolistic capital, since it is one of the most critical sectors for the shaping of the new economic landscape and the distribution of world markets.
<P>
The questionable argument in favour of continual cuts in the section of the Community budget devoted to agriculture, which the Agenda 2000 proposals and those for the review of the CAP put forward, is actually - and now quite openly - calling into question and undermining the decisive developmental role which agriculture has played up to now in most parts of Europe.
The EU is continually eroding its existing agricultural potential since its declared aim, besides saving resources, is both to prepare for the predatory enterprise of enlargement towards the central and eastern European countries and to secure further possibilities for responding - with customary subservience to the USA's demands - to the new established order of the World Trade Organisation from 2000 onwards.
<P>
We have in our hands proposals which are contradictory, dangerous, without any balance between the human factor, production and land, proposals which aim to reduce the agricultural population still further, cut prices and production costs for the sake of competition, and in general replace intervention by help to accumulate private stores.
Those proposals will not only cause imbalances in production but will also constitute a direct threat to product quality, environmental equilibrium, farm employment and social balance and cohesion.
<P>
Furthermore, this proposal heralds flagrant and impermissible intervention in the budgets of Member States by introducing conditions of subservience with the compulsory co-financing of direct aid by the Member States.
This not only goes against the provisions of the Treaty, but indirectly paves the way for a substantive transfer of commitment expenditures to the budgets of the Member States - without the consent of the national parliaments - for policies and decisions laid down by the EU.
In the name of an unreasonable rationalisation which runs contrary to any concept of solidarity, renationalisation is being advocated with excessive hypocrisy and demagogy, though it will only relate to expenditure, while the Community will continue to have the exclusive right to determine every detail of the CAP - quotas, price and export subsidies, duties etc. without leaving any scope for flexibility or for the Member State itself to define its own agricultural policy.
In other words, 'heads we win, tails you lose'!
<P>
We categorically oppose this Commission proposal and there is no margin whatsoever for its 'better management', as some people are saying in order to make it look better and more 'digestible'.
It is our duty, both to the farmers and for the sake of social equilibrium, to prevent the evils prescribed by the proposal.
We must resist and avert a policy which is opposed not only by farmers in the EU but by all working people who will bear the brunt of this anti-agricultural EU policy which aims to use the budget resources of the Member States, and this in the context of a policy of financial discipline and strict austerity.
<P>
Parliament's view is that it is extremely important for the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy to be harmonised with the interests and wishes of the large majority of the population, who are now certain to escalate their efforts to frustrate and avert this policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Garot">
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Marinho">
The way I voted on the whole of this resolution was conditioned by the introduction of the idea of cofinancing. This does not seem to be a problem concerning the CAP but one that has been created to deal with certain countries' financial contributions to the budget.
<P>
Had the principle of cofinancing not been defeated by the European Parliament, considerable limits would have been put on Portugal's freedom to negotiate on Agenda 2000, and the aim of maintaining the same volume of Community financial support for the next framework, as a result of Agenda 2000, would have been diluted.
Therefore, I consider the overall result of these votes highly satisfactory.
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<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Mulder">
The voting behaviour of the Liberal Group has been strongly influenced by its conviction that in the future it would be desirable to have cofinancing with Member States of those items of agricultural expenditure that concern income support.
The reasons for this have been explained in various speeches by members of the group in debates on agricultural policy.
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The Liberal Group therefore voted against all those amendments that concerned this cofinancing of agricultural expenditure.
<P>
It voted in favour of the PSE-V Group resolutions because of its conditional approval of income support despite the fact that the resolution contained various phrases (conditionality of the various support measures) that did not all reflect the position of the Group.
<P>
For the same reason it also voted for the PSE resolution and when both of the above resolutions were rejected it of course voted against the UPE and EDN resolutions.
<P>
As was to be expected, the ELDR Group voted in favour of all the articles of its joint resolution with the PPE.
When the final vote came it had to decide if it would vote in favour of the resolution despite the fact that paragraph 14 with its clause on cofinancing was defeated.
<P>
A majority of the Group take the view that it could still vote in favour, as with the adoption of paragraph 13 the discussion on the financing of the common agricultural policy can continue, especially in the light of the various votes on the oral questions which indicated that those amendments that rejected cofinancing were defeated outright by a very large majority.
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<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Querbes">
I will be using my vote to condemn a Community agricultural policy that basically adheres to a rationale of reducing prices and lowering the value accorded to labour, a policy that is so destructive that it calls into question the CAP itself by proposing the cofinancing of agricultural spending.
<P>
If the desire exists today to meet the aspirations of the people who have condemned the ultra-liberal policies, then existing policies must not be eliminated.
Not only should the CAP be maintained and reformed, but it should also be given a new direction.
<P>
The broad outlines of this new direction have already been outlined by the House.
It supports the concept of 'a high level of employment', including in agriculture.
It intends to provide safeguards against the race for productivity.
It wishes to meet the new challenges facing mankind in the areas of food, energy, the environment, water supply and sustainable development.
<P>
We already have the principles in the form of the single market, financial solidarity and the Community preference, which may be renewed.
<P>
The principle financial resource is the CAP budget.
This involves substantial public funds that must not be used to produce surpluses that are sold cheaply on the international market. Instead, they are to be used, above all, to meet the Union's internal needs, to provide each production sector with the means to manage the market, to correct the injustices between farmers, types of products, regions and countries, and to develop international trade that is of mutual benefit.
<P>
Other funding could be created with cheap credits allocated selectively for employment, productive investment and sustainable development, with taxation on financial movements and with the tools to ensure the fair distribution, by sector, of the wealth generated between agricultural production and consumption.
<P>
That might be a genuine alternative policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Souchet">
Our group has opposed any form of cofinancing of the CAP by the Member States.
And it is true that this issue raises fundamental problems.
<P>
First, this Commission proposal diverges from the fundamental principle of financial solidarity that is embodied in Article 2 of the Treaty establishing the European Community and that applies to all common policies.
<P>
Today, only two common policies exist: the common agricultural policy and the common fisheries policy.
However, we are witnessing contradictory behaviour on the part of the Commission that calls into question some of the elements that form these two policies.
On the one hand, the Commission proposes the cofinancing of the CAP by the Member States and, on the other, it proposes the elimination of structural aid for the common fisheries policy for those areas in the Member States that are not eligible for the new Objectives 1 and 2, as defined in Agenda 2000. This may well cause major distortions of competition between European operators in the fisheries sector.
<P>
We are extremely concerned by this shift on the part of the Commission, which seems to no longer want to respect the basic Treaty that established the European Community, and particularly Article 2.
For over a year, Édouard des Places and myself have been responsible for drawing up various opinions on the Agenda 2000 communication for the Committee on Agriculture and the Committee on Fisheries. In these opinions, we have repeatedly drawn attention to the major budgetary problems the European Union would inevitably experience if its budgetary resources were not concentrated in their entirety on the only two existing common policies: the CAP and the CFP.
<P>
In the debate on the Commission's Agenda 2000 proposal, we had stated that if the aim was to maintain, in the context of the reform of the CAP and of the principal COMs, the founding principles of the Community preference and to maintain farmers' earnings by compensating fully for price reductions, both the budget and the level of the agricultural guideline envisaged would be insufficient.
After the initial analyses carried out at Council level, the ministers all accepted the objectives of the CAP reform, as presented by the Commission. However, they all expressed serious reservations as to the means proposed for its implementation.
This budgetary problem cannot be resolved unless sufficiently strong political will exists to take the decision to concentrate all our resources on the Union's common policies, instead of scattering them among countless areas in the hope of winning more votes.
<P>
In opposing any form of cofinancing, our group rejects the very principle of artificially increasing the European Union's budget, which is contrary to the commitment entered into in Edinburgh. It also opposes the emergence of a particularly harmful operational and financial division, because the Commission would decide alone on a European policy and the Member States would find themselves obliged, as such, to enter into cofinancing, even though they already finance the entire European Union budget.
Responsibilities would therefore become totally blurred.
<P>
Rather than seeing such an extremely unhealthy separation between the decision-makers and those who are paying, our group would prefer us to move towards a total renationalisation of the CAP that would enable the Member States to draw up their own agricultural policy to the benefit of their farmers, rural land-use planning and consumer protection.
<P>
I am happy to note that, with this morning's vote in the House, the European Parliament has clearly rejected those elements of the resolution that provided for the introduction of cofinancing.
<P>
Görlach report (A4-0405/98)
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Ephremidis">
Five million farming jobs have been lost in the EU between 1980 and today.
The proportion of unemployment in rural areas is higher than in urban areas, and the countryside is being deserted ever more rapidly, with young people as the first to go.
That is the dramatic situation to which the catastrophic policies implemented have led the countryside and the farming economies of the EU's Member States.
<P>
And now we are talking about even worse measures, whose exclusive aim is to accelerate the rate at which agricultural activity is being abandoned by small and medium-scale farmers, so that land and production will be concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people.
<P>
This policy is laying the ground for a new feudalism and we are sorry that although the rapporteur himself recognises the dramatic situation, his report and amendments only oppose it symptomatically and he attempts to correct the letter of the regulation but does not touch, oppose or try to alter its spirit. On the other hand he unleashes a potential storm by giving his blessing to the opening of the countryside to alternative activities, not only by farmers but by anyone else who wants to 'make something' of the scorched earth left behind by catastrophic and anti-agrarian policies.
<P>
The rapporteur forgets, and is also trying to persuade farmers to forget, that the countryside, the farming areas in which 25 % of the EU's population live, are closely interwoven with farming and livestock breeding, and that farmers are indissolubly bound to the land and to their work.
What matters is not to reorientate, or rather, disorientate farmers by covering up and whitewashing hostile policies.
<P>
Within the framework of a now unashamedly anti-agrarian policy whose chief aim is to accelerate the reduction of the farming population, is it not Pharisaic to talk about being interested in employment in the countryside?
Is it not pure hypocrisy to make proposals for dealing with the problems of poverty zones when everyone agrees with the overall policy which creates the poverty zones in the first place?
Is it not contradictory to make proposals about incentives to regenerate the agricultural population while continual quota reductions virtually debar young people from taking up farming?
Is it not hypocrisy to proclaim interest in environmental protection while traditional crops are being extirpated and genetically modified crops are accepted even before serious and detailed research has been carried out and completed on their environmental impact and their consequences for the consumer, solely because that is what the multinationals which produce genetically modified reproducing species dictate?
How is the wishful thinking about the countryside's prosperity to be realised when the financial resources available are continually being cut?
<P>
What European farmers expect and demand is that we should do all we can to defend their right to continue their activities without interruption and under the best possible conditions, and their right to make a decent living from those activities.
That aim will not be achieved by hypocritical half-measures and placebos.
It will be achieved by their own struggle, the struggle they are developing for example in my own country even as we speak, and which we support unreservedly.
For that reason, we will vote against the proposed Council Regulation and the report, which despite the few positive points it contains, does not dare to reverse the overall anti-agrarian content of the proposal as it ought to.
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<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Eriksson, Seppänen, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We are voting against the report relating to support for rural development through the EAGGF.
The Commission has not gone far enough in its proposed agricultural reform within the framework of Agenda 2000.
We have generally abstained from voting on forestry policy, because we do not think it is appropriate to deal with forestry at Community level.
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<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Novo">
It makes sense to have an instrument, independent of the arrangements for supporting production or those for overhauling infrastructures directly linked to farming activity, to support other activities very closely related to agriculture and used mainly by farmers.
These would include forestry activities, fire-fighting, and environmental and landscape protection, which, if developed integrally, could help in the fight against rural desertification and bring about economic diversification in the countryside.
This instrument could also help to reduce some serious, well-known imbalances.
All of these aims are set out in the justification for the Commission's proposal.
There is also an appropriate proposal to introduce some uniformity into the patchy and rather unknown regulation on this question.
However, these good intentions are contradicted by the proposals that have actually been made.
<P>
This instrument does not have at its disposal the financial resources needed to tackle the problems that it sets out to solve. In particular, it seems that it will not even have at its disposal resources to be withdrawn from other areas of the agricultural policy, which in themselves are already underfunded.
For agro-environmental measures, it establishes a regulation that really seems to be a measure to help the farms and finances of certain Member States, small in number, in the centre and north of the European Union.
<P>
The report does nothing to change the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development-environmental guidelines nor does it eliminate the apparent aim for people or bodies not directly related so far with farming to benefit from this instrument.
They should be given support in a different way and not through this instrument, which should exclusively be at the service of farmers.
<P>
There are positive aspects in the report as a result of the amendment that we tabled, for example, the doubling of compensatory amounts per hectare or possible assistance with investment in State or common (fallow) land. The recognition of specific regional needs and the call for improving the balance between Mediterranean and continental crops are also positive.
<P>
However, the overall resources remain insufficient and the basic guidelines have not been changed.
That is why we abstained in this vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Theorin and Wibe">
The report forms part of the collective strategy to reform the EU structural support funds.
Out of loyalty, we have decided to support the bulk of the PSE Group's proposals.
However, we firmly believe that the Agricultural Fund should be phased out and the money returned to the Member States.
A sizeable share - 20 to 30 % - could be retained by the Union and the entire sum used to provide aid for the Central and Eastern European countries, where there is greater need for financial support than in the Mediterranean countries, which already have a perfectly acceptable standard of living.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="van Dam">
I welcome the fact that the European Commission is proposing to include agricultural structural measures in a framework regulation.
This will make it possible to better coordinate the various instruments.
In the Commission's proposals this is largely a matter of continuing and improving the existing measures, and we broadly agree with this.
In particular, I believe the support measures designed to encourage agriculture to adopt more environmental and natural farming practices are very important.
<P>
In his draft report the rapporteur sought to extend the present measures, which are mainly aimed at developing agricultural structures, to other rural activities.
His amendments were rejected by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
As far as we are concerned this took the sting out of the report and at the final vote we were able to vote in favour.
Rural policy must remain primarily the responsibility of national and regional government.
They are better equipped for this than the European Commission which has a limited capacity to implement and is not close to the problems in the regions.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 1.05 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Displaced persons
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0399/98) by Mr Wiebenga, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on
<P>
I.Amended proposal for a Joint Action on the temporary protection of displaced persons (COM(98)0372 - C4-0505/98-97/0081(CNS))II.Proposal for a Joint Action concerning solidarity in the admission and residence of beneficiaries of the temporary protection of displaced persons (COM(98)0372 - C4-0506/98-98/0222(CNS)).
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Wiebenga">
Mr President, the proposal for joint action on the temporary protection of displaced persons is a good one.
It would apply to cases where a large number of people must all be offered sanctuary at the same time with the result that, in such an emergency situation, normal asylum procedures cannot be applied.
An amendment brought by the European Parliament establishes that these arrangements simply supplement the treaty on refugees rather than replacing it.
<P>
An interesting procedure is involved here.
This is the first time the European Commission has used its right to initiate legislation under the third pillar.
On this second reading the Commission - Commissioner Gradin who is here today - has accepted many of the European Parliament's amendments.
I would say the most important of these is the introduction of a five-year limit to the temporary protection and above all the burden-sharing between the various Member States.
These changes, and I say this in the framework of the third pillar, are a feather in the cap for the European Parliament.
So much for the positive comments.
<P>
Now the day-to-day reality.
It is incomprehensible and irresponsible that the European Union, that is the Council of Ministers where the third pillar is involved, has still not established any fair system for sharing the burden of displaced persons or for receiving them.
We all know that this is too late for the displaced persons of Bosnia.
They were and still are dependent on the benevolence of a few Member States, namely Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden, while others have done much less.
<P>
Things are quiet in Kosovo at present, fortunately, although the situation there is of course very tragic in humanitarian terms.
But if, God forbid, things get out of hand there again and large numbers of Kosovans come to the European Union, then we will find once again that nothing has been arranged at European level.
The same is true if major problems arise anywhere else which lead to a massive influx of people, such as in Algeria for example.
<P>
The question is which Member States in the Council of Ministers are not prepared to cooperate in drawing up such a system.
I hear rumours that they include Spain, France and the United Kingdom, but we cannot be certain as the Council meets behind closed doors.
I should like greater clarity from the Commissioner on this.
<P>
Much remains to be done in the field of asylum and immigration policy.
The Eurodac data exchange takes much too long.
There are no agreements on external border controls.
There is no common return policy.
The Council of Ministers has found itself in an impasse over recent years.
This is why the Liberal Group also believes it is a good thing that the Austrian Presidency has now taken the initiative to move towards a more systematic approach to asylum and immigration policy, in particular in the light of the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
But under that Treaty the European Commission itself is going to have to do more and my view is that the present department, with the number of officials available to Commissioner Gradin, is much too small for the European Commission to be able to take the necessary action after the Treaty of Amsterdam enters into force.
I would be interested to know if there any plans to improve matters in this respect.
<P>
The proposals for joint action for the protection of displaced persons look reasonable now that a number of Parliament's amendments have been adopted.
The second field of joint action, namely in relation to burden-sharing, represents major progress, because last year there was no such proposal for a regulation on the table.
Our parliamentary committee also believes that the method of this burden-sharing must be very different from that proposed by the European Commission.
First must come the balanced distribution of displaced persons between the Member States and only then the matter of financial compensation.
<P>
The Council of Ministers is already much too late.
If we once again fail to achieve a speedy decision because a couple of Member States refuse to cooperate then an alternative solution must be sought and those Member States who are indeed prepared to assume their responsibilities must work together in a coalition of the willing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Oostlander">
Mr President, in some national parliaments the asylum and refugee debate is plagued by a populist game appealing to xenophobic sentiments in the hope of scoring electoral points.
There is none of this in Mr Wiebenga's report. He clearly sticks to traditional liberal principles, adopts the right tone and shows concern for the fate of displaced persons.
The improvements he brings to the two Commission proposals make these even clearer and more humane.
The rapporteur rightly favours a strengthening of Parliament's role.
In addition, he seeks a stronger legal basis for refugee policy and, like most of us, he is trying to avoid dependence on a unanimous vote in the Council.
The Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy finds it interesting that he partly attributes the phenomenon of mass displacement to the Council's deficient foreign policy.
He thus supplements the rules for sharing responsibilities which the Commission wants to introduce by considering the efforts which Member States could make to prevent the massive displacement of persons, such as military intervention and other conflictprevention measures, as part of this shared responsibility.
These are very laudable additions to the Commission's already praiseworthy attempts.
Yet the rapporteur still has to wrestle with the same dilemma which confronted the Commission.
Over recent years the Council has certainly repeatedly given the impression that it is aware of the need for a real sharing of the burden or responsibility for the protection of displaced persons. But when it comes to the crunch the Council remains powerless.
The Commission is seeking to find a way out of this by splitting its proposal into a part which can win the support of the Council and a part which cannot.
Each time the need for unanimity serves as an alibi for Member States to whom European solidarity means nothing, yet which these same Member States are so prone to invoke when it is purely their own interests which are at stake.
I wonder whether or not it could be possible to compensate for the refusal to share responsibility out of some European Union fund or other.
You cannot dine à la carte at the EU table.
<P>
The call for the abolition of solidarity from Member States who have no desire to share the burden of this European issue falls on very receptive ears in the many countries which contribute to the Union.
I regret this.
The unwilling Member States are in fact sawing off the branch they themselves are sitting on.
It seems from his explanation that the rapporteur has serious doubts about the way in which the Commission is resolving its dilemma.
The question is whether much progress can be made before the Treaty of Amsterdam enters into force. Is the Commission's solution not a self-deception by which we give the Council a loincloth to hide its shame?
Mr Nassauer will be making the necessary comments on this on behalf of the European People's Party.
I believe that because each action first has to overcome the barrier of unanimity, the Commission is not giving us much at all.
I would like to warn against allowing ourselves to be caught up in a game which simply allows the Council to offload its problems onto us.
Mr Wiebenga's idea to try to make the most of it nevertheless is very laudable.
The way in which he has formulated this in his report is also excellent.
But I also believe that many people share his doubts as explicitly expressed in his explanation.
Although we appreciate the work he has done on his report, this doubt remains with us all and we have no choice but to draw the consequences.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Zimmermann">
Mr President, I hope you have been informed that I have an additional four minutes from Mr Schulz.
I am pleased that Mrs Gradin - the Commissioner dealing with this issue - is with us here today.
I always think it is very important for Commissioners to attend debates.
I should, however, like to express my own frustration and that of my group at the report being constantly rescheduled this week.
We do not agree that we should be discussing this report at a time when all Members believe that we should actually be discussing topical and urgent matters, and not such an important political issue as this.
This is about refugees entering the Union, refugees who are treated disgracefully and shabbily; we always feel that they are too much for us, that we do not have room for them, and that we would actually rather ensure that we rid ourselves of these people as quickly as possible.
<P>
This is reflected somewhat in the way in which we are dealing with this debate here.
This debate is taking place when many colleagues are prevented from being here by other appointments.
It is a fact that the topical and urgent debate does not concern everyone and, as a result, other appointments are arranged, at a much earlier stage than our debates are.
That explains why too few Members are here.
<P>
I must also apologise on behalf of several colleagues from my own group - who actually wanted to contribute to this debate - for their not being able to be here either, because they made alternative appointments some time ago.
This is true of the chairman of our committee, who is usually always present when debates involving our committee are being held in the plenary, and takes part in the debate.
Unfortunately, she cannot participate today because she too has another long-standing appointment, which could not be further postponed.
<P>
I should like to warmly congratulate Mr Wiebenga on his report.
Admittedly, there are a few points on which we disagree straight away, but he is aware of that.
Above all, however, I believe that it is important to make sure that the report is ready before the Council meets in December, so that Parliament is able to make its views known on the Commission's amended proposal and to vote on it.
<P>
Since the war in former Yugoslavia, the European Union has been faced several times with admitting large numbers of refugees from various regions, and in particular recently - as Mr Wiebenga also mentioned - from Iraq and Algeria.
The European Union has never had an instrument which firstly includes solidarity measures to make it easier for Member States to admit refugees and, secondly, offers bureaucratic protection.
The tragedy of the refugees from Kosovo has once again revealed the inability of our governments to respond to events of this kind in a way which is commensurate with their own professed standards of morality and human rights.
<P>
Now refugees from Kosovo are being detained at the Union's external borders as illegal immigrants, and are also very often treated as criminals.
This cannot and must not continue.
We want to be able to continue to offer sanctuary in the European Union to those fleeing from armed conflict, sustained violence, or systematic or widespread violations of human rights.
We believe it is right for all present and future Member States to contribute to fulfilling this humanitarian commitment.
<P>
Ethnic or religious persecution can, however, also constitute grounds for refugee status.
In my group, in any event, we agree that these grounds should also be accepted. This is also shown in the draft own-initiative report produced by my colleague, Mrs Lindeperg, which we will soon be debating.
<P>
We are not disputing the fact that a restrictive interpretation of the Geneva Convention on Refugees has led to a gap in the protection offered to refugees of civil war in Europe.
This must be closed, but not exclusively by means of the measures now on the table.
I would therefore ask you to vote in favour of certain parts of the text originally proposed by the Commission, because we believe that some of the points it contains are better than some of the amendments.
<P>
It makes absolutely no sense, in the event of a mass influx, actually to have a joint action offering refugees protection in the Union, and yet alongside this not to make any arrangements for how these people are actually going to reach the Union.
Once the Member States have resolved to apply the joint actions, it is only logical that they should then disregard visa restrictions and dispense with the principle of safe third countries.
<P>
On burden-sharing, the Commission's proposal gives priority to balancing out the financial burden over balancing out the distribution of people.
I could also go along with this approach, precisely because of what we saw with the refugees in Germany: many came to Germany because they had personal contacts there, because they knew the language, because they had already been there as migrant workers, and had thus found sanctuary with families.
They had become integrated to a certain extent through their knowledge of German, which meant that they were able to support themselves and earn their own living.
I doubt whether this would have been possible in the same way if we had, from the outset, forcefully transported these people to an area where they did not have contacts of this kind, for example.
<P>
Refugee quotas seem, therefore, on the basis of previous experience, to be rather counter-productive, and balancing out the financial burden is the right way forward.
I do, however, endorse my group's opinion that it is possible, either before or when the refugees arrive, to allocate them to individual Member States.
However, this requires very thorough planning, so as not to cause great personal and financial damage to the refugees, on the one hand, and to the citizens of the European Union on the other.
Finally, I should like to say that I hope that the Council will soon be adopting practical proposals on how this is to be done.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Nassauer">
Mr President, having heard Mrs Zimmermann's speech, I cannot help wondering whether she was giving the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs, as announced, or whether she was speaking on behalf of the Socialist Group.
I should like to ask Mrs Zimmermann to clarify that point.
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<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Zimmermann">
Mr President, I did say at the beginning that I would take the four minutes allocated to Mr Schulz, and I therefore spoke both for the Committee on Legal Affairs and for my group.
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<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="President">
Mrs Zimmermann, I think Mr Nassauer will have been satisfied by your answer.
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<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Lancker">
Mr President, I suppose I have four minutes' speaking time and I should like to make it immediately clear to Mr Nassauer that I will be speaking on behalf of the Socialist Group and not for any committee.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am very relieved that the European Parliament is after all managing to deal with the Commission proposal for temporary status during this part-session, because it must be clear to us all that time is very short.
While everybody recognises that the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo are still being persecuted, that there has been a major political problem for many years and a war is being fought on Kosovan territory, there is still no European agreement to protect refugees from these areas.
Yet all our Member States are confronted with the most harrowing circumstances of these refugees.
Fleeing Kosovars are being plucked from lorries by the dozen and in some cases the Member States assume their responsibilities and initiate asylum procedures.
In many other cases, people are simply expelled or abandoned to their fate.
The only response which the Schengen countries could come up with when boatloads of Kurdish refugees arrived on the Italian coast, for example, was to call Italy to order and promptly close the borders.
So I believe that it is high time the Union Member States assumed their joint responsibility and together approved this temporary status for displaced persons.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, a number of warnings would not be amiss in this debate.
First of all, this temporary status is intended to protect refugees and to grant them social rights solely in cases when the massive influx renders it impossible to handle individual asylum applications within a reasonable time-frame.
It must not be the intention to use this so-called B status, which gives refugees fewer rights, in order to undermine the A status conferred under the Geneva Convention.
Let us be very clear on this: the broad and humanitarian interpretation of the Geneva Convention has not been superseded, as the Austrian Presidency said with a slip of the tongue in its first document, but on the contrary also covers most situations of displaced persons, inter-ethnic conflicts and civil war.
The problem lies principally with the European Council which in March 1996 itself gave a restrictive definition.
This is why the European Parliament is sticking to the right of refugees to submit an individual request for asylum despite the temporary protection.
<P>
Secondly, we believe that the temporary status must necessarily be coupled with solidarity among Member States in accepting the refugees.
Not only financial solidarity, but above all solidarity in practice by actually agreeing to take the refugees.
We naturally assume here that the Council is where the stumbling block lies in approving the proposal.
Many Member States would prefer to buy an easy conscience, preferably by using money from the European refugee fund, than to actually accept the refugees.
<P>
The Commission has nevertheless deemed it useful to separate the two proposals in order to give the proposal a chance of success.
I now understand that Mr Nassauer and the PPE Group apparently want to recombine the two proposals in one text.
This will certainly have an effect one way or another.
Mr Nassauer, we all know that if we do this now it will indefinitely delay the whole matter of the temporary protection of displaced persons.
This means we are giving the Council an excellent argument not to do anything more.
<P>
Thirdly, the proposal states that temporary protection can be ended if the situation in the region of origin is safe.
My group would like to add two further conditions.
Firstly, the human rights of displaced persons must be respected and nobody can be discriminated against.
Secondly, refugees must be able to return without problems to the place they came from and not just dropped off somewhere in the region.
I believe there is good reason for this.
I and many other colleagues are very shocked at the proposal by some of the political parties in the Netherlands to send back the Bosnians when some of the human rights organisations are saying that conditions are anything but safe there.
These are the points we want to make clear in the Wiebenga report.
Finally, Mr President, we hope that Parliament will not give the Council an excuse for failing to approve this temporary status and I hope that the House can agree on this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="President">
Mrs Van Lancker, you asked whether you had four minutes, so please stick to them if that is your allowance and do not just carry on as long as you like.
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<SPEAKER ID=100 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Nassauer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will begin by thanking Mr Wiebenga, our rapporteur, who as expected has produced an excellent, careful and very balanced report for Parliament.
I should like to point out that - contrary to the impression which Mrs Zimmermann and Mrs Van Lancker sought to give - this is not a question of whether refugees are admitted into the EU or not.
Of course refugees from civil wars are admitted into Europe, in their hundreds of thousands.
The problem is burden-sharing.
The question hiding under the title 'temporary protection of refugees' is essentially whether, as in the case of former Yugoslavia, two countries - namely Austria and Germany - should take in more than twice as many refugees as all the others put together, or whether a just way of sharing the burden should be found; that is the political problem.
In any case, no one in this House who is to be taken seriously disputes the fact that people should be admitted under humane conditions.
<P>
The problem has been an urgent one ever since the civil war in Yugoslavia put hundreds of thousands of people to flight.
Since then there have been calls for burden-sharing.
To briefly recap the course of events: some time ago, after prolonged hesitation and prolonged pressure on the part of the countries concerned, the Commission drafted an initial proposal on this subject.
I do not wish to examine now why we deemed this to be inadequate, whether it was because the Commission did not dare to do more, or - and I have to grant you this, Mrs Gradin - because it saw clearly that this was all that could be achieved.
<P>
The gist of this first draft on the actual important issue of burden-sharing was, however, as follows: in the event of a mass influx of refugees, the Council considers the appropriate measures, so not with the objective of approving assistance.
No, it considers the appropriate measures and in doing so meets its commitments.
This was an absurd way to settle the burden-sharing issue and thus also failed to be supported by a majority of the Council.
The Commission has redrafted its paper and has now come up with a very peculiar idea.
It has now proposed two legislative acts, the first on admitting refugees and the second on solidarity in the admission of refugees.
<P>
If you take a closer look - something I strongly recommend - you will see that the decision to admit refugees is taken by a qualified majority; if necessary, therefore, this can even be decided if the particularly burdened country admitting the refugees votes against. You will also see, however, that the solidarity measures - the assistance - require unanimity to be approved and are not a binding stipulation; in the Commission proposal this is only a 'may' provision.
That is decidedly too weak.
This is not the solidarity of which the title speaks, but is clearly only the solidarity of those who wish to reject a fair system of burden-sharing.
That is why we cannot accept these two proposals in this form.
<P>
What we are calling for and what should be proposed is the following: the burden-sharing must take place at the same time as the refugees are admitted.
When the refugees are admitted, it must be clear straight away which countries are to admit them and in what proportions, which should take into account the countries' capacity and economic performance.
If that does not happen, there will not be any burden-sharing at any later stage.
<P>
Certain details also ought to be mentioned.
We place the emphasis on admitting the refugees into different countries, not on financial assistance.
We would also ask you to consider, Mrs Gradin, whether five years is the right duration for the temporary admission regime.
Five years is more of an indicator of immigration than temporary protection.
From my own experience, I know that once someone has been there for five years, they will find it very difficult to leave their host country again.
<P>
We will certainly have to discuss all the other details.
I might mention the problem of family reunification.
It would be better to give someone outside the Union the opportunity to come in, rather than giving someone who has already come in the possibility of bringing his whole family to join him straight away.
That increases the number of those admitted and the corresponding burden.
<P>
The question for us was a political one: is the progress being made here such that, despite all the criticism, we can approve it; or is it so little that, if we agreed to it, we would meet with the reproach in the future that it has already been settled?
We say that the progress being made here is so minimal that we cannot pronounce ourselves satisfied with it.
That is why, Commissioner, we must unfortunately reject these two proposals.
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<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Goerens">
Mr President, I would like to begin by paying tribute to the work of Mr Wiebenga on temporary protection for displaced persons.
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The report he is presenting and the motion for a legislative resolution, if adopted by the Council, would provide an effective instrument for dealing with a migratory wave on the scale of that experienced in Bosnia and Herzegovina or, closer to home perhaps, a large-scale movement of displaced persons from Kosovo towards the Member States of the European Union.
<P>
I use the conditional tense for the simple reason that we cannot be careful enough in what we say since, having been asked to reach a decision in December on the matter currently under discussion, the Council is far from unanimous with regard to the proposals that have just been put forward by Mr Wiebenga.
<P>
The Commission's proposals for joint action on the temporary protection of displaced persons and solidarity in the reception and stay of those benefiting from such protection make up a whole.
The rapporteur has clearly highlighted the manner in which the first section of his report complements the Geneva Convention on refugees.
We are in complete agreement and we intend to keep up the pressure on all international bodies and all the authorities involved, with a view to influencing international law on this issue.
<P>
Moreover, experience shows that an unequal distribution of burdens gives rise to many problems linked to the implementation of the right of asylum or the treatment of persons who, for one reason or another, see no other solution to their sad fate than to cross the borders of the European Union.
<P>
We might remember the panic, which I would call ridiculous if the situation had not been so serious, that was caused by the arrival of a few Kurds in Italy last year, as though the presence of a few thousand Kurds in the territory of the European Union was likely to destabilise 350 million Europeans.
It is obviously absurd.
<P>
If the proposals contained in this report had been in force at that time, particularly those regarding burden-sharing in relation to the problem of displaced persons, the drama I have just mentioned would probably not have occurred.
<P>
Burdens must be fairly distributed for reasons of morals, ethics or simply a fundamental need for solidarity.
The example of the arrival of a few thousand Kurds in Bari effectively highlighted the weaknesses and gaps involving this issue and in terms of the application of existing rules.
It also shows that if a larger number of refugees were to arrive on our territory, Europe would be ill-prepared to handle the situation.
<P>
I would not, however, want this debate to lead to a dialogue of the deaf on this matter because, as it is, considerable progress has, in fact, been made. That is why I call on the House to adopt the measures proposed by our friend, Mr Wiebenga, whom I would again like to thank most sincerely.
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<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Lagendijk">
Mr President, it is always welcome when a rapporteur tries to make an already good report by the Commission even better.
As in the past, when he proved successful, the rapporteur has tried to do this here too, and we can support the main thrust of his proposals.
But we cannot support him on a very important point, namely Amendment No 5 to Article 3 concerning the maximum period during which this regulation would apply.
Already set at five years in the proposal, he advocates further extending it, potentially by another five years.
I have two major objections to this.
<P>
First of all, I find the first period of five years already exceptionally long for temporary status.
This is a measure providing protection for temporarily displaced persons. In the light of all such cases which have arisen in the past, five years is very long.
If we are talking about a stable integration, a stable laying down of roots in a society, then people should not live for five years with the idea that the next day or perhaps at the end of this period they will have another status which may be much better, let alone that at the end of this five years they may find themselves facing another five years in this intolerable state of uncertainty.
We would therefore most strongly oppose the rapporteur's proposal for temporary status to be extended to a maximum of 10 years.
<P>
Another question, addressed not so much to the rapporteur as to the Commissioner, is that the precise role of the UNHCR remains unclear.
Various comments are made, but for example the second proposal on financial solidarity in Article 2(2) says: can ask the UNHCR for advice.
We believe this should be 'must' and in a number of explanations it has given it also seems as if that is what the Commission wants.
I should therefore like some clarification from the Commissioner on this point.
<P>
A good point in the proposal is that temporarily displaced persons are not going to be moved around.
We are now seeing where this can lead, because with the Dublin agreements that can indeed happen with asylum-seekers.
Following claims made on that basis very large groups of asylum-seekers are ending up on the street, even in the Netherlands, because the Netherlands refuses to admit them because they were previously in another European country.
Fortunately, no such proposal is made in this case.
<P>
Finally, the rapporteur would like to see the word 'solidarity' deleted from the report.
He has good formal grounds for this.
I would be very pleased not to see the concept of 'solidarity' or the sense of the concept of 'solidarity' disappear, but simply the word.
<P>
I cannot help saying that it seems easier to pursue a liberal asylum policy in Europe than in the Netherlands.
I refer to Mr Wiebenga who is a front-runner for the VVD in the coming European elections and I must say that I have every sympathy for his traditional liberal approach, as it has already been described.
But that does not apply to his party in the Dutch Parliament.
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<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pradier">
Mr President, it goes without saying that the Group of the European Radical Alliance will fully support the text presented by Mr Wiebenga, and we would like to congratulate him very sincerely on his tenacity in this matter.
The problem today is that, on the one hand, refugees must enjoy a common system of protection and, on the other hand, the states and governments that take them in must themselves make similar efforts or at least employ comparable budgetary resources.
<P>
However, this all goes without saying.
The real problem lies in Europe's absence.
Earlier, Mr Zimmermann, who is regrettably absent, referred to the desert-like appearance of this Hemicycle, which precisely reflects Europe's total absence from each of the current crises.
Europe does not exist or, to be entirely accurate, Europe has failed to provide itself with the wherewithal to be present and active. It carries no weight in any of these crises.
We see this clearly in the eastern Mediterranean, we saw it in Bosnia, and we see it in Kosovo.
Europe's absence is a disaster, particularly since the United Nations itself has not been able to establish a form of intervention that allows it to preserve peace, to at least prevent armed conflicts from erupting, to prevent them from spreading when they do occur, and to protect civilian populations.
<P>
This does not mean that we wish to become the policemen of the world following the example of another great power.
However, it is our duty to promote the structures for action by an international police force, which would not necessarily be European. That is what we should work towards.
Meanwhile, we will grant temporary shelter, we will provide protection for refugees, we will ease our consciences before sending them back home as soon as the situation in their country has changed, when it has become less heated or when our guilty consciences have become less acute.
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We support the Wiebenga report, but it is only a beginning.
The bulk of the work remains to be done.
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<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Pradier.
I would like to ask our friends in the galleries not to call out during the debates.
I am afraid that is not allowed, and I would not wish to have to ask for the galleries to be cleared.
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If the speakers' words fire you with enthusiasm, please keep this to yourself and express it in a different place.
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<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Buffetaut">
Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking Mr Wiebenga for his work.
Even if I do not always agree with him, and there are indeed a number of points in his report that I do not agree with, I would be the first to acknowledge that he is a person who is extremely serious and most courteous in his work.
Nonetheless, I find it surprising, and excessive, to consider temporary protection for five years, which may be doubled, thus totalling 10 years.
This, in fact, is no longer a question of temporary protection but involves immigration, which is not the topic under debate today.
<P>
Moreover, I am astonished at the proposal to replace unanimity, which has until now been used for decisions on solidarity mechanisms, with a qualified majority.
If the system is to work, the countries involved must give their consent.
However, I agree with Mr Pradier that this issue goes to the centre of the question of Europe's international influence.
We are told that 'Europe means peace', but Europe does not mean peace, because we have unfortunately seen that there is war in Europe and that the European Union allows the United States to settle European conflicts.
<P>
I wonder whether the unshakeable desire to have a common policy in diplomatic affairs is the right course and whether it would not have been preferable, particularly in settling the Yugoslavian conflict, to make use of the competences, traditions and historical relations of certain European nations, for instance between Germany and Croatia or between France and Serbia. This would have been better than trying in vain to achieve a unanimous position, which, at the end of the day, condemned Europe to a form of impotence that was deeply regrettable, both for the countries involved and for the European Union itself.
<P>
Clearly, we have a duty to take in refugees.
We have a duty in particular towards Central Europe.
I will never be able to repeat enough that the countries of the European Union have enjoyed freedom and prosperity at the cost of 40 years of slavery and abject poverty suffered by the countries of Central Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=106 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Vanhecke">
Mr President, with a total of 90 seconds' speaking time I will confine myself to two interesting quotations. I would also briefly make the point that I continue to believe that Parliament leaves itself open to ridicule by limiting speaking time on such an important subject as asylum policy to such an extent that speakers are obliged to deal in superficialities.
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The first comes from the Dutch liberals, from Frits Bolkestein, and dates from before the last European elections.
I quote: 'Refugees from outside Europe must find sanctuary in safe countries in their own part of the world.
As soon as a country becomes safe again, all refugees from that country should return.'
Surprisingly enough I do not find this spirit present either in the report or in the words of our liberal colleague Mr Wiebenga, who was nevertheless elected on this programme.
I therefore ask the question: Are there perhaps two VVD programmes, one for the electorate and one for the elected, one for the election campaign and one for afterwards?
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The second quotation comes from the Flemish socialist Louis Tobback who in an election leaflet describes the majority of refugees in general as: 'Gulls who come to settle here on a rubbish tip, as that is easier than fishing or farming the land back home.'
These are not my words.
It is not even my conviction.
These are the words and the conviction of the leader of the socialists in Flanders.
But the elected representatives for this party also sing another tune here in Parliament than their party leadership back home sing for their own voters.
This is deceiving the voters and I will continue to denounce it.
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<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Elliott">
<SPEAKER ID=108 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pirker">
Mr President, Commissioner, in the last few months of this year, we have seen similarly steep and dramatic increases in the number of asylum seekers as we saw in 1991 and 1992.
We note that the mass of asylum seekers is again concentrated on the selfsame countries as it was in 1991 and 1992.
My colleague, Mr Nassauer, has already referred to the fact that two countries, Germany and Austria, admitted more than half of the refugees at that time.
The burden placed on these two countries is huge. We know that their capacity to bear this burden and to integrate these people will reach its limit if this continues.
That is why I strongly urge you to be reasonable, so that the burden of admitting these people can be shared in the future.
The current situation is intolerable, and the proposals tabled thus far are not likely actually to solve the problem either.
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Burden-sharing is absolutely essential for Europe.
I see the proposals presented as a ploy to prevent a real solution emerging.
The decision to admit refugees is to be taken by a majority vote, which means that it can also be passed against the wishes of the countries concerned.
The decision on distributing the refugees, which is then of course difficult, requires unanimity; we may as well assume then, that it will not happen.
As a result, the countries facing the greatest influxes of refugees now will continue to do so in the future too.
In addition, the whole business then has a multiplier effect: these are the countries which already received the most migrant workers in the past and integrated them along with their families, and so those seeking asylum go to those countries because they have relatives, acquaintances and friends there.
If we do not find a solution quickly, I fear that these countries' capacity to bear this burden will not only reach its limit, but in some cases will be exceeded. None of us want that to happen.
<P>
The second point is a completely unacceptable proposal from the Green Group; Mr Voggenhuber thought that refugees should also immediately bring all their relations with them.
We all know what that would mean.
You can reckon on a four- or five-fold increase in numbers, and everyone can imagine the kind of problems that would cause.
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I also fail to understand - and here I have also received the support of the left side of the House, which is particularly pleasing - why a temporary right of asylum can, according to the proposal, be granted for five years.
I know from experience that, during the last crisis, we in Austria admitted more than 60 000 asylum seekers from Kosovo and integrated a large proportion of them.
We know from practical experience, however, how difficult it is, when people have already spent three years in a country, to make it possible for them to return home and to help them to reintegrate.
It really is incredibly difficult.
In my opinion, therefore, to make it possible for them to reintegrate, a temporary right of asylum should initially be granted for a maximum of three years and should only be extended in special cases.
In so doing, we want to ensure that people who are, after all, uprooted and find themselves in other countries, are able to go back, and are not deprived of the opportunity of becoming part of their old communities again.
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The Wiebenga report has undoubtedly shown that we need solutions.
The proposed plan is not yet adequate.
I should like to see a solution on the table very soon, because time is pressing and we already have the problems.
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<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, Commissioner, what I have just heard makes me very unhappy.
This is because I feel that an unholy alliance is being formed - one that we also see in other circumstances - in which one side claims it wished the best to be the enemy of the good.
It is quite unacceptable that Parliament should run the risk of making a complete fool of itself by throwing out the proposal and achieving nothing.
Then the Council would also be able to accuse us of not wanting to do anything.
If that is what Parliament really wants, then we have to give some careful thought to our role!
In fact, I cannot help thinking that this is similar to the discussion we had regarding the Members' Statute.
In that discussion, the same people employing the same argument tried to delay the work.
Now - when there is comparative calm on our external borders - is the time to get on with it.
<P>
I really hope we can reach an understanding and approve Mr Wiebenga's excellent initiative.
I think that one of the most important aspects is that we should move to majority voting, since it would mean that Europe was really working.
Clearly, we shall be able to take a decision in conjunction with the Member States affected by it, at least that cannot be prevented.
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I would also prefer to see my own country join the cooperation initiative.
I am among those who think that Finland has taken very little responsibility in the refugee issue and that it has been very short-sighted in its policy.
I should like to commend Mr Wiebenga on his report, and I hope we can all support it in order to avoid any unpleasant scenes when it comes to the vote.
I have one small comment, namely that we should pay more attention to last year's Council resolution 13/48, in which the EU and the Commission are requested to cooperate with the Council on this type of issue.
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<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindholm">
Mr President, I should also like to congratulate Mr Wiebenga.
A generous policy towards refugees should be pursued as a matter of course in all democratic countries, and hence in all EU Member States.
Unfortunately, there is still considerable room for improvement.
There should be constructive cooperation to help people in need and those who are displaced.
Such cooperation should involve a voluntary agreement on burden-sharing, but it should not be a matter for legislation.
It should be painfully clear that this is a question of common humanity.
<P>
To ensure that such a policy becomes firmly established in the Member States, a unanimous decision is vital.
We in the Green Group would naturally like to see our amendment approved, and we believe that Commissioner Gradin's proposal on joint action to provide temporary protection is worth considering.
The report reinforces the human dimension, but such an instrument must nevertheless be seen as complementing the Geneva Convention on Refugees and definitely not as an alternative.
It is important for refugees to continue to have protection under the terms of the Convention - any other arrangement would be wholly unacceptable.
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<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, you cannot open a newspaper anywhere in Europe without being confronted with the dramatic issue of asylum-seekers and the major differences of opinion of governments on this.
This is a huge problem and I must say that if what I learned at school was true, that to govern is to anticipate, then people have governed very badly in the various Member States and in Europe in recent times.
The conflict in the former Yugoslavia was clearly going to create flows of refugees.
The conflict presently raging in Kosovo could have been predicted two years ago.
As early as 1997 there was talk of the need for a displaced person status.
I am convinced of the need for this.
I am interested to hear the different views, the differences of opinion and objections of all concerned, but I have to say that by trying to do what is best we can fail to do what is good.
If at present we have no European solution then this means that there is no solution anywhere.
Because when a solution is found in Germany which is different to the one found in the Netherlands, then the flows of refugees simply shift.
We therefore need a European status and we must also ensure that solidarity is given an acceptable form.
For this reason we will say 'yes' to the proposal, even if we are tempted to debate a number of aspects which are important but on which we will never reach unanimity and which must not prevent us from doing what must be done.
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But despite all this I still think it is scandalous that we have no common foreign policy worthy of the name.
It is scandalous that the European countries are still failing to confront the real causes of these flows of people seeking security and a better life, because our development cooperation is no good and because we close our eyes to the need for a mobility policy which is also concerned with people and not just capital and goods.
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<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Mr President, the situation of the refugees from Kosovo does urgently require a solution, and this above all means having a fair system for distributing the people.
Austria's response to the crises of recent years, as also acknowledged here, has been exemplary; it has admitted displaced persons, in particular from the stricken area of Bosnia, and has integrated most of them into society.
<P>
In the meantime, however, - as Mr Pirker rightly said - the capacity of the Austrian population to bear this burden has reached its limit.
If the word solidarity is not to be meaningless in the European Union, it is time for us to take action in pursuit of our common objectives.
No Member State should be able to buy its way out of this responsibility.
Each one should admit displaced persons in numbers corresponding to its size and population, and in so doing reveal the much flaunted European conscience.
<P>
We believe - for the reasons already mentioned by Mr Nassauer - that dividing the proposal into two parts, and thus deferring the issue of burden-sharing, is unjustifiable.
Only if a decision is taken as rapidly as possible on the whole package will we really do justice to the concerns of European citizens.
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<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I did not wish to interrupt Mr Hager, but simply to say the following.
At three minutes past four, I asked to make a point of order for the following reason.
There are two possibilities: either you begin the topical and urgent debate at 4 p.m. precisely, or you take all the remaining speakers on the Wiebenga report after 4 p.m.
What is unacceptable, however, is for you to give some colleagues the floor after 4 p.m. and postpone others' interventions to this evening.
It has to be one thing or the other!
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<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="President">
Mr Posselt, we had to complete the first round of speakers from all the political groups.
That is why there has been a delay of three minutes.
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The debate on the Wiebenga report is suspended, and will continue after the voting on topical and urgent subjects.
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<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wiebenga">
Mr President, I assume that the Commissioner, Mrs Gradin, can speak again in the course of this debate in order to reply to the points and questions we have raised.
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<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="President">
Mr Wiebenga, you must understand that the order of business has been established in advance and we are sticking to it exactly.
The debate on your report will continue when voting has been completed.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
TOPICAL AND URGENT DEBATE
<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
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<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following seven motions for resolutions on food aid to Russia:
<P>
B4-1002/98 by Mr Väyrynen and Mrs Kjer Hansen, on behalf of the ELDR Group; -B4-1008/98 by Mr Swoboda and others, on behalf of the PSE Group; -B4-1018/98 by Mrs Carrère d'Encausse, on behalf of the UPE Group; -B4-1019/98 by Mr de Lassus Saint Geniès, on behalf of the ARE Group; -B4-1030/98 by Mrs Schroedter, Mr Lagendijk and Mrs Aelvoet, on behalf of the V Group; -B4-1034/98 by Mr Provan and others, on behalf of the PPE Group; -B4-1043/98 by Mr Seppänen and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group.
<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, Commissioner, on the subject of the granting of aid to Russia, the Liberal Group wants the European Union to grant emergency aid to the Russian Federation.
That is clear.
The people of that country are facing an extremely difficult, precarious and cold situation.
We must not close our eyes to the fate of the population and stubbornness on our part due to reasons of accounting is out of place in the face of such problems.
But this does not alter the fact that the Russian Government must clearly understand that this positive signal from our side must meet with a positive signal from their side.
<P>
A responsible financial policy and firm undertakings to the IMF are essential in order to find lasting solutions to the problems of the Russian economy.
I know, these are just a lot of words, simple words, for a gigantic task.
<P>
A serious approach to fraud is also very important.
In this respect, in granting emergency aid the Union must also respect the Russian market as much as possible, which is why I call on the Council to approve the Commission proposal to make ECU 400 million available to the Russians.
Finally, the Commission must consult Parliament when drawing up the memorandum of understanding.
Thank you very much for the generous extra time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, the time available for topical and urgent debate is very short, as you know.
So please stick to the time each speaker has been allocated for his or her speech.
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<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Krehl">
Mr President, the problem we are discussing today, food aid to Russia, is of the utmost importance.
It is important because, in recent weeks and months, Russia has not only been experiencing an economic and financial crisis, but is also having to live with the effects of crop failure.
In 1998, only half as much grain was harvested as had been expected; the potato harvest does not appear to have been much better; and in the allotments, which most Russians have - and which indeed they need for their basic food supplies - much poorer yields have also been produced.
<P>
The decline of the rouble has compounded the problems.
Most Russians can hardly afford to buy themselves food.
They are living either below or on the poverty line.
The need for aid is therefore beyond doubt, and I was able to see this for myself on visits to Russia in recent weeks.
Children and the elderly, in particular, are urgently dependent on our help.
Indeed, the first reports of people dying from starvation have already appeared in the media here.
<P>
At the moment, only one thing is certain about the food aid which the Council and the Commission wish to provide: it is help for European farmers, who are no longer able to sell their products on the Russian market because of the devaluation of the rouble.
Whether the food really does reach the orphanages, schools and hospitals, where people really need it, remains somewhat in doubt.
Agricultural products should be sold at market price, and the income paid into a special fund in the Russian budget and later used for social purposes.
<P>
There is no doubt that the Commission needs to consider once again here whether its approach is really the right one.
We cannot allow food to appear on the black market, or even to become a Russian export.
We want to support the poor in Russia and not the mafia.
That is why, in the motion, we call for humanitarian aid, as well as food aid, to be provided.
The Russian Red Cross, the churches and NGOs have pledged to help by identifying where need exists and distributing food and medicines, and they do have the required distribution systems.
<P>
A further issue is financing the food aid.
If it is indeed the case that this also helps and supports European farmers, then we believe that the funding should come out of the category on agricultural policy, Category 1, and should not be charged to external policies, even if it is benefiting Russia.
I would urge the Commission to take the necessary decisions here.
Food aid will not solve the structural problems in Russia.
Russia needs to take action itself on that front, and finally present and implement the appropriate plans.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, it is 2- here in Strasbourg and it has snowed, but we are nice and warm with good food to eat.
That is why it is evident to me that we must help the Russians who are suffering extreme cold with nothing to eat.
My motto is: Help the Russians through the winter.
<P>
Of course we have not forgotten that billions granted in loans to Russia failed to achieve their objective and profited a rich elite.
The recent visit by German Chancellor Schröder to President Yeltsin shows that German flexibility in granting loans is over.
720 banks are on the verge of closure and the rest are unable to honour their undertakings.
Russia must pursue a different policy if it wants to escape these distressing financial and economic circumstances.
<P>
But this does not yet seem to be the case, because in his latest plans Prime Minister Primakov speaks of more State intervention.
Which means he has totally rejected Mr Schröder's advice to follow the IMF rules.
Despite this we cannot disregard an appeal by the International Red Cross for food aid for the poorest people living in the most remote areas.
It is therefore an excellent thing for the Commission to have taken this initiative.
<P>
But I believe the Russians should agree to tax-free imports, fraud controls and unrestricted distribution.
Time is short.
We want to help the Russians through the winter, but they must give us the scope to explain to Europe's taxpayers that their money is being used altruistically.
We are helping the Russians through the winter, but with checks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, I think that what Mr Bertens has said diplomatically may be stated in a more direct manner.
The truth of the matter is that we are today prisoners of our credits to Russia.
It goes without saying that the Group of the European Radical Alliance will vote for this resolution in favour of humanitarian aid to Russia, given the current disastrous humanitarian situation in the country.
But, in point of fact, we have no policy regarding Russia and it is not possible to have one because our credits and the power they indirectly give the Russians over our banks mean that the Russians may do as they like. They turn a deaf ear to the demands of the European Union.
They do not undertake privatisations, particularly of land, which would place Russia in a position to produce what it needs for its own consumption.
Thus, our hands are firmly tied and it is quite impossible to promote or strengthen a reform policy in Russia. Here again, the problem involves the lack of a European policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Lagendijk">
Mr President, in the discussion on emergency aid the question is often raised as to whether or not it is really necessary.
Is there really a food shortage in Russia?
To be honest, generally speaking this is a difficult question to answer.
But what I am sure about is that there are most certainly major regions and major groups facing a real food shortage.
Consider the regions in northern Russia.
I read a newspaper report this very morning that the Eskimos in northern Russia are facing a severe food shortage and are moving south in large numbers.
Then there are groups such as old people living alone, the homeless and prisoners who certainly do not have enough food.
In addition to food, there is clearly also a shortage of medicines almost everywhere, which is why I believe it is a good idea to grant this emergency aid.
I understand that the Commission's intention is not to give the food free of charge but to sell it and set up a social fund with the proceeds.
It seems to me that one of the conditions for this must be not to set the prices too high as otherwise you will not help the people you want to help, who are mainly the people with the least money, while people with a lot of money will be able to buy the aid.
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What must be carefully avoided, and I say this on the basis of fairly close contact with the people in Russia over recent weeks, is that people in Russia, and also Europe, get the idea that this food aid is being used to dump Europe's surpluses.
They must not think that the motivation is to serve Europe's interests by disposing of its surpluses rather than to help certain Russian regions and certain Russians to obtain sufficient food.
This impression must be avoided at all costs.
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Finally, Mr President, a point which has been much repeated: distribution is a major problem.
I can well imagine that the Commission also does not know for sure whether everything that is imported goes to precisely the right area.
My suggestion would be to work principally with the regions rather than to try to reach everybody through a national distribution channel, because I am convinced that it is at regional level that there is the greatest certainty, the best chance of getting the food and the medicine through to where it is needed.
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<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="Provan">
Mr President, it is not often that somebody from this side of the House can get up and agree totally with what has just been said before by the Greens.
I welcome very much what Mr Lagendijk has just said because I agree with him practically entirely.
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We are facing a very difficult position as I am sure you are aware yourself.
Some of the difficulties that we are facing are because we are not sure of the actual facts and the information we are getting.
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When a number of us paid a visit to Moscow recently we were surprised to find a number of the NGOs and, since my return, the World Health Organisation saying that they are not really sure that food aid is what is required in Russia at the present time: maybe in one or two of the regions but not necessarily general food aid.
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The first essential to try to resolve the situation is to have proper political and economic stability within the country.
As a result of 17 August all sorts of financial consequences are really impinging very greatly on people.
Until 17 August we had also seen huge fraud and a huge incidence of crime.
That is very much to be regretted and something that has to be stamped out if we are going to get proper aid programmes developed for the people in Russia here and now.
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The real problem is non-payment of pensions, of soldiers, doctors and teachers.
We could go through a number of categories of people who are just not getting the income to be able to buy the food that may be available within the country itself.
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This is causing huge hardship to great sectors of the population and the lack of purchasing power therefore has a consequence on the food supply.
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The lack of cash for medicines has also to be tackled because the health problems that the people are beginning to face in Russia are severe.
The government can no longer afford to import food from outside their own country.
They have been depending on 40 % of their food supply coming from outside and that is the void that we are going to have to try and fill.
It is really an economic problem.
The banks are bankrupt.
The issue is not necessarily food shortage and if we are to get the food distributed properly we have got to find ways at European level of making sure it is actually going to go to the regions that require it.
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The second essential is that we have to work closely with the United States on any programme we develop.
It would be wrong for a 'divide and rule' policy to be undertaken by the Russian Government at the present time, which is what could happen.
We must address all the questions of food, health, the economy and political stability in one programme, if that is possible.
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<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, Russia has made an abrupt switch from communism to capitalism. It has been a bit like making a U-turn at top speed.
The nation has gone flying off the stage and into the mud, but the oligarchs sit safely strapped in by their state-issue seatbelts and wave their hats.
The first condition of financial aid must be that it no longer goes to those engaged in shady dealings.
Corruption at government level must be stopped.
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And so to the question of food aid: when you have problems in common, you have opportunities in common.
I do not believe that aid should be given via a commercial chain and all at once, but gradually and through social organisations.
We lost money the last time through using commercial networks of distribution.
There are plenty of community organisations and they target a great number of different areas.
There is even a TV programme called VID, which specialises in helping people.
Let us use care links such as nursery schools and old people's homes, and then we will be able to exert effective control on three levels: the EU, the state and the ministry that deals with emergency aid, which has the means and resources.
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<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Iversen">
Mr President, as we have heard, there is a serious state of affairs in Russia, and the financial situation means that the scope for importing food has been greatly reduced.
This should be seen in connection with the fact that Russia depends on imports for 40 % of its food supplies.
It is therefore very welcome that the Commission is now ready to propose, after months of pressure from the European Parliament and elsewhere, that food aid should be provided with a value of more than DKR 3 billion.
However, it is absolutely vital - not least in the light of the discussions currently taking place on the discharge - that this measure is implemented properly.
This also means that we are insisting that the food aid must not distort the domestic market, and that it is targeted and given to those most in need.
Finally, I should like to ask the Commissioner to appreciate that the implementation of this food aid measure will be closely followed by Parliament and also by the European public, and it is crucial that these things are carried out properly.
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<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="van den Broek">
I thank the honourable Members for their contribution, from which I clearly conclude that there is broad support for a food programme for Russia.
I welcome the content of the motion for a resolution now before us and we also regard this as important support for our work in this field.
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It was not until 12 November that the Commission received a formal request from the Russian Government for a special food programme, although it had long been clear that such a request could be granted.
As has been pointed out this afternoon, it is just that it is difficult to determine exactly how large and important the need for food aid really is.
It also varies very much from one region to another.
We are at present thinking in terms of a programme of between ECU 400 and 500 million for the supply of various products worth around ECU 400 to 500 million.
As has also been correctly pointed out this afternoon, implementing the programme is a complicated business.
This is why we very recently distributed for Parliament's information a Commission document which clearly sets out the background and bases for this action.
It is indeed exceptionally important for the Russian Government to submit a detailed implementation plan as soon as possible for the regions needing aid and also concerning the distribution channels and the various checks and controls.
The Commission also intends to attach a number of other stringent conditions, such as the immediate halting of distribution if there is any question of the goods being re-exported to other markets outside Russia.
The goods must also be sold at local market prices and the proceeds must be transferred to a special provision in the Russian budget set aside to finance special programmes.
The Commission will soon be having discussions with the Russian Government to draw up a memorandum of understanding.
There have of course already been talks on this and a delegation visited Moscow.
This memorandum of understanding must also set out the basic principles for the action to which I have just referred.
It is also important to ensure the closest possible cooperation with our American partners who have also drawn up a food programme.
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Precisely because of the political as well as humanitarian importance of this whole operation, a specific draft regulation will be drawn up as soon as possible setting out all these basic principles for the information of the European Parliament.
I should like to stress very clearly that this is not a zero risk operation.
The whole programme is surrounded by far too many uncertainties which cannot be removed.
All we can do is to provide the maximum protection against these risks by setting conditions, drawing up a memorandum of understanding with the Russian Government and exchanging experiences with other donors such as the Americans.
We believe it to be a far greater risk to do nothing at all because of these uncertainties.
That too we could not allow.
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When the regulation is submitted to you for consideration under the urgent procedure, I would also ask Parliament to give the necessary priority to delivering its approval or opinion so that we can act quickly.
Winter has begun, stocks are shrinking and this is a case where we must be ready as quickly as possible.
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Finally a few words about the more specific humanitarian aid.
This week the ECHO mission travelled to Russia and ECU 7 million will soon be made available to fund a number of projects already prepared by non-governmental organisations.
In talks with the Russian Minister Bulkak, who will soon be visiting Brussels, I will once again be stressing the need for a solution to a number of barriers which currently stand in the way of providing effective aid, especially for these NGOs.
The intention is for this aid to go mainly to hospitals, hospital supplies and similar.
Mr President, we hope that we have at least made a gesture of solidarity towards Russia, but you can be sure that we will impress upon the authorities inside the country the need to closely monitor the programme's implementation.
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<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
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The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
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<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following six motions for resolutions on nuclear disarmament:
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B4-0998/98 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the ELDR Group; -B4-1009/98 by Mrs Theorin, on behalf of the PSE Group; -B4-1031/98 by Mrs Schroedter and others, on behalf of the V Group; -B4-1035/98 by Mr Cushnahan, Mr Oostlander and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the PPE Group; -B4-1040/98 by Mrs Ewing and Mrs Maes, on behalf of the ARE Group; -B4-1044/98 by Mr Carnero González and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group.
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, the liberals are very pleased at the initiative by the New Agenda Coalition.
Eight countries from five different continents, very varied in terms of size and political relationships, are seeking to intervene in nuclear disarmament.
My group wants initiatives to be taken which will break the deadlock on nuclear disarmament, certainly now that the world is no longer bipolar and locked in conflict.
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We are therefore very pleased that 12 of the 16 NATO countries have had the courage to depart from the stance of the nuclear superpowers and to opt for an unorthodox approach.
They rightly raise a number of questions.
When will START II be ratified?
When will negotiations on START III begin?
When will the nuclear nations begin real negotiations on nuclear disarmament?
That is why I am pleased that the UN First Committee voted by an overwhelming majority for a resolution calling for ratification of the CTBT and the de-alerting of nuclear weapons, cooperation with the IAEA and a moratorium on the production of nuclear material.
There is nothing controversial in this and it does not contradict NATO doctrine.
Finally, the UN resolution calls on the nuclear nations to consider additional measures, such as the promise not to be the first to use nuclear weapons.
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Finally, we support the original text which supports the UN resolution, but not the amendments tabled by the Greens.
The Greens go further than the New Agenda Coalition, but that is not achievable and breaks the broad coalition.
This resolution is designed to win a broad majority at the UN General Assembly.
I believe the amendments tabled by the Greens will make this unlikely, and I therefore hope that the Greens will withdraw them.
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<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="Malone">
Mr President, on behalf of Mrs Theorin, who initiated this resolution, and my Group I would ask all Members to support it.
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Through their resolution in the UN Ireland and Sweden have taken the initiative in accordance with the Canberra Commission proposal for a nuclear weapon-free world.
We support their demand that all nuclear weapons should be taken off alert.
To have nuclear weapons on alert nine years after the end of the Cold War is unbelievable and creates great risks for us all.
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As Mr Bertens said, Parliament supports the initiatives taken by the eight countries in the New Agenda Coalition.
The European Parliament has always made clear that it wants the European Union to be serious about the issue of nuclear disarmament and this particular initiative is one further step on the path to global nuclear disarmament.
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Looking at the detail of the resolution, we would call on the Member States which have not done so - which are abstaining - to vote 'yes' in the General Assembly.
We call on those countries which possess nuclear weapons to fulfil their commitment to disarm by virtue of Article VI of the NPT.
We also call on the non-nuclear weapons members of the NPT to fulfil their treaty commitments, i.e. not to receive, manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.
I hope this will have the wholehearted support of the House.
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<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction which put the whole of humanity at risk.
In an earlier resolution, Parliament has already clearly confirmed the judgment of the International Court of Justice which stated this, and that is why we should also remain consistent in our decisions here.
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All of us know the threat that nuclear weapons represent.
It is absurd to want to continue to retain nuclear weapons or even the first-strike option.
The significance of the New Agenda Coalition's success in the United Nations' First Committee must once again be strongly emphasised here.
Out of 16 NATO countries, 12 voted in favour or abstained.
That also sends out an important signal to the European Union's Member States to rethink their defence strategies.
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In this respect, we regret the fact that Slovenia has now left the group of eight.
This country has the potential to play an important role in establishing a new security strategy in Europe.
It is important to abolish the right of first use of nuclear weapons, a vestige of the Cold War, and here I refer once again to the new German Government's coalition agreement, bearing in mind that the German Government could perhaps take the lead on an initiative to further develop the common foreign and security policy.
The new federal government wants to keep to its objective of the complete abolition of weapons of mass destruction, and will participate in initiatives to this end in cooperation with its partners and allies.
It wishes to commit itself to achieving the aim of bringing nuclear disarmament to the fore and thus reducing the state of alert of nuclear weapons and abandoning the idea of first use.
I think that this creates significant impetus.
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<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="Cushnahan">
Mr President, I welcome the initiative taken by the New Agenda Coalition.
It is particularly opportune and appropriate that such a development should occur in the post Cold War period.
I would especially like to pay tribute to the current Irish Government for the pivotal and skilful role it has played in bringing this initiative to fruition.
It was encouraging that the United Nations First Committee passed the New Agenda Coalition resolution last Friday.
It was significant that members of the European Union either supported it or abstained.
I hope those Member States that abstained and displayed such openness will be persuaded to vote for the resolution when it comes before the General Assembly for a final vote next month.
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Undoubtedly there are some Members who have some reservations about this resolution, particularly if they support the establishment of an EU defence policy.
I would like to reassure them.
Personally I support the establishment of an EU defence policy.
I see it as a core component of European integration and I do not consider it inconsistent to support such a view whilst at the same time working for nuclear disarmament.
It is also significant that the resolution before the United Nations in no way contradicts either existing EU or NATO policies.
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I welcome the broad support for this urgency but, on behalf of my group, I would like to indicate that we strongly oppose the two amendments tabled by the Green Group.
I hope that at the end of this discussion we will have a resolution that will be overwhelmingly supported by this Parliament and, in its own way, will create an impetus for support for the overall resolution in the UN General Assembly.
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<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, we view this resolution as part of the general push towards disarmament, and nuclear disarmament in particular.
We do not believe threats of suicide constitute effective defence - not even for those who still seek to defend the nuclear ideal of a deterrent.
This is no longer responsible, because in the meantime the proliferation of nuclear weapons continues unabated.
There must also be a stop to all nuclear tests and all research in this field.
But none of this should make us blind to the terrible effects of other weapons, of chemical weapons which we also want to see banished from the world.
Last week I was very struck by what I saw in the media concerning the development of biological weapons.
What I mean to say is that a general push towards disarmament, including what are traditionally known as 'light weapons', must not make us forget that most countries seeking a new world want to banish nuclear weapons first and foremost, but that is only the beginning.
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We also need to take a good look at whether we in Europe should not put a stop to the smuggling of certain arms which still goes on in the Member States present here today.
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<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Mr President, the end of the Cold War led us to believe that nuclear arms had disappeared.
They had perhaps disappeared from government priorities and also, regrettably, from the priorities of some sectors of public opinion, but in reality they continued to exist as the main threat to the survival of the planet.
Almost 10 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, nuclear weapon stocks remain undiminished.
We have even seen France carrying out tests as recently as 1995, while other countries, such as India and Pakistan, were testing only a short while ago.
It is therefore absolutely vital that we continue to call for nuclear disarmament.
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And in this respect, we welcome the actions of those countries involved in the campaign urging the United Nations General Assembly to clearly indicate its position on this matter.
I therefore believe that with this resolution, Parliament will support their efforts, in line with public opinion throughout Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, I would point out that this motion for a resolution is not directed at the Commission as we have no competence on this point.
So I would limit my comments to supporting the call for the nuclear countries to determine to make systematic and progressive efforts to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world with the ultimate aim of banishing them entirely.
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<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
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The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
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<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="André-Léonard">
Mr President, the joint resolution on the freedom of expression in Algeria is intended to demonstrate our solidarity with the Algerian press.
The country's press, which plays a decisive role in combating the terrorist fundamentalism that rages in that country, has often paid a heavy price and too many journalists have died in the defence of freedom.
We certainly have no intention of interfering in domestic affairs, but we do consider that it is our duty to defend, here and elsewhere, fundamental freedoms, which obviously include the freedom of the press.
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We must point out that the Algerian State has suspended the publication of a number of newspapers for several weeks, on the pretext of commercial disputes.
These newspapers had made disturbing revelations that directly involved individuals close to the President, in particular General Betchine, who is accused of financial embezzlement in the Benboualia affair, and the Minister for Justice, Mr Adami, who had apparently brought pressure to bear on the courts.
The fact that the authorities are able to take such action means that they have a de facto monopoly over the press, newsprint, the printing houses and advertising.
In a state that claims to be democratic, the press must be free and cannot be subject to State control, even indirectly.
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We therefore call on Algeria to guarantee the freedom of the press, without any more pressure either from monopolies or the information code, and to carry out these reforms promptly.
We are only a few months away from the presidential elections of April 1999, and we call urgently for fundamental freedoms to prevail and for the establishment of a transparent and pluralist democratic debate prior to the election.
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<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, of course I come from a country where the freedom of the press was not something we experienced, and we suffered greatly as a result.
I therefore feel a deep sense of solidarity with the journalists in Serbia and, in particular, Algeria.
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It is typical of governments who are no longer trusted one hundred per cent by the population to employ a means of retaining power, and this is called restricting the freedom of the press.
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It is also very typical, and just as reprehensible, that methods such as a paper and printing monopoly are used to restrict press freedom.
In this respect, I should like, on behalf of the Greens, to express my solidarity with the journalists in Algeria, who have the courage to fight against this and often pay for this courage with their lives.
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As the European Union, which puts democracy first - before economic relations - we need to insist on the freedom of the press being fully restored, both in Algeria and in Serbia, as the central pillar of democracy.
We cannot turn a blind eye and say: fine, then of course we can bring the agreement into force, then of course we can continue to send economic aid to this country, unless the freedom of the press is established first.
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At this stage, I would ask Mr van den Broek how he sees the future of the Mediterranean Agreement with Algeria and what other measures Algeria will be required to take.
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My second question to you, Mr van den Broek, is this: against the background of the Dayton Agreement, how do you intend to respond to the obvious restrictions placed on the press in the Republic of Serbia?
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<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, Commissioner, I have been to Algeria twice this year, and the Algerians were always very proud to point out that the press was free in their country, that there was even a very diverse press, and that is as it should be.
In the light of this, the restrictions placed on the publication of several newspapers were all the more incomprehensible and serious.
Although I know that behind all this there is also a power struggle - because the Algerians are again showing a certain pride here, that despite these restrictions two ministers have had to go - I still think that this internal power struggle should not and cannot be played out at the expense of journalists and newspapers.
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Democracy is indivisible, and the freedom of the press is part of it.
I hope that the latest development, that these newspapers have all been published again, is a permanent one.
I would call on the Algerian Government to ensure that there is complete freedom here.
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Personally, I see the situation in Yugoslavia as more serious.
Whenever Milosevic has had to give way outside the country, he has increased the pressure at home.
That is what he has now done with the universities and newspapers.
That is completely unacceptable, and we need to do all we can to help those who are displaying any final remnant of freedom and of plurality in this country.
In this context, I should like to ask you, Commissioner, to make a statement, here and now, that you will do everything in your power to ensure that the money and the support promised to the media there is actually delivered, and delivered in good time.
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Unfortunately, we have had to hear from editors in Serbia, in Yugoslavia, that they are waiting a very, very long time.
I believe that until recently they were still waiting for money from the European Commission from 1997.
It must not be the case that these newspapers are no longer able to be published not only because of Mr Milosevic, but possibly also because of the Commission's inefficiency.
I would ask you to exercise your authority clearly here, Commissioner, to ensure that this help is given.
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<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, very briefly, on the subject of Serbia, I think that I will abstain.
This is, yet again, a 'lukewarm' resolution and I am beginning to fear that my friends in the PPE have developed the Socialist group's syndrome, which is, as we all know, to never make waves and not to upset the governments.
Of course, the PPE is no longer a part of many governments, which leaves me some hope.
Nonetheless, I am beginning to fear that we will soon see an initiative supporting the award of the Nobel Prize to Mr Holbrooke and Mr Milosevic.
That is just how desperate I think the situation has become.
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For our part, we will continue our campaign to ensure that charges are brought against Mr Milosevic.
There can be no aid, there can be no possible reform in Serbia while that crook remains in power, and people must begin to accept that.
There are already 120 of us who believe that in this Parliament.
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As far as Algeria is concerned, the situation there is completely outrageous.
It is unfortunate that we must speak about this in the absence of one of our great contemporaries, Mr Cohn-Bendit, who initiated this resolution, together with others, such as Mrs André-Léonard.
He is also our rapporteur on the Algerian question.
It is madness!
The motives underpinning this resolution are disappearing.
All the issues have been removed from the original text because they have meanwhile been settled by the Algerian editors, its government and its parliament.
It is not just the Algerian Embassy that says so; there are documents that bear this out.
The substance of this resolution is being removed, but it remains on Parliament's agenda.
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I believe that this manner of proceeding comes very close to the limits of our Rules of Procedure and, with all due respect to my very good friend Mrs André-Léonard, the situation of the press in Algeria is considerably better than in other countries, such as Tunisia, which is in the papers this morning, and perhaps also her own country.
I believe that a particular form of indirect censorship is indeed carried out in Belgium, and we have been among those who have identified it in a number of matters that are corrupting the country.
And it is not the only case in the Union, although I think that certain harmful developments there set it apart from other countries of the European Union.
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So, we are doing all we can to undermine the credibility of a country, in this case Algeria, that has a huge problem, that must tackle the transition from a communist regime to a multi-party regime and that has adopted a number of reforms.
We are doing all we possibly can to prevent European investors from believing even for a moment in the possibility of a different future for that country.
We systematically send absurd signals that are not understood either by public opinion in Algeria or by public opinion in Europe. In the same way, they are obviously not understood by investors and those who could contribute something positive to Algeria.
It is outrageous!
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<SPEAKER ID=144 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lehideux">
Mr President, Mr Soulier was to address the House today.
Unfortunately, he has been detained by unavoidable circumstances and so I will speak in his place.
You will all remember that the European Parliament delegation, which visited Algeria in February and which was, in fact, led by Mr Soulier, had concluded that Algeria had embarked upon a democratic process following the election of President Amin Zeroual.
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Elections by universal suffrage made it possible to elect the National People's Assembly, marked by a multi-party system and freedom of debate.
Elections were held a few months later, also by universal suffrage, throughout Algeria that allowed local authorities to be established.
The members of the delegation had concluded that encouragement should be given to these efforts aimed at establishing democracy in Algeria.
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That opinion has been corroborated by the various subsequent missions to that country, including parliamentary delegations from Spain, France and Canada. These also included the panel appointed by the UN, which was led last summer by the former President of Portugal, Mr Mario Soares.
However, while any obstacles to this progression towards democracy must be removed, we must not keep our concerns to ourselves or fail to offer the friendly advice that governments who wish to strengthen their relations should offer each other.
And that is the nature of the motion for a resolution before the House today.
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In a few months time, Algeria will elect a new president.
It is to be hoped, for the sake of Algeria and the European Union, that the verdict at the ballot box is unequivocal.
The successful outcome of the negotiations culminating in the signature of the association agreement between Europe and Algeria depends on it.
Freedom of the press is one of the conditions of democratic debate.
All those who visited Algeria noticed the exceptional freedom in the tenor of the newspapers published in Algeria, both French and Arabic.
It is essential for this freedom to be maintained and guaranteed.
That naturally depends on constitutional guarantees, but also on the economic and financial conditions that must prevail in this sector that is part and parcel of democracy.
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<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, my group is very unhappy, to say the least, at the actions of Milosevic and the Parliament of the former Yugoslavia to suppress freedom of expression.
By suppressing alternative information sources, Milosevic is trying to impose his will on the population.
Everybody knows that his is the voice of the old communism and narrow-minded nationalism which was also the cause of the tragedy in Bosnia.
If he gets the chance to pursue his dictatorial policy unpunished, the Kosovo question will also assume the same proportions.
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I know, I am pleased to say, that the European Commission is pursuing an active policy to promote the freedom of the press in the former Yugoslavia.
I also understand that the Union does not have much influence over Milosevic's policy.
Yet I hope that the Commission and the Member States will make an extra effort to promote free education and free media.
The Council of Ministers must remain very vigilant when it comes to political and military developments in Kosovo and we must keep the military stick to hand if we want to lend force to our policy regarding Milosevic.
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<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack (PPE)">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Milosevic has not only waged a war for nine years, a war which began in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia.
He is not only establishing an apartheid regime in Kosovo, he is not only responsible for driving people from their homes, for war and death in this region, he is also constantly visiting disaster upon his own people, the Serbs.
He is violating his own people!
Since he came to power, despotism, fear and terror have reigned in Serbia.
He has also methodically destroyed Serbian institutions.
The Serbs feel like pariahs.
Two very eminent Serbs have demonstrated, in an open letter to Mr Milosevic, what he has done to his people.
He has made the university into a local farmers' club, they write.
He has made the Academy of Arts and Sciences into a kind of nurses' home.
He has devalued the media, the parliament, the legislation and the government.
These are all quotations from this letter.
He has allowed the citizens to become impoverished, but has made his wife, his cronies and himself rich.
Hundreds of thousands of young people - the intelligentsia - are leaving the country.
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Milosevic is audacious, but the West is too timid, and incapable of putting an end to his activities.
He is still courted and not punished, despite the fact that, firstly, following the result of the Holbrooke negotiations - which actually was not a result at all - he has done nothing to bring a political solution to the Kosovo problem any closer.
Negotiations were supposed to start on 4 November - I did not see anything of the sort.
Secondly, the day after these negotiations, Milosevic banned all independent media.
Thirdly, a few days later, he whipped the undemocratic law on the press through a submissive parliament; this law gags all journalists.
Fourthly, the law on universities contains provisions on making teaching conform to ideology, and that has huge significance.
It is actually driving the intellectual élite out of the country, and those remaining in the country are in internal exile and far from Europe.
<P>
The majority of the Serbs are waiting for a coup, which will give them back the air to breathe - the freedom to read, write and see.
The Serbian people would take the next available opportunity to vote these criminals out of office, if they had or saw any alternative.
We need to help to bring about this opportunity by supporting the independent media which can expose Milosevic, and we need to isolate Milosevic as an interlocutor.
The best way to do this is to indict this despiser of humanity for war crimes in The Hague.
That would be a clear sign.
As a German, I can say that with Hitler, a democratic Germany could not have been built.
With Milosevic, Serbia can never become a democracy!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Roubatis">
Mr President, the closure of newspapers, the imposition of fines and the persecution of journalists once more show President Milosevic for what he is before the international community.
However, experience shows that measures directed against freedom of the press will sooner or later, but with mathematical certainty, backfire precisely against those who adopt such measures.
The government in Belgrade must understand that the tactics it is pursuing will not help to solve the enormous problems that prevail in the area.
On the other hand, we must welcome the decision by the government of Montenegro, a decision which ensures complete freedom of expression for the mass media, both local and international.
<P>
The European Parliament calls on Belgrade to change its attitude.
We express our solidarity with the journalists and mass media facing persecution, and I would like to ask Mr van den Broek to cooperate with us in helping those who are fighting for freedom of thought.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="De Luca">
Mr President, the events of the last few days, from Pinochet to Priebke to Öcalan, confirm - if it were necessary - the need, in fact the urgent need, for an international criminal court capable of dealing with crimes against humanity.
The increasingly tangible decline of the UN's traditional role as a world organisation able to guarantee order and peace calls for the creation, still under the aegis of the United Nations, of new, more flexible international bodies, designed to deal with monstrous crimes like genocide, xenophobia, torture and violations of human rights.
<P>
So the decision taken on 17 July in Rome to establish the world's first international criminal court is of historic significance.
No longer will justice be reserved only for the victors or the strongest - this is the beginning of real justice for the citizens of the world, all equal at last before an independent court.
The European Parliament, and more generally the European Union, must therefore do their utmost to prevent the civilising efforts of the Rome Conference from being wasted, getting Member States which have not yet signed the Statute to do so, urging all the Member States of the Union to ratify the treaty and taking practical steps to increase the number of states supporting the initiative, as well as making European Union relations with third countries subject to signature.
<P>
Finally, all the Community institutions must make it a priority to adopt the measures necessary for establishing the preparatory committee as soon as possible ...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, Commissioner van den Broek, I am particularly pleased that this debate is being held.
The House is not very crowded, it is true - and I say that in view of the vote - but I hope Parliament will demonstrate once again, as it has done before, its attachment to this cause, and highlight the need for the Statute to be ratified so that it can come into force as soon as possible. We call for ratification by our governments, first and foremost, and by the other countries which decided to set up the court in the historic vote on 17 July in Rome.
60 countries are needed: we ask, through Parliament, for 31 December 2000 to be the date this court comes into existence and ends the impunity now protecting so many tyrants and dictators - not just in retirement, like Pinochet, but active, like Slobodan Milosevic and others - through the arrival of international criminal justice handed down by a permanent criminal court.
<P>
The European Union has been in the front line in this battle. A great victory was won in Rome, thanks not least to the commitment of the European Commission, a commitment shared by many non-governmental organisations, which are here together today, moreover, as a result of an initiative which we took with Mr Dupuis, the Radical Alliance and the 'No peace without justice' movement.
So let us launch a great ratification campaign to get the court established on 1 January 2001!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Lagendijk">
Mr President, I would almost say that it seems like the devil's work, but in the light of recent events there have never been so many good reasons to set up a permanent international criminal court quickly.
Mention has already been made of the Pinochet affair.
It is clear to me that in this case, when a request has been made for extradition for crimes against humanity, a permanent international criminal court could certainly be very useful.
The latest focus of attention, the extradition or request for extradition of Mr Ocalan, the former leader of the PKK, is somewhat more complicated.
But there too I am convinced that an international court could do a good job, if only to determine what is political and what is criminal in this case.
As far as we are concerned, recent events provide reason enough to set up this international court quickly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Mr President, the creation of the International Criminal Court has been a triumph of what could be called citizens' diplomacy. This huge movement of public opinion led in many countries to a large number of governments participating in the conference held in Rome, and, therefore, resulted in the creation of this Court.
<P>
With its creation, the Court has been granted insufficient powers and competences, and there is a danger that it might become what I would term 'the dreamworld of the just' if enough governments do not quickly set up ratification instruments as well as, naturally, the mechanisms needed to enable the committee involved to set this Court in motion.
<P>
What is more, this citizens' diplomacy, or public opinion, which led to the achievements in Rome, must be positively encouraged.
This is especially important when there are cases pending that evidently show that an International Criminal Court is highly appropriate for judging, for example, criminals such as the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet who, over the past few weeks, has sought refuge in the loopholes of national laws. I would like to take this opportunity to say that I sincerely hope that next Wednesday will be a day to commemorate as the day on which the decision was taken to extradite Pinochet to Spain, where he will be judged on the crimes he has been accused of, crimes that include genocide, torture and terrorism.
<P>
This International Criminal Court is, in fact, needed to do away with this protective shield of impunity.
It is quite incredible to think that such protection actually exists, given that the perpetrators of such crimes are known, yet the hand of justice cannot touch them.
I therefore think that the Council and the Commission must once again to do all they can to ensure that the treaty drawn up in Rome is signed, so that the ratification instrument can be set up and so that the International Criminal Court can soon become a reality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, we have now debated three motions for resolutions, firstly on Algeria, then on Serbia and now on the International Criminal Court.
For me, it was actually very telling that the word Milosevic occurred in nearly every intervention, regardless of which topic was being addressed.
That should in fact show that we really do lack international criminal law and an institution such as an International Criminal Court.
We have two 'mini criminal courts' dealing with Yugoslavia and Rwanda, but they undoubtedly do not have the scope which a well-funded International Criminal Court would have.
They are not empowered - and would need to be - to intervene in national matters, if they see that these are to do with protecting human rights in a particular context.
Nor are they able to become really involved in a case through a completely independent prosecutor.
<P>
I believe that it is necessary for us, as Europeans, to bring our influence to bear on the countries which have not yet signed the Rome agreement.
The United Kingdom and Germany, for example, are among them.
We need their signatures.
We want the Criminal Court to start on time!
<P>
Akin Birdal
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, in its progress report on Turkey the Commission has already stated that human rights activist Akin Birdal most certainly did not receive a fair trial.
If this case stands as an example of the behaviour of the Turkish government and justice, then I believe Turkey can forget about EU membership for the time being.
Accession is linked to stringent, clear, strict and fair criteria.
If Turkey wants to join, it must do some work in the field of democracy and human rights.
I hope that President Demirel will see fit to grant a pardon to Mr Birdal, in the interests of democracy and good relations between the Union and Turkey.
<P>
I also hope that the Turkish Parliament will shortly make the necessary and long promised legislative changes in order to guarantee democracy, respect for human rights and an independent constitutional state.
My group trusts that the Commission and the Council will take steps to this end.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, Commissioner, I met Akin Birdal about two weeks ago in Turkey.
I saw that he is still suffering from the injuries he sustained in the assassination attempt.
I listened to his speech to the human rights conference in Ankara, and responded to it.
It was a very moderate speech.
I would advise the Turkish Government really to make use of the present situation to talk to people like Akin Birdal, who display a balanced, reasonable attitude, and to solve the internal crisis in Turkey, in particular the Kurdish issue.
<P>
I believe that Akin Birdal would also wish me to make a few fundamental remarks on the present critical situation.
It has already been stated this morning in the House, by Mrs Green and others, that we reject Turkey's current position on the case of Mr Ocalan and his possible asylum.
I of all people, who make every effort to build up decent relations between the European Union and Turkey - and have been to Turkey three times this year and held talks for that very reason - have to dismiss the Turkish stance.
I should like to urge the Turkish Government once again to seize the opportunity now, so that even if the application for political asylum is accepted, neither side should resort to violence, and that also applies to the PKK and the Kurds' political representatives.
There should be talks, which must not be held with the PKK, but with Akin Birdal, who is also quite prepared to take part in such talks, so that a solution can be reached providing linguistic and cultural autonomy within a unified Turkey.
Akin Birdal and his organisation are fighting for this too.
That is why I my belief is, in Akin Birdal's best interests, that the Turkish Government should take the opportunity to make the best of this crisis and work towards a peaceful internal solution to the Kurdish issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, Commissioner, we are dealing with a specific case here.
Considered in the light of the Kurdish issue in Turkey, Akin Birdal's sentence actually amounts to a ban from politics.
That effectively blocks the situation.
<P>
Secondly, we should not forget that the Turkish Parliament is in the process of amending the Criminal Code and deleting Articles 312 and 159, under the terms of which Akin Birdal was sentenced, and also Article 8 of the anti-terror law.
In this situation, it is necessary firstly from a political point of view for Turkey to take the opportunity for dialogue, to which Akin Birdal has always referred; secondly, from a humanitarian point of view, it is necessary for Akin Birdal - the victim of a shady assassination attempt, as a result of which he is still suffering - to be given access to medical care in Europe too.
It is with this in mind, as friends of Turkey, that we need to call on the Turkish Government to change its position.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langen">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when six groups in this House introduce a joint motion with the intention of adopting it, that must be a sign to the Turkish Government and the Turkish President that this issue, namely the sentencing of the President of the Human Rights Association of Turkey - whom many of us, for example Mr Swoboda, know from numerous discussions in recent years - is not simply a question which we are debating as a matter of course.
For us, this issue is much more a touchstone of Turkey's ability to be democratic, and a touchstone of its compliance with human rights.
Mr van den Broek did in fact recently present a report on the state of relations.
We all still remember - from when we supported the customs union - the promises made by the then government on bringing their constitution and human rights practices into line, but these have not been fulfilled in the meantime.
That is why I am convinced that we cannot hold out any specific prospects for Turkey's accession, while it is not possible for us to make real progress on these fundamental issues of freedom of expression and human rights.
<P>
I am being very clear about this, although I am aware that we have noted a definite improvement in relations over the last few weeks.
That is not enough.
More progress is needed.
The Turkish President, Mr Demirel, who after all appeared in Vienna just a few days ago, bearing demands relating to Turkey's inclusion in the group of applicant countries, must take the opportunity to pardon Akin Birdal.
I think that this would be a practical test of Turkey's ability to have closer relations with Europe.
Nothing else will take us any further.
That is why we in the PPE Group support the joint motion.
We hope that it will send out a positive signal, and that it will not introduce any further tensions into Europe-Turkey relations, as happened in the Ocalan case, for example.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, firstly, the Birdal case concerns a sentence handed down by a Security Court in Turkey.
Those courts, Commissioner, were described in a report by the Commission - evidently influenced by yourself on the grounds of experience, because you are well informed on Turkish issues - as inherently incapable of giving accused persons a fair trial.
It was that kind of court which condemned him.
Secondly, there is no possibility of appeal to a higher body.
Consequently, the decision is irrevocable and all the consequences against Birdal will persist for the rest of his life, even the fact that he is not allowed to seek medical help, until he is even eliminated biologically, which they failed to do with the attempt against his life.
The only way out is for Demirel to grant a pardon, and the only way that will happen is if the Commission brings pressure to bear for the pardon to be granted.
This is not an issue which concerns Birdal alone.
It concerns the freedoms of the Turkish people and even our own freedoms.
The Ocalan problem is a similar one.
We must resist Turkish and American pressure to have him extradited to Turkey, where he would be murdered either by execution or by being locked up in the Turkish prison camps, as often happens.
Both men are symbols of the struggle for peace, freedom and democracy.
Regarding Birdal in particular, I would point out that Turkey's Supreme Court stated as the reason why the Security Court condemned him, that his main preoccupation and orientation were freedom and peace.
He is imprisoned because of that condemnation, and as Commissioners, you are morally responsible unless you intervene to secure him a pardon.
<P>
Chalki seminary
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Roubatis">
Mr President, I am no longer surprised by acts of the Turkish state such as those we are talking about today, and I fear this will not be the last time we will have occasion to talk about such acts.
Terrorism, flagrant violations of human rights and religious freedom, high-handed and unjustified decisions and even bomb attacks are just some of the elements which make up the picture of the Turkish state's tactics towards the Ecumenical Patriarchate, in other words the world-wide spiritual reference point for 300 million Orthodox Christians.
The historical and traditional leader of the Orthodox Christians, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, who usually prefers to keep a low profile, had this to say: 'we are not intercalated, transplanted or intrusive; we are the indigenous people of this land; the political equality, justice and religious freedom about which Turkish law speaks exist only on paper'.
<P>
Turkey's motive in doing this is clear.
It wishes to dispense with the Theological College of Halki once and for all.
It wishes to get rid of the Christians in Turkey once and for all.
It aims to terrorise those citizens, Turkish citizens, who happen to be Christians.
The issue of the Theological College of Halki yet again highlights the more general problem of respect for human rights in Turkey.
The European Union cannot play deaf when from the first day there has been an international outcry and condemnation of these unacceptable acts by Turkey.
The European Union and specifically Mr van den Broek must demand protection for the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Orthodox community, as required by the Treaty of Lausanne.
Finally, he must also call for the protection of the Turkish people themselves, who are now daily being made victims of the Turkish state's tactics.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, I believe that we need to draw a distinction here.
We should not say that Turkey has a particular character, and then put all manner of things down to that.
The demands are actually addressed to Turkey.
The official act, by which the school was closed down, must be withdrawn.
The Turkish Government has to make it clear here that freedom of religion - a fundamental human right - is guaranteed in Turkey.
The Oecumenical Patriarchate demands that this official act be repealed, and here the European Union should make it perfectly clear that this is a basic condition for any further dialogue with Turkey.
<P>
It is, after all, the highest seat of learning - if I may put it thus - of the branch of Orthodoxy centred on Constantinople, which does in fact exist throughout the world; given that respect for the rights of minorities has been enshrined in treaties, the way in which it has been treated is unacceptable.
We should bear in mind, however, that behaviour of this kind also violates the laws of Islam, because freedom of religion is also one of the Prophet Mohammed's explicit commands; we should remember this ourselves and remind our counterparts of it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Daskalaki">
Mr President, the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the few remaining Greeks in Istanbul have been there for many centuries, long before first the Ottoman and then the Turkish State.
As the Patriarch said, and Mr Roubatis too mentioned earlier, they are the indigenous people of the area, they belong to it; they did not come from elsewhere, they are neither foreigners nor intruders, no matter how much Turkey may have managed over the years to eliminate the Greek element with systematic machinations and every kind of violence.
The most recent machination in the series is the illegal and unjustified dismissal of the members of the Supervisory Committee of the Theological College of Halki.
The purpose of that is obvious: to confiscate the College's property and, mainly, to prevent it from working again.
In substance, this is another act of terrorism by a country with no respect for human rights, and which has no hesitation in eliminating any kind of threat no matter what direction it comes from.
We said the same thing this morning in a major debate on the events in Italy.
<P>
I do not think it is necessary to say very much in order to stress the seriousness of the matter.
Our joint resolution does that.
I would simply like to say, in conclusion, that if Turkey continually defies and distances itself from European ideals, that is also happening because Europe, by constantly putting only economic interests and criteria first, has not made Turkey understand properly that human rights must have priority.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Hatzidakis">
Mr President, I am one of those who believe in a modern and progressive Turkey, which will at some time find its way into Europe.
I have the impression, however, that Turkey itself does not believe that.
One of the many indications we have is how Turkey is behaving towards the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, and how it has behaved in this specific case towards the Theological College of Halki.
Turkey is blackening its own image, whereas it ought to understand that the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople brings prestige not only to Constantinople itself, but to Turkey as a state as well.
<P>
Having essentially closed down the Halki College, Turkey is now taking action against the College's Supervisory Committee, which was the last sign that the College was still just about surviving, though not much more than that.
You know that Congress in America has repeatedly shown concern about this specific issue.
Today, at least, the European Parliament has woken up to it.
Commissioner, I think the European Commission should do likewise.
I understand Turkey's economic importance, I understand the importance of trade and economic agreements - in any event, there are businessmen all over who have relations with Turkey, even in my own country, and rightly so - but beyond that point, beyond trade, there are also human rights, there is also our civilisation, there is respect for diversity.
Those things should not merely exist on paper, we must take action to demand them from the Turks, since it seems that they themselves have them in their constitution for the sake of appearances only, so that they can claim to respect human rights formally, whereas in substance they are violating them.
<P>
Let us therefore respond to the call of Patriarch Bartholomew, who is a moderate religious leader, let us do something about this issue.
I think it is important for our civilisation and for the values professed by the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, I would say, first, that if we vote unanimously for this joint resolution, the Commission and the other institutions will be compelled to act at last, because now I hear that Uncle Sam has also said yes, and Congress is taking action.
Do not be slow to imitate them when for once they are doing something positive.
<P>
The second thing I want to say is that this act by the Turkish Government - I do not say Turkey, I distinguish Turkey, in other words the Turkish people, from the state, the reactionary and fascist regime in power - is undermining the operation of the Patriarchate by depriving it of its functional organ, the College of Halki.
A college that was a beacon of ethics, culture, religion and peace for all peoples living in Asia Minor - as it happens I was born in the area, so I know this.
<P>
So take action and put aside half-measures, put aside evasiveness, forget about investments, pipelines, oil and gas, and remember for once that you wish to be known as a democratic institution, a democratic organisation, the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
Mr President, Commissioner, the closing of the Halki School in Turkey is just one more stage in a process that has been continuing for years.
Turkey takes liberties in a way that no other European country would, so we must demonstrate our opposition to what is a direct and totally unacceptable violation of religious freedom.
<P>
What is happening in Turkey nowadays is exactly the same as in the past: persecution of the Kurds and the continuation of the war against them since 1984.
The reaction of the Turkish Government against Italy today is in the same vein.
<P>
The EU Member States must oppose such actions.
We now have the opportunity to do so by requiring Turkey to comply with the undertaking it gave as part of the customs union agreement that we already have with it.
We, as Member States of the European Union, must do our utmost to ensure that this agreement is adhered to, that the war against the Kurds is brought to an end, and that Mr Ocalan is given asylum in Italy.
<P>
Anti-Semitism in Russia
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Goerens">
Mr President, the primitive, irresponsible and even villainous nature of Makashov's statements revolt and worry us for more than one reason.
The incitement given by former General Makashov to hate Jews responds to a system that is well tested.
Although the economic, social and political situation is alarming, some people cannot resist the temptation to bolster political and national unity by issuing messages of hate and accusation against a particular community, in this case the Jewish community.
<P>
It is worrying, first and foremost, to see that instead of unreservedly condemning the anti-Semitic utterances of one of its members, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation prefers to make solidarity its main concern and refuses to assume the responsibilities that ensue in such circumstances. In this instance, they would involve bringing a motion of censure against Makashov.
This is all the more regrettable because there is no shortage of international mechanisms to show the Russian Federation what to do.
The more the Duma fails to distance itself from such behaviour, the further it moves away from compliance with the principles to which the Russian Federation had committed itself when it became a member of the Council of Europe.
<P>
We therefore call on the Duma to reverse its decision and to reconsider bringing a motion of censure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, I must present Mr Barros Moura's apologies.
I should nevertheless like to say a few words on behalf of my group.
I believe that the unfortunate events repeated here are unacceptable.
Anti-Semitism is a form of racism which has done so much damage in Europe and further afield that we need to refute all such statements in the strongest possible terms.
In particular, I am disturbed at the failure of the Duma, or the other party members, to respond in an appropriate way.
When a major catastrophe has befallen the Jewish population on this continent, and when there have been various anti-Semitic actions and statements in Eastern Europe and Russia of all places, it is unacceptable for us to tolerate an anti-Semitic statement now.
We must therefore refute this in the strongest possible terms, and call on the representatives in the Russian Parliament to tell their colleagues quite clearly that an anti-Semitic statement must not and never can be tolerated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, if you look at what is happening in Russia at the present time and listen to General Makashov's statements, a cold shiver really does run down your spine, because here it is obvious that the most evil, communist reactionaries of Stalinism are re-emerging, and that anti-Semitic statements are being made in such a way as to cause those in Russia towards whom they are directed to be genuinely afraid.
<P>
I should like to remind you of one point: Russia is a country in which there is still a so-called autonomous Jewish area today.
It is the region to which Stalin once sent many Jews.
It is in eastern Siberia, and a small group of these Jews still lives there today, which really feels threatened and fears for its survival.
These Jews are only one representative example of many others in Russia.
We cannot simply remain silent!
In this century, we have already seen terrible acts of the utmost cruelty.
We cannot accept this kind of thing, we cannot witness this kind of thing again!
<P>
Commissioner, earlier we also debated the issue of food aid.
Perhaps this matter could be raised in that context!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, we started our look at topical events with the dramatic food situation in Russia and we are ending with a tragic aspect of spiritual life: anti-Semitism.
It distresses me very much to find that after centuries of pogroms and impossible living conditions in the stettels , our colleagues in the Duma are not prepared to denounce violent expressions of anti-Semitism.
It is difficult for Russian politicians of Jewish origin to make a career while retaining authentic Jewish names.
This is why it was only recently revealed that it was for this reason that the Russian Prime Minister took the name Primakov.
Since May rabbis and jeshiwa students have been beaten up and fire bombs thrown into synagogues.
As a Parliament we must continue to urge the Duma to take steps to combat racism and xenophobia and to adopt the necessary laws to this end.
At the same time the legislation within the European Union against political parties with such views is inadequate.
Financial penalties and imprisonment do not work and banning a racist party only leads to another party being set up under a different name.
I believe a good legal remedy is to take away rights to stand for election.
Such a measure does not exist in my country but the French courts have clearly understood the need for this.
The removal of the right of xenophobic parties to stand for election must be encouraged. At the Duma we must continue to stress the importance of point 9 against anti-Semitism in Russia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, everyone owes it to everyone else to respect their dignity.
That applies equally in economic crises and when times are good.
Anti-Semitism reminds us of our continent's darkest days, and of times when countless people treated these values with contempt.
That is why it is our generation's common task to nip anti-Semitism in the bud.
That is true both of our own countries and our partners.
That is why we are calling on the Duma to be more sensitive and firmly to refute statements which are an affront to the dignity of Jews in Russia.
The fact is that extreme nationalist groups in Russia are being courted by this kind of despicable populism on the part of a few politicians, and that presents a danger to democracy in the country.
<P>
Mr van den Broek, we know that the grass-roots organisations in Moscow are the ones which are trying to take action on this.
I ask you now: is it not possible to give the money on the TACIS democracy line which you have not yet spent to these groups, so that you really do spend the money where it is needed, as we discussed on Tuesday?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Blot">
Mr President, I condemn anti-Semitism from whatever source.
But I was genuinely shocked to read the proposals for a resolution directed against the Duma.
Must we give lessons in morality to the entire world at any price, and particularly when the draft texts contain traces of anti-Russian and anti-Slav racism that I find totally unacceptable?
Do I need to remind you that the Slavs were the first victims of the Second World War and the Russians suffered more deaths than any other ethnic group in the struggle against the Nazi army?
Must I remind you that the Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia has recently condemned anti-Semitism on two occasions.
<P>
It is incredible that some of our fellow Members should consider giving orders to the Duma of the Russian State, as in paragraph 4 of the joint resolution, as though foreigners should command the elected representatives of the people.
The Duma holds sovereign control in terms of its votes and that is how it should be.
What would you say if the members of the Russian Parliament sought to instruct Members of the European Parliament on how they should vote?
Moreover, it is scandalous to constantly and systematically associate Russian patriotism with anti-Semitism.
The truth is that every possible pretext is sought to weaken Russia or any other nation that resists the new imperialist world order.
<P>
Lastly, it is apparent that the meaning of the term anti-Semitism has unfortunately changed.
In the past, it was clear that an antiSemite was someone who hated Jews.
And we all agree that this is something that must be condemned.
But today, someone may be called an anti-Semite simply because they are disliked by the Israeli lobby.
It is a way of eliminating a person politically.
<P>
Such an arrogant change benefits neither friendship between peoples, the cause of democracy nor the legitimate fight against racial hatred.
Friendship between peoples and between Europe and Russia will not be built by behaving like aggressive pharisees driven by contempt for the Duma and all the people of Russia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, the Alleanza Nazionale delegation supports the motion for a resolution on the resurgence of violent anti-Semitism in Russia.
Unfortunately history seems to have taught us nothing, because this is not the first time so-called Jewish plots have been blamed when a country is in crisis.
So we need to react with maximum firmness to isolate these expressions of political lunacy and put all the resources at our disposal into nipping this insurgence of hate and discrimination in the bud.
This is why I am anxious that you should know, for your information, that General Makashov received - I am quoting an authoritative Italian daily, the Corriere della Sera - ' tumultuous applause during the parades on the 81st anniversary of the October Revolution'.
<P>
Well, delegations from the two Italian communist parties were at those parades. Those parties are Rifondazione Comunista and the Partito dei Comunisti Italiani, the former part of the Prodi government's majority, the latter holding some ministries in the D'Alema government.
And so far there does not seem to have been any request for clarification or disassociation from the President of the Italian Council to those who are in his government and at the same time march side by side with people - communists and ultranationalists - who incite others to ethnic and religious hatred.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, the human rights debates in Parliament are never heartening, but they are nonetheless necessary.
I should now like briefly to give my reactions to the items on the agenda, beginning with Algeria.
<P>
It is clear to everyone, and I have also heard no voices to the contrary in this House, that while there might have been perhaps slight progress in the field of democratisation and freedom of the press in Algeria, an extraordinary amount remains to be done.
This is precisely why, for some time now, the Commission and the European Union have been allocating considerable resources in order to promote the freedom of the press in Algeria.
You will know that the Mediterranean countries are allocated a relatively generous budget, a large part of which goes to Algeria.
It is somewhat distressing to be speaking of freedom of the press and in the same breath to be denouncing the unacceptable and constantly escalating violence in Algeria, with dozens of innocent civilians murdered in cold blood over recent weeks.
That brings it home to us even more that a great deal has to change in Algeria before it will be possible to speak of a democratic state based on the rule of law.
<P>
We know how complicated it is.
We also know that the Union is trying to maintain dialogue with Algeria.
It is even trying to conclude an association agreement which could also institutionalise political dialogue, a point on which Algeria is very reticent.
<P>
I can agree with much of what has been said about Yugoslavia and President Milosevic, which is another subject on which we have exchanged views on many occasions.
It is not for nothing that we are still maintaining a comprehensive and extensive sanctions policy against Yugoslavia.
Our criticisms and objections also concern the freedom of the press.
Most of the media in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia which are now also coming under pressure, such as Radio Index, Donas or Nasa Borba, have received financial assistance from the Community.
<P>
In 1997 around ECU 4 million was allocated to support the independent media in Yugoslavia, while in 1998 the figure was more than ECU 5.6 million of the total amount of ECU 10 million provided for the whole country.
It is therefore receiving every attention.
<P>
You will understand why when we speak of Yugoslavia at the present time we place the emphasis on efforts to solve the serious problem of Kosovo. This does not mean, however, that we are paying any less attention to other aspects of democratisation and democracy in the Republic of Yugoslavia.
But on that point too I must say that Mr Milosevic does not exactly give us grounds for much optimism.
<P>
I agree with all that has been said about the International Criminal Court.
The Commission is also naturally pleased at the successful conclusion of the conference which set up the Court.
Although it was not possible to respect everybody's wishes, the rules governing the Court's statutes form the basis for an effective and credible tribunal which will mean that the most terrible crimes against humanity no longer need go unpunished while potential criminals, and this is certainly no less important, will also be discouraged.
We therefore express the hope that the 60 ratifications required will be quickly reached.
<P>
We have often discussed Turkey's political situation and more specifically its human rights performance.
We share Parliament's concern at the sentencing of Akir Birdal and the recent dismissal of the management of the theological school in Chalki.
Anybody who has already had the chance to see our progress report on the political situation in Turkey will see our concern clearly expressed.
<P>
I was in contact very recently with the Turkish Foreign Minister and I said to him: look, you have asked the European Union to judge you for future membership of the European Union according to the Copenhagen criteria.
So noblesse oblige , let us put it to the political test.
Let us above all intensify the political dialogue in order to try and improve these often unacceptable situations.
What I have mentioned here is part of this.
<P>
Finally, I fully agree with all that has been said about the resurgence of anti-Semitism in Russia.
Intolerable and unacceptable are the only words for it.
Unfortunately it is not the first time in Russia's history that attempts have been made to use members of the Jewish population as scapegoats for a crisis.
Against this background, the anti-Semitic statements of a member of the Duma, a member of the Communist Party, are all the more intolerable, especially now that members of this same Communist Party have taken steps to prevent the lifting of immunity for the said member.
<P>
Fortunately, on the other hand, a number of prominent figures, including the Mayor of Moscow, Mr Luschkov, have distanced themselves from such statements as have a number of leading organisations in Russia.
It is also encouraging, and we should give all due attention to this more positive side, that the Russian Public Prosecutor has said he will be investigating the matter and that the incident is being discussed with the Russian Security Council.
<P>
Finally, in all probability the Duma will be returning to this question next week and I could well imagine that Members of the European Parliament, who have close contacts with members of the Duma within the Parliamentary Cooperation Council under the partnership agreement between the Union and Russia, will question their colleagues on this subject and express their concern, as we will also be doing in our regular contacts with the Russian Government.
Thank you very much, Mr President, that concludes what I wanted to say on these matters.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
Do you have another question, Mr Swoboda?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Madam President, I asked the Commissioner quite specifically whether he was prepared to do everything in his power to ensure that the money set aside for the Serbian press or other media is also actually paid out quickly.
Otherwise some media would not only have to stop operating because of Milosevic, but also because of the money arriving too late.
Could you please give a brief reply, Commissioner?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, I can reassure Mr Swoboda because I am aware of the complaint and I have asked the relevant department to look into it. The matter is now being pushed through as quickly as procedures permit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=176 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Madam President, what I have to say relates to the forthcoming vote.
The point is that something has once again happened this time which I already complained about months ago: the joint motions for resolutions are indeed available in all the language versions, but the original texts are not.
You know how often joint motions are rejected here, and then the original texts have to be put to the vote.
But then, according to Rule 102(1), that would not be possible, because they are not available in all the languages.
After I complained last time, the situation was rectified. Today, for the first time, it is once again the case that we do not have the original texts, and I would ask for steps to be taken to ensure that the proper arrangements are made next time!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=177 NAME="President">
I can understand your objection, Mr Posselt, but you must bear in mind that there are a huge number of translations which might then have to be carried out.
I shall bring this up again, but there is already a decision on the matter.
<P>
Mr Roubatis, do you have another question for Mr van den Broek?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=178 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Roubatis">
Madam President, in the last debate all the speakers asked Mr van den Broek to do something specific about the closure of the Theological College of Halki.
Mr van den Broek did not tell us specifically what he intends to do, what specific action he will be taking, to ensure that the Turkish authorities allow the college to function as it ought to.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, I promise you that the next time I am in contact with Turkey I will ask for this matter to be given attention and I will also convey the feelings of the Commission, which are the same as those of Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr van den Broek.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place in a few moments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 NAME="President">
We shall now proceed to the votes.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="Andersson, Lööw and Sandberg-Fries">
In our explanation of vote, we should like to focus attention on the importance of patent applications and other patent-processing procedures being carried out in all Member States' languages.
Any other system would be detrimental to enterprise and initiative in business development within the European Union.
We are delighted at the way in which the report highlights patent processing and language.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 NAME="Bonde, Krarup and Sandbæk">
The European patent system is based on the Munich Convention of 1973, which is an intergovernmental agreement.
Patents issued under this Convention can be applied in all the countries which have ratified it, which include all the EU countries and many others.
The Convention makes it possible to obtain patent protection in more than one state through a centralised procedure which is administered by the European Patent Office.
Patents issued under this procedure are subject to the national law of the individual countries.
<P>
There have subsequently been attempts to introduce two other patent conventions or agreements: the Luxembourg Convention of 1975 on the Community patent, supplemented by the 1989 Agreement relating to Community patents.
These two instruments have still not entered into force.
Now it is planned to create yet another Community patent, which will be valid throughout the EU.
The Member States' courts will only have jurisdiction on questions of infringement of Community patents, and it is envisaged that the authority dealing with appeals will be the European Court of First Instance.
<P>
We believe that the introduction of a Community patent is a completely superfluous arrangement.
Since attempts have been made at agreements on Community patents which have still not entered into force after 23 years, why should we make the same mistake again now?
Moreover, a Community patent would be valid in fewer countries than a patent issued under the Munich Convention.
We can fully endorse the recital in the report which states: 'the current combination of the European Patent Convention and the national patent systems presents a well-functioning and flexible patents system in the EEA'.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="Eriksson, Seppänen, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
The proposal to set up a Community patent system is an example of unnecessary regulation and duplication of bureaucracy at EU level.
As is clearly stated in recital E, the present European system of national and international patents is working well.
We have therefore voted against the report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 NAME="Lindqvist">
A well-established international system for patents has existed in Europe for a long time.
It functions very well and is linked to a major standardisation initiative.
There is no reason to set up a new system for the sole purpose of introducing an EU symbol.
Any reform should therefore be carried out to the present system in order to bring it up to date with modern industrial developments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="Theorin and Wibe">
In recital J it is stated that 'Member States must not abandon their national languages' in respect of patents and patent rights.
This should be changed to 'shall' not abandon their national languages for the reasons given in the same paragraph.
<P>
We also have to confess that we find it difficult to see the point of setting up yet another level of patent procedures, particularly since it says in paragraph 6 that the Community patent system would coexist with the national systems.
We would simply like to ask whether the national, European and global levels that already exist are not enough without a Community level as well?
<P>
Hoppenstedt report (A4-0362/98)
<SPEAKER ID=187 NAME="Bébéar">
The European Union has forged a reputation for itself in the aeronautical and space industry.
Today, it is an economically competitive and promising sector that includes a number of successful companies. Airbus Industrie , which was established by France and Germany in 1970, now accounts for 50 % of the world market in its sector following the Asian crisis.
<P>
Such results must not, however, blind us to the economic realities: as we approach the new century, we are losing ground.
Our many national enterprises are no longer able to keep up with global competition on their own.
The large American enterprises, in particular, are pursuing a relentless strategy of attack.
Moreover, we are currently experiencing a situation whereby the national demands for military aircraft are falling and national defence spending is being restricted.
<P>
Therefore, it is urgent for the sector to be restructured, as the Hoppenstedt report points out.
This is the only possible solution if we wish to achieve a genuine concentration of production and a real synergy of financial investments, and to optimise the results of research and technology transfers from the military to the civilian sector.
<P>
The European Union can provide this rapid and decisive momentum, which is all the more necessary since we have little time in which to implement this economic rationale.
<P>
In this connection, we must today take the same steps that were taken over a decade ago by the United States: opening up the military and civilian industrial structures, globalising defence and space activities, etcetera.
The fact that Europe has a potential viable base gives it all the more reason to commit itself more decisively.
<P>
Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has worked hard on this matter, showing due regard to the 'employment' dimension.
It should never be forgotten that over 700 companies provide a livelihood for some 370 000 families throughout the European Union.
<P>
We cannot therefore allow this sector of jobs to gradually disappear.
Nor can we leave ourselves without this industry if we still wish to comply with our responsibilities in the area of foreign policy and international diplomacy.
<P>
Consequently, I support Mr Hoppenstedt's report and the free choice he gives both to the enterprises involved and to Member States in regard to the action that should be taken.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 NAME="Blak, Iversen and Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted overall in favour of the report by Mr Hoppenstedt on the European aerospace industry, because this sector will be an important source of employment for Europe in the future.
No fewer than 377 510 people were directly employed in the sector in 1997, not counting the downstream employment in the form of jobs with subcontractors and so on.
<P>
The proposal is aimed at securing increased cooperation in research and development in the European aerospace industry, cooperation which we regard as essential if this sector is to survive in competition with its American counterpart.
The American aerospace industry benefits from the large orders placed by the US armed forces, and from the know-how which the military provides to private firms free of charge.
<P>
However, the Hoppenstedt report also includes proposals for the joint development of military aircraft and for a restructuring of both the military and civil aerospace industry, with a view to encouraging the consolidation of the defence industries.
This position conflicts with Denmark's stance on defence and security policy, and we have therefore abstained on paragraphs 6 and 7, since we do not wish to stand in the way of other Member States moving in this direction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 NAME="Holm">
I think that a distinction should be made between the research and industrial activities carried out in the civil branch of the aerospace sector and those carried out in the military branch.
The EU should confine its activities to civilian matters, bearing in mind that, to date, the Treaty contains no provision for combining the two branches.
<P>
Consequently, I do not support the Commission communication on the aerospace industry.
I would prefer to see restrictions imposed on the industry's activities and clear rules established on how those activities should be carried out.
This does not mean that I am totally opposed to research and industrial activities in this area, but I think that the situation with regard to military activities should be clarified.
<P>
Nor am I in favour of the report's underlying view, which took shape following a meeting between six EU Defence Ministers earlier in the year to discuss integration and restructuring of the defence industry.
It is particularly regrettable that representatives of the Swedish defence industry took part in the meeting, since Sweden is a non-aligned and neutral country.
<P>
I shall support the amendment tabled by the Green Group, and I shall vote against the report in its entirety in the final vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 NAME="Lindqvist">
Of course it is a good idea to strengthen the aerospace industry.
However it is difficult, if not downright impossible, for neutral and non-aligned countries to participate in any activity which links together the aerospace industry, Member States' defence industries and the CFSP.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="Palm">
Nowadays, there is no longer any direct threat to the security of the European Union and its Member States.
Against this background, they should be striving to reduce arms production, which not only deploys large amounts of resources that could be allocated to other important activities in the Member States, but also generates exports which deprive underdeveloped countries of vital resources that are needed above all to build up their social infrastructures.
Thus the continuing manufacture of armaments in itself constitutes a potential threat, since the existence of more weapons only increases the likelihood of their being used.
<P>
If, despite all this, the situation in the world develops in such a way in the future that the Member States democratically decide to increase their arms production, then I can see nothing to prevent the military aircraft industry from becoming a monopoly market, as is pointed out in the report.
<P>
Nevertheless, it is of the utmost importance for the Union and its Member States to strive to reduce the aircraft industry's heavy dependence on military orders, otherwise manufacturing will not be able to develop on its own, regardless of the security situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 NAME="Titley">
As the rapporteur on a related Commission communication on defence related industries, I warmly welcome Mr Hoppenstedt's Report on the aerospace sector.
These two sectors of EU industry are so vital to the future economic success of us all that national and party political differences should be put aside as far as is possible when we discuss them.
<P>
I share the report's desire to see strong EU wide industrial groups in aerospace manufacturing, not only to secure the many jobs and high skill levels they employ but also to maintain the EU's ability to choose when to compete with and when to cooperate with the USA in this field.
If we do not give the companies concerned a clear green light to get on with the job of restructuring their operations to this end, we will have only ourselves to blame for the Hobson's Choice which would be ours - to buy American aircraft or to buy nothing.
<P>
I am glad that British companies are belying the now inaccurate stereotype of my country as a nation of Eurosceptics by playing a leading role in cooperation - the managers and staff of Westland and British Aerospace are cooperating with EU partners for sound business reasons, rather than following the isolationist dogma of the Tory Party which once claimed to speak for British business.
<P>
As this report points out, in the one sector of satellites alone, the world can expect 1500 launches in the next decade - as politicians we need to give our companies every chance to compete for those contracts, not tie them in red tape on the launchpad.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 NAME="Verwaerde">
I would like to begin by congratulating our rapporteur, Mr Hoppenstedt, on his excellent work.
<P>
The communication from the European Commission analyses the current situation of the aerospace industry.
It provides an overview without highlighting the specific problems of any given sector within this European industry.
<P>
This is an interesting approach.
However, the European aerospace market has evolved since this communication was published and Parliament's report has emphasised that change.
Europe has genuine potential for the future.
<P>
To take full advantage of this potential, the European industry must benefit from favourable conditions to enable it, in particular, to establish joint enterprise strategies.
Such strategies will enable this high-tech sector to compete under equal conditions with the American industry. For its part, the US industry has the advantage of not having to contend with national divisions of the market and benefits from substantial national aid to research and development.
<P>
I fully agree with our rapporteur's opinion on the statement by Germany, France and the United Kingdom of 9 December 1997, and on the letter of intent from the German, Spanish, French, Italian, Swedish and British Ministers for Defence.
Indeed, their commitment to promoting the consolidation of defence industries is an essential political factor and a positive sign for European manufacturers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 NAME="Wibe">
The proposed coordination of activities in the aerospace industry is commendable, but there should be no linkage with military activities as proposed in paragraph 6, which mentions the need to develop the next generation of military aircraft.
Instead, we should be focusing on the importance of developing the aerospace industry entirely independently of the military sector.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=195 NAME="Linser">
The FPÖ supports the political statements and the declarations of intent in this motion for a resolution, but is abstaining from the vote on the text as a whole, because the additional increase in financial and economic aid to this region, as called for in the motion, does not appear to be adequately structured or guaranteed to be efficient.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Displaced persons (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=196 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report by Mr Wiebenga.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Madam President, to add to what other speakers have been saying, I would like to begin by congratulating Mr Wiebenga on the work he has carried out over several months that has been both efficient and courteous. Having said that, Madam President, my first comment relates to certain speeches that have been made that amount to nothing short of dangerous popularity seeking.
Their only effect is to endanger and, of course, threaten the cause of those whom we are dealing with. And, indeed, all of us, when faced with the problem of offering adequate protection to those who need it at a given moment due to the unrest in their countries, must give a response that is appropriate, effective and balanced.
In short, we must give a response that is in line with the area of freedom, security and justice we are in the process of building with the third pillar.
<P>
Madam President, those who say that the Structural Funds or the Cohesion Fund should be restricted for those Member States that are allegedly hindering these measures are not helping matters either.
This is true, firstly, because it amounts to a statement of intent and secondly, because although those countries advocate unanimity in decision-making, establishing this type of statement of intent would make no sense from either a political or legal point of view, because, as I said, in the final analysis, it would greatly hinder this report's progress.
<P>
In relation to the two proposals put forward by the Commission, Madam President, I would like to congratulate the Commissioner.
They are both very interesting and balanced proposals. I believe that they will make progress and I hope that we will see evidence of their results in the near future.
<P>
And now, Madam President, allow me to fly the flag of those of us who maintain that decisions in this respect should be taken unanimously and explain why we are of this opinion.
It is certainly not out of any desire to boost our popularity, less still because we do not wish these measures to be taken.
It is simply that Mrs Gradin based the proposal on Article K.3(2)(b) and did so correctly , because that is the law currently in force.
<P>
But we must obviously bear in mind that the Amsterdam Treaty - which has still not entered into force, but which represents a political decision of great importance - establishes that unanimity is required for this issue.
It therefore cannot be ignored.
I fully understand the stance taken by the Commissioner, but it should not be presumed that those who advocate unanimity do so because they are not prepared to go further.
Those in favour of unanimity are merely showing that they are aware of the fact that, through hard work, 15 Member States reached a pact in Amsterdam that states that, for five years, decisions in this area must be taken unanimously.
It is because we are keen to see this idea progress that we have put forward this proposal. This is something that needs to be achieved.
<P>
My second remark is of a political nature.
Clearly, the 15 Member States have to agree and this proposal will only progress if that happens.
In this respect, Mr Nassauer is right.
If one section of the proposal is agreed on by a qualified majority - as permitted by Article K.3 - yet the other section is agreed on unanimously, we will be left with a situation that is totally unbalanced and disproportionate from both a political and legal point of view.
<P>
Therefore, Madam President, I repeat: we have tabled amendments in favour of unanimity and, realistically speaking, we want this proposal to move forward.
We will politically support this proposal through our governments, but we believe that it will only move forward if we respect what was agreed at Amsterdam, and this requires the 15 Member States to reach an agreement rather than a qualified majority.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Madam President, the Socialist side of the House is currently undergoing a very interesting process of change.
This began with the governments, firstly with New Labour's new realistic attitude towards the issue of asylum, which admittedly does not yet go far enough, but the first signs of which are visible.
It was followed by the discussion paper presented by the Austrian Home Affairs Minister, Mr Schlögl - also a Socialist - and now we have the German Home Affairs Minister, Mr Schily, all of a sudden saying that immigration into Germany and the influx of asylum seekers and refugees of civil war have exceeded both reasonable and manageable levels.
He does not even say 'have reached'; he says 'have exceeded'.
<P>
It is certainly interesting to see this, standing as it does in stark contrast to the point of view consistently represented by the left side of this House.
This shows precisely the difference between ideology and practice.
The practice is, of course, due to two points.
Firstly, the figures, which Mr Pirker has already explained so impressively here.
I really should like to say that Germany, for example, has, over a period of ten years, admitted an average of 50 % of all asylum seekers, and at times up to two thirds of all refugees of civil war.
That really is an extreme situation.
<P>
Secondly, this new attitude on the part of some ministers is of course also due to public opinion, and in politics we have to be realistic and take public opinion into account.
We want to give shelter to the persecuted.
We want to give them protection and security, but it is precisely when I want to do this that I need acceptance, and I can only win this acceptance if the burden of admitting the people is shared, so that quite rightly the burden falls equally on each of the Member States.
We cannot content ourselves with a few set phrases on this, as this proposal - or pseudo-proposal - does; we need real burden-sharing based on definite quotas of people.
<P>
The Bavarian Minister of the Interior, Günther Beckstein, has proposed to you, Commissioner, that a central European office should be established to set these definite quotas and allocate them.
We are still a very long way from this; we would be happy if at least a first step were taken here towards more Europe, but this pseudo-proposal is a step towards less Europe.
You see, it tries to avoid solidarity and at the same time to patch up this gap with words.
That is why we must also reject both these proposals, because we believe that they would be more suitably entitled: missing the point.
I really do believe that it is possible for any Member State to be faced with a disproportionate share of the burden, and I should like to say this to our Spanish Members, amongst others: it is actually not the case that this issue only concerns Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and one or two other countries.
Something might blow up tomorrow in the Mediterranean area which then affects Spain, for example, in just the same way, and here too there will be calls for solidarity.
Solidarity is reciprocal, though, and this problem can affect all Member States to different degrees and at different times.
That is why, before the catastrophe overtakes us, before problems arise, a set of burdensharing instruments need to be created, and here I must add - and I am grateful to Mr Pradier for what he said on this subject today - that this would of course include prevention.
<P>
We must not stand by and watch until the influxes of refugees descend upon us; instead, we must intervene in good time - as for example in Kosovo - to ensure that the conditions are created on the ground to enable people to live in safety in their homes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 NAME="Gradin">
<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Gradin.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Visas/Airport transit
<SPEAKER ID=201 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=202 NAME="Lehne">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this is certainly not the most important report of the week.
It is, therefore, all the more intriguing that seven minutes' speaking time should have been allocated for such a relatively insignificant report, when at other times there is not enough speaking time.
Quite honestly, I do not know what I can tell you about this report that would fill seven minutes.
Allow me, therefore, to be somewhat more brief.
<P>
You can already tell from the title, which the President read out, that this is essentially to do with technical problems, although these technical problems are not quite without their difficulties either, if you take a look at what the Council has asked us to decide on.
The problems start with the part of the report concerning this uniform form for a visa, where the Council is obviously trying - in a departure from the provisions of the Treaty - to make its legal position more favourable for the individual Member States. It deals with the issues relating to the format of the form and the format of this visa under Article K.3 of the Treaty, despite there actually being a special provision in the Treaty, in Article 100c.
The latter legal base also means that this is no longer a joint action and would in principle need to be implemented in the form of a directive.
That is precisely what we have stated in the opinion of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
<P>
The further problem with the Council's ideas is the fact that in a whole series of articles in the joint action, it defines itself as the executive authority.
Here we have ensured that either the Commission or the Member States are named as the executive authority instead, at least in our report.
This is simply because we believe this to be more correct than for the Council - which is in fact after all the co-legislator, or in this case the Community legislator - to assume that role itself, thus also, as it were, calling into question certain principles of the separation of powers.
<P>
In the second part of the report, the airport transit visas, the same problem occurs, amongst others.
At least the right legal base has, in our opinion, been selected here.
It is, however, mainly about harmonising technical rules to combat illegal immigration and about better checks at airports.
<P>
I should like to ask you to vote in favour, here in the plenary, of the corrections decided on by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, and on that note I would conclude my statement on this not especially important, but perhaps also not wholly insignificant report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Zimmermann">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as far as the uniform format for the form is concerned, I agree with the rapporteur that this can actually be adopted as it stands following our vote in the committee.
Since this is a form which is produced solely for the purpose of having a visa issued on it, Article 100c of the EC Treaty is the right legal base, even though the jurists were again unable to agree on whether this assessment was correct.
We did actually have two reports on the subject.
I think it is necessary, from a political point of view, for the uniform format for the form to be implemented on the basis of Article 100c.
<P>
Parliament has always given priority to procedures which allow decisions to be taken by a qualified majority.
With the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, unanimity will, unfortunately, be the rule in the case of visa arrangements for a further five years, before decisions are taken by a qualified majority.
However, it is clear which direction we are going in.
In the field of, 'visas, asylum, immigration and other policies related to free movement of persons', the Council will act by a qualified majority in the foreseeable future.
I do not believe, however, that after another five years of unanimity, the Council will find it any easier to act by a qualified majority than it does now.
<P>
I also support the rapporteur's view that we are in the business of adopting uniform arrangements in Europe in the fields covered by Title IV of the Amsterdam Treaty.
In that sense, the European Commission's role will in any case need to be increased accordingly.
That means that it is incumbent upon it, and not the Council, to present technical specifications for this form, and it is for the Member States to be available to discuss production centres.
<P>
On the airport transit visa, the European Court of Justice has in fact delivered a very clear ruling to Parliament.
The legal base of Article K.3 only provides for cooperation with the Member States in this field.
That was already clear to us in the committee.
We do, however, want to make the Council stronger than the Member States and thus help it to take common action, including on visas and illegal immigration.
<P>
In the committee, we have already made both the arrangements applicable to statutory stateless persons and refugees and the exceptions to the requirement for a visa dependent on a joint decision in the Council.
We wish to achieve the same thing for amendments to the joint list.
I therefore also urge you to support the corresponding amendment to delete Article 4.
<P>
Article 9 gives each individual Member State the possibility of suspending the positive lists.
I believe, however, that given that we have common external borders, we need to have common rules on visas and visa stamps. That includes these transit visas.
I think that if the main purpose of these visas is to combat illegal immigration, then it would be appropriate to have a uniform procedure.
That is what is provided for in the Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
I would therefore urge you to continue on the path which Parliament has already chosen, and also to delete Article 9.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Madam President, I would firstly like to say that I am speaking on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, and I would like to congratulate the rapporteur and say that the PPE will follow his advice and broadly support his report.
<P>
Secondly, I would like to comment on these two proposals for joint action. Although they are not at the very heart of third pillar policies or generally part of the policy to build an area of freedom, security and justice, they are extremely interesting because they represent a very small step forward, a point of departure and, as such, a situation that will be repeated with other texts.
Why am I referring to this?
I do so because it is basically an issue involving how we interpret our texts, general rules and exceptions to limited interpretations.
<P>
We have the example of the ruling of 12 May, which has already been quoted, in which the Court of Justice of the European Communities strictly but - I believe - correctly interpreted Article 100c of the EC Treaty. It pointed out that this Treaty refers to entry visas and not transit visas.
Given that this Article is an exception to Article K.1(3), it has to be interpreted separately.
<P>
Why do we therefore want the other proposal - that on the visa format for exceptional cases when the person travelling has no documents - to be based on Article 100c?
We support this because it is Parliament's responsibility to do so.
<P>
In the same way as I said before that we need to adapt to what was agreed in the Amsterdam Treaty in order to determine the rules relating to the issue we discussed a few moments ago, here Parliament's role is to go as far as the texts will allow.
And it is evident that this visa, given to those who do not possess the correct, legal and legitimate documents, goes further than a visa itself. But there is no doubt that it is an incidental part of an identification document and one that therefore acts as a visa in terms of Regulation No 1683/95.
<P>
Parliament must therefore vote in favour of interpreting Article 100c to include something that is not expressly stated in the text. But we are referring here to the particular case of entry visas and, in general terms, it is correct to take Article 100c as the legal basis for this.
<P>
Therefore, Madam President, in my opinion - and here I am speaking from a purely personal point of view -, Parliament must act consistently. It must take legal texts to the limits of their interpretation, without of course resorting to sterile intransigence that simply means that proposals do not meet with success.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Mohamed Alí">
Madam President, today we are examining two draft joint actions put forward by the Council aimed at harmonising some specific aspects of visa policy and airport transit policy.
Although we are dealing with very formal issues, for example the uniform format of the forms for affixing visas, we should not forget that behind such formal issues lie some of the characteristics that are rapidly setting the tone of the immigration and asylum policy implemented recently by the Community authorities and Member States in the European Union.
<P>
As regards the joint action concerning the uniform format of visas and, in particular, the analysis of the legal basis, we agree with the view of the rapporteur and the European Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs, which has studied the relevant legal basis for this action, that the proposal should come from the European Commission and not the Council.
It should be a proposal for a directive rather than for joint action and thus come under the Community's immigration and asylum policy, as recommended in the Amsterdam Treaty, instead of within the context of a cooperation policy of the Member States.
<P>
What is more - and here we are focusing on the content of the proposal -, it is no use giving a general description of a uniform format for visas at European level so that, ultimately, Member States can decide on the technical procedures they wish to use.
In the same way, the form must be valid for all the countries of the European Union without the possibility of any exceptions.
Would this not be an appropriate way of formulating a genuine Community policy on visas?
<P>
Apart from these legal and political issues, I should like to stress the fact that harmonising these aspects of Community visa policy must not lead to greater restrictions and limitations for the immigration and asylum policy, which are hidden behind the demands for increased bureaucracy and complex visa requests.
We cannot allow this to make it more difficult for refugees and asylumseekers to reach a safe country.
<P>
To sum up, the provisions being adopted in relation to a uniform visa format and airport transit must form part of a genuine Community policy on immigration and asylum. Within this policy, we must ensure that the various actions are subject to legal and democratic control and that the main principles involved are solidarity and respect for human rights, against the constant backdrop of the provisions of the Geneva Convention and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindholm">
Madam President, the visa issue is a constant topic of debate in Parliament, a state of affairs which is attributable, amongst other things, to an inability to reach agreement on a way out of the problem.
The question of visas for citizens of third countries, as well as the report on the same topic, are the product of the legal problems arising in committee.
The Court of Justice has set aside the Council's decision on such matters as the grey list, naming the countries that are required to have visas.
Despite this, the list is still in use and has been for nearly five years.
In practical terms, this means that Romania, for example, has to arrange a visa for its negotiators to participate in top-level meetings in Brussels, since Romania is still on a list which, despite having been annulled, is still in operation.
Such a situation is absurd!
<P>
Consequently, the overriding and all-important issue with regard to visas is still unresolved.
At the same time, we now have to decide on the wording and appearance of the documents themselves, so that their format can be agreed and harmonised.
I think this is the wrong approach.
However, the main purpose of the report is to change the legal basis from the third pillar and intergovernmental cooperation to the first pillar and supranational control.
The Swedish members of the Green Group do not agree with such a proposal, and support intergovernmental cooperation. However, the rest of the group view matters differently.
<P>
I should like to recall yet again that Scandinavia has 40 years of expertise and experience in operating the Nordic Passport Union. Without centralisation, directives and harmonisation we have achieved a functioning passport union and a successful international visa policy.
It is a pity that more outside attention has not been paid to this, since our experience could have been of value in developing the approach in this area.
<P>
Finally, I should like to remind the House that the Amsterdam Treaty has still not come into force and therefore cannot be used as a reference in this context.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Buffetaut">
Madam President, Mr Lehne was quite right when he told us earlier that his report was very technical, but other problems can be seen behind the technical considerations.
<P>
Allow me to begin with the technical aspects of the document.
I do not share his views on the legal basis.
I believe that article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union was perfectly sound.
Nor do I share his view that the Commission should play the role that was initially assigned to the Council with regard to a joint action.
However, this purely technical matter does, in fact, raise another that is of an institutional nature and that must one day be tackled, that is, deciding what the respective powers of the Council and the Commission are and what they should be.
<P>
I have the greatest respect for the Commission, for the Commissioners and for the 15 000 officials who work under them.
But the fact remains that the Commissioners are appointed, and their democratic legitimacy is, shall I say, far from evident.
In contrast, the Council, which is made up of the representatives of the governments, does have a certain democratic legitimacy.
And this is the real problem in terms of the institutional evolution of the European Union.
<P>
There is a desire to attach the traditional parliamentary relationships that exist in our nations to the European institutions and make the Commission a pseudo-government.
However, the Commission is not a government.
The Commission is not the choice of a majority.
The Commission is not supported by a majority in the European Parliament.
The Commission is an institution that is half political and half technocratic.
And, therefore, I cannot agree with Mr Lehne, nor indeed the majority of this House, when they insist in, may I say, contesting the Council's powers, which are perfectly legitimate in democratic terms, for the benefit of a Commission that would be the future government of the future European State, on the basis of a hypothetical European people.
<P>
In fact, Europe has not one but several peoples; it has several traditions, several histories and several languages.
Therefore, where the institutional evolution of the European Union is concerned, it is essential that we should, on the one hand, restore greater political authority to the Council and, on the other, involve national parliaments in the European Parliament's work by extending its powers.
That is how we will achieve a truly democratic Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 NAME="Gradin">
Madam President, I wish to thank Mr Lehne for his valuable report on the two proposals for joint action relating to air transit and to a uniform format for documents for affixing visas.
These two proposals form part of an ongoing process.
The aim is to harmonise the rules governing the visa policy of the Member States.
Not all aspects of visa policy are covered by Article 100c of the present Treaty.
Some are adopted on the basis of Title VI.
However, when the Amsterdam Treaty enters into force it will regroup all aspects of visa policy in the first pillar under Title IV.
<P>
Let me outline to you the Commission's view on these two draft actions.
Firstly, we have the new proposal from the Council for a joint action relating to air transit arrangements based on Article K.3.
This proposal is an extension and an evolution of the existing one from 1996.
The Court of Justice has confirmed in 1998 that this action falls under Article K.3.
This new proposal for a joint action aims at incorporating two additional elements.
Firstly, the common short list of countries is extended to include Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Secondly, the proposal provides for an exception from the obligation of an air visa for nationals of countries who are holders of residence documents from certain other third countries, for example the United States and Switzerland.
<P>
The Commission has no specific comment to make at the present stage.
We will, however, look into the possibility of formulating a further proposal once the Amsterdam Treaty enters into force.
We have to take into account the integration of Schengen arrangements into the Union acquis.
<P>
The second proposal from the Council concerns a joint action for a uniform format for forms for affixing visas.
The aim is to reach a certain level of harmonisation in order to upgrade security standards in two exceptional cases.
One is when the visa sticker cannot be affixed in passports which are not recognised as a valid travel document; the other is when persons are not in possession of a valid travel document at all.
The Commission has some concerns about the legal basis, which has been chosen for this proposal.
There is no clear competence within the EC Treaty concerning when this form has to be delivered to persons holding no travel documents at all.
However, it might also be argued that such a form constitutes an integral part of the uniform visa format itself.
In that case Article 100c of the EC Treaty might apply.
<P>
The discussion within the Council will be decisive for the final position of the Commission.
It may be that the Commission will be called upon to make a declaration in the Council and, of course, then the Commission will convey the views expressed by the European Parliament to the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Gradin.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 6.55 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Madam President, a point of order was raised on Tuesday. In it Mr Janssen van Raay commented on the voluntary pension system.
He said: 'very briefly, unfortunately a number of Dutch people have indicated through their representative that they are happy with the system. That is what I wanted recorded in the Minutes yesterday.'
Madam President, I asked Mr Dankert if that was correct.
He is the most senior of the 31 Dutch Members and he tells me that it is definitely not true.
So I wanted to refute what Mr Janssen van Raay said here on Tuesday at the start of the day's proceedings.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
We take note of that, Mrs Maij-Weggen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Madam President, I should like to ask you to make sure that a copy of the complaint made by the Dutch authorities against the directive on patents is made available to Members of Parliament.
<P>
We have discussed transparency at great length this week. However, it is not acceptable that proceedings are taken against the European Parliament and yet the individual Members are not allowed to obtain a copy of the complaint.
I therefore cordially request you to ensure that Members who want a copy - and I think many Members are interested in this - are sent one as soon as possible, especially as the Parliament's Legal Service is already preparing an answer.
I think we must also prove our own credibility in matters of transparency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
I note that too, Mrs Breyer.
We shall see what can be done.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="Hallam">
Madam President, I refer to Amendment No 49 on the McCarthy report.
I am registered as voting against that amendment when, in fact, I wanted to vote in favour.
Can that be put into the record.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
That will be corrected, Mr Hallam.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Madam President, I just wanted to point out the fact that I voted in favour of Amendment No 7 of the McCarthy report by mistake.
I wanted to vote against it.
I informed the Bureau of this but I note that it has not been changed in the Minutes and I would like this to be rectified.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
That too will be corrected.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Nassauer">
Madam President, I must point out that there is a textual error which distorts the meaning in various documents and in various language versions. In the report itself, Amendment No 5 relating to Article 3(2) reads accurately as follows: 'shall not exceed three years on aggregate and may be extended for no more than three years following a further decision.'
These three years appear as five years in some versions and other documents.
Extending five years to five years naturally distorts the meaning, as everyone recognises.
We ask for this to be duly corrected.
This error also appears, for instance, in the collection of proposed amendments to Amendment No 5; there it is incorrect.
It is correct under Amendment No 5 in Mr Wiebenga's original.
I should be grateful if this could be taken into account by the appropriate services.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
Thank you for pointing that out, Mr Nassauer.
We shall take it into account.
<P>
(In successive votes, Parliament adopted the two legislative resolutions)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="Deprez">
The organisation of the external borders of the Union is an absolute necessity.
They cannot be like open doors.
The provisions adopted must, however, be in line with the spirit and the letter of the Geneva Convention and European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
<P>

A third pillar is to be added to these two existing ones in the form of the additional measure provided for by the Treaty of Amsterdam, which will be implemented within five years of its entry into force and which authorises temporary stays within the Union for humanitarian reasons. This applies not only to individuals, but also to groups, who, strictly speaking, do not meet the terms of the aforementioned conventions, but whose physical or mental wellbeing can only be preserved through temporary protection in the Union.
<P>
This measure is urgently needed, particularly because of the Union's inability to implement a genuine common foreign and security policy, even at its own borders!
<P>
That being the case, we must be clear on the need to share the burden of each influx of refugees.
We must put an end to the complicated disputes that divide the Member States, which assure us that they have done all in their power to take in as many refugees as possible and more often than not lead us to believe that the other countries are still doing too little in this respect.
Precise evaluation criteria must be defined.
<P>
It should be pointed out once again that the temporary protection regime must, by its very nature, go hand in hand with an early examination of the conditions and resources needed to prepare for the decent return and successful reintegration of the refugees when they go back to their country of origin.
We must ensure this when implementing this statute.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats have voted in favour of common rules for granting temporary refugee status, minimum rights for such refugees and more solidarity in distributing them among the Member States.
The problem is that many displaced persons, such as the refugees from the war in former Yugoslavia, do not meet the conditions for refugee status laid down in the Geneva Convention, and that such refugees are being very unevenly distributed among the Member States.
We need common rules on who should have refugee status, how long they will be allowed to stay in the Union and what conditions they are to live in while they are here.
We have voted in favour of a temporary protection regime that will be invoked only in emergencies involving a sudden mass flight of refugees.
The Geneva Convention should continue to be the starting-point, and human rights must be respected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="Lindqvist">
This proposal is an excellent and much-needed one.
There should be more sharing of responsibility when it comes to dealing with refugee crises in Europe.
The proposal should be seen as complementing the Geneva Convention, which should always be respected.
<P>
Solidarity with regard to refugees is not something that can be achieved through legislation or compulsion.
Neither rules nor an enforced decision by a qualified majority are therefore to be recommended.
Sharing the refugee burden has to be based on voluntarily agreed mutual responsibility.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Theorin">
It is important to stress that burden-sharing will only apply in emergencies involving a mass influx of refugees.
The rules on temporary protection should at all times be based on the principle that international protection is an obligation in accordance with international rights of asylum and the rules on human rights.
It is also important to stress that the rules governing temporary protection must not deprive anyone of access to asylum procedures.
<P>
Lehne report (A4-0408/98)
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Deprez">
It is important to settle, in the most rational way possible, the question of procedures relating to access to countries for those holding no travel documents or those holding travel documents that are not recognised by the Member State asked for access authorisation.
From this point of view, the use of a standard model form on which to affix visas might prove beneficial.
But I can still only see this being of any real use if the introduction of such documents actually contributes to the emergence of a uniform European policy on visas.
The introduction of a standard form is only one stage in this.
<P>
Along with the members of our Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, I am prepared to believe that the introduction of a standard form for visas is in line with Community law, on the basis of Article 100c of the Treaty establishing the European Community rather than Article K.3(2) of the Treaty on European Union.
<P>
In the case of airport transit, the Court of Justice settled the legal debate that set the Commission, supported by Parliament, against the Council in favour of the latter, since it judged that this issue was well and truly a matter for the third pillar.
We can only hope that it does not do the same in the case of the standard form.
Parliament's credibility in this area depends on it.
<P>
I would like to state clearly that the organisation of our external borders is an absolute necessity and that it is out of the question to allow just anyone to enter the Union in whatever way they please.
I also want to say that I agree with the rapporteur's belief that the necessary standardisation of the system cannot de facto override the provisions contained in the Geneva Convention and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
<P>
Having made these observations, I support the two proposals as amended.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="Iversen">
The Danish Social Democrats have voted in favour of a joint action concerning a uniform format for forms for affixing visas and on airport transit arrangements.
However, we have voted against the committee's recommendation that these joint actions should be replaced by a directive and a regulation under the first pillar.
We believe that proposals such as these should form part of intergovernmental cooperation under the third pillar.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="Lindqvist">
The northern countries have nearly half a century's experience of operating the Nordic Passport Union, which functions at international level.
It ought to serve as an example for the EU, since the Amsterdam Treaty has still not entered into force and therefore cannot be used as a reference.
The legal base should not be changed to allow a qualified majority decision in the Council.
I cannot support the Commission's ambition to become a kind of EU 'government'.
It would be better to give more authority to Member States and to the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Falconer">
Madam President, yesterday I made a point regarding the camera crew in the Chamber.
I asked whether that camera crew was here by permission and could it be investigated.
Your secretariat said it would investigate it.
Could you advise me if they had authority to film in the manner in which they did?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="President">
According to my information, a Member of the House had obtained permission to be filmed from the public gallery.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="Falconer">
It used to be that filming was not allowed in the Chamber area and in the gallery.
I am at a loss to understand how this individual got permission.
I should like to ask you, as a member of the Bureau, to raise it in the Bureau, because it is very important to treat this House with some kind of dignity.
Cameramen are running all over the place outside the Chamber and if we start to allow them to come into the Chamber this place will soon be flooded with television cameras.
I should like to ask you to refer this matter to the Bureau for investigation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="President">
I do not think your concern is really justified, Mr Falconer, but I will have the matter looked into once again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="Perry">
Madam President, on a not dissimilar point, when I left this Chamber, together with other Members, yesterday lunchtime at the time of the vote, people wearing T-shirts advertising the cause they were supporting were standing at the door thrusting pieces of paper into our hands.
Some Members nearly tripped over as they left the Chamber.
They were being invited to sign what I regard as a perfectly acceptable declaration, but that sort of demonstration has no place within Parliament's precincts.
I would certainly ask you and the President to investigate what rules and regulations we have to stop manifestations of that nature operating within the precincts and indeed at the very doors of Parliament's Chamber.
Those people yesterday caused me no particular offence in terms of the cause they were pursuing but the next time it might very well be people to whom I and other elected Members of this House would have very great objections.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="President">
I have noted that, and we shall consider how to proceed in such cases.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Illicit manufacture of drugs
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0367/98) by Mr Pirker, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Council Directive 92/109/EEC relating to the manufacturing and placing on the market of certain substances used in the illicit manufacture of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances (COM(98)0022 - C4-0081/98-98/0017(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="Pirker">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this is an instrument for combatting drugs which is intended to help us make the illicit diversion of precursors as difficult as possible and if possible to prevent it.
These precursors are required for the manufacture of drugs, such as heroin and cocaine, but in particular for the manufacture of synthetic drugs, such as Ecstasy, ICE, LSD and amphetamines, because these drugs are manufactured exclusively from precursors.
<P>
The reason why we need such an instrument is that consumption of drugs, particularly synthetic drugs, is increasing not only across Europe, but throughout the world.
I have obtained a copy of the most recent figures, which indicate that around 2.5 million Ecstasy tablets were seized in 1997 in Europe alone, half of which were seized in the Netherlands.
In the same year, 267 000 doses of LSD were seized, half of which again were seized in the Netherlands.
The amounts seized show that drug use is currently on the increase.
However, they also show that anti-drug strategies are taking effect, and that police measures are effective, namely because more synthetic drugs are being seized.
<P>
These synthetic drugs are now being consumed by more than 5 million young people in Europe according to conservative estimates.
The situation is therefore a dramatic one, particularly because these young people never know what substances the synthetic drugs they are consuming actually contain.
That is to say, the mixture of substances varies constantly, in terms both of precursors and the strength of the dose.
This means young people are exposed to extreme danger, and are therefore guinea-pigs for unscrupulous businessmen.
We must do everything possible to find the best instruments for combatting drugs precisely for this reason, that is, to protect young people.
<P>
A Council proposal is now available on amending a directive which dates from 1992. It contains a very practical proposal which may also be promising, particularly if we incorporate the amendments from the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs which is what I am requesting.
The proposal was drawn up on the basis of expert hearings.
We had representatives from the chemicals industry here, as well as representatives from the authorities, in order to sound out the most practical model and to draw conclusions from this.
The Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs also shares the Council's view on nearly all issues, because its proposal is simply very consistent and very comprehensive, as well as very practical.
<P>
What are the important points then?
I should like to single out the five most important points made in this proposal.
Firstly, we had to decide between two possibilities: one was to draw up a fixed list, in which all precursors that are used to produce drugs are broken down into categories and monitored. At present, there are 22 of these.
However, we would have to make the list much longer in order to introduce realistic checks because the substances used have changed, and there is a large number of them.
If we had a fixed list, carrying out a check would be more or less impossible, with the result that we decided to take the other option.
In reality, we have key substances which are fixed, and we can make the list longer and change it according to the substances that are currently being used to produce drugs.
<P>
This means that we have a list of key substances which can be made longer and updated.
We can use this to react to the present situation in the most effective way.
<P>
The second point is that this list must not be made public. Otherwise, it would be quite possible for the producers to simply avoid the checks, because what is monitored is in any case well-known.
<P>
The third point concerns the opportunity given to the Member States to prohibit trade in precursors where there is reason to assume that these precursors are being diverted for the production of drugs.
<P>
The fourth point is quite an important one, because the system would probably not work otherwise; this system involves cooperation between the economic players - that is, the chemicals industry - and the authorities on a voluntary basis, but the Member States must prepare for this possible voluntary cooperation.
That is to say, the economic players, or the chemicals industry, should provide information voluntarily when unusual transactions or orders are received, whilst the authorities are naturally given powers to obtain information, as well as to carry out spot checks on business premises.
<P>
This system of voluntary cooperation is already in operation in some Member States, such as Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Ireland, where it is extremely successful.
In Germany alone there were 6 000 notifications in the last year alone, and these were successfully investigated, in order to prevent the illicit diversion of precursors, and therefore the production of drugs as well.
<P>
The fifth and very important point is that we must build up monitoring systems and integrate the countries of Central and Eastern Europe through the Phare programme when controlling precursors in the fight against drugs.
The proposal provides that workers from the chemicals industry and the employees of the authorities be invited to Europe for training.
This firstly guarantees that the money is not misused, as quite often happens, and also that we train people in the way we want and, at the same time, have contacts in these Member States as well.
This constitutes a monitoring system that makes it practically impossible to shift procurement elsewhere, and enables cooperation to prevent the illicit diversion of precursors.
<P>
With this package, we hope to successfully control the illicit diversion of precursors not only across Europe but, because this has been possible for two years, throughout the world as well, and to get our hands on an instrument that is essential in allowing us to successfully combat drugs, thereby protecting young people.
I urge you to fully endorse and implement this proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendes Bota">
Madam President, if you can brave the unrelenting noise of rave parties and the hordes of young people with apparently endless supplies of energy who attend them, you can detect a sign of the new era of synthetic drugs.
It is now fashionable to go crazy, enter a frenzy, explode, drift into a trance, to show that you are in the blossom of youth.
There are techno and house-music tribes looking for new rituals led by strangely charismatic nocturnal animals known as DJs.
<P>
Their religion is based on the myth that the new electronic forms of music can only be appreciated under the effect of drugs.
Sudden alterations of behaviour in apparently normal people - some of them familiarly normal, professional people - demonstrate the effects of these miraculous capsules of instantaneous performance, the key to voluptuous physical states and mental capacities.
Although we have yet to say a final goodbye to the traditional heroin, cocaine or marijuana, we are facing a new reality that is about to erupt like a volcano.
It has in its hold a planetary audience in the quest for new sensations, new radical experiences and new ways of coming to terms with a paradoxical world of opulence and poverty, culture and illiteracy, masters and slaves, privileged and marginal lifestyles.
<P>
It is on this new danger and the widespread production of synthetic drugs that we are holding a debate today.
It is not enough to control the old trade routes from South America, North Africa or the Far East.
The factories producing Ecstasy and their substitutes are right next to consumers, cropping up like new arts and crafts shops.
Even the Internet offers recipes for producing these super-drugs with potentially lethal effects.
That is why we must control trade in the so-called precursors, or chemical substances used in the illicit manufacture of these types of narcotics.
That is why we must step up voluntary cooperation between the authorities and the chemical and pharmaceutical companies to detect any suspicious acquisitions of substances on the list of products that are possible ingredients for these psychotropic substances.
These lists should not be made public and they should be flexible, since the compounds used are changing so often and it is impossible to list all the latest precursors.
<P>
Ecstasy has now existed for 10 years.
Everyone is aware of the irreversible brain damage it can cause.
In the meantime, the market novelties are called DOB, Golden Eagle, 4MTA, and flatliners, which are 33 times stronger than Ecstasy.
The countries of Central and Eastern Europe should be included in the scope of this joint action so that they do not turn into alternative markets beyond our control.
The European Parliament should take part in assessing voluntary cooperation.
This is a matter endangering the future wellbeing of our society and we should be neither distracted nor tranquillised, and nor should we have hallucinations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Madam President, it is of course very important to monitor drug precursors and trafficking in them where new synthetic drugs are concerned; but only, of course, where necessary, because there are also synthetic drugs which are not dangerous.
However, if they contain adulterating substances these must be identified.
So we must not give too much weight to the problem, only where it is dangerous.
Naturally, young people also need to be properly informed so that they know what they are getting.
I think it would be a good idea to extend the voluntary cooperation we already have in our country and a number of other countries between the authorities and those in the market to other countries in Europe.
We shall be voting for the amendments.
But I do not think it is all that realistic to insist that the list of substances cannot be made public.
I think that is too much to hope for. Lastly, Madam President, I think it is most important to achieve close cooperation with Central and Eastern Europe here.
Otherwise we shall just be shifting the problem from Western to Eastern Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindholm">
Mr President, I should like to offer my congratulations to Mr Pirker on his excellent report.
The battle against drugs and drug abuse must be constant and far-reaching.
To no less a degree, the problem of synthetic drugs is constantly increasing, since their chemical components, the so-called precursors, are quicker and simpler to change and thus evade legislation.
<P>
The Commission's proposal to amend the present directive is not a solution, but it is an important step in combating the manufacture, and hence reducing the availability, of narcotic substances.
The proposal is also in line with the decision taken by the UN General Assembly in New York last summer.
Because of the nature of the problem, a flexible drugs list cannot be made official if it is to work.
Constructive and voluntary cooperation between Member States and the chemical industry is especially welcome.
The experience of countries where such a procedure exists has shown that it works very well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Buffetaut">
Mr President, I must firstly congratulate Mr Pirker on his excellent report. It has become a habit of his to present us with serious texts that are the fruit of meticulous work.
<P>
The issue involved is of key importance for the future of the young people of Europe.
As the rapporteur pointed out, synthetic drugs are used by five million young people and this gives us an idea of the extent of the danger.
The risks are even greater because the chemical composition of these drugs constantly varies and because young people risk becoming guinea pigs and being used for experiments by particularly unscrupulous drug traffickers.
<P>
A recent survey on the use of hashish among students in French schools shows that only 16 % of users are still at school at the age of 18, compared with 75 % of the rest of students, and that 60 % of them do not progress beyond secondary education.
This is what calls into question the dubious distinction between supposedly soft drugs and other drugs, which also applies, of course, to synthetic drugs.
The dangers of these drugs are recognised but they are played down, and even denied, by certain showbiz personalities or politicians in an extremely irresponsible manner.
<P>
I also call on those who support the cause of individual freedom in order to justify the free consumption of drugs to consider that true freedom is responsible and that it begins with freeing us from the influence of alienating substances.
<P>
The principles set out by the Commission and in the report by Mr Pirker do seem to be realistic.
The principle of promoting voluntary cooperation between operators, producers and distributors seems to be a step in the right direction, based as it is on the desire to give a sense of responsibility to all those involved, and all policies aimed at giving us a sense of responsibility are good policies.
<P>
I would like to say, in conclusion, that in this debate we must put the welfare of young people first. They are the main victims of these synthetic drugs and suffer because of a corrupt idea of supposedly recreational or communal pleasures.
This is all due to reasons that I would call - without beating around the bush - base mercenary reasons, which treat the real welfare of young people with disdain. We must therefore appeal to the sense of responsibility of young people, but also to the sense of responsibility of those who, in the name of a false idea of freedom, lead them to play down the fact that the consumption of drugs is alienating and degrading.
This is all about defending the dignity of our young people. For us, as responsible politicians, this fight is an urgent obligation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Mr President, we have followed the work here in Parliament of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs and we have noted that its attitude as expressed in Hedy d'Ancona's report is very liberal.
This is a more serious issue than soft drugs; it is a matter of synthetic drugs and their precursors, which are chemical substances.
Voluntary monitoring is a very soft option.
<P>
I would like to turn your attention, however, to the fact that the rapporteur has recommended cooperation with non-member countries, but only with regard to central and eastern European countries.
Finland's neighbour is Russia.
Russia belongs to the Confederation of Independent States, and cooperation with that country is at least as important as with the central and eastern European states.
A great deal of traffic, some of it in transit, enters the European Union area from Russia.
I would hope that the rapporteur takes this into account next time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Mr President, today we are once again discussing suggestions for improvements in the fight against synthetic drugs.
I have repeatedly pointed out why these drugs are particularly dangerous.
The report's proposals, particularly to make the lists more flexible, constitute one step further along a difficult path.
Probably as a result of the very clear opinions formulated in the expert hearing, the debate in committee revealed a rare consensus of opinion, with which I would also identify.
However, this consensus must not be allowed to give a false sense of security or draw attention away from actual developments.
<P>
I have followed with great concern the new German Government's intention to start experiments to control the sale of hard drugs in Hamburg and Frankfurt, and to decide on a legal framework for the sale of heroin at national level.
We should really have learnt more from pilot projects that came to nothing.
Drugs constitute a dangerous threat to the health of our children, and liberalisation of these drugs increases this further.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Virrankoski">
Mr President, Mr Pirker's report now under discussion touches on a very timely subject, that of drugs.
There has been an explosive growth in their trade, due among other things to the relaxation of border controls.
It is easier than before to smuggle illicit substances across borders.
Presumably only a small proportion of drugs is ever seized.
<P>
The European Union has always championed the free movement of people internationally.
For that reason it has an immense responsibility to prevent any adverse effects which might ensue.
The second pillar of the EU, cooperation in internal and legal affairs, owes its greatest justification perhaps to the fight against drugs.
The traffic and sale of narcotic and psychotropic precursors is also an indication of how important it is to develop a common ID system in the EU.
Apart from reducing the avoidance of customs tariffs and taxes, it would promote better monitoring and control of drug precursors.
For this reason the system should be introduced as soon as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="Cushnahan">
Mr President, the use of synthetic drugs such as ecstasy has spread rapidly, especially among young people.
This is confirmed by the fact that apart from marijuana they are the most consumed drugs in the European Union.
<P>
I welcome the intention of the Commission to extend the scope of the 1992 directive on the control of illicit narcotics to include precursors used in the manufacture of these new drugs.
I recognise that it is not an easy task because chemical precursors have a legal use as well as being a key part of illicit drug production.
Cooperation to tackle this problem is imperative.
The action plan agreed at the General Assembly of the United Nations in June of this year is a step in the right direction.
We in the European Union must build upon this.
<P>
The rapporteur correctly underlines the importance of international cooperation, especially in relation to Central and Eastern Europe where we can exert significant influence.
The manufacture of synthetic drugs is a growth business in Central and Eastern Europe.
We can use the PHARE programme, as he suggests, to build up an appropriate monitoring system.
However, we can take it one step further by making it clear to those countries which hope to become members of the European Union that we expect their full cooperation and commitment to take firm and decisive action.
A failure to do so would effect our attitude to their eventual accession.
<P>
I support this report and the proposals contained therein.
I hope that it makes an important contribution to addressing the drugs problem which shatters so many of the lives of our young citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="Van Miert">
Mr President, on behalf of the Commission, allow me to firstly thank Mr Pirker very sincerely for his excellent report and for what seems to me to be his very convincing support for our proposal for a directive.
<P>
It is thanks to his efforts, and others, that this proposal has rapidly been brought before the European Parliament for a first reading.
The development of synthetic drugs is an extremely serious problem, not only for the European Community but also for the rest of the world.
Current Community legislation on precursors for synthetic drugs only allows us to monitor 22 chemical substances that are classified by UN conventions.
Moreover, the illegal manufacture of these drugs makes increasing use of other products that can be easily substituted and that are not scheduled.
However, it would be counterproductive to extend the strict measures that are currently applied to the 22 scheduled precursors to other possible precursors because of the widespread commercial use of these chemical products.
<P>
Only an appropriate system is feasible.
The aim of the amendment proposed by the Commission is therefore to make the Member States establish a system of cooperation. This system would mean that economic operators would voluntarily notify the competent authorities of transactions that they suspect involve substances that are not currently covered by the directive but that are, nonetheless, used on a large scale in the illegal manufacture of synthetic drugs.
<P>
Although the number of substances involved is very high, only a targeted approach is conceivable.
A 'precursors' committee that already assists the Commission with existing legislation will be given the task of establishing and updating lists of the products to be monitored.
The work of this committee is, of course, confidential.
<P>
Let us now look at the amendments tabled by the European Parliament.
The Commission welcomes, and therefore accepts, Amendments Nos 1 and 3 because it shares Parliament's wish to strive for greater security in terms of monitoring precursors and drugs.
As regards Amendment No 4, the Commission understands Parliament's desire to have a tool for assessing the monitoring measures for drugs precursors.
At the moment, the Commission is already preparing an annual report for the International Narcotics Control Board - which is, as you know, a UN body - on the basis of the information it receives from the Member States.
The Commission therefore has doubts as to the validity of the request for an additional report and as to how this special European Parliament report would differ from that drawn up or to be drawn up for the INCB.
<P>
We must also be aware that the information currently provided by the Member States is unfortunately patchy and does not allow us to assess the effectiveness of the system currently in place within the framework of the existing directive.
The assessment of a system that is not as yet operational will only be even more risky.
Therefore, the Commission cannot undertake to produce such a special report, but it is naturally happy to provide the European Parliament with the annual report for the INCB.
The rapporteur has already been sent this information this year.
<P>
Parliament's desire in Amendment No 5 to ensure that the lists of products to be monitored are not made public is already implicitly included in the Commission's proposal.
In fact, given that these lists are to be drawn up by the precursors committee, whose work is not published, this addition seems unnecessary.
The second part of the amendment relating to the continuous adaptation of Community and national legislation does seem, however, to be very useful.
For the Commission, accepting the amendment authorising the optional introduction of the monitoring measures would be tantamount to negating the substance of the Commission's proposal.
In addition, a system where certain Member States applied the directive and others did not would inevitably lead to a distortion of competition within the single market.
Therefore, the Commission cannot accept this final amendment.
<P>
As for the rest, I must once again congratulate the rapporteur wholeheartedly, along with those who helped him, on the report that he presented to us today in such an extremely convincing manner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
Before we proceed to the vote on the report by Mr Pirker, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to inform you of something I am sure you will be pleased to hear.
On Monday, 16 November, the Bureau adopted a decision to take the technical and budgetary measures to also allow the Friday morning sittings to be filmed.
This is something that many of you had repeatedly called for and I think that the Bureau was right to give a positive response to your request.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
WTO: financial services
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0420/98) by Mr Kittelmann, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning the conclusion on behalf of the European Community, as regards matters within its competence, of the results of the World Trade Organisation negotiations on financial services (COM(98)0440 - C4-0489/98-98/0239(CNS)).
<P>
I give the floor first to Mr Habsburg-Lothringen, who is deputising for Mr Kittelmann.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am deputising for the rapporteur, Mr Kittelmann, who has put a great deal of work into this report in the Committee on External Economic Relations, finally securing unanimous support for it, a point which is very important.
<P>
When we examine the report and look at how the WTO negotiations on this have been delayed, we should really assume that a happy outcome is also worth waiting for, at least in this case, thank goodness!
<P>
Once again it was the United States that was strongly opposed to this area of competence at the start, but then adopted a more flexible position following the 1995 interim agreement.
We have seen that, as soon as Parliament and the Commission exerted enough pressure on the USA, it gave way, and did not play the international policeman, as is otherwise usually the case in many areas of the WTO, but recognised this to be the sensible solution.
<P>
What is this report about?
It is mainly a question of dismantling barriers to trade and also allowing financial services to be offered worldwide without being subject to discrimination.
We have referred to this area of competence in various reports several times in Parliament, and not least this week in Mrs Mann's report on transatlantic relations.
This also concluded that a situation which is better for the economy on the whole, and therefore for jobs too, of course, can only be created by dismantling barriers to trade.
<P>
In the last month, for instance, we have also closely examined Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn's report on the insurance directive, and it came to similar conclusions against discrimination on another Community problem.
I believe that it is very important for us to not only apply this to countries in the European Union, but also to particularly endeavour to raise this at the WTO negotiations.
<P>
The report deals exclusively with how the WTO Agreement is to be implemented from a purely technical point of view.
Perhaps then I could say a few words on the procedure: alongside the general negotiations, specific market access was negotiated for individual services which are recognised in addition to the GATS Agreement.
These are, in particular, the areas of basic telecommunications and financial services.
Even before expiry of this deadline, it emerged that the USA viewed as inadequate the offers submitted by the approximately 30 WTO members - with the 15 Member States of the European Union counting as one -, stating that it was not prepared to extend its offer in accordance with the most-favoured nation status to all WTO members.
The USA practically baulked and jibbed at it.
The negotiations on the agreement were then successfully concluded on 12 December 1997.
70 member countries submitted improved lists of offers concerning market access and national treatment.
<P>
The whole agreement in its present form is a considerable improvement on the 1995 interim agreement.
In addition to the inclusion of the USA, many WTO members are involved in the agreement, and its scope is considerable.
It guarantees substantially free market access and national treatment for foreign financial institutions in more than 95 % of all worldwide trade in financial services.
Equity trading covered by liberalisation alone represents an enormous market.
The basis of the agreement is the 1996 data, which show that equity trading alone covers USD 14.8 trillion, and total banking assets amount to USD 41.2 trillion.
<P>
At the same time, the agreement also ensures that EU financial institutions can operate on similarly favourable conditions in third country markets, as is possible for third countries on the territory of the European Union.
The procedure proposed by the Commission, involving consultation of the European Parliament under Article 228(3), first subparagraph, of the EC Treaty, is certainly something Parliament can accept.
I do not want to add much more here, because the reasoning behind these decisions is contained in the explanatory statements.
<P>
I would like to explain one more point.
I consider it to be particularly important that Parliament is successfully tackling this today so that we simply keep to our timetable.
It must be concluded promptly so that the date of 1 March 1999 set for its entry into force can be adhered to.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Iversen">
Mr President, the world economy has changed fundamentally over the last decade.
Market forces have become increasingly liberated from the political decision-making process.
The agreement on financial services that we are discussing today is, in our view, basically a sound agreement.
It is important that the other agreements concluded between the EU and the WTO do not work to the detriment of European consumers.
That would jeopardise the public's understanding of these agreements.
And I think it is important to emphasise precisely that point - public understanding.
Moreover, this agreement comes at a good time.
The financial crises which have recently been affecting the Asian countries have made it even more important to send out a signal that economic stability is crucial to our ability to create fresh growth throughout the world.
It is therefore particularly welcome that a large number of countries have subscribed to this agreement.
<P>
It cannot be stressed often enough that international cooperation is essential.
There are many examples of challenges which are best resolved by the international community: green taxes and duties, eco-labelling, trade instruments with an environmental aim, facilitating market access for the developing countries, protecting intellectual property rights and the fight against technical barriers to trade.
Our responsibility as politicians is to ensure that there is no giving way on the rights of individual consumers.
We must therefore work together to see that the democratic control over the WTO is as strict as that applied to the EU.
That is our task for the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, I think that today we have seen how without the EU we should have not reached this binding agreement.
We should also remember the work of the cross-border 'financial leaders group' in bringing it about.
It is a tactic that we need to consider for future WTO negotiations.
It could be the case that economic interests facilitated cooperation, while political prestige did not play so large a part.
<P>
Like Mr Iversen, I think this is important for achieving stability.
The market is in a strange mood at present, partly on account of closed domestic markets and partly because of the large flows of capital that move around the world and lead to speculation.
Achieving stability and transparency is an important means of putting an end to speculation, for example by creating a climate that stimulates domestic saving in South-East Asia.
The agreement also comes at an important moment for Europe, for instance enabling us to invest in Japan's pensions market, and in view of all the infrastructure investment that is being made in many different fields.
<P>
It is also clear that this agreement has significant implications for developing countries that have achieved a certain level of development, enabling them to increase their savings.
Nevertheless, there are some problems.
I think it would also be extremely worthwhile to tie in the money-laundering issue and ensure that the BIS international rules are rigorously enforced.
The problem with Japan was that we did not know what the rules were and how they were being applied.
That is also one of the aims of increased competition. Now we will have a way of knowing which rules are applicable.
I also hope that we make real progress on a new negotiating mandate when Finland takes over the presidency next autumn.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, imagine you are asked for your opinion as Members of Parliament, and it is an important matter.
To put it more precisely, it involves nothing less than the GATS, the General Agreement on Trade in Services under the umbrella of the WTO, the World Trade Organisation, and therefore once again, the financial services.
Imagine then that your role is purely to applaud.
I am certain you would not be satisfied with this.
However, this is precisely the case today.
This is a turnkey agreement which guarantees free market access and national treatment in more than 95 % of worldwide trade in financial services.
<P>
Significant progress has therefore been made once again through the unhindered and uncontrolled activity of banks and other financial institutions, and indeed, in exactly 102 countries throughout the world.
Not only that, but shares can also be rotated even more quickly.
As Mr Kittelmann so beautifully puts it in his report, and I quote: 'The volume of equity trading covered by liberalisation commitments alone represented USD 14.8 trillion in 1996.
Total banking assets in the countries that are parties to the agreement amounted to USD 41.2 trillion in 1995.'
Entire countries are therefore being driven into ruin because uncontrolled financial flows cause the national budget to collapse.
<P>
We are therefore calling for urgent reforms in the international financial system.
And we are talking about wanting to incorporate safety nets, set up early-warning systems, take accompanying measures, or even promote development policy.
At the same time, we are supposed to applaud because the Commission has once again made a successful attempt at liberalisation, without asking our opinion.
There is an urgent need for reform here.
In the European Union we need Parliament to exert an influence in issuing mandates and following approval procedures in all agreements of global economic importance.
The WTO must also be reformed.
Its sole commitment to liberalisation at all costs is a mistake.
The financial crises of recent months speak volumes about this.
For this reason we do not endorse the report that was submitted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Van Miert">
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Kittelmann for his excellent report and also for the very convincing presentation by Mr Habsburg-Lothringen.
<P>
The successful conclusion of GATT negotiations on financial services on 12 December last year was indeed a major achievement which reinforced the World Trade Organisation as a framework for multilateral service negotiations.
Today we can see the benefits of having this sort of environment where things can be settled and be discussed instead of having to cope with unilateral action.
<P>
By including financial services on a permanent, most favoured nation and non-discriminatory basis between WTO countries, which is the basis here, and by securing effective market access to some 96 % of the WTO financial markets, the EC's main negotiating objective has been achieved.
<P>
Ratification and subsequent entry into force of the agreement is now the EU's main priority.
We are taking all the steps necessary to ensure that the agreement is ratified promptly both by the EEC and by its Member States so that it can enter into force by the agreed date of 1 March next year.
We also expect other countries who participated in the negotiations to complete their internal procedures before the deadline of 29 January next year.
<P>
Financial service liberalisation will remain an essential element in the development of efficient financial services world-wide which is the prerequisite for sound economic development.
We are therefore confident that the economic crisis affecting certain countries will not result either now or in the future, impede future negotiations starting in the year 2000, nor will it lead to moves towards more protectionism.
<P>
I was listening very carefully to what some of the Members of Parliament said.
We should make a distinction between having free markets designed to function well and efficiently and rules which need to be there and need to be enforced.
Part of the problem in Asia and elsewhere lies in the fact that there are no adequate rules.
If there are rules they are not properly enforced.
There is a lack of rules even in states like Japan and hitherto the international institutions have not been given sufficient powers to ensure that rules, if they exist, are enforced efficiently.
That is a major challenge but that should not lead to the conclusion that we should not continue to liberalise financial services.
That is a different story.
I would readily accept the need, as some of you said, for more efficient rules world-wide or on a national basis and authorities - sufficiently independent authorities - to impose the rules of the game.
That is the price that has to be paid for having a stable system and taking full advantage of liberalisation which has been discussed and has been agreed to.
<P>
Thanks to all Members of Parliament for their contributions and I would like to wind up by saying that I take it for granted that all Member States and the European Union will ratify the text in due course.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I would just like to have your attention again briefly.
I would like to ask Mr HabsburgLothringen to convey our congratulations to Mr Kittelmann on the quality of his report.
And, as I am mentioning the name Habsburg, I would like to remind you all that this Friday, Mr Otto von Habsburg, quite unusually, is not here with us.
We know that he is unable to attend due to illness but we also know that he is now on the road to recovery.
However, today is a very special day for Mr Otto von Habsburg because it is his birthday.
Today, he celebrates 86 wonderful and fruitful years.
Therefore, on behalf of everyone, allow me to send him our congratulations and our best wishes for a speedy recovery because we do indeed need him here with us on Fridays.
<P>
Mr Van Miert, you have the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="Van Miert">
Mr President, I would like to say on behalf of the Commission that I agree with what you said.
I am sure that my colleagues fully appreciate the true value of your words and, on their behalf, I would also like to echo them.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Book pricing in Germany and Austria
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions to the Commission:
<P>
B4-0704/98 by Mrs Hawlicek, Mrs Junker and Mr Tannert, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the complaint procedure against the cross-border net price system for books between Germany and Austria; -B4-0706/98 by Mr Ebner, Mrs Günther, Mrs Pack and Mr Habsburg-Lothringen, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the complaint by the Commission against the cross-border fixed price agreement for books between Austria and Germany; -B4-0707/98 by Mr Frischenschlager, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, on the complaint concerning the cross-border fixing of the prices of books between Austria and Germany; -B4-0708/98 by Mrs Pailler, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on retail price controls on books; -B4-0709/98 by Mr Kerr, Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer, Mr Voggenhuber, Mr Cohn-Bendit, Mr Lagendijk and Mr Wolf, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the infringement procedure involving the cross-border net price system for books between Germany and Austria.I have received three motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 40(5).
<P>
I give the floor first to Mr Elchlepp, who has four minutes to move his question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Elchlepp">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at a first glance, the system of fixed book prices in the Germanspeaking area of Europe may appear antiquated. However, if you consider the far-reaching consequences it would have if it were discontinued, then you should be far more sensitive towards this pressing matter of cultural policy.
I would on principle have expected the Commission, as an advocate of cultural diversity and also a promoter of jobs in Europe, to take into account all the objectives of the European Treaties in its examination of the book pricing system from the point of view of competition law.
<P>
Freedom of competition is neither an absolute asset nor an objective in itself.
In my opinion the preservation of cultural diversity, laid down in Article 128(4), is in this case a more valuable asset.
Did the Commission think when carrying out its competition law analysis that in labour-intensive small businesses in the book trade possibly up to 200 000 jobs and also thousands of training places could be lost by abolishing fixed prices?
Finally, many scientific studies fear that the number of bookshops would drop from 4 000 to just 800 in the event of this regulation being abolished.
Commissioner, in the village where I live in the Black Forest, it would certainly no longer be possible to run a bookshop.
<P>
The number of publishing houses could also decrease sharply because greater proceeds from best-sellers sold at fixed prices reduce the commercial risk of promoting cultural goods.
The example of the USA should serve as a warning to us; prices for reference books and for fiction and poetry are higher there than in Germany, and the book trade there is limited to a small number of traders who belong to chains of shops, which themselves depend on the big publishing houses.
<P>
Books should therefore not be subject to the laws of uncontrolled competition!
Surely the main aim cannot be to sell culture more cheaply but to protect its diversity.
The consumers want good advice and a wide range of titles, and this is guaranteed by fixed book prices.
In my country alone, 75 000 new books are published every year compared with only 55 000 in the much larger US market.
The readers also want rapid availability of books, and our system guarantees this.
<P>
I should just like to say, Commissioner, in order to make myself quite clear, that I am not against EU competition law or the completion of the internal market in Europe.
However, it is precisely because of this that we need to maintain the price-fixing system for books.
Fixed prices allow a wide range of suppliers and titles and protect against competition.
They guarantee cultural and literary diversity on a market economy basis, and without subsidies.
I repeat: the issues are also the cultural identity of linguistic areas and cultural diversity in Europe.
<P>
Furthermore, there remains considerable doubt as to whether the Commission should refer to a report when how it came about raises more questions than it has given answers.
The Commission must also state why it did not want to be monitored by a Permanent Advisory Committee on Books, as it actually wanted to ten years ago.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Mr President, Commissioner, if a few chains of shops and unfortunately also the European Commission have their way, the book pricing system is to be abolished.
At present, publishing houses in Austria and in some other countries of the Union have the possibility of selling their products at a fixed minimum price.
This is said to contradict the spirit of the European Treaties because it can lead to cartel-like structures.
This argument is probably right from a purely economic point of view.
In spite of lower prices, so-called best-sellers make a significant turnover for the publishing houses because of the large number of copies published.
Even at a lower price hardly any specialist books would be sold.
Certainly, a book is not a commodity like other household goods and appliances.
Books are part of a country's culture.
<P>
Workers' educational associations, municipal libraries, school libraries, book clubs, and so on, have been trying since the last century to motivate people to educate themselves more by reading quality literature.
Many books would not be published if publishing houses could not make a profit with best-sellers, which subsidise the publishers' other products.
The diversity in literature is a sign of intellectual independence.
Just as every residential area needs its local supply of everyday things, the bookshop is part of the local supply of intellectual commodities. It is the intellectual 'grocer's shop', as we would say in Austria, or in Germany, the 'corner shop' for the mind.
I apologise to the translators for using these peculiar expressions.
<P>
Unlike the big stationer's shops, the bookshop also provides services, such as specialist advice or ordering books that are not really among the top sellers.
However, it could not survive without fixed prices, since it cannot buy at such good prices as the big chains of shops, and can therefore only sell at higher prices.
Apart from this, the book pricing system does not involve any obligations.
There are books that come onto the market with no fixed price.
In many cases, a considerably cheaper paperback edition is already available after one year; there are the special-offer book weeks and the second-hand trade in modern books. There are therefore many opportunities for making fixed prices drop very quickly in reality.
<P>
If I hold up a book, such as this book here, then what I have in my hand is, of course, first and foremost a commodity.
However, as soon as I leaf through the book and start reading its contents, then I am no longer using just any household good or appliance, but I am using reading as a means to find out about culture.
This particular one is a book about telecommunications which belongs to my colleague, Mr Rübig, and it is quite heavy going.
I am reading it due to circumstances, but also for enjoyment, to broaden my mind, sometimes it makes me angry as well, of course, but I am reading it to acquire knowledge at any rate.
<P>
As long as we regard a book only as a commodity, it is completely justified to curb or abolish fixed prices, no matter whether nationally or internationally.
This would certainly be a very restricted way of looking at things and would not do justice to the true value of books.
The packaging, which represents the true character of a book, is not particularly crucial, but the contents are, and these clearly belong in the field of culture and science.
We do not necessarily, or rather we do not always, buy books because of a pretty picture on the cover, but first and foremost because we would like to read the print.
<P>
The diversity of the book market shows that the culture of a country, and of a linguistic area, has developed.
However, in order to have this diversity we also need to have a variety of publishing houses and bookshops.
Not every book becomes a best-seller.
There are books that are aimed only at a specialist audience or a special interest group.
Money cannot be made from a small number of copies.
It must be made from those works which also sell well.
These best-sellers subsidise from within the system the diversity necessary in cultural policy.
<P>
If an entrepreneur today manages to sell a square soup dish by means of a very good marketing strategy, and then all manufacturers of round soup dishes have to close down, this will have no effect on culinary diversity.
However, every publishing house that has to close down means a loss of books, books that are then no longer printed because other publishing houses follow different agendas.
Every bookshop that has to close down because it cannot keep up with the cheap goods supplied by a big stationer's shop, is a loss for the region's local supply of intellectual commodities.
<P>
Commissioner, you will understand that we are asking you - and I know we are certain of the support of virtually the whole of Parliament - to really take Parliament's observations on this into consideration so that this cultural dimension of our continent is really taken into account.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Larive">
Mr President, it sometimes seems that only one thing counts in Europe - our economy.
If the euro is a success, integration will soon follow.
Yet there are so many other things in Europe which make Europe unique to our citizens.
The article on culture in the Treaty, Article 128, also stresses that Europe is about more than just the economy.
The debate on book pricing drags on.
So far the European Commission has very one-sidedly applied the economic criterion in determining its position.
The Commission is currently very much attacking book pricing between Germany and Austria and pricing within the Netherlands itself.
It is alleged to contravene the Treaty rules on competition.
For years now, I and many other honourable Members too have been arguing in written questions, articles, letters and resolutions that a review of book pricing should be based in a balanced way on a range of both economic and cultural arguments.
The advantages of this have been broadly summarised by the two speakers before me.
But think too of the minority language regions, where the range of titles available in bookshops is also very important and has to be large, in order to guarantee cultural diversity through specialist books being available, and not just the best-sellers which sell easily.
Think of the lip-service paid, as well as the actual practice of stimulating small and medium-sized enterprises.
Once we scrap book pricing, as another Member has already said, the small booksellers will disappear.
Just look at the United Kingdom.
In short, book pricing promotes cultural development in Europe without the need for subsidies.
That is an argument which the Commissioner will have to address.
We do not want mergers and concentration, which damages cultural diversity.
As for disadvantages, studies have shown that the existence or otherwise of book pricing has no economic impact on the book market.
So if it has these cultural advantages, why scrap it?
Happily, and we are pleased about this, the Commission decided to wait before pronouncing definitively on the Austro-German and Dutch cases until the results of this study were forthcoming.
I have made a point of asking the Commission in written questions to do that.
Perhaps, ladies and gentlemen, we have now reached a turning point.
I say perhaps, because no final decisions have been taken yet.
<P>
Commissioners Van Miert and Oreja have indicated in a letter to the culture ministers, following a study, that for demonstrable cultural reasons it might be possible to retain book pricing, including for cross-border agreements in the same linguistic region.
The Commission will not interfere with national arrangements of the kind we have in the Netherlands if it can be shown that there is no discernible effect on trade between the Member States.
We wholeheartedly welcome this development.
I hope Commissioner Van Miert will continue with this line in the decisions he takes at the beginning of next year.
<P>
My group too favours an advisory committee on the book trade.
A standing consultative body made up of interested parties from all sectors to advise the Commission will be a useful thing.
I very much hope that the Commission will listen to the tenor of the joint resolution tabled by five of our groups including, of course, the European Liberals.
It is not the first time.
We are clear on this and always have been.
Book pricing, including pricing across borders within the same linguistic region, must be possible under a derogation to Article 85(3) of the Treaty, in the interests of our citizens.
<P>
The interpreters will not need to translate my closing sentence. Why do we only support agriculture and don't want to do anything for culture?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner van Miert, I know, of course, that the market's invisible hand which controls and resolves everything finds no more faithful a group of followers than the Commission.
In a manner of speaking, it is the Vatican of free competition, and I know, of course, that you are the Grand Inquisitor of this free market economy.
I also know, of course, that this inquisitor scrutinises the European market every day in order to find heretics of all kinds, trends towards the formation of cartels, and distortions of sacred competition, and as soon as his scrutinising eyes fall on anything confusing, or on anyone wishing to obstruct this invisible market force, the process of the Holy Inquisition is initiated.
<P>
Commissioner, I would sometimes like matters pertaining to environmental protection, social affairs or civil rights to be scrutinised in this way.
Unfortunately, the Commission does not regard itself as the Grand Inquisitor of this Union for these matters.
Its eyes have therefore now fallen on a small matter under the heading of books. The Commission has now discovered for certain that underhand dealings are going on in this area.
You have this in common with the Vatican's history.
You are now placing this book on the index of free competition because people do not know how to handle it properly.
They do not sell it like drawing pins or computers but have a complex, inscrutable, and even precariously erotic relationship with it.
<P>
Commissioner, when Beckett received the Nobel prize for 'Waiting for Godot', all 300 copies of this book were sold in the German-speaking area of Europe.
I understand that you believe that it is not worth the expense and that it would probably have been better not to publish these 300 copies, since there is obviously no demand for them.
You are right to say that a book has something in common with a good, and that is supply, but it is not subject to demand.
A book's search for its readers is involved and mysterious.
Sometimes it lasts decades, and I think that it lacks culture to reduce this complex search simply to the way the market works, and what lacks culture quickly becomes barbaric.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Van Miert">
Forgive me if I speak in the language of my own culture.
It is indeed an advantage to be able to speak several languages.
It sits well with the European ideal too, there is a cultural dimension to knowing more than just one language.
It is indeed a matter of culture.
I say that for the benefit of those who think one only needs to speak one language to be cultured.
I am of course flattered that you compare me with the pope.
Unfortunately, there is another candidate.
I gather that Oskar Lafontaine wants to be pope too.
I would not wish to measure myself against him, to fight him for the job.
Let us leave it at that.
I just wanted to say exactly what the issues are here.
<P>
Firstly, the attitude which the Commission and I have adopted is absolutely the same as the one the Commission adopted previously and which was also confirmed by a judgment of the Court.
The primary function of the Commission is indeed to ensure that the judgment of the Court is respected in such cases.
It is somewhat facile to ask us under the cloak of culture not to respect the law.
The first point, then, is that it is our duty to ensure that the pronouncements of the Court, as made on several occasions, are respected.
The second point is that I would remind you that my benevolent eye did not just happen to light upon the subject of books one day; we took action because we were receiving complaints, more specifically from Austria: complaints from Libero, complaints from a number of universities which were having real problems over the rapidly rising cost of the books they had to buy.
So the complaints were coming from academic circles too, as well as from other bookshops.
If complaints are made, the Commission has to investigate them.
That too is part of our job and our remit.
What kind of system of justice would that be if I were able to say: I'll push that to one side, we won't deal with that.
So what do you want?
Let us be honest, we live in a legally constituted state, in a community based on the rule of law.
<P>
Secondly, there is not one case - and I have been responsible for competition policy for six years now - where we have taken so much time and shown so much willingness to talk to the parties concerned.
I have even done something which was perhaps not right in legal terms.
I once wrote a letter of comfort to allow us a period of time - enough time, a few years - to discuss the matter and find solutions which were legally watertight.
And what thanks did the Commission get for this goodwill gesture?
Firstly, a number of conditions attached to it were not respected by publishers and, secondly, over a period of two or three years, I think it was three years, instead of seeking a solution all people did was exert political pressure and lobby people left, right and centre.
They lobbied people, because the Commission was supposedly ignoring the situation and ignoring the judgments of the Court of Justice.
Well, I will not accept that.
Let us be quite clear about it.
What we do want, and we have always said so, is to see account taken of the cultural dimension but also the true facts, not as they are constantly projected but as they are, the reality.
Well, what the Court of Justice said at the time was this, and I am quoting Advocate-General Lenz:
<P>
'The same is true as regards the references made to the fact that, when the decision was being adopted, the Commission should have taken account of the cultural aspects of this issue.
The obligation to take these aspects into consideration was already provided for by the case-law of the Court in accordance with the Treaty on European Union.
This obligation is henceforth expressly included in the EC Treaty.
However, given that this comes under paragraph 75 of its decision, the Commission has in no way disregarded these cultural aspects.'
<P>
(NL) That is what the Court says.
Let us just look at the facts.
To start with: we are told that if the system is not preserved, the publishing of quality books and literature will suffer greatly as a result.
That surprises me, because there are plenty of countries in the world which do not have book price fixing - the United States, the United Kingdom too now and a number of European countries as well.
In others, the system is in the process of being dismantled.
Is there no great literary production in those countries, may I ask?
I would remind you that 40 to 45 % of the literary works published in Germany are translations, mostly from the English-speaking world.
Those are facts.
And then I would ask why, if the system is so good, there is no obligation on publishers to do that?
There is no obligation of any kind.
There is one publisher who never ever publishes books to do with literature or quality subjects, and he too benefits from book price fixing..
There is no obligation of any kind.
We should start by placing an obligation on publishers who benefit from price fixing to publish quality works.
There is no such obligation at the moment.
<P>
We are also told that only book price fixing allows there to be enough variety in titles.
I am sorry, but the facts do not bear that out.
With or without price fixing, happily, more and more titles are being published.
The reason is technology.
Nowadays it is easier to produce books and in smaller editions than before.
Whether you have book price fixing everywhere or not, that is the trend.
You do not need book price fixing for that.
That too is a general trend.
Once again, I have to live with the facts, because before we can grant a derogation, we must have arguments and facts which warrant a challenge to the judgments of the Court, if there are new facts which enable us to prove that.
Otherwise it cannot be done.
<P>
Then too we are told that, without book price fixing, a lot of smaller bookshops will go under.
Ladies and gentlemen, look at the facts in all countries.
Even where there is book price fixing, the small bookshops are in decline, everywhere, in the Netherlands too, in France too, everywhere.
That is the trend.
To my surprise, I even found - rather to my surprise I have to say - that a recent report by Francis Fishwick on the situation in the United Kingdom reaches the following conclusion. For what it is worth I will read it out, rather than have you take it on trust, just so we understand one another.
What this very recent report says is this: 'The main gain from abandonment of retail price maintenance in the UK has been an improvement in distribution, particularly through smaller booksellers who are now able to replenish stocks and fulfil special orders in a very short time through an expanded and revitalised wholesale system.'
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, the small booksellers have been tied hand and foot.
Why, if a book really is selling badly, can they not offer it at a cut price?
Why not?
Why do they have to stockpile it?
Why not give them that freedom?
In the case of small booksellers, why not allow them bigger discounts rather than the bigger shop?
It is all very well starting to introduce a policy which favours the small bookseller.
But it is not happening.
<P>
May I point out that in countries which have book price fixing, such as France, 25 % of books sold are currently sold in department stores.
In Spain, which also has price fixing, cheaper books - and the market share of these is increasing - are sold at newsagents' kiosks.
Because the longer it goes on, the more this strict system leads to practices which in any case look for a way round the problem.
You spoke of company mergers.
Well, in the Netherlands the Commission blocked a large-scale merger.
True or not?
The big merger which was in the balance between the big companies, you all know them - Elsevier, Wolters, Kluwer - well, it was the Commission's ruling which stopped it from going through.
We shall probably have to turn our attention shortly to the new move by Bertelsmann and Springer.
This process of mergers, in book price fixing too, is happening anyway.
Only the Commission is in a position to stop it.
Pope or Vatican, that is the reality.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, have you thought about what will happen soon with the Internet?
I hear Bertelsmann, a firm which benefits from book price fixing in Germany, saying that it wants to be number one in the world in selling books on the Internet.
I have no objection to that.
But can we at least have the honesty to give some thought to the consequences of what is developing?
You regularly approve resolutions aimed at promoting that.
Here we are trying to do something against it, but companies in the countries themselves are hard at work trying to penetrate and conquer that market.
Can we for once face up to the reality of what is happening?
<P>
I am keen to have that debate.
I have advocated it for years and it has not come about.
People have fixed ideas.
They defend sacred cows.
They shy away from a debate based on facts.
I remain willing, not least in the light of the Treaty article on culture - and I have repeatedly said so - to look for solutions which can also work across borders, because there is no question of interfering with national systems.
The Commission accepted that long ago.
That is not what it is about.
It is about cross-border effects or practices which, as in the Dutch case, were totally unacceptable.
That is an altogether protectionist system favouring Dutch companies.
How do you expect the Commission to sympathise with that, as if it were not a question of economic interest.
That is the reality.
If you want to have that debate, I am at your disposal, just as I have been available to the publishers to discuss it for five years already.
But all we get is political pressure because the Commission is supposedly ignoring both the judgments of the Court and the facts.
I am sorry, but I will not accept that!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Wogau">
Mr President, Commissioner van Miert, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Voggenhuber has just called Commissioner van Miert the Grand Inquisitor of competition.
This is naturally a very nice image for Karel van Miert.
I believe that it does not quite do justice to the reality, because I believe what Karel van Miert does is a service for the people in the European Union.
What purpose does competition actually serve?
Competition serves to break the power of monopolies, to ensure a variety of suppliers of goods and services, and thus to provide people with these goods and services under favourable conditions, and books are also amongst these.
In this respect, I agree with Karel van Miert.
<P>
I therefore would not call him the Grand Inquisitor, but a type of arbitrator who has our approval particularly when he fights against monopolies in the service of the people, against there only being one supplier for certain goods and services because this renders us powerless against that supplier as citizens and consumers.
As chairman of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, I should therefore also like particularly to express my appreciation to Karel van Miert for his work.
We discuss these issues a great deal in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
Occasionally, we agree, and occasionally we disagree.
That is part of democracy.
<P>
I should like to take this opportunity to say that my opinion differs to that of Karel van Miert with regard to fixed book prices.
Personally, I am in favour of fixed book prices.
It has involved a great deal of discussion.
We have repeatedly asked ourselves whether we should treat cultural objects in the same way as goods and services.
This was a very difficult question to answer in the case of television, for example.
Television is regarded as a cultural object.
This is the prevailing opinion, although when I switch on the television I occasionally have my doubts about whether it can be called a cultural object.
However, there is no doubt that books are cultural objects, and that they are an inherent part of our European culture.
I would say that this applies not only to books but also to small bookshops.
<P>
I must also declare a personal interest in this.
The only shops in which I like to spend considerable time are small bookshops. I also consider them to be a completely essential part of our culture.
I believe these small bookshops depend very strongly on this issue of fixed book prices. I believe that fixed prices do indeed offer these small bookshops a certain degree of protection.
I therefore believe that we should maintain the book pricing system.
As chairman of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, I would be very pleased if Karel van Miert would consider this issue carefully once again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
I hope that you and the Commissioner, after yesterday evening with all the political excitement of amendments and voting, ended the day with a nice glass of French, German, Spanish, Portuguese or Italian wine, a little bit of agriculture.
I do not suppose that afterwards, legs outstretched, you seriously thought of sitting at your computer and surfing the Internet.
Maybe you picked up a book, a piece of literary beauty which you only find in quality publications.
If you did not, I will bring that beauty to mind in the form of a quotation, and I would ask the interpreters to follow me faithfully.
Mr President, tears of nostalgia for my grandfather clouded my eyes.
I rose from the big empty chair and began to wander through the rooms of my house.
It was the big villa I had bought after I had grown up, had buried grandfather and his comrades in the orchard, become rich and left the village.
The one sentence 'but you and Baruch still have each other' kept surfacing in my mind and refused to sink down to the floor of my memory.
I heard the murmur of the waves, ran outside and lay down on the freshly mown meadow, my face turned to the sea.
<P>
That is a translation from the Russian novel by Meir Shalev.
There has been much talk in the transatlantic partnership this week about the need to safeguard our culture.
In other debates, on employment for example, lip-service is paid to protecting small businesses because of their importance for jobs.
Well, it seems to me, and following everything you have said, that abandoning book price fixing sounds the death knell for the small bookseller, for quality books and for jobs.
Large retail chains are taking over the sector by means of price wars.
In the Netherlands, there is no question of book price fixing of the kind we are discussing here.
But people are worried.
We already have a liberalised market.
Chains such as Bertelsmann and Smith are already in Amsterdam and Alkmaar.
Mr President, Commissioner, we cannot let our children grow up with nothing but cartoon strips, television series, e-mail, Internet, ready-cooked rice and potatoes, without knowing the enriching pleasure of a good book.
I worry about this.
I do not regard you as the grand inquisitor, Commissioner.
I see you more as a judge, as Mr von Wogau said.
You say we must make use of liberalisation, but let us not allow it to go too far.
As the honourable Member on the other side of the House puts it: liberalisation is not an end in itself.
<P>
You have said a great deal about the situation in the Netherlands.
Since an investigation is still continuing into book price fixing in the Netherlands, I should like to know what more the Commission intends?
Are you going to raise the issue of book price fixing in the Netherlands again?
What is the position?
You are someone from my own linguistic region, and I hope you will give me a prompt answer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, the argument of multilingualism was the only good argument I heard the Commissioner offer.
For the rest, he did not succeed in convincing me.
I am in favour of book price fixing, because I believe that books are primarily a cultural commodity, a cultural product and, in most cases, a vehicle for culture.
There are also some less serious things in the book trade.
<P>
Belgium has never had book price fixing, even though it would have been very much in Flanders' interest, given that it is part of a small linguistic region.
The whole Flemish government which has responsibility for culture was in favour of it.
Just come and see what the results are.
A catastrophic under-provision of services in Flanders as regards specialist booksellers - not just small ones - specialist bookshops and publishers, is the outcome.
Because you will not find the poems of Nolens at a news-stand.
<P>
We are moving towards a situation where books are bought at department stores and specialist bookshops are disappearing.
With them goes the chance to bring specialist publications to the man in the street.
The production of less commercial and specialist publications is therefore coming under pressure.
In French-speaking Belgium, the main interest was after all quite different, and the finance minister is French-speaking.
This is part of a large linguistic region where there was a market for cheap books exported from Belgium to France, because France does have book price fixing.
The same thing happened from Flanders, by the way.
Books were imported into the Netherlands, but these were actually phoney imports because Dutch publishers came to Belgium to do their printing and distorted the market.
Culturally speaking, it is in our interest to have book price fixing.
The fact that Belgium does not have it has simply facilitated distortions of competition on the part of the Dutch and French book market.
We hope the Commission will abandon its efforts to attack book price fixing schemes, but rather see them as a way of integrating homogeneous linguistic regions and creating a European cultural area in which the wealth of European culture can find expression in all its diversity and quality.
<P>
We hope too that the Council will address the subject, encouraged by a presidency which is now making culture a priority.
The market needs to be put right not only in its social aspects, Mr Van Miert, but in its cultural aspects too.
Book price fixing is an absolute must for linguistic regions like the Dutch-speaking region which are homogeneous, span borders and constitute a market for the sale of books in the language in question.
<P>
We shall thus be voting for this resolution, even though it merely repeats what is so often called for by the culture ministers and is also a little bit detached from what is going on in the real decision-making bodies because, Mr President, we are talking here about a resolution whilst the Council meeting of 17 November specifically had book price fixing on its agenda.
But I hope that Parliament will not remain a voice crying in the wilderness.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hager">
Mr President, the arguments have been on the debating table for a long time.
The issue of whether a report on the issue of fixed book prices has been drawn up yet has almost become a bon mot in legal circles in Vienna.
Many renowned legal firms have given their expert opinions on this issue, approximately half of which were in favour of it and half against, depending on the client's point of view.
<P>
This alone probably allows us to draw conclusions as to the complexity of the subject matter.
If we therefore assume that the arguments are more or less equally good on both sides, the problem is reduced to judging the book either as a commercial good or a cultural object.
<P>
I do not consider myself in any way to be a champion of the book trade, but a champion of books.
In the battle of competition versus culture I have simply decided in favour of culture on the basis of Article 128(4).
This is because I would like to continue to be given informed advice in the bookshop and not to pick from stacks of books like a fast-food service.
I should like to continue to find quality books in the bookshops and not only paperback best-sellers.
<P>
Commissioner, you did not manage to convince me that fixed book prices or their abolition would not change anything.
However, perhaps I read the wrong half of the reports.
<P>
If we accept that the development of the Union into an integrated economic power requires cultural diversity and cultural differences, we can only oppose the abolition of fixed book prices, which I would consider to be a declaration of the cultural failure of the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="Van Miert">
Mr President, over the last five years I have sadly found on many occasions that it seems hard to have a sensible discussion.
Whether or not I read a book before I go to bed, Mrs van Bladel, is not your business.
It is my own affair.
I have my library, and in fact I enjoy reading.
But I also find, when I go to a bookshop, any bookshop, that the range of quality books on offer is usually limited, even in Europe.
You are making it sound here as if all books are quality books.
What kind of misrepresentation is that?
Let us just take a closer look at what exactly the issues are.
Am I to understand from the many speeches which have been made here that where there is no book price fixing there is no culture, no quality range of books on offer?
Just travel the world a little, and you will see that the reality is quite different.
You will see that with or without book price fixing, mergers are occurring everywhere, that the small booksellers have their backs to the wall, and I wanted to say something more on that.
I am sorry, Mr von Wogau, but it is indeed one of life's pleasures to have time to walk around, browse through a few books, buy something and then read them, either on the way to Strasbourg in the car - I am lucky enough to have a chauffeur so I can read in the car and do not have to leave it until bedtime.
It is a pleasure, it is an indulgence, it enriches you culturally.
But you can do that just as well in a country which has no book price fixing.
Are you saying it cannot be done in Sweden or Finland, in the United Kingdom or the United States?
Let us talk seriously now.
So yes, what about these proposals in favour of the small bookseller?
Apart from the fact that it is high time, Mrs Maes, to desist from these practices which so distort competition and are spilling over from the Netherlands to other countries too.
Because the Netherlands had a powerful machinery of protectionism.
It was not just book price fixing, it was a kind of inbreeding.
Because you had to belong to the club or you did not get a look in.
However good your books were, if you did not accept the club rules, so to speak, you were nowhere and you could not sell your quality books.
That was how it worked.
Happily, this has now been recognised and it is beginning to change.
Why?
Because the Commission is indeed studying the matter.
That is why, that is the reality.
A start has been made on changing things, on clearing out a few things, that is the reality.
<P>
I am more than happy to explain to anyone why that was necessary and why the Dutch, the organisations concerned, also shifted ground in the end.
They were not concerned with books, they were not concerned with culture, they were concerned with their economic interest.
That is a fact.
That is how the system was.
And now, as far as the small bookseller is concerned, I have been urging the book fairs for years to do something for the small bookseller, to give him more flexibility, to let him tailor his services more to his clients and, if it suits him, to sell his books at slightly lower prices.
Have you ever checked with public opinion how hard it is for a lot of people to pay those high prices?
Can we just think a bit about the circumstances of those buying? Or whether they would like to buy books?
Can we bear that in mind?
Is that perhaps what was meant by the references to the Vatican?
Can we at least think of the people who have to buy the books?
That too is a dimension which has to be borne in mind and which, Mrs Maes, is all too often overlooked when you talk to culture ministers.
Thought is given to publishers, thought is given to authors, but too little thought is given to those who have to read the books.
That is my experience.
<P>
Once again, I would invite you to draft a resolution which seeks to strengthen the position of the small bookseller in a meaningful way.
Give him more flexibility instead of placing obligations on him.
Give him greater discounts than you give to the bigger bookseller.
May I ask you to do that?
If you are serious about helping small booksellers, do something instead of coming here complaining and attacking the Commission.
I suggest you do that, Mr von Wogau, and I shall be happy to accept your invitation to discuss it further but meanwhile, Mrs Maes, we have lawsuits pending, the Commission is threatened with being taken before the Court for not taking action, for not fulfilling our responsibilities.
That threat is hanging over us.
I do not care, as long as I have the feeling that we can reach a solution.
But for five years now, I have been asking for proposals so that things can perhaps be resolved to the benefit of small booksellers, and I am still waiting.
The only thing I feel is constant political pressure to close my eyes to the law and ignore obvious realities.
As I have already said, I will not do that!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Elchlepp">
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to ask one further question. Are you prepared to think about this again and also to talk with those affected about whether abolishing fixed book prices could, as is claimed, negatively affect small bookshops' costings, the result being not more competition but the emergence of monopoly-type situations brought about by distribution chains, as has already happened in other areas of the retail trade?
Could you please also take into account once again that if this occurred a large number of local bookshops would disappear, the advice offered could deteriorate, and a large number of training places, which are urgently needed, and part-time jobs - particularly in my country - would also disappear.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Elchlepp.
Ladies and gentlemen, others have expressed a wish to speak but we are not going to reopen the debate.
The debate is already closed.
In any event, Mr Elchlepp was given the floor as an exception as author of the question, but we are not going to open the debate again.
<P>
With that speech by Mr Elchlepp, the debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
I would inform the House that motions for resolutions B4-0984/98 and B4-0986/98 have been withdrawn.
I would also point out that Mrs Maes has added her signature, on behalf of the Green Group, to motion for a resolution B4-0991/98, which I now put to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schulz">
Mr President, since I had no other opportunity, I must use the explanation of vote to express my opinion.
I did not participate in this debate because I am personally affected, and a low profile should then be kept as a rule.
I owned a retail bookshop in Germany for 12 years before I was elected to Parliament, so the topic which you have been discussing with such commitment affects me personally.
I must say that you have a different perception of reality than I do.
For future reference, the main mistake you are making is as follows: small bookshops are of course protected by fixed prices because it is quite clear that this competition arises the moment the current principle of exclusion of price competition - whereby a small shop's prices may not be undercut by a large shop - ceases to apply, when fixed prices decrease.
No small business has then a chance of competing against Bertelsmann.
That is the case!
<P>
Now you ask - and in principle you are right - why we should not give the small bookshop the chance of higher discounts so that it has flexibility in costing.
Do you not know who has to guarantee the discounts for the small bookshop?
Bertelsmann!
It is also the big publishing houses which guarantee these discounts.
<P>
Do you believe they are suddenly giving bookshops greater discounts only because you are abolishing fixed prices?
The result will be that fixed prices will decrease, and the lack of discounts will continue, and in the end, 5 0-6 000 bookshops in Germany will cross the great divide.
Why?
So that in the end - and I am firmly convinced of this - the niche culture will also be preserved.
There will continue to be expensive folios and books, but do you know what form they will take?
They will be exclusive and more expensive than they are today!
When all is said and done, you are not thinking of the consumers, whom you have in mind; rather, you are running the business of the big companies, even though you do not really want to.
Perhaps you think about this once again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Schulz.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, before closing the parliamentary part-session, as is customary and, what is more, a pleasure, allow me to say a few words of thanks to all of Parliament's services.
And, as on previous occasions, I would particularly like to thank those who do not have a direct relationship with us, including the interpreters.
We can actually see them, despite the fact that they are inside 'goldfish bowls', and beyond the coldness of those warm goldfish bowls, we do have a direct relationship with them. I would also like to thank the ushers who kindly meet our every need and the Presidency's services who improve our work and always ensure that we make fewer mistakes than we would otherwise make.
<P>
There are, however, others with whom we do not have such direct contact. I am referring here to the translation services, who translate 4 000 pages a day, and also the anonymous collaborators who, on a daily basis, struggle to make sense of our speeches in the Rainbow .
To all of these people, especially the latter, we offer our sincere thanks.
<P>
And, ladies and gentlemen, as Spanish folklore says: 'A white year is a good year'.
It has snowed this week and I am a great believer in folklore.
I am sure that this snowfall will bring us good fortune, perhaps not all year - since it has only snowed a little - but maybe at least for this weekend, which I hope will be a pleasant one for you all.
<P>
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 11.42 a.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 20 November 1998.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
I should like to welcome a group of members of the United States Congress, led by Mr Jim Kolbe, who are now with us in the official gallery.
<P>
We are very glad to receive these visitors to Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Mr Valdivielso de Cué has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valdivielso de Cué">
Mr President, I should like to mention something we are forever requesting at Plenary sessions: that Members should refrain from using mobile phones, as this disrupts proceedings in the House.
<P>
I urge the President to take appropriate action to ensure that proceedings in the House and in committees are not disrupted in this way. We are here to deal with the issues entrusted to us by our constituents, and we need the right environment in which to do so.
<P>
Indeed, we are fortunate in receiving certain allowances enabling us to engage assistants. Should something really urgent arise, an assistant can pass us a note and we can then deal with the matter.
<P>
I am most anxious for a permanent solution to be found to prevent further disruption.
Thank you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Valdivielso.
We shall ask the College of Quaestors to take the necessary steps to overcome this problem.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Agenda
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
The order of business for today and tomorrow has been adopted.
However, the following changes have been proposed:
<P>
Wednesday: The report by Mr Tillich and Lord Tomlinson on draft supplementary and amending budget No 1/98 concerning Section III - Commission, which it was decided during the last part-session to include on today's agenda, will not be taken because the Council has not adopted the draft budget.
This item will therefore be placed on the agenda for the December part-session in Strasbourg.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, I should like to make a suggestion on behalf of my group concerning the first item on the agenda for today's sitting.
Mr Santer is to make a concrete proposal here as part of Question Time regarding a new anti-fraud instrument for the European Union.
The problem is that the Committee on Budgetary Control asked the European Commission some time ago to produce concrete proposals and put them to the Committee on Budgetary Control on 1 December.
That has not happened.
Meanwhile, the Commission is indeed doing so here today, but during Question Time when we cannot have a proper substantive debate.
Consequently our group is proposing that, after Mr Santer's statement, each group should first be given three minutes in which it can at least express an opinion on the substance.
I can tell you, Mr President, that the Committee on Budgetary Control was unanimously of the view that it was particularly unfortunate not to be able to address so fundamental a subject in a proper debate.
I would therefore ask you to put my proposal to the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="Theato">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I welcome this proposal.
We have just received the document which forms the basis for the new Fraud Office, and I have to say that we are extremely surprised to receive it now, having had very intensive meetings yesterday and the day before.
<P>
I do not want to be difficult about the timing, but given that it has already been printed up in all the languages, I would have thought that it should have been submitted to the Committee on Budgetary Control as the committee responsible the day before yesterday, or at the latest yesterday, so that we could have discussed it.
This is important for the 1996 discharge, and I have to say that I am very disappointed that this procedure has been adopted, given that the documents are all ready and complete.
We should have had a proper debate!
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
- According to my information, Mrs Theato, the document in question was only adopted by the Commission this morning.
When we receive it through the official channels, we shall follow the normal procedure. The document will be passed to the Committee on Budgetary Control, and at the appropriate time, the House will take a decision on that committee's report.
What we cannot do is depart from normal procedure and replace the committee's report, any amendments and the ensuing debate with an improvised debate held here and now, in which each of the political groups would be allowed three minutes.
I cannot do that, it is against the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
In any case, the President of the Commission is asking for the floor and I must give it to him as he has been referred to.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="Santer">
Mr President, I am rather surprised at what I am hearing.
Since my appointment in 1995, the Commission has repeatedly been asked to inform Parliament first about the decisions we take on Wednesday mornings.
This is exactly what we are doing today, with Parliament therefore being the first to be informed of the discussion.
Would you rather I had sent it for printing this morning, so that Parliament would not have received it until tomorrow or the day after?
In this case, the Commission really is informing Parliament first and I believe that we must also abide by the institutional and parliamentary rules which exist in our Member States.
<P>
Thursday:
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
I would remind the House that the entire morning will be given over to voting, with the following items being added:
<P>
pursuant to Rule 66(7), a recommendation in the form of a letter concerning the marketing of fertilisers containing cadmium in Austria, Finland and Sweden (Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy); -pursuant to Rule 99, the report (A4-0434/98) by Mrs Schierhuber on inland waterway transport (Committee on Transport and Tourism); -pursuant to Rule 99, the report (A4-0440/98) by Mr Langen on extending the temporary derogation applicable to Germany and Austria (Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy); -the report (A4-0400/98) by Mr Ferri on supplementary pensions, the vote on which was postponed during the November partsession (Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights); -the motions for resolutions on various budget headings concerning human rights and democracy in Chapter B7-70, the debate on which took place on 17 November.If there are no comments, these changes are approved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
Pursuant to Rule 97, the Council has requested the application of urgent procedure for the draft Council Regulation laying down the requirements for the implementation of development cooperation operations which contribute to the general objective of developing and consolidating democracy and the rule of law and to that of respecting human rights and fundamental freedoms (9581/98 - C4-0507/98-97/0191(SYN)).
<P>
The Committee on Development and Cooperation has adopted a report on this subject by Mr Torres Couto which is due to be included on the agenda for the next part-session.
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Rocard to express the opinion of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, as the committee responsible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Rocard">
Mr President, the Committee on Development and Cooperation is rather embarrassed about this request.
I must stress to you and to all our colleagues that the Torres Couto report is important. Having discussed this in detail and amended many points, we are proud to propose this report to Parliament.
We also believe that its adoption is urgent in terms of the policy guidelines of the European Union.
<P>
When we learnt that the Austrian Presidency particularly wanted to have done with this issue and to adopt the decision before the end of its presidency, we applauded this desire and indicated our support. We hoped that the parliamentary deadlines would allow this to happen, thus leading me to support this request now.
Furthermore, in its extraordinary sitting yesterday - and I must thank you for prompting this, Mr President - the Commission voted on this unanimously.
<P>
However, it appears that there is very little time available in today's sitting and that the rapporteur is not completely ready, which would prevent an urgent debate from proceeding under the optimum conditions. Therefore, in my role as committee chairman, I am forced to say to the members of our committee who yesterday voted for the urgent procedure that they should feel free to follow their consciences in terms of the contradiction between the problem of ensuring a proper and comprehensive debate, which we cannot have, and the concern for parliamentary effectiveness which might prompt us to vote almost without discussion.
I can only say that the members of the committee should have a free vote, and as for the rest of Parliament, I shall trust in your wisdom.
<P>
We understand the Austrian Presidency's desire to use the urgent procedure in order to conclude this issue, but this would involve a discussion this evening and a vote tomorrow.
As the conditions are not entirely suitable, I am trusting in Parliament's wisdom.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
Does anyone wish to speak against?
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Galeote Quecedo.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Galeote Quecedo">
Mr President, I feel Mr Rocard has put forward the main argument against the request for urgent procedure very clearly: Mr Torres Couto, the rapporteur, is not present at this sitting because there were no plans to vote on his report during this sitting.
If only out of deference to the rapporteur, therefore, I feel we cannot accelerate the procedure to that stage.
<P>
As a supporting argument, I should like to mention a fundamental issue.
Through Commissioner van den Broek, and at the eleventh hour, the European Commission has raised a problem concerning the financing of the Bureaux d'Assistance Technique , such as the European Foundation for Human Rights. This cannot be resolved through an addition to the existing remarks in the 1999 budget.
On the contrary, a specific amendment is required.
A satisfactory solution must be found to such a serious issue, and we need adequate time to debate it. I therefore feel it would be inappropriate to vote in haste tomorrow on such an important resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
Pursuant to Rule 99(2), I have received an objection from 31 Members to the Porto report being dealt with under the procedure without debate.
In accordance with Rule 99, this report will therefore be placed on the draft agenda of a subsequent part-session with debate.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
The Commission of Tomorrow
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="President">
The next item is the communication by the Commission on 'Tomorrow's Commission'.
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Santer, President of the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Santer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have come here today to talk about two issues which have been the subject of much discussion recently and which are of the greatest concern to this House, as we have heard from the preliminary discussions.
These are the future of UCLAF and the discharge procedure for 1996.
As there are direct links between these two issues and the way in which the Commission operates, I must take this opportunity to mention the extensive internal reforms which I started and which I will conclude in 1999.
The starting point for our discussion must be to acknowledge that Europe is doing well, that good progress is being made on the major issues and that an extremely high level of integration has been achieved.
Europe's very successes present a challenge and require changes to be made in our operating methods and working practices.
The unification of Europe must involve a constant process of construction and consolidation.
The institutions are both the heart of this process and the means of achieving it.
All the more reason then for us to ensure an atmosphere of confidence between the institutions and to manage our relations with each other in a responsible manner.
The atmosphere surrounding the discussion of certain issues worries me.
I myself want to help re-establish an atmosphere of calm which is conducive to achieving our common goal of a Europe looking resolutely to the future.
<P>
The debate on the Bösch report last October was an opportunity to ask certain questions about the future of fraud prevention in the Union.
Major progress has been made in this area since 1995.
UCLAF's powers have been increased and in 1997 it was given the status of a task force.
In July this year we adopted a comprehensive framework for its activities which will shortly be followed by detailed rules of application.
<P>
Thanks to UCLAF's efficient work a number of cases involving Commission officials have come to light.
Despite this, Parliament has repeatedly questioned the autonomy and independence of our investigators.
I must reaffirm, with some force, that they have always had complete freedom.
<P>
Nevertheless, a clear separation between inspectors and those they inspect is healthy.
To remove any doubts, we must not stop half-way, and the discussion about externalising the service must be taken to its logical end.
We have therefore come to the conclusion that creating a completely independent Anti-Fraud Office which is not in any way subordinate to the Commission or to any other institution is the most effective and most defensible way of achieving the goal set out in the Bösch report. We are in total agreement on this.
<P>
However, two important points must be clarified.
Firstly, the future Office will have the sole task of carrying out investigations both in the Member States and within all the Community institutions and bodies.
It will not be involved in proposing legislation or in coordinating with the Member States the fight against fraud affecting the financial interests of the Union. These tasks, as stipulated in the Treaty, will continue to be performed by the Commission.
<P>
Next, I must stress that, until the new structure comes into operation, the current UCLAF will continue its work to track down those guilty of fraud, within the framework laid down by the Commission last July.
<P>
Our proposal, which was approved yesterday evening, is now before Parliament and the Council.
In addition to detailing the aims and administrative structure of the Office, it sets out the basic principles for the conduct of investigations, the rules governing relations with the institutions and the controls for ensuring that the Office's activities are legal.
Everyone must now assume their responsibilities as I have done.
It is now the turn of Parliament and the Council to play their part.
If the political will exists, the decision could be adopted within six months.
I was encouraged by the very positive reception given to my statement on this issue by the Heads of State and Government at Pörtschach.
I am also sure that this House, which has made the fight against fraud affecting the EU's interests one of its main objectives, will make every effort to ensure that this crucial issue moves forward.
<P>
Fraud prevention is one of the aspects raised in the debate on the discharge, and we will have an opportunity to discuss it during the December part-session.
However, I must say a few words about it now as it has already become a matter of public debate.
<P>
In its resolution adopted on 31 March this year, Parliament made the discharge for the 1996 budget conditional on a whole range of conditions, some connected with that particular year and others of a more general nature.
<P>
The Commission gave clear and constructive answers to all your questions and a detailed note is available.
I see no reason why this should not be circulated to all the MEPs, in fact I would welcome this.
<P>
There are still two or three controversial points on which I cannot accept Parliament's requests.
You know that we have prosecuted whenever UCLAF has suspected fraud.
I have never compromised on this principle and I never will.
As far as the MED programme is concerned, I simply cannot agree to hand over the whole file to the judicial authorities, because UCLAF has not established a presumption of fraud.
To do so would be an abdication of our responsibilities and would hardly be compatible with the rule of law as I understand it.
<P>
As for Parliament's right of access to the information needed to exercise its power of scrutiny, clearly this is an inviolable democratic principle which I fully support.
I am in favour of as much openness as possible but this must be compatible with the law and the proper handling of cases.
I have made considerable efforts to maintain this principle, including having had documents sent to Parliament which would not, in my long experience, have been sent to national parliaments.
<P>
However, we must distinguish between the situation in which Parliament's general right to information must prevail in the interest of effective scrutiny and the situation in which individual cases need to be handled confidentially.
<P>
With regard to Parliament's general right to information, I can confirm the Commission's desire to cooperate fully with Parliament to ensure that the latter can exercise its powers of political and budgetary scrutiny.
However, in relation to cases subject to legal or disciplinary proceedings, I would remind you of a universally recognised legal principle: the confidentiality of preparatory inquiries.
Nothing must be done to jeopardise these inquiries.
The same applies to cases subject to confidentiality rules involving trade secrets and respect for privacy. In such cases the Commission has a particular responsibility which it cannot ignore.
<P>
This is why the names were blanked out in the UCLAF report on ECHO which you were sent.
I admit that the form of this document invited criticism, which is why I had it redrafted to make it easier to read.
The Commission has most certainly not tried to hide anything.
I would also remind you that the chairman of the Committee on Budgetary Control and the rapporteurs were able to consult the full document in situ .
<P>
Over the years, relations between Parliament and the Commission regarding access to information have always been based on mutual trust.
The problems of recent months must not make us lose sight of the fundamentals.
The time has come to put these events into perspective and to find ways of rebuilding that trust.
<P>
It was in this spirit that I suggested to Mr Gil Robles that a code of conduct should be drawn up in order to clarify the situation and to meet the respective needs of the two institutions.
<P>
The discussions on the 1996 discharge have been going on for months.
ECOFIN set out its position on 9 March, in the context of the provisions of Article 206 of the Treaty, which provide for a recommendation from the Council.
The Council gave a favourable recommendation and the time has now come to settle the matter.
I personally feel that all the objective criteria for giving discharge have been met.
<P>
There is a direct link between the issues which I have just raised and the initiative entitled 'The Commission of Tomorrow' which will be one of my main priorities for 1999.
The component parts of this initiative actually date back to 1995 and the beginning of my term of office.
I am thinking in particular here of improvements in financial management and the checks on the use of public funding in the context of SEM 2000 - the System of Sound and Efficient Financial Management.
In this respect we have, for example, established a clear distinction between decision-makers and financial managers.
This is something of a first in our organisation.
We have also created a joint structure for external assistance.
<P>
I must also mention the MAP 2000 programme - the Modernisation of Administration and Personnel - which was launched in 1997 and which is increasing the autonomy which the Directors-General have over the structure of their departments, appointments and management.
This represents real progress towards giving Commission staff more responsibility.
<P>
However, it is only really since the beginning of this year that we have developed a more comprehensive, more coherent and higher profile approach, involving all staff more directly.
'The Commission of Tomorrow' initiative has a simple aim which is to eliminate the weaknesses and develop the strengths of our institution in order to leave everything in order for our successors.
<P>
We are looking at three areas: firstly, the future role and tasks of the Commission; secondly, the structures and operating methods of the Commission, and thirdly, internal management.
<P>
On the first point, I believe that we must try to answer some basic questions which, albeit with some differences here and there, apply to all the institutions and Member States.
How can we cope with the high degree of integration which the Union has achieved?
How can we manage the new fields of action such as employment, health and justice and home affairs?
How do we establish our priorities in an enlarged Union?
How can the concepts of subsidiarity and proportionality be developed in an intelligent manner?
<P>
It is in this context that the Commission's structures are being examined.
In order to prepare the ground, I have launched a major screening exercise which will provide a clear and comprehensive view of the current situation.
In the first half of 1999 I will draw up an overall plan for the structure of the portfolios and the organisation of the departments.
I have actually come to the conclusion that this type of reform should have been undertaken a long time ago.
The structures must be adapted to cope with the dramatic growth in the number of tasks.
<P>
This leads me to the third point on the future of the Commission: internal management, in the broad sense of the term.
In the last few years a great deal has been accomplished.
Thanks to the current reforms in financial management, the Commission will gradually be able to eliminate practices from the past linked to the massive increase in the tasks to be performed and the appropriations to be managed.
In this context, I must draw your attention to an important point.
The Commission cannot be constantly asked to take on new tasks without considering the human resources which it has to carry out these tasks.
In truth, the Commission itself has too often overlooked this aspect in the past.
We are therefore all responsible to some extent.
I would hope that we can consider together how best to resolve the problems resulting from the gap between the objectives and the means to achieve them.
I consider that the approach adopted recently in terms of legal bases and mini-budgets is positive.
There is a golden rule which we must use to guide us: absolute openness and clear rules.
<P>
Management reform clearly involves more than just financial matters.
Together with our staff and their representatives we are currently discussing ways of improving recruitment, training, assessment, internal communication, disciplinary measures and many other questions.
A joint working party composed of representatives of staff and administration has produced a very interesting report which has just been circulated within the Commission and which has been the subject of extensive consultation. The other institutions are also currently being contacted about this.
I expect to be able to draw the necessary conclusions from this process in the first half of 1999, which will include amending the Staff Regulations where necessary.
<P>
This is a brief outline of the reforms which I am preparing with my colleagues, several of whom were keen to accompany me here today.
After the reform of the Treaty, the introduction of the euro, the employment strategy and Agenda 2000, I hope to tackle this other major challenge successfully.
I am doing this because action needs to be taken, because I believe in the central role of the Commission and because I am confident in the future of the European civil service.
I have accepted my responsibilities as President.
I have initiated reforms.
I believe that we are on course and I intend to stay there.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fabra Vallés">
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, you began by saying you hoped for a Europe which looked to the future.
Now, I would like to ask you: when do you want it by?
When will we be allowed to study the information you provide for us with the help of an interpreter and in the presence of a member of Parliament's administration?
When will it cease to be necessary for Parliament to apply pressure to obtain a response from the Commission?
When will UCLAF be able to work free from pressure by the Commission?
<P>
Mr President of the Commission, you were complaining of too much pressure from Parliament.
I can but point out to you that institutions without checks and balances are condemned to self-destruction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="Santer">
In political terms, the easy answer to Mr Fabra Vallés' question is that we are already looking to the future.
In less than thirty days the euro will be introduced. This will allow Europe to assert itself with regard to the outside world and to take its place on the world stage.
We also decided yesterday in ECOFIN on the external representation of the euro.
This is our Europe of the future, one which can establish its predominance at international level.
<P>
You asked about information.
I refuse to believe that UCLAF has been put under any pressure by the Commission and this is confirmed by my discussions with the director of UCLAF.
This is why I am now saying that if this is the case, then we should set up what the Commission is proposing: an anti-fraud office which is not only truly independent of all the institutions but which also has the power to act in respect of all the institutions.
This will ensure a truly neutral authority in the eyes of Parliament, the Commission and the other institutions.
<P>
This is why, after long and careful consideration and with the assistance of Parliament, I can say - given that I took part in the debate on the Bösch report at the beginning of October - that we have truly started on the road to the future in terms of information.
This is precisely the aim of our proposal for a new UCLAF.
Its name is not at issue here; what is important is the body itself, its independence and neutrality and also the reciprocal neutrality of the bodies consulted.
<P>
This is the way in which we are looking forward, so please do not say that Europe is not looking to the future.
I know what I am talking about and I can say that Europe is now in a much better position than when I was appointed as President of the Commission in January 1995.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Mr President of the Commission, if information policy is so important, then why does your proposal - which we will naturally be examining very carefully - not say anything about how the European Parliament is to be kept informed by the new office that is to be set up?
This is something that struck me immediately.
How can we hope to bring about improvements with the new office if Parliament is to be even less well informed?
<P>
My second point is this: the central provisions of your proposal are contained in Article 3 on the office's right of inspection.
But there is a very strange contradiction here.
Article 3(1) on external controls says that the office can itself apply to the Commission to carry out an inspection anywhere in a Member State.
But Article 3(2) is much more interesting ...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Santer">
I am well aware that the honourable Member has not been able to examine the substance of the proposal, which is why she has questions.
And we are here to answer them, since they raise a number of fair points which we have also considered.
You must not think that we have overlooked them.
This is why I am happy to answer your questions.
<P>
Firstly, the European Parliament, like all the other institutions, is a full member of the Administrative Board and if you read the other provisions in the proposal - which you must have done because you are quoting them - the final paragraph of Article 9 states that the Administrative Board, including Parliament, draws up an annual report and sends this to the institutions.
Clearly, this new office, its director and its various departments will be available to Parliament and all the other institutions which are also required to carry out checks and investigations.
<P>
In answer to your second question, the new office will be responsible solely for carrying out investigations.
The Commission remains politically responsible for referring cases to the Anti-Fraud Office and for monitoring investigations.
This is indicated in the provisions.
I would therefore agree that you will have to examine the various carefully constructed proposals in detail in cooperation with our legal services in order to get an idea of the general organisation of this body.
<P>
You can be sure that we wanted to respond to the objective set out in the Bösch report of a fraud prevention body with real independence and autonomy.
This was your objective and we have looked for the ways and means to achieve it.
I cannot therefore see any difference in attitude between Parliament and the Commission.
On the contrary, I believe that by improving fraud prevention this office can guide us in the future in order to ensure greater openness and to eliminate criticisms like those which have been made recently. I continue to refute that the Commission has exerted or is exerting any pressure on UCLAF.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="Malone">
Mr President, we must say to Mr Santer that it is encouraging to see that he is proposing certain reforms.
Of course, that is important but it is also very important to have the will of the majority.
In view of yesterday's decision in Ecofin where now a majority of nine Member States are in favour of, or abstaining on, the question of an extension of duty-free, will the Commission now bow to the pressure of that majority and agree to carry out its long-awaited study into the effects on employment of abolition.
This is especially relevant in view of the remarks of the French Finance Minister with regard to the impact of abolition on employment and the stated intention of the incoming German presidency who said that they will push for a lengthy delay.
Maybe the Commission will tell us how they will get out of the dilemma now that they are clearly out of touch with people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Santer">
I could talk at length about this problem.
It is just as well that duty free is not yet under investigation by UCLAF and so I will answer the question.
<P>
It is a bit like the Loch Ness monster which keeps coming up.
You should remember that duty free was abolished by a unanimous decision of the finance ministers in 1991,
<P>
which must be implemented in 1999.
An eight-year period was provided precisely for the purpose of carrying out various studies and adopting legislation.
This was the reason for the arrangements made and length of the deadlines set at the time by the twelve finance ministers.
I have a clear memory of this discussion which I followed closely because this decision was taken during our presidency of the Council.
I must stress that the decision was unanimous.
<P>
Now that I am on the other side of the fence, as President of the Commission I must stress that the Commission is the guardian of the Treaty and it must implement the decisions unanimously adopted by the Council of Ministers.
If there were now unanimous agreement on another avenue I would be the last person to stand in the way, but the Council is not unanimous on any other proposal.
It was a unanimous decision which transposed the directive in 1991 and you approved it.
So we must be consistent ourselves, and with regard to the provisions governing our institutions, so that we can remain credible.
We must implement the decisions which have been taken.
Where would we be if, every time a decision was taken or a directive adopted, the Commission started wondering how to sidestep it or how to scrutinise its application?
I believe that we have a constitutional and institutional role to play which we must fulfil.
The Commission cannot do anything else in this respect.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Tillich">
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, you had two thousand permanent posts still unfilled at the beginning of 1998, so it was not because of the lack of posts that you were not able to keep checks.
Secondly, a Member of the Commission has told me that the UCLAF used Stasi methods, on the lines of East Germany's former security service.
I think that firstly he is not in a position to judge and, secondly, he should not make such statements.
In my view, this proposed OLAF regulation is simply designed to punish UCLAF for the work it has done up to now, which your services have failed to follow up.
This is why I believe you must think we are stupid, because suggesting that OLAF should carry out checks only when instructed to do so by the Commission is tantamount to shelving any controls, at least in your own institution, which you would have us believe is so transparent.
Just how do you intend to ensure that the Commission really is transparent?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Santer">
I can tell you quite honestly that I have never in my life - and I have been in politics a long time, I became a member of my government in 1972 - thought that any Member of Parliament was stupid.
That is something I would like to make very clear.
I very much respect Parliament, and as the President of the Commission I very much respect this House, and that is why I absolutely refuse to let anyone say or imply such things about me.
<P>
Mr President, I spoke in German so that there was no need to translate.
I must say that I myself have never criticised the operation of UCLAF.
On the contrary, it was when I became President of the Commission in January 1995 that UCLAF was launched, and thanks to the cooperation with Parliament we have constantly improved its operation.
In 1997 we decided to establish a task force to assist UCLAF in its duties.
I have never accused UCLAF of using Stasi-like methods.
<P>
Anyone making such claims must show me the proof.
I have great respect for the difficult work carried out by the Commission officials and I must say that, if certain investigations have been discussed within Parliament and also in the press, then this is because, thanks to UCLAF, certain incidents of fraud have been detected, dating back to before the present Commission.
It is therefore due to the activities of our own departments that we are now in this situation which certain MEPs are criticising.
There is a saying in my local dialect which I will say in German because you speak German and will therefore understand it better: 'Gutheit ist ein Stück von Dummheit'. In other words, we are sometimes too efficient for our own good.
<P>
This is perhaps what has happened with us.
We have to some extent become victims of our own initiatives.
This is why you must read our proposals, whose broad outlines the Council has approved and whose direction the Heads of State and Government have deemed reasonable, with a clear and independent mind and without accusing us of crimes based on assumptions rather than facts.
So please reserve making a judgment, which must be calm and unprejudiced, until you have studied the Commission's communication in detail.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Kjer Hansen">
Mr President, there is not a great deal of agreement between the proposal which the Commission is now presenting and the call made by Parliament with a very large majority for UCLAF to be strengthened.
What surprises me so much, Mr Santer, is how you can talk about an independent office.
How can the new UCLAF be independent when it will still be the Commission that decides what investigations are to be carried out?
How can there be any talk of an independent office when it will still be the Commission that decides how the investigations are followed up?
The fact is that we are not talking about independence at all, but about the Commission still completely controlling what happens in terms of inquiries.
Is it not more a question of people wanting to shed responsibility and trying to run away from the responsibilities which they have in connection with precisely the kind of things we have been dealing with here recently?
So, Mr Santer, it is extremely disappointing that you have not been willing to engage in a debate with us on the proposal which has now been put forward.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Santer">
Mr President, Parliament will clearly have plenty of time to discuss this point in depth, and when you do, you will see that UCLAF really is an autonomous body with its own legal status.
It will be entrusted with the task of carrying out investigations as part of the fight against fraud against the Community budget, both in the Member States and within the Community institutions or independent bodies.
This is how it is defined.
The Commission is not alone in being able to ask UCLAF to carry out an investigation, although it is the main institution involved in the investigations.
Furthermore, the bulk of UCLAF's current investigations are being carried out in the Member States as this is its main job.
This is why we thought it necessary also to include the Council in UCLAF.
All the institutions have the right to ask UCLAF to carry out an investigation and the future UCLAF may initiate investigations on its own initiative.
<P>
I believe that you must read the document and you will then understand that what you have just said is simply not true, and I am not saying this lightly.
You must look at the document, which was written by lawyers and which covers all the points which you are calling into question.
The Commission did not want to be the only institution with the right to order investigations by UCLAF, so all the institutions are entitled to do this, just as all the institutions are in general represented on the Administrative Board.
This is the best possible proof of the neutrality and autonomy of this body in which Parliament has a say like all the other institutions.
I believe that this is the best way of guaranteeing the effectiveness of the new office.
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<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bösch">
Mr Santer, the Bösch report to which you have referred is not the one I wrote, because what you have made of it has nothing to do with the Bösch report adopted by Parliament.
I would like to tell you something about what has happened and why this suggestion has been made.
Commissioner Gradin promised us in July that Parliament would be involved in a comprehensive reform of UCLAF.
Parliament's President reminded you of this in writing at the end of November, I think.
But nothing has happened.
Now you have presented us with a proposal and told us to read what you have put in it.
Is this how you intend to restore confidence between our institutions, Mr Santer?
<P>
There is another point I would like to make about the substance of the proposal.
The Bösch report to which you referred called for UCLAF to be strengthened.
You are now destroying all the work the Commission has done up to now to combat fraud.
Is this how you mean to restore the public's confidence in the Commission's anti-fraud policy?
Those were the two questions I wanted to put to you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Santer">
I can answer these questions very easily.
The clear objective of your report - ensuring the independence of UCLAF - is one to which I subscribe, as I have said on many occasions, even back in October during the debate.
However, the independence of UCLAF will never be guaranteed if it remains a department of the Commission, managed by Parliament.
This is not viable and cannot be considered either legally or institutionally.
This is why we went beyond your proposals while maintaining the same objective.
Consider this: our proposal undoubtedly goes beyond your own report, but it remains in an interinstitutional framework, which I believe is important.
The purpose of UCLAF is not to conduct internal investigations just within the Commission.
It is currently involved in over 900 investigations in the Member States where the majority of the investigations are needed.
Within the Commission there are only 27 ongoing investigations.
So you can see that the majority of the investigations involve the Member States.
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The Council and all the other institutions must therefore be integrated into the new body and I cannot see any connection between your question and our proposal which encompasses and exceeds your objective by placing it in an interinstitutional framework, thus increasing the confidence of citizens in the supervisory bodies.
This will be the future for UCLAF as a European anti-fraud office and an independent body with its own legal status, assisted by top experts who will be independent and who will offer all the guarantees of independence.
I really believe that in this way UCLAF and its independence will be strengthened.
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<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Mr President, Mr Santer, a year ago Parliament approved an amendment to the budget on a minor matter of the appointment of a deputy director for an agency answerable to the Commission.
Neither Commissioner Papoutsis, who was responsible for the body in question, nor Commissioner Liikanen, as head of personnel, have been able to persuade the director, who has refused to apply the vote of this House.
Such a case does not require an UCLAF investigation but simply proves that some of your commissioners are not able to make their officials obey them, and that these officials do not give two hoots about votes in this House.
This is why our group does not currently feel able to give discharge as we feel that the fraud detected simply points to an all-powerful technocracy, cut off from reality and which, to some extent, does exactly as it pleases.
<P>
My question is: if we refuse to give discharge, are you ready to ask the commissioner for the portfolio where real embezzlement has been discovered - namely ECHO - to resign?
In other words, are you ready to sanction incompetence, because, in this specific case, I trust in the personal honesty of the commissioner in question.
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<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Santer">
I regret that I cannot answer the question about the appointment of a deputy director.
There must be reasons for what happened.
I will check on this and let you know the reasons for our appointments.
However, you must realise that directors are not appointed by votes in this House, given that the separation of powers exists.
It is the Commission which decides on appointments made within its departments, and we do not ask the European Parliament whom it has appointed as its directors.
There are some interinstitutional rules which must be respected.
<P>
With regard to the refusal to give discharge to the Commission, I would say that the discharge procedure is taking place as stipulated in the provisions of Article 206 of the Treaty.
This article says that Parliament gives discharge to the Commission on the Council's recommendation.
I said just now that the Council has recommended that Parliament should give discharge.
Therefore, ECOFIN, which knows what it is talking about, has already made a recommendation to Parliament.
It must not be forgotten that the Council is a branch of the budget authority
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As for the resignation of certain commissioners, the constitutional and institutional provisions of the Treaty are clear and I am satisfied with these.
The Commission is the guardian of the Treaty and I will abide by its provisions, nothing more and nothing less.
This is my duty and my right and I will not move on this point.
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<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="Elles">
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Santer">
Mr President, I still believe that we have provided Parliament with reports which would not have been given to national parliaments.
This is absolutely clear.
So, Mr Elles, I maintain my position, and I have been in politics long enough to know what it should be.
We are also required to respect the confidentiality of preparatory inquiries and the right to privacy of individuals and officials under investigation.
This applies in all countries.
I would be amazed if in the United Kingdom, which is also a guardian of human rights, these rights were not respected.
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(Mixed reactions) Yes!
I continue to believe this and I insist on saying it.
You can file a motion of censure against me if you like, but I will say it.
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Secondly, with regard to the Staff Regulations for officials, we cannot take decisions on these unilaterally.
Decisions must be taken in consultation with staff representatives and trade unions.
We set up a joint committee chaired by the former Secretary-General, Mr Williamson, who submitted his proposal some weeks ago.
I regret that this is rather late but we only took up our posts in 1995 and the screening could not be carried out overnight.
We must all be reasonable, sometimes even this House too.
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<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, I must return to the document submitted to us on the Anti-Fraud Office - OLAF - as there is some uncertainty and confusion about this.
Perhaps you can clarify the way in which the Office might initiate investigations.
As things stand, the present UCLAF can and does launch investigations on its own initiative.
Apparently, according to this document - I do not see this myself but my colleagues do and I should therefore like you to clarify this point - it would seem that the Office can act only on the instructions of the institution which it is supposed to inspect.
Could you clarify this point?
<P>
Also, with regard to confidentiality, I am concerned that the present UCLAF, in my opinion, has failed to respect this confidentiality in many cases and that some case files have been disclosed.
Could you tell us what exactly are the measures used to guarantee that UCLAF itself ensures the confidentiality of investigations?
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<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Santer">
Mr President, this is a precise question to which I will give a precise answer.
I would refer to Article 3 of the proposal which states that, on its own initiative and also at the request of a Member State or of the Office, the Commission can ask the Office to carry out an investigation. It is also clear from paragraphs 6 and 12 of the explanatory statement that the Office is to be closely involved in the launching - to use your word - of investigations (this is contained in paragraph 6) by allowing the Office to initiate an investigation on its own initiative.
Therefore, the Office can initiate an investigation on its own initiative.
Clearly, all the institutions can also ask the Office to carry out investigations and you will see that other provisions of the Office's statute contain certain precautions to ensure that confidentiality is maintained.
<P>
Based on experience gained during the operation of UCLAF, we have sought to rectify certain failings which exist in the current UCLAF statute and we have achieved this in the document submitted to you.
You now have time to examine and scrutinise this and to make comments and amendments so that our work together can produce a joint result.
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<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="Morgan">
Mr President, you told us that you take your responsibility seriously as the President of the Commission and we want to take our responsibility seriously as a parliament.
That responsibility includes holding the Commission to account.
That is very difficult when documents are not passed on to us.
Can you make a commitment to us today that you will give us a list of all the investigations of alleged fraud and corruption on a regular basis, not on the piecemeal grudging basis as we receive them now and answer when, at the latest, we will see the new Fraud Office operational?
How can we be assured that you are not just kicking the ball into touch here?
Will it be running during this Commission's ten years and, if so, by when?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Santer">
Mr President, I believe I can say that there is no problem about providing a list of investigations launched by UCLAF.
I cannot see any reason why this should not happen.
However, these investigations will not necessarily lead to the discovery of irregularities or fraud, and the list cannot be published without due regard.
The initiation of an investigation by UCLAF does not necessarily mean that an irregularity, incident of fraud or anything else has actually occurred.
Generalisations are sometimes made public, which is a great disservice to the operation of UCLAF.
We have tried to take all this into account in our proposal.
<P>
Secondly, you wanted to know when this new Anti-Fraud Office might start work.
I have asked for the goodwill of all the institutions in bringing this into operation and we consider that, if the political will is there, it could be operational within six to seven months.
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<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Buffetaut">
Mr Santer, I read with great interest the discussion paper distributed under your authority and entitled 'The Commission of Tomorrow'.
I noted on page 4 the Commission's intention, in future years, to concentrate more on the main policy areas of external relations, the single currency, internal security, the single market, economic and social cohesion and common policies, in other words the powers of a government of a sovereign state.
<P>
My questions in this respect are: what powers will the national governments still have and does the next paragraph, which says that consideration should be given to greater delegation of simple management tasks, actually apply to these national governments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Santer">
Mr President, this document sets out the future of the European Union as a whole.
I will gladly make a statement on this and in fact I have already done so in the debates on the Union.
In my opinion, the European Union of the future will always remain bound to the Member States which, while retaining their national identity, will be integrated into the political union.
We do not want to build a United States of Europe along the lines of the United States of America.
This is not our intention.
Economic rules can be harmonised to create a single internal market but the individual nations can never be harmonised.
Therefore, national identity must always remain a part of the future Union.
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However, thanks to this Union, the Member States have an opportunity to transfer part of their sovereignty to supranational bodies, such as the Commission and the European Central Bank, in order to exercise this sovereignty jointly and equally and in order to become stronger and more powerful on the international stage.
The Member States will not just be left with management powers.
On the contrary, the Member States must realise that they will have a role to play in the future within the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality. These are the essential principles on which the European Union is built.
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<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wemheuer">
Mr President, I have two questions.
Earlier, when Mr Fabra asked about the future of Europe, you said it was the euro.
Do you really think that the euro represents Europe's future?
Secondly, you said in your speech that we are now going the right way about handling the legal bases issue - which we are not talking about here - and the mini-budgets.
Do you realise that the budgetary authority, in other words the Council and Parliament on the one hand and the Commission on the other, agreed as early as the 1993 budget to abolish the mini-budgets, and that we are therefore not going about things in the right way, but have actually defaulted on this agreement in a totally unacceptable manner?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Santer">
Europe is clearly not just about the euro; it is not just a single market but much more besides.
However, the euro will be a powerful factor in the economic integration of Europe, firstly by allowing the internal market to be perfected, because I do not know of any internal market in the world which can operate with fourteen different currencies without any distortion of competition.
The euro will also be a powerful factor in political integration as it will give Europe and the internal market a European identity.
Thirdly, it will contribute to establishing a zone of monetary stability and will therefore be a stabilising factor in our international monetary relations.
For all these reasons, the euro is a powerful factor in our integration.
We are delighted that the euro will soon be introduced in eleven of our Member States and we obviously hope that it will be accepted in the other four countries which are not yet members of the euro zone.
<P>
With regard to the mini-budgets, certain decisions were indeed taken in 1993.
It was then that cases of fraud were discovered.
The existence of the mini-budgets allowed UCLAF to discover cases of fraud in four ECHO contracts.
The procedure which was initiated at the time and which is intended to gradually eliminate these mini-budgets under very difficult conditions was made possible due to agreement between Parliament and the Commission, and this is how we should continue.
<P>
Furthermore, if you read the reports of the Court of Auditors of the Member States, you will find many irregularities revealed in this way.
I had the idea of looking at the report of the Court of Auditors of the German Federal Republic and I could not see much difference between its report and that of the European Court of Auditors.
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<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Böge">
Mr Santer, do not rely on the Council when it comes to recommending the discharge.
You are the board of directors for project Europe and we are the general meeting, and I would therefore repeat that Article 3 of the proposal has nothing to do with Parliament's original proposal and is completely unacceptable.
<P>
In the context of the transparency you have talked about, can you confirm or deny that, following inquiries by the Belgian authorities, the Commission's Legal Service recommended that if Commission officials were asked whether social contributions had been paid as part of Commission contracts with firms, they should claim immunity and carry on the contracts as before?
Do these documents exist?
If so, would you be prepared to let the Committee on Budgetary Control have them, in confidence of course?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Santer">
With regard to the first question, I shall simply say to the honourable Member that the Council is an institution of the European Union and should not be underestimated, and that a Council representative is here today.
As you have probably noticed, we have several European institutions.
I am perfectly happy with the current operation of the institutions within our European Union, which is my right and my obligation.
<P>
In reply to your second question, all I can say is that I do not know nothing about it and therefore cannot give you an answer.
If you have any other details, you have the opportunity to tell the House about them.
However, as President of the Commission, I cannot answer your question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="President">
<CHAPTER ID=5>
European Council
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Santer">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, the Vienna European Council will conclude the six-month term of the Austrian Presidency.
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It is the first six-month presidency of the Federal Republic of Austria, and I pay tribute to the work that presidency has accomplished.
The presidency was marked in particular by the informal Pörtschach meeting, where the Heads of State and Government succeeded in coordinating their views on the future of the European Union more closely.
On 21 October this year, I concluded my statement to the House on the Pörtschach summit with the following words, and I quote: 'As always in the history of the Community, the main challenge is to translate ideas on Europe's future into action'.
So I propose to begin by examining the main dossiers on which progress has been made during these six months, which the European Council will ratify or close.
<P>
Obviously, I will start with enlargement.
The Council will examine the Commission's first report on the progress made by the applicant states, as requested by the Cardiff European Council.
This report shows that the process as a whole is now under way.
The Commission's analysis also shows how the situations differ in the various countries.
It points to the dynamic nature of this enlargement process.
We judge the progress of the applicant states by the Copenhagen and Madrid criteria.
The Council will point out that all the applicant states must make sustained efforts towards achieving the goal of accession.
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Alongside this, as you know, the negotiations on Agenda 2000, have begun to progress, thanks also to Parliament's cooperation.
We are about to embark on an important stage along the road which will lead us, before the end of the current legislative term, to the adoption of all the measures proposed in the context of Agenda 2000.
The Cardiff European Council and the Heads of State and Government at their informal Pörtschach meeting have stated their political resolve to conclude the Agenda 2000 negotiations at the special summit next March.
<P>
I think there are several reasons why we should conclude them in March.
First of all, the coming European Parliament elections will have an impact on your activities as from March or April, and I note that even now they are having certain effects on parliamentary activity.
Secondly, a delay would damage the credibility of and confidence in the Union; and lastly, there are the practical considerations associated with planning the Structural Funds and establishing the appropriate policies, together with the adverse effect which any delay in implementing the pre-accession instruments would have on the pre-accession process as such.
<P>
Naturally, the question which then arises is whether we can conclude them in March.
I believe we can, because all the data is on the table: the 19 detailed Commission proposals, as well as the Commission's report on own resources.
As one of the two arms of the budgetary authority, you will also be signatories to a new interinstitutional budgetary agreement.
Of course, the conclusion of a new agreement that satisfies both arms of the budgetary authority will form an integral part of Agenda 2000.
<P>
Mr President, I hope this European Council will provide a good point of departure for the discussions that are due to be concluded under the German Presidency.
Obviously, until there is agreement on the total package, there will be no individual agreements.
Subject to that reservation, I hope we will manage to achieve three things.
Firstly, we must reach agreement on the many 'technical' aspects, as I would call them, of the legislative texts.
In that context, I welcome the recent successes in relation to the Structural Funds, the Cohesion Fund, the pre-accession strategy and the trans-European networks.
Next, we must try to make headway in the political field.
Here I am thinking, for example, of some aspects of the agricultural reforms and rural development, of the structural actions and the format of the financial perspectives. Lastly, we must sketch out the broad lines of a final package which must, above all, concentrate on the financial implications of the reforms and the related budgetary issues.
<P>
Two items on the Council's agenda are regarded as priorities by the people: employment and an area of freedom, security and justice.
Let me begin with employment.
In Vienna, the European Council will for the first time evaluate the progress made by the Member States in implementing their national employment plans under the Luxembourg strategy.
Who would have thought, two years ago, that we would receive such support from the Member States and the social partners, that we would have European guidelines and national action plans?
Who would have believed that the Member States would accept having their employment measures examined, evaluated and even judged by their peers, and who would have believed that an exemplary dynamic process would be created, which can now be driven along by the new wind blowing through Europe?
First we discussed that strategy with the Member State governments, and it was together with them that we established the follow-up mechanisms, the exchanges of information and the benchmarking mechanisms.
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On the basis of the Member States' analysis in Vienna, the Commission will draft proposals on adjusting the guidelines for 1999.
I must admit that they were minimal.
I believe that what is most important is to consolidate the process.
The national action plans form part of a medium-term strategy, but it is important to give the process new impetus.
We are pursuing our strategy for a more entrepreneurial Europe, with a pan-European risk capital market, which will give our undertakings the same advantages as American firms and make up for our delay in harnessing information technology.
We have also asked the Member States to amend their unemployment benefit and tax systems and, in particular, to review their early retirement policies.
<P>
As regards the area of freedom, security and justice, as you know we decided at Pörtschach to hold a first special European Council on the subject on 15 October 1999, under the Finnish Presidency.
That decision reflects my determination, ever since I was appointed, to give priority to this question.
With the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty and the entry into operation of Europol, we shall be able to register real progress in cooperation on judicial, police, asylum and immigration questions, all areas where the people of our countries have high expectations.
We can only frame such policies, which remain national, in a European context.
The practical problems relating to asylum, immigration, police cooperation and extradition cooperation that have faced us in recent months make it clear that we must approach these problems at Community level; and I hope the action plan the Council and the Commission will be submitting in Vienna will represent a milestone in the preparations for the Tampere summit.
<P>
We will also be having an exchange of views on the development of the European and international economic situation in Vienna.
The advent of new governments in some Member States and the acceleration of the international financial crisis after the events of August in Russia have sparked off an intense debate on economic, financial and monetary policies, at both European and international level.
The international crisis has abated a little, but that does not mean it has been resolved, so we must remain vigilant and bear in mind the results of our debates.
These results, which will no doubt be discussed in Vienna, are as follows.
<P>
Firstly, I note that following the debates on interest rates, we have agreed that all the conditions have now been fulfilled for having low interest rates as soon as the euro is born.
The dialogue that has already been conducted with the European Central Bank has shown that budgetary rigour would facilitate a monetary policy which, apart from the priority objective of price stability, could take account more generally of the economic situation.
It seems to me that since the most recent discussions among the Eleven, there is now broad agreement on this policy mix, and I am sure this dialogue will move forward in a satisfactory way once the euro has been established.
<P>
Secondly, I have noted a general desire for closer coordination of economic, financial and social policies, and I feel that real progress is being made in this regard within the group of Eleven, as well as at Council level.
At the same time, there are clear signs of a wish to coordinate our fiscal policies.
We reported on that yesterday, at the ECOFIN Council, and here too marked progress has been made, although we must always remain realistic when we discuss fiscal matters.
<P>
The discussions this autumn also drew attention to the importance of infrastructures to the economic fabric, and to the role of public investment in that context.
I am happy to note that while emphasising the importance of these investments, no one called into question the principles of the stability and growth pact.
However, some ideas emerged from the discussions on the instruments that could influence investment and I am pleased to be able to tell you that, this morning in fact, the Commission has adopted a document on the subject, which we will of course be forwarding to the European Council in Vienna.
<P>
I have only three remarks to make on the subject.
The first concerns the European Investment Bank.
After the success of the Amsterdam special action programme, I believe the Bank could enhance its role by broadening its range of instruments to promote infrastructure projects and, in particular, the trans-European networks.
This could take the form of a special system by which the Bank could, in various ways, encourage risk sharing between the private and the public sector and thereby encourage them to take more part in financing infrastructure projects.
In the same context, it would be advisable to broaden the European Investment Fund's eligibility criteria, which would increase the Fund's impact on the development of infrastructure in the broad sense of the term.
<P>
Secondly, we must recognise that some trans-European infrastructure projects can be accomplished only with the aid of subsidies if they are not sufficiently profitable in financial terms.
Within the general Agenda 2000 framework, our proposed new draft financial regulation for the trans-European networks is currently under discussion.
Apart from the proposal for substantial funding, this draft contains a number of innovative ideas.
I am thinking in particular of the idea of introducing multiannual budgetary allocations, the idea of using risk capital funds, and the possibility of cofinancing up to 20 % of the total cost of projects instead of the current 10 %.
Lastly, there is the matter of the obstacles that are preventing the emergence of a genuine - and I mean genuine - pan-European capital investment market, which Cardiff called for and which could be a real source of job creation because of the capital it could generate for innovative undertakings.
<P>
Turning to the international situation, there is now broad agreement that with the advent of the euro, the Union will bear a greater responsibility with regard to the international financial situation and will have to speak with a single voice.
We agreed at Vienna that all the outstanding questions on the external representation of the euro must be resolved, including the question of the Commission's participation in international forums.
In that context, I am glad that the ECOFIN Council managed to reach general agreement on this matter yesterday, in other words well before the Vienna European Council, and I am also glad that the European Parliament has supported us here.
Lastly, I am thinking of the functioning of the international financial institutions as such, and of our responsibility as the largest donor of development aid.
<P>
But we must not confine ourselves to financial aspects, and I hope we shall also discuss wider issues in Vienna, such as Europe's role in relation to globalisation, which affects every dimension of our societies.
With the new impetus provided by the euro and the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Union cannot remain silent in the face of a world that is waiting for a response, the response of a Europe that speaks with a single voice.
<P>
Mr President, these are the main points that we will certainly be discussing in Vienna.
However, I would not wish to end my statement to the House without pointing out that we shall be celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Vienna.
That too will be an opportunity to call on the Union to take resolute action to defend the values of that declaration.
The European summit in Vienna will, therefore, be a summit that sets out the practical and fundamental approaches to follow so that we can meet the challenges of the twenty-first century.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Azzolini">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in our opinion the recent informal summit in Pörtschach demonstrated, regrettably, that Europe is still in search of an identity.
Whereas Europe is now a recognised world power in economic terms - and will soon have a single currency - our governments are being too cautious and tentative about giving it a more dynamic, more political role, both internally and internationally.
On this point, I should like on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party to recall the problem - already referred to by the Austrian Presidency - of ensuring that the eleven member countries of the euro zone are properly represented in international forums.
So far, convergence has been achieved in only one of the areas under discussion: the balance between stability and growth.
Several countries have referred to the need for a dialogue with the European Central Bank.
We would now ask the Council whether this is a euphemistic way of covering up difficulties in the relations between the governments and the Central Bank or, as we would hope, confirmation of the resolve to protect the role and independence of that institution.
<P>
Furthermore, the painful sacrifices which all our countries have had to make to create a strong and viable single currency cannot and must not be thwarted by second thoughts or, worse still, by dangerous interference which could result in a weak currency without sound prospects.
The governments are well aware that a healthy monetary policy is a precondition for the creation of sound growth and development, but clearly there is also a need for appropriate economic policies - albeit coordinated ones - to promote a recovery of the economy and above all of employment, the most urgent issue facing Europe.
This is a task which the governments must on no account shirk.
<P>
Unfortunately, concerning the other items on the agenda of the informal summit, our expectations were not met.
Apart from vows and promises, nothing new emerged in respect of foreign policy, for example on the common foreign and security policy, even though we do welcome Mr Blair's openness on the question of integrating the WEU into the European Union; nothing whatsoever on justice and home affairs, nor on crime and illegal immigration; and finally, nothing whatsoever on the launching of institutional reforms.
<P>
I would conclude by adding that the scale of the challenges lying ahead of us over the next few years calls for political vision and a fresh input of ideas.
We therefore hope that the forthcoming European Council in Vienna will live up to our expectations and those of all our citizens, thereby fulfilling the hopes expressed by the Austrian Presidency.
I nevertheless believe that the European Parliament - the democratic, representative voice of our peoples - also has a crucial, leading role to play in this context, naturally alongside the other institutions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Frischenschlager">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, you have given us a long list of subjects.
No subject of any importance was omitted, in point of fact.
Of course, that makes it difficult to identify the main issues.
I believe it is vitally important that we see a political breakthrough at this Vienna summit on one central issue, namely Agenda 2000.
We must wrap up this matter - which is important to enlargement, but also to the internal cohesion of the Europe of 15 - during these six months leading up to the campaign for the European elections.
I regard this as the decisive issue and hope it will be tackled successfully.
<P>
Another matter you did not mention and which really does affect us Members very strongly is the Statute for Members.
It is vital that the Vienna summit should resolve this issue too.
That is partly Parliament's responsibility, but in the end it is also the responsibility of the Council.
It is not just a question of creating a sound working foundation for Members.
However, we are going through a difficult phase.
There have been scandals and accusations.
It is vital that Members can enter the campaign for these democratic elections with a clear conscience, and can discuss European issues rather than having to counter accusations.
I would ask you to take this matter seriously and to ensure on 12 December that the subject is dealt with in a sensible way and can be removed from the agenda before the elections, for our sake, as Parliament will, I hope, propose tomorrow.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, according to the Treaties the Council is not a decision-making body, but is the Union institution which can most legitimately carry out the vital task of providing a political impetus, since all the Heads of State and Government are directly accountable to their respective parliaments.
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Prior to a European Council meeting, all we can do is to formulate wishes.
However, we must be careful not to draw up an exhaustive list of all our wishes, like the poet Prévert, since that would inevitably lead to disappointment and disenchantment, but try to confine ourselves to a few priorities.
I for my part will name three of them.
<P>
The first priority is the reforms in Agenda 2000 and the future financing of the Union.
We are in fact hearing at the highest level in a growing number of Union countries, including the more powerful ones, that a country's contribution to the Union budget should match the financial benefits it gains from it; this means the general application of the 'fair returns' principle for which Mrs Thatcher became famous in her day.
That is at the very least a curious conception of European solidarity on the part of governments which claim to be champions of the utmost social justice.
The Union has never before seen so many governments of a socialist persuasion or with socialist participation; and yet never before has the principle of solidarity been so much denied, at least in statements of intent, despite the fact that it acts as the binding force of joint action and is the key to the prosperity of all the Union countries.
<P>
Here I would solemnly warn that cofinancing the common agricultural policy would risk dismantling it.
I would also warn that any reduction in the appropriations allocated to the Structural Funds, the Social Fund and the Cohesion Fund would put the economic and social stability of our regions at risk.
<P>
The second priority is enlargement of the Union.
As we have said before, as a political symbol and by virtue of its social, economic and commercial implications, this enlargement goes immeasurably further than the preceding ones.
Let us beware of excluding certain states on the basis of questionable pretexts and thereby recreating artificial divisions between the applicant countries.
Let us also beware of underestimating the major difficulties awaiting the economic players both of the Fifteen and of the applicant countries.
<P>
The last priority I would highlight on the eve of the European Council is reform of the institutions.
It is a reform linked to the enlargements that are to come, and it is vital that it is carried out before any further enlargement, but without being used as a pretext for delaying that enlargement.
The ball is indeed in the court of the Heads of State and Government.
So let us be exacting, ladies and gentlemen, and solemnly call on the Heads of State and Government of the Fifteen to discuss, without taboos or ulterior motives, the real reforms on which Europe must embark if it wants to go on living and developing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Puerta">
Mr President, I agree entirely with Mrs Ferrero-Waldner that the Vienna European Council will represent a turning point in our struggle to resolve the fundamental problems involved in the building of Europe.
Chief amongst these is employment.
It is for this reason that our group places such great importance on support for employment policies which go beyond the coordination of national policies and Community guidelines.
<P>
Dare we hope that we shall have a European employment policy after the Vienna Summit?
We should make as great an effort to achieve such a policy as we did when setting up the single currency. Indeed, in our judgment, the stability pact and the severity with which it is implemented hinders the creation of employment and does not promote the best interests of our citizens.
<P>
We cannot agree with the statement made recently by Tony Blair and José María Aznar, the Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom and Spain, concerning greater flexibility on the labour market and cutting unemployment cover. The aim, apparently, is to dissuade the unemployed from relying on benefits.
However, such a philosophy and such measures will not promote employment policies or justify the European social model.
<P>
We find the French Government's philosophy more positive, with its proposal for a 35-hour week. Oskar Lafontaine's proposals are also encouraging, and could result in substantial investment, particularly in the European transport, communications and energy networks.
We are prone to criticise the Commission, but it too has put forward interesting proposals which have, to date, been blocked by the Council. I shall mention just two: the reduction of value-added tax on labour-intensive services, and the introduction of an environmental levy to finance policies for employment creation.
<P>
With regard to Agenda 2000, Madam President-in-Office, we are concerned about the failure of the ECOFIN Council.
Agenda 2000 as a whole has been postponed, along with the report on own resources, the allocation of funds and external representation of the euro.
<P>
In addition, the Austrian Presidency's proposal to freeze expenditure in percentage terms and set it at ECU 85 000 million for next year seems to us to be a step backwards where internal solidarity is concerned. The suggestions made by certain Member States are even more alarming.
A reduction of the Community budget in real terms has been proposed, which would bring it down to 1.10 % of Community GDP. This would create major uncertainties for enlargement.
Indeed the enlargement process lacks the clear plan and timetable essential to its success.
<P>
As I conclude, Mr President, I should like to mention the need for clear guidelines where relations with Turkey are concerned. We must also show our solidarity with Central America, and come up with a strategic response to the enormous problems facing the region.
<P>
Lastly, I feel I should mention the problem of the European Parliament.
We urgently need to reach agreement, once and for all, on a statute for Members of the European Parliament, to facilitate seriousness and transparency within the House and before European public opinion.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="President">
I should like to welcome Mr Gundars Bojars, chairman of Latvia's delegation to the EU-Latvia Joint Parliamentary Committee, and Mr Edvins Inkens, chairman of the European Affairs Committee, who have taken their seats in the official gallery to follow the debate that will be taking place shortly on the reports from the Committee on Foreign Affairs on the accession of the applicant countries.
I welcome them to the House.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
European Council (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, more and more people in Europe are alarmed at finding themselves greeted on the eve of the twenty-first century by the face of the nineteenth century.
An increasingly aggressive neoclassical economic ideology is evidently trying to force us into this withdrawal into the past.
This neo-liberalism regards unemployment almost as an indicator of modernisation, seeing workers' falling incomes as progress.
Deregulation has become a kind of pseudo-religious commandment.
Meanwhile, the financial markets are reacting quite euphorically to announcements of staff cuts and redundancies.
The havoc which this ideology has wrought in recent years in South-East Asia, in the newly industrialised countries and in Russia has obviously made little impression.
Anyone who does not want to return to the nineteenth century is branded a reactionary.
<P>
Politics has been concerned for years with mass unemployment and growing poverty.
But this has produced little, apart from the literature of political commitment and social poetry.
One cannot avoid the impression that some sectors of European policymaking seem to regard themselves almost as the acolytes of this aggressive ideology.
So we call emphatically on the Vienna summit to decide on practical actions at last and to stop creating taboos around the central issues of reform.
We are calling for quantified and quantifiable objectives with well-defined time-scales and evaluation procedures. We are calling for an end to ruinous European fiscal dumping, for the harmonisation of tax systems, for moves towards ecological tax reform, and for the European Central Bank to carry out its duty of supporting European economic policy objectives within the framework of price stability.
<P>
We are calling for the regulation of the financial markets and for job-creating investment not to be taken into account within the context of the stability pact.
Finally, we wish there to be a debate on the fair distribution of work through reductions in working hours.
Let us move on at last from political poetry to responsible actions!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Sainjon">
Mr President, the citizens of Europe, and in particular the unemployed and the young, are indeed expecting a great deal of the European social model and hoping to benefit from the historic opportunity offered by the coming to power of left-wing governments in most of the European countries.
Ultimately, these governments do not have the right to fail to implement a policy that lives up to the hopes of our citizens.
Faced with the reality of today, we can no longer confine ourselves to generous statements or expressions of sympathy.
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The moment has indeed come, with the Vienna summit, to make social Europe our ideal by ensuring that the people feel they are involved in a grand social plan, in one which - I am tempted to say - is worthy of our democratic and progressive traditions.
What concerns them most is unemployment, as the minister said.
That is where we need to take strong action, and even though we welcome the trend towards falling unemployment in Europe, it is essential that we now implement the proposals made in Luxembourg in November 1997, at the summit on employment, which set as a major priority that no young person must remain out of work for more than six months and no adult for more than a year.
Let us follow that road, and let us go further by creating a new welfare state that promotes employment and lifelong training for every citizen of the Union.
<P>
Let us indeed ensure that any dismissal or period out of work automatically gives rise to a statutory paid training scheme, which must not represent a kind of 'marking time' period.
In my view, this is a way of banishing the term 'unemployment' from our vocabulary.
Paying benefits is sometimes a necessity, but there is no point in this unless it is linked to a programme of training and reintegration into work.
Throughout his or her life, the individual must alternate between work and training, moving from one to the other without any unwanted break.
That is a great innovative project.
It is a project that the governments of the Union countries have a duty to support, not just at the Vienna summit but also at the forthcoming European elections in June 1999.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Parigi">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on the subject of foreign policy, a sector relevant to this discussion, I would take the liberty of flagging up the Ocalan affair to highlight the Community's shortcomings.
The Europe of the left is making the worst possible start: the amateurism and demagogy of some members of the Italian Government have contrasted sharply with the hypocrisy and cowardice - to quote a headline in the 'Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ' - of the German Government, which preferred to leave the hot potato, as it were, in the hands of their Italian progressive comrades, even though the judiciary had issued an international arrest warrant for the leader of the PKK.
Added to this, the Greek Prime Minister, Kostas Simitis - whose government had previously, albeit unofficially, refused to take in Ocalan - came out in favour of granting political asylum to the PKK leader but leaving this 'honour' to Italy, a country which, in his words, was 'handling the matter very well'.
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I am tempted to say that, if this is how parties belonging to the Socialist International demonstrate solidarity on matters of foreign policy, it is to be hoped that such unedifying conduct is not transferred to the handling of Community affairs.
Linked to the Ocalan case is the problem of pressure, threats and acts of terrorism perpetrated or merely threatened by well-organised ethnic and religious groups which have a huge following in Europe, as reported by no less a figure than a leading German left-wing intellectual, Peter Schneider, who states: 'It is clear that Turkey is striving to manoeuvre the Turkish minority in Germany, like a sort of fifth column.
The Kurds appear to be behaving in the same way.'
<P>
What is more, these immigrants could be incited not only to violence but also to unscrupulous behaviour at election time, casting their votes for citizens or coalitions who promise to protect their interests.
<P>
In the view of the Alleanza Nazionale delegation, therefore, the Ocalan case has revealed the current limitations of the Community edifice, namely its immaturity as regards the common foreign and security policy and its non-existence in the field of international justice and jurisdiction.
This has been a timely crisis, demonstrating the individual Member States' inadequacies and unwillingness to seek solutions to particular problems which could have serious repercussions in terms of law and order, diplomatic and trading relations.
This, then, is yet another reason to adopt at long last a real common foreign policy and to establish a proper European Court, which could be entrusted with finding legal solutions to cases such as that of Ocalan.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, I should like to return to the real subject, the Vienna summit, and address two points which in my view will decide whether or not that summit is a success, namely employment and foreign policy.
On employment, several speakers have already expressed their views.
That is not because we cannot think of anything better to talk about; it is because this is an issue of such immense importance to Europe, with its unacceptably high level of unemployment, that we must keep formulating new employment initiatives.
<P>
We have achieved much with the Amsterdam Treaty.
It was confirmed in Cardiff and in particular in Pörtschach that we need to focus more strongly on employment policy.
The Commission has examined the individual Member States' national employment plans.
I must say that they have been treated very gently, and I also know that the Commission would have liked to deal with some Member States a little more roughly.
I hope this was only the gentleness of the first wave, because I am absolutely convinced that the Commission, and probably also the Council, must take a firmer approach to those Member States which are in fact not matching up to their plans, ideas and objectives.
<P>
We must carry out the measures that have already been referred to, notably by Mr Medina Ortega.
What about investment in Europe?
Are the measures announced in Pörtschach, and which were already contained in the Delors White Paper, actually being implemented now?
What about cooperation between Member States on fiscal matters?
Do we really have a coordinated tax policy for the whole economy?
I sometimes get the impression that members of the Council and some countries are afraid to have the courage of their convictions.
They say they want to do something, but as soon as a practical proposal is put before them, they find good excuses for wriggling out of it again.
So I wish to state quite clearly and plainly once again that I consider employment policy, more clearly defined guidelines on employment and stricter examination of the various countries by the Commission as of the utmost importance.
<P>
I turn now to foreign policy. A good deal has been said on this, and I am glad that Commissioner van den Broek at least is here, who may perhaps be glad in the short term that none of his colleagues from the Council is here to talk to him about foreign policy.
But let me remind you that it was stated clearly in Cardiff that Vienna is to decide on a Mr or Mrs CFSP.
That was confirmed in Pörtschach.
But now I hear rumours that the Council is in favour in principle but cannot agree on names, and that once again it is shying away from the decision actually to appoint a high representative.
Either the Council realises that it is important to appoint a representative, and then it must do so - and do so soon, after all the negative experiences we have had; or the Council does not consider it important, in which case it should delete these provisions from the Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
The second option is wholly unacceptable, not least to this Parliament.
We are told: yes, Mr or Mrs CFSP is an important figure.
We must tie that up in a package with the Commission president and other individuals.
My question is this: does the Council, do the Member States not know that in future this Parliament will also be appointing the president of the Commission, but that this will only happen at a later date?
Has the Council not realised that the balance of decision-making has changed, and that it has to take the important decision on whom to appoint as the foreign policy representative, in other words on the person who will be the contact and discussion partner for Mr van den Broek and the other Commissioners?
This decision must now to be taken.
The Council would be giving a clear sign of weakness, a sign that it remains as indecisive as ever in foreign policy matters, if it did not take these decisions in Vienna. I believe this Parliament should say loud and clear that if the European Union's foreign policy is to be changed and rendered more efficient, then we need a high representative of the Council, and that decision must be taken in Vienna!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Mr President, again it is a pity that the President of the Council is no longer here.
We sort of have a custom nowadays to play to the gallery.
I would like to speak on two subjects.
One is the question of financial aspects of the Agenda 2000.
If the report of the Ecofin of yesterday and the day before is at all correct, then the European Community unfortunately seems to be in quite a disarray.
It says in the Agence Europe that the draft inclusions for submission to the Vienna European Council were challenged vehemently by Spain.
That shows that, indeed, on this point not much progress is in sight.
If the President of the Council were here I would ask her what the strategy of the presidency is in this respect.
<P>
Secondly, the issue of the third pillar: In Cardiff there was a lot of talk about progress in justice and home affairs.
But frankly speaking, very little progress has occurred since that time.
This is quite a major point.
We were present at the Civil Liberties Committee yesterday where the President of the Council, the Minister for Interior Affairs, spoke.
The integration of the Schengen Accord into the EU treaty framework about 16 months after the signing in Amsterdam should now be in place.
It is not.
We still do not know at this particular moment what part will go to the first pillar and the third pillar.
The danger is, if we are ratifying Amsterdam and nothing has happened, the result will be that everything will remain in the third pillar.
To add insult to injury, it seems now that in the Justice and Home Affairs Council there is talk of setting up a special committee to monitor justice affairs which is not foreseen by the first pillar.
In the first pillar it is COREPER, it is the Commission, but not the K4 Committee, the Special Committee on Justice and Home Affairs.
We would like to ask what is the position of the presidency on this?
Will it resist?
What is the attitude of the Commission?
I see Commissioner van den Broek here.
I hope that he could reply that the Commission would not accept any non-legal situations concerning justice and home affairs.
In particular, on this committee it is quite important that it will be this traditional structure and it will not be the third pillar and in the governmental structure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Ainardi">
Mr President, employment is indeed a key concern of the Union's citizens and everything possible must be done to combat unemployment effectively and create jobs, especially for young people and the long-term unemployed.
The Pörtschach summit was marked by a change of tone, new ideas and greater emphasis on growth and employment.
It has to be said that the elections which have recently taken place in some Union countries have all reflected a rejection of liberalism and an aspiration towards a more humane society.
<P>
The statements of intent must now be turned into practical action.
That is what our citizens expect from the forthcoming Vienna summit.
I heard everything that Mr Santer said a moment ago, but when I look at some of the employment policy guidelines for 1999 which the Commission is submitting to the Heads of State and Government, I feel a little disturbed.
The Commission is still giving precedence to measures to encourage labour flexibility and social moderation in the name of competitiveness.
The recent European day of action by railway workers in protest at the Commission's deregulation proposals clearly reflected the demand for public services which can respond to current needs and requirements in the Union.
The recent Franco-German summit reaffirmed the will to create a stronger European social model.
It even advocated stringent and verifiable objectives.
Very well then, the Vienna summit must now move from words to deeds.
<P>
I think there are three essential conditions if actions are to measure up to intentions.
Firstly, we must redefine the powers and tasks of the European Central Bank, which must come under the democratic control of the European Parliament and the national parliaments.
Secondly, interest rates must of course be lowered, but on a selective basis to encourage job-creation projects.
Thirdly, the current stability pact must be replaced by a genuine pact on growth and employment.
<P>
In the end, there will be no progress unless the people are involved.
There is certainly a need for a genuine social dialogue, for a great public debate on the major European issue of employment.
An annual conference on economic and employment policy could make a contribution here by checking what results have been achieved and proposing adjustments to employment policies, if necessary with binding quantitative criteria.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Raschhofer">
Mr President, given the abundance of important and weighty subjects on the agenda of the Vienna summit - and the President-in-Office has presented us with very much a mixed bag - we can only wish the Austrian Presidency good heart in the discussions and much success.
It will be essential to determine the right steps to take in a few key areas, for example enlargement and Agenda 2000.
In view of the many crucial but unresolved questions in the agricultural and structural fields, I wonder how it will be possible to keep to the timetable.
I am asking this partly because this is after all - and that is what makes it so difficult - a question of interests rather than visions.
<P>
So the Austrian Presidency must make sure it engages the right gear and steers in the right direction.
That is a difficult task.
It is pursuing the right course in focusing on employment policy, but this needs to be implemented more efficiently.
There is no shortage of analyses and dossiers.
Here too time is pressing, because there is a long and difficult way to go from taking decisions to achieving practical results, namely more jobs and fewer people without them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Görlach">
Mr President, although there are no leading figures from the presidency here present, I would still like to pay tribute to the work which the Austrian Presidency has carried out to date.
It has made headway on many outstanding issues and helped to ensure that results and decisions can be achieved rapidly when it now hands over to the German Presidency.
That would seem almost impossible, given the multitude of tasks, as many here have said, but let me point out quite firmly that no doubts must be voiced - and especially not in Vienna, prior to the handover of the presidency - about whether it will be possible to keep to the Agenda 2000 timetable in the first six months.
Parliament will organise its work in such a way as to give the Council no excuses.
It will be difficult, we will have to pull together, but that is only to be expected.
<P>
With Agenda 2000, with the many problems to be resolved - and it would be a good idea for this to be perfectly clear in Vienna - the forthcoming presidency must not forget to do its homework, including preparations for the necessary institutional reforms.
We know it cannot complete and carry out this work until there is a further intergovernmental conference, but it must not wait until that new intergovernmental conference to embark on it.
It must tackle the work now.
Proposals and options must be put on the table in order to push forward the internal reforms, especially the institutional reforms.
For what is the use of making progress on the agricultural and Structural Fund aspects of Agenda 2000 - even if only on a basis of compromise - and of the negotiations reaching a stage where the accession of new members at some point can be discussed, if the institutional reforms have not yet been carried out?
Parliament will find that difficult to accept, and we know that all our groups argue that the institutional reforms in particular must also be completed before the first wave of new applicants are accepted.
<P>
I would like to add a further point.
Of course employment will be on the agenda in Vienna.
But it would be a good idea if the somewhat unspeakable way in which these matters are discussed in the UK, whipped up by sections of the press, were to come to an end, with the help of all the institutions and also of all the Members.
It is not a question here of harmonising taxes in the sense of levelling them down. It is quite simply a question, with regard to employment too, of the Member States finding a way of agreeing on how they can promote investment, naturally also by means of their fiscal policy.
We must determine how the labour factor can be relieved a little more of what is in some Member States a quite substantial tax burden, through a rational, agreed and joint approach to taxation, so that it would be worthwhile to create jobs, not just through investment but also through investment plus the numbers of people in employment.
We should try together to make this clear.
If we are honest, we would surely agree that the way we operate in the European Union is not that different from the way things sometimes go in neighbouring communities.
Each side tries to drive away the other sides's investors by means of lower charges and cheaper land.
We do not need to do that in the European Union, but what we do desperately need is an arrangement, so that everyone can have a piece of the employment cake!
<P>
I fully agree with Mr Swoboda.
The Council should appoint the Council's representative for the common foreign and security policy as soon as possible.
It should do so as soon as possible, but it should not try to tie up everything that needs to be resolved in the coming months in terms of appointments into one huge package.
I would ask it to think again, and to remember that - thanks to Amsterdam - Parliament really does have a say on some appointments.
It should bear that in mind, in view of the European elections in June next year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Donnelly, Alan">
Mr President, I would like to start with the point that Mr Görlach finished on and that is the fact that we have elections in the European Union to the European Parliament next year.
The Vienna summit meeting will play a crucial role in setting the agenda for the first six months of next year.
It will not only be the agenda of the German presidency.
We also need to demonstrate that in Vienna there is a commitment to reconnecting the people of Europe with the project of the European Union.
<P>
As we know from our own Member States we have failed in recent years to do that.
That is why the issue of employment, which was discussed at the informal summit meeting, must be a critical point in the discussions in Vienna.
The Socialist Group insists that we get concrete measures aimed at lifelong learning, at education initiatives, trying to give our people a better basic education but also giving them the skills to do value-added types of jobs.
Employment must be the core of that agenda.
<P>
If we want to engage young people in the European Union project then we have to make sure that we are offering something to them.
Most young people today across the European Union, whether they live in Germany, in Finland, in the United Kingdom, in the South of Europe are concerned about their future and they are concerned about their future job, or their future role in society.
So we hope that when the Vienna summit meeting is concluded there are concrete measures linked to the employment action plans of each Member State that will help to bring down the overall unemployment level, but particularly long-term unemployment and unemployment amongst young people.
<P>
It is also important in reconnecting Europe with its people that we look at our global role.
We have suffered in recent months and over the last year from the global economic crisis.
We have seen major problems in many markets around the world and of course our own economy has suffered as a consequence.
It is extremely important that the Vienna summit meeting send a strong signal that Europe intends to play its part in helping to bring stability to the global economy.
<P>
That means we need to press the point again in Vienna for an increase in the transparency and resilience of the international financial system.
We have to improve the surveillance processes of national policies.
We have to define how emerging market countries can protect themselves from excessive financial instability.
Europe cannot only look inward during these meetings, we have to look externally.
With the coming Euro the European Union will be a centre of stability in the global economy.
<P>
I also want to say something about the labour market and the need for labour market flexibility.
There is a big debate in the European Union about whether or not we need labour market flexibility.
One of my colleagues mentioned it a moment ago.
In a dynamic global economy we have to have labour market flexibility.
We have to have employability.
The idea that we operate our labour market the way that we operated it ten years ago, or even five years ago, will lead to higher unemployment.
<P>
Can I also touch on the question of taxation since Mr Görlach mentioned it in his speech.
We know that the Austrian presidency has tried to pursue some measures on tax coordination and I also know that the German presidency will be looking at strengthening tax coordination.
But the word is 'coordination'.
It is not 'harmonisation'.
I am very grateful that Commissioner Mario Monti has changed the agenda in Europe on this matter.
We do not look for a single currency and a single market with tax harmonisation.
We look to coordinate where it can benefit employment and where it can benefit investment.
I think it would be very helpful if the British media, in particular, could learn the difference, particularly since the words exist in English, between the description and definition of coordination and harmonisation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="d'Ancona">
Mr President, I have just three minutes and so just two comments to make and a question to put as chairman of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs. My first comment concerns the reluctance of the ministers concerned to liaise with us.
Ministers Michalek and Schlögl have always been at pains to consult with us.
They do so both at and away from our committee meetings, and only the day before yesterday both ministers travelled to Brussels to discuss things with the committee.
<P>
But our satisfaction with this informal arrangement does not, regrettably, extend to the more formal side of things.
Article 6 of the Maastricht Treaty requires us to be consulted on a number of important matters, something which has happened under previous presidencies, but it is not happening at present.
We are not being consulted on the very important and topical issue of asylum and refugee policy.
The so-called 'Austrian strategy document' came to us quite by chance.
How can Parliament's voice possibly be ignored over this socially sensitive dossier?
<P>
The other example is more disgraceful still.
It concerns an action plan to set up an area of freedom, security and justice, that is to say a plan for the future.
But again Parliament is not being asked for its opinion.
In short, of the four topics which we have just heard will be raised at the Vienna summit - and in addition to the two I mentioned there are also drugs and organised crime - on not one of these four topics has Parliament been asked to give its opinion.
That is a breach of Article 6 of the Maastricht Treaty.
Hence my question to the Council President, though sadly she has vanished from the Chamber: when will Parliament's opinion be sought on the action plan and also on that other important strategy document?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, I have three things to say.
<P>
Firstly, I think the Vienna summit should take serious note of all the issues brought up by the German, French, Italian or other governments, issues related to correcting the course set by Maastricht, issues concerning the relationship between politics and bankers, interest rates, and whether all that matters is monetary stability or whether we should also look to development and employment, the taxation of capital movements, and other such issues.
A debate has commenced.
The governments of the Member States have an obligation to get together in Vienna and begin outlining new directions for the European Union.
<P>
My second point concerns Agenda 2000, which is certainly an issue which is not going to go away.
What I wish to say is that if there are some who - perhaps rightly - would like the European Union to enlarge towards Central and Eastern Europe, they must also be prepared to meet a substantial part of the costs involved, not just pass them on to the south of the European Union and so do away with acquired rights.
<P>
My last point is that we should turn our attention to the issues of foreign policy, especially in relation to Turkey.
Cardiff was an unpleasant episode and we must return to the Luxembourg criteria concerning the Kurdish problem - a topical issued indeed - the Cyprus problem, relations with our neighbours and human rights.
I think the Vienna summit has a duty to do that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Alavanos.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
Applications for membership
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0430/98 by Mr Caccavale, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on Latvia's application for membership of the European Union, with a view to the Vienna European Council (11-12 December 1998) (COM(97)2005 - C4-0377/97); -A4-0428/98 by Mr Bernard-Reymond, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on Romania's application for membership of the European Union, with a view to the Vienna European Council (11-12 December 1998) (COM(97)2003 - C4-0375/97); -A4-0427/98 by Mr Wiersma, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on Slovakia's application for membership of the European Union, with a view to the Vienna European Council (11-12 December 1998) (COM(97)2004 - C4-0376/97); -A4-0431/98 by Mr Kristoffersen, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on Lithuania's application for membership of the European Union, with a view to the Vienna European Council (11-12 December 1998) (COM(97)2007 - C4-0379/97); -A4-0429/98 by Mrs Aelvoet, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on Bulgaria's application for membership of the European Union, with a view to the Vienna European Council (11-12 December 1998) (COM(97)2008 - C4-0380/97).
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Caccavale">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I must begin with one general comment.
The Commission - and I am pleased to see Mr van den Broek here in the House - made a mistake concerning the accession procedure.
As the European Parliament stated plainly at the time, it was wrong to divide the applicant countries into two groups, albeit with the linguistic distinction between 'ins' and 'pre-ins'.
I think this is clear to everyone, and we are of course glad that the Commission itself has recognised this.
<P>
As far as Latvia is concerned, the matter is a straightforward one.
This country has taken giant economic strides in the past few years: its inflation has plummeted and is now running at around 7 %; its GDP growth is between 8 and 9 %; its budget has been balanced for the past two years - something I would like to see in several EU Member States; and finally, the privatisation process was launched very rapidly and is almost complete.
It therefore seems to me that Latvia complies in full with all the requirements for an immediate start to the negotiations for accession.
<P>
Concerning the political criteria, in my opinion democracy in Latvia is a fait accompli , not only because a series of elections has been held in entirely peaceful circumstances and with total respect for democratic principles, but also given the outcome of the much-publicised referendum a few weeks ago.
The referendum asked the citizens to decide whether to endorse the new law on citizenship - allowing so-called non-citizens, stateless persons, to acquire Latvian citizenship - or whether to abrogate it.
<P>
It was an act of great courage and democratic strength, an important sign of democracy.
I wonder how many EU countries would have seen fit to entrust their citizens with such a sensitive decision, on a matter directly affecting all the inhabitants of Latvia, citizens and non-citizens alike.
<P>
There do of course remain some outstanding problems: not all the non-citizens have been integrated yet, meaning that roughly 25 % of the resident population still has no passport and remains in an ambiguous position harking back to the former Soviet situation; the administration is still outdated and unable to meet the citizens' needs; the judicial apparatus is still shaky, with statutes that are about to be rewritten and senior judges and lawyers who are not yet equal to their task.
In short, the legal order is still in the process of being established.
<P>
Mr President, we must not forget the fact that only seven years ago - I repeat, seven years ago, not seventy - the highest flagpole in the land was flying the red flag bearing the hammer and sickle of the Soviet Union.
Latvia was an integral part of the Soviet Union, a regime which had abolished all the people's rights, stifled any possible development, and which of course has left behind a terrible legacy.
Unless we take this into account - as well as the deportations and the military occupation of the country - we certainly cannot understand why the inherited state administration and legal system has been so ruinous and so damaging.
<P>
That is why, arguably, the winds of Europe are blowing more strongly, intensely and vigorously in Riga than in Rome, Paris or London.
I believe that we are facing an extraordinary challenge: that of allowing these countries to embark immediately on the negotiations leading to accession.
Opening negotiations by no means implies that they will be completed overnight; it does however mean bringing these countries to the negotiating table on a par with the other states, Poland, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary and so on.
On this point my report, as adopted by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, clearly indicates to the Council and Commission that they should reassess their verdict on Latvia and initiate negotiations with this country without further delay.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Bernard-Reymond">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Romania is currently going through a fairly difficult period, in terms of its economy, for example.
The country's GNP fell by more than 6 % in 1997 and has unfortunately continued to drop in 1998.
Despite major progress, inflation remains very high and the currency has lost 25 % of its value since the beginning of the year. The budget deficit is growing, foreign debt is increasing and the social climate is deteriorating.
None of these macro-economic indices is very encouraging, and this will make it even more difficult for Romania to carry out the vital and urgent structural reforms that are needed.
<P>
This situation is due to a very large extent to its extremely burdensome inheritance, undoubtedly the most burdensome of all the former people's democracies of eastern Europe.
But it is also due to the difficulties faced by the government in ensuring the coherence and continuity of its actions, the heterogeneous nature of the ruling coalition and the extremely fickle parliamentary majority.
It is against this background that we must examine the situation in Romania with regard to the Copenhagen criteria and in the light of the Commission report of 4 November.
<P>
Politically speaking, there is no doubt that Romania has made considerable efforts. If that were the only criterion that counted Romania would now be on the verge of joining the European Union.
There is still progress to be made in the areas of protecting street children, the control of judicial power by the police, the independence of journalists, detention conditions in prisons, fighting corruption, and the situation of the Rom community.
But there is no doubt that the government is determined to do something about these issues and we are quite certain that each year we will see more progress made in these various fields.
<P>
In terms of the economy, while the government has lowered customs duties, liberalised most prices and the exchange market and speeded up privatisation, the legislative framework necessary for developing the market economy is far from complete.
As for the transposition of the 'acquis communautaire' there is no doubt that Romania has made very laudable efforts, but substantial reforms are still required.
<P>
This being the case, it seems that Romania ought to work on a comprehensive policy in four areas.
First of all it must restore a balance in all the main economic aggregates, a sine qua non for any development.
At the same time, Romania must determinedly continue with the structural reform of its economy, in particular privatisation, the reform of the banking system, the restructuring of large conglomerates and the modernisation of farming.
The third area relates to the human aspect of these structural reforms and involves reforming the administration, fighting corruption and making government action more coherent.
These three areas are vital tools if Romania is to make progress towards accession.
<P>
Finally, as I was saying earlier, Romania must pursue its modernisation efforts to meet the first Copenhagen criterion, since in this field nothing is ever completely finished.
We can therefore see in these circumstances that it is premature to envisage opening up accession negotiations with Romania.
It is with considerable regret that we say this since Romania is close to us - it is European culturally, historically and geographically - and it has returned to democracy.
There is no doubt that, in the end, it will be able to join, but the road to accession involves major reforms that the Romanian government must pursue or has even yet to start. The European Union should lend it its full support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Wiersma">
Mr President, a year ago Parliament concluded that Slovakia was not sufficiently democratic to join the group of applicants for EU membership with which negotiations could begin.
The country satisfied all other criteria bar this one, the most important one, and I think that was a sad day for the people of Slovakia.
I believe the decision by Parliament and by the Commission and the Council was the right one.
The government of the time was making a pig's ear of things as far as democracy was concerned, and that was why we agreed with the decision that Slovakia, although it met the economic criteria at the time, should not be included in the group of countries with which negotiations would be started in due course.
<P>
But yesterday, a year down the line, I was in Bratislava attending a parliamentary debate on Slovakia's ambitions in a newly elected parliament, with a new government which is doing everything possible to make us forget the previous one.
Slovakia once more features on the map of Europe, following the September elections in which the coalition government which caused us so many difficulties was kicked out.
Slovakia's voters voted for Europe and against isolation.
<P>
Today we are talking about Slovakia again, and what a difference!
Last year we were distancing ourselves from her critically, but now we can engage with her in a positive way.
Our criticism helped to bring about the change.
So now we have a duty to send out a positive signal.
Today's debate on Slovakia is therefore political in nature and must have a political emphasis, partly because of the history of Parliament's relations with this country in recent years.
<P>
The new government is now in place and its first actions are promising.
Its plans, as stated in the coalition agreement, sound very hopeful.
Slovakia has changed course, towards a normal democratic system in which there is respect for the constitution, acceptance of opposition, a directly elected president, a transparent society with a place for every citizen, including the Hungarian minority which is represented in the new government and, most importantly, where there is an attitude of openness towards the European Union.
<P>
The new government is getting on with things fast.
It has a constitutional majority.
We must support it where we can.
But not only does democracy need revitalising, the economy too needs attention.
The last government was irresponsible in allowing deficits to accumulate. It left behind a poisonous economic legacy.
With help from the EU and others and with macro-economic indicators which remain relatively favourable, Slovakia should be able to solve its economic problems.
We hope to see the government taking prompt measures towards that end, as recommended by the Commission.
These include tackling financial problems, tackling the inefficient banking sector, transparency in the economy and faster adoption of the acquis communautaire .
<P>
I have an observation to make here about my own report, concerning the economic situation.
We are asking the Slovak Government to pursue a critical policy on energy, an energy policy aimed at shutting down unsafe nuclear reactors.
I think that is an important point.
But I see that this is only mentioned in the report on Bulgaria.
It is important to me that if I agree to that point being in my report, then it should also feature in other reports as well, so as to avoid the impression that we are only concerned about this in the case of Slovakia and Bulgaria.
I think it should apply to other countries too.
But that is just a comment in passing.
<P>
Slovakia would have liked to see us now recommending to the European Council that accession negotiations should begin.
I should like nothing more, but enlargement is a serious matter, and intentions have to be tested against policy.
That is not possible at the moment, and it is not a reproach to anyone.
The Slovak Government is making a start today on translating words into deeds.
As I understand it, a vote of confidence in the new government is being held now or this evening in the Slovak Parliament.
The Commission is thus right to recommend that we wait a while.
But the Brussels waiting rooms are large, and waiting times uncertain.
I think Slovakia is entitled to a second chance, a chance to sit the exam again.
That second chance should carry a clear time frame and not a 'we shall see in the year 2000'.
The new Slovak Government is ready to go the extra mile.
The European Union must respond by reassessing it in the spring of 1999.
That is the message which I put before Parliament in my report.
<P>
The Slovaks appreciate the risks, but are eager for this further chance.
Negative pressure now needs to be followed by positive encouragement.
Let us not tie the destiny of Slovakia to that of Lithuania or Latvia, but to the energy and resolve of the Slovak people, which deserves individual treatment.
We should look at the results for each applicant country, and where we can speed things up we must do so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Kristoffersen">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is in fact the reunification of Europe which is now at issue with the enlargement of the European Union, and this reunification also includes the countries bordering on the Baltic Sea.
These are the three Baltic states which were brought into the Soviet sphere of interest when Hitler and Stalin divided up Europe at the end of the 1930s through the notorious pact signed by Molotov and Ribbentrop, the foreign ministers from Moscow and Berlin.
Now things are opening up between East and West, it will soon be ten years since the Berlin Wall came down, and we have a platform which can help us to bring Europe together again, that is if we have the courage to do so and the real political will to use this platform provided by the enlargement of the European Union.
That is the clear direction that we should be indicating here in the European Parliament with a view to the forthcoming summit in Vienna.
<P>
As a Dane, it is natural for me to look across the Baltic, a sea which has once again become a source of connections and cooperation.
The Baltic area is developing rapidly, and this applies to the three countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - all three of them.
They have regained and rediscovered their identity as independent countries after half a century of Soviet occupation.
As rapporteur on Lithuania's application for membership of the EU, I see no reason for placing Lithuania in a different position from the two other Baltic states, even though these are of course individual negotiations and it is not necessarily the case that they will all join at the same time.
<P>
It is of the utmost importance for Lithuania - both politically and psychologically - that the positive attitude and atmosphere are maintained, and it is also right to send a clear signal to Lithuania that the EU fully recognises the considerable progress made in terms of economic reforms, the quality and achievements of democracy and the administrative sector, even if there is still some work to be done in that field.
Overall, these developments are enabling Lithuania to meet the requirements known as the Copenhagen criteria, and thus also to help ensure the regional stability of the area.
<P>
In the resolution on Lithuania which is contained in the report I have drawn up, there is also a reference to the need for progress with regard to Lithuania's long-term energy strategy.
This concerns above all the Ignalina nuclear power plant and what is to happen to it.
The Lithuanian Government - I am pleased to tell you - is fully aware of the seriousness of the matter, and wishes to cooperate with the EU in setting up a group of experts to assess the options.
According to the latest information that I have from Vilnius, the government is to submit a proposal to the Lithuanian Parliament that an expert group should be set up, and the discussions also point to the possibility of shutting down the plant or reducing its activity, but at the same time an assessment will also be carried out of the scope for improving safety.
In any event, the debate on Ignalina has now reached a very practical stage.
In the dialogue with the government in Vilnius, the question has also been raised of how far the EU is willing and able to participate in the financial costs.
However, clarifying the situation and taking a final decision on Ignalina are not expected to be a precondition for the opening of intensive negotiations on Lithuania's membership.
I therefore also call in my report for the accession process to be speeded up, so that intensive negotiations can begin shortly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the demands of the various applicant countries undoubtedly have to be analysed against a new background.
Following the informal summit in Pörtschach, a good many observers commented - rightly, in my view - that they had the feeling that the Council had been stepping on the brake pedal rather than the accelerator as regards enlargement.
So we must watch with some concern to see what happens at the Council meeting in Vienna.
We also see that the enlargement process is taking place against the background of an international financial crisis, and an economic crisis too which affects not only South-East Asia or Russia or Japan, but is gradually spreading to the whole of the world.
It is indeed a long time since so many voices were heard calling at IMF and World Bank level for clear international rules to define and demarcate the framework within which market forces operate.
Clearer still is the demand of ordinary people, in the European Union too, for action on the part of government or the state, not to take responsibility for everything but certainly to lay down rules.
This international background also prompts us to look carefully at the difficult and demanding processes of transition which the applicant countries are having to go through.
<P>
The Copenhagen criteria set out not only political criteria - a state based on the rule of law, human rights, democracy - but also a smoothly functioning free market economy.
So in most of these countries the share of the private sector really needs to grow, otherwise you cannot talk about a free market.
But it is of paramount importance that the privatisation process taking place there should be transparent and more socially responsible.
Otherwise the call for rapid privatisation may easily lead to a 'gold rush' situation where some people grab the national wealth whilst the majority are left far behind.
One need only look at Russia for an example of that.
We believe the Council and Commission must monitor the progress of privatisation very carefully.
<P>
We were very happy with the Commission's announcement at the beginning of November concerning the reports on the applicant countries and the related proposals for accession.
We in the European Parliament were especially pleased to see the Commission really keen to sustain the tempo by holding out the prospect of negotiations in the relatively near future to Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia.
I hope the Council will move at the same speed.
<P>
As regards the Commission report on Bulgaria, as rapporteur for Bulgaria I am very glad that credit is being given to the efforts which this country has made.
Macro-economic stability has largely been achieved, inflation has been drastically lowered, the banking sector has been brought under control, and a higher priority is to be given to agricultural reform and the promotion of SMEs.
The parliament has already approved all the new legislation needed for administrative reform.
The challenge now is to implement this reform on the ground without giving the impression that the restructuring is being done on the basis of party affiliation.
Major legislative initiatives have also been taken to promote decentralisation.
<P>
There are two points of particular difficulty between the European Union and Bulgaria.
Firstly there is the visa requirement, the fact that they are on the negative list.
Parliament and the Commission are pulling together on this, but the Council will not easily be persuaded to relax its policy.
So we in Parliament are continuing to send very clear political signals for a political solution, but we know that some adjustments may be needed to simplify administrative procedures as far as possible, so that things can be made easier for Bulgaria's citizens pending a general relaxation of policy.
<P>
The second stumbling-block is of course Bulgaria's energy policy.
Parliament is aware of the efforts made here at least to secure an energy strategy for the medium term, but we are absolutely not in agreement with the government's suggestion that the decommissioning dates for the four first-generation units at Kozloduy should be put off, possibly to the year 2012, which is altogether unacceptable.
We believe it is in the interest of the safety of the Bulgarian people in the first instance, but also of course of all other Europeans too, that efforts should be made towards specific and proper implementation of the 1993 Nuclear Safety Account.
<P>
We hope that the process of accession for the Bulgarian Government and people will be dynamic and rapid, and we very much hope that in Vienna the Council will match the pace set by the Commission, so that enlargement is not delayed but moves forward swiftly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="van den Broek">
- Mr President, on 4 November I had the honour to announce here the publication of the first set of regular reports on the 12 candidate countries that are progressing towards EU membership.
Since 4 November the Commission's reports have been the subject of intense scrutiny, notably by the candidates themselves but also by the Member States and the European Parliament.
I am pleased to say that with the exception of one or two mild and somewhat understandable expressions of disappointment on the part of some candidates, their reaction to the Commission's work has been positive.
Indeed, the candidates have for the most part shown their readiness to respond constructively to the Commission's analysis.
<P>
I welcome this opportunity for a more in-depth debate on enlargement in Parliament.
We have heard, and I have welcomed very much, the reports by the rapporteurs which we have heard this afternoon.
They have presented their draft resolutions on each of the five pre-ins from Central Europe.
<P>
I would like to say something more now about the Commission's standpoint on these five candidates and I will also be pleased to respond at the end of this debate to any points or questions raised by honourable Members.
I would begin by recalling that enlargement is a process that concerns not five countries but thirteen.
In that respect I would say to Mr Caccavale that for us the difference between ins and pre-ins does not lead us to think in terms of various waves of candidates.
I will come back to that point at the end of my intervention.
<P>
The Commission published as a result 12 regular reports covering the 10 candidates from Central and Eastern Europe, Turkey and Cyprus.
The thirteenth country, Malta, reactivated its application for membership in September.
Of course we can only welcome this.
As you know, it has been announced that we will finalise the update of the 1993 opinion on Malta, I hope by mid-February of next year.
<P>
Turning now to the regular reports on the Central European countries, I should like to emphasise right at the outset that the Commission's analysis was conducted in an objective and impartial manner and free of all political prejudice.
Our assessment was based on exactly the same Copenhagen and Madrid criteria as last year's opinions.
In order to treat all candidates fairly, the reports cover only decisions or measures that have actually been taken or implemented since last year's opinions.
Legislation in the pipeline will, when adopted, be highlighted in forthcoming reports.
Our analysis shows that the all-inclusive enlargement process remains broadly on track and that the momentum of the candidates towards enlargement is grosso modo being maintained.
<P>
I shall now give a short resume of our findings per country.
In broad terms the Commission is very much encouraged by the achievements of the countries in question.
I shall take Slovakia first.
Last year the Commission considered that Slovakia was the only candidate that did not fulfil the Copenhagen political criteria.
However, following last month's general election a new government has taken office and a new impetus for political and economic reform is palpable.
That was also our experience when representatives of the new government visited Brussels not long ago under the leadership of the new Prime Minister Mr Dzurinda.
The new political situation in Slovakia following the recent parliamentary elections brings that country an important step closer to EU membership.
I must underline, however, that Slovakia will continue to be treated in exactly the same way as the other candidates, namely on the basis of the Copenhagen criteria.
<P>
In consequence, the Commission will recommend the opening of negotiations on condition that its political institutions demonstrate their ability to function in a stable and democratic manner.
It will also be necessary before opening negotiations to verify that Slovakia has undertaken measures to remedy its economic situation and that it also has introduced greater transparency into its operation.
You know that was one of the main features regarding the economic criteria criticised in our report - or at least we said that the new government would have to address the situation it had inherited.
<P>
It is also against that background that, although I very much welcome and understand the plea of Mr Wiersma to have an interim report from the Commission, it would be very difficult for us to produce an interim report on activities which would have to start in the coming months and to reach precise conclusions on the economic points which currently do not allow us to recommend the opening of negotiations.
I fully agree with the rapporteur that the political change that seems to be developing after the parliamentary elections gives us hope, as we have concluded in our report, that in the foreseeable future the recommendations for negotiations can be made.
I refer you to the conclusions of the report on that point.
<P>
On Latvia, the Commission's opinion last year concluded that this country met the political criteria for membership, although we said then that a number of shortcomings had been identified, notably concerning the integration of non-citizens.
The rapporteur also referred to that.
This year we have highlighted in the report the positive result in the referendum on the citizenship law which gave an important boost to this process of integration.
It will certainly ease the way for the naturalisation of non-citizens and stateless children.
After this referendum we issued a statement to that effect.
<P>
As far as its economy is concerned, Latvia has made some impressive progress in the past twelve months.
GDP growth is high and inflation continues to fall.
Latvia now comes close to fulfilling the criterion of being a functioning market economy.
But it still falls short because its track record of reform is not quite substantial enough.
It still has to plug gaps in its regulatory framework, especially in the financial sector, and it will also need to simplify the legal environment for enterprises and consolidate macro-economic stability.
But if the momentum of reform in Latvia is maintained, it should be possible to confirm next year that Latvia would be regarded as meeting the economic criteria and hence to also propose at the end of next year that negotiations be opened.
<P>
I also agree with the rapporteur that Lithuania has recently made significant progress.
The Commission confirmed its view in the opinion that Lithuania fulfils the political criteria though it should intensify the fight against corruption and pursue reforms of the judiciary.
There were advances in economic reform, although it is fair to say that after their analysis our experts came to the conclusion that Lithuania cannot yet be regarded as fully satisfying the economic criteria, especially as many policy decisions have only recently been taken and because it lacks a sufficiently sustained track record in reform.
So, additional measures are needed and some recent developments still need to be tested in practice.
Privatisation needs to be completed and to mention one example, its bankruptcy law has not been functioning long enough to assess the impact of that very important new law.
<P>
As far as the nuclear power plant in Ignalina is concerned, the Commission's general conclusion on Lithuania was not predicated on the situation regarding that power plant.
I have set out in brief the reasons why Lithuania still does not yet meet the economic criteria for the opening of negotiations.
On the other hand, we would hope that Lithuania will present a satisfactory comprehensive energy strategy and will re-state a firm commitment that there will be no re-channelling of Unit 1 of Ignalina.
However, I say again that it was not the state of this power plant that led us to the conclusion that negotiations should not yet be opened.
When you look at the conclusions for Lithuania in our report, you will discover that there is a clear incentive that opens the prospect in the foreseeable future for negotiations.
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Bulgaria meets the political criteria and is making progress in filling the other criteria for membership.
It has made advances, most notably in the fight against corruption and judicial reform but needs to broaden its efforts further.
It has also stepped up the pace of its preparations on the acquis and made clear progress in the enforcement of intellectual property rights and on financial services, critical points of last year.
But, in general, Bulgaria has to ensure the implementation of legislation after its adoption.
The rapporteur Mrs Aelvoet mentioned the energy sector and we hope that Bulgaria will step up its efforts to adapt this sector in preparation of EU integration and in particular the closure commitments for the Kozloduy nuclear plant have not been appropriately addressed yet.
We are in close contact with the authorities in Bulgaria to reach the right conclusions on this.
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Bulgaria does not yet fulfill the economic conditions and still has considerable work ahead.
At the same time the significant progress that has been made is a cause for satisfaction, in particular the overall stabilisation of the economy.
The government continues to show determination in its commitment to reforms.
Priorities in the coming period should include transparent privatisation and also industrial restructuring.
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Last but not least, Romania meets the political criteria, but needs to make a concerted effort to root out corruption and strengthen its public administration.
Particular attention should also be paid to improving the work of the courts and protecting individual liberties and the rights of the Roma.
I hasten to say that as far as the rights of the Roma are concerned, many of the candidate countries still have to do quite a lot of work to ensure that social exclusion and discrimination is abolished.
The Romanian economy, unfortunately, has weakened since the opinion.
This was also the conclusion reached by the rapporteur, Mr Bernard-Raymond, and the regular report sets out in some detail what needs to be done.
We know that the Romanian authorities are aware of the urgency and importance of the problem and we are working very closely with them to help them put in place the required measures.
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Obviously I could go into more detail but honourable Members have in their possession the very detailed reports so I will conclude by saying that on the basis of our various assessments, the Commission did not deem it necessary to make new recommendations for the opening of negotiations.
However, it has tried to give clear perspectives to that effect and these were incorporated in our conclusions.
We can say that the candidates have made efforts to maintain the momentum and the Commission has also played its part and will continue to do so.
I would like to repeat that the only way to preserve the credibility of the process, not to mention the credibility of the Commission, is to continue to work on the agreed basis that each candidate country is judged on its own merits.
In that sense, I repeat that we do not speak about pre-ins and ins as belonging to two different groups which will always remain separate.
The opening of negotiations has to be recommended when the applicant country has made sufficient preparations to warrant this.
Obviously the same goes for membership which should happen when each candidate is ready.
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Finally, like the rapporteurs, I hope very much that the Vienna Summit next week will give further encouragement and express its wish to maintain the momentum of the enlargement process and reconfirm its firm commitment to this process.
I hope that in the coming months under the next presidency the Member States will realise the preparations they have to make towards enlargement.
That would be the most encouraging signal to the candidate countries because from reading their newspapers they could have the impression that the European Union is so focused on its internal problems that it is failing to maintain the momentum on its part to respond positively to the efforts of the candidates to keep the whole enlargement process on track.
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<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, I should like to begin by reiterating that the Socialist Group welcomes enlargement and believes that it should be an all-inclusive process with no reserve positions, no closed groups, and with every country being judged entirely on its own merits regardless of what is happening elsewhere.
However, we must recognise that it is not a 100 metres sprint but a marathon we are engaged in.
A country sprinting ahead at the moment may not last the pace.
Equally, a country lagging behind at the moment may eventually outpace the others.
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Therefore, we cannot be unduly influenced by sudden short-term initiatives but rather should make our judgments entirely on the long-term measures that governments are taking and the sustainability of their reform programmes.
To do anything else would be to raise unreasonable expectations both in the candidate countries and among the peoples of the European Union.
We must realise and remember that whatever solutions we come up with must be acceptable to the peoples of the European Union and the applicant countries and will often have to be approved by referendum.
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Slovakia has made huge political progress which we must recognise.
But we need to see whether its new government is able to fulfil its commitments.
Similarly, Latvia has made huge progress, in particular in relation to the referendum on citizenship.
But, again, we must see if this new government is able to sustain that progress.
Latvia and Lithuania have made enormous progress economically but, as Commissioner van den Broek has indicated, we must see if they can sustain that.
Similarly, Bulgaria has made great progress after a poor start but we noticed a Commission opinion that it is beginning to fall back.
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We must ensure that there is proper implementation and enforcement of the European Union acquis .
It is not enough to take on the legislation, you have to be able to enforce it.
That is why I do not agree with those who claim that we should start now to negotiate with Latvia and Lithuania.
We should be flexible; we should seek the opportunity to open negotiations as soon as possible but let us not rush this process for fear of undermining it.
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There are two issues which must be of concern.
Firstly, nuclear safety.
We know the Soviet-designed reactors in Central and Eastern Europe cannot be upgraded safely at reasonable cost.
All countries must have a comprehensive energy strategy which is fully in line with nuclear safety account agreements before they can join the European Union.
Mr Kristoffersen has mentioned Ignalina.
Lithuania has agreed to close Ignalina for good when the pressure tubes need replacing.
Talk of expert groups must not be allowed to distract us from that.
There can be no re-channelling.
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Finally, I should like to emphasise what Mr van den Broek said about corruption.
Citizens will not accept an enlarged Europe if it is only going to give opportunities to corrupt officials, drug barons, gangsters and paedophiles.
We must take action there.
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<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, I should like to thank Commissioner van den Broek for his efficient work in the Commission.
I should also like to congratulate the new government of Slovakia and especially the Slovakian people, who elected their government democratically.
The prospects for Slovakia's accession have begun to change since October, and in its first statement to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, the new government under Prime Minister Dzurinda declared that it wanted to speed up the accession process.
We must now respond to its efforts.
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The democratic forces in Slovakia need a clear signal from the European Community confirming that it is on the right path, and the forthcoming summit in Vienna is the right occasion to give this.
It must make it clear that if Slovakia achieves sustained political stability it can join the group of countries which have already started negotiations as soon as possible.
Instead of the Commission producing a final report on Slovakia, the Council should deliver its opinion on Slovakia's application to join as part of an extra Commission report during the first six months of 1999.
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The Copenhagen criteria, which have hitherto been a deciding factor in assessing applications to join, should be met as soon as possible.
I think that Slovakia marks a genuine breakthrough in European history!
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<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, the Liberal Group is full of praise for the work the Commission has done, and its progress reports on the applicant countries rightly make it clear that all the applicants still have a good deal of work to do.
The fact that negotiations begin is of course no guarantee that accession will be granted.
It is merely an acknowledgement of the progress that has been made, and the Czech and Slovenian governments have to take on board the fact that they have not yet made sufficient progress.
The Commission warns against complacency, and rightly so.
The approach which has been chosen is leading to greater dynamism and can resolve difficult stalemates, of the kind seen over citizenship in Latvia, for example.
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There is some confusion in Parliament as regards the progress of negotiations.
We must be careful not to send out the wrong signal to the applicant countries.
Our response must be encouraging, but based on real expectations.
In accordance with our own resolution of exactly a year ago, we receive annual progress reports.
The desire of some groups in this House for reports every six months is, to my mind, the result of woolly thinking.
My group is against unnecessary work, and in my view the Commission would be hard pressed to produce a report of this kind every six months.
Nor must we give the impression that being part of group 2 means that applicants are being put on ice.
That is clear from progress in Lithuania and Latvia.
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All things considered, my group is in favour of starting negotiations with Latvia and Lithuania now. They have, after all, reached the point Estonia was at in July 1997.
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<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the legislative elections which took place in Slovakia at the end of September confirmed what I personally never doubted - that Slovakia's politicians, like the Slovak people, were profoundly attached to the rules of democracy and respect for basic freedoms.
It is true that, in the recent past, the ruling party and the opposition had sometimes clashed over differences of opinion, but is that not welcome proof of democratic vitality?
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Now that this has been demonstrated, I, like the rapporteur, Mr Wiersma, hope that by the middle of 1999 Slovakia will be able to join the group of Central and Eastern European countries with which the European Union is officially due to start accession negotiations.
We all know that the Slovak people, or at least the overwhelming majority of them, want to join the European Union because their country's history and culture belong to the Greater Europe that we are trying to build together.
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If their accession were to be slower than that of their close neighbours it would have disastrous psychological and political consequences which are to be avoided at all costs.
I have no doubt of the Slovak people's desire to comply with the accession criteria defined at the Copenhagen summit.
On the question of the protection of minorities and, in particular, of the Hungarian minority, I would point out that it has always been represented in the Slovak Parliament in ratio to its numerical size, which is not always the case with minorities in other Central and Eastern European countries.
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Of course, the rights - in particular language rights - of that minority should be guaranteed.
But that minority should also show more determination to be integrated into the Slovak nation and give up any separatist inclinations; I welcome the fact that elected representatives of the Hungarian minority are part of the new government.
Furthermore, like the other applicant countries, Slovakia needs to continue to make huge efforts to reform its economy if it is to succeed in making the difficult transition from a state-run economy to a market economy; we Europeans have a responsibility to help our Slovak friends overcome these difficulties.
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To conclude, we welcome the fact, along with the rapporteur, that the road is now open for Slovakia to join the vanguard of countries applying to join the European Union.
We need to help our Slovak friends to overcome the remaining hurdles lying ahead, provided that they - and I do not doubt this - make the necessary effort to join us.
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<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Mr President, I intend to speak in particular about the situation of the Romanies, or gypsies, in the applicant countries currently under discussion.
Some of these reports have mentioned the status of Romanies and other ethnic minorities and have also raised the issue of sexual minorities with respect to the situation in Romania.
However, I fear we shall have problems if we are merely to examine the status of gypsies on a country-by-country basis in the enlargement negotiations.
The gypsies, or Romanies, are a very large minority in Europe.
There is a Romany minority in all applicant countries, including Latvia, which is represented here today, although it is quite a small one in that particular country.
The problems of the Romanies are nevertheless cause for much concern.
For example, in the Czech Republic, which is in first place among the applicant countries, there are immense problems.
I hope the European Union will be able to increase cooperation with the Council to improve the status of Romanies.
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<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gahrton">
<SPEAKER ID=81 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lalumière">
Mr President, Commissioner, it was with pleasure that I read the reports on the five applicant countries which the Commission has placed in the second group for accession, even if, Commissioner, you reject that expression.
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These reports emphasise the progress made in at least four of them; the fifth, Romania, is unfortunately still encountering major difficulties.
The progress made means that the differences between the countries in the first group and those in the second seem to be diminishing.
I am glad because I have frequently regretted the way this has been presented, as decided by the Commission and confirmed by the European Council in Luxembourg in 1997, since it risked opening up dangerous rivalries and conflicts and discouraging countries in the sensitive area of Central Europe.
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But current trends seem to be reducing that gap, which I very much welcome.
I hope that we can begin negotiations with these new countries as soon as possible even if there has to be a new report in the meantime, as you have requested, Commissioner.
Against this satisfactory overall background the rapporteurs have naturally emphasised particular features in each country - the spectacular economic performance in Bulgaria, where the economy was lagging far behind, the political developments in Slovakia, giving it a much more encouraging outlook, intensive efforts in Latvia to improve the treatment of the Russian minority, etc.
In a word, there is progress everywhere.
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But we should not think that these developments mean that there is still not a lot of ground to be covered, and we would be doing all of the applicant countries a disservice - whether they are in the first or second group - if we confused the progress they have achieved with ultimate success.
It is one thing to adopt reforms and another thing to put them into practice.
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This is true, for example, of the reforms in the public administration and the civil service.
It takes time to eliminate the political pressures and political selection criteria that were normal under the former regimes.
The delays in the administration and civil service reforms, along with various other problems, are tending to hinder the proper preparation of negotiations and documents submitted to the Commission.
We could be equally pessimistic about the independence of the judiciary, a notion that is taking time to sink in in some countries.
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I should like to make one more point.
The efforts demanded of the people living in the applicant countries are considerable, and the risk is that the European Union might seem to be the main cause of the sometimes dramatic difficulties encountered by many people in these countries.
We are well aware of the danger that Europe might become the scapegoat.
Commissioner, could not the Commission channel more aid into social programmes targeting the most disadvantaged groups of the population?
Joining the European family will not be a success if the man in the street ends up associating Europe with suffering and pain.
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<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Truscott">
Mr President, following the launch of the accession process on 30 March 1998 in Brussels under the British presidency, EU enlargement is gathering ever greater pace.
The initial fear of a separation between the ins and pre-ins is being overtaken by the logic of the screening process and the EU's pre-accession strategy.
There should be no discrimination between any of the applicant countries as they endeavour to meet the Copenhagen criteria, tackle absorbing the acquis communautaire and prepare for the single market and the euro.
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However, as the reports before us today show, and as the Commission has indicated in its composite paper and regular reports, not all applicant countries are proceeding at the same speed towards meeting the criteria for membership.
In looking at the Baltic states, for example, I do not accept the argument that we are looking at three peas in a pod.
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have different cultures, traditions, economies and experiences although they have also much shared history and cooperation.
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We should recognise progress where this has been made, as the Commissioner said earlier in this debate.
With this in mind, I believe it is right to highlight the progress made by Latvia so that a decision can be made to start negotiations with Riga before the end of the German presidency.
Latvia has made real progress in its citizenship laws, with the economy, in administration and in preparing for the implementation of the acquis .
Lithuanian progress has also been remarkable, but less impressive, in the field of nuclear energy, privatisation, institution-building, the judiciary and the establishment of a system of standards and certification.
Estonia has continued to make steady improvements in most fields but has made disappointing progress on its legal treatment of the Russian-speaking minority.
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For its part, the EU must press on with its reforms to lay the groundwork for enlargement.
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<SPEAKER ID=83 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Trakatellis">
Mr President, I would like to draw the House's attention to the issue of nuclear safety, which is one of Agenda 2000's priorities.
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With the accident at Chernobyl, the nightmare which almost the whole of Europe lived through has revealed the true scale of the dangers associated with the operation of nuclear plants and has brought to the fore matters such as safe operation and the storage and treatment of radioactive waste.
This has made it necessary to work out a more specific policy for the safety of nuclear installations, a need made more urgent still in light of the accession procedure and the beginning of agreements with the countries of the former Soviet Union.
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The Commission's position, as expressed in its related statement about the applicant countries, is that reactors which do not conform with safety requirements and which cannot be upgraded to an acceptable level should cease to operate.
Bulgaria was the first country to receive financial aid, while at the same time undertaking a clear and legally binding commitment to carry out short-term improvements, and then, by 2000, to shut down four reactors.
Bulgaria has already requested a review of the agreement and an extension, while the Commission is very rightly opposed to that request.
We cannot afford the luxury of sitting here just twiddling our thumbs.
The European Parliament asks that the agreement on shutting down the dangerous reactors at Koslodui should be adhered to, an issue which must certainly also be raised at the European Council in Vienna.
It must be made clear to the Bulgarian Government that any request to extend or depart from that course would be an extremely dangerous position which would sabotage its efforts to accede to the Union.
There is nothing more important to Europe's citizens than avoiding another Chernobyl.
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A second point concerns Romania.
Today, we are asking the Romanian government and parliament to reach a final and fair solution in the matter of property restitution.
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<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cars">
Mr President, the new Social Democrat Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, and his 'green' Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, have intimated that the enlargement process should not take place too quickly.
I find such a remark disturbing.
Together with the other Liberals, I firmly believe that enlargement is taking place too slowly rather than too quickly.
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The Commission is trying very hard to support the efforts of the applicant countries to improve their legal and administrative systems and their economies.
We welcome what is being done.
As soon as the applicant countries fulfil the basic requirements, the EU should open wide its doors to them.
The EU must therefore speed up its own reform process.
Those politicians who regard it as their duty to throw stones into the EU machinery should take careful note of that.
Flaws in the EU institutions should not keep others out.
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We, as Members of the European Parliament, also have to try to overcome the reluctance, sometimes even opposition, of the citizens of most Member States as regards enlargement.
We have to show them that enlargement will bring much greater benefits for everyone.
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The Liberals hope that Mr Schröder, Mr Fischer and the others will adopt a more constructive tone, and that the Commission will not tire in its efforts to create a Europe that is both complete and sound in body.
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<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Giansily">
Mr President, I wish to speak as a member of the joint delegation with Romania in giving my opinion on the excellent report drafted by our colleague, Pierre Bernard-Reymond.
I agree with his entire analysis, which is extremely objective, and I particularly share his regret that the structural economic reforms have slowed down, leading to an increase in macro-economic imbalances.
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In a country where, for nearly half a century, economic power was confused with political power, people are psychologically illprepared for assimilating the acquis communautaire and for turning Romania into a market economy.
I have to say that President Emil Constantinescu is to be praised for his fierce and constant determination to link his country with the European Union.
Two successive prime ministers, Victor Ciorbea and Radu Vasile, have kept the same man, Mr Alexandru Herlea, in the extremely sensitive post of minister responsible for European integration for two years, and he has managed to forge a relationship of mutual respect and considerable confidence with the Commission's advisor and with this House. He has displayed an excellent knowledge of the issues as well as a extremely laudable intellectual honesty.
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In the light of his analysis, the rapporteur concludes that Parliament cannot recommend the opening of accession negotiations with Romania.
For my part I would ask for special efforts to be made in 1999 to find PHARE programme funding for this country.
It is the only applicant country, a former member of the Warsaw Pact, which does not border on any of the 15 Member States of the European Union, and it has suffered from a kind of insularity handicap in that from the early 1950s until 1990, whichever way it turned, it had no neighbours to negotiate with apart from those subservient to Moscow.
Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary and Ukraine were hardly models of democracy.
We have a special responsibility towards Romania, once a member of the Latin Union, and we should bear take that in mind.
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<SPEAKER ID=86 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, I think it is very important, as Commissioner van den Broek has stressed once again, that we should regard the accession process as a dynamic process.
The groups must not be seen as closed, and above all the countries must not be divided into different categories.
I would make this point particularly with regard to Romania and Bulgaria.
On the other hand, we agree with the Commission's criticism that there has been a marked decline in Romania's political efforts.
We are concerned at the restrictions on press freedom, and the European Parliament is particularly critical of the criminalisation of and discrimination against homosexuality in Romania.
We call on Romania to take decisive steps to restore the dignity and human rights of these people.
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We also call on the Commission to come up with more than just fine words, and to give a clear signal that it wishes to negotiate in partnership.
One such signal would be to review our visa policy towards Romania and to restore partnership and equal treatment.
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<SPEAKER ID=87 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papakyriazis">
The colossal enterprise of enlarging the European Union, an enterprise on an historic scale and which has gone past the point of no return, ought really to be a foregone conclusion being implemented already, not a vision to be implemented sometime in the future.
I believe that today's procedure to a certain extent confirms just that choice and I would like to believe that the Vienna summit will make it official.
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Moreover, this procedure today is a paradoxical vindication of the European Parliament's insistence that the accession procedure should take place for all eleven candidate countries from a common starting point, Mr van den Broek.
The countries we are talking about as a group today, taken together, prove the correctness of our choice.
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As regards Bulgaria, I am glad to hear confirmation of the European Parliament's support for Bulgaria's accession, as expressed in the Commission's positive progress report.
Congratulations are due to Bulgaria, to the Bulgarian government and all the political parties, the Bulgarian state, Bulgarian society and the Bulgarian people.
However, we must not overlook the large amount of work that still needs to be done.
Here are three indicative points: firstly, the completion and practical implementation of the legislation on public administration and judicial authority, to ensure that it will be real, effective, independent, transparent and fair; secondly, social protection and social policy, and the establishment of real social dialogue; and thirdly, of course, Koslodui, on which Bulgaria undertook a political commitment to the European Union's authorities for the progressive shutdown of the four units which cannot be upgraded or restored.
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<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gomolka">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as chairman of the European Parliament delegation to the EU-Latvia Joint Parliamentary Committee, I should like to begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Caccavale, who has given a very detailed account of the most recent developments in Latvia's progress towards joining the European Union.
He has drawn some very necessary conclusions and given clear reasons for them, which is why his report and the motion for a resolution deserve our full support.
The report quite rightly draws attention to the progress which Latvia has made over the last few months and years.
3 October this year was a particularly important, perhaps even historic date, when there were not only parliamentary elections, but the public were also asked to take part in a referendum on proposed changes to the citizenship laws.
The fact that they voted in favour can be seen as proof of Latvia's political maturity, and it should enable the relatively large Russian population to be integrated more successfully than has previously been possible.
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Any efforts to increase the number of true citizens and to combat disintegration deserve our support.
The decision to make it easier and simpler to gain Latvian citizenship has clearly been taken with an eye to the future, and is all the more important when one thinks of the country's dark and tragic history, since the ethnic mix of its population is partly the result of decades of occupation.
So the clear majority in favour of relaxing the citizenship laws is not just an expression of political maturity, it is also evidence of human greatness.
It is precisely because the decision taken by the people of Latvia was such a complex one that it deserves recognition.
Latvia deserves our support, and this would also be in our own interest.
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<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bösch">
Mr President, Commissioner van den Broek, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to offer my warmest thanks to Mr Wiersma and the Committee on Foreign Affairs for their report on Slovakia and our relations with that country.
It gives a very clear account of the new situation in Slovakia since the parliamentary elections at the end of September.
Commissioner, if the process of enlargement really is to be seen as a dynamic and open one, as the Commission has always insisted, then events in Slovakia must surely put this theory to the test.
Why should we not be dynamic and open when a country like Slovakia shows, with an election turn-out of 85 %, that it wants to come in from the cold and join its neighbours in the first group for accession?
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We quite understand that the assessment you have presented to us, Commissioner, has not been able to take account of the most recent developments in Slovakian politics and society, which is why the rapporteur's demand - which I am sure will have the support of the overwhelming majority in this House - is all the more important that we should agree to re-evaluate Slovakia's position in the spring of next year, in order to do justice to its new situation.
I would strongly urge you to do so.
I think this would be in the interests of the Union as a whole, and would encourage further positive developments in the Slovak Republic.
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<SPEAKER ID=90 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Mr President, the European Union has given the applicant countries a very thorough examination.
Our preliminary findings were recorded in the avis , and the acquis screening is now a further stage in the evaluation of these countries.
I would be glad to see the Central and Eastern European countries turning the tables and delivering an avis to the Union on how well we are doing in making the necessary reforms and preparing the conditions for accession.
I think their report on our efforts would be fairly damning.
It would note our many failings, how we are dragging our feet on institutional reform - which, to tell the truth, we have not even started yet - the never-ending negotiations on agricultural reform, and our inability to react appropriately to new developments such as those in Slovakia.
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<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Burenstam Linder">
Mr President, the preamble to the Treaty of Rome establishes that the foundations should be laid for an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe and that the barriers which divide our continent should be removed.
It is a triumph for the EU that it has now reached the point where ten countries that were once cut off by an iron curtain are now endeavouring to establish democratic regimes, freedom and reforms within the European Union.
We have given rights and made promises to those countries and we cannot let them down.
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We welcome the Commission's reports.
The country which has made most progress during the last 18 months, namely Latvia, will be invited to take part in membership negotiations next year, provided nothing unforeseen occurs.
Lithuania has also made noticeable progress.
This gives further encouragement to the reform process in the other Central and Eastern European countries which have not achieved quite so much.
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The effect of all these countries striving to qualify for EU membership has already been very advantageous for the Member States.
Their efforts to step up democracy and improve human rights has fostered peace in Europe.
We should be aware that it is not just in the former Yugoslavia that a complex pattern of ethnic rivalry has sparked off serious conflict.
Timely reforms have led to more stable economies and improved markets.
The budgetary cost arising from expansion towards Eastern Europe is negligible in comparison with the economic and political gains for those countries, as well as for us.
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I hope that the Council of Ministers, with its present socialist bias, will not decide to apply the brakes to the enlargement process.
It is a matter of some concern that the political leaders who opposed German unification are now adopting a tone which could be interpreted, rightly or wrongly, as favouring a slowing-down of the enlargement process.
The Socialists probably find it more difficult than the Conservatives and Christian Democrats to see the outstanding advantages for peace and prosperity of replacing communism with a market economy.
Pressing on with enlargement is thus a major obligation for the European Parliament.
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<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Evans">
Mr President, as a member of the Joint Parliamentary Committee with Romania, I would like to share a few of my thoughts.
As the rapporteur, Mr Bernard-Reymond, says in his very fair report, Romania has experienced a range of difficulties and has probably not moved as far along the road to accession as we or they would have hoped.
I have visited Romania several times over the last ten years and in that context it is impossible not to recognise and acknowledge the huge progress and massive changes that have taken place in Romanian society, business and education, much of this in conjunction with EU partners and the TEMPUS programme for example.
<P>
The rapporteur has already referred to the economic situation but, with reference to Parliament, Romania has many difficult decisions to make.
Its legislators are not yet sufficiently progressive to meet the challenges ahead.
For example, they must be prepared to rescind Article 200.
They must improve their judiciary processes and, contrary to what Mrs Schroedter said, I feel they could pre-empt the EU by abolishing the necessity for EU citizens to have visas to visit Romania.
That being said, Romania is unquestionably European by its history, culture and language.
It has had a turbulent past but has now turned the corner and I look forward to still being a Member of the European Parliament when we welcome our Romanian colleagues here.
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<SPEAKER ID=93 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schwaiger">
Mr President, the action and the ambitions of the new Slovakian Government, led by the Christian Democrats, are designed to ensure that Slovakia is included as soon as possible in the group of applicants currently negotiating accession.
Its programme of reforms is designed to strengthen its constitutional institutions and to give fresh impetus to a pluralist society and the economy.
It is now vital to use funding from the PHARE programme to give whatever support is needed for the democratic development of the organs of state and government.
Rapid progress is being made in the creation of democratic structures and there is a clear desire for reform.
What is now needed is to provide rapid and appropriate support for putting these reforms into practice, including the establishment of a statute for minorities.
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Our economic support should focus on the setting-up of businesses and providing better opportunities for starting up small and medium-sized firms.
The Slovakian administration is more than prepared to adopt the acquis communautaire as soon as possible, so we should ensure that intensive training and information is provided by our management and administration colleges.
It is now important for the Commission to give the political signal at the Vienna summit that Slovakia is making rapid progress with its political reforms.
It should also confirm Slovakia's positive economic developments in an interim report some time over the next few months, so that Slovakia can be included in the first group of applicant countries next summer.
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<SPEAKER ID=94 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Konrad">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is a very important debate.
It is important because we are making it clear that the EU is considering not six, but eleven applicant countries with great interest.
One of these is Romania, which is a country I think we need to look at very carefully.
It is true that the pace of reform has slowed, particularly the economic reforms.
It is true that there is more corruption, that the shadow economy has grown once again, that there are delays in the structural economic reforms and that the IMF has blocked loans.
But it is also true that Romania and its people want to join the European Union, and I think that we in the Union should do everything we can to support this process.
<P>
We must be determined to provide constructive support for Romania's development, and this involves more than just money.
I think we must make it quite clear that when the applicant countries encounter difficulties, which are only to be expected, these difficulties must not be exploited by those who have never wanted enlargement to be a success and who have always tried to delay it.
I am very confident that Romania will one day become a member of the European Union - there is every likelihood of this happening - and that we in the European Union are only doing what we have always wanted, which is to make the western European Union into a pan-European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Mr President, I am very pleased that this report supports Slovakia's accession.
Slovakia is a particularly dear neighbour of Austria's and therefore of the European Union, and I hope that it will be allowed to join as soon as possible.
There are two problems, however: Mochovce and Bohunice.
Mochovce is certain to attract our attention, and Bohunice is a permanent source of concern and worry for the public.
I would be against making the closure of Bohunice a condition for accession negotiations to start, but I certainly cannot imagine this House agreeing to the accession of Slovakia while Bohunice is still in operation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, I will respond very briefly.
First of all, I am grateful for Parliament's very constructive comments, from which I conclude that it is fair to say that Parliament broadly endorses the conclusions of our reports as well as the content, the analysis.
I think it is most important, as far as the applicant countries are concerned, that this should be combined with a message of further encouragement, and then I think the speed and momentum of the process can be sustained and consolidated.
<P>
I have taken due note of the concern which persists here and there about forms of differentiation - different groups and so on.
Let me say this.
Apart from the fact that - like you, I would imagine - we stand by the principle that each applicant must be assessed on its merits, rewarded for the progress it has made and not kept back with those who have advanced more slowly, we are all in favour of the fact that those very countries which, through no fault of their own, have more work to do, for example before they can open negotiations, deserve extra attention and extra assistance from us.
I would remind you that I told you last year that it was precisely for this reason that we created the catch-up facility within the PHARE programme.
<P>
I can also tell you that applicants which have not yet opened negotiations will, in the first quarter of the year, in terms of the screening process too, move from multilateral to bilateral screening and thus into a process which is more akin to that in the first group, if I can put it like that.
<P>
Lastly, I would reiterate that what counts is what the countries themselves achieve. You may well find - and I am picking up the thread here of what Mr Titley said this evening - that a difference will soon become apparent amongst the countries which are already negotiating between those which are moving forward faster and those which are slower.
Whilst tactically we do exactly the same as regards the number of chapters dealt with, the number of chapters completed and so on, differences may of course develop in the course of the year, and some negotiations may make more progress than others.
Credit has to be given accordingly, and we feel that the Commission - and the Council too, which leads the negotiations - must adapt and allow for any such differences.
So we agree on that.
<P>
My final comment is this: several speakers this evening have again referred to the importance of closing down unsafe nuclear reactors.
I can assure you that the three applicant countries which face this phenomenon and its troublesome political, economic and social implications are well aware of the pressure there is from Parliament, the Council and the Commission to address the problem and devise programmes for decommissioning these plants.
We shall liaise closely with these applicants towards that end.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="President">
Thank you for those clear answers, Commissioner.
<P>
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
EU/Turkey relations
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0432/98) by Mr Swoboda, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the further development of relations with Turkey (COM(97)0394 - C4-0490/97) and on the communication from the Commission to the Council: European Strategy for Turkey - The Commission's initial operational proposals (COM(98)0124 - C4-0634/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this was really not a very easy report to write, and it is also not a very easy time for me to be presenting it.
I would like to mention ten points which I feel are seminal to this report, and which I hope you think are too.
<P>
First of all, I think that relations between the European Union and Turkey should become less tense despite the current difficulties, and I agree with the Commission that our relations should be developed on the basis of the Customs Union and the Commission's strategy paper, which has been very positively received in Turkey.
This is the way forward.
<P>
Secondly, Turkey should also clearly recognise, as I say in my report, that the door is open.
There is absolutely no doubt about this, and Turkey should acknowledge the fact.
Thirdly, we also want to have Turkey as a member because we think that it can play an important part in establishing security in Europe and in Europe's economic and social development.
<P>
Fourthly, financial relations between Turkey and Europe must therefore be well regulated.
I welcome the fact that the Commission has put forward proposals on this which Parliament is to examine separately, and I would suggest that we should also consider which EU programmes, particularly those for the East European applicant countries, could also be applied to Turkey.
<P>
Fifth, I would stress that the Copenhagen criteria also clearly apply to Turkey, of course.
Sixth, we - that is to say, the Council, the Commission and Parliament - feel that Turkey has a long way to go - some people would say that it is getting even longer - to meet the Copenhagen criteria, particularly the requirements of democracy, the rule of law and respect for the rights of minorities, whether these be sizeable minorities like the Kurds or smaller ones like the Armenians and the Greeks.
Turkey must respect the rights of all its citizens.
<P>
Seventh, my report works on the assumption that Turkey itself should propose how and when it intends to meet the conditions set by the European Union, particularly the political criteria.
I would like to get away from the situation where we make demands and then have to examine whether they are good for Turkey and whether Turkey has done anything about them.
No, if Turkey accepts - and this is the condition it must meet if its application to join the European Union is to be considered - that it has to meet the Copenhagen criteria, then it must itself come up with some proposals very soon on how it intends to try to fulfil the individual requirements relating to democracy, the rule of law and recognising the rights of minorities.
<P>
Eighth, it is very important for us that Turkey should have good neighbourly relations with all its neighbours, including Greece, of course.
As I have repeatedly said, Turkey, which itself understands the importance of family relationships, should not be surprised if we support one of the members of our family here in the European Union, namely Greece, in its efforts to establish good and fair relations with its neighbour.
I also support Greece's proposals on how to solve the present disputes, proposals which are entirely acceptable and fair towards Turkey.
<P>
Ninth, the Cyprus problem is something we want to get to grips with, and for this we need Turkey's cooperation.
We want to find a fair solution, and we do not want the matter to be resolved unilaterally.
The Turkish inhabitants of Cyprus should be given every opportunity to cooperate and to have their say, but this must be within the context of a joint solution for both the Greek and Turkish populations, and it must also be clear that Parliament wholeheartedly supports Cyprus's efforts to become a member of the European Union.
<P>
Tenth is the Kurdish question, which has sadly become a particularly topical issue over the last few days.
Let me make this quite clear: we want to see a peaceful solution to the Kurdish problem.
We reject any form of terrorism or violence, and we also reject any solution that would compromise or destroy Turkey's unity and integrity.
We fully recognise Turkey's right to have and its interest in having a unified state, but within this unified state the Kurdish people must be able to uphold their cultural rights and in particular their language and its use in the media, books and so on.
<P>
I think that in spite of the Ocalan crisis, Turkey can still find a way to resolve its Kurdish problem once and for all, and the European Union should help it to find a peaceful solution to this problem and to combat terrorism.
We in the European Union and in this House will certainly not support terrorism, particularly if Turkey is prepared to find a peaceful solution to the Kurdish question.
It was on this basis that I wrote my report, and it is on this basis that I think that we can make a new start, resolve a number of thorny issues and achieve open relations with Turkey.
But we must make it perfectly clear to Turkey that the political and economic criteria have to be met if Turkey wishes to become a member of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Schwaiger">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Turkish Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz is obviously making it difficult for us to discuss the development of relations with Turkey dispassionately and to come up with coherent proposals for the European Union sine ira et studio .
Threats against the government of one of the Member States, Italy, a boycott on Italian goods and political attacks on the European Union are, I think we would all agree, hardly the best way for the largest of our associated countries, Turkey, to achieve closer relations with us. However, we should not allow the excellent report by Mr Swoboda, which could provide guidelines for our partnership strategy, to be swamped by the reactions to the issue of the handing-over of the Kurdish leader Mr Ocalan.
<P>
I also welcome the Commission's decision to issue its usual annual report on the state of relations between the European Union and Turkey in the same form as the progress report produced for the other applicant countries.
This means that we will have a clear list of the progress, or lack of it, that Turkey has made on the political, economic and social requirements.
We in the Committee on External Economic Relations feel that it is important in the medium term progressively to consolidate and intensify economic and political cooperation with Turkey in a spirit of partnership.
<P>
For the European Union this means - as its side of the partnership - fulfilling its financial commitments in the context of the Customs Union, including Turkey in European programmes such as Leonardo, Socrates and Youth, and coordinating policies on energy, transport, the environment and combating drugs.
I would agree with Mr Swoboda that we should not issue Turkey with a list of demands; it simply needs to have a kind of action plan on Europe to improve the coordination of all its efforts in the fields of democracy, the rule of law and human rights, including also the accompanying economic conditions and the adoption of the acquis communautaire , and it should raise the profile of these efforts, which are its guideline for intensifying cooperation.
<P>
If the Swoboda report can be used, as before, in a positive spirit to tackle the problems which exist between Turkey and the European Union, assuming that it is adopted by Parliament tomorrow, then we feel able to vote for it as a set of guidelines.
However, we feel that if it becomes excessively bogged down in certain issues, it will simply be counterproductive.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Titley">
Mr President, a very important event in EU-Turkey relations is occurring at this very moment.
It may come as a surprise to parliamentarians that it is not taking place in this Chamber but in Turkey because at this very moment Galatasaray are playing Juventus.
If that becomes the occasion for mob violence against Italian citizens, I would submit that it would set back EU-Turkey relations a long way.
Having seen what happened to Manchester United when they visited Turkey a few years ago, I fear the worst this evening.
<P>
The Socialist Group condemns absolutely the hysteria which is being whipped up against Italy by sections of Turkish society over the Ocalan affair.
We condemn any interference in the decisions of the judiciary in a Member State governed by the rule of law.
I want it to be said loud and clear that those of us who want to see a more positive policy towards Turkey will have our voice silenced if the Turkish Government or Turkish society encourages mob rule against citizens of the European Union.
An attack on one country of the EU is an attack on us all.
<P>
Having said that, we welcome the Swoboda report and in particular the way the rapporteur has drawn on the expertise of various organisations in Turkey such as unions and human rights groups to make a positive and constructive contribution to the development of EU-Turkey relationships.
The Socialist Group has been consistent in its line on Turkey's application for membership of the EU.
We believe that Turkey would make a valuable contribution to the peace and security of our region.
We do not accept religious or cultural reasons as an obstacle to Turkey's accession to the European Union.
However Turkey must be judged on the same basis as any other country.
It must adhere to the Copenhagen criteria and the Commission's report makes it very clear that it does not.
I support the rapporteur's suggestion that it is now up to Turkey to give us a timetable for concrete reforms to demonstrate just how serious they are with their application.
Turkey also has to accept the EU's right to negotiate admission with any country it feels fit to negotiate with.
<P>
However, it is important that we are not passive in relations with Turkey.
We must try and help find a political solution to the Kurdish problem which in many ways is the cause of much of Turkey's paranoia and insecurity.
We know that Turkey's problem is that the government is weak and the state is strong.
Therefore we should be looking to strengthen the government by support for reform of the public administration, by improved interpretation facilities and by ensuring the democratic organisation work at grassroots.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
Mr President, first of all may I compliment Mr Swoboda on his balanced, tactful and thorough report.
It sets the scene for the European Union's relations with Turkey.
Firstly, it confirms that Turkey can in principle accede to the Treaty of Rome, as can any democratic and constitutional state, on the basis of the political values which we in the Union hold in common.
That in no way means, of course, that a state with a large Islamic population cannot join.
Nor, for example, would we be opposed to a Bosnia with a large Islamic population group if at some stage it applied for membership of the European Union.
I would like to make that point emphatically, so that no one can pretend there is any difficulty on the European Union side.
<P>
But we must insist that a country wishing to join does indeed meet the criteria, just like any other country.
Because we are not joining another country; other countries are joining the Union.
The Union expects countries expressing the wish to join the Union to take real steps in the right direction, not only economic measures for their own economic structure, but primarily steps to secure the political values which obtain in a constitutional state and a democracy.
<P>
Union members have to be constructive in resolving their own minority problems.
They have to be constructive in helping to promote international peace and the rule of law.
In that respect, Turkey currently leaves much to be desired, because she is oppressing her own minorities, has problems along her eastern borders and has nothing constructive to offer towards a settlement of the Cyprus question.
<P>
Turkey's government must not act as if it can demand membership of the European Union on its own terms.
It cannot ignore the measures which remain to be taken.
<P>
I think we would do well to ask Turkey to draw up a time-scale, as the report also suggests, with a plan for taking the political measures required by the European Union.
If they do not do that, there will be no further progress, but if they do, those measures will be warmly welcomed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Swoboda's report importantly confirms Turkey's eligibility for membership of the EU, provided she satisfies the economic and political criteria.
In that respect, the analysis of the situation in Turkey has not materially changed since we concluded the Customs Union with her.
<P>
Once again, we have here a list of wishes which we know from experience and having dealt with three Turkish governments will not be satisfied in a hurry, however desirable that may be.
I therefore warmly welcome the Commission's initiative of a European strategy for Turkey.
The Commission, and I have to say the Commissioner in particular, has to my mind always played a constructively critical role in this difficult relationship with Turkey.
As a result, the Union and Turkey have never been totally cut off from one another.
I hope that role will bear fruit within the foreseeable future.
<P>
An hour ago, Mr Swoboda presented his contribution to preparations for the Vienna summit, but I did not hear him say anything as rapporteur about the priority which should be given at that summit to discussing the European strategy for Turkey.
I think that certainly is a priority, because otherwise there is a danger that all these well-prepared operational proposals, the deepening of the Customs Union, will be lost sight of.
<P>
The arrival in Rome of the PKK leader Mr Ocalan and the question of whether or not this terrorist leader should be tried may perhaps be at the forefront of people's minds at the summit.
So this obstacle must be removed prior to the summit, by action of the kind that befits a constitutional state of the EU; this means that Germany, as the next holder of the Union presidency, must uphold the detention order so that Mr Ocalan can be put on trial.
Packing him off to Moscow would be to funk the issue, and would merely further complicate and frustrate our relations with Turkey unnecessarily.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Ephremidis">
Mr President, the rapporteur has obviously made an effort to add gloss to this report, but I do not think he has succeeded.
His report is biased, it is full of suspicious omissions and is governed throughout by a syndrome of unprincipled and unjustified goodwill towards Turkey.
<P>
You want examples of omissions?
Not a word about the negative consequences of the deluge of millions of Turks if the negotiations on enlargement and accession go ahead and Turkey gains access to the Community's labour market.
<P>
Does he say anything about a constitution or about penal law?
Not a word about the torture, the disappearances, the murder of detainees under the penal code in force.
True, he says something about the Cyprus and Kurdish problems, but he deliberately ignores Turkey's expansionist declarations about the Aegean, which are accompanied by threats of violence.
<P>
It is also characteristic that he tries to legitimise the de facto dominant position of the Turkish military government in Turkey's public life when, in paragraph 18, he calls for talks on accession, negotiations etc., to be held with the armed forces.
Where before has such a thing ever been proposed?
In what country?
Why does he propose this for the Turkish military government in paragraph 18?
<P>
For those reasons and many others, for which one minute is not enough ...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ceyhun">
Mr President, we do not wish to see any torture or executions in Turkey, and we are therefore grateful for the balanced tone and clear goals set out in Mr Swoboda's report.
He opens the door for Turkey to become a member of the European Union and urges that a timetable should be drawn up for democratic reforms there.
He thus spells out in very practical terms the basic requirements for membership of the European Union.
I very much regret that such clear thinking was not possible a year ago in Luxembourg.
This has strengthened forces in Turkey which detect a spirit of the crusades within the Union and want Turkey to change, whereas the forces of democracy have been weakened.
<P>
The Member States now have another chance to give a sign in Vienna that will strengthen democracy in Turkey, and I hope they will be guided by Mr Swoboda's report.
I think the ball is now in Turkey's court.
After a report like this it really has to put its cards on the table, and this is why I am very glad that we too have another chance to do so now.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Ceyhun, and congratulations on your maiden speech here in Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, Commissioner, the Swoboda report is certainly heading in the right direction.
However, I am slightly uneasy about its general criticisms concerning the rule of law in Turkey.
More than one Member State - and Mr Ephremidis should not feel that I am getting at him because I am not thinking of his country in particular - should be doing some very deep soul-searching about the rule of law at the moment, and I am thinking here particularly of the host country of the European Parliament.
<P>
That said, what is undoubtedly missing from the Swoboda report is the whole issue of the Council's clumsy treatment of Turkey over enlargement, excluding Turkey for no reason from the list of countries that will one day become members of the European Union.
And one thing that is really not playing the game is the unilateral cancellation of our side of the Customs Union.
When there is an agreement you cannot unilaterally delete part of it and only keep the parts that, as we have seen, are beneficial to the European Union.
<P>
However, I think that there are a certain number of good things in this report and I must congratulate Mr Swoboda on setting a timetable.
What is vital is making sure that relations between the European Union and Turkey are based on a calendar of reforms leading to accession.
I would urge - and I think the Commission would agree with this - that the timetable should be fixed as soon as possible so that we can start working towards a particular target instead of remaining in this state of flux, which has unfortunately already been going on far too long.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Roubatis">
Mr President, I would first like to congratulate Mr Swoboda on the very meticulous report he has presented and on his thorough work.
He has prepared a report which is on the right lines, because our aim here is not to make things difficult for Turkey, but rather, to make them easier, and to help Turkey along in the procedure which it has requested, so that its application to join the European Union can one day be taken seriously.
<P>
But what is the European Union?
I think this is something that Turkey will have to understand.
It is not just an economic community, but above all an association of free countries and their citizens, who share certain values in common.
What are those values?
Democracy, respect for the individual and his rights, freedom of thought, the protection of minorities and respect for diversity.
I am afraid that in Turkey there are many who do not understand what those values mean, and I think this report will help them do so.
<P>
In Europe we suffered the trials of the war.
Turkey, which was neutral during the last war, perhaps does not understand what peace means to us.
Perhaps that is why Turkey so easily and so often threatens peace, threatens to take up arms even against members of the European Union itself.
Of course, in the EU we are not perfect when it comes to protecting the rights of our citizens, but we recognise what Turkey does not recognise: that democracy's greatest imperative is respect for our citizens, who must not be exposed to high-handedness, torture and disappearances.
Genocide must never be used as a weapon for the subjugation of a minority group.
As I said, Turkey itself requested membership of the European Union and certainly has the right to reconsider.
But if it does not wish to reconsider its application, it must respect the principles I mentioned.
<P>
And another thing: Turkey must take immediate steps to renounce war, to accept the process of the International Court at The Hague and to accept that it must stop the war against its own citizens.
That is when it will find that it has friends here in the European Union, friends who are interested in helping it forward, friends who want the Turkish people to progress to a point where one day they will be much closer to Europe.
<P>
Yet again, I wish to congratulate Mr Swoboda.
This report is a very important one and I hope it will not be misunderstood in Turkey, because it was prepared by people who want to help that country finally move into the twenty-first century.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bianco">
Mr President, taking up the last point made by the previous speaker, I would say that our intention is to help Turkey move closer to the European Union.
I believe, moreover, that Parliament, the Council and the Commission have always pursued this goal.
<P>
We are conscious of Turkey's central geopolitical position and the role which it can play in creating the conditions for peace in a particularly sensitive region.
However, Turkey must also understand the reasons for certain objections, opposition and criticisms raised in the course of the negotiations.
One outstanding issue which obviously cannot be overlooked is the Kurdish question: although we respect Turkey's territorial integrity, this cannot be considered a purely domestic problem, not least because it is crucial in terms of protecting minority rights.
On the other hand, harsh and violent attitudes will not resolve the matter either, and the terms in which Turkey has referred to Italy are not always palatable.
<P>
In our opinion, this is not the way to solve such problems.
Only through dialogue and conflict settlement can these goals be achieved, goals which the European Union must pursue with determination and by common accord.
Sometimes, I must say, we have felt isolated, even though at the end of the day the European Council - through the Austrian Presidency - and the Commission did speak out in solidarity. These are problems which can only be tackled by all of us together.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Speciale">
Mr President, in my opinion Mr Swoboda has produced a good report: it is well-balanced, clear and also firm where it needs to be.
All of us - I do not believe that we differ on this point - are keen to keep the door of the European Union open to Turkey, and consider that - as Mr Bianco has just said - Turkey could in theory make a major political contribution to the EU.
But the problem is that certain obstacles still exist at the present time, and it is on these that we must focus.
The principal obstacles are above all political ones, concerning democratic guarantees, law and order, and minorities.
It has to be said that, on balance, the domestic situation within Turkey is unacceptable: unacceptable both to us and in the light of the Copenhagen criteria.
This is Turkey's problem, and it is Turkey which must adapt its structures and its conduct.
<P>
Mr Swoboda is right to say that we must ask Turkey and its government what it intends to do, when and how.
We must now enter a new phase: we can no longer merely utter declarations of principle, repeating that Turkey is important and that we are keeping the door open; it is now up to Turkey, if it wishes to join the European Union, to say precisely what it intends to change, when and by what means, and how it intends to adapt its structures which conflict with the Copenhagen criteria.
That is the point!
<P>
Turkey's recent attitude to Italy has, to my mind, been a serious error of judgement on the part of the government and society at large, because its aggressive, even violent attitude has created a very poor impression not only in Italy but throughout the EU at an awkward moment for Turkey. It has thus made a serious mistake.
The Italian Government did what was necessary, as everyone has acknowledged.
It arrested Ocalan, because an international arrest warrant had been issued by Germany, and acted in accordance with its constitution: neither in the past, present or future can anyone be extradited to a country which carries out the death penalty and does not furnish adequate human rights guarantees.
This is Italy's position and that of all the Member States of the European Union.
<P>
Turkey has a further problem, over and above those already mentioned: it cannot say that there is solely a problem of terrorism and not a Kurdish problem.
This is a key point: until Turkey admits that there is a Kurdish problem, and not just a terrorist problem, it will not be able to comply with the Copenhagen criteria or to give us satisfactory answers.
There are other issues apart from the Kurdish question, but this is typical of Turkey's attitude.
Now is the time to put our detailed criticisms to Turkey and to demand answers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stenzel">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Western European Union in Paris yesterday, I had the opportunity to listen to Turkey's Foreign Minister, Mr Cem.
Turkey is obviously glad of any opportunity to appear at any forum on the European stage.
It was significant that Mr Cem thought that he detected a change of position in Turkey's favour in the last Commission report, which described Turkey as a candidate and not - as it suddenly was in Luxembourg - a 'non-candidate' pushed out in the cold.
This was the impression he had had, and it is a positive sign that relations are improving between the European Union and Turkey.
<P>
At the same time, it was striking that Mr Cem refused to be deflected from the terrorism problem as Turkey defines it, and he said not a word about the Kurdish problem.
This is why I very much welcome the fact that the European Parliament report clearly addresses this issue and demands that Turkey should explain its position very clearly, because Turkey must be judged by the same standards as all the other applicant countries.
I am convinced that we now have a major opportunity to find a political solution to the Kurdish problem, because with the agreement between Turkey and Syria, the forthcoming agreement between Turkey and Israel and the shelving of the Ocalan issue, there is a real chance of ending the 15-year guerrilla war that has claimed so many Turkish and Kurdish victims, and there is now a window of opportunity to find a political solution to the problem.
I think that we too must do everything we can to urge Turkey to get to grips with the problem and find a political solution to it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langen">
Mr President, I think that any steps which are likely to improve relations with Turkey are both right and proper, and I therefore unreservedly support the main elements of the Swoboda report, together with the Commission's proposals and the progress report.
There are just three points on which I have reservations.
The first is the lack of openness in our dealings with Turkey, which is why I hesitate about the wording of paragraphs 1 and 29 of Mr Swoboda's report holding out the prospect of membership once again, whereas all the facts and every practical consideration indicate that this is misleading.
Everyone would surely agree with me that Turkey belongs to the family of western democracies and must be part of that family.
For this reason, it should not have to see its application to join put off indefinitely once again.
The 1963 Ankara agreement, signed 35 years ago, does admittedly say that the possibility of Turkey's accession to the Community would be examined, not as an obligation on the Community, only as an expression of its willingness to do so.
But if we now give Turkey the impression once again that accession is imminent, we are being misleading, we are not being honest or open and, as so often happens here in Parliament, we are simply leading it up the garden path.
<P>
I would be in favour of developing a special relationship with Turkey.
I fought tooth and nail for the Customs Union here in Parliament and I am a member of the Joint Parliamentary Committee, but raising the bar again now and offering the prospect of accession under far more stringent conditions than applied to any of the others who have joined is simply unrealistic and unfair.
There is one further point which this report does not mention.
Parliament would be well advised to deliver a clear opinion on the failure to implement the financial protocol of the Customs Union.
How can we make demands of Turkey if we cannot eliminate the obstacles that we ourselves have created through Greece's permanent veto?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Lambrias">
Mr President, from this platform I have repeatedly stressed that if there is one country among the European Union's 15 Member States which would be delighted if Turkey joined the Union, that country is Greece.
This is because geography dictates that Greece is Turkey's neighbour.
If those two countries were to work closely together, given that they occupy sensitive positions at the crossroads between Europe and Asia and between the Balkans and the Mediterranean, that cooperation would be valuable, productive and constructive for the whole of Europe and, I would say, for the security of the world as a whole.
<P>
But an essential prerequisite for that, obviously, is that relations between those two countries should be friendly and based upon the principles of international law.
Unfortunately, while Greece, along with the other 14 countries, was prompt to subscribe to the Customs Union, Turkey, as if emboldened by that fact, has increased its provocativeness, aggressiveness and rashness towards Greece, to the point that its territorial claims are constantly on the increase.
Consequently, it is no mere quibbling that makes Greece decline to sign the financial protocol.
It is because the conditions of the Luxembourg Council's decision requiring Turkey to demonstrate a truly European orientation have not been satisfied.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, may I begin by thanking Mr Swoboda most warmly for his thorough and in my view balanced report.
I think I can say that the Commission to a large extent agrees with the rapporteur's analysis, and his conclusions too.
<P>
I too was in fact anticipating this debate with mixed feelings just now, given recent developments in our relations with Turkey and specifically following the detention of the PKK leader Mr Ocalan.
Nevertheless, I think we need to take a rather longer view and bear in mind that in recent times - beginning in 1995 with the conclusion of a Customs Union, but also more recently with the devising of a separate European strategy for Turkey - the European Union has chosen to measure the situation in Turkey against the Copenhagen criteria - easily identifiable in terms of Turkey's desire to be recognised as an applicant for membership.
A progress report has been drawn up, in other words the European Union has I think clearly manifested its good intentions and also its political belief that it is important to further develop a lasting institutional tie with Turkey.
We can certainly try, through assistance and cooperation - and there are proposals for that - to improve the economic position, to broaden and deepen the Customs Union, and to further align Turkey's laws with those of the European Union, but one thing we cannot do is dictate to Turkey how it should manage the political criteria laid down in Copenhagen.
In that respect, the Union has set the standard at exactly the same level for all applicants.
Noblesse oblige.
That holds good in this case for Turkey too.
<P>
In view of the time, I shall come to an end.
I do in fact hope that on one of the major issues, the Kurdish question, which has caused us no end of trouble in our whole assessment of human rights in Turkey, the beginnings of a political solution may now be in sight, a solution which certainly can only be possible once the problem as such is acknowledged to be a problem.
We have not really got to that stage yet with Turkey.
But can we not say here that the European Union is willing to look, together with Turkey, at ways of resolving this very important problem?
The prospect of a solution would give a huge boost to Turkey's whole relationship with the European Union, it would improve the relationship enormously and also considerably improve the chances of solving other similarly important problems such as Cyprus, relations with Greece and the Aegean.
<P>
I will leave it there.
The recent developments and complications over the detention of the PKK leader have in any case made two things abundantly clear: how important it is that we should actually get an international criminal court which can deal with this kind of thing and, secondly, how important it is that we should now start to look seriously for a political solution to the Kurdish question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
I think that Mr Swoboda can be pleased with this debate.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 8.05 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Members' Statute
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0426/98) by Mr Rothley, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the draft Statute for Members of the European Parliament.
<P>
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy has the floor for a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, pursuant to Rule 128 of the Rules of Procedure, I should like to table a motion for the debate on the this item to be declared inadmissible for three reasons.
<P>
The first reason is that the report draws upon the Amsterdam Treaty, which is mentioned in the preamble in recitals B, D and E. This Treaty has not yet been ratified, it has not yet entered into force.
It is an affront to French Members and Senators to apply this text before it has even been ratified, particularly as, only yesterday, they debated the constitutional reform preceding the ratification of this Treaty.
<P>
The second reason is that the draft Statute included in this report adds provisions to the Treaty establishing the European Community, to the 1976 Act and to the Protocol on the privileges and immunities of the European Communities - something it does not have the power to do.
For this reason, the provisions which aim to penalise MEPs holding other parliamentary mandates are inadmissible.
<P>
The third reason, Mr President, is that this report is an own-initiative report.
It must therefore respect Rule 148, intended as a legal basis, and Rule 50, which applies in accordance with paragraph 6 of that Rule.
Therefore, the proposal that it contains must, and I quote, 'respect the principle of subsidiarity and the fundamental rights of citizens', which is not the case in this instance.
It must also respect paragraph 4 of the same Rule: 'Where a proposal has financial implications, Parliament shall indicate how sufficient financial resources can be provided'.
This requirement has clearly not been met; this proposal does have financial implications for the Community budget and there has been no suggestion of how to finance it.
<P>
These are the three reasons why I am calling for this text to be declared inadmissible and this is why I am questioning it now.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
The Chair believes that the report we are about to debate is admissible as the Council has expressly asked for our opinion on this matter and, according to the Rules, this is a valid way to give our opinion.
Therefore, the Chair believes that it is not inadmissible and, as it is not inadmissible, we will begin debating it and, at the appropriate point, we will vote on it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, your point of view is most interesting, but it is not up to you to give it on the motion I have tabled.
It is, however, up to you to ask whether there is a speaker for and against this motion before putting it to the vote, as stated in Rule 128 of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="President">
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, I know that you are very familiar with the Rules but at this moment in time the Presidency is applying these rules and believes that there is no need for a debate and vote on your proposal as the report is admissible.
If, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, you do not agree, you can appeal to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, of which you are not only a member, but a very well-known member.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, the Chair has decided on its position.
This position, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, may be wrong, and you all know how to appeal against it.
But, in any case, the Chair will begin the debate as it believes that the report is admissible.
I have explained my reasons for this: although the changes to the Amsterdam Treaty have not been adopted in all the Member States, Parliament's comments on future-related matters are valid, and all the more so as the Council has asked for our opinion on this matter.
<P>
I shall now give the floor to the rapporteur, Mr Rothley.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="Rothley">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Members' Statute represents an opportunity for Parliament.
It can take on a new profile: more independent, more self-reliant; it can come of age as a Parliament whose members are accountable to the electorate and to the European Union.
One aspect of this new profile is that Members would be paid by the European Parliament itself.
Equal pay for equal work.
Which brings us to the first problem.
There will always be governments and members of national parliaments who maintain that the Members of the European Parliament must on no account earn more than the members of their own national parliament.
And there will always be Members of the European Parliament who consider it unacceptable that they should earn less than national MPs.
That is just how things are, and they will be no different two years, five years or 20 years from now.
<P>
For that reason we must address the problem now.
I do not believe we can achieve this aim in one fell swoop.
That is why we in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights are proposing a transitional system.
The Members who are elected for the first time next June will receive the average salary, which will be compulsory for all new Members.
Why?
Because the average is a token of our respect for the democratic decisions of national parliaments.
It makes no sense for the Italian Government to attack the Spanish Parliament for paying its members too little.
Nor does it make any sense for the Spanish Government to attack the Italian Parliament for paying its members too much.
That would be utter nonsense.
<P>
Europe cannot function if any one country forces its own system on all the others. In short, the use of the EU average is a mark of democratic respect.
For the Members who are re-elected, there will be problems in terms of pensions and fiscal legislation, and that is why they should have the right to choose between the new system and the present system, but only for a five-year period.
During the next Parliament, we shall take a decision that will apply uniformly to all Members for the sixth legislative term, beginning in the year 2004.
<P>
If you share my earnest wish that we should have a statute before the elections in June of next year, the proposal tabled by Parliament must be moderate, it must be immediately convincing, it must be obviously sensible, and it must be entirely selfexplanatory.
So what are the other proposals?
There is the idea of linking MEPs' salaries to those of judges or Commissioners.
Almost all our governments grumble about civil servants' and judges' salaries.
If we say we want a percentage of a civil servant's, judge's or Commissioner's salary, the Council will immediately lower the portcullis.
So anyone who wishes to kill off the Statute need only propose this sort of linkage.
<P>
There is another reason.
A Member of Parliament is an independent political player who is accountable to his or her electorate and to the European Union.
No part of me is a judge at the European Court of Justice, nor should I ever wish that upon myself!
<P>
Hiding behind the pay packet of a civil servant or a judge, rubbing our hands with glee whenever civil servants or judges are awarded a rise and shrugging off any responsibility, may be cunning but it is not prudent.
The European Parliament should decide freely, independently and confidently about the remuneration of its Members.
This alone befits the dignity of Parliament.
The other disadvantage of the linkage proposal is that it does not name any figure.
That is no way to solve the problem facing the European Parliament, and there is indeed a problem facing us.
This issue has set people talking about Parliament; it must not bring us into disrepute.
<P>
As for travel expenses, it is high time we solved that problem.
We must not create the impression that we only take action if the big stick is wielded.
But we can only solve the problem if we talk about pay.
No one can expect a Member of Parliament to work here for ECU 2 827.
That is not realistic.
This is why rates of pay and the system of reimbursement for travel expenses are inextricably linked.
This is why we must name a figure and include the following sentence in our resolution: 'The Bureau shall decide in the light of the Statute'.
The fact is that having a statute will enable us to put our House in order.
In other words, the political logic behind our proposal is that we are prepared to solve our problem, and now it is up to you in the Council to play your part.
That is the political rationale of this proposal.
<P>
Some say there are too many details.
The Dutch fiscal authorities are taxing our colleagues to the hilt, and some say these are mere details that do not interest us.
No, these are not trivial details.
We have heard enough fine words.
We have heard enough political rhetoric.
We have a problem to solve.
Politics is all about solving problems.
That is why we are here.
I have often been thinking lately of one of Churchill's delightful witticisms: democracy, he said, is the worst form of government except for all the others.
That is also what I should like to say of this proposal.
It is the worst proposal except for all the others, and that is why I would ask you to approve it.
<P>
(Laughter and applause)
<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="Méndez de Vigo">
on Institutional Affairs. (ES) Mr President, I trust that after the 109 amendments we are to vote on tomorrow, this statute, currently only in draft form, will prove a great step forward from what we have in place at present.
I most earnestly hope so.
Indeed I am sure this will be the case, for one simple reason: this statute is of crucial importance to Parliament.
It represents a success for Parliament, which listed it amongst its priorities when negotiating the Treaty of Amsterdam.
No one thought the requirement for a statute would be included in the Treaty, but we managed to ensure that it was.
That was the first success.
<P>
Secondly: this statute is very important for Parliament because it serves as its charter.
The Statute is about much more than just our salary.
It lays down the rules by which we must regulate our conduct, as representatives directly elected by the citizens.
<P>
Therefore, the proposal we must take to the Council, which has to approve it unanimously, ought to be a reasonable proposal, as Mr Rothley has said. If it is not, it will fail because of the requirement for unanimity.
In that case, the success achieved so far would turn into failure.
<P>
In its opinion, the Committee on Institutional Affairs, which I have the honour to represent, has made three requests. First, that the rules adopted be transparent, so that the citizens can be aware of the rules governing the conduct of Members of the European Parliament.
Secondly, that all existing rules be brought together in a single document.
Thirdly, that equal treatment be given to all Members.
<P>
In my view, the present state of affairs, which results from a previous situation, no longer makes much sense. After all, we are all elected representatives and we are all doing the same job.
<P>
This is why I believe that if we vote for a reasonable text tomorrow, we shall prove the strength of our conviction, the political strength we acquired at Amsterdam.
I trust, Mr President, that we shall indeed be able to do so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="Green">
Mr President, this report is, in my group's view, of the utmost importance in the development of the democratic legitimacy and the credibility of this House.
Of course, it should not be so.
We should be judged here on the way we carry out our functions, to legislate, to monitor the work of the Commission and the Council and to set the budget of the Union.
Sadly, that function, which I believe has been developed and carried out in a constructive and progressive manner during this parliamentary term, has been obscured by a barrage of criticism in all our countries in recent years.
<P>
That criticism which reaches a crescendo in our press with monotonous regularity centres on the system of allowances and expenses accruing to Members of this House.
I want to pay tribute to the two Presidents of our Parliament during this parliamentary term.
Firstly, Klaus Hänsch and now José Maria Gil-Robles have worked to introduce the reforms necessary to restore to this House and its Members a degree of dignity and public acceptability.
<P>
This is the first time I have taken the floor for my group on this issue in this chamber.
In the last four and a half years I have been engaged in a continuous round of discussions within my own group and with my counterparts in the other groups of this House to ensure that we can now take the fundamental decisions necessary to solve this problem.
This, in my view, represents the last opportunity in this parliamentary term to end, once and for all, this most damaging public vilification.
<P>
I for one hope passionately that tomorrow this House will adopt an appropriate package of reforms.
We all know that there will be some out there who will argue that whatever we do it will not be enough.
Sadly, there are some in this House who, over recent years, have deliberately and dishonestly added to the debate by misrepresenting and misreporting detail and motivation.
<P>
Let us therefore do what we believe is right, what we believe is defensible and what we believe our citizens will see as reasonable.
Let us also be entirely open.
It is clear that the issue of the expenses regime could not be solved until we also dealt with the inequality of Members' salaries.
The gross disparity between the salaries of Members doing identical jobs in equally trying circumstances in terms of travel, hours, inconvenience, the disruption of family life and so on, is simply not acceptable.
It was of critical importance, therefore, that the intergovernmental conference in Amsterdam in June of last year included a request that the European Parliament bring forward a proposal for a Members' Statute.
The Rothley report is our response to that request.
<P>
In my group's view it is not acceptable to propose a Members' Statute which simply pulls together the varying conditions, immunities and privileges of the 15 national parliaments of the European Union, collates them and then calls the result a statute for Members of the European Parliament.
If this statute is to have some integrity and credibility it must look at the role of a Member of the European Parliament.
We must define a statute which is appropriate for the work we do, the environment in which we work, the travel which is an integral part of our job and the incompatibilities which result.
<P>
I want to congratulate Mr Rothley for the extremely effective job he has done in this respect.
I must say that there is probably no single Member in this House who will be satisfied with every aspect of Mr Rothley's proposals and I conclude therefore that he has got it about right.
We cannot dodge the important issue of a Member's salary so I propose to deal with it now.
It is simply a fact that Members of this House should be paid the same salary.
In any similar environment with working colleagues coming together it would not be acceptable that salaries with such diversities are commonplace.
It runs counter to all logic and common sense and lies at the base of all our problems.
<P>
The big question has been just what is an appropriate salary for MEPs?
Mr Rothley's average of the salary of all our national parliamentarians is an ingenious solution.
It is not by any means the highest salary to be found amongst national parliaments nor the highest salary we could have proposed.
Yet it represents an appropriate salary.
It has the virtue of being transparent and understandable and my group rejects other formulations as being opaque and opening up the criticism that we are manoeuvring for some super, inflated wage.
<P>
In order to facilitate the clear problems for those colleagues who would suffer a substantial loss of salary under this system Mr Rothley proposes a transitional period, whereby in the next parliamentary term colleagues who are reelected can choose either the new salary or an existing one.
While some colleagues are unhappy with that transitional phase, and I put myself in that category, it has to be recognised that we are talking in terms of a considerable downward movement of some Members' personal income.
Such a transitional period would at least give them the ability to plan their future.
New Members will of course enter this parliament under the new system immediately.
<P>
The report proposes that salary should be subject to Community rates of taxation.
This is a controversial proposal which I believe divides most groups in this House, and mine is no exception.
Many Members feel that they wish to continue to pay the same tax rates as those fellow-citizens whom they represent.
Others feel that they will be receiving a European salary and are entitled like others employed directly by the European Union to pay European Union tax rates.
I think this one will come out in the wash, ie it is difficult to predict what the result of the vote in this House will be on this issue.
<P>
The other side of the coin of a single salary is a system of reimbursement of travel costs based on actual expenditure.
For me this is fundamental.
I cannot accept that we adopt a common salary and in the same breath continue to allow an expenses regime which is based on anything other than actual cost.
I have no doubt that such a proposal would be entirely unacceptable to our citizens, our voters and indeed to our governments.
Mr Rothley's proposals in this respect are excellent and I hope they will be supported.
The compromise amendment tabled by my group and the Liberal Group with the rapporteur's active support, I believe, adds even greater transparency and clarity to this issue and I hope that it will command support.
<P>
The other and major section of this draft Statute is that of the incompatibilities and other elements which define our rights and responsibilities, our mandate and independence as Members of Parliament.
A series of amendments in the names of many groups, mine amongst them, have been tabled which add balance to the report and I hope they too will be adopted.
<P>
If tomorrow we succeed in producing a draft statute we will have taken a first and major step to solve this long running and open sore.
It will then be up to the Council to acknowledge the commitment of the Parliament and its Members, to take the very tough decisions which I hope we will do tomorrow.
It will then be up to the Council to indicate that they are prepared to give the green light to the next stage, ie detailed interinstitutional negotiations so that a statute can become a reality before the European elections in June of next year.
Time is short.
Consensus on an issue of this sort is extraordinarily difficult to secure.
We will tomorrow, I hope, secure the majority we need.
Let us hope that in Vienna the Council can do likewise.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fontaine">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, over the past few weeks, the report by our colleague Mr Willi Rothley has caused much ink and many words to flow.
But what should surprise us most yet has been passed over almost in complete silence, is the fact that for almost twenty years now MEPs - who are elected by universal suffrage as everyone knows - have been waiting in vain for a common statute.
Commissioners have a statute, the judges at the Court of Justice, the advisers to the Court of Auditors, the Ombudsman - thanks to our efforts - our officials and, of course, the members of our national parliaments all have a statute but the Council does not deem it necessary for an MEP to have one.
<P>
Nonetheless, if ever there was a situation which was so complex that it needed appropriate measures to be taken from the outset, it is that of the MEP.
The reality for MEPs is indeed complex in many respects.
Their parliamentary allowances are aligned with those of their national colleagues but, as everyone knows, the differences according to nationality range from the same amount to triple the amount - not to mention the substantial differences in tax systems. This unfairness is compounded by the fact that members of national parliaments in some Member States - on paper the lowest paid in the Union - receive direct compensation in their country which their European counterparts are not entitled to.
<P>
The second element of this diverse and complex reality is that of distance.
Some colleagues live close to our places of work - Brussels and Strasbourg - and some are even on site.
Others, in contrast, live on the periphery and spend a day or even longer travelling to these places, sometimes having to use several forms of transport.
<P>
Also, the lack of a common electoral system - and we are awaiting the results of the report from our colleague Mr Anastassopoulos on this - leads to further injustices.
Some of our colleagues are elected representatives in Member States whose size allows them to travel around relatively easily to visit their constituents. Other colleagues are elected representatives in vast constituencies where they have to be particularly thorough on the election trail because they also face a preferential system.
<P>
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should simply like to say to those who have avidly studied this matter for some time now that they would gain more respect if they were sufficiently objective to take the realities of the life of an MEP into account.
But perhaps this is too much to ask from those who clearly still aim to discredit MEPs systematically.
Every person in this House would sincerely like to see transparency in all expenses payments.
Every person is also aware - as Mrs Green said a few moments ago - that the disparities I have highlighted cannot be tolerated amongst colleagues who sit on the same benches and who do a job that is often exhausting but which, unfortunately, is only appreciated by those in the know because of the lack of media coverage of their work.
<P>
Every one of us has reached the conclusion that only a common statute for Members would let us respond to the demand for both transparency and equality, which go hand in hand.
This is the reason why - I have almost finished, Mr President - I am delighted that the Council has finally agreed to incorporate the principle of a statute in the Amsterdam Treaty. I should like to congratulate our President, Mr José-María Gil-Robles, for having achieved this.
I am very pleased that the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and its rapporteur worked towards this, along with the PPE Group. And I should like to thank those colleagues who actively cooperated in the deliberations of the working party we set up.
I hope that, tomorrow, we will vote through a text on which there is the greatest possible consensus and that in adopting it later the Council will at last both accept its responsibilities and strengthen the dignity of our institution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="Cox">
Mr President, my group attaches the highest priority to this report and to the work done by our colleague Mr Rothley.
We do so for political and institutional and not for personal reasons because some will gain and some will lose under this system.
Frankly, if we were to be paid nothing there are some begrudgers and commentators who would still raise questions.
We are also acknowledging that this Parliament has been dogged constantly by debilitating, negative publicity especially on the issue of allowances and Members' expenses.
It is damaging our credibility.
It is reducing our legitimacy in the eyes of citizens and we have to fight back.
Too often many of us scramble to defend the system that we really do not believe in and for some of us is really indefensible.
Our current system is complex and reflects the fact that the issue was fudged 20 years ago with direct elections.
We now have the power of Amsterdam and I am pleased to see that with an accelerated pace we have responded to the challenge of the Cardiff conclusions.
I hope tomorrow that we will, in a final vote, deliver a very strong message from this House into the hands of our President to respond to the challenge of Cardiff to say we have listened, we have paid attention and the ball is now firmly in the Council's court.
<P>
In particular I congratulate the rapporteur.
Many thought this could not be done and certainly could not be done in the timescale.
He has done it.
He has done it with the colleagues and the Committee of Legal Affairs.
I would also congratulate my own colleague, Willy De Clercq for his role in chairing that.
<P>
On the detail, briefly, my group wishes to add dimensions other than the economic and that now is clearly a matter of consensus.
My group wishes to support the final vote of the Statute, even if there are things in it we would have preferred to see otherwise, because we want to get the message over.
My group will support the explicit salary that is referred to by the rapporteur and the majority of my group will support the European tax conclusion.
Overall we believe in equal work for pay of equal value.
There are other details but I will skip them.
<P>
Ultimately we support this draft because it gives us the capacity as politicians before our electorate, before the next election, I hope, to shift the focus from the politics of envy, from the politics of allowances and expenses, to the politics of the Union itself, which is our vocation and which is our mission.
To advance that, I have already initiated a round of meetings through my group with senior Members of the Council because they are now the ones, I hope from tomorrow, who must bear their responsibility to help us to rid ourselves of a yoke that for too long we have been stuck with.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="Crowley">
Mr President, I speak today on behalf of my group with regard to the proposal put before this House.
At the outset I want to pay a very particular and special tribute to our rapporteur, Mr Rothley, who had a very difficult task and who has come forward with his own, honest opinion with regard to what would be achievable in the overall context.
Unfortunately, I do not agree fully with what he has written in his report.
However, I can state at the outset that my group fully supports the idea of having a common statute for Members and for putting forward a motion for a resolution containing a proposal for a common statute.
<P>
Where we diverge somewhat, is with regard to what should actually be in that final resolution and draft Statute.
On the question of principle, no Member of this House surely has so little respect for him or herself that they feel they should not be paid a proper salary at a level common to each and every one of us.
Unfortunately, due to errors in the past, and due to a lack of political will in the past, not by Members of this House, but by the Council, we have failed to get agreement with regard to that common salary and common situation.
<P>
There has been much negative publicity foisted on this House, some of it generated from Members within this House for their own political gain and political beliefs and some from former Members who have attacked the parliament to gain themselves a higher national profile for cabinet positions and so on.
So we must show respect for ourselves by being willing first and foremost to lay down guiding principles and secure the agreement of the Council and then decide on what the exact remuneration should be.
By stating explicitly now what we feel the common average should be we allow the Council to say: that is too high.
With a transitional period we would ensure that the inequalities will be continued and that Members who are reelected to this House, who presently earn two times or two and a half times what I earn at the moment will continue that inequality.
If we truly believe and truly want a common statute there should be no transitional system.
There are other actuarial methods and accounting methods for dealing with pension contributions, health questions and so on.
<P>
Finally, I want to draw Members' attention to one other point.
The voting list which will be put before us tomorrow has been drawn up in a very unusual way.
We have on the voting list questions related to the draft Statute and questions related to the annex.
But the amendments relating to the draft Statute and the points of principle of the draft Statute are put onto the annex side and the questions relating to the annex side are put on the draft Statute side.
So we are not being given the right to determine first whether we agree with the principle or not and vote on all the amendments related to that.
I would ask the services to please ensure that we are given a proper voting list tomorrow morning.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sierra González">
Mr President, when commenting on the report on the draft Statute for Members of the European Parliament, one must first recognise that the rapporteur must have been working against a deadline.
Nevertheless, he contrived to incorporate into his work - quite rightly, in my opinion - absolutely essential provisions to safeguard independence and transparency.
<P>
However, in just the same way as I am bound to recognise the merits of his work and the areas where we agree, I am also bound to state where I differ. In particular, my differences centre on three main issues, namely the proposal for determining Members' salaries, recourse to external assessment to determine the latter and setting up optional transitional arrangements during the fifth legislative period.
<P>
Why do I differ?
As regards the proposal for Members' salaries, I accept the rapporteur's view on the need to achieve equal treatment. However, it must be borne in mind that in some Member States, implementation of his methods will result in the return of inequalities between Members of the European Parliament and Members of national parliaments.
<P>
Concerning external assessment, it does not seem appropriate to assess Parliament's operation by applying business standards, because Parliament is not a business.
Resorting to external assessment in this way may be interpreted as an attempt to avoid responsibility for the salary determined.
<P>
Finally, in connection with the transitional arrangements, I differ because, as I see it, the same status, in this case that of a directly elected parliamentarian, can bring with it different rights.
<P>
In conclusion, I should like to make it clear that although I recognise the obvious merits of this report, I could not vote in its favour unless the amendments concerning the issues I mentioned are adopted
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, the worst thing which can happen to us, ladies and gentlemen, is to muddle on with the existing arrangement, which is untenable because it leads to a different income for the same work and is also tied to laughable travel expenses which provide some Members with a second and third income on which they pay not a cent in tax.
That is indefensible.
Let us now push for a good and decent system.
So I hope Mr Rothley's proposal is adopted and that average earnings will be the model, because it would not make sense to hide behind a percentage of something else, it would make no sense and it would be cowardly, and I hope too that immunity and incompatibility will be part of the Statute.
<P>
There are of course a few points in it which we shall find hard to bear, but we are prepared to accept those in the circumstances in order to escape from the bad system we have at present, for example the transitional period, the fact that we are still making the reimbursement of travel expenses conditional on approval of the Statute, and the voluntary supplementary pension.
I hope in any event that we shall get this settled tomorrow, and then perhaps we shall be able to use the shower cubicles and wash off the mud.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, the great virtue of Mr Rothley's report is that it exists at all.
There will doubtless be quite a debate on it, and we too have one or two comments.
On behalf of our group, we wish to put ourselves firmly alongside those who favour a common European statute for Members of the European Parliament, simply out of respect for the parliamentary office we hold and which our successors will hold after us.
We are convinced that the European Parliament has an image problem, but we believe the Council must at last understand the necessity of applying once and for all this principle of equal pay for equal work, not least in the case of the European Parliament.
Our group also feels that the enacting of a statute of this kind is a clear manifestation of the desire for European integration and of the great symbolic significance which a European Parliament can have, a real parliament acting as the cornerstone of European unity and as a symbol.
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We therefore think that a transparent arrangement is needed which is based on reimbursement of the actual costs incurred and which precludes the possibility of abuse.
One wonders - and a number of members of our group have asked the question, Mr Rothley - whether everything needed to be set out in so much detail in the report, or whether a few things might not have been covered in an annex.
On the other hand, we fully appreciate that there must be no doubt concerning the basic salary, and an average of the kind you propose is acceptable to many of our group's members, although it must be linked to a system of European tax rules, because otherwise you will have equal pay but inequality again due to different national rules on tax.
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Lastly, we cannot agree to a transitional arrangement.
I appreciate that you put that in for reasons of pragmatism, but we think in principle that anyone running for European office next time should do so in full awareness of the situation and acceptance of the new Statute.
On supplementary pensions, you have made three proposals.
Some of us, myself included, really want these provisions on supplementary pensions to be left out.
We would prefer to see nothing regulated and paid by the European Parliament, but instead a proper social statute, of the kind you suggest, forming part of the Statute as a matter of course.
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Mr President, to us and to every Member of the European Parliament, it is not the money which matters most.
European parliamentary office is an important office.
It will need to be more important still in future.
The power of this Parliament needs to grow, and its lack of a statute has certainly held it back in the past.
We hope the choice we make tomorrow will be a common choice for a common statute, and that notwithstanding our differing opinions we shall prove that this choice, which is made out of principle, is the right one.
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<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, here we are meeting to discuss our future statute at a Brussels mini-session on a Wednesday evening at 9 p.m. with no public present.
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What a wonderful example of transparency and democratic legitimacy we are setting at the end of what has been an exceptional procedure - and I am not even talking about the astonishing casualness which you have demonstrated, Mr President, with regard to the Rules. On three occasions during this procedure it has been necessary for the Conference of Presidents to intervene.
It first intervened to authorise what is and what can be nothing but an own-initiative report, on the basis of Rule 148. It then intervened to impose a rushed timetable, marked in particular by an extraordinary meeting of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights - a six hour meeting held in Strasbourg on 17 November.
Lastly, it intervened to correct - literally - the report by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights in an exceptional meeting held here last Wednesday at 8 p.m.
I might add that several meetings of the secretaries-general have been given over to this report.
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Why such urgency?
Why such attention?
Why such concern amongst the group chairmen?
Because, ladies and gentlemen, it was absolutely essential that a text be drawn up at all costs, no matter what its contents, before the Vienna summit. Because the ball had to be thrown back into the Council's court to hide our own inability to change the current system for reimbursing travel expenses - a system quite rightly criticised because it is shocking - and to make the Council take responsibility for the status quo .
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This is what we are being asked to do, and we are doing it by flouting rules, by applying a Treaty which has not been ratified and by adding to texts of the highest legal level. We are doing it by failing to exercise our future powers.
A proper statute should cover the different requirements which apply to Members.
A proper statute should not only address financial matters, of course, but also incompatibilities, privileges and allowances, and rules of conduct.
A proper statute should provide a legal basis - which currently does not exist - for the system for reimbursing expenses and paying allowances for the exercise of office, and should also give this system the transparency it is sorely lacking.
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Such was the aim of the draft Statute that we tabled in Amendment No 106.
In place of this, the draft from the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights is a collection of incoherent, outrageous and ridiculous measures.
The incoherency arises from stating, in recital A, that any difference in the Statute for Members on grounds of nationality shall be prohibited, yet it also refers to national systems when these are more beneficial.
The outrage lies in mentioning the need to avoid difficult personal situations and to preserve already acquired rights, or those being acquired, by implementing a transitional system and a dual scale for salaries.
No one is forcing Members to stand again and, ladies and gentlemen of the Socialist or Social-Democrat Groups, as you claim to be, you are simply trying to obtain something which is denied to employees in companies in your respective countries.
Lastly, the ridiculous nature of this statute lies in stating that the parliamentary allowance will be paid in advance, to prepare for any eventuality.
As a general rule, all work merits pay but, in this case, all pay merits work.
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This statute will not protect Parliament's image.
I have never seen such a pathetic display of national sentiment, such a display of willingness to take one's personal situation into account. The European Parliament has never seemed to me so far removed from the concerns of public opinion.
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<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Barzanti">
Mr President, this House is about to perform an act of great courage and far-sightedness.
It has been our ambition for some time - and it might now come about at last - to have a statute laying down the rights and obligations of Members of the European Parliament, the nature and prerogatives of their mandate, and the precise means of exercising it.
This has been made possible by the Amsterdam Treaty which, although not yet in force, is the frame of reference for our discussion and for the expeditious, enthusiastic work of the rapporteur, Mr Rothley, who is a past master with difficult dossiers.
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We owe it to ourselves to perform this act.
The resolution on a uniform electoral system and the blueprint contained in it - the rapporteur was Mr Anastassopoulos - was likewise a significant step forward in highlighting the urgent need to endow Parliament with its own autonomy and hence with a form of democratic legitimacy, ensuring that it is no longer a gathering of national representatives but a forum which allows the peoples of Europe to have their say in a process inspired by solidarity and federalism.
A uniform electoral system is a precondition if the work of all MEPs is to be comparable.
What will the Council do about it?
That is by no means a peripheral question.
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We also owe it to public opinion, to the peoples of Europe, to take this decision.
All too often our Parliament, or certain of its Members, have been the focus of malicious rumours, of disparaging and insidious campaigns by the press.
Full transparency is therefore required about everything, not merely out of defensiveness but because there should be nothing to hide.
Finally, this act of ours is a challenge to the Council and the Union's other institutions: they too must clarify the conditions under which not only political appointees but also officials of all grades perform their duties.
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Given that I agree with the overall structure of the texts being put forward here, I shall merely touch on certain points where I and other members of the Socialist Group would like to see additions or express doubts or dissent. The first of these is the temporary nature of the provisions outlined, but I shall not dwell on this point.
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Next, it would be useful to investigate the incompatibilities more thoroughly, including not only that of exercising the office of member of a national parliament but also, for example, that of mayor of a city or community having more than 100 000 inhabitants.
I know that this is a matter to be settled under electoral legislation, but it would nevertheless be helpful to offer some guidance in this respect, for example along the lines set out in Amendment No 89.
Clearly the content of the annexes will have to become operational once the Statute itself has come into effect, in the light of the provisions contained in it, and will have to be implemented on more than just a mechanical basis.
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As far as Members' allowances are concerned, I do not think it right, even provisionally, to apply the criterion of a mathematical average of the allowances in force today - or whenever the sum is fixed - in the national parliaments.
Why should the average of such dissimilar amounts, for duties so different from ours, miraculously produce a fair and acceptable result?
It would be preferable to link this calculation to allowances granted for the exercise of offices or duties in another European institution and to a deliberate, straightforward and carefully weighted assessment, equal for every one of us and subject to Community taxation: Amendment No 13 is very pertinent in this regard.
A figure can be put on the amount - it is not true that this will not be specified - once the House has voted.
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My purpose in speaking frankly and openly here today is to attain a goal which none of us can underestimate.
When casting our votes, let none of us lose sight of the sense of pride and dignity which must guide us in voicing the ideas and feelings of the European peoples.
It is vital to cut through the demagogy, adverse propaganda and opportunistic moralising: we must be in a position to perform our difficult and complex work on a salary which is reasonable and equal for us all - for all MEPs, whose circumstances vary and who accept different degrees of inconvenience in performing the same duties. We must ensure that our Parliament really does serve everyone: it must be more efficient, more transparent and ultimately more democratic, a Parliament which strives to be truly European.
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<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Añoveros Trias de Bes">
Mr President, I should first like to congratulate my colleague Mr Rothley most sincerely.
I really do mean what I say! I may not agree with Mr Rothley, but I admire him nonetheless, because he has shown himself capable of coping with the most difficult circumstances, tight deadlines and pressures from all and sundry.
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Our President does indeed have to take to the Vienna Council a document on which to negotiate.
Yet in this case, as I stated this morning in our group, we have let ourselves down.
We have been slow to deal with such an important issue which affects us directly, and we are in grave danger of mishandling it altogether.
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Of course we support the Statute.
It has our full support.
I very much fear, however, that what we are to vote on tomorrow is not in fact the Statute for Members of the European Parliament.
What we are really voting on is the Members' payslip.
What seems to be of prime importance is how much a Member will earn and what for.
It is the only statute in existence to contain such an inordinate number of figures and details.
That is not what transparency is all about.
It is a travesty of transparency.
There is no reason for the Statute to contain an annex which is an integral part of it. Rather, that annex, whilst referred to in the Statute in the appropriate way, should be regulated by Parliament itself at a later date, with the benefit of all necessary transparency.
That is the legally correct procedure, and you, Mr Rothley, know that as well as I do.
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We do, however, have a good opportunity to improve the draft by means of amendments.
Mr Rothley has been extraordinarily receptive with regard to these.
Some issues are not really economic, but they are essential to the Statute, such as the transitional periods, taxation, pensions and incompatibilities.
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In addition, Mr President, we must make every effort to avoid an obvious risk: that the Statute may prove to be to the detriment of many of our colleagues.
Having heralded the Statute, stressing its transparency, impartiality and solidarity, it would be absurd and contradictory to allow unfair and detrimental differences to arise.
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Once again, I stress the importance of taking advantage of the many amendments which do make sense and help to make the text more reasonable.
We should not forget that we are regulating our future and that of our successors.
God forbid that due to a misunderstanding of the nature of transparency, we produce legislation to be ashamed of, and which is not only unfavourable but also seriously detrimental to us.
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<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, tomorrow we shall be able to show that we are willing to play our part in achieving clarity and precision.
Despite considerable resistance, the Liberal Group has managed to move the process forward so we can submit our proposal.
I am delighted to note that this is the general view tonight, which was not the case when we began in July.
We can therefore ask the Council to resolve the issue so that it can be removed from the agenda, which is no more than Europe deserves.
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I am glad that it looks as if there will be a broad majority tomorrow, and that everyone appears to be democratically minded enough to approve it.
Our objective is a system with independent representatives, and one where we do not have an auction in which the lowest bidder wins.
The transitional regime is reasonable in view of the fact that a considerable number of candidates have already decided whether or not they wish to participate.
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As we have mentioned, our group is split over taxation.
I share the minority view that national tax regimes can continue to apply in the future.
I think it is important for us to broadly accept this principle.
Consequently, it is not up to us to decide this matter, but a valid decision is required by the next parliamentary term.
I hope we will be able to support other reforms which we can decide for ourselves.
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Finally, I should like to say that there have been times when we have come up against the obduracy of the rapporteur, but on the other hand his tenacity has made it possible for us to discuss the proposal and put it to the vote tomorrow, and for this I should like to thank him.
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<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Mr President, since we are members elected by 15 nations to a supranational structure of states, should we not have a single statute?
Undoubtedly we should.
However, perhaps over-concerned with the media, we are currently showing our inability to give the signal that the Council needs so that it can reach the unanimity that the European Parliament itself seems regrettably so far from achieving.
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The basic question is this: does a single statute necessarily mean a single salary?
Obviously not.
Our position, which we reached after much consideration and with due respect for the opposite point of view, and which we announced quite clearly almost two years ago, is that our emoluments should refer to the country and the people we belong to and where we live.
If the proposal is approved, the report would be taking the idea of allowing, albeit provisionally, different salaries for members of the same national origins to absurd lengths, particularly as we approach a single currency.
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Finally, on a subject that was a burning issue some time ago, perhaps we should take care not to moralise and stir up trouble about the cost of members' travel expenses, especially in the case of people who come to meetings from a very long way away.
Smoke might get in people's eyes but there is no smoke without fire.
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<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ullmann">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are many things in the European Union that are still far from European.
This even applies to the European Parliament.
The work of its Members is still governed by rules that were devised at a time when this House was merely a parliamentary assembly of MPs from the Member States.
What we are planning now is nothing more or less than the Europeanisation of the pre-European conditions in which our parliamentary work is conducted.
Our debates have shown to all and sundry that this proposal touches on some very raw nerves - on issues of social standards and individual circumstances and indeed on the broadest possible diversity of unique personal dilemmas.
From where can we draw the strength we need for this step on the road to Europe?
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The Treaty on European Union tells us. The European Parliament, it says, shall consist of representatives of the peoples of the States brought together in the Community.
We are not simply representatives of the people, but representatives of the peoples.
Anyone who does not know what that means would be well advised to come along to the Committee on Petitions, where he would see that our mandate is not to represent one people but rather all the peoples of the European Union.
At the same time, however, we do represent a single people in that we represent the people of the Union, which now expects its Members of Parliament to take this step whereby they can establish their credentials as representatives of the peoples.
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<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, more than 20 years ago now, the Council undertook to draw up a statute for all Members of this Parliament.
We never got one.
That is not in itself so bad, because having a Community statute may nurture the idea that Parliament represents one people.
But the European Union is made up of a rich diversity of different peoples.
We are elected by the people of our own nation and must also bear in mind our national interest.
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However, the interim solution of being paid a salary by the Member State and expenses by Europe has resulted in disparity, an uneven picture marked by excessive reimbursement of expenses, the improper use and even abuse of expenses.
While it is worrying that the media are far less interested in our debates than in our expenses, it is essentially right that they should attack these anomalies.
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If we are to clean up our act, there has to be an end to the situation in which the amount refunded for travel expenses is far greater than the actual costs incurred.
Competition in air travel has meant that in many cases it is considerably cheaper to fly than to buy a full-fare rail ticket.
Over shorter distances, certainly those served by fast rail links, Members of the European Parliament should set an example by using the train, not the plane.
Clearly, the expenses paid must reflect that.
Expenses for the use of one's own vehicle must be based on the objectively calculated total cost of a good and safe car, such as an official car.
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Mr President, we have been suggesting for years on our side that the expenses paid should on no account be greater than the actual cost incurred.
The rapporteur's proposals now offer a cohesive framework for achieving all this.
We shall support his proposals, together with those amendments which seek to reimburse costs in a thrifty and realistic way.
We shall not support amendments which seek to add new bells and whistles to the system.
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The monthly salary is an altogether different matter.
The rule is that each Member of the European Parliament gets the same as members of his own national parliament.
As a Dutchman, I find it rather suspect that my national parliament has broken the link between the salaries paid to Dutch MEPs and those paid to its own members.
The Netherlands short-changes us to the tune of some ECU 1 000 a month.
This probably means that it is breaking the terms of the Treaty.
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A standardised salary is not our top priority in view of the national office we hold, even though the salary differentials between Member States which the rapporteur has highlighted are enormous and hard to justify.
I imagine that in countries paying very low salaries, membership of the national parliament is not seen as a full-time job.
But a Member of the European Parliament who takes his responsibilities seriously has a more than full-time job.
I would guess that there is not one country which comes close to 45 weeks of meetings a year.
So I do not think that combining membership of the European Parliament with another political office is compatible with the scale and scope of our work here.
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To sum up, I would commend to the House the set of amendments tabled by the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations.
Should these not be approved, we shall vote as a next best solution for amendments which aim for thrift and follow the line taken by the rapporteur, who has made an honourable attempt to get us out of this hornet's nest.
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<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Anastassopoulos">
Mr President, after so many years we have come as far as this evening's debate on the Rothley report, in the sincere hope that we are approaching the beginning of the end.
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A common statute for Members of the European Parliament must finally be established.
Some of us have not ceased fighting hard for that over the years.
The reasons are very simple: the common Statute would put an end to the provocative inequalities that discriminate between Members.
The basic principle of equal pay for equal work has been and is still being violated in the European Parliament's own house, and our efforts to restore a certain balance have created other problems and exposed us to perfidious and sometimes malicious attacks.
The need for solutions free from serious drawbacks has constantly become more urgent.
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With that rationale, the Bureau of the European Parliament, at the time of Egon Klepsch and with as rapporteurs the then President of the College of Quaestors, the Belgian socialist Ernst Glynn and your present speaker, asked the Council to establish a common statute and proposed to equate MEPs with European judges, as happens in several Member States of the European Union.
The Council, however, rejected our proposal and since then the problem has remained outstanding.
Last year it was necessary, on the initiative of the current President Mr Gil-Robles, to add a new provision to the Treaty of Amsterdam currently being ratified, to restate and encourage reconsideration of the problem.
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Following the arguments of the David Martin working group, the report by Mr Willi Rothley attempts to propose solutions.
Our esteemed German colleague has taken a lot of trouble to come up with some entirely new proposals, and it is also true that he has worked under tremendous time pressure so that we would be able to table a first draft at the Vienna summit.
But I believe that despite this pressure, he should show still greater flexibility in the search for solutions that will be more widely acceptable.
Where such serious issues are concerned, I am not alone in thinking that we should not submit proposals based on opportunistic majorities of just a few votes, and I hope that in the voting tomorrow that phenomenon will be rejected.
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With the Council's agreement, the common Statute ought to be established soon, but even at this late stage there are some things which must be made clear once and for all.
Some of us have fought for years for this common statute, but it was never our aim to sacrifice everything in order to achieve a common statute at any price.
There is a limit beyond which there can be no obligation on our part, no discount and no compromise.
It is a matter of protecting our dignity, which is not open to debate or negotiation, and the Council must understand that.
No malicious attack by the media, which some people are trying to orchestrate, must divert us from that principle.
We must not claim equality with category B2 Community officials, agreeable though they may be in other respects.
And I hope Mr Rothley will forgive us for disagreeing with his way of thinking and preferring the rationale of the amendment by the European People's Party.
The Council too should not be misled about this for any reasons, on any pretexts or by any excuses.
We have fought for reforms a great deal in the European Parliament and have promoted important ones in recent years, not because we give way to the pressure of often perfidious attacks by the media, but because we believe in the need for radical reforms.
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I believe that as a democratic body, it is our duty to show particular sensitivity towards any criticism offered in good faith. Likewise, however, we must disregard attacks motivated by anti-European sentiments which aspire to discredit the European Parliament and the European Union's other institutional bodies.
No attempt to terrorise us must be allowed to divert us from our course, and we cannot conceal the fact that we particularly regret that a few of our colleagues have contributed to those attacks, courting popularity by denouncing their fellow parliamentarians and putting themselves forward as the only incorruptible ones, to ensure their re-election.
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Mr President, we want the common Statute, but not a demeaning one which will offend our dignity.
And we are prepared to continue our fight unwaveringly on that basis.
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<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
Mr President, we are elected as Members of Parliament for constituencies in our respective countries whose voters we represent.
I therefore do not see any need to replace national rules relating to our terms of employment with a common statute.
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The usual argument for this proposal is that we should have the same conditions, for example as regards salary.
Under the terms of the proposal, our conditions would continue to be different.
However, many of us would receive a large pay rise, which would be totally unjustified.
There is no good reason why we should be paid more than members of our national parliaments.
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The proposal that we should have a special, very low EU tax is even more unwarranted.
Like other high income earners, we should pay tax where we live.
I trust that anyone who votes for the proposal on an EU tax will not oppose tax dumping on other occasions.
After all, what is this proposal if not an excuse for us, a highly privileged group, to give ourselves still more perks?
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<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindholm">
Mr President, according to the Treaty, the EU is an association of 15 independent states.
Members of the European Parliament represent voters in their own Member State, and no other.
It therefore goes without saying that salaries should be determined by individual Member States in accordance with national rules, and that tax should be paid where one lives, even if one is a Member of Parliament.
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However, the significance of this report lies in the institutional changes that would take place as a result of the Statute, and which would mean that the ties between Members of the European Parliament and their electorates and national parliaments would be weakened and that we would end up rather like satellites.
Surely the dissatisfaction among Members over salaries is just a simple matter of envy?
None of us is on the breadline yet!
This dissatisfaction has now become a pretext for introducing a statute that will mean a high salary, taxation and pension, all of them regulated by the EU.
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As for travel allowances and the criticism levelled against them, this problem would have been resolved long ago had Parliament's Bureau so desired.
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<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mosiek-Urbahn">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the rapporteur set about his task with the intention of solving a problem, not with the intention of getting rid of a problem.
In September, he submitted a working paper to the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights containing a list of the subjects that should be discussed in an external study he was proposing which would evaluate the tasks undertaken by the Members of the European Parliament.
Moreover, the results of the study were to be on the table in three months, after the conclusion and ratification of the Treaty.
Three months have not yet passed since the working paper was presented.
Although there is no study on the table, we are planning to adopt a complete Members' statute already, with no means of knowing whether the Amsterdam Treaty - without which, of course, the Statute would have no legal basis - will have entered into force before the end of the present parliamentary term in May.
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Several times in the course of this debate, I have protested against this type of summary procedure, but to no avail.
I shall go along with this, but I cannot escape the feeling, or indeed the conviction, that we are shelving the problem instead of solving it.
Maximum transparency for all arrangements relating to the Statute - that is our foremost principle, as Mr Fabre-Aubrespy has already said.
The time of day, or rather night, that has been chosen for the discussion of this report in the European Parliament, a time when the public are automatically excluded, as it were, speaks volumes.
Is this our idea of transparency, or is this birth supposed to take place in secret?
In this respect too, I have to conclude that we do not really want to solve the problem but only to rid ourselves of it.
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For all that, I recognise unreservedly that a common European statute will be of immense value in lending weight to the European Parliament.
It is a very clear step towards closer integration.
Above all, it strengthens the democratic legitimacy of the European Parliament.
Nevertheless, it is important that such a statute should be adopted by an emphatic majority.
We should be seeking an absolute majority, because it would be illogical for us to make do with a smaller majority while requiring an absolute majority for any amendment, however insignificant, to the Rules of Procedure.
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I do not entirely understand why the rapporteur responded so vehemently to the proposal by some Members that our remuneration should be based on a judge's salary.
In my view there is more cunning in the proposal to use the average salary.
It is certainly the line of least resistance, but above all it is a cunning ploy.
To me, however, the most important thing at the end of the day is that we should have an appropriate solution that we can explain to everyone - to ourselves and to the general public.
Let me offer my sincere thanks to the rapporteur for his endeavour in pursuit of this goal.
His efforts deserve our gratitude.
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<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, as we consider any report or legal act, we must bear in mind that this House represents the citizens of Europe, and also that we are a legislative body.
As representatives of the citizens of Europe, we have a duty to our constituents.
As legislators, we are called upon to create an appropriate legal act, one that is legally sound and wellconceived.
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The first of these considerations is particularly pertinent in this case.
It is abundantly clear that public opinion wishes the European Parliament to adopt a common statute for its Members. Such a statute must be based on the principle of equality of all Members, and must put an end to all arrangements which are the legacy of institutionalised inequalities.
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Mr President, the courage and single-mindedness displayed by the rapporteur as he dealt with this issue deserves special mention. He did not hide behind the legal framework, the huge raft of rights and duties enshrined in a statute.
Instead, he came right out into the open, and tackled the central issue fearlessly and resolutely.
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I am bound to say that I have engaged in a good deal of debate with the rapporteur, but he has consistently displayed a constructive attitude, even though we have not reached agreement on certain issues.
I should like my admiration for him and for the courage he has shown to go on record.
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Turning first to the legal aspects, it has been mentioned that the Treaty of Amsterdam has not come into effect.
True, but that need not prevent us from undertaking the necessary preparatory work to enable the procedure to be concluded according to plan and in cooperation with the Council, once the Treaty of Amsterdam does come into effect. I have every confidence that it will.
If I were not so sure, I would be querying this report and many others as a matter of priority.
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Secondly, it has been claimed that the transitional arrangements create transitional inequality - to quote Mr Rothley. It is envisaged that Members will be able to choose different arrangements during the coming legislature.
As legislators, however, we should be well aware that any significant legislative change entails transitional arrangements which may be quite different from what will finally be put in place. This is true of any of our legal systems and also, of course, of the Community system.
There are therefore no grounds for criticising Mr Rothley's approach on this point. One might or might not agree with him, but such arrangements are common practice in any major legislative reform like this one.
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As regards the average salary, I supported this idea from the start, for the very good reason that, as I stated at the time and reiterate today, I can think of no better approach.
On this point I disagree with some colleagues who believe it would be better to establish a comparison with high-ranking civil servants.
I do not agree.
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As for the legal aspects, I differ considerably from the rapporteur on technical details.
I wish him luck as he negotiates with the Council on these matters.
I feel that there is scope for improvement on the legal aspects of certain issues, and I hope this will be achieved through the amendments.
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Mr President, I should like to conclude as I began, by expressing my admiration for the rapporteur and my gratitude for the work he has undertaken.
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<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, after all the fuss over the expenses and salaries of Members of the European Parliament, tomorrow looks like being a good day.
What has been impossible for years - the same salary for all MEPs irrespective of nationality, plus a rigorous system for refunding expenses which is proof against abuse - looks like happening at last after 20 years.
That is a good thing, because this disparity in earnings and the abuse of expenses has well and truly poisoned the atmosphere in and around Parliament.
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I must pay tribute here to Mr Rothley, who has done a fine job in bringing the complex task of producing a uniform statute to completion.
I must also echo Mrs Green in her compliments to Mr Gil-Robles and former President Hänsch.
It is they who got this thing moving, no one else, and though some may think it was other MEPs who did so, they were the ones, and they too deserve our congratulations.
<P>
Nevertheless, I have to highlight a few points on behalf of the Dutch CDA delegation, because we wish to mark out one or two lines of thought in our group in what will be a free vote.
We are in favour of the proposal for a uniform salary, based on an average of current national salaries.
We find that principle more important than the old suggestion of a certain percentage of the salary of a judge at the European Court.
So we support Mr Rothley there.
<P>
We agree with the option of allowing the old system to continue for five years in the case of Members who have been in it for years.
We think that is a reasonable way of dealing with the old system.
And we think it is a good thing that the voluntary supplementary pension is being phased out.
Whether that happens in 1999 or 2004 is a personal choice.
But it is good that it should not continue for longer than it needs to.
<P>
As regards taxation, we are in favour of levying European taxes on a European system and national taxes on national systems.
<P>
Lastly, on the subject of travel expenses we have always favoured a rigorous system for repayment of travel and subsistence costs.
We are glad that this is at last being sorted out.
<P>
Tomorrow is an important day, and I sincerely hope that the Rothley report will be approved by a large majority, so that we can at last draw a line under these sordid discussions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Florio">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as many colleagues have said, the lack of a Members' statute has been noticeable for at least 20 years, so a proposal for one is most welcome.
Yet in my opinion, although I acknowledge Mr Rothley's deep commitment, the draft is unsatisfactory because it confuses the question of an MEP's status - a vast and complex topic, involving rights and obligations - with that of his emoluments.
This is a very narrow approach, which I believe is unprecedented in the statutes of parliamentarians around the world.
What is more, despite focusing solely on economic problems in the main, the draft sets out to solve these by taking an average of the allowances currently fixed by the individual national governments.
<P>
Personally, I believe that it would be fairer to link MEPs' allowances to those of another Community regime, and at the same time for us in this House, together with the other institutions, to advocate an across-the-board reduction in all Community salaries, which are too high in objective terms.
But on this issue, raised by myself and other colleagues back in 1995, nothing has been done and nothing is likely to be done.
<P>
Let me finally make one other point: the proposed reform leaves intact the existing - and controversial - voluntary fund for Members' supplementary pensions, financed mainly from the public purse but managed privately in a haphazard way, to put it mildly.
I criticised this disgraceful state of affairs in 1995 when I realised how the fund operated, and withdrew from it along with other colleagues.
I now regret that this opportunity has not been grasped to abolish the fund or to stipulate that Members wishing to belong to it must finance it entirely from their own pockets.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Florio.
<P>
Before I close the debate, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy has asked to raise a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I will speak for just one minute, pursuant to Rules 19 and 22 of the Rules of Procedure, which also define your duties as President of the sitting and the duties of the Bureau.
<P>
During this debate, I have heard officials being called into question and Mr Anastassopoulos, the Vice-President, with whom I have discussed this issue - which is why I am saying it in public - mentioned the possibility of bringing the system for reimbursing Members into line with that for officials, and said that this was detrimental to Parliament's dignity.
<P>
I must say that I was shocked by this statement and I must ask you, in my capacity as a Member of the Bureau which is responsible for the administrative organisation of Parliament's work, to reassure our officials of the esteem in which their Members hold them.
There are countries where ministers and heads of state have salaries defined in relation to their civil servants' salaries.
I am not in favour of this system, but I find that to say that bringing Members' salaries into line with officials' salaries would harm Parliament's dignity is an insult to these officials, who help us and who serve everyone's interests.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
What you have said will be recorded in the Verbatim Report of Proceedings and also in the Minutes.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
External representation of Euro
<SPEAKER ID=147 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0439/98) by Mr Herman, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Decision on the representation and position taking of the Community at international level in the context of economic and monetary union (COM(98)0637 - C4-0638/98).
<P>
I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mr Herman.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 NAME="Herman">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, who should represent the euro externally?
It would seem that this controversial question that Parliament has already raised on several occasions has just been answered with a compromise reached yesterday, without waiting for Parliament's opinion.
<P>
Who should speak for the euro?
It should, of course, be the President of the European Central Bank, as there will only be one monetary policy and, this being the case, we may ask what role the governors of national banks can still play in any sort of international body as they no longer have any say in this matter.
But the union we have is an economic and monetary one.
Who, therefore, will represent the economic side of monetary union? Who is in the best position to do so?
According to the Council, the President of the Council is in the best position as it is the Council that must ensure that economic policies are coordinated.
<P>
Let us challenge this statement.
If we were entirely dependent on the Council for ensuring economic coordination, there would never be any economic coordination.
The ministers who sit in the Council of Ministers defend their national policy first and foremost.
That is their role, they are elected to do so, they are paid to do so and none of them has any reason to defend the common interest.
It is not their job.
What is more, the Council is an intermittent institution.
The President of the Council is appointed every six months, and there are major differences between successive presidencies.
A President barely has the time to get to know the matters in hand before having to give way to his successor, who must also begin the learning process from scratch.
When the Union is represented by the Council in difficult negotiations, the result is disastrous, as we can see by looking back at past experiences.
When the Commission is not leading the talks - as we saw in Geneva and have seen elsewhere - the outcome is deplorable because, in the Council, an agreement is often reached according to the lowest common denominator.
<P>
Also, the President of the Council often finds it difficult to split his duties as President and as a national leader.
I will only give one example.
Mr Oskar Lafontaine will be the next President of the ECOFIN Council.
Mr Lafontaine is now well-known the world over for the relatively inopportune and untimely statements he has made on a range of issues, which do not reflect the common position in any way.
I do not wish to accuse Mr Lafontaine of being schizophrenic, but when he goes to Washington to speak for the Community, the language he uses will inevitably be different from that which he uses as Minister of Finance in Germany. This will not increase the credit, or in any case the credibility, of monetary union in the eyes of the world's major financiers and finance ministers.
<P>
This is why I believe that the Council's position is not the best on this occasion, based as it is on restricted formal arguments.
I believe that it would have been of more use to make the Commission the representative of the common interest, as that is its permanent and institutional role.
What is more, this would provide continuity in the issues being dealt with.
Therefore, I am most disappointed that these common sense arguments - which also conform with the spirit of the Treaty - have not been acknowledged and that we are heading towards a compromise where the Commission will play a minor technical assistance role as an observer.
It will be there to provide information for ministers who speak for the Community and nothing more.
<P>
I regret this decision.
I hope that reality will win through and that continuity and the severity of international life will show that we will only obtain the best results by increasing the Commission's powers in this field.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Porto">
Mr President, since the Maastricht Treaty was so vague, this definition is all the more important since it has enabled the European Union to be properly represented internationally.
Fernand Herman's report is a worthwhile contribution on this issue.
<P>
Of course, our strategy in relation to the IMF needs to be considered at a later stage.
Under the terms of its statutes there can clearly only be national representations, but that makes it vital for the EU to have a monitoring role at least.
However, in the future thought should be given to whether certain changes need to be made to these statutes. When it comes to IMF intervention in budget policy, which would continue to be decided by the Member States, we must not overlook the fact that the scale of our involvement is much larger.
<P>
Apart from institutional doubts, we should nonetheless welcome the fact that we are sure about the policy to be pursued, ensuring the euro's credibility and stability by means of flexible policies and avoiding shocks with the very negative consequences that they would have.
Let us hope, therefore, that recent changes of government, in particular in Germany - mentioned a little while ago by Mr Herman himself - do not lead to any change on this score. They might be tempted in all innocence and in the hope that it would be popular - but that popularity would be short-lived.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="Gallagher">
Mr President, the introduction of the euro will have a major impact not only for EU citizens but also on the international monetary and financial system.
The introduction of the euro will give the European Community a monetary presence that corresponds to its economic and commercial influence in the world economy.
I regret that certain members of the new German Government are pursuing political headlines on tax issues and have given Eurosceptics a field day when sure-footedness and consensus are required at this vital time.
<P>
It is essential that the Community speak with one voice internationally where issues relating to EMU are discussed and decided.
It is too serious an issue for distracting and divisive solo runs on taxation issues which are clearly in the domain of unanimity and national governments.
There must be one voice and one position.
The proposal for a Council decision provides that for issues relating to EMU the Community shall be represented at international level by the Council and the European Central Bank with the participation of the Commission.
Each of these institutions has its own specific competitiveness.
The changes brought about by the introduction of the euro will affect position-taking and representation at international level.
<P>
We can support the proposal for a Council decision but my group does not believe that it is sensible.
We support a role for the Commission in line with Mr Herman's proposals.
The dawn of the euro is almost upon us and it is vital that we speak with one voice and that there should be continuity at international level as recommended by Mr Herman.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Mr President, I wish to endorse the rapporteur's position most emphatically, because our group also feels strongly about this matter and not least because the report reflects the spirit and the substance of our endeavours to ensure that this European Union is properly represented.
From that point of view, it is absolutely right that the European Union should be represented on international financial bodies not only by the European Central Bank and not only by the Council in the form of the eleven participating states, but also by the European Commission.
The task of the European Commission is to serve as the engine of integration and the guardian of the Treaties.
For that reason, the same arrangement must apply within the global financial system as in the global trading system.
The Commission must play its special prominent role.
<P>
That is what makes yesterday's decision by the Council of Finance Ministers so extremely regrettable.
It does not pave the way for future decisions, because there is no guarantee that the European Union - even when it only comprises the participants in monetary union - will speak with one voice.
That, however, must be our objective.
We in the European Union have paid dearly for our failure to speak with one voice during the rounds of world trade negotiations.
When it comes to the international financial system, a united front is absolutely imperative.
The cause of democracy and integration would certainly be best served if we were to adopt the proposal made by the rapporteur, Mr Herman, and accord the European Commission its due place as a representative, and not as a subsidiary representative, of the European Union as well as of the euro area.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 NAME="Paisley">
Mr President, last night I sat in the House of Commons and I listened to the Chief Secretary of the Government of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. He said very plainly that his government would resist any attempt to take away the veto on taxation.
We have heard the spokesmen of France and Germany this week make it clear that they want the veto to go and we are now on a collision course.
This cannot help our economy, especially as it comes under more and more pressure.
What has happened in the Far East could happen elsewhere tomorrow, even in the United States of America and in Europe.
Today we are on a collision course.
Let me make it clear that I have always believed that the future for this Union is in the cooperation of sovereign nation states and not in the incorporation of nation states into a single international superstate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Metten">
Mr President, twelve months ago the euro-11 was set up as an informal grouping which was answerable to no one, it is true, but was not required to take any formal decisions either.
We now find that the presidency of the euro-11 is to speak for Euroland in bodies like the G7 and IMF, and on visits to individual countries.
Not only does this give a casual but powerful boost to the two-speed concept which the integration of Schengen into the Amsterdam Treaty is supposed to eliminate, but more importantly we see an intergovernmental model being introduced into what is the most far-reaching Community measure to date under the first pillar.
In the second pillar, we are desperately seeking to give the Union's foreign policy a single face and a single voice at last with Mr or Mrs CFSP.
At the same time, we are entrusting the external representation of economic and monetary union not to the Commission, the guardian of the Treaties and the executive arm, but to a Council presidency - changing every six months - of the euro-11, a body which does not officially exist and is accountable to no one.
<P>
Something is fundamentally wrong here, ladies and gentlemen.
EMU is coming off the rails here before it has even started.
This is the price we are paying for the fact that too many decisions in Europe today are left to the narrow scrutiny of the finance ministers, under the prompting of the even narrower circles of the Monetary Committee.
A single Euroland needs a single representation.
But Henry Kissinger's call for just one European telephone number will not be met with a presidency which changes every six months.
In practice, the Americans will telephone either the chairman of the Economic and Financial Committee, who does not change every six months, or one of the permanent members of the G7, although they will not know who that member is speaking for.
If Euroland takes itself seriously in its commitment to acting responsibly, the number to ring should be that of European Commission.
European coordination should happen as soon as possible, so that Europe really can speak with one voice.
<P>
The Commission should refuse to go along with the current proposals of ECOFIN, whereby the Commission might give a helping hand to the presidency of the euro-11.
It should withdraw its proposal too.
No one can represent the European Union in the present-day G7.
It would be better to disband it and start again from scratch with a G3.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="de Silguy">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to thank the House for having included this item on the agenda.
It comes at just the right time, that is to say just after the Council's decision and - this may well come as a surprise - I would personally like to thank the European Parliament for making such a valuable contribution and supporting the Commission's proposal. This was an important factor in the success of yesterday's meeting of the Council of Ministers for Economic and Financial Affairs.
I will come back to that in a moment but the fact still remains that the Commission is grateful to you.
<P>
The agreement reached yesterday is a satisfactory one.
It is a political agreement, and it incorporates the basic principles of the Commission proposal on the Community's external representation of the euro, which will be tripartite in nature.
Before going into detail on the content and form of this agreement, let me remind you of the objective.
The objective and what is at stake is important as the euro must be given a voice so the Community can be present in the international monetary arena to defend its interests, to participate in managing and preventing crises and, on a more general level, to adapt the international monetary system.
The euro will provide Europe with true monetary existence.
Europe will also have a presence in the international arena which will better reflect its weight in economic matters.
<P>
Let us discuss the form of the agreement.
Firstly, it is a good agreement and to those who have expressed reservations I would say that, in this case, it is better to leave well alone.
This is a transitional agreement, a realistic agreement, and it has been reached before 31 December, in other words before the birth of the euro, something which seemed far from likely even just a few days ago.
I believe there are two aspects which must be emphasised.
The first aspect is defining a common position for the Union.
Before each international meeting, a common position for the Union will be defined by means of coordination between the Member States, under the guidance of the President of the Euro 11, as is the usual practice. This coordination can take place very rapidly as the Commission has been asked to install a videoconference system linking the Commission, the Central Bank and the finance ministers.
<P>
I would add that these decisions, the positions adopted by the Council, will be prepared by the Economic and Financial Affairs Committee. In other words, they will be based on input, or possibly a proposal, from the Commission and this will happen before every major international meeting.
Therefore, we will be guaranteed a common position of the European Union, of the euro zone, for any meeting and any deadline.
<P>
The second issue is that of representation of the Community.
The form of representation that has been defined will allow Europe to speak with a single voice, whilst respecting the competences of the institutions concerned.
There is an economic side and a monetary side.
It is only natural that this voice, in order to be heard, should use several vocal cords, in accordance with the will of the Heads of State and Government as expressed at the Luxembourg European Council last December.
Yesterday's agreement lays down a role for the Council, a role for the Central Bank and a role for the Commission.
This is a tripartite representation, as your rapporteur stressed.
The three parts cannot be separated and they are vital if economic and monetary union and the euro are to operate smoothly.
<P>
To be a little more specific and to dispel certain misunderstandings - which were probably caused by press comments made yesterday - allow me, as someone who participated in the negotiations from start to finish, tell you exactly what specific decisions were taken in three cases, by way of example.
Firstly, in formal institutions such as the G7 or G10, it was decided, in accordance with the Commission's proposal, that the Council will be represented by the President of the Euro 11, the President of the European Central Bank and the relevant Member of the Commission.
These three form the Community delegation.
As for the Commission, it is not simply playing a minor role.
Nowhere in the agreement will you find terms outlining the technical assistance role which it is claimed the Commission has been given.
The Commission is there to provide help, as is perfectly normal, to provide support and to play a useful and efficient role.
And I should like to reassure the rapporteur that you can count on the Commission to be ready and willing to fulfil this role.
<P>
In order to ensure continuity in the representation of the euro and in view of the rotating presidencies, a minister from a G7 Member State will support the President of the Euro 11.
<P>
As regards formal international institutions, I will take the case of the IMF and look beyond the current provisions, which already give the Commission observer status in the Interim Committee. This agreement provides for the ECB to have observer status in the Interim Committee and in the Executive Board.
It also provides for the relevant member of the Executive Director's Office holding the Presidency of the Euro 11, assisted by a Commission representative, to express common positions in the Executive Board. This means, in a very real sense, that the Commission will have access to all the necessary information to allow it to fulfil its role, particularly as regards multilateral supervision.
<P>
Lastly, as regards bilateral missions, the arrangements for missions in third countries will be defined by the Presidency of the Euro 11 or by the ECOFIN Council on a case-by-case basis, which I think is simply common sense.
<P>
On the basis of the Commission proposal, these arrangements will be translated into a decision under Article 109(4), once approved by the Heads of State and Government, and will be discussed with the third countries involved.
I would like to inform you here that the President of the Commission, Jacques Santer, has already announced that because there is to be a Euro-American summit on 18 December, it will fall to him and the President of the Council, Chancellor Klima, to discuss this with the Americans.
<P>
In conclusion, I believe we must stress the importance of this agreement and its transitional nature.
To my great regret there are only eleven of us in the euro, not fifteen.
To my great regret, it is not possible to change the statutes of the International Monetary Fund in a few weeks.
Yet this agreement is still a positive one, even if it is only transitional, and it is nonetheless an agreement which will allow us to launch EMU in full on 1 January under the best possible conditions.
And I can assure you that as far as the Commission is concerned, it will keep you closely informed of developments in discussions, as always, and of the development of the international aspects of the euro.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr de Silguy.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Monetary and financial crisis
<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0441/98) by Mrs Randzio-Plath, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the world monetary and financial crises and their effects on the economy of the European Union.
<P>
I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mrs Randzio-Plath.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the economic and financial crises have highlighted the need, especially for our ancient continent of Europe and for the European Union, to redesign the international economic and financial structures.
The Bretton Woods institutions are more than 54 years old; they are not designed to meet the challenges of globalisation.
That is why a new international financial system is needed, and the restructuring must begin with the International Monetary Fund.
As an advisory and administrative body, the interim committee is an anachronism and must be replaced by a political council.
This institutional reform is vitally important, because we need a political council which will take decisions, which will assume responsibility for financial decisions and which will not pass the buck to the administrative staff when things go wrong.
<P>
We want to ensure that financial decisions have political backing too.
Moreover, I believe that the International Monetary Fund, the Bank for International Settlements, the World Bank and even the World Trade Organisation must cooperate more closely and coordinate their operations.
What we need, in other words, is reform of these institutions, and the G7 will certainly not be untouched by these reforms either.
After all, not every region of the world is represented at the G7 meetings.
We have become painfully aware of the pitfalls of solving crises without the proper involvement of the affected regions in the decision-making process.
For that reason, it is important to consider whether a UN Security Council for Economic Affairs would not solve the problem of worldwide representation and whether such a body could not serve to underline the fact that security today primarily means economic and social security.
<P>
At the same time, of course, there must be no underestimating the reforms required by the existing institutions.
These should include changes to the way in which the International Monetary Fund operates.
The existing system of imposing conditions and the stereotyped manner in which they are adapted for individual countries have done more to exacerbate crises than to contain or resolve them.
Admittedly, reforming operational methods is but one side of the coin; what is especially crucial is that the International Monetary Fund should have adequate financial resources.
The last set of G7 decisions points in the right direction, but I believe we have still to find the right solution in terms of the working methods and finances of the International Monetary Fund.
<P>
The rules of the International Monetary Fund must also be restructured, amended and applied more effectively to ensure that assistance can be quickly obtained and organised to deal with liquidity shortages such as those that have given rise to crises in recent months and years.
There must be greater openness, so that moratoria, safeguard clauses and suspension agreements can be put in place as the foundation stones of rescheduling plans, which have invariably been devised too late in crisis situations and have essentially been inappropriate into the bargain.
Alongside the monitoring of short-term capital influxes, consideration must also be given in this context to organising some sort of temporary system to control the movement of capital out of the country or countries in question.
<P>
Another important element, as far as we in the European Union are concerned, is the creation of new legal instruments so that the finance markets become more transparent and financial information becomes more freely available and more reliable.
What is needed here is the globalisation of regulatory and supervisory systems in this age of increasingly deregulated and liberalised capital transactions.
After all, the market economy has shown throughout the world that economic and financial relations have been unable to function smoothly in practice without a regulatory framework.
That is why particular attention must be paid to short-term international movements of capital, which have plunged many countries into crisis.
Comprehensive monitoring of these capital flows is essential.
But it is also high time that governments themselves began to provide incentives which would help to encourage a greater volume of long-term credit commitments.
<P>
Since the Mexican crisis, there has been a 'moral hazard' problem.
Private and institutional investors are running ever greater risks in the quest for maximised returns.
In so doing, they rely on the fact that, if a liquidity crisis occurs, the International Monetary Fund will overcome the problem, because the adverse effects of financial crises on national economies, on business, growth, investment and employment, are so great and incalculable that they warrant the use of tax revenue to minimise the risks for private investors.
It is time a framework was found within which the private sector could be made to foot its share of the crisismanagement bill.
<P>
Another point: an efficient system for the supervision and monitoring of financial activities must also be established and enforced for the flood of new financial products that are contributing to the fragility and volatility of the finance markets.
We cannot prohibit derivatives, but we must see to it that they are subject to supervision and control.
Besides the supervision of banks, we also need supervision of non-banking institutions.
Close cooperation is required here between the International Monetary Fund, national governments and the Bank for International Settlements.
What we also need are definitive, globally applicable quality standards for financial information as well as for other information systems.
<P>
There will always be financial crises.
The potential for crises, however, must be reduced, because crises in today's financial markets affect the real economy.
That is why we must ensure that the effects of these crises on growth, investment and employment are contained, not only in the crisis-torn countries themselves but also in the newly industrialised countries, in the developing countries and in the industrialised countries too.
For that reason, political cooperation is needed in order to ensure that the European and US trade cycles remain stable and in step with each other, and there is also a need for cooperation between the European Central Bank and the US Federal Reserve.
We must also ensure that stable exchange rates are maintained between the main currencies of the world.
In the age of the euro, we must help to make sure that those regions with the power to create stability in the international currency markets actually exercise that power to contribute to the development of a fairer international financial system in response to the challenges of globalisation.
Another important objective is a fairer global distribution of wealth.
That will only become achievable when we in the European Union know that we too can contribute to this crisismanagement strategy through our European plans of action, not by intervening to sort out crises, but by helping to prevent the development of critical situations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Metten">
Mr President, I will confine myself here to what we as the European Union can do about the financial crisis.
Firstly, we must remain open to exports from the countries hit by the crisis.
And we can do so, because the European Union has so far actually profited from the crisis; the flight into sound capital from non-Union countries to Europe has caused interest rates on our capital markets to plummet.
Because of a falling-off in demand and low raw materials prices, our inflation has sunk to an all-time low.
As a result, growth in Europe is even higher than was expected in the spring.
If exports from the crisis countries with their devalued currencies now increase, we cannot suddenly hit the brakes with anti-dumping levies.
If these countries cannot dispose of their products in Europe, with its trade balance surplus, where can they do so?
<P>
Secondly, Europe must help to provide for scrutiny of flight capital flowing into developing countries.
Enforcement of the internationally agreed prudential rules, which will probably need further tightening, is a crucial first step towards this.
<P>
Thirdly, the IMF must focus less on buying out western private banks at the expense of governments and ultimately the population in debtor countries and more on the preservation of purchasing power, production and self-help in debtor countries.
If private banking is itself made to share the responsibility for preventing and combating crises, this kind of financial policy is feasible without any need to increase the IMF's resources.
The shift in the IMF's thinking needed to achieve this is hardly something which the IMF's interim committee can be expected to bring about, made up as it is of conservative bankers and finance ministers.
Nor do I see how upgrading the interim committee or merging the committees of the IMF and World Bank could be instrumental in bringing about this necessary change.
<P>
Fourthly, the EU must help to ensure that standard clauses are introduced into contracts whereby debt renewal incurs a penalty.
If clauses like this had been in place, much of the misery we are now seeing in the debtor countries could have been avoided.
<P>
Lastly, of course a great deal has to change in a number of the debtor countries themselves.
But to say all of a sudden, after the event, that this is where the fault lay is unworthy.
Many of the countries affected were given excellent marks by all the international bodies and their associated experts.
Conveniently forgetting that is unhealthy, and stops us from reflecting on our own mistakes, something I have found sadly lacking in our debate on the crisis so far.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langen">
Mr President, the world economy is undoubtedly caught up in a significant crisis.
Nevertheless, the data for the European Union are extremely encouraging.
This year's average inflation rate for the countries participating in monetary union is expected to work out at 1.5 %, their national budget deficits at 2 % and their economic growth at 3 %. It is a long time since such favourable economic statistics were last recorded.
For all our discussion of the global crises, it is worth emphasising that the European Union is the bastion of stability in the world, not least because of the decision to introduce the euro, Commissioner de Silguy.
These are the facts we have to discuss.
We must not forget that.
Mrs Randzio-Plath's report contains many useful ideas, but there are some points to which we certainly cannot subscribe.
I intend to enumerate these points in the short time at my disposal, since I do not expect to be given so much additional time as the honourable Members on the other side of the House.
<P>
First of all, we do not believe that there is any benefit at all to be derived from short-term capital controls.
Secondly, the establishment of a Security Council for Economic Affairs under the auspices of the United Nations is nothing but a pipe dream.
Thirdly, Mrs Randzio-Plath, Amendment No 5, which you foisted on us by way of a compromise, seeks to omit investments from the calculation of the budget deficit under the stability and growth pact.
There was absolutely no need for you to defer to Mr Lafontaine in that way!
<P>
Nevertheless, we do need transparency in the realm of finance.
Let me briefly list the three things we need.
Firstly, we need transparency at the national and international levels, because the markets could not function otherwise.
Secondly, we need a multilateral monitoring system, especially in the domain of fiscal policy.
Thirdly, we need reforms in the context of the national finance markets.
The fluctuation margins for the yen, euro and dollar proposed by Mr Lafontaine are unhelpful, because we can only earn the right to make such demands by pursuing sound economic, fiscal and monetary policies.
That is precisely the path which the European Union is following.
We therefore welcome the approach proposed by the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Goedbloed">
Mr President, the international financial crisis shocked the world, and many people claim to have been taken by surprise.
We have identified a number of the causes of it, and Mrs Randzio-Plath has highlighted them in her report.
Mr Metten says that we must not complain after the event, but we were forced to realise at the hearing of financial experts that there are gaps in our information system.
The IMF has no early knowledge of a number of figures, because the figures are unreliable and because it is clear that different countries apply different standards of measurement.
Countries in Asia which have seen very fast growth and which were very important to Europe and America succumbed all of a sudden to Asian flu.
<P>
Asia has been sick, but Europe will start sniffling if we are not careful and Europe has done relatively well with the euro.
Those countries which sadly are not yet joining the euro still have a problem.
Transparency, good controls and standardised rules will be essential.
So we Liberals think it is important to apply the same standards, but that it is no use having a sort of security council for the economy or a decision-making power within the IMF.
That would just mean more talking shops, and I would have thought we had enough talk shows on television already.
We need action.
We need unambiguity.
We need clarity.
The market too can have a share in this.
The market too can take risks here.
<P>
If we follow a sound economic policy, review the situation properly and take account of cultural differences - because there are plenty of those in Asia - then the right thing for Europe to do, and Europe must see that it does this, may be to play a role and help ensure that stability is restored as fast as possible.
Stability will open the way for more jobs to be created and for more growth in these countries, and in Europe as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Mr President, may I say to Mr Langen that I do not believe the old way of thinking will take us very far.
There is now a real need for a new way of thinking.
It is dangerous when Europe and the Europeans like you, Mr Langen, believe we are on one of the Islands of the Blessed here and take a Pharisaic delight in having been spared the effects of the crises.
What is really important is that Europe should use its favourable position to play an active part in ensuring that others can once more set their feet on dry land.
To that end, we need stabilised exchange rates, supervision, transparency, control and ultimately a social and ecological reconstruction of the key international economic institutions.
<P>
Mrs Randzio-Plath is absolutely right: we also need a basic political consensus on this matter.
It must be developed within the United Nations, difficult though that may be to achieve and hard as it may be to imagine after 20 years of neo-liberal policies.
But in the world of finance in particular, Mr Langen, the dialectics of power will always apply.
The mighty, through their arrogance, invariably sow the seeds of their own downfall.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=163 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langen">
Mr President, may I point out to you that the honourable Member from the Liberal Group, Mr Goedbloed, has just delivered his maiden speech.
You, who are normally such a communicative President, forgot to mention that.
Could you please acknowledge it now?
After all, it is already 11.20 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Langen.
I am always grateful for helpful comments from the House, and I am glad you drew my attention to this point.
I had not realised this was Mr Goedbloed's maiden speech, as it was so accomplished.
I might be excused, perhaps, because he spoke as if he were an old hand in the House.
Judging by your speech, Mr Goedbloed, I am quite sure that you have much to contribute to this Parliament in the future.
<P>
Mrs Randzio-Plath, do you wish to raise a point of order?
Please do not open a further debate at this point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Mr President, since my colleague from the Group of the European People's Party made a comment about a German politician, I should like to put on record the fact that my Amendment No 5 is in line with the position of this House on the principles of economic policy, a position which, I might add, was adopted last year by the European Parliament in plenary sitting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Randzio-Plath.
At this hour of the night, one can be generous with points of order.
However, we are not going to embark on a new debate, and Mr Lukas now has the floor for one minute.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, what a pity that the honourable Member had to make his maiden speech at midnight before an empty Chamber.
But it is an even greater pity that such an important and excellent report could not have been discussed before now.
I consider it excellent, even though I cannot endorse everything it says.
It would naturally be ludicrous to try to deal in the space of one minute with all the points on which we differ.
I should merely like to say how deeply I regret the fact - and this is not a digression from the subject - that the report does not devote a single word to the problems of child labour and child abuse.
The way in which these two problems have become so serious and so widespread in our time is also a result of the globalisation process.
The Asian crisis has had an enormous impact on these abuses.
Child-sex tourism in particular is thriving as a result of the falling exchange rates.
I believe we can speak of a globalisation of perversion.
The European Union ought to speak out on that aspect of the crisis too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Secchi">
Mr President, I shall dispense with diagnoses, already conducted in great detail, and move straight on to three points concerning the prognosis of what is to be done.
Firstly, it seems perfectly clear to me that there are two somewhat conflicting views: some stress the need for more controls and dirigisme ; others think it more important to make the market function better.
This latter argument strikes me as the more convincing one, not least because the recent financial events have revealed the need to step up prudential supervision, to improve transparency and the flow of information, and thus to lay down rules which are more in keeping with the new operating environment.
On the other hand, the idea of managing to control capital flows, both directly and indirectly, could not only turn out to be pure wishful thinking but also lead to a highly inefficient allocation of resources.
<P>
Secondly, on the subject of volatility, I would stress that this problem is bound to persist and creates a need above all for the appropriate instruments to eliminate the risks resulting from it, rather than for inefficient control measures which cannot possibly function, given the volumes and operating methods that are typical of financial markets nowadays.
We shall soon see this within the next few weeks, in respect of the euro/dollar exchange rate.
Nor, I am sure, does anyone think the conditions still exist today to return to something resembling the old Bretton Woods system, which we all remember so well.
<P>
I would just say a word on my third point: let us show more concern - as the rapporteur quite rightly does in her text - for the weakest links in the chain, namely for economies such as those of Latin America, and Brazil in particular, which - only partly through their own fault - are experiencing hard times, although not totally desperate ones. They require full support from us, for their sakes and likewise for our own.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendes Bota">
Mr President, at the end of 1996 the Wall Street Dow Jones index hit the 6400 barrier.
It then went from record to record and last June peaked at 9337 points.
Then everything collapsed: there was a domino effect around all of the world's exchanges without exception and widespread panic in the financial markets, with a number of different countries on the verge of economic collapse. That led the IMF, the OECD and the European Union hastily to revise downwards their forecasts of miraculous economic growth announced for 1998 and 1999.
<P>
Apparently, the world financial crisis took everyone by surprise.
Doctors of economics, financial analysts, business journalists, political decision-makers who were all, until four months ago, singing the praises of the global financial market were all caught up in a monumental fiasco because of their lack of foresight.
But Japan had been sliding for some time.
The Russian economy had long been as sick as its president and European banks had poured 48 billion dollars into a country no longer in control of its own currency.
For a long time the so-called emerging economies had been burying themselves up to their necks in debt.
Years of certainty suddenly all seemed to be called into question.
Already yesterday's apostles of ultra-liberalism are casting doubt on the ability of markets to self-regulate or claiming that there can be no growth without full freedom of capital movement.
This backto-business or return to greater state interventionism as well as intervention by international financial organisations is quite evident in this report and in this resolution.
Suddenly the dictionary used in financial circles has been taken over by terms such as control, transparency, reform, public investment, guarantees, risk, coordination, codes, conduct, ethics, safeguard, supervision, balance, plans and action.
In other words, the ruling classes have finally realised that the globalisation of markets without political and legal frameworks and concern for the social dimension of its consequences poses a threat to international stability.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="de Silguy">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to congratulate Mrs RandzioPlath on her report, which asks us to give serious consideration to a grave problem, that of the effect of financial crises.
This is a problem worthy of our attention.
Therefore, we congratulate your on your initiative, and we are taking due note of your recommendations.
I must point out that the Commission is not inactive in this area and is well aware that the Union has a specific role to play, particularly as regards the arrival of the euro and its development.
<P>
I should like to consider three important questions raised by your rapporteur.
Firstly, what are the solutions to the current crisis?
We must not go back on the free movement of capital, as Mr Langen underlined.
I believe this is a wise judgement.
Experience has shown that all attempts to control the movement of capital do not work and are counterproductive.
In fact, capital flows out but does not flow back in.
Developing countries need capital in order to develop.
But freedom comes with its own demands including, as you highlighted, for the private sector.
There are three demands: transparency, monitoring and vigilance.
<P>
On the subject of transparency, we are a long way from achieving full transparency.
Some investment funds are currently in a position to invest several hundred billion euros, without being under any obligation to declare their operations to the supervisory authorities, nor even to their shareholders.
I believe that such a lack of transparency is dangerous, and recent events have demonstrated this.
It is also shocking, as monetary authorities are under constant pressure to determine public authorities' levels of exchange reserves much more accurately and rapidly.
We therefore need to examine ways of putting an end to such imbalances in transparency.
<P>
As for monitoring, we must also develop our supervision instruments.
The famous Cook ratio was a considerable step forward in financial history and probably averted many crises, but I believe that it has now reached its limits, particularly as it only applies to banks.
We must therefore develop a way to monitor off balance-sheet business more efficiently, and we must develop stricter accounting practices. I am thinking of the scale of bad debt brought to light by the fact- finding operation currently underway in Asia.
<P>
Lastly, the third element is vigilance.
We need to increase our capacity for collective prevention.
We know that today, for example, we need to develop the multilateral supervision of macroeconomic policies, particularly as regards exchange rates and short term capital flows.
On this point let me say that - unusually perhaps - I do not agree with the rapporteur's idea of creating an Economic Security Council under the aegis of the United Nations.
Why?
Because we actually already have a body within the United Nations called the IMF, and the issue now seems to me to be how to develop the structure of the International Monetary Fund to make it better prepared to prevent and even to contain crises.
In view of this and in view of what you call 'political accountability' - if I have understood correctly - I think that the possible transformation of the IMF Interim Committee into a true decision-making global body, with its role extended to include supervision, as President Chirac recently suggested, is an idea worth further consideration.
<P>
The second question is what Europe's role should be.
It is twofold.
Europe must firstly set an example and contribute to discussions.
But if the real challenges are on a worldwide rather than a continental scale, Europe can play an important part in adapting the international monetary and financial system.
Europe has already made a number of contributions here, and I will quickly give you a few examples.
There is the recent communication on financial services presented by Mario Monti, 'Building a Framework for Action', which, as of June 1999, should lead to measures and timetables for limiting financial instability in several fields.
There is also the creation of the Forum of European Securities Commissions (FESCO), under the auspices of the Commission, and the banking supervision committee within the European System of Central Banks.
All these measures constitute a real step forward. There is a particular need to establish a rapid and safe exchange of information between supervisory authorities and the competent monetary authorities.
As regards accounting practices, the Commission supports the work of the International Accounting Standard and will review with the Member States the rules which apply to the capital of financial establishments, taking account of the work of the Basle Committee.
On a commercial level, I would remind you that the Commission was the first to call for the launch of a new series of multilateral negotiations - the 'Millennium Round' - and to ensure that these negotiations would be applied to financial services.
That will do for a brief list of examples.
<P>
As for contributing to discussions, the Commission played an active part in the debates and, in particular, in the recent initiatives of the G7.
It is the source of the communication which was adopted yesterday by the ECOFIN Council for the European Council on strengthening the international financial system.
This communication stresses the central role which the Union should now play in the new architecture of the international financial system, and the strengthening of economic and financial cooperation with emerging and developing countries.
<P>
This brings me on to prevention.
The private sector should be involved in resolving crises and should take its share of responsibility.
However, Europe's real contribution to the international debate is directly linked to the quality of its external representation, but as we discussed this earlier I will not go back over it now.
<P>
In view of the time, I will not go into the third and last matter now. I thought it would be raised in the debate, but I do hope we will have a chance to address it at a later date, since you have included it in your report.
It concerns whether we need to draw up a European plan for stimulating investment. I will simply say that, this morning, acting on my proposal, the Commission adopted an interesting communication on this matter which, whilst of course pointing out the budget policy line, raises a number of possibilities that Europe could implement.
I hope that we will have an opportunity to discuss this in more detail in the coming weeks.
<P>
As you can see, the Commission generally shares your views and I can assure you that it will closely follow developments in these areas in its recommendations on the convergence and stability programmes.
But I would like to end by reassuring the House that the Commission is carrying out its full responsibilities in the current debate on the new architecture of the international monetary system.
The introduction of the euro also gives us an incentive to play a more active role in this field.
I believe that the decisions which were taken yesterday on external representation will give us the instrument we need to put our ideas into practice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr de Silguy.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
Before wishing you a well-deserved and refreshing rest, let me say that tomorrow's sitting on Thursday, 3 December 1998 will begin at 9 a.m.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 11.45 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="McNally">
Mr President, I wish to raise a matter which is not covered by yesterday's minutes.
However, it is a serious matter.
Many of us today will be travelling home by plane.
Many of us will be using the services of the company LSG Lufthansa Skychef.
I wish to report to this House that last week four hundred workers who took part in a legally called strike were summarily dismissed by that company.
I hope that all Members of the European Parliament will complain about this outrageous breach of human rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Mrs McNally, that is a matter for individual Members.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I should like to return to page 17 of the Minutes.
Yesterday evening, at the start of the discussion on the Rothley report on the Members' Statute, I tabled a preliminary question pursuant to Rule 128.
Under this Rule, the President should have asked if there was a speaker in favour and a speaker against the motion, before putting it to the vote.
No doubt mistakenly advised, the President of the sitting decided of his own accord - as is stated in the Minutes - that the report I contested was perfectly admissible.
<P>
I should like you to use this incident, which I consider to be very serious simply because it calls into question the rights of Members and the application of the Rules of Procedure, as an opportunity to give instructions, both to those who substitute for you as President of the sitting and to all the advisers, that the Rules of Procedure are to be applied and that the rights of the majority should not take precedence over the legal position of minorities.
<P>
The interpretation given was clearly mistaken and I should like you to formally confirm this today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Gutiérrez Díaz">
Mr President, yesterday, pursuant to the Rules of Procedure, as Mr Fabre-Aubrespy has just explained, he questioned the admissibility of Mr Rothley's report.
So far, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, who is very familiar with the Rules of Procedure, has acted entirely within his rights.
<P>
I myself, aware of the responsibility vested in me when I occupy the position which is yours today, Mr President, decided that in this case, admissibility could not be questioned. I announced my decision accordingly and assume full responsibility for it.
<P>
So far, so good.
However, I feel there is something inadmissible in what Mr Fabre-Aubrespy has said.
I cannot accept that he should attribute my political prerogative, my full political responsibility, to the President's advisers.
Those who advise the Chair may express an opinion, but the President must take full political responsibility for his decisions.
Consequently, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, if you have any objections, you should address them to the President, not to officials.
I therefore invite you to withdraw your remarks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
I appreciate the views of Mr Gutiérrez Díaz, and I agree with him as regards the decision that he took.
As I understood it, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy was not seeking to attack the officials who advise the President.
In any event, I shall refer Mr Fabre-Aubrespy's comments to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, since he has raised an important procedural question.
The committee will either confirm the interpretation given by Mr Gutiérrez Díaz or correct it, and that will clarify the situation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, I am pleased that the thief from the security service has been identified, which I hope will mean that our offices are safe again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
Thank you for telling us that, Mr Rübig.
I think it will encourage the security service to continue its activities for the benefit of us all.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="Donnelly, Brendan">
Mr President, I am sorry to speak now before the vote has begun but my comment relates to the first amendment on which we will be voting.
I would like to suggest that Amendment No 106 tabled by the Europe of Nations Group is inadmissible under Rule 125(1)(b) because it seeks to replace the whole of the text.
Equally, Rule 125(1)(d) is relevant because it talks about amending more than one of the individual articles or paragraphs of a text.
It seems to me that Amendment No 106 should not be voted on.
It should be ruled inadmissible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
Mr Donnelly, we will decide when we come to Amendment No 106, and then I will give the floor to Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
<P>
On Amendment No 106
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I should like to speak not only on the subject of this amendment, but also on other points of procedure, as Mr Donnelly has done.
On the subject of Amendment No 106, I ask you not to put it to the vote. We will withdraw it.
The intention was not for it to be put to the vote.
<P>
As regards the admissibility of amendments, on the same basis that you have just declared Amendment No 106 inadmissible, I ask you to also declare inadmissible Amendments Nos 83, 81 and 80.
These amendments are not admissible. They seek to delete parts of amendments and the same result could be achieved by a split vote pursuant to Rule 125(3).
They are therefore inadmissible.
<P>
I also ask you to declare inadmissible Amendment No 109, presented as a compromise amendment.
There can be no compromise amendment on a text such as the one we have before us. Furthermore, this amendment is designed to replace more than one article in the text and therefore, like Amendment No 106, cannot be admissible.
In any event, if you apply Rule 115 you must first ask for the Chamber's approval and I do not believe you can obtain this on this amendment, which was submitted after the deadline and as a compromise amendment between two political groups, and which furthermore seeks to replace all the amendments relating to the same article.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, I would point out that the voting order which you give in the voting list does not correspond at all to Rule 115, that we are dealing with an own-initiative report to which Rule 50 applies, that this own-initiative report includes a resolution and that, in a resolution, it is customary to vote first on the recitals, then on the articles, and then on the annexes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
In practical terms, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, when we come to the vote on these amendments, we shall decide whether they are admissible case by case.
I would ask you to draw my attention to them then.
<P>
I can tell you now that, as regards the compromise amendment, the House will be asked to decide whether it is possible to vote or not, pursuant to Rule 50.
But we shall look at admissibility as and when we come to the articles in question, and I would ask you to bring them to my attention then.
<P>
As for the voting order, this has been studied at some length between the groups themselves and the sessional services.
The precedents are that when we have dealt with similar texts, based on a treaty which is in the process of being ratified but aimed at opening negotiations with a view to the position subsequently being formalised in the treaty, Parliament has previously used the legislative procedure.
This is not the first case, so I am standing by the precedents which have been established in other cases and we shall follow this voting order, the main purpose of which is to enable the House to take a clear decision and everyone to understand the proceedings.
For that reason, I shall take this vote very slowly, explaining point by point what is involved, so that everyone can decide with a full knowledge of the facts.
<P>
On Amendment No 27
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Friedrich">
Mr President, one of the phrases used in this text we are voting on is not clear to me.
I believe the confusion stems from an error in translation.
Once we have adopted this, MEPs will be described as 'Abgeordnete im Europäischen Parlament ', that is to say Members in the European Parliament.
The normal German designation is 'Abgeordnete des Europäischen Parlaments ', which means Members of the European Parliament.
I believe it is a mistake in the translation.
I should like to think that we can continue to call ourselves Members of the European Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
We have taken note of your comment, Mr Friedrich, and the language services will check the original text against the German version to ensure that there are no mistakes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="President">
Mr Rothley, you have an opportunity here to tell us your position on Amendment No 41 which is about to be put to the vote.
There are also other amendments which correspond to No 41, but it is essentially No 41 that is at issue.
What is your position?
<P>
Before the vote on the third part of Article 4
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="Rothley">
Mr President, I should like to draw something to the attention of the House. We have proposed the deletion of the sentence you have just mentioned for purely technical reasons.
It is not a decision on the transitional regime itself, but simply a piece of editing.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
Mr Rothley, if this phrase is adopted, there are transitional provisions.
If it is not adopted, there are no transitional provisions.
<P>
That would mean that it would then not be possible to vote on the provisions concerning the transitional arrangement.
That is the significance of this phrase, and everyone must know exactly what they are voting on.
That is why I have read it out, and I am grateful that you have given me the chance to make clear the significance of this vote.
<P>
After the vote on Article 4
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, according to our voting list, there should be a separate vote on the principle of a transitional regime. I propose that we keep to the voting list that has been distributed.
I also propose that we listen to the rapporteur, who stated that the vote on the transitional regime which we have just carried out was a purely technical one regarding the second subparagraph of Article 4(2).
I would also like to emphasise that in the request for a split vote it only states that we should vote in three sections.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="President">
We have taken the vote, Mrs Thors.
We do not vote on principles, but on texts.
I put to the vote the text which provided for the transitional arrangement.
I explained the significance of the vote quite clearly, and the rapporteur stated his position.
The vote was taken, the result was announced, and that is what is valid.
We do not put principles to the vote, especially if we have decided on a text.
This point is therefore closed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rothley">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have come to an absolutely decisive point.
May I prevail for a moment upon your patience, Mr President.
At the request of other groups, my group requested a separate vote on the sentence 'Transitional provisions shall be adopted for the duration of the fifth parliamentary term'.
There is a 'no' against this on our voting list, but for the sole reason that the sentence is inappropriate at that point in the text.
That is the one and only reason!
I pointed that out before the vote.
It is a purely technical point.
When we vote, it must surely be possible for us to indicate that the wording we favour does not belong at this particular point but should be elsewhere in the text.
<P>
That has to be possible!
This is a motion.
The point is that my group supports a transitional system, as do the other groups.
Just because we have now said that this sentence does not belong at this place in the text but at a different point, you cannot simply rule that the matter has been decided.
<P>
(Applause) Since you ought to respect the will of Parliament, I strongly urge you to proceed in strict accordance with the voting list and take a vote now on the principle of a transitional arrangement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="President">
In no circumstances can I go against the will of the House, Mr Rothley.
The Rules of Procedure say that we normally vote on texts, and the significance of the vote was very clear.
I stated and restated it very clearly.
When the House votes, I cannot go back on its decision, whatever voting list there may have been.
The voting list provides an indication for the groups.
That indication, under the Rules of Procedure, has no bearing on the will of Parliament.
The House votes on texts and, according to the Rules, I have no alternative but to proceed in this way.
I explained things quite clearly.
I took great care to explain them immediately after you had spoken.
I cannot now go back on the vote.
The House has decided that there are to be no transitional provisions, because it has rejected the text in which those transitional provisions were established.
<P>
(Mixed reactions)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Green">
Mr President, at the beginning you said this was a very complex, difficult and sensitive vote.
You said that the groups had worked very closely with your services to determine the voting order and the way in which we would approach this vote.
The interpretation you have just made runs counter to the way in which this vote has been ordered by your services.
It is inappropriate and insensitive to change the interpretation during the vote.
We were all led to believe, according to the voting list drawn up by your services with ours, that there would be a vote on the principle of the transitional regime.
To change that immediately before is not appropriate.
It led to confusion on that first vote and had we been absolutely clear what was going on then, there would have been a different outcome to that vote.
I am very unhappy with this.
We are putting the whole issue at risk.
I know how determined you are to get this draft statute through today so I would ask you please to reconsider your interpretation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Nassauer">
Mr President, may I try to help out here?
In Article 4, which contains three numbered paragraphs, you will find in paragraph 2 the sentence 'Transitional provisions shall be adopted for the duration of the fifth parliamentary term'.
We voted on that, and the sentence was deleted from Article 4.
However, in the annex to the draft Statute, under heading A - 'Parliamentary allowance for exercise of office' - the text begins with the words 'For the duration of the fifth parliamentary term, the following Articles 1-5 shall apply by way of a transitional arrangement'.
We have not voted on that yet.
This is the proper point at which the principle of the transitional arrangement must be incorporated, as the rapporteur, Mr Rothley, quite rightly indicated.
So all we have done so far is some technical editing of Article 4, and we are only now about to vote on the principle set forth under heading A of the annex, a principle that is therefore still part of the draft Statute.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, clearly, as far as the Rules of Procedure are concerned, the Chair is, strictly speaking, quite right.
A vote already taken cannot be repeated.
I believe this serious incident could be resolved if Amendment No 26, put forward by the European People's Party, were put to the vote. According to the voting list, Amendment No 26 still stands, and it does refer to these transitional arrangements.
We would not be repeating a vote already taken. The House would, officially, continue to comply with its Rules of Procedure.
However, a vote in favour of Amendment No 26 would enable us to raise the issue of the possibility of putting transitional arrangements in place once again, without referring to the fifth legislative period. Rather, there would be a reference to the legislative period following approval of the Statute.
In my view, this would be a way of overcoming the difficulty whilst complying with the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, just now, before the vote on Article 4(2), Mr Rothley spoke and you yourself gave a very clear interpretation of the vote which was going to be held.
You confirmed this interpretation on three occasions and you were right because the House did indeed pronounce on the transitional system for the fifth parliamentary term.
<P>
What is proposed now is contrary to the Rules of Procedure because it involves returning to a text by means of an annex.
You said yourself just now, when I contested the voting order, that you were adopting the principle of the legislative procedure.
How is it possible, on an annex, to go against a vote on the main text?
<P>
If there is a contradiction with regard to the first subparagraph of paragraph 2, this simply relates to the terms 'transitional allowance', which will not apply.
But you cannot now put to a roll-call vote the principle of a transitional system for the duration of the fifth parliamentary term, following a very clear vote which you yourself ordered, which took place and in which a majority in this House voted in favour.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Mr President, I should like to say that I greatly appreciate the way you are conducting these debates as, for the first time in this Parliament, we know what we are voting on.
You are taking the trouble to read, paragraph by paragraph, the questions on which we must vote.
<P>
You were extremely clear just now and our colleagues must know that, in the House, reference must be made not to a paper prepared by the groups, but to what the President says, who conducts the vote.
I entirely support Mrs Palacio's and Mr FabreAubrespy's legal argument, and you should not repeat the vote which has just been held.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Pasty.
<P>
I would ask everyone to listen carefully to what I am about to say, and not to start making a noise before I have finished.
The vote has taken place, and we are not going back on it.
When we come to the vote on Article 11a, as proposed by the PPE Group, this question will arise again.
If, at that point, the majority wish there to be a transitional regime, they must vote in favour of the text which I am about to put to the vote.
If that principle is adopted, we shall then see whether or not the first paragraph of the annex is to be adopted.
That will depend on the implications of that vote.
I am therefore now going to put to the vote Article 11a, which reads: 'The European Parliament shall establish, during the parliamentary term following the adoption of the Statute, a special transitional regime concerning the parliamentary allowance and social insurance, pension and taxation arrangements of Members'.
I shall put to the vote that text, which I shall read out once again.
<P>
This text does not say that the annex will be put to the vote.
It says that Parliament will establish a transitional regime, and that regime will then be secured.
This means that I shall then put to the vote the first paragraph of the annex. We shall then see whether the House simply wishes that Parliament should establish this transitional regime in the future, or if it wishes to do so now by means of the annex.
In this way, everyone can see how to vote.
I shall therefore be taking two votes.
I would say very clearly that I am not going back on what has happened.
In the article in which it appeared, the phrase that was put to the vote has been deleted.
<P>
I am putting to the vote Amendment No 26, which has not fallen.
If you wish to have a transitional regime, then in the third vote you will decide whether to keep only Article 11a or to move on to Mr Rothley's annex.
<P>
(Parliament adopted Article 11a)
<P>
After the vote on Amendment No 26
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, what you have just done is very serious.
You have changed the voting order, but before doing so you should have asked whether or not there are 29 Members or a political group which oppose this.
You have called into question a roll-call vote by means of a vote which was not itself a roll-call vote.
You have put to the vote an amendment which concerned another part of the text when we were busy with the vote on the main text.
You have thus violated the Rules of Procedure three times and what is more on a text which contradicted a desire clearly expressed by the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="President">
I explained the significance of the vote quite clearly, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
What is involved is a question of principle, namely whether or not a transitional regime is to be established.
One phrase in the text which made provision for this arrangement was deleted.
However, Amendment No 26 has been adopted by the House, which thus establishes the transitional regime.
<P>
We now have to take the following decision: whether or not this transitional regime is to be the arrangement in Annex 1, in other words what Mr Nassauer was asking for.
I can put that to the vote.
Before, I could not go against the text of the Statute, but now the text of the Statute says that there is to be a transitional regime.
We now have to decide whether this transitional regime will be adopted later by Parliament, or if it will be the one contained in point A of Annex 1 to Mr Rothley's text.
<P>
I hope that everyone has now understood the significance of the vote I am about to take on this point A, which will now read: 'For the duration of the parliamentary term following the adoption of the Statute, the following Articles 1-5 shall apply by way of a transitional arrangement'.
That is the text which I am going to put to the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="Crowley">
Mr President, after the last vote, I would now ask that you put immediately to the vote the other amendments tabled by the other groups to the effect that we should not have a transitional period.
We have overruled and mixed up what we have voted for in the draft Statute by the previous vote.
You have allowed us now to move something from the annex into the draft Statute.
This is totally contrary to what we are supposed to be doing.
I spoke yesterday about the need for respect and dignity and about all of us agreeing on the principles of what is contained in this draft Statute.
We are shooting ourselves in the foot by what we are doing now.
I would ask you to cancel that last vote because it was illegal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="President">
Mr Crowley, can you indicate which amendments you are talking about.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="Crowley">
Mr President, this House has voted on the matter of the transitional period.
It voted that it did not want transitional provisions.
That was as part of the draft Statute.
You have taken amendments to the annex which is to be attached to the draft Statute and voted those before anything else.
I want to know whether a proposal in the annex overrules the earlier vote on the draft Statute, namely not to have a transitional period.
There is a clear conflict between the two texts.
They cannot both be right.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="President">
May I draw your attention to one point.
When we vote against part of an article we have not approved any other phrase saying we will not have a transitional period.
We vote against part of the text.
Then I put to the vote another amendment to the text of the Statute, not the annex.
That is what we have voted: that we will have the transitional period.
What we still have to decide is whether this is the one established in Annex 1(a) 1-5, as a transitional regime or not.
This is the only way to know exactly what the House wants.
My task is to allow the House to vote for what it wants and not use words to make Members say what they do not want to say.
That is my duty and I will keep to it.
This discussion is finished.
<P>
Before the vote on point A of the annex
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="President">
'For the duration of the fifth parliamentary term, the following Articles 1-5 shall apply by way of a transitional arrangement'.
Those who vote against this paragraph simply want to have Article 11a.
That means that the transitional regime will be established afterwards by Parliament.
Those who vote in favour of this text want the transitional regime to be the one in the annex, as adopted by the Legal Affairs Committee.
Afterwards, we shall vote point by point.
This is what you are calling the question of principle.
<P>
I am very sorry, but the Legal Affairs Committee has produced an extremely complicated text, and it is my responsibility to ensure that the House is able to vote on what it wants.
<P>
The document consists of a principal text, a resolution and an annex, and I am obliged to follow that order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="Provan">
You have read out what you want us to vote on but can you tell us which page it is on or which article it is, and whether it is in the annex or the original text?
I am confused about what we are going to vote on.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="President">
I will try to explain it again.
We have adopted Amendment No 26 which says that this House will establish a transitional regime.
Now I need to know the decision of the House on one point, namely if this transitional regime is the one established in the introductory paragraph of Annex 1 which I have read out.
It says:
<P>
'The following Articles 1-5 shall apply by way of a transitional arrangement'.
The first part - 'for the duration of the fifth parliamentary term' - has to fall, because the text states: 'during the parliamentary term following the adoption of the Statute'.
This is what was proposed in the text drawn up by the secretaries-general and what you have in the voting list.
I have divided the principle into two parts: first the transitional regime itself, then what that regime will be.
I cannot do any more to make things clear and establish what the House's decision is to be.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Tsatsos">
Mr President, could we just make it clear, when you ask whether there is to be some other provision or whether we will go ahead with Annex 1, Articles 1 to 4, that if the latter is approved, this does not mean that no vote will be taken on the amendments relating to Articles 1, 2, 3 and 4.
Please do not take the line that because we have already said we are in favour of Annex 1, it is accepted as it stands and we will not be able to vote on the amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="President">
No, Mr Tsatsos, we are voting on the text which, in the voting list, is referred to as the principle.
Since we cannot vote on principles - as you well know, since you are an expert on the Rules of Procedure - we have to vote on a text.
And what is this text?
Firstly, we have decided that there is to be a transitional regime.
The second thing we have to decide is whether this transitional regime is to be the one in the annex.
Afterwards, we shall vote on the contents of the annex.
For the moment, we are only voting to establish whether the transitional regime will be the one in the annex. Then we can vote on the amendments to the annex.
That is quite simply where we are.
<P>
On Amendment No 25
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="Provan">
Mr President, concerning Amendment No 25, I think the text needs to be looked at because in the original it is the other way round to how it appears in the English text.
The English text seems to have been transposed and now indicates that the Members have to pay more than the Parliament would contribute.
I think that is the wrong way round.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="President">
Mr Provan, we are now voting on the original text, paragraph 1.
When we arrive at your point it will be noted but in any case it is the original text of the amendment which is voted on.
We will check the specific linguistic point.
<P>
Before the vote on Amendment No 35
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I believe that this amendment should be withdrawn.
To vote on this would be contrary to a decision which has just been taken.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="President">
I quite agree with you.
<P>
After the vote on recital E
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, it is a pity that you did not let me speak earlier.
This recital clearly contradicts the decision taken just now as it introduces a transitional system for the monthly allowance for the first parliamentary term.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Rothley">
Mr President, there is no contradiction here, because the entire system is a transitional regime.
The words 'transitional arrangement' are therefore appropriate in this context.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="President">
It is not contradictory, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
Quite simply, we have decided that there will be a transitional regime for the parliamentary term following the adoption of the Statute.
If there is any contradiction between this text and other points as regards the time of entry into force, it will have to be corrected, since it is the text of the Statute which prevails.
The time of entry into force is determined by Amendment No 26, which has been adopted.
If there is a contradiction with this recital, it will be corrected to that effect, but there is certainly a transitional regime.
<P>
Before the vote on the draft Statute as a whole
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
I could speak in a moment, but as you said earlier that we are dealing with a legislative resolution, it is indeed Rule 50 which must be applied.
Under this rule we should have had a financial statement, which we have not had.
But paragraph 1 of this rule states that a majority of Members of Parliament must vote in favour, and this paragraph is applicable.
Rule 6 says so.
The draft Statute as a whole must therefore be put to the majority of Members of Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="President">
The Statute must therefore be adopted by an absolute majority of the Members of Parliament.
We shall take a roll-call vote for this, at the request of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, in this context I think we should bear in mind that Article 190(5) of the Treaty of Amsterdam does not specify a majority for this kind of question.
Therefore, only a simple majority is needed for this document to be adopted.
I refer of course to its final adoption.
I do nevertheless feel that as the Treaty of Amsterdam takes precedence over our Rules of Procedure, it would be illogical for us to require an absolute majority for the draft and then adopt the final version by a simple majority.
I have no objection to requiring an absolute majority, so long as the Rules of Procedure are complied with.
This is, however, a very unusual own-initiative report, closely linked to the Treaty of Amsterdam, but I must stress that I certainly do not have any objection, and I am sure the House will vote in favour by an absolute majority.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rothley">
Mr President, this question was discussed in detail by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights together with Parliament's Legal Service.
There is not the slightest doubt that in this case no absolute majority is required.
The Treaty explicitly lays down that Parliament need only act by a majority of its component members in cases where a specific provision to that effect is contained in the Treaty.
This is not the case, however, in the article to which we are referring.
That sort of majority is not required.
A simple majority, in other words, is sufficient.
That is utterly incontestable, and we did not doubt that for a single moment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="President">
Mr Rothley, as you rightly say, this would apply if the Treaty of Amsterdam were in force.
That is not yet the case, however.
As the Treaty is not in force, we are dealing with a legal initiative by Parliament with a view to engaging in a debate with the Council.
Further, according to Rule 50(6) of our Rules of Procedure:
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="President">
'The provisions of this Rule shall apply mutatis mutandis in cases where the Treaties attribute the right of initiative to Parliament'.
That means all cases of legislative initiative.
We cannot claim that we are voting on a legislative initiative, according to the proposal from your committee, and then say that the Rules concerning legislative initiatives do not apply, because the Treaty is not in force.
So an absolute majority is required, otherwise the draft Statute will not be adopted.
<P>
On Article 5 of the draft Statute
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rothley">
Mr President, it has been pointed out to me that we voted on an amendment to Article 5 of the Statute, namely Amendment No 8, but that we did not vote on Article 5 itself.
I should be grateful if you could check that.
If necessary, we should have to vote again on Article 5.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="President">
Have no fears, Mr Rothley, we have adopted an amendment to this article which incorporated the full text.
Moreover, it was an amendment tabled by your own political group, and you were in favour.
Once the whole text had been adopted, we could not vote again on a text which had been adopted in its entirety.
That point is therefore settled.
<P>
Before the vote on Article 3 of the annex
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schierhuber">
Mr President, excuse me for causing another interruption, but I should like to raise a point of order.
Are parliamentary staff allowed to sit in Members' seats at voting time?
I wanted to ask this question because some staff are sitting in Members' seats among the ranks of the non-attached over here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="President">
Yes, Mrs Schierhuber, you are right, neither assistants nor group officials are allowed to sit in Members' seats.
I would therefore ask them once again not to sit there.
<P>
Before the vote on Article 4 of the annex
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="President">
I shall ask the rapporteur for his opinion on this article, since I am in doubt here.
We have adopted Amendment No 26, which states that the transitional regime is to be established during the parliamentary term following the adoption of the Statute, and we have modified the opening phrase of the annex to this effect by removing 'for the duration of the fifth parliamentary term'.
Article 4 refers twice to the fifth parliamentary term, and I have the impression that this contradicts Amendment No 26 which we have adopted.
I should therefore like to hear the views of the rapporteur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rothley">
Mr President, I suggest that we adopt the text as it stands and adjust it in line with the amendments that have already been adopted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="President">
That will therefore be changed.
It will not be 'the fifth parliamentary term', but 'the parliamentary term following the adoption of the Statute'.
I wanted that to be made clear so as to avoid any doubt.
<P>
After the vote on paragraph 2
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Mr President, on several occasions you mentioned the oral amendment to the text, saying - and I fully agree with you on this - that what we had voted for meant that we could not keep the concept of a fifth parliamentary term.
However, I think that the implications of the amendment you announced are not very clear.
The wording you used just now left me uncertain.
Do you mean that you are replacing the words 'fifth parliamentary term' with 'the end of the parliamentary term during which the Statute is adopted' or, as you said, the parliamentary term 'following the parliamentary term during which the Statute is adopted'? That is the wording you used and it does not at all have the same meaning, since in the latter case, the transitional regime lasts for five years.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="President">
Mr Bourlanges, the text which has been adopted - Amendment No 26 by the PPE Group - specifically says: 'during the parliamentary term following the adoption of the Statute'.
Those are precisely the words to which all the other wordings must be adapted, since those are the words in the text.
If I used a different expression, that was due to my poor French or a mistake, and not to any other intention.
It is this amendment which governs all the rest.
<P>
Before the vote on Compromise Amendment No 109
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I talked about this amendment a short while ago.
I repeat: it is a compromise amendment which was clearly submitted after the deadline, it is presented by two political groups and it seeks to render null and void all the other amendments.
I do not understand on what basis you consider it admissible, since the Rules of Procedure, and Rule 115 in particular, do not allow a compromise amendment of this kind.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cot">
Mr President, I want to ask you if you consider paragraph 7 to be compatible with our Rules of Procedure and if it is not inadmissible in view of how responsibilities are distributed among the various parliamentary bodies?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rothley">
Mr President, in reply to Mr Cot, the competence of the Bureau is not being disputed in any way.
To answer Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, the compromise amendment is admissible under Rule 105(4) of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="President">
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy is right to some extent, in other words this amendment is acceptable if a majority agrees that it can be put to the vote.
We need to take two votes.
I shall read out the interpretation given under Rule 115(4), which states: 'In the case of compromise amendments tabled after the conclusion of a debate... the President shall decide on their admissibility case by case'.
The general criteria to be applied are: 'as a general rule, compromise amendments may not relate to parts of the text which have not been the subject of amendments prior to the conclusion of the debate'.
Clearly, there are amendments in this instance.
'As a general rule, compromise amendments shall be tabled by political groups, the chairmen, rapporteurs or draftsmen of the committees concerned or the authors of other amendments... as a general rule, compromise amendments shall entail the withdrawal of other amendments to the same passage', which is the case here.
I can therefore propose that this amendment should be considered, but I must obtain the agreement of Parliament by asking whether there are any objections to the compromise amendment being put to the vote.
Since that is the case, Parliament must decide by a simple majority of the Members present.
We shall therefore first vote on whether to put this compromise amendment to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament agreed to vote on the compromise amendment) I would inform the House that the groups which tabled the compromise amendment - the PSE Group and the Liberal Group - have withdrawn the phrase 'the Council position vis-à-vis'.
The text therefore reads as follows: 'The Bureau shall take this decision in the light of the Statute'.
That is the text which will appear in the second subparagraph.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, I have a problem, even if it does not concern me personally.
This amendment also refers to Members who travel to Parliament in their own car.
I know that there is a motorcycle intergroup at the European Parliament. Are these motorcycles included?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="President">
Only if the motorcycles are Members' own vehicles, Mr Dell'Alba.
<P>
If they were not - although I think they are - they would not be included.
The Quaestors will be able to determine, when the time comes, whether or not the motorcycles are Members' own vehicles.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cot">
Mr President, you have not answered my question on admissibility in relation to the distribution of responsibilities.
If I understood the rapporteur correctly, this amendment is a simple request, nothing more, since otherwise it would clearly infringe the distribution of responsibilities.
<P>
That is how I understood the rapporteur and therefore your position.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="President">
Mr Cot, the opening words of paragraph 7 are: 'Calls on the Bureau to take a decision'.
This is therefore a call addressed to the Bureau.
The Bureau will assume its responsibilities when the time comes, obviously after the Statute has been adopted.
<P>
On the vote on Amendment No 18
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="De Coene">
Take a look at Amendment No 18, Mr President, which must be seen as an addition to the compromise amendment.
Look at what it says: it is an addition to the compromise amendment which wants a specific arrangement for Members living close to Parliament.
So it simply must not fall.
Please check on what it says.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="President">
No, we cannot go back on a compromise amendment by means of an addition, or in any other way.
I am sorry, but this amendment cannot be put to the vote.
<P>
Before the vote on the motion for a resolution as a whole
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I agree with the position you expressed at the time of the vote on the draft Statute as a whole, namely that an absolute majority of Members of Parliament is required. It is what I asked you to make clear.
But this request concerns the resolution as a whole.
When you read Rule 50, you find the words 'the resolution shall be adopted by a majority of the component Members of Parliament', thus not just the annexes and not just the draft which is annexed.
I believe that just now we had articles of the draft Statute which were adopted without an absolute majority - I would ask you to check this - and, in addition, what you have just said about paragraph 2 does not seem to me as if it should apply.
This requirement for an absolute majority of Members of Parliament applies to the resolution and to all its parts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="President">
I am sorry, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
When we approve a change to the Rules of Procedure which requires an absolute majority, we vote on the text as a whole by absolute majority, but not on the motion for a resolution, which is always adopted by a simple majority.
And you know that with the budget, for which an absolute majority is required, it is the text of the budget to which the absolute majority applies, but not the comments in the motion for a resolution, which only need a simple majority.
What we are applying here is precisely that theory.
So when I take a roll-call vote on the motion for a resolution, as your group has requested, a simple majority will be sufficient.
<P>
On the vote on Amendment No 18
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Green">
Mr President, first of all, before we take the final vote, I should like to pay tribute to your services and indeed those of the Parliamentary Groups who have made sure that this vote has gone through as easily as it has.
It is a difficult and sensitive one and I think tribute ought to be paid to those who have actually facilitated it because it has not been easy.
<P>
I would like to ask you to look once again at Amendment No 18.
You have ruled that, the compromise amendment on Paragraph No 7 having passed, Amendment No 18 cannot be looked at.
Can I say, as the leader of one of the groups that proposed comprise Amendment No 109, that we do not believe that Amendment No 18 is in any way contradictory but could be taken as an addition.
If Mr Cox, on behalf of the Liberals, were willing to accept that, I would have thought that we could put it to the House.
It is not in contradiction with anything that was in the compromise amendment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, I agree with Mr De Coene and Mrs Green that Amendment No 18 is actually an addition, and I would like the House to have a chance to vote on it.

<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="President">
Let us be quite clear.
This is a compromise which covers all Members' entitlements with regard to travel.
There is even a paragraph referring to Annex 2, which has been adopted, stating all this and calling on the Bureau to take a decision on this basis.
We cannot add something to it which did not form part of the compromise.
<P>
I am not going to put the text to the vote, because I believe it conflicts with the compromise.
When a compromise is put forward, it has to be respected, and the amendment would add a new element to the calculation of journeys.
<P>
I do not know whether or not it conflicts with Article 1 of Annex 2, which governs the reimbursement of duly substantiated expenses, but in any event it deals with the same subject.
I am very sorry, but that is my interpretation of the Rules of Procedure, Mrs Green, and I cannot allow this amendment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Green">
Mr President, when my group presented that compromise text to you, on behalf of ourselves and the Liberals, we sent your services a letter which I am sure is there on your table.
It listed all the amendments that the compromise was intended to replace.
There is a sentence at the end which says it does not replace Amendment No 18 from the PSE, which should be voted separately.
It has always been clear that was to be a separate vote, and I would ask you, please, to put it to the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="President">
Mrs Green, the compromise amendment covers all the aspects raised.
I stand by my interpretation.
If you table a compromise amendment we cannot take an amendment which overlaps with this compromise.
I am sorry, but that is my opinion.
If you want, I can submit that to the Rules Committee but I am not going to put it to the vote
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Konrad">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to comment briefly on the fact that Mrs Green has just praised the President.
I do not believe we have any cause to praise either the President or ourselves after three hours of voting.
I think we have delivered a miserable example of the way in which the European Parliament goes about its legislative work: three hours of bartering with amendments across the floor of the House.
That is the quality we are providing.
I find it sad to see what is happening here this morning.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="President">
That is not a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Willockx">
Mr President, I think the credibility of the vote on the Statute has been fatally threatened by that last incident.
I would therefore strongly urge the Bureau to check the content of Amendment No 18.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="President">
The question has been dealt with, Mr Willockx, please read the Rules of Procedure.
It is my responsibility.
The Rules Committee will decide whether I have acted properly or not.
It will have the final say.
But this has been adopted.
Parliament's credibility does not depend on that, I am glad to say.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Madam President, I tabled Amendment No 12, and it has come to my notice that the English translation says exactly the opposite of what I sought to convey in the Dutch text.
So I think it would be a good thing for me to read out the Dutch text as I intend it, and then the translation in English.
My Dutch text reads as follows: 'Verzoekt de lidstaten ernstig in overweging te nemen om in dat geval de structuur van hun economieën waar mogelijk te flexibiliseren en diversificeren, alsmede aan te dringen op een gematigde loonontwikkeling teneinde de werkgelegenheid te stimuleren '.
This translates into English as follows:
<P>
With this eventuality in mind calls on the Member States to consider seriously making the structure of their economies more flexible and diversified where this is possible and also pressing for wage rises to be moderate in order to stimulate employment.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Madam President, our group voted against because we want a clear and fair text.
The text on which we voted is neither of these things.
It is a jumble of improbable details and I am surprised that the authors of the amendment to the annex did not add a paragraph stating that Members were entitled to send Christmas cards published by Parliament at their own expense!
<P>
On the subject of fairness, once the Statute has been adopted we want all Members of Parliament, whatever Member State they represent, to have the same allowances and the same statute.
This is not the case if we approve a transitional regime.
<P>
But I believe there is something even more worrying than this.
The amendment which we adopted states that this transitional regime will only be applicable to the term after that during which the Statute is adopted.
If the Council does not adopt the Statute before July 1999 - which is highly likely, or in any case not unlikely - the transitional Statute which we have adopted will apply from 2004 and the final regime from 2009.
<P>
I have the feeling that when this text comes before the Council it will meet with hoots of laughter, and I regret that Parliament has approved a text under such conditions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Carlsson">
I have a question I should like to ask.
Once when I handed in an explanation of vote it was declared invalid because one is supposed to be present during this procedure.
A number of colleagues whose names are now being read out are no longer here.
Therefore, are their explanations of vote valid or not?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="President">
Yes indeed, Mrs Carlsson, you are quite right, I should have announced immediately after the votes the names of all those Members who are giving their explanations of vote in writing.
But there was so much noise that I would have lost my voice.
We have had a rather trying morning.
I think that all the Members who have asked to give their explanations of vote in writing will be able to do so, even if they are no longer here at the moment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Carlsson">
First of all, I should like to say that I naturally very much appreciate your excellent chairing of the sitting, as well as your accommodating stance.
However, my remarks are intended to draw attention to the fact that a number of my colleagues left the Chamber a good deal earlier than during the general hubbub that took place a few minutes ago.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="President">
Yes, they left when we finished the votes, Mrs Carlsson, and you are right, I should have done it.
I shall do it next time, but I can assure you that shouting out Members' names in all the noise of everyone leaving is no easy matter.
So we shall do as I suggest for today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Madam President, the vote which has just taken place on the Statute of Members of Parliament does no credit to the European Parliament. This is due to reasons of procedure and of content.
<P>
On the subject of procedure, we have seen irregularity after irregularity.
First at the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, where the rapporteur proposed the so-called compromise amendment when he should of course have proposed a new draft statute and opened a new deadline for amendments.
<P>
At the start of the debate, the preliminary question we tabled was not put to the vote.
In plenary session we voted in an order which was not the usual order for legislative resolutions.
We even changed this order during the vote, to contradict a very clear vote which had just been given.
Several amendments were inadmissible, but were nevertheless put to the vote; an absolute majority was required for the resolution as a whole, pursuant to Rule 50, which was not what was adopted.
<P>
It is time - as our German colleague Mr Konrad said just now - that the European Parliament realised that it can only exercise its powers in the legislative field if it respects the Rules of Procedure, leaving aside the fact that the majority can blithely disregard those rules in order to impose its legal point of view on the minority.
When a parliament considers that those in the political minority are legally wrong, we are no longer in a democracy but close to dictatorship.
<P>
In terms of content, the text has one fundamental flaw, which is why the majority of members of our group are opposed to it. Members of the European Parliament must clearly continue to have a national statute, because it is their respective nations that they represent.
Instead of that, the text adopted does no credit to this House because it seeks to solve a problem by throwing the ball into the Council's court, as I said yesterday.
<P>
The majority rejected the rules of conduct concerning Members' financial interests and refused to ban gifts and fees paid to Members. The majority also rejected the general social security and pension regime applicable to Community employees.
It adopted a so-called Community system, while at the same time increasing the references to national systems.
It has approved a text which is not really a legislative text at all and which includes a great many details, as my colleague Mr Pasty said, and it has thus failed to respect the powers which it is to be given.
<P>
I hope the Council takes this into account.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Gebhardt">
Madam President, the European Parliament cannot be particularly proud of the Members' Statute we have launched today.
It suffers from a lack of that transparency which we always like to invoke as one of the noblest aims of European legislation.
That is why I voted for it reluctantly.
Mr Rothley's original crystal-clear draft became increasingly muddied on the way into the plenary.
Let me illustrate that with just one example.
The proposed additional allowances for the President and other senior parliamentary officials, which the rapporteur had set out clearly in black and white for all to see, are now invisible beneath the silt.
They are probably hidden somewhere in their trappings of office, which will be difficult, if not impossible, to penetrate.
A similar situation obtains in other areas of the Statute.
If we conduct our politics so secretively, we shall be doing Europe and its people a disservice.
This is a black day for the European Parliament, and I find it regrettable that no vote was taken on Amendment No 18 and that the Group of the European People's Party managed to get its way with Amendment No 27, which sadly perpetuates a 'fortress Europe' mentality, stifling much of the potential inherent in the Treaty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="McKenna">
Madam President, I voted in favour of this report but extremely reluctantly.
I was torn between whether to vote for or against.
I have a number of problems with the report.
There is the fact that as MEPs we are voting, in the case of my country, to more than double our salaries.
That is not going to go down very well with the Irish citizens.
The fact that we are looking at an EU tax system for MEPs will also go against the grain with my constituents.
When I had to decide whether to vote in favour or against one problem was the fact that the whole thing was tied into one package.There have been major problems with the travel allowance system and I do not know why we cannot tackle things individually.
Instead, we say that we are only going to change the travel allowance system if we can increase MEPs' salaries.
This is not acceptable and I do not think it will be acceptable to the Irish voter.
<P>
A positive thing which has come out of this concerns the dual mandate.
It was unacceptable that Members could sit in this Parliament and in their own national parliaments.
With regard to salaries, it is not right that MEPs are paid different salaries for doing the same job but we have gone about it the wrong way.
We are ruling out the involvement of national parliaments, national governments and the citizens who vote us in.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Cot">
Madam President, it seems we have adopted a confused and untimely text but, given the point we have reached, a bad text is better than no text at all, which is why I voted for it.
<P>
There is, however, one idea which I definitely reject, and that is the right of outgoing Members to maintain their level of allowances, which means they have the choice, for the first parliamentary term, of opting for either the national or European regime, whichever may be the most favourable.
This introduces a real privilege for Members of Parliament which is politically, morally and socially repugnant at a time of economic crisis and contrary to the very principle of parliamentary allowance which has never been a pecuniary right, let alone a privilege.
<P>
I would remind you, Madam President, that this allowance is, as you well know, a working instrument won in the last century in order to combat privileges.
I regret that Parliament has perverted one of the bases of our democratic constitutional regimes by voting itself an unacceptable privilege.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Madam President, I had to vote against Mr Rothley's report as the whole issue of pay and the switch to a European Union system of taxation, or what in practice is exemption from paying taxes, and the travel expenses scheme, cannot be satisfactory from the point of view of the ordinary citizen.
The travel expenses scheme still leaves us with the problem that MEPs can claim expenses for a business class ticket, even though they might have travelled economy class.
This is one of the more blatant problems our citizens simply will not condone.
I sincerely hope that in future talks, if the issue makes any further progress with the Council and the Commission, on the basis of a proposal approved by Parliament, this flaw in the system is eliminated and that travel expenses will be paid for the genuine costs incurred only.
It is therefore up to the MEPs as to which class they choose to travel.
But there should be no kind of chicanery or flat-rate payments made when the travel expenses are claimed later.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Andersson, Lööw and Sandberg-Fries">
We should like to thank the rapporteur for so bravely trying to elicit a reasonable level of agreement from the European Parliament on issues that involve risk as well as opportunity. Our standpoint on the report is based on the following.
<P>
Article 190(5) of the Amsterdam Treaty states that: 'The European Parliament shall, after seeking an opinion from the Commission and with the approval of the Council acting unanimously, lay down the regulations and general conditions governing the performance of the duties of its Members'.
We would like to see a system of allowances and expenses that is equitable, open to inspection and transparent as regards taxation and what the allowances cover. In particular, travel allowances should be related to the actual costs incurred in carrying out our mission.
Consequently, we think that significant changes should be made to the present system.
<P>
As a matter of principle, we think that all Members should receive the same salary, since we all carry out the same functions as Members of the European Parliament.
Nevertheless, we do not think that the right way of devising such an allowance is by taking the average of current emoluments.
It would be more appropriate to fix an allowance on the basis of a proposal put forward by an independent committee, which is how the matter is handled in the Swedish Parliament.
We do not agree that there should be a generous transitional arrangement which would allow Members to opt either for the new allowance or to retain the current one.
Such transitional arrangements run counter to the philosophy behind a common salary.
<P>
We are flatly opposed to a common EU tax.
Taxation should also be a matter for individual countries.
Members of the European Parliament, unlike diplomats and Commissioners, live and work in their own countries and avail themselves of the public services which are financed by national taxes.
<P>
We see this as a good reason for overhauling the pension scheme for Members.
We think that Members should not belong both to national pension schemes for MPs and to the common pension scheme for MEPs.
<P>
An important issue from our point of view relates to a common system for dealing with our present ridiculous system of travel allowances, which allows Members to make a large tax-free profit on travel.
Under the present system, Swedish Members can make up to SKR 40 000 per month tax free on travel, whereas under the present proposal, reimbursement would be on the basis of actual travel costs incurred.
Say the present proposal were to mean a salary of approximately SKR 56 000 - an increase for Swedish Members of some SKR 26 000 - the new system for reimbursement of travel expenses would lead to some Swedish Members losing out if a common system of allowances and expenses were introduced, since their tax-free profit on travel would disappear.
A common statute is the only way to approach the present ridiculous system of travel expenses.
<P>
We believe that it is inappropriate for us to claim travel expenses which do not correspond to actual expenditure, and we are also opposed to the proposal to fix the common salary on the basis of the weighted average of the existing Members' salaries.
We would state most emphatically that we do not want our own allowances and expenses to be increased.
<P>
We are aware that the present proposal has run up against a whole raft of national interests that not infrequently cut across party lines.
In our explanation of vote, we would like to clarify our position, which is based on clear principles: respect for the European Parliament as one of the European institutions and the fact that the issue is covered by the Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Barros Moura">
My votes - individually and overall - for each of the documents making up this report - leaving aside the detail - are votes for transparency, against hypocrisy, against anti-parliamentary demagoguery and against populism, in order to bury once and for all a process that has lingered throughout almost the entire lifetime of this parliament and placed the European Parliament and its Members on the pillory of tabloid-style reports which are both ignorant and likely to trigger off the public's most primitive instincts.
The damage done to the European Parliament's image is incalculable.
I would hold responsible for that damage the two Presidents of the European Parliament during this legislature and those Members who have given in to populism and did not have the political courage to defend the institution as a whole, punishing at the same time a (small) minority of prevaricators.
Again, I would condemn the lack of solidarity demonstrated towards those Members of this Parliament who are less well paid by some very well paid Members, who took it upon themselves in their countries to moralise at the expense of other people.
<P>
In the statute on remuneration and expenses that we have voted on I particularly approve the principle of non-discrimination on the basis of nationality; the idea of an objective assessment by independent persons of the activity of Members of Parliament for the purpose of determining salaries; the principle that, in the future, the European Parliament will not define its own remuneration rules, so that each Parliament will function with pre-defined rules when it takes up its functions; and the provisional solution of an average remuneration.
<P>
However, I consider that the transitional option of voting for national salaries is a way of favouring the current statutes.
I hope that my Portuguese colleagues who oppose the principle of equal remuneration will opt, under the transitional regime, for the national rate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Berthu">
This morning, the European Parliament sought to kill two birds with one stone by settling the continuing problem of Members' travel expenses and at the same time advancing the cause of federalism.
When it would have been very easy to have simply stated that in future - as the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has consistently demanded - MEPs will be reimbursed on the basis of actual expenses incurred, it has drawn up a vast draft Statute which seeks to harmonise virtually all aspects of the financial situation of Members of different nationalities.
<P>
At present, MEPs receive their main salary from their respective countries and the reimbursement of expenses from the European Parliament.
The European Parliament has sought to centralise and unify everything in Brussels, taking as its basis a principle of equality between Members which exists only in its imagination.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations wants all salaries and reimbursements to be paid solely by the Member States, in accordance with the general principle of Articles 137 and 138 of the Treaty, under the terms of which Members of the European Parliament represent their respective states.
<P>
We regard this concept of a single statute as a genuine heresy which is likely to isolate MEPs still further from their respective countries.
It is the negation of the Europe of Nations.
<P>
In this respect, our group much regrets the position of President Jacques Chirac who, in his interview of 25 February 1998 with the President of the European Parliament, gave his agreement in principle to a single statute for Members of the European Parliament.
This idea is now included under Article 190(5) of the Amsterdam Treaty, which has not yet been ratified, and which cannot provide a legal basis for the vote just taken by the European Parliament.
<P>
We therefore contest this vote from every point of view. In our opinion, it is contrary to France's national interests.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Burenstam Linder, Carlsson, Cederschiöld, Stenmarck and Virgin">
At the European Council meeting in Amsterdam, the Heads of Government agreed that Members of the European Parliament would have common, uniform conditions and that Parliament would put forward a proposal on a common statute.
<P>
Thereafter, the form of the proposal was discussed in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, by Parliament's authorities and by the various parliamentary groups.
Mr Rothley, a German Social Democrat, drew up a proposal which, together with most of the amendments, has been adopted by a broad majority.
<P>
We support the principle that Members should receive the same allowance irrespective of which country they come from, and that travel expenses should be reimbursed against the actual costs incurred.
However, we differ as a matter of principle on the issue of how Members' allowances are taxed.
We think that Members should pay the same tax and other charges as the people who voted for them.
<P>
We have therefore decided to abstain in the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Christodoulou">
With this statement I wish to explain why I previously refrained from saying anything about this subject.
I believe that the climate created, and the way in which this report is being promoted, do little to enhance the image of the European Parliament, especially as the forthcoming elections for the European Parliament draw closer.
I also think there are much more serious issues that should be occupying our attention.
For those reasons, I consider it my duty to abstain from voting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Deprez">
With Poujadism in the air in many circles which cannot find words strong enough to condemn what they call 'the political class, its advantages and its emoluments', I believe the time has come to point out once again that the remuneration of parliamentary office is an eminently democratic guarantee and that its introduction in the last century was welcomed as a great victory in the most progressive circles.
<P>
It guarantees that every person who stands for election will be able to effectively exercise the office to which he or she aspires if elected - irrespective of that individual's financial position.
A parliamentary salary also guarantees independence.
Furthermore, there is no reason why the motto 'equal pay for equal work', which is so often and correctly applied, should not also apply to Members of the European Parliament.
The present considerable salary differences depending on the nationality of Members of the European Parliament are therefore totally unjustified.
<P>
It is consequently only fair that Members exercising the same political office should receive the same salary, be fiscally assessed on the basis of a uniform Community tax system (which cancels out the differing effects of national tax regimes) and receive additional allowances covering travel and secretarial expenses.
More generally, the report on the Statute of the Members of the European Parliament has come at just the right time.
<P>
I share the rapporteur's belief that this Statute must be as clear and transparent as possible in order to avoid any questioning of motives or accusations of possible hidden benefits.
In this respect, I would have personally preferred no transitional regime to have been included and for all Members to receive the same salary from July 1999.
That is why I abstained in the final vote on the annex.
<P>
I believe that the introduction of a statute for Members of the European Parliament is a big step in the right direction, and I therefore nevertheless support the text before us today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Donner, Myller, Paasilinna and Paasio">
On Thursday, 3 December we voted in the part-session against Article 1(2) of Annex 1 as we cannot accept that a Member of the European Parliament should pay tax only to the European Community.
The work of MEPs is to some extent bound up with work carried out also in their home countries, where they have their regular place of abode, so that there is no justification for any differences in levels of taxation between them and the rest of the citizens they represent.
MEPs should pay tax on the same basis as their fellow countrymen.
<P>
Nevertheless, we voted in favour of the report as a whole because rejecting it would have led to a great deal of confusion, since we would have been leaving in place a system in which Members' travel expenses are not being claimed on the basis of the genuine costs incurred, which in our opinion they should be.
We believe that allowing these rules, which we have been calling for and drafting for such a long time now, to come to nothing would harm the European Parliament's standing and reputation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Eriksson, Seppänen, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We are elected as Members of Parliament for constituencies in our respective countries whose voters we represent.
We therefore do not see any need to replace national rules relating to our terms of employment with a common statute.
On the contrary, it is important for our conditions and electoral system to be determined in the countries we represent, so as to avoid the danger of MEPs representing EU interests instead.
<P>
The usual argument in favour of this proposal is that we should have the same conditions, as regards salary, for example.
But this is not what will happen. On the contrary, we shall go on having different conditions in the future.
However, many of us would receive a large pay rise, which would be totally unjustified.
Why should we receive higher salaries than Members of our 'regular' national Parliaments?
<P>
The proposal that we should have a special, very low EU tax is even more unwarranted.
Why should we, as high income earners, not have to pay the same taxes as everyone else in the countries where we live?
Similarly, there is no reason why we should have advantageous pensions and other perks which exceed those provided for our national MPs.
<P>
The Rothley report will do very little in terms of improving the functioning of Parliament.
The effect of the proposal would be that we, as a small privileged group, would award ourselves even more benefits.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Ewing">
My approach to Rothley is that we need a Common Statute to end discrimination between members from Member State and those from another.
This requires a common salary.
I believe in pegging this as a proportion of a judge's salary.
Having a uniform salary means the need for a uniform tax.
There is a clear precedent in that EU officials have a uniform tax system.
<P>
The transition period is illogical.
When a citizens stands as an MEP he should accept the salary on offer.
The general proposition only, without the details, should be put to the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Gahrton, Holm and Lindholm">
For the following reasons, we are opposed to the motion for a resolution on the common Statute for Members which Parliament has adopted today:
<P>
it is impossible to understand how the European Parliament can claim as a legal basis an article - Article 190(5) - of a treaty which has not entered into force, namely the Amsterdam Treaty; -Article 190(5) governs how Members of Parliament are to perform their duties.
There is no basis for a common statute, EU salaries, EU tax and so on.The intention, as also specified in the report, is to weaken Members' ties with their home countries.
We see this as unacceptable, since we regard it as an important democratic principle that Members should represent the electorate in their respective Member States.
<P>
People should also, as a matter of course, pay tax where they live - even Members of the European Parliament.
<P>
Unless the Council takes action to prevent this happening, as we hope it will, the outcome will be that MEPs construct a new EU salary and tax haven, which will do nothing to increase the respect and confidence of EU citizens.
<P>
With regard to travel expenses, we have constantly asked for the system to be changed so that only actual travel costs are reimbursed.
Parliament's Bureau could have approved this decision long ago, since it had the authority to do so.
It has now been combined with the proposal for a Members' statute in order to provide an alibi for the latter.
<P>
We voted against the report for these and other reasons.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Haarder and Riis-Jørgensen">
We are voting in favour, even though we support national taxation:
<P>
because adopting the proposal is the only way of securing the necessary dialogue with the Council on a common statute, and-because the proposal means that the rules on travel will be changed so that only the travelling expenses actually incurred will be refunded.
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Hulthén">
Today Parliament will adopt a position on the Members' Statute.
I should like to give the following brief explanation of my reasons for not supporting the proposal.
<P>
In the report, it is proposed that all Members, irrespective of nationality, should receive the same salary.
But if, as recommended in the report, the salary is calculated on the basis of the average of national MPs' salaries, Members from countries like my own would see their salaries raised by a substantial amount.
I am unable to support such an increase in MEPs' pay.
Nor can I support the proposal relating to a common EU tax, since I believe that all MEPs should pay tax in the country where they live.
<P>
It is important that a system of salaries and expenses for MEPs should be as transparent as possible.
How the money is paid and how it is used should be open to inspection.
In this respect, I am delighted to see that the report tackles the issue of Members' travel expenses and that it is proposed to reimburse only the actual travel costs incurred.
<P>
For the rest, I do not think the proposals meet the need for clarity and openness, in particular the proposal in the report that there should be a mixed system whereby some Members would be able to choose between the common salary and their present one, and the similar arrangement relating to Members' pensions.

<P>
Furthermore, there are a number of other economic issues that are not satisfactorily dealt with in the report.
For example, Members who hold posts outside the European Parliament would have different types of earnings and entitlements.
I think that in such cases their European Parliament salary should be reduced proportionally.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Iversen and Kirsten Jensen">
The Danish Social Democrats believe that Members of the European Parliament should be paid and taxed in the country where they are elected.
Members are not based abroad, and should belong to the social security schemes which apply in their home countries.
There can certainly be a common framework for salaries, negotiated by Parliament's authorities and the Council, but payment should take place on a national basis.
<P>
We have voted in favour of a proposal that travel expenses should be settled on the basis of supporting documents, without any ambiguity, so that it is no longer possible for the price of a business class ticket to be reimbursed, even though someone has travelled in a different fare category.
The aim is transparency, so that salaries and the reimbursement of expenses are both treated as such.
<P>
It is quite extraordinary that the opponents of the EU in the I-EDN Group have used the opportunity to put forward a proposal that would in fact make it impossible to bring legal proceedings against Mr Le Pen.
Of course those who are elected by the people should be held responsible for what they say and how they vote.
The opponents of the EU evidently do not share this view, however. The European Parliament waived Mr Le Pen's immunity in October because of his statements that the gas chambers at the concentration camps were a detail in the history of the Second World War.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="Kristoffersen, Rovsing and Schlüter">
Through today's vote on the report on a statute for Members, the Danish Conservative Members of the European Parliament wish to express their support for a clear and transparent statute, whereby in financial terms MEPs continue to be treated on a par with members of the national parliaments in their respective Member States.
<P>
Likewise, the situation of Members in a number of other fields must be regulated individually by the Member States, including the question of the extent to which the work of a Member of the European Parliament is compatible with membership of a national parliament and/or other posts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Lindqvist">
The EU is an association of 15 independent states.
Members of the European Parliament represent voters in their own Member State.
Members' allowances and taxes should therefore be fixed in the countries where they live, thereby removing the need for a statute to establish a common EU salary and tax.
<P>
The whole idea of an EU tax for Members of the European Parliament is mistaken.
There is no reason why MEPs should reward themselves in a way that is not available to ordinary citizens.
The setting-up of an EU haven only increases distrust towards the whole Community and has an adverse effect on cooperation within the EU.
<P>
With regard to both this report and the previous one on the budget, I voted in favour of reimbursement of travel expenses against the actual costs incurred.
The European Parliament should have taken a decision on this long ago.
The issue ought to have been dealt with separately and not included in the proposal relating to a common statute.
I therefore voted in favour of reimbursing travel expenses against the actual costs incurred - no easy matter, since the proposal was included in the amendment on the Statute.
In the final vote, I therefore voted against the proposal on a common statute in its entirety.
<P>
The common Statute is based on the Amsterdam Treaty which has still not entered into force, so this proposal anticipates the ratification of the Treaty by the Member States.
Since this only serves to increase the democratic deficit within the EU, the proposal should have been rejected in the first place on these democratic grounds.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Pailler">
I voted for the incompatibility of certain posts and against the accumulation of parliamentary offices.
I agree that the reimbursement of expenses should be brought more into line with actual costs, while favouring a lump-sum limit in order not to have to increase control procedures.
I also believe that parliamentary salaries must continue to be commensurate with the standard of living in the country of origin and with the salaries paid to those who sit in the national parliaments.
Might not the communitisation of the parliamentary salary foreshadow the imposition of voting methods by the European Union and European parties?
These are all questions which merit a clear debate, both here and in all the Member States.
<P>
We should not give in to the populist temptations which I reject, even if they do come from the left!
This is hypocrisy and populism made worse by the anti-parliamentarian attitudes often displayed by the media, which are actually often largely unaware of the work we do.
<P>
Finally, I regret that the question of the end of a term of office and the return to professional activity is not dealt with in this draft Statute.
Such a measure would promote greater democracy in the recruitment of Members!
<P>
These then are the reservations which led me to abstain in the final vote, although I approve of the adoption of a statute for Members of the European Parliament for reasons of democracy and transparency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="Palm">
My work and commitment as a politician are underpinned by values that encompass equality and the achievement of an equal society.
Some of the worst injustices that our European citizens are enduring today are economic, and include a widening wages gap.
<P>
The report contains a proposal to fix a common salary which, for Swedish MEPs, would mean a hefty pay rise.
I therefore oppose a salary increase for Members of the European Parliament, partly because a narrowing of the wages gap is an important factor in achieving equality, and partly because Members already receive adequate salaries.
<P>
I see no good reason why tax should be deducted at EU level.
There should be a link between where one pays tax and what that tax is used for.
As a Swede, and living as I do in Sweden, I benefit from the Swedish welfare system and should therefore contribute towards it.
Consequently, I am a charge on public finances even though I am a Member of the European Parliament.
I am therefore voting against the proposed 'EU tax'.
<P>
The report contains a proposal for improving the system of Members' travel allowances.
I am delighted that it is a more straightforward and honest system, so that Members will no longer be able to profit from the unfair travel expenses system currently in operation.
<P>
The pension scheme for Members as set out in the report is not self-financing, but requires an injection of extra tax revenues so as to be able to provide adequate cover.
All other pension schemes are required to be self-financing, and the same should apply in this case.
I am therefore voting against the pension scheme.
<P>
There is good reason for all Members of the European Parliament to receive the same salary when they perform the same duties.
It is important that we have the same political responsibility and field of operations, as well as the opportunity to implement policies.
There is much in the report that I am unable to support and which I am going to vote against. But in principle, I am in favour of a common Members' statute with regard to salary.
I therefore feel that more time should be allowed for carrying this through, and under no circumstances should it lead to an increase in salary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Papakyriazis">
In the vote on the Rothley report I felt obliged to keep abstaining in the unbelievably (and 'apolitically') numerous roll-call votes, only because of the decision by the Bureau, which I find unacceptable, to 'define' the presence and parliamentary function of Members, in its familiar insulting way.
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My real wish is to take no part in this process, because I think the whole way in which the issue of allowances has been addressed shows contempt for the European Parliament!
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<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Reding">
I have kept out of the whole voting procedure on the Rothley report concerning the Members' Statute.
I did not wish to participate in the debate or in the adoption of a resolution, for the following reasons:
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1.It is not the place of the outgoing Parliament to take far-reaching decisions affecting the Members who will be elected in June 1999.
Such political activities ought not to have been initiated until after the European elections.2.At the start of a European election campaign, it is imprudent of the European Parliament to convey to the public the 'false' impression that its Members are chiefly concerned with their own interests.3.At a time when momentous decisions are due to be taken in Europe - the introduction of the single currency, the reform of the common agricultural policy and the Structural Funds, enlargement of the Union, reform of the EU's finances - I believe it is politically wrong to divert attention from these key questions by discussing Members' pay, a topic which invariably arouses enormous public interest.
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Theorin and Wibe">
An initiative to change the current unacceptable system of allowances is most welcome.
Travel expenses should be reimbursed on the basis of the actual costs incurred.
We are voting against the Rothley report for a number of reasons, including the following.
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We do not think we can justify paying ourselves and our parliamentary colleagues what virtually amounts to a 70 % salary increase which, in our case, would be accompanied by a substantial tax reduction if salaries were to be taxed at EU level.
We think we should receive the same salary as Members of the Swedish Parliament.
Consequently, it is unacceptable for tax to be collected at EU level.
Salaries should be in line with those of national MPs and tax should be paid in the countries in which MEPs live.
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<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Vaz da Silva">
This report does not just deal with a bureaucratic issue, as its title might suggest.
It is to decide vital questions for the future such as what internal democracy in this Parliament really means and the balance of power between 'hard core' and 'peripheral' countries.
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If we had agreed - as almost happened - to separate two inseparable decisions, namely the approval of a single statute for Members of the European Parliament - in other words equal conditions for all, regardless of country of origin - and the approval of a new scheme for the payment of travel expenses on the basis of real cost, then we would have established a twospeed European Parliament.
Members from peripheral countries on low salaries - such as the Spanish, Finns and Portuguese - would no longer be able to maintain an active presence in the Parliament nor would they be able to go on contact missions.
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However, the other Members - those living near the 'centre' and on higher salaries, in addition to various official positions in their own countries - would occupy that space and end up taking decisions by themselves.
The fact that this was even a possibility is a serious matter.
And approving a transitional period enshrining inequality between different Members is a worrying signal.
Fortunately, common sense, strengthened by the combativeness of the 'weak' Members, defeated the arrogance and blindness of 'the strong'.
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But we escaped a black day for democracy by the skin of our teeth.
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I voted for the report in view of the difficulty experienced in achieving even this half-victory.
But I am neither satisfied nor relieved.
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<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="Wijsenbeek">
I wish to express my support for the text of the Rothley report as it has been adopted, in all its articles, parts and annexes.
To me what matters most is that the discrimination between the nationalities, which is illegal under Article 6 of the Treaty, will be eliminated as a result.
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This was an infringement of the Treaty perpetrated for 20 years by Parliament as an institution under the Treaty.
I am proud that this reference to the ban on discrimination has been incorporated into the Rothley report as a result of an amendment which I tabled.
It also means that this principle will have to be accepted in respect of Community tax as well.
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I should also like in this explanation to thank the rapporteur, the President of Parliament and the chairman of the Legal Affairs Committee for all they have done to achieve a proposal which virtually everyone can accept.
It is now up to the European Council and the ministers responsible to make the next move.
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Tomlinson recommendation (A4-0436/98)
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="Lindqvist">
The regulation currently in force contains provisions relating to technical and economic cooperation between the EU and the occupied West Bank territories and Gaza that are intended to strengthen the peace process.
The aim of this proposal is to improve on the poor results achieved so far, and it therefore has my support.
However, it is vitally important that such aid is subject to close economic scrutiny and in compliance with the rules, and that any irregularities are reported immediately in order to avoid a repetition of previous misunderstandings.
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Ferri report (A4-0400/98)
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw and Sandberg-Fries">
In our view, there should be more cooperation over the setting-up of supplementary pension schemes in the respective Member States.
What is required is a coordinated approach in terms of similar procedures and precautions against discrimination, in order to facilitate the free movement of workers.
The situation is unsatisfactory if different national regimes play a part in preventing workers from taking up employment in other countries, or expose them to the possibility of either forfeiting their occupational pensions or seeing their value decrease when they move to another country.
We would therefore like to stress that the result of a coordinated approach should not be a pension scheme that is so far-reaching and detailed that it restricts the negotiating rights of those with contractual or occupational pensions.
We would also stress that, in our view, pensions could be more widely used to provide investment capital, provided that due care and attention is given to effectively protecting the value of the pensions.
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<SPEAKER ID=117 NAME="Palm">
A state pension scheme that guarantees economic security to all citizens in their old age in the form of a relatively high and income-related remuneration has been shown to be the best form of scheme.
Nowadays, weak points are beginning to appear in pension schemes, due amongst other things to the inverted age pyramid in most Member States, which the report deals with.
The result is that state systems have inadequate funds to guarantee financial security.
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In order to guarantee financial security in old age for those of us who are still young, Member States will have to deal with the weaknesses in their state pension schemes.
We should be moving towards a general and universal social insurance scheme for the elderly.
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Supplementary pensions are just that: supplementary.
Undoubtedly there are weak points in state pensions schemes, but if they functioned to everyone's satisfaction, which is the goal that I am working towards, then there would be no need for supplementary pensions.
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The preamble to the report is to be commended.
Recital A states that, 'The State social security system... must remain the cornerstone of the Union's welfare system'.
I am totally in agreement with this, but the report subsequently becomes contradictory and makes numerous points which I am unable to support.
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In paragraph 6 it is indicated that some private pensions have problems finding markets. Apparently, the situation would be improved by certain policy decisions, some of which are listed.
I think that one of the biggest problems is the existence of weaknesses in state schemes but, above all, I cannot agree with the measures described in the report for facilitating investment, such as the privatisation of some industrial and financial sectors.
This might be appropriate in some cases, but there are also sectors which should be collectivised in order to provide social security for our citizens.
I am unable to support a text which so categorically advocates the privatisation of sectors which are of public interest.
Consequently, the conditions of ownership in certain sectors should be a matter for individual Member States to decide.
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Nor am I able to support so-called 'equal competition between all operators' which, in my view, would lead to inequality between citizens.
As I said at the beginning, a state pension scheme has been shown to be the best system as regards redistribution and equity.
I therefore believe that it is the task of politicians to set limits on the development of supplementary insurance schemes. I also believe that their first concern should be to improve the state system.
The effect of placing private and public operators on an equal footing in the pensions market could be to undermine state schemes.
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Paragraph 20 and subsequent paragraphs deal with harmonisation of tax systems, in particular the tax arrangements that would be required to accommodate supplementary pensions.
The EU has no authority over taxation, and it is important that Member States should be able to devise their own tax systems in accordance with their social security policies.
I therefore cannot support paragraphs 20 to 23, nor paragraph 26.
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<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="Theonas">
The Commission is trying to extend the 'single passport' system applied in connection with insurance companies, banks and pension funds, and to liberalise investments by the latter in the context of the more general effort to develop the capital markets still further, and indeed it has given notice of a proposed directive to achieve those aims.
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We wish to stress that the issue of supplementary pensions is of capital importance for the millions of working people in the EU, regardless of the diversity of the respective national systems.
The basic dividing line between the pensions provided by those systems and private pension schemes is that the national ones are provided by legal persons in public or private law, which are non-profit-making, while the others are clearly private and profit-making, and are provided in the context of life assurance agreements.
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We categorically oppose any attempt to equalise the legal status of those two forms of pensions.
That would further undermine the public-sector insurance system to the benefit of insurance companies.
The system of public social security as developed in the postwar years, of which the supplementary pension funds form part, is essentially distinct from the private insurance system, since participation in it is governed by statutory provisions and collective agreements, making it in essence compulsory.
Besides, it is not by chance that these arguments for private insurance are being put forward at a time when, on the one hand, the suffocating financial restrictions imposed by EMU, the single currency and the stability pact, and on the other hand, the new employment policy and much-vaunted competitiveness are squeezing the life out of the public insurance system and are being used to bring about its gradual disintegration.
Within that framework, it is characteristic that the attempt is being made to transfer responsibility for the organisation of insurance from the state to working people, either individually or at corporate level by means of group private insurance schemes, and of course at the cost of any notion of collectiveness and social solidarity and to the benefit of the profits made by insurance companies.
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Investment by pension funds is a critical issue which demands prudence, responsibility and effective control.
The reserves in those funds belong to their worker-members and must not be gambled away in games on the stock markets.
The continuing market crisis demonstrates the consequences that can come from the pursuit of 'high returns'.
Those worries are intensified by the proposals to amend the provisions on preventive supervision and reduce the related requirements, and by the proposals to liberalise the regulatory framework which governs investment portfolios with the aim of increasing share investment.
Indeed, what has changed since the time when the EU itself established such rules for life assurance companies, arguing that the diversification of assets among many categories of property elements and the imposition of quantitative restrictions reduce risk?
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For us, this is an issue beyond debate.
The amendments we have tabled emphasise our opposition and the basis of principle which leads us to reject any attempt to create a situation in which the management of pension fund reserves is liberalised and uncontrolled, leaving their assets to be gambled away on the stock markets.
Though the report has some good points, it accepts the Commission's orientation and in some cases goes still further by calling for the application of competition rules to pension funds, on the basis of equal treatment with insurance companies.
For those reasons, we will vote against the report.
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<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="Wibe">
I abstained in some of the votes on this report because I could not find a Swedish version.
There were no English or Danish versions available either, so I was forced to familiarise myself with the text in German.
Unfortunately, my German is not of a sufficiently high standard for me to be confident that I had understood the various points.
I therefore abstained in some of the votes.
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Caccavale report (A4-0430/98)
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw and Sandberg-Fries">
We welcome the strenuous efforts made by Latvia, not least in terms of adapting its legislation to meet the EU's criteria in order to facilitate membership of the European Union in the future.
The process of enlargement towards Central and Eastern Europe gives us an historic opportunity to establish lasting peace based on the principles of freedom and democracy.
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It is vital that the EU should not betray the strong desire of the people of Latvia to see their country become a fully-fledged member of the European Union.
The Commission should take this opportunity to send a clear signal to the people of Latvia that there will be no delay in opening negotiations.
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<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="Palm">
It is gratifying that the European Parliament is in favour of opening membership negotiations with Latvia without further delay.
Nevertheless, I do not strictly agree with the rapporteur's reasons, when he 'notes the successes achieved by Latvia as regards the transition to a market economy, privatisation, containing inflation and balancing the budget'.
It is a pity that the economic criteria imposed on the applicant countries are so strongly geared towards privatisation and the market economy.
Capitalism and a market economy are not the most effective or rational ways to produce and distribute resources.
In a world where 40 000 children die every day from starvation and related diseases, where 80 % of its people consume 20 % of the resources while others are rolling in luxury, where 90 % of the financial capital is used up in unproductive speculation instead of investment, one only has to look around to see that what is required is democratic control of the economy.
Together we need to create a society where people have control over their daily lives.
The objective should be to achieve a method of production which includes compensation for the pursuit of profit, solidarity to compensate for competition, and democracy to compensate for 'economism'.
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<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="Souchet">
The reports submitted to us today, on applicant countries which the Commission has relegated to second class, bring few new elements. They simply call for a review of the distinction between 'in' and 'pre-in' which would allow the countries placed in the second category to move up to the first category at any time on the basis of the extent to which they have adopted the 'acquis communautaire'.
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While at the beginning of the decade the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the communist regimes raised hopes of a rapid political reunification of Europe which could have taken the form of a continental confederation, we now find that this has been prevented by the way in which we have pursued European unification and by the way in which we have fixed on the method of integration.
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Applicants for membership have been subjected to the humiliating procedure of 'sifting' and have been judged solely on the basis of their ability to adapt to the Community machinery, rather than being immediately recognised as full European Member States.
The confused approach to two totally different questions, namely economic and social reforms in these countries and political recognition as part of Europe, has resulted in a situation where it seems that we are haggling over their full status as Europeans, thereby fostering disappointment and resentment.
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It is also striking that the European Union as it is currently developing has no desire to benefit from the wealth of experience, culture and talent of the countries it is hoping to integrate, since it is so busy subjecting them to its merciless accounting and teaching them how to cannibalise their institutions.
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That is why, while ardently seeking European reunification, we can only regret the absence of a genuine debate on the nature of the European Union.
The silence which we are now trying to impose may well not be able to stifle the people of eastern Europe, who are only too familiar with the lies of a superstate, as easily as some people think.
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Bernard-Reymond report (A4-0428/98)
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="Palm">
The rapporteur would like the European Parliament to 'encourage Romania... to press on with the vital reforms, in particular the privatisation process...'
It should also be noted that it has unfortunately not been possible to recommend the opening of accession negotiations under the present circumstances, partly because democratic rights, such as freedom of the press, have still not been fully implemented in Romania, but mainly because the Romanian economy does not comply with the so-called Copenhagen criteria.
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I am delighted that the discussions are proceeding, since I am a strong supporter of EU enlargement.
However, the European Union is a political project, not an economic one.
I therefore think it is unfortunate that greater emphasis is placed on economic criteria than on democratic rights.
As a Social Democrat, I am opposed to the EU being a 'rich man's club'.
With regard to privatisation, I think that it this an issue which should be dealt with at national level.
A certain amount of public ownership is nevertheless necessary in order to provide people with a satisfactory level of welfare.
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Wiersma report (A4-0427/98)
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="Palm">
The rapporteur says that it is too early to make a definite decision on Slovakia's application for membership before the end of 1998, but that Parliament should be given another opportunity to express its opinion before May at the latest.
I welcome this proposal, since I firmly support rapid enlargement of the European Union.
According to the rapporteur, Slovakia should wait because even though the choice made by Parliament in September ought to make it possible for the political requirements of the Copenhagen criteria to be met, the economic situation has deteriorated.
The proposed solution is that Slovakia should begin to implement the necessary measures for achieving a fully functioning market economy in a transparent way, especially with regard to privatisation.
However, I think one should be cautious in attempting to resolve the country's economic problems through the speedy introduction of a market economy.
This method has been tried in Russia, for example, where average life expectancy at the beginning of the 1990s fell by six years.
The alternative would be to construct a sturdy and efficient public welfare sector and to strengthen democracy.
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Kristoffersen report (A4-0431/98)
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw and Sandberg-Fries">
The enlargement of the European Union towards Central and Eastern Europe offers an historic opportunity to establish lasting peace, democracy and well-being.
With regard to Lithuania, we are gratified by the extraordinary effort that has been made to adapt its legal system to comply with the EU's criteria.
The EU should therefore give the people of Lithuania a clear signal regarding future membership of the European Union.
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In the reports which the Commission has just presented, it has failed to indicate any substantial differences that exist between the three Baltic states as regards the extent to which they have complied with the Copenhagen criteria.
The Commission's reports do not furnish us with the information we need to decide why Latvia should have 'made particular progress', whereas Lithuania has only 'improved significantly'.
Although we naturally welcome the fact that Latvia may be eligible to take part in concrete membership negotiations next year, we find it very hard to understand why the Commission should differentiate between the two countries as regards their fulfilment of the Copenhagen criteria.
We do not think that Latvia and Lithuania should be treated differently in terms of opening negotiations, and both countries should be included in an accelerated process of enlargement.
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<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="Palm">
The rapporteur would like to see Lithuania's accession process speeded up to enable intensive negotiations to begin shortly.
I welcome such a development, since I believe that EU membership should be open to as many countries as possible.
I assume, in relation to these negotiations, that Lithuania is fully aware of the importance of decommissioning the Ignalina nuclear power plant.
I should therefore like to comment on the rapporteur's statement that he 'is pleased that the Commission finds that Lithuania has made substantial progress in becoming a market economy...'
However, we have to remember that market economies do not have any intrinsic value in themselves.
The aim should be to enable the people of Lithuania to live in a society in which they can fulfil their ambitions.
That should be the objective in setting out to reform society, together with the strengthening of human rights and democracy.
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Aelvoet report (A4-0429/98)
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="Palm">
I am delighted that the European Parliament believes that Bulgaria has made sufficient political and economic progress to begin accession negotiations.
In order for the social democratic vision of Europe to become a reality, it is vital for as many countries as possible to join the European Union.
According to the rapporteur, Bulgaria has made substantial efforts to 'speed up the privatisation process and to further develop the conditions for a functioning market economy'.
I should like to take this opportunity to point out that placing too much emphasis on economic criteria is to be condemned.
The European Union is a political project and, in my view, our primary concern therefore ought to be to ensure that countries comply with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and give their inhabitants access to effective welfare provision.
Experience has shown that economic regulation is needed in order to achieve this goal.
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Swoboda report (A4-0432/98)
<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="Bébéar">
<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="Lindqvist">
The report provides an insight into the long way that Turkey still has to go to meet the political, democratic and economic requirements for membership of the European Union.
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The report calls on the Turkish Government to fulfil its promises with regard to human rights, carry out judicial reform, recognise minorities like the Kurds, put an end to torture, abolish the death penalty and introduce freedom of opinion and freedom of the press.
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The report invites Turkey to put forward concrete proposals for complying with these requirements, resolving the Kurdish problem and setting free all political prisoners, including Leyla Zana.
I support this proposal and have voted in favour of the report.
However, I would say that now, as a result of Abdullah Ocalan's flight to Italy, the EU, OSCE and UN have a real opportunity to begin a peace process and bring to an end the 14-year war between the Turkish army and the Kurds and PKK.
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The global community has to put pressure on the Turkish Government to persuade Turkey to sit down at the negotiating table.
Since Sweden is now a member of the UN Security Council, its government should take the initiative, as the Norwegian Government did some years ago to try to resolve the Palestinian conflict, and convene a conference in Stockholm for the interested parties, including the UN, OSCE, USA and EU, the Turkish Government, the PKK and other Kurdish representatives, in order to initiate a similar peace process.
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<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="Maes">
By and large, I am happy with the recommendations made in this report. Their intention is after all to improve relations with Turkey.
In our amendments, however, we have sought to place the emphasis on the importance of finding a political solution to the Kurdish question in Turkey.
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I still think it is a pity that we concluded a customs union with Turkey before a number of essential guarantees on human rights and a peaceful resolution of the Kurdish question had been secured.
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Nor am I convinced that full membership of the European Union is the best format for future relations between Turkey and the European Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="Palm">
Thousands of people are today languishing in Turkish prisons for having taken part in peaceful political activities.
In the Turkish part of Kurdistan, 3 185 villages have been cleared out during the past 14 years.

In 1997, 20 people died in circumstances which indicated that they had been illegally put to death by the Turkish State, and at least six people were tortured to death during the same year; approximately 20 million people have been prohibited from speaking their native language; one half of Cyprus is under Turkish occupation; and, according to Amnesty International, at least 6 000 people have died as a result of the war against opposition forces in the Turkish part of Kurdistan.
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The list of Turkish violations of such things as the UN Declaration of Human Rights is lengthening as Turkey goes on deliberately and systematically abusing its own citizens.
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The European Union, its individual Member States, other democratic countries and the international organisations have for a long time allowed Turkey to participate in a number of cooperation initiatives.
The reason has very often been marketdriven, but it has also been to promote human rights and democracy in Turkey.
As a result, some cooperation initiatives have been conditional on Turkey's guaranteeing to respect human rights - a promise it has failed to keep.
In my view, such behaviour on Turkey's part shows how the land lies.
It is time for democratic organisations and countries to try out new means for bringing democracy and human rights to the oppressed people of Turkey.
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For the above reasons, I am opposed to any further cooperation with Turkey on the part of the European Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="Souchet">
We abstained on the Swoboda report.
The rapporteur regrets the fact that relations between the European Union and Turkey have reached a total impasse, due to Ankara's decision to freeze political relations.
Mr Swoboda is all the more surprised and disappointed as he believes considerable progress has been made in considering Turkey's application since the Customs Union entered into force on 1 January 1996.
The rapporteur lists the various positions adopted by the Council and the Commission since that time, confirming Turkey's 'European vocation' and its 'eligibility' for membership of the European Union.
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But Mr Swoboda fails to mention that relations with Turkey are at an impasse precisely because of this language of ambiguity and confusion. You cannot have it both ways.
Either the Union believes what it says and Turkey is a European country, in which case it must start a pre-accession procedure and if it fails to do so Turkey is perfectly entitled to accuse it of being inconsistent.
Alternatively, the European Union does not in fact believe that Turkey is part of Europe, in which case it should say so outright and stop pretending otherwise.
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Our group believes that identities need to be clearly defined and recognised before normal and constructive relations can be established with Turkey.
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Continuing ambiguity can only jeopardise these relations, which are essential for balance in the Mediterranean and western Asia, given the important role which Turkey plays and will continue to play in the Middle East and central Asia.
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It is because we support a concept of Europe clearly based on respect for the nation states of which it consists and which constitute its basis, substance and strength, that we want to see respect for Turkey's true identity and a calm acknowledgement that this great country does not belong to the European geographical and cultural whole.
If we continue to deceive ourselves on this point we threaten to cause a deep and lasting crisis in our relations with Ankara.
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The Union's present inability to engage in clear speaking with Turkey says much about its own inability to define itself geographically and makes it look as if it is destined to become a vague, ill-defined mass, which will be doing it a great disservice.
By contrast, a variable-geometry Europe will provide a solid basis for extensive cooperation with Turkey in areas of mutual interest.
We were unable to support Mr Swoboda's report as it offers no way out of these dangerous ambiguities.
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<SPEAKER ID=133 NAME="Theorin and Wibe">
We would further stress how much we deplore the fact that Turkey is still a long way from fulfilling the so-called Copenhagen criteria in relation to human rights, democracy, the rule of law and respect for and protection of minorities, despite the fact that the Customs Union agreement concluded between Turkey and the European Union was conditional on Turkey implementing democratic reforms, strengthening human rights, resolving the Kurdish issue by non-military means and abolishing anti-terrorist legislation.
It is most regrettable that Turkey has not only not kept its promises - which were a prerequisite for the Customs Union agreement - but on the contrary has to some extent aggravated the situation.
We are constantly receiving reports from human rights organisations of human rights abuses.
Hence the release of political prisoners has still not begun.
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It is extremely alarming that the army has tightened its control over civil society.
It should give up its current role in the political system immediately.
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The fermenting of nationalist feeling and the boycott of Italian goods constitutes a violation of the provisions of the Association Agreement and the Customs Union.
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Herman report (A4-0439/98)
<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Madam President, it is going to prove very difficult in the future to impose a single monetary policy on a structurally diverse zone.
We have a small foretaste of this today with this motion for a Council resolution on the Economic and Monetary Union's external representation.
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Before having made any start at all on harmonising the substance of their external positions - despite the fact that we are just one month away from the euro - European and Member States' institutions have been tearing themselves apart over the question of how the Union is going to speak with a single voice.
The final agreement satisfies everyone as it accepts that the Community's external representation will be jointly formed by three institutions: the Council, the Commission and the European Central Bank.
The Commission, which drew up the original text, has seized upon the least important article in the Treaty to grab the limelight in joint representation when its initial claims to such a role were very weak. Now, as in the past, the European Parliament, its accomplice, has helped it in this escapade by serving as a stepping stone, on condition that the favour is returned.
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This situation leads us to make two points regarding the anti-democratic and incoherent nature of the method.
Firstly, the Maastricht Treaty - in order not to frighten the voters on the political consequences of the single currency and to present the reform as a purely technical matter - did not clearly state that EMU's external representation must be supranational.
Yet this is the solution which we can now see as ultimately emerging.
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The Commission will clearly seek every available means to increase its own importance by claiming to represent the general interest against the Council, which it will try to sideline.
The outcome will not be one clearly chosen by the public.
But manoeuvrings like this - and there are many of them in EMU - could also cause the euro to fail, as in order to conceal the final objective we are preparing to implement, during the intermediate period, a totally incoherent institutional system in which three European institutions will be competing on the international stage, plus the representations of the individual Member States which will remain, certainly for countries not joining the euro and perhaps also for certain others.
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This incoherence, when coupled with the others, could make the system unworkable. The federalists will then finally be punished for their sins and their lack of respect for democracy.
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<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="Blokland">
In political terms, the European Union is a close cooperative association of independent nation states.
As such, it cannot be classed as a state or an international organisation.
Because of this hybrid nature, the external representation of the economic and monetary union in international forums like the International Monetary Fund or the G7 presents us with a problem.
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In statutory terms, it is simple.
Only states can be members of most international groupings.
And where individual EU Member States are members of such bodies, full membership of the EU or EMU means being represented twice over.
In practice, however, it is desirable for the Member States taking part in EMU to express a common opinion or position.
This can be done through the person of the observer.
My initial feeling is that the presidency of the ECOFIN Council or perhaps the chair of the ECB Council would be the best spokesman for EMU - certainly not the President or a Member of the European Commission, because they do not provide the 'day-to-day administration' of the Union or EMU.
It would be a violation of the allocation of responsibilities laid down in the Treaties to allow the European Commission to act as a pseudogovernment for the EU.
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For the above reasons, I was unable to support the Herman report.
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<SPEAKER ID=136 NAME="Mendes Bota">
We are four weeks away from the launch of the euro and, according to the latest news, it was not easy to find a solution for representing the euro area at international financial institutions.
Above all, certain Member States persist in having the Commission excluded from that representation.
This reductionist vision of Europe, contrary to Article 109(4) of the Treaty and the conclusions of the Luxembourg European Council in December 1997, is also contrary to the spirit of 'more Europe' as characterised by economic and monetary union.
Speaking with a single voice is not exactly the same as speaking with one voice only, which is what the Council apparently seems to want.
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On the other hand, it would be unacceptable if there was any new discrimination between small and large countries in the euro area over taking part in G-7 meetings.
If small countries such as Portugal, Austria or Luxembourg have already shown their ability to preside over the fate of the Union, there is no reason why they should be considered as being of less political importance when it comes to taking part in G-7 meetings.
The economic and commercial weight of the European Union strengthened by the constitution of the euro as a reserve currency and international reference currency, gives it special responsibilities in the reform of the world financial system and its institutions, in particular the IMF.
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The European Union is now a pivot in the field of the prevention and management of financial crises.
Pointless discussions about the number of votes would only weaken its credibility.
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There are not going to be three voices.
There will be two vocal cords in the same voice.
That of the Presidents-in-Office of the 'Euro-11' will have an economic timbre and will rotate.
The other, with a monetary trill, will be permanent and will be emitted by the President of the ECB.
It is not the ideal solution because it humiliates the Commission, which is given only a secondary role, lending technical support within the Union's delegation.
But, given the lack of time, it is preferable to take a slightly less than ideal decision than no decision at all.
And it seems that that is what will happen.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="Murphy">
British Labour Members of the European Parliament abstained in the final vote on the Herman Report on the 'Representation and Position Taking of the Community at International Level in the context of Economic and Monetary Union'. This does not indicate opposition to the principle of the need for a mechanism to deal with the external representation of the current Euro 11.
Rather, it reflects dissatisfaction with an over Communitization of this sensitive issue on the part of the European Commission.
It is also an acknowledgement of the pre-in status of the United Kingdom.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="Palm">
Bearing in mind, in my view at any rate, that the European Union should be based on international cooperation, I cannot support the assertion that 'exchange rate policy can be effective when it is supported by a coordinated economic and monetary policy' (Amendment No 1, recital 8).
Nor can I accept that, 'after coordination on the broad guidelines of economic policies has taken place, the Community should really speak with one voice' (Amendment No 2, recital 8b).
I think the ECB is deeply undemocratic in its structure, because of the way in which it appoints its governors, to name one reason.
I am opposed to having a supranational European Central Bank which is free from all democratic control, and I am therefore not going to vote in favour of a text which says that governors will no longer represent their countries but the Monetary Union (Amendment No 4, recital 11a).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="Wibe">
I abstained in the vote on this report, since Sweden is not participating in the economic and monetary union.
<P>
Randzio-Plath report (A4-0441/98)
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="Berthu">
It is to the credit of Mrs Randzio-Plath's report on the global monetary and financial crisis that, for the first time, we find the beginnings of doubts expressed about the benefits of the euro.
In particular, it calls on the European Union and the United States 'to maintain a balanced relationship between the rates of the dollar and of the euro', thus reflecting real and justified concern at the risk of increased volatility with a bipolar system in a context of general crisis.
The report also stresses that 'the effects of crises on the European economy may not be evenly distributed, as individual Member States have different trade exposures to different parts of the world economy', which again expresses the fear that Europe will be the victim of an asymmetrical shock which a single monetary zone such as the euro zone will not be able to absorb without demanding important sacrifices of its population.
<P>
However, it was for another reason that we did not vote in favour of the Randzio-Plath report, namely because it ends with a very dubious call for an increase in European investment expenditure in order to halt the slowdown in growth.
<P>
Unfortunately, such a programme would simply increase the European Union's powers while at the same time inflating an already unbearable public debt, with future generations of taxpayers having to pay for our mistakes.
Above all, proposals of this kind simply temporarily conceal the real problems and postpone effective solutions.
France and Germany in particular are caught in the stranglehold of the burden of obligatory taxes on the one hand and the systematic opening up of trade on the other.
To loosen this stranglehold we must introduce a genuine system to defend European trade while at the same time lightening the burden of the public sector, especially social systems.
On this latter point, we must find a way of reconciling our principles of solidarity with more flexible social protection management.
This is possible, as the Netherlands has already done it!
<P>
Under these conditions, the proposal for European investment expenditure, supported by all the Members of the left, simply serves to protect privileges and to artificially sustain already doomed systems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="Blokland">
Mrs Randzio-Plath's report is based on the a priori assumption that 'cohabitation' can work.
A few decades ago, this belief was fiercely upheld by 'progressive' political groups who sought to give it shape at national level.
In this report, we see similar ideas being projected at international level.
<P>
Just as government cannot totally control the financial sector at national level, and should not be able to do so, such control cannot and should not be entrusted to international organisations either. Of course there has to be better supervision.
A greater degree of transparency is also desirable.
This can be achieved through codes of conduct and harmonised accounting rules for financial institutions and companies, drawn up under the aegis of the International Monetary Fund or the Bank for International Settlements.
<P>
In my Amendments Nos 12 and 13, I made the point that instruments of monetary policy cannot simply be used to stimulate investment in jobs.
The call for the euro to be pegged to the US dollar is already an unnatural development and may prove a source of tension.
<P>
Since these amendments were not adopted, this was ample reason to vote against the report as a whole.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 NAME="Iversen and Kirsten Jensen">
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of the Randzio-Plath report on the international financial crises and their effects on the economy of the European Union, but against all the amendments.
We voted in favour because the report contains many sound proposals on how to prevent crises on the lines of that in South-East Asia.
The countries hit first and hardest by the crisis are characterised by not having carried out structural economic reforms.
International accountancy standards are not being applied in the affected countries, nor is there any independent financial supervision.
<P>
The international institutions should also be reviewed, including the Bretton Woods institutions such as the IMF, which has now been in existence for 54 years.
The financing of the IMF must be increased and the transparency of the institutions improved, the Fund should have a greater degree of political accountability, and surveillance of the exchange markets should be tightened.
<P>
To avoid the crisis spreading to the EU, it is proposed that a boost should be given to demand, for example by stepping up public investment and not regarding such expenditure as contributing to the public deficit.
Demand should be increased, but it is difficult to bypass the requirements of the third stage of EMU, and the subsequent demands of the growth and stability pact may not be in the interests of the present and future Euroland.
This means that we are voting in favour of the report as it stands, but against all the amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="Lienemann">
I will be voting in favour of this report, which highlights the serious consequences of the prevailing economic and financial system.
<P>
The increased power of a transnational financial capitalism in which capital movements and speculations are more important than real trade in goods is causing serious imbalances, chaos and crisis, while inequalities between and within countries are increasing.
The time has come to regulate economies and financial movements properly in order to encourage harmonious development for the benefit of the public.
This is why the European Parliament must energetically support Mr Tobin's idea to introduce global taxes on capital movements.
<P>
Simply referring to a code of good conduct and to the need for transparency is not a sufficient guarantee for the future.
A system of taxation of capital movements will have a threefold effect, limiting speculation, providing better knowledge of capital movements, and recognising the principle of taxing capital.
The argument for capital mobility is a pretext for reducing taxes and the growing imbalance between taxes and charges on labour and consumption and those levied on assets and capital.
<P>
Finally, Mrs Randzio-Plath's report rightly alludes to the serious risks of reduced growth in Europe as a result of the world financial crisis and calls for a recovery of internal demand.
Although the report stresses the need for major European investment, it does not mention the vital need for lower interest rates to help the recovery.
Central banks, such as the ECB, seem to be deaf to the requests of many European finance ministers.
<P>
The European Parliament is also missing an important opportunity to play its role in the 'democratic dialogue' with the ECB which it regularly calls for, because by being too slow to cut interest rates Europe risks being caught up in a spiral of reduced growth and then having to take urgent action.
We all know, more's the pity, that the price of this impotence and reduced growth will be higher unemployment.
This is why every effort must be made to correct it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="Theonas">
The continuing financial crisis which began in Thailand has spread to the whole of south-east Asia and then to Russia and Latin America, and is characterised by sudden and lasting falls in the value of stock market assets and currency exchange rates, and the bankruptcy of giant financial institutions and other investment groups and major industrial enterprises.
The governments of the large countries and the multinational capital directly involved in companies in those countries fear that the situation may get out of control.
<P>
The framework of efforts to deal with the problem include the recent decisions by the G-7 Group, which the rapporteur approves but which do not address the essence of the crisis.
On the one hand they are compelled to admit that the celebrated globalisation, under the conditions in which it is taking place led by major multinational interests, may prove catastrophic for the system they have created, and on the other hand they insist on their basic choice which, as the report characteristically puts it, consists in the existence of a 'world-wide financial credit market supported by technology and investors to pursue the greatest profitability'.
<P>
There is no mention at all of control over profiteering capital movements, which are a fundamentally destabilising factor especially for less developed countries, and which are an integral element of the rationale of easy, quick and maximum profit.
<P>
No concern at all is shown for the promotion of productive investments which would contribute to economic recovery and job creation.
Before the crisis gets any worse and becomes more widespread, the Member States must adopt initiatives to increase public investment, support the public sector and divert the vast reserves of private capital away from stock market speculation and towards productive investment.
In parallel, the EU must adopt the necessary initiatives to abolish tax havens for capital.
<P>
It surprises us that the EU's official bodies have so far declined to perceive the risk that the crisis may spread further and begin to have an impact within the EU, pleading the supposed stability of the euro zone.
They disregard the reality that extensive exposure of the European financial credit giants to countries such as Russia and south-east Asian countries is a potential timebomb for Europe's already vulnerable economy.
They ignore the forecasts of the IMF and the OECD concerning slower development, clearly so as not to dampen the ill-justified euphoria about the imminent introduction of the euro.
<P>
We categorically oppose any attempt to strengthen the intervention powers of the IMF and the other international economic organisations.
This of course does not mean that we accept the system created by the Bretton Woods agreement.
But the plans to create an Economic Security Council, to invest the IMF's Interim Committee with decision-making powers, or even to call upon private capital for emergency loans - together with the IMF - for countries affected by crises, will not only fail to solve the problem but also result in further restriction of the sovereign rights of the borrowing countries, the imposition of stricter austerity programmes on their peoples, and the creation of overcentralised structures with no accountability over the heads of national and regional authorities.
<P>
We have no doubt that the crises will continue unless the policies and conditions which nourish them undergo substantive changes.
The first victims of those crises are the millions of working people who are then called upon to bear the cost of the new austerity and restructuring programmes.
Only they, with their coordinated struggle at national, Community and international level, can impose a redistribution of power at international level and promote measures which will mitigate and in the long run eliminate the causes of these phenomena.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 NAME="Wibe">
I abstained in the final vote on this report because Parliament did not comply with the rules governing a quorum laid down in Rule 112.
I believe that the decision taken was in breach of Parliament's own Rules of Procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="President">
Parliament has now come to the end of its agenda.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=147 NAME="President">
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 1.15 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Resumption of the session
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 3 December 1998.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
The Minutes of the last sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I want to speak on pages 6 and 7 of the Minutes.
As you have acknowledged yourself, a qualified majority was needed to adopt the Statute, an absolute majority of Members of Parliament.
So I imagine it was a mistake that Recital g), which received 270 votes, was declared adopted, and likewise Amendment No 84 to the Annex, with 264 votes, Article 1(1) of the Annex, with 251 votes for the first part and 212 for the second, Article 2 of the Annex, with 279 votes for the first part and 288 for the second, Article 8(1) of the Annex, with 311 votes, and, finally, Article 5 of the Annex, with 297 votes.
These provisions appear in the Draft Statute which was adopted.
I believe they should not have been declared adopted and I do not think we can approve Minutes containing such a manifest error, especially as important provisions are contained in the text in question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President">
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, you will remember that you raised this question when the text came to be approved in the form in which its various parts had been adopted.
It is when the vote is taken that the majority has to be established, and the majority was established at that point and easily obtained.
I also told you that I would refer the matter to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure.
You wrote me a letter which I shall forward to the Rules Committee in order to have a definitive interpretation.
For the moment, these parts of the text are deemed to have been adopted in accordance with my interpretation of the vote at the time, right or wrong.
They therefore stand adopted.
The text has been forwarded to the Council, which moreover has just taken note of it at the European Council meeting in Vienna.
However, your written protest will be forwarded to the Rules Committee without delay, so that it can consider this interpretation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Mr President, I asked you last time to consider improving the bicycle facilities in this building, such as by allocating one car-parking space in the covered car park for bicycles.
I have not had any reply from you, although the President at the time assured me she would look into the matter.
I would therefore ask you again, as I did last time, to ensure that improvements are made so that cyclists do not always have to take second place to car-drivers.
Set one car-parking space aside so that cyclists have more room to store their bicycles out of the rain.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Eisma.
<P>
I shall investigate what exactly happened and why no reply has been forthcoming.
Rest assured that you will receive a reply in due course.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Duhamel">
Mr President, I have just found out that Mr Zaldivar, the President of the Chilean Senate, who supported General Pinochet's coup d'état, is coming to the European Parliament tomorrow in support of Pinochet.
May I ask in what context and on what grounds this visit is taking place?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
You are misinformed, Mr Duhamel.
The President of the Senate, Mr Zaldívar, was exiled for many years precisely because he did not support the coup d'état by General Pinochet.
He is coming here to visit me, like any other Speaker of a parliament.
I do not know the reason for his visit.
That is not something that I ask other Speakers.
I have Parliament's resolution.
It was easy to reply to him, because Parliament has already adopted resolutions on the subject.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Janssen van Raay">
Mr President, I have a point of order based on Rules 2, 5 and 119 of the Rules of Procedure.
Messrs Falconer, Balfe and other like-minded Members will be pleased to hear that I have taken legal advice and that I intend to apply to the Court of First Instance to have the Bureau's decision of 15 and 16 December 1997 annulled, in accordance with the Beate Weber procedure.
Once the Quaestors have taken a formal decision, a two-month period begins in which this application must be made.
I shall spare you the arguments - one legal and one fiscal - but if I give this document to your Secretary-General, Mr President, I should be grateful if, as the experienced and authoritative lawyer that I know you are, you would consider whether the decision taken at the time to impose penalties for a refusal to participate in roll-call votes should not be reviewed in the light of the new Members' Statute.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
I would be most grateful if you could forward me a copy of the legal advice, Mr Janssen van Raay. I shall then, of course, pass it to the Bureau.
This is not a matter of my personal preference, even though it might seem so at times.
It is a Bureau decision, and in due course, the Bureau will decide whether the issue should or should not be reviewed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Putten">
Mr President, I am very concerned about Members' safety and there is something I would like to warn you about.
One Friday in Brussels, I had a group of visitors on the fifth floor of the LEO building, and at a certain point several people said that they could smell burning.
It took 20 minutes of telephoning around the various services before any alarm was sounded.
If there really was a fire in the building, this would be far too long.
Would you ask the security services in Brussels to carry out tests to see whether Members would be in danger in that sort of situation?
There was not a fire on that particular occasion, but we were not to know that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mrs van Putten.
Your comments have been noted and will be pursued with the security services.
To date, what seems to happen is that nobody can do anything for 20 minutes because the lifts stop working during an alarm.
However, the occasion you have referred to is different and we shall investigate exactly what happened.
You will be informed of the result of the investigation.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Agenda
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
The next item is the order of business.
<P>
The final version of the draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents pursuant to Rule 95 of the Rules of Procedure has been distributed, to which the following amendments have been proposed:
<P>
Monday: no change
<P>
Tuesday:
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, I would like to ask for a small change to Tuesday's agenda.
The reports from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy are on the agenda, including my own report.
However, a report on fisheries is slotted in between one of the Economic Committee reports and my own, which is then followed by another report on fisheries.
In terms of time management for both Members and Commissioners, this does not make much sense.
As this concerns the second reading, I would like my report to be taken before the Souchet report.
It will take five minutes.
That is a better solution, because our fisheries colleagues will not have to wait.
So I would ask you to make this small change, which would also be appreciated by Commissioner de Silguy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="President">
I would gladly do that, Mrs Lulling, but you know that amendments to the agenda must be proposed by a political group or 29 Members one hour before the opening of the sitting.
Unless I am mistaken, I have not received such a request.
But I see that Mrs Oomen-Ruijten is asking for the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, this is something we overlooked, for which I sincerely apologise.
I think Mrs Lulling's request is entirely reasonable.
Her report would take perhaps ten minutes to discuss, and I think it is important to bring it forward.
I gather from the expressions of colleagues on the other side of the Chamber, particularly Mrs Green, that they would not object to this.
Things as they stand are organised very illogically.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
If there are no objections, I shall put the request by Mrs Lulling to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament approved the request)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I am not asking for a change to Tuesday's agenda but, on behalf of our group and pursuant to Rule 129, I call for the Elles report on discharge for 1996 to be referred back to committee.
The Committee on Budgetary Control considered the report the other day and the essential paragraph, which grants discharge, was passed by 14 votes to 13, when there had already been a vote on this issue.
<P>
The report as it stands contains glaring contradictions.
Recitals g), I) and j) would normally imply refusal of discharge.
The same applies to Article 5, for example, and to several others in the decision.
The final article, granting discharge, contradicts the rest of the resolution, and it will not be possible to remove this contradiction because we have just learned that the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities is going to propose that Parliament reject the amendments to the discharge decision.
<P>
If the members of the Committee on Budgetary Control, especially the rapporteur, had known that the Committee on the Rules of Procedure was taking this position, I doubt if the proposal put to the Committee on Budgetary Control would have been worded in the same way.
The proposal actually left the Committee on Budgetary Control free to decide whether to grant or refuse discharge.
So in view both of the internal contradiction in the report and the Rules Committee's new position, I am asking, under Rule 129, for the Elles report to be referred back to the Committee on Budgetary Control.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="President">
Is there a speaker in favour of the request?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Elles">
Mr President, I must admit that events in the last few days have been totally unpredictable so far as the 1996 discharge report is concerned.
I would have thought that the 1996 budget would have been rather more important than the 1996 discharge but history has told us otherwise.
<P>
What we have heard this afternoon from Mr Fabre-Aubrespy is correct.
We now have a report which is extremely tough on the whole question of management of the 1996 discharge and yet a very narrow majority, achieved by our Socialist Labour colleagues when one of us happened to leave, means that we are now facing acceptance rather than rejection or refusal to grant.
<P>
In the light of the fact that we also have an unprecedented ruling that we now have to apply the Rules of Procedure in our vote rather than the Treaty, I suggest that we refer this report back to committee and bring it to our next part-session.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="President">
Does anyone wish to speak against?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="Tomlinson, The Lord">
Mr President, I should like to oppose Mr Fabre-Aubrespy's motion.
Once again he has demonstrated that he is a bad loser.
I have never known a 14/13 vote to be an unacceptable majority.
<P>
When he says we had new information, we have had no new information at all from the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
All we have had is a reaffirmation of the existing Rules.
<P>
In committee we had a very thorough debate.
As Mr Elles rightly says, we make some very tough criticisms.
But we have often made tough criticisms of the Commission without refusing them discharge.
At one stage we asked for a deferment of discharge but since then we have had an improvement in the Commission's position.
I have to say that it still has some way to go, but there are sufficient grounds for progress, in the view of the majority of the committee, for us still to go ahead and grant discharge.
<P>
I hope that now we will reject Mr Fabre-Aubrespy's motion, having had this fully debated in the committee.
I see that the chairman has asked for the floor but the chairman is a very partial person in this question, having herself tabled an amendment to reject.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="President">
The chairman is entitled to express an opinion under Rule 126.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="Theato">
Mr President, a while ago, I requested that you have the degree of incompatibility between the Treaty, particularly Article 206, and Annex V to the Rules of Procedure looked into, as well as those areas that are vague.
I have just been in the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, which you had asked to decide on the discrepancy that I have raised.
No clear opinion, if I may express it thus, was stated on the matter.
You will receive a letter from the Committee on the Rules of Procedure explaining its viewpoint.
<P>
However, I should also like to say that as I have understood it, the Treaty ought nevertheless to take precedence.
The matter has not been settled yet.
It will be explained to you how far these matters are or are not compatible.
I do not want to talk about discharge or refusal of discharge at the present time, even though Lord Tomlinson dwelled on this matter.
I only want to say that as a Member of the European Parliament, I am of course free to decide how I do or do not vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="President">
I put the request for the Elles report to be referred back to committee to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament rejected the request)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Mr President, I should like to tell Mr Colom i Naval that I do indeed know how to lose.
But that is not by any means my problem at the moment, because we will certainly know one way or the other on Thursday.
My question to the President is about when the members of the Committee on Budgetary Control will have the opportunity to reflect upon the findings of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
A certain insecurity did of course prevail when we pronounced our opinion.
That is why I would ask you to make some suggestion as to procedure, because in my view we simply cannot accept the opinion of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure on the subject without an exchange of views.
That is why I would ask you when there is going to be a discussion on procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="President">
Mrs Müller, the Committee on the Rules of Procedure will put forward an interpretation, which is what the Committee on Budgetary Control requested.
This interpretation will be put to the vote in the House without a debate.
I hope that it will be possible to vote tomorrow, at the end of the morning sitting.
The interpretation will naturally be read out to the House.
This is the system laid down in the Rules of Procedure: the interpretation is to be read out and it will then either be adopted or rejected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
Mr President, I do not think it is right that we should have to vote on the basis of information provided by certain Members about a decision apparently taken by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure.
None of us has any documentation and we are being asked to take a decision.
I would ask that in future we should be provided with the documents or reports we need before we are asked to decide on anything.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="President">
Mr Martens, we did not vote on the decision by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, but on a request for referral back to committee, which is something quite different.
<P>
The Rules Committee will give its interpretation, which will be announced to the House.
Rule 162(4) reads as follows: 'Should a political group or at least twenty-nine Members contest the committee's interpretation, the matter shall be put to the vote in Parliament. Adoption of the text shall be by simple majority provided that at least one third of Parliament's Members are present.
In the event of rejection, the matter shall be referred back to the committee.'
This means that as soon as we have the interpretation by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure - which I do not yet know myself - it will be read out to the House.
<P>
Everyone will have the text sufficiently far in advance to be able to exercise the right provided for in Rule 162(4).
By contesting the interpretation, therefore, a group can ask for it to be rejected.
Parliament will vote and take its decision after everyone has had time to read the interpretation and decided whether or not to contest it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, last Thursday afternoon the Conference of Presidents was told that it would be informed of the results of the discussion in the Committee on the Rules of Procedure on Wednesday afternoon, to prevent us from having to have an endless procedural debate here.
I would like to ask you how these two things can now be reconciled.
First of all, I would not like us to arrive here at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning to find a document that the groups have not had a chance to read, study and compare with statements by other groups, because the problem at issue here is an extremely serious one.
Secondly, I think we must be logical in the order in which agreements are reached here in the House.
If the matter is to be examined in the Conference of Presidents, then we cannot have a vote on it here in the plenary before that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="President">
Mrs Aelvoet, the Conference of Presidents is not competent to interpret the Rules of Procedure.
There is a system, laid down by the Rules themselves, which I have just read out.
As soon as I have the interpretation, it will be announced to the House and I will ensure that the text is sent immediately to all the groups.
Whether the announcement is made this evening or at 9 a.m. tomorrow, you will have at least three hours before the vote in which to decide whether to contest this interpretation.
Those are the terms of Rule 162(4)
<P>
Your group, or 29 Members, can contest the interpretation and Parliament will take its decision at the end of the morning.
The Conference of Presidents is not competent in this area.
I am sorry, but no agreement can override the Rules of Procedure.
The Rules must be respected, and that is how we shall proceed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, before you close the item I initiated by asking for referral back to committee, I would like you to clarify something you said.
I think the conclusion you have drawn from the rejection of my request for referral went too far.
Rule 129(2) does indeed state that a request for referral back to committee may be made only once, but that is during each of the three procedural stages. These are: agenda-setting, which we are now doing; the opening of the debate, which will be tomorrow morning; and the final vote, which I think will be on Wednesday morning.
So the rejection of my motion by no means rules out other requests for referral back to committee.
We simply cannot do so again now, while we are setting the agenda, and we will only be able to do so once during each of the other two stages.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="President">
That is correct.
You are quite right.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Mr President, I would simply like to ask you to move to the next item on the agenda.
I think we have spent enough time on this point and everything has been decided.
Thank you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="President">
I think that everything is settled, but it is no bad thing for Members to be able to express their views on such an important issue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pack">
Mr President, I just wanted to draw attention to the improper nature of this procedure. An issue that should have been settled before the meeting of the Committee on Budgetary Control is in fact being dealt with two or three days before the vote, putting us in this kind of situation.
That type of thing should not happen in this House.
If neither the Treaty nor the Rules of Procedure are clear about how we are to proceed, then it is your duty to resolve the matter in good time, before the Committee on Budgetary Control meets and not after.
Then we would not have a situation like this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="President">
I agree entirely with you, Mrs Pack.
For that to be the case, however, the relevant committee should consider the matter earlier.
The Committee on the Rules of Procedure met as soon as it could.
I apologise for this.
<P>
Wednesday: no change
<P>
Thursday:
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 NAME="President">
The Group of the Party of European Socialists is proposing that Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi's report on the quality of the drafting of legislative texts and Mr Cot's report on 'Better lawmaking 1997' should be taken as a joint debate.
<P>
Mr Cot has the floor to explain the purpose of this request.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="Cot">
Mr President, I will be brief because this is a very simple matter.
The two reports are very closely linked because one deals with the procedure and the other with the substance, so it would be absurd to have two separate debates on two reports given that the connection between them is so obvious.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, I support what Mr Cot has said.
It makes sense for both reports to be debated jointly, as they deal with the quality of text and the quality of ideas. Form and content are always closely connected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="President">
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament approved the request)
<P>
Friday: no change
<P>
(The order of business was adopted thus amended)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Supplementary and Amending Budget 1/98
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0497/98) by Mr Tillich and Lord Tomlinson, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft supplementary and amending budget of the European Communities 1/98 for the 1998 financial year - Sections I and III (C4-0677/98).
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Tillich as rapporteur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Tillich">
Mr President, at the end of April 1998, the Commission submitted the draft supplementary and amending budget for 1998. The Council and the European Parliament agreed during the 1998 budgetary procedure that if the Commission discovered that the payment appropriations were not sufficient for the 1998 financial year, then we - both Council and Parliament - would give favourable consideration to a supplementary budget for 1998.
The Commission fulfilled its duty and submitted the supplementary budget.
This draft plans to increase payment appropriations in the third and fourth categories by ECU 200 million, including ECU 100 m for PHARE. There is a further ECU 100 m for the European Social Fund, ECU 150 m for Section I, the European Parliament, and the ECU 400 m that you mentioned a moment ago for emergency food aid to Russia.
<P>
In various trilogues and in both conciliations with the Council, Parliament and Council agreed that this report on the supplementary and amending budget would be taken as a package together with the Notenboom Procedure and the budget for 1999.
I would like to assure colleagues that in its proposals the Council was most accommodating towards the European Parliament.
Parliament is supporting the allocation of ECU 400 m for emergency food aid to Russia as the Council wanted, but on condition that distribution is guaranteed, action is taken to prevent fraud and the food reaches the needy.
On 8 December, during the conciliation, there was a common vote on this between the three institutions in order to reach agreement on the remarks for the budget line, and today the Commission delivered the latest proposal as an annex to the supplementary and amending budget.
<P>
I should like to point out to the House that it is important for us to vote today because the deadline is tomorrow.
If today at first reading we do not agree this supplementary and amending budget that the Council has already adopted, it will be dropped.
Then we would not have a supplementary and amending budget for 1998 and consequently it would not be possible for us to ensure the financing of our buildings in time.
<P>
As regards the amendments that have been introduced by colleagues, I would like to add firstly that these are covered by the remarks on the budget line, and secondly that we shall have a debate on the regulation tomorrow which should, I am sure, cover what colleagues have asked for.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Tomlinson, The Lord">
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="President">
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution and the President declared supplementary and amending budget 1/98 adopted)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Interpretation of the Rules of Procedure
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="President">
I should like to inform the House that I have just received a letter from the chairman of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, containing the interpretation to which I referred during our debate on the order of business.
The interpretation reads as follows:
<P>
'The Committee on the Rules of Procedure considered that the provisions of Annex V were not at variance with the general provisions of the Rules concerning the tabling of amendments, which could be accepted under Rule 125.
Amendments proposing the opposite to the proposal of the committee responsible, on the other hand, were inadmissible.'
<P>
Also, in two separate votes, the committee decided firstly that the provisions of Annex V remained applicable; secondly, it decided to re-examine all the provisions on the matter, pursuant to Rule 162(2).
<P>
This text will be forwarded immediately to the political groups, to the rapporteur, and to the chairman of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
The interpretation will appear in today's Minutes. Any objections must therefore be put forward at the beginning of tomorrow's sitting.
Should any objections be received, the matter will be put to the vote at noon tomorrow.
This will all be made clear in a note addressed to the recipients of the letter.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Fifth RTD framework programme (1998-2002)
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0493/98) by Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl, on behalf of Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council Decision concerning the fifth framework programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (1998-2002) (C4-0646/98-97/0119(COD)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="Quisthoudt-Rowohl">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it took four conciliation meetings for us to obtain this conclusion and this conciliation result, which I think is a record.
Now the question that naturally arises is whether the result actually justifies all the effort.
As rapporteur, I believe I can say that yes, this is a good result from the point of view of Parliament.
From the beginning, we could see that the Council had adopted the main points of the structure and content of the framework programme, some of which had been adopted by us with an overwhelming majority, leaving only details to be modified.
That was not the difficult part of the procedure as a whole.
<P>
In its great wisdom, or for fear of the potential developments, the Council introduced some changes and some articles which were not at all acceptable to us.
We are in the run-up to Agenda 2000, in the run-up to perhaps a new financing of the European Union, which may also have effects on research policy and mean that changes may have to be made.
However, as a legislative authority it was not acceptable to Parliament that the Council alone was to vote and decide on possible changes.
We have succeeded in again making full codecision necessary for all future changes to the framework research programme, as stipulated in the Treaties.
<P>
A further point which was very important for us, although it may not have met with much of a response in the public discussion, is that we are living in a time of rapid change and great flexibility.
In the period 1997/98 we cannot know what problems may arise in the period 2000/2001 and what issues may need to be resolved with the help of research, innovation and innovative products.
We have therefore insisted on a review of the content of the programme halfway through its term.
We are not keen on starting a cumbersome procedure in two or three years time.
But if new trends are being introduced at that time, possibly by a new Commission, then we would like to have a say in them, and this is also something that we have succeeded in making sure of.
<P>
A third point that we were very concerned about was that small and medium-sized enterprises are taken into consideration in the framework research programme.
We have seen that recently a great amount of progress has been made in this area, not least due to the efforts of the Commission.
However, if small and medium-sized enterprises are regarded as the backbone of our economy as far as job creation is concerned, then we must remove all potential difficulties from their path so that they can have as large a share as possible of the research funding that should eventually lead to jobs.
We have increased the share of small and medium-sized enterprises accordingly.
We have also introduced rules to facilitate access.
The Council has approved these demands, albeit after lengthy discussions.
<P>
That brings me to what I have to say is one of the bitter aspects of the result of the conciliation, which is the overall budget.
I cannot deny that we would have preferred to see a different figure precede the billion.
In view of the small difference in the amount, I would say to the Council that it was really quite small-minded of the Ministers not to have given way.
It was only a difference of 0.26 % after all.
I am fully confident that the Commission and the Commissioner can save this amount through good, streamlined and efficient management in their area, and will not insist upon taking it away from research.
<P>
As Article 1 states, at a later stage Parliament will also follow the management of the programme.
I have to say that a conciliation is actually fought with very unequal weapons.
In Council unanimity is needed.
Ministers say that they have fully agreed on something and then hide behind the person who just happens to be opposed.
In Parliament majorities are needed.
For approval of the result of a conciliation, we need a different type of majority than that required for rejecting the common position of the Council.
This is simply no longer progressive or in keeping with the times.
I am firmly of the opinion that the Amsterdam Treaty, which has extended our rights and facilitated many procedures, will serve well here.
<P>
I now come to a very pleasant part of my statement, which is to thank the Commission for its constant cooperation and our very fruitful discussions.
We were not always of the same opinion, Commissioner!
I would also like to thank Members on the other side of the House. Dear colleagues, I am aware that some of you went to the limits of the possible.
You did not necessarily allow yourselves to be budged, and neither did we.
But I know that it was as difficult for you as it was for us to reach this result of the conciliation sometimes, particularly where institutional matters were concerned.
I would like to emphasise that the rights of this House are at stake in the run-up to the election, and this result of the conciliation came about in the end because all of you showed solidarity.
I can only say that this solidarity should form a precedent in this House where all of us - the elected representatives of the citizens - are involved.
For that I thank you very much indeed!
<P>
I now have a final comment on the specific programmes which are going to be discussed in a moment.
Once again, we were aware of the fact that the Council had already reached broad agreement on these specific programmes.
It gave out a few, very unfortunate, press releases in this regard.
I would say to the Council that we are going to take a very close look at whether the amendments which will be discussed today and voted on tomorrow shall find their way into the final version of the text, and here we shall also insist upon our rights.
<P>
In conclusion, I can say quite honestly that everything has been resolved, but it took one and a half years of work to do so.
I should very much like once again to thank all those who have helped.
As rapporteur I am happy, and I shall be looking forward to a unanimous vote tomorrow in favour of the result of the conciliation.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Schierhuber">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to start by heartily congratulating the rapporteur on the result achieved in the conciliation procedure.
The fifth framework programme for research is the first small step in the right direction.
Sustainable agriculture, fisheries and forestry, and the integrated development of the rural area and mountainous areas should also be funded and find expression within the context of research and science.
<P>
Nevertheless, I think it is highly regrettable that no serious approach to this forward-looking policy can be discerned in the proposal for Agenda 2000.
I personally am very angry about that.
The Austrian Presidency of the Council made this subject a high priority, and held a conference of international experts on the subject.
I hope that ultimately those findings will also be taken into account in future European policy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Ferber">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we had already introduced a multitude of amendments for the Committee on Transport and Tourism at first reading.
We were after a separate emphasis on transport policy, which was unfortunately not possible. However, we were very glad that it was possible to preserve the results and content of the first reading until the third reading now in the conciliation procedure.
I recall in particular intermodal transport, a subject which we were very concerned about.
One of the great successes of this conciliation procedure is that we have also managed to preserve the significance of aeronautics and space travel.
<P>
I would like very much to thank all of those involved, particularly the rapporteur.
We regret that it was not possible to make available enough money for transport, which is an important field and a motor for European integration. The Council was unable to take up the big challenges that this field offers and would rather go on backing its national policies.
I think that transport is an area in which more Europe would be better than less.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Imbeni">
Mr President, although I am speaking on behalf of the Socialist Group, I am in fact doing so more as chairman of the delegation which conducted the conciliation negotiations.
These, as Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl has said, proved extremely difficult: in fact it took four meetings, two exploratory ones and two at which we really tackled the substance of the matter.
<P>
I should like to draw some general conclusions.
First of all, the incompatibility of unanimous decision-making in the Council with the conciliation procedure emerged clearly.
There can be no equality of legislative competence if the Council is bound by the unanimity rule, which automatically leads to vetoes; the Parliament is unable, under such circumstances, to exercise its powers of codecision to the full.
<P>
Secondly, I have the impression from this and other experiences that the concept of codecision has not been fully taken on board within the Council.
We noted once again during this latest conciliation on the fifth framework programme that the various delegations, speaking on behalf of their respective countries, stressed how arduous it had been to arrive at the common position, regarding that in itself as an extremely difficult compromise to achieve, almost as if Parliament should then simply decide whether to take it or leave it, rather than embarking on fresh negotiations to reach a further compromise.
<P>
Thirdly, I should like to take this opportunity to highlight the shrewdness of our delegation's attitude and conduct, as well as the ability and experience of the various colleagues who are so familiar with the subject in question. They enabled our delegation to present a united front at every important juncture, demonstrating a unanimity which is often very difficult to achieve in this House.
<P>
I must say that we were assisted partly by an Austrian Presidency which was keen to move in the direction advocated by Parliament, and partly by the Commissioner, Mrs Cresson, who was of course on our side, given that Parliament's proposal dovetailed with that of the Commission.
Nevertheless, the obstacles were truly enormous.
<P>
I wish to draw attention here, as did the rapporteur, Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl, to the two main issues.
First of all, there is the Council and the way in which it has taken up the concept of codecision: a Council which inserts into its common position what it itself describes as a 'guillotine clause' demonstrates a lack of skill, not least from the tactical point of view.
Presenting Parliament with such a position means failing to understand the substance and even form of the reaction likely to be triggered by such a clause.
The clause in fact stated that not a single euro would be available for research after 31 December 1999 and that, in the absence of any decisions on the new financial perspective, it would be the Council which decides. In other words, codecision had come in through the door and was being thrown out of the window.
The real point was this: paradoxically, on every other occasion when we have gone to conciliation we have argued over figures, but this time we had to talk more about institutional procedure, even before we could complete our discussion of the figures.
<P>
In our opinion, as we have said several times, this represented an infringement of the Treaty, or at least of the interinstitutional agreement on the financial perspective.
And here, after the Council's statement of its common position, it might have been useful if the Commission as such - and not so much Mrs Cresson - had pointed out that a principle of the Treaty was being undermined, given that the Commission is guardian of the Treaties.
Nevertheless, I am reasonably satisfied in this regard, since we did achieve a fairly positive outcome.
<P>
With respect to the funds available, as Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl said, there could have been more, but we might equally have obtained less.
On balance, I believe that the outcome is a good one, as long as we abide by the terms of the negotiations.
However, I would raise one 'but', one contradiction: the governments say that the priority is employment and that we must invest in research and innovation in order to boost job creation, and then in the final analysis the Council - that is, all the governments together - will not even countenance the idea of increasing by ECU 2 billion the funds available for the fifth framework programme.
Therefore, what was said at this conciliation conflicts with what was discussed and decided at Vienna: grand statements and the new proposed pact for jobs, but no specific initiative just at the very moment when conciliation was coming to a close.
<P>
Other speakers will address themselves to other aspects; I would merely thank the rapporteur, the chairman of the committee, Mr Scapagnini, and all the colleagues who participated with such commitment.
I invite the House to demonstrate its wholehearted support for the outcome of this conciliation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Vaz da Silva">
Mr President, Commissioner, Francis Bacon said that whoever fails to find new solutions should expect new evils as time is the best inventor of all.
Those are the words of a great European 400 years ago.
But it seems that Europe is still learning that lesson.
<P>
Innovation is a condition for survival: it is the antidote to inertia, it creates new, hitherto unthought-of markets and it promotes a more effective and more human society.
In order to have social innovation you must have research, research in high-tech areas such as biotechnology, research applied to industry and also research in the social and economic areas.
<P>
The fifth RTD framework programme has acquired coherence throughout the debate with its three readings and long conciliation process and is now presented to us as a balanced programme deserving of broad support.
It could even be seen as a model of interinstitutional co-operation.
The prospects offered by this fifth framework programme for researchers, enterprises and the well-being of citizens should not be jeopardised by a lack of agreement over the European Union's financial perspectives.
The conflict between the defenders of so-called 'stabilisation' and the defenders of 'cohesion' should give way in the Council to an overall perspective that takes into account all of the interests at stake.
<P>
In the text that we are going to vote on, the winners are transparency, information, small and medium-sized enterprises, and the fragile sectors of society, such as the disabled and the elderly, and a fillip has been given to the outlook for peace, with the specific references to biological and chemical disarmament and the exclusion of nuclear armament.
<P>
Nonetheless, I hope that the Council, on 22 December next, will strengthen the socio-economic research component, as Portugal has been asking, which in itself will make it possible to predict trends and factors of change in a rapidly changing society such as ours.
Fundamental questions such as citizenship, participation, exclusion, violence, governability and the role of the media call for a close and continuous study that should meet with appropriate responses from society.
<P>
We must also strengthen the interdisciplinary perspective, the international perspective of European research.
That is why I hope that the Marie Curie bursaries are going to be opened up to nationals of countries that are not members, as symbolic recognition that science, like music, is a universal language.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Liberal Group I should like to congratulate Mrs Quisthoudt on her success in concluding the decision-making on the framework programme.
I should also like to express my appreciation for the solidarity shown by all the groups during the conciliation procedure.
Parliament spoke to the Council with one voice and was solid, yes, solid in defence of its own powers.
<P>
We refused point blank to accept the guillotine clause, and through close cooperation which was entirely consistent with the aims of the programme we achieved excellent results on both the budget and the contents.
I would like to thank all my colleagues for their cooperation, and my group wholeheartedly supports the results we have achieved.
<P>
There are a few comments I should like to make.
Starting with the substance of the programme, my group is delighted that the Council even at first reading agreed with Parliament's proposal that we should choose four research areas for the next four years.
The Council and Parliament also agreed to give priority to the first two areas, namely biotechnology and information and communications technology, in acknowledgement of the fact that employment in Europe in the future will largely depend on the successful development of those sectors.
<P>
Technology, as I cannot emphasise too often, is the key to economic growth, competitiveness and employment - in short, Europe's prosperity.
If we in Europe can apply new technological developments and develop new services, it will not just mean more jobs, it will also give a powerful boost to the economy and put us in a much stronger competitive position.
This is what Europe needs to maintain its position on the world market.
All of us - Council, Parliament and Commission - share this view, but despite all the fine words from the Member States and the Council, the European Union's research expenditure lags far behind that of its main competitors, the United States and Japan.
As I said, unfortunately, the Member States are happy to support research with fine words, but not with money.
The ECU 14 billion that the Council originally proposed was not even as much as the budget for the fourth framework programme.
<P>
The policy pursued by a number of Member States is designed to reduce their contribution to the European Union.
If we look at the position of, say, the Netherlands, which is a net contributor, then this is quite right.
Yes, quite right.
We are not idiots.
But sitting up until all hours of the morning on three occasions haggling over ECU 40 million spread over four years is really going a little too far.
<P>
Research and technological development is exactly the sort of area where European cooperation is needed.
The framework programme plays an essential role, and this is where, in my view, European investment in research really comes into its own and brings major added value.
<P>
The decision-making process for this framework programme has not exactly been a thing of beauty, but there is hope.
It is a sign that after the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty the Council might decide on framework programmes by a qualified majority.
The Council is still not used to the codecision procedure, as Mr Imbeni just pointed out.
Codecision means joint decision-making, and this means that the Council and Parliament have to reach a viable compromise.
For the Council arrogantly to insist on its own hard-won compromise is not good for decisions on European legislation.
Good decision-making, I would point out to the Council, demands greater flexibility from the Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pompidou">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, thanks to the rapporteur's determination and the efforts of the chairman of the Conciliation Committee, Mr Imbeni, the European Parliament and the Council have reached agreement on an amount which is certainly not enough but does make it possible to continue the European Union's research effort.
<P>
The principle of a mid-term review ensures that developments in the financial perspective are taken into account, along with progress made in science and technology.
Parliament also won the day on five important points: maintaining a 10 % rate for financing research by small and medium-sized enterprises, research concerning biological and chemical disarmament, no funding of cloning for purposes of human reproduction, taking account of research into ageing and disability and, finally, the establishment of a René Descartes Prize for talented and promising researchers.
<P>
I want to highlight two areas in the fifth framework programme which will have direct consequences on daily life in Europe.
One is information and communication technologies, accessible to all, respecting the rules of info-ethics, which aim to allow everyone to express their own personality and to facilitate the exchange of information.
The other is technologies of living resources, supporting not just the cell factory but also the fight against infectious diseases and ageing.
The bio-ethics arrangements are now in place to prevent deviance, and specific socio-cultural characteristics of the Member States must be taken into account, particularly as regards embryo research.
<P>
The Joint Research Centre must become a reference centre serving the concerns of the European Parliament and hence of the citizen.
<P>
Finally, in the field of research into nuclear energy, we certainly must not abandon permanently research into controlled thermonuclear fusion. We need to maintain scientific and technical vigilance in this domain, which retains its potential for the future.
Similarly, I think it is essential to pursue and extend research into the safety of nuclear fission, with a view to perfecting ever safer reactors, such as the EPR, in collaboration with several European countries, but also with a view to better management of the end of the nuclear fuel cycle.
We must continue research into high-temperature reactors in industrial enterprises and research must be done on experimental modules for hybrid reactors; the necessary technologies need to be validated.
They can then be assembled with a view to making an experimental prototype.
Through research that is conducted transparently, nuclear energy is actually the most reliable way of responding to the growth in demand for energy, without increasing CO2 emissions.
<P>
In conclusion, under these conditions the fifth framework programme for research and development will make it possible to identify the skills of European researchers and laboratories as well as to look for complementarity between them right across the European Union.
It will demonstrate the effectiveness of European added value.
It will take us from a Europe of researchers to a Europe of research.
That is one of the major challenges of the fifth framework programme, serving knowledge, but also serving the citizens, in an ethical context.
With the fifth framework programme Europe will be able to take its place in the western world, earning world recognition through the skills of European researchers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Ahern">
Mr President, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on her diligence and her persistence during the many meetings of the conciliation committee, and likewise all the members of that delegation and in particular the chairman.
As he has pointed out, we wanted real co-decision and this was being blocked.
We finally obtained an acceptable result and for that Parliament has to be grateful.
<P>
I have to say that the devil is in the detail and I want to make some comments on the secrecy and lack of transparency of the Euratom research programme in particular.
It is now apparent that nuclear fusion has no future. It is therefore madness to continue the budget for the framework programme.
I believe that the Commission has accepted the logic of this and we will see what transpires.
<P>
In particular, I want to refer to the radiation protection programme run under the Euratom Treaty.
Within the programme there is a self-perpetuating oligarchy.
The programme is decided at closed meetings to which only existing research coordinators are invited and by government advisory committees.
These people represent mainly the radiological protection boards of the member governments and, as such, represent those in the member countries who get Euratom grants.
<P>
A case in point is Ireland where three of the four members of the national advisory committee, namely Jim Malone, physicist, Nuclear Medicine Department, St James's Hospital and RPII board member, Peter Mitchell, Department of Physics, UCD and RPII consultant, John Cunningham, radiation chemist, RPII Assistant Chief Executive, are employed by or otherwise affiliated to Ireland's Radiological Protection Institute and are funded by Euratom.
The remaining member is a civil servant in the Department of Energy.
Every other Irish national advisory committee involved in the EC programme has a broad representation from all interested parties and has 12 to 16 members.
So the way the Euratom programme is managed is unacceptable.
<P>
There is a similar lack of openness in the so-called independent review of submitted projects to this programme in Euratom.
Somehow the reviewers seem to get funded.
Application to see the complete list of reviewers is refused.
Why is the list of reviewers not published?
It is for all the other programmes.
It is absolutely essential that radiation protection research should be conducted by those without vested interests and should therefore come under the environment and health section of DG XII.
I want to press that point most firmly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Tannert">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should also like to express my thanks to the rapporteur for the clever and committed way in which she has dealt with the situation.
We have worked well together.
Yes, we have also argued, but we have achieved success.
The increase of EUR 1.7 billion in the fifth framework research programme compared to its predecessor, which was obtained by Parliament, seems at first sight to be a considerable amount.
However, what must be understood is that it is only about 4 % more than the increase to allow for inflation in relation to the previous programme.
<P>
This is not exactly the clear and self-assured signal of a resolute departure into the information society that we had intended.
I should remind you that the USA launched an offensive this very year to bring its annual aid for research up to 3 % of its GDP in the very near future.
European aid, however, will remain at roughly 2 %, because unfortunately, aside from a few exceptions, national research is also diminishing.
<P>
Unfortunately, as a result of obstruction by some Member States, the Council could not be persuaded to cross the apparently magical boundary of EUR 15 bn.
We will thus be far from reaching the strategic ceilings on research in the overall EU budget that were wisely instituted by previous Councils.
That is regrettable and in this regard the fifth framework research programme will be a compromise, many sections of which can only be accepted by Parliament because otherwise the continuity which we have now achieved in European research funding would be jeopardised, and this would be painful for all involved.
<P>
Ultimately there was nothing else for it, because this programme in principle suffers from a congenital defect, as has been said repeatedly, namely that Parliament decides in accordance with democratic rules by a majority vote while Council decides unanimously.
That will only change when the Treaty of Amsterdam enters into force.
Then it will be possible to approach the budget strategically, and rival minority interests will cease to be a significant obstacle.
<P>
Restructured management of the fifth framework research programme will allow the Commission at least partly to deal with the dilemma of a range of subjects that is still too broad by establishing links.
It also wants to bring together its different strategic advisory bodies into a European research forum.
We welcome this and shall support the Commission in the process.
<P>
Tomorrow's decision will not mean that Parliament will relinquish its demand to be involved. Rather, it will accompany the implementation of the programme.
A realisation of the concentration and flexibility that everyone wants will be part of the critical accompaniment.
Adjustments to the programme which may become necessary will be made only according to the codecision procedure.
<P>
In view of the EU's considerable negative trade balance with the USA and Japan in the field of high technology, the general under-funding of European research is worrying.
A certain balance could only come about by consistently making maximum use of results.
In this respect, we have improved considerably the opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises, some of which are highly innovative and labour-intensive, to participate in this programme, and this is one of Parliament's big successes. It has been achieved, as has already been said, by Members being united.
<P>
Optimising the possibilities and, as said so often, achieving a European added value will also lead to the general integration of socio-economic research into projects and increased funding for it in the fourth action line.
Innovation in fact not only has a technological aspect but also a social one.
Converting research into profitable application on a massive scale will also depend to a considerable degree on how far it is possible to organise the new global information society in a way that is socially fair, and therefore involves comprehensive participation.
I think that is where our greatest potential lies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Linkohr">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of my group I should also like to thank the rapporteur.
I was searching for an image before, and then it struck me that this is like being faced with a bunch of individualists with their own pet ideas, and reconciling them is akin to the task of organising a large number of wild horses to make a good impression in a Spanish riding school. That is what you have achieved.
Once again, thank you very much.
It was not easy, but you have succeeded!
<P>
On the framework research programme as a whole, I would like to say in all objectivity that it was the European Parliament once again that pushed through an increase, something we have seen in each decade.
My advice to the Commission would therefore be to work closely with Parliament, as this will be worthwhile in future too!
However, as the Council is being so tight-fisted with its money it has to be told that the only thing more expensive than research in the long run is no research.
If we want to secure our future, as many people have said, then broadening the knowledge base is the only way, and at the beginning that is simply going to cost money.
<P>
Secondly, I would like to say that once again I have had the bad impression that research does not really have a lobby.
Where are the large research organisations in Europe that supported us?
Everyone wants a small piece of the large cake, but they do not want to see the cake as a whole made larger.
If that does not change, and if science in Brussels does not acquire a stronger lobby equivalent to that of other sectors, then it will continue to find things difficult in future as well.
<P>
Let us now turn to the tasks for the future.
My first point is one that the rapporteur rightly raised a short while ago, namely that the lifespan of products is becoming shorter and shorter, and knowledge evolving faster and faster. Because European research policy concerns itself with applied technology and its goal is therefore to bring products onto the market, it is important that as the lifespan of a product becomes shorter, the application procedure does the same.
I know there are limits to this, and of course there are also the budgetary and financial checks, but we must find ways to make sure that the end result is not that the system of financial supervision is in order while research is in ruins.
That should not be the outcome.
We should not have financial controls which last for three or four years, during which time nothing is achieved in the field of research.
<P>
We must make the procedures shorter.
This becomes even more important as more countries participate in the fifth framework research programme.
Central and Eastern European countries will be part of the research programme as well via the PHARE programme, and Switzerland will join them in a few years once it has signed the agreement.
That means that if management is not streamlined - of course after taking on board the rules arising from the financial and budgetary checks - then we will be dealing with a more complicated system than in the past.
<P>
The second comment that occurs to me here is that we also need some form of monitoring, not merely budgetary monitoring but better monitoring of research. There has to be a strategic and operational goal.
Ultimately there has to be some result.
The issue is not just that money should be used sensibly but that there also has to be something to show for it.
We do not just want to search, we also want to find.
That is forgotten again and again.
In order to do this, instruments must be developed which go beyond what we presently have.
Over the next few months we will surely have time to think about this.
<P>
I am sorry that an application for research on disarmament did not get through.
The Council proved to be quite stubborn.
However, I would like to mention a report that I read a short while ago in Le Monde , in which the Americans referred to the existence of new problems in the field of atomic, biological and chemical weapons, or weapons of mass destruction.
We cannot deny this, and will have to deal with it because it is also a part of security.
Research has to be used not only to develop new weapons but also to protect ourselves from their misuse. Above all it must be used to dismantle the weapons upon whose reduction we have actually agreed.
Once again, I thank the Commission very much indeed.
I think we have done a good job.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graenitz">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, later this week we will be dealing with the results and conclusions of the Vienna Summit.
However, one thing has been clear from the outset, namely that the most important matters discussed by the Heads of State or Government were employment issues.
I think that the conclusion of the conciliation procedure for the fifth framework research programme lays a very important foundation stone for tackling employment issues in Europe in a different and more forward-looking manner than has perhaps been the case for a long time.
<P>
In Europe, many people live together in a very small area.
Our territory is appreciably smaller than that of other continents, it is populated by many people, and we do not have the natural resources of other continents. The resources that we in Europe have are knowledge, ability, our aptitude and skills.
This explains the importance of research programmes, which aim to create European added value and to achieve more than can be achieved by teams of researchers in individual countries. They are also concerned with what can be accomplished when researchers work together and combine their ideas and results and when, as the previous speaker said so clearly, these results can also actually be implemented.
<P>
Research is not an end in itself, rather it is the basis for the social and economic development of our continent. For that reason, when organising the research programmes we should not merely be thinking about covering many important subjects in the projects and programmes.
I am extremely happy with many of the subjects, because we are venturing into areas of research that are important and necessary for the future of Europe. We have also taken on areas of research that people thought had been dealt with long ago and which in my opinion will be of greater significance in future, such as foodstuffs.
However if we do not actually transpose the research results in terms of employment, the development of new products, the inevitable social restructuring and transition to a new type of society that moves away from the industrial society in which we still live, or whose upheaval we are experiencing, then even the best research will be of no value.
In our discussion on the fifth framework research programme in particular, we should be considering the mid-term evaluation and orientation of the programme to be at least as important as a final point which I should like to turn to now.
<P>
We in Parliament have worked together very well and in the right way, and in this regard I would like to express my great thanks to the rapporteur, the chairman of the delegation to the Conciliation Committee and other colleagues.
The Council should have understood that a larger sum than this - 14.9 something, a figure reminiscent of a special offer in a cheap shop - was required.
It is not acceptable to preach repeatedly about the importance of research and then, when it actually comes to making money available for research, to become so stingy with small amounts all of a sudden. I hope that the different procedure in the Treaty of Amsterdam will improve things.
<P>
Finally I would like to say that, as an Austrian, I am happy that the Austrian Presidency has concluded - and indeed was able to conclude - such a difficult procedure. I very much hope that with this programme we will be able to achieve the objective of European added value in research.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lange">
Mr President, if we look at the developments of the past few weeks and compare them to a piece of theatre, we can see that there are three acts.
In the first act the European Parliament pushed through considerable improvements. In the second the Council accepted them, but incorporated some catches.
In the third there was the lengthy conciliation procedure.
Thus it is a piece of theatre in three acts.
I do not know for certain if it is a play, a drama or a tragedy, but I am aware that it is not a comedy, essentially due to the conduct of the Council.
There are three areas in which it behaved like a bulldozer.
Firstly it attempted to take research hostage for interests that were altogether different and had absolutely no connection with it.
That kind of behaviour is by no means acceptable.
<P>
Secondly, as Mrs Graenitz has just pointed out, we have heard about the importance of research for innovation, employment and so on, in sermons from various sources, but when it came to committing money, the tap was turned off purely due to a rigid adherence to principles, and nothing was invested in research.
It did not even have to do with making savings, as the money withheld from research now flows into other areas of internal policy.
<P>
My third point concerns the specific programmes, and here, as the rapporteur pointed out, press releases are being published as though everything had already been decided without Parliament.
I very much hope that this bulldozing behaviour will not be typical of the Council in future.
All of this would lead us to believe that we are dealing with a drama here, not a comedy.
But on the other hand, we have accomplished something.
There has been a strategic change of direction in European research, away from the sectoral thinking and rare technologies, and towards a strategic approach to the European development model and qualitative competitiveness in Europe.
In this respect, what Mr Linkohr referred to is implicitly and explicitly contained in the research programme.
We are concerned with the integration of research into European policy to create more employment and thus of course with the matter of how research fits into the social context.
In this regard I am very glad that Parliament has managed to have socio-economic aspects of the information society taken into account, that the ageing of our society is to be a focal point of research, and that the city of tomorrow is to be a subject for research as a central problem of urban areas.
The direction that we are aiming in is thus clear. So, be it drama, tragedy or play, I will be voting in favour!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Cresson">
Mr President, Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl, ladies and gentlemen, with this third reading in the European Parliament, we have reached the second-last leg of a long and sometimes difficult journey.
<P>
As this journey comes to an end, I want to express my sincere thanks to everyone in Parliament whose dynamism, intelligence and negotiating ability have made success possible.
First Mr Imbeni, who was authoritative and effective in his difficult role as joint chair of the Conciliation Committee, and next Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl, rapporteur for the fifth framework programme, who produced work of the highest quality at each procedural stage and demonstrated realism and a great sense of the public interest when it came to conciliation.
My thanks also go to all the members of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy and its chairman, Mr Scapagnini, who has devoted himself to this new framework programme for many months.
Thanks too to all the Members of Parliament who contributed to its progress through the other committees and the House.
<P>
In her report on the joint text that emerged from conciliation, Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl gives a very clear and detailed account of the development of the procedure and of these last two stages in particular.
The final agreement which is to be ratified by you tomorrow, ladies and gentlemen, and by the Council on 22 December, is a compromise like all agreements, and I would like to make four points concerning it.
<P>
First, a solution was found to the difficult question of the amount of financing.
Of course, the amount is not as high as Parliament and the Commission had proposed.
So to have real impact we will have to apply the principle of concentration of resources more strictly, which means mobilising a critical mass of funding for specific targets.
<P>
However, I would stress that the budget for the fifth framework programme will be 4.6 % higher in real terms than that for the fourth framework programme.
In a difficult budgetary context, this increase is a positive sign and an encouragement both to the scientific and industrial community and to Member States, where the research effort is tending to contract at a time when public and private research expenditure is continuing or picking up in the United States and Japan, as some of you have quite rightly pointed out.
<P>
Secondly, throughout the procedure there has been a strong convergence of views between Parliament and the Commission, and their mutual support and highly effective collaboration certainly played an important role in securing the agreement.
<P>
Thirdly, thanks to the Austrian Presidency's spirit of openness, Parliament has broadly succeeded in having its views on the fifth framework programme taken into account in the final decision.
For the last time, we had to overcome the obstacle to codecision represented by unanimous voting by the members of the Council.
In spite of that constraint, the scientific and technological choices will express significantly the vision of your institution, ladies and gentlemen, you who represent the people.
<P>
Finally, the fifth framework programme will be broadly consistent with what our two institutions wanted.
The research programmes will be clearly geared to economic and social needs, with priority given to business competitiveness and employment.
The key actions will introduce a new approach to research.
This will focus on actual problems rather than being broken down into fields and disciplines.
Through the external advisory group just established by the Commission, the programmes will be implemented in close association with the scientific community, industry and users of the research.
They will be managed in a more flexible and effective way.
There will be real emphasis on transparency, especially as regards the European Parliament.
<P>
So the combined efforts of the three institutions have succeeded in endowing the Union with a powerful instrument to exploit its scientific potential and industrial resources in the service of Europeans.
It would have been extremely regrettable to interrupt the European research effort, and the adoption of the new framework programme within the required time-frame means continuity can be assured.
<P>
Now comes the real challenge.
We must implement the fifth framework programme as soon as possible.
The Commission has already taken all the necessary steps and will ensure that the first calls for proposals are launched, as planned, at the beginning of 1999.
It will make sure this is done even more effectively, as Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl rightly insists.
<P>
This new framework programme can be implemented in the spirit which presided over its conception.
I am sure that the debate that is about to begin on the specific programmes will demonstrate that here the Commission can count on the support and collaboration of the European Parliament, its suggestions and its constructive vigilance.
So I will conclude by thanking Parliament in advance for its contribution to this great enterprise.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Specific RTD programmes (1998-2002)
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0451/98 by Mr Tannert, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision adopting a specific programme for research, technological development and demonstration on 'Quality of life and management of living resources' (1998 to 2002) (COM(98)0305 - C4-0433/98-98/0177(CNS)); -A4-0452/98 by Mr Malerba, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision adopting a specific programme for research, technological development and demonstration on a 'User-friendly information society' (1998-2002) (COM(98)0305 - C4-0434/98-98/0178(CNS)); -A4-0453/98 by Mr Argyros, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision adopting a specific programme for research, technological development and demonstration on 'Competitive and sustainable growth' (1998 to 2002) (COM(98)0305 - C4-0435/98-98/0179(CNS)); -A4-0454/98 by Mrs Estevan Bolea, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision adopting a specific programme for research, technological development and demonstration on 'Preserving the ecosystem' (1998 to 2002) (COM(98)0305 - C4-0436/98-98/0180(CNS)); -A4-0455/98 by Mr Marset Campos, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision adopting a specific programme for research, technological development and demonstration on 'Confirming the international role of Community research' (1998 to 2002) (COM(98)0305 - C4-0437/98-98/0181(CNS)); -A4-0456/98 by Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision adopting a specific programme for research, technological development and demonstration on 'Promotion of innovation and encouragement of participation of SMEs' (1998 to 2002) (COM(98)0305 - C4-0438/98-98/0182(CNS)); -A4-0457/98 by Mr Lange, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision adopting a specific programme for research, technological development and demonstration on 'Improving the human research potential and the socio-economic knowledge base' (1998-2002) (COM(98)0305 - C4-0439/98-98/0183(CNS)); -A4-0458/98 by Mrs McNally, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, onI. the proposal for a Council Decision adopting a specific programme for research and technological development, including demonstration, to be carried out by means of direct actions for the European Community (1998-2002) by the Joint Research Centre (COM(98)0305 - C4-0440/98-98/0184(CNS))II. the proposal for a Council Decision adopting a specific programme for research and training to be implemented by the Joint Research Centre by means of direct actions for the European Atomic Energy Community (1998-2002) (COM(98)0306 - C4-0431/98-98/0188(CNS)); -A4-0459/98 by Mrs Matikainen-Kallström, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision adopting a specific programme (Euratom) for research and training on 'Preserving the ecosystem' (1998 to 2002) (COM(98)0306 - C4-0430/98-98/0187(CNS)).



<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Tannert">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the life sciences have hitherto been divided among three different programmes but they are now combined in a single, problem-oriented programme.
The Commission has found a poetic title for it, 'Quality of life and management of living resources', but if I have understood the contents correctly, then it actually has to do with life sciences.
There is going to be an increase in funding compared to the fourth framework programme, in fact a considerable increase of 42 %.
In relative terms, this is the biggest increase for a sector in the fifth framework programme and reflects the importance that has to be attached to the development of life sciences in the European Community.
<P>
European life sciences and technologies have already had successes over the last few years.
Most significantly, the number of employees and firms in the EU has risen considerably in 1996 and 1997, by over 40 %.
But here, too, there is a negative side because this figure is less than half as high as the American equivalent.
This path can still lead to success, but only if progress is made in the scientific foundations and infrastructure in this field and in the social consensus on it, particularly of course with regard to the hotly and widely disputed gene technology.
<P>
Enlightened social discourse is therefore a prerequisite, not only for legitimising the aims of funding research, but also for making the best use of the results, and Parliament is reinforcing its demands to make it a part of the programme.
In addition, some colleagues are demanding that new bans on research funding and moratoriums are written into the programme.
Let me tell you, I do not think much of that!
For example, it will not provide us with a way to solve problems resulting from the possible eugenic misuse of gene technology.
The most effective solution here is still the ostracism of those who behave in this way, thereby contravening the ethical consensus.
<P>
The funding programme should consist of projects and not bans.
Projects that are ethically controversial simply do not belong in the body of the Community programme.
Of course, the consumer's decision is extremely effective.
Products which contain undesirable substances, or which have been manufactured in an undesirable manner, and which are accurately and clearly labelled, are not going to stand a chance on the market.
That is and always will be the bottom line.
I would therefore explicitly support the extension of accompanying socio-economic research which looks at the relevant issues, and the obligation of the Commission and those running the project to be part of the public discussion.
Parliament has insisted on writing this into the programme.
<P>
The programme describes very many interesting individual projects, illustrating the importance that is being attached to the life sciences, as I mentioned at the beginning.
But it also seems to me that it highlights the dilemma of Community funding of research, which is that 125 priority themes are still supposed to be funded, more than in this case. If there are 125 priorities, that means that there must be other, non-priority, projects.
The sum total is colossal. It will then be allocated by the Commission down to the thousandth part among the key actions, as the budget allows.
That therefore leaves no room for manoeuvre at all in response to the quality and number of project proposals submitted under the various key actions.
<P>
It will not facilitate compliance with the principles of concentration and flexibility.
In this regard, Parliament calls for practical steps, such as the establishment of financial margins.
The days of breaking down the claims for funds in such a precise manner ought to be a thing of the past.
In spite of the multitude of amendments, the way in which the programme has been worked out is basically such that Parliament would not call into question the Commission's fundamental idea.
So I would recommend then that having regard to the amendments proposed by the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, the programme should be approved.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Malerba">
Mr President, I wish to speak on the second thematic programme, the one concerning a user-friendly information society or IST, information society technologies.
This programme is in fact a priority which is directly linked to the potential for boosting economic growth, wealth and employment, as was underscored by the ministers meeting at the recent Vienna European Council, and as emerges from a Commission document on the prospects for the information society.
<P>
Following the conciliation procedure, this programme has been allocated a budget of ECU 3 600 million, which is lower than the allocation accorded to the ACTS, Esprit, RACE and Telecommunications programmes combined.
This is a cause for some concern, even though the reduced investment in research could be offset by the growing presence of information technology in the other thematic programmes.
<P>
One case in point is the networking of all the European research establishments, which accounts for 3 % of the thematic programme; here I have put forward amendments stressing the need for involvement in the coordination of every thematic programme, so that this ambitious networking scheme can be taken forward in a coherent way.
<P>
As far as the Commission's proposal is concerned, we would ask Parliament to endorse certain important rectifications suggested by myself and largely endorsed by the Research Committee. I should now like to run through these rapidly.
<P>
I have suggested curtailing slightly the funding for the action on electronic commerce, transferring this to services for the citizen.
Indeed, if we expect administrations to act as trail-blazers in the implementation of new services for citizens, we must somehow encourage this approach.
<P>
I have also highlighted the importance of basic technologies, emphasising the move towards platforms, technical and industrial standards, patents and ultimately whatever can promote the creation of products and services which are widely used on the international market - not only on the European one - and can thereby generate economic and commercial success.
I have included a reference to information technology in the machine tools and production sector, a sector which is absolutely crucial to the competitiveness of our industrial system and to complement the thematic programme on sustainable development.
<P>
I responded to concerns regarding the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises in this programme by accepting the cross-party amendment in favour of a minimum guaranteed SME participation of 10 %.
I would however point out with satisfaction here that, according to the Commission's data, the participation of SMEs in IT programmes has traditionally been around 26 %; I therefore believe that this amendment should be understood more as an encouragement to boost the qualitative and quantitative participation of SMEs.
I recommend for their sakes that the exploratory awards scheme, modelled on the CRAFT programme, should be maintained to provide assistance during the phase of drawing up proposals.
<P>
Since information society applications have a satellite dimension, we are constantly in a situation of competitive disadvantage vis-à-vis the Americans; I am therefore pleased to note that the programme takes this aspect into consideration.
<P>
Whereas I can certainly agree with the ideas behind the amendments from the Committee on Women's Rights, some of these, in particular Amendment No 8, strike me as impracticable.
<P>
In conclusion, I believe that it is vital to make clear to the Commission that not only a high degree of flexibility and focus, but also care and attention are required to avoid duplication between the various programmes.
I believe above all that Parliament must keep an eye on the Commission in this respect.
<P>
I nevertheless thank the Commission for its cooperation, and am relying on the Council to adopt the proposed amendments.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Ferber">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, since we have reached agreement on the fifth framework research programme in the Conciliation Committee, we can also discuss the specific programmes today.
This evening I am presenting a report on behalf of Mr Argyros.
The specific programme 'Competitive and sustainable growth', provided unfortunately with only EUR 2.7 billion, is made up of the most significant priorities for the European Union. It is therefore of fundamental importance for a successful implementation of the fifth framework research programme as a whole.
Allow me to make four general comments on this programme which should be taken into account when it comes to selecting the research partners.
<P>
Firstly, and I think quite self-evidently, the activities undertaken should be in tune with the proposed requirements as they are presently stated in the programme.
<P>
Secondly, and this is an important point which we have discussed again and again in this House, I think that the Commission's publications should also be made available in accessible forms, for example electronically.
<P>
Thirdly, in committee we laid down some conditions for selecting the companies to be funded, and I would ask the Commission to accept these.
The contribution made by a company should improve the overall competitiveness of the sector, and therefore due attention ought to be paid to applying the sectoral approach to individual research projects.
There should ultimately be an improvement in the position of the European economy as a whole on the world market.
The knowledge that has been acquired through the research programmes should be analysed and made available, and should also lead to new processes and products.
<P>
Fourthly, we must also of course remember that our competitors in the USA and Japan are carrying out similar programmes, and we have to be able to react to these accordingly.
<P>
A wide range of themes for research is available in the four key actions and the two horizontal measures in this specific programme, which I would also like to comment on.
<P>
In the first key action, our concern is that alongside what has been proposed, additional new methods of management and human resources are also developed and entrepreneurial activity further encouraged. That is very important.
However, it is also necessary for us to think about methods for the recovery and restoration of the damaged environment to its original state.
In addition, the committee suggests that this should also cover production and the textile and construction sectors.
<P>
In the second key action, we are faced with the huge task of continuing the development of different transport systems and intermodality in order to be able to react in a suitable manner to the great challenges in this particular field.
I mentioned this when I presented my report on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism a few minutes ago.
I think it is extremely positive that we in the European Union are for the first time making a separate priority of the field of aeronautics and space flight, because the business news of the past few weeks has shown in quite a dramatic way that this is the way to do justice to the European dimension of the sector.
<P>
Finally, when it comes to funding the research infrastructure, some thought ought to be given to using existing structures, particularly so that the small and medium-sized enterprises can be appropriately integrated.
On behalf of Mr Argyros, and also on my own behalf, I would like to thank all of you for your friendly cooperation with the rapporteur.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Estevan Bolea">
Madam Commissioner, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it has fallen to me to give you the details of the fourth specific programme, which is part of the first action and concerns energy and the protection of the environment.
<P>
Although the Commission had originally proposed separating these two issues, the Council felt it was best to deal with them both together.
This was therefore what Parliament did, in a programme entitled 'Preserving the ecosystem'. A special feature of this programme, and one which is not very helpful, in my opinion, Madam Commissioner, is that it includes demonstration projects.
<P>
We are all calling for more resources to be devoted to research. I agree with previous speakers that ours are not old or antiquated industries.
Rather, they are obsolete, and what they must do is modernise their facilities. Subsidies and other aid are not what is called for.
<P>
It is true that, for example, Parliament's Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy is strongly in favour of subsidies for renewable energy.
Of course we all support renewable energy, Madam Commissioner.
Nevertheless, for it to succeed, become more efficient and play the part it should on the market, what is required is more research, more innovation and fewer subsidies.
<P>
I shall now refer to the six key actions that make up this specific programme: four relate to the environment, and two to energy.
<P>
Firstly, I should like to congratulate the Commission and thank it for including, as a key action, everything concerned with research into technology relating to the management of water resources.
<P>
We know that what mankind will lack in the twenty-first century is water.
No particular difficulties are anticipated in connection with energy; if there are any, they will be speedily resolved.
There will, however, be serious problems regarding water supply. The European Union must develop technology, equipment and much more efficient management techniques so as to be in a position to export significant amounts of equipment and services.
<P>
I therefore feel that both aspects of the programme on water resources are very important: the management of water resources and water quality.
<P>
The second key action covers climate change and biodiversity. These are truly crucial issues.
What more is there to say about climate change?
It is of great concern to us all and so closely connected to the dreadful disasters that are affecting people with such meagre resources to draw upon. Being so poor means that for them the consequences are far worse.
<P>
Furthermore, it is on climate change that the future of mankind surely hinges. Everything else depends on it.
Biodiversity is also closely connected with it
<P>
The third key action concerns the integrated management of marine ecosystems.
We have used the sea and its resources in so many ways, yet the sea, which covers the majority of the surface of our planet, tends to be forgotten. It hardly figures in research and investigation.
I very much hope, therefore, that the integrated management of marine ecosystems will receive a significant boost. The citizens of the future will also be heavily dependent on them.
<P>
Finally, the fourth action under 'environment' relates to the city of tomorrow and cultural heritage.
<P>
Madam Commissioner, as has often been stated in this House, cathedrals, tapestries and great palaces are all part of Europe. They represent a great cultural heritage that we must not lose.
Substantial investment in resources and technology is needed if we are to conserve it well, not just patch it up. If we take inadequate measures to restore our cultural and historical heritage, we shall gain nothing.
<P>
This programme is also of great consequence, therefore.
The objectives have been well chosen, but unfortunately there are too many of them.
<P>
As Mr Tannert said referring to his programme, the Commission has used the word priority in a sense I simply cannot grasp.
There are no less than 130 priorities in this specific programme.
I do therefore feel justified in saying that the objectives are all very well, but there are just too many priorities, assuming we all take priority to mean the same thing: something worth highlighting, something that deserves to come first.
<P>
I am confident that the Commission in its wisdom will be selective concerning the programmes and will make more efficient use of resources.
<P>
There are two subsections or two key actions relating to energy. One concerns the development of cleaner energy and includes renewable energy.
The other aims to achieve a more effective and efficient use of energy. It must be recognised that in the European Union we use too much energy in the home, in transport, in particular, in our factories and in production.
<P>
It is with regard to this area that I have serious doubts as to whether the programme as it stands will prove useful.
<P>
Mr Linkohr said that the results would have to be quantified, and that Parliament would have to exercise an important supervisory role.
I agree with him. Such parliamentary control will be of great help to the Commission, and I am not referring merely to budgetary control, though that should also be undertaken.
I have in mind the monitoring of results, of innovation, of the efficiency of the groups of researchers working in the various countries, and of the efficient use to be made of the scarce resources available. It should be stressed that the resources available for these two programmes are somewhat limited.
<P>
I am opposed to Amendment No 9, because it means that 42 % of the budget would be devoted to demonstration projects, in particular to those involving renewable energy.
Madam Commissioner, that amounts to subsidising them.
Renewable energy will never make headway if you allocate 42 % of this budget to subsidising small projects concerned with solar panels, biomass, renewable energy and so on. They certainly deserve to be supported, but not in this way.
The trouble is that renewable energy is not competitive, and only new technology can reverse this situation.
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I should also like to mention Amendments Nos 25 and 27, and I hope the Commission will include them, because they refer to gas.
Europe is to promote a major gas programme, and we have rather fragile and rigid gas systems. Something will also have to be done therefore regarding the storage of non-liquefied gas.
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More needs to be done too concerning further prospecting for hydrocarbons in offshore areas. Once again, the need to support SMEs must be stressed.
We all genuinely want to improve employment prospects.
Research can achieve this.
I doubt if it can be achieved through subsidies, but it may be possible through the Commission's skilful handling. All the Commission's flexibility will be called for in order to succeed in this.
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<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Marset Campos">
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the quality of European research is improving year on year, it is becoming more cohesive and a distinctive European identity is being forged, which is the sum and product of the activities carried out in each country.
All four framework programmes have made a significant contribution to this progress, highlighting common concerns, shared objectives and compatible methodologies.
Nonetheless, the international dimension of our research effort still appears fragmented, and it is failing to make sufficient impact.
A determined effort is therefore needed in this area. Indeed, we are still feeling the effect of the negative consequences of the Second World War, which resulted in thousands of European scientists emigrating to the United States, which then became a focus for many of our young scientists.
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An additional effort is therefore needed to ensure that European science, with its own particular nature and personality, becomes a point of reference and meeting place for thousands of scientists from the rest of the world. This would be in line with the special role the European Union plays in other areas.
With regard to social issues, it is renowned for its vision of social solidarity and for its relations with third countries.
On the ethical plane, it is a strong defender of human rights and democracy.
In the political sphere, it promotes tolerance and peaceful coexistence.
These contributions would be further enhanced through the development of an equally important role for European science, encompassing all these values.
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We view the Commission's proposal in a positive light.
However, following on from what I have just said, we are putting forward a number of amendments with a view to strengthening the international role of Community research.
These relate to five paragraphs.
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Our first aim is to include our ongoing concerns to combat sex discrimination, and to enable women to achieve the equal status they demand.
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Secondly, we want to present a unitary image of European science as a whole.
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Thirdly, we hope to begin creating the necessary infrastructure for the useful application of our science, which would result in it becoming a point of reference.
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Fourthly, we aim to be sensitive to the social needs of many third countries, and to what they lack.
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Our fifth aim is to ensure a greater role for the European Parliament in this area, in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
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The first paragraph concerns providing equal opportunities for both sexes with regard both to objectives and also to methodology and specific measures.
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The second paragraph - the unitary image of European science - suggests a simple initiative: publishing a European scientific journal along the lines of Science or Nature , so as to reflect the depth and importance of our scientific research at world level.
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The third paragraph relates to the creation of a Europe-wide scientific information infrastructure, in other words, a European centre for scientific information. This would make available to scientists in Europe and in the rest of the world all existing scientific output in the form of articles, books, reports and so on.
Information would be properly indexed, analysed and updated.
It would therefore no longer be necessary to depend entirely on American early warning systems and databases, which currently dominate the field.
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The fourth paragraph, concerning sensitivity to the needs of third countries, covers a range of approaches.
The first concerns special treatment for third countries.
What has been done in the Mediterranean area should be extended to the rest of the world, so that these countries benefit from proper treatment, as is proposed for Latin America and certain other regions.
The second approach relates to maintaining, and if appropriate, increasing, the number of such links and the exchange of information involved.
A third approach refers - as we often do, although it is high time we got to grips with these issues - to sensitivity concerning the economic, health, democratic, agricultural and industrial problems in those countries. Suggestions here range from environmental measures to the study of the risks involved in the registration of genetic patents.
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The fourth approach is of mutual interest and relates to shared property rights over discoveries and patents obtained through joint economic input.
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As for the fifth approach, it concerns the elimination of unnecessary bureaucratic and technical obstacles, to allow a better exchange of information and stronger links with the countries working alongside us.
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Finally, the fifth paragraph refers to the role of the European Parliament, as the representative of the will of the European people. Parliament needs to be informed in good time so that it can intervene as appropriate.
We believe that, together, these measures will ensure that European interests are adequately protected.
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<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Mr President, there are two different programmes involved here, and I should like to begin by talking about my own report on SMEs and innovation.
Small and medium-sized businesses deserve to be given a prominent place in European Union policy because, even apart from the employment considerations, they have enormous economic importance at European level.
Of the 17 million firms in Europe, a good 99 % are small and medium-sized businesses accounting for more than 70 % of Europe's jobs, 50 % of its investment and 60 % of its wealth.
SMEs are thus the most important economic factor in Europe.
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Most businesses are extremely small.
Almost 15 million firms have nine workers or less and just over one million firms employ between 10 and 99 people.
SMEs are also not a homogeneous group, which means that a different approach is needed for each target group.
I am therefore pleased that in the framework programme too, the definition of SMEs is now restricted to firms employing up to 250 workers.
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The competitiveness of these firms largely depends on their ability to innovate, which is why it is vital to promote innovative activities, facilitate the dissemination and exploitation of research results and support technology transfer.
Action at European level is needed to supplement the initiatives taken by the Member States in order to help SMEs to globalise their activities and gain access to new technologies.
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This specific programme must help to optimise the effort devoted to promoting innovation and encouraging SMEs to take part in the framework programme.
It is merely a coordinating instrument designed to support the thematic programmes, and therefore has a small budget of ECU 363 million.
I take the view that all the projects should be carried out in their natural environment, in other words within the thematic programmes, and I am therefore delighted that Parliament and the Council have supported my proposal to earmark at least 10 % of the research budget in each thematic programme for projects involving SMEs.
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Secondly, ideas and new technologies need to be disseminated as effectively as possible, and a great deal of attention must therefore be given to innovation in the thematic programmes.
What can be done to encourage the dissemination of R&D results and their transformation into new and better products, processes and services?
When projects are started up, appropriate output indicators must be decided upon and developed, such as publication of results and patents, since these are the only way to quantify and legitimise the effect of European research investment.
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At the same time, I would stress the importance here of disseminating knowledge.
We need to have a sound infrastructure so that knowledge can be used throughout Europe and the wheel does not have to be constantly reinvented in all 15 Member States.
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There are still far too many untapped opportunities.
This was true four years ago and it is still sadly the case today.
For example, small firms lack information about new ideas developed by universities and research institutes, the possibilities for technology transfer and, as I said earlier, access to assistance programmes.
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When I entered the European Parliament four years ago, in the first report I wrote I stressed the importance of disseminating information for SMEs.
If Europe is to be able to face up to competition from the major powers - the United States, Japan and China - the 15 Member States must work together, particularly in the field of research and technological development, and the framework programme provides an excellent instrument for this.
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My third point is that people still tend to think that if there is enough research, the commercial applications will develop themselves.
The opposite is true.
A new product may be produced, but there is no money to develop it further.
Banks and venture capitalists often dare not finance high-tech projects if they fall outside their area of expertise.
The have too little in-house knowledge to be able to calculate the technological and financial risks involved in developing these new products.
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This was why the technology rating institute was set up in the Netherlands in 1995 to try to make it easier to fund promising technological innovations in SMEs.
It is Europe's job to disseminate knowledge about such successful initiatives, and this is what is going to happen over the next few years through the ENTAS system - the European new technologies appraisal system - that is to be set up by the ING and other European banks and the Frauenhofer institute in Germany.
National networks of knowledge centres must learn from each other, set a good example to each other and contribute to cluster formation in Europe.
This should generate a great deal of innovation and costs relatively little to do.
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My final point is that a shortage of manpower is a typical feature of SMEs.
To make the procedures and conditions for taking part in the framework programme clear for SMEs, all the thematic programmes must define and apply specific measures for SMEs such as exploratory awards, feasibility studies and CRAFT in the same way.
They must also be accessible via a single central contact point in the Commission.
However, the first signs are already there that the Commission is going about this in the wrong way.
For example, the proposed work programme for the ICT programme makes no reference to CRAFT.
I would therefore like to ask Commissioner Cresson how she intends to coordinate the various DGs involved in the implementation of the framework programme, particularly with regard to the measures for SMEs?
I would like to have an answer on this fairly soon.
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I should like now to move on to my second task, which is to deliver the opinion of the Committee on External Economic Relations on a number of specific programmes under the fifth framework programme.
On behalf of the REX Committee, therefore, I should like to congratulate the four rapporteurs, Messrs Tannert, Malerba and Argyros and Mrs Estevan Bola.
Europe has a very solid tradition when it comes to research and the application of science and technology.
The strategic aim of the programme before us is to establish a link between research capacity and production capacity primarily in order to promote technology exports, thereby bringing more jobs and greater prosperity to Europe.
The added value and the fundamental role of the European Union in the field of research is consequently to promote cooperation between Europe's research partners.
By going beyond frontiers and making use of each other's knowledge, European companies both large and small will be better equipped to face the international competition.
But partnership does not come to a halt at the boundaries of the European Union.
Europe is currently witnessing a globalisation of the world economy and its hitherto disparate markets.
Less than two weeks ago, I spent five days in the Bay area of San Francisco and saw for myself how new small businesses, or 'start-ups' as they are known, are sprouting like mushrooms in the biotechnology sector.
New activity means new jobs, which Europe so desperately needs.
Cooperation with the United States in this field could also encourage the European biotechnology industry, and the same applies for the information and communications technology sector.
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Up to now, the European Union and the framework programme have concentrated on cooperation within Europe, but in the future, global cooperation, which already characterises the high-tech sector, will become increasingly important.
The Committee on External Economic Relations was therefore delighted with the agreement signed a year ago between the European Union and the United States on scientific and technological cooperation.
There have always been close links between the United States and the European Union.
Our bilateral economic relations generate the largest trade flows in the world.
The European Union and the USA are each other's main investors, and the quality of this relationship has a major effect on world trade.
More intensive scientific cooperation is therefore justified and could lead to a better understanding of each other's views and the settlement of trade disputes with the United States such as in the field of biotechnology, Internet security, encryption, privacy and data protection.
These disputes arise from our differing views on the human and environmental consequences of these new technologies, and differences in consumer behaviour within the Union and in the USA.
If we are to prevent a constant stream of trade conflicts in these areas and develop universally acceptable legislation, cooperation with third countries and in particular with the United States within the framework programme is an absolute necessity.
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<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Lange">
Mr President, the question of what holds together the innermost part of the world is not a very original one as it is very old. It is however more relevant than ever, because of course our social development is moulded by many different factors, together making up what we call the European development model.
To that extent, it is crucially important with respect to our future development for us to ask at this point what really holds our society together in the innermost part, and then to tie that in to research activities in all sectors.
That is why I very much welcome the fact that we have here a specific programme that supports the mobility of researchers and focuses on socio-economic research, particularly with regard to the innermost part of our society.
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This delicate plant was produced by Parliament and began to bloom in the fourth framework research programme.
There were many problems and excesses, the strategic direction could have been better, but in the last few years it has improved considerably and the last call, the third one, was excellent.
At this point I would also like to praise Director Mitsos from the Commission, who really handled it well. Praising the Commission is something we ought to do once in a while these days!
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Nonetheless, I have taken the liberty of proposing improvements on seven points.
Firstly, in the provisional allocation of funds, it is foreseen that only 10 % is to be made available for socio-economic research.
I think that in our provisional allocation we could easily fix the figure a little higher, as the areas of responsibility have increased somewhat within the framework of the conciliation procedure under the fifth framework research programme.
I would therefore suggest a provisional figure of 15 %.
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Secondly, I think it is important for us to know about the mobility and research content of the programme.
Transparency must be ensured, in particular by using the Internet, with regard to the participating institutions and the themes.
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Thirdly, I think it important that socio-economic research is not just carried out as a sideline, but is connected horizontally to the other research areas.
That is why there are some proposals - Amendment No 37 in particular - for greater coordination of this research with other research areas.
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Fourthly, I would like to mention some small improvements with relation to content. These involve structural changes, particularly as regards the ageing of our society, the effects of structural changes on employment and people's mentalities in our society, and the forms of participation.
In many areas it turns out that participation is no longer taking place in traditional policy areas, but more in non-governmental organisations, citizens' initiatives and so on.
These aspects should also be reflected in the content.
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Fifthly, of course, the networking of researchers is also important.
I do not want to take up the cudgels for social science research, but I sometimes have the feeling that European cooperation has not yet developed very far in the area and a little help could still be given to establishing a European research network. This is also important of course when it comes to making applications.
The creation of a network ought therefore to be supported.
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My sixth point concerns support for equality of opportunity, also where participation in this research programme is concerned.
It cannot be acceptable for instance that time spent bringing up children is not taken into account when the Marie Curie fellowships are awarded.
That point has to be clarified, as indeed does overall support for equality of opportunity.
Last week I attended a symposium where there were 150 participants, and only two of them were women.
There is obviously room for improvement here.
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My seventh and final point is that we also have to promote the results.
It is of no help at all to have good studies if they are lying in a drawer.
In the area of the social sciences especially, this often happens.
The results should be promoted on the Internet, for example, but should also be transferred directly to the users, the politicians, in this Parliament, in the national Parliaments, and presented on the ground, in order to make them useful in the social process.
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<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="McNally">
Mr President, I am presenting two reports, both under my name and both about the JRC.
The first is the fifth framework report and the other is the Euratom nuclear report on the work of the JRC.
The JRC is the living embodiment of what European added value means.
It is something that should be very much better known by the Members of this House and by the general public.
That is true of all the research programmes but in particular of the Joint Research Centre where scientists from all over the European Union come together to work on problems which are relevant to its citizens.
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Like the European Union itself, the JRC's role has changed and its emphasis has changed.
It started off with a very largely nuclear emphasis and did valuable research in the nuclear field.
That emphasis is now lessening and the new mission of the JRC as it takes us into the 21st century is being highlighted more and more.
Mr Allgeier, the Director of the JRC, and Mrs Cresson, the Commissioner, have between them shown very great clarity of thinking in defining the role of the JRC so that everyone is clear about its task.
Its task principally is to be a tool for policy makers in the European Union and for those carrying out implementing programmes in a variety of areas.
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For example we need the 'technology foresite' work which is done in Seville where they look at forthcoming technologies.
We need the testing and standards work that is done in Ispra and elsewhere.
Recently, for example, they tested the methods used in every Member State to monitor air pollution and they found great discrepancies in these tests.
That was a very valuable piece of work.
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Alongside the clarity of purpose we need some reform and some restructuring and that is being done very efficiently.
The JRC possesses facilities which no one Member State could possibly afford to build and there ought to be better use of some of those facilities.
As the European Parliament has a duty to monitor what is going on in the research establishments, we would like observer status.
We would like two observers on the board of the JRC.
If for technical or legal reasons that is not possible we would like an exploration of other ways in which we could carry out that task.
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Given the size of the Ispra site and the complications of maintaining such a site, some renegotiation has to go on with the Italian authorities and I hope that is in progress.
In this, as in every other programme, we need to emphasize that the equal opportunities policy of the European Union is not just a pretty phrase.
It means that this must be implemented.
Here I would pay tribute to Mrs Cresson, a woman Commissioner for science who has grasped that if we are to have an equal opportunities programme, there must be research, in her words, 'by women, for women and about women.
She has set up a special unit at DG XII, and should be congratulated and supported.
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I move on to the Euratom part of the JRC.
In view of the reduced budget, a sensible decision has been made to cut the fusion research in the JRC and a higher emphasis will be put on nuclear materials and safeguards control.
The FARO facility is very important: this is a way of studying real accidents.
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My Amendment No 20 highlights the fact that it is not the job of a research programme to pay for the decommissioning of nuclear facilities.
There must be urgent discussions with the budget authorities and the Committee on Budgets about how the ECU 100m needed for the full decommissioning at Ispra and elsewhere can be paid for without impinging upon the research programme; this would be wholly inappropriate.
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I would like us to look at the suggestions of Professor Rubbia, amongst others, on on-site separation and transmutation of nuclear waste.
If we do not find a solution to the problem of nuclear waste, the public will lose heart at any suggestion of the use of nuclear power.
This may be a promising way forward.
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I should like to say now - pre-empting a little but my time is in one block - why I have tabled an amendment to Mrs Matikainen-Kallström's report, on which I congratulate her, and I certainly agree with her suggestion that the title be changed to one which is more straightforward.
My Amendment No 19 suggests that, in view of the amount which has to be cut in the fusion programme, the Commission should come up with a new plan and should bear the following points in mind when it looks at the international thermonuclear experimental reactor:
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There is a sharp decrease in interest and ability to participate by the planned partners and, as far as I can see, a site is not available.
The timescale is inappropriate for the fifth framework programme.
We are not going to be doing that work within this timescale.
There is certainly scope for a cost reduction.
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The JET facility in Culham in the United Kingdom has very many achievements and is an important part of the fusion programme.
My suggestion for a cut in the budget does not include the JET facility.
Indeed, so long as Parliament is consulted, there is probably a case for its continuation after 1999.
It has fixed costs.
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However, I cannot believe - even though we want to study the socioeconomic aspects of nuclear fusion, and I am all in favour of them - that they cost ECU 920m, or anywhere near that amount.
We need to continue our on-going research into the fusion programme and I do not suggest in any way that we should not.
But I ask the Commission, if this amendment is adopted, to look again at the programme as it is drawn up and get something that is slightly more appropriate for the available budget.
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<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, the need for energy will approximately double over the next fifty years.
Most of the increase in demand will occur in the present developing countries, which will obtain their increased quantities of energy mainly through the use of fossil fuels that accelerate the greenhouse effect.
To some extent we can influence the consumption of primary energy sources by means of energy saving measures, but these are only possible in industrialised countries, and even there their effect on total energy consumption is minor.
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The increased use of renewables will be considerable, but will have insufficient effect as far as contamination of the environment is concerned.
Knowing that the earth's resources of uranium and natural gas are finite, we could say there is no environmentally acceptable energy solution that exists at the present time, especially with regard to carbon dioxide emissions, which would meet the growing demand for energy and prevent the worsening of the greenhouse effect.
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For several decades now we have been researching the theory of nuclear fusion, and fusion has actually been achieved in trial reactors.
In trialing the commercial exploitation of fusion we have reached the point where it is necessary to create the next demonstration project.
We now have the ITER research project which should get under way soon and which is jointly organised by the EU, Japan, the USA and Russia; its purpose is to produce the technology for the future commercial exploitation of a nuclear fusion power station.
The barriers to the exploitation of nuclear fusion are at present technical, so mere theoretical research is no longer enough to ensure development.
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For the time being the developing world will not be able to develop an energy source that commercially exploits fusion, so the programme will have to be undertaken by the industrialised countries.
When we consider the timescale for exploiting fusion, which is estimated at approximately fifty years, it is clear that investment in the continuation of this work will be needed if the research currently being carried out is not to be discontinued, the Commission's proposed funding cut and the ITER project postponed.
Current research being undertaken into nuclear fusion costs ECU 500 million per year, which is just 1 % of the total cost of the oil imported by the EU.
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The production of energy from fusion does not produce fuel-derived radioactive waste.
Research into fusion and its possible commercial exploitation will not involve elements that would encourage or facilitate the manufacture of nuclear weapons.
We also have to remember that research into nuclear fusion has led to an abundance of innovations, such as in the field of materials technology, and we have thus been able to exploit the results of the research well before any production of commercial energy has commenced.
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To stop the greenhouse effect from ultimately causing irreparable damage before the introduction of fusion energy, we must invest in the production of energy from sources other than fossil fuels.
Making present nuclear power stations safe and more efficient will be vital if we wish to work to produce energy without harming the environment.
The Commission's original proposal was to fund research for the modernisation of current nuclear power plants and the treatment of nuclear waste.
I believe these will be areas of nuclear fission research which will be well suited to this programme.
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Ladies and gentlemen, we are taking decisions on energy alternatives that will affect future generations.
Now, by taking the right decisions, we can solve the problems of the production of energy for Europeans in the future.
By voting in favour of research into fusion energy we can guarantee those future generations a life that does not rely on respirators.
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<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Malerba">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I shall now comment on the three horizontal programmes from the perspective of the Committee on External Economic Relations, in other words as regards the international role of research, innovation, SMEs and human potential.
On the first topic - the international role of Community research - it is essential, in my opinion, that technological research in the European Union should be a match for research worldwide and should remain competitive; I would even say that the benchmark should be the international relevance of our research and discoveries.
The fifth framework programme would be impoverished if this openness were not ensured.
Nevertheless, we might ask ourselves under what conditions non-EU partner companies should be allowed to participate, and to what extent the money of Europe's citizens should be spent on partners not belonging to the Union.
Special conventions will need to be drawn up, but our committee would see fit to lay down two vital criteria: firstly, research conducted in conjunction with external partners should be of benefit to the European Union, thereby improving its competence and its qualities; secondly, there should be a reciprocity criterion, meaning that if, for example, the partners - the American researchers - have access to a European research programme, the opposite must also be possible.
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This, in my view, is a key point which the Commission as a whole, not just Mrs Cresson, must press in its international relations.
I am thinking here of technologically advanced countries such as the United States, Japan and Canada. Whereas we have by now found ways of solving conflicts and competitive difficulties, for example in the commercial sector through the World Trade Organisation, the world of research is still a fairly closed, impermeable one in most countries.
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As regards the emerging and developing countries, on the other hand, and above all nearby countries such as those applying for accession and the third countries of the Mediterranean, I should very much like to see research becoming a tool of cooperation. In these cases, however, additional financial instruments are needed to complement the RTD framework programme: I am of course thinking of the Agenda 2000 programmes and the MEDA programmes.
In this context, technology transfer and the involvement of third countries will add to the merits of the framework programme.
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<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Langenhagen">
Mr President, Commissioner, it has been a long road to the final decision on the European Community's fifth framework programme for research, technological development and demonstration.
Today I can tell you that although there was an initial protest about this programme, the Committee on Fisheries can accept the result of the conciliation procedure despite a general disagreement on funding and possible deficiencies with regard to content.
But I would like to explain to you why we shall be following its implementation very carefully.
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In its opinion on the proposed fifth framework research programme, the Committee on Fisheries described the research needs of the fisheries and aquaculture sector.
It noted that, in contrast to the fourth framework research programme, the proposal does not contain a programme solely devoted to fisheries.
The design of the new framework programme means that fisheries interests will have to compete with other research interests in several programmes and key actions.
That does not make things any easier for fisheries.
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Moreover, a solution also needs to be found for the future funding of activities relating to fisheries, which have so far been defined as studies and kept outside the research programmes.
These activities include the collection of basic data for stock assessments, which have so far been funded through the Structural Funds.
The Committee on Fisheries stresses the need to avoid any risk of interruption in the funding of the very important activities concerned, and the need to extend support for such activities to the aquaculture sector.
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We have heard that in accordance with Article 130i, the framework programme will be implemented through individual specific programmes, in turn consisting of key actions as they are known, or work programmes.
The first specific programme, called 'Quality of life and management of living resources' thus covers many key actions of relevance for the fisheries and aquaculture sector.
The most important of these is 'Sustainable agriculture, fisheries and forestry, including the integrated development of rural areas'.
The priorities for research, technological development and demonstration in fisheries and aquaculture have been defined in such a way that most of the relevant research needs should be covered.
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The key action 'Health, food and environmental factors' is absolutely relevant here, and the key action 'Control of infectious diseases' provides a natural framework for research on prevention and control of fish diseases within aquaculture, since it has now emerged that this key action will not be limited to human diseases.
The key action 'The cell factory' could possibly also be of some interest to the aquaculture sector because of the genetical problems that may arise there.
That is all I have to say on the first specific programme.
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The second and third programmes are not very relevant for fisheries and aquaculture, so let me move directly on to the fourth thematic programme, 'Preserving the ecosystem'.
This programme is of the greatest importance to fisheries and aquaculture, especially in the attempts at what is known as the conceptualizing an ecosystem approach to fisheries management, because understanding how environmental changes may affect the marine ecosystems upon which fisheries and aquaculture depend is extremely important.
Up to now we have always complained that the current state of knowledge rarely permits forecasting of concrete effects on fish stocks or predictions of the consequences of a troubled ecosystem for the fishing industry.
The other specific programmes predominantly concern amongst other things the need for international cooperation with third countries in the Mediterranean region, as well as Russia, the USA and Canada.
It is a subject that we will be increasingly preoccupied with in the fisheries sector as we search for new resources.
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The Committee on Fisheries has clearly defined the contents and affirmed their importance.
We look forward to their realisation.
We have heard about the growing demands that are being placed on the framework programme, and in view of these each penny of the amount had to be fought for.
Of course this was tiring at times, but it was worth it.
My thanks to all those who were involved.
We are also very relieved that with the framework programme, an important part of employment policy that we have all been waiting for is to be implemented.
In a modern Europe we ought never to neglect the field of research.
It is often the true beginning of all things. Of course this also has to be reflected in our budget.
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<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Schörling">
Mr President, I wish to focus on the section in the framework programme covered by Mr Argyros, which deals with competitive and sustainable growth. It is very gratifying to see that so many suggestions in the opinion from the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs have been incorporated into the report.
Greater emphasis is now being placed on sustainable growth as a means of creating jobs and improving quality of life: in other words, a horizontal approach is being advocated. Equally, there is recognition that the programme will need to be monitored and, where necessary, adjusted.
This will be necessary to keep pace not only with scientific and technological progress, but with economic and social developments too.
I am convinced that societal considerations will increasingly dictate the future course of research.
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What is more, politicians and decision-takers will be requiring advice on socio-economic and environmental issues. Research can contribute towards smoothing the way for social change and safeguarding ecological balance.
I am disappointed that we failed to obtain budgetary resources for such work and I therefore call upon colleagues to support the Green Group's Amendment No 30.
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<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Heinisch">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will start with the report by Mr Tannert.
In the fifth framework research programme, European research is supposed to be more in tune with the needs of society than ever, and more concerned with searching for solutions to its pressing problems.
The biotechnology field potentially contains many answers, which we are seeing already in the medical, pharmaceutical and agricultural sectors, where work is being done worldwide.
The European Union must intensify its efforts here considerably if it wishes to remain competitive.
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But just as biotechnology answers questions, it also throws them up, especially in the field of gene technology. There is for example the safety of manufactured products that are genetically engineered, and there are also the highly sensitive ethical aspects.
I would fully agree with the rapporteur that research on gene technology depends mainly on whether we can arrive at a social consensus on the issues associated with it.
That is why objective information and a widely-conducted discussion in the field of ethics also have to be among the aims of this programme.
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The Green Group in the European Parliament is calling once again for a moratorium on research involving foetal tissue and research on embryos in vitro before implantation until a full ethical evaluation has been undertaken.
But for my group the moratorium on research is not a feasible option.
It is an unrealistic demand because we can never have a conclusive ethical evaluation.
It is always going to have to take place in parallel with the research.
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It is crucial in embryo research that the provisions in national legislation are complied with, and that the common, basic ethical principles are taken into account.
European research projects should be evaluated carefully from an ethical point of view before they are begun.
But a complete moratorium would lead to a standstill, which is something we especially want to avoid with this programme.
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Now let me turn briefly to the report by Mr Lange.
By and large, the amendments can be supported and also have the approval of my group.
I very much welcome the fact that this specific programme continues the efforts to promote the training of European researchers.
It is hugely important for Europe's competitiveness that the quality of our researchers and scientists is continually reinforced.
It is important to achieve a lively and effective cooperation between European researchers.
As for socio-economic research, the Commission's aim that socio-economic aspects be identified as a key action in this horizontal programme is an idea that is very much to be welcomed.
But in any case it has to be said that not everything that is scientifically interesting and feasible requires comprehensive European research funding.
I think therefore that the chosen figure of 10 % of the funds from the specific programme for socio-economic research is sufficient.
Thank you very much indeed to both of the rapporteurs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Teverson">
Mr President, I should just like to make one point on the Estevan Bolea report and that is about renewable energies, specifically geothermal energy, better known in my part of the world as 'hot rocks technology'.
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Many of our Member States have a very good record in this area.
Europe has a good track record in that it has been successful with its research in the past.
And yet this is not specifically mentioned in the Commission proposal.
Perhaps it is included under the title 'Any Other Energies'.
In my own mind that is not at all sufficient.
Hence Amendment No 19 which specifically mentions geothermal energy.
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I would remind the Commission that the United States is currently putting something like USD 100m into research into this particular area.
They are looking for export markets.
They are areas where we, as the European Union, will miss out if we do not make sure that we keep abreast of this technology.
Will the Commission support geothermal technology?
Will it please support Amendment No 19.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Fitzsimons">
Mr President, I congratulate all the rapporteurs on the excellent reports they have produced.
I can agree with almost all of them.
I am pleased to see that the Tannert report clearly spells out that research into human cloning will not be permitted in the present framework programme.
My personal belief is that human cloning in any form should not be tolerated under any circumstances.
<P>
The user-friendly information society programme presented by our colleague, Mr Malerba, is of great importance.
Every single element of the four key action areas will have a major role for future progress and development, not least for the creation of jobs.
In recent weeks the Taoiseach of Ireland, Mr Bertie Ahern, announced the decision to create a major digital park.
In so doing he said: 'Linking cities and villages into this busy network will not only give new jobs to Ireland but will provide the one-stop media shop for local services in health, education, tourism, business development and all public services'.
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Speaking on behalf of the Irish delegation in my group, it will come as no surprise to many that I have some difficulties with those reports dealing with research of one kind or another in the nuclear sector.
The Sellafield lies, leaks and cover-ups saga has been consistently denounced by my Fianna Fáil delegation in this Parliament, right back to the early days of Windscale.
We are totally opposed to the proposed new expansion of Sellafield.
There is no justification - economic or otherwise - for the reprocessing of nuclear waste.
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We will not support any programmes which would in effect contribute to a continuation of the lethal contamination from Sellafield.
That money would be far better used for research into projects in non-nuclear renewable energies as set out in the programme, preserving the ecosystem, the subject of the Estevan Bolea report.
<P>
In conclusion, I have one comment on the overall fifth framework programme.
I am convinced that the time has come for Europe to stop being perceived as a follower of American and Japanese research fashion and become, in a coherent and united approach, a world leader in the field.
We can do it if we wish.
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<SPEAKER ID=78 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Mr President, I would like to emphasise three points in connection with the fifth framework programme for research and the special programmes attached to it.
The first concerns the users of research.
According to the Commission's proposal, the intention behind the fifth framework programme is greater interaction with users.
It is very important that by the word 'users' the Commission does not just mean those engaged in business, but the real end-users of research, the people.
Organisations that represent the people and democratically elected decision-makers must also be able to participate in the planning and monitoring of research.
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Secondly, I would like to focus on the special attention paid to women in the research programmes.
Mr Lange's report, now under discussion, pays commendable attention to the issue.
We have to make sure that both sufficient resources are available for research into the status of women and the promotion of equality, and that women are represented in groups involved in the selection and appraisal of projects.
<P>
The third important issue concerns the opportunities for applicant countries to be included in the fifth framework programme.
Negotiations with those countries, which are desirable for their participation in the programme, must be swiftly concluded, so that they may be included right from the start.
In this connection I would also like to stress the importance of research into health and safety at work, which is also well worth investing in.
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Finally I would like to state that I am in full agreement with what Mr Fitzsimmons said just now about nuclear research, which is that we should invest in renewable energy resources.
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<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bloch von Blottnitz">
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Hudghton">
Mr President, I cannot start my first speech in this Chamber without referring to my predecessor, Dr Alan Macartney, who I know was held in very high regard here both for his work in committees and in Parliament.
There could be no more fitting tribute to Alan Macartney from the people back home than the very decisive result of the by-election which brought me, also a member of Scotland's party of independence, to this Parliament.
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If one of our major purposes is to create the conditions that will encourage economic growth and improve employment opportunities, then small and medium-sized enterprises must and do play a substantial part.
I was pleased to note that SMEs figure in these programmes and, in particular, that a proportion of the budget will indeed be available to be directed particularly towards projects from smaller enterprises.
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As a former proprietor of a very small business myself, I am only too well aware of how difficult it can be to find the extra time, energy and finance required to pursue innovative projects.
And as until recently I was also the leader of a local authority in Scotland - a very successful one too - I know from the experience of our economic development and European units that many of our smaller businesses have a wealth of talent and ideas which require more encouragement.
I hope that there can be considerable flexibility in the decision-making processes and in the running of these programmes so that they can indeed be fully accessible to our small and medium-sized enterprises.
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The Scots have a well deserved reputation for innovation and inventiveness.
In my particular part of Scotland, the North-East, we have many businesses, enterprises and academic and research institutions working on projects and ideas that are very worthy of dissemination both throughout Europe and in the wider world.
Dundee, for example, one of the two cities in my area, is well and truly becoming a centre of excellence in life sciences.
Aberdeen is acknowledged as the energy capital of Europe.
I know of much work being done to develop projects in a whole range of fields including telematics and renewable energy resources.
Incidentally, I come here from a party which is non-nuclear in its outlook and I support the comments of our colleague a few minutes ago.
<P>
We have projects to maintain the high quality of our water supply systems, also referred to earlier in this debate.
We in Scotland have much to offer by way of research and development.
I hope that through participation in these programmes not only will Scottish projects, Scottish businesses and Scottish institutions benefit, but the ideas generated therein will benefit Europe and the world.
I look forward very much to my participation here in this Chamber in promoting Scotland and indeed promoting European projects back home in Scotland.
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<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="President">
Mr Hudghton, I did not interrupt you because I wanted to thank you and congratulate you on your first appearance in Parliament.
I wish you all the best as an MEP, but would point out that here in Parliament we all keep to our allotted speaking time.
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<SPEAKER ID=82 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, in the context of this joint debate on research and technological development, I will be speaking on the report on the programme for innovation and participation of small and medium-sized enterprises.
The decisive role of SMEs in employment and in our countries' territorial balance can never be over-emphasised.
It is very much better to promote the maintenance and development of a coherent and close-knit fabric of businesses in the countryside rather than to invest vast sums in urban policy with very uncertain results.
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That fabric has now been seriously damaged by recession and it is essential to rebuild it, in particular by encouraging the development of the industries of the future, which are currently creating most wealth, growth and employment.
It is essential to be in a position to protect the intellectual property involved here, both at Community level and at third country level, because this is absolutely necessary if the costs inherent in research and development are to be amortised.
And instead of salving our consciences by incorporating into this fifth framework programme for research an SME section which is poorly-funded and will therefore have little impact, it would surely have been better to start by carrying out an audit of the legal obstacles currently facing people starting up in business and of the brakes on the development of SMEs created by certain Community regulations themselves.
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Our legal systems simply must be geared towards facilitating the development of SMEs, instead of hindering it, as is seen in particular in the case of some regulations which tend to strangle businesses at birth, the very time when they most need capital.
It would have been useful to give some thought to the essential improvements that need to be made to company law with a view to adapting it to the rules of technological industry and risk capital, a vital instrument in facilitating access for SMEs to private finance for innovation.
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A policy geared to making extensive free trade agreements without prior impact assessment and adopting artificially high standards for our small and medium-sized enterprises has undeniable negative effects.
Mr President, I call for a pragmatic policy, not an ideological one, a policy that will really facilitate the development of these small and medium-sized firms. They are now the principal source of job creation in the European Union.
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<SPEAKER ID=83 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Mr President, research is the future, it is the breath of the human spirit.
However, responsibility is called for!
I am very glad that thermonuclear fusion is not under discussion in Mrs McNally's report.
However nuclear fission safety, control of nuclear materials, the decommissioning of nuclear power stations and waste management are.
We are going to have to decommission a great many nuclear power stations in the future, something that we should perhaps have done much earlier.
Waste management is going to keep us busy for a very long time.
Although we do not have a solution for nuclear waste yet and it will continue to be radioactive for centuries, indeed for millennia, we go on producing more every day!
It is a grotesque, tragic and dramatic form of human irresponsibility.
It is I think perhaps too late for us to carry out research in this area.
I am grateful to Mrs Matikainen-Kallström for pointing out in her report that the routine generation of substantial quantities of radioactive materials may also constitute the biggest obstacle in the development of fusion.
She refers to extremely important areas such as nuclear fission, operational safety, nuclear facilities, radiation protection and once again, waste management, which has been mentioned several times today.
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I know that Mrs Matikainen-Kallström has taken a great deal of trouble over her report, but like many of the others who spoke before me, I regret the fact that there is no talk of any key action for renewable energies here.
The waste must certainly be brought under control.
You are responsible on behalf of the people in this respect.
When one tries, as I do, to conduct politics in a Christian-Democrat spirit of responsibility then it is simply impossible - for me at least - to support a programme which admittedly offers us a great many advantages, but also leaves behind for those who will come after us problems that are presently regarded as insoluble.
I would ask my colleagues to have some understanding for the way I am going to vote.
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<SPEAKER ID=84 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President, referring to the report by Mr Argyros on the special programme for competitive and viable economic development, I would first of all like to note with satisfaction the rapporteur's effort to address issues concerned with ensuring transparency in the management of appropriations connected with the programme's activities, promoting the social dimension in the objectives served by the funds made available each year, extending the special actions to branches such as the textile industry, which is a very important industry in Europe and indeed a labour-intensive one, reserving a larger proportion of the budget for improvements in land and sea transport technologies and making research results available to small and medium-sized enterprises so that they can derive benefit from them.
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However, I should like to point out that the worldwide economic crisis has highlighted the need for economic development which benefits society while fully respecting the environment. That, indeed, is what is meant by viable and sustainable development.
But now, the word 'competitive' is being added.
Is that coincidence?
Surely not.
That word establishes a framework wherein the main effort will be directed in an extremely one-sided manner towards intellectual, scientific and technological development in order to promote the interests and aspirations of large-scale multinational capital.
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Competitiveness is ranked above all else, and the rights and acquisitions of working people, the environment and a balanced ecology are all placed in thrall to it.
Development of any kind and environmental protection are conditional upon company profits.
Experience, particularly recently, shows that any reference to competitive development is very worrying for working people and the general public.
It is essential to grasp the point that technology is the product of scientific development and the human intellect, and that it must not be used in ways that pose a threat to nature, mankind and its needs.
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<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Mr President, I shall begin with the Malerba report, on which I have tabled some amendments.
Whilst I am very much in favour of a user-friendly information society, I still have some misgivings.
There is a danger that the resources of the information society and the Internet will be exploited for purposes of electronic surveillance.
It is incumbent upon us in this Parliament to distance ourselves from any attempt to use this programme to facilitate the development of such communication or surveillance technologies.
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I also have a point on the Argyros report on competitive and sustainable growth.
I have tabled an amendment on reducing the environmental impact of air traffic.
Parliament is very vocal about developing better fuels for motor cars and cutting petrol use, yet we seem to overlook the fact that aeroplanes are also major guzzlers.
Competitive ways must be found of producing fuels which will spare the environment and reduce consumption.
This should be seen by industry as a positive challenge, rather than a negative threat.
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<SPEAKER ID=86 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, the fifth framework programme is primarily designed to promote the interests of a common research policy.
Over time, the structure has become clearer and the subject areas more specific.
Fragmentation into lots of small projects and the overlapping of different projects is to be avoided, and from this point of view the question has to be asked whether earmarking 10 % of the budget for SMEs will really promote scientific development.
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The rapid assessment of applications is extremely important for research institutions and especially for businesses, and establishing clear criteria is also important in order to provide a degree of certainty.
It also prevents lengthy discussions on contracts and bureaucratic procedures, both of which are seen as obstacles.
Because of the rapid developments in science, it has to be possible to alter specific programmes half-way through.
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The extremely rapid progress made in genetic technology, which could generate new resistances and harmful trends in nutrition, means that further biomedical research and ethical consideration is required.
Scientific research is not seen as something free from value judgements, as is clear from the fact that human cloning has been excluded from the framework programme.
We are delighted about this; a pause for thought about other genetic technologies is also needed, and full, unbiased information would be extremely welcome.
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Sustainable development is an important basis for research, and energy and environmental protection must form an integral part of this.
Cooperation between government, the private sector, industry and the services sector can set a good, encouraging example here, particularly for applied research.
However, there must also be scope for fundamental research, which should be as independent and objective as possible.
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As for the future of the nuclear fusion programme, we would point out that the knowledge we have acquired here must be kept for future generations, but in view of the fact that other sources of energy are now in full development, we no longer need to attach high priority to it.
We support the idea of setting a maximum for nuclear research, which will certainly be advisable once we have a clearer and fuller picture of everything that is going on in the nuclear sector.
It is extremely important to think about waste management and safety here.
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<SPEAKER ID=87 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Palacio Vallelersundi">
Mr President, I wish to refer to Mr Malerba's report on the user-friendly information society, part of the broad fifth framework programme.
I should like to put forward four observations on this report.
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First, the total European Union investment - not just that allocated within the fifth framework programme, but overall investment in the field - together with the investment made by each of the 15 Member States individually falls far short of the investment in this sector by our main competitors, the United States and Japan.
We have to realise that information science is at the cutting edge of technology and should therefore welcome this initiative and carry it through.
Furthermore, as the resources available are limited, they must be distributed wisely.
In this respect, I welcome the rapporteur's suggestion to concentrate resources on objectives 1 and 3, namely, systems and services for the citizen and new technologies, rather than on objective 2, which relates to electronic commerce. This requires improved regulations, and thus calls for legislative action rather than investment.
I should also like to point out that the final chapter is ill-defined and therefore somewhat vague.
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Our resources must be concentrated at the cutting edge, in those key sectors where investment will bear most fruit.
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Finally, I should like to refer to two types of amendments, following on from what our colleague from the Green Group said.
At this stage, it would be extremely dangerous to start a witch hunt concerning the promotion of investment in this important sector.
Many problems are indeed emerging, relating to safeguarding the rights of the individual, the right to privacy, for instance. However, we should bear in mind that the Internet arose as a result of research undertaken by the military, and later developed into what it is today.
Caution is therefore advisable.
In addition, I should like to endorse the rapporteur's opinion on some of the amendments put forward by the Committee on Women's Rights, relating, for example, to the introduction of gender quotas. These do seem to go rather too far.
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<SPEAKER ID=88 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, I am already very disappointed with the manner in which the European Parliament's report deals with gene technology.
On top of that, I find the talk of social ostracism that I hear, as opposed to the imposition of bans, very naïve.
We were promised years ago that there were at last going to be standards, and after years of research programmes in this field it could be expected that the Commission would finally establish ethical standards instead of routinely insisting that this is what the research projects are supposed to be contributing to. It is becoming increasingly clear that they are merely waxing lyrical, and their real concern is with making unrestricted progress in this risky and ethically questionable research.
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Returning to the subject of research involving foetal tissue for instance, even the federal chamber of doctors in Germany has spoken out in favour of a moratorium.
But the Commission is obviously unable to admit that this type of research is dubious, both scientifically and from an ethical point of view, and that some limits must finally be laid down in the field.
This applies to the softening agent in babies' toys.
The Commission says that bans cannot be imposed because research is needed, and yet its research programme contains absolutely no attempts at research that could finally put this issue on the agenda, namely environmental medicine and all these other questions concerning for example chemical substances.
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<SPEAKER ID=89 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Scapagnini">
Mr President, the adoption of the fifth framework programme was a key moment for research in Europe, as we have all seen.
Parliament managed to make its own voice and that of Europe's citizens heard, by introducing various themes which are crucial to the development and improvement of life and research in this Europe of ours.
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As I have stated on several occasions in all the institutional forums, only through research and technological innovation can we get the better of the unemployment which is afflicting Europe.
Conducting research means creating jobs for the future and improving the lifestyle of our children; efforts must therefore be made in Europe to improve the attainment and dissemination of research findings, and to facilitate access to them.
Today's adoption of the specific programmes must be seized as a further opportunity for companies, researchers and all the citizens of Europe.
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We naturally welcome a whole range of themes within the various programmes. Among these I would single out an extremely important one: the quality of life and management of biological resources.
Europe has ample experience of research and applications in this field, and I would stress that - over and above all the ethical considerations - biotechnology and genetic engineering are having and will continue to have a crucial impact on the future of medicine and on our future well-being.
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I would also stress, on behalf of the committee which I chair, that a good deal of important work has been done in recent years, both on the framework programme, on which agreement has been reached - albeit painstakingly - with the Council, and on the specific programmes where, as you know, several amendments have been put forward.
In conclusion, I hope that the Council will take due note of Parliament's suggestions, not least when adopting these programmes to which codecision does not apply: it would be a serious mistake not to take account of the opinions of those, like ourselves, who represent the citizens of Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Chichester">
Mr President, I should firstly like to congratulate my colleague Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl, the rapporteur, for all her very hard work in bringing the fifth framework programme to this point, including, I am pleased to say, paying a visit to Devon, my constituency, to hear about many research projects engaged in at Exeter University and Plymouth University.
I welcome her interest.
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I welcome the outcome of the conciliation procedure.
There were many researchers out there who were anxious about future funding and the prospect of funding being cut off.
We should emphasise very strongly the importance of the fifth framework programme for networking across national borders.
The importance of this work cannot be overstated even though it represents a very small proportion of overall spending in Europe on research.
I urge the Commission to pay more attention in future to providing consistent assessments of bids, to telling unsuccessful applicants why they did not succeed, and to make payments on time because delays cause great difficulties, particularly for small businesses.
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I welcome the emphasis on SMEs participation.
We should remember that they face particular difficulties in participating in these transnational large projects.
I welcome Mrs McNally's support for the work of JET at Culham.
That should reassure the staff who work there and who were anxious about their future employment prospects.
Above all, I wish to emphasise the benefit of the fifth framework programme as a catalyst for progress, innovation, competitiveness, quality of life and employment in Europe.
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<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Cresson">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to thank the nine rapporteurs very much and congratulate them on the quality of their work.
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I want to extend those thanks to all the members of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, and to its chairman, Mr Scapagnini, as well as to the chairs of the different committees involved in the debate on the various specific programmes within the fifth framework programme for research.
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Examining all the proposals from the Commission was a vast and complex task.
It was all the more difficult because it had to be completed within tight deadlines, in parallel with the discussion of the fifth framework programme within the Conciliation Committee.
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The European Parliament has fulfilled its mission flawlessly, producing reports containing a range of pertinent and constructive suggestions.
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Rather than go into detail on the very large number of amendments tabled, I will summarise the Commission's position on some important points.
However, a detailed position paper is available from the sessional services.
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Broadly, the Commission accepts many of the proposed amendments in terms of content and spirit, if not in their precise formulation.
The Commission agrees with several of the 'horizontal' amendments, which apply to all the programmes or express Parliament's position on general points in the words of different rapporteurs.
These amendments reflect the agreement reached on the fifth framework programme within the Conciliation Committee, and relate, firstly, to equal opportunities and the participation of women in the implementation of the research programmes.
I personally attach great importance to this point.
On my initiative, the Commission will soon be presenting a communication on this subject, which will describe specific measures to be taken to promote equal opportunities and the participation of women, following up the symposium I organised last year on 'Women and Science'.
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They also cover the participation of small and medium-sized companies.
As agreed in the Conciliation Committee, 10 % of the resources for the four thematic programmes will be earmarked for SMEs to resolve the technological problems they have to confront.
I would add, to respond to what has just been said, that a 'one-stop shop' will be established to facilitate access of SMEs to the programme.
Incidentally, the number of SMEs which benefit from the research programmes has increased by 30 % over the last four years.
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Finally, they refer to information for the European Parliament, which will be given greater powers to monitor in detail the implementation of the programmes, including, of course, the Joint Research Centre.
The Commission would like to fix a date with Parliament, within the next three months, to report on how the first stages of implementing the programmes have gone.
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I would now like to comment on the nine reports.
I cannot cover everything, but I want to highlight the following points.
In his report on the 'Quality of life and management of living resources' programme, Mr Tannert rightly stresses the importance of attention to ethical issues.
In the particular case of research involving human embryos, the Commission shares Parliament's reservations.
These problems are complex.
Knowledge and technology are advancing rapidly and account must be taken of the interests of couples and the infirm, but of course there are boundaries which cannot be crossed.
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The Commission is pleased to note the support given to the 'User-friendly information society' programme in Mr Malerba's very detailed report.
In line with Parliament's wishes, it will propose a new distribution of the budget for this programme benefiting key actions, services to the citizens and essential technologies and infrastructures.
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A little later Mr Malerba also spoke on the problem of international relations as regards research.
It goes without saying that cooperation will be reciprocal.
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As regards interconnection of high-speed research networks, the Commission thinks this could perhaps benefit from a financial contribution from programmes other than the information society programme.
However, this contribution would only relate to uses specifically linked to the fields covered by these programmes.
The Commission will evaluate and analyse these needs to determine the best means of meeting them.
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Among the amendments tabled by Mr Argyros to the proposal for the 'Competitive and sustainable growth' programme, the Commission is particularly interested in those which accentuate the sustainability dimension in all planned research.
This greater stress is particularly apt.
The actual principle of the programme is to develop technologies that are competitive and also respect the environment. In fact I would say the environmental aspects make them that much more competitive.
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Mrs Estevan Bolea's report on the programme on 'Preserving the ecosystem' is a very precise analysis of energy and environment needs and the actions planned in that field.
While continuing to emphasise the close links between issues arising in these two fields, the Commission takes note of the fact that Parliament and the Council support the idea of implementing two separate sub-programmes.
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The Commission also recognises the importance to be attached to renewable energy.
I would remind you that it was at its initiative that the European Union set itself a target for raising the share of renewable energy from 6 % to 12 % by the year 2000.
However, we do not think it is either possible or necessary to fix a quantitative resource threshold for research in this field.
Some of the technologies involved combine the exploitation of classic energies and renewable energies, and account must be taken of the absorption capacities of the fabric of European research and industry.
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We are delighted with Mr Marset Campos's support for the programme on 'Confirming the international role of Community research'.
Like him, we think the actions in this programme should be structured according to the individual economic and social needs of the various regions of the world.
But we do not think explicit links need to be established at legislative level between the various actions and excessively precise country categories.
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The amendments tabled by Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel to the programme on 'Promotion of innovation and encouragement of participation of SMEs' contribute a number of useful details, notably in the definition of new approaches to be implemented.
So the Commission will adopt them.
Special attention to SMEs is also covered by one of the general amendments, which the Commission accepts, on extending the agreement reached in the Conciliation Committee.
I can assure Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel that the specific measures for SMEs will be included and applied in all the thematic proposals in a harmonised and effective way.
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The same applies to the equal opportunities issue raised by Mr Lange in his report on the programme on 'Improving the human research potential and the socio-economic knowledge base'.
Like the rapporteur, the Commission attaches great importance to the socio-economic aspects of research, especially to the contribution made by such work to the definition and implementation of public policy.
It therefore accepts the amendments aimed at strengthening this dimension, as well as the coordination of activities pursued in this field right across the framework programme.
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Mrs McNally has carefully analysed the two proposals on the programme of activities for the Joint Research Centre in the non-nuclear and nuclear fields.
The limited number of amendments bears witness to the level of agreement between Parliament and the Commission on the nature and content of the Joint Research Centre's mission to serve Union policies and Union citizens.
These two specific programmes authorise a redeployment of the scope of the JCR into fields such as environment or consumer protection and a refocusing of its nuclear activities in the domains of security and safety.
This reorientation has also meant that the issue of the nuclear legacy of past JCR activities has been clearly stated, and has underlined how essential it is to dismantle obsolete installations and process nuclear waste.
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As Mrs Matikainen-Kallström illustrates clearly in her in-depth report on the programme on 'Preserving the ecosystem' (Euratom), the position as regards research on thermonuclear fusion has evolved over the last few years.
This is also mentioned by Mrs McNally.
The medium and long term prospects have changed.
We can now exercise a certain flexibility in the management of the key action on nuclear fusion, without undermining in any way the scientific work carried out in this field.
So, with a view to optimum use of Community funds, and taking fully into account the degree of urgency involved, the Commission proposes revising the distribution of Euratom programme resources, allocating ECU 955 million to indirect actions, including ECU 768 million for fusion, and ECU 305 million to the JCR, including ECU 24 million for the vital tasks of dismantling obsolete nuclear plant and waste management.
On the latter point, the Commission is working on a medium and long term action plan to resolve these hangovers from the past.
This approach requires everyone in the Community institutions to shoulder shared responsibilities, and I hope I can count on the support of the European Parliament.
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I would like to conclude with a few comments on the procedure followed.
As I have said, we are facing very tight deadlines.
Anxious to avoid the risk of delaying the launch of the fifth framework programme, the Commission decided to present to the Council authorities the parliamentary amendments it envisaged adopting in whole or in part, and to negotiate in advance their incorporation into the final text once these amendments have been voted through by Parliament.
It was able to do so thanks to the spirit of collaboration and openness demonstrated by Parliament, and I want to thank you sincerely.
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With the fifth framework programme, which will be launched at the same time as the euro, I was determined to make European research serve the Union's great aims, beginning with competitiveness and employment, as well as the expectations and needs of our fellow citizens.
And to answer a question asked earlier, as well as researchers and industrialists there will also be users in the advisory groups, who will be able to give us their assessment of the programmes.
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From the start the European Parliament has been fully associated with this enterprise and it has been able to make its mark.
In their structure, content and conditions of implementation, the specific programmes will bear the stamp of this Parliament.
Parliament can take full credit for the impact these programmes will have on the European economy and European society.
I am delighted with this and I thank you most sincerely for your invaluable contribution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 8.50 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Interpretation of the Rules of Procedure
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
I have been informed by the Green Group, pursuant to Rule 162(4), that it contests the interpretation of the provisions governing the discharge procedure that was announced to Parliament yesterday.
<P>
I would therefore remind the House that, as announced yesterday, the vote on this interpretation will take place at voting time today, in other words at 12 noon.
<P>
There is of course no question of us holding a debate on this matter now.
<P>
Rule 162 is perfectly clear.
We shall vote at 12 noon.
However, I will give the floor to Mrs Theato, who has asked to speak as chairman of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="Theato">
Madam President, I should like to request that the opinion drawn up by the Legal Service - which contains statements on this point -should also be made available to groups and Members. I do not know whether all Members have now received this opinion.
Yesterday, it was also submitted to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
That is difficult, Mrs Theato, since the interpretation has been given by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure.
It is that interpretation which has been contested, and the House knows its mind well enough to decide freely for itself.
It will do that at 12 noon today.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Janssen van Raay">
Madam President, on 12 January 1999, Mr Wijsenbeek and I are required to attend the Court of Justice in Luxembourg at 9.30 a.m. in proceedings on a question referred for a preliminary ruling on the basis of Article 177 by the District Court in Rotterdam.
We are therefore faced with a choice.
We would have to leave Strasbourg very early in the morning to travel to Luxembourg and would therefore probably miss the voting, so we must choose whether to go to Luxembourg or stay here to vote.
Who should decide?
This is a question that I raised yesterday as a point of order.
My lawyers tell me that, according to Rule 2 of the Rules of Procedure, it is Mr Wijsenbeek and myself who should decide.
If it is of overriding importance that we should be here, then we will inform the Court that we regret that we are unable to attend.
If we say that it makes no difference and that we would be fulfilling our parliamentary duties better in the interests of the citizens of Europe and the free movement of persons by going to Luxembourg, then we will unfortunately probably not be here for the voting.
It is up to us to decide, according to our lawyers.
But the Bureau says that on the basis of Rule 5 it must decide for us, and that its decision is that, unfortunately for the Court of Justice, we must be here throughout the voting, otherwise we will be fined half a day's allowance for failure to attend.
It has thus implicitly ruled that the half-day's allowance is income - think back to ground 21 in the Lord Bruce judgment - and is therefore subject to national taxation laws.
I promised Mr Gil-Robles yesterday in the corridor here in Parliament that I would let the Secretary-General have a short statement in French and English sometime this week, and I shall be happy to hand it over to you this week, Madam President.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Madam President, I would just like to say that the Court of Justice has indeed summoned me to attend on Tuesday, 12 January 1999 in the Wijsenbeek case.
I would also point out that we have already discussed this issue in the Committee on Legal Affairs of which you yourself are a member, Madam President, and that the case concerns the free movement of persons and the interpretation of Articles 7 and 8, on which Parliament itself brought proceedings, though its case was rejected as inadmissible.
I and my lawyer, Mr J.L. Janssen van Raay, who also happens to be my colleague here in the House, have ourselves brought proceedings on this issue, because as Members of the European Parliament and as ordinary citizens we are victims of the failure to implement Articles 7 and 8.
I would therefore ask you, Madam President, both as President and as the party which brought the earlier proceedings - even if they were declared inadmissible - to lend us all possible support and cooperation and not to insist that all Members must be here all the time, because that is a misinterpretation of the Rules as construed by myself and Mr Janssen van Raay.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="Pex">
Madam President, I have a comment on the Minutes, because the presidency yesterday committed an omission which could have serious consequences for relations between Parliament and the Council.
It was on the Council's common position on the European capital of culture for the years 2005 to 2019.
The deadline for any reactions expires today, but the presidency requested and was granted a postponement by the Council.
It is not clear why and when this postponement is to begin, because no announcement was made yesterday that the common position had been received.
You can put this right by announcing it now, which would mean that the deadline for reactions is postponed until 15 January.
The Committee on Culture decided unanimously yesterday evening to put before the plenary a declaration of intent to reject the common position.
If we do not react we shall achieve the exact opposite, which is that the common position will go through on the nod.
I would therefore urgently request that you make this announcement today, and I would also point out that this is the consequence of the procedure followed with documents received, which is that the President says that documents have been received and refers to the Annex that is later attached to the Minutes.
We all say yes, and have no way of checking whether what was agreed has actually been done.
It is only now, a day later, that I can officially see what has happened.
Because of this we had the unusual situation yesterday that, after the plenary and before the committee meeting, the services informed me that the announcement had been made, then after the committee meeting they said that it had not been after all.
These sorts of misunderstandings are, of course, extremely slipshod.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
Yes indeed, Mr Pex.
We are well aware of the situation, and I can assure you that the announcement will be made today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="Miller">
Madam President, I refer to last night's Minutes and the speech made by the newly elected colleague in this House from Scotland.
In his speech he referred solely and continually to Scotland.
Madam President, could you point out to the new colleague that this is a European Parliament and if he wants to continue with his narrow nationalist views maybe he should have been elected to the Scottish Parliament?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Madam President, I would like to make a further point concerning page 22 of the Minutes.
You will recall that after the rejection of my request that the report be referred back to committee, in accordance with Rule 129, I felt I had to point out the consequences of a vote of rejection by Parliament, and the President agreed with me that there could be other requests for referral back to committee.
This is not mentioned.
I wish to have it recorded not because I was right but because the question might be repeated, and for future reference I think it would be good to record that this was stated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
If it was not mentioned, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, it is because that is what the Rules say and so it was not considered necessary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García Arias">
Madam President, I would like to make a point relating to Question Time.
When we know which Commissioners are going to attend Question Time, we ask questions intended for those specific Commissioners.
But in this instance, the European Commission has decided that questions that were intended for Mr Van Miert, since they concerned competition policy, are to be answered by Mr Papoutsis, who is not going to attend Question Time during this part-session.
<P>
Madam President, I would like to protest to Parliament's Bureau because when we Members ask questions intended for specific Commissioners, it is because we know that they are the ones responsible for certain issues.
<P>
I know - or at least, I imagine - that we cannot now change the questions, but the Bureau should use its authority to monitor such matters.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Plooij-van Gorsel">
Madam President, you know that we all have to come here to Strasbourg for one week a month and that we are often deprived of news from our home countries.
The situation has been somewhat improved by the fact that we now have a television in our room broadcasting in all sorts of languages.
There is even a Dutch-language channel, but every time I come here I find that it has been switched off, and I have to make a number of telephone calls to have it restored.
Could the services perhaps ensure that when we arrive on a Monday the Dutch channel is also available?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
I am told that in the new building this will not be a problem, and it is certainly unfortunate for you not to be able to receive Dutch television.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Decision on urgent procedure
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="Colino Salamanca">
Madam President, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture, I would like to call on the House to approve the request for urgent procedure for the programme to supply agricultural produce to the Russian Federation, in accordance with the resolution adopted by the House on 19 November.
It appears that there is an urgent need to supply certain regions of the Russian Federation and certain groups - particularly the unemployed, sick and elderly - with agricultural produce.
Therefore, the Committee on Agriculture is asking Parliament to approve this request for urgent procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="President">
Does anyone wish to speak against this request?
<P>
If not, I shall put it to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament agreed to urgent procedure)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Discharge for 1996
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0502/98) by Mr Elles, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the discharge to the Commission in respect of implementation of the general budget of the European Communities for the 1996 financial year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Madam President, I should like to request that Mr Elles's report be referred back to committee pursuant to Rule 129 of the Rules of Procedure.
I would therefore ask you to call Members back so that they can take part in the vote.
I think the reasons are sufficiently well known.
I do not wish to prolong the procedure.
Thank you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="President">
Yes indeed, we shall vote without delay, but after hearing one speaker for and one against, as provided for by the Rules.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Madam President, I can only agree with Mrs Müller's request.
Her explanation of the reasons for this request was brief.
I too will be extremely brief as I explained yesterday why I considered a referral to be necessary.
I am therefore in favour of it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Dankert">
Madam President, in March we set out the conditions for the Commission to be given discharge.
The Commission has largely met those conditions, which means that there is now nothing to prevent us from doing what we said in March, namely giving discharge.
<P>
(Parliament rejected the request for referral back to committee)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="President">
We shall now proceed with the debate on the report by Mr Elles.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="Elles">
Madam President, I rise to present my final report on the 1996 discharge.
Last week in the Committee on Budgetary Control, a narrow margin came down in favour of giving discharge while voting across party lines.
Even so, this report itself is highly critical of the Commission's management.
We must now decide whether these criticisms merit refusal to grant discharge of this budget by the whole House.
<P>
There are three specific concerns that remain despite the valiant efforts of the budget Commissioner, Erkki Liikanen, to fill the gap left by the invisible Commissioner for financial control, Mrs Gradin.
<P>
First, the perceived lack of democratic control in the fight against fraud.
In all good faith, last October this House adopted the Bösch report, setting out a clear structure for an anti-fraud office - OLAF.
Despite the fanfare of the President of the Commission earlier this month in Brussels, announcing an independent institution to combat fraud, this proposal does not meet the request of Parliament.
Many fear it will make combating fraud more rather than less difficult, negating as it does the independent right of investigation in the case of internal checks.
<P>
Second, the perceived lack of coherence and sound financial management in external policies.
Information recently made available to Parliament by a courageous Commission official has confirmed many of our worst fears in several programmes.
The handling of these issues by the Commission has compounded the problem.
Not only have examples found during the discharge procedure revealed a real concern that irregularities are committed without individual Commissioners perceiving the need to take personal responsibility for their actions; but furthermore, the Commission has refused to make certain documents available to Parliament, the most flagrant disrespect of Parliament being shown in the ECHO case, where the text handed over was so heavily censored as to make it totally illegible.
<P>
Last and by no means least is the perceived lack of effective measures for improved administrative and budgetary management.
Not only have recent high-profile cases involving certain members of the Commission with regard to staff appointments caused severe damage to the credibility of the Commission, but also evidence given a few days ago to our committee revealed the scope for abuse in the appointment of high officials in the Commission where, I am afraid to say, it still seems that who you know is more important than what you know.
As testified, the inordinate power over appointments and resource allocations exposes the administrative structure to potential political interference in all matters of management unparalleled in Member States' public administrations.
These factors can be summarised by the notion that flaws in management organisation have inevitably led to operational distortions in implementing policies.
<P>
It is small wonder that staff morale in the Commission is at a low ebb.
In essence, not enough thought has been given since 1995 to how the Commission should be run.
Well qualified and hard-working officials have in many cases been asked to do too much with too little.
The secretive way in which high-level appointments are made has not helped.
These issues must be resolved as soon as possible.
<P>
The conclusions of the committee are drawn up with the purpose of establishing a work programme for the Commission over the next 12 months to ensure significant change to modernise the Commission by 1 January 2000.
Proposals include a revision of the Statute; a screening report of the Commission services so that Parliament can judge what staff the Commission needs to carry out its responsibilities effectively; and, not least, a code of conduct for the nomination of high-level officials.
Is it acceptable that certain posts are kept empty, sometimes for years, waiting for the appropriate cabinet member?
Is it appropriate that certain cabinets set aside a number of flags for themselves at the beginning of the Commission?
I would say it is not and this needs to be acted on as soon as possible.
<P>
This work programme was adopted in the committee by a vast majority.
It is deeply disquieting to have the feeling outside the Commission that any behaviour is accepted without fear of reprimand.
<P>
Where we have disagreed is on two essential aspects.
First, some maintain that this discharge report contains many criticisms which go beyond the 1996 year and therefore wish to just treat the discharge as a technical matter with no political overtones.
But specific evidence found relating to the 1996 budget year in many policy areas continues to be revealed by colleagues in their reports to the committee, as well as by journalistic investigation in several newspapers.
Yet still some turn a blind eye, seemingly not wanting to take account of the evidence presented.
<P>
The second point is the fallacious allegation presented that the discharge amounts to sacking the Commission - a vote of censure.
But this is illustrative of the manipulation to which many in this Parliament have been subjected, perhaps taking too much advice from those outside rather than looking at the specific provisions of the Treaty.
<P>
This discharge procedure is an entirely separate matter from that of censure, being a regular annual process which must be judged on its own merits.
<P>
A vote to censure the Commission has been suggested by a few parliamentarians - who are not with us at this time - but it is not a course I would support.
<P>
Why, then, did I vote in committee not to grant discharge to the Commission?
Not only are the substantive issues serious enough to justify not doing so, but the real truth is that the Commission is incapable of undertaking these reforms by itself.
Many of these issues have been on the table for years.
The reformers in the Commission have been unable to make headway against a wide range of vested interests.
They cannot succeed without the active support of our Parliament.
<P>
I therefore conclude by making an appeal on behalf of all those, whether inside or outside the Commission, who wish to see modernised institutions based on integrity, ready to implement the euro and welcome new members from the East.
To give discharge for 1996 at this juncture could only be interpreted as a whitewash, a message to continue as before, ignoring Parliament's requests.
We must now act not only for the long-term viability of our institutions but also for the credibility of our Parliament.
We must have the courage to shoulder our responsibilities, based on facts available to us.
Remember that when you all vote tomorrow you should be thinking of those who elected you and who would be in favour of a people's Europe.
I urge the House not to grant discharge on the 1996 budget.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="Schwaiger">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, one of the main criticisms of the implementation of the 1996 budget is that in that year - and with the substantial budgetary appropriations at its disposal - the Commission failed to implement the European Union's external policies effectively.
Neither the appropriations for PHARE and TACIS - the programmes for Central and Eastern Europe - nor those for the Mediterranean countries showed satisfactory levels of execution.
Only 15 % of the aid for reconstruction for Bosnia - and I am taking this as my example - was actually used.
The main reasons were the Commission's incapacity to take the required managerial measures in good time, and its inability either to deploy its staff effectively or request the additional resources necessary.
<P>
Compared with the United States, the reconstruction aid programme for Bosnia, for example, was grossly understaffed.
The European Union's inefficiency became legendary in Sarajevo.
Whether we still wish to grant discharge in the light of these facts - which belong in 1996 and can no longer be altered for that financial year - is something which the following criteria must decide: firstly, there must be a real improvement in the way in which the European Union operates in the region; secondly, comprehensive information about the measures taken should also be provided, so that Parliament has a clear understanding of where improvements have been made and where the weaknesses remain.
<P>
It is true that, following my report of April 1998, the number of staff working on the reconstruction of Bosnia was increased considerably.
The Commission is endeavouring to improve matters locally.
But it is still not clear whether the decentralisation of the management of the programme to the area, which we requested, is allowing targeted monitoring of the project.
As the Court of Auditors recently noted, the results are hard to see.
A large number of European non-governmental organisations - such as Caritas and Evangelisches Hilfswerk - do not qualify for the Commission's reconstruction aid.
The Commission passes on a large proportion of the money released by Parliament to the United Nations relief organisation, which makes it impossible for us to fulfil our monitoring obligations.
<P>
The cooperation of the directorate-general brought in to work on the reconstruction of Bosnia could be improved.
Despite repeated requests, Commissioner Liikanen is refusing to give information about the increase in staff appropriations which has been demanded. He is either withholding the necessary information from Parliament or giving evasive answers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="Pronk">
Madam President, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has discussed the budget in detail and has tried to come up with some improvements for payments under the Social Fund and in the other social items.
We note that there has been a gradual improvement in the situation over the last financial year, particularly as regards the Social Fund.
However, a number of problems arose at the end of the year because there was not enough money to pay for the projects that had been completed, and this is something we are likely to encounter again with this budget.
That was the first point I wished to make.
<P>
I also wanted to thank the rapporteur for the way in which he has examined this whole issue in such depth.
In the past the discharge was perhaps just a formality, and I sometimes have the impression that this is still more or less how it is viewed by the other side of the House, but nevertheless the fact is that we are now having a very detailed and important debate on one of the most fundamental elements of the European Union.
There is one point in the social section on which I am not yet in a position to comment, but which I would still like to say something about.
A letter was written to Mrs Aelvoet and sent via the Internet and was thus accessible to anyone in the House who wanted to read it.
A small section of the letter referred to Leonardo da Vinci, a vocational training programme that comes under the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
We have of course not been able to investigate this matter, and even when it was discussed in the committee this aspect of Leonardo was not on the agenda.
I would therefore request that it should certainly be looked at more closely, which is what we intend to do in the committee.
First of all, we need to examine whether 1996 was the only year concerned, or whether there were others.
We are going to have to go into this very carefully.
I cannot comment on the substance of the claims, but I believe they are serious enough for us to look into them very thoroughly.
This is another good reason for agreeing with the rapporteur's cautious approach to the discharge.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Dankert">
Madam President, I was rather surprised that a rapporteur who talked in such detail about the integrity of the Commission should place so little emphasis on the fact that he was speaking on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, because as far as I know the committee voted in favour of giving discharge, albeit by an extremely narrow majority.
I find the reactions in the House to be quite remarkable, because we now seem to be accepting that rapporteurs should no longer speak as rapporteurs but should suddenly be freed from their responsibilities, which is very strange.
<P>
To give discharge or not to give discharge, that is the question, and it is a very interesting one at that.
In March of this year, we postponed the discharge and we laid down five demands for the Commission.
The only question now is whether the Commission has done enough to meet those five demands.
The Committee on Budgetary Control itself has dropped three of the five because they have already been met over the last few months, and Commissioner Liikanen in particular has made exceptional efforts here.
There are two areas left where progress still needs to be made; Mr Elles has described one of them in detail, but the other goes way beyond the scope of the five demands we laid down last time, and we really cannot expect the Commission to solve its entire staffing policy problem in just a few months.
That would be quite ridiculous, and no one can expect it of the present Commission or its successor.
There is so much to do, and it has already largely resolved one of the most serious scandals, that of taking on staff outside the Commission without proper provision in the budget.
Agreement on this at least has been reached with the Committee on Budgetary Control, but there is still plenty to be done.
There is still the problem of the provision of information.
The flow of information from the Commission to the Committee on Budgets during the discharge procedure must be considerably improved if the discharge is to be meaningful, and I think we need to work towards an interinstitutional agreement to be able to deal with the discharge properly.
But again, these are two problems that could not have been solved in the short time since the discharge was postponed and on which further work will have to be done over the next few months or, when it comes to the staffing problem, even years.
<P>
A lot of issues have blown up since the discharge was postponed in March.
Newspapers such as Libération , Focus and Stern have revealed the various scandals and stories of mismanagement, the Court of Auditors' report on PHARE and TACIS and nuclear safety.
So there was some justification for including all sorts of other issues in the discharge debate, but I think that these are generally things that need to be examined in more detail and should be included in the 1997 discharge procedure which is just beginning.
So we must not be influenced by the tabloid press into changing our conditions for giving discharge.
If we think that the Commission has not done enough to meet our demands, then we can draw the necessary political conclusions from this and dismiss the Commission, rather than postponing the discharge again or refusing to give it or tabling a motion of no confidence.
Simply refusing to grant discharge is far too easy.
Article 206 is very clear on this point and says that discharge must in the end be given.
It may be postponed, but it cannot be refused.
This is why the no-confidence motion is the only instrument left.
<P>
This does not alter the fact that the resolution before us is extremely critical of the Commission.
The Socialist Group has tabled a large number of amendments to try to establish a better balance between the decision to give discharge and the text of the resolution.
We hope that these amendments will be approved and that the necessary balance will be created.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="Theato">
Madam President, this Parliament has the task of monitoring how the Commission handles European taxpayers' money.
The responsibility is ours alone.
The Council merely gives us a recommendation, but we have to decide whether we can give the Commission discharge in respect of its implementation of the budget or not.
However, to make this decision, we need to have the necessary information.
Since this was not the case, we had to postpone the discharge in March; nor were we in a position to decide in September, as announced.
It is now December, and we still do not have all the information we have requested, despite the Commission's recently sending us a document - which it considered to be exhaustive - with a view to obtaining the discharge.
<P>
On the other hand, Parliament can only have felt cheated, for example, when it received the UCLAF documents on ECHO which had been tampered with.
I ask you: can it be right for the institution under audit to determine on what and to what extent it wishes to be audited?
It is also about informing the competent judicial authorities.
In two resolutions in February and March, we called on the Commission to inform the competent judicial authorities swiftly whenever there was the suspicion - and I emphasise, suspicion - of fraud.
Until it was ensured that this was the case, discharge could not be given, according to the resolutions.
<P>
The Elles report unambiguously states, in paragraph 7, that this very condition has not been fully complied with.
The ECHO case illustrates this, but so does the MED affair.
We still do not know whether the Commission has handed over all the documents to the judicial authorities.
This puts its credibility at risk and damages the confidence that steps are being taken against cases of suspected fraud in its own ranks.
It is the same story with the Commission's response to the Bösch report on establishing an Anti-Fraud Office. The Commission's proposal of 2 December will have exactly the opposite effect of what it alleges it will achieve.
The resources and powers are poor enough as it is, and they are being eroded instead of consolidated.
<P>
When we vote on giving discharge to the Commission on Thursday, you will know the facts, as they are listed point by point in the Elles report.
Each of us then has to be answerable for being able to give discharge under these circumstances.
Based on what I know and after repeatedly scrutinising my assessment, I cannot accept the responsibility for doing so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Mulder">
Madam President, I should like to begin by congratulating Mr Elles.
I think that Parliament has seldom been so focused on the importance of the discharge as it has been in his report, and I welcome this.
My first question is this: what happens if the discharge is not given?
Would the Commission regard this as a motion of no confidence, or would it simply disregard it?
It is important for Parliament to know this.
<P>
I and my group also think that what the Commission has done since April this year, when conditions were first laid down for granting discharge, is important.
I feel that the Commission has shown good will in trying to solve the problems, but is this enough?
No, clearly not.
The resolution before us makes a number of very critical points which I think the Commission will take very seriously, because it is Parliament's right ultimately to decide on whether or not to give discharge, and the deadlines it mentions are going to have to be taken very seriously indeed.
<P>
I think that the interpretation given to Article 206 of the Treaty is also of crucial importance.
How far can the Commission go in providing Parliament with information without harming the personal interests of officials?
I think that we need to have a sort of covenant or, as Mr Dankert said, an interinstitutional agreement so that everyone knows what the position is in future.
<P>
Of the points made in the report, I think that the most important are the ones relating to the personal interests of officials and, secondly, the organisation of the Commission itself.
How do officials gain promotion?
What can prevent them from doing so?
There is a great deal of unease about this issue, and I think it needs to be sorted out as soon as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, if today's debate on giving discharge to the Commission in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Communities for the 1996 financial year is one of dramatic intensity and not without passion, it is because, unquestionably, we have gone beyond the bounds what is acceptable.
This debate has gone beyond technical issues to become political in the true sense of the word.
<P>
Successive audits by the Court of Auditors, which since 1994 has declined to provide positive overall assurance as to the legality and regularity of the transactions underlying the payments for the financial year, have condemned the way in which the Commission manages the operating appropriations allocated to it, whether for humanitarian interventions or the PHARE, TACIS and MEDA programmes or indeed the reconstruction programmes in the former Yugoslavia.
Not only are these appropriations used inefficiently or diverted from their target, but the lack of transparency in management has allowed real misappropriations of funds to the detriment of both the beneficiaries of the programmes and European taxpayers.
The compromises shown on a daily basis in the selection of operators call into question the highest authorities of the Commission, and there are serious flaws in the appointment of officials which cast doubt on the credibility of the institution.
The almost total absence of communication and coordination between the different Directorates-General and services of the Commission increases the lack of transparency in management and prevents monitoring procedures from functioning normally, encouraging the widespread lack of accountability among administrators.
<P>
All these shortcomings were thrust into the spotlight by the committees of inquiry set up by the European Parliament, for example on the tragic BSE affair and on fraud in Community transit.
Yet the Commission, instead of dealing with the problem head-on by undertaking a drastic reform of its structures and procedures and opting for transparency, still maintains its haughty or even contemptuous attitude towards the monitoring bodies and towards Parliament.
All the current operational problems were exposed by the European Parliament.
Need we point out that the serious fraud in the management of appropriations for tourism was exposed because one of our colleagues brought an action before the Belgian criminal courts, thus forcing the Commission to provide documents which it had hitherto refused to make available to the European Court of Auditors or to Parliament?
Officials who contributed to the inquiry are today being punished unjustly.
<P>
In the light of the gravity of the facts exposed and the obvious reluctance of the Commission to cooperate with the European Parliament, we must refuse to grant a discharge.
In March we gave the Commission respite by postponing the discharge to allow it to mend its ways.
It only half-listened.
Some of our colleagues today wish to grant the Commission a conditional discharge.
This is pointless and shows great hypocrisy.
Why would the Commission, whose mandate comes to an end in less than a year, achieve in the space of the next three months what it has so delayed doing hitherto?
And what means would we have to sanction the Commission if it appeared that, once again, it had not followed our recommendations?
Would we have the political courage to vote for a motion of censure during our last part-session in May?
Those who propose such prevarication actually want to allow the Commission to escape all political sanction.
<P>
The Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, to which the matter was referred at the request of the chairman of the Socialist Group, has given the opinion that any amendment in plenary that goes against the recommendation of the Committee on Budgetary Control, which proposes that the discharge should be granted, should be declared inadmissible. This vote was obtained under dubious circumstances,
<P>
whereas a previous vote had not approved this discharge, the votes being shared equally.
As for Mr Dankert, a former president of Parliament, he has the impertinence to tell us that we do not have the right to vote against granting discharge, although there is a precedent: in 1984 we refused discharge, and we refused it again following a report by Mr Wynn concerning the discharge by the EDF.
When procedural devices are used to prevent a parliament from expressing itself, democracy is in danger.
<P>
I am sure that you will not fall into this crude trap, that you will assume your full political responsibilities towards your electorate and that as a result you will refuse to grant a discharge to the Commission in respect of the implementation of the budget for the 1996 financial year.
Imagine, in a private sector company, an executive being granted discharge for its administration when the auditors refuse to testify, as did the Court of Auditors, to the regularity of the accounts.
By granting a discharge under these conditions we would be failing to fulfil our obligations under the Treaties to protect the interests of the taxpayers.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=30 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Miranda">
Madam President, we see the discharge process as an eminently political rather than an administrative process.
Nor can this process be analysed in the light of immediate interests, whether or not there are elections in the offing, or the stage which the Commission's term of office has reached - or, even, whether there might be a motion of censure.
<P>
We think that the European Parliament should regard the present discharge process purely in terms of the powers conferred upon it by the Treaty and it should exercise those rigorously and responsibly.
In these terms, the question before us is only what position to take in the light of the irregularities and instances of fraud that have been brought to light - and since we know that the Commission is undeniably responsible and that the Commission has failed to act, in particular to inform the European Parliament and the judicial authorities of the Member States.
<P>
We should also ask ourselves whether the answers given by the Commission are enough and whether they are in keeping with the seriousness of what has taken place and whether our minds can be at rest for the future.
For us, the response is a definite 'no' to all of these questions - for if we did grant the discharge in this present situation not only would the European Parliament be failing outright to assume its responsibilities but, inevitably, it would be seen as jointly responsible for the acts that it has itself been denouncing.
<P>
Furthermore, that would be in complete contradiction with the assessments which - despite everything - the Committee on Budgetary Control adopted last week.
Therefore, we believe that the European Parliament, at this moment and given that it does not have the slightest guarantees, should not grant the Commission its discharge.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, my group is determined not to grant discharge to the Commission.
It is no longer a question of whether we have enough evidence to do this, but how we judge these facts politically, and what the view of the majority will be.
I say to my fellow Members - and I am also thinking of those sitting in their rooms in front of their television screens - that this is Parliament's finest hour.
We all need to weigh up the facts, but what standards should we apply?
Each and every one of us has different loyalties to take into account: loyalties to individual Commissioners, to our party or to our government.
<P>
But as Members of the European Parliament, should we put personal, party political or national interests before the interests of Europe?
Should we disappoint the citizens of Europe who are now expecting Parliament to send out a clear signal?
Do we not also have a responsibility to the many excellent staff at the Commission?
Doubt has been cast on their ability to do the job for which they are qualified, just because a few are not called to account.
<P>
All too often these days - and in particular from our esteemed colleague, Mrs Green - I hear that Europe would be plunged into chaos if discharge were not given to the Commission.
Quite honestly, I take a very dim view of dramatising the situation.
It only obscures one's view of the essential point. What is the essential point in this case?
Obviously, it is the supervisory role which Parliament is assigned in the Treaty.
The citizens of Europe trust that this role will be fulfilled.
The atmosphere between the institutions is not exactly sweetness and light the whole time, but for all that, to talk immediately in such apocalyptic terms does not help one bit.
So, not so fast, not granting discharge is not a death sentence, but a yellow card for bad behaviour.
But we must send out this signal, so that the public knows that it can rely on Parliament.
<P>
Nor does it make any sense to say that we cannot be too hard on the Commission in view of our own problems.
Certainly, we should not get on our high horse, but this is about the Commission's failings alone.
We will not put an end to them by shamefaced introspection.
Let us judge the Commission for ourselves, and then in the future we will also apply the same standards even more so to ourselves.
In any case, my group will have no part in an organised display of irresponsible behaviour.
That is why we will be voting against giving discharge.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Parliament - demonstrating a sense of responsibility and awareness of its powers - voted by a large majority last March for a postponement of discharge. It did so pursuant to Annex V of the Rules of Procedure, which was perfectly acceptable then; I fail to understand why it has suddenly become so bad now.
<P>
The rapporteur, Mr Elles, had drawn attention to a number of grave problems, and Parliament performed its supervisory role to the full.
It seems to me that since then the Commissioner, Mr Liikanen, and the officials and Commissioners responsible have spared no efforts in attempting to respond to the serious and thoughtful stance adopted by Parliament in accordance with the Treaty.
<P>
Over the past few weeks, however, some have been seeking to transform this important and serious exercise into a purely political affair.
We have seen senior officials - people who may well be gone from the Commission a month from now - passing through the Committee on Budgetary Control, denouncing this and that, and the dossiers are mounting up.
Now, if this matter is to be played up into a political issue, where both institutions have everything to lose, well, the time is ripe and that is clearly the preferred option, not of a majority but of a rather odd cross-party minority extending from the far right to the far left of this House, taking in a number of groups on the way.
I doubt that Europe will emerge strengthened.
Madam President, I take an extremely dim view of the fact that the handling of discharge has been transformed into a political issue. Had the other side won 14 to 13 in committee, discharge would undoubtedly have been granted, but since that side was defeated it now becomes an irregular vote.
<P>
I believe that it was irresponsible to place us in this situation: either this exercise is not conducted at all, or it is conducted on the basis of a broad consensus in this House, so that the message reaches not only the Commission but also, if I may say so, the governments and public opinion.
We are a fortnight away from the introduction of the single currency and, as it happens, six months away from elections, and I am entirely convinced that Mr Pasty is initiating his election campaign.
His group has always opposed the building of Europe; fair enough - whether or not this is an anti-Commission election campaign does not change the background.
<P>
I do not believe that this is an effective way of conducting our debates.
Our resolution, which will be put to the vote on Thursday, remains critical - as we have always been - and demanding of the Commission; it calls on the Commission to improve its internal operations, and I am convinced - or rather, I hope - that in his reply Mr Liikanen will tell us his thoughts on some important parts of the document being put to the vote.
But please let us not transform this vote into an exclusively political one, as some have attempted to do.
I would say to certain members of one of the most active groups in this House what the Gospel says: 'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone', if I remember rightly.
<P>
I think we must be just a little more consistent with what has gone before, and not seek to transform this exercise into a settling of scores, which has no raison d'être.
Political and national elections are one thing, ladies and gentlemen; our debate is another!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="President">
As permitted by the Rules, Mr Pasty has asked for the floor to make a personal statement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Madam President, I cannot simply ignore the remarks just made by Mr Dell'Alba to the effect that my group has always been against European construction.
This is completely incorrect.
To denounce, as I have done, the failures of a European institution in fulfilling its duties towards European citizens and taxpayers, is not, in my opinion, acting against European construction but, on the contrary, in favour of it. After all, the construction of Europe will not be able to progress without sufficient confidence in the European institutions, the Commission of course and also Parliament, and Parliament must exercise its responsibilities.
It has responsibilities under the Treaty and it must exercise them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Madam President, the majority of the Committee on Budgetary Control propose that we grant a discharge to the Commission for the 1996 financial year.
It does so, as it did in 1994 and 1995, even though the Court of Auditors has declined to provide positive assurance as to the regularity of the accounts.
Therefore, we are effectively in a situation in which, although the accounts are claimed to be incorrect, we would grant a discharge and we would do so by using procedural devices, by saying that amendments are not allowed, by saying that the Rules of Procedure take precedence over the Treaty, by using devices.
<P>
I am in favour of refusing to grant a discharge, for the reasons given in particular by Mr Elles and Mr Pasty.
Refusing to grant a discharge is not to target one Commissioner or another.
It is not to target the Commissioners personally, it is to give a verdict on a system, a system guided by the philosophy that we need to spend more and that not spending more means curbing European construction, a system in which questioning the operation of an institution such as the Commission would be considered as holding Europe back, whereas of course it in fact allows it to advance.
<P>
Never before have there been so many irregularities, so many scandals within the Commission.
Never before have we seen so many officials denounce anonymously to Members of Parliament what they see, what they hear.
This is why Parliament must exercise its responsibilities.
It is because some people want to grant it powers that it is not capable of exercising when it has them that I will vote against granting a discharge, and I am grateful in advance to all those who are going to hand a convincing argument to people like me who believe that it is the Member States who can best monitor things, that is, all those who are preparing to vote in favour of the discharge.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Féret">
Madam President, the Elles report, which provides us with a list - very probably incomplete - of the numerous tricks the Commission was guilty of in 1996, is of exceptional importance because of the gravity of the facts it contains.
<P>
We are aghast at the Commission's inability to manage huge sums of money, paid, we must remember, by the taxpayers, and at the great skill it has displayed in concealing this.
We are appalled by the contempt in which the Commission holds Parliament.
We are outraged to learn, from the media, that European officials who might have been tempted to reveal to Parliament the criminal acts they have witnessed, are being threatened by their superiors.
<P>
Numerous questions addressed by the European Parliament to the Commission, such as those concerning Mrs Cresson directly, or the Périlux affair relating to humanitarian aid, or indeed the dubious management of funds intended for statistical studies, have still not been answered.
But of course the Commission does not have a monopoly on embezzlement.
What can we say about the skulduggery surrounding the construction of the International Congress Centre in Brussels and, even more so - in fact much more so - the construction of the large 'object' just a short distance away from here, which may one day end up being our headquarters?
If the Eurosceptics were short of arguments we have certainly given them some.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
Mr President, the issues which led to us deferring the approval of the accounts in the spring have for the most part been resolved to our satisfaction.
The questions which the Commission has still not dealt with are all ones which only affect the accounts indirectly, or not at all.
It has therefore now come as a bolt from the blue that an unholy alliance of Conservatives, Liberals and extremists is threatening to reject the accounts for 1996.
Everyone in the Committee on Budgetary Control agrees that the Commission has acted in a way that is very much open to criticism, but the point now is to join together in finding constructive solutions to the problems that have been revealed.
At worst, rejecting the accounts now may mean that good Commissioners like Mr Liikanen, who is the first Commissioner ever to have shown some interest in clearing things up, will be forced to resign.
In such a case, however, I would like to see one or two others go as well.
At best, it may result in the EU having a lame-duck Commission for six months, a period in which there are more important things on the agenda.
I would just mention the introduction of the euro, the work on enlarging the EU to include the new applicant countries and the forthcoming elections to our own institution, and perhaps that is why this joker is being played here - there are some people who want to make a name for themselves in an election campaign at home, and this issue is being used for that purpose.
<P>
The voting yesterday and today shows that there is a clear majority in Parliament in favour of closing the accounts for 1996.
However, this does not mean that the Commission is now being given a permanent carte blanche for all the years to come.
It means that the European Social Democrats will monitor the Commission night and day in order to uncover the truth for the benefit of the ordinary citizens of Europe.
I would advise the Commission to be on its mettle in the future.
We shall be constantly snapping at its heels, and while we were a watchdog before, now we shall be one with teeth, so that we can clear up all these matters.
The Commission has shown the will to do this, for which I think it should be rewarded, and so everyone else should stop using this for their own personal election campaigns.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Garriga Polledo">
Mr President, the European Parliament must remain a place of negotiation and compromise.
Within the interinstitutional balance, this is the place for negotiation and compromise.
<P>
We are not a House of confrontation, as a national parliament would be, because we do not have a government here to support or oppose.
<P>
The Commission has not been elected by us, but it is our duty to help it work better.
<P>
The greatest achievements of this Parliament have come about as a result of cooperation with the Commission.
Parliament and the Commission are the only two truly European bodies and, where possible, we must work in the same direction.
<P>
This is not the ideal time to go our separate ways.
We cannot close the door to negotiations with the Commission by refusing to grant discharge.
<P>
The Elles report includes a proposal for a work programme in paragraph 26.
This work programme is the key to the future relations between Parliament and the Commission, but it cannot be implemented in a context of interinstitutional confrontation in which the Commission is condemned or censured - as certain political groups have already said they want to see happen - or, simply, in which the Commission is in a weaker position for what remains of its mandate than it is in today.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, if we want the Commission successfully to complete its reorganisation - which is obviously essential - if we want it to respond to the many accusations of poor management, and if we want the European Parliament to have greater democratic control over the Community institutions, then we must not close the only door we have left to negotiation.
<P>
Therefore, to keep this door open, I would urge you to grant discharge under the same terms as the Elles report was approved in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Kjer Hansen">
Mr President, the question of whether or not to grant discharge is one that turns on Parliament's role as an authority which exercises budgetary control.
It is in fact our credibility which is at stake, because if we give a discharge to the Commission, we shall be assuming joint responsibility for all the outstanding problems.
Our work has not been particularly encouraging in the last nine months, when I think of how we have had to drag information out of the Commission and how we have had to fight for the slightest changes.
The worst thing, to my mind, has been the attempts to disclaim responsibility for various mistakes and scandals.
It has also been disappointing that, although we have repeatedly given new deadlines, there are a great many things which have not been followed up by the Commission.
<P>
In my view, this is not a question of wanting to send the Commission packing.
My aim is to ensure that the problems are resolved, that the EU is adapted to new tasks, to the major challenges that are facing us, and that the EU is prepared for and copes with its enlargement to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
It is above all the European Parliament which, as the institution that represents our electors, will be held responsible by our taxpayers for how we use money in the EU.
The point is therefore for us to live up to our responsibility and do what we can to bring about a sound and effective administration.
<P>
There are some things which have been resolved after a long campaign of pressure.
However, there are still some serious outstanding problems and an ineffective administration.
It is completely unacceptable that two, three or four years should go by before political decisions are put into practice.
There are the problems with staff policy, and there is a lack of internal procedures where irregularities and corruption are suspected.
The proposal which the Commission has put forward regarding changes in UCLAF is an insult to all those who wish to have a clear approach, because what we have here is the Commission wanting to keep full control over what is to be investigated and how it is followed up.
<P>
Some people have talked about the consequences of refusing to grant discharge.
I believe that granting a discharge would have the most consequences, because that will not solve the outstanding problems and we would be playing our hand poorly on behalf of Parliament.
If we can now accept what it takes for us to refuse discharge for a second time, and ultimately we will find it hard to explain to our voters how it fits in with our responsibility to...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Mr President, I do not consider that we are talking about a political issue or about an institutional dispute between the bodies.
<P>
Anyone who claims that the subject we are debating is a difference of opinion between socialists and populists, or claims that it just concerns a shift of balance between the bodies, is in a way trying to force the hand of the Members.
Indeed, the Commission is the supranational body best suited to our purposes and is Parliament's best ally.
Indeed, I could add that the Commission is one of the best bureaucracies I know.
However, it suffers the weakness and, if you will, the isolation of unaccountability. This is brought out very clearly in the Court of Auditors report, which refuses to confirm that all is going well.
And this is where Parliament can play a very simple part, by striving to secure the trust of Europe's citizens in our institutions and in the building of Europe.
Anything else, I repeat, is rhetoric and blackmail.
Consequently, we cannot approve discharge.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
Mr President, of course it is not Parliament's business to investigate fraud; that is not what we are doing.
According to the Treaties, however, the European Parliament does have a horizontal remit to check that taxpayers' money is being correctly spent within the EU.
Political conclusions must then be drawn.
<P>
The question we have to ask ourselves is this: has the Commission managed to administer the European taxpayer's money in the best possible way?
I think not.
As the days go by, more and more reports of alleged fraud and suspected irregularities are coming in.
Yet the Commission is not coming forward with all the documents - and that is precisely the problem.
Lack of transparency within the Commission, its failure to produce all the information, simply encourage corrupt practices and nepotism.
It is the institution itself and ordinary taxpayers who are the losers.
What is needed is access to documents and an open system of administration.
Those who vote to grant discharge are effectively acquitting the Commission of the many allegations made against it. They are flatly dismissing criticism of the way the Commission spends our money.
<P>
I am very disillusioned at the way in which the PSE Group seems to be shielding the Commission, tolerating both its cavalier attitude towards taxpayers' money and its secretive style of operation.
The Green Group and I will naturally be voting against discharge.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, as democratic nationalists and regionalists, we are unable to give discharge today.
In granting discharge, the European Parliament would be guaranteeing its citizens that their money was being spent as economically and efficiently as possible and that the institutions were doing everything in their power to provide the best possible protection against fraud, corruption and organised crime, and we feel that we cannot, in all conscience, say that today.
The people of Europe have little confidence in the European institutions, accusing them of being overly interfering and wasteful, and of delaying and failing to act effectively when action is required.
Giving the Commission discharge now when everyone knows that there are major abuses and inefficiencies in handling European funding would rightly be seen by the public as a failure to take things seriously.
Our responsibility as representatives of the European Parliament is at stake here.
<P>
Giving discharge would be circumventing a number of reasons which Parliament gave earlier for not granting discharge.
The Commission has clearly argued that improvements have been made, which we acknowledge, but there is still a lack of democratic responsibility in the areas of combating fraud, tourism, MED, ECHO and so on.
Need we go on?
We also feel that the new proposals are not adequate and do not provide appropriate measures for improving administrative and budgetary policy.
Commissioners, you must realise that cronyism and nepotism are clearly endemic, and the public are no longer prepared to tolerate the combining of interests that this involves.
As far as Parliament is concerned, there is still not sufficient access to the information we need if we are to carry out parliamentary controls properly.
The Commission has threatened that if discharge is not given the Commission will resign.
What sort of a threat is that?
Clearly everyone must take his or her own responsibility here and now.
We are currently being asked whether we can give discharge with a good conscience.
If not, and if there are consequences to be drawn from this, everyone will have to decide for themselves.
There may be a motion of no confidence, or maybe not.
That is not the issue at present.
The Commission can draw its own conclusions, either collectively or individually.
We certainly regret that motions of no confidence cannot be tabled against individual Commissioners.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Samland">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would say to Mrs Müller that it is always Parliament's finest hour when we hold debates here, not only when we are discussing Article 206.
Article 206 stipulates that for the purposes of giving the discharge, Parliament shall examine the accounts - the financial statement and the annual report by the Court of Auditors - for 1996, so not for subsequent years.
Now you have claimed today, Mrs Müller - and this is something I cannot overlook - that granting discharge is an organised display of irresponsible behaviour.
Those are the very words you used.
I categorically refute this, because granting discharge is not an irresponsible act; it provides an answer to the following question: is the discharge procedure an act of revenge on the existing Commission, or is it an invitation to establish new systems within the Community to ensure that the mistakes of the past are not repeated?
<P>
I am surprised to see all these colleagues taking the floor today, when I have never before heard them speak during the political debate of the last nine years on developing new procedures.
Mrs Müller, I can tell you that it was the Committee on Budgets which was responsible for making sure that the director-general responsible for tourism at that time was driven from his post, because we entered the appropriations for Commission salaries in the reserve.
Five days later he was gone.
So do not come to me with the same old story where this issue of the discharge is concerned.
We listed six points on 31 March.
Replies were given to four of those six points; questions do actually remain on the other two, and we need to find answers to them.
<P>
The first point is the BATs.
Nobody in this House needs to tell me anything about what the Commission has done in recent years.
It has spent around DEM 460 million - ECU 230 million - on staffing outside the structure of the budget.
Contrary to the opinion being propagated far and wide by the PPE Group, this does not constitute fraud. The fact is that money was illegally taken from the budget for equipment and spent on staffing.
In the 1999 budget procedure, we have an arrangement stating this: transparency is now restored with regard to the ECU 230 million.
If there is a further arrangement on BATs - which is not envisaged at the present time - this will automatically entail disciplinary action being taken within the Commission.
That is the result of politics and not of revenge!
<P>
That is why I conclude - on the basis of the list of criteria which we drew up in this House on 31 March - that we can actually grant discharge.
I also believe that from a political point of view - because we are not just bean-counters, we are politicians - it is right to say that we do need a Commission in the Agenda process.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Kellett-Bowman">
Mr President, this debate has shown that the procedure on the 1996 discharge has been the most difficult ever.
I wonder whether it would have been a good idea to relay it to all the Commission officials.
<P>
Last March Parliament was quite correct to defer discharge and gave five reasons for doing so.
Now we have to decide whether the Commission has performed sufficiently well on these five points to merit discharge.
This calls for all of us to make some highly subjective decisions.
We have before us a report which had 106 amendments in committee - a record for the discharge.
Lord Tomlinson and I, the joint rapporteurs on transit fraud, are happy that the Commission has progressed sufficiently on the matter of computerisation.
We do not blame the Commission for the fact that their consultants failed.
<P>
Mr Pasty questioned whether there could be a conditional discharge.
Every discharge decision is conditional in that it is accompanied by a report with paragraphs of resolution which the Commission undertakes to deal with on receipt of discharge.
So that is a condition; and there are many strong paragraphs in the resolution.
<P>
I am glad the Committee on Budgetary Control approved discharge last week, albeit by a small margin.
I believe that the House should confirm that vote on Thursday, by granting discharge to the Commission for the year 1996.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sandberg-Fries">
Mr President, if citizens are to have faith in European cooperation, then freedom of information and good governance must prevail.
We are now debating whether to grant discharge in respect of financial management in 1996. No one would dispute that there are grounds for the tough criticism which Parliament has addressed to the Commission on a number of points.
And there is broad agreement in the House on the additional measures necessary to reassure us, as the elected representatives of Europe's citizens, that fraud and mismanagement will not occur in future. There is equal consensus on the need for transparent administration.
The issue today, though, is how we can best achieve the changes we are advocating.
<P>
I am convinced that most people, on reflection, would rather see a parliament working positively for change than one which allowed anger and irritation to gain the upper hand.
Parliament's attitude to date has, I feel, been particularly constructive.
Unflinching examination of the workings of the Commission has initiated a whole range of action and, in our report, we are now laying down a series of clear conditions for granting discharge.
And I doubt that this House will rest until its demands have been met.
<P>
We would not however be behaving with any degree of responsibility if we refused discharge or submitted a motion of censure - which would be a logical consequence of such a decision.
Two elements need to be borne in mind. Firstly, forcing the Commission to resign while Europe has weighty matters on its agenda would be very serious indeed.
We cannot afford to deprive the EU of leadership at such a juncture.
<P>
Secondly, a vote of no confidence is an indiscriminate instrument. The entire Commission would be tarred with the same brush - including, for example, Commissioner Liikanen, who has demonstrated both the will and the capacity to come to grips with the problems.
There would be no sense in such a move.
The European Parliament should set aside this meaningless and potentially damaging posturing and rely henceforth on its own ability to engineer true change.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Tillich">
Mr President, I regret that the 1996 discharge procedure is not focused on the matter in hand, but has become a political football in the debate here in the plenary.
The only explanation I can find for the Socialist Group's coordinator in the Committee on Budgetary Control stepping down is that she cannot reconcile the way this issue is being dealt with in her own group with her conscience.
<P>
The facts are clear and sufficient.
This is not about individual cases, but about the organisation of the Commission's work as a whole, which makes the cases we are talking about here - which have occurred in connection with MED, ECHO, Leonardo and so on - a possibility, which creates favourable conditions for them, and which in principle does not prevent them from happening.
I emphasise quite specifically that this is not about the Commission per se as a whole, but about the criticisms levelled at several Commissioners.
We are thus expecting the Commission to state its position on this.
Mr Samland, it is clear that we are discussing the 1996 discharge.
You emphasised that.
We know that some things have changed in the meantime - and for the better.
But the fact is that there has not been an improvement on every point.
That is why we are not assessing the situation in 1998; that will come later.
<P>
I ask all Members still in doubt about which way they should vote whether they believe that anyone will take us seriously in the future, when we have debated these serious accusations against the Commission today, if we grant discharge in respect of the 1996 budget?
To do so would actually be to give the Commission a clean bill of health, a confirmation that everything was in order in 1996.
The agitation of recent weeks would then actually have been nothing but play-acting.
In accordance with the Treaty, we, the European Parliament - as Mr Pasty said - have a responsibility to the taxpayer to confirm that the Commission is using the appropriations in a proper manner.
I cannot accept responsibility for this and will therefore also be voting against granting discharge to the Commission.
<P>
Mr Dankert, the fact that we are having a legal dispute is something which should, in principle, go down as a black mark against us, because it actually shows the spirit of the European institutions and those who created these treaties.
We in Europe are always right and we in Europe always act as we should.
That is the only way I can understand the interpretation, at least the one now preferred by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
What I mean to say is that we must also be able to contemplate doing the opposite of what we are discussing today, namely refusing discharge.
<P>
I must ask those Members on the other side of the House in the Socialist Group, whether it is in accordance with democratic principles - at least this is what I have heard - for dissenters within your group, such as Mrs Wemheuer and Mr Bösch, not to have been allocated any speaking time by their group.
In our group anyone can speak, whether they support or oppose granting discharge on the budget.
<P>
(Applause) Mr Samland, if you are accusing us of seeking revenge ...
<P>
(Heckling) ... then of course you really are wide of the mark.
You yourself pointed out in your speech that we only settled the BATs issue in the 1999 budget procedure, so that will only apply in the 1999 budget year.
Today we are discussing the discharge for the 1996 budget!
That is why I see it as populism on your part to accuse us of seeking revenge.
I do not believe that this has anything to do with revenge; you have to face the facts - we are talking about 1996.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="President">
Mr Blak has the floor for a point of order, which I hope is indeed a point of order.
If it is to make a personal statement, you will have to wait until the end of the debate.
Which Rule are you raising this under?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
Mr President, I am sorry to ask for the floor on a point of order, but the Socialist Group has now been attacked several times ...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="President">
Since this is not a point of order, you will have the floor at the end of the debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Morgan">
Mr President, I think the Socialist Group position is extremely clear and that is why it has been given very forthrightly this morning.
One of the main roles of the European Parliament is to check the Commission to ensure that taxpayers' money is being spent properly and with accountability.
This is no easy task when we are presented with obstacles of the kind evident during the 1996 budget procedure.
Perhaps the most serious charge of all against the Commission is the lack of democratic accountability in that Parliament has been hampered in its attempts to gain access to information which would point to or dispel allegations of fraud.
The reluctance with which the Commission has forwarded documents gives cause for concern and the attempts to conceal, sometimes admittedly with reason, the names of officials being investigated has descended into farce.
<P>
The problems encountered in the execution of the MED and ECHO programmes need major structural answers to ensure systems are in place to avoid a similar situation arising.
There can be no question that the implementation of the external policies has had a negative effect on the EU's reputation.
Nevertheless, since the postponement of the discharge in March, improvements are evident in some fields including the transit system and the SME sector.
<P>
For the European public, fraud is a serious issue.
We need to tackle it seriously or the whole boat will go down because of a few wreckers who are out to destroy the European voyage.
The pressure will in future increase, not decrease, to keep the accounts clean and transparent.
With the firm note of warning in the Amsterdam Treaty, we must heed the Court of Auditors' view on the global assurance of accounts.
This will be a new formal departure in future.
Lessons must be learned, in particular, as Mr Elles has highlighted, in the field of staff appointments.
But I will be voting along with my political group in accordance with the committee's position to grant discharge.
I believe that not granting discharge should be linked to rejection of the Commission as whole.
That is what would happen in the business community - the company would be closed.
<P>
The Commission has moved a long way since March.
Mr Liikanen, in particular, has been tireless in his efforts to clean up the act and, with the introduction of the single currency on the horizon and the need for an agreement on Agenda 2000, this is not the time to create turmoil and havoc in the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the 1996 budget year was certainly not a glorious chapter in the history of the European Union.
The BSE crisis was at its height. It was also a year of scandals.
What can, what must the European Parliament do to force the necessary changes?
<P>
In spring of this year, Parliament postponed the discharge and drew up a list of demands.
Some - though not yet all - of these demands have been met.
This may not be enough.
So should we refuse discharge?
Yes, possibly.
<P>
But - as today's debate and the debates of recent days have so clearly shown - for many this is obviously not only about a technical process.
Today's rhetoric has shown that Parliament wishes to make its mark by saying that we have to send the Commission packing.
<P>
At the time of the BSE crisis, we chose the constructive method of work programmes.
After two years, this has - thank goodness - proved to be the right decision.
Today we have come so far that we are now already in a position to discuss reopening beef markets in the Union.
That is why constructive cooperation is also the option we should choose in the discharge procedure.
<P>
In my opinion, paragraph 26 in the Elles motion is actually the decisive one.
It contains the Commission work programme.
As several others have already requested, I would also very much like the Commission to tell us its views on paragraph 26, and when and how it believes it will be able to perform these tasks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Sarlis">
Mr President, I must first say that this year's discharge procedure has been unlike any other.
For the first time, we have been inundated by special reports from the Court of Auditors denouncing malpractices and irregularities in the Commission's administration, and giving the figures.
<P>
It must be said that we on the Committee on Budgetary Control are neither policemen nor detectives, but faced with the pile of special reports produced by the Court of Auditors, we have a duty to take action.
And I say all this despite the fact that, like other speakers, I too wish to stress the very positive part played by Commissioner Liikanen, who has really tried and is trying, for the first time in history, at least from what I have seen over the past nine years, to give us facts and figures and to see something done about it.
But the problem is that Mr Liikanen cannot achieve much because there is a system in the Commission which ensures that even the best efforts are frustrated.
Commissioner, I doubt whether you will be able to achieve what you will promise us here, in good faith, to do.
That also explains the reactions from within the Commission.
<P>
For the first time on the Committee on Budgetary Control, we have accusation made by specific individuals which cannot be disregarded and which must be taken very seriously.
Even the press in Europe is saying that a vote for discharge would be 'suicide du Parlement européen ' - suicide for the European Parliament - and it explains why it regards it as 'suicide': some will vote because there is a majority of socialist Commissioners, while others will vote according to supposedly national interests.
I think such a development is quite unacceptable, and that is why at present I believe that refusal to grant discharge would strengthen the hand of those who desire it - the majority of the Commission - so that they can set about internal restructuring.
It would help people like Mr Liikanen and others to achieve what must be done internally, so that we who are Europeans can see ...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fabra Vallés">
Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking James Elles for the efforts he has made to reflect in his document all the reports that have been presented on this issue, which were guided throughout by the invaluable work of the Court of Auditors, the specific assistance provided by UCLAF, the help given by Financial Control - which was not always fully made use of - and the participation of all the members of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
<P>
I firmly believe that, irrespective of the result of the final vote, Parliament's view is and will be unanimous.
The European Commission's management can and must improve.
Parliament's reaction to the lesson learned must be unanimous: we cannot continue to approve budgets that meet the Commission's material demands, yet deny it the human resources needed to ensure that they are properly managed.
Together, we need to be able to find the correct relationship between cost and efficiency.
<P>
A reorganisation such as that required of the European Commission can only be tackled with the conviction, the will and the strength of the Council, the Commission and, of course, Parliament.
And that will not be possible while the Treaty and our Rules of Procedure are not aligned, while the responsibility is shared and everyone must be treated in the same way, and while the Commission's weakness is such that it prevents it from taking any decisions.
<P>
I therefore think that, for the credibility of the institutions and the Union itself, it would be better for those in charge, who are 'out on bail', to solve the problems created. If it turns out that they do not fulfill the commitments they have made to Parliament, the guarded trust we have put in them in this part-session should be withdrawn.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Mr President, it does not seem to me that the question is being asked in the most usual terms.
Despite the 1984 precedent, despite the wording of our Rules of Procedure, both of which take quite serious liberties with the Treaty, it seems to me that the problem does not lie in giving our opinion on whether to refuse to grant discharge.
Rather, we are in a situation where in fact we either grant the discharge or we do not grant it, and I believe Mr Dankert is right to say this, even if the conclusions I draw from this are politically the opposite of his.
Granting the discharge means closing the dossier.
Not granting the discharge means leaving the dossier open.
Where this issue is concerned there can be no definitive refusal, no refusal that applies for the entire administrative future.
After all, if this were the case, we would have to accept that the discharge procedure, which in fact consists of approving the results of the financial year and accepting the balances that must be carried over to the following financial year, could mean that the accounts presented to us were found to be definitively irregular, which is obviously out of the question.
<P>
The question we are faced with for the moment is: should we grant a discharge today?
The answer is obviously that we should not.
Parliament is not sufficiently well informed of what happened in the course of the 1996 financial year.
We have control over the clocks and the calendar.
We have no reason to stop the clock, to stop taking evidence, when each day brings us more information, true or false, on the financial year under consideration.
I will vote not to grant discharge but that does not mean that I refuse it definitively.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, the Elles report includes numerous points concerning which the Commission has already stated its position in meetings of the Committee on Budgetary Control and also in written form.
I hope that all Members have had a chance to read our written replies to all the questions about the draft report which we received earlier.
I do not wish to reiterate here what was said in that context, except to correct one point.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, and also Mr Pasty to some extent, gave a wrong interpretation of the Court of Auditors' report on DAS.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy said that the Court of Auditors did not give a positive declaration on the accounts of the Communities.
That is wrong.
When we talk about the Court of Auditors' report we must be extremely exact.
Otherwise we abuse the powers of an important external control institution.
<P>
What did the Court of Auditors say?
As far as the accounts are concerned, it gave a positive declaration.
As far as commitments are concerned, it gave a positive declaration.
As far as own resources are concerned it gave a positive declaration.
But where it has not been able to give a positive declaration, is in underlying transactions.
There I would ask you to read the Court of Auditors' report for this year, which states that in the field of agriculture, these normally take place at the level of final beneficiary in Member States.
They have no impact on the budget because the recovery of the clearance of accounts is on the same level as the level of the errors found.
<P>
Secondly, on the structural funds, it says that there the level of error is higher.
They do not always have an impact on the budget but it is still too high.
We must draw the right conclusion.
Together with you, we have tried to change the system for management of structural funds.
For the year 1998 the Commission has accepted the eligibility sheets and will apply the system of corrections to put things right.
But, even more important, now that the whole reform of the structural funds is in the hands of the Council, your opinion is also needed.
We need a clear system where if Member States detect an irregularity, they can transfer the money to a good project.
If they do not, the Court of Auditors or the Commission will recover the money for ever.
We need systems which control well and we must find these systems.
<P>
I also want to say that I am ready to receive criticism of the Commission, but that the Court of Auditors has criticised the Member States little more than today's debate in this area, and also as regards 1996.
<P>
I come now to paragraphs 26 and 27 and also the amendments which were mentioned.
Firstly, a point on the fraud investigation office.
I have very little to add to what President Santer said when he presented the proposal on 2 December.
The Vienna European Council last weekend welcomed the Commission proposal and advised the institutions to examine the proposal with a view to taking a decision without delay - I stress, without delay.
I would like to make it clear that, according to the proposal, the office will enjoy full freedom to conduct internal investigations on its own initiative inside the Commission and other institutions.
This legislative procedure which has started offers Parliament and the Council a good opportunity to express their views, which of course will be fully taken into account.
We shall see what will be the final outcome of the legislative procedure.
<P>
Point B on the Staff Regulations: the Commission has had some internal social conflicts in that very sensitive and difficult area.
In order to resolve a conflict we set up a reflection group on personnel policy chaired by Sir David Williamson, former Secretary-General of the Commission, and the group submitted its final report on 9 November.
The group was composed of representatives of the trade unions and staff associations and of the administration.
The report is the starting point for modifications of the Staff Regulations.
<P>
Before proceeding to legislative proposals to the Council and Parliament, the report must go through an extensive consultation process with the other institutions and with representatives of the staff.
The European Parliament has reiterated its will to be thoroughly consulted in this area.
Consultations with the staff are already under way and interinstitutional consultation has started in parallel.
The College of the Heads of Administration has already discussed the report and the first meeting at the level of the Directors of Personnel for all institutions will be held the day after tomorrow, Thursday 17 December.
<P>
Conceptually, the Williamson report can be split into two parts.
The first part is about modernising the European public service.
It covers the re-examination of the structure of the Commission's human resources, recruitment, training, review of career development and the policies of equal opportunities and non-discrimination.
In addition, a review of the balance of incentives and sanctions will be carried out. These include both disciplinary procedures and professional incompetence.
<P>
The second part concerns the allowances of the officials of the European institutions.
As far as the salaries of officials are concerned, they are guided by the rules which were adopted by the Council in 1991 for ten years and annexed to the Staff Regulations.
On the basis of the interinstitutional consultation and the social dialogue, the Commission intends, by the end of January 1999, to present an indicative timetable for presenting communications on the reforms to Parliament and to the Council.
The idea is first to present communications on the contents and then, on the basis of the discussion, to make the final proposals for modifications.
<P>
Point (c) on the evaluation of the Commission's services - at the end of 1997 the Commission launched a vast evaluation or, as is often said, screening of its services.
As a result we will have a clear picture of present missions, resources and working methods of each directorate and unit of the Commission.
The report from each DG will be ready at the beginning of next year, which is obviously the timetable you wish, and the conclusions from this exercise will be drawn during the first half of 1999.
<P>
The President of the Commission has given a commitment to present to the next designated President, on the basis of the evaluation, a global concept of how to organise the portfolios of the Commissioners and how to structure the directorates-general in accordance with political priorities.
That is a major task.
Much depends on the will of the President designated.
But what is important is that the President of the Commission is committed to doing this.
<P>
I agree with you that the borderlines of the tasks of the European public administration need to be clearly defined.
In any case the Commission must retain the power of decision and control of its activities.
<P>
Regarding point (d) of paragraphs 26 and 27 on nominations, two principles should guide the nomination of officials within the Commission, the European Parliament, the Council and the other institutions, namely, autonomy of the institutions and transparency.
<P>
The principle of institutional autonomy is established by the Treaty and the case law of the Court of Justice.
The Commission considers that this principle is of fundamental importance in ensuring its independence in the spirit of the Treaty.
The rules for nominations are laid down in the Staff Regulations which are common to all the institutions.
<P>
In the spirit of transparency a report on nominations of members of the Commissioners' cabinets has already been forwarded to Parliament as a follow-up to Parliament's resolution on the first reading of the budget.
The Commission is willing to act in all transparency in the field of nominations while respecting the provisions of the Staff Regulations.
<P>
On the difficult issue of relations between Commissioners and the services, the Commission is currently preparing a code of conduct which will further clarify relations between the Commissioners, their cabinets and directorates-general.
The proposal for the code of conduct will also be transmitted to the next designated President of the Commission.
A more general code of conduct on the ethical principles of officials is also under preparation.
The Ombudsman has given us important guidance in that area.
<P>
The qualifications for each post within the Commission are laid down in advertisements for vacant posts.
I agree that experience in management should be made a central criterion for any appointments of senior officials.
This should include experience in both financial and human resources management.
Here I agree with the criticism that we must do better.
Too often in the past expertise has been learned in the rather narrow field of important dossiers, however, management of a large service requires knowledge of the dossiers and the capacity to manage resources and budgets.
<P>
In this context I should like to mention that if the budget is adopted on Thursday, as the Committee on Budgets proposes, we will introduce a major management training programme next year which will be obligatory for every official working in a management position.
<P>
Regarding the Financial Regulation, last July the Commission adopted a working document on global revision of the Financial Regulation.
On the basis of interinstitutional consultation, where we are still waiting for comments, the Commission will formulate a legislative proposal for global reform in 1999.
<P>
As to the Financial Regulation and the personal responsibility of the Commissioners, the Legal Service of the Commission has taken the view that Members of the Commission have personal financial liability when they act as authorising officers deciding on entering into commitment of expenditure.
<P>
In point (f), Parliament calls for Commissioners' declarations of their financial interests to be transparent and publicly available.
The Commission accepts Parliament's request.
<P>
Another point which has been taken up by two or three speakers is the agreement on the exchange of information between institutions.
The Commission views this proposal positively.
<P>
During this debate we have heard a lot of references to letters, press articles, rumours and even parliamentary questions.
Some of them may be true but many of them could also be totally false.
In the spirit of transparency, it is very important that Commission officials are invited to appear before the Committee on Budgetary Control whenever a reply is needed.
If you are not happy, say so.
It is very difficult to fight against false information if you do not have the opportunity to respond.
You know what I mean.
<P>
For us, not all the work has been done.
This report is on the year 1996.
Many issues come from the past.
Much remains to be done.
We must improve financial management; we must get good value for money for European taxpayers.
We have a huge task in front of us.
We need a strong Commission for these tasks in negotiations for Agenda 2000.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Theato">
Thank you, Mr President, for also giving me the opportunity to thank Mr Liikanen for his comments.
I should just like to make one point clear: whether we grant the discharge or not, I still hope that the Commission will make these efforts, irrespective of how we vote.
<P>
I should also like to point out a discrepancy in the translation of Mr Elles's report.
It is in the English version.
Paragraph 23 has not been changed to reflect the result of the vote and the words 'give/refuse' still appear there.
The 'refuse' and the stroke ought to be deleted.
That is how we voted.
I would ask you to check this in the other language versions too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="President">
That will be done, Mrs Theato.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Thursday at 9.30 a.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Blak">
Thank you, Mr President, for giving me the chance to correct one or two misunderstandings.
Mr Tillich made a number of comments about our practice with coordinators.
I would like to say that the situation in the Socialist Group is that if someone is chosen as a coordinator, they look after the interests of the group and their colleagues, not their own personal interests.
If a coordinator steps down because he wants to operate in a different way, another coordinator is chosen, and in this case I was selected.
I would like to say that I am very disappointed that another group is attacking us in such a personal way.
If a Member does not wish to be a coordinator, they are released and can step down, and the other person takes over.
That is democracy, and anything else is not!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Monfils">
Mr President, with regard to this debate, it was announced that the vote on the interpretation given by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure on voting rules would take place at midday.
We were also told that the document would be available from 9.00 a.m. or 9.15 a.m. today.
I went to the Distribution Service barely 5 minutes ago with some of my colleagues, and they have no idea whatsoever where this document is!
No one has it.
<P>
It would be desirable, Mr President, for us to have copies of documents before voting on them, otherwise our task will be made extremely difficult.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="President">
Mr Monfils, I can tell you that the interpretation of the Rules of Procedure is included in the Minutes of yesterday's sitting, on page 24, so I would ask you to look at the Minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Colom i Naval">
Mr President, during this debate, the rapporteur spoke for seven and a half minutes.
Since rapporteurs normally speak for five minutes, I presume that the last two and a half minutes correspond to the speaking time for his group.
<P>
I think that it would have been much wiser to separate the two speeches by Mr Elles, because his final remark was to call on the House to refuse to grant discharge.
<P>
This is something that Mr Elles can obviously do in a personal capacity but as rapporteur, it contradicts the vote by the Committee on Budgetary Control, and I would like this to be recorded in the Minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="President">
As you know, Mr Colom i Naval, it is up to the groups to distribute speaking time and it is common practice, where appropriate, to extend the speaking time which a rapporteur has in that capacity by part of the speaking time allocated to his group.
Clearly, a rapporteur is free to organise his speaking time and set out his comments as he sees fit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I took the precaution of submitting my question in advance and would have liked it to be recorded.
But first I would like to make a personal statement.
<P>
Commissioner Liikanen said that I gave a wrong interpretation of the Court of Auditors' report.
The only thing I said was that the Court of Auditors had not given a positive declaration on the regularity of the accounts for the 1996 financial year.
I am not the only person who said this, Commissioner!
Paragraph 1 of the resolution of the Elles report points out that, for the third year in succession, the European Court of Auditors has declined to provide positive global assurance as to the legality and regularity of the transactions underlying the payments for the financial year.
I am only repeating what was stated in the report.
<P>
I would like to raise a point of order at the end of this item, Mr President.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Theato">
I should simply like to clarify something once more for Mr Colom I Naval's sake. It was clearly stated on my list of speakers that Mr Elles would have five minutes as rapporteur plus two minutes for the group.
This is just for the record.
I do not think that he in any way intended to be misleading.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, I would like to say to Mr Fabre-Aubrespy that the phrase in the Elles report is correct.
It talks about underlying transactions but you are talking about the accounts.
There is a difference. The Court of Auditors gives four different opinions on the accounts, which are positive, and on payments and underlying transactions, which are not positive.
I hope that they will be in the near future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I would like to make a request pursuant to Article 3(2) of Annex V of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
A number of amendments to the Elles report were declared admissible, exactly 22 according to the information I have been given.
Others were declared inadmissible.
It is your responsibility to apply the annex to the Rules of Procedure, which provides that amendments must be forwarded to the Committee on Budgetary Control so that it can deliver its opinion.
<P>
I would ask you to confirm that the amendments will be given to the committee at this afternoon's meeting so that it can give its opinion on the 22 amendments which, moreover, were tabled by all the political groups.
There are 11 from the Socialist Group, the very people who wanted to prevent us from tabling amendments on the operation, and from practically all the other groups in Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="President">
The matter will in any event be considered before the vote on Thursday, you may be assured of that.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
1999 General Budget
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0500/98) by Mrs Dührkop Dührkop and Mr Viola, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 1999, as modified by the Council (C4-0600/98), and on draft Letter of Amendment No 1/99 to the preliminary draft budget for 1999 - Section III Commission (C4-0666/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Dührkop Dührkop">
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Viola">
Mr President, I should like to begin by expressing my satisfaction that we have managed once again this year to approve the budget for the other institutions with just one reading, given that all of our amendments have been accepted by the Council.
This is a sign of harmony and successful cooperation, which I hope will be repeated in future years as well.
<P>
The motion for a resolution, on which we shall vote on Thursday - which shows that there are no particularly significant or outstanding problems - touches on certain matters which have already been addressed before, the aim being to establish some general rules enabling solutions to be found for certain unresolved problems during the course of next year's budgetary procedure.
Here, taking up what Mrs Dührkop Dührkop said, I do regret that the Council has rejected the possibility of setting up a pension fund for staff of the European institutions.
Parliament views this as a missed opportunity to solve a problem which should be dealt with as a matter of urgency.
We are now waiting for the Commission to present, by 31 March, a proposed reform of the pension system, because this remains a priority not only for Parliament but also for all the other bodies of the European Union.
<P>
Another outstanding problem, to which the resolution refers, is the translation work of the Court of Justice.
The Court needs to provide us with concrete proposals as a basis for thorough discussions leading to the adoption of measures to facilitate its translation work.
We therefore call on the Court to devise a computer-assisted translation system with a view to overcoming the backlog of bureaucratic and administrative texts, and thereafter to seek other ways of relieving the clearly onerous workload of the lawyer-linguists.
<P>
It must be said from the outset that the budgetary authority is not in a position to solve the Court's wide-ranging problems through an intensive recruitment policy, which would be virtually impossible over a single budget year; it would however be possible if it were staggered according to a multiannual plan.
<P>
The European Parliament - and this is another noteworthy aspect of the resolution - also wishes to make a point to the Committee of the Regions, given that the problem of the forthcoming expiry of the Secretary-General's term of office has arisen; the possibility of falling back on Article 50 has been mooted, with considerable financial implications, as it is estimated that the operation has already cost ECU 320 000.
<P>
Our resolution obviously stresses the need to find alternative solutions which are financially acceptable, technically feasible and will avoid a vacuum in the leadership of this body, whose workload is set to increase as a result of the new Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
Furthermore, the resolution underlines the need to carry forward the existing policy on buildings, which amounts to taking on rapidly the ownership of the buildings used by the various Community institutions, as well as the relevant payments.
Yesterday we noted with satisfaction the adoption of the supplementary and amending budget and the availability of the sizeable sum of EUR 150 million, which will serve - for example - to bring forward the purchase of D3. This operation will generate an estimated saving of EUR 40 million over the next ten years.
<P>
This policy has already borne fruit and, if it is pursued further, will bring additional, appreciable savings for the Union's budget.
We are therefore pleased that our amendment allowing the construction of the new building for the Court of Auditors was accepted.
<P>
Now that the debate on this first EU budget in euros is coming to an end, Mr President, we can say that we are satisfied to have drawn up a rigorous and well-balanced budget for the other institutions, one which does justice to the budgetary efforts made by the Member States.
I should like to end by thanking my colleagues in the Committee on Budgets for all their help and, above all, the staff of the Commission for their much-needed assistance with our work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Lenz">
Mr President, this year's debates on the budget are certainly taking place against a rather tempestuous background.
Sometimes the sea does become calm, and happily it does so before it is too late.
That is true to a certain extent, in any case, of the part of the budget for which the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy is responsible, which has been in considerable turmoil, in particular where the implementation of human rights programmes is concerned.
<P>
Fortunately, Parliament and the Council agreed a compromise formula for technical assistance which meant that the legal bases issue could be settled.
This allayed our main concerns with the 1998 supplementary budget and the 1999 budget.
Of course we would have liked to have seen more, but what is important is for these issues to be resolved this year.
For it would have inflicted great damage on the European Union if in this year of all years, the 50th anniversary of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and in this particular week, when we are awarding the Sakharov prize for the tenth time, there had been difficulties here.
No one will deny that improvements can be made, but any support is welcome where human rights and work on forging links with the other countries of the world are concerned.
<P>
I have just returned from Latin America, where I was once again able to see the value of this work for myself, whether it is election supervision, human rights or the work of our institutes.
We will be monitoring the implementation of the 1999 budget very carefully with these points in mind.
I should, however, also like to express my particular thanks to Mrs Dührkop Dührkop for her excellent cooperation in this matter, which has shown once again that Parliament is aware of the significant role it can play on these difficult issues, and is supporting a cause across all national boundaries, which all of us, as good democrats, need to fight for throughout the world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Sonneveld">
Mr President, the agriculture heading has not given rise to any particularly heated debates during the various phases of our examination of the 1999 budget - is this the calm before the storm, or have procedures improved?
The latter, I think.
By continually analysing expenditure in the current year and allowing special scope in the budgetary procedure for drawing the appropriate conclusions at the right moment for the new budget, we manage to prevent too much from being earmarked for agriculture, while also having the certainty that if things develop badly, sensible provisions will be made.
<P>
As the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Agriculture, I have helped to make sure that the procedure introduced last year whereby the Commission sends notification of amendments between the first and second readings has been followed to the letter this year too, and we have received specific proposed amendments to a considerable number of budget items.
A total of EUR 513 million have had to be added to the original total for Category 1.
<P>
The Council and the European Parliament delegation agreed, however, not to include this relatively small adjustment from the draft budget in the total budget amount for Category 1, but to revise the various items in the earlier total on the basis of the most recent estimates.
The Commission then put forward the required proposals.
This is in line with Parliament's desire not to solve the problem by making a linear reduction, cutting a small percentage from all agricultural expenditure in the budget, but by making specific reductions to a number of items.
<P>
Furthermore, the fact that a surplus of ECU 1.4 billion has now been identified in Category 1 of the 1998 budget is an important factor for revising the rather poorer outlook for 1999, and on the basis of our close observation of market developments up to now, we can already tell that we are going to have to live with a little uncertainty about agricultural expenditure in the future.
But this margin can be considerably reduced, compared with the excessive margins of agricultural spending in the past, when very considerable amounts would be held over and repaid to the Member States every year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have not entered the appropriations for security within and around the buildings of the European institutions in the reserve.
Nevertheless, I should like to point out that action urgently needs to be taken here.
As the rapporteur on the budget for the Economic Affairs Committee, I think that we can be very pleased with the benchmark data for the next budget.
In its proposal, the Commission had already allocated sufficient appropriations to the principal economic lines.
Parliament has successfully defended these appropriations.
Title B5-3 on the internal market was increased by EUR 13.8 million, and title B5-5 on the labour market and technological innovation by EUR 12.2 million.
I am particularly pleased with the agreement reached on stimulating small and medium-sized enterprises.
The line designated for this purpose, B5-512, was increased by a full 60 %.
<P>
However, we are also looking at the interrelationships and indicators for a healthy overall economy in a wider context.
Therefore, education and the youth exchange programmes are important for providing human resources, which our internal market so urgently needs to remain competitive.
Title B3-1 - Education, vocational training and youth - was allotted additional appropriations of EUR 136.4 million, and even though I have great sympathy for the demand expressed by European youth organisations for a further increase, in this budget we have in fact paved the way for these education and vocational training initiatives actually to be continued and extended.
For the economy, the principle of austere budget management is, after all, of particular importance.
Let us not forget that in just over two weeks, 11 countries will join together in a currency union.
I believe that this is a basis for a successful Europe!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Ferber">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen. I should first like to thank our colleagues in the Budgets Committee and the rapporteur for making it possible for this complicated budget procedure and the conciliation procedure on research to at last be brought to such a successful conclusion, with the result that we shall be voting on the research programme today at midday, and then on Thursday we will be able to enter the appropriate figures in the budget, which means that our research policy will continue to run, uninterrupted, next year.
<P>
I should, however, like to draw your attention to a problem: in its explanatory statement on the draft budget for the second reading, the Council pointed out that, in its opinion - and as far as I know the Commission has endorsed this view - the remarks on the budget lines were only intended as an indication, meaning that they are not binding for the purposes of implementation.
In practice, this would mean that all the specific tasks and objectives which Parliament has included in the remarks, and the appropriations and percentages accordingly placed in the reserve, would, at best, be pipedreams.
I am thinking in particular of research.
We have few budget lines, but each has a large amount of money, and our remarks here are to be treated only as an indication.
I do not think that this is the end result of the budgetary procedure which we in the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy had in mind.
<P>
Mr Liikanen, I have just listened carefully to your speech on the Elles report.
Here too, you could send out a clear signal for Parliament.
Our remarks are not pipedreams; they are entirely genuine demands made by Parliament in the budgetary procedure. I make the same claim on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, that is, that our remarks on managing the appropriations of the fifth framework programme of research should not be taken merely as an indication, but should be binding.
I have prepared an amendment to the motion to this effect on behalf of my group, and hope that it will also meet with the agreement of the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Schwaiger">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as the rapporteur of the Committee on External Economic Relations, I should like to make just two points today, which we were not able to deal with in October at the first reading.
We had submitted several amendments concerning the remarks for trade cooperation with Latin America, Asia and South Africa, also including investment.
<P>
Our proposal was to involve economic and social groups, chambers of commerce and industry, employers' organisations, unions, consumer organisations and environmentalists in these programmes.
We made these proposals, which are in fact modelled on the ACP States, amongst others, - so they are on the same lines as the provisions which apply to the ACP States and Turkey - in order to secure greater participation of economic and social groups in the work of reconstruction.
Unfortunately, the Budgets Committee did not accept our proposals, although they would not cost a penny and do in fact reflect a broad consensus within the Committee on External Economic Relations, having been drafted by the various groups within the committee.
<P>
My main request to the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, and also to the rapporteur, would be to incorporate this idea, possibly in the motion.
These are sensible proposals and they correspond largely to what is already common practice in the ACP States.
<P>
I should also like to make a second comment.
It will only be possible for us to open up the Japanese market if young managers - above all those from small and medium-sized enterprises - are educated about the specific features of the market and also have the opportunity to adapt to them.
Until now, such initiatives have been promoted to great acclaim by the European Union, making it possible for training and instruction to be given to between 30 and 40 managers every year.
This proposal was not taken into account because there is no legal base at the present time.
I hope that the Commission will table the necessary proposals and that we will have a legal base as soon as possible, so that we can reinstate this budget line.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Eisma">
Mr President, I am delighted that the Council has agreed to our proposal to increase the environment budget, making more money available for the fifth action programme on the environment, LIFE and other programmes.
This is all very well, but the fact remains that the environment receives only 0.2 % of the overall budget, which is why we are having to think about integrating the environment into other sectors.

For this reason, I am most surprised that the Council has not approved the very proposals that were designed to 'green' the budget, and the Committee on Budgets is therefore retabling five amendments relating to the environment aspects of the Structural Funds, environmental protection and the allocation of Structural Fund money to environmental protection under the habitats and birds directives.
We would also like to see at least 10 % of the MEDA funding going to environmental projects.
A better environment begins with each of us, and this is why I have tabled an amendment to the resolution - also accepted by the Committee on Budgets - on the 'greening' of the institutions themselves.
The Council, the Commission, the Committee of the Regions and Parliament itself can still do a great deal about saving energy, recycling waste and mobility.
If we can do this in a credible way, we shall be setting an example for the Member States and we can promote a genuine environment policy.
<P>
Finally, I am pleased that the Council has also agreed to increase the budget for consumer and health policy.
I regret the fact that it has put both amounts in the reserve, but fortunately, thanks to our intervention, the Committee on Budgets is to take the amount for consumer policy out of the reserve again, and the legal basis for this is expected shortly.
It is a pity that we were not able to achieve the same thing with the health-care policy.
<P>
I shall finish there, Mr President.
Thanks to our excellent cooperation with the rapporteurs, Mr Viola and Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, I am satisfied with the overall result.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Morgan">
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Cunningham">
Mr President, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, I would like to begin by thanking Barbara Dührkop Dührkop, the general rapporteur, for her tremendous help and support.
I would also like to thank my own group coordinator, Terence Wynn, and my committee secretariat for their help and encouragement.
<P>
As a committee we have not achieved everything that we wanted to achieve but, at the end of the day, we have achieved a budget that we can certainly live with.
I do, however, have a number of concerns.
<P>
First of all in relation to the budget heading on tropical forests, I note that the Commission proposals to increase payment appropriations, i.e. by 5 million euros, were not accepted by the Commission.
Therefore, I would expect that the Commission, by one means or another, to be able to transfer and agree to the topping-up appropriations which might be necessary as far as our external policy is concerned.
<P>
Secondly, on gender, I hope that next year we will see an increase in the budget heading.
We have seen a decrease this time which was gravely disappointing as far as my committee is concerned.
<P>
Finally, on the issue of land mines, there were numerous arguments about the number of budget headings we should have.
I am informed that there are currently something like 12 or 13 budget headings that mention land mines.
I am told by the Commission that they have plans to bring all of these under one heading and that they are proposing a sum of something like 35 million euros to be spent on mine clearance and rehabilitation programmes.
I very much welcome this, it has been something that the Development Committee have pushed forward for some time.
The sum of 35 million euros, if we can keep this for a number of years, will go a long way to clearing the world of what has been an horrendous scourge for millions of people in the developing world.
<P>
I would like to express my thanks once again to the general rapporteur.
It has been an extremely successful budget procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Deprez">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, I can confirm, on the occasion of the second reading of the budget, that I am as satisfied as I was at first reading.
In this respect, I would like once again to thank our rapporteur Mrs Dührkop Dührkop and the members of the Committee on Budgets and their chairman Mr Samland, who were much more sensitive to our committee's demands this year than they were last.
<P>
I would like to highlight three particular reasons for my satisfaction, all of which are priorities for the Committee on Civil Liberties.
Firstly, we asked for measures to be continued and for an increase in resources to combat violence towards women and children, sex tourism and criminal use of the Internet.
The solution that was arrived at for these items is satisfactory.
<P>
Secondly, we wanted measures to be continued and resources to be maintained for the integration of migrants and the fight against racism and xenophobia.
As you know, ladies and gentlemen, these budget headings were in a very delicate position because of the absence of a legal basis.
The solution that has been arrived at here is also satisfactory.
<P>
However, our main reason for satisfaction is that for the first time, at Mr Brinkhorst's insistence, the Committee on Budgets yesterday approved the creation of a European fund for refugees. I must thank Mr Brinkhorst for this.
Everyone knows the importance of the refugee problem for the European Union, and everyone also knows that the Council has committed itself to taking measures with a view to equal burden sharing, and this European fund for refugees is the best way of achieving this.
Consequently, I do not understand why the Council persists in rejecting this instrument, which is both necessary and sound.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Tillich">
Mr President, I should like to pay the rapporteur, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, a compliment.
She has worked very hard on her report during this budget year.
I should like to thank her for her ready cooperation, and I also extend thanks to the Commission and the Austrian Presidency.
<P>
From the point of view of the Committee on Budgetary Control, it is apparent that we still have much to do.
The very fact that in the 1998 budget we have still overestimated agricultural expenditure by ECU 1.4 billion shows that there is scope for further measures here.
Despite our actually brokering an agreement with the Council in the 1998 budgetary procedure to reduce the allocation which the Commission had entered in the budget, we still have a surplus.
That is why I also welcome the fact that the Commission has used a new kind of justification for utilised, non-utilised and partially utilised budget lines in the Notenboom procedure.
I should like to call on the Commission and request that it continue to do this in the monthly reports during the implementation of the 1999 budget.
This would mean that the European Parliament would be better able to monitor expenditure on a month-by-month basis.
The individual committees would be more involved in monitoring appropriations and the process of implementing the budget.
Communication between Parliament and the Commission would improve.
<P>
Allow me to make just two further comments on the strategic reserve.
Overall, we are certainly not exactly ecstatic about the result.
We can, however, credit the European Parliament with success on one count.
The Council has realised that it has to respect the European Parliament as a partner and as one arm of the budgetary authority.
In the future, it will no longer be enough simply to take account of the interests of individual Member States within the Council; the will of the European Parliament will also have to be respected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Pérez Royo">
Mr President, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, I would like to add our appreciation to that already expressed for the rapporteur, Bárbara Dührkop.
The Committee on Fisheries has collaborated with the general working party for the 1999 budget during the various stages of the budgetary procedure, mainly through the original draftsman for the Committee on Fisheries, Mr Apolinario, who is no longer a Member of this Parliament.
<P>
Although the only amendment tabled by the Committee on Fisheries is an amendment proposing a slight increase in appropriations for monitoring actions, we would like to take this opportunity to repeat a series of priorities that form the core of the committee's actions.
I will list them in no special order: firstly, actions that monitor actual compliance with Community rules; secondly, specific actions in the areas of non-industrial and inshore fishing; thirdly, research, which is closely linked to the development of the fifth framework programme; fourthly, the Structural Funds, an issue we have already discussed on many occasions; and finally, the question of international agreements, which I would like to consider for a moment.
<P>
As far as international agreements are concerned, the appropriations proposed for the 1999 financial year are lower than those for 1998, both in commitment appropriations and in payment appropriations.
Undoubtedly, there is justification for this reduction, but we would like to make an important point here. The Committee on Fisheries would draw the attention of the authorities to the difficulty that will arise, when preparing the budget for 2000, in relation to the agreement with Morocco.
This runs out on 30 November 1999 and costs EUR 120 million every year, practically half of the total for this heading. The budgetary authority will have to show its capacity for sound management in order to ensure that the necessary budgetary appropriations are available to implement a new agreement, while remaining discrete about this amount so as not to endanger the negotiations with Morocco.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Gröner">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, who was very receptive to the proposals from the Committee on Women's Rights, which sought, above all, to enshrine the concept of mainstreaming in the budgetary procedure, in other words to incorporate equal opportunities for men and women into all European policies.
We had some degree of success, as can be seen from extensive correspondence with 12 Members of the Commission.
We have recorded this in two working documents.
<P>
As draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Women's Rights, my second priority - alongside mainstreaming - was to maintain special support measures for women in the fourth action programme and in the Structural Funds.
I emphasise once again that women are not a marginal group; we represent 50 % of European citizens.
This is also reflected in the new Daphne programme.
I might remind you that we - 350 Members of this House - called for a European campaign and a European Year against violence to women in a written declaration. The Council ignored it.
In the second reading, it also deleted the remark on this, despite the Austrian Presidency itself working very hard in support of this cause.
<P>
We in the European Parliament are keeping to our demands; we are expecting EUR 5 million to be allocated for a campaign to combat violence against women, and we are looking forward to the concepts of equal opportunities and mainstreaming being very much more in evidence in the new policy areas of employment and enlargement towards the east than they have been up until now.
As the Commissioner has already said, the Treaty of Amsterdam gives us a new basis on which to work for equal opportunities and non-discrimination, and if female citizens do not find themselves represented in the policy of the European Parliament - and, by the way, this also applies to the committees - then we shall pay the penalty in the fifth directly elected Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Schmidbauer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I can, I think, be brief, because I explained the main arguments of the Petitions Committee in our debate at the first reading.
I should, however, like to use this opportunity to emphasise, on behalf of the committee, that we feel like the hinge between Parliament and the citizens of Europe.
We are, as it were, the hinge on the door, allowing it to open to the citizens.
According to the Treaty on European Union, any citizen of the Union has the right to address petitions and lodge complaints, individually or in association with other citizens or persons, and for us in Parliament to be able to deal with these petitions in an appropriate manner and in as short a time as possible, it is necessary for the committee to be provided with sufficient resources and staff.
That is why it is also imperative for the Petitions Committee to be able to continue to work as an independent committee in the new parliamentary term.
<P>
I wish to thank the Budgets Committee and Mr Viola for judging the Ombudsman's requests to be objectively justified, and for the fact that the creation of a new body for the Ombudsman will make it possible for sufficient resources to be placed at his disposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Ruttenstorfer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am sure I do not need to tell you that the 1999 budgetary procedure has been a complicated undertaking; this was, in particular, for two reasons.
Firstly, the 1999 budget is the last to be covered by the Edinburgh agreements and the last to be adopted before the conclusion of the Agenda 2000 negotiations, which are being held between our institutions to establish a financial framework for budgets after the year 2000.
<P>
Secondly, a decision on the 1998 supplementary and amending budget and a decision on the 1998 global transfer have also become part of the 1999 budget.
Despite the complexity resulting from combining these different matters, we have finally succeeded in reaching an overall compromise on the 1999 budget, the 1998 supplementary and amending budget and the 1998 global transfer.
I should like to recall that the success of this overall compromise was to a large extent dependent on the results of intensive discussions on flexibility, which we held with Parliament's delegation at the two Council meetings of 24 November and 8 December.
In accordance with Parliament's wishes, it is intended that budgets will display flexibility of this kind, and this will be introduced in the new financial perspective.
<P>
The conciliation we held last week with a number of your colleagues paved the way for the overall compromise on the 1999 budget procedure to be confirmed.
This conciliation in fact resulted in an agreement between our two institutions that there will be no strategic reserve in the 1999 budget, something which we have seen repeatedly threaten the 1999 budgetary procedure from beginning to end.
The Council thus saw itself in a position to declare itself willing to accept an element of flexibility in the negotiations on a new interinstitutional agreement.
The nature and extent of this flexibility will depend on the overall result of the negotiations, and on the level of the agreed financial framework.
<P>
During the budgetary procedure, but at the latest before Parliament's first reading, both arms of the budgetary authority can decide - in accordance with the rules on majority voting pursuant to Article 203(9)(5) of the Treaty and by means of a Commission proposal - to activate this flexibility component.
When applying this statement - and this is something to which I should particularly like to draw your attention - the Council will not make any internal agreements which would nullify these majority rules.
I should particularly like to emphasise this.
The positive outcome of our conciliation on the flexibility of future budgets has made it possible for the negotiations on the entire 1999 budget procedure to be brought to a successful conclusion.
<P>
Allow me now to turn to the results of the Council's second reading of the 1999 draft budget and in so doing to highlight a number of points.
When examining the draft budget, as amended and with the proposed modifications, the Council's general concern was to try to achieve as low a rate of increase as possible for the 1999 budget.
When assessing the results of Parliament's first reading of the 1999 draft budget, the Council was also guided by the following principles: complying with the Interinstitutional Agreement of 13 October 1998 on legal bases and the implementation of the budget; assessing needs with a view to entering realistic appropriations in the budget which it will be possible to implement; and dividing the savings equally between all the headings in the financial perspective, which means that reducing appropriations for one of the headings also has to entail a reduction in the appropriations for other headings.
<P>
Taking all these principles into consideration, the Council approved the content of the overall compromise drafted in conjunction with a Parliament delegation.
As you have noted, it has accommodated Parliament on many points.
I would ask you to take that into account when you yourselves vote!
As I said at the beginning, the overall compromise on the 1999 budget procedure also includes an agreement on the 1998 supplementary and amending budget and on the global transfer.
Both the supplementary and amending budget and the global transfer allow non-utilised appropriations to be redeployed, with the result that, in particular, payment appropriations for the European Social Fund and PHARE can be increased by ECU 795 million and ECU 150 million respectively. In addition, Parliament will receive ECU 150 million for its building projects.
I should also like to draw your attention to the ECU 400 million for food aid to Russia, which we decided on as part of the supplementary and amending budget.
<P>
The 1999 budgetary procedure is drawing to a close.
When you vote on the budget on Thursday at the end of your second reading, some of you will be taking part in this procedure for the last time, and for those Members in particular, I am glad that during this budgetary procedure they have been able to experience some degree of cooperation between the two arms of the budgetary authority, something which has not always been the case in the past, a fact which the chairman of your Budgets Committee, Mr Samland, referred to himself last week at the end of our conciliation.
I should particularly like to thank Mr Samland for his tireless efforts to improve the quality of our cooperation.
I also thank the two rapporteurs, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop and Mr Viola, and of course the Commission, for their valuable contribution to bringing the 1999 budgetary procedure to a successful conclusion.
I was very pleased to see them adopt such a constructive approach, putting us in a position to achieve the result we all wanted, the adoption of a budget for the coming year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office.
<P>
The debate will continue at 3 p.m. with the speech by Commissioner Liikanen.
<P>
It is now voting time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, I wish to raise a point of order under Rules 24(7) and 31, with respect to seating in the Chamber.
In view of the on-going civil war between Mr Le Pen's faction of the National Front and Mr Mégret's, I should like to ask the Conference of Presidents whether they will consider moving the two factions apart to avoid the possibility of disturbance in the Chamber.
In the meantime, we should be very grateful if they would wear the appropriate labels so we would know whether they support Mr Le Pen or Mr Mégret.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Blot">
Mr President, I would like to make what is, I suppose, a personal statement, as Mr Ford is criticising me as a member of the National Front.
I would like to assure him immediately that I believe everyone is to be polite in this House, as is traditional, including on the National Front benches.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Blot.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="President">
We shall now take the vote on the interpretation of the provisions applicable to the discharge procedure - Annex V of the Rules of Procedure.
<P>
Since questions have been raised, I am taking a vote on the interpretation given by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure of the provisions applicable to the discharge procedure.
The interpretation by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure - which was also included in the Minutes - was that it considered that the provisions of Annex V were not at variance with the general provisions of the Rules concerning the tabling of amendments, which could be accepted under Rule 125.
On the other hand, amendments proposing the opposite to the proposal of the committee responsible were inadmissible.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the interpretation by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Whitehead">
Mr President, as the rapporteur for Parliament, I just wish to confirm that the common position is acceptable to us, as is the financial settlement at ECU 112.5m.
I should like to thank the Austrian presidency and DG XXIV for their work on this.
<P>
(The President declared the common position approved)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="President">
Before we go on to the explanations of vote, I should like to congratulate the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy and the rapporteurs on the way they organised the votes, which has made it possible for Parliament, thanks to the systematic way in which they were proposed and accepted by the Bureau, to vote on so many reports and 320 amendments in just 40 minutes!
This is a record rarely achieved, for which the Committee on Research must be thanked.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw and Sandberg-Fries">
We appreciate the need to consider the status of those countries which are not, for the time being, signing up to the single currency.
It is a matter that certainly needs a thorough airing as part of the general political debate in the Member States concerned.
We must not forget, however, that one of the aims of this report - which has a united committee behind it - is to influence public opinion. Yet some of the assertions made here are based on pure speculation as to developments in the non-participating countries.
<P>
We do believe that the advent of the single currency will be of great significance in terms of competitiveness, employment and growth. And we think that Sweden should join EMU at some point in the future.
But it is not for the European Parliament to tell Swedish citizens - as happens in this report - that their country should adopt the single currency.
Any such decision will depend on a prior proposal having been put to the Swedish people, either in a referendum or in conjunction with elections to the Riksdag.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Berthu">
In the Stevens report, the European Parliament shows kind concern for the misfortunes likely to descend upon the Member States which did not wish to join the euro zone (United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark) and on the country that did not qualify (Greece).
Their national currencies will, it seems, become more volatile, and as all their economic actors will favour the euro, it will become a genuine 'parallel currency' in these countries.
The conclusion of the report is obvious: 'As the only way the risks inherent in parallel use of the Euro can be removed for the United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark and Greece, is by joining EMU, they should do exactly that, as soon as possible'.
<P>
We are astounded at the arrogance shown in this report and the contempt displayed for the democratic choices made in three of these countries.
If tribute is to be paid to the United Kingdom, Sweden and Denmark, then it is because their governments were able to organise a genuine debate on the single currency and then to respect the choice of their citizens.
Not everyone can say the same.
Moreover, we may wonder whether the aim of the Stevens report is not to allay the feelings of guilt on the part of those in the euro zone who trampled on democracy, by showing them that they were not wrong because, when all was said and done, even those who respected democracy subsequently reached the same conclusions.
<P>
But there is an enormous gap in this report: it is by no means certain that the countries that did not choose to adopt the euro will regret it.
For example, if we assume that the euro is strong against the dollar, the European countries not participating in the euro zone will perhaps find that they are at an advantage by retaining more reasonable exchange rate parities.
Similarly, unification of monetary conditions within the euro zone will not be beneficial, or even painless, for all its members.
Some will doubtless regret not having been able to retain flexible exchange rates to be able to bring their economies smoothly into line with those of their neighbours.
They will envy the countries that have remained unrestricted outside the euro zone.
But perhaps the Stevens report has another, hidden, objective: to try to eliminate these recalcitrant countries that could in future become embarrassing witnesses to the error of the single currency by absorbing them into the euro zone.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Blak, Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Murphy">
The European Parliamentary Labour Party abstained in the final vote on the Stevens report on 'The euro as a parallel currency' for the following reasons.
The rapporteur is unnecessarily alarmist regarding the consequences of the euro as a parallel currency for the pre-in countries.
The nature of his call on the pre-ins to join the euro ignores national policies and is not grounded in the real world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Palm, Theorin and Wibe">
Those states which elected not to take part in the third stage of monetary union reached their decision democratically in the wake of a process of mature consideration.
There are no grounds for the European Parliament to voice disapproval of the outcome; to do so would be to overstep its powers.
It is for national parliaments, governments and citizens to decide on participation in EMU.
<P>
Fundamental policy decisions on parallel use of the euro also lie with the countries concerned.
Parliament has no right to comment on the sort of restrictions which states should, or should not, be maintaining as a matter of national monetary policy.
<P>
Castagnetti report (A4-0471/98)
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw and Sandberg-Fries">
We would underline the importance of Union action to strengthen the rights of disabled people. The Helios II programme is a case in point.
The Treaty of Amsterdam contains express provisions to assist the disabled, and we urge the Commission to come forward with new Union-wide measures to promote the rights of the disabled, whilst at the same time building on the achievements of Helios II.
<P>
Quisthoudt-Rowohl report (A4-0493/98)
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="Bébéar">
The framework programmes for research, technological development and demonstration activities always lead to lengthy and stormy debates with the European Commission, particularly where they are linked to budgetary issues.
This provides the European Parliament with an opportunity each time to fight for the financial share we believe to be fair.
Until now, we have always been the decisive factor in allowing the European Union to create a real policy of research and technological development.
<P>
The fourth framework programme has now proved itself.
Scientific cooperation and technology transfer are organised around this unique programme that covers all areas.
Thanks to its vast range of activities, the opportunities offered to researchers, teachers and companies have been increased, and the result has been the development of a real sense of European identity.
<P>
We have achieved positive results that have been acknowledged unanimously.
This great popularity within the European scientific community must not be compromised at a time when a new framework programme is being drawn up and eleven new countries are knocking at the door of the European Union and are likely to bring mutual scientific and technical enrichment.
<P>
We therefore need appropriate financing to take account of the most recent technological developments.
Consequently, I approve the Quisthoudt-Rowohl report and the compromise it presents for 1998-2002.
<P>
I am one of those who would have liked to go a step further.
As this is not possible, let us accept a good compromise that includes the majority of the amendments tabled by the European Parliament.
<P>
Scientific research and technological development have become the focal point of the economic future of Europe.
Promoting these among small and medium-sized enterprises would therefore be promoting the progress of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="Eriksson, Seppänen and Svensson">
We voted in favour of the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee concerning the fifth framework programme for research.
We would however draw attention to several unresolved problems with regard to the EU's research policy.
The administrative procedures governing EU intervention need simplifying, for example.
The fact that the EU contribution does not cover all the costs of activities equally gives cause for concern.
We need a uniform attitude to national cofinancing across the Union.
A research-led approach would also be desirable, building more upon researchers' own initiatives. Decisions on project funding could then be taken on the basis of scientific criteria by competent research bodies.
<P>
The Swedish Left Party's priorities in this field are: researcher training, basic research and the establishing of creative research environments in the universities.
Research needs to be more rooted in society as a whole.
Collaboration between academic institutions and industry is beneficial to both sides, but those doing the commissioning do not have an equal interest in all types of research.
The balance between basic and applied research is shifting disturbingly to the detriment of the former; disinterested enquiry is losing out to more utilitarian-style work.
It behoves the EU to be mindful of such developments.
A strong commitment to basic research and researcher training is the best way of supporting industry's own R & D.
<P>
The Left Party sees research and its results as a matter for the whole community.
It is ultimately the general public who commission and fund the research effort.
We therefore support in particular those provisions within the fifth framework programme which stress the need to disseminate research results (Chapter III, Articles 13-20).
The report on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee laments, however, the need for unanimity in Council.
We wish to distance ourselves from such a view.
<P>
Lastly, we feel that more attention could have been paid in the fifth RTD programme to increasing the presence and enhancing the position of women within the research community and its hierarchies.
<P>
Tannert report (A4-0451/98)
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw and Sandberg-Fries">
We thank the rapporteur for her thorough work on this subject, which is of particular importance for the future of EU research.
Parliament's involvement with the fifth framework programme has been crowned with considerable success.
We are pleased to see that this report further underlines the need for action in the following areas: equal opportunities; a gender-specific approach to research; work on ecological sustainability; research into issues affecting the elderly and the disabled. We also welcome the commitment to an ethical stance on genetic research and note the emphasis on not allowing any resources to go to cloning or genetic manipulation of human hereditary material.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Hyland">
It is certainly time for the EU and national governments, as a matter of urgency, to review all regulations which govern the operating of genetic research.
<P>
The following points must be borne in mind in the context of this debate:
<P>
The recent decision by the British Government to permit experiments on 'human embryos' is in conflict with the ethos and spirit of the vast majority of Members of the European Parliament.
Those who seek to cross this threshold of ethical unacceptability must be stopped in their tracks through the implementation of Community and national law.-Scientists who abuse welcome advances in genetic research are doing a serious disservice to humanity by discrediting work which has the potential to find treatment for diseases, world hunger and food quality.-'Therapeutic Cloning' is the thin end of the wedge on the road to human cloning which is an affront to the ethical and moral values of society.-Complacency at times by those in authority may well leave mankind exposed to the whims of those who seek to ignore the origin and sacredness of human life and the existence of God as the creator of all mankind.- Estevan Bolea report (A4-0454/98)
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Pirker and Rübig">
We voted against Amendment No 9 because the amounts are too low and there should be at least 30 % for SMEs.
<P>
Marset Campos report (A4-0455/98)
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Palm and Wibe">
In Amendment No 33, the committee considers it 'necessary that a European scientific journal be published along the lines of Science or Nature as a way of adequately disseminating European scientific achievements at world level'. We do not intend to vote against this report, but nonetheless wish to make clear our belief that science is international.
Accordingly, there is no reason to distinguish between 'European' scientific research and the investigative work carried out by everyone else. Nor is it up to the EU to decide what sort of journals should be published.
<P>
McNally report (A4-0458/98)
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Blak, Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of the report by Mrs McNally.
We did so despite the fact that the Joint Research Centre of the European Atomic Energy Community has previously worked on both fusion and fission energy, which we in Denmark have judged too dangerous and damaging to the environment for us to want to build nuclear power stations on Danish soil.
It is therefore gratifying to see that the priorities of the JRC have now been changed, so that research into fusion energy is to be scaled down and research stepped up into the treatment and storage of radioactive waste.
This shift in attitude is welcome, since it brings with it the hope that in future it will be possible to phase out Europe's nuclear power plants and to concentrate instead on sustainable solutions such as water, wind and solar energy.
<P>
Matikainen-Kallström report (A4-0459/98)
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw, Palm, Sandberg-Fries and Theorin">
We would like to thank the rapporteur for this very interesting investigation into the Union's research effort in the field of thermonuclear fusion and fission.
On the question of fission energy, our position is that we wish to see a phasing-out of nuclear power, although any decisions must be taken at national level.
We cannot therefore support any fission research which would lead to the development of more nuclear energy.
We commend the way in which the Commission is now emphasising investment in operating safety and targeting the whole fuel cycle - which includes waste management.
And we support the proposals on decommissioning reactors, phasing out nuclear power and storing radioactive material.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="Lindqvist">
Whilst I approve of investing in research and development to improve nuclear safety and devise new waste management techniques, there is no reason for the EU to put research money into new thermonuclear fusion or fission reactors.
We are told in the report that the aim is 'the possible construction of safe, clean and economically competitive prototype reactors'.
It is very hard to draw the line between nuclear safety research and new reactor research. In order to avoid a fresh proliferation of nuclear power, however, the distinction must be made before any further projects are commenced.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="President">
That concludes voting time.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 12.50 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
1999 General Budget (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the general budget for 1999.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="Liikanen">
Madam President, the 1999 general budget for the European Union is the last budget which will be adopted by this Parliament.
It may be permitted, therefore, to put it into a more historical perspective.
The 1999 budget concludes a remarkable process of qualitative and quantitative consolidation.
In the future, the Union will be in better shape to justify its financial requirements.
<P>
Qualitatively, this budget procedure has solved three major problems which have been discussed for many years.
Firstly, the 1999 budget is established on the basis of the new interinstitutional agreement on legal bases.
The new budget procedure has shown that the agreement works.
New and experimental activities can still find their starting-point in the Community budget.
The Commission and the organisations concerned will benefit from the clarity for the execution of the budget.
This is a major achievement.
<P>
Secondly, significant progress has also been made with regard to Community subsidies.
The recent Commission communication imposes mandatory minimum rules for publicity and collective decision-making on all Community subsidies.
This is something that Parliament has asked for on many occasions.
The new rules come into effect for the execution of the 1999 budget.
A vademecum has been distributed.
We have had a successful seminar exchanging information and holding discussions with the actual and potential beneficiaries; further seminars are in preparation.
<P>
Thirdly, there are the technical assistance offices.
The intense work of the Committee on Budgets and of experts on both sides has established an unprecedented degree of transparency and control in the 1999 budget.
In this area, lack of clarity can no longer be an excuse.
The Committee on Budgets has made that very clear to the Commission.
<P>
Work has to continue to strengthen links between decisions on financial and human resources for each Community action.
For that reason the Commission is currently developing the first elements of activity-based budgeting.
Legal bases, subsidies and technical assistance offices are qualitative improvements that may look small to some but they solve problems which have long overshadowed the Community budget.
They will remain after this budget for the future.
<P>
What will also remain is a string of rigorous Community budgets.
Since 1996 the Community budget has regularly grown less than public spending in the Member States.
Thus the Union has contributed to the consolidation effort for the successful launch of Economic and Monetary Union.
At the same time, within the rigorous framework, clearer priorities have been set.
On the one hand, financial support for cohesion, as agreed in Edinburgh; on the other hand, employment-creating expenditure, for example trans-European networks research and education.
External expenditure has grown fast, pushed by the Member States and events.
It took some time to establish the regulations and the administrative structures to permit satisfactory execution and, as has been said today in the earlier debate, further efforts are still required.
<P>
Qualitatively and quantitatively, the European Parliament has built up a reputation of being, if not always an easy, at least a credible partner in the budget procedure.
Let us reinforce this partnership with the Council.
In this respect it has also been fortunate with regard to the most recent presidencies.
I hope for the best for the future.
<P>
The hope is that this partnership will also permit the successful conclusion of a new interinstitutional agreement next year.
Important progress has already been made: agreement on a legal basis, the flexibility element, concertation throughout the budget procedure.
It is no exaggeration to say that more progress has been made in the budgetary field than in any other part of Agenda 2000.
This makes me fairly optimistic that new interinstitutional agreements can be reached with this Parliament.
<P>
In conclusion, let me congratulate the rapporteurs, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop and Mr Viola.
As this is the last budget to be adopted under his chairmanship, I should like in particular to thank Detlev Samland.
I think you will agree that his years at the helm of the Committee on Budgets will not be forgotten.
However, we still have a lot of work to do during spring so that the agreement on Agenda 2000 will be ready before the end of this Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Wynn">
Mr President, this budget has been different in many respects from any other budget I have been involved with.
The Commissioner has just highlighted the three major topics which have come from the discussions between the three institutions.
The thing that will always stick in my mind is that we had a conciliation before the Council's second reading, something which has never happened before.
One of the reasons for this, and part of the process, is that we are trying to get Parliament and the Council to work much more closely together on the budget so that we do not again have the game of ping-pong we have had over the past few years when trying to make sure that the budget we get reflects what the Council wants and what Parliament wants.
<P>
During the conciliation process before the second reading, the big decision was to drop the strategic amendment.
Those of us who were part of the delegation did that on the assumption that, come the negotiations for the next interinstitutional agreement, flexibility will be part of it.
The Council made that statement and the President-in-Office stated that clearly this morning.
Getting that agreement also paved the way for the supplementary and amending budget.
<P>
That position was taken by those of us who were involved for a number of reasons, not least of which was a threat by the Council unilaterally to break the existing interinstitutional agreement and state that the 1999 budget would have been illegal.
There are those of my colleagues who say that we should have gone along with that line of action, that we should have called the Council's bluff and should have carried on with the strategic amendment.
Had that happened we would have been confronted with all the consequences of 1999 having no budget, provisional twelfths, etc.
Quite frankly, many of us did not want that.
<P>
We are trying to be sensible, cooperative and prudent, and that should be kept in mind by those in the Council who think a great victory has been achieved over Parliament.
From our side it was a spirit of responsibility and good sense that helped us to make that decision.
The Socialist Group went along with this in what we hope will be a new spirit of cooperation between those two institutions.
<P>
Having said all that, we have a problem which was not mentioned during this conciliation process.
It concerns Category 2, where Parliament set out its position at first reading.
Nothing was said in our discussions but at the end of the day when the Council had its first reading, we find that it has made a cut.
It has agreed with the ECU 500m cut in payments but, at the same time, it has also got rid of the reserve.
We are left with the problem of what to do.
Those who were at the Committee on Budgets' meeting last night will say that problem is now exacerbated, because we were going to go back to first reading and the Committee on Budgets did not agree with that.
The Committee on Budgets has not agreed the reserve but has agreed the ECU 500m extra spending.
<P>
Our group will be discussing that this evening and we will be taking a position on it then.
Therefore, I cannot give a conclusive statement as to what our position will be until it has been decided and until we vote on Thursday.
I have to say that the cut in the reserve does not help our position for the maximum rate of increase if things go wrong with the interinstitutional agreement.
<P>
Finally, we need to congratulate Mrs Dührkop Dührkop.
She has been congratulated throughout the speeches but we must recognise the hard work she and Mr Viola have done.
Mr Viola's report is a formality at this second reading: but in Mrs Dührkop we have a single working mother from the Basque region, with all that implies.
Half way through the process she found herself at the top of an assassin's death list!
We should appreciate the work she has done this year - it has certainly not been easy for her.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Pronk">
Madam President, I too would like to thank the rapporteur for all her hard work on this report.
The debates on the second reading of the budget were extremely hectic, but they are actually relatively calm this time.
The discussion on the strategic amendments in particular took a great deal of time, and we agreed with the rapporteur's approach.
We in the PPE Group have always maintained that strategic amendments should not involve any extra costs, and that was how they were formulated.
They were intended, as we saw it, to get negotiations going, and as such they succeeded.
There has never been such a broad agreement between Parliament's first reading and the Council's second as there is now, and this is all thanks to the strategic amendments.
We must thank both the rapporteur and the Austrian Presidency for this.
I must admit that I, as a Dutchman, still feel rather bitter that this perfectly normal negotiating strategy was so badly misinterpreted by the Dutch Minister of Finance, who made Dutch Members out to be some sort of traitors to their country.
That was what he said at the time, though he has certainly now been shown to be wrong, as the Dutch Government has also acknowledged.
<P>
The social items too have been settled, though there is one problem remaining, which is the expenditure under the Social Fund and other funds.
Mr Wynn referred to this a moment ago.
There are a lot of countries - of which the Netherlands is one - that are having to spend more than 33 % of the commitment appropriations.
According to the most recent figures, the Netherlands is having to spend 45 % of Objective 2 commitments, 37 % of Objective 3, 42 % of the agricultural section of Objective 5a, 67 % of the fisheries section of Objective 5a, and 57 % of Objective 5b. These are very worrying figures, and a number of other northern European countries are in the same position.
Last year, it was clear that there was not enough money left in the Social Fund at the end of the year, and the same thing is going to happen this year.
This means that projects will be paid late, particularly, I have to say, in the Netherlands.
This situation can only be prevented by making sufficient payment appropriations available.
I am therefore pleased that the Committee on Budgets has approved the amendment to make those payment appropriations available, otherwise a good many projects would find themselves in difficulties, which is the last thing we want to see.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Brinkhorst">
Madam President, the debate this afternoon on the budget is perhaps less emotional than the one on budget discharge, but I think it is no less fundamental.
The substantive amendments are not really the issue today.
Gradually over the last five years the Council has become accustomed to the idea that a dialogue with civil society - where the Council's presence has always been negligible - should be promoted.
Parliament, far from being a spending Parliament, has proved to be responsible.
<P>
The issue therefore is not so much finance as institutional issues.
Some people, including our own rapporteur, said that a new culture is developing.
You, Commissioner, said that there is progress in the budgetary field more than anywhere else.
I tend to question that.
Surely all groups, including the Liberal Group, will adopt the departure from the strategic amendment.
But if one looks at what has really been achieved, one can put some questions.
There is a very thin compromise.
At the end of the day the Council has agreed to vote in future by a qualified majority - something that already existed.
So my main point is that on the question of the interinstitutional agreement - the new interinstitutional agreement in particular - the next Parliament must be much more careful to see what will happen.
<P>
From the perspective of the strategic amendment there was always a compatibility with the interinstitutional agreement.
Article 17 made it very clear.
We have stayed within the financial perspectives.
But then the question of whether we agreed under the Treaty was a different matter.
I have always understood that during the time of an interinstitutional agreement it would not be possible for either the Council or Parliament to denounce it.
This particular threat to which Mr Wynn referred quite clearly indicates that was the main argument for the Conciliation Committee to change.
<P>
We should not go back over old history.
The story for the future is that for the time being the European Parliament margin for future expenditure remains pretty much close to zero.
Therefore I think we have reached an armistice, rather than that the battle is won.
The battle for the new structure will come up again in the next three or four months when Agenda 2000 is to be agreed.
No definitional flexibility is being agreed.
In short, the question of the future budgetary rights of this Parliament still remains in abeyance although the culture has certainly changed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Miranda">
Madam President, the fact that the Council has accepted a good many of the proposals made by the Parliament at first reading and the proposal to include certain others by our committee means that I do not need to make any further comments on this matter.
I shall, therefore, concentrate on certain questions that I think are of particular importance in this final phase of the procedure.
I shall begin with something that was spoken about a lot at first reading: the fact that this budget, being the last in the lifetime of this Parliament, may be seen as a bridge leading to the following budget.
I cannot forget that this statement was made in relation to the so-called 'strategic reserve' and the possible failure to conclude an interinstitutional agreement.
<P>
In any case, now that this process is almost over I must draw attention to the extremely low level at which the budget has been set and how far it is from the financial perspective set out in Edinburgh, and, fundamentally, to the negative impact which this has in terms of sacrificing the Community policies that we all see as fundamental, particularly if it is taken as a reference for the definition of future financial perspectives. With or without an institutional agreement.
In other words, in our view this is the most negative aspect of the whole process.
<P>
Let us now look at the question of strategic reserves: now that we have reached the end of the process I must say that we have many doubts and a great deal of concern today about the strategy that has been adopted and, above all, the results obtained by it.
For the sake of a point of departure that was meant to be higher in the future and in order to prevent any need to resort to Article 203 of the Treaty, we have ended up by adopting a rigorous budget.
That was achieved by the Council once it had rejected the reserve.
Apart from this, there has just been a vague agreement with the Council on the basis of an imprecise declaration of principle about flexibility, the significance and extent of which also seem to us to be extremely unclear.
The only conclusion is that there is to be very little flexibility indeed, and only the future will tell just how little.
<P>
I would like to make one final comment to say that there seems to be reasonably good sense in the proposal approved by the Commission to reinstate as payment appropriations the ECU 500 million from the Structural Funds that had been cancelled at the first reading by the Council.
It is a fact that these are payment appropriations and the question might therefore seem quite technical.
But it is not technical for the public.
It is no less true that, even in the technical field, given that the strategic reserve was also rejected here the failure to include this amount inevitably resulted in a huge and incomprehensible discrepancy between authorisations and payment appropriations.
We hope therefore that common sense will prevail here in the plenary and that this proposal will be confirmed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dell'Alba">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I regret the fact that such an important debate as the budget is being held in circumstances where I am almost obliged to speak because so many other people are absent.
In my opinion, this is partly a result of having tried to place too much political emphasis on another debate held this morning.
<P>
With the 1999 budget we had a lot of challenges and demands to present to the Council.
Unfortunately, we were unable to do so because we had to accept a certain political realism and abandon the amendment which we had nevertheless voted for at first reading in an attempt to strengthen our influence in the negotiation process and thus achieve a credible interinstitutional agreement, in other words an interinstitutional agreement that also involves the Council.
<P>
We have achieved this.
Personally, I regret that, obsessed by a dispute that is admittedly relatively important for the proper functioning of the institution but is in my opinion quite fruitless from the political point of view, we have to some extent neglected the real institutional debate with the Council.
The result is that we are in the process of adopting a budget at second reading that, all in all, gives greater consideration to the Council's current concerns than to those of Parliament, and I mean that quite sincerely. We have sacrificed our concerns on the altar of a different debate.
We shall see whether this tactic, chosen by those of our colleagues who - I repeat - wished to place a different debate at the centre of Parliament's concerns, was the right one.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Madam President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office, those few ladies and gentlemen who are still with us, for the first time in four years, in the Committee on Budgets, I was in agreement with Mr Samland, the chairman, in rejecting the draft submitted to us.
To be honest, I am not sure it was for the same reasons: the chairman of the Committee on Budgets rejected the draft because he was not satisfied with the conditions under which the strategic amendment was withdrawn, and I rejected it even though the strategic amendment was withdrawn.
<P>
At first reading I criticised the fact that in artificially raising the budget to 1.17 % of GNP we were holding our countries' taxpayers to ransom, and I mentioned the Committee on Budgets' gamble.
Well, the gamble failed.
The Legal Service rightly declared that the strategic amendment did not comply with budgetary rules or with the principle of entering funds for a specific and genuine purpose.
<P>
So the Council is bringing us back to reality, and it is doing so, I must admit, without making any major concessions.
It has not agreed, for example, that Parliament should discuss compulsory expenditure with the Council.
It has simply accepted the possibility of a certain flexibility and also the idea of possibly using majority voting, which in fact means that it would be applying the Treaty.
For our group to vote for it, the budget proposed by the Council at second reading will have to be adopted in accordance with the terms and the amounts already set out.
Otherwise we will vote against the draft proposed at second reading.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=116 NAME="Samland">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would say to Mr Fabre-Aubrespy that your group has never yet distinguished itself by taking a constructive part in the discussion.
So your present attitude does not surprise me either.
<P>
Secondly, as regards the general attitude, I would actually be quite happy to devote another minute to that.
I believe that the Council and Parliament, with the support of the Commission, have in fact succeeded in developing a procedure which is moving towards greater cooperation. This has not just taken place under the Austrian Presidency - that would be to heap too much praise upon it - but has been an ongoing process since the Luxembourg Presidency and the presidency before that.
The ad hoc procedure for agriculture, for example, originated not this year, but last year, although we have also used it successfully this year.
<P>
Secondly, I say to the President-in-Office and the entire Council that you have not done anything to be proud of!
You ran the risk, if we had not agreed at second reading, of unilaterally revoking the Interinstitutional Agreement.
Because your announcement that, if the strategic amendment were adopted, you would stand here and declare that the maximum rate had been exceeded would have amounted to nothing other than your side revoking the Interinstitutional Agreement.
This, you see, specifically states that the ceilings on expenditure set in it are the same ceilings which you too accept when the maximum amount is determined.
You were not ready for that.
You can give us the credit for being ready - despite the poor results last week - to reach a compromise, because a declaration on your part not to accept the maximum rate would certainly not have been an invitation to Parliament to negotiate an interinstitutional agreement for the period 2000 to 2006 in the next three months, to state that quite clearly here.
<P>
The way in which you extracted yourself from that tight corner leaves much to be desired.
I must be open about this.
Because after the discussions and negotiations we held with the Austrians, I can only say that I had expected more.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy is right there.
The results are extremely disappointing.
Over the next few months, we will have much more ground to make up and catching-up to do on what we have not managed to achieve now.
For you can take it - I am stating this quite clearly here - that the European Parliament will not agree to another institutional agreement which restricts the room for manoeuvre, characterised by flexibility, which it enjoys on the basis of Article 203.
<P>
You, Mr President-in-Office, must be interested in this new financial perspective, because otherwise this House will be invited to enter the ceiling on expenditure in each respective budget, simply to ensure that expenditure does not fall the following year.
To that extent, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President-in-Office, this was a step in the right direction, a leap, one might say, but a leap which fell short.
I should, nonetheless, like to warmly thank all those who, through their work, have supported the discussions on the budget.
My main reason for doing so is because this will be the last full budget on which I shall work as chairman of the Committee on Budgets and as a Member of the European Parliament.
I would like in any case, at this early stage, since I will indeed be going some more of the way with you - and have no fear, I still want to leave my mark on Agenda 2000, so that you will think of the work I have had a hand in here for another seven years - to wish every success to those who must then continue working on the budget.
For you have a huge amount of work ahead of you.
Always remember that the discussions on the budget are a real political opportunity in the European Parliament.
While Mrs Müller said this morning on the discharge that Parliament's hour had come, I would say that it comes repeatedly every year with the budget.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Pimenta">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we are facing this final vote on the 1999 budget with trepidation.
At first reading, in October, the European Parliament did some positive work by reinstating the necessary appropriations for some of the main programmes for regional and social development, fighting unemployment, preserving the environment and humanitarian aid.
<P>
Thanks to the action of the rapporteur, Mrs Barbara Dührkop Dührkop, we then voted for a strategic reserve which raised the overall value of the 1999 budget to a value closer to that originally planned, to provide a possible starting point for the budget for the year 2000, with amounts which are more realistic given the challenges of the euro, enlargement and the problems of inequality between the rich and poor regions of Europe.
<P>
Unfortunately the Council did not accept the strategic reserve, which meant that our framework for the future was uncertain.
Regarding Category 2 of the Structural Fund, the Council seems to ignore the fact that there are very large delays in payments, and funds are not being paid to projects already completed, which we feel is completely unacceptable and a discredit to the European Union.
In January of this year we had to use up PTE 230 billion (ECU 1.17 billion) of the 1998 budget in order to pay what should have been paid in 1997.
Since the blanket was short we covered our heads and left our feet outside.
Throughout the year the Commission has been doing all it can to clear these back-payments, but it has not solved the problem.
How can some people now want to cut or place in reserve appropriations that are already lacking?
<P>
As for the rest, I would briefly like to express our concern at the mismanagement of the programme of assistance to Russia - namely TACIS - and our doubts as to the objectives and results of the food aid that has now been proposed.
<P>
Finally, I should like to declare the support of our delegation for the creation of stricter machinery for fighting fraud and the misuse of public money.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Virrankoski">
Madam President, first I would like to thank the rapporteurs Mrs Dührkop Dührkop and Mr Viola for their excellent work.
Similarly I wish to express my sincere thanks to the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, Mr Samland, whose leadership of the committee has been almost legendary.
I also wish to thank Budget Commissioner Erkki Liikanen for the cooperation he has demonstrated in his dealings with Parliament.
<P>
The budget for next year is being created on the whole with consensus, and with little dissension, among Parliament, the Commission and the Council.
It is a tight one.
It represents only 1.1 % of gross national product, whereas the ceiling is 1.27 %.
Personally, I am pleased that the planned EUR 130 million of appropriations for the TACIS programme have not been placed in reserve, as it would have paralysed this important programme and jeopardised, among other things, measures to improve nuclear safety.
<P>
This EU budget is the last in the lifetime of this parliament.
For the next budget both opinions on funding and an interinstitutional agreement will have to be discussed and negotiated.
Closely connected with this will be resolving the EU's finances, which includes the issue of net contributions.
<P>
The Agenda 2000 resolutions will be vital for the budgets over the coming years.
We could say that Agenda 2000 is Europe's most all-embracing international economic agreement ever made in peacetime.
For that reason, we must focus on its entry into force.
The worst thing we in Parliament could do now would be to render the Commission powerless, for example by refusing discharge for the 1996 accounts.
This would mean that our house would virtually be without a master just at a time when the crucial Agenda 2000 talks are going on, and Parliament would not have a negotiating team.
For this reason I hope that we can debate this issue just as we did the previous one, in a spirit of cooperation, for the sake of the EU and, above all, its Member States and citizens.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Kaklamanis">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, let me remind you that the Council's commitment two years ago, when we were debating the 1997 budget, was that the 1997 budget would be the last austerity budget.
And I remember the charismatic chairman of the Committee on Budgets, Mr Samland, wagging his finger during his speech and saying to them 'be sure not to let us down'.
<P>
Unfortunately, Mr Samland, it seems that they have let us down.
Just as they did last year, the same has happened this year and so we are now debating a budget shaped by the demands of the stability pact, a budget tied to the commitment to prop up a phoney Economic and Monetary Union, subject to the dictates of bankers, banks and economic lobbies, and one which has absolutely nothing to do with what we all once dreamed of, namely a Europe of solidarity and employment, the social Europe.
<P>
I know what is going to happen now.
Everyone who spoke, even the rapporteur Mrs Dührkop, whom I do not see here to congratulate - it seems that she too became bored and has left the House - was disappointed with the budget. At the end of his speech Mr Samland said the same thing, and all of you who have spoken said the same, but you will then vote for the budget, you will vote for it as you did last year and the year before.
I, however, wish to be consistent with my beliefs and vote accordingly. Therefore I will not vote in favour of this budget.
And those who elected you should ask you how you can maintain and say one thing and in the end vote for something else, and how you can issue ideological manifestos with a view to the coming elections containing false promises that you know you cannot fulfil so long as the budget remains at 1.10.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Seppänen">
Madam President, we in Parliament are good at eloquent speeches, but the words we utter have no influence on how things turn out.
In Parliament's Committee on Budgets we roundly condemned the decisions taken by the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions to pay officials their salaries during the strike in May, but as the view of Parliament is not reflected in the budget, it counts for nothing.
<P>
Paying salaries during a strike is a small matter.
However, the so-called strategic reserve is a big issue, and showed Parliament's desire to increase its powers.
But it lost the wrestling match with the Council.
In the end Parliament always humbly does what the EU political elite wants.
Parliament never opposes anyone.
<P>
Parliament spent a whole morning criticising the Commission for the ineffectual way it monitors finances.
Today, when in many speeches there have been suggestions of not granting the Commission discharge, Parliament is clearly in favour by a large majority of delivering ECU 400 million worth of agricultural produce into the hands of the Russian mafia.
The European Parliament will not impose any conditions on the granting of aid that have to do with the proper monitoring of the sale of food aid.
Thus Parliament itself will be powerless when it comes to looking for those guilty of fraudulent activity regarding EU surplus agricultural produce on the market.
When food aid is being sold on the Russian market, without any proper market mechanisms, we are squandering taxpayers' money.
Selling off ECU 400 million worth of EU food is equivalent to just giving the Russians ECU 150 million directly in cash.
<P>
With the European Parliament approach it is easier to squander money all in one go than to squander it in a few small amounts.
The Committee for Budgets only monitors these small amounts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Madam President, at first reading I opposed the ECU 3.75 billion strategic reserve, which I described as a completely wrong signal that will lead to the maximisation of expenditure in 1999 and thereafter, whereas the financial perspectives are precisely designed to control expenditure.

<P>
The Committee on Budgets is now proposing not to have this enormous reserve, which is sensible because Parliament would risk being condemned by the Court if it persisted in this dangerous course.
The extra buffer would mean that the maximum rate of increase under the Treaty would be considerably exceeded.
The Council's promise to include 'elements of flexibility' in the new interinstitutional agreement gives Parliament an excuse to change its mind.
<P>
But has Parliament actually achieved anything?
The Council has given no promises about the nature and scale of the flexibility.
Will there be possibilities for transferring between the budget categories?
Will there really be more flexibility than we already have with the current financial perspectives?
None of this is clear, yet Parliament is content with this vague promise.
I doubt very much whether we really needed to put our credibility on the line just for this, and we must not repeat these sorts of antics in the future.
<P>
I also think that the Council was right not to make any specific promises.
The division of the financial framework into maximum expenditure figures for the various categories has helped the budget to achieve controlled and balanced development.
Budget discipline requires these maximum figures to be strictly adhered to.
Some flexibility is needed in fleshing out each year's budgetary priorities, but this can be done without transferring funds between the various headings, which so many people have been calling for.
The headings are broad enough to accommodate varying requirements.
<P>
One final point on the Structural Funds.
It was stated in Edinburgh that these should be spending targets, and now we are paying for that statement.
At the end of the programming period, we can expect to see a considerable pool of unallocated appropriations, and we need to find a solution to this problem.
If we carry appropriations over until 2000 as the rapporteur suggests, they will have to be deducted from the financial package for 2000-2006.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Colom i Naval">
Madam President, as has already been stated, there is no doubt that this budget is a historic one.
However, in my view, it is not historic because Mrs Dührkop is the first female Iberian Member to be appointed general rapporteur - although I congratulate her on her work - nor is it historic because it is the last budget of the current 1993-1999 financial perspective and because it is certainly going to influence the next financial perspective, if there is one, which is not yet certain. Nor is it historic, in my view, merely because it is the first budget in euros.
We knew all this when the budgetary procedure began.
<P>
In my opinion, it is historic because, in the course of this budgetary procedure, the Council has promised in writing, and this morning it repeated that promise verbally, that it would respect what it has signed.
<P>
We have managed to get the Council to make a momentous declaration here.
Some people may be surprised to know that it is the first time in 40 years that the Council has made a unilateral declaration stating that it will respect its commitments.
This might seem evident and redundant to some people, but it has not been the case in the history of the Community.
<P>
This Council declaration relates to the question of flexibility in the future financial perspective, which we would like to sign and to have, but not - and I would stress this point - at any price.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, the basis for my current negotiating mandate is the resolution of 4 December 1997 in which Parliament gave its support to a new financial perspective that would be adequate to meet the challenges that the European Union will face in the coming years.
<P>
Parliament accepts as a practical necessity the own resources ceiling of 1.27 % and calls for mechanisms to provide flexibility: on the one hand, review clauses for the financial perspective; and on the other hand, mechanisms that speed up the process of transferring funds between categories and mobilising new resources when necessary.
<P>
In a working document several months ago, I pointed out that the problem stemmed from paragraph 12 of the current Interinstitutional Agreement, which provides for the financial perspective to be reviewed in accordance with the majorities provided for in Article 203(9) of the Treaty. However, the Council had voted unanimously for an internal decision that prevented any degree of flexibility.
<P>
To put an end to this inflexibility, we tabled the so-called strategic amendments.
In my opinion, these can now be withdrawn following last week's agreement.
<P>
I must point out that Amendment No 708 on the Structural Funds from the first reading followed a certain logic that the Council has now broken.
It has removed the commitment appropriations from the reserve and added them to the heading, while maintaining the reduction in payment appropriations.
Frankly, in this situation I would prefer to go back to the preliminary draft budget.
<P>
What do the Member States hope to save through this?
At best, they will gain the interest on EUR 500 million at 3 %.
At the most, Germany would save between EUR 2 million and EUR 3 million over the year.
That is the maximum that can be saved.
<P>
Is this a symbolic gesture?
Clearly, what counts are the commitment appropriations, but we are going to have to explain that we have only cut the payment appropriations, which do not really have much of an effect.
The analysis has already been made in the press and simply indicates that there has been a reduction in the Structural Funds.
And as far as symbols go, Madam President, I prefer that of solidarity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Bourlanges">
Madam President, it is a great advantage to be the last to speak because that allows me to address the general rapporteur who has returned and whom I wished to congratulate.
Firstly, you understand, because I believe that the general rapporteur ex officio deserves support, consideration and respect from the House.
That is a matter of principle.
But also, I must admit, because Mrs Dührkop Dührkop has shown us in a very striking way something that is fundamental: that in a budgetary procedure interinstitutional war was not inevitable, that the dealings between the Council, Parliament and the Commission were sometimes farcical, but not necessarily doomed.
And we should be delighted about this.
<P>
You have shown that it was possible to come to a sound agreement with the other arm of the budgetary authority.
The agreement holds in two ways: by means of rigour and flexibility.
Rigour, because that has been the law of Europe's public authorities for years, and will continue to be for years to come, and flexibility, because it is a pre-condition for the intelligent use of rigour.
Intelligent rigour is impossible without optimum allocation of resources. Optimum allocation of resources is impossible unless the budgetary authority is freely able to allocate what are scarce resources across all potential expenditure.
<P>
There is an important difference between the Council and Parliament here.
We have shown rigour.
Over the past years we have proved that we were capable of bearing our share of the burden because we knew that behind each beneficiary of Community appropriations there was also a taxpayer, and that behind both of these there was a voter.
But we have shown this.
At the end of the parliamentary term we have achieved a level of expenditure that is very much lower than the 'own resources' ceiling decided at Edinburgh.
<P>
On the other hand, in terms of flexibility, it is up to the Council to prove its goodwill, to prove its willingness to change.
Yes, there is a link between rigour and flexibility.
We have done our part of the work.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Council, it is up to you to do yours.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place on Thursday at 9.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
1998 assessment and 1999 annual programme
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="President">
The next item is the statement by the Commission on the assessment of 1998 and the annual programme for 1999.
<P>
I should like to welcome Mr Santer, who now has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 NAME="Santer">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, 1999 will be the last year of this Commission.
It will also be the first year of the euro.
It will be a full year, because there is a great deal to do, because we have a heavy programme and the firm desire to complete it, and because we must leave our house in order for the next Commission.
<P>
I, too, believe that the internal reform of the Commission, as I have already said, is a priority for 1999 and I will come back to it later.
<P>
The Commission's work programme is based on priorities I have held since 1995, because they are the priorities of our fellow citizens.
Since the work programme was forwarded to you a month ago and you have been able to acquaint yourselves with it, I will merely make a few political remarks.
<P>
I will begin with Agenda 2000.
<P>
As I have said on many occasions to this House, all the Commission's proposals are now on the table.
As a result, 1999 is the year of decisions.
The adoption of Agenda 2000 is a key issue for the construction of Europe, in that it is the very development of the Community that is at stake at a time when monetary union is about to begin and, above all, when we face the prospect of enlargement.
<P>
Rather than speculating on the dates for enlargement, it is essential to reach political agreements that will allow it to succeed.
The Commission will do all in its power to encourage an agreement on Agenda 2000, respecting the Community interest, by March 1999 at the latest.
<P>
I would now like to look more specifically at three points.
The first relates to our main priority, that is, growth and employment.
On 1 January the euro will come into use in the 11 participating countries.
This will mean that economic policies will have to be more closely coordinated in future, particularly in fiscal matters.
We discussed this at length at the Vienna European Council and at Pörtschach.
<P>
As far as employment is concerned, the strategy launched at the Luxembourg European Council just over a year ago provides the framework for Europe's efforts to generate employment, and this will continue and be extended in 1999.
Thanks to this strategy, the Member States can situate their efforts within a common framework.
As the European Council noted, considerable progress has been made in terms of creating jobs and reducing unemployment.
I hope that over time the European strategy will allow us all to carry out reforms that truly generate employment and that naturally respond to specific national needs.
<P>
That is why, from 1999, the Commission will be placing greater emphasis on applying the European strategy in practice.
The joint report planned for 1999 will present the first series of evaluation results and will back up the proposals for guidelines on employment for 2000.
Also in 1999 the Commission will present a communication on the systematic consideration of employment needs at Community level, as required by the Treaty of Amsterdam through the amendment to Article 127.
<P>
In the same spirit, the Commission has included in its work programme its intention to strengthen the Union's social dimension in 1999.
It will concentrate on developing policies aimed at modernising social protection systems, promoting social inclusion and combating discrimination and inequalities.
<P>
Madam President, another priority for 1999 is the creation of the area of freedom, security and justice.
The area of justice and home affairs is now clearly on the agenda for the Heads of State or Government.
In Vienna, we adopted the action plan presented by the Council and the Commission, and in addition an extraordinary meeting of the European Council is to be held in Tampere - under the Finnish Presidency - in October 1999 to respond to this challenge and its implications.
<P>
After the ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam, we will have to make real progress in 1999 on judicial and police cooperation and on the asylum and immigration policy.
There are a great many areas in which our citizens have high expectations.
The 1999 work programme includes the integration of the Schengen acquis into Community law, with an overhaul of a certain number of legislative instruments.
The Commission fully intends to make use of the new privileges conferred on it by the Treaty of Amsterdam.
<P>
I would now like to move on to the challenges for the Union presented by the changes in the international context, with the birth of the euro and globalisation in the field of external relations.
I have often said and will repeat now that I feel real frustrated at the Union's slow development and our inability to exploit our full potential.
I am pleased with the agreement on the external representation of the euro.
It is a step in the right direction towards responding to the rest of the world's 'need for Europe'.
For several months now the international environment has suffered a great deal of turbulence. The Union could get to the very heart of this and even be a source of stability.
<P>
In this context, we will have to continue to strengthen our relationship with the United States, and the main objective for 1999 in this respect will be the implementation of the Transatlantic Economic Partnership.
The Commission will keep a close eye on developments in Russia.
We will continue to provide aid for reform and economic recovery, both within the framework of the partnership agreements we have with that country and all the new Independent States, and by mobilising the resources of the TACIS programme.
<P>
We must also remain vigilant with regard to the situation in Asia and in Latin America, and on a general level the Union must clearly be involved in the debate on the reform of the international economic and financial system.
<P>
This obviously means that the Union must speak with one voice.
It also means that the Union must set itself the objective of promoting a more integrated approach for the various areas of its external action.
We need to encourage the Member States to become aware of this need, and this will again be another of the Commission's priorities in 1999.
The Union must take advantage of the complementary nature of its internal and external policies.
In this respect, it has various instruments available: the common commercial policy, the policy on public aid for development and the CFSP.
It must make greater use of these, be more active and be more present on a political level.
We must not forget that 1999 will be the year when we will appoint someone to take full responsibility for the CFSP.
We must do all we can to ensure that this person can fully meet the expectations this role entails.
<P>
Madam President, beyond these three important central issues, I would like to highlight several of the guidelines for our 1999 work programme that specifically represent a shift in Community policies in favour of the concerns of Europeans.
I would like to mention, in particular, a number of key points.
<P>
The first is public health.
In 1999, the Commission will present a new action programme aimed at achieving a high level of health protection.-The second is food product safety.
The Food and Veterinary Office has been established with the specific objective of helping to enhance controls in the Member States and third countries, in order to ensure compliance with Community legislation and to provide responses to food hazards.-The third key issue concerns the interests of consumers, which are to be included in the definition and application of other Community policies.-The Commission will also present a communication on the problems encountered by citizens in exercising their rights within the internal market.-The final key issue is the environment.
Respecting the commitment made in Cardiff, the Commission will ensure that environmental concerns are integrated into the main proposals in the work programme, particularly as regards Agenda 2000, transport and energy.
We will also have to be determined in pursuing the Kyoto strategy on climate change.Madam President, to prepare the Union for its external and internal challenges, particularly those posed by enlargement, we must make progress - and we all admit this - on institutional reform.
<P>
It is now well established that this reform involves two issues.
On the one hand, there are the institutional reforms themselves.
The Commission has already set out its ideas on this matter on many occasions. It will clarify them during the first half of 1999.
On the other hand, there are the reforms that do not require any amendment of the Treaties and can already be decided on and implemented in order to modernise and improve the effectiveness of all the Community institutions.
This exercise must result in a genuine internal reform of all the institutions at the same time to ensure that they remain coherent and effective as a whole.
I will be devoting a great deal of my energy in 1999 to the reform of the Commission.
<P>
As I told the house on 2 December, the Commission needs to be modernised, and it must also adapt its structures, review its work methods and simplify its management.
Its management must be responsible, it must be monitored and it must be decentralised.
Why is this necessary?
It is necessary because we have strived for and achieved a high degree of integration and this means that there is a constant need for adjustment.
It is necessary because the acceleration of the Community 'product' since the end of the 1980s has provided the Commission with a whole series of new tasks, entailing direct management of substantial sums of money.
However, this expansion in tasks has not been accompanied by a similar increase in levels of personnel.
It is also true that this expansion in tasks occurred at a time when management training and experience in these new areas had still to be consolidated.
And lastly, it is necessary because the Commission is a relatively young and multinational administration that must constantly improve its administrative culture.
Moreover, I believe that all international organisations face this challenge and that the Commission is not lagging behind in this respect.
<P>
As soon as I took up my post I launched the SEM 2000 (Sound Economic Management) and MAP 2000 (Modernisation of Administration) initiatives.
These are beginning to bear fruit, even if it is evident that they cannot solve all the problems overnight.
We cannot just assume that those in charge will monitor what is going on.
I am convinced that we will succeed in making the most of all the talent and commitment of our officials who have given so much to the construction of Europe.
<P>
To ensure coherence, as much synergy as possible and, above all, consistent efforts, I decided a few months ago to incorporate all the Commission's actions within the framework of the 'Commission of tomorrow' initiative.
So what are the main ideas behind the 'Commission of tomorrow'?
There are, in fact, three.
The first is to undertake a more in-depth examination of the Commission's future role and missions.
Secondly, in the light of this exercise, we will reexamine the institution's structures and organisation, and finally, we will extend the reforms relating to financial and personnel management.
<P>
As I have already told you, during the first half of 1999 I will be setting out general ideas on the restructuring of the Commissioners' portfolios and the reorganisation of the Commission's services, with a view to bringing them more into line with the changes in the Commission's tasks.
I will hand these on to the next President.
A detailed examination of the Commission's activities, the resources used and the work methods followed is currently under way in order to prepare for the reform.
This structural reform will only succeed if it is accompanied by a profound change in the administrative culture.
At the moment, two codes of conduct are being prepared for this purpose: a code of ethics establishing the rules of behaviour for officials, and a code determining the relationships between the Commissioners, the private offices and the services.
<P>
Finally, in 1999, I will draw the operational conclusions from the report drawn up by a joint discussion group on staffing policy, which is currently the subject of extensive consultations with the staff representatives.
This examination will undoubtedly involve the other institutions since it may result in a reform of the staff regulations, which obviously concerns all the institutions.
<P>
This leads me to a final comment: work is already underway in all the areas I have just mentioned.
Some have begun to show concrete results, while others will do so over time.
They need time and cannot be completed successfully without the support of all the actors involved in the construction of Europe.
We each have our own role to play.
I hope that this is done in a spirit of transparency, trust and mutual respect.
<P>
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, these are the main issues in our 1999 programme.
I would add only one thing: the construction of the Community is not an end in itself.
The Union's legitimacy lies in providing specific, democratic solutions to specific problems.
The countries of Europe are faced with certain challenges that they cannot resolve on their own.
Our duty is to help them respond effectively to these challenges.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Desama">
Mr President, Madam President, at the height of the Lewinsky affair, a commentator on American television said that it was 'a grim time for the President'.
I would paraphrase that today by saying that it is 'a grim time for the Commission'.
<P>
I am not just talking here about the debate on the discharge, because every day the press and media provide us with further information and make revelations, confirmed or unconfirmed, about the increasing problems affecting the running of the Commission.
<P>
Such revelations obviously affect the credibility and therefore the effectiveness of the Commission.
The Socialist Group is strongly urging you to act in a rapid and determined manner on the intentions you have expressed regarding the reform of the Commission, its working methods, its organisation, the flexibility of its procedures and, above all, its systems of transparency and control.
Although it is true that our two institutions are coming to the end of their respective mandates, it is also true that they still have their work cut out for them. To be able to accomplish the tasks before us, we all need a strong and determined Commission, as that institution is still the motor behind the construction of Europe that it has served so well since 1957.
<P>
If we turn now to the assessment of 1998, we could use the old image of a bottle being half full or half empty.
We must be fair and admit that the legislative assessment of 1998 is relatively positive, though with two obvious regrets.
The first is that when the Commission drew up the legislative assessment, it did not put a great deal of emphasis - very little, in fact - on the role Parliament played in this legislative work through its additions and contributions.
I believe that the assessment would have appeared more objective if you had mentioned Parliament's increasingly decisive legislative action, particularly since the Maastricht Treaty.
<P>
The second regret is that compared with the anticipated work programme, a certain number of legislative proposals - and this is normal - did not see the light of day.
They remained out of sight.
The reason for this should have been explained to the European Parliament; you should have justified why no work was done on these specific proposals.
Moreover, why are the proposals that did not see the light of day in 1998 not then included in the 1999 programme?
There is certainly inconsistency here which concerns us somewhat, and we would like to hear what you have to say about this.
<P>
Last year, Mr President, when presenting your 1998 programme, you announced that the Commission intended to carry out a periodic assessment of the rate at which the legislative work was progressing.
We have been disappointed in this respect.
Very little has been done.
In any case, the Commission has done much less than it promised.
Finally, to round off my comments on 1998, I would like to stress the fact that as guardian of the Treaties, it is your duty to keep an eye on this trend for the Council - which is mainly to blame - to hold on to a number of legislative proposals to which the Commission and Parliament are committed in its in-tray, as it were.
There is a problem there that you must be aware of.
<P>
In addition to this the Council is increasingly tending to claim the right to annotate legislative acts, as it were, including those that involve codecision. It does so through a number of unilateral declarations, as if it were up to the Council, and the Council alone, to create some kind of third court in the European legal order.
I therefore call on you, Mr President, as the representative of the Commission, to ensure that this practice stops.
<P>
I would now like to move on to your 1999 programme.
You have stated, Mr President, and we agree with you, that the main priority is to ensure that Agenda 2000 is a success.
Without the essential mechanism of Agenda 2000, there could be no prospect of enlarging the European Union in the foreseeable future.
Naturally, the discussion on the financial perspective and the future interinstitutional agreement that began during today's debate on the budget is very closely linked to Agenda 2000.
It is therefore essential for the Commission and Parliament to work together in a determined fashion so that we complete this work, work that is difficult but that we must pass on to those who are going to succeed us.
<P>
The second priority is the Treaty of Amsterdam.
It is true that a certain number of Member States have yet to ratify the Treaty of Amsterdam.
It is true that some of them are caught up in the slow pace or difficulties of their institutional procedures.
However, nothing should prevent the Commission, and nothing is preventing it, from pressing ahead with the preparations for the Treaty to come into force and for the instruments that will allow it to be applied as quickly as possible, as soon as the last country ratifies it.
Clearly, I am thinking here of the new legal bases that will have to be provided for certain legislative proposals that are pending, the problem of publishing or advertising the documents and acts, and the difficulty that my colleague, Mr Medina, will speak about shortly relating to the ultra-peripheral regions.
That is a point that we should also like to stress.
<P>
My final point concerns what, for us, is the most important priority of all, that is, the fight Europe must wage against unemployment and social exclusion through a dynamic employment policy.
The tide of social democracy that has swept across the governments of Europe in recent years is bringing a stronger wind with it that is blowing in the right direction.
It is important now for the Commission to unfurl as many sails as possible to ensure that the winds carry the European Community as far as they can towards this, to our minds, essential objective: social Europe, the fight for employment and the fight against exclusion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by thanking the President of the Commission for the very diplomatic way in which he attempted today to examine the concerns that both our institutions have about the way we deal with each other.
<P>
The work programme that we are discussing today is supposed to be the product of our institutional consultations.
An agreement was once reached between our two institutions that the European Commission should consult the European Parliament before fixing its political priorities.
I have noticed over the last few years that this arrangement does not work entirely satisfactorily.
We tried last year to improve matters, as Mr Desama has already said.
We suggested that the Commission should produce quarterly or six-monthly reports in order to try to anticipate at an earlier stage any changes that should or might be made with Parliament's knowledge.
But I do not think that this was the problem.
I think the problem was that the Commission did not do what it had promised.
I spoke to the Commission President about this, and I think that some of the blame also lies with us, Mr Desama, because we should have kept a closer eye on whether or not the Commission was keeping its promises.
There is blame on both sides.
We failed to remind the Commission about what had been agreed.
<P>
Mr Santer, you made a very severe speech today and implied that something is wrong between our two institutions.
We have always been natural allies in defending Europe, but now, just when the euro is about to be introduced, which is a major political event, relations between us have deteriorated and we no longer trust each other as we did.
That is what I think.
And if there is something wrong between us as we approach this major political event, then we must ask each other why this has happened and how we can rebuild our trust.
<P>
The European Parliament is finding itself the target of criticism, and we have tried to resolve a number of issues by introducing the Statute.
I have noticed that when ministers go back to their Member States, they claim all the credit for Europe's successes themselves and blame the Commission and the European Parliament for everything that goes wrong.
This means that neither institution can do anything right.
When we vote on the discharge for 1996 the day after tomorrow, I personally hope and expect that discharge will be given, but I do not know what the newspapers will say the following day about everything else that is now going wrong.
So we must both try to find solutions together.
<P>
You have made a number of proposals that I agree with.
You said that you want to modernise the Commission.
If we have new responsibilities, we must have the staff to carry them out.
We must ensure that officials - not just at the Commission, but also at the Council and the European Parliament - undergo proper recruitment procedures, and that we have proper rules to be able to dismiss them where necessary.
You did not say anything about this in your speech.
<P>
The codes of conduct for both institutions are extremely important, but I have to ask, with the proposals you have made, how we can really monitor whether we are each complying with them, so that we can hold faith over the coming years and not have to go into the elections feeling that promises were made but not kept.
So I think we have a lot to do here.
<P>
I should just like to make three more brief points.
I am concerned about a number of political elements such as Agenda 2000 and the short time available.
I wonder whether our two institutions should not have clearer agreements here.
Secondly, I am concerned about growth, employment and all our efforts in the social field.
You talked about modernisation, but I have the impression that particularly those workers who cross frontiers every day are not seeing the advantages that we hoped they would.
<P>
I am concerned about food safety and everything to do with it.
One of the conclusions reached after the BSE crisis was that we in Europe definitely need something like a Food and Drug Administration.
We have hardly got anywhere with this, and that worries me.
It is not all your fault, the Council is also to blame.
What progress are we making there?
<P>
Finally, I hope - and in many parliaments there is a group of elder statesmen or party chairmen or whatever they may be called - that after the vote on Thursday, we can find a better way of managing crises and that you will reach agreement with Parliament's President and the Conference of Presidents on how we can ensure that we have a good run-up to the elections, and that you yourself can enter your last six months with your head held high, because that is what I and my group would very much like to see.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Madam President, it might seem a little frustrating to be discussing the likes of programmes in the afterglow of the Vienna summit, but the Commission and Council's work does involve producing such things.
I certainly agree that implementation of Agenda 2000 deserves top priority - along with all the other programmes with '2000' appended. The President of the Commission himself mentioned MAP 2000 and SEM 2000.
No evaluation of the last six months will be complete until we see that the goals set are being achieved.
<P>
The Commission President mentioned two codes of conduct, but said nothing about his institution's existing commitment to good administrative practice. We have in the past seen the fruits of this - and surely sound internal governance is now more relevant than ever.
Rules on transparency and conflict of interest are vital if a dividing line is to be drawn between political and administrative activities.
The credibility of each and every one of us is at stake here. I very much hope that Commissioner Oreja and his team will soon be tabling proposals on transparency and access to information, because an open style of management is essential if the provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam are to be honoured.
And I would repeat today what I have already stated twice before in this House: it is transparency that will lead to greater effectiveness and efficiency.
<P>
Let me now switch to another subject under debate, namely the viability of the euro.
I sadly cannot endorse the compromise reached on how the euro zone should be represented on the international stage.
<P>
Mr President, there has been talk of new employment goals for Europe.
However, I fear that we could easily fall back into old moulds when it comes to ways of achieving them.
<P>
It was good though to hear from the Commission President that a new programme of health-promoting measures is on the way.
And the decision this week by the agriculture ministers to ban the use of certain antibiotics was excellent news.
I hope that steps will be undertaken as part of this programme to combat resistant forms of the tuberculosis and salmonella viruses. These are currently causing severe problems both in the EU and beyond.
<P>
May I conclude by saying how pleased I was that Mr Santer mentioned the extraordinary European Council to be held in Tampere on internal policy and security.
Let us hope that the Commission and its President will make the most of the right of initiative they do actually enjoy under the third pillar. And I would appeal for a pro-active approach to the Northern Dimension.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="Hyland">
Madam President, those of us who have the responsibility of representing the agricultural sector of our individual countries must be concerned, if not alarmed, at the extent of the economic crisis experienced particularly by livestock farmers.
We are failing seriously in our duties if we cannot respond to what is an emergency situation resulting from an unprecedented set of circumstances which could not have been anticipated in the context of the 1992 CAP reform.
<P>
While acknowledging Commissioner Fischler's concern and efforts in modifying regulations to ease the burden for farmers, the reality is that beef, sheep and pigs are being sold at a loss or at best at marginal profits.
The situation in Ireland is extremely serious and unless there is some recovery in prices, many farmers will not survive.
It is not in anybody's interest, particularly in Ireland, with our greater dependence on agricultural exports, that the basic infrastructure of the food sector - the family farm - is in such dire straits.
<P>
With regard to the sheepmeat sector, the Commission should, as an emergency measure, suspend the stabiliser at least on a temporary basis to enable the system to reflect the reality of the market-place for Irish sheep farmers who are leaving sheep farming at an alarming rate.
Such instability is certainly not in the long term interests of the European farm model which we purport to represent in the context of Agenda 2000.
If the Irish family farm is to survive within a framework of the European model, as envisaged in Agenda 2000, greater efficiencies must be achieved through cooperation and well-planned partnerships.
The agricultural proposals, as represented in Agenda 2000, are not satisfactory, particularly from an Irish perspective.
It is impossible to envisage further price cuts without a corresponding increase in direct income support from the EU and the agricultural budget.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Querbes">
Madam President, I, too, would like to speak solely on the issue of agriculture, the Union's most important financial policy and the decisive issue in Agenda 2000.
<P>
Mr President of the Commission, when will you admit that the reform of the CAP that you are proposing is leading to deadlock?
First, because it reinforces a production-based approach that does not respond to the needs of farmers, those who live in the country and European society in terms of jobs, the quality and diversity of agricultural products, the balanced use of the land, and international cooperation.
<P>
Moreover, it preempts the result of the negotiations on the WTO and on enlargement by already penalising the Union's interests, particularly by accepting additional concessions in the face of American demands.
<P>
Finally, what future does this reform have, when it is based on financial forecasts and international markets that have been turned upside down by the financial crisis and the constraints of budgetary stability linked to the euro?
<P>
This all explains why this reform has been rejected on a massive scale, not only by the vast majority of national and European agricultural organisations, but also by the majority of this House.
On two occasions, the European Parliament has stated that it would prefer a different form of CAP, one that is based on employment, the adjustment of income support and the balanced use of land, and that respects Community preference.
<P>
The Committee on Agriculture has just rejected the proposals to reform the common organisation of the markets in beef and veal, milk and cereals, but until now, the Commission has refused to listen to the signals we have sent in its direction.
Not only has it failed to make any significant change to its initial drafts, but it is still persisting in negotiating free trade agreements with third countries, under conditions that are bringing about a further weakening of the Community preference and the European model.
<P>
When will the Commission decide to pull the reform out of the rut it is in and take account of the House's proposals to make the CAP fairer and more just, to the benefit of farmers and all of society?
<P>
In conclusion, how can the Commission justify its proposal to lift the embargo on British meat, while most scientists still have strong reservations and while not all the health guarantees have been met?
<P>
I should like to hear what the Commission has to say about these comments and questions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lannoye">
Madam President, our debate on 1998 is taking place in a unique context for two reasons.
<P>
It is unique, firstly, since, as our colleague Mr Desama has already pointed out, there is a serious crisis in our confidence in the Commission, entangled as it is in a muddle of accusations and allegations of poor management, which is obviously preventing the Commission from working effectively.
<P>
The second point concerns the political context.
In fact, 1999 is an important electoral year, when the public expects clear messages from the various political actors involved and from the Commission, so that they are able to make up their minds.
<P>
Finally, it is also a year when preparations will be made for the new World Trade Organisation negotiations, the review of the Lomé Convention and the adoption of Agenda 2000.
<P>
So there are many issues and a difficult background.
And, in my view, there are three questions that need to be answered here that many people ask.
<P>
Firstly, where is Europe going?
<P>
Secondly, what are the responses of the Commission and the various institutions to the current challenges we face?
<P>
And thirdly, given the political crisis, do original and credible responses exist?
<P>
On the first question of where Europe is going, I believe that there are two possibilities. On the one hand, Europe can content itself with being a form of free trade area without much of a political dimension.
This is unfortunately a possibility that risks becoming a reality if, as I fear, the reform of the institutions does not measure up to what has been planned. On the other hand, we can have democratic, political integration with a common project for all Europeans, including those who are to join us in the years ahead.
<P>
Today, unfortunately, all the talk seems to be about enlargement and the Commission makes nothing but technical statements on the planned institutional reforms.
It talks about changing the composition of the Commission, extending the use of qualified majority voting, and giving new weighting to the votes within the Council, but it says very little about what we are all waiting for, that is, a far-reaching reform of the running of the European Union.
A new treaty which is much more ambitious than the Treaty of Amsterdam is essential and, as far as I am concerned, the Commission is the institution that is in the best position to propose one today, a few months before the election.
It is to be noted that there is no response to this either in your speech or in your documents.
<P>
The second question relates to the main challenges facing us.
You mentioned them yourself: globalisation, sustainable development, technological changes and international instability.
I am surprised to see that these challenges are presented as if they were independent of one another, and as if the European Union were faced with a sort of inevitability that had come from somewhere else, to which we must adapt as best we can by sustaining as little damage as possible at an ecological and social level.
This idea is, to my mind, mistaken and dangerous, and I think that it is a fundamental, and probably the principal, challenge.
Is globalisation, as it appears today, compatible with a democratic European Union that is the bearer of an original development plan, in other words, a model for development that is sustainable on both ecological and social levels?
In the present context, this is not possible because many mechanisms regulating investment, global trade and technological choices still need to be introduced, and it is on this point that the Commission should provide at least an initial response.
I see no such response in your text, nor did I hear it in your speech.
<P>
Finally, the third point relates to transparency and confidence.
You say yourself that we cannot achieve any results without the participation and confidence of the general public in the democratic model.
Several of my colleagues have condemned the problems concerning the relations between Parliament and the Commission. And it is true that even the commitments made by your predecessor, Mr Delors, and by yourself, regarding relations between Parliament and the Commission have not always been honoured, and I would even go so far as to say that this has often been the case.
<P>
Given this situation, Mr President, you will surely admit that it is difficult to ask us to have confidence.
I therefore call on you to respond and to make a special effort as, to paraphrase one of our well-known predecessors, the Belgian Paul Henri Spaak, it is not too late, but it is high time to do something. I would like to repeat to you what he said: it is not too late, but it is certainly high time to do something!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
Mr President, in the past, Mr President of the Commission, you have promised fewer rules but better prepared ones in return, and I am very pleased with that.
I simply do not have the chance to see if you meant to keep your promises.
Amendments to existing directives, plans for green papers, action programmes and important communications are not in fact included in the Commission's statement.
The long version - the one which corresponds to a prime minister's inaugural address - is drawn up by the Commission's directorate-general, but it is not official.
When a government is presenting its list of legislation, one might perhaps accept this state of affairs: after all, the voters can decide to replace the government at the next elections, if they are dissatisfied with what it delivers.
We have no opportunity to do that, since it is the officials at the Commission who have the right of initiative in the EU.
We therefore believe that the right of initiative should lie instead with the national parliaments, but at the very least the long and uncut version should also be presented in writing to those who are elected by the people.
<P>
In the light of the discussions on redundancy pay which are currently taking place in Denmark, for example, I would like to know more about the substance of the Commission's item regarding a proposal for a directive on the fiscal treatment of the supplementary pension rights of employees and self-employed persons moving within the EU.
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<SPEAKER ID=134 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, as has previously been pointed out, the Commission's programme for 1999 has the particular characteristic of applying not only to the development of the Treaties currently in force, but also to the development of the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam.
<P>
There has already been a considerable delay, which is normal in the process of ratifying Community Treaties, but it is expected that the Treaty of Amsterdam will enter into force at the beginning of next year.
As a result, the Commission will obviously have to devote a substantial part of its work to the preparation and development of this Treaty.
<P>
In one particular area some progress has already been made, as at the Luxembourg Summit of November 1997 on unemployment, the Commission managed to obtain a commitment from the Member States to provisionally apply the provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam relating to employment, which means that certain aspects of the Treaty are already in force.
<P>
However, there are other aspects for which there is no such provision. In his speech Mr Desama already mentioned one example, namely the special system for the ultra-peripheral regions.
<P>
Article 299(2) of the Treaty of Amsterdam provides for the immediate application of all Community legislation in these regions.
I am referring here to the Canary Islands, Madeira, the Azores and the French overseas departments.
<P>
If the Commission does not draw up special application rules, then those regions could be deprived of their current special status. They might all be subject to ordinary Community legislation from the very first day of the Treaty's application, which would have negative effects on the development of these ultra-peripheral regions of the European Union.
<P>
I therefore believe that it is important for the Commission to include in its 1999 work programme - as the Socialist Group's motion for a resolution does - specific provisions on the application of Article 299(2) to the ultra-peripheral regions of the Community.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Brok">
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, allow me to address a number of issues.
I believe that it is important to record that the Commission - in contrast to the golden age of legislation on the internal market - is only tabling 31 new legislative proposals, and some of those consist of amending existing directives.
This shows a pleasing tendency, in line with the principle of subsidiarity, and I think that we should also make the public and our governments fully aware of this.
<P>
Secondly, I should like to ask the Commission - as we have also stated in our motion - to tell us more clearly why 181 dossiers are pending in the Council awaiting a final decision, and why the Council has still not adopted a common position in 85 cases.
I believe that we would perhaps be able to kick-start this process if the Commission were to inform Parliament in more detail of the reasons for the blockage in the Council.
<P>
That illuminates my next point, a call for more transparency.
One of the objectives which the Commission has included in its work programme is implementing the provision on transparency in the Amsterdam Treaty.
I believe that this issue is vital to the future acceptance of the European Union, and I should like to ask the Commission, when defining transparency and specifying and applying rules, to involve Parliament at a very early stage - if possible before its directives are published - so that we can use this as a basis for reaching a consensus on our ideas, because essentially this is also about how we can force the Council to be more transparent, to the point of establishing a legislative Council.
I believe that we should work together closely here.
<P>
That brings me to a further point, applying the provisions of Amsterdam.
The debate with Parliament hitherto has, I feel, suffered from a marked lack of proposals from the Commission on implementing the common foreign and security policy in connection with Amsterdam, and a lack of information about, for example, the composition of the Planning Unit.
Information or a dialogue might perhaps raise public awareness, so that this is not settled by the governments of the Member States amongst themselves. In the same way, we should also like to discuss working together on the procedure for the forthcoming selection of the Commission, and in other similar areas.
We should also like to ask the Commission, as far as possible, to apply the provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty even now, before it is ratified, and also to take initiatives, so that the fields of justice and home affairs can - following the five-year transition phase - move over to codecision.
Preparations should be made even now, so that this changeover can still take place before the enlargement treaties are concluded.
<P>
Finally, I believe that it is extremely important for the Commission to table proposals for the new stage of institutional reform, as Parliament has proposed.
I completely understand that the date of December 1998 cannot be adhered to because of the delay in ratifying the Treaty of Amsterdam.
But I do think it is necessary for proposals to be made by March of next year, so that they can form part of the debate during the European election campaign, which in turn will bring the topic to the forefront of the discussion.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sierra González">
Mr President, the legislative programme for this year should respond to the public's demands for employment, social justice and economic and social cohesion.
It should ensure that the construction of European is more transparent and closer to the people, and that it concentrates more on the political realisation of their immediate aspirations concerning their daily lives and wellbeing.
<P>
The programme does not make significant progress in this respect, although it does make a commitment to that end.
To make any progress, the programme should give priority to strengthening social justice at all levels and to solidarity between regions. This is particularly necessary at this delicate time when the preparations for enlargement have allowed the risks of increasing imbalances to come to the surface.
Questions have been left aside that would illustrate the desire for cohesion, and this is what has happened with the status of the ultra-peripheral regions.
<P>
I would finally like to point out that this programme - a programme for the last year of this legislature - will not increase public support for the European project or the construction of Europe, and this is something we need to win.
The President of the Commission said that the construction of Europe is not an end, but a means.
The end is naturally the wellbeing of the people, and in order to fulfill that objective, this programme needs to have a greater degree of democracy and justice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, I think it is particularly important to mention an action implemented this year by the Commission - actually Directorate-General XXIII - which may be very small when seen in an overall context, but which I believe to be very significant and very positive.
Working in cooperation with non-governmental organisations and the travel industry and with a budget of ECU 500 000, targeted and efficient preventive measures against child sex tourism were taken.
These consist of information videos being shown on long-haul flights, information pamphlets being distributed to travellers, and so on.
<P>
This is a laudable and tangible first step in the fight against a dreadful development, which is being further exacerbated by the economic and financial crisis in Asia.
European tourists bear a considerable part of the responsibility for this situation.
That is why I call on the Commission to please continue this positive work and further intensify its efforts.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Myller">
<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra">
Mr President, the objectives for 1999, which is a transition year for both Parliament and the Commission, should not be radically different from those considered at the Vienna Summit.
These include the fight against unemployment, the birth of the euro, the consolidation of the internal market and, above all, the Commission's proposals in Agenda 2000. The Commission must make efforts to ensure that these proposals are accepted within the Council and, in this respect, I would also ask the Commission to give very special priority to the presentation of specific measures to help the ultra-peripheral regions and a rehabilitation and reconstruction plan for the countries of Central America.
<P>
Many of us here - I would say the majority of this Parliament - do not believe that the Commission is a high authority of stateless bureaucrats but rather a key institution with significant merits that are important for the development of the process of European integration.
<P>
However, this does not mean that the Commission does not have to change some of its rules of behaviour.
In his investiture speech, Mr Santer committed himself to leading a merciless fight against fraud.
Fraud must be combated because, apart from anything else, it undermines the credibility and image of the European Union.
The Commission must cooperate with Parliament and keep it rapidly and effectively informed.
In certain Commission departments there is almost administrative paralysis, which we urgently need to resolve.
It is also urgent to establish a healthy personnel policy that prevents frustration and takes account of the legitimate aspirations of the Commission's officials.
I am very pleased with the remarks made by the President of the Commission in this respect.
It is now time for the Commission or, should I say, certain Commissioners - for there are others who set a fine example that nobody remembers, as Mr Santer said - to take a decisive step in the right direction. And the right direction, Mr President, can only be to set a course towards the process of European integration.
This course must be maintained, as has always been the tradition, and form a harmonious partnership with Parliament so that the present discord can be resolved into harmony for the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, this programme gives us the opportunity to consider some fascinating issues.
Up to now, Europe's problems, with the single market in 1993, have been of a technical and legislative nature, trying to determine, for example, if 80 % or 90 % of our legislation was European or national.
But we Members are looking at real questions, strategic questions that are all extremely fascinating.
<P>
As regards the euro, the die is cast, if I may say so; the ball is in play.
With all the asymmetric shocks that it might cause, we do not know what the consequences will be or where they will stem from.
We may pray for miracles; I hope we get them.
Soon it will be Easter and, perhaps, the time for resurrections.
<P>
There is also Amsterdam to consider.
You were not sensible, or at least this Treaty is not sensible, with tides of immigrants flowing in unchecked.
Fancy leaving this to a simple majority decision!
All this over the last five years with our Finnish and Swedish friends who, protected by their climate, naturally do not have as many immigration problems.
<P>
Then there are the WTO negotiations for the year 2000.
I hope that you will hold out better than during the GATT negotiations, when all Mr Brittan left us were memories.
But we are a little worried given that all the free trade areas are coming together.
What is more, we have this great and wonderful plan to enlarge towards the East, even though we fear that our Polish or Hungarian friends might not be on the same level as us.
In addition, there are, of course, more technical problems due to all the rationing you have introduced, as well as serious health concerns.
<P>
I will not go into detail on the 1998 assessment, Mr Santer.
At the end of the day, you are only the latest in a long line.
However, those 18 million unemployed do exist, as do the children I read about in the press, the 500 000 children under the age of 12 in the United Kingdom who have to work.
It is like Victor Hugo's ' Les Misérables' .
What is more, the 50 million people excluded from society also exist. And you do, in fact, devote a large section of your work programme, paragraph 3, to the eternal issue of employment.
<P>
Mr Santer, I believe that if we wanted to look at the philosophical errors since the beginning, since the Commission of the 1950s, it would be easy to see where they came from.
The philosophical mistake comes from Malthusianism.
In fact, your prevailing ideology is that of the Club of Rome of the 1960s.
Every time there is a problem, you resolve it in a negative manner.
When there was a coal problem, you closed the mines.
When there was a steel problem, you closed the steelworks.
After that came Vietnam and Thailand.
As for the shipyards, they were also closed down.
Calves were turned into bonemeal.
Each time, you succumb to the heady lure of the void.
Each time, Europe's policy is a Malthusian policy, even as far as the most technical points are concerned, such as the budgetary stability pact, which is actually a budgetary rationing pact.
Your ideology is that we cannot invite many people to the great banquet of European humanity and, therefore, we must cut down, we must ration payments, ration social protection, ration care and ration health.
That ha produced consequences that are plain to see.
<P>
If only you had a different policy, based on a different philosophy, based on the philosophy of life, on the belief that life is beautiful, that tomorrow brings with it our future, and that there are more things to life than just this! Instead, because we make cuts and add restrictions, we have ended up with the current situation.
<P>
If only you wanted to treat the causes of unemployment!
It is not the good Lord or the devil that bring unemployment. It has been caused by the senseless opening of borders, overly high taxation and the pointless race for extreme levels of production.
And what if Europe wanted to be European?
For example, with Europe's common security policy, what would it be like if we no longer followed the United States' line on human rights, Iraq and the Iraqi children, for instance?
Europe is simply humiliating itself and going back on everything it has stood for when it turns Iraq into a concentration camp with 18 million dying inhabitants, without even raising its voice against Mr Clinton and against the United States.
<P>
As regards financing - since everything boils down to money - Mr Monti is making some very ordinary proposals about fiscal measures and savings.
If only you had greater ambition when it comes to taxation!
We should reduce Europe's taxes and provide for a form of European fiscal contribution with a ceiling for compulsory levies in order to free up resources. Then you would have your European funding programme with a GNP resource that would replace everything, both levelling out and cofinancing.
(By the way, by mistake my group, having been against cofinancing, very nearly voted in favour of it because of a practical error.) If only you had a great ambition, Mr Santer, a great ambition and a European Europe!
For we are not the stupid anti-Europeans you believe us to be. If you had a great ambition for a European Europe, a Europe that was no longer Malthusian and that wanted to forge bridges towards the future, a Europe that was itself, then we could agree with you, Mr Santer.
That is the Christmas miracle.
Thank you very much.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Velzen, Wim">
Mr President, I should like to look at the work programme for the coming year in conjunction with the results of the summit held last weekend.
The initial reaction of anyone who, like me, has been mainly occupied with the issue of employment over the last few years must be to be happy with the results, because I have never seen so many pages devoted to employment in a final report.
However, I have also seldom read so many pages where so little that is practical is said about employment either.
I therefore think that one of the most important tasks for the Commission is to keep the Union on track in the process developed last year in Luxembourg, and to keep to the idea of benchmarking and specific targets.
These are things that it seems to have more or less abandoned in its proposals, which I regret, but I hope that improvements can be made in the year to come.
An important aim for the coming year, and one which could become extremely important for future generations, is the development of effective coordination between economic policy and social employment policy, involving all the various players here.
I can well imagine that this will entail a whole new process, but I hope that it is already being prepared for the summit under the German Presidency.
<P>
There is just one problem.
Now that we have finally succeeded in making employment a top priority, I have the impression that it has become the only issue in the social field.
But employment is not and cannot be the only issue.
Social policy is more than just labour market policy.
Social integration and combating poverty, now included in the national action programmes, are also linked to wages policy.
It is all well and good to talk about work and poverty, but talking about combating poverty without having a minimum wage, for example, means that your policy has no solid foundations, and I hope that the Commission succeeds in coming up with some proposals on this subject too. Social policy is also about legislation, and here I think the Commission has not been bold enough in recent years.
I would urge that the convergence of social protection in Europe should be put higher on the agenda this year, and that we should consider whether the system we have developed as part of our employment strategy, using benchmarking and specific targets as a way forward, would not also be a good approach for social convergence.
With social protection, we have concentrated far too long on often demoralising minimum levels of protection and minimum directives, which were often extremely difficult to justify in countries which already had quite well-developed systems.
I hope that we can continue the process we have started with our employment policy, moving forward on the basis of benchmarking and targets.
I wish you every success with this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Mr President, you said, Mr Santer, that you had set the Commission a full programme for the coming year.
That is good, because not only is this the last year of this term of office, it is probably also the most important, if you look at the challenges facing the European Union, and thus the Commission.
The key word is Agenda 2000.
You said quite rightly that the development of Europe is at stake here, and we will need to make every effort if this process of development is actually to lead anywhere.
The Commission can be assured of the European Parliament's cooperation, precisely on this important issue, if it actively seeks this cooperation from Parliament, and if it grants the European Parliament the legal powers which we must otherwise wait for the Treaty of Amsterdam finally to bestow on us, in particular when decisions are made about the important reforms covered by Agenda 2000 - the common agricultural policy and structural policy - but also where financial decisions are concerned.
<P>
A further important point is implementing the transatlantic economic partnership.
This crops up time and again, but in the future, next year and in the years thereafter, it will have to amount to something more than repeated displays - all too common in reality - of our obstructing one another's trade in petty quarrels about relatively unimportant matters; I am thinking here of bananas.
<P>
My third, final and, in my view, most important point is as follows: you said that the Commission had to ensure that its house was in order.
This morning in the debate on the discharge, we heard that Parliament wishes to set the Commission a particularly important task in this respect, with a view to cleaning up the Commission. A set of Staff Regulations which does not just meet with the approval of staff representatives should make a significant contribution to our being able to clean up the Commission.
This starts with the recruitment of officials.
Both selection procedures and in particular the procedures by which senior officials are appointed need to be run quite differently from the way in which they have been run all too often in the past.
The key word of transparency should not remain simply a word; we also need actually to put this transparency into practice.
<P>
I have one final point, which cannot be overlooked. In my view, it is important for the Commission also to resolve to pursue the individual responsibility of Commissioners in particular cases, where that proves to be necessary.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Jarzembowski">
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to confine my contribution to transport policy and, within that, to the Commission's work programme for 1999.
I should like to say at the very outset that I still clearly remember the time in 1994 and 1995, before this Commission was appointed, when this Commission swore that it would always listen to Parliament.
I should now like to remind you of this by making two points.
<P>
I should in fact like to ask you not to proceed with two proposals in the 1999 work programme.
In transport policy, Mr Kinnock, on behalf of the Commission, has proposed tabling a directive on market access for port services.
When I drew up my report on the Green Paper on sea ports, the Committee on Transport and Tourism decided unanimously that there was no need for a legislative initiative of this kind at the present time.
Should there be any difficulties, the Commission is kindly requested to use its powers in the field of aid and competition rules to improve market access.
But we certainly do not want you to initiate legislation.
<P>
Secondly, the Commission is proposing to produce a white paper on trans-European transport networks.
Mr Santer, we do not need one!
We do not need a new general basis for our discussion; instead, we need a specific proposal to amend the 1996 guidelines adopted by Parliament and the Council, as it says in Article 21.
This states that there shall be a revised proposal in 1999, not a white paper.
Given the forthcoming parliamentary elections and the reappointment of the Commission, I can understand the desire not to table a new proposal on trans-European networks.
But nor do we need to have Parliament working on a superfluous white paper.
Instead, you should say that you will propose specific legislation in the year 2000.
Perhaps you could have a word with Mr Kinnock, because if both houses - the Council and Parliament - do not even want a bill, then why should the Commission draft one?
You can save yourself a lot of time if you listen to Parliament first!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mosiek-Urbahn">
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the private economic law of the Union's Member States is increasingly influenced by European legislation.
Recent examples of this are to be found in the fields of product liability, guarantees for consumer goods and payment arrears.
The Union's work in the field of private law thus far has been characterised by a host of individual initiatives.
The Commission should consider whether this method of taking many small independent steps forward really will continue to be the best one in the future.
<P>
Of course, the Union's usual procedure is to legislate on individual, limited areas at a time when those rules are necessary, and when they are likely to receive majority support.
An approach of this kind will not necessarily increase our citizens' confidence, however; it must seem to them as if their national private law were being eroded bit by bit, by the back door as it were.
What is lacking is a confidence-building, recognisable system, an approach clearly based on a system.
That is also the reason for the - quite justified - repeated complaints about the lack of consistency when private law is approximated in Europe.
Before taking further isolated initiatives, the Commission should, therefore, develop a plan of action which openly - but also with due moderation - expresses support for some basic principles of a body of Community private law, on which there is likely to be a consensus.
The discussion initiated by the so-called Lando Committee needs to be reopened and included in the work in progress in the Commission; otherwise we cannot expect people to accept European legislation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Bianco">
Mr Santer, your programme undoubtedly goes in the right direction: it is an ambitious one and addresses the problems which will confront us over the next few years.
But, in order to be fulfilled, ambitions - like good intentions - require a certain political climate and general conditions which, in my opinion, do not exist at present and which the Commission should set about creating.
How can the problem of greater cohesion be tackled with fewer resources?
How can the agricultural policy be improved through a proposal which in actual fact destroys the good parts of what exists at present?
How, for instance, could we possibly think of replacing the good wines produced in Europe's hilly areas with sugaring carried out in chemical processing plants?
And I could continue.
<P>
Nor do I believe that the outcome of the Vienna summit goes in the right direction.
There is a certain resurgence of nationalism which does not augur well and which the Commission, as Europe's government, should somehow combat with courage and determination.
<P>
The problem of unemployment is of crucial importance, and I do not believe that it can be tackled solely through financial or administrative measures, however flexible these may be.
One key theme must be scientific research, innovation and the updating of cultural and educational systems, which represent the greatest challenge for the future.
Achieving these aims is a matter not only of transferring technology to SMEs but also of mounting large-scale projects, because they alone can transform, innovate and carry forward scientific research and innovation within Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="Santer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first of all like to thank each of the speakers who have taken part in this debate and who have thus contributed to enriching the Commission's action programme for 1999.
I am clearly not going to respond in full to all the points raised but you can be sure that I will forward them to those of my colleagues who are directly responsible for the more specialised areas.
<P>
This debate comes between the debate you held this morning on the discharge and the debate that will take place tomorrow morning on the conclusions of the Vienna European Council.
I would therefore like to avoid any needless repetition.
Clearly, you have already put up with enough of that today.
I would, however, like to respond to certain points and questions that were raised and to clarify certain issues.
<P>
I would firstly like to apologise to Mrs Oomen-Ruijten for not having gone into much detail on the assessment.
This is because I deliberately wanted to concentrate more on the future, that is, to look at things more from a political perspective.
However, as far as the assessment is concerned, I must point out - and I say this with some pride, perhaps not justified in every case, but with a certain degree of pride all the same - that, for the first time, of the 34 new legislative initiatives scheduled in our action programme for 1998, 30 were actually put forward, in other words 88 %.
Those that are not completed by the end of the year will naturally be carried forward to next year, and thus be added to the 26 proposals for the 1999 programme.
I do not want to inundate you with statistics but I have here a table that shows us what the new initiatives are.
Of these initiatives, 30 out of 34 have been implemented.
14 consultation procedures have been initiated, while 29 action plans and other initiatives have become a reality, and so on.
I will stop there.
This is perhaps of interest to the officials and secretaries who work for the committees.
It is not always of interest to politicians.
<P>
I would also like to assure you that the Commission guarantees that the legislative programme will be monitored.
During the course of this year, I myself attended the Conference of Presidents to be present for the assessment of the programmes. And my colleague, Mr Oreja, also attended the Conference of Committee Chairmen to discuss the legislative programmes and the work programme.
Rest assured that both myself and Mr Oreja, who is responsible, in particular, for relations with the European Parliament, will certainly be at your disposal if you, the Conference of Presidents or the Conference of Committee Chairmen want to contact us.
I believe that we will do all we can to ensure that this programme can be implemented, for reasons that you know very well, because 1999 will be an important year.
<P>
Some of you have also raised the matter of the reform of the Commission.
I must tell you that this is an issue that has concerned me since I was appointed, because I noticed when I took over this role, in January 1995 - and I have already said this to you on many occasions - that there was a management problem within the Commission.
I had certain dossiers on my table, such as the tourism dossier, for example.
That is why, from the outset, we introduced a number of initiatives to help the Commission resolve the management problems.
These included SEM 2000 (Sound Economic Management), MAP 2000 and many others. I have already spoken about these initiatives and will not go back to them now.
Our anti-fraud body, UCLAF, also became operational under this Commission.
It was created a little earlier, but only became operational under this Commission.
I must tell you, and emphasise the fact, that it is thanks to UCLAF, thanks to our own services, that a number of matters, particularly the incidents of fraud, have been brought to light.
<P>
What we can criticise is the fact that we have become victims of our own goodwill and, perhaps, our naivety.
The issues that are now the front-page headlines in all the newspapers, the matters that have led to a number of articles are, in fact, euromyths. We need to forget about these euromyths that are splashed all over the newspapers; I do not believe them, and I know what I am talking about.
But, on the other hand, these matters also relate to real events, and they are real events that we have discovered precisely because we want to be transparent.
As I have already said, we want to wage an effective fight against fraud. In all the instances where fraud has been discovered, we have drawn the consequences, both the disciplinary consequences for the officials concerned and the judicial consequences for the dossiers themselves, which are, in fact, currently sub judice .
This applies equally to tourism, to ECHO and the other matters involved. In actual fact all these matters go back to 1990, 1992 and 1993, in other words to a time when the Commission, as I said earlier, took on a number of new responsibilities, but those in charge were not able to monitor the management of the funds under their control.
<P>
For example, the humanitarian office, ECHO, had 38 officials in 1993 to manage an annual budget of ECU 100 million under very difficult conditions.
You know how the volunteers from our NGOs work, be it in Rwanda, in the region of the Great Lakes, in Bosnia, in China, in North Korea, and so on.
At times, the accounting rules as they are now cannot always be applied in the same way, including in relations with the various auditing authorities.
<P>
That is why I believe it is essential to have screened all the directorates-general and learned a number of lessons that are currently bearing fruit.
I assure you that we want this Commission to do this work thoroughly, and we want to learn all the lessons we can so that the new Commission, in the year 2000, has a number of instruments available with which it can work.
This is just as important - and I believe that Mr Rack or Mr Desama, I am not exactly sure who, raised this question - when the individual responsibility of the Commissioners is at issue, which is not the case at the moment.
The Commission works as a college.
It therefore has a collective responsibility towards Parliament.
<P>
Under the new Treaty of Amsterdam, however, the President of the Commission will have an entirely different role to the one he currently has.
He will define the Commission's policy and that will have implications, firstly, when it comes to the appointment of Commissioners, who will only be appointed with the agreement and approval of the President, while at present he is only consulted.
In addition, in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty and its protocol, the President will be able to distribute the portfolios at his discretion and, if need be, to change this distribution during the term of office.
As a result, following the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the President's role will change and be strengthened. He will have control and authority over the Commission, whereas at the moment he does not and cannot have such powers, since the institutional rules do not provide for that possibility.
<P>
Therefore, if we consider this entire arrangement, the efforts we are currently making to introduce the necessary changes, and the transparency we want to guarantee, with Parliament's help - without which we would fail, as we are accountable to Parliament - I feel certain that we will manage to find a way to remedy certain situations which you are perhaps rightly criticising at the moment.
<P>
As regards the questions raised in this respect, as Mrs Oomen-Ruijten quite rightly said, the most important issue relates to the codes of conduct that are currently being drawn up.
Some of these are already in the final stages.
We did not wait for the provisions on the discharge.
The work began several years ago and is essential if we are to guarantee transparency.
Clearly, we will have to see how this transparency can be monitored.
There are certainly various ways of doing this.
There are proposals on the access of the institutions to documents and on the protection of personal data.
These must be looked at together.
<P>
I will stop there, because you have already discussed that at length this morning.
Of course, our action programme for 1999 forms part of an established political line, and broad agreement has emerged from the various speeches which will enable us to determine the important issues that will define our, and your, political action during 1999.
Agenda 2000 is the main issue.
As I stated at the Vienna European Council and as I will state again tomorrow morning, when it is being discussed, I agree with those who said that if there is no agreement on Agenda 2000 by the end of March, then there will be no enlargement.
But if that happens, the Community's activities will be at serious risk.
We will have a crisis, and at the very time when we need it to be strong, Europe will be facing doubts about its credibility, which will have a knock-on effect on the management of the euro, I am sure.
<P>
We must not underestimate all the efforts that have yet to be made to reach an agreement on Agenda 2000.
The Commission has put all the cards on the table so that the negotiations can resolve all the problems.
As I said to the Member States the day before yesterday in Vienna, please, let us stop hiding behind our principles and begin to look at the areas where negotiation is possible, where agreement might be reached, or where a compromise might be achieved.
I still believe that the political will does exist and I am very pleased to see that it is there.
Our Heads of State or Government were unanimous in Vienna in stating that we must conclude this by the end of March 1999. But to reach a final agreement, we naturally need everyone to agree to put everything on the table and not to insist on concessions obtained which are no longer justified.
<P>
I therefore agree with you that before the forthcoming enlargement, a comprehensive institutional reform must be completed.
If you have read Agenda 2000, you will see that the Commission proposes a new international conference.
However, we must wait for the Treaty of Amsterdam to be ratified and to come into force and we must not do anything that might hinder ratification in any of the Member States that are more sensitive to institutional issues by making new proposals at this stage.
It is a question of time, but I agree with those who said that as soon as the Treaty is ratified and has entered into force, we will have to put forward proposals to take the institutional reforms further.
<P>
Some of you wanted to know what the attitude of the European Union, and more particularly that of the Commission, is towards the phenomenon of globalisation.
It is impossible to expand on all the problems in just a few words, but we have submitted a communication to the European Council on globalisation.
I believe that it is a very interesting document, and it analyses the phenomenon of globalisation while suggesting what the European Union's responses should be to it.
I would urge you to read it, as it sets out the Commission's response to these problems.
There is no reason why we should suffer from globalisation, even if it is a fait accompli . We must react to it, learn from our experiences and thus be true actors on the international stage.
That is why it is so important for the European Union to be present at an international level and for it to draw the political consequences of its economic dimension in order to assert itself before the rest of the world.
<P>
Other speakers raised more specific questions regarding the peripheral areas.
<P>
Certain speakers - Mr Medina, I believe, and one of his colleagues - spoke about these ultra-peripheral regions.
I can simply assure you that the Commission is currently preparing for the entry into force of the new Article 299 of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
An interdepartmental working party is working on this and at the moment is carrying out an assessment and drawing up a programme for the future.
On this basis, as soon as the Treaty of Amsterdam is ratified, I will call a partnership meeting with the regions and the Member States involved so that together we can organise the future and the introduction of the new status for these regions under Article 299.
<P>
Some speakers referred to the environment.
We have put forward a number of proposals on this subject and we must work on them.
This also applies to other initiatives that you called for, particularly - and I am in complete agreement on this point - as regards our external relations, and, above all, the Transatlantic Economic Partnership, which we need to develop.
<P>
Of course, trade disputes have become more serious recently, but we must not focus solely on the problems.
We must ask ourselves what the essence of our cooperation with the United States is and consider the possibilities for overcoming the difficulties we are encountering at the moment, because we are, in fact, partners.
Our relations are relatively well-balanced, in terms of both our trade and direct investment throughout the world.
It is therefore in our interest to develop political dialogue with the US.
A meeting will take place at the summit between President Clinton and President Klima on Friday, 18 December 1998 in Washington, at which the development of transatlantic relations will certainly be discussed.
<P>
The third point raised is, of course, employment.
I complete agree with those who say that we need to continue and consolidate the process and the strategy defined in Luxembourg.
The first attempt has already borne fruit.
In the future, in other words next year, the national action plans will be assessed on the basis of 19 guidelines, and they will be adjusted and adapted accordingly.
On that basis, we will also add the finishing touches to the process.
The process and strategy defined in Luxembourg must continue to form the backbone of the European employment pact, even though the strategy itself may have to be extended and firmed up. And you know the extent to which I am in favour of such an initiative since I launched a confidence pact on employment in January 1996, which was a forerunner to the current pact.
<P>
I am also very pleased - and we will be able to discuss justice and home affairs tomorrow - that the idea I had proposed to you of convening a special European Council meeting on justice and home affairs has been taken up by the European Council.
I think that these areas must not be left solely to the ministers for justice and home affairs.
These are very sensitive matters that must be dealt with by the Heads of State or Government, who will have to assume their responsibilities.
<P>
I will not detain you much longer, ladies and gentlemen.
I only want to say, particularly to those who were perhaps a little more pessimistic, that it is clear that the international environment has changed a great deal since January 1995, when the Commission began its work.
<P>
At that time, an atmosphere of gloom hung over Europe and unemployment was on the increase.
Soon, however, the introduction of the euro on 1 January 1999 will give the European Union new life, putting it in a different position in international economic, monetary and political relations.
Unemployment is falling.
For the first time, unemployment has dropped to below 10 % and has now reached 1992 levels.
Clearly, this is still too high, and that is why we are implementing this employment strategy which we must continue and consolidate.
In spite of everything, last year we created 1 700 000 new jobs, something that had not happened for five years, and I believe that we should work on this basis.
I am very confident because, as the headline in an American newspaper not known for its pro-European stance said a few months ago: Europe is back.
So, please, let us continue on this path and let us ensure that we do not allow ourselves to be swayed by other aspirations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Santer.
<P>
I have received six motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2).
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Jensen, Lis">
Mr President, I did ask for the floor earlier, but no one was looking in this direction.
I should like to know why we are so far behind with our schedule.
I was told that the Metten report would be taken at about 4 p.m.
I should like to know when I can now expect it to be dealt with.
Why are we two reports behind schedule?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 NAME="President">
If you look at the agenda, you will see that, five minutes later than planned, we are beginning Question Time to the Commission.
As you are well aware, the debates on the reports are sometimes subject to a certain delay, but we cannot afford to delay the questions to the Commission.
At the moment, I cannot give you an answer.
The only thing I can say is that it is now time for questions to the Commission to begin.
What I can also tell you is that the debate on the report by Mr Metten will be held after 9 p.m.
So, Mrs Sandberg-Fries, you now know that the debate on Mr Metten's report will take place during the night sitting, after 9 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Question Time (Commission)
<SPEAKER ID=150 NAME="President">
The next item is questions to the Commission (B4-0713/98).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 NAME="President">
As the authors are not present, Questions Nos 46 and 47 lapse.
<P>
Question No 48 by Brian Crowley (H-1146/98)
<P>
Subject: Computer systems and the year 2000
<P>
With just over a year to go, preparations for the year 2000 in the computer system field are far from complete.
OECD (September 1998) suggests that 'while awareness is increasing, the amount of remediation is still daunting, the problem continues to be underestimated...
Preparedness among the health-care industries, small business and some parts of government appears to be particularly worrisome'.
Other information suggests that rogue software specialists are introducing as many errors as they are correcting when overhauling systems for the millennium (FT, 26 November 1998).
<P>
Will the Commission state what, in its view, is the state of preparedness in the EU for the millennium switch-over in the areas cited above, as well as in the transport, nuclear, banking and telecommunications industries, and how does it respond to the view that 'early IT system failures will occur more often as 2000 approaches, simply because IT systems generally look ahead in terms of forecasting sales, orders and other business functions' (FT supplement, 2 December 1998)?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 NAME="Bangemann">
Mr President, the Commission drew attention to this problem some years ago.
Not only have we set up working groups with the Member States, but our services have also employed a variety of methods to make private companies and administrations aware that they need to be prepared for this technical problem.
We really have, therefore, taken every possible measure.
Solutions for the various information systems are also now available which allow the problem to be completely eliminated.
Sufficient attention is still not being paid to the problem, however, and that is why the Commission has sent a further communication to the Council.
In this communication, we have once again indicated what can be done in government, and what additional work still needs to be done to make those concerned in the private sector deal with this problem.
<P>
In the private sector, the level of awareness is still too low.
I cannot imagine why this should be the case, because actually everyone should realise that they will be the ones to suffer the most if they do not make the necessary preparations.
The honourable Member will understand that we ourselves can only deal with this to the extent that it affects us.
The Member States can only deal with it to the extent that it affects their public administration.
We cannot go into every business and solve the problem by installing the necessary software.
<P>
On the other hand, we should not exaggerate either.
I read or heard somewhere that someone was considering laying in emergency food stocks to overcome the year 2000 problem.
Even though the Commission ought to find this an attractive idea, because of its agricultural policy, it is certainly an exaggeration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="Crowley">
I should like to thank the Commissioner for his answer - I realise how difficult it is for him to speak on this issue when so much depends on action being taken by other people and other institutions.
However, over the week-end the British Government advised people to hoard food because of the year 2000.
As well as that, with the introduction of the single currency next year and the changeover in financial markets and other similar situations, there is a great fear, and a danger, amongst Member States, private individuals and institutions, that not enough work has been undertaken.
I should like to ask the Commissioner whether, within his own area of competence, he has brought forward any codes of best practice which should be copied by the Member States or by small and medium-sized enterprises, in particular when we consider that in its final resolution the Vienna Council placed particular emphasis on helping small and medium-sized enterprises for the changeover in the year 2000.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Bangemann">
I fear, Mr Crowley, that a code of conduct - even if there were not more general reasons against having one - would not be of much help, because the systems differ so greatly.
The hardware is very varied.
Different companies work with completely different computer systems.
It is understandable that more modern computer systems are easier to switch over.
Let me repeat: we did not start working on this just today; we have been working on these issues for the last four years.
As early as four years ago, we also established that it was impossible - or in any case very expensive - to replace all the hardware.
So we put our money into software being developed for the hardware we already had - and we also supported work of this kind in our research programmes - software which could be installed on the existing hardware and would thus take us through the year 2000.
<P>
That means, firstly, that there are solutions; secondly, that these solutions are expensive, and that is probably the main problem, because anyone who is familiar with the problem can install this software and will have no difficulty in the year 2000, but they will pay good money for it.
There are many small and medium-sized companies which are probably living under the illusion that they will somehow overcome the problem without having to pay the money.
<P>
More recently, I have read advertisements from insurance companies wishing, under certain circumstances, to insure for any damage resulting from a failure, which shows that even in this field offers have become available.
We cannot do any more.
You are facing a situation where, as a public administration, you can do so much, but then the people themselves have to react.
If they do not, then you cannot make up for it.
<P>
Everyone knows or ought to know that this is a problem and that there are solutions to it.
People can ask the firms they work with how they are dealing with it.
Obviously, we and the Member States have made the necessary preparations.
We really cannot do any more than that.
Even if the British Government's advice were correct - and I very much doubt it - laying in food supplies will really only benefit the European agricultural policy, though that may indeed be reason enough.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 NAME="President">
Question No 49 by Graham Watson (H-1158/98)
<P>
Subject: Protection of children on foreign exchange schemes from abuse
<P>
Children under 18 account for 20 % of the world market for tourism.
It is estimated that, in 1998, four million European tourists will be visitors under 18 years of age, of whom at least one million will be independent stay visitors attending foreign-language and activity schools.
<P>
Is the Commission aware that, throughout Europe, this sector is almost entirely unregulated?
<P>
Will the Commission therefore reflect on how best to combat abuse of children in this sector and give careful consideration to the promotion of a Europe-wide code of conduct?
I should like to welcome Mr Monti and ask him to reply to Mr Watson's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 NAME="Monti">
The Commission is aware of the importance of youth tourism, of its benefits for the development of the young people concerned, and also of the economic activity of the tourist sector in general.
<P>
It is equally aware of the concerns, expressed in one Member State at least, regarding the inadequate regulation of the activities of those who organise annual trips abroad for large numbers of youngsters wishing to pursue foreign-language courses and other activities, especially in respect of the participants' personal safety Looking ahead to the adoption of a new Community programme in the field of tourism, it might be possible to examine this matter in the context of the work undertaken to identify and disseminate best practice, particularly since many responsible organisations, individuals and authorities have probably already taken serious steps to provide protection in this field.
<P>
Under the Daphne programme, which supports non-governmental organisations in combating violence against children and young people, the Commission encourages the establishment of telephone helplines in all the Member States; these offer useful advice and information to troubled youngsters, and can assist them when they travel abroad.
As far as regulatory aspects are concerned, however, the Commission would point out that these fall under the auspices of the competent authorities in the Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="Watson">
I should like to ask the Commissioner where we are with this matter.
The vast majority of young people who travel across our borders for language courses enjoy a very good experience and their first visit abroad is a very happy one.
For the unlucky few it can be a nightmare.
This is not the kind of problem that one wishes to sensationalise: we certainly do not want to put young people or their parents off taking advantage of the benefits of a united Europe.
However, there is evidence of infiltration of this sector by organised crime and organised paedophile gangs and, as a parent myself, I am worried about the dangers of this.
I am very pleased that you are going to tackle it under the new programme on tourism but would the Commission not consider a study of what the extent of this problem might be and how it could be effectively tackled?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 NAME="Monti">
The Commission is taking this issue very seriously.
Questions relating to the security of individuals and standards and procedures to be observed by educational establishments are a matter for Member States.
It would be wrong for the Commission to seek to become involved in this aspect.
The same holds true in the matter of judicial cooperation if there is any question of organised criminal activity covering more than one jurisdiction.
<P>
On a more optimistic note, if it happens that we can reach agreement on a Community tourism programme, we may be able to make some contribution in the context of youth tourism if this is seen as a priority area for Community action.
Otherwise, given also the absence of any budgetary support, there is no possibility of our contributing in this area.
However, there is a specific budget heading with associated remarks which allows us to support the efforts of organisations involved in the campaign against child sex tourism.
That, of course, goes some way towards addressing the important problem to which you so rightly call our attention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="President">
Question No 50 by Angela Billingham (H-1062/98)
<P>
Subject: British ski instructors in the French Alps
<P>
It appears that no consensus has been reached between the French and UK Governments in the two series of bilateral meetings concerning the recognition of British ski instructors' qualifications in France and that the French have been unable to prove that there is a substantial difference between the BASI Grade 1 Diploma held by British instructors and the French Brevet d'Etat held by French instructors.
<P>
In the light of this, is the European Commission intending to intervene in order to end the discrimination against British ski instructors and allow them to teach in the French Alps?
I give the floor to Mr Monti to answer Mrs Billingham's question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 NAME="Monti">
The Commission has already taken action to promote bilateral dialogue between the parties concerned, namely the BASI - British Association of Skiing Instructors - and the UK authorities, on the one hand, and their French counterparts on the other, with a view to encouraging them to agree on a basis for the recognition of the BASI Grade 1 Diploma in France.
An initial meeting between the BASI and the competent French authorities took place in Brussels at the end of 1997.
<P>
It was decided at the Commission's initiative to establish a Franco-British working group to examine issues relating to the two countries' training systems.
The Commission was recently informed that this group has drawn up a report.
However, the French and UK authorities have decided by joint agreement to discuss the report first and only then, if possible, to forward joint conclusions to the Commission.
<P>
As the honourable Member will appreciate, the Commission would be ill advised to pre-empt the outcome of this process, before the working group has made public its conclusions.
<P>
At this point in time, therefore, I can merely assure the honourable Member that the Commission is committed to solving the outstanding problems.
In order to do so, if and insofar as possible, cooperation should be stepped up between instructors, their professional associations and the appropriate competent authorities.
<P>
At the same time, the Commission is fully aware of its own responsibility for checking carefully that Community law is properly complied with, in respect of sporting and recreational activities in the Alpine regions.
I would add that the contacts established between those most directly concerned have already led to agreement on a considerable number of practical measures.
These measures have already been taken and have substantially improved matters, and those concerned deserve to be congratulated on their work so far.
<P>
The Commission hopes that further progress will be made in the near future, building on the success already achieved thanks to the clear commitment on the part of both the French and UK authorities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 NAME="Billingham">
Commissioner, I welcome your reply and thank you for the work I know you have done.
But it must be said that, as yet, not one single British ski instructor has been allowed to work in the French Alps.
It is two and a half years since we first spoke about this in the Chamber and you assured me that French ski instructors would allow the British to work that year.
Two years on, still no action.
This is an absolutely disastrous situation!
<P>
There is a new twist: a French ski school has sought to employ 15 British ski instructors and has been prevented from doing so.
They themselves are now taking the French Ski Association to the courts.
Clearly there is a terrible situation here, which throws into question our ability within the European Union of translating the Treaty into appropriate action.
I am sad to say that we have an example here of French protectionism which has to be stopped.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Monti">
<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="Skinner">
This is slightly off-piste if you are going to talk about being on the ground or on the snow.
This is very familiar ground for those that have worked in the area of free movement of workers and mutual recognition of qualifications across the European Community.
It strikes me that some authorities are continuing to prevaricate, in one country at least.
Is there not a case for returning to the status quo at least of two and a half years ago?
If there is a problem in agreeing on benchmarks and this is an indication of disaccord in bilateral discussions, the Commission should be very much involved in helping to reach an agreement on these benchmarks in a way that will lead us out of this impasse.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="Monti">
The problem is a complex one because in principle the French authorities are allowed to impose aptitude tests on foreign ski instructors.
Under Community law - Directive 92/51 EEC - the national authorities are allowed to impose compensatory measures but only where there are significant differences in the levels of qualifications.
In the case of ski instructors, where the issue of safety is at stake, they are allowed to impose aptitude tests.
This is why it is not particularly easy for the Commission to enter into such a debate - a debate, you will appreciate, involving comparison of very technical courses.
If the BASI considers it appropriate, the problem could be resolved by a national court which is responsible for the correct implementation of Community law.
Of course one way to solve the problem is also bilateral dialogue.
This is the way forward that - as I explained in some detail in my initial response - the Commission has been pursuing and will continue to pursue.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="President">
Question No 51 by Reinhard Rack (H-1057/98)
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Subject: Simplified selection procedure for temporary staff at the Commission
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In connection with the recent Commission selection procedure, in which irregularities occurred, the question arises of other forms of appointment procedure at the Commission, particularly the simplified selection procedure for temporary staff.
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How many staff on fixed-term contracts are there normally at the Commission?
How many of them are taken on as officials under the simplified procedure?
I should like to welcome Mr Liikanen and now give him the floor to answer Mr Rack's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=166 NAME="Liikanen">
<SPEAKER ID=167 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Mr President, I should like to thank you, Commissioner, for that detailed reply. Not only did you give the figures I asked for, you also anticipated a possible supplementary question, namely what the situation is with the current selection procedures and how they will proceed.
Nevertheless, may I put a further supplementary question?
It is as follows.
Admittedly, I cannot expect you to give specific figures, but I would like to have a general idea.
Are there any particular Member States with an especially high number of nationals who have been recruited as officials through this device for particular nationals?
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<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Liikanen">
Mr President, in accordance with EU regulations and legislation on the employment of staff there can be no favouritism or discrimination based on nationality.
This principle is obviously in force.
But of course statistics on staffing and nationality indicate that, depending on official rank, a few nationalities are over-represented and a few under-represented at some levels.
I will be glad to submit the figures for the honourable Member to look at.
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What I can say is that when we have organised competitions aimed at specific nationalities amongst the new Member States, it has been the Finns who have shown the most interest in EU posts, and for this reason selections have been made faster.
The Swedes have not shown quite so much interest, and the Austrians have shown the least interest.
We have tried to correct the problem and we are now organising new competitions both for Swedish and Austrian applicants, and we hope that by the end of 1999 the Commission will have met all the targets fixed for these three countries when they joined the EU in January 1995.
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<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="President">
Question No 52 by Alexandros Alavanos (H-1054/98)
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Subject: Trafficking in women in Europe
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Five hundred thousand women are victims of the present-day slave trade which is called trafficking in women.
This phenomenon is becoming increasingly widespread, encouraged by the fact that the penalties are limited; as Anita Gradin, the Commissioner responsible, told a recent East-West conference on trafficking in women held in Vienna, 'this form of trafficking is lucrative and the risks are minimal'.
Since the relevant programmes 'STOP', 'DAFNEE' and 'OISIN' have proved unable to curb the steadily increasing phenomenon of trafficking in women and under-age girls, will the Commission say what substantive additional measures it intends to take forthwith to protect victims of this practice originating from non-EU Member States and to bring the traffickers to justice?
I should like to welcome Mrs Gradin and ask her to reply to Mr Alavanos's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="Gradin">
I fully share the concern of the honourable Member, Mr Alavanos, at the continuing and growing trafficking of women into the European Union for sexual exploitation.
Combating this shameful form of organised crime and violation of women's human rights is a question on which I have spent much time and energy since I became a Commissioner in 1995.
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Before then no one had thought that the European Union could deal with this question.
In June 1996 I organised the European Conference in Vienna on trafficking in women.
This was the first time the main European players from both East and West had met to discuss this serious problem.
On the basis of their recommendation, in November 1996 I presented an action plan against trafficking in women for sexual exploitation.
Since then a number of important actions have been taken.
I shall recall some of them briefly.
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Firstly, in November 1996 the Justice and Home Affairs Council decided to extend the mandate of Europol's drug unit, now Europol, to include trafficking in human beings.
By 1999 Europol will support joint investigations in order to dismantle criminal organisations involved in this trafficking.
Europol also intends to establish a report on the general situation in the European Union concerning trafficking in women.
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The second important decision was the creation in December 1996 of the multiannual STOP programme. This programme has a budget of ECU 6.5m over five years.
It aims to promote research, information campaigns, training and exchange of projects. All professionals involved in combating trade in human beings are targeted.
Since 1996 we have been able to support 30 projects.
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Thirdly, and finally, in February 1997 the Council adopted a joint action in order to criminalise trafficking in human beings.
It also agreed on concrete measures for judicial cooperation and protection of witnesses.
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Another crucial factor in the fight against trafficking and in providing support to victims is the work and role of non-governmental organisations.
In order to support their work we set up the DAPHNE initiative in May 1997 to combat violence against children, adolescents and women.
The main objective is to support the setting up of NGO networks across Europe and to support pilot projects.
Ten of these projects concern the fight against trafficking in women.
The Commission has also been able to give direct support to the development and work of NGOs in Central and Eastern Europe.
This has been possible through the PHARE and TACIS democracy programmes.
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To fight trafficking in women is to fight a moving target.
New criminal networks and new strategies are created almost daily and their methods become increasingly ruthless.
So we constantly need to strengthen and revise our own strategies and create new tools.
This is why I am very happy to inform you that on 9 December the Commission adopted a new communication for further action against trafficking in women.
This communication is a follow-up to the one in 1996. It reinforces the multidisciplinary approach and aims to cover all the various stages of the trafficking chain - recruiters, traffickers and exploiters.
It reviews progress made so far in this field and on the basis of experience so far suggests deepening ongoing activities as well as initiating new ones.
This communication also responds to the request made by the European Parliament in the report by Mrs Waddington, to present it before the end of 1998.
The main objective is to ensure that the fight against trafficking in women is kept high on the political agenda of the Union and to reinforce cooperation between countries of origin, transit and destination, including both governments and NGOs.
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The aim is also to encourage the Member States to implement fully, by the end of 1999 at the latest, their legal obligations under the joint action of February 1997.
The main new initiatives in the communication are to produce in 1999 a communication on assistance to victims of crime including victims of trafficking; to make a proposal for legislative actions as regards temporary residence permits for victims who are ready to act as witnesses; to refocus the existing guidelines of the STOP programme to include information to victims on ways of seeking assistance, and research on the various intermediaries of the trafficking chain; to launch training projects to prevent and combat trafficking in women in the areas of migration and detection of false and fraudulent documents; to advertise among the concerned target groups the possibility of support under several other Community programmes such as INTEGRA and the Leonardo da Vinci programmes; and to promote further cooperation and exchange of information on the issue of trafficking in women within the pre-accession strategy as well as in cooperation with the newly independent states.
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I hope we now have a new platform for our common fight against trafficking in women and I am looking forward to continuing to work closely with the European Parliament in combating this shameful violation of women's human rights.
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<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Mr President, let me thank the Commissioner for her very long and detailed answer.
Yet, Madam Commissioner, as you too are aware, the phenomenon persists and is constantly on the increase.
In my country, indeed, we find that public authorities or some public authorities at least - particularly members of the police force - are accomplices in the spread of this 'trade', if we can call it that.
I think that what the Commissioner said is encouraging.
There are, however, two more detailed questions I should like to ask: firstly, is the Commission empowered to arraign before the European Court of Justice for the violation of human rights, countries which are not taking adequate steps to combat trade in human beings effectively?
I think there may be accusations and that, as the custodian of the Treaties, the Commission can do that.
And secondly, can the Commission require countries which are candidates for accession to implement, as a condition for joining during the forthcoming enlargement, effective measures to suppress trade in human beings?
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<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="Gradin">
Thank you very much for your question.
Of course we need to work together much harder to convince some of these officials and people in government who are not that engaged in these questions.
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With the Eastern and Central European countries we do this best through projects.
The projects we conduct with them are quite successful and the networks that are being built up between non-governmental organisations in the 15 Member States and in the accession countries are becoming quite good.
This is the best way of making progress with these questions.
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<SPEAKER ID=173 NAME="President">
Question No 53 by Clive Needle (H-1086/98)
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Subject: Increase of cigarette imports in Andorra
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Figures published by the customs authorities in Andorra show that 3.1 billion cigarettes were imported into that country from the EU in 1997.
On the basis of those figures, every man, woman and child in Andorra smokes 140 cigarettes per day.
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What action does the Commission propose to take to ensure that the smuggling of tobacco products into the EU is prevented, with particular reference to action against tobacco companies such as Gallaher, who must have been aware that their sudden increase in sales to Andorra could not be explained by any legal supply to a normal commercial market?
I give the floor to Mrs Gradin to answer Mr Needle's question on this surprising increase in imports of cigarettes.
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<SPEAKER ID=174 NAME="Gradin">
Mr President, Mr Needle is concerned about the smuggling of cigarettes out of Andorra and wonders what measures the Commission intends to take to combat this trade.
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At the end of 1997, we were informed that significant quantities of British-manufactured cigarettes were being exported to Andorra.
Simultaneously, several Member States reported seizures of cigarettes smuggled into the Union from Andorra.
A clear picture began to emerge of Andorra as a centre for illegal trafficking in the direction of the EU.
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The Director of the Commission's anti-fraud unit, UCLAF, went to Andorra in December 1997 for talks with the country's government.
The purpose of his visit was to reach an accord on how to stop cigarette smuggling.
It was agreed that the Community would operate a number of checks in Andorra during the first half of 1998. These would be carried out by UCLAF officials, together with investigators from the relevant authorities in the countries affected: France, Ireland, Spain and the United Kingdom.
The results demonstrated that Andorra had manufactured as well as imported large quantities of American-brand cigarettes - mainly from the United States.
There was strong evidence that a large element was earmarked for smuggling into the EU, in particular Spain.
Moreover, criminal networks operating both in Andorra and in a number of Member States were found to be behind this activity.
The Andorran authorities stressed, however, that they could neither produce statistics on cigarette sales, nor could they ascertain the final destination of the goods in question.
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Since these investigations were carried out, the Commission has been in constant touch with the Andorran Government and, as a result, measures are now in place which should enable us to come to grips with this illegal trade.
We have already noticed that considerably fewer cigarettes are being seized by Member States on suspicion that they have been smuggled from Andorra.
There has also been a huge reduction in UK exports to Andorra compared with 1996 and 1997.
What is particularly distressing is that manufacturers in Britain must have been aware of the situation, since exports to Andorra rose so sharply over such a short time-span.
The whole affair is now being looked into both by UCLAF and the authorities in the countries which took part in the original investigations in Andorra.
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<SPEAKER ID=175 NAME="Needle">
I would like to express my gratitude to Commissioner Gradin for what was a very informative and positive answer.
I very much hope that we can get some further information on the successful measures and the extent to which the problem is being reduced.
I am grateful to the Independent newspaper in the United Kingdom for raising this, and it is extremely important that people are made aware of this issue, because of the work that UCLAF is doing.
In the current climate it is important to talk about potential successes as well as problems.
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For the wider issue, in terms of the health debate in the European Parliament and measures the Commission is taking to combat tobacco consumption, on which I hope there will be further progress in the Commission tomorrow, there is progress in Member States such as Great Britain, where proposals have been produced by the government to tackle smuggling as a priority.
I am delighted to hear that the Commission will be working in partnership on that and I hope that sufficient priority will be given to tackling this, to ensure that directives such as the tobacco advertising directive will be effective and will not be undercut by these criminals, particularly in the tobacco companies, who must take responsibility for what they are doing: increasing smoking.
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<SPEAKER ID=176 NAME="Gradin">
I am very pleased that we have been able to have good cooperation between UCLAF and the different Member States.
This is the only way we can combat trafficking in cigarettes.
As you may be aware, we have also been quite successful in working on this in the Mediterranean and we have now a specialised unit in UCLAF that looks into trafficking in cigarettes.
We will always willing to give information to Parliament about our work in this area.
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<SPEAKER ID=177 NAME="President">
Question No 54 by Maj Theorin (H-1099/98)
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Subject: Illegal immigration
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Illegal immigration is a big problem for the European Union and its Member States.
The Council has therefore taken steps to harmonise control methods and to increase consultation and cooperation between Member States on matters relating to refusal of entry and action to combat the smuggling of human beings.
Many refugees currently live illegally inside the EU's borders, some 3 million of them having entered Europe between 1991 and 1993. They often live, children and the elderly alike, in inhumane and unhealthy conditions, as described by Chris de Stoop in his book 'Utan papper'.
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How, in the Commission's view, can these people's living conditions be improved?
I give the floor to Mrs Gradin to answer Mrs Theorin's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=178 NAME="Gradin">
Mr President, I share Mrs Theorin's concern over the situation of third-country citizens residing unlawfully in the Member States of the Union.
Some fell prey to traffickers in human beings, others arrived here independently.
Most of them came in pursuit of a decent life and a better future.
Reality does not always match their dreams, however, and many find themselves struggling to survive under very difficult conditions.
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As things stand, immigration rules vary from one Member State to another.
There are a number of EU-wide recommendations and agreements on immigration policy and these cover most - but not all - categories of migrant. Nor are all the various provisions fully coordinated.
In 1997, I duly tabled a proposal for the introduction of common rules to govern immigration into the EU.
My hope is that clearer and more uniform immigration criteria will help to reduce the scope for illegal entry.
The proposal is now before the European Parliament for consideration and I look forward to discussing the resulting report - which will be produced, I imagine, some time next year.
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The nineties saw the advent of increasingly worrying forms of human smuggling.
There is a real slave trade in women operating around Europe; migrants are loaded onto buses and containers for shipment over the EU borders.
They run the risk of dying an unusually painful death, brought on by either thirst or lack of oxygen.
People are dispatched to sea aboard unseaworthy craft in the middle of winter.
No one knows how many drown each year in this manner.
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Trafficking in human beings is organised by well-run criminal networks.
These mercilessly exploit the vulnerability of the weak for their own greater gain.
Large amounts of money are earned at relatively low risk.
Only a many-pronged strategy can enable us to fight such rings. Action is needed at both national and EU levels.
If we are to put a stop to this growing trend, it will be necessary to combine immigration measures with intervention in other key policy areas.
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Little effect can be hoped for from isolated measures on visa policy or border controls, or from one-off decisions to deport or expel individuals.
A joint and coordinated strategy across the policy spectrum is what is required.
I am thinking in particular of CFSP, together with trade, development and humanitarian aid policy.
A general commitment to the progress of society and social justice is of course an important component when we are seeking to reduce illegal immigration into the EU.
Let us never forget that we are talking about individual human beings who find themselves in difficulty.
Even if they have no legal entitlement to enter the Union, they can expect to have their human rights and fundamental freedoms respected.
This principle should underpin any European strategy to combat illegal immigration.
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The situation of asylum seekers and those coming from war zones is somewhat different.
These people did not leave their homes voluntarily.
Maybe they are fleeing civil war, or their government cannot offer them adequate protection.
Usually they will be part of a mass migration process.
The Commission has, as you know, submitted two proposals to the Council of Ministers in the hope of easing the situation: one on temporary protection, the other on burden-sharing when the Member States are faced with mass movements of people fleeing their country of origin.
Both proposals are currently before Council and the European Parliament has already considered them on two occasions.
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You will have heard that one of the aims of my proposal is to establish a minimum level of social protection for such migrants once they have entered the territory of one of the Member States.
If the Council of Minsters can agree to the proposal, everyone needing protection within the Union will be able to be guaranteed decent living conditions.
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<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
I should like to thank the Commissioner for her comprehensive and very positive answer.
Our views seem to tally pretty much on many of the issues, which is gratifying.
I particularly appreciate her reference to the need for social measures in order to drive progress in terms of society.
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The magnitude of the problem is none the less catastrophic for the Union and Europe as a whole.
Whereas we used to deport 30 000 people a year, now we are approaching a figure of 200 000.
As the Commissioner herself pointed out, this is partly due to the fact that various mafia-style rings have discovered that trafficking in human life is a highly profitable enterprise - a situation which we did not have to face in the past.
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The central issue from my point of view, however, is that there are people actually in hiding in the EU and elsewhere in Europe.
Their children often receive no schooling and do not have access to the health and social care they need. This is extremely worrying and the psychological pressure on them is enormous.
Surely the least we can do is to reach agreement on guaranteeing illegal immigrants in the EU their full human rights.
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<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gradin">
How to deal with those individuals who are residing illegally in our 15 Member States is a very difficult question, particularly given that we have 18 million unemployed already and no longer have a need for imported labour. It is the refugees, however, who require our particular attention.
Their predicament further complicates the situation.
I agree that dignified solutions must be found to the problems of these people. And let us hope that most of them will subsequently be able to return to their countries with their difficulties resolved.
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<SPEAKER ID=181 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Gradin.
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With that question by Mrs Theorin, we have reached the end of the time set aside for this group of questions.
Questions Nos 55, 56 and 57 will therefore receive written answers.
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<SPEAKER ID=182 NAME="President">
Before we move on to Question No 58, Mrs García Arias has a point of order.
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<SPEAKER ID=183 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García Arias">
Commissioner, I would like to raise a point of procedure that, in my view, is important not only for the questions that some Members wanted to put to the Commissioner responsible for competition policy, but, in general, for the European Commission's control procedure for Question Time.
So, Commissioner Van Miert, are your services analysing the development of Article 24 of the Directive on common standards for the internal market in electricity, which talks about a transition to a competitive environment?
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If the Commissioner could answer this question, then I would know if I can protest to the European Commission regarding the issue of which Commissioner is responsible for answering the questions that certain Members have asked.
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<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="President">
Mrs García Arias, you have just asked a question that is not on the agenda for the type of answers the Commission has proposed.
You have also protested today before the House that your question was not among the questions answered by Mr Van Miert.
You are now asking a question that is not included on the agenda.
To introduce this question would mean upsetting the established agenda.
If the Commissioner wants to give you an explanation, I will allow him a short time to do so but, in any event, he must take into account that it is not actually on the agenda and that there are other questions which are that require his time.
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Mr Van Miert, we are breaking with custom here, but I am relying here on the good will of the other Members of the House and on your own good will, and I would like to ask you if you wish to respond to this question.
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<SPEAKER ID=185 NAME="Van Miert">
I can answer this question at the same time as that of Mr Pérez Royo.
I will do this in a personal capacity, of course.
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<SPEAKER ID=186 NAME="President">
That seems fine to me, Mr Van Miert.
Then we shall not break the order.
Mr Van Miert has agreed to reply to Mrs García Arias in the context of the question by Mr Pérez Royo and, if we make good time, we shall be able to reach Mr Pérez Royo's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=187 NAME="President">
Question No 58 by Felipe Camisón Asensio (H-1052/98)
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Subject: Mergers in the bus sector
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The Commission recently gave its authorisation for mergers in the European Union's bus sector.
To what extent are such mergers likely to affect competition and job creation?
I give the floor to Mr Van Miert to answer Mr Camisón Asensio's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=188 NAME="Van Miert">
I can give you a very brief answer to this question.
The Commission did indeed approve the merger between Iveco and Renault, but only for the three main categories of buses: tourist coaches, buses for use in towns and urban environments and buses used for public transport in general.
We examined the merger in question and decided that it did not present any problems as regards competition.
As you know, we looked at the issue on the basis of the regulation on mergers of undertakings, and it was clear that, firstly, both companies held a declining share of the market in their respective Member States and, secondly, that there was sufficient other competition left.
I have to say that as far as tourist coaches are concerned, the competition is extremely strong, while for the other categories of buses the market is currently opening up, because it was traditionally nationally based, as you know.
But even this market is now opening up to the extent that we can start to talk about a European market, and we had no problem with the merger from the competition point of view because there was still plenty of competition left.
I should add that once we can resolve any concerns we might have about competition aspects, then we will always be happy to include other elements such as employment in our analysis.
But our first responsibility under the regulation on concentrations or mergers of undertakings is to analyse the competition problems and to base our response - in this case a positive one - on that.
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<SPEAKER ID=189 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Camisón Asensio">
Commissioner, I would like to ask a question concerning the Commission's authorisation of the merger of the bus manufacturing activities of Renault and the subsidiary Iveco, a concentration that naturally puts the second manufacturer in a much more important position on the European market. Have you taken account here of the willingness or desire of companies to make access to buses easier for the disabled through the addition of retractable platforms?
And in what respect has this been considered?
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Similarly, in relation to the employment creation measures mentioned by the Commissioner, has consideration been given in this concentration to transferring activities to the United Kingdom, Germany or Spain?
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<SPEAKER ID=190 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Miert">
In this particular case, neither of the notifying parties raised any employment-related aspects, though they did tell us where they intended to concentrate their activities.
The mergers regulation allows trade unions to put their case to the Commission's services or to myself, but as far as I know, no requests were made in this case.
We would be quite happy to listen to their concerns and, as I said, to accommodate them as far as possible.
In another very typical case, that of Kässbohrer/Mercedes-Benz, we received a great deal of interest from the trade unions and this was taken into account in the procedure.
It also led to a decision that we took at the time in another case.
But as I said, in this particular case neither the notifying parties nor, as far as I know, the trade unions made any request to speak to us.
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<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="President">
Question No 59 by Paul Rübig (H-1068/98)
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Subject: Discriminatory fares
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The British ferry company which operates the Dover to Calais route has a discriminatory fares policy.
Subject to certain conditions, special offers are available which mean that a crossing can cost as little as £16; but these are available only to inhabitants of the United Kingdom.
Other citizens of the Union have to pay the normal fare of £79.
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Does the Commission have any reservations about these practices, either from the point of view of the rules of competition (Article 85 et seq. of the EC Treaty) or as regards the elimination of quantitative restrictions between Member States or bodies on which they have an appreciable influence (Article 30 et seq. of the EC Treaty)?
I give the floor to Mr Van Miert to answer Mr Rübig's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=192 NAME="Van Miert">
It seems that this is a question of the commercial strategy of an operator of the cross-Channel ferries.
If that is the case - and it might well be that this is just part of a commercial strategy - and if we receive complaints then eventually we will look at the matter further.
So far as I am aware this is not the case but it might indicate that ferry operators have made certain agreements.
As I said, there is no indication that is the case here.
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Another question which could eventually be raised concerns Article 86: if there has been an abuse of a dominant position.
Since the company in question is not in a dominant position, this does not apply.
Therefore, for the time being, according to our information, there is no problem in relation to the enforcement of competition rules.
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<SPEAKER ID=193 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Commissioner, the problem is that those travelling from Europe to the United Kingdom find that there are two separate fares; a much reduced one for UK citizens and a normal fare.
I have also come across this problem in Austrian ski resorts, where the same thing happens with ski passes, and that is why I believe it is important for us to consider the principles behind this issue of discrimination against certain countries.
On the other hand, of course, we all know that discounts also exist, and there can be discounts for particular professions, educational groups, companies, authorities and so on.
I do believe, however, that it would definitely be appropriate for the Commission to express a clear opinion on this matter.
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<SPEAKER ID=194 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Van Miert">
Mr President, of course most people are glad when there are discounts, and that is what we have here.
We then also have to take a careful look to see whether there is anything more to it than that, for example whether certain shipping companies have come to an arrangement.
Occasionally there might be a cartel.
We have already had cases of this kind, whether related to the tunnel or these sea crossings.
You will certainly also know that, just last week, we decided to fine the ferry companies operating between Bari in Italy and Greece.
We will of course investigate if we receive complaints.
But in this case, there is no sign as yet - as far as I and my services can see - that this is anything more than what would normally be called a policy of offering discounts.
If you have any more information, please let us know, and we will see what we can do.
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<SPEAKER ID=195 NAME="Macintosh">
I welcome the Commissioner's reply.
I wonder whether he saw the Money Programme on BBC 2 on Sunday night - I know he is an avid television watcher in his spare time - which indicated that this practice is not confined to ferry companies alone.
The practice of charging different fares for different flights, depending on which country you start your journey in, is a widespread practice within the European Union airline industry.
When the euro comes into force on 1 January and prices have to be quoted in euros, will he please undertake to make sure that this practice is not rife throughout the whole transport sector?
If it is, and cases are reported to him or if his own department's research indicates that this is a widespread practice, will he please use the powers available to him under the Treaty?
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<SPEAKER ID=196 NAME="Van Miert">
You mention a broader question which is a very real one; probably an even more real one in the civil aviation business than in the ferry business.
Again, if it is just about promotional fares, that is all right.
People like it.
But if there is something more behind it and if we get some evidence and coherent information about it, we insist that we will look into it.
There is another question about Sabena.
My answer is that indeed, there are reasons to launch a broader investigation about certain practices, particularly in the civil aviation sector.
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<SPEAKER ID=197 NAME="Watts">
As MEP for East Kent, I represent Dover.
I am very keen to help reassure Mr Rübig that good deals across the Channel are, in fact, available to all citizens of the European Union.
Special offer fares of around GBP 16 are available to all citizens of the European Union for day trips.
In practice, many EU citizens benefit from that particular offer, not least, of course, our friends, the French, across the water, who regularly take up those good deals and many last-minute bargains.
Of course when duty-free goes, many of these bargains will go with it.
I hope that duty-free stays and Mr Rübig and his fellow countrymen and women come to Nord/Pas de Calais, take a trip across the Channel on these ferries that represent excellent value for money.
He and others would be very welcome to visit my constituency.
I can reassure him on that point.
We do not discriminate on fares.
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<SPEAKER ID=198 NAME="Van Miert">
I have the impression that this was not really a question but a one-minute advertisement.
I congratulate a Member of Parliament for being so outspoken on behalf of his region.
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Having said this, there is no discrimination between Community citizens.
If there were, obviously we would have problems and would act.
That is not the case.
Let there be no misunderstanding about that.
If there appeared to be an abuse somehow or a kind of hidden cartel, or whatever, then we would act.
As far as I and my services can see today, that is not the case.
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<SPEAKER ID=199 NAME="President">
Question No 60 by Fernando Pérez Royo (H-1069/98)
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Subject: Oligopoly in the Spanish electricity industry
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In Spain, an oligopoly appears to be taking root, whereby four undertakings have cornered 90 % of the electricity market, with two of them alone, ENDESA and Iberdrola, controlling 80 %.
Recently formed partnerships such as the one between ENDESA and Gas Natural amount to fresh horizontal integration, which is exacerbating this trend.
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Does the Commission regard these shifts and agreements amongst undertakings as running counter to the spirit and the letter of the Treaties and as detrimental to free competition and to the consumer?
As the Commissioner has indicated, this is the question we are dealing with, and I now give him the floor.
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<SPEAKER ID=200 NAME="Van Miert">
Unfortunately, I cannot be of much help to the honourable Member, as we too only learned of the two companies' intentions from the press.
Therefore, my services are currently making every effort to gather all the information we need because, for now, I am not even in a position to tell you whether this is a concentration or an operation involving Article 85, that is to say a type of joint venture or cooperation.
<P>
For the time being, therefore, I am unfortunately unable to tell you any more.
But I have agreed with my services that we will insist on obtaining information very quickly from the companies concerned because I can assure you that we are following developments in the energy sector very closely, not just in Spain but also in the other Member States.
<P>
I would now like to answer the other question raised that appears later in the list of questions.
Firstly, this matter actually concerns DG IV, but it also concerns my colleague Mr Papoutsis because it comes under the directive and the Member States are therefore required to inform the Commission, and in particular Mr Papoutsis, of their intentions with regard to stranded costs.
<P>
Secondly, as it is mostly a question of state aid, my services must also be notified of this type of matter.
I can also tell you that, during my last visit to Madrid at the beginning of the month, I discussed this issue at length with Mr Piqué, the minister responsible, who promised me that my services would definitely be notified of the issue so that we can examine it in parallel with other cases, because the problem exists almost throughout the Member States.
In the course of the coming months, we hope to examine all of the cases of stranded costs in a spirit of coherence and transparency.
<P>
I cannot therefore tell you any more, except that we have insisted that the Spanish Government should notify us of the issue so as to allow my services too to examine all relevant cases, obviously in full cooperation with Mr Papoutsis's services in DG XVII.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 NAME="President">
Commissioner, I would ask you to remain with this issue as, firstly, I have a supplementary question from Mr Pérez Royo and I then have two further supplementary questions, one from Mrs Estevan Bolea and a second from Mrs García Arias.
Therefore, I will first give the floor to Mr Pérez Royo for one minute.
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<SPEAKER ID=202 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Pérez Royo">
Commissioner, my written question refers to the oligopoly that exists in the Spanish electricity industry.
Given the measures that the Spanish government has been promoting recently, we should instead be talking about a form of capitalism between friends or a sharing out of the loot.
In fact, on the eve of the liberalisation of the electricity industry, the companies have managed to get the government to propose compensation of ESP 1.3 billion, that is, EUR 6 200 million, to cover the costs of the transition to a competitive environment.
The government, in collusion with the companies, hopes to move this issue of compensation forward before quantifying the costs involved and before even knowing whether or not there are any costs at all. Indeed, this compensation is going to mean a significant rise in charges for consumers.
<P>
The regulatory body for the industry, the Comisión Nacional del Sistema Eléctrico, has stated that it opposes this measure and believes it to be unjustified.
The only response from the government to the views of the regulatory body was the assertion that the chairman of the Comisión Nacional del Sistema Eléctrico is a socialist.
<P>
Apart from the embarrassment I feel at the attitude adopted by the Vice-President of the Government, I would like to specifically ask the Commissioner if the government has informed the Commission of its intention to approve these measures by urgent procedure, in less than a few weeks. Secondly, I would like to know if the Commission's services believe that such practices are compatible with the rules on competition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Van Miert">
It is clear that the two questions are linked.
Firstly, as far as the trend towards concentration is concerned, once again, I cannot for the time being tell what is involved here as I do not have sufficient information.
But we are, of course, insisting that the companies provide us with full information so that we can check whether this is an example of a concentration and see whether we must examine the case, or whether it should be dealt with by the national authorities.
Then, if it is a cooperation agreement we may also have to examine it, this time in the light of Article 85 rather than the regulation on concentrations.
That is all I have to say on the first aspect of the question, which in fact is similar to the question asked initially.
<P>
As for the other aspect, I have just said that a few weeks ago, when I was in Madrid, I managed to secure Mr Piqué's agreement to ensure that Mr Papoutsis is notified of how the transitional measures are funded not only under the directive but also in the form of state aid.
Perhaps this has been checked in the meantime, but we are going to examine this whole issue in terms of state aid and stranded costs.
I cannot tell you any more at the moment, except to confirm that we refused to accept that we should not be informed of this so that we can examine it properly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Estevan Bolea">
As you know, Spain is the country where there has been the greatest and most widespread liberalisation of the electricity market.
At the moment, 18 % of supply comes from private generators, that is, autoproducers, so Mr Pérez Royo's figures are somewhat out of date.
There are also new projects involving a number of American companies.
<P>
I would like to ask you about the situation in France, which has the company Electricité de France .
I would like to know whether or not you believe that the French are complying with the directive in terms of the transition to a competitive environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Van Miert">
I am very grateful for this question because it allows me to give you certain details.
<P>
Firstly, there must be no mistake.
We very much welcome the government's current plans to liberalise the energy market.
There is no doubt on that point.
But in doing this we must also respect the rules of the game, particularly by checking that the amount devoted to stranded costs is real and does not exceed the actual stranded costs involved.
This is yet to be checked, both in Spain and in other countries such as France and Belgium.
<P>
Secondly, you are correct. The situation is in a way even more complicated in certain other countries.
In France, everyone knows the situation concerning EDF.
But there too the market will have to be opened up, particularly as EDF has just bought an electricity company in the United Kingdom.
<P>
Therefore, if we want to have access to other markets, we must of course accept that others can also come onto our market.
It works both ways.
There must not be any misunderstanding on that point.
<P>
Once again, we welcome the government's policy, on the whole.
Nonetheless, we must check that the way in which it is being implemented does not cause problems.
However, I will not comment on this now but will wait until I have been fully informed about the system in question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García Arias">
In the days ahead, before the end of this year, the Spanish Chamber of Deputies is going to vote on an amendment to the accompanying government bill on budgets that will allow electricity companies immediately to obtain around one billion pesetas from the financial market that the banks will recover through an additional charge to be added to the rates paid by consumers over the coming years.
The electricity companies are going to be able to use the money they pocket against other competitors, not only in the electricity industry, but also, for example, in the telecommunications sector, where these electricity monopolies are already evident.
<P>
I would like to ask the following question. Do you not believe that it is urgent, before that vote, to warn Spain's legislators - on the basis of the Community law you represent - that this substantial aid or subsidy needs to be authorised in advance by the European Commission and that the vote should therefore be postponed?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=207 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Van Miert">
Of course. I can tell you that we have informed the government that this practice is at the companies' own risk.
You are right in saying that the Commission must be able to check whether aid given by the authorities as compensation for stranded costs is correct and, consequently, until the Commission is able to complete its work, authorisation cannot be given and, as a result, if they go ahead it is at the risk of the authorities and of the companies concerned.
This must be clear.
<P>
Therefore, I will not conceal the fact that I have asked the government to postpone this operation.
That is the stage we are at now.
<P>
As for putting it on the market, for which you have quoted the amount - so that there is no misunderstanding, the remainder is the overall system, which will be examined - not only would this be at the companies' own risk but, moreover, those concerned would be well advised not to proceed with it before the Commission has been able to complete its work.
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<SPEAKER ID=208 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
Knowing how generous you are, I would propose that you deal with one last question in the two minutes that we have left.
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<SPEAKER ID=209 NAME="President">
Question No 61 by Jyrki Otila (H-1101/98)
<P>
Subject: Sabena flights to Strasbourg during part-session weeks
<P>
The Belgian national airline Sabena discriminates against economy class travellers on the route between Brussels and Strasbourg during the European Parliament's part-session weeks.
The airline prohibits the purchase of other than business class tickets for certain departures.
This causes problems to other passengers, not least with regard to the compatibility of timetables and the limited alternative travel possibilities.
<P>
Does the Commission consider that in acting in this way Sabena is abusing its dominant position on the Brussels-Strasbourg route?
What measures does the Commission propose to take to put pressure on Sabena to halt the discrimination against economy class travellers on this route?
I give the floor to Mr Van Miert to answer this last question in the two minutes which remain.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="Van Miert">
I would ask the honourable Member, who was quite right to raise this question, to give us a little more information, because it is not clear whether this was a case where all the economy seats had been sold and it was claimed that there were only business-class seats left.
That may have been the case - it does happen.
Or else there were still some economy seats left, but the person concerned was forced, as it were, to pay the business class price.
That happened to me once, not on this flight but on a flight from Brussels to Milan.
I have to say that there are obviously still certain practices going on here and there - hence the answer I gave to Mrs McIntosh a moment ago - which are enough to make us look at the whole situation a little more closely, not just that one flight.
I have the impression that certain things are happening that are a little suspicious.
I do not want to comment on this particular case because we have of course asked Sabena to provide further information, but if the honourable Member could give us any more detailed information himself, it would be helpful.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Otila">
Mr President, I thank the Commissioner for his reply.
It is true that Sabena only offer a business class service on this route.
But as our time is drawing to a close I do not wish to prolong this sitting.
I shall return to the subject later.
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<SPEAKER ID=212 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Otila.
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Since we have now come to the end of the time set aside for questions to the Commission, Questions Nos 62 to 113 will receive written answers.
<P>
That concludes questions to the Commission.
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(The sitting was suspended at 7 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Information strategy on euro
<SPEAKER ID=213 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0485/98) by Mr Arroni, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission communication on an information strategy on the euro (COM(98)0039 - C4-0125/98).
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I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mr Arroni.
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<SPEAKER ID=214 NAME="Arroni">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, money is present in numerous acts of daily life.
It is not only a vital cog in the economic wheel but also a store of values and ideals; and if the currency under discussion is the euro, these considerations take on a far deeper meaning.
Hence the importance of informing Europe's citizens about the euro and ensuring that they appreciate its significance.
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Much is at stake: the euro is now a fait accompli and must succeed.
But its success depends to a large extent on its acceptance by all the citizens of Europe.
Their acceptance will in turn depend on our capacity - until now and from now on - to communicate with them and inform them about the euro.
Acceptance by all Europeans, therefore, is the first aspect on which I wish to dwell.
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A mere glance at the budget of the Prince programme reveals straight away that the investments scheduled increase in stages and culminate at the key date of 1 January 1999, only to decline inexplicably thereafter.
What does this mean?
Does it mean that our task will be complete once we have satisfied the information needs of that part of the population which will have the possibility, the desire and indeed be privileged to use the virtual euro as from 1999?
What do we intend to do for the other part of the population, the less fortunate groups, the ordinary citizens who will only encounter the euro once it is in their pockets in 2002?
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We must remember that for many European citizens the euro will not arrive in 1999, but in 2002.
We have been quite right to focus our efforts so far on those who will be using the euro as from 1 January 1999, but we must not make the mistake of believing that this is enough.
If we were to do that, the euro could be perceived even more than now as a currency for the rich or for just one section of the population, and this would not only be a social injustice but really could jeopardise the much-desired success of the entire operation.
That is why one paragraph of my report proposes that the budgetary effort - ECU 38 million - should be maintained in the years following 1999.
<P>
Let us now move on to another problem: when the target population changes, can we maintain the same type of information?
In the Economic Affairs Committee I proposed that, after 1999, we should offer information that is less technical and more emotive, so as to arouse people's feelings.
The committee did not think it advisable to take this course, and I respect its view.
What I would say, however, is that not only must the nature of the information be different, but so must the type of language and the practical methods used.
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Until now, we have been attempting to communicate on the basis of rather technical information - economic and financial considerations - stressing the economic and financial potential of the new single currency.
This was without doubt a winning approach, because it was aimed at a section of European society capable of understanding and benefiting from it.
However, as I have said, the success of the euro will depend on its acceptance by the average citizen.
We must therefore use a different sort of language, try to speak to the ordinary citizen in his own language and find out what kind of information he needs.
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As for the methods, we must bear in mind that 25 % of Europeans - I repeat, 25 % - are a target population which cannot be reached at all by means of the methods used to date.
An OECD report states that between 30 and 45 % of Europe's citizens are illiterate or recurrent illiterate: this does not mean that they cannot read or write, but that they have difficulty in grasping the meaning of a written text.
So we could send out kilos upon kilos of brochures, or put together the most sophisticated websites; all to no effect.
It is not a matter of repudiating the magnificent work done so far, and which has served our purpose so well, but this should be complemented by other, more suitable methods.
As regards the most disadvantaged groups, one undoubtedly effective method could be to use so-called 'euro mediators': people whose social role brings them into close contact with these disadvantaged groups, such as the family doctor, pharmacists, postal workers and social workers.
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I would just conclude with a thought for the young people who, by their very nature, will be the bearers of the positive messages which we entrust to them.
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<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="Tillich">
Mr President, Commissioner, we have often discussed the question of the euro and the European Parliament's information campaign, known as Prince.
Those Members of Parliament present today, who are almost all experts, know that the Prince programme is an initiative of the European Parliament and that in 1998 we have had a heated debate with the Commission concerning the implementation of its information activities.
For this reason we in the Committee on Budgets, in our opinion on the present report, which dates from as far back as 15 June, first considered calling for an independent Prince campaign in order to ensure that we would have a continued role in decision-making in the Prince programme, as the President at that time did not accept the amendments or the Pex report.
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On the other hand, of course, we did not create the Prince initiative solely for the purpose of a euro campaign but also in order to take in two other areas of activity.
It is ultimately the wish of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy no longer to do so to such an extent, but I am pleased that the rapporteur has included the main paragraphs from my opinion - paragraphs 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 - which deal with the main points agreed on by the joint working party of the European Parliament and the Commission.
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I would ask the Commission and the Commissioner responsible, Mr de Silguy, to use their authority where the budgetary framework is concerned.
You are familiar with the problem.
We have constant problems between Parliament and the Commission, although in the past Parliament strongly supported the Commission in making available the necessary resources.
Yesterday, in the supplementary budget, we once again made additional resources available for the euro campaign so that its implementation is guaranteed.
I hope that in future the Commission's proposals will be sound at the outset, so that Parliament does not need to put them right.
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<SPEAKER ID=216 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Randzio-Plath">
Mr President, the rapporteur is right to highlight in his report the importance of information and communication in the context of introducing the euro.
It was the European Parliament that, very early on, pointed out the lack of information on the euro and fortunately found in the European Commission a partner to organise cooperation between the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Member States of the Union.
As always, I regret that information in the Member States and also in the regions and local communities is not as highly developed as it should be.
<P>
We have discovered that many people in the European Union do not feel involved.
They feel that they are not properly informed and that the information they have is not broad enough.
They do not feel that they are sufficiently well informed about the pros and cons of monetary union.
Yet monetary union begins in only 17 days.
We in the European Parliament must therefore ensure that this work on information continues, as the rapporteur rightly emphasised.
It must continue in particular in the next year when we will be living in the European monetary union but only cashless payments will be handled in euros.
Do you know that many people believe that euro coins and notes will be available to them from 4 January?
Do you know how frustrating this will be?
Do you know how difficult it is to adjust to a different currency?
All these issues concern us particularly as Members of this European Parliament.
We must therefore continue to insist on conferences on the subject of the euro, on discussions and on reliable information booklets.
But we must also ensure that we include the NGOs, consumer protection associations, youth organisations and women's associations, so that they can help to persuade people in these areas.
I believe that with the help of such efforts over and above the report, a great deal more can be done and that the genuinely positive approaches of the information and communication work on the euro can and must therefore be extended.
<P>
It is true that we must also consider the problem groups in our society, the disadvantaged sections of the information society, and it would therefore be helpful if the Commission could tell Parliament today that it intends to make 10 % of the resources available for these disadvantaged groups and that in addition to the initial projects it has a new strategy to genuinely include everyone.
We have also shown that we are concerned not only about handicapped persons but also about people who live in remoter regions, who do not have much opportunity to travel, and also about illiterate people, for example.
We therefore need a more substantial contribution and also a greater commitment from the Member States.
So I call on the Ministers of Finance and in particular the Ministers of Education in the European Union to ensure that the euro is taught about in schools and in adult education, and to provide the necessary resources for this.
We must involve young people and older people, so that they know that European monetary union is in their interest.
We cannot leave it to the private sector to take full responsibility for information on the euro.
The public sector must take on the leading role which we wanted it to have in the regions and in the Member States too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Peijs">
<SPEAKER ID=218 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Boogerd-Quaak">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Arroni report has made it very clear that information about the euro is of great importance.
But I should like to raise here the question of policy with regard to target groups.
Member States will need to broadly coordinate the information they provide on the practical procedures for the introduction of the euro as a currency between 1 January and 1 July 2002.
To my mind, the choice between a transitional period of a few weeks and one big change-over day all at once largely determines the way in which information on the euro should be given to our citizens.
Information must be targeted at the moment of the actual physical change-over.
The problem is, however, that most countries have not yet taken a decision on that.
If Member States decide to introduce the euro all at once in a 'big bang' of the kind Mrs Peijs referred to, then information should be aimed primarily at older people encouraging them to start using the euro right away. Because a 'big bang' needs frontloading.
Euros will need to be distributed a few days ahead of 1 January 2002.
We have to avoid older people being taken by surprise by a change-over all in one day.
Research shows that older people are more reluctant than others to start using euros early.
A fairly long transitional period will enable people to pay with the old currency and the euro.
This method will mean that the retail trade in particular bears a large proportion of the cost of the actual change.
If a fairly long transitional period is chosen, information must focus primarily on encouraging the public at large to pay by transfer methods using PINs, chips and credit cards.
This will as far as possible ease the burden on the retail trade and small businesses.
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<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="Gallagher">
Mr President, this report by Mr Arroni has been drawn up at a defining moment in history as we move towards the introduction of the euro.
The arrival of the single currency needs a revolutionary approach not only on behalf of the institutions but on behalf of all the citizens of this Union.
Our habits and our traditions will have to change.
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To be effective this change must be accompanied by a real and effective information policy.
The transfer to the euro is going to change a whole scale of values.
The symbols for the currencies we have grown up with will disappear.
I am certain that with a properly organised information campaign we will quickly adapt to the new euro symbol.
<P>
Europe will be moving forward together on the euro.
The point of no return has been reached.
It is legitimate to devote half the information budget to a public awareness campaign on the euro to ensure that the transition happens as smoothly as possible.
The transfer to the euro is not only an economic question for bankers and financial institutions.
Public opinion also counts.
Without delay, without exception and if necessary through large-scale trial runs, we must ensure that the less-favoured, the blind, those with disabilities and those who are isolated must be the target of a practical and major information campaign.
<P>
Governments and local authorities - as they are close to the people - have a role to play in this information campaign.
The main focus must be on schools, universities, small shopkeepers and the media.
From the year 2001 a major campaign of public awareness must be launched throughout the Union aimed at promoting the identity of the euro.
It must take into account questions raised between now and then.
My group fully supports a rise in the funding levels for the Prince programme.
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<SPEAKER ID=220 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Mr President, Commissioner, I have very little time but I would like to use it to emphasise the fact that even the Commission itself claims that SMEs are not as well informed about the consequences of the euro as larger firms are.
That is natural given the origins of the euro and the interests that its creation primarily serves!
Again, the Commission itself says that the preparation of local authorities and elected representatives is at times lagging behind.
That too is natural!
And it is being too kind in watering down the expression by adding the phrase 'at times'.
It is small and medium-sized firms, small and medium-sized elected representatives, small and medium-sized consumers, small and medium-sized people who are being given too little information about the euro.
That is natural, because the euro was not created for anything small or medium-sized, even though they are going to have to use it in their small and medium-sized daily lives!
Recital J of the Arroni report points out the psychological, social, political and national dimensions and rightly considers that a currency is not only a technical instrument to make trade easier.
I would like to add, in the case of the euro, the phrase 'between large groups in international economic and financial relations'.
I would like to draw attention to recital L, although perhaps it exaggerates when it says that switching to the euro is going to destroy all scales of values in existence, and people's memory of prices and habits.
I emphasise all of this but I could also underline the fact that in France there are still people who work out prices in old francs; in Portugal people still refer to a thousand 'reis' or 'tostões'.
Probably every country has examples of people who run the risk of being discriminated against or even excluded.
For our part, when it comes to the euro, we would like to make them special targets for information about the euro.
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<SPEAKER ID=221 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, it may initially seem rather strange and also late in the day for this House to be discussing the information strategy for the euro when we are just 17 days away from its introduction.
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However, we should remember that, since 1996, many costly efforts have been made to inform the inhabitants of the European Union about the introduction of the single European currency as this will affect them more than any other EU measure.
The introduction of the euro must therefore be fully understood by all EU citizens, whether employees, businesspeople or consumers, with regard to both its political, economic and social objectives and its methods of use during the transitional period and after 2002.
<P>
Approximately ECU 150 million have already been spent in the campaigns organised between 1996 and today.
From next year until 2001, another ECU 100 million will be available.
<P>
I must congratulate our rapporteur, Mr Arroni, on his report and thank him in particular for having accepted the majority of my amendments. However, he has had to report that, despite this expenditure, a large part of the EU population feels ill informed about the euro and that, according to the OECD, around 30-40 % of the European population experiences difficulty comprehending written information.
This is rather astonishing, particularly when you consider that we are all normally interested in money, whether we have it, whether we do not or whether we have enough.
<P>
Our rapporteur has recommended that the general public be among the main target groups of the euro information campaign, with special attention being given to particular sections of society and with certain specific groups in society being used to distribute this information.
<P>
I have secured the addition of women's organisations as a multiplier for communicating and targeting the information. There is a regrettable tendency to ignore the major national and European women's organisations which have millions of members in the Member States and very specific and direct means of reaching and informing women.
Perhaps the Commission could encourage these organisations to participate in the information campaigns by offering them a partnership?
This would be money well spent and more cost-effective than glossy brochures which no-one reads or understands.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, the physical introduction of the euro really affects all the citizens of the countries that are participating in monetary union.
The replacement of the coins and notes we have been accustomed to with something completely new and different will be an important event in all our lives.
This changeover will require a new way of thinking and a positive attitude to the event.
Mr Arroni's excellent report, which is also technically outstanding, is therefore a highly important document in view of the need to provide economic actors and citizens with information as efficiently as possible.
Large sums of money are being spent on this information campaign, so it is important for the European Parliament to state clearly how the agencies responsible should use it.
<P>
As all sections of the population, all social classes, all age groups, including partially sighted people and the mentally handicapped, need to be able to deal with and handle the money, information cannot just take the form of general statements.
Instead, it is important to try to initiate dialogue with the people and to provide information geared towards specific target groups.
We will be able to avoid a lengthy and costly two-track situation in the first half of the year 2002 if people are fully informed before that point.
<P>
Institutions and firms that are particularly suited to the role of multipliers must play a key role in information.
These include in particular schools, local authorities, banks or even tourism organisations with an international clientele.
In terms of the acceptance of the new currency, it is important that we should no longer give the impression at this stage that we are advertising the euro, but that we are simply providing information about it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 NAME="de Silguy">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Commission I must first of all congratulate Mr Arroni on his report on the information strategy for the euro.
I believe that we have very similar views on this subject and I share the concerns expressed in this House about the fears, expectations and even hopes of the general public in the changeover to the euro.
<P>
I also believe that the action which we have carried out together since 1996, following the Madrid European Council at the end of 1995, has largely achieved its objective of mobilisation.
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I would be inclined to answer Mr Tillich by saying that cooperation between the Commission, the European Parliament and the Member States is useful.
I believe that this has been proven and, in the future, cooperation will be the decisive factor in the success of the transitional period.
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I will very briefly comment on two aspects arising from the speeches and from having read this report. The first relates to the method of operation of the campaign and the second concerns the priority targets.
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With regard to the method of operation, I would remind you that our campaigns are based on two principles: partnership and decentralisation.
I believe that partnership is a vital concept because the Member States must be brought as close as possible to the citizens.
This is why conventions have been signed - in the end with all 11 members of the euro zone - which have worked well.
They will be renewed next year and I can inform you, as requested by Mr Arroni, that the Commission is not limiting itself just to the euro zone. On the contrary, we are ready to discuss with the various 'pre-in' countries the issue of cofinancing euro information actions from 1999, if they wish to do this.
<P>
However, Mr Arroni is suggesting that we limit the Community cofinancing to 50 % of the total budget.
I find this rather strange because it was specifically on the basis of the recommendation of the joint Commission-Parliament working group that approximately two-thirds of the available annual funds were reserved for partnerships. Also, our evaluations confirm the success of these partnerships which, in the context of the conventions, act as a lever for the actions carried out by each Member State not only at national level but also among local communities, SMEs, the distribution sector and the vulnerable sections of the population, about whom you are rightly concerned.
<P>
Partnerships are therefore the best way of ensuring that the information reaches the grassroots level. Also, the way in which these partnerships are implemented is essential, in this case through tripartite structures in which your representatives are participating.
Mrs Randzio-Plath, these tripartite structures allow these partnerships and actions to be guided, thus ensuring the necessary monitoring and follow-up.
<P>
With regard to the second principle - decentralisation - I must remind you that the Commission proposed the creation of local observatories. These are being set up and will provide structures in each Member State to improve the monitoring of the information actions' impact.
They will therefore meet this need for information and the need to reassure public opinion, namely the general public.
<P>
The ECU 100 million budget specified for the Prince line for the transitional period - that is, ECU 38 million (or EUR 38 million as it is now) for 1999, 32 million for 2000 and 30 million for 2001 - seems sufficient to us to assist the efforts of the Member States.
Having said this, I have noted the rapporteur's wish to see this line increased.
It will be up to the budgetary authority to decide on this on an annual basis.
<P>
Turning now to the second aspect - priority targets - I believe that, as mentioned by several of you, including the rapporteur, the priority targets must be the SMEs, particularly in the distribution and tourism sectors, and also, Mr Arroni, the general public and the more vulnerable sections of society.
<P>
I must thank you for highlighting the important role of the Commission's recommendations in the spring on the dual display of prices, banking charges and the monitoring of the euro's introduction.
These recommendations were the result of real cooperation and have allowed codes of good conduct and good practice to be established between the various sectors concerned. I can give as an example the agreement between distributors and consumers, particularly regarding the dual display of prices.
This will be embodied by a euro logo with a broad smile which you will soon see throughout Europe and which appears to have been accepted by the population. A code of good conduct and good practice on conversion charges, which is currently being developed, will also be introduced in the banking sector.
<P>
However, in addition to these agreements, the Commission shares the rapporteur's view concerning the need to adapt the information strategy to the requirements of the most vulnerable target groups.
I can say to Mrs Peijs that, with regard to the so-called big bang, the idea currently being studied in Europe involves arranging for shopkeepers to give the euro as change from 1 January 2002.
Therefore, just before 1 January 2002, they will be provided with enough euro notes and coins so that they can give change only in the euro from 1 January 2002, with the public being able to continue paying in the national currency for a few more weeks.
This is the formula which is currently being studied.
<P>
With regard to the public, and specifically those in vulnerable and disadvantaged groups, I believe that our information strategy must develop, in the short and long term, into partnerships with the Member States, with these groups being a priority.
We have therefore planned for specific actions to be carried out among young people and in the world of education.
<P>
Mrs Lulling, based on ongoing qualitative studies we have also planned a specific action targeted at women, particularly those not in paid employment.
As for the so-called sensitive groups, several pilot projects are currently being developed.
However, I do not believe that it is appropriate to fix a predefined limit of 10 % for the funds.
Some countries will need more while in certain cases more is already being done.
In any case, I believe that a certain amount of flexibility must be kept in order to adapt the effort to current and future requirements. Clearly, political pressure in favour of these disadvantaged groups must be maintained, which is what the Commission intends to do.

<P>
To conclude, I must applaud the exemplary collaboration between our two institutions. Since 1996, this has allowed a coherent information strategy for the euro to be developed.
We must continue in this manner and affirm that our ultimate aim is to ensure that, unlike the situation which occurred in France in the 1960s, on 1 January 2002 when the euro notes and coins are put into circulation, this will be for everyone the final stage in a process for which they will have been well prepared and which will have been properly explained. Our aim is also to ensure that this changeover occurs smoothly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Adjustment mechanism in cases of asymmetric shocks
<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="Metten">
Mr President, how are countries to cope with an economic crisis once we have the euro?
That is really what my report is about.
From 1 January, eleven countries of the European Union will have a single currency.
At the same time, they will have a single monetary policy and the various exchange rates between them will be irrevocably fixed.
What this means is that whilst they gain a common currency, they lose the ability to absorb the consequences of an economic crisis affecting only themselves and not other countries of Euroland by applying a monetary policy which is tailored to their own national circumstances or by revaluing their national currency.
<P>
From 1 January, monetary policy will be geared to the average situation in Euroland as a whole, and only the euro itself will fluctuate in value against currencies outside the euro zone.
In economic terms, the Member States in Euroland are simply regions within a greater whole.
A crisis affecting one region cannot be resolved through national policy.
Whilst the euro countries are losing two major instruments for dealing with regional crises, they still have the most important instrument, namely their budget.
In the event of a regional crisis, they can use their budget to resolve it.
<P>
However, the stability pact has restricted the ways in which the budget can be used.
If the budget deficit is 3 %, those possibilities are exhausted.
Other possibilities for resolving country- and region-specific crises and the unemployment to which they lead could well be labour mobility and wage flexibility.
<P>
But in Europe, with its different language regions, the mobility of labour will always be limited, and there are clear limits to what is acceptable in Europe as regards wage flexibility.
All this means that Euroland is quite vulnerable to economic crises which affect just one or more countries.
I offer two solutions to this in my report.
<P>
Firstly, Member States can take their own precautionary measures, as the social partners have done in Finland.
In Finland, the social partners use the pension funds as a shock absorber.
In times of sound economic growth, they increase contributions into the pension funds so that in times of crisis they can reduce them.
<P>
Since national economic crises may, in the strongly integrated Euroland, spill over on to other Member States unless they are dealt with effectively, I propose a safety net at European level in the form of a stabilisation instrument to be funded by loans raised on the capital market.
A mechanism of this kind is already allowed for under Article 103a(2) of the Treaty.
It is in fact quite simply an insurance instrument against the consequences of a serious national crisis.
It cannot resolve the crisis, but will buy governments the extra time they need to take structural measures to restore the balance.
It will in fact replace the exchange rate instrument which in practice served the same purpose prior to the advent of the euro.
Since the monies involved are funds raised on the capital market and repayable loans rather than transfers, I would expect Member States to be happy with this idea.
<P>
A major fear in the past, that a stabilisation mechanism of this kind might conflict with the stability pact, has now been allayed. The conditionality attaching to loans will undoubtedly run in tandem with the requirements of the stability pact.
I shall be glad to hear from the Commission how it intends to keep its promise of 8 April last year that it will, before the end of this year, consider jointly with the Council and Parliament how the terms of Article 103a(2) can be implemented.
Precisely because this Treaty article envisages a stability mechanism and unanimity is needed in the Council to implement it, we in Parliament think it is important to draw up the framework for implementation well in advance, because if a country is faced with a shock which it cannot absorb effectively itself by using existing resources, Community assistance is needed promptly and we cannot spend half a year talking about what to do and how to do it.
This same need for a speedy response means that an early warning system might usefully be devised.
We are urging the Commission to do this too.
<P>
Mr President, country-specific shocks within Euroland are not problems over which politicians are losing any sleep, let alone the general public.
This House is convinced, however, in view of the broad support which my report has received, that this is not right.
So the Commission and the Council have to get their act together.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Torres Marques">
Mr President, in Portuguese we have the equivalent of the expression 'shutting the stable doors after the horse has bolted' - in other words people tend to find ways of avoiding problems only once they have taken place.
Before any unexpected shocks hit national economies following the introduction of the euro, we should decide on arrangements to tackle that situation.
We should not try to find solutions after a crisis has struck.
That is the aim and the merit of this report, an own-initiative report drafted by our colleague Alman Metten, whom I congratulate and who proposes a number of different solutions on the basis of Article 103a of the Treaty of European Union, which provides for a Stabilisation Fund to tackle national shocks.
<P>
First of all we must bear in mind that this support can only be granted in exceptional circumstances beyond countries' control and by a unanimous decision of the Council.
The instrument which we are now proposing to create will be particularly useful when crises occur in Member States which have not yet sufficiently reduced their budget deficits and do not have their own reserves to face such situations.
<P>
It also seems to us that the proposal for the European Union to have a stronger budget to allow it to take effective action against asymmetrical economic slumps is the most appropriate one.
The European Union now needs instruments to defend the economies of its future Member States.
<P>
The Commission should, therefore, put forward draft directives setting out all of the possible solutions for tackling this potential risk.
However, the appropriations should certainly not be deducted from the Community Funds, since they have another aim and are applied to those regions that are still the least developed in the whole of the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fourçans">
Mr President, now that European monetary union is in place, we must examine in detail some of its consequences.
How will EMU function?
What problems may arise and how will these be solved?
In this respect, the question of asymmetric shocks is clearly vital.
It is well known that, with the introduction of the euro, the Member States will lose two courses of action in their economic policy: the manipulation of exchange rates and monetary policy.
We should therefore ask whether the euro zone has sufficient instruments to deal with any asymmetric shocks.
<P>
We firstly need to clarify one point which Mr Metten has briefly mentioned: that the chance of asymmetric shocks will fall under monetary union.
Why?
Quite simply because the Member States can no longer set themselves apart by pursuing economic policies which go against those of the other countries in the euro zone, and God knows that some not too far away have done this in the past.
<P>
Having said this, even if the chance of asymmetric shocks will fall, we must not delude ourselves into thinking that these will be completely eliminated.
So what can we do?
We can put into practice the old saying 'prevention is better than cure' - this must be a day for sayings.
To do this we firstly need to reinforce the coordination of economic policies in order to at least minimise, if not prevent, the infamous asymmetric shocks.
Secondly, we must implement major structural reforms in a number of Member States, particularly relating to the operation of the labour market and the weight of the social and tax burden.
However, we must also provide a cure using remedies that involve in particular good coordination of budgetary and tax policies and possibly, eventually, a greater transfer of certain budgetary expenditure and revenue from the Member States to the Community budget - eventually.
I am not so naive that I do not realise that although this would currently be the best solution economically speaking, this is not the case politically.
<P>
Our rapporteur is proposing the creation of a stabilisation fund based on Article 103a of the Treaty.
I would say to Mr Metten that this article does not go that far as it only authorises Community financial assistance to the Member State concerned.
This is why we in the PPE believe that we should stick to an insurance instrument and we are therefore proposing an amendment to this end.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Goedbloed">
Mr President, the Liberal Group read with interest Mr Metten's proposal for an initiative on the absorption of asymmetric shocks.
The aim, as he indicated just now in his brief introduction, is to find an alternative to devaluations and local monetary policy.
That prompted the Liberal Group too to wonder, when we compare the old situation with the new one, how much has really changed, who bore the responsibility previously and who is to bear the responsibility now?
The underlying cause of this kind of shock frequently lies in the policy of the country concerned.
Have the countries made sure, and a number of speakers have asked the same thing, that their own policies are sufficiently balanced as regards taxation, the budget and the national debt?
The Treaty also allows for measures to be taken in special situations, and deficits of more than 3 % are permissible, but in very exceptional circumstances.
From a Liberal point of view, I think that these should be very exceptional circumstances and then intervention, perhaps short-lived, should be possible in the case of a bigger budget deficit.
But that is a very special situation and it requires unanimity.
The other side is that responsibility lies primarily with the policy pursued by the national Member States, and those national states must continue to pay for it.
We do not agree with the idea that this should be done primarily through a stabilisation fund at European level.
In that respect, we do not support the proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Svensson">
Mr President, this report asserts that asymmetry within the EU economy will decrease with the introduction of the euro.
However, the facts tell a different story.
Divisions between the various regions of the Union are increasing, and have been doing so for a long time.
There is a clear trend towards concentration of business and other activities.
Countries differ in terms of their dependence on raw materials from abroad; and the single market itself is creating growing inequalities.
The very notion of a common market is underpinned by the need for specialisation and concentration - in other words, increasing asymmetry is built into the system.
I view the report as one more example of how little real analysis has been done on the actual foundation for this hazardous monetary venture.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, the Metten report highlights that the euro zone may ultimately be relatively unstable due to the impact of various asymmetric shocks.
These shocks could come from outside the zone or may also, in particular, come from inside. We should not forget, Mr Fourçans, the shocks resulting from the system itself given that this will impose uniform policies on national economies in differing situations.
<P>
In this respect, it will be very interesting for economists to see if, in the coming months, the first of these destabilising shocks will result from the alignment of short-term interest rates which took place on 3 December among the various countries in the zone.
The explanatory statement of the Metten report considers this situation, and is particularly concerned about the situation in Ireland.
What will happen if the sharp fall in interest rates leads to the economy of this country overheating?
The rapporteur proposes offsetting the effect of the fall in rates by increasing taxes in Ireland. This is a solution which will undoubtedly not please the Irish, who will be sacrificed on the altar of the single currency.
<P>
In more general terms, Mr Metten proposes using Article 103a of the Treaty to set up a European stabilisation fund intended to assist countries falling victim to asymmetric shocks.
Of course he promises us, as is always the case in this type of exercise, that this will be a lightweight structure that will provide guarantees but will not redistribute finance among countries.
We do not believe this.
The logic of the single currency system is to gradually progress towards a Community redistribution budget in order to offset the internal instability of the zone.
The contributing countries which are already complaining about the extent of their payments would do well to consider this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, the question of whether the risk of asymmetric shocks will increase or decrease with the introduction of monetary union is one that can hardly be answered at this point.
However, it is clear that this possibility exists.
But it is also clear that the instrument of devaluation will no longer apply.
Mr Metten's report makes a series of useful recommendations for both the Member States and the Community.
However, the coordination of national policies is certainly the most appropriate way of reducing risks.
I agree with the reference to Article 103A as an insurance instrument.
The idea of providing the Union with a bigger budget in future in order to take effective action to combat economic slumps seems to me to be completely pointless, at least for now.
The only effective means of successful intervention will continue to be the political will of the Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berès">
Mr President, the problem raised by Mr Metten is clearly a central one which economists have been studying for some time.
These economists must now find solutions because the advent of a single monetary policy prevents the use of the weapon of devaluation and is in fact the cause of the problem raised by our colleague's report.
<P>
In simple terms, it is clear that when exchange rates were involved, shocks were possible within the Member States which had consequences for the whole Union.
You can therefore appreciate the importance of anticipating the possibility of such asymmetric shocks within a country or, as rightly pointed out by Mr Metten, within regions or sectors and not just within a state structure.
<P>
Such shocks exist in our Member States.
It is currently possible for one region in a Member State to be in an asymmetric position with regard to the rest of the country, and the solution used is one of cohesion and solidarity.
This same solution must be used accordingly at European level.
This will require much more work yet.
Firstly, we must strive for closer coordination of economic policies.
By implementing coordinated policies of stimulation, growth and solidarity we will help to reduce the chances of asymmetric shocks.
<P>
At the same time, we must also strengthen the means at the Commission's disposal because I believe that, in order to prevent asymmetric shocks, we must harmonise the Commission's evaluation and procedural means so that the Commission is not solely dependent on those of the Member States.
The Commission must have its own means of expert evaluation.
Turning to the broader picture, Mr Metten raises the question of freedom of movement.
I feel that, in addition to freedom of movement for workers, freedom of movement for citizens would help to make our economies more fluid.
I would go further by saying that, in terms of the universities, we must create courses with common-core syllabuses.
<P>
Finally, the solutions proposed by the rapporteur relate primarily to the budgetary issue.
I believe he has quite rightly raised the question of the current budgetary ceiling in the European Union.
If we do not consider this question today, we will eventually be forced to consider it because, if we want to effectively combat asymmetric shocks, we will need further means in addition to the insurance instrument or stabilisation fund.
I believe the course proposed by the rapporteur on the basis of Article 103a should be explored in order to find solutions to these asymmetric shocks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García-Margallo y Marfil">
Mr President, Mr Metten's report is clearly not the report that I would have liked to have seen produced.
It does not go far enough but, having said that, it is the only report possible at the present time.
I should like to thank Mr Metten for his efforts and for having accepted many of the amendments I tabled.
<P>
I should like to add, by way of warning to some Members, that I am not defending Spanish interests here, nor am I entering into the debate concerning rich and poor countries, which featured so prominently at the Vienna Summit.
I am only defending a European interest.
<P>
So why am I not defending Spanish interests here?
I am not defending them because, as highlighted in the Metten report, asymmetric crises in the past affected, above all, the United Kingdom in 1980, Germany following reunification, and the Netherlands. And, in the future, although the report makes no reference to the fact, experts have predicted that those most likely to suffer such crises are Portugal, in the event of a crisis in the textile industry, and Ireland, in the event of a recession in the United Kingdom which would have a devastating effect on Irish exports and emigration.
<P>
Why have I therefore chosen to defend a European interest?
I have done so because we need to prevent a risk that might affect anyone.
Those who think that Europe can grow with increasingly less money, when confronted with the problem of the asymmetric crisis and the question of what can be done - as Lenin said -, simply say nothing.
Those of us who believe that Europe should progress at an even faster rate, emphasise the importance of and applaud the amendments tabled. A number of these were somewhat cautiously highlighted by Mr Metten, while others were strongly defended and supported in his report.
<P>
Mr Metten states that there is a need for greater mobility of production factors.
In this connection, I should like to highlight what Mrs Berès said: language learning and the coordination of academic studies will make Europe an area that is increasingly open to people.
<P>
One of the fundamental elements of this is the principle of coherence together with the budget, the early warning system and safety net facility that Mr Metten included in his report, on which I congratulate him sincerely.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Katiforis">
Mr President, fortunately we are the only ones here this evening and we can speak quite freely. I even hear the name Lenin mentioned in this hallowed Chamber.
I would like to take up the subject at the point where it was left by Mr Fourçans, who told us quite rightly that two of the three instruments of economic policy available to the Member States are no longer at their disposal, and indeed they do not have control over economic policy and exchange rate policy.
It should be added that financial policy, which is the third instrument, is very heavily mortgaged to - if not eliminated by - the notorious stability pact, and I would say that the rapporteur's analysis of the stability pact should be considered with particular care.
According to the rapporteur, the 3 % deficit limit permitted by that celebrated pact is enough to cover the operation of the economy's automatic stabilisers, provided we start from a zero-deficit basis.
As the rapporteur rightly observes, it is most unlikely that zero deficits will be achieved in the next few years.
The aid from the stabilising fund proposed by the rapporteur may therefore prove particularly useful during the first, critical period of the euro's operation.
<P>
As you will certainly be aware, Mr President, the prevailing interpretation of the stability pact is that public investments not covered by taxes are also subject to the stability pact's 3 % limit.
Public investment in Europe today averages 2 % of national income, having fallen to that level from 3 % at the beginning of the decade.
If public investments are to be governed by the stability pact, then either there will be no room for the automatic stabilisers to operate, or there will be no room for public investment, or public investment will have to be financed by higher taxation, which would be a recipe for madness - as indeed the entire stability pact is a recipe for madness - at a time when economic activity in Europe is on the decline.
<P>
In any case, Mr President, if the stability pact is actually applied - which I doubt, because it seems to me quite unworkable - it will be a source of pain for Europe's economy.
In that sense, measures like those proposed by Mr Metten may mitigate the harm and we should support him, even though his proposals are purely symbolic and without much practical value since they depend on the principle of unanimity in the Council.
And since this evening is an evening of slogans, as Mr Fourçans himself said, what we need to extract Europe from its present impasse is 'de l'audace, de l'audace et encore de l'audace ' - as your celebrated compatriot once said, Mr Fourçans.
But where are we to find that 'audace' when we have all subjugated our reasoning to irrational monetarism which is leading us straight towards disaster unless we react against it?
Let us at least give a sign that we reject that mentality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendes Bota">
<SPEAKER ID=237 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Caudron">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the text before us today is the result of careful and thorough work by the rapporteur, Mr Metten, and our Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
Once again, Commissioner, this parliamentary initiative demonstrates our capacity to consider the major problems with which Europe is or risks being faced and also our capacity to propose serious and realistic solutions.
<P>
I therefore support this report and congratulate Mr Metten because, like him, although convinced of the security that the euro will provide, I believe that we must now guard against the risks, which may be small but are ever present, in the period after its introduction.
In this respect, the creation of a Community fund and an insurance instrument to help countries in the euro zone in the event of a crisis in one of these countries can only strengthen our single currency and, in particular, help the countries which have decided to join.
I would add that this fund would also be a stabilising element for the euro in respect of other world currencies, whether these are strong or unstable, dominant or speculative.
<P>
Furthermore, while we may feel that any asymmetric shocks will be minor - as confirmed by the stability of the currencies in the euro zone - we cannot ignore the differences in laws and policies.
<P>
To conclude, I must wholeheartedly join with those calling for improved coordination of our economic policies, harmonisation of taxes and, in particular, cooperation in our fight against unemployment and our drive for employment, in which the Commission will also be needed.
<P>
All in all - and I will finish on this - in order to maximise our assets and limit the risks, we need a positive Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ilaskivi">
Mr President, to assume that all European countries will avoid asymmetric shocks is naïve.
Within the EU we have to be prepared in good time in order to ward off such shocks.
They may well most obviously affect countries with a narrow industrial structure.
As Mr Metten takes Finland as an example of these, I would like to emphasise that the substantially increased role that Nokia and high tech exports have come to play in the economy has diversified the industrial structure and exports.
<P>
I cannot really support Mr Metten's recommendation for preventing crisis within the framework of the EU budget.
The decision-making process is too slow.
Nor do I see a harmonised monetary policy as appropriate.
That is why sufficiently independent national action is vital.
Mr Metten refers quite rightly to the Finnish plans to change pension contributions so that they would be lower than average during a recession and correspondingly higher during periods of relative prosperity.
For my own part I would like to stress the importance of Keynesian budget policy as a tool to ward off recession.
Automatic stabilisers must be developed in the budget.
<P>
I would like to remind you all that over a year ago Parliament approved the proposal I made to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy that a deficit of 3 % should be viewed within the context of the whole economic cycle, not from one moment to the next.
In this way, when the danger of an asymmetric recession looms the country in question could, by means of a budget deficit, stimulate the economy and, with the surplus of the boom phase, bring the situation back to an overall framework of 3 %.
Now it is time for the Commission and the Council to follow the same line and amend the Stability Pact so that different Member States may prepare to avoid shocks by means of anticipatory measures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Metten for a splendid and professional report, which contains some excellent proposals.
The greatest and most influential shocks have been wars.
We have succeeded in preventing some of them in this Chamber. Economic shocks are nonetheless serious and they always affect the worst-off most seriously.
<P>
The 1973 and 1981 oil crises were explosive events that spread fear around the world.
Furthermore, the steep decline in the value of the dollar was a shock, not only for the Americans but for us also.
Although these shocks were felt throughout the whole EU area, the effect on some states was greater than on others.
This is what breeds asymmetry, rather like what happens in the blood circulation system.
When shock hits a country which is a member of an economic and monetary union, it is a serious matter. Medical supplies are urgently needed.
On this subject I agree with the previous speaker, but we no longer have the right devaluation medicine at our disposal.
<P>
I was one of the member of my large group who had the honour of interviewing candidates for the post of Director of the European Central Bank.
I was astonished that one of them did not regard the issue of asymmetric shocks as important.
If such unrealistic views were to spread within the ECB, its work would certainly produce a shock here in Parliament.
ECB monetary policy is not neutral, so it must acknowledge its responsibility for employment and asymmetric shocks.
<P>
The rapporteur gives as examples of shocks affecting single countries the effect of North Sea oil production on the United Kingdom, German unification, the floods in Europe, mad cow disease, and swine fever in the Netherlands.
From Finland's point of view the crisis in Russia can be compared to any of these.
The situation in Russia may erupt into an asymmetric shock at any time.
For that reason it is time that EU aid to Russia was targeted at relieving the violent social upheaval that has been going on, and not at supporting an oligarchy led by people who moreover, send their money, which is actually our money, abroad.
A Finnish shock could be caused by the timber processing industry getting out of step.
Fortunately the importance of wood in our country has declined dramatically, and it is the metal and electronics industry that has become the largest export sector.
Nevertheless, the situation in the timber processing industry is important, and when the Russian crisis came along, it did not affect Finland, which shows how much our situation has changed.
<P>
We need a guarantee fund and instruments of stability.
We also need an early warning mechanism in respect of shocks that affect single countries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Porto">
Mr President, the creation of an adjustment mechanism to tackle asymmetric shocks may be seductive on the surface, but we have reservations and worries. Of course we do not wish to question the merit of the rapporteur's initiative, and I wish to congratulate him.
Nobody could question the fact that it is preferable to attack evil at the root, eradicating or at least attenuating the circumstances that might give rise to these shocks by means of sectoral diversification, structural reinforcement and more flexible economies - in particular, through the markets, on the one hand, and tight budget policies, on the other.
Let us hope that this will be successful because, who knows, the size of these asymmetric shocks - or even symmetrical shocks, affecting the whole of the economy - might be so great that dealing with them might be far beyond the capacity of the European Union's budget, a budget that falls short of even 1.2 % of the entire area's GDP.
<P>
Unfortunately, Mr Metten's hope that the European Union will have a stronger budget than it does at present is not realistic and the fight against short-term slumps would undoubtedly be fought with the resources that should really be earmarked for structural solutions.
This fear is not lessened by the rapporteur's own reservations, since he says that it would not be a transfer mechanism but only a credit guarantee to be repaid with interest, and that it would be conditional on policies aimed at bringing about a balanced budget (while in the explanatory statement he talks about special low interest rates).
The question that arises is: what about the need for a fund or for budget increases if the necessary resources are not available?
<P>
This might end up by being an open door to extremely unfair transfers of resources, especially if those resources are transferred to the richer countries - it is even said that the small countries might not even need this mechanism - or if countries with less correct policies are actually rewarded to the detriment of countries deprived of any structural support and which, having pursued the correct policies, manage to avoid asymmetric shocks.
<P>
Since the question of priorities is at stake we should make it a priority to promote structural policies that are absolutely the right ones but that are incomprehensibly being questioned by politicians with blinkered visions of the European project.
With this stronger safeguard, we should be able to make progress towards the creation of the fund proposed in Mr Metten's report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 NAME="de Silguy">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Metten is asking us to consider a problem which often arises in the context of Economic and Monetary Union, namely the problem of asymmetric shocks.
Even though I do not agree with all his conclusions, I must congratulate him on his work and also on the work carried out in the relevant subcommittee.
<P>
I had prepared a longer version of my speech but, as time is getting on, I will shorten it as much as possible.
I will provide anyone who is interested with my detailed thoughts on asymmetric shocks.
I would have liked more time to try and convince Mr Berthu but I believe that, at this stage, this would require a specific lecture on basic economic mechanisms, which I am prepared to give him.
<P>
First of all, we must understand what is meant by asymmetric shocks so I will give a definition of these.
We must also be aware of the probability of these shocks occurring in Europe and, finally, what solutions are possible.
These are the three ideas which I would like to briefly develop.
<P>
Firstly, what is an asymmetric shock?
There is a simple, theoretical and fairly vague answer to this question, which is that an asymmetric shock is a shock in supply or demand affecting a specific part or sector of an economic zone in a different way to the other parts or sectors.
Given that we have worked on this extensively in the Commission, we have tried to establish a typology or classification of asymmetric shocks in order to illustrate this definition.
We have distinguished four types of shock.
<P>
Firstly, there are shocks caused by nature, for example after an earthquake or epidemic.
Their asymmetric nature is due to the fact that the operative event is very localised and affects a particular region.
Secondly, there are shocks which are caused by an exceptional historical development which is impossible to foresee.
I am thinking, for example, of the unification of Germany.
Thirdly, there are shocks caused by the collapse of demand for a good or service in which a country specialises.
I will use the example mentioned earlier of the collapse in the price of wood and therefore of the wood sector, which represents 15 % of the GDP of Finland.
In this category, the asymmetry clearly depends on the degree of specialisation of the country.
Fourthly, and finally, there are shocks whose asymmetry is caused by differing responses in economic policy to the same operative events.
For example, during the first oil crisis in 1973 in principle all the industrialised countries should have tackled the problem in the same way as they were all similarly affected.
However, this was not the case.
What happened was that national responses differed greatly, thus creating asymmetric shocks.
In some countries stimulation policies were initiated, whereas others aimed for stabilisation.
This is therefore the definition of an asymmetric shock.
But that is not all there is to it as it is also necessary to try to assess the probability of the shock.
<P>
Firstly, I would say to Mrs Berès that the Commission is currently equipping itself with analysis structures.
I can tell you that, just today, the new organisation chart of DG II has been signed in which we have really reinforced economic analysis skills, and we have also set up a system for 'reasoning in the euro zone'.
I think we will have an opportunity to discuss this again but I wanted to reassure you on this point.
<P>
There are two relevant factors in assessing the probability of asymmetric shocks: the integration of the economies of the Member States and the coordination of economic policies.
It is precisely due to the combination of these two factors that asymmetric shocks are very unlikely within EMU.
<P>
With regard to the first factor - the integration of the economies of the Member States - you can see that the achievement of a single market makes the economies increasingly interdependent, and even more so with a single currency. This lessens the specialisation of the national economies.
Furthermore, structural and cohesion policies approximate the levels of development in the Community.
These two elements therefore help to prevent asymmetric shocks and I would say that the situation in Europe in this respect is at least as positive as in other monetary unions.
Mr Berthu, Finland is no more threatened by a crisis in the wood sector than Alabama is by a cotton crisis or Michigan by a crisis in the automotive sector.
Finally, I would say that the relatively low degree of national specialisation in Europe makes the occurrence of national asymmetric shocks very unlikely.
This does not mean that shocks will not occur in a town or region affected by a natural disaster or which specialises in one product.
Rather, there may be a shock but this will not affect just one Member State.
<P>
The second factor is the coordination of economic policies, and I believe that one of the characteristics of EMU is precisely to provide coherent and coordinated political responses.
Firstly, single monetary policy excludes any possibility of a franc tireur , or lone gunman if you prefer, aggravating the consequences of a shock on the economies of the other Member States.
The situation is therefore very different from that which could have occurred between 1992 and 1995 in the European Union.
Furthermore, the coordination of budgetary policies - and I am thinking particularly in the context of the stability and growth pact - specifically prevents differing national responses, such as were seen during the first oil crisis.
However, the stability and growth pact also allows budgetary margins of manoeuvre to be regained by eliminating structural deficits from public finances.
Therefore, for all these reasons, and because it is accompanied by the convergence and coordination of economic policies, EMU reinforces the EU's capacity to avoid asymmetric shocks or to limit their impact by means of appropriate political responses.
<P>
Having said this, shocks are not totally impossible.
So what measures do we have to tackle them?
There are two categories: measures involving the market which, rather strangely, no one here has mentioned, and budgetary measures which, by contrast, have been much discussed.
<P>
If I may, I will briefly talk first of all about the market.
This is an asymmetric shock absorber.
Analyses too often tend to focus solely on the public responses to economic shocks.
This type of analysis no longer corresponds to the modern structure of our industrialised economies.
In our economies, it is the market and not the government which has the ability to adapt and provide finance.
<P>
I have found a study on asymmetric shocks which was carried out in 1996 by Brown University and which showed that the financing needed to offset the effects of a shock came from the capital markets in 62 % of cases and from the federal budget in 13 % of cases.
The market's action is therefore decisive.
Accordingly, EMU is providing Europe with new assets represented by two essential markets: the capital market and the labour market.
<P>
With regard to the capital market, there is of course the euro which is primarily a major capital and credit market.
The introduction of the euro will therefore result in the establishment of an extensive and very liquid market and also, undoubtedly, a liquidity and security comparable to that of the American market.
Negotiations are currently under way to form a genuine European stock exchange.
We are also witnessing the promotion of the European venture capital market.
A major European capital and credit market will be better able to release the financing needed to absorb an economic shock.
<P>
With regard to the labour market, I would refer you to our main economic policy statements and to the guidelines on employment, which have the same message, namely that the Member States, the Commission and Parliament want to improve the ability of the European labour market to react to the effects of globalisation.
I believe that this greater flexibility will be an important element in absorbing the negative effect in employment terms of any asymmetric shocks in the future.
I will not go into the conclusions of the Vienna European Council as I believe that Mr Santer must do this, but the proposed European employment pact has the same aim.
To give you the full picture, I must add that the improvement of the single market in goods and services, which the Council lists under 'economic reforms', will also help to reinforce the ability of the European economy to respond in the event of a shock.
Therefore, the private sector's ability to respond is vital and must not be neglected.
<P>
The other means of combating asymmetric shocks is to use budgetary policy; this is still in the context of the stability and growth pact and the Treaty.
Budgetary policy can be used in two ways: in the context of national budgetary policy and in the context of financial solidarity, and this involves Article 103a as you have mentioned.
<P>
With regard to national budgetary policy, I would remind you that, by avoiding excessive deficits and by fixing as a medium-term objective a budgetary situation which is close to equilibrium or slightly in surplus, the stability and growth pact aims, by 2002 at the latest, to give the Member States a sufficient budgetary margin of manoeuvre to allow a broader response to economic shocks.
Four national stability and convergence programmes, which we have already analysed and which have been accepted by the Council, respond to these objectives.
Another eleven programmes are pending which should in principle be available before the end of the year.
We will examine these from the same viewpoint.
<P>
Your report, Mr Metten, which noted that these margins of manoeuvre would not be available until 2002, cleverly suggests that the Community budget could also be used to artificially speed up this process, for example by deferring or bringing forward the national contributions.
In this respect, I must say that nothing of this kind is provided for by the budgetary legislation of the European Union and that such an arrangement would be unfair, in my opinion, because it would transfer the burden from some countries to others, without providing a lasting solution.
This is why the best solution is to strictly apply the stability and growth pact and, if possible - as you yourself have underlined, Mr Metten - to create budgetary reserves during boom periods, as in Finland, which could be used in the event of shocks.
<P>
In general, the Commission recommends that Member States create for themselves an additional margin of manoeuvre which can be used in the event of a shock or dramatic change in the economic situation. This is in addition to a position of structural equilibrium in the public accounts.
<P>
Finally, to round off this point, I must remind you that the stability pact specifies that a Member State may temporarily and exceptionally use its budgetary policy beyond the 3 % deficit limit in the event of exceptional economic circumstances.
This completely covers the occurrence of an asymmetric shock of a particular extent, and that is all I have to say on 'national budgets'.
<P>
The other important aspects are the Treaty and Article 103a of the Treaty.
I would remind you that Article 103a of the Treaty states that: 'without prejudice to any other procedures provided for in this Treaty, the Council may, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission, decide upon the measures appropriate to the economic situation, in particular if severe difficulties arise in the supply of certain products.'
It also states that: 'where a Member State is in difficulties or is seriously threatened with severe difficulties caused by exceptional occurrences beyond its control, the Council may, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission, grant, under certain conditions, Community financial assistance to the Member State concerned.
Where the severe difficulties are caused by natural disasters, the Council shall act by qualified majority. The President of the Council shall inform the European Parliament of the decision taken.'
<P>
The scope of this text is very clear.
Under no circumstances can it be interpreted as authorising the bailing out of a Member State whose economic policy does not comply with the Treaty.
The text is worded wisely.
In the event of an unexpected shock, it gives the Commission and the Council significant latitude to ensure financial solidarity.
It is clearly not possible to prepare precise remedies for the unexpected.
Nevertheless, the Commission is already considering the best way of ensuring the financial solidarity of the euro zone in the event of a natural disaster, for example, and I hope to have the opportunity to discuss this with you at some stage in the future.
I would point out that the main problem with Article 103a is that it requires the unanimity of the Council, whereas an effective mechanism for absorbing asymmetric shocks must by nature be immediate and automatic.
<P>
Finally, to finish on this point, I must add that, in accordance with Articles 109k and 109k(6) of the Treaty, the 'pre-in' and 'pre-out' countries - those which are not in the euro zone and those alone - can still benefit from Community assistance for the balance of payments.
We will be making proposals in this respect before or during 1999.
<P>
To conclude - and I apologise for having taken so long but we could go on for hours on this subject - I would say firstly that if there is an asymmetric shock, it is necessary to adjust and not just provide finance.
It is wrong to focus solely on finding Community finance when the problem is primarily the responsibility of the countries which must implement reforms imposed by the adaptation to a de facto situation.
<P>
Finally, asymmetric shocks are an unlikely occurrence.
There is less chance of these occurring with the euro than without the euro and I believe that the coordination of the policy mix introduced by EMU will give the Community the best weapons to combat asymmetric shocks.
This is the direction our work must take in the coming months, now that we are just 16 days away from the introduction of the euro.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 NAME="Metten">
Mr President, our thanks to the Commissioner for his extensive reply, but he has not answered my very specific question, namely how does the Commission intend to keep the promise it gave on 8 April last year in connection with a report of mine on the same subject that it will, before the end of this year, consider jointly with the Council and Parliament how the terms of Article 103a(2) can be implemented.
He has said nothing on that.
Nor has he confirmed that he still plans to keep that promise.
That was really the thrust of my report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 NAME="de Silguy">
Mr President, Mr Metten could perhaps read my original speech in detail as I believe this would provide the answer to his question.
<P>
Firstly, with regard to Community financial support in the event of difficulties in the balance of payments - in other words the extension of the system in Article 109h to countries not in the euro zone - we are committed to preparing an assessment and proposals.
As I have said, this will occur in the next few weeks or months.
<P>
Secondly, with regard to the accelerated procedure allowing the implementation of this article in the event of a natural disaster with micro-economic consequences, I must say that we are currently examining the possibility of a procedure which would accelerate the Council's decision. This would be taken by qualified majority in order to initially provide the bare essentials of assistance through a special budgetary line followed by reconstruction in the areas affected by means of loans, particularly involving the EIB.
<P>
Thirdly, with regard to the most contentious point about asymmetric shocks - which I believe is a problem of substance and doctrine - namely the first part of paragraph 2 of Article 103a, analysis and discussion work has been carried out on different empirical cases of asymmetric shocks, including the development of various economic and legal arguments.
I was able in my presentation to give you some answers.
I remain at your disposal to continue the discussion in private or in public.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
Trading of goods between Member States
<SPEAKER ID=245 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0486/98), on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the common position adopted by the Council (8776/98 - C4-0492/98-97/0155(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 3330/91 on the statistics relating to the trading of goods between Member States with a view to reducing the data to be provided (Rapporteur: Mrs Lulling).
<P>
I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mrs Lulling.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, Commissioner, on 31 March I submitted to this House my report on the two proposals for regulations presented by the Commission. These proposals are intended to simplify the Intrastat regulation, reduce the statistical burden of undertakings, particularly SMEs, and reduce the costs of those information providers who must provide Eurostat with the data which allows the preparation of the essential and invaluable statistics on the trading of goods between Member States in the single market.
<P>
I regretted at the time that these proposals did not contain all the positive suggestions of the SLIM initiative.
I also said that they were simply a step in the right direction in anticipation of a more radical simplification, all the more so given that the reliability of the Intrastat statistics is inversely proportional to the costs incurred by the 450 000 undertakings which must provide the data. These costs are in the order of 500 million, plus another 100 million for the operation of the system by the national statistics collectors.
<P>
We therefore tabled amendments at first reading. These were adopted unanimously and, apart from a few details, received the blessing of the Commission.
Commissioner de Silguy actually said in the House that he could include all our amendments.
Unfortunately, this was not the case in the Council, which sent us a common position which actually watered down the Commission's original proposal, whereas we and the Commission wanted to strengthen it.
If we followed the Council, in other words the governments, in their negative attitude - which is all the more incomprehensible given that their statistics officers collaborated in the SLIM initiative - this would lead to an increase in the statistical burden on undertakings.
The Council even went as far as to simply refuse to adopt a common position on the proposal for a regulation concerning the nomenclature.
<P>
We could have resigned ourselves to such a negative attitude from the Council and capitulated due to the impossibility of moving the mountain of Member States' bureaucratic requirements, thereby discrediting the SLIM initiative and ignoring the interests of undertakings which continue to ask for a reduction in their statistical burdens.
Instead, we have chosen to keep our amendments to the two proposals for amending the Intrastat regulation.
I realise that, in the absence of a common position from the Council, the Commission might say that, for formal reasons, it cannot accept certain amendments even though it basically supports these and its opinion has not changed since 31 March.
To us, keeping these amendments is a political signal to the Council, which must realise the confidence and solidarity which exist between the Commission and Parliament on this matter.
<P>
As the rapporteur, I have again been subject to pressure from users of these statistics who are legitimately interested in receiving detailed and quality information on intra-Community trading of goods and who are keen to maintain the finest subdivisions, with eight-digit codes, in order to have cheap and reliable economic information.
<P>
As there is some misunderstanding among these users about the extent of our amendments, I must reassure them by saying that, in our Amendment No 8, the Combined Nomenclature is recognised as being the basic nomenclature for the classification of goods.
A single nomenclature, the Combined Nomenclature, will be used for external and intra-European statistics.
Our amendment is the result of abandoning the idea of a specific Intrastat nomenclature.
In addition, as regards the recommended simplification of using a six-digit code instead of the eight-digit code for identifying certain goods, as in the Harmonised System, the conditions needed in order to benefit from this simplification are being adopted by the Commission in comitology by taking into account a partnership between national administrations and users and by noting the vital importance of close cooperation with all the indicated parties being confirmed from the outset by a legislative text.
This partnership could guarantee that certain special needs, particularly in the agri-foodstuffs sector, will be covered.
My friends in the wine sector can relax as they will continue to receive statistics which show them how much red and white wine, and of what regional origin, has been the subject of intra-Community trade.
<P>
Keeping our amendments will stop us from shooting ourselves in the foot by limiting our own competitiveness due to a lack of strategic intelligence.
In addition, work is in progress in the context of SLIM II in order to simplify and modernise the Combined Nomenclature.
The preparations for a code of conduct for the management of the Combined Nomenclature are currently being finalised and the European professional federations know that close sectoral collaboration in this has already resulted in a reduction in the nomenclature.
However, Mr President, because we must go further and adopt measures exempting information providers in certain cases from providing data for the detailed version of the nomenclature, we have decided to continue down the road taken at the first reading.
I hope that the Commission will follow us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Europe's firms need our help.
The entrepreneurial environment, characterised by a variety of tightly regulated legal frameworks, has undoubtedly become more and more complex and complicated in recent years.
From the experience of my own country and my own forging business, I know only too well that the administrative burden arising from national and European legislation causes a lot of problems, especially for small and medium-sized companies.
In this respect, the present common position, together with the amendments proposed by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and those introduced by Mrs Lulling, forms a positive basis for simplifying administration.
It is a small step but a good one, and above all it is a step in the right direction.
<P>
The distinction between Intrastat and Extrastat means that there is still a lot of work to be done.
Simplifying the nomenclature within the internal market is an interim measure.
The ultimate goal must be deregulation, as with other statistics.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=248 NAME="de Silguy">
<SPEAKER ID=249 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, I must thank Commissioner de Silguy and say that, with regard to the minor details, we can certainly reach agreement on the deadlines.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 NAME="President">
Mrs Lulling, we cannot have a debate.
You may ask a question, but not reopen the debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=251 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, I must reply to the Commissioner ...
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 NAME="President">
No, the debate is closed and there are no replies to be given.
It is late, and you are well aware of the Rules.
You may only ask a question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, I must tell the Commissioner that we can reach agreement.
We are after all at the second reading and I do not see why I cannot answer him as he is saying that he cannot agree to the deadlines, whereas I hope that by discussing this we will be able to reach agreement ...
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=254 NAME="President">
I am sorry, Mrs Lulling, but the debate is closed.
<P>
(The President cut off Mrs Lulling, who continued to protest without a microphone)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=255 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=13>
External transit
<SPEAKER ID=256 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0442/98), on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0536/98-97/0242(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 2913/92 with regard to the external transit procedure (Rapporteur: Mrs Peijs).
<P>
I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mrs Peijs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=257 NAME="Peijs">
Mr President, during the May part-session, Parliament adopted seven amendments at first reading.
Several of these have been adopted by the Council, in whole or in part.
Two important points remain which I think need to be raised again.
Firstly, an administrative note.
I am told by the Swedish representation in the Council that an error has crept into the Swedish translation of the first amendment.
The English text should be taken as the original.
I do not speak Swedish, so I cannot comment further.
<P>
As regards the two amendments, and firstly the transparency of the decisions taken by the committee, this has been a matter of concern for a number of years now, not least to Parliament itself.
Important decisions are taken in the committee on how firms operating in the area of Community transit should conduct themselves vis-à-vis the customs authorities.
In particular, the conditions which firms must fulfil if they are to use the simplified procedures on safety are crucial.
These can greatly affect the way in which individual companies operate.
<P>
Parliament has laid down the broad lines of these conditions in the legal text, but the committee will still have to finalise them.
There must be complete clarity to ensure that the legislation is applied uniformly to firms in comparable situations.
<P>
Secondly, I have retabled an amendment concerning the time-frame within which customs authorities must complete their work.
The transit system is still a paper-based operation, sometimes even a manual operation, scarcely credible on the eve of the year 2000.
In future, this will have to be computerised and the year 2000 has featured in the planning, even now in 1998.
But it will be a few more years before this computer system is in place.
As a result, the completion - the discharge, as the jargon has it - of an individual procedure for an individual shipment can sometimes take months, or even years.
Parliament is forced to accept this, but is launching its own inquiry into the reasons for this almost intolerable delay.
<P>
The lack of a computer system is one of the considerations relevant to the discharge for 1996.
It has to be agreed that the internal market cannot be enlarged to include new applicant countries if we do not have a fully computerised customs system up and running.
I would urge a number of Member States to abandon their regrettable opposition to linking their national systems to the European system.
Complaining about fraud at borders in transit traffic cuts no ice if there is not close cooperation between national and European customs services.
<P>
The Commission has intimated that it intends to set a time limit of 30 days in the implementing provisions for customs authorities.
Purely on condition that this is actually done, I have agreed to incorporate an amendment into the recitals at this second reading.
Personally, I think it is unacceptable to impose all manner of obligations and restrictions on the industry without yourself being willing, as an authority, to be bound by administrative deadlines.
There has to be a balance in the obligations undertaken by all the parties.
Last week the Council working party responsible discussed the amendments and I gather, Mr President, that it may be possible to avoid a conciliation procedure.
That will save a great deal of time and money.
I hope the House will support the amendments we have tabled.
<P>
I have a little time left to say something which is close to my heart.
It is a remarkable dossier we are discussing here, a highly technical one.
It is crazy that all the fundamental questions and all the fundamental issues of our European Union should be raised in a technical dossier of this kind.
This is a question of transparency and democracy, and this transparency and democracy, which I have reflected in the amendments, are constantly being ignored by the Commission.
<P>
I had a letter this evening from the platform for freight transit or whatever name they have adopted, and this platform backs my request.
You cannot negotiate with an industry which speaks with different voices and does not speak with a single voice to the Commission.
They have now changed that.
They are now speaking with a single voice to the Commission.
But whenever there needs to be real transparency in the committee procedures, there is none.
Then the Commission says, yes, but we are talking to you.
Of course they are talking.
That is the most normal thing in the world.
If we had wanted to live under a dictatorship, we would not have needed the European Union, we could have made our own dictatorship.
We do not want to live under a dictatorship, even one headed by technocrats.
We want the European Commission to maintain the utmost transparency vis-à-vis the platform on transit, not least as regards the committee procedures.
<P>
I should like to be sure that the Commissioner will pass this message on to his officials.
We shall keep a watchful eye on things.
We are asking the European Commission to cooperate seriously here.
It should not confuse a normal consultation procedure with the industry with transparency in the committee procedures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=258 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like firstly to congratulate Karla Peijs on her commitment to the fight for simplification in this area.
We should actually apply SLIM rather than simply talking about it, and we should regard the impact statement as a fact.
We must involve those concerned and deal objectively with justified objections.
I myself was a member of the committee of inquiry that dealt with fraud in Community transit, and I know that there are problems in this area, but we must not throw the baby out with the bath-water.
<P>
Quite simply, what we need is a simplified procedure.
We need proper regulations concerning guarantees, and we also need the 60-day time limit so that the system is efficient and so that in future customs procedures are handled in such a way that the European Union can see where its money is going.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=259 NAME="Watson">
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate Mrs Peijs on this report.
It is an excellent piece of work indeed.
This action plan for customs transit is hugely important.
As the euro comes in we expect a growth in trade across our frontiers and the procedures for dealing effectively with this trade must be in place.
Objectives such as creating more efficient recovery procedures in transit operations and shortening the time taken for discharge are of considerable importance to our industry for cutting down their costs and burdens, especially considering that the procedure can take up to five years to be completed at present.
Central to these proposals is the need to curb fraudulent practices in the transport procedure.
We have heard a lot about fraud recently and the problems about fraud against the Community budget.
It is not helped by a lack of transparency in decision-making, which is why my group supports Amendment No 1 in particular.
<P>
It is, as Mr Peijs has pointed out, quite amazing that in this day and age we still have so much done on paper.
I have heard it said that to err is human, but for a real cock-up you need a computer.
I think that we have probably moved to the stage where computerisation is essential and that procedures that are introduced by Member States must be compatible with the rules governing Community transit procedures.
These rules must be clearly defined.
Calculations must be based on the operators' liability and the risks attached to the goods.
I welcome this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=260 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Paasilinna">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I congratulate the rapporteur.
The changes in the external transit procedure are based on the work of Parliament's Committee of Inquiry, which approved the changes in 1997.
I was involved myself, as was my colleague, Mr Rübig.
<P>
The transit system was reformed in three respects.
Legislation was reviewed and amended, cooperation was increased among Member States through Customs 2000, and automation was introduced.
The system of automation that we are dealing with here, with the computerisation of customs and networking, is absolutely essential.
An efficient customs system in the European Union is not possible today without effective networking.
Ladies and gentlemen, we and the Commission are currently making life very easy for crooks and criminals.
If the Member States and the Commission do not realise this, it is very strange.
We talk about the information society, but it is not working in the area of customs.
<P>
I agree with the rapporteur that all committee-based decisions should be as open as possible.
But it is important that essential matters are not just left to the committee, but that Parliament should be able to debate them, as otherwise it is not just a question of avoiding transparency, but also bypassing democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=261 NAME="Monti">
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, and in particular the rapporteur, Mrs Peijs, for this vital contribution to reaching a fair compromise on the amendment of the Community customs code in connection with the reform of the transit procedure.
<P>
The Commission and Parliament have already demonstrated their joint interest in making the transit procedure more secure, so that reliable economic operators are able to benefit from a more flexible system.
That is why, as announced in its communication of 30 April 1997 to Parliament and the Council, when unveiling its action plan for transit in Europe - 'a new customs policy' - the Commission embarked on an ambitious reform of the transit procedure, designed in particular to implement the recommendations of the parliamentary committee of inquiry into the Community transit procedure.
<P>
The reform consists of legislative measures, operational provisions and - an essential element - the computerisation of the service.
The proposed amendment of Regulation (EEC) No 2913/92, which introduced the Community customs code, was presented in September 1997.
The Commission accepted most of the amendments tabled by Parliament at first reading, modifying its proposal accordingly on 3 July 1998.
The Commission can approve all the amendments to the Council's common position which are now being put forward by Parliament at second reading, because it considers them to be fully consistent with the aims of the action plan on transit.
<P>
The first amendment, on the transparency of decisions taken under the committee procedure, is in keeping with the principles followed by the Commission in terms of both consulting economic operators and the design and implementation of the transit reform.
This amendment, already tabled by Parliament at first reading, has therefore been incorporated into the Commission's amended proposal of 3 July 1998.
<P>
The second amendment ties in with one of the most important aims of the transit reform, in that it refers to the operational measures which ensure a more secure and efficient procedure.
The quickest possible discharge of the transit procedure is essential to the monitoring of transactions and necessary in order to ensure that the holder is released from his financial obligations within a reasonable period of time.
Therefore, the Commission can likewise approve this amendment.
<P>
The Commission is satisfied with the progress made by the proposal in the codecision procedure, since it reveals that Parliament, the Council and the Commission are all keen to see the reform of the transit procedure - which is so important and, as we all know, so difficult - implemented at last.
I wish to conclude with a further warm word of thanks to the rapporteur, Mrs Peijs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=262 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Monti.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=14>
Diversification out of certain fishing activities
<SPEAKER ID=263 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0463/98) by Mr Souchet, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Decision on a specific measure to encourage diversification out of certain fishing activities and amending Council Decision 97/292/EC of 28 April 1997 (COM(98)0515 - C4-0543/98-98/0274(CNS)).
<P>
I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mr Souchet.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=264 NAME="Souchet">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on 8 June 1998, after a long debate, the Council adopted a regulation banning fishing with drift nets in the Atlantic and Mediterranean with effect from 1 January 2002.
<P>
To provide compensation for some of the economic loss suffered by fishermen (requirement to adapt vessels for deep-sea tuna fishing using new techniques, cessation of activities and so on), the Council drew up this proposal on the basis of Article 43 of the Treaty.
This proposal follows the broad outlines of the Spadare plan created for Italy in 1997, which provided measures for seafarers and shipowners.
The measures proposed involve compensating fishermen following either the cessation of all economic activities before 1 January 2002 or diversification into other fishing activities.
Shipowners can be compensated following either the cessation of all fishing activities or diversification into other fishing activities. This compensation is for shipowners and fishermen who have been involved in drift net fishing in 1995, 1996 or 1997.
This year could also have been included so that it is mainly those fishermen who are fully active who benefit from this measure, as is usual.
<P>
Five Member States are affected by this ban: Spain (only in the Mediterranean), Ireland, France, Italy and the United Kingdom.
In order to limit budget costs and prevent possible abuse of the investments, this proposal sets only the maximum amounts of the premiums.
The Member States must themselves adjust these payments in line with the actual economic and social loss resulting from the ban on fishing with drift nets.
<P>
I must emphasise that the ban on the use of drift nets could cause the premature cessation of activity for certain fishermen, as the proposed measures provide for the establishment of an additional compensatory payment in the event of cessation of all fishing activity before 1 January 2002.
Local authorities and fishermen have recently made significant investments in infrastructures such as markets, particularly to meet Community standards.
These investments will show reduced profitability following the cessation of activity by certain fishermen, in particular in those ports where the vessels affected by this measure concentrate the landing of their catches.
<P>
The Committee on Fisheries has adopted 8 amendments which I proposed as rapporteur.
Amendments Nos 1 and 8 aim to reestablish an equitable situation between Italian fishermen affected by the Spadare plan and fishermen from the other Member States affected by the decision to ban drift nets.
These diversification measures must not in any case produce a distortion of competition.
<P>
Amendments Nos 2 and 7 aim to allow the aggregation of the funding to enable the financing of diversification by fishermen for the period between 1 January 2000 and 31 December 2001.
These amendments are particularly important as certain Member States have initiated studies and are experimenting with possibilities for adapting other fishing equipment for use as a substitute for drift nets.
A large number of the fishermen affected are waiting for the results of these studies so that they can provide for the necessary investments for the technical modification of their vessels.
<P>
Amendment No 3 specifies that only fishermen over 50 years of age can benefit from the compensatory payment of ECU 50 000 if they cease all economic activity before 1 January 2002.
This amendment will prevent the possibility of windfalls, the risk of fraud and the abuse of a measure which is not meant to turn young fishermen away from their chosen profession.
<P>
Amendment No 4 specifies that it is necessary to ensure that the measures provided under this decision apply only to the fishermen and owners of vessels who suffer a real loss because of the ban on fishing using drift nets.
<P>
Amendment No 5 specifies that the age of the vessels should be taken into account only in the specific case of a payment for cessation of activity.
If the owner has to make investments to convert his vessel in order to be able to use other fishing equipment, it is essential to take account of all the investment needed for this conversion, without having to apply an abatement coefficient linked to the age of the fishing vessel.
<P>
Finally, Amendment No 6 asks the Commission to make provision for the necessary financial resources so that all fishermen who are eligible can benefit from the diversification measure.
Certain Member States, particularly Ireland, have used or will use all the funding allocated under the FIFG.
<P>
In my opinion, all these amendments which have been adopted by the Committee on Fisheries are in line with the spirit of the measure which the Council felt obliged to adopt in order to assist the diversification of those fishermen severely affected by a measure which they feel is particularly unfair.
This measure aims not to dissuade but rather to encourage young fishermen from our Member States who fish for albacore using newer vessels.
It is essential that we encourage the continuation of deep-sea fishing as this involves a particularly healthy resource and helps to conserve species which are struggling.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=265 NAME="Crampton">
Mr President, my group supports this report with the amendments.
It is a very necessary report.
Now the governments of the European Union have decided this, and the European Union and this Parliament have supported the measure to abolish driftnets, then they have to do something about the livelihood of the fishermen concerned.
It is absolutely necessary that we do this.
Driftnet fishing was considered bad by this Parliament.
It was considered that the by-catch of dolphins and other sea creatures was too important, so we abandoned driftnet fishing.
But now we must do something about the fishermen.
<P>
Firstly, we have to provide compensation, retirement, or whatever you call it, for those fishermen who go out of business and fish no longer.
That is one aspect of it.
<P>
The second aspect is to change the methods so that fishermen are still going out, catching their tuna, but using different methods of doing so, which do not have the by-catch consequences that driftnets have.
<P>
We have to remember that, although fishing is a very small part of the European Union total gross domestic product, or however we should like to measure it, to those communities such as western France, Italy and Ireland, a few areas in the United Kingdom and some in Spain, fishing is about the only thing they have.
There are very few alternatives.
I totally agree with the rapporteur that the European Union should offer compensation for those that go out of the industry, and for retraining and re-equipping vessels for different methods of fishing for those that want to carry on.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=266 NAME="McCartin">
Mr President, I want to thank Mr Souchet for his report and to say that if his proposals are accepted it will be a more generous and more acceptable package which the fishermen deprived of their livelihood are being offered.
<P>
The Parliament agreed the ban in the first place along with the Committee on Fisheries.
I was one of the people who had serious doubts about it, in that I considered it was political considerations rather than scientific knowledge that led us to believe that this method of fishing was seriously damaging to marine life.
Having said that, I think that many fishermen believed that this ban was not necessary. Therefore, if the Commission is to propose and the Union agrees to prevent them from earning a living and not to propose any compensation, this measure without Mr Souchet's proposals will not provide any new money or any new assistance to fishermen.
<P>
The money that had already been allocated to Member States for the improvement of their fleets and of marketing and processing and port facilities is what they are expected to use to provide compensation for the people who have lost their livelihood.
This was a make- believe measure and it is still that for most of the fishermen involved.
If extra money is not provided in the case of the countries that had provided their plans for the development of their fishing industry and had spent their structural funds, then we are offering them nothing.
<P>
We are coming to the time of year when we will have new quotas and new arrangements for allowable catches.
Fishermen are feeling extremely frustrated.
There is sometimes an unjustified feeling in the fishing areas that the European Union is being rather oppressive and is busy thinking up restrictions and regulations.
To do that without scientific knowledge and to fail to provide compensation would have been a mistake.
<P>
There is only one provision we do not accept in the Souchet report, and that is where he makes reference to the fact that they should not be put into effect until the Court of Justice has made its decision.
Of course this cannot be put into effect until the ban itself comes into effect and we believe we should let the position stand.
If the ban comes into effect when it is supposed to, then their compensation should automatically come into effect and the reference to decisions that may or may not be taken by the Court should be left out of it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=267 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Eisma">
Mr President, as long ago as 1994, Parliament tried to get drift nets banned.
On 8 June this year, that is to say four years after our efforts, the Council finally approved an amendment to the regulation which will outlaw fishing with drift nets in the Atlantic and Mediterranean after 1 January 2002.
In doing this, the Council is at last partly heeding the wishes of Parliament.
I say partly, because the job is far from over.
It is still possible to fish with drift nets in the North Sea and the Baltic.
Even though these seas do not have dolphins swimming in them which can get caught in drift nets - that is not a problem in these waters - the problem of by-catches still remains.
Hence my question to the Commission.
When shall we be getting proposals to have the ban on drift nets declared applicable to the North Sea and the Baltic too?
<P>
This is a first step in the right direction.
We need now to have this ban properly implemented and complied with.
I would also ask the Commission what additional control measures it will be taking?
I should like to know how it intends to prevent this fishing activity from switching to non-Union countries.
It is right that fishermen should be compensated for some of the financial loss, but I should also like to know what conditions the Commission proposes to attach to this, namely the fact that nets should indeed be destroyed so that they do not simply disappear to non-Union countries.
Naturally, Mr President, my group stands fully behind the rapporteur Mr Souchet and the amendments tabled by the Committee on Fisheries.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=268 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="d'Aboville">
Mr President, we all know that the decision taken to ban drift nets was a political decision without any scientific basis.
Proof of this aberration has been given today by those who previously saw in an alleged shortage of tuna a reason to ban drift nets, and who now seem to be discovering that it is essential for the tuna fishermen in the Bay of Biscay to convert ... to tuna.
<P>
In line with this view, which we obviously support, the amendments tabled by the rapporteur provide essential improvements to the Commission's proposal.
With regard to fishermen, it is clearly desirable to ensure a payment for cessation of activity only for those for whom this is appropriate, namely those of an age to retire.
With regard to vessels, while it is reasonable to take the age of a vessel into account when calculating the payments for cessation of activity, surely it would be unfair to reduce the assistance available for converting some old vessels, provided that this involved adapting these vessels to other techniques allowing them to continue fishing for tuna, in order to prevent the transfer of their activities to sensitive species.
<P>
Finally, we feel that it is absolutely appropriate to aggregate the funding so that the conversion period can last until the end of 2001 in order to profit fully from the studies and experiments being carried out to try to adapt other equipment to tuna fishing.
To neglect this point would encourage some fishermen to diversify prematurely and disastrously by turning to other species of fish, specifically threatened coastal species.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=269 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, the Green Group welcomes the decision that was taken in June to get rid of driftnets for albacore, tuna and certain other species.
We also welcome the Commission's proposal to provide funding for fishermen affected by this decision.
It is important that proper and sufficient funding for compensation is made available for fishermen to convert to more selective and appropriate fishing gear.
We hope that the EU draws a lesson from this whole experience.
<P>
Driftnets were encouraged for use in several countries by national governments and by the EU, despite the fact that experience elsewhere had shown that these nets had high levels of by-catch.
Proper evaluation should have been conducted before their use in the EU but this was not done.
The nets were introduced on a commercial scale and then expanded.
More selective gear was available which should have been promoted instead.
<P>
My other points concerns the motion for a resolution.
As other speakers have mentioned, it has a very unusual clause to the effect that the Council should delay the implementation of this decision until the EU Court of Justice has issued its decision on the case brought by certain French fishermen.
It should be pointed out that the French Government had intended to bring a similar case but decided against doing so as it was clear that such a case had no chance of success.
The French Government is being extremely cynical in this case by having their own lawyers advise the fishermen on a case which the French Government itself knows will fail.
We feel that if this clause is not taken out of the resolution we will have no option but to vote against the whole resolution.
It is very important that this clause is removed so that the resolution can be passed by a vast majority of Parliament.
As has been said by another speaker, it is not correct to have a clause like this regarding the Court of Justice and a decision that must be taken there.
We have to keep that separate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=270 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langenhagen">
Mr President, Commissioner Monti, if I did not have another exciting topic to deal with this evening, I would like to ask you about the new duty-free development.
But this is not the time to do so, so I will turn now to the Souchet report.
Having fought for it for so long, as we have heard, fishing with drift nets in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean was finally banned in June of this year.
This was long overdue in order to protect our scarce fish resources in an ecological and sustainable manner.
Yet we must not forget that the ban results in further economic loss for the fishermen in the countries concerned, fishermen who were already experiencing serious problems.
We must provide at least some compensation for this loss.
<P>
According to the Commission proposal, both the fishermen serving on board and the owners of vessels should receive compensation.
But the authorities and other investors will also suffer financial loss, as in recent years a great deal of money has been invested in improving infrastructure such as port facilities and markets.
As fishing activities decline, however, these investments will become economically less viable.
And this is in a situation where fishermen are to receive compensatory payments for giving up fishing, which may lead them to stop early.
But we want the profession to remain intact, so incentives must be created to help in particular the younger generation of fishermen to change to alternative fishing methods.
<P>
We would remind the Council that it wanted to promote diversification into other techniques.
It now has an opportunity to do so.
Furthermore, the Committee on Fisheries is of the opinion that the aggregation of funding to allow diversification by fishermen should be guaranteed beyond the end of the FIFG in 1999.
The Group of the European People's Party approves Mr Souchet's amendments here.
However, in the opinion of my group, diversification must take place immediately and should not wait for a decision by the European Court of Justice.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=271 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fraga Estévez">
Mr President, though I acknowledge the considerable amount of work that the rapporteur has had to do, I would, however, like a number of my colleagues, like to express my disagreement on one very important aspect of his report.
<P>
Paragraph 4 of the motion for a legislative resolution calls on the Council to delay implementation of the financial measures contained in its proposal for a decision until the Court of Justice of the European Communities has given its verdict on the appeal lodged by several drift gillnet users against the regulation prohibiting them from using this piece of fishing equipment from the year 2002.
<P>
Contrary to what the rapporteur said and wrote in his report, I think that such a request is absurd and, what is more, is extremely detrimental to the fishermen concerned.
The Council's proposal is aimed at reducing the economic effects this ban on drift gillnets entails for fishermen and encouraging them to diversify into other activities.
Therefore, the fishermen will be entitled to receive compensation as they gradually cease this type of fishing activity until 2002, when the ban will be fully implemented.
<P>
No-one - and least of all the fishermen - would deny that fishing with drift gillnets does not have any future in the European Union.
We must therefore bear in mind that when the Court has given its verdict on the appeal lodged, the majority of fishermen will have already ceased this type of activity and many will want to do so as soon as possible so as to promptly establish their new activities.
<P>
As a consequence, it makes no sense to deprive those who wish to receive payments from having access to them.
Not all the fishermen concerned have appealed to the Court of Justice and nor should their entitlement to the fixed compensation be subject to conditions because of the attitude of others who, on their own account and at their own risk, have decided to take the matter to the courts.
<P>
So, as I believe that this is detrimental to all and beneficial to none, I call on you to vote against paragraph 4 of the motion for a resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=272 NAME="Monti">
Mr President, the Commission has taken note of the report by Mr Souchet, to whom it is grateful.
There is a broad consensus among the three institutions with regard to compensatory payments and diversification in the case of fishermen affected by the ban on the use of drift nets, for which the Council gave a mandate to the Commission at the meeting of 8 June 1998.
<P>
As regards the amendments proposed in Mr Souchet's report, the Commission regrets that it cannot adopt the following: Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 7, which are formal amendments having no practical effect; Nos 5 and 8, which restrict the scope of the decision; and No 6, which oversteps the mandate given by the Council to the Commission.
<P>
On the other hand, the Commission can fully endorse Amendment No 4.
One which deserves particular attention is Amendment No 3, introducing a minimum age for beneficiaries of these measures.
The different rules existing in the Member States on the pensionable age, however, make it impossible to set a single minimum age across the board.
The Commission will therefore ensure that the spirit of Amendment No 3 is taken into account at the bilateral negotiations with Member States concerning the diversification plans and their implementation.
<P>
I should also like to touch briefly on two or three points which were raised during the debate.
As far as the introduction of the accompanying measures is concerned, the Commission will take care to ensure that the banned nets cannot be reused elsewhere.
There will be a mandatory clause to this effect in the Member States' diversification plans.
As for the possibility of banning these nets in the North Sea or the Baltic, that is not of course the subject of this debate; today we are discussing the measures accompanying the ban imposed on 8 June.
At present, the Commission has no intention of extending the ban to other marine areas, where the impact of this type of fishery on marine mammals has not been proved.
<P>
Finally, several Members raised the question of the timing.
I would point out here that every Member State is at liberty to designate an intermediary body responsible for implementing the accompanying measures.
Under the general provisions governing the Structural Funds, such a body may be regarded as the final beneficiary of structural aid, and all that is required is for the total allocations to be awarded to that body by 31 December 1999.
In this way the monies are committed, and payments to the final beneficiaries - the fishermen and shipowners - may continue until the end of 2001.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=273 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Monti.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=15>
Emergency food aid to Russia
<SPEAKER ID=274 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0506/98) by Mr Colino Salamanca, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on a programme to supply agricultural produce to the Russian Federation (COM(98)0725 - C4-0678/98-98/0343(CNS)).
<P>
I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mr Colino Salamanca.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=275 NAME="Colino Salamanca">
Mr President, the Committee on Agriculture's decision to fully endorse the Commission's proposal on the food aid programme to the Russian Federation will, I believe, also be supported in the House tomorrow.
<P>
Moreover, I believe that the Commission, the Council and Parliament share the same concerns in relation to this proposal. The first of these is whether the proposal can achieve its aims.
In other words, we need to ensure that the raw materials or processed food products that are essential for the survival of the Russian Federation's population reach the disadvantaged regions they are destined for. And as we saw in the memorandum, the aid is being distributed amongst the regions most in need.
In addition, as far as possible, this aid needs to reach the most disadvantaged through free distribution.
<P>
The second concern - which again is one I think we all share - is to ensure that the operation is transparent and is sufficiently monitored so as to achieve its aims. Given all the rumours about possible mafia groups operating within the Russian Federation, it is good to know that such food aid will be able to meet its objective.
And in this respect, the European Union is donating aid to a value of EUR 400 million. It thus follows that Parliament, and particularly the Committee on Agriculture and the Committee on Budgets, have emphasised the importance of ensuring that adequate monitoring takes place to guarantee that the aid will meet the objective of this initiative.
In this connection, we must obviously ensure that the food aid does not distort the Russian Federation's domestic markets, as it represents quite a substantial amount, including 1 million tonnes of wheat, 500 000 tonnes of rye, 50 000 tonnes of rice, 1 million tonnes of pork, 150 000 tonnes of beef and significant amounts of skimmed milk powder.
<P>
I would stress that these conditions have been established by the Committee on Budgets and accepted by the Committee on Agriculture, and are, in my opinion, of great interest.
It means that the operation will be monitored by both the European Union and from within the Russian Federation itself.
The aim of this is to enable us, through the Commission and the Court of Auditors, to monitor the operation even from within the Russian Federation itself to ensure that these objectives are met.
<P>
That is why the amendments tabled relate directly to these objectives. They hope to ensure that the aims behind the launch of this programme are met and also to ensure that the significant financial contribution that the European Union is going to make is clearly reflected through these objectives being met.
<P>
In addition, I think that this has fulfilled the very resolution Parliament adopted recently, on 19 November, a resolution that took account of both the circumstances that have been relayed to us essentially by the Russian authorities and the commitment made by the European Union, together with the United States, to assist and support regions suffering from acute food shortages.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=276 NAME="Herzog">
Mr President, the Committee on External Economic Relations was asked for an opinion on supplying food aid to Russia but, in view of the urgency of the matter, we have not had a chance to meet in Strasbourg to discuss it and adopt an opinion.
This is why, as chairman of the committee, I will make a few points with which the majority of the members of our committee will very probably agree and which are totally in line with what Mr Colino Salamanca has just said.
<P>
Firstly, we are obviously totally in favour of supplying emergency food aid to Russia, particularly given that this is based on Russian requests made during the visit of the President of the European Commission to Moscow in October.
The supply situation is appalling in certain regions of the Russian Federation and we clearly have a humanitarian duty to a population threatened by famine.
I would add that it is also in our own interest to see the political and social situation stabilised.
Obviously I am not interested in the resulting positive effect of a reduction in stocks of agricultural products in the European Union.
<P>
Secondly, we can only agree to the method of supplying and distributing the food aid, while hoping that the Russian public authorities will be able to distribute the products free to the neediest people.
<P>
Thirdly, it is clear that we must follow closely the implementation of this measure.
I would remind you that, in view of the political and financial situation in Russia, this House, during the first reading of the budget for 1999, put into reserve a significant amount intended to help Russia. This was based on an amendment proposed by our committee.
We are not actually sure if our assistance is reaching the intended beneficiaries or if it is being used for the objectives specified.
The same concerns apply to the food aid and we invite the Commission to apply the Memorandum of Understanding to the letter and to inform Parliament immediately of any possible cases of fraud or speculation.
<P>
Finally, it goes without saying that the funding of this food aid action through the Community budget, which involves a large amount - EUR 400 million - must not be regarded as a subsidised export.
I would remind you of the European Union's undertaking, signed in the context of the WTO agreement, to reduce the quantity and volume of subsidised agricultural exports in the budget.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=277 NAME="Monti">
<SPEAKER ID=278 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Monti.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 11.51 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, I have a comment relating to page 12 of the Minutes.
Yesterday, I asked the President of the sitting about the application of Annex V of the Rules, as it involves all of us when considering the 1996 discharge.
I asked that, pursuant to Article 3 of this Annex, the amendments that had been tabled be forwarded to the Committee on Budgetary Control so that it could give its opinion as required by this Article.
<P>
The Committee on Budgetary Control met yesterday but did not have these amendments as they had not been translated at the time of its meeting, even though I was assured that this would be done so that the Committee on Budgetary Control could give its opinion.
What measures do you intend to take to ensure that we can give an appropriate opinion on the various points of this Annex and so that the Rules are applied in full for this important vote on whether or not to grant discharge for 1996?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
Which Rules did you refer to, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
I mentioned Annex V, Article 3 of the Rules, which applies in the case in point as a proposal for granting the discharge has been submitted to us. I believe I also mentioned paragraph 2 or 3, which states that the Committee on Budgetary Control must give its opinion on the amendments before they are put to the vote in the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="President">
I shall look into what is happening in this case.
As soon as we have the full details, they will be passed on to you.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="Theato">
Mr President, we discussed this matter at yesterday's meeting of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Since, as Mr Fabre-Aubrespy rightly says, the amendments were not available, the committee decided that the rapporteur would deliver its opinion here in plenary during the vote.
There were no objections.
But if you want to check all this again, I would ask you to inform me of the fact as soon as possible, in case there are any other procedures to be followed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="President">
Mrs Theato, you yourself explained that the Committee on Budgetary Control is not in breach of the Rules of Procedure by choosing to present its report in this way.
This therefore conveniently responds to the objection raised by Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
The rapporteur will deliver his opinion on each amendment in the House, as was decided by his committee.
Thank you very much for your remarks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Puerta">
Mr President, I was also present yesterday but my name does not appear on the attendance register.
However, I wanted to mention something of far greater importance, namely our concern for what has happened to Mrs Hebé de Bonafini who cannot be with us today due to action taken by the police at the Eceiza International Airport in Buenos Aires.
We understand that you have had contact with the Argentine Government, yet she is still unable to come and she therefore joins the list of people who have been awarded the Sakharov prize and who are in prison.
<P>
On behalf of my group - and I am sure that I speak for many here - I would like a formal protest to be made to the Argentine authorities regarding this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Puerta.
I should like to inform you of the latest developments concerning this matter.
Mrs Hebé de Bonafini will be with us today.
She is coming in to Frankfurt airport.
Negotiations with the Argentine authorities yesterday meant that the mistaken action of one of the officials was overruled, thus enabling her to catch a plane yesterday. She is due to land in Frankfurt at 10.30 a.m. where a car will collect her and bring her to Parliament so she may attend.
I should particularly like to thank publicly the European Union representative in Buenos Aires for such swift and effective action, which enabled this lady to obtain a ticket and travel here, and I should also like to thank the Argentine authorities for acting so promptly on my request.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Eriksson">
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="President">
Mrs Eriksson, we shall forward your request to the College of Quaestors, but please bear in mind that when Parliament allocates rooms at the request of Members, it naturally does not take their political allegiances into account. Instead, the College of Quaestors allocates them as it sees fit at the time and without becoming embroiled in complex political issues.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graenitz">
Mr President, I would ask Members to sign the written declaration by our Vice-President Mr David Martin on the effect of the WTO on animal protection.
We have always given strong support to animal protection and consumer protection in this House.
I believe that this declaration could obtain enough signatures...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
Mrs Graenitz, that is not a point of order, and the House cannot become a forum for announcements by each and every Member.
Let us follow our Rules correctly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, I wish to draw to your attention something extremely offensive and insensitive that I received in my mailbox this morning. I received an invitation to sample foie gras .
Considering that we are coming up to Christmas, this cruel and inhumane way of producing so-called food is unacceptable.
We should not be presented with invitations to sample something produced ...
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="President">
I would repeat what I have just said, Mrs McKenna: this is not the time to begin a debate on your favourite political subjects.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, I should like to say to Ms McKenna that all she has to do is not turn up if she does not wish to.
Foie gras is a national product of many countries.
If she does not wish to try it, then she does not have to turn up!
<P>
(Loud applause) Mr President, I do however wish to comment on the Minutes as yesterday evening during the night sitting, as rapporteur for the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, I presented its recommendation for second reading of the regulation on the statistics on trade in goods between Member States.
After Commissioner de Silguy commented on our amendments, I wished to state my position.
However, the President of the sitting cut me off, saying that I was only allowed to put questions to Mr de Silguy, even though I should have been able to give my opinion regarding the Commission's position on our amendments.
<P>
Mr President, I protested then and I would like to protest again.
Perhaps there is a need to organise training courses for certain Vice-Presidents so that they understand how parliamentary customs operate.
I was a member of a normal parliament for 25 years and I cannot understand why we cannot have normal discussions here, particularly when it involves a second reading where we have experienced problems with the Council over the common position.
<P>
Therefore, Mr President, may I suggest that that particular President be sent on a training course?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
I shall take note of that and check with the President of the sitting in question what the problem was, and you will receive an explanation in due course.
<P>
One moment, Mr Casini.
We are not going to open a debate on the 'Pro Vida ' movement, and I will stop you if that is the subject of what you have to say.
We are not going to have a debate on that topic.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Casini, Carlo">
Mr President, I asked for the floor merely to say that it is incorrect to assert that the 'Movimento per la vita ' is in favour of the death penalty.
We in the 'Movimento per la vita ' in Italy oppose the death penalty, and we prove it by belonging to every association campaigning against the death penalty.
We were the first, in Italy, to petition for the release - subsequently obtained - of Paula Cooper.
So it is we who launched the fight against the death penalty in Italy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, as we celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration on Human Rights and the tenth anniversary of the Sakharov prize, I should like to ask whether any invitation was sent to Leila Zana, a previous winner of the Sakharov prize, and whether any approach was made to the Turkish government concerning her presence here, and what was the response?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="President">
The invitation was sent but I shall check again.
It seems I was informed yesterday of an initial difficulty - which was resolved - owing to the fact that she had to look after a family member, which prevented her from travelling.
But I shall check this information and will let you know immediately if it is correct.
Should it be incorrect, I shall let you know exactly what is happening, Mr Alavanos.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, though I wish all the members of her family good health, I wish that were indeed the reason.
From what we know, however, Leila Zana is still in prison in Ankara, and a new sentence was passed upon her - two years if I am not mistaken.
Does your answer mean that the Turkish authorities gave permission for her to be present but for some family reason she is not here, or that the problem of her imprisonment persists?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="President">
I do not know.
I told you that I cannot give you exact details for the time being, but I will do so as soon as I receive them.
That is all I can say.
I do not wish to make assertions that later turn out to be wrong.
I will give you the exact information when we receive it.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="President">
I should like to welcome to Parliament a delegation from the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia, led by Mrs Darja Lavitzar-Bebler.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
European Council in Vienna - Austrian Presidency
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="Klima">
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I am glad to have a second opportunity, in the space of a few weeks, to discuss the developments in our Union with you here in the European Parliament.
Let me thank you at the outset for the good cooperation between the Austrian Presidency and the European Parliament, which has made it possible to deal with many subjects, such as the fifth framework programme of research and development, the legal basis for the NGOs' special programmes and the joint efforts in relation to the 1999 budget.
<P>
When I was with you here a few weeks ago, just before the meeting of the Heads of State and Government in Pörtschach, I perceived a certain anxiety on the part of some of the Members who took part in the discussions, anxiety that the integration process might be coming to a standstill, anxiety about certain statements that reflected trends towards renationalisation and so on.
I am glad to be able to report to you that exactly the reverse was the case during the Austrian Presidency, as confirmed by the Vienna summit.
<P>
We took that informal meeting of the Heads of State and Government in Pörtschach as an opportunity to discuss the future of Europe, and we agreed that the best way to help promote the European idea was by focusing our future policy on creating European added value in policy areas that are of central concern to our people, such as labour, employment, internal security and the quality of life.
<P>
I believe that what was special about this Vienna summit was that it took place just before an event that can rightly be described as historic, namely the introduction of the common currency.
The euro has proved its worth even before its actual introduction.
During the crisis on the international financial markets in the last six months, Europe proved a centre of stability, and that success gives every reason for confidence, confidence that it is possible to maintain the stability achieved with such great effort while at the same time setting out in new directions, that it is possible to strengthen stability and growth, and therefore employment too.
<P>
But the introduction of the euro also means that we must improve cooperation in economic policy as a whole, as well as in other policy areas.
In future the substance of our policies, but also the way in which we resolve problems together, will not just be a subject of political analysis and critical commentary but will also be looked at by the financial markets.
Five years ago any dispute, disagreement, euro-deadlock or whatever was unpleasant.
As from 1 January 1999, it could have very damaging effects for our common currency, for stability, for the economy and for employment in Europe.
That makes it all the more necessary for us to solve problems in such a way as to show the financial markets, the analysts across the world, that Europe gives priority to working with each other rather than against each other.
<P>
In my view, the Vienna summit set some very decisive courses for the future.
We drew up a strategy for Europe which clearly establishes the tasks to be tackled, the timetables and how we intend to further develop the policy areas of the European Union.
That is a response to the scepticism regarding further steps towards integration.
<P>
This Vienna strategy, which is the outcome of Pörtschach, clearly sets out the priorities: employment, growth and stability, improving internal security and the quality of life, guaranteeing stability and prosperity and enhancing Europe's political role in the world and, of course, the necessary political and institutional reforms.
<P>
Let me briefly go into a little more detail, for example on Agenda 2000, a subject that concerns us all.
It was a central area of work for the Austrian Presidency.
As we all know, it is not just a question of money and finances, it is more particularly a question of the shape of our future political approach to key political issues, to agricultural policy and to structural policy, which means it is also a question of reforming the substance of European policy, of reforms which must undoubtedly be carried out in a spirit of financial prudence - since we have made the utmost effort to consolidate our budgets at national level - but also in a spirit of solidarity, because that is the cornerstone of European integration.
<P>
In Vienna we managed to achieve what the Austrian Presidency called for in Cardiff, namely to set out the key elements of a final agreement in a specific document and to propose options for action.
It is surely clear to anyone willing to take a closer look that the technical part of the examination of the legal texts has now been concluded.
<P>
Subject to one reservation, the pre-accession instruments have been agreed unanimously.
There is also agreement on the regulation on the trans-European networks and the Guarantee Fund regulation.
I believe that, although we must of course take special situations into account, in terms of structural policy and the Structural Funds a consensus is emerging on how to resolve the really fundamental issues.
<P>
With regard to the common agricultural policy, a solution seems to be on the horizon for rural development and some parts of the organisation of the market, although - and this must be said very clearly - many questions still need discussion in this area too, and there are differences of view.
The basic differences here relate to two crucial questions.
They are the overall volume of expenditure and its distribution under the various headings, and the question of the distribution of the burden between the individual Member States, which was raised by some Member States and also in the Commission's report on own resources.
<P>
I believe that on the basis of this document, of the key political elements and of the fact that everyone now recognises that the proposals for solutions are on the table, it will prove possible, through serious and constructive negotiations over the next three months, to conclude this reform package of Agenda 2000 by March next year under the German Presidency, as we confirmed again in Vienna.
<P>
The second point is enlargement.
I am convinced that the Austrian Presidency managed to sustain the momentum of the enlargement process.
The Commission submitted an outstanding report which very clearly highlighted and welcomed the progress made in the individual Member States, but also openly described the areas in which the reform process sometimes slowed down a little in some states.
This excellent Commission report therefore made it very easy for us to say at the Vienna summit that we welcome the fact that negotiations have now begun with six applicant countries.
We welcome the progress made with the reforms in the other countries, but point out that further reform efforts will still be needed; we can now offer the other five Central and Eastern European states a new element in the form of the beginning of the bilateral phase of acquis screening during the first quarter of next year.
<P>
In this context, and in line with the Cardiff approach, the European Council also strengthened relations with Turkey.
It noted the political need for Turkey to take a more European approach and adopt a European perspective.
But it was also pointed out that many efforts will still be needed here, an area where we have agreed to strengthen Turkey's European strategy.
<P>
The third point is monetary union.
I am very glad that we succeeded in agreeing to speak with a single voice on the world financial markets in relation to our common currency, that we managed to settle the question of the external representation of the euro - not entirely yet, because some improvements are certainly still needed, especially regarding support for the Commission's work and so forth.
But we have taken a first step, which has enabled us to reach this agreement on the external representation of the euro.
In two days' time, at the USA-EU summit, I will have an opportunity to address this matter of the representation of the euro in the G7.
<P>
But what I consider at least equally important is that we now have the first outlines of a European position on the reform of the world financial system, the reform of the International Monetary Fund.
Clearly we need greater verifiability, more transparency, an early warning system in the international financial system so that we no longer find ourselves apparently overtaken by critical events that destroy the entire economy in some countries and disrupt the world economy.
Here we are working towards a European position that reflects Europe's strength, and this question will have to be included in the international discussions on financial market reform.
<P>
The fourth point is Europe's political role in the world, the question of the foreign and security policy.
We greatly regret that, because not all the states have ratified the Amsterdam Treaty, it did not prove possible in Vienna to decide on a Mrs or Mr CFSP.
I would have regarded that as a good sign.
But because they had not all ratified the treaty, we did not manage this in Vienna, although we would of course have liked to do so; but we have to recognise that some Member States were simply not yet ready to do this.
However, one very positive note is the fact that a decision was taken in Vienna on the European Union's first common foreign policy strategies, which means that at last we have a more common approach, for example a strategy for Russia which covers all the questions of economic policy, of purely foreign policy and of security policy relations between Europe and Russia, which is an important partner in terms of European stability.
Strategies were defined in Vienna for Russia, for Ukraine, for the Mediterranean region including the Middle East, and for the western Balkans, as aspects of a common foreign and security policy.
<P>
What I also consider most important - and I am saying this in full awareness of being the Chancellor of a neutral country - is that, starting with Pörtschach, with what I believe was a well-considered statement by Tony Blair, followed by discussions in France and Germany and in many other countries, we have now begun to consider ways of strengthening the European security architecture in conjunction with our Atlantic partners.
Added to that is the acceptance that a politically strong Europe must also be in a position to resolve regional crises by undertaking Petersberg-type missions, and to do so in a way that enables all 15 Member States of the European Union to participate in resolving them, in close conjunction with their Atlantic partners.
<P>
That is a question where I did not dare hope the discussion would gain so much momentum so quickly. It is a discussion which I regard as most important with a view to establishing a strong political Europe in the next century.
<P>
Another major topic was internal security.
It is without doubt a European added value if we can combat international organised crime on a common European basis.
Europol has become operational and active during the Austrian Presidency.
We now have this action plan for the common area of freedom, security and justice.
We are convinced that we must also jointly develop migration policy strategies, and it was decided in Vienna to set up a special task force to that end.
Here we managed both to take practical measures and to define political orientations, to call for this topic to be given priority next year and to make provision even at this stage for a special summit to be convened on the subject in Tampere under the Finnish Presidency.
<P>
On environmental policy, we took clear decisions in Vienna to reflect our conviction that environmental policy is a horizontal, a mainstreaming policy, that it is a policy which should not just be pursued in the Committee on the Environment but must also be integrated into all other policy areas.
So in addition to what the transport ministers, the energy ministers and the agriculture ministers have proposed, we have called for other sectors such as industry and the single market also to be included.
<P>
One central issue was and still is the question of employment.
Let me say to you quite openly: the first time I had an opportunity to take part in a European Council, employment policy was a taboo term.
Many people thought it inconceivable that there could be a European dimension to employment policy.
When we now look at the results we have achieved during the Austrian Presidency, building on the good work achieved in Luxembourg and continued by our British friends, we see very clearly that we need national employment policies, but also that we can and want to learn from one another, that we are all committed to achieving the additional, verifiable objectives decided upon in Vienna and, over and above this, that we firmly believe that employment is a European added value.
We are not looking for some kind of populist miracle, applying some miracle cure chosen at random, but are simply trying to establish a closely coordinated approach to fiscal policy, research policy, external economic policy, the policy of the structural reforms, the policy of preparing and empowering the workers, but also to a policy of growth that does not jeopardize stability.
<P>
Those are some of the important signals that were sent out by the Vienna summit, and I am very glad that it proved possible to strengthen the guidelines for employment policy in relation to the questions of older workers, of equal opportunities for women on the labour market and of the entrepreneurial spirit.
In fact, until recently I would have considered it quite inconceivable that we could now clearly state that, in addition to a stability pact, we want to have an employment pact in the European Union.
That pact is to be agreed in Cologne in March.
<P>
We also had a very good meeting with President Santer, a kind of mini-summit on the social dialogue.
We now have an agreement to the effect that, for the first time, small and medium-sized enterprises will also work together with UNICE and secondly - something I consider most significant - we have an agreement between the social partners at European level whereby they undertake to draw up a practical list of subjects, to say what subjects they want to work on at European level within their area of responsibility, what solutions they are seeking; it is important to ensure that matters are not always dealt with by politics in cases where it would be preferable to seek a solution through discussions at European level between employers and workers.
<P>
I believe the Austrian Presidency has managed to maintain the spirit of Pörtschach in Vienna by firmly committing itself to further deepening the discussion of political issues in the European Union.
I am also grateful that Members have presented what I believe is a very constructive and good draft statute for Members.
In Vienna, we asked the appropriate institutions to continue working on it without delay.
<P>
I believe the top priority of the first presidency of one of the youngest Member States was to clearly show the people of Europe that it makes sense to work together in Europe, that there is a European added value if we jointly give top priority to European employment policy, that it makes sense to try to improve European security, to cooperate more closely on achieving internal security, and that it is important to work together to strengthen Europe's political role in the world.
That is why the Austrian Presidency's first priority was to bring the people of Europe a little closer to this powerful vision, this idea of Europe.
I hope that will also be reflected by large-scale participation in the European Parliament elections in June.
In that sense, I would express my warm thanks for the good cooperation on the part of the Commission, the Council and especially, Mr President, the European Parliament during this first Austrian Presidency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="Santer">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, the Vienna European Council concluded the first presidency of the Union to be held by one of the countries that joined in 1995, and I applaud the work carried out by the Austrian Presidency.
<P>
These six months will surely be remembered in the history of the construction of Europe as the Pörtschach six months - and quite rightly so, I believe.
In fact, contrary to all that the established analysts predicted, the Pörtschach meeting of Heads of State or Government was an opportunity for frank and constructive discussion on the future of the Union.
There were, however, no guarantees that this new type of meeting would be a success.
On the whole, the objective was achieved.
We are already reaping the benefits in the way we address Community matters at the turn of the century and the Austrian Presidency should take credit for this.
The Commission is delighted to have worked with the Austrian Presidency in preparing this meeting.
<P>
But the Pörtschach meeting must not mask the progress made on the other major aspects of Community integration.
I will not list them all here; I will leave that to the President-in-Office.
I will simply mention some of the successes to give you a general idea of where the Union is making progress: the agreement with Switzerland, the fifth framework programme for research and development and the 1999 budget, on which you will vote tomorrow.
<P>
The Vienna European Council, for its part, has given concrete expression to the spirit of Pörtschach in a new strategy: the Vienna Strategy for Europe.
This Strategy should help us respond to 'Europe's needs', which were clearly identified at the informal Pörtschach meeting.
Citizens want to see less of one type of Europe and more of another, one that is more democratic, better managed, more efficient and that shows true ambition.
<P>
So what are the main points that emerged from Vienna?
There are three that stand out for me personally, along with those just mentioned by the Federal Chancellor: firstly, employment, growth and economic stability; secondly, Agenda 2000; and lastly, enlargement.
<P>
The European Council held debates on employment, on growth and on economic stability.
There is now widespread agreement between the Heads of State or Government on the choices to be made in the fight for employment and on the clear need for a common European framework.
This is all the more satisfying because I have defended most of these choices before you, ladies and gentlemen, for four years now and because, since the Luxembourg Summit, employment has been a topic for Community debate.
In Vienna, the European employment strategy was given a new and far-reaching momentum.
The Heads of State or Government have, in fact, decided to take the convergence of employment policies further and the employment guidelines will now be at the heart of national strategies.
To this end, these guidelines will be clarified and refined as expertise is gained at European level, particularly through the definition of sectoral objectives.
Such objectives will allow us to check that Member States have fully respected their commitments.
<P>
The need to support growth, employment and competitiveness has also led the European Council to look carefully at investment issues.
You are aware that the Commission had presented a communication on public investment within the framework of the economic strategy.
A number of conclusions have been reached on this issue, through the Commission's constant work in this respect.
From amongst these conclusions, I should like to highlight the role of the European Investment Bank, the importance of developing a pan-European risk capital market, the role of investment in human resources and the need to continue with our strategy for completing and extending the internal market.
<P>
The fact that points of view on growth and employment are converging is naturally linked to the arrival of the euro.
In fact, everything is already in place for the arrival of the euro.
It will enter into force on 1 January next year.
I will not go back over the advantages we are expecting from it on an internal level.
The European Council has noted the report on the coordination of economic policies.
This is a crucial challenge to the success of Economic and Monetary Union and I believe that all the Members of the Council are aware of this.
We also had a constructive discussion on fiscal policy, on the basis of the Council's report.
<P>
On an external level, I would like to point out how many opportunities there are for promoting European interests, thanks to the arrival of the euro.
In this respect, the decisions taken on the external representation of the Community are a first, but nonetheless important, step forward.
They show that the Union is aware of the international responsibility that the creation of a single currency entails.
An initial debate on strengthening the international economic and financial system was also held.
The Council has now been given a mandate to give further consideration to the reform of this system.
The Council will also have to analyse in its report the wider implications of globalisation, as the Commission started doing in a document it submitted to the European Council.
Still on this theme, I believe that the European Council is aware that the European Union has a responsibility to assume.
<P>
Mr President, the second issue covered in the Council discussions was, of course, Agenda 2000.
Yesterday, I once again told you that the adoption of Agenda 2000 would be one of my main priorities in 1999.
<P>
So what stage have we reached after the Vienna European Council?
It is true to say that the Council conclusions on Agenda 2000 are modest.
But to begin with, I must say that it would be wrong to think that nothing has changed, or that we have not made any progress.
The progress made in Vienna in this respect should not be measured on whether the beginnings of an agreement have been drawn up. As I have said more than once, if there is not agreement on everything, then there is not agreement on anything.
There would be no point in seeking partial agreements when what is needed is an overall agreement.
From this point of view, we can applaud the fact that, for the first time, this issue has been addressed in a sensible manner.
Everyone knows that an agreement is needed.
Everyone knows that concessions will have to be made on all sides.
So we may as well begin the debate and seek the views of all those seated round the table, where the rank and file are more involved than the negotiators.
It was important for a real debate to be initiated, for all aspects to be laid out on the table and for everyone to state they were ready to work towards reaching an overall agreement.
And I did, in fact, notice that all the Heads of State or Government realised that the time for purely tactical positions was past.
<P>
I would also like mention something I became aware of in Vienna.
I listened to all the Heads of State or Government and I believe that the Commission's proposals will be at the heart of the final agreement, whatever form it may take.
Everybody knows that an agreement must be reached, and that such an agreement will be found.
It will be difficult but there will be agreement, as it is in the interests of all the Heads of State or Government.
<P>
Mr President, let us not hide the fact that enlargement is the backdrop to these negotiations.
The process is already underway and the Council has renewed its support for it.
The negotiation process has been welcomed by the Council and is in place.
It is a good and inclusive process.
The Commission is fully playing its dual role.
It is contributing to the preparations for the negotiations led by Member States and is actively encouraging reforms in the applicant countries, while implementing coherent strategies concerning the preparations for membership.
<P>
Today, as the European Council acknowledged, the major determining factors for this process have been accepted by all partners, by both the European Union and the applicant countries.
The main aim is to respect the commitments made on both sides.
Annual meetings have been arranged to begin precise assessments of the progress made.
Vienna was the first of such meetings.
The second will be in Helsinki, at the end of 1999.
Such patient work must not be constantly interrupted by speculation on when enlargement will take place.
<P>
Mr President, I should like to conclude this presentation of the conclusions of the Vienna European Council by emphasising the detailed nature of the Vienna Strategy for Europe.
The European Council felt the need to explain the main aspects of its action to its citizens and this was one of the priorities of the Austrian Presidency.
I believe that there are four main aspects.
The first is to promote employment, economic growth and stability, as I have already mentioned.
The second is to improve security and the quality of life.
The third is to reform the Union's policies and institutions.
And the fourth and final aspect is to promote stability and prosperity throughout Europe and the world.
<P>
For each of these main aspects, the European Council has set itself objectives and laid down deadlines.
Marking out the future in this way is the best way of channelling our energy into meeting real objectives.
As a result, the important meetings in Cologne, Tampere and Helsinki have gained momentum.
By making simultaneous progress in these four main aspects, we will shape the future of the European Union and its appearance at the beginning of the next millennium.
The future face of the Union will emerge from the constant and determined work carried out.
The Austrian Presidency has contributed to this over the past six months and I should like to congratulate it once again.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Santer.
<P>
Mr Haarder has a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="Haarder">
Mr President, we all know from the media that one of the main issues was the tax-free sales, on which a lot of time was spent.
Why have we heard nothing about it?
I hope it is because you are embarrassed that you wasted so much time on it, but Parliament should be made aware of what you spent your time on in Vienna.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="President">
That is not exactly a point of order, but in any case the President-in- Office of the Council is still here and he can respond to the questions that Chancellor Klima has not dealt with.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="Schüssel">
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="Green">
Mr President, I would like to thank both the President of the European Council and the President-in-Office for their reports here this morning.
I would like to congratulate Mr Klima.
He brought a refreshingly realistic assessment to this Parliament, recognising both the successes of the Austrian presidency but also, where there are disagreements within the Union and where I am sure he has experienced the frustrations which we in this Parliament feel as a result of those disagreements.
We do not often hear that sort of honest assessment given in this House and I hope it is a sign of things to come.
<P>
So I want to thank both Mr Klima and Mr Schüssel very much for that and also for the efficiency, the diligence and hard work of the Austrian Government during their first presidency.
Mr President, in your speech to the European Council on Friday, and again this morning, you expressed your thanks on behalf of Parliament for the way in which the presidency has cooperated with Parliament.
On behalf of my group, I should like to add my thanks to the many ministers who have attended here and helped and supported the work of this Parliament.
Particular thanks are due to Mrs Ferrero-Waldner who has been our regular partner here for the past six months.
We offer our thanks.
<P>
The Austrian presidency came at a particularly awkward time, sandwiched as it was between the British and the German presidencies.
In the former presidency negotiations were started to enlarge the Union - a momentous event - together with a decision on which countries should join the euro, the establishment of a central bank, arguably an even more momentous event.
The forthcoming presidency is destined to conclude the Agenda 2000 package which is of immense significance for existing Member States of the Union and for enlargement.
<P>
So the presidency had to steer a path between one set of mighty events and another without having any of that timetable fall into its own lap.
The Austrian Government is to be congratulated for making sure that the way ahead is clearly timetabled to Cologne and to Helsinki, that the decisions needed are identified and that the broad outlines of many initiatives are set.
It was never the intention that major decisions which have absorbed the European press in recent days would be concluded at Vienna.
In particular, it was never the intention that decisions would be made on future financing of the Union.
Let us be frank and clear about that.
<P>
But it has been possible to continue the debate on some of the key issues facing the Union: the next stage in our employment strategy and a European employment pact.
My group very much hopes that the initiative which the Council outlined in Vienna will allow us to establish a counterweight to the growth and stability pact which will secure future monetary security in the euro zone.
Whilst the single currency will have a great impact on the lives of our citizens, employment is even more immediately crucial for every family in the European Union.
In this respect, my group particularly welcomes the express invitation of the Council to allow those Member States who so desire to initiate reduced VAT rates on labour-intensive services which are not exposed to cross-border competition.
<P>
This was a proposal which was put to the Luxembourg special summit in a report from this Parliament by my colleague Wim van Velzen and which the Council at that stage felt needed more analysis and assessment.
Your agreement that such an idea could be an important employment generator gives us great satisfaction and we will certainly do what we can to facilitate progress on that in this House.
<P>
Chancellor, I note that in the conclusions the Council pays special attention to the fact that this moment coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Indeed, Mr Schüssel mentioned it himself just now.
The Council is asking the Commission to draw up proposals to counter racism in the applicant countries and invites the Member States to consider similar measures inside the Union.
I want to commend the Council for calling for action in this very sensitive and important area.
Perhaps we could ask you to take back to the Council an appeal from us, that it should issue a firm declaration that it will ensure that the European elections will be fought throughout the European Union free of manifestos or platforms which promulgate racist or xenophobic hatred or fear.
Such a declaration coming from the special summit in March on the eve of the European election campaign would be an important signal of the Council's serious intent to fight the politics of hate wherever they are to be found in Europe of the next millennium.
<P>
An issue of particular significance already mentioned in this House and one which has absorbed an inordinate amount of our time is the question of the Members' Statute.
I want to thank Mr Klima in particular for his willingness to receive the draft statute so carefully developed by our colleague Mr Rothley.
I recognise, as we all do, that the statute contains elements which will require detailed negotiation but I cannot stress how important it is that rapid progress is made if we are to have it in place for the June elections.
We welcome the fact that the Council considers the draft an appropriate one on which to begin discussion.
<P>
We have our negotiating team ready.
Could we ask you to press the secretariat of the Council to get on with it?
It is political will that matters.
Please urge your successors to get on with it.
There are some in this House and many outside who have always argued the cynical case, that we would never get the agreement of the Council to put the need for a statute in the Treaty.
Amsterdam did that.
Then they argued that we would never find agreement amongst ourselves on a draft statute.
Mr Rothley did that.
They argued that the Council would never deal with it in Vienna.
And you did that.
Now they argue that we are deluding ourselves if we think we can reach a final result by the time of the European elections.
Together we can do that.
I urge the Council to help us demonstrate that we can now conclude this issue fast and fairly.
<P>
I would like to mention just a few issues concerning third countries.
The agreement with Switzerland is a particular success.
It is especially noteworthy that it should have been the Austrian presidency which resolved this problem and demonstrated the value of using the expertise and shared experiences of particular Member States with third countries.
However, my group is increasingly irritated and disturbed by the length of time it is taking to find a solution to the negotiations with South Africa on the trade and cooperation agreement.
I know you agree with me but we note that the Council expects that this will come to a conclusion in the next six months.
Frankly, we must succeed.
<P>
On the day on which the European Parliament awards the Sakharov prize for freedom of thought to Ibrahim Rugova who struggled so valiantly for peace in Kosovo, it would be wrong not to pay tribute to the work of the European Union in working for political dialogue, peaceful solutions and humanitarian support in that troubled part of our continent during the last six months.
This debate should not just be about the Vienna Council.
We all know that not every Council can provide dramatic, earth-shattering changes.
We here are always too ready to demand such results, in my view rather naively.
So I want to pay tribute to the ongoing work of the Council in which the Austrian presidency can take particular pride.
<P>
I have already mentioned the much delayed agreement with Switzerland.
Another very big success was the fifth action programme on research.
For a year this has lain unresolved on the table: a programme which contains the fourth largest spending area in the Community budget.
It is to the credit of your ministers that agreement was finally reached on this programme as well as many others in the past six months - a six months in which Austria can take pride.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, all in all we are disappointed by the results of the Vienna European Council meeting.
Nevertheless, you made good preparations for the summit and the meagre outcome is certainly not your fault.
Perhaps this was the European summit of consolidation and a new harmony.
Even so, we have the feeling that once again important decisions have been put off.
Worse still, the policy guidelines on which the German Presidency will be basing its decisions remain vague and unclear.
<P>
There is still no result concerning the Commission's proposals as outlined in its Agenda 2000.
<P>
Reform of the structural and agricultural policy and the financing of the European Union cannot be carried through unless the Member States are prepared to reach an accommodation.
This willingness to compromise is a sine qua non for renewing and strengthening the contract which unites our countries and through them the peoples of the European Union.
This is the real reason for all the delay and prevarication.
<P>
Some governments, in their advocacy of the highly debatable principle of the 'net contributor', are in fact deeply entrenched in their positions.
I fear that unless there is a spectacular turn-around at the European summit in Brussels in March 1999, the European elections will be spoiled by a confrontation between national self-interests.
<P>
The common European interest must take precedence over the simplistic amalgamation of national concerns and the misguided principle of 'fair returns'.
Will the German Presidency manage to overcome this obstacle which is currently bedevilling the accession to the Union of the Central and Eastern European countries?
Our group will never allow this integration, this historic undertaking by our continent, to be hampered by the inability of governments to resolve their financial quarrels.
Europe must not be reduced to its lowest common budgetary denominator.
<P>
We must stand by the ideas and inspiration of our founding fathers. They were motivated by a broad vision of Europe.
Consequently our group is particularly pleased by the decision to confer on Helmut Kohl the title of 'Honorary Citizen of Europe' and acknowledge his place in history as equal to that of Jean Monnet.
Unless we revert to these ideas, to the Community way of doing things, things will not improve and the Union's current difficulties will not be resolved.
<P>
The 'European Employment Pact' is certainly a good thing.
The governments need first to translate into action the guidelines adopted in Luxembourg.
You have reinforced the aspirations voiced in Luxembourg and you want to add to the value of the results obtained.
This 'European Employment Pact' is an essential adjunct to the stability pact.
<P>
Mr President-in-Office, on a more optimistic note, I must congratulate you on what has been achieved in security and defence policy thanks to the initiatives taken by the presidency.
The meetings between the Union's defence ministers, between the Secretary-General of NATO and the Council presidency and the policy lines agreed at the Franco-British meeting in La Rochelle open the way for a European identity on defence.
This important project heralds a new phase for Europe's presence on the world stage and for a true political union.
<P>
These perspectives and these new ambitions must shape the pattern of debate in future European Councils.
Only then will public opinion be persuaded that the European Council remains true to its fundamental mandate and is determining Union strategy and policy, rather than having to spend time and energy worrying about duty-free shopping.
<P>
My thanks to you too, Mr President-in-Office, for all you have done for the Members' Statute.
Mrs Green reminded us of it.
My heartfelt gratitude to you.
This was a very difficult matter and there is no doubt that you handled it very well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="Cox">
Mr President, on behalf of the ELDR Group I would like to begin by congratulating Chancellor Klima and Mr Schüssel on completing the first ever Austrian presidency.
Organisationally, this presidency has been a great success.
It is one of which you and your colleagues, and indeed your public service, can be justly proud.
Politically, however, I regret the failure of the Vienna Council to adopt specific decisions of substance.
The Council has continued and I believe intensified a growing tendency, exhibited also at Cardiff, to carry forward innumerable key issues for future presidencies.
<P>
Inevitably each Prime Minister puts his own spin on what summits achieve.
This time, in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, many of the headline writers point to the fight to save duty-free sales.
In Holland, potentially lower VAT rates and labour-intensive services produced headlines about cheaper haircuts.
In the context of the challenging issues facing the Union, such diverse headlines, downbeat as they are, capture more vividly than I can the absence of strategic progress.
<P>
The Commission proposed Agenda 2000 one and a half years ago.
It is alarming to note how little real political progress has been made so far in advancing this agenda; a decision is not due now but it has not shown much advance.
This is especially true in the context of the nothing-is-agreed-until-everything-is-agreed formula with a deadline set for next March.
The Union runs the risk of a prolonged period of uncertainty and crisis, and stands on the threshold of sending deeply negative and dispiriting signals to applicant states.
This drift in policy terms has to stop.
The ELDR recognises that the primary responsibility for employment creation rests with Member States.
While welcoming bench-marking and sharing best practice at Union level, we see such measures as complementary to, but no substitute for, structural adjustment in labour, product and service markets and employment-friendly tax policy at Member State level.
<P>
Recycling the Luxembourg guidelines grandiosely as an employment pact will make no difference to Europe's unemployed.
Something more profound is needed than relabelling old wine in new bottles.
It is important that the emphasis on European added value in employment policy should not become an escape clause designed to mask the unwillingness of a number of social-democrat-led governments to embrace necessary domestic economic reform.
My group regrets that, 15 months after the signature of Amsterdam, the Council has not integrated Schengen into the acquis.
Like others, I urge the Council to fast-track the statute so that we, as MEPs, can fight our next election under the politics of Europe and not the politics of expenses.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
- Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Vienna Summit marks a transition between a period that is drawing to a close and a new period that, in a few days' time, will celebrate the birth of the single currency and undoubtedly bring profound changes to the European order.
This new period will be dominated by questions on the enlargement of Europe towards the East and the South, and will lead to the long-awaited birth of the 'greater Europe'.
<P>
This summit has led to satisfaction on some points and, in particular, to the renewed confirmation of employment as a top priority. This is a response to the repeated demands the European Parliament has received from public opinion in our various Member States.
All that remains is to give operational content to this determined approach, and this will be a job for the coming German and Finnish Presidencies.
<P>
On the other hand, in terms of the immediate future, we can only express our disappointment that no progress was made on Agenda 2000, on future financing and on the institutional reform, which must undoubtedly take place before the first enlargement.
If the truth be told, negotiations on these various issues have not really gotten underway and the Austrian Presidency could not give us more than an appraisal of them.
But this is not a criticism, as we knew that the political context prevented further progress from being made.
<P>
As far as future financing is concerned, it is like attempting to square the circle.
Some countries wish to reduce their contribution to the Union's budget, yet no-one wishes to pay more or receive less.
Nonetheless, we must find a dynamic balance soon, a balance between the demands for budgetary rigour being imposed on the Union and the wish to preserve the work on solidarity and cohesion that has been evident over the past decade. And all this must be done whilst meeting the demands of enlargement.
It is difficult, it is even extremely difficult, but we must use our imagination.
<P>
It would certainly be easier to solve these problems if, at the same time, the Union were to better define the common policies it intends to develop, whilst respecting the principle of subsidiarity.
<P>
To conclude, I should like to congratulate the Austrian Presidency for working so hard on furthering European integration, on such vital matters for the future as employment or research policy, as well as in other areas.
As a result, the Austrian Presidency is passing on the baton to the coming Presidency in good condition and we should thank them for this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Moreau">
Chancellor, please forgive me for not joining in with all the praise but I believe that the conclusions of the Vienna summit are extremely limited.
These conclusions lead to an alarming feeling of being stuck, of putting off until later all the issues where we disagree, although this, of course, is not part of the Presidency's responsibilities.
<P>
This is particularly true for the future financing of the European Union.
In this connection, I would like to express my group's opposition to the fair return theory and to the cofinancing of agricultural expenditure, as well as the importance it places on solidarity amongst Member States, without which there would be no Europe.
<P>
A large part of the Council's work concentrated on employment and launched the idea of a European employment pact.
This is a good idea.
But, one year on from Luxembourg, decisions should have been made on concrete objectives, yet this is unfortunately not the case.
Of course, the fact that we have stopped proclaiming the virtues of monetarist dogmas as the only true basis is a positive step.
But the 10 % of the working population and the 20 % of young people hoping for employment need to see more obvious results in the fight against unemployment.
<P>
I do not feel that the Council has fully grasped the risks of slower growth from 1999, and from the launch of the euro.
According to the Council, the employment pact must complement the Stability Pact, but both pacts will not sit easily with one another.
We must turn the approach around and the reasoning behind it.
The stability pact, which is a real yoke around the necks of national economies, should be lifted to allow internal demand to recover and to give Member States the option of using their resources to stimulate growth.
<P>
In view of this, the European Central Bank's mission and powers must be redefined.
We need to introduce a political counterweight and democratic control.
The drop in interest rates - which I welcome - should be selectively applied in order to promote employment and not speculation, which should be taxed.
Lastly, we should call on the services of the EIB and this, with the launch of a European loan, could form useful contributions to promoting investment that generates employment.
<P>
The content of the future European employment pact must learn from previous experience.
The drop in labour costs, alongside flexibility and insecurity, are all among the principal causes of poverty.
At the dawn of the year 2000, the reduction of working hours, a steady job, fair salaries and good training cannot be viewed as unachievable utopian ideas, but rather as rights for every man and woman.
<P>
To conclude, I will highlight an important sentence from the Vienna conclusions: 'Employment is the top priority of the European Union ... serving as the basis of the European social model'.
I believe that the European social movement must gather strength so that this sentence becomes a reality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Voggenhuber">
Mr President, this presidency of the Council could be commemorated with the words with which the German literary critic Reich-Ranicki tends to conclude a famous TV programme: 'the game is over, the curtain is closed and there are no answers'.
The Vienna summit was in fact rather like a play, staged with great pomp and circumstance, which has left us rubbing our eyes and wondering: is that all that has come of those great histrionic promises?
Chancellor Klima, you said: 'we discussed the future in Vienna'.
That is true, but that was not your job.
Your job was to resolve the problems of the present, because that is all a policy for the future can do.
The problems you have to resolve are sufficiently known, and they have become bigger rather than smaller since the Vienna summit.
<P>
European employment policy is slowly turning into a farce.
Let us think back: the Luxembourg summit instructed the Vienna summit to adopt an employment pact.
The Cardiff summit instructed the Vienna summit to adopt an employment pact.
The Pörtschach summit instructed the Vienna summit to adopt an employment pact.
And what did the Vienna summit do?
It instructed the Cologne summit to adopt an employment pact.
That is an insult to the millions of unemployed in Europe!
<P>
And the reform of the institutions: the greatest obstacle to the development of the EU!
Six months have passed, and it has not even proved possible to agree on practical objectives and practical timetables.
Evidently, it has not yet penetrated the Council's mind that there is an urgent need for a comprehensive democratic reform of the European Union, for the establishment of European basic rights and citizens' rights.
The enlargement of the EU, the historic task of overcoming the division of Europe, of repairing the devastating damage of the communist regime and creating a common area of freedom and stability, has gone under in the petty dispute about net contribution interests.
<P>
In recent years the Council has assumed more and more power and turned the Union more and more into a bazaar of national interests.
Let me conclude by offering a piece of counsel to the Council: hand over the task of European ...
<P>
(The President interrupted the speaker) ... to the parliaments.
Believe me, they can do it better!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lalumière">
Mr President, Chancellor, Mr President of the Commission, as the end of this year and this presidency approaches, we cannot hide a certain feeling of disappointment.
Of course, 1 January will mark a major event, the launch of the euro, but this very positive progress cannot really compensate for the feeble conclusions of the Vienna European Council, which are due to the differences of opinion between the fifteen Member States and to their lack of common political will.
Almost all the issues were put on hold and are to be dealt with later.
<P>
This is the case with the reform of the institutions.
There are many of us who firmly believe that the Amsterdam Treaty must soon be supplemented by reforms of the Council of Ministers, particularly its composition and qualified majority voting procedure, and of the Commission.
In Vienna, absolutely no progress was made on such reforms.
<P>
Secondly, no progress has been made on enlargement either, with the European Council merely reiterating what it had already said.
Even an issue such as Turkey, which is currently badly handled, was not clarified in any real way.
As regards the very important issue of Agenda 2000, we will have to await the next European Council to see exactly where the governments wish to strike a balance between what the presidency conclusions call the spirit of solidarity and budgetary rigour.
In the meantime, we can only speculate on and fear the resurgence of national selfishness.
As the President of the Commission said, the Vienna conclusions on Agenda 2000 are indeed modest.
<P>
I should like to end on two more optimistic notes.
Firstly, the Vienna Council wanted to concentrate on employment.
Of course, not everything is perfect, but as you have just said, Chancellor, the governments are now aware of the European dimension of employment, which does not just depend on national policies.
Like you, I welcome the 1999 employment guidelines, which, in a European context, aim to have a positive influence on national policies.
<P>
I also welcome the determination to strengthen the Luxembourg process and to highlight the roles of the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament so that we can work towards a global strategy for employment, growth and stability.
In this respect, I was pleased earlier to hear the President of the Commission stress the need for a policy, or at least a coordination of policies, on investment, particularly as regards risk capital investments.
<P>
The second positive point that I would like to emphasise concerns human rights.
Mr President-in-Office, Minister, you are asking for our support for your proposals on human rights.
Well, you have my unreserved and wholehearted support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Bonde">
Mr President, to the strains of the mantra of closeness to the people, we are now planning even more Union. A new theme, a common tax policy, is on its way, and the Cologne summit will put a proposal for a fourth pillar, common armed forces, on the agenda.
The summit in Helsinki will expand common policies and set in motion an intergovernmental conference on more majority decision-making and more votes for the large Member States.
Externally, we shall have a strong statesman to represent the Union.
Common strategies are being developed, the caterpillar tracks are being brought out and put on.
We are in the middle of the construction of a new superpower, a USA in Europe, but without American democracy.
A military superpower without democracy is a dangerous quantity and, in any case, that is not what a large number of European voters are demonstrating for.
It is now time to sound the alarm over these plans and to prevent nationless Eurocrats, civil servants and ministers from creating an EU state without democracy.
We should instead set a course for a Europe of nations and democracies which can also accommodate and find room in its heart for the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe.
I would rather see a much more specific timetable for enlargement than the timetables now established for the currency, the armed forces and the police - a timetable for more power to the Union.
What we are advocating is a Europe of nations and democracies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Raschhofer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this Vienna summit has brought few concrete results.
Whether this was a summit that set a new course, only the future can tell.
I would not wish to reproach the presidency of the Council for not being able to achieve everything it set out to achieve.
It is understandable that the difficult and controversial package of Agenda 2000 could not be brought to a conclusion.
After all, Agenda 2000 concerns interests rather than visions.
That is what makes things so difficult, and it means that a political decision will probably be taken in what some commentators have called the 'night when heads start to roll'.
<P>
The disappointment of Vienna is reflected in other areas too, especially employment.
The Vienna strategy may well designate employment as the top priority, but it is marked by a paucity of concrete proposals.
No qualitative or quantitative objectives were fixed.
So there has been nothing concrete since Luxembourg.
Freely following the motto 'what we cannot do now we shall put off till later', the Vienna meeting did in the end produce one result: it fixed the agenda for the next meeting.
That is a rather miserable result for 17 million unemployed.
The guarded comments of the social democratic family of Europe are unlikely to offer much consolation to the unemployed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Medina Ortega">
Mr President, I think that at this stage in the debate neither the President-in-Office nor the President of the Commission are in a position to listen to too much.
<P>
I would firstly like to take time to reflect a little on the Austrian Presidency that we are about to say goodbye to, a friendly presidency, and one that should be, or is, of enormous symbolic value.
It is also a presidency that represents one of the oldest political concepts in Europe and at the same time is hailed as one of the most modern.
<P>
Austria is unique in joining the old with the new and on some occasions, we are not sure whether we are referring to the Austria at the turn of the century or the young republic that emerged during this century.
Whichever it is, over the past few months, the presidency has consistently demonstrated the Austrian spirit of cordiality and goodwill.
And, what is more, it has been a timely presidency because we have now in fact reached a period of transition.
Austrian people appear to possess dual vision: the ability to look forwards and backwards, to see that times are changing and that we are currently living through a period of transition.
<P>
The fact that we are moving from one century to the next is perhaps in itself not of great significance, but it is certainly of symbolic significance to those of us experiencing it.
And added to that, we are moving from one Europe to another.
We are moving from the Europe of the internal market, which is more market-oriented and service-based, to the Europe of Economic and Monetary Union and a Europe that concentrates more on the issues in society that affect individuals, namely, environmental and social issues.
<P>
The Austrian Presidency has, in my opinion, acted very intelligently given this climate of change.
I always read the minutes of the presidency's declarations in some detail and in doing so I can tell that they have been written intelligently, first and foremost, because they include an agenda and a timetable, which is something we urgently need at the moment. In other words, the period of change Europe is currently undergoing needs an agenda and timetable setting out exactly what we hope to achieve.
This is something that was neatly brought together in the so-called 'Vienna Strategy for Europe'.
<P>
The Austrians have presented us with a very demanding and full agenda but one that we can still complete.
In my view, experience has shown that here in Europe everything is resolved at the eleventh hour and that we usually do not achieve anything if we try to get ahead of ourselves.
I think that the presidency has gone to great lengths to lay the groundwork that the German and Finnish Presidencies will be able to complete next year.
<P>
The Vienna Strategy for Europe has been very clearly explained and I would advise many of my colleagues who have criticised the presidency as being inefficient to closely follow future meetings, first in Brussels, then Cologne, Tampere and Helsinki, to see how each and every one of these results will be achieved.
<P>
The German Presidency undoubtedly has a very difficult task ahead.
We are all aware of the complex economic issues that currently need to be addressed - and I do not think that it is my place to take that particular debate further here -, but at each of these sittings there is evidently an agenda that the presidencies will be able to prepare, and to do so from now on, so as to ensure continuity between the successive German and Finnish Presidencies.
<P>
The chairman of my group, Mrs Green, spoke before me, and has therefore left me with very little to say on socialist issues.
But in reply to an earlier remark, I would like to say to the Austrian Presidency that, as far as the Socialist Group is concerned, the Union has one priority at the moment and that priority is employment. More specifically, my group believes that the governments that currently make up the majority in the Union, some of which are socialist, while others are a coalition between socialists and Christian Democrats, are highly concerned about employment because it is the issue that also concerns us as citizens.
<P>
We cannot say to the Council that it has no representative value.
Governments receive citizens' complaints just as we do, and at the moment, the questions on everyone's lips relate to employment: What is happening with employment? What are we going to do with our children?
Where shall we put them?
How can we guarantee their integration into society?
<P>
This is clearly an area in which little progress has been made, but at least we are beginning to advance a little.
<P>
There is, in my opinion, one decisive issue, that of the Delors White Paper, which we should have supported more than we did.
<P>
In my view - and you should read the conclusions of the Essen Summit in this respect -, the White Paper by Delors was too easily dismissed at Essen and I think that it is time to look at it once again.
<P>
There is a whole series of proposals on the table - and I do not wish to bore the presidency and the remaining Members -, but we need to reconsider the ideas in the Delors White Paper, because without investment there are no jobs, and for there to be investment, the financial means need to be provided.
This is, if you like, perhaps stating the obvious, but that is the way it is.
<P>
Lastly, Mr President, I believe that the statements made concerning the third pillar were very important, as were those on the creation of an area of freedom and justice, which, as the presidency pointed out to mark the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights, is becoming extremely important.
<P>
Europe may be an area of asylum and freedom, but what it will never be, of course, is an asylum for criminals, terrorists, drug-traffickers, dictators and torturers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Stenzel">
Mr President, Mr President of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, anyone who placed too much hope in the presidency of the Council in Vienna may of course be disappointed.
But anyone who took a realistic look at the situation and state of affairs within the European Union will note with satisfaction that this Vienna presidency of the Council was like a mountain pass between two summits on a high plateau.
The high plateau was created in advance by the decision of principle that the European Union would, in an enormous show of strength, establish a common European currency.
This common European currency, which will become a reality at the end of our presidency, represents a tremendous opportunity for European integration, for deepening that integration, and it has now been supplemented by a stronger resolve to create jobs and work.
<P>
I must confess that I too note a certain disappointment in the European Parliament and that I myself am disappointed, for in fact it would be hard to think up anything better than the employment guidelines set out by the Luxembourg summit.
First and foremost we must revive a spirit of enterprise in Europe, and secondly we must promote the ability to find work, through better training and better qualifications.
<P>
A third aspect is adaptability.
Retraining is part and parcel of that.
Our workers must become more adaptable and we must finally guarantee equal rights for women on the labour market, something that is particularly important for women.
Over and above that, we can only place more emphasis on certain aspects and highlight the importance of social partnership and a social dialogue at European level.
We must certainly emphasise that.
But let me warn you against any illusions here, for that could only lead to disappointment.
<P>
I would like to express a personal wish.
I am firmly committed to the enlargement process and very much welcomed the fact that Chancellor Klima paid a working visit to Poland; I also welcome Vice-Chancellor Schüssel's initiative in visiting all the capitals of the applicant states.
That sent out a positive signal.
It took the screening process forward into a phase of substantive negotiations.
I personally would have hoped to see more definite encouragement given to the Slovak Government and a rather speedier process of accession for the new applicant states, rather than all this being postponed to the next but one summit in Helsinki.
Something should in fact happen during the German Presidency.
That would send out a positive signal about European integration and about the consolidation of Europe as a whole.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Frischenschlager">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, my verdict on the Vienna summit is of course rather less euphoric than that of the Chancellor, because basically it was a reiteration of objectives, statements of intent and tasks to be tackled that had already been defined; in parliamentary language, that means it was a summit which assigned responsibility for the items pending on the agenda, no more and no less.
But I too lay the blame less on the Austrian Presidency than on the general weakening of the will to reform within the European Union.
Chancellor, if you cannot see any trend towards renationalisation, I must firmly contradict you and cite the example of the debate on financing.
That showed quite clearly that the social democratic leadership in particular, which has taken such a centre-stage position at the moment, is giving precedence to interests that tend entirely in the opposite direction and are in the main purely national.
Just take a look: Schröder wants to cut the funding, as for that matter you do too with the idea of lower spending; then there is Blair who says he can still get something out of Europe in the agricultural sector, and Jospin who contradicts him on precisely that point.
That is the real reason why no progress was made with Agenda 2000, except for another postponement of the debate!
<P>
I would like to address a second point, employment policy.
Chancellor, I believe that what is decisive in this important area is that we do not confine ourselves to a purse full of ideas.
That is why I cannot understand why it was not made quite plain that the employment pact must be binding.
Referring to the stability pact and the employment pact in one breath only makes sense and is only justified if they are both equally binding!
<P>
So this is my verdict, Chancellor: this summit has not broken down the blockade on reform in the European Union in relation to enlargement and the decision-making ability of the European Union and its ability to master problems.
These questions were passed on, which I regret and which is a pity given the need for further European integration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Collins, Gerard">
Mr President, the Heads of State and Government have set an ambitious target in trying to find agreement on the Agenda 2000 package at the March summit.
This package of proposals amounts to the most wide-ranging and fundamental examination of all the major political issues dealt with at European Union level: budget and financing, common policies, the process of enlargement, as well as the prospect of economic and social cohesion.
<P>
At the Vienna Summit it was clear that some Member States at least preferred to view this package in the narrowest possible manner as an accounting exercise.
I believe that we should include in the discussion not only purely budgetary matters but also the many additional factors which are also relevant to Agenda 2000 and the process of enlargement.
<P>
The suggestion put forward by some Member States that EU spending should be frozen at current levels until 2006 means, in effect, that the richer Member States are seeking to have the cost of enlargement met by the less-developed countries.
I support the position that EU spending should remain as a percentage of gross domestic product and should not be stabilised at current spending levels.
This would mean a reduction in the EU budget over time.
Freezing the budget level in practice means diverting money from the CAP and the Structural and Cohesion Funds into Eastern Europe.
Any suggestion of renationalising spending within the common agricultural policy would also work to undermine the fabric of the CAP, which would fly in the face of the interests of European farmers and rural regions.
I believe that those countries which are currently net beneficiaries from the funds will have great difficulty in accepting such a proposal in March.
It is worth noting that those countries which are currently net beneficiaries are situated to the south and the west of the Union and, as a result, they are likely to benefit far less from enlargement than the already better-off countries in central and northern Europe, which will be better able to take advantage of their proximity to the markets in these new Member States.
<P>
It is also important to factor into these calculations the huge benefits of issues such as improved security for countries such as Germany and Austria, as the Union's external border takes a decisive step to the east.
<P>
In conclusion, the whole question of financing the enlargement of the Union must not be confined to a narrow accounting exercise but must also take account of less tangible but no less important factors, such as security issues and likely shifts in trade patterns.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, before I begin, I should like the Minister and the President of the Commission to put on their headphones, unless they speak Greek.
<P>
Mr President, your Presidency commenced with optimism and hope, but it is ending amid serious concerns.
This is because during the current Presidency we have seen social-democratic governments establish a neo-Thatcherite presence - the President of Parliament stressed that too -, we have witnessed selfishness in relation to resources, and we have seen an attempt to build a larger Europe with less money.
We had expected and, if you will, we still expect in future to see more resistance from the government of Austria, a country rich in history, culture and traditions but one that does not suffer from the complex that affects major powers and does not feel that it is the subsidiary of some major power in the European Union.
It was with sorrow that we saw the Austrian Presidency's document on the funding of the European Union.
<P>
I should like to address Mr Schüssel, President-in-Office of the Council and ask him, during his reply here in Parliament and not in secret meetings between governments, to address Greek farmers directly - I am raising this particular subject - and give them an assurance ...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graefe zu Baringdorf">
Mr President, the President-in-Office of the Council gave us an impressive list of all the issues discussed at the Vienna summit.
I am happy to acknowledge that, but unfortunately none of it has penetrated through to the outside world.
What has come through is that there were negotiations about money.
Perhaps that is partly to do with the new German approach.
I would certainly not dispute that.
Obviously, things were done differently in the past.
More information about the substance of policies used to penetrate through to the outside world and people would haggle about money at midday around the fireplace.
Perhaps that was a better system.
At any rate, at this summit not much got through of the visions which Chancellor Klima said should be opened up for the citizens.
<P>
Admittedly, the Austrian Government has achieved a great deal in terms of agricultural policy in its discussions with Parliament - or at least when Mr Molterer was present in the committee - and defined directions and outlined courses to be followed. I do not dispute that.
But what was not addressed at this summit was the fact that employment is also linked to the stabilisation of agricultural structures and structural development.
That did not come through, even though it opens up new prospects, and I am very sorry that at this high level no account is evidently taken of the need to connect with the people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, single currency or no, the Heads of State and Government were not of a single mind at the summit on financial matters.
The questions of the Community's finances and how to share the burden were too difficult and were therefore shelved.
Thus the Council has saddled itself with a very crowded agenda for 1999.
I hope we shall get a decision on the Agenda 2000 agreement in March 1999.
We cannot have the applicant countries made to suffer because we freeze our spending.
The European Parliament has worked hard to get a draft statute for Members ready in good time.
I hope the Heads of Government who stressed the importance of that system will keep up the pressure.
I welcome the draft agreement which the presidency has concluded with Switzerland on the Eurovignette and transit tariffs.
I am taken with the idea of experimenting with labour-intensive services.
I am disappointed that the abolition of tax-free shops has been postponed, because that question was settled back in 1991.
The President of the European Parliament said in his speech in Vienna that the EU had created a further 1.7 million jobs.
I ask myself how far that was due to the EU and how far it was due to the economic climate.
If jobs are lost again in the period of recession which is to come, will the EU have destroyed those jobs?
<P>
Lastly I must voice doubts about the plans for a European defence force.
We have NATO for that, and it is perfectly well able to do the job.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Muscardini">
Mr President, as a mark of respect for this House, I shall refrain from repeating the speech I have given after each of the last three meetings of the Council. It is nevertheless true that the outcome of the Vienna meeting is no different from that of previous ones.
Even though the serious issue of unemployment was on the agenda, the conclusions were nothing but fine words, not decisions leading to the creation of new jobs.
<P>
According to the Austrian Chancellor, the summit paved the way for setting out fresh objectives; the main priorities, he went on, are employment and the coordination of the most urgently needed economic policies.
We have been hearing such statements for at least two decades.
Despite the major sacrifices made by the peoples of the Union to bring about the single currency, the problem of growth has not been solved, and consequently unemployment remains at intolerably high levels.
<P>
The pact for jobs has again been postponed until next June.
After the initiative launched with great media hype by the Jospin government in the run-up to the Amsterdam summit, we had hoped that an agreement would be in place after last December's meeting of the Council in Luxembourg.
Two more unproductive summits have been and gone since then.
<P>
Now that the euro is about to arrive, even though broad swathes of public opinion are concerned about the future it was proposed in Vienna that agricultural spending be reduced, spreading incalculable discontent in rural areas.
It will be an almighty battle, the Irish Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern, told the press; it will be an affront to the acquis communautaire , asserted Jacques Chirac, and Alleanza Nazionale shares their opinions.
Finally, perhaps to defuse the tension caused by such concerns, Chancellor Schröder announces that Germany wishes to reduce its net contribution to the Community budget.
All of these are worrying signs; our citizens perceive this Europe as being ever more remote from their day-to-day problems, and for my country amongst others, unemployment represents the number one problem, especially for young people.
<P>
Why this inability to solve the mounting problems?
The explanation might perhaps be that whereas 13 of the 15 governments - I mean the Socialist ones - did not share the principles which inspired the Maastricht Treaty, they are now clumsily attempting - painstakingly and unsuccessfully - to circumvent it, and are committing the idealistic errors which Maastricht sought to eliminate once and for all.
<P>
Vienna did not solve the problem of unemployment; nor did it offer any concrete prospects for the creation of the third pillar, which is becoming increasingly important, given the enormous problems being caused by unregulated immigration and political connivance with the perpetrators of terrorism.
This should be of concern not only when outrages are committed, but also when seeking to prevent and overcome a political culture which indirectly protects terrorism and its authors.
Members of Parliament continue to ask questions, the Council continues not to reply; whatever next?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, if we look at the beginning of the Austrian Presidency we see that rather a lot was expected of it. For instance, this presidency was to ensure that the Commission became less omnipotent and that Europe became more renationalised again, in the sense of becoming more decentralised.
And indeed if you look at the situation today, as the Chancellor pointed out, not only has any de-Europeanisation been prevented but in fact Europe is stronger today than it was at the beginning of the Austrian Presidency.
<P>
Let me give a few examples, starting with employment policy.
There have been signs of movement in employment policy.
Of course starts were made earlier - in Luxembourg and so on - but there have been instances of movement, although sadly the Austrian Liberal Member, Mr Frischenschlager, has not set any example here.
When he joined this Parliament, he vehemently rejected the idea of any kind of employment policy at European level.
Today he complains that the employment pact is not binding.
That clearly shows that there has been a shift in the mind-set of some Members, thanks not least to Austrian initiatives taken even before its presidency.
<P>
But employment policy also implies social partnership.
We know that we need these social forces; that too was confirmed in Vienna and I hope the social partners too will increasingly find the appropriate solutions at European level.
<P>
Secondly, it keeps being pointed out that Europe is an economic giant but a political dwarf, and that is indeed how we have often behaved.
Not that all this is now behind us, but in particular through the external representation of the euro - and however critically one might regard some aspects and I would also like to see the Commission have more scope here - it has now been made clear that we must not forget that we are or can be a global power, perhaps one should say a global factor.
<P>
So we must have a strong say in the reform of the international financial institutions, in the WTO measures, because we also have a substantive input to make there.
It is not as though we were simply trying to flex our muscles in some kind of power struggle.
After all, we established, formulated and framed a social market economy in post-1945 Europe, with a few inadequacies here and there which we must put right; but we do have a model to offer, which is after all not just a European model.
We do not want to impose it on anybody, but we can regard it as a model worth presenting, and these social market economy components should also be apparent in the international financial and trade regulations.
Had that happened earlier, we would not have seen the events that occurred in Asia and also in Russia, namely liberalisation on the surface without the appropriate institutions for backing it up.
In that respect, I think it is most important that we should increasingly speak with one voice in external economic and foreign policy matters.
<P>
The Foreign Minister referred to a range of common strategies, especially for Russia, which is a particular cause for concern and where we are making particular efforts to do something.
Let me take this opportunity to say - since Foreign Minister Schüssel also referred to this - that we must take more rapid decisions.
We are very much in favour of that, and Parliament must do the same, but so must the Council.
We had preliminary talks yesterday with Commissioner van den Broek on the TACIS regulation.
We would like to be able to discuss and adopt the new TACIS regulation in this Parliament before the summer, if we get it on time from the Council, if it is not left in the drawer for months again, because of course the individual countries would like to exert their influence in certain areas.
So I really would beg you to tell your colleagues in Germany too: please forward the appropriate measures that we want to implement to Parliament, so that we can take an early decision on the foreign policy aspects in particular.
<P>
The European security policy has also strengthened Europe.
We must take up the proposals that have been put forward, especially since the meeting between France and the UK - where the UK surprised us all by calling so clearly and unequivocally for a European security policy in partnership with the Americans.
That will give all the Member States of the European Union a chance to turn this European security policy into a genuine common security policy.
I need not say anything more at this point about Switzerland's special concerns and the related question of transport measures.
<P>
Some people seem to believe, wrongly in my view, arrogantly and I might almost say superciliously, that this was 'only' an interim presidency.
Perhaps it was not a very newsworthy presidency and did not have any great high points, perhaps it was an anticlimactic presidency; but it was a presidency which has brought progress in many areas that had often been neglected for years - I need only think of transport, or of the framework research programme.
We should also show the people that beyond the great media events there is a Europe that is alive, a Europe that is becoming stronger, and that is what the Austrian Presidency showed!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Castagnetti">
Mr Schüssel, your intelligence and dynamism are impressive; and nonetheless we have to ask ourselves why it is that this outcome has disappointed and embittered almost everyone.
<P>
The European Council in Vienna was an important one, in my opinion, because it made plain that there are certain new and unavoidable problems - jobs, enlargement, tax harmonisation - but ones which are not easy to tackle.
Yes, we were expecting more.
But the fault does not lie with the Austrian Presidency; the problem is a political one, and this should be emphasised.
The European Council in Vienna was the first one since the expansion of the borders of the so-called 'social democratic Europe'.
This new social democratic Europe is of course showing obvious sensitivity towards certain issues such as employment, which we share, but is faltering and revealing that it is not yet strong enough to tackle them.
This is the new political dimension.
What is more, the new social democratic Europe is changing the internal geography of Europe, so that this geography is no longer homogeneous.
In Vienna, the Paris-Bonn axis lined up against the Madrid-London axis: politically these axes are not homogeneous, meaning that there is no social democratic Europe after all.
They are axes which indicate the likelihood of a future north-south divide in Europe and a probable split between those wishing to tackle problems in advance and those preferring to address them after the event.
<P>
The question of funding, raised in no uncertain terms by Chancellor Schröder, is a very real one which had already been raised by Chancellor Kohl.
As to the time-frame laid down by Chancellor Schröder, it could disrupt the balance within Europe and is thus very worrying.
All of which confirms, as I have already said, that this social democratic Europe may well be capable of winning elections, but is not yet proving capable of leading the continent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
It is a pity, Mr President, that instead of celebrations at the Vienna summit, we had squabbles over money.
With the introduction of the euro just three weeks away, the Union is beset by indecision.
That is not a reproach to the Austrian Presidency.
On the contrary, the presidency has been a good intermediary and has operated intelligently in many areas.
My special compliments here to Mrs Ferrero and Mr Schüssel.
<P>
The ambitious programme of reform for the twenty-first century is meeting with resistance from certain sectors and a number of Member States.
There is no question of blank cheques from the Members States to the Union any longer.
The struggle for a balanced sharing of the financial burden will be painful, and to my mind deserves to be called a crisis.
It will make our citizens more involved with Europe, but I do not think that the farmers, who do a great deal for our quality of life, should be made to suffer as a result.
The big question is how the incoming German Presidency will address this task.
The previous speaker, Mr Castagnetti, said something about that.
My question is this: is Mr Schröder, who has not yet gained a firm hold on the reins of political power in his own country, going to be willing and able to play the leading role in Europe which we have come to expect from this important Member State?
Reading this morning's Süddeutsche Zeitung , I am not sure that he is.
To quote this German newspaper: 'According to Schröder, Bonn will not be pressing to get reform of the EU institutions completed during the German Presidency.'
When, then, Mr President?
I find this alarming.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Blot">
Mr President, I think that the information that the Austrian Presidency has given us comes as no surprise to anyone and Europe is going to follow the same course that it has followed in previous years.
<P>
As a result, the situation is going to become extremely worrying.
Given the developments in the financial world, we can see clearly that the world economic system is becoming extremely unstable.
It is in this context that we are going to introduce the euro next year and in subsequent years.
The birth of the euro means that Member States will no longer have a monetary instrument allowing them to regulate the economic situation.
They will have to withstand asymmetric shocks using fiscal policy and wages and incomes policies, shocks that might hit any economy, given the disparities between the economic structures in the various Member States.
This means that when we need to combat inflationary tendencies in one Member State, we will either have to raise taxes or freeze salaries. In other words, we will, to some extent, have to apply a particularly harsh policy of social austerity that will undoubtedly destabilise the social situation in the country concerned.
<P>
Consequently, we are heading towards a situation that is only getting worse and that is compounded, in some way, by the quasi-colonial position of the European Union today in relation to the United States.
No-one really wants to face up to this problem.
Of course, there was some vague resistance to the negotiations on international trade relations and the d'Amato law, as well as other similar matters, but that has not stopped this situation of dependence from deteriorating every day.
There is absolutely no doubt that the American economy is in good health and we look a rather sorry sight next to it.
<P>
Therefore, we need to think seriously in order to change the course of the development of European policy, both in terms of its relationships with the United States and in terms of its internal economic policy.
We are not on the right track.
In this respect, I fear that next year will be a year where, at least on an economic level, things will only get worse for the majority of Europeans.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Görlach">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Austrian Presidency was of course a typical working presidency.
That happens to be the case in national policy-making too: after a period of hard work and preparation, the time comes to take decisions.
That is the way it is!
But while a presidency of the Council can be as diligent and as clever as it may - and the Austrian Presidency was both - it still cannot deliver more than the other 14 are willing to give.
That is why we must always remember that 15 times' national policy still does not equal European policy.
That is a truism, but it is one we must always bear in mind.
Under these conditions, the Council presidency - and I am not just referring to Vienna, where I am sure the President-in-Office of the Council would have liked to see a highlight here and there, I am referring to the presidency of the Council as a whole - did achieve a breakthrough, an about-turn on one major issue, as several speakers have appreciated. It is that the Union no longer only discusses money and the euro, but also discusses people and employment policy.
And the presidency has produced more than just a working agenda.
Thanks to the Austrian Presidency, firm promises have actually been made to apply economic and financial policy for the benefit of employment policy.
That is a real about-turn.
Everyone supported this, of whatever persuasion their national government.
In my view, this presidency has done us an enormous service here.
<P>
But my question concerns a point that has been almost totally forgotten.
Both in Vienna and during the presidency, there was talk of reforming and slimming down the institutions.
What does that mean?
When we look at the huge mountain of work we must tackle jointly in the next few years - and let me address my own forthcoming presidency here and say that not even the German Presidency can accomplish it all, we should not expect any miracles of the Germans - we must also realise that we have to reform the key players, the institutions.
That applies to the Commission - and it also relates to the debate on the discharge we will be holding this week - just as it applies to our Parliament and, of course, to the Council.
What does more efficient policy-making mean?
I believe we cannot confine ourselves to slogans here.
It also involves the Council's future working methods, and it does not just mean that Parliament should determine with the Commission what is the most efficient way of framing policies; it also concerns the Council.
When we then look at the many tasks set out by the Austrian Presidency and the positive decisions it has taken, we Germans might well be scared by the expectations placed in the German Presidency.
<P>
We can do it, but let me repeat: we can do it only if the 15 national interests are supplemented by a major common denominator on European issues.
There will always be national interests in Europe, just as there are also different regional interests in each Member State.
My compatriots in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania obviously have different interests, especially in relation to agriculture, from the Bavarians.
But nevertheless there is always a strong element of common interest at national level, and that is where improvements can still be made in European affairs.
I am also specifically addressing the incoming German Presidency here: national interests have to be formulated, compromises have to be found, but at the same time we must always look to the common European interest.
We are no longer a Community, we are a Union, but sometimes I almost have the impression that with the disappearance of the word 'Community', the sense of community has receded a little into the background The next presidencies should be measured against the example of the Austrian one and place more emphasis on this aspect again in their negotiations.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Spencer">
Mr President, I join the endorsement of the Austrian presidency.
Everything which enthusiasm, energy and charm could do has been done.
In those areas that I follow - foreign affairs and defence - it is my view that real progress has been made.
But none of that could stop the Vienna Summit from being inevitably a summit-in-waiting, a pastoral interlude before the storm in the spring.
All I hope is that underneath all the posturing there is a sense amongst the leaders of Europe of how that deal is to be done in the spring.
It is going to require courage and concentration, not posturing for national audiences and not philosophical ramblings about the unattainable such as tax harmonisation - I am sorry, that should be tax coordination .
<P>
What we are facing in the spring is a Grade 1 crisis, an internal crisis in the Union set against a very difficult international background: the reform of the common agricultural policy, a new budget deal, the key argument over the timing of enlargement; set against a background of a Russia in crisis, a Middle East dragging itself towards 4 May, an unresolved tragedy in Kosovo, a Washington summit of NATO.
<P>
I appeal not just to you, Chancellor, but to all the members of the European Council to concentrate on the essentials: on enlargement, defence and foreign policy.
I am not going to add to the chorus of criticism over duty-free.
There is enough of the politics of sound-bites.
I remember my own Prime Minister, on the eve of a breakthrough in Northern Ireland, condemning the idea of sound-bites and then saying that he felt the hand of history on his shoulder.
I have to say that when the Council meets in March it will not be the hand of history on our shoulders; the hand of history is at our throats.
We really have to solve that major crisis before the elections so that Europe can restart its progress towards the end of this century.
Good luck and thank you.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="Donnelly, Alan">
Mr President, it is a great pleasure to speak after Mr Spencer, after such a moderate and reasoned presentation.
<P>
I congratulate the Austrian presidency on the work it has done.
In particular I refer to the work that has been undertaken by the presidency in the fight against unemployment.
One of the sad things about the press reports of the summit meeting that was held in Vienna was the fact that it did not pick up the enormous progress that has been made during the Austrian presidency in tackling unemployment.
I should like to say on behalf of the Socialist Group and, I am sure, on behalf of this House, that we hope the Austrian Government will continue to press during the German presidency for the implementation of measures that will help to tackle unemployment.
There are measures that need to be taken in terms of employability, training and education for our citizens, but we also need levels of investment improved, both in the public and in the private sectors.
From that point of view what we need in the context of the new single currency is an understanding that in activating the pact for stability and growth we do not strangle investment in either the private or public sectors.
<P>
One of the problems we have at summit meetings is that of ideology and dogma.
My own country used to be governed by a party that treated every summit meeting as though it was a combative exercise with our neighbours in the European Union.
The good thing now in the European Union is that we try to work together to improve society.
But we recognise that there are also things individual governments must achieve.
Therefore we should not look at every summit meeting as though it is a test of strength between national governments.
What we have to do is share sovereignty where we can improve society but agree that things should be left to individual governments where appropriate.
Therefore the significant thing about Vienna was the way in which we are now starting to drop dogma and ideology and recognise that there are some major problem areas in which the European Union must act.
<P>
In that regard I would like specifically to refer to the issues of external relations, the international financial crisis and the negotiations within the World Trade Organisation.
We are now seeing a United States Congress that is increasingly protectionist.
The European Union cannot be protectionist.
I hope that, when the summit meeting is held between Europe and the United States within the next few weeks, the President-in-Office of the Council will stress the fact that we urgently need a new round of world trade negotiations.
If we want to kick-start the global economy after the crisis of the last 12 months, international trade plays an extremely important role.
<P>
But we also need to stress to the US that we need fair trade.
This means that in relation to developing nations we must make sure that trade relations can actually help their economies.
The banana regime, as you know, is something that has caused major problems between Europe and the United States.
But we must make them understand that either we help the communities in the Caribbean through special trading links with the European Union, or else we hand those Caribbean nations over to drug traffickers and people involved in organised crime.
<P>
I wish you well and congratulate you on your presidency, but I also ask you specifically to press these points with the United States of America.
We cannot have a transatlantic partner that is protectionist as we move into the 21st century.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="President">
The debate will be continued this afternoon at 3 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="Trakatellis">
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="President">
Thank you for that statement, Mr Trakatellis.
I should have liked the Commission to hear it, but it will no doubt be read with great attention.
<P>
(The President declared the common position approved)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I would propose that we adjourn the votes now so that the Chamber and the galleries can be prepared.
As you know, we have guests, and the formal sitting deserves to be prepared with all the necessary care.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 11.50 a.m. for the formal sitting and resumed at 12.35 p.m.) Report (A4-0506/98) by Mr Colino Salamanca, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on a programme to supply agricultural produce to the Russian Federation (COM(98)0725 - C4-0678/98-98/0343(CNS))
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="Lindqvist">
When it joined the EU, Sweden was granted a derogation authorising it to retain its superior standards of labelling for certain dangerous substances, including carcinogenic agents.
The expiry date of this exemption is now being postponed from 1 January 1999 to 31 December 2000 and must be extended further still if the EU has not brought its rules into line with Sweden's in the meantime.
Once environmental and safety requirements have been agreed nationally, no country can be expected to lower them.
<P>
Eisma report (A4-0449/98)
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw and Sandberg-Fries">
We would stress the paramount need for further regulation to prevent illegal fisheries in Antarctica.
Fishing is vital for securing world food supplies. All fisheries must be subject to stringent rules so as to pre-empt the exhaustion of stocks and halt the continued threat to biological diversity.
The proposed new system is therefore to be welcomed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Blak, Iversen, Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
Today the Danish Social Democrats voted for the Eisma report.
We have done so because we are in favour of vessels that are fishing illegally in the waters of the region concerned being subject to inspection.
<P>
It is indefensible that the Antarctic cod is on the verge of being wiped out as a result of this illegal fishing.
Furthermore, these vessels often use the longline method whereby fish waste is thrown in front of the vessel to attract more fish.
This method is particularly harmful to wildlife.
Every year it causes the deaths of many albatrosses which dive in front of the ship to eat the fish waste and perish.
We strongly object to this method, which is frequently used for illegal fishing in the waters in the region concerned, because it is a threat to the albatross.
<P>
Lulling recommendation (A4-0486/98)
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="Rovsing">
Obviously, the EU's Member States have to be able to gather and process statistics for all relevant economic sectors in society, but at the same time it is important that the statistical systems place as small an administrative burden as possible on those who have to provide information.
In this respect, it is very important that due consideration is given to small and medium-sized enterprises.
Unfortunately, the Council has rejected this in its common position.
The committee is therefore quite right in its report to place great importance on reintroducing the essential demands from the first reading.
<P>
Souchet report (A4-0463/98)
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw and Sandberg-Fries">
We wish to stress the importance of the Commission's proposal to change in the way certain fishing activities are carried out. The purpose is to promote sustainable development for fisheries in the Atlantic and Mediterranean.
We believe that a comprehensive overhaul of fishing practice is required so as to ensure that this goal is achieved. The European Union's efforts at regulation carry great weight here.
We should not underestimate the role to be played by the common fisheries policy in safeguarding world food supplies and encouraging ecologically sustainable development.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="Souchet">
Both the Council of Ministers of the European Union and the European Commission are suffering from a guilty conscience as a result of this poor course of action of banning the use of drift gillnets in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean for European fishermen only.
In order to forget this as soon as possible, we are willing to show our generosity by tossing a few bags of ecus to the main victims, that is, the unfortunate fishermen and owners of vessels.
<P>
But these fishermen do not want to receive compensation.
They want to be able to carry on with their job as netters, harnessing one of the world's healthiest resources. They want to carry on using one of the most selective tools there is, which spares more endangered fish stocks and thereby helps ensure better sustainable management of this resource.
<P>
What these fishermen do not accept - and nor does a large majority of public opinion supporting them - is the injustice that has been done to them.
Neither majority votes nor fleeting compensation can prevent an injustice from being an injustice.
Even when voted through by a majority, an injustice is still an injustice.
<P>
Our fishermen will not allow the Commission and the Council to go back on the founding principles of the common fisheries policy by basing their decisions purely on political opportunity, in order to please lobbies and fulfill selfish interests, and by abandoning the scientific bases on which their decisions had been based until now.
<P>
The netters in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean do not accept the discrimination they are being subjected to.
At the end of last night's debate, Commissioner Monti, in as clear a manner as possible, confirmed that this discrimination does exist and is continuing.
When pushed by a few Members who wanted to see an end to such discrimination, Mr Monti said, and I quote, 'the Commission has no intention of extending this decision to other waters'.
In other words, for the Commission and the Council, although fishing in the Atlantic with a 2.5 kilometre net is terrible practice - even though scientific studies have shown the low level of significant catches of marine mammals in such nets - fishing with 21 kilometre nets in the Baltic Sea is still highly recommended practice, even though marine mammal populations - porpoises, etcetera - are very close to extinction.
<P>
I am delighted that an overwhelming majority of this House has voted to adopt my report and the amendments I tabled.
I should also like to thank the 52 Members who supported my proposal, which was adopted by the Committee on Fisheries, to wait for a legal decision before allocating any compensation, so that fishermen and shipowners do not then have to refund aid that may no longer have a legal basis.
<P>
But I am disappointed that the majority of the European Parliament has sided with the Council of Ministers and the European Commission, with those who would have us believe that the fishermen affected are only a handful of old men awaiting retirement. I am disappointed that the majority is siding with those who promote a policy of fait accompli in order to try in advance to make a legal decision unworkable as they fear it may go against their wishes.
I think that, on the contrary, it is essential that we do not anticipate this and that we wait for justice to be done on the four appeals filed against the Council Decision of 8 June.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Varela Suanzes-Carpegna">
Over the last four years, the intensity with which we have fought to eradicate the use of so-called 'death nets' has also been mirrored in our defense of the generosity that, within legal and financial limits, needs to be forthcoming to finance the inevitable restructuring of the sector that uses these nets.
<P>
I should like to congratulate Mr Souchet on his efforts to find solutions that preserve equity between all the fishermen affected in the Member States.
At the same time, however, I clearly oppose the fact that a measure that Parliament has sought for so long and that has been supported by such a broad majority, which took such a long time to achieve, might now be suspended due to a legal appeal. This would violate the general principle in Article 185 of the Treaty, which states that actions brought before the Court of Justice shall not have a suspensory effect, as requested in paragraph 4 of the motion for a legislative resolution, which I shall vote against.
If this paragraph is finally accepted, I shall have no alternative but to vote against the legislative resolution.
<P>
Colino Salamanca report (A4-0506/98)
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="Hyland">
I share the concern of this Parliament at the plight of the Russian people following the collapse of the Russian economy.
As normally is the case, it is the women and children, and particularly the latter, who are the victims of political mismanagement.
I hope that the decision of Parliament to provide food aid to Russia will go some way towards relieving the misery of its people at this time.
<P>
Food Aid is, of course, a short-term emergency measure and is not a substitute for much needed political and economic reform of the banking, social security and tax collection systems in Russia.
The economic problems in Russia have serious consequences for the EU and, in particular, for Ireland, because of our agricultural and meat exports to that country.
<P>
It is wholly ironic that food aid for Russia coincides with food surpluses in some Member States, and again it raises the question of how to manage agricultural production in the early years of the new millennium.
<P>
In the context of the debate on the Agenda 2000 programme, I must express some reservations about the projected potential of world markets.
While their full potential must be explored and developed, it would be extremely foolhardy to base our dependance on this market as a means of safeguarding farm income in the short term.
<P>
In my view, the proposals in Agenda 2000 must be radically amended if the future of Europe's farm families is to be secure.
<P>
Resolution on the annual programme for 1999
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Madam President, on behalf of my group, and Georges Berthu in particular, I should like to say that the Commission's work programme for 1999 seemed to us to be very full, and we wonder how it will be able to take it on, given the state it is in at the end of 1998.
<P>
In effect, an effective instrument would be needed to undertake a programme of such a scale.
Currently, the Commission seems to be severely affected by its management problems, not to mention fraud, and the reforms envisaged by the work programme do not measure up to the size of the problem.
It is, of course, praiseworthy to want to modernise structures and rethink internal management methods.
This is what the SEM 2000 and MAP 2000 initiatives are for.
It would also be useful to establish an independent financial control body, as the President of the Commission promised, and we voted in favour of this.
<P>
But all this does not resolve the Commission's major problem.
This administration is driven by a thirst for power.
It cannot accept being controlled by the nations that do, however, pay for it.
It would like to be the first successful example of an 'omnipotent' institution, regulated only by its members' virtues.
Recent events have shown that this does not work.
<P>
When we look at the programme itself, the diagnosis does not improve.
The main priority, which overshadows all others, is to obtain an agreement on financing the Agenda 2000 programme for the 2000-2006 period.
But this may take rather a long time as the European institutions' compulsive drive for power will eventually meet with financial resistance.
<P>
Nonetheless, the Commission hopes to close this case before the European elections by expecting to present the citizens of the Member States with a fait accompli , in accordance with good old federalist methods.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations hopes for the contrary. We hope that it will be possible to discuss this during the election campaign, that citizens will have their say, and that this will give us a clear idea of the institutional reforms that will one day have to be carried out, in order to let the Member States regain their vital control over Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw and Sandberg-Fries">
We wish to use this explanation of vote to say that we cannot support paragraph 15, since it implies that the EU should become involved in wage policy.
This would interfere with the negotiating privilege enjoyed by the social partners.
We do, however, endorse the underlying aim of improving coordination between economic policy and other relevant policy areas, whilst at the same time increasing incomes so as to fight poverty.
But statements suggesting that the Union should restrict the right of management and labour to negotiate wages are not acceptable.
<P>
Nor can we countenance the proposals on defence policy in paragraph 42.
And we note that paragraph 24 re-addresses the question of an 'operationally independent anti-fraud office (OLAF)'.
Given that there are grounds for strong criticism of the Commission's management of Community resources, we have decided to go along with our political group's stance on this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 NAME="Palm">
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="Theorin and Wibe">
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw and Sandberg-Fries">
We believe in maximum information for the public to ease the euro's introduction.
Vulnerable members of society in particular will need practical advice on using the new currency in their everyday lives.
This is the spirit that should underpin the launch of the euro. We cannot endorse a political campaign designed to persuade the citizens of certain Member States that their countries ought to join the single currency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Bébéar">
The changeover to the euro on 1 January next year affects all of us, whether we have a job or are retired, whether we are adults or children.
However, with only a few days to go to this unprecedented event, many Europeans are ill-informed, indifferent or overtly hostile.
<P>
The European Parliament cannot be content with this state of affairs as there is a danger of it causing the single currency to fail, but also because a 'successful' euro is a powerful factor in forging a common European identity.
<P>
Until now, the assets we have available to inform people about the changeover to the euro have, in my opinion, not been used effectively.
Information is too patchy and too vague for professionals, traders, SMEs and SMIs.
It is poorly targeted at the man in the street.
The 370 million Europeans, whether or not they will participate in the euro, are not asking for information on the main general points, interspersed with overviews of monetary history since the Middle Ages.
Depending on their country of origin, they want specific information that will increase their confidence.
<P>
Information campaigns are useful, particularly when they are not general and when they meet the specific needs of the elderly, the disabled and the economically and socially disadvantaged.
We will all need to rebuild our scales of values in terms of our salaries and our daily expenditure.
For some people, this will be relatively easy.
For others, it will be more disconcerting.
We must focus our efforts on these people in order to be successful in our campaign.
<P>
Local and regional authorities are not sufficiently involved in this approach.
The European Union must make better use of their abilities, which, in this respect, are almost limitless.
These authorities are also the best link to associations that have not been sufficiently spurred into action, in spite of their best efforts.
<P>
In view of this, I am certainly in favour of the Arroni report.
We are only at the beginning of the euro's introduction.
This strategy must be permanently maintained and assessed, for a large number of participating countries and for a long period of time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Caudron">
The vote on this report gives me an opportunity to stress that the introduction of the euro must take the citizen into account.
We must naturally inform citizens, but we must also involve them.
This is why, on my initiative, we have created 'Citizens for the euro' clubs in northern France.
<P>
These clubs, which bring together interested citizens from all political persuasions and backgrounds, monitor the information campaigns and suggest slight changes and modifications.
They will suggest new forms of action.
The citizens will become involved in these campaigns in a pro-active manner.
<P>
Another main aim of such clubs is to unmask and flush out all the little 'swindles' that the arrival of the euro will certainly entail.
<P>
There will undoubtedly be a great deal of work to do with those who will try to bill for 'euro-related' services and those who will try to exploit more vulnerable groups of people.
<P>
Incidentally, and to conclude, I would particularly like to highlight the importance of the period that will begin for Europe in 16 days' time and that, to this day, is without precedent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="Ewing">
The UK is participating in the Euro information strategy, which will cause confusion as the UK does not intend to enter the EMU nor will it even set a date for UK entry.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 NAME="Gallagher">
I support the main thrust of this report, which calls for a substantial increase in the budget for comprehensive information campaigns relating to the issues that need to be addressed in the context of the introduction of the single European currency into Europe.
The Irish Government has certainly set about its task of informing the Irish people in a structured and coherent manner and I would like to commend the efforts of the Euro Changeover Board which has been set up to oversee this informative task.
<P>
The euro currency will touch every aspect of corporate life and will lead to a big shake-up in company policies and procedures.
The creation of a single market with a unified currency will have far-reaching implications for the marketing, production and supply strategies of Irish businesses.
The fact that the euro notes and coins will not come into circulation until 1 January 2002 must not disguise the fact that the euro currency becomes a reality in non-cash format on 1 January next.
This means companies will have to change their procedures appropriately.
<P>
Information technology will also have a key role in helping to reshape the way business will be done.
The arrival of the single currency will have consequences reaching well beyond information technology departments.
Moreover, companies will also have to identify many measures which can be taken both in the short term and in the medium term so as to protect their business at all times during the period when Ireland participates within Economic and Monetary Union and Britain remains out of the euro zone.
One big pre-single-currency fear, that a big systems disaster would take place, has receded as the launch date approaches.
Now it is a question of who will gain and who will lose in the new marketplace and much will depend on how companies handle the transition period between January 1999 and January 2002.
<P>
Disseminating information to a population of 291 million people within eleven participating countries is not a cheap exercise.
The European budget must reflect this fact by ensuring that sizeable increases in information campaigns relating to the new euro currency are put in place.
Moreover, monies must be made available for comprehensive information campaigns in the four countries that are not participating in the new European single currency regime from 1 January 1999, namely, Greece, Britain, Finland and Sweden.
<P>
If the European single currency is to fully complement the workings of the internal market in Europe then the single European currency should apply in all fifteen Member States of the EU.
Information campaigns must play their part in this regard so as to ensure that the European Union has one single currency operating within all its Member States in the near future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR), Svensson (GUE/NGL), Gahrton (V), Bonde, Lis Jensen, Krarup and Sandbæk (I-EDN)">
The information strategy for the euro affects both the 'in' countries and those that have elected to remain 'free' outside EMU.
We agree that the euro's introduction will have a bigger impact on our citizens than any other single EU measure.
All the more reason to ensure that the exercise remains what it claims to be - an effort to provide information - and does not spill over into propaganda.
Advising people on the use of the euro does not involve forging a 'European identity'.
<P>
We would question the appropriateness of the reference to 'the role of information multipliers that young people and specifically the youngest may play'. Nor are we too sure about 'targeting women not in paid employment, whose household budgetary powers and influence on opinion within the family should not be underestimated'.
Information is to inform and should be kept general. It must not become confused with drumming up support for consolidating the EU and its institutions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Palm">
EMU is a political project with a broad-ranging impact on ordinary EU citizens' daily lives.
The whole enterprise therefore needs to be debated and discussed. This report does not seek to stimulate reflection, however.
Instead, it focuses on a currency: the euro.
It deals with money, in other words - and people know how to use money.
Consequently, I cannot see the need for an information strategy.
<P>
I am not happy either with assertions that the euro should 'constitute an important factor for building a common European identity'.
Nor can I endorse the condescending tone adopted here towards EU citizens. We are told at one point that 'an important part of the population ... may not be reached by the usual communication tools' because - amongst other things - of their 'political or philosophical position'!
<P>
I repeat: we do not need an information campaign for the euro.
This report sometimes seems to be no more than a front for pure political propaganda.
Paragraph 19 offers a prime example of what I find disturbing.
Civilised and democratic societies should not be engaging in the kind of hard sell advocated here.
Europe must henceforth consign such methods of persuading people of the supreme merits of its policies to the scrap-heap.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="Rovsing">
The changeover to the EU's common currency entails the largest currency conversion in the history of the world.
Such a changeover means that large demands will have to be made in terms of information strategy.
In addition, a good, targeted information policy is a crucial element in the efforts to introduce the euro in Denmark as well, where the scepticism of the population is partly due to a lack of information about the advantages of the common currency.
It is therefore pleasing that the Commission and the European Parliament are making such extensive financial and political efforts in the area of information.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="Trizza">
I endorse the report by Mr Arroni on the need to provide adequate assistance and information for the citizens and for public and private operators, in order to prevent the changeover to the euro from causing any disruption for these groups.
<P>
I wish furthermore to stress the importance of action in the individual Member States which, together with the European Commission, must mount information campaigns directed at certain socially disadvantaged groups - the handicapped, the elderly and so on - and I would emphasise that all scheduled activities must be subject to regular monitoring and their results verified.
<P>
Metten report (A4-0422/98)
<SPEAKER ID=80 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw and Sandberg-Fries">
We thank the rapporteur for this important report.
We believe that the introduction of a single currency will, in time, contribute towards creating more jobs, ensuring sustainable development and enhancing the EU's competitive position.
We are, however, aware of the dangers involved and would have liked to see more attention paid to the risk of asymmetric shocks.
Clearer analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of regulatory mechanisms is required.
The whole of the European Union - and not just the Euro-11 - would suffer from the after-effects of asymmetric shocks.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Blak, Iversen, Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of the Metten report concerning adjustment mechanisms in cases of asymmetric shocks, because the proposed adjustment mechanisms will help to ensure the stability of the European economy when the third stage of EMU begins, which is in the interests of all the EU Member States.
<P>
When the 11 countries participating in the common currency lock their internal exchange rates on 1 January 1999 and replace their national currencies with the euro in 2002, they will no longer be able to make use of exchange rate policy, in other words they will no longer be able to devalue or revalue their currencies.
Theoretically, this puts them in a worse position in the event of their economies being hit by an asymmetric shock.
Saying that the shock is asymmetric means that it only affects one particular country or one particular branch of industry.
In the past, currency devaluation could be used to restore lost competitiveness in connection with the economic shock.
<P>
Because this instrument is no longer available, the range of economic cards left to play is largely reduced to public spending policy, but the freedom of action of the euro countries is restricted in this area too, because they must fulfil the requirements laid down in the growth and stability pact.
This means, amongst other things, that the budget deficit must not exceed 3 % of the gross national product and that public sector borrowing must be no more than 60 % of GNP.
The report therefore recommends that a stabilisation fund should be set up which, if a country or industry is hit by such an asymmetric shock, can lend money to the country or industry concerned and thus alleviate the shock.
These loans are only to be granted with the unanimous approval of the Council, which is also to determine the terms for use of the assistance.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="Caudron">
The text that has been submitted to us is the fruit of detailed work by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and by its rapporteur, Alman Metten.
Once again, this parliamentary initiative is proof of the creative spirit of our House, no matter what the nature of the problem may be.
<P>
Whilst I firmly believe in the 'security' aspect of the euro, I support this report as I believe that, from now on, we should prevent these risks, which will certainly be diminished but which will always be present.
<P>
In this respect, the creation of a Community fund to help the countries in the euro area in cases of asymmetric shocks should help us build a solid foundation for our single currency for the future, particularly for those countries that have decided to adopt it.
It is also a guarantee of stability for the euro in relation to strong currencies such as the yen and the dollar.
<P>
On the other hand, although we believe that asymmetric shocks will decrease as of 1 January 1999, a prediction confirmed in recent months of great stability in Euroland currencies, we must take the diversity of legislation and policies into account.
Strong disparities might indeed weaken the structure of the Community.
<P>
Also, I would like to join with those calling for a better coordination of our economic policies and for our social security contributions, particularly the indirect ones, to be brought into line.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 NAME="Jensen, Lis">
As we know, Denmark is not going to participate in the third stage of EMU which begins on 1 January 1999.
The Danish Finance Minister otherwise argues enthusiastically in favour of it, and is also conducting a 'stability-oriented' policy as if we were going to participate.
Something which the Finance Minister does not say in the debate in Denmark is made clear by the Metten report, namely that the implementation of EMU may make it necessary for the participating countries to have an instrument which makes it possible to overcome economic crises within the euro system.
A stabilisation fund should therefore be established to ward off the greatest damage.
At the same time, preparations are being made to conduct a more active budgetary and wages policy, and direct pay restraint is recommended, particularly for the small countries, which of course includes Denmark.
<P>
The situation in Denmark is that we leave it to the social partners to negotiate pay conditions, and that is how I think it should stay - no interference from the EU in this area.
The report points out that individual Member States are losing influence over monetary policy and also over financial policy.
This can already be seen with the cut-backs in the public sector.
In Denmark, where practically all social benefits are publicly financed, this has noticeable consequences for those people who depend on public benefits.
<P>
We have seen recently in connection with the budget debate that the redundancy pay scheme is gradually being privatised.
I am thinking in particular here about the special redundancy contribution which individual members of unemployment insurance funds will have to make if they subsequently wish to benefit from redundancy pay.
This is a first step, and surely not the last we are going to see if this development continues.
It can be no surprise that the timing of this coincides almost exactly with a critical letter from the Commission about the existing scheme.
Nor can it be a surprise that the change in the redundancy pay scheme makes it more like a personal insurance policy.
The only remarkable thing about this is that the change is barely radical enough to satisfy the European Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="Lindqvist (ELDR), Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson (GUE/NGL), Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling (V), Bonde, Lis Jensen, Krarup and Sandbæk (I-EDN)">
The report by Mr Metten on the adjustment mechanism in cases of asymmetric shocks contains a number of references to the need for increased coordination of the economic strategies of the 11 euro countries in relation to their budgetary and pay policy which we are against.
The report points out that the risk of country-specific economic shocks will not disappear after the introduction of the euro, and that it is therefore necessary to establish a stabilisation fund which the euro countries will be able to borrow from in cases of asymmetric shocks.
We agree that the risk of country-specific economic shocks will not disappear within the euro zone.
In spite of considerable vertical integration in terms of the coordination of the economies of the Member States in recent years, there have been many examples of purely country-specific shocks.
<P>
The introduction of the euro will entail a definitive locking together of the monetary and currency policies of the 11 euro countries.
The 11 Member States will thereby lose a vital economic instrument in the event of a financial crisis.
The option of devaluing the krone or allowing it to float freely - which for example is what happened in Finland with the markka at the beginning of the 1990s, with great economic success as a result, an increase in exports and low inflation - will be irrevocably abandoned.
Instead, the Member States can try to improve their competitiveness by allowing the economic crisis to filter down through the pay structure, with lower minimum wages and poorer working conditions as a result.
This situation will be reinforced by the fact that the EU is not an optimal currency area because, amongst other things, there is little cross-border mobility of the labour force.
At the same time, a stabilisation fund will not significantly modify country-specific shocks because there is a ceiling on the EU's budget of 1.27 % of total GNP.
Therefore it will not be possible to channel sufficient funds to regions or countries with economic crises.
<P>
Together with the UK, Denmark and Sweden have chosen to remain outside the third stage of EMU.
We will stick to this policy, because we consider it vitally important that it should be up to the citizens of the individual Member States to decide on economic objectives and instruments.
This regulatory power should not be left to the European political élite and the ECB.
Therefore Mr Metten's report, which stresses that the EU's economic powers should be strengthened in connection with EMU, that it will be necessary to 'coordinate the Member States' economic policies' and that we should promote 'closer coordination of academic studies and vocational training and removing the obstacles to the transfer of social benefits', is a step in the wrong direction.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 NAME="Palm">
This report deals with the issues confronting a single currency.
The first paragraph indirectly sheds light on the real problem with a heavily regulated common monetary policy. In fact, some sound ideas are put forward here.
However, I am highly critical of large sections of the report and consequently cannot vote in favour.
<P>
Economic and monetary union is a political project, entailing the introduction of a single currency.
Paragraph 2 of the report states that 'it will be necessary to coordinate the Member States' economic policies more closely'.
Economic policy is our ultimate means of securing jobs and guaranteeing welfare.
Once countries are tied by the Treaty's criteria for EMU, employment and welfare are not exactly set to benefit.
Some Member States have actually chosen not to participate in the third phase of monetary union.
And I would of course challenge the rapporteur on the need for wage adaptation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="Ribeiro">
The issue of asymmetric shocks has become a priority given the fact that the introduction of the euro has coincided with an economic crisis facing every country in the world.
<P>
Let it not be said - as is both implicit and explicit in the report - that, despite the euro, the Member States might still be confronted with asymmetric shocks even though the single currency should lessen the likelihood of them occurring.
<P>
Asymmetric shocks have their origin in asymmetric national economies, a reality which the euro does not eliminate, and in the way that they can react to any situations and shocks that might affect them asymmetrically.
With the introduction of the euro what some countries have lost is the possibility of using an instrument, namely the currency of those economies and its exchange rate relationship with other currencies.
Shocks can actually be made worse by having an instrument that actually exaggerates what triggered them in the first place, and because the defences of their victims are being watered down into a group which is not just disregarding but actually ignoring the asymmetries of the various national situations.
<P>
However, our basic reservations about this motion for a resolution will not stop us from supporting the creation of a Stabilisation Fund, but we do so grudgingly as this has to be seen as inevitable; it would be compatible with the Stability Pact, the main plank of the strategy, and it would provide a guarantee mechanism with loans to be repaid with interest - something that we object to.
<P>
The positive aspect of the creation of a Stabilisation Fund to deal with certain asymmetric shocks, the whole philosophy behind the motion for a resolution and the unacceptable characteristics of this vital fund explain why we voted as we did.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 NAME="Rovsing">
This own-initiative report by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy is a reflection of a strong desire to take into account all the problems which could occur in the financial markets after the introduction of the euro.
It is also an expression of great clear-sightedness and very thorough economic analysis which deserves praise.
The common currency can only be the stabilising economic factor which everyone expects if the necessary attention is paid in good time to all the danger signs which arise inside and outside the EU.
This report is a step in the continuing assessment of all the relevant factors in any effects the euro may have.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Theonas">
Just 15 days before the beginning of the third phase of EMU and the creation of the euro, the European Parliament is turning its attention, albeit only partially, to the consequences that these will have in different Member States and regions of the Community and their impact on various branches of industry and economic sectors.
As usual, despite repeated urgings, even by Parliament itself which adopted a number of related amendments of ours in previous reports, the Commission still remains silent and is not disclosing studies, which we are sure are in its possession, concerning the consequences of EMU for the economies of the Member States, the various branches and sectors of the economy, employment, labour relations, social security and peoples' incomes.
On the contrary, it is wasting billions on propaganda for the euro in an effort to make it acceptable to working people, who are strongly opposed to it and voicing their disapproval in mass events in all the Community's Member States in defence of their rights.
<P>
The Metten report, perhaps for the first time, mentions certain consequences of EMU and the euro which will affect the Member States, especially those with the weaker economies.
This amounts to public acceptance of the law of unequal development which is inherent in the nature of the capitalist system and can be seen even within our countries.
However, they have to hand an important means for dealing with it, namely the national budgets which amount to nearly 50 % of their GDP, even if they use those means ineffectually.
<P>
Apart from a timid reference to the Community budget, the Metten report proposes as a means for dealing with the forthcoming crises that a loan fund should be created, to which Member States that fall victim to the crisis can have recourse for loans subject to interest, in order to cope with the crisis.
The report itself recognises that national monetary policies will cease within the euro area, and that this will essentially happen also with Member States outside its area, and the absolute arbiter of monetary policy will now be the European Central Bank, which will set a uniform interest rate that will inevitably be quite inappropriate for some Member States thereby sparking off crises.
The same will happen in the event that Member States cannot observe the deficit index when, in accordance with the stability pact, they will be required to pay fines while simultaneously applying for a loan from the proposed fund.
<P>
To deal with crises at national and Community level and to harmonise the economies, harmonisation of tax policy is advanced as an essential element. This will mean new burdens for working people who in one way or another and in any event will be called upon to bear the cost of economic and monetary union, the euro, economic recession and the crises.
<P>
The great truth brought out by this report is its emphasis that 'after the end of national monetary sovereignty, more drastic financial and pay policies will be necessary'.
<P>
After the scrutiny of national budget expenditure in the light of financial discipline and the stability pact, after the reduction of public expenditure on education, health, social security and regional development, the Member States are now being asked to exercise control over their budget resources, increasing those contributed by the public, working people, farmers and the self-employed, and to increase their pressures for the continuation of low pay settlements or even reduced wages by changing labour relations.
<P>
Such plans cannot be and are not acceptable to working people throughout Europe, who are struggling to oppose this policy which goes completely against their interests and stresses monopoly preferences.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 1.05 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
European Council in Vienna - Austrian Presidency (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on the European Council report and the Commission statement on the European Council meeting of 11 and 12 December in Vienna, and the statement by the President-in-Office of the Council on the activities of the Austrian Presidency.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schiedermeier">
Mr President, the Austrian Presidency's task was certainly hampered by outside circumstances.
Nevertheless, I note today that agreement has been reached on the 1999 employment policy guidelines.
The European Investment Bank's interim report on the implementation of the special action programme on employment is also positive.
The Council is, so I hope, about to agree the European company directive.
On the other hand, there is little sign of progress on Agenda 2000.
Here I do not share the optimism of the presidency of the Council.
<P>
The proposal by the Austrian Commissioner responsible for agriculture policy, who is now present, is not acceptable as it stands.
For my farmers, who are mainly dairy and meat producers, it means certain doom.
A sensible approach would be national - or in Germany regional - cofinancing for correspondingly high compensatory payments.
The forthcoming German Presidency of the Council can now prove whether it supports the farmers, given that Austria has not resolved this issue.
At the same time, it could defuse the issue of net contributors.
The proposals on Objective 2 structural policy flagrantly disadvantage our rural areas.
That applies in particular to border regions and third countries.
Here too I see no sign of progress, although Austria should be particularly interested in this question.
<P>
Under the principle of subsidiarity, we should give regional and local authorities considerably more freedom to allocate national aid money.
Closeness to the people is a crucial European added value.
The more the Union distances itself from the people, the more it endangers itself.
In future, all decisions must take account of this important factor.
The same applies to enlargement.
It is to be welcomed. But first the applicant countries must make their own contribution.
Transitional periods are necessary for agriculture and the free movement of workers, in the interest of both existing and future Member States.
Unfortunately, the President-in-Office said nothing about that.
But ignoring the problem is no help either.
The European CSU group will therefore be carefully monitoring future developments on these questions under the German Presidency of the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=91 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Arias Cañete">
Mr President, Commissioner, in order to assess the work of a presidency, due consideration must be given to both the objective progress made in terms of the process of European integration and the dedication and willingness with which the presidency has fulfilled its role as a driving force and as an arbitrator.
<P>
On this occasion, the Austrian Presidency was faced with, among other challenges, an extremely difficult task: that of giving impetus to the process of completing, within a reasonable timescale, the various pillars that make up Agenda 2000, and of doing so at a time when the Union was fraught with budgetary tensions.
No-one who was aware of the objective difficulties the pending issues posed would have expected the Austrian Presidency to have concluded the most important elements of Agenda 2000.
Internal Council deliberations on the matter, on a package that needs to be looked at as a whole, had not reached a conclusion.
<P>
However, positive progress has been made in relation to many technical aspects of Agenda 2000 and these will contribute effectively in helping to make it possible to reach an overall agreement during the present legislature.
<P>
Nonetheless, Mr President, we might wonder about the support the presidency gave at a stage to unbalanced initiatives in the financial and budgetary fields, which, far from facilitating a consensus between the various Member State positions, were clearly aligned with one of the conflicting national positions.
<P>
We do, however, welcome the fact that the Vienna European Council managed to restore balance to the situation and that the Commission's initial proposal is again being used as a sound basis for negotiation, which will have to be a core element of the final agreement, as President Santer pointed out this morning.
<P>
Lastly, I would like to congratulate the Austrian Presidency for placing considerable emphasis on active employment policies and for encouraging the Member States to define policies in their national action plans and establish additional objectives and more precise timetables.
This might mean the beginning of a genuine Community social policy that could act as a counterweight to the single currency and single market.
<P>
It may be true that the progress made has not been spectacular, but no-one in this Parliament can deny the effort, dedication and professionalism that the Austrian Presidency has shown over the past six months.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=92 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Burenstam Linder">
Failure to tackle the real strategic issues in Vienna - contrary to the original plan - meant that the summit did not quite fulfil its promise.
Time was devoted to undoing a long-sealed package on duty-free sales.
But it is an ill wind that blows no good, so let us hope that those governments with a penchant for high taxation might come to the realisation that lower taxes across the board - and not just in this trivial area of duty-free sales - make economic sense and create jobs.
<P>
I deplore the slowdown in the process of enlargement to the east that was consecrated by Vienna.
The most flagrant evidence of this is the Commission's shelving of its position paper on Latvia and Lithuania.
Enlargement is not purely about pleasing the ten applicant countries in Central and Eastern Europe.
We are not offering alms to our poor neighbours.
No round of accession has so far taken place, yet the EU is already drawing great benefit from its eastward links.
The applicant countries have reformed their economies in such a way as to furnish us with new markets and jobs.
They know what is expected of them.
Political reform has consolidated democracy; and this commitment to human rights and democratic principles has delivered a more peaceful Europe.
If enlargement is put on the back burner, such gains could be lost.
Those concerned need a clear target in their sights; only then will they be able to reconcile conflicting wishes and continue along the road to reform.
<P>
The security situation in the Baltic area is a sensitive one, and I find it particularly distressing that the Swedish Government should have gone along with this pruning of the agenda, to the detriment of Latvia and Lithuania.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valverde López">
Mr President, I think that we should all welcome the fact that the Council, in its various forms - and on this occasion, the European Council itself -, increasingly participates in our debates.
Such participation reveals the true nature of the Community institutions.
However, so as not to confuse public opinion, each institution needs to fulfil the role assigned to it, and the Council, when giving press conferences and making statements, would do well to remember that the role of the Council of the European Union is to define main policy areas. It is then incumbent upon the Union's institutions to adopt and implement these policies.
In this way, we would avoid the confusion that has built up over the past few weeks, especially in relation to funding. What is more, each institution should fulfil its own responsibilities.
<P>
And in relation to funding, it is indeed true that the European Council stated quite a few months ago now that it was not prepared to increase the European Union's own resources.
This is a political decision.
But it was then up to the Commission to have either accepted or debated it, or to have put forward a sufficiently ambitious proposal itself.
But in this instance, the Commission did not rise to the occasion and it did not have enough ambition. It is a surprise to public opinion and, of course, Parliament that the Commission is talking about financial perspectives for the next seven-year period without having even met the targets set for the end of next year.
This lies at the heart of all the troubles and tensions we are likely to experience in the coming months. What is more, we are, of course, completely overlooking the fact that, in light of the principles evoked by Member States regarding European integration, there is also the principle of precise budgetary control to be taken into account.
In other words, each institution needs to have sufficient financial means to fulfil the tasks assigned to it.
If the budget is insufficient, we cannot achieve our aims.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=94 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Thomas">
Mr President, we are back to the usual routine.
Once again a summit has declared that employment is the top priority.
Once again nothing has come of the new emphasis Parliament had expected to be put on coordinating economic and monetary policy.
The recommendation that additional, quantifiable objectives and timetables should be laid down at national level is commendable.
But there are no concrete agreements.
One exception, Mr Fischler, is the European Commission.
Mr Santer said that existing programmes will be packaged together. We will target them at the ESF and at employment.
That is indeed a European added value, a major initiative.
<P>
Yet it is highly questionable whether we will obtain the employment pact at European level which the Germans are to achieve by March.
The new German Government is endeavouring to preach the virtues of this package at national level, but with little result.
Chancellor Schröder, who is inexperienced in office, and particularly so at European level, is providing against the future by saying that we must not place too high hopes in the German Presidency.
The Austrian Foreign Minister is right on one point, when he said that much improvement is still needed in relation to foreign and security policy - something which also applies to employment.
There is nothing further we can add.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=95 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Menrad">
Mr President, no spectacular decisions have been taken in the Council over the past six months, but Austria's diligent diplomacy has taken the Community forward.
I wish to concentrate on one particular area: promoting the social dialogue.
At business level, let me refer you to the Austrian compromise proposal on a European limited company, which follows years of discussion.
In 1997, the European Parliament made it clear that it is important to prevent certain national codetermination systems from simply being exported, but also to prevent any weakening of codetermination in countries which already have far-reaching rights.
The Austrian compromise largely satisfies these demands.
But we have had enough discussions now.
We expect the forthcoming German Presidency finally to bring about a political agreement on the sound basis of the Austrian proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=96 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Cunha">
Mr President, the Vienna European Council was a huge failure despite the efforts of the Austrian Presidency.
The fact that everything has been postponed until the German Presidency has been compounded by a negative overall result marked by the controversy about how to finance the Union, which could lead to a reduction of 10 % in agricultural spending and 25 % in the Structural Funds.
<P>
We should not be afraid to seize the bull by the horns, even if it is financing enlargement or correcting the unfair contributions by some of the richer of the Member States to the European Union budget.
But it would politically inexplicable if these two problems were to be resolved at the cost of funds aimed at the poorest countries and regions among the current 15 Member States of the European Union, turning Article 2 of the Maastricht Treaty on economic and social cohesion into a dead letter.
<P>
On this score, the memorandum on financing presented by the presidency is a disgrace to whoever drafted it and is politically irresponsible.
I say this because, when presenting it, the presidency knew full well that it could not possibly be used as a basis for credible work, it is so unfair and short-sighted.
Therefore I can only conclude that it did so for tactical reasons with the aim of obliging the cohesion states to lower their expectations in relation to Agenda 2000.
In other words between a disgrace and a cataclysm obviously the former option would be the lesser of two evils.
<P>
I have a nagging doubt about whether or not this position was taken in cahoots with the next Council presidency!
If it was then we are facing a serious crisis in the history of the European Union - curiously at a time when 11 out of the 15 prime ministers are socialists.
<P>
They are all aware of the complex negotiations behind Agenda 2000 and the difficulties faced by the Council in finding fair and reasonable solutions.
But that is why the various governments that make up the Council were elected.
We respect the work done by the Austrian Presidency, although we disagree with some of the options taken and we wish the German Presidency - due to take up its functions in a fortnight's time - more success.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=97 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, sadly we cannot say that the Vienna summit was a success.
Worse still, it was actually a failure.
It was a flop, although I do not think that was the fault of the Austrian Presidency.
I honestly believe that Mrs Ferrero, Mr Schüssel and Mr Klima too did their best.
But one way and another, things were managed away from the summit in a way which offered no chance of a better outcome.
<P>
To my mind, it beggars belief that the European summit of Heads of Government should concern itself with tax-free shops and VAT on the services of hairdressers and shoemakers.
Not that these are not useful matters, but they can be dealt with in the specialist Councils by the specialist ministers concerned.
And all this at a time when fighting is breaking out across our borders in Kosovo, when the situation in the Middle East is extremely tense, when the financial and economic crisis in Asia and South America is spilling over into Russia, when unemployment remains high.
And here are Europe's Heads of Government worrying about tax-free shops and VAT on haircuts.
<P>
More seriously still, the Vienna summit was a trial run for the debate on the future financing of the Union.
There was a dreadful row over this, as regards the contributions.
It means in fact that the whole question of contributions will increasingly block one of the most important projects of the European Union, the accession of new countries.
I find that somewhat amazing.
I think it would be helpful, for example, if the Commission would designate some people of high standing to try to solve the whole problem of the Union's finances and come up with an objective and honest proposal on it.
That would stop this issue from dominating the agenda for months to come.
<P>
Mr President, for the first time we had a summit of eleven Social Democrat Heads of Government, but looking at the outcome I have to say in all honesty that it did not distinguish itself by sound management and wise decisions.
We really must hope that things are better in the future, and that the spirit of Jacques Delors and Helmut Kohl will light upon these Heads of Government again, otherwise we shall be heading for a fine catastrophe in future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Matikainen-Kallström">
Mr President, although the Vienna summit produced meagre results, the question of the Nordic dimension is one of the most prominent.
The Commission's document on the Nordic dimension, which was officially presented at Vienna, is excellent.
It covers many areas of policy, from future nuclear and environmental policy to cooperation with our EU neighbours.
The document sets forth clear operational proposals for the development of different forms of collaboration.
<P>
The stabilising effect of the Nordic dimension cannot be underestimated.
The economic and political crisis in Russia has underlined the need for the Union to take action to dampen down its effects.
The culmination of the Russian crisis will have repercussions for issues such as nuclear safety and Union enlargement, especially regarding the Baltic countries.
<P>
It is vital that the operational proposals put forward by the Commission are realised.
Cooperation among the countries that share the Baltic coastline must be improved.
Urgent measures have to be taken to prevent marine pollution.
Better exploitation of the vast energy resources in north-western Russia, and, on a wider basis, in the Barents Sea, has to be made one of the main objectives of the Nordic dimension.
<P>
I have been particularly concerned about nuclear safety in Russia amid the social turmoil there.
Let us hope the Commission will implement its proposed research projects concerning nuclear safety and the treatment of spent nuclear fuel as quickly as possible, so that we can gain a clear picture of the real state of affairs and problems can be solved as soon as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
I have received seven motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2).
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Human rights in the world
<SPEAKER ID=100 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=101 NAME="Roubatis">
Mr President, with this report I wish to pay tribute to my many friends who have been lost, victims of the bestiality that has characterised a large part of recent history.
To Felipe the painter, his wife Elpis and his son Ernesto, two years old, all three of whom disappeared in Pinochet's Chile.
To Mustafa and Akim from Van and Diyarbakir, who were murdered by the Grey Wolves in Adana.
To my schoolmate Theodoros, who was murdered during Turkey's invasion of Cyprus.
To Sasha, the judge from Nis, who died somewhere near Split after dreadful torture, as we heard later.
To Maté, the doctor from Zagreb, who was found with a bullet in the back of his head outside Tuzla where he had been working as a volunteer because, as he said, blood is red whoever you are, and doctors should not let it flow.
And to the others from East Timor, Nigeria, Tibet, whom I did not have a chance to get to know because they were murdered.
<P>
You know, it is only when we personify barbarity that we can comprehend what the loss of a human life means.
Only when we can see the effect on specific people of any policy we decide upon will we grasp the consequences of our statements.
Only then will we understand that we cannot use empty and slick expressions to assuage our guilt when our words are not translated into deeds and we are to blame.
<P>
There is unfortunately still a large gap between words and deeds.
The European Union's reactions to the issue of human rights vary greatly.
Likewise, the human resources and Community funding allocated to human rights activities are fragmented.
There is therefore a need for the Commission to organise the administrative and decision-making structures into a single body; to reconsider the idea of creating a fully developed service for human rights and democracy; to entrust a Vice-President of the Commission with the coordination of foreign relations and a Commissioner with responsibility for matters related to human rights.
To overcome one of the most important deficits in the present institutional structure, in my view an integrated appraisal and monitoring system for human rights must be created before any decision or agreement involving third countries is implemented.
<P>
Such an appraisal, which is consistent and cohesive, will form the basis for subsequent monitoring of the human rights situation.
That integrated system for the appraisal and monitoring of human rights will be governed by the fundamental principles accepted by the European Union.
Principles which must not be abandoned for reasons connected with the economic, strategic or political interests of the Union or any of its Member States.
You know, it is much easier for us to be strict with countries whose resources are limited, but if we really believe in the principles we proclaim, then multilayered interests which take into account various motives that conflict with the demands of consistency, and the deployment of tenuous strategic and other arguments, should have no place in discussions about human rights, because then our words are not translated into deeds and the words themselves become prejudicial.
<P>
I do not think we can continue behaving as we have until now, in other words with empty references to principles and values but no action.
And we cannot do that in order to assuage any guilt we may feel for our lack of action.
A consistent attitude demands that we must make it clear that there is no refuge anywhere for any tyrant, no refuge anywhere for any despot, none for any of the leaders we pretend have been democratically elected in utterly undemocratic situations.
<P>
These are harsh truths, but we would do well to face up to them.
We must add flesh and bones to what we say.
Human rights are an essential aspect and element of the European Union's foreign policy.
It is not enough to declare good intentions.
Human rights should be at the heart of the EU's foreign policy, and I appeal to the Council and the Commission not to see human rights in relation to other policies and to regard human rights as something quite separate and act accordingly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 NAME="Barros Moura">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as I present this report I should like to begin by thanking everyone who has helped to draft it, in particular my colleagues in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy and, above all, members of the secretariat whose great technical skills and professionalism have made a major contribution to the heritage of democratic culture and human rights that honours the European Parliament.
<P>
This report is being debated at a particularly significant moment for human rights: we are commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration and the 10th Anniversary of the Award of the Sakharov prize.
Following the decision in the Pinochet case we can also celebrate a gigantic step against impunity, bringing an end to what might be called the 'free circulation of dictators'.
Suharto and others watch out.
<P>
Thus we can see that the strength of democratic public opinion can prevail over the requirements of realpolitik and help to bring into action elements - albeit in their early stages - of an international human rights order currently being sketched out in the European Union, with its supranational institutions based on the principles of the rule of law and its area of freedom, security and justice.
<P>
The report, however, neither hides nor sweetens the reality.
On the most elementary human rights, such as the right to life, freedom and dignity, the Universal Declaration continues largely to be a dead letter.
I thought it both important and instructive, however, despite some of the pessimistic discussions that we have heard in recent days, to emphasise the positive aspects: the progress in ratifying international pacts, the creation or approval of the statute of an International Criminal Court, which, despite its limitations, opens the door to creating an international legal order, and last but not least the strength of democratic public opinion, of a universal opinion going beyond national frontiers and capable of defending and often imposing the fundamental principles that we fight for here.
It is this movement that should give us all hope and it is this movement that is alive and well here, as we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration.
<P>
Now that the Cold War has come to an end, it is high time to dissociate the fight for human rights from ideological conflict and apply human rights effectively in their universality, interdependence and indivisibility.
There are no ideological or geopolitical prejudices that can legitimise different standards in terms of human rights.
We cannot have different rules for different people as we did during the Cold War when we excused Salazar, Franco, Mobutu and Suharto for the sake of anti-Soviet discipline.
<P>
On the other hand, it is not admissible to weigh up individual rights against the rights of the people, or to weigh up civil and political rights against economic, social and cultural rights, just as it is impossible to differentiate between substantive, economic and social democracy and so-called 'formal democracy'.
As we said a long time ago, along with Gorbachev, human rights are an end in themselves.
<P>
The report that I am presenting you on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs deals with some of the classical themes of human rights: the death penalty, the rights of children, the white slave trade, refugees.
But, with the support of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, I wanted my report to go a little further and not just to place responsibility on governments and states, but also to take into consideration the consequences of the globalised economy and finances and the effectiveness of human rights democracy.
<P>
Although I myself think that this globalisation in itself is a positive development, the situation is not risk-free.
It calls for the creation of supranational mechanisms able to exercise political regulation while preserving democracy and upholding human rights, substantially and fundamentally.
The report proposes that European politics should be shored up by human rights.
But it does not propose the export of a eurocentric political order.
Instead it proposes that the European Union should be seen as a civilian power which, at international level, promotes the values of solidarity and justice but does not set out to impose an order. Its aim is to preserve its own European model of democracy and human rights and fight trends towards a levelling down, while not imposing any form of protectionism.
This, however, requires the European Union - as the report says - to be able to be coherent between its external policy on human rights and the need to make sure at the same time that, within the European Union itself, it respects the rights of people settling within the European Union from third countries.
<P>
I believe the European Union has the means and the instruments to act.
But we also need political will.
I therefore call on the Commission to respond to the practical proposals set out in this report.
I should also like to say that I am going to table an oral amendment of my own, calling for an international effort proposed by our President for a so-called 'Millennium amnesty' so that, in this way we can celebrate the values we fight for here in the promotion of human rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="Torres Couto">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today we are discussing the future rules for implementing European Union operations which, as part of its policy on development cooperation, contribute to the general objective of development and the consolidation of democracy and the rule of law along with human rights, fundamental freedoms and the proper management of public affairs.
<P>
By approving this regulation, the Commission will be setting the conditions for granting, mobilising and implementing aid as well as those for sustaining the actions needed to give more visibility to the effects of this aid on democracy and human rights.
In the future, full satisfaction will be given to the European Parliament's concern - which it has successfully defended - that, in the cooperation relations that it maintains with all developing countries, the European Union will have to attach greater importance to the promotion of human rights and democratic values in those countries.
<P>
I would even go so far as to say that the promotion of human rights, democratic values, the rule of law, good governance and the fight against corruption should become essential elements of any future agreement.
When we look at the African continent and see that there are open conflicts still taking place in sixteen countries, costing thousands of victims every day and wasting on military equipment the resources that should be spent on health, education and water supplies for its people, and when we know that 1.3 billion people in the developing countries have a purchasing power of one dollar per day, we cannot continue to dither in a way that has prevented cooperation aid from pursuing noble objectives and causes that would have easily identifiable results in relieving extreme poverty among those populations.
<P>
In countries subject for decades to brutal dictatorships, so often supported and even nourished by European states, and in others subjected to long and bloody armed conflicts, the European Union cannot be satisfied with free elections as a sufficient and lasting means of transition towards democracy.
Elections must be followed up by the necessary constitutional and legislative reforms to promote the strengthening of the rule of law and, in particular, to provide support for the independence and strengthening of the judiciary and for a penitentiary system that respects human beings, and to foster pluralism both in terms of politics and the civil society, by strengthening the institutions needed for ensuring pluralism in society, including non-governmental organisations; this should also be accompanied by the promotion of independent, pluralist and responsible media and support for the freedom of the press, as well as respect for the rights of freedom of association and the promotion of equal opportunities and non-discriminatory practices, including measures to fight racism, xenophobia and sexism, and supporting initiatives for abolishing the death penalty.
<P>
Unless all of these transformations are carried out the dictators and those in power in countries with single party regimes will be limited to a democratic baptism without any real change in the basic political practices, and without ensuring rules of democratic alternation, which requires support for consolidating democratic political parties.
Without the existence of parliaments with effective powers of taxation, without the existence of courts and an independent judicial system, without free press and media, it will be always impossible to consolidate democracy, the rule of law, respect for fundamental rights, public freedoms and proper management of public affairs, all preconditions for economic growth and combating poverty.
<P>
But in addition to all of these problems, I would draw particular attention to the fight against corruption and good governance as essential elements that all cooperation and development agreements with third countries should contain.
The latest report by the World Bank, 'Assessing Aid', is clear on this score: aid can be extremely positive and effective in the promotion of growth and the reduction of poverty as long as it is applied in a healthy economic environment.
Rigorous economic management is more important for developing countries than international financial aid, which can only have positive impacts in countries which have already carried out the necessary political and institutional reforms.
<P>
I think a case in point is that of Mozambique, an example which should be borne in mind, promoted and rewarded.
Aid is useful when it goes into the hands of those who know how to use it.
If on the other hand it goes into the hands of all of the Mobutus and Mugabes of this world then only the tax-havens where so much money laundering takes place will benefit, along with certain western politicians and financiers who support them, because - let us not forget - there is only passive corruption in the developing countries and the actively corrupt all live in the rich countries.
<P>
If genocide took place in Rwanda or war is still raging in Angola it is only thanks to certain European countries and their leaders.
At this moment in time, defenceless children and adults are dying in the central Angolan highlands because, in Antwerp, there are people still buying diamonds with complete impunity, scorning the sanctions imposed by the European Union and the rest of the international community.
<P>
Unfortunately, cases where interests take precedence over duties are innumerable, and they all contribute to the worsening of the misery in which millions of human beings live.
We are forever hearing news of dictators with personal fortunes equal to or greater than the foreign debts of their countries.
There are plenty of examples of countries such as Tanzania into which two billion dollars were channelled to build roads, and yet the communication networks do not function because of the lack of maintenance.
<P>
Donors should, in the future, sell good ideas and not bad projects.
We cannot continue to let these wrongdoers benefit.
On the other hand, there are countries that make huge sacrifices and have managed to implement stable macroeconomic policies, opening up trade, strengthening laws and rights and fighting corruption, and they should be rewarded by strengthening cooperation and totally writing off their foreign debt.
To paraphrase Martin Wolf, I would like to say that we should first of all help those who help themselves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 NAME="Galeote Quecedo">
Mr President, events have proved that Parliament was fully justified in its desire to create a solid legal basis for cooperation in the field of democracy and human rights in the European Union.
For our part, we have sought, throughout the parliamentary debate, to improve the European Commission's text.
<P>
Firstly, the foundations have been laid for determining the correct procedures and for establishing an overall plan for European cooperation. This will enable actions to be coherently programmed, strategies and priorities to be determined, and an agreement to be reached on how best to detect and select the specific actions needed to optimise the impact, sustainability and visibility of the resources earmarked to this end.
<P>
Another fundamental objective is to ensure that coordinating instruments exist at all levels, in particular as regards cooperation with the Member States of the Union.
<P>
In my opinion, special mention must be made of the proposals on the Commission's responsibilities, the procedures to be followed for adopting and monitoring projects, the intervention of the planned consultative committee and, above all, the European Parliament's role in the development of these programmes.
Monitoring, evaluation, control and post information systems have been substantially modified both from a political and an administrative point of view. This will undoubtedly heighten the impact of the actions, enable any problems to be remedied and improve their future implementation.
<P>
In this particular respect, the role of the European Parliament has been modified as it was evidently insufficient in the initial draft of the proposal.
I would just like to mention the annual report, which will contain details of the implementation of the programmes in the previous financial year and the planning and selection of the programmes for the current financial year, and the Commission will have to submit this to the European Parliament. It must be submitted in good time to enable Parliament to hold an annual debate in the House during the first half of the year and before it considers the corresponding budgetary section as part of the general debate on the annual budgets.
<P>
I shall end by saying that I think it is vital for this regulation's approval to be accompanied by actions that will give its content real meaning. I shall just mention the two that I consider most important.
The first is the need to review the structure of the Commission in order to better coordinate the units involved in cooperation, in line with the proposal for a horizontal coordinated structure, which has been referred to in previous parliamentary resolutions. The second is the urgent need to increase human resources, which are currently unable to cope with the ambitious programme that, with the implementation of the regulation, has to be developed in terms of cooperation in democracy and human rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 NAME="Virrankoski">
Mr President, respect for human rights and basic rights and the consolidation of the rule of law are key principles of the EU.
Mr Torres Couto's report concerns a regulation that confirms the position for a legal basis for these principles in developing countries.
I wish to thank the rapporteur for an excellent report.
<P>
The Committee on Budgets drafted an opinion on this matter, which mainly concentrated on funding procedures.
Firstly, with regard to how long the programme should last, the committee suggested there should be no time limit.
This has been approved in the report.
So has the committee's view that appropriations should be decided on an annual basis in association with Parliament's budget debate.
<P>
The Committee on Budgets was also concerned about what is clearly differentiation in technical support.
For that reason the Committee wanted an addendum to Article 3 which called for differentiation in the relevant funding in the budget.
Similarly the committee has asked the Commission to put forward a proposal as to whether we should use part A or B of the budget.
<P>
Perhaps one of the most important organisational changes to have taken place in the Committee on Budgets is the importance given to the interinstitutional working party.
In connection with this year's budget an advisory working party is to be set up to focus on human rights, and the Council and Parliament have sanctioned it for next year.
Its purpose is to coordinate activities each year, and regulations on this are included in the report.
Such working parties enjoy a good reputation, for example in the MEDA Programme, and this working party would be handled in the same way as committees made up of Member States.
<P>
It is vital that this report should be approved so that a legal basis may be established for the appropriations concerned.
That is why strong representations must be made to the Council for this regulation to come into force as soon as is possible, and no later than March, so that appropriations can start to be used.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, I fully endorse the reports by Mr Roubatis, Mr Barros Moura and Mr Torres Couto.
I shall not go into them in detail, since the Commissioner knows very well what he has to do.
These are good opinions.
I also wished to express my appreciation of the work which Mrs Lenz has done in recent years in this House.
Perhaps we shall have an opportunity to do that before the end of this parliamentary term, but her contribution should not go unacknowledged.
Our thanks too to the officials who give you such good support.
<P>
I have just one or two points to make.
Who could have thought, 50 years ago, that a recommendation to the UN General Assembly would be so important?
It is a recommendation which contains some Utopian ideas and some paradoxes.
It is still a delicate flower, but some notice is being taken of it.
However, the 'never again' of genocide is not yet a reality.
Think of Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo and what Mr Torres Couto said just now, the things going on in Angola which are not in the media spotlight.
The whole business of enforcing human rights is based on two approaches, legal and political.
<P>
I have some comments concerning the legal aspect.
The Union has given a great deal of support towards achieving this outside the Union.
But I think that progress in this respect is somewhat under threat, because there are too many human rights.
For every ill, there is now a human right.
The right to holidays, the right to sleep - I think it has all gone rather too far.
With any luck, there will be the right to immortality too, and we know for a fact that we cannot have that.
So I would advocate setting limits, so that the traditional human rights, those concerning the individual, are not devalued. There is a risk that this may happen, and it is dangerous.
I want to guard against that.
<P>
Then there is the political aspect.
There is a High Commissioner, a Security Council which dithers and, in the case of Rwanda, decides too late.
It was known that genocide was going on, but no one wanted to call it by its name, with tragic consequences.
The EU vacillated in its foreign policy.
Ocalan is not brought to justice, Pinochet may be, Castro was not, and nor was Kabila.
Really, I give up.
Chinese dissidents have said: keep up the pressure from the bottom up, then the rule of law and the political aspect will be all right.
I totally agree with that, Mr President.
We must keep it up.
But the man in the street wants to see some concrete results.
On 10 December, I saw this little map in the paper showing the countries in the world which still have capital punishment.
You may not be able to see it too well, Commissioner, but there are not many parts which are coloured.
Can you see it? The light blue bits?
People want to see an end to it, they want no more children going to war.
But there are good things to report about the multinationals.
The Netherlands has published a book about human rights, and that is important.
I agree with what Mr Gil-Robles said in Vienna on 10 December: an amnesty for conscientious objectors.
That would be a good thing and something concrete.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Kreissl-Dörfler">
Mr President, in no area is the European Union as visible and influential internationally as in external economic relations.
So there is hardly any other policy area through which it is so necessary to promote human rights and where there is so much chance of success.
We influence the human rights situation in third countries not just by supporting free elections, consolidating the rule of law and taking crisis-prevention measures.
We do it just as much and often to a far greater degree through our trade relations, imports and exports, investment, export credit guarantees and, last but not least, our agricultural policy.
Here we can and must intervene on a regulatory basis, by addressing our partners in third countries and also the operators in the European Union, such as the European multinational companies.
<P>
However, it is not enough to invoke the two human rights packages and the ILO conventions in the preambles to bi- and multilateral agreements, as in the most recent agreement with Mexico.
We are calling, for example, for annual Commission reports on the human rights situation and, where necessary, concrete sanctions.
At the same time, however, we also wish to give active support to positive trends.
The new GSP with its positive incentives clause, which rewards respect for human rights with tariff cuts, is an important step forward here.
Countries such as Colombia, which already enjoy free trade, will lose this preferential treatment if the human rights of the various generations are persistently infringed.
If freedom to join trade unions is denied, the health of workers put at risk or the habitat of the indigenous populations reduced, European companies are often enough partly to blame.
That is why we urgently need, as a first step, a binding code of conduct for the multinational companies based in the European Union.
<P>
But all these proposed measures must be applied in a coherent and transparent way.
This also means that the European Parliament must acquire a greater say, because the road does not just go from Rome via Maastricht to Amsterdam; it leads far beyond.
<P>
Let me conclude with one further point: in many cases, non-intervention actually means brutal intervention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Lenz">
Mr President, I should like to praise the good cooperation from members of all the groups on these reports, and in all the various committees.
What I do not praise, however, is the Bureau's organisation, with us sitting up here while the Sakharov prize is being discussed downstairs.
That really was another master stroke!
<P>
Mr President, I have two minutes' speaking time - we know a little more about human rights, which is why we cannot hold an exhaustive discussion here.
The UN declaration we are celebrating today was the outcome of a terrible war.
The Sakharov prize was an award for fighting terrible systems of bondage.
Originally human rights were only a matter for national policy, and there was no right of intervention.
Today, they are bound up indivisibly with the rule of law and democracy, with the activities of the NGOs, with civil society in its diversity and with the EU's foreign policy.
Human rights can only enter the decisive phase of implementation if they mean more than simply very concrete measures to combat the violation of the dignity of individual human beings and become a policy instrument of free states which are guided by more than merely self-interest.
That is why we must recognise and experience them as a practical element of every domestic and foreign policy in the EU.
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The debate today concerns not only the situation of human rights in recent years, but something which goes beyond that, and in particular what we expect after Amsterdam.
They must and will remain an important aspect of the European Union's foreign policy and, precisely because they can still be used as an instrument of national policy today, our Parliament must devote attention to them.
It is not just a question of money, it is a question of the guidelines to be observed by our committees.
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Let me say on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs that we approve the broad lines of the Roubatis report and firmly support its calls for strengthening and concentrating the logistic personnel potential that exists in the Commission, in the form of a single Vice-President and a single Commissioner responsible for human rights issues, and for a comprehensive analysis and annual reports to the European Parliament and, where appropriate, sanctions.
However, I have some reservations about setting up a human rights unit because - and I wish to make this clear - it could externalise these questions again, so that we in the European Parliament no longer have the powers of control we need.
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We are sometimes inconsistent, but there must be no moratorium on human rights policy - as well as an end to such things as inadequate speaking time; instead, we must create new prospects for the future.
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<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="President">
Mrs Lenz, the Bureau implements but does not determine procedure.
Procedure is determined by the Conference of Presidents.
I would therefore ask you to address your protest to them.
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<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Glase">
Mr President, human rights are a subject very close to the European Parliament's heart.
In the 1993 Maastricht Treaty, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms is for the first time mentioned in an article, Article 2, and not just in a preamble.
Respect for human rights is an important precondition for the achievement of democracy, development and peace.
It is easy enough just to write it down in words, and everyone endorses them.
But what is the real situation? It is only logical to regard women's rights as an indivisible part of human rights; but it will take great efforts for this to penetrate people's minds too.
Now we must make efforts to ensure that it does so.
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In some countries, fundamentalist tendencies are increasingly targeting women.
Poverty is still feminised, and not only in what is called the third world.
Women find it doubly difficult to gain access to training and to establish a livelihood, and they are seldom appointed to decision-making posts.
We are shocked to hear reports of trafficking in women, abuse of women or violence against women in general.
But all of that is happening today.
It is not a story from the last century.
The Committee on Women's Rights demands in its opinion that respect for women's rights, as a part of human rights, should be included in trade and cooperation agreements as a criterion for external relations with non-Member countries.
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We have enshrined the need to respect human rights. But the European Union must take further steps to promote and protect the dignity and human rights of women both here and throughout the world.
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<SPEAKER ID=111 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, let me begin by warmly congratulating the rapporteurs on their excellent reports, though I must admit that I am more personally familiar with the Roubatis and Barros Moura reports and therefore find it easier to evaluate them.
Mr Roubatis began rather poetically, by thanking the many women and men who have fought for human rights in their countries, and he has indeed dedicated his report to them.
We have heard Portuguese speakers and a Greek speaker; in my case, as an Austrian I know that in the dark hours of our history, when we were oppressed, it was very comforting to receive signs of solidarity from other countries in the world.
In the case of Austria, this solidarity even came from Mexico, from far away.
It is an important task for the European Parliament and the European Union as a whole to give these signs of solidarity.
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It is also important to mention at least some of the women and men who are fighting for human rights, as has been done during today's solemn anniversary, because there is one thing we should make clear: it is not a question of Europe taking action against Algeria, against Turkey, against Indonesia or some other country.
In fact, we are often looking at these countries' long-term interests.
We may be against governments, against armed forces or against those in power, but we are for the people themselves who are fighting for freedom, for human rights, in these countries.
We should constantly make it clear that we want to help them, but not out of any feeling of hostility, not out of any negative sense of superiority as improvers of the world.
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However necessary it is for us sometimes to resort to sanctions, we should after all be realistic.
What we can and should do - and the reports contain some good ideas here - is to help those who are fighting a difficult fight on the ground, at the risk of imprisonment, of sanctions and perhaps even of death.
As the Commissioner knows and as we also know, that is why it is most important that we also make adequate budgetary funds available, so that we can help those who are fighting on the ground, so that we can publicise their needs and their distress, and so that we can give them political and moral support in their fight.
We cannot conduct this fight with resolutions or with speeches.
We can only point to where the fight is actually being fought by the people themselves.
We can give them moral and political support, as well as financial support on the ground, to ensure that in the end this fight is successful.
Because a successful fight for human rights is a contribution to peace - and we all have a right to peace.
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<SPEAKER ID=112 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Soulier">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to say a few words at the end of a century that has witnessed so many massacres and attempts to exterminate different peoples on the European continent.
Without preaching to anyone, and as our colleague Mr Swoboda said a few moments ago, we undoubtedly have a few things to say to the rest of the world.
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Yet what point is there in us boasting, we who are the world's largest trading power, if, as we speak, a man is suffering in the depths of a prison or perhaps a women is being killed?
We could say a few words here on the body of doctrines that we have built for ourselves over the past 50 years, and in particular over the past 10 years. Yet what purpose would it serve if, as an industrial power and irrespective of our country of origin, we are not in fact capable of saying: 'we will no longer work with you if you do not put a stop to these massacres, if you do not stop torturing people and, as a result, you will not be able to work with even the smallest business in Europe'?
If we cannot say this - and it is neither interventionism nor a moral dictatorship -, then we are not what the eyes of the world perceive us to be: the hard core of democracy.
How many democracies exist in the world today?
There are not, at any rate, many more than double the number of countries in the Union, that is, fifteen countries.
This demonstrates precisely what our duties are.
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I believe that we should take heart in the fact that we have today welcomed a number of men and women who have fought for freedom, who are currently speaking in another room.
As I finish speaking, let us simply remember that such freedom is fragile and can disappear in a puff of smoke.
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<SPEAKER ID=113 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, Commissioner, the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is an important moment.
Of course we are talking about long-term matters here.
We have all worked for human rights, every group, every Member of Parliament, we know that.
But statements about the longer term must not, of course, close our eyes to shorter-term issues.
We should remember here the resolution adopted ten days ago and the Commissioner knows, of course, that we remain vigilant.
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The Union will also need to place its human rights policy on an operational footing.
I should like to know that whenever human rights are violated this will trigger the suspension of a cooperation agreement or any normal agreement.
Efforts will be made presently to have this incorporated in a new Lomé Convention.
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Something of the kind must be done for non-Lomé countries too.
Universal human rights also means universal standards and potential criticism.
During the transatlantic summit with the USA, the Union must make it clear that it expects the United States, the great champion of the universality of human rights, not to undermine that universality.
It is reasonable to expect, for example, that the USA will take part in the International Criminal Court and that the Union will voice that expectation to the American authorities.
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<SPEAKER ID=114 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Caccavale">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too wish to congratulate Messrs Roubatis, Barros Moura and Torres Couto on their excellent work, but I too believe that there is little to celebrate as we mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
There is little to celebrate for various reasons which have already been given, but which I should like to repeat.
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First of all, the principle of universality is under attack.
Over the past few years, the idea has been gaining ground that - since different traditions exist - rules cannot be considered universal because values in some countries are different from European ones, for example Asian values, Islamic values.
Obviously this concept must be rejected but, clearly, Europe must take great pains not to appear always to be rapping others over the knuckles, as a schoolmaster does to a pupil.
The notion of indivisibility is likewise under attack: an à la carte notion of human rights is coming to the fore, whereby everyone selects his own favourite human rights but does not respect - according to the context - civil and political, or economic and social rights in their totality.
What is more, I do not believe either that the concept of interdependence is winning through, by which I mean that - even in the economic arena - it is necessary to advocate strongly and to strive hard to achieve democratisation, respect for law and order and human rights; only in a free and open society is growth possible, including on the economic front.
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On the other hand, things cannot be going too well at home either, if Europe is not managing to play a leading role in all these areas; if it is true - and it is - that the EU still has a tripartite structure for its external activities, each area having its own administrative procedures and separate executive procedures; if it is true - and it is - that in many cases democratisation is not genuine; if it is true - and it is - that retired dictators are made to stand trial, whereas dictators who are still at the height of their powers remain in post.
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<SPEAKER ID=115 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
Mr President, in the space of one minute I should like to highlight certain concepts that are, to my mind, fundamental: the universal nature and interdependency of human rights, as well as two other complementary concepts, namely, the defence and promotion of these rights.
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An instrument to put an end to impunity is urgently needed to defend human rights.
By placing the Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet, in the hands of the law, we have severely dented the protective shield behind which those guilty of genocide, dictators and autocrats have hidden for a long time.
What is more, and with regard to the interdependency and promotion of human rights, we must not forget that development and political freedom are as important as economic freedom, and the most important of all is the right to live with dignity.
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The European Union must act in accordance with this concept and implement what we logically provided ourselves with: the democratic clause and constructive measures to promote all forms of human rights.
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Citizens' requests for diplomacy must receive an adequate response from the European Union.
This citizens' diplomacy has managed to ensure, for example, that treaties banning the use of landmines were signed and that an International Criminal Court was established, which, although it is a valid response, is by no means sufficient.
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<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, every individual owes it to others to recognise their worth.
This phrase was inscribed by young democratic parties in Brandenburg in their first democratic constitution.
Why?
These words clearly mean that human rights policy is not just to do with moral appeals, but is a matter of practical politics.
Dictatorial regimes also applaud human rights policy, but a credible human rights policy means an active policy that affects people's real lives.
Accordingly, the European Union too is judged across the world by its everyday political actions, by the way it protects human rights on an everyday basis.
Here trade and economic policy must yield to the primacy of human rights policy. Here, the dictators of the world must never again be able to be confident that they will not be called to account.
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The European Union will also be judged by whether it turns the 'International Court of Justice' project into an effective organisation by ratifying it and providing financial support.
Here, the Member States of the European Union must have the courage to stop exporting arms to governments that trample human rights under foot, such as the exports to Indonesia and to Turkey.
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It is our international duty to speak out on every case of human rights infringements.
Here, the Commission must breathe life into the human rights clause in the treaties and not keep telling us why economic interests come first.
Human rights are universal and inviolable!
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<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Mr President, human rights have to be secured not on the moon, but on this somewhat dark earth.
This can best be done within a triangle of peace, development and democracy - three pillars which are indissolubly bound together and which determine the extent to which human rights can be guaranteed.
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It is clear from the committees' reports that the Members of this House are aware of this, but evidence of it is often hard to find in Union policy.
The Committee on Development and Cooperation also quite rightly accuses the Union of being ambivalent. When the chips are down, commercial and strategic interests are often deemed more important than human rights.
It would be an enormous step forward if trade policy were tied in more closely with the Union's strategy on human rights.
That policy must be enforceable, and its success will depend on how effectively agreements reached on human rights are monitored.
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Naturally, we agree with the priorities set for human rights.
But we should not always be pointing an accusing finger at others.
In Europe too, there are plenty of infringements and we ourselves are responsible for those.
Human rights for refugees are coming under pressure.
The pressure to toughen our policy is assuming such proportions that the way in which we treat some asylum seekers and 'illegals' or people with no papers sometimes goes beyond the bounds of what is humane and acceptable.
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The rights of minorities continue to be violated in Europe too.
Not only in Turkey, for example, but in the Macedonian part of Greece as well.
We still cannot guarantee children's rights properly, and trafficking in human beings continues under our very noses even as we talk about combating violence against women.
There is a code of conduct about arms dealing, but it is being flouted, as you well know.
I could go on, but in concluding, I hope that when we talk about Agenda 2000 tomorrow we shall also, when it comes down to it, think about human rights as well.
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<SPEAKER ID=118 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, as a result of the international economic and financial crisis, child labour and child sex tourism are increasing dramatically.
I would refer to paragraph 26 of Mr Roubatis's resolution and regard the call made there for the introduction of standard human rights clauses extremely necessary and important.
In particular, the European Union must not silently and indirectly tolerate the social and sexual abuse of children.
Compliance with human rights and in particular the protection of children against any maltreatment must be made a condition for allowing any undertaking to be eligible for receiving state aid and to take part in public tenders.
We must not allow our European markets to be flooded with products from third countries that are produced by children who are treated like slaves, and nor must we allow European tourists to abuse children with impunity in states that receive EU assistance.
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<SPEAKER ID=119 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Vecchi">
Mr President, I think it is significant that the European Parliament chose to celebrate informally the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, both by awarding the Sacharov prize to Ibrahim Rugova this morning and by keeping this joint discussion sharply focused on the search for a strong political line concerning human rights issues.
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I believe that the three reports under discussion are equal to the task and are, above all, a sign of increasing political will and powers within the European Union to take tangible, active steps towards promoting human rights.
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I am referring in particular to the excellent report by Mr Torres Couto - whom I thank - on the draft regulation laying down the requirements for the implementation of development cooperation operations which contribute to the general objective of developing and consolidating democracy, human rights and the rule of law.
This report stresses a concept which I regard as fundamental, namely the existence of an intrinsic link between the development of human rights and democracy and development per se .
If, as we have always maintained, development must be humane, participatory and sustainable, it cannot be achieved by infringing human rights or denying democratic rights.
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Consequently, it must be realised that the promotion of human rights does of course mean asserting the inalienable rights of every individual and group - social, ethnic and so on - but it is not just that: it is also a precondition for the development of every people, every community and humanity as a whole.
Therefore, the promotion of human rights is inevitably intimately connected with the furtherance of democracy, the rule of law and good governance, and the affirmation of these principles is not tantamount to interference or Eurocentrism.
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The European Union and its Member States must now make coherent moves on various fronts, basically the development of international law, above all its practical implementation; full inclusion of human rights as an aim in all instruments of international cooperation; and the promotion of specific direct operations, as referred to in the draft regulation.
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Clearly, a broad view of human rights must be taken, encompassing economic, social and cultural rights in addition to civil and political ones, and practical work must be done to foster the human and institutional conditions under which these principles may be achieved.
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Allow me to conclude by saying that investment in human rights is probably the most profitable form of investment nowadays, both because so many blatant violations are occurring and because some still aspire to a world which revolves around human beings.
It is also the best possible form of life assurance.
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<SPEAKER ID=120 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Fernández Martín">
Mr President, I should like to emphasise something that Mr Torres Couto stated in the explanatory statement to his report, namely, that Parliament and its Committee on Development and Cooperation have consistently attached the utmost importance to promoting human rights and democratic values as they are elements that form the basis of its relations with developing countries.
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There is a huge number of precedents that I shall not repeat here.
However, I must mention the recent reports by Mr Rocard and Mr Martens on the new framework for our relations with ACP countries and also the report on democratisation, human rights and good governance, for which I myself am rapporteur and which will be debated in the House next month.
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As is, unfortunately, all too often the case, the institutions and legislators sometimes lag behind events.
Civil society has a dynamic all of its own; it generates expectations, hopes and problems to which we must respond.
This is a case in point.
After more than two decades of our cooperation policy being in force, we are now obliged to shift the emphasis onto different areas, to take a different approach and to give new impetus to our relations with developing countries.
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We need to strengthen a more mature civil society and democratic institutions that act as a counterpoint, as well as strengthening the surveillance and control mechanisms over public activities and the fight against corruption in all of its guises. These are goals that are not only worth fighting for but which, within our committee, inspire our daily work.
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Mr Torres Couto included a number of interesting proposals in his report that may help create a legal body on standards. That might enable us to move away from grand statements of principles into the field of action and tangible facts.
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On the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, something which is so often abused from day to day throughout the world, I believe that this is the best way in which we can promote the defence of these rights.
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<SPEAKER ID=121 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="André-Léonard">
Mr President, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which has become the basis for democratic values, has celebrated its 50th anniversary.
This was an opportunity for many celebrations around the world, and an opportunity for fine words and pious hopes for the respect of human rights and the construction of a more just world.
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The assessment of human rights is nonetheless a mixed bag.
This is because, 50 years later, when all is said and done, the Declaration is only truly respected in approximately 30 democratic countries, with less than 1 billion inhabitants.
In contrast, it is scorned by authoritarian regimes in 30 other countries, where close to 2 billion people live.
The Amnesty International report is confirmation of this damning picture of torture, unlawful executions and prisoners of conscience being detained in a large number of countries.
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Of course, progress has been made, and fortunately so, but persecution is still commonplace. The number of legal instruments has increased, but why has the United States, the most important world power, still not ratified the 1966 Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights?
Why does it still have the death penalty?
Why does the Treaty establishing the International Criminal Court, signed in Rome in July, still only have about 60 signatures? Why do 1.3 billion people live off less than one dollar per day?
Why do 35 000 children die every day of illnesses that could have been prevented? Why do 250 million children have to work to survive?
Why is there such violence against women?
The list of 'whys' could go on and on.
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Are the past 50 years long enough to make us hard-hearted and to make us sink into indifference and selfishness and accept the cruelty and lack of equal opportunities in this world?
I strongly fear that all these political and legal instruments are worthless if such injustice still lives on amongst the human beings in this world.
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<SPEAKER ID=122 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Daskalaki">
Mr President, fifty years after the Declaration of Human Rights, the debate we are involved in now should normally be quite unnecessary.
Mrs André-Leonard stressed that just a couple of minutes ago.
Unfortunately, however, the problem still exists and in an extreme for in most parts of the world, and that is why the two very important reports we are considering today remain topical.
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At least in its debates, the European Parliament has always shown sensitivity about human rights.
Before anything else I should like to stress that our group supports both reports and shares the view that respect for human rights depends on many factors, which are not just political, social, economic or cultural.
One can therefore only applaud the view expressed by Mr Roubatis on the need to create a global system of annual programmes for human rights, which will form part of foreign policy.
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That integrated system will be able to provide better protection for human rights and in that way help to prevent interests from taking precedence over moral considerations - an issue which Parliament has debated at length - and to ensure that good intentions in the realm of foreign policy do not become a substitute for positive action.
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As Mr Roubatis indeed stresses, human rights are an inseparable part of the Union's foreign policy and that must be grasped by all its bodies and at all levels.
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In his turn, Mr Barros Moura very rightly lays stress on globalisation which, as he says, restricts the substantive exercise of democracy and human rights.
We must pay particular attention to that, because quite often, unfortunately even here in Parliament, the appraisal of human rights violations seems to depend on the scale of certain international political and economic interests and motives.
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I would like to end by congratulating the two rapporteurs for their very appropriate remarks and for the proposals they have made, which contribute towards a substantive and positive approach to such a serious issue.
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<SPEAKER ID=123 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Theonas">
Mr President there is no doubt that the reports we are debating contain very important and interesting ideas on human rights.
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It could be said that the statements made by the Commission and the European Union's other bodies contain the same thing.
The question arises, however, of how credible those declarations are.
In my opinion, an example suffices to demonstrate the extent of the hypocrisy that exists.
On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, the Turkish Press is bemoaning the situation in that country.
It states that there are no rights, only violations, and torture is used extensively by the authorities.
This year 150 people were victims of murder by persons unknown, 86 were executed without trial while in custody, 118 social organisations were banned, 275 publications were confiscated, and 3 000 members of the legitimate HADEP party were arrested after the Ocalan affair!
Well!
While all this is going on, the European Council, the Commission, the Council and some of the Union's more powerful countries are looking for ways to include Turkey in the pre-accession dialogue procedure as the twelfth candidate for accession.
Clearly, when economic and geopolitical interests are involved, human rights can wait.
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<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, when we talk about human rights abuses around the world we have to look to ourselves and see what we are responsible for.
We have to look at how the European Union Member States fuel conflicts around the world and human rights abuses.
For example, we need a code of conduct on arms exports.
I want to mention the following: French training of security forces and death squads in Rwanda; the sale of arms by Belgians to Rwanda; the training of Indonesian troops by the British; German submachine-guns used in a prison massacre in Brazil; Hawk jets sent to the Indonesians so they can persecute the people of East Timor; UK arms sales to places such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia; torture weapons being sold to countries so that they can inflict human rights abuses on people around the world.
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We have to look at this and ask ourselves if it is morally correct.
Can we take the moral high ground, when the European Union, in the interests of profit - and profit alone - is selling weapons and instruments around the world with which to inflict punishment and death on people We have to look to ourselves first and see what we are doing to fuel human rights abuses in the world.
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<SPEAKER ID=125 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, we are currently celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as highlighted by this debate.
We are doing so because even today human rights represent the dream of every one of us, and because entire peoples on our tired earth are ignorant of the principles that are at one and the same time a political commitment and a spiritual aspiration.
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Many of us will sit through these commemorations without feeling any emotion, firstly because human rights are part and parcel of the principles taught in our schools and families, principles which have become not only political morality but even a school subject; secondly because, as this century draws to a close, people have little faith in words and promises.
Why not recall that 1789 was followed, regrettably, by the terror of 1793?
Can we still give any credence to the meaning of words?
And thirdly, because every evening our televisions bring us pictures of terror, of men who sow terror in Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo, Algeria and throughout the Communist world.
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Who was concerned about human rights in Stalinist Russia, Maoist China or even today in Pol Pot's Cambodia, in South America, Haiti or East Germany in the days of Honecker?
At the dawn of the twenty-first century, human rights are still experiencing a sad autumn.
Unfortunately there is still a need to establish international tribunals to try war criminals.
We must still hope for a world where democracy can spread its wings ever wider, and trust that - sooner or later, slowly but inexorably - justice will triumph, bringing about real respect for human rights.
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<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Terrón i Cusí">
Mr President, I should firstly like to congratulate the rapporteurs of these reports because they contain information and proposals that will be of great use to us. What is more, I believe that they contain practically everything we should say and do, and I say practically here and not absolutely everything as that would be going too far.
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However, I would like to comment on a couple of issues.
We have to be much stricter in everything we do within and beyond the European Union, and this is something that I would like to stress in particular.
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I do not wish to enter into the debate that will take place later, but there are issues where we need to be extremely vigilant, for example, women's rights and sex tourism, which, as one speaker reminded us, are closely linked to the attitude of Europeans as well as the way in which we treat citizens from third countries. This is because, as regards this last issue in particular, they have a huge impact on our external credibility.
For example, in my country, the spectacle of immigrants flooding into Ceuta or Melilla does not help us defend human rights as vigorously and as emphatically as we have been doing.
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We need to endorse the support programmes for democracy and human rights abroad.
Such programmes need our political support, which Parliament duly gives, but the Commission also needs support to enable it to act effectively and take into account exactly how much these programmes cost from both an economic and administrative point of view. This is important because we are sometimes unaware of these points, or if we are aware, we do not act accordingly.
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And thirdly, I should like to insist - as has often been done here, yet I believe it to be important - on the creation of an International Criminal Court and international legitimacy. It is only through such instruments that we will be able to carry out effective operations that do not lead to new problems or to a new ideological or patrimonial feeling in relation to human rights, operations that might spread all over the world.
The Pinochet case, in my opinion, shows that it is only through this international legitimacy, which must be achieved by consensus, that we will be able to progress.
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<SPEAKER ID=127 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Lambrias">
Mr President, in the suffocatingly short time allotted to me for so broad and critical a subject, I can only stress one point in the detailed and pragmatic report by Mr Roubatis.
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Article 31 draws attention to the fact that universal principles concerning fundamental rights should not be sacrificed on the altar of the economic, strategic or political interests of the Union or any of its Member States.
It is precisely such priority which is given to all sorts of interests, and that is why, whilst we celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the historic international declaration and agreement, we close our eyes to the flagrant and continual violations of that declaration even in our own back yard.
But our continued tolerance not only does nothing to teach respect for human rights to countries that are historically distanced from democratic models, but allows those countries to accuse us of hypocrisy and discriminatory political treatment.
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The European Union can and must become a protagonist in the worldwide imposition of respect for these existentialist values.
A prerequisite for this, however, is that it must cease adulterating them with other short-sighted and selfish criteria.
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<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="President">
Mr Lambrias, I will take this opportunity to repeat a recommendation which I am always making to the political groups, namely not to allocate less than two minutes to very worthy speakers who wish to put their views to the House.
It is impossible, and I consider it an affront to the dignity of MEPs, to give them less than two minutes.
And personally, I have stated that I am not disposed to cut off speakers after one minute, because I consider that both harsh and offensive to their dignity.
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<SPEAKER ID=129 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cars">
Mr President, when a state puts one of its citizens to death, most of us in this House view that act as a serious violation of human rights.
We therefore welcome Bulgaria's recent decision to abolish capital punishment.
Looking at the countries seeking membership of the EU, only Latvia, Lithuania and Turkey now retain this deeply unjust penalty in their legislation.
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As President Gil-Robles said earlier today, it is of particular importance that countries wishing to join the European Union demonstrate a commitment to human rights.
Let us launch a joint appeal to those applicant countries genuinely wishing to accede to the Union, rallying them behind our shared effort to consign the death penalty to the annals of history - as an ugly, but ever paler and more distant memory.
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<SPEAKER ID=130 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Theorin">
Mr President, we are talking about human rights today, and it behoves us to consider the following facts.
The three richest people in the world have fortunes which surpass the combined GNP of the 48 poorest countries.
The past two decades of neo-liberalism have led to a spectacular increase in unfairness and inequality around the planet.
The average income in more than 70 countries is lower than it was 20 years ago.
One third of the 4.5 billion people living in developing countries have no access to drinking water.
Is this a matter of fate? Of course not.
UN calculations show that the basic food, water and health needs of everyone on this earth could be satisfied if a wealth tax of just 4 % were to be levied on the 225 biggest fortunes.
It would cost 13 billion dollars - the amount spent every year on perfume in the USA - to provide food and health care for the world's most needy.
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Thirty million individuals die of starvation and 800 million struggle on in a permanent state of malnutrition - not as a result of natural disasters, but because hunger is wielded as a headline-catching political weapon.
In Somalia, Liberia, Sudan, North Korea, Burma and Afghanistan, we have seen governments and local warlords use the innocent as hostages.
Climatic conditions and natural disasters play but a marginal part in mass starvation.
The truth is that human beings starve out their fellows.
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Today's human rights violations contain the seeds of tomorrow's conflicts.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said that this vicious circle of violation and conflict can and must be broken.
Fifty years on from the Universal Declaration, human rights are now firmly enshrined.
It is high time we took the next step; so let us make the next ten decades the century of prevention.
We can no longer claim that a shortage of resources keeps us from acting.
This vicious circle of violation and conflict can and must be broken.
Human rights thrive on peace and security, on economic development and social justice. The EU is ideally placed to provide leadership in the phase of consolidation that must follow.
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<SPEAKER ID=131 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, today we are celebrating 50 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
We are also celebrating ten years of the Sakharov prize.
I should add that celebrating is a misnomer, because since 1948 human rights have been seriously violated on innumerable occasions.
And it is a good thing that the Sakharov prize today has gone to Mr Rugova, because this focuses attention on the unjust situation obtaining in Kosovo and on the people brave enough to denounce it.
The Sakharov prize does not always mean that things actually get better, as is apparent from the position of Aung San Suu Kyi, still held under house arrest in Burma.
It is also apparent from the position of Taslima Nasreen who is still under threat in Bangladesh, Leyla Zana who is still in prison in Turkey, and Salima Ghezali who still cannot return to Algeria because of the killings there.
The situation worldwide is still extremely serious.
One of the reasons why we in the European Union can do so little about it is really that decisions on human rights in the European Union still require unanimity - action on human rights, at any rate.
In this context, I have once again tabled an amendment to these reports urging the Council of Ministers to abolish that unanimity rule.
I think that might be one of the best anniversary presents we could give to the United Nations and the Sakharov prize.
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<SPEAKER ID=132 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Imbeni">
Mr President, I think that after 50 years we can take stock with a critical eye.
Looking back into the past, we can say that progress has in fact been made in the world: communism has disappeared from Eastern Europe, apartheid from South Africa and dictatorships from South America.
However, if we look around us our disappointment is considerable, because we realise that human rights are still being infringed on a daily basis in a large number of countries.
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Much still remains to be done, therefore, as is stated very clearly in our reports and documents.
Yet I do believe that we can take some comfort from the recent extraordinary arrest of General Pinochet, for which the initiative came from a Spanish judge and which was carried out by the UK authorities, in our European area of freedom.
This could mean that, in future, tyrants and dictators can no longer consider themselves safe as long as they remain at home.
Perhaps, from now on, justice will be able to cross borders without hindrance, unlike in the past.
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This does not of course mean that the task is almost complete; much still remains to be done.
I believe that the key to overcoming the enormous gulf between words and deeds must be for human rights, originally a solemn universal declaration, to become a political programme.
National governments, our European Union and governments around the world should incorporate respect for human rights into their political programmes.
In this way, perhaps, optimism really might develop into well-founded confidence in our future.
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<SPEAKER ID=133 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Baldi">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, every human life is unique and irreplaceable.
All human beings are born free, with equal dignity and equal rights.
There can be no doubt that respect for human rights and the duty to perform humanitarian deeds constitute the fundamental values of a society which naturally considers itself free, civil, democratic and just.
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Every individual enjoys so-called basic rights, which guarantee the fundamental elements of life and personal development.
Apart from being fundamental, these rights are described as inviolable, in that nothing and no one may infringe or jeopardise them, in other words harm, restrict or remove them.
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The European Union strives to place the protection of human rights at the heart of its policies, but still has a good deal of ground to cover.
Coordination of prevention and monitoring activities is still vital and should be implemented through an effective common foreign and security policy. This - partly through preventive diplomacy - should make it possible to avert conflicts caused by serious political crises, which lead to instability, xenophobia, genocide, ethnic cleansing, reprisals, torture, abuse of power, social tension and the infringement of fundamental human rights.
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Appropriate institutional structures must be established and endowed with sufficient powers and financial resources to guarantee respect for the rights of men, women and children. I would refer in particular to the human rights of children, the protection of minors and human dignity in audiovisual and information services including the Internet, the fight against child sex tourism, the creation of a permanent international criminal tribunal and the implementation of the social clause.
Respect for human rights must, however, begin here at home.
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<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="Newens">
Mr President, I wish to express my congratulations to the three rapporteurs whose reports are before us today and to say that we should not be too pessimistic that so much remains to be done fifty years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Despite the fact that huge violations of human rights have continued to occur, there are now accepted world standards of human rights, infringement of which is internationally condemned.
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While it is tragic that discrimination, imprisonment, ill-treatment, torture, injury and death in flagrant contempt of fundamental human rights still occur, such acts are now widely regarded as criminal and many tyrannical regimes have in fact fallen.
The proceedings against individuals for their actions in the former Yugoslavia and against General Pinochet of Chile demonstrate that accountability for human rights violations is now seen as transcending national frontiers.
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The Universal Declaration states that the rights to an adequate standard of life, housing, medical care, social security, education and employment are also human rights.
A recent development report of the United Nations detailed the prevalence of world poverty and stated that 358 billionaires owned capital equivalent to the annual income of nearly half the world's population.
This illustrates how great the challenge still is to us if we are to achieve basic human rights for the world's poor and deprived.
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Despite all the shortcomings, the European Union and Parliament have made a most valuable contribution to the promotion of human rights.
The consideration of these, engendered by human rights clauses in agreements, reports, urgency motions and other means in countries across the world is of great importance and, as I well know, is welcomed by democrats in those countries.
In supporting the reports before us now, I hope that we shall all pledge ourselves to continue and further enhance our work on human rights, which is in the interests of all humanity.
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<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, may I begin by echoing the many words of appreciation which have been addressed to the three rapporteurs for their very thorough reports.
I think we all agree that the drafting of a report of this kind is an extremely complicated affair, because we are talking about a subject which is virtually limitless.
That is the very nature of the human rights issue.
It has very many facets, and discussion of it has to be very broadly based when we are trying to find and shape a policy which we can constantly adjust to take account of results.
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The Commission too thinks that this dialogue, which is in effect a continuation of the discussion we had with Parliament at the last part-session in Strasbourg, is a very timely one, certainly coming as it does immediately after the commemoration of 50 years of the Universal Declaration and on the same day that the Sakharov prize was awarded in a ceremony this morning to Ibrahim Rugova, a man who must try to lead his people towards apeaceful political solution and a better future.
That is no mean task, and the Commission is very pleased that Parliament has awarded the prize to this man.
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Last week in Austria, in Vienna, your President Mr Gil-Robles delivered an impressive speech and you are familiar with what he said.
May I in any event take this opportunity of endorsing, on behalf of the Commission too, his call on that occasion for prisoners of conscience, political prisoners, to be set free before the millennium.
I think that was a particularly appropriate call, certainly a fitting one at present as we move towards the new millennium and thus round off a period in which the efforts made by Parliament to secure the release of these people certainly entitle the House to make a call of this kind.
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And it is against this rather broader backdrop that I wish to consider the proposals in the European Parliament's four reports.
We are now going to look at those of Mr Roubatis, Mr Barros Moura and Mr Torres Couto and afterwards the report by Mrs Schaffner, but we regard these reports as a single whole, each one highlighting different facets of human rights policy.
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A few comments first, if I may, on the two reports on the strategic aspects of human rights, then on Mr Torres Couto's report on instruments for that strategy and after that, as I said, we shall look at Mrs Schaffner's report.
The Commission is very happy with most of the recommendations and shared ideas expressed in the first two reports.
To start with, I agree with Mr Barros Moura that the European Union has made the greatest progress on human rights when there was consensus between Parliament and the other institutions.
Thanks to Parliament, the Council, the Commission and the Court of Justice all pulling together, it was possible to formulate and implement a pro-active policy on human rights and fundamental freedoms.
And I willingly stress and acknowledge that Parliament has played a pioneering role here by constantly denouncing gross violations of human rights.
Hardly one part-session of Parliament goes by at which the subject of human rights is not raised on one agenda or other, either in the plenary or in one of the committees.
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Thanks to initiatives taken by the institutions, the Union's human rights policy has taken on a more profound dimension over the years.
Human rights are now a priority objective in our external relations and our development cooperation.
And most importantly, without doubt, they are also a prime precondition for Union membership, so human rights play their part in the enlargement process too.
I have, moreover, heard one or two honourable Members say that ideally our agreements with third countries ought to include a human rights clause.
You will doubtless be aware that for a number of years now, every new agreement concluded with a third country has indeed included a clause of this kind.
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The Union's partners in carrying out all these initiatives are of course above all the Member States themselves, which bear prime responsibility for the upholding of human rights.
Other partners include the international organisations.
I am thinking of the Council of Europe, with which we are working more and more closely in this field.
I am also thinking of the OSCE and the United Nations.
The Union supports the International Criminal Court and the special tribunals on the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
The Union has helped to ensure the active participation of developing countries and non-governmental organisations in the diplomatic conference which led to the establishment of the International Criminal Court.
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A very important and parallel area of the Union's human rights activities is the giving of aid to non-governmental organisations which seek to uphold human rights in third countries and also provide practical assistance to the victims of human rights violations.
These victims naturally include minorities, children, and women.
Violation of their rights in many instances leads to violent conflict, as witness the tragic events we are now seeing in Kosovo.
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Concerning the proposals made in the Barros Moura and Roubatis reports, which are specifically addressed to the Commission, I would comment as follows.
In line with the rapporteur's suggestion, the Commission has promised in its 1999 programme to provide the Council and Parliament with a communication on a general strategy for human rights and democratisation.
That strategy will obviously have to dovetail with the proposed approach in the draft regulations for our human rights programmes which, as you know, are currently under discussion.
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The Commission will also be giving the Council and Parliament a review of the use made of Chapter B7, Article 70 of the budget, better known as the European initiative for democracy and the protection of human rights, together with a review of activities in the period 1996-1998.
This review will be compiled in accordance with the guidelines adopted in the report by your Vice-President Mr Imbeni.
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The Commission is also being asked to prepare a general Union report on human rights worldwide.
The possibility of a report of this kind is allowed for in the Vienna declaration and will be studied by the Commission.
I should like to take this opportunity, Mr President, of saying that care must be taken to ensure that the facts of human rights situations are of course constantly updated. So constant follow-up work is needed.
On this too we are ready to debate with Parliament at any time, on any country.
We already do this in fact in the plenary and the urgent debates, and in our replies to your written and oral questions.
And we must also bear in mind that there are other sources of information which already include data of this kind.
So we will also endeavour, given our limited human and financial resources, to avoid any duplication of work here.
I am thinking of the wealth of material available here in reports of Amnesty International, for example, or Human Rights Watch.
And we know that the US Administration publishes an annual human rights report covering virtually the whole world, but of course they have the huge resources to do that.
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We are also asked to prepare a review of measures in support of democracy.
We shall do that as well.
In addition to providing a general report on actions taken to promote human rights in the period 1996-1998, the document will include details of Union activities concerned with the monitoring of elections, and of course other aspects of human rights policy as well.
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Then there are the suggestions which the reports make concerning logistics and management.
I refer here to Mr Roubatis's report, and I already made a number of comments about this at last month's part-session.
I said then which measures had been taken to ensure sound management or secure better management.
I thought I also said that Mr Santer, the President of the Commission, intended to draw up an account next year of how the Commission would be organised from the year 2000 onwards with regard to external relations.
Then, as now, it was suggested that a proposal should be made to appoint a vice-president with responsibility for external policy.
I can well imagine, and Mr Roubatis's report suggests this too, that there might also be a separate Commissioner horizontally responsible for human rights.
As Mr Roubatis will be aware, this is already the case, since the Commission President is the Commissioner with responsibility for human rights, and your humble servant here is responsible for day-to-day implementation, although I admit that, with our present internal structure, horizontal coordination is not always easy.
The next Commission will certainly need to try to improve matters there.
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Last month, I also pointed to the need for the relevant 1999 budget lines to have a budgetary remark which would enable the Commission to draw on outside assistance in carrying out its programmes.
It looks as if that will be done for 1999, but I think provision should be made for this too in the legal base, that is to say in the draft regulations currently being processed.
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That brings me to Mr Torres Couto's report and the proposed amendments to the proposal for a regulation based on Article 130b, perhaps starting with the question of this outside assistance which is dealt with in Amendment No 16 to Article 3.
The Commission believes that the proposed ceiling on expenditure to be set annually should refer solely to the activities listed in Article 3 (4), with the understanding that this includes an explicit reference to assistance to the Commission in administering its programmes, as well as to the Commission and beneficiaries together.
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The Commission is happy to accept many of the other proposals, but cannot of course agree to amendments which challenge the powers of the various institutions, and here of course I am talking of existing powers.
The Commission is happy with the amendments which are consistent with the original proposal, for example concerning the creation of an advisory committee, the removal of the time limit on the regulation's applicability and the deletion of the financial reference amount.
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The Commission notes Parliament's wish to be briefed on the committee's work but as far as following up on this amendment is concerned, we would refer to the institutional practice adopted in other cases.
That consists of oral briefings to Parliament, since the Commission is cautious about making that committee's discussions public because this would jeopardise the confidentiality of project selection.
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The Commission is not opposed to the amendments relating to the programming or annual assessment of measures and relaxing the criterion of experience for potential beneficiaries, but would like to have a number of points clarified.
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The reference to an interinstitutional working party, something we have previously discussed, is problematic.
If these proposals were acted upon, it would mean an infringement of the powers of management and implementation and could lead to a breach of the regulation or to it being impossible to apply.
This working party, which is also mentioned in the Barros Moura report, cannot be a new interinstitutional structure charged with investigating the Commission's activities in identifying projects either before or after the event.
What I am more than willing to do, and we have made this offer before, is to hold a debate with Parliament or its committees twice a year on human rights policy, the topics, the approach and the situations in different countries in a more general way.
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I also talked at an earlier stage with the chairman of the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs about an informal structure.
I think it was Mrs Lenz to whom I spoke, and the offer I made just now was made on that occasion too.
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Lastly, I should say as regards the three reports that interinstitutional cooperation and dialogue has enabled the Commission over the past year to develop its policy for promoting and protecting human rights further.
It is a long-term undertaking which demands a solid legal, administrative and budgetary foundation.
I think the Vienna declaration gave us a number of guidelines here, but your suggestions too are a valuable contribution.
And we must take account of the expectations of Europe's citizens.
Dialogue and institutional cooperation are necessary if we really want results.
The Commission is hopeful of the European Parliament's support in framing a Union policy on human rights.
We maintain, and we shall work to ensure, that human rights are central both to the internal policy and the foreign policy of the Union.
To that end, we look forward with pleasure to an ongoing and close dialogue with the European Parliament on policy for the protection of human rights.
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<SPEAKER ID=136 NAME="President">
Mr van den Broek has tried really hard to answer the points raised by many speakers and in three reports, and we must recognise that.
I cannot in all honesty complain because he spoke for some considerable time.
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The joint debate is closed.
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The votes will be taken tomorrow, at 9.30 a.m.
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<CHAPTER ID=7>
Human rights in the Union
<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0468/98) by Mrs Schaffner, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on respect for human rights in the European Union (1997).
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<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="Schaffner">
Mr President, at the end of 1998, the free world is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in splendour.
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Although in almost all countries around the world the concept of human rights has been written into constitutions, international treaties or political discourse, the day-to-day reality proves that such virtuous proclamations are far from the facts.
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Parliament never fails to point out such shortfalls, sometimes displaying certain heavy and recurrent leanings, but also some worrying short-sightedness.
Could this be seen as a lack of objectivity for the sake of political correctness?
Our credibility is at stake here.
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In the same way, if Parliament does not want to fall into the trap of appearing to be a mere preacher, then the Member States of the Union have a duty to be beyond reproach and we cannot turn a blind eye to the failings we see there.
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But in this report, it is our duty to highlight the progress that has been made in certain countries.
We were keen to criticise so we must also acknowledge their efforts.
Did we have anything to do with it?
I do not know whether we did or not.
I simply welcome the result.
We cannot fail to be pleased that the draft Treaty of Amsterdam has now added greater weight to respect for human rights as the ethical and political basis of all action taken by the Union, both at home and abroad.
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This European approach to human rights should lead to progress in a number of areas.
The first of these rights is the right to life.
All Member States of the Union have abolished the death penalty and we must welcome this.
But this right also involves the right not to be subjected to inhumane treatment, the right to have access to care and the right to a dignified death.
The problem of euthanasia is more than a social debate.
We cannot contemplate authorising active euthanasia without considering all the possible problems. However, we must allow people to end their days with dignity and peace, through the establishment of palliative care units, through the latest methods for relieving suffering and without medical treatment.
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The right to life also leads to the right to security and therefore to the condemnation of terrorism.
The Member States must collaborate closely in this field, but this unending struggle must go hand-in-hand with respect for the rule of law.
Whether it be for terrorism or crime in general, respect for the rule of law involves the presumption of innocence, the right to a fair and just trial, respect for the rights of the defendant and, if a prison sentence is handed down, respect for the rights of the prisoner.
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In this area, a number of Member States are far from having a spotless record, be it in the field of pre-trial detention, the length of trials or the accusatory procedure, or the detention conditions in overcrowded prisons.
This last point will also be discussed later by my colleague, Mr Pradier.
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Privacy, and freedom of expression, of religion and of conscience must be scrupulously respected and protected, as these are fragile values and the balance of power among them is often very delicate.
Although there may still be a few problems, we must applaud the fact that Greece has adopted a law recognising the right to conscientious objection.
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As regards economic and social rights, there is one success and one regret to note.
The success comes from the United Kingdom signing the 1989 Charter on Fundamental Social Rights.
The regret is that the Council has not adopted the programme of measures to combat poverty.
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Despite the fact that the Member States agreed to include provisions for combating all forms of discrimination in the draft Treaty of Amsterdam, the reality of the situation is that we still see a number of distortions occurring between the principles and the facts, for example, in terms of women's rights, the rights of the child, protecting the family, as well as in the fight against racism and xenophobia.
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Such violations of essential rights are even more intolerable when carried out by state or local authority personnel: administrative agents, teachers, police force representatives, legal or prison staff and sometimes even social workers. That is why there is a call for training programmes.
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In this report and in some amendments that have been tabled, there are a few sticking points on asylum and immigration problems.
For my part, I would like everyone to avoid extreme, not to mention provocative, views.
I think, in particular, that the proposal to give immigrants the right to vote in local elections is premature, even for those with legal status or who have lived in a Member State for more than five years.
Although it is true that this decision could help integration, we must also be aware of the danger of provoking clearer demonstrations of racism and xenophobia against these foreigners.
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I am now convinced that this subject must be addressed by each Member State, at its own pace and depending on the political situation and on the influence of extremist parties.
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If Parliament approves our annual report by a wide majority, if it avoids both the hazards of some past reports and a rather cautious vision of the universal nature of human rights, then it will be able to hold its head high.
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<SPEAKER ID=139 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lindeperg">
Mr President, the report we are discussing today is of extreme symbolic importance.
The specific context of the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will refresh the memories of our fellow citizens and political leaders on the content of this Declaration, which our Member States are committed to respecting.
In the light of its 30 articles, we can assess the list drawn up today by Mrs Schaffner, with the balance between civil and political rights on the one hand, and economic, social and cultural rights on the other.
Like the Universal Declaration, a large part of the Schaffner report is given over to the latter: it states that poverty and exclusion have no place in wealthy and democratic societies and calls on the European institutions to rectify such anomalies.
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Nonetheless, the report does not give us reason to believe that all is well as regards so-called fundamental rights.
This phrasing is unsatisfactory as there is no hierarchy in terms of human rights.
Due to a lack of time, I will only give one example, but a highly significant one, which is also taken from the Amnesty International report. It involves police brutality, serious cruelty and degrading treatment inflicted by members of the public police forces, during arrests or detention in custody, which, more often than not, are inflicted upon foreigners or people of a different skin colour.
However, I should first like to point out that there should be no generalisations.
The mistakes of a small minority must not cast suspicion on law and order forces as a whole, who do an increasingly difficult job.
In France, some police trade union members are also alarmed by the growing number of incidences of brutal and undemocratic conduct, conduct that tramples both laws and the Declaration of Human Rights underfoot, even though it is displayed in all French police stations.
It is therefore vital for every country to show its unequivocal rejection of all cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.
Those who have not yet ratified the UN Convention against Torture must do so and must recognise the powers of the Committee against Torture while ensuring that all abuse is punished effectively, which is rarely the case at present.
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It must also be said that such actions, which bring shame upon the police forces of democratic countries, are encouraged, supported and pardoned by the totalitarian and racist ideologies held by movements of the extreme right.
It is not by chance that certain French police stations display Le Pen's photo rather than the Declaration of Human Rights.
In a recent interview, Mr Le Pen stubbornly refused to acknowledge any form of obligation to the Declaration of Human Rights of 1789, even though it is included in the preamble to the French constitution. This gives us an insight into the regime he dreams of imposing.
The discourse of the extreme right, which is widely disseminated by the press, promotes discrimination, exclusion, intolerance and a fundamentalist moral order that encourages racism and anti-Semitism.
This can naturally only lead to violence and the reintroduction of the brutal use of force.
However, due to the right to freedom of expression, democratic societies experience problems in opposing it, and in this respect it is interesting to follow Belgium's current attempts along these lines.
Such is the freedom of expression.
But this is at least one human right fiercely claimed by extreme right-wing parties.
Using our principles, they demand the same advantages that, on the basis of their principles, they would refuse us, preferring to ignore the limits included in the various declarations, limits that represent legal measures, the rights of others and the general interest.
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To conclude, I should like to explain the position of the Socialist Group on the amendments tabled in the House.
I believe it is essential that this report be voted through.
It would be a disgrace if, only a few days after 10 December, we could not agree on this.
Mrs Schaffner's report, in its current state, seems to me to be entirely positive and balanced.
It is probably not what we would have done, but what does that matter?
This type of text should not come from one group, from one political persuasion, but should be a strong message, addressed to the Member States so that they become aware of an unsatisfactory situation and pay more attention to making the major principles they have adopted a reality.
This message will be even more effective if the report is voted through with a wide majority, which is possible if each group is willing to take the other groups' reservations into account.
For our part, we will reject many amendments that we do basically agree with but that would make it difficult to adopt the final text.
I hope I can count on a similar effort from the other groups so that, tomorrow, we can send a very clear message to the Council, to the Commission and to the Member States, a message that reflects the symbolic anniversary we celebrated last week.
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<SPEAKER ID=140 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Hernández Mollar">
Mr President, I am going to speak on behalf of my friend and colleague Laura de Esteban who has had to leave.
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I should firstly like to congratulate Mrs Schaffner as rapporteur for this report.
Once again, we are dealing with an annual report on respect for human rights in the European Union, which, in its original version, contains an excellent and well structured explanatory statement with reliable data from the European institutions, and which focuses on the legal and real aspects of the respect for human rights in the Union.
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The motion for a resolution is also consistent with the explanatory statement and contains 62 paragraphs whose legal basis is the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights, a fundamental guide for the respect of human rights in the Union, as established in our Treaty.
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However, the final report, following the vote in committee, has distorted part of its structure and coherence. This is because, as in previous years, it responds to the introduction of amendments that include other aspects that are not related to the traditional concept of fundamental rights, and these amendments are probably a response to political motivations that are different from those that should govern the objectives of this document.
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Our duty as Members of this House is to ensure that European Parliament resolutions rigorously respect ideological impartiality and the law in its broadest sense.
And this is all the more important this year since the adoption of this report coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights.
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Those of us in the Group of the European People's Party would like to reaffirm our tradition of being at the forefront in defending human rights.
We should like to reiterate our absolute respect for the dignity and value of human beings and equal rights for men and women, as well as reasserting that all human rights are universal, indivisible and independent.
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That is why we shall be voting in favour of those paragraphs in the report that truly reflect the problems relating to human rights.
These include issues such as individual freedoms, the rights of defendants, the right to life and the dignity of individuals, and the right to have our private and family lives respected along with our home and correspondence. We also support respect for the protection of personal data, the freedom of expression or limitations in respect of the law and the freedom of thought and association - with the exception in this last case of sects or dangerous movements - in the strict defence of victims.
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We share concern for the promotion and protection of the rights of children and wish to guarantee protection for the rights of those who are particularly vulnerable to ill treatment or abandonment, including the young, the disabled and the elderly.
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We are in favour of absolute respect for the rights of prisoners and should like to stress the importance of rehabilitation and reintegration measures.
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We should also like to reaffirm our condemnation of racism, xenophobia and all forms of discrimination.
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Moreover, we are in favour of restoring the rights of citizens unfairly dealt with by the judicial system, especially in cases - which are all too frequent in Member States - where legal proceedings are slow. We also uphold the general principles of law that underpin the Member States' legal systems, such as the principle of non bis in idem or the presumption of innocence.
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However, we are obliged to vote against those paragraphs in the report that do not respect the concept of human rights, those that go beyond our competences or those that contravene Community law.
I am referring here to paragraphs that advocate the introduction of civil rights into Member States' national legislation - this is not part of the Union's competence - and those relating to nationality.
In this connection, my group is tabling an amendment that reminds us of a fundamental principle, namely, the principle stating that Member States are competent to recognise and regulate nationality and that exercising civil rights is linked to having that nationality.
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I hope that with sufficient support from Parliament we can finally adopt a resolution that is worthy of this institution on the important occasion of the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights.
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<SPEAKER ID=141 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Goerens">
Mr President, on behalf of my group, I should like to congratulate Mrs Schaffner on her report, in which she has worked hard on a very sensitive subject.
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This report is one of the annual exercises that remind us of the best possible way of ensuring respect for human rights within the European Union.
The rapporteur presents us with a detailed study.
In my brief speech, I will only be able to mention the general points and would firstly point out that human rights are an end, not a means.
Therefore, if we share this opinion, it is important to do all we can to prevent not only the most flagrant and direct violations, but also the more underhand threats that risk undermining human rights.
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It would be deceptive to believe that democracy alone could guarantee respect for human rights.
Democracy is a means, which can lead to the best practices, but which can also trigger the worst practices.
By way of example, I should like to point out that Hitler came to power by means of an electoral, and therefore democratic, process.
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So, as human rights are an end, their application should be as far removed from realpolitik as possible, which, here, represents the area of compromise, pragmatism, concessions, the balance of power, give and take, cunning, constraints and even complicity.
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Our political action must mean that we question what measures need to be implemented to ensure that human rights are respected. And, in addition to the many tools already available, we should question how well our societies, which are anxious to protect human rights, can withstand economic shocks, social disturbances or ideological poison that promotes exclusion, racial hatred or anti-Semitism.
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This is the fundamental question that politicians must be concerned with and their actions cannot afford to be seen as indifferent or passive by millions of European citizens who feel abandoned or betrayed by their company, their social environment, their party or their trade union. In short, they cannot be seen in this way by those who feel excluded and who, as a result, are extremely receptive to false prophets, who are always willing to ask a society teetering on the brink to take a decisive step forward.
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Of course, we have not yet reached that point, but history and the past are there to highlight the fact that turbulent stock exchanges and millions of people whose lives no longer have any meaning are not necessarily the best way of ensuring that human rights prevail and making them the priority above all others.
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<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Caccavale">
Mr President, I must begin by complimenting Mrs Schaffner on her major efforts and excellent work, for which we thank her.
But we must also acknowledge that, regrettably, we have been obliged yet again this year to confront the usual high-profile issue of human rights and their role in all the serious problems which bedevil these European countries of ours. We have likewise been obliged this year, as in the past, to witness the usual politicisation of human rights, based on ideological divisions and on the fact that responses to infringements of these rights can change according to political positions.
This is most regrettable.
I am not very enthusiastic about this debate, but I am of the opinion that the indivisibility of human rights - the Universal Declaration - should apply within as well as outside of the European Union, and should also cover social, economic and cultural rights.
Clearly, however, we need to agree what all of this means.
It is unthinkable that the fight against poverty or even unemployment could trigger sanctions, in that a right exists if a sanction exists.
So I wonder what can be done with those Member States which currently have 12, 13 or 14 % unemployment?
What should we do?
Haul them before the Court of Human Rights?
I see no point in discussing this matter any further.
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In my opinion, human rights really are being infringed within our own countries; this raises the question of justice - we claim to teach non-European countries about the rule of law - and of the withholding of the right to proper defence, individual guarantees and prison conditions. Nothing is being done to rehabilitate prisoners, which obviously increases the social burden on all the EU countries.
This is what we should be focusing on, and we should apply sanctions to infringements occurring in our countries - and there are many of them.
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<SPEAKER ID=143 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pailler">
Mr President, if only one picture from the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights sticks in my mind, it will be that of the Place du Trocadero in Paris on Thursday, 10 December.
It was an empty square, devoid of all human presence, surrounded by metal barriers and the French riot police, the CRS, to stop illegal immigrants, the jobless and the homeless, along with lawyers and elected representatives, approaching the Palais de Chaillot , where the commemoration ceremony was taking place and where grandiose resolutions were followed by speeches.
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I am worried that this one sinister image of the 50th anniversary will stick in my mind: a few showy speeches and a great deal of cynicism from our governments.
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Lionel Jospin could have used this commemoration to begin regulating the situation of illegal immigrants.
He did not take this long-awaited step, which is needed to break the current deadlock.
I support what Robert Badinter said in an interview in the newspaper l'Humanité , that we have enough speeches on Sunday, and then realpolitik on Monday.
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This comment refers to all our governments as shown once again by the report by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, which condemns the all too frequent violations of human rights in the European Union.
To commemorate is not only to declaim, but also to assess.
We simply have to read a few articles from the 1948 Declaration and compare them with the reality in our countries to realise that the situation here is dire.
Article 1 states that 'All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights'.
Illegal immigrants, the jobless and the homeless do not have any rights.
But, in their struggle, they teach us about dignity.
Article 13 states that 'Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country'.
War and poverty force some people to leave their countries.
All too often, the host countries become countries full of obstacles.
People are forced to return with no rights, and they are crammed into aeroplanes where they suffocate or die.
Article 22 states that 'Everyone... has the right to social security'.
Yet illegal immigrants and those with no residency permits are excluded from this right.
Article 23 states that 'Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment ...'.
There are 17 million unemployed in the European Union.
And Article 25 states that' Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate... for himself'.
There are 57 million poor people in the European Union.
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I will obviously not list all the articles.
There would be a great deal to say, but what we really need is a greater political will on the part of our governments to put their own house in order and rid themselves of all the inhuman dregs that cause many citizens to turn their backs on politics.
And this is a very real threat to our democracies.
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It is for all these reasons that I am still outraged and why I continue campaigning for human rights, for the regulation of the situation of illegal immigrants, for women's rights, but also for an increase in social rights and the introduction of the 35-hour week, without, of course, making it synonymous with flexibility.
How strongly I agree with and try to make others agree with Albert Camus' beautiful words, how strongly I believe in the words 'I rebel, therefore we are'.
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<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="van den Broek">
Mr President, my sincere thanks to Mrs Schaffner for her very thorough report.
I am sure that the annual reports presented to Parliament on human rights in the European Union since 1992 make for greater consistency in what the Community does.
We all know that the Amsterdam Treaty once again emphasised the fact that the Union is based on the principles of freedom, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Noblesse oblige , and of course the instruments at our disposal can certainly be improved upon.
On the other hand, we are also parties to the European Convention on Human Rights, by which we are all bound, the European Social Charter and the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment.
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I should like to mention once again the recent setting-up of a new permanent court.
It was inaugurated a few days ago and will undoubtedly, in the context of the Council of Europe, help to ensure that the rules on human rights are more effectively enforced in Europe.
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Regarding topical issues such as intolerance, racism and xenophobia, it was good to see that our Heads of Government in Vienna again underlined the importance of combating these and once again asked the Commission to draw up more detailed proposals on how to take action against crimes of this kind.
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A lively debate is currently under way on policy concerning refugees and asylum seekers.
Very recently, the Council of Ministers decided to set up a task force on asylum and migration matters which will try to devise an integrated policy based on the Union's policy and on foreign and security policy and the third pillar, which will concentrate on these issues of asylum policy but also primarily address itself to asylum seekers' countries of origin.
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I turn next to the rights of national minorities.
We are reminded daily of violations of the human rights of these groups.
We must of course set a good example within the Union and provide the best possible protection for these rights.
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Touching next on other problems such as the sexual exploitation of women and children, a number of initiatives have been developed, and I will simply refer here to the Commission's communication on the subject to the Council last May.
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Mr President, in our earlier debate on the three reports, I had the chance to state our position on the requests made in the reports by Mr Barros Moura, Mr Roubatis and Mr Torres Couto.
Many of those themes recur in Mrs Schaffner's report too.
As regards the suggestions and proposals she makes on these matters, perhaps I could refer you to the answers I gave in the previous debate.
The only point I will repeat, and I shall end on this note, is that the European Union and its Member States owe it to themselves to set an example if they wish to go on being a credible commentator on the human rights situation across the world.
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<SPEAKER ID=145 NAME="President">
The debate on the report (A4-0468/98) by Mrs Schaffner is now suspended so that we can move on to Question Time.
It will be resumed at 9.00 p.m.
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<CHAPTER ID=8>
Question Time (Council)
<SPEAKER ID=146 NAME="President">
The next item is questions to the Council (B4-0713/98).
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I would like to apologise to you all, and particularly Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, because we are beginning Question Time seven minutes later than planned.
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Ladies and gentlemen, in today's questions to the Council there are several groups of questions.
I am giving you prior warning of this so that when we come to those particular questions, in order to make our job slightly easier and prevent them from becoming the sole topic of debate, I shall first give the floor accordingly to the President-in-Office and then - only if there are supplementary questions - to the authors of the questions.
If a substitute has been appointed in line with the Rules of Procedure, the floor will be given to the substitute.
I am giving you advance notice of this, ladies and gentlemen, because if we were not aware of it we might spend the whole period set aside for Question Time on one question.
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<SPEAKER ID=147 NAME="President">
Question No 1 by Felipe Camisón Asensio (H-1051/98)
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Subject: Possible replacement of insulating materials in passenger planes
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In view of the accidents which have occurred recently, does the Council intend to take any specific action to ensure that metallised insulating materials such as Mylar or Tedlar are replaced in passenger planes?
I give the floor to Mrs Ferrero-Waldner to answer Mr Camisón Asensio's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=148 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on the first question, the Council attaches great importance to air safety and, as regards the air transport sector, I would refer you in particular to the very recent Community proposal on safety checks of third-country aircraft, to the proposal to create a new European authority responsible for passenger flight safety, and to the current activities in relation to reducing aircraft emissions and noise.
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But let me point out that air safety in the Community depends on cooperation between the national authorities, international organisations and the industry.
It is also self-evident that both the aviation industry and the national authorities must very carefully investigate all accidents and incidents in order further to improve air safety by means of their own controls and binding official measures.
On the subject of insulating materials in passenger planes raised by the questioner, I can add the following comments. As far as is known at present, metallised insulating materials such as Mylar have recently been investigated as one of several possible causes of aircraft accidents.
Amongst others, Canadian and US aviation officials, and also the aircraft manufacturers themselves, have been examining the question.
Should it turn out that this material can represent a risk, it is primarily up to the responsible national aviation authorities to issue the necessary directives and instructions in order to deal with this situation.
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But at present, although the investigations are at a very advanced stage, no evidence has actually emerged to indicate that the insulating material used was the cause or catalyst of an accident.
We are not expecting further findings until the near future.
Only then can and should we take the appropriate measures.
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<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Camisón Asensio">
The Council will be aware that there are some 12 000 commercial aircraft operating worldwide, the majority of which have been fitted out with 'mylar' or 'tedlar' insulation which, as recent events have shown, burns far more easily than had been predicted.
This appears to have been corroborated by the recent Swissair accident in Canada, which brought to light a problem that had already been suspected.
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As the Council knows, this issue has given rise to calls from throughout the world for urgent modifications to be made to this system of insulation that tends to ignite at high temperatures.
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I notice that the Council is aware of the issue, but the FAA, the United States Federal Aviation Administration, is leading the way in this matter, and my particular question relates to whether or not research is continuing in this respect in Europe as it is in the United States.
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<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Camisón Asensio, things are not quite as simple as you suggest.
Let me explain again.
In view of the importance the Council attaches to passenger safety in civil aviation, it is of course self-evident that it will give priority to considering any proposals on the matter that the Commission might submit to it.
As I am sure you know, under the provisions of the Treaty, which are the basis for any European Union action, it is in general up to the Commission to draw up the proposals which it considers necessary in fulfilment of its tasks.
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At present, there is no Commission proposal or communication on the matter before the Council.
But let me add this: as you said, and as I of course agree, the actual background to this question is the Swissair plane crash in Canada.
But as I said, the cause of this disaster has not yet been established.
The investigations are concentrating not just on materials such as Mylar and Tedlar, but far more on three other aspects.
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The first is the insulation of cables in the cockpit area with Kapton, the insulating material made from Mylar and Tedlar, and the aircraft's interactive audio-video system.
The parts of these insulating materials which have so far been recovered do not suggest that thermal action could have caused the accident.
The US Federal Aviation Authority investigated and certified the heat-resistance of these materials before authorising their use in civil aviation.
These tests are now being tightened up, and of course the insulating material must certainly be looked at closely so that it can be excluded as a risk factor.
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But let me repeat: at this stage, it is too early to exclude any particular material as the cause of the accident, and nor should one do so, because every possible cause must continue to be investigated so that we do not come to any over-hasty conclusions and thereby disregard other potential sources of risk.
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<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, you have just given us some very interesting information.
So let me return to one of my ancient hobby-horses, which is the danger of too much hand luggage in the aircraft.
I know you are preparing certain measures to finally make flying really safe throughout Europe.
We kept hearing that this required national or airline company decisions.
But these do not address the fact that too much hand luggage represents the greatest danger to passengers in the event of a crisis.
So it would be important finally to implement the provisions that were once discussed in IATA, and to restrict hand luggage to one piece.
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<SPEAKER ID=152 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr von Habsburg, let me reply as follows. Of course all of us frequent fliers know that you are quite right here, because excess luggage can naturally be a great risk.
But I can in fact tell you that both the airlines themselves and the various international organisations concerned with flight safety are devoting constant attention to this particular issue, which means that it is still being examined and in future things will no doubt go in the direction you are advocating, although of course for all us frequent fliers that could make life more difficult.
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<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="President">
Question No 2 by Alexandros Alavanos (H-1053/98)
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Subject: Further violation of human rights in occupied Cyprus
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The Turkish Cypriot 'authorities' plan to privatise one of the two Greek Cypriot schools - attended by 30 Greek pupils - which have continued to operate throughout occupied Cyprus.
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Having regard to: -the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in the Loizidou case, -Parliament's resolution No B4-0286/97 which 'condemns once again, and in the strongest terms, the serious and persistent violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms suffered by the persons in the enclave which have been committed by the illegal occupying regime, and the intransigence on the part of the latter', -the Council's answer to question E-0233/97 (4.7.1997) to the effect that 'The Council has taken due note of the European Parliament's resolution No B4-0286/97 and follows with the utmost intention the efforts made by the UN to ameliorate the living conditions of the enclaved persons and to restore their fundamental rights'.
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What measures will the Council take to prevent further violation of human rights in occupied Cyprus?I give the floor to Mrs Ferrero-Waldner to answer Mr Alavanos's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, let me answer this question as follows. The Council is concerned about the case referred to by the honourable Member.
However, as pointed out in the earlier reply to the honourable Member's written question, the Council is not competent to monitor the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights.
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The Council is of the opinion that the best option, with a view also to preventing further human rights violations, would be to seek a solution under the auspices of the United Nations.
For here the Council's objective remains a federation consisting of two ethnic groups and two zones, based on a comprehensive political settlement in compliance with the UN Security Council resolutions.
The Union also takes the view that progress towards EU accession and progress towards a just and lasting solution to the Cyprus issue will by their nature be mutually reinforcing.
It deeply regrets that it did not prove possible to bring about a political solution in good time, before the start of the negotiations, but believes that the accession of Cyprus to the EU would benefit all ethnic groups and contribute towards internal peace and reconciliation on the island.
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Furthermore, the European Union continues to call on both sides to take confidence-building measures in the framework of a comprehensive overall solution and to begin a process of progressive disarmament.
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The Council also points out that the fourth financial protocol basically also pursues the aim of supporting the efforts to find a political solution to the Cyprus question.
So far, however, the practical financing has not always proved possible, because the attempt at a resumption of talks between the two ethnic groups failed.
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As regards the role of Turkey, in the light of the conclusions of the Luxembourg European Council, there is general agreement in the Council that closer relations between Turkey and the European Union also require a positive approach on the part of Turkey and its active cooperation on the Cyprus question.
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<SPEAKER ID=155 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, I thank the Minister.
Her answer was very extensive and covered all the necessary points, and perhaps that is why it is difficult for me to put a second question.
Nevertheless, I will insist on the political issue.
Can the Council tell us whether it agrees with what Mr van den Broek and the Commission as a whole have said, namely that the government of Cyprus has made all the constructive proposals that it could concerning the participation of the Turkish Cypriot community in the accession negotiations, that responsibility unfortunately rests with the Turkish Cypriot community and Turkey, and that the procedures and talks on the accession of the Republic of Cyprus cannot ultimately become hostage to an intransigent attitude by Turkey.
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<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, let me say to Mr Alavanos that in principle we are glad that the Greek-Cypriot Government made constructive proposals regarding participation by the Northern Cypriot delegation in the accession negotiations.
It is of course regrettable that this failed.
Our aim, let me repeat, is membership of an undivided island.
To be an EU Member State, we want a Cyprus that has achieved a lasting political solution.
Any other option would be less good.
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<SPEAKER ID=157 NAME="President">
Question No 3 by Anne McIntosh (H-1060/98)
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Subject: Accession of Cyprus
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Can the President-in-Office of the Council please indicate the proposed timetable for the accession of Cyprus to the European Union?
I give the floor to Mrs Ferrero-Waldner to answer Mrs McIntosh's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=158 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, as the honourable Member knows, the European Council decided at its meeting of December 1997 in Luxembourg to open accession negotiations with Cyprus.
That is a component of the accession process, based on a global, inclusive and developing approach embracing all the countries that are seeking accession and which includes Cyprus and the ten Central and Eastern European countries.
The applicant countries are judged by the same criteria.
The speed at which this process advances is of course determined in each case by the level of preparation of the applicant state.
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The accession negotiations with Cyprus and the other applicant states began on 31 March 1998.
At the second ministerial meeting of the Accession Conference, on 10 November 1998, substantive negotiations began, with Cyprus as with the other five applicants, on the first seven chapters of the European Union's acquis on which the screening was completed.
They were science and research, telecommunications and information technology, education and training, culture and audiovisual policy, industrial policy, small and medium-sized enterprises and the common foreign and security policy.
It was found at the conference that no further negotiations are needed with Cyprus on five of these chapters, although they will certainly have to be looked at afresh at a later stage.
But two chapters, telecommunications and the CFSP, remain on the table and will still have to be discussed in due course by the conference.
Since acquis screening is still going on with regard to all 31 negotiating chapters, and the European Union cannot therefore formulate any common positions regarding the negotiations at this stage, it is not possible to set a timetable for the conclusion of the negotiations, and certainly not for accession.
That applies to Cyprus as it does to all the other applicant countries.
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<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="McIntosh">
I welcome the President-in-Office's reply.
However, in answer to the previous Member's reply she herself said that the Council hoped to bring about membership of an undivided island.
Clearly it is in the Union's interests that the accession should be of an undivided island.
If that is not possible, is the President-in-Office of the Council admitting today that, for this reason, there may be a delay to the accession of Cyprus?
Would that prevent Cyprus from being one of the first wave of new members?
This has important implications for the citizens of Cyprus and also for those of our citizens who wish to do business or possibly to live in Cyprus.
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I wonder whether she can confirm that lack of an internal settlement will not be a barrier to Cyprus's membership in the next wave and that they will keep to the original timetable?
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<SPEAKER ID=160 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mrs McIntosh, my positive words still stand.
Our objective is indeed the accession of an undivided island.
At the same time, it must of course be clear that no third country can have a veto in the EU enlargement process.
If no political settlement can be reached, we will probably have to ask ourselves who is mainly responsible for that.
At present that is all I can say in reply to your question whether there may be a delay.
At the same time, at present there is still some hope of working towards a solution based on a political settlement - and we encourage both sides to do so - under the United Nations process.
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<SPEAKER ID=161 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Alavanos">
Mr President, in essence I wish to return to the supplementary by Mrs McIntosh.
The Minister answered - the fact she mentioned is interesting and I would like her perhaps to repeat it - that account will be taken of who is responsible in the event that the island as a whole, or more specifically the Turkish Cypriot community, does not take part in the accession procedures.
I think this is important, and I should like to ask the Minister: if a political solution is set as a condition for accession, then would that not constitute an incentive for Turkey - which does not want accession - to do nothing towards finding a political solution for the Cyprus problem, which it might have done under other conditions?
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<SPEAKER ID=162 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Alavanos, I can only repeat what I have just emphasised, that of course no third country - which means not Turkey either - can have a veto in this EU enlargement process.
We have always regretted that it did not prove possible to find a positive political solution to the division of Cyprus in time for the beginning of the accession negotiations.
The General Affairs Council of 5 October 1998 pointed out again that the European Union's objective must remain the establishment of a federation of two communities and two zones based on a comprehensive political solution in compliance with the United Nations resolutions.
That political solution would then make it possible to implement the provisions of the accession agreement throughout the island.
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As I said in my initial reply, progress towards accession and a just and sustainable solution to the Cyprus problem would, of course, be mutually reinforcing.
At the same time, we have always confirmed that the European Union unreservedly supports the efforts to find a solution under the auspices of the United Nations.
The European Council also confirmed its support for the UN Secretary-General's efforts to bring about a comprehensive settlement in Cyprus, and particularly the endeavours of his special emissary to ease the tensions and bring about progress towards a just and lasting settlement.
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<SPEAKER ID=163 NAME="President">
Question No 4 by Patricia McKenna (H-1066/98)
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Subject: Electronic and electromagnetic security of EU institutions
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Does the Council receive ongoing information on the state of development of electromagnetic weaponry, as used for example against the US Embassy in Moscow in the Soviet era , technologies which are by now much more highly developed and more widely dispersed?
Does the Council carry out checks or permanent monitoring to ensure that such weapons are not used against any of the Institutions of the EU or against Members of Parliament, Commission, Council, Court of Justice and Court of Auditors or key officials in their private lives?
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If this does not already exist, will the Council agree to a general security consultation process with the Commission, European Parliament, European Court of Justice and other institutions on this matter, which should also include the electronic surveillance problem recently highlighted by revelations about the ECHELON system, to inform the institutions of the level of all such security risks, to establish various forms of permanent monitoring as required, and to consider issuing key personnel, including those dealing with such matters, with some form of personal monitoring devices to guarantee their safety against electromagnetic radiation from any such weapon systems, in the admittedly unlikely event that they are used?
I give the floor to Mrs Ferrero-Waldner to answer Mrs McKenna's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=164 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mrs McKenna, on this most interesting question let me point out that of course the Council is aware of the need for extreme vigilance and constant checks to ensure a very high level of security for the personnel, property and buildings of the European institutions.
The Council is also aware of the existence of a considerable number of electromagnetic and other hi-tech devices that can, either by design or as a side-effect, cause people physical or psychological damage.
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But nobody should think that the use on a large scale of systems of this kind could go unnoticed.
They are technically complex and very expensive, and many of the results that could be achieved by using them could also be achieved more simply and cheaply.
There is no evidence of such systems being used comprehensively against administrative structures.
And to my knowledge, systems of this kind, although of course they must certainly not be underestimated, have not led to any incidents hitherto.
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Naturally, the Council attaches the utmost importance to increasing the security and safety of its communications networks and of all its staff.
It will consider all proposals to that end.
But I would also ask you to understand that this is a field in which the first effective counter-measures also call for a certain amount of discretion.
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<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="McKenna">
I should like to thank the President-in-Office of the Council for her answer.
It is quite interesting that you recognise such potential actually exists.
When you talk about such things it is difficult to believe that they can happen but without monitoring or checks you cannot be quite sure that they do.
It happened as far back as 1976.
This is confirmed by Henry Kissinger himself in correspondence to the US embassy in Moscow, where he confirmed the permanent ill effects of these weapons on staff at the embassy.
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I believe it is possible.
I believe it is difficult to say that there is no danger or threat there, without some sort of monitoring and assessment of the situation.
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<SPEAKER ID=166 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mrs McKenna, as I indicated earlier, these are of course very technically complex and expensive systems.
However, I think there is a great difference between what happened when Mr Kissinger was tackling this problem and the present situation.
That case was concerned with what was happening in a building inside the Soviet Union, surrounded by many other buildings, where it was certainly easier to install devices of this kind.
Now we are concerned mainly with European buildings in European countries, and the situation is quite different.
That is why we must take account of this different situation, which I would certainly describe as less dangerous.
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<SPEAKER ID=167 NAME="President">
As they deal with the same subject, Questions Nos 5 to 14 will be taken together.
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As I have already pointed out, I shall only give the floor for supplementary questions to those authors of questions who are present and who ask to speak.
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Question No 5 by Magda Aelvoet (H-1073/98)
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Subject: European Union observers at the Western Sahara self-determination referendum
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In accordance with the conflict-resolution plan for Western Sahara and the Houston Agreements, the presence of independent observers during the self-determination referendum will provide a fundamental guarantee for conferring credibility on the process, which should be free, transparent and democratic.
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Having regard to the tradition of delegating European Parliament and Commission observers to other similar processes (Namibia and South Africa), what ways and means will the Council adopt in order to guarantee a constant presence on the occasion of the last decolonisation process on the African continent?
Question No 6 by Pierre Pradier (H-1074/98)
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Subject: EU aid for the return of refugees at the time of the self-determination referendum in Western Sahara
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In the run-up to the forthcoming referendum on self-determination in Western Sahara, is the Council aware of plans for the return of thousands of Sahrawi refugees to their own territory?
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Given the scale of the exercise, involving the movement of whole families, what material and human resources is the EU planning to contribute?Question No 7 by Francisca Sauquillo Pérez del Arco (H-1075/98)
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Subject: Cooperation with Western Sahara
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Has the Council any plans for drawing up a future programme for long-term cooperation to assist the comprehensive development of Western Sahara once the referendum on self-determination has been held, as called for by Parliament in its recommendation of March 1998?
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If so, would the Council say what the main features of the programme are?Question No 8 by José Mendiluce Pereiro (H-1076/98)
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Subject: Council response to the European Parliament recommendation concerning the referendum on self-determination in Western Sahara
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What action has the Council taken in response to the resolution adopted in March by the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy and by its plenary on the referendum on self-determination for the people of Western Sahara?
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What policy and practical measures does it intend to take in order to ensure that the referendum on self-determination is free, democratic and transparent?Question No 9 by Carlos Carnero González (H-1077/98)
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Subject: EU Council support for a peaceful solution in Western Sahara
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In view of the recent encouraging developments relating to the forthcoming holding of a referendum on self-determination for the Saharan people, such as the visit to the region by the UN Secretary-General and the successful negotiations involving mediation by James Baker III, what action is the Council intending to take (along the lines suggested in the recommendation adopted by the European Parliament) in order to help secure a peaceful, lasting settlement in Western Sahara which complies with international resolutions?Question No 10 by Ludivina García Arias (H-1078/98)
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Subject: Need for a European foreign policy initiative for Western Sahara
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In association with the OAU, the UN is providing firm backing for the holding of a referendum on self-determination for Western Sahara, involving effective mediation by James Baker III, the former US Secretary of State. So far the European Union has not demonstrated any definite public support for the final process of decolonisation in Africa.
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Does the Council not think that, once again, responsibility for solving problems which, in geographical terms, are so close to Europe is being delegated to other countries and international bodies, owing to the lack of a European foreign policy initiative for Western Sahara which could help to bring peace, development, justice and stability to that part of the world?Question No 11 by Angela Sierra González (H-1082/98)
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Subject: Union support for the peace plan and the referendum to be held in Western Sahara
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In March 1998 Parliament adopted a recommendation to the Council which referred to the need for the Union to lend its active support to enable a free referendum to be held in Western Sahara.
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Can the Council therefore say whether it has begun to draw up a plan backed by the human and material resources required to enable the referendum to take place with all the necessary guarantees?Question No 12 by Laura González Álvarez (H-1083/98)
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Subject: Union support for the peace plan and the referendum to be held in Western Sahara
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In the light of the need for the EU to play an ongoing active role in promoting the peace plan for Western Sahara and of the recommendation to the Council (A4-0066/98) adopted by Parliament in March 1998:
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Has the Council begun to draw up a plan to organise the Union's involvement with a view to providing the assistance required for the referendum to take place and the support needed to enable refugees to return home?Question No 13 by Arthur Newens (H-1088/98)
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Subject: Western Sahara
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Would the President-in-Office make a statement indicating the steps which are being taken by the European Union to provide aid and assistance to the peoples of the Sahara during the course of the referendum on the future of the Western Sahara and the plans in hand to provide assistance during the subsequent period?Question No 14 by Wilfried Telkämper (H-1092/98)
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Subject: Referendum in Western Sahara
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Is the Troika prepared to give active support to the UN's proposal that a referendum be held in Western Sahara?
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If so, what specific measures has it taken to date for the holding of a referendum, and what measures will it be taking in the near future?Mr White and Mr Smith have asked to raise points of order.

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Very briefly, Mr White, you have the floor.
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<SPEAKER ID=168 NAME="White">
I want to clarify what you just said in terms of the way you were going to deal with this.
You said you would accept supplementaries from questioners who are present.
I take it, however, that the Rule enables those of us who are not actually the questioners to ask supplementaries anyway.
Otherwise we would not have come here today.
The point of coming here is to ask supplementaries on the questions that have been tabled.
I assume, therefore, that you will allow us to do that.
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<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="President">
I have already explained - and you were not present at the start of Question Time - that purely because of the time constraints, I am only going to give the floor to the questioners themselves should they wish to ask supplementary questions.
If for every ten questions we allow 20 supplementaries to be asked, we will not be able to make any progress.
The Chair has taken this decision owing to the special circumstances that have arisen in this debate.
I am therefore telling you that, under my responsibility, with the authority the present situation gives me to interpret the Rules of Procedure, I am only going to give the floor to the questioners if they are present and if they specifically request it.
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Mr Smith wishes to speak on a point of order.
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<SPEAKER ID=170 NAME="Smith">
Mr President, you have said that you have made a decision using your own discretion rather than applying the Rules to the letter.
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Whilst I appreciate that grouping these questions together is sensible in terms of efficiency and quite a number of the questioners themselves are not here, I see no reason to rule out supplementary questions by Members who have an interest.
Think about the precedent you are setting.
Instead of 14 questions being tabled tonight, you would have 24 because we know we will not get a supplementary unless we put a question.
If that really an efficient precedent to be setting?
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I ask you to reconsider, at your discretion, the right to give supplementary questions to those of us who have not tabled questions but have an interest in this subject and want to raise supplementary questions based on the answers we will receive from the Council.
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<SPEAKER ID=171 NAME="President">
Mr Smith, I am no longer going to give people the floor for points of order.
All those who disagree with the decision taken by the Chair are perfectly within their rights to refer the matter to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure for consideration.
But I do not wish to continue the debate here and now, precisely so that I can hear the questions put by the eight Members present who have the right to ask a supplementary question.
If you cared to do a simple calculation, you would realise that we could not progress any further in this Question Time, which is the last one in which we shall have the opportunity to hear Mrs Ferrero-Waldner's opinion on other issues.
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I therefore give the floor to Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, and while I fully understand the reasons you are giving - reasons that the Committee on the Rules of Procedure may possibly agree with - at the present moment in time I accept my full responsibility in this matter and I would ask Mrs Ferrero-Waldner to respond jointly to the eight questions put by the Members present.
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<SPEAKER ID=172 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
The large number of questions on Western Sahara reveals the importance Members of the European Parliament attach to this subject, while at the same time showing that it is an enormously complex subject, involving a great number of historical, political and humanitarian aspects.
I am happy to respond to these questions with all due brevity.
Of course the Council is carefully monitoring developments in the region and is endeavouring to contribute towards finding a peaceful, comprehensive solution to this long-standing issue.
The Council fully endorses the peace plan accepted by both parties and approved by the Security Council, which involves the holding of a free, just and impartial referendum on self-determination for the people of Western Sahara.
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At the recent 53rd meeting of the United Nations General Assembly on 13 October 1998, the European Union reaffirmed its full support for the United Nations plan.
It noted the progress made, for example the identification of more than 147 000 people in the identification process for participation in the referendum, while at the same time expressing its concern that the question of the three tribal groups has not yet been resolved.
The Council also shares the concern expressed by the United Nations General Assembly about the delay in implementing the plan, which is largely due to poor cooperation by the parties concerned with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees - the UNHCR - but also to the delay in signing the agreement on the legal status of the troops, known as SOFA.
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The European Union has also advised the parties concerned to work closely together with the High Commissioner for Refugees, and in particular to enable him to carry out all the necessary preliminary work for the return of the Sahrawi refugees.
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Furthermore, the Union has paid tribute to the work of the United Nations mission for the referendum in Western Sahara, MINURSO, which will continue to play a decisive role in the peace process.
It should be noted that the EU Member States have made their contribution by visiting the region several times during the identification process, as an expression of international support for the peace plan.
Meanwhile, the Council presidency is in close contact with the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, with a view in particular to considering possible EU support measures, which, so far at least, have not been determined in any detail.
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<SPEAKER ID=173 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Izquierdo Collado">
I thank the presidency for its reply, but I think that it has focused too much on the time when the referendum takes place.
The question that my colleague, Mrs Sauquillo, is asking relates to a different issue, namely, that once the referendum has taken place, whatever the outcome, a substantial development and cooperation plan with the Sahara will be needed.
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In my opinion, the presidency has been too vague and I would like to know whether it really does intend to introduce such cooperation and, as a consequence, complete the overall plan being developed by the Humanitarian Aid Office.
Therefore, what future additional plans exist for after the referendum?
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<SPEAKER ID=174 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr Izquierdo Collado, let me answer as follows. It does seem a little early at this stage to discuss future measures when we all know how difficult it will be even to hold the referendum and when we are all, at this moment, struggling to ensure that a referendum is held at all.
It is quite clear that of course there will be a range of aid projects and measures following the referendum, and indeed a range of such projects already exists.
I myself am Minister for Development Cooperation, and all I can say is that apart from the European Union's official programmes there are of course also the ECHO bilateral programmes.
But it really is too soon to speculate on what will happen later.
Let us wait for the results of the referendum, and here we must support the United Nations by doing all we can to ensure that the referendum takes place at all.
We all know that there are still some obstacles in its way; once they have been overcome, we will gladly consider and also be in a position to propose a practical programme.
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<SPEAKER ID=175 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Mendiluce Pereiro">
Very briefly and without wishing to take sides apart from expressing my support for the United Nations resolutions, I should like to ask the Council if it is aware that there are omissions, negligent actions and absences in international policy which, on occasions, hide undisclosed political positions and give the impression that the absence of the European Union as such in terms of breaking deadlocks and in the process of negotiating conflict resolution forms a part of such negligence.
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Is the Council aware that maintaining the status quo is tantamount to favouring one side, that, due to the lack of sufficient pressure to resolve the impasse, it is condemning a population to continue living in exile, deprived of its rights, and that, out of all the potential voters, this situation only affects those who are in favour of independence?
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<SPEAKER ID=176 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Mendiluce Pereiro, let me respond as follows. It is certainly not the case that the European Union is absent here.
I am intentionally highlighting this point, because it allows me to say something in the debate.
During the last General Assembly, I myself addressed this question in talks with the UN Secretary-General, whom I in fact know very well from my earlier post at the United Nations, and I also urged that the United Nations, the Secretary-General and, where appropriate, the special envoy James Baker should take joint action.
Unfortunately, I have to say that the time was not yet ripe.
But you know that the Secretary-General himself has recently visited the region - at the time he considered that more useful, and we were happy to endorse his view, since after all we want to see some positive developments in the situation - and held detailed talks with the conflicting parties.
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His report on that visit is now available and yesterday, on 15 December, it was debated in the Security Council.
This procedure was entirely expected, given that of course the United Nations has overall responsibility for the proposed referendum; now the European Union will contact Kofi Annan again in order to discuss this question in depth with him.
On that occasion, questions such as the usefulness of an EU declaration on the Western Sahara issue and the best possible time for making it will also be discussed.
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Let me also say that after the identification process had come to a standstill some time ago because of the Moroccan-Sahrawi disagreement on the identification of tribes H41, H61 and J51 and J52 - who make up about 65 000 individuals - the UN Secretary-General put forward a compromise proposal, a kind of package.
The Polisario, Algeria and Mauritania accepted the package, while Morocco initially questioned it.
In a letter and a memorandum addressed to the UN Secretary-General on 20 November this year, Morocco raised a number of questions on which it asked for clarification.
In a further letter of 15 December this year, Morocco expressed its opposition to regarding these 65 000 candidates as candidates in a second list.
But Morocco has not yet formally replied to the UN Secretary-General's compromise proposal.
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The extension of the MINURSO mandate to the end of January 1999 which the Secretary-General has now proposed is to be used for UN consultations with Morocco.
However, the prospects of success seem fairly slight, and let me quote verbatim from a United Nations report we have just received: '...unless Morocco gets what it wants'.
There is no sensible reason to wait until end of January for the personal envoy, James Baker, and the Secretary-General to intervene again.
And I believe that James Baker must clearly intervene on this issue again.
That is my answer, Mr President.
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<SPEAKER ID=177 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Carnero González">
The Austrian Presidency's answer naturally fails to make reference to the recommendation adopted by this very Parliament.
Bearing in mind that this recommendation is so old, it is all the more 'striking' that neither the conclusions of the recent Vienna European Council nor the strategy on external action it adopted made any reference whatsoever to the situation in Western Sahara.
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I should like the President-in-Office to answer three questions.
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First, will the Austrian Presidency pass on to the next Presidency of the Council of the Union, namely, the German Presidency, the concerns being voiced by the European Parliament in relation to the conflict in Western Sahara?
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Second, does the presidency not think that the European Union should hold talks and meetings with both sides, that is, with Morocco and the Polisario Front?
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And third, could the presidency confirm whether or not the country responsible as the former colonial power, in other words, Spain, has ever raised the issue of the Sahara within the Council?
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<SPEAKER ID=178 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Carnero González, on the first question, it is quite clear that of course the Austrian Presidency is not the only one to discuss this important issue and, as I said, things do not always have to be done in public.
So here we have determined on a confidential basis and in continuous contacts with the United Nations where we can take supportive action.
I am sure I can say the same for the German Presidency, because this is indeed a question that concerns us all very much and where we must finally see some progress.
In reply to the other questions, all I can really do is repeat the following: the reason why this issue did not feature in the Vienna conclusions is that it was quite deliberately decided not to list every political issue where there is a conflict, a problem, in the conclusions.
In Vienna we were concerned with efficiency, and please note that this was also true of the Spanish member of the Council.
Mr President, I hope that answers the question.
Thank you!
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<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="García Arias">
Madam President-in-Office, you have given a very detailed answer, which is proof of your personal interest and that of your country in this particular matter.
We only wish that such interest could be passed on to the German Presidency. But as this is the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the United Nations, and in the face of the last pending decolonisation in the African continent, it is difficult to forget about the generation lost in terms of development, that is to say, the Sahrawis currently in exile and living in the territories occupied by the Moroccan authorities.
I also want to voice my concern, Madam President-in-Office, because there have already been too many occasions when we have come across American mediators: in Bosnia, the Middle East, Kosovo, and now in the Sahara.
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We are talking about 15 countries here and you must all endeavour to further your commitment and participate more seriously in this process.
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<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mrs García Arias, may I say that we certainly are concerning ourselves with this conflict.
I would like to read out the figures on the humanitarian aid that has already been provided for the Sahrawi refugees, because that needs saying too: on 1 March 1998, ECHO released another ECU 7.2 million, and on 2 October of the same year ECU 10 million.
These two sums are earmarked primarily for food aid, medical and health care and for improving the water supply in the refugee camps in the Tindof region of Algeria.
There, a total of 150 000 refugees are entirely dependent on international aid.
Because the planned referendum was postponed, ECHO has not taken any decisions yet on support for the efforts to secure the return of the refugees, although of course plans to that effect have long since been prepared and ECHO has also contacted the UNHCR on the subject, through its representative on the ground, with a view to coordinating further measures.
As I have said, we ourselves have a number of bilateral projects that we have been carrying out there for many years.
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The second point I wished to make is that my country, the country holding the presidency, now has a force of 260 soldiers standing by for deployment in the Tindof region in the run-up to the referendum, in order to prepare for the referendum there and then, of course, ensure a smooth transition.
So we have these troops waiting - which of course costs a fortune - and we will have to keep them on stand-by.
However, and I come now to the third point you addressed, we already have an American mediator, appointed by the United Nations, and I must say that James Baker has achieved something positive in managing to create the preconditions for Morocco's agreement to this referendum.
So however much I am in favour of us Europeans playing a global political role, something we always advocate, I do not believe it is useful for us to intervene in questions where good mediators already exist, because any duplication here would mean different personalities being involved.
I do not think that is very useful in terms of resolving the issue in question.
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That is what I wanted to say.
One final comment: I am of course responsible for development cooperation, and at the most recent Development Cooperation Council I myself raised for the first time the question of conflict-prevention in general as also being a development issue, and at that Council we were able to adopt conclusions to that effect for the first time. I believe that the initial development aid which we give, the many years of work, can be brought to nothing the moment a conflict breaks out.
So in principle I quite agree with you, but in cases where good mediators already exist - and I believe that James Baker was a good choice of personality and has achieved a great deal, which is also appreciated by the conflicting parties - we should primarily play a supportive role, which is what we are doing.
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<SPEAKER ID=181 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Sierra González">
I am sorry you have had to get up so many times, but I just wanted to ask very briefly for greater clarification as to which specific political and humanitarian measures the Council is taking to ensure that the referendum on self-determination in the Sahara is free, transparent and democratic and to ensure that it is not postponed indefinitely, which would only be detrimental for one of the sides in the conflict.
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<SPEAKER ID=182 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mrs Sierra González, I have in fact just discussed the humanitarian aid that is being allocated through ECHO and also by many countries on a bilateral basis.
But let me point out once again that the overall process for creating peace in the Sahara is taking place under the auspices of the United Nations and that at present it is within that framework that the Member States make their material as well as their political contribution to overcoming these difficult problems.
In any case, I can assure you that the European Union continues to be present in this part of the African continent, which has of course had special relations with Europe for centuries and which is of the greatest strategic importance to this continent.
That is what I have to say in reply.
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<SPEAKER ID=183 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
The President-in-Office should be aware that when there is a barrage of questions like that, some of us feel bad about asking further questions, but I am sure that the President-in-Office will not have failed to notice that it is precisely through such questions that we were attempting to have a debate on the Sahara.
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Such a debate is, I feel, absent from the European Union, so that is why we are being particularly insistent in this case. Instead of asking you a question, since you have already answered several, including some that focus on what will happen 'after' the referendum, I am more concerned about what happens 'before'.
That is because some of us, since 1992 - the year in which the referendum was supposed to have taken place -, have followed the fate of the Sahrawi people and visited the camps where we saw the difficulties this race is experiencing in trying to survive and educate their children. And their children are educated, since they leave school at the age of 16 with a high level of education so that they might continue with their studies.
We also witnessed there the efforts needed to feed themselves and survive, so we wonder whether or not the European Union can continue to tolerate the obstacles erected by Morocco.
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Morocco has always tried to prevent this referendum from taking place because what it really wants is to annex the Sahara.
Let us be perfectly clear about this.
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What we would like - and this is my last point - is to see a united and energetic stance taken by the European Union, which says to Morocco, because it is in a position to: 'look here, the referendum should take place now and it is not only the United Nations that is calling for this, but also the European Union, which historically has close links with the Sahara.'
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<SPEAKER ID=184 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mrs González Álvarez, let me say that I too consider this question at least as important before the referendum as after the referendum.
I said that a moment ago, for the difficulties will remain so long as we have not had a referendum at all.
As I have just tried to explain, we are of course fully aware of Morocco's attempts to delay matters here by constantly raising new questions.
But I believe that nevertheless at this point we must continue along that road.
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On the basis of the identification lists that already exist, it is most likely that the outcome of the referendum will favour the Polisario.
There is, of course, the risk that Morocco will not accept that.
That means that if this whole process does not move forward by the end of January then, as the UN Secretary-General proposes in his latest report: 'Should the prospects for completing the identification process remain uncertain by that time, it would be my intention to revert to the Security Council and to ask my personal envoy - James Baker - to reassess the situation and the viability of the mandate of MINURSO'.
So if there is no success by the end of January, the question will also arise of whether the international community is interested in extending MINURSO's mandate.
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Members of the American Congress will also ask whether this venture is of any use.
So other political considerations will perhaps also have to be taken into account at that point, although it is too soon to do so today.
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<SPEAKER ID=185 NAME="Newens">
I thank the President-in-Office of the Council for the numerous detailed replies and appreciate both the close contact maintained with the United Nations and the crucial role of James Baker.
However, while recognising the need to avoid duplication of effort, is the Council maintaining close and continuous contact with both the Moroccan authorities and the Polisario in order to press for the resolution of any difficulties which arise?
As we have a particular interest it may be that, by maintaining that contact, we can support the process in a very constructive way.
Would the President-in-Office comment on our contacts with both parties?
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<SPEAKER ID=186 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Newens, of course the presidency is in full contact with the conflicting parties, but, as I said, on an extremely confidential basis.
I myself, as I said at the outset, told the UN Secretary-General that we were prepared at any time to conduct a joint mission either with him or with James Baker.
At the beginning of our presidency I thought perhaps the moment had come for that, but in view of these identification difficulties it was not feasible at that stage.
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But let me say that the UN Security Council deliberately only extends the mandate of the MINURSO operation on a very short-term basis, normally by only six to eight weeks, so that it can monitor the progress made in the peace process at regular intervals and thus exert a certain amount of pressure on Morocco and put it on the spot.
That forces the conflicting parties to continue their efforts to resolve the peace process and keeps them on their toes.
So I really do still believe that we must continue along this road and, as the UN Secretary-General says himself, if it turns out not to be viable by the end of January, then we will probably have to seek other political solutions, which will have to be put up for discussion again and would of course also have to be discussed in the Council.
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<SPEAKER ID=187 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, I am disappointed at your answer to my question.
You said the presidency will support the measures and initiatives taken by Kofi Annan of the UN.
I had asked whether the troika is prepared to give active support to the UN's proposal that a referendum should be held.
You said that no measures had been taken and nor were any in prospect for the future.
I think we must plan for the referendum now - one year is not a very long time - and I hoped you would say that you had made provision for peace observers in the form of an EU contingent of 2 000 or 3 000 troops or of an infrastructure.
I think the people deserve that.
They have been living in refugee camps for years.
This area has been occupied!
After the Spaniards left, the EU - Mr President, do not look at the clock yet, because this concerns my question, which was not answered.
My supplementary question is as follows: next year a new fisheries agreement is to be signed with Morocco.
Is the presidency prepared to lay down conditions here, for example that if Morocco does not allow the referendum to be held, there will not be a new fisheries agreement either?
Where is the frontier, at which degree of latitude does the coastal region belong to Morocco and at which to Western Sahara?
That is my supplementary question.
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<SPEAKER ID=188 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Telkämper, I fear you were not here earlier, when I explained that in fact Austria, which currently holds the presidency, has had a contingent of 260 troops on stand-by for the past year, with the approval indeed of Parliament, so that they could be deployed as quickly as possible - in fact six months before the referendum - and make optimum preparations for that referendum.
Unfortunately, that did not prove possible because of the poor progress made with the identification process.
But I have already said all that.
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Why was there no troika mission?
As I said in my first statement, I myself have had extremely close contacts with the UN Secretary-General on this question since the last General Assembly.
After all, the UN is an institution that is recognised worldwide and which, moreover, really has done good work on this particular issue - I am thinking here of the special envoy, James Baker, whom I also referred to earlier.
We considered whether we should conduct a joint mission with the United Nations and with James Baker.
At the time, the UN considered the time was not ripe.
I said we do not want to duplicate our activity, because that would achieve nothing, but wish to make a real contribution to resolving the question.
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As regards the fisheries agreement, I must say that the next presidency will probably have to decide that.
It is too early to answer that question.
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<SPEAKER ID=189 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Ferrero-Waldner.
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I shall now close the discussion of this group of ten questions which have occupied 40 minutes of our Question Time.
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As the author is not present, Question No 15 lapses.
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<SPEAKER ID=190 NAME="President">
Question No 16 by José Valverde López (H-1090/98)
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Subject: Action by the Council to promote the use of permanent paper and protect consumer rights
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The Council resolution of May 1989 on the promotion of books and reading stressed the importance of using permanent paper to prevent the continued publication of millions of books carrying within them the seeds of their self-destruction.
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In November 1991 the Council and the culture ministers examined a report on the conservation of books using acid paper and the use of permanent paper.
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What action has the Council taken to initiate the use of permanent paper in its sphere of competence and to promote it among the Member States and in the interests of consumer protection?
I give the floor to Mrs Ferrero-Waldner to answer Mr Valverde Lopez's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=191 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Valverde López, let me reply as follows. Community measures in the cultural field come under Article 128 of the Treaty establishing the European Community.
That means the cultural sphere is no exception to the rule that the Council can only act on a proposal from the Commission.
To date, the Council has received no proposals on the matter raised by the honourable Member in his question.
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<SPEAKER ID=192 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Valverde López">
I thank the Council for its answer, but the issue of paper, the use of permanent paper and the creation of a European standard for the manufacture of permanent paper, its use in books and consumer protection are not cultural issues.
Rather, they relate to internal trade, raw materials and book marketing, which, then have a direct influence on cultural programmes.
For 12 years I have been trying to make the Council and the Commission aware of this issue.
I managed to have it placed on the agenda of the 1989 Culture Council and again in 1991, but it relates to the internal market.
The Council could also take measures on its own initiative regarding the use of this paper, for example, for its records.
For history to preserve them, these measures must be taken and we here at Parliament should do likewise.
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Can you do anything to ensure that our concern for these issues is passed on to your successors, so that maybe we can do something about it within 10 years?
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<SPEAKER ID=193 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Valverde.
I hope that future election results will enable you to follow this matter as closely as before for a further five years, or at least allow you to see that it is successfully achieved.
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Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, you have the floor.
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<SPEAKER ID=194 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Valverde López, of course the Council is aware of the importance of the conservation of books, which have until now been the primary medium for the transmission and dissemination of cultural matter. That is all the more true in that today's books will of course become the collective memory of the next generation.
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In the light of that, I am sure you will allow me to refer you to one of the basic principles of European Union action.
On the basis of the distribution of responsibilities among the various Community institutions laid down in the Treaty, it is for the Commission to make proposals which it believes could usefully be implemented.
We, that is the Council, take the view that it should be left to each institution to fulfil its obligations in the way it considers best, with a view to achieving the objectives it has set itself in the framework of a particular task.
Nonetheless, Mr Valverde López, I am happy to take up your suggestion and at least to pass it on to the Commission, since after hearing that you first raised the matter in 1989, I do of course appreciate your concern.
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<SPEAKER ID=195 NAME="President">
Question No 17 by Karl Habsburg-Lothringen (H-1094/98)
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Subject: Implementation of the Dayton Agreement
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How does the Council assess the implementation of the Dayton Agreement hitherto?
I give the floor to Mrs Ferrero-Waldner to answer Mr Habsburg-Lothringen's question.
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<SPEAKER ID=196 NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Habsburg-Lothringen, in the past year Bosnia-Herzegovina has taken great strides forward.
The essential political and economic institutions are now assuming concrete form.
Important laws have also been adopted on foreign investment and on privatisation.
There have been substantial improvements in freedom of movement within the country.
The basic reform of the media is now under way, and that is helping to build up a democratic society.
At the most recent elections in September, a trend towards increasing pluralism and tolerance emerged.
The international community as a whole and the European Union in particular must, however, continue their efforts to bring about a genuinely lasting peace.
<P>
Much remains to be done.
Peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina still has feet of clay and would, unfortunately, not hold fast without the current international support.
There are three main risk factors that need to be addressed: the lack of integration between the ethnic groups, the need for a full and exact demarcation of the responsibilities of the state and of the regional entities, and the existence of party monopolies on the means of production.
<P>
When the phase of consolidation comes to an end, the next few years will be crucial for the strengthening of democracy.
At present, Bosnia-Herzegovina is one of the most heavily supported countries in the world.
The international aid, of which the EU continues to provide the lion's share, has reached its peak and will inevitably have to be reduced very soon.
Bosnia-Herzegovina must therefore use the remaining time to prepare itself to survive without foreign aid and to meet the challenge of transforming the economy in such a way as to create jobs and raise the standard of living.
At the same time, the local authorities will have to assume ever more responsibility.
The Peace Implementation Conference is being held in Madrid on 15 and 16 of this month and will examine the progress made in implementing the peace agreement.
<P>
It will have determined what still needs to be done to ensure that peace is maintained without outside assistance.
The Peace Implementation Conference, the PIC, will no doubt use the next, decisive phase to encourage the return of refugees and exiles, to strengthen Bosnia-Herzegovina from within and without, and to establish solid relations between the institutions of Bosnia-Herzegovina and of Europe.
<P>
For the rest, the High Representative helped ensure that substantial progress was made in the Dayton peace process.
We must also highlight the positive role he plays as the final authority for interpreting the civil aspects of the agreement and as coordinator of the civil implementing measures.
Without his efforts and his authority over the past 12 months, we would have achieved much less progress.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Madam President-in-Office, thank you for your account of the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
I would like to put two brief questions.
The first concerns the refugee problem to which you referred briefly at the end.
Of course the refugee problem is also closely bound up with the corresponding legislation, not just in Bosnia-Herzegovina but also in the neighbouring countries.
For instance, I know that Croatia has already revoked certain laws relating to housing that was allocated to refugees for the long term but to which other refugees now want to return, and I do hope that there will soon be legislation in place in Bosnia-Herzegovina that allows them to do so.
Do you know whether there are any indications that the legal situation will be adjusted accordingly?
<P>
With reference to the countries that are co-signatories to the Dayton Accord - which also include Croatia - my second question is this: what do you think the situation in Croatia is at present, and what must Croatia do so that the PHARE programme can be fully implemented there again and so that Croatia is able to follow an orderly European course?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Habsburg-Lothringen, on your question about the legal situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina, I have to say that unfortunately not everything was done that should have been done.
That is why, in particular at the Peace Implementation Conference, the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Schüssel, criticised the poor cooperation by the Bosnian authorities on this question as well as on the question of the return of refugees.
He said that the return home of Bosnian citizens, especially of course those from minority groups, is still being hampered by a lack of willingness to cooperate at all administrative levels and in particular by the generally poor security situation.
He also expressed disappointment at the lack of progress in this area and hoped to see substantial improvements in 1999.
We must manage to ensure that a critical mass of minority-group refugees return, so that this becomes an irreversible process.
That is the heart of the matter.
<P>
On the question of Croatia and the PHARE programme, let me tell you that Croatia must fulfil the conditions laid down under the regional concept if it is to be fully eligible for the PHARE programme and if it is to be included in the negotiations on a trade and cooperation agreement as a preliminary step towards a Europe agreement.
As I am sure you are aware, as early as April 1997 the Council adopted an overall strategy, what is known as the regional concept, for relations with the western Balkans, namely Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Albania.
In an endeavour to consolidate peace and stability in the region, to contribute to its reconstruction and in particular to support its European aspirations, it was decided that the EU would progressively build up its relations with these countries too.
<P>
To that end, as you will know, the European Union laid down political and economic conditions that must be fulfilled with a view to the attainment firstly of autonomous trade preferences, then of membership of PHARE, and finally of treaty relations.
The Council is monitoring the progress on fulfilment of these conditions on a regular basis, and adopted its most recent conclusions on the subject on 9 November.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, many thanks for the expertise with which you have answered not just this question but all our questions over the past six months.
Nevertheless, let me make one critical observation, addressed not to you personally but to the Council.
I regard the term 'western Balkans' as a most unfortunate one.
It is a quite artificial concept and refers to something that has never really existed.
Croatia was never Balkan, Macedonia is Balkan.
There never really was a 'western Balkans', and it is a totally artificial concept.
<P>
I tend to believe that we should develop a kind of democratic, positive domino theory and stabilise one country after another.
If we want to stabilise Bosnia-Herzegovina, we must first stabilise Croatia, and as far as the PHARE programme and the trade and cooperation agreement are concerned we cannot rank it lower than, say, Albania.
There is no objective reason whatsoever for doing so.
I believe that the Council should rethink these criteria and try to break through Croatia's isolation, since no progress can be achieved through isolation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ferrero-Waldner">
Mr President, Mr Posselt, let me answer as follows. I believe the name western Balkans derives from the idea that we need a regional concept.
Perhaps one can follow your interpretation and say that it never existed historically.
But one can certainly also interpret it positively by saying that we need to create prospects for the entire region, and in that respect this is a positive approach.
At any rate, I can tell you that the European Union is firmly resolved to achieve full implementation of the Dayton Accord, and also to get all the forces concerned to declare their support for its implementation.
Of course, that is also closely bound up with the question of what more can be done in Croatia.
<P>
May I also say that the Peace Implementation Conference in particular has continually committed Croatia to creating certain conditions, with a view in particular to promoting the safe return of the refugees.
You will know that since the expiry of the UN transitional administration's mandate in eastern Slavonia - i.e. Danube and Theiss - violent attacks and bureaucratic harassment against Serbs have unfortunately led to a continuous wave of emigration, mainly to Bosnia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, but also to Western Europe.
Sadly, we have to say that it was only as a result of sustained international pressure that Croatia finally adopted an acceptable and comprehensive plan for the return of the refugees.
Nevertheless, it remains to be seen how that plan is implemented.
<P>
A while ago I quoted Foreign Minister Schüssel, who took part in yesterday's PIC conference in Madrid, and unfortunately I have to say that even a country that has always been very well-disposed towards Croatia, namely my own country Austria, has had to voice criticism, because there was simply not enough headway being made on this issue.
Regrettably, the international community also greeted President Tudjman's speech at the HDZ Congress of 21 February with strong criticism, deploring both its tone and content as clearly inconsistent with the undertakings under the Dayton Accord.
That is why I do not take the view that certain EU circles are systematically pursuing a policy hostile to Croatia, but believe that Croatia itself has very far to go before it fulfils all the objective criteria which have been laid down, knowing of course that some government members are more open here than a number of others.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Ferrero-Waldner.
<P>
Since we have now come to the end of the time set aside for questions to the Council, Questions Nos 18 to 45 will receive written answers.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the last time Mrs Ferrero-Waldner will be here to answer questions to the Council.
Let me thank her for the attention, rigour and care she has shown during the five part-sessions we have held - we did not manage a sixth - during this half of the year. And on behalf of the presidency, I would like to thank her for her attention, rigour, willingness to communicate and spirit of debate, and for the complementary nature of the institutions that Question Time represents in terms of the relations between the Council and Parliament.
<P>
Thank you very much, Mrs Ferrero-Waldner.
Given the time of year, allow me to wish you a Merry Christmas with your family and a happy New Year on the Mediterranean, as I know how much you love the Mediterranean, that being just one of many things we have in common.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 7.05 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Human rights in the Union (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=202 NAME="President">
The next item is the continuation of the debate on human rights in the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindholm">
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mrs Schaffner on a very fine report to which the Green Group can lend their support.
I should also like to draw my colleagues' attention to Amendment No 58 relating to public access to official records.
Such a principle, when it functions properly and protects the source, is an effective weapon with which to combat fraud, giving the public, as well as politicians and the media, the right to scrutinise, to access information and to exercise democratic control.
Had such an arrangement existed, the Commission's shortcomings, for instance, would have been discovered much sooner, or might never have arisen.
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It is gratifying that the recognition of homosexual partnerships found support in committee.
I hope that this will contribute towards finally putting an end to discrimination against homosexual couples in some Member States and EU institutions.
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In the free market era in which we live, the protection of trade union rights, including the right to strike, is very important for people as well as for democracy, and this is also highlighted in the report.
<P>
We are also concerned about the large number of databanks which is constantly growing.
A source of particular concern is the Echelon system, which we regard as totally unacceptable.
<P>
The Swedish members of the Green Group are definitely voting against the amendment relating to the liberalisation of drugs, as well as the one that is critical of the right to free abortions.
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<SPEAKER ID=204 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Buffetaut">
Mr President, Commissioner, every year, like a time-honoured ritual, the report on the respect for human rights in the European Union is brought before the House.
As 1998 was the year of the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it was important that the report should be responsible and credible.
Indeed, this is precisely what our colleague Anne-Marie Schaffner aimed to do. And, as occurs every year, a large number of amendments have been tabled, some of which we feel are irrelevant and highly ideological, with no real connection to the issue of human rights.
Our position on this report will therefore depend on whether they are adopted or rejected by the House.
However, I must draw attention to the importance of Amendments Nos 35, 36 and 37, tabled by our colleagues Mrs Colombo Svevo and Mrs de Esteban Martin, on behalf of the PPE group.
In general, we support the amendments tabled by that group, as well as those tabled by the rapporteur.
<P>
In truth, it is clear that the issue of human rights, which should be a matter that unites us, is seen in different lights depending on the various political persuasions.
Moreover, I find it quite strange, even amusing, that the same people who are hurling abuse at General Pinochet are praising Fidel Castro, who has ten times as many deaths on his conscience.
Those who claim to be driving out alleged right-wing extremism never show any interest in left-wing extremism.
Carlos, who we know was paid by Ceaucescu, was by no means innocent, no more than Bader and his gang.
Yet it is true that some people in this House have been guilty of sympathy towards these terrorists.
They admired Mao during the cultural revolution, which cost the Chinese people the small matter of 10 million lives.
And the readers of a major French evening newspaper found it hysterical to read the front page headline 'Phnom Penh freed', when the Communist Pol Pot seized the Khmer capital.
Some defenders of human rights should bring their behaviour into line with their professed passion for human rights.
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<SPEAKER ID=205 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Angelilli">
Mr President, Mrs Schaffner's report paints a clear picture of the human rights situation in the European Union.
Such rights cannot just remain declarations of principle but must be part of daily reality because, as the report shows, human rights should of course be invoked in extreme circumstances but should also belong to everyday life and become integrated into our consciousness.
Let me give a few examples: women's rights must be protected by combating sexual abuse and violence, but also by finally ensuring equal access to the world of work and the right to fair pay; children's rights should be directed against sexual exploitation, but also against child labour and towards the right to education; the same applies to the disabled, who need not only proper social and health-care assistance, in order to feel equal and fully integrated into society, but also the right to work.
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There is one thing missing, however, when we speak of the right to life.
Reference is rightly made in this context to combating the death penalty, terrorism and euthanasia, but the problem of abortion has been overlooked.
I do not of course want to conduct an anti-abortion crusade here and now, but quite frankly I find it rather too much that the European Parliament goes so far as to deplore the fact that certain Member States forbid or merely limit information concerning voluntary termination of pregnancy, as stated in paragraph 56 of the report.
<P>
The right to life and the right to abortion cannot be put on the same footing.
In a report which quite correctly attaches so much importance to protecting the rights of all human beings, especially the most defenceless and disadvantaged, a few words should be devoted to protecting the most defenceless of all human beings: embryos.
I would conclude by saying that many pregnancies would not be terminated if the Member States and the EU as such were to offer women alternatives to abortion, in other words adequate economic and social support and a proper policy of information and prevention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pradier">
Mr President, congratulating the rapporteur is a matter of course.
However, I feel that the balancing act undertaken by Mrs Schaffner deserves not only our respect, but also our support.
Moreover, I think that this report will be enthusiastically adopted, because it aims to draw attention to the rights of those who are not generally very well defended, notably foreigners.
It is true that the obligation to respect the Geneva conventions and their additional protocols is extremely important.
The report highlights the need for the right of asylum and the right to temporary protection due to the tragedies that have occurred in our own continent in the last few years, and these issues fully deserve our support.
<P>
Drawing up a report on human rights, which enables us to put our own house in order before giving lectures to the other nations of the world, is a valuable exercise.
The problem is that to a certain extent it makes us slaves to reaching a degree of consensus.
I have tabled an amendment; the Radical group has tabled an amendment, and it is unlikely that they will be adopted.
Prostitutes, both female and male - at the moment, the number of male prostitutes is increasing almost as fast as that of female prostitutes -, deserve to have legislation and regulations put in place to protect their freedom and their dignity.
This does not exist in all countries, but should be seriously considered.
<P>
Another issue is that of secularism and respect for religion.
With regard to new religions, it seems that there is a disturbing confusion between the criminal code and obvious infringements of the law, and the witch-hunt that is currently being organised against them.
In my view, homosexuals and drug users, who are currently still considered to be criminals, are also people whose rights should be defended.
Unfortunately, I do not have time to discuss this.
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<SPEAKER ID=207 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="d'Ancona">
Mr President, I shall try to set out a few thoughts for the benefit of the many Members still in the Chamber.
Traditionally, we publish a report each year on human rights in which we look at the situation elsewhere in the world and a report in which we look at ourselves, in which we ask how human rights are shaping up within the Union.
Traditionally too, Mr President, we always find it easier to agree on the report which looks at the rest of the world than on our view of ourselves.
I hope it will be different tomorrow, and that we can be unanimous tomorrow in supporting Mrs Schaffner's report, because I think we shall only be taken seriously if we are brave enough to take a critical look at the situation within the Union.
That would be progress compared with other experiences we have had.
<P>
But thinking about it, I find there is often something artificial about this division into human rights elsewhere and human rights within the Union.
It is not really good enough any more. I have the feeling that, very often, the crux of the matter is the confrontation between the prosperous part of the world in which we live and the rest, and that human rights violations are increasingly concentrated around that confrontation.
<P>
Mr Pradier has already spoken of these things, of asylum and migration.
It is of course logical that when you live in a part of the world which is so outstandingly prosperous compared to the rest that people will come to you.
That may cause problems, but it is hardly surprising.
When we cannot grant their requests, these people do not all go back but acquire the status of illegals, people who do not actually exist.
Well, if we are looking at human rights violations, then once again we should take a look at this group.
These people are exploited as a result of their illegal situation, and that is wrong.
It also happens, and we have discussed such cases, that people do indeed have to go back and are forcibly returned to their country of origin.
Then too, unfortunate things often happen.
But this difference between rich and poor has other consequences as well.
One need only think of trafficking in human beings, and in women, a specific form of this.
We are fortunate this evening in having with us the Commissioner who has put in a great deal of effort on this subject - and has just done so again, and I congratulate her - which is a very important one to be considered, especially this evening when we are discussing human rights.
<P>
Lastly, Mr President, a word of appreciation for all those NGOs which work so hard on these issues - not just Amnesty, the UNHCR as well, and ECRE, and I am no doubt forgetting quite a few more.
It is good that we increasingly pay serious attention to the reports and accounts that emanate from the area of these NGOs. I think that is a good thing, and once again I must thank all the people who keep these NGOs going, often at no personal benefit to themselves.
I think our policy, our greater effectiveness, is thanks to them.
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<SPEAKER ID=208 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Pirker">
Mr President, Commissioner, I would also like to begin by thanking Mrs Schaffner for making a serious attempt to get to grips with respect for human rights in the European Union.
I would not like to thank or give recognition to those who, as in previous years, have used the pretext of human rights to formulate every conceivable political idea and ideological wish and introduce them as amendments.
Unfortunately, in doing so they have distorted Mrs Schaffner's report.
<P>
There are other amendments to come which are in my opinion unacceptable, at least in the context of a discussion on human rights.
I would like to single out a few points here, such as the call for the legalisation of drug-taking, on which there are totally different views, or the demand for immigrant workers to be given the right to vote and to stand as a candidate in local elections. Another point concerns granting homosexual couples equal status to that of the conventional family, which implies the recognition of homosexual couples as a family and even their right to establish a family.
What I find serious is the fact that calls are being made to remove the regulations protecting young people from homosexual approaches and to lower the age of consent.
I am against all forms of discrimination, but the demands made here are in my opinion absolutely unacceptable.
Protecting the young, protecting children should always be given priority over the desire to give expression to individual sexual orientation.
The protection of the young, ladies and gentlemen - those of you who call for it - is in my view a human right.
Human rights are too valuable to be used, and abused, as a vehicle for ideologies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Mohamed Alí">
Mr President, once again we are dealing with the annual European Parliament report on the respect for human rights in the Union, and I first of all welcome the fact that the report continues to consolidate social and economic rights, as well as cultural rights, as an integral part of fundamental rights.
<P>
With this in mind, I would like to draw attention to a contribution that our group made to the report in requesting that regional languages be recognised and promoted, and that the Member States ratify the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.
<P>
We cannot forget that we are debating this annual report on the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is the indisputable framework of reference within which all national and international institutions and bodies should conduct their public action.
<P>
Nor do I want to forget the commendable work undertaken by the various non-governmental organisations - to which my colleague referred in the previous speech - in fighting for human rights to be established and respected in our societies.
The constant work of these organisations in criticising and making demands has contributed greatly to ensuring that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is better applied.
<P>
Finally, I would like to discuss a point that was included in the report on the initiative of our group, that is, the need to set up a high authority, which is independent from public authorities and which citizens can approach directly, that is responsible for ensuring that all of the security forces respect codes of ethics.
The existence of this high authority would mean that, in cases such as those that took place a few weeks ago in Melilla, where two local policemen were arrested, accused of raping a Moroccan woman, or in Toulouse, where a Maghrebi citizen was killed by the local police, the responsibility of the security forces could be better determined.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 NAME="McKenna">
Mr President, when we talk about human rights we have to talk about the right for everybody to be treated equally, both before the law and in society itself.
This is an extremely important report because the European Union has to look at its own faults and problems before it can actually point the finger at other parts of the world.
<P>
Each year we have reports in Parliament on this issue but the rights of certain sections of society continue to be ignored.
For example, gays and lesbians are still discriminated against in many European countries because of their sexual orientation.
Women, despite the fact that they make up over 50 % of the population, are still discriminated against.
When we look at the legal systems in many countries, we find the actual application of law is unacceptable.
In my own country, Ireland, we have special criminal courts which have been condemned by the UN Human Rights Committee.
They are still being used, not only for what was justified as terrorist offences but also for ordinary offences.
We have the situation in some European Union Member States where people can be detained for very long periods of time without being charged.
This goes against the European Convention on Human Rights.
We have to look at these issues and decide that these countries should not be allowed to operate in this way.
Everyone should respect international covenants on human rights and each Member State in the European Union has serious questions to answer as regards the application of law.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Casini, Carlo">
Mr President, human rights are without doubt the pride of our century, as emerges clearly if we revisit certain questions which punctuate human history, from the one over which Socrates pondered during the night preceding his execution: 'What is just?
To respect the law?', to that of St Augustine: 'What distinguishes the State from a well-organised criminal association?', to the one arising from the Nuremberg Trials in the middle of this century, when the Nazi criminals defended themselves by saying 'We were applying the law'.
'That is precisely why we are sentencing you, ' replied the judges.
<P>
So what is just?
Half-way through our century, the Declaration of 1948 gave an answer, not so much in its articles as in the preamble: 'recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world'.
The European Union has a link with human rights; its true source of pride is neither the euro nor the market, but human dignity.
But it is precisely when re-reading the preamble to the 1948 Declaration that we realise that a turning-point with tragic consequences has been reached: the entire theory of human rights is liable to collapse like a sandcastle if we do not know who is the holder of these rights.
In other words, here at the very heart of the Union, the ultimate question needs to be asked, one which is more worrying than those of Socrates, St Augustine and Nuremberg. The ultimate question is this: who is man, who is a member of the human family, and in what does dignity consist?
<P>
Surely humanity's most desperate moments - marginalisation, handicap, birth, death, moments when we have been embryos or on our deathbeds - are those when the fundamental question arises: who is man, who is the holder of human rights?
It is therefore regrettable that the report, admirable in other respects, refers to the death penalty but not to the death sentence imposed on those who can only be presumed innocent; it refers to children but not to the youngest of them all.
We shall therefore attempt to improve the text, so that it may offer protection to all and receive the vote of as many Members as possible.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Zimmermann">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Gradin, this year the European Parliament's annual report on respect for human rights in the European Union is of particular significance. After all, this year we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
I am particularly pleased that on the occasion of this anniversary we have today been able to deal directly with human rights inside and outside the Union.
<P>
This also makes it clear to the public that the Members of the European Parliament demand respect for human rights throughout the world.
The effect of this signal must not be underestimated.
Too often, Member States are themselves accused of violating human rights within their own borders, while at the same time trying to compel their trading partners to observe them by including human rights clauses in their trade agreements.
In this report we also make it clear that the personal rights of vulnerable and socially excluded persons are being violated.
It is in accordance with the intellectual tradition of Europe that the European Parliament, despite all hostility even from its own ranks, will not allow itself to be deterred from pointing out the flaws in our democracy.
<P>
I therefore consider it to be particularly important that the report on human rights deals with the situation of refugees and foreigners, children and minority groups.
In general they have no voting rights, and cannot therefore be involved in electing government.
If they are subjected to human rights violations these often go unpunished.
We then say it is their own fault, they themselves are to blame, they do not fit in.
These are the excuses that are given all too often for extreme incidents.
But whether people are foreign, whether they are normal or not, they are still human beings, they still have rights and they therefore deserve respect.
It is precisely this that our report aims to bring home to the governments of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Cederschiöld">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, can the right to life be compared with the right to holidays?
Is there not a difference in terms of dignity between fundamental political rights and economic and cultural ones?
Nowadays, human rights are part of the diplomatic dialogue, but in the form of fundamental rights, such as the right to a fair trial, to protection of life and limb, the right to vote and to equality before the law.
<P>
Economic rights are based on finite resources, and should be regarded as a worthwhile goal rather than an indispensable requirement for the majority of the world's population.
<P>
In some EU countries, it is hypocritical to claim that everyone has a right to work.
When the UN Declaration was drawn up, the Soviet Union tried to confuse the various rights in order to conceal from people the fact that they were being deceived as to their basic rights.
Such tactics threaten to undermine the very foundations of the rule of law.
<P>
When economic rights are used to conceal shortcomings and vagueness in promoting political rights, then we have reached a sorry state of affairs.
Political rights such as democracy, freedom of expression, property rights and freedom of trade are preconditions for the development of enterprise, employment and well-being - goals we are all striving to achieve.
<P>
Human rights have nothing whatsoever to do with paid holidays.
Let us go back to the basics: it began with John Locke and his concept of human rights based on life, freedom and property. This was translated by the Americans into life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and taken up by the United Nations in its call for life, liberty and security of the person.
<P>
Abortion, cohabitation laws for homosexuals and the requirements they have to comply with in order to adopt children - all these are matters for national family legislation.
We therefore intend to vote against discrimination, but we shall abstain on family issues which are the concern of individual Member States.
Even though we are only able to offer very limited support for this report, we should like to praise Mrs Schaffner warmly for undertaking so competently what is a virtually impossible task.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ojala">
Mr President, human rights belong to all of us.
That is what we think, anyway.
Unfortunately, very often this is just talk.
We have already heard that, as far as homosexuals are concerned for example, not everyone would necessarily agree with us.
In the same way I would ask us to look in our own backyards regarding the fate of the Romanies in Europe.
There is room for improvement in every country in this respect.
Their human rights are not being fully respected.
<P>
Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam will allow us to take action to produce a framework directive prohibiting discrimination, and a directive to combat racism.
This would be the sort of concrete action our citizens will expect of the Commission, Parliament and the Council.
At the Vienna summit, which debated Article 13, great hopes were also laid on Parliament in this connection.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Berger">
Mr President, if today we are discussing the annual reports on human rights in the context of the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, then it is not without good reason that the issue of improved institutional and legal protection of human rights within the European Union also features more prominently than ever on the agenda.
This question was made topical both by the High-Level Group and by the Austrian Presidency, and now also in this House at the initiative of my group.
<P>
The Treaty of Amsterdam has admittedly brought about some progress in the legal protection of human rights within the European Union, as several people have mentioned today.
Article 13 in particular could represent a certain amount of progress despite all the procedural obstacles that it incorporates.
At a conference in Vienna this article was described as a sleeping child.
I believe it is our task to wake it.
However, even the traditional human rights are not yet firmly enshrined in the law of the European Union.
This is particularly upsetting and alarming as the Union is taking on more and more tasks that are particularly likely to affect fundamental rights, especially in the area of the third pillar, for example the development of a joint asylum and immigration policy, joint measures to combat organised crime, new monitoring procedures and EU-wide police and judicial cooperation.
<P>
These policies must be accompanied and restricted by fundamental and human rights that are based directly on EU law.
As we know from our own difficult experiences, a policy area can only be established for the long term if corresponding institutional guarantees are provided.
We are therefore proposing in an amendment that each Member of the European Commission with responsibility for freedom, security and justice should also in future be very much responsible for ensuring respect for human rights within the European Union, and that the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia that was set up in Vienna should be extended to become a general monitoring centre for human rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Ribeiro">
Mr President, Commissioner, we fully agree on the need for the Member States to strengthen their provisions and practices in terms of the respect of human rights in the European Union.
<P>
Similarly we do not accept the idea that we should throw stones at others when we ourselves live in glass houses.
When it comes to human rights we should not forget or underestimate the importance of social rights.
The rapporteur does admittedly refer to them, but the references seem to us to be inadequate.
In Europe we need to abandon the defensive position we have adopted towards social rights, as if they were excessive and as if globalisation and competitiveness meant that they need to be 'realistically reviewed'.
<P>
Two positive points on two proposals: the proposal that 1999 should be the European Year for fighting violence against women, and the proposal to step up the fight against international networks and traffickers in clandestine immigration.
<P>
Finally, talking about particular cases of glasshouses, we hope that Portugal will stop contributing to the incidents of torture and inhuman treatment of people in prison or in police custody carried out by members of the police or armed forces.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Prison conditions
<SPEAKER ID=218 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0369/98) by Mr Pradier, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on prison conditions in the European Union: improvements and alternative penalties.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="Pradier">
Mr President, Commissioner, I am very honoured to be speaking to you today, as I think that the Council, the Commission and Parliament will all have to take important decisions on the subject that we are discussing.
Indeed, this subject is not incredibly popular.
It is no good for winning votes.
Nevertheless, let me tell you that today, at this very moment, at 9 p.m., 400 000 of our fellow European citizens are in prison.
If only some of them have the misfortune, or perhaps the fortune, to have a partner, one or two children, or elderly parents, that means that between one and a half and two million Europeans are directly affected, at this very moment, by prison conditions.
Today, prison is a necessary evil.
Its role involves depriving a certain number of criminals of their freedom, that is, its punitive role, and this must obviously be accompanied by preparation for release, rehabilitation and re-education.
Is it worth saying to you, ladies and gentlemen, that European prisons are not fulfilling that role or are doing so very badly, apart from in a few countries, which we will have the opportunity of praising?
<P>
Who is in prison?
I will tell you who is in prison.
There is no room for fairy stories here.
Those who are in prison are guilty and have been convicted, and therefore maybe it is a good thing.
But who are they?
They are poor people, and most of them are below the poverty line.
They are illiterate, or obviously poorly educated.
They are people with no ethical, personal or family points of reference, they are also unemployed, and were victims of crime before becoming the perpetrators.
Finally, they are people whose physical and psychological health is seriously compromised.
Of those currently in prison, 95 % fulfill at least three of these criteria.
<P>
It is true that the prisons are overcrowded.
They are overcrowded because we are giving out increasingly heavy sentences.
We have discussed the need to build prisons.
Maybe we should build prisons, and that may even be a necessity, not in order to increase the numbers, but in order to provide better living conditions for those who inhabit them.
There are two or three aspects that I see as important.
The first is that we should give more importance to alternative penalties to prison.
Spending two years in prison makes no sense.
There, a petty, small-time criminal will meet big-time criminals who know how to turn him into one of them.
In order to prevent this, some countries have been able to use alternative sentences, community service and day fines to provide a punishment that is more efficient than imprisonment.
<P>
A second aspect, which I consider to be at least as important as the first, is compensation.
When a criminal has caused injury to someone, compensation should not involve the State. No-one cares about the State, in the same way as no-one cares about prisoners.
On the contrary, direct compensation involves establishing a specific link between the criminal and his victim, and this is probably one of the issues on which we should make progress.
<P>
I would like to draw your attention to two aspects that are going to be subject to amendments.
The first is that today there are still some Member States where consuming an illegal substance is enough to send you to prison.
This is wrong, and we need to rectify that situation.
On this issue, I think that the meeting in the Commission, which was extremely interesting and lively, enabled us to reach a relative consensus.
The second aspect is the privatisation of institutions.
The institutional violence that comes with the deprivation of freedom is and must remain within the domain of the State.
It is the State's authority that must ensure discipline, order and security within institutions.
Some countries have felt that it is a good idea to dissociate themselves from this responsibility and to delegate it to private companies.
There is no doubt that I am in favour of private enterprise, but this is a matter for the State, and it should not let go of it.
In any case, keeping it for the State is the noble thing to do.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Lancker">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, if there is one place where the risk of human rights being violated is very high, that place is prison, because supervision there is very limited, and because as Mr Pradier has said, it is not a popular subject because prisons are overcrowded.
So I think it is a good thing that we are holding this debate in conjunction with the debates on human rights.
The fact is that, despite 50 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the record of human rights in prisons in the countries of Europe is currently anything but respectable.
I must thank Mr Pradier most warmly and sincerely on behalf of my group for his report, and thank him too for his readiness to take on board our amendments.
I must also tell him that his report is currently the subject of full-page campaigns being mounted by the Belgian League for Human Rights, for example.
And that is quite something, I think.
<P>
On behalf of my group, I should like to focus on two things which are most important to myself and to the group.
Firstly, and Mr Pradier has in fact said this already, custodial sentences are just one of the possible reactions of society to delinquent behaviour.
Mr Pradier speaks of a necessary evil.
But ethically and socially and in terms of effectiveness it is not the most successful way.
Those who call for more and longer prison terms as an answer to crime grossly exaggerate the individual and collective deterrent effect of prison sentences.
They forget that this does not remedy the damage done to those concerned, and they forget too that it is of no benefit to society, the society into which the offender, stigmatised by his prison sentence, must return.
This therefore means that sentencing policy and implementation must, if possible, opt for different, alternative punishments which put more emphasis on making good the damage and socially rehabilitating the offender.
<P>
My group believes, for example, that prison is not the right place for people picked up just for being in possession of drugs.
We also think that prison is not the right place for young people.
We remain convinced that being locked up in prison has adverse effects on young people, although of course we are not blind to the great problems which exist with some extremely young offenders.
But we are also in favour of a set of constructive and humane penalties for young people, which make them accountable but at the same time give them every chance of being reintegrated into society.
<P>
Secondly, custodial sentences must be carried out in a humane manner, and for us this means not only that Member States must adhere to the code of the Council of Europe, but also to the very specific recommendations issued by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture.
It means too that countries such as Belgium which have not as yet drawn up a basic law defining the rights and obligations of prisoners and have not put in place any independent machinery for monitoring human rights violations must do so without delay.
If Member States already followed the recommendations of this committee and the Council of Europe and those listed in Pierre Pradier's report, that report would not have needed to be written and we would not have needed to be sitting here today.
So I must compliment him once again on his report, and I hope that this initiative of the European Parliament will be acted upon.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Colombo Svevo">
Mr President, if we adopt this report today, the main reason will be its political foresight and its success in picking up on what is essential and setting aside rigid ideological considerations, so as to grasp the opportunity of having a report which rallies a broad consensus.
<P>
I believe that we should reflect first and foremost on one fact: according to all the surveys - national and European - carried out in Europe, the question of safety and security is of considerable concern to our citizens, who wish for peaceful coexistence.
This report is therefore at odds with their legitimate desire.
<P>
My first point is that not just some of us, but all of us are concerned about our citizens' safety.
The citizens know, however, that good organisation of prisons, with transparency of sentencing, secure establishments and clear alternative sentences which are comprehensible to the general public, also forms part of this peaceful coexistence.
To refrain from asking questions about prison conditions, which are often harsh, cannot enhance the safety of our citizens; rather, harsh sentencing often covers up for a political inability to guarantee peaceful coexistence.
<P>
Secondly, we should not forget the original aims behind this report.
In view of the diversity - and also the positive changes - in judicial legislation, and out of concern for certain rights which are still being denied, for example the misuse of preventive detention and prison overcrowding in some countries, this report was intended to home in on some of the approaches already being followed in certain countries, bringing them to the attention of the others.
We could define it as an exercise in best practice, which neither impairs nor diminishes national sovereignty but gives the European Parliament a clear objective.
<P>
We regret that the vexed question of drugs has crept into this report, threatening to jeopardise the unanimity which I hope may return.
I would stress that all the amendments which I have examined, in particular my own and that of Ana Palacio, sought to remind this House that drug-users do not need prison but need alternative penalties, for example recovery in the community or in specialised centres.
That was the thrust of our amendment.
<P>
I note that various amendments have been put forward: in my opinion, these will help common sense to prevail and the right balance to be struck among the groups.
If this balance can be found on the basis of one of the amendments, we shall have attained our common goal, namely to achieve maximum political convergence on this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Caccavale">
Mr President, time is so short and Mr Pradier's report so well drafted, so rational and so far-sighted that I shall make just two points.
First of all, it is true that this is not an electoral debate, but there is one mistaken idea here which must be rebutted, namely the idea that throwing people into prison can somehow solve their problems and ours as well.
Nothing could be more incorrect because, my dear Pierre, you take for granted what cannot be taken for granted: a large number of prison inmates are not guilty but innocent, and are placed in preventive detention for unacceptably long periods.
What happens is that those who suffer this misfortune - as well as those who really are guilty - simply learn in prison how to be bigger and better criminals, because many of our prisons have now become colleges of crime, where people learn how to be stronger, cleverer, sharper criminals who are more of a danger to society.
<P>
My second point, Pierre, is that we do not have two societies here, comprising those in prison and those on the outside.
You have rightly given figures for all the European citizens who are in some way affected by the problem because they are related to prison inmates.
The European people should be told once and for all that rehabilitating prisoners who are currently incarcerated, in order to reintegrate them into civilian life, benefits all of us, benefits society and helps to make society more fair and just.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendes Bota">
Mr President, in its descriptive aspect this report has two sides.
It looks for clues, explanations and causes, and it denounces the problem.
However, when it moves on to concrete proposals it goes off the rails slightly because it goes into fields which are not part of its remit.
Any social, political or economic argument could be invoked for defending the decriminalisation of the use of illegal drugs.
Now the argument is that decriminalisation would help to relieve the overloaded prison population - and that is not acceptable because that is another debate that belongs elsewhere.
<P>
The media only react sporadically to the weaknesses and flaws in the system when there is some spectacular event such as a violent riot or when a famous person is imprisoned.
But rarely do they dig deeper to comment on the alarming rates of HIV contamination, or outbreaks of hepatitis or TB.
Rarely do they see prison overpopulation as dramatic, and its effects on bad sanitation, the prevalence of violence, the few attempts at social rehabilitation or the monitoring of young people, mothers, the mentally ill, alcoholics or drug abusers in prison.
<P>
Nor are we told the number of suicides that are covered up, of people lost in the despair of the very pits of human dignity.
As a Portuguese, I am embarrassed by the fact that Portugal tops the table for abysmal prison conditions.
On 15 August this year Portugal had a prison population of 14 592 including those sentenced, on remand or those who could not be classified.
The capacity of the 52 prisons in Portugal is only 10 763.
When we think that 4 111 of those prisoners are being held on remand, many of them for periods longer than is desirable or stipulated by the law, then we must agree with the rapporteur when he talks about abuse of remand by the judicial system as one of the main causes of prison overpopulation, a measure that ought to be an exception but has actually turned into the rule.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oostlander">
Mr President, our colleague Mr Pradier has presented a report which naturally deserves very serious attention, since the subject in question is an important one.
<P>
As we debate it, I should like to focus on one specific point, which is paragraph 35 of his report.
The original text states one reason for not putting someone behind bars, namely overcrowding.
I have to say that in my country at least, and I think probably in most countries, you have to have chalked up quite a few offences and been fairly wild before you end up in prison.
You have to have committed a good many human rights violations.
I do not think you can say that overcrowding is a reason not to put someone in prison.
<P>
If you say that drug addicts should not be in prison just for using drugs, I would agree that that makes sense, although not because of overcrowding, but for other reasons. It would seem very strange to me to use inappropriate methods for rehabilitating people.
The original text gave overcrowding as the reason, as do some amendments, which I find very odd.
The only amendment which does not mention this is that by Mrs Colombo Svevo and her associates. This simply says that a drugs user should not be in prison simply because he is a user.
That is consistent with a position which we in the Netherlands have long maintained: a drugs user is primarily a patient, and the dealer is a major criminal who must be severely punished.
So I think it is logical to find dealers in prison, but not someone who has committed no criminal offence and has simply smoked or used drugs.
Even so, the prisons are of course full of people who have used drugs or still do so.
That is because they subsequently committed other criminal acts.
But that is quite another matter.
I should like to have seen this distinction clearly made in the report.
<P>
I should also like to have seen an answer to the question of how you can keep a prison or a prison wing free of drugs.
These are important issues.
Regrettably absent is any penetrating description of what in fact is and must remain a national responsibility and of what we can do as the European Union.
What we can do is primarily, I think, to pool our experience and so on, but I do not think we should be drawing up European legislation on prisons.
I do not think, culturally, that that is the right thing to do.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 NAME="Gradin">
Mr President, the Commission welcomes Mr Pradier's report and his proposals for improvements in prison conditions in the Union.
<P>
We agree with the rapporteur that more attention should be paid to the approximately 400 000 persons who are in prison in the different Member States.
A strong effort is needed to achieve the rehabilitation of prisoners and particular attention should be paid to respect for human rights.
Compliance with the standard rules for treatment of prisoners adopted by the Council of Europe must be ensured.
This is also outlined in the 1997 report on respect for human rights in the European Union.
<P>
With the Amsterdam Treaty the European Union will have the possibility to approximate rules relating to prison conditions.
This includes a possibility to strengthen cooperation concerning the enforcement of decisions.
It could also include early or conditional releases and integration of prisoners.
This is important to ensure equal treatment of prisoners within the Union.
<P>
These possibilities for stronger cooperation between the Member States in the field of prison conditions are one important component for the achievement of a high level of safety within the area of freedom, security and justice that we all - Parliament, the Commission and the Council - now have to implement.
<P>
The Commission will consider this report very carefully in the context of its post-Amsterdam powers in this field.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Sale of consumer goods and associated guarantees
<SPEAKER ID=227 NAME="President">
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0469/98), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0533/98-96/0161(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive on certain aspects of the sale of consumer goods and associated guarantees (Rapporteur: Mrs Kuhn).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 NAME="Kuhn">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, all the European institutions talk about the Citizens' Europe.
In this vote on the directive on guarantees, Parliament has an opportunity to show how citizen-friendly it is.
The common position is to be welcomed, and it is a good basis for the second reading.
The Council has accepted some important amendments introduced by Parliament, though unfortunately not all of them, but it has also included some new provisions.
The Council's adoption of the two-year guarantee period is positive.
The amendment for used cars was in my opinion quite defensible.
According to this amendment, the Member States can provide that buyers and sellers may agree a shorter period, though this must not be less than one year.
<P>
The Council has also confirmed that the burden of proof is reversed in the first six months following purchase.
This means that where a product is not in conformity with the contract it is assumed that the defect existed at the time of purchase unless the seller can prove otherwise.
It was also accepted that the seller should be liable for public statements that are product-related, for example in advertisements, if he cannot prove that he was not aware of these.
Although the Council is proposing a less stringent rule for the commercial guarantee provided by the manufacturer or seller, this will in future be more transparent.
What is stated in the guarantee declaration must be observed.
It is important that reference must be made to the fact that the consumer has legal rights that cannot be affected by the guarantee, which is what Parliament wanted.
<P>
The Council has accepted the hierarchy of remedies requested by Parliament for defective goods, although in my opinion it has worded it in such a way that it is difficult to understand.
The consumer can request repair, where possible or reasonable, or a replacement, where one is available.
If neither of these is possible he can insist on the cancellation of the contract or a price reduction.
This is acceptable thus far.
However, what Parliament should not accept is that in the event of a minor lack of conformity the buyer cannot insist on the cancellation of the contract.
In practice this means that if a defective product cannot be repaired and a replacement is not available, the buyer will admittedly be given a price reduction but will still be left with a faulty product.
I consider this to be unacceptable.
<P>
In addition, the question arises as to who defines a minor lack of conformity.
The directive should not really serve to create work for lawyers.
I would therefore urge that Parliament should delete Article 3(5).
Also, in paragraph 4 of the same article there is a translation error in the German and English texts.
It should read 'within a reasonable time or without any significant inconvenience', as it does in the French version, and not 'within a reasonable time and without any significant inconvenience'.
<P>
The Commission, Parliament and the Council aimed to achieve a minimum level of harmonisation of the consumer goods guarantee with this directive.
On one point, however, the Council seems to have forgotten this in its discussions.
The common position wants to allow Member States to provide that, in order to exercise his rights, the consumer must notify the seller of the lack of conformity within a period of two months of detecting it.
This is inconsistent with minimum harmonisation.
Very few Member States wish to introduce this obligation to notify a defect.
It was simply a sweetener for one Member State so that it would approve the common position, which it then did not do.
A two-month obligation to notify a fault in some EU Member States is inconsistent with harmonised internal market rules, invites the informed consumer to lie - after all, how does the seller know when the defect was detected - and confuses the consumer when buying in another EU country.
A Frenchman who is not familiar with the obligation to notify a fault in his own country, buys a product in Germany and for reasons of time or distance does not report the defect in time and tells the truth out of ignorance, forfeits all his rights.
A buyer who buys his goods locally and discovers a defect will immediately inform the seller because he wants to use the product.
This is generally what will happen.
The committee therefore asks for this rule to be deleted without replacement, and I also ask Parliament today to approve this.
<P>
The Council is requesting 36 months for transposition into national law, we are requesting 24.
There will be greater price transparency with the introduction of the euro, and I hope therefore that consumers will make greater use of the internal market.
Minimum harmonisation of the consumer goods guarantee needs to be introduced at the latest along with the introduction of the euro as cash, so we should keep to our 24 months.
The committee has also retabled other amendments from the first reading.
We have already adopted Amendment No 25 several times in other directives.
I know that one group is now against this.
The same applies to Amendment No 27, which was adopted by an overwhelming majority in Parliament in the report on consumer access to justice.
Like myself, you have all received letters from credit institutions concerning Amendment No 17.
However, Amendment No 17 states clearly that it concerns payments to the seller by instalments, as agreed by the seller, which should be able to be suspended until the defect has been rectified by the seller.
It does not concern bank credit, which of course cannot be interrupted because of a defect.
<P>
Unfortunately, because of the time available I cannot justify each amendment.
But I can assure you of one thing: at first reading both the committee and Parliament ensured that a balance remained in place between buyers, sellers and manufacturers.
Now, in conclusion, I would like to thank everyone, the Commission, the British and Luxembourg Presidencies and Members who have supported us.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 NAME="Whitehead">
Mr President, I would like to congratulate my colleague, Annemarie Kuhn, whose last major report in Parliament this may well be.
She has followed it through from the beginning and we have now reached a point where we can truly say that we have been mindful of the old principle 'caveat emptor'.
We have given the buyer/consumer appropriate access to the means of redress, of complaint and of information in this matter.
<P>
There has been a very sustained lobby of this Parliament by people saying that the common position is fine as it stands, that there should be no change and that it would be very tiresome at this stage if we had any sort of codecision phase.
Of course, if there was a codecision phase, it is perfectly logical that it would take longer.
However, it might also make some marginal improvements to what is now a fundamentally good piece of legislation, which has set a new balance in the relationship between producers and consumers.
The bulk of the amendments moved by the rapporteur do, within that margin, improve this directive.
I particularly commend those deleting sections relating to the consumer's obligation to notify any fault within two months, because there is a clear problem of practicability here; the renewal of guarantees for any goods supplied to replace faulty goods, because obviously the same conditions should apply; and the removal of Article 3(5) of the common position, which prevents the consumer having the contract of sale rescinded if a fault is minor, because a minor fault might be repeated time after time throughout the guarantee period.
<P>
I have rather more doubts with regard to the situation in the United Kingdom, about one or two of the other amendments, particularly those which allow a consumer to suspend instalment payments unilaterally in any circumstances, which may result in difficulties in some cases.
There is also the Liberal Group's amendment which would establish joint liability between the producer and the seller who has ceased trading or does not know of the claimed lack of conformity.
If this is passed, it will provide us with an opportunity for further thought and reflection at the codecision stage.
<P>
Finally, I would like to mention the amendment that I have moved with Mrs Jackson and a number of other Members right across the spectrum of Parliament.
This concerns the exemption of auction houses which are selling by auction where a price is fixed only by that auction, and usually acting as agents for antiques and works of fine art.
Our Amendment 34 on this matter, which I hope will be allowed, relates specifically to some provisions which are already in the common position.
I commend that to the House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, may I begin by thanking Mrs Kuhn most warmly for the truly loyal cooperation which she has always given.
I mean that most sincerely, and we shall miss her as a colleague when she is no longer part of this House and no longer fighting the good fight on consumer affairs.
<P>
Secondly, there is the question of lobbies.
I think I have had less trouble over this than Mr Whitehead.
Looking at lobby activities, I simply note that today, for example, an amendment is being discussed on the subject of guarantees for consumer goods and that the amendment was put down by Sotheby's, no less.
On the question of lobbies, I do not think we can claim to be whiter than white here.
Our group will be supporting this amendment, but I still do not think it is necessary.
<P>
What we are seeking with this directive is a stronger position for the consumer, who in the internal market is increasingly shopping across borders for luxury consumer goods.
It means that when you buy something you can count on having guarantees and that you are no longer dependent on the manufacturer's warranty alone, but have guarantees for a period of two years in the case of new products and one year in the case of second-hand products.
<P>
There is a restriction on this, and that restriction is set out in Article 3(3), which determines the form of recompense if something is wrong with a consumer product.
It means that if a cheap second-hand car with a one-year guarantee is a car in the 500-guilder price range, then in all fairness and reasonableness the form of recompense is deemed disproportionate if you ask for a further year's guarantee on it.
Anyone concerned about this will, I think, have found a number of things in this directive which certainly regulate the consumer's rights effectively but also avoid problems for the retailer, the seller.
<P>
Something new in this directive is the reversal of the burden of proof.
I am happy at the way in which this has been formulated.
<P>
I should like to raise another point, namely small and medium-sized enterprises.
We have regulated quite a few things for small businesses through the right of redress against the hard-pressed retailer.
This is an amendment tabled by our group.
What we do not want for the small business is that the sometimes hard-pressed retailer is forced to hand out lists of service points in the various countries every time a customer buys something.
We do not think that is necessary.
If you buy a nice Philips or Siemens appliance or whatever, the manufacturer himself does that and the purchaser then has that list.
But you must not expect to get it everywhere. I think rather too much has been demanded here.
<P>
I have some reservations about Article 3, the nub of the legislation, and Article 5.
I am concerned because I was told that I would be undermining the rights of the consumer.
What I have done is to table an amendment to Article 3(3) on behalf of the PPE Group.
I have also tabled an amendment to delete Article 3(5).
The point at issue is the difference between 'a reasonable time' and 'without any significant inconvenience' and 'an appropriate period having regard to...'
I still feel that my 'appropriate' is stronger than 'a reasonable time' as required in this very poor wording of the legislation.
I would ask the Socialist Group, if they are willing to support us on deleting Article 3(5), to take on board the other point as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, our group does not think that we succeeded at the first reading in reaching a proper balance between the interests of the consumer on the one hand and that of sellers and manufacturers on the other.
We are therefore asking for thought to be given to the consequences which the positions of the Commission, the Council and Parliament may bring.
<P>
We have thus redrafted a number of amendments, most importantly concerning second-hand goods.
We had favoured excluding them altogether, but since this is no longer possible at this stage in the procedure, we are proposing a mandatory limitation for a period of one year, with the option of further exemptions based on the individual contract.
<P>
Secondly, the Council text on ways of redress is unclear.
No one benefits from a woolly legal text, except the lawyers.
We think our text indicates a clear hierarchy and is expressed in clearer language.
<P>
Lastly, in a limited number of cases we are advocating that the manufacturer rather than the seller should be liable.
The proposed legislation gives enormous protection to the consumer, but no one seems to be concerned about the same consumer who buys something abroad and cannot then go back to the seller or shopkeeper.
<P>
If a better balance cannot be found, then the Liberal Group will be voting against.
After all, what good does it do the consumer to have an excessive level of protection, if in the end he probably has to pay for it himself through higher prices?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we in the Green Group would have liked to establish even broader consumer protection at first reading.
We had requested a five-year guarantee period in order to increase the incentive to produce durable products, as it should be clear that we need to embody the principle of durability in consumer protection also.
We therefore regret that there was not a majority for this at the time.
<P>
But I think that a two-year guarantee period is at least better than six months, as is the current situation in Germany, which unfortunately ranks lowest in this area.
I think that it is fundamentally important that we should give consumers greater protection here, and this includes providing the consumer with this guarantee.
However, it should not lead to a situation a minor defect is viewed as a further violation of the principle of durability.
For example, if there is a small stain on a carpet it should not mean that the whole carpet must be disposed of, which would also not guarantee that the environmental aspect would be taken into account.
<P>
We also consider joint liability of the manufacturer and the seller to be fundamental, and this really must be included in this directive. Of course it is also essential that the period of obligation to notify a fault is not reduced, so that the rights of the buyer and the consumer in this area are not restricted.
<P>
We would actually have liked these rights to be extended, but on the whole, I think, we are reasonably pleased with the report.
I would like to mention one final point.
I would have preferred to have an obligation to label a product with the length of its total useful life so that the consumer really can determine policy with his shopping trolley, so that he can exert pressure in this area to ensure that genuinely durable products are made.
That is our concern, and it is clear that we must make sure that these aims are realised by linking environmental and consumer protection.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Sandbæk">
Mr President, I have to say, unfortunately, that my views on this proposal have not changed much since Parliament discussed it in March this year.
I am still very sceptical as to whether harmonisation is necessary, and I strongly object to the fact that the present directive represents a deterioration of consumer rights in several countries, including Denmark, where it directly undermines the provisions of the Danish Sale of Goods Act.
We should focus on the rights of European consumers, instead of concentrating on how the EU can stimulate people's willingness to make purchases when they visit other Member States.
A number of the directive's provisions should be removed in order to protect consumers.
These include Article 1(2)(b), the last part of Article 2(2)(b), the first part of Article 2(4) and Article 3(5).
The basic shortcoming of this directive is that it only concerns the relationship between the consumer and the seller, and does not include the liability of earlier links in the chain of sales of faulty products.
<P>
The fact that there is no equitable duty to provide information on the part of the seller is also a problem, and it is unreasonable that consideration for consumers is only included as one of many other considerations.
Consumer considerations should always have top priority.
In addition, there are many ambiguities in the proposal which time does not allow me to list in more detail.
I do, of course, support the amendments in the report which attempt to rectify the shortcomings and ambiguities, but they are not enough, and unfortunately I cannot support the proposal as a whole.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 NAME="Jackson">
Mr President, I believe that the idea behind this directive is a good one.
We know that in the European Union an increasing number of consumers buy goods in each other's countries and this is likely to increase with the use of the single currency.
We also know that when they do so, consumers are often under-informed and confused about the nature of the guarantees that go with the goods that they buy.
<P>
I have great sympathy with the point of view put forward by Mrs Sandbæk.
The easiest way of dealing with this problem would have been to introduce a simple measure saying that consumers must be informed as to their rights regarding guarantees in the country where they are purchasing goods at the time of that purchase.
If they are buying something in Denmark they know they are in Denmark.
They can look out of the window and see Danish people walking up and down speaking Danish.
They are not going to get a French guarantee, they are going to get the Danish guarantee.
I believe that simple move would have been a great improvement on the situation as it is at the moment in many Member States.
<P>
The difficulty of that would have been that it would put the Consumer Directorate out of a job in the European Commission.
The lure of a harmonising directive has proved too much for them.
So in this draft directive the Commission has sought to harmonise the nature of the guarantee offered in all Member States and consumer rights under that guarantee.
<P>
The Commission's association with the directive has not been happy.
The original text was very badly drafted and the impact statement said simply: 'Compliance costs are negligible'. This was roundly contradicted by the economic impact statement produced for the Commission by the Wilhelm Consulting Group, which found substantial increased costs likely to arise in some retailing sectors.
The Council has now improved the texts.
We have to say that the common position is preferable to the original and to what I describe as the rapporteur's 'tinkering' with the text.
<P>
The Commission has also extended the scope of the directive to cover all second-hand goods.
How realistic is this?
Would it apply to goods sold, for example, in charity shops and car boot sales?
If the sellers here had to offer a minimum one-year guarantee, as the directive states, surely this directive would threaten their future operation?
Neither the Commission nor the Council of Ministers has thought through the implications of extending a minimum one-year guarantee to second-hand goods.
Article 7 makes it quite clear that this guarantee would cover all second-hand goods for at least one year.
Do they know about that at Oxfam?
Are they happy about that at your neighbouring car boot sale?
<P>
In opting to cover second-hand goods the Commission has inadvertently included within the scope of the directive sales of art, antiques and collectibles.
Three of the four remedies provided in the draft directive could not possibly apply to them.
How does one replace or repair a Canaletto?
Reduction in price would be very difficult to agree.
Amendment No 34, which I am moving with Mr Whitehead, offers the possibility of excluding the seller's liability for any lack of conformity in such cases.
I hope this commonsense amendment will find favour.
<P>
Finally, the directive and the rapporteur show a touching faith in human nature.
The directive tries and fails to clarify the rights of the ignorant consumer but, in fact, it offers aid and comfort to the unscrupulous consumer who will be only too happy to use all legal loopholes created in order to demand replacement of goods or reimbursement of the purchase price.
Mrs Kuhn has made things much worse.
<P>
To sum up, there is one and only one group of people who will benefit from this directive: Europe's lawyers.
If it is adopted, this directive, I can confidently predict, will encourage legal uncertainty and increasing litigation.
Europe's consumers have very little to gain from it and Europe's small businesses will pay for it.
Mr Santer promises less law but better law.
This is more law and worse law.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Garosci">
Mr President, one aspect of our work is to mediate between the requirements of the market and the laws needed to regulate it.
This is true more than ever now that a large-scale market of 370 million consumers is being launched.
We are working on behalf of consumers who are demanding new or recycled products and services, but who are also looking for assurances concerning products which have always satisfied them in the past, consumers who at the same time are calling for more information on what they are consuming, simpler and less dangerous packaging, clearer labels and less pollutant, more eco-friendly materials.
In the final analysis, consumers are calling for greater certainty and more guarantees, and these are precisely the issues addressed in the document under discussion today.
<P>
I am convinced that the Commission's draft has been improved, thanks to Parliament's contribution, even though it still contains some questionable provisions, such as the one concerning second-hand goods.
We do not perhaps need to back all of the amendments because they would probably disrupt the market, causing more confusion for consumers and traders, and would generate additional costs for commerce and industry without being of any practical benefit to the final consumer.
<P>
Lastly, voting for further difficult amendments, or just changes, would delay the conclusion of the legislative process.
Rather, it is time to put an end to the uncertainties of the end-user, avoiding a conciliation procedure which would undoubtedly be long and arduous.
I believe that the common position has taken on board the main wishes of the House at first reading.
Perhaps it would be better to adopt the common position straight away and ensure that the directive is adopted before the end of this parliamentary term.
That would be our rightful contribution to consumer protection.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=236 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, the proposal for a directive now being presented for second reading is particularly important for the operation of the single market and the protection of consumers.
I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Kuhn, who as in the first reading has done a very thorough, intelligent and extensive piece of work.
In this context, I would like briefly to clarify the position which the Commission took at the Council meeting on consumer affairs in April this year with regard to the Council's common position.
In the end, the Commission accepted the political agreement which reflected a general compromise among a qualified majority of the Member States.
Before the Commission established its position, it took stock of the positive and negative points in the proposal in question.
The most significant positive points include a harmonisation of the concept of 'a lack of conformity of the goods with the contract', a workable system of consumer rights adapted to the current market situation, a single guarantee period of two years, a change in the burden of proof, and the first provisions on commercial guarantees which ensure consumers some degree of protection in connection with matters of openness.
<P>
One negative point is that Member States will have the option of imposing an obligation to notify on consumers as a condition for being able to exercise the rights in question.
It is difficult to square this provision with the idea of a common minimum level of consumer protection.
It is clear from the above that there were more positive points than negative ones in the common position, which was the reason why the Commission accepted it.
<P>
As a result of this position, the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 7, 8, 9, 19, 20, 24 and 25, as well as Amendment No 26, subject to a change of wording.
The Commission is also able to accept Amendment No 15 with a minor alteration to take account of the problem raised by the Council.
The Commission cannot accept Amendment No 1 in its present form, and proposes to turn it into a recital reflecting the substance of the new Article 153, which replaces the previous Article 129a of the Treaty.
Among the changes which are acceptable to the Commission, I would like to emphasise the importance of Amendments Nos 7, 8 and 20, which was also underlined in the debate here this evening.
They remove the option for Member States to impose an obligation to notify on consumers as a condition for being able to exercise their rights.
This amendment will thus help to make the contents of the directive compatible with the concept of the single market and the objective of establishing a common minimum level of consumer protection through the directive.
<P>
As regards the future progress of this proposal for a directive during the second reading and a possible conciliation procedure, I am very glad to say that, in the light of the amendments the rapporteur has presented and the reasons for them, the fundamental positions of the Council and the European Parliament on the issues involved are not so different.
I therefore think there is a good chance that this proposal will be adopted in the very near future, so that European consumers can be guaranteed a number of appropriate and necessary rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=237 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=12>
CO2 emissions from new passenger cars
<SPEAKER ID=238 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0492/98) by Mrs González Álvarez, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Decision establishing a scheme to monitor the average specific emissions of carbon dioxide from new passenger cars (COM(98)0348 - C4-0425/98-98/0202(SYN)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, perhaps one of the greatest challenges of the next few years for the world and for the European Union is to reduce emissions of gases that affect the climate.
This proposal, which is partial and modest, is concerned with measuring CO2 emissions from new cars.
<P>
The report therefore recalls the commitment made - so long ago now - at the Rio de Janeiro Conference, to stabilise CO2 emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2000.
It also recalls the commitment made in Kyoto: an 8 % reduction in emissions of 6 greenhouse gases between 2008 and 2012.
We felt that, although it was a timid proposal, it was the best one.
<P>
Taking into account that CO2 emissions from passenger cars account for 50 % of CO2 emissions from the transport sector and 12 % of all CO2 emissions in the European Union, we should remember that the 1996 Council position already proposed the reduction of CO2 emissions by 2005 or by 2010 at the latest, to 120 g/km.
<P>
The document presented by the Commission states that, at present, CO2 emissions are at a level of 170 g/km, while Eurostat figures show a level of at least 186 g/km.
<P>
The report points out the need for fiscal incentives, fuel economy and labelling and consumer information, which we feel is essential, and which is also covered by another report that was being debated at the same time, for which Mr Fitzsimons was the rapporteur.
<P>
The report welcomes the proposal for a monitoring scheme, although I do not entirely understand the insistence that the schemes in various countries should not be harmonised, as it would seem that a certain amount of harmonisation is necessary.
<P>
The report also highlights Parliament's reservations concerning voluntary agreements, although I know very well that the Commissioner defends them, in my view, as a lesser evil. It also welcomes this scheme because, whether it is on the basis of agreements or with regulations, this scheme for monitoring CO2 emissions from new cars will be necessary.
<P>
We believe, as we have stated in the explanatory statement, that the diversity of proposals and directives makes them more complex for citizens to understand and also means that their transposition into the legislation of the various countries is more complicated: there are a large number of directives that refer to subjects that are inter-related.
<P>
The report states that if measures are not taken and monitoring is not carried out, emissions will increase by 40 % in the next few years.
<P>
It emphasises the need to have legislation in place, in case no agreement is reached with the car industry.
<P>
It expresses concern that an evaluation is not guaranteed before 2003 and therefore proposes bringing it forward a little.
<P>
The report considers the problems that could be presented in the future by cars that use electricity and other fuels such as gas, and we see that in the proposal, the Commission considers the possibility of including those cars in the future.
We disagree with the exclusion of cars registered outside the European Union, which is a growing sector that would be outside our control. We therefore accepted an amendment to this effect that was tabled by Mr Lange.
<P>
I will now conclude, Commissioner, by saying that some of the amendments tabled by Mr Lange that we accepted relate to the inclusion of light industrial vehicles in the monitoring scheme, and bring the deadlines forward somewhat. The representative from the Commission stated clearly in the meeting of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection that it was not going to be possible to bring forward the deadlines, but as there are always delays in meeting them, we insisted that they should be brought forward a little.
We would stress the fact that it would be necessary - and we tabled two amendments at the last minute - to evaluate the quality of data, and if the data is not good enough to carry out rigorous monitoring, the Member States would have to be told to change their method of collecting data. In addition, more powerful cars with more cylinders should also be included in this monitoring scheme.
<P>
All in all, Commissioner, we realise the difficulties that the Council and the Commission may have in accepting some of our amendments, but you are well aware, Commissioner, that Parliament always insists on its political proposals and its proposals to bring forward deadlines, as it knows very well that it is possible that there will be delays if it does not do so.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lange">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I think it is nice that we can discuss this legislation in such an intimate context.
Perhaps it would be even nicer if we could do it elsewhere over a drink, but unfortunately that is not possible.
Recently I have found the attitude of the European automobile industry to be much more proactive than in the past. This has been seen in the Auto-oil legislation but also in the question of CO2 reduction in cars.
I was surprised by the offer of a voluntary reduction to 140g by 2008, even if it was not quite what we had in mind.
I do not want to sound like Lenin by saying that trust is good but control is better, but in this respect we must of course take action to ensure that this voluntary reduction is also observed.
<P>
We need an objective, logical data system in order to be able to carry out this monitoring.
For this reason I fully support the report by Mrs González, which considerably improves upon some of the points in the Commission proposal.
We need data relating to average consumption for individual manufacturers and individual models so that if the voluntary reduction is revised we could still say, if necessary, that it is not acceptable.
We need to introduce statutory regulations, and I would like to invite the Commission to indicate what form such regulations could take.
Traffic is an example here.
We are not supposed to drive at a speed of over 50 km/h, but some of us drive faster.
A policeman comes along and tells us this is not allowed, and then we pay attention to what we are doing.
I believe that it must be clear from the outset that there is a fine or a driving ban or similar for driving at a speed of over 50 km/h.
If we are to monitor the situation we also need to know what happens if we have to say that our data indicate that something is not allowed.
<P>
We should also include light commercial vehicles, because of course they also emit CO2 and they are fairly heavy polluters particularly in urban areas.
There is also a small loophole, however.
In a large Member State that I know quite well there is a voluntary standard, but at a certain point it was noticed that this did not work as it stood and certain vehicles were excluded, vehicles that are also authorised for use as light commercial vehicles.
We should at least bear this little loophole in mind.
It is for these reasons that we ask in our amendment that light commercial vehicles be included for monitoring purposes and request that Directive 70/156 be amended.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is clear to everyone who is interested in the health of the environment that the Kyoto Protocol established essential framework conditions for curbing CO2 emissions.
The European Union agreed with the other parties to the Convention to set legally binding reduction targets for the emission of carbon dioxide.
The fact that emissions from passenger cars account for 12 % of all CO2 emissions in the European Union means that all responsible people involved in environmental policy are compelled to take rapid action.
<P>
The Community had set itself the target of reducing specific CO2 emissions from new passenger cars to 120g/km by the year 2000.
However, today we still do not have a system at EU level to monitor properly whether this target is being achieved.
But in order to be able to identify the effectiveness of the various measures as quickly as possible and to introduce guidelines if necessary, an appropriate monitoring system is absolutely essential.
As proposed in the present report, this can only be achieved by officially recording the specific consumption levels, net weight, maximum net power and engine capacity of newly registered passenger cars.
The advantages of this are not just about being able to measure the success of consumption-reducing measures, but also about identifying the main trends in transport policy.
<P>
The measures proposed in this report go a considerable way towards implementing the Kyoto Protocol, as targets alone are not enough to prevent negative effects on the world climate.
It is also essential to lay down monitoring standards and to control these very closely.
It is only in this way that the European Union can play its undoubtedly important role in ensuring that the Kyoto Protocol is more than just fine words.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Dybkjær">
Mr President, our group's spokesman, Mr Eisma, is unable to be present here today, so I shall speak on his behalf.
With regard to Mr Lange's comment, I hope that he - and I know he is here with his daughter, among others - is able to have the drink that the rest of us may be missing at the moment here in the plenary.
<P>
But I shall also begin on his behalf by commending the rapporteur, who has proposed some important amendments on behalf of the committee.
The Liberal Group has always been uneasy, not to say unhappy, about the fact that we have a voluntary agreement between the European Commission and the vehicle industry, but now that we have it, the least we can do is ensure that it is properly monitored.
The voluntary agreement entails a reduction in emissions to 140 g of CO2 per km in 2008.
Parliament has always believed that it should be 90 g per km in order to be able to meet the Kyoto targets.
At most this is a reduction of 25 %, but much more is needed when, at the same time, we know the greatest challenge for the environment in the coming years will be the development of transport.
<P>
We therefore agree with the rapporteur that it would be desirable to have some fallback legislation in case the agreements are not adhered to, and we would like to support the rapporteur in this way of thinking.
I shall conclude, Mr President, by saying that voluntary agreements can be excellent, and that we would also like to commend the vehicle industry, but we also know that for these agreements to be successful, it is very important to have measurements and sanctions, if they are to succeed in the long run.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Hautala">
Mr President, it is quite right that the rapporteur should be calling for light commercial vehicles to be included in this agreement.
It is just as my colleague Mr Lange said a moment ago: there is a loophole here.
Light commercial vehicles have been left out, even though they are responsible for substantially high levels of carbon dioxide emissions.
We firmly support the rapporteur's amendments.
I would also like to stress that the objectives of this voluntary agreement are very modest.
Can it really be possible that, because the average car in 1986 consumed seven litres of petrol for every one hundred kilometres, the Commission accepts the notion that the car industry is heading for a target of six litres per hundred kilometres over a period of twenty-two years, in other words by the year 2008?
We can see from the statistics that we in Europe are manufacturing cars that are just too big.
We must be able to do something about this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, let me first thank the Committee on the Environment and in particular its rapporteur, Mrs González Álvarez, for the excellent piece of work carried out in connection with this proposal.
It is correct, as both the rapporteur and Mr Lange have said, that this is a part of our climate strategy, while at the same time it is a continuation of the Auto/Oil programmes and thus an improvement of air quality in Europe as a whole.
The Commission agrees with several of the constructive amendments which the committee has tabled.
The Commission is able to accept Amendments Nos 1 and 2, No 6 as regards the part which stresses the need for monitoring, Nos 7, 8 and 27 in principle, No 29 with a change of wording, Nos 33 and 35, Nos 42 to 45 as regards the parts which increase the number of data categories for large vehicles, and lastly No 46 in principle.
<P>
Then there is a group of amendments which, unfortunately, the Commission cannot accept.
This is not for political reasons, but because of technical limitations.
These are the parts of Amendments Nos 9 to 26 and 36 to 45 aimed at including commercial vehicles in the monitoring scheme.
In principle, we have nothing as such against including such vehicles in the monitoring scheme, and environmentally too, of course, it is a sensible idea.
But the fact is that measuring the CO2 emissions of these vehicles is not part of the EU's type approval procedure, and so we simply cannot include them at the current time.
We appreciate that Amendments Nos 47 and 48 seek to strengthen the Commission's role by ensuring that Member States provide us with reliable data.
However, we cannot accept the amendments. This is because, in our opinion, the existing wording provides the right balance between an effective role for the Commission and the continued right of the Member States to use their own systems.
Nor can we accept the parts of Amendments Nos 28 to 30 which are aimed at bringing the implementation forward.
The dates the Commission has proposed already give the Member States very little time to implement the decision.
<P>
There is also Amendment No 31, which brings forward the date for the report on the implementation of the scheme.
We cannot accept this amendment either, because we would like to have enough data available to draw up a report of sufficient quality.
Nor can we accept Amendment No 34.
Then there are Amendments Nos 12, 14 and 38 which are also unacceptable to us.
We do not think it is appropriate to include vehicles which are registered for a second time, even if this takes place within six months of the first registration.
It would only make the data more difficult to use.
<P>
As regards the future indication of the exact format for the transmission of data, the Commission is unable to accept these parts of Amendments Nos 28 and 38.
This is because we actually have the exact format in Appendix 4 of the proposal.
Amendment No 32 concerns the selection of the year 2002 as the reference year for monitoring the environmental agreement with the vehicle manufacturers.
However, the agreement is based on a fixed numerical target, so it is not necessary to have a reference year.
If the agreement had been based on a percentage reduction, a reference year would have been of crucial importance.
That is the reason why we cannot accept this amendment.
On the other hand, I would like to reassure Parliament that the progress of the agreement will be closely followed every year.
<P>
It can hardly be a great surprise to Parliament that the Commission is unable to accept Amendments Nos 3, 4 and 5, which criticise the agreement.
I had the opportunity to discuss this not so very long ago, in a very lively fashion, I might add, with the Committee on the Environment.
For similar reasons, the Commission is also unable to accept the part of Amendment No 6 which would entail the Commission beginning the technical work with a view to presenting a legislative proposal.
We also had the opportunity to discuss that part in depth at the same meeting.
<P>
But to sum up, it may be said, Mr President, that the Commission is able to support a number of the proposed amendments, and that we are of course very pleased that in general our proposal has been positively received by the rapporteur and the Committee on the Environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lange">
Commissioner, I would like to ask a question concerning light commercial vehicles.
Of course we know that, in the context of type-approval under Directive 70/156, no standards exist as yet for recording CO2 emissions for light commercial vehicles.
But naturally such standards can be created.
So if we say we need them, Directive 70/156 must be amended.
Incidentally, in the Auto-oil legislation, a recital in the new Directive 98/69 calls for just this.
So what is to prevent the Commission from submitting a proposal for an amendment to this effect?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, I am sure that Mr Lange noted that I said we could not include these vehicles at the current time, and that is of course because I share his view that it would be extremely useful to include them.
We shall therefore start on the technical work which this requires.
I shall not pretend that I know how long this technical work will take, but it will take some time.
However, we shall do what we can, and we agree that it would be good if we could get these changes implemented.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=13>
Consumer information on fuel economy of new passenger cars
<SPEAKER ID=248 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0489/98) by Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Directive relating to the availability of consumer information on fuel economy in respect of the marketing of new passenger cars (COM(98)0489 - C4-0569/98-98/0272(SYN)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 NAME="Kestelijn-Sierens">
<SPEAKER ID=250 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lange">
Mr President, Commissioner, the directive we discussed earlier refers once again to the voluntary undertaking by the automobile industry to reduce CO2 emissions by technical measures.
What we are now discussing has more to do with a change in consumer behaviour, in other words additional measures.
I also consider it to be only right that we should aim to achieve this by means of information rather than legislation, because after all we do not want to dictate people's needs; we want to provide information so that people can decide for themselves.
I find it very exciting to think that in car manufacturers' showrooms we will see large signs on the cars that no longer say how much horsepower a car has or what speed it does or other attractions, but that say that one car's fuel consumption is 3 litres and that of another the same size is 15 litres, perhaps signs on a strong background, yellow, black, red or green - I do not wish to determine that, as colours are not the concern of politics - but on a striking background, and then the buyer will surely react differently.
<P>
I believe that, as the rapporteur has already mentioned, more information should of course be provided in order to ensure honesty, because the test cycle, which unfortunately does not exist yet for light commercial vehicles, does not take into account any extra equipment such as air conditioning or pre-heating systems, which may increase fuel consumption by as much as 20 %.
I believe that the consumer should be told about this honestly, not in detail but in the form of a note to the effect that, if something like this is included, consumption will increase accordingly.
I also think that, in order to make things a little more transparent, we should authorise and demand that more information should be available on this issue via the Internet, so that a consumer who wants to buy a new car can find out simply by sitting at his PC at home that a certain car with extra equipment has a certain level of fuel consumption, and from this he will know the level of CO2 emissions.
It should also be possible to see the fuel consumption of a specific model in the showroom.
This is also quite important, as the third pillar of the strategy is still tax measures to promote cars with low fuel consumption.
To this extent, the consumer should also know exactly how much fuel a car consumes and what tax advantages he might gain from it.
In this respect, I welcome the rapporteur's amendment, and I fully support it in order to achieve a little more transparency for the consumer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=251 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the present proposal for a system of consumer information on the fuel economy of new passenger cars includes some important aspects.
It is above all an important component of the Community strategy to reduce CO2 emissions from passenger cars.
This idea is not a new one.
In my country there have already been voluntary agreements for several years to state fuel consumption explicitly in promotional literature.
This idea is also willingly taken up by manufacturers, particularly by those who can supply economical cars, of course.
I firmly believe that a label that is not only displayed for sale purposes but that is also to be displayed on vehicles on the road will in future have a much greater effect on consumer choice.
<P>
I would therefore hope that we can increase the use of incentive systems rather than penalties in such strategies.
The market could regulate itself very well in precisely these areas.
It would regulate itself more quickly if the state were to offer encouragement in the form of bonus schemes or tax incentives that would favour consumer information and prompt industry to provide it.
In addition, this consumer label will help to support the vehicle manufacturers' efforts.
The main aim in this is to reduce harmful emissions in order to fulfil the commitments of the Kyoto Convention.
<P>
But I also welcome in particular the voluntary undertaking of the umbrella organisation of car manufacturers to meet the guidelines for CO2 reduction in a phased plan over the next few years.
This declaration helps manufacturers as well as consumers and in particular the environment.
However, a secondary aspect is that it also contributes significantly to simplifying the law.
After all, it was experts who fixed binding rules, and incidentally the aim is similar to what we are planning under the bus construction directive in the Murphy report.
It is crucial that those who protect the consumer, for example the testing organisation Stiftung Warentest , the ADAC, draw up this benchmark so that the consumer receives reliable information not only from the vehicle manufacturer but also from associations that specialise specifically in this area.
We have seen this before in the case of the Green Paper on efficient pricing in transport.
<P>
Most problems are caused by traffic jams in towns.
Here consumption is particularly high, and the effects of traffic jams must of course be given appropriate consideration especially in conurbations.
We must therefore work very hard in this area to eliminate these problems, and I also believe that there should be no cross-subsidies, as mentioned in the Green Paper 'Towards fair and efficient pricing in transport' , because we have enough problems with cars, so the priority should be to work towards making cars tolerable for the environment and for towns.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 NAME="Bjerregaard">
To begin with, I should like to thank the Committee on the Environment and especially its rapporteur, Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens, not only for having produced a report of high quality but also for dealing with the proposal so quickly.
The Commission agrees with several of the constructive amendments proposed by the committee, and we are able to accept the following amendments in full: Nos 1, 2, 5, 7, the first part of 15, 18, 20, 22 and the second part of 23.
Amendments Nos 9, 12, 14, the first part of 19 and the first part of 23 are acceptable in principle and, lastly, Amendment No 17 is acceptable as far as the effect of extra equipment is concerned.
<P>
I shall now give the reasons why we cannot accept some of the other amendments.
Since the purpose of the proposal is consumer information - I agree with Mr Lange who said something on the lines of the proposal being a piece of transparency to the benefit of the consumer - we cannot accept Amendments Nos 10, 11, 16 and 21, or those parts of Amendments Nos 19, 23 and 24 which are aimed at deleting all mention of figures for fuel costs associated with driving 10 000 km.
In the Commission's opinion, such figures are a clear signal which could persuade consumers to modify their behaviour.
The Commission is aware that in many Member States diesel is taxed less heavily than petrol, but Member States are free to include different taxes in the cost figure, and we are currently holding talks with the Council about a breakdown of this in the directive itself.
Since the Commission intends to keep information about fuel costs in the proposal, we are also unable to accept Amendment No 3.
In addition, the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 8.
We do agree that Internet advertisements should be covered by the term 'promotional literature', but it must be up to the Member States to decide whether an Internet advertisement is considered to be an advertisement on their territory.
Then there are Amendments Nos 4 and 6 which extend the scope of the directive to cover nearly-new vehicles.
We cannot accept this.
Initially, the directive should cover only new passenger cars, but it is conceivable that used cars could also be included at a later date.
These amendments are also aimed at including cars which have only been registered for a single day.
However, the directive's current definition of new passenger cars already covers this eventuality.
<P>
Then there are the parts of Amendments Nos 15, 18, 24 and 28 which deal with a simplification of the format in which fuel consumption should be shown, in other words that it should always be given in litres per 100 km and not in either litres per 100 km or km per litre.
This is not acceptable because each Member State has its own traditional way of showing fuel consumption, so it is important to be flexible if we are to achieve acceptance by consumers in the various Member States.
The changes of wording in Amendments Nos 17 and 25 are not acceptable.
We think the current wording regarding cars and climate change is a suitable compromise between drawing attention to the problem and at the same time explaining to drivers what their role is.
<P>
To sum up, the Commission is able to support a large number of the amendments.
We are pleased with the quick handling and positive reception which the Committee on the Environment and its rapporteur have given to the proposal.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.30 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=14>
Depletion of the ozone layer
<SPEAKER ID=254 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0465/98) by Mrs Graenitz, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on substances that deplete the ozone layer (COM(98)0398 - C4-0580/98-98/0228(SYN)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=255 NAME="Graenitz">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the ozone layer, which protects people, animals and plants on earth from harmful ultraviolet rays from the atmosphere, has been depleted by 10 % since measurements began in the early 1980s, although in the northern hemisphere over Scandinavia and Siberia depletion is up to 45 %.
<P>
Over ten years ago, with the Montreal Protocol, we found a way to control the phasing-out of ozone-depleting substances.
A few weeks ago, the 12th Conference of the Parties to the Protocol marked the start of the section of the Protocol in which the developing countries also committed themselves to reducing production of HCFCs.
In the European Union, production of fully halogenated chlorofluorocarbons was halted as early as 1995.
We are now beginning to reduce production of HCFCs.
<P>
I believe that the Commission proposal is a very good and very sensible one, and will help us to begin this reduction more quickly than provided for the EU in the Montreal Protocol.
<P>
In my report I have made some amendments to the Commission's proposals because I think that in certain areas production can be halted even more quickly, alternative substances are available, and it is necessary to have a certain degree of standardisation in halting production so that there are not several different deadlines for individual product ranges.
In addition, we need a phasing-out of HCFCs so that industry can prepare itself to slow down production gradually.
I believe this is also what the industry wants.
<P>
In my report I have also tried to address other problems by means of amendments.
One is the question of illegal trade, which is becoming more and more urgent.
In old installations there are supposedly closed systems from which substances are still disappearing.
Even small amounts, such as 20 or 50 litres of CFCs, are enough to keep these old installations in operation for a number of years, and this is why illegal trade in CFCs takes place.
I hope that these amendments on stricter controls and help for factories to halt production sooner, will also be useful.
<P>
I also believe that we need regulations for the export of substances that are already banned in the Union.
I have proposed a certain transitional period so that in particular the developing countries, which under the Montreal Protocol can continue to use HCFCs for a longer time than the European Union, do not have to develop their own industries or halt production at the same time as us, but are allowed to use new substances and build up significantly better new industries by using new substitutes from the outset.
<P>
I would like to mention two further points that seem to me to be very difficult and for which I have not really found a solution.
The first is the use of HCFCs in fire extinguishers.
Unfortunately, I only today received the information from the Commission to the effect that, in accordance with a European Court of Justice ruling of this summer, the use of HCFCs in fire extinguishers is banned.
It is highly regrettable that this information was not available for the vote in committee.
I also believe that the proposers of the motion that was approved in committee, who were advised on this by their Green Minister of the Environment, were not aware of it.
I am sorry that I only learned of this this evening and could not speak to the committee chairman about it.
I will inform Parliament of this fact tomorrow before the vote on this issue so that the vote can then be cancelled.
<P>
My final point concerns methyl bromide.
Following discussions and votes in committee, a compromise was found in this area to allow the southern Member States to use methyl bromide for longer in soil fumigation.
I know that such a compromise is difficult and should really be rejected for reasons of environmental policy, but I ask the Commission to find a way to allow a decent transition in view of what is currently being discussed in the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=256 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Hulthén">
Mr President, in October the largest hole in the ozone layer over the Antarctic was recorded.
So much damage has already been done to the ozone layer that the hole is now three times the size of Australia.
The survival of the human race is being seriously threatened and we must find a common solution to the problem.
Depletion of the ozone layer is occurring so rapidly that it is impossible to predict what will happen in the future.
We know that depletion of the ozone layer has already had some very serious consequences, particularly in the area where we know that the ozone layer is thin and where the incidence of skin cancer is increasing.
<P>
There can scarcely ever have been clearer evidence of the need for cross-border cooperation - and we must act quickly.
We know that the ozone layer is expected to get thinner in the next few years unless we reach agreement on a radical reduction of ozone- depleting substances.
<P>
I therefore welcome the Commission's initiative in putting forward a proposal to improve and tighten up the regulation on substances that deplete the ozone layer.
I should also like to congratulate Mrs Graenitz on the admirable and skilful way in which she has dealt with this difficult and highly technical subject and on the amendments she has proposed, which include a further tightening-up of the Commission's proposal.
<P>
There is one particular issue which I should like to raise in this context.
New ozone-depleting substances which are not covered by the Montreal Protocol or by the EU regulation on ozone-depleting substances are being discovered all the time.
We know that some of these substances have a far more damaging effect than those that are already covered by agreements and legislation.
<P>
If we are to achieve the agreed objectives laid down in the Montreal Protocol, we must solve the problem created by these ozone-depleting substances.
To do so, we have to devise a simple and efficient system for controlling the whole area of ozone-depleting substances, so that arrangements are in place for when new substances are discovered.
I would therefore urge Parliament to support the committee's proposals relating to the arrangements for controlling new ozone-depleting substances.
<P>
As I have already said, we know that the hole in the ozone layer is now bigger than at any time in the past.
I should therefore like to say that some things in life should not be matters for compromise, and the hole in the ozone layer is one of them.
The situation is not helped by the existence of companies which produce such substances and are threatened with closure if they are banned.
In the end, however, it is probably better to outlaw certain industries, since we know the effects that they have.
The compromises which have been reached are therefore very disappointing both from an environmental point of view and in terms of competition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=257 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Flemming">
Mr President, I would firstly like to extend my warmest congratulations to Mrs Graenitz on her report.
Things were not easy for her, nor did she make them easy for herself.
The result is nevertheless a very important one.
I think it would have been easy for Mrs Graenitz and also for myself, as Austrians, to present a very different report.
But we as Austrians are having to learn the hard way in the European Union that things do not always go the way we want.
We have southern neighbours who simply cannot yet appreciate this.
<P>
It is very clear that one of the great successes of the Montreal Protocol has been that the rate of depletion of the ozone layer has decreased in recent years.
I would like to make it clear that the ozone hole itself has not been reduced, but the rate of depletion has decreased.
The present report recognises the problem of depletion of the ozone layer and is therefore very clearly in favour of halting the production and use of the substances that cause it.
We all know what these substances cause, for example skin cancer and eye damage.
But they also affect all natural ecosystems.
Therefore the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection is trying to find a consensus that is as broad as possible while at the same time taking account of particular interests in this very important issue.
<P>
For this reason I have tried to play my part in reaching a compromise with my colleagues from the southern Member States on the use of methyl bromide in agriculture.
It is certainly not a concern for Austria.
We do not need it at all, no-one needs it at all, but there are simply some countries that have a particular climate and believe that because of their special situation they have no alternative.
I believe that the European Parliament is helping to ensure that absolutely essential environmental protection rules are implemented as quickly as possible.
We all know that there is a tendency here and everywhere else to water down legislation, and we must fight against this.
<P>
However, I would like today also to thank my colleagues from the southern Member States for their cooperation; it was quite interesting to see that amendments came from Italian members of several different parties, from my group and from Mrs Graenitz's group.
There is certainly a problem here concerning land.
As Members of the European Parliament, as those responsible for ensuring a thriving environment, it is our duty to prevent damage being done to the essential foundations of life, and at least in future to reduce or prevent mistakes that we have certainly made in the past.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=258 LANGUAGE="DA" NAME="Dybkjær">
Mr President, although as many speakers have mentioned, a great deal has been done at international level over recent decades, there is still a long way to go. The increased possibilities of access to alternative substances therefore naturally mean that we must try to do more.
This proposal is a step in the right direction.
It is a question of restrictions or outright bans, and of controlling the licensing of exports.
One of the things we unfortunately cannot get to grips with in the European Union is the possibilities of taxation - and I think the Commission agrees with me when I say unfortunately, because that is a very effective way of modifying behaviour.
I can tell you that we used this instrument in Denmark and we did think that it would at first generate some revenue for the Treasury, but I have to say that there was no revenue because people switched to alternative substances immediately.
This shows what it is all about.
It is also very much about economics, but as I have said, we cannot go down that road.
I would like to thank the rapporteur for the work she has put into the report and say that our group is voting in favour of the amendments which tighten up the legislation.
I can understand very well the rapporteur's compromise proposal with the PPE Group.
Like the rapporteur, I would also have thought it was a good idea, but like my group, I am now in favour of having tougher regulations.
We think methyl bromide can already be replaced now.
This has already happened, for example, in greenhouses in the northern countries, and there are no problems with using the alternatives.
So it should be possible in the southern countries too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=259 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Sjöstedt">
Mr President, the report contains a number of good points, including tougher legislation, which we naturally support.
However, in some respects it is disappointing, not least as regards methyl bromide.
In particular, I have some questions relating to two compromise amendments tabled by the PSE and PPE Groups, namely Nos 32 and 33, which allow some noteworthy exceptions that would seriously damage the ozone layer.
Exemptions are being granted here in respect of certain substances that are damaging to health when usable alternatives exist.
It is a pity that a compromise was not sought with other groups, which would presumably have been possible.
In my view, the proposal put forward by the Green and GUE/NGL Groups represents a better option.
<P>
I also find it interesting that the proposal is based on Article 130, since it deals with chemicals.
No doubt it would be possible to apply this to numerous directives that deal with different chemicals, not with a view to harmonisation, but to facilitate more progressive legislation in various countries.
Such a possibility should be exploited.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=260 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Breyer">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too am disappointed in this report.
I think it is disgraceful that we are talking about the protection of the ozone layer and yet we allow the worst ozone killer - methyl bromide - to remain on the market!
The European Parliament has allowed itself to be controlled by short-sighted, national lobbies, and this is highly regrettable.
<P>
We all know that methyl bromide is one of the worst ozone-depleting substances.
But there is no point in bemoaning the fact that the ozone hole has increased if we do not take appropriate measures to prevent it.
I find it highly regrettable that the European Commission has not proposed introducing this ban from 2001 onwards.
The large groups only want it from 2004, in any case.
I think this is inconsistent with what is being done in the individual Member States, and I think it is particularly regrettable given the fact that there are alternatives, as several Member States have demonstrated.
I find it quite disgraceful that we are allowing irreversible damage to the ecosystem - and also damage to health in the form of skin cancer, for example - in order to give in to lobby pressure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=261 NAME="Weber">
Mr President, the Commission proposal on substances that deplete the ozone layer contains a serious loophole which some of us have discovered.
A multinational company which runs a factory in my home country, Luxembourg, is allowed to continue to use CFC-11 as a solvent in an industrial process, although a substitute which does not deplete the ozone layer exists and has been used since 1995 in a second production line of the same company.
<P>
For almost 15 years Du Pont de Nemours has used CFC-11 as a solvent to produce a polyurethane fleece.
The annual emissions have been, on average, 15 tonnes of CFC-11, which is quite substantial.
An extension of the authorisation was granted recently.
Du Pont de Nemours now calls its solvent a processing agent but that is just a trick to allow them to continue to use CFC-11.
<P>
We should not allow another extension of these authorisations, especially as a substitute, pentane, exists and has been used successfully in a parallel production line.
My Group has asked for a split vote on the last paragraph of Annex VI of the proposal, which defines a list of processes where the use of CFC-11 may still be permitted as a processing agent.
I propose we just delete this paragraph by voting 'no' tomorrow.
<P>
Finally, HCFCs still have a very high ODP and a high global-warming potential.
I urge you not to permit the use of HCFCs as a processing agent.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=262 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, thanks in part to the Montreal Protocol, we shall be able to quickly phase out substances which deplete the ozone layer.
The desired effect, closing the hole in the ozone layer, will not be felt for a hundred years.
We also hope that by then the number of skin cancer cases will have fallen.
<P>
It is a good thing that the European Union wants to take measures to hasten this phasing-out process.
And it can be done, given the rapidly growing number of alternatives available.
The manufacture, use and marketing of methyl bromide is to cease by the year 2001.
And there can be no exemptions on grounds of climatological conditions.
Climatological conditions in Dutch and German greenhouses are the same as in the southern Member States, but methyl bromide has not been used in the Netherlands since 1992 and is now banned in Germany as well.
If the right technology is used, there is no loss in productivity and it is healthier for the workers too.
<P>
As regards the use of HCFCs in fire extinguishers as an alternative to halon, I can say that this is already banned, and therefore in Italy as well, despite the fact that Italy is ignoring a judgment by the European Court.
Alternatives to HCFCs are now available too, and these, moreover, are not carcinogenic.
<P>
The only exemption which we regard as justified is for 'critical uses', for example CFCs in inhalers or chemical precursors for pharmaceuticals.
Since these substances cannot be obtained outside the EU in sufficiently pure form, all trade in ozone-depleting substances with countries outside the EU must be prohibited.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=263 NAME="Bjerregaard">
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank the Committee on the Environment, and especially its rapporteur, Mrs Graenitz, for the report we are discussing here this evening.
The amendments are almost all aimed at accelerating the phasing-out of substances which deplete the ozone layer - an objective which I can of course fully support.
However, we are involved in some rather intricate negotiations where attention must also be paid to the opinions in the Council.
So the Commission cannot go as far as the European Parliament might like at the present moment in some areas.
Nonetheless, I hope to be able to return to at least some of the proposals at a later point in the procedure.
<P>
Against this background, I can reveal that the Commission is able to accept Amendments Nos 14, 21, 22, 23 and 28 in full and Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 19, 25, 25, 26, 27 and 30 in principle.
And now I will give some of the reasons why we cannot accept the other amendments.
Some of the amendments are aimed at tightening up the procedures for monitoring, reporting and inspections.
We can accept most of them, but in our opinion Amendment No 20 would lead to an overlapping with existing procedures and is therefore superfluous.
As far as the phasing-out of methyl bromide is concerned, the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 5 because the ban on critical use exemptions in agriculture after the year 2006 would be contrary to the Montreal Protocol.
If the criteria for granting critical use exemptions are applied correctly, the possibility of exemptions should continue after the year 2006.
And finally, there are Amendments Nos 32 and 33 which are aimed at postponing the phasing-out of methyl bromide until 2005 in Member States with special climatic conditions.
This has already been discussed here this evening, and I can say that I entirely agree with what was said by Mrs Dybkjær, Mr Sjöstedt, Mrs Breyer and Mr Blokland, and not with the comments made by Mrs Flemming this evening.

A collective exemption for all the southern Member States could mean that up to 80 % of the EU's use of methyl bromide was exempt, and then we would no longer be able to fulfil our obligations under the Montreal Protocol.
The protocol demands a complete phasing-out of methyl bromide and does not allow the possibility of continued use after the phasing-out, not even if special types of plastic film are used.
<P>
Controlling the production of HCFCs is part of the Community's ozone policy.
The Commission has proposed that the situation should be reviewed by the year 2002 to see whether developments in global patterns of consumption allow further restrictions to be introduced.
Amendments Nos 6, 7, 8 and 9 will limit this flexibility because they introduce additional reductions now, before we know whether they are appropriate.
The Commission therefore cannot accept these amendments now.
Then there are some amendments which aim to encourage the control of the use of HCFCs.
We cannot accept Amendments Nos 11, 12, 13 and 31, because they would increase the problems and costs for small and medium-sized enterprises by bringing forward the date for phasing out the use of HCFCs in solvents for refrigeration equipment and polyurethane foam.
The Commission cannot accept Amendment No 16 on prohibiting the sale of second-hand equipment containing HCFCs, because that would increase the probability of illegal disposal and the release into the atmosphere of HCFCs.
Amendments Nos 17 and 29 are aimed at prohibiting the production of products containing HCFCs for export to countries where their use is still permitted.
Here we are aware that excessively restrictive legislation in the Community could easily lead to production facilities being located elsewhere.
The Commission understands the aim of Amendment No 18, but it would conflict with the exemption for special cases in Article 5(6).
<P>
Then there are Amendments Nos 10 and 15, which are concerned with halons and HCFCs in fire protection systems.
The phasing-out of halons is high on the agenda, but it is important to ensure that unnecessary releases into the atmosphere are avoided.
Unfortunately, many Member States do not yet have facilities for recovering, storing, re-using or, for that matter, destroying halons in a safe way.
It will be some time before this is the case.
Therefore the Commission is unable to accept Amendment No 10.
Amendment No 15 is aimed at introducing a new exemption, whereby HCFCs would be allowed to replace halons for fire protection purposes.
I believe this was the amendment which Mrs Graenitz referred to in her remarks.
<P>
Finally, I would once again like to thank Mrs Graenitz and the Committee on the Environment for their report and their thorough examination of the Commission's proposal which we have been discussing here.
I look forward to further constructive cooperation which can ensure that the Community continues to play a leading role in the protection of the ozone layer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=264 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.30 a.m.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 11.45 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Agenda
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
Before we come to the approval of the Minutes, I have received a request from four political groups - the Group of the Party of European Socialists, the Group of the European People's Party, the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left and the Green Group in the European Parliament - for the Council and the Commission to make statements this afternoon on the situation in Iraq.
They propose that this item should be included between 3 p.m. and 3.45 p.m., and that the debate on topical and urgent subjects should be correspondingly shortened.
<P>
I shall put this proposal to the vote, and then we shall establish how to proceed.
<P>
(Parliament approved the proposal) I also have a proposal from the PPE Group to delete the subjects 'Relocation by Rank Xerox' and 'Philippines' in order to accommodate this debate.
<P>
Are there any comments from any other groups?
If not, I shall put to the vote the deletion of subjects IV and V from the topical and urgent debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="Green">
Mr President, you know as well as I do that this is a very urgent and very recent issue.
Could you meet with the secretaries-general of the groups to decide how the afternoon's topical and urgent debates will take place?
None of us has had time to consider in detail how a debate should be structured, whether the Council and the Commission can come and which urgencies need to be removed.
It would be fair to give us a little more time and you can make the announcement later on.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="President">
I have no problem with that.
The meeting of secretaries-general will take place after the vote.
How to arrange the debates and which urgencies to remove can be proposed at the beginning of the afternoon.
The House must decide the changes to the agenda.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="Spencer">
Mr President, may I endorse that proposal as it is a foreign affairs matter?
It is my understanding that there is an Austrian Minister able to comment on behalf of the presidency and that seems to me the correct way forward in this kind of situation.
We should listen to the presidency and to the Commission and then have a debate.
I am entirely happy with what you propose procedurally.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 NAME="Martin">
Mr President, obviously these are unusual circumstances and I support your proposal.
However, I would like to suggest that if we decide to remove two urgencies, we should follow the precedent we have set in the past and still vote on them even though we do not debate them.
There was an agreement at the beginning of the week to put those two items on the agenda.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
That will be discussed in the meetings of the secretaries-general and the House will decide at the beginning of the afternoon's proceedings.
I am sure there will be no problem but the House must decide.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="Green">
Mr President, could I just ask for clarification on whether there is going to be a resolution on Iraq?
As far as my Group is concerned, we are happy to have a resolution; we have a text which we are prepared to discuss with other groups.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
I think the PPE Group may have asked for a resolution, but I do not know whether I have been correctly informed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, I too believe that Parliament - as the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy has just said - should have the opportunity to hold a debate.
We do not at this point need a resolution.
If one should prove necessary, Mr President, then it is something for January when we will certainly be returning to this, but it is not something for now.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my group has come to believe that however complex the issues, there are a number of points which are very clear to do with the United Nations, our objectives and the need for legal measures to be taken against Saddam.
Like the Socialist Group, we therefore want to see a resolution to wind up this debate.
Otherwise we are just talking a lot of hot air.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 NAME="Cox">
Mr President, my Group believes that the political responsibilities for what is happening in Iraq today are extremely clear.
We had a brief discussion this morning, and I am pleased that you have responded positively to the request for a debate on the matter.
In the circumstances, it would be appropriate to have a debate without resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Moreau">
Mr President, I should like to make known the indignation felt by the GUE/NGL Group with regard to last night's air attacks ...
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="President">
Mrs Moreau, this is not the time to embark on the debate.
<P>
For the moment, we are trying to establish whether a resolution should be drawn up.
The debate will take place this afternoon.
<P>
Would you be good enough to tell us, Mrs Moreau, whether or not your group wants to have a resolution, without going into the substance of the debate?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Moreau">
Mr President, Parliament must make known the indignation felt by its Members with regard to the air attacks ...
<P>
(Mixed reactions)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 NAME="President">
You do not have the floor, Mrs Moreau.
<P>
I shall put to the vote the question concerning the motion for a resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berès">
Mr President, I am indignant at the way in which you have cut short our colleague, Mrs Moreau, and I would ask you to let her give her opinion regarding the resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 NAME="President">
I am sorry, Mrs Berès, but when people do not respect the Rules and begin a debate at the wrong time, I cannot allow that.
<P>
I shall open the vote to establish precisely whether or not a motion for a resolution would be appropriate.
<P>
(Parliament rejected the proposal)
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="President">
Our former colleague, Mrs Claudia Roth, is present in the official gallery.
I am sure you would wish to join me in greeting her and welcoming her back on a visit now she has relinquished her duties.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="Gallagher">
Mr President, this House agreed yesterday to include 50 000 tonnes of mackerel as part of the food-aid package to Russia.
I would call upon you to use your good offices to inform the Council of Fisheries Ministers, who are meeting in Brussels this morning, that it should respect the opinion of this House and should not ignore this recommendation, which was made as a result of a very clear vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Gallagher.
We shall inform the Council of that without delay.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=22 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Miranda de Lage">
Mr President, I have pleasure in being the bearer of good news this morning.
The international situation is not as happy as we would like, but yesterday, an agreement was signed between Chile and Argentina establishing a permanent peace between these two countries. I believe it is welcome news, coming as it does after a century of dispute: there have been 23 conflicts between Chile and Argentina over border issues.
If the House agrees, I should like to ask the President to convey our congratulations on the newly signed peace agreement to both Chile and Argentina
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Miranda.
At times like the present, it is indeed a pleasure to hear that there is at least one place in the world where peace is being made.
On behalf of the House, I shall convey our congratulations immediately.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Metten">
Mr President, in connection with the urgencies in the Minutes, under Item 4 of yesterday's topical and urgent debate there is a request to introduce a new item: the relocation of the Rank Xerox company.
This is incorrectly recorded.
The company is named simply Xerox.
I should therefore like yesterday's Minutes to be corrected and also, in this afternoon's discussion, we should talk about Xerox, not Rank Xerox.
It makes Parliament look a little silly if we cannot even give the company's correct name.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Metten.
We shall check on that.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=3>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="Samland">
Mr President, I have heard that the President-in-Office is still airborne and cannot land.
Nevertheless, it is important that we should at least hear what the President-in-Office has to say.
With this decision you have now adopted the budget for 1999, which is the last budget under the current financial perspective.
May I ask the President in the Chair to declare what the President-in-Office now has to declare, namely that he concurs with the decision of Parliament at the second reading, that we have not exceeded the maximum rate of increase and that the budget is therefore approved by the Council.
Mr President, I would call on you to deliver that declaration on behalf of the President-in-Office.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 NAME="President">
Yes indeed, Mr Samland.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="Dührkop Dührkop">
Mr President, on checking through the document before us, I discovered that a paragraph had been omitted. It refers to an amendment concerning the Structural Funds, which we adopted in the Committee on Budgets but which does not appear in this document, probably because of the pressure of time.
As I recall, it was paragraph 7, which, following today's vote, should be properly included in this document.
I should like to check with the services that this is the case.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="President">
I am informed by the services that it is included, but this will be verified in due course. Each of the versions in the different languages will also be checked.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="Wynn">
Mr President, this is the last budget for certain distinguished members of the committee: the chairman, Mr Samland; Lord Tomlinson; Mr Dankert from our side, Mr Brinkhorst from the Liberals, probably Mr Kellett-Bowman; and, I think, Mr Bardong from the PPE as well.
May I, on behalf of everyone on the Committee on Budgets, give them our wholehearted thanks for the work they have done and wish them well for the future.
<P>
(Sustained applause)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Wynn, for those remarks.
I have in fact received the following statement from the President-in-Office of the Council: 'You have just completed your second reading of the 1999 draft budget.
The outcome of your vote corresponds to our expectations and I am consequently pleased to state that the Council can accept the maximum rate of increase which results from your second reading'.
<P>
In the light of this statement which I have received from the Council, I can declare the 1999 general budget finally adopted.
<P>
(The signature then took place of the general budget for 1999)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="President">
I think the House can congratulate the rapporteurs, Mrs Dührkop and Mr Viola, and all those who have negotiated on behalf of Parliament, on the excellent job which they have done.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=33 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, before we begin voting on this report, I should like to draw attention to the Rules of Procedure with regard to Annex V. I am in fact a little surprised to see that the voting list begins with the vote on the preamble and the recitals when Article 3(3) states, with respect to a report whose draft decision concludes that discharge should be granted, that the proposal for a decision is put to the vote first, and is to be followed by the vote on the motion for a resolution.
<P>
The mistake no doubt results from the fact that there is confusion between the decision and the resolution in the draft prepared by the Committee on Budgetary Control, but the Annex is very clear, and it is easy to see why.
The important thing is to decide on what we are saying, and what appears in paragraph 23 of the resolution, in other words whether or not we agree to grant the discharge; the vote on the recitals and the explanatory statement, which normally constitute the resolution, is to be held afterwards.
<P>
I would ask you to observe the Rules of Procedure on this matter, because this has not always been done, as we have seen in connection with the opinions of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Experience has also proved that it is always easy for Parliament to let off steam in the first part of the resolution before nodding off in the second part.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="President">
You are clearly right, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
In formal terms, the motion for a resolution which the committee has adopted does not exactly follow Annex V of the Rules of Procedure.
I think that the best course is to put the question to the House, so that it can decide in what order it wishes to vote, since there is a proposal from the committee responsible which follows a different order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="Theato">
Mr President, I believe the rule has indeed been observed here, because it is quite clearly shown that the text up to paragraph 25 deals with the decision and that the subsequent paragraphs relate to the resolution.
That is where the reasons are listed which, with the passages being clearly headed, we normally have in the remarks, in the conditions which the Commission has to fulfil in connection with the decision on discharge.
Although there is no heading here in the paper, the division is clearly marked by asterisks.
The way the services formulated the heading, which only says 'Part A', is therefore confusing.
That is not how we handed it in, and we ought to have been told clearly that a heading had to be inserted.
But I think that can be rectified.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Theato. It is now clear that the motion for a resolution extends as far as paragraph 24 and the proposal for a decision begins with paragraph 25.
Is that not correct?
The rapporteur will be able to confirm this.
The motion for a resolution extends up to and including paragraph 24 and the proposal for a decision includes paragraphs 25 and 26.
Is that so?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="Elles">
Mr President, I have to say that Annex V of the Rules of Procedure on giving a discharge is a total nightmare for us to follow.
We have been given contradictory analyses as we have gone through this.
I would urge you to ask the House to bring the Rules of Procedure into line with the Treaty as soon as possible.
<P>
As for the point of detail raised by Mrs Theato, she, in my view, is correct and we should vote on it in the House to clarify the procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, I find it very damaging to decide on the basis of a chance majority whether or not a Rule is to be respected.
I find the Rules of Procedure to be perfectly clear.
I therefore fail to understand how it is possible to make an exception to them on the basis of a chance majority.
I request that we respect our Rules of Procedure and vote in accordance with its provisions and not à la carte .
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="President">
In the Rules of Procedure, Article 3(3) of Annex V reads as follows:
<P>
'The proposal for a decision shall be put to the vote before the motion for a resolution.
The procedure for giving a discharge shall end with a vote on the motion for a resolution as a whole'.
This means that we must vote on paragraphs 25 and 26 before the rest, then vote on the rest, and finally on the text as a whole.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Theato">
Mr President, if you make such a division, the section should begin with paragraph 26 and end with 29.
If you look at the document, you will see that a break occurs in the text at that point.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="President">
Mrs Theato, please allow me to seek further clarification.
We are attempting to establish what constitutes the proposal for a decision and what constitutes the motion for a resolution.
I see paragraph 23 reads as follows:
<P>
'In the light of these considerations, decides to give a discharge to the Commission'.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 NAME="President">
This appears to be a decision rather than a resolution.
So, the proposal for a decision extends from paragraph 23 onwards.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Theato">
Mr President, that is precisely what I said.
We have a decision and a resolution.
That is what the Rules of Procedure require.
The decision lays down what is to be done, what Parliament has decided, as you just said.
The resolution contains the remarks relating to the decision, the action to be taken.
This is what the section beginning with paragraph 26 is about.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 NAME="Elles">
Mr President, this confusion just goes to show how odd these Rules of Procedure actually are.
I would reiterate Mrs Theato's statement that the proposal for the decision goes from paragraph 1 through to paragraph 25.
It is all part of the decision and then you have the motion for resolution from paragraph 26 onwards.
<P>
Before the vote on paragraph 23
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="President">
Mr Martens has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Martens">
Mr President, I should like to speak and I must apologise to the House that we are voting on paragraph 23 in exceptional circumstances as the President of Parliament yesterday presented us with a declaration from the European Commission.
We discussed this and do not agree with the conclusion, in which it is stated that if paragraph 23 is not adopted along with the discharge for 1996, if it is rejected, then a motion of censure must be tabled.
We do not agree with this.
A large majority in our group wants to reject paragraph 23.
On the basis of our Rules of Procedure, this means that the matter must be referred back to the Committee on Budgetary Control and the debate must continue between Parliament and the Commission.
That is the effect of a refusal to grant discharge.
<P>
I would also add that we as a group have every confidence in the President of the European Commission.
We are counting on him to implement the reforms he has proposed.
That is the meaning of our vote.
<P>
I should like to end by making the following point.
A motion of censure is not the right way to express the approval and confidence of Parliament.
The Commission President should be able to intervene and we would then be able to approve a motion of confidence.
That would be the right thing to do.
<P>
(Applause from the right)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="Green">
Mr President, it had not been my intention to take the floor before this vote, I must say that I have never heard such hypocritical rubbish as was just spouted by Mr Martens!
<P>
(Loud applause from the left) After what has happened on this issue over the last few weeks in this House, everybody here knows that this is now a major political issue of confidence in the financial competence of the European Commission.
I wish it to be known, as Mr Martens has raised it now, that in the event this vote goes against granting discharge, I have here, and will table immediately, a motion of censure on the European Commission on behalf of more than the required number of Members under the Rules of our House.
<P>
(Interruption from the floor) Mr President, those people who believe that it is possible to say to the public, to the European Commission and to this House that they have no confidence in the financial competence of the European Commission, but who are not then prepared to do what politically follows and sack them, simply are not fit to be in this House.
We challenge them to do that!
<P>
(Loud and sustained applause from the left)
<SPEAKER ID=48 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
<SPEAKER ID=49 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Aelvoet">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of my group I must say that it is very clear that we cannot grant discharge to the Commission.
We formally protest against the fact that around 6 p.m. yesterday we were given a statement, translated into three languages to make things easy for the groups, which actually threatened Parliament and was tantamount to blackmail.
We find such action unacceptable.
<P>
(Applause from the centre and right) A Parliament with a little self-respect will not tolerate this.
We are also convinced that this declaration came after the socialists had collected their signatures.
Otherwise it would not have been so clearly stated.
<P>
We do not believe it is correct to equate a refusal to grant discharge with a motion of no confidence.
We do not believe these are the same thing at all.
We are not therefore going to fall into this trap.
<P>
(Applause from the centre and right) Finally, it is of course clear that refusal to grant discharge indicates that there are indeed serious problems and that we want to see a serious response to these serious problems.
It is for this reason that we are today refusing to grant discharge.
<P>
(Applause from the centre and right)
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Cox">
Mr President, I regret that we have entered this debate prematurely before the vote, but here we are.
It seems to me that it raises questions at three levels.
Firstly, the question of procedure; secondly, the question of the institutional or interinstitutional propriety of the matter; and thirdly, a political issue.
<P>
On the question of procedure, it is quite clear in purely procedural terms that we have two quite separate votes.
The vote to refuse discharge is entirely separated procedurally from the question of whether we wish procedurally to move to a motion of censure.
So the procedural issue is quite clear.
<P>
On the institutional question, I am bound to say that when I received the statement from the Commission yesterday evening at about 6 or 7 p.m., I felt it was tantamount to an interference with parliamentary procedure and sovereignty.
<P>
(Applause from the centre and right) Inter alia, the statement said that if the budget discharge is not given, the European Parliament must clarify the situation by proceeding to a vote on a censure motion.
The European Commission has no business telling this House how we must proceed.
<P>
(Sustained applause from the centre and right) I believe that the Commission, by saying this to the House, has ensured with certainty that it will be roundly defeated on its desire to see a discharge through the House today.
My Group, like all the groups, has had a long debate on this issue, and we are divided in our opinions.
I myself, and I will not explain the detail of it, shall actually vote to grant the discharge.
But I deeply resent yesterday's advance interference - and, in a sense, institutional blackmail - by the Commission.
<P>
Finally, on the political question.
Procedurally the issues are separate; institutionally I believe the Commission was wrong; but politically, there is a consequential logic that must be followed in this House.
Personally, I believe that if we think the Commission is financially incompetent, a certain political logic follows that, and we must face our responsibilities.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Miranda">
Mr President, with regard to the vote that we are about to take, and in particular with regard to the Commission's reaction, I would like to say that my group too has reflected very deeply and very calmly on this matter, and has come to the conclusion that a majority of the Commission does not deserve to be granted this discharge.
<P>
Let me explain why. The act of granting discharge is not an administrative act.
It is an intrinsically political act, and a politically important one.
We are not verifying whether or not the Commission has correctly exercised its mandate in accounting terms.
The political act that we are now engaged in is significant in its own right.
Thus in our opinion, and regardless of the views that each of us may have as to whether the Commission deserves to be censured or not, which is a totally different issue, there is clearly no legal connection between censure and discharge.
<P>
That is why we believe these two acts or situations are totally separate.
The only way we can interpret the Commission presenting this issue in such a manner is as an act of political pressure, as a form of blackmail.
I repeat, this reaction can only be seen as political blackmail, as unacceptable pressure on this Parliament.
<P>
I would like to state quite unequivocally that the Commission must not and cannot be allowed to dictate what Parliament can and cannot do.
The Commission cannot be allowed to dictate the procedures that we should follow in this instance.
<P>
Parliament is independent and must now exercise its independence in this case by voting against the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pasty">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is quite normal for each group to be allowed to voice its opinion as we approach a vote as important as the one which we will be casting in a short while.
<P>
I agree with the majority of my colleagues who have just given their opinions, apart from Mrs Green, of course.
We cannot accept blackmail or intimidation of any form, whether it comes from the Commission or the chairman of the Socialist Group.
<P>
(Applause from the right) Do not forget that blackmail and intimidation are the weapons of the weak.
In view of the votes which we have just cast by very strong majorities - you must have noticed this because of the votes which have been displayed here - I do not see how you can now grant discharge after having cast these votes.
There is no legal connection between discharge and a motion of censure.
We will be refusing the discharge, and we will then see within our groups whether we endorse a motion of censure or not.
That depends on each group, but we must not establish a connection between them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lalumière">
Mr President, the text which was distributed last night by the Commission is without doubt highly inappropriate.
<P>
The two instruments, discharge and motion of censure, or motion of confidence, are quite separate in legal terms, but in political terms they are inextricably linked.
<P>
As far as discharge is concerned, there are also divisions within our group.
We are not all in agreement.
Dreading the prospect of a weak Commission, I personally shall vote for the discharge.
However, I deeply regret the fact that, as shown by the events of the last few hours, it is the Commission itself that last night weakened its position.
All we can do is observe and be sorry about this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 NAME="Elles">
Mr President, I have two comments.
Some people in this Parliament today seem to think that we are voting on a definitive refusal to grant discharge.
I would remind colleagues that we have not been allowed to have an amendment under our Rules of Procedure to refuse to grant a definitive discharge.
What we will be voting on, I hope as soon as possible, is whether we wish not to grant discharge at this stage, or whether as I have understood the Rules of Procedure, it has to go back to committee.
Therefore, the arguments, particularly those advanced by the Socialist Group Leader, are inappropriate.
It is a procedure which is continuing and I as rapporteur will continue to follow this in the Budgetary Control Committee, should the vote go that way now.
<P>
Secondly, under Article 122 of the Rules of Procedure, could I urge us to go to the vote immediately.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="President">
Now that all the groups and the rapporteur have expressed their views, I shall take a roll-call vote on paragraph 23, at the request of the PPE Group, the Group of the European United Left, the Union for Europe Group, the Socialist Group, the Europe of Nations Group, the Group of the European Radical Alliance and the Green Group.
<P>
As the rapporteur has explained, the rejection of this paragraph will mean that the report is referred back to committee.
<P>
I put paragraph 23 to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament rejected paragraph 23, and the report was therefore referred back to committee)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="Green">
Mr President, I wish to make it absolutely clear that it had not been my intention, had Mr Martens not stood before the vote, to speak before that vote.
He anticipated that and it was necessary to speak at that moment.
<P>
What this Parliament has just voted is an enormously important vote.
I have here a motion of censure which I will now table, signed by more than the number of members required by our Rules.
My Group will be voting to give confidence to the European Commission to continue their work over the next year and, in particular, we cannot afford in our view ...
<P>
(Mixed reactions)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="President">
Mrs Green, this is not the time to continue with this subject.
You can table your motion of censure and explain your Group's position in the debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 NAME="Green">
Mr President, I notice that you allowed Mr Martens to take the floor when he wished but you are refusing that right to me.
<P>
(Mixed reactions) I tabled a motion of censure.
I give notice that my Group intends to vote against the motion of censure, to give confidence to the European Commission.
Let us see you vote for it then - those of you who have voted for this.
We believe it is ...
<P>
(Mixed reactions)
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="President">
Mrs Green, I have allowed you to announce your motion of censure and state your Group's position twice.
But I stopped you when you began a debate on the matter.
This is not the time for a debate on a matter which is not on the agenda.
You can have that debate at the proper time.
After an important vote Members will draw their own conclusions and will adopt their political position.
<P>
I say the same to the rapporteur.
It has been referred back to committee.
In the committee you will continue as the rapporteur.
Mr Elles, the matter is finished unless you wish to raise a point under the Rules.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="Elles">
Mr President, we need to finish voting on that report before any personal declarations are made.
We still have four paragraphs to vote on.
We need to do that before we can refer this back to committee.
An incomplete report cannot be referred back to committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="President">
Mr Elles, our Rules are so strange that they say that if the discharge is not given, it must go back to committee and it is up to the committee to take its decision.
I did not make the Rules, but that is what they say.
We cannot vote again.
It will go back to the committee now.
That is the only course of action available.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Muscardini">
Mr President, I am absolutely astonished by this inability to understand the true meaning of democracy.
I have been calling for the floor for half an hour; various representatives of political groups have spoken, some even twice, and I have not been given the right to speak.
<P>
I note above all else that, as this parliamentary term draws to a close, we in this House are giving a very sad demonstration of our capacity to interpret the needs of our citizens: the Commission blackmails Parliament, and Parliament - or one of its largest groups - blackmails the Commission and the other Members, by tabling motions for which it does not vote itself.
We are becoming a laughing-stock: the peoples of Europe expect us to do our work, and all we can produce is foolish nonsense!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="Jackson">
Mr President, could you give us a ruling on what Mrs Green is saying?
I understand her to say that she intends to table a motion of censure.
Is it in order for a Member to announce that she intends to table a motion to do something and to announce at the same time that she does not intend to vote for it?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="President">
That is a problem of political consistency.
Anyone can judge their own political consistency and anyone else can make their own interpretation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 NAME="Crowley">
Mr President, with regard to the Rules, Annex V is very clear with regard to referral back to committee.
I am not going to get into the question of Mrs Green's intervention earlier on.
However, the report and the criticisms have been very clear.
It is open to the individual Commissioners to resign if they feel they do not have the support of this House.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 NAME="President">
I just told you that I will only allow points of order.
I will not allow more debate on that question.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, in connection with Rule 163 of our Rules of Procedure, I very much regret that both the rapporteur and you yourself say that the rules are strange.
Anyone in this House is free to submit a proposal to amend the Rules of Procedure, and the Committee on Budgetary Control has been working on this for years.
The Committee on Budgetary Control has not, however, done so.
They could have done this some time ago already and now the Rules stand as they are and must be applied as such.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 NAME="Cox">
Mr President, as I understand the procedural point we have reached now, after the vote you will refer the Elles report back to the Committee on Budgetary Control.
I should like to ask you, as you refer the report back, to invite the Commission now to put on record a statement of the response to the vote, as distinct from the premature statement that it issued yesterday evening.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Robles Piquer">
Mr President, I merely wish to enquire whether we shall have the opportunity to explain our vote on the important decision we have just taken.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=70 NAME="President">
All the explanations of vote will be given after the votes.
Everyone will be able to give a corresponding explanation of vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 NAME="Liikanen">
The Commission discussed yesterday whether it should make a statement only after the vote.
There were two opinions.
But in the end, in the interests of transparency, it decided to state its position beforehand.
The position is the same.
You can read the written statement which you were given yesterday.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="President">
Now the Commission has made its position clear, and everyone else has done likewise, we shall proceed with the vote as planned.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pimenta">
Mr President, it is not necessary to request a separate vote for the amendments.
According to the Rules of Procedure, the amendments must be put to the vote separately.
There are some people here who rejected the amendments in the collective vote. You are not aware of this, but it is the case.
Therefore, we must have separate votes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="President">
I am sorry to have to contradict you, Mr Pimenta, but the Rules of Procedure specify a deadline for requests for separate votes on amendments.
That deadline has passed without any requests for separate votes having been submitted.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, I must point out to Mr Pimenta that our group did not ask for 20 and 23 to be split because according to the group's official voting list we intended to vote for both amendments.
But the simple fact that a number of people did not keep to this produced this result.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Kuhn">
Mr President, this is certainly not a matter of a pound of fish or a pound of peas.
It is about guarantees for all the people of the European Union.
Under these circumstances, if we are asked to vote separately on the two amendments because there is a chance that one of them might be adopted and the other rejected, I would surely go along with that for the sake of the people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=77 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lataillade">
Mr President, following what the rapporteur has said, I should like to say that I fully agree with her that as one amendment in fact concerns Article 5, whilst the other concerns Article 6, this is in line with the request for separation which we had for amendments relating to separate articles.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, we cannot go back on a vote which has been taken, all the more so because the vote was in accordance with our Rules of Procedure.
I would remind you that changes to collective votes can only be requested within a certain deadline.
I therefore have to rule that the vote has been duly taken.
<P>
(The President declared the common position adopted as amended)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=79 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rack">
Mr President, there is a point of order that I have been wanting to raise all day.
If I am not mistaken, there are new members in the ranks of the Socialist Group who have not been announced - strange figures in white.
In accordance with the Rules of Procedure, we should perhaps be properly notified of their presence.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=80 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graenitz">
Mr President, we adopted this Amendment No 15 in committee, but unfortunately the representative of the Commission who was attending our committee meeting did not inform us of the existence of a judgment delivered by the European Court of Justice in July of this year, which states that in the European Union the use, and hence the marketing, of HCFCs in fire extinguishers is prohibited.
In this amendment we have therefore put ourselves at odds with a judgment of the Court of Justice.
I should never have voted for this amendment if I had known that beforehand.
The Commission did not tell us about this until yesterday evening, and I believe the rest of the committee would not have voted for the amendment either.
May I therefore recommend to the House that it votes against this amendment, since I do not believe that a judgment of the Court should be overturned through the back door by means of an amendment.
<P>
(Parliament rejected the amendment)
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=81 NAME="Schaffner">
Thank you for congratulating me so warmly, Mr President, but I must inform you that I voted against my report.
We negotiated on this report, and we made some very interesting mutual concessions.
However, it is always easier to achieve less than one would have wanted than to go beyond it.
I was unable to accept my report due to an amendment which was adopted.
Therefore, as is becoming customary for me, I am returning my report to the chairman of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=82 NAME="President">
The Chair does not usually comment on the substance of reports which have been adopted or rejected, Mrs Schaffner, but I felt I should pay tribute to the considerable amount of work you have done on this matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=83 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pradier">
Mr President, I am anxious to know whether the sitting is closed or whether the next report will be put to the vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=84 NAME="President">
I am afraid that the vote on the next report, in other words your own, will have to be held over until this evening.
It is already 1.10 and we have been voting without a break since 9.30 this morning, which does us some credit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=85 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pradier">
Mr President, that the fate of 400 000 people who are in prison is not important enough for us to delay lunch by six minutes speaks volumes about this Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=86 NAME="President">
Mr Pradier, your report will be put to the vote this evening, with numbers present and in an atmosphere of calm and concentration that are not possible at the moment, since everyone is exhausted except those Members who are now going to give their explanations of vote.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=87 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has voted against the second reading of the 1999 budget. We have done this while at the same time being delighted that the strategic amendment, which the majority of Members of Parliament voted in favour of at first reading, was not adopted at second reading.
<P>
In fact, this amendment sought to place large sums in the reserve for categories 3, 4 and 5, so that Parliament would be in a better position to discuss the future institutional agreement on a new financial perspective.
<P>
This amendment, as the Legal Service pointed out in an opinion it recently delivered, did not comply with the budgetary rules.
It was contrary to the principles of entering funds for a specific and genuine purpose.
However, I should particularly like to protest, on behalf of my group, against what this strategy inferred or rather what it implied.
This strategy was in fact taking the taxpayers in the various Member States hostage.
Placing appropriations in reserve naturally increases the sums provided in the budget.
This in turn results in an increase in Member State contributions, and therefore in the taxation of citizens, of the taxpayers in the Member States.
<P>
In the case of France, for example, the amendment in question was resulting in an increase of about 4 billion in French contributions.
Realising that its strategy was getting it nowhere, the Committee on Budgetary Control rejected this amendment.
We are very pleased about this.
We are also very pleased that the Structural Fund reserves have not been withheld, but we note that the European Parliament has once again increased its expenditure, even though expenditure is being reduced during the current period.
This is why we did not vote for this second reading by Parliament, it being a step towards additional expenditure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=88 NAME="Anderson, Hulthén, Lööw, Palm, Sandberg-Fries and Theorin">
We welcome the compromise over the so-called strategic reserves which the European Parliament has reached with the Council.
It is important that the two arms of the budgetary authority should continue to work together smoothly, not least with a view to future negotiations on a new financial perspective, Agenda 2000, agricultural reform and the new initiatives that need to be taken to facilitate the enlargement process.
We therefore regard the understanding with the Council as a constructive development, since it means that the principle of establishing strategic reserves in the budget has been abandoned.
<P>
We also welcome the fact that the budgetary authority has agreed to increase the commitment appropriations for the PHARE programme by EUR 48 million in comparison with Parliament's first reading.
It is important to give clear political signals and fulfil expectations during the period leading up to accession.
We are also pleased to see that the Council has introduced a budgetary framework to enable Parliament to transfer EUR 400 million from the 1998 budget to provide food aid for Russia.
The Commission should act quickly to introduce concrete measures to combat fraud and ensure that the supplies reach those who are in need.
<P>
Although the attempts that have been made to reform the common agricultural policy are a move in the right direction, we would like to see more energy devoted to ensuring that agriculture becomes more geared towards the environment and consumers, as well as better adapted to the needs of the market.
We are also firmly opposed to the support which the European Community provides for tobacco growing.
<P>
We cannot agree in principle to the discharge - which is dealt with in a separate report - being discussed in relation to the 1999 budget.
Not only are there grounds for questioning the legality of attempting to insert conditions relating to the discharge in the remarks under budget line A-1100, but it is also impossible, either politically or objectively, to justify focusing attention on those conditions in this way.
<P>
As regards MEPs' travel allowances, we still maintain that expenses should only be reimbursed on the basis of the actual costs incurred.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=89 NAME="Bébéar">
The budget which we have just voted on is both sensible and moderate.
Sensible because it should allow us to carry out our projects, and moderate because it is increased by less than the public expenditure of the Member States.
<P>
However, I should like to emphasise three points which are particularly close to my heart: the European Parliament must continue its efforts to provide the European Union with substantial room for manoeuvre on the budget in anticipation of future actions; sufficient funds must be made available for those actions which we consider to have priority; and humanitarian aid must not be neglected.
<P>
The 1999 financial year is probably the most difficult so far, in view of the balance that we have found between reducing the increase in the budget, implementing real requirements and evaluating the perspectives for the future. The European Parliament would therefore like to include reserves in its 1999 budget.
I am sorry that the Commission has not pursued this option. The programmes are coming to the end of their journey.
We know what we want in future.
We have the resources for this; they just need to be evaluated properly.
<P>
The European Union has set itself the goal of completing Economic and Monetary Union and achieving unprecedented enlargement by the start of the 21st century.
None of this is feasible without sufficient funds.
A very restrictive implementation of the expenditure will enable many projects and actions to be undertaken and carried through to a successful conclusion.
The same applies for humanitarian actions, whether they constitute aid to future partners or not.
<P>
Let us therefore be vigilant.
We have voted in favour of a good budget which constitutes an appropriate link between our recent past and our immediate future.
Let us now follow its implementation very closely in order to keep to the principles which we have successfully negotiated.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=90 NAME="Gallagher">
Agenda 2000 is based on a number of key principles which are important to recite.
Firstly, a tight fiscal regime is to operate at European level over the period to the year 2006.
Reflecting this, the ceiling on Member State contributions is proposed to remain at 1.27 % of the Community's GNP.
All costs including those arising from enlargement are to be met from within this perimeter.
Whilst the Irish Government has accepted retention of the 1.27 % ceiling as a working hypothesis for the negotiations, we have queried if it will be sufficient to meet expenditure demands especially after the enlargement process.
<P>
Realistically it is most unlikely that further spending will be facilitated by a relaxation on the receipts side.
Apart from the concerns of net contributors it would be inconsistent for the European Union, which in the context of economic and employment policy is urging fiscal restraint on Member States who embark on a course at a European level contrary to this prescription without clear cause.
<P>
The European Union is dealing with what is a most intractable issue of the current negotiations, that is the so-called net imbalances of some current Member States.
Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Sweden claim that currently they are saddled with excessive net contributions to the EU budget and want remedial action to be taken in the context of the overall Agenda 2000 negotiations.
<P>
The UK already has a rebate system which effectively means that they pay only one third of their share of the cost of additional new expenditure.
The European Commission recently produced a report on the issue of net imbalances which put forward some options for dealing with the situation if there was a political consensus that action was necessary.
From an Irish view point the most unfavourable of these options was one which would provide for a 25 % national co-financing of parts of CAP expenditure. This could cost Ireland some £160 million by the year 2006 and the Irish Government is correct in voicing strong opposition in principle to this idea.
<P>
It is clear that we have to explore options put forward by the net contributors especially in regard to the basis for calculating contributions to the EU budget.
The final deal which will be given to Ireland under the National Development Plan 2000-2006 in regard to Structural Funds and indeed CAP will be influenced by what if anything transpired in relation to the issue of alleged excessive net imbalances.
There is a clear linkage between these issues and we must face up to this fact at this time.
<P>
Pex report (A4-0505/98)
<SPEAKER ID=91 NAME="Hawlicek">
I welcome the extension of the Ariane and Kaleidoscope programmes until 31 December 1999.
It would have been irresponsible to leave 1999 bereft of any cultural programmes.
Together with the framework programme Culture 2000, which will be launched on 1 January 1999, they will ensure the continuity of the European cultural programmes.
<P>
I am also delighted that this outcome has been endorsed by the Standing Conference of European Ministers of Education and that the ministers also adopted the draft budget, which meant that a common position could be drawn up approving a budget totalling ECU 14.3 million (10.2 million for Kaleidoscope and 4.1 million for Ariane).
<P>
I very much welcome today's legislative proposal on the extension of the Kaleidoscope and Ariane programmes.
Even before this summer the Committee on Culture criticised the fact that the year 1999, with no cultural programmes, only pilot projects, would see a 40 % cut in the cultural budget.
<P>
One thing that gives me particular pleasure is that this result has been achieved during the Austrian Presidency under President-in-Office Dr Peter Wittmann.
The efforts of State Secretary Wittmann were crucial in securing the decision to extend the two programmes by a year, which was taken by the Conference of Education Ministers on 17 November 1998.
Let me also mention the chairman of the Committee on Culture, Mr Peter Pex, under whose diligent guidance we adopted the amended budget in committee back on 14 September. This was followed by the political agreement of 21 September by the Council, Parliament and the Commission to extend the Kaleidoscope and Ariane programmes by one year.
<P>
The result of this agreement is that budgetary resources will remain at the 1998 level, in other words ECU 14.3 million, instead of being cut to 10.9 million as envisaged in the Commission proposal.
<P>
Kuhn report (A4-0469/98)
<SPEAKER ID=92 NAME="Grossetête">
There is good reason to be very pleased about the significant progress that has been achieved due to this proposal for a directive, which the European Parliament has been calling for since 1994.
<P>
It was high time provision was made for bringing into line national laws dealing with legal guarantee systems (as opposed to commercial guarantees) in connection with contracts of sale concluded with consumers.
The differences between the national systems pose serious problems for consumers, who are purchasing more and more goods abroad.
<P>
I deeply regret that the common position of the Council cannot be adopted without an amendment.
In fact, this is delaying the entry into force of a text that is essential for the effective completion of the single market.
Nevertheless, fundamental improvements had to be made to the text.
<P>
I am therefore happy that my amendment, which seeks to include in the body of the articles of the directive recital 14 dealing with second-hand goods, has been adopted.
For reasons of consistency in legal terms, I hope that it can be accepted by the Council.
In fact, it was inconceivable that this measure that is based on common sense, and which indicates that the consumer cannot automatically demand replacement of the good when it is second-hand, should only be referred to in a recital, and not in the articles themselves.
<P>
However, I have voted against several amendments proposed by the rapporteur, Mrs Kuhn.
Some of them, such as Amendment No 17 which concerns payment by instalments, have absolutely no link with the guarantee system.
<P>
As in the first reading, these amendments are unrealistic and unnecessary.
They upset the essential balance between the interests of consumers and the obligations and constraints which are a burden on producers.
I am thinking particularly of the SMEs and SMIs, for which some amendments will have serious consequences.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=93 NAME="Hager">
I voted against this report at the first reading, because then as now, I could not make much of the substance of particular points.
I still oppose a quadrupling of the warranty period for example, because that seems to place an intolerable burden on small and medium-sized enterprises in particular.
Many of the points I rejected before have been removed from the voting list for the second reading, and I can attest to the consumer-friendliness of the amendments that are on the table this time.
I also feel that they will not unduly burden the business community.
<P>
So despite my continued reservations about the draft directive, I have voted for most of the proposed amendments and for the report as a whole.
<P>
Torres Couto report (A4-0466/98)
<SPEAKER ID=94 NAME="Delcroix">
<SPEAKER ID=95 NAME="Fitzsimons">
Following the Kyoto Summit held in December 1997 under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, a proposal was put forward for a European Union strategy aimed at reducing CO emissions for passenger cars and improving fuel economy.
The strategy is based on three instruments: an environmental agreement with industry, fiscal measures and a fuel economy information scheme for the consumer.
The aim of the proposal is to provide potential buyers of new private vehicles with information on fuel consumption with a view to persuading them to choose the most economical models.
<P>
The information is intended to support present and future measures taken by the industry to improve the fuel economy of vehicles and fiscal measures introduced by Member States to encourage people to buy the most fuel-efficient cars.
The consumer information scheme is based on four main components:
<P>
fuel economy label attached to new passenger cars; -a summary guide containing fuel economy data on all new cars on the market; -a poster at the point of sale giving information on the fuel economy of the cars on display; -the requirement that fuel consumption data be included in all printed promotional material used by manufacturers.I support this European proposal but it is important that the labelling requirements be displayed in clear and simple language.
For example, when referring to the indication of consumption, it should state clearly how many litres are required to be used of a particular fuel for travelling 100km or how many gallons of petrol have to be used to travel a particular number of miles.
<P>
I also welcome the fact that a fuel economy guide will be published outlining the ten most fuel-efficient new cars that will be available in the marketplace.
This is a sensible and practical proposal and one which is good news for upholding the interests and rights of consumers in the EU.
The Amsterdam Treaty has given the European Union a greater role in the area of consumer policies under the new Article 152 of the Amsterdam Treaty in the whole field of consumer rights.
This proposal serves a dual purpose, namely: implementing our obligations under the Kyoto Agreement as well as enhancing and protecting the rights of the 340 million consumers in the EU.
<P>
Graenitz report (A4-0465/98)
<SPEAKER ID=96 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw, Sandberg-Fries and Theorin">
<SPEAKER ID=97 NAME="Bowe">
On behalf of the members of the EPLP I would like to explain that they were unable to support Amendments Nos 32, 33, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11 and 10 of Mrs Graenitz's report.

We feel that Amendments Nos 32 and 33 would introduce an overlong and unnecessary extension of the widespread use of methyl bromide in many parts of the European Union whereas in other parts of the Union, its use has been eliminated and adequate alternatives found.
<P>
Equally we are unable to support Amendment No 15 as this reintroduces a use for ozone depleting substances where there are now well established and better alternatives.
With regard to Amendments Nos 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 we feel that the deadlines for phaseout of O.D.P. substances proposed by the Commission are practical and realistic and that advancing the schedules has little environmental benefit and creates problems in particular for SMEs.
Therefore we cannot support them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=98 NAME="McKenna">
The Greens believe it is essential that ozone depleting substances are removed from the market immediately and an effective ban should have been put in place a long time ago.
<P>
The Social and Christian Democrats in Europe seem determined to delay the ban of the dangerous ozone destroyer, methyl bromide, and we believe that any proposal to prolong the use of this toxic substance is a menace to human health and the environment.
<P>
The hole in the ozone layer has increased in size by 20-25 % during the past two years alone.
It is incredible that any MEP would allow or support practices which will allow this depletion to continue.
Scientists agree that rapid phasing out of the production and consumption of methyl bromide is the single most effective additional step to the Montreal Protocol to stop the depletion of the ozone layer.
<P>
Methyl bromide is a highly toxic pesticide gas used in agriculture.
It kills all kinds of soil organisms, good and bad alike.
Europe is the second biggest user of methyl bromide in the world, 90 % of which is used in agriculture, mainly in Italy and Spain.
These countries are exerting strong pressure to permit the continued use of this poison for a longer transition period.
It is irresponsible that, for the sake of the vested interests of a few shortsighted farmers in Italy and Spain, the whole world should suffer from increasing UV-radiation with its devastating consequences such as an increased incidence of skin cancer and other irreversible damages to the environment.
<P>
The fact that Ms Graenitz and Mr Poggioloni propose to phase out this substance by 2005 is just not good enough.
This is four years later than even the EU Commission itself proposes.
Germany and the Netherlands have already successfully phased out the use of methyl bromide and Denmark, Sweden and Finland will do so by 2001.
<P>
The Greens want the deadline as proposed by the Commission to be reinstated.
<P>
The other disturbing factor is that there appears to be a policy of double standards.
The ozone-depleting hydrochlorofluorocarbons will be outlawed for use in the EU, but companies in the EU will be allowed to continue to export exactly the same chemicals for use outside the EU.
This is not acceptable and runs counter to protection of the global environment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=99 NAME="President">
The Elles report has been referred back to committee.
There are therefore no explanations of vote on this report.
<P>
(Protests from Mrs Lulling) No, I am sorry.
I would point out that explanations of vote - and please consult the Rules of Procedure, which you know very well - are given on the final vote.
There was no final vote, since the report was referred back to committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=100 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, I protest against your decision not to allow explanations of vote on the Elles report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=101 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, the Vienna summit will go down in the history of the European Union as the Great Procrastination.
That is certainly not the fault of the Austrian Presidency.
I find it all the more regrettable in view of the fact that the presidency is about to pass to the new German Government, which has already proved on several occasions to be so inexperienced that the contradictory statements of its spokespersons - whom certain major French newspapers regard as absolute dilettantes - have already broken a fair quantity of china even before the guests have arrived.
In the present difficult situation, the EU deserves better than to be put at the mercy of raw debutants on the European stage.
But the Council, of course, still has politicians with experience, realism and a sense of responsibility.
And, thank heaven, in matters where vital interests of the Member States are at stake, such as fiscal policy, unanimity is still required, so there is hope that damage limitation can be successfully pursued during the next six months.
<P>
I am not one of those who deplore the fact that the Vienna summit dealt with the duty-free problem.
Indeed, I believe that one of the most tangible successes or results of the summit was the mandate given to the Commission, which has refused to yield to our pressure on this matter.
In the present employment situation, we urgently need a stay of execution for duty-free shops, at least until 2002, when we shall have euro notes and coins in our purses and wallets.
Tax-free sales will not turn the single market upside-down.
The costs involved in running an airport, which are currently defrayed by revenue from duty-free sales, will have to be met from other taxes once the curtain falls on duty-free.
It is naïve to claim that duty-free sales result in revenue shortfalls that the Member States can ill afford.
The abolition of duty-free is liable to cost more than it would allegedly yield in excise duties.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=102 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, before beginning my explanation of vote, I should like to draw attention to the Rules of Procedure.
I believe you were obliged to accept explanations of vote following the refusal of discharge.
There was a vote to refuse discharge, following which the matter was automatically referred back to committee, thereby preventing a final vote, but discharge was definitely refused.
Similar matters, such as the vote on the calendar of part-sessions, have already been referred to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, and it concluded that explanations of vote were admissible where there was no final vote, because other votes had been taken beforehand.
Therefore, Mr President, there is absolutely no doubt that you have to accept explanations of vote, not on referral back to committee, but on the refusal of discharge.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=103 NAME="President">
I am in no doubt on this point, Mr Berthu.
I cannot accept explanations of vote, because there has not been a refusal to grant discharge. There was a vote against the proposal to give discharge, which is not the same thing, and now the matter has been referred back to committee.
We are not going to embark on a long debate on this now, but I would stress that it is quite clear that there has not been a refusal to grant discharge.
<P>
(Interruption by Mrs Lulling) There has not been a refusal to grant discharge, Mrs Lulling.
Look at what you voted on.
You voted not to accept the proposal from the Committee on Budgetary Control, which was proposing to give discharge.
So you did not give discharge and you referred the report back to committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=104 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, I would ask for the matter to be referred to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, and if it decides in our favour I would ask for retroactive authorisation to be given for our explanations of vote.
<P>
With regard to the Vienna European Council, we congratulate the Austrian Presidency which during the past six months has made a very genuine effort to provide more innovative solutions than usual to the Union's problems, for instance in its document on an immigration strategy.
Unfortunately, these days the obstacles are so considerable and so closely linked to policies that we have pursued for a long time that no presidency will be able to remove them by itself, however great its goodwill.
<P>
We have said on many occasions that the Vienna Council resolved neither the problem of how the Union will be financed in future, nor the problems of our agricultural policy, the institutions that are intended to take charge of enlargement, or the implementation of the Amsterdam Treaty in the area of the movement of persons, but that it did at least set some deadlines for resolving them in the future.
We do not know if these deadlines will be respected.
Many people doubt that they will.
In any case, however, we have not said enough, and the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations would like to point out that these dates really amount to evading the issue during the time between the elections in an attempt to avoid presenting the electorate with the real questions.
<P>
The debates were suspended for a good part of 1998 due to the German legislative elections. We would now have to work at full speed in order to bring the discussions on Agenda 2000 to a close in March, before the European elections next June.
By the same token, the Commission did not put forward in Vienna its comprehensive proposal for amending the treaties following Amsterdam, that is, Amsterdam II or Maastricht III, or whatever you wish to call it, so as not to frighten the French electorate in the middle of the parliamentary debate on the revision of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
<P>
For years the European institutions have been trying to increase their powers whilst evading the verdict given by the electorate. They believe they are avoiding the problems in this way.
In reality, they are only increasing them.
This is illustrated particularly well by the issue of democratic control of EMU, which was concealed in Maastricht, so as not to put off the electorate due to too much federalism, and then again in Amsterdam, so as not to reopen Pandora's box. This entire issue is now being raised again, under the worst conditions, as indeed the president Mr Gil-Robles pointed out in Vienna.
<P>
We cannot continue to go about things in this way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=105 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I believe that the Vienna summit was a success in many respects.
I do have to say, however, that the Austrian Presidency, which has essentially been very proficient, made an unforgivable blunder in its declaration on behalf of the Council, when it used the term 'western Balkans' in its description of the situation in Croatia.
I believe we must differentiate very precisely when considering the region that was once artificially united as Yugoslavia.
There is Croatia, which ought to be integrated into the European structures at long last.
On the other hand we have Bosnia-Herzegovina, where it is a matter of establishing the elementary essentials of statehood and where we see in particular that one entity within the state, namely the Republika Srpska, is denying refugees the right to return and set up home in its territory.
<P>
Then there is Serbia, where a despotic regime continues to besmirch the good name of the Serbian nation and is trying to assert itself by pursuing the Milosevic style of politics, based on warfare and oppression.
I believe that each of these various elements must be considered separately and that the synthetic term 'western Balkans' should be consigned to the archives of the European Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=106 NAME="Caudron">
I have to admit feeling somewhat disappointed by what was achieved at the Vienna European Council.
Certainly, the clear, reaffirmed priority given to the fight against unemployment is very positive.
However, concrete measures are being postponed until later.
<P>
This attitude is all the more regrettable since the meeting of finance ministers had raised hopes and hinted at a new lease of life for the future of the European Union.
<P>
We must say that we are somewhat dissatisfied.
The unresolved issues have all been postponed until later, as if time could reconcile the different approaches.
<P>
Such procrastination illustrates once again the institutional shortcomings of the European Union, while the economic pillar is given considerable decision-making powers.
<P>
If we can be satisfied with declarations of good intent, we have a right to question whether the political organisation of the Union is pertinent in view of the challenges which all of us are confronted with.
<P>
Certainly, enlargement could prove to be an opportunity for Europe, but the condition for this is that we have to adapt the decision-making process to this new order.
In order to implement our plans and ideas, there must be an effective and legitimate executive power, and a legislative power with sufficient means to guarantee its democratic nature.
<P>
In this sense, the rotating presidency has reached a turning point at which the decision-making process is becoming more and more uncertain, whichever country holds the presidency, and whatever the Council's political majority.
<P>
Even before it takes effect, the limitations of the Amsterdam Treaty are becoming evident, even though it represents an important step forward for European citizenship and for the European Parliament.
In order to prevent the European Union from degenerating into a purely economic entity where the social dimension would be sidelined, the shambles that is the institutional side must be relaunched to rejuvenate the political Europe, or even just to create it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=107 NAME="Delcroix">
Contrary to expectations, the Vienna Summit did not take any decisions on how Europe will be financed in the future.
A few days away from the launch of the euro, the Member States preferred to ignore this extremely sensitive issue.
Some of them are hoping that their contribution will not increase, or will perhaps even be reduced, whilst others refer to the principle of 'fair returns', as expressed in the past by Mrs Thatcher: 'I want my money back!'.
With no possibility of sidestepping the issue, it will return to the negotiating table in Brussels in March 1999.
<P>
The 1992 Edinburgh Summit had decided on a financial perspective for the Union until 1999.
Nothing was planned beyond then.
If we limit ourselves to the declarations made by some Member States, the future prospects for the construction of Europe are rather gloomy...
Spain, Greece and Portugal, countries benefiting from the Cohesion Fund, are determined to catch up with the others in economic terms.
They have shown their reluctance to 'stabilise' total actual expenditure, namely at a ceiling of 1.27 %.
<P>
Between those countries which want to pay less and those which do not want to receive less, the debate seems to have got off to a bad start.
However, certain facts lead me to believe that once we get them with their backs to the wall, the Member States will not be able to continue to take this position indefinitely.
In 1988 and 1992, the increase in resources was spectacular; in particular, the volume of Structural Funds was doubled.
In moderation, Europe has so far always adapted its resources to fit in with its objectives.
It would be a first if problems were resolved... by saving money.
<P>
A positive point to come from Vienna is the ambitious and dynamic timetable adopted for 1999: the Union's finances in March, in Brussels; the Employment Pact; tax harmonisation; the major infrastructure networks and defence in June, in Cologne; cooperation in the area of justice and home affairs in October, in Tampere; and coordination of economic policies, combating fraud, the environment and foreign policy in December, in Helsinki.
It should be noted that if the Brussels meeting fails, all of these will be compromised, and indeed, a few weeks away from the European elections in June 1999, which will see the reconstitution of the European Parliament and, indirectly, the appointment of the new president and the new members of the Commission.
<P>
Another positive factor is the progress achieved by Europe since the Amsterdam Treaty was signed.
Its resistance in the face of the Asian crisis shows that monetary union is in good shape, and it has made the Member States react less nervously when tackling issues in areas which affect their national sovereignty: defence, taxation and institutional reform.
A breath of fresh air seems to show that Europe is increasingly aware that it is growing stronger as the union between its members is strengthened.
<P>
Failure in Brussels would halt the momentum of the euro and open up a period of uncertainty or perhaps even crisis for Europe; this would compromise the implementation of the Amsterdam Treaty and plunge the Union back into constant clashes over the budget.
The European Union will not be able to put off for ever voluntarily taking charge of unemployment problems - an open wound in its breast -, which it has partly generated through the burden of taxation on employment.
<P>
Peace and even modest growth in Europe have a price.
Everyone knows that peace is not something which is achieved automatically, but is created each day at a cost.
Everyone also knows that the price to pay for peace cannot be compared with the cost of the wars, in terms of human lives and the financial cost, which have devastated our continent twice.
We owe it to ourselves and to our children to build a Europe of peace.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=108 NAME="Nicholson">
The fact that very little of substance appears in the conclusions of the Vienna Summit is not necessarily a bad thing.
At least the Austrian presidency resisted the temptation to overstate its ambitions at the start of its term, thereby avoiding the inevitable underachievement which comes with only six months in the chair.
The Austrian Government, it seems, understands the principle of stable management and has concentrated on matters such as the agreement with Switzerland.
The Leader of the Socialist Group was right to point out in yesterday's debate that this was achieved because of Austria's understanding of the particular difficulties of the country in question.
Perhaps there is a lesson in this for those who are pushing the ridiculous idea of an EU High Commissioner for Foreign Affairs to give a face to the ever more absurd common security and defence policy.
The different responses from EU countries to events in the Persian Gulf underline the point that we must be allowed to determine our own foreign policies.
International co-operation is much better achieved by individual countries operating through their own channels of diplomacy that have existed in many cases for centuries.
<P>
To turn to one specific matter, I welcome the conclusion on Northern Ireland.
I am pleased to see the reaffirmation of the conclusion of the Cardiff Summit in June which called on the Commission to produce proposals to lend practical support to the Belfast Agreement.
I am pleased that the Commission has taken some notice of what the Council has told it to do by providing further commitment to the PEACE programme.
It has also indicated that it is looking at a substantial increase to INTEREG funding, which I would certainly welcome.
I do, however, trust that the Commission will come up with a broader package for Northern Ireland.
Cross-border cooperation is an element of the Belfast Agreement. It is not the whole Agreement.
<P>
Roubatis report (A4-0409/98)
<SPEAKER ID=109 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw, Palm, Sandberg-Fries and Theorin">
Upholding human rights is a prerequisite for security and peace.
Until we can guarantee the right of all people to good health and well-being, peace and security cannot be assured.
<P>
The human rights violations that occur today are the cause of tomorrow's conflicts.
The vicious circle of violation and conflict can and must be stopped.
This should be accomplished by combating starvation and poverty.
Global inequality has increased dramatically during two centuries which have been dominated by neo-liberalism.
Together we must strive to overcome inequality both inside and outside the Union.
<P>
We do not share the view expressed in paragraph 23 that it is regrettable that the CFSP continues to form a separate pillar of the Union.
We do not think there is anything contradictory between working for a common EU policy on human rights and the EU's second pillar.
On the contrary, human rights and foreign policy are closely interconnected in other policy areas, for example trade and aid.
However, defence issues should, in our view, continue to be decided at national level.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=110 NAME="Blak, Iversen, Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats have abstained on those parts of the report which refer to harmonised cooperation in the human rights sector.
The fact that foreign and security policy falls under the third pillar does not in principle prevent there being a coherent and consistent human rights policy in the Union; that depends to a far greater degree on political will.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=111 NAME="Caudron">
I should firstly like to warmly congratulate Mr Barros Moura and Mr Roubatis on the high standard and reliability of both their reports.
With their work, the European Parliament is fully involved in the commemorations marking the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In addition, they suggest some interesting lines of approach for the future.
<P>
I would also like to pay tribute to the British Government for its decision to accept the extradition of General Pinochet, so that he can be held responsible for the crimes which were ordered by him or carried out in his name.
It is merely to do justice to the thousands of Chileans who have died, disappeared or been hunted down over many years by this bloodthirsty and dictatorial regime.
<P>
With regard to Mr Barros Moura's report, I should like to support it unequivocally, and I am delighted that it seeks quite simply to return to the values proclaimed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
<P>
Therefore, I too wish to see a reform of the international financial institutions, in particular taking into account the social consequences of monetary programmes imposed on developing countries.
<P>
With this in mind, it seems important to me that a voluntary code of conduct for businesses should result from the WTO negotiations.
The idea developed by some to create a 'Social Label' should be seized upon.
On this subject, I think that it should be possible in connection with the award of public contracts to introduce clauses known as 'best social offer' clauses, no matter what the Liberals say.
I am among those who believe that human rights and social rights are closely linked.
<P>
I do not wish to elaborate any further on the report by my friend Mr Barros Moura, since I would also like to give my support to Mr Roubatis's text; this seeks to give the European Union an instrument which would enable it to respond to matters of urgency.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, this is because responding to matters of urgency is at the centre of the campaign for human rights which is being led by tens of thousands of citizens.
What we need, therefore, at our level is an instrument to replace this militant force.
<P>
It seems to me that the existence of such a body, working in collaboration with the organisations protecting human rights all over the world, is justified.
I would add that it is not necessary to quote examples here.
Each day and each hour bring their share of obvious violations of the most fundamental rights of men, women and children.
<P>
One year away from the third millennium, the situation should be reviewed... and new concrete measures should be taken.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=112 NAME="Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson">
We have taken part in the final vote on the Roubatis report.
<P>
The report contains many good human rights initiatives, but we object to the uncritical attitude reflected in its call for greatly increased funding and legal uniformity in the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=113 NAME="Lindqvist">
One of the most important tasks of the EU and other European countries is to safeguard human rights and promote democracy and freedom of expression.
The report contains a commendable proposal to insert human rights clauses in the EU's agreements with third countries.
An 'early warning' unit to monitor conflicts that could lead to human rights violations is also a good idea.
<P>
The weak point in the EU's human rights policy is a lack of adequate procedures for follow-up, regulation and monitoring.
The customs union agreement with Turkey is a case in point.
This agreement contains specific requirements in terms of democracy, freedom of expression and putting a stop to arbitrary imprisonment and torture.
However, Turkey has not complied with any of these requirements, despite the fact that the agreement has been in existence for four years.
An agreement which is not adhered to by one or other of the parties should be cancelled.
In the meantime, we must introduce a system which enables pressure to be brought to bear and sanctions to be applied.
Such a system for monitoring and regulating agreements needs to be devised.
<P>
Barros Moura report (A4-0410/98)
<SPEAKER ID=114 NAME="Palm">
I do not share the rapporteur's view that political integration within the EU needs further strengthening.
The EU should, first and foremost, be based on international cooperation.
<P>
According to the rapporteur, the USA's position as a moral guide is no longer tenable on account of its continued use of capital punishment.
It should also be pointed out that the USA's credibility has been further undermined by other factors, for example other forms of human rights abuses perpetrated in the country, its massive exports of arms and instruments of torture, as well as its role in international relations and conflicts.
<P>
Moreover, it is a tragedy that 50 years after the signing of the Convention on Human Rights, we have to recognise that intervention by MEPs in individual cases is still widely used by Parliament as a means of promoting human rights - a clear indication of the arbitrary way in which human rights are being applied.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=115 NAME="Verwaerde">
I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Barros Moura, for the work he has done.
<P>
His report is the tenth of its kind since 1983.
It takes up a number of principles and values which form the basis of the work carried out by Parliament in the area of human rights.
<P>
The rapporteur has outlined many of the required institutional improvements, notably with regard to the flow of information between Parliament and the Commission.
Moreover, whilst the Amsterdam Treaty has brought about some progress in terms of the common foreign and security policy, it should be noted that the Council still does not fulfil its obligation to make all the information available to Parliament within a reasonable period of time.
<P>
I personally wish to emphasise a point which seems to me to be particularly important.
It concerns the Treaty of Rome, which seeks to set up an International Criminal Court.
Naturally, I welcome the adoption this year of the statute of this court.
However, this Treaty of Rome will now have to be ratified by at least 60 countries so that it can enter into force.
I can merely campaign on behalf of this, including in my own country, France.
<P>
I have supported unreservedly the excellent work carried out in the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
Parliament has sent out a strong message by means of this resolution.
I hope that the demands and wishes that have been expressed and adopted today can be followed by results as soon as possible.
<P>
Schaffner report (A4-0468/98)
<SPEAKER ID=116 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Mr President, our group has voted against Mrs Schaffner's report on respect for human rights in the European Union.
Moreover, I am very pleased that the rapporteur has said that she voted against the report herself.
<P>
Human rights are in fact violated very often in the European Union, and the European Parliament makes declarations rather too often which are not always concerned with human rights and do not really achieve results.
<P>
The Members, that is us, are also European citizens, and they too are often deprived of their rights.
Of their right, for example, to explain their vote on a report leading to a vote, as stated very clearly in Article 6(1) of Annex V, which I would ask you to refer to. It says there in black and white: '... taking into account Parliament's vote', and this is before referral back to committee.
<P>
Our vote on the refusal to grant discharge was based on the grounds that extremely serious criticisms had been levelled at the Commission for its management of budget appropriations.
We are very pleased that Parliament has refused to grant this discharge, by 270 votes to 225 with 23 abstentions.
<P>
In doing so - the Commission was aware of this even before the vote -, the majority of Parliament deemed that the refusal of discharge seriously undermined the credibility and authority of the Commission.
This is why we hope that the European Parliament clarifies the situation, and that it votes for a motion of censure, taking into account the seriousness of the criticisms made, and the political link that therefore clearly exists between a refusal of discharge and a motion of censure, and that it adopts the motion of censure, which is being circulated within Parliament at this very moment on our group's initiative.
Moreover, this text has already been signed by about 15 Members.
It will certainly obtain the required number of signatures.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=117 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, I wish to begin by stating quite categorically that the Group of the European People's Party is also fiercely dedicated to the defence of human rights in the European Union, wherever they may be threatened.
It has been said that nobody could vote against a human rights report on the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but we have had to do that, since this report, though presented as a human rights report, was actually the very opposite in substance.
It was an attack on two of the foundations of our democratic constitutional order, namely marriage and the family on the one hand and the concept of citizenship on the other.
These two elements are the basis of every modern constitutional state, and that is why we have to say 'no' to this report, because it seeks to undermine these foundations and therefore does not merit the name 'human rights report'.
Thankfully, Mrs Schaffner has preserved her good name by dissociating herself from the report.
How I wish that the same could be done with the title, to preserve the good name of human rights!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=118 NAME="Andersson, Hulthén, Lööw, Palm, Sandberg-Fries and Theorin">
We think it is important for the European Parliament to demonstrate its respect for human rights within the European Union.
We welcome the report's broad view of human rights and the purposeful stance it adopts on, amongst other things, combating racism and xenophobia, social rights and rights for ethnic minorities and refugees, as well as homosexuals.
We should like to highlight the importance of the European Parliament adopting a progressive attitude with regard to human rights within the Union.
<P>
The debate on human rights, to which this report contributes, clearly demonstrates the ideological dividing-line that exists where such issues are concerned between the progressive left and the reactionary forces on the right.
We are vehemently opposed to the more or less pronounced tendencies in some amendments towards hostility to women, opposition to abortion, prejudice against homosexuals and laxness with regard to racism and xenophobia.
We are also strongly opposed to the attempt to put forward a proposal on the liberalisation of drugs, on the pretext that this is associated with human rights.
Drug abuse and its tragic social consequences can never be seen as a human right.
We deeply regret that this kind of proposal should have been put forward during the session.
It only serves to undermine people's confidence in the European Parliament's stance on human rights within the European Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=119 NAME="Andrews">
I would like at the outset to commend this extensive report which has been compiled by the rapporteur on this important subject of the state of human rights within the European Union in the year 1997.
<P>
It is both proper and reflective that we are discussing this topic on the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
I agree with the rapporteur when she says that we only have to read the Amnesty International Annual Report to see just how extensively human rights are ignored in today's world.
The Community institutions are alert to the importance of respect for human rights both at home and abroad.
However, I feel that I have to clarify an amendment tabled by Ms McKenna on this report.
<P>
Ms McKenna regrets the fact that the Special Criminal Court is being used in Ireland for non-terrorist related offences and the underlying tenor of the amendment would seem to suggest that she questions why the Special Criminal Court is being used at all.
The following points must be borne in mind in this regard:
<P>
Neither the constitution nor the Offences against the State Act 1939 provide that the Special Criminal court should be established only to hear paramilitary-related cases.-There are only two respects in which the Special Criminal court differs from the ordinary courts.
Firstly, there is no jury.
Secondly, instead of one judge, there are three judges.
In every other respect, there is no difference.
The same rules of evidence, legal representation and so on apply and of course the decisions of the Court are reviewable by the court of Criminal Appeal.-In the Joseph Kavanagh v Irish Government case, it was made clear that the DPP is free to give direction, in accordance with the Offences Against the State Act 1939, that a person may be tried in the Special Criminal Court where the DPP is satisfied that the ordinary courts are inadequate to secure the effective administration of justice.
Examples of this could include murder cases, organised crime and drug trafficking and/or related hideous crimes.-The use of the Special Criminal Court recently for some drugs and organised crime cases has arisen as a result of the clarification of the powers of the Director of Public Prosecutions under the existing legalisation.
<SPEAKER ID=120 NAME="Berthu">
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has voted against Mrs Schaffner's report. Under the pretext of protecting human rights in the European Union, the report puts forward a variety of measures, from voting rights for immigrants to marriage for homosexuals, which are entirely questionable.
Since I am unable to deal with all of them in my explanation of vote, I will mention just one of them, which in paragraph 46 of the resolution, 'calls on the Member States to recognise and promote their regional languages, especially... by signing and ratifying the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages', as adopted by the Council of Europe in 1992.
<P>
I am afraid we cannot accept this call for the ratification of the Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.
Firstly, this text provides that for the languages concerned in each country, the authorities should be capable of using them in their dealings with citizens, which would not only be very costly, but also contrary to Article 2 of the French constitution which stipulates that the language of the French Republic is French.
The present situation, where regional languages are freely used, but where the Member States may use a preferred language to preserve their unity, seems quite satisfactory to us.
<P>
Furthermore, even if it was generally admitted that when the Charter was ratified, it would only cover a limited number of traditional regional languages, it was clear that pressure would soon mount for additional languages to be included in the Charter, especially those spoken by immigrants.
Certainly, from its very first article the Charter seems to exclude the 'languages of migrants'.
However, there is no mention of the languages spoken by the children or grandchildren of migrants, who will not themselves be classed as migrants, but who are likely to continue to speak the language of their country of origin, in view of the problems of integration.
This fear is increased by Article 7, which provides that the principles laid down for regional languages would also apply to 'non-territorial' minority languages.
<P>
Moreover, the Charter is designed to promote destructuring in the Member States, which is completely in accordance with the wishes of some European federalists to leave no firm links between Brussels and the regions.
The promotion of transnational exchanges between regional languages used in identical or similar form in two or more states is provided for in Article 7, for example; Article 14 provides for encouragement of direct cooperation across borders between local authorities in whose territory similar regional languages are used.
<P>
From this point of view, the ratification of the Charter for Regional or Minority Languages would merely give a new impetus to a Europe of the Regions, which the euro will also speed up at the same time by depriving the Member States of one of the instruments with which they exert their national identity.
We are not surprised to discover once again that the European Parliament is helping to undermine the nation states.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=121 NAME="Buffetaut">
Human rights should unite us.
Yet, as is the case every year, a number of my colleagues have used the annual report as an excuse for asserting political and ideological alternatives that have nothing to do with human rights.
<P>
Irresponsible neo-Marxist, neo-Leninist and libertarian dinosaurs, they have put forward proposals seeking to undermine the family unit and the principles of citizenship, which are the foundations of any society or nation.
<P>
This is why it was impossible for us to vote for Mrs Schaffner's report as amended, and why we were pleased to see that she has refused to take responsibility for its creation.
<P>
Generally speaking, we are forced to recognise that some of the people who make the most fuss about protecting human rights were the first to support for decades Marxist-Leninist regimes that treated them with disdain, cynicism and brutality.
Moreover, we should point out that they have never seen fit to repent, although they were accomplices, and even agents of totalitarian Communist regimes which are responsible for the deaths of more than 100 million innocent human beings.
<P>
I would also point out, as the files on the KGB have proved, that all the Communist parties in Europe were paid for by the USSR until 1989.
And they, or their fellow travellers, are the ones who come and give us lessons in 'human rights'!
<P>
It is high time we denounced this terrible farce.
Just as it is time we condemned the unethical alliances the Socialists make with Communist parties.
In this respect too, their particular idea of what is right and wrong seems to me to come and go.
As the late lamented François Furet rightly pointed out, the obsession with fascism and, therefore, with antifascism, has been used as an instrument by the Communist movement to hide from the general public what it really stands for.
It is lamentable that the Socialists have always gone along with this ludicrous situation.
<P>
When looking at this bloody century which ends with the ravages left by those twin scourges, the Red Army and the Black Death, I take my lead from Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle who were the ones who really fought for human dignity.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=122 NAME="Cars">
It is with some hesitation that I am voting in favour of the Schaffner report in the final vote, since it contains a great deal of material that has little or nothing to do with human rights in the EU.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=123 NAME="Darras">
As is the case every year, Parliament examines the state of human rights within the European Union.
However, the vote held today is of particular importance, since we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 10th anniversary of the Sakharov prize, which was founded by the European Parliament.
<P>
This being the case, I must congratulate the rapporteur who has presented an outstanding piece of work on this subject and who, above all, has fully participated in the game of consultation and compromise. It was not easy, since it is so difficult to sort out the problems on one's own doorstep.
<P>
I have therefore voted in favour of this report, because respect for human rights is an essential aspect of any democratic society and should be one of the fundamental pillars of the Union's domestic and foreign policy.
<P>
Moreover, I agree with the proposal that 1999 be designated 'European Year to Stop Violence Against Women'.
I also believe that we must combat the attacks on personal rights perpetrated by certain 'sects'.
I also agree with the idea of the right of access to the labour market, health care, social security, housing, education and the courts.
<P>
The ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty will reinforce the prevention of all forms of discrimination (Article 13), a notion which is particularly close to my heart, and which cannot be separated from the notion of freedom.
<P>
I should like to conclude by saying that I must support the entire report which, voted for by the House, does Parliament great credit.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=124 NAME="Hager">
The protection of human rights is a matter of great importance and concern to me and to my colleagues, and I fully understand the significance of this annual report.
But equally difficult issues, to my mind, are the lack of a uniform definition of the concept of human rights and, to a lesser extent, the substance of this report.
I should have appreciated it, at least on this one occasion when we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, if the report had not been allowed to degenerate into a party-political manifesto for the majority group in the relevant committee but had addressed the real problems in the Union.
I for one cannot make any sense of the piecemeal list and the repeated interspersing of violations inside the Union with cases from outside the Union.
For that reason alone I rejected some items, even though I believe that the cases described constitute violations of human rights; the fact is that the violations in question occurred outside the Union and should not therefore be part of the report on which we have been asked to vote today.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=125 NAME="Seillier">
Once again, utter confusion prevailed during the discussions and the vote on the report on the situation in the European Union concerning respect for human rights.
<P>
Nevertheless, the tragedies of modern history have emphasised the danger which results from ignoring the truth about human dignity.
It will still be more important than ever during the year of the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to point out a few basic truths.
The 1948 Declaration makes itself clear: it identifies the rights which it proclaims, and does not confer them; they are in fact essential to human dignity.
<P>
And yet, what are we seeing?
The development of all sorts of so-called rights in the name of the principle of 'non-discrimination' (Article 13 of the draft Treaty of Amsterdam), which can justify any form of behaviour, for instance, in relation to sexual practices.
This positivist shift of the law in Europe is very serious: it marks a break with the most basic form of European humanism, which would urgently need to be rediscovered as far as adults are concerned and introduced to the younger generation.
<P>
When confirming the revelation in the Bible of the unity of mankind (cf.
Genesis) two thousand years ago, Jesus Christ came to teach us the best way to promote respect for human rights.
'In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you.'
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=126 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
Mr President, I must tell you that I am somewhat amazed. You allow Mr Fabre-Aubrespy to give an explanation of vote on the Elles report concerning the 1996 discharge during his explanation of vote on the Schaffner report.
You have broken the rules twice: firstly, you did not allow us to take the floor when a very important vote was being taken, and then you allow one Member to give his opinion and not other Members.
Finally, Mr President, I am obliged to tell you that you are wrong in thinking that there has not been a vote on discharge.
Now, please clarify what you said: there was no discharge, there was no refusal of discharge, or discharge was not granted.
Could you give me your interpretation?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=127 NAME="President">
With pleasure, Mrs Lulling.
First of all, it is true that I may have been rather inattentive in allowing Mr Fabre-Aubrespy to hold forth on various amendments which did not have a great deal to do with the Schaffner report, but as you will have noticed, I have a very liberal way of chairing the proceedings.
<P>
Having said that, as regards the question you are raising, I would refer you firstly to Rule 122, 'Explanations of vote': 'Once the general debate has been concluded, any Member may give an oral explanation on the final vote' - on the final vote.
And secondly, in Annex V, under the terms of which we voted, in the context of Article 3, 'Giving of discharge', you will remember that, for the final decision, we decided by a comfortable majority in the House that no amendments were possible and that we only voted for or against the conclusion of the committee.
<P>
That conclusion was in favour of giving discharge, but it was not adopted.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy was therefore pointing out to me under Article 6, 'Referral back to committee', that Parliament's vote must be taken into account.
That is quite clear, but this vote was not a final vote, which means that the Chair maintains its interpretation that no explanations of vote can be accepted on the Elles report, and if for once I have shown too much indulgence, I would ask you to forgive me.
<P>
(The sitting was suspended at 1.29 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=128 NAME="President">
Mr Elliott has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=129 NAME="Elliott">
Mr President, I seek clarification on the proceedings for the rest of today.
It was intended that the joint debate on racism and xenophobia should take place following the vote.
I should like to know when that will now take place.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=130 NAME="President">
The services tell me that the debate will probably take place at 6.20 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=131 NAME="Elliott">
Mr President, I understand the difficulties today but that presents a problem as I have to leave at 6 p.m.
I have a funeral to attend in Britain tomorrow so I cannot be here.
Therefore, I shall have to make other arrangements for the presentation of my part of that joint debate.
I had hoped that it would be later this morning or immediately after we resumed.
Thank you for clarifying the position.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Agenda
<SPEAKER ID=132 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, following the decision taken this morning to include a debate on Iraq in this afternoon's agenda, I would like to suggest that once the Secretaries-General of the political groups have discussed the matter, the last two subjects of this debate should be deleted. I am referring to the relocation of Rank Xerox and the Philippines.
The speaking time for Members could then be set at 45 minutes.
<P>
Mr Hallam has asked for the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=133 NAME="Hallam">
Mr President, this morning Mr Martin made the excellent suggestion that we should still be able to vote on these urgencies.
I understand the importance of the situation in Iraq but I feel that these urgencies are also important and we should at least be allowed to express our views.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=134 NAME="President">
During the discussion one group was not prepared to allow the vote without debate.
As you know, all groups must agree on such a procedure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=135 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, I understand that the group concerned was the UPE.
It has used this squalid manoeuvre to remove from the agenda an item that only yesterday we voted to put on the agenda by 290 votes to 55.
The concerns of the thousands of workers and their families affected will not go away.
We will be attempting to bring this issue back next month.
Hopefully then the UPE will face its responsibilities rather than use these squalid manoeuvres as a way of preventing the House from having a view on these matters.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=136 NAME="McCartin">
Mr President, we have no objection to the Xerox motion being discussed before the House.
But what we do not want is a vote on something that has not been discussed.
We have every sympathy for the workers involved, but the reasoning in this motion for a resolution is entirely out of order, and the facts set out therein are totally inaccurate.
If we are to have a vote then we must have a debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=137 NAME="President">
We could waste time discussing that but we have limited time and we have to discuss important matters.
Before there was only one group taking that position.
Now there is another group which does not want to vote without previous debate.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=138 NAME="Green">
Mr President, very briefly, it could at least be resolved in terms of consensus here if it was agreed that we are going to deal with both those issues next month.
People would then feel that they had the opportunity to deal with it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=139 NAME="President">
Mr McCartin says 'yes' and so does Mr Pasty, so you have the commitment there.
Do you think it is necessary to vote on the proposal?
I do not think so.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Topical and urgent debate
<SPEAKER ID=140 NAME="President">
The next item is the statement by the Commission on the situation in Iraq.
<P>
I give the floor to Mr Pinheiro, on behalf of the Commission.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=141 NAME="Pinheiro">
You all know that the European Union - and, of course, the Commission - has always maintained that the solution to the Iraqi crisis must be founded in the framework of the United Nations through full compliance by Iraq with all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions.
Over the last 14 months, in which this has been discussed time and again in the different instances, the European Union, through its Member States, has reiterated its position in this regard.
On 9 November the European Union explicitly condemned as totally unacceptable Iraq's decision on 31 October to cease all cooperation with UNSCOM, and supported the United Nations Security Council's response to that decision - United Nations Security Council Resolution 1205.
<P>
As you know, we still insist that compliance with the requirements of United Nations Security Council resolutions is absolutely necessary for the crisis to be resolved.
It is unfortunate that apparently the military option has become inevitable: we hope these actions will be limited to military targets.
We reaffirm, as we always have, that we have nothing against the Iraqi people, but rather, against the regime and its leader.
<P>
Consultations are now taking place within our Member States.
The presidency issued a declaration not long ago, the thrust of which roughly coincides with what I am able to say at this juncture.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=142 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are facing a serious crisis, indeed we are in the midst of a serious crisis, and of course the first thing to ask is: who is responsible for it?
On behalf of my group, I should like to say plainly and unequivocally that responsibility lies with Saddam Hussein and his regime, and from your words, Commissioner, I infer that this is the view of the European Union, of the European Commission.
<P>
Who is this Saddam Hussein?
Is he a politician who breaks the odd rule here and there, who engages in a spot of beggar-my-neighbour policy?
No, Saddam Hussein is a ruthless dictator; he is a danger to those around him as well as a brutal oppressor of his own people, be they Kurds or Shiites, or simply ordinary Iraqi citizens. He even diverts foreign aid for the use of his own family and entourage instead of giving it to the people who really need it.
For years now, the international community has been trying to put him in his place by means of military actions, not to mention numerous diplomatic overtures.
We surely all know how often the United Nations and Russia have tried to mediate through diplomatic channels.
And in fact every time, after every mediation effort, it has taken a few weeks, sometimes a few months but sometimes only a few days for us to see that the attempts to mediate have not delivered what they promised. Above all, we have seen Saddam Hussein failing to honour his promises and his agreements.
Time and again, United Nations observers and inspectors are more or less expelled or forced to leave the country.
Saddam Hussein has been playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse, not only by occasionally vilifying the Americans or European countries or obstructing their work. No, he has even turned the United Nations, that very institution which we here in the European Parliament are pledged to defend, into a laughing-stock.
He has robbed the United Nations of its authority, and every one of us, every country and every single Member of Parliament with our respect for the principles of humanity, human rights and peace and our desire to ensure that these principles are upheld in that part of the world, has effectively been turned into a laughing-stock by Saddam Hussein and his regime and its political methods.
<P>
And yet I am not very happy about the action that has now been launched, and while my group is completely at one in its perception of the problem, I am sure that different conclusions have been drawn as to whether the action that has been taken was really the best available option.
There are doubts, there are reservations, there are criticisms about the timing, the moment chosen by a greatly weakened President and the motives behind the timing of these air strikes.
There are also doubts and criticism about the fact that the United Nations was not consulted before the actual decision was taken.
I have enough legal training to appreciate that there are various possible legal arguments, all of them well founded, on the question of whether there ought to have been a new UN or Security Council resolution.
There are certainly good grounds for claiming that a new resolution would have been superfluous, since a basic resolution, which covered the sanctions too, had already been adopted.
Nevertheless, I should have deemed it more prudent and more reasonable if the United States, and Britain too, had involved the United Nations in some way in the decision and in the conduct of their military action, at least through a consultation process.
After all, there is at least the danger that the very thing we seek to avoid by tackling Saddam Hussein in various ways, namely the erosion of the authority of the United Nations, is the very thing that will happen if there is even a suggestion that it might have been wiser to involve the United Nations in the decision-making process.
That, at any rate, is the view of many people, and that is the personal view I would express in my own group.
<P>
The problem now is to find a solution to this difficult situation we are in, and I fear that if we do not deal more thoroughly with the roots of this crisis, we shall be forever having to stand up in Parliament and voice criticism, and there will be a succession of mere pinpoint actions; air strikes will be carried out, but nothing fundamental will change in Iraq.
The fact that we in this House have often been critical of what may be a rather unbalanced approach on the part of the United States of America is clearly indicative of one thing: Europe needs to develop a common foreign and security policy.
As long as Europe conducts its foreign, security and defence policies in such a weak, pussyfooting and inconsistent manner, it will not be possible to hold the United States any more firmly to particular principles and standards that we profess.
<P>
The second point is this: it is absolutely crucial that we persuade the United States to conduct its policy in that region with a greater degree of regional coordination.
We know how sensitive the region is.
We are aware that any hiccup in the peace process creates difficulties for the entire region and even puts a strain on Europe's relations with the Arab world in general.
A solution to the Iraq problem, a campaign against this appalling regime, can only be achieved in concert with the other Arab states.
It is foolish to believe that such a policy can be pursued from without, whether by Europe or by the United States, in the face of public opinion in the Arab nations.
If we cannot win over the hearts and minds of the Arab population inside and outside Iraq, we shall never be able to solve the problem.
<P>
The third point concerns humanitarian aid.
Time and again, especially here in the House, we have stated categorically that the people must not suffer for the sins and errors of Saddam Hussein, and that must continue to be our guiding principle; it is quite plain that we must provide financial aid in the coming months to help those who will really be made to suffer once again.
<P>
And so to my final point.
A great deal of criticism has been directed at the world's policeman, the United States. It is a dangerous situation, whether it results from the American desire to take action or because nobody else is prepared to perform that function.
Let me return to the point I made at the beginning.
There is only one answer to the problem posed by the United States' role as a one-man police force, and that is to strengthen European defence and security policy.
The Anglo-French decision is a first step, but let us try to curb the tendency, the desire of the United States to act as the world's policeman, and let us seriously pursue a common foreign and security policy in Europe in order to establish a counterweight on this side of the Atlantic.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=143 NAME="Spencer">
Mr President, I find myself in substantial agreement with the two previous speakers.
<P>
The first question we have to ask ourselves is, was this massive use of force necessary?
My answer is the same as theirs: yes, regrettably it was.
After years of diplomacy, which got ever closer to the brink, with Saddam Hussein becoming ever more evasive, ever more dishonest, there was no alternative.
<P>
Saddam Hussein has been laughing at the United Nations, an organisation whose values he derides and whose mandate he does not accept.
The UNSCOM report was damning.
It is absolutely clear that Saddam Hussein does not just possess weapons of mass destruction but he has been moving them around.
He has been deliberately evading attempts to trap those weapons using the UNSCOM mechanisms.
<P>
Why, we must ask ourselves, does he want to retain this ability for chemical and biological warfare?
We know he has used it against his own people.
We have every reason to believe he will use it against other people.
<P>
Let me remind you of the scale of those weapons.
The British Prime Minister said in his statement last night: 'Since 1991 the inspectors have destroyed or rendered harmless 48 Scud missiles, 40 000 tonnes of chemical munitions, 690 tonnes of chemical weapon agents, 3 000 tonnes of precursor chemicals and a biological weapons factory, but over 30 000 chemical weapons warheads and 4 000 tonnes of precursor chemicals remain unaccounted for.'
<P>
The second question we must address ourselves to is: was this the right time?
I simply do not buy the wag-the-dog thesis that President Clinton would engage in this kind of activity in order to spare himself domestic embarrassment and buy a few days.
This is a matter of life and death; life and death for Iraqis, both friends of the regime and foes of the regime; life and death for Iraq's neighbours, particularly for Israel; and conceivably for all of us.
It is clear if you listen - as I am sure many of us did last night - to the television broadcasts from Washington, that all his advisors, both civilian and military, decided this was the right time to act.
<P>
Speaking for a moment as a Briton, I do not believe that a British Prime Minister would endanger British lives in this cause, at this time, if he did not think that it was inevitable, necessary and right to act at this moment.
<P>
May I seek to focus our thoughts not just on the act, but on its consequences?
Parliament is not an executive body in this field of foreign policy, but we have a duty both to analyse and criticise what has happened and also to think ahead and advise the governments of our Union.
Mr Swoboda said this is an unhappy reflection on our failure to create a robust common foreign and security policy.
And yet we know that the next six months are going to be crucial for that policy.
The events of the last 24 hours indicate how desperately we need an analysis and planning unit that links all the Foreign Offices of Europe, a high representative for the common foreign and security policy and perhaps above all, a General Affairs Council that is genuinely prepared to engage in debate about difficult issues in difficult parts of the world.
But it has an even more urgent impact.
<P>
There has, in recent months, been real energy behind the attempt to create a defence policy for this Union.
The St. Malo Declaration, albeit fashioned with the Balkans in mind, could provide us with the basis for wider institutions for use around the world, in the interests of Europe.
<P>
The next few weeks are going to provide not only a real challenge for Europe, but a particular challenge for the British and French Governments.
They have a choice.
They can either go back to their historical snarling at each other across the Channel or they can regard this crisis as an opportunity to reinforce the steps they have already taken together and that they recommend for the rest of us.
They can leave it to the instincts of the Foreign Office and the Quai d'Orsay, or they can set aside those historical thought patterns and try to develop for Europe some kind of iron fist to go inside the silk glove of a common foreign and security policy that to date has been 95 % rhetoric.
<P>
I believe that a defence policy for our Union is a glittering prize which should not be lost in the smoke and dust of Baghdad.
We all bear a responsibility for trying to turn this crisis into an opportunity.
That responsibility lies on no-one more heavily than on the German presidency, which will inherit the consequences of the last 24 hours.
<P>
There are major opportunities for this to provide the seed for a major rethink of how Europe expresses itself, not just in the Gulf but in the wider context of the Middle East.
I have no doubt, personally, that the timing of this attack on Baghdad was influenced not just by what was happening in Baghdad itself, but by developments in the peace process and in Palestine.
<P>
There is a real opportunity for a benign European initiative in Palestine in the months before 4 May.
Israel is about to become snarled in a difficult and contentious election campaign.
The authority of Yasser Arafat hangs in the balance ahead of 4 May.
Whatever else we may think, the US President is bound to be distracted by domestic considerations.
<P>
Europe will have to think fast; it will have to think creatively; it will have to use the good offices and the intelligence of Mr Moratinos.
But I really believe that if we regard ourselves as serious players on the world stage with a real role in the regions around us, we will have to use the next few months to think creatively and effectively.
<P>
Allow me, in conclusion, to return to the substance of the matter.
The British Prime Minister said last night: 'There is no realistic alternative to military force.
We are taking military action with real regret but also with real determination.
We have exhausted all other avenues.
We act because we must.'
I should like to say, not as a British citizen but as chairman of our Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy and, I believe, a good European, that when the dust settles and the new situation is apparent we must be able to say that Europe must act together and we must act because we have no choice.
<P>
This is a difficult moment, but difficult moments are what give birth to real creativity and to real advance in this Union of ours.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=144 NAME="Cox">
Mr President, if we want to determine where the blame lies for what has happened in the past 24 hours - whether it lies with Washington, London or Baghdad - then we must search out the first cause in this whole process.
If we do that, it is clear that the blame for the current crisis lies firmly with Saddam Hussein and his regime in Iraq.
Iraq has provoked one crisis after another over many years since the Gulf War in 1991; notably, and in particular, in January of this year when first it expelled all United States personnel from the UNSCOM team in that country.
In August of this year it barred the entire UNSCOM team of inspectors from entering new sites and in October it ended all cooperation entirely with UNSCOM.
<P>
These provocations add up to a consistent pattern of non-cooperation and concealment that has prevailed for fully eight years, during which time inspections have repeatedly been totally or partially obstructed by the Iraqi authorities.
<P>
All attempts to find diplomatic solutions to the crisis have failed.
Why?
Because of the bad will on the part of Saddam Hussein.
He has continuously blocked, obstructed and frustrated inspections by the UN Special Commission, in clear violation of UN resolutions.
He has shown total disregard for the memorandum of understanding signed between Iraq and the UN Secretary-General in February of this year, after a personal intervention by Mr Kofi Annan.
<P>
This week, Mr Richard Butler, Chief Weapons Inspector, reported that Iraq is continuing to refuse to comply with the terms of Resolution 687.
It is believed still to possess biological weapons, illicit ballistic missiles and chemical weapons.
The military intervention of the past 24 hours is unfortunate but it is the necessary consequence of the Iraqi regime's own intransigence.
<P>
My Group remains very sympathetic to the suffering of the Iraqi people under the sanctions.
But the first cause for the sanctions lies also with their own dictator.
We unequivocally support the United States and the United Kingdom in their attempt to eliminate this threat to regional and world peace, and I hope Member States will do likewise in the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=145 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, a short while ago we were both relieved and proud when Kofi Annan returned from Baghdad after having managed to reach an agreement, although we all knew in the back of our minds that this agreement could prove short-lived.
It soon became clear that this was the case when the UNSCOM personnel were sent into the country and then out again.
I do not need to go into the details, as Mr Swoboda and Mr Spencer have already done so comprehensively.
For me the question remains as to why Saddam Hussein is making things so difficult if he has nothing to hide.
Perhaps that is too simplistic.
In short, Mr President, the actions now being taken were in fact inevitable, but the timing is causing doubts among many people.
I can understand this, but I do not believe that it will affect the vote in Congress, and meanwhile the facts on the ground in the Middle East remain just as serious.
<P>
Does this action bring a solution any nearer?
I suspect not.
UNSCOM will not be returning.
Saddam Hussein will not be affected. So what can we do to help achieve some progress in the region?
Support the opposition?
We know from experience that this is very fragmented.
But the EU could nevertheless make an effort in this direction.
Initiatives must also be taken with a view to providing humanitarian aid, because it is extremely sad that just before Christmas Iraqi citizens are lying in hospital and may be suffering from a shortage of medicines.
Like Mr Spencer, who has given an excellent analysis of the situation, I also see a bigger role for the German Presidency.
This presidency certainly has a lot on its plate, as we have Agenda 2000 to consider, which is already the subject of considerable controversy.
Alongside the US position on this, I believe it is important for the EU to take serious and firm measures in relation to the Middle East, of which Iraq is of course a part.
We must do something substantial for the Iraqi people, something to make them feel that they have not been abandoned to this dictator.
The only form I can see this taking at present is humanitarian aid.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=146 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, I am about to change the tone of this meeting.
To start with, I do have to say that, in our view, Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and his regime is unacceptable. However, what we are actually discussing here today is an unprecedented attack on the Iraqi people.
Saddam Hussein will not be harmed by this attack, but the Iraqi people certainly will be.
They have been suffering under an inhuman embargo for several years now, and as a result, 500 000 children have already died. It is those children, their mothers and their fathers who are bearing the brunt of the United States' attack.
<P>
This is the reality of the situation.
It is not a matter of defending Saddam Hussein.
He is undoubtedly a tyrant.
Nevertheless, the United Nations inspection team itself recognises that 428 inspections were carried out within a month, of which over 290 were conducted according to plan, and 128 were new. The inspection team also admits that there is no great confidence in the impartiality of its leader, Mr Butler.
This, Mr President, is the true state of affairs.
<P>
We have much to regret with regard to this situation.
Firstly, it is unfortunate that Parliament is not making a clear statement against what amounts to barbarism, whatever other name it may go by, and that there is no resolution to this effect. In addition, once again, the European Union is not going to adopt a common position.
It is not going to become a point of reference for the world in terms of the defence of peace. It is not standing out against the United States' barbaric conduct in launching an attack that the United Nations were not even aware of and that Kofi Annan himself has condemned.
<P>
Therefore, the European Union should at least stand by Kofi Annan and not by the United States.
The European Union must become a point of reference in the defence of human rights, of life and of peace, but it is unfortunately missing another opportunity of doing so.
Mr Blair's unreserved support for the attack, in which he was joined by Mr Aznar, is much to be regretted.
<P>
I regret that more voices have not been raised here - yes, I most certainly regret it, colleagues - to condemn such barbaric behaviour.
<P>
I am about to conclude, Mr President.
However, I still regret that a stronger voice has not been raised to condemn this attack, and that the United States should be able to pursue their policy of fait accompli without any opposition from the European Union. I must stress yet again that it is not Saddam Hussein who is being punished, despite being a tyrant, but the Iraqi people, who have already suffered enough.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=147 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gahrton">
Mr President, the Green Group condemns the unilateral action taken by the United States and the United Kingdom.
Nevertheless, we also condemn Saddam Hussein's criminal regime and policies.
He is a criminal and should be treated as such.
He should be charged and tried, and if he is found guilty, he should be arrested and punished using strictly lawful methods.
We cannot condone this 'rough justice' and lynch law!
Such tactics have no place in an international legal system.
<P>
In recent years, we have seen the gradual emergence of an international judicial system.
We are not going to lynch the murderers in Rwanda - we are bringing them to trial!
We are not going to lynch the murderers in Bosnia - we are bringing them to trial!
We are not going to lynch Pinochet - we are bringing him to trial!
If we wish to avoid a state of chaos in which 'private police forces' compete against each other, we must act according to international law.
<P>
Mr Swoboda bemoans the fact that the USA is the world's policeman, and would like the EU to provide some competition in that respect - as if that were a viable solution to the problem!
If the Russians and Chinese were also to set up their own rival world police forces, then by the year 2000 there would be four or five different 'world superpower police forces' all competing to establish their own world order in accordance with their own best interests - how I pity our grandchildren!
<P>
The European Union stands or falls on legality and the rule of law.
At the present time when we are working even harder to promote human rights and the rule of law through our numerous reports, how can representatives of the European Union possibly countenance 'rough justice' as an alternative to the courts?
We must abide by the rule of law, even when the going gets tough!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=148 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Taubira-Delannon">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are confronted with a situation here which is really disturbing for us: things are clear in so far as one side is wrong and the other right.
<P>
As far as we know, the Buttler report which has turned humiliation into a means of diplomacy, is based on three incidents which occurred in connection with the inspection of 130 sites; this gives a rate of roughly 2.5 % for incidents of obstruction and friction.
However, this report is causing so much fuss that it is preventing us from understanding the conclusions of the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to which Iraq fully cooperated with the visit of inspection carried out on its nuclear sites.
<P>
Therefore, what pressing matter has prevented us from taking time to assess the contents of both these reports?
How can a country justify its decision to confiscate an international authority?
Does the fact that it is joined and supported by other countries make the confiscation less serious in some ways?
<P>
It is nevertheless unfortunate, and it is perhaps even suspicious, that this hypocritical war which will set ablaze a region and cause loss of human life, takes place at such an opportune moment for US domestic policy.
While the American President may have thought that he could use the President of Iraq as a means of drawing enemy fire, there is every chance that he will be seen to be using him as a fig leaf.
It is preposterous that anyone would forget about Saddam Hussein's atrocities and cynicism.
However, by turning him into a victim, the US President unfortunately obliges us to condone the behaviour of some and to take a hard line with others.
<P>
What is at stake is our determination to resist the temptation to go to war, but to fight against the show of force, and resist punitive strikes.
We are determined to show that we have certain political, moral and diplomatic requirements in international relations, and in fact, to face up to our ideals.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=149 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, the Security Council has clearly stated the conditions that Iraq has to meet.
But it is also clear that Saddam Hussein constantly flouts the undertakings he gives.
The international community can no longer stand by while Saddam Hussein keeps playing these games.
<P>
Last month the United States and the United Kingdom made it perfectly clear that enough was enough and that they would be prepared to intervene if Saddam Hussein failed to honour his undertakings, and without any advance warning.
That is why this use of force is justified.
For some time now there has been no alternative to serious punitive action.
<P>
The attack by the United States and the allies was therefore justified, although I agree with the Dutch Prime Minister Mr Kok that this is a terrible thing from a humanitarian point of view.
Iraq has tried to use the weakened position of the US President for its own benefit.
Not to intervene now would not only jeopardise the credibility of the United Nations, but also security in the region.
<P>
Saddam Hussein does not only attack neighbouring countries when he sees his chance, as in the case of Iran and Kuwait. He is also ready to murder members of his own people, including members of his own family.
This barbaric dictator must go.
He is a tyrant.
With him all banned weapons must also be banished from Iraq.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=150 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Martinez">
Mr President, we are nine days away from Christmas.
Iraq is the only Arab country where there are Christians, churches and Christmas trees, and where the presents being given to children are bombs, an embargo, thousands of dying children, genocide, and a concentration camp for 18 million Arabs which is guarded by the West.
<P>
What crime has Iraq committed?
Iraq wants the right to dignity, territorial integrity, sovereignty over its natural resources, and non-interference in its internal affairs.
<P>
What is Saddam Hussein asking for?
To stand up and be counted?
Who is a tyrant in the Middle East?
Saddam Hussein?
Or Bill Clinton cavorting with tarts in hotels and hallways, wiping his secretions on dresses?
<P>
The law is being invoked, but where is the United Nations Security Council?
Where is the Security Council's resolution?
Where is the peacekeeping operation?
Has the matter been referred to the Austrian Presidency of the Council?
To whom has the matter been referred?
We talk about policemen, but who are the criminals?
Aramco, Exxon, or British colonial power in Kuwait?
We talk about regimes, but which is the model regime?
Emir Jaber of Kuwait or the Wahhabite family of Saudi Arabia?
<P>
Europe is staking its credibility.
The Arab nation is watching Europe.
The Arabs are not people from the suburbs!
They are from Nineveh, Babylon and Mesopotamia.
I say the following to the Iraqi students I have given lectures to as dean in Baghdad and Babylon: 'One day, France will become France again, we will hold out our hands to the people of Iraq, and we will make up for the crime that Europe has committed, the Europe of so-called human rights'.
Long live Iraq.
<P>
(Mixed reactions)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=151 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Parigi">
Mr President, all peoples hoped that 1945 would draw a line under the tragic succession of wars; instead, history shows that in 1945 warfare did not end, but peace broke out. Never before as in the past 50 years has there been so much war, genocide, injustice, migration of populations and suffering by innocent people.
<P>
With regard to the momentous events currently unfolding, we roundly condemn not the Iraqi people, whose ancient civilisation - perhaps the most ancient human civilisation of all - we admire, but Saddam, who has sacrificed his population on the cruellest of altars in a bid to achieve his own dreams of glory and omnipotence.
<P>
We likewise condemn the fact that the international organisations - including the European Union - are utterly powerless, miserably impotent in the face of this tragedy and those which preceded it.
This impotence feeds the conviction in the United States that they are the avenging angel.
Mr President, we hope that this cruel chapter will soon end, thanks partly to the Union ...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=152 NAME="President">
I have to stop you there, Mr Parigi.
You have gone beyond your speaking time.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=153 NAME="President">
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=154 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following five motions for resolutions:
<P>

B4-1087/98 by Mrs Mann, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists; -B4-1100/98 by Mr La Malfa, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party; - B4-1138/98 by Mr von Habsburg and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party; -B4-1144/98 by Mrs Schroedter and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament; -B4-1151/98 by Mr Alavanos, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left; on a political settlement of the Trans-Dniestrian problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=155 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Erika">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, my group has tabled this resolution because we believe it is time the European Union took a more active role in the search for a solution to the Trans-Dniestrian conflict.
Many of us are largely unfamiliar with the whole situation in the region to the east of the River Dniester, and we believe it is necessary that the European public should know more about this conflict.
Moldova is linked with us through a partnership and cooperation agreement.
One day Romania will be a member of the European Union, and Moldova will then be our immediate neighbour.
The conflict in the Dniester region has now been continuing for eight years and has received scant public attention.
<P>
The conflict centres on the future status of the region of Trans-Dniestria within the Moldovan state.
It is a power struggle, through which some of the protagonists are seeking to consolidate the status quo.
The confrontations are about political and economic power to a great extent.
It is élite groups, rather than the general population, who are locked in this tussle, and even the dispute about whether Russian or Romanian should be the official language in Trans-Dniestria is merely a side issue.
We in the European Union have been asked and are called upon to play a part in the development of a strategy for the solution of this conflict and to assist the OSCE in these intractable disputes.
<P>
We cannot turn a blind eye to this conflict; in the coming weeks and months, we must try to find an answer to the outstanding problems within the framework of the partnership and cooperation agreement and at the talks in which the Council is engaged.
At the heart of the matter are the following questions: how can cooperation with the OSCE be most intelligently structured, how can the Russian troop withdrawal be organised, what is the best solution to the problem of dissolving the arms and ammunition depots, what can be done to guarantee fair treatment for the political prisoners, especially Mr Ilie Ilascu and those imprisoned with him, what kinds of peaceful cooperation can be developed between Moldova and the Trans-Dniestrian region, particularly in the economic and social domains, and what financial support can we give to help resolve these issues?
<P>
What is far more crucial, however, is that we should learn from the situation in Northern Ireland and from other cases too that it is necessary for the European Union to play its part in establishing a deadline for the resolution of these conflicts.
We know from our own experience that a political conflict can only be properly resolved if a timetable is set.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=156 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, we have been waiting for a fair and lasting settlement in Trans-Dniestria since 1992.
For six years a conflict has been brewing there that could explode and cause an escalation in the political situation.
<P>
The people of Moldova must remember the 1992 war and make every effort to prevent renewed bloodshed. Why are the fine words and the Moscow Memorandum not acted upon?
<P>
My group is pleased that, partly thanks to the initiative of Mrs Mann, we have also been able to signal our support for peace to Moldova and Trans-Dniestria.
The forces for peace deserve every support, as do the international efforts of the OSCE, the Russian Federation and Ukraine.
I hope that they will continue to do what they can to give peace the best possible chance.
<P>
I call upon the Council and Commission to make a contribution to the peace process - perhaps this would be a deserving cause for TACIS funding.
Priority must also be given to the destruction of the major arms supplies which the Russians left behind.
As we know, the presence of large quantities of weapons can in itself trigger a spiral of violence.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=157 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Madam President, Moldova, I am sorry to say, is something of a forgotten country in our part of the world.
That is why I should like to express my sincere thanks to Mrs Mann for the energy with which she has dedicated herself to bringing about a real and radical change in this widespread disregard.
<P>
We tend to forget Moldova, even though it is enormously important to our security.
It is worth observing how the governments of the applicant countries react when the subject of Moldova is raised.
Mr Gabriel, the former Romanian Foreign Minister, once pointed out in a very interesting speech that there were two absolutely critical points for security in Europe.
One of them was the Trans-Dniestria issue and the other was the question of Kaliningrad.
These are two places which, simply because of their geographical positions and because of the huge quantities of arms deployed in them - an inexplicable phenomenon in actual fact, because even Russia cannot explain today, and is unwilling to try and explain to the outside world, why so many weapons are kept there - represent a real threat to the security of the entire continent.
We are not just talking about a small remote place; we simply must look at the wider picture rather than walking around with blinkers on.
<P>
I believe it is very important that we in the European Parliament should also pledge our support to the relevant missions, especially the OSCE, so that they know they have the backing of the political representatives of the European Union, who are willing to provide assistance and support if and when it is needed.
A solution to the conflict is possible if there is enough strength behind the peace efforts.
In the developing conflict, Russia is on one side and the European Union is effectively on the other.
We shall be doing Europe no favours if we allow a one-sided show of strength by Russia.
It is essential that we demonstrate by our presence there that we are really supporting the young Moldovan democracy, that we are doing our best for Moldova.
If we do that, I believe we shall have done what is best for ourselves too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=158 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Parliament supports the OSCE Ministerial Council in its appeal to the parties involved in the Trans-Dniestrian conflict and agrees that it is high time the latter took decisive action to find a solution to the conflict.
We are well aware of the efforts of the OSCE mission, which is seeking peace in the region on a shoestring budget, with a great deal of commitment and often with restrictions on the exercise of its mandate.
We know that any solution must respect the internationally recognised borders of Moldova.
The situation is complicated by the fact that the agreed withdrawal of the Russian forces is being delayed by Moscow and is further complicated by the storage in Trans-Dniestria of huge quantities of arms and ammunition, as has already been mentioned.
<P>
Moldova - and this is repeatedly forgotten here - was subject to the same fate as the former German Democratic Republic, spending 40 years under Soviet rule.
Moldova has applied for membership of the European Union.
That is repeatedly ignored here.
We should offer this particular neighbour a solution in the framework of the European Conference, in the context of the enlarged Union, and I ask the Commissioner to suggest which strategies the Commission might have for Moldova over and above the partnership and cooperation agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=159 NAME="Pinheiro">
Madam President, the Commission obviously shares the European Parliament's concerns about the situation in Trans-Dniestria.
Although there has been no incidence of violence since 1992, there can certainly be no guarantee of peace until there is an agreement between the leaders of the two parties and neighbouring countries, notable Russia.
<P>
In order to facilitate the dialogue and to assist the mediators, notably those from the OSCE, the Commission proposes to finance a project under the TACIS programme to rebuild one of the bridges over the River Dniester destroyed in 1992 in Gura and Kolui.
This proposal has been coordinated with the OSCE mission in Chisinau, and we consider that it is in accordance with the proposal contained in this resolution.
We are continuing to monitor the situation in the region and sharing the information we have with the Council and the Member States, and we are prepared to take any other possible measures which might help to resolve the conflict.
<P>
Lastly, on behalf of the Commission, I would like to emphasise the very laudable efforts of the Moldovan authorities to consolidate democracy and develop the market economy, even in circumstances which everyone recognises are extremely difficult.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=160 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Pinheiro.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=161 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following seven motions for resolutions:
<P>
B4-1086/98 by Mr Pasty and others, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group; -B4-1088/98 by Mr Happart and Mrs Berès, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists; -B4-1102/98 by Mr Monfils, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party; -B4-1119/98 by Mrs Maes and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance; -B4-1139/98 by Mrs Pack and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party; -B4-1152/98 by Mrs Ainardi and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left; -B4-1159/98 by Mr Kerr, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament; on the urgent need to take measures against doping in sport.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=162 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Happart">
Madam President, Commissioner, at the beginning of August I initiated the urgency procedure for a European Parliament resolution on doping in sport.
<P>
I am grateful to the Members of the House who added their support to my initiative along the way, because they have improved my original basic text.
Ten heads are better than one!
This joint motion for a resolution is further proof of that.
I do not consider myself to have a moralising role, but there are at least two good reasons to take a firm stand against doping.
Firstly, the whole procedure is immoral.
It is immoral that young people are being set the example of taking risks with health, ostensibly for reasons of sporting performance, but mainly for financial advantage.
<P>
We simply cannot accept the principle of cheating in this context.
Doping is used in disregard of morality and to deceive society, and of course it reminds me of the use of hormones in food.
It also reminds me of every kind of fraud, including the financial kind.
<P>
This sort of attitude, this kind of thinking, seems to be insinuating itself into sport and if the European Parliament fails to react to it, we will actually be failing in our fundamental duty to create a better and fairer society.
We must insist that the principle and ideal of sport must continue to be upheld first and foremost as an example of morality to young people.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=163 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Madam President, doping undermines the body, the mind and sportsmanship.
As Mr Happart rightly says, it is cheating, and I welcome his initiatives on this issue.
The IOC, International Olympic Committee, has decided to do nothing for the moment, so preparations for the World Conference in Lausanne must be thorough and honest.
An international agency must be set up and a clear list of banned products provisionally updated.
But the ICO cannot do this alone.
International organisations such as the Union also have an important role to play.
The recent Vienna summit provided a start, and it is now up to the individual Member States to coordinate their efforts, harmonise their policy and use the European framework in connection with health policy and sport.
EU sports ministers must quickly meet in order to draw up a possible European action plan.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=164 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maes">
Madam President, I am not always able to agree with Mr Happart, but I am pleased that I can on this occasion.
This is a problem of serious concern to us all as we believe that sport is so poisoned by doping that we scarcely have any confidence left in the sports organisations to eliminate this scourge.
That is why we are placing our trust in the Union.
We hope that the Member States will coordinate their policies, but we also hope that the Commission will produce a directive so that this coordination can become a reality, including effective monitoring.
This is why we proposed the creation of an independent administrative body.
<P>
Madam President, doping in sport has already reached serious proportions.
We are seeing how the purveyors of these banned products prove ever more creative in developing new products and new trickery.
It has become a veritable mafia with its own laboratories and its own circuits.
This is why it will be necessary not only for the Commission to adopt a good preventive policy and for there to be a list of banned products, but also for effective controls to be carried out to ensure that these products are indeed eliminated.
By a preventive policy we mean a policy which also thinks pro-actively, that is also aware of likely developments.
What today may be permitted because nobody knows about it, may tomorrow be revealed as a dangerous product.
We want to put an end to the poisoning of sportsmen and -women.
Sport is healthy provided it is not subject to the laws of unadulterated commerce in which the health of people is sacrificed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=165 NAME="Perry">
Madam President, I will state my point briefly and simply.
Taking drugs and doping other than for medical reasons is wrong.
Drug-taking is psychologically, mentally and physically damaging to the user.
Then there are the moral implications, and the cheating that it leads to.
<P>
Sportsmen and women set examples to Europe's young people.
They pay far more attention to what sportsmen and women are doing than to what politicians are doing.
That is why it is so important that we stop this practice.
Sports organisations need the help of politicians to stamp this out and that is where the Commission has a responsibility.
<P>
Thirdly, this is an issue that crosses national frontiers.
It cannot be dealt with by nation states acting alone.
It requires cooperation at international level.
The Commission has a responsibility.
Europe has a responsibility.
We should take the lead and not be sitting back waiting for others to give the lead.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=166 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Ainardi">
Madam President, for some months now doping scandals have been revealing a chain of responsibility that is not limited to sportsmen and women themselves, far from it.
And our debate reflects growing concern about the spread of the scourge of doping in a great many sporting disciplines.
<P>
Member States' resources for prevention and for the fight against doping are currently very inadequate.
I am pleased that the French Government, spurred on by Marie-George Buffet, has taken the initiative on a bill to fight doping and to protect the health of sportsmen and women.
Full details of this initiative were relayed at the Vienna European Council.
<P>
Our group's motion for a resolution is concerned with combating not just doping but the deep-rooted causes of doping, to make sport human again.
Individual legislation must be adapted or strengthened, and measures must be taken at European level in close association with the sports movement, especially in the fields of research, definition of norms for analysis of doping substances, drawing up a list of banned products and combating trafficking in these products.
<P>
Too often it is only sportsmen and women who currently face sanctions, and nobody bothers the people who administer the doping substances.
This situation must be corrected, and all the traffickers and doctors who prescribe these products must be severely punished.
<P>
I hope the adoption of the resolution supported by our group will be a signal to those attending the World IOC Conference in Lausanne next February.
Finally, this debate demonstrates the need for a major effort to harmonise legislation and to take European initiatives in line with the gravity of the problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=167 NAME="Kerr">
This is a very important resolution.
I am in charge of sport for the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, and we are still waiting for the Commission to produce a directive on sport.
I should like to pass the message back to the Commission that we have been waiting for this for some years.
I understand there was a discussion on this subject at the recent Council of Sports Ministers in Austria.
It would nice if Parliament got sight of it before we all disappear next June.
Some of us, of course, hope to be back and to take up the initiative then, when we have competence under the Amsterdam Treaty.
<P>
It is a very good resolution.
It is very comprehensive.
It deals with an important issue which is not about doping but about money in sport.
This is the key.
Look at the recent Tour de France and the fact that half the teams seemed to be doped.
Other major sports are often subject to doping and money is at the heart of the question.
The huge financial rewards motivate people to do unnatural things to their bodies in order to win.
We need to take some of the money out of sport, take the dope out of sport and put the sport back into sport.
<P>
It is a problem that is fairly widespread.
Sometimes when I look at my ex-colleagues in the British Labour Group I have a feeling that maybe they are on a little Prozac too because they seem to be rather quiet when it comes to major issues like the bombing of Baghdad.
Perhaps we could suggest that they have a little Viagra as well as a little Prozac.
That might give them some backbone to stand up to Mr Blair.
<P>
This comprehensive resolution should receive the unanimous support of Parliament.
My message to the Commission is to get its act together and bring forward a directive that includes the issue of doping in sport.
Then we can implement it across the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=168 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, I did not hear the translation very clearly. Are we now talking about foie gras or Viagra?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=169 NAME="President">
Mrs van Bladel, the words do indeed sound very much alike and besides, I am not sure that there is much difference between them in substance.
But I do not think this is the time to go further into such matters.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=170 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lindeperg">
Mr President, I shall ignore Mr Kerr's provocative remarks and go straight to the point.
<P>
Today everyone recognises the need to combat doping in sport, just as much on ethical and social grounds as for public health reasons.
This evil is afflicting all countries and every government must act.
Where national laws exist today they are disparate.
With these products circulating in a single market and with sporting events being held at European level, it is essential that legislation is harmonised.
<P>
The conclusions of the last European Council in Vienna are along those lines.
They emphasise the need for mobilisation at European Union level and invite, and I quote, 'the Member States to examine jointly with the Commission and international sports bodies possible measures to intensify the fight against this danger, in particular through better coordination of existing national measures.'
<P>
The French Government's attitude towards this issue has been firm and proactive, thanks to a bill being piloted through parliament by Marie-George Buffet, Minister for Youth and Sport, and the action of our former colleague, Bernard Kouchner, Minister for Health.
If the conclusions are the same, the remedies perhaps go further.
With her Italian opposite number, Giovanna Melandri, Marie-George Buffet has just approached the German sports minister to ask him to arrange a meeting of the sports ministers of the Fifteen before the opening of the conference being held by the International Olympic Committee on 2 and 3 February in Lausanne, to examine proposals they might formulate or support.
<P>
This resolution today is the least we could do.
The situation is worsening because of the lack of harmonised legislation in the single market of the Union.
It will only be possible to combat doping effectively if there are international rules.
Those Member States which already have laws in this field must harmonise them, and those which do not must adopt them.
<P>
To this effect, and on the basis of Articles 100a and 129(1) of the Treaty, which will be strengthened by the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Commission must take initiatives on both the single market and public health.
To the extent that a recommendation is possible, we believe the Union must soon provide itself with a strong legal instrument and adopt a directive.
Beyond the question of regulations, we all have a duty to contribute to restoring the spirit of sport and the values it represents, ensuring that it continues to be capable of inspiring dreams.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=171 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendes Bota">
Mr President, the use of doping substances to improve athletes' performance goes far beyond the explosion of media interest in stars like Ben Johnson, at the Seoul Olympics, and Richard Virenque and his team at the last Tour de France.
Doping can be found in both amateur sport and youth sport. The first victims are sportsmen and women who are encouraged to artificially exceed their own limits by using doping substances that are always one step ahead of latest testing methods.
This is a real attack on human health.
<P>
The second victims are tomorrow's sportsmen and women: our children.
They are forced to preempt their physical growth and to sculpt their muscle mass prematurely from a tender age as part of the forced development of the bionic champions of the future.
The message should be loud and clear: we should let our children enjoy the pleasures of play and prevent unscrupulous entrepreneurs and even parents from exploiting them.
<P>
How, faced with a situation like this, could the Commission have produced a communication on Community action in sports matters ignoring this almost uncontrollable single market in illicit doping substances?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=172 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Mr President, sometimes the intake of a muscle-building substance is dictated by ignorance, and those who encourage the use of anabolic substances, erythropoietin, growth hormone or other such substances are unaware of the precise advantages and drawbacks of such usage, but do not hesitate to suggest their use in order to make a profit, however substantial that may or may not be.
Very often, however, even people who are familiar with the effects of the substances administered suggest their use regardless.
It is these unscrupulous individuals, who pursue success through deceit and bad faith, who ruin sport by riding roughshod over all ethical principles.
<P>
The most recent spread of doping has been fuelled not only by the excessive growth of spectator sport but also by a pseudo-medical culture, which has led to a downright obsession with the use of drugs.
My own opinion is that a sick athlete should be able to take whatever drugs the doctor prescribes to help him recover, whereas a healthy athlete should take nothing other than what is contained in a balanced diet.
Unfortunately, however, the controversy of the past few days has placed the most disparate things in the same basket: just as the same effects have been attributed to bread, steak, coffee and mineral water, it is equally inappropriate to use the catch-all term 'doping' with reference to anabolic steroids, erythropoietin, growth hormone, somatostatin and - perhaps just because they rhyme well - creatine, carnitine, integrators and amino-acids in general.
<P>
Prohibition could, then, be applied to substances which actually cause structural changes in the biological composition of an organism.
Taking anabolic steroids to increase one's body mass is one thing; supplementing one's diet with substances which are easier to digest and absorb, for the same calorific and energy value, is another.
Disrupting the hormone balance by administering growth hormone or some other hormonal substance is one thing; enriching one's nutrition with a vitamin compound is another.
<P>
I am convinced that doping in sport is absurd in cultural terms, in that the spread of such behaviour could deprive man of the pleasure of relying on his own strength to move about.
Let us not forget that physical and sporting activity is still the only form of motor activity which ensures that human beings maintain the morpho-functional characteristics which make them human.
<P>
Do you remember the scientific forecasts of the recent past, predicting a man who is all head, with tiny limbs and no muscles, assisted in his every movement by technology, the so-called bionic man?
Fortunately this has not come about.
Today's scientists could attempt to create a bio-chemical man, where everything could be done thanks to a pill, drink or injection, but I still believe - or rather, I have every confidence - that this will not happen.
Our task as administrators is to establish strict, clear-cut rules, the same for all the Community countries, to prevent this phenomenon from becoming a truly dangerous one.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=173 NAME="Pinheiro">
Mr President, the Commission shares the opinions expressed in all the motions for resolutions on the importance of doping in sport.
Furthermore, it also believes that it is important, as a matter of urgency, to attack some of the underlying causes, such as the excessive commercialisation of sport, which are often at the root of this scourge.
The Commission also welcomes the conclusions of the Vienna European Council on doping, and welcomes the fact that Parliament is also taking an interest in this issue.
Today's debate gives us an opportunity to present the various initiatives launched by the Commission, which are in keeping with the majority of the motions tabled by honourable Members.
<P>
Last spring there was an exchange of letters between Commissioner Oreja and the Italian Minister for Sport on the need for a coordinated initiative on doping at European level.
Following the events of last summer, in particular during the Tour de France and in Italian football, the Commission immediately entered into contact with the President of the International Olympic Committee and with Member States.
<P>
On 21 September 1997, Mr Samaranch made it known that the sporting organisations wanted government action to focus chiefly on trafficking, harmonisation of legislation and awareness-raising campaigns, leaving the sports organisations to deal with offenders.
At that meeting, Commissioner Oreja announced that he would be participating in the World Conference on doping to be held in Lausanne.
<P>
The Commission has examined the issue of doping in sport on three occasions in its contacts with the Member States and with the sporting world.
This question was first discussed at the meeting with directors of sports organisations in the Member States held in Vienna on 7 and 8 October; it was again discussed at a meeting with the Austrian, British and German sports ministers, and it was also considered at the European Sports Forum, which brings together governmental and non-governmental organisations and sports federations; the director of the International Olympic Committee and the head of the French Minister for Sport's private office also took part in this meeting.
<P>
As some Members have emphasised, the Commission considers doping to be one of the key problems in sport.
This issue has not been dealt with in depth, given that the two working documents currently available are merely reference documents, while we look forward to a dialogue with the Member States and sporting organisations on the most appropriate form of Community intervention.
<P>
The services of the Commission have met to examine various options for action, with a view to presenting a common position at the Lausanne Conference.
Two projects are already being financed under the framework programme on research to the tune of ECU 2 million: one is a study involving research into growth hormones, which is a key issue today in the battle against doping, and the other is a research study in conjunction with the International Olympic Committee's Medical Commission on methods of standardisation to enhance the validity of tests, particularly in court.
<P>
The Commission also intends to contact the European Ethics Committee with a view to its issuing an opinion on certain scientific and ethical problems connected with doping.
Other avenues for Community action currently open to us are as follows: to make doping one of the priority objectives and themes under the new framework programme on research, to finance information campaigns in conjunction with sporting organisations, to cofinance a clean sports guide with the Olympic Committee and the Council of Europe, to adopt Community directives on health and safety at the workplace and on the protection of young people at the workplace; and, lastly, to look for solutions in the field of the free movement of persons.
<P>
Commissioner Oreja has convened a meeting with ministers' personal representatives, scheduled for 19 January, in order to coordinate a common EU position for the conference.
And he has already made contact with the forthcoming German presidency in order to consider how to approach the problem of doping at the meeting of sports ministers.
<P>
However, all this work should yield more tangible results after the Lausanne Conference, leading to genuinely useful and effective Community action.
The Commission considers that for the time being there is no need for legislative action.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, the fifteen Member States of the European Union are the world's top sporting force, so it is incumbent upon us to set an example.
I think that the Vienna declaration underpins the actions already set in train by the Commission, which will be completed after the Lausanne Conference.
The Treaties offer many possibilities, but as always we need to clearly define the objective and means, bearing in mind the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality.
<P>
The Commission considers that the majority of the proposals included in your motions for resolutions either have been or are in the process of being implemented.
Your support and interest will reinforce the action the Commission has already initiated, which should complement the actions drawn up by the Member States, by sporting organisations and by bodies such as the Council of Europe.
<P>
I believe that we are on the right path and that this action will be translated into concrete and positive results, as we will not relent in combating doping in sport and sport will always prevail over those who try to breach its rules.
Lastly, I am delighted that all the Community institutions - Parliament, Council and Commission - are of one mind on this and are proposing identical strategies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=174 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Donnay">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is a matter of urgency that we respond to the extent of the doping problem.
Of course, the problem is not new, but recent events in cycling and football, in France and Italy, have brought it home to the people in all its gravity.
<P>
Because we are concerned about our young people, because we consider sport to have a role in education and to be a means of preventing exclusion and marginal behaviour, we want the European Union and international sporting circles to condemn unequivocally the use of doping substances.
<P>
Sport is a school of courage and perseverance where we learn the spirit of endeavour, the taste for competition, and respect for each other.
What is left of these principles if cheating becomes a rule of the game?
We combat drugs widely in our institutions.
Our leaders and our police join forces to protect our citizens, especially our young people.
<P>
My group hopes this degree of effort will be made to combat doping in sport at all levels.
Cooperation between the judiciary, the police and the customs services must be strengthened in order to reduce the movement of banned doping substances and their use in sporting circles.
The health of sportsmen and women is at stake, both professional and amateur.
The ethics of sport are at stake and must be recovered at all costs.
<P>
We have reacted by means of this resolution because the European Union can no longer keep silent.
Doping in sport cannot be controlled at national level as it is a worldwide phenomenon.
While ultimately I welcome the working document the Commission has just published on developments in and prospects for Community action in sport, I very much regret that it has played down the doping problem.
In February a World IOC Conference will be held on this problem in Lausanne.
It will consider the creation of an Olympic anti-doping agency.
We support this initiative on condition that the agency is independent, international, transparent and non-profit-making.
<P>
I think it is in everyone's interests for the European Sports Ministers to meet before this IOC Conference, so that the European Union plays its part in that drive to establish common rules for the protection of the rights of sportsmen and women, the application of sanctions in cases of infringement, and medical checks on sportsmen and women.
<P>
Finally, the Commission has a role to play alongside Member States in prevention and information in schools, amongst young people and in amateur and professional sports clubs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=175 NAME="President">
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=6>
Welcome
<SPEAKER ID=176 NAME="President">
Before giving the floor to the representatives of the political groups, I should like the House to allow me to extend a particularly warm welcome to the delegation from the Chamber of Representatives of the Republic of Cyprus to the Joint Parliamentary Committee, led by Mr Tassos Papadopoulos, which is now in the gallery observing our proceedings.
<P>
Yesterday and today the EU-Cyprus Joint Parliamentary Committee is holding its fourteenth meeting in Strasbourg, and on behalf of Parliament I would like to express the hope that its meeting will be productive, and also to wish the delegation a safe return to Cyprus, an enjoyable festive season and a happy New Year.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=7>
Topical and urgent debate (continuation)
<SPEAKER ID=177 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions on human rights:
<P>

Death penalty -B4-1092/98 by Mrs d'Ancona, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists; -B4-1093/98 by Mrs Karamanou, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists; -B4-1101/98 by Mr Cars, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party; -B4-1126/98 by Mrs Aglietta, Mr Orlando, Mr Tamino and Mr Cohn-Bendit, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament; -B4-1127/98 by Mr Wolf, Mrs Aglietta and Mr Cohn-Bendit, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament; -B4-1131/98 by Mrs Breyer, Mrs Schroedter and Mrs Hautala, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament; -B4-1140/98 by Mrs Lenz and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party; -B4-1153/98 by Mr Wurtz and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left; -B4-1154/98 by Mr Guttiérez Díaz and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left;
<P>
Sudan -B4-1081/98 by Mr Bertens and Mr Frischenschlager, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party; -B4-1091/98 by Mr Vecchi, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists; -B4-1132/98 by Mrs Aelvoet and Mr Telkämper, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament; -B4-1143/98 by Mr Robles Piquer and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party; -B4-1150/98 by Mr Hory and Mrs Maes, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance;
<P>
Pakistan -B4-1085/98 by Mr van Dam, on behalf of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations; -B4-1090/98 by Mr Newens, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists; -B4-1103/98 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party; -B4-1135/98 by Mr Holm and Mrs McKenna, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament; -B4-1142/98 by Mrs Maij-Weggen and Mr Mann, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party;
<P>
Iran -B4-1125/98 by Mr Pradier and Mrs Maes, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance; -B4-1134/98 by Mr Telkämper, Mr Cohn-Bendit and Mr Gahrton, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament; -B4-1145/98 by Mrs Maij-Weggen, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party; -B4-1156/98 by Mr Carnero González, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left;
<P>
Child soldiers -B4-1078/98 by Mr Bertens, Mr Nordmann and Mrs André-Léonard, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party; -B4-1109/98 by Mr Pasty, Mrs van Bladel and Mr Kaklamanis, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group; -B4-1137/98 by Mrs Schroedter and Mrs McKenna, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament; -B4-1141/98 by Mrs Lenz and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party; -B4-1155/98 by Mrs Elmalan and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left;

<P>
FYROM -B4-1117/98 by Mrs van Bladel, Mr Caccavale and Mr Pasty, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group; -B4-1124/98 by Mr Dupuis and Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance; -B4-1148/98 by Mrs Pack and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party.
<P>
Death penalty
<SPEAKER ID=178 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Karamanou">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for the umpteenth time the European Parliament is expressing its revulsion at the fact that anachronistic and mediaeval methods of questionable efficacy are still being used for the punishment of convicts, and this indeed, in countries that wish to be regarded as modern and democratic, such as the United States of America.
Yet, incontrovertible facts such as today's bombing raids on Iraq prove that the use of violence is at the core of American policy in every sector.
<P>
At a time when we are celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, in the USA the five-hundredth convict since 1977, when the death penalty came back into force, is being executed while 3 000 more are on death row.
As we were told yesterday by the American delegation in Strasbourg, headed by the campaigner Angela Davis whom I see in the gallery, even underage children are executed in the USA while the penal justice system operates selectively to the disadvantage of the weaker socio-economic groups and in particular anyone whose skin is dark.
In Pennsylvania, 87 % of those convicted during 1998 were black.
<P>
This week we adopted a series of reports on human rights issues.
So on the basis of our decisions and in the name of respect for human rights, we call upon the United States of America to abolish the death penalty and allow retrials for the journalist Abu Jamal in Pennsylvania, Martinez in Florida and others, to give them a chance to defend themselves.
We also appeal to the governments of other countries, Saudi Arabia in particular and Turkmenistan, to abolish the death penalty and immediately commute their decisions on executions.
<P>
Finally, the European Commission and the Council must insist on the abolition of the death penalty by inserting a special clause in the economic and political agreements they conclude with third countries, to promote an immediate worldwide moratorium on executions until the death penalty is eventually abolished in every country in the world.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=179 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, the Liberal Group has always been opposed in principle to the death penalty.
We are therefore pleased that attention is being brought to this issue by an international campaign which starts this week in Strasbourg.
European opposition to the death penalty must be standard policy, and it must also form an element of our foreign policy.
Member States and applicant countries must be expected to ban the death penalty.
This is a measure of civilisation which we in the Union are entitled to expect.
<P>
But the European Union must also support global agreements.
I and others continue to be horrified that China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States have maintained the death penalty.
As the previous speaker said, we must call for a worldwide moratorium on the capital punishment and promote a resolution to this effect at the UN General Assembly.
This must be part of our contribution to the celebrations of the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=180 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, perhaps I could point out to Mrs Karamanou that she did not mention the death penalty in Iraq.
I say that because our proliferation of resolutions on the death penalty is threatening to turn into cheap self-indulgence.
And I think what we need to do is to make sure, as soon as possible, that we no longer have to table resolutions on the death penalty.
<P>
There is one positive aspect.
At least this time we are not just launching a bitter attack on the United States, we are also talking about Saudi Arabia.
I am rather pleased about that, because we do not often mention it.
That fact needs emphasising, because the situation in Saudi Arabia is well known.
In my view, the fundamental point is the moratorium, no longer as some vague hope but as an initiative which must be taken this year by the Council within the United Nations.
We do not want a repeat of the game of ping-pong we had in 1998, when Italy and the Austrian Presidency kept batting the ball back and forth saying: 'you want it, neither do I, ' and so on, with the result that no resolution was tabled in the United Nations.
<P>
1999 must be the year a universal moratorium on executions is established. We cannot keep putting this initiative off indefinitely.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=181 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, human rights are indivisible.
That has been the motto of this Human Rights Week.
Human rights also apply to those who have committed offences and are in prison.
They too must be given the opportunity to acknowledge their guilt and to start a new life.
That is why recognition of the universality of human rights goes hand in hand with rejection of the death penalty.
Three women and two men are sitting in death cells in Turkmenistan.
They may be executed within the next few days.
Their last hope is that they will be granted a reprieve from the President of Turkmenistan.
That would not diminish their guilt, but it would be an act of respect for human rights.
<P>
We therefore call on the President of Turkmenistan to summon up the courage to carry out this act of mercy, thereby according precedence to international human rights over national law.
That would also enhance the credibility of his celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=182 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lenz">
Mr President, I can only endorse the words of the previous speakers.
However, I should like to repeat their message in slightly different terms.
Yesterday a group of visitors asked me why we oppose the death penalty.
I believe our resolution illustrates very clearly why we do.
Every case is different, and the yardsticks by which cases are judged often differ too, but once every legal appeal and every petition for a reprieve has been rejected, all that remains is a final and irrevocable sentence.
That is why, in the Treaty of Amsterdam, the EU recommends that its Member States abolish the death penalty for all time to come, and we are certainly pleased about that.
We note with great concern, however, that in this respect the United States and its constituent states - death-penalty statutes being the responsibility of individual state legislatures - are regrettably putting themselves on the same level as countries with which they would not wish to be compared.
For that reason, our appeal for the abolition of capital punishment is especially directed at them, but it is also addressed to the other nations of the world.
The death penalty is final; it is irrevocable, and when the sentence is carried out, clemency and humanity become irrelevant.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=183 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pailler">
Mr President, this badge I am wearing represents all the emotion of the meeting yesterday when I welcomed a delegation from the various strands of the American abolitionist movement, led by Angela Davis.
Angela made an impact on people of my generation and quite a few began to campaign for her freedom.
She too was condemned to death.
<P>
Released from prison thanks to the mobilisation of international support and a suspension of the death penalty in the United States for several years, she has remained true to her commitment and continues to fight in defence of the oppressed and against the death penalty.
The accounts we heard yesterday from the members of the delegation, Abu-Jamal's lawyer, and the Amnesty International representative, make one shudder. And they are sure to be here now.
In the United States the death penalty is also racist and discriminatory.
The risk of being condemned to death and executed correlates with black skin and poverty.
<P>
As the international community celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United States is approaching its 500th execution since 1977, continuing to use a barbarous and inefficient method, once described by Albert Camus as genuine administrative murder.
Over 3 500 people are currently on death row.
<P>
Mumia Abu-Jamal, a black journalist sentenced to death in 1982 as a result of a plot by police and judiciary and a travesty of justice, has become a symbol of the fight against the death penalty.
Since his application for a re-trial was rejected by the Supreme Court in Philadelphia, he could be executed at any moment.
All the demonstrations, all the stands that have been taken, all the resolutions we have so often passed in this very House, are helping to prevent his execution.
Let the President of the United States and the Governor of Pennsylvania be advised that we will not resign ourselves to the inevitable.
<P>
In adopting the joint resolution supported by our group, we are strongly expressing our determination to save Mumia Abu-Jamal by preventing his execution and to abolish the death penalty.
Mumia must not die; he must be granted a re-trial.
But we need to go further and demand that our governments and the European authorities take a stand and intervene more resolutely with the United States, in the context of transatlantic economic relations.
<P>
Forgive me, Mr President, but I cannot end without mentioning the fate of Leonard Peltier who was brilliantly defended by Bobby Castillo, his spokesman, during our meeting yesterday.
Leader of the American Indian Movement, he was given two life sentences.
He is currently very ill and is not receiving attention.
We must keep up the pressure.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=184 NAME="Cushnahan">
Mr President, I am opposed to capital punishment as I believe it to be immoral, unjustified and counter-productive.
It should be noted that in many, although not all, cases the countries that employ it most are those whose record on democracy, human rights and the rule of law leaves a lot to be desired.
In those countries it is often used to suppress political dissent.
<P>
A further argument against capital punishment is the number of instances even in the most democratic of countries where miscarriages of justice have occurred.
If one is wrongly convicted and executed, it is regrettably then too late for an appeal.
<P>
Finally, terrorists in many countries have seen the value of martyrdom and exploited the death penalty to advance their particular causes.
We should not give them the opportunity to do so.
I would urge Members to support this resolution, particularly the call on the United Nations to support a universal moratorium on executions as a prelude to abolition itself.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=185 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, debates on the death penalty all too often turn into an opportunity to denounce this or that country whose legal order makes provision for such a penalty; discussion of the death penalty frequently turns into a condemnation of and lament about the legal order in the United States.
<P>
One of the most worthwhile aspects of the resolution on which we are to vote this afternoon is, I believe, the fact that it emphasises with sufficient clarity that the death penalty is unjustly provided for and carried out under the most disparate systems.
<P>
The death penalty is almost always imposed on disadvantaged individuals, belonging in some countries to economic or ethnic minorities, in others to political minorities.
For this reason we are duty bound to emphasise forcefully that human rights have no colour, and that by the same token this penalty has no political colour.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=186 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, I have little to add to what my colleague Aline Pailler has said. Many of us had the opportunity of hearing the lawyers acting for Abu-Jamal and Peltier speak yesterday.
We were also able to hear Angela Davis' personal testimony, and were delighted to make her acquaintance after working for her freedom some time ago. All the speakers stated clearly that the death penalty was not only immoral - as several colleagues stated here - but unacceptable to the European Union, because the European Union must be totally opposed to the death penalty.
It was also pointed out that in the United States the death penalty is used to punish the poorest citizens and coloured people.
<P>
It is quite true that we do condemn the death penalty wherever it is used, in China, Iraq, Iran, and everywhere else.
The United States, however, prides itself on being the leading democracy in the world.
That is why it is all the more remarkable that there should be three thousand people on death row in that country. One of the three thousand is a Spaniard, a European, named Joaquín José Martínez.
There is considerable doubt as to his guilt, and someone else has claimed responsibility for the murder. If he is not helped soon, he may be executed like Abu-Jamal.
I believe that we must put forward a common position - and that on this issue we can - and that we should do so next year in the United Nations. We must join forces to call for a worldwide moratorium on the use of the death penalty.
<P>
Sudan
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=187 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, the situation in Sudan remains hopeless.
The government is continuing to violate human rights on a massive scale and millions are dying of starvation.
The combined efforts of the IGAD continue to prove fruitless.
They deserve every praise, but they are being frustrated by the constant stream of weapons which is further fuelling the conflict.
They are the oil on the fire which will further escalate the spiral of violence.
Rather than earning dirty money from all the conflict, destruction and human suffering, there must now be an end to these arms sales.
This is why I am pleased with the Union's existing arms embargo.
But it is not enough.
The Union must also invite the associated countries to observe it, as well as calling for a United Nations embargo.
<P>
The mechanisms for ensuring observance of these embargoes must also be tightened up.
The Union must give a good example of leadership in stopping the flow of arms, thus providing one of the first conditions for resolving the conflict.
This is what the people of Sudan deserve as they have been busy trying to extricate themselves from their civil war since 1956.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=188 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Bladel">
Mr President, Mr Bertens knows Sudan.
I do not know the country.
Sudan has topped the list of urgent debates over the past 18 months, but to no effect in the field.
The resolution we have before us today seeks to adopt a more serious approach by urging the Council to agree to an arms embargo and even to propose this to the Security Council.
I have nothing whatsoever against this proposal, but it seems to me that it is going to be difficult to monitor its implementation.
I am therefore very curious to learn how the Commissioner sees the practicalities of this arms embargo and control procedures.
Above all, I find it rather selective.
Since the departure of Mobutu from central Africa the flow of arms into the sub-Saharan region has increased.
Take Angola, where war is now being waged.
We pumped millions into this area for mine clearance, and the mines are now being laid again.
Then there are the recent arms sales in Bulgaria and also Zimbabwe, where a million a day is being spent keeping aircraft in the air to keep Kabila in power.
I agree with the measures for Sudan, but they should apply to other African countries too.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=189 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Telkämper">
Mr President, as various previous speakers have indicated, during the past week the world has been recalling the adoption 50 years ago of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, rights which apply to everyone throughout the world, without distinction of any kind.
They also apply to the Sudan.
In Sudan, as the previous speaker said, human rights are violated daily by both the government and the rebels.
For 15 years civil war, displacement and destruction have reigned in that country.
With the physical destruction comes destruction of the country's economic and social fabric, so that the people are left virtually without hope.
<P>
In southern Sudan in particular, religious freedom is being suppressed.
We continually receive information about the persecution of Christians. We learn that priests, such as Father Sebit and Father Boma, are being tortured or mistreated, and we know that almost the entire southern population is stricken by famine.
<P>
This is a form of human rights violation that is mainly encouraged by the government there.
It amounts to the institutionalisation of human rights abuses by the government.
But we in the Union and our associated states are also accomplices, in that we are responsible for weapons reaching the Sudan so that the crisis can continue.
I believe this has to be changed.
The Sudanese Government must also sign the international conventions prohibiting biological weapons, chemical weapons and anti-personnel mines.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=190 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, we have marked with great solemnity the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
However, we do this with regret every Thursday afternoon in this House - which is perhaps rather less crowded than it should be - when we must unfortunately acknowledge that so many persons are still deprived of their rights.
This is the case in Sudan, where the civil war is compounded by famine and the suppression of all types of freedom, in particular religious freedom.
<P>
I do not believe that our resolution on Sudan - to bring an end to this state of affairs and initiate a process of change - should be restricted to words alone. It should go further, to support a strict embargo and curbs by all possible means on the activities of those who - not least in Europe - by trading in arms and through other forms of trafficking allow human beings in a vast area of the world to remain deprived of all their rights.
<P>
Pakistan
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=191 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, I should first like to say that I attach great value to human rights and to the life that God gives us.
This is why I was so saddened by Mrs Eriksson, who yesterday morning had the brutality to accuse pro-lifers of violating human rights.
After the systematic human rights violations of communist regimes, including barbarous abortion practices, she should be ashamed of such an ignominious slur.
<P>
In this week following the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, human rights were on the agenda yesterday and now again today, in the monthly topical and urgent debate, where we are having to talk about Pakistan for the second time in six months.
<P>
In this Islamic country non-Muslims have long been able to live in relative freedom.
The present Prime Minister Mr Sharif is seriously restricting this freedom.
He wants to make Pakistan a Muslim state with the associated administration of justice and reintroduction of the death penalty.
<P>
In 1991 he received a parliamentary majority to change the Pakistani Constitution to make the sharia (Islamic law) the basis for all legislation.
The consequences of this are enormous.
Anyone who insults the Koran receives life imprisonment.
Anyone who defames Mohammed in word, writing or illustration can expect the death penalty.
For proof, the courts can accept the eyewitness testimony of four Muslim men or two Muslim men and four Muslim women.
The eyewitness testimony of women or non-Muslims has no legal force.
<P>
Sharif is continuing to pursue this policy.
The National Assembly recently adopted Constitutional Amendment 15, granting just 10 of the 210 seats in the National Assembly to religious minorities.
The amendment imposes strict observance of the sharia within the judicial system.
Among other things, this means that anyone employed by the judicial authorities must be a Muslim.
<P>
Next month the Pakistani Senate will be voting on this amendment.
Former Prime Minister and present opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has warned that it could lead to a totalitarian Islamic regime comparable to that in neighbouring Afghanistan.
<P>
The threat of these laws should also be seen in relation to Pakistan's social problems.
There is great poverty with a huge gulf between rich and poor.
Child labour is widespread.
It is because of this poverty that the blasphemy laws are so 'life threatening' to religious minorities, being exceptionally well suited to ensnare them.
In practice these religious laws are used for the purposes of personal feuds, with Christians being accused of defaming Mohammed as a result of quarrels between neighbours.
<P>
The joint motion for a resolution calls on Pakistan to take human rights seriously.
The government must guarantee every citizen in Pakistan, whether Muslim or otherwise, the right to fair legal recourse.
The Commission and the Council can help ensure that Pakistan takes this call seriously.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=192 NAME="Evans">
Mr President, it gives me no great pleasure to be supporting a motion which is deeply critical of the human rights situation in Pakistan.
Having said that, I would like to disassociate myself from the rather provocative opening comments of Mr van Dam, whose remarks I felt were irrelevant and inappropriate to this debate.
<P>
There are a large number of Pakistani people in Pakistan, London and around the world, citizens who are deeply disturbed about the events to which our motion refers.
The Pakistani authorities should be aware that their country's image is being gravely damaged.
This motion is not restricted to the sufferings of a single minority group.
It refers to the ill-treatment of Christians, Ahmadis, members of the MQM, in particular in Karachi, and the rights of people, especially women.
These rights will be further threatened by the proposed Constitutional Amendment 15 if the Senate supports it, and we appeal to it and to others to refuse to give it their approval.
<P>
Under the blasphemy laws, one of the sanctions prescribed is death and the framing of these laws allows vindictive actions, often heard in courts packed with mullahs and with hostile crowds outside.
Reports of mass violence or primitive legal practices dismay the friends of Pakistan - and I count myself, along with colleagues here, as a friend of Pakistan.
We do not wish to question the rights of the people to determine their own affairs, but we do ask that they respect the terms of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 50th anniversary of which we are marking this week.
<P>
We appeal to the Pakistani Government to place more emphasis on human rights, consultation and dialogue in the interests of all their citizens - their citizens in their own country, their former citizens around the world and others who share these concerns.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=193 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Fassa">
Mr President, we are negotiating a cooperation agreement between the European Union and Pakistan, and one point which is often emphasised in such agreements is the capacity to implement regional cooperation.
Pakistan has been implementing a singular form of regional cooperation for some time, by vigorously supporting the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Now, as in every case of self-respecting regional cooperation, it is receiving something in exchange: an invitation to apply Islamic law in that country.
<P>
I believe that the ancient maxim of one of the fathers of modern legal and political thought, Alberico Gentile - 'silete teologi in munere alieno ' - should echo loudly around this House, which is undoubtedly one of the most legitimate heirs of that tradition.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=194 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Holm">
<SPEAKER ID=195 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, my group has been seriously concerned about the situation in Pakistan for a number of years now, as religious minorities have increasingly been the victims of violence - and not just threats of violence.
On 18 November nine Christians were murdered in Noshehra.
<P>
We then received the disturbing reports about two MPs from the Muattahida Quami movement who are still being held prisoner and ill treated.
I received a letter this week from the Pakistani Embassy stating that the nine murdered Christians were not Christians at all but members of sects and that the head of the murdered families practised fatah magic.
It was apparently a family vendetta.
This is a typical example of what has just been alluded to, of how Christians are presented in a bad light and then persecuted in this way.
<P>
This letter from the Pakistani Embassy also states that the two MPs held under arrest are not being ill treated at all, but are bearing up well.
Our information is again very different.
<P>
The conflicting information from the NGOs and the Pakistani Government is yet another reason for supporting this resolution and for asking the Commission to take action to try to ban these kinds of practices.
<P>
Finally, I should like to lend my support to the call for Constitutional Amendment 15 not to be adopted, because in my opinion this would make the situation in Pakistan even worse.
We call for action by the Commission and the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=196 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Thomas">
Mr President, shortly before the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, these rights were once more trampled underfoot in Pakistan.
A month ago, a Christian family of nine, who were manifestly not separatists, were murdered by Islamic terrorists in the town of Noshehra.
Little has changed since June, when we voiced our protest here in the European Parliament against the discriminatory treatment of Ahmadi, Christian and Swanti groups and against the blasphemy laws that have been used since 1986 to persecute religious and other unpopular minorities.
Violence in Karachi has increased.
Parliamentarians from the Muttahida Quami Movement have again been arrested and their supporters brought before military courts.
<P>
A new article for insertion into the constitution has been approved by the National Assembly and now awaits adoption by the Senate.
Its purpose is to proclaim the Koran and Sunna as the supreme law of the land.
The executive branch of government is to be empowered to decide on its own authority what is lawful and unlawful.
And not only that: Article 15 is to apply irrespective of any contrary provision of the constitution, of any law or of any court judgment.
That is nothing but a licence for all fanatics and will most probably provoke a new wave of terrorism against minorities.
What scope does the Commission have to prevent an outbreak of uncontrolled violence?
Could suitable clauses be inserted in the agreement?
Could there be international legal conferences to discuss good and bad judicial practice?
Could joint decisions with Pakistan be suspended until democracy and human rights are finally accorded high priority in that country, which is, after all, a member of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, a community for which we in the European Parliament bear some share of responsibility?
<P>
Iran
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=197 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pradier">
Mr President, you have probably never heard of Darioush Forouhar and his wife, or of Pirouz Davani, editor-in-chief of an Iranian newspaper, or of Majid Charif, or Mohamad Mokhtari or Jafar Pouyandeh.
Well, do not worry.
You will not hear of them in the future either, because they have either been shot, assassinated or put to death, or they have disappeared.
That is what happens to intellectuals and dissidents in Iran today.
<P>
And this offensive against these intellectuals and dissidents is currently taking a particularly worrying turn.
That is why I think we must try to support President Khatami's efforts in his statements and initiatives on freedom of expression and freedom of the media.
That is also why we must ask for NGOs to be allowed into the country to help those, inside Iran, who are trying to lead this country down the path of democracy.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=198 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Gahrton">
Mr President, I am in complete agreement with Mr Pradier.
At the very least, I should like to put the name of Reza Hadjzadeh on the list in the resolution. I have just obtained his name from the Iranian intellectual opposition which suffered persecution during the appalling terror.
No doubt we should be pleased that the Iranian President has pronounced himself in favour of cultural freedom and freedom of speech and of the press, which we acknowledge in the resolution, but the question is whether we should not have gone further.
<P>
We sent a fact-finding team from the European Parliament to Algeria, and even though terrible atrocities continue to be committed there, I still think it was a useful exercise.
The Iranian intellectuals, as well as the entire civilian and pro-democracy community, are very anxious that we should establish a presence in Iran.
I should like to float the idea of trying to set up some kind of commission of inquiry which, if possible, would go to Iran to study the situation and demonstrate solidarity by simply being there.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=199 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Maij-Weggen">
Mr President, once again Iran is on our agenda in a debate on human rights violations.
Whereas last time it was principally members of religious minorities and women who were threatened and imprisoned, and sometimes even murdered, this time it is intellectuals, opposition members and again women whom we must defend.
In August there was the disappearance of Pirouz Davani, editor-in-chief of the newspaper 'Pirouz'.
On 25 November Marij Charif, founder of the 'Iran Farda' monthly, was found dead after being abducted.
Recently Mohamad Mokhtari and Mohamed Jafar Pouyandeh, both writers and journalists, were also kidnapped and murdered.
This is in addition to the murder on 22 November of Darioush Forouhat and his wife Parvaneh, both opposition members.
On top of all this, there is the constant repression of women: for some time now women have been prohibited from being treated by male doctors and specialists, when just 7 % of doctors in Iran are women.
<P>
We are forced to conclude that the spring which seemed to be on its way with the new President, Mr Khatami, has returned to the harshness of winter and Iran is again becoming a dangerous country with a ruthless and violent regime, despite the moderate stance of its President.
We call on the Commission and the Council to put Iran on the Council's agenda as a matter of urgency, to demand that Iran protect its citizens and to consider whether it is possible for the 15 Member States of the European Union to adopt a single line on refugees from Iran.
Our conclusion is that Iran is at present a dangerous country for intellectuals, women and journalists.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=200 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pailler">
Mr President, for several weeks there has been a wave of repression of Iranian writers.
Majid Charif, Mohamad Mokhtari and Jafar Pouyandeh were abducted and assassinated.
This was hardly a coincidence.
They were members of the committee responsible for arranging the general meeting of the association of Iranian writers, which, I would remind you, had been banned by the government.
<P>
These assassinations, part of a climate of confrontation between various factions that are struggling for power, are intended to silence the intellectuals.
We can express our solidarity with them by adopting the joint resolution supported by our group, and we demand that the Iranian authorities take the necessary steps to find and punish those responsible for these crimes and to guarantee the protection and security of their citizens.
<P>
We can also express solidarity by supporting the proposal from the Iranian writers in exile to send to Iran an international commission consisting of intellectuals and members of parliament from all over the world, to investigate these massacres and save the lives under threat.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=201 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Mr President, the events of the last few hours have demonstrated especially clearly the importance of Iran to us.
No objective observer of the situation there can be in any doubt of the enormous progress that has been made in Iran under President Khatami.
Accidents will happen - that is only to be expected - but most of the trouble is orchestrated in other countries.
That must not be forgotten.
Time and again it is the same Iranian freedom fighters who import terrorism into the country.
We should therefore make every effort to encourage the Iranian Government, and especially the President, to continue along the path of liberalisation and democratisation.
There is, however, one point that we must make as forcefully as possible.
It concerns the intolerable persecution of the Bahai, for the Bahai are one of the most civilised groups, and we must support them in the exercise of their freedom.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=202 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, dark conservative forces have a stranglehold on Iran.
Journalists are being killed, dissidents and intellectuals silenced and women pushed back into their traditional role.
Mr Habsburg is right when he says that we should also be concerned about the fate of the Bahai.
The forces of democracy and reform have not yet had a chance in Iran.
The election of President Khatami was a positive development, but one swallow does not make a summer.
<P>
The Union must do all in its power to support the forces of democracy in Iran and express its clear condemnation of the situation.
Finally, I hope that national governments, including the Dutch government for example, will see the so-called official reports for what they are worth - reports from embassies, and from other Union countries, which are sent to Europe stating, and I quote, that Iran is now a safe country so that asylum-seekers can be sent back and no new asylum-seekers need be accepted.
I am amazed when I read reports of this kind in the Dutch and foreign press.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=203 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, we live and learn!
I am genuinely surprised to hear how favourably Mr von Habsburg assesses the Iranian situation.
I am very much on the side of the Bahai and agree that they must not be persecuted.
But to act as if everything that has been said about women, about intellectuals and about critics of the regime was irrelevant - I am simply stunned!
It is certainly true, and this is how I had actually planned to begin, that Iran has a new President, for whom, on the basis of his statements and attitudes, I certainly have a high regard, even if I do not agree with him on every detail.
But perhaps it is precisely because a relatively liberal President has been elected by the people against the wishes of the ayatollahs, or at least of the fundamentalist ayatollahs, that there is a definite current within the country which seeks to exorcise the spectre of liberalism and which is mounting a massive campaign against foreign influence and liberalisation in the country.
But these things have to be kept in perspective, and it is certainly possible to envisage a continuation of dialogue with Iran.
<P>
However, any dialogue, whether we call it critical or open, must be conducted on the clear understanding that Parliament cannot refrain from putting human rights in Iran, as in many other countries, at the heart of its deliberations and that it is duty bound to wage this campaign.
We certainly must also call on the Commission and the Council to keep a very watchful eye on the development of human rights.
Yes, we support dialogue with the President of Iran.
We hope that he will speak increasingly for the whole of the Iranian nation.
But he will only be able to do so if he is strong enough to wage a successful struggle against the fundamentalists and the groups who engage in or condone terrorism.
I therefore hope that the Commission and the Council will see the situation in the same light as this Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=204 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="van Dam">
Mr President, after a period of quiet, Iran is once again attracting international attention.
As on this occasion, this is often not for positive reasons.
Over recent weeks a number of critical intellectual writers have disappeared under suspicious circumstances and later been found dead.
In the light of this alarming situation, it is good that Iran has been added to the agenda for this topical and urgent debate.
<P>
It is a good thing that Ayatollah Khamenei has condemned this series of murders.
Understandably, a number of others who are possible targets have gone into hiding.
But this is no solution to the present problem.
These attacks bring a great deal of fear for all those threatened and their families.
<P>
Unfortunately, these attacks show that the 'moderate' Iranian President Khatami is not totally capable of protecting his supporters.
Iran's judicial authorities, secret service and forces of law and order are all under the command of Iran's highest spiritual leader, Ali Khamenei.
Following last year's huge election victory, Khatami promised to develop society further.
These murders are taking place against a background of serious political confrontation in Iran between President Khatami and the powerful conservative government.
Nobody has yet been arrested for them.
<P>
This resolution calls on the Iranian judicial authorities to investigate the allegations of murder seriously and to protect possible further victims.
It is very important for Iran to take this call seriously.
A democratic country should also value its critical minorities and allow them the freedom to live and to work.
The reality in Iran stands in stark contrast to this.
It is up to the Iranian government to improve the situation.
<P>
Child soldiers
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=205 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Bertens">
Mr President, the international campaign to stop the use of child soldiers deserves the support of this House.
At present 300 000 children from 33 countries are fighting their parents' wars.
In these countries the children are of course denied any chance of normal development.
We all know the examples of Congo, Somalia, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and elsewhere, but even in the Union the situation is not as it should be, as 11 of the 15 Member States recruit soldiers aged under 18.
This is contrary to the general rules of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which sets 18 as the minimum age for adulthood. How can we morally defend a situation where in parts of Europe children cannot vote until they are 18 but can be sent to war when they are just 15, 16 or 17?
It is incomprehensible that this Convention created such an exception in 1989.
<P>
The UN negotiations on an optional protocol establishing 18 as the minimum age have been dragging on for years.
This is why the Union's commitment and leadership is so vital in order to get these negotiations moving again.
<P>
The Commission must give budgetary priority to the demobilisation and reintegration of child soldiers.
That is the only way we can break the spiral of violence.
<P>
Parliament must also play its part, just as it played a leading role in the campaign against anti-personnel mines.
The first amazed reaction was to ask what we thought we were doing by interfering.
Now we have the Ottawa Convention.
We must encourage a group of like-minded countries to establish a moral code and get the blocked discussion at the United Nations moving again.
We learned this lesson from Ottawa.
As we approach the 10th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child it is time we put an end to the press-ganging of children to be used in fighting wars.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=206 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Schroedter">
Mr President, my honourable colleague Mr Bertens has already given us the horrifying statistic: 300 000 children are fighting in armed conflicts throughout the world.
Some of them are only eight years old.
In the past ten years, two million such children have been killed and six million permanently maimed.
Countless psychological traumas are another legacy of these exposures to violence.
There are even many countries in the European Union which have not signed the protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child which prohibits the recruitment of service personnel under the age of 18.
Young people under the age of 18 can join the armed forces in France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom.
The implementation of this protocol is a political imperative if the European Union wants to preserve its credibility and if the world is to believe the current President-in-Office of the Council when he says that human rights have become a key element in the policies of the European Union.
<P>
It would therefore be logical for the European Union to engage in a joint action for the implementation of the protocol in order to ensure that children are properly protected.
There is a particular need for such an example in our own countries, especially since the Cardiff summit adopted a guideline in the code of conduct for arms exports which clearly emphasised that the key role for ...
<P>
(The President interrupted the speaker) ... increasing international observance of the protocol on light firearms is particularly essential in those countries where children are used as soldiers.
To these words ...
<P>
(The President cut the speaker off)
<SPEAKER ID=207 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lenz">
Mr President, instead of sharing our children's joyful anticipation of the festive season, we are dealing today in our resolution with one of the saddest chapters in the history of human exploitation, not to say crime.
I know from my own childhood what it means to send 14- and 15-year-old children into battle as a last resort, and I shall never forget that.
I am sickened whenever I recall the fate of the child soldiers who were sent to war in the Iran-Iraq conflict and in conflicts in other countries in the name of fanaticism.
<P>
I therefore believe that we in the European Union should support all the efforts of the United Nations to conclude an additional protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The EU must act accordingly.
Of course, it is not the practice in our countries for young people under the age of 18 to be sent to war - we should be aware of that - but I am still in favour of setting an absolute limit at 18.
<P>
We in the European Union have dared to abolish war. War is horrific, even for adults, as we can still see today at our borders, but we should also ensure that, in other countries where wars are being waged, children are never made to experience the horrors of war at first hand, to suffer the trauma that will haunt them for the rest of their lives.
So let us commit ourselves in the European Parliament to children's happiness, to ensuring that they are free from hunger, that they are educated and that they are never used as child soldiers.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=208 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="González Álvarez">
Mr President, I am sure all those who have taken the floor today would agree that although any infringement of human rights is a terrible thing, infringements of the rights of children are particularly horrifying. Certain figures have been quoted.
For example, 300 000 children are involved in warfare. Not long ago a documentary was shown on Spanish television featuring children who were knee-high to a grasshopper but who bore arms and who, from infancy, had become more accustomed to scenes of death and murder than to life, school or peace.
The European Union must therefore make every effort to ensure that no child under the age of 18 goes to war or is employed in the war machine. The European Union should also ensure that its Member States and other countries sign the International Criminal Court's protocol since, according to one of its articles, the use of children in war is a crime, as is the arming of children.
<P>
In my view, Mr President, there is not much future for a world in which 250 million children are involved in heavy labour, 300 000 children are at war and countless millions of children are allowed to die each year.
That is why I believe that we in the European Union must do all in our power to put a stop to this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=209 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Günther">
Mr President, here in the European Union we are opposed to war toys being given to children at Christmas or at any other time.
The manufacture and marketing of these toys is a development that I regard as a flagrant abuse of children.
May I thank all the previous speakers for their contributions to what will surely be a common position on this matter.
We must endeavour together to take action against this exploitation of children.
However, what we are calling for in the resolution does not really seem to go far enough in my opinion.
I believe this subject is too serious to be relegated to an annex of a convention, albeit a very valuable convention.
My view is that we must press for a separate convention, a separate moratorium on this type of thing, so that we can achieve the same sort of success in this matter as we achieved in the campaign against anti-personnel mines.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=210 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Leperre-Verrier">
Mr President, in Human Rights Week we ought not to forget the youngest human beings and what they face in many countries: ill treatment, forced labour, and also premature drafting into armies which are frequently mercenary.
Too often children are the first civilian victims of war and they should not be made the military arm of factions or nations in conflict.
<P>
Nevertheless, the estimated number of child soldiers engaged in hostilities is 300 000, not to mention those recruited into the armed forces, sometimes against their will, instead of going to school.
It is a matter of urgency that we take action against this sickening situation.
Adoption of an additional protocol to the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, banning military recruitment of children under 18, would be one important stage.
Secondly, we must raise the awareness of governments and urge them to ratify this Convention and take the appropriate steps.
We should therefore ask the UN to apply itself to this matter and step up its action.
<P>
FYROM
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=211 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Dupuis">
Mr President, with all due respect to you, we are going to talk about Macedonia.
You know, and I think it needs to be strongly emphasised, that there is a new situation in Macedonia.
A new government has been established and at last there is change in Macedonia.
I take this opportunity to thank Mr von Habsburg, who worked towards this and was one of the first of us to understand the situation.
<P>
This new majority is not a moderate majority, but the moderates have done nothing for five or six years to solve Macedonia's problems.
Today we have a majority which calls itself extremist, but a majority, is at last prepared to confront Macedonia's fundamental problems, including those relating to the fact that the Macedonian majority coexists with an Albanian minority.
The new government is made up of three parties, including the party of the Albanian minority.
<P>
Four people were sentenced under rather dubious circumstances, at least from the legal viewpoint, as the matter is on the agenda of the European Court of Human Rights.
We know the new majority wants to resolve this issue that it inherited from the former government, and I think our Parliament can use this resolution to give the Macedonian authorities an excuse, in the best sense of the word, to settle this matter and free the four Albanian leaders, who are still in prison today, having been sentenced to two or seven years.
<P>
So I urge all Members to vote for this resolution.
Next January the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy will be receiving Mr Georgievski, the new President of the Council, and I invite you to come to the meeting.
I think he is someone worth listening to.
Thanks to him and to the new majority, I think Europe, the European Union, will be able to make a new start with Macedonia.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=212 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, Macedonia is a young democracy which has set out on the road to the European Union under its new and promising government.
Our resolution is intended to help it along that road, and the Macedonian Government should take it in that spirit, as assistance and support, since the release of the imprisoned local politicians of Albanian ethnic origin would not only be an act of humanity, and indeed a necessary and overdue act of humanity, but would also be an act of prudence - I might even say strength, for I believe that a certain amount of self-assurance and strength are necessary assets in the pursuit of a sound policy on ethnic minorities.
<P>
In this respect, I see some very encouraging signals from the new Macedonian Government.
The greatest sources of misfortune for our states are centralism and the denial of minority and ethnic rights.
It is these, rather than federalism or laws based on ethnic rights, that have led to the break-up of various entities.
It is a matter of integrating federalism and the rights of ethnic groups, because if I feel that my dignity and my special identity are respected in the wider community, I shall want to stay in that community because of the benefits I derive from it.
If I feel that my dignity and identity are being suppressed, then I turn to separatism.
<P>
That is why I believe that a judicious, foresighted and integrationist policy is essential to weave the Albanians into the fabric of Macedonian society.
Both sides, I am sure, will make conciliatory moves, and an important first step could be taken if the university in Tetovo, which has been rather a bone of contention over the past few years under the old government, could be integrated by the new government into the University of Skopje as an autonomous institute for the ethnic Albanian community by way of a compromise.
That would be a particularly significant move, since the University of Pristina across the border in Kosovo is currently subject to brutal repression.
For that reason, I believe that this particular measure would be a step towards integration, and I would urge the new Macedonian Government to take that step.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=213 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Swoboda">
Mr President, this new Macedonian Government is led by a party which for many years, and in some respects for several decades, has been striking a stridently nationalist tone and has been pursuing a highly nationalistic policy.
I should be delighted if the hints of moderation that have been discernible over the last few weeks and months actually turn out to reflect the true nature of this new government.
It should be given the benefit of the doubt as well as opportunities to prove itself.
<P>
I am in complete agreement with the thrust of this resolution, which is designed to re-establish the freedom of the Albanians, who have been receiving unduly harsh treatment.
Some of us in the delegation have already discussed this on several occasions with the Macedonians.
I myself, along with my colleague Mrs Pack, met with one of the prisoners before he began to serve his sentence in Skopje.
I believe it would be a true sign of strength and vision if these Albanians were now given their freedom.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=214 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Robles Piquer">
Mr President, in the context of our motion for a resolution on Sudan, I should like to draw the attention of the House to the tragic situation of two Catholic priests, Fathers Hillary Boma and Lino Sebit. They stand accused of behaviour totally incompatible with their ministry: it is alleged that they took part in a bombing in Khartoum last June.
They have been imprisoned since 1 August. Over the last five months, they have been subjected to torture, and thus forced to confess to crimes they did not commit.
No date has yet ben set for their trial, but it is to take place in a military court and not a civil court.
<P>
I believe we should add our voice to the letter sent in November to the President of Sudan by His Eminence Cardinal Daneels, the President of Pax Christi International.
<P>
We must request that they be given a prompt and fair trial, before a civil court, with legal representation and in the presence of outside observers.
It should be borne very much in mind that the Government of Sudan has not ratified the conventions against torture and inhuman and degrading punishment and therefore does not comply with them. The latest meeting of the ACP-European Union Joint Assembly unfortunately found it necessary to draw attention to this situation in a resolution.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=215 NAME="Pinheiro">
Mr President, the Commission not only shares the general concern about the various human rights violations referred to during the debate, it also supports - generically as it were - the texts of all the resolutions.
<P>
As you know, whenever we have these debates the Commission always insists that the guarantees laid down in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights should be respected without exception.
I would add that this also applies to other international instruments, and in particular the Vienna Treaty, which governs consular protection.
It is not unusual, and I include the United States in this, for some persons under arrest not to be fully aware of their rights and for the provisions of the Vienna Treaty not to be applied, which is a serious matter and could lead to a judgment being annulled.
<P>
The Commission's powers in this area are, as you know, limited, since this subject is normally dealt with at Council level and by other institutions such as the Council of Europe and the United Nations.
Nevertheless, I would like to add just a couple of points: first, the EU's position on the death penalty was clearly reiterated in June in a directive approved by the Council, to the effect that the European Union as a whole should strive towards the universal abolition of the death penalty.
I would also like to add that, as you are aware, all agreements with third countries now include a human rights clause, which is considered an essential clause in our cooperation with these countries.
As a consequence, the negotiation of a free-trade agreement with the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council or with Pakistan could result in the European Parliament's opinions on human rights abuses being brought to bear with far more weight.
<P>
In the case of Sudan, a ceasefire has fortunately been possible, allowing Operation Life Line Sudan to start work. The European Union has contributed ECU 73 million this year alone to this operation.
But the situation in Sudan is serious, as it is in other countries, and I would like to emphasise that we are actively seeking to resolve the problem of the Catholic priests mentioned by Mr Robles Piquer.
<P>
Turning now to Iran, although the election of President Katami gives us some cause for hope, we feel that his powerlessness to fight certain extremist forces is all the more justification for the international community to give its determined support.
<P>
Concerning child soldiers, we have vigorously supported the action of the UN Secretary General's Special Representative on the impact of armed conflict on children, and in conjunction with him we are now preparing a joint programme, to be cofinanced by the Commission, in order to put into practice some of the recommendations that he intends to make shortly to the General Assembly.
<P>
Finally, Mr President, concerning the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, we also believe that there is some cause for optimism that the interethnic dialogue to which this government at least seems to be committed could help to resolve some of the problems witnessed in relation to the Albanian minority, and in particular the plight of the former mayors Mr Osmani and Mr Demiri.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=216 NAME="President">
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=217 NAME="President">
We now come to the vote on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=8>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=218 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Posselt">
Mr President, before we come to the Pradier report, there is something else I have to point out. Today's voting and the topical and urgent matters were slightly in breach of the Rules of Procedure, because we again had only the joint texts translated and not the original texts.
In theory, we have the right - and we have often exercised it - to reject joint texts and then vote on the originals.
This right, however, is denied us if the original texts are not available in the original languages, as is customary with all other votes. I know that a decision of some sort was probably taken by the Bureau.
I am merely protesting about that decision. It is entirely contrary to the Rules of Procedure, and I ask you to submit the matter to the Rules Committee.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=219 NAME="President">
I take note of your protest but thank you for your cooperation on this occasion any way.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=220 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Lancker">
Mr President, I would like to make a proposal to replace, in the French version, 'centres d'hébergement pour les réfugiées by 'centres de rétention '.
We as a group believe that reception centres for refugees have nothing whatsoever to do with prison policy.
But closed centres for refugees do.
We want to propose that rather than 'centres d'hébergement ' the wording should be 'centres de rétention '.
I hope that the interpreters in all the booths can translate this accurately in all the language versions.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=221 NAME="President">
That seems to be a translation problem rather than an oral amendment.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=222 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Van Lancker">
No, Mr President.
I believe that the mistake was made in all the language versions and that in all languages there is something equivalent to reception centre.
When refugees apply for refugee status they are often placed in reception centres.
Once their application has been processed they are transferred to closed centres.
The intention is to refer to these closed centres in this text.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=223 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Pradier">
Mr President, I entirely support what Mrs Van Lancker has just said.
In fact, detention centres, which operate more often than not under a system where rights are ignored, merit the attention of Members of Parliament and the population as a whole.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=224 NAME="President">
Okay. Thank you.
<P>
Are there any objections?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=225 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
Mr President, I do not believe it is a good thing to introduce a Belgicism in Dutch here.
It is not 'onthaalcentrum ' but 'opvangcentrum ' in good Dutch.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=226 NAME="President">
Let's not have a debate.
The amendment is clear.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=227 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Oomen-Ruijten">
Mr President, if we have a clarification of the word, in Dutch it should be 'opvangtenten' - ' reception tents' - since that is the current policy.
<P>
(Parliament accepted the oral amendment)
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=228 NAME="Smith">
On a point of order, Mr President.
Concerning next year's calendar, could the President please list his engagements for the week beginning 8 February?
Does he have some travel plans or is he entertaining some distinguished visitors?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=229 NAME="President">
As they say in the House of Commons, I will write to the honourable Member about that matter.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=230 NAME="Malone">
Mr President, I want to call attention to the situation in Irish prisons where the system is absolutely chaotic and out of line with the detailed Council of Europe provisions on prisons which have been accepted by our state.
<P>
The system is in crisis.
Prisons are over-used for non-violent property crime and fine defaulters.
Many are prone to terrible problems of drug abuse.
Those Members who are listening will be interested to know the very sad fact that although Ireland is the Celtic tiger the suicide rate in Irish prisons is one of the highest in Europe.
<P>
Mr Pradier's report makes a number of very welcome proposals such as taking into account the specific needs of women prisoners, the maintenance of the social and family environment, the provision of proper medical services, including special services for addicts, and constructive, humane laws on penalties for young offenders, all of which I welcome.
<P>
Some reform is taking place in Ireland's prisons.
I welcome last week's decision by the Irish Government to take up the proposal to establish a prison authority.
However, much more remains to be done.
This report outlines a number of possible reforms.
I do, however, reject the suggestion that illicit drugs should be decriminalised in prison.
Decriminalisation is not the way forward and would only worsen our drug problem.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=231 NAME="Blak, Iversen, Kirsten Jensen and Sindal">
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have voted in favour of this own-initiative report on prison conditions in the Union.
There is good reason to turn the spotlight on prison conditions in the Member States.
The prisons are generally overcrowded, and it can be useful to exchange experience as regards preventing criminal activity, alternatives to prison sentences, prisoners on remand and so on.
It is also topical to highlight the fundamental civil rights of inmates in this 50th anniversary year of the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
<P>
The report points out that overcrowding in prisons can be relieved by decriminalising the use of illegal substances which harm no one other than the individual in question.
However, the provisions of criminal law relating to narcotics are not a matter for the EU, and it must therefore be for individual Member States to decide whether they will take steps to decriminalise cannabis, for example.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=232 NAME="Lindqvist">
Many of the proposals of a social nature in the report are good ones, for example more 'humane' treatment of people in prison.
<P>
However, it is questionable whether it is really the business of the EU to propose guidelines for Member States' policies on crime.
Civil and criminal law are national responsibilities.
To suggest that Member States might reduce overcrowding in their prisons by no longer imprisoning people for drug abuse represents an interference in their internal affairs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=233 NAME="McKenna">
On behalf of the Green Group, I welcome this own- initiative report on prison conditions in the EU and the proposed improvements and alternative penalties.
<P>
Concern has been growing throughout the EU about the unsatisfactory conditions in many EU prisons, where offenders are serving sentences for offences which are judged differently in different countries.
<P>
I welcome the fact that Member States are being called on to fully apply the Council of Europe's rules in relation to prisons.
The deprivation of freedom of movement should not mean deprivation of all fundamental freedoms - freedom of thought and opinion and freedom of political and religious beliefs, as well as civil rights must be respected.
<P>
I also welcome the series of measures designed to improve prison conditions and facilitate subsequent reintegration into society.
The special account given to the specific needs of women prisoners is very important.
So too are the recommendations to protect the social and family environment, medical services, including special services for addicts, and more humane laws on penalties for young offenders.
<P>
Exploring the concept of amnesties, alternative penalties and highlighting the importance of training of prison staff and social workers is the direction we should be aiming for in regard to future policy.
<P>
It is also very important that we look at the problem of criminalising drug addicts.
This is not going to solve the problem, in fact it ignores the problems of drug addicts who are only harming themselves and contributes to the overcrowding in prisons.
Adopting a policy of rehabilitation for addicts and help to reintegrate into society would be the more logical approach.
<P>
As regards Irish prisons, the Irish Penal Reform Trust has made many useful and constructive proposals to the Irish Government and has highlighted some of the serious problems with the Irish prison system.
<P>
The Trust has a number of concerns about the treatment of Irish prisoners.
For example:
<P>
40 % of prisoners have no access to in-cell sanitation.
They must use a chamber pot, sometimes in a shared cell, and 'slop out' each morning.- Some prisons are greatly overcrowded.
On 15 July 1998 Cork held 177 % of its design capacity (266 inmates in a prison built for 150).- In closed institutions the facilities for recreation are extremely limited.- Medical treatment for prisoners has been strongly criticised by individual inmates, visiting committees and the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture.- Psychiatric and psychological services are limited and widely spread. This leads to excessive use of padded cells (resorted to 500 times in Mountjoy prison in 1997).- There is little independent monitoring of prison conditions.
No inspector of prisons and visiting committees are uncritical and lack credibility.- It is difficult for prisoners to maintain family ties.
Contact visits are rarely allowed and correspondence is censored.- Prison officers' initial training is brief and does not devote sufficient time to human rights issues.- Prison Governors have no control over their budgets or staff rosters.
They are not allowed to govern.In combination the above limitations can create an environment where human rights are not taken seriously.
This means that poor treatment is unchallenged and even becomes acceptable.
In this way low standards become the norm.
<P>
Potential ill treatment rarely comes to light because of the culture of secrecy which characterises the Department of Justice.
<P>
There is a perception in Ireland that the poor are treated differently by the courts.
Studies of the prison population show a clear preponderance of uneducated, unemployed, drug-addicted, young men.
There is clear evidence to show that the poorest defendants are more likely to be imprisoned than fined, and even if fined they may end up in prison in default.
Also some courts allow a contribution to the 'poor box' as an alternative sentence. This clearly favours the wealthy.
<P>
Sentencing practice in Ireland is unclear.
If justice is to be done then patterns of sentencing must be analysed and areas of discrimination eliminated.
There is no tradition of criminal justice research in Ireland which means that policies are often based on intuition and expediency and not on facts and principles.
<P>
Another problem is that remand prisoners are not held apart from those who have been convicted and sentenced.
As they must be available for the courts, they are held in committal prisons where conditions are cramped and unsanitary.
These people experience the worst elements of the Irish penal system and this is unacceptable in view of their legal status as innocent citizens.
<P>
In 1999 a new purpose-built remand prison will open at Cloverhill.
This should be an opportunity to create an environment for remand prisoners which recognises their special needs.
However, the design quality of this institution leaves a lot to be desired.
Despite the fact that international guidelines suggest single cell occupancy as the norm, overcrowding will be a feature of this new prison as soon as it opens.
Inmates will be held in triple cells. These are small and cramped, measuring only 10.7 m.
<P>
The Irish situation is not unique and it is clear that similar problems exist in many other EU Member States.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=234 NAME="Sjöstedt">
The report reflects humane values with which I strongly sympathise.
However, I do not think that the issues dealt with, namely criminal law and conditions in the Member States' prisons, fall within the competence of either the European Union or the European Parliament.
I have therefore not voted in favour of the report in the final vote.
I also object to the fact that the report attempts to interfere in the Member States' policies on drugs.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=235 NAME="President">
That concludes the vote.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=9>
Racism and xenophobia
<SPEAKER ID=236 NAME="President">
<SPEAKER ID=237 NAME="Ford">
Mr President, may I begin by saying that I am slightly sad to be speaking on behalf of Mr Elliott who, because of the delay caused by the debate on the situation in Iraq, is unable to be here to present his own resolution.
I regret that shift in the agenda meant that I had to replace him.
<P>
I also have to confess I was sorry to miss the press conference given by Mr Mégret, Mr Blot and Mr Le Gallou earlier today explaining their current situation in the Front national .
I am normally against war - civil or otherwise - but I make an exception in that particular case.
<P>
With respect to the resolution, I wish to draw Members' attention to a number of points.
Firstly, paragraph 1 states the need for the urgent ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty.
Members will be aware that we have a new Article 13 which will allow the Commission, for the first time, to introduce legislation to organise the fight against racism, xenophobia and anti-semitism.
However, that can only be done once the Amsterdam Treaty has been ratified.
I hope that the French, who are the latest in ratifying this Treaty, can do so as soon as possible.
I urge them to take the opportunity to introduce legislation prior to 10 June so that the Commission proposals can be part of the debate around the European elections.
<P>
I hope that, as stated in paragraph 3, legislation will incorporate many of the ideas brought forward by the Starting Line Group which has been working on proposed legislation for a number of years.
What we require in the field of fighting racism is detailed and hard-hitting legislation.
I do not want the Commission to be frightened by the view, expressed by some, that certain Member States will not accept such legislation and such legislative proposals.
We should not forget that it is only fairly recently that the 15 Member States signed up to Amsterdam and I am convinced that, in signing up to Article 13, they are agreeing to introduce legislation.
<P>
I must also draw the attention of Members to paragraph 10, which argues that in the next Treaty revision, we should seek to introduce qualified majority voting in this particular area.
<P>
Paragraph 4 mentions the idea of a code of conduct for political parties; a code of conduct which makes political parties commit themselves, firstly, not to engage in racism, not to use racist language and not to use racism as part of their political campaigns; and, secondly and equally importantly, not to associate themselves with parties that breach the code of conduct.
It would be very fitting, in the light of Parliament's campaign over the best part of fifteen years for legislation at a European level, for such a code of conduct first to be used by political parties in the run-up to the European elections in 1999.
<P>
Paragraph 6 mentions the new European Observatory - the Monitoring Centre set up in Vienna.
Beata Winckler, the Director of that Centre, is actually in the gallery listening to this debate.
I should like to thank her for the work she has already done as the new Director, and the Board of the Observatory, in particular Jean Kahn, who is still recovering from a stroke, for the work they have done in its establishment.
However, I have to say to them that we have high expectations of the Observatory.
We do not expect a dull, desiccated statistical report every year: what we want are reports on what action should be taken at local, regional, national and European levels to fight racism when it arises and to prevent its rise.
We want to use the observatory as a think-tank, to try to make sure that we bring forward the appropriate proposals.
<P>
Paragraph 7 mentions a European Network to monitor Racism and Xenophobia.
It is very important that the Observatory uses this.
We do not want them to reinvent the wheel: we want them to draw on the expertise already available in Community groups and other organisations in the 15 Member States of the Union.
<P>
Despite introducing Mr Elliott's resolution, I have to say that personally I have some doubts about paragraph 12, which calls for small local groups to be supported by the Commission.
It is important for small local groups to receive assistance, but maybe on the basis of subsidiarity this should come from regional and national organisations.
The bureaucratic problems of getting the Commission to reach down to small local groups are too difficult to overcome.
<P>
Paragraph 15 rightly mentions our demand that the applicant countries are required to guarantee the rights of minorities.
I have to say to the applicant countries that perhaps some of the justice and home affairs issues may be more of a barrier to membership than some of the discussions taking place on agriculture and the Structural Funds.
I think Parliament will be very resistant to allowing in Member States which do not respect the rights of minorities - whether they are ethnic, linguistic or religious - or, for that matter, people who have a different sexual orientation.
<P>
Finally, I plead for cross-European action at the policing level.
This is important.
I should like to give one example: currently there is a growth of racist music around Europe.
There is a band - if it can be called that - with the name 'No Remorse', which is short for 'No remorse for the Holocaust', whose latest CD is called 'Barbecue in Rostock', celebrating the petrol-bombing of immigrant hostels in Germany.
To my shame, it is a British group.
The CDs are produced in Denmark and Sweden and are sold on the streets of Germany and Spain.
If we are to tackle those problems, it is very important to tackle them at European level, because it is clearly a cross-country problem.
<P>
I commend Mr Elliott's resolution to the House.
I hope it will be supported when we vote tomorrow, because it is important that this House maintains the eternal vigilance necessary to ensure that the tragic events of 50 years ago are not repeated in the future.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=238 NAME="Oostlander">
Mr President, it is good that the Commission is continuing to work on the subject of 'Racism and xenophobia', especially now that this is no longer such a popular subject.
Politicians must continue to exert a positive influence on society's development, even if it is sometimes easier for them to win votes by appealing to feelings of fear and rejection in regard to certain electoral groups.
Another advantage of dealing with a subject of this nature is that it also allows us to take a good look at ourselves and not to avoid self-criticism.
This is why it is such an interesting subject.
<P>
The Commission's action plan is, however, somewhat disappointing as it is not an operational plan, but a strategic one.
We must nevertheless give it our blessing, which leads me to make the following points.
<P>
The European Commission rightly sees the fight against racism as a matter for society itself.
Action from above, at the political level, must be rooted in a variety of social initiatives.
The Commission names many organisations which could play a very significant role in this field and I share this view.
Unfortunately the text fails to mention one of the most important of these organisations, namely the churches and religious communities.
At the very time when membership of another faith, or even an exotic religious group, constitutes an extra challenge for integration, we should be talking about mosques, for example, their administration and the Muslim communities.
These too have a role to play in working with us to combat discrimination in our society.
<P>
Action taken by those discriminated against is also important.
They are all adults who can and must defend themselves and must try to deal with any problems within their own group, in particular when it concerns integration problems arising from poor knowledge of the language of the country they live in and of the local culture, and which can also in some cases be reflected in increased crime due to the lack of roots in this other society.
<P>
Above all we must hope that others too - including the groups directly concerned - contribute to the European Union's culture. This is an important point.
They are part of a long tradition, as Europe has always had a culture of openness and this is how it must remain.
<P>
The emphasis on society is also expressed in support for networks of anti-racist organisations, which are worth cofinancing.
Unfortunately, there is still an element in the text which could suggest 100 % financing, whereas this can actually be quite dangerous for networks of this kind as you are then unilaterally setting yourself up as the official source of the funding.
This can prove an obstacle to rooting these networks and their organisations in society itself.
The basis in society must always be the priority element, which is why it is important for them to be accountable to that society.
100 % state financing can be an obstacle to this.
<P>
These networks must therefore be primarily directed at society.
This is what is difficult.
I do not believe it is a good thing for us to subsidise lobby activities directed at the legislator, because as we are that legislator we must surely be best able to do the job ourselves, and also more democratically.
I have therefore made a further attempt to amend a corporatist element which has crept into the resolution and I believe there will be broad support for this.
<P>
The action plan rightly calls for the European Union to pursue a coherent policy in all sectors.
This applies, for example, to its own personnel policy, which must reflect our anti-racist convictions, and also in foreign policy where we must prevent or stop in their tracks racial hatred, political manipulation, ethnic disputes and genocide.
I do not believe we should shy away from criticism of our own foreign policy.
It is another sector of policy just like socio-economic policy and cultural policy and here too we must voice our criticism.
<P>
Yet in connection with this foreign policy the point must be made that the number of deaths which have resulted from a lack of vigilance in combating ethnic cleansing is of course unbelievable.
This is one of the most serious phenomena which the European Union has had to confront.
<P>
When enlarging the European Union the necessary attention must also be paid to this aspect of anti-racism and xenophobia, and in particular also anti-Semitism, as in some countries this evidently continues to thrive.
<P>
As long as discriminatory actions of this kind continue to exist in countries seeking Union membership, they can be seen as a measure of the extent to which a constitutional state has been established.
Discrimination, racial hatred and xenophobia are measures of the quality of such a constitutional state.
We must therefore pay careful attention to these phenomena, in present Member States and in applicant countries.
<P>
At the same time we must recognise that in some countries it is not at all easy to integrate certain minority groups.
Gypsies are of course a serious issue in various countries, including in regard to their willingness to integrate.
It would be a good idea to view this as a European issue too.
I would point out that we called for the European Union to conduct a study on this subject, specifically in Romania where there are so many minority groups and where many measures have been developed to study how wider integration can be achieved.
This deserves our greatest respect, particularly when we live in countries where these problems are not so troublesome.
<P>
Obviously there are various preventive actions worthy of mention in the socio-economic field, including housing, education and cultural policy.
Many initiatives were launched during the Year against Racism.
One of the most important practical measures was to set up the Monitoring Centre for Racism and Xenophobia in Vienna, whose director Beate Winckler is following our debate from the public gallery.
We greatly appreciate this as contact with the European Parliament is of course very important for her and for us.
<P>
Mr President, I hope that this subject will not get bogged down in considerations of political correctness and image-building.
These are serious matters with extremely practical consequences for the people who are the victims and for the European Union which is founded on anti-racism and cross-border solidarity.
<P>
Following ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam, if we are to avoid confusion we must adopt specific legislation for each type of group discriminated against and for each policy field.
I helped to develop anti-discrimination legislation in the Netherlands and have experience of these issues.
<P>
We must recognise that we are dealing here with a genuine European problem, but at the same time that our work can only be complementary as the crux of the matter lies with the Member States and their societies.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=239 NAME="Van Lancker">
Mr President, on behalf of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment I should like to focus on four concrete themes which are of particular importance in giving rather more practical content to this action plan.
Firstly, the opportunities for ethnic minorities to find employment.
Despite the deplorable lack of statistics on this aspect of the labour market it is clear that ethnic minorities face an exceptionally high level of discrimination.
Their high level of unemployment, poor prospects for promotion and precarious work situation cannot all be attributed to their lower level of education.
The European Union recently introduced instruments to take concrete steps to improve the situation by means of employment guidelines.
We are very pleased that the jumbo Council at the beginning of December followed the advice of Parliament and the Commission to pay special attention to discrimination against minorities in the national action plans.
We hope that the formulation can be further refined, with the addition of benchmarks and firm undertakings.
<P>
Secondly, the Union can further strengthen the strategy for equal opportunities by means of the Structural Funds and Community initiatives.
We in Parliament have always called for the European Social Fund to pay very clear attention to ethnic minorities.
We hope that the Council will support us in this and also that in future Community initiatives the Commission will also pay greater attention to non-discrimination.
<P>
Thirdly, anti-discrimination legislation on the basis of Article 13.
We hope that the Commission will now quickly come up with a proposal for a directive so that we can really act, if necessary by bringing a case before the European Court of Justice.
I know that this requires unanimity in the Council, but it would be scandalous and incomprehensible for the Member States to oppose legislation of this kind.
We expect the Commission to base its initiative very strongly on the experience already acquired with equal opportunities legislation for men and women, including everything relating to positive action, indirect discrimination and reversal of the burden of proof.
Only then can a directive be a good directive.
<P>
Finally, there is the role of the social partners.
European social dialogue would greatly boost its credibility if it agreed a code of conduct on non-discrimination at the work place.
I hope that the European Commission will quickly adapt its action plan to this effect.
I am curious to hear its proposals.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=240 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Heinisch">
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the establishment of the European Observatory for Racism and Xenophobia takes its place alongside the adoption of the anti-discrimination clause in the Amsterdam Treaty as another success in the fight against racism.
The observatory will be of great assistance to us, since the data it collects will give us a clearer picture of the nature and extent of racism and xenophobia.
Comparisons between Member States will also become possible.
Better information makes for greater effectiveness in the fight against racism.
<P>
The Commission's plan of action contains sound measures, such as the promotion of cooperation and partnership at all levels and the development of a mainstreaming approach.
I believe that the promotion of pilot projects and networks is particularly important as a means of encouraging active experience-sharing.
There is a need for innovative anti-racism projects.
Nevertheless, I agree with Mr Oostlander that the plan of action still suffers from a shortage of specific detailed proposals.
The development of hostile attitudes must be counteracted from an early stage in the education process.
Parents and teachers bear a great responsibility here.
During the years I spent working with parents, I always tried to encourage better mutual understanding of different cultures in kindergartens and schools.
Intercultural lessons, projects undertaken by schoolchildren and the active involvement of parents help to nurture the growth of a tolerant intercultural society.
I shall continue to dedicate myself to that aim.
<P>
At the European Conference on Article 13 of the Amsterdam Treaty, which I attended in Vienna at the beginning of December, we were explicitly warned against overlooking the threat to Europe from racism and xenophobia.
Both phenomena, it was said, had become increasingly widespread, but the priority given to the efforts to suppress them did not reflect the seriousness of the threat they posed.
The persistence and pervasiveness of racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism in Europe are alarming and make it increasingly clear that action on a European scale is urgently needed.
This means that early ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty is essential, since the Treaty must enter into force before draft legislation for the suppression of racial discrimination can be introduced.
<P>
Finally, we can but hope that we succeed in the course of the coming century in creating a continent in which racism can no longer take root.
This remains a vital issue for the future of Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=241 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Mr President, the rapporteur is right in saying that the Commission's action plan is not specific enough.
However, I wonder if we should not be taking a closer look at our own positions when we discuss racism.
We are very quick to condemn it, but I should like to point out that, in some cases, our actions have been quite different.
Let us take for example the Schaffner report, on which we voted today: no doubt there are many Members of Parliament who, for fear of provoking xenophobia, have been unwilling to give voting rights to immigrants.
Furthermore, there have been many instances when we have not given the necessary authorisation to enable citizens of third countries who are legally present in the EU to move around freely.
We have not been very successful in this respect, nor in giving a hearing to the proposal drawn up by Simone Veil's group, which also relates to citizens of third countries.
This represents a serious failure on the part of Parliament.
<P>
With regard to the reference made by the rapporteur in paragraph 8 of the Oostlander report, the Charter of European political parties for a non-racist society is not receiving the support it deserves either at European level or in Member States.
At European level, only the European Parliament through its President and the ELDR Group have signed the Charter, despite the fact that it has been open for signature since February 1998.
Why are all the other European parties taking so long?
<P>
I am delighted that Mr Oostlander focuses so much attention on the situation of gypsies, not just in the Member States, but also in Central and Eastern Europe.
It should be regarded as a matter of serious concern, both in our dealings with the applicant countries and in relation to our own policies on asylum and refugees.
There are many situations where they are greatly in need of protection.
<P>
Finally, I was very glad to note that, by a sizeable majority, Parliament today endorsed a call for all countries to sign the Council of Europe's charter on regional and minority languages.
I believe this is the first time that anything has been done about a matter which urgently needs our attention.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=242 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Mohamed Alí">
Madam President, I shall not need all the time at my disposal because much of what I had to say has already been mentioned, and indeed made fairly clear.
<P>
We have before us today a Commission communication on the action plan against racism.
Unfortunately, we must admit that action such as this is essential. Racism and xenophobia are experienced every day, in both our public and our private lives.
I therefore feel we must keep up a constant fight against such attitudes. We must tackle them at their root, wherever they are born, nurtured and developed.
<P>
As I have said on previous occasions, we must combat racism in the field of social relationships. The authorities must constantly encourage cross-cultural relations, factual knowledge of other minority cultures and links with them.
This will certainly result in social and cultural enrichment, and will never represent a threat to the integrity of the state. What is at issue is learning to truly live together, rather than merely coexisting.
<P>
In addition, we must maintain our criticism of the foreign policy of the European Union and its Member States, not that it is always easy to detect such a policy. All too often, it is governed by ethnic prejudices, as in the case of Bosnia and Albania for example, and not by a true spirit of cooperation and development that is independent from the purely economic aspect.
<P>
In addition to these general provisions, which should form the basis of any policy implemented within the European Union, we should not overlook the importance of specific measures that help to eliminate racial discrimination.
Positive discrimination must be encouraged in order to facilitate the integration of ethnic and cultural minorities.
The experience gained from positive discrimination in favour of women must be applied to other groups affected by structural discrimination.
<P>
Turning to another issue, I would like to take this opportunity to condemn here, in the strongest possible terms, the constant infringement of human rights that is still taking place in police stations when additional information on a crime is being determined. An example of this is where a crime is linked to a cultural or religious affiliation.
It is not unusual for tendentious and openly racist and discriminatory remarks such as 'Arab appearance', 'Muslim appearance', 'North African appearance' to feature in press releases or police reports.
<P>
This represents a clear violation of fundamental rights and an attack on the dignity of individuals. No means should therefore be spared in combating this.
Consequently, it is absolutely essential to make the legal services that exist under the rule of law available to all citizens as they strive to combat racism and xenophobia. European, national and public institutions should take positive action to spread information on the mechanisms available to bring legal action against practices of this sort.
The necessary economic support should also be guaranteed and promoted for this purpose.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=243 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Ceyhun">
Madam President, as a new Member of Parliament, I had a compilation put together of the debates that have taken place in the House on xenophobia and racism.
Since the French Front National first entered Parliament, the House has had to discuss this issue many times.
The report of the first committee of inquiry on the subject dates from 1985.
A second committee of inquiry was convened in 1989 because of the arrival of the German Republicans in the European Parliament.
<P>
We must continue to examine this problem, even though it has already been the subject of two quite thorough analyses.
Parties headed by gentlemen such as Le Pen, Haider and Frey are scoring considerable electoral successes in France, Austria and Germany today.
Sadly, in recent years xenophobic and racist crimes have claimed several victims in Europe.
Not until Amsterdam did the Member States respond to the repeated demands and reports they had been receiving from Parliament.
Unfortunately, we have wasted a great deal of time since Maastricht. Be that as it may, we should now draw the necessary conclusions and flesh out the new legal basis for the fight against all forms of discrimination and racism in the European Union.
<P>
A policy of equal rights is essential if we are to overcome xenophobia and racism.
For that reason, plans of action to combat racism are not enough.
Harmonisation of the various laws in the Member States against xenophobia and racism should be our next objective.
That is the only way in which we can create the conditions for all Europeans to live together in peace and equality.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=244 NAME="Hudghton">
Madam President, like the previous speaker I am a new Member in this House but I had the privilege of representing the Committee of the Regions and speaking at an anti-racism seminar earlier this year in Brussels.
I welcome the Oostlander report and this latest debate and demonstration of support by the European Parliament to combat racism.
As MEPs we have a responsibility to promote respect for cultural diversity and human dignity but xenophobia and racism is present, regrettably, to varying degrees in all our Member States.
<P>
In June 1997 the Committee of the Regions adopted an opinion on this subject, concluding that 'The only way serious progress can be made in addressing the problems of racism, xenophobia and anti-semitism is initially through the common acceptance that they exist'.
We and our fellow politicians at all levels must therefore not be afraid to admit that problems exist in our localities if we are to devise and implement meaningful measures to combat racism.
<P>
Article F(1) of the Amsterdam Treaty has introduced the possibility of denying the vote of a Member State guilty of human rights violations.
This is a clear signal that Europe is no longer willing to put up with the human rights abuses which can result in discriminatory practices and racism.
All governments at Member State, regional and local levels have a responsibility to promote and develop strategies for achieving social inclusion in its widest sense through local initiatives and partnerships.
<P>
My experience in Scottish local government has taught me how important this work is at all levels.
One positive example of local government initiatives is in my own constituency through participation in the Tayside Racial Equality Council.
Such councils can operate alongside and complement voluntary and statutory bodies and I believe it is essential that we advance the independent work of voluntary organisations and encourage cooperation between national and local government actions, together with the work of civil society.
<P>
This afternoon the debate has been positive and the speeches before mine have demonstrated that this House is clearly committed to confronting the problem of racism.
But recognition needs action and we need to do more than to talk.
An aspect which is all too often overlooked is the need to tackle many of the social and cultural problems which are the root causes of racism in our societies.
These are major stumbling blocks and it will take a lot of substantive action if these underlying problems are to be successfully tackled.
<P>
One of the most important ways in which we can work towards the elimination of racism is through education which must be regarded as one of the most important avenues to be utilised in reducing and, in the long term, eliminating racism.
This has to be carried out at all levels but in particular at grassroots level.
Moreover, it is imperative if education is effectively to fight discrimination and racism that there be a proper flow of information.
As part of this the Vienna Observatory should be given stronger powers and we as elected politicians should be regularly informed of developments and studies in order that we can properly guide our efforts across Europe.
<P>
My party is against the parochial approaches demonstrated by some Member States during last week's Council Summit.
Cooperation and mutual understanding between all states are prerequisites if we are to have any hope of effectively combating racism.
This will not be done if we forsake these goals to promote inward-looking aims.
Europe needs an inclusive, outward-looking approach if racism is to be combated.
I welcome the thrust of the Action Plan and this report and the proposed resolution.
I hope sincerely that at all levels we can create tangible proposals which can realistically result in some meaningful progress in this battle.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=245 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Madam President, I am concerned and horrified by the increased signs of nationalism, and I am convinced that every effort must be made to combat it.
An action plan against racism could be useful here.
But it is my belief that the best way of combating racism is at local and national level.
The different situations encountered at local, regional and national level require a response which is firmly focused on the specific situation.
Of course I accept that the phenomena of racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism are not confined to national borders.
Europe's Member States must therefore cooperate and increase their citizens' awareness by exchanging information and experiences.
The Council of Europe can play an effective role as an umbrella organisation in this, as indeed it has done over recent years.
<P>
In 1995 Mr Oostlander, the rapporteur, had completely different ideas about the level at which racism must be combated.
At a round table conference on the subject at the time, he said that each country could combat racism in its own way, citing the principle of subsidiarity.
At the time he saw a guide to combating racism as coming at a national rather than European level.
Little remains of this view in this resolution.
What I find hardest to accept are the proposals leading to new European legislation.
Invoking Article 13 of the EC Treaty as amended in the Treaty of Amsterdam, the rapporteur urges the Commission to draw up a directive against racial discrimination.
But the article in question speaks of appropriate measures.
Appropriate measures do not automatically imply a directive.
Furthermore, in my view Article 13 is seen as a kind of constitutional article at European level as it is always used as a point of departure.
<P>
Given the way the article is formulated I do not believe this can be the case.
I do not believe we need a European constitution.
All the Member States have already signed the European Treaty on human rights and have their own constitution.
<P>
Madam President, it is very necessary to combat racism.
I sincerely support every effort made in this connection at national and international level.
But I believe it is going too far to enact European legislation in this area.
When the vote is taken on the paragraphs relating to legislation in the resolution I shall unfortunately be obliged to abstain.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=246 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Formentini">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I too must emphasise that the proposals put forward by the Commission in its action plan are correct but inadequate.
In actual fact this phenomenon must be tackled above all by eradicating it at source.
<P>
Probably racism is not so virulent today, but xenophobia certainly is.
This is partly because our populations will not put up with migratory flows which have a disastrous effect on their standard of living.
The European Community must therefore become far more proactive in this area.
In my opinion, for example, whereas the Member States should keep a watchful eye on immigration as it occurs, the Community should take initiatives such as organising entry into our territory for those who deserve it and have a genuine claim, whereas those not meeting these requirements should be challenged.
I say so because, otherwise, a form of resistance will develop among the general public and could erupt into outbursts of intolerance against individuals.
So an extremely resolute approach is required: it is no longer enough to let ourselves be overtaken by events; we must attempt to govern such events.
<P>
It is highly likely that the popular consciousness of today has been inoculated against the phenomena of the past.
To be inoculated, however, is probably not enough.
Action is required too, and some action on the Community's part would certainly be commendable in this context.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=247 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Mann, Thomas">
Madam President, what is the cause of everyday racism, of the widespread xenophobia that is sometimes concealed and sometimes openly flaunted?
Is it the cut-throat competition for jobs, is it particular hotbeds of crime, is it dangerous residential environments?
Why do so many people turn a blind eye when attacks take place?
Why do so many tolerate acts of racial violence by gangs?
My speaking time does not allow me to give precise answers, but I do think the Member States would do well to analyse the symptoms, and so would we in Europe.
<P>
Under Article K.1 of the Treaty on European Union, as amended by the Treaty of Amsterdam, the prevention and suppression of racism and xenophobia fall within the competence of the EU.
In the Commission's plan of action, which the PPE Group endorses, as Arie Oostlander's excellent report made clear, discrimination based on race, origin and creed is to be combated more effectively by means of practicable measures.
Pilot projects are to be supported, new networks created and better links established between existing networks, with the proviso that the affected groups must be actively involved.
The Commission should draw up a proposal for a directive against racial discrimination.
One of the articles in the directive should be entirely devoted to the area of social policy and employment, because the effects of racist thinking are felt at the workplace too, as Sue Waddington explains in her persuasive opinion, which the PPE members in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs were able to endorse.
<P>
Attempts to integrate ethnic minorities into the labour market have met with varying degrees of success.
In their national plans of action, some Member States propose support measures, while in others even freedom of movement is restricted.
To my mind, there are three important requirements.
Firstly, young people in schools, but young workers too, should be encouraged to assume responsibilities in the fight against xenophobia.
Secondly, an anti-discriminatory code of conduct for workplaces should be drawn up together with management and labour.
We can contribute a great many of our own experiences from the Member States.
Thirdly, we should make every effort to ensure that the initiatives implemented in the framework of the European Social Fund, including ADAPT and NOW, YOUTH, START and URBAN, as well as parts of our EU programmes Leonardo da Vinci, Youth for Europe and Socrates, can be pooled in such a way that they can contribute effectively to the necessary fight against racism.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=248 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Nordmann">
Madam President, I agree with Mr Ford's remarks, and in doing so wish in particular to pay homage to the work of the various parliamentary committees of our Parliament and the consultative committee chaired by Jean Kahn.
To such work do we owe a decade of progress in the fight against racism and xenophobia in the day-to-day business of the European Union, as well as the inclusion of that fight in the constitutional principles of the Union.
On that score the Treaty of Amsterdam represents progress worthy of acclaim.
<P>
The fight against racism is founded on equality of individual rights, on separation of the public and private spheres, on the fact that no barrier arising from individuals' origins should stand in the way of their advancement.
Secularism, as practised by some states, is definitely the philosophical bedrock most likely to guarantee equality and the fight against discrimination.
<P>
That ought to make us take great care when it comes to positive discrimination, because within it lurks the risk of tribalism and confinement of individuals inside their groups of origin.
It can lead to absurdities such as paragraph 13 of Mr Oostlander's report, which calls on the Commission to 'submit to the Council and to Parliament a communication on the policy it is pursuing to ensure reasonable representation of racial and ethnic minority groups in its own staff'.
<P>
Madam President, imagine the problems if, one day, an able and qualified person were to be prevented from entering the process of recruitment to the Commission staff because there were already too many Jews or too many blacks or not enough blacks.
Positive discrimination is absurd.
Individual rights must be recognised and the fight against racism and xenophobia must not be used to confine individuals to ghettos of origin.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=249 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Novo">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I shall not try to analyse those issues on which there is general agreement and which others have already touched upon, such as the general nature of the action plan or the limited innovations it contains, the need to launch projects based on genuine and diverse partnerships, the urgent need for an overarching vision of the fight against racism, the need for education starting at school, the urgent need for awareness-raising and information campaigns, or, lastly, the need to evaluate legislative progress made at Member State level or the urgency of guaranteeing proper legal support for victims.
<P>
The specific measures advocated in terms of employment, better utilisation of the European Social Fund and a change in housing policy so as to prevent ghettos are all clearly very important. However, they may be of limited effectiveness given that recent studies have confirmed an alarming and highly significant xenophobic attitude, even amongst the people of Europe.
<P>
This situation could deteriorate further if we do not recognise that underlying these attitudes are neo-liberal economic policies which give rise to instability, unemployment, marginalisation and poverty. These are objective phenomena which lead to the proliferation of racism and xenophobia.
To my mind, this question was not covered in the report and this represents a wasted opportunity to identify the real scale of the problem and to attack or defend changes in policies which actually give rise to the underlying causes of xenophobia and racism.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=250 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wolf">
Madam President, I believe Thomas Mann asked the very question that needs to be asked here: what causes racism?
To that I would add a second question, which has also just been raised.
It was asserted that we had made great progress in combating racism.
I believe a great deal more caution is called for, because racism itself has developed.
It undoubtedly remains extremely dangerous. There is still racial violence on our streets.
Has it somehow been reduced?
Well, it may be that statistics from an individual country have gone down, but crime statistics depend to an extent on how the number of unreported cases is estimated.
In other words, we really do have to ask ourselves why this problem has reached such epidemic proportions in our European Union.
<P>
I believe this actually leads us to ask two more questions.
Is there a connection with mass unemployment, with the policy of diminishing solidarity and fiercer competition that we have been pursuing for the past 15 to 20 years?
Is there a connection with European history - European history as the history of the colonies, as the history of Europe's imperialist pretensions, and European history as the history of this century?
The history of the German wars, of German racism in Europe?
I believe that unless we remember and carefully examine that history, we shall keep falling into the same trap of adopting a host of minor piecemeal measures which do nothing to solve the problem.
We must not do that!
It is our duty to remember, and it is our duty to get to grips with our problems.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=251 NAME="Paisley">
Madam President, your predecessor in the chair wished the Members a happy Christmas.
Christmas is a time when the young people and children should have peace.
This House is under the great delusion that we have peace in Northern Ireland.
But we do not have peace in Northern Ireland.
<P>
There is a body in Northern Ireland which is government -sponsored and -financed.
It is called FAIT Families Against Intimidation and Terror.
They issued their report recently, which is a staggering one.
From the day that the Belfast Agreement was signed until now - I am sorry I have not time to read out this report, but it tells us that last month alone 95 children were intimidated, aged from 3 months to 18 years.
They tell us that they have had families exiled from their homes and driven out of the Province altogether.
There have been serious beatings - people beaten with hatchets and hammers; altogether they report 150 such incidents in the month of November. These are across the board.
The Loyalist Paramilitaries, the UVF, the UDA and the Republican Paramilitaries, the IRA are all at this.
Why?
Because we have had accelerated prisoner releases; and this body has identified that, on the streets of Belfast, orchestrating these beatings, are those that have been released under this scheme that was supposed to bring us peace.
<P>
The time has come when the Government and this House have to face up to the reality.
I wish I could say that the boys and girls of my country would have a happy Christmas; but I know that some of them will be the target of these terrorists.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=252 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Habsburg-Lothringen">
Madam President, a great deal has already been said about these reports, especially about Mr Oostlander's report.
He too regretted that insufficient progress was probably being made in the fight against racism and xenophobia.
We should not forget, however, that measures can actually be taken in every domain of our activity in the European Parliament to curb these appalling tendencies.
I believe there is one section in particular in Mr Oostlander's report - the section in which he deals with foreign policy measures - which is extremely important.
As you know, in our immediate neighbourhood we have a country to which we have been devoting much of our attention recently; we have talked a lot about helping that country. It is a country in which racism is so rampant at the moment as to be scarcely imaginable.
That country is Russia.
Unfortunately, we do far too little reporting on it here. Yet there are innumerable cases that could be discussed.
<P>
At the last part-session here in Parliament, one of the topical and urgent subjects we dealt with related to General Makashov, who is a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, who based part of his election campaign on the slogan 'Kill all Jews!', who is a member of the Duma and who has never been properly taken to task - as he should have been - for his statements in the Duma.
I find this immensely disquieting when I think that there are minorities in Russia of which many of us have probably never even heard.
Please allow me to highlight one or two of them, because I simply believe it is important to speak about these things here.
<P>
One of the examples is the Jewish minority - and I have mentioned them specifically because of General Makashov's remarks - who still live today in the so-called autonomous Jewish province.
They were resettled there, forcibly in some cases, in 1927 and in the early thirties.
The area where these people live today is known as Birobidzhan or Yevreyskaya - Hebrew - Autonomous Province, on the north bank of the River Amur.
Writers of that time said of the province that it was so bleak and its climate so inhospitable that before the many thousands of Jews were settled there, the entire area of 36 000 square kilometres had only had 1 192 inhabitants - Koreans, Kazakhs and a few Evenki, whose numbers were constantly dwindling because they could barely eke out a living in the harsh climate.
Even today some of the original Jewish deportees still live there, and the main local magazine is one that is still published in Yiddish.
I believe that, especially at a time like this when someone such as General Makashov is making remarks of that sort, we must not forget people like the Birobidzhan Jews, who live in such a remote place and whose existence is truly threatened.
<P>
I should like to add a second brief point.
This same Russia that allows such things to happen has uprooted other peoples too, not least the Chechens, who have been completely uprooted twice in the last 150 years.
Russia drove them right out of their land, but they kept coming back, and the legacy of that can be seen today.
So our foreign policy is certainly one channel through which we really can take action against this entrenched racism.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=253 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ryynänen">
Madam President, although in the European Union and especially here in Parliament resolutions have been repeatedly formulated and reports repeatedly approved on preventing racism and xenophobia, there has unfortunately been very little real progress, if any, as previous speakers have pointed out.
So it is high time we acted more decisively and effectively at both national and EU levels to prevent discrimination and increase tolerance.
For that reason Mr Oostlander's report and the Commission's plan of action are very welcome as are the plans for legislation following ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
<P>
The prevention of racism has to be an integral part of the Union's other policies including external relations and preparation for membership for applicant countries.
I agree with the rapporteur that one single commissioner must be responsible for coordinating anti-racism measures, however.
Similarly I would emphasise, as the rapporteur does, that information and communications are a priority in the strategic fight against racism.
Information must get to the various agencies in specific form.
Anti-racist action must involve all players, in a spirit of very broad partnership.
Many voluntary organisations and their networks are dynamic and creative, and they are really worth supporting in their efforts to promote tolerance.
<P>
I believe too little attention has been paid to the immense importance of the European Union educational and youth programmes, when they are at their best, in increasing mutual knowledge and understanding and thus dispelling xenophobia.
As we are now revising these programmes it is important to give emphasis to the importance of interaction and tolerance when the programmes are being implemented.
In my opinion, the Council should support Parliament in its greater efforts to give more young people the opportunity to participate in these programmes, because personal experience, through exchange programmes, for example, is the most effective way to overcome prejudice and promotes the view that differences enrich our lives.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=254 LANGUAGE="EL" NAME="Papayannakis">
Madam President, I too would like to applaud the Commission's intention to legislate against racism, and mainly to echo what I heard from Mr Ford and Mr Oostlander.
Let me simply stress two points among those I have referred to, the first of which relates to enlargement.
I think that as part of this effort by the Commission - and by ourselves - particular care should be taken, as we prepare for enlargement, to ensure that during the pre-accession period a serious effort will be made to reduce the problems of racism, xenophobia and other such phenomena in the countries that are applicants for accession, so that we will not later be importing into the Union problems with which we are already familiar, either from refugees coming from those countries or in our own countries.
For example, in Greece we have problems with gypsies and we do not need to import more problems concerning gypsies coming from the Czech Republic and other applicant countries.
I would like to put particular emphasis on that.
<P>
A second problem is the Commissioner: I also wish to stress that so far responsibilities between Commissioners have been shared out on the basis of economic considerations or, if you will, in accordance with the Union's original nature.
The Union is necessarily becoming an increasingly political and social entity.
I think that if we want a serious policy against racism, there must be what our English friends call 'follow-up', in other words continual monitoring, with a Commissioner acting as the 'minister' for monitoring the implementation of anti-racism legislation.
I think that would prove very effective indeed, more so than anything I have heard from the speakers so far.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=255 LANGUAGE="IT" NAME="Amadeo">
Madam President, this discussion follows hard on the heels of the debate on human rights and coincides with the celebrations to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the solemn Universal Declaration of these rights, which came into being with the French Revolution and evolved in step with our civilisation.
<P>
Amidst the momentous changes affecting contemporary society, there is one spectre hovering over Europe which could have undesirable consequences if not properly handled: globalisation.
This development, which both attracts and appals Europe, despite the wealth and diversity of its traditions, movements and languages, could give rise - and in many cases already has done - to a fear of what is different and unknown, increasing the incidence of racism and xenophobia. If these are to be overcome once and for all, there is a need on the one hand for a general awareness-raising campaign to make our citizens better informed and, on the other, a major effort to consolidate our culture and underline the value of our European identity.
<P>
Therefore, rather than rehearsing here the content of the action plan against racism, of which we are critical, a plan which says very little of substance even concerning its proposed aims or the intended funding, it would be preferable for the Member States to support the battle - now well under way - against racial discrimination, fostering the acceptance of minority groups through a series of political and educational initiatives in respect of employment, education, health, social security, the right to housing and public and private services.
<P>
At a time when European society is opening up to new needs and requirements, we can fight and conquer racial discrimination, racism and the fear of what is different, as long as we teach our children that it is not enough to be European merely through our citizenship of this or that European country, but that one becomes European by learning to respect diversity, a value which does the greatest credit to this old continent of ours.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=256 NAME="Cushnahan">
Madam President, I wish to begin by responding to the remarks of Mr Paisley.
As a former politician in Northern Ireland, let me say that I fundamentally disagree with his conclusions about the peace process.
It is the best chance that Northern Ireland has for resolving its major differences and establishing a permanent peace.
However, having disagreed with him in his fundamental approach, I support his remarks about the statements made by FAIT - a cross-community organisation and one in which my own brother is involved - that reports on the terrible activities that continue to be carried out by paramilitary organisations.
I regret that there is a deafening silence from officialdom in Northern Ireland on the activities of paramilitaries, especially in relation to intimidation, punishment beatings and so on.
We should not ignore them
<P>
I turn to the report.
In the wake of the Amsterdam Treaty, it is important to strengthen our fight against racism and xenophobia.
I, therefore, welcome both these reports and, in particular, I support Mr Oostlander's conclusions that the Commission's plan is heavy on rhetoric but light on concrete action.
I support his proposal for political and educational initiatives to assist the acceptance of minority groups in the societies of Member States.
Every Member State needs this, including my own, where I regret the growth of racism and xenophobia, especially against refugees.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=257 NAME="Pinheiro">
I should like, first of all, to underline the work that has been done by the European Parliament in 1998 and many of the preceding years in combating racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism inside and outside the European Union.
We have made good progress in 1998 in our joint efforts to continue to raise the profile of the European fight against racism.
Allow me to underline some of the main highlights of the year.
<P>
In March the Commission presented its action plan against racism; in October the European Network against Racism.
In 1998 the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia also began work.
Also, the Commission has been working intensively this year to prepare the ground for the entry into force of Article 13 of the new Treaty.
Just two weeks ago an important conference was held in Vienna.
At this conference Commissioner Flynn confirmed his intention to present immediately after ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam, a package of anti-discrimination proposals including a framework directive dealing in a general way with all kinds of discrimination in employment, a directive dealing specifically with racial discrimination and an anti-discrimination action plan, which will have the objective of strengthening cooperation with Member States and civil society with a particular accent on building partnerships and networking and on deepening knowledge and spreading best practice to every part of the Union.
<P>
Finally, in the context of mainstreaming advocated by the Commission in its action plan, I emphasise that the 1999 guidelines for Member States' employment policies, which were proposed in October and endorsed last weekend at the Vienna Summit, call for a labour market open to all and contain an explicit reference to the need to address the particular labour market difficulties faced by ethnic minorities.
Linked to this will be our proposals to be presented next year for a new Community initiative as part of the structural fund reform.
What is planned is a new initiative for human resources focusing on transnational cooperation and combating discrimination and inequality in the labour market.
<P>
1998 has been an important year of preparation and consultation in the fight against racism.
Building on this work, the Commission is greatly looking forward to presenting legislative proposals to combat racial discrimination in 1999.
We hope to continue to benefit from your support.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=258 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Pinheiro.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=10>
Transport of dangerous goods on inland waterways
<SPEAKER ID=259 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0435/98) by Mr McMahon, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Directive on the approximation of the laws of the Member States with regard to the transport of dangerous goods by vessels on inland waterways (COM(97)0367 - C4-0449/97-97/0193(SYN)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=260 NAME="McMahon">
Madam President, this report concerns the transport of dangerous goods on the Rhine and the Danube.
At the moment the Commission is involved in discussions with the Rhine Commission and with the other Member States in Geneva as part of an international agreement.
The purpose of the legislation which we have before us this evening is to align the national and international rules on the transport of dangerous goods by inland waterways with the similar legislation for road and rail.
<P>
My report goes into some detail on the use and operation of inland waterways but I should like to focus on several of the main aspects concerning the regimes governing the operation of this mode of transport.
Currently only the River Rhine enforces binding international rules for inland waterways.
It is apposite that we should be having this debate in Strasbourg as the Rhine, one of the main arteries of Europe, flows through the city of Strasbourg.
The Central Commission for the navigation of the Rhine was founded way back in 1818 - indeed, it was the first trans-national body within the European Union - and it is a model for intergovernmental cooperation.
<P>
I visited the Rhine Commission in their palatial building, the former palace of the Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm shortly after the unification of Germany in 1871. I was pleasantly surprised to learn of the rules and regulations by which the Rhine Commission operates.
Last part-session I took the opportunity to take a trip on one of the barges carrying petroleum and natural gas.
On this subject, the Committee on Transport and Tourism had a very successful hearing when it involved not just the Rhine Commission but its counterpart on the Danube.
The success of the Rhine in this mode of transport was a recurring theme of the hearing in Brussels.
The clear message given is that the Rhine Commission has good legislation.
Therefore, we should build on the Rhine Commission rules and what it calls the ADNR for the future.
<P>
Currently the Commission is negotiating a revision of the rules governing inland waterway transport.
In my opinion the recommendations at Geneva are insufficient and should be similar to the rules which currently apply for the Rhine.
The Commission proposal for a final agreement is still under negotiation and it is true that it will take some time.
It believes this should apply to all inland waterways, not just the Rhine and the Danube but others in Eastern Europe.
This is practical and worthwhile but because the Rhine Commission is the world leader in this field, I believe it should be its legislation which should prevail.
It is my view that when the new ADN Agreement is finally agreed and aligned with the current Rhine proposals, only then will it be possible to provide a coherent, practical and operational set of rules.
We must maintain the success of the Rhine in our attempts to harmonise standards throughout the Community and beyond.
<P>
Several amendments were tabled to the report which reinforce this idea.
I was pleased to support the ideas that Mrs Langenhagen put forward.
I understand that the Commission is not entirely happy with the reference to a transitional period.
It is important that we have a transitional period until we get the final legislation agreed.
I would welcome any comments that the Commission might have when it replies to my report.
I do not think there are insurmountable difficulties in this opinion.
Indeed, the Transport Committee was unanimous in fully supporting it.
I do not think any amendments have been tabled by Members.
The committee held several interesting exchanges and I have endeavoured to incorporate all these points of view in the formulation of this report.
<P>
These are the main points I wanted to make.
I shall listen to the debate with interest and welcome the comments of the few Members who are enthusiasts for the transport of goods by inland waterways.
It is a growing market.
Indeed, the town of Strasbourg and in particular its harbour has undergone considerable expansion.
Inland waterways are a good method of transporting goods cheaply and environmentally safely, in particular for dangerous cargoes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=261 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Langenhagen">
Madam President, the purpose of the Commission proposal before us is to create uniform EU provisions for the transport of dangerous goods on inland waterways by means of a framework directive, as we have just heard, and I should like to endorse everything that Mr McMahon has said. The creation of new uniform EU provisions is necessary, and it would be gratifying if a set of rules could finally be adopted.
Two instruments with limited legal effect have hitherto been used to regulate the transport of dangerous goods by inland waterway.
The first is the Recommendation on the International Transport of Dangerous Goods on Inland Waterways. This was issued by the UN Economic Commission for Europe and relates only to the transport of dangerous goods between Member States and not to transport within the confines of one country.
As we heard, negotiations are taking place in Geneva at the present time with a view to converting this international recommendation into a formal agreement.
<P>
The second instrument, which applies to the most important waterway in Europe, the river on Strasbourg's doorstep, is the Order concerning the Transport of Dangerous Goods on the Rhine, enacted by the Central Commission for the Navigation of the Rhine.
Progress towards greater uniformity involves selecting one of three options.
The first option would be for us to adopt the Commission proposal as it stands, with all its shortcomings.
This is not a satisfactory option.
<P>
The second option would be to hold the Commission proposal in abeyance until the end of the negotiations on an international agreement to replace the present recommendation.
The third option, which I have put forward, entails the creation of a transitional arrangement. This is how it would work: during the period until the entry into force of the international agreement, progress must be made in the EU on the harmonisation of national legislation, because the international agreement cannot be expected to enter into force for the next three years - and that is a very conservative estimate.
<P>
The harmonisation basis used in the EU framework directive would be the annexes to the Rhine Order with its high technical quality.
These are already the reference basis for the currently applicable legislation in several EU Member States.
Once the new international agreement has entered into force, the Commission will submit a new draft directive to us.
The transitional period would have a number of advantages, one of them being that it overcomes the situation in which two sets of rules apply concurrently, namely the international recommendation and the Rhine Order, thereby eliminating the need for skippers to carry two certificates - a Rhine certificate and a Community certificate.
<P>
The transitional arrangement is a means of fully coordinating the two existing sets of regulatory instruments, which is why I ask for your support for the report and the amendments, which were adopted unanimously by the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=262 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Stenmarck">
Madam President, first of all let me thank the rapporteur, Mr McMahon, for the sterling work he has put in on this report.
<P>
During the past year, the EU has worked hard to make the transport of dangerous goods safer.
It is a vitally important task, partly because the dangerous nature of the goods means that they require very careful handling, and partly because of the major implications in terms of achieving an internal market that works efficiently.
This presupposes that different countries apply the same rules in various areas to ensure that border crossings are accomplished smoothly, otherwise there will be serious border-related problems for many years to come.
<P>
In the case of inland waterways, this is to be done in the short term by applying the Rhine Convention, sometimes called the ADNR Agreement, which was introduced in 1972 and revised in 1985. At the moment, traffic on the Rhine is subject to its rules, but now its scope is to be significantly extended.
Future negotiations will lead to it being superseded by the AND Agreement.
<P>
In the course of many discussions here in the House and in the Committee on Transport, we have raised the issue of introducing rules that could also be applied in the case of applicant countries, in other words those which are not yet members, but which we hope will become EU Member States in the future.
We have also made it a requirement that these rules should apply only to traffic to or from a third country.
I have received assurances on this point from Commissioner Kinnock and others.
<P>
The same requirements that apply to road, rail and sea traffic are now being extended to inland waterways.
One of the requirements laid down in the pre-accession negotiations is that applicant countries should make the adjustments that are necessary to achieve the same level of safety as that obtaining in the Member States.
I think this is a very constructive move, since as a result, transport in a far larger area of Europe will be much safer than in the past.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=263 NAME="Cushnahan">
Madam President, I support the intention behind the directive.
It is important to harmonise national and international rules relating to the transport of goods by inland waterways, as we have done in the area of transporting by road and rail.
It is important to do this both in terms of guaranteeing safety and of ensuring fair competition.
<P>
However, I would like to strongly support the rapporteur.
Mr McMahon is absolutely right in expressing his concern about the multiplicity of certificates that will be required. This will lead to unnecessary triplication rather than duplication, an increase in bureaucracy and, more worryingly, confusion.
I would therefore like to support his amendments, which are intended to reconcile the different approaches.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=264 NAME="Pinheiro">
I should like to thank the Committee on Transport and Tourism and, in particular, the rapporteur, Mr McMahon, for his very useful contribution to the improvement of the Commission's proposal on the transport of dangerous goods by inland waterways.
<P>
The Commission can accept the main conclusion of Mr McMahon's report which is that the Community legislation has to be based on the future ADN Agreement.
How we get there, however, is where we do not agree.
Whereas in his report Mr McMahon considers that a transitional solution based on the Rhine Agreement is necessary, the Commission believes that this is impractical and indeed unhelpful.
The ADN Agreement could be ready in 2000 which in all likelihood would be well before any implementation by Member States of a transitional solution as suggested.
<P>
Of course - and it was raised - the Commission can guarantee that the future ADN Agreement will achieve the same level of safety as the Rhine Agreement because Annex I of the future ADN Agreement will be in line with the Rhine requirements.
In order to guarantee in the future that the adaptation to the technical progress of Annex I of the ADN Agreement - and also of the directive - is in line with the Rhine requirements, the Commission could accept an explicit reference in Article 8.
<P>
Consequently Amendments Nos 2, 3, 7, and 8 should be rejected since they introduce a transitional solution and require a new directive for implementing the future ADN Agreement.
However, I am pleased to say that the Commission is able to accept the other amendments, namely Amendments Nos 1 and 6 and, in spirit, Amendments Nos 4 and 5 since these have as their objective the Community-wide application of the ADN Agreement.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=265 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Pinheiro.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=11>
Better law-making (1997 report)
<SPEAKER ID=266 NAME="President">
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
<P>
A4-0498/98 by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on a draft interinstitutional agreement on the quality of the drafting of legislative texts; -A4-0460/98 by Mr Cot, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the Commission's report to the European Council - 'Better lawmaking 1997' (COM(97)0626 - C4-0656/97).
<SPEAKER ID=267 NAME="Estevan Bolea">
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am speaking on behalf of Ana Palacio, my fellow delegation and group member. She is the rapporteur for the report on the Interinstitutional Agreement on the drafting quality of legal texts.
In addition to presenting her report, I shall speak on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party on Mr Cot's report, ' Better lawmaking 1997', which will also be dealt with in this debate.
<P>
Both reports are certainly timely because the European Union and the European Commission are constantly being urged to improve the quality of legislation and to produce less of it.
The need for better law-making is stressed in particular.
<P>
It is worth pointing out in the first place that, notwithstanding its apparently technical nature, today's debate is of great political importance and is very relevant for citizens.
This is because, generally speaking, the complex nature of advanced societies like ours is reflected in legislation as a means of social organisation. Modern societies are not homogeneous, but riven with conflict and continuously affected by factors of economic, technological and environmental change.
There is an ongoing search for new balances through the democratic operation of these societies. At the same time, the traditional regulatory forces are becoming weaker.
Legislation therefore becomes the dominant social regulator, given the dearth of spontaneous solutions to conflicts.
Legislation can take many different forms and be used in an infinite range of applications. For instance, legislation may be used to lay down a standard, but it may also determine the creation of a public institution, or provide for government expenditure, etcetera.
<P>
Other features of the Community's legal system, in addition to these general characteristics, are its relative novelty - it is genuinely innovative at world level - and the nature of its operation. The predominantly intergovernmental structure of decision-making within the Council is particularly distinctive.
Herein lies a crucial issue, Commissioner.
<P>
The Community's new system of law is characterised by the different elements borrowed from national systems: the so-called pick and choose method.
The rule of law at Community level can appear as a composite and therefore less comprehensible and less accessible, even for specialists in national law.
The Community legislator sometimes deliberately uses vague judicial ideas or vague definitions so that they can be more readily inserted into national legal systems. The need to produce 11 different language versions of all legislation represents a further constraint.
I should like to emphasise that I find it quite amazing that it is possible to work successfully with 15 countries in 11 languages and legislate for all of them.
The European Union, Parliament, the Commission and the Council perform this little miracle daily. It remains true, however, as was stated earlier, that one of the principal features of Community legislation is, to a large extent, the intergovernmental nature of the negotiations within the Council.
<P>
Speeches in the course of the legislative procedure, amendments and so on, can be in 11 different languages.
Even in ideal conditions, and despite the high-quality work produced by the institutions' translators - who do an admirable job -, that constraint can mean that sentences tend to be longer and less clear, and that there are discrepancies between the various texts and even inconsistencies. Corrigenda to the various language versions are constantly required.
<P>
It is therefore evident that both reports were inspired by political concerns, and that both aim to bring legislation closer to the citizen.
I should like to recall briefly, if I may, the main political turning points in the history of Community awareness of the political dimension of the quality of law-making.
<P>
Initially, the Edinburgh European Council of December 1992 established a global perspective for the implementation of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality.
The need for further clarification and simplification of the new Community legislation was also stressed. To this end, guidelines on the quality of drafting Community legislation were to be adopted.
The European Council has also requested that existing legislation be made more accessible, notably through the official consolidation of Community acts.
This is extremely urgent, Commissioner.
I must underline the extreme urgency of consolidating Community acts.
The excellent report Mr Cot is presenting today is in line with the tradition that began at the Edinburgh European Council.
<P>
Further to the conclusions of the latter, the Council adopted on 8 June 1993 a resolution on the quality of drafting Community legislation. This laid down guidelines for drafting Council acts.
<P>
Later, in October 1993, the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission reached an interinstitutional agreement on subsidiarity. Then, in December 1994, a further institutional agreement was reached on the official consolidation of legislative texts.
<P>
It should also be mentioned that in May 1996, the Commission launched a pilot project on simplifying legislation relating to the internal market: the SLIM project, now in its fourth phase.
<P>
Finally, the Treaty of Amsterdam contains a whole panoply of instruments aimed at improving the quality of legislation. This goes hand in hand with transparency in a Union 'in which decisions are taken as openly as possible and as closely as possible to the citizen' (Article A.2 of the amended TEU).
The protocol on the implementation of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality is also relevant. This aims to meet the requirements of the substantive quality of legislation and the simplification of the codecision procedure.
There is also the protocol on the role of national parliaments. It will now be possible for them to play a greater part in the drafting of a Community act.
The review of the 1987 Decision on measures for implementing Community law (comitology procedure) is now under way. To conclude, I would refer to Declaration No 39 annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam through which Parliament, the Council and the Commission are urged to reach an interinstitutional agreement on the quality of drafting Community legislation.
<P>
Mrs Palacio is certain that both reports respond to a growing concern amongst legislators, and that the House will approve them tomorrow.
An amendment has been tabled aimed at strengthening the position reiterated by Parliament, which remains opposed to unilateral interpretative declarations, whilst allowing the President a certain latitude as to the political expediency of incorporating these.
This is somewhat of a secondary issue to that of the quality of drafting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=268 NAME="Gebhardt">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in Germany in recent weeks the idea has been floated once again that new laws should have an expiry date.
The Minister of Justice rejected the suggestion, saying that the government and parliament were not supermarkets which are required to mark all egg packaging with sell-by dates.
Mrs Däubler-Gmelin is right; the quality and future palatability of the contents of legislative packages are not subject to the same criteria as foodstuffs.
That also applies unreservedly to the legislative provisions enacted by the European Parliament, in cooperation with the Council and the Commission.
<P>
The rapporteur, Mr Jean-Pierre Cot, whom I am privileged to represent today, has clearly defined the standards that European legislation has to meet.
The form and content of the text must be of a high quality.
We need clearer and simpler legal provisions so that they can be accepted by the general public and properly applied.
Formal and substantive quality would do much to promote the transparency that we have demanded here time and time again.
This is something that we as a Parliament must do ourselves, so that the peoples of Europe will recognise us as their legitimate elected representatives.
It is not enough to demand transparency from other bodies of the European Union.
<P>
Allow me to begin by making a few remarks on our directives and regulations.
Please forgive me if I avoid the word 'subsidiarity', which is so often abused and which some politicians exploit as a smokescreen to hide their anti-European sentiments.
<P>
Our legislation is only credible in the eyes of the public if we deal with matters that really concern us, whether responsibility for them has been delegated to us by the Treaties, whether the solidarity of the Member States requires us to legislate on them, or whether such legislation is merely a matter of expediency.
<P>
The principle of proportionality requires the Community to limit its action strictly to measures that are essential to the achievement of the aims laid down in the Treaty.
The people of our countries are particularly sensitive to any disproportionality in European legislation.
If we go too far, our motives will be misinterpreted, and the public will be inclined to see us as purveyors of the so-called Brussels red tape on which a large section of the media loves to hold forth.
It is actually rather trite to point out that the substance of a legal act must include a statement of what it seeks to regulate and what the purpose of such regulation is.
I presume that the European Parliament has a clear conscience in this respect.
I occasionally have my doubts about the Council, though.
I can, however, confirm that the Commission seeks to apply this principle. For that reason, we must call on the Council not to erode or water down the content of legislation in its quest for compromises.
That too is a dictate of legislative quality.
<P>
What is especially important to me is that the Council should refrain from the practice of appending additional provisions in the form of declarations.
It is contrary to all the rules of transparency if a legislative instrument cannot speak for itself.
<P>
An explanatory declaration arouses suspicion that something has been concealed in the body of the text.
That is why the Court of Justice rigidly refuses to consider annexed declarations when interpreting legal provisions, unless such declarations are explicitly referred to in the body of the act.
When it comes to the substance of legislative acts, we simply must not blunder into any dangerous traps.
It is up to the Commission and the Council to be vigilant, lest the pretext of simplification should be used to diminish the level of legal protection in the areas of the environment, product quality, public health and the economic and social security of employees.
<P>
Parliament is already vigilant in this respect, but the Council and the Commission must pull in the same direction as us.
The subject of the technical quality of Community legislation, which the Palacio report addresses, gives me a headache.
Not that I am in any way indifferent to the technical quality of our legal texts; it cannot be high enough, as far as I am concerned.
But who lays down the criteria?
Do we measure technical quality by the cognitive faculties of the general public, or should the technical skills of legal experts be the yardstick?
I believe we should make laws for the general public.
This view is quite clearly incompatible with the following sentence from the draft of an interinstitutional agreement on the technical quality of Community legislation: 'The role played by the judicial services of the EU bodies, including their legal and linguistic experts, in improving the technical quality of Community legal acts should be strengthened'.
<P>
If we invest services which are supposed to be assisting us in our work with the power to formulate our political will, we are neglecting our duty as Members of Parliament.
When it is a matter of linguistic nuances, we would do better to seek advice from journalists than from the Legal Service, and that does not reflect in any way unfavourably on the quality of our Legal Services.
Please do not misunderstand me!
<P>
I should like to finish on a lighter note.
Law-making is like angling.
The worm is supposed to attract the fish, not the angler!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=269 NAME="Cushnahan">
Madam President, I wish to confine my remarks to the report by Mr Jean-Pierre Cot on better law-making.
Firstly, I support his view that it was an error for the Commission to deal with all aspects of legislative simplification of both a substantive and formal nature in one communication.
Their inclusion in a single document does not facilitate a comprehensive discussion on how to achieve better law-making.
Indeed, while I appreciate the importance of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality in relation to this subject, I have no wish to become involved in a debate about the detail of either.
<P>
The point I want to make is rather a simple one: as a Member of the European Parliament - which unlike other institutions constantly faces the public in a very direct way - I am often the recipient of strong criticism of EU legislation.
Many of the people who criticise it tell me that it is unbelievably lengthy and that the language used is gobbledegook.
Others claim that we legislate too much and that much of the legislation we adopt is often unnecessary.
Others, especially those from the small-business sector, criticise it on the grounds that it creates major problems for them.
They feel that interference in their sector often places employment at risk.
I recognise that, while some of these criticisms are misplaced, others are often justified.
<P>
We in this House and in other institutions often talk about bringing the European Union closer to its citizens.
If we want to do that, it is imperative that we produce legislation which is necessary, which is expressed in simple language and which can be understood by those to whom it is addressed.
Bearing in mind that the Commission is the only institution which has the right to initiate legislation, I hope that it bears these points in mind when it addresses the question of producing better laws for the Union.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=270 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Thors">
Madam President, I should like to focus briefly on Amendment No 2 in the Cot report, which calls on the Commission to allocate resources to the 'Fight the fog' campaign, in other words the campaign for clear language.
The Commission's English translators have put this across very well.
The entire Commission should support it.
It is particularly important that the Commissioners and the Directorates-General should understand its significance, namely the unnecessary costs that citizens and Member States would be spared if people could understand the brochures and application forms and so on.
<P>
A number of Member States, for example the United Kingdom, Belgian Wallonia and the Nordic countries, have been successful in this respect.
We should speak in a way that truly represents our languages, and not in 'Euroslang'.
It requires a joint effort to provide the means for achieving such an end.
I hope the Commission's authorities understand that this is in the best interests of clarity and openness, and that they will give their backing to this effort.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=271 NAME="Pinheiro">
Madam President, on behalf of the Commission I would like to thank the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights for the attention it has devoted to the Commission's work on better lawmaking and to the draft interinstitutional agreement establishing guidelines for improving the quality of the drafting of Community legislation.
I am delighted to say that on most of the points dealt with, the rapporteurs' position is very close to that of the Commission.
This subject is of great interest to us all, as it forms a central plank in relations between the institutions and the citizens of the European Union, as expressed in the legislative acts which determine the rights and obligations of everyone living in the Member States.
In recent years the quality of these acts has been the subject of justified criticism, and the present attempt to re-establish the necessary balance is the direct result of the recognition at the Amsterdam Conference of the need for action in this area.
<P>
Concerning Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi's report, I would like to remind you that the text of the draft interinstitutional agreement is the result of close cooperation between the three institutions and of various discussions which have lasted for over a year.
I would accordingly like to stress the importance of this agreement if we are to achieve the objective of transparency in the legislative process.
<P>
I regret that at present I cannot comment on any of the amendments as this falls outside my sphere of competence and the Commission has not yet adopted a position on this subject.
<P>
Since the 1997 'Better lawmaking' report that we are discussing today, the Commission has already put forward a number of other reports, including the 1998 'Better lawmaking' report submitted to Parliament last week, and these have highlighted the Commission's commitment to better lawmaking.
As part of the drive in this direction referred to in Mr Cot's report, the Commission has stepped up its monitoring of the grounds for legislative proposals in terms of subsidiarity and proportionality, and even before the ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam it has been applying the protocol annexed to that treaty.
In addition, the Commission is continuing to put forward proposals for simplification and consolidation, as well as promoting the consolidation of information and improved access to information on Community law.
<P>
We also agree that the principle of subsidiarity should not be applied to areas falling within the exclusive competence of the Community and should not be applied to the detriment of the acquis communautaire .
We also believe that the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality should be applied objectively, but not in such a way as to rule out dynamism and flexibility, the need for which is reiterated in the Amsterdam protocol.
<P>
Madam President, I would like to take this opportunity to make three small points: first, the fact that the Commission has dealt in a single report with the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality in relation to technical instruments for making Community legislation simpler, clearer and more accessible was a purely pragmatic choice, in that we were trying to give an overall view of everything that has a bearing on better lawmaking.
<P>
Second, I think you will agree with me that the Commission's response has been far more focused this year than in the previous consultation.
<P>
And lastly, on the subject of framework directives, I would like to say that the Commission has only resorted to such instruments in specific cases, and has always been conscious that they should not lead to disparities in the texts of national legislation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=272 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Pinheiro.
<P>
The joint debate is closed.
<P>
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
<P>
(The sitting was closed at 7.50 p.m.)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=0>
<SPEAKER ID=1 NAME="President">
Ladies and gentlemen, I should like to welcome you to the last sitting of 1998.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=1>
Approval of the Minutes
<SPEAKER ID=2 NAME="President">
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
<P>
Are there any comments?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=3 NAME="Miller">
Madam President, I would like to make a comment on the Minutes concerning the Oostlander report.
I congratulate the newly elected Member from Scotland on his contribution to the debate on racism and xenophobia.
However, may I ask whether he would be prepared, along with myself, to condemn those narrow-minded nationalists who continue to utter and perpetrate racist comments within his own party against English people?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=4 NAME="President">
It may be the last sitting before Christmas, but that is nevertheless not on the Minutes, Mr Miller.
<P>
Mr Wijsenbeek has the floor.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=5 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Wijsenbeek">
You need have no worries about saying 'Wijsenbeek', Madam President. Your pronunciation is just fine!
<P>
And even if Mrs Fontaine does not always manage it, I have long since forgiven her!
<P>
(Laughter)
<P>
(NL) That is Mr Goedbloed, to make matters even worse.
Madam President, I am referring to the Minutes, pages 11, 12 and 13.
I referred to this yesterday.
Mr Elles, the rapporteur from the Committee on Budgetary Control, and the President both pointed out that they found our Rules of Procedure strange.
May I assume, Madam President, that as a result of this, the presidency of the House, if not the Bureau, will provide us with a proposal to amend Annex V of the Rules of Procedure?
Should not the Bureau have spoken of this much sooner and therefore have raised it much earlier in the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, rather than convening us on a Monday afternoon in a kind of emergency procedure, when we could no longer of course do anything about it.
<SPEAKER ID=6 NAME="President">
We take note of that.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=7 NAME="Theato">
Madam President, I should like to endorse what Mr Wijsenbeek has just said.
In the Committee on Budgetary Control, I pointed out at a very early stage that there were incompatibilities here.
But let me say the following about the Minutes: I see that the votes on discharge and the Elles report are minuted, but I cannot find the text of the motions on which we voted and which, in my view, ought to be recorded in the Minutes, because in the event of a referral back to committee, Article 6 of Annex V of the Rules of Procedure requires us to comment at the next part-session on the result of the parliamentary vote.
If the motions on which the House voted are not available to us, we can hardly perform that task in a satisfactory manner.
Great care should therefore be taken to ensure - and I do insist on this - that the motions which were put to the vote are also recorded in the 'texts adopted' part of the Minutes.
Otherwise I cannot see how we are supposed to comment on them in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
All we have are the results of the vote in Part 1 of the Minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=8 NAME="President">
The problem is that there was no final vote. The texts are always only printed when the final vote has taken place.
So we know the outcome, and the texts in question can be forwarded to the Committee on Budgetary Control.
They stand adopted, and that is what it says in the Minutes.
I suggest that we look again at how we can reorganise the procedures for your work.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=9 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Theato">
Madam President, may I ask that this be done very quickly, because we do have to report back to the House in January; that is what the current Rules of Procedure prescribe.
I do not consider that possible if the texts which have to be recorded in the Minutes are not there.
This way, I only have the result which is printed in the first part of the Minutes. This naturally means that certain inconsistencies might occur in the wording.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=10 NAME="President">
We shall look into that and ensure that the Committee on Budgetary Control can do its work properly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=11 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Graenitz">
Madam President, since I could not raise a point of order yesterday, may I repeat today that this is the last opportunity for Members to sign Mr Martin's written declaration on the adverse impact of the World Trade Organisation on animal welfare.
I urge all Members to sign it.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=12 NAME="President">
That has already been done, and that will be the last time for this year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=13 NAME="Provan">
Madam President, I refer to the presentation we had earlier this week in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Sakharov prize.
I took the opportunity of speaking to our President in the corridor yesterday.
I made him aware of the fact that it was Lord Bethell who instituted the Sakharov prize.
I felt it was rather inappropriate of Parliament not to have recognised that fact when we had rapporteurs and one or two other distinguished guests here with us.
So, for the record, I think it is worth restating that it was thanks to a great deal of hard work by Lord Bethell, a personal friend of Sakharov himself, that the prize was instituted, and the rapporteur duly took it through Parliament.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=14 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Provan.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=15 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Fabre-Aubrespy">
Madam President, I would like to speak regarding page 12 of the Minutes, where there is a record of the various speeches made on behalf of the groups before the vote on Article 23, that is, on the mechanism for discharge.
It is said that, on behalf of my group, I indicated that we would also table a motion of censure if the discharge were granted.
This is evidently the opposite to what I said.
I said before the final vote that, for us, there was a very clear link between the refusal to grant discharge and the tabling of a motion of censure, and that we would table a motion of censure - and we will, as we already have the signatures for it - if the discharge were not granted.
I would therefore ask you to rectify this.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=16 NAME="President">
That will be corrected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=17 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Madam President, I would like to make a remark with regard to page 33 of the Minutes concerning the dispute that I had with Mr Jean-Pierre Cot, who presided over the sitting, over his systematic refusal to allow any explanations of vote on the Elles report.
His interpretation of the Rules of Procedure was totally despotic, and we contest it.
Moreover, I went to the Sittings Service after the closure of the sitting, and a considerable number of explanations of vote from Members had piled up or had arrived by e-mail.
The most obvious interpretation of the Rules of Procedure is that, when it comes to a vote that is so important politically, Members must be able to explain their positions.
<P>
As I said to Mr Cot, yesterday we wrote to the President of the European Parliament to ask him to refer this problem to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure.
Of course, this was not a referral back to committee in the usual sense of Rule 129, but a referral back in accordance with Annex V, which was in fact a side-effect of the negative vote on the Elles report.
It was therefore a case of referral back to committee that was entirely different from those we are used to.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=18 NAME="President">
Mr Berthu, the legal position does not seem to be entirely clear.
That will have to be examined and then dealt with accordingly.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=19 NAME="Ford">
Madam President, I was intrigued by what Mr Berthu said about explanations of vote coming in by e-mail.
I am all in favour of modern technology, but I thought Members had actually to be present to give an explanation of vote.
I wonder whether I could have an e-mail facility as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=20 NAME="President">
Written explanations of vote do naturally have to be given in writing, Mr Ford.
Since we have some very modern Members, they are also bound to use modern means of communication.
I would say that this is actually quite an advantage.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=21 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Madam President, the Socialist Group tabled a motion of censure against the Commission with a view to giving it a vote of confidence.
May I ask you to instruct the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities to examine the admissibility of that motion.
<P>
In my opinion, while the motion may not breach the letter of the EC Treaty, it is certainly contrary to the spirit of the Treaty.
That is why I would ask you to have the Rules Committee examine the motion, thereby preventing the dilemma that might otherwise face us in January.
<P>
(Applause)
<SPEAKER ID=22 NAME="President">
We take note of that, Mrs Müller.
However, you have just said that you would like this to happen before January. Today is our last sitting before Christmas.
I cannot imagine that the House would agree if we were to say that Members had to meet over the Christmas period.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=23 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Müller">
Madam President, I meant before the part-session in January, so that we do not find ourselves in a dilemma then.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=24 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mrs Müller, that makes things clearer.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=25 NAME="Green">
Madam President, I am really surprised at the last speaker, because this institution is on the horns of a dilemma, so I do not really know what her problem is.
As you will know, the motion of censure was correctly tabled according to the Rules of this House.
<P>
However, I wanted to refer to yesterday's Minutes.
You will note that in Item 7 on the discharge, in the second paragraph after The following spoke during the vote: , the Minutes are quite explicit in describing various people's accusations of blackmail and, in one instance, in accusing my Group of blackmail.
However, they do not correctly report that I accused those who were so accusing me of hypocrisy.
If the word 'blackmail' is going to be used in the Minutes, my word 'hypocrisy' must also be used against those who accuse me.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=26 NAME="President">
We shall check that, Mrs Green.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=27 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lalumière">
Madam President, on page 12 of the Minutes, a small change should be made to my statement.
After highlighting the unfortunate way in which the Commission declaration was phrased, I did not indicate that my group would vote in favour of granting discharge, but that my group was divided and that, personally, I would vote in favour of granting discharge.
I did, however, indicate that my group was divided.
That should therefore be made clear.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=28 NAME="President">
That too will be corrected.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=29 NAME="Banotti">
Madam President, at the risk of ruining everyone's Christmas, I heard this morning in the hairdresser's ...
<P>
... that there is talk of industrial action in the airports.
I wonder whether you could confirm that flights are leaving from Strasbourg airport, or if there is any problem?
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=30 NAME="President">
That may not have anything to do with the approval of the Minutes, but I am glad that, like the rest of us, Mrs Banotti likes to pay a visit to the hairdresser in order to look her best.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=31 NAME="Martin, David">
Madam President, I should like it to be recorded just how good Mrs Banotti's hair is looking.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=32 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Martin.
I think we are all already in something of a holiday mood, but we must now proceed with our work.
<P>
(The Minutes were approved)
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=2>
VOTES
<SPEAKER ID=33 NAME="Lagendijk">
Despite some concerns expressed in the discussions and in some amendments presented in the Committee on Transport and Tourism, the Green Group voted today in favour of the report by Mr McMahon including all amendments by the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
<P>
We did so, as I believe that the proposal for the directive presented by the European Commission is a good step forward in harmonising national and international regulations regarding the transport of dangerous goods on Community inland waterways.
This will increase safety and promote fair competition among transport providers.
The amendments introduced by the Transport Committee only improve the directive asking for the introduction of an interim regime where the most up-to-date Rhine-rules apply to all inland waterways covered by the directive as long as there is no valid international agreement.
<P>
The Greens had, however, and still have some concerns regarding the scope of application of the directive.
Article 1(2) and (3) allow Member States to exempt national inland waterways, which are not connected to other Member States waterways (§2) and military vessels transporting dangerous goods (§3) from the scope of the directive.
Given the general aim of protecting waterways from damage by dangerous substances, I strongly believe that the same safety rules should apply to all transport of dangerous goods, i.e. to transport on Community and national inland waterways.
The same logic should also apply to military ships, as there is no reason, from a moral or environmental point of view, to exclude those ships from the obligation to respect certain safety requirements.
<P>
I therefore hope that most Member States will automatically apply the directive to all their inland waterways, and that military vessels follow as far as possible the rules applying to all other ships.
<P>
Cot report (A4-0460/98)
<SPEAKER ID=34 NAME="Gahrton and Holm">
<CHAPTER ID=3>
Tempus III
<SPEAKER ID=35 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0464/98) by Mr Evans, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the proposal for a Council Decision adopting the third phase of the trans-European cooperation scheme for higher education - Tempus III (2000-2006) (COM(98)0454 - C4-0554/98-98/0246(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=36 NAME="Evans">
Madam President, on behalf of my Group I welcome this Commission report and hope that it is accepted today with my proposed amendments.
<P>
Firstly, I wish to apologise to my colleagues on the committee and to the Commission for being unable to be present in the committee when the amendments were taken but at the prescribed time I was sitting on the tarmac in an aeroplane at Heathrow waiting to take off and there I sat for two hours.
<P>
I am, to say the least, surprised that the Council seems either to be ignoring the role of Parliament or not to have been anticipating this debate.
It seems that they drew up their common position on 4 December.
Their new text, in French, came to me only yesterday.
This is not a satisfactory way to proceed.
It is arguable that the report should be sent back to committee so that we can reconsider the new text, although on reflection I will not propose this course.
I will, however, in the light of the paper that I got yesterday, withdraw Amendments 10, 11 and 12 as they are now covered.
<P>
Tempus is more than just a worthy programme.
It plays, and will continue to do so, an essential part in the development of the countries of Eastern Europe: countries that were for too long closed off to the West. When these new democracies were emerging, it was assumed that a university was a university, be it in Prague or Paris, Budapest or Birmingham.
The reality proved to be rather different.
Education, like so many aspects of life in the eastern bloc countries had suffered.
The Tempus project sought to bridge that gap and to build an educational bridge to the 1990s: a bridge built on the foundations of EU finances, grants to help academics to travel and share experiences, and grants for joint projects and initiatives of mutual benefit.
The Tempus project was also the provider of new and up-to-date equipment, enabling students and their teachers to be connected to the very best of educational opportunities.
Indeed, I have seen some very dilapidated buildings in Romania, for example, housing excellent modern computers provided by EU Tempus money.
<P>
The individual institutions that are recipients of Tempus grants, acknowledge freely the debt they pay to this programme and to the Union in general.
In a wider frame, education plays a crucial role in developing economies and regenerating industry and whole regions.
To build a successful country you need a thriving economy and to get that you have to invest in education at every level.
Tempus helps and encourages those countries that need help to improve.
Without it there would be serious deficiencies in their education system and we, the people of Western Europe and the more prosperous nations, would undoubtedly suffer the knock-on effect.
<P>
The new Tempus proposals build on the experiences of the last few years.
Many of the previous recipient countries are no longer eligible as they are now involved in Socrates or Leonardo.
My amendments to the Commission document ask for the new programmes to be linked in with Socrates and Leonardo, amongst other measures, in the hope that all the valuable work and the links that have been built up have not been lost.
But the new recipient countries, the former Soviet States, Mongolia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania and former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia will now be recipients of Tempus money.
I know and have seen how Tempus has helped other countries develop their educational systems and we must now ensure and do everything we can to make certain that Tempus helps these new and continuing recipients.
<P>
I also propose in my amendments that a special effort is made to involve more students from ethnic minority backgrounds, linking people from minority cultural, linguistic and ethnic backgrounds with similar people in other countries.
This would be an excellent way of building a people's Europe.
It is also essential, as I have said in another amendment, that no group of people is disadvantaged.
We must make sure with Tempus and with all European projects that they are as inclusive as possible and do not exclude any group of people.
Especially those projects that are based on education and young people must bring people together and include as many sections of society as possible.
<P>
The recent Auditors' report was critical of the way some Tempus money was spent.
It is true that some academics are perhaps more concerned, understandably so, with the educational aspects and are not quite so concerned about the minutiae required under the grants and accounting procedures.
<P>
I hope very much that, in the light of the Auditors' report, we will ensure that recipients of Tempus money give accurate answers, to make certain that we are seen to be transparent and that we can account for the money that is spent.
But it is money that is being spent wisely and well, and although I have regrets about the way the Council have presented their new paper, I very much hope that Parliament this morning will support this report.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=37 NAME="Christodoulou">
Madam President, as the rapporteur Mr Evans has just explained very clearly, this programme essentially helps education to become an economic benefit in countries with a great need for it.
<P>
From a purely financial standpoint, like the previous phases, Tempus III does not have a separate financial framework, nor any separate financial package.
The funding of its activities depends on the two programmes PHARE and TACIS, and consequently its implementation relies on a combination of the resources available for those two programmes, always providing they continue to exist and develop.
And that is something we must bear in mind when we assess the way in which this programme is implemented.
<P>
A second point concerns estimating the level of funding.
That, of course, cannot be based on the funding of the earlier phases because, as has already been said, the states involved are different.
Other states were involved before and others are involved now.
But the objectives too are different.
Of course, this assumes that some resources will be available, and it is essential for the Commission to ensure that the financial information which is unfortunately missing in the statements it has made, will be provided.
From now on that information will have to be available so that we know exactly where we stand.
That will ensure the necessary transparency, all the more so because there is as a rule a double source of funding and this creates a problem: operating expenditure comes from PHARE or TACIS, while administrative expenditure comes from the Foundation for Vocational Training.
On that point, I should like to say that the Committee on Culture and Youth carries a heavy responsibility to monitor the implementation of those programmes so as to avoid any repetition of what happened in certain cases during previous periods.
There must also be greater flexibility and adaptability, always of course taking care to select activities that can be carried out.
That too was very rightly explained by Mr Evans, and it is important from the financial standpoint.
Cohesion and additionality with other actions must also be ensured in order to maximize the effectiveness of combining different activities towards a specific objective.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=38 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Hawlicek">
Madam President, on behalf of my group I should like to express my warm congratulations to Robert Evans on his reporting and to re-emphasise the importance of the Tempus programme.
For the new democracies in the East in particular, it is very important that cooperation should take place in the areas of education and culture.
These are certainly two fields in which we can truly cooperate as equal partners with the new democracies and the future members of the European Union.
That is why I particularly emphasise the importance of this programme.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=39 NAME="Banotti">
Madam President, it being the last day of the pre-Christmas season, Mr Evans will be happy to hear that we are totally in agreement with him.
This is the first I have heard about the common position arrived at yesterday and I absolutely agree with his point that it simply is not good enough.
In supporting totally Mr Evans' report, I would like to make a couple of comments.
<P>
He rightly states that education is an essential part of the development of these countries.
Some years ago I saw how parlous the state of the equipment was, particularly scientific equipment, in many of the countries that have been helped.
We are spreading our net a lot wider this time, hopefully not too thinly.
If nobody knows what we are doing, except one or two in a very vast area and a number of countries, the value of the programme will be lost.
<P>
One area remains to be addressed and that is our knowledge of what is happening in the educational systems of these countries.
We have seen the dramatic affect the Socrates programme has had in our own countries.
That is why we are deeply upset - particularly in my group - about the very small budget we are being given to try to implement what is, in fact, one of the great success stories of the Community.
<P>
I hope, in the context of Mr Evans' report, there will be some way in which we can hear - preferably directly from the people who have been helped by this - precisely what the effect of the Tempus programme has been on their countries.
There is a saying of the Chinese that if you love your child send him on a journey.
We have not had too much experience of journeys to us as oppposed to our students going to Eastern European countries and that is an area where our education could be considerably improved.
<P>
We are pleased to support all Mr Evans' amendments and we wish him and all those who benefited from the Tempus programme a very happy Christmas.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=40 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Ryynänen">
Madam President, I too wish to congratulate Mr Evans for his excellent work, which I support fully.
Throughout the 1990s the Tempus programme has been a very important and effective tool for the growth and improvement of university education in the central and eastern European countries, and later the newly independent countries.
From the point of view of the central and eastern European countries this programme has significantly improved the conditions for universities and colleges to participate in the Community education programmes which later became available to them.
<P>
From the year 2000 the Tempus III programme now proposed by the Commission will aim to provide support under the PHARE and TACIS programmes for those partnership countries that cannot participate in the other Community programmes.
The focus of this activity will be the administrative reorganisation of the universities and educational developments that will involve opening doors to the world of business and enterprise.
The importance of universities in economic and social reform in recipient countries can hardly be stressed too much.
<P>
As funding under the PHARE and TACIS programmes is, however, limited, as has been said here, it is absolutely vital to ensure effective coordination with other Community action, so that the greatest possible benefit may be derived from the programmes.
In this I agree with the rapporteur's main arguments, including the need to pay special attention to opportunities for students from different minority groups to participate in exchange programmes.
Complementary action includes language courses and courses in cultural background, which must be given priority support.
<P>
With the new Tempus programme a clearer policy will emerge with regard to attempts to stabilise the recipient countries zone.
Tempus will also be a tool for regional cross-border cooperation between the present applicant countries and the non-associated countries.
It is important that the areas this programme focuses on are suited to the priorities of the PHARE and TACIS programmes.
Through education the programme will thus be helping to promote reforms in the economy, democracy and government.
<P>
The programme's recipient countries cover a vast and very diverse area.
Consequently, we need separate tailor-made strategies for the various countries and country groups involved.
By giving more weight to European research we will be able to bring these countries closer to the Community and, furthermore, learn from the effects of integration.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=41 NAME="Kerr">
Madam President, I liked the remark by Mrs Ryynänen about many political hues, and here is a political Hugh giving his speech this morning.
<P>
I welcome this report by Mr Evans for a number of reasons.
Firstly, as an old academic of 25 years' standing, I like to see lots of money going to my old friends to keep them in employment, just in case I have to rejoin them next year.
Of course that will not happen, as Mr Evans well knows.
<P>
Secondly, I would like to welcome it because Tempus I was run - Mr McMahon tells me - by a good woman from Ayrshire, Leslie Wilson.
Clearly the success of the programme is attributable to the fact that it was originated and administered by a Scot.
As the number one for the Scottish Socialist Party for the forthcoming European elections which will ensure my return next year I welcome that in particular.
<P>
Thirdly, I welcome it because it is from my friend, Mr Evans, who is a tribute to higher education himself.
He tells me he has two degrees from London University and an honorary doctorate from Brunel University.
That raises a question mark about the quality of that particular university, but I am sure it is a good participant in the Tempus programme.
<P>
I welcome it because it spreads education throughout the European Union and connects it to the incoming states.
But I have question marks over the amount and scale of the resources required, as Mr Evans does.
We need more money for this programme and all education programmes to make them a reality, for the new Member States in particular.
<P>
I welcome it because my friend, Mrs Müller, who is the scourge of the Commission, tells me that this is a fairly well run programme and that Mrs Cresson's dentist does not have any part in it.
Therefore we should be confident about its administration.
<P>
For all these reasons we should support this programme.
But like Mr Evans I have to say that the Council is rather insulting when it adopts the common position without even taking account of Parliament's position.
I suspect this is a breach of the rules of the interinstitutional agreement.
It would be nice if we took back our opinion, Mr Evans, and held it for a further six months.
We do not want to penalise the universities just because the Council has behaved badly but we should certainly communicate our displeasure to them.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=42 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Madam President, the type of cooperation envisaged in Tempus will open up entirely new regions to the European Union.
As far as the current Tempus III programme is concerned, I believe it is especially important that the greatest of care should be taken to match the various priorities very closely with the national needs of the target countries.
The Commission must ensure, in the light of the criticism expressed in the evaluation report, that the new programme is implemented far more efficiently.
Precisely because the measures in the realm of tertiary education have a really vital role to play in the integration process, a huge responsibility falls on the Commission and all other players in this field.
I am right behind the rapporteur when he says that the mobility grants should also be available to students.
Not only are they by no means a 'quantité négligeable ', as he says; they are in fact the software around which the whole system revolves.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=43 NAME="Cushnahan">
Madam President, the Tempus programme has been successful; it has made a unique contribution to the third-level system of education in the countries of central and eastern Europe.
<P>
Given the major changes in the political context in which it operates, especially as the enlargement process gains momentum, it is time to evaluate and update elements of it as we prepare for its third phase.
It is particularly important, as these countries make the transition to free-market economies, that we assist the development of the curriculum to respond to the new economic situation and especially to provide the necessary skills for entrepreneurial activity.
In addition, curriculum initiatives should provide the opportunity for academics and students in third-level institutions to learn more about the ethos of the Union, its role in the world, our policy priorities and the responsibilities of European citizenship and membership.
The Jean Monnet programme has been successful in achieving some of these objectives within the European Union itself.
We could learn from it and we could apply the best elements of it to Tempus III.
<P>
I congratulate the rapporteur and look forward to the response of Parliament and the Council to the way they have badly treated this in relation to the decision they took yesterday.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=44 LANGUAGE="FI" NAME="Virrankoski">
Madam President, the Evans report under discussion is about redesigning the European Union's youth and culture policy.
Up to now Parliament has had its first debates on the new legal basis for the Socrates and Leonardo programmes as well as the youth programme and the framework programme for culture.
Now the issue is the continuation of the Tempus programme.
The Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media has done an enormous job in the organisation of these programmes in preparation for the challenges of the next millennium.
For that reason we must recognise its hard work, and I would like to thank Mr Evans for this report.
<P>
University and college education and research are the basis for a new society.
Over the centuries they have been international as, with human progress, they have helped us to accumulate knowledge which served the common good.
It is therefore only natural that the European Union should lay such great store by developing cooperation among universities.
The Tempus programme, which concerns the central and eastern European countries, began in 1990 and has since continued uninterrupted.
The geographical area involved in the programme now under way is much larger than before, because many of the countries that have applied for EU membership are already involved in the Socrates and Leonardo programmes.
<P>
It is especially important to make youth, and university students in particular, aware of the importance of international involvement.
Today's university students are the founders of tomorrow's society.
Although the time spent studying abroad might be short, it opens up a totally new outlook on the international community and international relations.
Though the priorities might be the furtherance of knowledge and skills, student exchanges open up a whole new approach to international issues and problems.
<P>
Obviously, student and teacher exchange programmes and improved administration and educational methods will also bring with them new direct benefits.
Levels of knowledge and skills will be broadened and strengthened.
But we in the European Union in particular have to realise that we will by no means always be just the provider, we will also be the recipient.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=45 NAME="Papoutsis">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as you know, Tempus is a product of the political will expressed by the Heads of State and Government during their meeting in Paris in November 1989, and later here in Strasbourg in December of the same year.
<P>
The backing and cooperation of all the institutional bodies, Parliament, the Council, the Economic and Social Committee, led very quickly - on 7 May 1990 - to the decision to establish the Tempus programme, in other words the legal framework for adapting the results of the experiences gained from the Community educational programmes Erasmus and COMET to the special conditions that prevail in the eastern countries.
<P>
As has been demonstrated by the numerous appraisals and annual reports you have received, from the time of its implementation - in 1990 in the PHARE countries and 1994 in the TACIS countries - and in the various phases of its development, Tempus has been successful in contributing towards the restructuring and modernisation of tertiary education systems in the beneficiary countries.
We can therefore say with certainty that it lived up to our expectations.
Tempus was directed at initiatives by universities, within a defined framework of priorities and always in agreement with the national authorities.
In that way, we responded effectively to the specific needs of our partners.
Thus, most of the associated countries in central and eastern Europe who are taking part in Tempus have progressed, since it started, to a new phase in their relations with the European Union countries, to full and integral participation in the Community programmes Socrates and Leonardo.
However, the non-associated countries of central and eastern Europe and the newly independent countries of the former Soviet Union and Mongolia have been slower to benefit from the programme.
In those countries there is still broad scope for Tempus, the only instrument with the potential at present in those areas to support the university sector in adapting effectively to the new social and economic circumstances.
And the Tempus III proposal is directed precisely at those countries.
In reply to the question asked by Mrs Banotti, I should like to say that the Commission is preparing a report on the impact we have had on the educational systems in beneficiary countries, and of course that report will deal with each country separately.
<P>
Madam President, I would like to give particular thanks to the rapporteur Mr Evans for the quality of his report, a quality that has been evident at every stage and which highlights the important objectives of the programme we are debating today.
<P>
As regards the amendments tabled by Parliament, the Commission considers that many of them enhance and clarify the original proposal still further, and it can therefore accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 and 17 which were tabled by the rapporteur Mr Evans on behalf of the Committee on Culture, as well as Amendment No 14.
In contrast, the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 6 on the financial circumstances, which the Commission cannot foresee.
The sums earmarked for Tempus will be decided each year when the budget allocations to beneficiary countries for the PHARE and TACIS programmes are being determined.
In its explanatory report the Commission indicated the sums made available for Tempus in previous years, but it cannot prejudge what will be provided for Tempus from the aid programmes after 2000, since no financial planning has yet taken place for the new rules that are to be applied in those specific countries from 2000 onwards.
The Commission also cannot accept Amendment No 16, which concerns the nature and role of the committee that will assist the Commission in implementing the programme.
From that standpoint, we are waiting for the new decisions to be taken in relation to comitology.
Yet, the Commission would like to abide by the text of its proposal, which it formulated in accordance with the proposal on comitology it approved on 24 June 1998.
Furthermore, the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 13 on the definition of a degree of flexibility in the management of projects, nor can it accept Amendment No 15 on the addition of conditions whose indirect result would be to restrict both the flexibility called for and the exchange of information about all the initiatives.
The Commission understands the spirit of those amendments - which is quite evident - but we consider that the initial proposal of Amendment No 15 amplifies and clarifies the scope of the text.
Finally, as for Amendment No 18 on the introduction of a series of activities and structural measures, the Commission considers that it is inappropriate to include these additions.
Indeed, the definitions of the structural and supplementary measures, how exactly they are to be worded, is a matter for the Tempus committee which will be set up pursuant to the decision.
These measures are closely related to the priorities agreed each year with the relevant authorities in the countries concerned.
<P>
The Commission will shortly submit to the Council an amended proposal on Tempus III, which besides incorporating Parliament's ten amendments that have been accepted, will take serious account of Parliament's other wishes, to an extent of course that enables us to submit our own proposal to the Council.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=46 NAME="President">
Thank you, Mr Papoutsis.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=47 NAME="Hulthén">
I should like to thank the rapporteur for his work in preparing this report.
The Tempus programme is a trans-European cooperation scheme for higher education. It makes a significant contribution not only to higher education, but also to strengthening democracy in non-member countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
<P>
With reference to countries that are participating in the Tempus programme and where democracy and civil liberties and rights are still disregarded by the regimes in power - for example Belarus - I should like to point out the importance of the programme's objectives of reinforcing the independence of higher education, improving its administration and demonstrating its crucial role in economic, social and political reform.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=4>
Participation of Hungary in Community audiovisual policy
<SPEAKER ID=48 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0467/98) by Mrs Leperre-Verrier, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning the Community position within the Association Council on the participation of Hungary in a Community Programme within the framework of Community audiovisual policy (COM(97)0562 - C4-0637/97-97/0311(CNS)).
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=49 NAME="Leperre-Verrier">
Madam President, the question here is whether or not to include Hungary in our Community MEDIA II programme.
Coming after the decisions in the education, youth and culture sectors, which have enabled some CEEC countries, including Hungary, to participate in our programmes, this decision relates to another area that is of paramount importance for pre-accession strategies, namely, the audiovisual sector.
This is a sector that is undergoing enormous change and is particularly interesting owing to the very significant technological advances it is making, and it remains a powerful medium of expression, inter alia of identity and citizenship.
That is, at least, the aim behind establishing this European audiovisual area.
<P>
It should also be noted that the MEDIA II programme is but one part of this European audiovisual policy, the main thrust being provided by the 'Television without Frontiers' directive, although the two of them share many aims.
It is therefore clear that participation by the applicant countries in MEDIA II is dependent on them making advances in harmonising legislation or aligning it with European directives.
<P>
It is worth asking whether the procedures for implementing the decision, with its fairly significant political implications, are capable of meeting the challenges in question, and whether they are likely to ensure that the specified aim is achieved.
We should remember the principle of association.
Hungary will participate in all actions forming part of MEDIA II in accordance with the conditions laid down by the programme and applicable in all Member States.
Nevertheless, Hungary is required to set up appropriate structures at national level.
<P>
To that end, Hungary will have to establish a 'Media Desk' in cooperation with the Commission.
On the financial front, it will pay an annual contribution to cover the cost of its participation in the programme.
Its contribution will be around ECU 650 000 for the 1998-2000 period, but it has been authorised, as provided for in the additional protocol, to use PHARE funds for 50 % of its budget.
<P>
Nevertheless, we must be aware that the harmonisation of Hungarian legislation with European audiovisual texts and, in particular, the famous 'Television without Frontiers' directive, still poses a problem and will therefore have to be subject to strict coordination between the European Union and Hungary.
In fact, the development of Hungary's audiovisual sector is still fragile and somewhat paradoxical.
The ending of the State monopoly in the media came out of the political upheavals of 1989, as one of the main aims of reform, but it took no less than seven years, with the promulgation of the Law on the Media in 1996, for a start to be made on achieving that aim.
It was not only a question of endorsing a principle, as the monopoly on information, production and distribution had to be ended and the audiovisual sector reorganised.
<P>
This new mechanism, which places Hungary among the Eastern European countries best equipped to guarantee the freedom of information, has so far mainly benefited the public service sector as, being outside the scope of public service, satellite broadcasting and cable services are not subject to any regulation.
Nevertheless, if there is too much freedom, it could divert Hungary away from expressing its national identity and benefit only non-European productions.
Within the framework of current legislation, timid efforts are naturally being made to encourage the local film industry and a new, more specific law on films is being considered.
Moreover, the 1996 law needs to be amended to conform to European requirements.
<P>
This is what caused the difficulties that at first led to the vote on this association plan being delayed in the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media.
In fact, in the spring, when Hungary was already engaged in the pre-accession process and had already expressed its desire to take part in the MEDIA II programme as a full partner, it took the decision to authorise the installation of the HBO broadcasting company, a subsidiary of the American company Time Warner, broadcasting to Poland by satellite.
This was against all European regulations and represented unfair competition for European companies, which themselves were respecting their obligations.
<P>
I will not go back over the various levels of negotiations that followed.
I went to Hungary myself in October, at the invitation of the Secretary of State for culture.
Those few days in Budapest, where I met Hungarian leaders, convinced me that the Hungarian authorities were full of good intentions and aware that they had to adapt their legislation.
However, perhaps they were not aware, or did not have a sense of urgency, and in solving the HBO problem, they were also serving their own interests. It was not just to please the European Union and ensure that it became a member.
<P>
Unfortunately, I think that there are still some misunderstandings.
I was therefore pleased to note that Hungary has promulgated the Council of Europe Convention on Transfrontier Television, which will give their regulatory body, the ORTT, the opportunity to investigate and take the necessary measures.
With regard to legislative harmonisation, the plans for development are still somewhat vague and contradictory in places, and a certain level of rigour would be welcomed here.
<P>
In the light of these events, I must say that I wonder a little about the method involved in associating applicant countries with the MEDIA programme from the outset.
We have already seen this in the past.
For certain Central and Eastern European Countries, the Tempus programme was, in some way, the precursor to joining the Socrates programme.
For the audiovisual sector, one could maybe have considered some sort of half-way house to help the countries to progress in that field.
Once again, I regret that the PHARE programme no longer has the task of funding cultural activities.
<P>
To conclude, I would like to say that I believe Hungary has achieved a great amount of progress in the audiovisual sector, and while it is a country with a great culture, notably in terms of cinematography, it needs to show more clearly its will to adhere to our common cultural values and to provide itself with the resources to keep the promises being made to us concerning legislative reforms.
In particular, it should respect the timetable that it set for itself, to which it unfortunately does not seem to be fully adhering.
This is why, while supporting the association of Hungary to the MEDIA II programme, I have tabled amendments - I am thinking here, in particular, of Amendments Nos 1 and 3 - that place some conditions on that association.
<P>
I hope that the Council and the Commission will support me in this approach and, Commissioner, I would also like you to give me the Commission's opinion.
We do need to give out a strong political signal.
Let us not forget that Hungary will thus become the first country to join the MEDIA programme.
Let us not forget that other applicant countries are also engaged in this delicate process of legislative harmonisation.
They are watching us, they are watching what is happening in Hungary and Poland.
Let us not allow them to become the Trojan Horses of American audiovisual interests in Europe.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=50 NAME="Evans">
Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking the rapporteur for her work and the excellent report she has presented to us this morning.
It is important that it flows on from the previous Tempus report.
It is very important that everything in Hungary and the other countries is brought into line as soon as possible.
Participation of Hungary in a Community programme on media is very important because, as we all know, free media are crucial to a democracy.
<P>
Of all the emerging states in Eastern Europe, Hungary is the most advanced and most ready to participate in the MEDIA II programme, because its administrative and technical structures are at a more advanced level.
I was in Budapest recently and, by comparison with the other Eastern European countries, Hungary is certainly doing very well.
It is also in a position to contribute towards it financially.
Of course we welcome that.
Further, it is equipped to guarantee the freedom of information.
We are always interested and concerned to make certain that freedom of information is guaranteed.
<P>
The report points out that such freedoms could divert Hungary away from expressing its national identity.
This is a serious point about which we ought to be concerned.
To my mind, too often in Hungary, and in some of the other countries as well, we hear Western European songs and we see that the films are mainly American or from other countries.
It is not in interests of building a stronger, more united Europe to suppress the culture, language or identity of applicant or Member States.
This is why I welcome very much, in particular, Amendment No 7 by the rapporteur, which states that Hungarian can be used as a language of communication.
I personally would prefer it went further, because I do not believe the way to welcome new countries into the European Union - whether it is in the MEDIA II programme or any other programme - is to say that: 'you can come in as long as you speak one of the languages we are using'.
I know that it creates problem to say that about Hungarian.
Any new language creates problems.
But a successful Europe cannot be built if the language or cultural identity of any country is suppressed.
I realise that is a challenge but it is one we must work towards.
<P>
Of course Hungary's involvement in the MEDIA II programme is important but it will also help the implementation of the Television without Frontiers directive.
<P>
We have to look at why the audiovisual industry is so important and the rapporteur has brought this to the fore.
In today's society we are all aware that the audiovisual industry plays a huge role and it is important for economic reasons and job creation because it is a communication tool.
A point which our committee has made several times in this and other reports is that the audiovisual industry also plays a huge role in the cultural aspects of life and cultural development.
It also helps the national identity to be preserved.
If it is used properly, it makes room for and respects minority languages and cultures and people from ethnic minorities within those particular countries.
I am pleased to stress, because it is important, that we must make absolutely certain that we do everything to welcome new countries into the European Union through the MEDIA II programme, which is just one example, to make certain that they not only respect their minority cultures, languages and religions but that they do everything to encourage them, because a Europe that is built on a background of successful cultures and respect for other people's cultures and minority languages will be a more prosperous and successful one in the future.
With those remarks, I welcome this report very much and I congratulate the rapporteur on her presentation.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=51 NAME="Perry">
Mr President, my interest in this subject stems not just from my membership of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media but also from my membership of the Joint Parliamentary Committee with Hungary.
I think that there is a role for the joint parliamentary committees in monitoring programmes such as MEDIA II and other Community programmes where the pre-accession countries are already participating.
That is a role for the JPCs.
<P>
We all know that Hungary has been seeking membership of the European Union since 1989.
But the point is very strongly made by Hungarian Governments, Hungarian politicians and Hungarian people that Hungary has been part of Europe for ever and what it is seeking now is simply accession to the European Union.
During the last ten years we have witnessed a remarkable transformation in that country and through change of political systems and socio-economic reforms it has already achieved the political and economic basis for accession.
The European Union must do all it can to encourage and promote Hungary's accession to the Union and participation in these programmes in advance of membership is a very important step forward.
<P>
We are, however, at a crucial stage in preparations for accession and the importance of opening doors for candidate countries to participate in the Community programmes, as well as encouraging them to adopt Community regulations, is paramount.
The inclusion of Hungary in the MEDIA II programme is something that I certainly support.
I am in favour of the proposal and join in the congratulations to the rapporteur for her report.
The role of the audiovisual sector as a whole in fostering the development of civil society, in particular in the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe, is crucial.
We know that audiovisual programming is not easy inside the European Union.
So it is certainly not going to be easy in the new countries seeking membership.
<P>
The main thrust of European audiovisual policies is being provided by the Television with Frontiers directive.
I share the concerns that countries are helped and encouraged to maintain their cultures.
I just happen to believe that this is done not by rationing, quotas or controls but by encouraging and helping the promotion and production of local programming.
I hope the MEDIA II programme will be able to assist in that.
<P>
Having said that, I wish to join my colleagues in calling for enhanced efforts from the Community and from the candidates to make sure that they acquire the full audiovisual acquis .
When that is achieved, we can all look forward to Hungary joining the Union and having a good audiovisual sector as well.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=52 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Perry.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, could you please wait another moment as the Green Group has still not spoken.
Due to an administrative problem, it was not included.
Therefore, before I give the floor to Mr von Habsburg, allow me to give the floor to Mr Kerr for two minutes.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=53 NAME="Kerr">
Mr President, clearly new Labour are trying to write me out of the pages of history in the cultural debate.
<P>
Firstly, I would like to congratulate Mrs Leperre-Verrier on another excellent report.
Actually I suggested she should do this report in the coordinators' meeting when she was not present because I knew she would do an excellent job.
<P>
I note in particular her concerns about monitoring and it is very important that we keep an eye on all the issues she mentions.
I note the point she makes about a pre-accession programme which could have been a useful idea.
I also wish to take this opportunity to note that the question of resources is very important.
I have just been informed that the Dutch have agreed to only ECU 90 million for the cultural framework programme, which is a gross insult to Parliament which requested ECU 250 million for what is a very important programme.
Indeed the Commission agreed ECU 167 million and the amount agreed by the Dutch is a disgrace.
This shows the importance of underlining resources in meeting these programme needs.
The MEDIA II programme has got rather more resources than this.
This is an important issue.
<P>
The question of the strength of the media within Hungary is very important.
When I was growing up, film societies in Britain recognised that Hungarian cinema was a very important part of European cinema.
As Mrs Leperre-Verrier has pointed out, that was funded by the old state machine which of course has been dismantled as indeed have many other aspects of the old state machine in Hungary.
We have to try to assist, replace and revitalise Hungarian cinema, which would be a great contribution to European cinema within the EU.
<P>
I welcome the report and I will, like Mr Evans, finish within my time to show the spirit of Christmas.
A Happy Christmas to everybody.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=54 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="von Habsburg">
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, may I begin by adding my own thanks to Mrs Leperre-Verrier for her report.
It is an excellent report, and we do not have too many excellent reports.
You can be proud of it.
I should like to dwell on one or two points from this report, because I believe they are crucially important.
<P>
The development process in Hungary - certainly in this particular domain - has been rather encouraging, especially since 1996, when the new legislation on the media was gradually set in motion.
There were great difficulties, because, as you know, the media are very important politically and therefore tend to set the political parties at loggerheads - and thank goodness we have these political arguments in Hungary now instead of orders from above.
The arguments held things up, but then the process began to move again, and all is well now.
<P>
I should just like to point out that the progress achieved has a distinctly liberal vein, which gives us good reason to speak of genuine progress in Hungary.
And then I have a special word of thanks for the rapporteur for pointing out in the context of this development how dangerous it is when a particular smaller national culture dies out.
In Hungary, as the previous speaker rightly said, the film and media culture has been developed for a long time.
My memory stretches slightly further back than his - he was probably still a small child when this culture was developing.
During the Second World War, for example, when I attended gatherings of the Hungarians in Hollywood, virtually all the great film stars were there, but we did not speak English. We spoke Hungarian, because they generally spoke English in such a way that I preferred to speak Hungarian, so that I could understand them.
<P>
There is still a great deal of talent in that country which could play a magnificent part in fostering the general development of European culture.
For that reason, I should like to thank the rapporteur for referring, in very friendly and diplomatic terms, to the international competition in that part of the world.
That competition is inconceivably ruthless.
Literally millions of dollars are being invested in bids to seize control of the entire media structure in all these new democracies.
There are some countries where these elements have actually achieved their goal.
I need only cite the example of the Czech Republic, where practically all aspects of the media are controlled from overseas, although they are private companies.
<P>
In Hungary, thankfully, that has not happened, for the majority of the largest television network and largest private television network is in Hungarian and European hands today.
That is a healthy situation if we want to preserve European culture.
This is an area in which we must make strenuous efforts, for there are other countries where the threat is enormous.
For instance, when I look at present developments in Croatia, I see that every possible means is being used to concentrate the press, television and the various other media in the hands of US corporations.
I am not blaming the government for that; these are private corporations which are trying to establish such a monopoly and use it for their own ends.
We cannot deny that there is a certain danger involved here.
I believe this is one of the most important issues.
We surely do not want quotas, as has rightly been said here, but we certainly do want to strengthen our people in such a way that they can develop their talents and compete in the marketplace.
<P>
Finally, I should like to add one more observation.
We have various amendments here with this report, and I must say that they are generally good, but I should like to express distinct reservations about Amendments Nos 1 and 6, because of the unrealistic nature of Amendment No 6 in particular but also, to a certain extent, of Amendment No 1.
People cannot be expected to produce full reports every six months.
Anyone who has anything to do with television and the other mass media will know it is impossible.
We should therefore go back at these points to the wording that was originally proposed by the rapporteur.
The original text is good, because it takes us along a more realistic path.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=55 NAME="Papoutsis">
<SPEAKER ID=56 NAME="President">
Thank you, Commissioner.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
Before the vote on the draft legislative resolution
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=57 NAME="President">
Mr Robles Piquer has a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=58 LANGUAGE="ES" NAME="Robles Piquer">
Mr President, I would like to ask a question, because some of my colleagues tell me that these Friday votes are subject to the same rules as those on the other days with regard to participation in roll-call votes for the purposes of the payment of our salaries.
I would like to know whether this is the case.
If this were the case, today there has only been one roll-call vote.
Some of us were unable to take part in it due to other commitments, and it would seem reasonable to hold another roll-call vote which would at least give us the opportunity to show that we are here.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=59 NAME="President">
Mr Robles Piquer, the votes on Fridays have exactly the same status as those on any other day.
With regard to the status of roll-call votes, Mondays and Fridays are exceptions.
Therefore, in this respect, it is not necessary to hold another roll-call vote.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, we shall now proceed to the vote on the legislative resolution.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=60 NAME="President">
My congratulations to Mrs Leperre-Verrier.
<P>
Mr Hallam has a point of order.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=61 NAME="Hallam">
Mr President, I would just like to remind the House that we must be better behaved on Fridays from now on as we are being televised for the first time for a long time.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=62 NAME="President">
Mr Hallam, I do not know about you, but from my point of view as President, I must say that I am very satisfied with this and every Friday.
I do not in any way think that there has been any behaviour today that does not correspond to the normal running of the House and, above all, to the sense of friendship and familiarity with which I am glad to say Friday mornings are conducted, these being exceptional days.
<P>
<CHAPTER ID=5>
Single market scoreboard
<SPEAKER ID=63 NAME="President">
The next item is the report (A4-0402/98) by Mr García-Margallo y Marfil, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Single Market Scoreboard (SEC(98)0889 - C4-0444/98).
<P>
I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mr García-Margallo y Marfil.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=64 NAME="García-Margallo y Marfil">
Mr President, I am going to present the ideas of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on the Commission document, the second single market scoreboard, which relates to the progress made in building the single market and - more importantly -the obstacles and challenges that we have to face from now on.
<P>
As you will recall, the 1985 White Paper, the famous White Paper on the single market, was almost complete on New Year's Eve, 31 December 1992.
However, there were still some measures to be adopted and, above all, new requirements had arisen that it had not been possible to fulfil.
<P>
What was the Commission's response to these inadequacies and these new matters to be dealt with?
In 1993, it created two committees to inform Parliament and the European Council on the progress made. But the Commission soon realised that this information was insufficient, and in 1996 a further step was taken.
It published a communication entitled 'The impact and effectiveness of the single market', which was the basis and impetus for the Action Plan for the Single Market approved by the Amsterdam European Council of June 1997, which covers a very crucial period in the construction of Europe, that which ends on 31 December 1998, the date of the introduction of the euro.
<P>
What did this plan involve?
What were its aims?
It aimed to achieve a single market similar to a national market with the following elements: a single currency, a harmonised tax system, integrated infrastructures, free movement of persons and, last but by no means least, instruments to enable businesses to survive in that context, and I am referring here to the European Company Statute.
<P>
How were such ambitious objectives to be achieved?
How is the plan laid out?
Firstly, a clear definition of the strategic objectives was established, because - as a Spanish poet says - no favourable wind will blow for he who does not know where he is going. Secondly, specific action was planned according to a precise timetable and, thirdly and finally, a procedure was set up to allow the monitoring of progress made and of any shortcomings that might become apparent.
That is the origin of the scoreboards, the third of which we are discussing today, and which I believe to be especially important as we are only a few days, in fact less than 10 days, from the completion of the Action Plan.
<P>
What does the Commission document reveal?
In my opinion, from the Commission document and from the progress that has been made, we can make four important observations.
<P>
The first is that a significant number of the objectives set out have been achieved, and I would like to highlight two of them here today: the liberalisation of gas supply and the protection of technological inventions.
<P>
The second observation is that the Commission believes that other objectives will soon be achieved, and here it draws attention firstly to the Directive on collective investment funds, which is of capital importance for the new capital market - excuse the repetition - which will enter into force on 1 January and, secondly, to the Directive on authors' rights in the information society.
<P>
The third observation is that other matters have not made as much progress.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy - and I hope Parliament also - therefore expresses its sadness and regret at the fact that not enough progress, or at least not the necessary progress, has been made with regard to the free movement of persons and tax harmonisation.
<P>
The fourth and final observation is that Parliament notes with concern that almost 15 % of the legislation on the single market has not been transposed or incorporated into the internal regulations of the Member States.
<P>
What conclusions can we draw from this?
What is to be done, as Lenin would say?
Firstly, Parliament calls for a new action plan to cover the period from 1 January 1999 to 31 December 2002, which is a period that, as the President will confirm, coincides with the introduction of the euro.
<P>
Secondly, it establishes two phases.
In the first phase, in 1999, the outstanding, delayed objectives will have to be completed, and in the second stage, in 2000, the free movement of persons must be established.
<P>
It proposes that, when there is a legal basis, the methods chosen should be regulations and not directives - in order to prevent delays in transposition -, and qualified majority voting rather than unanimous voting.
<P>
I will conclude, Mr President, by wishing a Happy Christmas to all those who believe and a happy winter solstice to those who do not.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=65 LANGUAGE="PT" NAME="Mendes-Bota">
Mr President, only very peripheral sectors and very specific interest groups can now question the enormous advantages that the opening of borders has brought for the majority of European citizens and companies.
Output and trade have grown continuously, prices have fallen and there has been an extraordinary increase in the variety of goods and services on offer.
We now have the largest integrated market in the world, with 370 million consumers, and they alone account for 1.1 % to 1.5 % of GDP growth within the European Union, and thus play a key part in economic convergence and in reducing disparities between the levels of development of the various Member States.
70 % of these fifteen countries' trade is carried out within the area of the Community, which will have a common currency in two weeks' time.
The signatories of the Single European Act have good reason to be satisfied when we come to take stock of European integration.
<P>
However, Parliament should sound the alarm whenever there is dissatisfaction.
We need to shine a light into the murky waters of carelessness and inactivity, and that is just what Mr García-Margallo is doing here.
We need to attack the delay in applying important measures envisaged in the White Paper back in 1985 and others that have become vital since then.
We also need to attack the delay - and even obstruction - on the part of Member States in transposing Community legislation into national law, ignoring Commission views, and even disregarding decisions of the Court of Justice, so that 220 legislative texts, or 15 % of the total, remain to be transposed.
Fines could be levied on recalcitrant Member States in such cases, but we believe that the most effective sanction would be to publish a list of delays and the offenders, so as to shame them for their feeble European performance in the full public gaze.
<P>
Parliament should denounce the delay in the evaluation panels which the Commission should have been holding biannually since June 1997, which is in turn due to the delay in putting its own action plan for the single market into practice: of 62 undertakings, 39 have overrun the deadline envisaged.
There is still a long way to go to eliminate market distortions and to make all four freedoms of movement accessible to the entire population of the Community of Fifteen.
<P>
We believe that fiscal policy is a key issue at this point if immediate progress is to be made in completing the single market.
And the latest direction taken by the Council, the third way, is not very reassuring.
Only yesterday we were talking about fiscal harmonisation, but now there is talk about some vague coordination of fiscal policies.
We are even taking steps backwards, as has just happened at the Vienna European Council in the case of the scheduled expiry of the fiscal derogation applying to duty-free sales to intra-Community travellers.
<P>
Deferring the implementation of a decision taken in 1991 is a real attack on the single market.
It sets an extremely dangerous precedent, and amounts to scandalous protectionism in favour of a privileged sector with an active, powerful and apparently effective lobby.
Even if there is no will to go any further with fiscal policy, at the very least a new harmonised fiscal system for VAT and greater fiscal consistency with regard to capital are absolutely essential.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=66 LANGUAGE="SV" NAME="Lindqvist">
Mr President, this report deals with the implementation of EU directives in the Member States.
It is commendable that such an evaluation has been carried out.
However, it reveals that only 23 out of 65 undertakings have been fulfilled, which is naturally disappointing.
I should like to know why the directives have not been transposed.
It could be due to the fact that Member States do not or cannot support the resolution, or that the decision-making process has taken place so quickly that public opinion in individual countries has been unable to keep pace - in which case it is doubtful whether extending the qualified majority is the right solution.
<P>
I think we should look more carefully into the reasons why the resolution is not being implemented.
I have misgivings about imposing fines on Member States that do not incorporate EU legislation.
We could look at the issue in another way: there have been occasions when the opposite course of action has been taken and the EU has granted exemptions to Member States during their membership negotiations.
For example, Sweden was granted a four-year exemption period during which it was allowed to retain its ban on antibiotics in animal feedingstuffs.
The EU then stipulated that other Member States should raise their standards to meet those of the Swedes, which has been happening, although on a very limited scale and extremely slowly.
Alternatively, would the problem be solved by the imposition of fines?
Everyone knows that that would not really be the answer.
<P>
This excellent report concludes by saying that the resolution should, of course, be implemented since it was adopted jointly.
However, more light needs to be shed on the reasons why this has failed to happen.
Cooperation and confidence building are better ways of achieving results than fines and coercion.
Rules are far more satisfactory if they are well supported in the Member States, since this makes their application more effective.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=67 NAME="Kerr">
Mr President, I am standing in for Mr Wolf this morning but, with my infinite knowledge and flexibility, I will attempt to comment on the single market.
In fact, I am very glad to be speaking on this because it is something very dear to the heart of my Prime Minister Mr Blair.
When he takes a moment off from bombing Baghdad, he might care to look at this resolution and report.
Despite being so enthusiastic about the single market, he will find many things which he cannot agree with.
For example, there is the question of the single currency which, quite rightly, the report says is important for the completion of the single market.
Britain of course is not yet allowed to join by Mr Rupert Murdoch.
<P>
The matter of harmonisation of taxation is currently horrifying the whole of the British media because of the notion that somehow we should share a little sovereignty on the harmonisation of VAT.
Clearly that is necessary for a single market.
I want to stress politically the importance of the free movement of workers and the protection of workers within the single market.
This is not stressed enough in this report.
The market has two sides and we must protect both.
<P>
Finally, I wish everybody a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=68 LANGUAGE="NL" NAME="Blokland">
Mr President, the single market scoreboard is a useful instrument.
Every six months stock is taken of the progress achieved in implementing legislation on the single market.
The transposition of European directives into national legislation commands particular attention.
The scoreboard makes it possible to quickly check which Member States are doing their job and which are lagging behind.
Member States must of course honour their undertakings. The peculiar thing about it is that these are tasks which the Member States have charged themselves with because it is the Council of Ministers which determines European legislation, in cooperation with the European Parliament or otherwise.
The motion for a resolution fails to take sufficient account of the particular nature of decision-making at Union level.
If all Member States have to agree, it may take rather longer before a decision comes.
That is a disadvantage.
<P>
However, lifting the unanimity requirement implies even more obstructions at Member State level and even more infringement procedures.
It seems a clever move to resort to a regulation.
But what then remains of the principle of subsidiarity?
This is not the way to bring decisions closer to the public.
Paragraphs 9 and 10 make a completely erroneous suggestion.
I can be very brief about the call to introduce a common VAT system based on place of origin around the year 2000.
The costs of introducing such a system and the administrative charges for conversion are so high that this plan must remain on the back burner for now, unless the Commission has a vast secret reserve.
If that is case, I should like to hear it from the Commissioner.
<P>
Finally, it is unrealistic to expect the single market to show all the characteristics of a national market within three years.
Priority must go to reinforcing existing measures.
The single market will work better if we appreciate our cultural diversity at the same time.
Mr President, I wish you and all your colleagues a merry Christmas and all the best for 1999.
This also goes for the Commission and the Council, despite paragraph 5 of the resolution which calls for as many objectives as possible to be met by 31 December 1998.
Commissioner, feel free to take a couple of days off.
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<SPEAKER ID=69 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Lukas">
Mr President, when economic and monetary union is introduced in a few days' time in the 11 participating states, a fully functioning single market will no longer be a desirable goal but a real necessity.
The indiscipline of Member States which do not fulfil their single market obligations must be tackled even more systematically after the introduction of the single currency.
After all, total transparency and comparability mean that distortions of competition will now have a greater impact than ever before.
Although successes have been achieved, national efforts are still plainly inadequate.
If you start something, you have to see it through. The same governments which implemented tough austerity programmes so that their budgets could meet the convergence criteria must submit to an intervention mechanism designed to eliminate barriers to trade and must be prepared to harmonise their taxation systems so as to banish the fear of unhealthy concentrations of capital and businesses.
Mr President, since we have been talking about indiscipline, allow me to indulge in that vice myself by exceeding my one minute of speaking time to wish everyone a happy Christmas!
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<SPEAKER ID=70 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for many years the goal of our European integration efforts was a common economic area without frontiers.
The idea of creating the single market was even, in a sense, the master plan to realise the ideal of peace for the European Communities.
Today we are going a stage further.
To a great extent, the single market has become a reality.
The great goal that awaits us now is the path leading to a European domestic market.
At this stage, the second single market scoreboard affords us a welcome opportunity to assess the progress that has been made in the quest for economic integration within the European Union.
<P>
When we embark on the third stage of monetary union in less than two weeks' time, we shall have attained a new level of integration.
We have also implemented or launched a number of projects which are essential to the creation of a European domestic market.
First the electricity market was opened up, then the gas market also became a European market.
Legislation was adopted to guarantee the protection of biotechnological inventions.
We can all remember the detailed discussion here in the House.
<P>
Yesterday, we voted to create a system of European warranty law by adopting the directive on certain aspects of the sale of consumer goods and associated guarantees after the second reading.
In addition, the directive on late payments is currently being discussed by the Council, having been adopted by Parliament at first reading.
I personally hope for a comprehensively satisfactory outcome to these negotiations as soon as possible. That is particularly important to small and medium-sized businesses, since late payments, especially by public authorities, pose a huge problem and result in the loss of numerous jobs every year.
<P>
Other projects are still in the pipeline.
Early next year, we shall consider the harmonisation of copyright law as well as dealing with certain aspects of environmental legislation, such as the directive on old vehicles.
We still await an agreement on the European Company Statute. That is an important basis for the efficient operation of larger companies in Europe.
<P>
In the future, we shall also have to give more serious thought to how many legal instruments we intend to apply and the levels at which they should operate.
Deregulation on the one hand and subsidiarity on the other have been concrete demands for some time, and are coming to fruition at this very moment in specific projects such as the SLIM initiative.
Just this week, when we had the vote on the statistical system, several speakers said that it was absolutely essential to implement the SLIM initiative in that area, and we also wish to have a green paper on the subject.
And now it is my turn to express my sincere thanks to the Bureau and the parliamentary staff, and to wish you all every success in the coming year and, as this year draws to its close, a Merry Christmas!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=71 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Berthu">
Mr President, Parliament's report on the Commission's establishment of a single market scoreboard reveals a very disciplinary concept of European cooperation.
On one hand, in order to prevent delays in transposing directives into national legislation, it advocates that more use should be made of regulations, which are directly applied, uniform and decided by majority. This seems to me to contradict the calls for flexibility and subsidiarity that are regularly heard from various quarters.
On the other hand, it once again calls on the Commission to consider the possibility of imposing fines on states that have not fulfilled their transposition obligations.
<P>
In our opinion, it would be entirely illegitimate and undemocratic for an administrative body to be capable of imposing such penalties on sovereign states.
Moreover, there is no legal basis in the Treaty to allow the Commission to act in this way, and the Council could not even delegate such rights to the Commission, because it does not have them either.
Only the Court of Justice, under Article 171 of the Treaty, has certain powers to apply penalties, and even those are, in our opinion, excessive, as they are not subject to appeal and cannot be suspended by a democratically and formally expressed national will.
<P>
These considerations did not prevent the Commission from recently asking the Council to give it authorisation to implement a compulsory intervention mechanism in order to eliminate certain obstacles to trade.
The Council sternly rejected this, and rightly so.
However, the Council itself has accepted the establishment of multilateral surveillance systems, first of public deficits, and now of employment, which are also disciplinary in nature.
<P>
This shift is the result of a double error, which is repeated in the report we are discussing today.
Firstly, Brussels would have more power than the nations, and secondly, the single market would become a domestic market, that is, a completely integrated internal market that is like a national market.
This double error evidently contains the seeds of the denial of any scope for manoeuvre for the nations, and therefore, the denial of all national sovereignty, on any issue.
The Council would save itself and preserve its honour by putting an end to this once and for all at the next opportunity.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, I wish you a Merry Christmas in a Europe that is not yet entirely disciplinary in nature.
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<SPEAKER ID=72 NAME="Cushnahan">
Mr President, I welcome this report.
Some of the rapporteur's conclusions are very disturbing.
He highlights the fact that 15 % of the legislation adopted on the single market has not, as yet, been transposed in all the Member States.
Additionally, he is strongly critical of the fact that proposals on the free movement of people and tax harmonisation have not been adopted.
<P>
Like the rapporteur, I welcome the Commission scoreboard to measure the state of implementation of the action plan for the single market.
I hope that the Commission examines it very carefully.
The political zealots in the Commission and in the Council, who support the abolition of duty-free, tell us that the continuation of duty-free is inconsistent with the single market.
I would urge them to read this report; to analyse in detail the Commission scoreboard, and when they clearly see that the single market is still a very long way from being completed, especially in the field of tax harmonisation, they might change their minds, especially in the wake of the decision at the Vienna Summit to carry out an impact study into the effects of abolition.
I believe that when this study is completed, it will confirm the worst fears of many in this House that 140 000 jobs will be lost throughout the EU, that air and ferry fares will increase and that EU tourism and regional policy will be undermined.
Presented with this information, I hope that ECOFIN and the Commission will be sufficiently persuaded, at the very least, to extend duty-free beyond the 30 June next year.
That would be the best Christmas box that both the Commission and Council could give the citizens of Europe.
<P>
In conclusion, let me, along with other Members of this House, wish you, all members of Parliament staff, the Commissioner, all members of Commission staff, and all who serve this Parliament a very happy and peaceful Christmas and a prosperous New Year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=73 NAME="Papoutsis">
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I thank you for your positive assessment of the scoreboard whose third edition was published last October.
Let me also thank the rapporteur, Mr García-Margallo y Marfil, for his excellent work.
<P>
The six-monthly scoreboard has two purposes: first of all, to give a picture of the current state of the single market, and secondly, to assess the extent to which the Member States, the Council, Parliament and the Commission are fulfilling the stated objectives about which we are all in agreement, namely the action programme for the single market.
The scoreboard is therefore an administrative tool with a clearly defined political aim, namely to improve the operation of the single market.
<P>
By publishing objective information about the performance of the single market, we can help to address the obstacles that still remain before the market is fully completed.
The most striking finding to emerge from the scoreboard concerns the incorporation deficit, in other words the proportion of directives that have not yet been implemented in one or more Member States.
According to the latest figures presented at the Internal Market Council on 7 December, today only 13 % of the directives are not in force throughout the Union, and that must be compared with the much higher proportion of 35 % we had only a year and a half ago, in June 1997.
In addition, the incorporation of laws in the Member States has greatly improved.
The deficit now ranges around low levels, from 0.7 % in Finland, closely followed by Denmark, Sweden, Spain and the Netherlands, the highest proportion being in Portugal at 5.5 %.
Despite the progress achieved by most Member States, it is clear that not all the remaining directives will have been implemented by the end of 1998.
There is some urgent catching up to be done.
The Member States must keep up the pace of the last few weeks in relation to the notification of directives implemented at national level.
If this happens, then by the middle of next year, by next June, the single market will at last be able to overcome this major obstacle and will then clearly be able to operate completely and correctly.
The Commission will continue monitoring the situation closely with the single market scoreboard, notwithstanding the imminent lapse of the action programme at the end of the year.
<P>
Another positive factor is that there are further new developments in the implementation of the action programme on the single market, in both the legislative and the non-legislative fields.
I should like to stress the Council's recent publication of the regulation on the operation of the single market in relation to the free movement of goods in the Member States, and the regulation codifying the procedures for state aid.
<P>
The European Parliament also rendered its opinion on the Green Paper on patents, making it possible for the Commission to publish a statement before the end of the year.
<P>
The action programme also called for an effort to address the weaknesses that exist in some areas: public contracts, mutual recognition, European models, compliance labelling, patents, building materials, the modernisation and more consistent application of value-added tax, and the implementation of the Customs 2000 programme and the measures to reform transit transport.
As you know, a lot of work is being done in those areas.
In some cases, indeed, statements have already been published presenting further programmes for work during the coming years.
In other areas, however, such as digital signatures, copyright in the information society, the residential rules applicable to workers and credit service telesales, discussions are still in progress both in the Council and in Parliament.
<P>
In contrast, the failure of the Social Affairs Council to reach agreement about the issue of worker participation means that very little progress has been achieved in relation to the proposed directive on the articles of association of European companies and the related proposals in the area of company law.
<P>
There has also been significant progress in improving the administrative and feedback instruments that aim to increase the effectiveness of the single market's rules.
This includes, for example, speeding up the procedures for intervention by the Commission, the creation of coordination centres in the Member States to speed up problem-solving, the creation of points of contact between companies and citizens in the Member States, and commencement of the dialogue with companies and citizens.
On that point I wish to assure you that we attach great importance to the dialogue with companies.
It is an activity which my colleague Mr Monti and I, working together, will begin in the next few days.
Our aim is to improve the information of companies about the single market, especially small and medium-sized enterprises which do not always have all that is needed to obtain the necessary information.
It is an absolutely user-friendly system, one based on direct contact via the Internet and by telephone.
In fact, the first phase of developing the system will begin in just a few days, next Monday, 21 December.
As a two-way system, it will also provide the possibility of feedback from the companies about the problems they encounter, and I believe that will make a valuable contribution to our efforts to improve the operation of the single market.
Granted that in most but not all cases a great deal of progress has been achieved, which is what the action programme was intended to do, in the Commission's view the action programme can now be regarded as a complete success.
The single market scoreboard will continue being used to monitor progress towards all the objectives not yet achieved.
<P>
Ladies and gentlemen, the action programme for the single market is now in the last few days of its implementation.
We can justifiably claim that in a few weeks the single market will move into the era of the single currency in a much better condition than it was 18 months ago.
However, there is no room for complacency.
The European Commission will draw up a discussion paper in February 1999 to review the situation and present its thoughts about overall strategy for the single market.
The opinion we debated today includes specific proposals about how to address the disadvantages of the single market, which the Commission will be considering in detail over the next few months.
However, other discussions must take place in the coming months, so that a definitive proposal can be submitted in good time for approval by the European Council in Cologne at the conclusion of the German Presidency.
<P>
Mr President, let me now express my best wishes to you personally, to the honourable Members, to the interpreters, to the staff of the European Commission, the Council and of course Parliament, for a most enjoyable and happy Christmas and a healthy and prosperous New Year.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=74 NAME="President">
Thank you very much, Mr Papoutsis.
Allow me also, on behalf of this Parliament, to offer our best wishes, not only for the festive period but also for the coming year, and to say that we hope that we will continue to work together.
Therefore, best wishes to you and to your family.
<P>
The debate is closed.
<P>
We shall now proceed to the vote.
<P>
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=75 LANGUAGE="DE" NAME="Rübig">
Mr President, there is one more wish I should like to express on the single market, namely that we continue in future to fight fraud and crime with the same efficiency as we have done to date, and that we set a good example of security in our own European house.
Thank you, Mr President!
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=76 LANGUAGE="FR" NAME="Lulling">
<SPEAKER ID=77 NAME="Wolf">
This report highlights a problem without really addressing it. The completion of the single European market has turned out to be a far more complex political regulatory task than was envisaged in the original strategy, which essentially relied on the automatic apolitical functioning of the deregulated market forces.
We certainly know now that it will not be possible to find a sustainable solution to this problem without a new beginning in political terms, to provide a basis for an adequate fundamental consensus among the Member States of the EU on social policy and an efficient Community regulatory framework.
The change of government in Germany has made this possible within the EU.
All that has to be done is to seize this opportunity resolutely and not squander it by engaging in disputes over short-term interests.
<P>
Mr García-Margallo y Marfil's report, unfortunately, is still too heavily based on a technocratic damage-limitation mentality to serve as a means of grasping this key political opportunity; parts of the report even reveal vestiges of the illusions of free-market radicalism regarding the 'self-generation' of the single market.
That is regrettable.
But nothing in the report is absolutely mistaken either. For that reason, our group will abstain from voting.
<P>
<SPEAKER ID=78 NAME="President">
Parliament has now come to the end of its agenda.
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<CHAPTER ID=6>
Adjournment of the session
<SPEAKER ID=79 NAME="President">
